; spaces between our souls

“I don’t have anything good in my life,” he sobbed, because it was all gone. He’d thrown it away that day Raleigh had found him, had thrown it away with those three little words that he’d never be able to take back. And his dad and brother were so disappointed in him, still, he could see it in their eyes every time they looked at him. “I don’t wanna do it anymore, Ral. I don’t wanna get sent back there, but I can’t--” He glanced up at the street signs. “’m at the corner of Second and Riverside. It’s where he was supposed to meet his dealer. “Hurry, Ral. Please.” 

“You didn’t ask me why,” Henry blurted out before he could stop himself, and he was embarrassed at the realization that his voice cracked because he told himself that he wouldn’t do this. “When you caught me, you didn’t--... you didn’t ask why but it’s because I’m fucking terrified.” And now that he’d started, it was kind of like he couldn’t stop. “I was so scared I was gonna end up like my mom, or that Stiles would and I was afraid that my dad wished it was us instead of her and I didn’t--.” There was a sob that escaped him as he dropped down onto the side walk, swiping at his face. “I dunno how to deal with it. I dunno how-- I dunno how to stop being afraid.” 

        And Raleigh knew he was right, of all the things he did, he had gotten Henry sent there and of all the things he had suffered, Henry deserved to still hate the Alpha. Raleigh deserved the lashing out and the growls and he was careful now to keep his distance. Touching would only make matters worse, would only force Henry to retreat more into himself and with all the horrors that the Alpha could only assume had been wrought upon him as it were, he didn’t wanna cause more. It was another thirty or so minutes until they were able to guide Henry back up into the car. The car trip was quiet as was to be expected. Raleigh helped to get Henry’s things back up into his room before he told him goodbye, that he’d be by later to drop off some homework before he went back home tried to sort through the mess of thoughts in his head.

And so it went.  Coming back home had been just as difficult this time as around as it had been coming home from Carlisle, like returning to a place he didn’t belong. And this time around, he didn’t have Raleigh to help get through it. He didn’t have coke to help get through it either. But he could, if he wanted to, and that was the whole problem. It was constantly an internal struggle, knowing if he slipped up, he’d end up right back in rehab, but sometimes, the urge was too strong. It was too much. Like tonight. He didn’t know what time it was, didn’t know how long he’d been wandering the streets of Beacon Hills, trying to talk himself out of what he was about to do, but it wasn’t enough. And before he could stop himself, he tugged his phone from his pocket, dialing a familiar number.

        The Alpha had smelled the panic a second before Henry was begging his father to stop the car and all at once their trip was turned upside down. The universe was cruel to Henry, crueler than he deserved and it ached his heart to see him suffering like this. Raleigh moved out and as gently as he could afford without making the other feel enclosed he guided him toward the shoulder so he wouldn’t get clipped by a passing car. As soon as he was safely away Raleigh removed his hands but he didn’t go far. “Just breathe,” He whispered softly, “Deep breaths. You’re okay, Henry. You’re okay.” Gently he touched his shoulder, a reassuring squeeze, “You’re gonna be okay.”

“You sent me there,” Henry rasped, jerking away from Raleigh and by now, his father and brother had climbed from the car to join them but he didn’t care. They all sent him there, they all had a part in it and for what? To help him?  He would’ve rather overdosed and died; it would have been less cruel. He didn’t even realize that he was crying until he couldn’t see through those stupid fucking tears and he lifted his hand to scrub angrily at his face, to wipe them away because he would not do this, not in front of them. “Get away from me. ‘m fine. ‘m fine.” 

       Raleigh’s lips pursed and he shook his head because no, that wasn’t right. Not by a long shot. “That’s…no,” Raleigh cleared his throat and looked over at Henry. “I sent you two letter’s a week. I sent you a care package at the beginning of every month. I know Stiles sent you letters too, your Dad too.” The Alpha looked a little horrified to think that Henry had spent so damn long in there without a touch of the outside world and suddenly he got angry, gritting his teeth and squeezing his fist tightly in his lap. “You didn’t get anything from us? Not even a mention of the stuff?” Raleigh leaned forward and tried to get Henry to look at him. “We sent you things, Henry. We did. I swear that we did.”

