Work Text:
---
“It wasn’t us,” Allison says, leaning halfway into the car. She laces her fingers into Scott’s and squeezes.
“I know.” Scott squeezes back, pulls her hand up and presses his lips to her knuckles.
Behind him, in the driver’s seat, Stiles sighs impatiently.
Allison’s eyes flick over Scott’s shoulder and she lets go of him. “Can you just tell him? If he shows up, just let him know.”
“Of course.” Scott nods and suddenly, he feels exhausted. “I’ll talk to you later.”
Allison waves to Stiles and turns toward her house. Scott shifts in his seat and pulls the door shut. Stiles’ knee is bouncing up and down at rabbit-speed, he’s got one hand on the gear shift, but he still sits and waits until Allison gets in her house and closes the door behind her. They’re all on edge now. No where feels safe.
“Where’s Isaac?” Stiles asks.
“With my Mom.”
“It was their fault, you know.” Stiles says. He looks over at Scott with that steady, calm look he’s been getting more and more often lately. He looks grown, older than Scott can ever remember.
“I know.” Scott pulls his phone out of his pocket, holds it tight in his hands, just for something to have.
“If Kate hadn’t...done what she did back then.” Stiles can’t even say it out loud, not now.
“I know.” Scott closes his eyes and sees the Hale house lit up in front of him, flames roaring through every window. The trees are fogged through with thick smoke. Sirens echo down from the main road. He clenches his jaw.
The Argents had made the Hales legendary. The Hale fire was the kind of story hunting families told their children in bed at night.
A group passing through Beacon Hills, no one even knew who they were, couldn’t help but try to finish the house off, and the remaining Hales with it.
It’s three o’clock in the morning now and all that’s left of the Hale house is a smoldering pile of ash and mud.
This fire, no matter who struck the match, belongs to the Argents just as much as the first.
“Try calling again,” Stiles says as he pulls into his driveway and shuts off the jeep.
Scott does as he’s told as he trails after Stiles through the front door and up the stairs to his room. The phone rings in his ear, over and over.
“Nothing,” he says. He slides the phone back into his pocket and sits down on Stiles’ bed beside him.
“Can’t you just sense him?”
Scott’s mouth twitches. If only. “It doesn’t work like that.”
“Do you need to go home?”
“No,” Scott answers automatically. He looks over at Stiles, the tense line of his shoulders, the smell of smoke clinging to both of them like an awful cologne. “I need to stay here.”
Stiles nods, rubs both hands over his face. “I should call my dad.”
“Okay.”
Scott lays back on the bed, listens to Stiles footsteps down the hall and the stairs, tunes out when the Sheriff must answer and Stiles starts to talk.
As soon as he closes his eyes, the fire rages up in front of him again. Someone screams. A window bursts, shattering from the heat.
Scott didn’t know if Peter and Derek had been in the house, but by the time they’d gotten there, they were out, skin gray and sweat shined in the orange light of the flames.
When he saw them, Peter had gone, like a gust of wind, into the woods.
Derek had frozen, between watching Peter go and watching Stiles approach him. He’d looked like he’d been slapped, open-handed, slack-jawed. He looked afraid.
He’d taken off after Peter into the trees.
Scott had tried to talk Stiles down. Of course the guy was going to go after his last family member, the only one to survive the first fire. Of course he was going to need some time to get himself together.
Scott jerks back to the present when he hears the click of the front door. He sits up.
There’s the shuffling of feet downstairs and muffled voices he can’t make out. The smell of smoke is on all of them. Scott can’t tell any scent from another. He pushes up to his feet and makes his way down the stairs.
“Stiles?”
There’s no answer and Scott hurries down the last few stairs. “Stiles? Are you--” He freezes.
Stiles is sitting on the couch.
Derek is on the floor at his feet, head on Stiles’ leg, one knee pulled up to his chest. He’s lost his jacket somewhere, in only jeans and a white t-shirt, streaked to gray and black now. He looks small, curled there at Stiles’ feet, and it leaves Scott lost for words.
Derek’s shoulders shake and Stiles leans over him, hands running through his hair and over his back.
“It’s okay,” Scott hears him say. “You’re safe.”
Scott always knew his best friend was caring, had been on the receiving end more than once and was always grateful for it. But seeing him with Derek, seeing Derek like that, it shakes something loose inside of him. The weight of the night hits him like a heavy cloak around his shoulders.
Of course Derek would need Stiles. As much as he tries to convince everyone otherwise, he’s still only human.
Derek coughs, harsh and damp into Stiles’ knees, like he’s choking on his own tears.
Stiles shushes him gently. He reaches behind himself and pulls the throw blanket off the back of the couch, drapes it around Derek’s shoulders.
Without letting go, Stiles eases himself to the floor beside Derek and pulls him into his chest.
Silently, Scott slinks back up the stairs and sits down on the landing, close enough he can hear if they need him, far enough away to give them privacy. He checks his phone and finds a message from Allison.
Did you make it to Stiles’ house okay?
Scott stares at the message for a long time and takes a deep breath. He forces himself to type the words, even if he doesn’t fully believe them.
We’re okay. Derek’s here.
The phone lights up almost immediately and Scott presses the button to answer Allison’s call. “Yeah?”
“I’m going to sleep now,” Allison says.
Scott hears the rustling of bed sheets in the background.
“Okay. Good night.”
“Good night,” Allison whispers. Neither of them hang up.
Scott curls up on the floor there, at the top of the stairs, phone pressed to his ear, listening to Allison breathe and the constant murmur of Stiles from downstairs.
He doesn’t sleep.
---