Chapter Text
Scott is gone.
Picked up by the wind, fluttering away in a light show of his own. In flickers of bright red magic. Stiles brings a hand to rub at his tired eyes as the rain starts to let up. He rises to sit in the empty patch of land they find themselves in now. It's just him and Derek. Gone is the mirage Stiles has tormented himself with for so damn long. Fucking finally.
“It…” Derek gasps, radiant in this light. He’s glistening through the cracks Stiles has given him, “It wasn’t…? Scott’s not…”
Stiles tilts his head, barely able to keep it upright at all from the exertion of the past fucking eternity, “Why do you think you married me?”
Derek looks over at him, then. He’s smiling. That gorgeous, confused, lovesick smile. So damn disarming that, even if, even if, he’d gotten this wrong, Stiles would have been taken back to nineteen. Back to lacrosse games and hand-holding and promises.
Stiles Stilinski is no stranger to promises. Or anything, by the looks of it. Not the supernatural, or de-aging, or birth, or death. Or time travel.
Now, it’s someone else’s turn. It’s Derek’s turn.
Stiles quirks his brows, “Go get him.”
Derek laughs down at the empty space below him, rises to his feet, and then he’s gone. Without a clue. Blind. Stiles rests his forearms against his thighs.
He regretted it the moment the words left his mouth; the blind leading the blinded.
He wonders what would have happened if he’d found the answer sooner. If he’d been able to see it. To hear it.
Destiny’s a fucked up thing, though, isn’t it?
⭑
There was a new type of silence in the air of the clearing.
What are you meant to say in that situation? On either side? Finding, atop the Nemeton of North America, the future self of the boy you’re grooming to help you burn his whole family alive, or being the future self of that boy, having to see that woman again. Being a seventeen-year-old Derek, seeing yourself at twenty-three, beneath a man with glowing arms you’ve never seen before in your life. Being Stiles. Having just watched your own future self kill your best friend. Trying to fix it all, and having to take the man you love back to the darkest time of his life to do it.
This fucking sucked.
It all fucking sucked.
And there was still a sort of ache burning through him - through Stiles. It made his hands shake and his throat close up.
A sickening laugh.
“What is going on here? ” Kate asked, like a taunt.
Derek’s lip twitched, as his brows flinched toward the middle. He squeezed his eyes shut. He sucked in a breath. Stiles had so many thoughts racing through his head, flashing up. Like sparks. He swallowed them down.
Then, Derek’s tiny voice was speaking from beyond them, “I don’t…”
“Well, at least we know you’ll grow into those hands,” Kate mused.
Derek’s hands, the ones resting against the wood of the Nemeton, curled tightly into shaking fists. Stiles slipped off of the Nemeton and rose to stand. His clothes hung heavy on his skin. Cold. Sticking. He swallowed and met Kate’s dancing eyes. She looked exactly the same. Maybe one less wrinkle, but the same hairstyle, the same skinny jeans, the same cruel smile. She beamed as she took him in, eyes raking up and down. He pretended it wasn’t paralysing.
“You’re a spark,” she mused with a tilt of her head, “Are you a Gajos? Or, no, it’s Stilinski now, isn’t it? A bit boring, if you ask me.”
Stiles swallowed, looking pointedly at the teenager beside her, “Derek, get away from her.”
Kate snickered as the boy’s brows furrowed so familiarly and he asked, “Why are you so scared?”
Stiles sighed, “Please move.”
“No,” Derek said. He did move, technically, though it was to stand just in front of her. Stiles wasn’t sure if he should swallow his pity down or not. If he should be purely analytical about this. Unemotional.
It was hard not to be emotional in that moment. Stiles was pretty sure he had no sensations in his body besides emotion. The terror of seeing her again, the anger at her and at himself - in every sense of the word. Hatred, regret, anticipation. His heart and his mind were working overtime, but his body was numb.
“Derek, get out of the way.”
“Or what?” The teenager challenged, “You won’t hurt me, that’s for sure.”
Stiles froze.
Derek really was not the best at picking them, was he? He didn’t care when he said that same thing to the Other Stiles and He threw him across the room. He ‘didn’t give a shit’ that the Other Stiles had killed Scott in front of them. He probably would’ve forgiven Kate if Laura hadn’t taken him away to New York. It was that selflessness again. Stiles wondered if he thought he deserved it. And that. That made his heart break.
He glanced past the teenager, to the woman that held all of him in the palm of her hand. Then he turned back to the man he supposed he held in his. His Derek gave him a minute, restrained nod. Stiles kissed his teeth.
“True,” he said, as the anger rose to the surface. It wasn’t directed at Derek. He had to know that. It wasn’t at Kate either, not really. Purely at the man who killed Scott McCall. “You’ll heal,” he forced out. Then he moved.
It would have disturbed him, if he was more set in the fabric of his reality, how easy it was for him to throw the kid out of the way. To look in the eyes he knew only for their fragility, a fragment of another time, where Kate was just as back as she was now, and to feel the barest of guilt. The kid landed against the grass with a snarl, scrambling to his feet as Stiles kept going.
Kate felt better to hurt. To bring his foot up to send her flying back. Seeing her face shift to pain in a split second felt like vengeance. She slammed back against a tree, with a little shock wave kicking up sticks by her feet. A laugh was punched out of her in the impact.
Then a claw was pressed against the left side of his throat. He froze against the chest behind him. He raised his hands.
“I don’t know who you think you are,” Derek’s voice, barely, growled into his ear, “but you won’t lay another hand on her.”
“It was a foot, but, sure, point taken,” Stiles swallowed, brows furrowing at the way it pressed his skin closer to the points of the boy’s claws. The Other Stiles’ scar started right about where they met.
“That’s enough,” Derek, actually Derek, called out, “Let him go.”
The kid called back, “Why should I?”
“Use your senses,” Derek said. Stiles could hear his feet against the grass. Finally standing. “Use your nose. Your ears.”
Stiles stared straight ahead. Kate was grinning madly at him.
“You know I trust him,” Derek said.
The kid tightened his grip, “And why should I trust you?”
“I’m the only one you can trust,” Derek answered, “Yourself.”
The claws moved away, only slightly. Stiles breathed deeper.
“But you don’t trust Kate,” the kid whispered.
Derek hesitated for one long moment before saying, “If you do, why don’t we take her to meet the family?”
Stiles winced.
“She’s an Argent,” the kid spat, “If you’re me, you know what they’ll do to her.”
“You think it’s unjustified?”
“They don’t know her like I do!” The kid cried.
Stiles didn’t know his heart could hurt this bad. His jaw, too, clenched so hard he was afraid he’d chip a tooth. The satisfaction on Kate’s face was making him sick to his stomach.
He opened his mouth and whispered, “Are you going to let me go yet?”
The hand slipped away. Stiles breathed deeply, properly. Derek slashing his throat open probably would not have been a good start to his plan.
“Why did you two come here?” The kid asked, “To the past?”
Stiles looked away from the grinning woman on the forest floor to turn to him. Derek didn’t answer. So he didn’t either. As long as Derek was having to deal with this, he would be the one calling the shots. Stiles decided that too late.
The kid shook his head, “How did you get to the past?”
“Magic, Der-bear,” Kate answered.
Oh.
Stiles froze. He could hear Derek hold his breath.
When he turned around, now having almost done a full one-eighty, Derek’s face was completely blank. His eyes were far away. Closed off. It bore a hole into Stiles’ chest. Those eyes came back into focus after a moment, meeting his. Stiles quirked his brows.
Derek steeled himself with a deep breath, then said, “We’re bringing her to the house.”
-
A teenage werewolf, his future self, his abuser, and his future self’s boyfriend walk through the woods. A setup to a very ugly punchline.
Derek stopped as they crossed into the clearing. Stiles felt sick at the sight of the house. Not for the same reasons. His reasons were much more selfish. So, when Derek reached between them and took his hand, he squeezed back as hard as he could. Because this was the worst thing he’d done to him. No, this was not the worst thing. That was what made it feel so bad. There were many things Derek deserved - sweet, brilliant things. This was not one of them.
The door opened.
Confidently, swiftly. Stiles was used to it scraping along the floor, from the hinges melting and the wood warping. Now, it fit properly. Seamlessly. And on the other side, there was Talia Hale.
Stiles was sure it was her. It was not like he’d ever seen her before, beyond blurry black and white photos in newspaper clippings and yearbooks, but he was sure. Without uttering a word, she’d commanded the clearing to a silence unimaginable. So silent it was deafening. Her hands rested firmly at her side, and her chin tilted firmly downward. Stiles’ eyes flickered to her side as they caught movement.
Peter stared back over her shoulder. Younger, yes, but barely. Like Kate was. His eyes widened, flickered back and forth between Stiles’ and the general direction of Kate and the other Derek, and then he opened his mouth. He closed it. And he turned around and vanished back into the house.
“Derek, get inside,” the woman said. The alpha. The Alpha.
Derek’s hand clenched against Stiles’. The spark’s heart ached, as the kid so hesitantly stepped away from Kate and across the grass. She was wise not to try and stop him. Sometimes Kate had half a mind.
