Title: promise the moon
Summary: This is how it begins: Allison is not dead.
Character(s): Allison Argent, ensemble.
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Notes: also known as a really shitty mythology-type crossover sorry idk what I'm doing anymore. Title from "Black Widow" by Cage the Elephant, quote from "Cloud" by Sandra Cisneros, though I have changed its visual form because reasons. Unofficial theme song is probs Car Radio by twenty one pilots. Non-linear narration. Also on ao3!
Before you became a cloud,
you were an ocean,
roiled and murmuring like a mouth.
You were the shadow of a cloud crossing over a field of tulips.
You were the tears of a man who cried into a plaid handkerchief.
You were a sky
The car window warned them not to save her. Allison never saw that as an option.
This is how it begins: Allison is not dead. She is, and then she is not, is brought back by magic that Deaton only frowns at, magic that only Peter ever really understood, magic that Lydia and Stiles have taught themselves because there is no one left who will teach them what they need to know.
Lydia traveled the Americas with Kira and, later, Cora, came back to Beacon Hills with blood caked under her arms, but this time, when she screamed, it meant something, it made a difference. Allison climbed out of the dirt with raw fingers and a rattle in her chest but it was worth it, worth it, Lydia said.
"I never claimed to be a good man," Peter says, and Lydia is already screaming. Allison and Scott stand to his right and left, and she's only got one arrow left, the others still embedded in the skin of the fools who followed the madman before them. He smiles with all his teeth.
"Why," Scott says, because he can't wrap his head around it, will never be able to, doesn't understand how things can be so bad.
"I am the rightful alpha," Peter says, and it doesn't even sound angry anymore. Allison keeps her eyes on him, refuses to look away; she wants to, God she wants to, because behind her Kira is keening, Stiles' and Lydia's voices low and murmuring as they try to dislodge the katana from where it's been sunk into her belly. She thinks of Stiles' hands, strong and sure regardless of their task. He's found calm since the nogitsune, he claims, but she recognizes the look in his eyes. Allison sees it in her own.
She hopes they're not too late.
"You are nothing," she says, instead of voicing her fears, her hopes, her hatred for the man in front of her.
His teeth flash when he throws his head back, an ugly laugh tearing itself from his throat. There's blood at the corner of his mouth, dripping down his arm, soaking the crisp white shirt he is wearing. He is barefoot. "You stupid girl," Peter says, "what about you? We're two peas in a pod; we have so much in common."
Lydia slides a glint of metal towards her.
Kate Argent is dead—for the last time—by Lydia's hand. It is not her own weapon, and she never claimed to know what she was doing, she tells Allison, but she had to use the bow, do you understand? Do you understand why? Why the arrows mattered, why the silver arrowheads, why only one shot was needed?
Once Kira is stable again, Scott turns to them, says, "He needs to be stopped."
"We need to go to college," Stiles says. Pauses. "We brought this upon ourselves."
"I don't regret it," Allison says, and they both look at her like they've forgotten she isn't dead.
"Allison," Scott says, and she steps forward, uncrosses her arms. She's wearing one of Stiles' shirts; she's not sure how it got into her stuff but it's comfortable, red and coarse on her skin.
"You heard him," she says, voice hard, "could you hear what he was doing to her?"
"Allison," Stiles says, and it sounds like a warning, which, good, but Allison ignores him, says, "He nearly tore her spinal cord in two, it'll be a miracle if she ever walks again."
"Peter is—"
"A monster," she snaps, forcibly calms herself. Both the boys in front of her have grim expressions, the colors of their shirts stained rust from the blood that carrying Kira covered them with. Peter is not a monster, he's soulless. "Scott," she says after a moment, "he nearly killed Kira. He should have killed her. That's the same wound that killed me."
Stiles winces, looks away. "Scott," Allison says, again and again, "Scott, Peter tried to kill all of us today. He's more than just a man, he's got an entire system behind him."
"Hail Hydra," Stiles says weakly, and Allison closes her eyes, says, "Exactly." Scott rubs his face.
