Stiles was running. Faster and faster, through the darkness. It was the most complete blackness that he'd ever seen. He hadn't thought that it was possible to create a darkness to devoid of light. He had to remind himself to blink, there was no difference between having his eyes open or closed. None that he could tell.
He didn't know why he was running. He just started, a long time ago, somewhere else in the darkness. And he still hadn't stopped. He didn't even know if he was going anywhere. He just kept running.
His head felt light from it, but he wasn't running out of breath. He wasn't gasping like he should be. Maybe he wasn't running through air anymore. Maybe he no longer needed to breathe.
Stiles slammed into something in the blackness, felt it press at him and hold him tight. He hadn't seen it, still couldn't see it. It caught at his clothes and pulled them closer, stretching the fabric across Stiles' limbs. He could feel it begin to rip, begin to tear against his elbows, across his spine.
He felt it reach out again, begin to crawl down his throat, into his nose and his eyes. It seeped through him, suffocating him and he needed to breathe again. But the darkness was obstructing his airways, clogging up his nose, his ears, slithering past his skin.
He started to panic, desperately pulling at the thick nothingness around him.
He felt his lungs begin to burn, knew that he would not survive for much longer without oxygen. Urgently kicking out, he felt his foot collide with the something, felt it recoil. He swung out into the darkness, feeling more of his desperate limbs make contact. Before long he was able to breathe again. He began to recover, feeling the darkness shrink away from him.
Feeling giddily victorious, he lurched forward, falling upon the lightless void. Panting heavily, he tore into it, feeling it give under his fingers, part beneath his fingernails. It made no sound, but he could feel its death as he continued to assault it, viciously tearing it to shreds.
As it died, a tremendous sound filled the endless space, driving Stiles to his knees in pain.
The sound beat against his skull, and he tore again at the fading darkness, trying to make it stop.
It stopped the minute he woke up. The sudden silence caused his ears to ring, and he was immediately bolt upright. Stiles thought he knew all the nightmares his brain had come up with, but this dream was completely new to him.
His hands ached with the ghost of memory, remembering what he had forced them to do in the dream. He was still breathing heavily, but his heart was beginning to calm down. It was just a dream. He couldn't hurt it.
Still, he couldn't shake the memory of the angry bloodlust that had flashed through his bones as he attacked the darkness. He couldn't forget what it had felt like when his nails had started to come away from his fingertips.
Suddenly his father's description came back to him. Of the unusual and unusually brutal killings. His subconscious must have been listening closer than he had, and had conjured up this nightmare to terrorise his dreams. It was probably his mind's way of reminding him that something curious had happened and he had yet to check it out.
He fell back onto his bed, trying to put the dream out of his head. It was surprisingly persistent, not leaving him as he tried to go back to sleep. He was worried that if he did sleep again, it would only be to find himself back in that darkness.
I get it, he thought. I will see what's up with that out tomorrow, but only if you let me sleep.
"Is that really what you think that was?" Helen asked, and Stiles groaned, pulling his pillow up over his head.
"Seriously Stiles. You think it was just a dream."
The pillow barely muffled the voice, at least not enough to let Stiles sleep, so he pushed it aside and sat up again. His room was empty to look at, but Stiles knew that 'looks empty' didn't mean all that much anymore.
"Well, what do you think it is Helen? Please do tell so that I might get back to sleeping."
"I was just asking. If you think it was a dream, a dream it was."
"What else could it be? Of course it was a dream. I was dreaming it, so…dream yeah?"
Helen didn't answer, but Stiles could feel what he was implying. Could it be that the dream was more than just his brain reminding him about something he'd forgotten? Stiles couldn't believe the only alternative that came to mind. Because it was ridiculous.
How could what he had seen, what he had done, be real?
"No." Stiles argued abruptly. "No, it was the omega killing those people."
He heard Helen scoff.
"Come on Stiles. You and I both know that that's not possible. No wolf kills like that. We both know what you were dreaming about."
"But Derek and Scott, they would know if something else was going on. If…someone else was committing these crimes."
"Derek? You think he'd tell you the truth? Both of them, they know something's up with the deaths. But they're not going to tell you, are they? They don't trust you."
"That's ridiculous. Why wouldn't they tell me?"
The room was silent for a second, and Stiles began to wonder if Helen was gone. Then his phantom character spoke again.
