#a) because the charmed line is still very much intact there and that's a suicide mission | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

feelingsdusk · 7 years

Note

Thanks for the wonderful fanfiction! When you read so much as I had it's such a treat to find new author who writes everything excellently! I just scroll new steter on ao3 and then "hey, so good, is it a new author?" and then "nope, it's again feelingsdusk!“. I also saw a post about promts... It's idea from “runes and...". That Stiles is meant all his life to help Scott. What if Stiles thought so, but then time-travel with Scott, human!Scott and "nope, my turn to be awesome!“

So as you can see, I completely failed and didn’t manage to complete the prompt challenge I issued for myself. In my defense, I was up to my ears with work and these damn prompts aren’t collaborating with me. Seriously, this is more than 12k and another one is already at 10k and I’m not even halfway! Sigh* Anyways, I’ll keep working on them till I finally finish them, however long that takes.

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Inevitable

Prophecies are tricky things. They are vague, short and can have three or more different meanings that apply to things already past that followed the prophecy to the letter and may make it appear already fulfilled, but in the end may refer to something completely different altogether. They're also as incredibly rare as the existence of the seers that can vision them and more often than not the ones on the receiving end don't even acknowledge them as the prophecies they are.

Not that Stiles knows any of this when he's a seven year old kid and witnesses the announcement of two prophecies on the very same day and mere seconds apart. But, then again, he doesn't know anything about the supernatural world, period, so it's not surprising that he won't think the words prophetic for a very long time.

He's on his way to school with Scott on a Tuesday morning, both of them on the same bike because Scott's has a flat tire. It's starting to drizzle and Stiles is trying to pedal faster so they can escape the storm that's rapidly approaching, if the dark clouds and distant thunder are anything to go by. Scott is the one that notices the red light, Stiles too focused on controlling a breath that is already coming in short gasps, and shout at him to stop. He startles so badly that he screeches to a halt at the crosswalk so abruptly that they nearly fall from the bike. They start bickering and aren't really paying attention to their surroundings, so to them it happens so fast that neither of them will never have a clear memory of how it occurred, but suddenly there's a car swerving at the corner and Stiles is pushing Scott out of the way and then both of them are screaming for help terrified.

When they approach the heavily smoking car, there's a dead man at the wheel and two identical twins strapped at the backseat. Both of the kids look younger than Scott and Stiles and aren't responsive to their frantic calls even if they're clearly still alive. Scott's mom is a nurse, so they know better than to move them, but that doesn't stop Stiles from grabbing their hands and holding on tight.

(Gingers, hazel eyes, a long line of freckles over their upturned noses. Bloody. Their faces won't blur in their memories for a very long time afterwards.)

"Change comes in red," chokes out one of them, face bloody and eyes dangerously vacant.

"A true leader, the catalyst-" starts to whisper the other before his eyes roll to the back of his head and his head falls forward limply.

Both of them die before the ambulance arrives, joining the man at the front, whom apparently had had a stroke while he was driving and had died almost instantly upon impact. Scott cries for a week, Stiles stops talking for two. After that, both of them try to consciously forget about everything that happened.

But change starts to come in red for Stiles and he can't.

Stiles' mom is wearing a red cardigan the first time she loses sight of reality and he never can feel secure when he's alone with her ever again. She's also wearing red pants the last time she tries to attack him, right before his dad decides that she has to be interned at the hospital. A red car rams into his dad's cruiser when he's taking them both to visit her at the psychiatric ward, forcing his dad into bed rest for two weeks and Stiles to visit his mom alone during that time. Red is his mom's blood when she dies and red is his dad's face every time he shouts at Stiles drunkenly for the next six months. Red, red, red. Always the unavoidable red.

"Stop it, Stiles," Scott scoffs at him for insisting he remembers what he buried deep down a long time ago. "I don't want to talk about this!"

"But look at what's happening!" Stiles protests, desperate for a companion in this impossible belief. "Didn't you say your dad was wearing a red sweater when-"

"I said stop it! Besides, if you're so afraid of red why do you wear it all the time, huh?"

"Because if change comes in red then I'm gonna bring my own change!"

If red inevitably brings despair to his life, why not harness that power as his own and take the reins?

"That doesn't make any sense! And I said I don't want to talk about it!" Scott shouts. "And if you can't respect that, then leave!"

Over the course of the next two years, they have this argument six times and Stiles inevitably leaves angry and hurt, stays away for a week, vowing to never bring it up again, and then ends up breaking his word every single time when red brings a tempest into his life once again. Every single time, that is, until that sixth time, when he finally follows through. Until, years later, Peter Hale comes with his alpha red eyes, bringing change with him and Stiles has to bring it up again, because surely Scott can see it now? Unsurprisingly (sadly), he gets rebuffed again, stays away a week and he comes back with his mouth shut about the issue no matter what happens.

And then the alpha pack with their red eyes comes, Scott turns out to be a true alpha, with his own set of red eyes, and he can't deny it anymore.

(Stiles doesn't say I told you so.)

So they work together through it all, coming always on top but just by a hair's breadth, Scott struggling to be the true leader and bring his change in red towards the better, and Stiles striving to help him in any way he can and manage to survive through it all as intact as he possibly can. But their efforts aren't enough in the end and they fail, losing everything they love (and themselves) in the process.

Stiles, who has never taken anything quietly (not even when he's truly at fault), searches for a solution. Because there are werewolves, mermaids, shamans, druids, witches, sparks! There are charms and spells and rituals, so there must be something! Anything! Anything, because they've lost almost everything and they're about to lose the only thing they have left, which is their lives. And, to be honest, at this point it's not like they care about living anymore, but they're not going to make this easy for their enemies. They're going to take them with themselves when they go down and die knowing that they avenged their pack, their family. So Stiles searches.

And when Stiles searches, he more often than not finds.

It's a stupid plan and they know it. Stupid, crazy and nonsensical, but they're out of options and they don't give a damn about personal harm at this point as long as they kill the bastards. So they prepare everything, they implement the plan flawlessly and they go out with a glorious bang, managing to catch their furious, incredulous faces as they die, right before fire and brimstone rains on them too.

(Change started with red fire a long time ago and now it finishes with red fire again. The irony isn't lost on them.)

---

They are in burning agony one second and then completely pain free the next. It's jarring and they look at each other wide eyed and confused, clinging to each other. Besides the overall discordant change in appearance, Scott can tell immediately that he's human again when he gets assaulted by an asthma attack that he doesn't know how to react to any more, and it takes Stiles a fraction too long to frantically search for an inhaler, only to find one in his own pocket. Panic claws at Stiles' throat for a moment when he finally realizes that the constant pain in his lungs is as gone as the tattoos and scarring in his body and he fights to control his own breathing. Before they can even regain their footing, a howl that brings back a barrage of memories pierces the night, and they realize that they're fifteen years old again, out in the woods the night they went in search of a body and found something else entirely.

After all that's happened, they're used to reacting immediately when faced with impossible decisions that they have little time to ponder about and this time is not any different. And so, Stiles lets himself be caught by his dad while Scott chooses to get bitten this time.

