NaNo 2013, Part 12
Masterlist
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---
"So what do you want me to do about that?" Stiles asked, his voice tense.
"Nothing," Scott said after a moment. "Just... whatever you feel like doing. Just -- don't shut me out, okay? Whatever else this means, I can take it, but losing you - that would break me."
"Do you have any idea how confusing all of this has been and how much worse you're making things?" Stiles asked. He sighed. The frown on his face looked like it wouldn't go away in a while.
"I can only guess. I'm sorry." Scott watched him and then, hesitantly, decided to ask the one question that was on his mind. It couldn't ruin things even worse than all of this already had, right? "Do you love me?"
"Of course I love you," Stiles snapped. "Otherwise I wouldn't have stuck by you ever since that first day when we got our asses kicked at the playground."
Scott had to smile a little crookedly at that. Ah, the memories. "You threw sand in that guy's eyes because he shoved me over and I got an asthma attack. What was his name? Andrew?"
"Whatever. I just remember having sand everywhere for days and mom finding it funny and dad making faces at it being everywhere."
Scott grinned. "Yeah. My mom kicked us out of the house when we were both trailing sand and dirt everywhere and then we went to play in the woods and brought in needles and leaves."
"Always a headache for our parents from the very beginning," Stiles mused, but it was obvious his heart wasn't in it, in the joking, light-hearted banter.
"Yeah. But you're deflecting," Scott said and grew serious. "You know I didn't mean whether you love me like a friend or a brother or something. I'd never doubt that. Are you in love with me?"
Stiles didn't reply for a few moments, his expression going cold and unreadable. Then he said, his voice flat, "I thought we didn't need labels."
"That isn't an answer to my question, Stiles," Scott said. He tried to make his voice as soft as possible but still make it clear that he wasn't going to back off now. He put his foot back down on the floor and sat up straighter.
"You really want to know?" Stiles asked, and there was something unsettlingly dark in his smile then. He didn't look at Scott, but it was creepy enough to see that gaze directed at the road and the cars ahead of them. Scott found himself wishing vaguely that the driver in the car in front of them wouldn't look in the rearview mirror right then or they might have nightmares for days to come.
"Of course I do," Scott said. He didn't like Stiles' expression, but he wasn't afraid of him or it.
"Okay. I was in love with you for a long time," Stiles said with half a shrug. He changed gears when they left the intersection where they had been stopped and continued speaking only after they were back up to speed. "Years. Or maybe it was a persistent crush or whatever. It took forever, but I did manage to move on because not only wouldn't you ever have seen it, I didn't want to go playing with fire and put our friendship at risk. And then you went and got your body turned into a girl's and I have no clue how much of your mind was addled because of that and why you are acting the way you are and it's messing with my head."
Scott sat there, quiet, absorbing the words. He couldn't say he was surprised. About a month ago, if he had learned all this, he probably would have been a little taken aback. He wasn't dumb, but he wasn't the most perceptive person in the world and he typically relied on Stiles to be the one to perceive whatever was going on around them.
That didn't exactly work when the one Scott needed to be perceptive about was Stiles himself, which was the entire reason why Stiles so often managed to keep things from him. Stiles was a great liar but Scott knew him too well to fall for his lies; on the other hand, he was mostly blind to the way Stiles could omit information. Scott always trusted Stiles to tell him all that was relevant (and often a lot that wasn't); having to doubt that or try to see if there was something else beneath that would have been a momentous task.
Obviously he had missed a big piece of the puzzle over the years.
Scott thought back to their interactions and the way they had always been around each other. He didn't have a frame of reference for many of the things he and Stiles did, whether they were seen as normal or not because the two of them were perpetually lumped in the uncool nerds department and ostracized by everyone anyway and their parents had stopped reacting to their weirdness before they had even turned ten. Until Allison, neither of them had had a relationship of any kind, just crushes, and Stiles' had been mostly limited to mooning over Lydia ever since he really began to notice her in class.
Scott didn't know what to think, whether there was anything weird there. He and Stiles had always spent a lot of time together, had never been shy about touching each other and sharing cramped spaces (and they had often had the bruises to show for it later when they got stuck somewhere tight and then their elbows and knees got in the way and hit the other when they were trying to disentangle from each other). Scott had never really sensed any kind of hidden desire from Stiles. He wouldn't have, before he was turned into a werewolf, because he wasn't that perceptive and human senses weren't meant for picking up such clues, and after he had been turned he had focused on Allison for the longest time.
Scott tried to think about that, puzzle out how Stiles had felt about Scott's interest in Allison. No matter how he looked at it, Scott couldn't believe the impressed and supportive way Stiles had acted had been an act. Not even Stiles was that good of a liar and his body language would have betrayed him in no time.
"Were you still in love with me when I met Allison?" he asked eventually. Stiles rolled his eyes.
"It's not like I can pinpoint any definite times, and it's less about falling out of love or stopping loving someone than it is just moving on, right? So I was a mess then but I was happy for you."
Scott nodded slowly. "And then, when you were running messages for us..."
"I love Allison too," Stiles said dryly and gave him a look that said Scott really should have known that already. "She's cool and a good friend. I still don't think it was really kosher of her to go shooting arrows in all the werewolves she came across when Gerard was manipulating her, but other than that, she's awesome, so I didn't mind running messages for you."
Scott puzzled that out for a bit. "Really? I... don't know if I could have run messages for Allison and some other guy."
"That's because it wouldn't have been your best friend and another friend being all lovey-dovey," Stiles told him. He looked faintly amused in a dark sort of way. "Jesus, Scott, just let it go. I was kidding myself about Lydia for years, but I've learned to pick my battles and I'm content just to have you as my friend."
Scott looked out the window, at the slowly darkening landscape around them. "Is that true, or is that something you're just telling yourself?"
"Sometimes telling yourself is the way to believing it," Stiles said dryly, "but it is true too. Yeah, I have a tendency to crush on the wrong people, but honestly... come on. I think I can say we're friends with Lydia now. She's still awesome and the genius I always knew she was, but in the end, even though she still doesn't care for me the way she does for Jackson and even Aiden, I think we probably work better as friends anyway. It's just how these things go."
Scott didn't miss the dark tone in Stiles' voice. He looked back at Stiles, serious and pensive.
"Do you think that's how it will be? That you'll just keep on falling for people who either don't see you for who you are or don't reciprocate the feelings?"
"Wouldn't be the first person something like that happens to," Stiles said and snorted. "Being queer used to be pretty much like that just a couple of decades ago. And whatever, I think I have a complex about being attracted to people who are way out of my league."
"I'm not out of your league," Scott said, somewhat offended on Stiles' behalf. "I never was."
Stiles turned his head to give him a flat look. "Sure. Look, Scott, whatever this whole thing is, I'm pretty sure you're straight and even if you weren't you never once considered us as anything but BFFs, so all I can believe is that your transformation screwed with your mind and that freaks the hell out of me."
"I'm the same person I've always been," Scott said and tried to give Stiles an imploring look but Stiles had gone back to watching the road and muttering curses at some jerkass in front of them who cut ahead and made Stiles hit the brakes to not end up crashing into the car. Scott waited until that distraction was gone before he continued, "You of all people should know that, Stiles."
"For the most part, yeah, you're a lot like you were," Stiles agreed easily, "but you changed a lot when you became a werewolf. Huge changes HAVE to change the person, too, and I could deal with the werewolf bit because it just made you stronger and faster and got rid of your asthma but it didn't fuck with your mind. This? This has and still does and I don't trust that you're making any judgments and decisions from an informed point of view."
And that was it, right there, wasn't it? Scott absorbed those words for a moment. When he spoke, his words were slow and deliberate.
"So... in essence... you don't trust me now?"
Stiles scoffed. "That's not what I was saying! Of course I trust you and always will."
"Yeah, I know that," Scott said and nodded, because the trust between the two of them had and always would be rock solid. He inhaled and then exhaled slowly. "I mean you don't trust me to be in my right mind."
"Exactly. Look, you never showed any interest in me before in that way," Stiles said. He was finally pulling into the parking lot of the mall. "So can you blame me for being kind of freaked out about what exactly that transformation did to you?"
Scott was silent until Stiles had parked the car. When Stiles turned off the engine, it became quiet, too quiet.
"I would never lie about anything this important, Stiles. I am being honest and speaking right from the heart."
"I don't doubt that." Stiles looked out the driver's side window and sighed, irritated, before looking back at Scott. "I believe you mean it and that you see no problem with it, but to me it's like you've been roofied, all right? You aren't in your right mind and whatever you say and do isn't really what the old you would have wanted."
"But if I want it now, and believe with all my heart that I always did even if I was too dumb to actually acknowledge it," Scott said, "then isn't that as good as it all being valid anyway?"
"Maybe it is. To you." Stiles gave him a look that was only barely short of a glare. "But I know who you were and I've known you most of our lives. Scott, you're not exactly the same you used to be only a month ago, and it's been hard enough to deal with the normal you ever since because I keep wondering whether the things you do differently are really something you would have done anyway in a way like that if you had been given reason to do so, or if it's because there's like some sort of parasite or drug in your brain interfering with your ability to think for yourself and make sound judgments."
"You... think it's like I was drugged?" Scott repeated, trying to see the situation from Stiles' perspective.
"Yeah. I do." Stiles nodded and pulled a face. "Even if I were to take you at your word and go forward with whatever change you want to put in motion, you have to understand how creepy that would be. It'd be taking advantage of someone who isn't able to make sound decisions and can't give informed consent."
Scott could see that. He didn't find it pleasing, but he could understand. He frowned still.
"I can make my own decisions. That hasn't changed."
"Obviously," Stiles said. "It's not like I'm trying to take all autonomy away from you, is it? I just don't want to get involved in something that would make me one hell of a creep and something you might come to feel differently about at some later point in time."
Scott nodded slowly. "All right. Yeah. I can see your point. I don't believe I've changed all that much, or that anyone is controlling or influencing my thoughts, but I can accept that."
Stiles relaxed a little bit. "Okay. Good. So now can we go back to pretending none of this ever happened?"
Before Stiles could reach for the door handle, Scott caught his other arm and kept him from moving away. "I don't want to leave it at this."
An annoyed expression flashed across Stiles' face. "God damn it, Scott, you're really stubborn and starting to piss me off. What is it now? Wouldn't it be better if we just forgot all about this awkwardness and just be the way we've always been?"
"Unfortunately that's not going to be possible." Scott shook his head a little. "I need to think about all of this and make sure I know what I really want, but I don't want to pretend there's nothing between us. And you can't keep pretending you aren't bothered by my new body because it's obvious you ARE."
"Wow. And I thought there was a limit to how awkward we could ever get around each other." Stiles narrowed his eyes. "Okay, fine, your new body freaks me out because I think I'm supposed to find it hot but instead it just creeps me out but I know it's YOU and I want to be around my best friend and I can't believe you've changed all that much underneath that new layer of skin and tissue but I don't understand nearly enough about this and there isn't enough material available for me to draw any real conclusions because there's no data to go on and that bothers me."
Scott just listened calmly and then nodded. "That's fine. I don't mind. We can work on all of this together, right? It doesn't have to be weird." He paused for a moment and sought Stiles' gaze to make sure he was listening and understood exactly how serious Scott was about what he said next. "So... if I still feel like maybe there could be something more between us at some point in, say, six months, we could revisit the topic?"
Stiles' eyes widened a little. He seemed to think on it for a bit, consider saying a dozen things, and then settled for a sigh. "I think you're nuts and that that's just a waste of time and energy, but fine, if it makes you happy. That'll give us time to get all the housing and studying stuff in order first at least."
Scott smiled, bright and happy and infectious. "Thank you. I'm looking forward to that."
"I'm sure," Stiles muttered with a roll of his eyes when he opened the car door and got out of the jeep.
Scott followed him close by, grinning almost ear to ear. The day had been freaky, to say the least, but they would get through this together and Scott would have time to work out all the new stuff in his head and carefully consider it. Stiles could rest a little easier without having to worry about being suddenly jumped by his best friend who might have been not entirely male anymore. Scott knew Stiles needed his space as well.
They could make this work, no matter where the future were to take them. They were best friends forever, after all.
---
"Ugh," Stiles moaned and flopped down onto the bed. He lay there on his back and let out a long groan. "I'm so done."
Scott gave him an affectionate look and walked over. He sat down on the edge of the bed and patted Stiles' knee. "What was it, Toxicology 101? 'Do not touch wolfsbane'?"
"Okay, screw you," Stiles told him and opened one eye to glare at him. "That was covered ages ago. And you know it has nothing to do with the class, you asshole."
