THE QUIET HURTS. the quiet that came after laughter, the kind of quiet that used to fill every corner of your life. the kind that used to sound like him.
you used to talk to stiles stilinski about everything. every stupid thing in your life. the good days, the bad ones, the ‘whatever’ nights where you would be sitting in his jeep, music playing softly from the radio, and the air between you warm and fuzzy with something you had been too embarrassed to name.
but lately, you stopped.
you don’t stiles text back right away, you find excuses to not hang out with him, you immediately hide when he walks into a room. it’s not because you necessarily want to— it’s because you have to. because you love him, and you can’t stand how much it hurts anymore.
the issue started out insignificant. you told yourself it was a silly crush, that it would fade, like all the other boys you liked in your life.
but it didn’t quite go the way you wanted it to. it grew. it dug its claws in deep. it made a home in your heart, where it’s resided for a while now. —READ MORE!
and every time he looks at lydia— that soft, star struck gaze of affection that says she’s it, you feel something break deep within you.
you used to think you were strong enough to just be his best friend, but it’s like walking on nails now.
every laugh you share together, every secret whispered, and every time his body touches yours, it’s excruciatingly painful.
which brings you to your current predicament— you pull away. you convince yourself it’s better this way, he’ll be fine. he has scott, lydia, and the rest of your friends. he doesn’t need you, he’ll be perfectly fine without you!
you on the other hand, need space. space to get yourself to stop loving him.
except space doesn’t help like you thought it would. it only makes it worse.
now, because you don’t see him every day, you begin to miss him so much it physically aches in your chest.
you lie awake at night staring at the glow in the dark stars on your ceiling, trying not to think about the way he used to make you laugh until you were rasping for air, or how he would always find an excuse to drive you home, or how his voice used to sound when he said your name, softer and gentler than it had any right to be said.
it’s been weeks since you two have spoken. long enough that even scott has stopped asking if you’re doing okay.
you’re half asleep, thoughts finally drifting away when something clacks against your window.
you open your eyes immediately— freezing in fear, it’s way past midnight.
after a minute of silence, you think the lack of sleep has you hearing things, so you lay your head back onto your cushiony pillow until another loud clack hits the glass.
you push off your blanket and slowly walk towards your window, your body heavy with confusion and half asleep state that makes everything feel like your dreaming. when you pull your curtaina open, you see him.
stiles.
standing in the dark, glowing in the moonshine in his favourite hoodie and pajama pants, with a handful of pebbles in his right hand and a saddened expression painted on his face that makes your chest tighten.
he looks like maybe he hasn’t been sleeping well either.
you unlock your window, pushing it open, the chilly midnight air hitting your face. “stiles, what the hell are you doing?” you whisper, your voice raspy from the half slumber.
he grins a little, but it doesn’t look real. “hey.”
“‘hey?’ are you serious? it’s almost one in the morning!” you whisper shout.
“i know,” he replies. “i missed you.”
you blink, because you weren’t prepared for that. anything but that. “you… what?”
“i missed you.” he repeats, as if it were common sense, like it’s a thought that’s been weighing on his heart for far too long. “you’ve just been gone. and i don’t know what i did to make you so angry with me, but i hate it. i hate not being able to talk to you.”
you swallowed the lump in your throat. you should tell him to go back home. you should lock the window and crawl back into your bed and pretend none of this happened, but the sound of his familiar voice breaks something in you.
you sigh in defeat. “come up before someone sees you.”
he grins, excited but timid, and within seconds he’s climbing up the side of your house, the familiar dance he’s perfected over the years with being your best friend.
he stumbles through the window, breathless, his hair a mess, sticking up in different directions and suddenly he’s standing there in front of you, in your room, in your space, and it feels like everything you’ve been attempting to hold back is right there with him.
“hi,” he whispers, finally catching his breath.
“hi,” your fingers twitch beside you.
he looks around, at your desk cluttered with books, the picture frame of you and your friends, the one with him.
his eyes finally meet yours. “this feels weird,” he breaks. “not talking to you. you’re my best friend, and i don’t like it.” you cross your arms with the same ache you’ve been pushing away. “maybe that’s kind of the point, stiles.”
his brow furrows in confusion. “the point?”
you let out a small laugh in disbelief at how clueless he is. “god, you can’t be this dense.”
he blinks, growing more confused by the second. “what?”
“you don’t get it, do you?” your voice breaks a little, the exhaustion and heartbreak clawing at your chest. “i can’t be near you, stiles. i can’t keep pretending that i’m okay watching you fall in love with someone else.”
his jaw slacks open, but no words comes out.
you keep going because if you stop now, you’ll never get the truth out. “every time you talk about lydia, it’s like someone’s stomping on my heart repeatedly. i really tried to ignore it, i tried to just… be your best friend like you wanted— but i can’t. because i love you, okay? i love you, and it hurts too much to be with you.”
the silence after feels like hours as he stands there.
stiles just stares at you. there’s glimpses of shock, disbelief, and something you don’t know, and for a second, you think you’ve ruined everything you two have built over the years.
then he steps closer.
you freeze when his hand comes up to your face, gently cradling your cheek. “then you should know,” he says softly, voice whispering, “that i love you too.”
the world stops. “you… what?”
he gives a small laugh in disbelief. “i thought you knew. i thought it was so obvious— god, i’m such an idiot.”
you shake your head, the tears you’ve been holding back finally releasing. “you loved lydia.”
“i did,” he says. “or at least i thought i did. but it wasn’t like you and me. it wasn’t this—” he gestures between your bodies. “this thing you and me have that has been here for as long as i’ve known you.”
he steps closer until you can feel the warmth of his body radiating off him. “i missed you so much it made drove me crazy. i couldn’t sleep. i couldn’t—” his voice falters. “you’re not just my best friend. you’re everything to me.”
something in you breaks, all that distance, all that pretending, it disappears under the weight of his words.
he leans in, slow enough for you to stop him, but you don’t. you simply cannot, when he kisses you, it’s soft, slow, unrushed.
it’s not desperate and hungry, it’s simply just real. his lips are warm against yours, trembling nervously, and it feels like coming home after years of being away.
when he finally pulls away, his forehead resting against yours. his breath ghosts over your lips.
“you really didn’t know?” he whispers, his voice dripping with disbelief as he laughs.
you shake your head, still shocked by the sudden revelation “no. i thought you’d never feel the same way.”
his thumb wipes at the remnants of your tears away. “guess we were both idiots.”
you giggle softly in reply. “i guess so.”
he takes your hand, fingers intertwining with yours like they were always meant to. “don’t ever do that again,” he says quietly. “don’t disappear. don’t become a stranger.”
you meet his gaze, those eyes that have always been honest, carrying his emotions out in the open, and you nod. “i won’t.”
he smiles, that soft, adorable smile that makes your heart ache. “good.”
then he kisses you again, deeper this time around, his hand cradling the back of your neck, his other still holding yours. the night is silent. it’s yours.
when you finally pull back, you don’t need to say anything. you just rest your head against his chest, breathing him in, the scent of his hoodie, the faint smell of midnight rain in his hair.
for the first time in weeks, you finally feel calm. you feel at peace. you feel whole.
because stiles here.
because you aren’t best friends anymore.
because love doesn’t have to be grand, loud or perfect.
sometimes it’s just this unexpected feeling that sneaks up on you and changes the whole direction of life.
stiles presses a soft kiss to the top of your head. “i don’t care what happens,” he whispers. “i’m not letting you fade away from me again.”
you close your eyes, smiling against his chest. “i promise i won’t.”
you stay wrapped in each other for the remainder of the night, things may be messy, you two may be too sleep deprived to actually process what’s going on, but it’s still perfect.
✧ 𝑓. fun fact stiles was one of my first real celebrity crushes 😜 also i’ve recently reread the bridgerton books and now i’m in such a good olden times romance book mood but i legit don’t know what to read if u have any recs plz help a girl out ! 🥲 also this was inspired by new years day by ts if u didn’t notice 🥸
𓂃ㅤ 𝓉𝖺𝗀𝗅𝗂𝗌𝗍 ୨୧ @ihatethecrowdsyouknowthat @lcvealwayss @viennasolace ♡ thank you so much for joining !
hi, can you do tiktok trends with stiles? like y/n doing them on him or with him. (does that make sense?)
Stiles Stilinski x reader
A bit on the shorter side but I hope you like it! I went with half headcanons and half story to explain it better. Don't be afraid to request more stuff if you like this!!
Word count: 474
Masterlist
Stiles would love to do more silly trends for sure! The one with the “you’re spinning me around; my feet are off the ground” audio came straight to mind.
Or maybe the one where you play rock, paper, scissors, and the winner gets to eat while the loser runs away and back? He’d be shoving the food in his mouth before you can make it back for sure!
You could try to do the trend where you try to hip thrust, squat, deadlift… each other, but I’m not sure how far he would get. Especially in the earlier seasons, he’s not getting far.
If you really enjoy doing these videos with him, he is all for it. Just come up with an idea and he’s game. He might even get Scott to join you guys for some TikTok’s. Really, he’d do anything for you if it makes you happy.
If you’re not the biggest fan he wouldn’t push you, but he might ask if you’d like to do a trend occasionally. Just say yes, and he’ll be elated.
I don’t think he’d post them for everyone to see just for your friends.
Scott is responding to every single Tiktok you guys make. Especially ones where he’s in or if he’s the one filming.
Allison and Lydia are just your personal fangirls. Responding to TikTok’s with heart eyes emojis and little comments about how cute you guys are.
“And after that you have to pick me up.” You instruct while staring at the video playing on your phone. “What if I drop you?” Stiles asks, his eyes are narrow as he stares at the Tiktok playing. You’ve been trying to get the dance right; he barely has to do anything and yet he is the one struggling. “Just don’t?” you reply looking at him incredulously.
“I don’t know, that seems like a dangerous move.” He leans back, and one of his hands is resting on his hip. “Stop being dramatic, it’s been fifteen minutes, and we still haven’t gotten it down.” You’re getting close to giving up, you might as well ask Allison to do it with you instead. “Okay, okay, I got it. Let’s go again.” He nods while speaking, almost trying to convince himself more than you.
You simply shake your head before getting back in position. You stand next to him, one of his hands above your head as you spin in a circle a few times. Next, he moves behind you, his arms under yours as he picks you up for a few seconds, before gently putting you down again. “See, I can do it! I’ve got this.” He tells you, standing confidently next to you.
You nod at him, laughing slightly “We’re only halfway done Stiles.” He claps his hands before moving to stand next to you again. “What’s next boss?”
Stiles x male reader where stiles has been crushing on reader for a while and one day stiles gets hurt and the reader asks him why he keeps putting himself in these positions knowing he doesn’t heal like the rest and stiles seeing how concern reader is for him he cracks joke AND FLUFF YEAH YEAH
honestly why DOES stiles keep putting himself in these positions
masterlist
Stiles Stilinski is going to get in trouble for this. Not from school, for once– this isn’t a case of him dozing off in class again, nor his attention wandering so much he forgot that focusing on the lesson is something students are actually supposed to do. This isn’t a legal matter, the sheriff’s son caught trespassing again in the name of a case he can’t actually describe without putting his friends in danger.
