Stiles Stilinski x FemReader
A sequel to ‘Before You Were Somebody’
You used to be somebody. Popular, untouchable, the girl everyone wanted to know. Then you chose Stiles Stilinski. But while you were choosing him, he was busy choosing someone else. Sanding down his edges, softening his chaos, becoming a version of himself that fit better beside Lydia Martin. So you stopped. Stopped saving him a seat, stopped laughing first, stopped waiting. Only then did he realise what he’d lost. This time, he isn’t chasing the girl who never saw him. He’s fighting for the one who did.
It didn’t happen all at once. There was no grand declaration. No slammed lockers. No tearful confrontation in a hallway. You simply stopped. It began with a seat. For months years you had slipped into the chair beside Stiles automatically, like gravity pulled you there or a ritual you’d never abandon. You never had to look, your body just knew where to go.
On Monday, you didn’t. You sat one seat over. Close enough to see, but far enough to notice the distance. Stiles didn’t say anything at first. He was mid-story, animated, trying too hard to make Jackson laugh at something that wasn’t funny. He didn’t notice the gap between you. Not until his elbow reached back, instinctively searching for the familiar press of your arm, and met air instead.
His hand hovered for half a second, then dropped. He kept talking and you watched the condensation slide down your water bottle instead of watching him.
By Tuesday, he realised you’d stopped texting him, and in came the barrage of messages.
Stiles: Meet at our spot?
Stiles: Movie night still on?
Your phone felt heavier in your palm every time it buzzed and his name flashed across the screen. You told yourself it was fine. He would be fine. He didn’t need you. And you weren’t punishing him, you were just tired. Tired of orbiting someone who kept drifting away.
At lunch on Friday, the noise around your usual table was bright and sharp. Lydia was laughing, Allison leaning in to whisper juicy gossip, Danny chiming in with something quick and clever. Stiles sat straighter now, and spoke slower. He even smiled differently. He was performing again, and you were no longer part of his act.
You used to finish his jokes. Catch his rambling thoughts before they scattered. Now you let them fall. You let silence swallow the space where your voice used to be.
When the bell rang, you stood before he did.“See you,” you said lightly as a blanket goodbye to everyone.
“Yeah. Yeah, see you.” He blinked at you hopefully, like he was wishing those words were solely for him.
You didn’t give him the satisfaction, and remained impassive, letting him watch you walk away.
It wasn’t that you were actively avoiding him. You just stopped waiting. You stopped looking over your shoulder to see if he was keeping up. If he fell behind now, you didn’t slow down. You stopped waiting for him to text or call. You stopped waiting for him to find you after class.
And Stiles noticed pretty immediately. He felt it in the way you feel when a familiar sound stops humming in the background. When the fridge goes quiet and suddenly the house feels wrong. He noticed you weren’t laughing first anymore. He noticed Scott walking beside you more often. He noticed that when he made a joke, one of his real ones that he used to reserve just for you, you didn’t catch it the same way. Instead you smiled politely, and it stung.
That afternoon in class, he turned instinctively to whisper something to you, but you weren’t there. You’d moved to the front row. He stared at the back of your head for a moment, confusion flickering across his face. After the moment passed he told himself it didn’t matter, and people changed seats all the time. It didn’t mean anything. Except he found himself staring at the empty desk beside him longer than he should.
After that he started remembering other things he’d failed to notice too, like the way you no longer touched his arm when you laughed. The way you didn’t automatically hand him your fries at lunch because you knew they were his favourite. Even the way you looked at him now was different. More like someone handling glass that had already cracked once.
And beneath it all, he felt guilt. It settled in his chest, heavy and unwelcome. He knew you were mad. He knew he’d felt the shift when you’d yelled at him in the parking lot the other night. He’d felt it even more when you’d stopped arguing with him. And that was the worst part. You weren’t angry anymore. You were just…gone in pieces.
The next Friday, he walked into the cafeteria and instinctively scanned for you. You were there, but you weren’t looking for him. Scott was saying something, and you laughed brightly, your head tipping back the way it used to when Stiles rambled too fast.
