Chapter Text
The lights are still flickering.
Her crossbow sits on her desk where her father left it, string severed and completely useless. All she has left are her knives, and as skilled as she is, she knows she can’t take Derek down with knives.
She throws the book she’s been trying to read for the past ten minutes against the door. All she wants to see is Derek dead, but everyone wants to stop her from avenging her mother.
She’s angry, and frustrated, and the lights are still flickering.
She knows who’s causing it. The two werewolves tied up in her basement, Derek’s little minions.
If she can’t have Derek, she’ll just have to settle for the next best thing.
She opens her bedroom door and closes it behind her without a sound. As she walks towards the basement, staring purposefully straight ahead, her hands curl into fists.
The stairs to the basement are dark and foreboding, but that doesn't stop Allison. She plunges into the darkness, calling down tauntingly, “If you don’t stop that right now I’ll turn the voltage up until your—”
She stops short when she clears the wall at the bottom of the stairs and the room opens up to her. Erica and Boyd are hanging pitifully right where she’d left them, but a new figure has appeared. His hands have been bound by the same wire as Erica and Boyd, and from the ways he’s struggling it is clear that he’s the one causing the electrical disturbances. She reaches for the voltage dial on the control box.
Then the figure turns around.
A sickeningly familiar face stares up at her through pained brown eyes, pale skin mottled and bruised. For a moment she can only stare.
“Stiles?”
He shrinks back slightly even as he squares his shoulders in an obvious attempt at bravado. Seeing the usually lively and cheerful boy reduced to this state is wrong somehow, and that wrongness resonates deep within her. She turns the voltage down to zero and runs towards him, reaching a hand up to get those horrible wires off—she realises with a sickening lurch of her heart that his wrists are burnt—but when her hand nears his face, he flinches violently.
The growing sick feeling is intensified as his eyes widen in fear. Of her.
“Stiles, no, I—I’m trying to untie you.” He deflates, the hard lines in his face softening slightly. Still the suspicion and accusation doesn’t leave his gaze; she feels the need to defend herself against his piercing stare. “I didn’t know.”
It sounds hollow, even to her own ears. For the first time since her mother died, she wonders if she might have made the wrong decision.
“What are you doing here?” she asks him as she slices through the wire with the knife she always keeps in her boot.
“Ask your psycho excuse for a grandpa,” he says brightly, but unable to fully mask the tremble in his voice. Still, it is the first glimpse of the Stiles she knows, and it eases the guilt just slightly.
His hands fall to his sides as the wire snaps, and he rubs the red skin around his wrists. “Thanks,” he says, avoiding her eyes.
“Why did my grandfather bring you here? Did he do that to you?” She doesn’t know whether she fears the answer she knows she’ll get. She knows what Gerard is capable of, but some juvenile part of her hopes she is wrong.
“Oh, you know, to mess with Scott or something, I don’t really care. I gotta say though, he packs quite a punch for such an old geezer.” He laughs, but it’s more abrupt than usual.
Stiles turns to Erica and reaches for the wire binding her hands. Allison’s vision flashes white.
“Stiles, what are you doing? Don’t you know what they are?”
“What they are?” Stiles repeats slowly as if trying to understand, but the sharp glint in his eye makes it clear he knows exactly what she meant. “You mean… teenagers? Our classmates?” Any naïve pretence is dropped as his dark eyes focus on hers with unsettling intensity. “Or how about this? Fellow human beings who don’t deserve to be hunted and hurt.” At last he looks away. “What makes me different, that you see me hurt and want to save me, but you only want to hurt them?”
“They’re—I don’t—it’s not what they are, but who they work for—”
“They’re not Derek.”
“But they work for—” she cuts herself off and rubs her face, suddenly wracked with exhaustion. She tries again, speaking more slowly. “They work for the man who killed my mother. You don’t understand how much I want him—no, how much I need him dead.”
“I don’t understand?” Stiles’ voice is deceptively soft, but his eyes gleam dangerously, and he is suddenly looming over her. “My mom died when I was eight years old. My dad lost himself in a bottle. I had to raise myself. You don’t see me kidnapping my classmates.” With a deliberate motion, he pulls the knot loose, and Erica sags in relief. She rips the tape off her mouth.
“Thank you,” she breathes, giving him a soft smile. As she sets to work on freeing Boyd, Stiles turns back to Allison.
“Respectfully—actually no, disrespectfully—you’ve been an awful person lately. Yeah, what happened to your mom sucks, but it’s no excuse for going full dark side.”
Each word is a punch to the gut. “But—”
“Sorry, Allison, but I actually don’t really care what you have to say.” He rubs his face with his hands. In his lacrosse uniform, with a face full of bruises and shoulders drooping with exhaustion, he seems younger than ever. He looks back up at her. “Look, Allison, I’m going, and I’m taking these two with me. Please don’t stop me. I really don’t want to hate you.”
