Chapter Text
“Wait, so you woke up at your desk writing this?”
“No, I woke up screaming bloody murder in my bed clutching this list and a pen.” Stiles sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “And the dream, it felt so… real. I’ve had crazy dreams before, but this was different.”
Scott shoved the last chip in his mouth. “But this list—it’s nonsensical. Just look!”
- Run in the morning before school, workout longer, practice jiu-jitsu and judo.
- There will be a dead body ripped in half in the woods the night before the first day of spring semester.
- Beware the Argent sister and head.
“I mean, a dead body?” asked Scott. “Ripped in half? This is Beacon Hills. Barely anything happens here. The jiu-jitsu judo thing is so random, too, and what even is an Argent?”
“I don’t know, but I think…I think I dreamed about the Hale fire.”
“What?”
“You know, from six years ago?” Stiles buried his head in his hands—the dream was hazy in his memories now, mere blurry glimpses, but he still remembered the flames and the screams. “There was— There was a lady, a blonde lady. She started it.”
Scott’s brows furrowed in confusion. “But you didn’t see the Hale fire happen.”
“Well, no, but there was other stuff. Me and you and a bunch of other people, and reptile creatures and wolves and I became an FBI agent and I think I was a sniper at some point? And— Oh, I got together with Lydia—”
“It’s definitely a dream, then,” said Scott.
“Hey, rude!” retorted Stiles. “I just have to, y’know, make my charms known to her.”
Scott let out a laugh. “Right.”
“Well, we broke up, anyway…,” muttered Stiles.
“Wait, just how long was this dream?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you! It’s like I lived a whole life in my dream!”
“How’d it end?”
“Uhh….” Stiles squinted as he tried to remember. “I think I got shot?? And then there was a tiny man with a really long beard that covered his whole body who stabbed me in the back with his longass fingernails, and it hurt like a bitch, and then I woke up.”
“Screaming.”
“Yeah.”
Scott studied him for a moment. “Are you nervous about our first day back? Lacrosse tryouts?”
“Oh my god, no, why the hell would I dream about any of this because of lacrosse tryouts?!”
“I dreamed that I ran naked across a field and turned into a dragon once because I was so nervous.”
“Yeah, but you’re weird and I’m not.”
“Uh huh, sure,” said Scott with another laugh as he checked his phone and stood up. “Alright, I’ve gotta go. My mom’s getting off early for once so we’re going to cook dinner together.”
Stiles walked him to the front door, but not before he nearly tripped down half the flight of stairs. “Don’t forget to bring me some tomorrow. Her enchiladas slap.”
Scott paused outside the door. “Hey, if you keep getting nightmares like this, maybe you should see someone about it.”
“It wasn’t really a nightmare, I mean, it wasn’t all bad,” said Stiles.
“Yeah, but it looks like it really shook you up. It’s just a dream, Stiles. A super crazy one, but just a dream. Don’t worry about it.”
Stiles smiled and nodded and waved goodbye.
He didn’t tell Scott about the four deep, but bloodless stab wounds he’d woken up with in his back.
~♫♪・・★・・♫♪~
Stiles began running in the mornings. Scott joined him in working out for two hours everyday instead of one.
The wounds on his back didn’t heal, but they never bled, either. Furthermore, it seemed that only he could see them, judging by Scott’s confused and concerned response when he tried showing him his back.
“There’s nothing there,” Scott had said.
So Stiles ran.
He even searched up “jiu-jitsu moves” and “judo moves” in an attempt to somehow mimic some basic stances, only for his body to automatically know how to move, like muscle memory. Usually, he’d shout in amazement at his own genius, but if anything, it was proof that he wasn’t going crazy.
The wounds were real.
The dream was, well, not just a simple dream—(he didn’t remember much at all from it besides a blonde lady burning the Hale house, him waking up a dark-haired man by punching him in the face, and that bearded old man who stabbed him in the back with four long claws in a diagonal line.)
And when he really did hear about a dead body ripped in half on his police scanner the night before the first day of spring semester sophomore year, he knew for sure he wasn’t going crazy.
And Scott knew, too.
“Maybe you’re like, some kind of fortune teller,” Scott had suggested when they went off looking for the body in the woods right before Stiles ran right into his dad.
The next day was when it all started.
Scott told him all about being bitten by some huge furry creature, though the bite mark had healed, about his weird super hearing, and the new cute transfer student in his class, not to mention his sudden talent in playing goalie during lacrosse practice, and Stiles found himself getting these stinging jolts of pain through his body when he saw certain classmates.
