Work Text:
"Hey, Stiles, your dad called -- " Melissa stops short, knuckles still resting on Scott's bedroom door. The two boys extricate themselves from sleep - Stiles, surprisingly better at it than Scott - and wave blearily in her direction.
"Did he say what he wanted?" Stiles pulls his shirt down and straightens it, batting Scott's hand away.
"Something about you promising to help him paint the kitchen?"
Stiles pokes Scott's back several times, intent on making Scott suffer the world of reality with him, if Stiles has to be up to experience it. "No," Scott mumbles, squeezing his eyes shut more tightly and burying his head under his pillow.
"Thanks, Mrs. McCall," Stiles calls, rolling out of the bed gingerly and stretching. "I'll get him up for you."
"No problem, Stiles. Uh, I'd offer you breakfast, but I was just going to work..."
"That's so nice, but, uh, I'll make it. You get to work on time."
Her eyebrows drop down a little, a touch of surprise and suspicion there, but she shakes it off. "Um, okay. Uh, the eggs are fresh and I just bought a loaf of bread."
Scott perks up then. "French toast?"
Stiles throws Melissa a side-ways look, like Scott was a giant inside joke shared between them, and pats his friend on the back. "Yeah, big guy. French toast. Get dressed."
Melissa, already late for her shift, backs away from her son's room. "See you tonight, Scott. Stiles."
"Have a nice day at work, Mom!" Scott calls as an afterthought, mostly because Stiles was pointing viciously at him.
Stiles pinches the bridge at his nose, shaking his head. "You are the worst son ever. The worst."
"Oh, and you win awards?" Scott shoots back, rifling through his drawers for a clean shirt.
"Of course I win awards. My dad buys me a brand new #1 Son ribbon every Christmas. I have a whole scrapbook of my achievements in filial piety under my bed. But, you see, I'm a good friend, so I don't rub it in your face. Don't wear that, we're painting today."
"Stiles," Scott whines, stripping his red Beacons Hills lacrosse shirt back off.
"You are not getting out of this." Stiles pulls on the jeans he wore yesterday, discarded last night as they settled in at almost two o'clock, and ruffles his short hair a little. Scott finds a tank-top that he isn't particularly attached to, and shrugs it on.
"This wasn't even my promise," Scott mumbles, following on Stiles' heels to the bathroom. Stiles already has both of their toothbrushes setting out and the tap running by the time Scott joins him.
"Excuse you, mister. I'm pretty sure that half the spaghetti stains on those walls are thanks, in part, to you. You," he emphasizes, pointing a foamy toothbrush at Scott and talking with a mouthful of toothpaste, "are a messy eater."
"What? No, I'm not. I'm an enthusiastic eater. I just like spaghetti."
Stiles snorts through his nose and leans over the basin to spit. Scott follows suit. Scott stays in front of the mirror, messing with his too long hair and trying to tame it into something acceptable with a judicious application of sticky gel. Stiles leans against the door-frame of a second, watching Scott fail epically. "You are completely unkempt as a person, Scott. You can't even make your own bed. I have to do it for you. I should have raised you better. It's my own fault." Stiles lays a martyred hand across his heart. "If I had only been more present with you."
Everything he says sounds scripted, like he memorized it from some kind of parenting book he found on his dad's bookshelves, and Scott flicks water at his face to make him stop. "I can make my bed."
"Keep lying to yourself."
"I never said I could make it good," he concedes. They check back into Scott's bedroom, pocketing their cellphones from the bedside table where they'd been charging, and flipping the lights off. "Now, French toast?" Scott almost bounces as he says it, puppy eyes on in full effect.
Stiles smiles shyly, and swings an arm around Scott's neck. "Yeah, let's french some toast."
Scott makes a face. "It sounds gross when you say it like that."
"I know," Stiles agrees. "That's why I say it."
-----
That night, Melissa sets the table - a feat she rarely accomplishes these days with the hospital understaffed and her picking up extra hours - and calls Scott down for dinner. "I made cheesy chicken casserole."
The thunder of his footsteps down the stairs is testament enough to her of his excitement. "Score," he practically sings, sliding into a chair and cleaning out half of the casserole dish onto his own plate.
Melissa can't help but smile, settling in her own chair and digging into her slightly smaller portion. She's starving, though, and there's no one here to fool, so she forgoes any ceremony and eats her fill before she attempts to make conversation. Scott's digging into the crevices of the dish to get the nice burnt cheesy bits, and she takes a calming drink of her wine before she starts. "So, how's school?"
"What, why, did you get a call If it was Coach, he's a liar-"
"No, Scott, I didn't get a call." She pauses for a second, eyebrows high on her forehead. "Am I going to be getting a call?" She doesn't give Scott a chance to spin his story, holds out her hand, and takes a deep breath. "You know, I'm not going to ask until I get an actual call, okay? How's work? You doing alright at work?"