No, this is something else entirely. Right now, Stiles would kill for a punishment as simple as a detention. God, wouldn’t that be something, to just have to sit in a dimly lit room for an hour or two? He’d love that right now. Instead, he’s about three and a half seconds from having his throat ripped out, and he has no one to blame for it except himself.
It was his fault, after all. Stiles was the one who decided to try and go talk to the new supernatural in town without any backup. Stiles was also the one who knew that Y/N and Malia were going to try and do the same thing later that day. Stiles had argued about that plan, saying it was a terrible idea to send two supernaturals in to talk to an enemy of undisclosed strength. Y/N’s a werewolf, Malia’s a werecoyote, and both of them have a tendency to jump the gun whenever they think a fight might be brewing.
There was no way that little showdown could end in anything but bloodshed. That’s what Stiles had said in the pack meeting, but he was shut down almost immediately. If not a supernatural, who else would go? A human? Someone like him? Ridiculous.
Stiles is aware of his own limitations. It’s impossible to ignore them in a place like Beacon Hills. Increasingly outnumbered in his own friend group by supernaturals, Stiles is reminded on a daily basis that he will never be as strong a fighter. That doesn't mean he has to watch his friends walk into certain death, though.
He wasn’t going to let it happen today. So, instead of sending Y/N and Malia as the rather violent welcome wagon, Stiles went by himself. Alone. Four hours before planned. It would give him enough time to get in and get out if things went sour without ever being noticed. This way, the newcomer to their town wouldn’t perceive Stiles as being sent to kill him, only as there to talk. Stiles is great at talking. In fact, he’s been told in the past that he’s so good at it that he never knows when to shut up.
Maybe that’s why the latest supernatural in Beacon Hills decided that Stiles’ peace offering wasn’t sufficient, Stiles annoyed him to the point of murder. Either that, or the guy never wanted anything but a fight in the first place. Regardless, Stiles knows one thing and one thing for certain: the second a stranger’s eyes start glowing and long claws jut out of their fingertips, it’s time to start running.
Stiles is a big fan of running. It gets you places, most importantly away from certain death. Stiles runs now, away from the werewolf/werecoyote/weresomething and towards the center of town. It had been a bad idea to meet the undisclosed supernatural so far away from the public eye, yes, but Stiles had been trying to set it off as little as possible.
It’s a shame that plan hadn’t worked out so well for him. Stiles throws himself around a hairpin turn, then bites down on a thousand curses along with his tongue as his foot catches on something and he goes down in a rather disorganized heap of skin and bone. Spitting a wad of saliva and blood from his mouth, Stiles shoots a death glare towards the offending tree root that had sprung up out of nowhere to trip him up.
Even this bright burst of anger won’t be enough to save him from his bigger problems, though. This brief moment of distraction was all the supernatural had needed to catch up with him, and now Stiles’ tentative lead has evaporated away. He stays there, crouched on the ground, and watches the supernatural slowly stalk towards him. Stiles is staring down at certain death, and all he can think is great, his boyfriend is going to kill him for this.
Y/N, of course, cannot kill Stiles if he is already dead. Still, he might just try anyway. Y/N is well aware of Stiles’ self-sacrificial tendencies and went so far as to warn Stiles of his impending wrath should Stiles attempt to intervene in Y/N’s plan to approach the new supernatural in town. Seeing as Stiles has gone ahead and done that anyway, he can almost sense Y/N’s anger rolling down on him like a thunderstorm crackling from the heavens.
Maybe that’s why Stiles feels something right now, because Y/N’s vexation with Stiles for going behind his back is that strong, or maybe he’s finally developing supernatural senses after being around his non-human friends for so long via osmosis. Either way, it doesn’t entirely come as a surprise when the supernatural is abruptly hurled from its murderous stalking path towards Stiles to land in a heap on the ground some yards away.
Stiles grins with relief when he spots his rescuer: one Y/N L/N with fangs extended and eyes glowing, just like him to save the day after all. Y/N has enough time to spare Stiles one final glare, a reminder that he’s so not off the hook, before charging the enemy supernatural once more.
Y/N ends up all but chasing the guy out of town. In the days to come, Stiles will learn that the newcomer left Beacon Hills later that night with the excuse that there were just too many hunters for life to be worthwhile. Stiles, of course, harbors a secret belief that it’s because the guy was overwhelmed by the sheer ferocity of a boyfriend with a bone to pick.
It’s something Stiles himself is about to discover right now, actually. Y/N turns the full force of his indignation on Stiles once the rival supernatural is gone, and Stiles can physically feel himself shrinking away from him.
“That was a great save,” he says as casually as he can, “we really make a wonderful team, don’t you think?”
“You can hold off the compliments,” Y/N replies coolly, “seeing as, you know, we weren’t supposed to be a team right now. Malia and I were going to take on this guy later tonight, not you and me, and certainly not you by yourself. Do you have a death wish?”
“I can’t have a death wish if I know I can count on you guys to save me every time,” Stiles jokes weakly.
Y/N sighs. “Stiles, can you please be serious? You could have died out there. Hell, you could have died any one of the other thousand times you put yourself in danger for no reason. You know you can’t heal like the rest of us, why do you keep doing this?”
“Because it’s fun?” He offers.
It’s not the right answer. Of course it’s not. What Y/N wants to hear is what the rest of the pack wants to hear as well: a concrete, factual reason that will keep him out of trouble in the future and assuage their guilty consciences that they have been doing enough to protect him. That, though, is very difficult to say. Stiles is only human. He doesn’t have it within himself to be perfect. Not even with words.
The excuses and jokes are easier to say, so he says them every time. It’s far harder to admit the worse parts, that Stiles knows better than anyone how useless he is compared to everyone else. He has no claws or fangs to fight. He has no self-healing skin. He cannot see the future, he cannot receive guidance from the past, he can do nothing but stand there and watch as his friends die time and time again. At least he won’t have to feel like so much of a burden if he’s the one being stupidly self-sacrificial. At least he won’t be the one watching helplessly at that point.
Stiles doesn’t want to put all that into words, though, doesn’t know that he could even if he lost enough shame for that, so he doesn’t, and he watches Y/N’s face close off again. That’s so Stiles, he can practically hear Y/N thinking, never serious, never realistic. The joker, off having fun while everyone else is suffering.
“Forget it,” Y/N says hopelessly, “why would you give me a straight answer? This is just another day to you. No matter how many times I try to protect you, you always go behind my back to get yourself in trouble. Nothing I say here is going to change that.”
The look on Y/N’s face makes Stiles feel sick to his stomach. He doesn’t want Y/N mad at him, he just wants Y/N to forget all this, to forget that Stiles isn’t as helpful as the rest of them because he isn’t supernatural.
He shouts something out at Y/N’s retreating back before he can stop himself. “I just wanted you to think that I was good enough.”
Y/N freezes. “What?”
Stiles swallows, tries to look away, but he’s gone and said it now, so he might as well explain himself. “I know I’m not like the rest of you guys. I can’t do anything right. I’m a frail little human in a supernatural world, obviously things aren’t on my side. I just wanted to prove that, you know, I was worthy of being in the pack. That I was worthy of being with you.”
The word burns his throat on the way out. Worthy. Worthy of being True Alpha Scott McCall’s best friend. Worthy of being the sheriff’s son. Worthy of dating Y/N despite everything against him.
Something in Y/N’s expression melts, and he’s running over to Stiles now, wrapping his arms around Stiles’ shoulder and pulling him close. “You’ve always been enough to me,” Y/N whispers, “always. I thought you knew that.”
“I try,” Stiles says, “it’s just hard, you know? I’m not special. I’m just human.”
“You’re you,” Y/N replies, “that’s why I want to keep you out of harm’s way every single moment even though we’re in Beacon Hills. I’m not trying to shove you away, Stiles, I just don’t want you dead.”
“I don’t want me dead either,” Stiles says solemnly. It’s enough to make both of them start laughing. It’s enough to make both of them start thinking about a better world.
teen wolf tag list: @thatfangirl42, @rogueanschel, @lovesanimals0000, @rafecameronswhore, @bellabadacadabra, @watchreadfangirlrepeat, @23victoria
I stood with Stiles and Scott as Papa Stilinski straightened his tie and fluffed his jacket. He was getting ready for his first date since Claudia had died. I could tell Stiles was probably more excited for his dad than his dad was, but I could feel the nerves rolling off papa Stilinski in waves. I gently tugged on the back of Stiles’ shirt as he moved to get closer to his dad to help him get ready.
“Oh, I should have got a haircut.” The Sheriff ran a hand through his slightly greying hair as Stiles stepped out of my hold on him.
“Well, you know,” Stiles started, eyes darting towards Scott and I for backup. “Someone your age should be happy you still have hair to cut.”
“I think you look great.” Scott said enthusiastically. I rolled my eyes at Scott but smiled at papa Stilinski, pulling on Stiles slightly again.
“Well, thank you, son I should have had.” He shoots Stiles and I a playfully glaring look, I feel Stiles wrap his arm around me and pull me in closer. Papa Stilinski starts to undo his tie.
“What the hell am I doing? This is a terrible idea.” He stops trying to loosen his tie as I reach forward out of Stiles’ hold as I tighten his tie up again.
“What? Dad, dad it’s one date, okay? The town of Beacon Hills wont implode while your out with one woman,” he stops fixing his dads clothes, looks back at Scott and I and adds, “or man.”
“It’s a woman Stiles.”
“Okay.” Stiles emphasises excitedly.
“A very beautiful woman.” Papa Stilinski adds.
“What beautiful woman, by the way…?” Stiles raising an eyebrow.
“None of your business, any of you.” Stiles looks at Scott and I again before clicking his tongue and pouting.
“I wanna know.” I pat his bicep gently as Sheriff Stilinski tugs on his jacket before a loud shout of “STILINSKI!” Can be heard through the station. Stiles pushes me behind him as we all walk out of the sheriff’s office into the main hub of the station where Deputy Clark and Deputy Parrish are holding back a young man and a man in a suit stands by.
“Stilinski! I’m going to kill you!” The young man shouts.
“Donovan if you think that shocks me, remember it was well documented in your Anger Expression Inventory. Deputies, escourt the prisoner out.” The prisoner, Donovan, struggles against the two deputies and I can see Deputy Parrish tense his muscles under his uniform.
“I'm not angry, like I'm gonna throw a brick through your window-- I'm angry, like I'm going to find you, I'm going to get a knife, and I'm going to stab you with it until you're dead. And when you look at me and you ask, "Why?", remember right now. Because this is why.” Donovan threatens in a calm tone. I watch the man in the suit pinch the bridge of his nose as Scott and Stiles cross their arms over their chest and step together in front of me. The sheriff seems to be taking it well and reacts to Donovan calmly, like this isn’t the first time this has happened before.
“Wow, that was awesome. That was awesome. That was great. Can we do one more? Give us another one, maybe like Christopher Walken this time, you know?” Stiles uncrosses his arms and steps closer to his dad and does the most Stiles thing he could do to try and piss off Donovan. “Okay, you know what?” Donovan just looks at Stiles with a bored expression. “It's fine. You'll have plenty of time to work on it when you're in your tiny, little cell. You know... just stuck there... forever.” Donovan then lunges towards us again Scott steps forward ready to jump in if needed and Stiles steps back reaching behind him to make sure I havent gone anywhere. I jumped at Donovan’s sudden outburst but dont move my feet as I stay quiet throughout the whole interaction.
