Come Away, O Human Child
So it turns out that everyone in this pack is about as useless as a boat would be in the Sahara desert. Scott and Isaac have ended up getting too engrossed in a study session that Stiles should totally have joined, Lydia and Allison are too busy picking out clothes or arrow heads or whatever girls do these days, and Derek – Stiles has no freaking clue what Derek's doing at the moment. All Stiles knows is that he's out in the middle of the woods, with no battery in his cell to call anyone, and that the light he's been following for the past couple of hours has gone out. He'd been calling out into the woods until his voice turned hoarse in the hope that his friends would have their super-werewolf-ears on to listen out for him.
Useless, they're all freaking useless.
/
The cold's beginning to bite at his fingers now. Stiles hadn't really thought about bringing a coat or anything. He thought the jacket he'd been wearing whilst driving back for dinner would be enough to keep him warm, but Stiles hadn't really accounted for that strange light out in the woods. He thought he'd check it out, only for a second, I'll be fine, but he's not fine, of course. He's totally stupid and totally not freaking out because Stiles doesn't do that when he's in mortal peril, not at all.
A chill in the wind hits him and Stiles brings in his jacket tighter, hoping for some shred of warmth to find him.
/
Stiles begins to track back his steps. He was sure he took a left turn here, maybe a right there, so he tries to fumble through the forest as the temperature plummets. His breath comes out like smoke whilst his body shivers uncontrollably.
There are silent sounds around him as he moves shakily through the trees. Only nature is with him, though Stiles constantly feels as if something more than nature is out there. There was that freaky light, but Stiles doesn't even know what that thing was. All he knows is that he's lost and cold and shivering and that his bed doesn't sound so bad right now.
A stick breaks nearby and Stiles stops. The wind is still frosty, whipping at his freezing body, so he whispers flat motivation to himself in a flimsy attempt to keep himself heading back home.
He's lost his track now. Never mind the pack; Stiles is the one who's completely useless.
/
A low hum has started to grow in Stiles' head, but he's not sure if it's to do with some kind of supernatural creature or the fact that the cold is becoming unbearable now.
Stiles feels like his legs are going to give out at any minute with all the walking he's been doing. It feels like he's been travelling for days, but the midnight black of the sky tells him otherwise.
The cold is really grating on his nerves, too. His breath is becoming short and numbing, leaving his lungs in a perpetual state of coldness. He can't even feel his nose anymore apart from the faint, fleeting feeling of air being sucked in and out. He imagines it would be red right now, like freaking Rudolf, Stiles thinks.
God, he's just so tired.
/
Stiles has nothing left to give; he's been walking for hours and his feet and legs and, well, everything hurts like hell. He frequently curses those damn lights, his voice shaky and cold.
He quickly finds a rock to lean on and crashes to the ground, not even noticing the grazes on his arms or the cut on his cheek he gets from his actions. His skin is like ice and his fingers and toes feel entirely disconnected to his body.
In an attempt to stop this unending feeling of being frozen, Stiles curls in on himself against the rock. He tucks his hands under his arms, remembering a voice from somewhere in his mind (maybe his mom's?) telling him that it's the warmest place to put them if he ever gets cold. He pulls his feet inside the crook underneath his knees, but his shoes stop his toes from completely warming up. He decides not to take his shoes off, though, because he knows that's a stupid idea.
/
Stiles has a stupid idea.
His toes are almost non-existent when he sluggishly pulls his shoes off with warm-ish fingers. He can't bear the thought of losing any parts of his body, so he shakily rubs his toes with his hands to restore some kind of blood flow to them. It works, though just a little, and Stiles wants to exhale in relief, but that would lose Stiles a lot of heat so decides to just keep breathing quick and shallow breathes instead.
/
Sometime during the coldest night he thinks California has had this year, Stiles thinks about his friends.
What would they be doing right now? Would Scott and Isaac still be studying, or would they have moved onto one of Scott's old games he hasn't touched since this whole werewolf stuff started?
Would Lydia even care he was dying, or would she just complain about how stupid he was for following a mysterious light in the middle of the night?
Would Derek even show some kind of emotion that wasn't mixed with grumbles and glares?
