Son Of A Lost Country

Part II: Trunk

“The purpose of life is not to be just happy. The purpose of life, my love, is to feel. You must understand that your pain is essential.”
Christopher Poindexter -

“All brave men love; for he only is brave who has affections to fight for, whether in the daily battle of life or in physical contests.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne -

“When we lose one we love, our bitterest tears are called forth by the memory of hours when we loved not enough.”
Maurice Maeterlinck -

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Being back at school felt foreign and restrictive, almost as if everything that happened had inflated him and now, someone tried to fit him into a place too small for him. He knew he had felt small once, walking these hallways, but this feeling was so abstract now that it was almost like from a different lifetime.

He was too big now to escape the stares and the whispers. He tried to compress himself back into the shape he must have had before when he was still able to feel like he had a place here. Now, his limbs almost tingled with the perceived cage caving in on him.

His head, it seemed, was already poking out of the box that was once his school. He felt so high above it, it was almost like he was from the outside looking in. He saw himself walk down the hallways to get his books, didn’t react when his locker was filled with little pages harbouring insults. Nothing they did could touch him.

The day passed by in a blur. When it was time to walk over to the ballet room, he caught himself as someone kicked out a foot to make him stumble. He never even registered the face of the offender.

All he could focus on was the realization he had. Ballet room. His punishment. He guessed, though, that Ms Barks had not intended it this way. This was not supposed to feel like he was sent to the slaughterhouse.

Cold sweat was trickling down his spine. His hands at his side clenched and unclenched in a fast rhythm. His throat was parched and all he could think of was paper. Papers smeared with insults. White papers.

Maybe Derek was right and he really should try to sleep more. That was the argument they had had for the last few nights, after all. Stiles could admit now that Derek’s request was not all that unreasonable, especially now that he experienced tunnel vision.

When Derek had found him in the living room at half-past three in the morning, hovering over a thick chemic textbook, his eye had twitched in annoyance.

“You can’t just not sleep, Stiles,” he had said.

“I do sleep,” he’d replied. “Just not much.”

Mostly during lunch break. Sometimes he even allowed himself to doze off in the car.

There was no time for sleep anyway. Even less so since Danny had handed him a stick with the transcripts of what the bug had picked up. Danny was a saint and updated the information every day which meant that Stiles every day had a new set of data to go through. Data that had been recorded over the span of a whole day. Stiles had to fit the extra 24 hours in somewhere.

Not pleased with his response, Derek had shut the book, only quickly scanning the title with scrunched eyebrows before putting it out of Stiles’ immediate reach.

“Hey, that was my break!” Stiles had complained, then he had sighed and reached for his laptop where the data was awaiting for him. “Back to work then, I guess.”

Derek had closed the laptop as soon as it had been opened and chose instead to turn on the TV. Stiles had then fallen asleep on Derek’s shoulder while infomercials had been running in the background.

That had been last night. Or the night before that. Or even the night before that. Stiles was not completely sure. Time had turned into a concept that was hard to grasp now. Without the distinction between day and night, it was hard to keep track of what day it was.

Sometimes, Stiles was not even sure if he found himself in the present or the past. Memories were so vivid and dreamlike nowadays that it was hard to recognize them as such.

That’s because you’re sleep-deprived, Stiles. He could hear Derek chide him as if he was standing right next to him, even though he was sure that this conversation had taken place a few hours ago before he had gone to school.

Why do you avoid sleeping?

“You wouldn’t understand, Derek,” Stiles muttered under his breath, earning confused looks from students passing him in the hallway. A version of Derek was walking next to him. The Derek of last night, who had finally gotten to the core of the problem.

Are you afraid of sleeping? Of dreaming?

Stiles took a quick look at the Derek of last night, then quickly averted his gaze.

You are. You’re afraid.

Stiles swallowed heavily, once again reminded that his throat was so very dry. Maybe he was dehydrated.

He felt the phantom touch of Derek’s hand squeezing his shoulder. The memory of it had branded itself into his skin.

What do you dream of?

Ghosts, he wanted to say. Regrets that tasted bitter on his tongue. Pain that gripped his heart. Longing that left everything in him cold.

