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tamingthemuseTitle: In Memoriam [ficlet]
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Prompt: 373 – cultivate
Warning: General spoilers for all current seasons.
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~530
Summary: It's been years since Stiles lost his mother, but he's finally decided on a way to honor her memory.
Disclaimer: It's all lies and I own nothing.
-- = --
Stiles remembers, when he was a kid, his mother kept a garden. Tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, peppers, lettuce, and green beans – there was always some kind of fresh vegetable or another on the table at dinner. Now, though, the small patch of yard along the back fence next to the garage is overgrown with tall weeds and scraggly grass.
Between his worries for his father's health and the recent threats they've faced, Stiles thinks it might be a good idea to take up gardening, start with a few easy-to-grow, hard-to-screw-up things like lettuce and tomatoes – salad basics – and maybe add in a row or two of monkshood, just to be safe.
With his dad busy at the station from early in the morning until late in evening trying to “solve” the recent murders – sacrifices – Stiles has a lot of alone-time on his hands. He sits on the back steps and looks at the yard, tries to figure out where to start. He should mow the lawn first – that would definitely make plotting out the garden easier. Then he should go to the store for seeds and he should probably check online to see when the best time to plant stuff is. While he's at it, he can look up other plants and herbs similar to wolfsbane, or he could give Deaton a call and-- No. This is something he wants to do on his own. Needs to do on his own.
He remembers his mother spending hours tending to her vegetable and flower gardens while he played in the backyard with Scott and they'd all come in the house for lunch with dirt on their knees and up to their elbows – his mother from actual work, he and Scott from just being little boys – and they'd clean up at the sink under his father's patient smile.
Even now, the smell of wet soil reminds him of his mother; sunshine, fresh air, dirt, and gardenias. The summer after she died he had to keep the window in his room closed because the breeze would carry in the scents of the flowers in the garden and they'd linger like her ghost and mess with his head. Without her firm, gentle hand to care for them, weeds choked out the flowers and strangled the vegetables until the stretch of land along the fence was nothing but a mess of green tangles.
Stiles doesn't know why he or his dad did maintain the upkeep-- Well, no, that's a lie. Neither of them are good at keeping plants alive and the garden was his mother's thing, her space, and, in letting her go, they let it go, too.
But Stiles thinks it's time. He can honor his mother's memory in a way he's failed to and he can take care of his dad and, maybe, Scott and Allison and Lydia and Isaac, Derek and Cora if they ever come back. He'll tend to the garden and try to protect the people in his life, just like his mother used to.
And maybe, if he's lucky, that'll manage to keep the tendrils of darkness creeping around his heart at bay.
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Prompt: 373 – cultivate
Warning: General spoilers for all current seasons.
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~530
Summary: It's been years since Stiles lost his mother, but he's finally decided on a way to honor her memory.
Disclaimer: It's all lies and I own nothing.
Stiles remembers, when he was a kid, his mother kept a garden. Tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, peppers, lettuce, and green beans – there was always some kind of fresh vegetable or another on the table at dinner. Now, though, the small patch of yard along the back fence next to the garage is overgrown with tall weeds and scraggly grass.
Between his worries for his father's health and the recent threats they've faced, Stiles thinks it might be a good idea to take up gardening, start with a few easy-to-grow, hard-to-screw-up things like lettuce and tomatoes – salad basics – and maybe add in a row or two of monkshood, just to be safe.
With his dad busy at the station from early in the morning until late in evening trying to “solve” the recent murders – sacrifices – Stiles has a lot of alone-time on his hands. He sits on the back steps and looks at the yard, tries to figure out where to start. He should mow the lawn first – that would definitely make plotting out the garden easier. Then he should go to the store for seeds and he should probably check online to see when the best time to plant stuff is. While he's at it, he can look up other plants and herbs similar to wolfsbane, or he could give Deaton a call and-- No. This is something he wants to do on his own. Needs to do on his own.
He remembers his mother spending hours tending to her vegetable and flower gardens while he played in the backyard with Scott and they'd all come in the house for lunch with dirt on their knees and up to their elbows – his mother from actual work, he and Scott from just being little boys – and they'd clean up at the sink under his father's patient smile.
Even now, the smell of wet soil reminds him of his mother; sunshine, fresh air, dirt, and gardenias. The summer after she died he had to keep the window in his room closed because the breeze would carry in the scents of the flowers in the garden and they'd linger like her ghost and mess with his head. Without her firm, gentle hand to care for them, weeds choked out the flowers and strangled the vegetables until the stretch of land along the fence was nothing but a mess of green tangles.
Stiles doesn't know why he or his dad did maintain the upkeep-- Well, no, that's a lie. Neither of them are good at keeping plants alive and the garden was his mother's thing, her space, and, in letting her go, they let it go, too.
But Stiles thinks it's time. He can honor his mother's memory in a way he's failed to and he can take care of his dad and, maybe, Scott and Allison and Lydia and Isaac, Derek and Cora if they ever come back. He'll tend to the garden and try to protect the people in his life, just like his mother used to.
And maybe, if he's lucky, that'll manage to keep the tendrils of darkness creeping around his heart at bay.
