A/N - This fic is my foray into darker themes - if any of you have read my other work, then you know I'm usually more of a light fic writer, but this idea got stuck in my head, and so far it's turning out pretty well. I've got maybe seven chapters written right now, so I think I'll post one every other Friday. Trigger warning there's a lot of self-harm in this fic as well as depression, drug use, grief, and mourning. Please enjoy.


When you come, you'll come with light
you'll come radiant
You devour my shadows
count my notches
and open me up
open my hideaway
and read me out loud
so that I, too
can hear
myself

When you leave, you'll ask:
which one of us do you believe
is the beloved? which one of us
is the beloved?

-Fiat Lux


i. i am become death

"Stiles, stop making out with Derek and finish cooking the damn burgers!" Scott yells, his words slurring slightly. Stiles disengages one hand from Derek's thick hair just long enough to flip Scott off, and his best friend laughs drunkenly. Stiles turns his attention back to making out with Derek. He's pressed up against a tree beside the portable grill, Derek's hands around his waist, Derek's mouth on his, Derek's chest pressing into him like a warm, heavy weight.

"Derek, we're hungry!" Malia whines.

"I'll handle it," Sheriff Stilinski sighs. "Since these two are so busy."

The Pack is having a party in the woods, celebrating the five-year anniversary since they finally shut off the beacon that the Nemeton Tree was putting out, five years of peace and calm in Beacon Hills, long enough for them to go to college and come back. Stiles and Lydia hauled a couple of cases of their special brew moonshine up so the werewolves could get drunk without having to drink fifty shots, and Stiles promised he'd make them all burgers, but he's too busy being distracted by Derek. The whole Pack is there: Scott, Malia, Lydia, Kira, Liam, and Derek along with Stiles' father and Scott's mother, Melissa.

Lydia's music blasts from a set of speakers, pounding through the trees, and the scent of cooking meat fills the air, though it's mostly masked by Derek's distinctive scent – like pine needles and fur – in Stiles' nose. He's had four drinks already (not the werewolf moonshine, that stuff will kill a human), and he feels it. The world swims around him pleasantly. He knows he'll have to come up for air eventually, but for now, he wants to see if he and Derek can break the record for longest continuous make-out session.

He hears a thud behind him, but he assumes someone has just fallen over, but then there's another thud, and leaves rain down on his head. Derek breaks away from him and curses, stumbling towards the main party, but he's drunk, too, and he trips. "Where are you going?" Stiles wonders, turning to follow him. He sees his father draw his pistol.

For a moment, he wonders if the booze is actually making him hallucinate, because there's a giant, ten-foot monster standing among his friends with scaly, red skin and a tail tipped with a triangular spike, but then its huge, clawed paw slams into Malia's chest and sends her flying through the air. She collides with Stiles, and the two of them go down in a tangle of limbs.

In their drunken state, it's hard to disentangle themselves. They keep bumping heads and making everything worse, and when they finally get free, the Pack is in chaos. Liam and Scott are down, Lydia is leading Melissa to safety, and Kira can't control her powers, sending sparks everywhere. Stiles looks around for his dad as he flounders upright, panicking. His frail, human father can't go up against whatever this giant lizard monster is.

"Hey!" Sheriff Stilinski steps out from behind a tree as the monster seizes Derek by the throat. The bullets bounce off its scales, but it drops Derek and spins toward the sheriff. Its eyes lock onto Sheriff Stilinski's, and Stiles feels a pulse of energy go through the air, then his father's pistol drops from numb fingers. The sheriff just stands there, staring blankly as the monster advances towards him.

Stiles runs forward. He doesn't have his triangular knife, but he can't let that thing kill his father. He tackles Sheriff Stilinski, and they crash to the ground. Sheriff Stilinski groans. Stiles rolls off and struggles upright, head swimming, and when he turns around, he finds himself staring into the creature's face. The shape of its features reminds him a little of the kanima; nearly human with wide, reptilian eyes, a ridge flowing over the top of its head like a mohawk. The eyes are pitch black, like mirrored pools.

A wave washes over him, into him, and he's confused. He doesn't know where he is. The trees around him are alien, warped things of blackened bark. And there's nothing in front of him, though he swears – he swears – there should be something there, but there's nothing but empty air, and the longer he stares at it, the more he's convinced that it's always been empty.