"Well, yeah, Mom." He breathes a little easier, content to keep his secret as long as his teachers do, and goes back to his glass of milk.
"Dr. Deaton still good?"
"Yeah, we had a python a few weeks ago which was cool, but it's been nothing but mangy cats and dogs with fleas lately, so it's been dull. I mostly do a lot of sweeping up. He tries to teach me stuff, but it's been, you know, work."
"That's good, Scott. I'm glad you're learning. Anything- anything else going on in your life? Anything cool happen lately? Anything you think I should know, you know?"
He looks guilty for a second, which just tells Melissa she wasn't too far off the mark to start with, and she leans forward. He stares at her for a second before he gets seemingly really interested in his milk again and refuses to look back at her. "Nope. Nothing going on. Lacrosse is good, I'm good. We're... good."
He chews solemnly for a second, and starts to scrape his plate off. Melissa sighs, obviously not getting to her point this way, and had hoped that Scott would have been perceptive to his golden opportunity to come clean. She puts her hand on his wrist to stop the annoying squeak of metal on her old, scratched china, and says, "Scott."
"Sorry, Mom."
"Look." She takes another deep breath and brings her hands together to hold his. "I just want you to know that, no matter what, I'm your mother, and I love you. You understand that, right? That no matter what you tell me, I'll understand and I'll support you. It doesn't matter to me if you're gay-"
Scott looks suddenly stunned and chokes out, "What? Mom!"
"And I'll support your relationship with Stiles. You don't have to try to hide it from me, Scott." Scott still looks a little panic, but Melissa sits back and sighs. "Okay, I said it all. I've been practicing for this since you were ten. I just wanted to get it all out."
Scott whines in the back of his throat and Melissa can see the blush burning on his cheeks and ears, even as he buries his face in his arms. "Mom. Since I was ten?! But I'm not – Stiles and I aren't – Seriously, ten?!"
"Well, look, Scott. I thought you and Stiles had grown out of that sharing a bed thing. It's not everyday a mother catches her son with his hand up another boy's shirt. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, Scott. I just told you, I love you, forever and always. But this is something I should know about. I thought we were closer than that." She looked down, unable to process the shock on his face when she was trying to work through the pain of not being trusted by her only son.
Scott digs himself out of his self-created prison to look somewhere over her head in what she guesses is his form of eye contact. "We are, Mom. I told you, we're not – my hands get cold! There was soda and the sleeping bag was all infested with ants."
"Scott," she says, more gently. "I didn't mean to embarrass you."
"I'm not embarrassed," he grouses, crossing his arms and glaring at his place-mat.
"I just wanted you to know that... God, I don't know. That I know? That it doesn't matter to me? That it does matter because I want you to be safe, and happy?"
Scott pulls back from the table and stomps upstairs.
"Where are you going?" she asks his back.
"To bed. School tomorrow."
"It's Saturday," she yells up the stairs, but he makes no move like he heard her, or cared. She clears the table absently, standing with her hands in the rapidly cooling dishwater, listening to the thrum of the bass as Scott turned his stereo up to drown out the sounds of him climbing out the window. She really knows her son too well.
------
"Honey Nut Tasty-O's? Again? Dude, we've had those like six trips in a row. That's like… a year of Honey Nut Tasty-O's. I might lose my mind if we get them again. Why can't we get Fruity-O's this time?" Scott whines.
"Fruity-O's are a nutritional wasteland of sugar and empty calories." Stiles scoffs, but softens when Scott makes puppy eyes at him. "That's not fair. Your puppy eyes are like twice as effective now. You're cheating." But he swaps the Honey Nut Tasty-O's for generic Frosted Shredded Wheat, which at least has frosting. He doesn't even object when Scott sneaks a single small box of Fruity-O's into the cart.
“What’s next?” Scott asks and tries to organize the cart so they can fit everything in, while Stiles ponders the list like he’s planning D-Day. “Dude,” he pokes Stiles, “it’s not the end of the world if we have to double back.”
Stiles glares at him like he’s just suggested they buy a bunch of Hungry Man dinners, and that reminds him! “Hey, are we gonna get some Hungry Man things? I really like the turkey dinner when I have time to stop home between practice and work.”
“Gross, Scott. Do you know how much sodium is in those things? It’s like heart-attack city!” And then Stiles is off on a tangent about how sodium is the root of all evil and how there should be a federal ban on anything with more than 500 milligrams of salt per serving, or it should at least be labeled in 40 point font. He’s ranting about the ‘Family Sodium Reduction Plan’ and how Hungry Man dinners are not part of it, before he trails off and looks at Scott seriously. “Besides, you know I can start leaving you leftovers for some kind of snack, or I can bring it to practice, right? I don’t want you to be hungry at work and I know you don’t like to bring food in where the animals can smell if after that time with the 20 pound tabby cat.”
