Stiles' blood is boiling in the car, heating like magma ready to burst. He floors it, driving recklessly through the streets of Beacon Hills and not even caring what would happen if he got stopped for speeding. He doesn't even hiss at the steering wheel pulling at his bloodied hand.
He isn't paying attention to the mostly empty road, mind too busy calling for Kate's death to focus on details like lanes or yellow lights.
Stiles makes it to the bar in record time and grabs his bag before he bolts out of his seat, slamming the door so hard behind him that he's surprised the window doesn't crack. He situates himself, absently clenching his bleeding fist to staunch the blood flow. Maybe he should have stopped to wrap it before he left, he thinks, considering things like DNA at a crime scene wouldn't work too well for this version of himself.
He shakes his hand out and heads to the alley next to the bar, not even attempting to get in the front. His fake ID got left behind in his time line, along with everything and everyone he loves. Stiles thinks about it bitterly as he rubs his thumb along his right wrist, activating his unlocking rune.
Stiles presses his wrist to the cold metal door, listening for the tell tale click before pulling it open.
Inside the bar, it's somber, with country music playing over the stereo. He hears snippets of conversations, loud, drunken laughter, and follows it out of the dark hallway.
He spots her billowing blonde hair as soon as he steps into the room. She's sitting at the counter, knocking back shots and smiling at the bartender. She leans in close to whisper something in his ear that Stiles is sure is absolutely filthy.
Stiles' palms tingle as he sees her, and he marches up to the bar without even thinking. She doesn't notice when Stiles slides up next to her in the unoccupied seat and orders himself a rum and coke, too busy eying up a guy across the bar that looks far too much like Harris to bring Stiles any comfort.
The bartender is quick to make the drink and drops it in front of him with a look. Stiles takes a sip, grimacing as he tastes only coke. He's not too put off though, he wants a clear head to murder Kate.
She eyes him curiously, smelling like cherries and vodka, her attention still mainly on Harris. Stiles leans close to her, enough to look like they're having a friendly conversion to an outsider, "For a hunter," he starts, smiling as her back twitches straight and the flirty expression slips from her face, "You sure aren't aware of your surroundings."
Kate turns around to see him fully and sizes him up, her eye twitching as she glares at him, and then she smiles and this one is wild and seductive and Stiles clutches the cup he's holding, "Oh, trust me, honey, I'm plenty aware."
Stiles feels a hand on his thigh and doesn't move to knock it off. His stomach feels queasy at the warm weight and he dutifully ignores the thumb rubbing circles in his inner thigh.
"Sure you are," he readily agrees and takes a sip of his drink, wishing for a burn to make him sound rougher, Stiles tries not to give the bartender a dirty look. "It's your job to be aware, right?"
Kate smiles again, and Stiles decides he hates her smile almost as much as he hates her, "Right," she says, and Stiles feels her hand move closer to his groin, a steady warmth, and he fights the urge to flinch away because his mind is screaming badtouchbadtouchbadtouch, "Anything you want me to be aware of," Kate leans closer and licks the shell of his ear, her hot breath fanning across the side of his face, "Honey?"
He wonders how Derek put up with being called condescending pet names like that, feels gross at the patronizing tone she says it with, and roots around in his bag to pull out three pictures from his envelope. Stiles drops them in front of Kate before leaning close and putting his hand on her thigh, but it's not seductive so much as a warning, nails digging into her like the claws he wishes he could have right now, "You could make yourself aware of those for me, sweetie ."
Kate pulls back, dislodging Stiles' hand, and she's still playing the game, still smiling seductively at him and letting her eyes roam over his shoulders as she flips them over. Stiles watches, almost sickeningly gleeful, as her eyes instantly pop open as she sees what's on them.
Stiles nods at her questioning glance, "I have five copies of those," he lies to her steadily, taking another drink. "I also have a copy of his texting transcripts, where you sext with Derek Hale and ask about his family."
