Drowning Again
Stiles feels empty now. They haven’t even been gone a whole day yet but it’s like they took his happiness and confidence with him, leaving him feeling completely hollow and with more self-doubt circulating in his head than he’d like to admit.
It’s late. He doesn’t know how late, but he can feel it in his eyes. His body wants sleep, but he knows better than to sleep right now. He can already hear the voice right now, he’s sure as hell not going to sleep and give him free reign of his nightmares.
‘Oh, come on.’ An evil little voice says in the back of his head. ‘We’ve played this game before, haven’t we?’
He knows this voice well. He should, he hears it every time he opens his mouth to talk. It’s his voice. But he knows damn well that it isn’t him, it’s the Nogitsune. Just like when it was in control, using his face and his body and his voice. That’s worse than seeing and hearing the gauze-wrapped corpse that he was in the beginning, because it feels too real.
Like it’s still in his head.
‘I am in your head, Stiles.’ Void says in a silky way that he could never achieve on his own. ‘I’ll always be in your head, remember?’
“They’ll be back.” He tells himself quietly.
‘Of course they will.’ Void agrees. ‘They’ll be back. The next time you lose control they’ll come running, just like they did this time. Do you know why, Stiles?’
He pointedly doesn’t think anything back. They just left and he’s already falling apart.
‘It’s because they’re afraid of you.’ Void continues, unaffected. ‘Afraid of who you are, of what you can do. They look at you, but they see us. They see how powerful we were, and they’re scared. Scared that they’re going to have to put us down.’
The image of Chris pointing the gun at him pops into his head despite his best efforts. He can’t suppress the chill that slips down his spine as he remembers back to that. Void egging him on while Stiles screamed himself hoarse trapped in his own head, begging for it to stop, for someone to hear him.
He glances over at his bed where Clint is fast asleep with Natasha and decides to get up and go to the bathroom.
“Stop it.” He mutters as he splashes cold water onto his face. Anything to keep him awake.
He definitely shouldn’t have looked into the mirror, because now his reflection is moving independently of him. “No.” It says, smirking at him with his stolen face. ‘I’m not going to stop, Stiles. Do you know why? Because you know it’s true. You know that they’re scared of you. It’s why you didn’t tell them – about the powers. Because you know that once you say it, they won’t see you anymore. They’ll see me.’
“Haven’t you taken enough from me?”
‘Me?’ His reflection laughs. ‘Oh Stiles, no. We. We did that. You and me. Together. I couldn’t have done it by myself. Trapped in a tree for decades, I was a man out of time. But you, with your thirst for knowledge. You gave me the information I needed to hurt them. The bomb. The fox-fire. You, with your need for approval, you knew everything about them – from their favorite colors to their worst fears. You gave me their weaknesses. Allison. Aiden. I didn’t do that by myself, Stiles. We did.’
He’s closed his eyes by now, but that doesn’t stop him from hearing him. ‘Take some credit for your work, Stiles. It was beautiful.’
Leave me alone. Just leave me alone.
‘Oh, it’s much too late for that. Everyone has it, no one can lose it. What is it?’
He can’t stop the words from tumbling past his lips. “A shadow.”
‘That’s right, Stiles.’ Void nods, looking pleased. ‘A shadow. I’m your shadow. You can’t get rid of me.’ Before he can think about it he slams his fist into the mirror, resulting in it shattering and falling all over the bathroom.
He turns and walks out, closing the door behind him to find Natasha and Clint both sitting up, searching for the threat. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” He lies. “I tripped and fell into the mirror. I’ll clean it up in the morning. You guys don’t have to stay with me tonight, I’m fine.”
“Stiles, it’s not trouble, really.” Clint assures him.
“Really, I’m fine.” He shakes his head easily. “You guys don’t have to stay here. Go see your dog, hang out with James. I know he wasn’t really sure how long he was staying.”
“You’re sure?” Natasha asks. Maybe it’s because they’re tired that they’re so easy to fool, but either way, it works.
“Yeah.” He nods. “Dad’s home tonight anyways.”
“Okay.” Clint hesitates, clapping a hand on his shoulder before heading to the window. Natasha uses the door like a civilized person.
‘Give it up, Stiles.’ Nogitsune says as Stiles eyes his empty, inviting bed. ‘We’ve done this before in Eichen House. You know you’ll give in eventually.’
Some part of him is aware that his hand is bleeding as he crawls into bed, but he doesn’t feel it. “You’re right.” He says to the ceiling. “Last time I lost. This time though, the only person you can hurt is me.”
