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Night comes and Scott wishes it doesn't.
Even if he is a werewolf now, so technically a creature of the night who thrives on dark sceneries, obscure skies and pale full moons, night-time is still not Scott's favorite moment. And not only because anything could happened at night – anything has already happened at night anyway.
Before being turned, Scott enjoyed sleeping and he would sleep the weekend for as long as his mother would let him – and a little more longer, like every teenager. Now ? Now, Scott would rather not fall asleep. Because sleeping means dreaming. And Scott does not enjoy his dreams at all.
They start as dreams but Scott isn't fooled by their appearence anymore. He recognizes them instantly. Always bringing with them this off sensation. Always making his heart pounds loudly in his ears. These not-exactly-dreams. Dreams shape like dreams. Dream-shaped nightmares.
Scott has heard or read somewhere that the best lies are the ones based on the truth. Hard to tell which part is the lie and which one is the truth. Sounds terrible and overwhelming. Scott thinks that dreams work that way too. The best (terrible and overwhelming) nightmares are the ones based on real experience.
(Can they still be nightmares if they are just memories ?)
Scott doesn't talk about it but he remembers.
He remembers. Not necessarily everything or in great details, but enough and with sufficient details, what happened at La Iglesia. Kira. Kate. Screams – his own, and later his Pack's. Bones. Bones. Bones, bones, bones–
Having the mask on felt like flotting in a in-between and deeply uncomfortable space. Being somewhere – but where ? – in a unsettling way. Not in the real world. And not quite in his body.
Scott saw what was happening (at night when he sleeps, he remembers the fear pooling in Kira's eyes when she saw him-but-not-really-him, the sight engraved in his mind with a few others of the same kind). He felt what was happening too (warm neck under what is supposed to be his hand, pained grunts vibrating against his – not his – palm, fragil bones cracking against the rocks because of the strenght he used to pin, to throw, to hurt).
Scott never wanted that. Any of that.
He remembers that.
It is like that in his nightmares.
He has wanted to react back then. He still tries to do so. Never works.
Scott has many opportinuties to react in his nightmares though. He tries to bend his muscles to move his hand away from Kira's neck, tries really hard (so hard that more than often, he wakes up with body aches) but his hand only squeezes tighter and tighter. So Scott tries harder and harder, his sole focus is on his hand pressing his girlfriend against the wall.
Let her go, let her go... Just, let her...go ! Scott thinks, pleads, screams.
Suddenly, Scott feels his fingers spasming around Kira's neck. Immediately and with a renew vigor, Scott tries to stop squeezing harder than before. He can do it, he can do it. And the moment Scott thinks he is going to win, a grugling sound reaches his ears and his other hand feels wet.
Scott doesn't want to turn around, doesn't want to let the hand hurting Kira out of his sight, even for half a second. He wants to save Kira, he can't let her down, he had already done that, he can't do it again.
But then a soft but loud in the prevailing silence pained groan echoes. A groan that Scott could recognize anywhere. Stiles. And Scott cannot not turn his head, in fact his head turns without him agreeing on this, he is forced to turn and to look. The sight makes dread pulses through his body : Stiles – his best-friend, his brother – is on the ground, with five deep and large claw marks running from his right shoulder to his left hip. The injuries are bleeding steadily and are showing no sign to stop. There is a silent accusation in Stiles's eyes before they close.
And Scott's other hand is still wet, wet, wet–
Bile is raising at the back of his constricted throat. Scott blinks and he feels bones shattering under his palm, the one that was holding Kira's neck. Scott can only watch in horror his guilty hand and he can only see how her body is going limp and lifeless against the wall. Scott blinks again and he is now surrounded by the bleeding bodies of Malia, Liam, and Peter.
And both of his hands and arms and face are wet and covered in blood now.
He wants to scream. He can't.
No one is listenning to him anyway. Not Kate, she ignored his pleas. Not Kira, she didn't run like he asked her to. Not his body.
His body, if it is still his, is not cooperating, didn't cooperate. His hands were clawed and ready to strike when he wanted them to be motionless at his sides. His body was used to inflict pain when Scott only wanted to be gentle.
