♡ 𝙩𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪 ♡
𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘳 seventy-two

I'm not the sinister type.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

THEO VISITED DALLAS QUITE OFTEN.

It'd be affectionate visits. He'd ask how she was doing. That he didn't want to hurt her, truly. That all she had to do was give him one simple thing -- the sacrifice of her mother's and aunt's lives for her own. 

But Dallas would always respond with the same icy glare. The dismissive tsk of her now pale lips would soak up the silence between them while she'd shudder underneath the flannel that offered little warmth for her skin.

Theo would sometimes stay a little longer than that. Sometimes leave earlier without another word. 

As Dallie stared up at the Chimera between the cracks of sunlight, she watched as his lips curled up at the edges. "You seem cold." His tone was mocking. "Are you cold?"

From the goosebumps that arose on her skin and the chattering of her teeth, Dallas knew full well that Theo didn't have to ask. See, Dallas had eaten in quite a while. Either from pure distraction or keeping the maneater at bay with blood mochas, she was well aware that Theo intended to keep her as his pet.

Just not one he fed.

And with every passing day she didn't, the deeper the scales would scorch her skin and the harder the elements hit. She'd feel her emotions grow more intense and pace endlessly behind the bars that caged her. The Siren knew what he did was purposeful - waiting until she could stifle it no more and force her to shed the human skin.

Dallas quirked a brow. Her head gently rested against the brick wall and whimsical eyes stared deeply into the soul of the boy before her. She watched as he slipped through the door - stepping over the line of mountain ash - and took a seat beside her. 

"Where'd you get your hands on vampire blood?"

Her lips parted agape, teeth shining in a suppressed grin while she rolled the eyes that glistened under the low-hanging light. She'd opt to leave his question lingering a little - to etch a certain uncertainty into his brain until it rotten all of his functions and left his fingerprints shaky. 

But then, those same fingerprints petted her neck and slid against the scarred skin across her throat. "I'm trustworthy. I promise." He murmured lowly.

Dallas turned her head to meet his intense gaze. His hands ran higher, brushing against her cheek and twisting a strand of hair around his finger. Theo noted her silence. The slight narrowness of her eyes, the shallow breathing whistling over her lips, even the slow beating of her forever unsteady heart. 

He remembered the times he had touched her skin in such a way. A time before the Garcia known as the Siren. A time when she was simply Dallie from the cheer squad. Daughter of the infamous lawyer. The teenager with a little too much bite. 

She was much more than that now. 

"You don't have to talk, but Stiles will convince Scott to come for what's his anyway -- especially since I have it." His knuckles lightly tapped against her jawline as he berated her. "I have all the playing cards, Dallie. I always do."

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

Malia Tate laid her eyes on the front door of the Garcia family home. She allowed her stare to wander across the lion knocker, to the barely chipped blue paint, to the slightly loose numbers screwed above in gold.

Her knuckles brushed against the wood. She felt the splinters rise beneath the paint and prick at her bare skin. Still, she breathed heavily and allowed her echo to carry throughout the empty street. The door split open and a face twisted from between the cracks. One that had the face of James Garcia - the voice, the home, and the care for a troublesome teenager too - but did not share the name.

Elijah Mikaelson stared back at Malia. "Can I help you?"

"I need some of her stuff." Malia shuffled on her feet as his silence forced the type of anxiety on her that crept up her shoulders and encapsulated them in a block of shivery ice. 

"Who's stuff?"

Malia didn't bother to respond. She didn't stand there for much longer, rather, and slipped past his shoulder and crept up the stairs behind him. "Sorry, but I really need to find her."

"Hey, wait!"

Malia had never been in Dallas Garcia's bedroom before. She didn't recognize the pink plush toys on her bed. Nor the string of fairy lights twisting around her headboard. What she did recognize, however, was the slight scent of saltwater. She recognized the aroma of Stiles Stilinski. A tangent of leather and perfume mixed together in messy wardrobes, claw marks dug through bedsheets, glitter-stained lacrosse jerseys, and knives hidden in vanities.  