He wakes up in his room back home and stretches before sitting up. He got a good night’s sleep for the first time in a long time.
“Stiles, get up!” His dad calls from downstairs. “I’m leaving for work, don’t be late for school.”
He hums a happy little tune as he gets out of bed. He’s excited for school today, he and Scott have plans to go see a movie after lacrosse practice and he’s practically vibrating with excitement.
But all of that changes when he pushes his bedroom room open and steps into the hall.
Because it isn’t the hall.
He’s in the middle of the woods.
It’s dark. Nighttime. Just enough moon light to see by. He turns back around to look for the door he just came out of, but of course it’s gone.
Instead he sees a little girl. Maybe five, sobbing as she runs away from a chillingly familiar figure with pale gold eyes. He watches in horror as she trips over her feet and goes sprawling in the dirt. He comes to a halt behind her, stalking towards her slower now.
“Mommy!” The girl screams as he raises a clawed hand for what is undoubtably a fatal blow. The sound shocks Stiles into movement.
“Theo no!” He screams, arms outstretched. The girl lifts off the ground and flies right into his arms, away from Theo. The girl sobs harder in response and Theo snarls and turns towards him. The girl screams and clings tighter to his chest.
He scrambles backwards as he tries to fight down panic and figure out what to do, but when Theo raises his claws to attack, he sends the magic inside him bursting forwards without even consciously thinking about it.
“Stiles no!” Scott screams – when did Scott and the Pack get here? – but it’s too late. Theo flies backwards and falls to the ground, his head making a horrible sound when it cracks against a rock protruding from the ground that Stiles is sure wasn’t there a second ago.
Theo goes still, dead eyes boring into his soul, blood pooling on the ground in shock.
“Don’t look.” He warns the crying girl, her arms are still wrapped around his neck, clinging for dear life. “You’re safe now.”
All at once everything changes again. He couldn’t tell you what came first, but the first thing that he registered was the girl.
As soon as the words leave his mouth the crying stops and she looks up at him, tear-stained face completely devoid of emotion. “Why did you have to kill me?” She asks.
“Wha-“ He starts, but suddenly she’s gone and Theo is in her place, strong hand gripped tight around his throat where the girl had been clinging, strangling him.
“Why’d you do it, Stiles?” Theo snarls at him. “Why’d you kill her?
Stiles manages a look over Theo’s shoulder to see that the little girl is now laying where he had been, tears and blood alike still wet as the Pack stands around her in shock.
“He’s a monster Scott!” Allison yells as she cradle’s the little girl in her arms. Her dead eyes hold his with no sign of every letting him go. “Look at what he did!”
“She was just a little girl!” Lydia now.
“He’s evil,” Erica snaps out next, “We all saw it. The magic, he’s just like the Nogitsune now.”
“I warned them, Stiles.” Theo says into his ear. “I warned them that you were dark. You can’t survive something like that without being tainted. That’s what you are, Stiles – the Nogitsune’s dirty whore.”
“Why did you kill me?”
It’s too much.
The panic builds as their words continue, harsh and sharp like knives cutting little pieces of him away. The pain in his chest and head grows as Theo continues to strangle him. But still, he doesn’t truly break until it’s Isaac’s turn to speak.
“How could you?”
That’s it. That’s his breaking point. He just explodes. Everything goes up in a flash of blinding blue light that leaves his eyes burning. His ears ring and it fades, but he doesn’t understand what he’s seeing.
Why is he in a cemetery?
Why is his dad here?
It all snaps into place at once, overwhelming him with the realization of what’s going on as he wishes he could to back to before he figured it out – before he saw the names on the headstones and heard the words his father was saying.
Scott McCall.
Liam Dunbar.
Lydia Martin.
Vernon Boyd.
Erica Reyes.
Isaac Lahey-
He forces himself not to look at the others, but he can’t stop the words.
“-and as Sheriff I promise all of you that I will catch the monster that did this. Stiles will be put to justice for what he’s done-“
‘See?’ The Nogitsune whispers into his ear. ‘I told you. They’re afraid.’
“It’s just a dream.” He says, but it barely even comes out a whisper.
‘Are you sure about that, Stiles?’ A chill runs down his spine as he raises his hands up to count his fingers, but there are tears in his eyes, blurring his vision.
No.
He can’t see.
How is he supposed to tell if this is a dream if he can’t see?