Scott could have been outside his body, with the consistency of a ghost, trying with all his might to stop that, stop it, stop himself. It would have the same effect. His body, which starts to not feel like it is still his body, acts despite himself. As if it is him the stranger in the body. Sometimes when Scott wakes up, he isn't sure if he is the one borrowing the body or if his body has been taken away from him without him noticing and replaced with this one.
Familiar.
Estrange.
Worst part is, it is not the first time Scott feels that way towards his body.
Since Peter bit him that night in the Preserve, his body hasn't felt like his. He knew that his body was going to change, puberty was nothing new. He didn't expect his body to change that radically. And against his own will. He was okay with puberty and growing up, or as okay as a teenager can be with that. He has never agree for fangs, blood lust and having his life completely turned upside down though.
On the paper, Scott's body is still his body.
But sometimes Scott has the feeling that his body doesn't belong entirely to him anymore.
It also belongs to the wolf inside him. A part of Scott and at the same a stranger. A kind of darkness that only want to destroy, to absorb Scott – the other part of him, the human part of him, the part that feels more and more distant some nights. Most of the nights (and some days too), Scott is fighting against the wolf for control, for his body. Scott wins. Within a hair's breadth. And it's terrifying how often it is a close call, how the wolf could win too.
It has also belonged to Kate. She has drapped it in rags and bones, she has put a mask on his face, she has made sure to cover his tattoo – the only thing Scott has done to his body, to claim it as his own. The Bersker's bones felt like puppet strings. The rags, the new identity he was forced to take on.
No more body. No more control. No more Scott.
Until Liam said to him the exact same words he had struggled to come up with, the ones that held a particular meaning since he said them to Liam.
Until Scott wakes up.
And even then, when the nightmare is over and he should be safe, the memories remain.
They takek their sweet time to fade away, leaving Scott in a hazy daze which slowly stretches seconds into minutes. In this dull cotton-reality, Scott doesn't know for sure where his body begins and ends, how to lift his arms and what he is seeing oand hearing.
He needs a bit of time to process. To make sure that it is his body, again.
It is not easy. Scott is struggling to get a grip on the tangible reality, to step out his nightmare-induced confused state.
His sight is the first thing he has under his control again. After blinking a few times, Scott can now see the ceiling of his bedroom. The daylight is coming through the window, casting a reassuring light on Scott's bed.
His bed. Scott is on his bed. He knows it but now he is starting to feel again the sheets beneath him, and he takes comfort from their softness and their lavender detergent smell. No more rags, no more bones.
Scott tries to move and finds he can turn his head with great efforts. He tries to get up but it's too soon. He still can't.
He can however feel how wet his hands are.
Panic shots through him.
No, no, no, no, no, I can't–
Scott turns his head the best he can to look down, his hands shaking and clenching around a fistfull of sheet. When he sees his hands, Scott exhales slowly, relief pouring out of him. His hands are wet, with sweat, not with blood. Scott's entire body is drenched in sweat but he absolutely doesn't mind it.
Few minutes later, Scott tries to get up again. He fails again.
He is exhausted as if he hasn't sleep, his body aches as if his muscles have been tensed all night and he can't get up as if he has not control over it. Scott is frustrated and he is scared. He closes his eyes, prays that this isn't another nightmare embedded in his nightmare and silently wills his arms to move.
His focus is so intense that Scott doesn't hear the footsteps coming his way.
Scott is startled when the door of his bedroom opens loudly and he flinches, his heart racing in his chest. It is just his mom. Who is smiling at him, in her special half-fond half-annoyed way. Who is saying that if Scott wants to have breaskfast before going to school he needs to get up right now.
And upon hearing the direct order, Scott's body is moving before he can even realise what is happening and he finds himself up so fast that he scars himself and can't help but wolf out – getting an odd look from his mom as she closes the door behind her.
Scott is happy to be able to move again freely but the realisation why leaves an acid taste in his mouth.
Night comes around and Scott wishes it doesn't.