Elijah watched curiously as the were-coyote brought the heart-patterned pink jacket to her face. Beyond douses of perfume, little scent lay beneath. "Do you mind telling me what this is about or are you just gonna stand there and smell her clothes?"

"She's missing."

He blinked. "What do you mean missing?"

Malia didn't have time to explain. Honestly, she didn't feel like she had to. Malia wanted to be the one to find Dallie. In the midst of her transition from coyote to a teenage girl, Dallas had been there for her, it only made sense to do the same. "Theo has her -- or Scott thinks he does." She mumbled. "Is this all she has?"

Elijah stiffened as she turned to him for guidance. Right. He had her father's face. It only made sense she'd assume as much. "Pretty much." He leaned against the doorway with furrowed brows. "How'd you know she's missing and not voluntarily avoiding you?"

"I found her necklace in the woods." Malia rooted through the boxes beneath her bed between long pauses. "I... I used to hunt a lot when I was a coyote, you know? It's not something I'm proud of but I can follow prints. Claw marks. Scents, that sort of thing?"

He nodded. 

"Dallas didn't go willingly. She was dragged."

Somber stems climbed between the gaps in Elijah's ribcage. He could feel them tighten around his lungs. Induce a certain proclivity in his veins like poison. In simple terms, Elijah squirmed beneath the thought. "I'll find her, though." Malia dropped the dusty skate trophies from her grip. "Just like she found me."

Elijah didn't speak when she stuffed the jacket into her pocket. He didn't mumble a word when she beamed a comforting smile at him. He stood still as stone when she slipped by and disappeared between blinks. The Mikaelson didn't do much but think at that moment. 

James Garcia still bled all over the kitchen floor, murmuring insults whenever he could accompanied by a late wife that bickered with Klaus Mikaelson over a tuning fork. 

Derek Hale refused to take part in the debates - keeping Peter Hale occupied with new parenthood - while still sulking over Jim in his loft. 

Sybil fought relentlessly with her sister for the cure. As did Marilyn for a chance of a human daughter. 

Arguments and quarrels broke out so frequently that it felt like Elijah was the only one with his head screwed on straight enough to see it. 

And at the end of it, Elijah Mikaelson was the only person stubborn enough to look for Dallas Garcia himself.

"Malia," he turned his head and allowed his voice to fill the gaps of silence. "Wait."

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

"What's his?" Dallas blinked with a delicacy that he didn't know she possessed. Theo didn't have to voice the question for her to answer it - as the look on her face seemed like she knew exactly what he was thinking. "That's why the Dread Doctors haven't laid a hand on me yet, is it?"

Theo's face froze up into an indecipherable expression of shut lips and slow-blinking eyes. 

"You don't need me to tell you where my family is.. and you certainly don't need me to gain the upper hand with Scott." Dallas swallowed harshly. It was if poison clouded her throat and caused it to swell with a lump of disgust that clawed its way through her teeth. "I'm only here to add a score to your rivalry with Stiles."

Theo chewed on his lower lip momentarily before speaking. "Rivalry?" He chuckled. "There's no rivalry, Dallie. I want him on my side. I want Void Stiles." Dallas felt him brush the hair over her shoulder and linger his eyes on her bites while he spoke. "Void Stiles never makes an appearance, though. There's always something or someone suppressing him -- selfishly."

There it was. The knot in her stomach grew tighter. The blood beneath her skin boiling to the touch. Dallas Garcia becoming her own undoing. "I've come to a very grim realization that it's you, Dallie." He murmured. "You're smothering Void. Dominating him-"

Dallas ran a slick tongue over her teeth and rolled her eyes. Of course, she was to blame. It was so easy to hold her accountable for his own failures. "Well, he never complained-" 

"Stiles loves his father," Theo stated. "But he loves you too. I know he does." 

His hand gripped her jaw to spit the words in her face. "What d you think he'll do when his girlfriend dies the very same day as his father?" Dallas breathed heavily beneath his touch. "Grief is a slippery slope, Dallie, you know that."

