A Hundred Echoes (Chapter One)
Title: A Hundred Echoes
Author: hunters_retreat
Artist:destielwinchi
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 23,000+
Summary: In the wake of life altering events, the Beacon Hills pack is trying to settle into some semblance of normal. After the nogitsune, all Stiles wants is to be able to breathe easy and know that his friends are safe. When Stiles begins to dream of his friends though, they turn out to be something extraordinary. Stiles is a spirit walker. The dreams leave him empathic and unable to control himself, but salvation comes in the unlikely form of Derek Hale. Stiles just needs to know two things. What is stirring in the woods of Beacon Hills to cause the entire pack to dream of horrific things? And can Derek help him learn to center himself and control his empathy before it’s too late?
“for there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
“Dude, you look like hell.”
Stiles glared at his best friend but it had about as much of an effect as he’d thought it would. Scott continued to look at him with a furrowed brow and his lips pulled into a tight line.
“Yeah. You remember the nightmares I told you I was having? Still got ‘em,” Stiles said as he started to walk down the hall towards his first class of the day. Luckily they shared the class together and Scott stayed by his side as they walked.
“That was two weeks ago.”
“Yep,” he said, making a loud popping sound at the end of the word. “They can’t get enough of the Great Stilinksi.”
“Have you … you know … talked … to your dad or anyone about it?”
“You know I’ve been seeing that guy.” Scott didn’t give any sign of understanding and Stiles rolled his eyes. “After the nogitsune, Deaton gave my dad the name of a psychologist who knows about this sort of thing. He thinks I’m having nightmares because of what we’re talking about in session but, I don’t know.”
“You don’t believe him?”
Stiles stopped Scott with a hand to his chest and made sure no one else was listening. “With all the supernatural shit that’s happened to us, let’s just say that when I dream I’m a kanima with abandonment issues and a fear of pools, I’m skeptical that it’s because of the nogitsune.”
“You’re just dreaming about that because Jackson is coming back.”
“What?” Stiles asked in surprise. Last he’d heard from Lydia there was no plan for Jackson to come back at all.
“It makes sense. We were just talking about it on the way to Derek’s last night.”
“Dude, I didn’t go to Derek’s last night, remember? I had dinner with my Dad. No one told me Jackson was coming back. Why didn’t anyone tell me Jackson was coming back?”
They entered the room just as the bell rang and they slid into their seats. Scott looked over his shoulder before the teacher started. “You must have heard it somewhere else then.”
Stiles nodded doubtfully but he didn’t say anything. Jackson wasn’t the first were in the pack he’d dreamt about but it wasn’t the time or place to go into the nightmares he’d had about Derek or the near panic he woke up from when he dreamed of Isaac.
When class began Stiles was relieved to focus on something else. He didn’t want to talk to Scott about the nightmares anymore. If his friend wasn’t ready to see something else jump out of the woodwork yet, Stiles couldn’t blame him. He knew Scott was still grieving for Allison which had also translated into seriously overprotective urges towards Kira that he was trying to cope with. He didn’t want to burden Scott with his own issues. After all, they were just dreams which, unlike the trouble Stiles had with the nogitsune, left him very aware of what was real and what wasn’t.
He just wished that he’d dream about his own issues and not someone else’s. It felt like an invasion of privacy even if it was just a dream. He shook the thought away and opened his book when he realized the others were as well. It was just stress and a lack of sleep that was all.
Maybe he should visit the sourwolf. Derek would probably be more than willing to hit Stiles on the head hard enough to knock him out for a while.
**
Stiles was the last to show up at Derek’s for the pack meeting. He’d planned on being there early but the unintentional nap he took killed that idea. It had been two hours of blessedly dream-free sleep and he felt a hundred times better. He didn’t even mind that he missed the few minutes of alone time he normally got with Derek when he showed up to help set up for pack meetings. Alright, he did mind it a little, but he was feeling well enough that he could sneak a few minutes of clean up time after the meeting instead.
Not that those moments were anything more than Stiles enjoying the view and helping Derek out. Derek had become a surprising ally in shutting out the doubts and grief that sometimes haunted him since his possession. Derek had his own share of issues and while Stiles couldn’t say Derek handled it well in his earlier life, he’d learned to let go of a lot of it in the past year. They weren’t friends, per se, but something close to it even if there was a lot of unresolved sexual tension on his side.
Everyone was sitting in a circle in the living room and Stiles couldn’t help but zoom in on the smile on Lydia’s face as she looked up at Jackson who sat at her side, his hand settled lightly on her knee. The other boy looked at Stiles and while it wasn’t a welcoming look, there was far less hostility and anger than Stiles could ever remember seeing on Jackson’s face.
“Hey Jackson, I didn’t realize you were coming back so soon,” he said as he dropped onto the floor with the others. He’d just found out about it five days ago and no one had told him a date.
