Work Text:
Stiles Stilinski doesn't know much of the Argent family tree, but he knows one thing – Allison's great-grandmother was a bitch.
Because Gerard Argent is definitely 100% her son.
Stiles doesn't think ill of Scott's plan to split up and explore the five different locations that Gerard might be hiding (the rare liquid wolfsbane he was currently having shipped into the country in insane amounts was worrying. Finding him quickly seemed a great plan.) Splitting up is just the logical thing to do. Okay, so Stiles takes a little umbrage at not being put in one of the werewolf teams, because he hates the idea of slowing anyone down, but he swallows it, takes the blow like an adult would and moves on. Besides, Team Stydira were totally going to kick ass and take names.
Even if said team didn't really like the name Stiles had given them.
Some people just couldn't take concentrated amounts of awesome.
Stiles is just thinking that it's probably one of the easiest investigations that they've ever encountered when Lydia realizes that the ticking she's been hearing isn't a clock.
It's a bomb.
With just ten seconds left on the display.
They're too far inside the house and this is not a Hollywood movie. The device explodes before Team Stydira have barely managed to turn around.
When he hears the final click it's just instinct for Stiles to throw himself over Kira and Lydia. Not because his brain went to hey, there could be an off-chance my angelic powers might have re-manifested and we'll be okay! but mostly because bodily throwing themselves around to shield other packmates from danger was kind of a thing they did now.
Not that there was any sane chance of his fragile human body being able to do anything much to protect them. Maybe the part of his brain that acts instead of thinking thinks it's better to die squashed-a-la-Stilinski than impaled by burning bricks and cracked timber roof supports.
Whatever the reason, it's instinct that moves him.
He doesn't know it's going to save them.
At the end of the day, it shouldn't have saved them.
Shouldn't apparently doesn't have a dialogue with does. One minute, Stiles' universe makes as much sense as it possibly can, considering werewolves and banshees and psychopathic serial killers. The next and Stiles is right back in the grip of a living nightmare. One he thought had ended eight years ago with his mother's death.
One that should have ended with his mother's death.
As flaming debris from the explosion rains down and he locks his arms in order not to land too heavily on Lydia and Kira, his thoughts are screaming in agony. Please don't say Mom died for nothing, please don't say Mom died for nothing, please please please don't let my mom have died for nothing.
Maybe he should be thinking we're alive, we're gonna live in a joyful refrain, but…
Should. Shouldn't. They're about as obliterated as Stiles' calm.
The house thunders down on them, a flaming wooden structure smashing across Stiles' back, and something more primal deep inside him kicks in as the building collapses around them, smashing down onto him and not the girls underneath him.
He stretches his wings wider and screams into the pain.
After everything around them has settled, it takes a huge burst of power for Stiles to stand up, because they're buried under a substantial amount of rubble. He's got enough pent-up energy inside him to manage, sending broken bricks and timber every which way – but he nearly collapses doing it. His wings hurt and it's only when an ash-covered Kira bats furiously and futilely at his feathers with her bare hands that he realizes his wings are on fire.
Stiles flexes them in a ripple to put the flames out and he wishes he hadn't – the pain nearly sends him crashing to his knees. He puts his bruised palms on his knees and exhales into the burn of it until the worst of it goes away. Then he straightens, his spine cracking ominously.
Both of the girls look fine. But that's never a good measure of the situation in Beacon Hills. There are no more books that manage to quite so uniquely fail to match their covers than Scott McCall's ragtag, diverse pack.
"Are you okay?" Stiles blurts, his voice jagged. He receives blank stares. Wait. It's probably the wrong question. "Are you hurt? Physically?"
There's another moment when Lydia and Kira stare at him blankly and both of them shake their heads. Lydia's face is marked by two pale lines. Tears of relief, cutting through the dirt. Kira hasn't cried. She's too much like her mother for that. Her suspicion hasn't crossed the line into instant action, though – in all the way it counts the most, Kira takes after her father, the kindness more of a force of nature than Noshiko's badassery.
In unspoken agreement they stumble together over the rubble and out of the ashes, a ringing sound low and pervasive in their ears from the explosion. And of course, Lydia and Kira are staring at him the whole time, waiting for an explanation.
