Seeking Spring

We - All - Fall - Down

Chapter 7 | We - All - Fall - Down

The air was thick in a fog that dragged everyone's reaches, everyone's movements that now carried to the rhythmic wave of the shifting fog that settled lower and lower onto houses, till it even appeared to settle onto the streets and disperse like clouds when stepped on with slow pressing shoes. Everyone seemed to be sitting today, went home early, stayed inside. The moon dawned on every one.

"The Blood Moon," Deaton cautioned Scott, "will even affect you."

"Like the eclipse?"

"Yes, but this one will affect mortals and supernaturals, anything with blood, in one form or another." Scott whispered blood, under his breath. He couldn't run and he couldn't sense out his friend, his movements dragged as though he were not only mortal again, but as if he were being affected like a normal person would be too. His fall was greater. Everyone felt the weight, but after having the strength he had and collapsing to the same state they inhabited, the drag was almost unbearable, a weakness he hadn't felt for so long.

Scott pushed open the window to Stiles' room, lifting himself up through it, remembering the summer before they were freshmen and Stiles goading Scott to sneak into his room through his window. At the time, Scott could barely get past ten push-ups, let alone lift himself up a tree branch to the height of two story house and reach over a body's distance to grip to the window sill and pull himself up by just his arms. He'd almost fallen that night, could've broken his ribs and leg or anything really. The worst would've been that he'd get caught, sneaking in to his best friends' house at three in the morning on a summer night. That seemed like nothing now. That weakness felt like strength to his muscles, as then they were drenched in excitement, fed by his friend's laughter and the nights comforting warmth of absolutely no promises. Sneaking into his friend's room now, these feelings arose in him and he couldn't help but feel compelled to just sprawl across bedroom floor, the way he had that night he had snuck in. Embrace the hardness of the floor because his muscles ached to the bones and throbbed in a way that threatened them to drip and be caught only by the stretch of his skin. Stretch. He lied over the floor now, in this time, thinking back to the other time. His muscles dripped like they did then, but his friend's laughter wasn't here to hold them within his spreading skin. He spread over the floor, spreading and spreading, to no sound at all. September was as quiet as June. The room was quieter, without Stiles.

Scott turned over onto his stomach, hauling himself off of the floor and swayed over to Stiles' desk. Papers fell to the floor as the wind from the now open window lifted them from the desk and over the room. The papers were everywhere anyway, slipping from the table, along the bed, stuffed in books much to old to lift up without fear of them disintegrating to dust. Scott couldn't help but cough, the air of the room was littered in a musk that seemed to rise now and sift into his lungs, the open window rose everything from its place and brought the bedroom to life. Even moments later the papers still floated, posters on the wall rattled and stiffened, a globe turned softly in the wrong direction, and dust swayed into the breeze. He knew he couldn't stay, there was too much of a chance, now, that he'd be swayed into the room's trance as well.

-

The radio muttered in the shifting churn of the air. Scott kept the life of the car in a similar trance as he'd experienced in Stiles' room. In some way, voices did no such justice to the hanging papers and anchoring books, that cleansed the air of dust by drawing it to their covers. Still, the fabrication of the space kept him comfortable in his car. 

There was only one real place left to look, and he had quickly realized trekking by foot would get him there late enough to find his friend -- to find his friend. It became apparent to Scott that everything was moving much too slowly. The way a dream, rather a nightmare, pulls you through its thick mold, as if everything were unfolding before you, already true. Deaton told Scott of the consequences of resurrection on a Blood Moon. The papers that floated on the air of Stiles' room reaped images of of such events, the trance it conjured still grasped Scott like he was stuck, dragging his foot along a nightmare into consciousness, aware now -- aware now that he was awake, Scott's foot slammed onto the gas, buzzing out the sound of the voices and the radio fuzz. 

The air passing by the open windows wrung in his ears, Scott barely flinched when he came upon Lookout Point where he nearly spun over the edge until seeing his friend in sight. Stiles came into view and screeching of the car only moved the loose ends of hair on his head.  He was dead. Scott could only think such morbid outcomes, but Stiles did sit upright away from him. The car door slammed and still, he must be dead. Absolute stillness as leaves crunched underfoot -- it almost felt wrong to Scott, to reach out and touch the boy, even on the shoulder to reach his attention. So his arm remained extended and lost momentum as he stepped close enough to see the backside of Stiles' eyes. They were opened, and fixated below to his hands. Something swayed in his eyes, like dust circulating somewhere that Scott couldn't fully gain vision of. He had more view of the back of Stiles' jaw than his cheek, so Scott let his arm reach the ground instead, and let himself collapse to the dirt at the relief of his friend being alive, and alone.  

 A sound of dirt and wood rubbing together, came from a box situated in Stiles' palms. Stiles turned the object over in his hands as a red glow covered the sky in complete stillness. Scott had now finally been sitting, along with the rest of the world.

"They cremated her."

Stiles' voice wrinkled the air. Scott realized then, that he wasn't alone with his friend. A dust turned over Stiles' eyes but it wasn't dust, nor was the the dirt in his palms dirt. A smell of ash settled on Scott's nose, and ash settled in Stiles' eyes, as the box of Lydia's ashes, settled in his hands. 

Pushing into the dirt, the weight of Scott's body had never felt a weight like this. His heart scratched along the inside of his skin for his friend who did try to bring back Lydia, and for himself, who understood he would've helped if it were possible. But the body. The body had to be in tact. Even if it were only bone or decaying skin, ashes, ashes were too far gone. 

Scott could feel like crying if he weren't so tired. Tired by this moon, by lateness of the hour, by the pain he drew from his friend, even without touching him. He looked out to the moon over the city as Stiles did. He saw how the red settled everything, how everyone fell into the glow like light things do on the wind. Scott didn't touch Stiles, not even leaning close enough to graze the edge of his clothing with his friend's. He feared that if even the wind from his breath were to be directed towards Stiles, his friend would fall to ashes, ashes. 

They sat in the blood glow of the moon, till it passed to a deep orange. Scott could feel the weight just begin rise slightly, like a thick fog over him now releasing his body from the ankles down, allowing his legs to sway just a little more freely over the ledge of Lookout Point. But like his friend, and like the ashes, he remained anchored to the spot. Still, as if to the will of a light breeze, if such a night could even carry one. Scott shifted his head slightly, minding the air around him and how thick and completely sedentary it was. The whole night it didn't move, but in his passing car of course. And yet -- the papers floated. 

Stiles' room churned to the open window when he had snuck in this very night. If there had been no wind, not now and especially not then, then how could the dust and images have fallen as he had the room. Scott listened to his friend breath beside him, he listened to his chest rise at command and fall to a release of grasp. The room fell vividly in his mind, the objects and particles hanging drifting slowly, down and without provocation, as Scott remembered that he hadn't even closed the window behind him.