Chapter Text
It’s been two weeks.
Two weeks since the last Big Bad came through, two weeks since anything has tried to kill them.
Two weeks since anyone has even talked to Stiles, much less even sent him a text.
That’s part of the reason that he’s out here, in the middle of the night, doing a cleansing ritual on the stump of a nexus of ley lines.
He’s almost positive that the Nemeton is lulling them into a false sense of security, giving them a bit of quiet before spitting out something so utterly dangerous that they might actually all die, instead of just a few of them.
Swallowing down the wave of pain that thinking about Allison always gives him, Stiles instead focuses on the spell work that he has gathered around the base of the Nemeton.
Ever since Deaton had mentioned that he had a ‘spark’, Stiles had done what he does best; he had researched and scoured the internets for anything that might explain what exactly that meant.
He had put specific limitations on his searches, scouring suggested websites - because Deaton had decided that he would be cryptic and confusing on multiple fronts and had just pointed him towards a few online catalogs for him to go through instead of just, oh, telling him what he needed to know!!
Shaking his head, Stiles pulls his wandering thoughts back onto their original path, knowing that he needed utter concentration for this to work.
Maybe he should have asked someone to come with him...
There’s another wave of sorrow at that thought, remembering how Scott had - gently and earnestly, because that was just how Scott was - suggested that maybe Stiles took a backseat to all the supernatural stuff for a while. That he focusses on taking care of his dad and making up the schoolwork he missed while he was possessed.
That he really shouldn't be throwing himself into things, considering he was just a human and didn't really have anything backing him up when it came to a fight.
Stiles had originally agreed, knowing that he needed a little more time to heal and get to a place where his dad didn’t look at him like he was only one bad day away from going on a killing spree, for all that he wasn’t piggy backing a thousand-year-old fox spirit anymore.
(There are nights where he still isn’t sure if that’s true, if these past few weeks have just been a game for the Nogitsune to get his daily food from its host. Stiles isn’t afraid to admit that those nights aren’t very restful, and that he might have bent his promise to Scott that he tone down the research...)
That was the other reason that he was out here; he hopes that - by completing this spell and doing something useful - that Scott would be more willing to let him be a part of things again.
Would let him be part of a Pack, of a family, again...
Huffing out a breath, Stiles once more tries to focus on what he’s doing, on the mixture of herbs, oils and blood that he’s pouring around the Nemeton in particular patterns.
He has to focus his attention on what he wants to happen here, not on the fact that it has been weeks since he last spoke to Scott, Lydia...
Although, he can understand that one; that she took the time to explain that looking at him was a little hard right now, because she kept seeing that thing instead of him.
He's honestly a little touched that she even took the time to explain before cutting off all contact with him. It sucked, but he could get where she was coming from and had kept a respectful distance at Ally's-
At the funeral.
Hell, he hasn’t even heard from Derek in a while!
Stiles knew that Derek had left shortly after all of... that stuff concerning La Iglesia had been taken care of, that he was going down to Mexico to check up on Cora and the Pack that had taken her in after the Hale fire.
Stiles had thought that he was just going to be gone after defeating Peter and Kate, but he apparently had just wanted to clarify some things before he went back to his loft to pack. Surprisingly, Derek had taken the time to say goodbye to everyone, even stopping by the Stilinski house before he had left.
It had been like being in the Twilight Zone: Derek had come through the front door, and even stopped to talk with Stiles’ Dad!
That had been such a trippy experience, more so when the Sheriff had taken pains to thank Derek for looking for Stiles while he went AWOL and going so far as to help protect him during the showdown at his loft. Stiles could only stand there in shock as Derek had looked bashful at the praise, calling his dad ‘sir’ and trying to pass it all off as nothing.
Too busy counting his fingers to make sure that this all wasn’t a dream, Stiles had missed what his dad had said to that, but when he looked up again, Derek was staring at him with his trademark frown. Glad for the return to normalcy, Stiles had just thrown out a quip and led the Sourwolf to his bedroom.
There had been a bit of tension then, where Stiles wasn’t sure if they were gonna talk about what happened outside of La Igleasia, when he had actually hesitated before going after Scott...
And that was still something that made him take a few minutes, not sure if the feelings swirling in his chest were shock or guilt; he had, both metaphorically and more recently physically, walked into the fire for Scott, so the fact that he was struggling to leave Derek to go help him-
To be fair, Derek was dying at the time...
Derek had told him then that he was leaving, pulling Stiles out of his circulating thoughts. Derek stressed that he would be back before giving Stiles his phone number so that he could be kept in the loop. Stiles hadn’t been sure what he was supposed to do then, falling back on reliable sarcasm as he made a joke about Derek entering the 21st century, but Derek had just brushed it off and practically ordered Stiles to keep his phone on him before hopping out the window.
It made him laugh, that Derek did that even though there was nothing stopping him from going out the way he came in.
Pausing for a moment as he drags himself out of his memories, Stiles idly runs his fingers over the pocket that holds his phone, feeling a little pathetic that he knows the last text he got from Derek was the only one that broke the two week embargo from the rest of his so-called ‘friends’.
And it wasn’t even recent; it had been sent a few days ago and was a laconic ‘Full moon went well’ to the multiple questions that Stiles had sent about running with a wolf pack again.
Maybe he’s being annoying, maybe Derek gave Stiles his phone number so he could only text him when they needed back up... Maybe Derek is doing a Stiles; ignoring a problem until it goes away.
Originally, Stiles wouldn’t have thought that was Derek’s style, but considering that Stiles isn’t actively trying to kill him, he figures that Derek has relaxed a bit.
Or maybe being with an actual wolf pack, not a handful of teenagers that barely listen to each other, nevermind authority figures, is what’s making him relax so much.
