Warnings: Gerard (because that guy should just come with a warning label) and poor dialogue spelling.
Tear Out All Of Your Tenderness
Stiles doesn't remember when he finally returns to the land of the living, but it is somewhere around the time when the scary, big, unsmiling guy dumps him onto the pavement in some unknown location. He doesn't even get time to get a hold of his spinning head as the unpleasant fellow grabs him under the arms and hauls him up. Stiles more or less trips into a nice suburban house, which he will later notice, by a picture on the wall, is the Argent's house. There is no time to sound alarm because the grunting madman is shoving him down the steps of a basement. Stiles tumbles down, landing face first on the concrete and just lays there. Everything had happened so fast he needs a moment. Even if his cheek is in a puddle of a foreign substance. The gorilla-ape slams the door, incasing Stiles in darkness. But it feels like a familiar state of being after everything.
Deciding that he may catch a disease on this dirty floor, Stiles pushes himself up, wipes his cheek, and dusts off his uniform because he won't want it to get any stains. It doesn't even have a grass stain yet. Well, maybe on his back after being thrown on his ass countless times tonight. Then all of sudden he hears something. A muffled whimper, and he freezes up against the wall. Slowly and unsurely, he swipes his hand against the wall, searching for a light switch. Finally, his fingers find one, and the light unveils Boyd and Erica bound from the ceiling, duct taped, and bleeding.
"Oh shit."
He bolts over, "what the hell happened?" He reaches up to untie Erica. She whimpers and shakes her head, but he simply shushes her. He tries again and touches the wire only to be shocked.
"Ouch!" He jolts back, clutching his fingers.
"They were trying to warn you it's electrified." Gerard's unpleasant, grandfatherly voice comes from the stairs.
"What are you doing with them?" Stiles inquires when Gerard makes it down the steps, smiling and looking at ease with having three teenagers held hostage in his basement.
"At the moment just keeping them comfortable." He sighs and leans against the wall. "There's no point torturing them, they won't give Derek up. The instinct to protect their Alpha is too strong."
Stiles pauses and swallows the panic clumping in his throat. "Okay, so what are you doing with me?"
"Oh, I got to thinking that maybe I was looking in the wrong places for Derek. Scott… his pack. But we both know Derek doesn't care about any of them. No, Derek doesn't feel much anymore, does he? Not after what my daughter did to his family. At the time I would have disagreed with her methods but now, I wish she would have made sure the whole pack had been locked in that basement. Burning to death in those fires. Purifying the earth of such filth. Oh, how I would have loved to have heard those screams."
Erica and Boyd whine behind Stiles.
"And then maybe she could still be alive."
"Is that what this is all about? Getting revenge for that crazy bitch, Kate?" Stiles takes a brave step forward. The wolves behind him bemoan his decision.
"Oh, Mr. Stilinski there is more to this, so much more. And you've been lucky enough to be award with a special part in all of it."
"Oh, how kind of you. I knew there was a heart of gold underneath all that evil." Stiles scoffs.
Gerard chuckles, "you have quite the sense of humor, Mr. Stilinski. I can only imagine how much you must irritate others with it."
"They've grown use to it." Stiles shrugs.
"Well, fortunately they won't have to put up with it much longer." Gerard starts to approach Stiles. "You're going to be the sacrificial lamb slaughtered at the alter. Whose blood will be spilt so that great things can come. Whose blood will call those from the shadows to meet the sharp glare of my blade. To perish at the swing of my sword, turning their sins to ash to be blown away in the wind, as if they never existed. Just as they should had have never existed in the first place."
Stiles has done his best to be unflinching as Gerard weighs like a force of nature over his very soul, but now Stiles is fighting the urge to cower in the corner.
"H-how poetic." He stutters in defiance.
"How poetic indeed, when Derek finds his mate bloodied and beaten to a pulp. How does that sound, now?" Gerard is almost pressed up against him.
"Y'know, I've always preferred classic literature, myself."
Gerard's cheek twitches from clenching his teeth. Stiles can feel his patience wearing if it isn't already worn. Okay, so Gerard isn't an appreciator of some dry humor, that's all right, most of Stiles's class isn't either. Most of the time neither is his dad. But Stiles knows how to handle those kinds of people.
"Y'know what, what are you, ninety? Look I can probably kick your ass up and down this room-" Combat them with extreme mocking.
And that is when Stiles experiences his first punch of the night.
Gerard may be a little trigger-happy when Stiles has gone from seeing stars to seeing flashes of colour every time Gerard lands another blow on his head. He's been punched before. But never been beaten. He didn't know how quickly it goes from hurting to being agony. He is pretty sure his nose is bleeding, or he has bitten his cheek because he tastes iron. Maybe both.
He figures Gerard gets tired of having to bend over to pound Stiles's head into the concrete because now he's stomping his heel into Stiles's stomach.
"Sto-ahp" Stiles grunts when contact is made, making him curl up like a caterpillar. Gerard just switches to swinging his leg at his back and arms.
"Pl-ee-ease." Stiles groans when something cracks in his chest. Gerard stops for a moment, allowing Stiles's body to register all the pain at once. He convulses and moans. All his pain receptors are beyond stimulated and reacting like he is getting hit all over again. He rolls back and forth on his side, trying to get his touch sensors to feel something else. He can hear Erica and Boyd producing muffled shouts at him, and Gerard breathing heavily over him.
"Don't worry." Gerard says but doesn't mean it. There is no way he could. "Someone will be down to do a better job. I'm afraid I am a little rusty." He actually chuckles.
"Go-ood, cuz tha-at waz path'atic." Stiles's nose must be broken. If not, it definitely is when Gerard leaves him with a boot to the face that effectively knocks him out.
