[ The shuttle is packed with new Gembonded, fresh from their trials in the Burnished Crater. Stiles – even now an outsider who does not belong – sits quietly among them, ignoring each kind attempt to draw him into conversation. Gaze pinned on the floor between his feet, he looks without seeing, eyes glassy and unfocused. Eventually, the neighbors on either side of him take a hint, allowing his presence to melt away into the background. And there, he broods. According to the GemSci researcher he spoke with, a week has passed on Noctium since the date he was returned to Earth. But in the span of that single week, three months unfolded for him in California. It feels as though he’s leading two distinctly separate lives, his identity struggling beneath the cumbersome weight of mixed memories. He no longer can say with certainty where “home” is anymore – if it’s in Beacon Hills with the pack and Lydia or Sumarlok with Sophia and Itachi. Who is he?
Stiles has reached no conclusion by the time the shuttle lands. Expression carved from stone, he exits with the crowd but leaves the other Gembonded behind as they’re guided toward the Embassy for processing. Walking along the sidewalk to the Emerald District, summer sun flaying him alive in his long-sleeve flannel and dark pants, he stumbles under a nauseating surge of déjà vu. Like simultaneously months have passed versus only a day since he last traveled these streets. That sticky, unpleasant sensation clinging to his awareness only intensifies on his way to the house. When he eventually arrives, it’s to the sight of withering plants that have baked beneath the humid heatwave without regular watering. The house itself is empty, a thin layer of dust just beginning to visibly collect on shelves. Sophia’s dishes and lead are both missing, the first cause of relief for Stiles; he’d worried how she had fared during his absence.
Movements mechanical, he changes into clothes more appropriate for the season and collects his phone from where he last left it: charging on the nightstand beside the bed. There’s no sign of the Akatsuki ring. It pains him to think that it might have disappeared between dimensions, but the pressure to meet with Itachi as soon as possible keeps him from mourning the loss. He lingers just long enough at the house to notice the black scorch marks that have dug trenches in the backyard garden. Curiosity sealed behind a wall of cold, haunted misery, he doesn’t investigate.
There’s no text sent ahead to let Itachi know he’s coming. No touch of long-distance Synchrony to warn the shinobi that he’s returned. He hangs on the precarious edge of a breakdown, thoughts scattered like a whiteout blanket of snow across the landscape. Nothing feels real anymore. Nothing, except the hot torrent of instinct driving him with increasing pace toward a single man – a man he forgot existed while back in Beacon Hills. Stiles needs to see Itachi, face to face, immediately. He needs to confirm that their relationship wasn’t some misguided delusion he dreamt up, that the time they spent together happened in spite of his conflicting memories.
When he next surfaces from his thoughts, Stiles finds himself standing in front of the door to Itachi’s apartment, fist raised as if to knock. A moment of hesitation locks his limbs in place, freezing him. What if he really did fantasize the whole thing? What if the man has already moved on? What about Lydia? “Remember that I love you,” he’d told her seconds before the Ghost Riders had abducted him. How can he possibly look Itachi in the eyes again after betraying their relationship, intentionally or not? And isn’t this itself a betrayal to Lydia?
[It wasn't his intention to remain long in the apartment. He had returned only an hour ago with nothing significant to do, as everything in this second life now was; hours passed at enduring, burdensome increments he hardly tracked. The Nightmare needed watering, and he could bathe himself in peace and privacy. Bare minimum maintenance. Perhaps even that was more than he had done in a number of days. He can't fully comprehend why he has been reduced to this state—he knew this would be the eventual outcome. But perhaps not in such a twist of uncertainty; it is easy to consider what would happen if one day they were returned to their origin worlds, or if he and Stiles arrived in another place, but less bearable to consider that he might be left behind permanently, forced to drag out some half-hearted, unwanted existence in this place. Each moment is a question: will tomorrow deliver a new dimension? Will he ever see Stiles again? Will he wake up at all?
What would he prefer?
The knock comes as a surprise, so that Itachi goes still in the threshold of the bathroom, counter streaked in blood from another coughing fit. He stares hard at the door—his mind turns, struggling to make a decision, reluctant to. He is halfway committed to the judgment that he will ignore it when Russell swoops over, pecking determinedly at wood, scraping floorboards with impatient talons. So he wipes off the counter with a towel, tosses it bloody into the laundry bin, runs the sink, closes the bathroom door, and walks over.
Nearly five minutes since the knock had first elapsed, he opens the door. Black eyes widen—a flicker of vivid shock—then narrow onto the boy, expression shut up like a tomb as he steps aside to allow entrance.