“It was time,” was all Jackson said to him but that was more of an answer than Stiles expected. A lot had changed since Jackson had become a werewolf and his time abroad seemed to have stilled some of his anger.
Stiles settled his back further into the couch and didn’t realize whose leg he had leaned against until a strong hand grabbed him under the arm and jerked him up onto the couch.
“Give a guy some warning before you manhandle him!” he said as he floundered a bit. Derek just smirked at him but Stiles didn’t move away. He leaned back and relaxed as he let the sound of the others sooth his overworked nerves.
He was almost asleep when Scott called him back to wakefulness. “Stiles had a dream like that.”
He realized he’d lost some time. He must have slept for a while because everyone had moved into the kitchen. Stiles looked over at Scott and his best friend waved him over. “Didn’t you tell me you had a dream about a kanima last Wednesday?”
Stiles nodded. “Yeah.” They all stared at him and he realized he’d walked into the middle of something more serious than he’d thought. “It’s no big deal. I dreamt I was a kanima. I was staring across the ocean and something was calling me from the other side, but I was too afraid of the water to cross. A bridge magically appeared, like out of a fog, and I transformed into a werewolf and ran across the bridge.”
“What was on the other side?” Scott asked.
Stiles shrugged. “I woke before I made it.”
“Bullshit.” Jackson glared at him.
Stiles looked at Jackson in surprise. “What?”
“That was my dream. What are you playing at Stilinski?”
“I’ve dreamed it off and on for two months,” Stiles answered.
“Months? You said you’d just been having nightmares the last few weeks?”
Stiles shrugged again. “Weeks, months, it doesn’t matter. It’s just a dream.”
“When have you ever thought something like that wasn’t related to the pack?” Scott asked.
“Stiles,” Derek cut the alpha off. “Are you okay?”
“It’s not like… that. I know it’s just a dream.”
He felt the sudden need to be away from his friends so he scooped his bag up before anyone else could say anything and headed out the door. He made it to the front before Derek was beside him. “Need a ride?”
He let out a deep breath and sighed. “No, I’m good, but thanks for asking big guy.”
**
“Four others?”
Stiles nodded though he doubted Deaton could see it. He probably heard the two thunks when his head hit the metal examination table Stiles was leaning against though. Four nights. Four dreams. Four really uncomfortable conversations the day after.
“Every detail was the same and he told me about the dreams before I heard them from the others,” Scott chimed in. It was Scott’s fault he was stuck in Deaton’s office. Stiles was fine with a few stunted night’s sleep but Scott had been concerned and dragged him into the vet’s office.
“Stiles, tell me what you feel in these dreams,” Deaton requested.
Stiles sat up and looked at Deaton. “I … I feel like the person in the dream.”
“Are you aware of it at the time?”
“Yes. I can tell when it’s not my dream. I mean, I don’t know why I got stuck in someone else’s head but I know the difference now.”
“Scott said this has been happening for a few months?”
“Yeah.”
“And it isn’t like the dreams you had with the nogitsune?”
“No. I didn’t know if I was awake or not but they were always mine back then.”
“I can’t honestly tell you why this is happening Stiles, but I will look into this. I have a friend who might be able to shed some light on your predicament.”
“And in the meantime?”
“I know it isn’t ideal, but they’re just dreams. I’m sure it will sort itself out soon enough.”
Stiles looked at Scott and rolled his eyes but neither said anything as Deaton left the room. Stiles didn’t know what else he expected the vet to say. Besides Jackson, he’d now stowed away in Scott’s, Derek’s and Isaac’s dreams. None of them were pretty and all of them left him waking in a sweat.
“Maybe Derek knows something?” Scott suggested.
Stiles let out a snort. “Why not? Can’t hurt to try right?”
Scott smiled. “That’s the spirit.”
**
Derek seemed less surprised to see him than usual which Stiles decided to take as a good sign. Derek left the door open for Stiles to follow him into his loft and Stiles closed the door firmly behind him, grateful that he’d been able to talk Scott out of following along with him.
Huh. Derek had art on the walls. Honest to god art, if art looked like a five years old had smeared red and yellow all over a canvas.
“Stiles, did you come here to stare at the painting or was there something you needed?”
He shook his head. “Sorry. I just hadn’t seen this painting before. Not that you need my permission to hang a painting in your loft. Or that the lack of painting was an issue. Or that this one is an issue. I’m sure many people find the colors to be less… um… “
Fire-like was what he wanted to say but if Derek didn’t see flames Stiles didn’t want to mention it.
Derek just pinched the bridge of his nose with his hand. “Peter.”
“I didn’t think he was around these days.” Stiles preferred it that way, but he’d been creeped out by Peter when he’d offered him the bite and Stiles never got rid of the feeling that the wolf regretted asking and not just biting him as he had Scott.
