Chapter Text
Derek and Braeden leave town about a week after Mexico. Scott helps them pack up some of Derek’s things and load them in his car. Scott desperately wants to ask him to stay, but he swallows it down. He and Derek are friends. He’s sure of that. But they’ve never really defined their relationship. He’s pretty sure if he asked, Derek would say he wasn’t in Scott’s pack. Scott would like him to be, but he’s waiting for Derek to want it too. He doesn’t feel he has the right to ask for it.
When they’ve got everything packed up, Derek turns to Scott and hands him a set of keys.
“Feel free to use the place,” he says nodding back toward his building. “I left a list on the fridge if you ever need any work done. Plumbing, electrician, things like that. They’ll know where to send the bill.”
“Are you sure about this?” Scott asks.
“We’ll be fine,” Derek says. “And so will you. You remember what I said? You’re gonna be good at this. Trust yourself. Trust your pack.”
Derek holds his phone up, “I may not always text you back, but if you need me, I’ll come. I promise.”
“I’ll miss you,” Scott says. He refuses to feel embarrassed by the tears in his eyes.
Derek just pulls him into a hug. They say their final goodbyes and Derek gets into the car. Braeden walks up to Scott. She hands him the keys to her motorcycle.
“Take care of her for me,” she says with a smile.
Scott reaches out to shake her hand. “Take care of him,” he says.
“Don’t worry. I will.”
Then she’s in the car and they’re driving off. Scott keeps waving until he can’t see them anymore.
Derek sends him a postcard. He can’t believe it at first. He thinks he must be hallucinating when the first one arrives. It’s from the Grand Canyon. There’s no return address. It just says, “Hey. From D&B” on it. Scott puts it up on the refrigerator. Stiles acts like it’s the most bizarre thing he’s ever seen. Kira thinks it’s cute.
Things are remarkably calm for the rest of junior year. The lacrosse team makes it to States, but can’t pull off a victory. As the summer passes, Derek sends more postcards from all over the country.
They mostly just say “Hey”, but occasionally there’s an actual sentence. “NEVER come here! D&B” says the one from Las Vegas. “It’s like another planet. D&B” from Badlands National Park. A week later, “SO many buffalo. D&B” from Custer, South Dakota. A week after that, he gets another one from Devil’s Tower that just has a few music notes written on it. Scott finds a website where he can plug in the notes and the computer plays it for him, but he doesn’t recognize it. He plays it for Stiles who takes one look at the picture on the card and bursts out laughing, which is how something called ‘Close Encounters’ gets added to the list of movies Stiles can mock him for never having seen.
It’s three months before the next one and Scott is actually starting to get a little worried when a postcard arrives from Vancouver. It just says, “Still alive. D&B”. A few weeks after that he gets an actual “Wish you were here” from Anchorage, Alaska.
Senior year comes before they know it. There’s supernatural weirdness, but they handle it. Mason has been pretty tenacious about getting to the bottom of what’s going on in town since he and Lydia were attacked by the berserker and eventually they can’t put him off any longer. He’s a bit freaked out at first, but gets over it quickly. He ends up being a big help, and it’s definitely a load off of Liam not to have to keep so much from his best friend.
High school graduation brings a lot of difficult decisions, where to go to college being one of the tougher ones. He applies to five different schools, and gets accepted into three. But somehow, he can’t bring himself to make a decision.
The thought of leaving Beacon Hills, even for a few months at a time keeps him up at night. Having the Sheriff and Parrish in the know has been a big help in dealing with things. He’s pretty sure they could handle anything that came up. But then he thinks about the younger members of the pack. Liam and Mason won’t graduate for another two years.
Brett is dating Mason now. Scott can tell he would like to bring Mason into his pack, but Liam and Mason are a packaged deal and Liam is Scott’s through and through. Liam and Brett tolerate each other because they both love Mason. Scott gives it a few more years before they’re actually friends. He’s talked it over with Satomi. If Brett wants to “marry in” to Scott’s pack there won’t be any hard feelings. But it’s just another layer of complication to consider when he thinks of leaving them alone. One more kid he’d be leaving behind.
“We were handling stuff just fine at their age,” Stiles says.
“Yeah, but we had Derek. We were never really on our own.”
Stiles opens his mouth to say something, but shuts it again. “Yeah, we did.” They’re both quiet for a moment. “Maybe it’s an alpha thing,” Stiles punctuates the suggestion with a snap of his fingers. “Like you don’t want to abandon your territory?”
“I hadn’t thought of it like that.”
He asks Deaton.
“It’s certainly possible,” he says. “Teenaged alphas aren’t exactly common. Most werewolves don’t become alphas until they’re well into adulthood. It’s not really an issue they have to deal with. But I think I’ll give you the same advice I’d give to any young man who’s uncertain about his future. Think about what you really want from life. What will make you happy? Think about what you really want to do, not what you think you should do.”
His mother says pretty much the same thing, “All any parent wants for their kid is for them to be happy. There’s no rule that says you have to go away to college. If staying here feels right, then you should do it.”
