Darkened

It seems to Peter that the world has gone mad, turned inside out, suffocated in its own shell, and then tried to burn itself. The air smelled of kerosene, gas, gasoline as a wild mixture poured down his throat nonstop. The skin stretched, charcoal crusted, heat tearing the uncovered meat on his bare arms. Claws melted out of his body with unnecessary plastic, trailing bloody paths down his own forearms. His heart had become a muffle furnace, firing ceramic cracks through bones that had almost disintegrated into ash. He no longer felt like smiling, because there were no lips. Scraps of skin sores hung over his face, like the torn bark of a dried-out tree. The house was falling apart, black sparks burning paths of escape. Nothing existed in this world but fire and pain. And then it was all gone. Peter stares into someone else's eyes, serene flames lining the iris, at the veins darkening on his pale face, at the blood from his bitten lip trickling down his chin. Stiles takes a step back, rests his hands on the table, throws his head back and closes his eyes. The minutes drag on in an endless torture in his head, flowing madness on the back of his skull. He feels the sweet taste on his tongue and the burning of tears in the corners of his eyes. Peter, on the other hand, feels nothing. He feels like he has lost something, let something important disappear because he has begun to experience something he has never experienced in his life. His chest feels amazingly empty, empty where before the tightness had taken his breath away, chaining him to the ground with an age-old weight. He feels relief. The realization makes his cheekbones quiver, forcing him to stare at the almost revitalized gaze before him. Inky snakes still crawl across the stranger's snow-white skin, pen strokes poking out veins. Hale looks at the legs of the tsune, wracked with an almost hysterical fever. Hale looks at the nogitsune, watching him smile. His tragedy has been almost entirely eaten away. Stiles digs his claws into his own neck, brings his intoxicated mind to rest. At least he won't have to shed his own blood today. -When will you kill him? -When will you kill him? Peter is still lost in the sensations, remembering Derek's distorted face. His gentleness, his self-forgetfulness, his utter non-sacrifice were pulling the Alpha's thoughts into an impenetrable abyss of fear of losing what had made him what he was now. Derek didn't want to let go of the past. Derek was afraid to let go of the past. Derek was chasing away the one person he needed most. But that's his mistake. -You never chew before you swallow? Peter smiles, he thinks Nogitsune is just as overconfident as his nephew. Thousands of years of life teaches one to underestimate one's enemy or underestimate one's capabilities, as if evil collects within itself all the errors of a long-abandoned existence. Nogitsune only appeared because people didn't want to accept their other side. -Did you ever think about the fact that Derek has a pack of dogs around him that could bite even you if he did? Stiles pushes himself away from the table, wipes away the blood with the back of his hand. The gloomy morning sun reflects grayly on his plaid black-and-white shirt. He pulls a soft brown sweatshirt over the top, hand fixing his disheveled hair. 7:43 a.m., Monday, light clouds with no precipitation. Hale's ears bounce silently on the hands, nonexistent at the electronic clock. Purple numbers crash into a mind whitened from emptiness with burned crosses. -If it seems like you can't swallow something... Stiles picks up his backpack from the floor, tugging on the iron handle soaked in the cold of morning. He only lightly dabs his gaze at the figure frozen statue-like on his bed. -...you must open your mouth wide. This world is natural in its primordiality. There is nothing in it that cannot be eaten. Hale chuckles. Stilinski disappears at the exact moment the bright sunlight hits the room.