“Get him out of here!” Stilinski yells. Clarke and Parrish are able to drag Donovan out of the station as Scott moves closer to Stiles.
“What the hell's an Anger Expression Inventory?” Scott asks in a hushed tone to not sound too stupid.
“It's a test you take when you're applying to become a deputy.” Stiles answers almost as hushed.
“That guy wanted to be a cop?”
“At least now, he's getting the full law enforcement experience.” Stiles shrugs pushing us out the door. Stiles struggles to get the Jeeps engine to turn over and I’m left propped up between the boys half in the backseat and half in the front seat.
“It’s anxiety.” Stiles says out of the blue.
“What is?” Scott cocks his head looking like a confused puppy.
“The chemo-signals? Oh I’m well aware of how you all monitor my emotional state, yeah.” I pat his arm from the backseat. I know that feeling well too. He tries the Jeep again and when the engine doesn’t turn over he slams his hand into the wheel causing me to jump back into the backseat away from an angry Stiles.
“You okay?” Scott questions him, I lean back in the seat as Stiles pulls out his phone to show scott a picture. I pull out my own with a message from Lydia lighting up the screen; ‘ 9-1-1 EMERGENCY.’ With her pinned location. I leant forward and thrust my phone between the boys in their line of vision.
“The banshee is calling.” My interruption pulled Stiles out of his anxiety filled head as he starts up the Jeep. It roars to life this time and we follow Lydia’s location pin.
I hurry along behind the boys as we pass a police barricade. Papa Stilinski, still dressed in his date attire comes up to us asking Scott questions in a hushed tone.
“Scott, you saw this kid Donovan, he wasn’t like you right?” Scott looked at Stiles and I as Stiles played with his abnormally long fingers.
“I dont think so…” Scott stammered.
“Unless he knows how to hide his scent.” Stiles piped up. I take a few steps closer to Lydia, Kira and Malia having noticed them when we walked up to the sheriff. I watched as Scott took off and us girls made our way back over to the father and son duo to wait for Scott. Parrish joined soon after. As we all grouped together static could be heard over Parrish’s radio.
“Scott? Is that you?” Parrish asked before the sheriff took the receiver.
“Yeah, I found Donovan, he’s completely freaked out he keeps saying some name.”
“What name?” The sheriff asked Scott. Before he could respond I heard Stiles mutter a name under his breath; Theo.
“Tracy, he keeps saying Tracy.”
“Tracy who?” The sheriff asks.
“Stewart.” Lydia jumps in and deadpans like she should have known the answer all along. “ Tracy Stewart.”
The boys wouldn't leave me alone for the rest of the night, Scott made camp on the floor in my bedroom and Stiles had made himself comfortable on my bed.
“You both know that she’s not coming after me right?” They both nod at me before Stiles throws a pillow off my bed and takes his shoes off. “And you also know Liam will smell you all over me tomorrow?” Stiles again nods and snuggles into the pillows he had left on my bed. “Your funeral.” I shrugged and got in next to Stiles.
The next morning when I woke up Stiles had his arm wrapped tightly around my waist and my head was nuzzled into the juncture between his head and shoulder. I felt his chest raise and fall and the warmth of his neck on my nose. I snuggled in a little bit more ultimately waking Stiles up with my movement.
“Good morning beautiful, where’s Scott gone?”
“I assume getting food and getting dressed, we do have school today.” Stiles groaned and pulled my body closer to his. He grumbled but got out of my bed anyway. After getting dressed I followed Stiles out to the Jeep dodging any attempt Scott tried at handing me his spare helmet. We jumped out of the Jeep as everyone walked up to stand around the still warm engine of Roscoe.
"Tracy wasn't just having trouble sleeping. It was a real disorder– it was night terrors." Lydia said as she crossed her arms over her chest walking up to the rest of us.
"Well, now she's the night terror. Especially since no one can find her." Stiles elaborates as he leans against the hood of the Jeep. Liams arm wraps loosely around my waist when he hears that little tid bit of information.His arm around my waist however didn't feel nearly as right as it should have and I involuntarily shivered under his touch. Stiles shot me a sideways glance as Scott sighs.
"Okay, I know we're all tired and miserable..." he looks around at each one of us stopping short at the look of excitement evident on Masons face. "Except for you."
Mason flicks his eyes to connect with mine and Liam’s behind me as he laughs lightheartedly. "Oh – I'm sorry. This is all just mind-blowing." He turns towards Scott and points to Kira as he continues, "You're a kitsune. I don't even know what that is."
Kira looks down and smiles softly, "I'm still learning."
Stiles scoffs as his eyes flick towards me for a split second before resting on my boyfriend standing slightly behind me. "Liam, we said you could tell him. Not invite him to the inner circle."
Liam looks to the ground and shuffles on his feet slightly, letting the arm around my waist fall to his side as Mason looks around at everyone of us, the worlds largest smile I’ve ever seen adorning his face. "Uh, I'm in the inner circle?" Liam places both of his hands in his jacket pocket and I move closer to Malia suddenly not feeling any sort of warmth or comfort from Liam.
"No." Liam mutters and Stiles with his exaggerated hand movements almost yells. I reach around behind Malia to hit Stiles on the back of his head, which is a lot easier to reach when he’s leaning on the Jeep, I turn my attention back to Liam who is looking at the ground and not paying any attention to me. I’ll talk to him later about the way he treated Mason.
"Guys, look, back to Tracy. She's just one lone wolf. We can find her." Scott takes charge of the group once again bringing us all back to our task at hand; finding Tracy.
"One lone serial killing wolf." Malia pipes up causing Stiles to make a face at her.
"Wha– I mean she only killed one person, you know – the other two were mauled... not quite serial killing status yet.” He looks between Malia and the rest of our group. I watch as Mason tries to take in all the information and blinks rapidly almost like he isn’t believing what he’s hearing Stiles say. "Alright, what do we do when we catch her?" He opens his arms almost reaching for suggestions.
Malia shrugs "I say we put her down."
Everyone looks at Malia then shares a look with each other almost asking without words if she’s serious or not. Mason seems to be enjoying the tension as his eyes light up and he mutters loud enough for everyone to hear clearly, "Intense."
Scott places his hands on the jeep again before stressing, "Guys, let's concentrate on catching her first. We'll figure out the rest later."
I walked the halls in my free period. I noticed Liam standing by the AP Biology classroom I ducked behind the wall as I watched his lips move before he took off and pulled the fire alarm, I followed Liam and Scott into Mr. Yukimura’s classroom where Tracy had a firm grip on Hayden’s forearm.
Liam went to take a step towards the two before Scott stopped him with an arm across his chest. I stood back with my arms crossed as I watched Scott slowly move his way closer to the two younger girls.
“Tracy. Tracy. Tracy. Tracy,” With each repetition of her name Scott moved closer and closer. Liam moving with him almost in sync. “Let go. Tracy!” her grip on Hayden tightened, I could see blood the tighter she grabbed on, and the more Hayden seemed to try to pull away.
“Hey, you're hurting me...” Hayden tried yet again to pull away, her face scrunching up in pain “Tracy, let her go.” Scott held his hand out to try to keep the peace. Tracey started to mumble as she let go of Hayden’s arm.
“They’re coming... They're coming for all of us.” Tracy fell forward as a silver liquid started to seep out of her mouth. Her eyes stayed open almost like she was staring into our souls as Scott and Mr. Yukimura picked her up and started to carry her out of the classroom and ultimately the school. As Stiles and Malia joined them, Liam and Hayden ran out of the classroom, I followed them both as Hayden spoke.
“She wasn't even supposed to be in our class. Where are they taking her?” She held her arm where Tracy had her tight grip.
“Uhh... The hospital, I guess...” Liam shuffled nervously before he answered Hayden and I could feel the tension between the two. I noticed that his eyes never even drifted in my direction. He looked down at the wound on Hayden’s arm before asking her the burning question and changing the subject. “Do you need help getting to the nurse's office?”
“I think I'll make it.” She snarkily remarked before I pushed passed the both of them bumping my shoulder into the back of Hayden’s shoulder and into the front of Liam and made my way to follow my group of friends hoping that I would be of use in some way.
As I took off in the direction of the animal clinic tears started to fall down my face. The hurt I felt when Liam didn’t even acknowledge my presence couldn’t even compare to the physical pain I felt with Brett or my father. I got to the animal clinic just as Deaton was performing his initial examination on Tracy. I rubbed furiously at my eyes before I entered but Stiles still gave me a questioning look as Deaton spoke.
“Pupils dilate under normal conditions.” Deaton then placed his fingers on her pulse point on her neck. “Heart rate is 250.” He then moved the collar of her shirt to examine her neck further. “ Evidence of an allogeneic skin graft on the right shoulder.” Stiles stepped closer to Tracy as he said it before his eyes flickered back over to me. “Now, this silvery substance at her lips is not something I've seen. It almost looks like mercury.” Deaton’s words caused everyone to follow his line of vision and look at the silvery substance that coated the corner of her mouth. Suddenly her body convulses for a second and Malia pipes up in the only way that Malia knows how.
“Uh... Can't you just give her a shot of something?” Malia seemed to be shuffling anxiously in her spot as she looked at the unconscious girl laying on the examination table. I stepped closer to Stiles, who was the closest to the door.
“She doesn't look to be in any pain...” Deaton’s eyebrows raise slightly as he looks at Malia and Scott and Stiles look at each other.
“I think she meant a shot to kill her.” I piped up as I laid my bag on bench off to the side. I shake my head as the two boys looks at me and Malia nods her head in agreement. Stiles looks like he wants to physically facepalm and Scott just looks dumbfounded.
Deaton scrunches up his face and draws his eyebrows together before he responds to Malia suggestion. “I generally prescribe to a code of ethics that frowns on such measures.”
“Malia, you know we're not going to do that.” Scott speaks to Malia using a gentle voice like he would a child.
“How do you know she's not going to kill us?” Malia voice holds a sense of urgency that I can feel reverberate through my entire body.
“...She makes a decent point.” I point out almost bumping my shoulder with Stiles’ as I step even closer to the small circle surrounding Tracy.
“Either way, I'm going to have to let my dad know she's here.” Stiles turned back around from facing me to look at Scott and Deaton.
“Agreed.” Deaton nodded taking a step away from the examination table. “And, while I may argue against euthanasia, I'm not opposed to a little...” he reached behind him and picked up a bottle of a black like ash. “Extra security.” Mountain ash. He threw the contents of the bottle at the entrance of the room and it connected with the rest of the building. We all stood around as we waited for something to happen but hoping that nothing would happen. Stiles was staring intently at the line of mountain ash on the floor.
“Don't worry, Stiles-- Tracy won't be able to cross a line of mountain ash. She's not going anywhere.”
“Yeah, that's kind of what I'm afraid of...” Stiles says as he stands up from leaning on the table. I fiddle with my fingers as I start thinking the same line of thoughts that I'm sure Stiles is also thinking.
