A/N Gonna try and keep this brief: This is my first Teen Wolf fic! It takes place after 3b, but before season 4. I was planning on making this a really long oneshot, but then I got a plot, and now it's like a monster and would not work as a single chapter, so… More chapters! (fantastic… i gotta write it all…)
Warnings for Canon Typical Violence and Language. Also for sexual innuendoes and general Stiles behavior. Eventual Sterek. Eventually. Aso, Kate Argent appears, but I try to make her as least sadistic as possible. OH AND CHARACTER DEATH LIKE I JUST FIGURED THAT OUT IN MY MIND THAT IS NOW PART OF THE PLOT. BUT DON'T WORRY IT'S NOT ANGSTY IT JUST HAPPENS. Sorry, it's nearly midnight, and that usually wouldn't be a big deal, but I've had a total of ten hours of sleep in the past week. I'm losing it.
Allison's characterization in this chapter sucks. Don't worry about it. Did I mention that Stiles sees dead people? Yeah, BAMF Stiles, Magic!Stiles, Alpha!Stiles (but still human), Possession, and the long road to recovery! Hope you enjoy!
"Make up your mind you want clarity. Take what you know and then make it make sense. Just face what you fear and soon it comes clear, your visions are just your defense."
– Make Up You Mind/Catch Me I'm Falling – Next To Normal
*–_–*–_–*–_–*–_–*
When he opened his eyes, he couldn't see.
Panic flared up in his chest like a bomb, but he diffused it with a quick, practiced inhale of breath.
He could breathe – always a good sign. No matter how much his eyes strained, however, his vision met only solid blackness.
A shiver passed down his spine. A wicked chill seeped through the air, leaking past his skin and straight through to his bones. It swept through him in turn, and it left him alone and vulnerable in the open darkness. Sweat beaded on the back of his neck. The icy tracks bled down his skin, raising goosebumps along his flesh.
He released a shaking breath, the sound rustling in the dead silence like paper.
His hands – he could feel his hands. They hung at his sides, wrinkled and clammy. In a rush he gripped his arms. His fingers caught on the soft sleeves of a T-shirt, fisting the clothes desperately in his palms.
Another breath, hesitant and shallow, before the panic began to return.
It started as a buzz in his chest, numbing his heart and lungs as it spread through his body. His fingers went next, the shirt in his grip becoming fat and hard, and then the feeling travelled up his neck.
He floated on the clouds of his breath, before they began to rain. They came faster, building momentum and counting down to the explosion. The oxygen in his lungs struck tinder and set his stomach on fire.
He couldn't see. Even in this open emptiness, the darkness pressed in like a cage. He felt the bars wrapping around him, his breath becoming trapped, screaming loudly with a cry of ripping paper in his throat.
And then a single drop of water broke the loud silence.
His breath caught in shock, just enough to shut down his heart to a hushed throb. Unease curled in his chest, but it began to loosen its hold, and his face still stung with the numb burn left behind. As feeling trickled down his arms, he raised a hand to his cheek. It came away wet with tears on his fingertips. Cold reverberated down his spine, and another shiver passed through his body. He brushed his hand off on his chest, ignoring the returning pounding of his heart, and looked around himself in the darkness.
Another drop sounded out to his left. He whipped around, narrowing his eyes as he searched for the source. There – somewhere, it came again. The darkness pulsed with it, like a serene ripple in the silence.
He could feel the beat pass through his body, crumpling his papery breath, and he knew it would grow into a tidal wave.
His fingers twitched almost absently, and he weighed his options. There wasn't much of a debate before he went ahead and took a step.
The moment his foot touched the subliminal ground, the darkness broke apart. It burst beneath his foot, particles of shadow giving away to blinding light. He raised his arms to shield against the fluttering bullets, stumbling backwards. Everywhere his feet touched, the cage broke, and the already open air expanded in another blaze of dark feathers. The fragments of shade swirled around him like ashes, filling his mind with a rushing gale, howling in his ears. His vision flickered between sight and blindness, and he caught a glimpse of the dim world beyond the bars. The space spun in a vortex, ripping at his clothes and skin and hair, and he felt himself being torn away from the light to follow the ghosts into the void. Blood pounded in his ears, and finally, he let loose a scream.
