So Stiles is waking up a little, more of his sarcastic self is showing through in the way he thinks. Not my best work for sure but I seriously just wrote 3,000 worlds on a bath. Now, I'm known for taking three hour showers but this is just ridiculous.
At a little over three thousand words this chapter is a little shorter than the last but the next chapter is going to make up for it. Promise )
It's going to be a very slow burning romance I'm afraid. Very rocky and dark in the beginning. I hate sudden love.
I hope you guys get a better idea of what Stiles has been going through the last few years in this chapter. There is Lydia love and Derek trying to help. The next chapter isn't going to feature these lovely characters though I'm afraid. Sorry! But every good story needs time to mature, fine wine here guys. More Stiles in the fourth chapter though.
The bath feels like heaven. The process of getting him inside of it? Not so much.
Derek gives up trying to get a reaction out of him after a few minutes. His motivational speech doesn't have any outwards effect, and only succeeds in breaking Stiles's heart into a million little pieces. He mentally picks them back up and shoves the shattered pieces back into the little hole he's carved out of his chest for them.
Derek huffs and sets about trying to pry the soiled blankets off of his body. Easier said than done. He hasn't moved for over a week to do anything over than shoot up or stuff moldy granola bars down his throat once or twice. He didn't even know granola bars could get moldy. He stares at Derek picking through the mess of blankets assumability trying to find where the top layer began. He finds it and starts pulling and even Stiles's eyes water at the stench that is released when he starts unraveling him. He would feel ashamed and humiliated if he wasn't so busy trying to keep his stomach from wrenching itself free of his body via his esophagus.
Derek isn't having much more luck. His face is scrunched up and tears are starting to roll down his scruffy cheeks. He has one hand clasped over his nose and is breathing shallowly through his mouth. At this point he's pretty sure that Derek is trying to help him, even if he doesn't understand why but that doesn't mean he isn't taking murder off the table. He's positive he knows him, but for all he knows they could be arch nemesis and Derek is luring him into a sense of security before cutting him up. The first blanket comes loose and Derek hurls it as far away from him as he can. It smacks against the opposite walls and slides down to land in a half solid pile on the floor. The woman from the car is standing in the hallway with her nose crinkled up in distaste and her glossy lips pressed tightly together.
"I hope you plan on burning those." She says, and flips her hair over her should. It's strawberry blond and falls over said should in silky curls that mesmerize him. He's helplessly ensnared by her, caught in her orbit already and he suddenly feels like a young teenager watching his crush walk by him, again. It's to specific a feeling to be random and it catches him off-guard for a moment.
"Lydia, you're not helping." Derek snarls. He makes the mistake of baring his teeth at her. He has to remove his hand from his nose to do so and his face turns the color of oatmeal and he gags. He watches him try to control his breath for a minute before he decides it's as good a time as any to zone out.
"Of course not, I just got this manicure. Get Issac or Boyd to help you." She cast a disgusted look around the bathroom, her eyes catching on him for a moment and a strange expression flickering across her face before vanishing. She spun on one heel and he listened to the clip-clip of her heels across the floor as she headed back to the living room. Derek stares off in the direction she left in with his eyes narrowed and his head tilted like he's listening to something before making another attempt to untangle him from the second blanket.
This one goes a little easier, still soft and protected from the elements. He picked it up weeks ago from a dumpster outside the mall, delighted to discover the star wars theme printed on the fleece. It isn't star wars themed anymore. The cheap ink faded away from weeks of being carried around in his dufflebag before it had been stolen and the last week when he'd gone through a phase of giving up again. It happened more and more than he would like to admit. Derek huffs above him and pulls it free from his body, revealing his heavy fur jacket that he had bought at a thrift store half off sale when he'd had an extra five dollars left after visiting his dealer the night before.
It was warm and he loved it. It was-being thrown in the trash pile now. He silently mourned his loyal jacket while Derek's rough hands stripped him out of his shirt by tearing it down the middle. He was cursing above him, laying eyes on the mess of fading bruises and scars that littered his visible ribcage. It had been a long time since he had actually looked at himself, and even long since he had felt anything but resignation. But now he felt shame, humiliated that Derek was witnessing what he had become. Hands were being wrapped around his thin arms, thumbs tracing the mess of track mark, drawing invisible lines between them like constellations. His touch was red hot and burned into him. He clenched his eyes shut and refused to look when Derek let go and started wrestling him out of his ancient jeans that had molded into his body and practically become one with his skin.
