Divinize

Stiles Stilinski was, by his own exhaustive definition, a tragic, textbook case of a hopeless romantic. For roughly a decade, his romantic blueprint had a single, immutable headline: Lydia Martin. He had been utterly convinced that the universe, in its grand, cosmic design, would eventually make her see him. Sure, there was a loud, fiercely rational voice in the back of his head—usually sounding suspiciously like his dad—reminding him that a decade-long unrequited obsession was less "epic love story" and more "please seek professional help," but Stiles ignored it. It was a long shot, yeah, but Stiles lived for the long shots.

Then came the tail end of junior year, right when the supernatural body count was high enough to make everyone twitchy, and the universe decided to throw a wrench into his entire psychological infrastructure.

You transferred in from out of state during the final, exhausting months of the school year. You didn’t make a grand, dramatic entrance. You literally just waltzed into Beacon Hills High, barely uttered a single word to the front desk administrator, and immediately plunged Stiles into a violent, deeply confusing internal crisis.

It started on day one. You walked into the classroom—the one classroom where Stiles didn't have Scott as a buffer—and you didn’t just glance past him. You looked directly at him. Eye contact. Dead-on, intense, and completely unblinking. Stiles’s brain derailed instantly, his hands freezing over his notebook as you walked right past his desk to claim the empty seat directly behind him.

The maddening part of it all? If Stiles was being completely honest, objective, and analytical, you were... regular. Average. You weren't a towering lacrosse god or a brooding leather-jacket archetype. You looked a little older than the rest of the junior class—maybe by a year, with a permanent, heavy shadows-under-the-eyes kind of exhaustion that Stiles recognized all too well. You were on the slightly shorter side, lean and athletic, but in a town where seventy percent of the male demographic spent their free time shirtless in the woods or on a field, that didn't exactly make you a statistical anomaly.

You were quiet. You kept your head down, spoke in a low, gravelly murmur that required people to actually lean in to hear, and you very explicitly, very systematically avoided Scott McCall and Isaac Lahey. Stiles noticed it within forty-eight hours. The second Scott walked into a hallway, you'd execute a flawless, seamless U-turn. If Isaac was near the lockers, you vanished into the crowd like a ghost.

But you didn't avoid Stiles.

In fact, you made a deliberate, quiet effort to be around him. And it wasn't the usual Beacon Hills routine where someone sought Stiles out because they needed a research monkey, a map of the woods, or a Jeep ride away from a monster. You didn't want a single thing from him. You just... liked his company. You listened to his manic, mile-a-minute tangents without looking at him like he belonged in Eichen House. You'd sit next to him, propping your chin on your hand, letting him ramble about lacrosse strategies or conspiracy theories, occasionally offering a small, tired smile that did weird things to Stiles’s heart rate.

And that was the terrifying problem. Because suddenly, that grand, ten-year hopeless-romantic obsession with Lydia Martin wasn't just taking a back seat—it was being completely, violently overshadowed by the quiet, grounded pull of the guy sitting right behind him.

The transition from junior to senior year hadn’t brought the usual teenage excitement; instead, it felt like bracing for impact. But the summer leading up to it had been different. You’d spent the better part of those hot months split between two very distinct, very intense environments: Deaton’s veterinary clinic and Stiles’s bedroom.

Working at the clinic was supposed to just be a summer job, a way to blend in. But Alan Deaton was a Druid, and you were a born werewolf. It took him all of five minutes on your first day to look at you over a golden retriever’s charts and subtly let you know he knew exactly what you were. He didn't push, he didn't call Scott, and he didn't treat you like a threat. He kept your secret with the same quiet, impenetrable discretion he used for Derek and the rest of the pack. To Deaton, you were just a kid who had been running your whole life, trying to find a corner of the world where you could finally just breathe.

But Stiles... Stiles was a different story.

You were currently sprawled out across his mattress, a heavy AP textbook propped open against your chest. A few weeks ago, while studying late at his desk, you’d caught a glimpse of his laptop screen when he went down to get water. The open tabs were a chaotic, glowing mess of Bestiary pages, local animal attack archives, and notes on pack dynamics. He was trying to figure you out. He knew you were hiding something, and it terrified you, but it also made you ache to just tell him. You weren’t some rogue Alpha or a bloodthirsty lone wolf looking to start a war. You just wanted the semblance of a normal, quiet life—something you’d never been allowed to have since the day you were born. You wanted to tell him before he solved the puzzle himself and assumed the worst.