Stiles still doesn't actually know what's on the transcripts, stomach rolling as he considers looking at them even now, but Kate doesn't call his bluff and Stiles' chest aches at being right. Kate picks through the pictures as he talks- her holding hands with Derek, her kissing Derek, her pressing Derek against the side of the wall and palming his dick.
"Did you know in the state of California age of consent is 18?" Stiles asks mildly, staring at the display of liquor behind the bar. He can feel her eyes on his face, her body practically radiating anger and terror.
"Did you know that as Derek Hale's swimming coach you are placed in a position of power over him?" Stiles tsks and turns to smile politely at her, but his face twitches and he's sure there's nothing kind about the look he gives her, "That's not gonna look too good in the court room, Kate."
Kate's mouth tightens and she looks like she's sucked on a sour lemon. Her eyes have an unadulterated fury in them as she glares at him and oh, how she must wish she could stab him as easily as she can burn a family of innocent people.
Stiles just grins.
"And, hey, wouldn't it be so weird if the Hale house caught on fire? God, that'd be so crazy. Right?" Kate flinches in place again, frozen as he leans close to her, "It'd be so easy to hand all of this over to the police, don't you think?"
Stiles wonders if you can actually die from the force of someone's glare, knows that you can't because Kate would be in the ground right now if that were true.
Kate doesn't threaten him or storm off, she just grits out, "What do you want from me?"
And it makes Stiles grin wider. "Ah, you're a to the point kinda gal," Stiles says tauntingly at her, but quickly lashes out and grips her wrist. It's a tight grip and she pulls to test it but her arm has no give. He pulls her close and says, mouth pulled back in a snarl as he hisses, "I want you dead. I want you six feet under. I want them to find your body in pieces . I want them to have to identify you off of your dental records."
Kate gasps out and tries to tug her hand away, but he heats his palm up, lets a small fire burn beneath his skin and lick at her wrist, lets her be burned like she's burned so many before, "Do you understand, Kate?"
"Fucking emissaries," She pants out in pain. Her eyes actually look scared and Stiles feels a warmth in his chest at her expression, at Kate Argent's fear. As more seconds go by, he can see red dance between his finger tips and blaze against her wrist. The air smells like burnt hair but no one pays them any mind, and she gasps out, "Look- I-I'll leave. Okay? Just let me go and I'll be gone. You'll never see me again, alright?"
Her voice is so panicked that Stiles almost believes her, but her eyes are hard and narrowed at him, fingers on her free hand twitching like she wishes there was a weapon there. Instantly, he lets her go, let's her think she's manipulated him and he sees the quick upturn of her lip before it's gone and she's grimacing in pain again. The skin of her wrist is angry red and splotchy. It looks like plastic, stretching and edging along the palm print indentation.
"I'd ice that," he advises helpfully and hops off of his chair. Kate's glare could melt silver, but Stiles just grabs the pictures resting on the table and shoves them back in his bag, not even looking back at her as he leaves the bar.
It's not hard to find Kate's SUV, parked on the other side of the bar hidden in the back of the parking lot. He kicks at the new tire, remembers sticking his pocket knife in it only earlier that day. Stiles runs his fingers over it, smiling as he imagines her face when she saw it.
Stiles is quick to unlock the car again, unsurprised that everything is exactly the same as he left it. He roots around, feeling the cool metal over his hands before grabbing a Desert Eagle. Its bar code is scratched off and Stiles smiles as he checks it for ammo. There's gotta be some poetic justice in killing Kate with her own weapons, right?
He locks the car again and flicks the safety on the gun off, making sure to keep it pointed to the floor as he rounds the SUV to crouch behind it.
Stiles stares at the gun in his hands, and he can't stop thinking about his dad's own rough palms as he helped Stiles learn to shoot in the first place. The Sheriff said it was for defense, that everyone should at least know how to operate a gun, and his hands are shaking as he wonders if his dad ever considered that Stiles would use what he taught him to kill someone.
