A/N: I'm supposed to be working on a sequel to another fic of mine but... it just ain't coming. (Inspiration you fickle muse! *waves a threatening fist at the sky*).
I've written bits and pieces on the sequel but then hit a brick wall so I've decided to re-watch season 4 hoping that if I just kick my muse hard enough in the ribs a couple of times she'll get off her procrastinating fanny crack and help me. Guess what she does!? …The bleary eyed bitch throws me this bone instead… and let me tell you it hit me right between the eyes. Damn that bint has good aim.
This is all a very elaborate way of saying I have a writers block.
And as always I'm aware of some of the grammatical mistakes and some of them are deliberate… because, screw grammar. We have a love/hate relationship.

Warning: mentions of self-biting… more like self-nibbling actually…

Quote of the fic:

"Do not judge me because I'm different to you, I do not judge you for being different to me."
- Tina Richardson

OXXXO

He covers his ears and squeezes his eyes shut trying to block them out. They, the FBI and the CDC, had pretty much rounded on him the moment he stepped into the hallway, like a freaking human wave they had surged up and managed to separate him from Scott and Kira without his 'too-busy-looking-for-their-parents' friends noticing. They're firing questions at him, a million at the time, arguing with each other over whom gets him first, whose cause is more important.

The FBI wants to hear him, question him on how he found the source of the virus and about the shooting. They want his statement; want to know how he figured it out, where he and his friends disappeared off to and how the confrontation with the suspect went down.

Someone says something about wanting to take his clothes…?

The CDC are concerned for his health and the health and safety of the public. They want any information he can provide them about the virus, they want to examine and scrutinize him, because he never got checked out earlier since he was one of the kids who went M.I.A. and he's feverish, there's blood on his clothes and brain matter on his face…

The hallway is filled with the chaotic cacophony of terrified parents trying to locate their child and previously sick kids looking to be reunited with their families. The frenzied racket brings him back to when he was five and the first and only time his parents ever took him to a Zoo and his mom had insisted on visiting the bird cages. The frantic screams from parents calling out for their kid and the happy whoops and shouts of those who manage to find each other are ringing and reverberating between the narrow walls of the corridor.

For Stiles, who is already scraped raw from the events of the night, it's all quickly becoming too much. Every scream and shout, question and request, is like a shrill blade cutting in his ears. Every slap of shoes against the linoleum is like a jackhammer stampeding his head; fuck whoever invented clicking high-heels and screeching sneaker soles. So he plants his hands firm over his ears and it doesn't even register that he looks a bit like a stubborn child refusing to listen. Any act that helps lessen the quickly overwhelming onslaught of sensory impressions is good in Stiles' book right now.

He's surrounded on all sides by Federal agents and CDC medics who're talking over each other trying to cut off and out voice one another, like two warring flocks of brawling howler monkeys in heat pissing territory and laying claim on him.

He backs further up against the wall almost as if he's subconsciously trying to melt into one with it, hoping to phase through it like Kitty Pryde. He wants them to stop, to back off.

Go away!

There're too many of them, too many people, too many voices, too many sounds, too many wants, too many questions. They're lashing out questions too many at the time, sharp and rapid like they're slashing in to him, every word urgent and incisive enough to be a cut and it God. Damn. Hurts.

Everything intensifies. The voices get louder and louder by the second, the lights flash brighter, whiter, colours are glaring, the air seems to contract weighting down his shoulders, wrapping around him and it's hot and suffocating from all angles inside and out. He doesn't know what to do with himself. It's all too much. It's overloading his senses. He wants to kick and scream and cry but it's chocked off.

Stiles wants to run but finds he can't move. His hands clamp down harder over his ears –as if they think compressing his skull is actually an achievable end game- and the scream moves up and down his throat like a blob of hot bile that can't decide if it wants to be expelled or not.

Someone touches him and he cries out like he's been burned, flinches away from it because it hurts so much it feels like it seared through his clothes, skin and bone. He smacks into the wall as he reels from the touch -it's disgraceful and probably makes him look like a mad man. Because Stiles has his eyes screwed shut, hands fixed over his ears, body drawn tight to the point of his elbows touching as he propels himself into a wall- but he doesn't feel any pain from the impact; just knows something solid is preventing him from getting further away from them.

He's vaguely aware of the noise he's making, a coarse dull whine in the back of his throat.

Stiles tries to focus on it because the sound escaping him is comforting, it allows some of the stress boiling over inside out, like a kettle blowing steam to release pressure.

He feels the noise rumble high in his throat, in his head it sounds like humming so he presses his hands tighter over his ears trying to block the Zoo of sounds and voices questioning, yelling and arguing out and squeezes his eyes shut harder. When his legs buckle and he slides down the wall and onto the floor he doesn't even notice.