The sound tore from his throat, and it broke the lock. With his voice echoing on the wind, the shadows were sucked away, bleeding off of the world around him like ink and leaving him standing in a world he could see.
Stiles blinked. His vision swam into focus, spots dancing in front of his eyes. The white light dimmed, coming down from its liberated high. When everything finally balanced, the sight softened his pounding head, but only sent his mind reeling back in confusion.
He stood in a school hallway, the one outside of Mr. Harris' classroom. Above him, the lights were off, the only source of awareness filtering through the small windows. The air felt strange around him, alive and breathing. It raised the hairs on his arms, and he hugged himself close. The dull warmth from his hands did little to stop the trembling nervousness he felt in his bones.
He let his eyes travel over the scene before him. The school looked deteriorated; cracks littered the glass windows on the classroom doors and crawled across the tiled floor. The paint chipped off of the lockers and the brick walls, exposing the dark grey beneath it all. From the ceiling the paper flats sagged, some torn through with dark stains.
Stiles' eyes fell on the gnarled bark of a branch, twisting out from between the metal struts above. It ended in roots, clawing at the air like a furious animal, frozen in their wooden form for as long as Stiles stared at them. At the sight, his heart stopped and he let his arms fall.
"Aw hell," he groaned. He scrubbed a hand across his face. "Not this shit again."
He shoved down the jump of panic in his chest. He figured at this point that he was dreaming, but at least this time it was so blatantly obvious that he knew it as a fact. The motion sensors were still up in his room – he complained about them constantly, but in truth the knowledge of their presence helped his sleep easier at night, conscious that his father would keep him safe.
At that thought, the familiar sharp edge of guilt dug into his ribs, but he shook his head, ignoring it.
It just didn't make sense. Six months had passed since what Stiles preferred to refer to as "the incident". No one brought it up anyway, but it was too much to even think about most days, let alone call it what it actually was. Remembering it tormented him; the demon in his mind, under his skin, driving him insane. He remembered the weight of the sword lodged in Scott's stomach, and how it had trembled with each breath his friend – his brother – took. He relished in the chaos of that moment, the power that had surged through his veins at the sight of pain. He remembered taking control of the Oni, the glory that had lit up his every nerve and set him on fire, and he remembered the sick, wonder satisfaction he'd felt when he'd killed –
Another drop of water echoed throughout the hallway, breaking Stiles out of his thoughts.
His fingernails dug into his hair, scratching at his scalp. He hadn't even felt it when he'd started to hunch over, but now he faced the cracked tile beneath his feet, sweat sucking from his skin with anxiety coating his face.
He took a breath, then another. His entire body shuddered with the motion, but he felt it. He felt the air fill his lungs, felt it leave him again. His heart beat beneath his skin, thumping against his ribs, and his stomach churned with an uneasy nausea. He accepted the dull sickness with relief.
He felt human.
Stiles straightened up once he decided that his vision wasn't still blurry. The hallway remained dark, but he felt something pulling at him. It felt like a cord strung to his body, tugging once at his chest, then against at his shoulder. The sensation pulled again, pricking at every point on his skin, but not enough to latch on. Stiles eyes searched the dim hallway, as if he could maybe find the severed threads, but he saw nothing.
Drip. There it was.
For a split second, Stiles honestly debated whether or not this was the smartest decision. Of course, six months following demonic possession apparently did nothing to curb curiosity, so he did what came naturally.
He decided 'screw it' and started off down the hall.
His eyes continued to scan the building around him. The broken roots of the Nemeton climbed across everything, and he wondered how much of this dream world was the school, and what he would find outside it.
He prayed to god it wouldn't be anything too traumatizing.
But that was wishful thinking.
Stiles held his breath as he walked past Harris' – well, the dream version of Harris' – room. The door stood ajar, and a pale light filtered out into the hallway. He glanced inside, seeing the rows of lab stations and crystal beakers atop the tables.
His stomach rolled when he caught sight of a dark stain on the corner of Harris' desk. It glistened in the cold light of the room, wet and fresh. Stiles' eyes followed the trail of it as it dripped onto the floor and dragged across the ground. The crooked splatter continued into the hall, rugged and thick as it traced underneath his feet and scraped against the tile. It pooled outside the men's bathroom across him, before seeping under the door. A darkened handprint stained the rotting wood, dashed across its surface.