A low, aggressively frustrated grunt shattered the quiet of the room.

You blinked, breaking out of your thoughts. Across the room at his desk, Stiles was furiously scratching out a line in his notebook. He was pressing down so hard that the metal tip of the pen tore right through the loose-leaf paper with a sharp rip.

"Okay, see? This is a targeted attack by the educational board," Stiles groaned, throwing the pen down. It bounced off his desk and rolled onto the floor. He spun around in his rolling chair, planting his feet and letting his head drop back against the headrest. "How do you do this? Seriously. How are you so freakishly good at this?"

You shifted, stretching your legs out further across his bed, the worn fabric of your jeans rustling against his comforter. You looked up from your textbook, a small, amused smile tugging at the corner of your mouth.

"It’s pretty simple, Stiles," you said, your voice low and steady. "It usually helps if you actually pay attention in class instead of staring the entire time."

Stiles froze, his head snapping up. Even without your heightened senses, you wouldn't have needed a supernatural nose to catch the sudden, spike of nervous heat radiating off him. You’d noticed the staring for months. At first, back in the spring, his eyes would instinctively drift toward Lydia Martin’s perfect strawberry-blonde hair a few rows ahead. But lately, it was like his brain would short-circuit halfway through the glance. He’d look at Lydia, then his gaze would falter, looking right past her until it locked onto you in the back row. It used to make you incredibly unnerved—expecting him to call you out, expecting him to see the wolf under your skin—but now, it just made your chest feel tight in a completely different way.

"Staring?" Stiles echoed, his voice climbing an octave. He aggressively pointed a thumb at his own chest, his eyes wide with theatrical offense. "Me? Staring? I’m hurt. Truly. I am a bastion of academic focus, okay? I would never."

"Right. My mistake," you murmured, tilting your book back up to hide the widening grin on your face. "You were probably just analyzing the structural integrity of the whiteboard."

"Exactly! Thank you!" Stiles snapped his fingers, leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees as his frantic energy dialed right back into that intense, hyper-focused stare. "It’s a very distracting whiteboard. It’s got a glare. It’s a hazard, really. But glad to know you’re watching me closely enough to keep tabs on my eye line."

Stiles held the stare for a beat too long, his own words catching up to him, before he suddenly looked down at his own shoes, coughing clearing his throat. The flush on his neck was so bright you could practically see the heat radiating off it.

"Anyway," he muttered, spinning his chair an inch to the left, then an inch to the right. "The point is, AP Gov is a scam. It's an absolute scam, and you’re clearly a witch or something if you’re pulling an A-minus without even breaking a sweat."

You let the book drop back to your chest, watching the nervous, rhythmic bouncing of his left knee. Your heart gave a slow, heavy thud against your ribs. A witch. If only he knew how close—and yet how entirely wrong—he was. You could hear the steady, rapid-fire rhythm of his pulse from across the small room. It was always fast, but around you lately, it had this erratic, fluttery cadence that made your own wolf stir, eager and desperately confused.

"Not a witch," you said softly, your voice carrying that quiet, grounded weight that always seemed to pull his frantic gaze right back to you. "Just a good listener."

Stiles stopped bouncing his leg. He looked up, his amber eyes searching yours with that terrifying, brilliant intensity that made him the pack's detective. He rolled his chair a few inches closer to the edge of the bed, his hyperactive defense mechanisms dropping away for a rare, quiet moment.

"Yeah," Stiles murmured, his voice dropping to a rare, soft register. "Yeah, you really are." He rested his chin on his hand, looking at you where you lay scattered across his sheets like you belonged there. "It's weird, you know? In a town where everyone is always screaming, or running, or... I don't know, bleeding. You're just... quiet. It’s nice. It’s really nice."

The honesty of it hit you like a physical weight. Your hand tightened on the edge of your textbook. This was the moment. You could feel it in the air—the perfect, fragile window to just say it. To tell him that the quiet he loved so much was something you had to fight for every single day just to keep the beast inside you asleep.

You glanced past his shoulder, your eyes involuntarily landing on his backpack on the floor, where the corner of his laptop peeked out. The memory of those glowing tabs—the Bestiary, the frantic searches for a "rogue beta"—flashed in your mind.