Never has either of them left and come back. Too exhausted, too sunk behind the shutters of himself after a week alone in his own mind, day-to-day normalcy uprooted as he always knew it would be and now sensing something different, he does not speak first. Stiles will find the interior of the apartment as bland and undecorated as ever, shadowed, sepulchered, curtains drawn to blot out the summer daylight.]
[ Time passes, slow and sticky in this hallway of recycled, humid summer heat. Sweat gathering at his brow in fat beads, he leans heavily against the door. There’s unfortunately a good chance that Itachi isn’t at the apartment, but Stiles continues to wait with stubborn obstinance, need overpowering logic. Just when he’s beginning to consider the merits of breaking in – an idiotic idea when Itachi may have set traps – he hears the telltale sound of wings beating. Russell. Sure enough, as he strains his ears to listen, a sharp tapping noise follows from the other side of the door. If the crow is present, then… A pale specter of hope buds prematurely in his chest.
When at last the door swings open, revealing the dark smear of Itachi’s ghostlike presence clinging to the shadows of the suite, no weight is relieved from his shoulders. The evidence of sleepless nights has bruised the delicate skin beneath flat black eyes, that beloved countenance bled dry of all color and waxy, almost translucent in appearance. Itachi looks deeply unwell. Though Stiles remains frozen where he stands, concern twists his gut in the bloated silence, stirring him awake from the icy waters under which he’s been dozing since arriving back on Noctium. It’s the painful slap of reality he’s been searching for. Not enough to break him from the depression that’s settled over him, but a promising start.
Wordlessly, he enters the apartment. Russell, despite her obvious excitement at seeing him again as her tail wags from side to side, seems to understand that now isn’t the time for reunion; the crow waddles alongside him for a few steps, head cocked so an intelligent, beady eye can watch Stiles, then laboriously launches herself into the air, flying to a kitchen counter where she may observe the proceedings. He barely notices. Instead of inspecting the apartment as he is often driven to do regardless of how many times he visits, Stiles enters the plain space and then pivots to stare at the other man. All his attention remains snagged helplessly on Itachi, lured by a powerful gravity he has no desire to deny. ]
I was sent back to Earth, [ he says quietly, voice hoarse with the heartache driving nails through his ribcage even now. ] It’s been three months for me.
[ And indeed, he will look different to Itachi, even if it’s a recent haircut that outwardly betrays him as having changed. The pair of jeans and dark green t-shirt he wears still fit him well, a gentle indication of how calm things have been in Beacon Hills. No monsters beside the ones creeping in his head. No new horrors except the ones he imagines up. Only purple smudges underlining a tired gaze belie the “peace” he’s been living with back home, the result of constant paranoia that’s had him harassing Lydia nearly every night to thoroughly investigate the town. He’d known it was only a matter of time. Self-fulfilling prophecy. ]
Itachi…
[ Stiles trails off, expression imploring. For what, he can’t say. Some kind of sign, maybe. Tangible proof to allay his fears. Permission to embrace the other man. Anything. Because his future hangs precariously in the balance, caught between two horizons where no one will remember him. Already everyone back “home” has forgotten Stiles. And whenever people eventually leave this dimension, they’ll inevitably forget him too. He doesn’t exist anymore. Anything he does on Noctium is transient, but it’s all he has now. This is his last chance. ]
I don’t wanna go back again.
[ The beginnings of tears choke the words thickly; they glitter angrily in his eyes, refusing to yet be shed. It isn’t easy to arrive at the conclusion he’s been circling since waking up in the Burnished Crater, never mind voice it aloud. A bitter truth that he’d been avoiding, at last dragged into the light. Beacon Hills isn’t home to Stiles. Not anymore. ]
[It is far from what he expected to hear as explanation for the disappearance, but after opening the door and finding Stiles there, it seems as though his mind has dropped off a cliff. Thought comes harder now, sluggish, predictions and projections meaningless in the face of this sudden new variable. It isn't like their past pattern; Stiles hasn't vanished to another dimension, he hasn't followed, Stiles has returned after a period of time has elapsed. Perhaps three months shouldn't feel so significant, but considering how much can change for their own circumstances in an equal length of time... he doesn't believe he is wrong to wonder.
No true physical differences are found after a quick once-over. By comparison, Itachi is glad for the darkness of the apartment's interior. He does not want to be seen under any scrutiny in this moment.
Quiet through the struggle of those words, he schools his own response masterfully as usual. His posture remains rigid; he offers nothing, no reassurance, his own self-protective guard in place by habit or choice or something else altogether. He does not say anything until that final, plaintive proclamation. Dark eyes have drifted south and linger at a chosen spot on the ground, and his voice is careful in its even volume, satisfied that it does not sound too thick or raspy from the blood in the back of his throat.]