God, Stiles' head was killing him.
/
There comes a point during the night when all the pain in Stiles' body leaves him. It's nice, he thinks, to not feel anything anymore. All the pain of losing his mother, of seeing his best friend turn into something unexplainable, of seeing the horrors of, not only the supernatural, but of human nature too: all of it goes away. His head's a white-wash of happy memories only Stiles knows – one's where he beats the crap of Scott during their one-on-one lacrosse practices before Scott was bitten; one's where his mother is cupping his face as she gives him a gentle kiss goodnight – and Stiles thinks that maybe he'll be okay.
Maybe.
/
The moon is a bright blur in Stiles' vision. The stars are too small to even recognize anymore. The sky is just one black expanse with the moon to light it. The trees barely even register in his vision, but his ears pick up the rustling of the leaves as the chilly wind breathes life into the forest.
Stiles can't help but wonder what that thing was, that bright light he saw at the edge of the forest. He was supposed to be smart, but only an idiot would follow something so strange. He was just so curious and he couldn't help himself. Damn, if only he could remember something, anything, from the bestiary, anything at all.
Lists, Stiles thinks loosely, let's make a list. Stiles used to make lists whenever his mind went on a tangent. He supposes it helped him to focus on something throughout the chaos that is his mind when the adderall couldn't help. The whole werewolf business should have made that habit grow, but he actually kinda forgot he used to do that after his mom died, so he decides to do it once again.
Okay, 1) the light was kind of wispy, but very, very bright, 2) it led him off the main road and into the forest and 3) it just happened to coincide with (what he's very sure now) is California's coldest night this year. If only Lydia was here. She'd know what to do. Derek may have even been able to identify the light in the first place, if he ever decided to tell Stiles anything about the supernatural.
The moon shifts over a little to the west when that strange light appears again, drawing Stiles' attention away from his list and to the blurry ends of its wings.
Ah damn, Stiles really is an idiot. The thing's a freaking will o' the wisp.
/
The wisp just kind of stares at Stiles, or at least it would do if it had eyes. Maybe it does and Stiles just can't see properly. Maybe it even has arms and legs and maybe even a mouth and a nose. He can't say for sure, since he doesn't really know much about fairies – apart from the stuff he found on that odd website he saw when researching tirelessly for the pack a couple of months ago – but at the moment he doesn't really care. All he cares about is that it's sending out some kind of warmth to him and Stiles just wants to touch it to make sure it's definitely the wisp that's warm and not something else, like a fire.
Stupidly, he realizes, Stiles leans forward to grasp the light with his hand, but he underestimates where the wisp is and ends up falling flat on his face.
He should be worried that he's not shaking anymore.
The wisp even sounds nice, too. It's making some kind of echo in his head, making that faint hum in his head grow. It sounds like how an angel would probably sing, and Stiles smiles at the sound. His lips feel numb and slow, but eventually he manages to smile.
Stiles makes his way towards the wisp, crawling on his belly with stiff limbs. The wisp then flashes away when Stiles gets an inch away from it, but the thing reappears with a puff a few feet away.
"Not fair," Stiles slurs, feeling the loss of the heat from its light and he crawls forward again.
/
Everything hurts so goddamn much and Stiles can't believe he managed to follow a will o' the wisp twice in the same night.
Somewhere in the haze of the cold, a wolf howls.
/
Clouds have covered the light of the moon, so Stiles relies solely on the brightness of the wisp. Darkness threatens to swallow his vision, so he becomes dependent on it to lead him somewhere, anywhere, which might help him find his way home. It's a stupid decision – the stupidest, most irresponsible decision he's ever made in his entire life – but it's the only thing he's got to hold onto now.
Mud and leaves are beginning to cover his hands, stopping Stiles from seeing how pale his skin has become. Or maybe it's only the light from the wisp that makes his skin look so white.
Stiles is no longer tired; he's freaking exhausted.
/
The wisp keeps on teasing him, letting his hands get a millimeter closer every time Stiles reaches out to touch it. It gives off a kind of warmth that makes him almost happy and Stiles gets so cold whenever it disappears from him that he just has to crawl closer.
