Chapter Text
The Witches catch them unawares.
A strategic plan that goes array because really, they don’t know hell of a lot about Witches, and had scrambled together a mixture of weapons that could possibly, maybe, might work. Stiles, for one, has a stash of small, iron blades in his backpack, squashed between his laptop and ever-present bag of blue powered aconite.
Never call Stiles unprepared.
And he has his bat, the one Deaton had helped to make. He grips its base between his sweaty fingers and taps out a staccato rhythm as he eyes the figures surrounding him.
“Back off!” He shouts, and there’s a rumble of agreement from Derek, somewhere behind him. “We don’t want to have to hurt you, but you’ve trespassed on Hale Pack territory and need to leave.” And boy, did he wish his voice wasn’t pitched so high. He sounds like a pre-pubescent girl at a Beiber concert.
One of the Witches smiles, steps forward so that she’s a mere meter away from Stiles, close enough that he could take a swing with the bat and clip her. But he doesn’t, because he doesn’t want to be the one to start the fight, doesn’t want to be the one to blame when the shit hits the fan.
“My, my, if it isn’t The Boy Who Runs With Wolves.” She cocks her head to one side, bright eyes sliding over him to eye Derek. The growl sounds closer this time, almost vibrating against his arm and back.
“That’s actually a pretty cool name, but, uh, yeah, you really need to leave.” He says.
“I think…’no’.”
There’s the scuffle of feet to his left and Stiles spins, the bat lifting into the air automatically. One of the Witches has tackled Allison, manages to dodge the arrow she lets lose as she goes down. It brings Scott over with an outraged snarl and he attempts to drag the male Witch off of his girlfriend without hurting her in the process. Which means that their formation is broken, and they’re at another disadvantage.
Stiles turns to Derek, wolfed out and snarling, to ask what he wants to do, but as soon as he meets the Alpha’s red gaze, he feels himself flying. He lands on his back, the air knocked out of him and spine tingling where his laptop has dug in. He hopes it isn’t broken, as he scrambles awkwardly to his hands and knees.
They’re fighting, now. Snarls and rips and cries fill the air. But it’s all a little distant, as Stiles tries to get his backpack off to get the iron blades out, and the Witch with the smile approaches him.
She stretches out her hand and taps him under the chin. She can’t be much older than he is, early twenties, perhaps, but there’s something timeless about her face, and something indefinably cold in her eyes.
“You’re a gorgeous young thing, Boy Who Runs With Wolves, has anyone ever told you that?” She asks, and he blinks to find her kneeling before him, her bent knees almost touching his chest.
“N-no.” Stiles stutters with a frown. “But I like to think I’m pretty gorgeous, all the same.”
“You are. You’re very pretty.” She runs blunt nailed fingers along his jaw-line and then smooths a thumb across his lips. “I bet you’re very smart, too. I bet you’re the mind behind your little Pack. The brains.”
Stiles jerks his face away, and tries to open the zip of his backpack one handed. Out of the corner of his eye, his can see the pack fighting. He can see the flash of red and gold and blue of their eyes and the glistening white of their extended fangs.
“Do you think Werewolves can survive without their brain? I’ve always wondered. They seem to survive just fine without a heart.” Her smile dips into a sneer.
Stiles starts to babble on about brains and hearts and the nervous system because he’s trying to distract her from Isaac who, although looking rather bloodied and beat up, is approaching with his claws extended. Stiles tries not to think about how a measly little Witch manages to do that much damage to a Werewolf, because if he does, he might be a little more worried about how much damage said measly Witch could do to him.
Will do to him.
“I think we should do an experiment, don’t you, Wolf Boy? Lets see how long they survive without their brain.” The Witch says, and plunges a dagger that materializes in her hand, into his thigh.
Stiles shrieks, batting at her hands as he tries to keep his leg as still as possible. The pain burns deep into his muscle, burrows into his bones, and his eyes sting with tears.
Isaac leaps.
The Witch twists the dagger, muttering something beneath her breath as she stares into his eyes. The pain escalates, but he can’t seem to catch his breath. Around him, the world begins to spin sickeningly. The forest splinters and cracks and breaks apart just as the Witch spins away from him and Isaac and his bloodied claws come within inches of his face.
~OO~
Stiles comes to in the middle of the forest on his stomach. It’s day, and it’s raining. The soft dirt turning to mud beneath his cheek and the curled leaves cling to his hands. He groans.
“Fucking Witches.” He says, the words dribbling down his chin because his face feels numb.
Standing doesn’t seem to be an option, because even getting to his hands and knees has his mind spinning and his insides roiling. He clutches his stomach and vomits, rolls over and passes out again.
When he next opens his eyes, it’s to a darker sky and a sour taste coating his tongue. He struggles to sit up, hands slipping in the mud, and collects his backpack. He needs to get back to the Pack.
