Devil of Wolves

Chapter Ten (Sick of The Silence)

"I think I've seen this film before and I didn't like the ending."

~

This chapter sucks, a lot, (it's bologna) partially why it took me so long to write, but here it is!

^^^^^^^^^^

His story was never going to have a happy ending. Stiles knew that; had known it for a while. It had crossed his mind when he was younger and had uncovered a body in the woods, the bloody half-carcass of one of the deputies.

Monsters became real.

He had suspected it when the first of their teachers and then classmates had gone missing and turned up dead. And then the school had turned into a graveyard and the hospital—a death trap, and the sheriff's office—a bomb waiting to explode.

Stiles had seen more death than the average person and lost more than he thought he could take. He was possessed by an evil spirit, forced to watch as he murdered innocents, and that would shatter the trust and foundation he built with his friends and family. Forever.

He realized that when he moved away across the entire country in search of change, yet was plagued by nightmares still, and was left in his one-bedroom apartment scared and alone - there was no escaping that. Though he did meet the Hales and got a good job, but just like everything, it all came full circle.

Stiles found out that he was, in fact, not as human as he thought, but worst of all he was back in Beacon Hills again. The place where this all started.

But he's still standing, despite it all. Not really with his humanity, and with the gaps in his memory, and the marks of atrophy in his brain.

Does the fact that he was still here make him lucky, or cursed? He'd say cursed. Put money on it, even.

The guilt was, is, the worst part. He feels impotent, weighed down and there was no relief in sight. Nothing could fix this. Anything, everything, he wished he could do, was too little, too late. Another name carved into his list, hidden beside his heart of those who had gotten caught up in the crossfire; losers of a rotten game that they never wanted to play, but couldn't seem to escape, and there is nothing he can do.

Several months, almost a year, of being alone. Several weeks, a lifetime, of internment. Weak and sick, despite his limitations, Stiles had somehow pulled through - picked up the pieces of his broken psyche and put himself back together; albeit halfheartedly.

But then he was back and that all shattered in a moment.

Stiles stares at his former best friend from the porch, unable to form words as his heart squeezes in his chest like a bad ache and it hurts. It all hurts.

His heart pounds, but what threatens to deter him the most is the sudden thrill of his magic inside him, reminding him that he's still not human and Scott doesn't know.

"Stiles?" Scott says in shock, and he still has the same crooked jaw, the same dark untamed hair, and the same emotion-full eyes that stared back at him.

Flashes of everything, all the buried memories roll over him, trapping his mind and he gets dragged by the grip of what once was.

^^^

September 2014 - Beacon Hills

Everything was slowly beginning to crumble around him.

Scott refuses to even look at him anymore - at least before he looked at him, warily though it was - and Lydia flinches when he's close. He stays home a lot, refusing to even go to pack meetings, and no one seems to miss him. Not even his own father, which definitely hurts the most.