Scott has to take a second to process the fact that Stiles just volunteered to modify his perfectly balanced meal-planning to somehow make an extra meal show up in Scott’s fridge every day so he isn’t kind of hungry for the three hours he’s at Dr. Deaton’s.
Everything that his mom had said to him makes sense now, standing in the middle of CostCo on a Thursday night. Stiles ho-hums around debating on the merits of one brand of ketchup versus another, and Scott already knows which one he's going to pick. He does this every time, fights himself on cost or taste, and always ends up going for the cheaper brand just to save everyone a couple of pennies.
He takes it into his own hands to get the kind that Stiles likes better and puts it in the cart. It scares him a little that that works, because Stiles can deny himself the simple stuff, but he won't deny Scott. It's not a comfortable feeling, and he can't quite meet Stiles' eyes when he looks up at him questioningly. Scott goes back to pushing the cart down the aisle behind Stiles, staring at his feet.
"We still on for this Friday? Sleepover at my place?"
Scott almost crashes the cart into Stiles' heels. It's a standing arrangement, usually only forgone for out of town trips and serious illness (except for when they were eleven and both had the chicken pox at the same time, so his mom had sequestered the both of them in Scott's room until they'd scabbed over. It hadn't worked out as well as she had thought, because they took turns scratching each other's backs, and they both have a few scars on their shoulders from it). Scott's not ready, though, to face spending so much uninterrupted time with Stiles, not yet. He's got too many thoughts running around his head, and he'll either embarrass himself, or do something stupid. Like tell him everything.
"Can't," he chokes out. "I have, uh – " Scott is reminded now why Stiles is the brains of this operation, because he can lie so much better than him. "My mom's.... cousin is coming into town for the night. Got to do the family thing, you know."
Stiles looks puzzled, and maybe a little hurt underneath that, but he shrugs his shoulder casually, and says, "Okay, whatever. Text me if you change your mind. But you aren't getting out of next week."
Scott nods. Stiles already knows that was a lie, and he's letting Scott get away with it, because he knows Scott needs the space. "Yeah, of course," he stammers. Stiles grabs the front of the cart and drags them towards the check-out.
------
Scott, unable to avoid the inevitable – especially since Stiles has already mentioned something about deadbeat best friends – takes a deep breath outside of the Stilinskis’ front door. Walking in, he calls out, “Stiles?”
“In the kitchen, bro,” Stiles calls back. There’s already pots and pans on the stove, the spicy scent of the tacos wafting around and covering up all the natural smells Scott associates with this house. There’s a dry dish towel thrown over Stiles’ shoulder, and he’s dipping a spoon into the rice to taste it.
Scott’s mouth goes dry at the sight. Stiles’ jeans are low on his hips, despite his ratty old brown leather belt, and his shirt is loose around his slim waist and hips. Scott wishes – and not for the first time, he has to admit to himself – that he could have the freedom to slide his hands around that waist, palm Stiles’ hip, and kiss his neck in welcome. He wishes he could wrap himself around Stiles as he cooks their dinner and watch him move, sporadic but purposeful, and never let go. All the things that he’d hidden inside himself for years are coming to a head, and he can name them now.
The way he’s always been obsessed with the length of Stiles’ fingers, dancing over test papers, or his computer keyboard, or wrapped in Scott’s shirt to pull him into trouble just as often as he was pulling him out of of it. He's got a frame of reference for all those flutters he's felt over the years – the little things like the feel of Stiles' hand pressing between his shoulder blades, or the smudge of his eyelashes on his cheek when he's sleeping, or the cheeky grin he gets when he's about to say something inappropriate and off-color. He has to shake his head a little to clear it because he can’t admit he’s been in love with his best friend for years.
Scott's a little dense – he knows that - so the suddenness of all these feelings he's stored up and forgotten about until just that moment having a name, having a meaning, makes his stomach drop.
Stiles throws a grin over his shoulder, a look Scott's seen a thousand times, and Scott wonders if it's just for him – something Stiles saves up special and hands to Scott daily and he's never appreciated it before. "Come on in, big dog. I'm making some tacos. Dad's getting fish, but I've got some chicken sizzling up for us."
Scott drops his backpack, coming back to reality. The smell of spices assault his nose, the crackle of fat popping in the pans, and Stiles keeping babbling; Scott lost the thread of the conversation before it had began.
