"Dude, I have great news," Stiles says on Tuesday morning the week after.
They are at Scott's locker, who is now giving an expectant look. His best friend looks excited.
"Malia and I are officially together."
"Ah! That's great!" Scott exclaims, instantly yanking Stiles in for a hug.
Stiles' breath is squeezed from his lungs, pressed against his friend. "Thanks, man," he chokes out.
"Now we can do double dates, just like Liam and I have done last Friday with Brett and Mason!"
Stiles scoffs. "Okay, but calm down, yeah? I want to spend some alone time with her as well."
Scott blinks at him, before he grimaces. "Ah, really?"
"What?!" Stiles replies in a defensive tone. "Don't tell me you and Liam haven't pulled on each other's-"
"Stiles."
The boy chuckles. "Fine," he recedes, rolling his eyes. Yet, he only shuts up for a second. "Seriously though, have you yet? Because if you have, I wanna know."
"No, we have not," Scott admits, followed by a light shrug. "We're not ready yet, which is fine. And of course, you're the first one I would tell." He chuckles. "I'd probably call you the same night. Remember when Allison and I had done stuff with each other for the first time?"
Stiles swoons, "Vividly. You were in the bathroom when you called me, only minutes after."
Scott smiles shyly and Stiless wraps an arm around his shoulders as they start walking to their first class of the day. "You know, I'd tell you first, too," Stiles says.
Scott snickers, a deep frown on his face. "That's alright, I think I'm good."
"We're best friends!" Stiles immediately exclaims. "Why would you not want to know about my sex life?"
"Because…" Scott argues. "…I don't need to picture you and Malia naked, going at it."
Stiles holds his pace, giving him a weird look. "Wait…so you're saying that's not normal…?"
Scott rolls his eyes, laughing at his friend. "You're the worst."
They enter their class, sitting down next to each other in one of the middle rows.
"So do you wanna hang out tonight? Just the two of us?" Stiles asks, taking books out of his backpack. "It has been a while."
"I know it has," Scott acknowledges, but there's already an apologetic tone in his voice. "But I can't do tonight, because Liam's coming over and we're cooking my mom dinner."
Surprisingly, Stiles doesn't seem to mind. Instead, he asks, "Oh, does that mean your mom and Liam are going to meet for the first time?"
"Yes." Scott nods, opening his notebook. "And please don't start with me, because Liam's already really nervous, and I can't be nervous as well."
Stiles' eyes narrow. "Are you, though?"
"Terrified."
That afternoon, after school, Scott picks Liam up from the library. They share an awkward oh-god-how-do-I-greet-my-boyfriend-in-public moment again and Scott makes a mental note to bring that up sometime in the near future. He needs to know how Liam feels about public displays of affection. Personally, Scott doesn't really mind, which means he doesn't mind to greet Liam with a kiss—he doesn't feel the need to lick his face off every five minutes. He shivers at the mental image of countless couples who he has seen doing that.
The boys need to go grocery shopping first, for the McCall's fridge is empty and Scott couldn't be bothered to go by himself the day before. Liam doesn't seem to mind; the boy's talking endlessly, which Scott finds a little odd. Yet, he guesses Liam's starting to become his old self again, which means Scott might be faced with some surprises. Not that he expects Liam's entire personality to shift, but the boy may contain certain traits Scott hasn't seen before.
Or maybe he's just nervous about tonight.
They shuffle through the store and at the wine aisle, Scott pauses. Suddenly, he regrets not being old enough yet, because he would have loved to buy his mom a nice bottle of red—even if it was from her own money, that she had left him on the kitchen table this morning. All they have in the cupboard is cheap wine. Scott's stomach churns again at the thought of his mom and Liam meeting, then frowns at the bottles in front of him and finally decides it's ridiculous that he wants his mom drunk to make sure she'll be nice.
After all, his mom's always nice.
They arrive at his house half an hour later, carrying the groceries inside.
"So you really only know how to make pasta?" Liam asks after he has put the bags down.
