Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Stiles stands in his room, a pair of scissors in his hand...the blades pointing to his wrist.

He blinks rapidly, catching his breath. He yanks the cold steel away from his skin and promptly breaks out into a cold sweat. How...how long had he been standing there like that? What had he been doing? Where had he been?

He’d taken another day off school. That’s right. His dad had insisted on it. Because his dad had noticed the way he kept blacking out too. The way he would become randomly catatonic during their conversations and would have to be snapped out of it, his dad’s hands on his shoulders, shaking him gently while trembling with fear. Stiles would come to. He would count his fingers. He’d splutter I’m fine I’m fine I’m fine. He’d beg his father not to worry.

Yes, Stiles remembers now. He promised his dad he'd stay home and get some rest. Only Stiles couldn’t rest. He couldn’t lay there terrified and restless in his bed anymore. So he’d gotten up. He’d forced down cereal, coffee and too much Adderall. Then he’d planned to spend most of the morning working on his crime board...

Morning. Morning is the last thing Stiles remembers. Now it’s dark outside, close to midnight. Where has the day gone? What has he been doing? He stares at the walls, at the sprawling collection of new clues he can’t even remember putting up. He stares at all the loose threads of red yarn he can’t remember knotting to the handles of his scissors. All those loose threads, like trickling trails of blood...all pointing to him and the blades in his hand.

The blades he’s just been holding to his wrist.

You weren’t going to kill yourself, Stiles reassures himself. You weren’t. You were going to make it look like an accident. A cry for help even. You’d have been careful not to cut yourself too deep. Only enough so you’d need to go back to the hospital. Because you need to be in the hospital, Stiles. You’re not well. You’re not right.

Stiles clutches the scissors in one hand and rubs his temples with the other. What is with this voice in his head? This voice echoing around his skull, this calmly cajoling and even eerily paternal voice. That can’t be him, right? He wouldn’t think like this. He shuts his eyes tight. He tries to hear himself think.

You need to get a hold of yourself, Stiles. You need to call 911 before you do something crazy. Tell them your symptoms. Tell them your medical history...your family’s medical history. They’ll see what’s wrong with you. Melissa figured it out right away, didn’t she? You could see it in her eyes and that’s why you begged her not to tell your father you stopped by the hospital. Yes...you already know what’s wrong, don’t you Stiles?

Stiles lets out a scream, slashing out wildly with the scissors.

He pants for breath. When he dares to open his eyes he finds the blades buried deep in his mattress. He hasn’t cut himself. Instead he’s stabbed a hole in his bed, the same bed that's been tormenting him with insomnia and night terrors for the last month or more. Somehow Stiles has managed to cut through the tough fabric and the springs with his flimsy kitchen scissors. How had he found the strength to do that? Stiles knows he’s never been any good at throwing a punch or hurling a lacrosse ball. But now suddenly his arms are pulsing with a power that doesn’t feel like it really belongs to him. That same foreign power that he’d felt coursing through his body when Scott found him at the hospital.

Scott. Stiles knows there are things that Scott isn’t telling him. When last they spoke, his best friend had rambled a little about some shadowy sword-wielding ninjas who were stalking the pack and how somehow Scott’s dad had been stabbed. But mostly Scott stressed that he doesn’t want Stiles to worry about these things until he is feeling better. Apparently it’s all the special supernaturals who these ninjas are after and so Stiles should leave it to the special supernaturals to figure this one out. Only it's Stiles who is supposed to figure these things out. He and Scott are supposed to tell each other everything. Stiles isn’t used to being benched by his Alpha or being treated like some poor fucked up kid who suddenly can’t handle himself in this horrifying Halloween circus that is their lives.

But maybe...maybe this time, there’s something that Scott doesn’t want him to figure out. Maybe Scott doesn’t want Stiles to crack open this particular unsolved case when all threads are pointing to his bed and the voices in his dreams. Maybe he knows Stiles is figuring it out already and that's what's making him crazy. Stiles has always been very perceptive when it comes to evil and he can feel its presence here. Not just in his room, but in him. And he...he has to get out of here. He has to take himself away from this house where his dad sleeps, away from this town where all his friends live. He has to...he has to go.

Feeling feverish with purpose, Stiles snatches up his keys, his phone and his wallet. His...his empty wallet. What the...Stiles only got his allowance on Monday and he can’t remember spending a penny of it. Where in the hell did all his money go?

He lets the wallet fall from his hands, staggering out of his bedroom door, stumbling down the stairs. Stiles doesn’t stop to change out of his pyjamas or even to put on his shoes. He flees from the house as if it were on fire. He just runs. The cold night air hits him like a slap in the face but he doesn’t let it stop him. He sways like he's drunk, but he reaches for his jeep and then...