But the look on Derek’s face, so young and broken, it broke something in Stiles, too. As if there was anything whole left to break. He had little left, and yet.
Once her son was inside, Talia’s eyes changed. Darkened. It was weird, though, because her eyes were so sinister, but her face seemed to soften, shift into something so welcoming and warm.
“What is this?” She asked.
Kate shrugged her shoulders, “Don’t look at me.”
“Do look at her,” Stiles growled. She gave him a playful look over her shoulder. Her eyes caught Derek’s, to his left, and she winked. Stiles almost truly growled, then, low in his throat, tugging at the wolf’s hand to hide him behind his body.
“We need to talk,” he said, moving his eyes to meet Talia’s - the most intimidating set of eyes he’d ever met, “Well, really, we need to kill this woman, but, step one is probably talking.”
Kate snickered and shook her head, “You won’t kill me.”
Stiles breathed in deep, “You think?”
She gave him one last delighted look over her shoulder and pouted, “We have a treaty.”
“Not with me.”
She blinked. Then hummed.
“No,” she mused, “I guess not.”
And she turned away and strolled right to the front door. Talia blinked, once. Then she moved out of the way and Kate was walking straight in.
Stiles’ eyes narrowed, “You’re letting her inside?”
“We are civil with the Argents,” Talia said, with something pinched in her voice, “Should I have reason to reconsider that? Someone coming from the future and telling me to kill an innocent woman is something I find concerning, believe it or not.”
Stiles squeezed Derek’s hand.
Derek squeezed back.
And he spoke, the first words he’d said to his mother in almost a decade, and asked, “Can we talk inside?”
-
The Hale House isn’t exactly how it was in the future Stiles saw. For starters, there was no giant wall around the perimeter. Only open land, somehow both cocky and overwhelmingly vulnerable. But inside, the differences were far more astonishing. The walls were solid grey, not white, the floorboards were a dark oak. The living room, off to the left, was decorated differently, too. But there was still a doll on the floor. A different doll, but a doll all the same.
There were children living there. And if Stiles did nothing they were going to burn. Again.
And as he looked around at the family photos in picture frames and toys on pristine floorboards, he felt his arms begin to ache. A steady thrum of pain across his forearms, from his elbows down to the tip of his pinky fingers. He felt a pang of fear trill up into his throat. As if it were a warning of something. It was persistent, unwavering enough to make Stiles look down to check that he hadn’t cut himself somehow. But there was nothing. Just the black lines beneath his steadily-drying sleeves.
They had air-con in the house. On full blast. Probably because wolves ran so hot. Heatwaves must have been. Not great. Okay. The word association games in Stiles’ mind were not helping with anything. Especially not the pain.
When the breeze made his hair shift and stab into his eyes, he froze. The brush of the wind made his jaw itch, too, and he brought that aching arm up to scratch, but.
There was hair there. A beard. Maybe beard was too generous of a word, but whatever you’d describe it as, the sensation made Stiles’ blood run cold.
A shimmer beside him caught his eye. A mirror catching the light. He turned with bated breath.
The Other Stiles stared back at him. Almost. He was too young, too clean. The beard he had was patchy, but his hair. His hair was spot-fucking-on. Curling at his ears, messy and uncared for. Too damn long. And he was too young, yes, but he was older still.
He’d finally caught up to himself. No longer trapped in his own youth. Now he was crawling to his future. It was taunting him.
Then his throat was closing up and his heart was racing. He was hot all over, clammy, and his mind was spinning, and he could not be doing this right now. He had people to save. He has a chance to be better than who he could become. He couldn’t lose himself now.
“Stiles,” Derek murmured, appearing in the mirror as he came up beside him. His hand found the curve of his back, “You okay?”
Stiles swallowed, brushed his fingers against the hair on his face one more time, and looked away from his reflection, “Fine. You?”
Derek gave him a pointed look.
He took in a shaking breath, “I’m so sorry.”
Derek shook his head, “I wasn’t supposed to be here. Don’t be.”
“Derek–”
“Stiles,” Derek ground his jaw, “I’m going to be fine. Everything is going to be fine.”
He was shaking, “Is it?”
There was a moment of silence, where he could see the question parry across Derek’s mind, before his eyes eventually softened and he smiled. He tucked the hair behind Stiles’ ear, with no idea how it made his stomach churn, and said, “I think so.”
“Boys,” Talia prompted. Her voice was soft. So gentle and calming that Stiles almost thought it was magic. So far removed from what it had been mere moments ago. He turned to face her, to meet her reassuring eyes, “Come.” And her voice really was magic, if the way the two of them obeyed without a single thought was anything to go by.
Kate Argent should never be so calm. So confident. So self-righteous in all that she does. As if Stiles was playing right into her hands.
It’s then, for some reason, that it all started to really hit him. He was in the Hale House. The real one. The original one. The home that he’d only ever seen as a charred shell of itself. The home that Derek was raised in. The home his whole family died in. And they were all alive. Kate was alive. Inside this house.
What if this was how she’d figured out a way to burn it all down?
“Take a seat,” Talia prompted, as she moved around the desk at the centre of the room to stand in front of her grand chair. Not sitting first. Kate was standing, too, arms crossed cockily over her chest. The kid wasn’t there. Stiles didn’t care for the pissing contest. He sat down as soon as he was close enough. The seat was soft, cool from the air. He needed to rest. He’d just ran from Oak Creek to the Nemeton and then walked to the house; his feet might’ve fallen off if he didn’t take the chance. Just resting his neck back against something sent such comfort through him, it felt utterly unearned.
Derek didn’t sit beside him.
He didn’t move from his spot. Stiles watched as he kept his gaze firmly to the floor.
He hadn’t touched anything since they got there, had he?
“So,” Talia’s voice boomed, “I think it goes without saying, an explanation is needed here.”
Stiles turned back to her. Her dark hair, framed by the bookcase behind her. Stiles’ hands itched to get their fingers on them, to memorise each and every word they lost to Kate Argent.
He gripped the book in his lap instead.
And, simply, he said, “Kate Argent’s been grooming your son, and she plans to burn this house to the ground. And she will. Unless we stop her.”
Talia’s eyes considered him for a long moment, unwavering as Kate scoffed in the background. She stared and stared, as if she could decipher him with just a look. As if.
“Your mother told Peter she wouldn’t go through with it,” she said.
Stiles knew she could hear the way his heart picked up, the way the sadness started to seep out of him, the horror at the realisation that it hadn’t happened yet - they didn’t know. His voice was too little, “I guess she wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“Claudia said that?” Kate hummed.
Stiles froze.
He didn’t ask. He didn’t want to hear the answer. Any implication that she knew his mother for the same reason Peter did. That they’d known each other for years. She was Chris’ little sister - Stiles had tried not to think about how much littler she really was. It made him nauseous. He couldn’t even imagine what Derek was feeling right now.
“Kate,” Stiles said. He knew his voice was barely above a whisper. He didn’t care.
“Yes?” She sang.
“No matter how this ends,” he said, “I am going to put a bullet in your head.”
He looked at her as the room went still. Stiller, somehow, than it had been before. The woman had a new sort of decadence in her eyes. Still seeming as if she were perfectly pleased by everything unfolding before her.
She tilted her head, scrunching her nose as she said, so condescending, “That’s not very nice, Stiles.”
His teeth clashed, “Maybe I’ll make it a silver bullet.”
He swore it. With malice and fiery rage. He promised, he would put one right between her eyes and watch the unused brain matter paint the walls. He’d deal with the disgust of whatever fate that might seal him to when it happened. She deserved worse for all she’d done.
“Argent,” Talia said then, voice pinched, “I will give you a chance to be honest with me.”
Kate hummed out a laugh and turned her predatory gaze to the Alpha, “You can listen to my heartbeat, Alpha Hale. I. Am not. Going. To burn. This house. Down.”
And, God, how badly Stiles wished he could hear it, too. His arm thrummed with that ache again. Distracting and persistent.
Talia’s voice was strained even more when she went on to say, “You should head home, Argent. Don’t let us catch you waiting around.”
“You’re gonna let me go?” She mused, crossing the room. Stiles felt himself tense up as she passed by him. She was too close to Derek. “Not even gonna rough me up?”
Talia met her eyes, calm, “We don’t do that here. You know that, Argent. But this man here doesn’t seem to hold our same values. If we are to handle this situation humanely, I don’t think you should be here together.”
Kate hummed, and a hand was pressing against his shoulder. He didn’t look up at her.
“I’m sorry for whatever happened in the universe you came from,” she said, “to make you think I’d do such a thing. I hope we can all be friends one day.”
“Get your hand off me, or I’ll show you exactly how friendly I can get.”
She practically cackled as she left. Derek didn’t move an inch. In the distance, the front door clicked shut, and Stiles could finally breathe.
“What is going on?” The kid’s voice came from the office’s entrance.
Stiles dropped his head into his hands, “Why couldn’t you let me kill her?”