Stiles doesn't want to give them the explanation he does have. His throat's raw from inhaling the smoke and everything hurts. His wings are wrecked from the fire, maybe even broken from the debris showering down on them, and he wants to pass out again.
"So I'm kind of an angel," Stiles says tersely, not looking around as he staggers to the edge of the grass and falls to his knees, heavily.
His left wing's definitely not broken, because it curls around him. The edge of his feathers are blackened, scorched, and he feels the pain of it coil around his spine. His right wing flutters feebly, but the very fact that his wings aren't retracting back into his body is the sign that something's broken. He's numb right now, but he'll start to feel it when the adrenaline's worn off.
"How can you be kind of an angel?" Lydia demands, her voice carrying. There are hands touching him, gingerly, supporting his elbow, and Stiles looks up briefly into Kira's kindly face.
"There was a war. It was supposed to be over." He can't focus on Kira's concerned expression. It's too much. Stiles shakes his head. "If I've manifested again—"
"I really don't like it when supernatural creatures fade to black with their dialogue," Lydia grouches.
"I'm human," Stiles says, automatically, and his mouth twists wryly in an apology when Lydia looks hurt: maybe he shouted his protestation. "Well. Three-quarters. My mom was the half— Look, it doesn't matter. I need to get to Deaton."
"And of course my boyfriend's boss is involved," Kira says, frowning and pulling out her phone.
Stiles looks up, horribly aware of how dry his mouth is. His mom never mentioned hunters, but he'd been a kid. Maybe she'd just been keeping him safe. If Chris Argent found out what he was… "Who are you—?"
"Scott," Kira says. "The frickin' house exploded on us. I need to—"
It's probably been cold the whole day, but Stiles can feel it now, right down to the core of his bones and he's shaking. Scott. Scott. It's been a long time since Stiles' powers haven't been a dormant, tied thing inside him. He forgot how single-minded they made him.
Protect. Find the demon. Find the demon.
Stiles breathes through his tumbling thoughts.
"It's okay," Lydia says. "I think I'd feel it if any of them were—"
Finishing sentences is so last season, Stiles thinks, and laughs. There's a little bit of blood in his third choke of laughter. He looks at the splatter of it on the grass below, distanced from it.
Mom bled on that last day, more than any other day, bled into the chalice and bled over the bed afterwards. Too much for Stiles' small hands to push back into her body. Too fast for science to use any of its skills now all magic had been locked away.
She told him, sometimes, anioł, we must lose the highs to be spared the lows.
To lose the Others, they had to lose the angels too.
To lose the angels, someone had to pay the price.
Mom, Stiles thinks, and trembles.
No, wait, it's his phone that's trembling.
Lydia picks it out of his hand and hits connect, knocking it onto speaker phone and she holds it out to him like she's a journalist and it's her microphone.
His dad's voice is a whirlwind. "Stiles, where the hell are you— Scott says there was an explosion out where you are—Are you okay? Stiles?"
Stiles takes a jagged breath. "We're fine. But."
"Fine but?" The whirlwind turns into a hurricane.
Stiles voice croaks and gives out. He looks over at Lydia helplessly. She tugs back the phone.
"Does he know?" Lydia mouths. Stiles nods tersely. His face feels heavy. His chest feels heavy. Stiles is not the only one who lost her. "We got out. Stiles saved us. But his… wings seem a bit worse for wear."
Her voice is remarkably clear, although her wide eyes flicker at Stiles' face reproachfully a couple of times.
"Wings?" The sheriff swears under his breath. The phone's crappy speaker picks up the sound and amplifies it. "Cover him. And get him out of there before dispatch picks up the fact a bomb's literally gone off."
"Mom—" Stiles starts and his voice breaks. He shakes himself. "She always said to go to Deaton for help. I didn't understand back then, but now—"
There's quiet on the line for a moment. "I'll meet you there."
Lydia helps cover him with the spare blanket Kira keeps in the back of her car for emergencies and they drive to the animal clinic without much incident or much conversation. The silence continues as they hustle him in through the back door.
Stiles doesn't have much time to prepare an appropriate reaction. He's not sure why he's surprised that Scott and Derek are already there, faces pinched with worry.
He doesn't have time to try any sort of stupid I'm still human charade, though. Now his head's clearing from the sound of the explosion, he can hear the low bump-ba-bump, bump-ba-bump sound that used to make his mom freeze up when he was a kid and take him to the nearest graveyard.