You have no control over that.
[A fact made painfully concrete to him in the week he had spent alone in Sumarlok. The following question is more pointed and direct, targeting suspicions:]
[ A brittle, fragile silence serves as the only immediate answer to the question. Stiles is still, unnaturally so, the line of his shoulders increasingly stiff beneath the oppressive weight of his own grief. But it isn’t just the idea that he has no control over whether he stays or goes that threatens his psyche now – a fact he needed no cruel reminder of – it’s how Itachi is behaving. Like they’re back in Aefenglom, barely more than strangers occupying a similar orbit around Sasuke. There’s no warmth in those dark eyes that won’t meet his own. No hint of affection gently shaping the curve of a mouth. Their gemstones remain dull and inert, Synchrony dead between them. Something has changed. And Stiles is suddenly terrified of what that means for them.
He recognizes the warning signs. Months have passed since his last panic attack, but one creeps up on him on spidery legs now as his head spins and his vision tunnels. A ragged breath claws its way to freedom from his constricting chest, and then Stiles is turning away from Itachi, lurching weakly toward the apartment default furniture to collapse boneless onto the couch. There isn’t enough air in the room. There isn’t enough air in his lungs. He begins to hyperventilate, blurry sight set on the fingers held up in front of his face, trying to unsuccessfully count them. Once, he would have called upon the memory of Sasuke’s voice, guiding him through each breath with calm, level patience. But that memory is so faint now, trickling through his grasp like fine grains of sand. He can’t hold onto it. He can’t hold onto anything anymore.
In one last desperate attempt to retain some semblance of control, Stiles reaches out through Synchrony – the incorporeal touch light and hesitant, fear of rejection churning his stomach. ]
[It isn’t immediately clear to him what this is—he has only seen Stiles in a similar state once before, during their first reunion in Hell on the subject of losing Jonas. The assumption that Stiles has responded to his question of what happened? hangs at the forefront of his mind as probable and logically safe. Without the roadmap of Synchrony, without the Bond and after days sinking in the miasma of his own mind, it feels impossible to bridge the gap now with a correct guess. He has never known how to speak to others in moments of high emotion, not in any way that isn’t harmful. He cannot change himself well enough, it seems, to meet that need. He’s known for a long time that this immutable part of himself would hurt Stiles, probably over and over, so the agreement they’d entered into months ago would always stand at its heart an act of selfishness, intentionally blind and deliberately destructive. He had known even then that he was not someone meant for an intimate relationship by any interpretation of the word.
Aware enough to see within himself the true root of the problem: a dark and crystallized fear in the wake of realization that he had not properly acknowledged before Stiles’ disappearance. One that is multifaceted, that is not just loss but also the agony of solitude, a torture of feeling he had thought abandoned in his childhood home upon his parents’ corpses. He doesn’t want to lose Stiles. An emotion so strong within himself that, inevitably, it will fulfill its own prophecy, by his own nature or by the chaotic whims of dimensional displacement.
He has to make a decision, but he doesn’t want to make it yet. Even if the situations are direly opposed—he is not so egotistical he would weigh his own problems against Konoha and the clan by any equal comparison—the sensation is the same. It is the eve before the coup, and he has to commit.
Itachi moves forward, feeling the drag of Synchrony across his outside awareness, responding to it with muted lethargy, exhaustion filtered through the film of connection. Not cold or cruel, but not deep enough yet to show those truer emotions of fear and grief and uncertainty. He sets his hand on the back of the couch, eyes lowering to it in time to spot a smear of blood over knuckles from an earlier fit. For a moment, the illness that has plagued him all of this time makes perfect sense: it is his body attempting to purge some corruption, some internal darkness, an attempt to kill the worst parts of himself and bring death on faster as recompense. It seems so plainly obvious to him now.
The hand falls, hiding at his side. He doesn’t come nearer. His voice is a low and tentative murmur.]
Will you tell me what happened?
[Inaction. Tension continues to hang like a curse, so palpably present that his head begins to ache.]
[ When he was ten years old, Stiles lost his mother. In those bitter final days, she would hoarsely accuse him of trying to kill her while he watched in somber silence, small hand clinging to one pockmarked with IVs and wires. He never stopped loving Claudia Stilinski, even after the dementia turned her against him, even after she attacked him like something straight out of a nightmare. But that loss did irrevocably change Stiles. From it was born a need that borders on manic desperation: the need to keep his friends and family close, regardless of personal cost. They ultimately became his reason for living; Stiles would do anything, suffer any trial, to ensure their continued love.