“He’s not. He showed up with the painting, said it was a gift, and I left. When I came back it had been hung. What do you want Stiles?”
Stiles looked at Derek and for someone who didn’t need much sleep, the guy looked like he could use a few night’s rest. “Scott. Deaton.”
Derek just waited patiently as Stiles tried to figure out how to say the rest of it because there was a part he hadn’t wanted to admit to anyone just yet.
“I’ve dreamt of four people’s dreams in the last four nights. Scott made me go to Deaton but he was cryptic as usual. I’m seeing what other people are dreaming and it’s an invasion of privacy. I just … why is it always dreams? First the nemeton, and then the nogitsune. Now this.”
He dropped onto the couch, feeling a little defeated - he refused to be more than a little defeated because he would never give up on his friends but he was allowed a mini-defeat in his head, right? - and felt a little better when Derek sat next to him and bumped their shoulders together.
“What did Deaton say about the dreams?”
“The nogitsune may have left me open to other possibilities. Not bad ones necessarily but the spark I possess may manifest in certain ways because of it.”
“That was supposed to be helpful?”
“No, cryptic. I told you.”
Derek gave a small huff which Stiles took as agreement. He closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh. He felt more at peace here than he did anywhere these days. Derek had messed a lot of things up for the pack, but he’d come home to make that right. He’d become something good for the pack, something strong. He made Stiles feel safe because Derek was the one person in the pack that Stiles didn’t have to worry about too much. Derek Hale was a survivor. So was Stiles. He could see bits of himself in the man that Derek was and vice versa. It was oddly disturbing and comforting in equal measure.
“I’ll call your Dad and let him know you’ll be here a while,” Derek said as Stiles yawned.
Yeah, his Dad finding out about the pack wasn’t quite the disaster he’d always feared. At least now Derek could do things like that and not freak his dad out. Besides, Stiles was too tired to argue. When Derek pulled the blanket off the back of the couch and draped it across Stiles’ shoulders, he let out a deep sigh and fell straight asleep.
**
It was a dream. No. It was a nightmare. He didn’t need more than a moment of recognition to see the dark woods, the shadowy husk of a house, and the full moon overhead to know he’d stepped into a freaking horror movie. He could see a rope coiled in circles at the side of the house and he cringed at the memory of pulling it himself, of finding Laura Hale’s body.
Stiles let out a deep breath as he looked closer around him. He knew it was a dream but he didn’t know whose dream it was. He was pretty sure, but Derek wasn’t the only one who could be dreaming about that night. The night Stiles and Scott had chased off after a dead body had started their path into dangerous territory and he could be in Scott’s head as easily as Derek’s.
Though if Stiles was being honest with himself - and he made of habit of being honest with himself - he imagined Scott’s dreams with far more cuddly kittens and rainbows and, like, fluffy cotton candy.
A howl broke through the silence of the night and Stiles turned back to look at the coil of rope. Which was now being pulled by some invisible force and bodies were being pushed out of the ground in grotesque eruptions of purple flame and gusts of smoke.
They stared at him with hungry eyes and Laura’s face transformed into her beta form. She growled at him and he took a step back, terrified. It didn’t feel right. This wasn’t just a dream. He didn’t know what was different or how he knew but he trusted his instincts.
He took another step back and the other werewolves - the Hale family, he realized - turned towards him as well. Their faces were burnt, but unlike Peter when they’d first met, their faces hadn’t healed. They ran with pus and gore and Stiles had to fight not to throw up where he stood.
The woman at the front howled and it started Stiles. He stepped back and fell. It made him vulnerable and the dead pack began to slowly circle him. Stiles wanted to call for help but it wouldn’t do any good. He needed his own pack. He needed Derek and Scott and the others to get there ASAP or he wasn’t going to survive the night.
He felt something in him open and he didn’t understand but he pushed out with it until there was an echoing call. He could feel it grow until there was enough that he understood what it was. Who it was.
A howl echoed through the night air and the pack stopped. They settled behind the woman but she continued to move closer.
“Woh, now,” Stiles said as he got back to his feet. “No need to get territorial. There is plenty of Stiles to go around.”
He got to his feet and took a step back as the woman lunged forward. Clawed hands raked across his stomach and it was only his fall back on his ass that kept him from getting ripped in two. Pain spread across his torso but he shuffled back across the forest floor.
“You’re not pack,” the woman said, her words oddly accentuated around a mouthful of teeth. “He isn’t strong enough to have a pack.”
“We are his pack,” Stiles said as he continued to move away from the werewolf. She was still advancing but not as quickly. Her eyes kept going back to the treeline before coming back to rest on Stiles. “He’s stronger than he knows.”
