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midlifes · 7 years ago

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He opens his blinds. The string is tough and stiff between his parched fingers, and skin tears away slightly with the pulling pressure, red marks welling up like bloody handprints. A crystalline light floods in, seeps into the details of the floor and throws open closed shadows, revealing sprinkles of dust and dries flooding shadows swamping the corners of his stagnant room. For a moment, his room is still, black stains on the covers glinting as if still fresh and clothes piled next to his mirror curled in a disturbing imitation of a body. His tomb now appears as merely a room.He lowers himself down onto the bed covers, stares hard at the sheets picturing nights spent here fingering at his bones, feeling that ache in his eye sockets that called to him something of lost sleep. It doesn’t feel good, like a relief – not anymore. It appears as wasted opportunities, frustration, a waking moment from a long dream. When he raises his hands to his face, appendages alight with the bright morning blaze and the slight smell of Derek’s shower gel gently emanating from his skin, he doesn’t count his fingers.Instead, Stiles rubs the sleep from his eyes.+++Time is available to him now in amounts he cannot fill.Everything once foggy and heavy is strangely clear, no longer can he be lost in the feel of ribs and the acrid smoke of the bonfire site to the side of his spaced out neighbourhood. He watches from fatigued eyes, sees a horrible clarity to a situation he had previously acknowledged but was content to leave. He doesn’t know where to start fixing this, feeling the fragments of his life splintered off and sunk deep in his flesh. It could be too late.Scott’s number is alike to a brick in his pocket. Its mere existence is a constant presence in his mind, fingers twitching at half composed texts floating in his mind that he will never send – “I’m sorry.” “I know it was my fault,” “I can never replace her. I want to take it all back.” (I’m better off dead, you didn’t deserve this, I need you right now, buddy)He sends nothing. By now, Scott will know about his wings. About the imperfections that haunted him from the beginning, the lies Stiles has been shielding away under layers and layers of cotton and polyester. It must seem an awful lot like betrayal. Selfishness would be to hound him further about it, to dig the sword entwined in his guts deeper still.Scott doesn’t deserve that. None of them deserve the reminder. He knows now by shadowing them as he did, trailing along like the mockery of Allison’s ghost did nothing but prolong their grief, their pain. Drag it out into an endless tedium.Without the threat of death, the steady knowledge of his decaying being, a knowledge he now recognizes as something of a past comfort, it seems he is oddly adrift, a boat without a anchor. He pulls his sheets from his bed, screws them up and fantasies of tearing them, burning them, throwing their scattered remains out to a foreign ocean; but finds that instead he lies on the stripped naked mattress and listens to the small sounds of his father below.Beneath his hands the mattress is scratchy, and this is a sensation he concentrates on as he mulls over the twisted strings of his relationship with his father - Dad - and how far away yet impossibly easier it appeared to cry in his arms, covered in disease ridden blood. There was a simpleness to dying that he missed, to knowing that it didn’t particular matter what his actions were as he was unlikely to see the consequences, or that any consequences would possibly be minor in the face of no longer being alive. Below, Stiles heard the rustle of a plastic bag. The sky outside is a peculiar gold, the aged kind staining old photos of young boys with bowlcuts on unicycles; it is the colour of sentiment, uselessness, nostalgia. Trees reach towards it, twisted arms branching as if to embrace it and falling short, mourning in fallen leaves and broken branches. It is at odd with the boyish twist of the curtains that frame this window-bound scene, a binary blue thats furiously male neutral and uncharacteristic. It isn’t the perfect moment. The discord is painfully dull.He presses his face further into the covers, closes his eyes to the mounting hindsight and dusty sheen to the air. His back prickles with a slight chill incited by the thorough spread of paste over the struggling expanse of his wings. They are limp and sodden, oozing a trickle of antiseptic into the dips of his back as it drips from the downturn of remaining fatigued feathers. He should pull them out – promote growth, clasp his hands together in mock prayer, fingernails digging harshly into his skin, and hope they grow back in boring greys.Bland. Conventional. Fading.A door slams, his father clears his throat and dust filters into his breathing air.