[ she glares down at his hand that's gripping onto his wrist,         & swallows nervously. he wasn't supposed to---                                               there was no way he---         this isn't supposed to happen.         she's dead.         but he's gripping onto her, like she's real,                                                                   alive,                                                                    h i s. ]

   "I'm dead, you can't---    this isn't possible."

                                                         "Please-----                                                          I'm here, I've                                                          always been                                                          here. Hear                                                          me, please."

   [ her hand is outstretched,      though she knows they      can't grip it. human contact      used to always help her,      keep her tethered, but      even that has been taken      away from her now. all      she can do is plead, tears      misting over whiskey hues,      & hope they can hear her. ]

   [ it's kind of an unspoken rule that you don't leave boyd & allison alone together.      ever since erica's death, they've treated each other with an icy indifference      that they rarely break. there's a muted need to apologize on allison's end,      but hell if she knows what's going on at boyd's end. but as she awkwardly      shuffles her feet, staring at boyd in the otherwise empty loft, she thinks that      this might just be here chance to find out. ]

        "--so."

   [ smooth, argent. ]

   [ bourbon hues dart every which way, inspecting the boy-- he's not really     a boy any more, is he?-- in front of her. she still hasn't mastered the art of telling      the difference between stiles stilinski & the nogitsune. it still sickens her that      she has to tell the difference. nonetheless, she can't quite discern who is standing      in front of her, & tentatively, hopefully--- ]

        "Stiles?"

   [ she's not entirely sure how to position herself. usually when visiting the new      english teacher, she has isaac or lydia to lean back on, to even out her anxiety       levels, but this is the first time she's ever been alone in miss oswald's presence.       the woman is calming, yes, but so was jennifer blake before that went to hell.       as stiles had once said to her at three o'clock in the morning, 'best to be cautious.' ]

        "Um, hi."

   "Do you think this is a trap?"

      [ the question is one that barely cuts away from the tension in the car,         but it's one that needs to be asked. they all knew that they were playing         right into the nogitsune's hands, but not a single one of them had the guts         to own up to it. briefly, allison wishes her dad hadn't called her in on this matter;         but knows it's for the greater good that he did. if she wasn't, he would,         quite possibly, hurt stiles. not the nogitsune; he could keep hopping around         from body-to-body. shooting stiles, stabbing stiles, but aiming for the nogitsune         wouldn't work. & whilst derek was very persuasive with her fangs & blue eyes,         allison knew how to get through to her father in ways that the other female         just didn't. but-- it was a trap. they all knew that much. someone needed         to say it, & it wasn't going to be her. ]

   [ she wishes she could say that she hadn't gone straight to alec's bed after      the confrontation in the hale loft, but that'd be one of her most terrible lies yet;      & she was so goddamn tired & just freaking lonely. so, whilst her father stayed      back at the loft to clean up the mess the nogitsune had made, she walked      all the way back to the apartment, & fell into the empty space in alec's bed. ]

       "Can I sleep here tonight?"