Stiles feels like one of those ineffective sidekicks in TV shows- the ones who always mysteriously break their leg or get called away on business right before the big end of season fight happens. God. He's season one Xander from Buffy! He doesn't want to be season one Xander! He wants to be season 8 comic book Xander. With the badass eye patch and the mad watcher skills.

Although no matter what Stiles wants, he is the comic relief.

Something ALWAYS happens to comic relief right before the finale showdown.

Which is why he's on the floor paralysed by Jackson and Matt is making some grand super villain speech like he's never seen 'The Incredibles' or any of the bond movies.

Derek is next to him though, and Derek is like; the real life equivalent or Angel or whatever. Broody and unable to convey emotions… hmm

He starts to wonder whom that would make Buffy in this little comparison.

Best not to think about it…

Stiles tries to shake the thought of Scott in some 90s mini skirt and platforms, before he mentally scars himself. The point WAS that a heavy hitter for the good guys (as questionable a good guy Derek is) wasn't supposed to be side kicked (in kind of a literal way as well as a figurative way, if Matt's boot to Derek's side had anything to say about it.)

Scott was kind of tied up (luckily in the non literal way) so Stiles holds out hope that at least someone is being useful somewhere right now in the quest to save their lives.

Jackson was guarding them, but Jackson wasn't really home right now so it wasn't like he would be paying attention if he tried to speak to Derek. And Stiles wanted to, if only as a distraction.

"What happened to the pack babies- aren't you supposed to be watching them?" Stiles asked, because Matt is kind of busy and Stiles isn't sure whether he should be praying for reinforcements or praying that they're safely locked away while the change rips them apart.

A link has severed between them since he drank the punch, like it cleansed his whole system. It's not like he's worried for them or whatever. He's not. He just likes to know where all the pieces on the board are.

"Isaac is dealing with them," Derek grits out like its Stiles' fault that he can't move and he left his pack to deal with their first change with his barely in control second in command.

"You What?!" Stiles squeaks out, because when has his body allowed him even a modicum of decency in the face of peril, but shit. Three out of control werewolves might be on the loose out there, terrorising grandmas or drunken teenagers with their claws. Or worse! They could be on there way here! As if the situation wasn't out of hand enough already.

"He found his anchor," Derek told him in the same irritated tone he told Stiles everything in.

"Something got the drop on me- I… I had to leave them." There was a certain amount of pain on Derek's face that the poison wasn't letting him hide, leaving his pack mates hurt him. Not just in a, 'I'm weaker without a pack' sort of way but a 'they might die and it will be all my fault' kind of way.

Or maybe Stiles is projecting, because, they might die and that would totally be all Derek's fault.

"What's Isaac's anchor?" he asks because there is shit all Stiles can do for anyone right now than compartmentalise and maybe keep Derek from killing himself with guilt. Also he's kind of curious. What would centre a kid like Isaac?

"…The memory of his father," Derek told him after a moment like he wasn't sure whether it should be a secret or not.

"That's fuck up" Stiles responded immediately without thinking, because yeah. That was incredibly fucked up. "God Isaac is so fucked up."

"Don't you think I know that!" Derek growled and yeah of course Derek knows that, Derek does live with him or whatever. Stiles could tell it was more than that though, Derek probably stalked the school looking for the most fucked up teenagers to ask to turn (because who would say yes otherwise, really) and he picked Isaac first because, yeah.

Totally fucked.

"Do you-"

"It's not any of your business Stiles, the pack has nothing to do with you," Derek snarled and Stiles shrank back as if he'd been hit. Great, even when they were paralysed Derek knew just where to hit it so it hurt.

Not that Derek had seemed aware of his pack 'bonding' or whatever with him through cuddles and mutual life saving, so it was just Derek doing what he does best. Being a dick.

******TW******

Right before Matt put a gun to Stiles' temple (with every intention of pulling the trigger) but after they had spotted Matt and Jackson cohorting at the party like a bunch of evil cohorters, it had just been Scott and Stiles in his jeep. Stiles had been angsting appropriately about trying to talk to his dad about the whole thing. After all even Stiles, who had suggested Matt could be the psychopathic murderer AGES ago could see it as a tough sell.