Pain reminds him of the dagger still imbedded in his thigh. He grabs it between shaking hands and tries to tug it out. The first little movement has him shouting through gritted teeth. He pulls it free with the second, staring dazedly at the red on the white blade. His red. His blood. He wonders why she stabbed him. Wonders where the hell the rest of the Pack is. Remembers suddenly that you’re not supposed to pull the knife out or it speeds up the bleeding. Or some shit like that.
“Left me behind.” He mumbles, getting to his feet and walking through the dizziness. Except that doesn’t sound right. They wouldn’t leave him behind.
Derek might not like him much, but he’s friends with Scott, and he trusts Allison would never let him be left here. His mind niggles at him about the rest, but he tells himself not to think about it.
He walks through the forest, heading in what he thinks it’s the right direction. He comes to the road, peers up and down and then goes right, because he thinks he’s near that Diner that has the really greasy burgers and extra salty curly fries. And he’s right, it’s where he remembers. The parking lot has a few trucks and cars, but is otherwise empty.
Stiles takes a quick inventory of himself. His black jeans are probably enough to hide the blood and the wound in his thigh, but there’s not much he can do about the mud covering him from head to toe. He pats his pocket to be sure he’s still got his wallet, keys and phone and breathes out a shaky breath. He just needs to sit for a while.
The waitress eyes him tiredly, but doesn’t protest when he plops his wet ass into a booth in the corner of the room. He orders a coke and fries automatically and pulls out his phone.
Scott doesn’t answer any of the three times Stiles tries to call him. Neither does Allison, for that matter. Or Lydia. None of them do.
Something settles in the pit of Stiles’ stomach and, when the waitress places his order in front of him and takes his money, he stuffs the fries into his mouth and thinks furiously. He knows something is wrong, something to do with those Witches.
Do you think Werewolves can survive without their brain?
But what does that mean? He’s not dead. He’s not wounded. Not too badly, at least. He doesn’t think anything has really changed. Stiles continues to call his friends long after he’s finished eating. Acid-worry burning holes in his gut and his fingers shaking worse than ever.
It’s when the waitress prods him gently in the shoulder that he realizes he’s fallen asleep, and mumbles an apology before leaving. The night is dark and cold, a light haze of rain falling to dull the brightness of streetlamps and headlights. He walks through the ach in his leg and his teeth chattering, he walks down the familiar street and staggers up the driveway. He thinks he can feel the dried blood starting to flake and fresh starting to ooze. It’s making him light-headed.
He knocks because his keys won’t fit for some reason and his Dad answers the door, except…
“Hello?” He says to Stiles, smiling politely and still in his uniform. It makes Stiles freeze where he stands. Because that’s not how his Dad speaks to him. It’s too formal, too empty and helpful.
“Who is it honey?”
Stiles spins on the spot, arms flailing at his sides and feet ungainly and awkward with each step. He only makes it the next house before he’s doubled over, clenching his stomach and vomiting the coke and fries he’s just eaten. He wipes his mouth with a shaky hand, only vaguely surprised to find that he’s crying. And not silent, gentle tears, but full on, hacking sobs that tear at his throat and burn his nose.
His Mum is dead. She’s dead. She shouldn’t be answering the door in her dressing gown, soft, black hair a little messy and face smooth and relaxed. She shouldn’t….
Stiles’ mouth gapes in a soundless scream.
He must be dead.
This is a dream.
He’s on some kind of drug.
He clambers to his feet and runs/limps for the forest. His familiar, dark and lonely forest.
~OO~
The forest is deep and dark, now that the sun has gone and the clouds hover close to the moon. Stiles stumbles through it in a mild state of shock, eyes wide.
He finds himself close to laughter, several times, mouth stretched wide and teeth bared. But each time he feels the hysterical little sounds rising up his throat, he swallows them down and presses a hand, the one not pushing against his wounded thigh, to his lips.
This isn’t real, he knows. It can’t be. It’s not.
He falls when he gets to the Derek’s place, lays in the dirt for a long moment trying to catch his breath. Anger fizzles inside him because no one has come out to see if he’s okay. He feels guilty for the anger, a second later, because maybe they’re hurt and can’t come to him. Maybe they’re in trouble and need help.
Stiles gets to his feet.
And a laugh does escape him, then.
It sounds garbled and weak.
The Hale house is whole. Untarnished by fire and ash and death. It stands tall and beautiful and so very large. There are cars parked on one side, as there doesn’t appear to be a garage. There are flowers and there’s grass and there’s light streaming through the windows. It looks alive.
“Derek!” He calls out hoarsely, feeling giddy. “Scott!”
