Something wrong has been growing in him. He knows that. But it's normal.
This is normal, it's stress, and exhaustion, and it's sacrificing himself to a fucking magic tree. He doesn't have to make a list or anything.
Really. He's fine.
.
.
.
A list:
• Impulsive
• Hallucinations
• Insomnia
• Night Terrors
• Dissociative
• Confusion
(He's not fine).
.
.
.
He gets sick in the bathroom sink and has to wash it away. He doesn't remember eating, but it's dark, whatever was in his stomach, and the constant rush of noise from the faucet makes his head go blank. And he wonders, staring down at the porcelain, if this was always coming for him. If it was meant to be. That maybe it's always been there, at the edges, in the slippery gap between thought and memory.
Maybe it was just finally making itself known.
.
.
.
He remembers things from when he was young– a tiny handful of memories, cupped and small in his palm, and they are always half-gold, half-unreal, all of them sharp and grainy.
There was once, he remembers, a night or an evening (he isn't sure which, but he knows that the sky in his memory is dark, a bruised plum or dark blue, but all noise, all film-grain and dust) and his fingers are on a doorframe, or a windowsill, and his feet are cold and his mom's skirt is there suddenly, and her hands are warm and they lift him up.
The world tilts but the height is irrelevant, because all he can feel is safe, and secure, and he's tired, so tired, and he's not sure why, but his mother is still there, still holding him to her. He can remember feeling her chest rise and fall, hear her breath and the soft words that echoed strangely through her body and into his ears, and then he's in bed, covers thick and drawn up to his chin and his mother leans over, and all he can see is the outline of her hair. The room is dark and the weight on the edge of the bed is familiar and comfortable, and she says something to him, and her voice is like rich fruit, or earth, and her lips press against his head, and then she rises, and leaves.
The door shuts and her footsteps are too soft to make out, and he can remember staying in bed, wondering, and waiting, and thinking that he must have been playing and forgot. Or maybe he was sleeping, dreaming, or maybe– he doesn't remember more, doesn't remember the voices of his parents on the other side of the wall, low and worried.
And he doesn't remember the next night, when something woke in his body and moved it while he was still asleep.
He doesn't remember.
(It's getting to be a theme.)
.
.
.
Something– a month ago, maybe –something happened, and thinking of it now he imagines how much of a blow it must have been to his father. It must have hurt him. Sucked all the breath from his lungs. And it was so simple, so easy, it was just–
Where did I put the milk?
–in the kitchen. Just a small question, out loud, in the kitchen. Sunlight flooding in and his sleeves pushed up to his elbows, shoes still on but one hand on the open refrigerator door and him coming to at the sound of his own voice, like he had forgotten what he was doing. And his father in the doorway, the sun making him look young, who smiles lightly and carefully, points to his son's hand, and there it is. The carton is in his hand, and it's cold (how did he not feel it before? How cold it was? How the condensation was making it slip from his palm?) and he stops. He laughs, harshly, a bark, and puts the carton in the fridge and shuts the door.
Something tickles at the edge of his mouth and he wipes away at it with his hand, and there, when he looks down, a smear of translucent white. Milk, and he'd been drinking it. He'd been drinking milk and was putting it away and he'd forgotten, or misremembered. He'd wanted milk and then time skips, and he's putting it away again. He's stressed, and he's tired, and he knows that these things happen. He goes into a daze sometimes, his life fills with static, and then he comes back to himself. He knows, he's been here before. He needs to sleep it off, probably, is all.
He leaves to go upstairs to his room and he doesn't see his father sag hard against the doorframe, or scrub a hand down his face, or the way the light in the kitchen makes his wedding ring shine, and then go dull again. He doesn't see the milk, spilled, on the floor, the carton on its side, milk still pouring sluggishly from its open lid. He doesn't see his father watch the pool grow on the kitchen floor, doesn't see him clench his fists, and then lift the dripping carton to the counter.
All he knows is that he had missed time, just a minute or two, and that was all.
He doesn't know he dropped the milk, instead of putting it away.
He doesn't know about his father, on his knees in the kitchen, milk soaking through a paper towel in blooming patterns, and him wiping something quickly and harshly from his eye with the back of his hand.
He doesn't know. He's already in his room, limbs tangled in his sheets. His shoes still on.
He's asleep.
.
.
.