His words were coated with a thin layer of ice, the chuckle that followed sending cracks through its coating and pulsating with a rhythmic heartbeat. "You wouldn't."

She watched him stand. Tower over her in a sick power imbalance she'd usually spit upon. Dallas Kimberly watched as hands stretched out from behind him, then silhouettes of trenchcoats followed, all wearing the same mask that inched closer with the seconds that passed. 

"Thing is, Dallas, there's always plenty more Sirens to spare."

Clothed fingertips dug into her skin and forced her to her feet. Dallas could barely see the face of Theo Raeken between the much taller bodies around her, but deep in her stomach, she knew he wore a grin.

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

Outside, circling the woods with another teenager at his side, Elijah quirked his brows at how Malia clung to the heart-shaped hoodie. 

Malia pulled at her lower lip with her teeth while murmuring out a response. "What are you?"

He turned his head to her. "I'm sorry?"

"You don't smell human." She stopped in her tracks as the sleeves of the pink hoodie traced the leaves beneath her feet. "What are you?"

Elijah allowed a small scoff to spring from his lips. He then ran a hand tirelessly through his hair, tossing away stray stands and focusing his eyes on anywhere in the forest but her own. "That is a very personal question, Malia. Very rude, also."

The Mikaelson attempted to turn his back to her but Malia didn't budge. She simply glared holes into the back of his head and under the thin layers of gel. 

"Is this what you really want to spend your time doing?" Eli raised a thick brow. "I am not the enemy."

"No, but you're not Mr. Garcia either." Malia eyed him curiously. "I'll find Dallas myself." 

She brushed her shoulder against his and forcibly shoved him, but with his hand snaking her wrist, Elijah locked in her place before narrowing his eyes at hers. "You will do no such thing."

Directly underground, fresh tips of black marker stained Dallas Garcia's skin as she pulled uncomfortably at the leather straps tied around her wrists. A low-hanging lightbulb hung above her, swinging irritably as her eyes followed each swift direction it spat its light. Her back pressed against a cold metal trolley while a tray of bone saws and indent knives lay out beside her, all ready to tear and slash at her warm skin. 

She took a moment to figure out her surroundings. An old, abandoned brick hut, no doubt. From the mold in the walls clinging to the air to the sunlight creeping through newspaper windows, Dallas wouldn't be surprised if the whole thing fell down on top of her.

Breaking her train of thought, she felt gloves tap against her forehead while dragging black lines around the perimeter of her hairline. "Do I have a safeword at least?" The girl rose both eyebrows as she spoke to the doctor - who let out a disgruntled sigh at the unsteady canvas of skin - before settling her gaze onto his steampunk-attired mask. "Or am I supposed to stay completely silent while you stick your unsanitized knives into my skin?"

The more anxious she was, the more the sentences would spill out like word vomit. "I'm not scared of someone who dresses like a teenager at a comic convention." She sassed, growing more uneasy as more marked incisions drew across her arms and legs. "Kinda feeling like the frogs in Biology class, though."

Dallas was sure if she didn't wear the now bloodied flannel of Stiles Stilinski, they'd see the goosebumps and shakiness of her skin beneath. The position she lay in reminded her far too much of her time in the morgue - and forced sickness to plague her stomach no matter how much she swallowed it down. 

If this was how she'd die -- it'd be very disappointing. 

At least she'd come full circle. 

Another doctor loomed over her. One nodded to the other and within seconds, the gloved fingers that rested against her forehead planted against her lips. Dallie's eyes widened, fists clenched and knees kicked - but it didn't stop the knife from digging through the marked skin and spewing blood across her shoulders. 

Dallas could feel it pool between her collarbones, spilling down her sundress and engulfing the last patch of clean, white cloth into a dark red she'd never be able to get out. It clung to strands of her hair and speckled across her face like gruesome freckles while her screams diluted beneath the gloved hand on her lips. 

Pain was common for the Siren. Physical. Emotional. Mental. They all held her in their grasp at least once or twice. Dallas knew pain well. But it wasn't the pain that bothered her. 

