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When Stiles is himself again, truly himself, he locks himself in his room for a week. His dad thinks he needs to rest, and Stiles does his duty by pretending to be asleep whenever his dad checks, but the truth is Stiles has been asleep inside his own mind for long enough. He stays in bed because he can’t stand to walk out the door and face all the funerals he’s caused.
(“Not you,” Lydia will tell him later, fingernails digging into his palm. “Not you,” he will repeat to himself, testing out the words. One day, much later, he will even start to believe them.)
Scott comes by after a week, which is less time than Stiles told himself it would take and so much longer than he expected. Scott’s always been right there, but then Stiles has never done anything to make Scott his enemy.
(“Not you.”)
Stiles’ dad is under very specific orders not to let anyone into the house, but Scott’s never been just anyone. Stiles is lying in bed when someone knocks on the front door. His sheets are soft and warm underneath him. They’re dirty from six straight days of use, but no dirtier than Stiles. The lights in the room are off, the last dregs of sunlight filtering through the slats in the window and providing just enough to see. Everything is draped in shadow.
Stiles hears the door open, hears the hushed voices, hears the door close again. He wonders if it’s another deputy from the station, come to offer condolences or ask questions, or maybe Chris Argent to check that Stiles isn’t still harboring any angry spirits.
He isn’t. Stiles’ dad has been checking in every hour like clockwork ever since they came home, and Mrs. Yukimura has been coming by once a day to make sure there aren’t any side effects. It’s a fairly pathetic cover for making sure the nogitsune is really gone, but Stiles hasn’t called her on it yet and he doesn’t really intend to.
The knock on Stiles door, when it comes, is soft. Everyone has been so soft around Stiles for the last week, like if they tug too hard he’ll unravel like a ball of string. He’s not entirely sure he won’t.
“Stiles?” asks Scott. Stiles squeezes his eyes shut.
He remembers what happened in flashes, blurs, like a blackout that wouldn’t end. He remembers turning to Scott with one of Chris Argent’s flares in his hands, he remembers leading Scott toward an explosion instead of away from it, holding back a smile as Scott took more and more people’s pain into himself. Stiles remembers the cool metal of an Oni’s sword singing under his fingers. He remembers grasping the handle, shoving forward, give of flesh and Scott’s voice as he begged for Stiles to stop.
He remembers what he did.
(“Not you,” Lydia will promise. “Not you,” Scott will whisper into the curve of his neck. “Not you,” Stiles will say to his reflection in the mirror, standing up taller and rolling back his shoulders to try to look more convincing. But that will be later, and right now all Stiles can think is that it was his hands that twisted the knife, his eyes that took it all in, his mouth that smiled at the sight.)
“Stiles?” Scott asks again.
Stiles closes his eyes, he feels the last rays of light slip across his face and disappear. He listens to Scott slump against the door, slide down the other side and knock his head against it. Once it’s fully dark and Scott’s breathing has evened out into either sleep or something close to it, Stiles climbs out of bed and sits down against the door. He knows that he can’t hear Scott’s heartbeat or feel his warmth through the wood, but he lets his breathing sync to Scott’s. He can’t have what he had before, but he can have this.
(“Not you,” Scott will say one day as Stiles peppers his stomach with kisses, reaching a hand down to twine his fingers through Stiles’ hair. There won’t be a scar, of course, but Stiles will never forget the exact shape and placement of the wound. “Not you,” Scott will say again, pulling Stiles up for a kiss.)
Stiles wakes up the next morning in bed, with Scott asleep on his stomach next to him. They aren’t cuddling, not by a long shot; Scott has been a furnace ever since they were children, and Stiles doesn’t think he could handle the human contact right now anyway.
“What happened to all your lamps?” Scott asks. Stiles has been imagining the first thing Scott would say to him for a week now. That’s not one that he would have guessed. It might be an obvious one, though, in retrospect. The carcasses of table lamps and flashlights and floor lamps litter Stiles’ room, and the glass dust ground into the carpet must be visible to werewolf eyes.
“I wanted the light, when I first got back. The shadows were- it was bad.”
“It looks like you dragged every lamp in your house in here.” Scott twists over onto his side, shirt pulling up and exposing a bit of stomach. Stiles wants to push it up, see for himself that he didn’t do any lasting damage to Scott, at least.
(“Not you,” Scott will whisper into Stiles’ ear at 3am, hair damp from sweat and his breath still coming too quickly. Scott will never want to talk about the nightmares that wake him up some nights. Stiles will one day come to realize this is because he is not the only one haunted by the things his body has done. “Not me,” Stiles will say back, pushing Scott’s bangs off his forehead and letting Scott hold him until the sun starts to trip over the horizon.)
“There’s still the clamp light in the garage, and the lamp in my dad’s room. I just- I needed it, the first few nights.” Stiles rolls away from Scott, as far as he can in the twin bed. The sun is shining through the window. It must be eight or nine already; technically they should be in second period right now.
“And then you decided to carpet your room in broken glass?” Stiles’ dad cleaned up all the glass a couple days ago. He sat on his knees with a broom and dustpan, uncaring of the black suit he was getting dusty or the tie that kept snagging on broken pieces of lightbulb.
“Hiding from the shadows doesn’t work,” Stiles says eventually. Scott scoots closer to him, letting himself press up against Stiles’ back in degrees, like if he does it slowly enough Stiles won’t notice that they’re cuddling now.
“I think we know that better than most people,” says Scott. Stiles can feel Scott’s eyelashes every time he blinks, brushing up against the back of Stiles’ neck. “But you don’t have to face it alone.”
(“You,” Scott will say one day, eyes wide and body frozen when he sees Stiles in the doorway. Stiles will hardly be able to hide his smirk at Scott’s face. It’s hard to surprise a werewolf, but Stiles prides himself on his commitment and he’s been planning this visit for months. “Yeah,” Stiles will say, making a beeline into Scott’s waiting arms, never noticing the deep shadows cast by afternoon light drifting in through the curtains. “Me.”)