+++++++++++++++++++It’s not a thing people talk about a lot.He’d noticed. The focus kept its glassy gaze locked down on The Event, the reason for this chain of emotions and events. All the brochures and websites and quaint little get togethers say they promote healing, moving forward, looking to the future – but the inbetween?There is a disconnect between now and the future, a bridge laden with broken boards and frayed ropes, one that stretches out over something dark and cold and steep. Stiles leans over the edge again and again, each aborted text a hand upon the bridges shaky sides, but as the chasm gapes out in front of him the gaps between each step seem wider and wider. Stiles doesn’t know what he’s supposed to be mourning, now. Things were clearer when he was younger, but there are unreadable emotions which manifest themselves in ways he must second guess, interpret as if they are not his to own. To feel. It makes his hands curl into tight fists, symbols of anger, if it were not for the nails that gorge small pools of blood into wrinkled life lines, cutting them short in mocking imitations of an action he cannot bring himself to. He fears existing. Fears going downstairs and greeting his dad, making food, eating food, sleeping, doing work, having friends and responsibilities – leaving behind questions, responsibilities, promises. Concreting where he is now, though that is all the he can think to do.So, he gets out of bed. The wardrobe is closed, still mockingly clean, and the clothes lined up inside appear alien. Bright shirts with comic book print, hoodies sporting Hoard symbols and crumpled formal wear; Stiles cannot imagine buying another comic, logging onto WoW or some other game and making up excuses of where he’s been, raiding with his guild and laughing over TeamSpeak. They wouldn’t have to know the truth. It would be easy.It all seems trivial in the face of the sheer amount of everything that has happened since he last sat down and did something he enjoyed. Something fun to pass the time. He can’t bring himself to care if his guild might have kicked him for inactivity when he’s died, murdered and almost killed himself in the time inbetween. It doesn’t matter he hasn’t caught up with any comics for months, he can’t bring himself to feel excited the book he’s been waiting on for three years has finally come back and it just fills him with an empty, grappling despair to consider going to the cinema alone to see the new Marvel movie.Stiles finds he just wants to lie down. Just for a moment - but there never seems to be one long enough.All it means it that he’s tired. All the time. Too tired to overthink wardrobe choices. He sighs to himself, and tangles his hand into the hanger of a blessedly plain t-shirt. Automatically, he pulls it on over and blindly grabs at a pair of trousers. They’re an off-grey while the polo is black, and where both were once well fitting they hang hauntingly from his body. He tries not to look in the mirror as he lifts a plaid t-shirt from over the cupboard doors top, ignores the flash of bone white arms and straining tendons as he slides his arms into the garment. It reaches mid-thigh, loose, and he wonders blithely where all of him went.When he’s coming back.His dad isn’t home, and Stiles moves slowly, joints pushing against water rather than air. His bones are condensed matter, impossible to shift and digging into his internal organs, puncturing his lungs and filling them with coppery blood as he tries to breathe, ravaging his muscles and scraping at the inside of pale epidermis. He stops at the bottom of the stairs, and he’s not out of breath but he’s horribly worn out in a way that can’t be fixed by sleep or rest. When he tries to recall the journey down the stairs, his mind comes up with nothing and he pushes away the sickening dread as he reaches for the door.Just tired. Just tired. Just tired. Just -Derek is standing at his doorstep, hand extended. The Alpha looks just as surprised to see Stiles as Stiles as to see him, despite intuition informing him that Derek should have been able to at least hear him approach. He’s dressed as usual - jeans, a shirt that doesn’t seem to quite fit right and the same leather jacket as always. If he looked closer, which he doesn’t, he would notice the wrinkles in the shirt, the tail end of the belt hanging just short of a loop and what appears to be a receipt trapped in the zipper of one of the jackets many pockets. Indicators of tiredness, disorganization.He does not look.Stiles eyes flick back up to Derek’s face, and his hand falls from the space where the door once was. Derek’s own eyes are still discretely not at Stiles’s eye level, and if Stiles weren’t so utterly disconnected from the whole situation he might have been embarrassed. Or surprised. He’s vaguely aware he should say something stupid like a joke or a one-liner to greet Derek, scold him for being a creeper or over dramatize being shocked by Derek’s appearance; but he’s still floating like he’s in his own little self contained world where everything hurts and external stimulus is nothing but a passing current.“I came to see-” Derek breaks off, pauses, “Check on you. Deaton said he hadn’t heard back…” More silence. There wasn’t a question, so there isn’t an answer. It all seems to take more effort than it should. “Stiles?” His eyes refocus on a concerned looking Derek, reading worry in slight lines and down turned lips, “Where were you going just now?” He stares back.Where was he going?“… Out.” His voice cracks over the word, accumulated dust in his throat breaking up and choking his words. He coughs once. Twice. Razor blades slide up the ridges of his throat, and tears that are not emotion prickle at his eyes. He was going out, and he can’t remember why, but he needed to leave. He pictures himself, sitting on that bed, the one he lies in so often - he’s sitting there, and he waves at a camera in the corner. Someone is laughing, laughing, it’s far away and it isn’t him. “I could - give you a lift?” The offer is unusually timid, and Derek is fidgeting with his key in one hand, but his face determinedly still face Stiles, his eyes meeting his when he raises them. It’s “I-” “Let’s go eat somewhere.” Derek interrupts him, doesn’t touch him, but the ghost of a warm hand presses against his arm. It would usually be there, urging him, but now Derek just turns around