Indulge the Other

Of Love and Rage

A monster lives under Stiles' bed.

He knows it's there. He's seen it.

He tells his mom. He tells his dad. They don't believe him. They say it's all in his head.

They tell him not to worry, that there's nobody else in the house. His mom is all it'll all get better in the morning, and his dad and his skeptical eyebrow ask isn't he just a little too old to believe in monsters?

Stiles might've agreed with them, given that he is twelve and fully aware that he's at the stage in his life where he isn't supposed to be afraid of the dark anymore, let alone any imagined goblins lurking within it.

But that's just the thing.

Stiles didn't see it in the dark.

No, Stiles sees it at 3 o'clock on a sunny Tuesday afternoon.

It's just another boring day. He's just gotten back home from school, racing upstairs and taking them two at a time—his favored method, even though his mom always tells him not to—in a rush to get back to killing virtual zombies.

And then he sees it, through the crack in his door.

Two huge black paws, smokey and ethereal and tipped with razor-sharp claws, reaching out from under his bed and swatting at a passing spider.

Those paws crush the spider, the creature's toes flexing as it slowly drags its prize back under the bed.

Stiles finally blinks—eyes dry and lips twisted in horror—and then the paws are gone.

As if it had never even happened.

So, yeah.

Stiles is pretty goddamn sure that a monster lives under his bed.

----------

Stiles has slept on the couch for the last four nights.

He can't make himself go back into his room. He's been raiding the laundry room for clothes and borrowing Scott's History textbook for class.

His parents have started giving him strange looks, ones that are no longer amused and confused by his behavior but worried.

Stiles knows he can't keep this up. He doesn't want his parents giving him any more of those apprehensive looks and he definitely doesn't want to develop some sort of spinal arthritis at such a young age—seriously, they need a new couch—so it's time to buck up.

And by buck up, he means to try and ignore the situation entirely.

So here he is, on a dark and terribly stormy night—what a horrible cliché his life has turned into—standing outside his bedroom. The door is still cracked just so, the streetlamps outside his window casting a greenish glow into the room.

Stiles can't take his eyes away from the menacing space between the floor and his bed. It's something he's never been afraid of before, but now all he can think about is whether his mangled body can be dragged through a five-inch gap.

His money is on yes, yes it can.

Stiles doesn't know how to stop being afraid, so he isn't even going to try.

All he does know is that he was perfectly content before seeing it, before knowing.

Ignorance is bliss, no question about it—and so he's going to live and hopefully not die by that standard. So he takes his shaky hands and puts on his headphones. Twitchy fingers tap at his iPod, cranking the music louder until he can no longer hear the storm outside.