She laughed at that but never answered because then Erica ran out of the trees and sprang at her. The woman grabbed Erica by the throat and threw her to the ground in a spray of red. Erica didn’t move.
Boyd came out of the trees next with Isaac and the others. They all stopped together, only Derek was missing. Cora stepped away from them though and moved towards the woman. Her eyes were sad as she looked back at Stiles. “I’m sorry, but she’s my alpha.”
“Cora, he gave up his alpha spark for you,” Scott stepped up to Stiles side and he wanted to push him further away from Talia Hale, creepy undead alpha, but there was nothing he could do to stop Scott from being who he was.
“Being loyal was never Derek’s problem. It was who he chose to give his loyalties too that was,” Talia said with a sadistic smile. “He was too blinded to see what the hunter was and now? His loyalty is to a teenage boy who associates with the same family of hunters that killed us and have tortured him. I would rather see him dead than see him continue to make the same mistakes.”
She looked back at the rest of her pack then and Stiles knew they were dead. He was bleeding steadily already from the deep scratches across his stomach. Erica still hadn’t moved.
Because Erica was dead. Erica was dead. Erica had died because of the alpha pack and so had Boyd. He’d forgotten he was in a nightmare.
“Derek!” He screamed the beta’s name because if he could get to Derek then maybe he could get him to wake up. Something was different this time, something made it more real and less the illusions he’d felt before, but he knew he had to get to Derek and wake him up before he had to live through whatever this was.
The two packs around him roared and Stiles screamed for Derek again but he couldn’t be heard over the noise. Scott pushed him backwards as Talia leapt. Stiles landed hard on the ground and was too stunned to move for a few moments. When he was able to sit up, it was already done. His pack was lying in bloody pools on the forest floor. Cora was covered in the gore of the people who’d saved her from the alpha pack but tears streaked a path down her face as she did her alpha’s bidding against her will.
Talia turned to look at him again with Scott lying unmoving at her feet. She stepped over him and Stiles tried to stand but couldn’t. Talia stopped though and smiled as she looked away from him.
“Too late as usual, Derek. They died and you didn’t even have the decency to die with them. Now what are you left with? Nothing but a useless teenage boy and the knowledge that you will never be able to protect them. No matter how many times you rebuild, you will never deserve them. You don’t protect them Derek, you simply survive them.”
“Derek,” Stiles turned to see Derek at the edge of the tress. His eyes glowed that eerie blue that Stiles had always felt showed far more empathy than Derek let people know he had. “This is just a dream Derek. We were talking about it when I came over tonight, remember?”
Derek stepped away from the trees. “Then do what you promised. Kill me before I make the same mistakes again. Don’t make me survive this too.”
“You would offer yourself in his place?”
“Yes.”
“Derek, no!“
“If it’s just a dream, Stiles, what does it matter?” Derek asked.
Stiles wanted to bang his head against a wall because of course Derek wouldn’t be concerned that he was punishing himself in his dreams like this. The guy still wouldn’t even concede that Kate had been a sexual predator and he had been a victim in what had happened. He wouldn’t admit to the PTSD-like symptoms that Stiles had seen from him and that he’d picked up from the bits and pieces Derek let out about his life in New York.
Derek stepped over to Talia and his sisters each took him by the arm. Laura looked over Derek’s shoulder to smile at Stiles while Cora bit her bottom lip and looked at her feet, obedient but in pain.
Talia raised a clawed hand and slashed Derek’s chest. The beta choked out a noise but refused to scream. Stiles did it for him as he struggled to his feet. “Heal damn it, heal,” he willed his body. It was a fucking dream and he was not going to watch Derek get eviscerated by his undead mother.
“Get away from him,” Stiles demanded. His voice was stronger than the rest of him but he let his conviction pull him from the ground and he stepped closer to the betas. They looked back at Talia but she raised another hand and slashed lower on Derek’s torso.
“Stop!” he pushed his hand out as he yelled and Talia was forced back a step. They all looked at him then and Stiles stood taller.
“You don’t get to hurt him. He is my pack and I will not let you hurt him.”
“Stiles, don’t. Just run,” Derek begged.
“Wake up, Derek. I won’t leave until you do.” He wasn’t even sure he could, not with how real everything felt in this dream, but he refused to try until he knew Derek was awake.
The ground at Stiles feet erupted as more coils of rope began pushing up between him and Derek. He got knocked to the ground but he kept going.
“Derek! Hold on, I’m coming!”
He struggled forward but he wasn’t sure he’d make it before Talia completely ripped him in two. He stumbled the last few feet closer and pitched himself forward as the last burst of earth pushed him off his feet.
He grabbed Derek’s shoulder as he fell and for a moment he felt safe and cared for, until the pain hit and Stiles felt Derek disappearing. Derek woke and Stiles fell to the ground and forced himself to wakefulness.
