Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters in Teen Wolf. The events in this story are not real. Title is taken from Edgar Allan Poe's: The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar.
A/N: This is the first chapter of a two or three chaptered fic about possession. It's also my second Teen Wolf fanfiction!
"I know you guys are wolves and all and the woods are like in your blood or whatever, but do we really have to spend our friday night here?" Stiles asked, stumbling over the roots and decomposing leaves. The moon shone through the canopy casting a glow on the trees. "Hey, you werewolves wanna guide the human along so he doesn't trip and twist his ankle on a tree?" He asked impatiently, narrowly avoiding a face plant into the ground by grabbing a boulder.
"C'mon Stiles, Derek said he heard some howling out here. It could be another werewolf," Scott explained, trying to get his friend to follow him. Stiles scoffed.
"What am I? Bait?" He asked sarcastically. Isaac turned to look at him.
"Yep," he replied cooly. Stiles spluttered. Catching up with Scott, he whispered in his ear.
"I don't think I like him,"
"I can hear you," Isaac told him, sighing. Stiles made a face. Scott stopped once the group reached a clearing. He lowered himself to the dirt and sniffed along the ground.
"Derek said he heard it around here," he clarified. Stiles stood with his arms crossed watching how ridiculous his friend looked crawling along the ground. Isaac looked at dirt with his hair hanging over his face.
"So, what are you going for the James Dean look?" Stiles asked, poking fun at the taller boy.
"Don't take your anger out on me. It's not my fault Derek didn't want to cuddle with you tonight," Isaac retorted, holding up his hands in mock defeat. Stiles turned red, licking his lips to spit back an insult.
"Well you-," Stiles broke off. Scott had stood up suddenly, holding a finger to his lips to quiet them. He motioned for them to listen. Stiles squinted his eyes as if it would improve his hearing, but all he heard was wind whistling through the trees. After a minute, he gave up. "There's nothing," he said collapsing on the ground in annoyance. Without warning, a huge green flash lit up the night sky. Stiles bolted up and clung to Scott. "What the hell was that?" He panted.
"Heat lightning," Isaac answered, slinging his sweatshirt over his shoulder. "What did you hear Scott?" He asked, switching his attention to the other boy.
"I thought I heard, crying?" He asked, unsure of his own ears. "But I'm not sure. Let's just go back and tell Derek we didn't find anything. He started to move back to the woods but stopped short, inspecting the ground.
"What Scott?" Stiles asked. Scott bit his lip.
"I don't know. They look kind of like animal tracks. But there's something off about them," he trailed off. Isaac whipped out a flashlight and smirked.
"Lets follow them," he said flipping it on.
"Why couldn't we have used that earlier?" Stiles threw up his hands. The group followed the tracks. Stiles felt like a regular Scooby Doo. No. Fred definitely Fred. He was not Scooby. He was Fred. Isaac followed close behind keeping the flashlight steady. They approached a hold in the leaves. Stiles knelt and moved closer to see inside, but Isaac yelped and lost the flashlight to the ground. Scott spun around.
"What's wrong?" He asked. Isaac was gripping his arm.
"Something bit me!" He said incredulously.
"Like what?
"I don't know it was smaller but like human? Like an elf?" He wondered, inspecting his arm.
"An elf? Really Isaac?" Stiles commented rolling his eyes. Isaac glared at him. Scott made a motion for them to follow him out of the woods. "Are we going back to Derek's?" Stiles asked hopefully.
"Yeah, you'd like that wouldn't you?" Isaac smirked. Stiles punched his arm. Scott shook his head.
"Nah, i'll just text him and tell him we didn't find anything," he said shrugging.
"Are you gonna tell him Isaac got bit by an elf?" Stiles asked, trying to contain his laughter.
"Hey it looked like an elf okay?!" Isaac shouted. Scott placed a hand on Isaac's shoulder.
"Calm down everybody. It was probably a stray cat or something," he reasoned. The group reached the parking lot, and Stiles climbed into his jeep. Scott and Isaac put on helmets while the shorter boy mounted the motorcycle. Isaac jumped on behind him and held his waist as they sped off towards home.
