♡ 𝙩𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪 ♡
𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘳 seventy-seven

two lies and a truce.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

STILES STILINSKI shuffled along the tunnels, fidgeting with the flashlight in one hand and pulling at his phone with the other. 

"Hang on," he paused mid-walk as a certain maneater's initials lit up in pixels. "Let me just take this real quick."

It didn't take a genius to know who it was - which was something Scott McCall most definitely wasn't. "Is that Dallas? If it is, ideally, you should hang up."

"Wow, thank you for that fascinating relationship advice, Scott. When I'm done, I'll make sure to ask all sorts of questions about you and Kira."

Scott tutted and took the hint. Stiles gave him a thankful nod before stepping aside and pressing the phone to his ear. "Not a great time, Dallie."

The Siren in question sat up in her bedroom, still nestled on her windowsill and watching the endless pattering of rain. "It's nice to hear your voice. I was beginning to wonder if you were dead. It put a total dull on my mood."

"You can imagine how I felt yesterday then."

Dallas reached for her chest to fiddle with her necklace. It was something she only ever did when she felt the unwanted anxiety creep up on her like a forgotten ghost. To her dismay, it no longer hung around her neck. Just hiding deep beneath the grooves of Stiles Stilinski's pocket.

"Stiles, don't be mad at me." She heard him inhale sharply and hugged the phone closer to her face. "It makes me crazy. Monstrous and screaming bloody-murder crazy."

Stiles paused for a moment, his own thoughts as thick as the air around him. "I always liked that kind of crazy."

She replied; half-tender, half-teasing."It's not the kind of crazy you can handle. Believe me." 

 "Really?" Stiles exhaled another deep breath and glanced around the tunnel with a smirk. "I think I've done pretty well so far."

He was her safe haven, her rock, her everything. No matter how much life tried to tear them apart, she knew that Stiles would always be the one to see her through.

Her teeth bared into a sharp grin. "Not when I eat you, you won't." her tone was sickly sweet. "I could just be saving you for last, you know?"

Stiles squared his shoulders while eyes twinkled with amusement.

 "So long as I'm your last, I don't care." he replied with a smirk, voice thick with innuendo.

Sometimes Dallas felt her heart was made of stone. Something kissed and cradled by a gorgon before being buried beneath her ribcage. It made her chest heave and ache terribly. Often, in the dead of night, it'd hurt to hear it try and beat. It would never do it correctly - not since she woke up in a morgue that one time - but it'd try, frustratingly, to pump moss into her bloodstream and spin spiderwebs across her hollow bones.

Somehow, Stiles still made it race with just a few words.

Dallas felt the tips of her ears turn beetroot red. The butterflies that swarmed her insides poked their wings against her skin, forcing goosebumps across her arms and legs wildly. "In that case, when I do, I'll go for the heart first."

"It was yours anyway." He inhaled sharply. "Just promise me you'll be gentle?"

"Stiles, over here-!"

Dallas quirked a brow at Scott's voice and how it echoed intriguingly. Almost like the two were in a tunnel of some kind. "You hate it when I'm gentle." She voiced a mutter while her body sat up. "Stiles, where are you?"

There was a shift in tone. Only slightly. "I - uh, where are you? huh? Nosey much?"

Dallas tutted with a raise of her eyebrows. "My bedroom."

"Really wish I was there instead right no- ow!" Stiles hissed as Scott smacked the back of his head. "Forget I said that."

Dallas, expectantly, definitely wouldn't. She made a mental note to tease him about it later but brushed it off for more pressing matters.  "What's going on?"

 "Nothing," Stiles said quickly. Too quickly for her liking. "I'm just.. in a tunnel."

Dallas could read Stiles like a book sometimes. He was never a good liar, nor did he ever want to lie to her, so things always ended up in a complicated middle ground of half-truths. 

 "Uh-huh.. and what are you doing in a tunnel, exactly?"

"You know.. tunnel things." Stiles said sheepishly. "Completely unrelated to any of those questions... you wouldn't be able to google what a little something means in Latin, would you?"

Dallas felt her face stiffen up. He was a phenomenally bad liar. It was the thing she liked to tease most. "Depends, do you know what estúpido means in Spanish?"

There was a quick silence. "I'm gonna take that as a yes." He tucked the phone beneath his ear and propped it up with his shoulder. "It's a Latin inscription on the floor," he said. "It says 'Damnatio Monit-"

Dallas wasn't expecting a clatter to crash through the phone speaker. Or the dull dead tone that came next. Naturally, she expected her butterfingered boyfriend to have dropped the phone like he had done so many times before.

