Chapter Text
Stiles blinks several times as he looks around his room. The lamp next to him casts light over his bed, but the rest of the room is shadowed. Something feels… off, but he can’t put his finger on it.
Then a flash of brilliant white light appears and wind suddenly whips out of nowhere, throwing papers all around Stiles’ bedroom. He shouts as he grabs at them, blinded by the sudden brightness. He half-trips over his bat and picks it up, arming himself against whatever magical source caused the surge. The light vanishes just as instantly as it appeared and two different versions of Stiles stare at each other from opposite ends of the room.
They’re undeniably the same person, but the teenager is wearing jeans and a hoodie while holding a bat cautiously up and the older version is balanced on the balls of his feet, one hand held in front of him while the other is pressed against his temple. Colorful tattoos swirl up his arms and are visible peeking out of the collar of his black tee. He’s looking around the room frantically, mostly ignoring the teenager in front of him.
“What the fuck? You’re… me? Old me?”
“Fuck, I did it.” Older Stiles pants. Then he groans and finally focuses on the person in front of him, squinting and blinking several times. “I am. I’m… you. From the future. Fuck. Can you put the bat down?”
Stiles grips the bat tighter, “Prove it. Prove you’re really me. And not some evil version of myself from a parallel universe.”
“You met Scott in a playground in kindergarten. Your favorite ice cream flavor is pistachio but you tell everyone it’s moose tracks because that sounds funnier. You have a freckle on the… second to last? The ring-toe? On your left foot. Please put the bat down.”
Stiles lowers it to his shoulder but doesn’t put it down altogether. “You’re really me. From the future. How?”
“I am, and if I’m successful, you won’t turn into me.”
“That sounds fucking ominous.”
Older Stiles sighs and rubs at his head again. “Kid, just put the bat down. We have a lot to talk about.”
Stiles squints slightly and says, “You proved that you’re me, but didn’t even try to prove that you’re not evil me,” before swinging the bat at Older Stiles, who throws a hand out and catches the bat, white light glowing around his hand. Stiles’ eyes go wide when he realizes the older version of himself is wielding magic to hold the bat in place.
“I said put it down,” Older Stiles growls, his voice resonating through the small room. His head shoots toward the window and he huffs. “Derek is coming. Well, two birds with one stone, I guess.” He shoots another look toward Stiles, “Please don’t come at me again. I’m genuinely here to help you. And I plan on teaching you everything I know. And with none of the vague cryptic bullshit Deaton would put you through, alright? Real, actual magic.”
“If you’re really me, and not evil, and you can really time travel, why didn’t you save Mom? Or even stop Kate Argent from burning the entire fucking Hale family?”
Older Stiles winces, “I could only travel to a place and time that I have strong and distinct memories about, so I wouldn’t have been much help to the Hales. Our memories from when we were that young aren’t helpful enough. And Mom… I don’t know how to cure her. I know how to stop the shit you’re going to face, but I don’t know how to help her. And I think you’ll understand why I don’t want to watch her die twice. Now, Derek’s here.”
“What? How do you…?”
Stiles’ bedroom window flies open and Derek jumps in, already wolfed out. Older Stiles throws his arm up and a line of mountain ash falls to the ground, separating the two Stiles from Derek near the window.
“Alpha Hale,” Older Stiles says solemnly, holding his hands up to show that he’s not holding anything, “thank you for coming so quickly to meet me. I know that I’m not following the traditions for greeting an Alpha… but I think you’ll understand that nothing about this is traditional.”
Derek looks between the two people in front of him, confusion clear on his face. “Stiles?”
“Yep?” they both say, popping the ‘p’ the same way. This just increases Derek’s confusion.
Derek points at Older Stiles. “You smell like pack. And magic. And me. Explain.”
Older Stiles snorts. “I forgot what you were like now. I’m from the future. A shitty, horrible, terrible future. I’m hoping that I can fix a lot of things so that this Stiles doesn’t have to turn into me.”
“Won’t that erase you?” Stiles asks, crossing his arms and taking a step away from the older version of himself.
Older Stiles squints. “I’m not sure. I don’t think it will. But also I don’t care, once I help you all enough. But that’s also part of why I’m going to teach you all of the magic I know, as well as update your bestiary, so that you’re better prepared for all of the shit that might come through Beacon Hills, just in case anything happens to me.”
“When are you from?” Derek asks quietly. He had shifted back to his regular human form while Stiles talked.
“Eighteen years in the future,” Older Stiles answers, just as quietly. Younger Stiles whistles.
“You smell like… you’re mine. But I don’t smell me on you.”
