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The loft was too loud.
It had been too loud for an hour, which was the problem with pack nights — everyone was there, everyone was present, and presence had a sound. Lydia laughing too sharp. Isaac's knee bouncing against the coffee table leg, a metronome no one had asked for. The TV on because Erica had wanted background noise and nobody had said no, and now there were three conversations happening on top of it and the pizza boxes were still open and the smell was —
Scott noticed first. He always noticed first.
Stiles had gone quiet, which happened sometimes, but this was a different kind of quiet. He was sitting at the far end of the couch with his knees pulled up, hood up even though the loft ran warm, the strings pulled just enough to frame his face but not tight. Stiles didn’t like his clothes tight, but it did give the strings of the hood enough room for him to chew on the ends. But he was… well not Stiles. Stiles was always cataloging, narrating internally, waiting to insert himself a sarcastic reply or joke already at the edge of his tongue. This was… stillness, with an edge to it. He was looking at a fixed point on the floor with periodic twitches and flinches when things happened around him.
And that was the real crux of it—usually Stiles happened to his world around him.
Scott set down his soda.
He crossed the room without making it obvious, which he'd gotten good at over years of practice. He quietly sat next to Stiles, not quite touching, but leaving a deliberate inch of space between them, He said his name once. Quietly.
Stiles pressed further into the arm of the sofa.
Scott moved his hands into Stiles' sightline and signed: Okay?
That was the thing Derek saw. Not Stiles shutting down — he'd caught that already, had been watching it the way you watch weather come in — but Scott's hands moving. The fluency of it. The lack of hesitation. The way it wasn't a question so much as an opening, something Stiles could walk through if he had anything left to walk with.
Stiles' hands came up slowly from his sleeves.
Loud.
Derek said something to Peter in a low voice. Peter's eyes cut them and immediately clocked the conversation happening quietly between Scott & Stiles.
Peter stood up and said, loudly and casually, "Okay, who wants to do a food run," and the room reorganized itself around that question.
"I'll go," Erica said, already reaching for her jacket.
"You like black licorice." Peter said it the way you'd say you have a known condition. "You're disqualified."
His eyes moved across the room — unhurried, assessing — and landed on Stiles. His hand moved, loose, gestural, the kind of thing a man like Peter did when he talked. A point. You.
"Stiles," he said. Just the name. Just the one word, and underneath it the sign, and Stiles' eyes tracked it.
"Why does Stilinski get to go?" Jackson asked.
"Because," Peter said, already turning toward the door, "he has more discerning taste than you, Mr. Red Bull and cardboard protein bars constitutes a meal."
Erica laughed — short and sharp, a bark of it —
Stiles flinched but he was scrambling to his feet. Peter was already there when he turned towards the door and started herding him out of the loft.
Stiles' hand came up without thinking.
Thank you.
Peter was fishing his keys out of his pocket, perfectly unbothered, as he shrugged.
The door was already closing when Scott caught it. Peter’s hands moved.
I don’t know what you mean.
Once the door shut, the pack had filled the space back in the way packs did — noise redistributing, someone having turned the Roku to a Spotify playlist without announcing it.
Scott found Derek at the edge of it.
"You know ASL," Scott said. Low. Not an accusation. Just a fact he was handing back.
Derek was quiet for a moment. "I have — had — a big family. One of my younger brothers was autistic. The youngest, human, was deaf."
Scott nodded slowly. He knew enough about Derek’s family. How he had a mix of born wolves and human siblings.
Scott stood there for a moment, shoulder to shoulder at the edge of the room, letting it settle.
"Thanks" Scott said finally. "You and Peter—"
Derek shrugged and quickly cut off whatever Scott was about to say. “He’s lucky to have you.”
They both turned back to the room and Derek sighed turning to Jackson and yanking the Lacrosse stick from his hands. “No!” was all Derek announced and Jackson deflated.
“Aww, man!”
Scott chuckled as he watched the room fold itself around each member. The loft was still loud, but Scott didn’t mind it.