Work Text:
They were all dead. That was the point, really, wasn't it? That was why he was here, doing this. That was what mattered. They were gone, and Stiles was left behind, and he was tired - so, so tired of being left behind. So he'd decided to get ahead.
Jackson had been first - torn to pieces by a rogue Omega, after his parents had moved them all upstate. They'd moved to Europe, then - he guessed it wasn't far enough to erase the memory of what they had to identify.
Erica and Boyd were torn in half, and hanged by their wrists from trees on the Hale property. Alphas - everything was so movie-villain theatrics. They never found the rest of them, buried what they had, and never voiced the thought that maybe these wolves were man-eaters.
Peter waited his turn, using the distraction of the invading pack to hide his own plans, and then killed Allison. Just like her aunt, one swipe and suddenly her throat was gone.
Lydia killed Peter. Not even Derek could argue it wasn't her right; she hunted him down with Scott, one to scry and one to scent. She put a bullet through his throat and crushed his skull with a sledgehammer.
The Alpha pack killed Danny - they meant to turn him, but some people just don't survive the bite. They all held vigil in his hospital room, what was left of them, and revenge was promised. Danny didn't much care about that, though - he just wanted them all to survive. Stiles thought he made a good Mercutio, even though Romeo was already dead, and so was Juliet in all the ways that mattered.
When the Alphas killed Isaac, Stiles knew they were going to lose. His brand of magic was nothing like Lydia's - it was a candle next to a volcano, all belief and folklore. Hers was in the blood, innate and immune, and she still couldn't save her own familiar. Stiles started to plan, locking himself up in the basement to read and think and read some more.
He stopped leaving the Hale house after Scott died; hunters descended on the town now that it was no longer protected by the Argents, and taking out anything with fangs. They managed to get two Alphas, but didn't ask for allegiance when they found Scott. They burned his body at the edge of town, and yet another promise of vengeance were the last words Stiles ever heard out of Derek's mouth.
Stiles stopped talking when the Alphas killed Scott's mom - trying to draw them out of their protected circle, out of the house, off the land. He forgot to eat unless Lydia forced him, forced himself not to sleep until Derek pushed him over to his makeshift bed and pinned him until he succumbed to exhaustion. Stiles lived to read, and learn, and practise, and plan.
They didn't tell him when the Alphas killed his father, but he knew.
Soon it was just him, Derek and Lydia, trapped in their safe haven; silent as the grave it already was, and surrounded by ghosts. They curled around him when he forced himself to sleep, pushed food at him until he made time to eat. It was only a matter of time before what they had ran out, and that was a good as time as any.
Stiles told them the plan on a Thursday, voice hoarse from disuse. It was a longshot, a last stand, a final effort - but it was all they had left. It had been all they had since Isaac died; he tried not to feel guilty about the full-body flinch that went through Lydia at the mention of his name. It was folk-magic, it wasn't even the slightest possibility of a guarantee... but what did they have left?
"What've we got to lose, now?"
Derek broke Lydia's neck the next morning. It was quick, and quiet, and she kissed them both before she let him. Stiles didn't cry at the shaking press of lips - he had lost that ability after Allison. Derek pressed his forehead to hers, shaking all over like the touch had turned him cold. She was brave, standing tall until she crumpled to the ground - even that was graceful, typical.
They buried her just beyond the porch, wary of the tree line where red-eyes and axe-carriers were still chasing each other in circles, round and round their small untouchable plot. A war carried on outside their clearing, beyond their house. Derek dug his own grave, next to hers, and was started on a third when Stiles stopped him - he wouldn't get a chance to use it.
Derek couldn't kill himself. He didn't say it, but the shake in his hands, the way he scowled like he could force them to stop - Stiles knew. He sat on the edge of the six-foot hole and pulled his Alpha close, petting down his sides and back, gentling him. He made soft soothing sounds until Derek relaxed against him, face in his throat, and then he shoved a wooden stake through his heart.
Mountain Ash was quicker than wolfsbane, and less violent.
The body collapsed back into the trench, and Stiles filled it in. Now came the rest of the plan, now it was up to him - him and his poxy hedge-witch belief. He forced his anger and fear and pain, all his disbelief, into every dig of the shovel through rain-softened dirt. Every smack of wet soil onto dead flesh. He buried his doubt there, in the dirt; he buried everything, with the wolf and the woman. The last of his humanity.
Plan the work, work the plan. His father’s voice in his head, quickly suppressed.
It was frighteningly easy, after that. Gather the materials, clear the space, forge the belief. He didn't have anything (anyone) to think about, nothing to feel, nothing to say. The house was still protected, even though it was hardly necessary now - who cared about one puny human? The wolves were dead, the witch was dead. What was one grief-broken lucky charm?