 "Nice going, Indiana Jones," she commented playfully. Yet, when Stiles didn't answer, worry clouded her gut. "Stiles?" Her tone grew sterner. "Stiles, are you there?"

Dallas waited patiently for him to pick the phone back up and apologise profusely for his clumsiness. Yet, it never happened. Nothing was heard afterwards but a harrowing silence that crept along her spine.  

See, it was moments like this when Dallas felt she had to flip a coin. One side would make her look like a worrisome overthinker that spent too much time acting on the behalf of others. She didn't want to come across as clingy; she always prided herself on being quite the lone wolf. 

On the other side, Dallas cared. Really cared. Even when involving herself in Scott McCall's business was a breach of her and Theo's agreement, Dallas didn't have much of a choice.

She'd rather feel the wrath of Theo than the absence of Stiles.

And he was dead, she was totally going to kill him.

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

Scott McCall adjusted the camera in his hand, his forehead creased and his hands clenched as a feeling of dread filled his chest. "Stiles, hold the light still."

The darkness continued to settle. "Stiles-"

His eyes circled the floor wildly before settling on the teenager himself, paralyzed and clutching his neck in his descent to the concrete. Although, there wasn't much else for Scott to do than listen to the spine-chilling growl that erupted above him. His panicked gaze followed it - and eventually, met the merciless ones of Tracy Stewart. 

Nails drew and teeth poked out over her lips. Her lunges were fast, heavy, and all directed at Scott with the purpose to do more than just draw blood. Stiles watched the ordeal in a series of blinks, his eyes barely able to 

Stiles winced at his defenceless position on the floor and directed his own anxieties toward his best friend. "Scott, behind you!"

Another Chimera came. This one sprouted electricity and voltaic bolts with a single touch. Yet, neither had the chance to place their hands on Scott, who bunched up Tracy's wrist in his hand and forced her paralytic claws upon the other's skin.

The Chimera writhed in pain, its body contorting in agony, and with a single spark of electricity, it fell to the floor. The other Chimera, however, was not so easily dispatched. It swiped, clawed, and lunged at Scott, who was still firmly gripping its wrist. 

"Sucks, doesn't it?" The Stilinski hissed out to the body that had slumped next to him. 

Meanwhile, blissfully unaware, the Siren tutted at the rusted ladders she'd have to descend to reach the tunnels. She followed them by scent - totally not untrustworthy on her part - and found herself standing above what seemed to be a literal crime scene with a secret entrance attached.

With a deep breath, Dallas stepped forward, her feet hitting the ground with a thump. She slowly made her way down the rusted ladder, her head held high and her gaze focused on avoiding the clumps of rust and dirt that lined the metal. Although the darkness was daunting, she was determined to face whatever was on the other side.

She could feel her pulse racing as she took each step, the adrenaline pumping through her veins. When she finally reached the bottom, she paused for a moment, taking in her surroundings. The air was musty and the walls were damp. She could smell it, burning her nose like a livewire and lodging a headache between her eyes.

Immediately, Chimera clouded up the scent. It wasn't a good sign. Her heart sank beneath her chest and weighted her down to the floor like an anchor she couldn't budge. Her breath fell shallow and her eyes wide as she worry lined her gut. 

Just as Dallas Garcia rounded a corner and peeked her eyes over the chipped brickwork, her heart sank a little lower beneath her webbed ribcage. Stiles Stilinski was seething. Metaphorically and literally. He couldn't move, stuck paralysed in the same position clutching the same wound on the back of his neck. Dallas had seen that wound once before when Jackson Whittmore rocked slightly different scales than she did. 

Although, before she could rush to his side, a voice bellowed in her ear. "Do not help him," Theo hissed as his hand gathered around her arm, "That's not the rules."

Dallas pulled it from his grasp. "Fuck your rules." 

Stiles was never part of it. Surely, Theo would've taken his safety as a given. Surely, he would've picked a fight with the Alpha and not the human. 

Theo tutted with disappointment. That wasn't the answer he was hoping for.

Dallas didn't care how mud lined the kneecaps of her jeans or how the concrete scuffed her shoes, her hands immediately curled around Stiles' shoulders and sat him upright against the wall. Stiles would've winced at how even at her gentlest, her hands had quite a firm grasp. He couldn't complain though, he had previously been laying in against a muddy floor with an enraged Chimera at his side. 