Stiles was totally right and was saving the moment to gloat because that was something to savor and the aforementioned psycho murderer being loose really took the wind out of his sails at this point.

Stiles wasn't sure that his first thought on the revelation of Matt 'Creepy photo stalker's little secret should have been 'I KNEW IT!" but it unfortunately was. Scott's wolfy madness had done something to his sane reasonable person and made him an unreliable erratic bundle of reactions. Which made him super useful in horrifying situations and pretty crap the rest of the time.

Scott was being quiet and unhelpful in the seat next to him since declaring the jeep smelled like blood (Boyd hadn't reupholstered the car like he had promised and Stiles was still a little too traumatised by garages to bring it up.) He was texting his mysterious someone again and Stiles could taste blood in his mouth from the way he has grating his teeth together in anger.

"Are you texting Derek?" Stiles had asked, because he had at that moment thought Derek might actually be useful in a fight to the death with Stalker boy and his pet Kanima.

"No" Scott snarled, Stiles was taken aback with such surprise that he swerved outrageously on the empty road.

"Dude! What the hell?!"

"We don't need him Stiles" Scott told him, eyes back to their usual puppy brown and his voice tempered out to his usual tenor. "We don't need any of them."

"Evil Kanima dude!" Stiles told him with maybe an excessive use of hand gestures considering he was raised by a man who considered; hands on the ten and two position was next to godliness. "Matt the evil psycho- why do you even have a pack if you're not going to use them?!"

"They're not my pack!" Scott bore his teeth and man that punch must have really packed a punch so to speak if it was effecting Scott the way it had Stiles, he was supposed to have a werewolf metabolism or whatever.

"Scott I thought we talked about-"

"No" he snapped "not Derek's. Not theirs!"

"Seriously Scott" Stiles snapped back and put his hand out in a useless attempt to stop Scott from starting the jeep. "Be honest with me PLEASE. Something's up. You can't hide shit from me- you should know that by now."

Scott let out a deep breath entirely through his nose and gave Stiles a tired sad look. "You don't need to know Stiles."

"Fuck that!" Stiles exclaimed

"Don't pretend you weren't about to drive us to my house and tell my dad about Matt! Putting him in a shit load of danger. I'm about to stick my neck out for you man- hell I'm about to stick my dad's all to human neck out as well! So a little honesty please!"

"It's Gerard" Scott admits like he had been dying to tell him. He probably had.

Scott was an uncomplicated creature by nature (wolfy little problem non-withstanding) and he had always told Stiles everything. Whether Stiles had wanted to hear it or not.

"He threatened my mum."

'What? That BASTARD!' were of course his initial thoughts, because while Mrs McCall might be the least proactive parent in the history of ever, she was still all aces as far as Stiles was concerned.

He needed to curb stomp his anger though, Scott could probably smell it and that wouldn't do for his wolf calm Stiles was sure of that. So instead he said;

"When was this?!"

"That night you were in the pool" Scott's voice was dripping in regret. Rightfully so. That was fucking AGES ago! "You got sick... I didn't think-"

"No. You didn't." Stiles said a tad icier than he meant to. Scott gave him a hard look in return.

"Stiles don't... just don't."

"Yeah, sure. You know Scott I NEVER complain about this kind of thing because-"

"I have a plan." Scott interrupts, and places a hand over Stiles' mouth to silence him, though doesn't move it when Stiles does quiet down. "Well okay it's not so much my plan as a... friends."

"Mmhvhet?" Stiles exclaimed incomprehensible and sets his angriest eyes at Scott. There's only one 'friend' who knew about Scott's situation and would offer up a plan. That damn sketchy veterinarian.

"I can't tell you more," and Scott looked miserable for it. Scott hadn't kept a secret from Stiles since he found out his parents were getting a divorce and he hadn't even managed that for a week.

"The hell you can't!"

"No really" Scott was all puppy eyes and sincerity "Watch. Stiles the plan is- mmmmmhphm" Scott's mouth shut and twisted uncomfortably like it had been stapled in the middle. No. Way. So. Cool.

"Your boss is an evil wizard!" Stiles exclaimed and there was something seriously wrong with him that he thought this was cooler than creepy.

