The gaping wound on Stiles' head keeps bleeding a bit, warm and trickling to his hair, and to his fingertips where he's carefully prodding. He'll surely find blood caked in under his nails later, will remember all this while he washes his hands and sees red running down the drain.

His dad tries to convince him to get the wound checked but Stiles declines. He doesn't feel like going back to the hospital. It's... It's just not a good idea right now.

Melissa doesn't let him turn down a superficial check up by her, though. Looks him in the eye, stern and motherly and Stiles just nods, grimaces when that jars him and makes a headache from hell flare up, clouding his vision.

She puts her fingers delicately on him, all hyper focused eyes and professional care, and Stiles' forehead justthrobs with a vengeance.

Scott keeps shooting him these looks. Stiles can read them as easily as he can read his own on the mirror.

"I swear to God Scott, if you say sorry I will do something awful to you. I'm not sure what, but it'll be very bad and no good and painf- ow, ow, ow."

"Sorry," Melissa tells him, smiling a little at him. "I think you're okay, honey. It seems like a scalp laceration. The cut just looks nastier than it is. I can bandage it up."

Stiles smiles back at her and he can see his dad collapsing in on himself in relief behind her. "Good," he says and his voice sounds raspy, "Good."

Stiles reaches out for his dad, squeezes his arm, says, "I'm okay, daddy-o, we're all okay."

"However," Melissa starts, raising her voice a little to commandeer their attention back to her, "Someone should still check on you every few hours tonight, just to err on the side of cautiousness, okay?"

His dad nods, says, "I'll be on that," only for Scott to look at him with big, worried brown eyes, put a hand on his shoulder and say, "No, you have to sleep, Sheriff, let me do it."

Stiles isn't sure whether he wants to scowl and whack Scott on the back of the head (because despite whatever massive guilt fest he's having right now, he's not responsible for anything that happened to Stiles, okay? Not for his dad, or for the crash, or for anything else, and he doesn't know how to get that through him) or kiss him wetly on the cheek, and maybe hold his hand. Scott looks at him with this expression that says I know what you're thinking and I'm still doing this, man. Because he's obstinate like that. The two of them are obstinate like that. It's part of why they've stuck together for so long, of what makes them unshakeable.

"Are you sure, honey?" Melissa asks, eyes going from Stiles to Scott to the sheriff. "Shouldn't you-?" She gestures at him, at his clothes and the dirt on them, and the few gashes on his skin that still remain.

"Don't worry, mom," he tells her, earnest and soft and kisses her forehead and Stiles feels this irrational pangon his chest that makes him avert his eyes for a second or two.

"Okay," Melissa sighs, putting some strands of tangled hair behind her ear, "Okay. We're okay, then. Let's- let's all just go and try to rest some."

Scott squeezes her shoulder, gives her a reassuring smile, and she gives him a crushing hug, face buried on his chest, before walking away to where Isaac's waiting inside their car, acting as though he hasn't been rudely eavesdropping on them the whole time.

They barely fit on Stiles' bed but the idea of making Scott sleep anywhere else doesn't really make it into his brain until they are pressed together, face to face, legs entangled under the covers, inches away from one another, breathing onto each other's faces; Scott is looking at him with this lopsided smile that's always made Stiles' insides tremble a little.

"We might not have thought this through," Stiles says, wiggling and accidentally bumping his shin against Scott's junk.

"Do you want me to sleep in the guest room, dude? We're kinda cramped here," says Scott after hissing, hands going underneath the sheet to shield his junk from Stiles.

"No, no!" Stiles grabs Scott's arm. "No, that's okay, dude. Stay? I think I might-" The words get stuck on his throat, the thought of getting them out there making him feel like he's leaving himself way too vulnerable, way too exposed.

Scott's looking at him with this wide, open, absorbed gaze.

Fuck it, he thinks then, because this is Scott. Scott's had his back all his life, they've been there for each other for everything good and bad that's happened to them, for crying and bullies, and scraped knees; for dads leaving and moms dying. For school projects and first crushes and movie marathons. There's probably literally no such thing as leaving himself much too exposed or vulnerable in front of him.

"I think I might sleep better with you here, dude."

Scott smiles at him softly, and puts a reassuring hand on his arm.

"Dude, you had that hand on your junk three seconds ago," he says, laughing a little.

Scott looks at him with mock insult and punches him lightly on the arm he'd been squeezing and they justlaugh, laugh like they're best friends and all of sixteen and sleeping together in the same bed after playing COD for the last five hours. It's normalcy they no longer have and for the first time, maybe, Stiles lets himself acknowledge that he'd missed it.

