Archive of Our Own

“Did you have to cut one of your family members in half to fit all of you plus your stuff in the car?”

Derek jerked his head up at the voice, only to see a boy with pale skin and wide eyes staring at him from behind the elegant black fencing that separated their new yard from the neighbor’s. He had been trying to get away from the craziness that was his family for maybe ten minutes before his mom found him and dragged him back inside to finish unpacking, but apparently he couldn’t get away from anyone.

“What an odd thing to say,” he managed to spit out, voice high and accusing.

The boy looked unperturbed. “Not really. I’m just curious. Did you?”

“No!”

“Oh.” The boy, who was dressed in a captain america shirt and jeans, fiddled with a loose ball on the fence. “Well then how did you fit everyone in the car?”

Derek gave the boy a weird a look. “We didn’t. We put ourselves and our overnight bags in the car, and the rest was in a moving truck.”

“Oh,” the boy said again, and he sounded disappointed.

“Stiles, dinner!” A voice came from the house next door, and the boy, Stiles, winked at Derek.

“I guess I’ll see you later, moving truck boy.” And with that, he disappeared. Derek watched as the strange boy with strange words skipped away. He felt deeply unsettled, and turned into his own house unprompted. Maybe unpacking would be the best thing, after all.

Moving schools wasn’t the easiest thing when it was the middle of the year. It was easy for Laura, who was entering high school, but no one was very welcoming to a new eighth grader. Even Cora, who was only in fifth grade, had it easier. No one cared when you were in fifth grade, but once you were in middle school things actually mattered. And 13-year-olds could be mean: Derek would know, he was was one.

He was sitting alone at lunch, with his packed lunch from home that consisted of a turkey sandwich with cheese, when someone dropped their own sack lunch near him. He looked up to see Stiles again, this time dressed in a hulk shirt. “Hello again. I forgot to ask, do you have a name?” He sat down, opening his lunch bag and not even looking at Derek.

“Of course I have a name,” Derek said, irritated. “It’s Derek.”

“Too bad. My cousin doesn’t have a name. I find that all of the best people I know don’t have names.” Stiles took out something that looked awfully hairy from his bag, then shoved it into his mouth. Derek was pretty sure that he saw it move.

“You know, there’s a talent show coming up, and my brother and I are in it. You should come. I mean, I think the rest is going to be a drag, but we’re doing Shakespeare.” Stiles said Shakespeare like a pyromaniac might say dynamite, but Derek was intrigued nonetheless. “Think about it, Derek,” Stiles said, sliding him a flyer that stated Garfield Middle Talent Show at the top. “I take you for a man who can appreciate a little Shakespeare.” Stiles grinned and then took his bag back in his hands, leaving Derek to eat alone again and watch him leave for the second time in two days.

“Is it too early to invite the neighbors over for dinner?” Stiles’s father asked as they were all gathered in the living room, watching Erica and Boyd set up their guillotine presentation for the rest of the family.

“Well, maybe give it a few more days, dear. They did just move in a few days ago,” Melissa said, not even looking up from her potion mixing.

“I invited Derek to come to the talent show to see Scott and I.” Stiles mentioned, handing Erica a missing bolt that had rolled towards him.

“Did you now?” Stiles’s dad said, interest piqued. “That’s perfect, son! We can introduce ourselves and invite them over in person!”

“Great idea Noah!” Scott piped up.

“It’s ready, it’s ready!” Erica bounced up and down, trying to get her family’s attention. They all turned to her.

“We’re ready for you, darling,” Noah said, clapping once. The entire family sat at attention.

“This is our guillotine,” Erica said, brandishing her open hand towards the machine. She was wearing a sweet orange dress and ballet flats, and her long hair was in one thick braid down her back. She was tiny, even for a six-year-old, and her high, sweet voice filled the open room. “Boyd will demonstrate the sharpness of the blade with a melon.”