"He's not evil…" Scott told him unsurely, "but you get why I couldn't."

"Sure, sure" Stiles huffs in defeat his mouth smoothing into a pencil thin line "… is it a good plan?"

"Super good" Scott nods like a bobble doll and Stiles eyes him suspiciously; his idea of a 'super good' plan and Scott's tended to differ in major life threatening ways.

"You have to trust me Stiles" he told him, even though Stiles had a hard time trying to believe him. Even though everything inside him was telling him not to.

"I trust you," he told him like a good best friend.

Stiles and Deacon would be having words.

******TW******

Matt had some manky skin problem going on, on the side of his stomach. Green, scaly and all kinds of wrong. Derek said it was his body punishing him for breaking the rules of the kanima. Stiles guessed Derek would know about that stuff, no one knew how to punish themself better than Derek did.

Derek had some ideas on how to trigger the healing process now that they were mostly alone, with Matt taking his grand little speech to the next room with Scott and the parents locked in the holding room. Gross ideas. Stiles had not been exaggerating when he said Derek was in to punishment, but maybe Derek was just desperate. Desperate to do anything that might help.

Or at least do anything that might FEEL like helping.

Stiles couldn't even do that, stuck impotent, wishing for something. Anything.

Then the lights went out. Smoke filled the room and there was nothing to do but breathe in, big dry gasps of smoke which burned right through his lungs. Stiles couldn't even cough. His gag reflex supressed like everything else. God he could die from smoke inhalation.

The smoke cleared and there was Scott standing like some angel of death as the smoke parted around him. They could partially move now and Derek had heaved himself up at an awkward angle.

"Take him" Derek commanded to Scott as if Scott wasn't going to, as if Derek was still (or had ever been) his alpha. "Take him and go!" Scott was already pulling at him with desperation when it clicked that Derek had pulled himself into a defensive pose, trying to shield Stiles from whatever was coming. As if that was even possible in his state.

He didn't get Derek Hale at all.

Jackson followed as soon as they started moving, leaving Derek behind. Small mercies that Jackson didn't stay to finish Derek off, but maybe Matt had never thought to command it.

There wasn't time for reassurances or soft words, but Scott whispers them anyway. Low and strangely intimate in the way he was holding and dragging him across the station. A babble of speech as if he were more Stiles Stilinski than Scott McCall. Things like "you're okay, you're okay" and "everything's fine Stiles, I need you to keep breathing okay?"

Jackson stops chase suddenly and jarringly as if they were no longer of interest. Scott sits him down in a chair in an empty interrogation room and cradles his face for a few seconds that he really shouldn't be wasting on face cradling. "I need you not to move" he tells him completely unironicly.

He takes a deep breath, and lets out a shaky laugh "you smell like Derek." His eyes are yellow and Stiles knows that that's not what he's actually pissed about because he runs his thumb over the shoe shaped bruise forming on Stiles neck.

He looks away sharply and breathes out. Scott doesn't have time to be worried about Stiles right now, let alone outraged on his behalf. Just like he doesn't have time to think about what happened with his mum, or how Stiles dad is breaking his thumb to escape the damn handcuffs.

Stiles doesn't make a joke about Scott's turn of phase because the words feel wrong in his mouth and even he knows when to shut up even if it doesn't feel like it sometimes.

He steels himself and promises Scott he wont move.

******TW******

Stiles moves, or more aptly crawls from the room because of course he does.

Scott has been his best friend forever and he should have known that telling Stiles to do something is like guaranteeing he will do the opposite. Plus Scott may not have had time to worry but Stiles has been paralysed for ages with enough time to think about how much he'll fall to pieces if his dad dies.

He'll fall to like a million billion pieces and not even all the kings horses and all the kings men would be able to put him the fuck back together again.

He crawls to his dad just in time to watch him be knocked unconscious by Matt and see Scott be pushed out of the proverbial werewolf closet in front of his mum.

Stiles doesn't remember much else about that night. Just that a lot of people were dead.

******TW******

The next day Stiles goes to the ice cream shop and buys himself ice cream because there needs be something sweet in his life. Stiles' dad never wants to let him leave the house again, but he's sheriff again and so busy he's up to his eyeballs with work so it's not like he's there to stop him.

