xiv.
trip trap
Once upon a time is not a nice way to start a story. Once upon a time implies a fairytale, and a fairytale implies a happy ending, and there will be no happy endings here.
When Scott first got bit, Stiles thought their lives would turn into a fairytale, and he even thought Derek was going to be his Prince Charming, but Derek was a grouchy, sarcastic dick, and then people started dying, a new person every week, strangers, those he know, those he cared about, and he discovered that he was living in a horror story, not a fairytale.
The fact that he sits in bed, covered in blood, is proof of that. If he continues along this path—along this plot line—then everyone will wind up dead. He doesn't care if that's what happens to him, but he's tired of being responsible for everyone else dying. It's time to break out of the genre.
So Stiles stands, and he limps out of his apartment to Kara's door without bothering to wash up. He stops with his hand poised to knock. Just do it. Just knock. It's not that hard. Tell them everything. He can do it—and yet, his fist is still frozen in mid-air because how would he even start? He doesn't know how they'll react, not for sure, and he'd rather stay in that grey zone between knowing and not knowing. He'd rather stay in the box with Schrodinger's Cat.
The door opens before he can decide, and in a moment, Kara is smiling worriedly at him, taking in his cut face like she hasn't seen it before. Right. Super hearing and X-ray vision. How could he forget? "Oh, Kara, hey."
Did he…call Supergirl Kara last night? Those last moments have gone a bit hazy, and he can't quite remember, but God, he hopes not.
"Stiles, oh my God, what happened to your face?"
"Listen, Kara, you're a reporter, right?" Time to spin a yarn.
"Yes?" Kara says with a raised eyebrow and gestures him into the apartment.
"And you've interviewed Supergirl a few times? So you could contact her if I…needed her?" God, the farce is so exhausting, but it tuns out, he's not ready to out himself quite yet. He leans against the counter and folds his arms, eyes on the ground as Kara comes to sit on a stool beside him.
"I could."
"I think I'm being targeted by an alien. It's attacked me twice now. Supergirl actually just saved me from it." Interrupted him. "But I wasn't—I wasn't thinking straight, and I forgot to ask for help."
"Sure. I can send her your way. Are you okay?" She touches his arm very gently.
"I'm—I'll live."
"Your face tells a different story."
The cuts sting a little harder at her words, and he resists touching them. "It caught me with its claws."
"I call Supergirl. Do you want company?"
Stiles nods even though he means to say no, and Kara decides to draw him a bubble bath which he hasn't had since he was five, but which he supposes makes sense because he's covered in blood and warehouse grime and god knows what else, and the smell of the pomegranate bubbles is comforting. Kara closes the door to give him privacy, and he hears her sit down against it as he undresses. Any weight he may have gained back since Derek's death is gone, sloughed off in these past few weeks of forgetting to eat and using too much magic. He can see his ribs like sticks gathered into a bundle, and his scars look red and angry, his tattoos too black against the pale of his skin. Stiles sighs. Derek would kill him for letting himself slip so far.
He slips into the bath so he doesn't have to look at himself any longer. The hot water consumes him, and he lets himself sink down into its depths, sighing in relief as his knee finally stops aching like the dickens. He tips his head back, closes his eyes.
Fingers carded through his hair, nails a little bit rough on his scalp just the way he liked it. Another hand trailed across his chest, though it was careful to avoid the still tender gash across his ribs. When he finally opened his eyes, Derek was leaning his forehead on the edge of the bathtub, and his shoulders shook gently beneath the tight fabric of his shirt.
"Are you crying?" Stiles asked, holding his laughter behind his teeth because Derek still struggled to express his more vulnerable emotions.
But when Derek lifted his head, all that laughter died in Stiles' throat because Derek's eyes had gone red—not Alpha red, but bloodshot red like he'd been crying for a lot longer than Stiles had been in the bath, and his brow had crumpled inwards so that those thick eyebrows that Stiles loved to smooth had drawn together into one distressed line.
"What is it?" Stiles asked, sitting up in the bath so their faces were closer together.
"You almost fucking died." Derek's fingers tightened in Stiles' hair until it was almost painful. "You always almost fucking die, and I can't take it anymore."
"It wasn't even that bad this time." Just a manic swordsman against Stiles and his baseball bat, and he didn't even have any internal bleeding or broken bones.
"If you died, I'd burn the whole world down."