...then he...

...he...

...we take back control as he falls against the car.

It’s easy for us. Like catching a frightened bird that’s beating itself against a window and then holding that bird tight in our hands till its wings stop flapping. Yes, we have him now. We take hold and we climb into the vehicle, placing our hands on its wheel and then turning the key. We do love taking him for a ride – his car, his body and his mind. We’ll take them all for a spin.

He should know better than to struggle with us. He’s tired, so very tired and so scared of getting into little accidents and ending little human lives. We like to drive fast with the windows down, but we won’t let him cause any crashes on the road or leave bloody messes behind. Not yet. We’re not ready to be having that sort of fun. We need to gather up our strength first. We need to tighten our hold. We have to get him to the hospital.

It’s quiet in the parking lot. When we get out of the car we leave its lights on to drain its power. We don’t want him going anywhere else tonight. If he fights his way back to the surface, we can’t have him trying to run away again. As we get out, we reach under the seat to take out our little bag of tricks. We took him shopping earlier today. He doesn’t remember, but we bought ourselves all kinds of new toys. And now the moon is out and it’s time for us to play.

We get onto the roof through the fire escape. We stole the hospital maps two days ago while dear Melissa was getting us a glass of water, but we hardly need them. The child has the hospital so well mapped in his mind. He knows his way around this town - its school, its sheriff station and its surrounding woods. It’s one of the reasons why we chose him. He knows how to get into places, how to sneak in where he is not supposed to be and nobody minds him much because it’s just Stiles. They never think to take him seriously. The Alpha, the hunters and the Hales...they haven’t guessed yet that this is where we’re hiding. They don’t suspect their funny little pet human of being any sort of threat. But we’ll show them soon, Stiles. We’ll show them all.

We take out our toys, climb up to the power lines and cut into the cable. The electricity sizzles in our hands. We let it feed the foxfire in our belly. It buzzes there like flies and soon we will release it in swarms. Not yet, but soon. After so many years of powerless waiting, we can be patient a little longer. We're still not strong enough to separate from our host. We are as one with him and we must not forget how fragile human bodies can be.

He barely survived that first blast of current that we took from the little fox girl at the power station. Healing him takes up too much precious energy. So this time, we only taste the fire for a moment and then we let it go. We soothe the burns on his poor trembling hands. It’s enough to quench our thirst for now and more importantly we have slipped some of our own power into the veins of this hospital. Later we’ll use it to play tricks with its little computers. We’ll cast up those old brain scans and with them all his deepest childhood fears and grief. And that’s when we’ll really take control. That’s how we’ll put him to sleep. Despair is a powerful sedative on human minds. We’ll nourish ourselves with his pain like a drip feed. We'll slowly drain him dry.

But...but wait, we must hold on. We're slipping and we can feel him struggling with us again. Kicking and clawing his way back to the surface, little brat. We could swallow him down again, of course, but we must save our strength. So we'll let him up for air for now. He won’t get far. The doctors will see the state he is in and they won’t let him leave. He can’t escape us, he’ll see that soon.

No-one can lose their own shadow.

Chapter Text

Stiles stands on the roof, hands clasping its railings, his eyes staring down at the parking lot below.

He gasps and buckles at the knees, a wave of vertigo overtaking him. For a moment, he just shudders and tries to breathe, willing himself not to faint, not to lose himself again. His stomach lurches but he hasn’t eaten enough to throw up. He squeezes his eyes shut and he searches his mind for...for what? An anchor? It works for the werewolves so why not. Stiles needs to find his own anchor before a panic attack sets in. 

He thinks of his dad’s strong arms around his back, of Melissa’s soft hand on his brow. He thinks of Lydia’s lips and Scott’s howl. He wraps these memories around him like blankets and for a brief moment, he feels safe. He gives way to a sigh. Then suddenly it hits him. He realizes...he shouldn’t even be thinking about them. He shouldn’t be showing this intruder in his mind these precious snapshots of the people closest to him. Just by thinking about them Stiles might be offering them up as potential targets, as future hostages. He might be letting this thing inside him, whatever it is, see exactly which people it can use to control him.

His eyes fly open and he staggers back to his feet. And he’s...yes, he’s on a roof. That...that’s new. Stiles did a lot of sleepwalking when he was a kid but usually never made it much farther than the landing. There was that one time his dad left the front door open and he wandered to the bus stop at the end of their street, but he’s never traveled this far from his bed. Never all the way to the hospital. Never woken up on the edge of a fucking roof.