They all ooh-ed as the blade dropped and sliced the melon straight in half. “And now, I will take Miss Pennywise and put her on the slab.” She did so with her favorite doll, its light cream dress taking up most of the small slab. “And my assistant Boyd will chop off her head at my command.” She stepped back and Boyd took his position at the rope, holding it by a knot on the end.

Erica straightened her back and held her head high. “Boyd, chop off her head!!” Erica yelled dramatically, and Boyd let go of the rope. The blade perfectly sliced through the plastic of the doll’s neck. They all stood and gave a standing ovation.

“Bravo, children!” Melissa said, clapping enthusiastically.

“What a wonderful demonstration,” Noah swooped in and picked up Erica, twirling her around.
She squealed, and he stooped to hug Boyd. The eight-year-old’s cheeks pinked in response. “Now,” he clapped his hands together once to get everyone’s attention, “shall we play amputee charades?*”

When Derek’s parents caught a glimpse of the poster Stiles had given him as he had pulled it from his folder, they had immediately started making plans to go and see the show. So there Derek was now, sitting in a stuffy gymnasium with a makeshift stage next to his parents and his little sister (because for some reason Laura had already made friends? freak.) and trying not to be seen. Stiles had caught his arm before the performance and grinned wildly at him. “Come find me after the show, okay? I want to know what you think.”

Derek had merely nodded, watching the boy in his plaid shirt disappear down a locker-lined hallway. His parents had been delighted about his new friend and asked him too many questions about Stiles that he just couldn’t answer, so he was currently ignoring them in favor of the dimly lit stage and a boy in the grade below him belting out the lyrics to “Wonderwall.”

It had to have been almost the end of the show when Stiles and another boy, who Derek assumed was the brother Stiles had mentioned. His brother looked nothing like him, with dark hair and olive skin, but they both were sporting shakespearean-era clothing, and it looked really legit. They also both had swords that looked really awesome. “Are those real swords?” Derek heard his dad ask his mom, squinting to look at the program.

“Turn, hellhound, turn!” His brother said, wielding his sword.

“Of all men else I have avoided thee. But get thee back. My soul is too much charged
with blood of thine already.” Stiles said dramatically, waving his sword.

“I have no words. My voice is in my sword. Thou bloodier villain than terms can give thee out!!” He lunged, and Stiles fended him off. They fought for a while, the brother doing some impressive spins while Stiles rolled around a little. He managed to get a good slash in and his brother’s left arm slid off. Derek gasped along with the rest of the audience, but the boys continued, unfazed.

“Thou losest labor,” Stiles mentioned casually. “As easy mayst thou the intrenchant air with thy keen sword impress as make me bleed. Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests; I bear a charmèd life, which must not yield to one of woman born.”

“Despair thy charm, and let the angel whom thou still hast served tell thee, Macduff was from his mother’s womb untimely ripped.” The brother teased.

“Oh, accursèd be that tongue that tells me so, for it hath cowed my better part of man! And be these juggling fiends no more believed, that palter with us in a double sense, that keep the word of promise to our ear, and break it to our hope. I’ll not fight with thee,” Stiles slumped, defeated.

The brother waved his sword valiantly. “Then yield thee, coward, and live to be the show and gaze o' th' time. We’ll have thee, as our rarer monsters are, painted on a pole, and underwrit, “Here may you see the tyrant.””

Stiles grimaced. “I will not yield, to kiss the ground before young Malcolm’s feet, and to be baited with the rabble’s curse. Though Birnam Wood be come to Dunsinane, and thou opposed, being of no woman born, yet I will try the last. Before my body I throw my warlike shield. Lay on, Macduff, and damned be him that first cries, “Hold, enough!””

They battled even more intensely than before, and Derek saw a few people stand as the brother impaled Stiles with his sword right in his stomach, and Derek watched in horror along with everyone else as his brother lifted him in the air with the sword, blood pouring from the wound. His mother slapped a hand over Cora’s eyes.

The brother took a few steps towards the edge of the stage, causing the first few rows to be spattered with the rain of blood. His left arm still lay on the middle of the stage, limp. “Hail, king! For so thou art. Behold where stands the usurper’s cursèd head. The time is free. I see thee compassed with thy kingdom’s pearl, that speak my salutation in their minds, whose voices I desire aloud with mine. Hail, King of Scotland!”