"I'm not going to die," Stiles promised. "I'm too annoying to die. The Underworld would spit me right back out again." He grinned, but Derek just scowled back.
"It's not funny."
"It's kind of funny. I'm dating a werewolf who's hotter than a Greek god like some kind of bad teen horror movie. Yesterday, I'm pretty sure we were attacked by a ghost knight from the twelfth century. Last week, it was fucking fairies. Next week, it'll probably be aliens or your crazy, once-comatose uncle. Our lives are ridiculous, man. You have to laugh." Or you'll go crazy.
"I can't lose you." Derek sniffled and wiped his nose.
Stiles took Derek's face between his hands. "And you won't. I promise."
That's the rub, isn't it? They always thought it would be Stiles dying first, since he's the weak, fragile human, so Stiles had talked Derek down from the ledge of burning the whole world or killing himself in grief, but they'd never had it the other way round.
He hasn't burned the world down yet, but he's not doing a great job of not killing himself.
Stiles drags himself free of the now murky water and dresses in the clothes Kara slipped inside, taken from his apartment, and then he steps outside, Kara smiling up at him from her spot on the floor. "Supergirl will meet you tonight," she says as she stands.
"Thanks. I…" Stiles pauses, swallows. "I've been a terrible person and friend to you and the others, and you've been nothing but nice to me."
"It's okay, Stiles."
"It's not." He cuts her off. "I've been horrible to you, and I wish I could say I had an excuse, but at a certain point, it's just me and nothing else. There's this…darkness in me." He clutches his abdomen as he speaks. "And I didn't know it was this powerful." It curls inside him even now, that dark thread of malevolence yearning to be used, a curse he didn't ask for, a gift he can't use without losing himself. "I've always had a guiding compass, so to speak. My dad, Scott, Derek, and I guess I never realized how much I needed that to keep me on track."
Kara holds up a pinkie for him to hook his through, and they make their way to the couch, settling in under a blanket.
"I always thought I was a reasonably good person, and I guess maybe I'm having trouble coming to terms with the fact that I might not be."
Kara props her head up on her arm and threads the fingers of her other hand through his. "I think we all need a little help being good people. I could help you. If you want."
He smiles softly. "Do you want to see some photos of my friends?" He has an entire folder entitled 'Dumb Candids of Derek' that he hasn't opened since, well, since that day.
Kara nods, and he opens his phone to flip through them. There's the one he took the morning after they first had sex—Derek shirtless an splayed out across the entire bed like the hog he was, red pillow marks on his face, mouth hanging open in a snore while Stiles points excitedly at his chisel cut abs and grins up at the camera.
There's the moment he managed to catch Derek falling off the porch in perfect clarity while the rest of the Pack stands in the background and laughs. It's actually a series of photos as Derek stands and lunges at Scott before realizing that Stiles is taking photos and jumps at him to wrestle for the phone.
There are a lot of shots of Derek's ass for every time Stiles caught him bending over.
"Wait, tell me who everyone is," Kara says, stopping him on a squad photo from the early days, taken before the Alpha Pack arrived and starting killing everyone, when none of them liked each other all that much but were still bonded from all they'd been through.
"Lydia and Derek," Stiles starts.
"It's still freaky how much he looks like Clark."
"Almost killed me the first time I saw him," Stiles admits. He points to the rest of his friends while he names them. "There's Scott, Allison, Erica, Boyd, Isaac, and Jackson." Jackson was only in the photo because Lydia was in it.
"Look how baby-faced you were!" Kara coos over sixteen-year-old Stiles.
"Baby-faced?" Stiles splutters in protest. "Excuse me, I was a hot piece in high school!"
Kara giggles and zooms in on his face. "Baby."
"You still have a baby face!" he informs her, chin tilted up haughtily.
"And I'm adorable," she agrees. "Where's everyone gone?" Kara taps on a newer photo, one they took on Dungeons and Dragons night about a month before Derek…There are only three of them left from the original photo. How to explain the absences without mentioning that they all either died horribly or moved away to escape the memories of those horrible deaths like any sane person would do.
"Oh, you know, college happened."
"Do you still hear from them?"
Unfortunately, seances aren't actually a thing. "Isaac sends postcards sometimes."
If she knows he's lying, he can't tell.