Stiles hurried on, grateful that the lights were off.
The water had stopped dripping for the moment, and the eerie silence was becoming louder than not.
So Stiles drowned it out the best way he knew how: with words.
"Alright," he began, his voice rough and tired, "We – I am probably going insane. Again. And there is no 'we' here, because Isaac trapped the demon-fly in his magic jar of tree-flesh – That… that is a great visual, thank you, Stiles." He shivered, and licked his lips before hugging his arms once again. "And then he decided to give it back to Kira's arguably crazy mother, leaving us with a rotting tree stump and…"
Nothing.
Stiles breathed out, glancing over his shoulder.
Hell lot of nothing that still plagued Stiles' dreams. His nightmares left him shaking in the middle of the night, clutching for air as he gasped awake, tangled in bed sheets and soaked down to the bone with sweat. Stiles hated the suffocating. He hated the lost sensation that kept him under. Dreams inside dreams inside convoluted spaces of blessed wakefulness – at least he'd stopped sleepwalking, and learned how to know the moment he awoke in his subconscious, the moment the Nogitsune was taken away.
Still, looking around at the hanging branches clawing the school apart, Stiles couldn't help the feeling of dread that filled his gut.
So he spoke again. "I told him just to bury it," he continued after a breath, "but nooo, Mister Golden-Locks-of-Love had to be all stubborn and logical–" and the rest of the pack had agreed with him anyway "–'No burying the evil bug under the Nemeton, Stiles. It'll just attract more messed up mammal-shifters and their freaky reptile cousins.'"
If he were really being honest though, Stiles had to agree. But being possessed by a chaos demon had blown his reasoning instincts to crap. His mind was like a broken labyrinth, crumbling into new patterns with every nightmare or stray dark thought. Even now, he wondered.
Stiles knew chaos. He knew the Nogitsune better than anyone, even before the possession. He breathed chaos. Every single moment of his life was spent rolling with the insane punches. How else did he keep himself from breaking down? Anyone else would have lost their minds the moment the word 'werewolf' was instated as part of reality instead of a simple story to scare farmers into keeping a closer eye on their sheep. Anyone else would have collapsed, the maze in their minds obliterated to ruins, twisted into spirals more intricate than Celtic knots in the face of hunters, kanima, kitsune, as they tried hard to keep everything black and white.
Just look at where Allison fell, turned against herself and confused right up until that final night in the snow.
Yeah, Stiles knew chaos. He'd reined it in, though, taken control of his messed up life and filtered through the shades of grey.
Then the Nogitsune had come and unleashed it all, throwing all his bindings into the void.
He was still working on chaining it all back up. He thought it would be easier the second, third, fourth time around. But no, it wasn't. I never got easier than that. He couldn't just breathe it away like a panic attack. No, it took a force a hell lot stronger than shallow air to capture all the missing pieces of his soul.
That's where he tried to draw the line in the sand. He tried to sort between the chaos that was stiles, and the insanity that was the demon. And sometimes, the logic made sense both ways.
Maybe the Nogitsune had still influenced Stiles into suggesting that he bury the capsule, so that it could regain power. Or maybe it had known that no one would believe in Stiles' judgment, and intended to be delivered to the doorstep of its original summons. There existed an infinity of maybes and possibilities, but if Stiles was truly honest with himself, none of them ever seemed like the right choice.
In the end he trusted the pack – his Pack. That's what they were now. No longer arguing because of power games and regretted actions, they were able to function as a group. Not that they didn't argue – Scott was clueless as a leader on the best of days, relying on Stiles and Derek to guide him – but with the period of unsettled peace, they at least were trying.
Somehow, out of all the chaos, they formed their own little base in the maze. They were more than just friends now. They were Pack, and to Stiles that meant a second chance at family, to forgive himself for all the lies and all the pain he'd given them all. He didn't intend to mess up again, not this time.
He didn't speak again until he reached the end of the hallway. A set of double doors stood closed in front of him, the metal handles stretched across the dark surfaces like a flare. Stiles glanced around once more, noting the cluster of roots just above him in the corner.
