Your Heart is an Empty Room (2/5)
It’s hell, this constant pretending - holding up these masks to pretend he’s anything but the hollow mess he knows himself to be. He’s not even particularly good at it, and yet… He’s convinced himself to keep on going, to keep trying even when he’s failing so miserably. He tells himself that it’s what they would have wanted. It’s hard not to give it all up, to let everything drop away and let people see the feral thing that he’s become. Sometimes it’s all he can manage just to get out of bed for the day, wandering the house listless and unresponsive, so much the part of the specter he considers himself.
Today is one of those days.
He’s not sick, really he’s not. He’s never considered ending it all, never wanted to hurt other people to feel a spark, none of that. He’s just… stuck. There’s this gap in his life, this void that stole away his purpose. Like a table too slanted to hold a dish, he’s grown crooked and lost himself, his purpose. The grey hoodie he’s wearing smells of that stale bed-sweat usually found on someone actually physically ill, he’s worn holes into the hems of his track pants, and he’s not really confident that he’s wearing underwear, but he’s made it downstairs this morning.
It’s not even one and he made it downstairs. He considers it an accomplishment even if it’s a pathetic one.
For a while he considers eating, his stomach churning and making angry noises that echo through the vacant rooms. He walks into the kitchen, leans against the counter, and finds himself staring into the depths of the open refrigerator - staring…. staring… staring. A low hum breaks him from his daze and when he snaps back to attention he realizes it’s the fridge trying to cool the entire the kitchen. It’s been twenty minutes since he opened the doors. Grimacing he grabs an apple from the crisper before closing it up, proud of himself for remembering to eat, even if he couldn’t cook himself something.
Two of the next hours are spent at the dining table, feet up, balancing his chair on the rear two legs. The ceiling is textured and he likes to find patterns. In his bedroom there’s a gorilla just above his bed, two dogs in his closet, and a witch just before the bathroom door. When he finds all he can from the kitchen, he moves to the sliding glass door, presses his nose against the cool surface, and watches the fog of his breath obscure the forest outside.
He lives on the edge of town, away from where he might scare people, but just close enough to start local legends of being a terrible wolfman that eats children who stray onto his property. Oddly enough, he kind of likes that. It keeps away the droves of men and women that used to come and try to fix him, to get through to that “golden heart” he supposedly possesses. He’s definitely sure that he has a soul, it hurts too much to be gone yet, but a heart’s not something he’d know about if it wasn’t for the sound of the damned thing contentedly thumping away in his chest - acting as though it’s not broken into jagged little pieces which might never fit right again.
He kind of forgets the days sometimes. Time is a strange sort of thing when you don’t pay it much attention. He doesn’t realize that it’s a Saturday - the designated day, once a month, when Uncle Peter always comes by to make sure he’s not rotting away like one of those hoarders that disappear into their houses and are found months later, faces eaten by their cats - until there’s a knock at the door. It sends a spike of adrenaline through his system. He’s so unused to sound; it’s odd, but true nonetheless. It takes a few seconds to get himself moving, to build enough momentum to make it to the door. It’s like he’s an old and rusted machine, stuttering to life, every joint groaning in protest.
The knock comes again as he makes it to the entrance, more impatient this time, and he takes a deep breath, blinking rapidly to try and push away the haze around his mind before he opens the door - and freezes. A young boy is standing on his doorstep - eyes wide and frantically searching, constantly moving and taking in more and more and more. The kid practically vibrates, so clearly wanting to dash about and explore in every sense of the word, but all he does is look, hands clasped conservatively behind his back, heels jittering in place. His unbelievably pink lips are parted in a soft ‘o’, and he looks genuinely awed by every little thing that catches his attention.
Derek only stops staring when a car door slams loudly and makes both him and the boy startle. “Isn’t he just magnificent?” Peter pulls a small duffel bag from the bed of the truck he just exited, a slow smile spreading across his lips. He puts his free arm around the boy when he reaches the porch, a possessive hand gripping the boy’s forearm. “I have to admit that I was skeptical at first, but just look at him!” Peter gives the boy a not-so-gentle shove, sending him stumbling into Derek’s chest with a surprised yelp.
The both of them fall to the floor in a heap as Peter laughs, not unkindly, and steps over them to get into the house. A flush tinges the boy’s cheeks and the tips of his ears an attractive shade of red, and Derek finds himself staring again. There’s something about him… “And what exactly am I looking at?” His voice is scratchy and hoarse from disuse and he has to clear his throat to keep from coughing afterwards. Slowly he untangles himself from the gangly boy and stands, keeping a wary eye on him.