“You…” the boy tried, “Mom.”
“I’m so sorry,” Stiles was whispering into the dry heels of his palms, “I’m so sorry.”
-
Somehow he ended up on a couch, with a steaming cup of tea cradled in his lap and Peter Hale sat across from him. His right ankle was resting on his left knee, just like it had been that day at the motel, and at the lake house. He was smirking.
“So,” he drawled, “your mom and I are still best friends in the future, huh?”
Stiles was surprised he was able to stop himself from shattering the cup in his hands as he said, so swiftly, “She’s dead.”
Peter froze.
“Like, so dead,” Stiles nodded, “As in, died before my eyes in a hospital bed. Dead. I guess.” He squinted down at the tea, “Why do I have this?”
“What are you talking about?” Peter growled.
Stiles’ brows rose, “It’s not that complicated–”
“How could she get sick?” He snarled. Stiles wasn’t sure if his heart was racing out of some sort of fear of an unpredictable version of Peter, or if it was just working overtime trying to keep his body functioning in the madness of that day. “She was the Hale emissary. If anyone can heal their own illness, it’s her.”
Now it was Stiles’ turn to freeze.
He took a deep breath, “It was dementia. I guess she forgot how.”
Peter pulled a face, almost entertained, “Oh, really? That takes years to actually get bad, you’re telling me she didn’t think to even ask someone else to heal her?”
The questions made something uneasy begin to brew in his stomach.
Stiles’ brows furrowed, “Well, she was dead in nine months and everyone else was dead before her diagnosis, I don’t think she had a lot of options– Where is Derek?”
Peter blinked, then relaxed down into a smile, “You know, my bets were always on you and Cora. I should’ve known when you started obsessing over those DC superheroes. You like ‘em chiselled, huh?”
“Where is he?” Stiles growled.
Peter opened his mouth, as if he wanted to say something else entirely, but Stiles could see the instant he gave up on whatever it was. He took in a placating breath before he answered.
“He’s outside his bedroom.”
Stiles bit his cheek and left the cup on the coffee table, next to his mother’s grimoire, pointed at it and said, “Don’t you dare touch that. I’m serious.”
-
Derek looked so small. Now, Stiles had seen him at his smallest, and somehow he seemed even smaller. As if he were the one sat on his bed with his head in his hands through the crack in the door. As if everything wasn’t miles behind where it ought to be. As if he were that scared little kid.
The muscles beneath his drying clothes seemed to relax with each step Stiles took down the corridor. The little boy in the room shied away in time with him.
Stiles took in a breath as Derek turned to face him.
“You need to talk to him,” he said. He tried to be gentle about it. He tried.
Derek’s nostrils flared as he tensed again, “And say what?”
The little boy beyond the cracked door wrapped his arms around himself.
“‘Hey, teenage me, just thought I’d let you know that the time travelling stranger that reeks of you isn’t lying!’,” he snarled, “‘The woman you love wants to burn your house down with your whole family inside and I know that because it happened to me !’ ?”
Stiles licked his lips and swallowed down the bitterness, “Sounds like a decent starting point, yeah.”
Derek’s mouth twisted into an even deeper frown. Stiles was being a dick - he was well aware. In his defence, he had just watched himself murder his best friend. That tends to fuck with a person. That and he was currently trying to stop the Hale House fire with no idea how to actually do it.
“Just–” he tried. The helpless flicker in Derek’s eyes forced him to pause, “I… I don’t know.”
“What were you going to do before I came with you?” The wolf asked.
Stiles exhaled through his nose, his eyes flickered to a crack in the wallpaper beyond Derek’s head, “... I don’t know.”
“Were you just gonna shoot her point-blank in the head and run?” Derek shook his head, “Even if I believed you’d want to do that, you can’t just kill her as your entire plan.”
“You did!” Stiles threw a hand out.
The kid showed up in the doorway, “What?”
Stiles choked out an ‘Oh, my god’ as he flinched back. He brought a hand up to rub at his face. The beard made him nauseous again.
“I’m going to kill Kate?” He snarled.
Stiles dropped his hand. Derek was staring at him with piercing green eyes.
“I mean..” Stiles squinted, “I don’t kn–” Derek’s stare got harsher. Stiles bit his lip, “This never happened to him,” he said, looking at the kid and gesturing at his boyfriend, “and the entire point of this is changing your future, so. No.”
“But if you’ve changed my future, how does he exist?” The kid whispered.
Good God, why did these people keep asking questions Stiles didn’t have answers to? This wasn’t how this was supposed to go - Stiles was supposed to be the one who knew everything, who could fix everything like it was the easiest thing in the world. That was his plan. His Stiles Plan, even.
“Derek,” Stiles tried, speaking as the words formed in his mind, with little afterthought, “Why don’t you believe us?”
“I don’t…” the kid tried, “... I don’t want to believe this. Why would I want to believe I… killed my family? That I got tricked by an Argent?” He shook his head, backing into the room again, “I’m not that stupid. I can’t be. But you’re not lying. And he is me. So… I just…” He sniffled, “Why do I have to be the one who survives?”
Derek - Stiles’ Derek - took a deep, wet breath, and slid past Stiles to race down the corridor. He mumbled something as he passed. Stiles didn’t catch it. He spun to look after him, as his heart flip-flopped and crashed down onto itself; looked back at the kid and his upturned brows.
The words were punched out of him as he said, “It’s not your fault. Okay? It was never your fault.” And if he winced at the Other Stiles’ voice echoing back to him, the kid had no way of knowing it.
-
The woods looked the same as they always had. That was a small mercy.
The creek looked the same, too.
Well, the stream was heavier, and the bank hadn’t yet eroded as much, but other than that. It looked about the same as it had the last time they’d been there. In the day, at least. Only, this time, Stiles was the one walking over to sit in the grass beside Derek. And their pack was gone. Left behind. Stiles detested the fact he’d have to leave what he had for the chance of something better, but he couldn’t stay in a timeline where Scott was dead.
Scott was dead.
Derek sucked in a breath beside him, wringing his fingers over his knees, “I don’t know what I expected,” he said shakily, “going back there.”
Stiles decided to shut up. Just this once. He wrapped his hands around the wolf’s arm, even if the proximity was far too warm.
Derek kept talking, “I shouldn’t feel this bad for myself, should I?”
Stiles shook his head, dropping it to nudge against the man’s shoulder, “No, it’s…” he sighed, “There’s not exactly a handbook for how to feel about… this exact situation. I mean, there’s not a handbook for how to feel about anything.”
Derek exhaled roughly through his nose. Almost a laugh.
It made Stiles smile a little bit, “You don’t have to go back. I don’t really want you to go back.” He moved back just enough to look Derek in the eye, “You can… find a motel and wait until it’s over. Go get some food. Go… bowling, I don’t know. See a movie?”
“Stiles,” he said, with his eyes finally soft in the way they ought to be, “I’m not leaving.”
“And that’s very sweet and very stupid,” Stiles nodded, “I’m not asking you to go back to the future, unless that’s the movie you want to watch, because I just want you to be okay. And this?” He gestured in the vague direction of the house, “Isn’t okay! If those two hadn’t been near the Nemeton when we showed up, I would’ve locked you away in a tower before I even thought about going to the house. Just… It’ll make me feel a lot better if I know you’re not going to get even more traumatised by all of this.”
After a moment, Derek’s lip quirked up, “I guess I don’t really want to go back.”
Stiles tilted his head, “I wouldn’t, either. You don’t see me running into my mom’s arms right now.”
Derek knocked their foreheads together, “Motel, then.”
Stiles smiled, and nodded against Derek, “I’ll catch up. I left the grimoire at the house. I’ll get Peter to pay while I’m there.”
The wolf pecked his lips and moved away, “Okay. You sure that’ll work?”
With a quirk of his lips, Stiles answered, “Please, as if he can say ‘no’ to me.”
Derek hummed and backed up, rising to stand so effortlessly, “The motel on Belle Street. I’ll see you there.”
“I might be a minute,” Stiles practically whispered, taking hold of Derek’s hand as he did, “So. Stay safe. Okay?” Derek’s face softened. He gritted his teeth, “And don’t… pick up any coins. Or drop any coins. Or shoot any presidents. Or kill your grandpa.”
“I never met any of my grandparents,” Derek said.
Stiles nodded, “Okay, I will take care of the grandpa not-killing, then.”
Derek gave another nose-exhale-not-a-laugh and stepped away, “Stay safe, too,” then, with a shy little smile, “I love you.”
Stiles bit back a very untimely grin and scrunched up his nose, “I love you, too, you dork. Go.”
His throat tightened.
Derek smiled properly as he turned and left. Swift as the wind, as if he were never there. Stiles let his eyes fall shut.
He could hear Erica’s laugh echoing through the trickle of the stream. Through the whistle of the wind and the rustling of the trees. She was alive. Scott was alive. Everyone who wanted them dead was alive. His mom was alive. And so was he. With the grass staining his dry jeans and his shirt, it all started to really set in. His reality was insane, but it was real. And he knew what he had to do. How to keep everyone alive.
