The little hope Stiles had of finding someone who might have an idea of what's going on as he drives to the loft are squashed as soon as he pulls up to the building. There are fairy lights in the window. Either the Derek in this universe is a very different person, or he doesn't live here.
He's not really sure what compelled him to come here first, other than Derek was the first person he thought of, and right now he's working on impulse alone since that's literally all he has to go on. Anyway, he figures if nothing else, finding Derek will confirm that werewolves do, in fact, exist and he hasn't been living a crazy fever dream for the last couple of years.
Even though he's almost certain he's not going to find the broody wolf he knows here, Stiles still gets out of the car. Who knows? Maybe Darkest Timeline Derek had been hugged more as a child and had grown up to be a happy-go-lucky hippie who loves meeting new people and hanging sparkly lights in his window. Or maybe he has a girlfriend who isn't a power-hungry darach with a fettish for human sacrifices and instead enjoys more normal hobbies like interior decorating.
He's halfway up the stairs before he considers that if Derek is anything like the one he knows, he might not even listen to the carefully crafted and not at all desperately rambling speech Stiles came up with in the car on the way over here. He might just chuck him out the bedazzled window.
Honestly, he'd take that right now. It would mean at least one person hadn't completely changed.
Turns out, he has no reason to worry about that anyway.
He finds it hard to determine the age of the woman who slides open the door when he knocks. She's wearing a ton of makeup, and not much else. Her silky pink robe hangs against her body in a way that makes it pretty obvious there's nothing underneath. She crooks a smile at him and leans up against the doorway, crossing her arms in a way that makes her already ample cleavage a lot more obvious.
"Hey, baby," she says in a sultry voice. "Did Frank send you?"
He tries desperately to maintain eye contact while she very intentionally lets her eyes roam over his body. It's the second time today he's been under a woman's scrutiny like this, and he finds it no less disconcerting than the first.
"Frank?" he asks. What is she talking about? "No, I don't…"
Oh. It suddenly clicks.
He tugs on the collar of his shirt, the heat off his face making him sweat. "I-I'm looking for Derek?" The question comes out a lot squeakier than he would've liked.
She tilts her head, appraising him again with a quirked eyebrow. "Sorry, sweetie. I don't know any Derek." Her lips pull back into a suggestive smile. "You sure you don't want to come in?"
"No, no. I'm good," he says quickly, backing toward the stairs in what he hopes looks like a nonchalant way. "Just, uh. Just looking for Derek, but I obviously got the wrong address. Er, sorry for bothering you."
"Oh, it's no bother," she says. "If you ever change your mind, you remember to ask for Tammy, okay?"
Stiles bumps into the fire door, fumbling with the handle to pull it open and then tripping through to the stairs awkwardly. "Okay. Yeah, Tammy. Got it. Um, thanks again."
"Anytime, sweetie." She leaves him with a flirty wave as the door shuts.
When he gets back to the Jeep, he buries his face against the backs of his hands on the steering wheel for a good five minutes until the embarrassment finally releases its hold on his throat enough to breathe normally again.
"Well, that was a bust," he mutters as he sits back up, and then smirks at his unintentional pun. And then shakes his head because no one is there to laugh at it. More specifically, Scott isn't there. Because everything about this situation would be a lot funnier if Scott was here.
He's suddenly hit by a wave of loneliness as he glances at the empty passenger seat. As if he didn't need another reason to feel disconnected from his friends, now he's literally in an alternate dimension all by himself.
"It's fine," he tells himself firmly before that thought tailspins into a pity party. He's been getting really good at those lately, but, funnily enough, they never make him feel any better, and he doesn't have time to waste right now. "I've got this. Better me getting zapped to an alternate reality than anyone else, right? I'm the one who figures shit out."
That's what everyone always tells him, at least.
But it sure would be nice to have some help.
So far, he's zero for two on finding an ally, but he's far from exhausting all his options. Beacon Hills might not be a huge town, but the pack has made a decent number of connections over the years, which means he still has a lot of ground to cover.
He spends the next couple of hours driving all over town, but has even less luck finding anything than he did with the hooker at the loft. At least she crossed one lead definitively off his list. Every other spot he visits leaves an ambiguous opening that maybe he could find something or someone there to help explain this.