Something inside him twisted. He told himself it was nothing. He finally was friends with Lydia. He had made progress on his ten year plan. He was closer than ever to the thing he’d wanted since third grade. So why did it feel like he was losing something instead? Why did the table feel colder? Why did he keep glancing at you when Lydia was talking? Why did the version of himself sitting beside her feel like a jacket two sizes too small?
He didn’t know how to fix it, he didn’t even know if he had the right to, but when you stood to leave early again and didn’t look back to see if he was coming…He felt more than ever. The space you left behind. Stiles Stilinski suddenly wondered if he’d been chasing the wrong girl the entire time.
The bell above the video store door jingled when Stiles walked in. Rows of VHS tapes and CD’s lined the walls in faded covers, sorted in genres of action, romance, horror, comedy. Whole lives stored in plastic rectangles. He went straight to the film he’d been ordered to get. Picking it up and turning it over, he adjusted his grip on the case in his hand. The Notebook.
He stared at the cover for a second like it might bite him. He didn’t even really like romance movies, but Lydia did. Tonight mattered, in the grand scheme of his ten year plan to get Lydia Martin to fall in love with him. It was the first movie night of theirs he’d been invited to, at her house no less. He was mentally rehearsing what he’d say when he heard your laugh echoing through the empty store.
Not polite. Not restrained. It cut clean through the space. He turned towards it to see you standing in the horror aisle, one foot hooked casually behind the other, holding up a VHS tape dramatically.
“Okay, but you cannot tell me Gremlins isn’t a Christmas movie,” you were saying.
Scott rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. “It literally turns into a horror massacre.”
“It’s festive horror,” you shot back. “Like Black Christmas, Jack Frost, and Silent Night, Deadly Night.”
Stiles felt something in his chest drop.You looked…lighter. Not the tight, careful version of you from the cafeteria. This was the version he remembered. Animated, glowing, and comparable. Scott was standing exactly where he used to, close enough to you to bump shoulders as the two of you argued about genres and films. He watched Scott reach out and take the tape from your hands, your fingers brushing without either of you reacting. It was natural, and easy. It used to be the three of you. Now it was just you and Scott.
You noticed Stiles a second later when your eyes met his across the aisle. For half a heartbeat, something flickered there. Surprise, maybe. Then it settled into something more guarded.
“Hey,” you said coldly. There was none of your usual brightness. No spark. Just…begrudgingly polite.
Scott turned, stiffening almost imperceptibly when he saw Stiles. Protective, though he wouldn’t call it that out loud.
“Hey,” Stiles echoed. He suddenly became painfully aware of what he was holding.
You glanced down and clocked it immediately. The Notebook. Your expression didn’t change. Not drastically, at least. But he saw the tiniest of shifts behind your eyes as understanding dawned.
“Oh,” you said gently. “Big plans tonight?”
“Yeah,” he replied, a little too quickly. “Uh. Movie night.”
“With Lydia?” you asked. You had heard her talk about The Notebook more times than you could count on two hands.
He nodded in confirmation and all you could do was nod back. Then you lifted the CD’s in your arms. “We’re doing one too,” you said. “Scott’s idea.”
Scott gave a small shrug, like it was nothing. It wasn’t nothing. Not to Stiles. His eyes dropped to the titles. Psycho. The Shining. Bride of Frankenstein. A fantastic lineup.
It hit him in a way he wasn’t prepared for. Not like jealousy exactly. It didn’t feel romantic or territorial, it was more a feeling of displacement. He wasn’t your first call anymore. He wasn’t your automatic Friday night plans. You weren’t waiting for him to decide if you were worth showing up for. You were just…doing it without him.
You shifted the tapes in your arms. “Well,” you said softly, “have fun tonight.”
There was no edge to it. That somehow made it worse. Scott stepped closer to you, casual but deliberate. “We should get going,” he said.
You nodded as you passed Stiles, your shoulder brushing his lightly. Once upon a time, that would’ve been intentional and charged with static energy he couldn’t quite name. Now it was just accidental space being shared.
The bell above the door jingled again as you left. Stiles stood there, staring at the empty doorway. He looked down at The Notebook in his hands, then back at the horror aisle. He could almost see you standing there again, arguing passionately about whether The Lost Boys was better than Poltergeist.
