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It’s raining when Scott pulls into the back lot at the clinic.
Deaton’s car—a silver SUV that’s probably seen more years than Scott has—is already parked in its usual spot, so he eases his dirt bike into the space next to it and drifts to a stop. He lets the engine idle, rain water sluicing down his helmet, and takes a deep breath.
Then another.
Then another.
It’s been—a lot, to say the least. Between wrapping up all the loose ends from what Theo, the Dread Doctors, and the Beast did, and untangling the mess his own pack had become, he hasn’t had a shift at the clinic since—well. Before.
It figures it’d be raining.
He blinks up at the streetlights, the hum of electricity buzzing underneath the harsh patter of the rain, and it feels too much like too many things.
Wolfsbane, asthma, claws. Kira, Stiles, Liam.
(Dying, dying, dying.)
The rain doesn’t let up.
Scott kicks down the brake and presses the kill switch, turning off his bike, definitely, and his thoughts, hopefully. Now’s not the time to deal with… any of that. And even if it were—
It’s like the Gordian knot from his lit class. Too big, and too painful, to have any hope of unraveling.
Better to cut it off entirely.
He takes his helmet off and hangs it on the handlebars, ignoring the slight tremble in his hands as he does. Then he heads towards the back door, and counts it as a win when he only flinches at every other shadow.
If the outside of the clinic set his nerves on edge, actually entering has the polar opposite effect. It’s warm, and it’s bright, and the earthy scent of animals mixes with the stringent, chemical tang of disinfectant. The familiarity of it all has him sagging in relief—especially the sight of the doctor himself, calmly filling out prescriptions over by the front desk.
He’s still here.
Scott releases a breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding, and lets the door swing shut behind him. The water dripping off his now-soaked form is the only rain that makes its way inside.
The doc’s eyes flick briefly over to meet his, concern flashing through them a half second before he speaks.
“You’re here early,” he says. The tone of his voice seems carefully level as he returns to his paperwork. “I wasn’t expecting you for at least another quarter of an hour.”
That’s all it takes to send his pulse thundering in his ears. There’s nothing special about it, nothing at all, except—
You were dead, Scott. As in no pulse at all for over fifteen—
Deaton clears his throat, leaving Scott blinking in confusion as the library carpet fades back into the clinic’s tile. Before he can recover enough to respond, his boss is laying his pen down on the clipboard and settling the full weight of his gaze on him. “Something the matter?”
Scott stares back at him—or at least tries to. The faux concern of Theo’s smile keeps warring for dominance in his mind.
He uncurls his fingers, one by one, out of their death grip around the straps of his backpack. Then he bites his lip and shakes his head, shrugging off the bag in the same gesture.
Gordian knot.
“Uh, no—sorry.” It feels inadequate, so he hurries across the room to open the supply cabinet. The industrial-grade cleaner and scrubbing brushes for the dog cages are exactly where he expects them to be, and the consistency, small as it is, stabilizes him. With the metal door safely hiding his reaction, a sliver of honesty bleeds through, and he tries again. “I just… I missed this.”
It feels painfully vulnerable, but the smile in Deaton’s voice would be obvious even without the aid of chemosignals. “Had I known cleaning out the cages was so important to you, I could have had it added more regularly to your tasks.”
The dryness of his boss’s humor provides a warm contrast to the chill of the rain, and it startles a laugh out of him. “No—definitely not, thanks.”
He swings the door shut and sets the cleaning tools down on the table, his pulse regaining its equilibrium. Sincerity seems easier now that the tension is broken.
“I just meant, um…” He scratches at the back of his neck, half apologetic, and nods to the room. “This. I guess.”
It’s not really any clearer than his previous statement, but Deaton’s expression softens. “I believe I know what you mean.”
The tightness in his chest loosens, and he offers a smile of his own.
It wavers the second Deaton’s attention shifts away.
His hand rests against the table, the metal cool to the touch, and picking up the cleaner doesn’t seem as appealing anymore. Over on the far wall, he can see the list of all the jobs he needs to get done for the evening: feeding the animals, a couple baths, the usual clerical work, and of course the cages. Nothing out of the ordinary, but enough to keep him busy.
He should get to work. Leave whatever he wanted to say at that, since Deaton probably already understood what he meant. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d left this kind of thing unacknowledged—at least, explicitly.
His nails skid across the table and then drop into empty air, unmoored. The sting of almost losing his pack—especially since it fell apart because they didn’t talk—feels too close.
He doesn’t want to take any of them for granted.
“…I’m sorry I didn’t find you.” He remembers turning around the closed sign, the clinic just as empty as his half-starved lungs, and resists the urge to pick at his nails. “I—you shouldn’t have had to go through that alone.”
“It was certainly an interesting time.” Deaton sets his clipboard down and moves to the next one, scribbling a note at the top. “Remind me to thank Malia again for her timely appearance.”