Dallas' face was a mask of determination and fear. "Are you okay?" She asked, her voice shaky. Stiles looked up into her eyes - he probably would've even smiled if he wasn't paralysed - trying to reassure her. 

"I'm fine," he said, even as he felt a sharp pain in his back from the fall. "I knew you couldn't stay away long."

She laughed, a sound like a thunderstorm, and he felt it echo through his bones.

It then turned serious -- and the brunette whacked him in the arm with little force. "I knew you were with Scott." Her teeth grit slightly. "You know, you have the least regard for your own safety. You shouldn't be here."

"And miss out on the fun? Not a chance." Stiles groaned heavily as his shoulders scratched against the brickwork. "I'm fine, Dallie, but Scott-"

Her eyes turned to the Alpha, whose eyes gleamed bright like rubies and sharp teeth shined like porcelain. He stood with his chest puffed out and growls trembling his lower lip. Clearly, he didn't need that much help. The Chimera scent grew thicker and heavier as Scott continued to growl at the pipes surrounding them. 

Dallas would've made a dog joke if their situation wasn't so dire. 

Before she could think of anything else, though, another teenage boy materialised from beneath his camouflage and backed away from Scott.

"Okay!" Theo clapped his hands together. Dallas felt Stiles jump beneath her hands and instantly soured as the Raeken slithered from the musty corner. "Maybe they're not ready to take on an Alpha."

Truth be told, Dallas felt guilt pang her stomach at Scott's betrayed look. "Especially one that can smell fear." He dragged out the last few letters while staring at the chameleon-based Chimera.

Corey swallowed shakily "He's got fangs."

Dallas pressed her eyes shut and bit back her laugh. She'd hoped she'd had already faded back into the background enough for neither of them to mention her. The last thing Dallas wanted to be caught in a war between two rival Alphas - that was the whole point of the truce. 

Suddenly, it was Stiles who mentioned her instead. "Help him, Dallie." he whispered, which came of little use to a clump of supernatural teenagers with advanced hearing. 

Dallas fluttered her eyes shut over an eye roll that made her forehead ache. Within seconds, Theo already taunted the two with her very presence. "She can't." He spoke matter-of-factly. "It'll break the truce we made."

Scott glanced at her momentarily and watched as she avoided his gaze like the plague. "What truce?"

Dallas ran her spare hand across her forehead and tried to soothe the raging headache beneath. Half of her business had already been ripped out and strung out over the town by multiple untrustworthy family members and friends, so fuck it, why not more?

Theo took a quick mischievous glance at her. Suddenly, it felt like all the men in Dallie's life had turned against her. It was her own fault for trusting them rather than eating them. 

"You two have your problems, I have mine. I just wanted him to back off my aunts, Scott." She inhaled sharply. She knew he'd find it hurtful. In hindsight, that's exactly what it was. "So long as I didn't help you, he would. A truce."

Scott nodded, understanding the agreement Dallas had made. He knew how important her family was to her. Theo, however, looked as if he was about to burst out laughing.

 "You two were actually making a truce?" he asked, incredulously.

 Dallas sighed. "Stupidly."

 Theo shook his head with a smirk. "Not stupidly, actually. It got me thinking -- you're right. A truce is what we all probably need."

Stiles just stared at Dallas, taken aback by her words. "What happened to 'No secrets and no lies?'" he asked quietly.

Dallas averted her gaze, her cheeks flushing. She should have known better. She should have told him. But she was so desperate to keep Theo away from her family and protect them that she had taken the easy way out.

Dallas was enraged. Her eyes glowed a deep red and her hands shook with fury. She wanted to yell, scream and throw a temper tantrum. But she held it in. Taking a deep breath, she frowned.

"Because you've really proven yourself to be trustworthy." Dallas stood up. "You can't go anywhere without hiding behind your Chimeras."

"You mean my friends?" He glanced back at them proudly before flickering his eyes to Scott. "I don't take rejection well."

Dallas bit back the urge to make a joke about that, too. Dallas wasn't sure what Scott's plan was - especially since Theo had become such a wild card.

Honestly? Dallas wanted to kill him already and crawl back under her covers to plan for tomorrow's problems. Theo drew closer, standing above Dallas and glaring down at her before flickering his eyes to Stiles.

