The Mermaid

It started, really, with Geometry.

He had never thought too much about drawing. He did love to doodle, on Scott in class or during rare moments of boredom, either stupid stick figures and suns wearing sunglasses littering his friend's arm or random things he saw around him. Sure, sometimes he'd get a surge of inspiration and work for hours on a drawing, but once he was done he'd always put it away somewhere and forget about it. Life went on, and he may have been technically drawing since before he can remember, but he also never thought about it.

Stiles mother wasn't an artist. Neither was his father. It wasn't something he had a deep intrinsic past with, or something that brought up emotions, or important memories. He didn't even notice he doodled so much until senior year while he was studying in his room one night, the world outside cooling down as the sun dropped and winter approached. He relished the lack of supernatural shenanigans, minus an actual Supernatural episode playing quietly on his computer. He was reading over his notes for Geometry on his bed with his back against a pile of pillows, his growing hair tickling his forehead. He was thirty minutes into his lone study session when he came across a mermaid curled around an acute angle.

He's taken so off guard that his brain pauses. He squints at it and wonders who the hell drew in his geometry notes without him noticing, wonders why it looks so familiar, and then breathes out an "Oh-" when he vaguely remembers sketching it during a boring day of class. Half of his mind was on the lecture and the other half was apparently sketching out the tiny detailing of fin scales and hair strands.

It's actually incredibly detailed. The hair curled over the mermaid's entire face and her long thin fingers gripped into the triangle as if she were holding on for dear life. Her waist and tail curved across the shape, a very thin space between her body and sharp edges. The tail fin is a bit smudged but it fans out to about an inch and the very ends of the fin twist around each other until they're circled back to her bowed head.

Stiles is a little gobsmacked because he remembers that day, remembers feeling a little desperate to get home and have a long awaited normal night with Scott. A night without the trials of werewolves or pixies or whatever their town keeps throwing at them. He wanted to play video games and eat oreos until they either threw up or passed out, needed that moment with Scott just to breathe again.

He can see it in this mermaid, in the curve of her body and her gripping hands. Something she needs and doesn't want to let go of, and – and that's super weird. He abruptly closes the spiral and looks at his wall for a moment. He knows art is a form of expression, but this was a little far, yea?

He shakes off his sudden moroseness and opens the spiral again to see if there are any more doodles on other pages. There are only three others that hold the same kind of attention that he put into the mermaid, although there are many other random stick figures or shaded block letters throughout as well. The next more detailed one is a wolf at a bottom corner two pages past the mermaid, howling up at a zero that was part of an equation. He guesses his past self had imagined the zero as the moon, and he smirks at the cheesiness. The next is the back of a head which he thinks is the guy who sits in front of him in this class. Then, weirdly, a light sketch of Erica, from his vantage point behind her and to the right, as she stares out the window with her legs outstretched past her desk. Her face isn't shown but he does remember drawing it. He had liked the lighting and appreciated her bored aesthetic. He obviously put the most effort into the careful lines showing the curls of her hair draped over the back of her chair. He runs his finger around the edge of the sketch, fondness making him smile briefly.

He doesn't find any more after Erica, but he visits them all again and doesn't find himself as impacted as he was with the mermaid. Erica is a close second, where he remembers being a little sentimental after the omega scare the night before. He was just glad she existed in order to take an arrow to the arm in order to protect him. He can practically see the care in his lines, the softness of the sketch making his mouth twist to himself, a little embarrassed at seeing his emotions on paper.

He rips out the page without really thinking about it then decides, yea, and rips out the other pages with doodles. He'll rewrite his notes, without feelings distracting him. When he gets to the mermaid he stares for a moment. Then he rips it out roughly and thinks to himself, okay, fine, he was at the end of his rope at that moment, and it's okay because he then totally had the needed night with Scott and felt a lot better. He doesn't have to feel weird about it. If anything, it was a venting process. He was healthily expressing his feelings, and that's actually great, because – huh. Wait.

He looks at his sketches placed haphazardly across his blanket. This is actually...good. He thinks of how Jackson spits venom (figuratively, now, thank god), how Scott gets eerily silent, or how Derek murders his punching bag. He looks at his quiet, safe, unobtrusive drawings, and thinks...yea. This could be a thing.

Stiles puts them in a folder after rewriting his notes. He hides it in the bottom drawer of his desk, underneath all the junk that's already in there. It's not labeled.

And, so, his newfound therapy, self-care, whatever you want to call it - it started, really, with Geometry, as the boredom or stress influenced his jittery hands.

And it, well...never really ended.

The Sun Rays

Senior year was actually turning out to be better than any other year (where's wood, oh god, knock on it). Of course his friend group of supernatural vigilantes still had a bunch of utter bullshit to deal with, but thankfully it wasn't anything like kanimas or sacrifices or constant fear of a painful peril. Mostly it was just unwelcome visitors now and again. Since the four months of school starting, all the creatures that came to their door were ones that the pack were able to handle without too much bloodshed or regrets.