And suddenly, it was too much. He’d felt it from the moment he was in the car, the way his chest tightened, the way panic was settling itself into his bone, but it was too much and he needed-- He needed--... “Stop the car,” he managed, hands fumbling with the seatbelt as his dad swerved over to the shoulder. The car had barely come to a stop before he was shoving the door open and scrambling out, toppling over onto the gravel. Raleigh was lying. He had to be lying. They’d sent him off to get rid of him, they’d locked him away, they’d left him there. That was happened. And remembering that, Henry kind of couldn’t breathe.

The silence was as stifling in the car as it had been in the cell and Henry was on the verge of breaking again. He gripped the legs of his pants so tight his knuckles were white and he was just about ready to tell his dad to pull over so he could get out, just for a few minutes because he needed to get out of the quiet. But then Raleigh spoke and Henry could have cried at the simple sound of it until he realized what the other was asking. “--Letters?” He rasped and up front, Stiles’ eyes met his in the rearview mirror. “There were no letters. Not from any of you.” 

In the first sixteen hours after John dropped Henry off, he’d managed to insult one of the orderlies and found himself quickly locked up in solitary confinement. He figured it’d be a couple hours, maybe a day tops, but no. Apparently, he was a man that held a grudge. Henry had always been a social creature and it crushed him, in ways that even detoxing had not. For two long months, from sixteen hours after his father dropped him off and drove away until the moment two of the orderlies came to retrieve him to send him home, Henry had lived, had rotted in solitary confinement. The only human interaction he had was in the form of a nurse checking in on him two times a day to make sure he was still alive and that was it.  And it cracked him. What broke him, however, was knowing that no one on the outside cared because if they had, they would called or at least written, right? They would have done something, anything other than leave him in his own personal hell, but they hadn’t. Not even Raleigh. That he’d come with his father and brother was a surprise, but he couldn’t quite find it in himself to return the greeting, instead slipping past him to slide into the car in silence. Because that was all he knew.

And that was it.  There’d been no time to try to talk himself out of anything, no time to try to make up some lie about what had really happened. By the time night fell, he’d already been packed up into the car as John drove him away from home, away from Beacon Hills once again. There’d been no time to say goodbye, no time to try to make amends, though Henry wasn’t sure he would have even if he’d been given the chance. His anger at Raleigh was overwhelming, all encompassing either, and it only grew after his father checked him into the rehab facility and left him there. Days turned into weeks, a month into two. Letters had been un-returned, phone calls unanswered. It was as if he’d simply stopped existing, something which felt wrong to Stiles, something he broached with Raleigh first because how was having no contact at all with outside world helpful to Henry’s recovery? Everything he’d read of the subject said that it wasn’t, that an addict needed support and it was with that that Stiles went to his dad, insistent on bringing Henry back home.  Before they lost him for good. If they hadn’t already.

DIRTY PAWS;

              Raleigh’s jaw set and as his father counted down he prepared himself.               Three came and he snapped the bone back in place and the texture of               it grating against his hands made him one to be sick. He felt some bile               rise up and he had to force it back with a grimace, panting and remov-               ing his trembling hands before they could do any more damage. “What               do we do now? Can we do the cast now? Will he be okay?”

“Now, I’m going to show you how to cast it,” Scott said, smoothing a hand over Raleigh’s hair before he pressed a kiss to it gently. “You did really, really well with that,buddy. The hard part’s over now though, I promise.” 

♕: Two Roads Diverged In A Yellow Wood

It was difficult trying to fill Raleigh’s shoes, all while her worry for him would have kept her at his bedside had the fate of the pack not depended on this rebellion. They’d lost Derek to Peter’s cruelty, would have lost Raleigh too if Lydia hadn’t been in the right place at the right time, and the knowledge that he had to be stopped was what kept her going. So she worked hard, harder than she ever had. She trained herself and others who would join her and she came to visit in the dark of the night, body aching, mind exhausted. Still though, she came. She sat with Raleigh. She prayed to whatever God was listening that he would just survive, and he did. And finally, he woke up, asking for her. Lydia wasted no time in going to his side, pale fingers touching that scar against his throat so gently, knowing what would have become of him had she not found him when she did. “We’re ready,” she promised him. “We’re going to take him down.” 