“Well, Amya, you and I will be able to get out of here, no problem.” Deaton pauses, for dramatic effect, I'm sure. “You two? Not so much.” His head nods to each of the supernatural creatures currently conscious. Malia reaches out and touches the barrier between the room in the animal clinic and the outside world, the ripple of a currant causes her to retract her hand before mumbling.
“Weird.”
“Scott? Would you mind holding her down? I'm going to be trying a few more invasive tests.” Deaton picks up a scalpel as Scott holds onto her bicep and Stiles and I try to be helpful by holding down her legs. The scalpel does nothing as Deaton drags it along her skin. Not even leaving a red mark behind. He pushes harder trying anything to pierce her skin with the sharp blade. Tracy starts to pant lightly as a sudden clink of snapping metal can be heard. Deaton holds up a now broken scalpel and Stiles and I share a look before we both react in the same manner and tone.
“I think you're gonna need a bigger blade...” Deaton tilts his head to the side as he looks at Stiles and I.
Deaton starts to notice something strange on Tracy’s neck. I look closer and see something moving under her skin.
“Now, this is interesting...” Deaton exclaims as he moves her head to the side. Stiles and Scott make a move over to the other side of the room as Scott’s phone vibrates.
“Malia, Amya, help me turn her over, please.” Malia and I move forward and help Deaton with moving Tracy onto her stomach. I tried to listen to what the boys were saying but watching the scene before me unravel was a truly horrifying thing to watch. And I’ve seen a few horror movies.
“I think I know what she is.” Stiles says loud enough for Deaton and I to also be able to hear him. I look down and watch as what appears to be Tracy’s spine starts to wriggle and move under her skin.
“Do you care to enlighten the rest of us? Because this doesn't look too good...” Deaton’s voice causes me to shiver as Stiles and Scott move closer to us to get a better look at what was going on. Deaton starts to press on some spots on her back as the bone moves. All of a sudden, her back splits open and blood squirts out hitting Scott and Deaton. I hide behind Stiles hopefully missing the spray of blood myself. As I peak out from behind Stiles I watch as the vertebra of her spine seems to be moving. A tail springs out from her back as we all move closer to watch the dance her spine had been doing. The tail flicks out and catches Stiles in the chest. As Tracy pushes herself up off the table her tail gets Deaton on the cheek. Both Deaton and Stiles fall to the floor as Malia, Scott and I try to avoid her tail while she looks around frantically. Malia is the next one to get hit by the tail and she falls against one of the benches, Tracy then moves her eyes to look at me, and Scott tried to make a grab for her, as she whirls around to get Scott with her claws her tail plunges into my side and I scream falling to the floor by Stiles. Tracy makes a break for it and easily passes over the line of mountain ash. She runs out of the animal clinic as Scott tries to go after her before he too falls to the floor. How the fuck did she just pass the mountain ash. And how the fuck are we going to be able to tell the others if none of us can move. From his position with his face pressed up against the floor, Stiles all but yells.
“It wasn't a Werewolf.”
“Kanima...” Scott whispers into the abyss of the animal clinic.
Warnings: Mentions of injuries, blood, poison, death, seizures, dead bodies, swearing (always), etc.
A/N: Wow. This is the 4th Season already?! I noticed while writing this entire chapter this morning that we were starting season 4. This is crazy. Enjoy and I didn’t have time to proofread!
↪ PLEASE RESPECT MY WORK. DON’T COPY, TRANSLATE OR CLAIM THEM AS YOURS. NOT ON THIS WEBSITE OR ANOTHER. ALL RIGHTS ARE RESERVED.
I glanced around, sighing, not knowing what to expect and seeing a different scenario from the one that I was used to seeing every day. There was a lot of people in the street, wandering through street markets, trying to get the best deal.
"This doesn't seem so bad." My boyfriend rubbed his hands together.
"It's not the town, it's the plan." Lydia rolled her eyes as I chuckled. "Stiles. This could be the stupidest plan we've ever come up with. You're aware of that, right?"
"I'm aware it's not our best." His voice lowered.
"We are going to die." The three of us started walking.
"Are you saying that as a Banshee or you're just being pessimistic?"
"I'm saying it as a person who doesn't wanna die."
"Okay." Stiles's tiny gesture made my chest pound like crazy. He had grabbed my hand, scared I would get lost as there were many people. "Would you just mind restricting any talk of death to actual Banshee predictions?"
"This plan is stupid and we're going to die," Lydia said in a cheerful tone, attempting to make the hazel-eyed boy happy.
"Oh, thank you." He smirked.
It was night when we arrived at a building. The door was being watched by two men. They both smiled at us, especially eyeing Lydia and me, which made us feel a little bit uncomfortable.
"Estamos aquí para la fiesta." I murmured to them, letting them know that we were there for the party taking place inside the building.
One of them smirked, shaking their head as if to let us know that we weren't invited to go inside. I shifted my gaze to Stiles, who was searching for something inside one of the pockets of his trousers. As soon as he found what he wanted, he lifted it. A black card. And even though it seemed like just an item without much meaning, one of the men standing in front of us stopped smiling.
Stiles noticed that there was a camera just above them, lifting the card so whoever was behind it could see the object. Automatically, the door opened and the men had nothing more to do than let us go inside.
When the door closed behind us, we sighed, worried about what we could find. There was a small corridor, walls were of an intense red that was making my headache. And it seemed like the door in front of us and the walls embracing us shook.
As Stiles opened the door, we were hit with loud music, colourful lights and the smell of alcohol and sweat. Bodies ground against each other, following the compass of the music.
Stiles clutched my hand harder as his other hand rested on Lydia's arm. He didn't want us to get lost in the crowd. We ended up in front of the bar, where three drinks were placed in front of us even though we haven't ordered anything. I furrowed my eyebrows as Stiles sought money inside his pocket.
I felt a hand gripping my shoulder, and jerking around I was met with a man. "No. On the house." He offered us an insincere smile. "Most American teenagers don't cross the border to refuse a drink."
"We didn't come to drink." Lydia clarified, dropping what seemed like a bullet with a skull on it inside the drink.
Of course, we were taken out of the party, to the insides of the building where everything was dark and where now, a woman stood before us. "Severo hates this music. Me? I've always loved the music of youth." We were sitting in front of her, while there were men all around the room, keeping an eye on us. "This kind, especially. It has a savage energy."
"We're here for Derek Hale." I was the first one to speak aloud.
"Is that so?"
"We know you have him. We've heard you can be bought." Lydia was the one continuing while Stiles placed money on top of the table with a loud thump.
"It's 50,000 for Derek."
"Now, where does a teenage boy get money like this? Japanese mafia?" A woman behind us loaded her gun, making Lydia and I jump in our seats as a man did the same next to Stiles. "Not smart to come alone."
"What makes you think we came alone?" The boy next to me smirked, and I couldn't help but take the grin out of my face. Malia, Kira and Scott had come with us.
"You brought a wolf into my home?" She got up from her chair.
It was my turn to smirk. "No, of course not. How could we do that?" She seemed to relax, but only for a couple of seconds due to my following words. "We brought an Alpha."
"My friends..." She sighed as she turned around. "I don't think you're aware of your poor timing. Do you know what the dark moon is?"
"The part of the lunar phase when the moon is least visible in the sky," Lydia said in a robotic tone.
"But do you know its meaning?"
"Some people say it's a time of reflection. Or grief." I intervened.
She glanced at me. "Grief and loss, mija. I wonder why, when you and your friends have suffered so much loss, you would risk it again for someone like Derek Hale."
"'Cause, we don't like to lose."
One of the men next to Araya stopped us from continuing talking as he started speaking to someone on the other line of the walkie talkie. I couldn't help but have a tiny smile on my face when I heard the voice of my brother through it. "Stiles. Take 10 off the table."
As the button-nose boy did what my brother had asked for, I decided to speak up. "Maybe you should just take the deal." Lydia nodded her head, smiling at the woman in a sickeningly way.
"While I'm keen to follow the warning of a Banshee," She glanced at me. "And of course, the one of a Siren. I'm going to have to decline."
"Aaaa... Come on. Just give us Derek. You don't want him anyway. Haven't you noticed what a downer he is? No sense of humour, poor conversationalist." I tried to maintain a serious expression as Stiles's continued speaking. "Just come on, take the money."
Araya grabbed the walkie talkie once again. "Severo? Show them how the Calaveras negotiate." When Araya left the room, the three of us were manhandled by the men. And I wasn't a Banshee, but even I could feel that Scott, Kira and Malia were in great danger right now.
Thinking back, we ended up here because Scott had gone to Derek's lot, just to find that he wasn't there. He had found bullets, and sending a picture to Deaton, he had learnt that it was the mark of a family of hunters based out of Mexico. The Calaveras.
Lydia said that he wasn't sure he was dead, but she also wasn't sure if he was alive, which was perturbing.
"He is awake!" Kira informed us as Stiles and I got closer to my brother, who was lying down on the floor of a dirty and abandoned bathroom, where we have been taken. "Guys, he's awake."
"Scott, you okay?"
"Yeah." He tried to get up. "They don't have him. They don't have Derek."
"We know." I sighed, offering him a smile that he sent back, trying to let me know that he was alright. "But right now, they've got Lydia."
"Lydia? What do they want with Lydia?" He asked rapidly.
"We always have the same question and it is always answered the same way," I spoke as everyone glanced at me. "The power of a Banshee."
My brother rapidly got up from the floor, trying to open the door with his bare hands, which wasn't working.
"We already looked for a way out. I think a lot of people have." I furrowed my eyebrows as Kira talked, not sure of what she meant until I saw the marks on the walls. Marks of people who desperately tried to escape, scratching the walls with all of their strength.
Malia was leaning against a column. "I say when that door opens again, we take out whoever's standing in the way and run for it."
"What about Lydia?" Kira asked, and I sighed, knowing Malia's next words.
"What about her?"
"We're not leaving without her."
"Why not?"
Stiles shook his head, getting closer to her. "Because we don't leave without people. Remember, we talked about this? Rules of the wild kingdom don't apply to friends."
"Is that what you would do as a coyote, leave her for dead?"
"If she was weak and injured, yeah. If hunting had been bad that season, I would eat her. Then I'd leave."
"Mmm. Believe it or not, that's progress." I crossed my arms over my chest. "Stiles and I've been trying to explain everything to her."
"All right, guys, we're not dead yet." My brother interrupted. "And that means Araya wants something."
Kira glanced at the dark-haired boy standing by her side. "But if the Calaveras don't know where Derek is, that means they didn't take him from the loft. Right?"
"Maybe he left on his own." Stiles completed.
Scott glanced at the floor. "Maybe someone else got to him."
We couldn't continue with our theories as the door abruptly opened, showing three men that quickly walked to us. However, we were soon met with darkness.
When I opened my eyes, my head was aching and everything around me seemed to move in circles. My throat was dry as if I haven't drink anything in days. I gradually noticed that I was tied to a chair and that my brother was tied to another one, right next to me.
The door of the room where we were now opened, showing Araya with another man and Lydia. "Oh, God," Lydia murmured as she saw us.
"Let her go. Look... you've got me. Just let the others go." My brother begged as Araya smirked. Her gaze moved to me. My brother followed her gaze, and it seemed like he had noticed from the first time that they had taken me too. "Why did you bring her?"
