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Scott walked through the front doors of the Sheriff’s station and was met with the view of three deputies off to one side, setting out what looked like an entire armory’s worth of long-range guns. His eyes widened and Jerry noticed him out of the corner of his eye, “McCall, thanks for coming down. We’re just making sure the department’s prepped for any more of those mountain lions or wolves that were roaming the woods.”
The young man swallowed heavily, “Shouldn’t you be calling in animal control or something for tranquilizers?”
“Unfortunately, not Scott,” John walked out of his office to greet his son’s supposed best friend, before escorting him into the office John turned to his deputies, “Set aside some space for some new stocks of ammo. I’ve got a consultant sending me some new stuff, it’s got a flower in it or something.”
Scott’s ears perked up, “A flower?” his voice a bit shaky.
“Yeah, acorn or aconite, something like that. My contact says it puts wild things down better than the regular stuff,” the Sheriff clamped his hands down on Scott’s shoulders and steered him into the office, wondering if the kid would come clean given the opening John had kindly provided him.
“You shouldn’t trust Chris Argent,” Scott blurted out when the door closed.
John had not expected that to come out of Scott’s mouth, “What?”
“Your consultant, it’s Chris isn’t it?”
“No, but even if it was, isn’t Chris the father of your girlfriend, Scott?”
“Yeah, well… Just, he’s not the most savoury character in town.”
“I see,” John commented, situating himself behind his desk, indicating that Scott should sit “So, I’m not sure what Jerry told you but…”
“I didn’t stay at the party that long. I didn’t even have anything to eat or drink so I’m not sure how much help I’ll be” Scott blurted out before John even asked a question.
“Didn’t you and Stiles go to the party together?”
“Yeah, we did, he really wanted to go and it’s not exactly my scene but Allison was going too and I needed a place to talk to her. I’m not too sure what Stiles got up to, honestly” Scott admitted “And when I called him after Allison told me we needed some time apart he didn’t pick up.”
“So, you just left the party?” John asked, tone level, not letting frustration creep in yet.
“God, what did he do? Seriously, Sheriff I needed him last night after this thing with Allison and he just blew me off.”
That caused John to pause for a few moments to get his anger under control. “Have you been in contact with anyone else since the other night? Allison maybe? Or Lydia?”
Scott scuffed the ground with his shoe “Allison won’t respond to my texts. And Stiles still hasn’t called me back” He looked up then, “Is he not at home or something?”
“Or something?” John repeated, trying to restrain himself from growling at the oblivious boy in front of him, “If you call being poisoned something, then yes, let’s go with or something.”
Scott’s eyes went wide in shock “Poisoned?”
“The drinks at the party were spiked” John started to explain when Scott, made to get out his phone.
“And just who would you be calling, Scott?”
“Allison was drinking that night!”
“She’s fine, Scott. Allison, Lydia, Boyd, Erica, and Isaac are all okay, now. Derek saw to that.” Scott’s fingers paused over Allison’s contact in his phone and he nearly dropped it.
“Derek, as in Derek Hale? What does he have to do with this?” Scott asked, tone suddenly aggressive.
“Well, he was looking out for his pack, Scott.”
John wondered if it was possible for eyes to actually fall out of a human head, because Scott’s expression at the moment would surely be a contender for that occurrence.
“Stiles told you?” Scott sounded almost offended.
“Not exactly…”
“I told him to not get other people involved. It’s bad enough he keeps ending up in the middle of things” Scott spoke, anger evident in his tone.
“Shut up, Scott! I know Stiles didn’t want me involved. I know he wanted to protect me and believe me, I know you encouraged him to keep it from me by playing on his fears of losing me” the Sheriff put up a hand “You might not have had malicious intentions but these secrets have been tearing Stiles apart and you’ve done little to nothing to keep him together. At least from what I’ve heard or seen.”
While Scott had looked slightly shamefaced when the Sheriff had started speaking he looked ready to interrupt and speak his mind by the end, but the Sheriff wasn’t done talking.
“Stiles had wolfsbane poisoning, Scott. I hear you’ve seen the effects before, but do you know what it’s like to watch someone you love suffer under its effects for hours? The other humans in the pack had much less in their systems than Stiles, but because he was alone at a party he didn’t want to be at, I know you dragged him out just so you could talk to Allison, he had ingested enough that Derek told me we were lucky it wasn’t more intense.”