Chapter Two
Author: hunters_retreat
Artist:destielwinchi
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 23,000+
Summary: In the wake of life altering events, the Beacon Hills pack is trying to settle into some semblance of normal. After the nogitsune, all Stiles wants is to be able to breathe easy and know that his friends are safe. When Stiles begins to dream of his friends though, they turn out to be something extraordinary. Stiles is a spirit walker. The dreams leave him empathic and unable to control himself, but salvation comes in the unlikely form of Derek Hale. Stiles just needs to know two things. What is stirring in the woods of Beacon Hills to cause the entire pack to dream of horrific things? And can Derek help him learn to center himself and control his empathy before it’s too late?
“for there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
“Dude, you look like hell.”
Stiles glared at his best friend but it had about as much of an effect as he’d thought it would. Scott continued to look at him with a furrowed brow and his lips pulled into a tight line.
“Yeah. You remember the nightmares I told you I was having? Still got ‘em,” Stiles said as he started to walk down the hall towards his first class of the day. Luckily they shared the class together and Scott stayed by his side as they walked.
“That was two weeks ago.”
“Yep,” he said, making a loud popping sound at the end of the word. “They can’t get enough of the Great Stilinksi.”
“Have you … you know … talked … to your dad or anyone about it?”
“You know I’ve been seeing that guy.” Scott didn’t give any sign of understanding and Stiles rolled his eyes. “After the nogitsune, Deaton gave my dad the name of a psychologist who knows about this sort of thing. He thinks I’m having nightmares because of what we’re talking about in session but, I don’t know.”
“You don’t believe him?”
Stiles stopped Scott with a hand to his chest and made sure no one else was listening. “With all the supernatural shit that’s happened to us, let’s just say that when I dream I’m a kanima with abandonment issues and a fear of pools, I’m skeptical that it’s because of the nogitsune.”
“You’re just dreaming about that because Jackson is coming back.”
“What?” Stiles asked in surprise. Last he’d heard from Lydia there was no plan for Jackson to come back at all.
“It makes sense. We were just talking about it on the way to Derek’s last night.”
“Dude, I didn’t go to Derek’s last night, remember? I had dinner with my Dad. No one told me Jackson was coming back. Why didn’t anyone tell me Jackson was coming back?”
They entered the room just as the bell rang and they slid into their seats. Scott looked over his shoulder before the teacher started. “You must have heard it somewhere else then.”
Stiles nodded doubtfully but he didn’t say anything. Jackson wasn’t the first were in the pack he’d dreamt about but it wasn’t the time or place to go into the nightmares he’d had about Derek or the near panic he woke up from when he dreamed of Isaac.
When class began Stiles was relieved to focus on something else. He didn’t want to talk to Scott about the nightmares anymore. If his friend wasn’t ready to see something else jump out of the woodwork yet, Stiles couldn’t blame him. He knew Scott was still grieving for Allison which had also translated into seriously overprotective urges towards Kira that he was trying to cope with. He didn’t want to burden Scott with his own issues. After all, they were just dreams which, unlike the trouble Stiles had with the nogitsune, left him very aware of what was real and what wasn’t.
He just wished that he’d dream about his own issues and not someone else’s. It felt like an invasion of privacy even if it was just a dream. He shook the thought away and opened his book when he realized the others were as well. It was just stress and a lack of sleep that was all.
Maybe he should visit the sourwolf. Derek would probably be more than willing to hit Stiles on the head hard enough to knock him out for a while.
**
Stiles was the last to show up at Derek’s for the pack meeting. He’d planned on being there early but the unintentional nap he took killed that idea. It had been two hours of blessedly dream-free sleep and he felt a hundred times better. He didn’t even mind that he missed the few minutes of alone time he normally got with Derek when he showed up to help set up for pack meetings. Alright, he did mind it a little, but he was feeling well enough that he could sneak a few minutes of clean up time after the meeting instead.
Not that those moments were anything more than Stiles enjoying the view and helping Derek out. Derek had become a surprising ally in shutting out the doubts and grief that sometimes haunted him since his possession. Derek had his own share of issues and while Stiles couldn’t say Derek handled it well in his earlier life, he’d learned to let go of a lot of it in the past year. They weren’t friends, per se, but something close to it even if there was a lot of unresolved sexual tension on his side.
Everyone was sitting in a circle in the living room and Stiles couldn’t help but zoom in on the smile on Lydia’s face as she looked up at Jackson who sat at her side, his hand settled lightly on her knee. The other boy looked at Stiles and while it wasn’t a welcoming look, there was far less hostility and anger than Stiles could ever remember seeing on Jackson’s face.
“Hey Jackson, I didn’t realize you were coming back so soon,” he said as he dropped onto the floor with the others. He’d just found out about it five days ago and no one had told him a date.
