Chapter Text
The air smelled different in Beacon Hills.
Cleaner. Thinner. Like time hadn’t touched it the way it had touched Scott.
He sat in the passenger seat of his mom’s car, one hand on the door handle, watching his old neighborhood pass by like a memory that didn’t belong to him anymore.
Same cracked sidewalk. Same blue mailbox on the corner. Same house with the crooked wind chimes that used to keep him up during storms.
It was all still there.
He wasn’t.
⸻
The porch light was already on when they pulled up. Melissa got out first, moving around to open his door like she used to when he was little. He didn’t stop her.
The house looked smaller.
The steps creaked in the same places. The key still stuck in the lock. And when the door opened, the scent hit him all at once — detergent, coffee, that faint smell of whatever lotion his mom used.
Home.
But Scott didn’t move at first.
He stood in the doorway, breathing it in, overwhelmed by the stillness of it all.
His mom didn’t say anything. Just let him take his time.
⸻
His room hadn’t changed.
Posters still on the wall. The lacrosse trophy still on the dresser. His old sneakers under the bed, dusty and bent. A few school books, untouched since the eighth grade, sat on the shelf — frozen mid-year like the world had paused the day he left.
And on his pillow, exactly where he’d left it, was Spike — the ragged dinosaur plush he’d hidden in his bag when he was ten but always pulled out on the worst nights.
He sat on the edge of the bed and held it.
Didn’t say a word.
Melissa stood in the doorway, tears building behind her eyes, but she didn’t step in. Didn’t rush it.
He needed this moment.
⸻
That night, after dinner, there was a knock at the door.
Three short raps.
Melissa opened it, already knowing.
Stiles.
He stood awkwardly, hands in the pockets of a hoodie three sizes too big, mouth twitching like he couldn’t figure out what expression he was supposed to wear.
“Hey, Mrs. McCall,” he said, eyes darting past her. “Um. Is he…”
She stepped aside.
Scott was standing in the hallway, quiet and still.
They stared at each other.
Stiles looked different. Taller. Leaner. His hair was longer, messier. But his eyes — wide and searching — were the same.
So were Scott’s.
And then —
Stiles ran straight into him.
He didn’t say “I missed you.”
He didn’t say “Are you okay?”
He just hugged him. Fierce and fast, like it might hold Scott together.
Scott hugged back. Harder than he meant to. Arms wrapped like a vice.
They didn’t cry. Not then. They were both too stunned. Too relieved. Too broken in the same, quiet way.
“You smell like hand sanitizer,” Stiles muttered against his shoulder.
“You smell like anxiety,” Scott shot back.
Stiles pulled away with a shaky laugh. “Good. You’re still in there.”
“Parts of me,” Scott said softly.
They sat on the couch for hours. Talking in pieces. Filling in blanks. Sometimes saying nothing at all. Just sitting near each other like they used to — video games untouched, conversation looping like it never left.
At some point, Scott leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling.
“Stiles?”
“Yeah?”
“I thought about you. A lot.”
Stiles swallowed. “I thought about you every day.”
Scott turned his head. “I didn’t forget. Not you. Not Mom. Not Beacon Hills.”
Stiles nodded. “Then we didn’t lose you.”
Scott didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
They were sitting on the same couch again.
And that?
That was the start.