It was the words unsaid that did. It was the moments never shared. It was all the things she was too stubborn to do that she regretted. 

Dallas Garcia killing Theo Raeken was among them. 

The doctors didn't bother for a tourniquet, or needles, and jabbed tubes directly into her veins; the pain wasn't welcomed either. Dallas watched the tubes run red and twist their way into a connected bag, dripping blood into its center and filling ever so slowly. s

Fangs stemmed from her teeth, only to retreat back into her mouth from the imbalance of Siren blood in her veins. The scales that poked out from beneath the thin layer of skin rose and sank between them. Legs, normally stitched together by now, remained in separate states of pain as fins refused to grow. 

And the eyes that squeezed shut to reminisce in the agony delved between a warm brown and icy white like a faulty lightbulb, stuck fighting to claim her body as a state of either girl or siren. 

There was only one thing Dallas thought at that moment. 

There was no way in hell she'd die like this.

The second blade came, slicing through the molecules of oxygen and carbon dioxide, she awaited to feel the blade sink pain into her shoulder blades.

At least, it would've, if Dallas didn't lunge herself forwards and narrowly dodge the blade. 

The doctor still hung over her chest - pulling the blade from between the thin needlework of the sheet behind her. Dallas snapped one ankle from the restraints and forced her knee upwards, connecting it with the back of his head and kicking him back into the tray of knives once he stumbled.

Dallas didn't register everything as quickly herself. Yet, she felt the blade squeeze between her fingers and shoulders shake with a wave of anger so intense it boiled the blood that ran through her veins. 

She watched as the gloved hands reached for her before sinking that very blade through the palm. Muffled yells erupted beneath the mask as he cradled it, straining more so when Dallas slipped another of her own and forced his impaled palm to clutch his shoulder, pinning both the hand and shoulder blade together. 

The third sized her up. As he took a step forward, his boots kicked against the discarded knives that spilled across the floor like liquid nitrogen. His inching towards her halted. Instead, the masked figure knelt before her and scooped up a large blade between his fingertips, before finally rising his gaze to meet hers. 

Dallas didn't notice as she snapped the last restraint from around her ankle. Blood-soaked cloth clung to her legs and muddy flannel sleeves folded over her forearms while she hopped off the trolley, taking a few seconds to clamber eyes to the very last doctor.

Perhaps a few seconds too late. 

His thin blade dug beneath her shoulder blades, pricking and scratching at the bare bone as Dallas stumbled back with a shaggy seeth. She couldn't muffle the thrilling yell that coated her lips and threw her head back in a shriek of pain.

A few meters away, Elijah Mikaelson bickered with a teenager half his size. "I don't appreciate being put on the spot like this." He hissed. "Especially from a child."

"You're the child!" Malia spat back, her adolescent temperament gaining the better of her. 

Although, when Eli opened his mouth to speak - an entirely different string of words echoed out than the ones intended.

 "Do you hear that?" He turned his head to the open forest as the siren's scream shook the brittle trees and waved ripples across surrounding lakes. "This way."

Malia released a breath she didn't realize she held and followed patiently. 

It's true, the forests surrounding Beacon Hills oozed eeriness. Yet, it was Elijah who made her feel uneasy. Not knowing what he was - who he was. The scent of undead followed the Garcia family around wherever they went - but the man before her smelt like he had carried centuries of life behind him all at once.

Dallas felt his hands cluster around her neck. Her vision blotted with black spots and the skin beneath his fingers stained into a veined red. The hiss hitched between the collapse of her lungs, through the tightening of her teeth, and spread like wildfire through her mouth in a siren song. 

She blinked. Then blinked again. The hands that clung to her throat softened and allowed a string of fresh air. The spots that clouded her vision wafted away into a bright light that could be shaken away - and the man before her stood clutching his ears in muffled anguish.

"Dallas?" Elijah called out, slamming his shoulders against the wooden door of the shack. "Dallas, are you there?"