"You think you mean something to him. Oh Stiles. Why do you always do this? You're nothing to them. Just a pathetic human. They don't need you."
Stiles frowned into the darkened room. He felt shame settling in his chest, despite not truly believing what Helen had said.
"I need you Stiles. And I don't care what you did to those people. I will always need you."
As suddenly as he came, Helen was gone. Stiles felt the absence, though nothing had really changed.
His heart had started beating wildly again, but he forced himself to slow down a little. Helen was wrong. That was okay, Helen was a flawed character to start off with. He had no idea what he was talking about. He knew nothing about the real world.
Stiles knew, he knew, that he couldn't have had anything to do with any of what was going on out there. It was impossible. Besides, Helen was wrong about Derek too. Whatever Derek had used to feel about Stiles tagging along with Scott, Stiles knew that the werewolf had come to rely on him, just a little bit.
Trust or no trust, they would tell him if something was up.
Still, doubt tortured a small part of his mind. What-if's sprang up and danced eerily, refusing to be banished back into impossibility.
What if…
What if…
What if?
(...)
Derek didn't say anything as Stiles followed him into his house, just somehow looked like Stiles being there wasn't bothering him at all and that Stiles interrupted him doing something of infinite importance. Stiles didn't have time to worry about disrupting Derek's very important schedule. Besides, it wasn't really something that would bother him anyway.
Stiles barely saw any of the house as he turned back to Derek, who was closing the door behind them. Derek might not look have surprised to see him (anyone hoping to catch Derek with an expression of anything but nonchalance, smugness or barely concealed anger would have to do something truly insane) Derek did seem uneasy as he watched Stiles begin to pace in hurried little steps across his floorboards.
Stiles knew the way that he must look to Derek. He'd barely slept last night, and it had left clear marks on him by morning. His eyes were ringed with dark, bruise-like bags. He'd changed clothes, but he'd gotten dressed in a daze, so he didn't really know what he was wearing. His body was alive with even more nervous energy that usual, and he just couldn't hold still.
He knew he was a mess.
He knew he looked crazy.
But he had to know.
He was probably going to sound crazy in a minute.
Derek just looked at him, frowning in a way which clearly conveyed that he had no idea why Stiles was in his house at 5:30 in the morning.
Stiles looked at Derek but didn't see him. He couldn't see anything beyond the thoughts in his head. He was confused, so confused. He might not always know what's going on, but usually he had a pretty good idea. This time, he was so lost that he didn't think he could find his way with google maps and an audio tour guide.
Stiles stopped pacing long enough to turn towards Derek, who looked at him expectantly. But he didn't know what to say, where to begin, so he started pacing again.
When he stopped again to look at Derek, the man looks as though he'd about to say something.
Stiles couldn't hear anything that Derek had to say. Not yet. He didn't think that he could process anything that wasn't answers to the questions he hadn't asked yet. He certainly couldn't formulate answers of his own, to whatever question Derek was about to come up with.
"What's killing those people."
It didn't sound like a question, but Stiles had managed to make the sounds and he thought that was probably enough.
Stiles thought Derek looked taken aback for almost half a second, before regaining his composure.
"What?"
Stiles wanted to throw up his arms in desperation, or throw himself against the ground, or panic, or crowd into Derek's personal space and demand the answer, but that was Derek's thing, and maybe he should just repeat what he said but with a question mark this time.
"What is killing those people?"
Apparently Derek recognised the non-existent question mark the first time, because his expression didn't waiver from what-are-you-talking-about-Stiles-what-a-stupid-question-to-be-asking-at-this-time-in-the-morning-go-home-and-bother-someone-else.
But Stiles needed to hear the answer.
He needed Derek to tell him the truth. He needed Derek to tell him that he was not currently nor had he ever been a danger to anyone. And yes, if that made Stiles feel a little pathetic, he was okay with it. He's human, after all.
Stiles was still pacing, and Derek still hadn't answered so he may or not be pacing in this hallway for the rest of eternity.
"Who killed them?"
"The omega. I don't understand what you want me to tell you. You know that the omega is the one doing this. What do you think we've been doing out in the woods? Digging for lost treasure?"
The sarcasm was reassuring, and Derek sounded as though he was being honest.
Stiles wanted to trust him. Wanted to believe that Derek was telling the truth.
