AN: HIIIII. You guys have like no idea how utterly excited for this story I am. It combines my favorite movie with my favorite currently airing television show. WHOOOO. This is literally the most effort I've put into plotting out a story before I write it and it's been working out pretty well. In case anyone is curious, for this story there isn't really any relationships building, but there is a sequel planned and there are relationships in that one. And as if no one could guess, this is completely AU from the basement scene with Gerard on. ENJOY!

Shout Out: SHOUT OUT TO CHOAS BABE, who is beautiful and wonderful and offered me this plot ferret of hers to play with. You're brilliant and I like the way your mind works, girl. 3

Disclaimer: I don't own anything here. But it's still beautiful and please, feel free to worship. ;)

Stiles hit the ground, knees first, hands second. He barely had a chance to catch himself before there was a boot connecting with his side, sending him sprawling. His head hit against the concrete and he thought about what they'd say at his funeral. He hoped it wasn't something stupid, like the man had said for his mother; some bullshit about her being alive in a way no one else was. His mother had been alive in the very same way everyone else was and she had died the way 7.6 million people do each year.

Stiles wondered how many people were beaten to death in basements by crazy old men. That wasn't really something he could Google, but if he got out of there alive he was going to give it a shot.

Oh god, he wanted to get out of this alive. He tried to scramble to his feet, but Gerard laughed and another boot connected, this time against the side of his hip. He hit the concrete with a gritted cry and tried to roll away instead. A hand fisted in his jersey, hauling him back onto his feet, and he realized somewhere behind him someone was crying.

Stiles turned his head to the side and promptly lost his breath. Erica stared back at him with wet frantic eyes, her hair matted with dirt and blood and a long strip of black electrical tape over her mouth. Boyd just hung there, head tipped backward, but his eyes were open and glossy with panic.

What the fuck is going on, he thought. He wanted to rush over, to pull off the wires he saw wrapped around their wrists and get them out of there, but he didn't know how. He took a step toward them and was immediately yanked back to face Gerard, who was grinning at him from the bottom of the basement stairs.

"I wouldn't try it if I were you," Gerard said, grinning. A shudder traced down Stiles' spine and his heart went triple time.

"Why," Stiles said, throwing the word in his old wrinkled creepy face. He straightened his back as much as possible, but it was hard. He wanted to curl up and just focus on breathing. "Are you going to kill them?"

"No, just keep them comfortable."

"Are you going to kill me? Because that would be a really bad move, just so you know. Scott will find me, he knows my scent. It's really more of a stench really…" Stiles continued babbling on, his mind whirling. Gerard said the word comfortable, but he could hear Erica crying and under that the soft whine of electricity running through circuits. Gerard's idea of comfortable was fucking sick and Stiles wondered how the hell Erica and Boyd had even wound up there. He was pretty sure they hadn't been at the lacrosse game. What the hell were they doing in the Argent's basement? Did Chris know? Did Allison?

Another chill went down Stiles spine. Last time he had heard of Allison's hunter antics she'd be just as gun ho as her dearest, dead aunt. That thought left the taste of bile pooling in the back of his mouth, his heart stuttering in his chest, threatening to turn his breathing into a wrecked wheezing mess. Gerard's voice caught his attention again.

"That's a very vivid picture you paint there, Mister Stilinski. Let me paint one of my own. Your friend Scott McCall finds you bloody and broken, a message, and-"

Gerard continued to monologue and it was all Stiles could do to throw something glib back in his face. All Stiles could think was Scott doesn't even answer his phone, he's never gonna find him. He's never gonna find me. Gerard took a step toward him and despite an entire childhood playing superheroes and swearing up and down he'd never be scared of a villain, Stiles flinched back. It didn't help. Gerard grabbed him by the collar of his jersey and beat him until he couldn't feel his face, until his ribs were just one gigantic area of pain and his breath rattled in his chest. He probably would have continued to beat Stiles until he tired completely, but one of the hunter croons stuck their head in the door and told Gerard Allison was looking for him.

