Who: Kate, Stiles, & Nick What: Grumbling about losses Where: The little house When: A couple weeks ago Warnings: Not really Status: complete gdoc
It shouldn’t have been a surprise that the cruise was, like most everything else in Madison Valley, too good to be true. A fairly significant number of people did not make it back to town when it ended, leaving more than a few people in town heartbroken. It had been a while since Kate counted herself among them, but losing her father, Avery, and Cadence in one fell swoop was a little more than she could handle. Especially with Stiles losing Scott and Mason and his dad losing Maggie on top of it.
The dome hadn’t been this savage in a while and apparently they’d all been lulled into a false sense of security. Even going to work didn’t provide much solace because of all the memories she shared with Avery there.
When she got home, she changed into a pair of boxers and a tank top, flopping down on the sofa and simply sitting there in silence. She knew Nick and Stiles would be home soon and thought about ordering something for dinner, ultimately deciding that required far too much effort.
***
Stiles wasn’t too far behind her. He’d been at work and had been just fucking awful to any poor soul that wanted to buy a game until he’d started to wonder distantly if he was going to get fired but couldn’t bring himself to really care.
His best friend and the guy who’d been like a second dad to him were gone and his dad had made that step of opening up again only to lose his wife again and on top of it Kate lost her dad and he just wasn’t feeling it.
Which meant he opened the door, dumped his stuff on a table and ended up flipping on the couch next to Kate.
***
Of everyone around the house, Nick felt like he was one of the less hurting, which left him in the position to step up and offer the support that he could. Clay was his best friend, his family too, but they came from the same version of their world and they’d see each other again. He’d never been super close to Avery, had adored Cadene as much as anyone but Rocco was still around to play with, and Max, and whatever Ella popped out next. He wasn’t quite as devastated as, say, Kate and Stiles in particular.
He’d worked from home today, spent his time in the big house where Jeremy could call on him if he was needed, where he could just provide some support in his own way.
Sent home not long after realizing his boyfriend and girlfriend had come back, he’d clearly rather be with them and Jeremy didn’t need him hovering anymore, Nick came in and took one look at the two of them on the couch, moved to sit on the table in front of them.
“How’re you guys doing?”
***
Kate had curled up against Stiles when he flopped down next to her and they stayed that way, in silence, until Nick came in and sat in front of them, asking what had to be one of the stupidest questions anyone had ever asked in the history of ever.
“We’re fantastic, Nick,” she said, unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. “Can’t you tell?”
The fact that the two of them were sitting in silence spoke volumes. There weren’t even any markers or post-it notes lying around.
***
Wow that was almost Stiles level of snarky bitch. Not that he should probably think of himself as a bitch….
“I kind of think that probably answered for both of us. We suck and we hate the universe. Okay not we suck like we’re that bad but we feel that bad. You know what, fuck it I’m going to stop explaining because I don’t think I’m making it any less stupid.” He rubbed a hand over his face feeling like his brain was a little broken.
“I still hate the universe though.”
***
They were both so lucky that Nick loved him, or the kind of response he got would have made him decide they weren’t worth his time. At least Stiles wasn’t turning the attitude on quite as high. That earned him a few points.
“Okay I get that we’re all in a pretty bad place,” he included himself because it wasn’t easy on him either, just not as hard as it was for them and he could accept that, “but let’s remember to play nice with the guy who ditched a rousing game giving Jeremy a headache to come see you guys because he loves you.” Meaning him. Nick had done that thing. “So the universe sucks, but we’re all still here and that counts for something.”
It had to because here was all they had with each other.
***
“If you really loved us you’d have brought food,” Kate said, dialing down the snark by about fifty percent and actually managing something approximating a smile as she scooted over to one side of the sofa and reached out to take Nick’s hand so she could tug him in between her and Stiles.
She knew that losing Clay was hard for him too and she felt bad for not being as supportive as she should be.
***
Putting Nick in the middle was perfect because they both were kind of in that mood to glom onto someone and Nick needed some affection and glomming too. Plus touching people did this weird thing where it kind of helped to even the mood out and make Stiles at least less of a jack ass.
“You know we could always make people bring us food. They have jobs for that.” He managed a grin at Kate and waved his phone at her. Stiles would totally call for the food and pay, it could be the last hurrah should his work decide he wasn’t worth keeping around because he hated people.