Older Stiles stares at Derek for a long minute before slowly reaching up and pulling the neckline of his shirt aside as he twists his head down. Derek gasps at the sight of the bitemark along the back of the junction between Stiles’ neck and shoulder.
“Is that…?” Stiles starts to ask as he takes a step forward to get a better view.
“I’ll explain later,” Older Stiles says quietly, not breaking eye contact with Derek. “Alpha Hale… Derek… I’m here to offer help, to beg you all to take my help.”
“What happens to the pack?” Derek asks.
“Derek! You can’t just… ask about our future like that.”
“The hell I can!” Derek retorts. “When it manifests in your bedroom, I sure as hell get to ask that question.”
“You all die.”
“What?” Younger Stiles flails.
“Not you, obviously,” Older Stiles says with a tired snicker. “But everyone else. The whole pack. All our allies. Pretty much everyone.”
“Is there like, an apocalypse?”
“No,” Older Stiles is staring at Derek again. “Slowly. Over the course of many years. We fight. Tooth and nail. We scrape through a lot. We win sometimes. We manage. But so many people die. Too many. We didn’t know what we were doing for so long, but I can prevent a lot of those deaths now. With my knowledge and skills. We can make something better.”
“But if you’re here to fix things, won't you being here mess things up? Like, potentially mess up the good things as well as the bad things?”
Older Stiles sighs and shrugs one shoulder. “I’m hoping that it’ll only mess up the… bad things. I hope I’ll be able to… facilitate all the good things and make sure they still happen. Like this summer,” he gestures between his younger self and Derek, “you’ve spent, what, a few weeks now looking for Boyd and Erica?”
“Almost five,” Stiles responds.
“And the time you’ve spent together has been important to both of you. You’ve enjoyed yourselves, even though you don’t want to admit it. Derek, stop scowling at me, you know I’m right. Even in this shitty situation and with all your concern over Boyd and Erica, you’ve still enjoyed yourselves. That’s important. You need to hold onto that. Our bonding this summer was part of the foundation we built together. I’m going to help you rescue Erica and Boyd instead of letting you flounder together for the next two months. I think the rescue is more important than the relationship-building, do you agree?”
“You know where they are?” Derek asks fiercely.
Older Stiles nods tiredly. “We’ve got to wait until tomorrow though, so I can rebuild some of my magic and we can scope out the location.” He reaches out and grips Derek’s shoulder. “We’re going to get them back. They’re going to be fine.”
Derek stares into Older Stiles eyes for a long moment before the tension flows out of his shoulders. “You’re sure?”
Older Stiles nods resolutely. “Traumatized and angry, but relieved. They’ll be okay. And we’ll deal with everything together. We are going to build a strong pack.”
“We?” Stiles whispers.
Older Stiles looks at him and smirks. “We were the Emissary. I’m going to teach you everything you need to know, and I bet I can do it in a quarter of the time that Deaton did. And I had to teach myself a whole bunch of shit.”
Stiles licks his lips and nods a few times before looking at Derek. “Is he lying? What’s his heart doing? Do I think he’s telling the truth just because I want to believe it? Because honestly, man, this all kinda sounds too good to be true.”
Derek frowns. “I’m… I think he’s telling the truth. Can… can I…”
Older Stiles steps forward slowly. “Smell me? Separate us a bit so it’s easier to tell us apart? I’m not sure how different we are and if our scents are muddying each other.”
“A little,” Derek answers, eyebrows shooting up in surprise. “You really have spent a lot of time around weres.”
“I have.”
Derek watches as Older Stiles takes the last few steps until he can lean forward and inhale deeply. He leans back after a moment and blinks several times before glancing over at the younger Stiles. “He’s telling the truth, as much as I can tell. There’s lots of other scents, but he was also right about the two of you. Your scents are almost identical, other than he smells more of magic than you do. I think it’ll take a while to get used to it.”
Stiles snorts, “I think it’ll take a while to get used to him in general. Are you really here to stay?”
Older Stiles shrugs. “I think so. I hope so. My only priorities are to keep the pack safe and teach you everything I know so that you can take care of yourselves. Maybe I’ll leave someday. Maybe I’ll stay here and you can leave, knowing that the pack is safe. I don’t know. I’m hoping we’ll get to a point when things are so safe and stable that we get bored and can explore other options.”
Stiles opens his mouth to speak, but instead yawns. He glances at his phone. “Dude. It’s almost 3 in the morning. I don’t know about you, but I barely slept last night and I feel like I should sleep at some point tonight. I am pointedly not asking what you were doing to arrive here almost immediately,” Stiles points at Derek, “but sleep is a thing that you said you need for your magic to recover, or whatever, right?” He looks at Older Stiles, who nods. “It’s not like you can find a hotel or anything now. Your options are pretty much sleep here or go to Derek’s loft, or like, sleep in the woods.”
