Chapter Text
The first thing that pops in my mind the moment I wake up is that this isn’t my room and I would not buy that wallpaper. A few minutes later, however, while still in morning daze, I realize this was my room, but not. My favorite wall posters and Aqualung CDs were not plastered at the opposite side of the wall, and the board where I track Beacon Hill’s mysteries with my tri-colored strings is also gone.
I jumble awake upon the realization, taking a quick scan of my room and inhaling the variations. This is definitely my room, with minuscule changes. Like, a lot of it. Did dad redesigned my room, overnight, without my notice?
Confusion strikes my head, and it hurts just trying to think so I tried not to. It’s early, anyway.
The only sound that can be heard as I walk towards the kitchen is my own wary footsteps. The clock says Dad should be getting ready to go to the station by now yet the house remain silent, as if on mute.
“Dad?” I call out.
My heart starts pounding, as if it knows something I don’t. And then something in my mind flickers. Something. But it’s gone before I even have the time to process it. Then, I hear Dad’s heavy footsteps descending the stairs. I exhale a breath I didn’t even realize I was holding.
“I was expecting breakfast, Dad,” I smile up at him but he simply stare back blankly, as if he doesn’t expect me to be there. His looks changed too; his creases more evident, brow furrowed tiredly, and eyes suggesting he hasn’t been sleeping well.
“Dad?”
He smiles, sadly, almost apologetically. And then he’s gone, going for the door without uttering a word.
My confusion spikes even further, and I can’t help the feeling of unease building in my stomach. Suddenly everything feels wrong, and at the same time, right. It’s like I’m here but I’m not supposed to be here, and yet there’s nowhere else to be.
o0o
“Dude, life and everyone and everything in it is being extraordinarily weird since this morning. That’s coming from me, as if I haven’t seen enough weird in this lifetime. But this is borderline weird, Scott,” I start as soon as I put down my tray at the table where I spotted my best friend.
“Why are we sitting here?” We stopped sitting here after first year, after Allison’s death.
“Anyway, so, I woke up this morning and my room have changed. Like, tiny traces of my personality that is supposed to be reflected in my room is gone. My house looks and feels like it has been renovated by an old widower. And the board is gone too, months of hard work gone missing. Probably Dad took it away so I have to talk to him,” I try not to remember the way dad looked this morning.
I was starting to unwrap the cheap sandwich I bought when I notice Scott hasn’t moved in his seat all.
“Stiles…Stiles, right?” He finally says, oddly confident except for the repetition of my name.
“No, dude. I’m Scott, you’re Stiles,” I try my best to glare as I take a large bite of my sandwich.
“Uhm, why…why are you sitting here?”
The question startles me, so I try taking it as just another weird thing to add on top of this ever growing day’s weird list. “Because you’re sitting here?” Suddenly, I feel unsure.
Scott’s face is as confused as he probably is. People are also starting to stare at us. Scott makes a face, the one he often use when he knows he’s going to offend but he’s still avoiding not to, “We don’t sit together, dude. I don’t, I don’t even know you. At least…not anymore.”
His words hasn’t even started sinking in yet when someone sits beside him. Someone who’s definitely not supposed to be there that it sends me scrambling away from the table, my half-eaten sandwich flying away somewhere I can’t care about right now.
“ALLISON?!”
Allison Argent. She’s alive and healthy and she’s sitting beside Scott. She has the confused look on her face that I’m sure is the same with me, Scott, and apparently everyone around us.
The last time I saw her was at her funeral, with all the flowers and snow and the feeling of extreme loss. She became an unfillable hole in our hearts, the loss of a dear friend and a pack member. I can’t even imagine the pain Scott, Isaac, and Chris went through.
“You were dead!” I tremble at the sight of her, looking back at me like I’ve punched her in the gut. “Scott can you see her?”
“That’s not funny man,” Scott says, wrapping a protective arm around Allison. She leans on him and whispers “It’s okay” and looks at me almost apologetically.
“Who is he?” she asks him.
My heart feels like it’s about to explode.
I stared at them for a full minute, flashbacks of their freshman year and how inseparable they were coming back to me like a romantic montage. It squeezes my heart, a feeling of sick nostalgia building at my chest. This has to be a dream. A very real dream.
