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Stiles has been living on the edge of fear since he was too young to fully understand the reason behind Melissa crying on the phone and Scott being stuck in the hospital, unable to breathe. Of course, he understood enough to keep his mouth shut. Understood enough to keep quiet when Scott was asking why his dad wasn’t coming to visit him and learned to understand quicker by the end of the short hospital stay.
It only worsened when Scott came home bleeding from an animal bite and breathing easier than he had in almost a decade. That fear started pushing in on simple things and simple things weren’t so simple anymore. Going to class was supposed to be simple, but now Stiles had to worry about what a bad day for Scott meant for the rest of the class and that lead to him thinking about where it would be easiest to hide a mass grave cause even if Scott lost total control and massacred the entire school, Stiles would protect him. He would always protect him.
But class was the last thing that had been on his mind when he was stuck in that bus watching Scott bleed black blood and continue to hold everyone and everything together. It was the last thing on his mind when he sat next to Jared and forced Coach to pull off at the next stop. It was the last thing on his mind when he was rushing to get Scott a shirt while Allison stitched his best friend back together on the dirty floor of a rest stop bathroom. And that fear, it wasn’t at the edge of anything anymore. It was ever present and building in a way Stiles knew would come to some kind of crescendo.
It started pulsing low in his throat, a deep live thing circling his heart as soon as they heard the handsaw whirl to life. All he could think was ‘not Scott, not Scott, not his Scott. This isn’t fair.’
He couldn’t explain the relief he felt when he opened the door, and it was Ethan about to saw his stomach open. That wasn’t a good thing either, but it was so much better than Scott and he could rush in and do something 'cause it wasn’t his friends hands turned claws attempting to rip his own chest open.
Then Boyd was drowning, and it was fine. He could figure this out. The heater, the heat, the flares on the bus. Then Isaac was cowering under the bed and that was fine too ‘cause he could do something, already had the extra flare and everything was fine.
Except it wasn't. They couldn’t find Scott.
He was already setting up plans, going for the extra flare he’d left on the bus and splitting up the group to find one of the most important people in his life when that fear pooled into despair. Still on the stairs and staring at the familiar silhouette, Stiles felt the fear crescendo and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
He felt hazy, detached from the situation as he followed after Allison. He felt his heart beating through his lung and pounding into his ribcage when he got close enough to see the gasoline dripping off Scott’s chin and out of his hair. He couldn’t explain the way every muscle in his body coiled and convulsed when Scott spoke about them being nothing. His teeth clenched together so tightly; he’d swear he chipped a tooth when Scott spoke about lacrosse. His best friend was standing in a puddle of gasoline, holding a flare in an unsteady grip and he expected Stiles to care about something as trivial as lacrosse.
“Maybe… Maybe I should just be no one again.” Stiles felt the earth rush out from under him as Scott stuttered on in that broken monotone and gripped the flare with purpose, “No one at all.”
All he could do was beg, beg Scott to listen to him, to hear the truth behind the desperation in his words. When he told Scott that he needed him, he hoped with everything he had that Scott could see the absolute honesty in his drawn face. When he told Scott “You’re my brother” and stepped into the puddle of gasoline, declaring that if Scott wanted to go, he’d have to take Stiles with him, the terror ebbed for just a moment at the thought that maybe that would be better, that he and Scott could finally get some peace.
That wasn’t an option though.
Scott’s grip on the flare wasn’t supernatural but Stiles still had to struggle to free it as he stared into Scott’s eyes, watching as his brother's tears mingled with the accelerant. Stiles swore a bunch of oaths and promises as he tossed the flare away, oaths about killing the Darach with his own two hands and promises that Scott would never have to feel like this ever again even though he knew he had little control over that.
When Lydia tackled them both from the explosion of fire, Stiles made a few more oaths and promises and gripped Scott even tighter. He wasn’t going to lose him, not Scott.
Allison and Lydia wanted to talk, wanted to go over what had happened and be civil and smart, but all Stiles could think about was that Scott was still dripping with gasoline and he needed it gone. He muttered a few lines of utter nonsense, promised to bring Scott back out soon ‘cause “I’m not letting him sleep in that bloody place,” and dragged Scott up the stairs by his arm. He wasn’t letting go of Scott anytime soon and the other boy didn’t seem to mind in his somewhat catatonic state.
