262Shit, man, I'm really emotional right now? I just want to say thank you to everyone who's been on this journey with me, and all of you who have cheered me on and didn't give up on me when it would take me forever update. There's seriously a special place in my heart for so many of you. I can't tell you how many times I've looked at you guys to keep me going on this story, or the number of times where I've ran to show friends and family how hilarious you all are. Seriously, you guys are all so inspirational, and I'm a gooey sappy mess and I love you and thank you for being here with me and this fic.
Stiles wakes up slowly, awareness trickling into his sleep fuddled mind. The first thing he registers is warmth, followed quickly by a blinding headache.
His eyes flash open, groaning at the thumping in his head, like a sledgehammer is being repeatedly bashed into his crown. He tries to close his eyes again, but then the pain shifts, agony running through his skull like a knife is being driven through his brain.
Stiles screams as it grows, voice wailing and blood dripping down his nose. He feels like his skull is being cracked open, violently thrown to the ground as if it was nothing more than an egg.
He hears voices, people screaming out his name and shaking him, but he can't reply. All he's capable of is withing on the bed, clawing at his skull to get the pain to stop.
The next time he opens his eyes, the room is dark. His head feels marginally better, the great ache lessened to a dull thump behind his eyes. There's a string of pale moonlight shining in through the window and he follows the trail absently, blinking in surprise as it leads to a dark figure sitting sprawled out in a chair.
They're breathing deep, little snores escaping every few seconds.
Stiles' throat feels clogged, and he breathes out, "Scott?"
His voice is harsh and cracks in the middle of the name, but it does its job. The sleeping body twitches, stretches out with a stiff groan like a cat, back cracking in three separate places.
Stiles sits up in his bed, a surprised jolt as he realizes it is his bed, the same exact bed he had in his time, with the same pillows and the same bedspread and the same headboard. He runs his fingers over it, hands shaking as he grins. He kicks off the blankets, fingers trailing absently over the familiar Beacon Hills Lacrosse sweatpants he's sleeping in.
The carpet is soft under his toes, and it's such a stupid, menial thing to get happy over, but Stiles does, smiling down at the blue surface like it's Christmas morning.
"Hey, Scotty," he whispers into the quiet of the room, stepping closer to the computer chair and listening with glee as the floor creaks in that same spot.
Scott's body gives a gentle snore and Stiles prods him in the shoulder, a little bit too hard, and Scott lets out a yelp as the precarious position of the chair tips. Stiles give out a body shaking laugh as Scott only barely catches himself on the table edge, breathing hard and glaring at the boy.
The look falls away in an instant, replaced by a bright smile and a, "Stiles! Shit, you're okay!" before Scott bodily throws himself at the boy.
Stiles is still laughing, even as they fall to the bed, body practically floating with happiness and Scott's grinning at him too, mouth stretched wide as he crushes him.
Scott sits up and slaps an a palm into Stiles' shoulder, demanding with that same smile still stuck on his face, "God, you idiot! What happened? No one knew what was wrong with you! Were you messing with your stupid spells again?"
Stiles laughter dies down into chuckles, considering the fact that of course he wouldn't be able to keep anything from Scott, even spark stuff, "Nah, it's, uh, shit, it's a long story."
Scott rolls his eyes and nudges Stiles' ribs with his elbow, "Everything always is with us, isn't it?" Which elicits another round of hugging and fist bumps.
"Have I been in bed all day?" Stiles asks absently, the clock on his bedside table glowing that it's four in the morning.
Scott scoffs, "Try the past two days, Stiles. Seriously, what the hell happened with you? Your dad wanted to send you to the hospital."
That seriously puts a damper on Stiles' good mood. He shrugs and shifts his body weight, pulling himself into a sitting position. Scott follows after him, eyebrows pulled together in concern. It's the look that does it.
Stiles can't handle Scott looking at him like this, all sad and worried, not when Stiles has spent way too long being sad and worried himself. He hops off the bed and walks over to the light switch, calling over his shoulder, "Seriously, dude, it's nothing. Don't worry about it. I guess I was just really ti-"
The words die on his throat, a sound like he was just punched in the gut leaving instead.
Gone are the movie posters and crime scene photos. Yarn is nowhere to be scene. There isn't even any family pictures on the wall.
There's just paint. Black paint drawn in harsh cut lines, blue with soft curves and dots, greens of squiggles and shapes. It goes on and on, all along the walls of his room until there's hardly any free space left between.
"Jesus," he hisses out, touching the closest one, a protection ward right next to the door frame. He feels the energy travel up his arm, hitting his core like spark plugs. The room thrums like a guitar string being plucked, magic shaking the foundation in a shiver of color.
When he turns around, Scott is standing crouched on the floor, eyes red and jaw pushed out to make room for a sharp wall of fangs. Stiles' eyes widen, stomach dropping as Scott twitches his wrist, exposing claws like knives.
"You're not Stiles, are you?" He asks between his teeth, at the same time Stiles gasps out, "Holy shit you're still a werewolf."
There's a loud bang and Stiles watches in shock as Claudia Stilinski barges in through his door, John right behind her with a gun in his hands.
There's growling, high pitched snarls, John's stern voice asking if everything is okay, and Stiles chooses that time to pass out.
When he opens his eyes again, he's on the floor staring up into the faces of his mom, dad, and Scott, and he groans and twists away shaking his head, "God, this cannot be happening."
A memory assaults him suddenly: Scott laying in a hospital bed with a breathing tube down his throat and, outside in the hallway, Stiles stone faced as he demands Talia save his brother. The thumping in his head gets more pronounced at that and he clenches his eyes shut, willing the image away.
"Stiles?" His dad asks, and it's that which makes him open his eyes again, that familiar concern.
"Hey," Stiles says, and then grabs the offered hand to pull himself up. He rubs at his head, feeling a buzz cut instead of the long hair he'd been sporting what felt like only minutes ago. "I promise, I'm not gonna make a habit of this fainting thing."
There's an awkward laugh from his parents, Scott's still looking at him with a mixture of suspicion and concern and it's hard to laugh when you're like that, Stiles understands.
"Why don't you boys leave while I talk to Stiles alone?" Claudia asks, "There's fudge in the fridge, Scott."
"You sure, Mrs. S?" Scott clarifies, but he's already standing and John has a hand on his shoulder, guiding him out the door.
Claudia waits until both of them are out of the room before closing the door behind them with a genial smile. She waits a few seconds, and Stiles can hear the thunk of footsteps on stairs through the floorboards, before gesturing at a rune to his far right.
"Press that, and then we'll talk," she orders.
Stiles does as she says, activating the worn down silencing rune he remembers tracing on the wall of the library in the Hale house. When he turns around, his mom is sitting on his bed, patting the space next to her.
Stiles chooses instead to take the recently vacated computer chair, sending his mom an apologetic look.
They sit there in silence, just staring at each other. Stiles never pictured his mom as looking a day older than she had in the hospital, but he can see laugh lines around her mouth and crows feet crinkling by her eyes.
"Scott was right, wasn't he?" She asks him, "You're not Stiles, are you?"
Something flares in his chest at that and he says, with more force than necessary, "I am Stiles. I'm me, I'm just- more."
She raises a disbelieving eyebrow at him and Stiles hates the set of her shoulders, the way she's holding herself too stiffly, as if waiting for an attack.
So he asks, "Do you remember when you were in the hospital and I- there was a time traveling Stiles?"
Her face instantly drops, eyes widening and everything in her going slack.
"Szczęsny," she breathes, and before Stiles can blink she's holding him, crushing him against her body with a force he didn't think was possible. She breathes in deep, smelling him, and before Stiles can even think about how weird that is, he finds himself relaxing into her embrace.