Scott put on an innocent face. "Oh? What is it, then?"
"Making me run around the campus and then going to lacrosse practice?" Stiles said in an incredulous kind of way. "What are you trying to do, turn me into a star athlete? Sorry to break it to you, but human bodies have their limits."
"What you really need is muscle training," Scott said and nudged him in the side. "You're still scrawny."
"Yeah, well, excuse me for believing that being able to actually run away from people wanting to murder me is slightly more useful and important than making sure I have impressive pecs and abs," Stiles groused. "It's not like I could go toe to toe with a werewolf and come out on top even if I were the strongest man in the world."
"Hmm, I don't know," Scott said and grinned before pouncing. Stiles had been expecting it and as soon as Scott's weight landed on him, he used the momentum to roll them over easily so that they were both lying on the bed, Scott beneath him and Stiles with his face hovering only inches above his.
"That," Stiles told him in a voice barely above a whisper but still dramatic and dry, "does not count. You're like a cat playing with a mouse and besides, even if you'd tried, I could have maybe got the upper hand because I've been watching you all these years. So I know how you move and think and you can't really sneak up on me."
"You know," Scott said thoughtfully, and it didn't escape his notice how utterly ridiculous it was for him to be lying underneath his best friend and roommate and having such a casual conversation with him, "you should do martial arts. Black belt judokas and such are able to sense an attack even without seeing it, right?"
Stiles rolled his eyes. "Yeah, like I have the time or the discipline for that. Besides, even if those modern-day ninjas could do that, you do know it takes something like ten years at the very least to make it to the point where you are that aware of your surroundings? I think I'll just stick to running the other way as fast as I can, thanks."
Scott smiled. "All right. Just run fast enough."
"So long as you are around, I won't have a problem with that, will I?" Stiles asked rhetorically and then rolled off of Scott and lay back on his back staring at the ceiling drowsily. "You'll always give me a chance to make it to safety if you're there."
"Of course," Scott said. He turned his head and gave Stiles a dry look. "If you ever actually took the hint and DID run away instead of jumping right into the fray regardless."
"You should know better by now," Stiles said and yawned. "It's not like I have much of a self-preservation instinct or I wouldn't have stuck around so long."
"No," Scott disagreed. He rolled so that he was on his stomach, his side touching Stiles', and watched his friend raptly. "You do have a keen self-preservation instinct or you wouldn't be alive anymore."
Stiles snorted, a little smile curling up his lips. "Right. That's why I'm always jumping in the middle of a fight between creatures that could just bat me aside with a clawed hand and leave me for dead."
"You have a self-preservation instinct that lets you assess the situation and find a smart way to go about winning the fight," Scott said. "So you can keep yourself and all of us alive. You would be safer if you ran away entirely, but it's not a lack of self-preservation instinct that keeps you right by our side."
"Oh?" Stiles said. "What is it, then? Because I'd say it's pretty bad for my prospects of continued survival to stick around whenever the supernatural world makes a comeback and fur and claws start flying and teeth flashing all around me."
Scott smirked. "It might not be good for your chances of survival, but there's an important reason why you stay by us." He gave Stiles a softer look. "You're far too loyal to ever even consider just hightailing it out of a hairy situation."
"It's one of my redeeming qualities," Stiles said and shrugged as much as he could, lying down as he was. "I stick to you people like a thistle. You'll never be rid of me."
"That's good, because I don't want to be rid of you, ever." Scott laid his chin on his crossed arms and watched the weary young man lying right by his side.
Affection swelled in his chest and made him feel all warm, happy and safe. There hadn't been any kind of supernatural insanity going on for a good long time now, not since the first few weeks of college (because obviously everything had to happen right when they were already busy and stressed enough with and about everything else going on).
It had felt good to be here, to be living on campus, attending class, knowing that he was accepted the way he was even by the few new people he had befriended who knew he was physically female but male in spirit. Knowing that when he came home, Stiles would be there, cooking or reading or just making a mess strewing papers all around when he was doing some sort of random research. Or if he wasn't home, then Scott could take a deep breath and get his nerves to settle down when he was enveloped in that familiar scent. Stiles. Himself. Them together in this apartment that was theirs. The detergent they used; the shampoo Stiles favored, the one that smelled of pine trees for some reason; the dish-washing liquid and the remnants of their dinner.
It was home, safe and secure and a place for Scott to be who he was.
Scott knew all too well that despite the GLBT community's visibility and the general tolerance of most alumni and teachers, there were still more than just a handful of people out there who would have been ready to do harm to him just for not "accepting that he was a woman" or that he was actually a lesbian who couldn't admit to liking girls so he thought he was a guy. Which made next to no sense because, from what Scott had gleaned of campus rumors, people believed he and Stiles were a couple, so really he should have then thought of himself as a gay guy instead of a straight girl or something in those people's way of thinking. It made his head hurt.
Stiles had scoffed and dismissed such people as idiots. They weren't worth thinking about, he said, and for the most part, Scott agreed.
There was an interesting aspect to that, though. Stiles hadn't hesitated at any point when they had brought up the subject of accommodation at the university. It had been obvious and a matter of course to him that they would still room together, he and Scott, even after the awkwardness of the kiss Scott had planted on him apropos of nothing. Stiles also hadn't had any qualms about saying he wasn't straight, and he didn't try to insist that he and Scott weren't actually a couple, in order to get them the accommodation they wanted.
Scott had been relieved by all of it. At least until the day they found out that they had actually got a furnished family apartment - and that the furniture they were provided with included a double bed. That had been awkward for Scott, but Stiles had merely shrugged, said that they could probably look into getting separate twin beds if that was a problem, and then just seemed to put the matter out of his mind entirely.
So well, in fact, that the issue wasn't even brought up again until only a couple of days before they were to go to campus and settle down in their new home, when Scott had mentioned the situation a little hesitantly. Stiles had cocked his head and asked him what he wanted to do about it and whether it bothered him if they were to share a bed.
That had left Scott a little wrong-footed, because he hadn't been expecting that, but Stiles had taken that as another matter of course that they obviously would be sharing the bed and had mentioned off-hand something about saving space that way, too.
(Scott was still unsure where their friendship/relationship really was at or where it was going, but seeing the look on his mom's face when she saw the double bed had made him blush to his hairline. She had looked at him with a flat kind of amusement and mouthed an 'I knew it' before giving Scott a pat on the shoulder on her way past.
Whether Sheriff Stilinski had done anything of the sort with Stiles, or if he already knew about the arrangement, Scott didn't know. He hadn't been around to witness it. Whatever else had been going on, Stiles at least hadn't seemed to have been in any way concerned about any potential implications or anything.)
It had been... odd, in the beginning. Scott and Stiles had shared a bed, a much smaller one, many times when growing up, even when they had been fifteen, sixteen, seventeen - before and after the werewolf incident - and it had never been awkward. They hadn't shared a single bed since Scott got his new body, the girl body, but they had fallen asleep next to each other a couple of times when playing games or watching movies or doing whatever else they normally did. It hadn't been different than before.
It had felt odd, though, to go to sleep next to Stiles that first night in their very own apartment, hearing the clock ticking on the kitchen wall, seeing the shadows all around where Stiles had already slipped under the covers and was at least halfway to sleep (or faking it very well, although it was difficult to fool wolf hearing so Scott was inclined to believe he really was about to drop off into the land of dreams).
Scott, wearing a long T-shirt and acutely conscious of his breasts because they weren't bound - he was more than used to having them bound by day, but at night, no - had slipped under the covers a little hesitantly and feeling like a fool. He had tried to move about as quietly as possible. Stiles had barely stirred and even then all he did was mutter a drowsy good night to Scott -- and then went right back to sleep. Scott had lain awake for at least another thirty minutes after that, oddly afraid to move away from the edge of the bed and get closer to Stiles.
In the end, when he had woken up in the morning, it had been to the sight of Stiles lying about two feet away from him, lips parted and hair a complete mess, still deep in sleep. Scott had smiled to himself, feeling rejuvenated and giddy and ready to start his new life at the university and happy to have his best friend right alongside him for the journey.
After that, it hadn't been much of an issue to sleep next to each other. They still touched without much of a care during the day; at times they gravitated towards the center of the bed and wound an arm or two around each other while asleep. It felt natural and didn't make Scott feel weird.
It had never been weird to be close to Stiles.
They had met a lot of new people over the months of being at Berkeley, and Scott had seen the way Stiles' eyes lingered on people, men and women both, and he couldn't deny that it made him jealous and possessive. He hadn't caught Stiles staring at him in the same way when he had been checking out the cute and gorgeous girls. Either Stiles was hiding it well or truly didn't care whether Scott was ogling someone else, but Scott was more inclined to go with the hiding part. There had been at least a few date propositions for Stiles that he really should have taken the people up on if he had been looking for a relationship or even casual sex, but...
But he had shot down each of the people asking him out. More or less graciously, but still, without any question, he had declined the offers.
Scott hoped he didn't do it out of some misplaced sense of loyalty - and now he had more reason to hope so than ever before. He raised his head a little and looked at Stiles, lying there looking almost boneless because of exhaustion.
"Stiles."
Stiles looked at him, his expression unreadable, questioning, and if there was some sort of expectation there it was well hidden beneath the calm facade. And it had to be a facade, Scott thought wryly, because Stiles wasn't that expressionless unless he was seriously working on looking like that.
"Yeah?" Stiles said, trying and failing to sound entirely casual. Scott took that as encouragement because it gave him faith that Stiles was well aware of what day it was today.
"It's been some time," Scott said and crawled upwards on the bed, a little, to come face to face with Stiles. Stiles was watching him without blinking and it made Scott smile a little, made him want to run his fingers through his hair and down those cheekbones and that nose. He reined in the impulse to do that and continued, "So, I was wondering... would you bolt if I kissed you now?"
There was a leap in Stiles heart rate, one that was jarringly noticeable even though Scott hadn't actively tried to listen to his heartbeat. Stiles opened his mouth a little, but it took him some time to get any sound out. Probably no more than a second or two, but it felt like forever.
"I don't think so," he said eventually, his voice a croak that would have been amusing and made Scott laugh under different circumstances. Now it made Scott beam at him and he leaned in and down, his head tilted a little.
This time, even though the kiss was light and tentative, it was reciprocated. Scott made an appreciative noise in his throat when Stiles brought up a hand to rest on his neck and partly in his hair. Scott smiled into the kiss and deepened it.
It was an odd thing, he thought idly in some part of his brain that hadn't entirely shut down and seemed incapable of shutting up, that it was so slow, unhurried, still in a way that Stiles usually wasn't. And yet, it didn't feel wrong or alien or unexpected. Scott had often seen that restless energy depleted, had seen how focused Stiles could be when something caught his attention and he had reason to concentrate on it.
It also confirmed something Scott had suspected for some time: Stiles had actively been trying to camouflage whatever it was he felt for Scott, all the heartache he must have been feeling, all the conflicting emotions Scott was sure there had been. That was fairly impressive because for all that Stiles wasn't fond of showing anyone how he really felt, he didn't often even bother putting on a front when he was alone with Scott because it would have been for naught anyway.
Scott broke the kiss at leisure and was still smiling softly when he drew back a little, enough to be able to watch Stiles' face.
"So," he murmured softly, "do you think maybe I was serious six months ago?"
Stiles made a face, making the tender and a little lost look go away, much to Scott's disappointment. "I never doubted you being serious, dumbass. I doubted your judgment and ability to make sound decisions."
Scott couldn't help laughing, and there was something incredibly hot about being able to do that so close to Stiles' face, to see the way the warm breath made Stiles' eyes flutter closed for a brief moment. He rested his forehead against Stiles'. "And you think I am capable of making them now that I still chose you?"
"You have to be tenacious, at least," Stiles told him wryly. "Persistent bastard."
"Oh, right, because you didn't have a gaggle of people dying to get to go out with you on campus," Scott said, amusement shining through his words and smile. "I think this was all a matter of time and would have happened even without a witch there to turn my body into something I was not so familiar with."
Stiles raised a brow, which felt weird, but Scott wasn't about to draw back regardless.
"What, we were fated to end up together?"
Scott hummed a little. "That's a nice thought, isn't it? But it's more just... It seems so obvious in hindsight. That you're the one who's always been there for me and who I want to spend the rest of my life with."
Stiles drew back a little - as much as he was able to - and looked at him. The expression, while probably meant to be serious, was fairly comical because he was going cross-eyed trying to see Scott's face. Scott would have laughed, but there was an uneasy twist in his stomach that made him wonder if he had again done something to make the situation much worse. Stiles put a hand on Scott's chest - the sternum, above the breasts, without even really seeming to think about it - and pushed a little to get Scott to back off a bit.
