The Scent of You and My Memories

Chapter Two


Scott enjoyed spending time with Allison. He loved her: her laugh, her smile, her bravery … Scott loved her. At least, that's what he kept telling himself.

With graduation and college looming over his head, it felt like the world was slowly tipping upside down, and Scott wasn't ready to let go of the way things were. His whole life was spread out in front of him, and it scared him to death.

Given Scott's upbringing, he wasn't used to stability, and for the last few years that was what had slowly developed between him and the pack and Allison. He had grown close with people that he never thought would take notice of him; he couldn't imagine his life without Jackson or Lydia in it.

And he had fallen in love. Allison was an amazing girl, and made his heart beat faster and his palms sweaty. She was his first everything, and he treasured their time together. No matter what they were doing, he would always laugh.

Like now, when they would just hang out at the Argent home and swim. Allison was beautiful in clothes, like she had stepped off a runway, but the sight of her in a bikini was astounding to Scott.

But was that all their relationship was? An infatuation?

It would hurt to lose Allison, to be separated from her and at different colleges. But he knew he could survive it. It would suck, it would really suck. But he would survive.

He wouldn't be able to survive without Stiles. They had been the center of each other's world since they were little, forging a bond that was unbreakable…at least that was what he had thought until recently. It seemed like they were drifting apart.

Or like that had already happened. Scott knew he had been a shitty friend, but it never hit how much his inattentiveness may have cost him.

It would kill him if Stiles jumped shipped and headed to Chicago. It would destroy him. He would miss Stiles's humor and support and smell.

Allison smelled like flowers. It was nice, sweet even, but it did little to arouse any feeling at all in the young wolf. But Stiles's smelled like every good of his life.

"Are you okay," Allison asked, leaning over him as he laid in the sun, looking concerned.

Scott nodded and pulled her down next to him, doing his best to ignore the scent of flowers and chlorine that wafted from her skin. Closing his eyes, Scott laid under the sun. When sunlight hit water, there was always this delectable smell that relaxed him. He had remembered smelling it long before he had become a wolf, but since he had transitioned, he could smell it much more prominently.

It gave a sense of security and Scott knew exactly why.

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When they had been ten, long before Scott's dad had become a complete jerk, he would take his son, who would go nowhere without his best friend, of course, and Stiles to a lake a couple towns away.

Scott loved the water. He always had to be careful not to over exert himself, considering the asthma, but the moments where he could lay on his back and stare up at the bright blue sky, feeling like he was completely weightless, were some of his fondest memories.

Stiles, on the other hand, had been deathly afraid of the water. Going near it would practically send the boy into a panic attack. His greatest fear, at that age, had been drowning. The suggestion of even just dipping his toes in the water would send the little boy into a full-blow freak out, ranting about the dangers of unsupervised children and varying sizes of bodies of water.

As usual, on the trip Scott did what he had always done when faced with a Stiles rant: he ignored it. Scott's dad had gone into town to meet with a potential client that he had met at a restaurant last night (at least that's how his father referred to the flirtatious woman who had waited on them). At ten, Scott had been confused about how business was properly conducted, but even at a young age he was sure his mother wouldn't be happy about his dad's "potential client" biting his ear while he thought both children were occupied at one of the establishment's arcade games.

The exchange that he had witnessed had greatly bothered him, and he had quickly become sullen. Stiles had noticed his friend's emotion and done his best to cheer him up, going so far as to win a candy cane from a machine for him. The smell of peppermint had soothed the young McCall somewhat, but even his favorite candy couldn't undo the anger and hurt he felt when his father left the boys at the lake house for a few hours.

This anger is what led Scott to deciding that he was going to swim to the raft fifty feet out into the lake. He had been determined, and ignored Stiles's begging him not to or the stats of child drowning cases that he spouted off. Mr. McCall had said under no circumstances were they to go in the water by themselves, but that did little to deter Scott from his decision.

Scott promised Stiles that he would be fine, and the was going to get to the raft and do the best dive anyone had ever seen. Scott had been too cocky, sure that he could reach the raft and could perform the best dive, because Stiles always deserved the best. He was thirty feet out when he could feel his lungs start to seize up in the familiar burn that heralded an attack. He stopped doggy-paddling, the only way he really knew how to swim, and started flailing.

He could hear Stiles's screams from the shore and clung desperately too that voice, pushing his limbs to work harder, wanting nothing more than to make his way back to that voice. He was dropping below the water, starting to choke, his young body unable to regain control of the situation.

