Chapter Text
“You get the flowers?” Stiles nodded, setting them down on the edge of his fathers desk. “Thanks, kid. It completely slipped my mind with-” He stopped, gesturing vaguely around the room. Stiles nodded again, noting the board covered in red string and unsolved cases.
“You know the last time we took one of these to her grave, it was stolen the same day?” His father sighed, nodding. “Hundred bucks down the drain.” He perched on the edge of the desk, letting his feet swing in the air around him. For a moment, he felt like he was five again. Small and safe, excited to see where his dad worked. He smiled to himself, eyes roaming over the contents of the desk curiously. “Hey, Dad?” He finally called after a long moment without a response from his father. His father’s head shot up from where he was on the floor, seemingly surprised Stiles was still there. “Hi,” He repeated, curious and confused at his behavior. “What are you doing down there?”
“Working,” He responded. “And hey, if someone wants flowers that badly, they can have them.” Stiles pushed himself off the desk and landed softly on the floor, walking around to see what exactly his father was working on. “It’s the gesture.”
“Dad, what is all this?” Stiles asked, concerns about flower thieves long gone. Boxes were strewn across the floor, some empties of their contents and discarded haphazardly. Others were stacked in no particular order, six or seven high and beginning to teeter precariously. It was a far cry from the normal strict organization he’d known his father to maintain and he was surprised he hadn’t noticed it immediately.
“I’ve been looking over some old cases,” His father shrugged. “Now that I have a more illuminated perspective, if you know what I mean.”
“Strange sighting of bi-pedal lizard man sprinting across the freeway.” Stiles read from the closest file, nodding to himself. Jackson.
“That’s the Kanima pile.” His dad confirmed, tapping the top of the stack.
“Dad,” Stiles started, bending down to level with his father. “You’re not going back through all your old cases seeing if any of them had to do with the supernatural, are you?”
“I admit,” His father started slowly. “That the recent opening of my eyes to the greater mysteries of the universe has got me reassessing, yes.” Stiles sighed, taking a seat next to him. “There are at least a hundred cases here where I look at the details and ask myself if I knew then what I know now-”
“Right, but are you sure you wanna go down that path?” Stiles asked. His own circumstances left him feeling raw, and completely vulnerable. His own relentless intrigue to the mysteries of the universe had put him in this position- exhausted, broken down, scared. Seeing his father started down the same path because of his own actions- it struck a deeper chord than Stiles had expected it to.
“Do I have a choice?” His father rebutted.
“Dad, listen-”
“So, there wasn’t much on that case you had us look into, Noah.” Stiles’ intended warning was cut off as Sam entered the room followed closely by Dean.
They were dressed in deputies' uniforms, something Stiles acknowledged with a quick quirk of the brow to his father. It went ignored as the two entered the room, each of them carrying evidence boxes. Sam placed it on the edge of the desk while Dean took one of the chairs in front of the desk, setting his own box down at his feet. “You have Sam and Dean looking into these, Dad?”
“There’s this one case in particular that I can’t get out of my head,” He grabbed the file Dean held out to him before standing and walking over to the white board Stiles had noted earlier. “Eight years ago, when I became Sheriff-” Stiles nodded his remembrance and stood, taking the other seat next to Dean. “My first official duty was to tell a man that not only had his wife and two kids died in a car accident but as best we could tell, the body of his nine year old daughter had been dragged from the wreckage by coyotes.” Stiles took the file from his father, flipping through the reports and statements. His eyes roamed over the photo clipped to the folder, seeing a school photo of a young girl with long brown hair and bright eyes smiling up at him.
“You mean dragged and eaten?” He asked, peeling his eyes away from the child and back up to his father.
“We didn’t find the car until three days after the crash.” His father continued, leaving his question unanswered in an ominous way that sent a small chill through his body. “They had driven off the road into a pretty deep ravine. Two bodies that were still in the car were covered in blood and bites and slashes.”
“You’re thinking the bites and claw marks, probably a werewolf attack?” Stiles asked, glancing to Sam and Dean. Both were listening intently, their own copies of the file flipped open in front of them.
“Maybe.” His dad confirmed with a shrug.