After they quiet down Stiles settles, on the bed and inside his own skin, and he sleeps.

Scott wakes him up every few hours and asks him questions and the first few times Stiles fucks with him and answers with ridiculous shit and calls him nurse McCall and waggles his eyebrows suggestively at him and looks at him from under his eyelashes a lot, but Scott looks like he remains a little shaken by what's happened, too worried about him even if he's just fine, so Stiles starts answering in earnest, smiling lopsided at Scott and trying to convince that he's okay every time.

When he wakes up on his own, the sun peeking through his blinds, Scott is sprawled over him, one leg nestled between his and the other over them, like a bracket; his arm thrown carelessly over Stiles' waist, his mouth is slack and he's drooling onto Stiles' shoulder a little and it's just... endearing. Makes Stiles' breath catch inside his lungs and he thinks we almost died last night and I think I might be in love with you.

"Scott," he whispers, trying to rouse him as gently as humanly possible. "Scott, man, I have to pee."

Scott grumbles a bit and screws his eyes before just rubbing his face all over the fabric of Stiles' shirt (drool and all), and letting out a jaw popping yawn.

"Hi," he rasps out when he's more or less awaken, hand flying up to the corner of his mouth to clean the saliva up. After he's gotten most of it he looks at Stiles, and says, still sleepy, "You go pee, dude. I'll be here. Waiting for you."

"Yeah." He snorts, "I believe you. I doubt you'll be leaving that bed any time soon."

Scott rolls his eyes at him and Stiles smirks.

When he comes back to the room, Scott's lying on his back, looking at the claws on his hands with contemplative red Alpha eyes.

"So you're an Alpha, huh?" Stiles smirks as he walks towards the bed and Scott lowers his hands and looks at him for a few seconds with his red gaze before his eyes turn warm brown again. "And not just any Alpha but a True Alpha. How cool is that?"

Scott gives him a small smile that's at least half forced; Stiles knows all of Scott's smiles, and this one looks a lot like it's there mostly to indulge him.

Stiles sits on the bed next to him and picks on a loose thread on his pajama pants. Waits a few seconds and then says, "None of this was your fault, Scott."

"I know," Scott agrees, but Stiles hears I should've done more.

And it's bullshit.

"That's bullshit, man," Stiles spits out, and looks at Scott with hard eyes. "You're doing everything you can to save everyone, you're working your little werewolf tail off, so just stop with all this guilt fest thing, okay? Because it's bull."

Scott looks at him with a lopsided smile that's much lighter, and he puts a hand on one of Stiles' legs, just comfort contact, just a bridge between them so they won't be isolated from one another. Just this little thing that maybe makes Stiles' throat clench because since last night he's been feeling a bit clearer and right now he's feeling content and glad to be alive (even with the dark vine wrapping itself around his heart), and just...bold.

So he puts his hand on top of Scott's and entwines their fingers, and says, "All this heroic stuff is still hot as hell, you sure you don't wanna try making out a little?" getting a wink in for effect, even though it makes the bandage around his head shift and unstick a little from his skin where there must've been some dried blood and it stings.

"Okay."

That makes Stiles splutter at Scott's grinning face, without knowing what to say back, because for all his boldness, he wasn't expecting Scott to go along with this. He wasn't expecting anything other than getting it out in the open as truth disguised as jest.

"Okay, man," Scott repeats, and he squeezes Stiles' hand and pushes himself up until he's sitting in front of Stiles, legs crossed and eyes determined, "Let's do this."

"Dude, you don't have to- I was joking."

Scott gives him his own brand of you're bullshitting me eyes, and Stiles can feel his face getting hotter, his cheeks blushing.

"You weren't," Scott says, looking him right in the eyes, all reassuring and soft and Stiles' stomach riots. "And that's okay, man. I'm feeling it too. I'm, you could've died. I could've died. We both could have died last night and I-"

Stiles nods because he gets it, he doesn't need Scott to spell it out because dude, does he get it.

"Okay?" Scott says then and his eyes drop to Stiles' lips.

Stiles licks them and breathes out, "Okay."

And then they both nod, years of familiarity translating themselves into synchronization. And then, just like that, they're kissing. One of Scott's hands cradling his face, one finger caressing the bandage covering his head softly, the other one holding tightly onto his hand.

And it's charged and electric and maybe a little too wet, and they have yet to figure out the angles, and Scott squeezes his hand too hard for a few seconds there and he breaks them up to whisper sorrysorrysorrysorryuntil Stiles has to mutter oh my god Scott you're killing the mood, shut up and get all up on this and kiss him again.