#kobrakvd

 When Scott opens the door Stiles has a split second to worry about landing on his face and breaking his nose before Scott’s arms are around him, saving him from his gravity caused demise.

 “My knight in shining,” Stiles says to Scott’s shoulder. He doesn’t have enough energy to stand up like a normal human being.

 Scott laughs as he sets Stiles back up right like the perfect man he is. “What’s up?”

 “My roommate’s girlfriend is staying over and they’re probably having crazy sex everywhere.” Stiles grumbles as Scott lets him in. “I was wondering if I could sleep on your floor.”

 “Dude, you can sleep on my bed.” Scott says.

 Stiles squints at Scott’s tiny twin bed. “Yeah, I don’t think that’s gonna cut it. If we both sleep on that, I’ll fall off over the course of the night. And I’m sure as hell not making you sleep on the floor, because I know that’s your plan B.”

 “Damn,” Scott says, flopping onto his bed. “If Dave weren’t here, I would’ve just stolen his bed and pushed them together.”

 From the next room, a muffled “Dave is here,” sounds out. At least Scott’s roommate just sleeps 24/7 instead of having sex 24/7. Stiles would love to switch them out for a week or two.

 “Don’t worry, I’ll just be at your feet like a cute puppy.” Stiles begins arranging his comforter on the floor.

 “I’m uncomfortable with you being on the floor and me being on the bed,” Scott tells him seriously.

 “Well, there’s not much we can—”

 Scotts pillow and blanket fall to the floor in a faint thump. Scott follows shortly, grinning at Stiles, as he says “Genius.”

 And well, Scott’s definitely not wrong. Stiles would always rather sleep with somebody by his side. It’ll also totally dampen the shitty lonely homesickness thing Stiles has been feeling for a while. It’s weird not having the pack at your side at all times.

 Sure, he and Scott are at the same college miraculously close by Beacon Hills but that doesn’t change the fact that there’s little to no time to hang out anymore. Supernatural shitstorms always had a habit of bringing Scott and Stiles together, but now that things have calmed down on that front, the real world stuff began trickling in and taking their time. Danny had offered to pull some strings to get them assigned the same rooms in the dorm, but Stiles declined. They weren’t that co-dependent.

 Okay. Maybe Stiles is, but he can handle.

 Or he can give up on any handling for tonight because Scott is right here by his side meticulously arranging a blanket pillow nest on the floor with him. It’s like old times when they were eight and they slept over way too much and the worst they feared was a monster under the bed. Or it’s like recent times after the Nogitsune where Stiles would just drive to Scott’s place some evenings because Scott’s place felt safer to sleep in than his sometimes.

 There aren’t any more monsters under the bed anymore. No more demons prowling around in his mind. Now it’s just normal real things. Just college, the wide expanse of adulthood, and a sexiled Stiles Stilinski.

 “You alright?” Scott asks, shaking him out of his head. “You’re spacing out a bit.”

 “No, yeah. I’m good.” Stiles says and it’s honestly as easy as that.

 Stiles wakes up the next day feeling nice and warm. Scott’s arms are around Stiles’ waist. Scott’s legs tucked behind his own. His hair tickles the back of Stiles’ neck. Stiles lets out sigh, content, and he gets rid of all of that lonely homesickness crap that’s been in his head. Scott’s here for him and that’s never going to change, he figures.

 Scott is his rock. His best friend. He feels more like home than anything else and

 And.

 Stiles swears he can actually feel his brain buffer a bit. When it’s finished, he’s come to a rather worrying conclusion.

 “Oh shit,” He says out loud. Scott doesn’t wake up but he still takes it as an invitation to cuddle Stiles further, pulling him in closer.

 Oh shit indeed.

 ---

 It takes an ill timed sex session from Stiles’ roommate to bring down Stiles’ entire understanding of the world around him.

 ---

 “How did you know you were in love with Scott?” He cuts to the chase. Stiles figures this is one thing he shouldn’t waste time on beating around the bush.

