A/N: Another chapter! More thanks to reviewers cuz you guys&gals are the best!

Stiles was exhausted by the time he headed up to bed. He had managed to plow through most of his math homework for the week and he was relatively confident that it was right and not just a mass of roman numerals or some shit. He hadn't made any progress on the essay though, even when he moved his laptop to the kitchen table instead—Jackson had been kind of right that sitting on the floor really hadn't been doing him any favors, back-wise, even if the better accommodations hadn't helped him with the rest of his issues.

Jackson hadn't bothered him the rest of the afternoon, either to stick his head in to mock Stiles' study habits or to protect him from himself again. Stiles worried at the rubber band Jackson had given him, frowning at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. He didn't need to use it, not right now, but it felt good to have. It felt good to remember that Jackson had given it to him, to have some tangible proof that his soulmate did care about him at least a bit. He ran the flat of his palm over the scratches on his arms—itchy now as they started to heal—and turned away from the mirror.

Stiles intended to collapse into bed and see if he could eke out a few hours of real sleep before the nightmares caught up with him, but he stopped short in his doorway.

Jackson was in his room, already dressed for bed, standing in front of his bookshelf like he was perusing the limited collection. He didn't seem to notice Stiles' appearance though, an unusual thing for a werewolf who could hear a heartbeat coming from a mile away. He was just staring blankly at a row of the magical reference books Stiles had stolen from Deaton, eyes unfocused. His right hand was rested on his left upper arm, just below the shoulder, rubbing back and forth. Stiles watched as it slid lower, lingering in the crook of his elbow, and came down to his wrist. Jackson had found another rubber band for himself in the last few hours, to replace the one he'd given to Stiles, and he fingered it now the same way Stiles had done a moment ago.

"You okay?" Stiles asked.

Jackson jumped, head snapping toward him with the urgency of someone expecting a threat. He only found Stiles, though, and he looked away, eyes falling to his hand. He let go of the rubber band.

"Yeah," he said, voice rough. He stopped to clear his throat, nodding. "Yeah, I'm—"

He seemed like he might deny it, might wave it off and say he was fine, but then he met Stiles' gaze directly and held it this time. Something that might have been a smile, small and brittle, tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"I was just checking," he said.

Stiles didn't know what he meant at first, cocking his head in confusion, but then an image of the kanima, sinuous and reptilian, flashed before his eyes. Oh. Jackson was checking for scales, checking to make sure that he was still human.

Stiles slumped further against the doorframe, something hot and unwieldy in his chest making him want to reach out, something that he couldn't name. He fixed a grin on his face instead and shrugged.

"You look alright to me," he said, for what that was worth; it probably wouldn't help, certainly wouldn't have helped him to get a grip, but he figured some outside validation couldn't exactly hurt.

Jackson smiled again, more honest than anything Stiles had ever seen from him before. Then he dropped his head again, licked his lips, and Stiles could see the mask slide back into place. When Jackson looked back up at him, the smile was a much more familiar smirk.

"You like you what you see, Stilinski?"

Stiles' mouth fell open, surprise rendering him temporarily speechless.

It wouldn't have been half as shocking if it was a sneer instead of a smirk, a taunt meant to humiliate him, but it wasn't. No, there was nothing mean-spirited here. Stiles might have been a little lacking in the romance department so far in his life, but he wasn't so sheltered that he didn't recognize flirting when he saw it. He just never expected Jackson to actually flirt with him.

Should he be surprised by that? Jackson was his soulmate, after all, and he'd traveled all this way just to be near him. True, soulmates weren't always romantic in nature, but the majority of them were. Was it so outside the realm of possibility for Jackson to be interested in that sort of relationship with him? Just...it was Jackson.

Not that Stiles was necessarily opposed to the idea, it was just that it hadn't occurred to him as a real possibility. There had never been any question that Jackson was ridiculously attractive, it had just always been an intimidatingly, unapproachably perfect brand of attractive.

Now, though. Now Jackson's hair was clean and fluffy and unstyled, his skin less tanned than Stiles had ever seen. He was in slouchy pyjama pants and a t-shirt with a hole in it, barefoot with toes wiggling in the carpet. There was nothing unapproachable about him standing in Stiles' bedroom, looking tired and worn down, and yet he was still every bit as beautiful.

Stiles didn't say any of that out loud. He felt like he spent a lot of time nowadays with words caught between his teeth, intentionally held back, but these ones just didn't know how to escape. He wasn't sure yet if he wanted them to.

"Uh, what are you doing in here anyway?" is what came out as he ran fingers through his hair, head ducked to hide a telling blush. "I'm pretty sure your room is next door."

Jackson shrugged, smirk still in place. He pulled a random book off Stiles' shelf, flipped through it without actually looking, and put it back just to show that he could.

"We both know I'll end up in here eventually," Jackson said. "Figured we might as well cut down on travel time."

"Oh."

