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There is not
A single soul among the trees
And I
Don't know where I've gone.
—“Where Without Whom” by Octavio Paz
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Stiles knows that when he opens his eyes, he won't be in his bedroom anymore. Who knows where he’ll be, really, but he hopes that it's somewhere quiet. If he's really lucky (which he never is), everything will have been a horrible, horrible dream and he’ll go to school and everyone will be there: Scott and Allison; Lydia and Jackson; Isaac, Erica, and Boyd; and they'll all look at him like he's crazy when he says the word ‘werewolf’.
There will be no such thing as a kanima, or a nogitsune, or a chimera.
His dad won't be dying in the hospital.
Ever since Scott was bitten, people have told him that he was smart, and brave, and, in Lydia's case, that he was perfectly capable of “figuring things out”. The problem was, he didn't want to figure anything out right now. He was just too tired.
(The obvious—if slightly morbid—solution to his problem was to not open his eyes anymore.)
Lydia would understand, he knew. Malia, too. Scott probably wouldn't, but he and Scott hadn't really been seeing eye to eye for a while now, so there was nothing he could do about that.
It would be so easy to forget about Scott and Theo and the Dread Doctors and just give in for a little while. If he could get some proper sleep, maybe he could get rid of the heavy weight sitting on his chest and the constant roaring in his ears.
His spark was about belief, right? Right now, he believed with everything in him that he deserved a break. For the first time in a long time, Stiles slipped into sleep slowly, gently, letting himself drift on the edge of unconsciousness until the welcome blackness lured him under.
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In the thirteen days it took for Lydia to track down the Hales, the situation in Beacon Hills deteriorated beyond the point of no return. The chimera pack had terrorized the town to the point that acting Sheriff Parrish had declared a “chemical emergency” and evacuated the town, Deaton had seemingly vanished off of the face of the earth, and Scott was so wracked with guilt over everything that Kira and his mom were literally the only two people he was speaking with at the moment.
Liam and Mason had evacuated with their families, Kira with hers, and Malia with her father, so the only person other than the deputies (who were spending most of their time enforcing the evacuation) and Lydia who was still in town was Stiles. Sort of.
Lydia had spent the last thirteen days—when she wasn't looking for Derek and Peter—taking care of Stiles who, despite not having any drugs or alcohol in his system, had gone to sleep one night and never woken up. Oh, his eyes would open if someone said his name, and his body would move if someone led it, but there was nothing going on upstairs, at least from what Lydia could see. The banshee couldn't, wouldn't, abandon him to Eichen House, so she took him home with her.
So far, Theo had left the two of them alone, but it was only a matter of time before he sought them out. Lydia could only imagine what would happen if Theo found out about how helpless Stiles was at the moment.
In short, the Hales needed to get to town as soon as possible.
Not that Lydia thought that they were coming for her, of course. The original message she had sent them asking for help had been ignored; it was only after the second message, in which she had specifically mentioned Stiles, that she got any type of response. Even then, it was only a short we’re coming with no indication of where they were or when they’d be home.
Home. As if this place was fit to be anyone's home, now.
Lydia's attention turned to be boy sitting motionless in the corner, watching her with blank eyes, and she fought back a shudder. It wasn't like the nogitsune at all—the complete opposite, in fact—but she couldn't help but be unnerved by the whole situation. Not for the first time, she cursed Deaton for not being there to offer some sort of guidance.
“Stiles,” she asked gently, guiding her friend up from his place on the floor, “let's go eat some dinner, all right?”
Later than night as they watched a movie, the banshee curled into Stiles and whispered, “Please come back. I can't do this without you.”
Her friend didn't respond.
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“Well, this is eerie,” Peter remarked as they entered Beacon Hills, and Derek had to agree. Lydia had let them know about the situation in town, but her succinct explanation of events really hadn't done the story justice.
The town had, at least for the moment, been abandoned, and both Hales fought a sense of unease as they traveled the road toward Lydia's house. Derek thought that he saw a flash of eyes in the distance, but if it was a chimera, the monster thankfully kept to itself. Instead, Derek felt regret for all of the property that had been destroyed and how long it was going to take people to get over the losses.
“Personally, I'm torn between finding this Theo and ripping his heart out, or leaving him for Scott to handle. He's done such a lovely job so far,” Peter said, never taking his eyes away from the horizon.
“You do remember that it's Stiles that we're here for, right?”
Peter lips curled before he turned to stare incredulously at Derek. “Do you think you’re the only one who cares about him?”
