When it all falls apart
Chapter Eight
Making bacon shouldn't be this difficult.
Stiles sighs and prepares to get another batch in the pan, staring at the clock and not knowing what to wish for – for it to be nine already, so he could get this over with, or that nine would never come, so he wouldn't have to face Scott and… talk.
It still sounded weird to him, this need Scott had to come and talk to him, to set things right. He should just let go, like Stiles did.
Or, at the very least, pretend like Stiles did. It still hurt, no matter how long ago it was, but truth is that Stiles got the better end of the deal here, and he knows it. He so does. He went away and to college, he had Lydia and Jackson, and they are all he needs, at least where friendship is concerned. He doesn't really like to think about how he never really made any new friends – neither did any of the others, really – or how the guy he knows was the love of his life was the very same one he started dating still in High School.
Danny had been good at that. He had made friends – everyone they went out with at college, everyone they met occasionally on weekends for brunch or parties or dinners: they usually came along with Danny, the one out of the four of them who could actually talk to new people, be friendly… trust.
It isn't like he doesn't trust anyone, not really – he trusts Lydia, Jackson, and his dad. The list is short, he knows, but how many people go their entire lives without having three whole people they could trust so completely?
Never mind his dad not really knowing what happened between him and Scott back then, never mind them keeping it a secret for their ears only – never mind not even the three of them never really talking about it, ever. It was over and done with, it was in the past.
The past can't really hurt you if you don't allow it.
Before he can really start rolling his eyes at himself for telling such a huge lie, the doorbell rings, and he sighs, asking for strength.
One breakfast. He can get through one breakfast and then he and Scott can go back to ignoring each other and not talking, and it'll be over.
One breakfast.
Stiles doesn't linger before opening the door, because after all these years with Jackson, he knows the werewolf on the other side can hear him just fine, and delaying it will just cause even more awkwardness.
Scott is on the other side, a hopeful smile on his face – not quite the one he used to have when they were teens, but close enough – carrying a bag full of blueberry muffins.
"Hey! I ah… brought these. Mom made them. She remembered you liked them, so…"
"Oh, uh, thanks," Stiles tells the other man hesitantly taking the bag from his hands, and taking a step to the side, "Come in."
Scott enters and they stand there awkwardly for a few moments, staring at each other.
"So, uh, the kitchen is this way," he starts walking that way and Scott follows him, "I usually eat there, because it's just me, there's no pint in getting a whole other room dirty just to eat, you know."
"Oh, sure. I do the same thing."
"Right."
It seems like there's no end to the awkwardness level one can reach while talking to a estranged friend.
"So, you still like bacon, right?" he asks, talking fast and getting busy by the sink and the stove, trying to dissipate the uneasiness in the air, "I burned the first batch, but I'm making some more. You can sit, I'll be done in a minute."
Scott is quiet for the whole time he cuts the bacon, and Stiles suppresses a sigh – he doesn't really know what to talk about. The guy asked for a talk, he should be doing the talking, right?
"You never used to be very good with the cooking," the other man eventually said, and Stiles turned to look at him quickly, before going back to watching the bacon in the pan.
"Oh, I learned by trial and error, but I got it eventually. Lydia can't cook to save her life, and let's just say it's a good thing Jackson is a werewolf, because he was my test subject a couple of times, and that didn't always end well."
Scott laughed a little at that.
"Yeah, I can't really picture Lydia cooking."
"She can bake," Stiles defends her friend, shrugging a bit, "Jackson can make a decent pasta, they won't starve or anything." He carefully avoids talking about Danny, and how he was the only one who could actually cook, but only the mood stroke him.
"Right."
Silence falls over them again, and Stiles doesn't really try to end it – he has his ADHD under control these days, he doesn't need to be constantly talking anymore, even though it's still his first impulse.
He's going to wait it out. He focuses on arranging food on the plates, getting the plates on the table, and thinking about classes the following week.
Scott asked for one meal, and they are having breakfast, and if the guy doesn't talk, well, no one else can accuse him of not giving him the chance he asked for – it's not his fault Scott didn't use it.
He sets a plate with bacon on the table, along with Scott's muffins and some coffee and other breakfast stuff, and sits down opposite Scott.
"Dig in!" he tells the man with fake enthusiasm, and Scott carefully picks a few strips of bacon and sets them on his plate, but doesn't eat them.
He takes a deep breath, as if he's strengthening himself for something, and looks up, straight at Stiles, who stops pouring coffee for himself, and stares back at Scott.
"I never meant for us to grow apart as we did," Scott starts, and Stiles doesn't respond. He know this. He so knows this – and if Scott thinks them growing apart was his choice alone, then he's sorely mistaken, Stiles is plenty aware that it was his decision, "I didn't… I thought saying those things to you would make you hate me for a bit, but that we'd have a chance to… fix it later. To go back to being friends."
"I know that," he answers calmly, taking a sip of his coffee, "I've always known that, and if you think our argument at the hospital was the only thing that pushed us apart then you're still wrong ten years later."