 “Oh my god, what happened?” Kira asks over the phone and for some reason, she sounds excited of all things. “Damn it, Stiles. Couldn’t you have waited ‘til May to do this?”

 “What?” Barely one minute into the conversation, and he’s already lost. God, he misses Kira.

 “Never mind, just don’t tell Allison. Or Isaac. Technically, I haven’t lost as long as nobody knows.”

 “I am literally so lost,” Stiles tells her. “Also, I don’t have the money to call France, so don’t worry. I think. Again, really lost right now.”

 “Shit, sorry. I forgot you were having a thing,” Kira says. “I’ll shut up now. Please feel free to talk about your existential Scott crisis now.”

 “I am not having an existential Scott crisis,” Stiles grumbles. Kira just hums like oh really, you really believe that.

 “Okay, then. You wanna start from the beginning, maybe?” She suggests.

 “Yeah, good idea.” He says. “So last night I slept with Scott—”

 “Whoa, you guys had sex?”

 “No! No we didn’t, oh my god. I meant like, I slept next to him. Platonically. Like, cuddling and that shit.” Stiles amends quickly but it’s too late. The idea of having sex with Scott has made its way into his brain. Stiles thinks about how it’d be. How Scott would feel against him, all lean muscle. He thinks about how strong Scott’s alpha powers really are and—

 “Stop thinking about having sex with Scott,” Kira interrupts him.

 “Hey, it’s your fault. You were the one who brought it up.” Stiles says. “Whatever, just. Long story short, last night I noticed that I think I might be in love with Scott. The end.”

 “What changed?”

 “That’s the thing,” Stiles says, flopping backwards onto his bed. “Nothing really actually changed. I mean it isn’t like I just fell in love with him last night. It’s more like I just noticed everything.” Stiles sifts through his brain, trying to pinpoint an exact moment where Scott began to feel more than just a best friend, but he can’t find anything.

 “That sort of makes sense I guess,” Kira tells him. “It’s hard to notice since Scott is a really easy person to fall in love with. Hero with a heart of gold and all that, you know.” She says, sort of wistful.

 “I don’t think it was ever like that for me,” He says. “Scott is like, my best friend. He was never this big hero to me. I don’t mean that in a bad way, I just always see him as Scott. Just a dorky guy with a dopey smile. He’s—” Home. But Stiles isn’t going to say that out loud because that would be pathetic. Stiles has pride.

 “Well that’s a relief,” Kira says, oblivious to Stiles’ inner turmoil. “It would suck if you were just in love with the idea of him and not him.”

 Stiles groans. “This conversation is way too heavy to be happening before 9am.”

 “Hey, you’re the one who called.” She tells him. “What are you going to do now?”

 “Probably going to loaf around until I have to get to class.”

 “No, I meant about Scott.”

 “Uh,” He scratches his head. “Nothing probably.”

 “What?” Kira literally yells over the phone. Stiles holds it away until he’s sure she won’t break his eardrums. “—the worst possible idea ever. Seriously, bottling it all up is the worst way to deal with literally everything. I think you should tell him. That’s the best thing you could do. You should tell him.”

 “Haha, no. I’m definitely not doing that.”

 “Why the hell not?”

 “Because it would be disastrous?” Stiles says. God, he can imagine it. Scott would smile in that way Stiles is so used to. He’d smile and he’d let Stiles down as gently as he can. Fuck. Stiles isn’t sure he can survive that.

 “Stiles I swear, everything would work out.” Kira is way too much of a romantic idealist. She isn’t going to let this go. “Trust me on this. When have I ever been wrong?”

 “Well there was that time with the mermaids back in senior year.”

 “I thought we agreed never to bring that up again!” Kira hisses over Stiles’ snickers. “I’m serious, though.”

 “Sorry, Kira. I can’t hear you. You’re breaking up.”

 “No I’m not. You aren’t even crumpling paper over the receiver you jerk—”

 He ends the call before she can say anything else. What can he say? Stiles is a big fan of avoiding things

 ---

 It takes one phone call for Stiles to decide that nothing is going to change and everything is going to be completely normal.

