Chapter Text
Argent made his way through the Beacon Hills tunnels down a path he’d traveled hundreds of times before. Alert, always. Never could be too careful in Beacon Hills anyway, especially underground.
As he approached his destination, Argent halted several feet back. Something was wrong. The massive door to the family bunker was cracked open. Ajar.
A frown settled onto his features. He slowly reached for his gun, careful not to make any sound as he readied it in front of him and crept toward the door. Argent went to push the bunker door open farther for him to slip in, but a black blur out of the corner of his eye had him whipping around, gun raised, searching for the intruder.
And there he was. A black hooded figure, standing just close enough to speak without having to raise his voice. Argent tried to question the figure first, but the man’s mouth, the only part of him visible, was moving first.
“When is a door not a door?”
“When it’s a-jar,” Argent answered gruffly.
“Like this one.” The figure held up the cylindrical object he was holding in his hand, showing off the lid. His other hand came to rest on the lid, almost as a warning. Argent briefly glanced at it, not wanting to take his eyes off the figure for too long. It was wooden with a distinct symbol carved into the top. A triskelion.
“What do you want with that box?” Argent questioned.
“It's a very special jar, actually,” the figure continued on as if Argent hadn’t spoken. “It was made from the wood of a sacred tree and used to capture a dark kitsune. A trickster spirit called Nogitsune.”
“You don't know what you're doing,” Argent warned. He moved his finger to hover over the trigger.
“Ah-ah,” the figure warned, twisting the lid to the side, releasing it but not opening it.
Argent couldn’t shoot, damn it. He knew the figure would rip the lid off as soon as he pulled the trigger.
“I've been searching for this for years. I know precisely what I'm doing.”
“You can't control it,” Argent said, almost pleading.
“I don't want to.”
“Set me free,” a raspy voice suddenly rang out from the box.
“Not until you make me a promise.” The figure moved the box in front of him and turned his attention to it.
“What fool would ask a promise from a trickster spirit?”
“Call it a mutually beneficial arrangement. If you're as all powerful and omniscient as they say, then you already know what I want.”
“You want retribution… against him… his friends… and everyone he loves. Set me free and we'll play a new game. A game of chaos, strife, and pain!”
Argent watched as the figure lifted the lid up and let one of the most powerful enemies they’d ever faced be free again. The little fly zipped up in a haphazard pattern.
Fuck it, Argent though. He pulled the trigger, but the little fly was too fast. It darted for the figure’s mouth.
“You can’t kill me,” the Nogitsune almost cackled after Argent finished unloading the clip into him.
Scott carefully picked up the black pit bull from the metal table and set him down on the ground in front of the little girl to which he belonged. He gave her a reassuring smile.
“It looks like Cooper is going to be just fine,” he told the girl, crouching down next to her and Cooper. “He just played a little bit too hard, so he’ll need lots of rest, okay?”
“Okay,” the girl nodded and hugged Cooper around his neck. The dog just smiled as dogs do.
Scott had known the little family for quite a while, having met them when he first started working with Deaton again after vet school. Cooper was a puppy then and the young girl even younger. The two were partners in crime. Cooper truly lived up to the nanny dog name pit bulls once had. Now, though, Cooper was just getting older and playing as hard as he used to wasn’t something he could do anymore.
He handed the parents a bottle of painkillers for Cooper and told them when to give them as well as anything to watch out for. Scott saw the family off, waving from the cover of the clinic while the family rushed into their car to avoid the pouring rain. He stayed there, watching them drive away.
“There's still time.”
Scott turned around to see Deaton leaning against the other doorway to the room. “Oh, I know… Yeah, I'll have kids one of these days. After I find someone. Or someone finds me, I guess,” he shrugged.
“Yeah, I meant there's still time to beat traffic. But if you wanna talk, there's still time for that too,” Deaton replied, a trace of amusement crossing his face.
Scott just huffed with a smile and shook his head at Deaton’s teasing.
“Why don’t you lock up,” Deaton said. “I’ll get my stuff.”
Scott nodded, doing a final sweep of the room and going to flip the open sign to closed. He turned to leave the room, but stopped when he heard a sudden banging on the door.
Dejavu almost made Scott freeze completely after he turned to see who was banging on the door. He’d recognize that shape anywhere no matter how long it’d been. He opened the door.
“I didn't see him!” she sobbed, soaking wet from the downpour outside. “I took my eyes off the road for like two seconds!”
It’s very hard to breathe when grief, shock, and hope hit you all at once, Scott learned, but he managed to get enough air in to wheeze out, “Allison,” before she faded away into nothing. Scott let out a shaky breath as he backed away from the door. Thankfully the dogs started barking, snapping him back to reality.
Scott could hear footsteps, despite them being almost quiet enough to best his werewolf hearing. Footsteps trained to be able to evade supernatural senses. But a familiar scent accompanied them, putting Scott at ease. He looked around to find his step father and almost turned directly into him.
“Oh! Jesus!” Scott jumped back, but let out a sigh of relief as they hugged each other. “Hey. Shit dude. You know you could just use the front door, right?”
“I never use the front door. Especially when it's not safe,” Argent told him.
Scott frowned and pulled back to look at Argent. As he did so, he realized how shaken up the man looked. Nothing good ever came from Argent looking anything other than sure. Maybe this had something to do with him seeing Allison, he wondered.
“Who says it's not safe?” Deaton asked, concern clear in his voice as he came to find out what’s going on.