Scott huffs, taking off his coat. "Sort of. I don't know. Mom makes it a lot, okay? So it's really the only thing I picked up." He turns around to his boyfriend staring at him with a cheeky smile. Scott shakes his head, realizing he hadn't caught up on Liam's humor. "At least you're making jokes again," he says, moving past Liam. He gets an apron from one of the drawers and throws it at Liam's head.
The boy swiftly catches it, looking it over before putting it on. He turns his back to Scott, who in the meantime has started unloading the groceries. His back nudges Scott's shoulder and the guy doesn't understand at first, but then he notices the loose ends. He ties them in a knot, fingers lingering on Liam's spine afterwards. He sneaks his arms around the boy's waist, holding him tight for a moment.
Liam squirms. "Stop," he chuckles, "your breath's tickling my neck."
Scott snickers, purposely blowing a little more air onto his skin until his boyfriend has finally managed to free himself from Scott's grip.
"Come on, give me a job," he says, suddenly cheerful again.
Scott throws the empty bags into the bin, before narrowing his eyes at him. "Have you taken some kind of sedative or something?"
Liam gives him a look, before firing back, "Oh, 'sedative' where did you pick up that word?"
Scott raises his eyebrows, offended, but then averts his gaze and answers in a mumbling tone, "Biology…"
Liam snickers, so Scott slaps him with a tea towel. "Seriously though, are you drunk?"
"No…" Liam answers in a whiney voice. "I'm just so nervous that I'm starting to get hyper, so just tell me what to do so I can have something on my hands."
"You can rolls balls out of the minced meat," Scott says, getting a chopping board himself. "'Cause I'm not letting you around knives when you're being like this," he follows up in a low voice.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Liar."
Scott grins, starting to cut the vegetables, ignoring his boyfriend.
"I'm pretty sure this is the first couple-y thing we have ever done together," Liam breaks the silence after a while.
"What do you mean?" Scott replies with a frown. "We have been swimming, watched movies, hung out with your best friend."
"Those aren't really couple-y things, though."
Scott scoffs. "Then what are 'couple-y' things?"
"You know…" Liam trails off. "Stuff like this…cooking together, going grocery shopping together, maybe doing the washing up together…"
"Well, someone's having domestic feelings…"
Liam groans playfully. "Oh, come on, you know what I mean."
Scott smiles, not looking up from his knife. "Yeah, I do. And we can do stuff like that more often if you want to."
"Cool."
Scott realizes this is one of their first unloaded, casual conversations. He glances at his boyfriend, watching him prepare the food. If this is going to be the 'other side' of his relationship with Liam, Scott's definitely up for it. It makes all the bad things worthwhile.
The front door opens and closes, and Scott's heart skips a beat. He looks behind himself, catching his mom poke her head around the corner.
"Well, hello! How's it going, my little chefs?" she asks in a playful tone, before moving towards the youngest one in the kitchen. "You must be Liam," she says, smiling gently. "I'm Melissa. It's nice to finally meet you. Scott has told me a lot about you." She not-so-subtle flicks her eyes towards her son, who shakes his head disapprovingly.
"It's nice to meet you, too, Mrs. McCall," Liam stutters. "I… I would shake your hand, but…" He shows his meat covered fingers.
Melissa brushes it off. "Oh, that's alright. We'll do the formalities later. I have to go take a shower anyway," she says, before shooting a quick wink and vanishing up the stairs.
Right after she has left the kitchen, Liam exhales a breath so deep Scott's surprised his lungs haven't exploded before. He snickers, nudging his boyfriend with his elbow.
"That wasn't too bad, was it?"
Liam frowns at him. "The evening hasn't even started yet. Anything could still go wrong."
Scott presses a kiss onto his cheek. "It won't. I promise."
They continue their cooking in silence, both in their own thoughts. Every so often, Scott can hear Liam breathing heavily, like he's trying to calm himself down. As he has done often in the past week, Scott wonders why the boy's so incredibly nervous. Liam looks like he has to give a presentation or something. But, yet again, Scott decides not to comment on it. He knows the boy well enough now to know it will only agitate him even more. So instead, Scott decides to distract him.