Stiles wondered again if Allison knew they were down there. He wondered what her mother would have thought of her now, this twisted, angry warrior girl who wanted everyone to hurt as much as she did. Her mother probably would have been pleased. Stiles wanted to scream at her, to shake her and say you're not the only one here with a dead mother but he doubted it would do any good. He lay limply on the ground as Gerard stood up, listening to the sound of his voice but not his words. He didn't open his eyes until the basement door closed behind the old man, but the second that happened he didn't waste any time.

There were no remaining hunters in the basement with him. He hoisted himself up, ignoring the pull of his ribs and the ache in his shoulder from where he'd hit the ground. He stumbled toward Erica and Boyd, fingers reaching for the wires around them. Erica made a small sound in the back of her throat, but Stiles didn't realize it was a warning until the shock laced through his veins.

"Fuck," he breathed out. His voice was hoarse and the word cracked in the middle. He shook his hand out, feeling the ever so familiar feeling of being useless creep up and take hold of his chest like a vise. "Fuck," he swore, because he couldn't see any way to get the wires off of the werewolves without frying everyone's brain. He crouched down to study the battery, still shaking out his hand. The floorboards above him creaked and he went still, breathing stopping all together.

Erica made another noise above his head, even more frantic than the last. The creaking continued, like someone was walking across the room above them. It was probably Gerard coming back from assuring his granddaughter he was killing the nasty teenaged werewolves. Or maybe lying to her that he wasn't. Fuck, Stiles thought, hands shaking, fuck, fuck, fuck.

Stiles looked up, but there was a darkness creeping around the corners of his vision and all he could see where Erica's wet eyes and Boyd's clenched hands. He tried to breathe, to keep calm, and he realized belatedly that he was wheezing instead of breathing. He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, blotting out everything, and tried to keep calm.

The darkness around your vision is just goblins, he told himself. They're not going to hurt you. Mom said so. Every speck of darkness that ever scares you is just a mischievous goblin. It was what his mother had told him when he was a child, curled up on his parents' bed and terrified of the dark. It was what he told himself every time he started to panic and the darkness crept it. It had stopped helping years ago, since he'd learned in class that the black around his vision was actually evidence of the lack of oxygen reaching his brain, but it was a mantra that he knew by heart.

The floorboards close to the basement door creaked and Boyd groaned something, a series of words Stiles couldn't understand. Stiles took his hands away from his eyes and looked up, wishing with all of his heart that there was something that could be done, some magic fucking carpet that could whisk them out of there.

A half-remembered story of his mother's clawed its way to the forefront of Stiles' mind and he went still. "Wish," he whispered. He stood up, knees weak, and fisted one hand in the material of Erica's shirt, his knuckles brushing her stomach through the fabric. He fisted the other hand in the material of Boyd's shirt, feeling his hands tremble against their bodies. Werewolves ran hot like furnace, but Stiles couldn't help but notice they were running a little hotter than usual, sweating and shaking, just like he was.

How long had they been here? Stiles swallowed roughly, focusing all of his thoughts on believing. Maybe it wouldn't be like the mountain ash and it was therefore just another stupid story his mother had told him during bedtime when he was a kid. He couldn't think like that, though, so he threw all his power into believing that his mother wasn't just another person wandering the earth, waiting to die, and imagined her as he remembered her, brilliant and laughing and alive.

Goblins, she said in his memory.

"Goblins," Stiles croaked. He blinked up at Erica and Boyd, seeing the confusion in their eyes, the pain and the fear and the desperation. He wondered if it was a mirror image of the riot of feelings in his own. He swallowed, darkness still creeping around the edges of his vision, and believed.

"Am I pack?"

Erica made a noise of confusion, but Boyd didn't. Boyd breathed, head dropping down, eyes closing momentarily. Boyd had taken Derek's words about pack seriously, Stiles realized, so he knew a little bit of the severity of what Stiles was asking. Stiles resisted the urge to shake them, figuring it would bother the wires and shock everyone again, but he wanted too. Energy was building in his bones, restless and aching, and he was terrified.

"Am I pack," he demanded. "You need to accept me as pack for this to work."