The ice cream doesn't taste as good without Allison there to buy it for him and gently tease him about his love for vanilla. Allison is having an emotion break down and Stiles would love to be there for her but he's privately trying to come to grips with almost seeing all the people he loved die right in front of his face.

… well Lydia hadn't been there.

"You smell like sadness" Erica slunk into the booth and wrapped her arm around him. He didn't fight her on the gesture; it was almost comforting. She didn't feel like pack anymore. The wolfsbane and Scott's little speech had seemingly undone the threads woven into his soul that had told them they were right to be close.

Her arm around him didn't feel wrong though, so he let his head fall to her shoulder.

She was supposed to be in hiding, they were being called runaways. Boyd was probably waiting outside for her and this was her saying goodbye. In private.

"Did you have a rough night?" he asked her, because it would be ungentlemanly not to, even though he couldn't really muster the energy to care.

"It felt like my insides were being ripped out" she told him causally "but I hear you didn't have the best of nights either."

"The first part was good" he sighed, "I went to Lydia's party and she kissed me." He scrunched his nose at the memory because he didn't remember the kiss actually being any good, it felt like his mouth was being violated but maybe it was him projecting his feeling of the night onto the memory. She tensed underneath him, "I didn't really kiss back though- someone put something trippy in the punch- everyone was tripping balls for most of the night. It would have been wrong to take advantage."

She was quiet for a moment her breath uneven, "but… if she hadn't been drunk?"

"I don't know," he tells her honestly, like their friends or something. Maybe they are now. After everything. "It seems like I've wanted it forever- I don't know what I'd do with myself if I actually ever got what I wanted."

"You'd be really smug about it for a bit" she told him instantly, "maybe make some wrong choices for the hell of it, because you feel so on top of the world."

"Speaking from experience?" he asked her as if he didn't already know, he remembered Erica just after the change. He remembered her before as well and the happy medium she had finally reached- still a smug bitch, but now with less bite. Or at least a softer bite.

"Yes" she told him, and that one word sounded more vulnerable than anything she had ever said to him. Including 'I used to have a crush on you.'

"If you could do it again?" he asked and he stroked her hand without intent. He was a tactile guy and drawing the outlines of her fingers seemed like a good reason as any not to look at her face. See if what he felt was reflected back.

"I'd do it differently" she told him, her voice wavered like a radio station going in and out of range. "I'd be stronger… turns out epilepsy might have been the better… safer option."

"I'd never have known you," he told her and he looked up to see her face for that one. Finding the words to sting, finding he would be upset if he didn't know her.

"You might have," she said but it feels like a lie.

He still feels adrenaline drunk from the last few days, but he can't really blame that on the way he threads his fingers through her hair. Thick and curly and woven like coarse silk nothing like the way Lydia's had felt. He gives her just enough time to let her register what he's doing.

He brushes his lips against hers. Barely a kiss but she gasps into it and his bottom lip gets caught in between hers for a second before he can pull away. Her lips are warm and surprisingly free of gloss so it's not sticky or weird, just the smooth press or lips against lips.

"What will you do now you got what you used to want?" he jokes, not giving either of them a moment to recover. She blinks at him punch drunk and out of the corner of his vision he can see Boyd has come inside the shop, big and looming with sad resigned eyes.

He wonders when they became close, when Erica had started to shift into him and away from Isaac who wasn't even present. A whole separate entity now that the pack had fragmented into so many pieces.

"Maybe I'll be smug" she gave him a sharp smile but her eyes were light. She stepped up out of the booth and picked up the fancy glass bowl; which had once held his vanilla ice cream swirl and now had something more closely resembling ice cream soup. She twirled the spoon before raising it to her lips; her eye lips flutter in a way that's twice as sexy because he knows she's not putting it on.

She tossed the bowl to one side and it shatters into so many pieces. She grabbed him by his shirt heaving him up out of the booth, he barely had his balance before she was shoving him down onto the table pining him with her hand. The other hand moving and exploring his chest "I guess Lydia didn't teach you how to kiss, did she Stilinski?"

