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Boyd sees the whole picture, the spiderwebbing cracks that hide in the warp of the paint. He’s young in age only and he understands consequence. That’s why he’s the only one of the pack – either through design or hubris – to sit with the idea of being a werewolf before becoming one. In the end, he chooses a pack, a family, because he doesn’t have one.
Not anymore.
Derek comes to him like a monster out of a children’s book and Boyd almost forgets that this isn’t one of his stories. The stories that started as a way to explain why his dad would have stepped out their door and forgotten how to come back through it. Long before Boyd’s eyes would glow gold, he’d invented all kinds of fantastical scenarios about alternate dimensions and people-eating streets and he’d regale his mother nightly. She only got sadder each day his father stayed gone and he’d thought maybe the stories – maybe the knowing – was the key to changing that.
One night, mid-transmorgification theory, she’d slammed down the frying pan and snapped, “That’s enough, Vernon.”
Boyd stopped telling his mother his stories after that. But he didn’t stop creating them, not until four years later. Not until after his sister drowned in their bathtub.
He could still remember standing on the stepstool, sneakers precariously slippery on the soles, his hand buried up to his elbow in the soapy water of the kitchen sink. His G.I. Joe had been exploring the murky depths of its basin – clutched, protected, in a tight fist – and Boyd had watched the tiny bubbles float to the top as the last of his sister’s broke the surface.
It had been his job to watch her.
Boyd doesn’t tell stories anymore. They stopped when his sister did, because there was no way back for Aadi. There was no story that would fix that.
His mom doesn’t meet his eyes anymore and Boyd does his best to make her not feel like a bad mother for it.
Derek comes and says, ‘Pack,’ when he doesn’t have one. It sounds like a fix, as close as reality or myth could get at least. And Boyd is broken in so many ways now. He doesn’t understand how people work or how to relate to them and so he’s never had any friends. Not to mention he doesn’t… feel what guys – girls – his age do. There’s no overwhelming desire to stick his dick in anything. If not for the biological imperative that rears its ugly head every so often, he doesn’t think he’d know his cock was there at all.
Being a werewolf doesn’t fix anything. It only makes him more aware of exactly how odd man out he is when he smells the arousal dripping off everyone around him. There’s not even the pack he was promised.
Jackson is as close to an Omega as it’s possible to be while still having ties to a pack, his only real ‘home’ found in Lydia. Isaac is shifting closer to Scott every day, Scott who wants less than nothing to do with Derek. Erica spends her entire time as a wolf on the edge of her seat, ready to jump at the next best option.
Boyd wants to shift back out of this ‘pack’ spotlight. He’s no more welcome here than he is around school. Derek’s promise of family has fallen flat and that’s worse than being alone.
Stiles’s fearlessness isn’t an act. Boyd can feel the steady thrum of his pulse, the cymbal-crash of his heartbeat that is Stiles’s rhythm at rest. The gears of his rickety Jeep grind in the mud and the tires slide forward before coming to a stop. Derek is waiting for him at the top of the porch steps. “Scott,” he says, only the arch of his eyebrow giving away that it was a question.
Stiles snorts and shakes his head. His chin juts out defiantly. “You want a pack? You have to become an Alpha first.”
Derek’s eyes flash red and his jaws snap.
Stiles actually laughs. “You’ve got the look down. It’s the attitude that needs work.” Stiles tips his head up toward the house. “They are not a pack. And you are not an Alpha.”
Boyd knows Derek’s instinct is to intimidate Stiles into believing it, to pull out his claws and fangs and red eyes but he doesn’t. Because it’s Stiles and Derek tries harder with him than he does anyone else. At first Boyd had thought it was because he was human and breakable but it isn’t. Derek’s nostrils flare when Stiles enters a room. If there’s a question on the table, Derek’s eyes find Stiles’s first. But most telling is that he always and unconsciously takes the less protected position, herding Stiles in with his back to the counter while he stands in the opening of the kitchen. Even now, he’s moved down the steps, cornered Stiles with his back to the Jeep while Derek turns his to the woods.
Boyd can see it’s an effort for Derek to keep himself from reacting. He can’t quite suppress a subvocal growl that scrapes over beta eardrums.
Stiles’s eyebrows jump up like he knows how close Derek is to losing it. “You want Scott in your pack? You need a pack for him to join.” Stiles’s eyes shift up to the dark entrance like he knows there are wolves pacing just behind it. “They don’t know each other. They don’t seem to care to either. Guess what? Your trust issues trickle down to them. You want them to be loyal? You want them to trust you? Lead by example, sourwolf.”