Stiles doesn't like the fact that every time he wakes up he finds himself in a little more danger. Such as he is sitting in a chair, hands tied behind his back and legs to the chair's, facing the big oaf from before. They are in a different room since Erica and Boyd are nowhere to be found. It looks like the garage. Stiles spots the gun storage Scott told him about, and a tool bench probably holding all sorts of instruments of torture.
"Finally awake?" The ogre pats Stiles's face, but it feels like he slapped him when pain flares up in his cheek.
"Ss-till ss-tup'd lookin'?"
Stiles gets decked for that. His head snaps to the side and blood pools in his gums. He spits it out. "'ou like h'ittin' kids? Makes's ya feel bet'er 'bout yer self?"
"You talk a lot for someone getting the shit knocked out of him." The Ogre, Stiles concludes that really is the best way to describe him, grabs his aching chin. "Y'know, life would've been easier for you if you'd just stayed away from that monster."
"Brea'f mint, se'ris'ly." Another jab, this time in the stomach. Stiles can't bend into the pain so it radiates untamed. "I-I'm," Stiles coughs and regrets it, "I'm surp-prised they'd let 'ou 'do a bet'er job.' 'Ou h'it like a g'rl, too."
"I've been with the Argents for my whole life. I volunteered to have a swing at the mate of the monster that killed Miss Kate. After what happened to Mrs. Argent, what it did to Miss Allison... This is my pleasure."
"Eww." Stiles spits out another glob of saliva and blood. He snorts and feels the clot of blood in his nose release. He can breathe better but the blood waterfalls down his chin and neck. He coughs when some of it hits his throat. "Did 'ou forget the pa'art where Kate burn'd Derek's entire fam'mily to dea'f?"
"They deserved it. They were monsters. They killed people. Good people."
"And so f'at makes 'ou a good pers'n, knockin' out some kid's tee'f?" Stiles starts into the worst coughing fit he has ever had. The coughs hammer out all the bruises in his chest, leaving him panting once he stops.
"I suppose you forgot that Derek helped Kate burn down his family?"
"W'at?" Stiles is startled, not knowing if the Ogre is just playing with him. But on his dopey face he sees nothing but smug satisfaction that comes from telling a dirty secret.
"Oh, he didn't tell you? I suppose he won't. Why would he? The biggest black stain on his conscience. Him and Kate used to be a thing. Pretty serious, from what I heard. He fell pretty hard for her."
Stiles feels a spike of something shoot through him that hurts more than anything else he has felt tonight. He doesn't know what it is and it is gone quickly. However, it leaves behind a terrible ache.
"So hard that he was willing to do anything for her. Even gave her the keys to his house. For a werewolf, he must have really trusted her. Probably thought she was the one, his soulmate." The Ogre is up to something, Stiles knows it. He wouldn't need to mention all of this. He should be making Stiles a nice little bloodied pulp on the floor.
"Yep, Derek wanted to blame us for burning down his house, but it was really him. He brought his family to the slaughtering house and made them experience the worst kind of death. Burning alive, can you imagine? It's no wonder he just couldn't live up to that. Just think," the Ogre gets up and goes over to the tool bench to fiddle with a piece of equipment. "Your skin burning, roasting all your tissue and muscles? The fire burning down to your bones, melting them?" Something hisses when he turns a valve.
"The smoke being ventilated so there isn't enough to suffocate you, like the Burning Man. Ingenuous. Humans are incredible. The things they can come up with to harm each other. To make them experience the highest limits of their tolerance. To push them past it and break them. Ruin them. Leave nothing left but a pile of ash." He turns around with a tool that looks like a modified thermal lance, a burning bar, an evil curling iron. It is glowing dimly, most likely not quite warmed up yet.
Stiles's eyes widen, "no, 'ou've gotta be kiddin'." He pulls at his bindings, "dude, are 'ou freakin' serious?"
"Oh, don't worry, it's not like an industrial thermal lance, that would be way too hot. It's designed for burning softer substances. Personally, I thought a knife would have done the job, but Mr. Gerard insisted I use this. Thought that Derek would appreciate the sight of his mate covered in burns." The Ogre hovers the bar at Stiles's knee.
"Tell me if it is too hot." He presses it to his leg, and Stiles screams.
Stiles falls out of the chair when the Ogre cuts him free. He is numb. He doesn't, can't move. His body can't believe what has happened to it. It's in shock, trying to figure out how to handle all the damage. Stiles's conscious is locked down in his mind so the other, smarter, parts of his brain can come up with a strategy as to how to deal with this.
Like watching from a window, Stiles sees the Ogre pick him up like a doll and carry him out the garage. It's brighter outside than Stiles's remembers. Is it morning? The sun isn't up yet, but its time is due. The Ogre brings him to the familiar black sedan and dumps him in the trunk. Time is lost somewhere in the Twilight Zone. It walks and runs and drags Stiles along with it. Then, almost suddenly, the sedan halts. The engine humming under Stiles, but he can hear the Ogre, the Monster, get out and come around to the trunk.
He slowly gazes at the creature, not a man, when the trunk door opens and the rays of the morning rush in to see what kind of night Stiles's has had.
"Home again, home again, kid." The Ogre grabs him and drops him on the curb of Stiles's neighborhood. He doesn't know where his house is. He just falls back into the dewy grass, and the monster-filled sedan speeds away unnoticed.
Why did I do this?
The thermal lance, I swear, that wasn't planned, it just happened. And I know, that equipment is used for major melding, so that's why I stated modified. I just need something portable and burning. Curling iron did cross my mind that seemed a little, mood-killing, and so it served its purpose as description material.
Spellcheck hated me this chapter.