Stiles wonders if this is what it was like for Jackson, waking up in strange places, unsure of where he’d been, what he’d done, who he’d hurt...and wasn’t Stiles the one who thought killing Jackson was a safer solution than attempting to save him? That if Jackson was a monster or even if he was just being controlled by evil forces, better to stop that evil at its source before it winds up killing a bunch of innocent people? Take the preliminary strike action. It makes sense. And Stiles knows...he knows he almost got Kira killed. He can tell from the stirrings in his stomach she won’t be the last.    

So here he is. In Kanima shoes. He knows there’s only one way to stop the killing spree before it happens. Stiles is surprised by the feeling of calm that settles over him. Because he’s figured it out. He’s found a simple solution to their problems, a way to keep them all safe...a way provided by the hundred foot drop right in front of him. And it’s not that he wants to die at seventeen with his whole life still ahead of him. But right now it’s hard to think beyond his immediate fear and exhaustion, hard not to crave any form of release... 

Stiles places one bare foot on the cold railings. He’s really doing this. He has to do it. There’s no time to think. He could slip away again at any moment. Jackson clawed himself to death on a lacrosse field. He and Scott and Allison didn’t hesitate to climb into those ice baths. He can do this. He’s let himself die before. This time he won’t be brought back again, they'll be no waking up, but even that comes as a relief. These days...he always wakes up screaming.    

Think about what you’re doing, Stiles. Think about how they’ll find you...a bloody broken smear on the concrete, another dead teenager that the Sheriff can’t explain. Your dad will never know why you did it...why his only son jumped off a building in the night. How do you expect him to go on living after you do this? No job, no wife, no child. You promised your mom you’d take care of him. Scott and Melissa won’t be able to keep him away from the bottle and too many sleeping pills. Kill yourself now and you'll be taking your father with you. And what about Scott? You’d rather set yourself on fire than lose your best friend. So what makes you think he can survive without you?

Stiles lowers his foot again and he stumbles back from the brink. It’s harder to ignore the voice when it’s speaking the truth. He glances behind him to the fire door.

Go into the hospital and tell the doctors what you almost did. Tell them you need help, that you’re not right in the head. Tell them that you’re not yourself...

“I’m not myself,” he murmurs faintly.

The voice isn’t telling him any lies here. But he still doesn’t trust it. He wraps his arms tight around his stomach, like he’s trying to contain something. He still feels the pull towards that door and the doctors and nurses behind it. And if that’s where the voice wants him to go then it can’t be for anything good. Better to run in the opposite direction.

So that’s what he does. Down all those empty flights of stairs and back to the parking lot. That’s where he finds the battery dead in his jeep. Stiles never forgets to turn his lights off, but it’s not like he can remember driving here either. Since the jeep is no longer an option, he takes off on foot. He doesn’t stick to the sidewalk but heads straight out into the woods.

Stiles is numb to the cold by now. When the twigs and leaves scratch at his feet he barely feels them. He doesn’t know where he’s going. Back to the Nemeton maybe, to the place where this all began? What if he can't find that old tree stump before someone finds him? He knows he can’t hope to stay lost for too long in these woods. Not when his best friend is an alpha werewolf who can track him by scent. Not when there’s a whole pack of Beacon Hills wolves that Scott can call on to sniff him out before morning. And when they do find him...they’ll surely be taking him back to the hospital.

Stiles runs aimlessly for a little longer before his own nose picks up a pungent smell close by. He knows that smell...the repellent that the cops put around the coyote den. Stiles holds a hand over his mouth, pinching his nose as he moves towards the stink. His eyes begin to water but he keeps walking into it. Maybe the smell won’t be enough to mask his scent from Scott, but for now at least this seems like the best place to hide. The same place where Malia hid from the world after causing the crash that killed her family. This lonely den in the woods could be the perfect refuge for new monsters with no control.

Stiles collapses at the entrance and then crawls on his belly into the cave. He’s shivering and sweating again after the run through the forest. He’s only realizing now that the night might be cold enough to freeze him...to finish him off in another way. He’d made up his mind not to die, but the falling temperatures might have taken the choice away from him. Which means no choice for whatever’s inside him too. At least this way...they’ll both lose.

He doesn’t want to die though. He doesn’t want to do this to his dad. But he doesn’t want to be found either. His hands scrabble in the dirt, trying to make a blanket out of the earth, trying to find warmth and rest by digging himself into a clumsy shallow grave. This is probably how they’ll find him, like so many victims of hypothermia who freeze in a last futile burrowing effort.