But that was still not the crux of the problem. Dreams were just dreams after all.

The blurred line between reality and dreams was what was bothering him.

Was it a dream that caused one word to flood his brain or was it a finding?

Passageway

He couldn’t remember what that word meant to him but it felt heavy on his tongue, dragged down by the weight of implications and conclusions.

You highlighted that word. You’re mostly focusing on passages containing that word. Why?

The Derek of last night - or was it a few nights ago? Memory Derek, then - asked the right questions but Stiles couldn’t find the answer. He knew it was stowed away somewhere in his brain, but right now the organization of information in his mind was completely lacking.

He is suddenly standing in the ballet room without remembering having opened any doors to get there.

Memory Derek had disappeared now, but in his place stood Jordan, handing Kira her bag so that she could put on her ballet shoes. Kira shyly walked over to the other girls, coming to a stop next to one that glared daggers at the others. Malia had no idea how to put on her shoes but Kira graciously offered her help.

Jordan scratched his neck with a grimace on his face.

“You expected us,” he said, sounding almost as if he was apologizing for the simple fact. “When we came to collect you and the katana. Why?”

Stiles shifted the music sheets around, not in the least perturbed that he couldn’t remember moving over to the piano.

“The Order is your family. You would never betray them, so forgive me for rightfully assuming that they would be your first priority, no matter if you proclaim yourself as my protector.” Stiles tried to sound as nonchalant as he could.

Jordan gritted his teeth, then shook his head, causing his tense jaw muscles to unclench. “You’re right. They’re my family. I don’t always agree with their ways - which, in your case, there’s a lot we disagree on - but I’d still do everything for them. That’s what being a family means, right?”

Stiles snorted, eyes still fixed on the sheet music. “How would I know what being a family means, really?” He said it in a voice so quiet that he was clearly not intending it as a response for others to hear.
He felt Jordan’s gaze piercing him, trying to look past the shield he had built and found himself shivering under its scrutiny. How could the man possible know how his perception of family had changed in the last few weeks?

“I think,” Jordan said, resting his hands on the piano so that he could lean in closer, “a family is a group of people that change and grow together, not because they are always on the same page or because they adore each other constantly but because they are bound by bonds that they can’t give up on. They have to accommodate all the time just so that the bond doesn’t strain too far but it’s worth it for the sense of belonging. It’s the people we hold on to, who hold on to us - not always both, though. But that’s okay as long as no one lets go.”

The walls around them fell away. Gone were the children and the sound of their laughter and chattering. Silence engulfed Stiles in an embrace so all-encompassing, it swallowed up even Jordan and the piano. All that remained was his reflection.

Stiles took a step took look closer at it. He couldn’t quite make out what his reflection was doing. His head was tipped back, he was looking up at the sky as if he was waiting for something. He stepped closer, reaching out for his reflection.

Once he touched the cool surface, his surroundings had returned. He tipped his head back, looking at the clear sky.

***

Stiles, with his head tipped back slightly, stuck out his tongue to catch one snowflake on it. As soon as it touched his palate, he winced at the taste. The flour melted and became a sticky, gummy substance he could hardly swallow. It almost broke the illusion. Ringing laughter, however, kept it alive.

The world around them was covered in white, a soft protective cover that was almost too perfect to destroy. Just touching it felt completely blasphemous to him. It was too pure to touch it, too pristine to add colour, too soft to mould it into something different.

Ray, it seemed, didn’t feel the same reluctance as Stiles did, jumping into the fake snow, looking amazed once he discovered that the sole of his shoes had left its indentations there. His presence was now ingrained in the snow, at least for the time it was there.

“Look! You can follow my footprints!”

He walked in a circle and once he had reached its middle, he gathered all his strength to make a big jump, away from the circle he had created.

“Now it looks as if I had just disappeared.”

For the first time in what felt like months, Stiles was able to produce a genuine smile.

“Yes, I can see that,” he said. He bent down and grasped a handful of the fake snow in his hand, clenched his fist and concentrated on what he had read. In order for this to work, he had to understand the mechanism behind it. He had studied up on the shapes of water and what particular state it needed to be in to be sticky. In his mind, he pictured the process and tried to imitate it with the flour.

