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The gleam of teeth was at the end of his bed again and Stiles was tired.
He stared back at them for a long time, blinking blearily and feeling the color beneath his eyes. The teeth did not speak outright as they usually did; they were just there, a strange pure-white where the room was inky and dark. When the teeth came to visit, he could never see anything - not even his hand if he were to lift it in front of his face. He didn't know what worse - that he didn't care or that he was used to this by now.
The silence continued.
"You're boring tonight," he mumbled, wishing the hulking mass of a jaw would go away. There was a shift, the whisper of fur - and the teeth widened on a grin that bore no humor. "Usually you have something to say. Cat got your tongue?"
He didn't want to deal with the teeth tonight. A dark red tongue spilled from between them, curling over the stretch and curl. It was creepy where it probably should've been - terrifying (anyone in their right mind would be wigged out by the teeth, but he'd never been, not even from the start, where he'd just commented, "Wow, nice pearlies, I bet your dentist loves you."): but he'd seen terror.
He saw it when he closed his eyes, and fell into sleep. This? Wasn’t it.
"Plus, dude, it's kind of weird. Like - are you just watching me?" Stiles' asked, and blinked. It burned. He was so tired. His mother was worse, and he'd heard it in the time she spent in the bathroom. His whole family was tired and he was done with it. Done with more - with school and Scott's hurt looks when he stood up to Jackson for him, when Stiles didn't want it.
Observing, replied the teeth, and they clicked when they met to close.
"Because that makes it better." Stiles replied dryly. A low chuckle filtered through the room and ran goosebumps down his spine.
You don't look so good. Stiles wondered if it was a lie - because he was pretty sure not even the teeth could see. They were just teeth. He'd never seen any evidence to tell beyond that, which only made him pretty sure he was dreaming.
Sometimes, he thought different, because the first night they had come around, there were prints that looked like a wolf's leading out his window. Or fur on his blankets, the time he felt weight at his blanket-covered feet. When a howl crawled in from the night before the teeth had come on another visit.
But there were no wolves in California.
Dreams, he thought. Dreams, he said aloud.
Is that what you think? They prompted thoughtfully. What you still think?
Stiles thought of what his father said: If one's an incident, two's a coincidence, three, a pattern - what does that make the fourth? Fifth?
"I haven't been given anything to think otherwise." He picked at the blankets. Or, well, he thought he was. It felt like them.
You're lying. They said. Stiles shrugged in retort and let the silence come back.
The teeth chased if off again.
I think you know better. That slick tongue came back to swipe over them. You called me, after all. And that was the thing - the teeth were always so insistent. You called me, I came for you, cryptic-this, cryptic-that. Either way: Stiles could think of another thing he was done with.
"Do you even know how to use the phone?"
A growl floated around. It wasn't a new thing, but he still startled at it.
"Ok, ok, and - really, dude, learn to take a joke." He shifted his legs, muscles and bones restless. "But seriously. What brings you around tonight? To just - gleam at me? Tempt me to sing at you? My shiny teeth and meeee -"
Funny. A pause. Nothing I do seems to make you scared of me.
Stiles rolled his eyes, "You're just teeth." At the end of the day, between fur and prints and an open window letting in the cold, noise of the night - that was it. Maybe a trick of the eye, and Stiles' knew his own were exhausted.
And you have other things to be scared of. It said, knowingly. These teeth had a surprising range of emotions.
Stiles didn't answer, until he thought of the night before last.
"Shit. You weren't serious about the stories, were you?" He had enough of those. The last few ones he had heard had come from Scott - about Allison. About the amazingness of her kiss, or the french fry from heaven, her hair -- all before Scott let the secret slip. if he had somehow called this thing to come walking, or whatever it claimed to do, the teeth had it wrong. "Is that why you're here?"
Very. They could be helpful to you.
Stiles threw his arms up. "How will they be helpful? Seriously? You are teeth, what part of this aren't you grasping?"
Teeth cannot speak on their own. Teeth come in a mouth, and a mouth comes with a creature. The teeth paused. But that's not the point. If you listened - it could help you. You talk too much. Opening your ears may do you good.
Stiles scowled. "Rude." But it was a dream. If they wanted to tell him a story or three, then why not. Fucking go for it. It'd pass the time. Stiles just hoped they didn’t expect reciprocation. He gestured, but he didn't think the teeth (or whatever it was) could see.
They did.
Stiles watched with the effort of trying to keep his eyes open as the maw widened and exposed gums, felt the weight on his bed, felt breath against his face as a red, hot tongue crawled out to curl around him, draw him in, the prelude to a voice beginning:
Once, a boy was foolish enough to let a woman burn out his heart with her bare hands...
Then there was fire.
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