Chapter Text
Scott brought the good chips.
That was the first thing he said when Stiles opened the door.
Not hello.
Not you look weird.
Not why did you take so long to answer earlier.
That was good, because Stiles had spent the last twenty minutes preparing seventeen different versions of normal and none of them were holding up particularly well under hallway lighting.
Scott just lifted the bag like evidence. “I brought the good chips.”
Stiles looked at the family-size bag of ridged sour cream and onion, then back at Scott. “You remembered.”
“You threatened me last time.”
“I educated you.”
“You said baked chips taste like sadness and printer paper.”
“Accurate and legally defensible.”
Scott smiled, but it did the thing his smiles did when he was trying not to look too hard. Stiles saw it anyway because Stiles had built an entire operating system around noticing the exact second people started noticing him back.
He stepped aside. “Come in before my dad’s neighbors decide you’re selling drugs.”
Scott glanced toward the empty driveway as he crossed the threshold. “Pretty sure Mrs. Donnelly already thinks that.”
“Mrs. Donnelly thinks everyone is selling drugs. That’s her cardio.”
The words came out normal. Well, normal-ish.
Stiles closed the door and tried to make the movement casual, but his head pulsed when he turned too fast, pressure blooming behind his eyes in a dull warning throb. He kept his face still until it passed. That was the trick. Let the body do whatever weird garbage it wanted, but keep the face out of it. The face was where people got ideas.
Scott did not say anything and that was worse than saying something.
Stiles walked toward the living room, slower than he meant to, one hand grazing the hallway wall for just a second before he remembered Scott was behind him and dropped it.
Too late. Obviously too late, because Scott McCall had the observational intensity of a herding dog with abandonment issues when he wanted to. He did not comment on it, though. He just followed Stiles into the living room and set the chips on the coffee table like this was a normal hangout and not the beginning of an interrogation pretending to cargo shorts.
Stiles threw himself onto the couch.
Carefully.
Which was an annoying word to have attached to throwing himself anywhere.
Scott sat next to him, far enough that they weren’t touching, but close enough to be there. He opened the chips and pushed the bag sideways until it bumped Stiles’ knee.
Stiles stared at it. “What?”
Scott shrugged. “You asked for the good chips.”
“Yeah, but usually you hoard them like a dragon with a sodium deficiency.”
“I’m growing as a person.”
“Suspicious. But thanks.”
Stiles took a chip because not taking one would make it weird.
Eating one made it normal.
Normal people ate chips.
Normal people complained about chip quality and watched dumb movies and did not stand blind in bathrooms wondering if they were dying.
The chip tasted like salt and onion powder and proof of life.
Scott picked up the remote. “Movie?”
“Something with explosions.”
“You always say that.”
“Because explosions are fun.”
Scott looked at the TV, then at the windows, then at Stiles’ face for just long enough that Stiles felt every muscle in his body start lining up excuses.
“Do you want the lamp off?”
Stiles froze, his hand paused halfway back to the chip bag.
Scott kept his voice light and easy. “You’re squinting.”
“I’m not squinting.”
“You are squinting aggressively.”
“That’s just my face. I have an expressive skull.”
“Does your expressive skull want the lamp off?”
Stiles wanted to say no on principle. He wanted to keep the room bright because turning off the lamp made it obvious that light hurt, and making accommodations obvious made them feel like announcements. But the headache behind his eyes pulsed again, heavy and mean, and the lamp really was stabbing directly into his skull like it had personal motives.
“Maybe,” he said.
Scott turned it off.
Stiles hated how much it helped.
“Thanks,” he muttered.
Scott nodded and pressed buttons on the remote. “Explosions with robots, aliens, or cars?”
“Aliens. Robots have too many feelings now and most of them turn into cars anyways.”
They got twelve minutes into the movie before Stiles realized Scott was not watching it, not fully.
His eyes were on the screen, but his attention kept drifting sideways, touching Stiles without landing too hard. It was careful. That was the problem. Scott was being careful at him.
Stiles reached for another chip. “If you have something to say, just say it before you rupture something.”
Scott’s mouth twitched. “I don’t think that’s how rupturing works.”
“You don’t know. You’re not a doctor.”
“My mom is.”
“Wrong, she’s a nurse. And medical knowledge by osmosis seems very unreliable.”
Scott looked like he wanted to laugh, which was good. Laughing was normal. Laughing meant the room was still a room and Stiles was still a person on a couch eating chips instead of a guy who had recently discovered that vision could apparently submit a resignation letter without warning.
Scott turned the volume down one notch.
Stiles stared at him.
Scott stared back with the expression of someone trying very hard to look casual and landing somewhere around emotionally constipated.
“What,” Stiles said.
“Nothing.”
“Oh, good. Nothing has a volume setting now.”
Scott set the remote on the coffee table and did not reach for it again. “You took a while to answer earlier.”
“I was brushing my teeth.”
“I know.”
“I said that.”
“You did.”
“Then why are we circling it like it left tracks in the woods?”
Scott looked down at the chip bag for a second, then back at him. “Because you said you were brushing your teeth and then opened the door twenty minutes later looking like you had been arguing with a ghost.”
Stiles blinked. “That is rude to ghosts.”
“Stiles.”
“No, really, most ghosts have better manners.”
Stiles waited for Scott’s face to do the thing. It didn’t. That was almost worse. It was steady and quiet, which meant Stiles could not accuse him of panicking. He hated when Scott learned new tactics. Personal growth was supposed to happen to other people, preferably at a safe distance.