Stiles grit his teeth against the familiar burn of shame, the same one that swamped him every time his dad walked out the door for the next in a long line of overnight shifts at the station because he knew he'd get no sleep if he stayed home. All because Stiles was such a fucking mess that he couldn't keep it together for a few hours at a time, bad enough that Jackson felt the need to babysit him all night long.

"You don't need to do that," Stiles said. "It's not every night, and I'll probably be awake all of tonight anyway so you can just go get a full night's sleep somewhere else and I'll be fine."

Jackson rolled his eyes like Stiles was being terribly unreasonable, but his hand strayed back to his arm, not scratching like Stiles did but just rubbing insistently without him seeming to notice he was doing it.

"I'm not leaving, dumbass," he said. "So unless you wanna try and make me—"

He waved at the bed with his free hand, the one with the rubber band. The rubber band he used to bring himself back when he got lost in his memories, just like Stiles. And the night before, hadn't he said he still had nightmares too? Stiles took in Jackson's jutting chin, the stubborn set of his shoulders, and wondered if maybe Jackson had other reasons for wanting to stay, if he needed this too, if maybe Jackson had slept better last night than he had since before he was bitten.

Jackson must have been able to see the capitulation on his face because he took Stiles by the front of his shirt and reeled him in, flipping the light off in the same werewolf-graceful motion, and before Stiles could catch up he was already being pushed into the bed. Jackson crawled in behind him, all grabby hands and manhandling, until they were spooned up together like they were the night before. Stiles wiggled around a bit, uncomfortable—not physically speaking, they actually fit together worryingly well in that regard, more emotionally—but froze when he felt something warm against the back of his neck.

It was Jackson's nose. Jackson was nuzzling—legitimately nuzzling—Stiles, burying his face in the junction of neck and shoulder and rubbing his cheek back and forth across the exposed skin where his t-shirt was pulled askew. He was also pretty sure that Jackson was smelling him, considering he pushed his nose into the soft space behind Stiles' ear and just left it there. It was all very animalistic-feeling and Stiles just couldn't resist asking.

"Are you... scenting me?"

The huff Jackson let out was hot across his skin and Stiles shivered.

"N-no, really!" Stiles stammered. "Is that a wolf thing? Cuz the others have gotten really cuddly lately too and I'm just curious if that's—"

"Shut up, Stilinski."

Stiles clamped his mouth shut before any more awkward rambling could make its way out. He stayed very still and just let Jackson have his way, nuzzling and rubbing until Stiles' whole shoulder was tingling and his face was probably red enough to double as a traffic light, because it wasn't a bad feeling. It was kind of nice, in a strange way, if he wanted to admit it to himself.

Jackson finally settled as he had last night, arms latched around Stiles' waist and chin hooked over his shoulder, and let out a breath that sort of sounded like relief. Like it was soothing to him for Stiles to be covered in his scent, for Stiles to smell like his.

That thought almost had Stiles squirming again, but he didn't want to dislodge Jackson when the position they were in was so warm and comfortable and cozy. He just turned his face into his pillow and found Jackson's hands on his stomach, letting his thumb rest on each finger in sequence and counting them off almost absentmindedly. He only got through four sets of ten before he was asleep.

Stiles must have dozed off or something because he didn't remember anything Mr. Harris had said so far. It wasn't surprising, considering how fucked up his sleep schedule was lately, and honestly he had been falling asleep in class long before his nightmares started. He sat back in his seat, shaking his head to clear the fuzz from it, and turned around to find Scott on his right like usual.

"Hey, buddy," Stiles whispered. "What'd I miss?"

Scott didn't answer, didn't turn around, didn't even glance at him.

Stiles huffed and turned back to the front of the class, slouching low and tapping both feet against the floor in a way that was sure to get him reprimanded soon. He felt weird, restless and twitchy, and his eyes kept skating over his classmates. Was it his imagination or were they usually this quiet and well-behaved? And on second look he could swear they were different, far more girls with long hair than there had been a minute ago, but Harris droned on unconcerned.

Harris. Something wasn't right about that either, but Stiles couldn't put his finger on why, just bit his lip and set his pencil to tapping on the desktop. Another glance around and all he could see were heads of long dark hair, all identical. That definitely wasn't right and Stiles reached up to scratch at the itch on the back of his neck.

"Scott," he said, dread creeping up to strangle him. "Scott, I think I'm—"

Scott turned to face him. There was blood dripping from his mouth.

"Why did you do it, Stiles?" he asked, and his voice came out raspy and grating, not his voice at all.

Stiles scrambled out of his seat, crashing into a half dozen other desks on his way, but he couldn't take his eyes off the sword imbedded in Scott's gut. The grip was ribbed leather, coated in red, and Stiles could feel it in his hands, slick and hot.

"Problem, Mr. Stilinski?"

Stiles spun toward Harris—dead, he remembered, Harris had been dead for months and this wasn't real, couldn't possibly be—and the blackboard behind him was gibberish, a mass of incomprehensible letters and symbols in white chalk that shimmered and swam before his eyes.