So, the worst imaginable fate has naturally come to pass. Worse yet than a disease turning them all against him. Worse than bearing their hate and scorn. The Ghost Riders have erased their memories of Stiles, have wiped him clean from existence, have stolen him away where there’s no chance of trying to reconnect with the pack ever again. Just thinking about the blank lack of familiarity in his father’s eyes as the Sheriff awkwardly held him is enough to make nausea churn his stomach. “It’s okay, Stiles,” Noah had comforted him during Claudia’s funeral. “You’ve still got me.”
Now, he doesn’t. Now, Stiles has no one. No one, except Itachi. And Itachi –
Synchrony flutters between them as weakly as his mother’s pulse on her deathbed. Gut twisting itself into knots, he picks up his head to look at the other man in the dark room, this smudge of a shadow looming tall over him. Why are you doing this? he wants to demand. Why are you shutting me out? Now, of all times, when I need you most?
“You have no control over that.”
He feels violently ill. As a cold sweat breaks out across clammy skin, he struggles to normalize rapid breathing. The world tips sideways, threatening to take him with it. Through sheer force of stubborn will, Stiles remains seated upright. But he withdraws from Synchrony, finding only a single reason why Itachi would be holding him at arm’s length: The man, obviously already deeply fatigued, has no interest in being further burdened with Stiles’ frantic, unrestrained emotions. Shame chokes him. Words are impossible for a time. Squeezing brown eyes shut, he counts to ten over and over, mortified at the hot streak of tears spilling down his face. He’s moved on, whispers an insidious voice. No one needs you anymore. Maybe it’d just be better if you died. ]
I d-don’t exist anymore, [ he manages through the clatter of teeth, countenance screwed up through the rough sobs that break free with every labored inhale. ] The Ghost Riders…that’s wh-what they do. Th-they erase you…from existence. Everyone forgot ab-about me. D-dad…Scott… Everyone. There’s n-nothing for me back there.
[ And it’s beginning to feel like there’s nothing for him here on Noctium either. Not without Itachi. ]
[Grief only climbs to a new height when he sees the effect of his own inability to respond, Synchrony severed, Stiles succumbed to sobs. He pictures what he wishes to do—how badly he would like to circle the couch, to sink down, to draw Stiles against him. He would say, "That isn't true" or "That doesn't matter." He would soothe that great depth of hurt and sorrow, shelter him with promises of a life in this dimension, a bubble outside the excruciating reality of their own respective worlds. The 'Ghost Riders', whatever they might be, are meaningless here on the planet of Noctium. Their magic cannot touch anything. Surely while they are in this place, they should make the most of the escape for as long as it lasts and think nothing of the harsh truths they will one day need to face.
But Itachi cannot act according to his own wants, not again. He must call upon the ugly strength of his past identity. Doing otherwise has only doomed them to more agony, more uncertainty than they had from the start. If the cold clarity of that last week has taught him anything, it is that he should have either remained in Aefenglom alone to continue his work in aid of that land, or he should have returned to death. For several moments he says nothing. Then that low voice comes, solidifying resolve. He had once watched his younger brother come apart at the seams, over and over, beneath the hand of his cruelty. Perhaps this is the same. Hurting himself by hurting others is the curse he lives to repeat.]
[ The panic attack has yet to subside. Caught in that powerful undertow, it requires all his meager focus to keep from drowning in the swell of pained anguish rising to greet him. Each breath hurts, chest aching from the force of his sobs and the lack of oxygen in straining lungs. Stiles clutches the arm of the couch with a bloodless grip, using it to prop his weight up when it feels as if his core cannot. Leaning there heavily, he gazes frantically at the splayed fingers of his hand, counting them one after the other. It’s not working. Each wet gasp brings him closer to the edge of passing out. His hysteria is becoming too unwieldy, driven to an extreme by the sense of hopelessness beating at his breast.
Distracted as he is, the question doesn’t immediately register. When it does, something cold lodges in his throat – the thorny stem of a wilted rose, frozen over in a winter too harsh for survival. Maybe it was never meant to, he thinks absently. Planting it in the first place was stupid, a half-baked idea doomed from the start. Did he not care well enough for it? Or perhaps the problem was that he showered it with too much attention, killing it with kindness. Regardless of the hows, Stiles thinks he can taste the end result in the back of his mouth. ]
Why…why is that wh-what you’re asking me? [ But the pleading tremor in his voice betrays the answer, guilt clear as day in the miserable expression contorting his face. ] I-Itachi, don’t.
