A/N: A wild Chapter 3 appeared! Actually Chapter 4 is written, too, and that's the last one! So look for it either later today or sometime tomorrow. This has been a blast to write, and I hope you guys are enjoying it! I've got a LOT of alerts and not a lot of reviews, haha. So I think that still means it's okay?
Enjoy!
Chapter 3
Scott has no idea how to exorcise a demon. He thinks that possibly it involves a priest, and the person who's being exorcized has to have their head spin around separate from their body a few times.
He doesn't know any priests, and he doesn't want Stiles' head to spin around separate from his body. That sounds like it might do some permanent damage.
None of the other seem to know, either, although they do give him a weird look when he mentions the spinning head thing, which just about confirms his suspicions. So, they're doing what any good group of teenagers would do and Googling it.
Well, that is to say, Erica is using Google, and everyone else is standing around sipping mochas and looking over her shoulder.
Oh yeah…did he mention they're at Starbucks?
Which, Scott maintains, is perfectly logical. It's not like Erica or Isaac have internet access, Allison's family would probably know what to do but would probably also care a lot less about Stiles' survival than one would hope, and Scott…well, he really can't stress his mom out any more than he already is.
He couldn't even find Jackson, the dickwad, so that's a moot point.
Scott sips his mocha and has the startling thought that maybe he should try being a better friend. He loves Stiles, really, but he's in love with Allison, and well, it's the honeymoon stage and all that…but those are just excuses. He really should be doing better. He resolves that saving Stiles from the demon will turn over a new leaf in their friendship, cause nothing says 'I love you, bro' quite like banishing the spawn of hell from said bro's body.
Erica leans back in her chair and lets out an aggravated sigh. Everyone turns to her and waits.
"There's nothing I can find that isn't dangerous to the host, but I think our best bet is a good old-fashioned exorcism"
"Oookay, so how do we do that?"
"Well, this website lists one, but…I mean, they're all pretty long. And complicated. And in Latin. Plus, if you even mispronounce a word it can all go to hell in a hand basket. Literally. Well, possibly not the hand basket but you get the idea."
They sit in silence for a few heartbeats.
"Anyone here know Latin?" Scott jokes, half serious.
"No", Allison speaks up. "But Lydia does."
Shit, Scott thinks. They're finally going to have to tell her.
Lydia sits in her room, surrounded by her so-called friends, one of whom is currently sporting fangs, yellow eyes, and an extraneous amount of facial fair. She sighs.
"This is seriously what you were keeping from me? You should have told me sooner. God, you people"
Sure, they keep her in the dark after she's nearly murdered, several times she might add, all while telling her that she needs to keep quiet about it to protect Scott and Allison's little love-fest. But when Stiles is in trouble, well, then they tell her. And even that's only as a last resort; only because she knows both classical and archaic Latin
It's a good think she likes them. Well, Scott and Allison at least. The other two kind of weird her out with all their department store leather.
She flicks a hair away with one perfectly manicured nail and turns to her computer, swiftly clicking away.
Finding a good demon exorcism is fairly simple, which shouldn't be all that surprising what with t.v. nowadays. Lydia is almost certain that she could memorize the whole thing, but this is Stiles' life on the line, so she grabs a pink gel pen and some flower-shaped sticky notes and jots it down.
She swings around, curls bouncing, and grabs her least favorite Marc Jacobs leather jacket, cause this shit could get messy. Besides, Lydia Martin always dresses the part.
The group, or pack she supposes, is staring at her in part horror, part admiration. They look like particularly unfashionable statues, just frozen like that.
"Well, don't just stand there gawking, let's go exorcize a demon. The sooner we get this done with the sooner I can get back to teaching Prada sign language. Come on."
And she sashays out of her room, leaving them speechless in her wake, which, of course, was always her intention.
Stiles is pressed so close to Derek that his body is actually throbbing from the pressure, and under any other circumstances that would be unbearably hot.
But, as it stands, Stiles is bleeding out and also light-headed, even though he's not sure he's actually in his own head in the first place.
The demon has been, until this point, been presenting him with an endless stream of mental images, flashing them across his brain so that he has no choice other than to watch them unfold.
He's seen his dad die in more gruesome ways than he could have previously imagined, and Scott, Allison, and Lydia have all made guest appearances as well. Stiles is going to need some serious therapy, if he gets out of this alive. He's also never letting his dad out of his sight again, even if it means he has to become a police officer.
But ever since Derek got here, the visions have been of a different nature. They're alternately terrifying and titillating, vacillating wildly from scenes of Derek possessed and ravaging the town, unable to stop himself, to Derek and Stiles tangled up hot and sweaty in Stiles' bed, hands and mouths everywhere and damn it all if the demon doesn't add a bit of 3D sensory experience to those ones. If Stiles' hadn't lost so much blood he'd probably have a supremely awkward boner right now.
It's like the most heady, addictive pleasure he's ever known but spliced in with a physical and emotional pain so profound that he ends up begging in his own head, pleading with the demon to stop, only to be rewarded by scenes he'd much rather the demon wasn't third party to.
It's agony, worse than the scalpel, because Stiles will never get over the feeling of Derek, all skin, shaking apart in his arms followed by Derek being viciously killed by his own father after being possessed and killing half the population of Beacon Hills. He can't let that happen, can't let the demon get to Derek because so many people would die, or become werewolves and the Derek will be gone and no one will know what to do, and Derek would die. But before that he would have to experience the slaughter he'd brought down on the town, and Stiles just can't…he can't.