-x-
"Hey where's Isaac?" Stiles asked, opening a can of soda and downing it in Scott's kitchen. "I thought he was coming with us to Derek's," he said between sips.
"He's in his room. I don't think he's feeling all that well. He hasn't come down since last night when we got back,"
"Must be that elf bite," Stiles teased. Scott threw an empty can at him. "Hey, I'm just joking jeez," he feigned hurt. Dull footsteps sounded on the stairs. "Speak of the devil," Stiles noted. Isaac appeared at the bottom of the stairwell, hair disheveled and eyes ringed with purple circles. He cleared his throat.
"I heard you guys talking. You're going to Derek's right? I don't think I can go. I don't feel so good," he said, clutching his stomach, his face growing paler by the second.
"Wow dude you look like death," Stiles spat. Scott shot him a look.
"We'll tell Derek you couldn't make it. Get better," Scott told him. The tall boy nodded and trudged back up the stairs to his room.
Isaac laid down in the bed Mrs. McCall lent him. His head swam with images of the night before. Sweat broke out on his forehead, and he groaned as his mouth grew dry. He blinked sleepily in the afternoon light. Dust danced in front of the window and shimmered in the heat. He felt a rush of energy surge in his chest, causing him to grip it in a panic, but before he could call for help, he fell into a deep sleep.
Stiles and Scott were already on their way to Derek's house.
"Why is Derek so hung up on this howling in the woods?" Stiles asked, annoyed that he was being used as transportation.
"I don't know. He seems to think there's something wrong with it," Scott answered, turning the radio on.
"You mean like an injured werewolf or something?" Stiles asked. Scott shrugged. The pair reached Derek's house and barged in without knocking. Derek immediately sat them down at the table. His eyes showed that what he was about to say was serious.
"Whatever is in the woods, it's not human or werewolf," he said solemnly. Scott stared at the table, but Stiles just looked up at Derek in confusion.
"Well what could it be then? I thought we tapped out the mythical creature thing with Kanimas," Stiles rambled. "Wait, could it be an elf?" He asked, stepping closer to Derek and looking him in the eyes gravely. Derek raised an eyebrow.
"Don't be stupid," he rebuked. Stiles threw up his hands.
"What? Werewolves and giant lizards are totally normal, but a small human with pointed ears that makes shoes and delivers presents is crossing the line?" He exclaimed.
"What could it be? Like a Dopple ganger or maybe Nephilim since it seemed to have a human quality to it," Scott asked. Derek shook his head.
"Elves are pretty humanoid," Stiles inserted. Derek brushed him off.
"No, it didn't seem like it was really there. Like it was a shadow or something," he said biting his thumb in concentration.
"Like a shape shifter?" Scott asked, trying to wrack his brain for mythical creatures he knew.
"Y'know, elves have been known to appear and reappear places. Have you seen Harry Potter?" Stiles pushed. Derek grabbed the hyper kid and pushed him up against the wall.
"Shut up about the damn elf already!" He growled. Stiles held up his hands.
"Alright, but if it ends up that we're dealing with Dobby I'm not coming to your aid," he said as a disclaimer as he slowly slid out from Derek's claws.
"Could it be something like a ghost?" Scott asked. Derek nodded.
"Something like that,"
-x-
Scott walked into his house to find his mother chasing a mouse with a broom.
"Woah mom!" He screamed, jumping up on the counter so his feet dangled above the ground. She panted and made one more strike before the rodent scuttled under the refrigerator.
"That's the fourth mouse today!" She complained, throwing the broom down on the linoleum floor.
"Are you sure it's not just the same one?"
"Yeah, I killed all the other ones," she said menacingly. Scott raised an eyebrow and lowered himself down off the counter.
"How's Isaac?" Scott asked, moving over to the stairway.
"He seems better. He's not 100% yet so he's upstairs reading," she smiled. Scott left her to root out the invader while he checked on Isaac. He knocked on the door and let himself in. As his mother had said, Isaac was sitting on his bed reading a book. Scott cocked his head to read the title.
"The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar?" Scott inquired. That's Edgar Allen Poe right? Do we have to read that in class. Isaac looked up.
"No, I just noticed it on your mother's bookshelf and thought it looked interesting," he muttered.
