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𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍

𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘳

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Meilani McCall groaned to herself when the light filtered in through the window and she buried her face into her boyfriend's, Stiles Stilinski, chest to block out the light. She had been sleeping at Stiles' house randomly the past few weeks to get away from her dad. Not too often so Isaac and Scott would be left alone with him, but enough to keep her sane and from snapping. Ever since she became a true alpha, Meilani had gotten even better at controlling her emotions. However, she didn't want to push her luck with that one.

Rafe had already tried to judge the tattoo that wrapped around her bicep that Derek Hale had done for her. Not like Rafe had the slightest bit of a say in what she did to her body or did in general. He lost that right the minute he decided that he wanted to walk out on his family like they meant nothing to him.

Stiles mumbled in his sleep and his arm wrapped tighter around Meilani's waist, tugging her closer to him as if she were keeping him anchored to the Earth. The past few times Meilani had slept with Stiles, he'd mumbled and tossed in his sleep. She had never seen the Stilinski boy have this many nightmares before and she wondered if it an effect of the sacrifice she, Stiles and Allison did to save their parents. It broke her heart to know her boyfriend was struggling and she couldn't do anything to stop it from happening.

Meilani glanced over to the clock and noticed that if they wanted to get to school on time, they'd have to leave soon. She shifted so her face was closer to Stiles' and placed her lips softly on his in the hopes it'd bring him some comfort as he came out of sleep. It only took a minute before Stiles finally reacted to the kiss, moving his lips against Meilani's and tugging her closer to his side if that were even possible.

Stiles slowly pulled away from the kiss and his eyes fluttered open to stare up at his girlfriend, the sunlight from outside creating a halo around her head. "Well, if this is Heaven, then I never wanna leave."

Meilani giggled and placed her chin on his chest, feeling her body relax as Stiles ran his fingers through her knotted curls. She stared at him for a long moment, noticing the bags that began to appear under his eyes from the lack of sleep he'd been getting. The nightmares were really starting to take a toll on him it seemed and Meilani brushed her fingers gently along the bags. "You have a nightmare again?"

Stiles exhaled heavily and he debated on lying to Meilani so she wouldn't worry about him any more than she needed to, but he also knew that Meilani could hear his heart beat. She'd know he was lying the second he opened his mouth. He just hated the thought of Meilani worrying over him after everything that's happened. She deserved a break from worrying about people and to just relax and have at least some peace. Something that Stiles wanted to give her more than anything, but couldn't. 

"Yeah, it was like a dream within a dream within a dream," Stiles eventually said, dropping his hand from Meilani's hair to her back. He rubbed her back soothingly and shook his head, trying to rid his mind of the visions he'd seen in his dream. "You know what sleep paralysis is, right?"

Meilani nodded and absentmindedly drew shapes into Stiles' chest, not realizing how much the action alone helped Stiles to relax. Then again, any touch from Meilani could get him to relax in about two seconds flat. She was like a drug to him and, if he was classified as an addict, he'd still never give her up. He wouldn't give her up for the world. "Yeah, when your brain wakes up before your body and you see all that weird crap that's not really there."

"It was kind of like that, except I was stood in the middle of magical tress where human sacrifices took place," Stiles explained, a small wave of anxiety could still be seen in Stiles' eyes after the nightmare. Meilani could still even smell the lingerings of it around Stiles, but it was going away the longer he rubbed her back and kept her close to him. "What if what we did that night is still effecting us? Like it means something?"

Meilani tilted her head as she considered Stiles' words. She did still feel the darkness that sat in her heart, but she usually just tried to focus on Scott or Stiles whenever she felt it get too much. Stiles, however, seemed like his darkness attacked him in his sleep instead. A thought that tore at Meilani's heart. "You think we have post traumatic stress?"

"I don't know, maybe. Know what's the scariest part, though? I don't even think this is real."

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Meilani bolted up when she heard the strangled screams of her boyfriend next to her. She grabbed onto Stiles who clutched at the sheets so tightly that his knuckles went white. The door to Stiles' bedroom burst open, Noah stood in the hallway and letting in the light into the darkened space of Stiles' bedroom. Stiles' heart raced so rapidly that Meilani was scared he'd have a heart attack if he didn't calm down. She brought his head into her chest and soothingly run her hands through his hair, kissing the top of his head.

"Baby, hey, it's okay. It's okay," Meilani whispered to him, rocking him back and forth gently while Noah walked over to them and squatted down in front of them to check on Stiles. "Baby, relax, it was just a bad dream. I'm right here, you're okay. You're okay."

Stiles whimpered as he clutched onto his girlfriend's arms that wrapped around him and tried to stop the shaking that took over his body. The images he'd seen in all of his nightmares that night were so real. So vivid. Almost like he was really there at the high school or the magical trees where humans were sacrificed. No matter how many times he's had these nightmares the past few weeks, they were always still horrific and terrifying every single time.