"Not real," Stiles whispered, wiping clammy hands on his jeans to try and shake the persistent feeling of blood that wasn't there, not now. "This isn't real. You know it isn't real, Stiles, wake up. Wake up."

It felt real, every bit of it. It was vivid and sharp and close, looming over him until he couldn't breathe. He felt like there was an iron band around his chest, tight and unmoving.

"Everyone has it…"

Stiles turned again, cold sweat on his brow as that fucking voice, the one he could never manage to escape, sounded so close it was practically purring in his ear.

Allison was everywhere. A hundred of her, filling every desk in the classroom, all of them glassy-eyed and bloody as they stared up at him and spoke with the Nogitsune's voice.

"...but no one can lose it."

"No, no, no, no, no," Stiles muttered, backing up until he hit the wall. "Not real, wake up. Wake up, Stiles, come on, wake up, wake up!"

There were so many of her, and there was Scott still, watching him with the empty, damning eyes of the grieving, surrounded by his dead soulmate. Stiles shook his head, squeezed his eyes closed against the sight, but he couldn't block out the sounds. The chant rose up, louder and louder, drilling the riddle into his head until he couldn't even hear the pounding of his own heart or his own desperate pleas to just wake up.

He reached up—to pull at his hair, try and wake himself up, or maybe just to cover his ears against the noise, he didn't know—but caught sight of his hands. Fourteen fingers.

He screamed.

He screamed and screamed until his breath ran out and he had to gasp for air and then he screamed some more because if he stopped then he would hear it again, that voice and that stupid fucking riddle taunting him, goading him. The classroom was gone, and Allison and Scott and Harris with it, but the voice was still there, echoing in all the hidden recesses of his mind until there was no room left for rational thought. He lashed out on instinct, a primal drive to fight or flee, but there was nothing to fight against and nowhere to go.

The iron band was still there, crushing his chest, compressing his lungs until he had no more breath left for screaming. He clawed at it, but it just tightened its grip and spread further, blanketing him until his arms and legs were pinned down by an inescapable heat. Stiles turned his face away from it, terror keeping his eyes glued shut; it was the Nogitsune, it had to be, or else some extension of the Nemeton come to grab him again, hold him down and take control of him, force him to open the door, the goddamn door, don't open the door, don't—

"Stiles!"

That voice was clear and smooth, nothing like the Nogitsune's rasp, and it cut through the panic like a scythe through wheat.

"You're awake," it said, close and loud. "This is real now, Stiles, you're awake. You're not dreaming anymore."

"I'm always dreaming," Stiles gasped out, eyes open and roving but it was too dark to see, too dark to check the posters on his wall for coherent words, too dark to make out the face looming over him. "It's not real, it's not real, I'm not—"

"Yes, it is, Stiles," Jackson said, letting go of Stiles' wrist to put a hand to his cheek instead, forcing Stiles to look up at him. "Look at me. I'm real."

Stiles just shook his head, breath coming in frantic gasps because this couldn't be real either. Jackson was gone, had been gone for months, he was in London and Stiles was no-name and alone and this was just another way for his mind to play tricks on him. The room was spinning around him and the shadows, the blackest shapes in the corners, were reaching out, each and every one of them a spectre wrapped in bandages with a gaping maw.

The spinning redoubled as Jackson yanked him upright and Stiles found himself in Jackson's lap, a strong arm holding him in place and keeping him steady while the other cupped his face again. The touch was warm even against his overheated skin and it certainly seemed real, but so had the blood on Allison's face, the smell of it still stuck in his nostrils.

"Focus on me, Stiles," Jackson said, firm and insistent, giving him a shake. "Just look at me and nothing else, okay? What do you need? Stiles, this is real. What do I need to do to prove that to you?"

It took Stiles a minute to process the words, to make his eyes stop straying to the door of his closet and the void beyond it, and another to find his voice and force it past the broken glass feeling of his throat.

"Fingers," he croaked. "Y-you have extra...extra f-fingers in dreams."

"Okay," Jackson said. He caught Stiles' wrist and pulled it between them. "Okay, come on. Count."

Stiles tried, he did, but his hand was shaking so badly it looked like there were dozens of fingers anyway, just a dim blur in the darkness. He still couldn't catch his breath and there were figures in the shadows, he knew it, creeping closer with every pounding beat of his heart to tease just at the edge of his vision, stalking him.

"Count with me, Stiles," Jackson said, louder, and he tightened his hold on Stiles' hand, steadying it. "Look! One, two…"

He held each finger individually, making sure Stiles could see. And he did, he saw five fingers on the hand. Five shaking fingers, just like there were supposed to be, but he could still feel blood. He couldn't see any, but he could feel it because these hands had had blood on them before, Scott's blood pumping out over five fingers that didn't exist anymore. No matter that the fingers curled into a fist when he told them to, they weren't his fingers and he couldn't trust them.