I look around. Everyone is looking at us, their whispers audible even without werewolf ears. “Isn’t that the Sheriff’s son?” “He’s lost it, finally” “He hasn’t talked to anyone since like, forever, and then he’s creating a scene like this.” “He’s better off at the Eichen House.”
I feel nauseous, the panic making bile rise up to my throat. “What’s happening?” I try to ask, “Scott?”
I want to ask him to count fingers with me, like we did when my mind was being played by the Nugitsune, just so I could prove to myself that this is just another bizarre realistic dream. I feel my breathing hitching faster and faster and my thoughts dizzy, everything around me spiraling uncontrollably. I trip over something and fall onto the floor, my mind a hazy blur until I feel Scott beside me. Felt him, didn’t even have to understand what his muffled voice is saying and “Stiles? Stiles?” because I know my best friend like I know myself.
I thank the heavens when darkness floods my mind.
o0o
When consciousness starts draping over me languidly, I didn’t open my eyes. I fear of still being in that dream. Something like this has happened before, just after Scott, Allison and I went into a super-consciousness inside the Nemeton. But nothing today felt like it was a dream. What if this is reality? What if Allison is alive? What if Scott doesn’t recognize…or know me? And what if I’m not part of his pack?
“I don’t know. He just went straight to my table after ordering his meal and started talking casually as if we do that every day. I was waiting for you and the pack.”
“He was acting like...like he knew us. Do you think he’s really lost it? Years of keeping all by himself and…I mean I’m not judging or anything but what he did in the cafe was really weird.”
“I know. That was the first time I saw him talk to anyone after…after what happened to his family.”
“But why would he talk to you of all the people in the cafeteria?”
“I don’t know. Probably just random. I’m not saying he’s gone crazy. After all…we were actually playmates when we were kids. I remember things a little, but he stopped coming over our house when we were nine. After his mother’s death. I still saw him at school but…he doesn’t really talk to anyone anymore. Even me.”
“That was ages ago. But it makes sense a bit. Still, weird.”
“That’s what he said. Everything was weird when he woke up.”
I try to process everything I heard, forcing myself to overcome the nausea and dizziness that is once again threatening to topple my consciousness. I need to think, need to make sense of things because everything I just heard was not the way I remembered it, the way things really happened.
Scott and I were playmates, yes, and then we were childhood friends. And in high school we were best friends. The rest was history, as they say.
Allison died at the time when I was possessed by the Kitsune.
Claudia, my mom, died after giving birth to me. Not when I was nine years old. What the hell is happening?
I can feel myself having difficulty breathing again, but I still try to suppress another panic attack. I cannot keep on having panic attacks all the time or else I won’t be going anywhere.
I wait for a few minutes and then open my eyes, finding myself lying at one of the beds of the school clinic. Scott and Allison were sitting across the room, her head resting against Scott’s shoulder. I shudder at the sight of her, her cheeks rosy and hair flowing long like it was when we were first years.
“Scott?” I call.
The two disentangle themselves from each other and walks towards me. I help myself into a sitting position, the bed creaking along with my moving weight.
“How are you feeling?” Allison asks. I stare at her again, probably for a full minute before answering.
“I’m fine, thanks,” I mutter, then “Can I talk to Scott for a few sec?”
She turns her head to Scott and Scott mirrors her. He smiles at her, and they’re communicating again with their eyes. She smiles at me politely before leaving the room, and I missed her. This is the only good thing in all this nobody-knows-me craziness; Allison is well and alive.
“Stiles?”
“Do you really not know me?” I manage to ask, voice low and not meeting his eyes.
I can feel him staring at me for a minute before he answered, “I do, Stiles,” he says, and my heart almost leapt, “We’ve been in the same school and the same neighborhood since we were kids. That’s all.”
“And we’re best friends,” I say with conviction, knowing he can follow my heartbeat and know I’m not lying.
“We…we’re…not friends. Not anymore. You distanced yourself from everyone after your mom died~”
“My mom died while giving birth to me!” I snap, turning my head to see his face.