Scott nods, owing the werecoyote much the same. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to repay her for that—still can’t fully believe she came back to him on her own.
He counts the puddles decorating the floor—water this time, instead of blood—and thinks about how lucky they’d been.
He goes a step further.
“I thought I’d lost you.”
The words are tentative, fragile; but the doc just hums. “If it’s any consolation, I thought perhaps I’d lost me, too.”
His fault.
He winces. “I should’ve—”
“While I appreciate your concern, Scott,” Deaton says, “from what I understand, out of the two of us I came much closer to losing you.”
Scott’s breath catches mid inhale.
He isn’t ready for that—or the significant look Deaton aims towards the center of his chest. The muscles around his ribcage spasm, as raw and exposed as the night they’d been sliced open, and all the air in the room seems to vanish.
This isn’t where this was supposed to go at all.
He swallows, nails that barely remain human scraping across his palms, and manages a stuttering breath.
“Who told you?”
His voice sounds small, even to his own ears.
“Once again, I find myself indebted to Malia.” Deaton’s gaze moves from his chest to his eyes. “She seemed quite worried.”
The implication that he’s also worried is inescapable, and the urge to run away intensifies.
“It wasn’t that—what I mean is—” He’s not sure if it’s his mind stopping him from completing that sentence, or the increasing pressure in his chest. “I’m fine.”
The lie is blatantly obvious, and Deaton arches his eyebrows.
“Now, perhaps—at least in the physical sense.” Scott’s fully prepared to cling to that until Deaton adds, “But I suspect not before.”
Before.
His hands fumble for the cleaning supplies, desperate for an anchor, because he doesn’t want to go there.
Doesn’t want to remember words like knives, twisting in the pouring rain; superhuman strength, powered solely by its hatred of him; fistful of claws, shredding his heart and the last remnant of his soul.
Doesn’t want to think about anything at all, because he’s still not sure which ultimately hurt worse.
His fingers curl around the bleach container’s handle, knuckles turning whiter than anything the chemical itself could produce.
Gordian knot or otherwise, something ugly and bloated lodges in his chest, making it harder and harder to breathe.
He doesn’t know how to get it out.
“I can’t…” The sheer number of ways he could finish that sentence overwhelms him, and then the drumming of the rain against the roof drowns them all out. He bites his lip and looks at the floor. “There’s just… a lot to fix.”
Deaton doesn’t respond to that, simply tapping his pen against the page. The sharp, acrid taste of shame curdles in the air, and he knows it’s his own.
He’s supposed to be better now.
He snatches the brushes off the table, a little too quick for subtlety. “I should probably—”
“Would you mind bringing Sophie to the examination room?”
Scott freezes, the request seemingly irrelevant. “Sophie…?”
Deaton slips his pen into his jacket pocket and tucks the clipboard under his arm. “Indeed. I believe it’s about time for her insulin injection.”
Processing anything outside of his own panic is difficult, so it takes a moment to place the name to the animal: a large, brown-black Maine Coon, who’s better at getting herself into trouble than out of it, and therefore a frequent overnighter at the clinic.
He hadn’t realized she’d developed diabetes.
Cautiously, he sets the cleaning supplies back down—somewhat unwilling to have nothing physical to occupy his hands—and exhales. “Yeah. Yeah, sure.”
“Excellent.” It doesn’t feel like a dismissal, exactly, especially since Deaton pairs it with an encouraging smile. “You’ll find her near the back wall.”
He doesn’t really need to be told, as that’s where the only cages big enough to fit her are, but once again the simple act of knowing something helps ground him. He breathes in, then out, just to assure himself that his chest is fine. That no one’s waiting for him in the shadows, poised with cruel claws and crueler smiles.
“Okay,” he says.
His feet carry him to the backroom.
The lights are dimmed when he opens the door, but it’s bright enough to see the way the animals perk up at his presence. Felix, an unusually needy American shorthair, in particular starts meowing loud enough to wake up the entire clinic the second he walks in. Despite everything, he finds himself smiling.
“Hey, buddy,” he says, coming over to scratch the cat under the chin. “Missed you, too.”
The cat purrs and butts his head against Scott’s hand, eager to receive the attention. He’s a bit demanding, but it’s also—it’s nice. To be wanted so openly.
He pets the cat one last time and then locates Sophie, who’s placidly curled up in the cage on the lower right of the back wall. Her eyes track his movements as he comes over, but she doesn’t rush to greet him—unlike Felix, Sophie’s more of the quietly affectionate variety.
Which is for the best, given that she’s a little over three feet long.
He pauses to shrug his jean jacket off, revealing the marginally drier henley underneath—smashing the cat against the soaking-wet denim probably wouldn’t result in a pleasant experience for either of them. Then he swings the door open and gently coaxes her into his arms.