"So how are you feeling?" Scott asked, taking a seat on the bed next to him. Isaac scratched his head.
"Definitely better, but my stomach still kind of feels weird," he said screwing up his face in worry. Scott clapped him on the shoulder.
"Well rest up buddy, Derek needs us to go out and patrol the woods. He thinks the creature in there is a ghost or something," Scott said running a hand through his hair. Isaac chuckled.
"That's ridiculous, there's no such thing as ghosts," he laughed, laying down on the bed to read more comfortably.
Scott went back downstairs to watch television with his mother. The news was never positive, he remarked, changing the channel to a cartoon. His mother sighed, hoping to catch the weather for the next day. After about an hour of watching Tom chase Jerry, Mrs. McCall went into the kitchen to cook dinner. It was one of the few nights she was home, and she wanted to make a fancy dinner for her son and his friend.
"Scott?" She called after placing a plate of marinated chicken on the table.
"Yeah mom?"
"Will you go get Isaac?" She asked. Scott wordlessly got up and continued up the stairs. He knocked on his door, but the teen didn't answer. Sighing, Scott pushed it open and looked at the sleeping boy. He smiled and went to open the curtains to let light into the room and hopefully wake him up.
When he drew the curtain he was horrified to see the windowpane covered with wasps. He gasped and stepped back. A single wasp wedged its way through a hole in the screen and flew straight at Scott. Scott batted it away and moved to push the window down to block the screen. More and more wasps made their way into the room, flying around and stinging Scott in the face and neck. Yelping, he managed to yank the window down before even more could worm their way into the house. After killing all of the ones on him with a smack of his hand, he turned around, expecting to see Isaac sitting up bleary eyed looking at him. However, the boy still lay in the bed perfectly still with his eyes closed.
"Isaac get up it's time for dinner," he said, lightly shaking his friend. When that failed to wake him up, he shook him a little harder, and when that failed, he slapped Isaac's cheek. No matter what he did, the curly werewolf still slept. Scared that he had died or something, Scott pressed his ear to Isaac's chest. Sure enough, his heart was beating, and his chest slowly rose and fell rhythmically.
A little shaken, Scott made his way back downstairs, convincing himself that Isaac was just a really deep sleeper. He told his mother Isaac was sleeping off his illness. She accepted it without contest but felt a little sad that her hard work on dinner would go to waste. When Scott checked on Isaac before going to bed, he was still sleeping in the same position as before.
-x-
"Isaac!" a female voice screeched from the kitchen. Scott bolted out of bed, not bothering to pull on a pair of pants or shirt in his haste. Isaac stood in the middle of the kitchen in his baggy sweatpants and tank top looking confused. His mother held her hand over her heart panting to catch her breath.
"What happened?" Scott asked, now suddenly conscious of how little he was wearing.
"Isaac went crazy," she said through gritted teeth. She pointed her finger up the stairs, forcing him to go up to his room. He looked from her finger to the stairwell and followed her command flummoxed.
"Mom tell me what happened," Scott said, sitting down at the kitchen table and grabbing the cereal box.
"He just came down and stood there staring at me. I thought it was kind of weird, but he's been sick so I didn't say anything. I suggested that he take a seat and have some of the eggs that I made and he just said: 'fuck your eggs you filthy bitch,' and then you came running down the stairs," she said bewildered. Scott did a double take.
"Isaac said that?" She nodded. "That doesn't sound like him. Was he angry about something?" he asked.
"I don't think so. He didn't say it with any emotion. He said it as if he were telling me the weather," she said, shaking her head and grabbing her coffee to go to work. Scott sat in the chair and pondered the situation. Isaac had been a little weird the last few days. He decided to go talk to Derek. Maybe that elf bite had something to it.
-x-
"What other mythical creatures are there then if there are ghosts?" Stiles asked, looking at a book of mythology on the floor in Derek's apartment. Derek sat in a chair next to him, going through his own book of legendary creatures.
"I didn't say it was a ghost. I said it was like a ghost," Derek replied, tired of Stiles' constant babbling.
"Still, like are there banshees and redcaps and vampires," he asked, putting the book down for a moment and resting his head on Derek's shoulder to see what he was reading. It was some passage about angels.