Stiles pulled Scott into the room they shared and debated locking the door. It would take extra time getting out if they had to flee in a hurry, but he decided he just couldn’t deal with anyone else walking into their space at the moment and locked it before tugging Scott straight into the bathroom.
It wasn’t a great bathroom. It was dingy, small, smelled of cigarettes and he was pretty sure that was mold edging the walls, but the water had gotten pretty hot when he’d had a shower earlier and he needed that now. He needed it to scald and burn, cause then he would be sure that whatever this was would start to fade.
When he stuck his hand under the stream of steaming water, he dimly realized he hadn’t cried. He felt the weight of those unshed tears welling behind his eyes in an exploding force as he turned to Scott, whose gaze wavered from the wall tiles to Stiles and back with an unhurried sluggishness.
Still fully clothed and having never let go of Scott’s arm, Stiles stepped into the tub, not even flinching as the water roasted his skin through his shirt. He dragged Scott closer and made a small sound like a whimper when Scott’s shins hit the edge of the tub and he made no effort to climb over.
He had to take a second just to stand there, to breathe and cling to Scott and reassure himself that Scott was here even if his mind wasn’t. It was then that it occurred to Stiles that Scott, while almost having burnt alive, still hadn’t touched anything hot. Nothing had taken away the effects of whatever this was yet and still Scott was here with him. He didn’t know what to do with that.
Stiles pulled roughly at Scotts arm until it was through the stream of boiling hot water and let out the first of his uncontrollable sobs when Scott flinched and tried to pull away with blinding yellow eyes. He had wrenched his hand from the water, taking Stiles’ hand with him as he seemed to be fully unable to let go.
When Scott blinked blearily, eyes on the pale hand clawed into the fabric of his sleeve, Stiles felt faint with relief. When Scott let his eyes trail up that arm and over to the other boy and croaked out a broken version of his name, Stiles’ legs buckled, and he cried out as if it had physically hurt him.
Scott, suddenly hyper aware and faintly dumbfounded, launched forward to grab Stiles before he could fall and hurt himself. He hissed at the burn from the shower spray and worried at the heat soaking Stiles' clothes and the wet on his face though his hair wasn’t drenched. He tried to pull the other from the tub and received another keening cry and a few weak attempts at stopping him, so he stopped and held Stiles against him and waited for the panic turning his best friend's movements frantic to dull. He rubbed a hand up and down Stiles’ back in slow motions and buried his other hand in Stiles’ curls, humming a few nonsensical words, not entirely sure what to say.
Stiles was trying to say something in between ragged breaths and body wracking sobs. Something that sounded like “please get in” and “get it off” and “it's covering you” and then it was all he could smell. His memories were still fuzzy, and he wasn’t sure why Stiles was falling apart in his arms, but Scott could smell the stink of an entire gas station on him. It wasn’t hard to decipher what Stiles wanted off after that. So, with a wince for the unadulterated heat, Scott stepped into the tub and directly under the spray, somewhat shielding Stiles with his body.
He tilted his head back and let the water run through his hair and over his face all while continuing to calm Stiles with slow moving hands. He didn’t dare let go of the other boy, feeling how much of his weight and stability had been entrusted to Scott, and just stood there for who knows how long as Stiles’ body shook, and he cried out with these little sounds Scott hadn’t heard since Stiles’ mother died.
“Shh, it’s alright. It’s alright. I'm here.” For the life of him, Scott couldn’t understand why that made Stiles cry harder. But he did. His voice breaking on hiccupping whimpers as his fingers curled tightly in Scott’s shirt and only through his superior hearing could Scott pick up how those bones creaked against one another.
His anger was sudden and burning bright behind his eyes in a way that lit them with supernatural colour. If someone had done something to hurt Stiles, Scott didn’t know what he’d do but it wouldn’t be pretty. He leaned his head down, as he moved his hands to Stiles' cheeks in an attempt to gently drag his face away from where it had fallen on his chest.
In response, Stiles fought to get closer, arms curling around Scott and scrambling frantically to lock around him.
“Hey. Hey,” he tried for calm and collected but there was an edge to his voice, and he couldn’t shake the glow from his eyes. “I’m not pushing you away. I’m not, I swear. Just wanna see your face.”
