Help, I'm Alive

By: RavenHeart101

Disclaimer: No, I do not own Teen Wolf. Or, ya know, shit would happen. The title belongs to the song "Help, I'm Alive" by Metric.

Summary: "I lied to you. I'm in some bad shit, Dad. And I'm scared." An accident causes Stiles to take a step back from the things that go bump in the night. The accident also wakes something inside of him, and while the werewolves scramble to figure out who attacked him, he starts dreaming of people long dead. Okay is relative, and normal is simply a state of mind.

Warnings: Maybe pre-slash? Uh, pre-like every pairing probably. Trigger warning for depression, and anxiety and car accidents and some other stuff that comes with that. Swearing, violence, and the tendency to possibly get things wrong.

A: N – Explanation as to why I haven't updated in forever – Work. Work. And more work. School. School. And more school. Also original story. That's all my life is now.

Stiles was tired.

Beyond tired, actually.

Exhausted.

Zombie like.

Off his meds.

None of those were a good combination but he would deal with them when he wasn't staring into the blank space of nowhere. His hands shook like crazy, and he could feel himself falling. Falling from where he wasn't exactly sure, but he was falling anyway. His feet didn't feel rooted to the ground, his mind didn't feel slow and deliberate. He had so many… theories, ideas, thoughts that were racing through his mind and Stiles didn't know which ones to pay attention to.

My baby's dead.

The little girl.

Allison was quiet when she visited.

The gown itches.

The necklace.

Mom.

Dad.

Mrs. McCall.

The Hale house. That was the one he had dreamed about, right?

He frowned. Had he dreamed about the Hale house? Did that even make sense? Why would Stiles dream about the Hale house? Why would he even dream about the Hales? As far as Stiles knew, the Hales were nothing to him. Never were until he had met Derek. He had heard about them, sure. Who hadn't? They had been in Beacon Hills for years.

But… there was something else there. Something that he just couldn't reach.

Stiles glared at nothing in particular and turned away from the wall, his teeth gnawing at the only nail he could reach. He was tired of the hospital.

He was never fond of them to begin with, but now Stiles wanted nothing more than to go home and sit in his bedroom. He missed his computer. He missed his books. He mixed the organized chaos that was his and that stood for his mind because it was a lot easier to deal with all these thoughts when he had a computer open in front of him and when it was all laid out on his desk for him to see. No one seemed to understand that. Or embrace that. Scott had known him long enough to see it, to sometimes hand him a notebook and tell him to go crazy.

Sometimes, Stiles learned, the only way he could deal with it all, was to find a way to shut his brain off. He would draw a circle over and over again and keep going even when the pencil bled through the page onto all of the others. Until the pencil ripped one page and then another page like he was tearing into each and every thought that popped into his mind.

He chewed on his nail – already bitten down to the core and each tiny nibble sent a shock of pain through his finger. He should stop, he knew. Stiles was aware that if he were to bite the nail any farther it would possibly start gushing blood and the nurses would think that he was committing some form of self-harm when he wasn't. Or, rather, he was… he just didn't know how to stop doing it when he didn't have his notebook in front of him or something.

A small tap on his shoulder startled him and Stiles jumped.

A giggle sounded behind him and Stiles felt his skin crawl.

Slowly, he turned, spinning on his toes so that he was facing the empty second bed in the room. A little girl – the one from his dream – sat there, her legs hanging off the bed and swinging back and forth. This time there was a glint in his eye that scared him. Unsettled him. Knocked him off balance.

Not that Stiles wasn't already off balance as was.

Without thinking Stiles reached up an unsteady hand to grab at the pendant that was heavy around his neck. The wolf.

That was symbolic somehow, he was sure.

"Mother Goose sat on a moose." She chanted joyfully.

"What?" His brain was having trouble sticking on her. Not floating to the sheets on the bed and how they were steadily being covered in something black.

"Moose found a noose."

"Who are you?" The window was shaking.

"The noose wouldn't get loose."

"Why are you here?" Something smelled like it was burning.

With horror Stiles realized it was her skin he was smelling.

"So the noose hung the moose and Mother Goose was to blame."

She looked at him as though he were to understand what she was saying.

In a faraway recess of his mind, Stiles thought that maybe he did. She was butchering a nursery rhyme. He shouldn't be focusing on that.

And then the sheets around her burst into flame. She opened her mouth and let out a loud scream. Her voice vibrated in his ears and, before he knew what was happening, he dropped to the ground, hands covering his ears and a scream pulling from his own mouth. The hands didn't stop the screaming though. He could still hear it. Still feel it in his mind.

Mrs. McCall had come running in, grasping at his hands and trying to pull it away from his ears.

He didn't stop until they gave him a sedative.

Scott was aware that something was happening that he couldn't hope to control.

