Chapter Text
Stiles doesn’t sleep anymore. Well, he does, just not when he should. Instead, he drives around town aimlessly until it’s time for school, or until he grows bored of driving and stops at a diner to watch his coffee turn cold.
This routine continues for weeks on end. It’s the town’s worst kept secret – the insomniac son of the Sheriff, whose eyes grow duller and duller every day, frequenting the only three 24-hour diners in town on a loop.
His dad knows. He sees his son stop eating, surviving only on coffee and whatever easily transportable food has been left out on the counter every morning.
After picking up on this pattern, John starts leaving bananas and apples out to try and counteract the pop tarts and fruit rollups Stiles has seemingly been existing on.
John doesn’t know exactly what prompted this change in his son’s behavior. He only knows that Scott has stopped coming around.
Stiles has stopped talking, too. His day consists of going to school, sitting silently through his classes, getting detention every day from one teacher or another for refusing to answer questions or for (mercifully) falling asleep in class, coming home, waiting until his dad has gone to sleep, then getting in his car and driving.
John is just relieved that this catatonia had begun after Stiles sent in all of his college applications. Stiles had been oddly cagey about which colleges he had been applying to, but as long as they are far, far away, John doesn’t really care where Stiles goes. He’s resigned himself to the fact that he’ll live and die in Beacon Hills, but he doesn’t want that life for his son.
After his fight with Scott, Stiles tries to stay in the loop so he can help with the Dread Doctors. He keeps a close eye on Theo, and tries to do as much as he can to help from afar.
But after weeks of being snubbed by the other pack members, Stiles gives up helping and retreats into himself. He has no allies. Not Scott, or Malia, or Kira, or even Liam. He has Lydia for a while, but no one tells her why he and Scott are fighting, so she eventually has to pick a side.
To her credit, she doesn’t really pick Scott. She picks helping people.
And Stiles can barely help himself, let alone others.
She keeps in contact with Stiles semi-regularly, though, until Theo inevitably betrays the pack.
After Theo temporarily kills Scott and starts a series of events that sends Lydia to Eichen House, the only person Stiles has left is his dad.
But that isn’t enough. He can’t tell his dad what happened – what he did – so he stops talking altogether.
One night in mid-November, Stiles hears his phone chirp in his pocket while out driving. Frowning to himself since no one has texted him in months, he pulls into the diner parking lot and takes out his phone.
Cora (3:13am): I hear you’re having trouble sleeping.
Stiles sighs and puts his phone back in his pocket, not even having the energy to text back something snarky.
After warming his hands on a cup of coffee inside, Stiles takes his phone out and rereads the text a few times. Why would Cora be texting him? Who told her that he was having trouble sleeping? Not Scott, that’s for sure. Scott has made it more than clear that he can’t be bothered with Stiles now that Stiles is a murderer.
The word brings up bile from his throat into his mouth. Stiles chokes it down and takes a big gulp of his coffee. The only thing that motivates him to respond to Cora’s text is the desperate need for a distraction from his current line of thinking.
Stiles (3:36am): Yeah.
Cora (3:36am): Really? That’s all I get?
Stiles rolls his eyes and considers putting his phone away again. He feels something warm curling up in his gut and frowns when he recognizes it as curiosity. Deciding to see where it will take him, he responds.
Stiles (3:38am): What do you want, Cora?
Cora (3:38am): Maybe a little indication that my presence has been missed?
Stiles (3:39am): You’ve been missed. Now what do you want?
Cora (3:39am): Geez, Stilinski, tone down the enthusiasm. I just wanted to see how you’re doing.
Stiles looks down at the text for so long, he loses track of time. In all honesty, he has no idea how to answer Cora’s question. How’s he doing?
He killed Donovan, lost his best friend, his pack had been taken over by a psychopath who no one believed was evil, Lydia is stuck in Eichen House and her mother won’t let him see her, he’s pretty sure he’s slowly dying of hunger, and he hasn’t spoken in weeks.
Stiles (4:27am): I’m fine.
Cora doesn’t respond, so Stiles leans back into the booth and looks outside until he sees the sun start to rise over the parking lot. He slowly gets up from the table and makes his way to school for another day of simply existing in his skin.
He’s sitting alone at Boyd’s old lunch table when he hears his phone go off again. The little flame of curiosity reignites in his gut, so with a sigh he checks the message.
This time, Cora has sent him a phone number.
Stiles (12:09pm): What am I supposed to do with this?
Cora doesn’t respond, so he turns his phone to silent and forgets about the whole conversation.
Two weeks later, Stiles is sitting next to his dad on the couch. His dad is flipping through channels to find a game on, and Stiles is staring at the corner of the TV, hoping it will look like he’s watching it.
There’s a muted ping and it takes a second for Stiles to realize it’s his phone chiming with an incoming text from the kitchen. He debates leaving it, and has almost decided to do so, before he gets a look at his dad’s hopeful expression.
Shame tastes like copper in his mouth at the sight. He must be royally messed up if his dad looks like that over one freaking text message.
Stiles rises from his seat and shuffles into the kitchen to get his phone. He waits until he’s back in the living room to check it, figuring he could at least give his dad the sight of him interacting with someone to tide him over.
Cora (6:32pm): Have you used the number I gave you yet?
Stiles frowns as he tries to figure out what she’s talking about. When he finally remembers the number she had texted him a while back, he shakes his head.
Chancing a glance up at his dad, Stiles sees that he is biting his lip to keep from asking Stiles who he’s talking to. The Sheriff stopped asking him anything but yes or no questions months ago, hating the disappointment that came whenever Stiles couldn’t answer.
Stiles (6:33pm): No.
Cora (6:33pm): What the fuck? Have you given up completely?
Stiles doesn’t respond. Because he knows that he has.
When Stiles comes home the next morning at around 5:00am, he finds his dad in the kitchen crying. Their eyes lock through the hallway, and Stiles is at a loss.
He knows why his dad is crying, and he knows he should feel absolutely gutted. But he can’t find it in himself to feel anything.
This, more than anything else he has experienced in his nearly eighteen years on this earth, scares him into action.
Knowing that his presence as a walking skeleton version of Stiles will only upset his dad more, he turns and shuffles up the stairs.
He sits on his bed and takes out his phone, pulling up the number Cora had sent him.
He rattles off a “who is this?” to the number, and lies back on his bed to wait.
As it turns out, Stiles doesn’t have to wait long.
Unknown (5:18am): Who is THIS?
Stiles (5:18am): Stiles. Cora gave me your number. I don’t know why.
There’s a long pause before the number responds. When they do, Stiles is shocked.
Unknown (5:26am): It’s Derek.