It took a bit, but his words and the soft tugging of his hands managed to pull Stiles far enough away so that he could see him while having the other boy still pressed against him with his trembling arms firmly clasped around Scott’s torso.
Stiles’ face was red and splotchy, covered in water from tears and the shower still beating at Scott’s back and whatever parts of his face that weren't coloured were so pale Scott worried about the others' health. “Hey, what happened? Huh. What made you so upset?” He had to fight against his anger, stop himself from clenching his hands into fists by carding them through Stiles’ hair and force the glow in his eyes to dim to a faint shimmer.
Stiles leaned into his touch and took a deep stumbling breath with his eyes clenched shut. When he opened them again there was confusion etched into the lines of his face. “You-” A stutter of breath and a full body tremor broke him off before he started again, still wobbly but managing to get the whole sentence out. “You don’t remember?”
The look he gave Scott was so open and desperate that Scott was afraid to disappoint him and blinked a few times as he struggled to think back. “I, uh.. I remember being cold, right down to my core and… and this feeling. Like… like nothing I ever wanna feel again.” Scott didn’t have the words, even with all of the studying he’d been doing, to describe the bone deep ache and the I’ve-had-enough that still lingered on his soul.
“You..” Stiles choked out and convulsed against him with another silent sob. “You tried…” Scott couldn’t do anything other than hold him and wait for him to get the words out. “You…” Stiles swallowed around something in his throat and then it was all coming out in a rush. “The lot of you were affected, kinda like Lydia’s wolfsbane party and you all were pretty out of it until you all started trying to kill yourselves.” Scott sucked in a startled breath, needing a moment to process what had just been said. Stiles was still trembling, but Scott didn’t have any time to ask if everyone was alright ‘cause as soon as he’d opened his mouth, Stiles was barreling on. “Ethan tried to cut himself open with a handsaw. A bloody handsaw. And Boyd took the safe and filled the tub and we couldn’t get it off of him. And Isacc was curled up so tight under that bed, making these sounds. And you…” Stiles only paused enough to shudder and whimper and drag in a breath. “We figured it out. Ethan fell back against a heater, and it was like whatever it was, was gone and he freaked out and ran off and then we found Boyd and the sign, it’d gone up and who has a goddamn suicide count so proudly displayed and then I fell into a heater, lot of heater falling today, and we figured it out and got the flares and everyone... Everyone’s.. Well, they’re fine.”
There was a brief flash, the image of a lit flare in his hand and that feeling again and then it was gone.
Stiles let the rest of his weight slump against Scott. It was as if all of his energy, all of his tension had left in one fell swoop with the end of his story. “Everyone’s alright. That’s good.” It hadn’t escaped Scott’s notice that Stiles had skipped whatever it was that he’d done but it wasn’t hard to put together. He still smelled strongly of gasoline and the image of that flare in his hand burned brighter.
What if it had been Stiles?
The thought had barely formed before Scott was crushing Stiles against his chest, tucking his head under his chin. Stiles let out a muffled sound of confusion but didn’t push away or release his own hold on Scott. “Oh god. What if it’d been you? I couldn’t handle it if it’d been you. You can't do that. Not ever. Wolfsbane affected or not. Druid powers forcing you or whatever. I'm not- I can't lose you.”
Scott suddenly understood Stiles’ tears and trembling and the intense scent of terror that was breaking through the overpowering smell of gasoline as it washed down the drain. He understood why Stiles hadn’t wanted to let go. He knew it was selfish to say those things, to demand something of Stiles when Scott had been completely under whatever spell had been controlling them, but he would say it, would ask that of Stiles a thousand times over because he wasn't going to lose him. No matter what.
That feeling from before, the one so deep and painful he couldn’t describe, it had nothing on this fresh and brilliant desperation. At this moment Scott really hated his own brain with its seemingly endless supply of useless synonyms. Melancholy. Defeatism. Gloom. Misery. Disheartenment. Anguish. Despondency. Hopelessness.
Stiles’s breath gushed against Scott’s neck. He was still shaking when he tucked his head further under Scott’s chin and muttered in an unbalanced voice, “I told you Scott… you’re my brother… you go, I go.”
Scott clenched his eyes shut against the emotion threatening to pour out. There was nothing he could say to that other than to test the word out on his tongue and smile, a small pitiful thing, but no less real. “Brother.”