PART III

Of course Scott and Derek head out looking for the trolls without telling him. Of course they do. And why should they check in with him first? It's not like he's been researching for forty three hours with a few brief pauses for school, coffee and mental breakdowns. He has even been a good boy and stayed out of the frigging woods. But no. He sends one text, one freaking text, to Scott about the school's Lacrosse championship, and really, he should have known better. Scott replies immediately.

"Sryy cnt tlk trlll hlppp"

Apart from losing it completely, there's only one thing to do. Stiles makes approximately four different traffic violations on his way to the veterinary clinic. He storms in, not giving a shit about the closed-sign. Deaton is in his office, elbow deep in kittens and blankets. If this was literally any other day, Stiles would aww so hard he'd get diabetes. But not today.

"Deaton, they are out there running after those trolls. You and me? We have to help them. Like now. Right fucking now."

"You are kidding me," Deaton groans and lifts one of the kittens by the back of it's teeny tiny neck. "Can't you see I'm busy here? Why should I help after…"

"There's gotta be something we can do. Come on, Ms. Hendricks hurt one of them with spray-tan, I bet you've got something more awesome to nuke them with. Like… enriched spray-tan."

"I've got a spell…" Deaton makes eyecontact with the tiny kitten he's still holding between his thumb and ring finger, and trails off. It's understandable, because of the adorableness. But on the other hand: impending troll-related crisis.

"Okay, hand it over and I can…"

"I've got a recipe that could work. But it is not ready yet. If you want to use it, you can very well help me assemble it."

Deaton spends the following fifteen minutes reading and translating from a book that looks like it's older than the Bible and possibly bound in human skin. Stiles spends the same fifteen minutes biting at what's left of his finger nails and trying not to have an existential crisis. What is he doing? Is he really going to volunteer to have a second close encounter of the troll kind? Sure, for Scott he'd do anything. But for Derek, also known as the guy who kind-of-assaults him and at the same time worries too fucking much about him to make it socially acceptable? Derek, the dude who lifts him up by his T-shirt, and tries and fails to carress his face? Heck, if this wasn't an emergency, Stiles would have to get his priorities straightened out. Okay, that still has to happen, but not now. Shit, he hopes that Scott and Derek aren't dead yet. He needs to yell at them for a while. Maybe kick the shit out of them. Possibly kiss one of them. Welp.

"I've got almost everything we need for this to work," Deaton says and looks up from his tome. He looks worried. Not good. "The only thing missing is dragon's breath."

"…is there any chance of getting that, like, right now?"

"Do you have a dragon I don't know about, Stiles? No? Then I'd say no. Not a snowball's chance in hell. The spell could still work, but it's not a hundred percent."

This should be a hard decision, but it isn't. 'It's not a hundred percent' is about as good as it is going to get in his world. Hell, he got through years with just 'fifty fifty, at best'.

"Okay, let's do it! "

"If it doesn't work without the dragon's breath, you will most likely die. Are you aware of that, Mr Stilinski?"

"Yeah, yeah, sure. Come on, let's get this show on the road!"

Deaton shrugs, but disappears into the storage and comes back with a big plastic container with smaller ziplock bags in it. He pulls out one after another, and makes Stiles carefully pour them into an empty glass jar. The peanut butter sticker is still stuck to the jar, so as magic goes, it's fucking classy.

One long cross-country drive that has his beloved jeep screech and rattle, a few well-placed GPS chips and some shit-tons of dumb luck later, he finds the pack.

All three trolls are there. Isaac rodeoing one of the troll's head quite unsuccessably, while the surviving Ken Doll-twin is repeatedly bouncing off another one's back. Derek and Scott are trying to taunt all three, just barely out of reach of them.

Derek suddenly catches his eyes across the clearing. His face goes through a ridiculous transition; he goes from snarl, to slack-jawed and soft-eyed, to naked fear, and then back to snarl. He starts making his way towards Stiles, never letting go of eye-contact, not seeming to give a fuck about the death-fight going on around him. The blood in Stiles' veins freezes to ice.

Then, in a forceful move, Isaac gets thrown off the troll and crashes against a tree. It all happens in slow-motion, kind of. The tree breaks and sends splinters flying through the air. Hell of a thing to get snapped back to reality by. Another troll catches Ethan by the neck and hauls him into a deadgrip.

Which means that Stiles has no time to weigh his chances of survival. It's probably for the best. Giving it some further thought would probably be a one-way ticket to panic attack land. So he does the Stilinski thing and runs into it head first without second thought.

Hey, so far it has worked out for him.

"Hey, shitheads!" he screams at the trolls. They turn towards him. Everything slows down, like a dream. Or nightmare, or whatever. The trolls start moving towards him.

"Stiles, get the fuck out of the way!" Derek bellows. It's more of a roar, really. "Stiles!"

The trolls are moving fast, he realizes, they are throwing themselves towards him in a breathtaking speed. But he yanks the glass jar out of his jacket and throws it to the ground, he sees it shatter, and then — light.