Afterwards, they spend about two days trying to grasp what the hell has happened, because travelling in time was not the intended result when they went on this self-appointed suicide mission. Then, with no answer in sight but not willing to look a gifted horse in the mouth, they move on. So, armed with the advantage of having so much information about everything (the timeline, their enemies, their allies), they think themselves unbeatable this time.

(Spoiler alert: they're not.)

They know the pain of being burned alive now, so when they finally decide, after a lot of deliberation, to kill Peter (unsurprisingly, Scott was all in while Stiles had a lot of reservations), they go for the painless route. And so, they poison Peter before he can be any more of a problem, thus proving what they already knew beforehand: killing the creator won't make a werewolf human again. Part of Scott mourns that truth even though he has been a wolf for more than ten years and he had come to terms with the loss of his humanity a long time ago, which was more than proven already with the fact that faced with the option of being human again, he chose to get bitten without even thinking anyways. Part of Stiles (the part that secretly enjoyed their research sessions) mourns the death of the man even though what they have killed isn't even a shade of the Peter of the last few years. They bury him in the preserve and vow to take care of Kate and Gerard Argent in his place.

When Kate makes an appearance, they go the same route as with Peter and simply poison her drink one day at the mall. It turns out she's with Allison, and the poor girl, who is still her classic Disney princess self at this stage and not the battle hardened one, has to suffer through seeing her aunt suffer a heart failure in front of her. Scott is horrified and paralyzed on the spot, and Stiles has to sweep in instead to covertly knock the table down and grab the incriminating glass as he makes a 911 call and he tries to help.

Derek never turns Isaac, Erica, Boyd and Jackson, and he also never kills Victoria Argent. He mysteriously disappears after he (not so) coincidentally hears them talking about how the police files say that another Hale escaped the fire and which were her suspected whereabouts. Ironically, when the alpha pack inevitably appears, their hostages are Derek and Cora precisely and both Scott and Stiles want to bang their heads against a wall in frustration. Knowing where they would be hiding in advance, though, they had already prepared a trap for them, so rescuing both of them is easy in any case. Scott tries talking to them to make them see reason against Stiles' opinion and it goes spectacularly bad, even if he manages to become a true alpha again. It's a messy affair that leaves them both feeling sick and makes the Hale siblings flee out of town the moment they're free of their mountain ash prison. There's still the problem of hiding the mess in the vault and their resident darach, so they don't have time to dwell on the near disaster, though. They clean the vault first, and then Scott insists that they talk to Jennifer Blake, because they've achieved what she wanted in the first place, so there shouldn't be any problem.

There is.

(Surprise, surprise.)

Alpha pack or no alpha pack, her power has corrupted her soul and they nearly die trying to fend her off. Stiles leaves the site frustrated and angry, but he doesn't speak about it with Scott. They avoid each other for two days, not acknowledging the problem, before going back to normal like nothing happened.

In the interim, Stiles fakes a ton of evidence against Isaac's dad to make an anonymous report to the police and also takes the opportunity to drag Deaton and Marin Morrel to help purify the Nemeton under the threat of denouncing her to the druid council. Knowing what will happen to her if he does, they comply. With two druids and spark performing the ritual it goes without a hitch. As for the nogitsune, it tries to posses Stiles again, and since the only way to cleanse it is to give him a corporeal form first, he lets it. It's a disgusting experience that leaves him vomiting black goo for hours before he can set it free.

Stiles is still only halfway recovered from the entire ordeal when Scott comes back with Allison in tow. An omega attacked her so he has told her everything, he says, and for a moment Stiles wants to scream. Then it turns out that everything means just everything about the supernatural world not about the time travelling thing and his fury abates. He nods to her and she nods back unsurely. Stiles sighs internally, hoping it all turns for the best but somehow suspecting it won't, because there's still psycho grandpa Gerard to take care of and he doesn't know how Scott has thought he's going to wade through that. Never mind the secret assassination of her favourite aunt that Stiles just knows that is going to make her fall off the rails of the original timeline look like a walk in the park if she ever catches wind of it. This just can't end well.

What's done is done, though, so they can only move forward now and somehow use this to their advantage (if they can, which Stiles doubts by the way). So with the threat of the druid council over their heads still, Stiles makes Deaton and Morrel look into Eichen House too and when they have the information they need, they go to the Argent's house to get them to facilitate a way to contact the Tribunal. Before the end of the week, Stiles' dad is grumbling about some special division of the FBI that has invaded the BHP station and looking into Eichen House.

At this point, they're convinced they're going to make it easily because everything is going perfectly. No crazy Peter, no kanima, no Alpha Pack, no darach, no nogitsune, no dread doctors and no werejaguar Kate (because Peter never killed her with his alpha claws). Everyone is still alive, and even if they will never have the relationships they used to have with some of their peers (Erica, Boyd, Jackson, Lydia, Liam, Parrish...) they're fine with it so long they're safe. They only have four more things to take of (Gerard, Malia, the desert wolf and the bastards that forced them through all this journey) and all will be over.

And of course, inevitably, everything starts going to hell when Kira comes into town.

Scott chokes on his own spit where he's sitting holding hands with Allison and Stiles does a double take. Not only they didn't expect her to appear yet, but this is not the Kira they knew. She's darker, angrier, with a wall of fury and resentment separating her from the rest of the world. Her eyes zero on Stiles almost immediately and he has to control the urge to flee right this instant. She purposely sits on the empty seat at his back and he spends an entire hour feeling her glare at the back of his head and wanting to flee to the toilet for a reprieve. With ten minutes to finish the lesson, he can't take it anymore and he does just that.

He nearly dies in that toilet.

She follows him there and closes the door behind her. He doesn't understand what's happening and he tells her so. It only serves to make her more furious and she screams at him that he killed her mother so she's going to take his life in exchange. Scott intervenes at the last minute, saving his life, and she leaves, saying it's not over.

Scott is furious. Why didn't he kill the nogitsune? Why of all times did he choose to talk to it? What was he thinking when he freed it? Stiles is enraged because Scott precisely doesn't have the right to recriminate him for that.

Everything deteriorates even more. Kira is relentless and after two failed attacks, she doesn't care about collateral damage. Stiles' dad has to get involved when an entire building explodes, finally learning about the supernatural, and gets seriously hurt, ending in a coma at the hospital. As if things weren't complicated enough, Gerard arrives into town, just like he did the last time (even if later in time compared to the original timeline), and he targets Scott, wanting the bite, again, like the last time. He captures him and Allison calls him to let him know. They quickly devise a plan and she feigns sharing her grandfather's ideals to get him out.

Except he has the security feed of the mall of the day Kate died and he tortures the truth about her death from Scott, making Stiles' predictions about involving her come true.

Stiles manages to smoke the house out and to free Scott, leaving the enraged Argents behind. They hide.

They don't know what to do now. A social worker is hounding Stiles because his dad is not looking like he will make it, Kira wants to kill him and the Argents are after both of them. Also, they've completely closed up the ally route with Morrel and Deaton, there is no pack and Scott's mom doesn't even know he's a werewolf. They're completely doomed.