"What happened to you?" She asks into his ear, "You were just gone one day. Deaton, the Hales, we couldn't find you anywhere!"
"I did what the timekeep wanted me to do. Did Kate-"
Claudia pulls back a fraction to look into his eyes, hand cupping his face, "Yes, kochanie, she was sent to jail. You did so good, Stiles. I was so proud of you, my boy."
Stiles smiles at her, chest puffing up slightly at the words and she laughs before pulling him back into a hug again.
"Not that I'm complaining," Stiles mumbles into her shoulder, "But how are you still alive?"
There's a laugh, and Stiles feels something wet drip onto his cheek, "After the trial, it was very obvious I wasn't going to be around much longer, and Talia Hale came to me and offered me the bite. Kochanie, she said that you saved her family, and she couldn't sit around and let part of yours die without trying to help."
Tears rush to Stiles' eyes and he clenches them, burying his face in his mother's shoulder.
"I saw you, Stiles, kochanie, and you came to me as a soldier looking for any way to survive. The last time we talked you asked me if I thought you should murder someone, drogi, and I couldn't let that happen to you again." She shakes her head, long, real hair rubbing against his cheek, "Not again. Not if I could stop it."
He doesn't know how long he stands there, holding and being held, before there's a knock on the door. Claudia lets go of him with a small smile and rubs her hands gently into his shoulders. When he looks, her veins are black and his headache is almost gone.
She bites her lip, "You're my son, don't misunderstand me, but I have to ask... Is my other Stiles gone?"
Stiles' heart thuds against his ribcage and he's quick to shake his head, "No! No, I told you I'm still me. There's just more of me, I- I don't know how to explain it. There's all of these memories and feelings that are mine but aren't? The timekeep said we'd merge..."
Claudia nods and presses a swift kiss to his cheek, "You get some sleep, alright? Do you want Scott to stay the night? He heard you screaming the other day and has refused to leave since."
Something ache's in Stiles' chest at that but he shakes his head, "No, um, I think I need to be alone for a bit?"
Claudia smiles reassuringly at him and kisses his cheek again before she opens the door, revealing a sheepish Scott and Sheriff on the other side.
"We got nosy," John admits with a grin, leaning in to kiss Claudia in a silent question of forgiveness. Stiles looks away, not sure how to deal with the sudden memory of his father staring at a golden ring on his left hand over breakfast. "Everything okay in here?"
"Stiles is fine," Claudia tells them, "But he's tired. Let's go downstairs so I can fill you in."
The door closes after them and Stiles listens to their footsteps until there's only silence. The bed is just as soft when he lays down on it again, but there's something bitter about it now that he has to struggle to ignore. It takes him seventeen minutes to fall back asleep, and when he does, he dreams. Flashes of memories, ones that contradict the other, like Erica and Isaac kissing right next to Erica and Boyd, the Hale house torn down and rebuilt, Scott getting the bite as a scared boy and him accepting it as a man. They all blur together in his mind like a vortex, and he wakes up feeling confused and disorientated.
The first thing Stiles does is take a shower, feeling stupidly happy at the sight of familiar shampoo and conditioner and using body wash twice just because it smells so much better than old spice. He mentally reminds himself to switch out Deaton's body wash if he's still using old spice.
No one should be using old spice for six years.
Stiles spends ten minutes running his hands along his shoulders and sides, frowning at the lack of runes there. He knew, objectively, that they wouldn't be there, but a general feeling is different from actually seeing it himself. His arms look foreign without the scars on them, and he feels naked and defenseless and so human that it hurts.
He may play with the water for a bit to make up for the fact, making ice sculptures and swirling balls of liquid. What he does in the shower is his own private business, dammit.
Once he's out of the shower, Stiles spends a bit more time than normal just looking into the mirror, staring at himself.
It's weird. Really, really weird. Some memories trickle in slowly, and some are just there, like they've always been there. Some are triggered by seeing something, like last night with Scott and his mom, and some feel permanent. They both feel like his, just like lost memories that he's remembering slowly. He can remember how Erica's hair smelt the day she had a seizure in eight grade, how she felt thrashing in his arms and he remembers crying, thick tear drops spilling down his face as he begged her to be okay, but he can also remember a parallel memory to that, with different feelings and thoughts attached to it, and neither is invalid or wrong or anything. They're just his.
And it's just really fucking weird.
Stiles is finally able to pull away from the mirror to brush his teeth.
There are people whispering downstairs, voices hushed to not draw attention to themselves. Stiles chooses to put proper clothes on before dealing with people, and only once he's ready does he go downstairs.
They all look exactly as he remembers them, and that's what makes it hurt worse. They all stare at him with wide eyes and uneasy features, shifting nervously around in his living room like they're scared and Stiles wants to run back upstairs and say fuck everything. He wants to hide under his bed and force them to leave. He doesn't want to deal with this right now.
But they're all sitting there and looking at him, Scott, Allison, Lydia, Boyd, Isaac, Erica, Danny and Jackson. They're all just waiting for him to do something, and he's not sure what.
"I thought I said befriend them, not turn them into creatures of the night," Stiles mumbles aggressively to himself before he turns and walks directly into the kitchen.
He hears shuffling and instantly they're all behind him, following him like ducklings into the kitchen and it makes his headache return, makes his chest ache like when he's running on adrenaline and he wants out of the too small kitchen.
Lydia's the first to speak, demanding, "Stiles, what are you doing?"
Her voice, familiar as it is, does nothing to calm him. He shrugs, reaches into the freeze for waffles, "Making breakfast. You want something?"
No one answers.
They all just watch him shuffle over to the toaster and pop his waffles in, looking unsure and uncertain and unfamiliar and it makes him seethe.
"Well, great, because there's only two waffles left in here and I haven't eaten in six years, so," he trails off, unsurprised when no one laughs at his joke. No one did in 2007, either. Time traveler humor is just lost on linear people.
There's someone at his side and Stiles turns his head, not surprised to see Scott standing next to him and offering him a weak smile, "When you told me about your time traveling self from the future, I always thought you were joking."
"Yeah!" Erica chimes in, "Like, a sardonic type of thing, y'know? 'Oh, werewolves are real, what's next? Time Travel?' Seriously, Stiles? You could have warned us better."
"It's not like I had an exact date on when this would happen," Stiles grits out, trying hard to be patient when all he wants to do is flee.
"It was more an icebreaker for me, personally," Isaac admits from where he's propped against the wall, looking bored out of his skull, "He just came up to me and said, 'Oh, hey Isaac, my time traveling self from the future said I have to be your friend.' I mean, sure, I thought you were weird out of your skull but It was creative at least. I feel like our entire friendship has been a lie."
Stiles rolls his eyes, "Sorry for your heartbreak, Isaac. I'll be more than happy to reimburse you for your pain and suffering."
Stiles turns to grab the syrup from the cupboard, catching Isaac's grin as he says, "I take checks."
"Are we really pretending this isn't as weird as it is?" Jackson's asks irritably.
"I mean, personally, I think it's weirder for me," Stiles shrugs, pretending he's not freaking out as he bathes his waffles in syrup, "Seriously. Do you know how much shit I have got going up here? Quick, remind me who's what before I have an aneurysm."
Everyone goes around in a sharing circle telling Stiles what he already knows. Lydia's a banshee, Jackson's a werewolf, Boyd's a werewolf, Isaac's a werewolf, Erica's a werewolf, Danny's a werewolf, Allison's the resident weapons expert and leader of the Argent clan, and Scott's the alpha.
"You're the emissary, in case you forgot," Scott adds as an afterthought, face still doing that twitchy concern thing that makes Stiles both angry and happy.
"I was in the other time line too, in case you cared," Stiles volleys back with more bite than intended.