It's late on a Tuesday, closer to midnight than not, and his dad comes home. It's nothing new. It's the sound of the car pulling into the driveway. The slam of the car door. The keys in the lock, faraway, and the creak of the door as it opens, the sound of it as it shuts. The click of the lock again. And then his feet are heavy and slow on the stairs, and a knock, knock-knock-knock, on his door. He opens it wide and full, smile stretching on his face until he sees. Sees the bags under his dad's eyes, the stiff way he's holding himself, the angle of his shoulders. Sees the file in his hands. He sucks in a breath and his father says something, says:
Son, we need to talk.
He lets his father in, sits with him on the bed, and the file opens and there's a girl's picture there, and she's young, and she's dead, and his father gives him the news and he thinks, briefly, how he doesn't want to be there. He doesn't want to watch his father have to go through this again, another false hope, another way he can't be saved from his best friend's dad. He doesn't want this.
He doesn't want this to be happening, and it's not. It's not happening. He's not there. He's–
He's laughing at Scott, whose voice is deep and rumbling and far away through the phone. He can't remember the joke, but it was funny, and he throws himself into his chair. His desk is covered in papers, history worksheets and reading assignments and cut-out articles and photos. There is string, too, in red, green, and blue.
When he looks up at his walls, they're covered in pictures, and string ties from one thing to another. All of them are red. Scott says something and he replies, and then sighs, because he has to be up for school soon. Scott laughs and says goodnight and he hangs up. And then his phone is dead in his hands, and he throws it onto the bed so he remembers to charge it.
The night is cool and his window is open, and the breeze feels nice. It's refreshing. He can hear the night outside, and his mind calms. His room is warm, but the temperature is lowering slowly, and he lifts his feet to his desk and stretches his legs. He takes a few deep breaths, and listens to thethu-thump-thu-thump of his heart as it reverbs in his body. It's a good night. There's no murders. There's no strange mystery– well, there's always a mystery, but none that's life-threatening at the moment. Just the usual unanswered questions of their town. He feels calm for the first time in a long time.
He twists his head to glance at the clock and his stomach drops, because it's almost midnight. But he knew that, didn't he? He was just looking at the clock before he called Scott– or did Scott call him? He shakes his head, because he can't remember what he was doing, he's not sure where–
His father is shaking his shoulder a little, asking if he's alright. And says he is, he says I'm fine, I'm fine, like a prayer to some dead god, and his father only pulls him into a hug. He accepts it, feels safe inside his father's strong arms, and tears prick in the corners of his eyes. He glances at the clock, and the time swims, and he wonders how he got to be there again, how he could be so completely displaced, silently and seamlessly thrown into another time and place. It twists in his stomach, and he holds tight to his father. He says, I'm fine, and tries to believe it. The words are muffled in his father's shoulder.
I'm fine, I'm fine.
He tries to believe it. He really does.
.
.
.
His mouth tastes sour and sleepless. It's a taste he is growing to be familiar with, and one that he hates.
He didn't realize, before all this, that sleeplessness had a taste. Dry and cottony and sour. He knows, now, and the knowledge is not kind.
He's in class, or he's trying to be. It's too warm and sweat is beading on the back of his neck. He's near the front of the class, staring at his hands as they twist and roll a pencil between his fingers. He's caught up in the motion. It's not unlike rolling a quarter with his knuckles, but this is different. This is the genius slow-motion spinning of his pencil. He is the master of this pencil.
He is this pencil's god.
He chuckles to himself, and hears the teacher speaking, and he looks up. His vision goes strange and double, like he's underwater, or just a half-second too late with everything. Reality is dragging behind him, time-wise. He licks his lips– they're dry –and watches as their new English teacher holds a book up to the class. She's saying something about the author, he thinks, and when she turns to look at him, her face transforms. There's a double-image of her and of Jennifer Blake, the Darach, and he snaps his pencil in half.
Scott is behind him, puts a hand on his shoulder, and whispers: Dude, are you okay?
The teacher turns her head again and she's normal, well she's kind of normal– her hair is raising from her head with slow precision, floating as if caught in some kind of invisible molasses. Her fingers have grown strange and misshapen, clutched around the book, and the bright midday sun is streaming in through the windows, the blinds cutting her face in even pieces with their shadow, and he can see her skin starting to boil.
Scott's hand is still heavy on his shoulder and he wants to say something, because what the fuck? What the fuck is happening? Are the teachers in this placed cursed or something?