“You're seeing her too,” Argent didn’t so much ask as he did state, ignoring Deaton. “I heard you say her name when I came in.”
Scott couldn’t bring himself to answer, but he imagined the look he was giving his step dad was enough of an answer. Him and Deaton got Argent settled a little bit more with coffee in the break room before they continued their conversation. It didn’t look like Argent would have been able to do the whole thing on his feet anyway.
“I mean, I've dreamt about her,” Argent finally continued from where he sat at the table once Scott handed him a full mug. “You know, now and then over the years I've had images flicker in front of my eyes like blurry photos. And then, two weeks ago, something changed. Those random images flickering through my head got clearer. I saw flashes of her crying out, silently screaming in pain. In agony. She was suffering.”
“Allison…” Scott couldn’t help the name that escaped his lips.
“But I started seeing her face more and more. And then I started hearing her voice. And I can hear somebody whispering to me.”
“Whispering what?” Scott asked.
“One word, and only one. I hear it every time I go to sleep and every time I wake up. And I only wake up from nightmares.”
“What word?” Deaton finally asked.
“Ajar,” Scott said. “I uh… I was on the phone the other day and I was writing down a client's number. But instead of the number, I wrote that.” He gestured to the whiteboard that had the word ajar written right in the middle.
“You and I, we're both seeing her. We're both speaking the same word. It's not just a dream,” Argent started to explain urgently.
“When is a door not a door,” Scott whispered.
“Allison is caught between life and death,” Argent tried to explain. Or reason. Scott wasn’t quite sure which it was or if it was maybe both. “The door between life and death is cracked open. It’s ajar.”
“It's not that simple,” Deaton cuts in.
“Well that fucking riddle is waking me up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, telling me my daughter is still out there!” Argent snapped.
“She can't be…” Scott said. “I mean, sh-she died in my arms. I felt her slip away from me.”
“I know we all die. I'm not pretending to know what happens next or how it may work on the other side. But if there was something after this life, some next step, I think something isn’t shut all the way right now. And I think she's trying to tell us that.”
“It's been 15 years,” Scott said hesitantly. Moving on from Allison was one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do. He couldn’t get his hopes up now only for them to shatter his heart again.
“Let's say we accept all this. What can we actually do to help?” Deaton questioned.
“There's a-a-a ritual of some kind. I know a few details. It has to be done by the next full moon. And if it's not, we don't get another chance,” Argent offered.
“I'm not sure. And I'll admit, I'm a little scared. We're talking about dangerous rituals, thousands of years old. There are going to be repercussions,” Deaton warned.
“That’s the other thing I came here to tell you about… We’ve dealt with the repercussions once. Now we get to do it again. Nothing worse could happen,” Argent said, growing more solemn. “Earlier today… somebody broke into the bunker. I don’t know who and I don’t know how, but he stole the triskelion box and told me that damn riddle about the door. The Nogitsune is back, Scott. I think it’s all connected, but he’s coming for you and your pack.”
“Sound energy,” Lydia started to explain as she led the group through the building. “I'm speaking specifically of the sounds that fill our acoustic environment. Our current ability to harness those sounds as not only a renewable energy source, but as a green sustainable electric energy—”
“Lydia, I hate to interrupt you, especially since you're going full throttle with this tech shit that none of us really seem to understand—”
“Thanks for the input, Rick, and for not interrupting,” Lydia interrupted and patted Rick on the shoulder, although she couldn’t get too mad. She was used to it. Her own husband was much the same way when he got something on his mind. Lydia just ignored Rick as he tried to gesture to her with a folder.
“Yeah. Lyd, listen—”
“Continuing on, research into energy harvesting, up until now—”
“Lydia, I just have one tiny, little question.” Lydia tried to keep ignoring Rick, but, “Lyd…”
“Stop calling me Lyd,” she snapped, halting their walk.
“Lydia.”
“Rick. For someone who hates to interrupt, you seem oddly compelled to keep doing it,” she pointed out, keeping a smile plastered on as her temper wore thin.
“Look, all I want to know is: who's Allison?”
Lydia froze. She felt any expression she may have had drain from her face only to be replaced with shock and dread. She looked at the folder Rick handed her. Every word on the opening page and on every other page in the folder was all the same. Just a name. Allison. Repeating over and over again in different sizes and fonts.
Lydia briefly heard Rick call out to her as she abruptly left the meeting, but she didn’t care. She could make it up later. This, however, wouldn’t get solved until she got the premonition out in the physical world somehow.
Once inside her office, Lydia locked the door and rushed to her desk. She sat down, taking a steadying breath before surveying her desk to see what she could maybe use.
Pens. Lydia spotted her pens and reached for one, then reached for a stack of blank papers. She took one more deep breath before closing her eyes, placing the tip of the pen against the paper and letting the banshee go.
When Lydia snapped out of it, gasping, she found scattered papers with patterns and blocks scribbled on all over her desk and on the floor. Okay. Lydia found a sudden burst of determination. Time to be a supernatural creature.
Lydia pulled out her phone and called the number she’s called so many times in the past for situations like this. It only rang a couple times before there was an answer.
“Hey, Lydia, my love. How’s it going?” Lydia could imagine the goofy grin Stiles would be wearing as he said those words. She wanted to smile back because Stiles could always make her do that, but now was not the time.
Instead, she said firmly, “Stiles, we’ve got a problem.”