And, of course, the bastards choose to appear now, right when they think that nothing else can go wrong, that they have reached rock bottom in a one swift move, and it somehow leads them to that very same clearing, with the very same stupid desperate plan.

And fire and brimstone rains on everyone.

---

They come back to consciousness with a gasp. Again in the woods, again fifteen, again untouched. They sit there with shaken souls and trembling bodies, unable to let go of each other despite the anger and resentment that had been filling them to the brim mere minutes ago.

A howl pierces the night and they tremble even more, but they force themselves to let go, Stiles to get caught and Scott to get bitten.

They sit silently in the cafeteria the very next day. They haven't talked about it, but by tacit agreement, Scott has made no move to make contact with Allison.

(They both secretly wonder if they're inevitably doomed to fail, if that was what the prophecy was really about.)

They poison Peter, they leak Cora's information, they poison the alpha pack (Scott again becoming an alpha in the process) and they kill Jennifer. They debate about what to do about Kate and end up following her one night and nearly dying trying to kill her. They report Isaac's dad and force Deaton and Morrel to purify the Nemeton and then trick the nogitsune into agreeing not to kill its original jailer in exchange of its freedom. They take care of the omega before it can attack Allison and then slip into the night before she can even notice them. They already have the information they needed about Eichen House and a way to contact the Tribunal, so they don't coerce Deaton and Morrel this time and they just inform the organization about the dread doctors through a burner phone that they get rid of afterwards. Stiles' dad grumbles again about his station being invaded a week later.

At this point, they've reached the part when everything went to hell last time and nervous can't even begin to cover how they feel right now. They don't talk to each other either, because they're still smarting about what happened in their last timeline and they only interact when out of necessity.

A subdued Kira appears. Her mom got into an accident and she's been confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life. They have a lot of medical bills so his dad had to accept the first moderately well paying job he could get his hands on despite having to move for it, she explains shyly to Scott, whom glares at Stiles the moment she's not looking. Gerard also comes into town and ends up abducting Scott again. When Stiles is trying to liberate him once again, he ends up setting the house on fire without meaning to. He frantically calls 911 but only Allison survives the fire. Scott calls him a monster and won't talk to him. After a week he comes to Stiles and tells him he can't live with his conscience just as deputies invade his room to arrest him.

His dad won't even come to see him, to hear what happened exactly, no matter how many times he begs.

Stiles gets screamed and insulted as he's being moved to a police van. Monster, monster, monster, they chant furious, the sound even coming through the closed doors. The van never makes it to its destination, though, because it gets attacked. Allison points a gun to his face the moment she gets the doors to open, uncaring of the two police officers already dead at the front part. She forces him to get into her father's SUV and then drives back into the preserve, holding him at gun point.

He tries to explain what happened once and she hits him with the gun. He grabs her hand and wrestles for it. She loses control of the car and they fall out of the road. When the world finally stops spinning, she's dead and he's not.

He cries.

He takes her phone and starts dialling his dad's number. He cries even more when he picks up, because his dad is trying to convince him to give himself up instead of listening to him. He tells him so and his dad says he'll listen, to please talk to him and he'll help him. Stiles explains. Or he tries to anyway, because halfway he realizes that his dad is just trying to keep him on the phone enough to track the call. Stiles calls him a traitor, says he's not surprised that he's not there for him, because he never was, so why would this be any different? He hangs up, throws the phone to the ground and runs.

Scott finds him just at the same time the bastards appear.

Inevitably, fire and brimstone rains.

---

Stiles is still crying when they come back to themselves .

When the howl pierces the night, by mutual accord, they decide then and there to sit this one out because there's no use in trying when their defeat is so obviously set in stone. They don't want to talk to each other either, their friendship is over. Stiles bites his tongue, but Scott doesn't. He says Stiles is a monster, that the nogitsune just enabled what was already there, that he let go with Donovan too, that he'll be watching and if he gets out of line, he'll intervene. Stiles punches him just as his dad catches them, angry tears sliding down his face. Scott has an asthma attack just then, and to his dad's utter astonishment, Stiles takes out the inhaler of his pocket and throws it at him just as he leaves. When John tries to stop him, he shakes his arm, throwing such an angry and hurt glare at him, that he's left at loss of words.

At this point, Stiles doesn't care about anything. He lets time pass, ignoring everything he sees. To hell with it, let the world inevitably burn to ashes, see if he cares. That is, until he suddenly can't because his dad disappears and he has to ally himself with Scott, whose mom has disappeared too. Stiles cuts Jennifer Blake's throat in front of everyone in that cellar and then proceeds to set Deucalion on fire. Peter, who is apparently still the alpha in this timeline, takes the opportunity to take care of the rest of the alphas with his pack. Stiles spies Derek, Cora, Isaac, Erica and Boyd as he helps his dad to the jeep, but he's tired of prophecies, the inevitable and being hurt all the time by the people he's been burned alive to protect thrice, and he's sitting this one out, dammit, he just doesn't care. As he's rounding the car to get into the driving seat, Scott tries to say something and he simply flips him the bird. He catches Peter looking at him hungrily and he flips him too. He leaves and doesn't look back.

John confronts him when he can finally move enough to corner him. Stiles explodes and brings up everything that he kept pent up through his childhood and three different timelines. His mom, the alcoholism, he doesn't leave anything out. He's crying angrily by the end and his dad is horrified. Stiles goes to his room and changes clothes, because despite everything he rushed after his dad clad just in his batman pyjamas. As he goes to the door, he spies his dad filling a tumbler in the kitchen, and he feels sick. He slams the door with all the force he can as he leaves.

Peter finds him at the park. He stops right in front of the swing Stiles is sitting at and just stares, alpha red eyes shining in the dark. Stiles sneers at him, fed up with true leaders and change that comes in red already, and simply tells him that if he doesn't leave him alone, he won't give two shits about setting him on fire. He's courting death, he knows, but he simply doesn't care at this point. However, Peter just smiles that dangerous smile he used to sport when they researched together and they ribbed each other out to the point of contemplating the other's very painful demise. The familiar sight makes him subconsciously relax and Peter arches an eyebrow at his reaction.

"I quite like you, Stiles," he says, like he did once, a long time ago. "Do you want the bite?"

"No," he answers, this time completely sure of his decision, "I don't."

And, again, just like he did once, Peter leaves.

When Stiles comes back home, his dad is still sitting in the kitchen with a full glass. He seems to snap out of it when he sees his son's back and then, quite pointedly, he gets up to throw the alcohol through the drain. Stiles simply climbs the stairs to his room and closes the door behind him, because punctual gestures mean nothing to him.

The next day, Isaac, Erica, Boyd and Cora sit with him at lunch and Stiles sneers, gets up and throws his food to the trash on his way out. He's not that hungry anyways. Except they repeat it the next day, and the next, and the next, and the next... By the seventh day this happens, he throws a disgruntled glare at them but doesn't leave. He spends lunch throwing fries at them whenever it strikes his mood, but they have wolf reflexes, so they just catch them and eat them, or in Isaac's case, he passes them to Cora so that she can have them.

