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Derek and Cora leave Beacon Hills – Scott wishes he could have convinced them to stay, but something told him Derek needed to leave, needed to figure things out before settling.
In Derek’s absence, Boyd and Erica don’t so much as join Scott’s pack as sit down with them at lunch one day, like they’ve always been there, always belonged there. Isaac beams so bright it hurts to see and gives Erica his fruit cup and leans against Boyd’s shoulder. Scott doesn’t have the heart to say anything; he smiles kind of helplessly and asks Boyd about his essay thesis for English, instead.
He adds their phone numbers to the text group on his cell and invites them to Sunday training (at the abandoned train warehouse, fitted with mats and two old sofas because Stiles insisted on it) and Friday movie nights (held alternately at Stiles’ and Scott’s houses). They show up, always, and it’s still tense between them and Allison but Stiles does his best to cover it with loud obnoxious jokes, while Lydia effortlessly steers conversation away from bad memories, and Isaac puts himself between Allison and Erica and openly adores them both. And they fit, even with the rough edges and awkward tension, they belong in the pack and it makes Scott swell with pride and hope.
There’s just one little snag in his plan for intra-pack peace and harmony.
Because Erica keeps flirting with him and it’s more than a little alarming. He knows she’s with Boyd, would be able to smell them on each other even if they weren’t openly affectionate in public. It’s sweet, the way Erica calms under Boyd’s influence, and Boyd’s dry sense of humor is more prominent with Erica shamelessly egging him on, the way she laughs in delight every time he surprises the group with a tongue-in-cheek joke.
They come in a set, so Erica only ever flirts with him when Boyd is right there watching - and Boyd’s kinda twice as big as he is and has really large hands that could snap him in half (and weirdly enough Scott finds himself staring at those broad hands and wondering how they’d look bracketing Erica’s waist, if they feel good against bare skin, before he snaps out of it and firmly puts those thoughts out of his mind, because thinking about packmates like that is just inappropriate, what’s wrong with him?)
Except that’s all Boyd ever does. Watches. Erica flirts outrageously with Scott and Boyd just smiles, a little, or studies Scott for a reaction, which makes him even more nervous. Somehow it doesn’t feel like he’s waiting for Scott to mess up and give him an excuse to become the angry boyfriend, but like he’s waiting for – something else? Scott doesn’t have a clue, but when Boyd still helps him check his precal homework, and is only ever careful and gentle with Scott during training, he decides not to worry about it more than he needs to.
Erica is a menace, though. She trains harder than all of them, even demands extra lessons from Allison (but to Scott’s relief that seems to erase some of the bad blood between them, helps alleviate Allison’s guilt and satisfy Erica’s drive to be a competent fighter).
She starts to beat Scott in training. The first time she pins Scott to the floor, hands trapped behind his back, he’s too winded and surprised to say anything. Erica laughs in triumph, hand pressed against the back of his neck, firm but not painful.
“Good – good job,” Scott finally gets out. “Um – you can get up now?”
“Why, when I finally have you where I want you?” Erica teases, and Scott shudders hard because Boyd is standing to the side and still. Just. Watching. Arms crossed and eyes hooded as his girlfriend straddles Scott.
And there must be something fucked up in how Scott’s wired because his blood rushes south in what is probably the most messed up physiological response ever, knowing that Boyd is watching. “I – let me up, please.”
Erica sighs but rolls off him immediately, and he clears his throat and mutters about going to the bathroom before half-running away. His face burns because he can hide the hard-on but he can’t disguise the scent of it and he wants to die from embarrassment.
Just before he exits he glances back – Erica’s leaning against Boyd, smirking at him, while Boyd’s gaze just meet Scott’s, heated and dark.
Scott flees. There really isn’t another word for it.
—-
It happens again, and again, because Erica has figured out that Scott has a – a thing. For being - well.
The problem with being an alpha is that it’s hard. It’s stressful and exhausting and feels like a weight on his shoulders, a weight he feels every time Isaac or Stiles look to him for direction, or when Lydia’s armor starts to crack and she gets that vulnerable look in her eyes, or when Allison moves too stiff and bridle, haunted by her own past.
It’s a weight he feels when Deaton explains a new threat to Beacon Hills, when his mother bites her thumbnail til it bleeds worrying for him, when the lines around the Sheriff’s eyes are deep with weariness.
He’s in charge what feels like all the time and he never asked for any of this, only stepped up because someone had to. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, so it ended up being him.
He doesn’t want to be in charge, all the time.
So the second time Erica gets him in a lock during training, he just goes limp. She’s never forceful enough to hurt him, and it feels good, to be restrained, to know just for a second that someone else is playing alpha right now.