"Can I trust you with a sharp knife? I feel like I can't, but you'll just heal up if you take a finger off, right? Derek said he could regrow an arm, I'm sure you could manage a finger. I washed the lettuce for you, just shred it up a little. You know what, I take it back. Use your claws and just shred it." Stiles pauses for a moment. “Don’t hurt yourself with those either.”
Scott knows Stiles will never let him near anything sharp – not after the time when Scott was twelve and sliced his palm wide open when they were making a homemade pizza once. Stiles had panicked, holding a dish rag to Scott’s hand, tears streaming down his cheeks even as Scott dialed 911 to get him to the hospital. It had taken fourteen stitches to close up the wound, and his mom had held his (other) hand through the whole thing. The sheriff had come from his patrol to sit outside in the waiting room with Stiles, to tell him he had done the right thing, and that no one had thought he’d failed them. They stuck to delivery pizzas for a long time after that, and when they finally made dinner again for the first time by themselves, Stiles kept anything sharper than a butter knife far away from Scott.
Scott still manages to bungle his one job – moving the already chopped ingredients into bowls – when he spills the tomatoes on the floor. Stiles just punches him playfully on the shoulder, and shoves a dustpan in his hands. “No harm, no foul, there’s more in the fridge. I had extras. How about you just set the table?”
Scott’s relieved for the easy job – he’s rather hopeless in the kitchen, despite Stiles’ example. "Two or three?" It's a question he always asks. It dates back to when Stiles used to believe that setting a spot for his dad would magically call him home a little earlier. Scott has a sick feeling in his stomach, too, that the extra space was for Stiles' mom. Stiles, if asked, would have told him it was for The Doctor, because you never know when he'll pop by for dinner, but Scott knows better. He sees the harsh lines around Stiles' eyes, and doesn't push it.
"Two," Stiles answers, throwing a little salt in the pan with an imitation Emeril Lagasse "bam!"
He doesn't grab the wedding china, but he does get real plates and silverware. Both of them are used to take-out boxes and sporks in plastic wrappers, so the feeling of sitting at a table just for a meal is something to be enjoyed and reveled in. There are two different bowls of rice, one with cilantro and one without because Stiles and Scott’s mom don’t like it, and Stiles has little bowls for all of the components of the meal set out between them.
Scott settles in across from Stiles, a quick game of soccer takes place under the table as they sort out their overly long limbs and settle in for tacos. It's quiet for a few moments, the act of making their tacos taking up a lot of their concentration, and Stiles is the one to break the silence first. "If you had to pick, would you rather eat a piece of gum from under coach's desk, or a gummy bear found on the bus floor?"
Scott snorts, dipping his fingers into the taco sauce accidentally, and says, “That's gross."
"No, but really. For a million dollars. You would totally do it for a million dollars."
"This entire conversation is stupid, Stiles, because I'm never going to be offered a million dollars for bus-floor gummy bears."
"Really?” Stiles mumbles around a mouthful of food. “The bus floor, that's what you pick. Because at least you know where the gum has been."
"Yeah, in Coach's mouth."
Stiles chokes. “Valid point. But, I mean, it's not like you can catch anything, Scott. Werewolf superhero powers or whatever."
They pass through dinner like that, throwing stupid hypotheticals at each other, and the only common theme in them is that they'd do them together. Scott likes how comfortable it is, talking nonsense with Stiles at the dinner table, and he squashes down all the awkward thoughts that have run through his head in the week since his mom’s out-of-character pep talk.
"You wash up," Stiles announces, piling their plates in Scott's waiting hands. "I'm packing lunches up. I'll help you in a second, okay?"
He balances their used glasses on top of the pile of cutlery and sets it gently in the sink, squirting way too much soap on top, and flipping the tap on. The foam bubbles up, almost overflowing, and Scott grabs the sponge. It isn't much work, neither one of them are apt to leave much behind on their plates, especially if it's a Stiles Stilinski special, and he's almost done with the spoons when he feels Stiles pressed against his shoulder, easing a few of the serving dishes into the water.
He looks over towards the counter and sees the leftovers split into two Tupperware bowls for their parents.
"In Soviet Russia, plates wash you," Stiles jokes, pulling away to grab the post-it notes and label the containers.
Scott watches him write them, hands pruning up in the lukewarm water, and laughs a little when Stiles signs his name with a heart on his dad's note. He forges Scott's name on Melissa's note, but he adds the little heart too, and Scott knows that his Mom isn't fooled. Stiles joins him after slipping both in the fridge. Stiles always ends up drying, and Scott has no intention of breaking tradition now.
Stiles presses against Scott's side, hip checking him when he catches Scott standing idly for too long. "Hey, hey, hey," he chides. "Guitar Hero waits for no man. Chop, chop, soldier. We've got chords to shred."