Scott was already shaking his head even before Stiles finished talking.
"I know. I didn't back then, mostly because I didn't really think about us back then, because for me, it was a given. For me, we would always go back to being friends, I would always have you there, you would always have my back. For me, that fight was just one more stupid thing we did to save our own skin, like we always did back then. If I had thought for a minute that it would turn into what it did…"
"But you didn't," Stiles cuts him off with a small laugh, shaking his head almost bitterly, "You didn't, because you took me for granted. That, Scott, was the problem. Not you hurting me to keep me safe, or whatever crap you told yourself back then, but because for you, hurting me was okay, because I would always be there," he throws Scott's words back at him, and the other man flinches, as if physically hurt, "I know we were sixteen and stupid, but the amount of times you left me hanging, man... that's kind of tough to let go, you know?"
"Stiles, I know it's no excuse, but… I was trying, dude, I really was," Scott's eyes are earnest and honest, and Stiles can't quite shake the feeling that this feels a bit like coming home too, more than just being in Beacon Hills had done for him until now, "But things were hard and we were always in danger and—"
"And I always had your back," Stiles interrupts, softly but determinedly, "Always. That time I called you, and you hung up on me, because Kate might be coming after you and Allison? Scott, the Kanima was in that swimming pool after us, I threaded water for two hours holding Derek up, and you hung up on me. The Kanima could have killed us both."
"And yet, Jackson is your friend now."
"Jackson and the Kanima aren't the same thing," he tells Scott firmly, narrowing his eyes at him, letting the man know this is not a line of conversation he'll take, "Jackson and his wolf are one, but that thing wasn't him."
Scott is quiet for a bit, then he sighs, running a hand through his hair.
"I'm sorry. I should have handled that thing better, I was…"
"It wasn't because of the trouble, Scott, it was never that. I would never run and hide from problems that I helped cause – Hell, I was the one who dragged you to the woods the night you were bitten. It was the always being left behind. It was the always not knowing. The always being ignored in favor of a crush – and that is all that was. It ended just as we knew it would."
"We didn't know anything," Scott comments, smiling a bit, and Stiles snorts in response.
"Yeah, we didn't. Derek did, though. He warned us. You."
Scott nods, looking down, pretending to be distracted by the food in front of him, but really thinking.
"We couldn't really make it work because of what I am, what I had to do, the people I chose to associate with – the pack, really," he tells Stiles, shrugging a bit, "We found a rhythm, after you… left us. Well, not really left us, but you know," Stiles nods, because yes, he does know. They were living in the same town, going to the same school, and yet it had felt like two different realities, and he liked it like that, "We tried to keep you guys safe," Scott says in a tiny voice, almost a whisper, "We tried to keep the people we loved safe," he stops talking for a moment and looks up, staring at Stiles again, who just looks back at him calmly, waiting. Scott wants to talk, let him talk. It won't do him any harm, but it also won't change whatever it is they have now, "A few months after the whole hospital thing, you and Danny were already together by then, and Lydia and Jackson were stronger than ever, I told the others why I had done it. Erica was so pissed, man. She told me a best friend should never use the things we fear the most against us, and that it was what I had done. I didn't really think about it like that until that day. Boyd just stared a lot back then, he didn't use to talk much, still doesn't, really, but I could feel him judging me," he stops then, sighing and running a hand through his hair, messing it up a bit, "Derek got it, though. He called me an idiot, but he got why I did it, even though he told me I should have handled things better."
Stiles doesn't say anything for a while, but Scott keeps staring at him, as if willing him to talk.
"What do you want me to say, Scott? That I forgive you? That it's all forgotten because your heart was in the right place?"
Scott shrugs, looking at his food.
"I don't know. I don't know what I want from you, really, except that not having you in my life sucks a lot, and that I missed you all these years, and that I was a complete jerk to you, and I'm sorry."
It's Stiles's turn to sigh then, shaking his head a bit.
"I don't think there's anything to forgive, you know? You hurt me, yeah, but… That argument was just the tip of the iceberg. I wasn't… I wasn't happy, Scott, I wasn't in a good place back then. Us fighting, and growing apart – that might as well have been the best thing that happened to me back then. I truly am happy with Jackson and Lydia and…" he stops talking then, swallowing drily, "They are good friends. I feel like a jerk thinking back on it now, but it did me a world of good back then. I should kind of thank you, really. It wasn't okay, and it doesn't make what you did okay, but I'm fine. I don't know what you want with this. We grew up, we grew apart – we have no way of knowing we wouldn't have done this anyway even if we didn't have that fight. How many people we know are still friends since High School, anyway?"
"You, Lydia and Jackson are. Me and Isaac and Boyd."
Stiles snorts.
"Packs are different."
Scott looks at him then, considering.
"Yeah, I suppose they are. I mean, humans in packs are supposed to have, you know, the same loyalty. The same will to keep close, to stay together."
Stiles sighs then, feeling a bit sad even against his will.
"Her loyalty was always to her family first, Scott, even back then, even before all the shit with her mom. You knew that."