He shivered once more, before taking a breath and pushing the door open. The room beyond was automatically familiar, and yet Stiles felt tension creep up his spine. No way that this wasn't some sort of trick of his mind, not with how easy the dream seemed to be going.
So Stiles steeled himself, and continued to walk forward into the school cafeteria.
Moving into the open space was like leaping to an altitude leagues above the earth, and Stiles had to pause for a moment as a wave of dizziness washed over him. His ears didn't pop, but his headspace expanded as if filled with the helium from the Hindenburg itself, laughing him to a high of flammable awareness. If he took a breath, the oxygen in his lungs would ignite, so instead he blinked until the fuel drained away.
The ceiling seemed higher than in reality, the paper tiles arching high above him from the cinderblock pillars lining the walls. Unlike the decimated hallway Stiles had just left, the entire lunchroom was spotless.
More evidence that this was a dream, all sights of pooling bloodstains and clawing remnants of Tolkien-trees aside.
Then Stiles turned to face the tall windows that stretched to the ceiling, and he retracted his previous observation.
A forest of trees pressed up against the glass, as if surrounding the school as an army of vegetation. The tall pines were armed with sharp quills along their branches, and the smaller trees below them bare of their leaves, their twisted branched scratching at the windows.
And at the center of the towering arrangement, seemingly larger than the entire world around it, stood the Nemeton in all of its live, pre-stump glory. Its branches curved up into the air, the same familiar pattern that Stiles recognized from hundreds of Lydia's manic drawings. It glowed with an eerie energy, and Stiles could sense the desperate hunger radiating from its bark, even through the walls of the school building.
The Nemeton wanted blood, and human sacrifices weren't enough.
Its winding arms reached up into the night sky outside. The moon shone bright and full, fat and ripe for the taking as the branches curved around its silhouette like the bars of the deadliest cage, ready to lock the moment it found its key. Filtering through the dark rods, the great light from the moon suddenly flickered.
Stiles swallowed, feeling sweat drip down the back of his neck. His breath shuddered in his throat and his hands shook.
The sound of a phone ringing scared the shit out of him as it echoed through the cafeteria.
"Holy crap!" he shouted, leaping a foot into the air. He clutched at his chest as his heart nearly gave out, reaching out with his free hand for a support of any kind.
The sound came from somewhere in the middle of the room. Quickly, Stiles made his way to the end of one of the long tables, seeing the light from the phone. When he reached it he blinked.
It was his cellphone.
And the caller ID shone with a grinning picture of a closed-eye Scott.
"Stiles!" Scott's voice exclaimed the moment he accepted the call. Relief was palpable through the line, as the boy continued to shout, "Thank god you picked up! Where are you?"
Stiles winced, pulling the phone away from his ear. He frowned down at the device, and by extension, Scott's yelling, before raising it back up to his ear.
Confused, he replied, "Um… I assume my bed? Dream-Scott?"
"Dream–?" Scott cut himself off, before rushing, "Stiles, I'm standing in your bedroom right now. The motion sensors went off and your dad called. Are you dreaming?"
Stiles pulled the phone away again, his heart pounding. "Y-Yeah," he breathed. "I am. How did you–?"
"Stiles, you're sleepwalking again."
No. No, no, no, no, no. No, he was not sleepwalking again. He hadn't sleepwalked in six months. Six months.
To be fair, in six months, he hadn't had a dream of the Nemeton either; let alone the whole goddamn thing.
"Shit," Stiles cursed, taking an involuntary step backwards. "Shit, shit, shit – no, this can't be happening. Scott, this can't be happening – not, not again. Shit! Scott, I–" His breath caught in his throat, and he gave a wheezing gasp as he fell to his knees.
He hit the tile floor hard, hands coming up to clutch at his chest as the panic flared up fresh and new once again. It exploded this time, the entire zeppelin in his chest lighting up his paper in his lungs and striking tinder on the bomb. His very heart went numb, a ragged breath pumping dead blood through his body as tears sprung up in his vision.
His dream world went blurry, as the moon outside the window flickered black.
"Stiles!" Scott shouted, his voice dim through the phone, "Stiles, snap out of it! Stiles! Stiles, we'll find you, just snap out of it and calm down – Just – Stiles–"
The words may have been the angry growls of an animal for all they did to calm Stiles down. No, he kept his heart pounding beneath his chest, too fast to even feel as the panic flared up in every nerve ending of his mind and rendered him useless.
