Stiles completely withdrew after that evening with Derek.

Before it had been hard but not impossible to get him to speak, but now he was completely silent. He stopped eating and had to be put back on the higher dose of IV fluids. Doctor Brillington became more than a little concerned when his healing visibly slowed and started talking about the tracheostomy and how infection was only a matter of time if he didn't start drastically improving in the next few days.

The only noise Stiles made was when a pretty young nurse had tried to change his catheter. The second her gloved hands hand closed around his penis Stiles was lost in the memory of Malia.

He'd come back to himself only to find several nurses and orderlies holding him down while Doctor Brillington had been preparing a sedative. The pretty young nurse had been cowering in the corner in tears with a bloody nose.

Doctor Khatri had arrived a few minutes later, concerned etched into every facet of her face and Stiles had managed to catch a few words as the two doctors had spoken in the corner while the nurses went about righting the equipment he'd managed to pull about.

Words and phrases such as 'uncontrolled screaming', 'unresponsive to outside stimulus', 'severe PTSD regarding women', 'entirely possible he will never be able to be sexually active with a woman again', 'anti-depressants', 'trauma', 'self-harm' and 'might be better off at a closed facility' registered with Stiles as his heart slowly calmed.

His dad had been devastated when he'd been told about the incident when he came by later in the day, especially when he'd heard that by struggling Stiles had worsened his injuries.

Melissa now would barely let the Sheriff out of her sight whenever he was in the hospital, as though she was afraid he'd whip out a whisky bottle there and then and starting binging on it. Stiles could only hope she had a similar setup for when his dad was at home too.

When any of the wolves in the pack were visiting, they would sway between being ridiculously overprotective of Stiles, to the point that they growled any time a nurse came into the room, or they acted overwhelmingly guilty. Isaac had literally burst into tears the first time he saw Stiles getting his dressings changed, and Scott would spend a lot of time reminiscing about the 'good old days', which he only ever did when he was trying to make up for something.

Stiles himself felt a more than a little bemused with having Scott back in his life, interacting with him every day now. On school days Scott would swing by right after, and on the weekend he would turn up in the mornings and stay until someone kicked him out. To go from virtually nothing to so much left Stiles feeling unbalanced, even though Scott never pressured him to answer back. Scott was simply there all the time, tension and unspoken words thick in the air between them and his big, brown eyes gazing at Stiles with such sorrow and regret that Stiles could no longer meet his gaze.

He could tell that his lack of improvement was taking a toll on his (former?) best friend. The first time Scott would lay his eyes on Stiles at the start of every visit he would stumble or falter for a second, as though he'd forgotten how badly injured he was.

Stiles knew that the bandages and casts still covered the worst of it but he'd been shown how messed up his face was, with a bruise starting at his right temple and going right down to his jaw, a black eye, split lip, and several cuts most likely made when he was thrown through the wall dotted over his forehead and nose.

Stiles didn't know how they looked now, all he knew was that Scott winced every time he glanced at Stiles' face.

The bags under Scott's eyes started to make a reappearance, and his face started to take on the harrowed look that Stiles had been so relieved to see vanish the first time. Talk of the 'good old days' was fast to run out and most of the time they would sit there for hours in silence, both unable to speak even though there was so much that needed to be said.

It was always a relief when someone came with Scott, because they always dissipated the worst of the tension.

Lydia would come by with Scott after school, bringing her school work and Stiles'.

She'd informed Stiles crisply, in the way she did whenever she was hiding what she was feeling, that Stiles' dad had called the school to let them know the basics of the situation and Lydia had nominated herself (not that anyone would have dared to contest her) to bring all of Stiles' assignments to him.

It was only after they talked to the school that they'd found out just how far Stiles had fallen behind, to the point where if he didn't bring his grades back up to what they once were before the end of year exams then he's face having to repeat the year.

Lydia was having none of that and told Stiles in no uncertain terms that she wouldn't tolerate having to compete with anyone other than Stiles for Valedictorian.

At one point he may have been annoyed with her apparent bossiness, but her voice would often tremble or break at the end of sentences, or sometimes she'd trail off and just stare at him. She'd rally herself admirably of course a few seconds later and Stiles could only be slightly grateful that she was at least somewhat trying to treat him normally. So far however Stiles had been non-responsive to any of her prompting to do any schoolwork.