Stiles leaves her just before Supergirl's appointed arrival time, and for once, he doesn't try to trip her up with her cover story. He should eat, but he's rarely hungry these days, and there's a tap at the window before he can work up the energy to take something out.
He lets Supergirl into his apartment, smiling back at her, and she stands beside his bean bag chair, resplendent in her blue and red suit. "Kara Danvers said you asked for me?"
"Yes. Stiles. Thanks for last night." He shakes her hand and wants to laugh at the absurdity of reintroducing themselves. "That alien you saved me from," interrupted me with, "has been stalking me or something." He knows Superdouche told the others about that first encounter, but he doesn't know if Alex mentioned what he said to her when they were training and he tried to kill her, about how an alien murdered Derek.
"Why do you think it's targeting you?"
"It also killed my boyfriend." Okay, apparently, that's a thing he's admitting.
Kara looks taken aback, seeming to forget that she's not supposed to know anything about him, and he can tell he wants to hug and comfort him. "I got a good look at it last night. Is there anything else you can tell me about it?"
There's a lot he could tell her about the alien. Like its name. And its social structure. And why its here. "It's got some kind of mind control power. It can make you see things, think you're somewhere else."
Kara nods as she takes in that information. "I'll do some digging. In the meantime, don't go wandering around at night anymore, okay?"
"Is there anything I can do to help?" He wonders if he can get himself invited into the DEO.
"I'll let you know. Just stay safe for now, okay?"
He'll pretend that's a thing he knows how to do.
Kara doesn't leave right away—she pauses at the window, fingers tapping on the sill, and then she turns back to him, and Stiles can see the apprehension crawling through her eyes. "Last night, you called me Kara."
Fuck, so that really did happen. "I was out of it." Lies. "I saw blonde hair, and I thought you were Kara for a second. But that would be ridiculous." He can't resist adding a little dig, and he has to hold his grin back.
"Right. Ridiculous." Is that a little bit of offense he hears in her voice?
Kara leaves, and Stiles is left in his empty apartment, wondering what he's supposed to do with himself until she has some information for him. Food. That's a thing he could do. A thing he needs to do. But alas, there is literally no food in his fridge aside from a slowly moldering cucumber. He finds a box of cereal in the cabinet, but there's only dust inside. He groans and throws the entire box in the sink. Fine. He will go. Grocery shopping.
Gross.
He grabs the reusable bags Lydia left him and starts walking, headphones shoved into his ears and a joint dangling very obviously from his fingers. His limp is back, the relief from the bath far too short lived, and he's going to need to do something about that as well. He locates a Whole Foods, which seems to be the only grocery store chain in the entire city, and he stubs his roach out before he goes inside. The lights are ten times too white and too bright, and he can hear them humming, humming, humming.
Stiles has no plan, but wandering up and down the aisles is plan enough. There are knee braces in the health section—he'll doctor one of those up with some spells later on—and he's in the chip aisle when disaster strikes.
James and Winn.
Buying snacks.
And of course, they spot him right away.
The three of them stand at opposite ends of the aisle and stare at each other like animals sizing up a fight through the bushes. Winn, the friendliest of them, raises an awkward hand in greeting, and there's enough of a normal person left in Stiles to smile back and walk towards them because he's headed in that direction anyway. "Hi, guys."
"Long time no see," James replies.
"How are you guys?" This is literally the most awkward conversation Stiles has ever had. Winn and James won't catch his eye for any longer than a second.
"Yeah, good, just grabbing snacks for…" Winn is a terrible liar and quickly trails off which Stiles takes to mean that they're buying fortification for whatever research binge is going on in the DEO right now. Stiles has sent Scott on enough of those to recognize one when he sees it. "Game night?" Winn finishes lamely, and James cringes because if that were true, that would mean Stiles was not invited.
"Sounds fun," Stiles says. "Listen, guys, I literally have no food in my house, and I'm starving," lie, "so I should really get going." His phone dings, and he swears to God if it's his dad or Scott trying to bully him into communicating, he's going to fling his phone down the aisle, but instead, it's a text from an unknown number.
IOU.
"Fuck."
"What's wrong?"
Shit. Did he say that out loud? "Just some business I forgot about. Enjoy game night." He pushes off with his cart before the conversation can continue and texts the woman from the Illysium Order. Be there in an hour.