He didn’t like it. Of course, he didn’t. Even as he accepted it, he didn’t like, for a single second, the fact that he would have to kill Kate. And the only way he could do that with a clear conscience was exactly what he’d threatened to do. What he’d promised to do. What the Other Stiles said he would.
He had to shoot Kate Argent.
But where the hell was he supposed to get the gun from?
-
Stiles wondered if the front door was always unlocked. It was probably easier that way, he supposed. The Hale pack had been a massive thing - it would be a waste of time and money to cut keys for every person welcome in the house. Stiles figured it was just reckless. Then again, Derek’s loft door was literally a giant sliding piece of wood, so maybe he wasn’t the best person to vouch for home security. But then he noticed the runes.
He wouldn’t have seen them if the light hadn’t caught on them just right - tiny notches engraved into the wood of the doorframe. So small Stiles had to get real close to even make out the shapes. It seemed like such a ridiculous thing to be focussing on when his life was pure chaos. The Nogitsune would have loved it. Stiles blinked that thought away as he brushed a finger over one of the runes. Most of them were protective - barriers against unwelcome energy and people. But a handful of them, Stiles had never seen before. Not even on his rabbit hole deep-dive in Sophomore year when he first found out about all this. He wondered if his mother had carved those runes into the wood.
“Welcome back,” Peter’s voice called out, “You seem to have lost a Derek.”
Stiles jumped back, looking the man up and down as he pushed through the door properly, “He’s not coming back.”
Peter’s face twisted up, “Did you kill him?”
Stiles blinked, “What? No, I didn’t want him to keep traumatising himself by doing this with me, he’s at a motel.”
The wolf made a noise of understanding, “Well, that’s far less entertaining, but my sister wants to speak with you. Again. And so do I, so, chop, chop.”
“Alright,” Stiles hummed, “But you’re paying for the motel.”
“Sure, I am,” Peter said with a smirk, and Stiles slipped past him - glancing into the living room and at the bare coffee table.
“Where’s my grimoire,” he snapped.
“Claudia’s grimoire,” Peter answered, “is in there with the family. Do you mind getting a move on?”
Stiles quirked his head, “Never lost your charm, did you?”
“I would sooner die.”
“Too soon, Peter.”
“But that’s the thing,” the wolf mused, as they pushed through the grand oak office doors, “I’m not going to die, am I? Because you know me, and you’re not alarmed by the fact that you know me.”
Stiles flicked his eyes over the bookshelves and mahogany furniture one more time, at Talia behind the desk, the kid sat across from her, the woman by her side, and the grimoire sat before the Alpha, “If you let this go the same way it did, you’re gonna wish you had died, Peter.” And he dropped into the seat beside the kid as he said it.
There was a moment of silence, before Peter muttered, “How exciting.”
Stiles hummed, reaching for the grimoire, “None of you read any of this out loud, right?”
“We’re not stupid,” the woman to his left snapped.
Stiles blinked, then turned to look up at her. She looked like all the other Hales - tall, dark, and terrifying.
“Who are you?” He asked.
Her jaw clenched as she answered, “Laura.”
And Stiles’ hands froze over the leather binding. Yes. It was her. It was the rotting face he’d dug up outside Derek’s house when he was fifteen, the one he’d seen in the morgue. Derek’s sister. His Alpha.
He swallowed, “Right.” Then, with a closed-lipped smile, “Awesome to meet you. Properly. Heard great things. I’m Stiles.”
“I know,” Laura said, “What, is this fire gonna kill me, too?”
“No,” Stiles answered. He said nothing more. Just fiddled with the cover of the grimoire, flicking it up and down with his right forefinger and thumb. He itched to delve into it; to find those runes, with no idea where this curiosity was coming from or what founded it.
“Who,” the kid broke the silence, “Who is it going to kill?”
Stiles furrowed his brows, staring down at the embossed leather, “I don’t know anyone’s names. Derek doesn’t… You don’t talk about it.”
“Then who survives?” Talia prompted. She was using that gentle voice again, like she had when she beckoned them inside.
The spark chewed at his lip for a moment, then met her eyes as he answered, “Peter, Laura, Cora, and Derek. Evidently.”
Peter cursed. Talia held his gaze, though the way she swallowed and her muscles tensed gave her away. Stiles blocked out Derek’s reaction. But, all things considered, this was good. Stiles was used to this: being the one in the room with all the answers. Being cryptic, holding all the cards. Trying to change the timeline. It’s all he’d done for the last two years, anyway.
“If I survive the fire, how come you don’t know me?” Laura asked, voice lower, too.
Stiles licked his lips, “It doesn’t matter. The fire’s not gonna happen this time, neither is anything that happened after.”
“But you went back in time,” the kid says, “If stopping the fire will change everything, you wouldn’t be here. You’d never change it. It’d happen. You’d come back to change it–”
“Okay, yeah, shut up,” Stiles rubbed at the bridge of his nose, “I know the grandfather paradox, Miguel. ” He slammed his hand down.
“Who the hell is Miguel??” Laura cried.
Stiles outright laughed, “Oh, my God,” turned to the kid and cringed at the confusion on his face, “Wow, that is too niche. Derek doesn’t even know about that.”
“Know about what?” The kid - Miguel, if you showed a photo to Rafael McCall in 2014 and asked him - snapped.
Stiles shook his head, “Just. An inside joke. Not even that– Something I did a few times in the first timeline.”
“The first timeline?” Talia prompted.
The spark turned back to her, staring for a long moment, “What, you didn’t think this was my first time-travel extravaganza, did you?” He shrugged, “I just have an actual plan this time.”
“Which is,” she kept prodding.
Stiles just sighed, “Killing Kate Argent.”
“But you can’t just do that!” Miguel snarled, “You know, she hasn’t actually done the shit you’re executing her for.”
“Language, Derek,” Talia murmured.
“Yeah, language, Derek,” Stiles snickered.
“Alright,” the kid snapped, “You don’t seem nearly as distraught as you did half an hour ago.”
“I don’t have an issue with being here,” Stiles said on an exhale, “Derek does. And Derek being upset is upsetting by default but it’s worse because I’m the one who brought us here, even if I begged him not to come because I knew it would be torture. I’ve met you before, Miguel, ” he tilted his head, watching as the kid’s brows met in the middle, “Because Kate needed to make you a child again so she could use you. Again.”
The kid took in a shuddering little breath.
Stiles sighed again, “And that was after Peter here had already killed her. By clawing her throat open. But, unfortunately, that just turned her, and made everything way worse, thank you, Peter.”
“May I remind you I have not done that yet,” the wolf started, but stopped just as abruptly, “I turned her?”
“Not the point,” Stiles snapped, “The point is I need to shoot her in the head because that’s the only way she’ll stay dead.” Miguel made a little whining noise. “And, shut up, because as far as me and my Derek are concerned, she has, in fact, already done it. And I will never feel bad about Kate Argent dying.”
“Your Derek,” Laura drawled, “I thought my nose was fucking with me.”
“Laura,” Talia scolded.
“Yeah, yeah, language, I know.”
Stiles scratched at the hair on his face and squinted as his fingertips brushed the scar, far less obvious, on his cheek, “Yeah, mine. I definitely am not getting a boyfriend of the year award for doing this to him the day before his fucking birthday, though.”
Miguel made a noise, “It’s August.”
“Yeah,” Stiles grumbled, “and it was November for us an hour and whatever ago.”
“How the hell did I end up dating you?” Miguel asked, with his face scrunched up like it offended him. Stiles’ jaw dropped.
He raised his brows, “You want the real answer?”
“Yeah, actually!” Miguel snapped.
“You shot Kate Argent in my kitchen,” Stiles snapped, “because my future self is married to you and told me I would shoot her in the head. And future me is a psychopath who just murdered my best friend before my very eyes, so that freaked me out just a little tiny bit. Derek shot her to help me get over it. And, technically, we didn’t get together officially until my dad shot Kate’s dad and I force-shot a random hunter that was about to shoot you. Again. And then healed you.” The kid’s face was pale, so horrified and fragile. Stiles shrugged, lips splitting into a rough smile as he patted the hair on his head, “Romantic, huh?”
Peter giggled off to the side, “You are so Claudia’s son.”
“And yet you still want to shoot her?” Derek’s face was so crunched up, it must’ve hurt, “You already are a psychopath. I guess I have a type, do I?”
Stiles genuinely didn’t know how to respond to that. Other than by throwing up or something. He went with or something and just gawked at him instead.
“Okay, I think we are going off-topic here,” Talia said. Stiles pursed his lips as he snatched his hand back to rest against the leather in his lap, sinking further into the chair. “How is Kate going to do it?”
The spark licked his lips, “Gasoline? Matches? How do people normally set houses on fire? I mean, for the record, this house is way too flammable.”
I would know, he did not say. At all.
Fuck.
No voice chastised his language. And thank whatever’s out there for that small mercy.
“And mountain ash,” he added gently.
“I mean how will she get past the wards?” Talia asked.