“He killed my baby.” Melissa’s sobs nearly kill him. The hatred in her voice would be enough to make him react any day, but when it’s coming from the woman who raised him after his mother died and being directed towards him, he has no hope of ever surviving.
The panic and pain continue all night, to the point that Stiles loses all concept of time. It feels as if this is all he’s ever known – this special brand of torture – and he eventually he just gives up.
With no end in sight, he finally just let’s go and takes it.
Each scene is different yet completely the same. He tries and fails to save someone – the Pack or an innocent – but every time it’s like they don’t actually see it, instead they blame him, saying that he killed them, or that his powers are evil, or that he’s evil.
He watches them die over and over, no matter what happens. He listens to the cruel words they throw at him, unable to block them out – a few times they even attacked him, but by that point he had already stopped fighting.
Even worse than him suffering at the hands of those he cares about, is the fact that he has to deal with the Nogitsune spitting poison into his head the whole time.
Unlike normal, however, is that he doesn’t wake up during the night. Not once. Not until four in the morning when the pain of him digging his nails into his sides finally jerks him back to consciousness. The blood that’s wet on his fingers does nothing to calm his racing heartbeat or stop the flow of tears that stream down his face. It’s a long time before he can even get up to drag himself to the bathroom and tend to the new – particularly deep and painful – scratches on his sides.
‘You and me forever, Stiles.’ The nogitsune says as he smoothes the bandage over his side. Stiles hopes that he's imagining the feeling on his breath on the back of his neck.
“As if.” He writes a note to his dad, grabs his bag and leaves. He isn’t exactly sure where he’s going, only that he needs to clear his head. He ends up standing in front of the gym that Steve had mentioned to him. He had said that he had a tendency to go there when he couldn’t sleep to clear his head, and that Stiles was welcome any time.
Stiles picks up the key Steve gave him and unlocks the door.
He doesn’t really look around much except to make sure that Steve isn’t here. He wraps his hands and blares the loudest, most obnoxious heavy metal music he can find through his headphones before he begins attacking a punching bag with what little fight he currently has left in him.
*****
Stiles nearly screams as he breaks his second pair of headphones in the past hour. They keep getting caught on his arms when he hits the punching bag. The first pair he stomped on in frustration, smashing the earbud to pieces. This one made the mistake of getting tangled when it got ripped out of his phone and fell to the ground. He gave up on untangling them almost immediately and instead ripped the cord in two.
Unbeknownst to Stiles, Steve and Tony watch from the doorway, both wearing grim expressions as the seriousness of the situation dawns on them.
Stiles isn’t okay.
They all had questions after the Doombot thing – who wouldn’t when a human teenager is found passed out on top of robot carnage and then goes into a sleep-depravation induced coma where he screams and says some scary shit in his sleep for a fucking week – but this… is more than they had expected.
Stiles becomes aware of their presence when he finally does let out a frustrated “Shut up!”, clamping his hands over his ears so hard that Steve finally moves to put a hand on his shoulder. “Shit!” He jumps, flinching away from the contact – a movement neither Steve nor Tony miss. “Don’t scare me like that.”
“Stiles, are you okay?” Steve asks, and it finally hits Stiles that they’ve probably been here long enough to witness the mental breakdown he’s currently going through.
He knows it’s no use arguing. He’s already caught sight of his reflection. He looks like hell.
His hair is messier than usual, hanging down around his eyes with sweat, he’s pale as a sheet, his lips have been bitten bloody, there are dark circles under his eyes that look like he’s been working on them for a week instead of the sixteen hours his friends have been gone, not to mention that the new marks on his side started bleeding hours ago and there’s now blood starting to appear on his shirt.
More than that though, Stiles looks defeated. It’s not just the physical exhaustion either, it’s in his eyes and the way his shoulders sag inwards.
In the privacy of his own head, Steve cries a little internally at how much Stiles reminds him of Bucky right now.
Despite the fact that he knows exactly what he looks like, and that there’s currently blood coming from under the wraps on his hands, smearing the punching bag in front of him, he lies anyways. “Couldn’t sleep.” He says, giving them his best slight self-depreciating ‘what-can-you-do’ smile. “Figured I’d work off some steam.”
“Stiles…” Steve starts, giving him his sad, golden retriever eyes that put Scott’s to shame. “Do you really expect us to believe that?”
“It’s not a lie Steve.” It takes a lot of energy to keep himself from snapping at the captain. As much as he likes Steve and Tony, all they’re doing is making his mood worse.
“You’re right, Stiles.” Tony says, stepping forward before Steve can say anything else. “It was very specifically not a lie, because you didn’t answer the question.”