Scott’s look is calculating. If he wasn’t a werewolf and he has no idea about the supernatural and weird shit constantly happening in Beacon Hills, he would’ve left me at the cafeteria. Aside from the fact that I know he’s the closest to a pure heart in this world, and that he’s my friend, that was another reason why I’m choosing to talk to him, because he knows something’s not right with me, and it’s not because I’m bat shit crazy.
“No, Stiles. She died when we were nine.”
I look at him levelly, “How, then?”
“Do you really not remember?”
“Scott, I swear,” I sound desperate even in my own ears. “Nothing’s making sense. This, this is all crazy. This is not the way things are.”
Scott looks at me for another moment before he speaks, taking a deep breath. “I told no one about this. And I’m sorry that I have to repeat this to you, but if it helps…My mom said she and Claudia were talking after they’ve finished their graveyard shift at the hospital, and she was saying something about planning to stop at the gasoline station because you asked her to buy milk. She stopped at the gasoline station to buy your milk, and gas, probably, and then she disappeared. A week later her body was found…” he hesitate, and I almost asked him to stop because I think I know where he’s heading, “…throat slashed and tied at a tree in the preserve.”
I fight back another nausea. That was even worse than knowing she died while giving birth to me. Originally I was blaming myself for her death because if I wasn’t born she would’ve been alive and Dad wouldn’t have started drinking and being so lonely.
This story though, is even worse than that. She died while fulfilling one of my childish whims. This time, it’s really my fault. Except it’s not, because this isn’t real.
No, this isn’t my reality.
“Scott you have to help me. Everything’s not right. I don’t,” panic stars building in my chest again and Scott tries to reach out with a hand, but hesitates at the last moment.
“Stiles, calm down. Breathe. Everything will be alright, okay?” And upon hearing that, a tear fell. He sounded like my best friend, exactly the way he would each time I would have a panic attack when we were kids, even when we were grown up.
“Tell me what’s wrong Stiles, and I will try to help.”
“What’s wrong?! This place. I don’t belong here. We’re supposed to be best friends, and Allison’s dead and my mom didn’t die because I fucking wanted milk. Nothing in this makes sense,” I can feel tears running down my cheeks.
“Dude stop saying Allison’s dead she~”
“And you’re a werewolf!” I snap, trying to tap a sensible cord where I could reach him and he’ll know I’m not just being crazy.
At that he freezes, his eyes widening with surprise. “W-what?”
“Don’t lie Scott,”
“H-how did you know?”
“Because I was there when Peter bit you. We were in the woods, searching for Laura’s body. We had no idea we were searching for an Alpha wolf’s dissected body. We had no idea about anything,”
He steps back.
“How did you know about Laura’s death? I was not, I was not bitten at the woods. I was bitten at school. My teammates left, and Peter was there when I went out.”
I shake my head, but then after a minute it makes sense, because if in this world we were not friends, why would I invite him to search for a body in the woods? If we really stopped being friends at nine, it changes everything.
Everything.
“Stiles how did you know about werewolves?”
“I told you! I’m your best friend. In another world, at least. And things happened that don’t make sense here. We’re supposed to be together, because my life revolved around that, around following you and being by your side and your werewolf escapades. I’m part of your pack. And if that’s not what happened here, what happened to me? Scott if I’m not by your side, where would I be?”
I grip at my hair despite the headache that I’m starting to feel because of all this information. I don’t know how to process all of this.
“You’ve been keeping by yourself all these years. You were alone most of the time,” he shakes his head “All the time. You don’t talk to anyone except when a teacher asks you a question in class. And you answer them correctly, every time. But aside from that, you…”
I was nothing.
“You distanced yourself from everyone, Stiles. I tried being friends with you again but you pushed me away. Literally.”
This is crazy. This is all crazy. It’s hard not to panic when it’s like this, when no one knows me and I don’t know where to get help. Where do I even start?
No, I have to do something. Something must’ve happened in Beacon Hills. Maybe our Alpha altered my pack’s memory, and made the pack forget me. But why just me? And after all, Scott is our Alpha. Can an Alpha alter his own memory?
Or maybe there’s a new witch who modifies reality. Maybe a new supernatural who came to Beacon Hills because now it’s legitimately a beacon for everything in this world that Science can never explain.