Then he looks down at the man on the ground. He's an older fellow; blonde-grey hair, pale eyes, dressed in a sheriff's brown and tan uniform. This man is dangerous. He knows this like he knows his own name. There's a gun on the ground, shining slightly, and he picks it up, points it at the man. His finger finds the trigger.

But a different part of his mind rears its head, a darker part, the one he keeps hidden. It pushes back against the alien trees, and then the world snaps back into place, and he's pointing the gun at his blank-faced father. There's an unfamiliar thread of power wiggling in the air, and he follows it back towards the monster, and when he thrusts out his hand, he forces his way into the beast's mind. Its thoughts are a jumble, nothing concrete for him to hold onto, to manipulate. The monster staggers away from him as if that will break the connection, but all it does is run into Derek. His claws rake futilely across its side.

The beast bellows and lashes out.

Derek jumps back, off balance from the alcohol.

The monster's claws extend.

They catch Derek right across the torso.

The bottom two rip through his stomach, and blood spurts from the wounds like torrents released from a dam. So much blood. Too much blood. The top two claws shatter his ribcage. Stiles can hear the sound from where he stands. Like gunshots. Derek's eyes go wide. Blood leaks from his mouth. His hands flutter to his chest, to the white poke of bone and the gushing blood, and he collapses to his knees, then slowly falls over onto his side.

"No!" Stiles screams. The word scrapes his throat raw on the way out. A black, awful rage rises up inside of him, an horrible panic. The rage lights up his darkness, and it takes wings separate from his own will. It bursts out of him and punches into the monster, the killer, and he tells it to kill itself, rip its own throat out, jump off a cliff. It roars at him, its claws twitching towards its throat, but then Stiles hears a desperate gurgle. It's Derek, trying to breathe, trying to talk to him. Stiles' concentration breaks, and the thing tears itself free, bounding away and disappearing into the trees.

Stiles lets it go. He runs to Derek, dropping to his knees, his hands fluttering uselessly over the wounds, the terrible wounds. All he can see is blood, blood and the beating of Derek's heart. He can see the organ through the shattered ribs. He strips off his shirt and presses it to Derek's abdomen, but the blood soaks through instantly. His hands turn red.

"Nonononononono," he murmurs.

Derek's eyes lock onto his, but he can't make any words come out, his mouth just works and works, blood bubbling past his lips.

"Come on, heal! Heal, Derek! Heal, you can do it!" Stiles begs. He leans down and kisses Derek as if that will make everything better, like in a fairy tale, but all he gets is the taste of Derek's blood on his lips.

The rest of the Pack is there, all around him, staring down at Derek in shock. "We have to get him to the hospital," Malia says.

Sheriff Stilinski shakes his head. "We can't move him. His insides are falling out."

"He just has to heal!" Stiles stutters. He's still holding the shirt in place with his red, red fingers. "Scott, can't you help him?"

Scott takes one of Derek's hands. Black lines run up his forearms, and his face contorts in pain, but nothing else happens. Derek's breath rattles in his chest. His eyes are wild and terrified, locked onto Stiles'. His mouth opens and shuts. His throat clicks and gurgles, but no words come out.

"Derek, heal, you have to heal," Stiles sobs. There are tears running down his cheeks, dropping onto his hands, marring the redness. Derek lifts one shaking hand, his fingers just as red as Stiles', and he touches Stiles' cheek. Stiles' vision blurs. Then Derek's fingers slide away, leaving a long, red streak, and Derek falls still, his heart, visible through his shattered chest, like a stone.


They hold the funeral five days later. Stiles doesn't think he can go – he hasn't eaten, hasn't slept, since that day in the woods – but Scott and Lydia come to his house the morning of and bundle him into the shower, then into a suit that Lydia picked out. Scott wraps him into a tight hug at the door, holding Stiles' head in one hand, and Stiles has to pull away before all the pieces he very carefully taped together shatter again.

Stiles stares at the ground as Lydia takes his hand and leads him towards her blue Prius which is parked by the sidewalk. She sits with him in the backseat, and Scott drives. He doesn't look at her. He can't. He feels like this is all his fault. Derek is dead because of him. It was his idea to have the party in the woods, his idea to bring the werewolf moonshine, his power that made the creature stumble into Derek. He let the creature get away. He feels a tear leak down his face. Lydia cups her hand around his cheek, pulling his head towards her so he has to look her in the eye. Where her fingers lie, he can still feel the slick heat of Derek's blood.