He naked and being lifted back into strong arms when someone else enters the bathroom. He glares weakly at Cheekbones who looks back evenly, if a little uncomfortable in his stare. He doesn't say a word though, just leans down to scoop up the pile of filthy clothes while Derek checks the bath temperature. He leans Stiles against his chest for a moment with one hand to dump enough scented bath wash to disinfect a herd of elephants into the water. He sets the bottle back down and slides his arm back under his knees.
"Issac, is the guest bedroom already set up?" Cheekbones glances at Derek and nods. He's holding the pile of rags as far away from himself as possibly, looking as though he wished to be anywhere else in the world. Derek nods and looks down at Stiles, his eyes settling on what Stiles knows is the hard jut of his hipbones, the clear outline of his ribs and cutting edge of every joint and line of his body. "Tell Scott to talk to his mother about nutrition. You meet him at the store to pick up supplies." Issac stares at him uncomprehendingly for a moment. It's all it takes for Derek's face to harden and him to snap "Now!" at him. Issac scrambles away with the pile of clothes clutched in his arms.
Derek finally turns his attention back to him and lowers him into the water. Whatever Stiles's was expecting, it wasn't this. The water, which is probably only lukewarm, feels like being dropped on the surface of the sun. Being warmer than he had been in months gave him the illusion that he was actually warm. He wasn't and the water was a rude awakening. He screams completely hoarse and high pitched and fights the arms holding him in the soapy water. The soap burns like acid in every cut and sore on his body and he curses Derek with every single word he knew and every new and creative one he learned on the streets. His voice is a cracked whisper at most and doesn't have much effect on his tormentor who keeps him submerged despite his thrashing that sends water sloshing over the edge and all over the tiled floor. The tiles looked new and the sealant unfinished, he bitterly hopes that they are ruined now. The water is burning in his eyes and his hair is plastered to his face in thick, soapy dreadlocks.
He hates his dreadlocks. They aren't cool, Rastafarian dreads. If they were he might have thrown in some cheap plastic beads and called it a day but they are just the product of too few bathing opportunities and too few fucks given about his state of hygiene. Thick, frizzy knotted chunks of dead hair matted together with a mix of oil and shit and sprinkled with a healthy dose of dandruff that nearly colors his hair white. Back when he still gave a shit he would cut them off with rusty scissors he kept in his duffel. Less hair meant less ways for perverts to try and choke him to death.
Now one of Derek's huge hands are squeezing the contents of a bottle of shampoo onto his head while the other still holds his body under the water. His limbs are alive with burning pins and needles and he'd less than thrilled about the manhandling but he's tolerating it because Lydia is walking back into the bathroom with a pair of scissors. He has a flash of fear that he's going to be stabbed that is replaced with devote love towards her when she points one finger at the mess of hair that Derek is tugging futile on with a comb and about a gallon of shampoo. His ears are under the foamy water so he doesn't hear what she says very well but he's glad when Derek hauls him into a sitting position and splits the loosest dread in the pack of his head in half so he can section his hair in two. Lydia reaches forward and starts sawing at the dread closest to his face and he prays to his new goddess silently and may confess his undying love to her a few times if the amused curl of her lips is anything to go by.
The first dread comes loose after a minute spent fidgeting as feeling returns to his extremities. The sensation of the tugging on his scalp releasing surprises him. He'd become so use to it that he hadn't even realized the source of the discomfort until it was gone. The next few give more resistance than the first and Lydia swears colorfully as she saws the scissors through them. Wet hair falls down and sticks to his hands that arm sitting over his knees. His knees are drawn up to his chest, placing his spidery hands near his face. His sight is blurry and unfocused, worse everyday he goes without filling his stomach.
He wants to be angry that he is being yanked around and fussed over. He doesn't know what they want from him. Not that he has anything he can give them anyways, even his body is fragile and broken. His fingers are twisted at funny angles and the skin is purple splotched like he soaked them in berry juice. He doesn't know if it is from having his fingers broken or from the blood rushing back into them but it doesn't really matter when it looks like he has dead flesh attached to the ends of his wrist. His fingers twitch and he swallows down his stomach when it rushes up at the sight of his deformed fingers twisting in different directions.
He can't gather any anger though, never mind any sort of resistance. He's relieved deep inside under the numbness he's lived with for so long. He's warm and clean and people are actually giving a shit about him. It's been so long since anyone has even looked at him for longer than it took to decide if he was worth the ten bucks it cost to use him or the effort it would take to kill him.