He spends three minutes sitting there, staring at the gun in his hands, letting the cold air settle into his bones, before his phone goes off.
His eyes are murky and he answers the phone without even looking at the caller ID, voice thick as he says, "What, Alan? I'm busy."
"Kochanie," an airy voice breathes in his ear, and Stiles freezes at it, "Szczęsny, I'm so sorry, I-"
"Mom?" He asks, voice wobbling, "I- You were dead."
Claudia takes another deep breath in Stiles' ear and the entire world seems to breathe with it, blowing air into his lungs and he gulps on it, chokes back the tears that flood his eyes, "No, kochanie, I wasn't dead. I- keeping up my wards takes a lot of energy from me, I just didn't realize how much. Who do you think you get your anxiety from, Szczęsny?" She tries to laugh and a bubble of relief leaves Stiles' mouth with her, "It wasn't a good combination, I'm afraid."
He gulps, "Stiles said-"
His mom's voice is suddenly hard, despite how weak she sounds, "Stiles said a lot of things, kochanie. You should have seen the boy, I couldn't tell if he was crying out of relief or regret. He wouldn't go home with your father until I promised to apologize for him."
Stiles looks up at the sky and tries to wrap his head around this feeling, this relief inside of him. The gun is a heavy weight in his hands and it feels so wrong to be talking to his mother and holding it, but he's too stiff and his hands won't drop it.
"Mom?" Stiles chokes out, voice hurried and hysteric as he looks away from the sky and to the metal gleaming in his hands, "I thought I killed you. I thought it was my fault again. I-"
Claudia is quick to shush him, voice gentle and nurturing and everything Stiles has missed so much, "No, shh, kochanie, don't think like that. If anything kills me, it'll be this głupi cancer. Szczęsny, you're too gentle to kill, your soul is too kind. Don't put that on yourself, please drogi. Don't dampen down your spark with feelings like that, let it grow. I love you so much Szczęsny, and I am so sorry that you have had to lose me, but I will never be lost to you. My death will never be your fault, no matter what universe or time paradox you are in."
A laugh shocks itself out of his chest. Stiles' face is wet, but he doesn't remember starting to cry and he wipes them away with steady hands. There's noise in the background, and Stiles can hear his mother's annoyed sigh.
"I have to go now, kochanie, there's a nurse threatening me with Melissa if I don't get to sleep."
He laughs again, still feeling warm and light, and he says, "I love you, mom," into the phone with tears in his eyes.
When his mother hangs up, Stiles is left alone, crouching in a dark parking lot with a stolen gun in his hands. All of the anger and hate from a few minutes ago is gone, leaving him feeling hollow, carved open and pealed out of his skin.
The gun looks foreign in his hands, odd and out of place. He wants to put it on the ground kick it away, wants to go to the hospital and have his mother hold him and pet his hair, but there's a bang, and a woman's voice carrying scathing words to where he's sitting.
"-and then he just left! Chris, seriously, you need to get down here. Their emissary is out of control," Kate complains, and Stiles can hear gravel shift under her feet. There's a pause, then, "Look, you don't have to tell me that Allison's gymnastic competition is important, I'm the one who got her to sign up for the lessons, but this is possibly a life or death situation. She'll forgive you for missing one stupid thing."
Stiles' ears perk up at that. Chris didn't even know Kate was in Beacon Hills during the Hale fire in his time line, and now she's asking him to come down? Stiles hasn't gone through all of this bullshit to get rid of one trigger happy hunter just to set another one loose on the town. Stiles tightens his grip on the gun and quickly stands.
He doesn't even hesitate, finger pulling the trigger exactly as he turns the corner. Stiles sees Kate's shocked face blur into a sharp, painful cry as she goes down. Her phone goes flying, landing on the concrete with an ugly crack.