"Stiles wants to go out with us sometime," he says. "He and Malia finally got together, and I think after he heard that we had that film night with Mason and Brett, he feels a bit jealous."
"Jealous?" Liam repeats, meanwhile washing his hands.
Scott shrugs. "Yeah, you know, not really jealous, but more like Stiles-jealous. We haven't really hung out last week, so I think he just misses me."
Liam's eyebrows knit together. "After a week?"
Scott chuckles, stirring the sauce in the pan. "Yup. You mustn't forget that we used to hang out every day, literally. We're like brothers."
Liam hesitates, but then asks, "I haven't gotten between you, have I?"
Scott instantly shakes his head. "Nah. He has Malia to distract him now anyway." He shows a gentle smile. "I think it's just because we got together before they did. Like, he wouldn't have noticed if it would have been the other way around."
"Makes sense," Liam replies, nodding and drying his hands with a towel. "And I'd like to do something with them," he admits. "It's just that…Malia is a bit...intimidating."
Scott snorts. "I know what you mean, but to be honest, she wouldn't hurt a fly. She's just really straight-forward, but that also means you won't ever find her talking behind your back or something."
Liam nods. "I do like Lydia," he offers.
"She's great," Scott agrees. "Really open."
"So I've noticed," Liam refers back to when she had told him about her father.
Scott thinks for a moment, but then asks, "What happened to your dad? I mean, your real dad?"
The question comes a little out of the blue, so at first Liam just shrugs lightly while taking some plates from one of the cupboards above his head. Then, he answers, "He and my mom got divorced when I was young. Apparently he had met someone else and freaked out when my mom said she was pregnant. Shortly after she met my stepdad. So for all I know, he's my real dad."
Scott nods. "I get that. So you don't really miss your other dad, do you?"
"Not at all," Liam answers, putting down the plates and grabbing some cutlery. "My stepdad taught me how to play lacrosse, lectures me when I do something wrong, he sometimes helps out with my homework…he's great."
Scott, seeing an opening, quickly decides to hell with his earlier vow. "From the few times I've spoken to him he sounds really nice," he replies. "I wouldn't mind getting to know him even better."
Liam pauses his actions and looks up at him. "I know, and I'm sorry I'm so weird about you meeting him and my mom."
"Yeah…" Scott hesitates. "Why is that again?"
Liam narrows his eyes a little. "It's a puberty thing," he answers.
"So…Mason told you-"
"Yup."
Scott guiltily averts his gaze to the floor. "Sorry about that."
"Don't worry. I understand," Liam says after having chuckled
Scott purses his lips inwards before promising, "Next time I'll ask you first."
Liam shrugs it off. "It's fine. I could've just told you." He sighs, licking his lips and falling silent for a moment.
Scott figures the conversation has ended, so he goes back to cooking.
However, Liam continues, "And to answer your question… The reason I'm wary about my parents meeting people is because I'm scared something embarrassing might come up."
Scott gives him a weird look.
"Not, like, something I should be ashamed off," Liam explains with a roll of his eyes. "Just…after my big outburst last year they were so disappointed and worried… We're finally in a good place again and I'm just scared that something's going to come up and wreck that. I mean, I'm pretty sure I haven't done anything wrong lately, but I'm just scared something that I haven't thought about is brought up and they go back to being disappointed in me."
Scott's lips have formed a crooked smile. "Alright…then I understand," he responds after a beat.
"I hope you don't mind…"
"No, of course not," Scott assures him. "We'll take that step when you're ready, it's fine. I just hope they don't think of me as some creeper or something."
Liam frowns. "Of course not!" he utters. "I do talk about you, you know." A teasing grin grows on his face. "…Just like you do about me to your mom."
Scott throws his head back, laughing. "Oh, well done."
