Malia walked down the halls and paused, Lydia and Kira were deep in discussion ahead. Malia glanced behind her, she could just turn and run.
"Malia!" Kira was waving at her, smiling. Malia dithered for a second and deciding, walking down towards the pair.
"Guys, I have a question" Malia glanced down at her feet whilst talking, slightly hunched as if unsure of what to say. Lydia looked up and began walking down the corridor, the other two in tow as the bell rang.
"This had better be important, I don't want to miss another Calculus"
"I thought you'd be flying through it" Kira said. Lydia rolled her eyes
"The guy who sits in front of me is cute and terrible at it" Kira smiled and they turned their attention back to Malia who was pacing the room, fiddling with her hands.
"What's the matter?" Malia looked up at Kira as she said this, trying to find the words.
"What's wrong with Stiles? Why isn't he eating? Did he break and why am I not meant to talk about it? What happened to him?" Malia continued pacing, casting glances to each of the girls. Kira opened her mouth slightly in understanding.
"You've never seen this before have you?" Malia shook her head
Kira and Lydia exchanged a glance. There ensued one very difficult conversation. Malia was trying her best to understand but nearly a decade of fighting for every scrap of food made her confused as to how anyone would turn down more. Kira stayed out of it for the most part, silently watching Lydia trying to help. Eventually, after what seemed like lifetimes, Malia began to understand. When she did she realised quite what she had said.
"I wanna help him. I need to help him. What do I do?"
"At the moment Scott's doing everything he can think of to help Stiles. Just, make up with him, he needs his friends right now" Malia nodded and strode towards the door, pausing
"Thank you, both of you" they smiled and she walked out.
"Do you reckon I can still get the last half hour of Calculus?"
"I guess" Lydia started to walk off, leaving Kira alone in the classroom. After a few minutes she followed them.
Every meal Scott sits down in front of Stiles with a plate of food. No matter where, Scott handles Stiles' food. Probably because the first day Stiles dropped his lunch pack into the bin, simultaneously hating himself for wasting food and rejoicing that he didn't have to eat it. So Scott sits in front of Stiles, watching him. Stiles tries everything, literally everything, to get out of it but nothing works. Every time he looks up he sees the brown eyes, half accusing, half hurt. Whenever Stiles sees it he glares back down at his food and attempts a few bites. If its lunch or breakfast in the week he can get away with half of it. For the first week he was late because he refused to eat it, when he realised it was futile he tried to eat. He really did. During the weekends and for dinner he has to eat it all. No matter what is put in front of him. Scott glowers and if he's at his job then Kira or Lydia or, god forbid, Derek is there.
None of them budge, everything has to be eaten. He's then sat down for an hour and a half with someone and then finally he's allowed to go to the toilet. When he's there he breaks down, cursing werewolf hearing and werewolves and life and everything. The sores on the back of his hand never really heal from where his teeth knocks against the tender skin. When his babysitter for the evening walks past they bow their heads or hurry past. Stiles knows it's pathetic, he's pathetic. He knows that no matter how much he vomits he'll never get rid of the fat that's ripping into his body. That doesn't stop him trying.
Most nights he cries, it's the only thing that's left to him. He checks the fat on his hips, his stomach. He sees how he grows larger and larger and he hates it. He lies awake for hours, trying to think of anything to do anything to get the fat off. He wants his bones back. He NEEDS his bones back. There's an almost constant ache in the back of his mind, to replace the one that had been in his head. It urges him to do anything but he can't. His precious control is gone and with it his power. His human power, his weak frail human power which was taken so easily. He feels himself falling and try as he might the walls are too far off to slow his fall.
He can't do anything. His food is monitored, he's watched while sleeping, and he isn't even allowed to leave the house without a freaking werewolf following him. When he goes down the street he sees Scott move to stand next to the road, pushing Stiles further into the sidewalk away from the blindingly fast cars. At first this angers Stiles but after a while he just stops being angry. He doesn't care really. Why should he? He's worthless. So he lets Scott push him around (literally). He eats what's on the plate. He goes to school.
