“Calming them down when they have a bad dream.” + Sadles
It was nearly 4 AM when my phone rang.
The sound jolted me out of sleep with a start. I blearily rolled onto my side, and before my brain could truly catch up, my hands were already searching for my phone and answering the call with practiced precision.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Sadie.” Sheriff Stilinski’s voice was resigned, regretful, but most of all, exhausted. “I’m sorry, I—I hate to call, but—"
“It’s okay. I’ll be there in twenty.”
“Are you sure? I mean—"
“I’m positive. I’ll see you soon.”
I ended the call and wiped my hands down my face. I’d be asleep again soon enough. I just needed to be awake enough to drive. I just needed to get to Stiles.
I dragged myself out of bed and slipped on my shoes and Stiles’s lacrosse sweatshirt. Then I grabbed my purse and shuffled down the hall to my mom’s room. I knocked, called out, eased the door open, but she didn’t wake up until I kissed her on the head.
“Wha—?! What’s—what going on?”
“It’s fine, Mom. I’ve just gotta go see Stiles.”
The panic drained from her face and she dropped back to the pillow with the same mixture of emotions as the sheriff. “Again? Sadie…”
“He needs me, Mom.”
“I know. I know, just…please be careful.”
“I will. Just get some sleep. I’ll be back before school.”
I kissed her once more on the head before heading out the door.
The drive to the Stilinski household was silent. There wasn’t a single car on the road besides mine, not one person running or one dog barking. For once, the whole town was asleep and peaceful…with the exception of the Stilinskis.
The house was still dark, but the porch light had been turned on in preparation for my arrival. At this point, I didn’t bother ringing the bell or knocking. I just slipped through the door, locked it behind me, and turned the light off once more.
Sheriff Stilinski was waiting for me in the kitchen, as usual.
“Hey, honey.” He wrapped me in a side hug and pressed a quick kiss into my hair. “I’m sorry to keep doing this. I just…can’t find any way to help.”
“It’s okay,” I assured him for the hundredth time. “Really. You shouldn’t feel bad; these aren’t normal nightmares. I don’t know how much any of us can really help.”
“Yeah, I understand that. Or I’m trying to,” he amended, shaking his weary head. “I’m still trying to wrap my mind around all of this, but…I know one thing, and that’s that having you here…it helps him more than anything else.”
I shifted bashfully on my feet and gave the sheriff a tight smile.
“Well, I’m gonna go find him. Are you…?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Go ahead and get some sleep, Sadie. And…thanks again.”
The bittersweet grin he gave me was almost too much to bear. I ducked my head and quickly shuffled out of the kitchen, escaping up the stairs to Stiles’s bedroom. Again, I didn’t bother knocking. I’d been sneaking into Stiles’s room for weeks now, nearly every night since the lunar eclipse. I’d started keeping a go bag in my car, just in case. If this went on much longer, I was gonna have to start asking Stiles for drawer space.
He was in bed, lying down but far from sleeping. His empty brown eyes stared up at the ceiling and didn’t even blink when I let myself in. I quietly stowed my bag in the corner by his desk, then crawled under the covers beside him. Stiles moved on autopilot to accommodate me, scooching over, wrapping an arm around my waist, playing with my hair as I settled against his chest.
For a few minutes, neither of us said anything. I was hovering on the edge of sleep again by the time he willed the words out of his mouth.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
My lips tugged into a tiny smirk, and I pressed a kiss into the cotton of his T-shirt. The sarcasm was rote—I knew that—but at least it wasn’t gone just yet.
“Okay,” I whispered. “Feel however you want to feel, but I just want you to know that I don’t mind. I’m still here, whatever you need.”
Stiles didn’t answer me with words. Instead, I felt it in the way his arm tightened around my waist, the tremble of his chest under my cheek, his fingers stalling in my hair. I quickly pushed myself up onto my side. I grabbed his hand and laced our fingers together, fixing him with a stern, earnest stare.
“Hey. I mean it. I’m not going anywhere. I’m safe, and so are you. We’re gonna figure this out, okay?”
Stiles clenched his jaw, but nodded with feeble conviction. It wasn’t much, but he was trying. I rewarded him with a kiss on the forehead, then rolled over onto my other side. I tugged him with me, hugging his hand to my chest and pulling his body around me. Stiles came willingly. He folded one arm under his head and held me against his chest like a life preserver. His breath tickled the back of my neck, hitching before he squeezed out two last words.
