Work Text:
Liam’s got blood in his mouth.
“God,” says Mason. He trips over a broken table piece, lands on something sharp, yelping, scrambling backwards. “God, oh God--Liam--”
“Oh.” Liam spins around. Theo smiles, slow, exhilarated. “I was afraid you wouldn’t be able to.” He steps over Mason’s heaving chest, splintered chair legs and winged books.
Blood in his mouth; it’s not his own. Liam looks down, the hole in his throat is raw, red, still weeping.
“Hayden?” he asks, in something like his voice. Theo’s face scrunches.
“Sh-she’s gone,” says Mason, scrubbing vomit from the corner of his mouth. “She--she died, Liam, Liam, God, what did you--”
Liam sees it a second before Theo can lunge and then he’s standing over two bodies. One, chunks bitten out of him. The other, long stripes making him gurgle and flop and choke. Liam listens to Mason tripping over his own shoes as he swings his claws down again, and again, and--
-
“I didn’t--I didn’t--I--” The Sheriff hustles Liam out, one arm around his shoulder, feeling the weight of Melissa’s eyes. Betrayal is heavy and it’s a feat anyone can stand in that room.
“My boy,” she says, petting his hair. She leans down, whispering, kissing everywhere blood hasn’t touched his skin. She’s speaking Spanish, Stiles realizes, without any real connection. His hands shake at his sides. If he doesn’t get too close, Scott could be sleeping.
-
Stiles says, “I need you to put me in a cell.”
“Stiles--” starts his father.
“If you don’t put me in there for the night, I’m…” His jaw and fists clench. “I think it’d be in Liam’s best interest if I had some time to myself.”
-
Kira rubs her eyes, answering mid-ring with a sleepy, “‘Lo?” Quiet, stilted breathing answers her. She pulls the phone back from her ear, blinking at the bright screen. “Lydia?”
“You need to come back,” she says, very soft.
Kira’s rolled out of bed, on her feet, rummaging for a pair of jeans already. “What is it? Is everyone okay?” She kicks her pajama shorts across the room, hops around, trying to shimmy into her comfiest pair swiped from the top of her hamper. She’s really gotta do her laundry this weekend.
“It’s--” Kira’s fastening her belt and Lydia says, “It’s Scott.”
-
“I’m sorry,” she says, sincere. Braeden isn’t good at sharing, but for Derek--
Well, for Derek there’s little she can think of that she wouldn’t do. It terrifies and thrills her to her bones.
She clears her throat of emotion, because her grief is not the biggest in the room right now, says, “I should have been there.”
Derek’s grip is firm, but not tight, not painful. Grounding. His eyes are wide and wet, unseeing. “If it should have been any of us, it should have been me.” She tries to parse if that means saving Scott or dying in Scott’s place before accepting it’s both, really. She squeezes his hand.
Scott looks small, on the autopsy table, sheet pulled up to his chin. It’s easy to forget he’s--he was just a boy. It’s impossible not to notice now. Small and young. Braeden lifts her gaze to the far door, stomach flipping.
-
“Volver a mí, volver a mí, mi chico. Mi hijo, mi ángel. Por favor te amo, por favor. Te amo, te amo, no me dejes, por favor.”
-
“I’m tired of watching the people I love die before it happens.” Lydia finally says, after an hour of silence. Kira peels her cheek off the window to turn and look at her.
Lydia’s hands are perfectly set on the steering wheel. Her eyes are glassy, nose tinged pink, but her make up is flawless. She checks her rearview where Kira’s parents are following in the hastily acquired rental.
“Yeah,” says Kira, because she has no fucking clue what to say to that. Scott’s--fuck. Fuck. Her whole chest is on fire. She closes her eyes, leans back against the cool glass.
-
“I swear to God,” she says, tone so cold it sends an unpleasant chill up his spine, “and let me be perfectly fucking clear--if you show up anywhere near him, I will kill you.”
He raises his hands towards her slowly, but Melissa flinches back, lips held in a snarl. “Don’t.”
“He couldn’t control himself--”
“But when it was Kira you had no trouble--”
“I wish it were simple, I wish justice could come cleanly, but he’s a kid. He’s just a kid. He didn’t know what he was doing--”
“Just because you have to deal with the fact your son’s a killer doesn’t excuse you letting the boy who killed my son go,” she says, flatly. There’s something in her eyes that he knows with sudden, terrible certainty will never fade. Stony, immovable, untouchable.