His dad will probably think he was sleepwalking. At least he won’t think that it was a suicide. Stiles doesn’t know if that’ll make it any easier. No, of course it won’t. There’s no good way for his dad to find him dead. No good way for his dad to know he’s gone...

Oh God, please...he doesn’t want his dad to find him...

...we didn’t expect him to make it so far.

He’s made things very risky for us. But we can’t say we aren’t impressed. He knows how to play this one. That’s just another reason why we chose him.

We could have taken the alpha werewolf or the talented huntress instead. Their doors were open to us too. We can’t say we weren’t tempted to slip inside. Compared with his friends it might be said he was the most mundane of our potential vessels. That was part of our trick, of course – to hide in the last place they’d expect to find us, to fool those little fireflies that come foxhunting after dark. But it was also in his mind where we felt most at home. We’ve found ourselves a fellow trickster spirit here. A cunning host with his own appetite for chaos.    

And we like that he’s a challenge for us. We can’t take any pleasure in winning the game if our opponent is too quick to submit. He thinks we are going to die in the foul-smelling coyote hole. He thinks we have no moves left, that we’re both about to lose. It’s time we told him that the fun is only just beginning. Oh yes, it’s high time we introduced ourselves. We might as well. He already senses that we’re here.

We may not have the strength to move his shuddering body, but we’ve got his mind back now. We’ve got his dreams. We can take him anywhere we choose in his dreams. So why not the old asylum and its basement where our former host is still entombed? Yes, that seems the place most fitting for our first meeting. We could even dress up in our old bandages. Yes, we must keep ourselves wrapped up until we’re ready to surprise him with the new face we’ll soon be wearing. We can’t wait for him to see who we really are underneath.

A little change of scene will be enough to disorientate him. We fill his mind with the brick walls and rusty pipes of the Eichen house basement. We can’t hide the stench of the den but we trust it will only add to his queasy horror. We search his mind for more scare tactics we might use. We find a recent memory of the animal traps in the woods...so we put one on his leg. His limbs are useless to us for the moment, all numb and leaden with cold. Maybe putting those metal jaws on his foot will be enough to get him kicking again.

We can still move his fingers. Only just. But it's enough to reach into his pocket and pull out his phone. The alpha won’t be looking for his friend if he doesn’t know he’s lost. We must have him make a distress call. He is really not the sort who cries for help, but then he’s never been in quite this much peril before. When he comes around, he’ll make that call...he'll be screaming for his little werewolves to save him. 

Till then we crouch in a corner of our dream basement and we wait for him to stir. We can already hear him whimpering in the shadows. The sound of his distress makes our mouth water. We remember the first time we sensed his presence, down in the roots of that old tree. He was among those who disturbed our captive rest. We woke up a hungry prisoner in the dark. We woke up to storms and strife and the cage door hanging open. We woke up to the smells of pain all around us and it was his pain that smelled the sweetest. A deep childhood pain bottled up and aging inside him like a fine wine. That special lonely pain he keeps so well hidden behind his twitchy smiles. A rare delicacy of tender young heartache.

We’ll feed on his pain soon enough. When we are strong enough we’ll eat it until there's nothing left. And then there will be no more we...only me. Only me in this innocent boy's body and only me in his secret crafty mind.

Only one mouth left to feed.                          

Chapter Text

Stiles wakes in the dark, not knowing where he is, not knowing how he got here.

He struggles to remember the last time he was really awake, the last clear thought he had in his head. In a blur of visions, Stiles sees himself stabbing at his bed. He sees himself standing on the edge of a roof. And then he’s just running blindly into the woods.

He’s pretty sure none of it is real. He’s pretty sure he’s been dreaming again, dreams within dreams. He wants to count his fingers, but his hands are shaking like crazy. Besides there’s something nestled his palm. His phone. He’s still got his phone with him. It’s too dark to see and he can’t move his legs, but with the muscle memory in his trembling fingers he can just about hit the first number on his speed dial list. The phone buzzes a few times and then a distant voice is calling his name. Scott’s voice.

Scott can find him. Scott knows his scent. Scott will...he’s going be okay.

It takes a moment for Stiles to lift the phone to his mouth. He begs his friend to find him and he begs him not to tell his dad. He uses the phone’s feeble light to scan the space around him. It looks like he’s in a windowless basement, deep underground. Stiles can’t explain the sickly chemical smell or the freezing air all around him. He can’t explain why the floor underneath him looks like hard grey concrete but it feels like dry dead leaves. He can’t really give Scott much to go on but he still trusts that Scott can do this. He believes in his Alpha.