"Did I say something wrong?" Scott whispered. He wasn't going to get off of Stiles entirely, not unless Stiles pushed further, but he wasn't able to read that expression on his friend's face and that scared him.
"Do you realize what you just said?" Stiles asked after a moment. There was something almost like anger beneath his words, but Scott had a sneaking suspicion that it was hiding something else - anxiety, most likely.
"Uh." Scott blinked, puzzled. "I said what I wanted and meant to say, I think."
"That you want to spend the rest of your life with me." Stiles was still watching him intently. It was unnerving.
"Yeah." Scott corrected his posture a little bit but he wasn't going to move a lot, not so much that Stiles' hand would move away from his sternum or that they would end up breaking the stare they were holding. Scott wasn't entirely sure he understood everything being conveyed in that gaze, but he knew it was more than just important.
Stiles closed his eyes with a little sigh before he visibly steeled himself and opened his eyes to look at Scott once more. "You just proposed to me."
And, well, uh. Scott paused to think about that. It probably counted as one hell of a dysfunctional proposal, but... sure. That didn't sound too far from the truth.
"I... guess I did." Scott smiled a little. Stiles was watching him, looking a little defensive, of all things.
"Are you just having me on?" he asked, honestly catching Scott off guard. "Because I have my limits too, Scott, and that isn't someth--"
"Stiles." Scott grabbed the wrist of the hand that still kept Scott at arm's length from Stiles' face. Scott tried to convey everything he felt in his expression because his brain was refusing to work efficiently with him at the moment. "I would never joke around about something like that. Let me talk, okay?"
Stiles glared at him and rolled his eyes, but didn't say anything. Scott didn't dare move more, but he ran his thumb in soothing circles on the sensitive skin of Stiles' wrist.
"I didn't mean to propose to you," Scott said and grimaced a little sheepishly. "Because if I had actually intended to do that, I'd hopefully have been able to do it a little less dorkily and in a more romantic kind of way. But yeah, I see what you mean, and I meant what I said, and if that counts as a proposal, then I'm not withdrawing it. So. Um."
Stiles put his free hand to his forehead and closed his eyes. "You are really one of a kind, Scott."
"Of course I am," Scott said softly, "just like everyone else. But you know, I just figured out that of all the little pieces that might fit together, I can't really imagine finding anyone who would ever complement me and my personality the way you do, so that's why I want to spend the rest of my life at your side. In whatever way. As friends, yeah, and if that's all you want, I can make do with that, but I'm not saying I would want just--"
Stiles gave him a strange look and a tiny shake of his head before he leaned forward and withdrew the hand on Scott's chest. Scott met him in a lingering kiss.
"I have a bad feeling about this," Stiles said dryly when they separated. "It's going to be a disaster and blow up in our faces and leave us both with broken hearts."
Scott smiled a little and ran his fingers through Stiles' damp hair. "We've been through a lot together. And seriously don't tell me we haven't been in a relationship for years already."
"It was easier to not get involved entirely when it was possible to pretend it was friendship and nothing more," Stiles muttered. He closed his eyes and let Scott's fingers soothe his frayed nerves and bring his fast heart rate down a little. "I don't think I could take us falling apart."
The last bit sounded like something Stiles was reluctant to say and maybe hadn't quite meant to vocalize at all. Scott knew that and just brushed his nose against Stiles' cheek in an attempt at comforting him.
"If it makes any difference," he whispered, "I don't think I could either, but I can't see anything that could tear us apart like that."
Stiles opened his eyes a little, not all the way, and watched him. "I hope so."
"Look, I know worrying is par for the course for you," Scott said affectionately, "but it's not like anyone can predict the future, so the best we can do is seize the moment, right? Do what we want to do and what makes us happy and deal with the consequences later?"
"Carpe diem?" Stiles' expression became wry. "You do know that expression is always being misinterpreted as 'don't bother doing work today, you can do it tomorrow', or 'enjoy the moment while it lasts', right? Originally it meant seizing the moment in that you were supposed to prepare for the future, use the present to make sure you are ready for whatever might come."
Scott laughed a little. Trust Stiles to get all indignant about some trivia being used wrong. It was so familiar.
"Well, then, that's even more appropriate to our situation, right?" He smiled, all love and affection. "Because I don't know any way that is better for preparing for the future than making sure the two of us will be together and have each other's backs."
Stiles groaned. "My God you're such a sap, Scott."
"I know." Scott smiled sweetly. "But that's what makes me adorable and lovable."
"Among other things," Stiles agreed, and even though his tone was sarcastic, Scott knew there was more than a hint of truth there.
"All right," Scott said and pushed himself up and partly off of Stiles and the bed. "My turn to cook, right? I don't think it's really the most awesome engagement dinner you could hope for, but there you have it, I didn't really plan for this."
Stiles snorted. "I take it back. I can't possibly accept a proposal from a slob and as unorganized a person as you. Sorry, the wedding's off."
"You're one to talk about being disorganized," Scott told him and nudged him.
"Hey, I know exactly where all my stuff is." Stiles made a face at him. "Unless you go moving it about in which case I can't find anything."
"If I hadn't moved your latest project out of the way," Scott told him dryly, "neither of us could have gotten in the door soon enough."
Stiles considered that. "Well, yeah, maybe the corridor wasn't the best place to store the model."
"You think?" Scott asked him, amused. He leaned down enough to drop a quick kiss at the corner of Stiles' mouth. "Well, in any case, I'm starving and so are you, don't try to lie to me because I can tell, and you really need a shower, so go. I'll whip something up for us."
"All right, fine," Stiles said and sighed as if what Scott had suggested was a terrible chore. "Just try not to start a fire while I am in the shower."
"No promises," Scott said and smirked. He got off the bed and walked to the door. "Don't take too long."
"What, now you're resorting to extortion?" Stiles asked. He sat up and grimaced at the way his muscles must have been complaining. "This relationship would probably keep an army of psychiatrists in bread and butter for a long time if they got wind of it."
"I think the werewolf issues and 'hallucinations' would be a weird enough starting point," Scott told him and his grin bared his teeth - human teeth, because transforming just to make a point about the canine teeth would have been a waste of energy and not likely to impress Stiles.
"Oh believe me, I am the evil one for supporting you in your hallucinations and all," Stiles said. He stretched carefully, the expressions on his face making it hard for Scott not to laugh at his pain; of course, Stiles knew that perfectly well and gave him a glare.
"Yeah, yeah. Hey, here's a nicer incentive for you not to spend an hour in the shower: I'll give you a massage if you manage to drag yourself out of there in ten minutes."
Stiles raised his eyebrows suspiciously. "Wait, who are you and what did you do with Scott?"
Scott tossed him a smirk over his shoulder when he left for the kitchen. "The clock's ticking, Stiles."
Scott laughed when Stiles zoomed into the shower. They had a tradition of giving each other massages after rough days, a holdover from the old days when they were all beat after lacrosse practice (even though neither of them usually got to play). Scott didn't need such massages anymore, strictly speaking, but it wasn't all about relieving physical discomfort. The mental aspect was more important to them both, the closeness and intimacy such an act conveyed.
Scott was happy to see that despite the paradigm shift between them, things were still going to be much the same as they had always been. Now, though, they hopefully wouldn't have to dance around their feelings, feinting and parrying and dodging when they got too close.
There would certainly be trouble in the future, and there was a big question still that Scott didn't have an answer for: what about sex? But in the end, he was confident that somehow they would find answers that worked for them. That was what they did.
Scott made the best dinner he had ever managed to make that day, and he most certainly had no complaints about the lingering kisses they shared when they watched some brainless movie on TV and fell asleep in each other's arms later on, after Scott had given Stiles' sore muscles a thorough massage.
Life was good.
---
There was some sort of scuffling sound from the porch and then the doorbell rang. Scott looked up from where he had been playing with his daughter on the floor of the living room. Stiles had gotten up from the sofa where he had been lying, reading some book or other on folk medicine. The way Stiles got to his feet gracefully and quickly never ceased to amaze Scott; Stiles was human, but he was a lethally dangerous one, while still managing to be a loving and caring (and dorky as ever) person to those he trusted.
Stiles gave Scott a brief look on his way past. Scott shook his head a little. He didn't know who was at the door. It wasn't his mom or Stiles' dad, or Allison, Lydia, or any of their other frequent visitors. Someone he didn't recognize, but it didn't seem like the person was there to cause trouble. Stiles' stance became a little more wary, though, when he got to the door. It was always a good idea to be on guard when one had enemies such as the ones that Scott, Stiles and their gaggle of supernatural friends had accumulated over the years.
Scott went back to playing with the blocks and smiled at his - his and Stiles' - daughter, trying to mask his worry. She was intelligent and mature enough to be able to sense it now when something was bothering her parents, and she was now looking at Scott solemnly.
"Hey," Scott said and gave her a brilliant grin, "you need to take your pieces or else I'll build a higher tower than you have and your dolls can't even see the top of my building anymore!"
She wrinkled her nose. "Of course they would see it. They can fly!"
Scott gasped in mock-shock and kept up a light-hearted discussion with the girl, trying to distract her and still manage to listen in on what was going on nearby. He could have seen the door if he had turned a little, but now he could only watch Stiles in his peripheral vision. Scott glanced at the floor. Two, three leaps, and he would be there, to attack whatever creature might try coming in through the door.
Stiles opened the door. It wasn't obvious, but he had a hand on the heavy bat in the umbrella stand by the door. He looked a little suspicious, and then --
His mouth fell open and he stared in silence, dumbfounded, at whoever was behind the door.
"Stiles?" A male voice asked from the other side of the door, and Scott didn't need to try and guess whose it was. A myriad of emotions flashed through him at that moment.
"Daddy," Mia said and tugged on his fingers. He turned his head to look at her, the girl who was looking at him intently and obviously not fooled by his less-than-stellar attempt at keeping her occupied.
"Sorry, darling," Scott murmured with a little, distracted smile, and ran a hand through her hair. "I was just surprised someone came over today."
"'S not Aunt Allison?" Mia asked and cocked her head to the side.
"No," Scott said. "It's someone else. Let's see if Dad lets him in."
And he would have had a good reason not to, Scott thought to himself. Not with the animosity that had always been present between those two.
"Stiles," he called to Stiles who had shifted a little at the door into a position that was defensive. Not really offensive, not yet, but definitely one of hostility. Stiles glanced briefly at Scott and swore quietly.
"Come on in," Stiles told the man on the other side of the door and stepped aside to let him in, even though that was clearly distasteful to him.
The situation felt oddly surreal to Scott. He wanted to laugh at how it looked like Stiles was bristling like a dog, more so than Scott would have.
The man who had been at the door stepped in and nodded his head in a more or less polite acknowledgement to Stiles. Stiles was glaring at him openly and only barely kept himself from slamming the door closed after the man had got inside. Stiles' glare was probably a lot colder than the winter weather outside was.
Scott didn't really know what he was supposed to feel when he laid eyes on the man he hadn't seen in almost ten years.
Apparently the man didn't have anything smart to say either.
"Scott." The name sounded strange, coming from those lips. The man narrowed his eyes a little, puzzled, but then his gaze slid over to the little girl on the floor who was now cowering mostly in Scott's lap and shyly looking at the giant of a man standing in the room.
"Hello, dad," Scott said and tried to keep his voice neutral for his daughter's sake. He put an arm around the girl in his lap and ran the fingers of his other hand soothingly down her hair and back. "Mia, this is your grandfather."
"I already have a granddad," Mia said, her voice tiny and scared but loud enough to carry to Mr. McCall's ears.
"Most people have two grandmothers and grandfathers," Mr. McCall said after studying her for a moment. Scott untangled his limbs and stood up, Mia tightly held in his arms. Mr. McCall narrowed his eyes again, still a little confused and out of the loop, and that gave Scott a dark sense of satisfaction. Ha. That was what you got for not being involved for so long.
"Mia has enough of a family with us around," Stiles said, and surprisingly he managed to keep most of the acid out of his voice. Clearly it was for Mia's benefit rather than Mr. McCall's, especially given the intensity of the loathing in his gaze.
"Stiles," Scott said softly, reprovingly, and it shut Stiles up even though it was clear that he was still itching to give Mr. McCall a piece of his mind. Scott looked at his father and found that all the jumbled emotions that had first washed over him had left him and all he felt was... indifference, and a mild kind of protectiveness over his family, a "you're not welcome here" instinct to keep the tall man out of his home. "Why are you here?"