So Scott enrolls in Beacon County Community College. He decides to get his Vet Tech degree and Deaton agrees to hire him full-time once he gets his certification. He hates to disappoint Stiles. They’d been talking about going away to college together for years and they’d both been accepted to Berkeley. But at the end of the day going away just feels wrong, and Stiles understands.
Graduation is bittersweet. They’ve only got one last summer together before they go their separate ways. His mom takes two pictures of the five of them in their gowns after the ceremony, one with Scott and Malia giving big squinty eyed smiles so their eyes don’t flash and with Kira hiding her kitsune aura. The second with full-on lens flare and glowing fox armor. He sends the second one to Derek.
“We survived high school!”
Derek actually texts him back. “Congratulations.”
During the summer he and Stiles go on a road trip. They drive down the coast, then spend a few days at Disneyland. He wishes he could send Derek a postcard. He settles for an email. He and Stiles get their picture taken in front of a green screen and Disney magic makes it look like they’re riding a surf board with Stitch. Derek doesn’t reply, but Scott hopes it made him smile.
College starts all too soon. Stiles goes to Berkeley, Lydia to Stanford. Kira’s going to NYU and they decide the long distance thing would be unfair to both of them. It’s a weird sort of un-break up. Scott focuses on his classes and decides he’ll move on whenever it feels natural.
Malia stays in town too. She’s not really inclined to go on after high school, but Scott talks her into taking a few classes with him. She sort of stumbles into a Criminal Justice major and decides she wants to be a cop.
The postcards keep coming from all over the country, down to Puerto Rico, then Argentina “Hola! D&B” and underneath that “What’s up, bitches! Cora”. From there it’s Cape Town, then zigzagging North through the countries of Africa.
The others send him postcards too. “I refuse to be outdone in the communication department by Derek Hale,” reads the one he gets from Stiles. The ones from Lydia and Kira also mention Derek as their inspiration.
Scott lays all three of them out on the kitchen table, snaps a picture of them and sends it to Derek with a message reading “See what you started?”
He gets a few more from them every once in a while when they go somewhere particularly interesting and of course he continues to get them from Derek. Scott keeps them all, each in their own little stack, in a box under his bed.
The five of them do Spring Break in Key West. It turns out mer-folk are a thing that exists. They all agree never to speak of it again. They do get a passing jogger to take a picture commemorating their survival though. Scott has it framed and hangs it on the wall in his bedroom.
In the middle of his freshman year he gets a postcard from Paris. This one has a return address on it and is in what he assumes is Braeden’s writing. “Look who I found! (again), B&D” and underneath it, “Sorry I lost touch. This is my address. Write if you want. Love, Isaac”
He does write, of course. He fills Isaac in on everything that’s happened since he left. Tells him he’d love to see him again. Isaac ignores the invitations to return to Beacon Hills, but they start writing back and forth, keeping each other up to speed on what’s going on in each other’s lives. It’s silly, Scott thinks. There are certainly faster ways to communicate. Isaac must have an email address, but Scott never asks for it. Like the postcards, it’s nice to get something in the mail once in a while that isn’t bills or junk.
They’re all back together again that summer after their freshman year.
“I really love being on my own,” Kira says. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. I love my parents and it’s great to be home, but there’s something about having your own place. Even if it’s just a dorm.”
Stiles and Lydia nod in agreement.
“Have you thought about getting your own place, Scott?” Liam asks.
“What could I possibly afford that would be nicer than this?” Scott asks indicating his living room where they’re all gathered.
“What about Derek’s loft?” Kira says. “I mean, he basically gave it to you.”
“We know it’s a great party space,” Lydia says.
Scott takes a few days to think about it and the next weekend they’re all moving him into the loft. Derek left all the furniture so Scott really just has to bring all his clothes and a few personal effects over. He does actually buy a TV though.
They’re unpacking boxes and figuring out where to put things when Stiles gets to the box with the postcards.
“What’s all this?”
“Just postcards from everybody.”
“Wow! Derek’s really been getting around,” Mason says as he flips through a stack of cards.
“He still with Braeden?” Liam asks.
“They all still say from D&B,” Scott says with a shrug.
They all sit up late that night, going through the postcards talking about places they’ve been and places they’d like to go, and imagining what Derek and Braeden might have been getting up to in their journey around the world.
The next morning Scott is awoken by Derek’s alarm system that none of them can seem to figure out how to deactivate.
He resets the alarm just as Stiles and Malia slide the door open. Stiles is carrying some sort of giant rolled up poster and Malia is loaded down with shopping bags. The look on her face is one Scott has seen often, and probably worn himself a few times. It says ‘if I didn’t love him so much, I would probably claw his face off.’
“I figured out what to do with your postcards!” Stiles says. “Come help me get the cork board. I can’t carry it myself.”
“Stiles, what the hell? You left here at 2am. It’s only nine.” Scott is wearing just his boxers and has a sleep mask pushed up onto his forehead (those windows let in a lot of light in the morning).
