#angstyfic

Starting to think maybe I should write some fluff fics.

“Ra-”

Slap!

The whole bed shook as the slap reverberated through Phayu. His leg that he hadn't realized was now being held up by a sling shot pain through his entire body at the sudden sharp movement. His arms all wrapped up in gauze with iv lines coming out his right arm. Suddenly there was beeping sounds and a ding from somewhere behind his head/

It wouldn’t be accurate to say seventeen-year-old Patrick didn’t notice the way Pete’s two-sizes-too-small band shirts rode up as he played, or his tattoos, or his piercings, or his fucking smile. It wouldn’t be true to say Patrick hadn’t felt it – years later – every time Travie put one of his huge hands on his shoulders while they were working in the studio. He couldn’t say he’d never found himself staring at some stranger, at some party, whose dress shirt was stretched over broad shoulders.

He’d tried to write it off, ignore it. There was a knot of wrongness and guilt inside him, but he didn’t act on it, so – it wasn’t real. It wasn’t real if nothing ever happened.

This is the fourth time Patrick has had this conversation; the first he’s trying to call it what it is, at least in his mind; not even remotely the last he’s going to need to say the same things, and brace for some kind of impact.

There was the passing remark he made on a phone call to Megan, something breezy and weightless like, “I might give guys a chance, this time,” while they were talking of his new single status. She laughed and said, “No, but actually, I heard Tinder is pretty good these days.”

Then came whatever the fuck that conversation in Pete’s car was.

***

His mom has been watching that Marie Kondo thing on Netflix, which resulted in him getting a threatening email a few weeks ago about the boxes “cluttering up” his old room in the attic. Since he’s home, and the kids are with their respective moms, and it’s the Thanksgiving weekend – and he can’t possibly want to work even over Thanksgiving – he’s supposed to go through all that stuff and decide what brings him fucking joy.

Pete starts taking out the contents of the first box and arranges them on the carpet. He stares at the result and thinks, wow. Talk about broken down memory lane.

Crawling out of my flu-induced haze to post another angsty chapter. SORRY? 

If a guy has an existential crisis alone in a hotel room on the other side of the world and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

So, a little while ago stilesstilinskidaily posted this gifset of the moment when Stiles was at the party hallucinating his father.

And I said: Gee, there should be an angsty story where the Nogitsume takes over the sheriff and gradually becomes more and more awful to Stiles. That's an angsty idea, I'll write it after I finish the D&P sequel.

But then today, I had a miserable day for a wide variety of reasons and the sequel of D&P is currently at a fluffier point and very difficult to write and I wanted to write ANGST. So I did a bad thing and let myself write the angsty fic instead.

Here's Part 1 (of ??)

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            “I don’t know,” Stiles said, miserably wringing his hands together. “I guess… a while?”

            “Think,” Deaton ordered and Stiles couldn’t help but flinch away from the tone. “We need to know when this started, when the Nogitsune took him over.”

            Stiles took a breath and tried to focus but-

            He couldn’t do this. He didn’t want to think about this.

            How could he have been so stupid? To not even realize that a freaking monster had taken over his own father? He was such a screw-up and-

            “Stiles,” Scott’s voice was gentle and Stiles looked up at him instinctively. “You can do this. Just… tell us when you first noticed something was different. The first time he acted… not like himself.”

            “Th- there was,” he started and then stopped. That was so long ago, before it got really bad. Maybe he just wanted this to be the Nogitsune. It was just so… hard. It had been so gradual and Deaton seemed so sure that none of this could be Stiles’ real father but maybe it could and this was all just wishful thinking.

            “In May,” he started, staring at his hands instead of Scott’s face, which he knew would be etched with hurt. Scott didn’t know it had been that long. “I broke a mug…”

            As always, Stiles made a latch ditch effort to catch the mug as it fell even though prior experience told him it was too late. His arms, which had been flailing around so rapidly a moment before had no chance of catching the object as it tumbled through the air and then landed with a smack on the ground and shattered into at least four different pieces.

            Well, four big pieces. Probably countless different pieces if you included all the shards that were doubtless everywhere.

            “Shit,” he muttered, reaching across for the paper towels without moving his feet. He really should always wear at least socks when he was in the kitchen. He wished he could say this was a rare occurrence but… well, Stiles had never been coordinated and hitting his growth spurt and shooting up almost five inches in the past year alone hadn’t done him any favors when it came to not… breaking everything.

            “What that the one with the kittens?”

            Stiles jumped so hard, he almost hit another glass. He hadn’t known his dad was standing there.

            “Geez, Dad,” he said, holding a hand to his chest. “We’ve talked about this. No using your cop skills to sneak up on me!”

            He looked over, expecting to see his dad smiling fondly or perhaps already heading to the closet where they kept the broom and dustpan.

            “It was,” his dad said, not looking up from where he was staring at the pile. Stiles frowned a bit in confusion.

            “Uh, yeah,” Stiles said, bending over to big up some of the bigger pieces. “Sorry.”

            “That was your mother’s favorite,” his dad suddenly said and Stiles froze.

            They never mentioned her. They didn’t even talk about not talking about her. It was just an unspoken agreement between the both of them. Six years ago, she had died and for a little while, his father would speak of her but only when he was drunk and then he stopped drinking and they stopped talking about her.

            It wasn’t so much of a rule as an agreed-upon habit. A coping mechanism that both of them strictly upheld.

            “Oh God,” Stiles breathed as the full effect of his father’s words hit him. It was her favorite mug. He hadn’t even remembered that. He’d thought that he’d managed to save most of her favorite things in two boxes he moved to the attic to be kept safe but he must’ve missed this mug and he hadn’t even remembered it, except his father did. And now he’d destroyed it. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t- maybe I can fix it.”

            He looked down helpless at the pieces in his hands, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his gut as he realized there was no way he could fix this. He’d knocked it off the table too hard. It had shattered.

            “I’m sorry,” he said again, feeling panic rise in his throat. He had broken his mother’s favorite mug.

            And if she were here, he was sure she would just smile and tell him she would pick a new favorite because that’s how he remembered her but she was dead. She would never have another favorite anything.

            “It’s okay,” his dad said and Stiles wanted to believe it even though he already knew that couldn’t be true.

            “To be honest,” his dad continued, looking down at Stiles with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’m surprised it lasted as long as it did with you in the house.”

            Dad was chuckling a bit at his own statement and Stiles tried to pull his lips into a smile because, clearly, his dad was joking and Stiles knew his track record with dishes. It was a fair statement to make.

            That didn’t change the way his throat clenched at the thought.

            “I’m really sorry,” he mumbled again.

            But when he looked up his dad was already gone and he didn’t return a moment later with the dustpan like he usually did.

            So Stiles carefully stepped around the mess he’d made and cleaned it up slowly.

            When he finished, he stared at the pile for a moment longer than necessary, still somehow wondering if there was some way he could fix it. Or a part of it. Maybe he could at least glue the part with the kittens back together and give it to his dad to show him that he did care about Mom too. Even if they never talked about it. Even if apparently Stiles forgot important information like what her favorite mug had been.

            But it couldn’t be fixed. So he brushed it all into the trash instead and told himself sternly that he had to be more careful. He had to stop making mistakes like this.

            “Yeah, that’s… that’s not normal, right?” Stiles made it a question. He thought that must be the first time he had a clear sign, based on the fact that his father had mentioned his mother but-

            “Yeah, your real dad would never say that,” Scott assured him.

            Stiles let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

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Do you like angst? Angst with angsty? Well, good news- the next chapter is up!