He’s quiet for too long. “You okay?” Erica asks, more hesitant than he’s used to from her.
“Ah, yeah.” Scott clears his throat and makes no attempt to free himself from her hold. Just two more seconds, he tells himself.
Erica pauses, slides one hand up to cup his throat, and he leans into the touch for half a second before the alarm bells go off in his head. He yanks out of her grip and she lets him go. There’s a thoughtful look in her eyes that means he’s too late, though.
The next time they train it’s after Stiles’ father almost gets killed by a chimera, and Scott can’t beat back the sense of guilt and exhaustion. He throws the match with Erica before he even knows what he’s doing, relief flooding him when she presses her hand carefully against his throat, restraining him easily.
“Got you,” Erica says, but it’s less teasing and more soft. Scott’s mind goes quiet and he breathes out, eyes closing.
Just this once, he promises himself. Next time he’ll properly push Erica so she can improve. But just this once…
After a moment Erica gets off him, but Scott barely has time to swallow back the sense of loss when Boyd’s pulling him into his lap, one hand loosely cupping his neck and the other wrapping around his waist as he pulls Scott’s back against his chest.
Scott lets it happen, confused but trusting because Boyd’s already shown he’s fiercely loyal and protective and gentle, so gentle with the people he cares about.
Training commences, and nobody says anything about the fact that Boyd is holding Scott in a decidedly intimate way while everyone else spars. The only acknowledgement comes when the others leave – Allison smiles softly and encouragingly at him while Isaac gives him the thumbs up.
Boyd’s chin rests on Scott’s shoulder and he murmurs, “Trust us,” and “relax,” so Scott leans back against the reassuring warmth of Boyd’s solid chest, hyperaware of the arm holding him in place.
From across the room Erica approaches, eyes brown and human but swing of her hips and the near silent pad of her feet against the floor still shout predator. Scott swallows hard and shivers and does absolutely nothing when crouches in front of him and drags fingertips down the side of his face.
"You can say no, if you want," Boyd says, and Scott realizes his heart is pounding, more than audible to werewolf ears.
Erica pauses, and for a moment her gaze softens as she flicks Scott on the nose. “We’ll respect you in the morning either way, oh great alpha of ours,” she teases.
"Um," Scott stammers, shivering when Boyd’s thumb strokes against the pulse point in his throat. "I’m – are you sure?"
“Yes,” Boyd rumbles, while Erica raises a single eyebrow at him as if saying, really?
“Okay,” Scott says, because he doesn’t want to think about how this might mess up pack dynamics, he just wants to be selfish, this once. “Yes.”
Erica grins, going for his belt while Boyd rucks up his shirt and toys with his nipple until Scott gasps and arches. “Good answer,” she says, fingers tracing a vein in his dick and making him groan.
He tries to touch her, or Boyd, but they catch his hands. Boyd pulls Scott’s shirt over his head and down his arms, using it to trap his hands behind his back.
“Okay?” Boyd asks, as Scott inhales sharply, because that’s not what he bargained for (but it’s what you want, a part of him whispers) he’s still supposed to be their alpha, even now –
“I shouldn’t – I’m not -” he starts, but Erica shushes him and kisses him, more gently than he would have imagined from her.
“Yes you should,” she says, stroking his hair back. “Let us.”
He shivers, indecisive, and Boyd places one broad hand flat against the center of Scott’s chest (he was right, Scott thinks dazedly, those hands do feel good against bare skin) and murmurs, “We’ve got you.”
It’s the press of Boyd’s mouth at the side of his neck, nipping lightly, that undoes him, has Scott tilting his head back with a moan. Erica kisses the hollow of his throat before running her teeth up his jugular and Scott – Scott just lets go.
—-
Everything is so quiet, he marvels. Scott’s mind is silent for once, wiped clean of worries or self-recriminations. His ears are buzzing a little, and he turns into Boyd’s touch as the other man palms his cheek, blinks slow and sweet up at Erica when she pets damp strands of hair out of his eyes.
Erica and Boyd are speaking in low tones, but not to him, and their voices wash over him soothingly. He drifts a little, aware their hands on him as they clean him and tuck blankets around him (turns out one of the old couches that Stiles dragged into the warehouse is a sofabed, where the blankets came from Scott has no idea, but it’s making him suspect this was an operation long in the making) and settle at his sides.
“You’re not leaving?” he asks. He doesn’t mean it to come out so vulnerable, and squeezes his eyes shut when it does.
“Can’t leave our alpha alone and unprotected, can we?” Erica replies, pressed against his front.
“Not gonna leave,” Boyd says, curled at Scott’s back. “It’s okay. You did so well. Sleep.”
Scott sleeps and dreams of bright yellow curls and broad gentle hands.