"I wanted to come see how you were doing. I heard you lived in town, so when I had work here, I decided to drop by." Mr. McCall - and Scott wasn't going to stop thinking of him as such, he was sure, this guy hadn't earned the right to be called anything more familiar than that - studied him and looked perturbed. "I was not expecting... this."
"Okay, first off," Stiles said and there was a definite snappishness to his tone that spelled trouble, "you shouldn't have shown up unannounced at all. Secondly, you haven't been in your son's life for years, so how could you expect anything and think you could be right about any assumptions you made? Thirdly --"
Mia was pressing her body tighter against Scott's chest. He kissed her forehead and called once more, far softer, "Stiles."
Stiles gave Mr. McCall one last glare, looked at Scott, and noticed his daughter and her apparent discomfort. His expression softened and he sighed.
"I'm sorry. Come on, baby," he said as he walked to Scott and held out his arms. Scott put the girl gently in his arms - strong, capable, loving arms, so different from the arms of the father Scott could remember having, even though he was certain his later negative feelings were just marring the better memories he might have had - and nodded gratefully.
Stiles held the girl tightly against his own chest, his nose buried in her blond hair, murmuring some soothing nonsense or other. The intense hate in his eyes didn't go away, though, when he glanced first at Scott's father and then Scott himself, and Scott knew there was a good amount of frustration there as well. Stiles had always been protective of Scott against his father - one reason why Mr. McCall had always found Stiles so incredibly annoying and the hate between them had taken root almost instantly - and it made him mad that he couldn't be there to stand against the jerkass who had eventually ended up abandoning Scott. Scott gave Stiles a little smile.
"Put her to bed," he said quietly. I'll be perfectly all right, was conveyed wordlessly, and Scott knew Stiles got it. He was unhappy about it, because there was nothing Stiles was as fierce about as protecting and shielding those he loved, but he would trust Scott to be able to handle it himself. (Scott knew he would get an earful later on when they were alone and the children were asleep, but for now, for Mia's sake, they had to deal with the situation this way.)
"Right. Okay, babydoll," Stiles said to the girl in his arms, "time for a bedtime story. Which one do you want to hear today?"
Mia looked up, a little cheered up, and her eyes sparkled. "The one about the werewolf and the witch!"
Stiles pretended to groan. "Again? All right, miss witch, I will bow to your will just this once. Come on, bed calls for you."
Scott and Mr. McCall watched as Stiles went to the stairs and carried the child up them, chatting to her animatedly about something or other - plants, Scott thought, of course it must have been plants, it was like Stiles had decided to make her a little botanist, but then, with his area of expertise, that was probably to be expected. It made Scott happy to see that, to know that he had a real family, one he loved from all his heart and for whom he would have done anything, anything at all.
He didn't look away until Stiles and Mia had disappeared into the upstairs hallway and then went to the bathroom where Stiles started to run a bath, still chattering on a mile a minute. He never changed. The thought almost made Scott smile, but remembering his company, he reined the expression in. No matter what blood ties there might have been, the man standing mere yards from him hadn't earned the privilege of seeing Scott's true emotions.
"Coffee?" Scott offered mildly after he knew for certain that Mia was well being cared for, and that Stiles was also unable to hear the conversation - although Scott wouldn't have minded him hearing it, it was just better if he didn't so that his body language didn't end up distressing Mia -, and walked into the kitchen. His father nodded and followed him. He sat down at the dining table and watched Scott move about the kitchen. Scott didn't need to look at him to know that his face was an expressionless mask. He was a FBI agent - that was how he always was.
"So," Mr. McCall said eventually when Scott had set the coffee to brew. Scott looked at him, purposefully masking his own irritation and any other emotion he might have been feeling. His father nodded vaguely towards the stairs. "You... are sharing a house with Stilinski."
"Yes," Scott said, and his voice was drier than he would have thought it could be. "That's pretty normal for married couples, dad."
"So you are married." Mr. McCall's expression was carefully blank, but there was disappointment so close to the surface it would have been just the same as if he had let it be reflected in his expression in addition to his tone and body language. "I see."
"Which is more troubling and disappointing to you?" Scott asked, his voice acerbic. "That it's a man, or that it's Stiles?"
Mr. McCall's expression was tense and annoyed. "Scott, you do not honestly think I oppose same-sex couples."
"Just me, then?" Scott snorted, taking out a couple of mugs from the cupboard. "Oh, no, wait, you wouldn't mind that either, right? Except if it meant no grandchildren, who you wouldn't even get to meet as much as your son because you never showed any interest before, but even that excuse doesn't hold water because there are two lovely children, your grandchildren, that we have. So it is all about Stiles."
"He has always been a troublemaker," Mr. McCall said, trying for a calm tone. "I am merely afraid of what it might do to you and your future. And especially your children's future, now that I know you have children. Scott, you are still young."
"Yeah," Scott said and gave him a level stare. "We are still young. I have a good job I really enjoy, Stiles is working on finishing his PhD, and we have two children we love, and we have the kind of life we always wanted. I don't see a problem."
Mr. McCall held up a hand in a stalling gesture. "Easy, Scott. I didn't come here to fight."
"Yeah. I suppose you wouldn't have." Scott leaned his hip against the counter because he certainly wasn't going to go and sit at the same table with his father for any longer than was absolutely necessary. "So why are you here, after all this time?"
"When there were those ritual sacrifices in Beacon Hills years ago," Mr. McCall said and looked briefly at the table and the tablecloth that had a pink stain on it from the spilled beetroot soup or whatever it was Stiles had tried feeding their son that day for lunch, "you didn't want to talk."
"Yeah. I didn't. I still don't, not really." Scott crossed his arms. "You have another reason for looking me up? This isn't Beacon Hills. You had no reason to believe I lived here."
Mr. McCall sighed. "I wanted to try to mend broken bridges. Scott, I know I did wrong by you. I would like to make up for some of those mistakes." He looked at the stained tablecloth with an almost haunted expression on his face. "Especially as it turns out you have children."
"You left our lives," Scott said after studying the man for some moments. This tall, proud, stubborn man who had always looked like his head would have to reach the clouds or mountaintops at the very least when Scott had been a kid looked strangely old now. Not really old - he was middle-aged, after all - but much older than he had in Scott's memories, and that helped to draw a line between the father he vaguely remembered from his childhood, the one who had played with him whenever he wasn't busy and traveling because of work (which was, admittedly, too rare). "You left me."
"I couldn't have stayed with you, Scott," Mr. McCall said softly. If he hadn't known better, Scott would have been inclined to believe he was almost heartbroken about it. There was a sadness there, yes, but it was remote, not as acute and piercing and paralyzing as Scott found the thought of losing either of his children to be. "Melissa and I... we had reached the conclusion to our tale."
"Yeah. And that's fine." Scott poured coffee into one of the mugs and took it to his father. He put the sugar dish down with a little too much force, spilling some on the already stained cloth. "I've been in a relationship or two that ended like that. That doesn't mean you couldn't have kept in touch with me."
"I know." Mr. McCall looked away and out of the window. The evening was darkening to night; the snow outside helped to make the landscape softer, quieter. "It's... it was complicated."
"You know what I found out when Mia and Nathan joined our lives?" Scott asked, and there was a cutting edge to his voice, cruel on purpose. He leaned a little closer to his father, hovering over the table as he was. "It makes no difference how complicated or difficult something would be, or who wanted to get in the way of me meeting my children, there's no one and nothing that could keep me from seeing them and being close to them."
Mr. McCall watched him impassively, then nodded. "Good for you, Scott."
Scott frowned a little, drawing back. He hadn't been expecting that kind of answer. "What do you mean?"
"You think I didn't care for you?" Mr. McCall asked. A bitter expression flashed across his face. "That I wanted to leave you?"
"Your career was more important than either of us," Scott said and shrugged one shoulder. "That's all that mattered."
Mr. McCall barked out a little laugh. "I wish it had been that easy. Did it ever occur to you that I might have stayed away to spare you the grief of seeing me briefly only for us to have to be separated again soon?"
Scott looked at him, level and calm. "Yeah. I did."
"And that changes nothing in your view?" his father asked. He nodded. "All right. Be ever judicious."
"Get off your high horse," Scott growled, and he knew Stiles would have already gone for the man's throat had he heard the words and the tone. "My mom would have done anything and everything to make it possible for us to meet as often as possible, even when the two of you were barely on speaking terms. You don't get to tell me you were being noble and self-sacrificing on my behalf."
"No." Mr. McCall sipped his coffee and didn't flinch even though Scott could tell he burned his tongue on it. He put the mug down and added some sugar, stirring slowly. "It was ultimately a selfish choice, I admit that."
"So now that we both know that, what's the real reason you are here?" Scott asked. He tried for a little less confrontational tone.
"I was being honest. I wanted to see how your life had turned out." He narrowed his eyes again and his eyes traveled up and down Scott's body before becoming fixed on his face. "There was always something strange about Beacon Hills. About you. About Stiles."
Scott wanted to laugh, because yes, Beacon Hills certainly was a magnet for weirdness and all sorts of trouble, and he himself had gone through his fair share of metamorphoses, but Stiles - Stiles was the most normal thing about Beacon Hills that there still was in Scott's life. Stiles was weird, and a dork, and a geek, and a pain to people he seriously did not like for one reason or another, but he was a human through and through, one with a heart of gold.
"All right." Scott rolled his eyes. "So, what do you want to know? What have your agent instincts told you about me and my family and our life?"
Mr. McCall watched him, the look lingering, disapproving. "You have taken a page out of Stilinski's book. It doesn't become you."
"I think it suits me just fine," Scott said. "And it was there long ago. You just were never around to notice it."
Mr. McCall exhaled loudly through his nose. "You two together... how long have you been together?"
"You mean how long we've dated? Been married? Lived together? Been best friends?" Scott asked. "None of your business for the first question, we got married five years ago, we lived together for three before that. We always were best friends."
"Whose children are the kids?" Mr. McCall asked. "The girl. Mia, was it? She's adopted."
Great job figuring that out, Scott thought caustically. Mia had pale blond hair and the palest gray eyes Scott remembered seeing on a human; Nathan had some Mexican ancestry somewhere in his family tree.
"They both are."
"So you didn't --" Mr. McCall's face twisted a little in a strange, distasteful expression, "give birth to them?"
Scott shouldn't have been taken aback, but he hadn't expected the issue to come up quite like that. "Excuse me?"
"Scott, don't play dumb." Mr. McCall reached into his pocket and threw down something on the table. Scott didn't need to come close to the table to see that they were photos - of him.
"What about those?" Scott asked. His heart was hammering in his chest and he felt a little short of breath. He hadn't been in the closet, so to say, even when he had first been given a female body, but he hadn't usually been accused of hiding it like this.
Mr. McCall ground his teeth together in obvious annoyance. He held up one of the photos from when Scott had been seventeen, one where he was with Allison, them both laughing at the camera with their arms thrown over the other's shoulder. The memory of that day was a pleasant one - Stiles had taken that photo, when they had been out there, roaming around in the woods further away from Beacon Hills, just the four of them - Allison, Lydia, Stiles, Scott. Lydia had been reading one of her books on the quilt they had thrown on the ground in the clearing; Scott and Allison had been goofing around, and Stiles had gone snapping photos. Scott wasn't sure how his father had ended up in the possession of that shot. It wasn't likely Scott's mom had given it to him.
Regardless, Scott just shook his head. "Yeah, so? That's me and Allison."
"The girl who used the smoke grenade to distract us," Mr. McCall said, his tone even. Scott felt a flash of pride at remembering that incident.
"Yeah, that was her."
Mr. McCall snorted. He took the other, newer photo, and held it up for Scott to see. "So is that why you didn't stay with her?"
The photo was innocuous enough. It was from one of the university get-togethers they had often gone to; Stiles was in the background, talking to someone else, Scott was in the foreground chatting with some of the other LGBT people he had befriended. He recognized the photo. It was from the university's Pride webpage.
What didn't make sense, though, was that the picture was several years old and hadn't been up on the site for many years now.
"Where did you get those?" Scott asked, raising a brow. "The first one is a personal memento and that second one's just something for the university's LGBT site."
"Facebook," Mr. McCall droned, "and Instagram. When you know how to use those..."
"Okay. That's not creepy at all." Both Scott and his father turned their heads to look towards the hall from where Stiles walked in. He had his eyes narrowed in suspicion. He gave Scott a more tender look and half a smile. "She was out like a light. I'll check on her in a couple of minutes, but I thought you might use some backup against a jerk like him."
As he said the last of the words, Stiles turned to glare at Mr. McCall once more. Stiles was scarily good at glaring. He had had some practice, over the years, at intimidating villains and jerkasses both.