And then he heard a roar, and another voice broke through the cacophony of chaos.
"STILES!"
The feral scream of Derek's voice shook the school to its roots, and the glass windows shattered in a rain of crystal rage. As his name echoed throughout the room, Stiles' breath jolted back into his chest, and his body froze.
Scott had fallen silent, the phone lying on the tile next to him. The roar finally faded away, and the moon turned back on, the white light pouring through the empty frames.
"Derek?" Stiles whispered, barely audible to his own ears.
But Scott heard, and he immediately asked, "Derek? What about Derek?" He sounded defensive, guarded, and Stiles blinked in confusion down at the phone.
"You didn't hear…?"
"Hear what? Stiles? Do you know where Derek is?"
Stiles sat up, and scooped his phone back up to his ear. "What?" he asked, "What do you mean 'do I know where he is'? We saw him just at the last Pack meeting, didn't we? Last week?"
"Stiles–"
"Did something happen?" He narrowed his eyes, already anticipating the answer.
Scott was silent for a long moment, but Stiles could hear his breathing through the speaker. He stood up from the cafeteria ground, and looked towards the windows. Glass littered the tile ground, and the branches of the Nemeton looked bent out of place, allowing more moonlight to shine through to the room. Stiles turned his face up to it, still hearing the echo of Derek's roar in his mind.
"Isaac and Malia are searching the Preserve," Scott finally answered. "I sent Kira to pick up Danny, and they're going to look around the town."
Stiles groaned in annoyance. "Scott, you're not answering my question. What happened to Derek?"
"Lydia and I are going to look for Peter," Scott continued as if Stiles hadn't said anything. "He might be able to help."
"Scott, you asshole, I swear–" Stiles cut himself off. "Wait– is Lydia with you? Lydia!" he suddenly shouted, "Lydia! Where the hell is Derek?"
"Stiles," he heard Scott say.
"Lydia! I know you can hear me!"
"Stiles–"
"Scott," he heard Lydia's muffled voice over the phone. "Scott, give me the phone."
"But Lydia–"
"Scott," and Stiles could hear the biting tone through the dream, "Phone. Now." Scott must have complied, because next thing, Stiles heard Lydia, saccharine sweet, saying, "Hello, Stiles. Sweet dreams, I hope?"
"Lydia," Stiles bit back, irritated, "where is–"
"Derek?" Lydia finished. "I can't tell you that right now, Stiles."
Stiles gaped at his phone. He felt anger rushing to his face and had to resist the urge to chuck it across the room. Really, Lydia?
"What?" he snapped, bringing it back up to his ear. "What do you mean you can't tell me?"
"If I tell you, you'll overreact, which is the last thing we need right now."
"See, the thing about suspense is that it tends to make people overreact anyway," Stiles snapped.
He could hear Lydia metaphorically filing her nails on the other line. "Stiles, you're in a dream. Whether or not you actually do overreact, your mind will start to fill in the spaces for you. And you know what that does to your subconscious?"
Stiles sighed, dropping the phone from his ear once again. Yeah, he knew. What happened was that he got a bear trap biting into his ankle and glass shattering windows while the Nemeton watched over it all.
"Yeah, it all goes to hell," he finally relented back over to Lydia.
"Exactly," Lydia replied, as if the entire process should have been obvious. Which it probably was, but Stiles was asleep, so logic was out of the question anyway. "You are currently sleepwalking. Sleep talking, as well. If your subconscious is powerful enough to control you body motor and vocal functions in a relatively catatonic state, just imagine what it would do if aggravated even more."
A groan left his lips, and he wanted to fall to his ass. But glass was littering the floor, so probably not the smartest decision. Stiles valued his ass, even when asleep.
"Can you–" he stopped, licking his lips, before rephrasing, "How bad is it? Like on a relative 'eh, we can figure it out when I wake up' to 'oh shit, we just lost sourwolf' scale, how badly should I prepare myself?"
Lydia's sigh sounded very tired, almost disbelieving. "It's not an immediate death sort of thing. I'm not getting any whispers from other Banshee. Neither is Meredith. Don't worry your little dreaming soul over it, Stiles. Just focus on waking up."