"What is it, Stiles?" Jackson asked, curling his hand over the trembling fist Stiles had made. "What can I do?" He sounded afraid and the shivery feeling of remembered pleasure, of the Nogitsune glutting itself on the terror and pain of dying men, slithered down Stiles' spine, making him shudder.

Jackson's hand, though. It was right in front of him, solid and pale and warm against his. Stiles scrabbled at it with his free hand, fingernails dragging against the skin in a way that had to hurt, but Jackson let Stiles pull it free. He obediently splayed it out, fingers spread apart, and said, "Okay. Okay, see? I've got five just like you do. Count them with me."

Stiles took a shaky breath and nodded, holding tight to Jackson's wrist with one hand as he matched Jackson's fingers to his on the other. One, two, three, four, five. He did it again, with a breath for each matching digit. Then he tugged Jackson's other hand from its place on his back and counted that one too—one, two, three, four, five, one, two—and again, and again, until the tightness in his chest loosened and the figures in the shadows began to recede.

Jackson kept counting, though he never took his eyes off Stiles' face. He counted until Stiles finally let go of his hands and tried to sit back. When Stiles swayed, light-headed, Jackson caught him and pulled him close again.

"Hey," he said softly. "Hey, you're okay. You're gonna be alright now."

Stiles' head was pounding and he felt sort of like he'd been hit by a truck, but the voice had gone quiet and there was no slickness of blood against his palms anymore, so he was more alright than he had been. He slumped forward, collapsing against Jackson's chest so that he could feel the heartbeat against his cheek and let every pulse convince him of reality. The sweep of Jackson's hands across his back, through his hair, was gentle and soothing.

"What else do you need?" Jackson asked.

Stiles almost didn't say anything, almost shook his head and gritted his teeth and told Jackson to go back to sleep and not worry about him, but the residue of panic was still heavy on his tongue, pressing against his eyelids and flirting at the corner of his vision, imagined whispers in his ears. He twisted his hands into Jackson's t-shirt, bunching up the fabric so that he could feel warm skin.

"Just...talk?" he managed, his voice almost gone. "About...about anything, I don't care, just…"

"Whatever you need."

Jackson lay back down on the bed, pulling Stiles along until his head was resting on Jackson's chest, just right to keep that grounding heartbeat in his ear. He pulled the blankets up and tucked them around Stiles snugly, then wrapped arms around his shoulders.

And he talked. About London, mostly. What he had done there, how difficult it was to transition to a new country, how strained the relationship with his parents had been after the whole werewolf revelation. He talked about the other wolves he had met in the city and how none of them wanted to take in a blue-eyed stray. He talked about the view from the London Eye and how it was almost always cloudy over there.

He talked until Stiles stopped listening to his words, until his eyes went heavy-lidded and exhaustion pulled him back down. He was still talking when Stiles fell asleep.

Breakfast that morning was both more and less awkward than the one the day before. For starters, this one included the Sheriff, just back from a particularly tiresome night shift. He hesitated in the doorway when he came in to find Stiles and Jackson hovering in silence at opposite ends of the kitchen, but apparently his need for food overcame his desire to avoid the awkward situation. So he ended up sat at the little table with Stiles while Jackson served up french toast because apparently he could cook and was determined to make sure Stiles ate food on a regular basis even if he had to insult him into eating it.

Silverware clacking was the only sound for a while, the three of them trading uneasy glances among them and pretending they didn't notice the others looking. It was actually really good french toast, the kind Stiles hadn't had since before his mom died, and he was glad that he was in a good enough mood to savor it. He was firmly planted in reality at the moment, all traces of his midnight scare washed away, and the surreality of Jackson's presence was wearing off. Stiles was more awake and present than he was used to being.

For the second night in a row, he had slept unusually well after the first nightmare had passed, and there was no denying that it was because of Jackson's presence. As much as Stiles hated that Jackson was seeing him at his worst, his lowest point, he knew he wouldn't put up even a token protest if Jackson showed up in his room that night. For all their clashes during the waking hours, Jackson was undeniably comforting at night and Stiles wanted him there.

With just one slice of toast left, Stiles cleared his throat. Jackson and his dad both looked at him, somewhat wary.

"Uh," Stiles said—eloquent, as always—eyes darting back and forth between them indecisively before settling on Jackson. "The pack is getting together again today. Just to hang out, you know, as a group."

Jackson rolled his eyes, attention falling back to his breakfast because apparently a pack gathering was too plebeian for him to waste his precious time on.

"They'd really like for you to come," Stiles said anyway. "I know Derek especially was hoping to talk to you at some point, apologize for everything that went on before."

"You mean when he tried to kill me?" Jackson asked pointedly.

Stiles winced.

"Uh, yeah, then. And some of the menacing-ness that went on before that. I mean, technically, you were his first beta!" he said. "Even if he's not alpha anymore, he'd like a chance to make things right with you."