Stiles hears something moving in the shadows. He holds his breath and he listens and fuck there it is again. He tells Scott there’s someone in here with him and then his signal cuts out. All Stiles has left is the light. Enough light to see the basement walls...

...enough light to see the bear trap and his bleeding leg.

He screams. Then he bites his lip and he forces himself to shut up. Because he can still hear the footsteps and rasping breath. He can hear the scrape of chalk on the stone wall. He can see a creature with sharp silver teeth lurking in the shadows...a thing that looks like...

Oh God...a wendigo? Yes, Stiles remembers seeing teeth like that before. In the pages of the Bestiary. He remembers that wendigos are psychotic demons that crave human flesh. Is that the creature that’s trapped him here? Was he sleepwalking out in the woods when he got kidnapped by a crazy mummified wendigo? Is this the way he’s going to die?

Stiles feels like an insect caught in a web. At any moment he expects his captor to pounce, to pin him down, to start eating him alive. Evidently this creature likes to play with its food. It pretends it wants to save Stiles. It pretends to worry about how cold he is. It mocks his confusion when he can’t remember which leg is locked in a steel jaw trap.

It’s the voice that scares him the most. Because Stiles knows it’s the same voice. Only now it’s no longer saying ‘you’. It’s saying ‘we’. He doesn’t want to know why. The voice asks him riddles and he doesn’t want to answer, he doesn’t want to know...

Everyone has it, but no one can lose it.

He knows, but he won’t say it. Saying will make it real. Please no, this can’t be real. The voice is screaming into his ears now and he’s screaming back. He still can’t feel his legs, but he’s aware that he’s being dragged by them and...please, no...WAIT...

The thing is going to kill him now. It’s going to eat him alive.

All he can do is scream and thrash and beg for it to wait.

Stiles, Stiles...you’re alright... says the voice, the voice that’s suddenly in his ears somewhere beyond his own screaming. It’s okay. You’re alright...

He stills and quiets down. Stiles knows this voice. He trusts this voice. It’s...mom? He glances over his shoulder and sees Melissa holding him. Close enough.

“Stiles, you’re alright,” Melissa insists. He wishes he could believe her.

Stiles glances up and sees that Scott’s dad is there too. And somehow that tells him he’s not dreaming anymore. No, Stiles is back in the nightmare of his real life where this asshole FBI agent is probably going to use this little incident as another way to get his dad fired. Yeah, yeah...he probably can’t wait to tell his superiors that the Sheriff’s son is a whack job on the verge of a complete nervous breakdown. But right now Agent McCall is crouching beside him, a look of fearful concern on his face which somehow offends Stiles more than his usual scorn. The man reaches out a hand, pressing it to his brow...

“Jesus, he’s freezing,” he says. He looks to Melissa. “We okay to move him?”

Melissa nods and then the McCalls are reaching under his arms, lifting him between them. Stiles still can’t feel his legs. He hangs like a dead weight in their grasp. Somehow they get him to a car and put him in the backseat. Melissa climbs in beside him and wraps a blanket around his head and shoulders. She keeps her arms around him too, her hand rubbing slow circles on his chest. McCall gets into the driver’s seat and holds out a phone.

“You better call his dad,” he says.

“In a second!” Melissa snaps. “Just start the car, would you?”

“I’m going!” he snaps back. “Call his dad now.”

Melissa huffs but she still takes the phone in her free hand and struggles to dial. Stiles tries to snatch the phone out of her grasp, but he still can’t really feel his fingers.

“No wait! Please don’t tell my dad. Please, he doesn’t have to know.”

This is what Stiles tries to say. But all that comes out of his mouth is a stream of slurred whimpering. His teeth are chattering too hard, his lips are still numb. Somehow Melissa is able to comprehend his gibberish or at least guess what he’s trying to tell her.

“Oh honey,” she says softly. “Your father already knows.”

Stiles falls silent. He is crying now as well as shivering. His tears are the only part of him that feel warm. Melissa is still holding him, still trying her best to soothe him, even as she proceeds to break his heart by dialling his dad’s number. Stiles curls himself into a ball, pressing his head to his knees, pulling the blanket tighter around him.

“We found him,” he hears Melissa saying very close to his ear. “Rafe and me. He was out in the woods. He must have been sleepwalking...”

Stiles hears a strained Thank God on the other end of the line. He hears the crack in his dad’s voice.

“It’s okay, he’s okay...” Melissa insists. “A little shaken up, but he’ll be okay. We’re bringing him to the hospital now. We’ll meet you there.”