Erica flashes her a glare over Stiles’ shoulder; Boyd doesn’t even spare her a glance. A voice in her head shouts at her to stop them, to contain the werewolves before they can hurt anyone. It sounds a lot like her grandfather. Her hand goes to her knife, but she doesn’t follow.
Allison watches them leave, feeling as if she’s betrayed both her family and her friends.
“We basically just walked right out the front door. Talk about an anti-climax, am I right? I mean, no super jacked guards with guns and crossbows? No death traps with fire and flying arrows? You’d think they weren’t even an evil hunter family—”
“Stiles.” Erica looks at him with an unreadable expression, taking his hand in hers and stilling it. He didn’t even realise it was shaking. “Thank you, really. And you don’t have to act cheerful around us.”
Stiles snorts, yanking his hand away from Erica’s and crossing his arms. “Acting cheerful? Me? I am cheerful. Why wouldn’t I be? We just escaped Gramps’s evil lair.” He spreads his arms wide in a grand gesture. “That’s pretty freaking awesome. We’re pretty freaking awesome.”
Erica and Boyd exchange a glance.
He awkwardly lowers his arms back to his sides. “Besides, you were in there for longer than me. Are you guys okay?”
Boyd’s serious expression lightens just slightly, and he moves closer to Erica, fingers intertwining with hers. “We will be.”
Stiles smiles at them, ignoring the strange emptiness that has settled in his stomach. He’s so tired. “Sooo, what are you guys gonna do now?”
“We heard howling in the woods,” Erica says, eyes alight with excitement. “There must have been dozens of them! We think there’s another pack out there, and we want to find it.”
“Cool. That’s cool.” Stiles’ smile falls slightly. “So, you’re… leaving Beacon Hills?”
“We… we think so, yeah,” Erica says softly.
The smile pulling at his face feels wrong, his chest too tight. He doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know what he possibly can say. So he does what he does best. Talks. “Just promise me you won’t start walking on all fours and cleaning yourself with your tongue. Wait, you can’t even turn into a full wolf can you? So I guess all you do is growl and howl. Oh, that rhymes! Growl and howl. Growl and…”
He trails off. Boyd is shooting anxious glances towards the woods.
Erica’s hand brushes Stiles’ cheek, carefully avoiding the growing bruises. “Catch you round, Batman. I hope I see you again someday.” She gives him one last smile, and Boyd gives him a curt nod, then they turn and disappear into the night.
“Seeya, Catwoman.” His voice comes out in a strained whisper, disappearing into the cold night air like a faint breeze. He runs a trembling hand over his face, and chokes out a laugh. His damn hands won’t stop shaking.
An image of his father, reluctantly eating one of Stiles’ salads after a long day at work, wearing a tired but appreciative smile, flashes through his mind. He wants his dad. He shouldn’t—he’s sixteen, basically an adult, and definitely far too old to want his father to comfort him. Something thick and constrictive wells up in his throat.
No, he can’t bother his father. He should call Scott.
He pulls his phone out of his pocket—he found it on his journey through the Argent house—and opens contacts. He tries to press on Scott, but his thumb won’t cooperate, and he can barely hold the phone steady.
“Damnit!” He slides his back down the wall of the alley behind him, and covers his eyes with his hands. “Damnit, stop shaking!”
The worst thing, Stiles thinks miserably, is barely anything happened. He gets grabbed by Gerard, and yeah, the cold metal of the gun on his back and the whispered breath in his ear that told him if he so much as made a sound he’d pull the trigger wasn’t fun, and he got a little roughed up—which is honestly pretty pathetic, considering how old the guy is—but nothing really happened. He’s faced worse. He shouldn’t be feeling like this, shouldn’t be shaking too badly to even use his damn phone.
Scott wouldn’t be like this. He wouldn’t be cowering in an alleyway, unable to even call his friend. He would be back on the front lines, facing down the next threat, protecting everyone. He wouldn’t be weak. Wouldn’t be human.
He silences that traitorous voice.
“Get it together, Stiles.” Taking a few deep breaths, he tries again, and this time manages to press on Scott’s name and hold the phone to his ears. It dials once, twice, three times, and Stiles’ stomach falls further with every ring.
“Stiles?”
Exhaling shakily with relief, Stiles allows himself a smile. Everything will be okay now. “Scott, I’m okay! I got out!”
“That’s great, Stiles—”
“Gerard grabbed me from the lacrosse field, then brought me to his freaky torture basement, and Erica and Boyd were there, but anyway we got out and—”
“Sorry, Stiles, but I can’t really talk right now, Jackson’s going kinda nuts.”
And then Scott hangs up. Just like that.
Stiles stares at his phone for a few seconds, as if Scott’s voice will come back through it and tell him how relieved he is to hear that he’s okay, how he was tirelessly searching for him. God knows Stiles needs to hear that, after the image of Scott breaking down the door and saving him was all that kept him together down there. Scott’s the whole damn reason he was there in the first place.