Lydia said, "I love you, I couldn't let you die, you're my best friend, I love you," and held her, wept into her hair as Allison coughed and choked on air, air that smelled like mold and dust and ash all over again.
"You'll need to visit my future sister-in-law," Cora says, and Allison tries not to show how much she's bothered by the way her eyes flicker to Stiles.
"Derek doesn't date," Stiles says, and there's a hint of a smirk on his mouth. Allison wants to hit him.
"Of course not," Cora says, and her hair is in a braid, black hair smooth, half tucked into the frilly apron that she's wearing. She looks like a homebody. Allison ignores the looks Scott is giving the other werewolf, wonders when she became this person.
Cora asks, "Have you heard the legend of the ciguapas?" and Scott says, "No," to which she answers, "How could you? A human turned alpha. Do you know what you're doing?"
Scott grits his teeth, gaze no longer soft, and says, "I'm trying."
Her voice is softer now, but the bite is still carried within it; "You're learning," and then she turns to Stiles again, "they're not engaged. But they will be."
"What," Allison interrupts, "do you just marry each other off?"
"There are no Hales left," Cora says, and Stiles tells her, "Is Peter dead to you already?" and she goes quiet.
"I heard Kira survived," she says, and Scott ducks his head.
"A miracle," he says, and Cora shrugs.
"Something like that."
The girls have skin so blue it's nearly black. They try to coax Scott and Stiles closer, but Allison keeps her arms spread, fingers hooked in their shirts. Her thumb stroke's Stiles' skin, where it's ridden up. The women watch the movement hungrily, smile prettily at Allison when their eyes meet.
"They've been killing men for generations," Scott says, and there's something like fear in his voice.
"Bet they've got some nice tricks up their sleeves," Stiles says, winces, remembering acutely how naked they are, two of them standing before them in the dead of the night.
"Veneno," Allison says without inflection, the syllables awkward in her mouth, too solid to be French. Their dark eyes widen, and then one smirks before disappearing into the night. The other just bares her teeth in what Allison would never call a smile.
"Espera," she says, and all too soon Stiles sees the tricks they've got.
Peter helps kill Kate, but Allison doesn't find out until later. She wants to kill him, for doing it all over again, even if the Kate of their stories isn't the one she remembers. Not the hunter, not the loving aunt. That woman has been dead for a very long time.
No, from what they tell her, Allison imagines a monster like Kali, with all of Deucalion's ambition. It makes her shiver, makes her clutch the sheets to her tighter, even when Isaac tries to curl around her and keep her warm. He only stays with her one night, before she flat out tells him that it isn't going to work. He and Chris—dad, she tells herself, dad—came back for a week in January, after news broke that she was back. Isaac had understood; her father hadn't.
Lydia killed Kate, but Peter watched. Allison has been alive two weeks.
In that time, he has take Kira hostage while building himself an army of weak-minded hunters who know no better. Kira is in the hospital still, katana turned against its owner and Peter disappeared to wherever it is that he hides. Allison's hand itch from where they're scrubbing at the soles of her feet.
"He was never a good person," Lydia says, and Allison looks straight at her, hair wet from the bath that she is sitting through, Lydia painting her toenails, and says, "I knew that."
They fuck in a dirty bathroom stall down in Mexico, halfway through Buenaventura. Allison gives the weathered woman with silver hair too much money for five squares of toilet paper, but she's sitting at the very entrance, beyond the split the building takes as it morphs into bathrooms. Stiles nods at her in greeting as they pass each other, he on his way out, but she grabs him by the arm, drags him into the farthest stall, drops to her knees. He shudders, shakes, hauls her back up; doesn't slip on a condom, and doesn't complain when her nails cut deep.
"Where's my dad," Allison finally croaks, wonders how long she's been gone, and Lydia just shushes her, holds her tight to her chest.
"She needs a hospital," Cora says, and Allison can barely turn her head to where she and Kira are leaning against each other. The latter girl has her eyes closed, skin pale. There's a thin sheen of sweat below Cora's eyes. When she looks up at Lydia, Allison sees that they're all exhausted.
"Lydia," she says, half-choking on the air, "Lydia, what did you do?"