“I just know that your goals don't always line up with everybody else's goals.”
“I can assure you, nephew, that I have nothing but the best of intentions toward Stiles. He is, after all, the only interesting one of the bunch.”
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Derek and Peter reached the Martin house just before sunset, and Lydia barely gave them a cursory glance before inviting them inside.
“Where's Stiles?”
“Hello. Why yes, I'm fine, Derek, thank you for asking,” the banshee replied sarcastically, but she moved towards the stairs regardless. “Shut off the lights, would you, Peter? There's no use advertising to the monsters that we're open for business.”
The men exchanged looks, but did as she asked before following her upstairs. She paused at the door to her room, expression grim. “Don't do anything stupid,” she ordered them, and opened the door.
It was almost impossible to spot the human at first, crammed into the far corner of Lydia's bedroom. Peter spotted him first, and felt a tendril of unease flow through him as he approached the boy, Derek close behind.
“Stiles?”
He squatted down just enough to see Stiles's blank face before he heard Derek whine behind him. The human didn't react, and continued to stare through the two of them as if they weren't there.
“Stiles, can you hear me?” Peter asked softly, drawing a gentle finger down his cheek and leaning over to whisper something in Stiles’s ear.
“Uncle Peter?”
“It's something his mother used to say,” the older wolf said distractedly. They needed to get Stiles back to himself before getting out of town. He wasn't sure what had caused it: the chimeras, the Doctors, the nemeton, or just his dad's illness, but…
“Deaton's been no help and we can't stay here forever,” Lydia offered. “Theo knows that we're here—I think he's just playing with us at this point.”
“We need to get you two out of town as soon as possible,” Derek said, helping Peter draw Stiles to his feet. “Where's your mom?”
“She's helping look after the Sheriff. She doesn't like what we're doing, but I just know it would be bad to take Stiles away while he's like this.”
The rest of the night was spent eating and discussing ways to reach their human friend. Many of them, Lydia had already attempted, and others required unobtainable resources.
Finally, Derek sighed. “I can't believe that I'm going to suggest this, but why don't we cuddle?”
“What?” Lydia asked flatly, and Peter kept slowly blinking like he really didn't understand what was happening.
“All the possible causes we mentioned, they're mentally draining. Maybe he just needs emotional support.”
“Because the three of us are bastions of positivity,” Peter drawled.
“I'm serious. Scott was basically the only optimist in his life, right? So, if the happiest person in his life started to doubt him, and all of this other negative stuff was happening…his dad getting hurt was probably just the last straw.”
“Just how much therapy did you have while you were gone?” Lydia asked incredulously, but Derek could tell she was considering his words.
“He needs pack,” Peter said thoughtfully. “You've helped him,” he shot a glance at Lydia, “but he doesn't fully trust you right now. After all, you sided with Theo at first, didn't you?”
At Lydia's stricken face, Derek jumped in. “Don’t be an ass, Peter.” He turned to Lydia. “He's just irritated because he thinks that if he had been here, he could have kept this from happening.”
The elder Hale shot Derek a scathing look, but didn't say anything. Instead, he carefully drew Stiles into the curve of his arms and started whispering to him. Lydia couldn't hear him clearly, but she did make out the words “clever” and “protect”. Derek didn't seem concerned, though, so she worried instead about how they were going to make it out of town.
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The next few days were...odd. Rather than being constantly at each other's throats as she expected, the two Hales seemed to be at ease with themselves and their surroundings. They were constantly touching Stiles or talking to him about random and sundry things that they had seen or done, but it took Lydia longer than normal to recognize that they were doing the same to her . Peter would draw her into his conversation with Stiles, or Derek would casually brush up against her when he passed.
On the fourth day of the wolves’ stay, Lydia woke up in bed with three other people curled around her. Surprisingly, none of the panic or outrage she expected to feel appeared; instead, she found herself strangely happy that they had all come together.
There was a rustle of fabric to her right, and she glanced over, expecting to see Peter watching her. Instead, Stiles was watching her with an adorably confused expression. “Lydia? What's going on?”
The banshee threw her arms around her friend, knocking him into Peter, who woke with a grunt, and accidentally kicking Derek, who she heard groan behind her. “I'm so glad you're back,” she whispered while the Hales were still coming to their senses, and kissed his cheek.
“I'll explain about the Hales,” she said, glancing at them fondly, “but we seriously need to get out of town.”
It took them a full extra day to leave, not because of Stiles's health, but because werewolves are surprisingly clingy and neither of them wanted to let go of their favorite human long enough to get ready.