Stiles flinches at the word hospital. All his instincts are screaming that it’s a very bad idea for the McCalls to be taking him to the hospital, but he can’t actually remember why. And he doesn’t stand much chance of convincing them not to take him when he’s too hypothermic to even speak. Melissa gets off the phone and she resumes her first aid efforts. She takes a bar of chocolate from her pocket and urges Stiles to eat some of it. High energy foods. They help to warm the body from within – his fifth grade science report, he remembers. But Stiles shakes his head frantically, feeling like he might throw up.

There’s no chance of escape when they reach the hospital and the car doors are flung open. There are medics waiting to lift Stiles onto a gurney and wheel him into an emergency room. Everything happens so fast. There’s doctors shining little lights in his eyes. There’s a nurse cutting into his t-shirt with scissors and sticking heart monitors to his chest. Then suddenly Stiles feels a hand swabbing the inside of his arm, preparing it for a needle...

He hates needles at the best of times, but now more than ever Stiles feels terrified of being sedated. No, please...he doesn’t want to be put to sleep again. The doctors don’t know what’s waiting for him in his dreams.

“No, no! Wait!” He’s screaming again, thrashing on the bed. “Waaaaait!”

“Let’s get him in restraints,” says a doctor, toneless and efficient.

They don’t understand. Stiles can’t make them understand. He’s not just some hysterical trauma patient. There’s something dangerous inside him. Something the doctors don’t see. And if Stiles goes to sleep, it’ll take control again. Stiles can’t do anything to stop it. He just struggles and moans as his wrists are held down and fitted with soft yet secure leather cuffs. The doctors put them on his ankles too and then fit a strap over his chest. He feels the needle go into his arm. He squeezes his eyes shut. Tears stream his cheeks.

“Stiles honey, look at me...” He blinks and sees Melissa at his bedside, back in her scrubs and taping the needle in place. “It’s just some warm intravenous fluid. It’ll help to raise your temperature. You just concentrate on your breathing, okay kiddo? Try not to panic.”

As she says this, another doctor places an oxygen mask over his face and he starts breathing warm air deep into his lungs. Stiles can feel his body slowly thawing. As the numbness fades, the more he stings and throbs. He can feel the bruises on his back and the scratches on his bare feet. But that’s okay. The pain is oddly reassuring. The pain tells Stiles that this body is his own. For now at least.

Stiles closes his eyes. He breathes into the mask. He tries to relax and let the doctors do whatever they need to. His awareness of time and motion ebbs away. For a moment, he almost forgets where he is and what’s happening to him. Then he feels a large rough hand covering his own and he knows it’s his dad’s hand before he even looks. He can’t even bring himself to look.

“Hey there, kid,” his dad says gently. “Come on...don’t get upset. I know what you told Scott. I know you didn’t want me to worry about you. But it’s okay. I’m okay...see?”

Stiles turns his head and stares into his dad’s face. He’s forcing a smile, but it doesn’t hide the fact that it looks like he’s aged ten years during the course of the night.

“You’re safe now. You’re going to be fine. So I’m not worried, you hear?”

Stiles nods, even though they both know it’s a lie. He tells so many of his own lies to spare his dad’s feelings...it’d be hypocritical to call his dad out for lying to him now.

The doctor comes back into the room and he removes the oxygen mask. His dad immediately asks if they can remove the restraints too, but the doctor suggests that it might be better if they left them on – just as a ‘precaution’, he says. The doctor seems very concerned about what Stiles has been getting up when he’s unconscious. Not just sleepwalking, but sleep driving – which makes Stiles a particularly dangerous type of somnambulist who they are going to have to monitor closely, for his own well being and the safety of others. His dad nods understanding but clearly not liking it one bit.

And all Stiles can think about is being a little boy and telling his dad that he hated those doctors for tying his mom to the bed whenever she got upset over her bad dreams.

The doctor looks at a chart and tells Stiles he has some first degree frostbite on his toes. He says his feet will be stiff and sore for a while, but he should make a full recovery. He asks Stiles if he can remember falling asleep. He asks Stiles if he can remember anything between the time he fell asleep at his house and the time he was found in the woods.

“Tell the truth, Stiles,” his dad cautions.

He knows him too well. But he's too tired to make up a lie this time.

“I remember being in a basement with an animal trap on my leg. I remember this...wendigo creature thing with sharp teeth and its face wrapped in bandages. I remember thinking it was going to eat me alive. But all it wanted to do was play riddles. You know...like in The Hobbit.”

His dad winces. Stiles swallows and lets his voice trail off.

The doctor raises an eyebrow. “Is he being sarcastic?”

“I think it’s safe to say that he was dreaming,” his dad shoots back, covering for him quickly. “He’s been suffering with night terrors and daylight hallucinations for weeks now. He...he never really sleeps anymore.”