and starts towards his car. It feels like a loss, a cold current, but Stiles finds he is relieved. As if physical contact is another hurdle to be scaled. He follows, because he was going to go out, and his dad has the keys to his jeep and his bike has long since rusted into the backporch. He wasn’t going anywhere, not really, and that may have been the point.On his own, he cannot make progress. Stiles sits down on the spongy car seat, feeling the cool leather where his hand brush against it to adjust his seatbelt. He stares down at his legs, fabric falling to the sides of their outline to reveal the true proportions of his legs. It’s sickly, haunting, and his skeletal hands stretch out on and on in bumpy bones and marked skin. He pulls down the sleeves of his shirt, covers his hands, and it’s here he remembers he has done nothing to disguise his wings. They lurk behind him, unbound and weighty, pressing into the material of the car seat. He presses the hands he cannot bear to witness to his face, feels feathers shift against skin, and breathes in so deep the air scorches his lungs. There’s a shift deep in his chest; the arrangement of something vital, no unraveling, no biting realizations. There’s less room for his lungs to expand, and his mind fills with solutions, problems. He could leave the car, go inside (oh god, he forgot to lock the door) and put on his binder, then come back out. He doesn’t want to talk to Derek, explain this, and what if he follows him and catches him undressing? Sees his wings? What if he’s forgotten and Stiles leaving, turning his back to him, will remind him? And if he does put on his binder, his wings could get bad again. Black liquid could cause his clothes to stick to him. If he stays - Someone is counting down from ten softly, slowly, but firmly. This time, it doesn’t take as long to emerge from the panic attack. This time, there is no warm, heavy weight to remind him of his physicality; only the slight cold of the cars AC and the methodical count down from ten. His cheeks are flushed, and as the hammer stops knocking on his heart a creeping sense of reality drags itself up his spine in cold, laboring sweat.“Better?” Derek asks, softly. If there wasn’t a low, harsh buzz right behind his eardrums, Stiles might wonder how Derek could sound so sweet. He nods, instead, and the bees in his brain shake around a little. He takes a deep breath, fixes his eyes on the buttons on the dashboard and lazily tracks the endless text on the radio screen. 07 CHEERS DARLIN - DAMIEN RICE 07 CHEERS DARLIN - DAMIEN RICE 07 CHEERS DARLIN -Derek places his keys in the emission, Stiles clicks in his seatbelt, the music begins to play and Stiles can’t hear himself think. ++++++++++++++++On the outskirts of town, there’s a diner Stiles can’t remember the name of. It’s connected to a petrol station, and the decoration isn’t charmingly old fashioned nor does the server have an inexplicable sweet southern slang like all waitresses at petrol stations do in the movies, regardless of origin state. He’s a teenager with acne and looks unbelievably nervous to be taking their order - it’s intrusive, note worthy. If Stiles had come here any other time in his life with any other person, they’d be joking about how the menu side sign is broken and only spells ‘me’, or about the cheap art on the walls of strange, feathered homunculi.But he’s here, and it’s now.The gnarled face of one of the creatures fixes him with a long dead glare from where it hangs on the wall across from him. It’s painted in greens and blacks, is pictured curled into itself in a twisted imitation of a leap with its mutated wing-like limbs almost dripping their dark feathers down in front of unsheathed claws, copper shades suggestively reflecting off the surface. A phantom prickle skims down his covered spine, the heavy weight of a secret pressing down on his expanding ribs as he watches the caricature of himself lie still in the frame.Derek slides into the other side of the booth, cutting off the monsters glare.“Cold?” He asks, pushing the salt and pepper pots to the side of the booth. They squeak across the plastic surface, and the coffee menu propped up against them drops on its side. A smiling pack of fries grins manically at him from its fallen position, announcing a recent price reduction in a spritzy font. He tears his gaze away, looks down, and says - “No.” Stiles feels like he’s been here a hundred times before in books and films, has been sat here at this booth everyday of his life waiting for the side character, the love interest, the bestfriend to say something that will make it all better. Something people can doddle on their pencil cases and write in their blog titles, a quotable phrase that summarizes what he’s feeling and simultaneously insinuates an opportunity to move forward, to progress. But it’s not a film, as detached as he feels, and he doesn’t owe Derek an explanation for a single thing. The moment slides on, a truck parks outside and a deep voice calls something out in the kitchen. By the time their food arrives Stiles can’t clearly recall anything since they arrived. Derek has a wrinkle between his eyes but Stiles doesn’t say anything, watches the cheese cool over his curly fries and drip down onto the container. There is quietness between them as neither of them eat, food acting as barrier of causality before them. Stiles wants to go home, craves the silent non-judgement of his bed sheets.“Stiles, I… “ He’s floaty, in his placement - and is it just him, or is the cook looking at him from the kitchen? Whispering? Does he know? “… said they should be better. But, are you?”He flexes his hands and stares down at his order again.