His mouth dries. The badge pinned to his pocket feels like a lead weight. “Please,” he says, voice breaking. “I loved him too.”
-
Derek finds her in the kitchen, slamming uncooked brownie batter into the trash, tray and all. She spreads her hands over the counter, drawing a deep, slow breath. He raps on the wall and her head whips up.
“Oh, oh, sorry--I--” Her face pinches. She motions him in. “You’re early.”
“Sorry to intrude. I thought maybe I could help set up, if you need…” he surveys the kitchen, dusted with flour and granulated sugar, cream cheese on butter knives and egg shells and chocolate shavings. “Anything.”
“I was,” she stops, bites her lip, tries again, “I was trying to make his favorite dessert. I thought, I thought it’d be nice. My mom’s recipe. But I don’t have the chiles and I don’t have time to go out and get them and I--” Her breath hitches, she hiccups, presses a hand over her mouth, and spins. Her shoulders brace for a sob.
He sets the bouquet on the table and crosses the room, resting a gentle hand against her back. The platitudes build and build in his mouth until he’s choking on them. Finally, he says, “He loved you so much.”
The words shatter the taut composure she’d mustered and she falls forward, catching herself against the sink. She makes ungodly sounds, tears splattering in the metal basin, rolling down her neck and soaking her shirt. He knows this kind of crying intimately. The soul sucking, hollow horror. He rubs a slow circle with his palm, and waits.
“I guess it doesn’t matter anyway, does it,” Melissa says, wiping her face with a dish towel. She cranes her neck to look at him, puffy-eyed and destroyed and still, he swears, stronger than he ever was when he got this low.
“If it matters to you, then it matters,” he says. She doesn’t like that answer, which is fair. “Go to the bathroom, splash your face, take some time if you need it. I’ll clean up here. Drink a tall glass of water and take an advil if you can feel a headache coming on. Don’t stress. Not about this. I can handle this.”
“Okay,” she says, tonelessly. He thinks, this is the counter Scott ate his breakfast at the day he died, and then he shakes his head and starts sweeping the shells and sugar into the trashcan.
-
Mr. McCall gives a toast no one really listens to. Melissa excuses herself as soon as he starts clinking his fork against the glass of orange juice.
Isaac watches her lean against a wall, eyes closed, taking careful, measured breaths. He tips his werewolf-proof flask into his own cup and yells, “Here, here!” loudly, mocking, when Mr. McCall finishes, draining the whole glass in a gulp. Chris glares at him, but with no real heat. He follows Melissa into the room she slipped in as Isaac drifts over to Lydia.
“Hey,” he says.
She doesn’t look up from her napkin, arranging little crispy shrimp into a pyramid. Allison’s memorial had shrimp, too. What’s the fucking deal with that? He asks her this.
Her eyes flick up. “Christ, Lahey.”
“What? It’s weird right.” He blinks, thinking back. “Fuck, Boyd and Erica had them at theirs, too. Seriously, who made shrimp the universal funeral food?”
She laughs, startling herself with it. Her eyes dart back and forth, checking if anyone heard, before landing on Isaac, accusatory.
He shrugs, pulls his flask out again, this time taking a swig straight from it. She makes grabby hands and he raises his arm, dangling it over her short head.
“Whoa, whoa. This shit is potent. Supernaturally potent.”
She fists her hands on her hips, smirking. “Good thing I’m supernatural, then.” She sets the napkin of shrimp on a side table, pyramid tumbling down, crispy crumbs scattering over the wood laminate.
Her eyes bug out of her head so far on the first sip now Isaac’s the one barking with laughter. He slaps a hand over his mouth, trying to smother it. She powers her way through another drink before he takes it from her hands, cough-chuckling.
“That’s enough, trust me, you’re gonna wake up with a hangover next week if you have any more.”
She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, wincing. “How’s France?”
“Oh, you know, the best art and food and clothes in the world. Terrible, really.” He adjusts his new, hand crafted scarf around his neck. “How’s…” he trails off, looking down with a tough swallow.
Another laugh, this one quiet, bitter. “Yeah. Real fuckin’ peachy, here.”
