Giving up? (BoyxBoy)

Nightmares and Trigger Warnings

A/N

Stiles remembers his nightmare. Trigger warning. I hope this flows better now.

I wake up panting and confused. My mind is a mess and at first, I have no idea where I am or what's going on, but as I look around I realise that I'm in my room and it's three am. This has been a common occurrence over the last few months, me waking up in the middle of the night from a nightmare. They never get any easier, in fact, they seem to get harder and harder to deal with every night, but I've got a method that seems to ease the ache in my chest pretty well.

I stay in bed for a few minutes, listening to see if my father has gotten home early, as he has been working the night shift lately, whenever he wasn't pulling doubles. Not hearing anything, I get up and look out my window, and when I don't see the cruiser, I relax. Being alone makes it easier to do what I have to do. I walk up to my bookshelf and reach for the hidden box containing my blades, before I go and lock my bedroom door, just in case dad does come home early for some reason.

I go to sit back on my bed, pull up my sleeves and bring the blade to my wrist. I make a few cuts as I start to recall the dream. It always starts the same way, with me in the woods, just like the night the shit show known as my life got worse, but unlike then, I'm not human, no, in these dreams I always seem to be a fox, and I have no recollection of my past or who I am, I'm just a normal fox in my mind. As I'm walking, I notice that I'm heading towards a familiar house. It's large, with lots of noise and smells coming from inside. I reach the door and start pawing at it until it opens. I am immediately bombarded by the smell of wolves and one other fox, but it isn't overwhelming, it's comforting.

When I walk further into the house, I see a familiar woman holding an equally familiar child of about five years old. As he notices me, he begins to wriggle in the woman's arms until she lets him down, and as he walks towards me she tells the child to 'be careful Stiles', but another, regal looking woman who smells like wolf tells her that it's okay, I'm safe. Next thing I know I'm playing with a young child who has a very familiar name, though I don't know why I recognize it, I don't know any animals with names. I don't even have a name, not in the dream anyway.

As we're playing, I hear the two women talking. I don't really understand much, due to my young age, but I hear most of the conversation; it's about the child, who I know, in my waking state, is actually me as a child. The regal lady, who I later learn is Talia asks the woman if she'll be okay. The mom, my mom, says that she still has another few years left. Talia asks if there is anything she can do to help, knowing that it's hard for a human mother to care for a were fox and that its slowly killing her. At this, I realize that, no matter what anyone else has tried to tell me, it really was my fault that she died, that I was too much for her to handle. This is when the dream either changes, or ends. Tonight, it continued with something new.

As the dream shifts, I'm outside of the sheriff's station, still as a fox, though I am older now, about fourteen, and I can understand what I hear. I walk around and see my father talking to some of his deputies. I hear one of them ask about me, and how things have been going. My dad replies that it's hard on him, that he loves me with all his heart, but it's been hard trying to take care of me without Claudia around to help. He tells them about the trouble I kept getting into at school, and how much the Adderall costs, saying that he's had to start taking on more and more shifts in order to pay for it and food and clothes. Hearing this I realize that I'm nothing but a burden on him, and upon waking up, that realization just makes my decision a hell of a lot easier.

Coming out of my thoughts, I look down at my arms. They're covered in red with about ten new lines on each one. I go to the bathroom at the end of the hall and turn on the light. I wet a face cloth with hot water and rinse the blood off my arms, before I reach into the counter for the first aid kit. I take out some gauze and wrap it around each arm, before I pick everything up. This all takes about twenty minutes as some of the blood had dried in spots, but I finally head back to my room and look out my window for a few minutes, just basking in the breeze, knowing that this will likely be the last time I'll ever feel it. After that, I crawl into bed and close my eyes to try and get a little more sleep, not that it really matters.

I'll be gone tomorrow anyway.

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What I didn't realize at the time was that my window had been closed when I went to the bathroom, what I didn't see were the red eyes staring at me from the woods, and what I didn't yet know was that the next day, I was about to deal with decisions and crying. I was going to have to lie my ass off in order to not hurt the people that I loved, though I didn't realize that anyone loved me enough to care and want to keep me around. I didn't know that I had anyone left to love me in life.