"Stiles," you started, your voice slightly tighter than before. You sat up slowly, swinging your legs over the edge of his bed so you were facing him, just a few feet apart.

He blinked, tracking your movement, instantly picking up on the shift in the room's gravity. "Yeah? What's up? You look like you're about to confess to a murder. Please tell me you didn't steal my Jeep, because the alignment is already shot and—"

"I didn't touch the Jeep," you cut him off with a breathy laugh, though the nerves in your stomach were twisting into tight knots. You took a slow, deep breath, letting the scent of him—faded laundry detergent, old paper, and pure, anxious Stiles—steady you. "I just... I want to tell you something. And I need you to just listen for a second before you go full FBI agent on me. Okay?"

Stiles went completely still. His eyes darted to your hands, then back to your face, his expression melting from frantic humor into something completely focused, serious, and entirely yours.

"Okay," he said softly, leaning in. "I'm listening."

You opened your mouth to speak, the truth balanced right on the edge of your tongue, when the sudden, jarring blast of Stiles’s ringtone shattered the silence.

The heavy, rhythmic vibrating rattled his desk, the sound entirely too loud in the quiet room. You both flinched. Stiles threw a frustrated glance over his shoulder, huffing a breath through his nose. "Ignore it," he muttered, keeping his eyes locked on yours. "Whatever you were about to say, say it. The universe can wait for five seconds."

But the universe—or whoever was on the other end of the line—refused to be ignored. The call timed out, and within a literal heartbeat, the phone began to blare a second time. Then a third.

"I am going to throw that piece of tech into the preserve, I swear to God," Stiles groaned, his intense focus snapping as he rubbed a hand over his face. He rolled his chair back to the desk. "Sorry. Seriously, I'm sorry. Let me just kill it."

He grabbed the phone, his thumb hovering over the decline button, but he stopped when he saw the caller ID. His shoulders dropped, the annoying hyperactive energy instantly draining from him, replaced by that heavy, hyper-vigilant posture he always got when the supernatural reality of Beacon Hills came knocking.

"It's Scott," Stiles said, glancing back at you with a look that was half apology, half warning. He slid his thumb across the screen. "Hey, Scotty, what's up? Look, I'm actually in the middle of something kind of important right now, so unless the school is currently being eaten by an ancient alpha or—"

"Stiles, you need to listen to me right now," Scott’s voice burst through the receiver.

Even without putting the phone on speaker, you could hear every single syllable perfectly. Your born-wolf senses caught the sharp, ragged edge of Scott’s breathing, the elevated thumping of his heart, and the distant, echoing sound of tiles and dripping water—the school locker rooms, maybe.

A cold spike of adrenaline shot straight down your spine. You sat perfectly still, your fingers curling tightly into the fabric of Stiles’s comforter.

"We have a problem," Scott pressed on, his voice dropping to a harsh, urgent whisper. "There’s a wolf in Beacon Hills. A new one. An Omega or a lone beta, we aren’t sure yet, but they’ve been tracking around the edge of the preserve. Isaac and I just picked up the scent near the school."

Your heart did a violent, agonizing roll in your chest. Panic, cold and suffocating, clawed at your throat. They know, you thought, a dizzying wave of nausea washing over you. They found me. You had spent months meticulously masking your scent, showering with heavy, scented soaps, taking the long way around the woods, and avoiding Scott and Isaac like the plague. But you’d spent the entire summer glued to Stiles. You’d been in his Jeep. You’d been on his bed. Had they picked up your scent clinging to him? Were they coming to hunt you down because they thought you were a threat to their territory?

You were so trapped in the rising tide of your own panic that you almost missed the next words out of the phone.

"Stiles, it’s bad," Scott said, his voice cracking slightly. "It killed someone. A hiker near the overlook. It happened less than an hour ago. The scent is fresh."

The room seemed to tilt. The panic in your chest fractured, turning into a profound, freezing confusion. Killed someone? No. No, that wasn't possible. You hadn't been anywhere near the overlook. You’d been right here, in this room, watching Stiles fail AP Government.