He swallowed thickly as the movie in his hands suddenly felt wrong, and the night ahead somewhat hollow.
Jackson bailed first. ‘Something came up,’ he said over text. No other explanation.
Danny followed ten minutes later. ‘Sorry, guys. Family thing.’
So it was just Stiles and Lydia. The living room was dim, lamplight soft against the walls. Lydia sat curled at one end of the couch, legs tucked neatly beneath her, red hair falling perfectly over one shoulder. She looked like she belonged in a magazine spread titled ‘Effortlessly Beautiful While Watching Romance Films’.
Stiles sat beside her, stiff at first, hyperaware of the inches between them. This is it, he told himself. This is what you wanted.
The movie started. It was full of soft piano music and dramatic rain and beautiful people staring at each other intensely.
Lydia sighed softly. “I love this part.”
Stiles nodded, pretending he did too. He tried to relax into it. Tried to enjoy the proximity, the way her shoulder brushed his when she shifted. Tried to feel that long-standing, third-grade crush swell into something victorious.
But instead he felt restless. He made a small comment under his breath about how the main character clearly needed therapy instead of a house.
Lydia blinked at him. “What?”
“Nothing,” he said quickly. “Just…you know. The emotional repression? The toxic volatile communication style? It’s a classic romance trope that really isn’t romantic at all.”
She turned back to the screen. No laugh, no conversation during the film arguing the themes or motifs. This wasn’t what he was used to during a movie night at all. He shifted. Okay, this was fine. He could adapt to a different tone.
He tried again later, dropping the smoother cadence he’d been practicing for weeks. “So if I build you a house by hand, like, inevitably with questionable structural integrity, are we automatically soulmates or…?”
Lydia frowned slightly. “Why would you do that?”
He stared at her. “I…it’s in the movie.”
“Oh.” She smiled politely. “Right.”
That was when it hit him that you would’ve laughed. You would’ve thrown popcorn at him and said, “Only if the roof caves in dramatically during a love confession.”
You would’ve built on the joke. Twisted it. Made it better. Instead, the room felt quiet. Not a comfortable quiet, but an empty quiet. He glanced at Lydia. She was beautiful. Perfect. Intent on the screen. Completely unbothered. And he finally let himself notice something he’d been ignoring. He was editing himself, even now. Even alone he softened his sarcasm. Filtered his weirdness. Curated his energy so it wouldn’t overwhelm her. Because when he didn’t, she didn’t lean in. She didn’t light up. She just blinked and moved on.
Your voice echoed in his memory. “Why would you want to be with someone who doesn’t like you for who you actually are?”
He swallowed. He thought back to the video store, to the way you’d held those CD’s like treasures. About the way you’d said “Have fun tonight” without waiting for him to explain. About how you used to sit so close he never questioned it, and how lately, you hadn’t.
The movie swelled toward its dramatic climax. Lydia dabbed at the corner of her eye. Stiles felt nothing. There was no triumph or satisfaction. Not even the giddy ache of finally being alone with the girl he’d wanted for years. He felt tired, like he’d been running toward something shiny and only now realized it was just a metallic wrapper floating on the breeze. He looked at Lydia again and all he saw was a shiny wrapper. A pretty exterior drifting along with the movement of the crowd.
He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life explaining his jokes. He didn’t want to feel smaller just to be digestible. He didn’t want to keep pretending. And worse, he realised the person he’d never pretended around was the only person who had liked him without the mask.
He thought about you sitting one seat over instead of beside him, about your silence at lunch, and about the way you’d stopped waiting. Suddenly, the past few weeks snapped into focus. He hadn’t just been chasing Lydia. He’d been losing you. And you hadn’t fought to stay, you’d simply let him go.
The movie ended, the credits rolled, and Lydia smiled at him. “That was nice.”
Nice. He used to leave movie nights with you buzzing. Talking over each other about plot holes and character flaws and alternate endings. Now he just felt hollow.
As Stiles gathered his things and thanked her for the night, she walked him to the front door. She kissed his cheek lightly, and his heart didn’t race. When the door closed behind her, the street fell silent. In that silence, Stiles Stilinski finally understood something terrifying. He didn’t want Lydia. Not if it meant losing himself. Not if it meant losing you.