They continue trying to insert themselves in Stiles' life relentlessly for almost two weeks, not reacting at all when he retaliates out of pure unadulterated irritation, and finally he snaps. He finds out where Peter lives and goes there one afternoon after school. Unsurprisingly, it's what used to be Derek's loft and everyone is there. Luckily Stiles doesn't give a damn about the audience.

"What the fuck is your game?" he snaps, arms crossed and glaring.

"My, I don't know w-"

"Cut the crap," Stiles snarls. "You think I was joking when I said I would set you on fire? Newsflash, I wasn't. So tell me what the hell do you want from me, right now."

"You're such an angry little thing, Stiles, maybe you should look into getting help for that?"

"You went on a killing rampage that ended with five deaths, one of them your own niece, you don't get to lecture me about anger management issues, Peter."

"Ah, so you do know about that. I had wondered," he muses calmly, throwing Stiles off balance at the unexpected reaction. "In any case, I was left packless and trapped in my own mind after nearly burning alive, what's your excuse?"

An abusive sick mother, an alcoholic father, a traitorous best friend, years and years of supernatural bullshit that included one possession and several tortures, and three deaths in which he was burned alive by fire and brimstone, he wants to say. And guess what, he didn't go on a killing spree after all that.

"Don't dodge the question," he snaps instead.

Peter looks at him thoughtfully for moment, as if he can somehow feel the weight of what Stiles has left unsaid. "I want you in my pack, of course," he answers simply instead of pursuing the matter.

"And I already said no," Stiles snarls, hands now fisted at his sides to help control the temptation of resorting to violence.

"You said no to the bite. And in all honesty, I'll have you in any form or capacity."

Stiles gapes for a moment, caught off guard, before he recovers his footing. "I said no to everything! Engrave that into your mind," he snarls furiously. "I only intervened because that bitch took my father."

"Understood then," Peter replies placidly and Stiles feels even more off kilter.

"Then stay away," Stiles snaps finally as he turns to leave.

And they do.

For a week.

Isaac is the first to come back to his lunch table. He's silent and Stiles can see he still has a lot of unresolved issues. Somehow, even though Stiles tries to make him leave with his sharp tongue, they end up snarking back and forth, both of them throwing painful jabs at each other that would leave others in tears. Isaac seems to relish in having someone that won't tiptoe around him, that somehow seems to understand the abuse he went through and doesn't think him made of glass because of it, but of hard diamond in spite of it.

Then one day one of the basketball team tries to make fun of Isaac, because in this timeline, Peter never let him go into sports so as to not expose himself and he's still a loser, and Nathan Jones and his little clique are nothing but the epitome of the stereotypical jocks. They crowd on him outside the gym and threaten to throw him into the dumpster. Now, Isaac is a werewolf with enough force to power lift all of them together but Stiles doesn't need to be a genius to know that he's in some kind of flashback with the way he freezes up.

There's a very good reason no one messes with Stiles in this school and those jocks get reminded of it when he intervenes before he can really think of it. Afterwards, he grabs Isaac's hand and pulls him towards the toilet first and then, when he has snapped out of it, to the rooftop to skip the rest of the afternoon classes.

The rest of the pack join his lunch table again the very next day and Stiles just sighs resigned to accept the inevitable. When Cora talks casually about how Nathan Jones and several others got caught with weed in their lockers and how they got suspended and kicked out of the team for it, Isaac's lips twitch and Stiles sighs again, knowing there's no way he can get rid of them now. Erica's smirk and Boyd casually exchanging his water for his own pineapple juice (which Stiles loves but they were out when he picked his lunch) just confirms it.

Scott glares at him from beside Allison and Stiles simply pops the straw inside the juice box and sips.

It's obvious now that sitting it out won't work, because change in red still comes to Stiles (he eyes Isaac's red scarf), whether he likes it or not. When he was a kid he used to wear red all the time, convinced that by doing that he would control what change came into his life. Why did he stop? Maybe it's time that he starts harnessing red as a weapon again.

When school ends, he drives to the loft again, Isaac on the passenger side, languidly flipping through the channels of the radio, never seeming to find anything he likes enough to settle on. Stiles is too immersed in his own mind to care, though, so he lets him do as he pleases.

Stiles glares disgruntled at Peter when he spots his self-satisfied smirk, which only makes it widen into a smile.

"We're going to blackmail Deaton and Morrel," he states simply after a moment.

"We are?" Peter muses placidly.

"We are. But just because I need your red eyes to move it along and plucking them out of your sockets would be too much of a hassle," he grunts and he would swear he just heard some muffled snickers in the background, but he ignores them in favour of maintaining eye contact with Peter.

"Hmmm... And what do I get out of this? Have you changed your mind about joining the pack then?"

"You get a purified Nemeton that stops attracting all this shit towards Beacon Hills and some psycho bastards that will cause a lot of trouble taken care of. How about that?"

Peter blinks slowly.

They blackmail Deaton and Morrel and purify the Nemeton. Peter spouts something about nogitsunes being needed for the balance, so, against his better judgement, Stiles decides to try again to save it, but this time he extracts a promise from it to not kill or harm its original jailer in exchange of its freedom. Peter is against it (even though he reluctantly sees the practicality of it), but they contact the Tribunal to take care of the Eichen House problem again.

Somehow, at one point between hearing his dad grumble awkwardly about his station being invaded by the FBI and Gerard's appearance, Stiles becomes part of the pack without even realizing it. It gets somehow driven home when he finds himself holding a gun to Gerard's temple while the rest of the pack releases Peter. Scott, who apparently was having dinner with them is horrified, but not by finding Peter detained precisely. He can't believe that Stiles is saving him and this time Stiles is the one to call Scott a monster, shocking him speechless.

The Tribunal is still managing the fall out of Eichen House, so Stiles finds it incredibly easy to make all the dirt he has on Gerard get to them with the surprising help of his dad, whom is still trying to make amends. News of Gerard Argent being arrested by the FBI travel like wildfire through their small town two days later.

Kira comes to town in a wheelchair herself, her dad dead and her mom looking older and more worn down than Stiles ever seen her and he despairs that he's been out-thought again. Scott is furious once again and he tries to confront Stiles about it. It nearly evolves into a full out war between the pack and the hunters, whom Scott is now part of. Only the presence of the Tribunal dissuades the situation.

Stiles ponders about what to do next when the whole issue finally dies down. Despite the situation with his dad and Scott and the surprising fact that he's crazy Peter Hale's emissary, he likes this new timeline.