"There aren't any banshees that I know of. And there are definitely no vampires. Pale beautiful humans that drink blood and can't go out in the daylight? That's just stupid," he said, turning the page and sighing. "I've never heard of a redcap. What's that?" He asked, putting his book down to talk explicitly to Stiles. The younger boy lay back on the ground.
"Redcaps are cool man. They're these creatures that wear these red hats, and they need to keep murdering people in order to use their blood to dye their cap. If they don't dye their hat, they die," Stiles explained.
"What do they look like?" Derek asked.
"Kind of like an elf!" Stiles said cheerily. Derek pounced on him from the chair and pinned his wrists to the floor. With his knees on his chest, Stiles couldn't ask for anything better.
"Say elf again I dare you!" Derek commanded, a slight smirk on his face betraying his true emotions. Stiles licked his lips subtly, staring up at Derek's face.
"Elf," he whispered. Derek moved closer to Stiles' face, the look in his eyes apprehensive but the set of his jaw defiant. Stiles closed his eyes for the kiss, but opened them when the sound of the door reached his ears.
"...Hey guys," Scott said unsteadily. "What are you doing?" He asked, setting his helmet down on the table. Derek and Stiles stood up quickly, the latter stumbling over the carpet and falling.
"Wrestling," Derek said hastily.
"I didn't know you guys hung out without the rest of the pack," Scott noted smiling. Stiles stood up and pointed at Derek.
"We don't. I was just helping him look for information about that thing in the woods since you weren't answering your phone," Stiles said accusingly.
"You looked like you were having fun,"
"Well we weren't. We hate each other,' Stiles said with a quick nod of his head. Derek took the chance to change the subject.
"You didn't answer your phone," he stated. Scott bit his lip.
"Yeah, uh, there's something off about Isaac. He's been sick, and he's sleeping all day. This morning he swore at my mom. It' like he's another person," he said. Derek looked puzzled.
"You think this is something supernatural?" He asked.
"I can't think of another explanation,"
"Okay, take me to him. Stiles, bring the books so we can do some research in the car," he said, stalking out the door and getting into the passenger seat of Stiles' jeep.
-x-
The group mingled in Isaac's bedroom. Stiles sat in the windowsill looking through the mythology books. Isaac lay asleep in the bed like he had the day before.
"When's sleeping beauty gonna wake up?" He asked, flipping yet another page. Derek looked concerned at the slumbering figure below him.
"Is he always this deep a sleeper?"
"Not usually, just yesterday," Scott answered. Stiles squealed in delight as he finished a page.
"Scott you know how you mentioned Nephilim yesterday? Well I just found them here in this book. It says they're called the fallen ones. Apparently they're the sons of God," he said frowning.
A guttural noise escaped the body lying on the bed. Their heads spun to look at the boy. Isaac's eyes opened, staring up at the ceiling, the blue they had been now a milky color.
"Isaac?" Scott began, slowly approaching his friend. "Isaac are you ok?" He asked, his heart rate picking up. Isaac's lips parted as if going to speak. "Isaac?" Scott tried one more time, but the boy remained silent. Stiles let out a breath of air.
"Are you kidding me? Oh my god," he muttered exasperatedly. At that moment, Isaac's mouth began to form words. No sound came from them, but they were definitely forming words. His chapped lips cracked and spattered his chin with blood.
"Isaac?" Scott asked forcefully. The body gasped, sucking in a large amount of air.
"Scott," a pair of voices stated. Scott couldn't believe his ears. The voices emitting from his friend's body were a deep and raspy coupled with a slightly higher pitched man's voice. They spoke in perfect unison. Stiles stared wide eyed at the scene.
"I'm leaving," he said, moving to make a break for the door, but Derek grabbed a fistful of his shirt to make him stay. Isaac began to speak again, in those strange voices. This time they were speaking separately, but they weren't speaking words.
"What is he saying?" Scott asked, scared. Derek listened for a moment.
"He's speaking in tongues," he said dourly. The voices stopped abruptly, and Isaac's eyes closed again. His body began to shake in its place. "It's definitely something supernatural, but I have no idea what it is," Derek said. Stiles wrestled himself out of Derek's grip.
"We need Lydia," he stated.