“It was time,” was all Jackson said to him but that was more of an answer than Stiles expected. A lot had changed since Jackson had become a werewolf and his time abroad seemed to have stilled some of his anger.
Stiles settled his back further into the couch and didn’t realize whose leg he had leaned against until a strong hand grabbed him under the arm and jerked him up onto the couch.
“Give a guy some warning before you manhandle him!” he said as he floundered a bit. Derek just smirked at him but Stiles didn’t move away. He leaned back and relaxed as he let the sound of the others sooth his overworked nerves.
He was almost asleep when Scott called him back to wakefulness. “Stiles had a dream like that.”
He realized he’d lost some time. He must have slept for a while because everyone had moved into the kitchen. Stiles looked over at Scott and his best friend waved him over. “Didn’t you tell me you had a dream about a kanima last Wednesday?”
Stiles nodded. “Yeah.” They all stared at him and he realized he’d walked into the middle of something more serious than he’d thought. “It’s no big deal. I dreamt I was a kanima. I was staring across the ocean and something was calling me from the other side, but I was too afraid of the water to cross. A bridge magically appeared, like out of a fog, and I transformed into a werewolf and ran across the bridge.”
“What was on the other side?” Scott asked.
Stiles shrugged. “I woke before I made it.”
“Bullshit.” Jackson glared at him.
Stiles looked at Jackson in surprise. “What?”
“That was my dream. What are you playing at Stilinski?”
“I’ve dreamed it off and on for two months,” Stiles answered.
“Months? You said you’d just been having nightmares the last few weeks?”
Stiles shrugged again. “Weeks, months, it doesn’t matter. It’s just a dream.”
“When have you ever thought something like that wasn’t related to the pack?” Scott asked.
“Stiles,” Derek cut the alpha off. “Are you okay?”
“It’s not like… that. I know it’s just a dream.”
He felt the sudden need to be away from his friends so he scooped his bag up before anyone else could say anything and headed out the door. He made it to the front before Derek was beside him. “Need a ride?”
He let out a deep breath and sighed. “No, I’m good, but thanks for asking big guy.”
**
“Four others?”
Stiles nodded though he doubted Deaton could see it. He probably heard the two thunks when his head hit the metal examination table Stiles was leaning against though. Four nights. Four dreams. Four really uncomfortable conversations the day after.
“Every detail was the same and he told me about the dreams before I heard them from the others,” Scott chimed in. It was Scott’s fault he was stuck in Deaton’s office. Stiles was fine with a few stunted night’s sleep but Scott had been concerned and dragged him into the vet’s office.
“Stiles, tell me what you feel in these dreams,” Deaton requested.
Stiles sat up and looked at Deaton. “I … I feel like the person in the dream.”
“Are you aware of it at the time?”
“Yes. I can tell when it’s not my dream. I mean, I don’t know why I got stuck in someone else’s head but I know the difference now.”
“Scott said this has been happening for a few months?”
“Yeah.”
“And it isn’t like the dreams you had with the nogitsune?”
“No. I didn’t know if I was awake or not but they were always mine back then.”
“I can’t honestly tell you why this is happening Stiles, but I will look into this. I have a friend who might be able to shed some light on your predicament.”
“And in the meantime?”
“I know it isn’t ideal, but they’re just dreams. I’m sure it will sort itself out soon enough.”
Stiles looked at Scott and rolled his eyes but neither said anything as Deaton left the room. Stiles didn’t know what else he expected the vet to say. Besides Jackson, he’d now stowed away in Scott’s, Derek’s and Isaac’s dreams. None of them were pretty and all of them left him waking in a sweat.
“Maybe Derek knows something?” Scott suggested.
Stiles let out a snort. “Why not? Can’t hurt to try right?”
Scott smiled. “That’s the spirit.”
**
Derek seemed less surprised to see him than usual which Stiles decided to take as a good sign. Derek left the door open for Stiles to follow him into his loft and Stiles closed the door firmly behind him, grateful that he’d been able to talk Scott out of following along with him.
Huh. Derek had art on the walls. Honest to god art, if art looked like a five years old had smeared red and yellow all over a canvas.
“Stiles, did you come here to stare at the painting or was there something you needed?”
He shook his head. “Sorry. I just hadn’t seen this painting before. Not that you need my permission to hang a painting in your loft. Or that the lack of painting was an issue. Or that this one is an issue. I’m sure many people find the colors to be less… um… “
Fire-like was what he wanted to say but if Derek didn’t see flames Stiles didn’t want to mention it.
Derek just pinched the bridge of his nose with his hand. “Peter.”
“I didn’t think he was around these days.” Stiles preferred it that way, but he’d been creeped out by Peter when he’d offered him the bite and Stiles never got rid of the feeling that the wolf regretted asking and not just biting him as he had Scott.