He closes himself off from the world by peeling away the senses. First goes scent and taste because they take the least effort to ignore, then touch succumbs to the numbness spreading throughout his limbs but sound and sight don't relinquish their hold easily it takes time to focus them on the humming, to turn off the colours flashing like psychedelic kaleidoscopes and the words ringing eerie shrill in his ears.

He blocks everything out except the humming in his throat, shuts everything down apart from the muscles necessary to cover his ears and keep his eyes closed. He strips himself of external impressions because they have betrayed him, 'til there's nothing but darkness and humming left. Stiles knows he's probably rocking, a slight swaying motion of his body back and forth in order to ground himself. It's soothing; allows him to focus on something other than the physical assault of loud boisterous sounds and too bright florescent lights attacking his mind and senses like lightning strikes.

Stiles makes an unsettling display and he knows it. To an onlooker the entire act would seem profoundly disturbing. It the sort of thing you'd want to do something, anything to stop, it triggers the human desire to help. People want to help, talk, comfort, hug it out but the right thing to do is leave it be. Go away and it will sort itself out.

The place Stiles goes to is not a positive one just Grand Central Neutral but he wants to go there because otherwise he thinks his heart will probably stop and his mind short-circuit.

He doesn't know how long he sits on the floor contained in his own curled up space -10 minutes, 15? 25?- but slowly, little by little the pressure from both inside and outside lets up. The rocking dies out gradually and he stops humming when the knot –the one that sits in the spot right below his heart- starts feeling looser and calmer as it begins to disentangle itself. Eventually he breathes easier, his pulse ceases to pound in his ears and the air doesn't feel so hot and heavy anymore.

He's no longer suffocating on existence.

He doesn't take his hands off his ears immediately but instead eases into uncovering them in the same way he gradually eases back into his body. He never left his body just sort of curled up deep inside it but in the same way it took time doing that it takes time undoing it; growing back into his limbs, accepting the sounds and sights is like feeling your conscience spread throughout you. Breathing out and breathing in yourself; that doesn't make sense but it's what it's like.

It's a distorted kind of tranquillity.

Stiles let's his arms drop down like the two dead weights they are right now and only then does he become aware of the pain spreading in his hands and elbows, the drained muscles aching from overexertion. He's dizzy from energy loss, sickness and lack of sleep and feels himself beginning to slowly tilt to one side before ultimately collapsing in a boneless, exhausted, heap on the floor.

The linoleum makes a cold hard bed and Stiles sorta feel like he's floating in the twilight zone, out of space and time, as he lays there on the floor like a haphazardly placed fetus dropped on the ground.

He's not quite yet feeling his limbs but it's vaguely distinguishable to him that someone's rubbing their thumb gently over the back of his hand. How sweet.

By the time he's finally ready to open his eyes he's met with the comforting sight of his dad kneeled down in front of him with concern written in the crease between his brows as he seeks eye contact and Stiles feels the warmth of fingers tenderly carding his hair in a gesture of affection and emotional support.

"Hi there, kid." Dad smiles reassuringly "You back with us?" he gently cups Stiles' cheek and Stiles instinctively press up towards the touch because it's firm and soft and protective; makes him relax. Moments later three pairs of hands help pull and push him up from the floor and it occurs to Stiles that Scott and Kira are there as well, they're barricading either side of him. Close but not touching. Giving Stiles the space he needs but never abandoning his side, using their presence as a shield to keep him safe from the warring howler monkeys.

As he leans back, resting against the wall he can see them behind his dad's back: Lydia, her mom, Mr. Yukimura, Coach and Scott's dad herding off the CDC and FBI. There're angry words exchanged between the two groups but they're too far away for Stiles to hear exactly what's being said. Not that Stiles feels particularly interested in what they've got to say really but whatever it is it has Lydia and Mrs. Martin looking like pissed off deities –beautiful pissed off deities- and Stiles' curiosity wants to know what warrants those expressions.

Kira moves out of the way and his dad take her place. With a grunt dad settles on the floor and says "I'm going to touch you now, okay?" and, without waiting for a reply to the rhetorical question, tugs Stiles to him almost pulling him into his lap and Stiles lets himself be manoeuvred like that because it feels nice to be able to rest his head on his dad's shoulder.

Scott slides his hand down Stiles' arm and wraps his fingers around his wrist as he tries to leech something from Stiles but can't, because Stiles is not in pain, he's just a little bit emotionally dishevelled right now and not even his Alpha can leech away that. He sends Scott a rueful smile as if he needs to apologise to Scott for taking away his chance to once again be Hero-wolf of the day. Scott just looks sad and a little bit peeved as he whispers "Sorry, I can't take it away." and instead starts running his werewolf heated hand over Stiles' arm, offering whatever warmth and comfort he can give.