"Right," Jackson said, and it was definitely sarcasm rather than confirmation.

"And Scott," Stiles soldiered on, determined to at least finish making his pitch before Jackson shut him down this time. "Scott wants to welcome you, formally offer you a place in the pack. No one cares about the kanima thing, if that's what you're worried about. Bygones are bygones, water under the bridge, forgive and forget! And if it's just because you don't like Scott, well he's grown up a lot in the last two years, you know. We were all kinda dicks sophomore year and Scott is fully willing to own up to his own dickishness, shake hands, and move on if you are—"

"I really don't care," Jackson interrupted him. "I already told you, I'm not interested in being all buddy-buddy with you guys. I don't care about your packmates."

Stiles gritted his teeth, frustration making him grip his fork hard enough to hurt. His dad was quiet, a bite of toast paused halfway to his mouth as he watched them both with one eyebrow raised. He looked ready to dive for cover, or else hide under the table just to get away from the awkwardness of an argument he didn't have any part in. Stiles pushed his dad's glass of orange juice closer to him, chewing on his lip and preparing to play his trump card.

"Not even Lydia?" he asked, and Jackson immediately dropped his own fork, snatching up his plate and escaping to the sink just like he had last time.

Maybe it was a low blow, bringing her up. They still talked sometimes, but Stiles knew as well as anyone that phone conversations from an ocean away were very different from hanging out in person all afternoon, and maybe that was something Jackson wanted to avoid. Maybe...maybe he was still hung up on her. Maybe the idea of being around Lydia when she was just starting up a real thing with her new soulmate—the guy who had replaced him—was too painful for Jackson to deal with.

Stiles couldn't even blame him, if that were the case. It made perfect sense for Jackson to still be in love with Lydia because she was beautiful and brilliant and wonderful, and Stiles was none of that. He was a fucking mess, damaged and broken, a burden of a soulmate, and it was bad enough that Jackson had to put up with him without rubbing what he'd lost in his face too.

Stiles blinked back the burn in his eyes, forced away the unexpected jealousy; he already had far more than he'd ever thought to have again and he should be content with that. It was beyond him to harbor any ill-will for Lydia anyway, and none of this was actually Jackson's fault.

"She misses you," Stiles said, because they still cared about each other and they deserved to be in each other's lives one way or another. "She really misses you, Jackson, and I know she'd love to have you th—"

Jackson dropped his plate with a heavy thunk and spun around with a noise of aggravation.

"For fuck's sake, Stilinski, I don't want to be in your fucking pack! So will you just let it go and leave me the hell alone?"

Stiles didn't even try to stop him this time when he stormed out the door, because apparently that was Jackson's favorite way of ending conversations. He just shoved his mostly empty plate away, appetite definitively gone, and rubbed his hands roughly over his face.

"So," his dad said into the ringing silence. "I take it the whole soulmate thing isn't going too well?"

Stiles sighed heavily, dropping his hands and letting his head fall back as far as it would go without hitting the wall. With the last two days being what they were, and considering the majority of his and his soulmate's interactions ending in yelling and/or tears in one way or another, he figured that was an understatement. They were supposed to be trying, he reminded himself, trying to make this work, but he honestly wasn't sure this qualified.

"It's a work in progress."

His dad hummed into his orange juice. He didn't leave, though, didn't pick up and make a run for it as soon as he and Stiles were alone like he'd taken to doing. The quiet between them wasn't entirely comfortable, but it wasn't half as strained as it usually was nowadays. Maybe because this problem was a normal one, something that regular teenagers dealt with on a daily basis, and nothing to do with demons and delusions and murder sprees. Just his son having boy troubles, something he was relatively equipped to deal with.

"He done anything I need to shoot him for?" the Sheriff asked, light and almost teasing like Stiles hadn't heard in well over a year. "'Cause, you know, I just got a new case of wolfsbane bullets in, so I could."

Stiles snorted. And then he laughed, like really laughed, because his dad was essentially defending his honor against his new boyfriend—with a little twist for the werewolf thing—and it was silly and overprotective and the first real conversation they'd had outside crisis situations in months, and it felt good. When he brought his head back up to look, still chuckling, he found his dad smiling around another mouthful of french toast, and that was even rarer.

"Uh, no," Stiles said. "Not yet, at least. Not really the top of our priority list right now. But, hey, I'll be sure to let you know when we get there."

His dad made a face.

"Please don't," he said. "There's some things I don't need to know about my kid."

Stiles laughed again, shaking his head and abruptly fighting back tears again. God, he missed this. He and his dad had always been close and he'd give anything to have this kind of banter back in his life.

A hand ruffled through his hair, a quick brush as his dad passed him by on the way to the sink, and Stiles wondered if it was possible for his heart to swell enough to actually choke him. If so, he figured that would be a pretty acceptable way to die.