He's watching her shoulders hunch, and her shadow on the chalkboard is growing overlarge and distorted. Wings shoot out dark and swift from her shadow's shoulders, and phantom feathers cloud the rest of the wall until everything is in shadow. She's eating the sun, she must be, because the room is so dark, she's–
The sun comes out from behind a cloud, and the room is bright again, and her face is normal and open and nice again, and Scott is saying, Dude? Dude? Stiles?
The pencil is whole in his hands, not snapped, and there's a dark streak of lead across his desk, like he was trying to write something and stopped midway. He shrugs the hand off his shoulder, and says It's okay, I'm fine, and he hears Scott lean back again, but the air between them is tense. The chalkboard is still the chalkboard, the teacher is still the teacher, but his eyes ache in his head. His whole body aches for want of sleep and he can just imagine himself in bed, face on his pillow, the fabric cool on his cheek, the sheets cool on his skin, and the soft sinking sigh of his body as it relaxes into oblivion.
There's a loud sound, and his eyes snap open. Everyone is looking in their books, and he opens his own, and tries to read, if that's what they're even supposed to be doing. The motion displaces his pencil and it rolls, rolls, rolls, right off of his desk. He makes no move to stop it. He's so tired. His eyes hurt. He wants to go to sleep, he feels so exhausted he wants to laugh. He wants to tear the sleeplessness from his body like a false skin, shed it and start again.
The bell rings, and it's loud and grating in his ears. It vibrates under his skin and Scott is packing everything into his bag, so he tries to do the same. He fumbles with the pencil on the floor, tries to get his hands under control (they're shaking, a little, and they feel unsteady) and then pulls his backpack to his shoulder. His vision is bright and reflective and swimming and he closes his eyes, just for a second, and when he opens them new people are filing him. Some of them are giving him looks. He swallows around the taste in his mouth, balls his hands into fists and leaves the classroom.
He didn't sleep last night, he knows that, but he had slept the night before. Right? He had definitely–
He stops to count on his fingers. He gets to three and the bell rings, and he can't remember what class he should be in next. He sees Scott's backpack round a corner and he follows it.
He counts backwards in his head, through all the nights of this week. He feels a strange and wicked satisfaction rising in his stomach and his throat. He'd read that sleep deprivation was a torture technique and here he is, in school, already a torture, and only on– count them –ten hours for the last week and a half. A laugh tries to bubble from his sour mouth but he chokes it down and grimaces instead. He's stronger than the sleep he needs.
He doesn't even need it, not really. Sleep is for the weak.
The sour taste goes bitter in his mouth. It goes sweet.
.
.
.
He's in a dark room, in a house. It's his house, but it's not really his house– or at least it doesn't feel that way. It's the living room that he's in, but the walls are different. The couch is the same. He's being quiet, there's a meeting going on in his room upstairs. They'll want him to be there, and he knows he should go, but there's this feeling in his stomach that's making him stay down here, in the dark.
He's afraid.
They're going to want him to join with them.
Now that he remembers they are there, he can hear their voices as they filter through his door and down the stairs. His feet are quiet on the ground. He steps through the kitchen, and out the back door, and he's in the yard. It's big. He looks up, into the night, and there's an orange glow of light from his bedroom window. He can see shapes there, of everyone. Everyone's in there, warm, talking about it. They're talking about it, what they have to do. He knows he should be in there, but–
He turns and walks deeper into the yard, and there are more trees. He stumbles on a root, and his hands catch themselves on an oak. He pats it as a thank you, and continues. He's in the woods. There's less and less space between each of the trees but it doesn't feel oppressive. It's just that he has to get to school. He has night classes, he can't believe he forgot– God, he doesn't even have his backpack with him. But it's fine. He feels better now, because if they ask, he can tell them: It's not that he didn't want to be there, you know, it's just that he had class. They would be disappointed, but they would understand. It's not like he can get any more absences. He has to get good grades. Everything is counting on it.
Something catches on his foot– another root. He struggles to free it, takes another step, but now something is clutched on his other foot. His feet are so heavy. He just needs to take another step, he has to get to school, he has to get to class. He struggles, and keeps moving, but it's hard. His heart is pounding in his chest. Branches are scratching themselves across his face, and he can't believe he was trying to take this shortcut. He knows there's a path around here somewhere, if only he could find it. He's not sure how he can see anything still, because it's so dark, and the trees are so close, and the canopy is so thick, but he can. His feet break through another thicket. His legs ache. He's almost there, he knows it. He's almost there–
He stumbles, and he's on the lacrosse field. He made it. Everything is fine. Lights power on with a buzzing hum, circling him. He raises his arm to shade his eyes– it's so bright, there must be a game tonight he forgot about – but he sees a shape in the distance. It's a man, far away. It's probably Coach. He's going to yell at him for being on the field without his gear.