---
Continue to part 13
Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11
---
"So what do you want me to do about that?" Stiles asked, his voice tense.
"Nothing," Scott said after a moment. "Just... whatever you feel like doing. Just -- don't shut me out, okay? Whatever else this means, I can take it, but losing you - that would break me."
"Do you have any idea how confusing all of this has been and how much worse you're making things?" Stiles asked. He sighed. The frown on his face looked like it wouldn't go away in a while.
"I can only guess. I'm sorry." Scott watched him and then, hesitantly, decided to ask the one question that was on his mind. It couldn't ruin things even worse than all of this already had, right? "Do you love me?"
"Of course I love you," Stiles snapped. "Otherwise I wouldn't have stuck by you ever since that first day when we got our asses kicked at the playground."
Scott had to smile a little crookedly at that. Ah, the memories. "You threw sand in that guy's eyes because he shoved me over and I got an asthma attack. What was his name? Andrew?"
"Whatever. I just remember having sand everywhere for days and mom finding it funny and dad making faces at it being everywhere."
Scott grinned. "Yeah. My mom kicked us out of the house when we were both trailing sand and dirt everywhere and then we went to play in the woods and brought in needles and leaves."
"Always a headache for our parents from the very beginning," Stiles mused, but it was obvious his heart wasn't in it, in the joking, light-hearted banter.
"Yeah. But you're deflecting," Scott said and grew serious. "You know I didn't mean whether you love me like a friend or a brother or something. I'd never doubt that. Are you in love with me?"
Stiles didn't reply for a few moments, his expression going cold and unreadable. Then he said, his voice flat, "I thought we didn't need labels."
"That isn't an answer to my question, Stiles," Scott said. He tried to make his voice as soft as possible but still make it clear that he wasn't going to back off now. He put his foot back down on the floor and sat up straighter.
"You really want to know?" Stiles asked, and there was something unsettlingly dark in his smile then. He didn't look at Scott, but it was creepy enough to see that gaze directed at the road and the cars ahead of them. Scott found himself wishing vaguely that the driver in the car in front of them wouldn't look in the rearview mirror right then or they might have nightmares for days to come.
"Of course I do," Scott said. He didn't like Stiles' expression, but he wasn't afraid of him or it.
"Okay. I was in love with you for a long time," Stiles said with half a shrug. He changed gears when they left the intersection where they had been stopped and continued speaking only after they were back up to speed. "Years. Or maybe it was a persistent crush or whatever. It took forever, but I did manage to move on because not only wouldn't you ever have seen it, I didn't want to go playing with fire and put our friendship at risk. And then you went and got your body turned into a girl's and I have no clue how much of your mind was addled because of that and why you are acting the way you are and it's messing with my head."
Scott sat there, quiet, absorbing the words. He couldn't say he was surprised. About a month ago, if he had learned all this, he probably would have been a little taken aback. He wasn't dumb, but he wasn't the most perceptive person in the world and he typically relied on Stiles to be the one to perceive whatever was going on around them.
That didn't exactly work when the one Scott needed to be perceptive about was Stiles himself, which was the entire reason why Stiles so often managed to keep things from him. Stiles was a great liar but Scott knew him too well to fall for his lies; on the other hand, he was mostly blind to the way Stiles could omit information. Scott always trusted Stiles to tell him all that was relevant (and often a lot that wasn't); having to doubt that or try to see if there was something else beneath that would have been a momentous task.
Obviously he had missed a big piece of the puzzle over the years.
Scott thought back to their interactions and the way they had always been around each other. He didn't have a frame of reference for many of the things he and Stiles did, whether they were seen as normal or not because the two of them were perpetually lumped in the uncool nerds department and ostracized by everyone anyway and their parents had stopped reacting to their weirdness before they had even turned ten. Until Allison, neither of them had had a relationship of any kind, just crushes, and Stiles' had been mostly limited to mooning over Lydia ever since he really began to notice her in class.
Scott didn't know what to think, whether there was anything weird there. He and Stiles had always spent a lot of time together, had never been shy about touching each other and sharing cramped spaces (and they had often had the bruises to show for it later when they got stuck somewhere tight and then their elbows and knees got in the way and hit the other when they were trying to disentangle from each other). Scott had never really sensed any kind of hidden desire from Stiles. He wouldn't have, before he was turned into a werewolf, because he wasn't that perceptive and human senses weren't meant for picking up such clues, and after he had been turned he had focused on Allison for the longest time.
Scott tried to think about that, puzzle out how Stiles had felt about Scott's interest in Allison. No matter how he looked at it, Scott couldn't believe the impressed and supportive way Stiles had acted had been an act. Not even Stiles was that good of a liar and his body language would have betrayed him in no time.
"Were you still in love with me when I met Allison?" he asked eventually. Stiles rolled his eyes.
"It's not like I can pinpoint any definite times, and it's less about falling out of love or stopping loving someone than it is just moving on, right? So I was a mess then but I was happy for you."
Scott nodded slowly. "And then, when you were running messages for us..."
"I love Allison too," Stiles said dryly and gave him a look that said Scott really should have known that already. "She's cool and a good friend. I still don't think it was really kosher of her to go shooting arrows in all the werewolves she came across when Gerard was manipulating her, but other than that, she's awesome, so I didn't mind running messages for you."
Scott puzzled that out for a bit. "Really? I... don't know if I could have run messages for Allison and some other guy."
"That's because it wouldn't have been your best friend and another friend being all lovey-dovey," Stiles told him. He looked faintly amused in a dark sort of way. "Jesus, Scott, just let it go. I was kidding myself about Lydia for years, but I've learned to pick my battles and I'm content just to have you as my friend."
Scott looked out the window, at the slowly darkening landscape around them. "Is that true, or is that something you're just telling yourself?"
"Sometimes telling yourself is the way to believing it," Stiles said dryly, "but it is true too. Yeah, I have a tendency to crush on the wrong people, but honestly... come on. I think I can say we're friends with Lydia now. She's still awesome and the genius I always knew she was, but in the end, even though she still doesn't care for me the way she does for Jackson and even Aiden, I think we probably work better as friends anyway. It's just how these things go."
Scott didn't miss the dark tone in Stiles' voice. He looked back at Stiles, serious and pensive.
"Do you think that's how it will be? That you'll just keep on falling for people who either don't see you for who you are or don't reciprocate the feelings?"
"Wouldn't be the first person something like that happens to," Stiles said and snorted. "Being queer used to be pretty much like that just a couple of decades ago. And whatever, I think I have a complex about being attracted to people who are way out of my league."
"I'm not out of your league," Scott said, somewhat offended on Stiles' behalf. "I never was."
Stiles turned his head to give him a flat look. "Sure. Look, Scott, whatever this whole thing is, I'm pretty sure you're straight and even if you weren't you never once considered us as anything but BFFs, so all I can believe is that your transformation screwed with your mind and that freaks the hell out of me."
"I'm the same person I've always been," Scott said and tried to give Stiles an imploring look but Stiles had gone back to watching the road and muttering curses at some jerkass in front of them who cut ahead and made Stiles hit the brakes to not end up crashing into the car. Scott waited until that distraction was gone before he continued, "You of all people should know that, Stiles."
"For the most part, yeah, you're a lot like you were," Stiles agreed easily, "but you changed a lot when you became a werewolf. Huge changes HAVE to change the person, too, and I could deal with the werewolf bit because it just made you stronger and faster and got rid of your asthma but it didn't fuck with your mind. This? This has and still does and I don't trust that you're making any judgments and decisions from an informed point of view."
And that was it, right there, wasn't it? Scott absorbed those words for a moment. When he spoke, his words were slow and deliberate.
"So... in essence... you don't trust me now?"
Stiles scoffed. "That's not what I was saying! Of course I trust you and always will."
"Yeah, I know that," Scott said and nodded, because the trust between the two of them had and always would be rock solid. He inhaled and then exhaled slowly. "I mean you don't trust me to be in my right mind."
"Exactly. Look, you never showed any interest in me before in that way," Stiles said. He was finally pulling into the parking lot of the mall. "So can you blame me for being kind of freaked out about what exactly that transformation did to you?"
Scott was silent until Stiles had parked the car. When Stiles turned off the engine, it became quiet, too quiet.
"I would never lie about anything this important, Stiles. I am being honest and speaking right from the heart."
"I don't doubt that." Stiles looked out the driver's side window and sighed, irritated, before looking back at Scott. "I believe you mean it and that you see no problem with it, but to me it's like you've been roofied, all right? You aren't in your right mind and whatever you say and do isn't really what the old you would have wanted."
"But if I want it now, and believe with all my heart that I always did even if I was too dumb to actually acknowledge it," Scott said, "then isn't that as good as it all being valid anyway?"
"Maybe it is. To you." Stiles gave him a look that was only barely short of a glare. "But I know who you were and I've known you most of our lives. Scott, you're not exactly the same you used to be only a month ago, and it's been hard enough to deal with the normal you ever since because I keep wondering whether the things you do differently are really something you would have done anyway in a way like that if you had been given reason to do so, or if it's because there's like some sort of parasite or drug in your brain interfering with your ability to think for yourself and make sound judgments."
"You... think it's like I was drugged?" Scott repeated, trying to see the situation from Stiles' perspective.
"Yeah. I do." Stiles nodded and pulled a face. "Even if I were to take you at your word and go forward with whatever change you want to put in motion, you have to understand how creepy that would be. It'd be taking advantage of someone who isn't able to make sound decisions and can't give informed consent."
Scott could see that. He didn't find it pleasing, but he could understand. He frowned still.
"I can make my own decisions. That hasn't changed."
"Obviously," Stiles said. "It's not like I'm trying to take all autonomy away from you, is it? I just don't want to get involved in something that would make me one hell of a creep and something you might come to feel differently about at some later point in time."
Scott nodded slowly. "All right. Yeah. I can see your point. I don't believe I've changed all that much, or that anyone is controlling or influencing my thoughts, but I can accept that."
Stiles relaxed a little bit. "Okay. Good. So now can we go back to pretending none of this ever happened?"
Before Stiles could reach for the door handle, Scott caught his other arm and kept him from moving away. "I don't want to leave it at this."
An annoyed expression flashed across Stiles' face. "God damn it, Scott, you're really stubborn and starting to piss me off. What is it now? Wouldn't it be better if we just forgot all about this awkwardness and just be the way we've always been?"
"Unfortunately that's not going to be possible." Scott shook his head a little. "I need to think about all of this and make sure I know what I really want, but I don't want to pretend there's nothing between us. And you can't keep pretending you aren't bothered by my new body because it's obvious you ARE."
"Wow. And I thought there was a limit to how awkward we could ever get around each other." Stiles narrowed his eyes. "Okay, fine, your new body freaks me out because I think I'm supposed to find it hot but instead it just creeps me out but I know it's YOU and I want to be around my best friend and I can't believe you've changed all that much underneath that new layer of skin and tissue but I don't understand nearly enough about this and there isn't enough material available for me to draw any real conclusions because there's no data to go on and that bothers me."
Scott just listened calmly and then nodded. "That's fine. I don't mind. We can work on all of this together, right? It doesn't have to be weird." He paused for a moment and sought Stiles' gaze to make sure he was listening and understood exactly how serious Scott was about what he said next. "So... if I still feel like maybe there could be something more between us at some point in, say, six months, we could revisit the topic?"
Stiles' eyes widened a little. He seemed to think on it for a bit, consider saying a dozen things, and then settled for a sigh. "I think you're nuts and that that's just a waste of time and energy, but fine, if it makes you happy. That'll give us time to get all the housing and studying stuff in order first at least."
Scott smiled, bright and happy and infectious. "Thank you. I'm looking forward to that."
"I'm sure," Stiles muttered with a roll of his eyes when he opened the car door and got out of the jeep.
Scott followed him close by, grinning almost ear to ear. The day had been freaky, to say the least, but they would get through this together and Scott would have time to work out all the new stuff in his head and carefully consider it. Stiles could rest a little easier without having to worry about being suddenly jumped by his best friend who might have been not entirely male anymore. Scott knew Stiles needed his space as well.
They could make this work, no matter where the future were to take them. They were best friends forever, after all.
---
"Ugh," Stiles moaned and flopped down onto the bed. He lay there on his back and let out a long groan. "I'm so done."
Scott gave him an affectionate look and walked over. He sat down on the edge of the bed and patted Stiles' knee. "What was it, Toxicology 101? 'Do not touch wolfsbane'?"
"Okay, screw you," Stiles told him and opened one eye to glare at him. "That was covered ages ago. And you know it has nothing to do with the class, you asshole."