Lydia was chained to another chair as Kira came inside the room, also chained while a man grabbed her. What was going on? "So, let me explain what's about to happen." The man grabbing Kira spoke. "This one, the fox, has an immunity to electricity. So she's going to turn the dial on the Alpha. If she doesn't, I turn the dial on the Banshee and the Siren."
"No. I'm not doing this." Kira tried to resist.
"I see. Are you sure? One of your friends has the power to heal. The other? Not so much." Severo smirked. "And the other one might end up dying." Who?
"What are you doing?" Scott glanced at the old woman. "Is this a game to you?"
"This is a test, lobito. Let's see if you pass. We're going to ask some questions. You answer them, nobody gets hurt." She walked around us, but I had to close my eyes and lean my head down as everything continued moving around me. "You don't answer, we turn on the dial."
When I looked up again, my brother was looking at the fox girl. "Do what they say. Okay. Whatever they want. I can take it."
"So... We don't know where Derek is. We want to find him as well. You know who took him."
"What?" My brother asked her. "How would I know that?"
"That doesn't sound like an answer to me."
"We don't know." Lydia intervened. "Why do you think we came here?"
"Kira, turn the dial." The woman ordered, but Kira shook her head. "Should we turn the dial on Lydia instead?"
My brother quickly spoke up. "No, no! Do it, Kira. Do it."
"Let's start at one." As soon as she said that, my brother grunted, his hands gripping the chair he was sitting on, trying not to scream in pain. "Tell me! Who actually has Derek? Who had a reason, a vendetta particular to the Hales?"
My brother continued panting. "I said I don't know."
"Oh, you don't know because you haven't figured it out yet. So think! Who could've taken him?" They turned the pain even stronger. "Who had the power? The power of a shapeshifter?"
"I-I don't know."
"Oh! Someone who could have turned without you knowing. Turned, but not by a bite!"
"I don't know!" He screamed.
"Y-you.." My voice was a mere whisper, but swallowing I was able to scream. "You are going to kill him!" There were tears in my eyes. "You are going to kill him! Stop!"
Araya laughed, shaking her head. "No, mi amor." She smirked. "You will die first." I furrowed my eyebrows, feeling the temperature in the room dropping. I was cold. "Something told me lobito right here was going to be hard to peel." Her gaze shifted to my brother. "Your beautiful sister has poison running through her blood." My brother quickly glanced at me. "The longer it stays in her system, the more difficult to take it out. She can end up having seizures." I closed my eyes for a couple of seconds, feeling dizzier than before. "Say the name, Scott."
"Kate." What? Kate Argent?
"Okay," I heard Araya's voice. "Stop the machine." Severo did as he was told as another two men walked to Scott and Lydia, freeing them. My brother quickly walked to me, extending his hands to touch me. However, my body started shaking and I couldn't make it stop. "Severo bring the shot."
The door of the room opened again, this time two men were grabbing Stiles and Malia. Stiles's eyes widened as he saw me shaking while being tied to a chair. Before he could step forward, the man grabbing him stopped his movements.
"Don't dare any of you to touch her now." Araya's strong voice resonated through the room. Severo walked to me, stabbing the side of my neck with the syringe. I could feel the liquid running down my blood. Severo unleashed me, lying me down on the freezing ground as my body continued shaking.
"W-What did you do to her?? You old troll." I wanted to smirk at Stiles's use of vocabulary, but I was too busy being scared of the constant shaking of my body.
"She will be alright," Araya replied. "She has more water in her body than a human. The liquid we injected plus the water will do a quick job in removing the poison."
"N-nice." I tried to sound sarcastic.
"Fever might be a side effect of the poison, but you will be alright."
I watched as my brother talked to Araya while I was leaning against Roscoe with the others. Stiles was constantly asking me if I was alright. I felt a little weak, but my temperature was back to normal.
Scott finally walked to us. "So what now?" My boyfriend asked.
He shrugged. "She thinks she knows where we can find Derek."
"She gonna tell us where?" Malia asked while she leaned her head against my shoulder. My hand went up to play with her hair.
"Uh, actually, she's giving us a guide."
Stiles's face transformed into confusion, but it went away as soon as a big motorbike stopped in front of us. "You know her?" Stiles asked my brother.
As soon as the person took their helmet off, we saw a beautiful black woman whose neck seemed to be scarred. "Braeden."
"Who's Braeden?"
"She's a mercenary," Lydia added.
"Right now, I'm the only one who's gonna take you to la iglesia."
"The Church?" I questioned. "What's The Church?"
"It's not a place you'll find God," I smirked, liking her way of talking.
Getting inside the jeep, we followed her as she took us to la iglesia.
There was a comfortable silence inside Roscoe. The three girls were sitting behind as I sat on the front between my boyfriend and my brother. "Okay, I'll ask." Malia was the one interrupting the silence. "Who's Kate Argent?"
Kira put her hand up. "Uh, I'd like to know, too."
"Well, we were at her funeral. So, I'd like to know how she got out of a casket that was buried six feet underground." I chuckled, nodding my head that was resting on Stiles's shoulder as he drove.
"She was never in it." I glanced at my brother.
"She was Allison's aunt," Lydia spoke, and I could feel the pain in her voice. The pain of someone who recently lost her best friend. WAnd a total sociopath."
"You don't have to talk about it now if you don't want to." Kira whispered while glancing at the back of my brother's head.
"Um, yes, he does." I was going to scold Malia as if she was a curious child that didn't know when to keep her mouth shut.
"Yeah, she's right. You guys should know. You need to know."
"All right." Stiles sighed. "Kate was the one who set the fire that killed most of Derek's family."
"Some of them survived, like Cora, and Peter." Scott added.
"A very angry Peter," Lydia appended.
"Yeah, he's the one who bit and turned me." My brother sighed.
"And the one who scratched me." I added.
"And the one who finally caught up to Kate and killed her." Lydia explained.
"And we saw her buried." Stiles and I replied at the same time. He took his eyes off the road for two seconds to place a kiss on my forehead and ask once again, if I was feeling alright.
"No." Scott shook his head. "We saw a casket, remember? She wasn't in it. The Calaveras heard that Kate had been killed by an Alpha's claws. They wanted to make sure she was really dead. Her body was healing. More and more, as she got closer to a full moon. She was coming back. So they switched out the bodies. If a hunter is bit, they have to take their own life before they change. The Calaveras, they treat the code like law. They make it their responsibility to enforce it."
"Good for her." The were coyote intervened. "I wouldn't do it either."
"Would you kill half a dozen people to get out? Because that's what she did."
Kira sighed, placing her hand on my brother's shoulder. "So Kate's a werewolf now?"
"I don't know. You know, there's a saying, sometimes the shape you take reflects the person you are." I nodded along with my brother's words, remembering Jackson Whittemore. What was of him now?
"What kind of shape is sociopathic bitch?" As soon as the Martin girl spoke, the car was hit by something, making Stiles stop driving as we all got startled. We all got out of the car as Braeden got off her bike to ask what had happened.
"I don't know. It felt like we hit something." Stiles and Scott were examining Roscoe.
"Scott, we need to get there by night. It's too dangerous otherwise."
My brother sighed. "Go." Stiles made a gesture with his hands, trying to let him know that it was okay for him to leave with Braeden.
"Not without you."
"Dude, someone needs to find Derek. We'll figure something out. We always do. Just go."
I walked to my brother, kissing his cheek and embracing him. "Be careful, okay?" He nodded his head, wishing the same for me and sharing a look with Stiles. A look pleading him to take care of me.
Before he walked to the bike, he was stopped by the fox girl. "Scott... I can't think of anything else to say except for be careful. And...and I know 'Be careful' sounds kind of lame and I'm totally sure the second you're gone I'm gonna think of something much better, but I..."
"Uh, 'Be careful' works for me." I smiled as they embraced each other.
I sighed. "They are so cute," I whispered while wandering close to Stiles as his hands rubbed Roscoe's side, making sure that there wasn't any scratch.
"We are cuter." He replied while biting his lower lip and inspecting his jeep. I laughed and nodded my head and watching my brother disappear with Braeden.
"Guys," Malia grunted. Therefore, I turned around to look at her. "I don't think we hit something. I think something hit us." She was holding up what seemed like giant teeth or claw. I couldn't differentiate them, to be honest.
I sighed, leaning against the jeep as I examined my boyfriend inspecting the hood of his car. A screwdriver in his mouth. "Stiles, baby. Don't hate me. I know you love Roscoe but maybe we should just walk." He glanced at me with wide eyes. "It's getting colder and darker." I made a gesture to the girls as they rubbed their arms.
"Hey, I will never abandon this jeep. You understand me? Ever. Ever. Ever."
Malia glanced around. "Work faster, Stiles." She paused as her eyes continued examining the whereabouts. "There's something out here with us." I gulped.
However, night had fallen upon us and Roscoe wasn't working. Malia continued in front of us, glancing around, prepared to attack whatever was observing us. Kira had grabbed her sword while Lydia and I tried to help my stressed boyfriend. "Lydia, could you please hold the light still for a second? It's really hard to see anything if you keep shaking it like that."
Lydia scoffed. "I'm shaking it like this because we're in the middle of nowhere with your broken down jeep and we're being attacked by yet another razor-clawed monster. And I'm terrified."
"Well, just be slightly less terrified." He answered back. "You hold this." He handed me a big metal piece.
"What's this?" I inspected it.
"I don't know. I'm hoping it's not important."
"Oh god." I sighed. Things got worse as the next thing that happened was Malia running towards somewhere or something. "Malia!" I yelled. Kira ran after her while Lydia told Stiles to continue fixing the jeep.
"You... you please don't do that ever again!" Stiles scolded Malia as he drove. The jeep was finally fixed or so we were hoping.
"Do what?" She innocently asked.
"I... I thought you just took off. I thought you were running."
"I was running."
"No, I mean, like, I thought you were leaving."
Malia pouted, looking between Stiles and me. "I wouldn't leave without you guys." We glanced at her. "I would never leave without you two. Them I would leave."
"Yeah. Uh, it's progress." Stiles sighed. "I feel like the dad of a teenager girl." I nodded my head. Stiles and I had taken the paper of teaching Malia what she shouldn't do. The actions she must separate between a human and a were coyote.
"Don't do it again, okay?" I begged. "You scared us." She apologized. "And that doesn't look good."
"It's okay."
"Are you sure?" Kira looked worried as the rest of us. "It looks deep."
"I can feel it healing." I sighed in relief.
"You didn't see anything?" The Martin girl asked.
"Barely. It had a strong scent, though."
"Like what?" I asked while offering her water from my bottle.
She smiled at me as if she was a little puppy, grabbing the plastic bottle. "Like death."
When we finally arrived at the place where Scott and Braeden where we noticed that they were grabbing a young boy. Malia asked if that was Derek, to which Stiles replied 'Sort of'. That young boy was Derek Hale.
“You guys remember fifth grade and how Y/N had a crush on...” Stiles began but was quickly interrupted by a pillow to the face.
He looked to Y/N who was sitting across the living room, one less pillow piled next to her and trying not to fall over form laughing at him.