His helmet is clutched in his hands. He forgot the stick in the locker rooms. He throws his helmet onto the bench and runs across the field, into the school. His dad is probably in the stands already. And this is a game he'll actually play in. Finally. He's excited, but he's nervous, too. Being in the game is going to mean he'll miss his night class. He runs through the locker room, out the door and down a maze of hallways. He can never remember where his classroom is. It changes almost every night– something about block-scheduling. Or they're painting the rooms. He thinks he remembers the walls shining with color.
He turns a corner, and the hallway in front of him is so long, he can't see the end of it. A dark feeling begins to swell in his stomach. He doesn't want to go down the hallway, but he knows that the classroom is at the end. He remembers. He just has to go in, quick, and then he can get back to the game. He finds a window in the hallway– was that there before? –and the players are on the field. The lights are bright. He can see his father in the stands, waving. They're almost at half-time. He has to hurry.
He starts down the long hallway. None of the lights are on in any of the classrooms. Only the emergency lights are powering the hallway. It's very dark. He keeps walking, even though it feels like he's going too far. He feels like he's walking further and further away from the game. Like if he keeps going, he can't go back. Like he might not ever go back.
His shoes squeak on the clean tile of the floor. He's almost at the end of the hallway. There's a light down there–yellow, glowing. Warm. He feels relief rush through him. He can't believe he was so afraid, for so long. He found class. He'll go in, and then maybe he can even stay. They're playing a second game tonight, and he can definitely make that one. The first one is always really boring, anyway.
He opens the door and the room is empty. There's only one light on, a lamp on the teacher's desk. There's something written on the chalkboard. He squints to see, but he can't make out the letters. They must have moved classrooms.
There's a symbol he can see on the lamp shade. He doesn't know what it means. It looks like a 5, but it's wrong. Backwards.
His throat feels thick, suddenly. He coughs, trying to dispel it. The thickness grows. He coughs again, harder, but it makes it worse. He hunches over, spitting and coughing. The effort of it makes his face warm, and his lungs hurt. He falls to his knees, hands scratching at his neck, his mouth. Something is clogging his throat, and he can't breathe. He can't breathe. He keeps coughing, trying to hack it up, and something rich and moist and black is pouring from his mouth and onto the floor. It's soil. He tries to vomit, or scream, and all that happens is more soil splattering onto the clean, white floor. It glitters in the lamplight and he can feel his throat closing up, the dirt going into his lungs. His eyes close, and they open, and he's in his grave.
Someone is standing far above him, shoveling more dirt into the hole. He tries to yell, but they can't hear him. He tries to move, to get up, to climb out of the grave, but his body is too heavy. And he realizes: he's paralyzed. He can't move. His tongue is thick in his mouth, and earth is clogging his eyes, his nose, his throat, and everything is blinking around him. He can't breathe, he can't breathe, he can't breathe, and he keeps trying to scream, can feel his throat working to expel sound, and it hurts, it tears at the skin of his esophagus. There's a sound from way off, an echo of a voice, thundering down the graveyard and toward his ears. He keeps screaming, keeps hearing the sound, and it gets louder, louder, louder–
He's awake and he's screaming, and he's wrapped in his father's arms. It can't be real. It can't be real, he was just being buried alive, he can feel the dirt still in his mouth–
But he's screaming, and his throat hurts with the force of his voice and he coughs, and sobs, and his body begins to shake. His eyes are wet, tears streaming from the corners, salty and warm, and he clutches onto his father, hiccoughs, sobs, shakes.
He's awake.
He's awake.
Isn't he?
.
.
.
It's morning.
It's a school day, and he rubs the sleep from his face, his eyes aching. There's a restless feeling in his fingers, and they curl and uncurl in his palms. He tries to shake it off.
He shoves papers and books into his bag. He tries to think about what he'll need but he abruptly and furiously doesn't care, and just tosses whatever is on his desk into the depths of his backpack. He zippers it with mounting frustration. The metal catches on one of his fingers and he curses.