"You stupid little shit," Kate cries, grunting in pain as she reaches for her bleeding thigh. She lets out another string of curse words, eyes clenched tight when she presses her hands to the wound and hisses.
Stiles doesn't feel anything as he watches her, all the fight wrung out of him. He's tired of this, too tired to deal with Kate.
His hair stands on end, goosebumps running up his arms, and then, suddenly, there's a bright, white light to his left, and a black figure appears. Stiles turns, not knowing what to expect, only to see a familiar shape.
"Took your time, didn't you dear?" They say, voice still eerie and high like nails running across chalk boards. Stiles' eyes widen at them and he takes a quick step back, mostly out of shock than anything. "You've been back here for two months!"
Stiles tries for annoyed but comes across as apathetic as he shrugs, "You didn't really give me a lot to go on. I spent a solid month just tying to figure out what the hell you wanted me to do."
The timekeep waves a hand, "I told you. It's not my fault you weren't paying attention now, is it?"
"Why are you even here?" Stiles asks, ignoring Kate's gasp and pleas at the timekeep. She's offering him deals, offers him Argent protection, anything to get him to help her.
The timekeep doesn't even acknowledge her as they say, "You're at the fork in the road, dearie. Anything you do after this still guarantees that you've fixed what I needed you to."
Stiles feels dread curling around his spine and asks, "What's going to happen to me? After I deal with her?"
"Don't worry, spark, I'm not going to kill you," they grin, mouth wide in what should be a smile but looks predatory, "I'm going to help you, just as you have helped me."
Stiles glares, "I didn't exactly consent to helping you, did I?"
The timekeep doesn't look concerned with his anger, "I suppose not, but they're your pack. I assumed you'd want to save them, if given the chance." The timekeep pauses and finally turns to look at Kate, struggling to get to her phone. "As you can see, I was right."
Stiles steps forward, stomping on her outreached hand. She cries out, a pathetic warble and watches as Stiles reaches down to pick up her phone.
Chris is screaming into it, demanding answers, and Stiles has to pull the phone away from his ear to adjust to the volume.
He orders, "Talk to Melanie," into the phone, and hangs up on Chris' insistent voice.
"Melanie set you up to this?" Kate snarls from under his shoe. "I can double whatever she's paying you. She's a vinc- ah, shit- a vindictive bitch who's always wanted me gone."
Stiles lets off on her hand, frowns at her bloodied and bruised knuckles. He finds a thick rope in the car and he throws it around his shoulder.
Kate struggles when he grabs her around the armpits, kicking and clawing, trying to reach him, but he hardly feels them, feels more detachment from the situation than anything she's giving him.
He's quick to prop her up against a pole next to the SUV, even faster when he loops the rope around her and tugs it tight. She's thrashing all the while, screaming and crying out for help, but the street is empty at three am and there's no one to save her.
"Are you going to kill her?" The timekeep asks curiously, sounding both bored and delighted by the prospect. Stiles spares a thought to wonder if the double tinged voice is actually just one person, if it's two people trapped in a body. He doesn't think to ask since Kate kicks out and lands a sharp heel to his shin.
He hisses at it and staggers away, rubbing the spot where a large bruise is sure to form.
"I mean, you can kill her. If you want. That's always a viable option, don't you think?" The timekeeps' eyes glow golden, mouth moving too quickly for words to escape. After five seconds their eyes are white, soulless depths again and Stiles isn't sure which he prefers. "Your choice right now can create sixty eight new universes, if I counted right."
Stiles looks over his shoulder at her, teeth gritted and faced enraged as she tries to break Stiles' rope. Her thumb is bent at an odd angel and Stiles grimaces, assuming she's broken it in her desperation. He looks at her, and all he sees is Derek. Derek holding a picture of Talia so tight that Stiles feared it would rip, Derek planting Laura's favorite flower outside the house, Derek watching soccer games because Tarik was obsessed, no matter how much Derek himself hated the sport.
