The sheriff was sobbing as he made the phone call. "Scott." The word had so much pain entrapped in a single syllable. "You have to...You have to get to the school library. It's Stiles."
After dealing with Lucas and the masked men, all Scott wanted to do was shower and head to bed. He’d completely the shower part of the plan, but even before he finished he knew the sleep part wouldn’t come easy. Too much was on his mind. He needed to see Stiles and talk to him, hear what he thought about everything, from what looked to appear as the new bad guys to what had went down involving Kira. He was worried and that increased when he saw his phone. He finished changing into some clothes as he thumbed through it, frowning at the dozens of texts and missed calls from his pack. Something about a book and Dread Doctors.
He’d tried calling Lydia and so did the others, but she hadn’t picked up and no one could find her. Before he could leave to search for her, the sheriff’s face popped up on his screen and he answered the call immediately.
The werewolf froze at his name, the way it came out like a sob. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard the man sound like that. Didn’t want to think about it. Because if he sounded like that, it could only mean one thing. Stiles. Scott was already heading down the stairs when it was confirmed. “I- What happened?” There was an urgency in his voice and hope that maybe Stiles was okay. But if he was, John would’ve sent him to the hospital, right? Or at least that’s what he thought. His fears worsened when the sheriff told him to just hurry before hanging up.
The ride there was a blur, if you’d have asked Scott about it, he wouldn’t have been able to tell you much about it. It was the same route he took to school every morning, but this time was different. This time Scott could feel it in his bones, like a severed limb. He parked by Stiles’ jeep, heart in his hand as he smelled the blood. There’d been a fight, he read the air like Derek had once on the roof of the hospital. He channeled everything else out. He followed his best friend’s scent, ignoring the officers and their looks. Ignored the tightening of his gut when he started to hear the sheriff’s sobs and smell all of the blood that did belong to Stiles’.
He stopped just outside the door, steadying himself, but all the sure ground in the world couldn’t hold him up when he saw his best friend’s body.
Scott remembered everything after that very clearly. It was seared into his brain and etched into his soul. There was no hiding from what came after. It weighed on his heart, deepening the darkness surrounding it. Sometimes he wondered if Malia could see it when she looked at him with her bright blue eyes, power radiating from her like it did him now.
The alpha wondered if he could even call himself a true alpha anymore after the blood he’d spilt.
He’d taken Stiles’ body, cold, broken, and covered in blood into his arms, not letting go until the others had forced him to. Malia had been the one to point out the scent, familiar to her, but not being able to place it. Scott knew it though, having tracked it before. Josh. He remembered the boy threatening the sheriff and kept it to himself, telling the other’s to go home. It was something he had to do alone. He hadn’t even changed, his clothes already bloody before they became even bloodier. Josh had taken a part of him and he’d taken away everything in return, including a name.
It wasn’t hard to find Theo after. Scott had gone home in the between, made sure every trace of blood was gone. He didn’t want the other to know what was coming. He hadn’t been able to see it and the other didn’t deserve to either. Stiles had been right about him and he’s still not sure if that had anything to do with the way he justified his actions. He knew it caused the guilt he felt to be heavier though, pushing down on him some nights that he couldn’t breathe. He had to check his hands to make sure Stiles’ blood wasn’t on them.
It was always Stiles’, never Josh’s or Theo’s. Once he cleaned himself up and changed, he’d called Theo crying over his best friend. They’d been real tears and he had to mull over the fact if that’s what made him so convincing to meet with or if the chimera had just thought it was all going according to his plan. He wanted to believe the second, wanted to believe that the look of betrayal in Theo’s eyes when he stuck his claws so deep in his chest that he’d shredded his heart was due to the failure of the plan, not that he actually cared for Scott as a friend.
EIther way, he didn’t necessarily lose much sleep over it.
It hardened him more, each death did. They were a part of him now, much like the new pack members he’d bitten after. Like the tears he hadn’t let himself cry after that day.
Like the tears he had cried when he was alone after his best friend crawled his way out of his grave.