Stiles' breathing becomes shallower now, but not as labored. It's slower and more manageable, and Stiles can almost deal with it if it weren't for his aching lungs. His throat feels so numb and his nose is so cold he can barely feel it. It's terrifying to think Stiles won't be able to feel his own movements soon if this wisp keeps on leaving him.
/
Eventually, Stiles and the wisp make it to a small creek in the middle of Beacon Hills Preserve. It's tiny, but muddy, and Stiles wants to laugh when the wisp hovers over the centre of the creek, right over the deepest point. But he thinks laughing at this must be a symptom of madness, so he tries to hold it in, pushing the hysteria somewhere deep inside of him.
He's given up at making lists now. How on earth could he organize a mess like this?
Instead, Stiles just stops for once. He lets his body collapse in the mud where the water ripples and teases against his skin. It's cold, almost freezing, and Stiles isn't so idiotic at that moment to know that going in the water would most probably kill him. The chill in the wind would be enough to do that alone right now, but at least it will be slower and will give him time to think of a way out.
/
Stiles doesn't remember blacking out, but he figures he must have when he lifts his face up and sees a print in the mud of his cheek. His tongue slowly licks his lips, and yeah, there's definitely mud on his face.
Above him, the clouds have cleared and the moon has sunken just slightly into the tree line. A purple hue has begun to color the sky to the east and Stiles wonders if he can last until morning.
However, the wisp is still calling to him, still sending out strands of warmth that makes Stiles want to dive head first into the freezing creek just to have the chance at the eternal heat that thing is giving off. It feels so old, so ancient, and so powerful that Stiles thinks it would swallow him whole and bring him back to life with its temperature alone.
He manages to move one inch into the water before darkness swallows him whole again.
/
Heat trails across his body. It's in shapes and it's solid and Stiles thinks that the wisp has given up on Stiles making his way into the creek on his own. It's nice and comforting until it starts to shake him, prodding things on his face.
Stiles groans and something around him draws in a relieved breath.
Stiles cracks an eyelid open and the yellow-blue watercolor of the sky above blinds him for a second. A large shadow silhouettes the sky above him, hovering over him, making pained sounds. Stiles moves his head to look towards the lake but the wisp is still hovering in the middle. That's strange; wasn't it shaking him just a second ago?
It's hypnotic, it's voice, and it's calling to him again. It's in his head and it's singing soft musings to him of light and warmth and Stiles just can't resist. He twists out the shadow that's holding him in the mud, surprising it, and Stiles attempts to get in the creek and feel the power of the wisp. The shadow then realizes what Stiles is trying to do and pins him down harder.
Water flows into Stiles' numb mouth, but Stiles just doesn't care anymore. He'll do anything to feel warm again, and this shape above him seems to be doing everything to stop him.
Suddenly, the thing that's holding him down pulls him up, throwing him a couple of meters away from the edge of the water. Stiles lands in soft mud, panting slowly, and darkness is once again framing his vision of the dawn sky above.
Oh. It's dawn. He did make it. Yay, go Stiles! It's a shame he thinks he's still dying, but at least he made it to the morning.
/
There are more voices when he wakes and his limbs are flailing about in the air.
The wisp is gone, replaced with the blinding glow of the sun and the warmth of a body pressed against his head. Stiles still feels cold, like its bled its way into his very bones, into his soul, and Stiles curls in tighter, hoping this new, soft, familiar warmth will fight it.
"...he's barely breathing..."
His throat constricts as the voices get louder.
"...we need to get him to Deaton..."
His heartbeat slows down and his blood stops thumping in his ears.
"...hospital..."
He just feels so tired, so useless, so idiotic...
"...Scott, I think he's stopped breathing."
/
Stiles, his mother and father are all sitting out in a meadow together, a wooden-woven picnic basket to his left. There are all kinds of food in it – curly fries, Reese bars, a Tupperware box full of salad, a flask of coffee, the list is endless – and Stiles digs straight in. His mother's laugh sounds like bells and his father is prying the bag of fries away from Stiles' hands. "Save some for the rest of us," he says.