Boyd said something behind his gag as he opened his eyes, but Stiles couldn't understand what he wanted. Stiles reached up to rip the gag off, but there was too much sweat and his hands were trembling too much. Stiles made a noise of frustration in the back of his throat, the closest to a growl he suspected he would ever get, and fisted his hand back in Boyd's shirt. Erica stared at him, incredulous, but Stiles was scared that if he said his plan aloud it would sound too silly and he would lose hope.

"I have a way out of here," he hissed. The floorboards creaked and Stiles could just barely pick up the sound of voices from the other side of the door. Erica made a hurry up then noise and Boyd's knuckles went white with the pressure he was putting into clenching his hands. "I have a way out of here," Stiles insisted," but you need to accept me as pack. Please, just- nod if you agree!"

The door clicked and Stiles' stomach dropped. He hissed the words in their faces, shaking them a little despite his best efforts not to. A jolt went through his knuckles, but he didn't let go.

"Am. I. Pack?!"

Hesitantly, Boyd nodded. Erica nodded more forcefully, but the confusion was bright and thick on her face, clumped in her eyelashes along with her tears and the remains of her make-up. Stiles would have liked that they were a little more sure about it, but he didn't have any more time. The door swung open and someone from the top of the stairs said his name, turning Stiles' knees to jelly.

"I wish the goblins would come and take you away," Stiles whispered, barely enough breath in him to get the words out. For a very long moment, nothing happened. Stiles' felt his knees go numb and he started to sag, but then, all at once, things went straight to hell.

The lights flashed, bulbs blowing out one by one. The bulb directly above Stiles flashed out and someone shouted, from the floor above them, but Stiles didn't care. Stiles couldn't dreg up the energy to give two goddamn shits about what was happening above them, because the shadows were writhing and giggling, little shapes darting from one object to another. Something bumped into his shin and Stiles tried to keep balanced, but he tugged too hard on the material of his pack's shirts, only to find his pack was no longer hanging in front of him. He lurched forward, unbalanced, a scream building in the back of his throat, only to have something snag the back of his jersey sharply. His back hit the ground, knocking the air from his lungs in one neat rush, and he lay on the ground for a moment, eyes scrunched closed.

There was sand beneath his fingers. He pressed his hand against the ground and fought for breath. Behind him, somewhere to the right, someone chuckled and Stiles shot up, scrambling to his feet. He swayed dangerous for a second, vision swimming, before it cleared and he could see.

"Holy fuck," Stiles breathed, doubling over and pressing the scraped palms of his hands to his wobbling knees. He wheezed for breath, glancing up through his lashes at the man in front of him. He was tall, with a crazy blond hairdo Stiles was pretty sure had come straight out of an eighties fashion magazine. He was wearing a skintight black outfit, with too many spikes and sparkly bits for his mind to fully grasp. Lydia would have chewed him out for his fashion sense, Stiles thought a little hysterically. The man raised a single winged eyebrow at him, which drew Stiles attention to his mismatched eyes.

"You're the fucking Goblin King," Stiles wheezed eventually. The man in front of him snorted ineloquently, crossing his arms over his chest. It was a move that brought Derek straight to the forefront of his mind, which was a rather unpleasant thought. Derek won't be happy you stole his pack and wished them away, he thought wildly. A laugh bubbled in the back of his throat. He swallowed it down and tried to remember the right words needed to run the Labyrinth. His mom's story had been big on Right Words, he remembered vaguely. He just wasn't quite sure what they were.

"You're quite foul mouthed," the Goblin King mused. His voice was kind of nice, but also a little bit creepy. He sounded almost amused, which Stiles guessed was good. At least he didn't find Stiles annoying yet. "I guess I shouldn't have expected anything else," the Goblin King continued, "considering who your mother is. But still, respect would be nice. You are in my realm after all."

Stiles' head jerked straight up, his breath vanishing as his heart leapt. "My mom," he gasped. Of course, he thought. "She ran the Labyrinth."

The Goblin King gave Stiles a look he couldn't decipher, but Stiles didn't care. It made sense; his mother had to have gotten the story from somewhere. She had always told it with such vigor, such wild motions, such a soft smile… But his mother had been here. Stiles couldn't catch his breath no matter how hard he tried.