Peter is sassy and has a very dark humour that matches Stiles' to the tee. He looks forward to their research sessions, to when Peter surprises him with a new ancient tome that he has gotten from who knows where. He likes that Peter isn't afraid of doing what needs to be done for the safety of their pack and that he doesn't look at Stiles as if he's a monster for exactly that same reason. He also likes that the man listens and treats his words as something valuable and important. Isaac looks up to him, comes to him when he needs help and effectively treats him like an older brother, bickering included. Derek has somehow found his peace and Stiles doesn't know how it happened (even if he suspects that it has to do with Cora's appearance), but his presence is calming now. He's still a little dour but more in a exasperated way, and Stiles loves when he manages to get his huge nerdy side to come out and play. Also, his protective side is of the size of the sun, and being on the receiving end is heart-warming. Cora's humour is wicked and she's super competitive, which matches Stiles' own competitiveness and makes their Mario Kart tournaments with Erica a sight to behold. Just like her brother, she's really protective of her own and will go to great lengths to keep them safe, even if she'll call them idiots all the way. Erica is a spitfire lady that brings life to Stiles' life. Again, she has a wicked humor that's somehow in the middle ground between Peter's and Cora's. She's a cuddler too and Stiles secretly loves when they are watching a movie and she shamelessly moves into his personal space and pulls Boyd, who is also a secret cuddle lover like Stiles, into it. Boyd is Stiles' source of calm. When he's stressed, he will pick up a book or simply lie in the couch beside him. Stiles will inevitably wake up hours later, not even remembering when exactly did he nod off and with his head on his lap. If he's lucky enough, Boyd will be absently running his hands through his hair (which is going through the awkward stage of being spiky and not long enough as he's trying to grow it out) and both of them will feign that Stiles is still asleep.

This is what he has now and he doesn't want to lose it, but apart from Malia and the desert wolf, there's only the bastards to take care of, and this is the fourth timeline both Scott and Stiles have gone through and they still haven't found out who the hell they are and why they are attacking them. It leaves Stiles nervous and unsettled, but he can't do anything about it except to keep an eye out and to be careful.

They find Malia on an outing Stiles suggests to bond, and Peter is floored. For a few weeks, Stiles (and the pack in general) is constantly amused by their dynamics and Peter is equally constant in the disgruntled glares he shoots at Stiles for his cheek. They retrain Malia to be able to act as a human again and join society, and Stiles is reminded of how sharp she is (as sharp as her dad) when she's ready in a little over a month to join them at school.

Then, one day, the FBI comes knocking at their door in the form of Raphael McCall, who asks Stiles to come with him none too gently. Stiles, who still can't stand the man even though now he can't stand the son, refuses. The next moment he's being dragged outside, pushed against the wall and handcuffed. Peter is there less than a second later and Stiles finds out it's Derek the one who is keeping Stiles uptight as he's trying to wait the ringing in his ears and the dizziness out minutes later.

McCall is pointing his gun at Peter, who looks like he's calculating how to drag the man inside and then dispose of the body. Stiles loves what he has now and he won't lose it for anything in the world, so he has to talk everyone down before everything slips through his fingers. He doesn't even have time before more agents bust through the windows and before he can even count to ten they have all the pack subdued and arrested.

They drag them to the police station and push them into the cells. Stiles pleads to Peter silently to just bear with it until they can understand what the hell is happening. They let them sweat it out in the cell, but Stiles has lived through a lot by now and he isn't even fazed, so he uses the time to calm Isaac, Cora, Erica and Boyd, who don't deal well with being confined in tight spaces anymore.

Much later, they forcibly pull Stiles out of the cell and from under Derek's arm, and into an interrogation room down the hall. Before they can even start, Stiles' dad bursts into the room and demands an explanation, because, for starters Stiles is a minor and he received news of the arrest through his own deputies. They grudgingly let John stay in the room.

They ask him about what has he been doing as of late. Stiles is confused about the line of questioning but answers truthfully, because apart form the supernatural aspect of it all, he really hasn't been doing much else than helping Malia, doing homework and playing with his friends the last two, nearly three, weeks. They drill him on that and he still answers truthfully, again with nothing to hide. Then McCall gets in the room and slams some pictures in front of him.

There's a ring in his ears and he can't breathe and then he's puking his guts out into the ground while John shouts at the agents enraged. The next thing he knows is that he's calling for his pack because his father is not enough. He needs Peter, Malia and Cora's vicious protectiveness, Derek and Erica's fierce one, and Isaac and Boyd's powerful one. He needs them now. The next thing he knows is that someone has let Peter in and he's talking him through his panic attack while Derek simply holds him.

Afterwards he's left violently shaking and crying, because Scott is dead. McCall found him, Melissa and Allison torn to shreds and Stiles' name had been written on the wooden floor, as if Scott had used his last strength to write it with his own blood. Everyone knows that lately they hated each other for some reason no one has been able to find out, so the next logical assumption was that Stiles did it.

Stiles turns into a vicious creature that lashes out when he's hurt and scared, so he doesn't waste a moment to tell them how stupid they are for thinking that, and, among other things, did they get their badges in a raffle? John tries to curb his tongue but Peter joins in on the unstoppable train that is Stiles' verbal abuse, with Derek doing what he does best, which is glower at them darkly, until they call defeat and let him go, because he has a solid alibi for the night of the events.

It doesn't end there, because like the last three timelines, when something goes wrong, everything else follows in tow inevitably right into hell.

Stiles is in Peter's car after they leave the station, sitting on the backseat with the man close while Derek drives, when a shot comes through the window and blood splatters on his face. Derek screams as the alpha power transfers into him but hits the gas before jumping into the backseat, grabbing a screaming Stiles and pulling them both out of the still moving car. They land on Derek himself with a grunt, but he doesn't let it stop him and pulls Stiles into the safety of the woods.

Stiles tries calling the pack as they run but no one picks up. He contains a sob and he dials his dad next. When he does pick up, he rushedly explains what's happening and he hears him calling to the FBI agents because apparently he hasn't left the station yet. He's still on the phone with him when they reach a clearing, and it's a no moon night and completely dark, but he would recognize it anywhere and he knows what's inevitably coming. He closes his eyes to contain his tears and breathes in deeply. He tells his dad that he forgives him for everything, that he loves him despite everything that has happened between them and then hangs up.

Derek is wolfed out and trying to keep Stiles behind him, but they're coming from everywhere and it's just not possible. Stiles hugs him and tells him he's sorry, that he's so happy that he gave him a chance (that they gave it to each other, really) this time and that he loves him like a brother and he always will, no matter what happens.

Inevitable, as set in stone now as the fire and brimstone rains on them seconds later.

---

Stiles gasps into consciousness to the sight of a bewildered Scott that is trying to keep him upright and failing. Despite everything that has happened between them, Stiles pulls him into a hug right there sprawled on the forest's floor.

"Oh my God, you're alive," he chants trying to keep himself from having an anxiety attack.

"What are you talking about?! Of course I'm alive!" Scott exclaims confused and for some reason, dread starts to pool at the bottom of Stiles' stomach at the tone.

"Scott?"

"Oh my God, you're pale as a ghost! Are you going to faint? Tell me you aren't going to faint," Scott pleads.

"What happened?"

"What?"

"What happened at your house, Scott?"

"What are you talking about?! You're not making any sense!"

