Work Text:
They get there too late.
"Mind if I ask you what you plan on doing if you find him?"
"Depends which Stiles I find," Argent says into the still silence of the office.
Derek can hear his telltale heart though; Stiles is a dead man no matter who they find in his body.
Normally Stiles smells like sweat and deodorant and teenage desperation. The Stiles before them smells like blood and rot and death.
The howling draws them to the right place but when they arrive there is only silence, except for a single heartbeat, slow and steady.
Lydia lets herself into the loft. "I'm coming with you," she says.
He eyes her, in her dress and heels, says: "Why aren't you with Scott and Allison?"
She rolls her eyes. "They think I'm losing my touch," she says. She tries to smile but her mouth curves downwards instead. "I want to find him," she says; "I need him."
Lydia stumbles forward. "What did you do?" she asks, sweet voice rising above the carnage.
The thing wearing Stiles' face smiles.
The moon retreats; the sun rises, painting the sky blood red. Backlit by the glow, Stiles looks ethereal, otherworldly.
When he looks up at them, his eyes are blacker than midnight.
Chris Argent's head is missing.
Lydia flicks through page after page of bestiaries and ancient texts and a million other untranslatable books, until she's rubbing her eyes and her head is dropping once, twice, three times.
"Get some sleep," he says to her.
"Not yet," she says and turns the page.
"It's not him," he says, voice low, a warning.
"I know," she says. But the look on her face says otherwise.
The ground is littered with bodies, soaked through with their blood. It pervades the air, the taste of copper sliding over his tongue. He looks at them as they approach. The faces are all familiar, even if the bodies are no longer their own.
Lydia chokes on a sob.
"There's something wrong with Stiles," Scott tells him.
"Lydia," Stiles says and tilts his head at them; "Derek."
His voice is hoarse like he's been screaming for hours. There's blood all over his face and hands, ingrained in the creases of his skin, crusted in half-moons under his nails. He reaches out to them across a sea of bodies.
"You should go," Stiles says.
Lydia stands her ground, looking up at what's left of her friend like she'll be able to figure it all out if she stares for long enough. Derek puts a hand on her arm: "Lydia," he says, "We have to leave."
Stiles looks at him, something flickering in his eyes like the real Stiles is pushing to fore for a second, and nods once.
He drags her away.
Scott. Allison. Isaac. Ethan. Aiden. Kira. Peter. Deaton. Melissa. The Sherriff.
They are the last ones.
"We could have helped him," she cries, we could have saved him.
She's crying, ugly tears trickling down her face, black lines smudged around bright green. She still looks beautiful.
"He let us go," Derek says; doesn't say: he would have killed us if we'd stayed.
She punches him in the face. He gathers her close as sirens echo in their ears.
There is no cure.