Fandom: Teen Wolf
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 680
Pairing: Scott/Stiles bromance... possibly more
Warning: Reference to pre-series, canon character death, Depression

January 26, 2013: I had a really rough night, tonight. Massive stress galore. I took it out on Stiles. Sorry, Stiles! I'll make it better for you, soon? -.-;;;

One Day More
by Renee-chan

Time is fluid. Ever-changing, it slips through one's fingers as though no attempt had been made to grasp it. Insubstantial, it makes a mockery of any attempt at control, laughs silently from the corners of rooms, the shadowy depths of hallways. It slides away from any attempt to pin it down, ethereal as a puff of air on a silent winter day.

Time has slipped away from him one time too many this year. This time, though… this time was different. When it went, it dragged the ground out from beneath him, nearly dragged him along, too, caught in the undertow with barely a chance to take a breath.

"You killed your mother… and now you're killing me."

As easily as that, he's eight years old, again - eight years old, clinging to the banister, as an endless stream of black-clad people filter through the front door. He's lost time - he can feel it slipping away from him in that dark stream of faceless people. The moments blur together and he can't hold a single one of them. The kind old man who stopped to pat him on the shoulder. The baby who started crying in the dull silence of conversational lull. The pale, shaken man who'd once held him close and told him that everything would be all right.

Scott had found him hours later, long past both their bedtimes. Scott's mother had stayed behind to wipe away the destruction the dark river of grief had left in its wake. She did her best to scrub the house free of it, but he could see it, lingering in those same corners, those same shadowed hallways. Her meager light wasn't enough to banish it, wasn't even enough to beat it back for a while.

His father had found comfort in a whiskey bottle, drowning his sorrows as though he could drown himself… and Stiles only wished he could drown with him.

Scott's warm weight at his back, leaning into him as he peered through the banister, was all that kept him from being dragged under that day. Scott's warm hand on his, his eyes bright with tears that Stiles couldn't - that Stiles wouldn't shed. Scott became his heart that day.

And now, eight years later, here he was, again, hiding behind the columns from his father's whiskey-fueled wrath, too hollowed out to cry, too dead inside to even say a word in his own defense. Time had stolen his voice, stolen the words he needed to respond. He'd gone under, lost to the tide, without even a ripple.

Scott had found him anyway.

Scott's warm hands holding him up, Scott's warm voice encouraging him to drink, telling him he was needed, fighting off the current to keep Stiles' head above water for just one more day.

One more day.

One day more, one day less. One day that wasn't a day. One day dead and gone eight years before, yet happening now, for all that, one more instance when time evaded capture, evaded being pinned down and defined, looped over and around him, tied him in a neat little bow to present on the altar of grief.

Stiles was still eight years old, pressed to that banister with Scott's warmth the only thing keeping him strong. He was sixteen years old, losing his best friend to a supernatural destiny that he couldn't follow. He was still eight years old, watching his mother breathe her last breath and taking his father's along with it… also to a place he couldn't follow. He was sixteen years old, hearing Scott tell him he was needed.

He was needed.

Today he would put out his hand and catch time, hold it at bay in this delicate moment with Scott's warmth beside him, his heart beating in Scott's chest, kept safe by the only one who could destroy it for good.

And he would, one day. And Stiles wouldn't care. He was living on borrowed time. anyway, and if it kept Scott safe and happy… he would give it all back.

But, not today.

Not today.