Liam chuckles. "She isn't very subtle is she?"
"Not at all."
They snicker while Liam finishes setting up the table and Scott continues cooking. When their little noises have died out, Scott softly says, "But just so you know…I would never say something bad about you in front of your parents."
Liam grants him a thankful look. "I know."
"Hmm, something smells good in here," Melissa says as she enters the kitchen.
Both boys blush as she looks over Scott's shoulder at the stove. "Oh, I'm definitely having a glass of wine with that." She squeezes his arm, while Scott shakes his head.
After she has sat down at the table, Liam awkwardly glances at her. Scott watches him, instantly bothered by the sense of unease that is dripping off of his boyfriend's aura. He's about to say something when Liam does something unexpected.
"Scott told me you're a nurse," the boy offers in a quiet voice. "My… My stepdad's a doctor."
"Really?" Melissa replies after having taken a sip of her wine. "At Beacon Hills Hospital?"
Liam hums. "Neurology."
"Ah, yes, of course!" Melissa seems to realize. "Dr. Dunbar! I never figured you're his son, which is…weird, because you share the same last name." She turns at Scott, frowning at him. "How have I never made that connection?"
Scott shrugs, smiling. His mom is clearly making an effort to try and make Liam feel more comfortable and Scott appreciates that.
"Do you see him a lot?" Melissa turns back to Liam. "I'm pretty sure he works the same killing hours as I do sometimes."
"Yeah, but it's okay," Liam answers, nodding. "My mom has this rule that we at least have to have dinner together, so we can spend family time."
Melissa pulls a face. "Ah oh, I hope she won't be upset about tonight then."
Liam chuckles, blushing. "Nah, she's fine."
They continue to chat a bit more. The whole time, Scott listens to them, feeling a little lightheaded, because it actually seems like his mom has managed to make Liam feel more at ease. He lousily grins at the stove.
Dinner is served a couple of minutes later, and a sense of relief washes over Scott when he takes a bite and finds the spaghetti actually tastes good. His mom compliments him and Liam as well.
Liam has his head bowed at the table and is twisting the pasta around his fork. "It's definitely better than the one you gave me the day after Valentine's Day," he mutters, a smile painting his lips.
Scott's ears warm, glancing up at his mother, who doesn't immediately seem to get what Liam's exactly referring to, but then her eyes widen.
"That was my fault," she says, holding up her hands. "I should not have assumed that Scott would know to heat it up and that cold spaghetti isn't eatable."
Scott's mouth falls open at his mother's sarcastic accusation. "What?! As if you had even thought about that! Besides, where was I supposed to heat it up? It's not like our canteen has a microwave!"
Melissa pouts at him, whereas Scott goes for a dramatic eye roll. Next to them, Liam is quietly snickering, pretending to be consumed by his dinner. Scott and his mom glance at him simultaneously and Melissa grins.
"Scott, I can't believe it, his first evening here and Liam's already trying to drive a wedge between us," she jokes.
"I know! I have never seen this devious side of him," Scott says with a faked undertone of shock. "I'm not sure if I like it…"
Liam's cheeks visibly redden and something pops inside of Scott's chest, like a piñata full of sweetness and confetti, filling him with sparkles and excitement. He softly kicks Liam's foot under the table, nudging him, before resting his calf on Liam's shin, slightly rubbing up and down. Scott realizes he will never be able to share this joke with his friends, because it's incredibly lame. Literally no one would find the retelling of them funny, but to the three of them it's the first they ever make and it fills the kitchen with a sense of family. The room doesn't sound as hollow anymore and Scott's and his mom's words don't bounce off the walls anymore. And when his dad would be there, it would always feel too crowded. The atmosphere would be pressing down on them: tense and heavy.
But now, with Liam, the air's much lighter and it gives Scott a sense of home.
After dinner, Melissa announces that, since the boys have cooked, they also have to do the dishes. Both Scott and Liam need to take a moment to reconsider that logic, and in those spare seconds Melissa speeds off into the living room, leaving Scott and Liam to feel tricked.