The girl didn't respond. Instead, she fixated her steady gaze on the doctor. Her chest rose and fell beneath the blood-soaked lace. He reached for her once more, but as Dallas let out a more steady and controlled yell, he stumbled backward as the glass panels inside of his mask shattered before his eyes.

Her back slid against the brick wall and shred at the flannel she wore, but the Siren didn't care. She muffled a hum stuck between the ridges in her throat as the men before her picked themselves up off the floor like gritted gum. Her eyes flickered up the long strip light above them before meeting the cracked reflection of their masks.

Elijah's shoulder had begun to bruise and bleed from his persistent thrusts against the door. Still, he didn't stop. He didn't even pause to take a breath. The splinters tore at his jacket while dust coated the sleeves that finally split through the wood.

Just as he did though, the three men lunged toward a hunched Dallie. The swaying strip light hooked onto the ceiling exploded, heated glass splintered the air, and bare electric wires whipped across the room like lightning-struck pythons. 

Their gloves almost reached her face, begging and hungry, but what moments before was their masks, soon blinked away into a large metal frame pinning them into the ground. 

The stench of blood soaked his nose. That's all Elijah could remember at that moment. 

He recalled red-soaked cloth. Splattered flannels and steampunk frames collapse underneath broken lights.

He didn't remember speeding towards her. Nor did he remember how he had gotten the scratch marks and splinter slashes that sunk into his arms. Just once he did, his hands shook at her head just as much as his voice did at the words. 

"Dallas?" He blurted in blind panic as she winced at her scarred collarbones. His eyes then scrambled away from hers, spreading across the unconscious bodies and glass shards. "What'd you do?" 

She didn't answer him. Partly because the glove marks still stained her throat, and partly because she didn't know herself. 

"Okay, we can have that conversation another time," Elijah murmured sarcastically while slinging one of her arms over his shoulder and helping her to her feet with the other. "They alive?"

Malia still stood in the doorway, eyes narrowed towards the vampire, wondering how he'd managed to move that fast. She parted her lips to scold him - perhaps to bite him - but pressed them back together once Dallas turned to face her. "Mal?"

 "I don't know." She stepped around the tattered wood and clattering medical tools before clutching another one of the siren's arms. "I don't really want to stay here long enough to find out."

Dallas hissed as each step brought terror and anguish up her legs. Still, she pulled her arms away from their grasp and breathed heavily. "I'm fine.." She promised, however falsely, and swallowed. "Just get the bag."

Malia and Elijah shared a look. 

"What bag?"

The Garcia squinted her eyes at the harsh sunlight that spilled through the broken door before turning to those around her. "The bag." She nodded forward. "The bag full of bloo-"

However, previously swinging sideways and thrashing red liquid across its clear exterior, the blood bag didn't gleam her reflection back. It didn't gleam any reflection, in fact, as nothing but an empty hook took its place. 

"Fuck." Dallas leaned forward while strands of wet hair fell over her shoulders. Her hand clutched the metal pole while the other ran soothing strokes against her inflamed collarbones. "Fuck, he's gonna kill me."

He followed her gaze to the speckles of blood following eerily beside her trolley and ignored how black veins peeked out from beneath his lower lashes. "Who is?" 

Dallas swallowed and bowed her head as the words couldn't form in her throat. Eyelids drew heavy as pained grunts and heavy breaths spilled over her pinkish lips. "Scott." She pressed her lips together and forced each word through the breathless heaves. 

Her jaw clenched, as if she were chewing the words, and placed a shaky hand on his arm. Dallas mouthed quietly as fragments of wet dress clung to her thighs. 

"I just gave Theo everything he needed." 

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

 Dallas Garcia and Malia Tate stepped through the empty tunnels of Beacon Hills while the latter filled up her brain with explanations. Elijah's suit jacket hung over her shoulders and covered the dirt and splatters of red on her clothes. 

"Stiles is going insane." Malia kicked the odd stone with her shoe. "I've never seen him like that. Only, when he was, you know-"

"Void." Dallas nodded as the words felt foreign on her tongue. "I know. It's exactly what Theo wants."