"I told you- she was drun-"

She cut him of with her lips, the same soft dry press of lips like before until she opened her mouth to suck his bottom lip between his lips. Mimicking the previous kiss, though it seemed a dirtier parody, her lips moving with intent but without finesse.

As if she had as much experience as him.

He shuts his eyes and his mouth goes slack, their tongues meeting for a devastating moment before she pulls back. Her face twisted into longing.

"Was that a kiss goodbye?"

"Yes."

******TW******

The field is empty and reminds Stiles of the dance, when Lydia and Peter were lone silhouettes against the light reflected onto the green. It is neither a girl nor werewolf on the field and Stiles can tell just from the curve of his back that it's Danny.

People have barely begun setting up for the game tonight and not even the coach is there. Just him and Danny.

Danny watches the green with reverence, like he's at church. If Danny believed in going to church, which Stiles doesn't actually know his opinion on one way or another. It's not as if they're friends, not like Stiles wishes they were.

Danny is going to play tonight. He always does, unlike Stiles. So it's not uncommon for him to show up with co-captain Jackson and run a few drills to pump up pre-match. Only Jackson isn't here and Danny isn't doing drills.

Danny without Jackson looks incomplete somehow. Not that Stiles has never seen them apart, they're not glued to the hip like Stiles and Scott are or even how Lydia and Allison are. Though in this moment, it seems wrong. Maybe it's just wrong because Danny doesn't normally look like he MISSES Jackson.

"Hey" Danny smiles, and it's a sad little smile he shouldn't be wearing because he doesn't know anything about werewolves or Kanimas. He has no idea about the things that keep Stiles up at night and he certainly didn't almost die yesterday but he still looks like someone kicked his puppy. Anger simmers in Stiles' stomach and he knows it's unjustified and unfair but it's burning in him.

Erica and Boyd have run away and Isaac only stuck around because Scott is apparently more persuasive with words than Stiles is with kisses. Gerard may or may not be controlling the Kanima and someone- possibly Stiles himself is going to die bloody tonight.

"Hey" he greeted back and it's colder than it should be. Would be. Could be.

It actually makes Danny stop because Stiles is usually on him like a rash when Danny deems him with his presence. Pestering him for something or just trying to be friendly (see: overfriendly.) Danny actually feels his palms sweating a little. Stiles is upset, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why. School might be out but the word's all over the halls about yesterday.

"I'm sorry," Danny blurts out and Stiles turns violently because nobody ever apologises to him. Even when he deserves it and he doesn't know what Danny could have done to him to deserve an apology. Probably something so miniscule it flew past Stiles anger radar like a mosquito.

"What?"

"About Matt" he prompts, "he almost killed you."

He's the first person outside of his dad to really mention it and it's a sad, sad state of affairs that the fact a boy held a gun to his head with real intent to kill him wasn't the worst thing that ever happened to him. Not even last night.

"Why would you apologise for that?" Stiles' head cocks and he knows he looks like one of those owls on the discovery channel who look curious but really aren't.

"Becccccaaaaauuuuse it's an awful thing to happen?" Danny says like a question in the face of his confusion. Stiles remains silent and confused and Danny shuffles from side to side and it looks wrong that Danny should be awkward. In Stiles' head Danny is some larger than life character to look up to, kind of like Lydia but in the same way, nothing like Lydia.

Stiles shouldn't make him uncomfortable. Stiles shouldn't make him want to apologise uselessly for things that aren't his fault. Stiles isn't supposed to inspire any kind of emotion.

"I used to have a crush on him" Danny reveals like a great big non-secret, like somehow Stiles wasn't supposed to know, even though Stiles has Danny radar and ALWAYS knows when Danny has a crush on someone, anyone but him. "And now he's dead."

"That sucks man" Stiles kicks the grass "maybe you should see our guidance councillor slash French teacher. She has wisdom man, lots and lots of wisdom. Figurative bags of it" Stiles waves his hands ineffectively, a parody of his usual one-sided banter when faced with Danny.

"I've already seen her" Danny told him, this time less like a confession and more like a fact, "I have issues."

"I know- I mean… you ARE Jackson's best friend" Stiles mock whispers the last sentence like it's a deficit to be cleansed "you'd have to be a little tapped."