"Oh, she's good," Liam comments, starting to clear the table.
"Yep. She is," Scott admits, filling the sink with water and adding some washing up liquid. "You get used to it, though."
Liam nods. "She is funny, though."
Scott smiles, putting the plates and cutlery that Liam has collected into the warm water. "So, I take it you had fun?"
"I did," Liam answers honestly, leaning his back against the counter, arms folded in front of his chest. "Your mom's really nice. I like her."
"I told you," Scott replies in a matter-of-fact tone, putting the dripping plates in the drying rack on his other side.
Liam stares at the hallway, where the living room is on the other side. Scott figures he's having a moment—a good one—so decides to keep silent. That is, until Liam turns his head towards the sink.
"You know, you could help by drying off," Scott comments. "You're the one who said he wanted to do more couple-y stuff."
"Yeah…" Liam breathes. "I think I'm taking that back."
Scott looks up at him, grinning. He catches Liam's face in his hands, before pressing a deep kiss onto his lips. Soon, Liam's face is covered in soapy bubbles, housing a deep frown under them. "Fine, I'll help," he mutters, wiping himself clean with the tea towel Scott grants him.
After the kitchen's spotless, the boys go upstairs to Scott's room. Slightly tired and still a bit rosy from their filled stomachs, they flop onto Scott's bed. It only takes Scott a second to fold an arm around Liam's neck and for the boy to rest his head on the guy's chest. Scott's fingers start lazily carding through Liam's soft hair, while the boy stares up at him.
"What's that from?" he asks after a while, brushing the tip of his finger along a mark on the side of Scott's soft cheek. "I've never noticed that before."
"Tried to catch a lacrosse ball from Stiles when I was eleven," Scott answers. "It was in the house. We used to have a glass coffee table and I fell right into it, cut my cheek and ended up needing three stitches."
"Oh," Liam whispers. Scott can feel his warm breath against his chin. "Do you have more?"
Scott snorts at the weirdness of that question, but slightly pulls up the hem of his shirt. After lowering his pants a little, he shows a scar on his hip. "Fell off a skateboard mid-air once. I scraped myself all the way down the bowl."
Liam hisses. "I didn't know you board."
"I used to," Scott says. "Not as much anymore now."
"Because of the fall?"
"Nah, just don't feel like it anymore."
Liam hums, moving his hand over Scott's ribcage and watching his own thumb mess with the fabric of Scott's shirt. They lie like that for a while longer, silently and sleepy.
"That's something I find awkward sometimes," Liam mentions quickly, bursting their blissful bubble.
"Hmm? What?" Scott wonders, confused.
"Like, what if people will ask about my scars someday?"
Scott's fingers entangle themselves from Liam's hair and rub his spine.
"I thought of that the other day," Liam tells. "What if I have children someday and they ask me about it? What am I supposed to tell them, you know?" He sighs. "That must be really awkward."
Scott nods understandingly, to show he's listening.
"I really shouldn't cut anymore."
The older one smiles, squeezing his boyfriend a little tighter against himself. "Even scars fade, you know," Scott says. "They won't ever go away completely, but they do fade a little…" He licks his lips. "In summer, your skin will tan…and then in winter it will go away again, evening out the pigment," he explains. "And maybe the hair on your arms will become a little darker… I think that, eventually, you'll have to look really closely if you want to notice them."
"Like my thoughts?"
Scott's smile broadens. "Yeah…like your thoughts."
Liam thinks about that for a moment, but then looks up at Scott again. He stares at him. "Thanks," he says.
Scott shrugs lightly, turning his head in a slightly awkward angle so that he can look down into Liam's eyes. "Thank you, too."
Liam snorts, upping a brow. "For what?"
"For meeting my mom," Scott answers. "For once it felt nice to have three people at the table."
Liam blushes. "Has Stiles never had dinner with you and your mom?"
"Don't ruin it. You know what I mean."
Liam chuckles. "I do."
