Stiles showed up on Derek's door step two weeks and one day after he realized he was in love with him. Exactly one week and four days after he admitted it to himself, six days after admitting it to Scott, and an eternity before he would be completely ready to admit it to Derek.
Except that's what he did.
He admitted it to Derek.
Or rather he kind of screamed it at him when he opened the apartment door.
"You're what?" Derek asked slowly as if he was imagining the brash teen yelling affections at him.
"I'm in love with you." Stiles repeated, slower and with a less—abrasive volume.
"I need a drink." Derek replied turning back into his apartment but leaving the door open, which Stiles was going to take as an invitation to come inside.
It wasn't really, but it wasn't one to go away either.
"do you want anything, milk, water, a juice box?" Derek asked.
Stiles thought maybe there was a joke in there somewhere but he was busy having a small internal panic attack at the thought of the conversation that was about to happen to really give it too much thought.
"no, thank you." He mumbled, sitting awkwardly on the edge of the couch trying not to make himself seem too comfortable, in case Derek thought better of letting him inside and kicked him out.
Derek nodded, flicking the cap off of his beer with an extended claw and walking back into the living room. "so would you like to explain why you came to the conclusion that you are in love with me?"
Stiles frowned, Derek made it sound like a death sentence. Like falling in love with him was the worst possible thing that a human being could do, right up there next to incest and cannibalism, or god forbid voting for Romney.
"I, just am." He said shrugging.
"kind of how just last week you were in love with Lydia Martin?" Derek asked accusingly.
Stiles frowned, looking for the words to explain, because well, it was a delicate situation.
"have you ever let yourself fall in love with the idea of someone, and been disappointed by the reality?" he asked, "because I have been under the impression that I was in love with Lydia Martin for most of my life, when in reality, I was in love with the idea of Lydia Martin."
He looked up, trying to gauge if he was making any sense at all, but he just decided he had better go with it.
"I thought for the longest time that I was in love with this gorgeous girl with strawberry blonde hair who was smart, and confident and beautiful, who didn't care what people thought about her, who came off hard but was really soft on the inside and who would one day fall in love with me."
He took a breath, "but that was a fantasy, the reality is that Lydia is smart, and confident and beautiful, but the thing she cares most about is what other people think about her. She hides herself behind layers of makeup and the fakest smiles I have ever seen in my whole life and she is never ever going to see me as anything other than the bench warming dork with the hot werewolf best friend. And I am oddly okay with that."
Derek nodded, and Stiles didn't know what that meant but he took it as a go ahead to keep on talking.
"the thing is though, you're different. I know exactly who you are, no illusions or sugar coating or fake smiles. You are twenty- two which is about four years too old for me, you like rock music, and have way too many anger management problems, you have a mountain full of emotional baggage that would take a well paid shrink years to sort through. You hate me sometimes as much as I hate you, which is probably a lot given the number of times you remind me that you want nothing more from life than a legitimate excuse to kill me and get away with it. You shove me into walls, threaten my life, and sometimes I just want to lace your food with wolvesbane."
Derek snorted, "this is a wonderful seduction Stiles, real panty dropper."
Stiles rolled his eyes, "the point is, I know everything horrible that there is to know about you, and you still give me butterflies. I still laugh when you make jokes, and smile when I think about you. I still seek out excuses to come over here, I defend you to my best friend who then storms out and doesn't talk to me for weeks. I still put myself trough the torture of seeing Peter walk around in a towel because it means I get to hang out in your apartment. The point is, that I know who you are, flaws and all and I still want to be with you. The real you, not some figment of my imagination that is just all the perfect parts of you all jammed together."
He smiled, "and I don't care if you only communicate using your eyebrows, or if you don't love me back, because I love you and that's enough."
Stiles pushed himself off the couch and shoved his hands awkwardly into his pockets.
"you don't have to say anything, I just thought I'd tell you before I chickened out." He said walking slowly towards the door.
"Stiles…" Derek started.
"yeah Derek,"
"I don't really want to kill you."
Stiles nodded, "that's a start."
"And I'm not in love with the idea of you either."
"Well It would be pretty hard to romanticize me buddy, I don't have very many good qualities to exaggerate." Stiles replied, trying to push down his embarrassment.
"I just mean that you're easy enough to love without changing anything." Derek said, slight smile creeping onto his features. "Well maybe not easy, but I manage"
Stiles grinned, "Really?"
"do I look like the kind of guy who makes jokes." Derek prompted.
"not funny ones no." Stiles laughed
"shut up before I change my mind." Derek said reaching forward to pull Stiles into his lap and wrap his arms around his middle.
Stiles grinned, "you know this went much better than I thought it would, you are so much worse in my head."
Derek laughed leaning forward to seal his lips with Stiles'—light and tentative and steeped in the promise of new beginnings.
"I'll give you the juice box one though, that was funny." Stiles said when he pulled away what seemed like hours later. "Does this make you my boyfriend?"
"well I'm not your girlfriend." Derek countered with a smirk before pulling Stiles back in to silence whatever words were going to pour out of his mouth next.
They were far from perfect. Together they had enough emotional baggage that a well paid shrink would probably have a heart attack just looking at them. Honestly, they were a disaster waiting to happen. but when you find a love so great, that fantasies don't even measure up to reality, you hold on and never let it go. And that is just what Stiles intended to do.