“You could come to the loft,” Derek offers softly.
Older Stiles is silent for a minute. “I’ll stay here tonight. Derek, can we come by the loft tomorrow? There’s a bunch of things to do before rescuing Erica and Boyd.”
Derek frowns but nods. “Is there anything you need?”
Older Stiles shakes his head. “My backpack came with me, luckily. And I’ll pick a couple things up in the morning.”
Derek nods, still frowning. “See you tomorrow then.”
He climbs out the window quietly.
The two Stiles turn to study each other.
“This is weird, right? Like, it’s weird for you too?”
Older Stiles laughs tiredly. “Yea. Even expecting this all to happen, I’m still not totally prepared. It is weird.”
“So… I don’t even know what to ask. I really want to know what’s going to happen in the future, but… you said it was beyond shitty. And you want to stop it. And also I feel like you probably don’t want to talk about everyone dying. So… what’s with the tattoos?”
Older Stiles laughs as he swings his backpack to the floor and sits on the bed. “They’re magical conduits. Deaton was training me to be an emissary, but he was trying to go the druid route, which is slow as fuck. I was impatient, so I found other ways to access magic.”
“Are they safe?”
“Completely. That’s why I tattooed them in. It keeps them permanently grounded and stable.” He tilts his head to the side slightly and squints. “Derek? Go home. I promise nothing will happen here tonight. Go home and sleep. You need to be rested so you’re ready to rescue your betas tomorrow. And no, Mini me, before you even ask, I can’t hear him or anything. But with our magic we can sense a few things. And an Alpha definitely gives off enough magic to sense. Derek. I mean it. Go home.” He waits a few seconds and then nods. “Good, he’s going. If all goes according to plan he won’t actually need to do much, but he’ll react to everything better if he’s not dead exhausted.”
“You know him really well,” Stiles observes slowly. Older Stiles nods. “What was that thing before? I mean, with the neck thing and the exchange you guys had.”
Older Stiles groans and flops back onto the bed. “We were married, and he could sense the mate bond, at least a little.” He glances sideways at Stiles’ slack-jawed surprise. “Not to say that you have to marry him. You’ve all still got free will. It’s probably really confusing for him though,” Stiles muses. “Tomorrow I’ll need to talk with him. It’s probably really weird, maybe even weirder than for us, honestly, because I’m going to feel like his mate and his emissary all bundled together, when he had neither of those things this morning, and then, bam, I’m here completing his pack and promising to rescue his missing betas. It’s probably a lot.”
“And they’re really going to be ok?”
“They’ve only missed one full moon,” Older Stiles says. “They should be fine. I mean, traumatized and upset, but fine. Relieved that their Alpha rescues them, hopefully.”
Stiles yawns again. “Wait, so… wait…”
“Kid. Go to sleep,” Older Stiles says as he toes his shoes off.
“I’m not a kid, old man,” Stiles grumbles as he throws the blanket aside and climbs into bed.
Older Stiles chuckles as he rolls onto his side. “In the morning, do you have anything you need to get done?”
“Nah,” Stiles replies as he shuts the lamp off. “Dad only got off work two hours ago, so he’ll be sleeping and it’s still summer, so I’ve got nothing planned.”
“Good. You can drive me around for a bit, alright? Is Peter around? I can probably shake him down for the cash to buy a car.”
Stiles is silent for a long minute before asking, “You want to ask Peter, Peter Hale, for money to buy a car? Recently back from the dead, former Alpha who killed his niece and tried to kill a whole ton of other people. That guy? Are you… insane?”
“The Hales are loaded. Peter won’t blink at the cost. He’ll just sass and bitch constantly.”
“Weirdest fucking day ever,” Stiles says, his voice getting sleepy, “I’m going to sleep next to future me and tomorrow morning we’re going to ask Peter fucking Hale for a favor.”
“Not a favor,” Older Stiles says as he shifts his pillow. “I said shake him down. That is not favor-asking.”
After a few minutes of silence, Stiles rolls over suddenly. “Wait, hold up. I didn’t ask. You said you were married to Derek? Like… married married?”
“Yea,” Older Stiles chuckles. “We didn’t get together until after college though.”
“But… but… he’s… I didn’t realize he’s not straight!”
“Oh shit,” Older Stiles says, smacking his face quietly. “Shit you’re right. He wasn’t out to you all yet. Fuck.” He rubs his face. “Alright I have to think about these things a little more. I’ve been so focused on prepping to save people’s lives… I haven’t really thought about the impact I could have just by telling you things. Like… all that social and emotional shit is important, even if it’s not life or death important.”