Scott blushes, embarrassed at being caught staring, and studies the rapidly deflating soap suds. He flicks some at Stiles' face, anything to distract them both for Scott's emotional turmoil. Stiles has always been too perceptive of what he was feeling, whether Scott liked it or not, and he's worried that Stiles has already sensed his uneasiness.
Stiles huffs a small laugh, elbows Scott in the side, and ducks to the side when Scott grabs his shoulders with soapy hands, leaving mottled hand-prints on his t-shirt. "Vintage Batman," Stiles scoffs, brushing invisible dust from Batman's two-dimensional cowl.
Scott gives him a guileless smile, and Stiles just slaps a hand in the murky, greasy water and lets it splash all over both of them.
"You're dead," Scott warns, wiping at his eyes and forehead.
"Whoops? Muscle spasm."
Stiles knows he’s at a distinct disadvantage from the start, but he takes off through the hallway, skidding on the wood flooring, to make it to the stairwell. Gripping the bannister, he takes the stairs two at a time, knowing Scott’s hot on his heels the whole way. They’re both laughing, and Stiles knows Scott’s holding back on him and not kicking it up to superhuman levels of speed just to make this more fun. Scott reaches out and tugs on the back of his plaid shirt, just enough to let Stiles knows he’s still there, and Stiles ducks into his room and slams the door shut behind him. “Password?” he pants, hands gripped on the doorknob.
“The password is, ‘you’re a dead man, Stilinski’,” Scott says, rattling the door in its frame in a way that tells Stiles how easy it would be for him to just take it, and Stiles, down.
“Sounds good.” He jumps away and lets Scott fall into his room with all the grace of a newborn giraffe. “You know, that game was a lot more fun when you were a scrawny asthmatic with bad hair.”
“I don’t know,” Scott says, shutting the door gently behind him. He smirks up at Stiles wickedly and squeezes the back of his neck. “I thought it was pretty fun.”
Stiles avoids his eyes, shaking off Scott’s touch, and says, “Whatever. Are we playing Guitar Hero or what?”
Scott lets the disappointment wash over him, settling deep in his stomach like a lead ball, and doesn’t try to dissect the deep satisfaction he felt at catching Stiles, the instinct that rumbled contently inside of him at knowing he’d won the chase. There’s still so much about this that he doesn’t understand, and the need to chase, to capture, is still something he isn’t comfortable feeling when he sees the bright flush on Stiles’ cheeks and hears the fast beat of his heart.
Stiles sets up the PlayStation without any real zeal. They always fight over who gets the good guitar (Stiles always gets a little too enthusiastic with the whammy bar), and then there are only a set number of songs both of them like anyway. It doesn’t take long for this game to wear thin too.
“Man,” Stiles moans, throwing his guitar down. “This game was a hell of a lot more fun before, too. Reflexes of a cat. Er, wolf, thing. Whatever. Let’s watch a movie. Pick something off the shelf.”
Scott throws his old standby – something action-packed and mindless – at Stiles, who looks at it with raised eyebrows. “Really? Again?”
“What?” Scott chuckles. “It’s a classic. It’s just not a good movie without at least one car exploding.”
“If those are the standards you keep, I might have to get me a new best friend. “ Stiles puts the DVD in and the two of them settle back onto Stiles’ bed, the most comfortable vantage point for optimal viewing. At least, that’s what Scott tells himself when Stiles shoves him over and sprawls out on the pillows next to him. They’re propped up against the headboard, shoulders touching from the lack of space, and Scott tries to keep all of his limbs as close to his body as he can manage to prevent himself from accidentally touching Stiles.
He’s never felt this awkward in his life around his best friend, and yet, here he is. Stiles doesn’t seem to have any issues, gnawing on his thumbnail as he waits for the DVD to finally get to the point where he can skip ahead to the menu and stop reading FBI fine-print about piracy and copyright law.
Of course Stiles falls asleep. For all that he’s like a walking hurricane of a person, he’s an excellent sleeper when he chooses to be. Scott’s arm is asleep, buried under Stiles’ dead weight, and he’s pretty sure there is some drool seeping into the fabric of his shirt on his shoulder. The television explodes with sound as another car catches fire, and Stiles doesn’t even flinch. Scott’s been around long enough to see Stiles sleep through a fire alarm going off from a smoking toaster in the kitchen, so he’s not at all surprised that his friend can sleep through fictitious alien invasions.
Scott catches himself staring, and even has the tact to blush at himself, but he doesn’t turn away. Stiles mumbles in his sleep - meaningless sounds that are probably words in his head - and he never does quite manage to stop moving. His eyelashes are dark against his pale skin, and his lips are the palest pink Scott’s ever seen. The movie shuts off in the background, but Scott doesn’t pay attention to it. He’s too wrapped up in his thoughts, the reminder of the things his mom had said to him mixing with the things he’s always felt, and he closes his eyes and lets himself just enjoy the easy comfort of Stiles – his smell, his warmth, their shared history. He doesn’t stir again until he feels Stiles lift his head and yawn.
