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By the time Scott made it to bed, he was still sore in places he didn’t know he could ache. He pulled the sheets up over his head and tried to muffle his laughter. He couldn’t believe any of today had actually happened. He made first line, he showed up Jackson and his cronies, and Stiles. Holy fuck, Stiles. The things they’d done… Scott covered his face with his hands and grinned. It was so unlike him to take such a risk like that. He’d wanted to be reckless and break out of his careful, fearful shell, but he had no idea he had so much aggression inside. It scared him and he liked it. Whatever was happening to him, he was so ready.
At least that’s what he thought until he woke up half naked and panicked in the middle of the Preserve. Scott fled, convinced there was something dark stalking at his heels until he broke through the woods and into the suburban sprawl. He kept everything to himself, it wouldn’t really help his new social status if he admitted to anyone that he might actually be going insane. It was just sleepwalking, it was just once… but it wasn’t. He’d wake up in the morning, streaked with mud and what he really hoped wasn’t blood under his fingernails, scrubbing clean in the shower with shaking hands.
He’d smile at school, the onetime everything made sense and life seemed normal as long as he ignored the fact he could hear everything. Scott pushed himself as hard as he could on the lacrosse field even though Jackson kept giving him a look that promised revenge and he was actually good at it. Stiles would make him laugh and then steal his ability to breathe, making everything so freaking worth it. He could ignore the weird and focus on the amazing.
It took a week before he noticed the guy in the leather jacket watching him while he practiced. Once he saw the scowling eyebrows, it was like the guy seemed to be everywhere. Scott kept his head down and tried to ignore it, passing it off as just being paranoid. It was a coincidence, nothing more. Everything in his life was perfect for once and he wasn’t going to let anything ruin it. Derek Hale didn’t care much about what the kid wanted.
A hand closed around the back of his neck, the other muffling his shrieks as the boy was stuffed into his car. When he made it home hours later, he was bloody and shaken, nothing in the world making sense anymore. Scott had seen things that shouldn’t have been real and had gotten answers for things he didn’t want to question. Derek had been blunt with his demands. No more lacrosse. No Stiles. Nothing that would test his control or Scott might end up killing someone. He’d tried to argue before he lost it, feeling it tear him open from the inside and turn him into a monster, proving Derek right. No one could ever know.
—-
[Text:] Hey dude wanna hang out
[Text:] Hey dude?
[Text:] Scott
[Text:] File sent: whatusoundlikewhenimfuckingu.mp3
[Text:] That demands a reply
What Stiles wanted to text was ‘Where the fuck have you been???’ He figured he’d go the casual route. He had to admit that he was a little disappointed to have to send that file so soon, though. He was hoping he could shoot it off while they were in the middle of a class they shared, instead of in the middle of math where Stiles had nothing but learning to occupy him. He wanted to see a response. He wanted to see any response, rather, and that was beginning to worry him.
Scott had been distant lately, not a lot, but just steadily more. It was messed up. Things were good. Things were a lot better than Stiles had ever expected them to be.
Word traveled quickly that Jackson had been dethroned. The guy was a powerhouse, but he was also a raging dick. There were a lot of people who wanted to see him fail. Stiles used to be someone who helped fight back that tide. Then Jackson crossed a line. (Stiles had asked Scott, one last time, if he wanted to tell him who did it; he’d gotten the answer he expected).
It was a little funny. For a week, people wouldn’t shut up about how Stiles and Allison Argent had lunch at the former losers’ table. They couldn’t call it that anymore. Scott’s friends were mostly used to him, a little, sort of, but when Allison started explaining French mythology to Kira, something change. Stiles just thought it was funny. Stiles thought it was great.
Things just started to shift, not in big ways. Scott spent less time with him, less nights. Scott didn’t want him to come over as often, even though most of their afternoons were spent tangled in each other like over-aggressive limpets.
Lacrosse was bizarre, insanely so. Coach cheered Scott as much as he could compliment another human being, but half the time what he did on field was unreal. No one was shocked when Scott was named co-captain, but Jackson was livid. Every now and then, Stiles would see someone at the corner of his eye, a figure in black like an angry greaser, straight out of a Hinton novel.
Then the radio silence started, and Stiles was more - concerned than he should have been.
The lunch bell rang, and he was the first one out of the room. He hoped he could find Scott. He really did.