“But coyotes, they scavenge, right?” Dean asked while Stiles shifted in his seat, setting the file down on the desk. “So couldn’t they have just left the bites and slashes?”
“Absolutely.” Sam confirmed, setting his own file down and moving towards the group. “But look what night the accident occurred on.” Dean looked back down to the papers in lap, fingertips running down the page until he got to the incident date. He stopped, looking up and over to Stiles. He shifted the paper towards him, allowing him to see the date Sam had noted.
“Let me guess,” Stiles sighed. “That night was a full moon.”
“Yeah.” His father nodded, sitting in the chair behind his desk. “Full moon.”
“Dad, where are these boxes going?” Stiles finally asked, taking in the sheer quantity of boxes his father had dragged up from storage. Stiles didn’t miss the uncomfortable look Sam and Dean exchanged, or the way his father’s shoulders tensed in warning.
“Yeah, we, uh…” His father seemed exhausted, something Stiles either hadn’t noticed before or had gotten used to. His frame seemed weary, worried, unsure of something Stiles couldn’t put his finger on. “We should probably talk about that, kid.”
“That’s our cue,” Dean stood, motioning for Sam to follow. “Noah, give us a call if there are any other cases you want us to look over.” His father nodded his thanks. “Stiles,” Stiles turned, his attention briefly drawn from the obvious concern. “We’re going to talk to Deaton tomorrow. We’ll keep you updated.”
“There’s actually-” Stiles huffed. “Scott and Allison are feeling the effects now too.” He said, frustrated at the way things kept piling up. “It’s all getting worse, all of us are feeling it now.” Sam and Dean hesitated in the doorway, both of them clearly unsure of how to respond to the drastically increased gravity.
“Call us when you leave here,” Dean said. “We’ll talk about everything and try to figure out a game plan.” Stiles nodded his understanding before they left, leaving Stiles alone with his father and his increasing worry.
“Dad, what’s going on?” His father didn’t respond immediately, instead picking up his name plate and turning it around in his hands. Stiles watched as he looked around the office, at the items littering his desk. Framed photos, scraps of paper with reminders scribbled haphazardly on them, an abandoned coffee mug that was likely still half full. “Dad?” He prompted. His father looked up, eyes sad and resigned.
“Agent McCall is putting me under review.” Stiles felt his spine straighten in his seat, his body ready to defend his father before his mind had entirely caught up. “'Lack of resolution and ability to close cases' is what he’s claiming.”
“Is that why you called Sam and Dean in?” Stiles asked, looking back to where the two had just stood. “See if they could help close the cases?”
“Partially,” His father admitted. “That, and I just need to know what the real number of cases is. How many have slipped through the cracks because I never had the information to solve them in the first place?” Guilt ran sharply through Stiles’ gut, thinking of the instances where he’d had to hide something from his father to avoid suspicion falling on Scott or Derek or someone else. “It’s just a review, Stiles.” He looked back to his father whose expression had morphed into one of concern. “It doesn’t mean anything will come of it.”
“What happens if something does come of it?” Stiles asked, already knowing the likely answer.
“A case for impeachment will be filed and if that passes a vote happens. Depending on that vote, I will lose my position as Sheriff.” His sentence trailed off, leaving an unbearably weighted silence lingering between them. “This isn’t a guarantee, Stiles. This is just a possibility.”
“I’m sorry, Dad.” Stiles muttered, staring at his hands. “I don’t-”
“Stiles, this was never in your control.” His father stopped him with a raised hand. “This isn’t on you. I’m not upset with you or Scott or anyone else.”
“Does Scott know…?”
“No,” His dad shook his head and leaned back in his chair, fingers tapping on the wooden edge. “No, he doesn’t, and you don’t need to mention it to him. I’m not even supposed to be telling you this.” Stiles nodded but remained silent, unsure of what to say. “Come on,” Stiles watched as his father stood, slipping his jacket on. “Let’s go drop off these flowers, then we can figure out dinner. You still have to fill me in on what’s going on.”
