Chapter 1: Time traveling is not for the faint of heart

Falling through time is not a fun experience at all. It's horrible. It hurts and the brainfuck is real. The moment you come out on the other side, thinking you've made it, mustering up the feeling of pride, because hey, how many people can say they've successfully traveled through time? You get blasted by a sensation that can only be described as the fuck-it-all of hangovers. Plus emotional whiplash of going back, of experiencing every moment in seconds felt like a werewolf-strength kind of punch to the gut.

So, coming out on the other side was unglamorous to say the least. Months and weeks of careful planning couldn't have prepared them for the tears-inducing-headache and the puke.

It didn't take Stiles long to figure out where they were. Thank fuck they landed somewhere deep in the preserve. If this would have been the first impression they left on the Hale Pack, it could only have hurt their cause, he thought as he saw beautiful, pristine Lydia retching her breakfast into the next bush.

It took Stiles a long time to organize his thoughts. Time travel has a way of leaving you with this dejected feeling of whatever man just let me vomit out my insides in peace. Which is unfortunate because they had things they needed to do.

First on the agenda was finding out what date they actually arrived on.

"Stiles?" Lydia croaked from the bush.

"Huh?"

"Time travel sucks."

"I agree wholeheartedly."

Personally, he felt 'sucks' was a bit mild for the amazing experience of lying next to your own vomit in absolute dizziness and exhaustion for roughly an hour.

"Think you can move yet, Lyds?"

He asked as he slowly stumbled to his feet his eyes searching for the strawberry blonde. She sat leaning against a huge tree, eyes closed, face in a pinched expression. Stiles didn't need to wait for an answer, standing had helped a lot with the dizziness. So, he slowly approached her, evading his 'puddle' on the way over "Hey Lyds, I'm going to pull you up now. Standing helps with the dizziness." He tries to sound soothing, but it comes out weary.

"That's okay, I'm probably going to throw up on you." She whispered.

He managed to laugh at that. Quietly, because headaches. "Wouldn't be the first time."

Pulling her next to him in standing position and rubbing soothing circles on her back, was apparently the way to go.

"Thank fuck, the world finally stopped spinning." She sighed in relief. "Let's see if our bags made it through with us."

After another heart-warming 10 minutes they got their shit together and made quick work of getting their stuff.

Beacon Hills wasn't exactly a hot spot for hitchhiking, so they walked, which translated to wasting another 3 hours of his life. Thinking back, he should have been more adamant about using this as the absolute last resort.

The pack had been desperate, but they would have survived. They'd been desperate before. Hell, after facing down the Riders of the Storm, shit should have settled, at least for a little while. Enough that they could live their life with a resemblance of normalcy. They had even planned on renting a pack house circumventing the dorm life for something they knew, they'd love, when everything went downhill.

Isaac had come back from France bearings gifts. They were from the last Argents, under the ruse of opening the peace treaty negotiations, they'd gifted them a new form of wolfsbane, one that could, if cultivated under the right circumstances, be the cure all to every wolfsbane bullet, a hunter could possibly use. It was of course too good to be true.

Turns out it was crossbred to be so potent, that the moment they'd opened the box, every wolf in the room turned feral. He had to use every binding spell he ever encountered for that one, burning through his spark like a mad man. Because of their blind disregard for their own wellbeing he had to pull out the advanced shit. Not that mountain ash wasn't dandy, but a wolf that threw itself repeatedly against a strength-based barrier would have a lot of shit to deal with later on. He wouldn't hurt his friends like that.

After that had happened, Lydia, who'd bitten on her forearm in an effort not to scream, took him and the wolfsbane plant of doom to Deaton. The druid quickly determined that this plant was not from the earthly realm and should have never been given to humans, let alone werewolves, which had led them to the frightening conclusion that their friends could not turn back. At least not without the help of the creatures who lived in said mysterious realm, but that had quickly spiraled into different theories about an infinite number of alternate universes. Who could say which one of those the stupid plant came from?

