fixing things (shouldn't be this complicated) [Teen Wolf]

Fifth Step, Or, Into the Woods [1]

In front of the fence, seventeen-year-old Stiles is still gaping unattractively, but somehow without his conscious input he's curled his fingers into the chain link fence and is clinging for dear life. He vaguely remembers this, daring Scott to do better on the landing and then devising a point system to judge each landing.

It feels so unreal to be watching this from the outside, though, Jesus was he really this small? Was Scott really this small? God, life had seemed so much simpler then, the only thing Stiles had to worry about was whether Jackson was going to kick over his epic Bionicle action figure setup. Neither he nor Scott had any notion of werewolves, crazy hunters, kanima or Alpha packs. To them, the only things important were catching all the Pokémon, getting all the Yugi-oh trading cards, and wheedling their respective parent to let them go to lacrosse summer camp.

Something catches within Stiles's chest then, making it hard for him to breathe.

"Stiles," Laura says from very far away. "Stiles."

"Huh, what?" Stiles looks up at Laura long enough to register the concern on her face. Then he looks back at the younger versions of him and his best friend, unable to tear himself away.

"Are...you okay?" Laura comes up next to him, hovering just outside of his personal space.

"Yeah," Stiles breathes as nine-year-old Scott dumps a bunch of woodchips down nine-year-old Stiles's shirt. "Yeah, why?"

"It's just, you've been staring at those two kids for a while, and it's starting to creep me out."

"I'm creeping you out?" Stiles looks away at Laura then, who, shit, looks honest-to-goodness worried. "You're a wol - you like to sneak up on people and scare the living crap out of them and you're calling me creepy? You need to get your brain checked."

Laura's grin is reflexive, but gains strength when Stiles returns it. "Like you don't do the same when you can," she teases. "Admit it, you're just as creepy as the rest of us."

"One, nobody can be as creepy as you are," Stiles points out, sticking a finger in Laura's face. He watches as she goes cross-eyed, yanks it back just before her teeth snap around it. "See, right there, that's creepy. Don't pretend."

Scoffing at Laura's trying-to-be-innocent-but-totally-failing expression, Stiles wrenches his mind back to the original topic. He finds it with an aha! and a dramatic brandish of his arm. "And two, I make way too much noise to ever sneak up on anyone. Unless I'm acting as a distraction," he amends, cocking his head, "but even still! That's not sneaking."

Laura shakes her head with an amused smile. "You're completely right about making way too much noise."

"Hey!" Stiles complains, even though he totally just admitted it. "I don't make too much noise."

"Yes, you do." Grinning, Laura checks her watch (seriously, who wears watches these days?). "Now come on, we gotta get going or we'll be late."

"Yeah, yeah," Stiles grumbles, letting Laura tug him away. He manages to look over his shoulder one more time at nine-year-olds Stiles and Scott, who have torn back up to the top of the slide and are now arguing whose turn it is to go down.

Chest squeezing again, Stiles finally has to look away when he trips over something and nearly crashes into Laura. She brushes off his apologies and keeps going, but when Stiles looks for his younger counterpart, the view of the slide is obstructed by the school building.

The memory of them is still burned into his mind's eye, though, and honestly Stiles never wants to let it go.

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