Epilogue
Stiles threw down his back pack, shrugged off his jacket, flung open the fridge and unscrewed the cap of the juice bottle and took a deep swig before he turned and jumped at the sight of his father.
He was sitting at the table with a bottle of scotch in front of him.
"Uh, dad?"
He smiled at Stiles and nodded to the chair across from him.
"Sit down, son."
Stiles sat down and set his bottle of juice in front of him, a mirror of his father with his scotch.
"What's up?" Stiles was slowly filling with dread as his father reached into his pocket and took out a bottle of pills.
He set it down and slid it across the table toward Stiles.
"Your Adderall," he said, pulling back his hand.
Stiles withdrew his hands toward himself, but kept them on the table, and looked back into the tired blue eyes with concern.
"I don't understand," he said, uncharacteristically meek, "I...I want you to keep them for me. Just, you know, just a little while longer. I'm not ready."
"Stiles..."
"I don't trust myself yet," he found his voice again and pushed the bottle back towards his dad.
"And I trust you," he said, pushing the bottle of pills back once more.
"But..."
"We need to be equals in this, Stiles, and so far we haven't been." His dad began, his voice low, clear, and very calm. "You have put everything on the table for me. You've handed responsibilities over to me. You've given me control of an important aspect of your life. You have a dependency, not an addiction, but a dependency that you feel as if you need help controlling."
Stiles nodded, eyes flicking over to the bottle of Scotch.
"I've so much respect for you, Stiles. Therapy has had me talking about how overwhelming you are. You think it's a bad thing, you think I'm overwhelmed by your hyper-activeness, your lifestyle. I'm overwhelmed by your potential, how you fulfilled it, surpassed it, and now you're setting the bar so high... NASA would have to be called in to get someone else over that bar!"
Stiles squirmed, never one to be able to take a compliment.
"So we are going to do one of two things, and you're going to decide which one. I trust your judgement implicitly."
Stiles drew in a breath and let it out, a little unsteadily, before nodding again.
His dad slid the bottle of scotch across the table to sit beside the bottle of Adderall.
"I know I shouldn't and yet sometimes I still do. You can take your dose every day and be fine. I can have a drink and be fine. Sometimes you think you can't cope and you take more pills. Sometimes I feel that way and I drink more than I should."
"Dad, it's not the sam-"
"It's not the same, but it's parallel," he smiled to reassure his son he wasn't declaring himself an alcoholic. "So, as I said, we have two choices."
"Okay, what are they?" Stiles sat forward over the side of the table.
"You take responsibility for your meds and you come to me if you feel things are too much for you. I take responsibility for my drinking and if I feel like it's one of those nights I come and talk to you."
Stiles nodded, swallowed, and reached for his pills. He looked reluctant but resolved.
"Or," his dad reached and placed his hand on top of Stiles before his fingers curled around the bottle, "I take back your pills and give them to you when you're supposed to have them, and only the correct dose, until you're ready."
Stiles looked relieved and was about to nod again when his dad looked at the bottle of Scotch, seal still unbroken.
"And you take this from me, so you decide when and how much I can have. So you know exactly how much I have had. Because, Stiles, we're equals. We're both strong enough for each other but weak when it comes to ourselves. So if you need me to stay strong for you a little while longer then you do the same for me."
"Dad." Stiles exhaled the word, in awe of the conversation they were having like two well adjusted adults.
"I told you you were a hero once and you disagreed with me. I wasn't lying. I wasn't wrong. You were a hero then and you're a hero now. You're my hero, Stiles."
Stiles felt as if his throat had clenched into a fist. He gulped and croaked and tried to keep his eyes from watering.
"I want to be as good as you," his dad said, earnestly, "and when you think I am, we can swap these bottles back and take responsibility for ourselves again."
Stiles dragged himself up from the table, around it, and clung to his dad from the side, crushing his cheek into his shoulder.
They held each other, silently. When they finally parted again, Stiles rubbing at his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt as he stumbled back to his seat, they couldn't meet the other's gaze for a while.
Stiles unscrewed the cap of the juice bottle and took another deep swig, then offered it to his dad, who did the same.
"So that was it," his dad said after he swallowed, "I got the whole thing out. Now, just choose which you want. I'm there for you either way. Which bottle do you take away from the table tonight?"
Stiles smiled, the last of the weight fully gone from his shoulders, and he pulled the bottle of scotch toward him without hesitation.
"Until we're both ready," Stiles said.
His dad took back the bottle of pills and slipped it into his pocket.
"We take care of each other."
The End
A/N Well that was odd, I took 2 days to even get started writing something for the epilogue while I got the chapters out in a day. My brain is a funny thing!
Thank you for the feedback during the writing process.