Stiles draws after each visitor. Sometimes he draws the creatures, like an omega lurking down the upper corner of his Chem notes, snarling at him from the page. Or a ladybug-like insect with incredibly detailed wings. It had almost poisoned their water pipes and was a real brief fear for a moment, before they, you know, squished it. As you do. His version has only uneven dots for eyes and a tiny U-shaped smile, which makes him giggle to himself. The image keeps him from smelling his water three times before drinking it. Then a pixie staring blankly at him, its wings taking up the entirety of the page so there's no room for notes. He doesn't draw an expression, keeps it bland, because their faces were so expressive and he'd rather have this in his memory than their murderous rage or troubling glee.

Stiles never keeps them in his spirals for long. He tries to rip them out the same day and put them in his steadily thicker folder. He doesn't know what he'd do if anyone ever asked about them. Some, once he was finished, he didn't even like to look at, and even though he does feel better after some rough sketches into his spiral pages, it doesn't mean he wants to open the floodgates of his worries and fears.

Sometimes he draws his friends. Mostly Erica, Scott, and Lydia because they're in more than one of his classes. He waits until they're focused or day-dreaming and lightly draws the backs of their heads or profiles. He drew Lydia as a queen once, then immediately after drew her sitting on the world. It looked more realistic.

Stiles drew Jackson, but only once. They have one class together. The guy is still an asshole, but there's only so many times you can save each other's lives and be able to hold a grudge. Jackson has actually hugged Stiles one time. It was really weird and whenever Stiles tries to bring it up Jackson prickles and douches all over the place. He's the first Stiles tries to draw with shadowing, and he completely ignores the teacher in favor of furtive glances towards Jackson, drawing careful lines to bring shape to his hair and shading under his jaw line, sketching the outline of his head and profile a little darker to contrast the light streaming in from the window. Stiles even draws light lines with the side of his pencil coming at Jackson, to make it look like the sun was shining on him.

Stiles jerks his head up when the bell rings, and around him students immediately jump from their seats as he realizes he spent the entire hour drawing Jackson. He slams his spiral closed and gathers his stuff as Jackson waits impatiently for him by the door so they can get to the lunch table. Stiles smiles as widely as he possibly can, widening his eyes to look crazed.

"Oh look, your resting face," Jackson says as he cuffs the upside of Stiles head. "Today's not the day to scare the student body, Stilinski."

"Then why are you doing so well?" Stiles says, looking at Jackson with innocent confusion, rubbing the back of his head. Jackson gives a dramatic "HA!", smiling sarcastically as he slaps his knee. He then immediately settles into the most unimpressed expression he can manage, which is actually pretty good, Stiles can admit, and turns down the hallway without waiting. Stiles easily keeps up and they quietly walk to the lunch hall together. He glances at Jackson sometimes, still not really believing that where he is in life involves walking to lunch with Jackson of all people, but feeling pretty content about it anyway.

When Stiles gets home he looks for his doodles of the day to put them in the folder. There's another one with Erica, mostly so he could draw the braid she had her hair in today, wherein he finished it up with a mermaid tail instead of her desk and legs. He has an unfinished one of Scott, the boys damn jawline and eyes extremely irritating to get down on paper. Then Jackson, and some wolves here and there.

Stiles looks at the one of Jackson for a moment. He spent a lot of time on this one. All of the sketches of his friends are always done softly, light lines creating the image. It almost looks like Jackson is glowing against the rays of light, his face serene as he looks at his notebook on a quickly sketched desk and his hand lightly holding his pen. Stiles spent a lot of time on his face, and it's so weird to see how much he cared about getting the details just right. At least with Scott, Erica, and Lydia it didn't feel as odd to know he cared for them. He sometimes can't believe how much his life has changed.

He gags jokingly over the picture before stuffing it in the folder, thinking at the same time that he needs to get over himself. None of them were the same people they were at the start. He may not like Jackson all the time, but he sure as hell cares whether or not the boy lives now, and he'll continue to fight along with him.

Stiles thinks that's a good thing to know.

But he still doesn't draw Jackson again. Imagine if he found a bunch of pictures Stiles drew of his face? That boy would preen like a motherfucker, in the most obnoxious way possible.

No way in hell is Stiles gonna contribute to that.

The Butterflies

He may be freaking out. A little bit. He's fucking had it with insects, wants to gas them all out of the world.

He had a panic attack because of a swarm of butterflies that surrounded him and tried to fly into his mouth. He couldn't breathe without them flying up his nose, and goddamn fuck the magic in this town that make a migration of butterflies life threatening.

He gets home after the madness is over and rips computer paper from his printer so that pages fall freely onto his bedroom floor. He throws markers from his desk onto the ground then throws himself, grabs a random color, and draws.

He draws their wings, and he's still not exactly calm, his heart already pumping faster as he draws a detailed butterfly face, the ugly fucker coming to life on an otherwise empty page, but in an artistic way, a way he can control.