“That was rude Y/N.”
She simply shrugged, “And you promised to never talk about that. We pinky promised.”
Scott rolled his eyes at his best friends, wondering to himself when the two were going to admit their feeling to themselves. But he wasn’t going to hold his breath. Scott had been watching the two of them pine after the other one since the sixth grade and do nothing about it. So now Scott was stuck in the middle with two secrets that weren’t his, watching how they would hurt when the other one would get into a relationship.
“You wanna know what I want to talk about,” Scott began. Stiles and Y/N looked to their friend, waiting for him to continue. “I want to talk about the crush y’all have had on each other for years.”
Stiles and Y/N looked at each other quickly, the same look of shock across their features. Neither one said anything for a moment, but as a small smile broke out across Stiles’ face Scott know it was the push that they needed.
au.
(gif is not mine, credit to the owner)
warnings / language, so many clichés.
word count / 7.5k
masterlist in bio
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Y/N DIPPED HER hand into the giant, plastic bowl of snacks between her and Stiles, but her eyes remained glued to the tv screen, following the swirling movements of thrumming lightsabers. She took a handful of their famous movie theater mix—which consisted of popcorn, pretzels, m&m's, and mini marshmallows—and she dumped it into her mouth. "I want a lightsaber so bad," she confessed after she'd swallowed her food.
Stiles laughed softly, grabbing some of their junk food combo for himself. "You say that every time," he pointed out, looking at her from his side of the mattress as he crunched down on a pretzel.
She shrugged at his observation, a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth, and she picked up another handful of food. "I know but that doesn't make it any less true," she explained. "I mean, who wouldn't want a weapon that could literally burn somebody's arm off," she elaborated, acting out the scenario with an imaginary lightsaber for emphasis.
He shook his head at her antics but he smiled nonetheless. "I guess that'd be pretty cool, actually," he admitted with a small twitch of his shoulders, popping a piece of popcorn and a marshmallow into his mouth after he did. "With all the bullshit that's happened to us these past few years, a lightsaber would've come in handy," he added.
Y/N poured the rest of the snacks that were sitting in the palm of her hand into her mouth and nothing but sweetness flooded her tastebuds. She nodded knowingly at Stiles. "See? Point proven," she said. "Plus, it would be a really cool to just whip that baby out at a party in college or something, too. Maybe cut a pillow in half or something or slice a solo cup out of someone's hand, you know?"
"I'm sure you'd do that more than cutting arms off," he told her and she laughed.
"Touché." With a soft smile on her lips, she sat up straighter and moved to sit cross-legged on top of his mattress. "Speaking of college, though, did you ever get your letter from G-Dub?" She questioned, talking about his letter from George Washington University.
During their senior year, Stiles and Y/N had applied there in hopes that maybe they would get to go to their dream school together, but as a backup, they'd also applied to Beacon Hills Community College. She'd received her admissions letter that morning, though, and she was wondering if Stiles had gotten his, too.
At her question, he nodded his head and he pointed to a small, white envelope sitting on his bedside table. "It came yesterday," he told her and her heart fluttered in his chest. He hadn't told her that, but then again, she hadn't told him about hers yet, either. "I was waiting until you got yours because you said you wanted to open them together. Did yours come in yet?"
"Yeah, I brought it with me just in case," she answered and she reached into one of the side pockets of her backpack, which sat on the floor beside her, and she pulled out an envelope identical to the one on Stiles' nightstand. She tossed it onto the mattress in front of her and she looked over at him. "Do you think we should open them right now?" She asked, almost nervously.
Even though Y/N had always been the type to mull over every possible outcome for a scenario like this, she'd be lying if she said she hadn't tried her very best to think positively about this one. Ever since the idea popped in her head that she and Stiles might end up at the same college across the country, she'd put every part of herself towards believing that it was gonna pan out the way that they'd planned.
The community college was her fallback for her education, but if something were to go wrong, she'd never wanted to think about finding a backup best friend. As far as she was concerned, they either both got in or neither of them did, as unrealistic as that was.
Stiles was quiet for a minute as he looked at the envelope on his bed and he nodded once. "Yeah, I mean, now's as good a time as any, I guess," he said and he gestured to his letter. "Would you pass me mine?"
Y/N nodded and she leaned back, turning to the side a bit so she could snatch the letter off of the wooden surface. "Should we do it at the same time?" She asked, uncertainty playing in her voice, as she handed him his letter and he nodded.
"Sure, we'll just get it out of the way." He took the letter softly in his hands, like one wrong move would decide his fate, and he brushed his thumb over the blue and buff letters. "I have a good feeling about this, though," he told her and he flashed her a toothy grin.
As much as she wanted to say the same, she couldn't deny the pattering of her heart or the twisting of her stomach as she plucked her envelope off of his bed. The way the two-dimensional Colonial stared up at her felt like it was taunting her, which honestly wouldn't surprise her, all things considered. She tried to push the negative thoughts from her mind for Stiles' sake, though, and she managed a small smile. "Yeah, me, too," she lied. Her thumb brushed at the lip of the envelope nervously and she looked up at Stiles. "You ready?"
She could see the excitement on his face mingle with his nerves for the split second he doubted himself before nodding. "Yeah, let's do it," he told her.
Y/N tore into her letter a little slower than Stiles did, both of their fingers ripping up the seals that trapped their futures inside. She pulled the piece of paper out from the inside and let the envelope fall into her lap. Part of her wanted to just stare at it and leave it folded, hoping that maybe that would let her stay in this stage of her life forever—the in-between stage.
Where everything was easy.
She didn't, though. She straightened out the paper and her eyes skimmed over the first line, her heart pounding in her ears like a drumroll.
Whatever it said was the beginning of the rest of her life.
Dear Miss Y/L/N,
⠀⠀⠀⠀We regret to inform you—
We regret to inform you.
We regret to inform you.
⠀⠀⠀⠀We regret to inform you that your application to George Washington University has been denied.
She didn't get in.
Y/N's heart sunk immediately and it was like someone vacuumed all the air out of her lungs. She looked up from her letter to see Stiles, with his eyes twinkling brightly and a big ol' smile plastered to his face, and she could only assume that his status was quite the opposite. She suppressed every feeling that started to weigh her down. "What does yours say?" She asked like she didn't already know, but Stiles deserved to share his triumph for once.
Stiles let out a laugh of disbelief and he turned his letter around so she could see. His Congratulations stared her right in the face and her chest swelled for him, even if it aches for herself. "I got in," he told her, pointing at the page and she couldn't help but smile. "Y/N/N, I got in," he repeated excitedly.
She laughed softly and she nodded, pushing his wrist down gently with one of her hands. "I see, Stiles," she said, "and I'm so proud of you," she told him. This is what he'd wanted for the longest time and it was only fitting that he got it.
"What about you?" He asked. "Did you get in?"
At that, her smile faltered and she looked down at her paper, running her thumb over the printed letters. "Yeah, well, that's the thing." She sighed and she turned her letter around. It was probably stupid, but showing her letter to Stiles felt like one of the hardest things she'd ever done. It was like she was tearing down the foundation of the future they'd built together. She couldn't help the fact that she didn't get accepted and she definitely couldn't change it, but even so, it made her feel like she'd let Stiles down.
His honey-glazed eyes flitted over the page and his face dropped. "They rejected you," he stated matter-of-factly, but it was more to himself than to her.
Hearing him say it was almost like solidification of the fact. "Yeah, but it's okay. You got in and that's all that matters," she told him and he shook his head.
"I'm not going without—"
"Oh, don't be stupid, Stiles, this is your dream school," Y/N rebutted before he even had the chance to finish. "You're going." There was no way in hell that she was gonna let him turn down his dream school just so he could go to a community college with her. It just wasn't happening. The fact that he even considered it was ridiculous.
Stiles grabbed both of their letters and set them off to the side. "But it's your dream school, too," he told her.
Y/N shook her head softly and she did her best to smile at him. "Still. It's okay, Stiles," she promised. "It's okay," she repeated, more for herself than for him that time.
"Y/N/N—"
"It's okay," she said again, her voice breaking as she did. The harder she tried to hold herself together, the more she felt herself coming apart. "It's really okay."
And that was the last time she said it before she split at the seams, all of her strength just dissipating. Her resolve crumbled and the tears that had been stinging in the spaces behind her eyes this whole time came dripping down her cheeks.
Stiles was quick to reach out to her. "Hey, hey," he whispered, cupping her cheeks in his warm hands and swiping every fresh tear away with the pads of his thumbs. He then moved to wrap his arms around her shoulders and he pulled her into his chest.
Warmth surrounded her the second that he pulled her into him and she shifted for a second to drape her legs over his lap, sliding her arms around his torso. Y/N touched her forehead to his shoulder and closed her eyes, letting the comfort he brought her work against her disappointment. "I don't know what we're gonna do, Stiles," she admitted, hugging him a little bit tighter.
All she really wanted to do at that point was stay in his arms.
Who knew how many more chances she'd get before distance separated them.
Stiles' chest rose and fell with a gentle sigh at her words and, with one of his hands, he rubbed her back softly. "Well, I know," he mumbled and he tilted his head to where his cheek squished into her hair. His fingers brushed the ends of her hair and he threaded them through it.
"You'll be all the way across the country," she told him, squeezing him tighter. She could feel his lips kiss the top of her head—something else she'd miss—and it made her feel safe. Stiles had always had a way of doing that.
"We'll text all the time, like nonstop conversation, and update each other on what's going on in our lives. We'll have short phone calls when we're both free for a minute and we can FaceTime every night before bed," Stiles promised her, like he'd already planned everything out for this worst case scenario. She wanted to laugh at that because of course he would be the one who knew how to handle the least positive outcome, but she didn't. She just focused on the hum of his chest as he talked. "Maybe every other night if we both get busy, though. But we won't lose touch, okay? You mean too much to me."
A bittersweet smile tugged at her lips at his words and she nodded her head against him. "Yeah," she said and she looked up at him. "Yeah, okay. I just— I can't lose you. You're my best friend and I'm pretty sure I would literally fall apart without you," she confessed, hoping that he understood that the thought of not being within driving distance anymore was crushing.
His chest jerked as he huffed out a laugh. "Yeah, me, too, actually," he admitted and she could feel his arms tighten around her. Sometimes she felt like they were the only things holding her together. "We've got our whole summer for now, though," he reassured her and she sighed, trying to push the day he'd leave her from her mind and focus on the time she was spending with him now.
"Do you think your dad would care if I stayed over tonight?" Y/N asked softly, pulling away from him just enough to maintain eye contact, and Stiles shook his head.
"No, you know he loves you," he told her and she nodded softly. She usually ended up staying after every movie night whether his dad was home or not.
It was routine at that point.
She glanced over at his pillows and then she looked back at him. "Do you wanna hold me a little longer while we finish the movie or something, then?" It was almost like she didn't even have to ask, honestly, because halfway through the question Stiles was already repositioning.
He let go of her just so he could get situated and when she got comfortable next to him, he held his arm out to her. "You know I'll come visit you every time I can afford a plane ticket, right?" Stiles questioned as she snuggled into his side.
Y/N wiggled her way beneath his comforter as she pressed into him and she nodded. "I know," she whispered and she hoped to God that he would.