They eat until they're full, and Stiles chugs down the coffee before his father can screw up his diet completely; he's already eaten too many curly fries. Stiles is laughing at the way his father frowns at the flask and how his mother is throwing bunches of grass in his father's hair until the coffee starts to churn inside Stiles. It makes his stomach bitter and cold, but his parents keep laughing anyway.
Stiles clutches his stomach as the coldness spreads. It's like ice and it clings to him. He fumbles to the ground, groaning in pain as his body becomes numb. His parents are talking to themselves, laughing, and Stiles just whimpers at them.
The grass around him shrivels and dies, melting into the earth. The flowers wilt and the trees creak and splint as disease attacks them. His father is still laughing with his mother until he sees her crying and hears how her words stumble. He clutches at her wet cheeks and suddenly she's shaking in his arms.
Stiles just lays there among the mud, clawing at the dirt as it hardens into ice. He's so cold, and soon it travels to his mother, making her skin pale and fragile as her shrieks grow louder. His father latches onto her, smoothing her hair down as she fades away.
She's gone when Stiles screams.
/
Faces flash. Stiles dreams. He feels so cold. His mother stares at him with her frozen hazel eyes. Her skin is waxy, dead, and Stiles can't help but think, I did that. He is so cold and she was so warm and now they're both going to be frozen together. His father creeps into his vision, a shadow in the blinding light of his mind, and it almost kills Stiles to see his own father so agitated, so broken.
Scott appears, then Derek, then Allison, then Lydia and then Scott again. They're whispering to him, asking him to wake up, but they don't understand how cold Stiles is. They don't understand how he can't wake up, not when his body is frozen.
Beeping sounds in the background along with the call of the wisp, the ancient and powerful song of something that once might have been so beautiful, and Stiles lets his mother's stiff fingers stroke his hair as he falls asleep again.
/
When Stiles comes to, it's to white walls and monotonous beeping. The familiar smell of hospital bleach and soap fills his nose – oh, so he can feel that again now – and Stiles' head is too jumbled up to figure everything out.
Lists, Stiles, make a list.
Okay, 1) he must definitely be in a hospital. 2) He's practically strapped down to his bed with how many blankets are on top of him. 3) He still feels faint and dizzy, and there are tubes sticking out of him with red liquid going in and out of his body, and another filled with something clear.
Oh, and there was that will o' the wisp too, before he forgets.
"You had hyperthermia," someone says to him as he wakes up. It's his dad, and his sunken cheeks and tired eyes tell Stiles he's been up all night, most probably looking for him. "The, uh, doctors had to do a cardio-pulmonary bypass and something called an ECMO, where they take your blood and warm it up for you before returning it. They said you were lucky you got here when you did," he explains. There's a crack in his voice and Stiles hates the fact that he caused it.
"Stiles, why were you out in the woods so late? You told me you were getting back from the store and then you never showed up home."
Stiles can't move his tongue, can't form the right words, and it's not from the cold but from the guilt of seeing his dad like this. His father is the Sheriff. He's tough and strong and doesn't let anything get to him, but it's hard to see that side of him when he's on the verge of tears next to his son's bedside. It makes Stiles want to cry.
"Actually, never mind, you can tell me when you're feeling better. All the matters to me right now is that you're safe and you're getting better, okay," his dad tells him. "I'll let you rest. You're going to need your strength."
Stiles doesn't have to make a list to understand that sentence.
/
The doctors won't let anyone else apart from his dad see him until they don't have to keep warming Stiles' blood up anymore. He feels better physically, but he can't help but feel completely and utterly stupid for following that wisp.
When his dad asks him again why he went out into the woods, Stiles tells him he thought he saw an injured animal before getting lost. His dad curses his good heart whilst Stiles curses his stupid curiosity.
/
A day later, Stiles' body is warm enough that he doesn't have to have his blood taken out to be warmed up, and the barricade of doctors crumble. Everyone is allowed to visit Stiles, though only a few at a time.
Scott, Allison and Lydia are the first to visit. Scott hugs him, giving Stiles his puppy face as he tells him how they found him. The Sheriff had called Scott asking if Stiles was at their house before they even knew he was missing. They'd barely caught a scent until a couple of hours before dawn. His skin was nearly blue when they found him by the creek.
