Work Text:
When Stiles’ mom got sick, Stiles was determined to learn every single thing he could about cancer. He got his dad to drive him to the library and took out every book they had, and then he spent his evenings staying up way past his bedtime, looking up even more information on the family computer. He needed to know everything, because if he knew everything then maybe he could figure out how to fix it. He could make his mom get better if he could just learn how to take care of her, how to cook her the kinds of food that would help to fight the disease, how to leave notes for his dad suggesting experimental treatments. The books and websites would twist his stomach with their relentless barrage of horror, all the case studies of people who had died, the pictures of their wasting bodies and diagrams of their mutating cells. But Stiles refused to stop looking, to stop searching, to stop hoping for the day when he’d hit upon the exact right information that would let him fix everything.
He didn’t look hard enough, though. And when his mom finally passed away, Stiles knew he only had himself to blame.
When Scott’s dad left, it took him three days to even mention it to Stiles, and he only did that because his mom made a comment about it while Stiles was over his house and Stiles scrunched up his face in worried confusion. As far as Scott was concerned, nothing had to change. He was staying with his mom in the house they’d always lived in, and he was still waking up and going to school every day. And yeah, ok, not having his dad around was different, and it kind of sucked, but why did it have to mess up everything else in his life? Scott wasn’t going to let his dad have that kind of power over him. His dad had made his choice, he’d walked away, and there was no point in moping around about it. But his mom kept asking him if he was ok, and Stiles kept trying to get him to talk about it, always shooting him these concerned little puppy eyes. Scott just ignored them and mumbled something about being late to practice, or needing to do his homework, or wanting to go get a burger at the mall food court. Scott was glad he had a friend and a mom who cared about him so much, but acknowledging it would mean there was something to acknowledge in the first place, that there was a reason for them to be concerned, a reason why he should be having some kind of breakdown. And Scott was not going to let that happen.
And now… now, Scott’s a werewolf. And anybody else would think he was an idiot for focusing on lacrosse and Allison and nothing else when his entire world is upside down and there are people trying to kill him and he needs to be chained up during the full moon and he can’t shut out even the slightest sounds or smells. But Stiles has seen this before. If somebody had asked him, before all this started, “What do you think your best friend would do if he turned into a werewolf?” this is exactly what Stiles would have described. Because Scott doesn’t so much cope as avoid. He’s not selfish, and he’s not dumb — this is just what he needs to do to keep himself together. And Stiles is ok with that. Because Stiles has his books, and Stiles has his internet, and he’s going to learn every single damn thing there is to learn about werewolves.
He may not have been able to save his mother, but he’ll be damned if he isn’t going to save his best friend.