Your mind raced backward, tunneling into memories you’d spent years trying to bury. You had killed someone once. A lifetime ago, back when you were younger, trapped in a bloodthirsty pack under the thumb of a ruthless Alpha who demanded total obedience. You had broken his rules, you had lost control, and a life had been taken. You had fled that pack, terrified of what you were, and you had sworn an absolute, sacred oath to yourself: never again. You hadn't touched a drop of human blood since. You’d survived four years in this godforsaken town without ever baring your fangs at an innocent.

"Isaac and I are heading to your place right now to look at the maps," Scott was saying, oblivious to the fact that the monster he was hunting was currently sitting three feet away from his best friend. "We'll be there in five minutes.”

"Yeah. Yeah, okay," Stiles said numbly, clicking the phone off.

The silence that followed was suffocating. Stiles stared at the blank screen for a long moment before he finally looked up at you. The easy, warm expression he’d had just minutes ago was completely gone, replaced by a pale, drawn tightness around his jaw.

"Hey, I am so, so sorry," Stiles said, his voice frantic as he began to pace the small width of his bedroom. "We're gonna have to pause whatever you were about to say, because Scott and Isaac are coming over and apparently we have a murderous rogue wolf on the loose, which is just great. Fantastic. Love a Tuesday. I need to find the high-resolution maps of the preserve, because if the body was at the overlook, then the migration pattern—"

He was rambling. He was moving toward the closet to look for his whiteboard supplies.

And you realized, with absolute, terrifying clarity, that you were completely out of time. If Scott and Isaac walked through that door, they would smell the sheer, unadulterated terror radiating off you. They would smell the wolf on you. And with a fresh body in the woods, they wouldn't ask questions. They would see a lone wolf hiding in the shadows and they would eliminate the threat. You were screwed. Unless you took the leap right now.

Stiles kept talking, his back turned to you as he grabbed a stack of folders. "I think the 2014 geological survey is under here, if you could just—"

You didn't think. The instinct to survive, to protect the fragile, beautiful thing you’d built with this boy over the summer, took over completely.

In a single, fluid motion, you launched yourself off the bed. You crossed the distance between you in a fraction of a second—faster than any human could ever move. Before Stiles could even register the shift in the air, your hands gripped the front of his flannel shirt.

With a blunt, controlled burst of strength, you shoved him backward.

Stiles hit the mattress with a heavy thud, his breath leaving him in a sharp gasp. Before he could scramble away or yell, you leaned over him, pinning his shoulders flush against the bed, trapping him beneath your weight. The folders he’d been holding scattered across the floor.

"Woah—hey! What the hell?!" Stiles gasped, his hands instantly flying up to grip your wrists. His eyes were wide, dilated with a sudden, sharp shock, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. "What are you doing? What—"

"Stiles, shut up and listen to me," you breathed, your voice cracking under the weight of your panic. You held him down, your grip tight but careful not to hurt him, your face just inches from his. "I am a werewolf."

Stiles went entirely rigid beneath you. His jaw dropped, his amber eyes darting across your face, searching for a punchline, searching for a lie, searching for anything.

"I'm a werewolf," you repeated, the words tumbling out of you in a desperate, breathless rush before you could lose your nerve. "I was born one. Deaton knows, he’s known since my first day at the clinic. But Stiles, I swear to God, I swear on my life, I didn't kill that hiker. I haven't killed anyone since I arrived in Beacon Hills nearly four years ago. I’m not the wolf Scott is looking for. Please, Stiles. Please believe me."

Stiles lay perfectly frozen beneath you, the scattered folders completely forgotten on the floor. For a long, agonizing second, the only sound in the bedroom was the frantic, overlapping rhythms of your heartbeats. You held your breath, bracing yourself for the shift in his eyes—the sudden fear, the calculation, the look he gave every monster that threatened his town.

Instead, the tension in his shoulders slowly drained out of him. He didn't try to twist out of your grip. He didn't reach for a mountain ash canister or call out for his dad.

He just breathed out, a long, shaky exhale that brushed warm against your chin.

"I know," Stiles said softly.

You blinked, your fingers tightening just a fraction on his shirt. "What?"

"I know you didn't do it. I believe you," he repeated, his voice remarkably steady despite how fast his pulse was still racing. He looked up at you, his amber eyes completely clear, devoid of any doubt. "An hour ago, you were lying right there on that exact spot on my bed, chewing on the cap of a black ink pen and entirely focused on finishing a government worksheet. You haven't left my sight since school ended."