Given that she didn't try to jump down his throat after the third consecutive day of Stiles just staring listlessly at the wall while Lydia tried to engage him with their physics homework, Stiles figured she'd been warned about his rather extreme reaction to anything he might interpret as female aggression, be it sexual, physical, or verbal.

Derek kept his word and didn't come back.

Kira was dealing with the situation as best she could, but she had so far ended up apologising every time she saw him about her fox-fire kick starting the Nogitsune even though Stiles didn't think she had anything to apologise for. Sure, it did mean that the Nogitsune, who had been weakened from spending so long trapped, had been able to take control a little sooner, but it still would have found a way with or without Kira. Then she would apologise about always apologising.

Maybe due to Stiles being unable to verbally reassure her, Kira continually tried to make it up to him by bringing comics and reading them to him or talking about the Marvel movies, and because she had a kind soul and a sweet heart every now and again she'd forget herself and try to give Stiles a hug, or reach out to give him a comforting touch. So far Stiles had instinctively flinched visibly enough for her to catch herself, but he found himself watching her more closely because of it, constantly expecting her to catch him off-guard at some point.

Isaac was always the most exhausting outside of Scott and his dad. The young man seemed terrified of talking to Stiles about any of his own experiences and would mutter something about triggers every now and again, but he also seemed quite desperate to at the same time. The longing in his expression was almost like a physical weight on Stiles and always left him drained. Isaac also seemed determined to be his friend now, not letting the fact that Stiles wasn't speaking hinder him in the slightest as he would talk to him about his interests. Every now and again though he'd inadvertently mention his brother or his dad and then would go quiet, returning to the sorrowful, longing looks.

Parrish was a rock in the swirling emotions of everyone else. He'd usually come in with a book, ask Stiles how he was feeling, and when Stiles wouldn't respond he would simply settled down and read for a few hours. Occasionally he'd give Stiles unasked for but much appreciated updates on his dad, who wasn't doing terribly well and had been all but forced off active investigations and into filing duty at the station as making him take time off would be the same as giving him a free pass to go and drink an entire liquor store. Parrish worded it carefully, but it was easy for Stiles to read between the lines to understand just how worried everyone at the station was for the Sheriff.

Parrish also updated him on the situation with Malia. He'd avoid using her name for the most part and referred to her as 'person X', something which Stiles would have been delighted by at one point, and Stiles supposed he should be grateful that at least one person was keeping him in the loop but it simply reminded him that Malia was remaining stubbornly missing.

All of the pack, including Parrish, but excluding Peter who was still AWOL, as well as neighbours, teachers and classmates, had been interviewed by the deputies heading the investigation. The pack, as they had been considered the people Stiles was closest to, had been questioned to within an inch of their life about Malia, about Stiles, about Stiles and Malia. None of them could miss the way the deputies immediately picked up on things that they'd overlooked or ignored, like how dominating Malia had been with Stiles right from the start.

The pack had come together to discuss what they'd been asked with each other when the interviews were over and Parrish had witnessed how they'd all agreed that they'd foolishly excused Malia's over-aggressive attitude as her being a were-coyote and struggling to re-acclimatise to being human again. Isaac had commented on how he and Erica especially had acted when they'd first been turned and how quickly the others had made it clear that what they were doing wasn't okay. The pack meeting had dissolved into arguments, frustrated name calling, and tears from there.

Parrish at one point confessed his own frustration to Stiles that due to his training he should have picked up on something. Stiles had wanted to remind Parrish that once Stiles had stopped going to pack meetings early on in his relationship with Malia, Parrish had only seen him twice – once when Liam had been turned, and the other when everyone had gone to Lydia's to watch movies. Parrish hadn't had the chance to interact with Stiles either of those times, so the fact that Parrish was blaming himself was ridiculous. Fortunately he only spoke of it the one time and he'd been quick to go back to talking about the case, as though he were embarrassed at admitting such a thing.

Apparently there was so much damning evidence on Malia now (Parrish had seen the files, plural), such as her aggressive interactions with people from the restaurant to school and everything in-between, the staff feedback from her brief stay at Eichen House in which they'd all said she'd made 'no progress' and shouldn't have been released, her failing grades, all combined with the fact that it was public knowledge that she'd lived wild in the preserve for eight years, that even if they caught her and Stiles refused to testify she was still deemed too mentally unstable and dangerous to remain in civilian society. At best if she was caught she'd be looking at potentially the rest of her life locked away in Eichen House or a similar facility.