Stiles blinked, “You mean the protection runes?”
Talia hummed in affirmation, “Your mother’s own. They aren’t exactly easy to get past.”
Stiles swallowed as he turned his gaze down to the grimoire again. He itched to paw through it still. It was the first question he hadn’t had an answer for. He’d never thought about that before. How Kate could possibly destroy the Hale House and everyone inside. Mountain ash would’ve kept them in, sure, but what about the humans inside? How could everyone not have…
He could feel a heat run through him as his heart sped up, “How did you not hear it happening?” Peter shuffled into view, perched beside his sister, with his brows furrowed. Stiles’ mouth bobbed open and shut for a moment, “I… You said my mom told you Kate… wouldn’t go through with it. What does that mean?”
“I had my suspicions,” Peter answered, “a few months ago. She’d figured out a way to see into the future and I asked her to see if it would happen. She said it wouldn’t.”
“What did she say would happen?” Stiles muttered.
“I would be the Alpha,” Peter answered.
Stiles’ jaw dropped open again, “She said you– And that the fire wouldn’t happen? She saw you being the Alpha.”
Peter tilted his head, “Is the fire what makes me the Alpha?”
“No,” Stiles bit out, “Yes. Not directly.”
The wolf went quiet; his face went stony. He gritted his teeth, “She lied?”
“If she did, you didn’t know,” Stiles said, turning his gaze back to Talia, “You didn’t mess with anyone’s memories.” Talia’s gaze was piercing. Stiles ground his jaw, gripping the grimoire in one hand and the arm of his chair in the other, “I need to talk to Deaton.”
“Alan?” Laura piped up, “I– Back up, how does Peter end up being the Alpha? I’m the one who’s supposed to take over if anything happens, and you said I survive–”
“Until Peter mauls you,” Stiles spat. The words spilt out through him before he could stop them. He flinched away from them, from the way Laura’s face closed off, how Derek stared up at him, the clench of Peter’s jaw. With a clash of teeth, he said, “It wasn’t his fault.”
“Like the fire wasn’t mine?” Derek growls.
Stiles huffs out a breath, but Talia cuts in, “We don’t blame you for any of this, Derek. Kate has been using you, and she will pay.”
“With her life?!” Derek cried, rising from his seat, too, “I’m not letting another person I love die!”
His eyes flashed blue. Talia stood, with a flash of red, but Stiles didn’t care about that. Derek had thought this was what happened, he’d hoped someone else had known, that they’d let it happen. Now the puzzle pieces were fitting together and they looked an whole lot like someone Stiles knew awfully well. He thought so, at least. If she was able to hide her entire life from him, though, well, he supposed that spoke for itself.
“I’m going to see Deaton,” Stiles forced out.
“Why him?” He couldn’t tell if that was Laura or Talia speaking, “Why not Claudia?”
“I’m not seeing her,” Stiles paused to breathe. He tapped his thigh with the grimoire one, two, three–
“Why the hell not?” Peter cried, “Hit two birds with one stone - get to the bottom of this and see your dead mom again.”
“I have seen more than enough of her,” Stiles said, “I–... She saw the future, and yet the words embedded into the cover of her grimoire damn whoever reads them to be possessed by the thing that possessed me and made me lose my fucking mind and murder Chris’ daughter–” Peter froze. “–one of my best friends, along with another’s boyfriend and more than a few helpless souls at the Sheriff’s station. This isn’t exactly out of character for her. And I’d much rather talk about it to a man who spent the last four months of my life telling you and I to stop trying to figure out some terrible thing that my mom did, than a woman who raised me on lies. It doesn’t help to know that her best friend was the only one to actually survive the fire.” Peter was staring at him, so intensely he was a little bit scared he’d explode him with pure willpower alone, but that was more Stiles’ style, wasn’t it? He chewed at his lip for a moment, then, “Are you coming with me or not?”
Peter gave a snarl of a grin, “Well, I am slightly curious to see how Alan explains me ‘mauling’ my niece.”
Stiles quirked his head, pivoting around the edge of the chair and storming to the door, “You don’t need him to explain that. I can’t explain why Chris cut her in half, though. He still ended up one of our closest allies, anyway.” He stopped, bracing his free hand against the doorframe, to cast a look over his shoulder at a blanching Peter, “Maybe you can explain that part to me.”
Peter growled, low in his throat. Talia rolled her eyes and the siblings pulled the exact same face of disturbance. This was Stiles’ own personal hell. He gave Peter a pointed look as he broke out of his own horror and started crossing the room to meet him.
“Stiles,” Talia called after them. The spark stopped. She raised her brows and tilted her head down, “Be careful. I have a sneaking suspicion that if you run into Kate, it won’t end well.”
Stiles tilted his head, “She has a treaty to follow, doesn’t she?”
“Not with you,” Talia stressed, “And not with your mother. Not anymore. Be careful.”
“I run with wolves,” Stiles said, “I can take care of myself.” He tried his best not to catch Derek’s eye as he turned away. The grimoire in his hand was heavy with foreboding as he did. He could only pray they were all wrong.
He’d get on his knees and pray for it.
He snapped a photo of the runes on his way out. Peter pretended not to notice.
-
“Your phone is weird.”
He was bad at pretending. His hands were gripping the wheel too tight. The wheel of the Camero. Stiles didn’t find himself in that car often, but the confirmation that it had been anyone’s car first, let alone potentially Peter’s was making it seem far more uncomfortable than usual. So, he focussed on the grimoire. Flicking through the pages and pages of runes, on pages dating back to 1989, scrawled in extremely varied levels of detail. It didn’t take long to piece it together, to find the patterns and slot them into place.
Some were for soundproofing. One of the first runes she’d written about in the book. Others were for sealing entrances. Or exits.
The runes were activated by fire.
The runes were activated by fire.
“Fuck.” The curse wasn’t meant to be verbal.
“What?” Peter asked, glancing away from the road for just a split second.
Stiles didn’t know what to tell him. Surely, there was another explanation. Wasn’t there? His mom had done some fucked up shit, sure, but this? Lying to werewolves and helping Kate Argent slaughter her best friend’s entire family? Why would she do that? Why would anyone do that?
She saw the way Peter was trapped inside his own mind, how it was burned away, how the shell of himself murdered his niece for the hope of healing itself, and she did it anyway. How did he survive it? If Claudia made that house an inescapable death trap?
This was it, wasn’t it? It was real. Claudia Stilinski was the reason Kate Argent was able to burn the Hales alive. Without her, they might all have lived. None of it would’ve happened. Scott wouldn’t’ve been turned. Stiles wouldn’t be rendered immobile by the sight of a beard and overgrown hair. It was her fault Kate was able to dig her claws into Derek. It was all her. She did this.
She did this.
‘I’m sure you won’t listen to me when I say this, and it’s not often I say it,’ Deaton had said, ‘but you should stop looking for answers. Both of you.’
‘You surely would’ve found something you didn’t like.’
“Stop the car,” he murmured.
Peter tilted his head in his peripheral, “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” Stiles said, “Pull over.”
“I thought we were going to see Deaton?”
“Well, we don’t have to,” Stiles snarled, “Stop the fucking car.”
Peter lifted his fingers in surrender as he pulled off the road and brought the car to a stop, muttering incoherent complaints to himself. Stiles gently placed the grimoire on the dash. The second the car was still enough, he fumbled with the handle and wrestled the door open; forced his seatbelt off in the same breath. Stumbled out the car and barely made it to a trashcan on the side of the street before he threw up. He coughed and spluttered, spat, and breathed deep as he moved back from the can. He braced his left hand against his hip, and pressed the back of his right to his mouth. His stomach clenched and ached around nothing.
“Hey, son,” that was his dad’s voice, holy God, “You alright?”
Stiles whipped around, blinking madly at his dad’s significantly younger face, briefly considering fully sprinting away, “Uh. Huh. Yeah, all good…” He glanced down at the name tag on his uniform, and the title right beside it, “Deputy.”
His dad smiled, “My wife can’t handle heat too well either.”
Stiles swallowed the puke down that time.
“There’s a Seven-Eleven down the street to the left,” his dad said, pointing in the direction and squinting as he did, “Their slushies always help her.”
Stiles had to remind himself to react, to nod and smile, “Thanks. I’ll give them a try.”
“Alright, kid,” his dad nodded, “Take care of yourself. And maybe… lose the jacket.”
Stiles nodded again, more than a little thrown, dizzying himself with the motion, “You too.” He frowned, “I mean- thank you. I will. Um.”
His dad laughed a little to himself and nodded again, turning away just a little, “Alright, son.”
Stiles cringed, “Alright. Tha-a-anks. ”
He stumbled back to the car before his dad could get another word in, hypnotised by the innocence in his eyes. This was a version of his father that hadn’t lost anything yet, had never had to pick up a bottle to try and handle it. He had no idea.
