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“Stiles!”
Heather is so cute. She’s as cute as she was when they were both six and she insisted on wearing a princess tiara everywhere she went. She’s woman-shaped now though, all soft-and-firm curves and small breasts pushed against Stiles as she rises up on her tiptoes and kisses him.
There was something he was supposed to remember, something about her, but he forgets when they kiss, because she’s sliding her cold hands up his belly and under his shirt. It tickles all over. He gets hard and she giggles into his mouth and moves against him, making it feel good.
“Heather,” he says, muffled against her lips. He has his eyes closed now, after that rush of surprise, because that’s what people do when they kiss. That’s how it works. There’s something he’s supposed to remember but she’s kissing him harder, and she’s tugging his hair and he likes it. He moans and his face gets hot and he wants, wants, and his fingers find the bottom of her shirt and he lifts it slowly, daring.
Her skin is cold and spongy, giving way under his fingers like he’s touching mud and it’s wet and he screams, but it’s smothered, lost in her mouth.
She tastes like rot.
she’s dead she’s dead she’s dead she’s dead
Stiles opens his eyes, gags, and she pulls back and slowly tilts her head.
His screaming stops. It’s locked in his throat. He still hears it though, like an echo. Far away.
“Stiles,” she says, sadly and softly, her voice so pretty like it always was. She pouts and her lower lip bulges, sags. Her eyes are gone. He can see her molars through a shallow divot in her cheek.
“I was waiting for you,” she says. He can’t move, has to watch, as she puts her hand between her legs. “I was ready for you. But you didn’t come back.”
The scent of decay is so strong the air feels fuzzy. Stiles’ ears buzz and his vision goes gray and she puts her bone-flesh-rotted fingers back on his cheeks and says, “You won’t leave me alone again, Stiles. You’ll stay this time. You’ll stay with me.”
Her dry, hard tongue levers his mouth open and she parts her lips and he hears it before it happens, hears the skitter-rush of the insects before they fill his mouth, crawl along his face, bite his skin, cover his eyes and—
He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe.
“Stiles! Shhh, Stiles, stop — stop screaming. Stiles please, come on dude, come on.”
Scott.
Scott’s face is close and his hand is warm and solid over Stiles’ mouth and the shower water is cold and they’re in the locker room at school. They’re sprawled out on the hard tile and Scott has Stiles pinned and it’s Scott, it’s just Scott.
It wasn’t real.
Scott must feel everything click back into place because he lets go of Stiles’ mouth and says, “Dude,” again, all wrecked and scared.
For a moment, it’s just their loud breathing, before Stiles starts to cry. He reaches for Scott and they worm out of the shower spray until they’re tucked in the corner of the stall. It’s a mess. But Scott’s good at hugging, the best really, especially now that he’s stupidly strong. So Stiles just cries because he can, sick with relief.
But the terror lingers and the taste lingers and he’s ashamed and embarrassed and he’s so tired.
“I’m sorry I covered your mouth,” Scott is saying, as he rubs Stiles’ back and rocks awkwardly, too fast, like a rowboat at sea. “I didn’t want them to call your dad again, or my dad, and I thought the cold water would wake you up. But it didn’t work.”
“And yet I somehow wake up every time I’m having an actual awesome sex dream,” Stiles mumbles, sniffly and hoarse against the warm place under Scott’s ear.
Scott gives a weak laugh.
“Where this time?” Stiles asks.
“On the bench by your locker,” Scott says. “Well more on the floor by the bench, I guess.”
Stiles knows what’s next but he hates hearing it anyway, because Scott’s right, and Scott’s authority sticks now, in a new, surprising, weird way that makes Stiles feel good even as he hates being told what to do.
Scott sighs. “You gotta stop driving for now, until we figure this out.”
“Yeah.” Stiles watches the water swirl down the drain. He loves driving. “If I nail a tree twice in one year my dad’s gonna revoke my license. Hey.”
“What?”
“Deaton’s got to have something,” Stiles says, pushing away from the hug as it abruptly hits its expiration date. He seriously wants to be dry and he’s done crying.
Next.
They help each other up. “He already said he’s never seen anything like this,” Scott says.
“No like, vet stuff. He’s gotta have stuff to put animals to sleep.”
“What? Stiles we’re not putting you to sleep,” Scott says, eyes gone wide all over again.
“No — dude — like for surgery. For animal surgery. Anesthesia for dogs or whatever. Wouldn’t it work on people?”
“I thought you wanted to not be asleep,” Scott says, waving one hand. “Because of the.”
The nightmares.
The nightmares Stiles won’t talk about. The ones that come every time he drifts off to sleep. In Chemistry or in a shady spot under the bleachers or on Scott’s bed or in the passenger seat of Lydia’s car. The ones that pull him under and leave him screaming in his sleep and scaring the shit out of whoever he happens to be with. He won’t sleep at home anymore, he can’t sleep at home because it’s the worst in his bed and he can’t scare his dad like that, not anymore.
The nightmares he can’t explain because he doesn’t want to talk about all the dead people he’s let down and how they just want him to stay, to be dead too. That’s all they want.
He’s so tired. “No but what if it’s like, fake sleep. Medical sleep. Maybe I won’t dream. Maybe it’ll be different.” Maybe he can finally get some rest.
Scott frowns. “I don’t know. That doesn’t sound safe.” He startles and reaches for Stiles.
“What? Dude!”
“Sorry,” Scott says, flicking something away. “You had a weird bug on your face.”