For example, the Hale house is pretty much just like it is in his reality—half burned, decrepit, and vacant. He pokes around a little bit to see if he can find any evidence that maybe Derek is holing up here like he was when Stiles and Scott ran into him two years ago, but there's nothing there. But that doesn't mean Derek definitely doesn't live there. It's not like Derek is into creature comforts—his place has always been pretty void of anything except the bare necessities. When he lived here before, Stiles doesn't remember him owning much beyond a ratty couch. And he could easily be making it look like no one lives there since Stiles is pretty sure living in a clearly unstable structure is, in fact, illegal.
So that's a loose end.
After that, Stiles wanders around the Preserve for a while. A: because he half hopes that Derek will just eerily appear out of nowhere like he so often has before. And B: because it's a pretty sure bet that the Nemeton has something to do with all of this. But alas, no Derek. No creepy-ass magical tree stump. Either the thing moved or doesn't exist in this reality.
Whatever. Screw Derek. He's not the only one who knows about supernatural stuff in Beacon Hills.
In retrospect, Stiles probably should have tried Deaton before he drove all the way out to the Preserve, because by the time he gets to the animal clinic he's already wasted half the day backtracking. Oh well. He's never claimed to do things in the most organized fashion. He's one of those people who doesn't bring a list to the grocery store because making lists takes time he doesn't have, so he ends up walking back and forth twenty times to get everything he needs and wastes way more time than it would have taken to make the list in the first place.
Turns out it wouldn't have mattered if he'd gone to the clinic first. Because it's not even an animal clinic. It's a yoga studio.
The kicker is, it looks like it used to be the animal clinic he's looking for, and pretty recently from the sold sign in the window. The sign for the yoga studio, which boasts its grand opening next week, is merely a laminated piece of paper taped to the door. He can still see the hours for the clinic next to it, with Deaton's name right there.
So far, Stiles thinks he's been holding it together pretty well, but the fact that he was so close to finding a solid lead is the straw that breaks the camel's back.
"Are you kidding me?!" he screams, the sudden anger slamming into his chest like a tsunami. "Are you kidding me? Why? Why is this happening to me? Why does this always happen to me?!"
He smacks the window, pacing and pulling at his hair to burn off the onslaught of agitation. "This is great. Just great. Deaton's not here, can't find Derek anywhere—who knows if he even lives in Beacon Hills in this fucking universe. Scott's best friends with Greenburg." He can't even say the kid's name without choking on it.
He stops, looking up at the perfectly blue sky defiantly. He doesn't really believe in God, but if there is one out there, he's got to be a jerk based off how Stiles' life has been going lately. "What do you want, huh? Is this some kind of punishment?"
The anger drains out of him as quickly as it came, with a sob of desperation. "Please," he begs quietly, sagging against the window behind him. "I'm so tired of these games. I just want everything to go back to the way it was. I just want to go home."
He buries his face in shaking hands, feeling the weight of his shame burn across his shoulders. Maybe this is some kind of punishment, a banishment to an alternate reality where he can't hurt his friends anymore. Maybe the whole point of it is for him to be alone.
But… That doesn't really make sense. Why is his mom here? And he's dating Lydia, albeit not the same version of Lydia he's gotten to know the last couple years. Why would he be with the girl of his dreams if the point of this was to punish him? No, there's got to be something else going on here.
He takes a deep breath. "Get yourself together, Stilinski," he mutters, straightening himself back up.
Movement inside the darkened building catches his eye, but when he turns to look in the window, whatever it is is gone. Goosebumps run up his arms and down his back, making him shiver in the warm air. He feels like he's being watched.
Pressing his face against the window, he tries to spot whatever it was, but the front room is empty. Still, he knows something was there. A person, looking at him. Maybe they went down the hall? He reaches for the cold door handle, tugging on it gently, and is surprised when it opens.
"Hello?" he calls into the quiet space.
No response. Of course not. That would've been helpful, and as previously established, nothing about this universe is helpful.
As he crosses the threshold, he shivers again, the draft of air greeting him drastically cooler than the warm air outside. The room isn't huge, but it's a lot bigger than he remembers. Probably because the counter partition that used to be there, lined with mountain ash to keep unwanted supernatural creatures out, is gone. Now it's a wide open room with mirrors all along one wall.
He hears a noise coming from the back, like footsteps echoing faintly down a hall. Stepping further into the room, he calls out again. "Hello? Anyone here?" His voice makes the place sound hollow.
