A/N: next to last chapter! just one more after this and i will have finally uploaded the whole damn story XD

The warehouse with its maze of precariously piled shit made Stiles exceedingly nervous. The whole thing gave him a bad vibe, alarm bells going off in the back of his mind even if he couldn't pinpoint why. As far as they knew, the place was empty of hostile parties, and they'd yet to hear or see anything to disprove that theory. There was just the pat-pat of his own boot soles on the concrete, the whisper of Dean's from across the way, and the occasional buzz of the singular light bulb as it flickered.

Stiles kept low as he crept forward along the wall, straining not only his eyes and ears but also that subtle sixth sense that was his magic. He let it seep out of him just a bit to radiate around him, reaching for things he wouldn't be able to feel otherwise.

It didn't yield him much in this instance, but he hadn't expected it to. He hadn't been lying when he'd told Sam that the fight earlier had worn him out. There were definite limits to his power, and what he'd managed with that other Djinn had been a pretty big feat. He thought even Deaton might be impressed to hear about it. But that meant that he was left feeling drained, exhausted, and there was still the dull throb of a headache resting behind his eyes hours later.

It meant he didn't have a lot of energy to spare for extrasensory reconnaissance. He could reach out a foot or two in every direction, which wasn't worth much, and all it really told him was that something with seriously bad mojo had been nearby recently. He'd already known that, so he reined it back in, falling back on the traditional senses instead.

He couldn't hear much beyond the beat of his own heart in his ears, but at least the light got a little better the closer he came to the center of the warehouse. And right underneath the source of it, smack dab in the middle of the giant room, was Chris.

He was strung up like a dead cow on a meat hook and he looked about half dead. Stiles just barely stopped himself from calling out Chris' name, some instinct keeping him quiet even as he broke cover to jog across the empty space to the man's side.

He was breathing. His eyes were closed, twitching back and forth beneath their lids like he was dreaming, but he was slumped over in a way that was probably hell on his shoulders where they were wrenched back and up toward the pipe he was tied to. He looked like hell, but he was alive and that was what ultimately mattered.

Stiles was looking for a chair or maybe a smaller crate he could climb up on to cut through Chris' bonds when a chill ran through him, goosebumps breaking out all over. He knew that particular feeling all too well and he threw himself sideways without hesitation, right as a flaming hand went whistling through the air where he had been.

All at once Stiles realized what it was that had been bothering him about the situation: the direction the Djinn had gone upon leaving. She had come out the front of the building and walked toward the back. The problem was there was nothing in that direction except more abandoned buildings. There had been no reason for her to go to any of those. If she had been trolling for new victims, she would have headed the other way, back towards town. She had only left that way because she had always intended to come back and outflank them.

The Djinn had pushed back her hood now. She was pretty and blonde, hair pulled back in a sensible ponytail, and blue tattoos crawled over every bit of her that wasn't covered by her nondescript clothes. As Stiles regained his balance, she locked glowing blue eyes on him and gave a snarl that would've made even Derek jealous.

Her next attack had Stiles jerking backward out of her reach. He lashed out with his bloodstained silver knife, but it went wide and she pulled back to circle around him again.

"Dean!" Stiles shouted. He tried to sound less panicked than he was, but his heart was pounding in his throat and honestly, in the four years he'd been involved in the supernatural world, he had never made that much progress in the hand-to-hand combat area. "Dean!"

"Save your breath," the Djinn said, far too sweetly for someone who still had blood stains on their teeth. "Your little hunter friend won't be any help to you now."

A thrill of fear ran through Stiles, somehow deeper than the fight or flight that had struck him before. He sent up a fervent prayer to whoever might be listening for that kind of thing that Dean wasn't dead, but he didn't have time to check when the Djinn was throwing herself forward again.

Stiles dove out of the way, hitting the ground hard on his side and skidding to rest at Chris' feet. At least he kept hold of his knife, brandishing it as he pulled himself up into a crouch. From his new vantage point he caught a glimpse of a crumpled form half-hidden at the edge of the crate maze, the familiar khaki green jacket marking it as Dean. As Stiles watched, though, the sprawl of limbs moved, twitching as Dean began to stir.

He wasn't dead. Thank all that was holy that Dean wasn't dead. But as much as a relief as that was—far more than Stiles would have expected, enough that he could have collapsed then and there—it didn't help Stiles in the moment.

The Djinn advanced on him, bioluminescent hands outstretched, and Stiles swiped at her with the knife. The tip of it caught her across the palm, slicing just deep enough to draw a thin line of blood, and she withdrew the appendage with a hiss of pain. Stiles took the opportunity to get his feet under him properly and edge sideways, away from Chris so he wouldn't get caught in the crossfire.