But he knew. He wasn't sure how he knew, but as soon as Derek finished speaking, Stiles was absolutely sure of it.
Stiles couldn't believe him.
He knew that Derek was lying to him.
Derek was lying to him, which meant that Scott was lying to him too. Stiles couldn't trust either of them.
"It's just the wolf, Stiles."
Stiles looked at Derek, stared at him. He still hardly saw anything, but he heard the lies, as clear as day.
He had to leave. He had to get out of there. He had to get back home, back to his room. He needed Helen, who would tell him the truth. Helen couldn't lie to him, wouldn't lie to him.
Evasively, he told Derek that he had to leave, and pushed past him to get to the door.
Derek didn't move, just let Stiles slip out of the house behind him.
Stiles could feel his heart beating again. He didn't know what to do.
He…he couldn't…
He couldn't kill anyone. It had to be impossible.
Only it wasn't impossible. Derek had basically told him outright that there was no Omega killing people. Perhaps not outright, but it had been said nonetheless. And he didn't trust Stiles. Derek was lying to him. Why would he do that, if Stiles wasn't…involved? Implicated.
Stiles broke into a jog, needing to get out of the woods as fast as possible.
He needed to be home.
Stiles had the dream again that night. He was back in the darkness, running and fighting, for his life or the rush or it he didn't know.
He woke up in the morning, feeling like he hadn't slept at all. He remembered waking throughout the night, more and more often as his nightmares progressed. Each time, he would hear Helen, crooning softly to him in his dark room.
"It was you. It was you. You did it. You did it. You did it."
You did it.
(...)
Stiles barely slept anymore. When he did, it was because he'd passed out on some semi-comfortable surface, from an exhaustion he couldn't ignore anymore.
He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten anything. He was pretty sure he remembered what outside looked like, but it was more of a vague memory than a solid idea. He could see a little rectangular bit of it from the window in his room, but that was all.
He was too close to the ending. Too close to the end of his story. He needed to write, more than he'd ever needed any of that other stuff. He had once joked that writing was like a disease, now he truly believed it. I was all that he wanted to do, all that he could do. It was the only thing he could focus on, the only thing that he could understand anymore.
Helen's voice was almost constant now, echoing in his ears. He whispered to Stiles, telling him all the secrets of the story. Things he'd never even thought of. Promising to give him the ending. Promising him the truth.
Stiles didn't know what would happen when the story was finally over. He didn't really care. He just needed to write it. That's all.
Somehow, he understood that he'd lost his grip on reality. It didn't trouble him. He'd lost it a while ago.
He knew that people were worried about him. Scott no longer had the right to worry, but his father…Stiles didn't know how much longer he could go on like that until his dad tried to intervene.
His father didn't understand. He didn't know how much Stiles needed it all to be finished. He needed those last words, like a cave diver needs oxygen. After everything, this was all that he had left, all that he needed.
His dad would tell him that he needed to do other things, things Stiles had used to do, like that was going to help him at all. What he needed was right in front of him, in the words and the writing and the story. His father would try to stop that. Stiles needed it not to stop.
Stiles was in his room, scribbling fiercely in the book. His handwriting had become so messy that it was barely legible. He seemed to have lost the ability to care.
He paused as he hit a block, unable to go on. He was at a loss for words, unsure of what was supposed to happen next. He'd been hitting them all morning. Or night. Or afternoon. He didn't care to know anymore.
Helen only gave him the story in short bursts, keeping him guessing for some reason. Stiles was being led along like a reader, not an active creator.
He leaned back from the paper, took a breath. Oxygen flooded his brain but it didn't bring him the answers.
"Thank you Stiles." The voice was louder than usual, and Stiles actually fell back in the chair, sending both it and himself tumbling to the floor. He picked himself up and rearranged the chair close to the desk.
"For what? Why are you thanking me?" He asked, hesitantly.
"This is it. We finally made it."
"What is it?"
"The end. This is the end Stiles."
Stiles entire body became alert at Helen's words. Electricity ran from his toes through to the tips of his fingers, jolting him wide awake.
Finally.
Stiles didn't need to ask again, didn't need to confirm. Helen hadn't lied to him before.
So he just grabbed his pen again, pressing it against the next unmarked page until the ink left a stain.
And he listened as Helen told him the ending.