No matter if she was found or not, Malia's life in Beacon Hills was over and that just made Stiles sink deeper.

Danny would usually accompany Liam and Mason, more so to keep an eye on them than anything else as the two of them together were as bad as Stiles and Scott had been at their age, which meant they wanted to poke everything. Danny was good at distracting them in ways that didn't come across as bossy or patronising, because while Liam and Mason agreed that what had happened to Stiles was terrible they hadn't known him before, so they couldn't really comprehend what Stiles had used to be like and so what had been lost.

The first time Danny told them the story of how Stiles had used Derek to get Danny to do his bidding the two of them had fallen about laughing, but hadn't really been able to associate the Stiles in Danny's story with the silent, thin, and broken Stiles on the bed. They spoke about it as though Danny was talking about an entirely different person, much to Danny's frustration but not to Stiles' surprise.

All in all, Danny seemed to be taking the brutal reveal of Stiles' abuse fairly well, given the situation, and while he and Stiles had pretty much known each other since kindergarten they hadn't fallen into the 'friends' category for a very long time.

When Danny had officially joined the pack it had been on the coat-tails of the Nogitsune debacle (Ethan had wandered up to Scott before he'd left the school for the last time and had casually informed him that Danny knew they were all werewolves and had for who knows how long before wandering off, leaving Scott to dash off almost in hysterics to find Danny,) and Stiles had already been falling into the abusive relationship with Malia, so while they were pack mates they weren't friends.

Danny had always been seen as 'nice' because he was the kindest one of the popular group. He never bullied anyone, and wouldn't immediately dismiss you most of the time if you tried to talk to him. He did still have that stand-offish attitude that all of the popular group had; walls that needed time and trust to come down before he'd actually let you see the real him. Those walls hadn't had a chance to fall with Stiles, nor the other way around, so Danny didn't push him to talk, like Parrish. Unlike Parrish though was that it wasn't really out of a form of respect, but more the uneasiness of being put into an uncomfortable situation where something terrible that you wouldn't wish on anyone had happened to someone you feel you should be friends with but aren't.

Danny had never really bothered to hide the fact that he hadn't liked the 'pre-Nogitsune' Stiles very much, so he was stuck with trying to help a pack mate, but also with the prospect that he might be trying to bring back a person he would still struggle to get along with. It had resulted in Danny turning his focus more on Liam and Mason than Stiles, and he struggled to look at or directly talk to him, something which Stiles would have to be blind to miss.

Derek still kept to his word and didn't come back.

Deaton had done as he said he would and had dropped by again the following evening after Derek had left. As soon as he realised that Stiles was no longer speaking he'd managed to ask all of his questions in a way that could be responded to by a simple shake or nod of the head.

When he'd confirmed with Stiles that Stiles would indeed go along with his idea he'd lifted his briefcase onto the table, clicked it open and started pulling out several glass pots of salve that he'd said he'd prepared on the chance that Stiles had agreed.

It had been a long process to get the various ointments and lotions on as many of the wounds he could reach then lastly he'd slathered on a thick greenish paste on Stiles' hands and had told Stiles to remain still until it had been completely absorbed into his skin. Deaton had excused himself soon after, saying that he wouldn't stress Stiles with starting the training yet, and Stiles had been left to stare at the paste as it gradually vanished into his skin.

Deaton had returned every early evening since, always leaving Stiles' hands for last, but Stiles had seen no improvement yet.

Things with Stiles' dad got progressively worse; John turning up stinking of whisky more frequently and looking like he hadn't slept, eaten, or changed his clothes, the longer Stiles couldn't bring himself to speak until one day he didn't turn up at all.

Parrish had finished his shift as normal, putting his book away and ensuring he clipped his gun back into place, but when John hadn't arrived he'd waited. After over an hour Melissa had poked her head around the door and then frowned when she didn't see who she was expecting to and gestured for Parrish to join her out in the hall. Unfortunately she didn't close the door properly behind her and Stiles could hear them fairly well over the beeping of the machines attached to him.

"Today's his day off so I didn't think anything of not seeing him at the station."

"Okay, you call him and I'll call Scott to see if he'll swing by John's house. There's no way he wouldn't be here."

They moved away from the door, Melissa most likely going back to the nurses station so she could call Scott and Parrish heading outside so he could use his cell, but a short while later they were back, both still oblivious to the fact that the door was ajar.