Stiles’ throat was closing up. Peter didn’t say anything, just took the car out of park and started driving. The reflection of the book in the windscreen, warped and distorted, burned into his retinas and made his chest feel like it was caving in. He reached for it anyway. Thumbed mindlessly through the pages again. Like a puppet on a string. He landed on a spell, just past the midway point, scrawled in ink so delicately. Detailed and precise.
A revival spell.
The page creased beneath Stiles’ fingertips. His eyes raked over the words, the warnings – ‘will only work as well as ordinary resuscitation - this is not necromancy. Expect brain damage, permanent injury, or worse. Do not attempt if’ blah, blah, blah. The bitter taste of loss sat heavily on Stiles’ tongue. He could’ve saved Scott if he’d just found the damn book. If the Other Stiles was half as honest as He kept insisting He was, He would’ve helped. Would’ve brought Scott back himself, or, hey, maybe just not murdered him. But He wanted Scott dead. For some reason, He took them to Oak Creek again, knowing they wouldn’t find what they were looking for, just so He could murder His best friend.
No wonder his mom loved Him so much.
“Are we still going to the clinic?” Peter asked, about as gentle as he could ask anything. Stiles wanted his Peter back, even if that thought made his head hurt. He wanted the Peter who’d sooner laugh in his face than treat him like he was fragile. The only person who could really understand why Stiles had ended up here. The only one who remembered. Who knew Stiles better than anyone.
Stiles left him behind. He could only pray that the loose ends tied themselves together. That he’d never existed at all. He didn’t need anyone to miss him.
He didn’t need to wonder if he’d left his dad alone.
“No,” Stiles breathed out, “The motel.”
Peter hummed, “Say no more.” Then, after a long moment of rumbling silence, “Noah isn’t going to do anything horrifying, too, right?”
“Peter, just drive.”
-
Stiles was sweating profusely. With his clothes long since dried by the blazing sun, with the heatwaves warping the horizon, muddying the edges of dying grass along the side of the road. He was a little surprised the Hale House didn’t catch itself on fire that summer. A wooden house in the middle of the preserve in the hottest summer the state had seen yet? It’s probably where Kate got the damn idea.
Had she planned it with Claudia? What would Claudia have claimed to have to gain, from killing her pack? She couldn’t have told Kate the future. She wouldn’t have liked a word of it. Unless Claudia lied. She was good at that.
Kate would die tomorrow. She had to. As soon as he was physically able, and not a shell of himself, Stiles had to kill her. And it had nothing to do with the Other Stiles. This was his only option. He had no other choice.
Gravel crunched beneath the tyres as they turned the corner; Stiles remembered the way He had blasted His music. Peter drove in silence. With his hands tense around the wheel, his turns rough, and his gear changes swift. He unclasped his seatbelt as they pulled into a free space. Stiles hadn’t done his when he got back in.
His arms were still aching like hell.
Peter’s face had shifted, as they slipped out of their seats, from the silent contemplative smoulder he wore behind the wheel to one of thinly veiled fear. Stiles knew that face well. Never once had it meant anything good for either one of them.
“What?” Stiles muttered.
Peter shook his head, “Stay here.” He slammed the driver’s side door shut and started walking.
“Absolutely not,” Stiles tailed after him, shifting the grimoire around in his hands to shrug his jacket off. Peter didn’t try to stop him - a good choice, seen as Stiles would’ve punched him in the throat if he did. “What the hell is going on?”
Peter turned back to him with a flash of golden eyes and, dear God, that was weird. It worked to shut him up, though, Stiles had to give him that. Only he was more stunned by the eye colour than the action itself. The wolf moved up to a door, room 88, to Stiles’ amusement, and stared at the handle like he could melt the metal. It was a wonder the heat hadn’t.
There was a voice on the other side. Stiles was so absolutely done with hearing it.
“You grew up in all the right places,” it drawled, “Your little boyfriend’s cute, too. Maybe I could take you both at the same time.”
Derek growled, and Peter roared as he barrelled through the door. Splintered wood flew out into the room, just as the wolf did, and Stiles only briefly wondered if he knew he was going to be the one paying for that. His roars were far too loud, even as they were dampened by the thick layer of humidity in that shitty room - Stiles just let him do what he needed to do. Still, as he got close enough to the bitch to try and swipe at her, he was knocked down by a sparking stick of delight before he could get a bite in edgewise. The metal poking out of her waistband caught the light through shitty puke-yellow drapes.
“Oh, come on, really?” Kate chastised, pressing the taser down into the spot between Peter’s shoulder blades as he tried to stand again. He fell to his stomach with a fierce roar. Stiles considered those bright blue sparks of electricity. Kate’s eyes met his, “This is seriously the family you choose to associate with? They’re all pathetic. Little. Bitches.”
Stiles got his legs to start working then. Whether they were frozen by the horror of what this woman was, or the horror of what Stiles was going to do when he finally moved, it took him long enough. He lunged, fist colliding hard against her jaw; her groan barely muffled the crack of his knuckles. That sparking stick was stabbed into his stomach - a blunt, disappointing little pain. He had her back against a wall, with the windowsill digging into her hip as she stared up at him with that angry look on her face. Her jaw cut into the painted skin of his forearm.
“You’re just as wrong as the rest of them,” she spat.
Stiles wrapped his hand around the taser pressing against his abdomen, raising his brows as he hummed in agreement. Her lip curled, exposing her teeth like a rabid dog, and Stiles almost - barely - felt the slightest bit pitiful toward her.
“I’m gonna enjoy killing you,” he sighed, “Isn’t that just so wrong?”
He was pulled back just as his hand wrapped around the gun in her waistband; thrown to the floor like it was nothing.
“Peter! No! For God’s sake!”
It meant nothing to him. Stiles should’ve known better to expect an unburned Peter to be selfless enough to let someone else punish her. His vengeance was the first part of him Stiles ever knew - or, remembered he knew. Nothing about Peter should ever have surprised him.
Still, that did little to calm the burn inside himself as the blood splattered. As Peter roared, and Kate screamed. She clocked him in the side of the head with her weapon and Stiles was frozen by his anger at the sight of the blood dripping past her hand, pressed against her neck. She stumbled past Peter’s body, racing to the door. Stiles raised the gun as she passed him, though pulling the trigger sent flares of pain up his forearms; made him lose his focus, his aim. He clambered up to his knees as she disappeared past the doorframe and out onto the street. His shoulder smacked against that doorframe, and he pushed through the stupid, blaring, distracting, pulsing pain in his arms to lift the gun one last time.
He aimed right at her skull. At the blonde hair painted red.
He strained to pull the trigger.
Click.
“You’re fucking joking,” he groaned. He lowered his arms, wincing at the ache and dropping the empty gun to thud against the matted old carpet on the floor. A little noise forced its way out of him as the pain kept pulsing, persisting as he flexed his hands. “ Fuck. You just can’t stop yourself from slashing her throat open, can you?” Peter met his glare as he rolled to his side. He pressed a bloodied hand against the carpet. Stiles made a low noise, “Now we have to go to a new motel, you– God!! She hasn’t even done anything to you yet, you asshole!”
“As if she’s already done anything to you!” Peter cried.
“She raped me.”
Stiles turned to him. To stare at the shaking shell of Derek, cowering in the corner of the room - so unlike himself and so raw. Stripped away were the walls he’d spent so long putting up around himself - around what happened to him, what Kate did to him, in no passive sense at all. Derek looked like someone else entirely, so utterly foreign to Stiles, as he sat beside the bed with his arms wrapped loosely around his legs, but with his clawed hands digging down through his jeans and breaking skin. His eyes weren’t focused on either one of the other men. They were barely focused on anything.
“She raped me,” he said, with a growl in his voice, “And you let her.” His eyes moved over to Peter with a blink. They were sea glass. “Don’t act like I was any good at hiding it. You knew. And you didn’t do anything. But now that you might get burned, suddenly she has to die by your hand? Literally?” He took in one deep breath, “You are so believable.”
Peter scoffed, “I… You saw the way you reacted to all of this. As if you would have listened if I tried, if I even knew, which I didn’t.”
“You’re my family,” Derek seethed, “You were supposed to be somebody I could depend on. You… You promised you'd...” His lip quivered, covered with a show of teeth, “Why didn’t you protect me? Why didn't you save me?”
Peter said nothing.
“Stiles was supposed to shoot her in the head,” Derek said, with a sudden coolness that sent a similar chill down Stiles’ spine; dampened the burning flame in his chest on its way down, “And I was supposed to be happy. She would’ve had no way to come back if her brain matter was in a biohazard bag in a dumpster behind the Sheriff’s station.” He took another deep breath, “Now, what?”
Stiles couldn’t speak, either.
“Are we supposed to wait until she finishes tending to her wounds and shows her face again to get another shot?”
He didn’t think he was actually asking. But then Derek’s eyes met his, knocked the air out of his lungs, and slapped him back-handed across the face. He swallowed, so thickly it was audible even to him.
Derek’s eyes were so terrifyingly beautiful, all broken like that, as he shook his head so helplessly, “I can’t wait here for that. I can’t sit around and wait for her to…” The words devolved into a sudden burst of a growl, smothered just as fast with the bloody palms of his hands, “Fuck.”