“He’s not. He showed up with the painting, said it was a gift, and I left. When I came back it had been hung. What do you want Stiles?”
Stiles looked at Derek and for someone who didn’t need much sleep, the guy looked like he could use a few night’s rest. “Scott. Deaton.”
Derek just waited patiently as Stiles tried to figure out how to say the rest of it because there was a part he hadn’t wanted to admit to anyone just yet.
“I’ve dreamt of four people’s dreams in the last four nights. Scott made me go to Deaton but he was cryptic as usual. I’m seeing what other people are dreaming and it’s an invasion of privacy. I just … why is it always dreams? First the nemeton, and then the nogitsune. Now this.”
He dropped onto the couch, feeling a little defeated - he refused to be more than a little defeated because he would never give up on his friends but he was allowed a mini-defeat in his head, right? - and felt a little better when Derek sat next to him and bumped their shoulders together.
“What did Deaton say about the dreams?”
“The nogitsune may have left me open to other possibilities. Not bad ones necessarily but the spark I possess may manifest in certain ways because of it.”
“That was supposed to be helpful?”
“No, cryptic. I told you.”
Derek gave a small huff which Stiles took as agreement. He closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh. He felt more at peace here than he did anywhere these days. Derek had messed a lot of things up for the pack, but he’d come home to make that right. He’d become something good for the pack, something strong. He made Stiles feel safe because Derek was the one person in the pack that Stiles didn’t have to worry about too much. Derek Hale was a survivor. So was Stiles. He could see bits of himself in the man that Derek was and vice versa. It was oddly disturbing and comforting in equal measure.
“I’ll call your Dad and let him know you’ll be here a while,” Derek said as Stiles yawned.
Yeah, his Dad finding out about the pack wasn’t quite the disaster he’d always feared. At least now Derek could do things like that and not freak his dad out. Besides, Stiles was too tired to argue. When Derek pulled the blanket off the back of the couch and draped it across Stiles’ shoulders, he let out a deep sigh and fell straight asleep.
**
It was a dream. No. It was a nightmare. He didn’t need more than a moment of recognition to see the dark woods, the shadowy husk of a house, and the full moon overhead to know he’d stepped into a freaking horror movie. He could see a rope coiled in circles at the side of the house and he cringed at the memory of pulling it himself, of finding Laura Hale’s body.
Stiles let out a deep breath as he looked closer around him. He knew it was a dream but he didn’t know whose dream it was. He was pretty sure, but Derek wasn’t the only one who could be dreaming about that night. The night Stiles and Scott had chased off after a dead body had started their path into dangerous territory and he could be in Scott’s head as easily as Derek’s.
Though if Stiles was being honest with himself - and he made of habit of being honest with himself - he imagined Scott’s dreams with far more cuddly kittens and rainbows and, like, fluffy cotton candy.
A howl broke through the silence of the night and Stiles turned back to look at the coil of rope. Which was now being pulled by some invisible force and bodies were being pushed out of the ground in grotesque eruptions of purple flame and gusts of smoke.
They stared at him with hungry eyes and Laura’s face transformed into her beta form. She growled at him and he took a step back, terrified. It didn’t feel right. This wasn’t just a dream. He didn’t know what was different or how he knew but he trusted his instincts.
He took another step back and the other werewolves - the Hale family, he realized - turned towards him as well. Their faces were burnt, but unlike Peter when they’d first met, their faces hadn’t healed. They ran with pus and gore and Stiles had to fight not to throw up where he stood.
The woman at the front howled and it started Stiles. He stepped back and fell. It made him vulnerable and the dead pack began to slowly circle him. Stiles wanted to call for help but it wouldn’t do any good. He needed his own pack. He needed Derek and Scott and the others to get there ASAP or he wasn’t going to survive the night.
He felt something in him open and he didn’t understand but he pushed out with it until there was an echoing call. He could feel it grow until there was enough that he understood what it was. Who it was.
A howl echoed through the night air and the pack stopped. They settled behind the woman but she continued to move closer.
“Woh, now,” Stiles said as he got back to his feet. “No need to get territorial. There is plenty of Stiles to go around.”
He got to his feet and took a step back as the woman lunged forward. Clawed hands raked across his stomach and it was only his fall back on his ass that kept him from getting ripped in two. Pain spread across his torso but he shuffled back across the forest floor.
“You’re not pack,” the woman said, her words oddly accentuated around a mouthful of teeth. “He isn’t strong enough to have a pack.”
“We are his pack,” Stiles said as he continued to move away from the werewolf. She was still advancing but not as quickly. Her eyes kept going back to the treeline before coming back to rest on Stiles. “He’s stronger than he knows.”
