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The sun seemed almost accusatory in the brightness of its glare. Generally, Stiles considered himself as sun-loving as the next beach boy, but on this particular morning it made his eyes water. He sat on his front porch, wrapped in a heavy denim jacket, uncomfortably cold despite the blazing sky. He puffed on a cigarette unhappily and regarded his slowly chilling coffee in its nondescript mug.
It was a useless attempt to bring up his mood, which was a fact he’d accepted before he’d even fully committed to venturing outside. He knew it as he lay in bed in the wee hours of the day, incapable of rest. Still, he couldn’t fault himself for trying. His fondness for smoking pretty much anything he could get his hands on was a gift inherited from his father. It wasn’t so much the tobacco as it was the motion— hand to mouth, inhale exhale, hand away from mouth— that soothed him. He had a therapist once who said something about evolution and biology and “of course it’s a terrible habit but many people do find it soothes anxiety” blah blah blah. He could call the words to mind if he weren’t so goddamn motherfucking miserable.
The coffee was all Claudia. He remembered watching her slave over her latest obsessions— French press, drip, fancy Keurig, Italian espresso, etc— morning after morning. Remembered begging her for a sip. Remembered the day she finally broke and let him have one. How the dark, bitter liquid coated his tongue and throat and burned and tasted satisfyingly awful. Drinking coffee, aside from feeling deliciously adult and prohibited, felt like doing something. Imbibing something heavy that rested in his gut and made him feel grounded, warm, and full.
Or maybe he just wanted to be like his mother, the coolest and best woman who ever lived. It was a tossup.
She was on his mind as he sipped and smoked and squinted this morning, misery emanating from him in waves. He shivered into his jacket, gulped down his coffee, puffed on his cigarette, and tried to feel something. Anything. The grief was a void, swallowing him, and soon there would be no Stiles left to speak of.
Smoke. Sip. Squint. Shiver. This was supposed to be helping. It was supposed to be— he didn’t really know. Making him feel like the sum of his parts, like his mom and his dad and himself all balled up into one peaceful morning. Coffee, cigarettes, sun. The Stilinskis, alive for just one more moment in him.
His mother died fifteen years ago today. He checked the time on his phone. Fifteen years and ten minutes ago. How quickly it had passed him by. How quickly her life shot through him— like a breeze, like sand, like dust, like nothing else that had ever been or ever would be. He missed her fiercely, and the time (don't think about how you've been missing her longer than you knew her don't think about it don't think) had only made the missing more acute. What would he forget about her today? Tomorrow? At what point would Claudia Stilinski be made up of only rememberings of rememberings?
Slowly, he removed his wallet from its denim prison. He pulled his ID from it and ran his fingers over every imperfection (that time he forgot it in the microwave, sent it through the washing machine, Scott had tried to use it to break into the Chemistry lab to fuck with Harris). He touched his index finger to the M of his first name, and smiled ruefully.
Well, mom, if nothing else, I have this unpronounceable Polish bullshit of yours to carry with me forever. It is mine and yours and no one else’s. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
He pinched the bridge of his nose and slammed his eyes shut, trying to drown out the youkilledheryourfaultyoukilledherkilledherkilledher which rose like bile from the back of his brain, trying to drown and poison any moment of tenderness he had with the memory of his mother. Stiles Stilinski knew one thing to be true, if nothing else— his brain fucking hated him.
And then of course his cheeks were wet and the sun was too bright and everything became much too much, so he stubbed out his cancer stick and drained his bean juice and dashed inside before the neighbours could pity him any more than they already fucking did. The poor, poor Stilinski men who couldn’t do anything but drink and smoke themselves unconscious every 27th of March. They were sort of right.
The darkness of his house loomed over him. It was stifling. His dad was somewhere (probably the office) doing something (drinking) and he couldn’t fault him for it. The anniversaries they had spent together were tenfold more painful than the ones they spent alone, both burning with guilt and hating the other’s sadness. As soon as Stiles felt old enough, he and his dad agreed to spend the day alone. He wasn’t entirely sure it was healthy, exactly, but it was easier. He preferred to be sad where his father couldn’t see, as a general rule. And he was sad. That was the beginning, middle, and end of it, because she was so alive-- babbling, witty, excitable. She shouldn’t have ended the way she ended, and the unfairness of it burned his lungs.
He cried, silently, without scrunching his face or hitching his breath, while washing his hands aggressively once, twice, three times. He bit his lip and pretended he wasn’t losing liquid out of his eyes. Once he truly started, he knew he wouldn’t stop, and he simply didn’t have the energy. So he brushed his teeth for two minutes, then four, then six, until his gums bled and he spat pink foam into the sink. He washed his face in freezing cold water, ignoring the complaints of his already chilly fingers. The temperature punished the tears back into his eyes, and when he patted his face dry, it stayed that way. Finally satisfied, he headed back to his room, accepting that the effort to force any kind of peace out of his stupid broken brain would always be fruitless as far as March 27th was concerned.
And then, finally, a boon. Like a raft bobbing gently in view of the Titanic, Derek Hale slept soundly on his side in Stiles’ bed. His hair was a mild disaster and his face was slack, angry eyebrows resting at their natural place for once. Stiles’ breath caught in his throat for a moment, as it always did on the rare occasion he woke up before Derek. Stiles slid into bed, under the covers, and easily lifted a humongous bicep until he could bury his face in his boyfriend’s neck. Derek shifted quickly to envelope Stiles entirely in the circle of his arms.
“You smell like ass, kid.”
“I tried.” Stiles whispered in response. To human senses he was sure he smelled like soap and peppermint. Stupid werewolf nose. Derek kissed him lightly on the top of his head— a chaste display of affection so sincere and pure Stiles had to swallow thickly again to keep everything at manageable levels.
“Do you want to tell me about her?” Derek asked softly.
“Yeah. But not right now.”
“Okay.” He said easily. Then he wrapped Stiles tighter in his arms and gently breathed against his head, and Stiles marvelled at how perfectly Derek knew how to love. Maybe it was mutual-dead-parent understanding. Maybe it was sleepiness. Whatever the source, Stiles was grateful. He knew, then, though he would never get the chance to ask her himself, that his mom would have loved Derek. S he would have only had to look at him once to know that a “don’t hurt my son” conversation was very, very unnecessary. She would have welcomed him into their home with a hug and a warm smile. She would have sat him down at their kitchen table, blasting music as she bustled around the kitchen. She would have dropped things and swore under her breath and made a truly inordinate amount of noise, as she always did.
And then, as was custom when she felt someone was truly deserving of all the goodness and happiness she could offer, she would have made him a strong cup of coffee. He just knew, the way he knew that the sun would rise tomorrow and he would find it marginally easier to breathe, the way he knew basic math and conversational Polish and the other million things he had picked up from Claudia in his childhood, that she would have loved Derek Hale completely. Wherever and whatever she was on this 27th of March, Stiles thought that she loved him now, just as he did.
That thought pulled him gently into sleep, away from the yawning blinking nothingness of his grief.
You don't have to worry any more, Mom. Rest. I'm taken care of.