Her weight settles against his chest, warm and content, and the silky undercoat and long guard hairs brush against his skin. Sophie flicks her tail up at his nose, and he laughs quietly into her fur.
Being a vet assistant is mostly a whole lot of holding—holding forms, holding doors, holding pets.
The last one is easily his favorite.
He hovers next to the cages, Sophie secure in his grasp, and the light flutter of her heartbeat thumps against his chest. If he focuses, he can hear Deaton’s heartbeat, too—slow, measured. Both a sharp contrast to the rapid staccato of the rain outside.
He breathes deeply, Sophie’s scent clouding over the anxiety that’s fading from his own. The near panic from before is just a faint buzzing in the back of his mind now—still present, like it wouldn’t take much to flare up again—but not currently suffocating.
It’s an improvement.
The cat shifts, her earlier contentment turning into boredom, and he sighs. Unlike the solitary task of cleaning the cages, just getting here isn’t enough. Sophie has to go out, which means he has to go out, too—likely an intentional choice on his mentor’s part.
Hiding in the overnight room seems wildly more attractive, but disappointing Deaton is the last thing he wants to do.
At least holding a cat is more comforting than a bottle of bleach.
The doc’s already prepping the shot when he walks back in, piercing the upsidedown medicine bottle with the already-prepped needle. The desire to say something presses at the back of his throat—a thank you, maybe, unless an apology would be better—but Deaton seems content enough with the silence, so he follows his lead.
He sets the cat down on the table, carefully dislodging her claws from his shirt. They’re sharp, but they’re nothing like—like that, so all he feels is a mild amusement at the sight of them.
“Hold her steady, please.”
Scott glances up—Deaton doesn’t acknowledge him as he’s busy drawing insulin into the syringe, correctly measuring the dosage with a practiced eye. Nothing in his bearing or chemosignals suggests he’s uncomfortable, so maybe he plans to let their conversation slide after all.
Considering that’s exactly what he wanted, the spike of disappointment that cuts through him seems unfair.
He pushes the feeling down and buries his hand into the thick fur at the nape of Sophie’s neck, maneuvering her into a lying position. Then he slides his other hand down to her back, applying just enough pressure to keep her still, and she settles on her side without complaint.
At least he can do this right.
Deaton walks to the other side of the table, flicking his fingernail against the syringe’s barrel to release any air bubbles. Scott tenses, still prepared for a confrontation, but Deaton just nods in the cat’s direction. “She seems very calm.”
It’s an odd statement, given that he’s never seen Sophie not calm.
“…I think that’s mostly on her,” he says, watching as she nuzzles her head against his hip. He runs his fingers through the ruff along her chest, and she purrs louder under his touch. “She just needs a little reassurance sometimes.”
“A wise observation.”
Something in his voice makes Scott pause, but then Deaton finishes readying the shot and the current activity takes priority. He inches his hand further away from the injection site, giving the doc plenty of room without losing his hold on the cat.
Sophie remains steady as the needle pierces her quadriceps.
“Be that as it may,” Deaton says, resuming once the syringe is secured, “I seem to recall a time when this task would’ve posed a significant challenge for you.”
Scott’s brow furrows as Deaton depresses the plunger, administering the insulin and then removing the needle in one smooth motion. “What—”
“When you were first bitten,” he clarifies. He rubs at Sophie’s neck before disposing of the needle in the sharps container. “Your presence made those of the felis genus rather unnerved for a few weeks after—you were quite distressed by the development.”
He hasn’t thought about that first night—or that part of that night—in ages. Thunder crashing, thoughts racing, and every single cat turning into a yowling, thrashing, teeth bared and claws extended terror at the sight of him.
Unnerved seems like an understatement.
“I honestly thought you were going to fire me,” he says, sifting through the fur on Sophie’s leg for any dampness, in case the dosage didn’t take.
A vet assistant whose mere existence sent animals into a frenzy wouldn’t be of much use.
Deaton chuckles, coming over to join him in petting the cat. Sophie rolls onto her back, clearly pleased with the attention—any discomfort she’d felt from the shot long forgotten.
“That truly would’ve been a waste,” Deaton says. He pulls away to rest his hands against the table. “I had complete faith you would figure it out.”
Warmth spreads through Scott’s chest, easing the ache that’d settled there. He thinks about what it was like when he couldn’t even go near cats, and now—
Now, he scoops Sophie off the examination table and tucks her against his chest, providing a couple extra scratches behind her ears while she makes herself comfortable.
“Good girl,” he whispers, dropping his chin so she can rub against his face.
He’s done this hundreds of times before, but somehow the casual intimacy feels foreign. Across the table, he can sense Deaton watching him.
“I think that will be all for her today, Scott,” he says. “You can take our patient back to her room now.”