Derek’s growl is audible this time. “What do you suggest?” he asks tightly.
Stiles’s shoulders slump slightly in relief. “Give them something, anything to bond over. Something normal to focus on. It doesn’t have to be epic.” Stiles throws up his hands. “Have a barbeque, go camping, institute a movie night.”
Derek stops. Gives a sharp nod. He grabs Stiles by the wrist, pulls him away from the door of the Jeep, opens it and shoves him inside. Stiles gives an indignant squawk and Derek growls, wrenching open the passenger side, “I need a TV.”
That’s the beginning of Pack Movie Night. Derek’s house is falling down around them but there’s a leather couch, loveseat and armchair, a coffee table and a rug, and an impressive entertainment system. Everyone shows to the clear surprise of Derek’s eyebrows. Boyd knows it’s because of Stiles, who is completely unaware of his own fail-proof likability.
Because everyone does like Stiles, even when they pretend not to.
Boyd’s seen Jackson stop mid-shift on the full moon because Stiles stepped into the room, he’s seen Derek place himself between Stiles and danger too many times to count and he’s seen Lydia tear down a girl because she had the audacity to call him a loser. Apparently only Lydia gets to do that.
Even Boyd feels strangely protective of him.
There’s grumbling and groaning and sniping as they settle in the drafty front room of Derek’s incomplete house. But then there’s pizza and popcorn and The Dark Knight and everyone shuts up. Stiles doesn’t get to pick another movie after that first night because Pack Movie Night has been successfully co-opted.
They harass each other over their movie choices and throw popcorn at the screen at the chick flick moments but their taunting becomes less jagged, less knife-edge sharp and more like friendly play fighting. Derek’s home goes from ‘Creepy House in the Woods’ to ‘Primo Hang Out Spot’ and they come and go from it without warning or notice. Boyd observes it all because that’s what he does best.
He sees Stiles in the kitchen through the crack between the door and the wall. He’s eating a slice of pizza and Derek is watching him guardedly from across the room. His eyebrows raise in a way that says, ‘Victory,’ and Derek’s lips quirk, amused.
He doesn’t deny it.
It’s the seventh or eighth time they’ve met up for P.M.N. (though hardly the seventh or eighth time they’ve been over to Derek’s) and Boyd gets a seat on the couch for the first time. Stiles gets shuffled down in front of him. Cold air filters down through the holes from the second floor, slips in from the off-center slats and the loose seals around the windows. The wind creaks and howls through all the broken places of Derek’s house. Stiles feels the cold before any of the rest of them do and he leans back a little harder into Boyd’s legs.
Boyd shifts down off his coveted cushion and slips in behind him. He doesn’t know how to do this but Stiles does. He leans back into Boyd’s unnatural warmth, picks up his arms and wraps them around his chest. He moves slowly and carefully enough that no one else notices. It’s unprecedented for them, for Boyd and anyone really, but Stiles doesn’t act like it’s odd.
Boyd’s always liked Stiles (long before he was a wolf, he’d watch him and Scott as Stiles flailed across the lunchroom and he’d wonder how people got friends like that). Now he knows why.
It’s only when there’s ten minutes left of Being John Malkovich (surprisingly Isaac’s choice) and the temperature has dropped another three degrees – enough that the other wolves can feel it – that everyone thinks to check Stiles.
Eyes flick over to them and away, the voices that belong to them already sniping over which movie to watch next, all but two sets. Scott frowns, brow furrowed in confusion, and Derek. Boyd thinks he sees a flash of red before Derek turns away, jaw clenched and eyes angry. Stiles doesn’t notice. His nose is almost touching Boyd’s neck, his cheek flat against his shoulder and he’s not asleep but it’s a close thing. His breath is snuffling and a constant warmth and chill against his skin.
Boyd doesn’t think he’s been this close to anyone. Ever.
Scott and Stiles have plans to practice on the lacrosse field after school. Boyd overhears Scott telling Isaac that he’ll train with him over lunch. Boyd shows up for Stiles. Scott doesn’t.
They practice for hours, until Stiles is dripping sweat and Boyd is breathing hard but Stiles has gotten six balls past him and he’s grinning so wide Boyd would bet his cheeks hurt. Stiles flops down on the grass, curling stiff fingers around cool blades. He props up on his elbows and works hard to catch his breath. Boyd stands awkwardly at his feet until Stiles smiles up at him and gestures to the space next to him.