It's as if everything fades to grey, days become weeks and weeks become a month and a half before anything changes. One day Stiles is just lying in bed staring at the ceiling and it hits him; he doesn't want to live. It was more than it had ever been before. Back then he had wished and hoped and prayed that he would just get away but now, he had literally nothing to live for.
When Scott came in Stiles refused to say anything. He turned his head away from Scott, stubbornly facing the wall instead. When Scott lifts him easily Stiles does nothing, the sarcastic comments die on his tongue the moment before he spoke them. He speaks when he has to, teachers being arseholes, random people on the street, friendly not quite stranger. But it all seems to him as if he wasn't really there. It was as if all this time he had been Truman and he had finally taken the boat out. He looked into the world which was nothing more than a cardboard set, shivering every now and then. The pack and his dad force him to talk to Mrs Yukimura about everything that was happening. However, whilst they forced him to go they couldn't force him to speak.
His father moved through the motions he had to, caring for Stiles and when he couldn't retreating to a bottle of whisky. All the pack did it, murmuring quiet support before heading off one by one to fight whatever new creature wanted to kill them all. After a month even Scott began to leave, slipping away in the night and returning before morning. Stiles saw it all and commented on nothing. He went through his life silent, knowing that every day he could do nothing. The only member of the pack who didn't leave was Derek weirdly enough.
The first time Scott had left Stiles had quietly rolled down the hall to the restroom there. He then bent over the porcelain and tried to draw back the hated food. After he had finished spitting out the last drops of acid he turned to clear up his mouth. There in the doorway stood Derek, shaking slightly. His hair was sticking up in all directions as if he had just woken up and his eyes were filled with sadness and pity. Stiles hated that combination more than anything. He slammed the door shut, not caring if his dad heard. Stiles then scrubbed frantically at his hands too much fat, trying to get rid of the smell knowing it was impossible.
When he was done Derek was stood outside, unmoving.
"What do you want Derek?" Derek looked at Stiles and a strange expression played over his face, too quickly for Stiles to recognise it.
"I want you to be happy"
"You didn't care before" before Stiles could think a hand shot out and grasped his too big wrist. Stiles looked at it for a moment, noting dully how the skin curved away from Derek's touch. Only then did he turn his face to gaze directly into Derek's eyes. They paused for a second before Derek seemed to realise what he was doing. He took his hand back quickly. As if he knew what poison you were Stiles' mind supplied.
"You need to get back to sleep" Stiles snorted and rolled down the hall, ignoring Derek's gaze and the way it made every hair on the nape of his neck stand on end. The next morning Stiles remained silent once more, Scott could tease only a few words out of him at any time. Derek cornered Scott just after the sheriff had left but it didn't stop Scott from slipping away a few days later. But it did at least make him tell Derek about it beforehand which was actually real progress for them. Very quickly it became obvious that Scott's method wasn't working. Stiles was gaining back some of the fat and he was approaching a healthy weight but it was as if the teenager they had all known had shrivelled away and died. Within a few weeks of their latest night time debacle Derek decided to plan an intervention and with the pack behind him he began to work out what to say to his Alpha. How did you say to someone that what they were doing to help was killing their best friend?
And yes, earlier on that was a reference to the film The Truman Show which I an amazing movie and really freak worthy if you think about it too much. This took me so long to write out, I kept on redoing the ending and re writing it. My only excuse is school which isn't really that good cause I'm meant to be doing homework right now… But in slightly happier news I got discharged on Wednesday! I don't really know what that means apart from the fact that I am now meant to be mostly recovered (Maybe? I guess I kind of am?). But I am most definitely better than where I was when I went to the doctor three years ago. So yeah, it gets better you just have to hang on. (Yeah I know, cheesy).