Stiles shrugs the apology off. "It's ok" he tries to say but he's not sure the words are strong enough to be spoken or if they simply come out as mimicked, mouthed by his lips in a voice too low to be considered a whisper.

A short while later he's seated in the front passenger seat of his dad's squad car with the sheriff's uniform jacket draped over his shoulders to keep him warm and feeling secure. His hands still feel cold, no matter how much he twists, flicks and flips them they won't warm up. He flexes the fingers and lets his eyes linger at the bite marks lining them like small skin coloured tattoos, little red imprints in the soft flesh that perfectly match his own set of teeth.

Ever since the Nogitsune Stiles has taken to nibbling at his fingers when he's anxious and the skin of the phalanges fit just right between his teeth, especially the proximal phalange, it's Stiles' favourite part. There's just enough skin there, not too little not too much, to pull between his teeth –in the same way lots of people do with their lower lip- and nibble away. He doesn't bite hard, he's not interested in pain or breaking the skin and making himself bleed, he just need something to take the edge off the anxiety.

His dad hates that he does it; hates seeing the small red dents and lightly swollen skin that adorn Stiles' hands. His dad reprimands him every time he catches him biting; sternly tells him to "Quit doing that!" But Stiles can't stop because in the beginning it was a subconscious act then it occurred to him that he was doing it and nowadays it's more deliberate but still not on purpose. Anyway, it's helping. You try getting your mind invaded, having your body, soul and integrity raped and ravaged by a crazy ass fox demon and we'll see how well you cope! Honestly, Stiles thought he was dealing rather well; he was not about to turn into some suicidal mess because of it all. He had come out of his own personal hell victorious. He had defeated the demon. He had won. He was not ever going to fucking forfeit that win!

On a whole, semiconsciously nibbling his fingers was a trivial coping mechanism that a part of Stiles regarded himself as entitled to. That didn't mean he wanted to do it, or enjoyed it, every time he was caught and it was brought to his attention he felt the sick acidic sear of shame slosh around in his gut.

He stares at them. The marks usually fade fast and he has no memory of nibbling today but that fact that the little dints are there means that he must have, though he can't recall it. His dad has seen them too…

"We've talked about this." Dad chides lightly and reaches out to take Stiles' hands between his own, covering them to obscure his vision and force him to look elsewhere –It works. Stiles starts staring at the glove compartment instead- but when he doesn't respond further his dad sighs and falls back against his own seat.

They haven't left the parking lot yet. They mostly sit there in silence, the key is in the ignition but no matter how long Stiles waits and expects his dad doesn't seem to be in hurry turning it, frankly he seems to be waiting for something. His eyes keep glancing over at Stiles like he's expecting Stiles to do something, spill what happened in the school, vomit, faint, throw a fit or dissipate in a wisp Stiles scented incense… anything other than just sit there in muted silence.

The blood and brain matter has been cleaned off his face -curtsy of a ridiculously tense CDC nurse who had twitched nervously under the hawkeyed glares of Lydia and Mrs. Martin as he washed Stiles' face with a damp cloth that a young, eager FBI agent snatched up and zip locked in an evidence bag first chance he got and ran off with as if it was a god damn prize- Stiles had let out a muted giggle and mumbled into his dad's chest about leprechauns on crack at the sight of the young agent sprinting away down the hall.

Stiles feels awkward. The FBI has taken the clothes he'd been wearing; cut them off of him with a scissor so as to not ruin the evidence. Losing his blood and brain soaked clothes didn't bother him –it wasn't like he wanted to keep them as a souvenir or anything like that- but he highly doubted it was really crucial to the investigation that they have his boxers as well. He had argued the case to keep his boxers loud and clear –ok, more whined it like a tired child- but they had insisted and then proceeded to cut him out of them, Stiles never wanted to have a scissor that near his junk again, Ever! He had contemplated yelling for his Alpha to come and save him. If he had screamed Stiles is sure Scott would have came barrelling into the room with blazing red eyes and when realising Stiles' peril he'd go terminator-á la-Alpha on the agents. At least that's what Stiles likes to imagine Scott would do, in reality Scott would most likely beat the door down, take one look at the scene and then burst out laughing.

The same nervous CDC nurse had provided him with the papery dress he's currently donning. 'It's a gown' they'd said and Stiles agrees one that, it's very much a hospital gown –a muck yellow one, nonetheless and totally not his colour- Stiles had argued Gown is a synonym for Dress, therefore it's a dress and he's never going to forgive Agent McCall –screw the fact that he has just saved his life- Stiles will forever hold him accountable for the humiliation of having to walk pass his classmates, their families, nosy deputies, journalists and cameramen wearing a muck yellow dress!