Boyd fumbles into a similar position and he swallows, glancing over at the heave-ho of Stiles’s chest. “I don’t have any friends,” he says. In case Stiles thinks he knows how to do this. Because he doesn’t. He does not know how to do this.
Stiles nods, like the words don’t surprise him. Knowing Stiles, they probably don’t. “I know. That’s why you chose it, you wanted Pack.” He squints up at the tree line in the distance, either from the sun or the sweat dripping into his eyes. He smells more than he ever has around Boyd. He smells good. “I’m not sure I have any left,” he says with a shrug of his shoulders, like the words don’t matter.
Boyd knows they do.
Stiles licks his lower lip, says, “I know you have Chem II sixth period. I was going to study for the exam back at mine after this.”
Boyd doesn’t have to think about it. He answers the question that wasn’t asked. “Yes.”
Boyd doesn’t stop showing up for Stiles. Scott keeps disappointing him until Scott is no longer Stiles’s first call. Boyd is. Stiles needs people and Boyd hates looking into the dead eyes of his mother so he practically lives at the Stilinski household. He likes the Sheriff, even if he hasn’t stopped looking at Boyd like he suspects he might be on a massive amount of steroids.
It’s a work in progress.
Sometime around the third month of their friendship – and it is a friendship – Boyd starts telling him things. And it’s embarrassingly quick but Boyd doesn’t do friends and he’s caught up in the having someone bit. He talks about his dad. Then his mom. Then his sister. First it’s all the bad stuff and then it’s all the good. And he hasn’t even thought about the good stuff in so long.
Then he tells Stiles about his sexuality or lack thereof and far from being judgmental or disgusted, Stiles jumps into research mode. He tells Boyd he might be asexual or maybe demisexual and he gives it a name and he explains the differences and goes over sixteen related sexualities and he’s nothing other than accepting and supportive. Boyd didn’t know people like that existed.
“You’re my best friend,” Boyd tells him.
Stiles pauses in chugging his Gatorade like someone’s going to take it away from him and rolls his eyes. “Uh, duh,” he says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
Warm tendrils slither out from his chest to every extremity and Boyd grins down at his hands.
Before Boyd had Stiles, he spent his time away from home reading everything he could get his hands on in the public library. He developed an impressive obsession with Kurt Vonnegut and eventually collected his complete works. Stiles insists on raiding it when Boyd tells him about it.
The door’s unlocked and Boyd squares his shoulders, letting Stiles in first. He closes the door behind them and says, “Hey, mom,” as he passes by the kitchen. He doesn’t expect an answer – after nine years, Boyd feels comfortable enough to call it a pattern.
“Who’s your friend, Vernon?”
Boyd freezes. His mom’s voice is reedy, hoarse from cigarette smoke. She’s still in her bathrobe and slippers at four in the afternoon and her hair is scraggly from months without seeing a brush and days without a wash. She looks sixty instead of thirty-five. Boyd cringes and all he wants is to escape to his room before he melts from the embarrassment.
Stiles grins at her, bright and happy and nothing their home has seen in years. “I’m Stiles, ma’am.”
“Well,” and his mom’s lips are pursed but wrinkled in an effort not to smile back, “it’s nice to meet you, Stiles. I don’t meet many of Vernon’s friends.” And what she means is, she’s never met a friend of Boyd’s because he’s never had one. She doesn’t meet Boyd’s eyes but she does meet Stiles’s. Because they’re friendly and warm and honeyed and you have to like Stiles. It’s practically a law of the universe.
Boyd ushers him off down the hall towards his room, calling back, “We’ll be in my room, mom.” He uses the term ‘mom’ as much as possible because he never gets the chance to.
Stiles flops down on his bed instead of going for the bookshelves and Boyd sits down next to him, back resting against the wall. His room is painted a white that’s gone yellowed over the years and his bed is the smallest twin in existence. There’s a desk by the door that he outgrew when he was nine. His books ring the shelves he’s nailed up on every wall. The only other thing in the room is a nightstand with a small lamp that he shares with the stripped and empty twin bed across from his. It’d been his sister’s. They’d never gotten rid of it.
“She lined up her stuffed animals all over that bed, didn’t she?” Stiles says and Boyd remembers telling him about how she would order them by size. They’d look like they were marching across her bedspread.
Boyd squeezes his eyes shut and nods. All of them are in a container under her bed. Boyd hasn’t looked at them in years.
Stiles’s fingers inch over and twist around Boyd’s. They end up forgetting about the books altogether.
He thinks that might be when it starts.