—
Scott’s phone kept buzzing and he really should turn it off or just ignore it like he was supposed to, but every time it vibrated, he’d slip it from his pocket to check. He was making the wrong decision, Derek had put his foot down (on his face, which was rude) to make his point. Something about an alpha and werewolves and Scott wasn’t sure what else. He’d been too busy mentally screaming at the fact he had freaking claws to pay attention to a lecture. He kept checking anyways, keeping the heated flush and embarrassed smile to himself.
Now that he knew it was there, Scott could actually feel the thing snarling in his head and twisting right below the skin. He always felt like he was thirty seconds from either killing something or fucking it into the floor, angry and feral like some kind of cornered animal. The worst part was that the sleepwalking didn’t stop, it was all just getting more intense. Even when he woke up in his bed, he had dreams of giant snarling monsters and so much blood. When he’d blink open his eyes in the morning, he couldn’t tell what was real and what had been part of the nightmare. Derek couldn’t help with that, he didn’t actually help much at all beyond yelling at him and scaring the crap out of him by showing up in his room at night.
It should have stopped him, but Scott wasn’t willing to cut all the ties in his life no matter how much the Hale huffed about it. Lacrosse was important, he was actually somebody now that he was co-captain of the team. He had friends who wanted to be around him and as much as he tried to stay away from Stiles, he ended up slipping more times than he should.
“Stay away from Jackson.” He muttered to himself, trying to keep his head down. “Stay away from Lydia. Stay away from Allison. Stay away from-HOLY SHIT, STILES, hi.” Scott stopped inches from crashing into the other boy. “Heeey, buddy. Sorry, can’t really chat right now. I’ve gotta go…do the thing.”
—
Stiles’ hands slammed on Scott’s shoulders, grabbing him with brutal confidence. He twisted the shorter boy around easily, shoving him against the closest wall with just a hint of gentleness. When he kissed him, Stiles radiated smugness. It lasted barely a second, but Stiles was smirking when he pulled away. A thread of tension coursed through his veins, thrumming through his blood stream. It was shameful, but he could see where it came from. He’d thrown out his best friend for his replacement, the newest, hottest character in their school’s drama. Prince Charming to Jackson’s Lizard King.
Stiles had no way of knowing that he wasn’t the only one who’d chosen Scott, or that aside from a brooding man who tried to do the right thing, a monster waited.
If he did, he would have cared less about being replaced just as easily as he’d done Jackson.
"Yo, dude. What’s up?"
—
The boy grunted in surprise as he was pinned and kissed, grasping onto the front of Stiles’s shirt for support. He stared for a minute before dragging Stiles back in for a longer kiss. He was so freaking screwed. Stay away from Stiles.
“Sorry, n-nothing much. Just kind of busy.” Scott was the worst at this lying thing. It wasn’t like you could just blurt out to your boyfriend that you’ve been busy turning into a scary killer wolf monster on the regular and you couldn’t hang out anymore or you’d eat him in the totally not sexy way. There was nothing in any of his mom’s romantic comedies that prepared him for this. At least in Twilight, the chick was so emotionless, you could have told her that the shirtless dudes were brain eating zombies and she wouldn’t have blinked. Scott felt Stiles might be a little more critical and he really didn’t want to be called insane.
“I’m really sorry, dude. I can’t hang out right now. I’ve got stuff to do for a while, but…I really hope it’ll be over sometime soon.”
—
Stiles’ expression fell before he could properly school it. He’d gotten so used to being honest around Scott. It only got worse after that night in the hospital. It felt like a punch to the throat to have to worry about that, and Stiles didn’t know why it bothered him so much. Lying to other people came easy. He could probably do the same to Scott. It just bothered him. His face twitched, all at once. He was so fucking this up.
"Yeah?" Stiles asked, with a casualness he didn’t feel. He took a step back, giving Scott the chance to leave. Shit, he was so fucking butthurt. Scott had kissed him like he wanted more. Stiles was freaking out for no good reason, and he was still freaking out. This was lame.
He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “You still going to that party Friday?”
—
Scott knew what he was supposed to say, but the look on Stiles’s face kept him rooted to the spot. Derek didn’t understand! He wasn’t going to just give up on everything because of this and he liked Stiles. Liked him liked him, way more than he should.
Hey dude, I’m actually a werewolf. No really, teeth and fur and glowing yellow eyes. Yup, totally run around at night killing things I think, I can’t even remember. Oh, and there’s other ones too. Grumpy eyebrow ones.
