Six Feet Under | Sterek

twenty-five;

IT HAS BEEN F O R E V E R I'M SO SORRY

I can't promise regular updates, but I'm going to try and get a few more chapters out quickly!!!!!!

Beacon Hills hasn't changed and Stiles doesn't know why that surprises him so much. (Perhaps it's because he thinks the town should match his thoughts; if Stiles outlook has changed, then surely Beacon Hills has as well.)

But everything looks exactly same as Stiles navigates the familiar streets. It shakes him slightly, makes him re-evaluate his decision to come back. Perhaps he isn't ready. What if he was wrong, and there wasn't a problem? What if he was right, but the problem hasn't been fixed? What if he was wrong to come back so soon?

"Stiles," Derek says. "Breathe. Everything's okay."

It really kind of isn't, but Stiles trusts Derek more than he trusts himself. He takes a deep breath. He doesn't relax his grip on the steering wheel. "I want Scott," he decides. "Can we stop by the school first?"

Derek exhales very slowly, and Stiles knows that this means 'no'. "Maybe we should go to the loft first," Derek says carefully. He doesn't look away from the road. "I'll text Scott and tell him to meet us there after school. We can check in with Peter."

That really isn't what Stiles wants, but he changes course anyway. He owes Derek, in some weird twisted way, because Derek was the one to get in the car when Stiles needed someone. Derek was the one to take him to a music festival. Derek was the one who cared about Stiles and his drinking habits.

Derek was the one to care, and Stiles owes him for that.

(He still wants Scott though, wants to see him so bad it almost hurts.)

Peter is already outside when they pull up in front of the loft, standing silhouetted by the damn sun like he's some kind of statue - his story is captured in stone and he'll never move again, never be alive and feel love. But he does move, because Derek shoots out of the car like the sun burns him and skids to a stop by his uncle.

Stiles sits in the Jeep and he watches, because this is what he deprived Derek of. This is what Derek wanted while the two of them were driving around and fighting with each other and dreaming about each other and kissing each other on the beach. Because Derek didn't want those things, only Stiles. Derek just wanted to be home, and he wanted Stiles to be home too.

And then Peter is pulling Derek into a hug, and Stiles gasps like he's dying because Derek always gets everything that Stiles wants, and now Stiles can't even have his dad. Stiles can't even have Scott. 

Scott, who is always so heartbreakingly oblivious when it matters, and then can only stare in dismay as everything withers and decays.

But Stiles has come back for Scott, more than he came back for his dad, so Stiles wants his best friend because Scott is the only one who can touch him without wincing away and looking at Stiles like he's some kind of wild, hurtful thing. Scott never thinks bad of Stiles because Scott has become immune to the monster that's living in Stiles's veins. 

Stiles isn't a monster, not really, but he feels like one as he watches Derek take comfort in the only family he has left.

His phone rings. Derek and Peter both turn their heads to stare at him as Stiles ducks his head and answers it without looking at the contact name. "Hello?" He breathes into the receiver - breathes, not says, because his voice is stuck somewhere in his throat, and a whisper is all he has left.

"Stiles," his dad says, and he sounds tired and sad and hopeful all at once. "Is it true? Are you back in Beacon Hills?"

Stiles doesn't want to know how his dad knows. 

Stiles doesn't want to lie.

"Yeah dad," he whispers, clutching the phone like it's a damn lifeline. "Yeah, I'm back. I'm here."

"Are you coming home?"

Stiles doesn't know how to tell him that he doesn't want to come home - he remembers what he said on the phone, can still taste the words I can't breathe on his tongue.

He licks his chapped lips and gives up on everything that's ever mattered. "Yeah dad," he whispers, sadly, like he's just signed himself over to eternity in imprisonment. "I'm going to see Scott first, but I'll be home for dinner."

Home.

It tastes ashy in his mouth, that spiderweb word, and Stiles feels the tremours in his hands start again, spreading down from his fingernails. How can it be that freedom is so small? How can it be that his willingness to come back and live the life his mom would've wanted is the thing that's going to put him in a grave beside hers?

Derek is still talking to Peter. His dad is still on the phone. 

Scott is still at school.

Stiles makes his choice in that infinite second, and in a different reality where he'd chosen to get back in his Jeep and drive away again, he's dead within a week.

Stiles says goodbye and hangs up, sick with the awkwardness between them, and looks at Derek and Peter. He'd come here because Derek said he should, but Derek isn't a selfless person, and it's not his fault that Stiles can't be on his own without clawing his skin open and spilling the black tar that's replaced his insides.

"Bye," he whispers, and when he gets back in the Jeep, he sees the stupid fucking bracelets from the stupid fucking music festival, right next to the fading Henna tattoos. 

And-

It's enough.

It fucking enough because everything that's happened is obviously a fucking lie. Derek had told him so - gulls over head, the ocean roaring it's anger behind them, the quiet of the car, 'why did you kiss me, Stiles?'

It's fucking enough.

Stiles turns the car on, throws it into gear, and tells himself it means nothing that Derek watches him go with nothing more than regret on his face.

.

Scott is waiting for him in the car park, and Stiles doesn't even stop properly before his friend in clambering into the passenger seat, throwing his backpack over his shoulder carelessly and leaning across to give Stiles a hug.

"Scott, buddy, not while I'm driving."

"I'd be happy if you never drove again, you absolute asshole."

It's said with all the affection.

It's one sentence - one goddamned sentence - and all the breath in his body is stolen away. Because it's Scott and Stiles has tried so hard to make himself believe that Scott hated him, that Scott pushed him away, the Scott left first.

But Scott hadn't done anything except love him like brothers do, and it takes everything in him not to start crying again, to wash away the taste of Derek's lips on his, the burning rejection that's simmering in his throat, the tang of sea breeze on his cheeks.

Scott says, "Welcome home, Stiles."

This time, it doesn't sound so bad.