Stiles moves to brush past the group of teens holding up the wall when Scott grips his shoulder and turns him around. Stiles lets him, moves with the motion and comes back to face Scott, raising an eyebrow at him.
"Look, we're here for you, okay?" Scott asks, widening his eyes in his earnest way and all it does is make Stiles' stomach twist, "We're your pack and we're gonna help you get through this."
Stiles wants to tell him that there's nothing to get through, that he's fine, that he's still him just not him at all and it's okay because he can handle it, but none of that comes out.
All he can make his mouth say is, "Fine," and when he's half way up the stairs, he manages to call over his shoulder, "Close the door on your way out!"
He spends the rest of the day laying in bed, making fire with his hands and telling himself that he's okay.
Claudia and John both come by separately to check in on him, but he sends them away using that he's tired as an excuse. "Intergalactic time and space travel will do that to a person!"
Stiles doesn't sleep that night. He stays up and scours the internet, looking at pictures of his life and his friends lives and trying to fit them into both worlds that he knows but it feels wrong, like jigsaw pieces that look like they fit but just won't. He eventually ends up throwing the laptop away from him in frustration.
Everything's the same, yet so different he could scream. He wishes he had long hair just so he could pull it out.
After a few rounds of fifty two card pick up, which he's exceptionally good at because it requires zero thinking, Stiles fetches his computer again and googles Kate Argent. There are numerous articles and websites that come up. Apparently her trial was huge. She even has an old myspace page, full of guys who think she's too attractive to go to jail and looking at it makes him sick. He quickly reports it and goes back to his google search. He finds an article from September of that year and clicks on it.
"Argent is facing a sentence of eight years of statutory rape, eighteen years for attempted arson in the first degree, a possibility of life in prison without parole for attempted murder, ten years for engaging in sexual activity with her student, and twenty for child pornography, where Argent admitted to trading sexually explicit photos with a teen. She has plead guilty to everything except the attempted arson and murder. The defense claims they have evidence against Argent, but we will find out more after the court case next week. She faces a fine of $60,000 and has little hope of parole time.
"I had no idea," says her brother, Chris Argent, 28. "This all just feels very surreal." Argent and the rest of her family declined comment.
After the backlash of the highly criticized ruling of the Jessica Micheal's case in 2003, it is expected that Argent will pay heavily for crimes she has committed."
Stiles does more research, face twisting in disgust. As the case goes on, more and more is shed to light. Stiles feels relief burn bright inside of him when he doesn't see either Derek or the Hale's name anywhere on the websites, but feeling revulsion at how people were clamoring for more of the story. In the end, he learns that Kate did get a proper sentence for everything she was accused of, and smiles to himself, remembering his mom whispering in his ear that he had done well.
Thoughts start to creep in about Derek, about the "youth in question" and he has a burning need to figure out if he's okay, but he shoves it down. Tells himself that Derek isn't his responsibility anymore and tries to believe it. He spends the rest of the night watching movies and pretending real life doesn't exist.
Stiles wakes up sometime around noon, curled around his laptop with headphones falling from his ears. There's cold toast and apple juice next to his head but he ignores it, along with the memory of no one ever leaving cold toast and apple juice next to his bed.
There's no one downstairs, dad at the station and mom to her job at Beacon Hills Elementary. He camps out on the couch with a bag of chips and mountain dew, sparing a thought for his dad's heart that is very quickly pushed away in favor of crappy daytime television.
He drags his xbox down; plays a lot of video games and talks a lot of shit to strangers on live. Scott sends him a request for a game a few hours in which he quickly declines and goes back to playing solo. No one judges him in Halo and, hey, if he dies he gets respawned in a few seconds.
Everything works out in Halo.
"I think you're depressed," his dad says to him sometime around eight, and Stiles jumps a mile high because he hadn't even heard John come in.
"Well, I'm not," Stiles shoots back quickly, cursing to himself as he finds out he died during his tiny heart attack.
The sheriff makes a disparaging noise, asks, "Do you wanna talk about it?"
Stiles respawns and grabs a gun, shrugging, "Not really at all, actually."
There's a beat of silence, then, "Well, tough luck kid. I didn't become sheriff by not asking questions."
He groans obnoxiously and pauses the game. Stiles twists around and leans against the coffee table, eyes on his dad sitting in his lazy boy that wasn't in one life but is in this one.
"What's up?" He asks, snagging some Doritos crumbs out of the now empty family sized bag.
John sighs as he relaxes into his chair, pulling the lever and letting his feet hang in the air. He hums, and says, "Your mother didn't tell me about this whole time traveling nonsense until after you disappeared, you know?" He pauses, then clarifies, "It is you, right? I'm understanding that correctly? Your body isn't in some limbo and you're an alternate you, right?"
Stiles grabs a mountain dew, tries to explain as best as he can, "Let's say I became a Buddhist. That's the one with the past lives, right?"
"Buddhism is more karma being past onto the next life, but I think I see what you're getting at. Keep going."
Stiles waves his hand, "Right, okay. Let's say that I used to have a bunch of karma, and in this life I suddenly get all of that karma at once. So, now I have two karma's and still one me, get it?"
John shakes his head with a gentle smile, "Not a clue, kid. Try again."
Stiles groans and grabs more crumbs, chewing them as he says, "Look, just, lots of memories that are mine but I didn't experience in this time line. One me. Okay? I'm still me, just with more of me."
John's face is blank for a few seconds, before he laughs, "You have got to find a better way to explain that. Alright, whatever, I think I get it. It's like you have multiple personality disorder?"
Stiles says, "Not at all," and takes a generous swig of his soda.
They go through this same conversation three more times before John finally gets bored of it, still laughing as he says, "Alright, alright. Anyway, your mom was hysterical. Said you weren't answering your phone, Deaton had no clue where you were, didn't know if you were lying in a ditch somewhere. You know your mother. She freaked out at Disneyland that one time when you went to throw something away."
"Poor Mickey Mouse will never be the same," Stiles shakes his head sadly at the memory.
"Yeah, so imagine her three times worse. I, the only one who did not know he had a magical time traveling son, went crazy. I set out amber alerts, road blocks, the whole shebang, only for you to call me from the house thirty minutes later to ask me what we were doing for dinner. God, son, I was furious with your mother, told her that her crazy was going to cost me my job, blah blah blah. Wasn't a good time for me, I can admit."
John scratches the back of his neck, smiling at Stiles, "Then she tells me it all, everything. I have to admit, at first I thought she was talking nonsense, then she set my shirt on fire and at that point I kinda had to believe her or else she would have killed me."
Stiles laughs at the image, "Wish I had been there to see that."
John grins at Stiles, letting out a quiet chuckle, "Yeah, I bet you do kiddo. Anyway, after she told me that, I guess I just felt lost for a second there. She was telling me all of this amazing stuff about you, about how you were saving lives, about how strong you were, and Stiles, I wanted nothing more than to find you so I could meet what an amazing young man I had managed to raise."
Stiles' eyes water and he clenches them shut, quickly trying to get rid of them. He hears his dad sigh contently, and the squeak of a chair that signifies him getting up.
"We actually met once," Stiles admits, focusing on running his finger along the table edge, "I was out with Derek and Laura Hale, and you pulled us over and talked me down from a panic attack."
Stiles feels a hand on his head, leans into the affection there but doesn't look up at his father, fears that the cup will run over and he'll be nothing more than a puddle of water.
"Huh, no kidding? I thought that dorky kid looked familiar." His father's voice is laced with warmth as he says, "Well, I'm glad I got the chance to be there for you, even if I didn't know."
Stiles feels something pressed to the crown of his head, a gentle kiss, one that Stiles hasn't gotten since he was eight and fell off the slide, "Anyway, I just wanted you to know that I love you, no matter what crazy time line you're from. You're a hero son, and I'm happy to have you here."
