Archive of Our Own ^beta

It wasn’t hard, even with the pain in his chest, for Scott to manhandle Stiles out of the tunnels and half-carry, half-steer both of them back to the parking lot of the telecommunication substation.

Stiles didn’t say much, but Scott didn’t think that it was discomfort with him, which was a nice change. Stiles was thinking — seriously thinking — in a way that took all of his concentration. Sometimes that could be good and sometimes that could be bad, but it was Stiles’ right to do that. His best friend would talk when he was ready.

Scott drove the Jeep back towards the center of Beacon hills; he had done it so many times before that he could to do it in his sleep. Instead of worrying about what was consuming Stiles’s thoughts, he tried to think critically about the message the Doctors had left and Theo’s suggestion that they were back on the same side. Instead, all he could think about was Stiles completing the pack symbol for him. Maybe he was reading too much into the act, but he couldn’t help but feel it was a step in the right direction, a step towards regaining what he had lost.

He needed that right now.

As the right to turn onto Woodbine Lane came into view, Scott flipped on the blinkers only for Stiles to grunt at him.

“What?”

“Don’t take me home.”

“You seem okay now.”

“I could flop around like a landed trout if you wanted me to, but that’s about it. Dad’s still in the hospital, so …”

Stiles let his words trail off. Scott had long ago learned that there were things that Stiles could ask for and things that Stiles couldn’t. Things that Stiles could admit to and things that he would rather die than say. Scott had always prided himself on being able to know which was which and compensate.

“How about you wait at my house until the kanima venom is completely out of your system?”

“I’ll be fine if you take me to the hospital. I have practice draping myself over the waiting room chairs.”

“Please let me take you to my house. There’s so many bad guys out there right now it’s hard to keep count.”

Glancing over from the passenger seat, Stiles narrowed his eyes. Scott gave him his best I’m-not-doing-anything-officer-I-swear face.

“Sure.”

At the suspicious tone in Stiles’ voice Scott didn’t think that his attempt at manipulation had been unnoticed, but he took the win anyway.

Five minutes later, they pulled into the driveway of Scott’s house. From any random neighbor's point of view, it could have been any one of the hundreds of days that Scott and Stiles had hung out.

Out of the car, Stiles found he could walk, but not very well. There would be a 50 percent chance that he would fall down the stairs if he tried to climb them by himself. Scott kept him steady on the way up and then maneuvered him into his armchair once they got into his bedroom.

“Good?”

Stiles grunted again.

“I’ll be right back.” Scott pulled a shirt out of his desk drawer on his way into the bathroom. He was careful to close the door behind him completely.

After lifting that heavy equipment and fighting Tracy and Josh in the tunnel, he had started bleeding again. It wasn’t that bad, but he didn’t want to make Stiles feel any worse than he already did. He had to change his bandages quickly before his friend got suspicious about why he was taking so long.

Between the amount of violence he had seen in the last ten months and his work at the clinic, Scott had gotten pretty good at bandaging wounds, even his own. When he finished, he estimated it had been fifteen minutes; he had left the water running so Stiles would think he was simply cleaning up. He stuck his head under the sink to wet it and then emerged from the bathroom rubbing at it with a towel.

Stiles must have been able to move around during that time, because while he was still sitting in the chair, he had taken something off of Scott’s desk.

Scott grimaced in chagrin; he should have put it away.

Waving the leash at him, Stiles smirked. “Did you develop any new kinks you forgot to tell me about?”

“No. It’s … it belonged to Roxie.”

“Roxie?” Stiles squinted at him.

“You remember, the dog I had when I was five?”

Stiles blinked a few times before it came back to him. Scott never liked to talk about Roxie or what happened to her, so he may have only mentioned it to his best friend once or twice. Stiles probably didn’t even know the whole story. With a hand that still trembled under the influence of the venom, Stiles tossed it back on the desk.

“I don’t know why I kept it.” Scott walked over and picked the lead up from where Stiles had thrown it. “Maybe I--”

“I don’t want to hear about it.”

Scott was so shocked that he dropped the leash to the floor. “What?”

Stiles suddenly couldn’t look at him, and he tried to hide his clenched fists. “I don’t want to hear about your dead fucking dog.”

A surge of anger crawled up Scott’s spine, but he forced it back into its cage. By now, it was an easy task for him to do; he had had plenty of practice and plenty of motivation to master the ability. Instead, he took a deep breath the way Derek had taught him on that hospital roof. Stiles wasn’t irritated; he was frustrated, and he was also sad. Very sad.