“Dude, I…” Derek was going to have puppies. “Yeah. If you are, I’ll go.” Scott fidgeted uncomfortably, glancing around the hallway like the other wolf was somehow lurking nearby. He was a level 10 lurker with extra points in creeping, who knew when he was going to randomly pop up again. The boy grabbed Stiles’s shirt, yanking him into an empty classroom and slamming the door. He stood on his toes, peeking out through the glass to see if anyone in the hallway had noticed. “Look, we have to talk. There’s things about me that…crap. I’m not supposed to see you anymore. I don’t want to hurt you.”
—
This wasn’t shaping up to be the sexy make-out time Stiles had thought it would be. For one thing, by now they wouldn’t be wearing pants, and someone (or both of them) would have forgotten to lock the door. They’d also be well on their way to forgetting their own names, so Stiles definitely knew something was wrong.
Then Scott started talking creepy.
"Dude, your mom thinks I’m awesome." Stiles pointed out, and that still stood, even if Melissa didn’t think that he should ever be allowed in her kitchen unsupervised. It took Stiles a second to revisit what Scott had said, and when he did, it made him sick to his stomach. His features darkened with an anger he’d never bothered to tame. It was why his and Scott’s conversations on this matter weren’t exactly conversations. You couldn’t call thinly veiled threats of violence conversations, could you?
"What are they making you do, Scott?" Stiles demanded, but his hands had steadied into tight fists. His smile hadn’t entirely faded, but it was sharper now. "If you just tell me who they are…"
—
“No, that’s not…” Scott took a step back, startled at the rage on Stiles’s face. Stupid, he didn’t even think. Of course Stiles would think it was something to do with Jackson, especially because he refused to talk about what happened in the woods. Or the fact it still gave him nightmares. The boy held his hands out, trying to talk his boyfriend down.
“Stop, it doesn’t have anything to do with that. It’s different, okay?” Oh man, how the hell was he supposed to explain this? “It’s not them, it’s me. I’m gonna hurt you and I’m not talking about emotional trauma, dude. I’m talking about hurting you. There’s something wrong with me and I can’t…” Scott scowled, biting down on his lip. “I was told that I had to stop seeing you or I’d do something terrible. It’s not because I want to, but I don’t know what else to do. There’s thing I can’t explain and…”
Scott grabbed Stiles by his arms, looking straight into his eyes, earnest and afraid. “I need you to trust me, okay? Can you trust me? I know this is gonna sound crazy, but just keep an open mind. Please, Stiles.” With a breath, he stepped back and held his arms out. Please don’t hate me.
“I’m a werewolf.”
—
"Dude, don’t… Are you shitting me?"
That was - that was something. Stiles’ expression twisted, like he was holding back a laugh, but he couldn’t commit to it when Scott looked like that. Scott wasn’t joking. Stiles still looked away. He checked the room quickly, like he’d be able to find a hidden camera or someone hiding behind a chair. Someone would want to put this on YouTube, or Scott would start laughing his head off, laughing so hard he snorted like a pig, and that would set them both off until someone had to reach for an inhaler. But Stiles knew what his boyfriend looked like when he was happy. He didn’t want to think about the last time he’d seen him so scared.
Stiles took a step back, and it was silly for it to hurt this much, whatever lie Scott was telling. Keep an open mind, he’d said. Stiles didn’t have a crowbar handy.
The wheels in his head continued to turn, doubt seeping through his nerves, but slowly, just enough to anchor him in place.
"Prove it," Stiles demanded, hands clenching into fists. Prove why you’re so sad.
—
Scott’s shoulders dropped, of course he wouldn’t just believe. It was completely insane to think there were actual monsters. “Okay. Um…” The boy held out his hands, concentrating hard. Come one, do the claw thing. Come on! He shook his wrists a little, scowling. “I-I can’t. I don’t have control over it yet, it just sort of happens. Stiles, I know this is kinda weird, but I promise it’s true! And there’s others. There’s the thing that bit me in the woods, that attack, it was a werewolf too. There’s Derek Hale, he’s the one who’s trying to help me but he…he says I that can’t see you anymore or I could kill you, dude.”
Stiles was looking at him like he was nuts and the boy dropped his hands with a sigh. “Never mind, I’m sorry. Just forget it, it’s a bad joke.” Why did it always happen when he didn’t want it to and the one time he actually wanted that thing inside to come out, it was quiet? Derek kept saying that control was all about anger, but Scott didn’t think he even had that much rage inside of him.
“I should just get going, I’ve got class soon and stuff. I guess maybe I’ll see you on Friday…”
—
It wasn’t a bad joke. Well, it was, just… Scott wouldn’t look like that if he was waiting for a punchline to drop. Holy shit, Scott owed him. Stiles didn’t know what, just yet, but Scott owed him big time. Keep an open mind.