He was also aware that his best friend was quite possibly losing his mind. Scott frowned and leaned back against the chair he sat on, Stiles passed out on the bed next to him. His friend looked both older and younger, it seemed. A mix of both. And Scott hated, more than anything, that he couldn't protect him from whatever was going on inside his head. He wished Stiles would tell him, but Stiles seemed intent on ignoring every detail of what it could mean. Not that Scott blamed him for that. No, Scott understood that. He didn't, however, understand why Stiles didn't want anything to do with… well with anything.

Scott had had the feeling before too. He had wanted to stop being Scott the werewolf and go back to being Scott the average teenage boy who had a ridiculous case of asthma. But then Stiles had helped him figure out that that wasn't going to happen. And Stiles had been there for him when he had broken down because that was all that he wanted to happen.

Only now Stiles was the one that wanted to ignore all of the crazy and weird goings on in their small town. Stiles who used to go searching for these things.

Scott just didn't get it.

"Maybe you think too loud for him." Isaac said softly from his spot in the corner. Scott rolled his eyes at the taller boy and huffed, leaning forward again to study his friend's worn out face. Isaac was the beta that was there that night. The night before it had been Erica, sitting beside Stiles after the staff had cleared out with Batman comic books to keep the two of them company. Scott had it on good authority (aka, his mother) that Stiles had barely slept a wink that night and Erica had helped more than harmed. Scott would have asked Derek why they were keeping an eye on Stiles if he wasn't sure that he already knew why.

Stiles was, as hard as it was for any of them to admit, pack. And they would protect pack. Whether the pack member wanted it or not. Or, at least, that seemed to be Derek's motto.

"Seriously, you're thinking so loud I think the people in Washington can hear you." Isaac said again. Scott was pretty sure Isaac just didn't like the silence. Or hospitals.

"He saw something," Scott said quietly. "I know it."

Stiles' hand was clenched around a chain, but Scott couldn't see what was inside of it. The chain had been there every time Scott had seen him, and he had tried to ask him about it but Stiles had changed the topic before he could get an answer.

"Like whoever attacked him?"

"Maybe." But Scott didn't think it was that. He was pretty sure Stiles didn't know who attacked him. His heart beat hadn't sped up when he had been talking to the police about what happened. It hadn't stayed calm but it hadn't spiked like it tended to do when someone lied. And Scott was pretty sure he knew when Stiles was lying anyway. And why would he lie if he wanted nothing to do with what was going on? He could tell the police the truth just like every other victim of the supernatural attacks in the town and it would be added to the crazy accounts of happenings in Beacon Hills.

The fact that Stiles didn't wasn't what worried him.

No it was the fact that Stiles seemed to want to say more but didn't. Almost as though he was distracted for it. Scott knew he wasn't on his meds, but he also knew that Stiles wouldn't be allowed to be distracted from something like this. His mind would keep running in circles and circles until he had to focus on it.

Sometimes it was terrifying to even understand half of what happened in his friend's brain.

"Or maybe he saw something else." Isaac said softly and walked to the other side of the bed.

Scott looked up at him, confused as to what he was looking at. Isaac leaned down slowly, his fingertips brushing against the empty bed next in the room. When he pulled them away he held them up to his nose, smelling whatever he had picked up with him. Scott stood up when Isaac looked at him, his eyes wide in alarm.

"It's blood." He rushed to his side, grabbing his hand and peering at the small, almost invisible, drop of blood on the bed frame. He kneeled down to look it over more closely.

"Do you know whose?" Isaac didn't answer. "Isaac?" When Scott looked up Isaac was no longer there. In his place stood a tall man, his hair graying and his face covered in lines and scars. He had a sneer on his face – a familiar one that Scott couldn't place. It was his mouth that really drew Scott to him though. His lips were pale and they had a line drawn through them down to his chin. A scar. And his lips were moving. Forming words.

But no sound was coming out.

"I-Where's Isaac?" But the man didn't answer.

Instead he raised a weathered hand and pointed it to Stiles, curled on the bed with an almost pained look on his face.

Scott's heart panged against his ribs painfully fast.

He looked back up at the man, hoping beyond hope for an explanation of some kind. Or Isaac. Oh God where was Isaac?

GO. The man's lips formed clearly but Scott wasn't going to go. He wasn't going to leave. Not when Stiles was in here all by himself.

He sprung himself forward.

"Scott?" Isaac asked cautiously but Scott didn't turn around.

He was too scared to turn around.

It may be Isaac behind him, but there was another presence there too. One he didn't want to mess with. Or see again.

"Did you hear a thing I said?"

"No." He whispered, sitting close to Stiles on top of the bed sheets. He was scared to touch him. He wasn't sure why. Maybe because it seemed as though the being, whatever it was, that was in the room with them seemed to want to keep Scott as far away from Stiles as he could.

