Chapter Text
When the door slams open downstairs, Stiles is frozen on the ground where Scott has thrown him, lent on his elbow as he gazes vacantly at the doorstep of his room. Aghast, he can still see Scott’s silhouette as an afterglow shaking with anger, grunting something that just sounded like disgusting. Disgusting.
Is it all… real? Did he just came out to his best friend, and got completely rejected? Is… Is it all over? Just like that?
He can’t realize a thing, can’t feel a thing actually. His mind works slow and the wooden floor beneath his fingers feels like plastic. For all he knows, he could (he’d wish to) wake up any moment soon.
What did he just say? Maybe he said it wrong, maybe Scott got the message wrong.
“Buddy… I’m gay.
- Really?
- Yes… Listen... I… I love…I love Derek”.
At the thought of it, a terse bitter laugh escapes him. Derek. Derek who brought him into such situation. No, he definitely doesn’t love him.
*
A few hours ago, Stiles had come up to his room after his breakfast, distractedly texting Scott before settling in front of his computer. After a few seconds of just staring at his desktop, he had gone sighing through some photos of Scott he keeps dearly, had begun to put a hand in his pants, before Derek finally decided to reveal his presence with a little throat clearing. Stiles jumped off so hard he knocked his chair over and banged his knee under his desk, swearing in the process.
“God, would you mind actually knocking on the door once in a while? said Stiles, placing himself between the new alpha and his computer screen. As if it would change anything…
- Well, I’m obviously disturbing you at a very personal time...”
Stiles didn’t have anything to answer to that. Unless a hanging jaw, an approximate yeah! and blushing cheeks are considered an answer.
“That’s not what I’m here for anyway.”
Indeed, Derek just needed Stiles’ help with some computer stuff, and as always he needed it immediately, demanding a perfect response to his mysteriously evasive questions. Naturally, they both rapidly lost their tempers, and Stiles got his fare share of ice-cold stares. He was able to help Derek out nevertheless.
When Derek stepped out of the window, Stiles couldn’t help asking the question that had burnt his tongue and cheeks for the last half-hour.
“So, about what you saw earlier…”
Derek sighed in despair as he turned to the fidgety teenager.
“Stiles, I’m not gonna tell him anything, I couldn’t care less about your love life...
- Thanks... I guess.
- But for what it’s worth, I think you should.
- Yeah! Coz that would be a pleasant conversation! No way I could lose my best friend ever and get him to hate me in the process!
- Well, I wouldn’t be so sure about that…
- What? What do you mean?... Do-Do I have a chance?! DEREK, DO…”
Of course, Derek was already out of sight.
“Do I have a chance?...”
And for the first time in months, he wondered about it. For as soon as Scott had got Allison, Stiles had lost all hope for it. These last months had been rough on him, even taking the whole werewolf thing apart. Before all this, he had got himself to think that Scott might love him back, even had settled a way to tell him. Then all of a sudden there was a body in the woods, Scott was a werewolf, had a hot girlfriend, made 1st line at lacrosse, and their lives had turned into a parade of people living in clans and dealing with deep anger management issues.
And weeks had past, Scott becoming sexier, more confident and charismatic with every day, talking about his profound love for Alison over and over as if she was the world’s 8th wonder, and it all sounded so sour to Stiles ears. All the times he had answered “I’m happy for you buddy”, all he could think about was Please, please see me that way, please give that love to me. And he had felt relieved when they broke up, and he had felt so nasty for it. Like he was betraying their friendship.
So even though he had settled his mind months ago about Scott not being into guys, Stiles hadn’t stop loving him for a second. He hated Derek for giving him hope once again, knowing that was vain, but he knew he had to tell Scott anyway. Finally hearing that No might be the best chance he had to get over him. And who was he kidding; of course Scott wouldn’t reject him, for he had the most caring, loving heart Stiles had ever known.
*
Or so he thought. Stiles feels sick. He panicked and only managed to tell half the truth to Scott, throwing Derek under the bus when his eyes met Scott’s and his will shuddered. And that was enough for Scott to get pissed, punch him and trigger his werewolf transformation. It couldn’t be worse. Disgusting.