The door flings open, figures spill out. He can’t see their faces properly through the rain. And then they’re moving toward him quickly, someone tackles him around the middle, driving the breath from his lungs and making him see stars when he hits the ground.
He hears them speaking. But, unfamiliar voices.
“He smells like Wolfsbane.” Someone growls.
“And blood. Is he a hunter?”
“Why did he call my name?”
Stiles scowls and flops a hand against the body pinning him to the ground.
“I swear,” He croaks. “If this is some sort of Pack bonding thing, I am so going to kill you all.” Because he’s hurt and sore and so fucking tired and this has got to be the freakiest hallucination ever.
“I mean, give a guy a break.” He chuckles thickly.
Raindrops roll down his face, tickling at the base his of skull. Pooling in his eyes and itching his lips. He blinks, but it’s hard to keep his eyes open and his leg hurts too much.
“Why does he smell like Pack?”
He passes out for what must be the hundredth time that day.
~OO~
It’s warm, is his first thought.
Something smells like cinnamon, is his second.
Stiles blinks against the sun filtering in through a floral curtained window and tries to orient himself. He can’t. This isn’t his bedroom. Isn’t somewhere he’s been before.
Do you think Werewolves can survive without their brain?
Stiles rolls over and, ignoring the ache and burn of every muscle in his body, drops his feet to the warm floorboards. He breathes through the dizziness, closes his eyes.
A warm hand touches his shoulder and he flinches.
“Are you okay?” The face is younger and rounder, puppy fat not yet aged away. The hair is longer and a little unruly, but the eyes are the same.
“Derek?” Stiles asks, croaks.
The kid frowns, mouth twisting to the side. “Yeah, how do you know my name? I don’t think I’ve seen you at school before?”
“Uh, ha.” Stiles slaps a hand to his mouth to cut off the hysterical laugh trying to ooze out. “Fucked up shit right here.” He mumbles.
“Derek? I thought I told you to get your homework done.” The voice belongs to a pretty woman who spills into the room with the grace only a Werewolf can possess.
She looks like Derek, in a way. But smoother, rounder. Stiles can see the smile tucked into the corner of her mouth. She sends Stiles a quirked look, curious, as if she can’t quiet figure him out. Stiles returns the look with wide eyes. She must be Derek’s Mum.
“Come downstairs,” She says. “Perhaps you’ll want to explain when you’ve had something to eat.”
And so Stiles follows this woman who is apparently Derek’s mother downstairs through a house that has apparently not been burned to the ground and into a kitchen full of Werewolves who have apparently not been murdered. He stumbles down the stairs and struggles to catalogue his thoughts.
He knows Laura, has seen her face in a photo his Dad had kept in a file. She looks so much like Derek that it’s hard to imagine she’s even there, for some reason. There is also another girl, slender and young, with wide staring eyes. And a boy older than Stiles.
“This is some Back To The Future shit right here.” Spills out of his mouth before his can stop it.
“Language.” Derek’s Mum admonishes and Stiles blinks.
She motions for him to sit, and he choses the seat beside Derek. The kitchen table is large, but he feels safer by someone he knows. Or at least, someone he knew.
“Is this real? I mean, this is just a dream, right? An hallucination?” He asks before anyone else can say anything.
“Why would it be a dream?” Laura asks, biting into a piece of toast. She has a smirk folded nearly away, ready to unfurl at a moments notice. So, that’s where Derek gets his sass from.
Stiles flails. “Because…well, you’re all here!”
“Why wouldn’t we be?”
“Because you aren’t…” But he trails off. He doesn’t want to say it, because if he has gone back in time, he doesn’t want to be the one to tell them of their future.
Or there lack of.
He doesn’t want to tell them that Derek will meet a girl, that she’ll be older and he’ll fall in love. That she’ll worm her way into his head and body and rip everything out. He doesn’t want to tell them that they’ll all die in one of the worst ways imaginable, that they have no future.
So lost in his head, Stiles doesn’t notice he’s having a panic attack until there are hands touching him, trying to soothe him the way his Mum would before she died. He flinches away form the contact, because no one touches him like that anymore. Stiles curls in on himself.
“D-don’t,” He stutters out breathlessly. “S-s-orry…just…having a heart attack here.”
He looks up at Derek, who’s watching him with a worried expression, Stiles isn’t used to that. But it’s still Derek, still, mostly, the same person.
Stiles twists around and lets himself fall forward so that his forehead is pressed to Derek’s shoulder. Even at a younger age, he’s still buff. Damn him.
“Just…just remembered something.” Stiles forces himself to say as he calms down. He closes his eyes and tells himself this isn’t real and everything his fine and those fucking Witches are going to fucking get it once he figures out what the fuck it going on.
Too late he realizes he hadn’t meant to say that last bit out loud.