Stiles listens to the sound of his dad walking into the kitchen, hears the faucet turn on and water pouring into a glass. There's footsteps going in the direction of the stares, and Stiles admits into the silence of the room, "I don't feel like a hero."
There's a pause, then a loud hum, and John says, "Good. All the best heroes feel that way."
And Stiles' shoulders feel a little less heavy.
Stiles dreams that night about Kate straddling him against the bed and he's not able to move, body so still he might as well be laced with kanima venom. She touches him with ice cold fingers, hands wrapped around his throat and he can hear her screaming in his ears, yelling that he should have killed her, over and over and over again until it plays like a drumbeat in his ears.
He wakes up in a puddle of sweat, clothes sticking to his body like they've been blasted with water. His chest is heaving, heavy breaths escaping his lungs before he can even fully take them in, heart pounding so hard it feels like it's going to jump out of his chest.
He takes a warm shower and sinks into the warm comfort of video games and crappy cable TV.
And so it goes. He finds an adderall bottle in a drawer and takes it like it's going out of style, lets it sink him into the comfort of awareness. Stiles knows it's wrong to abuse his prescription like this, knows his mom is going to flip when it's the middle of the month and he doesn't have any left, but he can't bring himself to care.
He spends days watching television, camped out in the living room because he can't walk into his room without seeing Kate and Derek and Scott and everyone. He starts avoiding his mom and dad, learning their schedules so he can hide in the shower until they retire to their rooms. He dodges Scott calls and the pack showing up at his door step, meticulously draws runes into the walls and on his skin and does anything to keep him from feeling vulnerable and clawed open.
"Your friends are worried about you," Claudia says, when she finds him sitting on the couch at three in the morning.
Stiles shrugs, scoops another spoonful of lucky charms out of the giant mixing bowl he's using. His slurp is loud in the quiet of room, and it's only at Claudia's judging stare that Stiles realizes he forgot to turn the TV back on hours ago. He tries to imagine the picture she's seeing, him sitting alone in the dark, wearing the same pajama pants he's worn for the past two weeks, eating cold cereal. He tries to care, but isn't upset when he can't manage it.
The couch squeaks as his mom takes a seat next to him, curls up around his shoulder as best as she can. She presses a quick kiss to his cheek and it's enough to make the corner of his lip turn up slightly.
She smiles at the movement, grin wide and bright and enough to make his chest ache. Stiles offers her a spoonful of cereal and she takes it, crunching loud next to his ear as she sighs.
"You can't just hide here forever, Stiles," She tells him, running her hand over his head.
Stiles doesn't say anything. He picks up the remote discarded at his side and absently turns the TV on, flipping through channels without even really seeing the screen. He stops on a random station and goes back to rooting through his cereal, intently focused on finding all of the marshmallow pieces. Claudia says something else but he's not paying attention, determinedly searching for one more red balloon to eat.
Claudia leans in close and whispers, "I'm worried about you too, Szczęsny."
Stiles, finally satisfied with the amount of marshmallows on his spoon, eats it, mumbles around the sticky sweets, "I'm fine," and pretends it sounds convincing.
It doesn't, but she's kind enough to let it drop for now, in favor of stealing more of his cereal.
"I'm here if you need me, you know?" She asks, "I can be your robin, too."
Stiles tries to grin at her, lies, "I'm fine, I just need some time to adjust."
She doesn't call him out on the fumbling of his heart. They spend the night curled up on the couch, pretending to watch the news.
As the news channel predicated, it does rain the next day.
Stiles finds a bottle of jack in his dad's office, hidden behind the case files in the back of his cabinet that Stiles is explicitly not allowed to touch.
He drinks it without even thinking about it, letting it burn down his throat and it makes him feel light and happy. He smiles for the first time it what feels like years, letting the alcohol wrap him in warmth. He dances on the coffee table to the sound of Jerry Springer's audiance booing, makes a mess out of the kitchen in some bastardized attempt at making an omelet, and tries to walk up the stairs three times before giving up and just crawling up them.
He finds her in his room, sitting on the computer chair and looking through his CD's without a care in the world.
"You're an unattractive drunk," she says over her shoulder.
Stiles doesn't bother replying to that, takes another chug and lets the numbness of his tongue be answer enough. The bed is soft when he sits down on it, and he's able to momentarily forget why he's been avoiding his room so much in the first place.
"What'd'you want Erica?" He slurs through the sentence, tries to give her a dirty look but he ends up looking behind her, to the runes on the wall that seem to grow eyes in the middle of the night and watch him. He turns away, looks back to his bottle and all the good things it gives him.
"I wanted to see how you were doing," Erica says, standing up from the chair and stepping in front of him. Her face is full of pity, but there's a fire in her eyes that suggest she's more angry than anything, "Obviously, you aren't coping well despite what Scott's been telling us."
"Scott isa good alpha. You should listen to him more, missy," Stiles says.
Erica tosses her hair over her shoulder, scoffs, "He's letting our emissary go crazy. What kind of alpha does that?"
"A good one," Stiles repeats, gesturing to her with his hand, "An understanding one. Seriously, how'd you even get in here?"
"You let your wards fall down when you're drunk," she sighs, "Don't you remember? We had a party here once on a full moon because you swore no werewolves would be able to leave. We spent half the next day looking for Isaac, only to find him curled up with a bunch of rabbits in the forest."
Stiles does remember that. Vividly. He takes another drink until the image goes away, until he can't see Isaac holding a pile of baby bunnies to his chest and one curled up that poodle he calls a hairdo.
"Stiles, come on, let us take care of you," Erica reaches for the bottle, only to frown when Stiles pinwheels back on the bed to get it out of her reach. She glares at him, stance shifting into something more determined, "Stiles. Give me the bottle."
Stiles gives her a look, "Yeah, that's not happening sister."
"What was the point of coming back if you're not going to deal with this?" Erica spits out, glare harsh and hands curled into tight fist at her sides.
Stiles thinks he hates her, remembers quickly that he doesn't. He wants to turn into a ball under his blanket and scream until she goes away, but he knows Erica, and no matter what, she wouldn't just leave him alone when he wants to be. She's annoying like that, a pesky mosquito always buzzing around.
He says, "I am dealing with it," and takes another swig of the bottle, let's it burn his throat so he doesn't have to speak anymore.
Her hand flashes out and rips the bottle from his grip, the drink sloshing up the edges and spilling onto the carpet with a splatter. Stiles watches the stain form disinterestedly, picks up a dirty sock from the edge of his bed and drops it somewhere near the mess.
"You've ruined everything!" She tells him, gesturing with the bottle to encompass the entirety of what he is. "Everything was great before you decided to take over Stiles' life-"
"Everything was already ruined!" Stiles yells back, and Erica's mouth drops open as he raises his voice for the first time in weeks, "Everything was- it wasn't fine, where I came from, but it was still mine, okay?! It was still me but I'm- I'm not me anymore I'm-" He chokes on the words, swallows them back down before he can vomit them onto Erica anymore.
Her face is slack when he looks back at her, hands limp and he's able to get the bottle back from her. He takes another drink, quicker, lets it spill out the edges of his mouth and she doesn't stop him.
"Leave," Stiles demands, but it comes out as a plea, and Erica, for once, listens to him.
Stiles passes out sometime around three in the afternoon, vomit on his shirt and reeking like a brewery. He wakes up to cold water hitting his face, sputters and gasps for air, memories of being held down in an ice bucket until he died making him clamor at the edges of the tub, until he feels Claudia's soothing hands running over his face, whispering hushed words until he calms down.
And then he's crying, the water blurring his tears but doing nothing to stop the smell of salt in the air, and Claudia looks like she's been gutted.