He stood there for a long moment on Lydia’s porch. Then he pulled out his phone, and scrolled to your name. His finger hovered over the screen, too frightened to finish the action because wanting you back meant admitting he’d been wrong, and Stiles had never been more afraid of you being right.
He didn’t text you that night. He almost did. He typed and then deleted and then re-typed and then backspaced tens of times. Hey. He deleted that. Are you busy? Deleted that too. An apology over text felt cowardly, too small a gesture and too easy of a way out, and this wasn’t a small matter.
So the next afternoon, he found Scott. “You owe me,” Stiles said without preamble.
Scott raised an eyebrow. “For what?”
“For being right about everything all the time.”
Scott blinked. “That’s ridiculous, but whatever. What happened?”
Stiles swallowed. The words felt heavier out loud. “I screwed up.”
Scott didn’t argue, knowing that was a kind way to put it, and his silence hurt more than if he had. But together they came up with a plan, and after school they executed it.
He went to the video store himself. Rented the a classic horror lineup he knew you’d go crazy over. He bought your favorite candy, the sour one you pretended didn’t make your mouth bleed. He even vacuumed. Twice.
He dimmed the lights and draped blankets over the couch and furniture to make a comfy tent beneath. Like a makeshift fortress, the way you’d always said you’d loved to do movie nights as a kid. Then he finally texted you.
Stiles: Scott’s coming over for movie night. You should too.
It took you six minutes to reply with a simple ‘Okay.’ No emoji. No warmth. His stomach lurched with nervousness.
When you arrived,you didn’t knock the way you used to. You hesitated first, your fist pausing in mid-air. Stiles opened the door quickly before you could talk yourself out of it, looking mildly out of breath, as though he’d been waiting at the window and then ran to open it.
You looked beautiful. Not because you’d dressed up. You always were beautiful, and he’d simply accepted that as a fact of life. His physical attraction towards you was something he’d never thought too critically about, but now it wasn’t something he’d could pass by.
“Hey,” you said carefully. “Where’s Scott?”
He stepped aside to let you in. “He’s…not coming.”
Your eyes narrowed slightly. “You said—”
“I know.” He interrupted you quickly, gaze following you nervously and eagerly as you walked into the living room and then stoped dead in your tracks.
Your eyes scanned the room as you took it all in. The lights were low, pillows already pulled on the floor beneath the canopy of blankets, like a patchwork tent. The stack of horror tapes were piled on the coffee table, your favorite candy already opened beside them. Two bowls of popcorn, not three.
Your expression shifted, not quite melting but not as guarded anymore either. “You did this?” you asked quietly, your voice full of uncertainty.
Silence stretched between you. You crossed your arms loosely over your chest, not defensively but protective. “What’s this about, Stiles?”
He ran a hand over his hair, nervous habit resurfacing now that the facade was gone. “You were right, that night in the parking lot. I don’t think I’ve been me,” he said slowly. “Not in a while.”
You didn’t respond, so he took that as his opening to keep going. “I thought I wanted something. For years, I thought I wanted something. And I convinced myself if I just adjusted myself enough, worked hard enough, I’d finally get it.” He laughed softly, not out of amusement but in bitterness. “But somewhere in there, I stopped being the version of me that mattered. And the worst part?” he continued, his voice quieter now. “I stopped being that version around the one person who actually liked him.”
He looked at you then and this time there was no mask. No cool tone, or curated charm. He was just Stiles. “I took you for granted,” he said, and the words landed heavy in the room. “I thought you’d just always be there. No matter how distracted I got. No matter how much I screwed up.”
You couldn’t do anything other than blink and stare, processing the words you’d spent sleepless nights wishing to hear. You wondered what had finally pushed him over the edge of nonsense and hurtling towards such a revelation.
“The past few weeks?” he swallowed. “They’ve sucked.”
You huffed a tiny breath. “For you?” Things had been sucking for a lot longer than the past few weeks for you.
“For you and me,” he agreed. “Because I finally noticed how much I missed you. And I don’t just mean movie nights. I mean…” He gestured helplessly. “You. Sitting next to me. Calling me out. Laughing at my dumb jokes. Arguing about horror villains like it’s life or death.”