The relief Stiles felt was more solid than he expected. Sure, Meredith may not have been the sanest woman – Banshee – in the world, but she was honest. And she had a better grip on her powers than Lydia, which was for sure. Not that Stiles didn't trust Lydia or her abilities, but a second opinion from a near stranger was oddly more comforting than a friend's reassurances in this situation.
"Okay," he breathed. "Waking up. Shouldn't be too hard, right?"
Suddenly, a drop of water echoed throughout the cafeteria. Stiles' head whipped around, searching the cafeteria for it.
Lydia hummed in approval. "Scott, drive," she said, muffled over the line as she turned away. She said to Stiles, "Just don't walk anywhere. If you can't wake up by the time we find your body, we'll pull you out of it."
But Stiles wasn't paying attention to Lydia's words at the moment, as another drop of water sounded. There – the doors at the other end of the cafeteria were open, the hallway beyond them dark.
"Lydia, I–" Stiles began. But then another sound snapped through the room, and his words caught in his throat.
A hollow twang of a bowstring vibrated through the room, rippling the dream like a gentle wave, only to be followed by high sound of metal sliding against leather.
"…I'll have to get back to you on that," he finished.
"Stiles? What – no, you need to stay where you are–"
"Yeah, you guys will find me. I've… gotta go."
"Stiles–" Lydia's furious voice cut off as Stiles' hung up. He silenced the phone and slipped it into his pocket, before facing the empty doorway across the room.
Twang.
Stiles took a deep breath, and started forward. His first step was punctuated by that scraping noise, as light as the wind, and yet as loud as thunder.
He hadn't heard that sound in six months. Not since that night when Allison drew that final silver arrow from her quiver.
With every step, the glass crunched beneath his feet, until he escaped the light pouring in from the moon. He walked away form the open windows, leaving the crooked tree behind him, and took the leap into the darkness.
It was weird, when he'd separated from the Nogitsune. He'd been able to see two worlds at once. At some points, his mind would switch his vision, and he'd see his friends fighting the Oni. The next moment, he'd be staring at Lydia as she struggled to pull his sickened body through the halls.
Only by coincidence was he able to witness Allison's death.
He hoped that was the reason, and that it wasn't just another trick of chaos that the Nogitsune had planted in his mind.
The hallway he emerged into was right outside the locker room. This part of the school looked as decimated as the last, only without the roots clawing their way down from the ceiling. He heard the water dripping from within the room.
Steeling himself, he entered.
Even his dream couldn't dispel the stench of teenage sweat that permeated the room. Stiles nearly gagged, if he wasn't already used to it from every moment that he spent in here while awake. The lockers seemed taller in his dream, though, forming a maze deeper into the darkness. Of course, the lights were off, making it all the more difficult. The only source of light was dim, flickering like a weak flame.
Stiles rounded the corner, and saw why.
He faced the sinks lined up against the wall, the molding mirrors all glowing a deep orange, reflecting the light of the melting candle sitting on the edge of the porcelain. The stout lantern dripped wax down its sides, melting into the sink. The candle wavered, throwing the figure before it into a dark silhouette.
A girl sat on the bench in front of the mirrors. She hunched over, staring at the large bow in her hands. Slowly, she reached behind her, drawing an arrow from the quiver strapped to her back, and notched it on the string. For a moment, her hands seemed to freeze, locking up, and the arrow clattered to the ground. Stiles followed it, to see a pile of loose arrows on the floor.
He returned his gaze up to the girl when she plucked the string of her bow. Her gaze seemed lost, completely gone into the middle distance.
Stiles took one look at her hair, how it curled over her shoulder, and the square set of her jaw.
"Allison," he said. It wasn't a question.
She looked up at the sound of her name. For a moment she looked confused, her brown eyes glowing in the dim firelight. Then she focused on Stiles, and her gaze narrowed. Still, she didn't say anything.
After a period of silence, Stiles frowned. "So," he began, wetting his lips, "Are you hear for some sort of significance? Dream symbolism? Omen of death?"
Don't think about death, he berated himself. Not while he was waiting for news about Derek.
But the word seemed to amuse dream-Allison. She tilted her head to the side, her mouth quirking just a little.