He opened his fist and revealed that the fake snow had kept the form he had kneaded it into.

“Whoa,” Ray exclaimed, gaze fixed at the snow in his hand. “Can we build a snowman now?”

Together they gathered as much fake snow as they could and started to make a ball which they rolled around in the snow on the ground for it to gain mass. Stiles almost slipped, then just as he was about to regain his balance he dipped with his face into the growing ball they were rolling around. The flour snow was sticking to his face, making Ray laugh so hard that he had tears in his eyes.

Finally, their snowman was standing and Ray gave it the finishing touches by putting his own beanie on its head and stones in his face to imitate two eyes and a smile. Satisfied with what they had created, he stepped back and admired his work.

“Well done, buddy,” Stiles praised the boy, trying not to fixate on the sheen of sweat on the boy’s forehead. “This is a fine snowman if I’ve ever seen one.”

“Have you?”

“I used to live in Michigan for a while, so yes, I have. I never thought I’d miss it, though,” Stiles replied.

“I missed it.”

Stiles laughed. “But you haven’t ever even experienced real snow!”

“Exactly. Is it different from this?”

“Yes. For one, real snow is supposed to be cold.”

“Then I’m glad for this kind of snow.” Ray sat down on the ground, not caring that his jeans would get dirty. “My mum says I have to avoid getting sick in my state right now.”

Stiles clenched his teeth at the mention of Ray’s so-called “state”. “You won’t get sick if you use the ointment I gave you. As long as you have it, nothing can hurt you.”

Ray grabbed a fistful of snow and kneaded it into a small ball. “I’m not hurting. I feel fine, but my parents still look so worried. Even more so than before. I don’t understand why. They said I’m still sick, but I don’t feel it. Are they wrong?”

Stiles swallowed and looked away. “I don’t know, buddy. I’m no doctor.”

Ray seemed to consider something for a while, for he slightly cocked his head to the side and stared into the distance.

“I don’t wanna die.”

Stiles almost lost his footing again but this time it had nothing to do with the snow under his feet. It felt like the whole earth had tilted and the gravitational pull was no longer up to the task to keep him grounded.

“That’s alright. Everything’s gonna be okay. You got me and I won’t let anything happen to you.” Stiles barely managed to speak past the lump in his throat.

He wished this conversation would end here and be eradicated from memory. How could this boy even talk of dying if he had never had the chance to live in the first place? The injustice of it all turned his stomach.

“When our granddad died, Lindsay told me that he wasn’t gone. Not really. He just became part of the universe again. A star in the sky. She said that he was everywhere. In the air that I breathed, in the ground beneath my feet, in every flower that bloomed. She said he would never leave me alone. Not really. She said he’d always stay with me. But it’d be different now. Because I couldn’t see him, I had to hold on to what he was.”

Stiles thought of his mother, who only felt alive to him when he saw her in his memories. The book had brought a part of her back to life again but even that was gone now. His memories were a lie and she was irreversibly gone.

He swallowed. “Do you have any idea what all of it means?”

Ray looked at him and tried not to laugh at the idea that he was explaining something to Stiles that the teenager couldn’t understand.

“No, not the slightest. Lindsay always says stuff I can’t really follow,” the kid replied, scratching his bald head slightly. “But I made a decision that day. I swore to myself that I would never leave the people I love behind and no matter what happens, I’ll always be with them.”

“Do you think your grandfather did the same?”

“I don’t know.” Ray’s mouth turned down. “I can’t really remember him even if we share the same name. He died when I was really small. But whenever mum talks about him, I feel like he never really left. It’s all I have of him. It makes me feel like he could never really go because my mum wouldn’t let him.”

Stiles went over to the boy and helped him stand up. He squeezed the boy’s shoulders and tried to hide the tears that had gathered in his eyes.

“I won’t let you go, either. I’m sure no one who knows you will,” he said, full of conviction. There were not many things in which Stiles could believe in at the moment, but this notion he wholeheartedly embraced with all his being.