[The situation may not be parallel, for what he did to his younger brother was lifetimes worse—and yet the sight of Stiles doubled into his own agony, physically overwhelmed, gasping wet through every heave of breath with one hand gripping the couch like a white mangled root, is all the same. He may as well have found the raw emotional wound and stabbed in the blade himself. It's all the same. In light of Stiles' confession, this is cruel timing. He knows that, but perhaps it stands as more reason to do it now. If he waits, he will lose the last shred of courage he possesses, and this will be infinitely more difficult later, suffering the result of indecision and passivity.
It's better if Stiles learns that he is cruel. That this is the man who slaughtered his entire clan, mothers and fathers and sons and daughters. That tormented his younger brother his entire life and warped him into a weapon of his own penitence and self-hatred. That tortured and killed countless others, that aided terrorists. He's never deserved anything else but death and pain. Kindness is another language, another world, one he wasn't born to live in. He can operate more naturally—more powerfully—against the fire of hatred.]
This was a mistake.
[The words are cold steel, and as he steps away from the couch he makes a point to keep his face away, to hide the brief flicker of regret, the fissures no doubt drawn to the surface after so many months of feeling again. He knows it'll pass.]
I'm sorry. [Quieter but losing nothing of that severity, that iron firmness.] I'd prefer to be alone. Perhaps we should not see each other for a while.
[ He knows it’s coming. Foreknowing, however, doesn’t even begin to adequately prepare him for the steel with which Itachi ruthlessly severs his last hope. Stiles flinches back as if struck, a crack in the blinds allowing a sliver of sunlight to knife through the room and highlight wide, red-rimmed eyes, dark lashes damp from crying. Dull shock has frozen his heart, pressure steadily building there until the overworked organ feels ready to burst from paroxysm. Were he in a better place mentally, Stiles would challenge the casual callousness that Itachi dons now like armor, would accurately recognize it as an obvious sign of what he predicted during a conversation weeks ago. “I must be cruel only to be kind,” he could recite. “Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.”
Stiles does not call out Itachi. He says nothing. Instead, eerily weightless as if his bones have all been hollowed out, the teen unsteadily stands and makes his way to the door. The sound of Russell’s shrieking cries falls on deaf ears; he exits the apartment quietly, door clicking shut with finality behind him. It isn’t until he’s reached the flight of stairs that Stiles is at last ill, his stomach heaving to empty itself in defiance over the landing. Gasping for air, he wipes bile from his mouth with the back of a hand and slowly descends to the first floor. The trek to the house is awful, with Stiles sick two more times – much to the disgust of nearby onlookers, who suspect the involvement of alcohol. After the third instance, he pauses while leaning against the side of a building, the bricks cool against his forehead. His hand fingers the folding knife tucked away within a pocket, turning the weapon over and over consideringly.
But it does not see use that day. Withdrawing the hand, he pushes himself along using the building for support. And when he reaches the house, he collapses on the bathroom tiles to weather the rest of his panic attack in lonely peace.
Only hours later does he realize that he never even asked about Sophia. ]
[After Stiles has left the building silently—uncharacteristically, a sign that something is very wrong yet not one he can follow when he is the cause—Itachi remains in the dark space like a pillar carved of icy stone, surroundings unseen, unfelt. It isn't until Russell leaps onto his shoulder, her significant weight burdensome, that he realizes his face is wet. A hand lifts to wipe the dampness from both cheeks with brusque swipes. His expression is unchanging except for the seemingly limitless flow of tears. Then it cracks, and he grimaces, waving Russell away, stumbling for the bathroom as a tickle in his chest thickens and erupts into coughing, sink soon splattered with fresh gore.
Hours later, a clone drops down onto the front terrace of Stiles' house and tucks a folded note into the seal of the door, its language universally translated. It leaves without a trace. Inside are instructions on Sophia's whereabouts: the teahouse in the Emerald District run by kindly Fern and Paprika, where Stiles will find his puppy happy, healthy, and well cared for in his absence.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fwd dated to 06/27
Stiles has reached no conclusion by the time the shuttle lands. Expression carved from stone, he exits with the crowd but leaves the other Gembonded behind as they’re guided toward the Embassy for processing. Walking along the sidewalk to the Emerald District, summer sun flaying him alive in his long-sleeve flannel and dark pants, he stumbles under a nauseating surge of déjà vu. Like simultaneously months have passed versus only a day since he last traveled these streets. That sticky, unpleasant sensation clinging to his awareness only intensifies on his way to the house. When he eventually arrives, it’s to the sight of withering plants that have baked beneath the humid heatwave without regular watering. The house itself is empty, a thin layer of dust just beginning to visibly collect on shelves. Sophia’s dishes and lead are both missing, the first cause of relief for Stiles; he’d worried how she had fared during his absence.