“Was it--” Isaac looks over her head, at nothing in particular. “Was he doing okay, before, I mean--he called sometimes but we texted mostly. He’s hard to get a read on when he doesn’t want you to, you know, but--for a while, before, he didn’t reach out much, and I was starting to worry--I don’t know. Just, he was, he was okay, right? He was doing alright?”
A thick cloud of shame, sadness hangs over her. She twists the rings on her hands and looks over his shoulder, at nothing in particular. “I don’t know.”
-
Kira offers some of her shrimp to Mason after sitting next to him on the couch. He shakes his head.
“I’m allergic,” he says, almost whispering. She understands that. It feels like a sacred place, a sacred day, the kind where any loud noises are an offense. “But thanks.”
She nods, pops one in her mouth. It tastes greasy, spicy, room temperature. It tastes like shrimp but also like nothing at all. She puts the rest on the coffee table, wiping her hands against her dress and then feels like the rudest slob in the world.
“I know you wanna ask,” says Mason. He sounds so tired. “Everyone’s asked, it’s okay. I’ll tell you.”
She bites her lip. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. If it was--” He bites his tongue, glancing away. “I’d want to know, too.”
“No, I-I mean, I’m sorry you had to be there. But I’m grateful, too. I wanted to say thank you. For not letting him be alone.”
“I ran away,” he breathes, eyes squeezed shut, fingers gripping his knees.
“You were there when it happened. I know it was terrible to see--to see your friend do something like that, but Scott knew you were there and it, it matters. It means something.”
“It hurt. It hurt and it wasn’t good. I wish I could tell you he didn’t suffer but I can’t, I’m sorry.”
Kira’s eyes sting. She sucks in a sharp breath. “You got help.”
“I couldn’t stop him.”
“No one could have.” No one. No one, not even her. She couldn't have, had she stayed. She couldn't have.
He stands, suddenly. “Sorry. I’m sorry, it was good seeing you.” He doesn’t look back, just winds his way through the crowd. Deaton follows him when he stumbles out the back door.
Kira slumps back against the couch. How many times did Scott kiss her on this couch? How many times did he kiss her? She tries to start a catalogue but keeps winding back to the last one. Buzz of static electricity and slick with rainwater. His fingertips so soft. His eyes.
It hurt. It hurt.
She’s closing the bathroom door behind her before she knows it, kneeled over the toilet, dry heaving. The food and drink are cement in her stomach. She touches her forehead to the tiled floor and cries in absolute church-silence.
-
“Will you forgive him?”
“How can I?” asks Mason, elbows on his knees, hands clasped over his head.
“He wasn’t in control. Theo used him.”
“You didn’t see it, you didn’t see the way he,” his breath catches, his body shudders.
Alan folds himself down on the grass next to the boy, settling a hand on his shoulder. “He’s your best friend.”
“I don’t know if I know what he is, anymore,” Mason admits in a very small, scared voice. He peeks up at Alan with huge eyes.
Alan leans back, fingers threading through warm dirt, dewy grass. “You’re welcome to come by the clinic, anytime you feel overwhelmed. I’ve been told puppies are excellent therapy.” He flashes a smile.
Mason doesn’t smile back, exactly, but he doesn’t say no.
Alan stretches backwards, chin tilting towards the sun. Children in wars, this is what you get: dead children and the people they leave behind.
-
Chris holds both her hands in both of his. "I know," he says, in an aching, awful voice. "I know." Melissa screams against his chest and he lets her, closing his eyes.
-
"He just--let him," she says, still dazed over the idea. Kira shrinks away from her words, but Malia doesn't notice. "If he tried, he could have stopped him."
"Killed him, you mean." Derek says. Braeden snakes her hand around his, returning to their little cluster with a fresh drink.
"It would have been self defense. Why didn't he--he could have at least--" She huffs with frustration. "Why didn't he save himself?"
"Maybe," says Kira, without meaning to, "he didn't think he was worth saving?"
Derek's plastic cup crinkles loudly and Braeden's eyes go hard. Bewildered, gut punched, Malia says, "How could he think that?"
-
Stiles picks at the threads of Scott’s sheets. His suit is crinkling, all tucked up in a ball as he is. Scott’s pillow still smells like him. Stiles presses his face deeper into it, greedy.
A knock and a creak. “Stiles?” Malia says, hesitant. He hates the way they tiptoe around each other, now. For a moment, he wants nothing more than to open his mouth and just scream, but it passes.
