Lie Down With Me
Stiles never slept, even when he was little. He didn't like the way anything could happen, anything could get you. Sleep felt like being dead, even if it was just for a few hours. When he was young, he was afraid of the monsters in the dark. Now, he was afraid of the monsters in his head.
Claudia, his mother was afraid, too. She saw things, scary things. She never told him anything about the hallucinations, but he understood when she would just stare at the air, moving her mouth but not actually saying anything. When this happened, Stiles would sit down next to her and hold her hand. He liked staying up with his mother. He thought it brought them closer together. Stiles didn't understand at the time that while it might have brought him closer to his mother, it pulled him farther from himself.
Claudia's only shining lights in her life were her husband and son. Stiles didn't realize this, being ten, almost eleven. But he's getting closer to his seventeenth birthday, and he has a lot of time to waste. He likes to spend it thinking about his mother. He's come upon many things and has thought a lot about his mother now that she's gone; her favorite color, that she wore contacts, and that she had to take Zoloft every night.
Claudia and the Sheriff fought a lot. The screaming and yelling got louder and louder after Stiles was tucked into bed. He would plug in his little night light and wrap his pillow around his head, doing anything to muffle the sound of his mother's sobbing. She would stay in the bedroom, while Stiles' dad was sent to the couch with his bottle of whiskey. Sometimes Stiles would stay up with her, to keep her company as the monsters visited her. It was a nightly routine, never-ending. Until she died, of course. Then Stiles did it on his own, except now he was the one seeing things.
The ADD never let Stiles stop talking, so that's what he would do for his mother. His non-stop babble comforted her, so he told her stories. They weren't very interesting, nor did they make much sense. Kindergarten was a subject not most people wanted to hear about. But Claudia loved it. She loved hearing Stiles speak, his words sometimes making sense and other times they were just streaming out. Like blasting music out of speakers, just none of the lyrics understandable.
Claudia loved puzzles, for she was one.
She sure would love Stiles a whole lot if she was alive, then.
Stiles and Scott met in a sandbox when they were four. Claudia met Melissa, and they became great friends right away. The boys were destined to be best friends, and that they did. On the playground, teasing the same girls, getting in trouble with their teachers. It's like they were made for each other. They were like brothers. They didn't know what they would do without each other, even now.
Stiles was diagnosed with ADD a month before his mother's death. He had started taking Adderall every day and Claudia missed him talking all the time. When they would stay up together, his stories became less and less creative each time.
When Stiles came home that night, he wondered where all his pills went. When he asked his dad, he started crying and pouring more cups of Scotch.
Now, Stiles still never stops talking. Everyone thinks it's annoying. No one knows that when he's not talking, the voices inside start. They don't stop. When it's silent, the monsters consume him, invading his mind. They tell him how worthless he is, useless, stupid. They tell him everything he knows. He fucking knows. The jokes and sarcasm can barely hide the fact that's he's so broken inside, in pieces and no one can fix him.
The voices don't seem to think that he knows, though.
Stiles liked talking to Scott. He listened and understood. His dad left him, just in a different way than Stiles' mom. Scott knew his friend had problems and even helped him through it sometimes. Most of the time, though, Stiles would keep them to himself. The suffocating feeling of his life was no different than the tight grip of a noose. Trust him, he would know.
Then, one day, Scott changed. And it was all Stiles' fault. His best friend became a werewolf and Stiles was just an insignificant human. He wanted to help him, cure him. He was useless then too. He can't help anyone: not Scott, his dad, his mother, not even himself.
They went through everything together: the change, Derek, Peter, the kamina, the Drachma, the Nemeton. Everything.
Stiles loves his dad and would do anything to save him, proven when he basically died to find him. The darkness followed him, hanging over his head. His mind was clouded, and he couldn't tell the difference between realty and his dreams. His life was a living nightmare. It's too much.
Then, there's Derek. He's a jerky werewolf, who likes to push him against things, which he realized, is totally okay with him. He's finally warming up the guy, and pretty sure he's starting to like him, when he leaves. Just disappears.
Stiles couldn't breathe when he learned this. His lungs failed him and his mind was racing at a hundred miles a minute. He couldn't think, couldn't speak, which made it worse. It meant his demons could taunt him, drowning him in his miseries. He sees flashbacks of his mom, and he can't do this without help.
Honestly, Stiles doesn't think his friends actually care about his well-being. He only matters when they need something. He wants to be needed. Period. Still, this never happens. He's still nothing. And maybe he's gotten used to this. He knows he won't be getting help from a person.
His mind is clearer when he takes the blade to his forearm. Sometimes it's a razor, other times a lighter. If his dad ever found it, he'd assume he was smoking, which would probably be better than him learning the truth. He knows he reminds his dad of Claudia. He looks like her, acts like her, and even has the darkness that used to haunt her. The scars are limitless. He can think straight for once, and it quiets his monsters for a while. Then, he has to start talking again to remain sane.
The hallucinations only started after the Nemeton. As he stayed up at night, he realizes how his mother must have felt in the dark of the night. He hides underneath the blankets like a child. He starts mumbling to himself a bedtime story his dad used to tell him. He would tuck him in every night after Claudia Stilinski died. He wondered how someone who hated himself so much could love Stiles so much. But he didn't think about how he did the same thing now that he was older. It must run in the family.