"What time is it?" he asks, and Scott almost wishes he could wrap his arm more closely around him and keep him against his chest, except he can't, and he feels the chill acutely when Stiles sits up and rubs his eyes awake.
Scott smiles, brief and a little empty, and turns his back on Stiles as they both roll out of bed. "It's, like, two."
"God, that was the longest movie ever," Stiles says, studiously keeping his eyes on the carpet to avoid looking at the repeating DVD menu on the screen.
Scott can almost see the thought flash across Stiles' mind - he knows the movie's been over for a while. He flinches, runs a hand over his own face, shakes out his dead arm, and stutters, "We should get ready to sleep, I guess."
Stiles lopes across the hall to the bathroom, and Scott has to sit on the edge of the bed just to catch his breath. He feels ridiculous, turning this into something it’s not, but the rolling of his stomach can’t be ignored and he’s thankful when Stiles comes back, waving Scott towards the hall. Scott practically runs.
Once the door is closed safely between him and Stiles, he leans his back against the cool wood and just... closes his eyes, desperately trying to calm all of the goddamn wolf instincts driving him nuts.
Scott just breathes for a minute, and pushes down the instinct telling him to go back out there and make sure Stiles smells like him, like den, like them. The cool bathroom air is making the little drool patch on his shoulder chilly and he ignores a shiver as he pushes off of the door to go look at himself in the mirror.
He thinks about mornings, and breakfast, and french toast, and Sties’ stupid milk mustache. They’ve shared clothes, shared rides, shared classes, shared friends, and shared looks across the lunch table. They’ve shared lunches, while they're at it.
It's all those stupid trips to Costco, where they argue over which generic bulk cereal to buy and how many pre-packaged frozen dinners they should get. Stiles tells him they shouldn't get any and, just because Scott might not have heart problems yet, it doesn't mean he's exempt from the Family Sodium Reduction Plan. Fuck, when did Scott somehow start getting the same treatment as Stiles’ dad?
It's the way that Stiles knows that he's afraid of clowns and doesn't make fun of him for it because Scott knows just how afraid Stiles is of spiders. Scott and Stiles' dad are designated spider-killers in their house – their houses. It's one home lived in between two houses. How would he explain this to his mom if they had to somehow separate these two lives that have completely grown into one?
How the hell would he explain this to the pack, anyway? Stiles is basically a member, even if he’s technically not, and what about Danny? How does he explain to Danny, or Jackson, or Lydia, or anyone else who asks? Is "I wanted more than Stiles could give and I destroyed us?" enough?
The worst part is that these are all the extra things that may or may not happen. Scott's really only worried about one thing – what if Stiles hates him? What if Stiles never speaks to him again? What if he says "dude, what the fuck?" and looks at him with disgust in his eyes? Scott can't handle that. He would rather face down the entire Argent clan that have that happen - and he's basically done that, just for Stiles. When did his awkward best friend become the most important person in the whole world to him?
He sits on the toilet and kind of has trouble breathing, and isn't it just perfect that he's having an asthma attack or a panic attack and the only person he wants to call out to for help is the person he can't even look at right now for fear that he'll somehow ruin everything? He can’t even remember if this shirt belongs to him. It smells like him, and like Stiles, and it’s sticking to his back where the condensation of the toilet tank is soaking into it, and the stupid little drool patch is nearly dry.
The world closes in on him, like he’s one second away from blacking out, but he can hear Stiles' heartbeat in his bedroom across the hallway and he just... breathes. He has to stop for a minute, before he totally loses his mind, and splashes some water on his face. He brushes his teeth, trying to make the usual bathroom noises so Stiles doesn't ask him what's wrong. The problem with using the bathroom as the location for his freak-out is the fact that there's a long and storied tradition of bathroom freak-outs in their past. Stiles has radar for this shit. He can remember when Scott was nine and didn’t want to admit that he was crying in the bathroom because he missed his dad. He would even run the sink for twenty minutes to cover the sound of his sniffles.
The number of times he’s cried in front of Stiles is probably depressing, and when did that become okay? When did it become normal that they could see each other at their most vulnerable? Maybe Scott should have seen this all coming a long time ago.
What if this all falls apart? Who else will he play Guitar Hero with, and watch all of the good explosion movies with him? No one else is going to sneak The Big Sleep into movie night, pretending it's because he wants to be Humphrey Bogart and marry Lauren Bacall, and not because he used to watch it with his mom? Who else will he complain about Coach to? Who else will help him stretch his legs after practice and not laugh when he squeaks like a squished mouse when it hurts? He doesn't know what he'll do, and that’s exactly what’s keeping him locked up in this bathroom.