And it was simple. As simple as the ache of Stiles’ arms and the weight of the gun in his hands. He and Peter were alike in more ways than he liked to admit, but one thing he would concede to was revenge. The jump to murder. He was trigger-happy, maybe. But, nevertheless, Peter did one thing right when he was the Alpha. He killed the people who had helped Kate commit her crimes.
He was going to make himself useful and help Stiles do it again.
He declared it as such, though the words were barely audible beyond the blur of pain and fear and hatred coursing through him. Derek pulled his hands in when he urged him to his feet, pressed his palms against his cheeks and his throat; melted down into his arms and burrowed into his throat as if he could crawl into his skin and hide until it all went away. He was so far removed from the Derek Stiles met in that clearing, but just the same, surely. Stiles would have known that if the wolf hadn’t been playing some sort of role back then, trying to fill shoes that didn’t belong to him yet, trying so desperately to survive.
He was just a scared kid. Back then, and now. Stiles would burn the world for him if he didn’t think it disgustingly ironic. Even still, he might just do it anyway. Just to know Derek might be safe when it all died down.
For now, he was satisfied with preventing the fire.
For now.
-
“Do you want me to come with you?” Stiles had asked.
“No,” Derek had answered, “I want to go alone.”
Stiles nodded, even as the unease settled in his stomach, “Alright. I’m just a howl away. Or a phone call. Preferably a phone call. We are civilised mostly-human beings.”
“I’ll be fine, Stiles,” Derek had smiled, “It’s not like I’m saying goodbye forever. Just… ‘see you later’.”
Stiles understood that. Still, letting him go to see his family again - alone - kind of made him want to throw up again. He hadn’t even told him about what his own mother had to do with all of this, as if it would help, anyway. But he had to get used to it. Both of them did. This was going to be permanent. Derek couldn’t keep pretending it was all a bad dream, and Stiles couldn’t keep treating him like glass. He wanted to, though. He really, really wanted to.
He let him go. Now he was sat in the passenger seat of Peter’s car again. His mother’s grimoire stared back at him, giving just as good as he gave. The hands of the wolf beside him were tense around the steering wheel.
“So, you’re, what?” He said, “A hunter hunter? ”
Stiles gave him a judgemental look, “What? I don’t hunt anything.”
The gun in his lap was empty again. Still, he did not believe he was lying.
Peter hummed, “Nous chassons ceux qui nous chassent.”
The spark squinted at him, “Are you speaking French?” Peter shrugged his shoulders. “On that note, I still don’t know what happened between you and Chris.”
“Are you sure you want to get chatty with me?” Peter grumbled, “I thought I was ruining all of this for you. And I already ruined Derek.”
“Sure,” Stiles nodded, “You also ruined my first love and my first everything else and ruined Derek again in more ways than you can imagine and I’m very tired of recounting your crimes against humanity to everyone else, least of all to yourself. And yet, somehow, there’s still a very determined part of me that feels enough empathy for you to not be able to hate you like I used to.” Peter said nothing. Again. Stiles chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment, “We’re more alike than I like to admit.” The gun in his lap felt heavier now, “And, hey, here we are. Killing people together.”
“Not killing people,” Peter corrected simply.
“Maiming people together,” Stiles conceded, “We’re getting a message across. Semi-passively. Making leaps and bounds. Now, you and Chris. Spill. I will beg if I have to.”
It was awfully convenient, far from coincidental, that the determination died on his tongue as the car slowed to a stop and he caught up to where they were. He was going to kill Peter. Not maim. Kill.
His Jeep - not his, his mother’s - rocked in the driveway. The doors swung open in swift succession, and the bodies were slipping out. First, himself. A silhouette he would recognise not only for the memory of it, nor the abundance context, but from the hideous DC collage t-shirt he wore, with those bright green jeans he’d burned a good eight years back. He was bouncing on the balls of his tiny feet, with his hands braced against the seat he’d just left. The second body left the car.
Stiles closed his eyes. He knew he’d see spots when they opened again if he kept them sealed shut so tight. As if he cared.
“Stiles,” Peter’s voice taunted, “I thought we were sending messages to all the people who helped Kate. You’ve come this far, and you can’t even look at this one?”
“Shut up,” Stiles hissed, “Shut the fuck up.”
"Oh, come on,” he drawled, “You’re tougher than this.”
Stiles kept his eyes closed, squeezed shut as tight as he could manage, “No. No, I’m not.”
He didn’t understand why. He couldn’t answer Peter when he asked. There was some sort of a difference, in the most primal reaches of Stiles, that understood far better than he consciously could, the difference between hearing his mother’s voice, reading her words, seeing mirages of her in voids and dreams. And seeing the real her. The body whose hands had bruised and broken him. The voice that haunted nightmares for years before its memory brought any comfort.
He couldn’t do this.
He couldn’t see her. He didn’t need to.
Why the fuck had Peter brought him here?
“Turn around,” he seethed.
Peter hummed. A question.
“She’s gonna forget all about whatever plans she had,” Stiles said, “if she even remembers them now.”
Peter tch’d; kissed his teeth, “Oh, let’s not underestimate her. She did outsmart everyone she ever knew, after all.”
“Yeah, and then she died alone.”
The words shocked a tightness into his throat. The half-lie, the memory of her dying before his very eyes, of the flatline, of the death rattle, of him crying for help, pathetically unanswered. He needed to get away from this. From her. From the past. Once they were back in the right time (or as close to the right time as Stiles was ever going to be again), he could at least find something else to occupy himself. He wouldn’t have the ghost of his dead mother and the life she left behind lurking around every corner. He could leave town, let them be with their living families. There would be one too many Dereks and Stileses, anyway. They would be off the hook.
“Peter, I’m not gonna keep doing this,” he wept, “Just take me to a semi-functioning motel and leave me alone. You can do whatever you want now. I don’t care.”
And he didn’t listen to Peter’s words. The drone of disbelieving bargains for any claim to his mother’s righteousness, her innocence. When he said nothing for long enough, Peter gave up. He drove. Stiles didn’t open his eyes until he heard the ground beneath their tyres shift from smooth tarmac to dirty gravel.
The spots in his vision were dizzying.
Everything was so disarmingly blue.
-
The face in the mirror wasn’t his. It wasn’t His, either. Not enough for him to justify any real feeling about it.
He looked closer to how he remembered, roughly and without focus, before he was taken back to the day Scott got bit. That exact face he’d cringed at, with its mouth pulled into an awkward incomplete smile in his yearbook photo, that he’d vowed to outdo in their Senior year. He never got to.
He wondered whether they should go that far. To his Senior year. Let him finally catch up. That would leave Derek a few years behind. He didn’t think he’d care. Though Stiles might care about still being almost two years ahead.
The door of the motel room opened with a click. It shut just the same.
“Stiles?” Derek’s voice called out.
“There are no razors here,” Stiles said back. Something crinkled in the other room.
Derek appeared in the reflection as he slipped into the bathroom, asking with a genuine earnesty, “What do you need a razor for?”
Stiles lifted a brow and gestured around his head, eventually resting his hand just below his jaw, and the scruff that covered it. His arms ached with the effort. Derek glanced down at the reflection of them.
“Motels don’t tend to cater to… any needs,” he nodded, “at all. So. You won’t find one.”
“What, you’re a motel expert now?” Stiles grumbled, though the snark was dead on his lips the moment Derek stepped closer and wrapped his body around him. His hands pressed against the skin of his arms. And the pain was gone. Derek swore, his fingers digging in deep enough to cause more pain for him to take, but Stiles was so stunned by the sudden relief his head fell back onto Derek’s shoulder.
He breathed.
Derek breathed back against him.
“You don’t have to do that,” Stiles murmured.
“What is that?” Derek whispered back, “Why are you hurting so bad?”
Stiles shook his head and let it fall back into place, staring at the image of the two of them. Their heads level. Their shoulders barely differing in width. The black seeping up through Derek’s veins, past the watch on his right wrist up to vanish beneath the fabric at his elbows, and painting his arms near-perfect replicas of the spark’s. He pulled his right arm up to lace his fingers between Derek’s and feel the weight of him, “I don’t know.”
“Do you need a doctor??”
“Probably,” Stiles shrugged, “But I’ve survived being impaled. I can survive a little pain in my forearms.”
“A little?” Derek choked out.
Stiles rolled his eyes and pulled the wolf’s hands off of him, staring easily into the reflection of his concern before them. The pain came rushing back. It felt about as bad as he’d been ready for.
He smiled, “See? I’m still standing.” He ignored the look in Derek’s eyes and turned to pat him solidly on his chest, “Anyway, less talk about me, how are you doing in this Hellscape we have suddenly been thrust into? You look a little less traumatised.”
Derek nodded, considering, “I’m still as traumatised as before, I’m pretty sure. I didn’t see my family, so.”
“What?” Stiles blinked at him.
“Well, I,” Derek tilted his head, “I got dinner with Laura. Which was as awkward as it was upsetting, but,” he gave a deeply insincere smile, “I’m still standing. I’ll have enough time to acclimate to my entire family being revived in the future if this all works.”