Luring the birds was a little harder; the house didn't have much in the way of food, and the few shiny objects he could find needed a good spit-polish before they would catch the light. Fire-warped silver cutlery, a house key that had once saved a life, shiny candy wrappers from when they still cared about taste, a gold necklace with blonde strands still caught in the clasp. Car keys, three different sets. The last of his food for bait, and a lot of belief in the air.
It was hard, but not impossible - some things are just meant to happen, fated.
Stiles stood in what had been the living room - he'd shoved what was left of the furniture out, as well as the debris. It was just an empty room now, bloodstained wood floors and old ash. The trunk (it wasn't Derek's trunk, not anymore, not now) was to one side, full of the shuffling of wings and broken laughing. Magpies and hyenas - once he would have struggled to keep his brain from tripping and tumbling over the connection. Now, he just ignored it, and started to draw his circle.
A bare-bones clock face, with a nine foot diameter (three times three, no corners, no gaps), drawn in double lines of chalk and charcoal. It took up almost the whole room; it was so different from the witch's runes and formulas (don't think her name, not anymore, not now), precise and defined. This was old magic, belief magic, before the dawn of tongues and talk magic. There was no language here, nothing but symbols and intent. And blood - oh yes, there would have to be blood.
Twelve dead, already.
Stiles was going to get ahead, get out in front of them, even as he got behind. He knew it was a strange thought - to go ahead, to get behind. To go forward in order to go back. Follow, in order to lead. He knew it was strange, but that's why it would work - his life had been nothing but strange since his morbid curiosity got everyone he loved killed (no, it didn't start with you, it didn't, it started with a lonely boy and a wicked smile, it started with hate, not you). Strange didn't mean impossible. Dead didn't mean gone.
He walked over to the trunk, careful not to scuff his carefully drawn lines - the circle was only the base, with inward drawn lines from each of the twelve points on the circumference. It was like the spirograph game he had played with as a child, webbing lines to make a design. Twelve to four, four to eight, eight to twelve, on the clock face. Four triangles, if you wanted to see it that way, laid over each other. Count to three and connect. The space in the middle was wide, accommodating, empty like it was waiting to be filled. Stiles ignored the off-centre bloodstain (Kate, Kate, rhymes with hate, why does everyone come to this house to die?) and opened the trunk, making a soft sound in his throat.
Twelve pairs of eyes blinked, black and beady, up at him.
Stiles looked back at them, wondering for a brief second what it was about him, why it was that his belief (don't escape, don't be scared, be calm, be still, trust me) meant so much more than others. It had haunted him at first, because he had never been special before the wolves, it had never worked before them (don't die, don't leave me, get well, get better, stay, stay) but he ignored it. Wondering didn't do anything, wouldn't save anyone. And magpies weren't mothers, after all.
It was a simple enough spell, charm, thing; old stories were full of wishes granted, ailments cured, futures foretold and pasts rewritten. You just had to know how to ask, how to pick the lock to open the door to enter the world beyond the world. Every creation story had a narrator, after all; there was always an onlooker, a perspective, a view from the bridge. Witches could change the world with their words and magic that was only just a stranger science - Stiles could only put the right symbols in the right place, and hope that somewhere a lock went click.
But opening the right lock could open the universe, and witches were only ever on the inside.
Stiles picked up the first magpie, stroking a hand down it's back. Oil glistened green-blue on black feathers, the sheen fainter on the white (don't think of black hair and pale skin, don't think of green eyes, central heterochromia, blood and wood, why did you look so surprised?) and the flutter-beat of a heart against his palm was almost familiar (too warm skin, too fast heart, oh my what a strange body you have).
The nails were laid out along the circumference of the circle; six inch farmer's standard, the old wrought iron kind with rust flaking on the heads. It had to be iron, like the chalk, like the charcoal. Old world materials, old world magic. Stiles thought he could have done it with steel, salt, and pepper if he had enough belief - they helped, though. It was easier to believe that the world could change because there was some magic in a metal, than to believe he could simply click his heels three times and upend it all.
The bird didn't make a sound as he laid it on it's back, head at the one o'clock on his wheel and tail pointing towards the centre. It cocked it's head and watched him - once that would have bothered him, eyes focused on his as he balanced the long nail over it's breast. Once.
The hammer came down; there was a second of slick sound before the nail struck the wood and stuck. Blood began to spread under the bird's small body, over his left hand, wet and warm.
"One for sorrow." Mom. His hand tightened on the hammer as he let all the memories, all the grief and guilt rush into his mind. He had been so young, and sorrow had left a stain on him because of that.
Eleven to go, and each one the same. A wet sound and fresh blood on his hand, the other tighter and tighter round the hammer until his knuckles were white and his breath was coming in wet pants, tears flowing free down his cheeks and clumping long lashes.
