Chapter Text
He doesn't know why, but it's his mother's face that comes to his mind, as time seems to slow down until it seemingly stops altogether. For those few seconds that feel like an eternity, he remembers her without warning, the facsimile of mom in every way except those that really counted. Somehow, the twisted version of those beloved features is what flashes into his mind, so similar to his own that his father still has trouble sometimes looking at him for too long.
Years later, when he could think about what happened without feeling like his heart was being ripped apart, he had learned to interpret her expression as angry and terrified, instead of hateful as he had thought back then. He detachedly wonders if he looks like her right now, when Stiles is so pissed off and scared that he's almost shaking.
Not that this is anything new, though. After all, it has been an almost constant state of mind for a while, and by now it comes as easily as breathing. If he's completely honest, he can’t actually remember the last time he wasn’t angry or hurt or afraid or any given combination of all of the above.
(He wonders if this is really why his dad has been...)
Suddenly, the clock seems to lurch into motion once again, and everything that was moving as if underwater speeds up abruptly and painfully so. Sounds, smells, feelings, all slam into him with the force of a freight train out of control, and he dry heaves from the force of it.
Today is special, Stiles thinks as he scrunches his eyes with a grunt, trying not to snap because, lucky him, he gets to be all of those at the same time, and if Scott doesn’t stop talking in the next three seconds he’s not going to be responsible for his actions. Because he just. Won't. Stop. And Stiles is fucking done. Enough is enough and it has been enough for at least half a year already and...
"Stiles, please-"
Stiles pries his eyes open reluctantly to look at her. Seeing him like this seems to have finally shaken Allison out of that terrible cold rage that had blinded her after her mom died. She's pale-faced and, whenever she briefly stops watching after Stiles, she looks at Scott as if she’s seeing him for the very first time, incredulous about what's coming out of his mouth.
For a split second, Stiles feels a pang of regret and he immediately stomps on it without mercy, no survivors allowed. (Hah, the irony.) No, he’s not the one in the wrong here. No, he’s not going to be looking after Scott’s love life right now, not when he’s bleeding out on the Argents' previously pristine kitchen floor with Allison pressing on his gunshot wound with a pale pink rag that Stiles can't seem to be able to stop fixating on.
Not when he can hear the ambulance fast approaching, not when his father’s cruiser is swerving on the asphalt not so far from them. Not when his anxiouspanickyterrified “STILES?!” reaches his ears and he wants to cringe at the tone of his voice because this is going to kill him, and his dad barely survived his mom's death, and it took him years to be even functional, and...
Not right now when his vision is rapidly blackening at the edges.
(He wonders if his dad is more than ever seeing her in his face right now.)
(He wonders if they'll go back to that old song and dance again if he survives, like she did not.)
(He wonders...)