Chapter Summary: Jackson knows what he has to do, but someone surprises him. Maybe Jackson has one last thing to prove first.
This chapter is very dark because, well, it deals with suicide. If that's not your thing, you can just wait for the next chapter where he's a bit less angsty and more hopeful. :)
Also, un-beta'd because...there's no reason really. I'm just excited to post it!
Jackson walks out into the woods. He runs when walking doesn't make him tired (anymore). The trees snag on his ripped clothes – which he never managed to change – and the dry blood and dirt and general muck don't even bother him in the least.
He had a plan, a very specific one, and Stiles ruined that plan by not going to Lydia's side like was foreseen. No - because Stiles is an idiot - he came to Jackson and put a wretched idea into his head - one he has long since been trying to push back down.
So Jackson runs. He's not running away from anything or anyone, he's running towards his fate. His fate is sealed, and he's tried to act like there's so much for him to keep striving for, but there isn't. Stiles only set Jackson's goal back on track when they became mates.
Jackson needs to disappear now before someone else suffers because of him.
The woods are dense, hard to see through, when Jackson finally needs to stop running. His body is covered in so much sweat most of the grime and evidence from his turning is peeling off of his skin in chunks and layers of brown film. He wrenches his shirt over his head, casting it away. His jogging pants follow afterward, leaving him in nothing but his boxers. That's enough.
He leans against one of the trees, the bark sharp and alive, digging into the muscles at his back. He needs to catch his breath, calm his nerves, empty out his mind, so he can concentrate on finding a solution to his new predicament.
He closes his eyes, just breathing in the wilderness around him. He's never been out this far, purposely lost; never wanted to be. It feels right now, though. The wind is warm – the sun is still out – and it keeps Jackson from feeling underdressed. Or maybe that's an effect of his turning once again. It smells like roots, rainwater, mold and musk, but it's not distracting; it's satisfying. This feels like the right place to do this now that he's become what he has.
A creature of the wild dying in the wild makes sense.
Jackson slowly slides his back down the tree, sitting at the foot of it between jagged, dead roots and damp leaves. He opens his eyes and looks around. There's not much out here he can use; he probably should have taken a knife from Derek's house with him.
He climbs onto his knees, carefully crawling along the grass and earth, searching for a weapon that Mother Nature has maybe left behind for him. The broken tree branches aren't sharp or thick enough, there are no poisonous mushrooms that he can see – not that he's ever been good at botany – but then a sharp pain hits the edge of one of his fingers.
Jackson sees it shine even with the towering trees above him blocking out most of the sunlight. A shard of glass rests next to a dead log. Some teenagers probably came out here to have sex or get drunk, and then smashed their beer bottles for fun.
Bad for nature, lucky for Jackson.
If he hadn't been dragging his knees and hands through the dirt, he would have never found this. It's brown like everything else, and sharp, but small enough for even a supernatural being to miss. The cut on Jackson's finger is healed when he grasps the shard, rolling it in his palms, making tiny slices here and there across his skin.
This will do just fine.
Jackson sits atop the decomposing log – which happens to have mushrooms growing on it that could be used in a worst case scenario – and grips the shard in his hand. He stares at it for a moment, thinking about how Stiles's scent is so far away now, how he can't even taste him on his tongue anymore, and then places it to his wrist. It cuts before he even presses it down, and the blood drips down his arm, falling into the grass. Jackson watches it, his stomach twisting with the need for self-preservation, and, worst of all, fear, so he closes his eyes.
And then his wrist is healed.
He sighs, placing it against the veins he sees there, pushing down more firmly this time. The cut is crooked and deep, and blood pushes through the incision, making Jackson's skin crawl. This is not how he wanted it to be. He doesn't even know if this will work on a werewolf, but he persists.
His left hand hangs limp against his thigh, his right hand making another deep cut, then another, then another until there's five lines of blood dripping across the skin of his wrist. It almost makes Jackson want to gag; seeing all this flow out of him like he's some kind of bloody faucet in a horror movie. The first is already healing though, so he prepares to make another cut, deeper into the vein this time, and then there's the loud crack of a branch snapping in two behind him.
Jackson cuts in at the wrong spot, startled by the sound, and swerves to look.
"I knew you were pathetic, but this is worse than I thought," Derek reprimands, wiping the sweat from his brow. "I can always tell where you are, you know," he adds, smirking. "Just in case you're wondering how I found you out here, outside of my territory."
Derek's eyes flash red and Jackson instinctively drops the shard, scrambling to pick it back up after. The Alpha doesn't seem bothered by the blood or the smell of anguish all over Jackson, if anything he looks amused when he continues speaking.
"I'm not stupid, Jackson. I could tell why you came to me, as chicken shit as you are. I could sense the death swirling around you, and how much you wanted it to swallow you up."
He takes a few steps closer; Jackson has difficulty working his throat, the shard bloodied and staining his hand with red. Derek looks down at it.
"The only way that could ever work is if you sliced both wrists, your jugular, cut open your chest and then sliced your aorta." He laughs darkly, and it leaves a bitter taste on Jackson's tongue. "You'd need some help for all that. Not to mention it would take really, really long for your body to let you die. Oh, and did I mention? It hurts like hell."
Jackson swallows, his eyes already filled with tears because of the pain he inflicted on his wrist. He can't imagine it being more, worse than that. Derek walks around the log so he's facing Jackson without Jackson having to be turned at a weird angle.
He bends down, menacingly and imposing like a true Alpha, and says, "If you want to be a coward and take away what I've given you just because you feel alone or cursed or whatever the fuck, then I can help you with this." He snatches the shard away, pushing it up to Jackson's throat. "You want me to?"
Jackson swallows. It forces the glass to shift, a trickle of blood sliding down the side of his neck from where the shard is pressed. Derek isn't kidding; he's willing to end his own creation if that's what Jackson wants.
He looks into Derek's eyes, and, for just a second, he swears there's remorse there. Like maybe this would physically hurt Derek as well if he had to go through with it. Derek's face goes quickly back to blank after Jackson blinks a few times from the tears stinging his eyes.
Jackson can't speak with the shard pressed so close; he's afraid to. He – he doesn't want to die. He doesn't want to hurt Derek with his death. This is supposed to fix things, not break more. Why does Derek even care? He doesn't. He can't. He never even gave Jackson a chance to show him how smart, talented, and determined he could be.
That's – that's exactly what Jackson wants. He wants to prove to Derek that he can be great, better than even his own Alpha.
He closes his eyes, his tongue feeling numb and entirely too big for his mouth, and prepares to say 'no', but Derek is already moving away.
"I'm glad you're not that pathetic yet," Derek says, sounding more relieved than he probably means to. "I would never hear the end of it from Stiles," he quips as he walks away, back toward Beacon Hills.
Jackson can't help but smile. Derek is proud of him in some tiny, twisted way. He's already one miniscule step closer to proving his worth in Derek's eyes.
If nothing else, Jackson loves challenges, and Derek Hale is the biggest one yet.