There was an odd silence between the two. 

Dallas wanted to ask where Malia had been all this time. To express how much she missed her. That Beacon Hills was never the same without her presence. 

Malia wanted to ask why Dallas had been pretending. Why she knew the man that held her wasn't her father but acted like it was anyway. That friends weren't supposed to lie.

"I know what you're thinking." 

Dallas was the first to break it. 

"I can't really explain it. Not in a way that it'd make sense." She pulled at Malia's hand until she was forced to face her. "But I need you to trust me. I don't want to drag you into the mess that is my family, Mal, I'd rather you just.. not understand."

Another long silence. Dallas felt herself suffocate beneath it. It seeped from the walls around her and spilled across the floor to glue her in place. Dallas was sure she'd stand there forever - sharing an uneasy stare with the girl she had grown to love - and sighed. 

Malia placed a hand on her shoulder. "I'm just really glad you're okay." She murmured, lips pursed into a smile and eyes bright beneath the sunlight. "I'm just gonna kill Theo."

Dallas split a gentle grin of her own. "Not before me, you're not."

Echoes of Stiles Stilinski's and Scott McCall's voices entered her ears. As did the shuffles of shoes against concrete and lackluster sighs. 

She slipped past Malia and yelled out harshly towards the werewolf. "Tell me you know where he is." Dallas searched his eyes but found nothing but relief and disappointment coat the iris. "Tell me you found Theo."

Scott turned his head, as did Stiles, and felt his hands drop to his sides. Dallas didn't care how exhausted she looked. Or how Stiles kept a long gaze on her - wondering if she was really there, or another cruel trick his mind played on him. "No, not yet." Scott glanced over her shoulder at Malia before flickering back to Dallas. "Why? What happened?"

Dallas felt sick. There was a churning in her stomach similar to butterflies, but sharper, like ones made from glass and nails designed to tear up her insides with each nervous flutter.

"He got the Siren blood he wanted." Dallas blinked heavily while pulling the suit jacket over the slow-healing wounds. "A few chimeras too. They take orders like dogs."

"How much?" 

"Enough for one." She pulled out her wrist and winced at the bright blue. "Maybe even less. He took most of it from me -- but not all."

Scott opened his mouth to speak. "Okay, you cover around school. I'll keep following-"

His sentence ended there. As did his easy inhale of sharp breath. Stiles had snatched him by his collar and shoved him against the wall behind him. 

"Are you serious?" He spat. "Are you insane?"

Dallas widened her eyes at him and stepped forward to ease his anger but felt him push her to the side with his arm. "Stiles!"

"He's not getting an inch closer to her than he is now, got it?" Stiles seethed.

"Dude, relax-"

Stiles pressed his elbow against the werewolf's neck and sharpened his tone through knitted brows that carved above his eyes. "Got it?" 

He pushed the boy's face sideways to meet Dallie's. "Look at the bruises on her neck, you want me to send her back there?" Stiles held a breathless tone that ended with a gruff humorless chuckle. "Nah, I don't think so."

Dallas shook her head in dismay. What Malia had said was true - she'd never seen him this way. Not with such obstinate determination and a thirst for violence. Usually, that was her.

Perhaps Void really was half demon half Stiles.

 "Stiles, don't." She attempted to pull his arm from around Scott, but from the very little blood pumping through her fresh veins, struggled against his strength. "This is exactly what he wants, remember? He wants you to lose it."

His eyes traveled from Scott's to hers, grip never buckling. 

"Please?"

Scott inhaled sharply as he slid back onto his feet, rubbing his neck and sending a crazed look to his best friend. It didn't take long for Malia to step forward, either, as she slipped her hand underneath the Alpha's arm and steered him away from confrontation with a scowl directed at Stiles.

Dallas felt his eyes linger on her face while Scott and Malia stepped aside out of sight. His heavy frame towered over her, belt buckle sliding against her hip and veined hand pushing the strands of hair behind her shoulders as his breaths sent shivers down her neck.