Everyone stared at the stage, completely frozen, until some people in the middle of the gym to the left of Derek and his parents stood up and began clapping and cheering enthusiastically. Stiles and his brother both bowed and walked offstage, leaving the makeshift stage slick with fake(?) blood. The brother stooped to pick up his fallen arm before they disappeared behind the curtain.

“Well, uh, that concludes Garfield Middle’s talent show?” The principal carefully maneuvered her way onstage, face pale. “Thank you for coming. Don’t forget to leave a donation in our buckets outside the gym, all proceeds go back to the school.” She hurried off the stage, seemingly trying not to slip.

“That was...interesting,” his father said, his hand clutching the program so hard that it was crumpled in his fist.

“Let’s go find your friend, dear,” his mom said, and they all got up and made their way out of the gymnasium.

Derek saw Stiles and his brother talking excitedly with the people Derek saw give Stiles a standing ovation. Stiles turned slightly and saw Derek. Immediately, he turned away from his….family? “Derek!” He was still wearing the costume, fake blood shining on his beautiful costume. Stiles saw Derek looking and waved him off. “It’ll wash out, don’t worry.”

“I wasn’t…” Derek started, but was interrupted by Stiles again.

“So what did you think? I’m dying to know.” He pointed to the wound in his stomach, wiggling his eyebrows.

“It was very….Shakespeare?” Derek asked, and apparently that was definitely the right thing, because it set Stiles off again.

“Really? You’re not just saying that? Because that’s exactly what we were going for! A staged reading of the death of Macbeth just as Shakespeare imagined it...bloody, dramatic, and gory! Did you know that before theatre was huge in medieval england, they used to watch bear fights for entertainment? England loved violence. Probably why we’re such big fans of it today.”

“Stiles, who is your friend?” Derek looked up to see that Stiles’s family had migrated with him, all of them standing behind Stiles in a picturesque manner.

The man who had to be Stiles’s dad due to the resemblance had a single hand placed on Stiles’s shoulder, and the other wrapped around the waist of a beautiful woman with black hair that fell past her shoulders in ringlets. They would have looked incredibly normal at the talent show if not for their clothes. His dad had a tightly-fitting coal black suit with a blood red tie, and the woman on his arm was in a tight-fitting deep purple dress that dragged along the floor, and that was more lace than cloth. Stiles’s brother had come up beside him, their arms almost brushing (luckily, he had both of his arms back). He was wearing a lopsided grin, and it took Derek a second to realize that the boy’s jaw was incredibly crooked, almost unnervingly so. His blood-soaked shakespearean clothes only added to the off feeling about him.

A little girl had approached on the other side of Stiles, her long, wavy blonde hair almost dragging on the floor. She had a delicate pink dress on and was clutching a teddy bear in her hands. It took Derek a moment, but he finally realized why he felt so unnerved by her: her teddy bear had vampire teeth and a tiny wooden stake had been plunged through its chest. That, and a small but somewhat intimidating boy stood behind her, the look in his eyes dark. She didn’t seem bothered, just took his hand in hers without taking her eyes off of Derek and his family. The boy behind her was wearing all black, as if he was trying to drown in the color.

Derek thought that might be it before he saw a girl with porcelain skin and strawberry blonde hair walk up by the brother, dressed in a dark red dress swallowed by ruffles. She looked regal and important, her lips starkly red against her skin, though she couldn’t have been any older than Laura. Her arms were crossed. Beside her, a girl grabbed her arm and refused to look at anyone. She had a sharp jawline, sallow cheeks, and haunted eyes to go with her black hair. Her skin was painfully pale. She was dressed in a short black dress and black tights, her lips pursed tightly. She focused strongly on her black ballet flats.

Stiles, as per usual, seemed unbothered. “This is my friend I was talking about, Derek! He’s our new neighbor! Derek, this is my family. My dad, Melissa, Scott, Lydia, Allison, Erica, and Boyd.”