But hey at least he hadn’t chased any of them with his teeth and claws out.
“I think Scott not being around might be kind of throwing things off in the werewolf thing too. I’m just not sure how much is my natural dark side asshole that can’t keep its mouth shut and how much might be something else. I’m figuring it out as I go.” That stupid Alpha and Beta thing. It wasn’t like you HAD to have the Alpha around but he hadn’t been without until now so it was probably just an adjustment period.
***
“We could even just yell out the door,” Nick pointed out, settling between them, glad that they at least realized that he was there trying to be supportive, trying to cheer them up even if it was just a little. He knew what they were going through, and he knew they were both too young to have to go through it.It wasn’t fair to anyone, but it was a risk of being in Madison Valley and of having a life there. That didn’t make anything any easier, but at least he could be there for them.
“We’ve pretty much got on site catering these days.” Ella was always eager to help and one word that a good meal would do so would probably be all it took. “Anyway, look. It’s fine if you guys are in bad moods, trying to figure things out. I get it. It’s hard.” Harder on Stiles, maybe; Nick hadn’t even thought about the whole not having the Alpha thing around for him. It didn’t affect Nick and Kate in the same way. “And if you don’t want to talk about anything, that’s cool. Just...I’ve got your backs, okay? Whatever you need.”
***
The fact that in losing Scott, Stiles had lost both his best friend and his Alpha hadn’t occurred to Kate either and she frowned a little when he brought it up. It was hard keeping track of all the differences between the types of werewolves they were.
Clearly they needed a chart.
“I need you,” Kate said. “Both of you.” And she knew better than to ask them to promise they wouldn’t leave. It wasn’t up to any of them and she hated that. “Maybe we can go somewhere for a few days. Just… get away from everything.”
***
“I just don’t want to take the mood out on the people who don’t deserve it. I mean I can always go pick a fight with Derek or something instead. We have that be assholes to each other and still have each other’s backs sort of relationship.” And actually maybe he’d go talk to Derek. Stiles really was feeling off and Derek did know a lot more about that kind of thing than he did.
Damn if he wasn’t working on it though.
Stiles sighed but then he chuckled for the idea of going anywhere. “Let’s not go anywhere, I’d hate for something else to happen when we came back but I’m totally up for not leaving the house for a while.”
***
“I’d also like to remind you that we just got back from somewhere before all this,” Nick pointed out, turning to press a kiss against Kate’s hair. It would have been a good idea otherwise, but the whole coming back from some time away from everything being screwed up the way it was didn’t really make it sound appealing.
“I’m personally on team don’t leave the house for a while. We can all take a couple days off, I’ll arrange for food to be delivered, Stiles can crush us both at video games and you two can bore me to death with your nerdy stuff. Sounds good to me.”
And at least if it was just the three of them they could all just be sad however they needed to be without fear of judgement.
*** Kate nodded. They both had a good point. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, since it was a terrible coping mechanism, they couldn’t run away from their problems in Madison Valley. “Yeah, okay, that sounds good,” she agreed.
“Clothing optional?”
***
He had to admit he felt a little better just thinking about hiding away for a few days with the two of them even though Stiles knew hiding wasn’t really his best talent. He might not make it on hide mode for more than a day before he got restless but he was going to give it a try.
“I like strip video games as a way to lead into clothing optional time. And to make it fair we can have low ball odds and whoever loses the matches gets to keep clothing as well as normal winner keeps their clothing. Or something like that anyway.” He leaned up to kiss the side of Nick’s head before picking up Kate’s hand to kiss her fingers since he would have to manhandle Nick to get around him to give her a proper kiss.
“I declare hiding at home officially started.”
***
“Sounds like a great way to spend a couple of days if you ask me.” Regardless of whether or not they were hiding out from the world, it sounded like a good way to spend some time together. Nick would be into that whenever. “Though I’ve got to wonder, Ms Danvers, when clothing has ever been mandatory around here? In fact I seem to remember when we moved out here in the first place we declared it a no pants zone.”
That was probably just him, and he’d probably been goofing off, but it seemed like exactly the right time for him to goof off again.
“I’m pretty sure we only wear them because our boyfriend here isn’t as down with the casual nudity as we are.”