A wave of dizzying relief washed over you, so intense your knees almost went weak, but you didn't move. You couldn't. You were still hyper-focused on the way he was looking at you—not with suspicion, but with a strange, vulnerable heat.

"And, uh... if we're being completely, entirely honest here," Stiles stammered, a sudden, bright flush creeping up his neck and flooding his cheeks. His eyes darted away to the wall for a split second before locking back onto yours, his voice dropping into a sheepish, rapid-fire mumble. "I know exactly where you were an hour ago, because I spent a solid ten minutes completely failing to read a single paragraph about the judicial branch. Instead, I was highly, meticulously preoccupied with staring at the patch of skin right above your waistband. Your shirt had bunched up when you stretched out, and I was... looking at the hair on your stomach. So, yeah. Alibi confirmed. I am a direct eyewitness to your complete and utter innocence."

Your brain practically short-circuited. The intense, life-or-death panic that had driven you to pin him to the mattress instantly evaporated, replaced by a sudden, dizzying rush of heat. You stared down at him, your wolf-heightened senses tracking the sudden spike of adrenaline and sheer, nervous attraction radiating off his skin.

"You were staring at my stomach?" you murmured, your voice dropping an octave, the grip on his shirt loosening until your palms were just resting flat against his chest.

"Yes! Okay? Yes, I was," Stiles blurted out, defensively waving one hand in the air while the other gripped your forearm, though he didn't push you off. "It was highly distracting! You can't just lounge around on a guy's bed looking like that and expect him to memorize constitutional amendments. It's an unfair working environment. But the point is—the logistical, criminal-justice point—is that you're cleared. You're completely innocent. Scott is tracking a different wolf."

The weight of the situation crashed back into the room just as Stiles finished speaking. The distant sound of a motorcycle engine—Scott's dirt bike—echoed from a few blocks away. They were getting close.

"They're going to smell me, Stiles," you said, the anxiety creeping back into your tone as you finally back off, letting him sit up while you knelt on the edge of the mattress. "Scott and Isaac. The second they walk in here, they're going to know what I am. And with a body in the woods..."

Stiles scrambled up, sitting cross-legged in front of you. He didn't look panicked anymore; his detective brain was already spinning at a million miles an hour, but this time, he was working *with* you.

"Hey, look at me," Stiles said, reaching out to firmly grab your shoulders, forcing you to meet his gaze. "They aren't going to do anything. You've been here all summer. You're a part of this now. You're a part of me. I'm not letting them touch you."

Your ears twitched, the sharp, distinct sound of a motorcycle engine cutting out in the driveway cutting through the ambient noise of the house. A second later, the heavy thunk of two pairs of boots hit the front porch steps. You could hear their footsteps approaching the front door long before they even had a chance to knock or call out Stiles’s name.

The reality of the situation settled heavy in your chest, but looking down at Stiles, the suffocating terror from a few minutes ago was gone.

Stiles stood up from the bed, brushing the dust off his jeans from his earlier frantic maneuvering. He looked back at you, catching the tense, rigid set of your shoulders. Instead of panicking, he just offered you his signature, slightly goofy, completely reassuring lopsided smile and gave you a bright thumbs-up.

"Operation: Defensive Buffering is officially a go," he whispered, gesturing dramatically toward the door. "Just stay behind the shield. The shield being me. I am highly effective at talking people in circles until they forget why they were angry in the first place."

Despite the absolute chaos of the situation, you couldn't help but shake your head, a soft laugh breaking through your nerves. You followed him out of the bedroom and down the stairs, the steady, rhythmic sound of his heartbeat acting like an anchor for your own. You trusted him. Completely. And knowing that he trusted you back—even after you’d just aggressively pinned him to his own mattress—made the wolf beneath your skin settle down into something calm and fiercely protective.

By the time you reached the bottom of the stairs, a heavy knock rattled the front door.

"Stiles! Open up, we have the scent tracking east," Isaac’s voice called out through the wood, sounding urgent and sharp.

Stiles didn't hesitate. He stepped up to the entryway, and you slid into place directly behind him, leaning slightly to the side to peek out over his shoulder. Your heart gave one final, nervous thud against your ribs as Stiles wrapped his fingers around the brass door handle and pulled it wide open.