"Stiles, drogi, what's wrong?" She begs him, "Please, talk to me."
"Nothing," he tells her, spitting out water and pulling himself up from the tub, "I'm fine! You're the one who threw me in the bath with my clothes on."
Claudia sighs at him, "You were passed out in a puddle of your own vomit, Szczęsny. I can't ignore this any longer-"
"I'm fine," Stiles says again, quicker, more demanding, voice tinged with desperation as he flings himself forward to turn off the faucet. "I don't know why everyone is making such a big deal out of this-"
"Because you're not fine, Stiles!" She yells at him, and it's the first time Stiles has ever seen her eyes glow golden, "Every time anyone asks, all you say is fine, but you're not. Erica told me she came by today and you could hardly even walk-"
"Erica is a lying liar who should not be listened to-"
"I'm worried, your father is worried, and your pack is worried-"
"No one asked you to worry!" Stiles cuts her off, chest heaving as his voice ricochets off the tile of the bathroom, "Alright? I left my pack behind when they were dying, just so I could go and make a new one and this one isn't them, they aren't, it's- I don't deserve anyone to worry about me, I'm not- I can't be who they want me to be, okay? I'm just-" Stiles screams, lets his frustration and anger and pain all into a giant, high pitched yell. His ears ring but he can't, there's too much air in his chest and he can't, he can't, he can't-
He's being crushed against a chest, his mother's voice in his ear talking him down from the panic inside of him, but it's still there, still ripping into him with a knife and it hurts and he can't breathe.
"I don't know what's going on with me," he admits to her, voice strangled with barb wire, "I keep trying to explain it to everyone but I don't even understand it- I don't know what's real anymore or what's the new me or what's the old me and everything just blends together and there's so much that I can't even think sometimes-"
She's speaking in Polish, sharp and fast in his ear with hard letters. He can't make out the words, just lets her voice rush over him until he feels like he can breathe again. She's crying, clutching him to her, whispering in her first language like she's begging him to be okay, and he falls asleep gulping for air with her tears on his cheeks.
He wakes up with a pounding headache and bodies wrapped around him.
Stiles groans as he opens his eyes, immediately closing them at the light shining in through his window and rolls over to snuffle his way into the crook of someone's shoulder. He hears noise, light whispers and he knows he's being discussed but the headache is far too obnoxious to make him care right now. There are hands on his head, gently petting him back to sleep, and he lets the warm surrounding him take him back.
The next time he wakes up, Stiles is sweating with how hot it is.
"Jesus," he pants, shoving at Isaac's bony hips to get him off of Stile's stomach, "We live in California, people. Save the cuddling for Winter."
He opens his eyes as he sits up, ignores just how many people are laying on his bed watching him, and deftly moves around the tetris of limbs to fall out of bed.
Someone clears their throat but Stiles cuts them off with, "Save the intervention until after I've peed, okay?"
After he's gone to the bathroom and splashed water on his face, he feels ready to face the room of people again. Not emotionally ready, but he's used to pretending at this point.
The pack is all standing when he gets back. John, Claudia and Melissa are standing worriedly off to the side. They all give him matching, supportive smiles when he catches their eyes and he tries to smile back but he's not sure if his face does the job.
It's awkward in the room, quiet like all of the air has been sucked out of it. He wants to crack a joke, lighten the tension, but can't bring himself to. It's their crappy intervention, he thinks as he snags a free chair.
There are a lot of facial twitches and mouthed words being thrown around, pointed looks and hand gestures but Stiles doesn't bother to decipher them. He feels so indifferent, imagines there's a wall between him and these people, like they're in a bubble, floating farther and farther away.
Scott finally clears his throat and hops off the bed.
"Scotty, my boy," Stiles grins at him, "Welcome to the intervention. I'm sure mom here would like to get you a glass of water if you need it." No one thinks he's funny still. Stiles doesn't take it personally. "She wasn't able to do that before for my friends, because she was dead, but now she's alive and she's able to plan interventions."
Isaac coughs weakly from the bed.
"Stiles," Scott starts, "We care about you, a lot, and we're all really worried about this road you're going down."
Stiles absently plays with a loose string of thread on the arm of the chair. Resigned, he asks, "You couldn't even be original?"
"He made us marathon two seasons of Interventions last night," Jackson scoffs from the bed, "Can you at least pretend to be grateful?"
"I was going to make a graph, but Boyd told me that would be rude," Danny admits from where he stands by the bookshelf.
Stiles mimes zipping his lips.
Scott looks at Stiles, and then around the room, and then back at Stiles, and he shifts his shoulders back, sliding into that true alpha stance that Stiles know so well.
"Stiles," he says again, "You're my best friend, my brother, and I know I can't even begin to understand what you're going through, but it hurts me to see you doing this to yourself."
There's an ache in Stiles' chest at that and he goes back to playing with his string, trying his best to be anywhere but here.
Scott steps closer and crouches down in front of Stiles, making them eye to eye and Stiles squirms, needing to get away from Scott, from his pack, from everyone, needing to be alone. Why can't they just understand that?
"Stiles, I love you. We love you. You're not as alone as you think you are, alright?" Scott tries to smile at him, and his eyes do that wide, puppy thing and it makes Stiles want to sink into the floor, "I know I'm not the other Scott, and that's okay, because I'm me and you're you and we always get through everything together. No matter what."
It's just such a Scott thing to say, is the thing. Stiles' lip quivers as he looks into Scott's eyes, admitting, "I don't know how to be me anymore. I don't know how I'm going to be who you want me to be, and I'm scared, all the time. I'm afraid I'm going to lose you, or disappoint you, or do something wrong when it would have been right over there. I don't know how to handle it, or any of this, and I'm terrified, all the time."
Scott grabs his hand, smiles at him, "We can be terrified together, dude."
They reach for each other at the same time, pulling each other in by the shoulders, clutching tight to each other like they're afraid the other will disappear, and it's the first time Stiles feels normal in months.
Stiles spends the next morning eating more cereal and watching game shows, as per usual, but he does it while occasionally returning text from Scott and Lydia. They're one word replies, but it's enough to make them feel better.
The doorbell rings around ten and Stiles crinkles his nose at it, chooses to ignore it because getting up seems like too much effort. He flips the channel and spins his spoon around in his now mushy cereal, playing with it until it starts to look like ice cream.
The doorbell rings five minutes later and Stiles groans, deciding that little Sally door hopper isn't going away until he buys at least one box of cookies.
The last person he expects in the world is standing on the other side of the door, a judgmental eyebrow raised at him.
"You answer the door dressed in boxers?" Boyd asks, eying the rocket ships with a critical eye.
"I wasn't expecting company," Stiles waves him off.
Both boys are silent, and Boyd's still staring at Stiles clothes.
"Stop judging me," Stiles snaps, a little more force than necessary.
Boyd holds up his hands defensively, "I'm not judging you."
"Yes you are." Stiles argues. "I can very clearly see you judging me."
Boyd is still silent and judgmental, and Stiles twitches closer to the door.
"I'm not depressed," he says, "Go away. You can tell Scott I'm still alive and not binge drinking."
"I'm not here for Scott, and I never said you were depressed."
Stiles' eyes twitch suspiciously at Boyd.
Just as the silence is getting even more awkward than it was originally, Boyd asks, "Do you wanna watch a movie?"
In Boyd's hands is the new Iron Man movie, the one that Stiles can't find a suitable stream of online, and he huffs, "You shouldn't do these things to me, Vernon, not when you know how I feel about Marvel." He opens the door wider and heads into the living room, calling over his shoulder, "Popcorn's in the cupboard, and I expect it to be perfect."