"Don't worry, kiddo," his dad said as he tried and failed to scrape maple syrup off his plate with a butter knife. "Jackson will come around. Just give it some time."

Stiles nibbled on the side of his thumbnail, searching for the optimism that used to come to him so readily and finding a sea of doubt instead. He smiled anyway when his dad clapped a hand on his shoulder.

"Yeah, I know," he said bracingly. "We'll get there. You go get some sleep, old man."

His dad flicked his ear, giving him a you-deserved-it look when he voiced his indignation, but Stiles couldn't deny he would gladly take a hundred ear-flicks if it meant his dad would go to sleep with a smile on his face for once.

Just because Stiles didn't want to heap all his relationship woes on his dad did not mean he didn't want to bitch to someone, so he found himself laid out on Lydia's bed with his legs tossed over hers and his head dangling backward over the edge.

"Jackson is just so damn frustrating," he said with a groan that he was willing to admit might have been a little melodramatic. "I mean, I'm getting serious mixed signals here."

Lydia hummed absentmindedly, turning a page in the thick book she had propped up on Stiles' calves.

"And!" Stiles said, an emphatic wave of his hand setting the whole bed to bouncing and earning a huff of exasperation from Lydia. "And he never seems to leave my house! Or when he does, I have no idea where he's going or what he's doing. I mean, if he doesn't want to see anyone in the pack and Danny's not in town anymore, then what? He's just gonna hole up in my spare bedroom and never see anyone ever? What is up with him?"

"You know, for someone who's supposed to be his soulmate, you're being surprisingly obtuse," Lydia said flatly.

Stiles levered himself upright with some difficulty just so that he could make sure she saw his expression of indignation.

"What?" he yelped. "He's being weird! How am I supposed to make sense of this? One minute he's being an asshole, the next he's all caring and nice and shit, and then boom, he's back to being a total dick again! He's like the embodiment of that stupid Katy Perry song!"

Lydia snorted, closing the book with a roll of her eyes and tossing it onto her bedside table. Then she leveled him with a look and raised an eyebrow.

"And that's surprising because…?"

Stiles made an inarticulate noise of frustration.

"Because I'm supposed to be able to understand him, and I don't! " he said. "I'm his soulmate, aren't I? I should get this, or at least get where he's coming from, and I do understand the nightmares and all the other stuff, but this? What kind of shitty soulmate am I if every other thing he does baffles me?"

Lydia frowned at him.

"Stiles, it's been three days," she said chidingly. "And you've both been through a lot. It's not surprising that you didn't click instantly. These things take work. You're his soulmate because you're capable of understanding the things about him that no one else can, no matter how much they try, the parts that come from the very specific type of trauma you've both endured. But you have to know that what you're up against now doesn't stem from that."

"What do you mean?" Stiles asked, fighting the urge to pout and also that little niggle of jealousy in the back of his mind because someone else knew his soulmate better than he did and that wasn't fair. But Lydia had been Jackson's soulmate for years, it was perfectly logical that she would know him inside and out, would have no trouble deciphering his strange behavior. They were born soulmates, after all, and she would probably always be a better match for him than Stiles would, no matter what their name-marks said. He was trying really hard not to let himself be bitter about that.

"I mean that it's not exactly a new problem," Lydia said with a shake of her head. "He was doing this kind of thing long before the whole kanima episode. See, here's the thing about Jackson—"

"Oh god, yes, please. Give me the Gospel of Jackson, you glorious and eminently helpful creature, you." Stiles would take any scrap of wisdom she could offer him if it meant he was less likely to let Jackson down.

Lydia smacked him in the leg, but she was fighting a smile; she'd been smiling since he showed up, actually. She'd taken one look at him and pulled him into a hug without further explanation, but Stiles didn't need one. He knew he hadn't been doing well lately and had looked it—sleep deprivation and weight loss from lack of appetite would do that to a person, especially with a cherry topper made of anxiety, paranoia, and possible hallucinations—but two nights of real sleep and a few full meals must have done him a lot of good for her to be able to see it on him right away.

She didn't seem to want to stop touching him. For weeks, Stiles had been avoiding human contact, every touch making his skin crawl and reminding him that he wasn't like them, wasn't made of the same stuff, wasn't real. But he was having a good day and for once he didn't feel the need to shy away. So Lydia had dragged him onto her bed and promptly pulled him closer, letting him sprawl out practically on top of her, and even now she kept their legs tangled together and took one of his hands in hers just because he let her.

"Jackson isn't really as complicated as he seems," she said sagely, and Stiles hung on her every blessed word in the hopes that they would fix this clusterfuck of a relationship he and Jackson had going on so far. "The thing to remember about Jackson Whittemore is that, above and beyond all else, he is horrendously insecure."

Stiles blinked at her in surprise.

"Jackson?" he asked flatly. "We're talking about the same Jackson here? The one that peacocks approximately twenty-three hours out of every day and pompously declares himself 'everyone's type'?"