Stiles eats. He’s not werewolf-levels of ravenous but he’s teenage boy-levels of ravenous and it comes close. They practically live in the kitchen and the Sheriff stops looking surprised when he walks in and finds Stiles sitting up on the counter and Boyd leaning against the fridge listening to him ramble. After another two months, he gets a nod from the Sheriff in addition to the unsurprised look and Stiles beams at him. That’s even better than the nod.
He can distantly hear the Sheriff shuffling around for his keys by the door and Stiles singing Gold Digger under his breath while he cuts his sandwich in half and hands a side to Boyd and Boyd says, “I think I’m in love with you.”
He hears Stiles’s dad freeze outside the kitchen door and Stiles freezes licking mustard off his thumb. “Uh.”
“You don’t have to—”
Stiles’s heartbeat thumps hard and then starts an erratic hop-skip rhythm at triple speed. He leans back against the counter and Boyd knows he’s getting his head around it, attacking it from every angle but it’s near impossible to stand there and wait. The Sheriff hasn’t moved. Stiles shifts his weight and says gamely, “So. You’re not aromantic then.”
Boyd swallows, curls back into himself, trying to make himself smaller rather than huge.
“Or you might be demiromantic or demisexual depending on what you mean when you say ‘in love with.’”
Boyd bites his lip with fangs instead of blunt, human teeth but he doesn’t care. Drops of blood are dripping down onto the Stilinski’s kitchen tile. “You’re analyzing it. Impersonally. I’m in love with you.” He hears the Sheriff mutter from the hallway, “Jesus, Stiles.”
Stiles’s eyes widen and he looks up at him. Blinks. “You’re right. I’m—I. Sorry.”
Boyd shrugs. “‘S’alright.” It isn’t but it’s a lot and he won’t ask Stiles to take it in any faster than he wants to.
“What does that mean? For you?”
“I. I don’t know,” Boyd admits, because he doesn’t. “I want to touch you. Not sexually, but hold you maybe? I’m not sure what.”
Stiles chews on his lower lip and Boyd stops staring at him and instead stares down at his shoes, hating himself for making Stiles have to take this on too. He’s Boyd’s best friend and he’s selfishly put him in such an awkward position. Stiles nods and there’s resolution in the set of his jaw. “We’ll figure it out then. Together.”
And Boyd shouldn’t make him deal with this. Deal with him. He should just leave Stiles be.
Stiles says, as though he knows what Boyd is thinking – and he probably does, “Vernon Boyd, don’t you dare ditch me too.”
And now he can’t. Stiles knows him far too well.
Stiles makes him come over the next day and they haven’t talked about it yet. Boyd’s not sure what they could possibly say but he can’t not bring it up. He goes for the easy question. Even if thinking about any of it makes the wolf shift restlessly under his skin. “What did your dad say?”
Stiles snorts. “Of course you knew he was right outside,” he says with a roll of his eyes.
Boyd shrugs. “I wasn’t thinking. You shared your sandwich.”
Stiles’s brow furrows. “I always share my sandwich.”
Boyd grins. “I know.”
Stiles laughs and shuffles his feet, slumping down against the wall.
Boyd prods him. “Why don’t you want to tell me?”
Stiles hitches up a shoulder and stares at Boyd’s cheek instead of his eyes. “He said he always thought it would be Derek’s awkward confession of love he walked in on.”
Boyd had no idea Derek even knew the Sheriff, and apparently well enough for the man to have caught onto Derek’s unsubtle feelings for Stiles. An odd mix of jealousy and disapproval churns in Boyd’s cut. His mouth tightens and he grinds out, “Makes sense.”
Stiles’s eyes widen. “How does that make sense?”
“You see everything, Stiles,” Boyd says and he hates that he sounds angry. “You really can’t see that?”
The Sheriff is a little more cautious rounding corners and he always, always knocks before entering Stiles’s room but nothing’s changed. Not really. Boyd skims his fingers against Stiles’s stomach through his tee shirt. He lets his thumb rest against the thrum of Stiles’s pulse when he needs an anchor. He curves his palm around the jut of his hip. He likes that best, watching his large, dark hand eclipse the pale arc of his hipbone – like a shadow passing over the moon’s face. It feels the most possessive, the most like Stiles is his.
They’re still friends though because Boyd doesn’t want any more than that – touching without any real aim in mind. And Boyd gets the feeling the ‘friends’ bit isn’t normally this good, that Stiles is just an exceptionally great one. He’s not sure how Scott ever let him go. But he did and Boyd won’t make the same mistake.