Scott could not have been Stiles’ friend for as long as he had and not experienced Stiles using anger to protect himself from things Stiles didn’t want to face. Scott turned and walked over to where Stiles was sitting in his chair, moving deliberately into Stiles’s line of sight. “What’s going on?”

Stiles grimaced at him like Scott was the stupidest person alive. Sometimes, Scott felt like maybe he was. “Well, some mad scientists have created a horrific murder monster, and we were just attacked by a psychopath and his undead minions. How’s that for starters?”

Scott bit his lip, but he didn’t break eye contact. This particular evasion had a frantic edge to it. Stiles was really worried. Desperate.

After a few moments, Stiles flinched under Scott’s gaze. “It’s not that I don’t want to hear about it, it’s just that I can’t. I can’t do it, Scott. I can’t do all this …” He waved his arms about, even less gracefully than normal because of Tracy’s venom, indicating not only the discussion they were having but probably Beacon Hills and his entire life. “I can’t do all this and listen to you talk about how you’re haunted by some stupid pet.”

Biting his lip, Scott looked for something to say that would make it better, but he couldn’t think of anything. “Okay.”

“No, it’s not okay. Haven’t you figured that out by now, dumbass?”

Scott had control, but he wasn’t impervious to being nettled. “I guess not. And since I haven’t figured it out by now, why don’t you tell me, or is this another thing you won’t talk about because some of you are human?”

Stiles flinched once more, and then he sneered in a way that made it clear that it was do that or start crying. By the way he scrabbled at the armchair, Stiles wished he could get up and storm out of the room more than anything in the world.

It took all of Scott’s willpower to squat down in front of the chair. He never minded doing that, as it always seemed to make people feel better, but now, it felt like playing lacrosse with a dislocated shoulder. He tried to tell himself that he didn’t know why it was more difficult this time, but lying to himself wasn’t going to help anyone. He was angry at Stiles, but he still had to put all that to the side in order to help his friend. In order to get him back.

The gesture must have worked, because when Stiles spoke again, he sounded like he did when he had accidentally broken one of the Sheriff’s favorite vases. “I shouldn’t have said that. I mean, what I said back at the clinic.”

“You didn’t mean it?”

“Oh, no, I meant it.” Stiles jerked his head in Scott’s direction. “I just shouldn’t have said it like that.”

Scott winced. “You really think I never make mistakes or that I don’t have blood on my hands? If you need me to, I can list all the ways you’re wrong about both of those things. Either that, or you think I’m a hypocrite.”

“No, no, and no. What I meant is that you’re better than me.”

“I don’t think I’m better than you!”

“I didn’t say you think you are, I said you are, and the fact that you don’t realize that you are is the god-damned problem. No one does the things you do.”

“Bullshit.”

Stiles waggled a finger at him. “Not bullshit. Hey, why is Peter still alive?”

“What?”

“Peter Hale? Psychopath? Serial killer? Tried to kill me? Tried to kill you? Tried to make you kill me? Waited a little bit and then tried to do it again in Mexico? Any of this ring any bells?”

The sarcasm was a good sign. Stiles now had something else to do then blame himself for his own imaginary failings. Once again, Scott would take what he could get.

“I remember.”

“So you didn’t forget what he did to you after you let him walk around for the six months after he came back from the dead! Okay, let’s be fair. What he helped Kate Argent do to you. And what you did to Kira after what Kate did to you. And what he would have done to you, if you hadn’t beat his ass.”

“That’s right. I won.”

“But what if you hadn’t? He would have killed Liam before anyone realized what was happening. And if he killed Liam, he would have certainly had to kill me, ‘cause while I may have been stupid enough to believe that he hated Kate so much that he would help rescue you in order to thwart her, even I would have to come to the conclusion that he had planned all of it the moment his eyes turned red.”

“You’re not stupid, Stiles. I wish you wouldn’t say things like that.”

Stiles glared at him, but Scott stood his ground. Stiles could make mistakes, but he wasn’t stupid, and Scott wasn’t going to let anyone believe that, not even Stiles.

“Not my point. Peter came for you and for your pack, and with the possible exception of Malia, he wasn’t going to be able to leave anyone in it alive. You had every right to kill him, and you know it. After all, you and I watched Derek rip his throat out, and you have never held it against Derek.”

“He didn’t have any choice.”

Stiles shook his head. “Didn’t he? Peter was beaten — half-cooked, really — just as badly as he was beaten at La Iglesias. In fact, he was even less of a threat back in January; he wouldn’t have been in fighting shape anytime soon. As far as I know, Echo House was accepting inmates and Chris Argent was standing right there.”

Scott bit his lower lip. “It wasn’t the same situation.”