They tried to get rid of the evidence of their little adventure before Lindsay arrived to pick her brother up but cleaning up was harder than any of them had anticipated. It was made an even more challenging task by Burly trying to eat the fake snow and them trying their best to keep him from doing just that.

Stiles looked at his backyard and thought that it was good that it had been part of a happy childhood memory. He watched as Ray was hugging the fox to his chest in order to stop him from his usual shenanigans, laughter breaking through his attempt of chastising. Happiness was something that seemed palpable at that moment, like a substance that he could easily bottle up and keep stocked for bad days. The air was light as the sun was setting and he breathed it in as deeply as he could, trying to inhale as much as he could of this one moment so that he would always remember it.

When Lindsay arrived to take Ray home, the air turned heavier with her gaze, making every inhale seem like a challenging task. She put the safety belt in place for her brother and closed the car door before she turned around to face Stiles. Her eyes carried the weight he felt in the air surrounding them.

“Stiles, you can’t keep doing this,” she said with a sigh.

“Doing what?”

Her brows turned down in anger. “Don’t joke about this! Denial won’t make this any easier, neither for him nor for you. I’m telling you this because I know. It’s time you face the truth. Ray is dying. Maybe not today or tomorrow or even in a month’s time but that doesn’t change the fact. You have to come to terms with it.”

The hands at his side balled to fists. “How can you say that? How can you just give up? Don’t you want something better for him?”

Her hand snapped into the air faster than he could react, already thrown back, ready to attack. Her breathing had become heavy as if she too could feel the change in atmosphere. Her blue eyes were blazing at him but her hand slowly sank back to her hip.

“Don’t you dare,” she whispered. Then she raised her voice. “Don’t you dare imply that I don’t care about my brother! You think I want this?! Then you truly don’t know me at all and I was a fool for believing you were my friend!”

Seeing her anguish, Stiles dropped his gaze in a silent apology. “Please don’t give up just yet,” he said, in a meek voice.

He only looked up once he felt her hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently. “I’m not giving up. I’m trying to come to terms with reality. And so should you if you don’t want this to destroy you. Accept what’s to come, please, no matter when it is to come. Time is not really as countable as we think. Some moments last an eternity. Hold on to them.”

He closed his eyes, trying to soak in the words.

***

Allison bit her lip to hold back the angry cry that was threatening to break out. If her hands were free, she would probably slap someone. She would most likely slap all of them. Then, she would walk out of here with her head held high and the promise to herself that she would look for better friends.

“Are you comfortable?” Scott wrung his hands, peering at her from under his eyelashes, his head bowed in shame. “Or do you maybe want a glass of water?”

Isaac scrunched up his face in second-hand embarrassment, his hand rubbing at his chin as if he was trying to scrub it off.

“I’m bound to a chair. Not exactly what I would call comfortable,” Allison replied in a cold voice.

Scott grimaced. “It was necessary.”

Erica looked at her apprehensively, like a scientist would look at a failed experiment, trying to figure out what went wrong.

“Maybe she’s not angry enough yet. Should I call her a hunter-slut?” she pondered out loud.

Allison sniffed in an undignified manner.

“That’s just rude,” Scott complained.

“She’s normal now so that means that her violent behaviour was triggered by something,” Boyd said, surprising everyone with his verbal contribution.

Erica’s gaze swerved between Allison, Scott and Isaac as an idea formed in her mind. It was a solid theory but providing proof would be hard without hurting either party.

She braced herself for the inevitable pain she would cause and blurted out: “Isaac is in love with Scott.”

The betrayal in her best friend’s face she had braced herself for but not for the attack of the hunter they had thought to be detained.

***

The next time Stiles opened his eyes, he was on the passenger side of a car he was not familiar with. The woman driving was muttering furiously under her breath, her fingers gripping the steering wheel as if it as her last lifeline. The needle on the tachometer was rapidly climbing higher.

They were heading for an intersection and with the tempo they were going, there was no way that they would come to a stop before colliding with others.

The car with which they would most likely collide with didn’t show any sign of stopping either, most likely not yet aware that there was a driver about to ignore the right of way.

Stiles recognized that car with a pang in his chest and instantly knew that he had to come to a decision right this moment. A moment had never felt so long to him.