He'd done his research, he knew. No one could. So, following the events of this clusterfuck of a catastrophe, he had decided to turn to magic, which had never let him down.

Lydia had helped, and they quickly discovered that a time travel spell would be the best solution. But how could they decide where to go? No matter where they'd end up, they'd inevitably fuck their own future and there were enough deaths in BH to make choosing a time to return to, into a game of 'who aren't we going to save?'.

It wasn't an easy decision to make, but after fact checking, it quickly became clear that the old Hale pack had been the only pillar of stability that BH had. The next one was trickier, they had to decide which one of them would go. Lydia was their emissary, sure, but against a pack of wolves she was basically defenseless. Stiles on the other hand had come into his powers over the years. He was the unofficial second of their little pack and a warrior through and through.

That being said, they both couldn't stand the thought of being left behind. Not only because dealing with the aftermath would be horrible, but also because they were the only pack they had left and losing that last pack bond, felt impossible to do. So, they had Deaton anchor their spell. All in all, it had taken weeks of planning to get to this point and they wouldn't fuck this up now.

Sliding into the booth of the diner he breathes a sigh of relief and sees that Lydia starts to relax, too. Thank fuck. The two of them needed a break.

The waitress stared a little at them but that's normal, in a little town like BH he looked like a shady dude, when he didn't hide his tattoos, which he couldn't. At least not at the moment, because the time travel spell had literally knocked the spark out for what he guesttimated would be another few hours. "I'm going full on double cheeseburger, extra gravy, curly fries and a salad on the side." He told her with a warm smile. Lydia on the other hand gave her an icy glare, looks like she didn't appreciate the look the waitress was giving him. Bless her heart.
"I take a classic, salad on the side and a pitcher of water for the two of us."

Lydia's concentration was now back on him. "Your tattoos are a work of art, I should know, I designed a lot of them."

That she did, and she was right, his tattoos looked amazing. Charms, sigils and runes for everything from healing and strengthening to protecting and amplifying were webbed into a mad design. Everything flowed in a beautiful symmetry, perfectly mirroring the other side of his body. It started at the back of his neck and extended over his shoulder to his chest over his stomach and followed his hip bones, down his legs. It also extended from his neck down his back and both arms were fully wrapped in a breathtakingly intricate geometric design, that hid the powerful spells that lay within. The properties that had been added to the ink, that made them suitable to carry his magic, had turned the ink into a very unusual light grey tone. People in his timeline complimented them all the fucking time. The only bad thing about them was that they drew attention which is why he added another tattoo that could, if activated, hide the others, or just a few of them. Depending on what he needed. If he wanted to activate them, the spark started to shimmer through, which made them shimmer golden. Either way, there was no point in hiding the ones, they were going to need on a regular basis.

"I don't care what she thinks. I just realized that I'll be drawing a lot of attention to us, a new guy with a shitload of tattoos will be noticed in a small town like BH. I'm going to have to spell the ones we don't need all the time as soon as possible."

"Yeah that's probably a good idea, at least the ones on the back of your neck and on your forearms. Nobody will see the legs and we'll pick up some clothing that will hide the rest, soon. But first we need to check the date, then we can hunt in the newspaper for accommodations, after that we're going shopping."

While working through the beast of a meal Lydia checked the newspaper for accommodations. The date was the 12th April 2006, which meant Derek was still 17 and the Hale fire hadn't happened yet.
"Holy shit. It really worked. I mean logically I understand that this is what we've been working towards for the past four months, but this is… this is just sick."
"We have two months to prevent the tragedy that started this whole clusterfuck. Oh, look Stiles, this would be perfect."

He looked at the description of a little flat in downtown BH, close enough to both the preserve and the school. Inconspicuous enough.

"Sounds good. We'll call as soon as we set the phones up. God this is going to be a lot of walking. We also need to set up bank accounts and all that jazz. Do you have our papers?"