Scott put on an innocent face. "Oh? What is it, then?"
"Making me run around the campus and then going to lacrosse practice?" Stiles said in an incredulous kind of way. "What are you trying to do, turn me into a star athlete? Sorry to break it to you, but human bodies have their limits."
"What you really need is muscle training," Scott said and nudged him in the side. "You're still scrawny."
"Yeah, well, excuse me for believing that being able to actually run away from people wanting to murder me is slightly more useful and important than making sure I have impressive pecs and abs," Stiles groused. "It's not like I could go toe to toe with a werewolf and come out on top even if I were the strongest man in the world."
"Hmm, I don't know," Scott said and grinned before pouncing. Stiles had been expecting it and as soon as Scott's weight landed on him, he used the momentum to roll them over easily so that they were both lying on the bed, Scott beneath him and Stiles with his face hovering only inches above his.
"That," Stiles told him in a voice barely above a whisper but still dramatic and dry, "does not count. You're like a cat playing with a mouse and besides, even if you'd tried, I could have maybe got the upper hand because I've been watching you all these years. So I know how you move and think and you can't really sneak up on me."
"You know," Scott said thoughtfully, and it didn't escape his notice how utterly ridiculous it was for him to be lying underneath his best friend and roommate and having such a casual conversation with him, "you should do martial arts. Black belt judokas and such are able to sense an attack even without seeing it, right?"
Stiles rolled his eyes. "Yeah, like I have the time or the discipline for that. Besides, even if those modern-day ninjas could do that, you do know it takes something like ten years at the very least to make it to the point where you are that aware of your surroundings? I think I'll just stick to running the other way as fast as I can, thanks."
Scott smiled. "All right. Just run fast enough."
"So long as you are around, I won't have a problem with that, will I?" Stiles asked rhetorically and then rolled off of Scott and lay back on his back staring at the ceiling drowsily. "You'll always give me a chance to make it to safety if you're there."
"Of course," Scott said. He turned his head and gave Stiles a dry look. "If you ever actually took the hint and DID run away instead of jumping right into the fray regardless."
"You should know better by now," Stiles said and yawned. "It's not like I have much of a self-preservation instinct or I wouldn't have stuck around so long."
"No," Scott disagreed. He rolled so that he was on his stomach, his side touching Stiles', and watched his friend raptly. "You do have a keen self-preservation instinct or you wouldn't be alive anymore."
Stiles snorted, a little smile curling up his lips. "Right. That's why I'm always jumping in the middle of a fight between creatures that could just bat me aside with a clawed hand and leave me for dead."
"You have a self-preservation instinct that lets you assess the situation and find a smart way to go about winning the fight," Scott said. "So you can keep yourself and all of us alive. You would be safer if you ran away entirely, but it's not a lack of self-preservation instinct that keeps you right by our side."
"Oh?" Stiles said. "What is it, then? Because I'd say it's pretty bad for my prospects of continued survival to stick around whenever the supernatural world makes a comeback and fur and claws start flying and teeth flashing all around me."
Scott smirked. "It might not be good for your chances of survival, but there's an important reason why you stay by us." He gave Stiles a softer look. "You're far too loyal to ever even consider just hightailing it out of a hairy situation."
"It's one of my redeeming qualities," Stiles said and shrugged as much as he could, lying down as he was. "I stick to you people like a thistle. You'll never be rid of me."
"That's good, because I don't want to be rid of you, ever." Scott laid his chin on his crossed arms and watched the weary young man lying right by his side.
Affection swelled in his chest and made him feel all warm, happy and safe. There hadn't been any kind of supernatural insanity going on for a good long time now, not since the first few weeks of college (because obviously everything had to happen right when they were already busy and stressed enough with and about everything else going on).
It had felt good to be here, to be living on campus, attending class, knowing that he was accepted the way he was even by the few new people he had befriended who knew he was physically female but male in spirit. Knowing that when he came home, Stiles would be there, cooking or reading or just making a mess strewing papers all around when he was doing some sort of random research. Or if he wasn't home, then Scott could take a deep breath and get his nerves to settle down when he was enveloped in that familiar scent. Stiles. Himself. Them together in this apartment that was theirs. The detergent they used; the shampoo Stiles favored, the one that smelled of pine trees for some reason; the dish-washing liquid and the remnants of their dinner.
It was home, safe and secure and a place for Scott to be who he was.
Scott knew all too well that despite the GLBT community's visibility and the general tolerance of most alumni and teachers, there were still more than just a handful of people out there who would have been ready to do harm to him just for not "accepting that he was a woman" or that he was actually a lesbian who couldn't admit to liking girls so he thought he was a guy. Which made next to no sense because, from what Scott had gleaned of campus rumors, people believed he and Stiles were a couple, so really he should have then thought of himself as a gay guy instead of a straight girl or something in those people's way of thinking. It made his head hurt.
Stiles had scoffed and dismissed such people as idiots. They weren't worth thinking about, he said, and for the most part, Scott agreed.
There was an interesting aspect to that, though. Stiles hadn't hesitated at any point when they had brought up the subject of accommodation at the university. It had been obvious and a matter of course to him that they would still room together, he and Scott, even after the awkwardness of the kiss Scott had planted on him apropos of nothing. Stiles also hadn't had any qualms about saying he wasn't straight, and he didn't try to insist that he and Scott weren't actually a couple, in order to get them the accommodation they wanted.
Scott had been relieved by all of it. At least until the day they found out that they had actually got a furnished family apartment - and that the furniture they were provided with included a double bed. That had been awkward for Scott, but Stiles had merely shrugged, said that they could probably look into getting separate twin beds if that was a problem, and then just seemed to put the matter out of his mind entirely.
So well, in fact, that the issue wasn't even brought up again until only a couple of days before they were to go to campus and settle down in their new home, when Scott had mentioned the situation a little hesitantly. Stiles had cocked his head and asked him what he wanted to do about it and whether it bothered him if they were to share a bed.
That had left Scott a little wrong-footed, because he hadn't been expecting that, but Stiles had taken that as another matter of course that they obviously would be sharing the bed and had mentioned off-hand something about saving space that way, too.
(Scott was still unsure where their friendship/relationship really was at or where it was going, but seeing the look on his mom's face when she saw the double bed had made him blush to his hairline. She had looked at him with a flat kind of amusement and mouthed an 'I knew it' before giving Scott a pat on the shoulder on her way past.
Whether Sheriff Stilinski had done anything of the sort with Stiles, or if he already knew about the arrangement, Scott didn't know. He hadn't been around to witness it. Whatever else had been going on, Stiles at least hadn't seemed to have been in any way concerned about any potential implications or anything.)
It had been... odd, in the beginning. Scott and Stiles had shared a bed, a much smaller one, many times when growing up, even when they had been fifteen, sixteen, seventeen - before and after the werewolf incident - and it had never been awkward. They hadn't shared a single bed since Scott got his new body, the girl body, but they had fallen asleep next to each other a couple of times when playing games or watching movies or doing whatever else they normally did. It hadn't been different than before.
It had felt odd, though, to go to sleep next to Stiles that first night in their very own apartment, hearing the clock ticking on the kitchen wall, seeing the shadows all around where Stiles had already slipped under the covers and was at least halfway to sleep (or faking it very well, although it was difficult to fool wolf hearing so Scott was inclined to believe he really was about to drop off into the land of dreams).
Scott, wearing a long T-shirt and acutely conscious of his breasts because they weren't bound - he was more than used to having them bound by day, but at night, no - had slipped under the covers a little hesitantly and feeling like a fool. He had tried to move about as quietly as possible. Stiles had barely stirred and even then all he did was mutter a drowsy good night to Scott -- and then went right back to sleep. Scott had lain awake for at least another thirty minutes after that, oddly afraid to move away from the edge of the bed and get closer to Stiles.
In the end, when he had woken up in the morning, it had been to the sight of Stiles lying about two feet away from him, lips parted and hair a complete mess, still deep in sleep. Scott had smiled to himself, feeling rejuvenated and giddy and ready to start his new life at the university and happy to have his best friend right alongside him for the journey.
After that, it hadn't been much of an issue to sleep next to each other. They still touched without much of a care during the day; at times they gravitated towards the center of the bed and wound an arm or two around each other while asleep. It felt natural and didn't make Scott feel weird.
It had never been weird to be close to Stiles.
They had met a lot of new people over the months of being at Berkeley, and Scott had seen the way Stiles' eyes lingered on people, men and women both, and he couldn't deny that it made him jealous and possessive. He hadn't caught Stiles staring at him in the same way when he had been checking out the cute and gorgeous girls. Either Stiles was hiding it well or truly didn't care whether Scott was ogling someone else, but Scott was more inclined to go with the hiding part. There had been at least a few date propositions for Stiles that he really should have taken the people up on if he had been looking for a relationship or even casual sex, but...
But he had shot down each of the people asking him out. More or less graciously, but still, without any question, he had declined the offers.
Scott hoped he didn't do it out of some misplaced sense of loyalty - and now he had more reason to hope so than ever before. He raised his head a little and looked at Stiles, lying there looking almost boneless because of exhaustion.
"Stiles."
Stiles looked at him, his expression unreadable, questioning, and if there was some sort of expectation there it was well hidden beneath the calm facade. And it had to be a facade, Scott thought wryly, because Stiles wasn't that expressionless unless he was seriously working on looking like that.
"Yeah?" Stiles said, trying and failing to sound entirely casual. Scott took that as encouragement because it gave him faith that Stiles was well aware of what day it was today.
"It's been some time," Scott said and crawled upwards on the bed, a little, to come face to face with Stiles. Stiles was watching him without blinking and it made Scott smile a little, made him want to run his fingers through his hair and down those cheekbones and that nose. He reined in the impulse to do that and continued, "So, I was wondering... would you bolt if I kissed you now?"
There was a leap in Stiles heart rate, one that was jarringly noticeable even though Scott hadn't actively tried to listen to his heartbeat. Stiles opened his mouth a little, but it took him some time to get any sound out. Probably no more than a second or two, but it felt like forever.
"I don't think so," he said eventually, his voice a croak that would have been amusing and made Scott laugh under different circumstances. Now it made Scott beam at him and he leaned in and down, his head tilted a little.
This time, even though the kiss was light and tentative, it was reciprocated. Scott made an appreciative noise in his throat when Stiles brought up a hand to rest on his neck and partly in his hair. Scott smiled into the kiss and deepened it.
It was an odd thing, he thought idly in some part of his brain that hadn't entirely shut down and seemed incapable of shutting up, that it was so slow, unhurried, still in a way that Stiles usually wasn't. And yet, it didn't feel wrong or alien or unexpected. Scott had often seen that restless energy depleted, had seen how focused Stiles could be when something caught his attention and he had reason to concentrate on it.
It also confirmed something Scott had suspected for some time: Stiles had actively been trying to camouflage whatever it was he felt for Scott, all the heartache he must have been feeling, all the conflicting emotions Scott was sure there had been. That was fairly impressive because for all that Stiles wasn't fond of showing anyone how he really felt, he didn't often even bother putting on a front when he was alone with Scott because it would have been for naught anyway.
Scott broke the kiss at leisure and was still smiling softly when he drew back a little, enough to be able to watch Stiles' face.
"So," he murmured softly, "do you think maybe I was serious six months ago?"
Stiles made a face, making the tender and a little lost look go away, much to Scott's disappointment. "I never doubted you being serious, dumbass. I doubted your judgment and ability to make sound decisions."
Scott couldn't help laughing, and there was something incredibly hot about being able to do that so close to Stiles' face, to see the way the warm breath made Stiles' eyes flutter closed for a brief moment. He rested his forehead against Stiles'. "And you think I am capable of making them now that I still chose you?"
"You have to be tenacious, at least," Stiles told him wryly. "Persistent bastard."
"Oh, right, because you didn't have a gaggle of people dying to get to go out with you on campus," Scott said, amusement shining through his words and smile. "I think this was all a matter of time and would have happened even without a witch there to turn my body into something I was not so familiar with."
Stiles raised a brow, which felt weird, but Scott wasn't about to draw back regardless.
"What, we were fated to end up together?"
Scott hummed a little. "That's a nice thought, isn't it? But it's more just... It seems so obvious in hindsight. That you're the one who's always been there for me and who I want to spend the rest of my life with."
Stiles drew back a little - as much as he was able to - and looked at him. The expression, while probably meant to be serious, was fairly comical because he was going cross-eyed trying to see Scott's face. Scott would have laughed, but there was an uneasy twist in his stomach that made him wonder if he had again done something to make the situation much worse. Stiles put a hand on Scott's chest - the sternum, above the breasts, without even really seeming to think about it - and pushed a little to get Scott to back off a bit.