Movements mechanical, he changes into clothes more appropriate for the season and collects his phone from where he last left it: charging on the nightstand beside the bed. There’s no sign of the Akatsuki ring. It pains him to think that it might have disappeared between dimensions, but the pressure to meet with Itachi as soon as possible keeps him from mourning the loss. He lingers just long enough at the house to notice the black scorch marks that have dug trenches in the backyard garden. Curiosity sealed behind a wall of cold, haunted misery, he doesn’t investigate.
There’s no text sent ahead to let Itachi know he’s coming. No touch of long-distance Synchrony to warn the shinobi that he’s returned. He hangs on the precarious edge of a breakdown, thoughts scattered like a whiteout blanket of snow across the landscape. Nothing feels real anymore. Nothing, except the hot torrent of instinct driving him with increasing pace toward a single man – a man he forgot existed while back in Beacon Hills. Stiles needs to see Itachi, face to face, immediately. He needs to confirm that their relationship wasn’t some misguided delusion he dreamt up, that the time they spent together happened in spite of his conflicting memories.
When he next surfaces from his thoughts, Stiles finds himself standing in front of the door to Itachi’s apartment, fist raised as if to knock. A moment of hesitation locks his limbs in place, freezing him. What if he really did fantasize the whole thing? What if the man has already moved on? What about Lydia? “Remember that I love you,” he’d told her seconds before the Ghost Riders had abducted him. How can he possibly look Itachi in the eyes again after betraying their relationship, intentionally or not? And isn’t this itself a betrayal to Lydia?
A shudder winds down his spine. Stiles knocks. ]
no subject
What would he prefer?
The knock comes as a surprise, so that Itachi goes still in the threshold of the bathroom, counter streaked in blood from another coughing fit. He stares hard at the door—his mind turns, struggling to make a decision, reluctant to. He is halfway committed to the judgment that he will ignore it when Russell swoops over, pecking determinedly at wood, scraping floorboards with impatient talons. So he wipes off the counter with a towel, tosses it bloody into the laundry bin, runs the sink, closes the bathroom door, and walks over.
Nearly five minutes since the knock had first elapsed, he opens the door. Black eyes widen—a flicker of vivid shock—then narrow onto the boy, expression shut up like a tomb as he steps aside to allow entrance.
Never has either of them left and come back. Too exhausted, too sunk behind the shutters of himself after a week alone in his own mind, day-to-day normalcy uprooted as he always knew it would be and now sensing something different, he does not speak first. Stiles will find the interior of the apartment as bland and undecorated as ever, shadowed, sepulchered, curtains drawn to blot out the summer daylight.]
no subject
When at last the door swings open, revealing the dark smear of Itachi’s ghostlike presence clinging to the shadows of the suite, no weight is relieved from his shoulders. The evidence of sleepless nights has bruised the delicate skin beneath flat black eyes, that beloved countenance bled dry of all color and waxy, almost translucent in appearance. Itachi looks deeply unwell. Though Stiles remains frozen where he stands, concern twists his gut in the bloated silence, stirring him awake from the icy waters under which he’s been dozing since arriving back on Noctium. It’s the painful slap of reality he’s been searching for. Not enough to break him from the depression that’s settled over him, but a promising start.
Wordlessly, he enters the apartment. Russell, despite her obvious excitement at seeing him again as her tail wags from side to side, seems to understand that now isn’t the time for reunion; the crow waddles alongside him for a few steps, head cocked so an intelligent, beady eye can watch Stiles, then laboriously launches herself into the air, flying to a kitchen counter where she may observe the proceedings. He barely notices. Instead of inspecting the apartment as he is often driven to do regardless of how many times he visits, Stiles enters the plain space and then pivots to stare at the other man. All his attention remains snagged helplessly on Itachi, lured by a powerful gravity he has no desire to deny. ]
I was sent back to Earth, [ he says quietly, voice hoarse with the heartache driving nails through his ribcage even now. ] It’s been three months for me.
[ And indeed, he will look different to Itachi, even if it’s a recent haircut that outwardly betrays him as having changed. The pair of jeans and dark green t-shirt he wears still fit him well, a gentle indication of how calm things have been in Beacon Hills. No monsters beside the ones creeping in his head. No new horrors except the ones he imagines up. Only purple smudges underlining a tired gaze belie the “peace” he’s been living with back home, the result of constant paranoia that’s had him harassing Lydia nearly every night to thoroughly investigate the town. He’d known it was only a matter of time. Self-fulfilling prophecy. ]
Itachi…
[ Stiles trails off, expression imploring. For what, he can’t say. Some kind of sign, maybe. Tangible proof to allay his fears. Permission to embrace the other man. Anything. Because his future hangs precariously in the balance, caught between two horizons where no one will remember him. Already everyone back “home” has forgotten Stiles. And whenever people eventually leave this dimension, they’ll inevitably forget him too. He doesn’t exist anymore. Anything he does on Noctium is transient, but it’s all he has now. This is his last chance. ]
I don’t wanna go back again.