“Alright, I’ve got something here.” Sam rounded the table, taking a seat next to Stiles. Dean peered over his shoulder, abandoning his own feeble attempts at research to see what Sam had discovered. “In some schools of Buddhism, bardo is an intermediate, transitional, or liminal state between death and rebirth. According to Tibetan tradition, after death and before one's next birth, when one's consciousness is not connected with a physical body, one experiences a variety of phenomena.” Dean watched as Stiles’ head fell into his hands, thumbs pressing sharply into his temples. “These usually follow a particular sequence of degeneration from, just after death, the clearest experiences of reality of which one is spiritually capable, and then proceeding to terrifying hallucinations that arise from the impulses of one's previous unskillful actions.”
“Yeah, that sounds about right.” Stiles muttered, shifting to lean against the back of the chair. “I did technically die, so. What else does it say?” Sam eyed him worriedly before glancing back at Dean and continuing.
“For the prepared and appropriately trained individuals, the bardo offers a state of great opportunity for liberation, since transcendental insight may arise with the direct experience of reality.” He read, hesitating before the next sentence. “For others, it can become a place of danger as the karmically created hallucinations can impel one into a less than desirable rebirth.”
“Less than desirable, what’s that supposed to mean?” Dean snorted. “He gonna come back as a snake or something?”
“I think we’re already in the less than desirable part, Dean.” Stiles sighed. “We’re not entering Bardo. We’re exiting it. We’re already in it. Is there anything about how to reverse it or stop it?” Sam shook his head, sighing.
“Nothing. Almost everything I can find is talking from a theoretical standpoint. Unless there happens to be a large Buddhist population in Beacon Hills, I don’t think we’re going to find much more than this.” Sam closed the laptop. “Bardo happens to the dead, not the revived. Any research we can do isn’t going to be helpful here."
“What about Deaton?” Dean asked, throwing out suggestions. “Could he help here?”
“Doubtful.” Stiles muttered. “But we can talk to him, I guess.” Stiles stood, gathering the discarded remnants of dinner that Dean had picked up on his way over to the Stilinski household. “I’ll call Scott and see what he thinks.” Dean nodded, watching as Stiles tossed the scraps in the trashcan and headed upstairs, movements sluggish and weak.
“Bardo.” Dean muttered to himself in disbelief. Sam looked up from across the table, nodding his agreement. “Just when I thought things couldn’t get weirder in this town.”
“Yeah,” Sam muttered. “Do you have the list that Noah gave us?” Dean nodded, reaching for his wallet. He pulled out the scrap paper and tossed it on the table between them. “What are you thinking here?"
“I don’t know, man.” Dean sighed. “If Allison and Scott are really experiencing this too- and that’s a big if-” He muttered. “Then sure, maybe it’s something to do with this Bardo thing.” The disbelief was plain in his voice, and he couldn’t really claim that he’d tried to hide it. “But if it isn’t Bardo…” He trailed off, tapping the paper once. “It’s all right there. Insomnia. Inability to distinguish between dreams and reality. Paranoia, irritability. I know we don’t know the kid that well, but hell, Sam. Even I can tell something isn’t right with him.” Sam nodded.
“And you don’t think it’s Bardo?” Dean shrugged.
“I don’t know,” He answered honestly. “If you asked me that two days ago, I’d say it's a good chance it is Bardo, but now-”
“Now Stiles lived a whole day that never happened and didn’t even know he was dreaming.” Dean nodded. “Scott and Allison, though-”
“I know,” Dean agreed. “But it just started for them, and it’s not anything like what Stiles was describing. And it’s not progressing nearly as fast as it is for him.” Sam nodded but didn’t answer.
They fell back into uncomfortable silence. Dean could vaguely make out the sounds of Stiles moving around upstairs. Shoes being dropped on the floor, the zipping of his backpack. Small things that signaled his location in the home. He thumbed the edge of the paper, wishing he’d never had to have the conversation about it to begin with.
He’d meant it when he said he’d look into the ritual those kids did. He meant it when he said he’d look into Bardo, and he meant it when he said he’d see what they could do. But there were some things he couldn’t handle, some things that weren’t his to fix. The list of symptoms that laid on the paper in front of him fell under that category and it made Dean’s stomach twist uncomfortably. Frontotemporal dementia was not something Dean could fix. It was what it was, and what it was was horrible. Noah seemed resigned to the diagnosis, though there was no diagnosis, and Dean desperately hoped they were wrong.