"Hey - " He protested, slipping into Scott’s arms before Scott could decide anything really. Stiles staked his claim, arms wound around his boyfriend’s waist, not tight but ready to be at a moment’s notice. Scott looked like Stiles had just shot his puppy. Stiles just, Stiles didn’t want him to be sad. Stiles didn’t want him to leave.
The words rolled off the tip of his tongue, more vulnerable than Stiles wanted to admit to because werewolves, fucking werewolves! Really? What the fuck was he supposed to think with fucking werewolves?
"You’re not breaking up with me dude?"
Werewolves, and Derek Hale.
That wasn’t enough. “Don’t. You’re - not allowed to.”
Stiles should have ripped out his spine and handed it to Scott on a silver platter. He’d have spared some of his dignity that way.
—
Scott stared at the other boy, surprised. After avoiding him and blurting out the worst explanation ever, Stiles still wanted to stay? He’d always known that a lot of whatever was between them was physical, worried that he’d fallen for someone who wouldn’t feel the same. It was okay even if Stiles never knew exactly how much Scott liked him, they were both happy and this was fun, that’s all that mattered. But the thought of actually breaking up made his heart drop to his stomach and something uncomfortable snarl in the back of his mind.
Derek just didn’t understand. He couldn’t give this up, he wasn’t going back to that invisible loner kid ever again. Someone liked him and made him smile in ways no one ever had, it was worth fighting for.
The boy pulled Stiles close and kissed him, harder than he meant to but determined. “I’m not breaking up with you. I’m not gonna go anywhere.” I’ll figure this out, somehow. There has to be a way to get rid of it without being an angry leather wearing hermit. There has to be a cure. “Everything’s okay.”
—
Scott was the worst liar. Stiles knew that. Stiles had been lying through his teeth since he knew how to talk. You couldn’t lie to a liar, and Scott wore his troubles on his sleeve. It didn’t make him weak. It made him impossibly brave, and daring, and so fucking brilliant. Stiles didn’t know what to do about that. Stiles didn’t know about anything. Werewolves.
His kissed Scott like he needed it, gasping into a kiss that was more insistent than he was prepared for. Stiles pulled Scott with him, until Stiles was pinned against the wall, his legs spread as he pulled his boyfriend into him. He didn’t know what had gotten into Scott, but he believed it. Scott was so good at making him fall. Stiles needed every second of it.
"Okay… Okay." Stiles gasped. "Yeah. I’ll see you Friday, kay dude?" He kissed Scott again, between every word. God, he missed this, the ease between them, a sweet, alluring thing that sparked so easily and burned. He missed the lazy afternoons just as badly, not always naked, sometimes in the living room, sometimes tangled in their sheets. He loved tasting laughter on Scott’s lips.
There was so much he wanted to say. Tell me what’s really bothering you when you want to. I’ll believe you. I won’t let you leave. I love you. Shit. Shit Stiles loved him. Shit Stiles really loved him, and his heart threatened to explode there and then.
He swallowed thickly. “See you Friday, okay? Don’t let Lydia choose your clothes. Even if she threatens you. Just say I’m taking everything off.”
—
The boy growled into Stiles’s mouth, the sound anything but human as kissed him. He missed him, it wasn’t fair! None of this was fair. It was even more now, he couldn’t find words to describe it. Scott could smell Stiles, the soap he’d used in the shower, the scent of his skin that seemed to get into his head and drown out all of his thoughts. He could hear Stiles’s heart beat and skip, his nerves felt exposed and every touch made him shiver. When Scott dragged his tongue across the other boy’s lips, he could taste him. Everything was heightened so much it almost hurt.
Scott wanted, he wanted so badly. It had been way too long since he’d been able to get Stiles alone. He couldn’t help rolling his hips just slightly, a teasing reminder of his boyfriend’s body and the things it could do to him. “Friday..yeah, Friday sounds good. I-I, I’ll be there.” He huffed, embarrassment cutting through the intense…whatever it was. Possessiveness? Lust? Something feral and dangerous. “I’m not saying that to anybody, no one needs to know about the status of my potential nudity.”
Derek was going to shit bricks, the only way he was going to get to this party was to sneak out. That guy had a way too creepy habit of watching his house. It would be dangerous, at least that’s what Derek had said, but this was too important. Stiles could kiss him and he would be ready to take any risk just to make sure it didn’t ever stop. Reluctantly, Scott let the other boy go and stepped away. “I promise, I’ll be there.” Shouldering his backpack, he fled before he could change his mind.