"Did I say something wrong?" Scott whispered. He wasn't going to get off of Stiles entirely, not unless Stiles pushed further, but he wasn't able to read that expression on his friend's face and that scared him.
"Do you realize what you just said?" Stiles asked after a moment. There was something almost like anger beneath his words, but Scott had a sneaking suspicion that it was hiding something else - anxiety, most likely.
"Uh." Scott blinked, puzzled. "I said what I wanted and meant to say, I think."
"That you want to spend the rest of your life with me." Stiles was still watching him intently. It was unnerving.
"Yeah." Scott corrected his posture a little bit but he wasn't going to move a lot, not so much that Stiles' hand would move away from his sternum or that they would end up breaking the stare they were holding. Scott wasn't entirely sure he understood everything being conveyed in that gaze, but he knew it was more than just important.
Stiles closed his eyes with a little sigh before he visibly steeled himself and opened his eyes to look at Scott once more. "You just proposed to me."
And, well, uh. Scott paused to think about that. It probably counted as one hell of a dysfunctional proposal, but... sure. That didn't sound too far from the truth.
"I... guess I did." Scott smiled a little. Stiles was watching him, looking a little defensive, of all things.
"Are you just having me on?" he asked, honestly catching Scott off guard. "Because I have my limits too, Scott, and that isn't someth--"
"Stiles." Scott grabbed the wrist of the hand that still kept Scott at arm's length from Stiles' face. Scott tried to convey everything he felt in his expression because his brain was refusing to work efficiently with him at the moment. "I would never joke around about something like that. Let me talk, okay?"
Stiles glared at him and rolled his eyes, but didn't say anything. Scott didn't dare move more, but he ran his thumb in soothing circles on the sensitive skin of Stiles' wrist.
"I didn't mean to propose to you," Scott said and grimaced a little sheepishly. "Because if I had actually intended to do that, I'd hopefully have been able to do it a little less dorkily and in a more romantic kind of way. But yeah, I see what you mean, and I meant what I said, and if that counts as a proposal, then I'm not withdrawing it. So. Um."
Stiles put his free hand to his forehead and closed his eyes. "You are really one of a kind, Scott."
"Of course I am," Scott said softly, "just like everyone else. But you know, I just figured out that of all the little pieces that might fit together, I can't really imagine finding anyone who would ever complement me and my personality the way you do, so that's why I want to spend the rest of my life at your side. In whatever way. As friends, yeah, and if that's all you want, I can make do with that, but I'm not saying I would want just--"
Stiles gave him a strange look and a tiny shake of his head before he leaned forward and withdrew the hand on Scott's chest. Scott met him in a lingering kiss.
"I have a bad feeling about this," Stiles said dryly when they separated. "It's going to be a disaster and blow up in our faces and leave us both with broken hearts."
Scott smiled a little and ran his fingers through Stiles' damp hair. "We've been through a lot together. And seriously don't tell me we haven't been in a relationship for years already."
"It was easier to not get involved entirely when it was possible to pretend it was friendship and nothing more," Stiles muttered. He closed his eyes and let Scott's fingers soothe his frayed nerves and bring his fast heart rate down a little. "I don't think I could take us falling apart."
The last bit sounded like something Stiles was reluctant to say and maybe hadn't quite meant to vocalize at all. Scott knew that and just brushed his nose against Stiles' cheek in an attempt at comforting him.
"If it makes any difference," he whispered, "I don't think I could either, but I can't see anything that could tear us apart like that."
Stiles opened his eyes a little, not all the way, and watched him. "I hope so."
"Look, I know worrying is par for the course for you," Scott said affectionately, "but it's not like anyone can predict the future, so the best we can do is seize the moment, right? Do what we want to do and what makes us happy and deal with the consequences later?"
"Carpe diem?" Stiles' expression became wry. "You do know that expression is always being misinterpreted as 'don't bother doing work today, you can do it tomorrow', or 'enjoy the moment while it lasts', right? Originally it meant seizing the moment in that you were supposed to prepare for the future, use the present to make sure you are ready for whatever might come."
Scott laughed a little. Trust Stiles to get all indignant about some trivia being used wrong. It was so familiar.
"Well, then, that's even more appropriate to our situation, right?" He smiled, all love and affection. "Because I don't know any way that is better for preparing for the future than making sure the two of us will be together and have each other's backs."
Stiles groaned. "My God you're such a sap, Scott."
"I know." Scott smiled sweetly. "But that's what makes me adorable and lovable."
"Among other things," Stiles agreed, and even though his tone was sarcastic, Scott knew there was more than a hint of truth there.
"All right," Scott said and pushed himself up and partly off of Stiles and the bed. "My turn to cook, right? I don't think it's really the most awesome engagement dinner you could hope for, but there you have it, I didn't really plan for this."
Stiles snorted. "I take it back. I can't possibly accept a proposal from a slob and as unorganized a person as you. Sorry, the wedding's off."
"You're one to talk about being disorganized," Scott told him and nudged him.
"Hey, I know exactly where all my stuff is." Stiles made a face at him. "Unless you go moving it about in which case I can't find anything."
"If I hadn't moved your latest project out of the way," Scott told him dryly, "neither of us could have gotten in the door soon enough."
Stiles considered that. "Well, yeah, maybe the corridor wasn't the best place to store the model."
"You think?" Scott asked him, amused. He leaned down enough to drop a quick kiss at the corner of Stiles' mouth. "Well, in any case, I'm starving and so are you, don't try to lie to me because I can tell, and you really need a shower, so go. I'll whip something up for us."
"All right, fine," Stiles said and sighed as if what Scott had suggested was a terrible chore. "Just try not to start a fire while I am in the shower."
"No promises," Scott said and smirked. He got off the bed and walked to the door. "Don't take too long."
"What, now you're resorting to extortion?" Stiles asked. He sat up and grimaced at the way his muscles must have been complaining. "This relationship would probably keep an army of psychiatrists in bread and butter for a long time if they got wind of it."
"I think the werewolf issues and 'hallucinations' would be a weird enough starting point," Scott told him and his grin bared his teeth - human teeth, because transforming just to make a point about the canine teeth would have been a waste of energy and not likely to impress Stiles.
"Oh believe me, I am the evil one for supporting you in your hallucinations and all," Stiles said. He stretched carefully, the expressions on his face making it hard for Scott not to laugh at his pain; of course, Stiles knew that perfectly well and gave him a glare.
"Yeah, yeah. Hey, here's a nicer incentive for you not to spend an hour in the shower: I'll give you a massage if you manage to drag yourself out of there in ten minutes."
Stiles raised his eyebrows suspiciously. "Wait, who are you and what did you do with Scott?"
Scott tossed him a smirk over his shoulder when he left for the kitchen. "The clock's ticking, Stiles."
Scott laughed when Stiles zoomed into the shower. They had a tradition of giving each other massages after rough days, a holdover from the old days when they were all beat after lacrosse practice (even though neither of them usually got to play). Scott didn't need such massages anymore, strictly speaking, but it wasn't all about relieving physical discomfort. The mental aspect was more important to them both, the closeness and intimacy such an act conveyed.
Scott was happy to see that despite the paradigm shift between them, things were still going to be much the same as they had always been. Now, though, they hopefully wouldn't have to dance around their feelings, feinting and parrying and dodging when they got too close.
There would certainly be trouble in the future, and there was a big question still that Scott didn't have an answer for: what about sex? But in the end, he was confident that somehow they would find answers that worked for them. That was what they did.
Scott made the best dinner he had ever managed to make that day, and he most certainly had no complaints about the lingering kisses they shared when they watched some brainless movie on TV and fell asleep in each other's arms later on, after Scott had given Stiles' sore muscles a thorough massage.
Life was good.
---
There was some sort of scuffling sound from the porch and then the doorbell rang. Scott looked up from where he had been playing with his daughter on the floor of the living room. Stiles had gotten up from the sofa where he had been lying, reading some book or other on folk medicine. The way Stiles got to his feet gracefully and quickly never ceased to amaze Scott; Stiles was human, but he was a lethally dangerous one, while still managing to be a loving and caring (and dorky as ever) person to those he trusted.
Stiles gave Scott a brief look on his way past. Scott shook his head a little. He didn't know who was at the door. It wasn't his mom or Stiles' dad, or Allison, Lydia, or any of their other frequent visitors. Someone he didn't recognize, but it didn't seem like the person was there to cause trouble. Stiles' stance became a little more wary, though, when he got to the door. It was always a good idea to be on guard when one had enemies such as the ones that Scott, Stiles and their gaggle of supernatural friends had accumulated over the years.
Scott went back to playing with the blocks and smiled at his - his and Stiles' - daughter, trying to mask his worry. She was intelligent and mature enough to be able to sense it now when something was bothering her parents, and she was now looking at Scott solemnly.
"Hey," Scott said and gave her a brilliant grin, "you need to take your pieces or else I'll build a higher tower than you have and your dolls can't even see the top of my building anymore!"
She wrinkled her nose. "Of course they would see it. They can fly!"
Scott gasped in mock-shock and kept up a light-hearted discussion with the girl, trying to distract her and still manage to listen in on what was going on nearby. He could have seen the door if he had turned a little, but now he could only watch Stiles in his peripheral vision. Scott glanced at the floor. Two, three leaps, and he would be there, to attack whatever creature might try coming in through the door.
Stiles opened the door. It wasn't obvious, but he had a hand on the heavy bat in the umbrella stand by the door. He looked a little suspicious, and then --
His mouth fell open and he stared in silence, dumbfounded, at whoever was behind the door.
"Stiles?" A male voice asked from the other side of the door, and Scott didn't need to try and guess whose it was. A myriad of emotions flashed through him at that moment.
"Daddy," Mia said and tugged on his fingers. He turned his head to look at her, the girl who was looking at him intently and obviously not fooled by his less-than-stellar attempt at keeping her occupied.
"Sorry, darling," Scott murmured with a little, distracted smile, and ran a hand through her hair. "I was just surprised someone came over today."
"'S not Aunt Allison?" Mia asked and cocked her head to the side.
"No," Scott said. "It's someone else. Let's see if Dad lets him in."
And he would have had a good reason not to, Scott thought to himself. Not with the animosity that had always been present between those two.
"Stiles," he called to Stiles who had shifted a little at the door into a position that was defensive. Not really offensive, not yet, but definitely one of hostility. Stiles glanced briefly at Scott and swore quietly.
"Come on in," Stiles told the man on the other side of the door and stepped aside to let him in, even though that was clearly distasteful to him.
The situation felt oddly surreal to Scott. He wanted to laugh at how it looked like Stiles was bristling like a dog, more so than Scott would have.
The man who had been at the door stepped in and nodded his head in a more or less polite acknowledgement to Stiles. Stiles was glaring at him openly and only barely kept himself from slamming the door closed after the man had got inside. Stiles' glare was probably a lot colder than the winter weather outside was.
Scott didn't really know what he was supposed to feel when he laid eyes on the man he hadn't seen in almost ten years.
Apparently the man didn't have anything smart to say either.
"Scott." The name sounded strange, coming from those lips. The man narrowed his eyes a little, puzzled, but then his gaze slid over to the little girl on the floor who was now cowering mostly in Scott's lap and shyly looking at the giant of a man standing in the room.
"Hello, dad," Scott said and tried to keep his voice neutral for his daughter's sake. He put an arm around the girl in his lap and ran the fingers of his other hand soothingly down her hair and back. "Mia, this is your grandfather."
"I already have a granddad," Mia said, her voice tiny and scared but loud enough to carry to Mr. McCall's ears.
"Most people have two grandmothers and grandfathers," Mr. McCall said after studying her for a moment. Scott untangled his limbs and stood up, Mia tightly held in his arms. Mr. McCall narrowed his eyes again, still a little confused and out of the loop, and that gave Scott a dark sense of satisfaction. Ha. That was what you got for not being involved for so long.
"Mia has enough of a family with us around," Stiles said, and surprisingly he managed to keep most of the acid out of his voice. Clearly it was for Mia's benefit rather than Mr. McCall's, especially given the intensity of the loathing in his gaze.
"Stiles," Scott said softly, reprovingly, and it shut Stiles up even though it was clear that he was still itching to give Mr. McCall a piece of his mind. Scott looked at his father and found that all the jumbled emotions that had first washed over him had left him and all he felt was... indifference, and a mild kind of protectiveness over his family, a "you're not welcome here" instinct to keep the tall man out of his home. "Why are you here?"
