Chapter Text
He was always hurting somewhere. It had been going on for some time now. Ever since he got involved with all of this supernatural bull. In the beginning he could write it off as injuries due to Lacrosse practice. Or being a klutz or such. Minor bruising from getting pushed into a wall, looked the same as being pushed into lockers. No one noticed. A slight concussion from being shoved into his own steering wheel. Even a mild concussion from being hit over your head with a part from your own car. Explainable.
But when gashes from whips, knives, and well let’s face it, torture showed up. He started to try to hide it. How you could hide bloody wounds and broken ribs from several werewolves was beyond him. But such was chaos, it made people blind to what or who wasn’t important enough. And he definitely wasn’t. Well, he was important for survival, but seemed unimportant for daily life. He took what he got and rolled with the punches.
His own pack started to realise he wasn’t unbreakable and they were more careful with him. Especially after they lost people in their pack. Greif, mourning and loss seemed to be a theme for them. It bound them together. But it also had them look at Stiles as a liability, someone easily taken, evident from many times he’d been taken. Easily hurt, same reason, but by that also someone easily killed. They didn’t look at how they, themselves treated him. At all. Kept banging him up. Not thinking about their strength when they hugged, tackled or ‘slapped’ him. And it was what it was Stiles figured.
He didn’t notice it at first but it started after the Nogitsune. Protection. Their protection strategy sucked though. It would, since he hadn’t had a part in it. Pushing him out of the pack only made him more vulnerable. Easier to take, and hurt, and kill. And every time he was taken, it made the pack push him further away. To exclude him from everything important.
No they still used him for research, for plans, for ranting to, on and about. He was still connected to them, and still smelled like them. It was kind of a catch 22. He was still looking, and smelling and generally being around pack. So people, creatures and well everyone thought he still was. He still had the company, and infrequent updates from an occasional Hale though.
So, still taken, still bruised, and aching, in the middle of things until Theo. And Donovan during senior year. Then he decided to take himself out of the equation. He did the only thing he could think of in the situation he was in. He went to his father and told him everything. The Sheriff knew about the supernatural, the pack and most of what was going on. But Stiles had never told him how he was treated within the pack.
He’d never let his father think that everything wasn’t ok. That he didn’t feel safe anymore. It took a couple of hours to decide what to do, and how to go about it, but in the end there was a plan formed. Since Stiles only lacked a couple of credits, the Sheriff was to approach the school and check out the possibility to do those on online courses. Stiles had approached a couple of universities and he was pretty sure he could get into, with a scholarship to one he’d applied to on the West Coast.
When all was said and done, he left the house with some extra cash for new clothes, a pair of new boxers packed, as a pair of socks. Everything to avoid drawing unwanted, supernatural attention to himself.
Surprisingly he was successful. When the university courses started, he lived in a small dorm-room, shared with another boy. He spoke to his dad on the phone, or on Skype at least twice a week. He got a job as a barista in a small coffee shop close to campus. Things was for once really good for him.
It didn’t last. Of course it didn’t. He was Stiles Stilinski. And the life he’d had, left scars not only on his body. And not only the occasional (actually unexpectedly few) night mare. It had left behaviours and acceptance of other’s behaviours that wasn’t sound. His experiences of relationships were dysfunctional at best.
He got pulled in. Whirlwind romance three months into University. His closest experience with romance and relationships were that of Scott McCall and Alison Argent. He didn’t see any wrong with only spending their time together. Love was supposed to be like that. You live in your own bubble. All that matters is the two of you. No one else. You two alone.
When the three-month anniversary passed and he was asked to movie in, he happily did. He quit his job to have more time for them. He loved and was loved that was enough.
Six months had passed by and he rarely spoke to his father anymore. Or anyone. He didn’t have to; they were enough for each other. No one else mattered.
Nine months and he didn’t start up a second year of university. He took care of their home. A small apartment, but still. He didn’t need an education. They could manage.
Their one-year anniversary he spent in the hospital. Nothing major. He just needed his cast taken off. The doctor was the same who he’d met the first time he visited the hospital. He didn’t seem to recognise him. That time it had been his nose, not broken, but they’d thought so. Better safe than sorry. There had been another doctor for his ribs, and a third for his broken arm.
But still, he was all right.
They were all right.
A concussion, and five stitches at the back of his head. It was silly. He was at the hospital again. He was clumsy ok. And he still hadn’t really grown out of his problem with gravity. He wasn’t pushed down the stairs. He had just lost balance. Since it was his fourth time in there and the doctor recognised him from checking that his arm had healed all right when they took of the cast two weeks ago, he’d alerted the counsellor who was presently asking him all sorts of awkward questions. Like he was abused or something.
He was ok.
Well until he wasn’t. He spent the night alone at the hospital. There was no silence to be found. No darkness. He couldn’t chase away the thoughts with sleep, since he wasn’t allowed. It was getting closer to his mother’s death-day. He realised that he hadn’t spoken to his dad in over six months. He missed his father. He missed those who he had still felt a connection to in Beacon Hills. The Hales. All of them. He even missed Jackson they’d had some real helpful conversations after the Nog… the incident. The rest of them. The pack, not so much.
He decided to contact them when he got out of the hospital.
He realised he didn’t know how to. He’d not gotten a new iPhone after his was accidentally crushed a couple of months ago. His computer had given up its ghost before summer. He hadn’t had the money to get a new one.
Being kept awake with nothing to do. The stitches were itching. Well. It gave him the opportunity to consider his life. Think about things he hadn’t thought of for a long time. His mother’s death day, and his mother reminded him of another time. A time when love didn’t equal some kind of pain. A time before the supernatural. When love was painless and unconditional. When friendship equalled love. When he trusted in people, and people trusted him.
He was a failure he knew that. The only good thing he managed was in their relationship. He knew that.
*
It hit him like a troll’s fist to the face (YES he knew what that felt like). As soon as he opened the door on his way home from the hospital. Two nights and lots of dollars later. He hated the apartment. With all his might. He didn’t say anything though. Not again. Every single time he had opposed something, or tried to change anything, he’d ended up pushed up against a wall, being yelled at for as long as it took for him to make up for whatever bad thing he’d expressed. To apologise for his bad taste, for offering his opinions when they were not wanted, and for being out of order. He was supposed to love, honour and obey.
And he did. Love. Honour. And obey. Except for Saturday mornings. They were his sanctuary. They were grocery run day. At least one and a half hour alone. An hour and a half where he could breathe. Time of his own. He could relax, be his own master. Today he was going to drink tea, boring Earl Grey Tea and he would sweeten it with sugar. Real sugar. Maybe it sounded simple to others. But to him it was a luxury. He had stiff shoulders and his head still hurt some, he sat down on the kitchen floor, just trying to relax.
Imagine his surprise when before the water even boiled he heard someone at the door of the apartment. From the angle he sat, he could see the door, and someone opening it. He was at the wrong side of it to see who it was immediately. The someone behind the door took a step into the apartment, then another. Then Peter Hale appeared in his vision.