Deaton. Of course. Why didn’t I think about this first? If there’s anyone who knows enough of the supernatural, it’s Deaton. But what if he doesn’t know me, too? I was training to become his apprentice, the last time I was with him he was teaching me about binding spells.
Something must be done. Things can’t keep on being like this.
“Scott, do you believe me?”
He looks at me, and if I didn’t know him enough I wouldn’t know that the tiny furrows in his brow meant concern.
“I don’t know, Stiles, I~”
“You’ve been listening to my heartbeat all this time. You know I’m not lying,”
“But that’s, there are people who can cheat on that. If you know how to you can ask your heart to stay as calm as~”
“But I don’t. I’m not Deucalion~”
“How did you know Deu~”
“SCOTT! I need your help. You need to bring me to Deaton. You’re still working there part-time, right?” If he is.
He nods.
“Good. Good. If he doesn’t know me, you have to introduce me to him. Tell him I’m your friend, and I can manage with the rest,” If Deaton trusts me enough, I can siphon all the information I can get, and things can get back to normal.
I jump away from the bed, and I wanted a quick hug from Scott, but it’ll be weird for him. The thought stings.
“Let’s go then.”
On our way out Allison approaches us, glancing at me quickly before hugging Scott. Before I can think of an explanation so that I wouldn’t have to explain to her, she speaks.
“Dad needs me. He’s found something, and…” she looks at me again and purses her lip. They’re working on something, and obviously I’m not involved. I wonder what or who is the latest mystery they’re trying to solve.
Back in…what to call it, my world? My time? We were containing Parrish before he can burn Beacon Hills or worst - the world, to ashes. He’s a Phoenix. I’ve seen him transform once, his bird form probably the most beautiful and magnificent being I have ever seen, with wings and tails black as the night that turns into a fiery fire at his will. Unfortunately his Phoenix is untamed (though Lydia is getting to that), therefore dangerous. He’s dying, too. We had to catch him and transport him to a volcano so he can re-power or else…
“Okay. Call me when you’re home,” Scott says, kissing Allison’s head.
She looks at me, and then almost hesitantly, “Bye, Stiles.”
I want to hug her. Badly. Maybe someday, before things turn back to normal and I can’t see her again. The thought of losing her all over again hurts.
“Allison!” I called out as she reach for the door. “I’m really glad to see you again,” She turned her head and smiled.
We were checking out of the clinic when I catch a glimpse of strawberry blond hair leaving Ms. Morell’s office - our school counselor. She’s wearing a sweater and a dress that probably belonged to her grandmother. Her hair is unkempt and she’s wearing no make-up, which are both firsts. She is still beautiful, she always is, but seeing her like this is off-putting. It’s not even close to the same person I know.
“Lydia?” I call. She looks at me like a deer caught in the headlights, and as quickly as she shot her head up she looked back down, clutching a book tightly against her chest. She hurriedly walks past us and goes for the door, her head bowed self-consciously. I follow her with my gaze at her until she was out of sight.
“You know her?” Scott asks.
“Yeah. She’s…” A fashion expert, the only person I know that is more intelligent than myself, the most dazzling and sophisticated person in Beacon Hills, a banshee. “She’s someone, at least from what I remember. What is she, here?”
Scott motions for the door so we start walking towards the exit as he talked, “Well, she’s…different,” I roll my eyes. Different in Scott’s vocabulary is nut job for a normal person. “She also keeps to herself, like you. She…she says she hears things, and most of the time she has this perplexed look on her face. Like she’s walking around the school but she doesn’t even know she was. She sometimes walks out during class, or runs around with hands covering her ears. She screams quite loudly too. People avoid her because, you know.”
“And this happened after she was bitten by Peter, right?”
“What?! She was bitten?”
“As far as I remember, yeah. I wasn’t there fast enough,”
Scott looks confused, “But she’s been like that for as long as I can remember.”
My heart sank. Lydia. The person I was infatuated with since I was nine. Prom Queen, the star of Beacon Hills High School. The most enigmatic person I have ever met.
Apparently she’s no one here, too.
What the hell is happening.