Stiles is tapping the end of his pencil against the Pre-Calc textbook in his lap and Boyd is curling his fingers around his thigh, pushing up the hem of his shirt and trailing his fingers over his abdomen. Stiles has gotten used to his listless touching and he mostly ignores it now. His leg doesn’t even stop bouncing, his whole body tense and jittery as his eyes fly over the pages. Boyd likes the way it makes the muscles under his skin harder. Stiles always gets like this when his pills are forcing his attention onto something that doesn’t interest him. There’s something in his blood stream telling him: focus and there’s something in his brain telling him: not on this. The inability to sit still is the war the opposing forces incite in him.
Boyd shifts down on the bed next to him and presses his mouth just below Stiles’s navel, dips his tongue in along the contours of his stomach. Stiles inhales a sharp breath and Boyd ignores the hardness pressing into his forearm. He has touched Stiles there before, with his mouth, with his hands, but it was with more exploration than intent. He’s let Stiles touch him too but Boyd doesn’t care about getting off and Stiles does so it feels unfair. Of course Stiles never pushes because the last thing he’d ever do is make Boyd uncomfortable.
Boyd’s thumbs glide up under Stiles’s shirt as he moves up his chest and Stiles lets the book fall from his lap, leans back on the bed. Boyd flutters his fingers over Stiles’s jaw, turns his face so he can catch Stiles’s mouth with his own. Boyd really, really likes kissing Stiles. His mouth is warm and soft and pliant and Stiles always gives back exactly what Boyd puts in. They kiss slow, without any heat at all. Boyd just licks into Stiles’s mouth, lays on top of him until Stiles’s lips are kiss swollen and raw.
He curls his hands over Stiles’s shoulder blades, down his sides, cups his thighs and pulls them around his waist. He runs his nose down the column of Stiles’s throat, presses his mouth to his skin at odd intervals and bites down, never hard enough to leave a mark. Stiles moans and yanks him closer but he doesn’t thrust because he moves at Boyd’s pace rather than his own.
Boyd lies on top of him without letting his weight settle. Stiles doesn’t fill the silence except to say, “Vernon.”
Boyd presses his mouth to Stiles’s jaw, whispers, “Genim.”
Derek smells Stiles on him before long. His nostrils flare when Boyd comes in the house behind him. He turns with a reluctant quirk to his lips and his eyes bleed red when he realizes it isn’t Stiles. Only someone who smells so much like him it’s enough to temporarily confuse his senses. His teeth elongate into fangs and his claws sink into Boyd’s shoulders as he shoves him back into the banister hard enough that some of the ceiling holding it up crumbles.
He roars into Boyd’s face. “What are you doing with Stiles?” His thumb presses hard over Boyd’s trachea and Boyd’s claws reflexively bury themselves in Derek’s side.
“We’re friends,” he chokes out.
Derek bares his teeth. “You don’t smell like friends.”
Derek’s nostrils flare again and this time it is Stiles. His claws retract and he backs away from Boyd, eyes still red and fangs still out. Boyd collapses, gasping for air and glaring up at Derek, eyes glowing gold. Stiles walks in on Boyd slouched on the floor and Derek breathing hard over him.
“What the fuck happened?” Stiles’s voice is tight but he doesn’t try to come between them.
Derek walks out, slamming Stiles in the shoulder as he passes, and snarls, “Training.”
Boyd can smell it the second he drops in through Stiles’s window. He doesn’t need the way Stiles is hunched over, twisting a pillow between his fingers, to clear things up. Stiles throws it aside and stands. “You can smell him, can’t you?” His eyes flitter away guiltily.
Boyd nods stiffly.
“You know this doesn’t mean I’m choosing him.” There’s a hard edge to Stiles’s jaw, a defiant tang to his words that says if he doesn’t it’s still as good as carved in stone.
Boyd stands awkwardly by his window, shifting his weight. He should have expected Derek would come and assert his claim. He can imagine the kind of sex they had, passionate and fierce and desperate and everything it isn’t with him. Because he’s slow and methodical and curious and he doesn’t leave marks all over Stiles the way Derek has.
Stiles should have the outlet. He likes sex. Boyd doesn’t. This can only take the frustration out of their friendship, except Boyd knows this is also the first step to losing him. To Derek.
“I want him too,” Stiles says, and only his eyes give away his vulnerability, “but I won’t lose you in the process.”
Boyd huffs, sucks in his lip and turns away. “Derek won’t share you.”