“I’m fine,” Stiles said.
Scott nodded.
Stiles narrowed his eyes. “That’s suspicious.”
“What is?”
“You accepting that.”
“I’m accepting that you said it.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No,” Scott agreed. “It’s not.”
Stiles opened his mouth, then shut it again because unfortunately that was fair, and fair arguments were the worst kind because they gave him nothing useful to swing at.
Scott picked up a chip, looked at it like it had personally betrayed him, and put it back. “I’m not asking what happened.”
Stiles’ fingers tightened around the edge of the couch cushion.
There it was. Almost. Not a question, which somehow made it harder to dodge.
“Nothing happened.”
“Okay.”
“I mean it.”
“Okay.”
“You keep saying okay like you’re putting tiny traffic cones around me.”
Scott’s mouth twitched again, but he kept his voice even. “I’m trying not to make you feel cornered.”
That landed badly. There wasn’t anything wrong with it, that was the problem. It was exactly right, and Stiles hated being accurately handled. He hated that Scott had noticed the corner before Stiles had even finished backing himself into it.
He looked back at the TV, where an alien ship had started hovering over a city in a way that suggested municipal zoning laws were about to become very flexible.
“I don’t need to be handled,” Stiles said.
“I know.”
“You literally just said you were trying to not corner me.”
“That’s not handling. That’s manners.”
“Since when do you have those?”
“My mom got me a starter pack.”
“Tell her I said condolences.”
Scott huffed a quiet laugh, and Stiles felt something in his chest unclench by a fraction. The headache still sat behind his eyes, heavy and mean, but the lamp was off and the room was dim and Scott was not demanding anything from him.
That helped.
It helped too much.
It helped enough to be annoying.
Scott leaned back against the couch, close but not touching. “Can I ask one thing?”
Stiles groaned. “That sentence has never led anywhere fun.”
“One thing,” Scott said. “And you can say no.”
That made Stiles look at him again.
Scott was still not doing the face. He looked concerned, obviously, because Scott’s baseline emotional setting was golden retriever at a hospital window, but he was keeping it contained. Holding it in his own hands instead of dumping it into Stiles’ lap.
Stiles hated how much that mattered.
“One thing,” he said.
“Do you want me to stay until your dad gets home?”
The answer was yes so immediately that Stiles wanted to crawl out of his own skin.
Nothing was wrong. At least not anymore.
That was the point.
His vision was back. His head hurt, but not as much. He had made it to the bathroom. He had brushed his teeth. He had opened the door. He was sitting on the couch with Scott and chips and a movie distracting enough to pretend the rest of the world was not listening.
Everything was fine.
Except the house did not feel as safe as it had that morning.
Except the hallway between his bedroom and the bathroom existed now as a place where the world had gone out while his eyes were open.
Except part of him kept waiting for it to happen again.
Scott did not fill the silence. He did not say Stiles’ name in that careful voice. He did not add, because I’m worried, or because you’re acting weird, or because I know something happened and you’re being impossible about it.
He just waited.
Stiles picked at the seam of the couch cushion. “You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
“I’m not asking.”
“I know.”
“I’m just saying, if you already planned to stay for the movie, that’s obviously different.”
“Obviously.”
“And if the movie happens to be, like, very long…”
“Very long,” Scott agreed.
“Possibly with sequels.”
“Could be a marathon.”
Stiles looked at him.
Scott looked back, calm and open and not smug about it, which was generous considering Stiles was being about as subtle as a raccoon caught in a snack cabinet.
“Fine,” Stiles said.
Scott nodded. “Fine.”
“Don’t make it weird.”
“I won’t.”
“You’re already making it weird by being so normal about it.”
“I can be less normal.”
“Please don’t. Your less normal makes me less normal, and historically that’s how we end up in the back of my dad’s car.”
Scott smiled properly this time, and Stiles let himself breathe a little easier.
The movie crashed into another explosion. The room flashed blue-white for a second, and Stiles winced before he could stop himself.
Scott reached for the remote.
Stiles tensed.
Scott paused with his hand halfway there. “Volume or brightness?”
Stiles stared at him.
Not are you okay.
Not what happened.
Not why are you like this.
Just the useful part.
The part that did not require Stiles to drag the whole terrifying thing into the room and set it between them like a dead animal.
“Brightness,” Stiles said finally.
Scott nodded and lowered it.
The screen dimmed, the room softened, and Stiles hated, again, how much it helped.
“Thanks,” he said, barely louder than the movie.
“Yeah.”
Scott settled back beside him, still not touching, still close enough that Stiles could feel the shape of him there. Not hovering. Not ignoring. Just present in a way that left the door open without standing in it.
After a while, Scott said, “For the record, I do trust you.”
Stiles kept his eyes on the screen. “That sounds like something people say before doing the opposite.”
“I trust you,” Scott said again. “I’m just learning that sometimes ‘I’m fine’ means you don’t want to talk about it, not that you want to be alone.”
The words slid under Stiles’ ribs and stayed there.
He wanted to joke.
He really did.
His mouth even opened for it, automatic and loyal and ready to throw something shiny over the raw spot. But nothing came out.
Scott did not look at him.
That helped too.
Stiles swallowed thickly. “That sounds dangerously mature.”
“I know. It terrifies me too.”
A wet laugh escaped before Stiles could stop it, small and rough, but real enough to count. He sniffed and wiped the tear that was threatening to fall.
Scott smiled at the TV.
Stiles reached for another chip.