“Not exactly the same, but close enough. The big difference, in the end, is that Derek looked at what Peter had done, what Peter could do, and how what happened at the moment would affect his own life, and Derek made a decision that was best for him. You made a different one. Tell me why.”

Scott felt attacked, so he stood up and backed away until he could sit down on the bed. “Don’t make that into something that it isn’t.”

“Mm-hmm. Your deflections need work. Okay, maybe you did feel that you were in a better place than Derek, and it’s not fair to compare you two. So, let’s talk about another decision you made, this time in the middle of a fight, on a full moon even. Why is Liam still alive?”

“Liam?” Scott blinked. “What are you talking about? He was angry, but he’s my beta.”

“Marco was a beta, too.”

The name stirred something, but Scott couldn’t place it. “Uhm. I don’t remember him.”

“Marco was a beta who tried to kill Deucalion after Gerard burned Duke’s eyes out. It was how Duke figured out how to take another werewolf’s power. Furious at certain decisions his alpha had made, Marco tried to murder Deucalion while he was blind and weak. Sound familiar?”

The wound in Scott’s chest twinged. Liam hadn’t been the one to put it there, but it had been Liam who had slashed at Scott and punched him until he could barely move. Scott hadn’t yet found a way to talk to Liam, mostly because there was a huge part of him that didn’t want to. It was easy for Scott to tell himself that it had only been Hayden’s approaching death and the Supermoon … but what if it hadn’t been? What if it still wasn’t?

Finally Scott stuttered out. “How do you know this?”

“I made it a point to know. I have to know everything; how else am I going to protect my friends? Anyway, Deucalion had only been trying to settle things with the hunters peacefully, and his reward was his beta trying to steal his power. The Demon Wolf tore Marco to shreds, so badly that Deaton had to clean the guy up with a squeegee and a mop.”

The gallows humor didn’t have its intended effect, this time. Scott winced. He didn’t have to strain himself to imagine what might have happened to Liam if Theo hadn’t poisoned him with wolf’s bane. Scott would have tried his best not to, but the moon had been full for him, too.

Stiles was watching him again. He licked his lips. “You know what Mason told me?”

“No.” He had meant to go and apologize to Mason about having to do all that he did. And to thank him for being there.

“He told me that when Liam left the library he was completely healed. And I thought … that can’t be true. After all, wounds caused by an alpha’s claws take longer to heal, even for a beta as strong as Liam. Unless …”

“I didn’t use my claws.”

“Of course you didn’t. Liam spent ten minutes telling you how much he wanted to kill you, and yet you didn’t think to use one of advantages alphas have for just such an occasion. I saw the wreckage that your fight left in the library. The only way it lasted that long is you chose not to fight as hard as he was.”

“It isn’t …” Scott gathered himself. “It isn’t wrong to not want to hurt someone I care about. It isn’t wrong to not want to hurt someone who’s been misled, who’s been manipulated!”

“Never said it was wrong. It is, however, the problem.” Stiles shook his head the same way he did when Scott didn’t understand his plan for finding out who the new werewolf was on the lacrosse team.

Scott had two choices at the moment. He could just accept what Stiles was saying and move on. He had done it before, and it had always worked because he recognized that Stiles’s mind operated differently than his did. It had comforted Scott in the past, to be fully honest, that he had a friend who could see things in a way that Scott couldn’t even imagine. Scott sometimes couldn’t follow Stiles’s logic, but that was okay. He didn’t need to, because it always worked out in the end.

Or, he could ask Stiles to explain himself. The result might be confusing. It might be painful. It might even make things worse between them, and Scott had completed embraced the necessity of his mother’s suggestion that he had to get them back.

Yet, he had to go with the second option. This was about Stiles and Scott, even if Stiles wouldn’t describe it like that, and Scott … Scott didn’t trust Stiles to see him clearly right now. Not after the fight in the rain, not when Stiles had said those things about him. “I don’t get it. Walk me through it.”

Stiles opened his mouth to start talking but then closed it. His fingers tapped on the arms of the chair.

Scott waited patiently. When Stiles didn’t start speaking immediately, it didn’t mean that he didn’t have anything to say. Stiles could always talk over himself when he was at a loss. It meant that Stiles considered what he was going to say to be so important that he was trying to choose just the right way to express himself.

Eventually Stiles let out an exasperated sigh. “I don’t know where to start.”

“Well …” Scott almost let it drop, but he still felt it was the wrong thing to do. He might never get another chance of having Stiles as a captive audience, because a Stiles who could move was a Stiles who could leave. “Try again.”