He swears he hears a whisper from the hallway that leads to the back, but it's too quiet to make out what it's saying. His heart begins pounding as he slowly walks closer. This is it. Whatever, or whoever, this is, they've got to be connected to why he suddenly woke up in an alternate reality. He just knows it.
The voice is loud enough now that he can tell it's a woman, but he can't tell what she's saying. He feels almost dizzy with anticipation as he gets closer, and he wants to close the distance faster, but his feet refuse to move. The farther he goes, the harder it is to move his legs. It's like he's walking through water.
He sees a shadow skitter across the doorway and for a split second, just the briefest of moments, the room changes. There's water on the floor, and more dripping rhythmically around him, and the little bit of sunlight coming through the window makes lights dance on the walls. Before him is a pale figure, but he can only see the dim reflection in the pool of water. He's not much of a believer in ghosts, despite his experience with werewolves and kanimas and other unexplainable shit, but he swears that what he sees in front of him has to be a ghost.
A shriek breaks the image, like a stone thrown into a still pool, and suddenly he can't see anything anymore because his face is on fire. He lets out a pained yell of his own, hands flying up to his eyes to claw at the blinding substance that's coating his face.
"I called the police, you bastard!" a woman shouts. "So don't even think about trying anything!"
"Oh-God!" he sputters, realizing he's just been pepper sprayed. He's always wondered what it felt like, had even asked his dad to spray him one time just to try it. His dad, of course, refused to oblige. Now he knows why. This sucks. "I wasn't planning on trying anything! The door was open!"
"You think I'd leave it unlocked when there are creeps like you who just wander in whenever they feel like it? Unlikely."
It feels like Stiles' brain is turning to liquid and seeping out of every opening on his face. He makes a valiant attempt to look at his assailant, but all he can make out is a blurry outline of someone in front of him. "I wasn't trying—I'm sorry, okay?" he says, holding his hands out in front of him in what he hopes is a non-threatening way. "I honestly didn't know it was closed."
"Uh huh. Save it for the cops. Sounds like they're almost here."
He catches the sound of sirens growing louder, and has a sudden sinking feeling in his stomach. Well, this is one way to find out if his dad is anything like the one from his reality.
"So are you going to tell me why in God's name you're skipping school to break into a yoga studio, or am I going to have to take you downtown and interrogate you like a criminal?"
The tension in the car is palpable, but familiar, which makes it weirdly comforting in a way. Stiles' dad catching him doing something dumb isn't exactly condusive to his search for answers, but at least it's a hiccup he knows how to deal with.
Stiles watches the houses pass outside the window, swiping at his still running nose with his sleeve. "I wanted to work on my downward-facing dog."
"Don't be a smartass," the Sheriff snaps. "This is serious, Stiles. Breaking and entering is a felony. If that woman presses charges, you could be looking at jail time."
"I already told you, the door was open," Stiles defends, raising a hand to rub his abused eyes. He's probably dehydrated from the sheer volume of tears he's shed in the last thirty minutes. "I didn't realize the place was closed."
"Well, maybe next time you'll read the sign on the door, or notice that all the lights are off." The Sheriff doesn't take his eyes off the road as he smacks Stiles' hands away from his face. "You're lucky she had Mace and not a gun, you know that?"
"At least if she'd shot me I might get a little more sympathy," Stiles grumbles, crossing his arms to trap his hands against his sides. His dad has already told him about fifty times that touching it makes it worse, but he can't seem to stop. "My eyes are literally burning out of my face right now."
"Oh, quit your grousing. You're fine."
Stiles lets his head drop against the headrest with a sigh and blinks rapidly a few times to try and assuage the irritation. His dad had shown only slightly more concern for him upon arriving on the scene, leading Stiles to the bathroom and holding his face under the faucet for a while to clear out the worst of the pepper spray. It was also a convenient way to hold him in place while he reamed him for breaking in and terrifying the young woman who owned the yoga studio.
"So," Stiles says when he can't take the tense silence any longer. "Where are you taking me?"
His dad shoots him a glare. "I should take you to the station. Let you sit in holding for a while until you give me a good reason for why I got a call in the middle of the day to come fetch my son who's supposed to be in biology right now." He sighs in the same way Stiles is used to hearing when he's given up trying to untangle his lies. "But it's your mother's birthday this weekend, and I refuse to let you ruin it with your delinquency. She deserves to have one night where we pretend to be a happy, well-adjusted family."