But people tended to get busy when they left for college.
Maybe things would be different for them.
—
The end of summer seemed like it had rushed itself that year and the day for Stiles to leave Beacon Hills came faster than either of them had hoped. Y/N's stomach had been in knots the entire morning as she tried to prepare herself to watch her best friend leave her behind. It was even worse when they'd gotten to the airport.
When Stiles has asked her to drive him to the airport, having already given the keys to the jeep to Scott, she'd agreed without hesitation. She'd figured it would make things easier, to be the last person to see him before he left, but it didn't.
It was still as hard as it'd been that entire summer.
Her heart was racing, now, as she walked with him to his gate, wondering how all of their time had passed them by so quickly. She didn't want him to go. She wasn't ready. Part of her wanted to ask him to turn around and walk back to the entrance with her, tell him that she forgot something in the car, and then make the trip across the airport all over again just to get a few more minutes with him, but she didn't. She just kept thinking about how their goodbye's were speeding towards them now and she felt sick to her stomach.
She could see his gate now and that only made everything worse.
"Hey," Stiles whispered and she realized she must've seemed uneasy because he took her hand in his softly and they came to a halt. "It's okay, Y/N/N," He reassured her with a gentleness she would miss in his smile, brushing his thumb over her hand softly. "We'll still talk all the time. I'll send you care packages. We won't drift, I promise you," he said.
Y/N appreciated his effort but it did nothing to ease the worries she'd built up all summer. She knew how this would go, so she let a sad smile make its way onto her face, deciding to embrace the situation for what it was. "Maybe not at first, Stiles, but you know it's gonna get harder and harder to keep in touch. We're gonna get busy," she pointed out and her voice was tired. Melancholic. "And you mean so much to me. I hate thinking about losing you, but it's just—"
"You won't lose me!" He exclaimed and he cut her off, tearing his hand out of hers and throwing it up in the air for emphasis.
She wanted to believe that, but: "Stiles, you're gonna be across the freaking country!" She told him. There was a reason that long distance relationships, romantic or platonic, didn't last forever. It didn't matter how much you loved someone, because if you got busy, distance could be the hardest thing to overcome.
"So what, Y/N?" Stiles asked and for the first time all summer, they were addressing the fact that things might not be different for them. The second that he left, they might just end up like everyone else and their best friend who left for college. And that sucked. "I'd cross it a thousand times to get to you, I'm in—" love with you.
"Stop," She almost yelled as soon as the words threatened to leave his mouth, cutting him off.
The look of hurt and confusion that clouded his face was almost overwhelming, but she knew. She knew what he was going to say because she'd known it for a while now.
She knew it from the way that he could read her in ways that nobody else seemed to notice, from the way that he would grab her hand or pull her into his side at every opportunity given to him, from the kisses he would pepper over her forehead during movie nights. He'd never explicitly said it, like he was just about to, but he'd never kept that affection to himself. Stiles had shown her how much he loved her for years.
Y/N loved him, too, of course. I mean, could she not when she spent every waking moment with him? They had always been so much more to each other than best friends, but she just couldn't say that right now.
Couldn't hear it, either.
Not when he was about to fly across the country.
"Miecz," she whispered and the golden brown of his eyes met her own. She could see how much he wanted to tell her in his face and her heart ached. "I know, okay? You know I am, too, but if you say it, it's gonna make this so much harder," she admitted, her voice quiet as it passed over the knot in her throat. "Please, don't say it."
Stiles sighed and he nodded his head sadly. "Fine. Just c'mere, then," he muttered. "As much as I'd like to stay here with you forever, I have to go," he told her and he held his arms out to her. She stepped into them with no second thoughts, wrapping her arms around his shoulders while his clasped around her torso. He squeezed her into his chest as tight as he could and he closed his eyes, trying to remember every little feeling about this hug. Every little detail of this moment.
She clung to his chest as he did that, burying her face in his neck. She promised herself to memorize the way that he smelled like freshly laundered clothes and cinnamon and to never forget how warm and safe that being in his arms made her feel. After that, Y/N didn't want to let him go and when the time came for him to pull away, she almost whimpered.
"Goodbye, Y/N," he said quietly, not that it made it sting any less, and every ounce of strength that she'd build up inside of her, just melted away.
Y/N's eyes began to tear up and she couldn't even see him clearly anymore. "Goodbye, Stiles." Her voice cracked, making her efforts to not cry known.
"Hey, none of that," he told her teasingly and they both laughed softly, but she couldn't help the tears that were slipping down her cheeks anyways. Stiles thumbs were flicking them away as fast as they fell and she didn't want to know if anyone would wipe her tears once he left. "Don't forget me," he joked.
She shot him a look. "You know I could never. Call me when you land, please," she said and she placed her hands over his, cupping them to her face for just a moment longer.
Stiles nodded, poking her nose with one of his thumbs gentle, and his hands slipped gently from her own. He grabbed the handle of his suitcase and turned towards his gate. Y/N watched him walk away from her, with all the belongings he could fit stuffed in his suitcase, and she frowned.
When Stiles had almost reached the gate, he stopped in his tracks and Y/N wondered if he'd her silent pleas for him to stay. Stiles let go of his suitcase and he looked over his shoulder at her. "Is everything okay?" She called out to him, worry starting to set in at that point. "Did you forget something?"
"Yeah," he told her, nodding his head quickly. He started back towards Y/N hurriedly, tugging one of his hands through his dark hair as he did, and just when he got close enough to stop, he didn't. Instead, Stiles slipped one of his hands around her waist, resting it on the small of her back, and he cupped her jaw with the other. Before she even had the chance to process what he was doing, he tilted her face up and smashed his lips against hers.
A quiet mmph sounded against his mouth and her eyes blew wide for a second, but once she got over the initial surprise, Y/N melted into him. Her eyes fluttered shut and she pressed the palms of her hands on the surface of his chest, puckering her lips against his. Maybe this would've been weird if they'd been anyone else, but after years of dancing around their feelings for each other, she felt nothing short of comfort and relief.
Kissing Stiles was like the first sip of water after a workout or the first second you sat down after a long day. It was refreshing.
And it sent tingles radiating through her body, all the way down to the tips of her toes.
After a few more seconds of being selfish, Stiles found it in himself to pull away softly, lips swollen and breath heavy. Y/N looked at him in disbelief as he did, watching that familiar, shit-eating grin tug at his lips, and she couldn't help but smile, too. "It definitely makes it harder knowing I won't get to do that again for a while, but fuck it, Y/N, I am so in love with you," he confessed and she sputtered out a small laugh, her eyes starting tear up again.
She blinked them away, though.
"God, I can't believe you just did that, Stilinski," she whispered and she smoothed our the wrinkles on the front of his shirt. "You're such a sap for this stuff."
Stiles shrugged his shoulders softly. "I mean," he paused, "I'm a sap who loves you," he cooed teasingly, looking down at her with a crooked smile.
Y/N shook her head at him. "Good Lord," she laughed and he tilted his head at her.
"You know, you don't say it back soon, I don't think you're ever gonna get rid of me," he continued to joke, swaying their hips together slowly from side to side.
"Well, maybe, I don't want to get rid of you," she said.
"Just say it back," he muttered softly, his voice having lost all of its playful undertones, and he pressed a sweet kiss between her eyebrows. "I have to go, but I want to hear you say it in person. Just once."
"Oh. Yeah." She'd almost forgotten why they were even at the airport in the first place. "I love you," she admitted, goosebumps prickling her arms as she did. "I am head over heels in love with you, Stiles Stilinski," she promised him and she rubbed one of his shoulders gently. "Now, go, Stiles. You're gonna miss your flight if you don't," she said through a gentle smile.
Obviously, she still wasn't completely okay with Stiles leaving, but this time, when he turned away and rushed towards the gate again, things seemed a little more doable. Especially when he looked over his shoulder and shouted one last I love you.
She smiled, shaking her head at that, and she watched him go.
—
Two months came and went just as quick since the day that Y/N had dropped Stiles off at the airport. In the beginning, they'd done everything that Stiles promised they would. They texted nonstop and FaceTimed every night and it had been great. It had been normal, you know, aside from the fact that instead of being an eight minute drive away, he was more than two thousand miles away.
But things had been different lately.
Two weeks ago, the texts had been more scattered and the FaceTime calls had stopped altogether, but this week, there had been nothing.
Y/N wasn't sure, exactly, how Stiles was going about his days in New York, but she was swamped. She would go to class in the mornings, work at night, and she would fit the gym or a run in somewhere in between. She felt like that was all she did anymore and she would bet something hefty that Stiles was having the same problem.
As she sat her desk one rainy night, though, flipping through her overly highlighted notes and studying for her upcoming biology midterm, she couldn't help but think about him. She remembered when they used to study together, papers and empty, snack-sized Cheezit bags scattered across the room, and she wished he was here with her right now. Stiles had always made studying tolerable with his stupid jokes and this tendency to get distracted easily. She missed him so much.
She found herself frowning at the thought of her best friend and she picked up her phone to shoot him a text.
One cliché thinking of you text couldn't hurt, right?
Her fingers tapped away on the screen and she pressed send without a second thought. She stared at her phone for a minute or two longer, half-expecting an immediate response, but when she realized she wasn't getting one, she set her phone facedown beside her. Stiles responding to her wasn't her main concern right now, studying for her midterm was. She reminded herself of that silently and she stared back down at her notebook.
She'd been so caught up in worrying about Stiles that she couldn't even remember where she'd left off, let alone what else she needed to brush up on.
Before she could figure it out, her phone chimed and she'd never grabbed it so fast. Y/N read the notification on her screen and she rolled her eyes. "I don't care about your stupid sale, Urban Outfitters," she growled.
Normally, a notification from a clothing store wouldn't elicit such a response from her, but the lack of contact from her best friend was so frustrating. Before college, Stiles and Y/N going thirty minutes without talking to each other was absolutely unheard of, but, now, they'd gone a week without speaking and twice as long without having a proper conversation. Now, she wasn't even getting a text back.
The thought made Y/N sigh, blowing a piece of her hair out of her face, and she realized it was probably untrue. Stiles would always text her back eventually, but he was busy now. For all she knew, he could be drowning in three times as much work as she was or hanging out with his new best friend or something, assuming he'd made one.
But she would hear from him eventually.
She knew that.
It was just annoying, because she missed him. She missed his dorky little smile, his giggle, and the way his face would light up when he saw her even if he'd seen her every day that week. She missed the color of his eyes, the softness of the flannels he wore, and how he would go out of his way to make sure she was happy or comfortable. She just missed him.
Life without her best friend in the same town seemed indescribably harder and it only got worse when they didn't talk as much.
Y/N decided that it was in her best interest to shut off the display on her phone and toss it onto her bed. She'd never get any studying done if all she did was check her phone. If he texted, she would hear it. That's what she told herself when she settled back in her chair and looked down at her notes again. It was easier to focus on what she was doing and push all thoughts of Stiles out of her head when her phone was no longer in reaching distance.
She'd found herself flipping through the text for not even a half an hour before there was a knock at the door and she rolled her eyes. "Of course," she muttered to herself, because if it wasn't one thing distracting her from studying, it was always another.