Stiles' throat closes on him just as a howl pierces the night. When his dad finds them, Scott is simultaneously trying to fight an asthma attack and to help Stiles. Nothing John says can calm him, so he ends up having to rush him to the hospital and they have to sedate him.

When he wakes up, Stiles is disoriented at first, but then he remembers everything and he can't stop crying. His dad begs him to tell him what's happening but he won't talk. Then, the most baffling thing happens when Derek Hale comes through the door and both of them look at each other as if they move first the other is going to disappear.

"Brother?" Derek finally grumbles awkwardly, looking ready to bolt or remain depending on Stiles' response.

"Derek," Stiles whines softly, bursting into tears again as he extends his arms towards him.

Derek springs forward and pulls him into a tight hug as Stiles spouts things that he shouldn't be talking about in front of his dad but he can't help himself. His dad looks speechless and like he doesn't know what to do, especially since Derek seems to be calming Stiles quite effectively while John has failed on every attempt. When Stiles can finally breathe without bursting into tears, he makes up a hasty explanation about how they met. It's a little sketchy but it won't make any alarms ring on his dad's head. They met on the Internet in a help group for people with anxiety issues. They helped each other, ended exchanging numbers and then Stiles met Laura, because she was important to Derek.

It seems to make sense to John (even if he's not happy that Stiles talked to strangers through the Internet, especially when he was so vulnerable), but he wants to know what happened on the woods, what made him break down and why the hell is Derek here if he lives in New York.

Laura wanted to come back to find closure, he explains, and Derek didn't want to ever have to set a foot in Beacon Hills again, so they decided that Derek would wait for her in Sacramento. Except that she hadn't answered his phone for two days, and while at first Derek thought it might be a coincidence, by the second day he knew something must have happened, so he forced himself to come back to Beacon Hills to search for her. And then Stiles went to the woods searching for a body and found one. Except he recognized Laura and he panicked. He called Derek but then it was too much and he had an anxiety attack.

It works.

Days later, Derek comes through the window late at night and Stiles tells him what happened and about the different timelines. They both agree that they want their pack back, so Derek tells him what happened on the part of the last timeline when he still was adamant on sitting it out.

Stiles is fed up with the whole time travelling thing, and true leaders that bring change in red. So he decides to go back to what he decided when he was just a kid and ended not maintaining, and dons his red hoodie to bring the change he wants and be his own true leader, no matter what the prophecy says or not.

First stop is Peter. Remembering what he did to Laura still makes Derek rage, he tells Stiles on the car well on their way to the hospital in the middle of the night, but he's older now, has come to terms with it and more importantly, he has died agonizingly slow in a fire now and knows how it feels. That Peter went through that and then had to suffer through years of slow recovery right after his pack abandoned him makes him feel so ashamed that he almost can't stand it. When Peter was shot and the alpha powers transferred to Derek, his first thought was to protect his pack. He reached for Stiles first because he was there, but the rest were in his mind too. He loves Laura and he always will, but she left Peter to rot when he needed her the most. And while at first she could do nothing else, they stayed away years, so part of the fault of what happened lies on her shoulders too. And his too, because he was so immersed in his own pain that he never spoke against it, and he has come to accept that. So now, subscribing to the whole better later than never adage, they go for Peter first.

It's awkward having to deal with a Peter that doesn't think twice about killing his nurse right in his own hospital room as opposed to the more controlled Peter they left behind on the last timeline, but they manage. It helps that Derek shocks him speechless when he tells him exactly the same that he told Stiles in the car (minus the time travel detail, of course) on the way to the hospital. Peter snarls enraged and squeezes Derek's throat while Stiles hovers behind worriedly. When Derek makes no move to free himself and simply averts his eyes, Peter lets go.

Slowly but surely, as time passes and the case about the mysterious attacks goes cold, Peter gets better. He arranges his come back to the living so to speak and leaves the hospital and the bafflement of the doctors and nurses alike behind. At some point he fakes leaving town to get plastic surgery and comes back a two weeks later looking as good as new.

Scott goes gaga over Allison when she appears and Stiles keeps his distance. Scott is hurt by it but Stiles, who remembers first being thrown aside in favour of others, being reduced to almost begging for scraps, being called a monster, betrayed and hurt by him or, more exactly what he can become, doesn't let it sway him. It's not fair to this Scott that has been nothing but a good friend, but Stiles won't chance it again, prophecy or not.

He tries approaching his dad after what happened in the last timeline, but the man's suspicions about his motives hurt Stiles to no end, and he accepts that he never will have the relationship he wants to have with him. He mopes for days until Derek forces him to sit through a horrendous chick flick whose argument they both end up verbally destroying not even twenty minutes in, to Peter's amusement.

When Kate comes, Stiles thinks a plan to let Peter have the final blow, but it's Derek who kills her, to everyone's surprise. Peter looks at his shaking nephew appraisingly and then squeezes his shoulder before hoisting her body to dispose of it.

He later finds Derek sleeping with Stiles in his room that night. He approaches the bed slowly and when Stiles, whom is still awake but just barely, merely blinks at him, he then squeezes the back of his neck gently, almost as if experimentally. When Stiles just sighs contented he repeats the action with Derek. He seems baffled when Derek subconsciously welcomes the gesture even asleep, and Stiles grins at his expression, prompting an eyeroll from the man.

Things progress after that, Peter becoming more grounded as time passes. When Stiles thinks he's ready he goes to speak to him about turning others and expanding their pack, his eyes glued nervously to his red sneakers.

"If you wanted to be turned," Peter says smiling indulgently, "you just had to ask, sweetheart."

"Me???" Stiles squeaks flustered, prompting an amused snort from Derek. "No, I mean others. Not that there's anything wrong with being a wolf, of course," he backtracks hastily at the man's raised eyebrows. "I'm your emissary, Peter! It would be a waste of my spark to turn me!"

"What."

"I mean, from all the research I've done, sparks lose their powers for some reason if they get turned and-"

"What."

Stiles looks at Derek wildly and he snorts. "I think we forgot to mention the spark thing, Stiles."

Stiles blinks. "Oh, sorry about that. I guess I kinda forgot?" he says sheepishly and Derek snorts again, earning a dark look from Stiles. "So yeah, me spark, turning is no no. A big no no. Anyways, here, I have a list of people that would be good wolves."

Derek snorts again at Peter's blown expression and unceremoniously proceeds to drag Stiles into the kitchen. He can't cook to save his life and he's craving pancakes now. Stiles whines about forced labour even as he takes the necessary ingredients to make them.

Over the next two weeks Isaac, Erica and Boyd choose to be turned. At first it's jarring that the people Stiles loves so much see him as a virtual stranger but he copes with it as well as he can. Both Derek and Stiles become so immersed in showing them the ropes that they forget about everything else they know is coming down the road. They get reminded of it abruptly when Erica and Boyd go missing, which is how they find grandpa Gerard is back in town. Stiles is more than fed up with him, so he doesn't even hesitate to set a trap with Peter as a bait to lure him out and blow his brains out with the man's own gun. Peter, who had been a little skeptic about the whole plan (because he didn't know that grandpa wanted to be bitten to cure his cancer because they couldn't explain how they knew) but had gone along with it anyways, confident in his ability to salvage almost any situation that may arise, is as delighted by the outcome as he is by Stiles' viciousness.