"I wanted to come see how you were doing. I heard you lived in town, so when I had work here, I decided to drop by." Mr. McCall - and Scott wasn't going to stop thinking of him as such, he was sure, this guy hadn't earned the right to be called anything more familiar than that - studied him and looked perturbed. "I was not expecting... this."
"Okay, first off," Stiles said and there was a definite snappishness to his tone that spelled trouble, "you shouldn't have shown up unannounced at all. Secondly, you haven't been in your son's life for years, so how could you expect anything and think you could be right about any assumptions you made? Thirdly --"
Mia was pressing her body tighter against Scott's chest. He kissed her forehead and called once more, far softer, "Stiles."
Stiles gave Mr. McCall one last glare, looked at Scott, and noticed his daughter and her apparent discomfort. His expression softened and he sighed.
"I'm sorry. Come on, baby," he said as he walked to Scott and held out his arms. Scott put the girl gently in his arms - strong, capable, loving arms, so different from the arms of the father Scott could remember having, even though he was certain his later negative feelings were just marring the better memories he might have had - and nodded gratefully.
Stiles held the girl tightly against his own chest, his nose buried in her blond hair, murmuring some soothing nonsense or other. The intense hate in his eyes didn't go away, though, when he glanced first at Scott's father and then Scott himself, and Scott knew there was a good amount of frustration there as well. Stiles had always been protective of Scott against his father - one reason why Mr. McCall had always found Stiles so incredibly annoying and the hate between them had taken root almost instantly - and it made him mad that he couldn't be there to stand against the jerkass who had eventually ended up abandoning Scott. Scott gave Stiles a little smile.
"Put her to bed," he said quietly. I'll be perfectly all right, was conveyed wordlessly, and Scott knew Stiles got it. He was unhappy about it, because there was nothing Stiles was as fierce about as protecting and shielding those he loved, but he would trust Scott to be able to handle it himself. (Scott knew he would get an earful later on when they were alone and the children were asleep, but for now, for Mia's sake, they had to deal with the situation this way.)
"Right. Okay, babydoll," Stiles said to the girl in his arms, "time for a bedtime story. Which one do you want to hear today?"
Mia looked up, a little cheered up, and her eyes sparkled. "The one about the werewolf and the witch!"
Stiles pretended to groan. "Again? All right, miss witch, I will bow to your will just this once. Come on, bed calls for you."
Scott and Mr. McCall watched as Stiles went to the stairs and carried the child up them, chatting to her animatedly about something or other - plants, Scott thought, of course it must have been plants, it was like Stiles had decided to make her a little botanist, but then, with his area of expertise, that was probably to be expected. It made Scott happy to see that, to know that he had a real family, one he loved from all his heart and for whom he would have done anything, anything at all.
He didn't look away until Stiles and Mia had disappeared into the upstairs hallway and then went to the bathroom where Stiles started to run a bath, still chattering on a mile a minute. He never changed. The thought almost made Scott smile, but remembering his company, he reined the expression in. No matter what blood ties there might have been, the man standing mere yards from him hadn't earned the privilege of seeing Scott's true emotions.
"Coffee?" Scott offered mildly after he knew for certain that Mia was well being cared for, and that Stiles was also unable to hear the conversation - although Scott wouldn't have minded him hearing it, it was just better if he didn't so that his body language didn't end up distressing Mia -, and walked into the kitchen. His father nodded and followed him. He sat down at the dining table and watched Scott move about the kitchen. Scott didn't need to look at him to know that his face was an expressionless mask. He was a FBI agent - that was how he always was.
"So," Mr. McCall said eventually when Scott had set the coffee to brew. Scott looked at him, purposefully masking his own irritation and any other emotion he might have been feeling. His father nodded vaguely towards the stairs. "You... are sharing a house with Stilinski."
"Yes," Scott said, and his voice was drier than he would have thought it could be. "That's pretty normal for married couples, dad."
"So you are married." Mr. McCall's expression was carefully blank, but there was disappointment so close to the surface it would have been just the same as if he had let it be reflected in his expression in addition to his tone and body language. "I see."
"Which is more troubling and disappointing to you?" Scott asked, his voice acerbic. "That it's a man, or that it's Stiles?"
Mr. McCall's expression was tense and annoyed. "Scott, you do not honestly think I oppose same-sex couples."
"Just me, then?" Scott snorted, taking out a couple of mugs from the cupboard. "Oh, no, wait, you wouldn't mind that either, right? Except if it meant no grandchildren, who you wouldn't even get to meet as much as your son because you never showed any interest before, but even that excuse doesn't hold water because there are two lovely children, your grandchildren, that we have. So it is all about Stiles."
"He has always been a troublemaker," Mr. McCall said, trying for a calm tone. "I am merely afraid of what it might do to you and your future. And especially your children's future, now that I know you have children. Scott, you are still young."
"Yeah," Scott said and gave him a level stare. "We are still young. I have a good job I really enjoy, Stiles is working on finishing his PhD, and we have two children we love, and we have the kind of life we always wanted. I don't see a problem."
Mr. McCall held up a hand in a stalling gesture. "Easy, Scott. I didn't come here to fight."
"Yeah. I suppose you wouldn't have." Scott leaned his hip against the counter because he certainly wasn't going to go and sit at the same table with his father for any longer than was absolutely necessary. "So why are you here, after all this time?"
"When there were those ritual sacrifices in Beacon Hills years ago," Mr. McCall said and looked briefly at the table and the tablecloth that had a pink stain on it from the spilled beetroot soup or whatever it was Stiles had tried feeding their son that day for lunch, "you didn't want to talk."
"Yeah. I didn't. I still don't, not really." Scott crossed his arms. "You have another reason for looking me up? This isn't Beacon Hills. You had no reason to believe I lived here."
Mr. McCall sighed. "I wanted to try to mend broken bridges. Scott, I know I did wrong by you. I would like to make up for some of those mistakes." He looked at the stained tablecloth with an almost haunted expression on his face. "Especially as it turns out you have children."
"You left our lives," Scott said after studying the man for some moments. This tall, proud, stubborn man who had always looked like his head would have to reach the clouds or mountaintops at the very least when Scott had been a kid looked strangely old now. Not really old - he was middle-aged, after all - but much older than he had in Scott's memories, and that helped to draw a line between the father he vaguely remembered from his childhood, the one who had played with him whenever he wasn't busy and traveling because of work (which was, admittedly, too rare). "You left me."
"I couldn't have stayed with you, Scott," Mr. McCall said softly. If he hadn't known better, Scott would have been inclined to believe he was almost heartbroken about it. There was a sadness there, yes, but it was remote, not as acute and piercing and paralyzing as Scott found the thought of losing either of his children to be. "Melissa and I... we had reached the conclusion to our tale."
"Yeah. And that's fine." Scott poured coffee into one of the mugs and took it to his father. He put the sugar dish down with a little too much force, spilling some on the already stained cloth. "I've been in a relationship or two that ended like that. That doesn't mean you couldn't have kept in touch with me."
"I know." Mr. McCall looked away and out of the window. The evening was darkening to night; the snow outside helped to make the landscape softer, quieter. "It's... it was complicated."
"You know what I found out when Mia and Nathan joined our lives?" Scott asked, and there was a cutting edge to his voice, cruel on purpose. He leaned a little closer to his father, hovering over the table as he was. "It makes no difference how complicated or difficult something would be, or who wanted to get in the way of me meeting my children, there's no one and nothing that could keep me from seeing them and being close to them."
Mr. McCall watched him impassively, then nodded. "Good for you, Scott."
Scott frowned a little, drawing back. He hadn't been expecting that kind of answer. "What do you mean?"
"You think I didn't care for you?" Mr. McCall asked. A bitter expression flashed across his face. "That I wanted to leave you?"
"Your career was more important than either of us," Scott said and shrugged one shoulder. "That's all that mattered."
Mr. McCall barked out a little laugh. "I wish it had been that easy. Did it ever occur to you that I might have stayed away to spare you the grief of seeing me briefly only for us to have to be separated again soon?"
Scott looked at him, level and calm. "Yeah. I did."
"And that changes nothing in your view?" his father asked. He nodded. "All right. Be ever judicious."
"Get off your high horse," Scott growled, and he knew Stiles would have already gone for the man's throat had he heard the words and the tone. "My mom would have done anything and everything to make it possible for us to meet as often as possible, even when the two of you were barely on speaking terms. You don't get to tell me you were being noble and self-sacrificing on my behalf."
"No." Mr. McCall sipped his coffee and didn't flinch even though Scott could tell he burned his tongue on it. He put the mug down and added some sugar, stirring slowly. "It was ultimately a selfish choice, I admit that."
"So now that we both know that, what's the real reason you are here?" Scott asked. He tried for a little less confrontational tone.
"I was being honest. I wanted to see how your life had turned out." He narrowed his eyes again and his eyes traveled up and down Scott's body before becoming fixed on his face. "There was always something strange about Beacon Hills. About you. About Stiles."
Scott wanted to laugh, because yes, Beacon Hills certainly was a magnet for weirdness and all sorts of trouble, and he himself had gone through his fair share of metamorphoses, but Stiles - Stiles was the most normal thing about Beacon Hills that there still was in Scott's life. Stiles was weird, and a dork, and a geek, and a pain to people he seriously did not like for one reason or another, but he was a human through and through, one with a heart of gold.
"All right." Scott rolled his eyes. "So, what do you want to know? What have your agent instincts told you about me and my family and our life?"
Mr. McCall watched him, the look lingering, disapproving. "You have taken a page out of Stilinski's book. It doesn't become you."
"I think it suits me just fine," Scott said. "And it was there long ago. You just were never around to notice it."
Mr. McCall exhaled loudly through his nose. "You two together... how long have you been together?"
"You mean how long we've dated? Been married? Lived together? Been best friends?" Scott asked. "None of your business for the first question, we got married five years ago, we lived together for three before that. We always were best friends."
"Whose children are the kids?" Mr. McCall asked. "The girl. Mia, was it? She's adopted."
Great job figuring that out, Scott thought caustically. Mia had pale blond hair and the palest gray eyes Scott remembered seeing on a human; Nathan had some Mexican ancestry somewhere in his family tree.
"They both are."
"So you didn't --" Mr. McCall's face twisted a little in a strange, distasteful expression, "give birth to them?"
Scott shouldn't have been taken aback, but he hadn't expected the issue to come up quite like that. "Excuse me?"
"Scott, don't play dumb." Mr. McCall reached into his pocket and threw down something on the table. Scott didn't need to come close to the table to see that they were photos - of him.
"What about those?" Scott asked. His heart was hammering in his chest and he felt a little short of breath. He hadn't been in the closet, so to say, even when he had first been given a female body, but he hadn't usually been accused of hiding it like this.
Mr. McCall ground his teeth together in obvious annoyance. He held up one of the photos from when Scott had been seventeen, one where he was with Allison, them both laughing at the camera with their arms thrown over the other's shoulder. The memory of that day was a pleasant one - Stiles had taken that photo, when they had been out there, roaming around in the woods further away from Beacon Hills, just the four of them - Allison, Lydia, Stiles, Scott. Lydia had been reading one of her books on the quilt they had thrown on the ground in the clearing; Scott and Allison had been goofing around, and Stiles had gone snapping photos. Scott wasn't sure how his father had ended up in the possession of that shot. It wasn't likely Scott's mom had given it to him.
Regardless, Scott just shook his head. "Yeah, so? That's me and Allison."
"The girl who used the smoke grenade to distract us," Mr. McCall said, his tone even. Scott felt a flash of pride at remembering that incident.
"Yeah, that was her."
Mr. McCall snorted. He took the other, newer photo, and held it up for Scott to see. "So is that why you didn't stay with her?"
The photo was innocuous enough. It was from one of the university get-togethers they had often gone to; Stiles was in the background, talking to someone else, Scott was in the foreground chatting with some of the other LGBT people he had befriended. He recognized the photo. It was from the university's Pride webpage.
What didn't make sense, though, was that the picture was several years old and hadn't been up on the site for many years now.
"Where did you get those?" Scott asked, raising a brow. "The first one is a personal memento and that second one's just something for the university's LGBT site."
"Facebook," Mr. McCall droned, "and Instagram. When you know how to use those..."
"Okay. That's not creepy at all." Both Scott and his father turned their heads to look towards the hall from where Stiles walked in. He had his eyes narrowed in suspicion. He gave Scott a more tender look and half a smile. "She was out like a light. I'll check on her in a couple of minutes, but I thought you might use some backup against a jerk like him."
As he said the last of the words, Stiles turned to glare at Mr. McCall once more. Stiles was scarily good at glaring. He had had some practice, over the years, at intimidating villains and jerkasses both.
---
Continue to part 13