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Stiles fumbles with the police scanner in his jeep as it crackles to life.
“No one’s here.”
The deputy’s voice sounds annoyed.
“Okay. Just a prank I guess.”
Stiles sits in the dark Jeep with the engine off and feels something in his chest tilt sideways.
The dispatchers reply sits ugly in his chest.
He was just there. He knows that.
Or does he?
He hates how traitorous his brain can be sometimes.
Ever since the Nogitstune there’s always that little niggling notion that his brain is back there.
Loosing time.
Mimicking versions of himself.
Knowing but not.
Gaslighting himself.
He waits until the cruiser pulls away before he moves. Back inside. Same door. The book he used to prop it open is still there.
He stops just inside. The room is...different.
The scaffolding still sits there.
Still missing the top beams.
But everything else?
Gone.
No beams carelessly strewn about the floor.
No Donovan impaled by one of them.
Elevated from the floor, like a villian who died a showy but epic death.
No blood.
There was definitely blood.
Stiles looks at his hand.
Yes, there was definitely blood.
He can see it still on one of his hands.
He turns his head and looks around. Tries to see if there is any evidence of Donovan walking out. Of someone else being there.
The room looks like nothing happened.
His brain replays everything.
The climbing.
Donovan below him.
Grabbing his legs.
The reach.
The scramble.
The pin in his hand.
The give when it came loose.
The metal dropping.
Loud.
It was so loud.
Only silence now.
Stiles closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.
This is too familiar. Too much like...before.
When he lost time.
When things happened that didn’t.
When he had to count his fingers to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. Hallucinating.
Without thinking about it, his fingers start tapping his thumb. Each one. An old habit.
When he opens his eyes and they adjust, he catches it.
Three metal bars. Leaning against the scaffolding.
He didn't notice them at first.
Stiles steps forward. Closer.
He narrows his eyes to inspect each one.
They look different now.
Neat.
Lined up.
In a perfect row.
Not tangled in a bloody mess.
His mouth goes dry.
The room feels staged. Reset. Like someone hit undo.
It doesn’t make sense.
How can that much blood simply… disappear.
He reaches out before he thinks better.
The pad of his finger against the cool metal of the bar.
It feels wet.
He pulls it away and sure enough, blood.
But not enough. Donovan was dripping blood from damn near everywhere. This is a drop. Maybe.
His breath leaves him in something that isn’t relief.
It happened.
Which means—
At home, Stiles paces.
His breath is tight and coming in gasps.
He stops.
His hands in his hair.
He stares at the clear, plexiglass murder board before him.
His eyes track the red string.
The different clues he’s been stuck on for days.
Weeks.
When they land on empty space near the middle.
His hand shakes as he picks up the white grease pencil.
He lifts his hand and stills.
What does he write?
Donovan is dead.
Right?
No.
Yes.
No.
How.
Did he walk out?
Did someone take him?
The thoughts spiral fast and loop in on themselves.
He blinks and shakes his head to clear it and begins writing.
Donovan not dead.
Walked out,
He stops. Tilts his head as he stands back and can’t find the next logical step.
Walked out and… what? He’d have to come back to life to walk out. Unless he’s a zombie.
Crap. Are zombies real? He makes a mental note to ask Deaton later. Or maybe Peter.
He presses his lips together and reminds himself to focus.
He steps back to the board and writes with more conviction.
Donovan dead.
The doubts circle in his mind again and he can feel the edge of the trauma left by the Nogitstune.
He underlines dead several times with aggressive strokes.
He feels spittle on his lips where his teeth had snapped together and he was seething to fend off the panic attack he can feel trying to work it’s way up his spine.
He swallows. Hard. Stares back at the board again.
Can’t find the angle. It’s all wrong.
If Donovan isn’t dead, he had to walk out, but then what.
If Donovan is dead, then how the hell did he get out. He couldn’t unless someone took the body.
He breathing stutters.
His hand is already writing it before he gives it permission.
Someone took
the body.
Why?
That’s what he can’t understand. Another red string for another problem he’s quickly loosing the bandwidth to figure out.
The panic attack is edging closer. It’s in his chest.
He doesn’t have time for that now.
The tears threaten to fall.
His world narrows to just those words.
The image of Donovan impaled comes back and it’s too much.
He grabs the board and leans his head against his fingers.
Murderer.
He hears it in his own voice, loud in his head. He stutters and has to remind himself it's gone.
He hits the board because he can’t do anything else.
There’s no path forward that doesn’t undo what happened.
Or that all evidence points to the idea that he hallucinated the entire ordeal.
And that presses on a bruise he thought was long healed.
But it will never be healed.
Logically he knows that.
But a stupid, dumb, hopeful part of him wishes it would.
He steps back again and his chin wobbles.
The panic attack is in his throat now, taking hold and locking him down.
He heaves and forces several breaths in and out.
The words.
The words make it real.
Make the panic attack push back.
He needs them to disappear.
So he grabs the eraser and starts manically trying to force them off the board.
Because it’s coming.
And nothing can stop it.
The panic.
The guilt.
The shame.
He pleads with caught breath’s and tears that threaten to spill, tries to bargain with the panic attack.
It refuses to accept.
The walls close in.
His vision narrows.
Darkness creeps at the edges.
His chest is too tight.
There’s not enough air.
He’s trapped.
He presses his fingers to the wound Donovan left on his shoulder.
Trying to force reality back into a shape he knows.
A shape not defined by the Nogitsune.
And he hates that he needs that reminder.
He can feel it.
Bruised.
Bleeding.
Juicy and open.
He winces as his fingers force the fabric of his shirt into it.
It helps. For a split second.
Reminds him he’s not crazy.
Not loosing it.
Not loosing himself.
Again.
Scott’s ringtone splits the room wide open.
He grabs it and answer’s using habit and muscle memory.
“Scott?”
“Stiles? Someone is taking the bodies.”
He doesn’t answer. He can’t. Because he was right.