“Alright.” Dean jumped at Stiles’ sudden reappearance, scowling when it received a laugh from his younger brothers. “Scott’s going to meet us at Deaton’s. You guys ready?”
“Sure.” Dean muttered. He slid the paper into his back pocket before swiftly grabbing his jacket and shrugging it on. “But I’m driving.” Stiles let out another laugh, this one more bright and cheerful than Dean could remember hearing before. He ignored the sharp ache in his chest and stepped through the door, turning his focus to the case.
It was a case. He could handle a case.
Dean had met a wide variety of believers in his career. People who underwood the supernatural without needing proof, people who had first hand experiences with creatures or demons or ghosts. But he’d never met someone quite like Alan Deaton. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.
Alan Deaton was a kind man. He seemed patient and considerate, calm and understanding- and Dean didn’t believe a second of it.
“It seems,” Deaton muttered, carefully considering the explanation Stiles and Scott had given of their recent events. “That your subconscious is trying to communicate with you.”
“Well how do I tell my subconscious to use a language that I actually know?” Stiles asked, following Deaton as he led them from the front waiting room.
“Do you remember what the sign language looked like?” Dean watched silently, folding his arms across his chest. “The placement and the movement of the hands?”
“You know sign language?” Dean asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I know a little.” Deaton’s demeanor switched subtly, expression closing off. His arms crossed his own chest, mirroring Dean’s own position. “I can give it a shot.”
Stiles glanced between the two men, rolling his eyes. “Okay,” Deaton turned away, watching Stiles’ hands closely. “The first move was like this-” He held an index finger up, moving the opposite hand around it in a circle.
“That’s ‘when.’” Deaton muttered. “What next?”
“There was this, twice.” Stiles held his hands together, palms facing downwards and swiftly moved one up and away.
“That’s door.” Deaton’s brow furrowed. “Anything else?”
“Yeah, there was this-” Stiles brought a thumb to his chin and swiftly moved it away from him. “In between them.” He did the sequence in order slowly. “That was the whole thing.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah,” Stiles shrugged.
“When is a door not a door?” Deaton said, mimicking the motions Stiles had demonstrated. “That’s what it means.”
Stiles’ face paled, expression slowly growing more tense. “Stiles?” Dean asked. “Do you know what that means?”
“No,” He muttered, turning to face him immediately. “But I’ve heard that before. The first dream I had, that’s what Scott kept saying. ‘When is a door not a door, Stiles? When is a door not a door?’ Over and over.” Scott shook his head, seemingly also confused by this development.
“When it’s ajar.” He muttered before looking up at the group. “When is a door not a door? When it's ajar. That’s the answer.”
“You’re kidding me.” Stiles muttered. “A riddle. My subconscious wants to tell me a riddle?”
“Not necessarily.” Deaton shook his head. “When the three of you went under the water- when you passed from consciousness to a sort of superconsciousness-”
“Oh is that what it’s called now?” Dean muttered. Sam placed a sharp elbow into his ribs, eliciting a hiss of pain from Dean. Sam shot him a look that plainly read Shut up, asshole. Dean rolled his eyes but kept his comments to himself.
“You essentially opened a door into your minds.” Deaton continued, briefly casting a disapproving glance in Dean’s direction. “Like I told you before, there are… side effects to what you did.”
“Alright, enough.” Dean muttered, uncrossing his arms and stepping slightly forward. “Enough of the vague bullshit. You knew the side effects to what you helped them do and you still let them do it. So what are the side effects? What are we dealing with here and how do we stop it? What does all that mean?” The room lapsed into a shocked silence at his outburst. Deaton, however, remained silent and carefully composed.
Dean’s irritation ticked up a notch, energy pulsing just below the surface of his skin and rapidly making its way out. He didn’t like Deaton, he decided. He didn’t like how nonchalantly he spoke of rituals and sacrifice, how he spoke in euphemisms and displaced blame. Deaton had made a habit of carefully removing himself from the line of fire and Scott seemed more than willing to go along with that. Dean wasn’t.