"Yes, Stiles, the Jackson that truly believes that if he's not physically everyone's type then no one will ever love him because he's not worth loving for anything other than his looks and his parents' money."

Stiles opened his mouth, found that he had nothing to say, and closed it again.

Lydia just nodded, her smile turning sad.

"It's common, I think," she said. "In adopted children, I mean. They doubt their own worth because they feel like their birth parents didn't want them, whether that's true or not. They overcompensate, try to be perfect so that their new parents don't throw them away or send them back. Jackson has always wanted so badly to be perfect, to be the best at everything, because then his adoptive parents wouldn't have a reason to not want him."

"But his parents always doted on him," Stiles said, remembering Mr. and Mrs. Whittemore from every lacrosse game they ever had, always front and center and cheering on their son. They were always at every parent-teacher conference, every award ceremony, every extracurricular activity. They showered him with presents and bought him anything he wanted. They were the parents everyone wished they had.

"Didn't matter," Lydia said. "He never really believed them. And now…" She shrugged, biting her lip.

And now they were still back in London. They had opted to let their beloved seventeen year old son move out of the country without them. Stiles half-remembered Jackson's whispered confessions from the night before, when he had talked Stiles back to sleep after his nightmare, about how hard his parents had taken all the supernatural shit, how uncomfortable they were with it. God, how much must that have hurt Jackson? If Lydia was right—and she undoubtedly was—then all Jackson had ever wanted was his parents' love and acceptance, and to have the whole werewolf-and-kanima thing take that away from him? Doubly traumatizing.

"Jackson has this thing about vulnerability," Lydia went on. "And by that I mean, he is terrified of it and will do literally anything to avoid it, even if it makes things worse for him in the long run. Case in point."

She waved at Stiles and he frowned back at her in question.

"You said he's been helping you through nightmares, right?" she asked, and Stiles nodded. "Let me guess: he made you breakfast the next morning but insulted you as a way of making you eat it."

"Uh, yeah, actually," Stiles admitted. "How'd you know that?"

"It's what he does," Lydia said simply. "He wants to do nice things for you but doesn't want to admit that because it's somehow a show of weakness. You know he gave me a Valentine's present once? Beautiful necklace, roses and chocolates, the whole nine yards. And I didn't see him all day, not once. He left it on my bedside table and then went AWOL because otherwise he would have had to acknowledge that he had done something romantic for me."

"But why is that a bad thing?" Stiles asked, thoroughly confused.

"Because when you admit to someone that you care about them," Lydia said, slowly and clearly like this was of the utmost importance, "you open yourself up to the possibility that you care more about them than they do about you. With vulnerability comes the possibility of rejection and being hurt. And that scares Jackson more than anything else."

"So...he's afraid that I won't like him?" Stiles asked with a huff of disbelieving laughter. "The real him that's not all puffed up and obnoxious and slathered in hair gel? The him that gives people flowers and talks them through panic attacks and makes french toast in the mornings? What's not to like about that guy?"

"I certainly liked him," Lydia reminded him. "I loved him. But then our bond was broken and there is no doubt in my mind that Jackson feels like it was his fault. Like he wasn't good enough or that he failed me somehow."

Stiles remembered that first talk they'd had, the call that had started all this and spurred Jackson into coming home. Jackson had said then that he knew he was a shit soulmate to Lydia, that he wanted to do better this time. But Lydia didn't seem to think that at all; it was obvious how much she cared about him, how much she missed being with him, how very much she didn't blame him for anything even though he had been a dick toward the end of it all.

"So, what, now he's gonna lock himself away in my house and never talk to anyone ever just to make sure that he doesn't fail anyone else, is that's what's going on here?"

Lydia rested her chin on her bent knee and sighed, her eyes distant and mouth downturned just a bit.

"I don't know," she said. "Even after all this time, there are still things he does that I can't fathom." She smiled then, giving Stiles' hand a squeeze. "Maybe you can do better than I did, hm?"

Somehow Stiles doubted it—after all, if Lydia Martin couldn't riddle you out, then who could?—but he squeezed her hand back. He would just have to try. After all, the real Jackson, what glimpses of him he had seen, was worth that.

It was mid-afternoon by the time Stiles made it home. The house was quiet, his dad still fast asleep, and Jackson seemed to have taken off again. Or maybe he hadn't been back since that morning when he ran out after breakfast—after saying very emphatically that he wanted nothing to do with Stiles' friends, his pack, the most important people in his life. Maybe it was a good thing he wasn't there because, no matter how much Stiles' worldview had shifted where Jackson was concerned thanks to Lydia's revelations, he was still kind of rubbed the wrong way from that.

Stiles threw his backpack down by the couch on his way through the living room; he'd had Lydia check over his math homework just to make sure it was done right, since he didn't trust himself to be able to tell. She had found a few places where he'd devolved into just scratch marks, tallies that almost looked like letters or even faces at certain angles, and Stiles had had to excuse himself for the bathroom to hide the way his hands started shaking. The snap of the rubber band on his wrist had helped and by the time he went back, Lydia had erased all the weird shit so he could do it right.