Scott and Isaac were standing on the porch, practically vibrating with supernatural adrenaline. Scott had his phone in one hand and a crinkled map of the preserve in the other, his brow furrowed in deep concern. Isaac was leaning against the porch railing, his eyes scanning the yard, his nostrils flaring as he actively caught the air.

The very second the door swung open, both of their heads snapped up.

Isaac’s eyes instantly went wide, his posture freezing as his gaze locked onto you over Stiles's shoulder. Scott blinked, his chest hitching as he inhaled sharply, his alpha instincts immediately registering the presence of a born werewolf standing right in the middle of his best friend's hallway.

"Stiles..." Scott started, his voice dropping into a cautious, low register as his eyes darted between you and his best friend, his hand instinctively dropping toward his side. "Who is—"

"Okay, before anyone starts flashing glowing eyeballs or baring teeth, everyone take a collective, deep, calming breath," Stiles interrupted immediately, stepping slightly to the left to block more of you from view, his hands flying up in a universal stop gesture. "Scott, Isaac, meet my boyfriend—well, not boyfriend yet, we’re working on the formatting of that, but my very close, completely innocent study partner who happens to be a werewolf. And no, he did not kill the hiker."

Isaac’s jaw practically hit the porch floor. He blinked, looking from Stiles, to you, and then down to Stiles’s hands, which were still waving around erratically. "Your what?"

"Study partner! I said study partner," Stiles corrected rapidly, his face flushing a furious, sudden crimson. "The other part was—that was a tentative working title, completely unconfirmed by a secondary source, ignore that part. Focus on the innocent part. That is the crucial narrative hook here, guys."

Scott, however, wasn't looking at Stiles. His eyes—warm, but fiercely heavy with the weight of an Alpha—were locked onto yours. You didn't back down, but you didn't challenge him either. You kept your posture grounded, your hands visible, letting your scent carry nothing but total, unadulterated honesty. You smelled like old books, Stiles’s laundry detergent, and a deep, historical exhaustion, but there wasn't a drop of blood or malice on you.

Slowly, Scott’s tense shoulders dropped. He inhaled again, deeper this time, filtering through the layers of the air.

"He's telling the truth," Scott said softly, his voice carrying that innate, gentle authority that made him who he was. He looked at you, a faint, understanding softness flickering in his expression. "You're a born wolf. Your heartbeat... it's completely steady. You're not the one who was in the preserve."

"See? Thank you, Alpha McCall, voice of reason," Stiles sighed, dramatically dropping his hands to his sides. "Can we please come inside now? Because standing on the porch debating supernatural genetics is a great way to get the neighbors calling the Sheriff, and my dad is already on a very strict low-sodium diet and cannot handle the stress."

Isaac crossed his arms, finally stepping past the threshold as Stiles waved them into the hallway. Isaac looked you up and down, his eyes lingering on your lean frame, before tilting his head. "If you've been here all summer, how come we never caught your scent until now?"

"Because he’s smart, Isaac. He actually understands the concept of stealth, unlike certain people who like to roar in public parks," Stiles shot back, shutting the front door with a firm click.

You finally stepped out from behind Stiles’s shoulder, your voice quiet but steady as you addressed the two beta wolves. "I didn't want trouble. I’ve been hiding since I got to Beacon Hills four years ago. I worked for Deaton because he promised to keep my secret, and I avoided you guys because... well, packs attract trouble. And I just wanted a normal life."

You paused, your eyes instinctively drifting to the side of Stiles’s face. "But then I met Stiles. And tonight, when you called... I couldn't let you think I was the monster in the woods."

Scott looked between the two of you, capturing the unspoken intensity, the lingering electricity from whatever had happened upstairs on the bed before they arrived. A small, knowing smile tugged at the corner of Scott's mouth—the look of a best friend who had been waiting for Stiles to move on from his childhood crush for a very, very long time.

"Deaton trusts you, so I trust you," Scott said, reaching out to place a solid, welcoming hand on your shoulder. "But if there's an Omega out there killing people, we need to find them before the hunters do. Are you with us?"

You looked at Scott’s hand, then at Isaac’s reluctant but accepting nod, and finally down at Stiles. Stiles was watching you, his amber eyes bright, practically bursting with a mixture of nervous excitement and a fierce, protective pride.

You let out a slow breath, the weight of four years of isolation finally melting off your chest.