ANOTHER STORY ANOTHER TIME

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE * ALTERED PERCEPTION

Ethan had been smiling for hours now, he and Jackson were walking around the city waiting for news on Stiles and Jacob. Jackson stopped, he looked down at his hands and started to count his fingers, Ethan stared at him, 

"Um what are you doing?" Jackson looked at his mate,

 "Derek taught me this years ago, if you want to make sure that you are not dreaming, you count your fingers, if there is a different number than ten, then your still asleep." Ethan looked at him and grinned,

 "What if you only have nine fingers to begin with?" Jackson finished his third time counting, 

"Shut it down doofus!" both men laughed as they sat down on a bench facing each other. Ethan looked deeply into Jacksons eyes, 

"I've lived for five years wracking my brain to figure out what I did to make you want to leave, I went from blaming you to blaming me for over five years now." Jackson looked at him and placed his thumb in front of his ear and his fingers under his earlobe. 

"I can't imagine what you went through. My God you went to war, all the horrible things you must have seen, what you have been through, it's inconceivable for me to imagine. Worst of all with Stiles Stilinski no less..." Ethan gave him a dirty look, "What, come on, you can't tell me that Stilinski is a capable soldier." Jackson snickered, but the look that Ethan was giving him, led him to believe maybe he was wrong.

 "Stiles is my family now, he has protected me when I couldn't, we have protected each other for months, you have no clue what he has been through, you have no clue what his plans are, so for me, stop degrading him, take a good look at who he became. I love him like a brother, and you know that's hard for me to say." Jackson sat there in awe, Ethan stood up he started to pace, "That's what I mean, our lives have changed so drastically," Jackson jumped up, 

"Our lives, you really said our lives, no not at all, your life did. Mine went into a five-year LIMBO which consisted of me being blind folded for days on end, even weeks. Look at me, no muscle mass, I'm weak and can barely run., Food doesn't taste right, I had a tube in me rehydrating my system" he turned and reached for bench they were sitting on, trying to pull it out of the ground, "I can't even have rage, before all this happened I could have picked that bench up and thrown at 50 yards now I can't even pick the damn thing up!" He fell to his knees, His tears ran down his face, Ethan kneeled next to him, in all the years they have known each other, he had never seen Jackson break so easily. He leaned in and pulled him into a hug. 

"I'm sorry, I was only thinking of myself, I've been alone for five years in a human army." Taking his thumb and wiping Jackson's tears, Ethan smiled his cutest smile, and with his choked-up voice "I love you Jackson, I'm going to get us through this, I promise." Jackson smiled,

 "No, we will do it together." they hug for a few seconds and as they stood up Jackson threw a jab, 

"So, Stiles huh?" Ethan just turned him and pushed him forward.

Stiles eyes opened, he looked around the room for a few seconds trying to get his eyes to focus, then he realized where he was. He could hear two extra heartbeats, as he looked, he felt a warm feeling on his upper arm, and he leaned his head to the left to see that Michael was asleep with his head laying there. Stiles slowly glanced down at his hand; Michael had his hand holding Stiles's. Then he looked around the room some more now that he could focus better, he discovered the second heartbeat belonged to Melissa. She was standing at the end of his bed punching in notes on her pad.