“Stiles gets antsy when he hasn’t constructed a murder board in a while,” Malia says.
“Murder what?” Scott isn’t feeling entirely awake.
“No one’s been murdered!” Stiles says. “They haven’t, have they? Because that’s something we should look into while the pack is all together.”
“No. No murders lately.”
“Oh. Well, that’s good. And boring. But still good. Get dressed, Scotty. This cork board is huge.”
Scott gets dressed and follows Stiles downstairs.
“Where did you even get this stuff this early in the morning?”
“Wal-Mart’s open 24 hours a day.”
It turns out that Stiles really does get antsy when he can’t hang a bunch of pictures on the wall and connect them with strings. The rolled up poster is a map of the world and the other bags are full of different colored yarn.
“I couldn’t decide what color to use,” Stiles says.
“This one,” Scott says holding up a blue that matches the color of Derek’s wolf eyes.
It takes most of the day (mounting the cork board is more difficult than they’d thought it would be), but by evening there’s a map of the world with all of Derek’s post cards on it, a string of blue yarn tracking his journey.
“It’s missing something,” Stiles says.
Scott agrees, but he can’t put his finger on it.
“I know,” Malia says. She rummages through the bag of yarn and pulls out a ball of orange. She takes the postcard Kira sent when she arrived in New York and runs a string from Beacon Hills to New York City.
“Yes!” Scott says. He takes a gray strand and loops it around the tack securing Derek’s postcard from Paris and then down to Cannes where he secures it with a tack holding the card Isaac sent to inform him of his recent move.
“Why gray?” Stiles asks.
“Like his scarf.”
Stiles rummages through the bags of yarn until he finds an orangey-red.
“Not quite strawberry blonde, but it’ll do,” he says as he connects it to Lydia’s postcard from Stanford.
Scott uses a string of white for Stiles’ first card from Berkeley.
“Because you’re so pale,” he says with a smile. Stiles smacks him on the arm, but doesn’t make any attempts to change it.
Over the next few days Scott adds photographs to the wall on either side of the giant map. There are pictures of him and Stiles from when they were kids, their graduation picture, the Key West picture, a picture of him and Liam from this past lacrosse season after Liam took the team to victory in the state championships. There’s at least one of everyone in the pack by the time he’s done. Scott looks at the map and all the postcards and realizes with sadness that he doesn’t have a picture of Derek. The cards will have to do.
In early July there are a bunch of mysterious drownings at the local country club.
It turns out they filled the swimming pool with water from a local spring (“because that’s what rich people do when they’re bored and running out of ideas of what to spend money on,” Stiles says) and they trapped a now very angry water spirit.
Deaton finds a ritual that will bind the spirit to a small amount of the water in the pool which will allow them to put it back in the spring where it came from.
Unfortunately that means they have to fill a gallon jug with water from the pool. Which is how Stiles and Liam end up soaked to the bone and sputtering up water by the side of the pool while Scott twitches on the ground next to them thanks to an errant lightning bolt from Kira.
“I’m so sorry!” Kira says as she cradles Scott’s head in her lap.
“It’s okay,” Scott says as his body convulses. “Be fine in a minute.”
“That officially tops my previous worst time in a swimming pool story,” Stiles says before a coughing fit claims him. Malia kneels down next to him and slaps him on the back.
Mason is doing the same for Liam, “You have a swimming pool story that even remotely compares to this?” Mason asks.
“Two hours treading water with a paralyzed Derek Hale in my arms while a giant killer lizard waited to kill us.”
“I can think of worse things to do in a pool.”
They all turn to look at Mason.
“What? I’ve seen him.”
Liam starts laughing which prompts another coughing fit.
“Mind out of the gutter, kid,” Stiles says. “We were both fully dressed.”
“That’s a damn shame.”
Scott coughs out a laugh, “Come on. We’ve got to get moving. Deaton says the binding will only last til sunrise.”
“You three don’t look like you’ll be up to trekking through the woods to that spring any time soon,” Lydia says.
“How are you the only one not soaked?” Liam asks.
Lydia just smiles.
“She’s right,” Scott says. “Kira, Malia, go with Lydia and put this thing back where it belongs.”
“What about you guys?” Malia asks.
“We’ll be all right,” Stiles says patting her hand where she’s holding his shoulder. “Mason’ll get us home, right kid?”
Mason nods. “You can count on me.”
The girls join them back at the loft around sunrise after successfully returning the spirit to its home.
Mason cooks them all breakfast.
“God, I love bacon,” Malia says as they all chow down.
“This is incredible, dude,” Stiles says through a mouthful of waffles
“Mason makes the best waffles,” Liam says.
“I love you guys,” Scott says earning a chorus of ‘awws’ from the table.
The problem at the pool is the only big supernatural issue they have to deal with all summer. Scott encourages them all to hang out together as much as possible, savoring the time spent with his pack even as he knows they’ll all be heading out of town for school again soon.