Danny laughed "Jackson hasn't really had much need of a best friend lately" his arms stretch behind his head like he's relaxed or something.

He's wrong though, if Jackson was ever in need of a best friend, it was probably now.

******TW******

The field is a blur of colour and sound. People cheering and yelling and all the other people noises that accompany a crowd of fans supporting a team. Stiles is on some kind of high because he's got a stick in his hand and he's actually playing a lacrosse game for the team for like the first time ever.

Sure there are werewolf shenanigans happening and someone will probably die tonight and that someone could still be Stiles but that all melts away when he gets to play. In the crowd he sees a flash of blonde which isn't Erica but still sends a hot flush through his body and later he even see some red which is Lydia and sends him goofy and proud.

Gerard is in the crowd and Isaac is on the bench with Scott and that all equals very not good things. Which go from very not good to very bad when Isaac starts tossing players like he might toss about a basketball (not that anyone plays basketball anymore, maybe Peter Hale if that asshole was still breathing.) Stiles doesn't get thrown but half the team does.

Then Isaac is off the field, Gerard disappears like smoke into the crowd and Scott's eyes dart back and forth in indecision before he follows after Isaac. Stiles wonders for a moment of hysteria if Scott will regret the decision. If it doesn't get him killed Isaac might follow him around like an adoring little puppy for all time. The kid does dig the whole saviour thing, like woah.

Stiles keeps playing and he's actually getting good at it. Managing to score goals and take down the opposing team even with half of their team injured from a little 'accidental' friendly fire.

The clock is counting down and they're ahead and Stiles thinks, 'oh God this is it- life couldn't get any better.'

But then the lights go off. And they don't come back on for Stiles.

*****TW******

There's panic and screaming in the dark. A woman screams but it doesn't really matter. Jackson's torn into himself to serve as a distraction as Gerard slithers through the hysteria like oil in a drain pipe and shoves a needle into Stiles' neck Dexter style.

If Gerard had time and privacy he might take the boy down and apart the old fashion way, but he needs to be quick and more importantly quiet. Stiles falls apart like butter on a hot day, for all his bluster and obnoxious chatter he's quite serene when he's unconscious. Surprisingly light too. Gerard can lift him without any great stress to his back, in a simple fireman's carry.

Gerard wonders how his son would feel about him abducting the child, a friend of his granddaughter's. This child. This innocent.

He's not really innocent. The boy has so much potential really, all that he's done and learnt. All that he's managed to accomplish with the handicap of human.

This won't break Scott apart like if he had taken his mother but breaking Scott apart isn't really the goal. As fun as the prospect would be.

No this is about the boy.

******TW******

Stiles woke up to the smell of burning flesh and cement. Stiles had always prized himself on being quick to the update but his head was swimming and colours were blurring and dancing like if rainbow bright and her merry band of friends decided to drop acid. Sound weren't really real or complete. And an echo of half complete words and noises were knocking at his inner ear like they had something to prove.

He's face down on the floor and he had been at one point on top of the stairs rather than bellow, so that made an inventory of bruises to catalogue later. He feels like someone took steel wool to his skin, rubbing him raw and then rubbing deeper into his wounds until he was shredded from the inside out.

What a poor little damsel in distress he made, captured and now waiting to be saved. He could imagine himself in a pink dress and crown in the clutches of an evil wizard waiting for his werewolf-plumber to come save him.

That might be the concussion talking though.

He tries to move but he's shackled to the floor, spread out like he's ready and waiting to make someone very happy. Stiles tugs at the chains mostly out of reflex but there is not much give to them. Beside him, there is a table that has a variety of objects Stiles can't quite see from the floor, laid out like some fancy dinner set. The chair is a stool, too far away to use as a weapon.

In the corner two werewolves are chained and gagged to the ceiling.

JESUS CHRIST!

"ERICA!" he yells because he's not the one gagged (a real stupid oversight by his captors) "BOYD?!"

They're shaking their heads, like no, no. Which makes sense because who wants to be chained and gagged? Stiles is only chained and that pretty much blows. "I'm going to get you out of this" he breathes but he has no idea who he's talking to. If he's even talking to anyone at all really.

