(AN: Finally! Here's an update!)
My eyelids stick when I pry them open. A familiar beeping goes on beside me, constant but not annoying. I've been here before. My room smells clean but I don't have much of a view to really check the corners for dust bunnies. I can hear the voices of a few doctors from the open door, flipping papers and shuffling their feet. This is the first time I've been conscious but I know Melissa is my nurse. She requests to tend to any of us, whether it is a normal everyday injury or something a little more…supernatural.
"Stiles? Are you awake?" Melissa's voice is fuzzy beside me.
"Mhm," I say. I'm very groggy but I don't feel any pain. "Is anything broken?" We have a whole season of lacrosse to play and I'm finally out on the field. I can't be benched.
"Well…no…" She says and stands up. Melissa's piece of hair that had been tucked behind her ear and not in her ponytail falls in front of her face. "Look." She pulls up one side of my gown. I would've been embarrassed about my underwear if it weren't Melissa. "Your hip bone shattered but…I just ran you though an X-ray and it's…repairing itself. There's barely a bruise." She places a finger along the curve of my hip, the bone popping out as it normally does. Dark blue splotches map out along my lower half. "Can you feel this?" She asks as she puts pressure on the spots.
"No. I mean, maybe it's a little sensitive. It's about a one…or a two, I don't know," I stammer.
"Scott was here but he left to get Kira's mom. He said she'd know. After that, we'll call Deaton." I can feel my body rumble, my toes tingle. I reach down and grip her hand.
"I don't think I can figure this one out."
Scott should be here any minute. My eyes are shut tight. I can feel them. I feel them pressing in the sockets, how much lighter the darkness of my lids is. I open them and they're burning. I stand the flames for the few seconds that I see the entirety of the room and then I snap them closed. Melissa flipped the lights off on her way out so I could rest. I shouldn't be seeing anything. My lids open again and I try to ignore the burn but it's like I'm looking straight into the sun. They're watering but I start to see more than an outline of furniture and wheels on chairs. They're all becoming colorful. Dull colors, but colors all the same. It was all deep black at first but it's as if the room had developed.
A knock on the door seems too loud. I know it's Scott before he speaks. It's his smell. Not his cologne but the rough scent of his lupine form beneath his skin; the rawness of it, cloaked by his soap. My nose filled with his worry and just how Scott the whole thing was. Something was wrong.
"How are you feeling?" He can tell by the smell of my anxiety, but he asks anyway, for my comfort.
"In some ways, better." Scott nods. Someone in the hallway looks in, black hair shifting across a face. Noshiko.
"Is it okay if she comes in?"
"Yeah," I answer. Scott waves Noshiko in. For a moment I wonder why I'm still laying down if I'm not hurt, but I don't trust my legs, especially if I can't trust my eyes. She breathes in deep.
"Can you feel it?" She asks.
"Feel what?"
"The fire." Her fingers curve in, her hands placed beside her ribs. She almost whispers it, like a happy memory. When I don't answer, she leans into the bar at the end of the bed. "Your aura is strong. It is power, Stiles. Strength."
"Do you know what is wrong with him? Why any of this would happen?" I haven't told them about my eyes or the extreme sense of smell, but I know they know other things have been going on. I know Scott can feel it.
"Kitsune," she speaks quietly. "Spirit."
"Wait, wait. Spirit as in Nogitsune possessed? Because I absolutely cannot do that again."
"You are Spirit Kitsune. You must be careful, Stiles," Noshiko warns. I swallow hard and feel Scott shift, sitting on my hospital bed beside my legs, and one hand resting on my knee.
"How? How did this happen?"
"I'm not sure, but it's been there for a while. Inside of you." 'Like Kira,' she wanted to say.
My dad arrives in the morning to bring me home. "Are you sure you're okay?" He would let me walk, but the doctors would wonder why the kid who got tackled by an entire lacrosse team walked out without a scratch, so I lower myself into a wheelchair.
"I'm sure." I debated on telling him, but he knows I've healed.
"Sheriff," nurses say and nod on our way out
He shakes in the car. The words "Kitsune" and "power" confuse him at this point. They were never on the chess board. "Maybe this way…you won't have to worry as much about me…" He nods but clenches his jaw. "Dad. Trust me. I'll be okay. I just have to figure out why." I'm not sure I can rely on my own words.