As he did with Kate, the man leaves to dispose of the body and when he comes back he finds everyone in a pile in the living room, still shaken and awake. He starts with Stiles, like he did last time too, and goes on to squeeze the back Derek's neck next, then Erica's, Boyd's and, finally, Isaac's.

Stiles and Derek vow to not get caught unawares again, but the alpha pack comes into town and Isaac goes missing. Stiles has never been more furious and Peter looks fascinated by the sight, which makes him want to slap some sense into the man but he refrains. He decides to poison them again, and because mountain ash is his bitch at this point they get it done in just one night and get Cora out of the whole ordeal.

On that very same night, Stiles sneaks out to kill Jeniffer alone, not wanting to give her the chance to kill anyone in this timeline. He comes back to the loft dizzy from blood loss at the same time Jennifer's house in the outskirts goes up in flames aided by an accelerant that no one will be able to identify. Everyone is angry at him, but Peter is beyond furious. Even more so when Stiles won't back down and accept he did wrong going alone.

He leaves the loft with the help of his mountain ash and stays away. He avoids everyone at school, he doesn't go to pack meetings, he lines his house with mountain ash. Everything is going to inevitably end in fire and brimstone anyway, he decides, so why the hell shouldn't he try to do everything alone this time and save himself the heartbreak?

He blackmails Deaton and Morrel, and purifies the Nemeton and the nogitsune with them. Even feeling like shit and having to stop to vomit black goo continuously, he bargains with Ikari (his name, apparently) the conditions of his release. He won't harm or kill Noshiko or the Yukimura family, but he will take her powers from her as compensation for all the years spent in captivity, being leeched from by the Nemeton. As for Stiles, he will destroy Eichen House for him in payment for the cleansing and for releasing him.

Stiles agrees to the terms, hoping that he hasn't overlooked any catch this time, and then crawls his way out of the preserve and right into Peter's presence. And then, before they can even start arguing again, Stiles proceeds to vomit on his probably very expensive shoes and faint.

"You're an ass," Derek growls when he comes back to consciousness at the loft, on what he guesses to be Peter's bed.

"Can it," he manages to snap back through his pounding headache.

"No, I fucking won't," Derek snarls back even as his hand circles Stiles' wrist and he starts leeching off the pain, dark veins crawling up his arm. "You're an ass," he repeats again.

"I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself! And besides, you of all people know why I had to kill her!"

"Of course I do, but that's not the problem! Put yourself in our place, Stiles! What would you have thought if I had gone alone?! Or Isaac or Erica or Boyd or Cora?! What would you have done?!"

Stiles' breath catches in his throat, because he would have been worried sick first when he noticed them gone and then utterly furious when he found they had gone to face Jennifer alone, capable or not.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, deflating, and Derek sighs, reaching to pull him into an embrace. "I'm so, so sorry. I just wanted to-"

"I know," Derek sighs against his shoulder, tightening his arms around him.

Even though everyone heard the conversation between Stiles and Derek, things are still tense for a while afterwards, right up until Isaac decides to sit with Stiles at the cafeteria again and to irritate him into a bickering match, even though Stiles is trying to play nice. Then the thing with Nathan Jones happens again and Stiles doesn't even hesitate this time to ruin the entire clique by planting weed in their lockers once again, which prompts an appreciative Cora to join them and to drag Erica and Boyd with her.

Still, Peter remains distant and cold, especially when Eichen House becomes rubble in just one night and he suspects Stiles has gone solo again. Stiles puts on both his red hoodie and red sneakers (to make sure) and tracks him down to apologize for the way he did things with Jennifer. He also explains what happened with the Nemeton and the nogitsune, including the bargain with him. Afterwards he waits nervously for Peter to talk but the man only drags him forward to scent him and squeezes the back of his neck gently.

Things return to normal slowly afterwards and finally Stiles gets his wish granted when he gets back his research binges with Peter, his movies with Derek, his Mario Kart tournaments with Cora and Erica, his bickering sessions with Isaac and his silent cuddling with Boyd. He's really happy about it but at the same time he's wary, because he's again at the point where only finding Malia and taking care of the desert wolf and the bastards remains. And again, another timeline and he still doesn't even know who they are or what they want.

This is also the point where things inevitably go to hell.

There's no use in panicking, Derek reminds him, and, with red sneakers on Stiles' feet, they go in search of Malia under the guise of a bonding outing through the woods. They find her again and this time around they go directly to what motivates her the most to ease her into socializing again. After a month, she joins them both in their classes and the extremely aggressive Mario Kart tournaments and it's bliss for Stiles.

Then they get invaded by pixies and both Stiles and Derek are thrown off kilter, because this hasn't happened ever before. They try to exterminate them but they reproduce faster than they can kill them, even after they grudgingly strike a truce with the Argents because they are as overwhelmed as the pack is by the invasion.

In the end, the Argents decide to call the Tribunal and when they arrive, Stiles finds himself pulled into hiding by Derek, to everyone else's astonishment even if they hide too at Derek's insistence.

"It's them," he hisses frantically and Stiles' eyes widen, catching on immediately.

"Are you sure?!" he whispers back, equally frantic and Derek nods curtly. "Fuck."

He observes them from his hiding spot, trying to process what's happening. He realizes suddenly that in every timeline, the bastards started hunting them after the Tribunal had been called to help in Beacon Hills for some reason or another. Every single time. But why? Why would they target Scott and Stiles? Was it because Scott was a true alpha? Because he doubted it was because Stiles was spark, as rare as sparks might be too.

He gets part of his answer a few days later, when they're staking out the Argent's house and Scott comes to have dinner, nearly giving Stiles a heart attack. Except he leaves a couple of hours later unharmed and days pass and Scott remains that way. He suddenly remembers what Scott wrote in blood red on his wooden floor that made the FBI think him the culprit. It's Stiles. Is it? Is Stiles what they have been hunting all this time? But if that's the case, why? It's ridiculous!

He's not. He's not losing everything again because of them, he doesn't fucking care about the reason. He has his red something on and the support of his alpha, with his own red eyes, along his whole pack.

He calls a pack meeting and explains everything he has found out and, after a slight hesitation, the time travelling issue, backed up by Derek. He's floored that they trust him so much that they believe him immediately and just ask what's the plan.

"So, mighty leader, what's the plan?" Isaac asks to everyone's amusement and unaware of how his words make Stiles' mouth go dry.

"What did you call me?"

"Peter might be the alpha, but you're always the one with the plan everyone follows," Malia explains with her usual matter-of-fact attitude, no tact at all, and Peter snorts amused, but doesn't correct her.

"It was that or red riding hood with your penchant for red hoodies," Erica mocks. "Or red everything, really."

"Our leader in red," Cora joins in.

"That sounds so wrong," Erica protests. "Our red leader? The true leader? We really need to work on that."

"Stiles?" Boyd inquires softly, leaning in to run his hand through his hair and effectively grounding him.