She wanders in. “Do you want some company?”
He blinks tears down the bridge of his nose, dripping on Scott’s pillow. “Okay,” she says, plainly hurt. “I’ll just… I was part of his pack, too,” frustrated, close to cracking, but still trying, she continues, “I’m not--that’s not saying you didn’t know him better, but we were pack. You’re not alone.” She waits, sighs, and leaves, slamming the door too hard. Scott’s walls rattle.
But I still love him, he thinks, that’s the difference.
He wakes up what could be an hour, what could be two minutes later. Melissa slips into bed beside him, staring at him from Scott’s other pillow.
“I didn’t see any streusel brownies,” he says.
“Out of chiles,” she says.
“Ah.”
“Do you hate me for not letting your father come?”
“No,” Stiles answers, honestly.
“I hate me, a little.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“Maybe.” She gives a sort of shrug. “It’s done, now.”
“Yeah,” he says, sighing the word.
“Do you remember when you rode the Super Loop at the fair for the first time?” she asks, mouth tipping into a smile at the corners.
Her grin infects him. “And Scott blew chunks all over my brand new Star Wars t-shirt? Um, yeah.” They share a small laugh. “I was so mad I didn’t talk to him for a week.”
“You’re the one who insisted on fried bread and goaded him into going on it in the first place.”
“Yeah. He even gave me that stuffed skunk he won at the balloons to try and make up for it.”
She scoffs. “That I won, you mean.”
His eyes brighten. “That’s right! Sorry, you’re right, you’ve got a mean dart hand.” His gaze drifts, brow furrowing. “It got torn apart in the dryer a few months after. Cheap fair toys, should’ve let it air dry.”
“Did Scott ever go on it again? That was the last time you boys had a chaperone.”
“Oh, yeah. Every year. He only puked one time after that, though. I thought I’d never get him to go again, but sure enough, next year, he doesn’t eat all day and tugs me in line like he’s gonna get in a fist fight with the thing.” His smile warms. “Of course, when we got off he was so dizzy and lightheaded he had to sit with his head between his knees for fifteen minutes while eating like, five churros and one of those turkey legs.”
“He never told me that,” says Melissa, sad, wistful.
His eyes snap back to her. “He didn’t want to worry you.”
She smiles, tears welling. “I’m glad you had each other.”
Stiles watches her for a few beats, heavy. “I needed him. I wouldn’t be--I always needed him, even when he didn’t need me.” He needs her to know this. He needs to prove it to someone, so there can be outside evidence. So the truth isn’t locked in only his heart.
She reaches out, smoothing a hand over his cheek in such a motherly way his whole body tenses. Leaning forward slightly, she kisses his forehead, and sits up and off of the bed. “You can stay the night, if you want,” she says in parting, closing the door softly behind her.
Stiles rolls over, lying flat on his stomach, and hugs both pillows tight against him.
-
Liam knocks, then folds his hands together, anxious, nauseous. He hopes he doesn’t wake her, but it’s not that early. Still, he probably should have waited. He chews on his bottom lip. He probably should have waited longer than the day after the memorial but--but he needs to tell her, to explain--
Stiles’ mouth drops open with the door. He positions himself in front of the entrance, instantly defensive. Liam waits for him to speak, to yell, to--he doesn’t even know. But Stiles just stares with loathing, burning eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Liam says, in the smallest voice imaginable. He blinks at his twisted up hands.
“What do you want?” The control in Stiles’ voice is tenuous, at best.
“I just--I wanted to say,” his throat tightens and he swallows thickly. “I needed to tell you how sorry I am. How awful I--”
“Shut up.” Stiles’ hands are white-knuckled on the doorknob and frame. “You need to leave.”
“Please, I have to tell her--”
“You’re not gonna tell her a goddamn thing. If you ever come here again,” Stiles bites his words off with a sharp snap of his teeth. “This is your one warning, because I know Scott would want me to give you one. If I ever, or if Ms. McCall ever sees you again, I’ll rip your fucking throat out.”
Liam flinches, stepping back. “Please,” he says, lashes heavy, downcast. His lungs are quicksand, his body a crumbling wall.
“Do us all a favor and go choke on some wolfsbane, murderer.” The porch shakes with the slamming door. Liam listens to Stiles slump against it, heartbeat skyrocketed, breath coming in short, panicked gasps. He jogs down the steps, walking back onto the street, dreamlike. This isn’t real, he thinks. This isn’t his life, not really. This is a very long nightmare and he’d really like to wake up, now.