Stiles looked up at him, and a shade of fear passed over his face. Scott hadn’t intended to be intimidating, but still it was there. Scott had to wipe that shade away immediately. “I won’t get mad. I promise.”

“That’s easy for you to say now.” Stiles shrugged in defense. “Look. I never thought … “ He stopped and tried again. “I never imagined us ever having to have this conversation.”

“I never imagined becoming a werewolf, so there we are.” He grinned. At least he tried to.

“Do you remember lacrosse tryouts our junior year?”

Scott nodded. “Sure do. That’s when we met Liam.”

“He wasn’t our friend then. He was some punk-ass transfer from Devenford Prep that was so damn good at lacrosse that he made us look bad.”

“Well, we were kinda bad.”

Stiles rolled his eyes. “My point is that we were hampered by what had happened to us. We wanted to be on the team. We wanted to be first line, but there was a chance we weren’t going to be, because of things outside of our control. And here was this freshman twat who ran rings around us.”

“Hey. Liam worked hard to get that good. It’s not his fault that we were distracted by other things or that he was more talented than we are."

"Still didn't feel good, did it? It still made you angry, made you do things you wouldn't normally do."

“Are you blaming me for that? Back then you told me that …” Scott trailed off.

“You were still only human. I meant that when I said it.” Stiles pushed himself up, unsteadily, so his back was straight. “But sometimes being human sucks. Watching yourself fail … watching yourself fall behind … while someone who was supposed to stay at your side doesn’t.”

“I’m here, Stiles.”

“No, you’re not, Scott, and I’m not blaming you for that, either.”

“Sort of feels like you are.”

Stiles scrubbed at his head. “I know! I get it, I know, but you are leaving me behind. Because you can’t afford not to. Because you decided to resist Peter, and trick Gerard, and save Jackson and not abandon Derek or Isaac or me, and you can't half-ass doing things like that. I watched you every time you made that decision, and you won.”

Scott felt lost. Maybe he should be angry, but he didn’t understand what this had to do with anything. How could Stiles feel that way? “This isn’t lacrosse tryouts. We’re not competing for first line.”

“If only we were. Look, I was a loser on the bench. We both were. And when you got the werewolf upgrade and became co-captain, it didn’t bother me in the slightest.”

That was a lie, Scott thought, but he let it go. It had bothered Stiles, and it had kept bothering Stiles. But Stiles was so very close to saying what he wanted to actually say. Or maybe what Scott needed him to say.

“But now? I’m a loser when it matters.”

Scott’s first instinct was to deny that completely, because that had never been how he’d seen Stiles. But that’s not what Stiles wanted at this moment, Scott realized in a flash of clarity.

Stiles didn’t want to be told that what he had done was all right. He didn’t want to be called a hero when he didn’t feel like one. He didn’t want to be called Scott’s best friend when he didn’t feel like one, either. He certainly didn’t want Scott to comfort him like he was a terrified middle schooler. This was the same Stiles that had tried to run him over with his father’s SUV, not because he hated Scott, but because he wanted to prove he could save his father’s life by himself. Because he wanted to prove himself.

So that’s what Scott had to do for his best friend: give him the opportunity to do exactly that. The time for comfort, hopefully, would come later. “You think you’re a loser? What does that make me? You’ve been there when I made mistakes. You’ve been there when I’ve had blood on my hands.”

Stiles pushed himself up into a standing position, adrenalin making the kanima venom forgotten. “But every time, you got back up and found a way to win.”

Scott stood up as well and grabbed Stiles by the shoulders. He didn’t flash his eyes, but he put everything he had ever learned about into his voice. “Then get back up.”

The moment hung there. It could go either way, and Scott mourned for the days when he didn’t have to worry about things.

“You think I can?”

“Of course.” Scott scoffed. “I didn't pull that list of things I gave you in the driveway out of my ass. You were right next to me when Peter attacked us in the school. You were right next to me when Matt attacked us in the sheriff’s station. You were drowned in a tub right next to me. I punched you in La Iglesias.”

“Yeah. I get it, but ... I was with you until I wasn’t.”

Scott squeezed Stiles’s shoulders. “Where are you right now?”

One breath. Two breaths. They were in Scott’s bedroom, where they had spent hours and hours before the supernatural had become real and even after. Suddenly, Stiles brushed Scott’s hands off of him, but not in fury, but in mischief.

“God damn, you are cheesy. Is that a True Alpha thing?”

Shrugging Scott none-the-less felt the warmth return to his stomach. “It might be a me thing.”

“Whatever. So, what do we now?”

Scott closed his eyes and then opened them. “Do you think the Jeep could make a trip to New Mexico?”