“The door is still open.” Deaton responded after carefully watching Dean.
“A door into our minds?” Stiles muttered, exhaustion flooding his voice. Dean glanced over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow in question to Stiles, who waved him off.
“I did tell you it was risky.” He whipped back around to Deaton, concern washed away with a new flood of anger.
“You also told them they’d be under for less than a minute and then they were dead for sixteen hours. Doesn’t seem like what you say really counts for much.” Dean snapped. “So what do we do about it?”
“That’s…” Deaton sighed. “Difficult to answer.” His face screwed up like he’d smelled something rotten. Stiles huffed from behind Dean and stepped in line with him.
“No, I know that look.” Stiles said, irritation seeming to match Dean’s own. “That’s the ‘I know exactly what’s wrong with you but I have no idea how to fix it.’ Look.” Dean turned back to Deaton, waiting for a response.
“The one thing I do know is that having an opening like that into your mind, it’s not good. All three of you need to close that door, and you need to do it as soon as possible.” Dean glanced at the other’s in the room while Deaton spoke.
Scott seemed focused on what Deaton was saying, like he’d actually said anything important at all. Sam seemed just as frustrated as Dean felt, though he was seemingly reigning that in much better than Dean was. Stiles was visibly exhausted and angry, shoulders tense but sagging, like it took all his energy to hold himself upright. His eyes seemed hollow, dull and drained. The only emotion Dean could see in them was a resigned anger. He understood the feeling.
“Great, well.” Dean muttered, reaching for his keys. “We need to close the door, thanks for confirming what we’d already figured out. Sammy, Stiles. Let’s go. Scott, you too.” Stiles nodded, turning in place before following Sam’s lead out the door. Scott followed not long after, casting one last look at Dean and Deaton as they stood head to head silently. Dean waited to hear the bell at the front before he spoke again. “Did you know this was going to happen?”
"I knew it was a possibility.” Deaton confirmed.
“And you helped them do it anyways?” Dean shook his head. “They’re kids, man. They came here because they trust you for some reason I still can’t figure out and you just-” He stopped, pacing for a moment. “I mean, Jesus. Sixteen hours? And you didn’t think to try something else?”
“Of course I thought of trying something else.” For the first time since Dean had stepped through the doors, Deaton's carefully crafted facade cracked and a burst of unidentifiable emotion flashed to the surface. “But they were already under, and forcing them out was too risky. They could have been trapped in their own minds, forever wandering around in whatever reality they created. They could have died immediately with no chance of bringing them back, any number of things could have happened-”
“Then why let them do it at all?” Their voices were rising slowly, each man prepared to defend their point. “Why not try a tracking spell first, or hell, just a basic investigation, did any of you even try to research where they could be first?”
“What’s done is done, Dean.” Deaton was the one to lower his voice first. “Asking what we could have done instead makes no difference. We didn’t do those things.”
“Obviously.” Dean snapped. Silence settled around them again, this time charged with animosity and distrust. “Stiles,” Dean finally spoke, voice just barely at speaking level. “This Bardo thing, is that really what’s going on with him? And don’t give me some half answer, just tell me.”
“I don’t know.” Deaton admitted. “I’ve never seen it progress like this if it is Bardo.”
“Can we stop it?”
“No.” Dean’s stomach churned. “There’s no way to stop Bardo once it starts. But how quickly it’s progressing in Stiles compared to the others, I don’t think…” He trailed off. “I don’t know what this is, but I don’t think it’s Bardo. It’s mimicking it, but I don’t think it’s actually Bardo.”
“So what do we do?”
Wait.” Deaton shrugged. “Keep a closer eye on him, and Scott and Allison. We’ll find out what’s going on soon and then we can move forward. But until we know what it is we won’t know what to do.”
“So I’m supposed to just sit here and watch these kids die?” Dean asked.
“The supernatural is never easy, Dean, you know that. It’s never simple, and it’s not often kind.” Deaton rounded the exam table in the center of the room, creating more distance between himself and Dean. “So yes, you have to wait. And hopefully, no one will die.”