The boy scratches at his face with one hand while the other plays with the hem of his shirt, and looks down at the floor, shoulders swaying, the corners of his lips just quirked upwards. It is the very picture of bashful. He hasn’t said anything yet, doesn’t still. It is somehow both unsettling and a huge relief. Derek’s never been much of one for small talk, for talking much at all really, but usually people don’t recognize that right off the bat.
Peter pops his head back into the foyer and grins, all flashing teeth. "That, my boy, is the solution to all of the problems that we’ve been having.” The boy jams his hands into his pockets and tries to stand up straighter, lifting his head high and smiling, though it trembles terribly.
“What problems?” Derek doesn’t have any problems - no sir. He just doesn’t leave the house or interact with people. So he sometimes forgets to feed himself, or doesn’t speak for days on end. It’s not normal, but it’s not bad. Peter just arches an eyebrow in reply before ushering the both of them to follow him into the living room, making Derek take a seat, but pulling the boy to his side.
“Derek, I want you to meet Stiles. Well, I suppose you can call him whatever you’d like, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” The boy gives you a little wave and a shy smile, eyebrows rising as he waits for a reply. It makes the following silence just that much more awkward. Peter fidgets, apparently just as nervous as Stiles, opening and closing his mouth a few times before finding his words. “I know that you’ve been going through a bit of a rough patch these last three… years. You won’t let me take care of you, but you refuse to take care of yourself. So I came up with a solution.” He nudges Stiles forward again, this time much more gentle than the last, and tries to hold eye contact.
“I don’t need a nursemaid, and certainly not one that looks like he could use a babysitter himself.” Derek folds his arms across his chest and glares down the boy, watching as he visibly withdraws, shrinking into himself.
“Tut, tut Derek. You musn’t be so rude! Plus, I paid good money for this model.” Peter’s defense seems more like an excuse to scold Derek than out of any fondness for the boy, his stance easily moving from laid-back to challenging at Derek’s refusal. “Which brings me to the point - that you’ve got this arrangement all wrong. “ Peter’s grin goes full-out Cheshire cat and sends shivers down Derek’s back.
“What do you mean?” He’s almost too afraid to ask, stealing glances at the boy and wondering if he might not even be here of his own free will. It would explain why he was so nervous, so eager to please. With Derek’s attitude and seclusion it probably wouldn’t be much of a stretch to imagine himself being brought to some kind of psychopath. Almost instantly he goes from being utterly irritated by Stiles to wishing he could offer some kind of comfort.
“I ordered him just special for you, custom-made every inch of skin.” Peter runs a hand down the length of Stiles’ arm, gaze cold and hungry. The boy so clearly wants to pull away, but doesn’t move, not a single muscle. Derek is at once impressed by his control, and sickened that he had to perfect it so. “You’ll be quite pleased, I’ve thoroughly looked him over and he’s exactly what they promised. He walks that fine line between too perfect quite elegantly, wouldn’t you say?”
Derek’s throat goes dry at the implication of the words, his mind spinning frantically. Sure he’d known, they’re advertised all over the TV, have foldouts in the paper and magazines, but the reality of it all hadn’t really struck him until now. It had all been too foreign to really think about, like the idea of floating through space. Only here it was, all too real. Androids - the ultimate companion. Pretty, programmable, practically perfect in every way. “You didn’t!” All he can manage is a harsh whisper, his chest tightening as he resolutely looks anywhere except for at the boy, whose head is hung, hands wringing, shoulders hunched.
“I did!” Peter laughs and slaps Stiles harshly on the back. “You don’t get along with anyone, so I found someone that will. You can make him be anything you want. A roommate, a housewife, a servant. Any person you want - he can be. And such pretty packaging.” Peter slaps the boy on his ass, trying to share a leer with Derek.
Derek jumps to his feet, hands balled into fists. “That thing is not a person!” Peter doesn’t even flinch at the intensity of his words, but Stiles reels back as if hit, looking up at Derek, eyes wet, mouth trembling. Derek hadn’t expected - hadn’t known… A single tear escapes from the corner of Stiles’ eyes before he angrily wipes it away, dashing to the kitchen and out the sliding glass doors. Peter frowns deeply at him, shaking his head in mock disappointment. Unfortunately Derek still feels guilty anyway, it’s the one emotion he’s always had a great capacity for. It only takes him about fifteen seconds of attempting to rationalize away his feelings before he gives up and chases after the boy.
Peter follows him to the door, hanging onto the doorframe and hollering after him, “Be careful with him Derek! He’s new to this world, not half so jagged as you.” The ground is wet and cold beneath his feet, the ever-present grey clouds hung over head having just let down a shower. Everything smells fresh, rejuvenated around him, and for the first time in a long time when Derek takes a breath, he feels like his lungs are full. His muscles burn in protest, not having been put to work for too long, reminding him that he’s alive. It’s been an eternity since he was outside, since he’s been out of controlled temperatures, filtered air, pristine surfaces. If he was a braver man, he’d say it felt good, that he felt good.