“Thanks, Bennet.”
I smiled into the pillow and gently squeezed his hand.
This was fucking stupid. Everything was garbage, and I was furious, and it was all fucking stupid.
I kicked the wall of the dumpster, and the sound echoed around the alley in the back of the animal clinic. The impact hurt my foot, but I kicked the metal again and again, willing it to give way, to give me my way, to fix all of this stupid, dangerous garbage. The dumpster did nothing, except jam my toe against the inside of my boot. I slammed my hands against it, the chipped paint flaking under my palms, the heels of my hands drumming again the metal and making a sound so loud, my ears hurt almost as much as my feet. I screamed, because why not at that point? Why not make my throat ache as much as every other part of me?
When the pain overwhelmed me, I slumped back against the brick wall and collapsed to the pavement. I tugged my feet up and hung my head between my knees, my hands clasped behind my neck. I tried to focus on my breathing, on the feeling of the pebble I was sitting on, the cars passing on the other side of the building. Anything that wasn’t going on inside.
The back door to the clinic shut quietly, but I didn’t need to look up. I knew the footfalls scuffing against the asphalt. I recognized the body sitting beside me without having to lift my head.
“I hate this,” I spat at the ground.
“I know,” he said calmly. “I’m not crazy about it either.”
I could hear the raw emotion in his voice, sadness and heartbreak everywhere I felt fury. I lifted my head with a rush of sympathy.
“Scott, that’s not—you know things aren’t the same with Isaac. However Allison feels about him, it could never be the same as it was with you.”
He gave a half-hearted shrug, resting his elbows on his knees. “It’s okay.”
“No, Scott. It’s not.”
“…yeah, you’re right. It’s not.”
We sat in silence for several minutes. Scott’s sadness ate at my rage, producing a unique chemical reaction that neutralized both of us. I sighed the last of my anger into the air and rested my head against the wall, and Scott reached over with a reassuring hand to pat my knee.
“It might not be okay now, but it’s going to be,” he promised. “We’ll make it out of this, just like we make it out of everything else. Deaton knows what he’s doing.”
“Deaton knows this is dangerous,” I countered, “and even if all of us do make it out of this, we still won’t be out of the woods. I heard what he said about the Nemeton, summoning all kinds of different creatures here. Lydia’s translated the bestiary, and I’ve read it front to back. If even half of that stuff is real, then…I don’t know how any of us are gonna make it past graduation, frankly.”
“Are you kidding? I don’t think an army of demons could stop Lydia from graduating.”
I snorted against my will, and ducked my head to hide my reaction. But this was Scott McCall. Even without super hearing, he knew exactly how to make people smile.
Scott pushed himself to his feet, then held out his hand for mine. He helped me stand, then pulled me into a warm, secure hug. I was too stubborn to admit it, but it made me feel better—far better than assaulting the dumpster had.
I screwed up my face, trying to keep the fear and sadness at bay.
“If you die, I’m gonna kill you.”
I felt Scott’s wide smile against my shoulder.
“I know you will. All the more reason to make it back.”
Okay! But seriously! Someone I've been thinking about a lot lately is ISAAC LAHEY. I think if I ever made it to Season 4, I would bring Isaac back with Chris, who never should have abandoned him in France without any explanation whatsoever. Potentially Isaac would never leave at all, but I like the idea of him coming back and being like "I leave for like three months and you all end up on a deadpool, that's not cool, I wanna be on a deadpool."
Also, I have Plans™ for Isaac and his dynamics with other characters. Like, Liam? Isaac's super jealous, because like - no, you're not Scott's beta, I'm Scott's beta. I'm president of the Scott McCall Fan Club. (Cue Derek looming over his shoulder, the real president of the SMFC.)
Isaac and Theo? The one time Stiles and Isaac have ever agreed on anything! Theo has abs, which means he's not to be trusted, and if he takes his shirt off again, Isaac is going to kill him slowly.
Isaac and Malia? I - I can't even put into words how funny this would be. I love them so much. I just wrote a whole conversation thinking about this in the shower. This would have been incredible.
ANYWAY. One of the many things I'd change about Teen Wolf is Mr. Isaac Lahey.
OKAY I'M SO GLAD YOU ASKED THIS BECAUSE I REBLOGGED THIS SECRETLY HOPING I WOULD GET TO TALK ABOUT THIS SPECIFICALLY!!!