"Two for mirth." Scott. Making his first friend, misadventures ending with worried parents and secret handshakes. Help when he first shaved his head, when he needed to forget how scared he was for his dad, when he fell in love for the first time. Laughter, love, and laughter.
"Three for a death." Laura. Guilt and shame; he had cried apologies over her stone in the cemetery, that he had gone to look for her like a morbid treasure hunt, that he had blamed her brother, that he had never known her. No one answered.
He could feel the flick of feathers against his ears now, hair turned black and thick. He could feel them shift with each breath, quills in his scalp, so much more than fur, than hair.
"Four for a birth." Scott, again. Bitten and born, turned into something he would have never asked to be.
"Five, for silver." Argent. Hate and grief, and he still thought of Allison as a sister, even now.
"Six for gold." Betas. Erica had always been strong and beautiful, but now she was visible and proud, and no one was laughing. Isaac nearly desperate with relief over his strength, after being powerless for so long. Boyd, proud of his strength and his choice, and of belonging, finally.
His heart beat faster in his chest, his body feeling lighter, weaker, faster.
"Seven for a secret never to be told." My name is Srečko.
"Eight for heaven." Love. Red hair and sharp wit, clever and brilliant and hiding. Green eyes and worn leather, violent and strong and scared.
"Nine for hell." Loss. A kiss and snap, like a twig breaking underfoot in the forest. An embrace and wet skin, warm slickness on top of cooling skin.
He blinked and suddenly the world was in colour - far more than he had ever seen before. Light caught dust in the air like embers, the red of the blood on his hands was blinding, the shine of his hammer oddly captivating. He stared at it for a full minute, then he carried on.
"Ten for the Devil's own sel'." Me. Blood on his hands, tears refusing to fall. Dead mother (his fault), dead father (his fault), dead lovers (his plan, his idea, his stake, his shovel), dead brother (burned and bullet-ridden, should have protected him). Blood and sweat and tears, broken boy with his birds.
"Eleven for a wish." Change it, change it all. Take it back, take him back, let him fix it, let him change it. Twelve names on his tongue, heavy like coffee burns and oncoming panic attacks.
"Twelve for a kiss." I was loved. His father kissed his forehead. Scott on a dare, Danny for a price. Jackson, a goodbye. Peter with a fist (broken, swollen, worth it). Erica and Boyd, too late. Melissa's hand, Isaac's nose, Allison's bow (for luck). Lydia. Derek.
Twelve dead, again.
The trunk was empty, a bird nailed at each point on his circle in small pools of blood. His hands were red and wet, flexing and twisting, nails turned black and sharp. The smell of blood made him hungry, his head twitching and turning at every dust mote and creaking sound. If anyone interrupted, they would just see a boy, twitching and pale - old magic was smoke and mirrors, and Stiles was the man behind the curtain now. His mind flitted and twitched, but he remembered the plan. One more.
The last nail was longer, thicker - more a railroad spike than a household nail. It would hurt, but then so had everything, for so long. He lay down, supine with legs bent so he was contained in his circle, and balanced the nail just left of his sternum. It felt heavy against his shaking chest, and he was almost grateful; bird bones would cave easily, bird heart failing sudden and swift. He hoped.
Stiles wasn't brave, had never been, but he wouldn't let it stop him - not now.
"Thirteen, for the bird no one will miss." The clang of the hammer against the nail, the wet thud as it sank into his chest, buried itself in his frantic heart, anchoring like the other nails had to the floor. He pinned his belief under those nails, pinned in blood and will. He choked on panicked caws, dragged in bloody gasps, and believed, believed, believed.
The lock clicked, the world changed, the boy died.
Years ago and miles away, a six year old boy falls out of bed, clutching his chest like he was holding his heart inside. He remembers, stumbles to the bathroom and empties his stomach (burned breakfast by his dad, hospital food shared with his mom, snacks with his new friend, milk before bed).
Tomorrow he'll go to school, walk up to a girl with red hair and too many friends, and tell her that he knows she's better than everyone but not for the reasons she thinks (she teaches him a Japanese trick for multiplication and he gives her his snack). He'll run to the high school instead of walking home, and beg a seventeen year old girl to drive him to her house, because he knows she's a werewolf. He'll sit in the front seat of her car and tries not to think about crying over her grave.
Her parents will know he's telling the truth, they can hear it. They'll believe him, because he believes, he knows, he remembers. Things will change, but the memories will still be there and he might not survive the knowledge. The wolves know, they look at him like the birds did - empty and knowing. Something wanders across his mind, about wolves and ravens, about blood and bonds. It doesn't connect, though, and when he lifts a pudgy hand to scratch at where he thinks the idea is in his head, he feels the thick brush of a single feather.
But they were all alive, which was the point, really.