Even with the darkness around her, she seemed so alive. It made Stiles' heart skip a beat in his chest.
Just for this dream, he could believe.
But then she had to go and ruin it by opening her mouth.
"You're dying, Stiles."
Stiles opened his mouth, and then closed it, before gaping again. "I–" he choked out, "What?"
But dream-Allison only smiled again, and her body began to fade. It peeled back like the darkness from the beginning of his dream, folding like paper and dissipating like ink. Her details crumpled like sand as the wind blew her away. With the ghost of her smile, the locker room was empty.
"Death omen it is, then," Stiles grumbled to himself, stepping closer to the bench.
His foot knocked against an arrow shaft on the floor. He looked down at it, seeing the feathers bent at the end, black as tar. The silver arrowhead glinted in the candlelight.
He approached the sinks. One of the faucets was leaking, dripping the water that he'd heard from the beginning of his dream. He shut it off, and then glanced up into the mirror.
He looked a mess. His face was gaunt, his eyes sunken deep into his skull. Bags sagged beneath them, red and angry. He looked too much like the Nogitsune; too much like the void.
But as he stared into his eyes, he suddenly leapt back. A startled shout built in his throat, but before he could, he heard the notch of an arrow behind him.
Stiles tore his eyes away from his reflection – his blazing blue eyes – to face Allison.
She stood in the spot he'd just vacated, arrow drawn up to aim at his head. Her gaze was calculating, her face white as a ghost in the candlelight.
"It's too late for you, Stiles," she murmured. Her voice sounded distant, not like the Allison he remembered. She sounded cold.
"Funny," Stiles bit back, his own voice wavering, "coming from the d-dead" – he cursed himself, choking on the word – "girl."
"You're too close to them. You're dying, Stiles."
In any other situation, Stiles would've rolled his eyes. "Yes, you've said that already."
"They'll hurt you. Like they hurt me."
At that, Stiles' spine went rigid. His nostrils flared, and he glowered at Allison. A sort of rage filled his heart, burning with a newfound courage.
"That's not true," he said through gritted teeth. "They didn't hurt you Allison. I did. If you're going to blame anyone, blame me. Scott tried to protect you. Hell, he's still wrecked about you. Scott would never have hurt you. None of them would have. You know that."
Allison didn't waver. Instead, a fire ignited in her eyes, and Stiles almost smiled if not for the cold fury he found in them. Her anger fought against the candlelight, brilliant and winning.
"They did hurt me," she bit, still holding the bow steady. "They kept secrets from me. Not just Scott, but my father, Derek, Aunt Kate. You know what they did to me. They're doing the same to you. You know they are."
Stiles throat tightened, and he remembered the conversation he'd just finished with Lydia and Scott. Quickly, he shook his head.
No, he wouldn't bend that easily.
"You sound just as paranoid as your grandfather," Stiles muttered. "Allison, what they did to you hurt you, yeah. But you moved past that, remember? Sure, you went on a rage and tried to murder Erica and Boyd, and then you helped Gerard kidnap me, but you moved past that. The night you… died – that was you."
I hope to god that that was you.
"And this," he continued, gesturing carefully at the arrowhead aimed at him. "This isn't you. This is dream-you."
Allison didn't reply. She stared at him for a long moment.
Finally, she lowered her weapon.
After another moment, she spoke. "Are you sure you're dreaming, Stiles?" she asked, looking down to replace her arrow on the string.
Stiles frowned. "Yes? I mean, I just look in the mirror, and my eyes are freaking blue, like what's up with that?"
Allison smiled, and it looked so completely Allison that Stiles almost wanted to cry.
"I'll give you a hint, Stiles," she said. "I'm dead, but this isn't your subconscious speaking to you. I'm not a memory either."
Stiles folded his arms. "That makes no sense," he replied. But then he stated, "Prove it."
Allison's smile turned sad. "I can't," is all she said. "But you are dying, Stiles."
A shiver ran down his spine. "What does that mean?"
"I can't tell you that either. There are rules in the afterlife, apparently."
Stiles snorted. "Now you're starting to sound like Deaton."
Allison's teeth were white, even as a ghost – or dream, whatever she was.
"You look so alive," he said before he could stop himself.