So, Sadie initially never even considered getting a tattoo. It's just not something that really ever crossed her mind through school. But by senior year, she's gone through a lot and she finally understands what Scott meant by wanting to get a tattoo to "reward himself" back in junior year. So for her birthday, Scott and Stiles take her to the tattoo parlor and Scott holds her hand to help with the pain, and the tattoo artist thinks he's her boyfriend, which makes Stiles get prickly, and he forces himself to stay and be awake and conscious for the entire process to prove himself. He does gag a few times though. Close call.
I think she probably gets it on the inside of her wrist, because she wants to be able to see it all the time without making it overly obvious. This is roughly the design.
For one, it's Sadie's take on the triskelion, complete with a triquetra in the middle. It's about trinity. It's about balance. Insert Derek's speech about how someone can go rise or fall between Omega, Beta, and Alpha. It's about self control, like the talisman Derek used to learn controlling his powers. Most importantly, it's about unity, which is special to Sadie because the triskele was the symbol for the Hale pack. She considers Derek family, so it's kinda like getting a matching tattoo for her.
More importantly, the symbol isn't closed because it's made of three S's: Sadie, Scott, and Stiles. It's Sadie's way of commemorating their friendship, because even after everything they've been through, all the deaths, murders, breakups, and heartbreak, it's always been the three of them since the beginning. They're her core.
Also I consider Scott to be the third member of the Sadles throuple, thank you very much.
ANYWAY THIS GOT REALLY LONG BUT I WAS THINKING ABOUT IT THE OTHER DAY THANK YOU FOR ASKING!!!
Send me a 🖤and an OC and I'll tell you about their tattoos!
I recently refound The Wild Side and Right Beside You and while I know you’re not planning on continuing them, my brain does not. 🤣 I woke up from a dream of what Sadie would have been like with Void!Stiles and long story short…if you’re ever tempted to write any drabbles/teasers for what that would’ve been like, I’d love to read them! The spice it would bring.🌶 Thank you for sharing your fab writing and for Sadie Bennet. ❤️
Oh my goodness, thank you so much!!! I love the outpouring of love Sadie's been getting lately. I've been feeling nostalgic lately, too. I wore my Stilinski jersey to bed last night, and honestly I might change my thumbnail back to Stiles soon haha.
I am always open for doing prompts for Sadie and the gang! Anytime I do a prompt list, she's in my heart and on my brain. As for Void Stiles, it would definitely be...intense, lol. Sadie knows Stiles. She knows her Stiles. So it actually causes a lot of dissonance between them because Void Stiles knows on some level that he can't spend too much time with Sadie without setting her off. So he sows problems instead. 👀
I am........sorry..........but I am also not sorry, and definitely going to do it again. 😂 SOUR was all about teenage heartbreak! It gave me all kinds of emotions about my favorite teens! "Happier" simply spoke to me, and my brain would not rest until it was done...might be doing another song too whoops okay love you bye lol
Hello, hi. Im pretty sure i'm not the only one, but since being in quarentine i've re-watched Teen Wolf and after that obviously re-read The Wild Side series (in like 2 days btw, clearly I have some time in my hands) and OH MY GOD I MISSED SADIE SO MUCH. I read your fic like 4 years ago and loved it then, and now i remembered it and it felt like visiting an old friend. I just wanted to let you know that, cause you're pretty amazing for creating such a great character. I admired Sadie so much +
then and now that I've read her again, rememberd why I loved her so much. Also remembered that your fic was a lifesaver back then helping me get through some rough and dark times, and for that I wanted to say thank you. you're such a great writer, you'll have some awesome recommendations under your sleeve. Well, that's pretty long, but I wanted to let you know how much TWS means to me. Shutting up now. I hope you're great and so is your family in this pretty shitty time. Okay, really shutting up now.
Oh my goodness, the Sadie love has my flailing today! 🖤I’m glad it still holds up for you and that it can offer something to come back to.
Sadie also helped me through quite a few rough times. I’m not sure I’ve spoken publicly before, but I remember writing that scene in Right Beside You where she looks at herself in the mirror and thinks about this total disconnect she has from her reflection. That was pretty much a stream of consciousness diary entry for me. People can complain about self-inserts, but I think when a writer uses their writing to work through things, there’s a higher chance that readers are going to connect with it. At least, that’s how I’ve always hoped writing worked haha.
I hope you’re doing better now, both from those dark times and this global pandemic. Thank you for sending me this smile. 💜
It was Inbox Hour, then Inbox Night, and now it’s Inbox Day