So he offers himself. He pleads with the demon to stay in him, tries to use logic, tells it he has access to guns and ammunition, he tells it he'll hurt people. He doesn't tell it he'll hurt them so Derek doesn't have to. The demon is intrigued, although not in the way Stiles' had hoped.
It starts rooting around in his head again, and it feels like nothing so much as a particularly angry, rabid hamster has been let loose in his skull. A hamster with a taste for brains. Haha, zombie hamster. And that's when Stiles realizes that he's really lost too much blood, here.
Images flash by, and they're all of Derek, which isn't a surprise, but the nature of them is. Before it was all sex and desire, but this time…wait, Stiles has seen these somewhere before. There's Derek at the bottom of the pool as Stiles swims down to get him, and there he is sitting in Stiles' Jeep, smiling…these are his memories. Not just random scenes the demon has conjured up, but real solid memories, and all of the times…they're all of…oh shit. Not that, anything but that, but it's too late now.
The demon leans Stiles body in, and that will never not feel invasive and wrong, and brushes Stiles' lips against Derek's ear. Stiles can't let this happen, because he wants to be the one to tell Derek, and he puts every ounce of effort into shutting his mouth for a change, but the demon slips past him like he isn't even there and whispers, "He loves you, too".
Stiles doesn't really understand the 'too' part, until he does.
Because Derek's face just drops, stunned, and a hundred emotions flash across his face. There's surprise, fear, terror, but also a longing so intense that Stiles' toes curl, and with it a tiny flare of hope.
And somehow, that gives him the strength he needs.
He slams forward, forces the demon to the back of his head, and feels a short rush of smug pride as he stares at Derek through clear brown eyes.
Then all at once the world is static, and the only feeling in it is pain. It's stunning, sharp and insistent, radiating from the crook of his right elbow, which feels like it's been flayed open with actual flaming knives. He gasps and his legs give out, eyes rolling back in his head, but someone catches him, and he remembers that he's still in Derek's arms.
"Derek", he mutters, but it comes out so soft and garbled that he's afraid Derek won't hear. But he does.
"Stiles? Stiles, is that you? Can you hear me? Are you hurt?" and it's all coming out in a terrified rush. Stiles manages a nod, and he can feel the responding tightening of Derek's arms around him, the rush of air he lets out, shaky.
He feels the strange sensation of sinking, and Derek must have gotten them on the ground somehow, because he's pretty sure he's in someone's lap, head resting listlessly on their shoulder. It's hard to tell, though.
There are lips pressed to the top of his head, and Stiles manages to tangle his fingers in Derek's shirt. Derek, who's trembling so badly that Stiles' body is shaking, too.
"You can't…" he attempts, ready to convince Derek that he needs to get out, now, that if he doesn't leave Stiles here the demon will take him instead. He needs to leave Stiles here.
But Derek interrupts him, shushes him with a voice that sounds utterly broken, and murmurs platitudes into his skin, things like 'it'll be okay', and a low, fierce, "I won't let it hurt you", punctuated by a constriction of his arms around Stiles that's a little too tight for comfort, but Stiles isn't complaining. "Scott's working on it," and there goes Stiles' hope for salvation, but he's probably got Allison to help him focus so okay, maybe, "He'll find something, please, just hold on, you can't die on me, I won't let it happen. I won't let it happen".
Derek sounds desperate, and Stiles knows the situation is bad, knows he probably won't make it out alive, and there are things he still needs to say, fast, because he can feel the demon starting to pull him back.
So with a supreme effort he lifts his head, looks at Derek and can't help but see Derek, how he looks demolished, eyes pleading with him to fight, to stay.
"If I die," he starts, and Derek presses a finger to his lips with a stern, almost angry "No", but Stiles keeps going. "Tell my dad I love him and I'm sorry, and just watch out for him, okay? Oh, and, also", he continues, suddenly nervous, which he shouldn't be because the demon already said it, "umm, about that thing…I mean, that it said. I, I do, I mean, I l- " and he's silenced as Derek leans in and kisses him.
Stiles sucks in a sharp breath and then goes with it, because this might be the last chance he gets.
It starts out soft, and he can taste the sorrow, taste it in the salty tears that mingle between their lips, and then it gets deeper, like they're being pulled together, and why was this ever something they resisted in the first place? It's slow and wet and sad, and it's the sexiest thing Stiles has ever done, which just figures considering how he's about to die. He just can't catch a break.
They start kissing harder, faster, desperation building as tongues slide slick against lips and teeth, and there's so much need, so much left unsaid, and they're kissing like this is the first and last, and the blood loss really isn't helping the dizzying effect, so Stiles just clutches Derek tighter.
And finally they're gasping apart, breathing ragged and heavy, and Derek is kissing him everywhere, from his forehead to his nose, his jaw, frantic with his affection, trying to fit it all in to the little time they have left, and Stiles can't hold on anymore, can feel himself slipping. Just before he loses consciousness entirely he feels the demon take over and bite down on Derek's lip so hard that the bitter tang of blood fills his mouth.
Well, he thinks, it was awesome while it lasted.
A/N: Ahaha, I freaking LOVE Lydia. Also this chapter was a little rough the first time around (I've been handwriting everything and THEN typing it up), but as I typed it somehow I started to edit things and it came out better than I was expecting. YAY FOR FIRST AND SECOND DRAFTS!
And if you can't wait for me to post Chapter 4, it's over on my tumblr at clandetinegardenias.
Thanks so much for reading!