Stiles throws up. An orange acrid mix of bile and half-chewed chili flavoured chips. It came up so fast he barely had any time to move and his right leg bears the cost of it. His throat should hurt. It hurts a bit, vaguely, distantly. The wood under his fingers still feels like plastic. Everything does. Everything is false, it has to be. The only thing undeniably true is the drill digging his heart and stomach deeper with every passing minute.
He stays here for a while, staring vacantly at the puddle he made on the floor, catching his breath. He doesn’t think of anything really. His mind is just the muddled film of his memories with Scott. The good and the bad, the little daily pleasures and the threats they faced; Scott’s goofy expression in-between guilt and amusement each time Stiles looses patience; the way he used to lean on Stiles when he got breathless from ignoring his asthmatic condition; the way he now passes a distracted hand on his new built up torso, as if sometimes he still can’t believe it’s his. Everything illuminated and blurred by Scott gorgeous smile.
It’s all over. All of this. And the drill digs deeper. He can’t stand it, he can’t stay here, in his room full of reminiscences and fantasies. Scott… He gets up, staggers to the stairs then to the kitchen table, fetch his keys, grabs the bottle of Jack Daniel’s the Sheriff left on the counter. He doesn’t even notice the light drizzle on his face as he heads for his Jeep, can’t help but to picture Scott leant against the car door with his back pack. By the time he gets off the driveway, he has already knocked back a double. He winces as the bourbon burns his sensitized throat, riding his tongue of the vomit bitterness.
His head feels like it’s asking to be banged on the wall. He’s got to leave; he’s got to drive, and drive fast. The one thing Stiles doesn’t want right now is to think. He’s got to keep his mind occupied, accelerate so he’s got to focus on the road, so he can’t string proper thoughts together, so Scott gets to be nothing more than a name repeated in his mind like a mantra. He gets out of Beacon Hills, and it feels good, and it hurts. The air comes chill through the ajar window. He goes faster.
As he does, he can hear Scott blabbering in his head about driving safely, about some poor dog that arrived at Deaton’s the other day with a crushed paw and tail because of some silly driver. He gets a mouthful of whisky, he’s got lead in his stomach.
His eyes linger on the passenger seat as he puts the bottle back on; he can totally picture Scott asleep on it, wrapped up in one of his checkered shirt with the street light on his face. “I truly fucking love you, you know?” he says, talking so low the words don’t even reach his own ears. Disgusting. He strikes the wheel in anger, he’s got tears in his eyes.
It’s raining a bit more, and he turns the wipers on. The drops resonate inside the jeep with a metallic note he knows Scott loves. For it means that while the night is dark and cold, he is safe, sound and dry.
“You feel like you’re on an island, you know? he told Stiles a few months ago, when they were just two common teenagers, as they were having curly fries in the car by a stormy night. Everything looks like its falling apart, like it’s going to be drowned, but you’re in the center of it and you’re safe. It makes me feel euphoric.”
Stiles had gulped a handful of potatoes with an ironic smirk.
“Ah Scotty, we can really count on you to save the world, can’t we?”
As usual, Scott had let it slip.
“No I- I feel like we’re isolated you know, like it’s just the two of us against the whole storm. I like that…”
His crooked grin was radiant, and Stiles chest tightened a bit.
“Yeah… I like that too…”
That night, they listened to the sound of the rain for a long time after all fries where eaten, and Stiles imprinted Scott’s silhouette outlined on the window, the shadow of his smile glowing in the dark. It’s one of his favourite moments, one of those he recalls almost daily to remember himself that even if Scott doesn’t love him back in the exact same way, it’s them against the storm, always.
But not this time. It couldn’t be worse. And gripping the wheel way stronger than needed, Stiles joints’ turn white and he begins to sob silently. He is soon overwhelmed though, and he lets out his crying louder than he has for a long time. He stinks vomit and alcohol, he can't stop crying, he feels so pathetic... He can’t take it! Being rejected, like that, by Scott… It can’t be, it’s carving his heart out of his chest, for god sake it hurts so freaking much!
His eyes filled with never-ending tears, he is shaking behind the wheel and slows down as the rain goes even louder on the roof. He’s tired, and probably a lot less sober than he cares to admit. But when the next curve comes, his wheels are sodden; his reactions are too slow, his car moves too late. And even then, as the Jeep roles over, tumbles into a tree, bends and go still in a grisly crack, Stiles’ mind is filled with Scott’s face.