The collar of his shirt itches and his back aches and his hands feel jittery and weird. He feels tired but also wired, like he's been awake for so long his body isn't sure what being tired even means anymore.
In the jeep, on the way to school, the sun is bright through the windshield, and the visor isn't helping any. He slams it shut and just squints, angry, feeling the smoking fury of his morning building in his lungs, and in the corners of his mouth. Someone cuts him off and he lays on his horn, hard, for too long. He doesn't care. He doesn't care, he just wants to get the day over with, never mind the fact that it's only just starting. He comes up on a yellow light, and he's far enough away that he can stop, but he doesn't. Something wild surges up within him and he slams on the gas, hears the engine rev and furiously try to switch gears, and then he's rocketing through the intersection as the light goes red and dangerous. Horns sound from all around him like a holy choir and a laugh rips itself from his throat, something hysterical and unfamiliar. He's practically vibrating with glee.
He feels great. Because he just doesn't fucking care anymore.
After class, as everyone is going into lunch, Scott tries to signal him but he just can't right now. Not today, not with his morning. He walks past an empty classroom and suddenly whips around and goes through, hoping the mass of students between him and Scott blocked his escape from view.
It's empty, and quiet. He can still hear the inane chatter of the lunch throng outside, but it's muffled in the classroom. He sighs, drops the backpack from his shoulder and walks across the room to the windows. Outside, at the front of the school, he can see the twins talking to Scott and Isaac. They look like they're arguing, and he can feel a smile pulling on his face. He wishes they were dead. The twins. Maybe Isaac. He feels the thought of it in his stomach and it hurts.
His mind flashes angry at him, like he's at war with his own thinking. Of course, in reality, okay, he doesn't actually wish the twins were dead. They were people. They had lives. They had– who fucking cared, anyway? What did they ever do that helped anyone? They killed Boyd. They killed Boyd in front of him. In front of Derek, his own Alpha. He doesn't know much about Alphas and Betas or whatever, but he imagines that it must have been like watching a brother die. Or a child.
And Boyd– Boyd wasn't even his friend, not really, but he could have been. His jaw aches, and he realizes he's been grinding his teeth. His mouth is actually filling with blood because he bit his tongue. And the twins are still out there, but Scott doesn't look interested, and Isaac looks smug, and he just wants to do away with everything, fuck. Fuck. He spits the blood from his mouth, and it splatters against the window. He feels a bright, sharp sense of satisfaction, watching as the red begins to drip down the glass. The blood covers exactly where everyone is standing, so it's almost like they've disappeared. Like they've been swallowed whole.
And he has time to think, viciously, Yes, good, before he hears a bell. He swears, feels the sharp sting of his tongue, and grabs his bag from the floor. He slips out the door and into the growing crowd.
He avoids Scott. He even avoids Lydia, which is so easy it makes him angry again. It's sitting in his spine, all this anger, and he isn't sure what to do with it. He's not even sure why he's feeling it. He wants to leave. He wants to make like Derek and get the fuck out of Beacon Hills, away from this supernatural swamp of horror and terror.
His phone vibrates in his pocket. His dad is calling. He answers quickly– it's a school day so it has to be important.
He doesn't have time to say hello before he hears his father's voice: You wanna tell me why you were running red lights this morning, Stiles?
And he just... hangs up. He stares at the phone in his hands, wondering why. Wondering what's happening.
He decides the rest of the day isn't going to be any better if he's still at school so he sneaks out, gets in his jeep and drives home, speeding the whole way.
In his room, he draws the curtains so the sun is shut out and takes off his shoes, sits on his bed and curls and uncurls his fingers in his palm.
He's fine. He's just irritated.
Hours later, there's dirt on his hands and on his face, and his tongue is healed, and he's still sitting on his bed, in his room. Outside the curtains, the night is dark, and he feels a low, swooping feeling that he's missing something. He's done something, and he's forgotten what it was.
He goes into the bathroom to wash his hands, but then his stomach lurches and he's sick in the sink instead.
Maybe–
Maybe he isn't fine. Maybe–
But he doesn't finish the thought.
He can't remember what it was he was thinking.
He washes his hands, splashes water on his face.
In the mirror, his eyes are darker. They reflect the light of the bathroom in an interesting way. He tilts his head.
We're fine, he thinks.
Really.
And he grins, but the grin isn't his.