This is just a short piece about the morning after Scott was admitted into the hospital. A requested scene between Scott and Stiles.
Stiles stared at his best friend and could feel the tightness begin to envelope his chest. He found it hard to breathe as he entered the hospital room and listened to the slow beeps of the machines monitoring the life of his only real friend in the world.
He knew what was happening. The panic attacks weren't as frequent as they had been when his mom died, but looking at Scott on the hospital bed made Stiles want to scream and peel his skin from his body. It was as if everything was suffocating him and there was nothing to stop it.
"Stiles?" Scott's voice was quiet but other than that, there was no hint that he was any different than the kid Stiles had hung out with the night before.
Stiles took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment before sitting down in the chair next to Scott's bed. "Hey…" he said weakly. "Glad to see you're awake."
"Panic attack?" Scott asked calmly as he sat up slowly. He was still in a lot of pain but the drugs the doctors had prescribed him were working wonderfully.
"Uh, yeah. I'm good… just hospitals, ya know?" Stiles really didn't want to focus on his anxiety issues. There was the far greater issue of why they were sitting in the hospital in the first place.
"Yeah. Sorry about that." Scott closed his eyes and leaned his head back onto his pillow. He was still really tired but he was actually kind of glad Stiles was there for him.
"So… you wanna talk about what happened?" Stiles finally asked after a couple minutes of silence. His breathing had steadied and he felt as normal as he could, given the situation.
Scott sighed but gave a sad smile. "They keep telling me that talking about it will help… Mom says I'm going to have to talk about it more anyway since there's going to be a trial and everything… It's just weird, ya know? I've spent all these years learning not to talk about it and now, suddenly, everyone wants to know."
"I'm pretty sure no one can make you talk about it if you really don't want to…" Stiles only knew that Scott's dad was arrested for abusing Scott and Mrs. McCall. Other than that, Stiles had to wait for the explanation.
"I know… I should though. If it means never having to see dad again, I'll talk." Scott took a drink of water off the side table and figured out how to start telling Stiles everything.
"Right around the time you lost your mom, dad got weird. He was always angry and started yelling a lot. Then he started hitting my mom at night… Like, I was supposed to be asleep, but I could hear them. Mom would be crying, dad would be yelling, and things would be shattering. Then that summer, he started hitting me too. Mom tried to stop it. She begged and pleaded with him to leave me alone, but he didn't seem to care. It was like we weren't his family anymore."
"Dude… why didn't you tell me… or my dad?" Stiles asked quietly.
"Stiles, you guys were going through your own stuff. I wasn't going to put all of that on top of losing your mom."
"So basically it's been like this ever since then. The only difference is that last night…" Scott could feel the tears beginning to form behind his eyes. He desperately wished his next words weren't the truth. "Last night he tried to, like… rape me… I guess…"
Stiles forgot to breathe for a moment until his lungs burst and forced him to remember to inhale.
"Wh… why?" Stiles couldn't imagine Mr. McCall wanting to hurt Scott that way. It was hard to wrap his mind around the concept.
"I… I don't know. He was drunk when I got home from your house. He beat me unconscious but luckily I was able to dial 911 before he got to my room… Your dad found me… um… undressed but I guess he got there in time cause nothing else happened…"
Scott didn't even bother to try and hide the tears that were falling. He hated thinking about what would have happened if Stiles's dad hadn't shown up in time.
Stiles found himself crying along with Scott. The boys didn't have a habit of crying together, but watching Scott deal with so much pain made Stiles hate the world more than he already kind of did. "I'm sorry."
"Don't worry about it. I just… I don't really want everyone at school to know about this or anything. So-"
"No one's going to know anything man." Stiles reassured. "If they find out, I will personally beat the crap out of whoever I can."
Scott smiled and the boys started talking about sports and school, anything that made them both feel normal again.
Neither one knew that this was just the beginning of their abnormal lives.