Noah brushed a hand over his son's hair and stared at him worriedly, never seeing Stiles have nightmares like these before. The questions he had could be seen visibly on his face and Meilani wished she could answer them, but she couldn't. They were questions that Meilani barely even knew the answers to because the worst Meilani had been was seeing her claws in her shadows even when they weren't out or just the random dark thought here or there. Never anything as drastic as this.

"Noah, he'll be okay," Meilani whispered, continuing her soothing strokes through Stiles' hair that was slowly getting him to stop shaking in her arms and relax. "I'll make sure he gets back to sleep."

Noah sighed, but nodded his head and stood to his full height. He bent down to press a kiss to Meilani's forehead, mumbling a thank you to her before he left the couple alone to try and go back to sleep after Stiles' outburst.

Meilani slowly laid Stiles back down on his pillow and when she went to move so she could make herself comfortable again to help Stiles back to sleep, Stiles' hand quickly latched around her bicep when he thought she was getting off the bed. "Stiles?"

"Don't leave me," Stiles whimpered and the brokenness in his tone created tears in Meilani's eyes. "Please, don't leave me. Don't die."

"What? Stiles, I'm not going to die," Meilani assured, loosening Stiles' grip around her bicep and laying down in his arms once again. "I'm not going anywhere. Ever."

Stiles merely clung onto his girlfriend and kept her in his side, eventually falling back to sleep again after a few minutes. 

Meilani, however, definitely would not be going back to sleep that night while Stiles' petrified screams and sobs echoed in her mind.

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The next morning, Meilani walked into the Stilinski kitchen to see Noah already there dressed in his sheriff's uniform, getting ready to head out. It was only around six forty-five and she hadn't been able to go back to sleep, so she had slowly and quietly detached herself from Stiles' arms and got herself ready for the day at school.

"Good morning," Noah greeted, smiling gently at the teen girl and held up a travel mug to her. "Coffee? You probably need it just as much as me."

"Would it be bad to ask the sheriff if it's spiked?" Meilani teased weakly, taking the spare mug from Noah and taking a sip from the warm liquid that burned her throat. She did welcome the caffeine that filled her system. "Not like I can get drunk anyway."

Noah chuckled quietly at Meilani's attempted joke, not wanting to wake his son who definitely needed the sleep right now. "Glad to know I'll never have to worry about you drunk driving." He took a sip of his coffee and gave Meilani an appreciative look. "Thanks for before, Meilani. I don't know if I would have been able to get him to calm down the way you did."

Meilani waved Noah off and shrugged slightly. "It's nothing, honestly. I just wish there was more I could do for him besides hold him until he calms down, but there's nothing I can really do. I think this will be one of those things that we have to let work its way out, you know? The darkness will always be there in our hearts, but Stiles is reacting to it differently than Allison and I for some reason. We aren't having nightmares the way he is, just the random and weird hallucination. It hasn't been that bad for either one of us yet, though."

"I'm just glad he has you," Noah said, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. "You're good for him, Meilani, and I'm so glad you're the girl my son chose to fall for. I don't think anyone else could have been better for him."

"Is it against the law to make sixteen year old girls cry before seven am?" Meilani asked, blinking away the tears that formed at Noah's heart felt statement. 

"I'm just speaking the truth, kiddo," Noah squeezed Meilani's shoulder one last time before he brushed past her to make his way out to work.

Meilani waited until she heard Noah leave in his squad car before she walked back upstairs to Stiles' room to wake him up for school. She paused in the doorway when she noticed Stiles up and dressed in a light and dark purpled striped zip up with a white t-shirt underneath and his jeans. He stood rigid by his desk with his history textbook in his hands and he ran his fingers gingerly over the text on the cover. 

"Babe?"

Stiles jumped at Meilani's sudden voice and turned to look at her, the book dropping on top of his book bag that rested on his desk chair. "Oh, um, yeah. I'm fine."

Meilani raised her eyebrows at Stiles, knowing fully well that he was lying to her due to his heart rate. "How about we try that again? You know, where you don't lie straight to my face?"

Stiles ran his hand through his fluffy brown hair and let out a heavy sigh. "Lani, seriously, it was just a nightmare, okay? I'll be fine. I promise."

"Why don't I believe you right now, then?" Meilani asked, not wanting to fight with her boyfriend. However, after what she had experienced just hours before, it still played through her mind like her own personal Hell. Stiles' screams still reverberated around her skull on a loop and she didn't know how to make it stop. Just looking at him made her want to cry because of the bags that were beginning to form there and the obvious sleep deprived look that were in his eyes.

It sucked.