“Then he won’t have me. I told him that. He doesn’t like it but.” Stiles lets it hang there. He wants Boyd to believe that he won’t shove him to the back of his closet just because he’s found a better model.
Boyd nods. He wants to believe it too. “I love you.”
Stiles’s answering smile is weak. He leans into Boyd, cups his face between strong hands and says, “I love you too, you know?”
He loves Derek more. Properly. But Boyd still gets a massive amount of relief from the words, because Stiles always seems to know what Boyd needs before he knows himself.
“I want—I want to be inside you. But just, I don’t want to.” Boyd grinds his teeth, frustrated. “I just want to be inside you.”
Stiles nods against his jaw, the tip of his nose brushing up and down Boyd’s skin, and he strips off Boyd’s jacket with sure hands. Boyd lets Stiles get him hard and roll on the condom and then he presses inside of him. Stiles’s body gives like it’s made for him. His muscles clench and tighten and reform around Boyd’s want. Stiles bites his lip, moans, as Boyd bottoms out inside him.
He’s beautiful and glistening from the light filtering in through his window. His fingers twist in and clutch at the sheets but he doesn’t cant his hips, he doesn’t fuck himself on Boyd’s cock even though Boyd knows it’s paining him not to. And Boyd pants, “I’m sorry. I know I’m—” and he wants to say wrong or broken or fucked in the head and Stiles must know it because he shifts up and captures Boyd’s mouth before he can get the words out. And it does feel so good being inside of Stiles that Boyd can’t bring himself to regret it. They’re so close and he can feel every twitch of Stiles’s muscles and each swell of his chest and Boyd wants to crawl under his skin, be a part of him.
He says it out loud before he can censor himself. Because he’s wrong and broken and fucked in the head.
Stiles never treats him like that though. He grips tight – tight enough that it would bruise if he wasn’t a werewolf – and whimpers, gasps, “I want that. I want you, every bit of you.”
Boyd stays inside of Stiles, watches him pant and writhe and his dick get so purple it looks like it might pop, until Boyd can’t hold on to his erection any longer and he slips out. Boyd’s breathless, his voice deep and scratchy when he asks awkwardly, “Was that—was that okay?”
Stiles’s chest is heaving and he pulls Boyd close and says, “Yes, yes.”
Derek finds out because of course Derek was going to find out. Boyd is standing outside, leaning against Stiles’s Jeep, hands in his pockets. He can still hear them, screaming at each other across a room. Boyd hunches his shoulders and kicks at the dirt with the toe of his shoe at the same time that Derek shouts, “You had sex with him the same fucking night.”
Stiles’s voice is equivocating. “Yes, no. Not really. I don’t know.” He lets out an irate sound through his nose. “I told you I wasn’t letting go of Boyd, right?”
“You didn’t say you were having sex with him,” Derek tosses back, predatory, furious.
“He didn’t even—I mean, it wasn’t.” Stiles stops, makes himself slow down and breathe. “It’s not about sex with Boyd.”
“Then what the fuck is it about?”
Boyd tilts his ear toward the living room window. “Boyd likes to be close to me, as close as possible.” Boyd stares down at his fingers, hating himself for needing to touch Stiles more than he should want to. If he didn’t want that, Stiles wouldn’t, and he could have something normal – or close to – with Derek. “He’s—He loves me, okay? He’s in love with me and Boyd doesn’t do sex, right?”
Something heavy and big breaks inside the house. Derek retorts, “He fucked you.”
“He didn’t.” And Stiles is as angry as Derek is now. “Even if he did, I told you that was on the table.”
Derek’s the calmest he’s been since Stiles arrived and he mostly sounds defeated. “I hate when you smell like him,” he admits, like it’s being pulled out of him with hot fire pokers.
“Get used to it,” Stiles says, unflinching.
Derek growls and Boyd doesn’t have to guess what the sound of slamming bodies and groans mean. It’s as close as Derek can get to scrubbing Boyd from Stiles’s skin.
Stiles gets into Brown.
Boyd has no idea what the fuck to do with that. It’s on the other side of the goddamn country and what is he supposed to do with that? Stiles’s dad is thrilled because Ivy League and Boyd doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say. Stiles is pretty much stuck on: Freaking Out. Boyd wants to be happy for Stiles but saying he is would ring false. Because it is. Boyd does have the pack now but they’re not what Stiles is. They’re not family. Stiles is his family and, yes, it’s a small one but it’s his and it’s unconditional and it’s unprecedented. “Congratulations,” he gets out.