She laughed at that but never answered because then Erica ran out of the trees and sprang at her. The woman grabbed Erica by the throat and threw her to the ground in a spray of red. Erica didn’t move.
Boyd came out of the trees next with Isaac and the others. They all stopped together, only Derek was missing. Cora stepped away from them though and moved towards the woman. Her eyes were sad as she looked back at Stiles. “I’m sorry, but she’s my alpha.”
“Cora, he gave up his alpha spark for you,” Scott stepped up to Stiles side and he wanted to push him further away from Talia Hale, creepy undead alpha, but there was nothing he could do to stop Scott from being who he was.
“Being loyal was never Derek’s problem. It was who he chose to give his loyalties too that was,” Talia said with a sadistic smile. “He was too blinded to see what the hunter was and now? His loyalty is to a teenage boy who associates with the same family of hunters that killed us and have tortured him. I would rather see him dead than see him continue to make the same mistakes.”
She looked back at the rest of her pack then and Stiles knew they were dead. He was bleeding steadily already from the deep scratches across his stomach. Erica still hadn’t moved.
Because Erica was dead. Erica was dead. Erica had died because of the alpha pack and so had Boyd. He’d forgotten he was in a nightmare.
“Derek!” He screamed the beta’s name because if he could get to Derek then maybe he could get him to wake up. Something was different this time, something made it more real and less the illusions he’d felt before, but he knew he had to get to Derek and wake him up before he had to live through whatever this was.
The two packs around him roared and Stiles screamed for Derek again but he couldn’t be heard over the noise. Scott pushed him backwards as Talia leapt. Stiles landed hard on the ground and was too stunned to move for a few moments. When he was able to sit up, it was already done. His pack was lying in bloody pools on the forest floor. Cora was covered in the gore of the people who’d saved her from the alpha pack but tears streaked a path down her face as she did her alpha’s bidding against her will.
Talia turned to look at him again with Scott lying unmoving at her feet. She stepped over him and Stiles tried to stand but couldn’t. Talia stopped though and smiled as she looked away from him.
“Too late as usual, Derek. They died and you didn’t even have the decency to die with them. Now what are you left with? Nothing but a useless teenage boy and the knowledge that you will never be able to protect them. No matter how many times you rebuild, you will never deserve them. You don’t protect them Derek, you simply survive them.”
“Derek,” Stiles turned to see Derek at the edge of the tress. His eyes glowed that eerie blue that Stiles had always felt showed far more empathy than Derek let people know he had. “This is just a dream Derek. We were talking about it when I came over tonight, remember?”
Derek stepped away from the trees. “Then do what you promised. Kill me before I make the same mistakes again. Don’t make me survive this too.”
“You would offer yourself in his place?”
“Yes.”
“Derek, no!“
“If it’s just a dream, Stiles, what does it matter?” Derek asked.
Stiles wanted to bang his head against a wall because of course Derek wouldn’t be concerned that he was punishing himself in his dreams like this. The guy still wouldn’t even concede that Kate had been a sexual predator and he had been a victim in what had happened. He wouldn’t admit to the PTSD-like symptoms that Stiles had seen from him and that he’d picked up from the bits and pieces Derek let out about his life in New York.
Derek stepped over to Talia and his sisters each took him by the arm. Laura looked over Derek’s shoulder to smile at Stiles while Cora bit her bottom lip and looked at her feet, obedient but in pain.
Talia raised a clawed hand and slashed Derek’s chest. The beta choked out a noise but refused to scream. Stiles did it for him as he struggled to his feet. “Heal damn it, heal,” he willed his body. It was a fucking dream and he was not going to watch Derek get eviscerated by his undead mother.
“Get away from him,” Stiles demanded. His voice was stronger than the rest of him but he let his conviction pull him from the ground and he stepped closer to the betas. They looked back at Talia but she raised another hand and slashed lower on Derek’s torso.
“Stop!” he pushed his hand out as he yelled and Talia was forced back a step. They all looked at him then and Stiles stood taller.
“You don’t get to hurt him. He is my pack and I will not let you hurt him.”
“Stiles, don’t. Just run,” Derek begged.
“Wake up, Derek. I won’t leave until you do.” He wasn’t even sure he could, not with how real everything felt in this dream, but he refused to try until he knew Derek was awake.
The ground at Stiles feet erupted as more coils of rope began pushing up between him and Derek. He got knocked to the ground but he kept going.
“Derek! Hold on, I’m coming!”
He struggled forward but he wasn’t sure he’d make it before Talia completely ripped him in two. He stumbled the last few feet closer and pitched himself forward as the last burst of earth pushed him off his feet.
He grabbed Derek’s shoulder as he fell and for a moment he felt safe and cared for, until the pain hit and Stiles felt Derek disappearing. Derek woke and Stiles fell to the ground and forced himself to wakefulness.
Chapter Two