"They're trying to warn you to be quiet" a voice calls out, and Stiles knows its Gerard before he even looks. Who else would tie Stiles up in a basement like a total creeper (dead pedowolf non-withstanding.)

"They're a bit tied up right now if you haven't noticed" he mocked with a short laugh, crouching down and looking at Stiles with some sort of detached admiration. Like looking at a beautifully crafted piece of art that you don't quite enjoy. You admire it for the effort- not the product.

"What are you doing with them" his voice is shakier than he'd like and Gerard gives him a mighty shrug of indifference.

"For now? Keeping them comfortable. There's no point in torturing them, they won't give Derek up. The instinct to protect their alpha is to strong for them" another shrug, like it's no big fucking loss. Stiles has to steel himself from asking the million questions he wants to cause this kind of feels like the part of the movie where the guy winds up in prison and only gets one phone call (totally inaccurate just F.Y.I.) he needed to choose carefully.

"Then what do you want with me?"

The air is dead for a moment.

"Because Scott can find me, he knows my scent. It's pungent really more like a stench, he could find me even if I were at the bottom of a sewer covered in faecal matter… and urine."

"You have a talent for painting a vivid picture Mr Stilinski" he pulls a rag from his pocket and dips it in a liquid on the table "I've never been much a wordsmith myself." He balls the rag and stuffs it into Stiles' mouth, before securing an honest to God ball gag in place.

"I'm told you won't feel a thing" the man says as if he really doesn't care one way or the other. "Do you know the meaning of the word human sacrifice, Mr Stilinski? I'm sure you do. You're not second in your year for no reason."

He pets his face with warped affection as if he's proud of his achievement, the same unreal way he smiles at Allison when she does something he likes. "It's classified as the offering of human life to a deity. Not exactly what we're doing here- but it does cover the broad strokes."

Stiles starts struggling, because he knows it doesn't help anything, but it doesn't help anything to just lay there and take it like he's thinking of England.

"Matt was the first of three, human sacrifice you see is usually signified by blood being spilled, it's seen as a life source of sorts. They're something powerful about blood magic, but Matt had a clean bloodless death. It was an essential part of the ritual" Gerard stopped to admire a blade he picked up, "poetic though wasn't it?"

"Jackson was the second- the willing sacrifice… well as willing as a servant bowing to his master can be."

Stiles hadn't known Jackson was dead; the thought was somehow too terrible to conceive, even if he hadn't liked the prick.

"I wouldn't distress too much," Gerard stroked the knife across his cheek like a lovers caress, "the kanima wouldn't let a little thing like death stop him."

"Then there's you," Gerard lowered his blade and cut clean throw Stiles' jersey, the memory of winning the lacrosse match so far removed it felt like a dream. "I wouldn't despair over the wording there boy, human sacrifice isn't limited to just your understanding of the words."

Stiles' vision is blurring, his head stuffed with cotton.

"There's more than one way to skin a cat" the disembodied voice mocked and a boot connects with his head.

******TW******

Stiles wakes up a block from his house, on the side of the road. A new shirt but no shoes to speak of and no idea how much time has passed, he calls and leaves messages with everyone (his dad and Scott) in case anyone has missed him.

Author's note: I'm sorry this chapter took forever to get up, I had like the worst case of writer's block, but hopefully that's over and done with. I am currently in denial about anyone who may or may not have die in season 3.

Thank you to all those who follow and favourite the story. Especially; Dethia1101, AnAmbominabalSnowman, UnseelieDarkness, Undeniable Weirdness, kutoki, WritingJustToWrite, Red K 5, Strica, Guest, Mad Hatter Helsing , orionastro, ficwriterjet, othspnluver, JasperSaysRelax 2010, Canuck101, MRMAC, Hanako- Tenshi, WingsAndBoots, Vullinia, Guest (probably a different one), 13shiroyami, MagnusXXN, Tuggy08, himeko63, dreamer2322, Huntress-The-Temptress, won't be the Victim, brinaynay, Lady-x-Exorcist , Cut The Dotted Line and Reader. Thank you all for your wonderful reviews, I'll try to be you know prompt with the next chapter.