“Large family,” Derek said faintly, until his mother nudged him. “Oh, and this is my family, my mom, dad, and little sister Cora. My older sister is Laura, but she isn’t here.”

Stiles’s dad stepped out front, between Stiles and Scott, bringing Melissa with him, as he held out a single hand to Derek. “Enchanting to meet you, Derek. And your lovely family,” he inclined his head at his family. “We have been wanting to invite you all over for dinner, but wanted to give you a chance to move in and get settled before we bombarded you.” He grinned wide, and it reminded Derek so much of Stiles it was almost painful.

“That’s so kind of you!” Derek’s mom said, and Derek wanted to turn around and tell her how bad of an idea it was, but in no time she was accepting their invitation to go over for dinner next week.

“I can’t wait to show you my specimen,” Stiles said to Derek, nudging him with his elbow.

“He won’t fit in my new stretcher,” the strawberry blonde girl mused, looking consideringly at Derek. She directed her attention to Cora. “But she would.”

“Mooom,” Cora said warningly, her voice unusually whiny. But Talia wasn’t paying any attention to them.

“Can I show them our guillotine?” The littlest girl asked, and her question was met with murmurs of agreement. A guillotine? A stretcher? Specimen?? Derek felt sick. Dinner would probably be more than they bargained for.

By the looks on his parents’ faces and their hushed whispers on the car ride home, they had the same exact thought.

It was next week too soon, and Talia and Jared Hale ushered their three children over to their neighbor’s house. Cora pushed the doorbell, and it made an odd chiming along the minor scale, sending shivers up Derek’s spine. Melissa opened the door, smiling widely. She was wearing a long-sleeved, floor-length red dress, her black hair half pulled up. “Welcome to our home,” she said warmly, holding the door open for them all. Derek’s mother exchanged pleasantries with Melissa as the rest of the family looked around,

The house was surprisingly normal looking, except it had an odd feel to it, much like that of a haunted house attraction: the gift shop and lobby looked normal enough, but the rest of the attraction was filled with unimaginable horrors and darkness. It made the hairs on Derek’s arms stand up.

“Look,” Laura pointed up on the wall of the foyer, and Derek turned his head up to see a full lioness head, permanently frozen mid-roar. Above it were two spears, crossed in the middle, and to the right and left were black and white pictures, one of a man with a tiny lion cub, and the other one of the same man with his arm engulfed by the large lioness’s mouth...except it was alive.

“Uncle Blight. He heavily backed the presidential campaigns of the people who lost.” Derek almost jumped an entire foot in the air when Stiles appeared behind him. “He loved that lion, though.” Stiles looked at the pictures thoughtfully for a few more seconds before offering an arm to Derek. “Dinner is about to be served, may I escort you to the dinner table?”

Derek swallowed and nodded, taking Stiles’s outstretched arm. Laura and Cora were too busy at gawking at the rest of the house to tease him about it, but his father raised a single eyebrow at him. Derek turned away and pretended not to notice. Stiles was wearing a black ant man tshirt today, with black slacks and dress shoes. Derek himself, in his dark jeans and dark blue shirt, felt horribly out of place among the nicely-dressed Stilinskis.

The rest of the Stilinskis were taking their places at the table, and Stiles’s dad--Noah, his name was--Gestured towards the five empty seats near the middle of the table. “Please, sit with us.” The Hales carefully took their seats, Derek, Laura, and Cora on one side and their parents on the other. Stiles took the seat next to Derek and Laura was in the middle, but Cora was seated right next to the littlest one--Erica, Derek remembered--who was showing Cora her beheaded doll. No lie, it was creepy as hell.

“Allison caught dinner tonight, everyone thank her,” Noah said, eyeing the children. They all said their thanks to Allison, including the Hales. She was staring intently down at her soup, spoon clenched tightly in her hand. Derek shivered.