Stiles knocks on the bathroom door. “You okay in there, dude? Please tell me you didn't grab the A&D ointment instead of the toothpaste again."
Scott chokes out a laugh and says, "Yeah, I'm good. I’ll be out in a second.” He wipes his face with the small hand-towel hanging there, and looks himself in the eye through the mirror. “Don’t fuck this up,” he whispers.
Scott returns to the sight of Stiles, in his white t-shirt and boxers, putting both of their cellphones on charge. Scott has to swallow hard to get his throat to work again. "Thanks, dude."
"No problemo," Stiles chuckles to himself, bobbing his head to the side with each syllable.
Scott turns his back on Stiles and shakes his head a little, silently berates himself for choking as soon as he gets back in the room, and forces himself to act natural about this. He strips his shirt and jeans off, his boxers soft and loose around his thighs, and he crawls up from the foot of Stiles’ bed. Stiles turns the light out, turns on his side towards the rest of the room, and leaves Scott alone with his thoughts.
It's only a crescent moon out, and the light filtering through Stiles' window is weak. The pull of the moon is almost non-existent right then, the full moon has passed them already, and Scott can't attribute this to anything supernatural - at least, not in their usual sense of supernatural. Stiles is already asleep, the quiet wheeze of his breath through his nose filling up Scott's senses and blocking out the tick of the clock on the wall and the distant whir of the dormant computer. Scott can feel the heat radiating from Stiles, a gentle wave of warmth under the covers, and he turns his head to the left. He can see the broad width of Stiles' shoulder, curved inward towards his chest, and the lean muscles of his back as they disappear beneath the covers.
He remembers a lot of nights like this - Stiles quiet and dreaming, and Scott left to think in peace. There's been a lot of secrets whispered between them on this bed, things best said in the dark, like how much Scott misses his dad, even though he really didn't like him all that much, and how Stiles was mad at his mom for leaving him, even if it wasn't her fault and she wouldn't have done it if she'd had the choice. He can remember hitting Stiles with a pillow repeatedly when he refused to turn out his flashlight and stop reading Harry Potter under the sheet at four in the morning, and the way Stiles would rip the sheets off of him in the morning when Scott refused to move for anything less than a house fire or pancakes.
There were mornings after lacrosse practice when they were both so sore and bruised that they'd begged the other to get ice and pain killers, promising even more outlandish things, until Stiles' dad had poked his head to laugh at them, and set a couple of Advil on the nightstand.
(Stiles totally won when he promised Scott the entire continent of Australia. Scott didn't believe him that Australia was a continent, he thought it was an island, and Stiles wheezed painfully, because laughing was totally out of the question.)
Tonight was no different from all of those others, Scott decides, fingers clenched in the edge of the comforter. He turned onto his side. “Stiles,” he whispers. “Hey Stiles.” Scott can’t resist poking gently at Stiles’ side where he’s pressed against Scott’s arm, and he ignores the way his hand wants to linger against sleep-warm fabric and skin.
Finally, he gets a response. “Hmm, yeah?” he murmurs, snuggling down into the bedding a little.
“If I try something, will you freak out?”
The words get caught in Scott's throat, the fear from earlier rushing through him again, and he stares down at Stiles for a moment in silence. He can tell that he's not already asleep, that he'll wait for as long as it takes Scott the courage to say what he needs to say. There's a little rabbit kick jump in Stiles' heart rate, something that sounds a little bit closer to what Scott hears all day in class, and he breathes in through his nose, gathering himself to talk. The bedding smells like Stiles – his hair, his skin, the cheap soap they use in the laundry – and Scott shouldn't be so glad that the smell of it calms him. It's too intimate and familiar, to be able to latch onto something so invisible as a scent and wrap himself in it, and he decides to take the plunge. With a last, determined lick of his lips, he reaches out and trails his fingertips along Stiles' temple and behind his ear, letting the pad of his thumb drag across his cheekbone.
Stiles' eyes flutter open – a gentle movement, not one of fear – and he waits for Scott to make the next move. Leaning up on his elbows, Scott's hand trails down to curl around Stiles' neck, the quick flutter of his pulse drumming against his palm. Stiles was fully on his back, uncharacteristically silent, and staring wide-eyed in anticipation up at Scott. The moon was low in the sky, almost disappearing behind the horizon, and the sun was too low to the east for there to be much light outside. The shadow of the tree in Stiles' backyard played against their skin, casting patterns familiar from a million other nights like this, and Scott had already gone too far to let this go now.