The Stilinski boy clenched his jaw irritably. "Hey, Theo."

He didn't bother to take a second glance at him. "Stiles."

Stiles stared anxiously at the smoky Latin inscription beside Theo's foot, hoping and praying he'd be the only one of them who didn't see it. The Chimera followed his eyes before stomping the words out hard enough to thunder cracks in the concrete.

Dallas watched him with a sharp expression. She felt Stiles' eyes burn into her once more. Dallas seemed taller in the light while she towered over his slumped frame, tall enough for him to imagine birds nesting on her shoulders and clouds blinding her eyes.

His gaze bore into her figure as if she were a merciless Goddess -- or the devil herself.

Theo began circling Scott. "You're gonna leave here thinking that you need to worry about me." He taunted. "But you're wrong. We're actually back on the same side."

Theo gestured upwards. "Because that thing... that's what we need to worry about. Your pack and mine."

"We're gonna go back to school and pretend we're normal teenagers, but at night, we're going to be fighting for our lives." 

Dallas was still crouched beside Stiles, one hand resting atop her knee and the other digging into the crevice of the tunnel wall. "What is it?" She questioned curiously. 

Even though it was still dark out and she could barely make out Stiles' face, she could tell that he was upset. He wouldn't look at her. Not completely. There was a minuscule pining in his averted eyes and shallow breaths. 

Sometimes Dallas felt as if she carried the world on her back, oceans soaking her shoulders and tree branches catching on her hair. But at that moment, with her eyes fixated on Stiles, she realized that she would let it all fall for him.

But with her grip on it already starting to slip, both realised they may really not be in everything together. 

Theo interrupted her train of thought. "Not a Chimera." 

The young wolf was at a loss for words, but he knew that he needed to say something. "But it's just a kid underneath," Scott responded in a grave tone. "Someone like us."

Scott knew it was probably something much worse. But underneath it all, there was still a human being in there somewhere. Someone he didn't want to give up on just yet.

"Not anymore."

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

Dallas paced back and forth while the phone speaker buzzed against her ear. Her father's voice softened the anxiety and guilt that rotted her gut as he spoke out in a muffled tone. "I can't sleep. I can't eat. There's just this constant thirst I can't quench no matter what I do."

She found herself stealing the odd glance towards Scott and Stiles. "Have you heard anything from Sybil and Seline?" Dallas' voice wavered slightly.

"I haven't heard anything from anyone. Not even your mother." James' voice held a bitter tone. "I'm assuming they all ran. Left me to die."

She gripped the phone tighter. Dallas had gone to such lengths to protect them. He'd promised their safety in return for her betraying someone she cared about. All for the sake of family. But what kind of family abandons their own?

Dallas had a sick sense of deja vu. 

"It's just you and me now, kid, back to square one."

It was all for nothing.

He noticed her silence. "Dallas?"

"I should've never left." She took a sharp inhale, trying to keep the storm raging inside of her concealed by a layer of skin. "I could've stopped it from happening--"

"It's not your fault," Jim promised. "I've made my peace with it. I'd much rather it had been me than you. When he bit me -- when I was dying -- I remembered how lucky it was that you weren't there to see it."

Scott stole a quick glance as his heart wrenched.

"How can you be okay with it? It isn't fair." Dallas ran her hand across her chest, her own heart becoming unbearably sore. "What about your life, dad? What about you?"

Jim held a soft smile on his face. Dallas wouldn't have left him to die. That was enough. "Dallie, you are my life." he paused. "I'd rather live a one like this that I can still protect you in than an old one where I couldn't. I'm thankful I'm still here. No matter the cost."

"Dallas, promise me you won't go looking for him?" he added, noticing her silence. "Give your old man that much peace, at least?"

Dallas couldn't agree. She could tear Klaus limb from limb and he'd still only feel half the pain he caused. Her life was falling apart by now. Her father, the pillar that stood tallest, cracked through the centre. "I promise."

James Garcia heaved a sigh of relief. If she wanted revenge, he'd give it to her. If she wanted power, prestige or peace, he'd pile them all high under her Christmas tree. James would do anything for his daughter. He'd lie for her. Die for her. He'd kill for her if it ever came to it. That's what fathers do -- and there was no badge James wore more proudly. 

"Don't eat Peter, please." Dallas sighed. "Malia would never forgive me."