“Let us eat!” Noah said grandly, and they all dug into the large amount of food in the middle of the table, eating potatoes, goose, and many greens. It looked fairly normal, and tasted great, which made Derek feel a lot better. That is, until he picked up a piece of bread that had a huge ass tarantula grasping onto it. He yelped in surprise and dropped the bread. The tarantula scuttled to the other side of the table and into Lydia’s outstretched palm.

“That was my piece of bread,” she deadpanned, reaching out to grab the fallen bread. The tarantula clambered up her arm and rested on her shoulder, which was covered with a green shawl. It clung there, unmoving, seemingly to stare directly at Derek. He glared down at his food and took a few bites of the yellow soup, which he guessed was squash from the taste.

There was a little baby sat beside Melissa, his curls overtaking most of his head and his cheeks large. Derek learned that his name was Isaac and he was the newest member of the Stilinski family. He sat at his high chair, happily munching on popcorn, oblivious to the oddness happening at the table.

“So Laura, a freshman, is it? Allison’s the oldest in the house, and she’s a freshman, too. Do you two have any classes together?”

Laura glanced over at the silent girl, as if having to remind herself what the girl looked like before answering. “Um, yeah, I think so? I think we have gym together. Sorry Allison, I don’t quite know everyone in my classes quite yet.”

The pale girl looked up and flashed a smile at Laura so quick that if Derek had blinked he would have missed it.

“Her voice box is currently being held in the family vault because Cousin Bleep bet her that she couldn’t go long without talking.” Stiles offered as an explanation for her silence.

“It’s been six years!” Erica piped up, obviously very proud of her sister. Allison was blushing, obviously not used to the attention.

“She’s our precious little wallflower,” Melissa commented lovingly, shooting Allison a smile from the other side of the table.

“What is it you and your wife do, Mr. Hale?” Noah asked.

“Call me Jared, please. My wife and I are both lawyers of our own law firm.”

“Oh, lawyers, eh? Hale and Hale? My family has been in the law since before I can remember!” Noah said jovially. “I myself am an officer of the law, and Great Uncle Winston served time as a jail inmate for a while.”

“Well! I’m finished with dinner. Derek?” Stiles looked at him expectantly, and though Derek still had more than half of his dinner left, he wasn’t very hungry.

“Uh, yeah, same.” Stiles lunged for his hand, pulling him away from the table and up their large, winding staircase.

“Don’t burn anything down, boys!” Melissa yelled after them, and Derek didn’t like the way Stiles actually looked disappointed.

Stiles continued leading Derek around the house, and Derek was astounded by the amount of rooms. “Were you actually serious about Allison’s voice box?” Derek asked, and then wanted to kick himself for even asking such a silly question.

“Oh yeah,” Stiles said conversationally. “She really hates Cousin Bleep, though. Even though he died two years ago she still refuses to put it back in just to spite him. Not like she needs it anyway, she’s awesome either way.”

Derek didn't know what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything at all. The thing was, he didn’t doubt that that was exactly what had happened. He was starting to figure out that the Stilinskis were definitely something different.

“So how did you and Cora and Laura meet?” Stiles asked, finally pulling Derek into a room. The room was darker than he expected, with gray wood floors and grey walls. Two beds took up the two opposite walls, and an open closet to the left revealed an almost bigger-looking room behind it.

“What do you mean? We’re siblings, we met when each of us were born.”

“Oh.” Stiles was silent for a moment. “Is that how biological siblings work?” He was fully facing Derek now, his eyes serious.

“I...yeah?” Derek said, perplexed.

“Oh, cool! None of my siblings are biologically my siblings.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “Technically, I’m an only child. But Scott joined us when my dad married Melissa, and we got Lydia after that, then Allison, and then Boyd and Erica came together.” He looked around the room for a moment, a content smile on his face. “It’s better with all of us here.”

Again, Derek was at a loss for words, but that didn’t last long because Stiles was grabbing his hand again and pulling him into the adjoining room. “This is where my collection of specimen are!” He said proudly, flipping the light on. Derek gaped.