"Stiles, we don't even know how dangerous this is. I mean I-I," he stutters," I don't even know if I should let you go to school." Dad's eyes squint and he raises his brows, his hand coming up off the steering wheel like it does when he's frustrated.
"Dad, it's not contagious." There's silence for a while until we pull into the driveway of our home.
"But it's you in there, right? Not anyone else?" For a second, I see the worry of my father's face. I see it from behind the Nogitsune called Void.
"Yes." I squeeze his hand. "Did you eat breakfast?"
"I was hoping you wouldn't mind…" My lips curve up and I go through the routine. Cracking eggs into a bowl, removing the yolks and pouring the whites into a pan dribbled with olive oil to substitute the fatty butter. Turkey bacon instead of regular, whole wheat instead of white toast. "Smells great," dad says when he enters the room; carrying a file of papers he'd been reading over for days. A normal kidnapping case for a change.
"Got time to eat it?" I ask and set a full plate in front of him. It isn't fruit and granola, but it's good enough to supply the energy he needs.
"Absolutely." The food goes down, one big bite at a time. Eventually, he leaves for work, giving me a tight hug before his Sheriff's jacket is put on and a gun is strapped to his hip.
I remember I invited Malia over for the day and maybe even the night. She's picked up running as a hobby, so it's nice to not have to drive over and get her. It's about the time she arrives, so I stand by the window in the dining room to keep watch. Before long, I see her coming up the suburb's main road, ponytail bouncing, purple shorts and a beige tank top. She's still trying to get the hang of fashion. With the help of an occasional Lydia, she's made a few outfits she's particularly proud of. Exercise gear is always a mix and match though. And it's incredibly adorable.
Malia reveals a straight line of teeth when I shut the door behind me, slipping out onto the front step. She's gotten comfortable with a slower speed than what she would use as a coyote. Her control's been so great that a few of us have encouraged her to run track.
"Hey, cutie," she calls to me. "How much?" I pull up a pant leg, revealing some skin. I love making her laugh. She's picked up a few references, most pertaining to sex and/or drugs. I have a sneaking suspicion it's been caused by her sitting behind Greenberg and his minions in English class. "Hi," Malia laughs softly and it's almost a question; the way she puts her hands to the sides of my neck. Kiss? The greeting kisses, for us at least, are always small. They're friendly and unsure, but as the nights progress, they become more practiced and easy.
"Math or history?"
"History," she heaves. Math to Malia is like salt to slugs. "Hitler sounds like quite the bastard according to Lydia's notes."
We spill out on my bed; books, pages of Lydia's notes, and snacks carefully selected by Malia. "Skittles and chocolate milk: a diabetic nightmare."
"I can't help it. I've always liked them together." She lies out the Skittles by color. Reds, greens, yellows, all according to her highlighter colors.
"Just as long as you don't start eating it like cereal." We read over her notes and she uses the method of rewarding herself with a color coded Skittle. She eats a red one for reading a paragraph; red for no clue. Malia reads a little more, and I pick up a yellow Skittle after she passes it. I hold it up near her mouth. She eyes me and gaps her lips. She holds the yellow candy between her teeth before breaking it in half. Malia presses her mouth to mine, slightly open, and slides the other half between my lips. Sweet lemon. It's what she always smells like. As she works on more information, yellow information, she smells stronger of it.
"I'm bored," she sighs. Malia removes the candy from the book and bags it up. "What's that box?" She points to the blue cardboard square on the top shelf of my closet.
"Pictures." I wring my hands together. Of course, she pulls herself from the bed, leaving a warm body print in the comforter, and picks it out of its slumber in storage. We change positions and lay our backs up against the headboard, making it creak.
"Your mom," she gently touches a grainy photo of my mother, smiling kindly in a direction away from the camera, brushing her hair from her face. My father, young and stronger from the military, stands beside her, a baby me in his arms. The photo has always been in this frame, gold and decorated with metal flowers tied around the corners with vines alike. There's a cardboard gap of the backing at the bottom where the picture is pushed up. "It's folded over."
She flips the frame around, looking up at me and asking if it's okay to pull back the small metal hinges securing the backing to the glass and photo. I nod and she begins gently tugging each of the four, her claws out and prying under them for more precise applied pressure. Malia is careful to lay the glass beside her and I take the photo when she pulls her claws back in. When I fold the flap back, creating a wrinkled white line in the crease, it reveals a dull orange cloud surrounding my mother's head.