Lydia woke from her nightmare shaking and gasping for breath. She had barely managed to hold her scream but couldn't quite fight the tears making their way down her cheeks or the sob's that shook her small frame. It had been three weeks since it all happened but the nightmares still came.
She had dreamed about Allison and her time with Stiles in the tunnel. Then the dream had morphed into the night when they defeated the nogitsune but the dream had changed a few details. Rather than just reliving what happened, her subconscious had made it so much worse.
They had gotten past the imaginary Oni and subsequently pissed off Void and then Scott bit the nogitsune causing him to crumble into dust. But in the dream something was different.
In the dream Stiles died.
He collapsed, boneless to the floor and no matter how hard she tried she couldn't wake him. She would turn to Scott for help but he wouldn't be there. She was alone in the school corridor with a dying Stiles and she had no idea what to do.
She would gather him in her arms and beg for him not to leave her but his breathing would slow and his heart would stop. She would feel that now familiar feeling of a banshee scream crawling its way up her throat but she would wake up before it left her lips.
She often dreamt of that night. Sometimes it would be the same as tonight's or it would be different but often it was that night. Sometimes it would be in the imaginary snowy courtyard where Stiles held the katana against his belly and tried to convince Scott it would save everyone. In that dream instead of figuring out the illusion he would plunge the katana in and die shaking and crying apologies into the snow. His blood would turn all the snow to red and she would drown in it, waking just before dying herself.
She glanced at her clock reading the glowing numbers as she clutched at her blankets. It was just passed two in the morning but she hardly had time to feel bad as she picked up her phone and pushed speed dial.
Stiles answered after three rings and sounded tired but awake.
"Lydia? What's wrong are you okay?"
"Can you talk to me? About anything I just…. Need to hear your voice for a bit."
"Okay but if you need help or you get sick of my rambling let me know okay?"
He sounded so calm and gentle despite the early hour and she was suddenly taken aback by his kindness especially after how she treated him for so many years. But she reminded herself that they were friends now and Stiles had told her to call if she needed anything. And though she knew he should be sleeping she needed him so badly to prove he was alive and okay and that she would be too.
She listened as Stiles talked about a puppy that he fostered when he was twelve and how Scott would come around to play with it all the time. He talked about his awesome tree house that had to be taken down from his backyard after a bad storm and about his favorite comic book store that he used to visit every week with his Dad when he was little.
Stiles had been talking for twenty minutes when he paused and asked if she was still there.
"Yeah."
"Are you okay? Do you want me to come over?"
She sounded so small she wondered how he could hear her at all.
"I had a nightmare. A bad one."
"What happened?"
Just a whisper "You died."
"Oh…..I can come over if you want."
"It's almost two thirty in the morning I don't wanna make you-"
"It's fine Lyds I'll be there soon okay?"
"Okay. Thanks Stiles."
He hung up and Lydia suddenly felt so alone in the dark and so small in her big bed. She turned the lamp on and tried to get rid of the tear tracks down her cheeks.
Stiles knocked on her door ten minutes later and crept through carefully not wanting to wake her parents.
The banshee, much to her embarrassment, started crying again as soon as he entered making the boy move more quickly to her bed to take her in his arms.
"Hey, hey it's alright Lydia. It's okay."
She curled herself into his arms and breathed against his chest focusing on the way his own chest moved against hers.
"You're okay. You're alive. And you're here."
"I'm right here Lyds."
She was so exhausted and so relieved to have Stiles there holding her and her eyelids dipped as she crept closer to sleep.
"Stay with me?"
The boy simply kissed her forehead and shifted to lie down with her on the bed managing to keep his arms around her the whole time.
The banshee sighed and snuggled in closer hardly thinking about what her mother would say if she found them like this. Listening to the beating heart and working lungs in Stiles' chest, she fell into a dreamless sleep.