There was a short pause. A tsk. Then a disappointing mutter. "Fine." he sighed. "Be careful."

Dallas nodded, then sighed her eyes when she realized he couldn't see her. Mumbling "ditto" and tapping the tip of her phone against her chin, she flicked her eyes back over to Scott and Stiles. They both quickly averted their eyes and tried to pretend they weren't listening. But Dallas could see the truth in their gaze.

She dug her phone into her back pocket and approached them. "Still not wearing off?" Her head nodded to Stiles, crouching beside him with Scott. 

Neither replied, which left Dallas to do nothing but apologise. "Do not gang up on me. That's not fair." 

Scott turned to her. "Neither's betraying me for the enemy." His tone was more sarcastic than hurt. He understood her motives. He knew how much she'd sacrifice for those she cared for - even when they probably wouldn't do the same for her. 

She scoffed. "I had a lapse in judgement but don't sit on your golden pedestal and tell me it was simply out of spite." Dallas' felt her shoulders slouch a tad as her apologies came out as excuses. "I didn't know he was going to be here. I swear. I just wanted to protect my family.. what I have left, anyway."

Scott knitted his eyebrows. "At everybody else's expense?"

Dallie felt her shoulders slump as she realized her excuses sounded more like justification. "I understand why you're upset," she said, "and I'm really sorry. I know it doesn't seem like it, but I am trying to do the best I can. I'm just not an Alpha, no matter how hard I try."

She knew Scott was right; she had been selfish. But she didn't know what else to do.

Scott gave her a sympathetic look. "Did you look up what it meant?" he referred to the words Theo had snuffled out into ash. "I can't remember the words."

"Damnatio Memoriae." Stiles interjected, stealing a look at the brunette.

"The condemnation of memory." Dallas nodded along. "I couldn't find much else about it, though."

"I think it means that whatever the Dread Doctors created, whatever this last Chimera really is, it's not something new. It's something old. Really old."

Dallas stifled a smile. Stiles always had red strings spinning throughout his mind, attaching one end to another. She loved that about him, and it made him a little madder that didn't expect him to connect the ones she tried to hide. 

"So they didn't create a new creature." Scott dipped his head in deep thought. 

Stiles nodded. "They resurrected one."

Dallas glanced uneasily between them as Scott turned to her. "We need help."

She found herself listening to her own heartbeat raise. "Theo's got his own pack now. It may not look like much now, but neither did we. He'll come for you eventually, Dallie. He'll come for all of us. We have to stick together."

She cocked her head to the side. "You still trust me?"

"Stupid, isn't it?" Stiles commented sarcastically. Dallas would've smacked him in the arm once more if he wasn't still too paralysed to feel it. "Kidding." He bit back a smile.

If her aunts had fled along with her mother, there wasn't much to protect anymore. There was no dedication left to salvage. "Even if I did, would it make much of a difference?"

Stiles nodded along. It was hard to stay mad at Dallie when she made such good points. It was hard to stay mad at her in general. Her effortless hypnotism made a simple look urge him to wave a million white flags. It made him stare a little bit too long. 

"Kira's still battling a homicidal fox inside of her, Malia won't speak to either of us, Lydia who's stuck in Eichen House and Liam who almost killed you?"

Dallas quirked a brow. "I thought it was a fair fight."

Scott winced. "It was... for the first ten minutes." he shook his head. "Look, they're our best friends. We have to try."

Dallas hated it when Scott was right. Stiles hated it when Scott proved him wrong. They were similar like that. "Okay, how?"

Scott shot his eyes between his friends. "One by one." he paused. "We start with Kira." 

Stiles groaned as the two teenagers brought him to his feet. "When'd you get so heavy?" Dallas asked, her voice laced with amusement.

"So lying to me isn't enough, you have to body-shame me too?" Stiles said, playfully squeezing her shoulder.

"You're so sensitive." She snickered, her neck buried beneath his arms. "Next time you lie to me about your whereabouts, I'll leave you for dead."

Stiles knew she was only joking, but he still couldn't help but flirt back. "I'll try not to make a habit of it." " He leaned his head towards her, making her smile. "But I can't make any promises."

Dallas shivered as her body moulded into it. Her skin turned a faint shade of red, a blush sitting beneath her freckles. 

"So, I'm assuming you're done being mad at me?"

He chuckled deeply. "No."

☆ word count: 4,298. ☆
a/n: should I split taste of you into two books (after Stiles disappears) ?