Chapter Text
Stiles twisted his fingers anxiously, unsure of how to broach the subject without Scott taking it personally and shut down before Stiles could really say anything.
They were sat in Roscoe outside of Scott’s house. They’d been at the subway depot all afternoon, watching Derek give Jackson the ‘Werewolf 101’. It was the first time Scott had actually been to one of their training sessions and Stiles doubted he’d go again, it was also the first time Scott had seen Derek since the warehouse and Gerard. Stiles had however been to all of the Hale Pack’s meetings since everything had happened, he’d spent hours hunched over maps, trying to figure out where Erica and Boyd might’ve gone, he’d even gone out a few times to traipse through the woods and look for them, but Scott always seemed to have an excuse to not join them.
“Jackson knew what he was getting into.” “Mr Argent said he let Erica and Boyd go. They’re probably just laying low and haven’t told Derek. They’ll be back at school in September.”
The list of excuses he had was vast.
But there was something else that was nagging in Stiles’ mind whenever he saw Derek recently, something more important than Scott shirking them all despite having an ability to help Jackson. And that something had been the elephant in the room for weeks.
“How long did you know?” Stiles finally asked, abruptly cutting off Scott’s oblivious rambling about his shifts at the clinic.
Scott looked over at him and frowned. “About my shift next Saturday?”
Stiles gave an aggravated sigh, his hands bouncing on top of the steering wheel. “That you were going to use Derek to bite Gerard,” he said. “It would’ve had to have been a while, for the mountain ash to build up in his system and cause the bite rejection but what are we talking here? Days? Weeks? Months?”
“No- what? Why does it even matter? ” Scott burst out, his eyes were wide and posture already defensive.
“Because if it was a last minute thing, only in motion a couple of days then I get why you couldn’t have told anybody. But...” Stiles trailed off, looking out at the empty road, illuminated only by his headlights. He bit his lip, unsure of how he was even going to finish that sentence. “You joined Derek’s pack after the library. That was nearly a month before Gerard got bitten. At what point between there and the warehouse did you come up with this plan? When did you switch his medications?”
Scott shrunk back, surprised by Stiles’ sudden anger.
“I switched the medications at the station when Matt killed everybody,” Scott said.
“You and Deaton switched them,” Stiles said distastefully, not even asking and Scott’s lack of disagreement was all the confirmation he needed.
Stiles tapped his thumb against the top of the steering wheel as he did the math. The incident at the station was on the full moon. The championship game and all of the events that took place afterwards were the following Saturday.
Over a week.
Over a week of time at school and planning sessions with Derek’s pack.
Plenty of opportunities for Scott to share his plan.
“Do you know how old Derek was when the fire happened?” Stiles asked quietly, the anger and disbelief at Scott’s sheer ignorance, or arrogance – he didn’t know which at this point – simmered under his skin hotly.
“Sixteen,” Scott said, sounding confused at the sudden change of subject.
Stiles nodded, looking back across at him. “Kate was twenty-five, a substitute teacher at the high school. Do you know what that makes their relationship? Rape. Statutory rape. Kate made him trust her, she used his body and then killed his entire family. And you – knowing this – joined his pack, agreed to work with him, let him trust you and then used his immobile body against his will to bite Gerard.” Stiles took a steadying breath.
“It’s not like that- I didn’t-”
“But you did, Scott! That’s exactly what you did and how you did it! You even stood over his still paralysed body and threw it in his face that he wasn’t your alpha so it was okay!” Stiles exploded. “Consent is consent either way! He told you not to!”
“How do you know? You weren’t even there!” Scott said, his voice raised.
“How do you think I know? They told me!” Stiles said, “Or more specifically Peter told me which is a whole weird thing in on its own. But when Isaac backed it up and Derek started to avoid the issue. I started to realise there was some truth to the matter!”
Scott stared at him, his lips parted and eyes wide and Stiles didn’t need to be able to smell emotions to know he was shocked.
“I did what I had to do to stop Gerard. It’s nothing like what Kate did,” Scott said, with that lost puppy voice that had everybody wrapped around his little finger. “It was the only way for Allison-”
Stiles couldn’t stop himself from scoffing. “Don’t make it out like you did this to save her. You did this to impress her and her twisted excuse of a family. To win her back.”
“Why does it matter why I did it?” Scott asked, getting angry now. “We stopped Gerard, we saved Jackson. Derek’s fine. It all worked out in the end.”
Stiles recoiled slightly, his eyes fixed on his best friend.
He really didn’t get it.
He probably never would, no matter what Stiles said to him.
“What’s it gonna take, Scott? What’s it gonna take to make you see past Allison and past your own issues?” he asked, his jaw tight. “Who's going to have to be hurt for you to care? For you to think things through? To realise that the end doesn’t always justify the means!”
“Stiles-” Scott’s voice was softer now, more desperation in his tone than anger.
But Stiles just shook his head, his eyes fixed on the road ahead as he started the jeep. “Go home, Scott. Go back to chasing Allison and the rest of us will keep dealing with the fallout.”
Neither of them said anything, but after a tense moment, Scott got out of the car and something inside of Stiles shifted.
He knew becoming a werewolf wasn’t what Scott wanted, he knew it changed him. He never imagined that it would turn his best friend into someone that could be compared to Kate Argent.