You don't know about me, but I bet you want to/Everything will be alright, if we keep dancing like we're twenty-two

Taylor Swift bemoaned her newest existential crisis and Paul Greenburg rolled his eyes at his sister's taste in music. She tried to portray herself as this hardcore Goth child with black streaked hair, multiple piercings, and shredded clothing, but a peek at her iTunes account showed her true colors: she preferred pop music sung by rich white girls who were a world away from the problems they sang about. He leaned over and flicked off the radio, ignoring Pam's protest, and leaned against the headrest.

Today was the last day of high school and the first step onto the path leading him out of this hell hole everyone else called Beacon Hills. It was beacon alright, for the dangerous and weird and downright horrifying. In the past three years, he'd been to so many classmates' funerals, it had long since lost its sadness and became something of a punchline. The adults all seemed to pretend as if his graduating class wasn't short nineteen students lost to "animal attacks," and "El Nino" caused weather patterns, but Paul knew the truth. The truth was - there was something out there, something feral and mad and bad who was devouring this town one bite at time until soon enough there wouldn't be anything left except the bones of what was a once thriving mountain town.

And he had no intentions of needing one of the graves littering the landscape any more than he wanted his younger sister to, but it wasn't his choice. It galled him a little that his parents had their heads so far stuck up their asses they couldn't see the nasty Preserve for the terrifying trees, thereby dooming themselves and the rest of the family to death. Paul had tried, oh how he had tried to get his sister to move in with their aunt down in San Diego, but she was too caught up in trying to fit in anyway she could and couldn't bear to part from her little clique. It was probably heartless, but Paul knew a lost cause when he saw one, so he ceased his attempts and resigned himself to one day getting a phone call about Pam being torn to shreds or his parents drowned in a flood on a perfectly sunny day.

"You're such an asshole. I can't wait until you go away to college so I don't have to put up with your bullshit."

The words spewing from her black-limned mouth weren't heated, just a perfunctory round of insults that he was long inured to since she said a variation of them every day. They'd been close when they were younger - only eighteen months separated them - so when she first started pulling away, he'd mourned the loss of their easy friendship, but as the years passed and Beacon Hills became more and more desolate, Paul had shifted his focus outward. He was desperate to get away before he was another poster on the Sheriff's wall. There were as many disappearances as there were suspicious deaths, and Paul had a creeping fear of being one of the lost ones because at least you could mourn properly when there was a body to identify. An empty space at the dinner table was completely different, and he'd seen the deadness in the eyes of those left behind, forced to carry on without every truly knowing where their loved one had gone to or why.

The Saturn pulled up into the high school parking lot, and Paul shifted his weight from one hip to the other in preparation of getting out of the car. Pam's hand dropped onto his arm and he glanced over at her, seeing the cornflower blue eyes and reddish blonde hair beneath the mask of black on black she currently wore. They looked enough alike that people sometimes mistook them for twins, though that hadn't happened in over a year, since her less than stunning transformation. He idly wondered how long she was able to wear her dark-colored contacts before they irritated her sensitive eyes; the whites were perma-stained with a crimson hue which had led their parents to accuse her of smoking pot on more than one occasion. Paul didn't think she did, but what did he know? They weren't close and barely talked outside of the prescripted family time.

"I have a thing I'm doing after school so you'll have to get your own ride."

It was another barb, though this time it carried a small sting. For whatever reason, Paul had never made friends easily, which he hadn't really minded when he had Pam. After he lost her, he tried to widen his social pool, but his reputation had already been cemented by then, and Beacon Hills wasn't that big, so all the kids who thought he was weird in grade school still thought that in high school, and no one wanted to be seen with him. He thought joining the Lacrosse team would help, but the sense of belonging never materialized as the cliques were still well-enforced in the even smaller pool of kids.

"Yeah, whatever. I'll take the bus home."

A knot of emotion passed over Pam's face, but Paul couldn't decipher her expressions any longer, so he turned away without further comment. Getting up from a low-slung position was always an exercise in frustration, but he had enough practice so he swung his good leg out the door to brace himself as he used the frame of the door to haul himself into a standing position without putting undue pressure on his other leg. Two years had passed since his accident and there wasn't any more mobility in the left leg than the day he came out of surgery; Paul had resigned himself to being hobbled for the rest of his life, which meant Lacrosse was out of the question, of course, but he hadn't really missed it all that much since the only person who ever noticed him was Coach. Even Stilinski, who'd never met drama he couldn't embroil himself in, dodged the Coach's attention with a dexterity he rarely showed on the field.

Ignoring Pam's muttered farewell, Paul grabbed his cane from the back seat, relieved he wouldn't have to carry a backpack as well. Unlike the rest of California, and probably the US, Beacon Hills High forced their students to carry actual paper and ink books instead of accessing them online, and it was already difficult enough for him to mobilize himself without the added stress of ten pounds on his back. He'd done it, overcome this obstacle just like every other one placed before him, but it wasn't easy. He leaned against the cooling engine of the car as he waited for the speeders to come screeching into the lot, then carefully wended his way towards the front of the school.

As soon as he reached the pavement, he felt a knock into his side that threatened his equilibrium, and his cane skittered wildly as he fought to maintain his balance. A pale scarred hand grabbed his bicep and straightened him; he turned to say something - not sure if it was a curse or thanks - and saw it was Stiles Stilinski. Words failed him and he instantly shuddered away from the touch as if it burned while wildly wondering if he'd summoned the other boy by thinking his name. Was he akin to Bloody Mary who was supposed to appear in your mirror after you chanted her name three times in the dark while turning around?

"Sorry Greenberg, didn't see you."

Paul merely nodded, eyes dropping away from that penetrating stare and concentrated on the multitude of dark pictographs decorating the other boy's arms. He'd known Stiles his entire life, they were even born in the same hospital days apart, but until three years ago, he'd been a pale shadow reflecting the brilliance of Scott's sun. Now, however, he was a lean menace who could do things and it scared Paul so much sometimes because he knew without consciously knowing how that Stiles was apart of the feral madness infecting this town. The tattoos adorning his arms - and further across his chest and back, Paul knew from accidental glimpses - shouldn't exist, yet somehow did.

"We made it, you know? Can you believe we're actually graduating?"

"No, I actually can't."

Stiles laughed as if he was being funny, except Paul wasn't. He really couldn't believe they'd survived this long; or more accurately that he had survived this long. Stiles had always marched to the beat of his own orchestra so it wasn't entirely surprising at how adroit he was in staying alive.

"A few more hours than we're free, so see you around, dude."

Paul didn't respond, keeping his eyes down though he couldn't help watching Stiles' arms as he walked away. The sleeves of ink faded until Stiles' skin looked curiously barren, leaving Paul wondering once again if the tattoos were real or a figment of his overactive imagination. It was better to believe he was insane than admit to seeing what he'd seen or knowing what he knew, and Paul only had a handful of days until he was gone from this town to the wider world where things didn't go bump in the night.

A/N: So this started as an exercise to fill out Greenburg's character since we never get to see him or know anything about him. It was supposed to be cracky, but it went dark instead.