“The w- … they’re better. They don’t, uh,” pause, breathe, “They don’t fall out anymore.” He glances over to the counter. The chef is gone. His skin crawls. That’s - that’s not exactly what Derek asked. And both of them know it. Derek finally bites into his burger, and Stiles tries to focus on the sound of the lettuce crunching between his teeth, and not pay attention to how his heart is horribly weighted in every pounding beat against his chest. He fights the urge to turn around, to look again. The werewolf opposite him fixes him with dark eyes.“They miss you, you should know that.” Stiles open his mouth, and nothing comes out. Instead he blinks heavily, shivering inexplicably as a strange heat climbs and spreads across his pale forearms. He doesn’t know why he’s here, why he silently agreed to come out - not when he hasn’t in a week, not when he can barely stomach soup let alone curly fries. His wings are unbound, his vision is blurry and he hears a gasp he belatedly might be his own.wake up wake up wake UP -++++“Does this happen a lot?” Cars pass by the open carpark, segments of music drifting from their ajar windows in a strange, disjointed harmony that crashes against Stiles’s ears like the cold air on his tear stricken face. He doesn’t always cry when this happens; at least, he thinks so. “Yeah - it,” he coughs, throat blessedly wet for once but plagued by mucous, “I mean - just, uh. Yeah.” Not so much anymore. It’s not a cloying fear of death these days, it’s passed from the certainty of rotting into the ground to the paranoia of what the unknown could bring. Stepping off that crickety bridge, believing (wishing) there to be a stone one beneath you.6“We made a mistake,” Derek is leaning full bodily on the open car door on Stiles’s side, looking out at the traffic like the tragic love story he is, “Leaving you as long as we did. We knew something was up, but Scott -” he pauses, left foot swinging back and forth where it props against his right calf, “… He’ll tell you that. It’s - you smelled like, like after the fire. All that sadness and,” Stiles doesn’t know what to do with his legs as Derek suddenly shifts downwards onto the balls of his feet, resting his warm palms on the knobbly angles of the younger boys knees. “I’m sorry, Stiles. I know sorry will never make it right. I know saying it doesn’t change what happened, doesn’t change that we weren’t there. But you deserve to hear it.” He takes a deep breath, like he’d had it all rehearsed in his head, and leans his forehead against where his hands lay. In this position, his neck is unmistakably vulnerable.His hot breath fans out against his leg, distinct despite the material barrier, and Stiles watches the neon lights reflect in the dark shine of the hair below him. The moment feels charged, meaningful in ways that escape him still. “How many times did you repeat that in the mirror this morning?” Derek’s head shoots up, mildly disbelieving in yet another emotional show he never thought he was capable of, and Stiles cracks a grin he doesn’t quite mean.Not yet.++++++++++++++++++++++++++The drive back is comforting. The seat is warm beneath his thighs, the darkness outside pressed against the windows like the fur of a giant black beast, an illusion of privacy fracturing only at its furthest edges where headlights skim across slight cat eyes and over reaching trees. That harsh freshness from the roadside stays with him as he leans against the side of the car door, head resting on a crooked arm - in this snapshot, this pause, he holds himself still and drinks in his sense. Saves this memory.i must fight this sicknessfind a curei must fight this sickness +===========================For this recipe, he doesn’t need a book. Most of the ingredients are frozen - they never keep anything in the fridge anymore, John always eats out and Stiles never eats - and he makes quick work of the preparation, only making the white sauce from scratch. This isn’t therapeutic. He hasn’t got the time.His hands still ache from the cold night as he slips the deep set tray into the oven. It’s miles away, that car park. It’s miles away and it’s so fresh, so distant. A wake up call. A lullaby.Stiles goes upstairs, and he changes his shirt, the mirror covered by a bed sheet haphazardly ripped from the mattress. A black stain distorts across the material. It’s these bits of himself, the things he leaves behind, dry skin and diseased blood, salty tears and bitten nails. Shards of himself torn away, discarded, and their presence is more tolerable than a peaked reflection watching him. Someone who should be him. Someone who doesn’t always feel that way.A timer beeps downstairs, a car pulls up outside. He doesn’t pull the sheet from the mirror, stares at the black stain that seems to spread across his vision and unconsciously touches at the angle of his wings, abrupt like a broken bone. These are parts of him, also. Parts of his mother - parts that are not yet lost, and parts that can still be revived.He starts with his father.++++ They sit down at the table in Stiles’s nightmare. In his mothers space is nothing but air. Stiles splits the lasagna into six careful servings, feeling every second tic by in the blinks of his fathers eyes, visible in his periphery. He lays the slices onto chipped ceramic plates, tacky blue pattern blooming across like burst veins. Claudia would have produced an array of vegetable dishes to compliment the heavy meal. Stiles stares at the singular square on his plate. He used to do better than this. He shifts his cutlery, wincing at the sharp reverberation. Slowly, trying to keep the metal from grinding against the plate, he cuts the edge off and pulls it away. In his head, he had created the perfect meal - his mothers to the dot, a testament to something inside himself that whispered to him that he is nothing like his mother. That everything she was died with her. But, he’s here because he’s not in his head. Not anymore.