"I got no response from his home phone or cell," Parrish said sounding tense.

"Scott's on his way over there right now. I'll get back to the nurses station so he can call me and you stay here with Stiles."

A single set of footsteps moved away and Stiles could just see the edge of Parrish's right shoulder and arm through the narrow rectangle of glass in the door. He kept picking at his thumb nail which was probably a nervous habit.

The minutes continued to stretch out with still no sign of his dad and Stiles actually started to feel a whisper of dread pooling in his stomach; the first emotion he'd really felt since he'd made Derek leave.

"Jordan!"

The loud voice yanked Stiles out of his head in time to see Melissa stop exactly in the right place for him to see her clearly through the glass. The expression on her face was a mixture of fear, worry, and outright fury.

"Scott just called. He found John unconscious at his house surrounded by empty bottles. It looks like he's hit his head and Scott couldn't wake him so he called for an ambulance. He did say that his pulse and breathing were strong though. There was apparently a lot of vomit as well and if John had passed out on his back…" she trailed off with a shaky breath. Parrish's arm came up to squeeze her shoulder in reassurance.

"I know, but he didn't, try to focus on that. Right, I won't be of any use so I'll stay here for now, but you should head down so you can be there the moment he arrives. I'm assuming Scott will be riding in with the ambulance so let him know what's going on with the Sheriff before sending him up to me. Guarding Stiles will give him something to focus on."

"Okay," Melissa was back to her fierce self now she had something to do and she was gone seconds later.

Only when her footsteps had faded away did Stiles see Parrish clench his hand into a shaking fist where it had been forcibly kept lose and relaxed at his side.

"Damn it, John," Stiles heard him whisper before he shook his head hard and let out a deep sigh.

Apparently in control again he turned and Stiles didn't even bother to look away when Parrish realised that the door had been open the whole time. He stepped inside and met Stiles' eyes tiredly.

"I guess you heard all of that, huh?"

Stiles nodded and Parrish went back over to 'his' chair.

"Well, it's not like I was going to keep this from you. I was planning to tell you as soon as I found out your father's condition. Guess Scott can tell the both of us now."

As the time passed, Parrish remained almost worryingly calm, his thousand-yard stare fixed somewhere out of the window and Stiles remembered that he'd only recently left the army. He was probably used to waiting for news like this. The only giveaway that he wasn't as composed as he was letting on was a slight twitch in his hand every now and again.

Stiles himself didn't seem to be feeling much of anything and he couldn't work out why. He tried to force something but instead he became more and more detached from everything again.

Neither moved nor spoke until Scott arrived at the room several hours later.

The second the door started to open Parrish was on his feet, snapping out "well?" to an exhausted looking Scott.

Scott, instead of answering immediately, glanced doubtfully at Stiles and Parrish huffed in irritation.

"He knows and I'm sure is even more eager than me for you to tell us what's happened. Out with it."

It was when Scott hesitated again that Stiles knew something was wrong.

"T-the," Scott stammered and then stopped, closing his eyes and taking a few deep breaths before trying again. "The alcoholic levels in the Sheriff's blood were very high. They pumped his stomach but said that most of it would have been absorbed into his system by now. That's not the bad news though," he broke off again and looked helplessly at Stiles for a moment before dropping his eyes.

Stiles wondered if he ought to try willing Scott to hurry up, but the emotional effort that would take would pull him back into his own body and for some reason he didn't want that just yet. It was almost nice to be so cut off from everything. Nothing could reach him here.

"It seems that the Sheriff has been drinking very heavily recently and he's showing signs of alcohol poisoning. They're very worried about his liver and heart, plus he's-he's not waking up."

"The head wound?" Parrish shakily asked and Scott nodded miserably.

"They can't really do too many further tests until more of the alcohol has gone from his system. They say they're quite confident that he's going to wake up but there's also the chance that he just… won't."

Just like that the detachment that Stiles had been safely encased in was no more.

Stiles really had thought he could fall no further, that there was only so low a person could be dragged before they simply ceased to be that person anymore. But he'd been wrong and there was another level to the bleakness consuming him and now he could feel it, could feel himself hovering over the yawning abyss of oblivion as though he was balancing on the edge of a razor blade. Only he didn't have the strength to remain on that edge anymore.

Derek still hadn't come back and now his dad was gone.

Stiles had reached his limit and now he was done.