"It's not your fault," she says as if she can read his mind. Maybe she can. She still doesn't know the full extent of her banshee powers.

He pulls his head away.

They're burying Derek on his family plot, a stretch of woods behind the refurbished Hale house, beside his sister, Laura. It doesn't take them long to get there, and the rest of the Pack is already waiting. Stiles sees his father's police cruiser parked outside the house. Sheriff Stilinski has been working nonstop, trying to use the police office's resources to hunt down Derek's killer, but he's had no luck. The Pack is gathered on the porch along with Derek's other sister, Cora, Chris Argent, Alan Deaton, and Peter Hale, Derek's very creepy uncle.

After they step out of the car, Lydia keeps hold of Stiles' hand so he doesn't try to bolt, and Scott leads the processional around the side of the house towards the plot. Stiles' feet plod heavily over the ground, moving without him telling them to. He never wants to see these woods again. His eyes burn and ache. They've been burning and aching for the past five days from the lack of sleep and the tears that come over him without warning. When he saw the coffee mug Derek left at Stiles' house. His scent caught in one of Stiles' shirts. The way it rained that first night in just the way Derek likes. Liked. Soft and pattering.

They arrive at the tiny graveyard. Derek's casket is already there. Stiles chokes and balks when he sees it. He pictures Derek inside, dolled up in a clean shirt that covers his ravaged chest and one of his leather jackets. Stiles has Derek's favorite jacket, the battered, black one. It's tucked away in a box right now. Lydia has to pull him forward.

The Pack gathers around him, and he knows that they're trying to comfort him, but he just feels claustrophobic, though Lydia's hand is still nice in his. Deaton performs the service. Stiles doesn't hear any of it, or if he does, it doesn't register with him. He just stares at the coffin, imagining Derek inside, stone still, stone cold, face frozen, eyes shut, imagining Derek in the ground, slowly rotting away, being eaten by maggots.

"Stop. This isn't right."

It's only when everyone turns to look at him that he realizes he's spoken.

"Stiles," Lydia begins.

"It's not right," he repeats.

"There's nothing else we can do," Scott begins.

"We can burn him." Stiles can't bear the thought of Derek in the ground. The idea makes him want to throw up. He just keeps seeing Derek with patchy, rotten holes in his face, missing an eye, looking nothing like Derek.

"Is that what you want?" Deaton asks.

Stiles nods.

Lydia stays with him as the others go to collect wood to make a pyre, and when it's big enough, Malia and Liam heft the coffin on top as Cora goes back to the house for some kerosene. She douses the wood and casket, and Stiles takes the lighter out of Scott's hand. "Are you sure you want to do it?" Scott asks. "I can light it."

Stiles wishes people would stop asking that. He flicks the lighter, and the flame pops up on the first try, and he steps up to the pyre to drop the fire on the wood. It catches with a whoosh, but Stiles doesn't step back, even when the flames nearly touch his face. Lydia pulls him away which is probably a good thing because he suddenly has a vision of throwing himself on the pyre.

The flames leap towards the sky, and Stiles can feel the heat even from this distance. He stares directly into the fire, and all the colors blur together, and he can feel himself shaking. He hears Scott murmuring behind him, and a few moments later, footsteps head back towards the Hale house. Soon, it's just him, Scott, and Lydia. Stiles doesn't look at either of them.

"Hey, we need to talk," Scott says.

"I don't want to."

"Stiles, you haven't talked to any of us for the past five days." Lydia tries to get him to look at her, but he pulls away.

Scott takes the hand Lydia isn't holding. "I know you're beating yourself up about this, but it's not your fault. There was nothing you could do. That monster, it was strong. It had some kind of weird mind powers. It caught us off guard."

"We should've been paying attention."

"It'd been five years of quiet," Lydia says. "There was no way we could've predicted that a giant, lizard monster would attack us."

Stiles stays silent. The flames are slowly dying down, so he throws more kerosene on, and they jump up again. The casket begins to crumble, and Stiles' entire chest shakes. "Could you guys leave?" he says finally. "I want to be alone."

"Sure," Lydia says.

"We'll talk tomorrow." Scott claps him on the shoulder, then he and Lydia set off back towards the house.

