Hai guys :3 Are you as excited as I am for tomorrows episode? Annyyywwaaayys, here's the next chapter. Don't be mad, the next one will be up soon!
Each class felt like a bullet to the head. Except played in slow motion. He could feel it scrape through the first couple layers of skin and squeeze passed the thick cranium and into soft brain matter. It itched. Hurt. Stiles couldn't keep still. Couldn't focus on anything. Every time the bell rang it made him flinch because his thoughts were in so many different places, doing so many different things.
Scott was next to him in the locker room, growling and grumbling about how he got a B- on his first English test instead of an A. It was worth laughing at but Stiles couldn't think of much encouragement except for, 'we'll study more' and 'it's not that big of a deal.' The young wolf bickered and groaned all the way to the lacrosse field.
It wasn't until they actually got to the field that Scott decided it would be appropriate to mention the issues going on within the pack.
"So," he started, looking across to Stiles as they both did sit-ups, one right after the other. "Isaac is-"
"Right here."
The other wolf took a seat next to Scott, falling into rhythm with the other players. Stiles watched them both expectantly as he sat up to stretch. Scott blinked over at Isaac and sighed, "Isaac is thinking that there might be more wolves coming. Since the area is so vast and there's been so much drama flying around there's no way some omegas and betas haven't had some kind of curiosity."
Exactly what they needed. It wasn't as if a pack of alphas hadn't already flipped their lives upside down, let's throw in some others.
Stiles nodded, "I'm sure you're right," he looked across to Isaac who was eyeing him up and down rather oddly. He raised a brow, "but how exactly are we going to deal with this? Is little miss bow and arrow going to do some tracking or...?"
Scott narrowed his eyes and stood, waiting for Isaac and Stiles to follow. They jogged the field a few times, bickering about how she could be helpful in a situation like this. Isaac argued vehemently against the idea.
It made sense. All of it. It all made complete and perfect sense. Wolves are pack animals and they gravitate to strength but it's not like there's been much of that going around. People are falling apart. Everyone around him just keeps dying and what's next? A group of packless wolves going to show up hoping that this little club would be something stable they could stand on. Ground they could run on. Beacon Hills was not the place. And they were definitely not the people.
"It's just something we need to keep in mind," Isaac added, "no other wolves will come near us until we have the alphas taken care of anyways."
Stiles was distracted but nodded, shuffling on his feet in the line of lacrosse players practicing their shots.
It went by slow. The whole day had gone by slow.
It went from class to practice to studying. There was nothing left to do. Nothing left to think about. Except for the way Derek looked when he was laughing. Or how the muscles in his arms flexed when he felt Stiles' teeth sink into his shoulder. How his cheeks filled with color when he was embarrassed and how he accepted his own faults so easily. Derek had never seemed like the type to just admit defeat, but this morning... It just felt so completely different than it had ever felt before.
"What are you smiling at?" Lydia blinked at him from across the table in the library and he jumped, flipping through the book in front of him and stumbling across his words.
"Uhm- yeah, nothing. Just reading about... uh, bottle nosed dolphins," he shot Lydia a smile, hoping she'd leave him alone about it and subconsciously tried to slow his heart beat even though the girl in front of him was just as human as he was.
She shook her pretty strawberry blonde locks around and her perfectly lined pink lips fell open as she closed the college level psychology book in-front of her. "Well, I have to go pick up Prada from the groomers and stop by Jacksons," she mused through the quiet breath of a sigh. Stiles blinked and nodded hastily, "Oh, yeah, go ahead. See you, uh, see you tomorrow or something. Thanks for studying with me."
It was awkward. The whole situation was awkward and Stiles could feel it like a chill worming its way up his spine. He could speak. His eloquent, although ridiculous ways of putting together sentences was what usually got him out of the terrible situations he tended to launch himself into. But not today. Apparently forming words was not something he could do at this moment.
Lydia grabbed her purse and blinked, pursing her lips together, "Stiles," she started, looking at her feet and then back to the boy sitting before her, "I'm really sorry."
He blinked, cocked his head to the side and shook it back and forth. "What... uh, what exactly are you...?" his voice trailed off when she looked at the announcement board towards the front of the library. There was a candle lit vigil being held in the woods tomorrow night.
"Oh, Heather..." he looked down, picking at the skin around his fingers and chewing nervously on the inside of his lip, "Yeah, thanks Lydia."
She smiled at him but he didn't have the strength to pick his eyes back up and look at her until he heard the tapping of her heels against the floor.