She turned to face him. His eyes seemed different, brown iris lit up in liquid gold, shaping the features of her face beneath his stare and breathing in her presence with each inhale. 

He slipped his hand behind her throat, rubbing circles atop her skin, before pulling her forward into his chest. His lips sank into the crook of her neck before mumbling atrocities into the skin. "Why the hell would you go alone? Why didn't you call me?"

Dallas stretched her arms around his torso and inhaled his sharp cologne. "Cause you wanted to do your own thing alone."

Stiles' forehead pressed against hers. "And how dumb was I for thinking that?"

His fingertips clipped the suit jacket she wore, sliding down the stitched hem and pricking the buttons with his fingernails. Eyebrows came to a furrow, pulling at Dallie's forehead as he did so, before staring back up into her eyes.

 "Who's jacket is this?" 

"My dad's," Dallas mumbled out the half-lie as his fingers pushed away the fabric around her waist. Eyes then caught the flash of blue beneath it. Fingers slid around her waist, pushing even further behind that, to prick at the sundress.  

He noticed the mud stains. He noticed how her hair was sat slightly tucked behind her ear - something Dallas didn't do herself. How dusty fingerprints pressed against her jawline and hair curled beside her ear in a way only a fingertip could. 

Mostly, he could smell how diluted her perfume was, and bet a large sum on how most of it was because of chimera scent.

"You need to go to the hospital, Dallie." Stiles' voice was almost ordering, but gentle still, as he moved his forehead gently to the side to murmur in her ear. "Because nobody wants to hurt Theo more than I do right now."

Dallas squinted her eyes in a look made of craze and disbelief. "Stiles, he will kill you."

A tongue ran across his lips and a smile split so wide it caused crinkles to form beside them. "I don't care." 

She saw a glimpse of something unsettling in his eyes. A flicker of darkness. An abyss of nothingness. A void. 

Dallas felt the other hand press against her face. Although, it shifted uncomfortably against the apples of cheeks. A golden chain twisted and twirled around his fingers. A golden letter dangled across the back of his hand, laying comfortably across veins and knuckles while he dragged his thumb along the sides of her lips.

It didn't take long for Dallas to realize it was her necklace.

"Promise me you'll go to the hospital where I know you're safe." His gaze fought back and forth between her eyes and lips. "If not for you, for me. For my dad."

His head turned to the side. Forcing himself away from the hypnosis and stealing a stare towards Scott and Malia - who didn't bother to listen to them and were caught up in a conversation of their own.

She remained silent while his hand cradled her jawline, eyes finding their way back to hers and getting lost in the trance of her lips. Dallas managed to part them, breathing out his name in a whisper that rose the goosebumps like a cold pair of hands that wavered across his body. "Stiles..-"

The rest of the name mumbled into his mouth as he planted his lips heavily on hers, his belt buckle dancing lightly across her stomach and gold-plated hand pulling her face that much closer to his. 

He didn't want to break away. If anything, it was the last thing on his mind. Dallas noticed this from how he squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his lips together between heavy breaths. "Go now, Dallie." 

Stiles spoke through a clenched jaw. "'Cause the next time I see you, I'm not letting you go anywhere."

A part of her accepted that Void Stiles was just as much Void as it was Stiles. That sometimes, they were one in the same. Other times, completely different.

 It was a part of him - just as the persona she carried without her humanity was a part of her. 

He offered her the golden necklace. Splattering the golden chain across his palm waiting for her to take it. Dallas curled up his fingers and shoved it back into his grasp. She gestured him to keep it. Shaking her head until the strands of wet hair clung to her cheeks. 

"Don't. I like it better on you."

Stiles didn't watch her leave. He couldn't. 

Although, once she had, Theo Raeken's face clouded up his mind. And his endearing expression stiffened - and while the chimera never managed to break Dallie - Stiles would take his chances at breaking him.

☆ word count: 5,532. ☆

a/n: dallas collecting father figures like infinity stones atp