Stiles bounded up the stairs toward his room, intending to shower and change clothes and maybe take a risk and try for a nap, but the door to his room was pushed halfway open. He hesitated; he was pretty sure he had closed it that morning. He always closed his door. He closed all doors now, actually. Open doors made the hair on the back of his neck stand up, made him itch all over, watching and waiting for something else to come crawling through.

Stiles nudged the door with his toe, wincing at the way the old hinges creaked, but there was nothing inside. Just his room, bed unmade and clothes strewn all over the floor, bookshelf disheveled but loosely organized, desk a mess of papers and reference books and chewed up writing utensils. As far as he could tell, everything was exactly as he had left it.

Except not quite. A glint of metal caught his eye, something small and shiny on his bedside table. He crept closer, still the tiniest bit wary, but all he found was a ring sitting on top of what looked like an instruction packet and a sheet of computer paper with a note in spidery handwriting that he didn't recognize.

The note said:

It's a puzzle ring. It comes apart and you can put it back together again. Seemed like something you might like. Might help you focus when things get to be too much. It makes for a good distraction. There's directions on how to put it together, but knowing you, you'll probably want to try and figure it out yourself first. Good luck with that.

Stiles had to read it four times through to make sure he wasn't getting it wrong, but then he dropped the note and snatched up the ring in question. From the looks of it, it was actually four separate rings all threaded and woven together, and it nearly fell apart in Stiles' hand. He caught it before it could collapse entirely and carefully jostled the pieces back into position, and he realized there was already a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. When he slid the ring onto his finger and found that it actually fit just right, he found himself grinning outright.

Jackson had bought him a present. Jackson had bought him a present and left it on his bedside table and disappeared so he wouldn't have to admit to doing something nice, just like he used to do with Lydia. Only this wasn't just something pretty and useless like flowers, but something that was actually meant to help him. For when things got to be too much, the note said, when he was overwhelmed by the world or his own mind and needed something to distract him.

And, Stiles had to admit, it also kind of felt like an apology in absentia for being such a dick that morning. If this was a way of making it up to him, it was totally working.

Stiles took the ring off and held it in the palm of his hand for a moment, examining it closely inside and out. He sat down on the edge of his bed and clicked on his bedside lamp so he could get a better look, trying to trace the way the rings fit together. Jackson had been right to think Stiles would want to figure it out on his own—instructions? Who needed instructions? He didn't need no stinkin' instructions—and the little booklet with the diagrams stayed right where it was.

Stiles cupped the ring in both hands and shook it like he would dice, hearing the jingle of it as it disengaged and tapping his feet against the floor in excitement. His first attempt to put the thing back together was a complete and utter failure, but that was fine. He just picked a different ring to work around and tried again, and again, and again. With a humph, he laid the rings out as flat as they would go and tried to mentally map out the possibilities like he would a chess strategy, thinking three steps ahead.

Every combination he tried failed and he frowned in frustration, but he wasn't upset. It was the good, clean kind of frustration that came with a tricky puzzle, with actually having to think and finding himself thwarted and challenged. Simple as it was, it was the most fun he had had in a long time. He didn't even realize how absorbed he had become until the creak of his bedroom door startled him.

"Hey, kiddo," his dad said, leaning through. "Whatcha got there?"

"Oh," Stiles said, taking a minute to shake himself out of the zone. "It's, uh, something Jackson got me. A puzzle ring."

He held it up by one ring, the other three dangling and clinking together. His dad raised his eyebrows, looking impressed.

"Right up your alley," he said. "Figured it out yet?"

"Not quite. But I'm getting there."

"Uh huh, sure," his dad said with a smirk. "How long you been sitting there?"

Stiles had to look at his bedside clock. He pulled a face.

"About two hours," he admitted. "But I'm making progress!"

"I'm sure you are, son," his dad chuckled. "When you decide to take a break, I think Jackson made dinner."

"He's here?"

"Doesn't seem to be, but there's spaghetti and meatballs in the kitchen and since you've been up here all afternoon, I imagine you didn't put it there."

Stiles tried not to show his disappointment. It was what he was expecting anyway, but still, he'd have liked to actually thank Jackson. That might make Jackson uncomfortable, though, so maybe he would just not make a fuss over it. He'd wear the ring—once he could figure out how to put the damn thing back together again—and hopefully that would be enough to show his appreciation without drawing attention to the gesture for what it was.

"Jewelry, Italian food, and a smile on your face," his dad said. "I'd say things are looking up already, wouldn't you?"

Stiles ducked his head, unaccountably embarrassed.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, maybe they are."

A/N: You guys should youtube 4 band puzzle rings to see how they're put together. When I posted this fic on AO3 it let me link to a video, but this website doesn't support that -sigh-