Sure, his dad had given him the jacket and covered him as much as possible as he'd quickly urged Stiles into the car but Stiles is convinced he got caught on tape and he just hopes that shit doesn't hit the news, or worse, Youtube…

There's a crust of gravel scraping against the soles of his feet –bare because of course the FBI had insisted on also claiming his shoes and socks in addition to his boxers. He suspects they're just trying to make his nightmare of standing naked in the English classroom come true-. The tiny little pebbles make him cringe and pull his feet up. Stiles makes a mental note to take it up with the slackers at the station responsible for cleaning the squad cars, they seriously need to learn to clean the carpets as well; he'll hire a tutor if he has to, if he can't find a way wriggle funding for that out of the tight gripped superiors he'll coach them himself, take them on a field trip to the car wash, write an instruction manual with pictures and several diagrams… anything, so long as they learn how to use a fucking vacuum!

His straying thoughts are interrupted by the feel of a cool, calloused hand pressing against his forehead, touching down his cheek and around his nape. "You still got a bit of a fever, kid—"

Stiles pulls his knees up and hugs them to him. He'll never admit it but he totally does the 'little-kid-fetal' curl also know as the 'I'm-not-looking-or-talking-and-I'm-curled-up-small' thing where you crawl up and make yourself as small as possible to hide from a conversation.

He doesn't care that he's seventeen and not seven.

No one has ever accused Stiles of being consistent at being mature, quite the opposite actually, he's been described as distinctively inconsistent at maturity. In some aspects of his character he left people astound at how someone so young could be so mature while other behaviours of his made them question his age. By age ten Stiles was taking care of the house, he cooked as much as he could, did laundry and looked after his dad when he'd had a bit too much to drink. At age seventeen he still had freaking meltdowns and plastered his hands over his ears when he didn't want to listen and curled up like a toddler.

"Let's get you home."

He's roughly brought back by the loud rumbling of the engine. It's like a little jolt shocks his system and pulls it away from the haze in his head. It's awakening. Stiles wets his lips and dryly swallows down the cottoned feeling in his mouth "Where's Scott?"

His dad cocks an eyebrow at him from the rear-view mirror, as if thinking 'That's what you're going with?' and looks as if he wants to reach out a feel Stiles' forehead again but thankfully keeps his hands on the wheel and eyes on the road as they pull out of the parking lot. "His dad drove him home."

"Ohhh…"

They didn't really talk at all during the 20 minute drive home even though at least one of them wanted nothing more than to talk about what had happened. The Sheriff wouldn't say it out loud, especially not in front of his son, but he had been scared. A mad scientist with a mutated virus and gun threatening innocent kids in a school was in his opinion the worst kind of terrorism -it was a new low even for the supernatural, or rather it was a new low for humans hunting the supernaturals and their associates-. He no longer knows who to trust. If humans can do this kind of thing to children then who is there to trust?

He casts his eyes over to his quiet son resting his feverish head against the cool window; maybe he should just take the kid out of Beacon Hills? No, he couldn't do that. First of Stiles would never forgive him and second neither of them wanted to leave.

Beacon Hills is their home.

And Stiles is not the kind of person to back down when the people and things he care about are on the line so the only option was to take care of him as he stands and fights with his friends, his Pack. Taking care of Stiles he can do, he knows how to do that better than anyone else.

Stiles spent the drive complaining to his mind about the gravel and pretending he didn't notice his dad's worried glances every tenth seconds.

Once back in the house, slumped down in the couch with a fresh pyjamas and a throw blanket wrapped around him it's no longer as easy to ignore his dad anymore because he is now currently standing right in front of him, blocking the view of the TV and dangling a thermometer in his face.

"I'm fine, I don't need it." Stiles argues weakly and wishes he would have possessed enough energy to bat it away but he doesn't. He too tired and really just wants to lie down and sleep.

"Nice try, kid" Dad deadpans and wiggles the plastic thing inches from his nose, encouraging Stiles to take it "remember thermometers function properly in both doors, either you accept it or it will use entrance number two."

Stiles' brain mulls those words over for a moment, because it's not quite yet up to its regular processing capacity, then what his dad is implying finally connects "Foul!" He regrets the exclamation immediately as it pounds in his already sore and aching skull and his dad takes the open mouthed opportunity as it's presented.

Stiles scowls and rolls his tongue around trying to get it in a better position "Dis bettzer not haf been in numfer tzwo" he says around a mouthful of thermometer.

His dad shrugs absently and tries to hide the nostalgic smirk "Not in the last 15 years."

THE END

A/N: This turned out a lot longer than I had intended. My brain just ran with it and didn't want to stop, I actually had to force myself to end it. I'm not even sure how 2/3 of this fic happened, my brain just melted on to the paper… Why can't that happen more often? And on fics I'm supposed to be working on?