Work Text:
"I can't do it."
Ignoring the panting boy who sat slumped just inside the circle, Peter lit the final candle, at the fifth point of the pentagram, then crouched in front of him as energy crackled around them and the ritual they'd performed began to take hold.
"You can."
"Too...hard..." Stiles glared up at the wolf, but it was a pitiful look, and his eyes quickly drooped.
Cupping his jaw, fingers caressing but tightening as well, Peter forced him to look up again. "It's all a matter of belief."
"You do it, then."
Peter snorted. "You're the spark. I'm only the conduit." His fingers squeezed even tighter, leaving marks that would bruise, but succeeding in eliciting the anger he needed the boy to feel.
Anger, frustration, desire, all provided strength. Any vivid emotion would do.
"Fuck you."
"When you succeed."
The blush that crossed Stiles' unnaturally pale cheeks was alluring, but Peter put his own desires aside and helped the boy to his knees. He was trembling from both the power building within him and exhaustion.
After the last battle with the Alpha Pack, which had been exhausting in and of itself, they hadn't taken the time to mourn. Four days of no sleep searching for something that might work, then, after finding this obscure rite that no one alive had heard about, two more of preparation. As a wolf, Peter's regenerative ability allowed him to function without much rest. Weak from his own barely healing wounds, Stiles was nearly asleep on his knees.
Yet...his will kept him going, kept him alive and awake, and would make this succeed.
"Believe, Stiles," Peter murmured darkly. "The ritual is done, the power has built, you need to release it. You need to force it to your will, make it do what you want. Believe."
"I can't...I can't, Peter. God, it hurts! It's too much." His voice rose to a near scream and his body jerked hard, head flying back.
Peter watched in amazement as red runes blossomed across Stiles' bare chest and arms, over his face and dipping beneath the waistband of his jeans. When the pattern was complete, his head came down and his eyes were solid white.
A shiver of fear ran through the wolf. He hadn't really known what to expect. No one had ever succeeded at performing this ritual. The few writings that spoke of it, stated it was impossible. It never worked and nearly always killed the practitioners.
But, together they'd decided the risk was worth it. He was worth it.
And Stiles was wild magic, pure in ways that defied logic, a new creature in the world. He himself was an improbability. A successful resurrection through the mind of an anomaly, the blood of the Alpha who'd killed him, and the worm moon. If anyone could do the impossible...
Extending his claws, he cut deep rivulets down one arm and pressed the blood across Stiles' heart.
The power exploded from the boy, through the wolf, into the body in the center of the pentagram.
Dead for a week, Derek took a shuddering breath.
End