Ficlet: "One With the Night", Stiles
Author: thisnewjoe
Title: One With the Night
Rating: T
Pairing/s: N/A
Character/s: Stiles Stilinski
Summary: We all find moments when we think we're superheroes, and then we learn otherwise.
Warnings: References to canon-typical injuries and suffering
Content Notes: This is an experience of agony; of all kinds. You may find peace here, but it does not come from a happy ending.
Submission Type: Ficlet
Word Count: 753
Prompt: #247, "Innocent"
Author's Notes: Sometimes our heroes don't make it..
The ground feels ragged and slippery where he's fallen. It has cracked his back on the knife-edge of brittle shards of unburied stone. The sticks littering the ground now poke him awkwardly, and are barely distinguishable against the foreground of overwhelming pain. Bones that were weakened by past battles haven't healed yet, and some have snapped. His blood weeps from the wounds of branches that lacerated him on his attempted escape through the Preserve. His head aches from at least one concussive impact against a low-hanging branch he couldn't see in this darkness.
Stiles finds himself laughing at the insanity of it all. Derek and Scott had warned him of trying to go it alone. Again. Which he knows he should have already learned. Those wolves knew what was out there, and as strong and powerful as they were in their supernaturally-enhanced bodies, the human was the one who consistently overestimated his abilities.
His labored breath becomes a force that strangles the laughter. His body demands his attention in every way it can. Waves of pain are slowly fading to dullness as his mind begins to slow with the loss of vital blood. His mind starts wandering through the science of what his body is doing.
The sparkles and flickers he's noticed are not due to witchy magic or tiny reflections of distant light. They're the effect of a human brain making up things because it can't deal with absolute nothingness from any sense.
The rhythm of blood thumping in his head sounds duller now even to him. When he'd first fallen, it was the thump of a racing heartbeat, pumped by a dwindling reserve of adrenaline. Moments ago, his broken ankle was screaming for his attention. As he focuses through the fog descending in his thoughts he notices that he can barely feel that broken foot. The deep knife-cut on his thigh throbs without stinging, and he thinks, "Shouldn't that hurt more?" Why doesn't the stick stabbing his back, jabbing at his abused kidney, feel more like a pressure than the puncture he's pretty sure it was when he crash-landed?
The beating drum of his human heart is becoming mellow and relaxed. He lets himself listen to it, and contemplates how the pain doesn't feel quite so bad. Maybe he should sit upright, go lean against a tree and let things do whatever things are going to do. There are bugs on the forest floor, he's seen them, and he doesn't want them on his face.
So he almost screams when he lets his head turn to the side. The muscles of his neck pull on the broken places in his back. He doesn't want to give up anymore. He just wanted the world to be better. And now, he's leaving it.
This death thing isn't going to be much of a problem; being dead doesn't cost anything. Stiles is almost looking forward to fading-out, eventually to become little more than memories told by people who knew him, and the fading print in old, depressing medical records and young person's tax payments. Derek and Scott have seen death, much worse death than his.
Derek and Scott will have to tell his dad. Stiles tries to lift his arms to wipe the flush of heat and tears from his face, but the broken parts of him twist in new and shattering ways, and his limbs fall limp and messy. He stares at them while they lay limp, unable to respond anymore.
As the pulse in his head fades beyond his hearing, Stiles realizes that the most innocent person in his life is the one who's trying to make things work in this stupid little town. He finally gets that he's taking with him the last thing his dad loved, and he moans in agony instead of saying, "I'm sorry" and "I love you" to his father one last time. He can't believe he forgot to tell him before he came out to the preserve tonight.
Stiles is fading, and barely notices the tremors of his body shaking itself to drain the icy flow within him. The heat of his existence is poured in tears and blood and sweat onto the forest floor. He once knew love, friendship, and passion.
When the cold itself is all Stiles feels, he closes his eyes and fades with it.
Title: One With the Night
Rating: T
Pairing/s: N/A
Character/s: Stiles Stilinski
Summary: We all find moments when we think we're superheroes, and then we learn otherwise.
Warnings: References to canon-typical injuries and suffering
Content Notes: This is an experience of agony; of all kinds. You may find peace here, but it does not come from a happy ending.
Submission Type: Ficlet
Word Count: 753
Prompt: #247, "Innocent"
Author's Notes: Sometimes our heroes don't make it..
The ground feels ragged and slippery where he's fallen. It has cracked his back on the knife-edge of brittle shards of unburied stone. The sticks littering the ground now poke him awkwardly, and are barely distinguishable against the foreground of overwhelming pain. Bones that were weakened by past battles haven't healed yet, and some have snapped. His blood weeps from the wounds of branches that lacerated him on his attempted escape through the Preserve. His head aches from at least one concussive impact against a low-hanging branch he couldn't see in this darkness.
Stiles finds himself laughing at the insanity of it all. Derek and Scott had warned him of trying to go it alone. Again. Which he knows he should have already learned. Those wolves knew what was out there, and as strong and powerful as they were in their supernaturally-enhanced bodies, the human was the one who consistently overestimated his abilities.
His labored breath becomes a force that strangles the laughter. His body demands his attention in every way it can. Waves of pain are slowly fading to dullness as his mind begins to slow with the loss of vital blood. His mind starts wandering through the science of what his body is doing.
The sparkles and flickers he's noticed are not due to witchy magic or tiny reflections of distant light. They're the effect of a human brain making up things because it can't deal with absolute nothingness from any sense.
The rhythm of blood thumping in his head sounds duller now even to him. When he'd first fallen, it was the thump of a racing heartbeat, pumped by a dwindling reserve of adrenaline. Moments ago, his broken ankle was screaming for his attention. As he focuses through the fog descending in his thoughts he notices that he can barely feel that broken foot. The deep knife-cut on his thigh throbs without stinging, and he thinks, "Shouldn't that hurt more?" Why doesn't the stick stabbing his back, jabbing at his abused kidney, feel more like a pressure than the puncture he's pretty sure it was when he crash-landed?
The beating drum of his human heart is becoming mellow and relaxed. He lets himself listen to it, and contemplates how the pain doesn't feel quite so bad. Maybe he should sit upright, go lean against a tree and let things do whatever things are going to do. There are bugs on the forest floor, he's seen them, and he doesn't want them on his face.
So he almost screams when he lets his head turn to the side. The muscles of his neck pull on the broken places in his back. He doesn't want to give up anymore. He just wanted the world to be better. And now, he's leaving it.
This death thing isn't going to be much of a problem; being dead doesn't cost anything. Stiles is almost looking forward to fading-out, eventually to become little more than memories told by people who knew him, and the fading print in old, depressing medical records and young person's tax payments. Derek and Scott have seen death, much worse death than his.
Derek and Scott will have to tell his dad. Stiles tries to lift his arms to wipe the flush of heat and tears from his face, but the broken parts of him twist in new and shattering ways, and his limbs fall limp and messy. He stares at them while they lay limp, unable to respond anymore.
As the pulse in his head fades beyond his hearing, Stiles realizes that the most innocent person in his life is the one who's trying to make things work in this stupid little town. He finally gets that he's taking with him the last thing his dad loved, and he moans in agony instead of saying, "I'm sorry" and "I love you" to his father one last time. He can't believe he forgot to tell him before he came out to the preserve tonight.
Stiles is fading, and barely notices the tremors of his body shaking itself to drain the icy flow within him. The heat of his existence is poured in tears and blood and sweat onto the forest floor. He once knew love, friendship, and passion.
When the cold itself is all Stiles feels, he closes his eyes and fades with it.