But the phone stays silent, and the only sound he hears is the gentle rustle of his clothes in the wind.
He feels empty, like he's been hollowed out, squeezed until there's nothing left. How can Scott sound so casual, so unconcerned? Surely the terror Stiles felt should have been more significant. Surely every second that stretched to an hour should have felt the same to Scott, his best friend, his brother. Surely Scott should have been going out of his mind with worry, just like Stiles was going out of his mind with fear.
His words to Gerard earlier flash through his mind.
Because Scott can find me, alright? He knows my scent. It’s pungent, you know?
That's what he'd been counting on, that's the only thing that kept him sane.
Scott can find me.
He could have, if he wanted to. He could have, but he didn't.
Maybe he's being unfair. Maybe he’s overestimating how high a priority he is, and maybe Scott is doing the right thing by focusing on Jackson or whatever new threat has arisen since Stiles has been out of action. Maybe Stiles is the problem, maybe he's selfish, and weak, relying on his best friend to save him when he's already got enough on his mind…
He shivers as the cool wind picks up, hugging his arms around his torso. He wants his dad.
“Yeah, I’m not finding any clues here,” Noah Stilinski says into the phone, voice steady only from a lifetime of keeping his composure while falling apart inside. “Listen, if he—if he shows up at the hospital—”
“We’ll let you know as soon as he does.”
“Okay, thanks.” He hangs up and his head drops into his hands. Standing in the middle of his son's room, surrounded by half-eaten snacks and dirty plates, he can nearly convince himself that Stiles is just in the kitchen, or at school. How can the world be so normal when everything’s so wrong? “Oh come on, Stiles, where the hell are you?”
“Right here,” a familiar voice croaks from the doorway. Noah's head shoots up, and before he's even seen his son he is already running, arms extended in anticipation of an embrace. He collides with Stiles, and Stiles is warm and real and alive, and Noah is so, so grateful.
After Claudia, he can't… he can’t lose anyone else. Stiles is all he has left.
Finally, he pulls back, and looks at his son's face. Stiles avoids his eye, but the bruises are plain to see. Something cold and furious rises within Noah, stealing the breath from his lungs. Sheriff badge be damned, he's going to make sure whoever hurt his son is going to pay.
“Who did this?” he demands, turning his son's face to get a better look at the angry purple mark blooming across his cheek.
“No one,” Stiles says quickly. “Just some kids, I don't know, I didn't see them.”
“Which is it? No one or some kids?”
“Look, Dad, it—it doesn't matter, I'm fine—”
“You are not fine.” He holds his son by the shoulders. “Look at me, Stiles.”
Stiles does, and there is a glistening sheen over his warm brown eyes, usually so full of life and mischief.
Noah softens his voice. “Stiles, you are not fine, and that's okay. You don't have to be strong for me. I'm the parent; it's my duty to protect you.”
Something changes in Stiles upon hearing those words, and his lip trembles. Like an exhalation of breath, he droops, abandoning the strong facade and relaxing into his dad's arms.
“I—I was so scared, Dad,” he whispers, hands clamped around Noah's shoulders hard enough to bruise. “I’m still scared, but I shouldn't be, I can't be...”
It is then that Noah takes a good look at his son's hands, and his heart plummets to his toes. There are angry red rings circling Stiles’ wrists, and the skin is cracked and blistered.
“Stiles, your wrists…” Noah trails off, voice tight with horror as his mind processes the implications of the wounds. When he speaks again, his voice is steel. “Who?”
Stiles doesn't speak for a second, then slumps his shoulders in resignation. “Gerard Argent.”
Whatever Noah was expecting, it wasn't Gerard. Even so, he makes up his mind then and there. Gerard Argent is going to pay.
Like a dam bursting, Stiles begins to speak, the words tumbling out of his mouth as if against his will. “He got me on the lacrosse field. When the lights went dark, he… he had a gun, and he told me if I moved or called for help he would kill me. Then he threw me in his basement, where Erica and Boyd were tied up with electrical wire, and slapped me around a bit before tying me up too. That’s what happened to my wrists—I kept trying to get it off but I just made it worse.” Stiles smiles sheepishly at that, and Noah’s heart burns.
If Claudia could see him now, she would never forgive him. He’s failed, as a father and as a sheriff.
“Allison found me, and she let us out. Then I left.” Stiles laughed airily. “I just walked out. That was it. I was probably only there for an hour.” He pulls back slightly, and Noah can feel him shaking. “I shouldn’t be feeling like this, I should be stronger…”
“Don’t you dare,” Noah commands. “Never think of what you could've done, what you could've been. It'll only eat you alive, and it'll change nothing. You’re only human.”
Stiles laughs suddenly, sardonic and bitter and not at all like him. “Yeah, that’s the problem.”