!WARNING: this fic contains reference to suicide!

Title: be still and know that i'm sith you

Author: sablize

Character/Pairing: Scott/Stiles, with background Scott/Allison and Scott/Lydia

Summary: There is fire in his hands. There are fingers on his. They take the fire, and for some reason he lets them. Episode tag to 3x06, Motel California.

Spoilers: 3x06

Disclaimer: I don't own a thing.

Author's Notes: If I remember correctly, this is the first scene in Teen Wolf that has actually made me start sobbing like a small child. It deserved a fic, okay.

There's fire in his hands.

There is fire in his hands and a puddle of gasoline at his feet and it is power. It is a dark power that Scott has never felt before, not even when his eyes turn red, but he is drowning in it. He drowns in it and can only hope that it will soon be over.

But then Stiles is there, reaching out, speaking gently as if treading on ice. Scott can barely hear him through the fuzziness that is all around him, engulfing him, and can barely see him through the images of his mother falling to her knees that plays over and over again in the forefront of his mind.

There are fingers on his. They take the fire, and for some reason he lets them.

He blinks and he can see Stiles, now, as he starts to come back to himself. The power is out of his hands (just like it always is—he's powerless, he's hopeless, he can't save anybody—but he won't think about that right now). He's just about ready to collapse to the ground before there's a shout and suddenly he's flying, the asphalt rushing up to greet him like an old friend. The fall is like an electric shock; it shakes his bones and rattles him to the core, and suddenly the fuzziness is gone and clarity returns.

He can feel the heat of the explosion all around him, but by the time he pushes himself up on one elbow, the fire is gone. Beside him, Stiles and Lydia and Allison are on the ground, too, and struggling to stand.

And that's when the realization of what he just tried to do hits him, full strength.

There are tears in his eyes again, obscuring his vision; he can feel them as they fall warm upon his cold, gasoline-soaked face. A gasping sob wrenches itself from between his lips, and he almost feels like he's going to collapse again—the clarity only brings realization and pain where the fuzziness brought numbness and the dark, and Scott is almost desperate enough to want it again.

But within the span of a second, before Scott's thoughts can turn down even darker, more twisted paths, someone is there—there is an arm around his back, an arm around his neck and a hand in his hair guiding him to a sturdy, well-known shoulder. Scott breathes in the scent of Stiles for a second before the gasoline smell overwhelms him again, and he shudders.

"You're okay," Stiles is whispering in his ear, and hot tears drip down the side of Scott's face that he knows are not his own. "You're okay, you're okay. You're okay."

Scott is most decidedly not okay, but at least his heart is still beating and that, he thinks, is a pretty good start.

There is the crunch of footsteps on gravel as someone crawls over to them—Scott can see out of the corner of his eye that it's Allison. She wipes tears from her face before kneels and brushes a strand of damp hair from Scott's face, and with a strangled sob she falls upon him, too. And in another second there is Lydia, next to Stiles, throwing her arms around them all and letting out a shaky breath as she buries her head in the crook of Scott's shoulder.

The asphalt presses hard into their knees as they kneel there, together, surrounding Scott with all the love they can pour forth. And for Scott, there's nothing for him to do except break down on Stiles' shoulder, shaking like a leaf in their entanglement of limbs, and weather the storm.