Dean was still out of commission for another minute or two, the Djinn was gearing up to fly at him again, and Stiles had zero confidence in his knifing abilities. But then again, that was never really what he had relied upon, was it?

"You know, I've been thinking," Stiles said, going for casual and unconcerned because that always seemed to throw his opponents for a loop, whether they were werewolves or wendigos or humans or genies. "Do we need all this fighting? I mean, is it really necessary? You want to live, I want to live, and the whole 'fighting each other' thing is sort of counterproductive if we want both our goals to be met. How about you let me take my friend there, I can come back with a few pints of O neg for you to snack on, and we both go home happy? How's that sound?"

The Djinn's eyes flared brighter, far brighter and more vibrant than any werewolf eyes he had ever seen, and she growled out, "You killed my son."

Fuck, there went any hope of a peaceful reconciliation. He really should've expected that. The research Sam had provided him with seemed to indicate that Djinn worked alone for the most part. It stood to reason that, if there were two Djinn in close proximity to each other, they were kin. Mommy Djinn had probably been still teaching Baby Djinn how to hunt and feed and avoid capture.

And Stiles had come crashing in to kill the cub and poke the fucking mama bear. Yeah, there was every chance he was going to die here.

"Okay," he said through a dry mouth. "Okay, I see why you would be upset by that. This—this right now is a valid reaction and I understand where you're coming from, but—"

The Djinn threw herself forward with another impressive snarl, catching Stiles in the side and sending them both tumbling to the ground. Stiles tried to pull away from her before they landed, but she had a hold of his shoulders and was digging her fingers in to keep from being thrown off. In a move Allison had taught him a while back, he hooked his ankles around the Djinn's legs and pulled them toward him, forcing her knees to buckle.

He used her sudden instability to knock her free of her perch and rolled them until he was the one on top. Then he had a problem: he was severely limited in what he could do if he couldn't touch her. One brush of skin against skin was all the Djinn needed to dose him with her venom and send him careening off into an inescapable lala land, which meant that trying to lay hands on her anywhere was a risk, even if he aimed for clothed areas. He should've worn gloves or something, and why hadn't they thought to do that in the first place?

His moment of indecision cost him. He was back on his ass in a heartbeat, arms pinned, knife skittering across the concrete and out of reach. This was it, the end of him, he was sure of it. He hoped Dean was recovered enough to get Chris out of there while the Djinn was distracted with tearing Stiles limb from limb.

Fuck, he wasn't going out like this. As the glowing hand raised up over him, Stiles delved inward, gathering up what he could of his magic. It didn't feel like nearly enough, the dregs of it sluggish to come to his aid when he'd already used so much in one day, but there was nothing else for it. He—

A dark blur came careening out of nowhere to ram into the Djinn's side. She let out a shriek of surprise as she was knocked over and Stiles was left staring up at the afterglow she left behind in his vision, too stunned by the sudden save to comprehend it. Then he heard Dean grunt in pain and he was scrambling to his feet in a heartbeat.

Dean was trying to hold her down, but the Djinn wasn't interested in engaging him. All her focus was on Stiles, the one responsible for killing her son, and Dean was just an obstacle toward her getting her revenge. Dean was a damn good hunter, but he was also clearly still rattled from his bout of unconsciousness. It was a matter of seconds for the Djinn to toss him off and come for Stiles once more.

Stiles managed to land a kick to her face before she could get a hold of him. He used the few seconds that earned him to cast around wildly for his knife, but it wasn't in sight and neither was Dean's. Fuck.

The Djinn grabbed him by the collar of his jacket, yanking him backwards until he almost tripped over his own feet. His flailing arm caught her across the stomach, giving him a bit of time to get out of her reach and also knocking the breath out of her. That didn't slow her down much, but Dean surging up to wrap both arms around her legs certainly gave her pause. That was, until she punched him in the side of the head.

As soon as his grip loosened, she was hauling him up by the shirt and throwing him. He hit the ground hard two meters away, the impact of it enough to rattle Stiles' teeth even from a distance, and he didn't bounce back up.

The Djinn advanced on him, hand raised, as she said, "I was going to let you live, hunter, but your interference is getting tiresome."

There wasn't time to look for a knife. Dean was curled around himself, gasping for air as she bore down on him. Allison and her arrows were outside, expecting to catch the Djinn on her way in or out and much too far away to help him now. The lady had to have given Sam the slip if she'd made it back here without him, so who knew where he was.

And now she was crouching down over Dean with blue fire lighting up her features into something unearthly and chilling, and there just wasn't time for anything else.

"Hey!" Stiles yelled, closing the distance with a few long strides. "I'm the one you want, not him. Well, you can have me."

He offered up his hands, ignoring the painful thump of his pulse and the way Dean groaned his name. The Djinn abandoned her quarry and rose to meet him, a vicious smile on her face. She reached for his hands, but he didn't give her the chance to take them. Instead, he lunged forward to wrap them around her throat instead.

