Bugs || Malia Tate

E P I L O G U E

"And when I'm gone, just carry on, don't mourn
Rejoice every time you hear the sound of my voice
Just know that I'm looking down on you smiling
And I didn't feel a thing,
So baby don't feel no pain just smile back..."

"He... he was my brother..."

Stiles Stilinski was barely able to get the small sentence out of his mouth, his voice was rough from lack of use and muffled sobs. He didn't know how he had even arrived... how he was standing or even how he had been able to make a complete sentence because since his death Stiles had felt like half of his body had been ripped away without warning and tossed into a dark abyss that he wasn't allowed to follow.

Bugs Stilinski was dead... he was gone and never coming back. He had died valiantly, saving the life of his one true best friend. The boy had gone off happily, with a smile against his bloodstained lips as he had nodded at Stiles that it was okay. He would be okay. Stiles would be okay.

But he wasn't. Stiles wasn't... to be fair no one was but the sole heir to the Stilinski name was by far the worst. It had been two days... forty-eight hours... two sunsets and two sunrises and yet the world had stood still for a small band of teenagers in Beacon Hills. For one in particular however it felt like whole damned world had crashed around him and he was left with nothing but a void he knew would never be filled and shattered remains of the life he had let slip through his fingers

Time was meaningless as he had fallen into his own pit of darkness that no one was able to dig him out of. All he could do was drop deeper into this void as he replayed that days occurrence, blaming himself further for the fate his only brother had fallen into. Bugs had wasted his last breath reassuring him that it wasn't his fault because Stiles knew it was... Stiles knew there was no one to blame but him.

And he would spend a lifetime believing so because he had too look everyone else in the face and know that Bugs would have been better off living.

Stiles looked at Malia, watching the sorrow in her eyes and she retreated into her own mind. She had lost her mate... coyotes mated for life and hers was gone all before she had been able to say I love you back. In a blink of an eye the girl had lost the one person who had put her on a pedestal from the beginning of her human life. He was gone, and Stiles blamed himself for the pain Malia was going through. He could see it in her eyes everyday, the way she would be asleep in Bugs room, her finger clutching at another dirty shirt of his that clung his scent. Or the way she had let her claws grow out the entire ride back from Mexico, digging them into the soft skin of her palms from going ballistic. Pain made her human, pain kept her sane.

His thoughts drifted to his father who reverted back to his old ways and thrown himself into mounds of work, ignoring everyone else. Stiles had told him... shown him the amount of blood across his plaid shirt but he didn't believe it. The sheriff shook his head and told Stiles to stop lying, his son wasn't dead, he had said. But Stiles knew, he could see past the doubt in fathers blue eyes. He knew that his son was dead... he just wasn't ready to accept he had lost yet another person in his heart.