As if on cue, Sophie settles deeper into his embrace, and Scott resists the urge to roll his eyes as he walks her back. Part of getting cats to trust him again had come from accepting that, essentially, he could moonlight as a personal hot water bottle.
Sophie’s a fan.
He nudges the door open with his hip, both hands preoccupied with the cat, but as soon as he walks in he just—
Stops.
Felix perks up, his tail shooting into the air to quiver with excitement, and the other cats either greet him with slow, friendly blinks, or ignore him entirely.
But not a single cat, even among the ones he’s never met, so much as twitches with fear.
It’s a far cry from that night.
The door creaks open, and then the soft footfall of the doctor’s gait comes up behind him. It’s comforting, unlike the harsh, clanking walk of the Doctors that had haunted his steps over the past few weeks.
Then Deaton rests a hand on his shoulder, and that’s comforting, too.
“It’s been my experience,” he says, “that things that seem insurmountable at the time, often turn into simply another part of life—once we’ve had the space to work them out.”
A shudder runs through his frame, but Sophie just cuddles closer.
“How—” He breaks off, the words still feeling too big to get out.
Deaton doesn’t seem to mind. “I suspect that can vary from person to person—and the issues involved. Your setback with cat pheromones wasn’t solved overnight.”
Scott nods, even though disappointment crowds back into his scent.
“So that’s all it takes?” he asks. “Time?”
It sounds exactly like what he’s already been trying, and failing, to rely on.
“Not exactly,” Deaton says. “Or at least, not exclusively. Time is more of a vehicle than a mechanism.”
Scott’s eyes drift over to the empty cages, where his still-dripping jacket hangs. “Then what—”
Sophie’s claws, which had been kneading happily at his shirt, dig in abruptly. Scott hisses as she flips over in his arms, and he scrambles to adjust his grip—just barely stopping her from making a dive for the floor.
“We might have overstayed our welcome with that one,” Deaton says, walking past him to open her cage. “Better let her go—a little space isn’t all bad.”
Scott grunts in agreement, prying her claws out of his arm. Whatever had startled her apparently had nothing to do with him, as she goes straight back to purring, even attempting to bury her face in the crook of his arm.
Cats could be just as fickle as humans.
He crouches down, careful to not disturb her again, and she jumps from his arms and onto the bed once inside. He watches as she turns a few times, hunting for the perfect spot before settling in.
She looks happy.
Deaton crouches next to him, just close enough to not crowd, and the scent of aftershave and home washes over him. He catches his eye, but his boss just nods towards the cat.
“Her glycemic control is excellent for how long she’s been diagnosed,” he says, easing the door shut and then locking it. “She’ll need to keep taking her insulin twice a day, but her progress is encouraging. It’s a good thing we caught the disease early—time can work against healing just as well as it works for it.”
As they watch, Sophie’s breathing evens out into sleep, the cat blissfully unaware of the conversation pertaining to her. If it pertains to her.
Scott thinks about the knot sitting in his chest—quiet, looser, but still present.
“What’s the mechanism?” he blurts out. His lower lip catches between his teeth. “I mean—for her?”
Deaton leans back, finding a more comfortable position on the floor.
“It’s important to remember that Sophie’s condition is of no fault of her own,” he says, and his voice is slow; deliberate. “She is, in all other aspects, in perfectly good health—her body’s just having a hard time breaking down certain excesses.”
The knot shifts, frayed along the edges, and he takes a stuttering breath. “You think it’ll go away?”
“It might.” Deaton’s pulse doesn’t waver, though Scott’s tracking it mostly to have something to sync his own heart with. “Full remission is still possible at this stage, provided she’s supported for and keeps up with her treatment. Even if it continues to flare up, it won’t prevent her from a long and happy life. She’ll be free to chase mice and scratch her owner’s best furniture to her heart’s content.”
Scott snorts, and watches the cat a moment longer.
“Support and daily treatment,” he repeats.
“Yes.” The doctor places his hand on his shoulder, this time to steady himself as he stands, but it doesn’t feel any less warm. “That should set Sophie up quite nicely.”
Deaton straightens, his hand drifting away with a parting squeeze, and Scott stays anchored even as the doc heads over to the door. Out of the corner of his eye, Scott sees Deaton pause at the threshold.
“If I recall correctly,” he says, “those cages actually do need cleaning. Shall we work on them together?”
Support.
Scott nods, but doesn’t move to join him just yet. Instead, his fingers reach out and brush against Sophie’s fur through the wire, just to prove that he can. That something that once felt so difficult, if not impossible, is now as easy as—
As breathing.
Sophie shifts, leaning slightly into his touch, and her purring vibrates through his chest: a gentle reminder that his ribcage is whole, and his lungs unbruised. That there’s no asthma to shrink his airways, no wound to strain his chest; no wolfsbane and no lies to poison the entire system.
“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I’m coming.”
He rises to his feet, and breathes.