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He and Stiles are still watching Mr. Whittemore yell at Stiles’s dad when his phone buzzes. It’s Mom.
Car. Now.
Scott tilts the phone screen towards Stiles, who looks at it and grimaces sympathetically. “Good luck, dude,” he says. And then, with widening eyes, “Don’t tell her about… you know.”
Yeah. Scott had gotten that message before, with all of the frantic motioning and exaggerated expressions while Mom had talked her way into believing that Scott’s behavior was tied back to a man he hadn’t seen or even really spoken to in almost eight years. “I thought we agreed it was time to tell them,” Scott says.
“Not anymore,” Stiles replies, tipping his head towards the window, towards his dad. “Dude. Telling them now ? Bad idea. Worst freaking idea in the history of really terrible ideas. We’re already causing them enough trouble. Just stick with the story we already told them, all right?”
Scott kinda thinks it’s more likely that their parents would be happier to know there was at least a reason behind their behavior, like an actual justifiable reason, not just like we thought it would be a funny prank. But Stiles’s scent is acidic-edged and harsh, anxiety so strong it’s practically overpowering. And Scott has already promised: neither of them will tell their parents until they’re both ready. Stiles doesn’t have claws or sharp teeth, but he’s just as deep into this as Scott is, and it would be just as dangerous for his dad to know as it would be for Scott’s mom, and maybe even more dangerous. So they have to agree. That’s the deal.
His phone buzzes again. Now, Scott.
“Go,” Stiles says. His eyes are back on his dad. “Don’t make things worse for yourself.”
Realistically, they’re not going to be able to abide by any grounding terms anyway, neither one of them - not when Jackson’s still the kanima and now very much on the loose again, and not when Derek and his new pack are planning to do who knew what about it, and not when Allison’s grandpa is still in play, too, and when did his life become so freaking complicated anyway, seriously, thanks so much, Peter - so Stiles is right, they really can’t afford to make things worse for themselves at this stage. He bumps against Stiles’s shoulder in silent camaraderie as he goes to face the music.
Scott’s used to getting in trouble with Stiles; he’s been doing it practically his whole life. What he’s not used to is this clenching in the pit of his stomach, like he’s on the verge of screwing up in a way he can’t hope to fix.
Mom has pulled the car around to the front of the building, right in front of the station doors; Scott meets her there, sliding into the passenger’s seat. Her shoulders are set, and her face is drawn. She looks unhappy, yes, but also worried and exhausted. As soon as he clips on his seat belt, she shifts the car back into drive and pulls out onto the road.
The ride home is silent. Or, well: it’s silent for Mom, at least, who gave him a Look when he’d reached for the radio that had made him immediately withdraw his hand. It’s not silent for Scott, but then, nothing really is anymore. He’s learned it’s about filtering, narrowing his focus in on one thing so that his senses aren’t overwhelmed with the, oh, everything they want to take in instead.
At first, without really meaning to, he focuses on Mom: the quickened pace of her heartbeat, the ragged edges of her breathing, the agitated and sporadic tapping of her fingers against the steering wheel. These are tells, he knows, that she’s trying to keep back tears; and eventually he can’t stand that anymore, can’t stand to think about how that’s his fault, and so he turns his senses further outward, sinking instead into the unfamiliar hum and rattle of the car’s insides. There are sounds there that he thinks shouldn’t be - grinding here, clicking there, a catch whenever Mom taps the brakes - but he doesn’t really know anything about cars, and he wouldn’t dare bring it up even if he did. Right now, yeah, but also ever. This car, like everything else in their lives, is held together with Mom’s iron will and the suffocating knowledge that they can’t afford for things to go wrong, and Mom has a little superstition that not talking about things like that makes them less likely to manifest into actual problems.
When they pull into the driveway, Scott unbuckles his seat belt, then pauses, hand frozen halfway to the door handle, when he realizes Mom hasn’t moved. Her hands are curled tight around the steering wheel instead, her knuckles blanching white from the pressure she’s exerting.
“Mom?” He ventures, tentative.
“I think I need a minute,” Mom says.
By now, Scott knows that Mom “needing a minute” just means that Mom’s going to sit out here in the car and cry before she has to face him again, and that thought makes him feel like someone has just shoveled a pound of mountain ash right into the pit of his stomach. He swallows hard. “Mom…”
Mom takes a deep, steadying breath. “Go inside, please,” she says. “Now.”
Scott fumbles with the door handle and climbs out onto his feet. He’s not even to the front door yet when the tears start.
It’s agonizing, listening to his mother cry, but he sits on the staircase at the base of the stairs and does it anyway, one hand curled around the railing, the other curled in on itself, fingernails against palm just in case. A part of him would rather go to his room, where there’d be a little more distance between him and Mom’s tears. But there’s another, stronger part of him that needs to stay close. It’s that part of him that had him listening when she stayed out there in the car for too long in the first place, the part of him that digs into his chest and whispers to him that it would be so easy for her to turn the car back on, back out of the driveway, drive away. Disappear and just be gone.
It might be irrational, if it hadn’t already happened with Dad.
He’s still sitting there, on the steps, when Mom finally comes in.
She pauses in the doorway, and then sighs. The sound is soft and doesn’t catch at all, no stutter of breath or heart to betray what she’s been doing, and he isn’t surprised, because that’s another thing he’s learned about his mother since he started keeping vigil with her through what she thinks are private tears: she could have been doing this for years, and he wouldn’t ever have known. He still wouldn’t know now, if he were still normal, still human.
Mom comes and sits next to him on the steps. Her arm threads through his, and he tips his head sideways onto her shoulder, trying to hold back the sniffle. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. Because he is: not for what he’d done, exactly, because they’d had limited options and they’d picked the best ones; but because of her tears, and because of her obvious stress, and because he can’t explain himself, and because he sucks and he knows it.
Mom sighs into his hair. “I’m not going to say it’s okay,” she tells him. “Because it isn’t. And choices like the ones you’ve been making lately are not going to get you anywhere good.” She squeezes his arm. “But I believe you can make better choices going forward, Scott. And I expect you to.”
There’s nothing he can say to that, not when the weight of her expectations, and knowing that she won’t understand the ways he can’t fulfill them, is settling heavy around his shoulders. Instead, with his free hand, Scott wrestles his keys free and extracts the one to the car from the ring, holding it up to her.
Mom takes it with a sigh and tucks it away, into her pocket. Then, voice as soft as a whisper, “Do you want me to call your dad?”
Scott opens his mouth to say no , which is the truth. To say, it’s okay, Mom, I don’t need him and I’m not thinking about him and I don’t miss him, which is more or less the truth (has had to be the truth, for a long time).
But what comes out instead is, “Would he even answer anyway?”
“Oh, sweetheart,” Mom says. She tucks him in closer, presses a kiss to his hair. “Sweetheart, I’m so sorry.”
Which is not, of course, a yes.