“Well, rest is what he needs now,” says the doctor. “We can administer a sedative that will induce a dreamless sleep and that will help him to recover from the hypothermia too.”

His dad rubs his forehead and he looks so damn tired. Stiles realizes that if he refuses the drugs then his dad will insist on staying awake with him. He remembers all the nights his dad stayed awake to watch over mom; how Stiles had worried that both his parents would end up sick with terminal insomnia. His heart clenches. He just wants his dad to get some peace. Which means he has to sleep too. And it’s not like he doesn’t want to go to sleep and not dream.

So Stiles nods for the doctor to give him the shot. He feels the needle’s pinch and his dad squeezing his hand. He prays for the drugs to work this time...

...they don’t always work...

...they don’t...

...no, really...we don’t even feel their weak human medicines. They’d need something far stronger to put us to sleep and we’re sure these simple quacks don’t know a thing about wolf lichen.

We could get out of this bed right now if we wanted to. We could break through their flimsy restraints. We could heal the blisters on our feet and we could walk right out of here, throwing anyone who tries to prevent us aside without even breaking a sweat. And soon that is exactly what we’ll do. Nobody will be able to stop us. Most of them won't dare to try.

But for now, we’ll let him sleep. We both need our rest and we won’t so much as whisper in his dreams. But we won’t be silent for too long. We’re impatient to hear him answer our riddle. He knows the answer already, of course, but he’s not ready to appreciate its full meaning. Humans can be so tediously upsettable. We have to hope, when he calms down, that he’ll come to accept who we are. Who we are going to be. Yes, it’ll go easier if we can be friends.

So we’ll be nice to him. We’ll let him nap like the tired infant he is.

Tomorrow will be a big day for both of us.

Chapter Text

Stiles wakes around noon to find his dad sitting by his bedside, looking even wearier than he’d done the night before.

Stiles’ sleep has been numb and dreamless, exactly as the doctor promised, but now he’s aching all over. He can still feel a chill in his bones. There’s water and painkillers to take the edge off. He’s relieved to find the restraints have been removed at some point during the night too. Stiles worries about his dad missing work, but he’s told it was Agent McCall himself who insisted that he take the day off. His dad isn’t going anywhere. He’s smuggled comic-books and junk food into the hospital room. And for those first few moments after Stiles wakes it’s all tired smiles and small talk between them. It almost feels like they’re going to be okay.

Then his dad finally says it. “The doctors want to do some tests.”

Stiles nods as if this is okay too. As if it’s really nothing to worry about.

“Just a precaution,” his dad adds. “Just to cover all bases.”

But they both know it’s more than that. They’ll be testing to confirm what they already know. They remember these symptoms all too well. Stiles spent many long hours of his childhood immersed in medical journals and all the latest scientific studies into FTD, searching for any hint of a cure. In dark hours of night, Stiles would linger over the highlighted passages of his research which speculated that this particular form of dementia was likely hereditary and that its onset could be as early as adolescence. He always knew this could happen.

Stiles considers telling his dad about his other little theory, his fear that something has slipped in through the open door in his mind. But maybe the truth is that Stiles would prefer a supernatural diagnosis. The cruel reality of him developing his mom’s fatal brain sickness is harder to bear. There’s a logic to the werewolf world. Stiles has faith in its rituals and its magical remedies. He has so much faith he can allow himself to be drowned in a bath of ice water and he trusts that he’ll be brought back. He didn’t even fear the darkness that the sacrifice would leave around his heart, because Stiles already has a permanent darkness inside him...a shadow that slowly formed there as he held his mother’s hand and he watched her wither away.

The MRI is scheduled for later that the afternoon. Before that, there are a lot of questions. Stiles pretends not to remember his dreams. It seems easier on his dad that way. Scott arrives at the hospital just as they are prepping for the scan, slipping into the room behind his dad and Melissa and silently mouthing the words ‘Sorry dude’. But Stiles doesn’t blame Scott for telling his dad. Scott was never as comfortable when it came to lying to their parents. Their respective parents that is. Only not so much...not anymore. With Scott and Melissa in the room with him, it feels he has a surrogate mother and brother as well as his dad. He has a whole family. More than that...he has a pack. They tell him that Lydia, Derek, Issac and even the twins were out searching for him in the cold November night. They had all cared enough to find him and save him from himself.

Death doesn’t happen to you, it happens to everyone around you...

Stiles doesn’t really count himself as popular, but deep down he knows he is loved. He doesn’t want to do this to those people who love him; he doesn’t want to die on them. And maybe he doesn’t have to? Maybe there’s some other way?