Stiles stays there until the pyre burns all the way down to the ground, until the casket is nothing more than a pile of ash. He's pretty sure he saw a flash of arm, a glimpse of a blackened chin. He's run out of tears, and his whole body feels drained. He sees a large tin can on the ground and picks it up, turning it over and over in his hands. He approaches the dead fire and scoops some of the still hot ashes from the center into it. He'll leave the rest of them. He kind of likes the idea of the wind scattering the rest of the ashes - of Derek - around the forest.

He doesn't go back to the Hale house. He can't deal with the Pack right now, can't bear all the stares they'll give him, sympathy and pity and the need to comfort him. And he can't be in that house. Derek's house. Where Derek lives. Lived. There are too many memories. They kissed for the first time in the kitchen while Stiles tried (and failed) to teach Derek how to cook.

He walks through the woods, headed vaguely home, the can of ashes clutched to his chest. He's a little cold, and he can't tell if it's unseasonably chilly for the summer or if it's the lack of fire against his face, or if it's just everything that's happened. It takes about an hour to get home, and he quietly lets himself in. The lights are off, and the front door is locked, so he assumes his father isn't back yet.

He goes right upstairs and sets the dirty can down on his dresser without turning on the lights. Then he falls into bed, still in his suit. He doesn't sleep, just lies on his stomach and stares off to the side at the black wall. He hears his father return, hears him come up the stairs and stand outside his door. But he doesn't come in, just walks off.

Stiles doesn't get up when the sun slants through his blinds and falls across his face. Moving sounds like too much work, and he hasn't heard his father's car leave yet. He thinks he's just going to lie here all day. But apparently, that's not in the cards for him today, because Scott comes up the stairs and opens the door without knocking.

"Seriously, Stiles?" he says.

Stiles grunts.

Scott sits down on the bed by his feet. "Hey, there's something I want to talk to you about. It's not…it's not about Derek."

Stiles grunts again, noncommittally, so Scott takes that as an invitation to continue.

"So, at the party, um, that night. You, I don't know, did something to the monster. What was that?"

When Stiles doesn't answer right away, Scott lies down and scoots up until their faces are side by side, and he stares into Stiles' eyes until Stiles shifts and turns his head the other way. "What was that? Come on, man, talk to me."

Stiles rolls onto his side, still facing away from Scott, and his friend wraps his arm around his waist, pulling him close and making him the little spoon. His body is warm against Stiles' back. "It's – it happened after the nogitsune."

"What happened?"

"I still don't really know." Stiles' voice feels thick, and it's hard to make the words come out. "I think it left some of its power behind when it stole my body. I can," he hesitates, "I can sort of manipulate minds."

Scott pulls back, just slightly, but Stiles notices, and his heart sinks. Scott's reaction is exactly what he expected. That's why he didn't tell people that after the nogitsune was banished, after it stole his body, he still felt something rattling around in his head, like the shadow of the demon. He didn't tell anyone when the powers manifested themselves two years later, during his freshman year of college. He convinced a student who was bullying another kid into punching himself in the face and jumping into a lake.

"Manipulate minds? Like, control them?"

"I guess. I try not to use the power."

"Thanks for telling me, Stiles. Will you come hang out with us today? Everyone is worried about you."

"Not today," Stiles says.

Scott stays with him for a while, neither of them talking, until Scott's phone buzzes. "Pack business, I need to go. Do you…?"

"Bye, Scott," Stiles interrupts.

Scott kisses him on the back of the neck and climbs off the bed. He pauses in the doorway and looks back at Stiles' prone form. He leaves without another word.

That night, Stiles gets out of bed and goes to his closet, pulling out the triangular knife that he keeps in a shoebox on the top shelf. It's one of Allison's old blades. He likes to believe that her spirit guides his hand a bit when he uses it. Since Sheriff Stilinski still isn't home, he goes out the front door, knife tucked into his belt. He heads out into the woods. He's going to find Derek's killer, and he's going to make that creature pay.

When dawn comes and he's found nothing, he slams the knife into a tree trunk, once, twice, three times. He wonders what that blade would feel like slid over his own flesh, and he forces himself to put it back in his belt, tells himself to go home. His father's car is parked in the driveway when he gets back, and he thinks about going through his window to hide his activities, but that sounds like a lot of work, and he just wants to lie down, so he goes through the front door. Of course, his dad is up. "Stiles?" He comes out of the living room, dressed in his pajamas, looking concerned. "Where have you been?"