He reached as deep within himself as he ever had, and pushed.

Coming out of unconsciousness was never a pleasant experience, but it was never worse than when it was accompanied by the nagging panic of knowing he'd crapped out in the middle of a crisis. Or in this case, at the beginning of one.

The first thing Dean was really aware of was pain, a sharp throb in the back of his head, but the next was a voice—Stiles' voice, distant and thin and calling his name. It tugged at him, a reminder that he was missing something important.

His first attempt at moving sent shocks through his whole body, the stabbing kind that made him want to curl up and never move again. His muscles cramped involuntarily and the coating of dirt on the warehouse floor made him cough when he gasped it in. He pushed through it; this was far from the first time he'd been knocked out in the middle of a fight, so he had more than enough practice in ignoring injuries until he had the time to worry about them.

The sound of feet on concrete echoed all around, the grunts and pants of a scuffle just out of sight. Dean gritted his teeth and rocked his uncooperative body sideways until he could get his knees under him, shoving himself half-upright.

Stiles was talking, a lot for someone in the middle of a tussle with a monster, but Dean couldn't focus on the words as his head pounded and his stomach rolled. The words didn't matter anyway; the tone was more than enough to spur Dean on, falsely bright and too high and just shy of panicked.

Stiles was trying to talk his way out of a knife fight.

The dumb kid was gonna get himself killed.

One more heave got Dean on his feet, swaying and teetering but decidedly upright. It took an excruciatingly long second for his vision to clear enough for him to take in the scene. Chris was exactly where he had been, bound and unaware in the center of the open space. There was a blood-tipped knife, probably Stiles', on the ground near his feet, too far away for it to be of any use.

Stiles was flat on his back on the dirty concrete floor. Straddling him was the Djinn they'd watched leave the building, the one that had circled back around so she could sucker punch Dean in the back of the freaking head. Even at a glance it was obvious that she had Stiles thoroughly pinned. He would never be able to get enough leverage to break free from there.

The Djinn reared back with a glowing hand and Dean didn't hesitate. He overrode his protesting muscles and threw himself bodily at the creature, crashing into her and the ground in quick succession. He tucked and rolled, pulling the Djinn along with him until they came to a stop with him on top. She let out a furious shout, struggling against the grip he had on her forearms, but he pressed his full weight down on her to keep her from pulling free.

It didn't hold for long. Djinn were damn strong, and this one was particularly single-minded. She was so fixated on getting back to Stiles that when she knocked Dean on his ass, she didn't even spare him a second glance. She latched onto the back of Stiles' jacket. The kid fell back, away from the knife he'd been lunging toward, and managed to whack her good across the middle.

It stunned her. Dean took advantage of the moment to scramble forward on his knees and throw his arms around her legs, hoping to knock her off balance. He got a fist to the head for his trouble, the impact to his already battered skull making him see fucking stars in the worst way possible. Before he could fight past his way past the pain, he was airborne. And as soon as he'd realized that distressing fact, he was crashing.

It rattled his bones until he felt like they might fall out. There wasn't enough air in him to cry out and his lungs spasmed as they fought to bring in more. It forced gut-wrenching coughs out of him, jarring his bruised ribs. Everything hurt and it was all he could do to curl in on himself, instinctively protecting his core from further attack. Not that the fetal position would help against a Djinn.

He thought maybe she was talking, but it didn't matter. The harsh blue glow of Djinn fire burned through his closed eyelids, growing brighter the closer it got. He wasn't sure what he was more afraid of, death or being sucked into another hellishly mundane Stepford world, but either way he tried his damnedest to jerk back out of the way. He didn't get far, but a shout stopped the Djinn from closing the last few centimeters between them.

Through the ringing in his ears, Dean heard Stiles say "it's me you want" and his blood ran cold. Then came his "you can have me" and the chill turned into a fear that wrapped around his chest like a vise.

Dean choked out Stiles' name, reaching out like maybe he could grab hold of the Djinn and pull her back, keep her from taking Stiles' up on his offer. He forced his stinging eyes open to see Stiles with his arms outstretched, both hands empty of knives and held palm up. Like this—no weapons, ratty jacket covered in dust, a smear of blood on his temple, eyes wide and scared—the kid looked so goddamn young, younger than he'd seemed since this trip had started.

He wasn't backing down though. His hands were steady as the Djinn approached, just waiting for her to touch him, to take him down one way or another.

No. No, no, no, this couldn't happen.

There was no way Dean could let Stiles sacrifice his life for him. The very thought of it sent panic roaring through him, a jolt of adrenaline strong enough to get him to his knees despite the way his every muscle screamed, because Stiles had to live. He had to get out of here, go back to Allison and his dad, find someone else to tease and smirk at, live his goddamn life. Dean wasn't worth giving all that up.