"Babe, please? I need you to trust me," Stiles pleaded, taking her hands into his and offering her the best smile he could. "What I want you to focus on is going home later and not killing your father."

"You had a horrific nightmare just hours ago and you're worrying about me right now?"

"I always worry about you," Stiles said, rubbing his thumbs smoothly over Meilani's knuckles. "Is it wrong for me to care about the girl I love? Cause if it is, I don't wanna be right then."

"You do realize you being cute won't get you out the doghouse for lying to me," Meilani warned, losing the battle with the smile that fought its way onto her face to show she was merely kidding.

"Mmm, I'll take my chances," Stiles mumbled and leant down to press a kiss to Meilani's lips, pulling away after a minute. "I'm gonna go brush my teeth and then we can start to head out when I'm done."

"Okay," Meilani whispered and let her hands drop from Stiles', watching as he walked out of the room to head over to the bathroom down the hall. She sighed and turned to place her travel mug down on the desk so she could brush her hair quickly before they left when the sight in Stiles' opened laptop scared her. 

In the reflection of the laptop, Meilani could see the red of her alpha eyes looming back at her and her werewolf fangs poked out of her mouth menacingly. She gasped and stumbled back a step at the image, letting out a small scream when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"Lani, you okay?"

Meilani blinked up at Stiles who looked down at her worriedly and she turned her attention back to the laptop screen to see her normal face look back at her. Her breathing was shallow for a minute until she quickly got her heart rate to slow back down, calming herself the best she could. It seemed like her hallucinations were finally beginning to settle in and gulped as a cold feeling settled in her spine.

Stiles, Meilani and Allison were now all beginning to get hallucinations - and the added nightmares for Stiles - and Meilani was worried about what that could mean for any of them. 

Just when she thought her supernatural problems were over.

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"Well, well, look who is no longer the crazy one," Lydia commented after Meilani had divulged to Lydia, Allison and Scott what happened to her and Stiles earlier that morning. Stiles had even admitted to seeing things that weren't there while Allison explained her visions of Kate from that morning before she arrived to school.

"We are not crazy," Allison defended, rolling her eyes at the strawberry blonde.

Lydia stopped in the middle of the hallway and turned to face the pack behind her, pretending to consider Allison's words. "Really? Sleep paralysis? Hallucinating? Yeah, you guys are fine."

Scott shrugged and clutched onto the straps of his book bag that rested on his shoulders. "I mean, you guys did die and then come back to life. Deaton did say there would be side effects, didn't he?"

Stiles glanced up at the bell as it rang above the lockers that the pack stood nearby. "Alright, we just got to keep an eye on each other, okay? And Lydia, stop enjoying this so much."

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Meilani had nearly made it through her history class without a hallucination. They had new teacher named Mr. Yukimura, whose daughter, Kira Yukimura, was in the class with them. She was a pretty girl with black, curly hair and a kind a face. She had looked absolutely embarrassed when Mr. Yukimura called her out and said they'd been there for three weeks and she hadn't brought home friends yet. Scott's heart rate had lifted slightly when he had glanced back to the girl and Meilani had bit her tongue on teasing her brother about having a love at first sight moment when the girl.

Then, somewhere in the middle of Mr. Yukimura's lesson, Meilani had noticed a shadow loom out from under her desk. At first, it merely just a blob of shadow and didn't have an actual shape until it grew out more and formed into the shadow of a terrifying wolf. Meilani had clutched onto the ends of her desk, reminding herself that whatever she was seeing wasn't real until the shadow eventually dissolved and just showed her normal shadow sat in a desk.

Meilani had walked out of the class feeling slightly off kilter, but she just had to remind herself that none of it was real. It was just a hallucination that they can all probably over come after a while of getting back to how things were. 

"Maybe we need a little more time to get back to normal," Meilani voiced her thoughts to Scott and Stiles as they stopped in front of Stiles' locker so the Stilinski boy could get his books quickly.

"Yeah, try not to forget we hit the reset button on a supernatural beacon for supernatural creatures. There's a pretty good chance things are never going back to normal, Lani."

Meilani didn't notice the way her boyfriend fumbled with the lock on his locker, tugging on the lock multiple times with a shaky breath. She had been distracted by the conversation that Kira had with her father just down the hallway, walking in the direction of Meilani and the boys.

"I thought you said you wanted to make friends," Mr. Yukimura said to his daughter who looked anything but happy with him.

"Not like that."

"You said you wanted to be noticed."

"I could set myself on fire and be noticed," Kira argued back to her father, stopping him half way down the hall to shoot him an annoyed look.

Mr. Yukimura slapped his hands to his sides, not getting the point of Kira's joke. "Then you'd be dead, Kira."

"Exactly."

Meilani leant back against the lockers just as Kira glanced in her