A/N: For those upset that I'm posting a new story instead of updating another story, sorry. Just had to put my thoughts out on the table. Forgive me. I just couldn't help feeling that Scott and Stiles could have had an awesome moment if the stupid phone hadn't rung right then. So this is me, writing about what would have happened if the phone had waited a few minutes longer. Enjoy! Let me know your thoughts.

-Kenxi

Stiles is running.

He doesn't know where he is, or where he is going, but he is running as fast as he can.

The trees around him seem to bend downwards, nearly crushing him. He keeps running.

The dirt and patches of moss are soft under his bare feet, but every now and again he hits a sharp rock, sending shots of pain up to his knee. Still, he keeps running.

Because running is all he knows.

The dark shadows of the trees looming over him suddenly begin to disappear, leaving him feeling vulnerable in the open. Despite the discomfort, he continues to run.

The running only ceases when he reaches a rather wide clearing full of too bright lights. It's familiar, Stiles realizes dimly as he finally slows to a stop.

A grove of magical trees, his mind finally supplies from memory. Albeit he had spoken that ironically in a dream then, too. Stiles freezes.

Is this a dream?

The Nemeton sits in the very center of the clearing. Before Stiles can even think to count his fingers, he walks into sight, bandages and all.

The Nogitsune.

He lumbers awkwardly and yet terrifyingly towards Stiles. And then he is just there, right in front of his face, staring at Stiles without an expression to be seen underneath the strips of cloth around his head.

"We did it, Stiles. We have killed all of them, just like we promised."

Stiles stumbles backward, trying to put as much distance between him and him as possible. But he stops when he sees it.

The bodies. All tossed unceremoniously across the wide stump of the Nemeton.

Kira. Derek. Allison. Lydia. Scott. The Twins. All of them. All dead with lifeless eyes staring at nothing above them.

The Nogitsune hadn't been lying. They were all dead. Stiles doesn't even bother looking for his dad—he knows that he is there with them, too. Everyone he has ever remotely cared about is there. Even Isaac, whom he had often felt he hated sometimes, lies bloodied with one arm hanging limply over Lydia's torso. Lydia, the girl he had loved for almost his entire life.

The only person missing is his mom. But that's probably just because she had already passed on before this whole crazy, horrifying mess.

Then the Nogitsune is gone, and Stiles is right up close to the bodies of those he killed, all bloody and draped over one another.

Just like that, Allison is in front of him. "You killed us, Stiles," she says, putting a hand to a gaping wound in her stomach. Blood drips from her red lips. "You are responsible. You enjoyed it!" She screams, grabbing his shirt in her hands and twisting. Behind her, the others are awaking as well from the dead and moving towards him. Stiles shakes with fear, his eyes wide with guilt. "And now," Allison's dark eyes glisten with an evil foreign to her regular goodness, "now we are going to enjoy killing you. Because that is what you deserve."

What had he done?

And then he is jerking himself awake, gasping, once again trying to run from the damage he had caused.

If only.

00000

"You okay?"

"What happened? How long was I out?"

"Just a couple of hours. You should sit down."

Scott had come running when Stiles' heartbeat had suddenly skyrocketed. He had come into to the room to find his friend white and gasping. It made Scott wonder what Stiles had dreamt so horrible that he'd wake up in this sudden fear. But perhaps he didn't want to know.

Stiles just shook his head at Scott's suggestion. "Where's my dad?"

"He's at Eichen House, questioning everyone. Looking for Meredith," Scott replied calmly, trying to get Stiles to reflect the feeling. But it was difficult to stay calm when your best friend was dying and there was nothing currently you could do about it. "I promised I wouldn't let you out of my sight."

Stiles' eyes kept flickering around the room as if he was looking for something. Or trying not to see something. "Okay, what about the others?"

He told his friend that they were all looking for Lydia, still. Scott tried not to notice the guilt etch into his face at that.

Stiles swallowed harshly. "It's starting to feel like we're waiting for a ransom call."

"We'll find her."

Although he had been shivering this entire time, now Stiles turned to grab his dark jacket and wrap himself up in it. His movements were jerky.

Worry clouded his mind, but Scott tried to suppress it as much as possible. "You all right?"

Stupid. Of course he wasn't alright. None of them were. But the question was a default, a somewhat phrase of normalcy. Scott was grasping at straws at this point.

"Yeah," Stiles said, avoiding eye contact again. "I don't know why, I just can't seem to get w-warm."

He's gonna be fine, Scott told himself. What could you expect from being turned into Dolly the cloned sheep? Scott almost winced at the comparison, remembering vaguely how Dolly hadn't survived very long after being created. "Maybe you should sit down, take it easy," Scott forced out. Still attempting to soften Stiles' nerves, he reached out for him, thinking that physical contact might help. But the second he did, the familiar black veins trailed up his arm.

Like he had touched a hot stove, Scott yanked his arm back with a start. He gaped at Stiles in surprise. "You're in pain." How could he have not noticed? What kind of best friend was he?

Stiles shuddered again—or maybe it was a shrug. "It's not that bad. Just more like a dull ache."

"Where?"

"Sort of everywhere."

The anxiety was only building within Scott. He touched his friend's hand more cautiously this time, but quickly enough that he could do so before Stiles pulled away. He was greeted with a sharp cold. "Dude," he said, almost horrified, "you're freezing."

Lips trembling slightly, Stiles put space between them and sat down on the couch where he'd previously been sitting, rubbing his hands together.