Bump-ba-bump, bump-ba-bump.
Demon. There's a demon somewhere, walking the earth. At least one. Its evil heart is pulsing with dark energy.
Bump. Ba. Bump.
As soon as Deaton slips into the back room, Stiles avoids the gaze of the werewolves and drops the blanket, glaring intently at the vet.
As Stiles broken wings unfurl a little wider into the room, Scott makes a sound in the back of his throat like he's been physically wounded. Stiles swallows back the guilt. There'll be time for regrets later.
Unless this is worse than Stiles is anticipating and there is more than one demon and the war is back on. Maybe then there won't be any time for anything later but death and destruction and doom, all the alliterative Ds that Stiles doesn't want anywhere near Scott.
Deaton's focus on Stiles is intent, telescopic. "Can you hear any sounds? Anything rhythmical?"
"I hear a demon," Stiles says. There is no time to be melodramatic. "Maybe just one. Hopefully just one," he corrects.
"That possibly explains Gerard," Derek says, gesturing at a stunned-silent Scott. "He was at our location. Crawled up a forty-foot wall on hands and knees, faster than either of us." His eyes are impassive. Stiles looks away to see Deaton nodding. Yeah, Gerard summoning a demon into himself, sounds about right.
"A demon," Kira repeats, slowly and steadily, not as energetically the first time she said the word, the first time she spoke to the pack. She's always taken the supernatural world in her stride. She's calmer than she knows she is.
"Pissy things that make speeches and preen and think too much of themselves," a voice says from the doorway.
Kira, bless her soul, whirls around katana first – and keeps it aimed high even when they see who it is.
"Dad," Stiles says, offering him a weak wave.
"Pretty sure it's an offense to point a weapon at an officer of the law," Sheriff Stilinski says, closing the door behind him. His gaze lingers worriedly over the crooked feathers in Stiles' wings.
They should be white but they're covered in thick ash. Stiles' wings are black. Black like the potential future if Stiles can't find the demon. Bump-ba-bump. Even one demon could consume the world if it goes unchecked.
Kira still doesn't drop her blade. "Yeah, but the real Sheriff Stilinski would be pleased that he had a friend protecting his son. And if you're talking demons without pause, you're probably on the same page as me."
Stiles' dad frowns. "You think I'm possessed?"
"The powers of evil can take many forms," Lydia says, in her quoting voice.
"Sherlock Holmes?" Stiles' head whips around to her. "You're the perfect woman. The perfect woman."
Lydia eyeballs him coolly. "It's a pity I instated my no supernatural beings rule to dating last week."
Stiles rolls his eyes. "Yeah, well, my dad looks like he's going to kill me anyway."
"I do not," Sheriff Stilinski automatically insists, and then he pulls a wry face that mirrors Stiles' expression so perfectly, Kira lowers her sword thoughtfully. "I appreciate that. And I appreciate your immediate instinct to protect my son."
"Not that it isn't my immediate reaction anyway," Kira says, "but your son just saved our lives. In a manner you don't seem too surprised by."
"Claudia Stilinski was an angel too," Deaton says. "Half."
"Not just an angel," Stiles says, fighting the urge to wince as Deaton approaches him, eyes roving over Stiles' wings with a clinical expression firmly on his face. "The angel. The one that ended the war." His voice almost breaks when he adds. "At a terrible cost."
His dad looks away and Stiles' heart breaks again.
Stiles looks at Deaton. "Tell me that her sacrifice was worth it."
Deaton looks thoughtful. "Can you hear the choir, or—"
"No, just the demon," Stiles says. He frowns. "For now. Sometimes it was like that. Before."
"It's possible that if someone's found a way to raise one demon that the physically nearest person with angelic powers manifests. As a balance." Deaton shuffles. "I've heard of it happening, a couple of years back. Let me call my contacts. See what happened in that incidence."
Deaton starts to sweep out of the room.
"Wait," Lydia says. "His wings. They're broken. You're a vet."
Deaton sighs. "An animal vet." He looks over at Stiles. "Push the broken pieces together. They'll heal once the bones are aligned. Some pain draining wouldn't go amiss."
Stiles sighs as the door closes and winces.
"I can do it," Derek says.
"Pain draining?" Sheriff Stilinski asks, looking between Stiles and Derek.