“Yes, I did.” He knows Tony sees right through him, but he can’t do this right now. He just can’t. Not when he can see the Nogitsune standing behind them in the mirror, whispering poison in his ears. “Look, guys, I get that you’re trying to be nice and all, but-“
“I talked to Natasha.” The dark-haired man cuts him off and he knows that this isn’t going to be good. “She said that you fell and broke the bathroom mirror last night.”
‘Oh, how sweet.’ Void hisses in his ear. ‘Another person that cares about you. Another person we’ll destroy.’ Stiles can’t help the shiver that runs down his spine at that.
“What’s your point?” He shakes it off, doing his best to block out the play-by-play he’s getting as Void shares his very well thought out plans, he has for Tony.
“Well she also said that you sent her and Clint home last night.” Wow, this is so not the time for him to push this. “Told them that you’d stay with your dad, only when she stopped by your house this morning, the sheets were bloody, the mirror had clearly been punched, and your dad was just getting home from work.”
Stiles doesn’t say anything.
“Look, kid, I’m not the best at this, but we’ve all been going insane trying to figure out what’s going on with you, so I’m giving this adulting thing a shot.”
“Tony, this is really not the tim-“
“We haven’t asked.” Tony goes right on, completely ignoring his plea. “We didn’t asked about the breakdown in the lab. We didn’t ask about the thing with the Doombots. We didn’t ask why Steve found you on top of a pile of dismembered bots without a scratch, shaking even while unconscious. We didn’t ask why you were so sleep-deprived that you fell into a coma for a week after that, or what you’ve been through that made you scream bloody murder in your sleep. We didn’t ask about the scars.” He’s staring at the floor by now, in attempt to avoid their gazes, but the sheer amount of emotion in Tony’s voice almost makes him cry. “But enough is enough. You are not okay, Stiles. I know what not okay looks like, and this is so far past it that we’re all worried. You got to give me something here kid, anything. We can help.”
‘Go ahead, Stiles.’ He's fairly sure that he can feel Void’s breath on the back of his neck. ‘Tell them. Tell them that you’re a monster. Tell them that you ripped those Doombots apart like they were made of paper. Tell them why you were so seep deprived – because you killed your friends and your scared to see them in your sleep, because you’re scared you’re becoming me.’
Shut up!
‘Tell them! Are you afraid, Stiles? You should be. Because once they know they’ll never see you the same. Or should I say us?’
He wants to curl up in a ball and hide for the rest of his life. He wants to stab himself in the ears until he can’t hear Void’s words – can’t hear the truth in them. He wants to go back to beating his anger and pain out into the punching bag.
Instead he takes a deep breath, pretends he can’t her Void and looks back up at Tony and Steve. “You’re right.” His voice comes out in an uneven whisper. He clears his throat and tries again. “You’re right, I’m not okay. But I’m not ready to talk about it yet Tony, I can’t.”
“Stiles-“
“Just, give me a second, Steve, please.” The blonde man nods solemnly and waits, worry evident in his eyes. “I’m drowning, okay? I know I am. But talking about it, means I have to think about it, and when I think about it, I remember just how deep I am – how far I have to fight before I can get back to air. And I know this is fucked up, I do, but it’s just easier to pretend like I’m not. Hell, I’ve been doing it this whole time, and I was fine…but then…my friends came to my rescue. And yeah, we were all still fucked up, but – just for a second – we were getting a little better. Now they’re gone again, and I’m right back to where I started, and I’m out of my head worrying about Isaac, and I’ve got Voi-“
Shit.
That was close.
Okay. Deep breath. Try again.
“Look, my point is that, I know I’m not okay Tony.” The younger brunette shrugs at the pair. “I haven’t been in a long fucking time. But I physically can’t do this right now. Okay? Isaac’s gone. And I’m worried. And I’m drowning. And my head is not exactly a great place to be right now. So, I’m sorry that I’m worrying you. I am. But the only thing I can do right now to stay sane is beat the crap out of this punching bag and wait for one of them to text.”
The silence is heavy. Steve’s eyes are watery. Tony looks hollow. Even Void is quiet – although Stiles is pretty sure it’s satisfaction on his part.
Then, finally:
“Let Steve patch you up first. You’re losing a lot of blood from your sides.”
“Thank you.” He doesn’t even think that Tony hears it with how quiet it comes out, but the next thing he knows he’s wrapped up in a fiercely gentle hug.
“It’s okay to be broken Stiles.”