Maybe he even found himself a girlfriend after he and Braeden had called it quits, her desire to find the Desert Wolf kinda putting her on the opposite side of Derek’s new zen thing. They had split on amicable terms - or so Derek had briefly told Stiles - and considering how well that relationship went, maybe this next one will also be somebody that isn’t trying to kill him and everyone he loves...
“O-kay!”
Pushing himself to his feet and ignoring the stab to the chest that particular thought brought up, Stiles grabs the book he had left on the Nemeton’s stump and gets to enunciating some Archaic Latin.
The passage was one of the things that Lydia helped him with before she cut off all contact. It had made her a bit suspicious, but Stiles had managed to keep her from asking too many questions by convincing her that it was to clean out all the negative energies that the Nogitsune had left him with and that he would suffer no ill effects if he got it wrong, other than still feeling like he was being pressed down by a heavy weight on his chest.
Part of him felt horrible for playing on Lydia’s trauma and eagerness to get away from the mere mention of the Nogitsune, but the larger part of him just wanted to do something to make up for all the pain and death the Nogitsune caused while wearing his face.
He supposes that just means he was fucked up even before the Nogitsune got its claws in him...
Grateful that Lydia was kind enough, or just knew him enough, to leave a phonetic description of the words under the translation, Stiles manages to make it through the whole thing with only a few stumbles, the last bit of light fading right as the final word slips past his lips.
Stiles waits for a moment, wondering if he should feel anything right away, or if it might take a few minutes for the full effect to be obvious. Right now... there’s not a lot of noise here, even the more vicious of the animals in the Preserve instinctively knowing that this wasn’t a place to idly wander through...
Yet, now that he’s once more paying attention to his surroundings, Stiles realized exactly how quiet it is; even the rustling of the trees seem muted, like Stiles is hearing everything come to him from a distance or from underwater.
Slowly turning, Stiles can’t see anything different that might have brought about this change; the trees are still standing tall, towering over him by miles and the shadows that flicker around the clearing don’t seem to gain any kind of horrific shapes, no matter how close they come to the light of his phone.
Blinking, Stiles wonders why that thought rattles around in his head as wrong, why it makes him hesitant to turn and face the Nemeton, where it sits behind him. His fingers tap against his legs, moving up and down in sweeping patterns, stumbling in their rhythm as he realizes what caused the first shiver of fear to trip down his spine.
The fingers of his right hand tap against the shape of his phone in his pocket, he remembers thinking about texting Derek not a half hour ago.
Now that he knows for sure the light is not of his making, a squeeze around his heart joins with the fear, causing the hairs on the back of his neck to rise up. A stray thought points out that it's light, what can a bit of light do to him...?
Immediately following on its heels are thoughts of all the research he’s ever done on the light spectrum, into different perceivable kinds of light, into the correlation to different kinds of supernatural creatures that usually coincided with the appearance of light, as well as how bright a single light had to be before it grew to harmful parameters.
The anxious run of his thoughts overtakes him for a little bit, before another realization flickers through his mind; he has been standing here for a good ten, fifteen minutes or so, if you counted his initial panic with his wandering relay of light facts, and the light has not moved nor grown in brilliance.
There also doesn’t seem to be any kind of heat being given off by this light either. Stiles can see the edges of it dancing along his shoulders when he shifts his weight, but he doesn’t feel any kind of warmth along his back that would suggest that the light was there.
Run, his mind nudges, Run before whatever it is decides you’re a meal.
But if there is one thing that running with wolves has definitely taught him is that the running is what causes the supernatural thing to chase, catch, and try to eat him.
So, despite the common sense that his father always wonders if he has telling him to not do this, Stiles slowly turns towards the Nemeton.
It’s a small sphere of light, barely bigger than a quarter, and it’s floating maybe half a foot above the stump of the Nemeton.
Heart still pounding away in his chest, Stiles examines the light, takes in the soft white glow and the way it doesn’t flicker or dim or even flare as he looks at it. It just bobs there, so inconspicuously innocent looking, and shines.
He should call someone.
He should leave, before something happens.
He definitely shouldn’t touch it.
Now that the thought has entered his mind, Stiles isn’t really surprised that it consumes every single instinct in his brain. His hand is almost to the sphere before a neuron finally tells it to stop and think about what he was doing.
Stiles does, he really does.
He thinks about what he was doing moments before this, all the damage that he caused that made him come out here in the first place, as well as the fact that this thing - despite the fact that Stiles’ hand is literally inches away from it - has not moved from its gentle up and down floating motion.
“I really, really hope that you’re something good. Because I could really, really, really use some of that in my life right now.” Stiles huffs at himself, not sure if he should worry or just call it par for the course that he’s talking to a ball of light. “I just... I wish- I hope that you’re some part of how I can fix all of this, make up for all the shit I let happen...”
Not bothering to wait to see if something decides to answer him, Stiles closes his eyes and touches the sphere.
And, for a long while, nothing changes.
It’s just when he’s about to move his hand away, a heavy sigh leaving his lips as he does so, that he becomes aware of a humming noise. It’s low, barely on the edges of his hearing, but is steadily starting to get louder.
Opening his eyes again, Stiles is reduced to squinting, because it’s now that the sphere has decided to get brighter, a sudden brilliance on the edge of burning in its intensity. It’s almost as if someone has put a small sun in front of him, making him go as far as to try to put a hand in front of his face to block some of that light out...
...only to realize that he can’t move his hand away from the sphere, and that the humming noise has grown in pitch, seeming to originate from the sphere with how his bones are vibrating with the tones now.
Stiles is suddenly struck with the thought that he really shouldn’t have touched the fucking sphere.
And that’s the last thought that goes through Stiles’ mind before there’s a whistling noise, what sounds like an explosion going off in front of him and the entire world going dark.