“It took you long enough to even notice I was gone,” you muttered bitterly.
He stepped closer, but not enough to crowd you. “I missed you even before you stopped sitting next to me. I just didn’t realise it because I was too busy trying to be someone else.”
The silence that followed was thick yet fragile. You looked down at your hands, fiddling with your jewellery. “I told you,” you said softly. “I told you that you were losing yourself.”
“I know.” His voice cracked slightly. “You were right. I don’t want to be that guy, the one who makes you feel small, or invisible, or like you’re a second choice.”
You inhaled sharply at that.
“You weren’t a second choice,” he added quickly. “You were…” He stopped himself, his amber eyes not leaving yours for even a millisecond, and that’s how you knew he was being entirely honest. “I was too stupid to see what I already had.”
Your eyes lifted to his slowly. “I don’t get to lose you again,” you said quietly. It wasn’t a question, but a boundary.
He nodded immediately. “You don’t.”
“That’s not how this works.”
“I know,” he said again. “I know.”
You searched his face for the performance, half-expecting it out of habit, but there wasn’t one.
“I want our friendship back,” he said first, his voice steady but careful. “If you’ll let me.”
You held his gaze, considering it. Or pretending to. You could already feel yourself folding.
“And…maybe,” he added, softer now, more confident by the fact you didn’t immediately scream at him or walk out. “If you still want to, maybe we could try…something different. Something…more?”
Your pulse stuttered, your lips parting in surprise, wondering if you’d heard him right or if maybe you misunderstood his meaning.
“Not because I’m bored,” he rushed on. “Not because someone else didn’t work out. But because I realised I don’t want to keep pretending to be another person to keep anyone’s attention.” He stepped one inch closer. “I want to be myself, and I am the most authentic version of me when I’m with you.”
The room felt very, very quiet. You could see the nerves in his hands, his shoulders weren’t squared. He wasn’t performing. In him you could see your friend, the boy you’d fallen for. The Stiles you’d blown up the rest of your life for.
You exhaled slowly. “You hurt me,” you said.
“I know, and I’m sorry. I can’t even tell you how sorry I am.”
“I’m not going to sit at a table where I feel invisible again.”
You studied him one more time. Then you stepped forward, just enough that your breath mingled. “Okay,” you whispered.
Relief washed over his face so visibly it almost made you laugh. “Okay?” he beamed.
“Okay,” you repeated. “But if you start pretending again, I’m leaving.”
He nodded so fast it was almost comical. “Deal.”
You smiled, small at first, then wider. When he leaned in, he hesitated just enough to give you space to pull away. You didn’t, so he went for it, his lips crashing against yours clumsily. The kiss wasn’t urgent. He got his bearing fairly quickly, turning tentative with his movements. When you pulled back, his forehead rested gently against yours.
You smiled against his mouth, your stomach doing cartwheels. “Hi.”
“Wow, we should’ve started doing that sooner,” he breathed out a laugh, butterfly wings fluttering against the walls of his chest.
“That one’s on you, Stilinski,” you flushed, shaking your head at him.
“Well, can we do it again?” He asked softly, eyes darting down to your lips as he licked his own, as though savouring the taste of your chapstick.
“Yes, but not today. I’m still mad at you,” you whispered, smirking slightly. If he made you suffer you were sure going to get back at him.
His pout told you it was working and you turned on your heel and crawled under the blanket fort. “Come on, put Scream in. I’m feeling like a comedy today.”
“You know, technically, Scream isn’t classified a horror-comedy, it’s slasher meta-horror.” He argued as he grabbed the CD from the case and knelt in front of the DVD player.
“Slasher-horrors are the perfect genre to overlap with comedy.” You argued right back and when Stiles turned around he has the brightest and widest smile on his face. He’d missed this.
“You sure we can’t kiss again? Just one more?” He crawled over to you, leaning in.
You placed your hand over his face and pushed him back. “Eyes on the screen, lover boy.” But you were fighting back a giddy smile of your own as he settled beside you. When he tried to hold your hand as Casey got her guts sliced out, you let him, granting him a small mercy. Totally not just because you wanted to.
