So, remember that recent discussion about a fic where Stiles was abused? That turned into this. Trigger warning: child abuse. It’s not graphic, but it’s there.
Summery: All he ever wanted to be was Stiles Stilinski.
There are painted wooden letters that spell out his name in a frame on Mieczysław Reid’s bedroom wall. His mom bought them at the craft store, and decorated them even before he was born. None of the kids in Mieczysław’s first grade class know how to say his name. None of them talk to him anyway, since he always gets in trouble and also he gets lice a lot. Last time he came home with a note from the school saying the lice were back, Audrey buzzed all his hair and put kerosene on what was left. It burned, and he got a blister behind his ear that popped and hurt for days and days afterward.
“What the fuck you crying for?” Dad asked him, and threw a can at him to make him go away.
Mieczysław is six. He sometimes lies awake at night and looks at the letters on the wall. Mom was the only one who knows how to say his name, but she’s gone now. She died. Even his Dad can’t say it. Sometimes he looks at the wooden letters, every one painted a different color, and wonders if his mom loved him when he was still in her belly what would it be like it she was still here?
Audrey and Dad fight at lot.
They live out of town in a house by the wreckers yard. Dad owns the yard. They don’t have many neighbors, but sometimes the wind must carry their voices, because someone calls the police.
Mieczysław stands behind his bedroom door when the deputies come, watching through the gap.
Audrey and Dad stop shouting and yelling then. Sometimes they even laugh and tell the deputies it was nothing. Just letting off steam. And Mieczysław shuts his mouth, because he knows better than to say otherwise, and usually the police take a look around and then go away again.
Except for one night, and one deputy.
Mieczysław hasn’t seen this deputy before. He’s tall. Mieczysław is six though. Everyone is tall. He has blue eyes the same color as the sky just before it softens into dusk. The skin around his eyes crinkles when he sees Mieczysław peering around the door and he smiles.
Read the rest here at AO3.