He wants so badly to ask why but he's to afraid of the answer. They know him and he knows them, but he doesn't remember who they were and how they knew him. There is a lot he doesn't remember now. Someone explained it to him once but he doesn't remember why, he was to consumed by the need to drive away the pain in his head and the itch under his skin with another hit. He regrets not listening now. Maybe there was some way to remember who they were and why they wanted to help him when he was so obviously so far gone.
Lydia cut loose the last dread and ran her hand over his choppy, filthy hair. Hair tumbled out and floated over the surface of the water. His knuckles were covered in a layer of knotty brown hair. He hated it and watched the water lap at the edges of the mess, hoping that it was surge up and wash it away.
It didn't but Derek took his hands and dipped them under the water. The chaos in his head cleared a little when they emerged clean of hair. Lydia was kneeling behind him soaping up a sponge and Derek was scrubbing soaped up hands through what remained of his hair. Soap dribbled down from his hairline and trailed through his eyebrow before hitting his eye. He clenched his eyes shut to late to stop the burning. Derek's hands felt amazing on his head, loosening up the dead skin and separating his hair. His headache was easing ever so slightly and the pins and needles in his body were finally ebbing away. He moaned piteously against his will when Lydia started methodically dragging the sponge over his body. The fibers felt like sandpaper as they ripped up scabs and scrubbed against tender bruises and open sores. Her hands didn't ease up in the slightest, instead pressing harder and focusing on caked blood and pus and open sores. The bath water was darkening around him to a sickening black-brown. Derek reached in and yanked up the plug. The water was turned back on, sending clean hot water swirling through the dark water around his body. He found the strength in his hands to push feebly against Lydia's hands where they were scrubbing at a particularly agonizing sore on the inside of his thigh. She was slowly working her way up his legs and he pushed harder at her Hans when she reached under the water and gripped his penis in a tight no-nonsense hold and began working her sponge over it. He cried out when she pulled at the sores around his head from sitting it wetness. He couldn't look at her, couldn't see the pity on her face when her hand paused above an old scar of deep teeth imprints on the side of his penis. He couldn't think of the lesson he learned the night he received that scar without breaking down. His body trembled helplessly and her hand jerked back into motion. She finished quickly and moved back.
Derek's hand cupped his forehead while he poured buckets of water over his head. Filthy water cascaded down his body from his scalp with each bucket full that hit his body. He poured until the water ran clear and Stiles had stopped trembling in the face of his pure exhaustion.
It had been weeks since he had been awake for more than an hour or two. Being awake and active again was taking it toll on him and he was compliant and baby weak against the wall of the tub. He dimly noted the water had been shut off and Lydia had rinsed him off with the same efficiency and thoroughness that she had washed him with.
His head lolled back while his muscles melted into liquid. Derek was cutting his beard down close to his jaw. He must have put conditioner in it at some point because his fingers slid through easily when he was finished trimming it down to his satisfaction. His eyes were closed and his mind drifting off into unconscious when he was finally lifted out of the emptying tub of black water and pressed into the sinfully soft towel that had been laid out earlier.
He drifted in and out while he was fussed over and dried off. Lydia was messing with the sores on his legs, smearing something freezing cold onto them that had the consistency of paste and the smell of chemicals and overpowering mint. He groaned when Derek pressed a bottle to his lips while she wrapped dry fabric tightly around his thighs and secured them before starting on the sores on his hands and feet.
He gulped down the water without hesitation, much to tired to question or consider what was in the bottle. The liquid rushed down his parched throat and filled the empty hole carved out of his stomach from hunger. It sloshed heavily in his stomach when Derek pulled the bottle away from him and set it down on the tiles beside him. He turned his face to look down at Lydia who was messing with his feet but the warm pull of sleep was taking him and his head fell back against the bath rug he was half laying on. The world winked out above him, the white ceiling and warm yellow light dimming to black in seconds.
The last thing he saw was Derek's heavy boots beside him before he drifted away.
AHHH! Stiles sadness. This chapter was just to give you an idea of the condition Stiles's life has put him in. It's been a hard one unfortunately and Stiles isn't quite sure why he is being help when he's only been hurt for so long. Things are going to get better for him! It's going to be a long, difficult journey for everyone though. No sudden recovery for anyone :(