Instead he turns his attention towards trying to look for Stiles - listening for rustling in the trees, keeping an eye out for broken branches. It takes a good twenty minutes to find the right path, follow the frantic footprints, and come out to a small clearing with a pond. The boy is there, lying on his stomach on a boulder overhanging the water. He’s got a long stick in hand, avidly watching the ripples he’s creating with it. Every now and again he hiccups or sniffs, the first sounds Derek’s heard him make.
Slowly, Derek makes his way over, careful of where he steps when realizes he’s barefoot. The stones on the shore are slick and have been worn smooth with time, making him stumble every couple of steps. He’s certain Stiles knows he’s approaching, no way he couldn’t have heard him yet, but he hasn’t made any acknowledgement of it. Derek has to walk all the way around the boulder, lean up on his arms to see over the top, to catch the boy’s attention. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it.” For a brief few seconds Stiles’ eyes glow a honey-gold, bright and inhuman, before flickering back down to their original amber-brown. It’s probably just a glitch in the software, and it should have Derek more unnerved than anything else, but he was never very good at reacting the way he was supposed to, and so instead it steals his breath away.
Stiles shrugs, pushing himself up into a sitting position and letting his stick fall to the ground. He almost looks like he’s going to reject the apology, eyes still locked on the water, but then Derek offers him a hand down and he perks right up. His face flushes that shade of pink a different kind of person might call adorable, and takes Derek’s hand gently, unassuming in his grip, but not his eager smile as he hops down, effortlessly graceful. He looks up at the other man through his lashes before pushing up on his tip toes and kissing Derek on his temple. It catches him off guard, never having been one for physical intimacy even before the accident, and for a few seconds all he can do is stand there looking stunned, fingers brushing the tingling patch of skin.
Awkwardly he clears his throat and turns away, back to the forest path, rubbing the back of his neck. “You really shouldn’t take much stock in what I say, or what Peter says for that matter.” He starts walking back towards the house, confident that Stiles will follow him back without instruction. They take a slow pace, a more clear and easy trail, sharing a comfortable silence. Derek tries his best to let things in again, to move away from that numbness, but allows baby steps first. Stiles flits all around him; playing with leaves and rocks, running his hands over every surface, and sometimes bringing things to his nose or tongue. He’s always smiling, but never laughs or exclaims, makes no noise besides the crunching of his feet.
When they get back, Peter is nowhere to be seen - his truck gone from the front yard, but that beaten duffel still sits on the couch. Derek has to close his eyes and force himself to breathe deeply to keep from yelling and startling Stiles again. He couldn’t have possibly seen this coming, and yet it doesn’t surprise him at all. Arguably, his uncle has dealt with this whole mess better than he has, but it changed him, made him someone Derek wasn’t overly fond of, wasn’t all that eager to see. It’s another small tragedy, but something he’s long since come to terms with.
Still, he has no idea what to do with the machine - toy - kid that’s patiently waiting for him on the stairs, legs jackhammering every time he’s made to sit still. So Derek grits his teeth and steels his nerves before programming his uncle’s number into the television and waiting for the call to go through. It takes several tries before Peter’s face pops up on the screen, a look of innocence schooled on his face. “Sorry my boy, but you know how fired up some people can get if you take a call while driving.” He rolls his eyes and flips a bird out his window as a passing car lays on the horn. “What’s up, buttercup?”
Derek growls and has to remind himself to keep his voice down, biting his tongue to think out his words before he says them. “What am I supposed to do with him?”
“Whatever you want! That’s the idea isn’t it? Make him cook, make him clean, take him for long walks on the beach, or just fuck that pretty little mouth and then put him in the closet - with the rest of those playthings that you think I don’t know about.” There’s no hint of a joke in Peter’s tone, and Derek is taken aback by the frankness of it. “I was assured he’d take any command, they can’t say no, and they don’t have any real needs. You can even turn him off with the right passcode - that’s how I finally got him to keep quiet.”
Derek raises his eyebrows and clenches his fists, nails digging into his palms until the skin breaks. “You did that?”
“Oh, yes.” Peter waves off his indignation, actually sounding proud of himself for silencing the boy. “You should have heard him when I first brought him home. Endless nattering about every little thing. ‘Look at that butterfly - isn’t it beautiful? I’ve never been in water before, why does it make me shiver even when it’s hot? What’s spicy feel like? I can’t quite imagine it.’ Just on and on and on.” He makes a face, scratching at his chin and shaking his head. “It was kinda cute in a doe-eyed sorta way at first, but then it just was too much. So I turned off his voice. I was gonna switch it back on when I brought him over today, but I may have forgotten the code and then lost the detailed paper on a hard reset. Ah well, you were always the stoic type anyway, so it should suit you just fine, right?”