Then he felt someone grab him and begin pulling him to the raft. His heart, like his lungs, stuttered, afraid his dad had come back early and had discovered his son drowning. He could imagine the fury that would stain his father's face and closed his eyes, not opening them until he felt himself being pulled onto the raft.

Opening his eyes, he was met with the gibberish and wide-eyed gaze of his best friend. Without hesitating, Scotts clung to Stiles desperately, both embarrassed and afraid. He knew he should have never gone out that far, but he was beyond thankful for his friend.

Stiles had brushed off his heroic rescue, acting like it was nothing, something so typical of Stiles. He acted like jumping into the water was nothing, like his fear didn't matter, even though Stiles eyes remained wide-open, looking around the raft, knowing they were trapped until Scott's father got home.

"I'll always be there to save you Scott," Stiles had promised, sticking his pinky out, as they lay on the raft looking up at the sky.

Scott smiled and linked his pinky with his best friend's pinky. "I promise to always be there for you too."

From that day on whenever he smelled the telltale scent attached to lakes and the sun on water, he would think of Stiles and remember how they laid their for hours, not having to talk because that was them: they just worked, even at such a young age.

When Scott's dad returned, Scott didn't care that his father yelled at them for an hour, or that he had to swim out and drag both boys back, and pretended not to notice the red lipstick stain on his father's neck (because his mom was a hundred miles away and couldn't have put that there). Instead he clung to Stiles's hand, and breathed in his newfound favorite smell.

The smell of the lake and sun on the water.

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In his four years at Beacon Hills High School, Scott had been in the library a total of ten times, all of which coincided with class trips. But he had limited time to fix his relationship with Stiles and he was willing to walk into the place that wreaked of despair and stress.

He moved through the stacks, aimlessly scanning the room, exhaling in relief when his eyes landed on Stiles. He moved slower as he approached the teen, unsure of how to approach him or even what to say when he was faced with him.

Stiles had become a stranger with the face of someone that Scott had once been friends with. Where the Stiles that Scott knew was overly skittish, often jumping from one place to another, exuding vast amounts of energy, this Stiles had his head in his school books, only occasionally picking his head up to look around the library.

Sitting down across from Stiles, Scott waited until the ADHD-riddled teenager looked up at him. It stung a little, for his friend to so openly ignore him, but he forged on.

"Hey," Scott said, attempting to break the ice.

Stiles just nodded his head, disinterest evident. Scott looked at the books sprawled across the desk and was ashamed to admit that he was unaware that his friend was even taking some of the classes to which the books belonged.

"How have you been?" Scott asked, trying to break the silence.

Stiles shrugged, let his gesture act as his answer. Scott had seen this side of Stiles a handful of times; the only commonality between those times was that Stiles didn't want to talk to those people.

Scott tilted his head, acknowledging that he understood both the gesture and the subtext behind it. "So Northwestern, huh?" he said, trying to ignore the ache in his chest.

"Yep, Northwestern," Stiles said, his usually expressive face completely blank.

"That's far way from Beacon Hills, isn't it?" Scott asked, trying to make conversation.

Stiles sat back in his seat, regarding Scott coolly. "One of its more attractive qualities," Stiles said, suddenly letting out a chuckle, which unnerved Scott. "What are you even doing here," Stiles asked.

Scott shrunk back in his seat, slightly hurt at the brash tone of his oldest friend. "I just wanted to talk … maybe see if you wanted to hang out sometime soon or something," Scott replied.

"The last time you sat and had a conversation with just me, or even asked me to do anything, was in October. We're in January now. See the problem?" Stiles asked, his tone condescending.

Scott stuttered, unable to formulate a reply. Stiles scoffed and began packing his things up, determined to leave the room as quickly as possible. Before he could leave Scott latched onto his wrist.

"I don't know what to do here man," Scott ventured, hoping his eyes reflected his desire to mend the rift between the two.

Stiles wrenched his arm from Scott's grasp and looked him dead in the eye. "You continue the way we've been operating for the last couple months. I do my thing, you do your thing. You stay in California, I leave for Illinois. You continue to keep your head firmly stuck up Allison's ass and I look for a new best friend," he said, patting Scott's back and walking away from the teen.

When Jackson ran into Scott on his way out of the library, he said he had poked his eye, not wanting to admit that a part of him had been broken and the evidence was slowly leaking down his face.


AN: Here is part two. Don't forget to check out my other fics, would love to hear which you think is best or would like to see more of!

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