He grabs a few final items and checks out without looking at the total—who knows how much money is left in his account—and drags all the groceries home; he even puts them away, because he has cold stuff he doesn't want melting, before he heads back out to the Wiccan store. The place is empty, as always, and the woman sits behind the counter reading a People magazine. She looks up as the bell rings. "IOU?" he says because small talk sounds exhausting.
"My store was robbed," the woman says, chucking the magazine over her shoulder. "I'd like you to find the culprit and bring them back here."
"What'd they take?" He limps up to the counter then leans on it to take the weight off his leg.
"Some knucklebones, blackwing powder, a Coolin Orb, a demon skull, and the magnate pencils."
Stiles bites his cheek as he thinks about what all those things could be used for. "Necromancy stuff?"
"Pretty potent necromancy stuff," she agrees.
"Any leads?"
She reaches under the counter and brings out a turquoise orb about the size of Stiles' head. "My Seeing Eye caught a few things." She sets it on a stand and waves her hands over it, murmuring in Latin. Smoke blooms within the orb which takes the shape of the shop as it was last night. A hooded figure steps through the window like it's water not glass and hunts through the shelves as if they know exactly what they're looking for, and Stiles thinks he recognizes that cloak. It looks like the one Luka the warlock wore both times Stiles saw them.
The Alpha Pack went to ground after the incident in the park—Stiles hasn't seen hide nor hair of them despite the fact that he would love to question Deucalion about why he's in National City if not to torture Stiles with the Essyolyte, and this seems like a good a chance as any to get some answers.
"I'll find them." Stiles knows at least part of Luka's name which should be enough to locate them with a spell. First, though, he drops his still-packaged knee brace on the counter. "I need a few strengthening crystals and star glue."
"Back shelf," the woman says and points.
"What do I owe you?"
She waves him off. "Consider it a gift for stopping that ritual in the park. Void." She winks at him, and Stiles' heart stops for a second before he realizes she's smiling and not going to rat him out.
He smiles back. "Thanks."
Stiles finds the crystals and the glue and leaves the shop for the nearby park where the flame sprites and golems attacked. Stiles is pretty sure Luka summoned them, though he hasn't quite figured out the why yet. He sits down on a bench to glue the strengthening crystals to his brace, tracing an intricate symbol across the black fabric. This would work a little better in the moonlight, but he'll just have to charge the warding fully later. The glue glows silver when he connects the last lines, and he rolls up his pant leg to drag the brace on. When he stands, the spell takes on the strain for his knee, and he's able to walk with only a small limp.
Stiles has a plan to snare Luka. It's a terrible plan, probably, but nevertheless, it is a plan. He found a lot of nice, abandoned, secluded buildings during his time searching for the Essyolyte, so he knows several perfect ambush spots. He has to drop by his apartment first, for supplies, then travels through the city to a foreclosed house not far from where the Alpha Pack had shacked up. He spends a couple of hours warding the place up and crafting circle traps that Luka hopefully won't be able to break out of. He lights a few candles and begins to chant what he thinks is a very old version of Pictish, but he's never been entirely sure. It casts his consciousness across the city, fueled in part by that dark spark inside of him. He says Luka's name to focus the spell, give it a target.
Stiles finds the warlock's energy signature somewhere in the east side of town. He taps Luka on the shoulder, so to speak, and flashes them the magical version of the bird. Luka immediately knows it's him. Stiles isn't sure what Luka's deal is yet, but he knows they're fascinated by him, for whatever reason, so he knows they'll come.
…He doesn't know if they'll come alone—something Stiles now wishes he had thought of before catching Luka's attention.
Too late. Luka is already on their way.
Stiles pulls out of the spell and lands fully in his body, suddenly crawling with nerves because what the hell is he thinking? Luka is way more powerful than he is! They trounced him when they clashed in the park—vast and variable and oh so very fast, knocking Stiles to the ground with one mighty swipe of a bear's claw.
What the fuck has he done?
Luka appears in the open door to the house, for once not clad in their warlock's cloak but a black leather jacket with silver shoulders to match the silver hair cascading all the way down their back. They wear one of the sluttiest shirts Stiles has ever seen, slung low across the chest and crossed with an X, and their jeans are tighter than the ones Erica used to wear.
"So this is what you look like," Stiles says to cover up the fact that his heart is beating like a jackhammer. Their eyes are the brightest turquoise color Stiles has ever seen, and their features are china fine and too smooth to be human.