With a sigh, she stood up out of her desk chair and made her way over to her mirror. She wasn't sure who would be at the door at this time of night, but she wanted to make sure she was presentable when she shooed them away, at least. She tucked a few wild strands of hair that had been sticking out of her bun back under the elastic and she smoothed down her flyaways with her hands. It wouldn't last long, but it was the best she could do with such short notice.
Giving her breath a quick smell and deciding it was alright, she stepped away from her reflection and made her way towards the door. She wasn't sure whether if she would be opening the door up to a person or if it'd be something like the movies where someone dropped a baby on her doorstep, but she definitely wasn't expecting what she got. Y/N opened her front door with a lazy sigh, kicking her foot in front of it almost in annoyance, and when she looked up to greet the person standing there, her jaw dropped.
Y/N shut her door before she had a chance to process anything. There was no way he was here, he was supposed to be all the way in New York. Across the country. She concluded that because it was late and she'd spent hours studying, her mind was just playing tricks on her. She'd been thinking about Stiles all night and the text she sent was probably some stupid trigger to this weird ass hallucination, but he wasn't here.
Right?
Just as she was about to work herself into a full-on freak-out, there was another knock at the door and it sounded softer, more hesitant that time. It seemed to snap her out of her thoughts and she regained her composure long enough to open the door again. All of her thoughts that sided with her denial were cast aside when she saw him, in the same exact position as he'd been ten seconds before.
In all of his honey-eyed and speckled-skinned glory, Stiles was standing on her doorstep with the softest of smiles on his face. His brown hair, which seemed longer than she remembered it, was matted to his forehead and water was dripping off of his soaking wet clothes. A black duffel bag was draped over one of his shoulders, and with his opposite hand, he held out a bouquet of wet, white daisies. The flowers were droopy and sad as a result of the downpour, but the thought was so sweet that her stomach churned at the sight.
She looked down at the flowers and, then, back up at him, and somewhere in between, she felt tears pricking in the spaces behind her eyes. "Hey," Stiles hummed awkwardly and he extended his hand a little further, tilting the flowers toward her, and she fought a small laugh as she reached for them. She would've gotten a vase for them, but they were absolutely pitiful, now. Her eyebrows furrowed almost amusedly as she took the bouquet from his hands and lifted one of the soggy petals. "Those— That—" He started to speak, but his voice cracked. He settled for clearing his throat and he laughing awkwardly first. "They weren't like that when I bought 'em, I promise," he said, gesturing to the flowers in her hands.
Y/N couldn't help but laugh as she tilted them sideways, tucking them gently into the crook of her elbow. "I'm sure they were beautiful before the rain, so thank you," she said, sparing them another look, and she grinned up at him. Limp floral arrangements aside, she figured it was probably a good time to address the elephant in the room. Or on her porch, in that case. "What are you doing here, Stiles?" She questioned softly, her smile twitching slightly.
"I missed you," he confessed without missing a beat. Y/N's smile fell into something sadder and she felt her heart stutter. "A lot." The half-nervous, half-excited look that had been plastered to Stiles' face the entire time she'd been looking at him faltered and his eyebrows knitted together. "Is this— Are— Are you not happy to see me or something?" He questioned through a half-smile, but she could see the way it'd stopped reaching his eyes.
"No. Oh, my God, no." She was so quick to hold her hand out, to brush it over his forearm briefly and shake her head at him. "Of course, I'm happy to see you, it's just..." Y/N trailed off, pressing her hand against her forehead softly and sighing. "You can't do this, Stiles," she confessed to him, her voice rising a little.
Confusion and anger washed over his face. "Can't do what, Y/N/N? See my best friend anymore?" Stiles snapped, his questions carrying a bit of a bite to them.
She let out a huff of air in disbelief. He knew exactly what she was talking about. How could he not when their feelings were the main thing that made the distance so hard, anyways? "You can't just show up on my doorstep out of the blue like this. You can't just plan this whole grand gesture and expect everything to turn out like the movies," she retorted, her voice softer that time. She had no idea how long it had taken Stiles to get there, but she knew if it was the other way around, it would've sucked ass if the first thing he did was yell at her. "Nothing's changed. Just because you're here now doesn't mean you don't still live thousands of miles away," she continued.
Stiles nodded and he slotted his thumb beneath his duffel bag, slipping it off of his shoulder and letting it fall beside his feet. "Look, I get it, okay? I know that this is about what happened at the airport and I know you think we'd be better off forgetting we ever said anything, but I don't. Y/N, I can't," he confessed, his eyes pleading with her. That was exactly what she'd been trying to avoid, because long distance felt impossible, and every time she thought about it, she got teary-eyed, and this was no exception. She could feel the pinpricks in her throat. "I love you. I am so in love with you that it hurts to not see you everyday. I think about you all the time, I miss you all the time. Plus, we haven't talked in weeks and nothing has ever sucked more, and I just wanted to see you. I wanted to see my best friend," he finished and Y/N was brushing a tear off of her cheek.
Part of him wanted to reach out and do it for her, but he wasn't sure how she'd react, so he kept still. She met his eyes and she couldn't help but flash him a sad smile. "I love you, too, Stiles, just," she paused, before she leaned over and snatched up his duffel bag in her free hand, "get inside, already. You didn't come all this way to catch a cold," she ordered in a motherly manner and he grinned to himself the second she retreated into the house.
It was like all had been forgiven and forgotten for the time being as he stepped into her home and closed the door softly behind him. Y/N placed his bag on the floor next to him and the bouquet of drowned flowers on the table, and she hurried off to go grab him a towel.
—
When Y/N had come back with the towel, she'd wrapped it around him tightly and pressed an affectionate kiss on his cheek, before rushing him off to the bathroom to take a warm shower and put on some dry clothes. He'd come out a half hour later in a gray t-shirt and blue pajama pants.
The two of them had been in her room ever since, laying on opposite sides of her mattress with her bedside lamp on, and Stiles wet clothes were tumbling in the dryer. "You know, I was actually studying before you showed up and I couldn't get you out of my head," Y/N confessed, rolling over onto her side to look at him. She tucked one of her arms beneath her head.
She could see the way Stiles' eyebrows quirked up from his side profile and he looked over at her with a shit-eating grin on his face. "Seriously?" He asked, folding his hands over his chest, and she nodded. "The same thing happens to me every time I get a second alone and I decided enough was enough. That's why I'm here," he hummed, tapping his thumbs on the fabric of his shirt, and she smiled softly at him. "On a scale of one to ten, how surprised were you?" He asked with a smirk.
Y/N laughed at that. "I think like an eight at first, but now that everything's settled in, I'm not even fazed. I'm glad you're here, though, even if I came off a little hostile at first," she confessed.
Stiles rolled over, tired of looking at her from the side, and he reflected her position. "Really?" He questioned.
She nodded. "Really, I missed you so much," she affirmed, her heart fluttering as she said it, and she didn't miss the way that his grin brightened. "I think if you hadn't shown up today, I probably would've flown to see you by the end of the week," she continued.
Instead of following along with that scenario, as much as he wanted to, Stiles pushed himself up onto his elbow and he shot her a look to challenge that. "There's no way in Hell you'd be that spontaneous and we both know it," he said, calling her out, and she sputtered out a laugh in response.
"Hey." Her mouth opened up and her eyebrows furrowed in mock offense at his words. "I can be spontaneous, Stilinski," she defended and the atmosphere seemed to shift.
There was a flicker of something in Stiles' eyes and he lifted his brows. "Oh, yeah?" He asked quietly and his tone seemed a little darker than it had before, almost daring, and her eyebrows quirked up to mimic his own. "Prove it, Y/L/N," he hummed and she could feel a blush settle in on her cheeks.
With a sudden surge of confidence, she shrugged her shoulders. "Fine," she hummed, a sly lilt playing in her voice. "Come to think of it, I don't think I ever gave you a proper welcome," she said, and Stiles hmmed quietly, touching his fingers to his chin as he pretended to rack his brain.
Finally, he shook his head with mock clueless. "Yeah, I don't think you did."
Before he could open his mouth and say something stupid again, Y/N found herself reaching across the bed. She pushed his shoulder to the side, moving him so he was flat on his back, and in the blink of an eye, she swung her leg over his waist. When she was straddling him, she smirked down at him. Stiles' eyes had blown wide with surprise, but his grin was so eager. She leaned down closer to him, her lips ghosting over his cheekbone as she went to whisper in his ear. "Guess I should change that."
"Please, do," Stiles encouraged, his hands coming to caress her hips, and she laughed, breaking character.
Y/N pressed a soft, sweet peck against his lips, pulling back to grin at him, before she leaned in to do it all over again. She kissed him again slowly, moving her lips sensually against his, and she ran her hands up and down his chest lightly. She took it upon herself to tilt her head to the side, deepening the kiss, and a low moan elicited from the back of Stiles' throat.
One of his hands travelled to the small of her back in the new heat of the kiss and the other slid up between her shoulder blades, to keep her steady. Stiles moved to flip their bodies carefully, guiding her down onto the bed so he could hover over her in turn, slotting his legs between hers. He held himself up with one of his forearms, his other hand tracing the curve of her torso, and he continued to kiss her passionately, like the lack of contact between them the past few weeks was getting to him (and frankly, it was).
When neither of them could breathe anymore and they were panting against each other's lips, Y/N's mouth disconnected from his and she grinned up at him. His cheeks were flushed and his lips were swollen, and it made her stomach flutter to know it was all her doing. She brought a hand up to cup one of his cheeks, brushing her thumb in semicircles over his face. "I've got something I need to tell you," she said and he hummed curiously in response. "I've been applying into colleges in Virginia recently, but I didn't wanna tell you about it unless I got accepted into one," she confessed.
Stiles let his side lower down into the bed, so he didn't have to keep holding himself up, but his legs were still crossed with her own. "So, why are you telling me, then?" He asked quietly, playing with the hem of her t-shirt absentmindedly, and she waited for it to click. After a few seconds, his hand halted on her hip and his head shot up. "Wait, are you serious?" He blurted.
Y/N couldn't keep from smiling at his reaction, and she nodded. "Yeah, NVCC," she told him. "I know community college isn't ambitious, but I can't afford the out-of-state tuition for a four-year. Plus, I worked things out with NV and they said if I worked on campus, I'd get state resident tuition. How can I pass that up if it means I get to be closer to you, too?" She explained.
Looking at Stiles, she wasn't sure if the news had settled in yet, because the shock in his face was only growing. "Y/N, I swear to God. If you're kidding, I'll literally get my stuff and leave right now, because I—"
"I'm not kidding, Stiles," she stopped him mid-sentence. "I was actually thinking we could get an apartment together in between our campuses. They're only like twenty minutes apart, so it'd perfect."
He shook his head at her in disbelief. "Dude, you don't even have to ask," he replied. "If it means I can have you with me all the time, then fuck yes. When are you transferring?"
"Next semester," she told him and he couldn't help but kiss her again. His hand slid over her jawline and into her hair as he captured her lips in his own.
"God, have I told you that I love you?" He questioned when he pulled away, and Y/N laughed.
She pretended to think about it, taking a page from his book, and she shrugged. "Not sure. Maybe you should tell me again just for good measure."
