Atelophobia (TW soulmate AU)

Chapter 1: What about me?

It's normal now, isn't it? Soulmates? Everyone is so excited to meet theirs. They talk about it with their friends leading up to their 16th birthday.

"I wonder what my soulmate looks like."

"I wonder who it'll be."

Then on their 16th birthday, they annoy each other by marking up their skin, mostly the arms, with words until they meet in person. Sometimes it's by chance, other times it's planned and no one thinks that's weird. The minute people meet their mates they take the next step into cementing the bond. They make it so that they can feel everything more strongly. Making their own emotions more sensitive. I watched as everyone around me found theirs. It started with Scott after he got bit by a werewolf, a new girl showed up at school. He immediately was head over heels for her.

"Dude, she's my mate."

"You don't know that, Scott," I said with a roll of my eyes.

"She is, you'll see.:

And he was right. Then Erica and Boyd were mates, found out as they both were turned by Derek's Alpha, along with Isaac, the bound was just stronger. A pair of twins, Ethan and Aiden, arrived later with their Alpha pack while we were dealing with a Darach. Aiden is mated to Lydia and Ethan is mated to Jackson, a surprising combination. Isaac met Cora, Derek Hale's younger sister, and they were mates as well. As the pack grew, the new members found their mates as the years went on. Malia and Kira, Mason and Corey, and then there was Liam, Scott's first beta, who thought Hayden was his mate. Naive thinking. His mate turned out to be Theo (a bad guy at one point). Then all that was left was me. Friendships started to mean nothing.

"Scott, we were going to practice lacross, remember?"

"Sorry Stiles, you'll understand when you meet your soulmate."

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"Anyone want to go get food?" A question, along with everything I say, that is always ignored or followed by a chorus of "No's"

TRIGGER WARNING:

It only got worse after the Nogitsune. A dark kitsune that possessed me. Fed off my pain, fed off hurting my friends, and almost succeeded in killing their mates. Something it took joy in, just to bring up the memory of my parents and the reason as to why I refuse to find my soulmate. Everyone kept me at arm's length, my father even more so. He already was because I'm the reminder of the bond he shared with his soulmate, my mother. But she's no longer here and he's finally, slowly, beginning to drag himself out of his depression. When she first left, he took to the bottle, to anger--- all directed at me. I couldn't even fathom how he felt, even though I lost my mother, he lost his other half. He lost a part of him. I used to try to get him to talk with me, to help me understand the situation so I could figure out how to help him and fix our relationship yet he continued to keep me at arm's length because I made it worse just by being in his line of sight. Now Scott's doing the same.

"Stiles, why are you always around?"

"Why don't you look for your soulmate?"

"Why don't you talk to your soulmate and leave me alone."

He doesn't understand, even though he g a small taste of the negativity of the soulmate bond, he doesn't understand. Pushes me away and the rest of the pack starts to follow. Except for Lydia, I think she just wants to understand.

"Stiles, have you ever talked to your soulmate?" I remember her asking one day after a particularly bad fight Scott and I got into. I was sitting outside, away from all the lovey-dovey couples.

"No."

"Not even when you turned 16."

"Not even then."

"Why?"

"Why would I want to put anyone through that pain."

"It's not pain. "

"For now."

"Stiles?"

"What do you think happens to your soulmate when you die?"

She froze.... "I...I don't know."

"You become severely depressed. Refuse to look at anything that reminds you of them and your bond. Not even your own child because it hurts too much. You ignore the world. You are so full of anger and the only way to ease it is to drown yourself in a bottle of whiskey. You might put on a facade that you're fine when you are dying slowly on the inside. The gaping in your heart gets bigger every day and soon you won't be able to take it anymore so you try to join your soulmate yourself."

"Stiles is that..."
"What happened to my dad after my mother died? Yes. DO you want to know how many times I had to stop him from joining her. Probably more than 100 since she died when I was ten. He's finally getting better, but I don't know why. So why would I put my soulmate through that."

Since then, I think she looked at me in a different light, understanding the fear I hold for the bond and the fact that I've never really got to see the goodness of the soulmate bond. I was young when I experienced it, but it wasn't long before the bad started son after I turned 5. They outweighed the good.