-
“Come back,” Stiles says, desperate, clutching Scott’s shirt, tucked up in the corner of his closet. “Come back, Scotty, come back, you can’t be gone, you’re not, you’re not, Scott--”
-
Jackson tosses his phone on his bed where it bounces to the floor and walks to the balcony. The fog filters sunlight in a strange way. He folds himself on the ground, face pressing against the iron bars. He thinks, who will be dead next time my phone rings? And then he thinks, Scott McCall, Scott McCall, Scott McCall, you bastard, you absolute fucking douche, you were supposed to make it.
-
“You lost it,” Isaac says.
“I didn’t--it must have fell--” Lydia scrambles, hands and knees, shoving dead leaves and wriggling worms out of the way.
Stiles laughs, sharply, body leaned against a great tree. Derek and Malia crawl around next to her, sifting through the dirt, Kira rooting around Lydia’s purse.
“Found it!” Malia says, “Here,” the locket sitting calmly in the middle of her palm.
Worry unravels in Lydia’s chest. “Thank you.” She wraps the chain around her wrist and stands, shaking herself clean, and flicks a twig off her shoulder.
They all cluster together, the clear teardrop locket swinging a slow circle off Lydia’s hand. She swallows.
“Stiles, do you…” she lifts her arm towards him.
He picks up the locket delicately. “I, uh, does anyone want to say something?”
No one will meet one another’s eyes. Stiles’ thumb strokes the rounded edge of the locket.
“Scott was a great alpha,” Malia says, startling them all, “because he was brave and kind and a good friend. And he, and he always saw the best in everyone. And he made me want to be like that, too.”
“Yeah,” Isaac says, wiping at his face. “Yeah, he got that look on his face that made you want to be worthy of being near him.”
Malia nods. Kira says, “I think he didn’t even know he did that. Like, he never used it, he just… was.”
“It wasn’t easy for him, though. He never asked us to be worthy of anything, just to try our best to be good, like he did. And when we couldn’t, he still--” Derek breaks off, clears his throat.
She’s next in line, so Lydia says, “We were shitty friends.” Everyone opens their mouth to refute it but she continues, “How many times did he try and kill himself for the greater whatever? Well, he finally did it. And we’re acting surprised? Like we just didn’t see him, when we did, but we thought he could handle it. We always thought he could handle everything but he wasn’t our fucking messiah he was--he’s--” She makes a 180, stalking off a few feet, hands tangling in her hair. Her words hang in the air. Then, just to really stick the knife in, to be sure they all feel the stab of guilt as fiercely as she does, “He always helped everyone but who was there to help him, when it mattered?”
“Fuck you,” Stiles says.
“Fuck you,” she responds, joining the circle again. Anger flares in her, a beautiful reprieve from grief. “You think you weren’t the worst? You--”
“Stop.” Derek growls. “Not now, Christ. Not now.”
Kira sniffles, held against Isaac’s chest, his cheek ducked against her head. Malia’s eyes are glowing blue. Everything is so broken in his absence. With a sting, she knows this won’t heal, like a scar, this is a fucking chasm in the earth and they’ll never fill it. She meets Stiles’ eyes. “He deserved better than us.”
At that his jaw jumps, teeth grinding together. The silence from them all is heavy with meaning, a shared truth they don't want to look at. Met with no disagreement, she drops her gaze, a sick satisfaction settling in the pit of her gut.
Stiles clips open the locket and they shuffle towards the edge of the cliff. Beacon Hills twinkles brightly in the distance. He tips it, shaking loose the ashes, and says, soft devastation, “Bye, Scotty.”
-
“Mason, please,” Liam begs, eyes wild and desperate.
Mason twists past him, head down. “I need time.”
“Mason,” his name is practically a sob in Liam’s mouth.
“I just--I need time.”
-
Melissa hasn’t been to church in a long, long time. But the moment that incense and warmth hit her, the largeness and darkness of the old walls, she’s kneeled in a pew, crossing herself, mumbling like she never skipped a Sunday. “En el nombre del Padre, y del Hijo, y del Espíritu Santo. Amén.”
-
Alan stares at the help wanted sign for ten minutes before wedging it behind some broken down boxes, fingers trembling.