They hadn't failed to notice the wisp either, and Lydia continually calls Stiles an idiot for following it, as Stiles knew she would. But her voice is laced with sadness and maybe even concern. Mainly, she's annoyed at how stupid Stiles can be sometimes, but then Stiles tells her about the warmth and the song it sang to him, and guilt seems to pass through her.
Allison tugs his arm before she, Scott and Lydia leave. "Get better soon, Stiles. Everyone misses you."
Scott hugs his best friend, just making sure he's okay for the last time, before Allison and Lydia drag him out of Stiles' hospital room.
Isaac and Boyd visit him next. He doesn't really know Boyd all that well, just bits and pieces that he's managed to get out of him in the little time Stiles has known him, but Boyd tells him he'd miss Stiles if he was gone. "I've already lost the best friend I'd ever had. I can't imagine losing anyone else so soon," he'd said.
Isaac gives Stiles a smirk and holds his shoulder gently. "Don't you go wandering again, Stiles. You almost had the whole pack tearing at the seams. Even Derek was worrying about you."
Ha, yeah, of course
/
Derek comes and sees him next, alone. He says Cora wanted to stay and man the fort, but Stiles doesn't really know her that well yet and didn't expect her to come and see him anyway. Derek looks tired and sad, as he usually does, but there's a layer of hurt that Stiles so rarely sees in him. Sometimes he'll look at Derek and see him staring out into the distance, no doubt remembering his family and the guilt that came with their deaths, but it's killing him to see that in Derek whilst he's looking directly at Stiles.
"How're you feeling?" Derek says after a pregnant pause.
Stiles nods wearily. "I'm okay. Still tired, but apparently that's the kind of feeling you get when you get hyperthermia from walking around for hours following a will o' the wisp. Really, I'm just peachy." His usual sarcasm falls flat. It just proves to Derek how not-okay Stiles is. Derek just takes the chair next to Stiles' bed and sits with him for a bit.
Time passes, along with the beeps of Stiles' heart monitor, until he says, "I saw my mom." He doesn't know why he says it, but he does. He thinks that maybe he sometimes sees that same look Derek has on his own face when he looks in the mirror on days when he thinks of his mother. Stiles can't really know for sure.
Derek looks up, confused.
"When I was out, I, uh... I saw my mom. I was dreaming, but at the time it felt so real and I could feel this, uh, coldness inside of me drain her. I saw her die and I – I can't help but feel guilty for it all over again," he finishes.
"Stiles-"
"You don't have to say anything, okay Derek," he says. "I just thought... I don't even know anymore. Just forget what I said."
Derek just sits there, silent, like the usual sourwolf he is. "Stiles, don't ever feel guilty about something you can't control. I know how it feels and it'll tear you apart," he tells Stiles after a few minutes. "It wasn't your fault, however she died, okay."
Stiles nods, exhaustion creeping in again. Derek doesn't need the heart rate monitor to tell him that he needs to leave, and he's gone by the time Stiles falls asleep.
/
A week later, Stiles decides he's not totally useless and that the pack isn't either. They manage to track down and locate the will o' the wisp who was alone and very far away from home: northern Europe.
Apparently, it was travelling the globe to find someone worthy to baptize it, seeing as will o' the wisps are apparently the lost souls of unbaptized children, Stiles is told. Deaton calls in some favors and a pastor soon arrives in Beacon Hills to bless the soul, and the problem ceases to exist. Stiles is still pretty annoyed that it tried to drag him into a creek to die, but hundreds of years of living a lonely existence changes you, he guesses.
/
Stiles is all better now and he's found that the pack is a little closer. He notices that previous arguments, that usually turned quickly into full-scale fights, consisting of claws and sharp teeth, are now virtually gone. Sure, there are some spats, but you win some, you lose some.
The coldness in his bones has disappeared too, and Stiles will never take sunshine and radiators for granted ever again. Stiles also knows better than to follow strange little lights in the middle of the night now, too.
Yeah, he's never ever going to forget that lesson.
FIN
A/N: Reviews are much appreciated, especially since this is my first Teen Wolf fic. Thank you!