Scott's eyes flick down to Stiles' lips, a marked gesture intended to say what Scott can't seem to put into words right then. Stiles licks them, an assent and a question all at once, and Scott is so happy that Stiles doesn't need him to spell it out with fireworks to get it.
Scott takes a steadying breath before leaning down to brush his lips against Stiles'. For a heart-stopping handful of seconds, Stiles is frozen and still beneath him, and Scott thinks he's miscalculated horribly until one of Stiles' hands shyly slides into the hair at the nape of his neck. Scott's other hand is pressed flat against the sheets, and he leans more weight onto it as Stiles digs his blunt fingernails into the skin at the base of Scott's skull. There's not enough bite in them to be painful, but the drag of them down his neck leaves Scott panting against Stiles' open mouth.
Stiles wraps his other hand around the nape of Scott's neck as well, fingers overlapping when he slides them into his hair. His thumbs stroke the sensitive skin behind Scott's ears, making him make a soft, appreciative noise low his his throat.
Leaning up for another kiss, Stiles drags his nails experimentally down Scott's shoulder blades. Encouraged by a quiet, open-mouthed moan, Stiles rakes them down the length of Scott's back.
A shiver shakes him from toe to fingertip, tightens his spine. He collapses onto his back beside Stiles, trying to take slow, steady breaths and count the fan blades as they spin overhead.
But Stiles blocks his view, leaning over to kiss a path across his jawline, pressing him into the mattress where his hands are braced on Scott's shoulders.
He twists the rest of the way around, swinging his leg across Scott's hips and curving his hands around his ribs.
"You're the one that looks like he's freaking out," Stiles observes with a cheeky grin.
Scott's startled expression is quickly replaced with a glare. Not to be outdone, he settles his hands on Stiles' hips, fingers wandering below the waist of his boxers. Stiles bites his lip, and Scott's fingers tighten before he reaches up to pull him down for another kiss, tongue tracing the bite.
It's a quiet burn deep in Scott's chest, having the slow slide of Stiles' tongue contrasting against his hands mapping his skin out like it's a race to know everything about him before the chance is taken away. He strains up, gasping when the tips of Stiles' fingers pressed into the softest part of his belly, and Stiles breaks off the kiss to rest their foreheads together.
Scott keeps his eyes closed, hands clutching at the ridges of Stiles' hips, and swallows hard. "I think this is the opposite of freaking out." Stiles chuckles and falls hard to the bed beside Scott, the edges of his teeth scraping his neck when he opens his mouth to talk into the skin there.
"This is calm acceptance?" Scott can already feel a sudden exhaustion settling into his bones, a perfect high followed by an epic crash, and he just nods, pulling Stiles as close as he possibly can. "I should have known you'd be a cuddler," Stiles grouses, but he wraps his fingers around Scott's wrist and holds him in place.
"Go to sleep, Stiles."
-----
The world outside of them is quiet, still stuck in the early morning calm of dawn. Scott wakes up first, finds himself wrapped around Stiles’ back, and sighs in relief that last night hadn’t been a dream, or a joke. This is still real, and he presses a kiss to the base of Stiles’ neck in gratitude. Stiles stirs awake, and turns around to face Scott. With them both laying half on their stomachs, their faces end up very close together, and Stiles' eyes go out of focus when he tries to look at Scott.
"Hi," he murmurs, brushing the tip of his nose along Scott's cheek.
Scott's lips spread into a wide grin, and his eyes drift shut. "Good morning to you, too."
Stiles, because he's never perfected the brain-to-mouth filter formula, says, "We're not going to be weird about this? This seems like a thing to be weird about. We should probably, totally feel weird about this."
"Do you feel weird about it?" Scott breathes into the space between them.
Stiles bites his lip, a quick hitch in his breathing. "No," he answers, his heart beat steady under Scott’s palms. "Not weird at all."
Scott pushes up on his elbows, shoulder-blades bunched up, and he looks down at Stiles. "Good," he chuckles, pressing chaste kisses to Stiles' back and neck.
Stiles stretches into the caresses, groans quietly as Scott wraps a hand around his waist and hauls him closer. With Stiles tucked against his chest, Scott settles against him, his warm olive skin contrasting with Stiles' pale arms.
Stiles kisses his collarbone, because it's the only thing he can reach, and shudders at the pure rush of adrenaline he gets from the freedom he now has to do that.
"This isn't fair," Stiles whispers against Scott's jaw, then the soft skin along the underside. "It's not supposed to be this easy."
Scott scoffs faintly above him and then he feels Stiles' mouth shaping a smile against his throat, faint shift of stubble and the brief edge of teeth. "You know what I mean. It wouldn't have been easier with a GPS, man..."
Scott hums agreement, fingers moving restlessly over Stiles' back.
They fall asleep like that, pressed together in all the right places, and neither of them stirs for a long time.