"Werewolf gift," Scott says, his voice thick. "I'm the Alpha, I—"
"I'm fine with Derek," Stiles says, a little too fast from the stunned expression on Scott's face. Stiles is going to be apologizing for the rest of senior year at this rate.
The sheriff gives Derek a wary glance, then he looks heavily back over at Stiles. "Remember the... side-effect," he says, low and with a look on his face that clearly spells out trouble. Stiles' stomach feels hot and heavy. Stiles knows the consequence of touch when he's in this state. Stiles nods.
Derek swallows, steps forward, and Stiles can't do this, not here. Not in front of everyone.
"The storage room," Stiles says. Derek nods, follows him out.
The healing is necessary, Stiles gets that, but he hates that he's too weak to manage on his own, steeped in too much pain to be able to concentrate on the healing without it being taken away. It's nearly done, at least Stiles can say that. One of Derek's hands is still curled around the base of Stiles' wings, and one moves to his chin, and Stiles shudders at both touches. It feels far too much, far too intimate. Derek's eyes are hooded as he leans in even closer, his breath like flames against Stiles' skin.
"You're stronger than you think you are," Derek says. It takes Stiles a moment to place the words. Maybe Stiles had been babbling that he couldn't do this, couldn't do anything, not strong enough, never strong enough.
One of Derek's thumbs finds its way to the edge of his face, to the corner of Stiles' mouth, and it sparks a feeling that runs right up Stiles' spine, making him dizzy, making him lean even closer to Derek, closing the small gap. Derek makes a sound, like that's what he's been waiting for, and he pushes in close, his mouth almost against Stiles', their lips brushing when Derek takes in a slow breath.
Stiles steps back, miserable and hating. Hopes the others are discussing Gerard the demon, not listening in. This is all humiliating enough. With his wings on display he feels gutted, spread open. Vulnerable. "You don't want this."
Derek chases the gap, pulls Stiles in. Aligns their hips together in one graceful movement. "The evidence says otherwise, Stiles."
The evidence does, and Stiles trembles against him for a moment, heat pooling in his groin, and Derek's heavy, warm presence a tantalizing lure of relief.
"No," Stiles says, even though it's the last thing in all the realms that he wants to say. When Derek lifts his hands away and steps back, Stiles feels the loss keenly, like the moment when the war ended and his powers were locked away. He buries down the voice that says he'll be giving his powers up again by ending all this, by killing Gerard and sending the demon back to the depths of hell, but Stiles is okay with being human, he likes being human, and it's the gift his mom fought and died for, so it's what Stiles will fight for too.
He feels utterly miserable, and Derek looks wrecked too, uncertain and closing down, the way rejection makes Stiles feel inside. It's a miracle that Derek's even letting emotions show on his face, and Stiles hates everything; hates that it has to be like this, hates that he's given Derek emotional openness with one hand and he's taking it away with the other.
But he has to.
"It's the aura," Stiles says, looking at Derek straight in the eye, wondering if he looks as miserable and pathetic as he feels. "It happens when the wings are out. It makes people more amenable to me. More willing to do what I ask. And the more time you spend with me, the more you'll feel the pull. Mom used to call it our thrall. What you're feeling, it's just… extra angelic endorphins. And I'm sorry. I'm so sorry my body does that while I'm like this, it's not something I can shut down."
Derek stares at him with a remarkably steady gaze. Stiles stares back, helpless, hating. Gerard Argent is a demon and everything is horrible, terrible, horrible. And now there's this, Stiles getting the briefest taste of everything he's ever wanted, and it's just because of Stiles' angelic chemistry. Everything just keeps getting worse and worse. Stiles will have to help defeat the demon and go back to quietly pining after Derek, but the ache will be worse, because now he almost knows how Derek's mouth feels against his.
At least he's confident that the demon will be defeated, and Stiles isn't going to lie: the idea of finally getting to slide a knife into Gerard Argent's moldy, decayed heart is more than enough to make up for most of the crap.
Derek alters his weight from foot to foot, doesn't stop staring at Stiles. "Let me get this straight. This thrall.... It only happens when the wings are out?" Derek asks.
Stiles frowns, answers "Yes," and Derek's sudden, sun-bright smile makes Stiles' stomach pulse with slow-growing hope.