He draws every kind he can imagine, ever color that he has a marker for, small ones, big ones, litters them all over as many papers as he can, some flying, some on a quickly sketched flower, some grouped together so closely you can't even tell when one truly begins and ends. He draws furiously until his wrist hurts, and even then he continues, at a slower pace, taking time with the curves and details of their wings, even adding the little fuzz on their black bodies with ones he draws big enough to add that detail to.

When he lets a red marker roll from his cramping hand to the floor, he looks at all of his butterflies. He feels a shiver across his skin and slows his breathing until he can calmly look at each of his drawings, until he can count nine collages in front of him. He flexes his fingers and rolls his wrist, stretches his arm muscles and waits until he can comfortably move his hand again.

He grabs the closest page of butterflies and rips it to shreds.

Each colorful strip that falls to the floor is a weight off his shoulders, and by his third page he's laughing, tearing the pages again and again, putting an unneeded amount of strength into tearing one piece of paper in half. He rips them until they're confetti on his bedroom floor, and he might be crying a little, but he feels great.

When the last pieces fall to the floor, he can breathe again. He sets his hands on his knees and lets himself breathe loud, mouth open and obnoxious, no fear of an insect flying in to choke him.

He sits until it's dark outside. He's completely silent, staring at his wall, and feeling the most settled he's felt in a while, even before the stupid migration. When his knees twinge in discomfort, he stands and stretches his arms above his head, gives a deep sigh.

Stiles silently cleans up his mess and throws the remnants in the garbage can outside. When he gets back to his room he turns on his xBox and plays until his dad gets home.

A week later, a butterfly lands on a bush close to the clearing that the pack is training in. Stiles watches from his spot next to Scott as Erica groans in disgust and shoos it away. "I hate them now."

On the other side of Scott, Allison looks up from her book and hums in agreement. "I definitely see them differently than I had before."

"Yea." Erica sighs. "It's so sad. They used to be so pretty."

"Things can be deadly and pretty," Lydia says from her sitting spot, perched on a chair she made Jackson carry here. She doesn't look up from her phone. "They're still pretty. They've just also tried to kill you."

"Did they really try to kill us though?" Scott asks. "Sometimes I think that they just had yet to learn how to give proper hugs." He stares back at everyone who stares blankly back at him. "It...it helps me sleep at night."

There's a throat cleared and everyone turns to look at Derek, his unimpressed expression, and Jackson pinned beneath him trying to kick out of his grasp. "None of you are paying attention."

"Now we are," Stiles says, excitement in his voice. "Hey Jackson, are you used to that position by now?"

Jackson's growl is still pretty loud, despite his face being pushed into the dirt. Stiles can feel Scott's shaking shoulders beside him. He still smiling as well, but Stiles' eyes travel from Jackson's sad position and up Derek's arm, where it's flexed and connected to naked shoulders. Why does Derek have to do this shirtless. Why. Stiles is snapped away from his musings on skin skin skin when Derek finally lets Jackson up from the ground.

Suddenly, the same butterfly Erica had shooed away comes fluttering back into their clearing, past Jackson who actually flinches away before scowling at it and moving towards Lydia. It flies towards Allison and lands on the top of her brightly colored book.

"Uh," she says, a brow raised at the butterfly, intoning 'Excuse me?'.

"Squish it," Jackson says from beside Lydia and Derek rolls his eyes. He bends down for his shirt and slips it on. Thank god.

"It's just a butterfly.," Derek starts. "If you can't handle this-"

"Even you can admit it was weirdly traumatizing," Isaac pipes up from beside Boyd. "I didn't feel like I could breathe right for awhile."

Boyd nods in agreement and Derek doesn't respond. Erica shares that she still has dreams about them. "Out of all the things that could give me nightmares," she says, annoyed, "it had to be the otherwise harmless bugs."

Meanwhile the butterfly is slowly lifting and lowering its wings and Allison hasn't moved to dislodge it, just staring stonily at it. Scott keeps coming close to pick it up, then backs off when it moves its wings again. Derek actually looks like he'll come over and squish it, and for some reason Stiles puts down his Chem homework and crawls towards Allison.

They watch as he brings a finger underneath its legs and lifts it from the book. It only pauses its slow movement of wings, otherwise stays a completely normal butterfly. He slowly walks it past the clearing to a bush and puts his finger against a leaf until it walks off. When he takes a step away, it flutters its wings then takes off away from their clearing.

He walks back to his spot and picks up his homework, raising a brow at Jackson. "There. No squishing needed."

"Did that actually happen?" Isaac asks.

Lydia smirks. "Stiles just saved our lives."

Stiles rolls his eyes but flushes and tries to give all his attention back to his homework. He notices Derek glance at him curiously, but Stiles does his best to ignore it and mentally explains to himself that his beating heart is because of the butterfly. After a moment Derek calls Boyd up for his round of sparring and Stiles lets his shoulders relax.

Scott claps him on the back. "Dude." He's smiling when Stiles looks up. "That was pretty cool. I couldn't get myself to do it."

Stiles shrugs and thinks, yeah, okay, going from having a panic attack when almost suffocating from butterflies to picking one up a week later might be a jump, but really, they're just harmless bugs now.

He thinks back to his butterflies. He smiles.