foster the people - don't stop
STILES
Stiles was always one to stress-organize. Sure, his room was a complete mess of dirty clothing that was weeks old and papers strewn on every square inch of floorboard available in one as tiny as his, but it was somewhat organized to say the least. Three weeks old (or possibly more) clothing was shoved in the far corners and the closer to the door they were, the cleaner it was - simple logic, really. Except for the fact that at eight-thirty-five on a Monday morning, he's really debating if he has organized enough because his Biology homework has suddenly manifested into thin air.
"You're stressed again, aren't you?" His dad asks, leaning against the doorframe to his son's bedroom.
"No, why do you say that?" Stiles mumbles, squatting down to be closer to the floor and riffling through a pile of papers. He knew he had done his Biology homework, he just didn't remember where he put it - which may or may not be a serious, severely concerning problem because Stiles didn't easily forget things. "Do you know where my Biology homework went?"
"Isn't your homework pile over there?" His dad asks, pointing to a pile of papers stacked up beside his bed side table. Stiles looks over to it mindlessly and shakes his head, standing up again in hopes it would give him a better view.
"No, that's homework I attempted to do but didn't complete. This is the pile of finished homework." Stiles states, tapping his foot nervously and spinning in a small circle. "Why did I even take Biology I don't even need-" He stops suddenly and looks down at the papers underneath his feet, the writing and font seeming off and out of place. His brain throbs at the look of it and he feels like he can't read - like he's not fully literate anymore. The letters are mixed up and he has this nagging feeling like he should know what it means but he doesn't at all - like the connection to matching letters to words to pronunciation is lost or cut off. He pushes the one paper away to the next one and they're all the same; letters and numbers are backwards and upside down, vowels make unpronounceable words and patterns of letters don't make any sense. He blinks and shakes his head but it doesn't clear the misplacing of words, it doesn't snap them back to normal. He can feel the 'panic alarm' get set off in his brain but he feels like he has no ability to react physically and everything that is happening is initially up to internal state.
Stiles' mouth gapes like he should know what to do - like he should know what to say - but every form of expression is missing from his memory. It feels like he can't remember what he never learned. Stiles tries to croak out a sound but to no avail. He looks up to the door where his dad was leaning but he's no longer there and the door to Stiles' room is closed. His eyes snap to the handle when it starts to shake violently and desperately, like the person on the other side needed access ASAP. He looks down at his hands immediately and panically starts to count them. A loud ringing is set off and he can't decipher if it's coming from in the room or in his mind - if the sound is leaking from his eardrums or into. Stiles gets to the number eight before he can't stand it anymore and presses the palms of his hands to his ears, but it doesn't help muffle the noise. Stiles can feel his throat become raw from screaming, but he can't hear anything else aside from the ringing. He curls in on himself and rocks back and forth, clutching onto handfuls of his hair and screaming into his shirt until the world just turns silent.
"Stiles?" His dad cuts in and Stiles looks up, tears threatening to escape from his eyes. "Are you okay? I lost you for a second." His dad says, taking a protective step towards his son. Stiles looks down at the papers beneath his feet and sees the words all in their proper form - back to normal.
___
CLARY
Clary hates school. Sure, most teenagers across the globe can probably relate, but Clary seems to think her hatred is like no other. She can't perfectly remember when this unique loathing sparked - if it was either before or after all the supernatural crap poured down onto her - but at eight-fifty-six on a Monday morning, she really can't bring herself to care when the feeling initiated, she just knows how profound it is.
"Clary!" Stiles yells, standing beside her as she takes a textbook from her bag and shoves it into her locker. It was to no surprise Clary was late to school yet again, finishing off her English homework while scarfing down a muffin isn't as easy as it may seem and instinctively takes more than two minutes to finish off.
"Yes!" She responds, slamming her locker door shut, trying her best to mock Stiles' tone of voice. She clutches a notebook to her chest, throwing her head over her shoulder in anticipation to get to class on time for the first time in a while. "Stiles, we should get to class, can this not wait?" She asks, a little agitated even though she feels she shouldn't be. Yes, feels - something Clary had to get used to controlling more than any other. For a while, she was worried controlling her feelings meant that maybe, just maybe, she would miss some type of very important signal, that her instinct would skip over a feeling that was only readable to an empath, AKA her entire life now. Her empathic skills came in handy way back when in sophomore year when her feelings lead her to a paralyzed, distressed Stiles Stilinski who had his eyes screwed shut in an attempt to prepare himself for the sound of his Jeep crushing a mechanic to (almost, thanks to Clary) death. Now that she runs through it, she guesses that was the exact period in her life when school became such a trek, because then she realized how big the universe actually was ('cause the supernatural is pretty cool once you get past all the gore and oddities that come with it).
"Okay, yeah, it can wait but-" Stiles starts, quickly following Clary's lead.
"Perfect because this will be the first time in a month I haven't been late-" But she's cut off by the sound of the bell ringing and she sighs, because why doesn't anything ever go her way?
"I'm sorry," Stiles says quietly but Clary lifts her head up and forces a smile. Smile through the pain she thinks because being late for class falls under the category of 'pain'.
"It's not your fault. Anyway, this is a streak that can't be unbroken. I don't know what I was thinking, jeez Stiles, don't let me get that close to being on time for school ever again." She says, slowing down her pace because her motto is "if you're going to be late, might as well be really late". Which now that she repeats it, isn't as cool as she originally thought it was...
"I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not." Stiles says, stepping up to pace with her.
"And that's my best quality." Clary says, smiling up at him.