“Someone always dies,” Dean muttered, and if scared blue eyes flashed in his mind, well. That was something else entirely. “In the end, someone always dies.” He pulled out his keys and walked out, going to meet Sam, Scott and Stiles by the car.
He had more research to do, because he wasn’t going to just sit and wait. He couldn’t.
“You guys staying here again tonight, or?” Stiles trailed off, dropping his keys onto the table next to the door. Dean hesitated at the threshold before stepping inside, closing the door quietly.
“Nah.” He muttered. “We’re gonna head back to the motel. Do some more research on all of this, see what else we can find since Deaton was no help.” Stiles snorted, nodding his agreement.
“I told you, man. Cryptic and vague are his default settings. You get used to it after a while.” Scott shifted uncomfortably in his spot on the couch. Stiles glanced over, noticing, and sighed. “What, Scott?”
“We wouldn’t have been able to find our parents without him. Or worked out the Kanima issue. He’s been helpful, that’s all.” Scott shrugged, but avoided looking at any of them. Dean scoffed, sharing a skeptical look with Sam.
“You shouldn’t have been doing any of that stuff, Scott.” Sam reminded them. “Deaton knew how to handle those situations. He should have been the one to do that, not you. Deaton, the Argents. They’re adults, and they’ve got experience in this stuff. It wasn’t your responsibility.”
“But I’m an Alpha.”
“You weren’t an Alpha yet, Scott.” Stiles snapped. “And you don’t know what it means to be an Alpha. You never had an Alpha, you had Peter while he was still out of his mind and Derek who-” Stiles stopped himself and shook his head. “They’re right.” He muttered. “We don’t know what’s happening, we never do. We do our best, and we follow your lead, but we don’t…” Stiles sighed. “Deaton might have been helpful at times, but he purposely leaves out information we need to know for reasons that are never worth it. People get hurt because of that, Scott.”
“Derek leaves out information all the time, Stiles!” Scott snapped, irritation finally rising to match Stiles’. Dean watched carefully, ready to step between the two if things continued to escalate. The last thing any of them needed was a trip to the ER because of a werewolf-human scuffle. “Derek lied about the cure, and he didn’t tell us about turning Isaac and Erica and Boyd! He hasn’t told us anything about his past, and he didn’t tell us about that girl he killed!”
“What?” Sam stepped forward, casting a shocked glance between Stiles and Dean. “What girl he killed?”
“It’s not-” Stiles groaned. “Paige. Her name was Paige. She got bit. Ennis, one of the Alphas from the Alpha pack. He bit her when she and Derek were in high school. She rejected the bite, she was already dying.” Stiles kept his eyes locked on Scott, jaw tense and expression stormy. “She was dying and in pain and wanted it to be over. And that is not the same thing, Scott. None of that is the same thing.”
“Why do you keep defending him?” Scott rose from his seat, fury coming off him in waves. “He’s not even here, Stiles, he’s not even trying to help! He hasn’t answered any of our calls in weeks!”
“I’m not defending anyone, I’m just saying that you never stop to think these things through!” Stiles stood from his place, matching Scott’s stance perfectly. Sam stepped back, now shoulder to shoulder with Dean and watched the scene unfold. It was an argument the two of them had experienced more times than Dean could count, and both knew the only thing to do was let it happen. It needed to happen. “You decide who you trust in a split second and never waver from that. You have this blind faith in people who have proven time and time again that they don’t care what happens to us, to your pack, and we’re all supposed to just go along with that and I can’t. I can’t just go along with your plan of trusting Deaton when he’s the reason we’re in this to begin with!” Stiles’ chest heaved with each breath he took after his outburst finished. Scott glared in furious silence, hands curled into barely contained fists. “I’m not a werewolf, Scott.” Stiles’ voice was much calmer now, the heat drained as quickly as it had shown up. “Allison isn’t a werewolf, Lydia isn’t a werewolf. We can’t just heal ourselves and move on. I’ve stood by you through all of this, buddy, but this time you don’t know what you’re doing. Blindly following Deaton is.... I’m sorry, but it’s not the right call. And I can’t do it.”