"Out," Stiles says. He knows he owes his father more of an explanation, but he knows that will just make him worry even more than he already is. So he just says "Out" then walks up the stairs and disappears into his room.

A month passes like this. Every night, he searches the woods, and every night, he comes up empty. He barely eats, barely sleeps, growing thinner and thinner, his hair long and lanky. He avoids the Pack, because he doesn't like the way they look at him or how they murmur behind his back. He knows Scott told them about his powers, and he knows it makes them nervous. They look at him like he's made of glass. He remembers his small stash of pot one day and digs it out, his fingers nimbly rolling a joint. The smoke burns on the way down, and halfway through, he feels numb, thankfully so. After he discovers that, it becomes a daily, a nightly ritual.

The next month passes in the same way, then two more. The rest of his Pack mates all have jobs in Beacon Hills. Even if they haven't moved on, they're dealing with their grief. Stiles thinks they've given up searching for the monster, that they believe it's left town, and they'll never see it again. But Stiles is stuck. He just keeps seeing Derek's death over and over again in his head. He doesn't have a job. He lives in his father's house, and some days, he loses track of himself. Hours will pass without him noticing, sometimes even the entire day. He'll find himself standing in a different part of the house, and he'll have no idea how he got there. He's not sure if it's the drugs that lead to this or if he just forgets that he's real sometimes. He likes that empty, floating feeling that the pot gives him, the way it makes it seem like nothing matters, the way it makes it just a little easier to interact with the Pack. Sheriff Stilinski tries to get him to talk to someone, a counselor, but he refuses, snapping at his dad a little more harshly than he intends to.

He takes the knife out a lot, wondering if it will take this away, whatever this he's feeling. He doesn't have a name for it. Sometimes he finds the edge of the blade resting against his forearm, halfway between his elbow and wrist. During the third month since Derek's death, he makes the first cut. He keeps the knife sharp, and it slides through his skin without much effort. It doesn't hurt, not until the blood wells up, and then it aches, a deep, hot ache. Stiles watches as the blood slides over the side of his arm which rests on his knee, watches as the drop soaks into his jeans. The pain is what he deserves for his failure. His failure to save Derek. His failure to stop the beast. His failure to find it again. He deserves this pain and the mark the cut will leave him with, a physical reminder of how terrible he is.

That night, he makes four cuts, one for each of the wounds that the beast carved into Derek. After that, the compulsion dies down, fulfilled, and he's able to put the knife away. He lies down and lifts his arm up so he can look at the cuts; four thin, even lines run across his skin just beneath the elbow. They're still leaking blood a little bit, and there's a blood-spotted tissue crumpled on the bed beside him.

The next morning, he starts wearing long-sleeved shirts despite the summer heat. No matter what he's doing, he can feel the ache and pull of the cuts, especially if he stretches his arm out, and a deep shame wells up within him at what he's done. But the shame doesn't stop him from doing it again.

Mostly, the compulsion comes at night when he's alone in the dark with nothing more than his thoughts for company, after he's spent several fruitless hours racing through different parts of the forest, searching for the creature which has disappeared, probably for good, though he refuses to accept that. The cuts aren't always even lines, aren't always parallel to each other like they were that first night. Each night is clustered together, on his non-dominant arm, on his thigh, once over his ribs and stomach where the beast's claws slashed Derek's stomach. He doesn't always use the triangular knife, either. He finds a little penknife, and he uses that blade, likes it because he has to work to get it to cut his flesh, has to pick and scrape and slide the blade over and over the same spot before he can get it to draw blood.

When the cuts scab over, he picks at them, making them worse, and this is a sort of compulsion, too. There's just something about watching the blood well up after he pulls a scab free. He doesn't know what that something is. He does know that it's a problem, but he can't get himself to stop, and he can't tell anyone about it, either. The words won't come out. He can't have people looking at him differently, maybe judging him, worrying, seeing him as weak, wanting to help. And part of him doesn't want to stop cutting. Because he deserves it.

During the fourth month since Derek's death, Sheriff Stilinski comes into his room and finds him like that with the knife resting against his skin. "Jesus, Stiles, what are you doing?" he yells and jumps forward to rip the knife out of his hand.

"Nothing, Dad, I…"

Tears well in his eyes when he sees the old and new cuts on his son's arms, a mosaic of hurt, and he searches for words. "I…how long has this been going on?"