“If?” Stiles frowned, “It is absolutely going to work. Those guys are not committing any arsons any time soon.”
“Well,” Derek sighed, “Either way. I got a little too used to being an orphan. It might take a while to start believing this is real. They’re. They’re not alive. To me.” He looked down at the floor, “They’re dead. All of them. They’ve been dead for seven years. I’ve mourned them. And I’ve. Gotten better. And now it all just,” his brows furrowed, “Doesn’t matter? And I need to act like it never even happened?” He shrugged his shoulders. An image of such a helpless, small being.
Stiles shook his head, “No,” he tried, reaching up to cup Derek’s bearded cheeks, “Hey.” Derek met his gaze with such reluctance it hurt. “I don’t know how this’ll work with, you know, two Dereks and two Stileses. Maybe when we go back it’ll be like we were never anything. Maybe our minds and memories will go to the future and our bodies will turn to stardust. But whatever happens, whether we have to face this or not. It’ll be okay. And we will have each other. Right?”
Derek stared at him so delicately.
Stiles’ brows twitched, “And you can have your family back. Isn’t that a good thing?” He asked. Though he knew his own answer to the question would be a resounding and emphatic ‘no’.
“I don’t–” Derek scrunched his nose, “Yes. Yes, it’s a good thing. I just. I’m.” He pursed his lips and ground his jaw - Stiles felt his teeth grinding beneath his palms. His arms ached from holding them up for so long. Derek winced, “A part of me. Feels wrong. Like. Angry. Like I went through so much just for it all to be fine. It feels. Wrong.” Stiles watched him continue to grind his teeth for a long moment as his eyes found their way back to settling on Stiles’ own. They softened, and his hands rose to cover the spark’s over his cheeks, “You don’t have to say anything, Stiles. I know you like to fix things, but…” He frowned, “Feelings can’t be fixed.”
It was far too heavy of a conversation to be having in a motel bathroom. Though, maybe, it was the only place they could talk about it.
“I hate motels,” Stiles muttered.
Derek quirked his brows and pulled his hands down, “You’re telling that to the guy who can smell every person who had sex or died in this entire hallway. Or both.”
Stiles decided not to start talking about his reasons for hating motels, and also flares and handsaws, and instead tilted his head and said, “Holy God.”
“And then imagine having your sister right next to you smelling it all, too,” Derek drawled. Stiles pulled a face - less of a real reaction and more of a step back from the realness of this whole conversation. Surely Laura couldn’t stay a sensitive topic between them. Not if she was going to live. Derek hummed, “The road to New York was not a fun one. And that is how I’m a motel expert.”
Stiles tilted his head again, “You ever heard of the Glen Capri? ”
Derek blinked at him, “No. Why?”
Stiles shook his head, “No reason. Forget about it.”
Derek squinted at him for a long moment, then ground his jaw, “I brought some food back for you. You haven’t eaten since…” His brows somehow seemed to fall and rise at the same time, and even in the absence of an actual measure of time, Stiles’ stomach started to growl awake at the reminder. Eventually, Derek just shook his head and started to head out of the bathroom, “I got you curly fries.”
“Oh, you do love me.”
And so they ended up sprawled across the bed, leaving grease stains in the long-ruined, shoddy, crinkled sheets, mindlessly talking back and forth into the stale air. Derek was okay now. It seemed like it, at least. As close to that last summer as he’d been since. Stiles missed that summer. Yearned for it. How simple it had all been. Everyone was alive, and happy, and safe. It was the kind of summer he’d been wanting since he was a kid - weeks of fun without stopping, not a moment alone. It was everything he ever wanted. He couldn’t recreate that when they went back. It was lightning in a bottle.
Another fry turned to mush between his teeth as Derek continued to spew details of Peter’s Camaro - Peter’s - that went in one ear and out the other. Stiles didn’t really care about cars. He would listen when Derek talked about them, but he would never pretend he understood a word of it. Or wanted to. Derek didn’t seem to mind. The only car Stiles ever cared about was his own. His mother’s.
He sucked the seasoning off of his fingers.
Drawing in a sharp breath in a pause in Derek’s engine talk, he said, “I’m shaving everything the second we get back.” The wolf made a tiny growling sort of noise and Stiles looked up to give him as judgmental of a look as he could manage, “I do not understand what the hell you think is so great about this look, and I’m flattered that you think I’m pretty enough to overlook murdering Scott, but I don’t! So! It’s gotta go! And then I will get so shitfaced I won’t even care that I’m bald again.”
“I’m not overlooking anything, you–” Derek cut himself off with a huff.
Stiles crossed his arms and propped himself up on them. It was not often that Derek was the one withholding information. In fact, it was always Stiles. One-hundred-percent of the time. Often unnecessarily. He did it exactly twenty minutes ago about the murder-suicide motel thing. So this. This seemingly extremely relevant yet utterly indecipherable piece of information that now Derek decided to be secretive about.
What the fuck happened when Stiles left them at Oak Creek?
“Did you get freaky with future me at that concentration camp?”
“Oh, my God, Stiles!!”
“That is not a ‘no’.”
“No!” Derek’s eyes were wide and just horrified enough to feel mildly offensive, “No, I didn’t ‘get freaky’– ” He broke out in a loud laugh.
Stiles hadn’t heard him laugh in months. Not like that, anyway. Then he stopped as the laugh morphed into a yawn. Stiles pushed down the urge to mirror it.
His brows furrowed, “What time is it?”
Derek flicked his wrist to squint at the watch on his wrist, still chuckling a little to himself, “Just gone midnight.”
Stiles blinked.
He considered nudging the takeout box in his direction to offer up the last fry, but Derek tossed it in his mouth before he could even start to move. The wolf chewed silently, with his tired eyes still sparkling in the dull yellow light. He hadn’t had the slightest chance to shave, either, now scruffy and entirely too soft around the edges.
Stiles loved him so bad. It was terrifying.
“Happy birthday,” he whispered.
Derek stopped chewing for a moment. Then swallowed. His brows drew together, “Oh.”
“Oh.”
“I forgot,” he murmured.
Stiles smiled, “I didn’t.”
And Derek’s eyes did that thing. Where they got all soft and gooey. And it felt wrong for Stiles to be aware of the way he looked at him. It seemed too private even for the only man it was meant for.
“That fry was gonna be your gift, but, well,” Stiles pursed his lips. Derek’s face morphed into a very convincing glare. That fire was far more familiar. Irony. Stiles bit his lip, “Now I’m thinking of a different gift that I should definitely not give you right now.”
Derek’s brows fell barely a millimetre. His eyes sparkled, “No?”
The want burned bright in Stiles’ stomach, “Absolutely not. That would not be healthy. In light of recent events.”
“Aw,” Derek drawled, “Well. As we are the healthiest couple in this town and, probably, the entire universe, we can’t have that, can we?”
Stiles couldn’t do much more than shake his head.
“I don’t see what’s wrong with a birthday gift, though,” Derek mused.
Stiles’ mouth slowly, slowly drew into a grin, “Me neither.”
Derek’s own mouth split into a grin, sharp, and animalistic, and the empty box of crumbs was pushed to the sullied carpet below them just as fast as Stiles was pulled up into the man’s arms. Ravished.
‘Happy birthday’ was sighed into that devilish mouth enough times to make up for the fact that Stiles’ other gifts were doomed. Eternally and biblically.
And even divine intervention wouldn’t make ‘I’m sorry’ pass his lips half as easily.
-
The next morning, it was hot, and bright, and blistering. And Stiles was afraid.
The bark was dry. Or, the heartwood. That’s what it’s called, isn’t it? The centre of a tree. Its core. Stiles wasn’t sure.
They went alone. Derek was so contented as they walked through the preserve. With his nose high. Stiles wondered what he was scenting. His pack? The trees? Stiles? All of it? Really, Stiles’ arms were hurting too hard for him to think too hard about any of it. He wondered if Derek was more confident in this than he was. He knew it had to work. The house was still standing in the future Stiles saw. The one he resented. Different, but standing.
‘We renovated’ He’d said. There were two possible meanings to that. Stiles could try optimism. However many times it had failed him, he could try again. Why not try?
The Hales would be there waiting for them. Stiles wouldn’t botch it this time.
The Nemeton was so easy to find. Like it was finally back to wanting anything to go right for Stiles at all. Like he was connected with it again. Even if that connection had only ever been through his mother. And Stiles didn’t want anything to do with it anymore.
He could revel in the silence.
Stiles placed the grimoire between him and Derek. Met his eyes and breathed in deep. The book taunted him with the necessity of itself. Inserting itself always where it wasn’t wanted.
“Take my hands,” he whispered uneasily, “And close your eyes.”
Violet simmered beneath the Nemeton’s surface.
Derek’s thumbs rubbed back and forth against his knuckles. The pain seeped away.
September 9th.
Stiles breathed in as the wind picked up and choked him.
2012.
He read the words aloud.