“Stiles, I don’t-” Scott’s sentence was interrupted by his phone’s ringtone sounding from his front pocket. Scott sighed, digging it out and checking the caller ID. “It’s your dad.” He muttered, looking up at Stiles. “Why is your dad calling me?”
“I don’t know.” Dean watched as Stiles pulled out his own phone, checking for missed calls or texts. His shrug indicated there were none to be found and he motioned for Scott to answer.
“Hi Sheriff.” Dean snorted at the overly polite tone Scott’s voice took. “What’s up?” Stiles rolled his eyes, sitting back down. The tension was still there, like the conversation had been paused but not resolved. There were still things waiting to be said, things to be fought about and expressed and acknowledged in ways that Dean had never quite figured out how to navigate. Ways that he actively avoided more times than not, but that was something to deal with later. Much, much later. “Sure, I can check it out. The Preserve, right?” A pause while Noah answered. “Got it.” Scott hung up, placing his phone back in his pocket. “Your dad wants me to see if I can try and catch a scent of a girl that went missing a few years ago.”
“Malia Tate?” Sam asked. “Isn’t that the girl Noah had us looking into?”
“Yeah.” Dean muttered. “Went missing around 2004 after a car accident with her mother and sister. Her body was never found. Claw marks were found on the other bodies, we were thinking it could be a werewolf.”
“I can help,” Stiles offered. “We can search the woods, see if maybe there’s anything out there.”
“No,” Dean shook his head. “No way. Everything else going on and you want to go traipsing into the woods with a possibly murderous werewolf?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time.” Stiles rebutted, gesturing to Scott. “Besides, Scott can’t cover the entire Preserve on his own, he’s gonna need help-”
“We can help, Stiles.” Sam interrupted. “Dean is right. We still don’t know what’s going on with you and you don’t need to be walking around in the woods after dark like this.”
“I can help.” Stiles insisted. “I’m not useless, guys. I’m having nightmares, that’s all-”
“You’re unable to tell dreams from reality and you’re progressing way faster than the others.” Dean argued, temper flaring at Stiles’ reckless stubbornness. “It’s too risky, Stiles. You’re staying here.”
“This is bullshit.” Stiles muttered, dropping back onto the couch and crossing his arms across his chest. Dean rolled his eyes, motioning for Sam and Scott to follow him out.
“We’ll call you if we find anything, Stiles.” Sam assured, patting his shoulder gently.
“Whatever.” Stiles muttered, grabbing the remote and turning on the TV. Dean heard Scott sigh before closing the door and then they left.
He was off the couch before the Impala had reached the end of the street. Stiles took the stairs two at a time, racing into his bedroom to retrieve his shoes and a sweatshirt before checking out his window to see if, for some reason, Dean had doubled back to the house.
He hadn’t. The taillights were already a speck in the distance, a hazy red blur turning the corner and disappearing down the road. Stiles grinned, grabbing his phone, a flashlight and his keys before locking the door and sliding into the jeep.
He could do this, he could help. He might not be a werewolf or a hunter with decades of experience, but he was the only human in a pack of wolves with no training and he’d always been able to hold his own. He could hold his own here too.
The drive to the Preserve was quick, Stiles having navigated these streets so often in the last two years that he hardly had to think about the turns he made. He made sure to park away from the main road, away from where his father would be parked, and away from where Dean would be parked. All he could hope was that Scott had separated from Sam and Dean and Stiles could figure out where he was.
Stiles dialed the number, keeping watch out of his windshield for any sign of someone he knew. Scott picked up on the second ring. “Scott, hey!” Stiles tried to keep his voice casual. “How’s it going?”
“Uh, good?” Scott muttered. “We split up,” Stiles grinned, thanking whatever entity was above that he was right about the way they’d start this search. “Sam and Dean are out with your dad and I’m solo.”
“Send me your location.” Stiles placed Scott on speaker while pulling up his GPS, waiting for the text to come through. It did, moments later, and Stiles once again sent up a quick thanks that Scott rarely questioned the things he should. This time, it worked to his advantage. “Great,” Stiles chirped. “You’re not too far from me, I’ll meet you there.”