Stiles doesn't answer. He doesn't really need to. His father knows it started after Derek's death. The specifics of when don't matter much.

"Why?" Sheriff Stilinski asks in a quiet, quiet voice. He sets the knife down on the dresser and sites beside him.

Stiles stares at his hands, imagining he can still see the red of Derek's blood on them. "Because I deserve it."

"No, you don't son. No, you don't." His father tries to take his hands, but Stiles pulls them away, angles his body away. "No matter what you're feeling, self-harm isn't the answer. I know this is hard, but that's not the answer."

"I thought it would make this feeling go away." Stiles' voice cracks.

"It won't."

He knows his dad is right, but that doesn't stop the urge to keep trying. It's like an itch.

Sheriff Stilinski doesn't want to leave him alone, but he has to go to work – he pulled the night shift – so he calls Scott and has him come over. Scott brings pizza and ice cream and drags Stiles down to the couch to watch TV, trying very hard to keep from looking at Stiles' arm. Stiles finds one of his plaid shirts and puts it on, making sure the sleeves are rolled down. "Stiles," Scott says after the sheriff is left. He sounds hesitant. "You're not going to…kill yourself, are you?"

"No." But Stiles has thought about it, wondering if it wouldn't be better if he joined Derek. He doesn't tell Scott this.

"Derek wouldn't want this. He wouldn't want you wasting away like this or hurting yourself. He would want–"

"Don't tell me what Derek would or wouldn't want!" Stiles yells, lunging to his feet so fast he upsets one of the pizza boxes. "What Derek would want is to not be dead!"

"Stiles, I–"

"Don't 'Stiles' me like I'm some kind of fragile thing that needs to be coddled! I've seen the way you and the rest of the Pack have been looking at me. You think I'm broken. You think I'll snap at any moment." Stiles is aware of the irony as he says this because he has, in fact, snapped and is now screaming at his best friend. "You look at me like I'm some kind of bomb. You think I'll go all Dark Sith on you, and I'll force you to do something with these stupid fucking powers of mine."

"Stiles, that's not what we think," Stiles promises, but Stiles is on a roll.

"I can see the pity in your eyes every time you look at me, and I can't fucking stand it!"

"Stiles, we're just trying to help. We all feel Derek's loss, we're all hurting. You shouldn't pull away from us like this. We need to stick together."

And there's that look again. Those big, puppy dog eyes, full of sympathy and pity and a need to fix Stiles. Suddenly, he can't stand it anymore.

"Get out." He points at the door. "Now."

"Stiles…"

"Stop saying my name like that."

"Like what?"

"Get out."

Scott's mouth flounders. Stiles seizes the front of his shirt and yanks him upright, shoving him towards the door. Scott turns, looking ready to say something, but Stiles' power flares to life without him telling it to and leaps through the open space to Scott. Scott stiffens, eyes wide and panicked, betrayed, as he looks at Stiles. Tears stream down Stiles' face as he tells his best friend to go.

Scott stumbles out the door, the door slams shut behind him, and Stiles is left in a silent house, his face wet and sticky.

Suddenly, he can't be here any more. Not in this house. Not in this town. It's all too small, and it all holds too many reminders of Derek. He runs upstairs and pulls a duffel bag out of his closet. He throws a bunch of clothes inside and his toiletries, then pulls out the box with Derek's leather jacket in it. Something cracks within him as he opens it, and for a long time, he just stares at it and cries. Then he tucks it reverently into his duffel.

There are two other things in the box. One is a photograph of him and Derek, him laughing, his head thrown back, Derek looking stoic just like he always does, though there's a hint of amusement in his eyes. The other thing is a little, black wolf plushy, fuzzy and squishy with big, blue eyes. Derek gave it to him before he left for college. "It's for when you get lonely," he says with that dopey little grin of his that only comes – came – out on rare occasions. "You can talk to it, and I'll hear you."

"I miss you, Derek," Stiles says to the plushy. "I really miss you. Please come back to me."

He rolls the black wolf and the photo up in the leather jacket. He hides his small stash in the bottom of his bag, tucked into an old Altoids tin so the scent doesn't worm its way into his things. The last thing he packs is the can of ashes which he found a better container for some time ago, and he also knows where his father hid his triangular knife and his penknife so he gets those, too. Then, no note, no nothing, he leaves his house and walks to the bus station where he buys the next ticket out of town to National City.