"I played God," Lydia says, "and I don't regret it for a second."
The car trip to Mexico is silent. Scott tries telling a few stories, about driving down to the border towns when he was a kid, but he cuts himself off before he starts talking about the violence there now. Allison looks at Stiles when she sits shotgun, traces the shape of his nose with her eyes. She sees her own death in his; wonders if either of them has a soul left.
He says, while Scott is buying snacks at a gas station in El Paso, "You watch me."
"Can I kiss you?" Allison says, and he breathes in sharply.
"You're my best friend's ex, you know," and the tone of his voice is forcibly flippant. Allison is sitting cross-legged in the passenger seat. She bites her nails, a habit she doesn't remember having before—before.
She sees Scott in the side mirror. He's carrying a pack of chocolate zingers, which Stiles has been heckling him for since they hit LA. Her belly rumbles.
"I want you," she doesn't say.
The tale goes like this: there are women in the islands, beautiful women with black-blue skin and dark eyes, hair so long they curl around their bodies like clothes, they love the mountains and they love men, but only if it means they get to eat. Derek's future wife—Val, she says, Val with the dark hair and eyes and mouth—spins a story about them, and when Allison closes her eyes she sees the Dominican woman's face with rows upon rows of teeth. She wonders if Derek loves her. She wonders if she loves Derek.
"I know one," says this mystery woman, and Allison can see the question on Stiles' tongue; she tastes it, too.
Are you human, they don't ask. Her eyes flash yellow but there is a sweetness to her mouth that is not werewolf or human, is not a fox or a lizard, either. She does not scream like Lydia, but the cunning of her smile is not lost on Scott or Stiles, and Allison feels a stirring in her belly.
"What is her name," she says, and the dark woman laughs, says, "Nena. Nina. Whatever you want it to be," and they go.
Lydia says, "I love you," and that's all Allison can hear, Isaac's fingertips pressed to her skin.
Allison delivers the final blow. Peter goes down with wide eyes, surprise on his features. Caught unawares, poisoned with wolfsbane and kanima venom and herbs from the islands, shot full of arrows, but Lydia grabbed a gun from the Argent house without anyone knowing and slipped to Allison when it looks like they're going to go down, again. She shoots him in the occipital lobe, doesn't flinch when her green sweater is splattered with grey matter.
"My God," someone says, but their voice is flat. It smells like iron.
The trip to the Dominican Republic is far different than the one to Mexico. Allison kisses Stiles in Juarez, just hours after their gas station conversation. He fists a hand in her hair when she bites his lip, and she tries to memorize the taste of chocolate and soda in his mouth, doesn't care that Scott is just yards away, renting a hotel room for them. They make it to El Sueco when it's early morning out, the sky pink as the sun rises. Scott blushes the morning after the two of them share a bed, but mostly smiles at them vaguely over the mugs of atole Cora gives them for breakfast. They stay with her two weeks.
Afterwards, Cora drives their rented car for them to the airport, gives them snacks for the trip over. If Stiles sees her making eyes at Scott he doesn't say anything, and Allison doesn't mention anything about the smile on Scott's face when Cora waves goodbye. The woman she claims Derek is seeing picks them up at the airport, despite it being six in the morning her time, and drives them to the little compound where her family lives.
Derek, mostly healed (though his mental state is a different story), always said Cora liked Mexico best out of all the countries she'd visited. When Lydia had gone looking for her a month beforehand, she'd been in Costa Rica.
"Looks like she's built a life here," Stiles says as they board the plane, hand low on Allison's back; Scott doesn't bat an eyelash.
"Yeah," he says back, "she looks happy."
This is how it goes: Allison dies, lives, fights, and breathes. Stiles is a warm body next to her in the nights. She sits on his chest as they stare at each other, dressed in white panties and a pink tank top. He's in boxers. Peter is dead by her hand, Kate by Lydia's, Cora hiding in Mexico while Scott decides between his kin and the wolf. Derek says he is getting married.
She ducks to kiss his full mouth.
All Allison can see is dust and darkness.
.
.
.