You walk in a room to find that the only way to escape is by writing a name of a real person on a piece of paper. This will kill that person.

The being’s mocking eyes haven’t left Stiles ever since he made his announcement, voice full of glee and anticipation. The pack is growling outside, trying to bring the door down but he pays it no mind.

“So I just have to write down one name and then I’m free?” He verifies because these things aren’t normally this straightforward.

“Just one name,” the creature nods, mouth curling into a smirk that shows way too many teeth.

Stiles hums thoughtfully, biting his lower lip. It’s obvious that attacking it isn’t a viable option. Theatrics apart -Stiles doesn’t need it to flash it’s fangs at him this many times, thank you very much, he got the message with the first one-, the thing is exuding so much power that the air feels heavy and it’s difficult to breathe. Which makes it all good and dandy since Stiles doesn’t have any plans whatsoever to do something so stupid.

“So obviously they have to be alive to begin with,” he simply adds.

“That would be a requisite, yes” it snorts in answer.

“What do I write with?” The creature reaches to its own head to pluck a quill that’s so deep of a blue that nearly looks black and hands it to Stiles. The teen looks at it doubtfully. “Touching it won’t burn me or curse me or something like that, right?”

“Well, aren’t you a suspicious little thing,” it mocks and Stiles crosses his arms, refusing to take it until he gets a straight answer. It cackles delighted. “Not if you cover your hands.”

Stiles scowls, pulling his sleeves to cover his hands briskly before taking it. Then he approaches the walls and shudders when he sees all those names written on it in so many different handwritings. He wonders how many of those people took the quill with their bare hands and, spotting stains in various degrees of oxidization all around the room, he guesses that too many.

“Can I write more than one name? I mean, what if the name I’m writing belongs to a person that has died and I don’t know it?”

“You can write as many as you want so long they are from people you actually know, not know of.” It doesn’t take a very observant person to get that the prospect delights the creature almost as much as seeing a person struggle with choosing just the one name. “The quill won’t work if they’re already dead.”

Stiles takes a deep breath and then starts trying to write the name of every single enemy they’ve had (bar current allies, of course) since all the supernatural bullshit started in Beacon Hills. He may as well make sure that the Kate 2.0 fiasco doesn’t repeat itself, right? Then, when none of those names work, he writes the name of the asshole that has been giving them grief this time and watches satisfied as it appears on the wall.

Then he writes the name the being gave him after trapping him inside and explaining the rules, because why the hell not?

Stiles lunges backwards just before a monstrous claw embeds itself in the wall and then scrambles as far as he can from it. He needen’t have worried, though, because after that last attempt, the thing remains motionless. The pack erupts inside from the resulting hole in the wall and then just gapes. Peter pokes at the thing carefully and snorts, coming near to help Stiles up.

“I’m hungry, I want curly fries,” the teen whines.

“You’re always hungry, sweetheart,” Peter drawls.

“Wait, what the hell-?” Scott splutters confused.

“Don’t worry, Scotty!” Stiles exclaims happily, patting his head. “Everything turned out fine! Or it will when I get my curly fries, anyway.”

“But the-”

“Also dead. I wrote his name on the wall too. Curly fries, now! I’m starving!”

Before leaving unceremoniously (he cooked, so to speak, the rest can take care of the cleaning), Stiles wraps the quill in the handkerchief he steals from Peter’s pocket. It might come handy at a later date after all. Peter positively beams.

—

@mysenia, @ladypigswagon, @bxdcubes, @cywscross, @wordsformurder, @thisdiscontentedwinter, what’s your take on this? :) Up to a little challenge? Feel free to ignore ofc.

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@feelingsdusk: Oh, I adore this. Especially the part where Stiles keeps the quill and Peter totally approves.

Let’s see...

+

“So, let me get this right, I write a name down, someone dies, I get to go free and that’s it?”

“That’s it,” the creature across from him says. It’s lisping and Stiles gets the distinct impression that its mouth was not shaped for human languages.

He frowns at the blank parchment and quill set in front of him. “What do you get out of it?”

It hisses, a sharp, whistling sound, and crouches low, folding limbs in ways they should never be folded to lower itself to his eyelevel. “Agony,” it hisspers, “pain, grief, rage.”

Great. The things a goddamn real life dementor. Stiles Stilinski’s life, ladies and gents. Behind the thing, beyond the bubble of--- something it has encased them in, he can barely make out the shapes of his pack, banging against the barrier, trying to get to him.

In the past three weeks, seventeen people have randomly dropped dead, five of them closely followed by suicides of people around them. It wasn’t until someone refused to play hte game, until she got ripped to shreds and sucked dry, that they had enough of a lead to figure out what was going on.

This damn thing still got the drop on them.

And now Stiles has to choose someone to die. Someone he knows personally. For the first time in a long time he wishes he and Peter weren’t so damn good at leaning up the pack’s messes. Gerard Argent would look lovely on that parchment. As would a number of other names.

But they’re all dead now. They’re all dead and -

“You swear that I will get to leave here alive and unharmed if I write down the name of someone I decide should die.”

“Yes.” That hiss is going to give him nightmares, he can tell. “You have my oath.”

... and that was a mistake. With a casual shrug, Stiles plucks up the quill, dips it in the provided ink well and writes with a flourish. It’s a name he’s written a thousand times before, after all, even if it is something of a secret.

His name.

His own name.

The creature howls and twitches, screeches and screams and eventually, in a flash of magic - shouldn’t have sworn an oath, shouldn’t have missed that loophole, shouldn’t have been so arrogant, stupid fae - it disappears. The name sinks into the paper, contract broken because Stiles cannot be dead and unharmed at the same time, the barrier falls and the pack crashes to their knees as the resistance suddenly disappears, looking gobsmacked.

Stiles stands. “I can’t believe no-one thought of that before,” he remarks, patting Scott on the head as he passes him. “Anyone up for a late dinner? I’m craving Chinese.”