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Even with her psychiatrist's approval, Nancy was not 'okay'. She just knew that she couldn't tell anyone about her dreams anymore.
She took her meds every single day and tried her best to feign sleep. She drank coffee like water. She took her caffeine pills over the counter, buying them in bulk whenever she went on a road trip- which was frequently. 'Just to clear her head.'
She had a small mountain hidden under her floorboards, in her car, in a false bottom of her bathroom drawer... anywhere she could get into without being noticed.
Less than a year after his 'disappearance', she still didn't know exactly where Quentin was- but she knew he was still alive.
In some form of hell.
She had watched him die, so very many times. Every time she slept.
He was being tormented by Freddy every time she slept, but she couldn't reach him. No matter how loudly she screamed. No matter how often she cried his name.
She would watch over Freddy's shoulder as he fled through so many different places- Some she had managed to find through research.
A junkyard where the mechanic went nuts and slaughtered his boss. A neighborhood where a masked murderer went on a teenage-killing spree. A massive estate, owned by a power-hungry son. The preschool.
Some places, she had no idea where they were. The forest, the cornfields, the hospital. She would need a name for those- a name he couldn't give her.
But she had gotten some information from her dreams.
The names of his newfound friends- David, Claudette, Jake, Meg, Laurie, Bill, Nea, Feng, and Ace- who were all trapped in there with him. She still couldn't figure out Quentin's tie to them. She couldn't find out why Freddy tormented them too.
They were always in groups of four, rushing to finish generators before Freddy impales them on one of the many meathooks scattered across the maps, or on his glove if he particularly felt like it.
She had watched over Freddy's shoulders as Quentin got better at finishing the gens.
At hiding last second, disappearing into the eternal nighttime.
At taunting Freddy, always seeming to know exactly where he was coming from just seconds before his head dipped towards his chest.
Quentin personified 'dream walking' now. He could run Freddy around in his half-forced slumber, leading him far away from his teammates and their gens until the gates were open. Then he was gone like a bad nightmare, only to be glimpsed holding down the lever to power a massive door, standing just before the boundary Freddy couldn't cross as a final form of defiance.
In the beginning, Quentin paid dearly for that smartassery.
Now, he did not.
Now, after so many of these ordeals had smothered him with the blood of himself and his friends, Nancy watched him run. He could run with that redhead- only for a short time, but still- and sneak away right under Freddy's nose with the swede.
-
But this dream was different.
Freddy wasn't killing like he normally did.
He hung back, watching dark hair and tired eyes work on a generator.
Quentin was quite vigilant, his gaze breaking from the repair every few seconds to scan his surroundings.
When the generator finally roared to life, Quentin was running. He ducked into the house in the center of the forest, but Freddy didn't follow. He waited a few seconds, and his patience paid off. Quentin slowly crept out of a nearby window, keeping his center of gravity low and blending in as best he could with the eerie blue of the night sky.
Nancy could still remember the way that quilted blue shirt felt when he had given her that brief hug.
God, she could still remember the softness of his lips. It was almost enough to bring the tears back to her eyes.
Instead, she watched as he smiled at the British man that frequently saved him from the hooks when they were in a trial together.
They finished the gen quickly, but didn't run from it this time.
A few hundred yards away was the ever-nervous Dwight. He looked relieved to see the two, but was obviously discomforted by the lack of killer in their match.
A generator popped in the distance. Two left then.
One left, with the three of them completing one nearby.
The final went off slightly closer to them, and the blaring of the now-powered gates prompted a competition between the brit and Quentin with a single glance.
Both bolted towards the exit gate, obviously racing to try to be the one to open it.
Nancy lost sight of them for a moment- therefore Freddy did as well, and Nancy wasn't going to complain about that- but he followed the trailing brunette from a distance.
It only took a handful of seconds to see the gate in the distance, with Quentin holding down the lever and grinning at the approaching David.
He was promptly pulled off of it as the tall saboteur appeared from thin air, rolling his eyes as he pulled the lever down once more.
David was now spinning with Quentin over his shoulder, laughing loudly as the teen flailed and eventually fell to the earth.
Judging from the way he swayed, Quentin had gotten dizzy. He was tugged to his feet by Jake, who tucked him protectively under an arm. Quentin quickly broke away, running forward- to Dwight's despair- to search the chest on the other side of the wall.
Her heart stopped as he clutched a medkit to his chest, his eyes roaming over where Freddy stood- only a few feet away from him now.
That dazzling smile fell as blue eyes widened.
Freddy's claws twitched as they attempted to run through Quentin's hair.
If he were asleep, Quentin would have been in trouble.
Instead, he ran out the massive door- his teammates guarding him by allowing him to leave first.
Nancy smirked. Freddy didn't get his kills this game. Good.
She watched his silhouette fade into the distance, waiting to awake like she always did after the last survivor left by some means or another.
Her heart froze in her chest when Freddy turned and looked right at her.
"Isn't he beautiful, Nancy? Everything you could ever dream of?"
She woke up screaming for the first time in months.