Stiles was so wrapped up in the idea that his mother had been here once that he almost forgot what he needed to say. The Goblin King didn't seem to mind waiting, though he took to leaning lazily against a crooked bare tree that stuck oddly up out of the sand. "I," he gasped. There was too much adrenaline running in his veins and he was tired and starving, having gotten too little sleep the night before the game and skipping lunch to research things that went bump in the night. "I have, uh, come to fight for the children."

The Goblin King raised his other eyebrow, until both hung like arching walkways high above his eyes. Stiles winced.

"What's said is said," the Goblin King drawled. "But you already knew that. You knew you would get a chance to try my Labyrinth to win back what you cast away."

"I didn't cast them away," the teenager snapped at him, straightening immediately. He would never, ever throw Erica and Boyd's lives away, even if one of them had charged him outrageously for a favor and the other had torn apart his Jeep to distract him. They were pains in the asses, but they were his classmates and Derek's pack-members. His pack-members too, dammit. His mom had never told him what would have happened had the child not been won back, but he always assumed the children wishes away and not won were turned into goblins. He didn't think Derek would be too happy if he came back with news that two of his betas were goblins.

"No?" The Goblin King asked, skeptically. "Still, it is highly unusual for children of such… Advanced age to be wished away." Stiles winced, because that was a you're skating on thin ice warning if he ever heard one. Control your mouth, dude, he told himself. It wouldn't be good for the Goblin King to stop finding him amusing and call him on his bullshit technicality. "Nevertheless," the blond man said, waving his hand lazily through the air, "mere curiosity and noble intentions do not change that you wished them away."

"Then I will take the test of the Labyrinth," Stiles said, shooting for formality and missing by a mile and a half. He gritted his teeth and fought to keep his tongue under control. "That's the game, right?" He continued with a clarification, just to be sure. "I win," he said, "and you give them back." The Goblin King's gaze fell heavy on his face, trailing up and down his body, accessing him. Stiles hadn't felt this weighed and found lacking since he had picked Lydia up for the Winter Dance. He swallowed. "I'm not leaving here without them."

The Goblin King pushed himself off the crooked bare tree and sauntered forward. It was a predator's move, his tall, thin body coming to tower over Stiles. Stiles looked up and tried to dreg up the fear he should have been feeling, but the sharp lines of the Goblin King's face were nothing like the wrinkled round edges of Gerard's and Stiles only had the energy to be terrified of one man a night. Besides the movement reminded him of Derek again, and he knew from experience Derek was almost always all bark and not bite. He obviously needed to spend less time around Derek if he was finding the predatorily movements of a powerful stranger familiar and borderline comforting. The Goblin King waved his hand and a clock appeared, floating in the air, its gold and ivory edges gleaming in the light. It had thirteen numbers.

"You have thirteen hours to reach the Castle in the Goblin City at the center of the Labyrinth," the Goblin King said. He sounded bored and excited and haughty, all at the same time. His smirk was a like a curled finger in a darkened doorway, everything you were told to be wary of but instead were just curious. "Or your pack-mates will become one of us forever. I suggest you get walking, boy."

The Goblin King then sauntered passed him and, between the space of one step to the next, transformed into a barn owl. He blinked at the creature, feeling something twist in his gut. Barn owls had been his mom's favorite animal.

"You know," Stiles called after the flying owl, "you're kind of overdramatic and creepy. Anyone ever told you that?"

The owl hooted softly and a warm wind pressed around Stiles, making his exposed skin feel cold and hot all at once. The air smelt heavily of spices and sand and something familiar and half-forgotten. Stiles surveyed the Labyrinth laid beneath him, squinting at the castle he could just barely make out in the distance. Stiles glanced at the floating clock, that had started going tick-tock-tick-tock once the Goblin King had flown off, and for the first time since making the wish felt fear sweep through him and steal his stomach down to his toes.

"Stop that," he told himself. He smoothed his hands on his jersey and readjusted the elbow pads he was still wearing. His hands almost didn't shake at all, now that he had caught his breath and wasn't being beaten by an old man. His stomach stayed in the vicinity of his toes, however. "How hard can it be," he asked the Labyrinth in general. No one answered. "I mean, Mom did it. If Mom could do it so can I."