“Son,” “I-”They both halt, interrupting each other. Stiles skins prickles again with warmth in the silence, he has to -“What the hell is going on, Stiles? I knew it was hard after, after -” He breathes out, “After Allison, but I thought things would get better. But nightmares? Never leaving the house? Where’s Scott, Lydia?” He runs his hand through his hair, had reaching for a bottle that isn’t there, “I have been worried sick, thinking you would sort through this on your own, but it’s like stepping on egg shells. You never talk, you’re losing weight, avoiding -”“Dad, dad!” Stiles cuts through, more force than he thought he had left in his body entering his voice, “Dad it’s okay. Please, please just. Eat. I’ll… I’ll explain.” Under the table, his thighs are shaking and he feels in his diaphragm an urge to flee, to end this situation here and watch everything waste away from the safety of his room. He grips his knife and fork tightly. Dad doesn’t eat.“The Nogitsune, uh, he- it - left something in my…” Stiles gulps, forcing himself to continue “My wings. They were rotting, and for a long time I thought it mean that, you know, it meant I was gunna die.” He stares hard at the plate, watching his dads miniature movements in front of him.“And I think that I was okay with that.” He doesn’t let the pause continue, “I thought Allison’s death was my fault. And everyone couldn’t - didn’t - I don’t know… things weren’t the same. I thought it would be better I just…” tears collected at the edges of his eyes and the tremble of his lips made its self known in his voice, straining and warping it. “Just wasn’t. It seems like an over-reaction I know but -”“Stiles,”“But - it’s okay now. I mean, it’s not okay but I talked to Deaton - he was mum’s friend, you know? - and, and he knew and gave me this medicine and they started to clean up but I still…” his voice breaks, cracking in his dry throat and withering away. John comes run round the side of the table in an instant, grasping Stiles’ shoulder tightly, “Son,” Stiles tears up further at the word, can’t quite see through the watery blur but too unsure if he has permission to touch back to act. Social nuances seem so utterly overwhelming to read, he doesn’t know what this means, what is trying to be said. It is quickly cleared for him as is he pulled up into an embrace, comforting and desperate all at once, the sheriff murmuring into his shoulder small comforts, how if he had known he would have helped, how it wasn’t his fault, there’s nothing wrong with him; things he hadn’t heard from another for months and months.Hours later, or maybe minutes, when they sit down to eat dinner, the cold lasagna doesn’t turn to a sandy ash in his mouth. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++None of this is a world-changing shift.The next morning, John is at work and Stiles can’t get out of bed. His gaze bores into the ceiling, and he is so very tired of watching it. Waiting. His eyes feel as if they are about to disconnect from his skull to escape the tiredness, to leave behind the bloody imprints of his vision. He knows he has to get up, clean his wings and change his bed and - and nothing else. But he has to clean his wings, or they won’t get better.So what?Stiles rubs at his forehead with the side of his hand, the skin rough and dry against his face. A hopeless breed of frustration is rooted deeply at the back of his mind, sinking his skull deeper into his pillow; this moment felt alike to an eternity compared to yesterday. The phoenixes, the blooming stems rising from his half-existence had faltered, shriveled back from whence they had come, sheltered beneath inactivity and a deep lethargy. Safe. Whatever energy had filled him, cleared the fuzziness from his head was now nothing more than a daydream. He couldn’t comprehend hosting such wakefulness, motivation when he was once again weighed down to his bed, ready to fade out into yet another day underlined by the dazing buzz of nothing. At his bed side, his phone beeps. It was supposed to run out of charge days ago.He doesn’t reach for it. +++++++++++++++“Hey son,” John sits at the edge of his bed. He has takeaway - a milkshake and curly fries - as an extension of goodwill. Or as a hopeful attempt at lifting Stiles’ mood. He talks normally, going over his day while taking off his boots, and Stiles hates himself for unable to smile back, engage. He glassily takes in the small details, the irrelevant details - coffee stains on a t-shirt, mud on boots and the receipt sticking from his shirt pocket that tells Stiles of a burger downstairs (he wants to joke with his dad, wants to tell him off for eating red meat when he knows it’s not good for him; but it’s been so long. Too long. Stiles has lost his right to comment on that the moment he disconnected from reality. The moment he endangered everyone. It’s not his line to say. He’s been off script for a while now. ). “…that it could help, kid. Only if you want to. It would help me sleep a lot easier, but I don’t think that’s the problem, hmm?” He phases back in, sensitive to the question hanging in the air. Once again, he finds his eyes have come to rest gazing at his hands.He can’t stop checking.