Chapter Text
Here’s the unfortunate truth about Stiles: he latches onto things, and he latches onto people.
Derek has the terrible luck of being the new object of Stiles’s affection, and Stiles isn’t good at being alone.
It’s also an ugly fact that Stiles isn’t really a relationship guy. That is: he’s in love with Derek, and he’s been in love with Derek, and he absolutely wants to settle down and live with him and marry the fuck out of him, and he absolutely wants to adopt beautiful little babies and call them dumb nicknames and bake for them, and blah blah, and all this and that.
But Stiles isn’t a relationship guy. He’s never really been in one before Derek, which is sad and pathetic because he’s in his twenties and the most he’s ever got from someone is a fuck-buddies kind of deal with this guy in college that was never very kind, and the most he’s ever got was his freaky obsession with Lydia during high school.
Stiles obsesses, and he sinks his teeth into things, and apparently that’s detrimental to his every day living.
Derek’s sat on the bed next to where Stiles is lying down. He’s reading a book and he’s got a little furrow between his brows.
Stiles knows. He knows, he knows, that Derek is going to say something.
And it’s dumb; like, it’s totally fucking idiotic, because Stiles knows Derek’s family, and he’s close to them. He picked them up at the airport and joked with them, and Derek goes a little quiet for a little time while he’s with his family – after not seeing them for so, so long, besides – and it feels like this thing that’s too big, too big, for Stiles to wrap his hands around.
It’s him, he knows, that has created this feeling inside of his own head, because Derek had been soft and kind to him when carrying him home, but Stiles knows, he knows, that Derek is going to say something.
“I’ve never,” Stiles starts. The quiet between them is familiar and nothing, nothing, but Stiles knows that he’s the one who’s been a fucking freak about this for no reason, except: “…been in a relationship before, and I guess I weirded out a lot at the thought of hanging out with your family and you in the capacity of, like,” he waves his hand around loosely, “your boyfriend.”
Derek has put down his book, with his finger marking the page still, like he’s not expecting this to be a long conversation. Likely, it won’t be. “You have some dependency issues,” Derek says. There’s a lilt to the sentence, like there’s a part two, but there isn’t.
He doesn’t offer anything else.
“I just get caught up in my work, and you weren’t, like, coming around to the bakery–”
“For a few days, and you found something else to fixate on, and you hurt yourself.” Derek looks down at his book, and he looks out the window, and he looks back at Stiles. “What do you think is honestly so different?”
This whole thing could go in two ways:
The first, and the ideal, is that they will stay together. They will argue and make up, and they’ll buy a nice little house together and have all the boring fucking domestic crap that Stiles wants with Derek.
The second is, obviously, that they’ll break up. They won’t work out, because Stiles is abrasive and awkward and Derek can be quiet and they both pick at the ugly little things, and they both press in different ways. Stiles’s co-dependence puts Derek in a weird and uncomfortable situation, because it’s unfair to him, and it’s unfair to Stiles, that Derek should be the one looking out for Stiles all the time. Stiles has the horrible little habit of latching onto people, and he freaked himself out so hard over – he doesn’t even know what over, the idea of the future, maybe, that he hurt himself, just like Derek said.
It’s an ugly thing that Stiles is, sometimes, but he’s always had his dad, and he’s always had Scott, and he’s never really had someone in the capacity that he has Derek now.
But, like – what is different? They’re best friends who kiss and have sex, and they’ve not talked about the future at all.
He’s just dramatic. He’s dramatic, and he’s gay, and he’s tired.
“I didn’t want to smother you, or whatever, I guess,” Stiles says, because this is likely the closest thing to the truth that he can think of: he didn’t want to be the overbearing boyfriend who pushes himself into every crevice of Derek’s life. But Derek has let him into these spaces anyway, and he’s always been there. “I don’t know. I’m new to this.”
“I don’t want to be put in a position where I have to be constantly worrying about you,” Derek reaches over and pushes Stiles’s hair out of his face, runs his fingers through it, “and you know you’re my best friend, and you know my family. I know this is new to you, but you don’t have to think so hard about it. Nothing has changed.”
Stiles is quiet, and doesn’t know where to start. He always freaks out, and he always ruins things.
But Derek’s hands feel nice in his hair, and he thinks that he can start there.