The room was lined with shelves upon shelves of anatomy books, bones and skulls, and jars of what looked like actual human body parts. “Oh my god,” Derek breathed, afraid that Stiles was about to maybe murder him and place his head in a jar. When he managed to look back at Stiles, the boy was inspecting a jar of eyeballs that were literally looking around the room. Derek wanted to puke, but he was a little too curious to look away long enough.

“Amazing, isn’t it? I’ve been building up my collection ever since Uncle Morbid gave me his old one. I’ve got the bones, eyes, hands, organs, and appendages to about twenty of our ancestors in this room.” Stiles was smiling, obviously proud of his collection. He turned to Derek seriously. “I used to have more, but Lydia and I sometimes like to pull stuff apart, so we just throw it out if we make it too messy.” Derek swallowed, wondering where they threw it out. He figured he would sleep better at night if he didn’t know.

“It’s quite...extensive,” Derek said instead, eyes wandering around the room.

Suddenly, Stiles’s eyes lit up and he took Derek’s hand in his again. “Come on, I think they convinced Laura to dissect Boyd.”

“What?” Derek said, but he was already being pulled behind Stiles to another room on the second floor, where the small boy that was always by Erica was lying on a metal table that looked like it was hospital-grade as Laura held a scalpel in her hand. Lydia stood beside her, a lighter in her hand. The rest of the Stilinksi children were gathered around the table.

“Ready?” Laura asked, voice shaky but excited.

“Yes,” the boy on the table, Boyd, said, voice unwavering.

Laura lowered the scalpel to right below his sternum and pressed down. Derek watched in utter fascination as the pressure drew blood, but the little boy didn’t even wince. Laura noticed as well, and took that as encouragement. She dug deeper, ripping down gently to create a long slice down Boyd’s body.

“What the fuck,” Derek said, knowing full well he wasn’t allowed to say that word and not caring one bit.

Lydia leaned in with the lighter lit, singing the sides of Boyd’s skin. The bleeding immediately slowed. Once Laura had finished the cutting, she held open Boyd’s skin so that they could all see his insides. Derek leaned in closer, and he could literally see his stomach moving, his veins pulsing, and the bottom of his lungs expanding and deflating. “Now you know what the body cavity looks like,” Lydia said seriously, looking at Laura. She just nodded, eyes glued to the open body in front of her.

“Who are you people?” Cora breathed, entranced by Boyd’s innards.

“Should we pull out his kidneys?” Lydia asked, looking a little too gleeful.

“Nah, I think the Hales have to go soon. Stitch him up and we can show them the guillotine,” Scott reasoned, and she nodded, pursing her lips. Lydia grabbed a curved needle and elastic thread and held them out to Erica.

“He liked your crosshatch the best.” Tiny Erica took the needle and thread and began the process of sewing up her brother.

“Come on, they’ll be done soon. We want to show you guys the guillotine before you have to leave,” Scott said, eyes bright and mischievous.

Stiles snorted and rolled his eyes, patting Derek on the back. “He just wants to impress you all.”

Twenty minutes later, the Hales walked back to their home. “Did you guys have fun after dinner?” Talia asked, her voice a little too high to be considered normal.

“Uh,” Derek said intelligently. His sisters were silent, probably still replaying the scene of Scott’s head rolling along the floor of his bedroom, jovially laughing at their faces.

“I didn’t know babies that can only crawl can throw knives with such accuracy,” Jared said calmly, “but….”

“Yeah,” Talia said, voice far away. Their children could tell that they had had an interesting time after dinner as well.

“And that swordsmanship…” Jared trailed off, looking slightly traumatized.

“Yeah.”

He suddenly turned to Derek. “I know you like that Stiles boy, Derek...but you might want to limit your friendship with him. I have a feeling it would be...unwise to continue to see him.”

Derek didn’t even object to his father’s assumption that he liked Stiles, he just nodded, keeping his head down as they entered the house silently.

His father’s warning didn’t stop him from meeting Stiles at the fence in their backyard an hour later, in the dark of night.

Or from kissing the odd boy silly when he told Derek how much he wanted him to dissect his heart.