“Sorry? I…uh.” John’s face breaks out into a gentle smile, wrinkles slotting into place around his features. He drops his shoes to the bedroom floor, the fall soft on the carpet, and lays a warm hand onto the stark cold of Stiles’ arm. “A therapist, councilor - anyone for you to talk to. Hell, may even be some supernatural ones around. We’ll find them if we need them. I just want - need - you to be okay,” The grip on his arm doesn’t change at all, neutral, careful, measured. Stepping on eggs. Stiles wonders what it looks like to other people. What he looks like to other people. Sad? Sick? Attention seeking? His chest tinges a little at the thought, something small and bitter curling up close to his arteries. He was always desperate for attention, as a kid; that Stilinksi who broke the crayons, threw a fit in class, kept pinning his pictures up on the teachers board and the kid who shouted ‘look at me, look at me!’ in the playground. Look at me has to be a little more subtle, when you get older, look at me has to be loud jokes and getting into trouble. Sneaking out and laughing hard, desperately clinging onto the people around you in the most non-invasive way possible. If you’re fun to be around, people won’t leave, right?Until you murder someone close to them.His phones burns with significance at his bed side table, and a deep hollowness echoes at the hole in his chest with the mere thought of picking it up.“Yeah, yeah… sure.” He’s so tired.+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Orbs clump together on the window pane, transparent and horribly miserably, devoid of any colour but a deafening storm grey framing them from the sky above. Droplets tap heavily and persistently against the roof and window sill, only hitting the window when gushes of cold wind direct them so. From his computer desk, Stiles watches the scene blankly as his hands hovers over his charging phone, USB wire trailing perilously close to his feet.He’s seen this moment too. In movies. Along his bare back his wings lie, heavy with water and slimy along his the receding ridges of his spine. Sticky and suffocating, the remains of his infected being leak from the follicles of his feathers, seeping plasma and red red red as tiny, healthy pieces of him are torn away with it to run down around his toes in the shower. Infected and bedraggled feathers malt and clog the drain each time, and he gets to his reddened knees, water running cold, and scoops up these precious corpses to saviour away. Bleed out the infection. Bleed out what’s left.Stiles can look at himself in the mirror, and count to three, and smile. He can murmur jokes to himself as he strips his bed clean, he can imagine responses to conversations he cannot fathom even beginning. But there’s suddenly nothing left - he doesn’t know what filled this space before the Nogitsune ripped it into existence, but it’s long gone and it’s remaining traces, if any, are far too subtle to pick up on. Who is he without this? Pale fingers clench down on his phone, and he drags his gaze from the spiralling train of thought in his head to the glowing lock screen of his phone. 1:23pm. 1 missed call(s). SCOTT: Text message. DEREK: Text Message (2). Derek’s texts date from a few days ago, and Stiles cautiously swipes over them and types in his passcode. The messenger interface instantly springs up, a few lines of grey popping up on the right hand side.YOU NEED TO GET OUT MORESCOTT WANTS TO TALK WITH YOUStiles’ brow scrunches up at the text, something deep settling down on his diaphragm. He tries not to consider the words too deeply and brings up Scott’s chat, pushing back the mounting emotional response to get away from the little lit up screen and cling to his bed sheets.CAN I COME OVER?He looks up at his computer display, eyes tracing over the words of an article on anti-wing campaigns rising in the west of the state. Business’s owned by wing folk being boycotted by locals, protests outside places of law and the growing pressure on officials to acknowledge “those abominations” as sub-human beings; genetically differential enough for human law and morality to exempt them.Him.SURE+++++++++++++++++++++++++++Siting here now, Stiles realises that in little bits and pieces he had been forgetting Scott. Foremost, he cannot recall what that crooked smile felt like when directed at him, how that warm laugh felt directed at you and only you, how comforting each small, frequent touch was in conversation, in passing, even in absence. He had been letting these details go, freeing them, making it hurt less to consider the perceived betrayal. And it aches all over again, now.Because Scott looks well. He doesn’t look like a Scott that has been fretting over anything, he doesn’t look overly tired or ill he even worn down. He looks healthy, happy - regretful, but determined. Stiles curls around that little rotting core of his, shelters the jealousy, the bitterness so close it couldn’t possibly escape. People can move on, recover, accept. Except him.