 Completely.

 ---

 Absolutely normal. That’s how everything is. Nothing changes. He still sees Scott around campus. He still drops by his room every Friday to play video games or watch movies. He still texts Scott in class when things get way too boring. Everything is perfectly normal and fine.

 But at the same time, it’s not.

 Stiles notices how warm he feels whenever he’s with Scott. How his smile makes Stiles’ heart flutter and ache at the same time. How Scott’s soft touches feel like fire against his skin. How everything just feels like so much more.

 He hates it.

 Stiles’ gameplan is Conceal Don’t Feel, Don’t Let Him Know. After that, he’ll suppress his feelings until they go away and this all blows over. When you leave something alone for a long enough period of time, they tend to die. Well, at least that’s what happened to Stiles’ goldfish once. He hopes it works on romantic feelings for your best friend too.

 Despite the war zone Stiles’ feelings have been, Scott doesn’t seem to notice anything out of place. This means Stiles is doing a pretty good job at not letting anything on. Or maybe Scott does notice and he just doesn’t bring it up. Because really. Stiles isn’t all that good at policing his actions. Stiles has caught himself longingly staring at Scott these past few days. Maybe his hand also lingers a bit when Scott touches him. Whatever. It’s totally nothing. This is just some really healthy, totally normal, bro behavior.

 Stiles is going to fucking die.

 When he passes by this stall outside his dorm building, he feels his frustration bubble up again. It’s this health service thing and they’ve got a basket of what is supposedly FREE CONDOMS next to a bunch of brochures about STDs. Since Stiles has nothing else to do with his life, he opens his bag and pours the entire basket in.

 The guy sitting at the stall is eyeing him weirdly but he seems too tired to actually stop him.

 Stiles feels for the guy a bit.

 He slings his bag over his shoulder and he starts walking into the dorm building. He thinks he’s going to take his frustration out on his roommate, the indirect root of all his problems right now. Waking him up via bucket of condoms in the face sounds hilarious.  

 Of course, since he’s too busy thinking about his condom filled revenge plan, he isn’t paying attention to where he’s walking.

 He walks right into somebody head on and that somebody totally stops him from crashing his head into the ground. The strong arms around his waist set him up right again and Stiles sees Scott’s lovely face looking at him in concern.

 It’s ironic how Scott always seems to catch Stiles when he’s falling.

 “Yo, Stiles.” Scott says. “You okay…” And the rest of Scott’s sentence dribbles into nothing else because he’s looking at Stiles feet.

 Or more appropriately, he’s looking at the minefield of condoms currently scattered around Stiles’ feet.

 Stiles looks Scott square in the eye. “I’m not having an orgy. Or any sex. At all.”

 Scott puts his hands up. “I didn’t say anything. Plus, I know you. You get less action than most monasteries.”

 “Dude, don’t remind me.” Stiles punches Scott in the shoulder, ow.

 And just like that, Scott is bending down to help Stiles gather the shitloads of condoms he’s dropped. Their hands bump into each other sometimes when they both go to grab the same condom and it lights a fire through Stiles skin. Stiles never thought picking up around eighty condoms from the ground could be even remotely romantic, but here they are. Scott picking up Stiles’ messes yet again.

 Pathetic.

 ---

 It takes picking up eighty condoms from the ground for Stiles to realize that everything isn’t going to be normal.

 But Scott doesn’t need to know that.

 ---

 The cherry on top of the shit week Stiles has been having comes in the form of sudden rain. Fuck you, universe.

 He was walking back to campus from this coffee shop nearby when it just starts raining out of nowhere. His final paper is printed and in his bag which is decidedly not waterproof. So he just ducks and runs until he finds this small awning he can wait the rain out under. There’s another guy there too. Some other poor sap without an umbrella, but there’s still space next to him so it should be fine to—

 “Stiles!” The guy turns around.

 Fuck you, universe.