The face morphs slowly, pealing back layers until it's young and innocent, still filled with baby chub and a grin so bright that it physically aches, and Stiles remembers Kate smiling at that face even while she plotted the death of his family.
He thinks of Derek, of what he would want, what both of them would want, and frowns because they're two wholly different people- the choice is impossible.
His Derek would want Kate's head on a spike. This Derek would want to run away and pretend this never happened, let Stiles' story fall in deaf ears and have this entire situation go away.
Stiles reaches into his pocket and decides to compromise.
After he calls the cops and reports a domestic disturbance, Stiles fishes his bag out of Deaton's car and pulls out his envelope of evidence. It feels heavy in his hands, the weight of the Hale pack inside of it. He finds a crumbled piece of paper at the bottom of the bag and writes the names of all of Kate's accomplices, something he still remembers from pouring himself over the case files when this entire mess began, and slips it in the folder.
The timekeep watches him do this patiently, almost unnervingly still.
"Will the police find this if I leave it here?" Stiles asks him, Kate's violent grunts and curses almost drowning out his voice.
"I'm not a crystal ball, dearie," they say, right before their eyes switch colors again. "Time is ever fluctuating, I thought you of all people would understand that Szczęsny."
Their use of Stiles' first name makes goosebumps break out along his arms.
After a few seconds, the timekeep nods in confirmation, "It's 86.091% probably that they'll notice it," and Stiles leaves the envelope propped against the trunk of Kate's SUV.
"What is that?" She demands of him, hair sticking to her face as sweat beads down it. She looks like a wild animal, ready to bite through her arm just to escape.
Stiles considers ignoring her, but just her voice is enough to make his magic shake in his chest, and he shrugs nonchalantly as he says, "Just what I showed you inside the bar, plus some."
She sits ramrod straight at the words, and then she's struggling harder, tugging at the end of her rope with an urgency that Stiles can only think of as feral.
He takes her wrist, the free, unburnt one from earlier, in his palm and strokes it almost tenderly with his thumb as she thrashes out of his grip. It feels good, in some horribly sick way, to be in charge, to have Kate Argent on the other side of it all.
"The police will be here soon," Stiles tells her, and her face drops at the news, "And when they get here, you're going to turn yourself in, got it?" Kate's already shaking her head, voice loud as she demands him to let her go, but Stiles continues speaking over her, "You're going to tell them how you seduced Derek and planned to kill the Hales. Maybe you'll plead insanity, who knows right? I don't give a fuck."
"Why don't you just kill me?" Kate hisses at him.
Static runs along Stiles' palm at the words, hair on the back of his neck standing on end and Stiles wants. He wants to, oh, how badly does he want to. He wants to end her, watch the life leave her eyes but he can't. His mother's voice is in his ear, and he won't let her ruin him along with her.
He's going to keep shining and growing but he won't let his hate consume him. He's going to grow into a powerful flame, exactly like his mom had begged him. He'll keep balance, like Morrell and Deaton have taught him. He'll guide, like his mother and father have guided him.
He's a spark, but he's not going to burn like a forest fire. He's not going to destroy everything in his path, but instead he's going to get rid of the infestation so something new will grow, something full of life and goodness and wonder.
Stiles isn't going to let Kate Argent mar his soul, not when she's already ruined her own.
But Stiles doesn't tell her any of this. She's not worth anymore of his time or his words, she's already broken his life enough as is.
He lets the static thrumming through his veins race up her arms, doesn't even feel any joy as she flinches in pain, doesn't feel good about the gasp of agony she lets out. He lets it go after a minute and just walks away, leaves her sitting there panting in pain and crying, hoping she'll do the right thing for once in her life.
The timekeep is still there when he turns around, and asks, "Ready?"
And when Stiles nods, the world turns black.
Notes:
kochanie - sweetie/sweet one/sweetling
drogi - dear
głupi - stupid