Stiles punches him in the arm and says, “Shut up.” He drops back on his bed. “You and Derek could not sound more like you were being tortured about this.”
Derek straightens up by the window, arms crossed over his chest and mouth set in a permanent scowl. He looks as miserable and dead inside as Boyd feels because they both know Stiles is going to go. Stiles doesn’t yet but they do. Because they’re two of a very small number of people who can actually parse out what Stiles is saying when he gets up to full steam and they’d both listened to his (entirely verbal) list of pros and cons at whiplash speed. And there seemed to be just as many pros as there were cons.
Stiles digs his palms into his eyes. “I don’t know what to do.”
Derek sits down next to his hip. “You’ll go,” he says through the clench of his jaw. “I’ll visit.” He glares up at Boyd, like Boyd is the one telling Stiles to go. “We will visit. Whatever it takes.”
Boyd clenches his hands at his sides and knows what the answer is before Stiles does. He’s going and he’s not looking back.
Stiles leaves.
Derek spends more than half his time as a wolf and Boyd sleeps in Stiles’s bedroom until it stops smelling like him.
The Sheriff stops being surprised by that too.
Stiles Skypes and calls and texts and harasses them about visiting until it goes from a placating lie Derek had told to ensure Stiles had a future to a kept promise. They drive across country in Derek’s Camaro and Boyd knows he’s thinking the same thing. That they shouldn’t be there. That Stiles is supposed to be leaving his crappy hometown behind and forming new ties rather than being dragged back down by his old ones.
It helps ease the guilt when Stiles is absolutely – no room for any fucking doubt – delighted to see them.
His dorm room is tiny, his bed tinier, and his roommate smells like pot and Fritos. Stiles makes the introductions and ‘Jenner’ stares at them with the widest of eyes and says, “Dude, your boyfriends are hot.”
Stiles snorts and looks away. Derek’s eyes flash red while his back is turned and ‘Jenner’ fumbles out a hasty excuse to leave, saying he’ll be with someone called ‘Lanny’ for the weekend.
“Are all the names here stupid?” Derek says rhetorically as he flops down on Stiles’s bed, the only other scent there now besides Stiles’s own. “You’ll fit right in."
Stiles sticks a tongue out at him. “Jenner is a legacy,” he says smartly before punching Derek in the arm. Hard. “Seriously, Alpha eyes? You’re such a shit.” But he’s more amused than angry. It’s impossible to get anything past Stiles.
Derek tries, fails, not to look too pleased with himself. He catches Stiles’s fist and saps away the pain with a smug grin.
And even though Derek has successfully forced Stiles’s stoner roommate out of his own dorm room for the weekend, no one takes his bed. Which smells like pot and dried come and corn chips. Instead they curl up on the tiny twin – which rivals even Boyd’s for smallest the world over – and pretend to be perfectly cool about it.
Boyd wakes to the feel of a moan being stifled against his shoulder. He can feel the rocking of Stiles’s body, Derek’s hips rolling into him; he’s still half asleep but fucking into Stiles steadily. The mouth on his shoulder breaks open, damp and hot, and Boyd tilts it up to catch it with his own. Stiles pulls at him reflexively, draws him in by his hips and he can feel Stiles hard and thrusting against his thigh while Derek fucks him.
Derek pulls Stiles back into him, holds him there while he comes with a grunt and Stiles’s orgasm streaks across Boyd’s hip and stomach. Derek’s arms tighten around Stiles’s chest and he tugs him back, away, from Boyd’s mouth. Even unconsciously he doesn’t want Boyd to have him.
Boyd can’t say Derek hasn’t tried though. He’s watched them have sex – because they do sometimes, Boyd and Stiles can rock together for ages before he finally comes inside him but Derek’s jaw clenches and his eyes flash red and his claws dig deep into his own thighs and he leaves before it happens.
Because Derek wants to share Stiles even less than Boyd does. It’s only Stiles’s determination that has kept this clusterfuck of a situation working as long as it has.
Boyd falls asleep in the common area of Stiles’s dorm early the next night and he knows it’s been at least a few hours since he passed out when he feels Stiles’s foot dig in under his back. He doesn’t open his eyes but he can feel both Derek and Stiles’s steady heartbeats. His Alpha and his everything. Stiles’s voice is whisper-soft, low so it won’t wake him. “You and Boyd could have an epic fucking battle over who’s more fucked, you know?”
Derek chuckles, his shoe knocking into the one Stiles doesn’t have buried under Boyd.