[ The beginnings of tears choke the words thickly; they glitter angrily in his eyes, refusing to yet be shed. It isn’t easy to arrive at the conclusion he’s been circling since waking up in the Burnished Crater, never mind voice it aloud. A bitter truth that he’d been avoiding, at last dragged into the light. Beacon Hills isn’t home to Stiles. Not anymore. ]
I want to stay here. With you.
no subject
No true physical differences are found after a quick once-over. By comparison, Itachi is glad for the darkness of the apartment's interior. He does not want to be seen under any scrutiny in this moment.
Quiet through the struggle of those words, he schools his own response masterfully as usual. His posture remains rigid; he offers nothing, no reassurance, his own self-protective guard in place by habit or choice or something else altogether. He does not say anything until that final, plaintive proclamation. Dark eyes have drifted south and linger at a chosen spot on the ground, and his voice is careful in its even volume, satisfied that it does not sound too thick or raspy from the blood in the back of his throat.]
You have no control over that.
[A fact made painfully concrete to him in the week he had spent alone in Sumarlok. The following question is more pointed and direct, targeting suspicions:]
What happened?
no subject
He recognizes the warning signs. Months have passed since his last panic attack, but one creeps up on him on spidery legs now as his head spins and his vision tunnels. A ragged breath claws its way to freedom from his constricting chest, and then Stiles is turning away from Itachi, lurching weakly toward the apartment default furniture to collapse boneless onto the couch. There isn’t enough air in the room. There isn’t enough air in his lungs. He begins to hyperventilate, blurry sight set on the fingers held up in front of his face, trying to unsuccessfully count them. Once, he would have called upon the memory of Sasuke’s voice, guiding him through each breath with calm, level patience. But that memory is so faint now, trickling through his grasp like fine grains of sand. He can’t hold onto it. He can’t hold onto anything anymore.
In one last desperate attempt to retain some semblance of control, Stiles reaches out through Synchrony – the incorporeal touch light and hesitant, fear of rejection churning his stomach. ]
no subject
Aware enough to see within himself the true root of the problem: a dark and crystallized fear in the wake of realization that he had not properly acknowledged before Stiles’ disappearance. One that is multifaceted, that is not just loss but also the agony of solitude, a torture of feeling he had thought abandoned in his childhood home upon his parents’ corpses. He doesn’t want to lose Stiles. An emotion so strong within himself that, inevitably, it will fulfill its own prophecy, by his own nature or by the chaotic whims of dimensional displacement.
He has to make a decision, but he doesn’t want to make it yet. Even if the situations are direly opposed—he is not so egotistical he would weigh his own problems against Konoha and the clan by any equal comparison—the sensation is the same. It is the eve before the coup, and he has to commit.
Itachi moves forward, feeling the drag of Synchrony across his outside awareness, responding to it with muted lethargy, exhaustion filtered through the film of connection. Not cold or cruel, but not deep enough yet to show those truer emotions of fear and grief and uncertainty. He sets his hand on the back of the couch, eyes lowering to it in time to spot a smear of blood over knuckles from an earlier fit. For a moment, the illness that has plagued him all of this time makes perfect sense: it is his body attempting to purge some corruption, some internal darkness, an attempt to kill the worst parts of himself and bring death on faster as recompense. It seems so plainly obvious to him now.
The hand falls, hiding at his side. He doesn’t come nearer. His voice is a low and tentative murmur.]
Will you tell me what happened?
[Inaction. Tension continues to hang like a curse, so palpably present that his head begins to ache.]
cw: suicidal ideation
So, the worst imaginable fate has naturally come to pass. Worse yet than a disease turning them all against him. Worse than bearing their hate and scorn. The Ghost Riders have erased their memories of Stiles, have wiped him clean from existence, have stolen him away where there’s no chance of trying to reconnect with the pack ever again. Just thinking about the blank lack of familiarity in his father’s eyes as the Sheriff awkwardly held him is enough to make nausea churn his stomach. “It’s okay, Stiles,” Noah had comforted him during Claudia’s funeral. “You’ve still got me.”
Now, he doesn’t. Now, Stiles has no one. No one, except Itachi. And Itachi –
Synchrony flutters between them as weakly as his mother’s pulse on her deathbed. Gut twisting itself into knots, he picks up his head to look at the other man in the dark room, this smudge of a shadow looming tall over him. Why are you doing this? he wants to demand. Why are you shutting me out? Now, of all times, when I need you most?