The way he says this, the look in his eyes… Stiles gets the sense that the him in this universe and his dad do not have the same relationship he's used to.
"I'm taking you back to school for now," the Sheriff continues. "And maybe, maybe, by some miracle, I can convince your principal to hold off on suspending you for cutting class until next week."
Stiles considers apologizing, he really does. He hates hearing that undertone of disappointment in his dad's voice. But one thing about Stiles is that when he gets focused on a problem, he has a very one-track mind until said problem is solved. And so instead of saying he's sorry, he asks, "Does this mean I can have my Jeep keys back for the weekend, too?"
His dad, who now looks at him like he just asked if he could sell his sister for some extra pocket change (not a bad idea, actually), had taken his keys sometime between lectures four and seven. "Not on your life, kid," he says in a way that leaves no room to debate.
"But, Dad, I—"
"And don't think you're allowed to hang out with those friends of yours either. Just because I'm holding off on some of your punishment doesn't mean you get off scot free here."
He couldn't care less about not being able to see his friends, but the no car thing is going to put a damper on his investigation. He hadn't realized what a relief it's been to have his dad in the know about the supernatural going-ons of Beacon Hills. Not necessarily because he doesn't have to lie anymore, because he still does plenty of that, but because he has an entirely new category of plausible excuses to choose from for all the weird situations he gets himself into. Half the time, his dad doesn't bat an eye anymore when he does something idiotic. Sometimes, he's even helpful in figuring it out. Going back to square one is annoying.
But, actually, now that he thinks about it, his dad could still be helpful. Even though Stiles very much doubts the Sheriff Stilinski of this universe knows anything about werewolves, he would definitely know about all of the cases potentially tied to werewolves and other creatures that go bump in the night.
And there's one case in particular that he's thinking about—one that Stiles might consider the most important of all in the grand scheme of his life these last couple years. A tipping point that could have created a very different alternate reality had it gone down differently.
"Hey, dad," he says. "Did you find a body out in the woods a couple years ago? Or rather, a half of a body?"
The Sheriff frowns, clearly confused by the sudden change in topic. "I've found a few bodies in my day, Stiles. Sometimes they're whole, sometimes we just find parts. It's an unfortunate part of my job."
"This body would've belonged to Laura Hale."
His face goes hard at the mention of the name, which is all the confirmation Stiles needs to know that her death here happened the same way as in his reality.
"I remember," the Sheriff confirms grimly. "Animal attack. Tragic." His eyes go distant for a moment, as if he's seeing it all again. He blinks and the look is gone, replaced by curiosity as he glances at Stiles. "Why do you want to know about Laura Hale?"
Stiles shrugs. "I read something about it," he says, chewing on his lip. "Are you sure it was an animal attack? I thought there was something weird about it."
His dad's brow furrows again. "What exactly is your source on this information, son?"
"Oh, you know," Stiles says, waving a hand indistinctly while he comes up with a plausible lie. "Internet message boards and all that. People have some wild theories about her being murdered. Maybe even by something… Unnatural."
The Sheriff actually laughs out loud at this. "Well, while I'm glad you're showing an interest in my work for the first time ever, you can rest assured. We do not suspect Bigfoot had anything to do with the death of Laura Hale. It was an unfortunate case of a deadly animal attack, that's all."
They're pulling into the school parking lot now, but Stiles has a lot more questions. If Laura Hale was murdered, does that mean Peter bit someone else? Had there been anyone to stop him? Was he still out there, terrorizing the poor citizens of Beacon Hills? "Were there more animal attacks after that? Did you ever find the thing that did it?"
His dad shakes his head in amusement as he winds around the lot. "What's with the sudden twenty questions about something that happened almost two years ago?"
"It's for a project," Stiles insists. "Come on, Dad. Did you find the animal?"
They pull into a spot and the Sheriff puts the car in park, turning toward Stiles and squinting suspiciously. "You have never asked me for help on a project before."
Stupid punk alternate Stiles. "Yeah, well, I just figured since we were spending some quality time together here, might as well take advantage," Stiles says.
The Sheriff smiles and shakes his head, getting out of the car. "You always did know how to charm people. Got that from your mother. Now, get out of the car and into that school before I decide to add to your punishment."
