The Blue Horizon [Day 28: Silence]
It doesn’t happen often, but Stiles can take a hint. The hint was something like, ‘no one fucking cares about you please stay out of our lives forever.’ So that’s what he does. He does some remodeling while his dad’s at the station, planks of mountain ash replacing his doorframes and windows, and flowerbeds of wolfsbane appearing by the front and back doors. He returns all the confidential police files he stole to their rightful place, all the books on mythological creatures to the library, and destroys the rest of his research. He quits the disproportionately-supernatural lacrosse team. Perhaps most alarming to the world around him, he stops talking. To everyone.
Boyd and Isaac don’t seem to care. Cora is ecstatic. Danny and Ethan avoid him pityingly. Scott calls him non-stop for two days until he finds Stiles’ key to the McCall house in his mailbox. He stops trying after that. Allison tries to talk to him in class one day, and he tells her: “I only want two things from you: a gun with wolfsbane bullets for emergencies, and to be left the fuck alone.” He finds the gun in his backpack the next day when he gets home. The note Allison left with it: “Nous chassons ceux qui nous chassent. Stay human, Stiles.”
Lydia drives to his house not an hour after the shit hit the fan, breaks into his house, yanks off his headphones and slaps him.
“‘You’re on your own, good luck?!’ What the fuck, Stiles!”
“Hello, Lydia, wonderful to see you, how’s the Darach hunt going?”
“STILES.”
“Look, Lydia. I’m tired. I’ve been dealing with this crazy werewolf soap opera for too long. I just want my life back.”
“Excuse me? You think I wanted this? The only reason I’m involved in the first place is because Peter mind-raped me. Don’t talk to me about wanting to be normal.”
“Well why can’t we be? Huh? You and I are human. Why is this our problem? Clearly they don’t want our help, so why do we keep giving it? Let ‘em clean up their own mess.”
Lydia is shocked. “Something happened. This isn’t you, what happened?”
Stiles scoffs sardonically. “It’s what didn’t happen.”
“Well whatever it is, snap out of it. I need your help, Stiles. I can’t take on the Darach by myself.”
“You won’t have to, you’ll have the packs to help you out, once they finally get their heads out of their asses and realize, ‘hmm… maybe Stiles was right about the Darach, we should probably quit fighting and stop Deucalion from killing more people with his creepy magic.’”
“It’s Deucalion?”
“Yep. There, I helped. Now leave me alone, please.”
“Stiles, what’s wrong? Talk to me.”
“I’m done talking.”
“You’re never done talking!” she fights back with sudden fierceness. “Talking is what you do! Tell me what’s wrong!”
“What’s wrong?” Stiles hisses, springing out of his chair. “You don’t care what’s wrong! None of you do! It doesn’t make a goddamned difference what I have to say because no one gives a shit either way. I’m expendable, I always have been. You just keep me around because it’s easier than listening to me bitch the entire time about how I can help when everyone but me knows clear as day that I’m fucking useless. You all know that if you need something done, Stiles will do in a pinch, but that’s about all he’s good for. You think if I needed help any one of you would lift a finger to do it? I can walk away from all of this, don’t you get that? No one’ll miss me, so I’m getting out while I still can.”
Lydia is crying, mouth open in utter horror. “Why would you think that?”
“Because it’s true. Ask anyone. They just got through telling me as much. Are you seriously gonna stand here and tell me that you and I would be having this conversation if you didn’t need something from me? You’ve never liked me, you didn’t just suddenly start now.”
She sobs. “I’m sorry.”
“See that’s the worst part,” Stiles replies, his own quiet tears falling. “You’re really not.” He goes back to his homework and she walks out of his life.
Ms. Blake holds him after class a week after the incident.
“Stiles, I’m worried about you. We’re worried.”
“No you’re not,” he says, walking straight by her.
“Look, I know you don’t like me, but you can trust me. They didn’t mean what they said.”
Stiles gets in her face with an icy whisper. “They meant every word. They don’t. want. me. You took my place. I thought I was the one Derek needed, and that was the only thing I felt sure of when Scott still ditched me for Isaac. But I don’t even have that. He’s yours. Let it go.”
He switches English classes the next day. It feels like liberation and happiness.
His silence with Derek lasts the longest by two years. A week before graduation, he finds a hand-delivered invitation in his mailbox to the wedding of Derek Hale and Jennifer Blake. He lets out a cackle before he takes out his lighter and sets it ablaze. It’s the last he thinks about his time with those crazy wolves before leaving for college as far away from Beacon Hills as he can get, his verbal word count increasing with every mile that brings him closer to the fresh start he desperately needs.
Cause I’ve got my eyes on the road and the blue horizon.