“I’m glad you let me come, “I didn’t deserve to have this chance and I know - well, I think, it might have been hard for you to see me. And that’s understandable, it’s fine, I would get that.” Scott isn’t looking at him anymore, “A lot happened that we should have talked about, and at the time I wasn’t in a place where I felt I could do that. I was angry, I lost Allison… I blamed you - but I shouldn’t have, because you didn’t do it. But I did blame you then. I don’t anymore and I should have been able to see it back then that you weren’t in control, and how I felt is no excuse to how I acted. I know one apology can’t make that up to you – but I have never regretted anything more than I,” he rubs at his eyes, tears reflecting the warm orange of a nearby light. “Than I regret leaving you like that. I regret every single second I treated you as anything less than my bestfriend. You were never the nogistune. You were always Stiles and that never changed. I should have been there with you, I should have been able to support you. We could have supported each other. I still see you as my bestfriend, and I know that you might see me the same and I can understand that because in your position - after what I did, what I was still doing till now - I wouldn’t have even wanted to see me. And - And you’ve always meant to so much to me. I just need you to know that I was wrong to think what I thought, and that you owe me nothing and can kick me out of this house right now if you need to,” He smiles shakily, falteringly, and looks up to meet Stiles’s eyes. “But I want to make things right. If you’ll let me.” There’s an immediate mixing of emotions in the silence that pass that is difficult for Stiles to compact solely into one expression. Scott is wrong - Scott is wrong because it was Stiles’s fault, he did kill Allison and it’s not right that he apologizes for thinking that because Stiles needs to be held accountable. And - and it’s not right. None of it is. But a small portion of his mind is wonderfully satisfied that Scott acknowledged what he did, wants to kick Scott, never forgive him - when there is nothing to forgive. Not really.“If you need to think I can go -” “No,” his voice sounds dry even to him. “No, stay - I,” he shakes his head, grips his hair with his hands. Everything had made perfect sense until now. “You don’t…you don’t think it’s my fault that Allison…” he can’t finish the sentence, can’t work his tongue over that heavy word. Allison died. Allison was murdered.Scott looks mildly horrified “God, no. Of course not - you weren’t even in the same body as it, and even when you were that wasn’t you doing any of that. I - if anyone said otherwise it’s not true. I was an idiot. We were all idiots for the way we treated you. Allison was your friend too, we should have…” he lapses back into silence, eyes roaming far away. There was so much they should have done, Stiles thinks bitterly. The thought is strangely distant from his own beliefs. “You deserved better,” Stiles almost laughs.“I really, really don’t. I got exactly what I deserved. Well - not exactly,” He smiles grimly. He doesn’t try to wonder after where that thought had come from. What drove him to say it. “You don’t mean that. God - Derek was right,” he puts his hand to the back of his neck, a familiar gesture of self comfort. Scott sighs deeply. “We made a mistake, leaving you alone as long as we did.” Stiles twitched at the repetition.“But I want to fix that. What do you - I mean, you haven’t said much. Is this okay, Stiles?” “I don’t know, Scott,” The name feels out of place on his tongue, “I think it’s my fault. I don’t want… I don’t know, fuck.” The cloudiness is painful, he realises, it is this way because he can’t put things together. Make a clear picture. “I’ll leave, if you want. I don’t want to… I don’t want to hurt you anymore, Stiles.” He hides his face in his hands, smells copper under his nails and listens to the front door close softly.++++++++++++++++++++++++++++He thinks, the next few days, he thinks and he stares.Sometimes he has the energy to get up, and sometimes he doesn’t, and in between those two states he drifts into a strange lack of consciousness. Here he plays out the neat little apology Scott has delivered to him - You were never the nogitsuneWe could have supported each otherWe made a mistake, leaving you alone as long as we didSpoken mechanically, an apology rehearsed again and again, checked over and replaced and rewritten. It tastes too plastic, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing. He cared enough to script it, to lick at his teeth and squint at his word choice, to go over continuously an apology that could have well been an attempt at alleviating a guilty conscience. Something insincere. Something to excuse, not regret.It’s confusing how he feels, it’s -A lot of nothing. Sentiments borrowed from others. His father is happy Scott apologized, angry it took that long, resistant to the idea of Stiles forgiving him. Friends don’t do that. Stiles thinks that he should feel relief that Scott has forgiven him, that he should grasp this apology and leech his friends kindness til he’s finally full again. Saturated. Real.He thinks, too, that he is allowed to be bitter. That it isn’t selfishness that makes his throat go dry and eyes crinkle when he has to cradle in his hands the fact that all this time, all this time he spent curled up in bed, crying and starving and numb, feeling intensely and shortly at times inconvenient to him, Scott was holding out on him. Stringing his pain along, drawing it out like he believed Stiles really did deserve it under all those pretty, perfect words. At the moments when he is out of bed, on the back porch or standing in the kitchen, avoiding and the fridge and the table and the dishes, he can connect the dots between these. He can feel mixed, there is no right answer, no wrong response, and he’s allowed both. All. He can be bitter, he can be guilty, he can feel worthless and undeserving and angry and betrayed. The existence of one does not cancel out the other, and he hates that it can be so obvious in one second, cloudy and comprehensible in the next.Scott said, “You deserved better.” and looking out at the sky, he can believe that. He can also believe that holding himself to any value makes him a bad person, makes him greedy, arrogant. That, after all that has happened and all he has done, there