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One time, when they were eleven, Stiles challenged Scott to a race down the street and back. The turnaround point was the mailbox of the woman who always sprayed them with a hose in the summer when they walked by.
Scott knew he wasn't going to win. Because he had asthma and Stiles had an endless amount of energy.
It was two years after Stiles' mom died. Not long enough for him to not still cry about it every now and then, but long enough for him to be able to actually laugh a real laugh with Scott or his dad. But not anyone else really.
So they'd started to race. And Scott can remember that even though he knew he was going to lose he pumped his legs as hard as he could. And he remembers hearing the soles of his shoes slamming against the pavement with zero grace and the air swooshing in and out of his lungs and for a second he feels fine. Like every other kid. He can run like this forever, he thinks.
But then it starts to get hard to breathe. Hard to pull in air and he falls to the ground reaching for his inhaler in his pocket.
It isn't there.
He left it at home. It's not there and Scott is having an asthma attack and can't breathe now.
Stiles had reached the turn around point and started running back to the house but stopped very quickly, skidding and falling onto his side and scraping his hands when he saw Scott on the ground trying to breathe.
And then Stiles had panicked because he was eleven and didn't know what to do and he thought Scott was dying and he had just lost his mom and he couldn't lose his best friend no no, not Scott not Scott too.
So Scott was lying there trying to breathe while Stiles tried to breathe and they were both gasping and wheezing and so so scared because they were kids and kids get scared.
Scott had looked at Stiles and seen the way he was trying to hard to get it under control and do something and help and realized then and there that he loved Stiles and he would always love Stiles. Stiles was his.
Not in the let's-bone-and-makeout way. In the i'm-always-here-and-i-trust-you way. The love between kids without sexuality and the kind of love that lasts forever and marks you.
The woman with the hose had run out and helped them.
They'd stuck to video games after that.
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When they're 16, Scott still thinks of Stiles as his. Even when Allison starts filling his brain and making his stomach flip and being everything his teenage mind could hope for Stiles was still his. His best friend. His confident. His brother for life. Brother of choice.
The possessiveness passes to the wolf, makes it think pack when he is first bitten. Makes him trust Stiles even more even if he doesn't show it all the time. But he can't help it because he's 16 and in love with this wonderful girl.
And then stuff starts to happen. Bad stuff.
Suddenly Derek Hale is all over their life, all over their scents and Scott doesn't like it. He doesn't like the way Stiles smells like Derek when he was hiding him in his room, doesn't like the way Stiles jeep still smells like Derek after the wolfsbane incident because for some reason it feels like Derek is stealing something from him.
And then the shit really hits the fan. And everything is different because Jackson is a creepy lizard monster, and Matt is stealing Allison, and Mrs. Argent is dead and Scott feels his whole world start to crumble. Sees it in the way his mom stared at him from the jail cell. Sees it in the way that Derek looks up at him from the warehouse floor, still wolfed out as Scott says, "You may be an alpha, but you're not mine."
Scott feels guilty for that one.
Because Derek ran into a wolfsbane smoke filled room and destroyed their chance at catching the Kamina just to save his life. Scott's not stupid. He knows that he would have died without him.
But Scott feels his world crumble the most when he looks over his shoulder and sees the bruises and cuts on Stiles' face. The tear tracks and how he says something about scratching his Jeep even when he knows Scott can tell he's lying.
His wolf says to go with him. To get in the jeep with him and comfort him because that's his Stiles. His best friend in the entire world who does everything for him. Sacrifices so so much.
But Allison is holding his hand.
And so he doesn't get in the Jeep.
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Scott acts like he doesn't hear the way Stiles heart beats irregularly when he says he still has a "marry Lyida" plan.
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Things get better.
Kind of.
At least, for a little bit.
There's an alpha pack circling, Allison is still struggling with her guilt, and no one can find Erica or Boyd, but things aren't as bad as they could be.
Scott's mom is talking to him again.
Jackson isn't dead. And he's less of a douche bag now. Sort of.
Stiles is talking to him again. His dad isn't always gone. But Scott can tell, in the way he laughs a little too loud, that Stiles still isn't okay. Maybe will never be okay. Because his best friend is a werewolf and a man he helped kill has suddenly come back from the dead to sass everybody.
Part of Stiles is broken.
Scott can't fix it. Doesn't know how. And his wolf whimpers.
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Things change.
Isaac is part of their group now, sitting across the table from Stiles and throwing out dry remarks to counter Stiles witty ones.
And Isaac finds ways to slowly draw both of them back towards Derek.
Back towards what Isaac will always call pack.
But not Peter.
Peter is still creepy as hell.
And mean.
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Scott notices it when he's riding home with Stiles one day, and tenses immediately. He inhales deeply again, and his wolf snarls because Stiles doesn't smell like him anymore.
He smells more like Derek and the woods and leather than Scott.
For a second, Scott is back on the street. He's eleven years old, having an asthma attack on the pavement and this time Stiles isn't there. He's gone. Left. Chosen to keep running instead of skidding to help his best friend.
And Scott is about to yell at him. About to scream and ask how Stiles could do this to him when everything is already so hard.
But he stops.
Sniffs again and notices how Stiles smells a little less broken. Not healed completely. Never healed completely. But less shattered. More like Stiles. His Stiles, who will always be his. But maybe, in some ways, he needs to be someone elses too. Maybe a part of him, the part that Scott can't heal, needs to belong to someone who can.
And maybe, in other ways, Stiles needs to belong to himself.
Scott pushes the wolf down, forces it to calm and listen and understand.
They go back to Stiles house and play video games.
Scott forces himself not to ask about the fact that the window is open. And he acts like he doesn't see the black t-shirt in the corner of the room.
Stiles is his best friend. Stiles does everything for him. Scott figures this is the least he can do.