***

Isaac holds his breath and barely looks in the stranger's direction. The call of desolation has filled every millimeter of the classroom with a nauseating odor. Lehi feels up to his neck in standing water with his lungs overflowing with silt. All because Stiles stinks of pain from miles away. Beta mentally baptizes Scott, listening sympathetically to the irregular throbbing, slowed to the point of not flowing swamp. They can't move, move, do anything wrong, veer off to the side even half a breath. Chaos stacks up in puddles of mud with the remnants of self-control. It's all maddening to the point of unbearable. Scraping under my collarbones, lizards crawling up my spine. Isaac is allergic to rowanberries and anything that denies him a peaceful existence. He reaches for his cell phone, silently tapping his fingers on the touchscreen keyboard. "Can I go home?" Derek's not answering. Read it, but he's not responding. The hammered style of Derek's shy tsundere. Numbers float on the board, mixed with letters, obscure signs and commas. Lehi understands math exactly as much as his eyes allow him to. Right now they see nothing sane, clear, human. Beta looks irritably at the phone. "No." He didn't doubt it. McCall looks like a wilted flower plucked from the humus and shoved into a clay crack with a broken body. His lips are cracked, the vessels in his eyes have burst, red stars flashing across the whites of his eyes. He chews on the handle, nervously rubbing the aluminum case, turning the silver a vaguely dirty color. Stiles looks ordinary next to him, that one-week-old Stiles he's managed to memorize and whose expiration date has already passed. He's scribbling graphs in his notebook, transcribing from the blackboard with the diligence typical of botanists who don't breed flowers. "Scott's not feeling well." Beta is certain that the mere touch of those skinny, thin fingers will twist the leaves that have become gnarled, curl the yellowed stems, tearing themselves into small pieces. Will beg for death from Death. "I am near." Isaac listens into space, radiuses the world that has become the drowning ground of one decrepit fox battered by years of dishonor. In the parking lot next to the school, a perfectly even, unconsciously pleasant thud is heard. Alpha is near. As long as Alpha is around one can breathe freely, even if it seems impossible. Surveillance? Lehi thinks it's ridiculous, foolish, self-delusional, because tracking is impossible. The percentage of pain in the air exceeds the amount of oxygen, seek to bypass the nitrogen. Just a little more and he'll suffocate. "I'll take it from here." He jumps up along with the bell, nods to Stiles absentmindedly, mumbles something ridiculous about the chemistry teacher, the principal, extra, Allison, and the date McCall had safely forgotten about. All things that have nothing to do with Stilinski. He just waves goodbye. Stiles walks out of the classroom, smiles at the still turning Isaac, and walks in the opposite direction. The only thing that nogotsune loves the age of this body for is the body visits a place that takes away the sun. Leaves are lying rotten corpses underfoot, bare inky branches reaching out aimlessly towards the almost perfectly clear blue sky that is beginning to evaporate again. It, like these leaves, is only colored for a pathetic amount of time. Stiles squints unpleasantly, pulling up the hood of his sweatshirt. His mother's Jeep resembles a rusted tin can found at the bottom of a sunken ship. Surely there must have been skeletons and brightly colored gold that no one has given up anymore. In the car, every detail reverberates with the slight pain of someone else's memories, the memories of his family. The family that corrupted his mind. He pulls out to his house, runs his fingers gently over the steering wheel, and climbs out, clanking the case with the door. Stiles pulls a cigarette from the back pocket of his jeans. The setting sun burns the edges of the lighter, succumbing to the artificial fire. Childish screams echo in his head, the lingering moans of bodies being burned alive. The hiss of red-hot metal crashing into skin, the crackle of fire-covered boards, sharp ends tearing away skin. The boiling of blood pouring through the nose and flooding the eyes. The interrupted breathing. The cigarette tasting like ash. -Are you a stalker? Nogitsune's voice was ragged, hoarse, surprisingly velvety. As if he'd been screaming for ages. -You liked me that much? The silence twitches slightly, the silence that answers him nothing has a frown on its face and its lips tightened. -Ah, I get it. You're the kind of guy who loves at a distance? Derek growls weakly and takes a step forward out of the woods on the other side of the road, causing Stilinski to smile weakly. The Alpha is wearing his perennial black leather jacket, gray T-shirt, and ripped jeans. Stiles arches his eyebrows perplexed, hesitant to ask if his clothes are similar or if he doesn't change them at all. Hale clenches his fists, getting closer and closer. He smells a familiar, irrationally close scent from the foot of the tsune. The smell of his family. Derek stops one measly meter away. The setting sun illuminates only half of his face, casting a geometrically uneven penumbra on the other. Honey eyes turn golden, reminiscent of ancient coins lifted from sunken ships. Pale lips curve in a slight curve, the dropped hood exposing a thin neck. Stiles is a sculpture, a damning reminder of how evil can be attractive. Hale feels the softness of the snow-white skin with his fingers, feels the aching tear in his carotid artery. Just one simple movement and he'll rip all the cartilage and trachea out of this fragile body. Stilinski does not resist the stranger's grip, with an indifferent movement he brings the cigarette to his lips. -Where's that smell coming from? Alpha's eyes blaze red, and in that red, Nogitsune sees a reflection of his face. Smoke from the cigarette trickles down the fingers holding it. -Peter shared. Your uncle's so smart, he gets right to the point,- Stiles releases the trapped nicotine and the cloud of evening vapor into his face, -not like you. Derek squeezes his throat harder, but nothing changes, the gold coins are still as deep as before, not even an inch up from the bottom. He feels the pain that resists his touch circulate through the stranger's veins. -If you wanted to spy on me, you should have just planted a bug, your family is so old-fashioned. -What's wrong with Peter? Derek's claws dig into the flimsy throat, letting maroon dashes down to accumulate in spots on his collar. The Alpha feels a foreign relaxation, an absolute serenity, no need to breathe. Nogitsune presses her lips together unhappily. -Everything with him is fine. You're not going to let me go? I'm not the type to get turned on by asphyxiation. Hale jerks his hand away, shaking it in the air, hoping to get rid of the pulse that's phantomized in the palm of his hand. Stiles tightens again, the scratches on his neck tightening, leaving barely visible white crescents. For some reason Derek doesn't like the fact that they don't fade, remain eternal markings for this body. -If there are no more questions, I'll be on my way. Stilinski puts out the cigarette on his own palm, watches it fall to the ground with an indifferent stare. He's about to leave. -You said you were done with charity work, but you still haven't done anything. Stiles looks at him, and there's a look of incomprehension in that look. -He sighs tiredly, puts his hands in his pockets, turns his head away from the sun, and waits for the right conditions. That chaos has a special value to me, you know that for sure. Alpha slides into the trajectory of Nogitsune's eyes, Nogitsune looking at the moon, which has almost completed its phase. Stiles pulls his phone out of the back pocket of his jeans. 6:02 p.m., Monday, light cloud cover with no precipitation, two days until the full moon. -I'm not planning anything, Derek, I'm just not stopping anything else. After all, there is no specific hour for chaos. There's only night.