Monsters | Stiles Stilinski

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟖𝟓

  I RELEASED A SOFT SIGH when Sheriff Stilinski placed a black coffee on the table in front of me. I looked at him as he sat down opposite me at the small dining table and gave him a soft smile while mumbling my thanks. My eyes were still heavy even after the thirteen hours of sleep I'd had last night and into this afternoon. My whole body felt heavy and I begged to go back to bed but the Sheriff wouldn't let me. He said I had to get up, even for a few hours, just to feel the effect of being awake. I had to tire myself out some more before I could go back to bed.

I figured if I wasn't allowed to sleep all day the three of us may as well of sat down and talked about all the events that transpired over Stiles's possession and my abrupt departure from Beacon Hills. The sooner this conversation was had the sooner I could start to heal. It would stop keeping me awake at night. This way, I could put this behind me and focus on our latest supernatural disaster before it pulled me under yet again.

I sipped the coffee and released a content sigh as the taste exploded in my mouth. It was quite possibly the best coffee I'd ever had and it was only because I was so exhausted. Once I'd placed it back on the table I dragged my hands over my sunkissed face, rubbing my eyes for a short minute before I sat back and looked between Stiles and his dad.

These two had given me everything—literally. Without them I'd be nowhere. They'd taken me in when I couldn't stand to be in a broken home any longer. They stayed awake through the night to console me whenever I woke up screaming in terror. They gave me a bed, a place to stay, a home. They were my home. Without them and their love I'd be nothing.

I had tried to repay them in every way I could but my efforts would never be enough. No amount of thanks could ever truly depict how grateful I was to have Stiles and his father in my life. I counted my blessings everyday, thankful that someone had thought to bring me to them. Perhaps it was my mother? Maybe it was fate. I'd never find out who was responsible for the three of us forming such a bond but I could live with that. Just as long as they stayed by my side.

I was a fool for leaving them behind. I recognised that now but during that brief period of relapse I couldn't. My brain was too emotionally overstimulated. I truly had gone through too much to begin to process anything else properly. That's why when Derek was taken I went into complete overdrive. My mind took me into autopilot and I did the worst thing I could've done. I left them... without proper reasoning, without proper explanation.

I left.

Last night was the first time Stiles and I had slept in our bed together in months. It had been that long I couldn't physically remember when it was. After we managed to release him from the clutches of the Nogitsune I still couldn't properly process my feelings for him. A part of me was still cowering in fear every time he reached for my hand. I'd flinch every time he moved. I wouldn't trust it was truly him for minutes when I saw him.

I didn't move back in with them. I still hadn't formally moved back in with them either. Though I couldn't remember moving out—that part was also incredibly hazy. The entire ordeal was one huge discombobulated blur. Several days had pushed and forced themselves into one due to lack of sleep. There were gaps in my memory where I couldn't remember things happening. The more I looked back on it, the worse my recollection of it all was becoming. My brain was starting to associate it with trauma. What had happened to my memory after the Hale fire was happening now.

It was the only way my brain knew how to process what had happened to me.. to us. It was the only way it knew how to understand it. I wasn't mad that this was what was becoming of those memories. I didn't want to remember it. I knew I would still remember certain aspects; Aiden and Allison's deaths for example. But I hoped everything else would continue to disappear.