Luka spreads their arms to show off, leaning against the doorframe. "I always forget how much I enjoy human clothing. What can I do for you, Stiles?"
"I thought we could have a chat. Magic user to magic user." Stiles takes a few steps back in hopes of luring Luka into the room, but the warlock remains by the door.
"I met the Nogitsune that gave you your power," Luka drawls. "I saw its mark on you when we met. I'm sorry that happened to you. I know how rough its touch can be." They sound…sincere.
"What's your deal? Why are you with the Alpha Pack?"
Luka finally steps into the abandoned building, hands sunk deep in their pockets. Their eyes immediately flick to every single symbol Stiles drew, and Stiles knows his plan has failed before it even got started. "Why, money, of course."
"Money," Stiles repeats.
"Well, not in the human sense of the word, but essentially, yes." Luka stops just short of the holding trap Stiles threw on the ceiling, glances up at it, then gives Stiles a knowing smirk, and Stiles mutters a curse.
"So why are they paying you to steal stuff for some serious necromancy?"
Luka walks through the circle, and all the lines sizzle a violent red before dying and releasing their power, and that means Luka is walking right towards Stiles with nothing between them but air. Stiles backs up despite his best efforts because he can feel the power rippling off the warlock.
"What will you pay me for the information?" Luka asks with half a smirk.
Stiles is not going to say 'what do you want' because that always ends badly.
"How about a kiss?" Luka asks, and suddenly, they're right in front of him, crowded into his personal space, and taller than him, he realizes, leaning over him with one hand braced against the wall, just above Stiles' head, and Stiles swallows heavily, short-circuiting due to the magic crackling through the space between them.
"I'm—what?"
"Just on the cheek?"
"Why?"
Luka shrugs. "Because you're weird and intriguing, and honestly, I don't like Deucalion very much." Luka's smile shows off one canine.
Would this betray Derek? A kiss on the cheek for information? Stiles has no trouble whoring himself out a little bit to get what he wants—he's certainly done it before…with no success and to the great amusement of his Pack, but things are different now, with Derek gone and him all alone with no one around to make light of the situation, and not to mention those eyes right in front of him, blue like the ocean shallows, and all he wants is for Derek to hug him again, to kiss his cheek, tell him everything is going to be okay.
Stiles squeezes his eyes shut because he's not going to cry in front of Luka, but he can feel the tears welling up anyways. He shoves Luka away, hands not magic, and spins so his back is to them, cheeks wet despite his best efforts.
"You've never tried to bring him back?" Luka asks.
"Necromancy doesn't work." Stiles sighs. "The Alpha Pack is trying to bring Ennis back."
"On the nose. I suppose I can't charge you anymore since you figured it out for yourself."
"You know that's just going to make things worse."
"Not my problem."
"The woman whose shop you stole from would like reparations," Stiles says, dashing the wetness from his face before turning to face Luka again. The smile on their face is insufferable.
"I'll make you a deal," Luka says.
"I'm not kissing you."
Luka laughs, long hair rippling as they tilt their head back. "Not that. A tear, and I'll return everything to the shop."
Stiles narrows his eyes at the warlock, but that face is a snarky, unreadable mask, just like Stiles' always is. "The hell do you want with a tear?"
"That's for me to know. What do you say?"
Stiles groans, long and exasperated. "Fine. Fine. But this better not end badly for me."
Luka just grins and makes a glass vial appear out of nowhere, stepping back into Stiles' personal space to scoop up a tear trapped on his lower last. "The deal is sealed. Be seeing you, Stiles." They wink and turn on their heel to saunter towards the open door in a way that gives Stiles a very good view of their ass.
"Wait," Stiles calls when they're a step from disappearing.
Luka pauses, glances over their shoulder with an eyebrow raised. "Yes?"
"Deucalion really knows nothing about the Essyolyte?"
Luka shrugs. "Not that I know of."
"And you don't know anything about it either?"
"Sorry, Stiles. Aliens aren't my area of expertise." And they disappear, there one second and gone the next as they step through the door.
Stiles sits down. Just lets all the strength go out of his legs so that he collapses, dust puffing up around him. He texts the woman from the shop that she'll get all her stuff back and hopes that will be enough, that she's not looking for more of a revenge thing, then lets his head thud back against the wall.
He is just so tired.
A/N - Can you guess who I based Luka's physical appearance off of?
