It started with a curse. Hundreds of years ago, a witch nearly hanged was left to escape with a jaded heart. One that was so bitter she swore she would never feel the pain of heart break again. Her lover was the reason she ended up with a noose around her neck, even with a child growing in her womb. The longer her days alone became, the more her heart ache grew until her plea against love became a curse, one that would pass down her family line for generations. Any man that dare love them, was doomed to die.

"So that's what took my parents," Stiles mumbled into the covers. Talking to himself was really the least of his worries. He sobbed until the blankets were damp, clutching them up around his chin. The curse took his father, and his mother… she couldn't live with the pain. That left her two young children alone. Lydia bounced back easier, or at least she was better at faking it. Stiles couldn't though, and that was why he was curled up alone, crying until the darkness pulled him under.

The light outside the attic window had faded completely by the time he regained consciousness. He could hear Lydia, 'Aunt' Morell, and 'Uncle' Alan shuffling in a fluster downstairs. He curled up tighter, pulling the blankets over his head. Maybe if he was really still he could use his magic and just be invisible. It was moot though. Lydia could always find him.

He could feel her, magic filling the room, long before he saw her. Then his eyes were clammed shut, faining sleep. Still his breathing wasn't even, and his muscles too tense to actually be sleeping. As if that wasn't enough, fooling a witch isn't exactly easy, especially one that has known him all his life (well all except a year but that was spend in diapers so it doesn't really count). The springs on the bed popped and whined as she climbed in. Nested under the comforter, he felt it as soon as the heat of her breath added to his own. Slowly the soft pad of a finger tip running down the bridge of his nose. "Wake-y wake-y sleepy head," her voice hardly above a whisper.

The last time he had tried to ignore her, it had been a bucket of ice water on his head. Lydia doesn't take no for an answer. His eyes opened to find waves of strawberry blond hair pooling around him. She smiled widely "There is a woman downstairs," mischief sparked like flames behind her eyes. "She wants a spell."

Both children, far too curious for their own good, scrabbled down the hall peering their faces through the banisters at the top of the stairs. Lydia had a tight grip on Stiles the whole way there, making sure her brother didn't slip back into his hide out. She had a knack for looking out for her big brother, and mostly Stiles was grateful for it.

From their vantage, they could see a small woman huddled at the kitchen table. Sobs racked her body, and tussled curls fell around to curtain her warm tan face. "He left us," her voice cracking with nearly each word "Me and Scott… and I …" she cut off in a heavy whimper. Shaking hands came up to brush back her long hair, causing the sleeves of her pale blue scrubs to bunch around her shoulders. "I just want it to stop hurting."

It didn't matter that he was only eleven, or that he knew nothing of romantic love, losing his parents hit too close to home. "I never want to fall in love…" and hot tears began to stream down his cheeks again.

— —

Small pale hands clutched a wooden bowl, magic clouding the atrium. His aunt and uncle were long since asleep, but the evening's events still played too loudly in his head. "What'cha doin'?" Lydia asked, jumping up on the table Stiles was so focused on.

"A love spell," he answered as he tossed in pieces of the spell. He continued, driven as always, and undeterred by her presence. "He'll be strong and brave, but underneath have a kind heart. His eyes multi colored and ever changing. His mark….," he lifted up a wooden talisman and dropped it in the bowl "A triskele." He runs his hands through the mix of rose petals and herbs "And he'll be a werewolf."

Lydia chimes in "But werewolves aren't real, Stiles." Lifting the bowl he walked out onto the terrace, and held it up towards the moon.

"That's the point. He doesn't exist, and if he doesn't exist then I can never fall in love." The mix in the bowl floated up as if under the influence of some unseen wind. "And I can never die of a broken heart."

— —

Six years later

Faint laughter could be heard from the upstairs window. The bedroom next door was Lydia's, and she already told Stiles her plan. Still he couldn't sit there, silently on his bed as his sister slips out into the night. Bare feet nearly recoiled as they touched the cold hard wood floor, and carried him to her. "So you're really leaving?" he asked, arms crossed as he leaned against the doorway of her bedroom.

She looked up from where she was shoving clothes recklessly into a small suitcase. "I can't stay here." Her lips were drawn, though he can see a spark of life behind her eyes that hadn't been there since they were children. Shrugging she turned back to the bag.

"I just… I don't…," he fumbles around his words huffing, which is pretty much par for the course. "I'm going to miss you." On cue she drops the shirt in her hands into the bag, and crosses the small room. His arms wrap around her without hesitation, burying his face in the soft curls cascading over her shoulder. "It feels like I'm never going to see you again." Tears burn in the back of his eyes as he tries to hold it together.

"Don't be ridiculous. You aren't getting rid of me that easy." She presses her cheek into the crown of his head. The warm sandalwood smell that permeates her whole being fills his senses. Will it cling to his skin when she is gone? The bond that they share was all he's ever known. She was the one with a million friends; she was the one that went through boyfriends faster than he could learn their names; but she was his sister and no matter what he loved her.

"But Jackson?" he asks, crinkling his nose. At that she giggles.

"He's leaving for London in the morning."

"Yeah but it's Jackson."

She just shakes her head "I love him, Stiles. You know that." His lips draw in a straight line and he starts to open his mouth to speak again. "I know," she says, cutting him off "But Beacon Hills has nothing for me, not now." She grabbed his hands, wrapping her own around them no matter how much smaller they were. "Don't worry. We're gonna grow old together. I promised remember." From her side table she pulled out a bone dagger.

Stiles watched frozen, stunned, part of him knew and he doesn't have the will to stop her. The magic was already palpable in the night air. The sharpened edge slices through her palm. "My blood." She motions the fingers tips of her bloodied hand. He answers without hesitation, placing his hand in her grasp. The dagger drags hot across his palm. The flash of pain draws all thought from his mind. "Your blood," her words cut through the mind laps. The dagger clatters to the floor as she pressed their palms together "Our blood."

— —