Scott took in a slower breath. He needed to stay calm for Stiles' sake. He knelt down next to his best friend and forced him to make eye contact. "Tell me the truth, how much does it really hurt?"

Stiles stared up at Scott with a raw, pained expression, but he didn't say anything. Instead he pressed his hands against his pale face- probably trying to spread the heat from his head to his fingers.

Back when they were kids, Stiles had taught him that trick. Most people would simply blow hot air into their hands to heat them up, but Stiles had educated Scott fast. Apparently, the hot air only makes the hands sweat, which basically forces more cold air to your hands when outside. Even if you're inside, the world likes to balance out the temperatures anyway, which is why the fireplace spreads heat to the places cooler than it inside a house. So, by touching your face or neck, which is generally far warmer than hands or feet because of blood circulation, the heat goes to your hands because of its lack of heat and 'steals its heat.' That was how Stiles always explained it to him. The world just liked to balance certain things, he'd say. Everything else just went straight to chaos. The second law of Thermodynamics.

Things were definitely chaotic now.

"I don't want anyone else to die, Scott." Stiles whispered, though not answering the question, exactly.

Scott held his ground on the floor in front of him, although he felt like curling up and sobbing at the broken sound of his voice. He tugged his friend's hands gently away from his face and warmed them up with his own hands, also leeching away some of his pain while he was at it. It seemed Stiles was far too exhausted and cold to argue, so he let him.

"It's just..." Stiles faltered before continuing. "Throughout this whole thing—and I don't just mean now, I mean all of this supernatural crap—I've found that it doesn't matter who it is that dies, whether they were a good or not so good human being, no one deserves it." He sucked in a breath, pulling his hands away from Scott's. Scott didn't even put up a fight. "No more death, please. Not you or Kira, Allison, Lydia—" his throat caught, "—Isaac and his stupid scarves, Derek, or even the twins, as much as I hate them. No one should die."

Any bit of humor that Stiles forced through is voice was just that—forced. In fact, it was a bit frightening, the emptiness of his usually full humor. Now it just sat on his voice without the regular mirth. The pain was all too real on Stiles' face as he bore his eyes into Scott's. "I don't care what happens to me; I just don't want anyone else to die because of me."

Scott closed his eyes against the sudden burning in them. "Nobody else is going to die, alright?" He finally opened his eyes, grabbing Stiles' icy hands once more in a sort of desperate haze. "The plan is to save you. To save all of us. And I'm gonna stick to that plan no matter what you say. Everything will be alright, just you watch."

Stiles half laughed, half choked at Scott's words. "I did watch, Scott. I watched everything that he did. And you know what? It wasn't like looking at things from the outside while he did all those horrors. It was me who was doing them. Killing people. I felt powerful and strong, and I enjoyed it. So don't give me all that motivational 'watch and see' crap, cause I've done too much of that already. And it all just ends up in blood and death and pain."

A cold, chilled feeling splashed through Scott's veins. He involuntarily shivered. The expression on Stiles' face wasn't one of anger as he might have sounded like. But as he spoke, instead he just sounded so tired of it all. A little bitter, yes, but mostly just so tired. And for the first time, Scott didn't look at his friend as the unbreakable, hyperactive, brilliant, loyal friend as he always had in the past, nor did he see him as someone who was already broken and vulnerable as he had seemed for the last while. Instead, Scott looked at his brother and saw someone who had saved his life so many times, nearly gotten himself killed, never gave up, and was still so incredibly selfless. Perhaps that was not what a normal person might have gathered from his words, but Scott could see it. Being willing to sacrifice himself wasn't Stiles giving up, it was him trying to save everyone else—just as he always had been.

Scott slowly stood from the ground, not releasing his vice like grip on Stiles, and sat down on the couch next to him. Not once during the action did he remove his eyes off of his friend's face. It was like seeing him for the first time and completely understanding him. Knowing all that he knew, and containing all of the pain that he felt from everything that had happened made him want to break down and just cry for hours, but there wasn't time for that just yet. Right now he had to focus on keeping his friend afloat before saving him entirely.

Stiles was matching his gaze, eyes locked on Scott's. They could both feel the pain that the other was feeling, no wolf powers needed. Their friendship was enough.

"Alright, Stiles." Scott uttered softly, as if the loudness could have broken their sudden, almost tangible bond. "Like you said, no motivational crap, just me this time." There was no challenging glint in Stiles' eyes at all. Just a pleading stare. Scott swallowed and continued. "There's gonna be a time when we don't wake up from nightmares. When we aren't weighed down with some form of guilt about this whole thing. When we finally wake up and realize that we have moved on. Probably not by tomorrow or next week. Maybe not even a year from now. But sooner or later, someday, we will no longer just be surviving, but we will be living. There's no way we're going to be the same people we were before, but we'll still be us. You hear that? We'll still be us."

Stiles curled his quivering bottom lip under his top one, his eyes appearing broken. But Stiles Stilinski was not broken as some may have thought. Not yet.

The two boys reached out and wrapped their arms around each other almost desperately for the need of physical contact. Unlike when they had hugged at the hospital before Stiles had his MRI, neither were holding back near as much emotion now as they had then. Of course, a lot had happened since.

They stayed that way for a long time, clinging to each other, gathering strength and giving it at the same time. Balancing things out like with the heat and cold.

The only reason they did eventually let go was when, distantly, the phone rang, telling them what to do next in order to save Scott's best friend, his brother.

A/N: Leave a review if you've got the time, thanks mucho!

-Kenxi