"I-I, yes, everything a-okay," he manages to stammer out, finally letting the hand that is squeezing the life out of Derek's thigh relax. "So, the plan." He launches into an explanation about the fire and brimstone and how he can change it so it doesn't take him this time. "But even if it does," he vows, "I'll repeat everything again and again until the pack is together and I find a way so they can't hurt us anymore."

(Fuck the inevitable.)

Later, he finds himself in that clearing again, except this time he's alone, because everything has gone horribly wrong and the plan has been shot to hell (he doesn't know why is he even surprised at this point, to be honest). Back straight and unafraid this time, he makes fire and brimstone rain on them once again.

Just as he's falling to the ground with his clothes on fire, Peter bursts into the clearing, and Stiles wishes and wishes and wishes that he reaches him in time to get pulled back in time with him, because despite what he said at the loft (home, his home now), he doesn't want to do this alone again.

---

He wakes up in the woods, clutching at Scott and desperately trying not to cry. He hopes that the Peter lurking not far from here is his Peter, even if he feels incredibly selfish because that will mean that he'll remember dying on fire again.

He trembles.

"Stiles?"

Except that's not Scott's voice but Peter's and he ends up crying anyways, because fire and brimstone rained on him but Stiles is still here and hasn't lost everything and gone back to the starting point once again.

Everything hurts and he can already see blisters forming on his arms. His legs feel no better and there are some spots on his face that feel like they are still on fire, but he throws himself at the man again anyway, and clings to him as his body shakes violently. It's going to be hell when the adrenaline leaves him but he doesn't care because he's still here (here!) and he would endure everything for that, even fire and brimstone a thousand times more.

Peter hugs him back, equally tight.

Days later, the doorbell rings at the loft and Stiles, who had stubbornly insisted that he could get to the kitchen on his own and is deeply regretting his decision right now, is the one that opens it and he regrets it even more than getting up from the couch and away from his silent cuddles with Boyd in the first place, if that's even possible, because if the woman on the other side isn't from the Tribunal, he'll eat his own red shocks. The only people at the loft with him right now are Malia and Boyd, and Stiles' mind goes into overdrive thinking a way to kill the hunter before she can get to them.

"Stiles?" Malia inquires, popping up from behind just as the woman takes a step back and raises her hands placatingly. He'd bet his ass that Boyd is out of sight but equally close, and has probably Peter or Derek on the phone already. "Your heart is tap dancing, everything ok?"

"Everything a-okay," Stiles replies, mind still running a hundred miles per hour.

"You're lying," she frowns. Then she takes in the woman and starts growling at her.

"She's leaving," he states coldly, glaring at her and setting his tattoos into motion.

"I am," the woman says simply and Stiles blinks, thrown off kilter. "I'm not here to harm you, just to relay a message from the Tribunal."

"She's not lying," Malia pipes in helpfully.

"Indeed," she nods. "The Tribunal wants to me convey their deepest apologies for what happened with a rogue faction that acted against our Code, and an explanation too."

"I don't know if I care for either of those at this point, to be honest," Stiles growls, suddenly incensed instead of wary.

"I understand," she nods, still keeping her hands up. "Just know that no repercussions will come from what happened at the forest because we understand you acted purely on self-defense, then, and I'll be on my way."

"Wait," Stiles says sharply and she stills. "Why me? What did they want from me?"

"They were deranged fanatics, Mr. Stilinski, and sadly there was no real reason why they chose you as their target."

"Bullshit," he snaps, because it can't be anything else.

She sighs and he sneers uglily at her. Five. Five completely different timelines and they inevitably went for Stiles in every single one of them, so there must be a very specific reason (deranged or not, nonsensical or not) why they targeted him.

"Nine years ago," she finally speaks, "a man that was imprisoned for crimes I'm not authorized to share the information of, suddenly went into convulsions when he was going to be moved to the court room to be judged for them. He started crying the same words again and again, then went into shock and died on the spot before medical help could come. The incident and the hunters involved in the move were investigated but there was no evidence of foul play, so the matter was let go and what happened was forgotten." She shifts minutely in place, clearly uncomfortable. "Or that's what we thought, in any case. Apparently, the hunters involved in the incident started noticing that things that happened to them followed the words that the man cried in his delirium and, over time, they were convinced they were prophetic." She can't quite contain the sneer that twists her features momentarily before smoothing out. She doesn't notice how Stiles' breath catches at her words or how he reaches to squeeze Malia's hand, prompting her silently to not comment on it. "From our investigation this last week, we've found out that they visited many... seers," she sneers again, "to consult them about what they were sure was some kind of prophecy. Mostly they simply got assured that the words were so vague that they could mean anything, but a witch passing up as a non supernatural seer gave them a completely different and much more detailed interpretation. Our guess is that she wanted to make profit out of selling to some idiots protective charms or potions, but it backfired on her. Not only they didn't buy anything from her but they ended up killing her without contemplations. And what's even worse, they also left the store thinking that a leader would bring the end of the Tribunal in a bloodbath and having a lot of false details that she had made up about said leader to identify them."

"And I match the description?"Stiles asks incredulous.

"Yes, sadly along the more than thirty people they've killed over the last six years," she nods curtly.

"So all of this happened because of a prophecy?"

"All this happened because some hunters got obsessed about the words of a delirious man about a true leader in red that would be the catalyst of change to the court, then got tricked by a witch, created an entire faction of fanatics within the Tribunal and went on a crazy killing spree that spanned over years." She visibly takes a fortifying breath before regaining her cool attitude. "Let it not be said that we don't learn from our mistakes, though, because the Tribunal will cease to exist by the end of the week." Stiles blinks surprised and she smiles chagrined. "We already knew that our method wasn't perfect, but we believed that it was a good enough one that worked, that it was the best we could get. When you defended yourself and uncovered the dirty faction of the Tribunal, you brought to our attention (quite spectacularly, I might add) that we were wrong. Apart from fanaticism, this happened because of ignorance, so if we want this to work, we have to work together with the supernaturals. So this is why the new organization will be formed in equal parts by humans and supernaturals."

"A lot of people aren't going to like that," he can't help but snort.

"To put this simply, they can suck it or face the repercussions of going against the Court's code."

"The Court?"

"A name to remember what brough us here," she explains simply.

She leaves after that and Stiles closes the door, letting his forehead rest against it as he tries to take everything in. He opens his eyes and looks at his red clad feet.

(Inevitable, huh.)

When Boyd starts pulling him towards the couch, he doesn't resist. He makes himself a ball and automatically relaxes when Boyd's hand finds its way into massaging his scalp. He sighs contentedly and smiles, feeling completely at ease for the first time since he got abruptly immersed in the supernatural world a long time ago.

Stiles is seven years old when he receives two prophecies and nearly sixteen when he finally fulfills them.

(Or, hopefully, that's the case, but only time will tell.)

(And also hopefully, if it comes down to that, this time without fire and brimstone inevitably raining on him.)

#prompt '16 #anonymous #my fanfiction #teen wolf

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