Boyd always makes perfect popcorn, no matter the time line. Stiles can never tell if it's magic or a gift, but every single kernel is popped to perfection and absolutely no pieces are burnt. Boyd also doesn't talk in movies, which is rare among Stiles' chosen group of friends. They're mouth breathers, all of them, he decides, snagging the offered bowl of popcorn and setting it firmly in his lap.
Stiles gets way too engrossed in the movie, watching with extra care and attention as Tony Stark is absolutely haunted by his experiences. He watches Stark unable to sleep and feels a familiar ache in his chest, sees him have panic attacks and dodge questions about New York, and Stiles feels like he can't breathe during parts of the film because it's so painstakingly familiar to him. He watches Tony struggle to hold it together and cling to the suit, his weapon and security, and Stiles has to leave to hide in the bathroom because it's all too much to take in.
He's alone for all of five minutes before Boyd finds him. He opens the door with ease and slides down to sit on the floor next to Stiles, resting a gentle, yet supportive, hand on his shoulder.
"Did you know my dad's a fireman?" Boyd asks him softly, and when Stiles nods his head, he continues, "One day a beam fell on him at work. It was after Alicia first disappeared. He really shouldn't have been working, but he wanted to take his mind off of it. He wasn't paying attention to the fire and didn't realize... His leg got trapped under a burning beam. He got out fine, and his leg was only fractured, but he wouldn't go back to work for months. He wouldn't even let us use the stove. I think we lived off of take out for a few weeks before my mom put her foot down."
Stiles counts the tiles on the other side of the bathroom as he listens to Boyd's story, tries to stay grounded but he can't because all he can think about is taking pictures of Kate and Derek, of feeling lost and out of control for months, of the crushing loneliness he still feels like an anvil on his chest, and it hurts too much.
"It's okay to not be okay," Boyd says quietly in the silence of the bathroom. "I'm here if you need to talk, Stiles."
They sit there for half an hour, just breathing, and the bones in Boyd's legs crack as he stands. He offers a hand to Stiles, and Stiles feels an indescribable terror rush through him at the offered hand, at the support it represents.
He takes a deep breath, quivering as he asks, "Boyd? Your dad- he's okay now? Right?"
Boyd waits until Stiles looks up at him before he nods, "Yeah, and you will be too. I promise."
When Stiles grabs Boyd's hand and lets himself be pulled off the floor, it doesn't feel as scary as he thought it would.
To say Lydia looks surprised surprised when she opens the door to see Stiles on her front porch is an understatement.
"Aren't you busy being crazy?" She asks him, leaning against the door jamb.
Stiles scoffs, "Shut up, you're totally worried about me. Scott told me you made him read a bunch of books."
Lydia sighs and rolls her eyes, "I should have known better than to keep the mighty alpha from his emissary. What do you need?"
"I need you to come with me to kill a tree."
Lydia at least pretends to think about it before smiling politely at him and closing the door.
Stiles is quick to put his foot in it before it closes, grunting as it slams against his toes.
"No, seriously!" He squawks, "In the other time line we got rid of the infestation in the nemeton and the only way we can do it is tonight, or else we have wait another month. It turns the beacon radar thing down like seventy percent." Stiles tells her, grinning as her mouth goes slack.
He squeaks as she slaps him on the arm, "You idiot! Why didn't you tell us this weeks ago! We had to move a gnome colony last week. Do you even understand how hard that is?"
Stiles, thankfully, does not.
Lydia's quick to get her shoes on after that, throwing a cardigan over her shoulders and practically pushes him out of the house, hissing, "Hurry up before that thing attracts dragons or something!"
The drive to Deaton's house is easy and familiar to Stiles. On the way there, he explains to Lydia that he basically lived there for two months.
"You know, you still haven't explained to everyone exactly what happened," she tells him, voice soft.
Stiles makes a noise high in his throat as he pulls into a parking spot, "And I probably never will. I don't even like thinking about it, most of the time."
Lydia bites her lip, like she wants to say something smart and intruding, but ends up sighing, "All the books say I should let you come to terms with it on your own."
"What great books you're reading," Stiles tells her as he holds the door to the building open for her, "You should lend them out to literally everyone else in the pack."
Every since the intervention, the pack has been constantly texting him and asking if he's okay. He still only replies to Lydia, Scott, and his parents. Sometimes Boyd, because Stiles still feels warm and appreciative over Boyd taking the time to talk to Stiles. He's waiting patiently for that feeling to wear off so they can go back to their neutral relationship of avoiding each other.
She rolls her eyes and they're quiet the entire elevator ride up there, Lydia twiddling with her fingers like she's trying to distract herself. Stiles gives her ten minutes until she cracks, maybe fifteen tops.
It's a weekday, so Stiles is suitably surprised when he opens the door with the spare key hidden on top of the doorway and Deaton is sitting casually at the island.
He doesn't know what to do, freezes up at the sight of him. His heart pounds in his chest, breathing accelerating rapidly. Stiles tries to breathe, tries to focus on the present, but all he can feel is Deaton carefully sewing him up the first night he was brought back here, the calm veterinarian helping him research and talk to him and it's not Deaton, it's what he represents that has Stiles feeling like his heart might explode out of his chest.
Lydia's telling him that it's okay, it's alright, and that's stupid because Stiles knows that it's okay and it's alright, he honestly does, but his stupid brain and body don't, and Stiles hates feeling this out of control. He tries to count the floorboards, the petals of each flower on the coffee table, but everywhere he looks there's memories.
He finds himself back outside the apartment, leaning on his knees and taking deep breaths.
Lydia comes out a few minutes later to join him, carefully rubbing his back like she's afraid he'll attack her.
"Tell Deaton I'm sorry for that," he orders, because he is and it hurts. Deaton was so nice to him before, taking him in when he had nowhere else to go, and the fact that he had that kind of reaction stings. "And then ask him to give you all of the ingredients I bought last time I was living here, if he hasn't used them yet."
Lydia nods and leaves him be, and Stiles focuses on counting all of the tiles in the hallway. He's in the two hundreds by the time she comes back, arms full of vials.
"He had everything already sitting on the couch," she tells him quietly, adjusting the bottles in her grip, and Stiles ignore the pang that sends through him.
He shoves the feeling down and takes half of the bottles from Lydia as they walk back to the car.
They're quiet on the car ride to the preserve, both lost in their own thoughts. Stiles is mentally running through the spell one more time, trying to make sure that he remembers everything he and Lydia did the first time. Lydia is staring out the window morosely, and Stiles almost wants to make a crack about he's supposed to be the messed up one. He doesn't think it'll go over well, though.
Stiles parks as close to the nemeton as possible and they each grab their own respective bottles before hiking the rest of the way. It's not that far, thankfully, and there's no whistling wind or rain to keep them down like last time. When he and Lydia first cleansed the tree, it was more of an act of desperation than anything. They didn't think it would actually work.
He tells her this and Lydia rolls her eyes.
"Figures," she says, "You're really into winging it with stuff like this."
"It works almost all the time. Why mess with a good thing?"
She doesn't have a reply to that.
The nemeton isn't as gnarled as it was in the other time line. It's still cut down, but the root cellar is still in tact and not blown away in a darach caused storm. He guides Lydia around it, watching as she freezes at the sight of so much power concentrated in one source.
Stiles is used to the magic that cackles in the air, but he's patient as Lydia adjust to it.
"We've never been here," she tells him, "Talia's always mentioned it but we could never find it. This is amazing, Stiles!"
Stiles decides not to burst her bubble about the whole murder sacrifice deal.
"Come on, the roots are down here."
They follow the stairs down into the dark cellar. They creak beneath their feet and the beams wobble unsteadily overhead. There's a lantern attached to one of the beams and Stiles stretches up to light turn it on, smiling to himself as it flickers back to life.