Nothing moved except the wind. Nothing made a sound aside from the thump of his heart in his chest and the clock hovering to the side. Three minutes had been wasted standing on the hill trying to talk himself into moving. That was what kicked him into gear more than anything and he took his first step forward, quickly followed by the next. By the time he got to the bottom of the hill he had the song from that Christmas movie about Santa growing up stuck in his head. He made a face at himself, because if he ended up humming just put one foot in front of the other for the next thirteen hours he was going to go absolutely mad. He was so intent of his the placement of his feet and the song creeping through his head that he almost didn't notice the fairies flitting about through the air. The fairies corrected that problem pretty quickly.

"Ow," he yelped, flicking back from whatever had bitten him. He yanked his hand to his chest and came face to face with a flying barely clothed little woman with gossamer wings. "Holy shit," he said, blinking at her. She made a face at him before she darted into his face. He went a little cross-eyed trying to stare at her before he jerked back abruptly because she had scratched him.

"What the fuck," he hissed, back pedaling quickly. "What kind of fucked up demon fairy are you? Because I'm pretty sure that you're not supposed to hurt me, you little-"

The fairy darted in his face and took another swipe with her little claws. He reared back, nose flaring with pain that drowned out all of his other injuries. He started trying to swat the little fairy monster out of the air as he stumbled back, but she just giggled and ducked his arm. He reached up to touch his nose and his finger came away wet with a dot of blood. Stiles looked up, plans to squish that nasty little brat under his cleat firmly in mind, only to come face to face with twenty of them. He swallowed thickly and glanced at the wall in front of him, hoping to hell and back there was going to be a door somewhere in sight.

There was no door. The fairies swooped in and he yelped, throwing his arms over his head and taking off down the left side of the outer wall. Stiles figured he must have spent twenties minutes trying to duck the buzzing bitch squad and trying to find the stupid door into the Labyrinth before he completely lost it, tripping over the edge of a grumbling fountain and falling flat on his face. He scrambled back, the edges of the empty fountain digging into his side. He looked left and right, but the wall still held no signs of a door in sight.

"Oh come on," he shouted, batting at one of the fairies who had been darting in to claw/bite his throat. "Where the hell is the door into this Labyrinth already? Jesus Christ."

The fairies stopped, hovering in the air before him like a cloud of breast-possessing Satan-spawn mosquitoes. They shared a glance between them, several of them huffing in a kind of angry manner, and then there was the lovechild sound of a groan and a creak. Stiles turned his head and found that there was a huge black wooden door ten feet to his right, exactly where a door hadn't been twenty seconds before.

"You're kidding me," Stiles said, scrambling to his feet and edging away from the fairies. "All I had to do was ask?" The cloud of tiny bodies and furiously beating wings twitched which made Stiles flinch away from them and make a break for the opening door. He almost escaped without any more little scrapes and welts, but one last fairy managed to maim the shell of his ear as he tripped through the doorway and slammed into the far wall. The door slammed shut behind him and the fairies did not attempt to follow.

"I think I hate this place," Stiles said, to no one in particular. He stood up, grimacing when he found that the corridor he had leapt into was absolutely coated in glitter. There was glitter all over his shorts, from when he's fallen, and he tried to brush it off. He had no such luck and quietly came to terms with the fact that there was no way he was escaping this without looking like he'd spent the night in a gay club.

Huh, Stiles wondered. He wondered if I went to a gay club to celebrate and forgot my Jeep and got beat up by someone's jealous boyfriend was going work as an excuse with his dad. Probably not. It was a good thing he had thirteen hours to think up a viable excuse, because it was probably going to take that long.

Stiles took a good look at the corridor he was in and promptly groaned. There were no turns and no obvious openings that he could see from where he was standing, the whole thing stretching out as far as the eye could see. He vaguely remembered this being part of his mother's story, but he didn't really remember how she had gotten out of it. He picked a direction at random, turning left and taking extra care to avoid tripping on the glitter-soaked branches and uneven stones that made up the path. He had had more than enough of falling down and collecting bruises for the night and his journey was only just starting.