"The blood, Scott." Isaac walked into his eye line. "It's his."

"Who's?"

"Derek's."

"You wanted to see me, Melissa?" The Sheriff asked stiffly, his voice gruff and tired from lack of use. Or overuse. He wasn't sure. He had to do most of the talking during his stays with Stiles – his son's silence unnerving rather than welcoming.

Melissa McCall looked up at him as he walked into her kitchen, her apron on over her scrubs. She sighed and nodded, gesturing towards the table. "I think I might know who hit Stiles' Jeep."

The statement was so sudden that the Sheriff dropped into the offered seat with no needed pressuring. She smiled a slim smile at him and placed a glass of whiskey on the wooden table.

He took a large swing.

"You're going to need to save some of that." She poured some more into his glass before pouring one for herself. She dropped down across from him.

"Who did this, Melissa?" He had known the woman for much of his widowed life, and he had come to trust her, not only with his own life but with his son's. She was a mother, a second mother to Stiles, and Scott was like a second son to his. It would have been odd to most people, after all their kids had only known each other for six years, but they were still inseparable from the moment they met.

"Do you know the Argents?" She asked bluntly.

"How could I forget them?" He took a small sip, the alcohol burning his throat. "They show up in town and everything starts going bat shit crazy."

"They have some guests here this week. I don't know who they are. But one of them came into the ER last night with a really nasty head bump."

"You're thinking they got it from a car wreck?"

"No, I know they got it from a car wreck."

"How do you know?"

"They told me."

He leaned closer. "They told you what, Melissa?"

"That they were in a car wreck." She took a long swing. "That they caused the car wreck." She coughed. "That they were aiming to kill whoever was in the car wreck with them."

Allison's back hurt from where she had it pressed against the wall of her closet. She gripped her knife close to her chest, her heart pounding against her ribs. "Don't break anything." Came the hissed orders.

They didn't know she was there. That was good. That was better than good. That was lucky.

If they knew she was there she was sure that they would have killed her by now.

In her room were two men, one big and bulky and the other bigger and bulkier, and a woman, slender legs and pale hair, but a strong body. Allison knew better than to ever underestimate a woman. They weren't Argents, but they had been invited into her family's home. She wasn't sure why, and her father didn't look happy to see them. Now that Allison thought about it, she wasn't even sure if invited was the right word for them.

They sort of forced their way in.

"She'll know we were in here." Bigger and bulkier said.

"It doesn't matter." The woman snapped. "She's going to know we were here regardless."

Big and bulky made a noise that sounded almost guttural. "The girl isn't dumb," He agreed. "But she sure isn't smart, either."

The woman laughed, high and shrill. "Those wolves won't know what hit them." She rubbed her nails over Allison's bed spread. "Really, what kind of wolves are they if they adopt humans into their pack?" When she picked them up again Allison could swear she saw her eyes glow. Not yellow or golden or even blue. But purple. Allison wasn't an expert yet but she was pretty sure eyes, even those of werewolves, weren't supposed to glow purple. "We'll get them to attack us first."

By attacking Stiles? That didn't make any sense.

"Drive the boy insane," Bigger and bulkier agreed. "And he'll off himself."

"And the little wolves will be so taken with grief that they won't even notice when they've overstepped the treaty."

She probably wasn't supposed to hear that.

But Allison sure was happy she had thought ahead to keep her phone on record just in case.

Stiles screamed, his back arching off the bed and as white hot pain shot through his body. They were screaming in his mind too, screaming and clawing and begging for a way out. Reaching their dirty hands through the bars of their cage and Stiles screamed with them. They clawed at his skin and tore at his very being.

Hands were on his shoulders, pressing him down and he fought them back with as much strength as he had. He screamed for anyone. For his mother. For his father. Scott. Isaac. Allison. Lydia. Erica. Derek. Boyd. Even fucking Peter.

But no one came.

Until someone did.

Their voice a gentle breeze against his ear. A cooling hand on his forehead to brush the fear away.

When he opened his eyes he was surprised who was there. Surprised by the hand belonging to Lydia of all people. Her eyes were rimmed red and her hair was a mess and she was biting on her lower lip.

"Stiles?" She said in a soft voice.

He didn't answer, breathing heavily in his lungs and opening his eyes only to see the little girl standing in the doorway.

He yelped and jumped back so that he was sitting up, curling closer to Lydia as much as he could manage on the small bed. "Stiles?!" Her voice broke with her panic. "Stiles what is it?"

"The-The girl." He managed to get out, his hand shaking in front of him as he pointed towards the doorway.

"There's no one there, Stiles." Lydia said frantically. "There's no one there."