Allison giggled, more like a startled laugh at the tip of her mouth. "Wow," she laughed, "What a compliment."
Stiles couldn't help the grin that stretched across his face in reply. "Death looks good on you. Ultimate beauty secret right there."
This time Allison's laugh was loud, completely open. She deadpanned, "Who knew?"
Stiles schooled his face into a serious expression. "But seriously," he diverted, trying to get back on track, "if I'm dying, then what am I supposed to do?"
"Talk to Deaton, like I said," Allison replied. "But also, there is always that option." She nodded over at the mirror behind Stiles' shoulder.
He turned around, only to see the blazing blue eyes that stared back. It took a moment, for it to click.
It was as if cold water had been poured down his spine, how quickly the gentle candlelight became filled with tension. Every hair on his body stood on end, and his heart nearly stopped in his chest.
"No," he breathed. "No, that's not–"
He cut himself off with a choke, as his eyes began to change again. As he stared at his reflection, the blue faded, and his irises bled a deep, burning red.
His reflection changed, and he became the Alpha.
"No, Allison, you can't" – he whipped back around – "I can't be that. I can't become that, you know I–"
But Allison had raised her bow again, and aimed it at Stiles' head.
"It's time to wake up, Stiles," she said, before she let her arrow fly.
*–_–*–_–*–_–*–_–*
Stiles lurched up from the floor, gasping and sweaty, a blue light washed over him.
Immediately, he brought his fingers up to his face, and began to count.
"Onetwothreefourfivesixseveneightnineten," he whispered to himself. Then again, "Onetwothreefourfivesixseveneightnineten."
He repeated the process, his voice shaking and threatening to break in his throat. His pajamas clung to his body uncomfortably, the sweat sticking to his skin. He felt cold. Where was he?
Satisfied, Stiles dropped his hands, and looked around.
He was in Derek's loft. The high cement ceiling hung above him, supported by the pillars that lined the wall. The large bay windows were behind him, letting the moonlight pour in in blue streams, and in the front, the heavy door was pushed open.
"Stiles?" he heard a voice call from above him.
He turned around from where he sat on the ground. Peter was descending the spiral staircase a look of heavy confusion on his face.
After a moment, Stiles found his voice. "How long have I been here?"
Peter reached the bottom of the steps, and quickly crossed the room to kneel down next to Stiles. "I don't know – I just woke up. Lydia called, I was just heading out to go look for… you."
"You didn't hear the door open when I sleepwalked in here?" Stiles asked, his tone becoming harsh.
Even when half asleep and freaked out, he had half a mind to hate Peter. The other half managed to keep the man tolerable, if only because he wasn't as insane this time around.
Peter scoffed in response. "That door's been open all week."
Stiles quirked an eyebrow in disbelief. He replied, "Derek always keeps that door shut."
The reaction was immediate. Peter's eyes widened, his nostrils flaring, and he leaned back. Stiles sat up straighter, the question already on his tongue.
"Peter, where's Derek? I need to talk to him."
It was true; after that dream, he needed to speak to the man. But Peter only opened his mouth, and no words came out.
"Ah…"
"Peter?" Stiles asked again. "Where is Derek?"
"Um… I don't–"
"Peter!" Lydia's voice suddenly echoed from outside the room.
The loud clacking of her heeled boots hitting concrete travelled down the hallway, followed closely behind by Scott's footsteps. The two came running into view, Lydia's hair all askew – yet still somehow completely perfect – and Scott's shirt completely wrinkled, stretched to the side to expose his collarbone. They both froze in the doorway when they saw Stiles.
The boy on the floor broke the silence. "Scott," he began. "Where is Derek? I need to speak to him."
Scott swallowed, his voice choking, "I–"
His gaze flickered to Lydia, who in turn delivered a strong glare in Peter's direction.
The older man took the hint, and cleared his throat. He took Stiles' by the shoulder, turning him to meet his gaze. The man's eyes were solemn, and Stiles knew the words before they even left his lips. They felt cold in his mind, like a numb fuse of panic. But hearing them aloud only set it on fire, and Stiles felt Peter's words crashing like a bomb.
"Derek is missing."
A/N Due to the fact that this is currently unbeta'd, please let me know of any typos that I may have missed or that were lost in the translation from Word.
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