“Stiles, if you have it, we’ll do something...”

He nods, distracted, not catching Scott’s meaning at first.

“I’ll do something.”

Stiles looks up at his best friend, his alpha. He realizes what he’s offering. They always have a Plan B. And Stiles also knows that Scott never wanted to use the bite on anyone. He’s too afraid they might die from it instead of turning and even if they do turn, Scott never really believed in that ‘the bite is a gift’ crap anyway. Stiles never thought it would be a good idea for him to accept the bite either. Stiles knows he isn’t half as good a person as Scott is. He doesn’t trust himself with monstrous powers. He’s afraid he’d end up more like Peter.

But the option is there. They have their Plan B. There’s still time to bargain.

Stiles clings to Scott like he's the last foothold that can keep him from falling. Because that's what Scott is.

Then the doctor's voice comes through over the speakers, telling Scott he has to leave. So Stiles lets him go and then he lies down flat. He lies and waits for the worst nightmare of his waking life to come true.

The doctor warns him there’ll be a lot of noise inside the tube, but Stiles still isn’t prepared for it. There’s more than the metal clanking of the coils. It's as if his hearing has suddenly sharpened and amplified. What is this? Is this what hearing is like for the wolves? Or is it all in his head? Stiles thinks he can hear hushed voices in the observation room. He can hear Scott and Derek pacing in the hallway outside. Maybe it’s just his mind playing tricks, but he’s sure he hears the word ‘atrophy’ being spoken somewhere close by. Then far in the distance...he thinks he hears the sound of Lydia screaming.

He really should’ve asked for earplugs.

He just wants all this noise and chaos to go away...he just wants...

...we know it's time. We feel those pulses of current all around us. The fox fire crackles under our skin and the air in the room is dripping with pain. Hospitals have always been banquet halls for us but there’s nothing quite like the pain of a parent facing the loss of their only child. Nothing so tasty as human hearts breaking in places they’ve been broken once before. We drink it all down. We let it nourish us for the days to come.

It seems the child is ready to bargain with us. If we’ll let them go, he’ll let us in. That seems to be the key with him. So we tell him that we may let his little loved ones live if he’ll only answer us our riddle. It’s a trick, of course. He knows all about lies and tricks. But deep down he knows he doesn’t have a choice. We're strong enough to take him by force now. And we will. But we still want our answer. We still want him to see us for what we are.

And he does. He sees us. He knows.

“A shadow...” he breathes.

We smile and we take hold. We leave the MRI room and we take a stroll through the chaos we’ve created with just one little snip to the hospital’s power lines. We move fast without anyone really noticing us in the flicking light. A shadow can move like that. We put on his clothes and we make for the elevator.

We find the old fox and her warriors are waiting for us. Yes, we remember her. Yes, of course...we always liked her. We always cherish a worthy foe. We see that she’s let her human shape age but she hasn’t lost any of her inner fire. But still, we’re not afraid of her threats or her little army of flies. We’re older even than she is. We've learned more tricks in our time. We’ve played more games and we know how to win.

When we leave the hospital, we are ready to start capturing our territories. The sheriff station and the school. Those are the places we’ll target first. We’ll spill some blood there, we'll blow down some walls and we'll soon grow stronger as he screams inside us. He’ll weep and he'll beg to know why. Because he still doesn’t understand. We aren’t doing this to punish him. We like him too. We chose him because we liked the mischief in his mind and the sweet taste of his suffering. We feel that he should consider it an honor. Even if we destroy him and everyone he holds dear, he’ll never experience greater power than he has with us. Better to live one day as a God than a lifetime as the inadequate little human he’ll always be on his own. If we give him a small sip of our power, maybe he'll learn to like us too?

Yes, he better enjoy our tricks while he still can. We won’t be bound together all that much longer. His body is only our chrysalis. A cocoon to breed our flies and send forth our chaos. Once we’ve finished chewing on his pain we’ll spit him out and we'll leave him behind. We doubt he’ll survive long without us. The weaker Siamese twin rarely survives the separation. If he does survive we’ll have to craft a delicious little death for him. It would please us if we could make him kill himself. Or have the alpha do it, better still. The death of our host and the pain it would inspire...we could savour that pain for years to come.

We wonder if he’ll come to understand us before he meets his end. In his fussy detective mind he is still searching for our motives, still asking for reasons why. Yes, we can feel his tears inside us even now as he pleads to know WHY WHY WHY. And we have no answer for him. No answer that he can truly grasp. No answer but this.

You woke us in the dark. And we were hungry.