 “Scott,” Stiles breathes out the moment he gets under the awning. “What a coincidence.”

 “Yeah,” Scott says as Stiles catches his breath. He’s really not built for running or prolonged exposure to Scott McCall. “You gonna make a run for it?”

 “I don’t think I can,” Stiles says. “I’ve got a thing in my bag and my prof is going to kill me if I don’t get it to him dry.”

 “Sucks,” Scott claps a hand over his shoulder and Stiles tenses up, barely stopping himself from flinching. Every piece of physical contact he has with Scott is just magnified ten times over and shit. Shit. Scott is looking him. He’s really looking.

 “Stiles,” Scott starts. It’s the beginning of the end. “You’ve been really jumpy this past week.”

 “Stress,” Stiles shrugs.

 “And you’ve been lying a lot.” Scott says. “Usually I don’t mind it since they’re not about anything serious, but this past week your heart’s been going crazy whenever I can hear it.”

 “Look, it’s nothing.”

 “Whatever it is, I can help you out.” Scott faces him and he’s using his concerned alpha voice which is totally cheating. It’s earnest and caring and loving.

 Just not the type of love Stiles is really looking for here.

 “I’m just a bit on edge, that’s all—”

 “Okay, seriously. Dude.” And Scott says the word “dude” with so much magnitude and seriousness that Stiles just has to stop and listen. “What's wrong?”

 “Wrong? There's nothing wrong. Why would you think there's anything wrong?” Stiles says and yeah, it's a pathetic lie. He's hoping Scott picks up on the tone of utter desperation though and decides to leave it alone for another day.

 Instead, Scott charges head on with “When you broke the cereal dispenser this morning, you just stood there, surrounded by Froot Loops, looking like you wanted to cry.”

 Fuck. He’d been sure Scott wasn’t there to see that. Somebody probably told him. It was probably Dave. Fuck Dave.

 “You know you can tell me anything, right?” Scott says. And yeah. Stiles knows that. This isn’t an exception. He just doesn’t want to deal with the aftermath of pity and awkwardness.

 Stiles can get over this. He really can. As long as it stays in his head, it isn’t real.

 But then again, Scott is looking at him like he’s scared he’s losing Stiles to something.

 Stiles was never that strong of a person anyways.

 “I’m in love with you, probably.” Stiles says. Then he wrenches his gaze away from Scott. He doesn’t want to see his reaction. He doesn’t want that scorched into his brain. He’d rather look at the rain.

 “So—”

 “Look, I know I shouldn’t have said it. I’m sorry.” Stiles turns to look at Scott and then

 It isn’t like in the books or movies. They’re not just suddenly kissing. What happens is that Scott’s face is a whole lot closer to Stiles’ than it was a minute ago. Their lips just a breaths width away.

 Scott makes the first move and thank fuck because god knows Stiles wouldn’t have done it. He brings his hand to Stiles’ face, something he’s done countless times before.

 “I’m going to kiss you,” Scott says.

 Stiles wants to laugh, holy shit. “Please fucking do.”

 And Scott leans just the little bit closer. He presses his lips against Stiles’. That’s it. Just this warm pressure against him is enough to kill Stiles’ brain. A chaste kiss is enough to bring Stiles down.

 When Scott backs away, he puts his hands in his pocket, looking down slightly, fucking sheepish. He glances up and he looks at Stiles like he’s the world, which is weird because isn’t that what Stiles is supposed to be doing?

 “What,” Stiles finally finds the power to say.

 “I’m in love with you too, probably.” Scott says. He pauses for a bit. “Actually get rid of the ‘probably’. I’m definitely in love with you.”

 “Definitely,” Stiles says loving how the word sounds like. Definitely. “When exactly did this happen?”

 Scott runs a hand through his hair, “I don’t actually know. Like, I know when I noticed I loved you more than a friend—”

 Stiles shuts him up with a kiss of his own. This one isn’t chaste at all because of course. Of course they’d be the same brand of idiot. He doubts it would’ve worked any other way.

 ---