"Alright," Stiles shifts the bottles around in his arms, "First we need Witches Salt, Mountain Ash, Salt Peter, and Sulfur Powder."
Lydia hands him two of the bottles, Stiles has the others, and he uncorks them. The smell instantly assaults his nose, strong and harsh like chemicals. He spreads them over the roots in equal parts, whispering, "Liberabit hanc animam. Munda quoque eiex malo. Gaudeamus liber arbore."
"Your Latin's gotten really good." Lydia whispers in encouragement from behind him.
Stiles doesn't reply. He reaches down and picks up the Calamus root, Hyssop Herb, and the basil. He shakes them out of their bottles and onto the ground, improvising and using the soul of shoe to crush and grind them.
After they're a fine grain, he looks up at Lydia, "You need to do this part. Just call upon the dead to pull the evil from the roots as you spread it over them."
Lydia, looking only a bit hesitant, picks up the crushed herbs from the ground and lightly mixes them in her hands. She bites her lip before taking a deep breath and closing her eyes. Her mouth moves silently as she sprinkles the mixture, quietly calling out to the dead in a voice that Stiles can't hear.
When she's done, Lydia's shoulders slump from exertion and there's a fine sheen of sweat at her temples.
There's only the dandelion left, dried and preserved in the glass vial. He shakes it out, feeling the crisp leaves in his hands.
He places it in the groove of the biggest root, the one that was blood soaked in the other time line. Stiles step back and Lydia grabs his hand, watching together as the flowers petals slowly fall off as the tree absorbs its power.
They leave the glass vials, having no more use for them, and turn off the light on their way back up the stairs.
"Is it done?" Lydia asks him, looking both excited and worn out.
At the top of the stairs, the nemeton is calm and peaceful from where it rests. Stiles shakes his head at her and takes a step closer to it, feels the magic in his chest begin to react to the nemeton's power the closer he gets. He can hear Lydia calling at him but ignores her.
Once he gets close enough, Stiles places his palms flat on the tree stump. He focuses hard, pulling to the forefront of this mind every single person he loves, every single person he wants to protect, all the people in this town who knows and cares for. He thinks of them, of how they protect and watch over the town, of how they're kind and good, and he pours it all into the nemeton.
Green light is bursting from his hands, shooting up into the sky and he watches, awestruck, as a giant dome begins to form in the sky, spreading down like fractals as it creates a bubble. It goes farther than he can see, past the preserve and into the city before the treeline can cut him off.
His hands are tingling when Stiles pulls them off of the nemeton, and he turns around and tells Lydia, "Now it's done."
She's looking at him like she's never seen him before, eyes wide and star struck.
"Stiles, that was amazing," she whispers excitedly, "I never knew you could do something like that before."
He smiles at her, "It's something I picked up in the other time line. It was more of a learn on the job thing than this read books gig we've got going with my mom."
She snorts, "Certainly looks a lot more interesting."
Stiles opens his mouth to agree, but he cuts himself off, face falling.
"Nah," he tells her, turning to head back to the car, "Trust me. This is safer."
Lydia drops it, and they walk back to the car side by side, talking excitedly about what they've done, and Stiles realizes somewhere along the way that he doesn't feel so vulnerable anymore.
Stiles still dreams about Kate sometimes, about her pointing a gun at his head and shooting him, about her pointing a gun at Derek, about her forcing him to pull a gun on Derek. They're all strange and ever changing, but they're enough to make him wake up with a nauseating feeling in his stomach.
But Claudia and John won't let him stay downstairs anymore, so he learns to have to deal with it, and it's not good for a night of rest, but John says it'll be good in the long run, and Stiles feels like he has to believe his dad when he smiles at him like that.
It's why he's sitting in his room when there's a knock on his door and a familiar voice shouting, "Stiles Stilinski I swear to god if I have to sit out in a hallway while you get your shit together again then I am going to cut you up into pieces and feed you to my daughters!"
Stiles' first instinct is to shudder in fear, because it's Laura and the last time he saw her he had stolen her car and traumatized her boyfriend, but then it immediately switches to happiness because it's Laura.
And then a thick, brick wall of confusion. He shouts through the door, "You have a daughter now?"
Laura laughs, just as loud as he remembers, "Yes, you idiot! Now open up the door so I can harass you with baby pictures!"
Stiles springs up out of the chair before he can blink and has his door unlocked and opened in record time, only to be assaulted by an armful of werewolf.
"God, I've missed you!" She yells into his ear, practically vibrating as she hugs him.
Stiles laughs as he clutches her, grinning from ear to ear. He doesn't have any memories of Laura or Derek, not from the right Stiles. He had assumed she just forgot he existed after the timekeep took him away, but now that she's practically squealing his ear off, he thinks he has to reevaluate his thoughts on the matter.
"I'm so sorry I wasn't here right away! Mom didn't find out until Deaton told her the other day, and then I had to get time off of work and make sure the girls were okay and-" Laura pulls back and shoves at him, "I can't believe you're here! You just disappeared! Derek and I thought it was because of us, and mom said that we weren't allowed to be around the young you, which was bullshit by the way Derek and I are great influences." Laura pinches the soft skin of his elbow, smiling as he jerks back, "And you're a dick, by the way. It took me a month to find my car, and when I did, it had like twenty parking tickets!"
Stiles coughs uncomfortably, "Yeah, uh, sorry about that? The timekeep didn't really give me much time to take care of things before he sent me here."
Laura makes a face, "Which is kind of ironic? But, whatever, it's fine, seriously, it was like six years ago. I've had three cars since then, and tons more parking tickets."
Stiles scoffs, knocking into Laura gently with his shoulder, "How was Brad, by the way? Did he ever get over the shock? It was going pretty strong last time I saw him."
Laura grins at him, "Brad is actually in New York right now taking care of the girls, and yes, I have to say, he recovered quite well from the shock."
At that point Laura hands him her Iphone, which brings back weird memories of shuffling awkwardly through Laura's brick phone so long ago, and he goes through the pictures, cooing at the twin girls, perfect identicles of Laura, except for their nose, which they get from Brad. Their names are Hannah and Savannah, which Stiles gives Laura a long and judging look for.
"The struggle will give them character," Laura huffs, "Cora and I turned out fine. Can't say the same for Tarik and Rek, though."
Stiles slowly hands Laura her phone back, asking stiffly, "How is Derek, by the way?"
Laura grins, "How is Derek all the time? Grumpy, anti social. He's completely fine, and he doesn't hold any grudge against you," Laura turns toward the window and screams, "Which he would tell you himself if he stopped being a giant baby and came in the house!"
Stiles thinks he hears a faint horn honking, and then Laura's laughing with her arms wrapped around her stomach.
"You guys live together in New York?" Stiles asks, when her laughter's calmed down.
She makes a gesture with her hand, "Eh, we did in the beginning, and then Brad and I got serious and Derek got seriously grossed out by hearing us have sex, so we all decided it would be best if he moved out."
"She means kick me out," a voice from the doorway says, and Stiles freezes instantly, "Don't listen to her. She literally threw my clothes out in the street, told me she was getting laid, and locked me out."
"He's lying," Laura instantly cuts in, "I also gave him two hundred dollars for a cab and a hotel for the night."
The room is quiet for a full minute after that, and Stiles doesn't even have a clock on the wall to fill the silence with ticks.
"Wow," Laura says, "That got really awkward. I'll be downstairs eating fudge while you two fix whatever the hell is happening here."
Laura leans in and gives Stiles a sloppy kiss on the cheek, which he quickly pulls away from with the appropriate grossed out noises.
She closes the door after her, and Stiles can't help but look at the window fondly, imagines throwing himself out it and rolling to the grass safely.