Scott looked somewhat guilty now “I didn’t know.” He ducked his head wondering what had happened during Stiles’ poisoning that had set the Sheriff so on edge.
“So, when he didn’t answer you texts or calls you just went home?” John asked, voice sharper.
Scott nodded, head still down.
“What kind of friend are you trying to be, Scott? The worst?” John’s voice was a bit louder now, trying to get the kid to understand how serious this situation was.
“I’m trying to keep him out of all of this!” Scott replied, voice a bit louder too, thankfully as the Sheriff he’d had the opportunity to soundproof his office years ago.
“He’s in it, Scott. He’s been in it since you were bitten, since you went through your first full moon, since you met him at the beginning of third grade. You knew that Stiles would stick by you through everything, yet you push him away anyways.”
“He’s human,” Scott gritted out.
“He’s supposed to be your best friend. He’s pack,” Scott looked affronted.
“He’s human,” the teen wolf repeated, less aggressively.
“And yet Derek embraced him, and by default me apparently, as pack yesterday.”
“I just wanted to keep him safe. I mean hanging out with Allison and I isn’t dangerous, but the rest of the pack, they just want to be around him to make sure I stick it out in the Hale pack. I don’t want him to be disappointed if they ditch him, because he didn’t get the offer of the bite.”
John was so close to revealing that Peter had in fact offered Stiles the bite, but reminded himself that that was not the issue at hand.
“Well, they seem to like him well enough given that they call and check up on him.”
“I’m his best friend!”
“Well, I haven’t seen you around at all lately, Scott.”
Scott sighed, “Look, I’m sorry. If I had known about the wolfsbane thing I would have walked him home or something.”
“This wasn’t something he needed to sober up from, Scott. He was hallucinating and remembering things, awful things,” John’s voice teetered on breaking then he pulled himself back together, “Take out your phone.”
“Why?” Scott asked.
“Just do it, Scott.”
The teen did, unlocking his phone and going to his texts as instructed, “Now, scroll back to September 20 and as you scroll notice how often you talk about Allison with my son and nothing else.”
“Look, it’s not my fault that Lydia kissed me and that she doesn’t like Stiles back,” Scott huffed out, but he dutifully scrolled through his messages, noticing that he did seem to mention Allison a lot. As he scrolled he didn’t see one text where Stiles messaged him randomly and he responded. Scott gulped, realizing that he had been talking his friend’s ear off about his girlfriend but it was love, right? That’s what happens when you fall in love.
As he reached the date the Sheriff had asked him to find, he looked up expectantly, “What about September 20th do you want me to see?”
“What is September 20th Scott?”
Scott’s forehead creased in confusion “Uh, I think it was a Friday. Yeah, definitely a Friday because I was over at Allison’s.”
“Did Stiles text you that night, Scott?”
Scott looked down to check, scrolling through until his eyes landed on it and he dropped his phone.
His phone didn’t break, it just laid on the floor, screen bright, looking up at him. The words typed on it were taunting him.
Their code word.
The one that had probably saved his life when he was younger, was typed neatly with his own reply underneath Stiles’ request for company “With Ally. Busy.”
Then he remembered why September 20th was important “Oh my god,” Scott gasped out, he reached blindly for the inhaler he didn’t need anymore, because he’d ignored their code word. He’d forgotten his best friend’s birthday. He’d left his best friend to be poisoned. He’d left Stiles alone.
“Do you know what he did that night, Scott?” John’s voice wasn’t gentle, but it was no longer furious, it sounded tired and sad instead.
Numbly, Scott shook his head.
“I was working a double so he,” John took in a deep breath then continued speaking “He went to the cemetery and he curled up by his mom’s grave, because he wanted to spend his birthday with someone.”
Scott whined, his wolf coming to the surface of his mind, angry at his rejection of his packmate and anxious about the pain said packmate would have undergone. His wolf had always recognized Stiles as pack, but he’d just assumed that Derek was only placating Scott by also inviting Stiles to things. Scott’s wolf sounded like it wanted to scrape Scott’s insides raw for his obliviousness. He didn’t know when he started to shift, but suddenly, John was in front of him reminding him to control himself, that he needed to get his shit together.