is very little that could be better. He deserved worse. But he knows, somewhere very deep and shadowed, that if Scott truly believed it wasn’t his fault, then, in his eyes, he has done Stiles wrong.It’s a compromise. It would be easier, if he could die. He texts Scott, asks him;> DID YOU MEAN IT?YOU’VE ALWAYS BEEN IMPORTANT TO MEI’M SORRY I EVER MADE YOU DOUBT THAT+++++++++++++++Fluoxetine, 20mg. Prescribed before therapy was even suggested. The next time he unwraps himself from his covers to the soft voice of his dad, on the right side of noon and time enough for a separate breakfast and lunch, even, he types it in on google. Buries himself under walls of text, He rubs his forehead with a dry hand, feeling vaguely frustrated. He was supposed to feel better, making things better with his dad. Having emotions, confiding, giving himself some support, thought he felt he didn’t entirely deserve or need it. The notions were something that felt automatic, selfish. And he didn’t feel better, different; the fresh hope from last night has dissipated with the moon. Everything feels like square one again. Why get better? Why treat his wings? Why try and make things okay between him and his dad, Derek and others when he doesn’t have the motivation to act on anything they say? Instigating, engaging… all signs he’s trying. But he’s not. He holds the side effects in his hands. Thin paper, folded too many times to slot in next to two foil trays. He started feeling sick, can’t eat if he wanted to - and that’s normal. It says right there, under common symptoms. He trails a finger down the more extreme, hesitates over brain bleeds and muscle seizures, narrows in on the point between them.Suicidal thoughts.Stiles doesn’t think he has the energy to carry anything elaborate out. He’s vaguely disappointed when google informs him he cannot, in fact, overdose on SSRIs. That might have been nice, slow, sleepy. Or maybe painful.The screen is still open when his dad pushes open the door, plate in hand, cup in the other. He doesn’t see it straight away, sets them down on the desk, asks how Stiles is feeling, says he’s glad to see him out of bed. (Stiles, why are you looking at that?You can’t -)Derek is sitting at his kitchen table.He lost time, or maybe he didn’t. His head hurts, and he remembers his fathers hands on his shoulder, a shaking from somewhere outside of himself. Cologne, a cupboard locking. Wanting to cry but being too wrung out to do so, trying to explain something no parent should have to hear -“She helped me, after Kate. A normal person…” he hesitates, “You’d have to lie a lot. That’s not what it’s about.” Stiles stares dully at his hands.“It’s - hard. People will say that a lot. They don’t understand, they-” His voice breaks. Stiles tucks that away somewhere, pushes back empathy that edges at his eyes; it’s different. “… She helped me. When your dad called I thought -,” A sharp intake of breath, Derek doesn’t have any fidgets, any tells. He doesn’t make eye contact, “She can help you, too. Maybe. I gave her card to your dad. I’d like… I want you to go -”“It’s okay, Derek. You don’t have to,”1, 2, 3, 4-“Stiles-”“Don’t,” he requests, softly. He doesn’t want to hear more. Can’t fit it all together, right now, slot it into a timeline of events. “I feel like I have too.” It’s painful. His headache spikes, and he thinks of his bed sheets - unmade, as they have been for months. Thinks of pixels forming into words, a buzzing anxiety that peaks at the thought of his father, his hands - on his shoulder, against his arm, holding. Careful. His breathe, and;I can’t lose you, too.

He rubs his forehead with a dry hand, feeling vaguely frustrated. He was supposed to feel better, making things better with his dad. Having emotions, confiding, giving himself some support, thought he felt he didn’t entirely deserve or need it. The notions were something that felt automatic, selfish. And he didn’t feel better, different; the fresh hope from last night has dissipated with the moon.

Everything feels like square one again. Why get better? Why treat his wings? Why try and make things okay between him and his dad, Derek and others when he doesn’t have the motivation to act on anything they say? Instigating, engaging… all signs he’s trying. But he’s not.

+++

In between, anxiety worms its way beneath his skin, breaking out in cold sweats and goosebumps.

makes dinner for him AND his dad. eats with him. lasagne doesnt rot in his moth. says wings are better - end “i have something to tell you” +is about werewolves+

—

scott knocks on door. talk - explains at the start he didnt want reminder from stiles, would rather forget how he felt about allison/everything with Kira and that it wasnt healthy. stiles says he doesnt forgive him yet, but can start by proving to his dad about werewolves.

—

have pack get together, is awkward and aware . lydia pulls himaside before and apolgies, says they’ll make up to him. isaac doesn’t trust him, but they did him wrong. stiles is still depressed, suddenly having a social life doesnt vastly improve it, reference to a prescription is made.

(stiles starts to go uout. derek on his driveway. says he was going (…. somewhere). derek asks him to local restauarnt. stiles say no- doesn’t want to bump into anyone. derek takes him to a diner just out of town.)

(vivid detail at a diner - eating curly fries. too much vinegar. feels exposed with wings, sit into corner of booth. asks how wings are, why didnt want to eat anywhere in town. says pack misses him.

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midlifes · 8 years ago

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