Doubles

Chapter Fourteen

Minho

Minho loved the plan. Mostly because it was happening to Thomas and not to him.

They were at Minho's house now, since his parents were never home and they needed a lot of space. And water. And towels. And property to possibly ruin if things went wrong.

They were filling two huge buckets with ice cold water for Thomas and Stiles to submerge into.  Apparently, that's what they did in Stiles' dreams and Scott thought it might work in real life too.

Newt was worried about it but Minho knew that if they were fine in the dreams, they'd be fine in real life. Nevertheless, Thomas was one of his best friends and it was only appropriate that he showed a little bit of concern.

"You sure you're up for this?" Minho asked Thomas as Newt and Scott filled the buckets with ice.

"We need to figure out what's going on," Thomas replied, trying and failing to sound brave. Poor shank. "Before everything starts going wrong again."

"If it goes wrong," Minho corrected. "And don't worry, Thomas. You know we'll pull you out of there before it gets bad. You'll be fine."

"Guys," Lydia said. "It's ready."

Minho gave his friend an encouraging pat on the back before he walked over to the buckets with Stiles.

"After this, can we dunk Minho?" Malia asked.

Minho picked up an ice cube and threw it at her in response.

Malia was about to whistle for her coyote (she's really that upset over an ice cube??) but McCall growled at her and she stopped. Minho shot her a look of victory to which she replied with a roll of her eyes. Man, was she annoying.

"He started it," Malia said when everyone glared them.

"Can we focus?" Scott asked exasperatedly. "We need to know exactly what we're doing."

"I'm holding Tommy down," Newt answered. "You're holding Stiles down. They need to stay underwater long enough until they see . . . something."

"Remember," Lydia said, looking at Thomas and Stiles. "You need to focus. Not on us, not on how cold it is. Focus on shutting down your mind to everything so when the answer comes, you'll know exactly what it is. At least, that's how it should work." She looked at Stiles questioningly.

Stiles shrugged. "I think so."

"Well, that's comforting," Thomas said, stepping inside the water. Almost immediately, his teeth started chattering. "Wow. That's a lot c-c-c-colder than I thought it w-would be."

"Come on, Tommy," Newt said, placing his hands on his shoulders as Thomas sat down. "Let's get this over with."

"It can't be t-t-t-t-that bad," Stiles chattered. "If we did it so many times in my dreams."

"Exactly," Scott said, placing his hands on his friend's shoulders.  "Are you guys ready?"

Thomas and Stiles took simultaneous deep breaths before nodding. Minho thought it was kind of creepy. Then, with a countdown from three, Newt and Scott pushed at the same time and their friends went underwater.

At first, everything seemed okay. Thomas and Stiles were clearly uncomfortable but it looked as if they were alright. But, after a few seconds, Minho could tell Thomas wasn't dealing well with the cold. Stiles, on the other hand had his eyebrows scrunched in forced concentration. It wasn't working.

Suddenly, Thomas' eyes shot open and he started losing air, fear obvious in his eyes. He needed to get out. Now.

"Pull him out!" Minho ordered, running over.