Of Sound Mind
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Summary: Sequel to Linear Equations ; Scott copes with Stiles' coping.
Of Sound Mind
No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. ― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
Stiles was starting to scare Scott. Like, really scare him.
It scared him more than the thought that the sheriff actually sat down one day and wrote out a will. Actually sat down and contemplated what would happen if he ever died. Scott could see it clearly in his head: the wooden table, the papers strewn everywhere, and depending when exactly this happened, a tumbler of whiskey. He’s pretty sure about the whiskey, in fact, because he’s pretty sure this happened just after Stiles’ mom died.
But the fact that Stiles’ dad actually sat down and thought and decided and wrote down what he wanted to happen if -
It wasn’t anything supernatural, it wasn’t anything to do with werewolves. It was just people being people, which includes people being horrible and shooting their way out of a robbery. And because Stiles’ dad was the sheriff and doing his job, the people were shooting at him and -
And here they were, with Scott’s mom as Stiles’ legal guardian and his best friend sitting at the dinner table every night and sleeping in the guest room which was now his room and having breakfast with him every morning and the two of them going to school in Stiles’ Jeep.
And Stiles was scaring him.
Because at dinner or breakfast or in the Jeep, when they were alone or at school, his best friend wasn’t talking, wasn’t even fidgeting, and it was so scary to watch him be so still. It’d gotten to the point where Scott crouched by the door to the guestroom - no, Stiles’ room - and pressed his ear to the floor, werewolf senses on maximum, and listened.
And nothing. No sound, no movement, no nothing. It was as if Stiles just disappeared behind the door.
Mom caught him at it last night and made a pained sort of face, one she’d been making a lot these past few weeks, and gently pulled him up off the floor.
Sometimes Scott thought about breaking through the door. Sometimes, when Stiles made his usual - new - half-shrug and say how he didn’t care or didn’t mind or whatever, dude, Scott had to curl his hands into fists to keep from shaking this person who wasn’t Stiles anymore and get his friend back.
But it wasn’t his friend who was gone, it was his friend’s father, so Scott dug his claws into his palms and gave as much support as Stiles was willing to take.