It had been hard. Losing Heather. They were never a thing but the fact that another part of his life was now rotting underground made his stomach turn. Heather and Erica were just the first to go. Next it would be worse. Scott. Allison. Isaac. Derek. His stomach flipped and he took in a shaky breath. Anxiety. Insomnia. What the fuck was next.
He gathered his things and walked outside, throwing his books and bag into the passengers seat of the Jeep before scrounging inside the glove box for the near empty pack of cigarettes.
It hurt. Everything hurt. The anxiety. The panic attacks. The losing sleep. That's actually how it had started after all, wasn't it? The not sleeping. Stiles took a long drag off the cigarette and blinked, leaning heavily on the door of his Jeep. It had started when he couldn't sleep.
It was torture, to flush through the memories. High school had been normal. Everything had been fine. And then it had to go and get completely fucked up by one accidental bite in the middle of the woods. Why the fuck had they even gone out there? Stiles snorted and shook his head back and forth. "Stupid fucking kids," he muttered to himself, dropping the butt of the smoke on the ground and stomping it out, "didn't even know what we were getting ourselves into." More or less what he himself was getting himself into. Who he was getting into.
His heart beat had slowed. That butterfly sound of wings beating heavy had settled into it's normal fluttered pattern.
It was terrifying. Fucking terrifying. Being on the verge of a panic attack was like being at the top of a roller coaster. Except forced. No control. No seat belt. You know that if you roll over the top of that hill that you're going to plunge into the asphalt. Stiles knew the feeling too well.
His phone buzzed in his pocket and he dug around for a moment as he opened the driver side door.
Still coming by tomorrow?
Stiles blinked and typed 'yes' slowly into the little white box staring brightly back at him on the screen of his phone. Why the fuck was this so nerve racking? They had done this hundreds of times. Nothing changed. Stiles had a panic attack and let Derek try to absorb his emotions one night, that doesn't mean everything has to get complicated.
It was nice to get home. To set his body down into his old sheets and let the comforter envelope him. Long eyelashes danced over his irises and he let them fall closed as he pulled his knees into his chest and tried to keep his thoughts at bay.
Heather was gone. Erica, gone.
His hands slid up to cup over his ears, squeezing them, trying to silence the ringing that was pulsing between his ear drums.
A tear rolled down to the tip of his nose as Stiles squeezed his eyes shut, taking in a slow, shaky breath.
That bullet was still being drilled through his skull. Every day. And every night.
You make a good batman
The words echoed through his dream as tired eyes peeled themselves open. The phone on the nightstand rang over and over again. His head was swimming and his eyes stung. Stiles blinked and pawed at his face with the back of his hands, blinking over and over again until the numbers on his clock stopped being blurry.
2:47 a.m
He groaned and lazily reached across his bed, swatting the blankets as he did. His fingers pulled the edge of his phone over until he could grab it and pulled it to his face, blinking again at the brightness.
"The fuck, Scott, it's three in the-"
"Stiles! Okay so, uhm, Derek and Isaac- Yes! Yes, I'm on the phone with him right now- Just, just hold on Stiles."
Stiles was stumbling out of bed and his heart was racing as he pulled jeans on and grabbed a red sweat shirt off the ground, tossing it on over his bare chest.
"Scott!"
"Shit! Okay, sorry Stiles, the, the alphas. They got into a fight with the twins out near the old house. Uh, Derek and Isaac are pretty fucked up but we need your Jeep. Derek's car is stuck out in a pot hole in the woods-"
"Are you guys at Derek's?"
"Yeah, yeah we are,"
"I'm coming."
Stiles shoved his phone in the front pocket of his jeans and grabbed the beanie off his dresser, sliding it on as he ran as quietly down the stairs as he could.
His heart was pounding. It felt like bricks were stacked on each of his ribs, weighing down onto his body. His spine tingled and every movement he made he felt in his fingertips. The adrenaline was pushing his nervousness to the brink of what he could normally handle, but it was also masking the panic that was slowly swallowing him.
"He's fine. He'll heal. He's fine. He'll heal."
He breathed evenly, staring at the road as he drove.
"He's fine. H-he'll heal."
His voice started to shake and he scrambled to light a cigarette.
The smoke invaded his lungs and Stiles tapped his foot as he waited at the red light to turn into the parking structure across from Derek's complex.
It was like tunnel vision. Like he was running from something or to something, he didn't even really know. It was like turbulence between his ears. Everything was scrambled into one complex emotion.
He took a drag off the cigarette and swallowed the lump gathering in his throat.
"He's fine. He'll heal."
