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For the first few years, Stiles feels numb. Being away from Beacon Hills makes him feel like a vital organ has been ripped out of him without any sort of anesthesia and he feels – he feel bored. Walking around campus all day, going to classes and school events – after everything he'd gone through back home, life without the day-to-day angst and adventure seems dry.
So here he is, across the country in a city that's always cold, wearing big down coats and hats to stay warm. He's fucked up in the head from being brought back to life and fucked up in the head from being so far from home and fucked up in the head from Scott going off the grid completely, no cell phone, no goodbye, no nothing. Stiles would tear apart the world to find him if he only knew where to start.
He's tired of running. From or after – it's all the same.
He's tried skydiving and drinking and skateboarding and LSD, but none of it fills the weird void in his chest. He doesn't go home for the summer; after his first year away, his dad moves out to be near him. And that's – that's what does it for him, maybe. Having the comfort of his own things and being able to sleep in his own bed in a house that could be his – he starts to heal, just a little bit. Every time his dad throws an arm around his shoulders or hugs him goodbye, it's another tiny piece of himself dripping back down into the mold of who he used to be.
He makes friends again. He gets a job. He shuts off his Google Alerts for Scott McCall. Little by little, he starts to become someone he recognizes.
(Some nights he still jerks awake, scrambling upright against the covers, the apparition of a wolf, teeth bared, crouching at the foot of his bed. He still screams and screams until his dad runs in, and the wolf disappears as the lights click on.)
He, Zoe, and Kevin get an apartment together after college. They live just outside of the city, near campus and near Stiles' dad. Stiles and Kevin share a bedroom, and then Kevin and Zoe share a bedroom. Their house is a conglomeration of yard sale item turned into art and haphazard piles of DVDs. The fridge is almost always stocked and the bathroom is dirty and Stiles thinks maybe this is where he was supposed to end up the whole time.
His dad has him signed up for therapy, so he goes to the therapist's office every Thursday after work. She prescribes him little white pills and doesn't tell him it's all in his head. He appreciates it.
One of the professors at his alma mater gets him an internship at the history museum, where he's taken on as a research assistant. For the first time in years, he feels a piece of himself come alive. He remembers what he's good at. He remembers what he's supposed to do.
His boss is cool and his coworker Michael has a quiet smile and a sharp mind.
They kiss for the first time in the library, surrounded by dusty books about Cherokee Indians.
Michael more-or-less becomes a permanent figurehead in his life after that. He moves out of his apartment and into Stiles' bed and then it's four people sitting at the breakfast bar, fighting over butt ends of bread and toaster waffles.
Michael makes Stiles happy in a way he hasn't been in a long time. His face hurts from smiling and his sides hurt from laughing and on the rare occasions the nightmares overpower his prescription, Michael holds him until he stops shaking. He never asks why.
Stiles' dad likes him a lot, more than any of the others. (Not that there had been many.) Stiles thinks they're going to get married, and lets Michael tease his fingertips over the dips of Stiles' knuckles.
And then Michael's mom gets sick. Michael flies back home to Wisconsin and tells Stiles to stay at home, because everything's going to be all right. "I'll be back," he promises over the phone one night as they're lying in bed, hundreds of miles in between them. "Keep my side warm, okay?"
Michael's mom dies and Michael stays with his family. He stays with his family. He keeps staying with his family.
Zoe gets pregnant and Stiles thinks it's time to move on. Three's a family; four's a crowd, so he scours the internet for new ads every day from the comfort of his room back in his dad's house. He tries not to let himself self-destruct.
There's an ad from a guy looking for a roommate on the north side of the city. Stiles doesn't know if he wants to be that far away from what's familiar, but he takes a look at the box of stuff under his desk that isn't quite his and looks up the guy's contact information.
His name is Chuck and he's pretty cool. Within a week, Stiles moves into his vacant bedroom.
They stay up late and play video games and split the bill on delivered pizza. Chuck's a writer by day and drunk by night, and Stiles doesn't think he's ever going to get any of his pilots picked up until one of them actually does. The call comes in on a Wednesday afternoon, and Chuck's out in Los Angeles in two weeks.
Stiles republishes Chuck's old ad and interviews three different people before he opens the door to find Isaac Lahey standing on his front mat.
At first, they treat each other like a memory – they stay close because it's familiar, but fight like they're still scared for their lives. Then one day, Stiles realizes that Isaac has changed, and Isaac realizes that Stiles has changed, and they meet again.
Living with Isaac is almost the same as living with Chuck, except Stiles sees the tired smile Isaac gives his coffee in the morning, and the way he rolls his wrists when he's been typing for too long, and how different the sound of his laugh is now. Isaac looks at him genuinely, his eyes unguarded in a way they never were in Beacon Hills, and Stiles asks him about his next part-time modeling gig.
It's strange to refamilizarize yourself with someone you knew long ago, before they became the person they are today. Sometimes a cruel comment bubbles up to Stiles' lips, but he swallows it down; sometimes, the sound of breaking glass makes Isaac seize up, just for a second.
Stiles tries not to think about their past together, because it's not quite their past at all.
"Do you think Scott's ever going to find us?" Isaac asks one morning over breakfast, and it almost takes Stiles a moment to remember.
"No," Stiles says, and they don't talk about it again.
Isaac comes to visit him at work one afternoon. There's a sandwich shop separating the museum and Isaac's bank. Stiles takes him on a behind-the-scenes tour and kisses him in front of the taxidermic wolves.
The next weekend is Kevin and Zoe's wedding. Isaac holds their baby while Stiles stands up as best man.
"Would we have ever done this back in Beacon Hills?" Isaac asks quietly one night, on a rare occasion when they speak of the place that has long since lost its title of home.
Stiles takes Isaac's tanned hand and places it low on his own pale belly.
"No," he says, helping guide Isaac onto hands and knees above him. "No, I don't think so."
"Oh," Isaac whispers while Stiles tugs impatiently at the wrists on either side of him. "Then I'm glad we're here now."
Later, Isaac will run his fingers over the deep claw marks in the headboard and the rip in the sheets and laugh, loud and crinkle-eyed, and Stiles will see something that wasn't there before – it's like the wolf is still in him, but he is not the wolf.
Stiles selfishly wants everything – he wants a thousand mornings of waking up to Isaac's hair tickling his nose; wants a thousand days of Isaac's steam-heavy singing slipping under the bathroom door; wants a thousand afternoons of texts from Isaac as he's riding the train home; wants a thousand evenings of getting off of work early to find Isaac watching tv on the couch in a sweater and socks; wants a thousand nights of Isaac's arms twisted around him, a thousand nights of them pressed together like they're one, a thousand nights of falling sleep to the sound of Isaac's heartbeat.
Isaac doesn't have a sick mom. He doesn't have a family to keep staying with. But he makes Stiles his family; folds him into the soft edges and threads him into the needlework. When Stiles' dad falls ill and Stiles feels the pull in his stomach that makes him understand Michael, Isaac is there to bunch him back in and sate him with thread.
His dad's okay, and Stiles stays with his family. He stays with his family. He keeps staying.