But of course, he still couldn't sleep. When he heard his dad go to bed, he would have his flashlight underneath the sheets. He would read or draw. Sometimes he wrote himself stories about death and the color red and all the pretty people he would see late at night. His dad would find them and send him that that awful office with the bright colored paintings but pale, washed out white walls. He could just feel the sadness as he walked in. The only thing he liked about it was the free lollipops that they had left out in a jar. He loved the green ones, which they happened to always have.
What he didn't like the lady who would call his name, "Stiles," and lead him down the dreaded hallway to the not-so-comfy couch in her office. He didn't like the way she shut the door, leaving him trapped for an hour to her questions. Words he didn't quite understand. They were big words like "insomnia" and "hallucinations" and she sometimes even mentioned "depression". He felt like that didn't pertain to him, but it basically described him. He just didn't know it at the time. He never spoke to her, (he didn't like Dr. Jessica very much), and she would just look at him with those sad eyes. He came to know to hate that sympathetic look.
A month after Scott became the Alpha and Derek left, Stiles' nightmares came back. Along with the hallucinations, he was a walking mess. He was an accident waiting to happen. He would sleep, (he had gotten better at it; almost four hours a night) and dream about his life. He'd dream about going to school normally and talking to his friends. It was completely ordinary.
Until he would wake up screaming and sweating. He wouldn't know if it was real life, if anything was real at all. He did tons of research, since he didn't sleep anymore because of that. Sometimes he'd accidentally dose off on his laptop, before the nightmares would happen and he wouldn't know if he was dreaming or actually living his life. Sometimes when he woke up, his dad was holding him as he would thrash and kick. He prayed it was real. Then he learned the fact that you can't read in dreams. It helped immensely. Until, he couldn't read in real life either. Or was it? Was any of this? Stiles couldn't be sure. He hung onto the hope that it was.
His life was so screwed up. He just wanted to be normal. He didn't want to see things that weren't actually there, or see the scars that littered his body. He wanted to get one good night of sleep, for once. It was a curse, and it would never break. It will never be over.
Finally, Derek comes back. Stiles can't determine his feelings toward him. When he first sees Stiles, he gives him a questioning look. Stiles' black and blue eyes from lack of sleep were obvious. Derek could probably smell the anxiety reeking off of him. The smell of blood and burns probably mixed in with it.
He doesn't ask, and Stiles doesn't offer. But then there's a feeling. It's like the feeling Stiles gets when he sits on the bench during the lacrosse games. He knows he's not ever going to play, but he can't help but have this feeling of hope deep inside of his chest. That maybe, one day, he'll make it. He could be something. But in the end, it's another thing he knows and hates. He's hopeless. The hope he has just eats away at his heart and it burns. Oh, how it burns. Almost as much as the lighter he presses to the inside of his arm every night. The flames don't go out. He feels the same way with Derek.
The voices buzz inside of Stiles' skull, fighting and fighting him. He can't take this. Why does he even breathe anymore? He can't even do that right, having panic attacks left and right. He can't stop shaking, and it's not from the ADD. The blood that drips onto the floor looks so pretty, like a painting, it's just on his skin. The burns that welt over them hurt like hell, but Stiles deserves this. He deserves this all. He can't help but destroy himself. It's in his DNA, literally.
He thinks about his mother. She felt this way, she ended this way. Stiles thinks it's his fault, encouraging her every night as he stayed up with her. That's why it's 4 a.m. and Stiles still hasn't slept in three days. It was never his forte. All he does is want to sleep. How nice would that be? Just to sleep, and never wake up.
Stiles was tired of talking. Maybe an overdose would shut him up for once. He takes out all his Adderall pills, examining. He wonders how many it will take to kill him. He better make sure and just take all of them. He stole the keys to his dad's liquor cabinet to help him down them.
And then, his window is opening, and Derek is there, always saving the day. He sees Stiles, who he really is, the broken boy and Stiles knows he has to make sure his last words are incredibly witty.
"The Big Bad Wolf to the rescue? I don't seem to recall the fairy-tail ending like this," He manages a smile, and it's a horrible sight. It's a picture of someone so damaged that they may not be able to be put back together. But Derek won't give up. He can't.
"That isn't funny." He warily eyed the pill capsule Stiles held in his hand, gingerly stepping closer to him. He knew something was wrong. He just should've paid more attention.
"Give me a break. I'm about to die here,"
Derek swiftly takes the bottle away from him emptying the pills out the window. He pulls the fragile, in pieces, boy into his arms. He holds him, like he will glue all of him back together. And maybe he does. Stiles breaks down in sobs, not able to contain everything inside anymore. He falls into Derek's embrace and uncontrollably cries.
"I just want to sleep, for once." He sounds so heartbreakingly sad. And somehow, they end up on Stiles' bed with Derek holding him, and maybe that's what he needed. "I just want the voices to stop."
And Derek lets Stiles talk, all that he wanted, and Derek even talked, telling him stories, about his past, about anything. In Derek's arms, Stiles' demons went away. And for the first time in years, Stiles sleeps.