He smiled at her, a brilliant thing that lit up his whole face as he took her face into his hands, pressing the most gentle of kisses upon her lips before he deepened it, just a hair. His fingers moved slowly into her hair, tangling in the fiery red as he drew her into him before he pulled away almost entirely, just long enough to wrap his arms around her waist and lift her as if she weighed nothing at all. There were cat calls from some of the others (Derek and Braeden, mostly) as the Khal carried his Khaleesi into their tent, intent on claiming her, intent on reminding her that son or no son, she would always be his.

Worth { Dying } For

There was a sinister grin that spread across his face, because for all the ways Lord Martin believed him to be cruel, he knew nothing of the cruelty that he’d bred into his own daughter.  She was a twisted thing, her soul blackened perhaps even darker than Henry’s, and oh, how he loved that about her; it would not be long until the entire realm was bathed in the blood of their enemies and she would rise beside him. He thought that perhaps he would spare her father long enough to see what she had been turned into; into what he had allowed her to become and it was with that knowledge the Hrny would send him to the fires of Hell. 

        The Alpha staggered to his feet, gaping at the explosions of discomfort that radiated from the mangled flesh of his head. It throbbed with every little bang of his heart, a steady thump thump until he was sure that his brain was just going to swell so much the skin would split and he’d be left just a heap on the floor. He held a hand against his head as the Sheriff barged in, his eyes swinging sluggishly to Henry and he laughed, something a hoarse and a whole lot bitter. With that one hand still on the healing wound he reached down for the bags he’d taken away from his boyfriend, handing them over to John. “I came home and found him high. I wouldn’t care if it was something like weed but it wasn’t. It was cocaine. I dumped everything I could into the toilet and flushed it. Here are the rest of the bags.” He looked over at Henry and his lips pursed. “I did hit him, he’s not lyin’ about that part. But I figured I was entitled to bust his nose in after he came at me the way he did.”

Henry watched the way the look in his father’s eyes changed, going from concerned to angry to flat out disappointed and if he’d had the energy, if it hadn’t been for the way his broken nose was throbbing, he might have thrown himself at Raleigh again, just to hurt him a little bit more. As it was, he didn’t have a chance. He watched as John knocked away Raleigh’s hand gently, checking the wound to make sure it was already healing.  “I appreciate that, son. Stiles was pullin’ up right behind me. How about you let him drive you home? Henry and I need to have a long conversation.”  And then, because he was so, so angry, Henry couldn’t quite stop himself. “I will never forgive you for this. I hate you.” 

Leaning forward, Scott pressed another gentle kiss upon his queen’s forehead before he withdrew, brushing her hair back behind her shoulder. “Come. At first light, we ride into the city to seek passage, lest we must take it. Let us put all talk of this behind us for now. It will not do if they sense your unease at the palace,” he said. “My mother and John will keep Emi this night; I wish to have you all to myself.” And then, he leaned in, brushing his lips against her ear. “Perhaps I will be able to soothe you myself.” 

They both went down, Raleigh taking the brunt of the fall and not even the realization that the other had been hurt was enough to stop Henry in his rage; it wasn’t until Raleigh drew back, fist catching Henry hard enough to break his nose that he cried out, falling off of the other.  Both hands were cupped over his face, blood spilling from between his fingers as he glanced up at the other’s proclamation. “Help me?!” He spat, voice cracking. “You aren’t fucking helping anything! You’re only ruining it!”  It was only seconds later that the sound of the front door opening and closing caught Henry’s attention, followed by the sound of his father’s voice calling up the stairs. “Henry? Raleigh?” and then, as the door swung open, “what the hell is going on in here?”  “He hit me,” Henry blurted out.