He would never make it. Even if he were in peak condition there wouldn't be enough time for him to intervene, to push Stiles out of the way or tackle the Djinn or anything to put a stop to this. There was nothing he could do but watch Stiles die.

Right before the Djinn made contact, Stiles looked over her shoulder at him. He made eye contact, just for a split-second, and it hit Dean all at once what Stiles was about to do. It should have been a relief, but all Dean could think about was how haggard Stiles had looked after the last fight, how tired he had been even hours later. That had been an adolescent Djinn, a child, and Stiles still wasn't recovered from putting that one down. Not enough to do it again, only bigger.

This wasn't just a trade of one life for another; it was kamikaze.

When Stiles wrapped his hands around the Djinn's neck, he went stiff, his entire body arching like a taut bowstring. The Djinn seized up too, limbs jerking and flailing as she fought to rid herself of Stiles' power. Her blue-gilded hands clamped down on Stiles' wrists but it didn't do her any good; his grip was strong and steady and no amount of tugging on her part could move him.

Stiles' face was lit up in blue, the glow of the Djinn's eyes reflecting in his own until he looked like he could've been one himself. There was something wild in his expression, something fierce and frightening in its intensity, and Dean felt strangely small in the face of it. There was a thrum in the air, subtle but growing, as the Djinn's struggles grew more frantic. Her flames flared higher, pulsing like a heartbeat, and while they licked their way up Stiles' arms, they didn't seem to burn.

As Dean watched, breathless and paralyzed, the Djinn's eyes began to grow brighter, just like the last one's had done. This one didn't stop, the hue ratcheting up by the second until it was almost white, the light bright enough to hurt Dean's eyes even after he was forced to turn his head away.

The Djinn screamed. There was a crackle and a boom like thunder. Then a soft thump and silence.

The moment between the last sound and when Dean forced his eyes to open seemed to stretch for an hour. The sick, hollow feeling in his chest insisted that he would find two bodies, that Stiles' pale skin would be blackened and smoking just like the Djinn's, and he wasn't convinced that he could live with the sight. But he owed the kid that much. If Stiles had been brave enough to sacrifice himself, then Dean could damn well show him the respect he'd more than earned.

But there was only one body. The Djinn was laid out on the cold concrete, blonde hair splayed around her like some kind of perverse, singed halo.

Stiles was still standing, but only just. He was shockingly pale in the bare light bulb's watery light and his hands hovered in front of him, shaking now without the Djinn's neck to steady them. He swayed alarmingly.

Dean made it to his feet through sheer force of will and caught him before he could tip over entirely. Stiles slumped against his chest like a marionette and Dean wrapped arms tight around the kid's waist to keep them both as upright as possible. Alarmed, he said Stiles' name, trying to jostle him back into wakefulness.

Stiles stirred, hands grasping weakly at Dean's biceps, and raised his head enough to look at Dean with wide brown eyes that were too glazed to focus on him properly.

"Are you okay?" he asked, like Dean was the one about to collapse. Like Dean had been the one to risk his life killing a Djinn with his freaking mind. Like it mattered to him that Dean was safe.

Dean had to swallow twice before he could get any sound past his dry mouth.

"I'm pretty sure I should be asking you that."

Stiles' eyes fluttered half-closed, but the corner of his mouth quirked up in a ghost of his usual smirk.

"Been better," he admitted, barely a whisper. "Worth it."

Dean's heart clenched in his chest, skipping a beat or two in what might have been the most cliche thing to ever happen to him, and he swore.

Before he could think better or talk himself out of it, he kissed Stiles. The kid's lips were soft and opened easily under his, the glide of them sweeter than anything Dean had ever tasted. It only lasted a minute but it settled something in him, that part of him that needed to know beyond doubt that Stiles was real and here and alive like he almost wasn't anymore.

He felt Stiles' shaky exhale on his cheek when they broke apart. It sent a shiver through him, the good kind that made him want to chase after that breath and breathe it in himself. Instead he leaned his forehead against Stiles' and let out a sigh of his own.

"You ever do anything like that again," he said, "and I'll kill you myself."

Stiles wheezed out a laugh and said, "I'll...keep that in mind...next time."

Dean pulled back, concerned by how haltingly the words had come out of him. The concern was swiftly followed by alarm when he saw blood beginning to drip from Stiles' nose, the bright red of it stark against his pallor. Before he could say anything, Stiles was patting his arm in a way that was probably meant to be reassuring.

"Not dying," he said, which wasn't very convincing considering he was leaning more heavily on Dean than ever and he couldn't seem to keep his eyes open anymore. "Promise. I'm just—"

He went limp.