Lydia pulled a blue folder from her beast of a purse. In it were the two carefully drafted identities of Lydia and Mieczyslaw Stillinski. They couldn't very well lie to the werewolves every time they told them their first names. So, they decided to go with the real ones. They also decided to go into this as a 'married couple' because they'd be spending all their time together, living together and do the usual pack-stuff, which translated into some form or another of constant touching. They also needed to be able to accompany the other to the ER if something were to happen, which wasn't a far-fetched probability considering they needed to stop a rouge serial-killer-arsonist-hunter. Not to mention that they didn't want to draw attention to themselves by explaining they weren't in a relationship every time somebody assumes and people would definetly assume. Anyway, he would continue to encourage people to call him Stiles, there was little to no chance that he'd cross his eleven-year-old counterpart and he wouldn't let himself be caught by his dad. He knew better than that. But even if he was going to get caught, he'd be going into it as Claudia's long-lost brother who shared his name with their dad. They'd both decided that he'd tell him that his sister had been in contact with him and actively tried to convince them to come visit her in BH, so that she could meet his new wife Lydia.

Man, this would have been his dream a few years ago. Lydia and him on an adventure, trusting each other, giving people that look at them weirdly the stink eye for each other, sleeping in the same bed, cuddling, laughing together, just them against the world. But he wasn't a delusional fifteen-year-old anymore. He was nineteen and had found a valuable friend in Lydia.

They'd been the only sane humans in the pack for the past three years and that alone had given them enough to bond over for a lifetime. She was also still in love with Jackson and Stiles decided to have some fun after things broke off with Malia. He was very aware of his bisexuality and had recently started this flirt-fight-we-have-no-idea-what-we're-doing-kind-of-thing with Derek, which had been fun. So, going in as a married couple was playing it safe. They wouldn't fuck around in the past, anyway. Not literally.

After they'd set up their joint bank account and deposited the fourty thousand dollars in cash (thank you feral Derek, you shouldn't have), they bought a black old audi 200. It was a little beat up, but not so much that it would attract attention. Just enough to make it look used, which was exactly what they were going for. It was the perfect surveillance car, also it looked kinda cool and was cheap enough.

So far, they'd been fairly successful with their plan, now they only needed to get the flat, and they'd be good to commence to part two. Introducing themselves as magical beings to the Hales.
After a restless night in the car and an even more horrible day at the mall, which Lydia spent in bemoaning the horrible fashion of 2006, they were ready to face their new landlord and hopefully get the flat. Stiles wore a pair of Skinny Jeans and a fitted blue Button down with rolled up sleeves and a pair of dark red chucks, as per Lydia's instructions. She wore her summer dress like an armor as they went up the stairs after their landlord.

It was an open loft, with a big kitchen, a leather couch and a big bed already in it. Nice.

"Look you seem like a nice couple and the paperwork looks good. I'm just looking to sublet this place for the next year. You can use the appliances, if you break something, replace it, total rent is 600$ a month, however I'll need 1800$ in cash upfront. You'll get the money back if you move out and didn't trash the place."

There was a moment of silence, they had been prepared to answer a lot of questions about themselves, rehearsing how long they'd been together, what their plan for BH was etcetera etcetera. This turn of events was refreshing to say the least.

"We'll take it, where do I sign?" he asked with a friendly smile.

"Right here. You'll get the keys as soon as you pay me."

"That won't be a problem." Lydia said, as she pulled out her purse and started counting until she got to 1800$. The guy looked a little surprised but was ultimately very happy.

After sorting the rest out, he left with a friendly reminder that if they ever needed anything they could call, and it was done.

The set up in BH had been completed.

Stiles let out a breath of relief as he let himself fall onto the big bed. "Move over." Sigh. "So bossy."

They fell asleep curled up in each other. They'd been stressed out about this the whole time. They decided early on that depending only on the Hale Pack for support and expecting them to believe that they'd been time traveling wouldn't do. They'd introduce themselves as a banshee and a spark and ask for an alliance.

It would have been great if that could have been the end of the day and they'd just woken up the next day feeling refreshed and ready to go, but of course they only managed to get four hours of sleep, waking up starving and thirsty as fuck. What even.