“You have no control over that.”
He feels violently ill. As a cold sweat breaks out across clammy skin, he struggles to normalize rapid breathing. The world tips sideways, threatening to take him with it. Through sheer force of stubborn will, Stiles remains seated upright. But he withdraws from Synchrony, finding only a single reason why Itachi would be holding him at arm’s length: The man, obviously already deeply fatigued, has no interest in being further burdened with Stiles’ frantic, unrestrained emotions. Shame chokes him. Words are impossible for a time. Squeezing brown eyes shut, he counts to ten over and over, mortified at the hot streak of tears spilling down his face. He’s moved on, whispers an insidious voice. No one needs you anymore. Maybe it’d just be better if you died. ]
I d-don’t exist anymore, [ he manages through the clatter of teeth, countenance screwed up through the rough sobs that break free with every labored inhale. ] The Ghost Riders…that’s wh-what they do. Th-they erase you…from existence. Everyone forgot ab-about me. D-dad…Scott… Everyone. There’s n-nothing for me back there.
[ And it’s beginning to feel like there’s nothing for him here on Noctium either. Not without Itachi. ]
no subject
But Itachi cannot act according to his own wants, not again. He must call upon the ugly strength of his past identity. Doing otherwise has only doomed them to more agony, more uncertainty than they had from the start. If the cold clarity of that last week has taught him anything, it is that he should have either remained in Aefenglom alone to continue his work in aid of that land, or he should have returned to death. For several moments he says nothing. Then that low voice comes, solidifying resolve. He had once watched his younger brother come apart at the seams, over and over, beneath the hand of his cruelty. Perhaps this is the same. Hurting himself by hurting others is the curse he lives to repeat.]
Did you remember me?
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Distracted as he is, the question doesn’t immediately register. When it does, something cold lodges in his throat – the thorny stem of a wilted rose, frozen over in a winter too harsh for survival. Maybe it was never meant to, he thinks absently. Planting it in the first place was stupid, a half-baked idea doomed from the start. Did he not care well enough for it? Or perhaps the problem was that he showered it with too much attention, killing it with kindness. Regardless of the hows, Stiles thinks he can taste the end result in the back of his mouth. ]
Why…why is that wh-what you’re asking me? [ But the pleading tremor in his voice betrays the answer, guilt clear as day in the miserable expression contorting his face. ] I-Itachi, don’t.
cw: me hating itachi uchiha
It's better if Stiles learns that he is cruel. That this is the man who slaughtered his entire clan, mothers and fathers and sons and daughters. That tormented his younger brother his entire life and warped him into a weapon of his own penitence and self-hatred. That tortured and killed countless others, that aided terrorists. He's never deserved anything else but death and pain. Kindness is another language, another world, one he wasn't born to live in. He can operate more naturally—more powerfully—against the fire of hatred.]
This was a mistake.
[The words are cold steel, and as he steps away from the couch he makes a point to keep his face away, to hide the brief flicker of regret, the fissures no doubt drawn to the surface after so many months of feeling again. He knows it'll pass.]
I'm sorry. [Quieter but losing nothing of that severity, that iron firmness.] I'd prefer to be alone. Perhaps we should not see each other for a while.
cw: me loving itachi uchiha
Stiles does not call out Itachi. He says nothing. Instead, eerily weightless as if his bones have all been hollowed out, the teen unsteadily stands and makes his way to the door. The sound of Russell’s shrieking cries falls on deaf ears; he exits the apartment quietly, door clicking shut with finality behind him. It isn’t until he’s reached the flight of stairs that Stiles is at last ill, his stomach heaving to empty itself in defiance over the landing. Gasping for air, he wipes bile from his mouth with the back of a hand and slowly descends to the first floor. The trek to the house is awful, with Stiles sick two more times – much to the disgust of nearby onlookers, who suspect the involvement of alcohol. After the third instance, he pauses while leaning against the side of a building, the bricks cool against his forehead. His hand fingers the folding knife tucked away within a pocket, turning the weapon over and over consideringly.
But it does not see use that day. Withdrawing the hand, he pushes himself along using the building for support. And when he reaches the house, he collapses on the bathroom tiles to weather the rest of his panic attack in lonely peace.
Only hours later does he realize that he never even asked about Sophia. ]
no subject
Hours later, a clone drops down onto the front terrace of Stiles' house and tucks a folded note into the seal of the door, its language universally translated. It leaves without a trace. Inside are instructions on Sophia's whereabouts: the teahouse in the Emerald District run by kindly Fern and Paprika, where Stiles will find his puppy happy, healthy, and well cared for in his absence.]