"She's right, you know?" Derek asks, and Stiles closes his eyes at how soft the voice is, how it sounds so much like the ones from his memories. "I don't hold a grudge. I actually want to thank you, for what you did. I never would have been able to turn her in unless you'd helped."
Stiles resolutely does not turn to face Derek. He remembers so clearly the day Laura dragged him to meet Derek months ago, when he stared out the drivers window and determinedly didn't look back.
"I'm glad," Stiles says, looking down at his hands, "I looked it up online. I'm happy she got sentenced to life, she was sick."
"Yeah," Derek agrees, "I just couldn't see it back then. I don't know if you remember, but that night you left? You pushed me against a wall and screamed at me, and I should have listened to you then but I couldn't. I wasn't strong enough then, you know?"
"Seriously," Stiles sighs, "You're really good at articulating your emotions and it's freaking me out."
Derek laughs behind him, and it's the exact same sound the other Derek would make. His stomach twists at the noise.
"I wasn't always," Derek admits. Stiles can see a shape moving out of the corner of his eye, sees the shape sit on his bed, and he turns his chair to face the opposite wall. "There was a long time where I wouldn't talk to anyone in my family. I was just so angry all the time, you know? And I didn't even know why."
Stiles hums and picks at a hangnail, hisses as it bleeds.
"The world isn't going to fall apart if you look at me," Derek says gently, "I promise."
Stiles snorts, "Sure. I'm already going through one psychotic break. I don't need another one."
Derek is quiet and patient, and after a few minutes of it Stiles groans and gives in, turning to face him.
It shouldn't be surprising, really, that he looks exactly the same as the other Derek. He has less stress lines on his forehead, sure, but generally it's the same person. Same stupid hair cut. Same stupid scruff. And he looks good. He's a bit learner, body not pushed to such punishing limits as it was in the other time line, and his V neck fits a bit looser than it does in his memory. He looks relaxed and peaceful, which is so strange compared to the Derek in his head.
Stiles says, "This was a horrible idea."
And Derek laughs, and it's so weird to see Derek's face and a smile that big with a laugh that loud. It contradicts every memory Stiles has of the other Derek, and it's enough to make him pause, just pretend the world has stopped spinning so he can take it in.
"How'd you do it?" Stiles asks suddenly.
Derek raises a familiar eyebrow, "What are you talking about?"
"Be happy. How'd you do it?"
Derek's quiet for a long minute, looking at Stiles in a sort of confused concern that Stiles has grown used to over the past month, but it's still strange coming from Derek's face.
"Lots of therapy," Derek says finally. "Marin Morrell, Deaton's sister, she helped me a lot. It was really good for me, Stiles."
He says it with a bit more emphasis on the words than was strictly necessary, and Stiles isn't an idiot so he gets the hint.
"I don't think therapy will help me."
Derek hums, "It couldn't hurt, right?"
But Stiles doesn't mention how it could hurt, how every time he looks at someone's face it's a hot flash of hurt all over his body, how some mornings he feels like getting out of bed is the stupidest idea ever, how he wants nothing more than to just lay on the couch and block out the rest of the world. Therapy won't make any of that better, Stiles thinks, it'll just make him have to acknowledge that it's not good for him.
He doesn't say any of that though, knocks his knee into Derek's instead and asks, "Which college are you going to?"
"NYU," Derek answers immediately, "I'm majoring in English."
And it shocks a laugh out of Stiles louder than he's had since he's been back, it makes his sides ache, makes spit come out of his mouth.
"Some things never change," he manages to choke out, wiping a tear from his eye, and Derek's smiling at him as he does.
"You never actually told me a lot about the other me," Derek says, "I think that's the most information I know. That and the fact that I apparently helped out ladies bake cookies."
"More like you were tricked into it," Stiles shrugs, "But, details, right?"
Derek nods, "Cookies were still made by me. It counts."
Stiles turns back to his desk and starts reorganizing paper stacks that he's already organized ten times, trying to look busy.
Derek clears his throat, "Maybe you could text me at school some time? You could talk to me about the other place- time line, if you want."
Stiles manages a smile to himself, and shakes his head, "Nah, I'm not gonna bore you with all of that dude. I will totally text you, though."
Derek smiles at him, and the world still feels weird with it, but it doesn't feel any worse, so it has to be good, right?
It takes Stiles a while before he finally listens to Derek's advice.
Morrell does a lot of breathing exercises with him, a lot of counting and guiding him back from panic attacks. She teaches him to anchor himself, find something that he can use when he gets lost in a memory or in a nightmare and doesn't know if it's real or not. She teaches him to feel things again, slowly, and everything aches for a long while until he wants to just hide from the world.
She's patient with him, pulling him back from the edge slowly until he feels like he's able to breathe again. She listens to him talk, and it's easy because Stiles never really knew Morrell in either world. He knew of her, but he ultimately never cared that much for her opinion of him. It's okay if he disappoints her, if he's not the right Stiles, if he says something wrong.
She helps him break the habit of right Stiles and wrong Stiles. She helps him accept both parts of him, his memories and his mannerisms and his feelings, worst of all. There's lots of talk about feelings, unfortunately.
She's not afraid when he yells at her, just sits there and stares at him calmly until he's able to bring himself back. She doesn't touch him when he starts crying, is a quiet and reassuring presence until he lets it out.
Morrell still isn't able to talk him out of his guilt though, the thing he clutches firmly to with both hands. Some nights he wakes up screaming, imagines that Scott's still lying in his arms, his shirt soaked with blood as he presses it to the gaping wound, and he's screaming as the timekeep grabs him, begging them please, please no, let me say here, don't make me leave.
He can't tell which world he misses more. There's three worlds for him, but he's never able to explain it to anyone without them tilting their head in confusion. The memories mesh around in his head, the two worlds he knew separately and this one where he knows both. Sometimes, it's like being told the North Pole exist, but that he can never go visit it, and his heart aches.
He has so much more to lose in this new world though, so many people caring and depending on him, and it's scary as well as it's exhilarating at the same time.
Stiles has a long way to go before he's okay again, a lot of therapy and sleepless nights and emotional breakdowns before he's anywhere near healed, but it's okay, because he has so many people surrounding him, loving and supporting him until the end, that it makes it all almost worth it.
Deaton's sitting with Morrell when Stiles goes in one day, smiling at him, and Stiles doesn't freak out at the sight of him, which Morrell smiles at. It's all about the small victories, he reminds himself, taking it one day at a time.
"What's going on?" He asks, after hugging Alan.
The siblings look at each other before Morrell hands Stiles a leather bound book. He takes it from her with shaky hands and unbinds the string. The pages are blank though, staring up at him with yellow faded blankness.
"We think it's time you started your own journal, Stiles," Morrell says.
Deaton looks at him, and grins, "Remember when we spent weeks reading all of those books? How do you think they all got started?"
"You want me to write about it?" Stiles clarifies, eyebrow raised, "What happened to me?"
"It's important that things like this don't become forgotten, Stiles," Morrell leans back in her chair and crosses her legs, "Our kind survives on knowledge, and you're an important part of our cultures history now."
Deaton taps the notebook, "Think of how lost you would have been without your family's books. Don't you think it's important to add to that?"
Morrell touches his hand, grip firm and warm, "I think it would be good for you. It's called exposure therapy. It'll help you cope."
"It's a way to put this all behind you," Deaton says, "Once you write it all down, it'll be easier to talk about."
Morrell nods, "And the more we talk about it, the easier time you'll have over coming it."
Stiles bites his lip, but his hands don't shake when he takes the offered pen. He's not sure if this is a good idea or not, but he's grown to trust Morrell over their sessions. He taps the pen to his chin three times before flipping open the notebook to the first page and writing down the line,"It all started when my best friend and I decided to go looking for a dead body."
Well, not linearly, of course, but he'll get to that later.