"Yeah, but still. I'd have given up my life for her if she asked, and she just… left," he looks at Stiles then, a bit insecure, "How did you manage?" his voice is curious, even if a bit cautious.
"Manage what?"
"To keep Danny from bolting," Scott tells him in an unsure way, as if he's not really sure what he has the right to ask, "I mean, you and Lydia aren't… you know, but Jackson is, you three have been in there since the beginning, and the four of you were a pack for so long with no trouble. How did you manage to get Danny to just… accept it all?"
Stiles bites his lips for a moment, his breath a little shorter than it should have been, because this is the pain that never really goes away, the one that's always there, just waiting for someone to say his name for it to be brought back to full force and make him almost sick with pain.
"We never told him."
The sentence falls from his lips before he can think it through, and he stares at his plate, feeling Scott's judgement from the other side of the table – bonus points for Scott for trying to hide it, though. Poor soul can't hide his feelings to save his life, but at least he's trying.
"Nothing at all?"
Stiles shakes his head.
"There was never really a good time. First, we just wanted to forget it all, then we started actually dealing with Jackson, and it became easier. His wolf would just settle down and everything would be okay without much fuss," he shrugs, looking up and around, as if hunting for the rest of the sentence, "We didn't fight, Scott. We didn't have to go out there and… you know," he tells his once best friend, willing him to understand, and Scott seems to, at least, "There was no point in telling him here, but we talked about it. Then we moved away and college was so good, and everything was just so… quiet," he lets his voice trail off, smiling softly, and Scott smiles with him, "Lydia and I didn't know what to do, and Jackson just let us decide. He told us we could choose, because he was the minority in our group, so."
Scott laughs at that, and Stiles smiles again, a little less sad this time. He sobers up quickly after that, looking away.
"It just never seemed the right time. We let it go, it was not an issue," he pauses, sighing deeply and looking down, a small bitter twist of his mouth, almost a smile, "There was always later. There was always time."
"I'm sorry. About… about everything. It took me a long while to understand why you thought I was such a crappy friend, but by then we had already decided to… Anyway, I'm sorry for all of that, and I'm sorry for Danny. I didn't know him very well, but you always looked happy when you were with him."
Stiles just nods, not saying anything, and it kind of kills the mood that wasn't great to begin with. He wants to ask things, he wants to know about Derek and Laura, he wants to know about the little girl's mom, and he wants to ask about Peter, but at the same time, he doesn't want to give Scott false hope – even now he's not sure he can deal with being his friend again, with having all that crap from before thrown into his life again.
They eat the rest of the meal in relative quiet, and finally, Scott gets up, thanks him for the meal, seems to be considering going for a hug but thinks better of it, and just nods, instead, leaving.
Stiles starts cleaning up the kitchen feeling strangely empty thinking about Danny – it's different from before, though. It's not just the weight of everything they thought of having in the future and now would never have, but the weight of everything they didn't have in the past, because a part of him, and a part of Lydia and Jackson, was never there for Danny to see.
He closes his eyes firmly, decided not to think about it.
Ignoring things until they go away suddenly seems a bit darker than it always had.
X
Derek was used to the pack gathering at his place on Saturdays or Sundays, but it isn't anything scheduled or official. Sometimes it was just him and Scott, sometimes his mom was there too – Laura always underfoot, playing quietly around the house.
It wasn't really a surprise to see them all there when Scott got back from Stiles's, though – he knew they were just as curious as he was, not only because of their meeting, but about Stiles himself. When they cut the other three off, they did so completely, and now they wanted to know how their old friends were doing.
Either that, or they are just so used to being in each other's business they just have to know.
Scott tells them about the meal, and their stilted conversation with true hope – he actually thought it could have been worse, it could have been a disaster and it wasn't. Scott thinks there's hope for their friendship, even if he feels that they will probably never be the same as before.
It's later that same day, when Laura is napping and Melissa has gone to work, Boyd being the first to leave right after lunch, and Isaac going out, that Derek and Scott sit at the porch of the house, beer in their hands out of habit, looking ahead.
"They never told Danny." Scott's voice is quiet, as if he's trying to understand that piece of information himself.
Derek doesn't answer, used to waiting for Scott to take his time forming his thoughts exactly, a care he developed after many mistakes he now knows could have been avoided if only he thought a little longer.
"About Jackson being a werewolf, or anything they went through here, before we stopped talking, nothing. They never told him," he looks at Derek then, a frown on his face, looking earnest as always, no matter how much older he got, that little boyish quality always coming back when he was concerned, "I mean, I get why, but. They couldn't just leave it all behind, Jackson is one of us. And their closest friend never knew?"
Derek sighs and doesn't answer, because he really, really doesn't want to judge here. They are only just taking small steps towards maybe rebuilding something Scott and Melissa, mostly, had lost, and Stiles is, first and foremost, Laura's teacher, but he is starting to realize that maybe the lives of the "other pack" aren't as perfect as they had all assumed.