“Your issues have issues,” Stiles says. The foot under Boyd flexes. “He’s got abandonment and you’ve got trust and you’ve both got massive self-esteem problems and honestly I don’t know whose neuroses are worse.” Boyd cracks open his eyes carefully. Derek is slumped down in the chair closest to the couch Stiles is lying on and he looks tired and young and so absorbed in Stiles that he hasn’t realized Boyd is awake yet. Boyd closes his eyes again just as Stiles frowns down at him. “Do you want to know why he likes to have sex with me? Because it’s not because he gets off on it.”
Derek doesn’t say anything but Stiles seems to have expected that.
“It’s because for as long as he’s inside me, he knows that I can’t leave him.” It is and Stiles understands him in ways he shouldn’t. “And you,” he says, pointed. “You think he’s better for me, more age appropriate, less damaged. You think it’s only a matter of time before I realize it too and drop you like a bad habit. Because you don’t trust me when I say I love you.” Stiles huffs. “Or you just think I’m deluded.”
“The latter,” Derek grunts.
Stiles ignores him. “I can’t even imagine what’s been going through your heads since I left but I’m sure you’ve both been going through some intense and nonsensical woe-is-me guilt spirals over it because you are the fucking definitions of angst and man-pain.”
He knows them both too well.
“I don’t—do well with this,” Derek says tightly, dredging up the words and forcing them out. “This—Boyd,” he growls, “is not helping matters.”
“What do you want me to do, Derek?”
Derek pauses for a long moment. “You know what I want you to do.”
Stiles’s breath is audible and annoyed. “I never kept Boyd a secret from you.”
“I thought I could handle it.”
Stiles snorts. “No, you thought we’d fuck and I’d forget all about Boyd.”
Derek’s silence speaks for itself. He rallies and says petulantly, “I thought you’d want me as much as I want you.”
“Derek. Is that what you think? That I don’t want you enough?” Again, Derek’s silence says more than any words could. “I love you. You have to know that.”
Derek’s breathing is rough and a clear negation. “I know every fucking facet of how you feel about Boyd though.”
“This jealous caveman routine is not as charming as you seem to think it is.”
Derek’s words are more grated sounds than true syllables, “I don’t share.”
“You did the other morning.” It’s cheeky and teasing.
“Not on purpose,” Derek says sourly. It’s obvious he’s as comfortable with what happened as Boyd is. Which is to say: not at all. He and Derek aren’t and Boyd’s an asexual – demisexual, whatever he is – man who’s had a threesome with the man he loves and a man he hardly likes. It does not sit well.
Stiles’s voice is small and purposefully vulnerable, pushing all Derek’s protective buttons like a manipulative little fuck. Boyd’s not sure he’s ever been prouder of him. “I wouldn’t ask you to do anything you’re uncomfortable with.”
Derek laughs, a deep belly laugh. “I tried staying away from you,” he says helplessly. “You walked in smelling like Boyd and I fucked you within an inch of your life.”
Boyd can hear Stiles’s grin. “I know.”
It wouldn’t have worked. It wouldn’t have worked because a part of Derek dies each time Boyd touches Stiles and in Stiles’s efforts to pull Derek back in, he would have gotten further away from Boyd. But over the years, Boyd doesn’t need to hold onto Stiles as tightly, doesn’t need to fuck him into staying. He still touches Stiles in ways Scott never did but he doesn’t have a fist on his dick anymore. He’s still in love with Stiles but with Boyd that doesn’t have to translate into anything physical and it stops needing to be when he finally, finally begins to understand that Stiles isn’t going to leave him.
Because Stiles doesn’t leave people. People leave him. But Stiles doesn’t leave people.
Derek walks into the living room, paces back to the kitchen. Retraces his steps. He crosses his arms over his chest and leans back into the crossbeam. Boyd glances up at him from the sofa now that Derek’s finally settled in one place. Derek clears his throat, eyes slicing over to the window, and says gruffly, “You haven’t touched him in months.”
Boyd shrugs, flips to a new channel. “I haven’t needed to.”
Derek clears his throat again. “You won’t then?” There’s an edge of pleading there that they both pretend isn’t.
“He’s yours, Derek. I mean, he’s mine,” Boyd clarifies, perking an eyebrow at him, “but he’s yours.” He follows it up with a smile. A real one.
Derek drops into the seat next to him, watches half a second of Meerkat Manor and says simply, “You’re my favorite.”
Boyd grins, elbows Derek in the side and says, “I know.”
He thinks his family might have just gotten one person bigger.