Derek hangs up before he can lose his calm and break another television in frustration. He’s seething, shoulders heaving with the effort it takes to keep himself still. He’d thought he’d used up all of his anger, but here it is again, so familiar, almost comforting. A small, dark part of him wants to revel in it, to tear up this blasted prison of a house, but a pair of arms wrap around his waist and pull him in. Stiles is standing behind him, eyes wide with fear, yet still bringing him closer. Derek stiffens under the touch, back rigid, arms frozen at his sides, but Stiles hugs him anyway, presses his forehead to the top of Derek’s spine and just holds him.
He lets go when his breathing settles back into a more normal range, when his muscles aren’t tense enough to snap, and Stiles gives him a sheepish smile. Derek almost returns it before he gets a hold of himself, and keeps his expression neutral instead. He can see the disappointment shine clear in the boy’s eyes, but has no idea what to do about it. Smiling now would only seem sarcastic, and he’s certainly not going to touch the kid, he’s not even sure he knows how to do reassuring. So he turns his attention to the duffel on the couch, steps out of that intimate space Stiles created, and rips it open to rifle through it.
Inside there’s three pairs of white briefs, one pair of jeans, four shirts, and a jacket. A blue toothbrush in a plastic bag is rolled up in a pair of socks and at the bottom, a small handbook entitled The Care of Your Perfect Match, stares up at him. After just a moment’s hesitation he takes the book and tucks it into the back of his sweatpants before shoving everything else back inside and slinging it over his shoulder.
“C’mon, I’ll find you somewhere to stay.” His room is upstairs, along with a small bathroom, a linen closet, and the master bedroom. That used to be his parents’ when they came over. As far as he’s concerned it still is. Laura had moved in after she finished college, between jobs and determined not to head back home. She’d taken over the whole basement, turned one of the bedrooms into a dark room, made the common area a gallery for her photos. The entirety of it is off-limits, the door downstairs locked and the location of the key conveniently forgotten. Ground floor it is. There’s a half-bath here, but no real bedrooms, though the lookout should do just fine.
On the side of the house there’s a room that was meant to be a greenhouse add-on - the sloped ceiling and walls made of glass, the floor of cobblestone, but he’d never had much of a green thumb, so instead he’d filled it with Adirondacks and telescopes, bought a projector and film screen, and as luck would have it, built a platform bed. He’d come here to watch the clouds, the stars, the world pass by, until a few years ago, after the accident, when it suddenly started to feel self-indulgent and ridiculous. He threw the duffle on the floor and went to shaking the dust out of the sheets, taking the damp pillow cases off and fluffing them up. “It’s a bitch to control the temperature in here so that dresser is filled with extra blankets. There’s a wardrobe down by the projector filled with DVD’s and stuff, but there should be room enough for what you have.”
Derek turns to leave, content to retreat back to his room for the rest of the day, maybe even the rest of the week, but Stiles is still standing in the doorway. His eyes are open wide and his mouth is hanging open- slack. When Stiles catches him looking he bites his lip and wraps his arms around himself, bouncing on the balls of his feet. He looks like he wants to say something, but Derek has no idea how to communicate with him. “I-uh…” His brow knits as he continues to bounce, his mouth pulling into a straight line before his eyes light up and his nose wrinkles. He holds a hand out in front of him, palm facing away from Derek, and pantomimes with the other, index finger and thumb pinched together- scribbling.
“Oh. Paper…. I have paper.” Derek tells Stiles to stay put before heading to the kitchen, finding a small notepad and a stub of a pencil that fits through the metal rings on the top in a junk drawer. Next he grabs a pair of sneakers from beside the door and pulls out the shoelace, tying an end to each corner of the pad. It’s nothing fancy, but it‘s functional, which will have to be enough for now. He brings it back to the lookout, fiddling nervously with it for a second before hanging it around Stiles’ neck, coughing into his fist and looking away when the boy smiles and hugs him again.
When he pulls away, Stiles immediately flips the red cover over and starts scrawling onto the paper. He takes his time forming the letters, though his hand is shaking eagerly, and his tongue sticks out of the corner of his mouth as he concentrates. He finishes with an aggressive flourish and smiles, turning it over to show Derek. ‘Thank you for everything. I know you don’t want me, but you kept me anyway.’ Derek frowns at this, shifting from foot to foot and rubbing the back of his neck. He feels bad about being so rude, so blunt with his feelings. He pushed a lot of his anger at Peter onto this kid and he knows it.
“We’ll figure something out. I don’t know what, but I promise we will.” For now that’s enough. It has to be enough. It’s all he can manage