And his wounds.
They bled each time.
Except instead of blood, water dripped from his four stab wounds.
“What the hell is happening to us?” asked Scott when they walked around in the woods looking for his inhaler. “And no, don’t joke about lycanthropy again. I mean, lacrosse practice was awesome, but what if I have some weird infection now and these are just symptoms before I die? And we’re not even going to talk about your invisible injuries that bleed water.”
Stiles groaned. “God, don’t remind me. If I didn’t get to the bathroom on time, everyone would’ve thought I peed my pants. I’m going to have to bring extra clothes with me to school from now on.”
“Maybe I should, too,” muttered Scott. “In case I start, I don’t know, bleeding or something.”
“If you start bleeding, your damn clothes are the least of your problems,” Stiles told him.
“…Right. But I mean, you’ve been bleeding, technically. Maybe you should go to the hospital and get checked up, just in case.”
“Oh yeah, definitely.” Stiles’ voice dripped with sarcasm. “I’ll just go and tell them all about my invisible wounds that bleed water, and then they’ll stick me in Eichen House until the day I die. Brilliant plan. Let’s just find your inhaler and get out of here. I need another hot shower and sleep.”
“It’s five p.m.”
“So what? My body hurts.”
Scott stopped and looked at the ground. “It was here. I swear it was around here.”
No inhaler.
“Maybe it rolled further away?” Stiles walked to the left, only to jump in fright when he saw a tall dark-haired man not much older than them standing a mere two feet away.
“What’re you doing here?” the man asked. “This is private property.”
“Er, sorry, we’re just looking for my inhaler,” said Scott, though Stiles could barely hear him through the pain shooting through his veins like lightning.
The man didn’t reply to Scott, instead staring at Stiles with a furrowed brow.
And just like lightning striking, Stiles suddenly knew.
“He knows,” he told Scott as he clenched his fists in an effort to keep the pain from showing in his voice or on his face. “He knows what’s wrong with you. You know, your lycanthropy.”
Scott shot him a ‘are-you-really-joking-around-even-now’ glare. “Ignore him,” Scott told Derek. “But, I, well, I sorta got bitten by some animal here last night, and today has just been…weird. Has something si—”
Derek appeared in front of Stiles in a flash and gripped his neck with one hand. “How do you know?”
“I don’t think Derek understands your vague description of your day being weird, Scott,” said Stiles between hopefully subtle deep breaths, lungs beginning to gasp for air as if he’d just gone on a hard run. The pain now centered on his back, where the wounds were, and he could feel the back of his shirt beginning to stick to the water leaking from his wounds. “…You’re Derek, aren’t you? Derek Hale.”
Scott tried to pull Derek’s hand off Stiles’ neck. “Let him go!” yelled Scott. “What the hell are you doing? We’ll leave now, okay?”
Derek just kept staring at Stiles with an unreadable stone-faced expression and a hostile look. “How. Do. You. Know.” He lifted Stiles by the throat and slammed him against a tree.
“You know, if you asked nicer, I’d probably be more inclined to answer,” said Stiles.
“How about if you don’t tell me, I’ll rip your throat out?”
A growl snarled from Scott’s throat, and Stiles watched in shocked amazement as Scott’s eyes turned yellow, his ears grew pointy, and his teeth sharpened into fangs. “Let. Him. Go!”
Derek looked like he was about to say something, but Stiles couldn’t hold in his excitement.
“Dude!” Stiles completely forgot about Derek gripping him by the throat for a moment, because honestly, Derek wasn’t gripping that hard and the pulsing pain on his back was distracting him. “You’re actually a freakin’ werewolf! That’s awesome!” He blinked, then turned to Derek. “Wait, does that mean you’re a werewolf, too?”
Scott’s eyes faded back to his usual brown, but his fangs and ears remained pointy. “Dude! Focus! You’re being choked!”
Water dripped down Stiles’ back. “Nah, he’s pretty much just holding me up a—”
Derek abruptly released him, and Stiles fell on his ass with a painful thud.
“You good?” Scott helped him up. They looked around, but Derek was long gone, though not after tossing Scott’s inhaler at him. “What the hell was his problem?”
Stiles panted in relief as the pain in his back slowly faded. “I don’t know, but I think he was in my dream.”
The man he’d woken up by punching him in the face.