“Wait, Stiles, what-” Scott’s protests were cut off as Stiles hung up before hopping out of his jeep and closing the door as quietly as possible. Sam and Dean might not be with Scott, but that didn’t mean they weren’t nearby.
It took him longer than he’d anticipated to navigate his way to Scott. He had to stop a few times, ducking behind a tree when he thought he heard footsteps apart from his own or voices conversing amongst themselves. Eventually his flashlight swept over Scott’s still form and Stiles felt the irritation radiating off him as he approached. “Stiles, what are you doing here?” He hissed.
“I’m fine, Scott.” Stiles insisted, pocketing his phone once again. “I can help with a search. And you get that if my dad is right, that means there's another werewolf in town we haven’t met yet.”
“I know that.” Scott muttered, checking his own phone before repocketing it.
“If it turns out to be something like triplets that form into, like, a three-headed hound of hell, I’m seriously not up for that.” The image of the twins morphing together to become a giant super wolf still haunted him. He could only imagine what three of them would have looked like.
Scott laughed and Stiles relaxed as the tension finally dissipated. “Yeah, me either.” Scott sighed. “Especially if I can’t even control my own transformation anymore.”
“We’ll get it figured out, Scott,” Stiles assured. “Just-” His sentence was cut off by an echoing howl, and Stiles swung his flashlight across the space to try and spot where it came from. “I hate coyotes.” He muttered. “They always sound like they’re mauling some helpless little animal.”
“Stiles.” Scott tapped his shoulder, drawing his attention down a small embankment. “Shine the flashlight over there.” Scott hopped down, landing swiftly on his feet. “What is that?”
Stiles hopped down, peering over in the area Scott pointed in. “Is that-” He muttered, stepping closer. “Scott, come here. I think we found the accident site.”
A car sat, still flipped, amongst the trees and leaves. Glass still littered the ground at their feet, shining in the flashlights beam. The underside of the car was worn and rusted from nearly a decade of changing seasons and when Stiles shined the light over the seats, he could see where the sun had bleached the fabric.
“Why would they leave it here, isn’t this a crime scene?” Scott asked.
“Probably too much of a pain in the ass to tow it out.” Stiles guessed, crouching lower to the ground and continuing his search of the vehicle. The car was empty, and it had obviously been used as a shelter for animals when storms would roll through or snow fell. Still, he leaned in, trying to find anything they could use to try and help the search for whatever- or whoever- they were looking for. “Hey, look at this.” Stiles looked back, waving Scott over closer to the car. “See those?” He adjusted his light beam to the markings he’d noticed. Deep gouges ran through the door of the car, tearing through the side paneling like it was made of fabric. Scott ran his fingers along them gently, eyes roaming the rest of the vehicle for similar markings. Stiles said the thing they both had to be thinking. “Animal claws would be closer together. A lot closer.”
“It was a werewolf.” Scott agreed.
“So my dad was right.” Stiles sighed, stepping back.
“Why’d you say that like it’s a bad thing?” Scott asked, lifting his head in confusion.
“I just don’t want him involved in all this more than he has to be,” Stiles shrugged, taking one last look at the car. Something caught the light, a quick flash of bright color in an otherwise uniform landscape and Stiles’ eyes were drawn directly to that. “What’s that?”
“This?” Scott reached out, tugging gently on the object until it came loose. He stood, holding it in the light while they both examined it. It was caked in dried mud and leaves were stuck to the fabric, but it was unmistakable still. A babydoll. “What the-”
The air reverberated with a low growl, this time closer than the howl had been before. Scott stopped, turning his head towards the sound and listening closely. “Scott…” Stiles muttered. I hate coyotes, he thought to himself. I hate coyotes and wolves and kanimas and-
“Stiles, please tell you see that.” Stiles turned, looking towards where Scott’s arm was still extended. Fear raced through his veins as vibrant blue eyes stared back at him from the darkness.
“I see it.” He confirmed, freezing in place. Hadn’t he read somewhere that standing still was the best way to survive an animal attack? Did that work with supernatural creatures? He supposed he was about to find out, because as soon as Scott knew it was real, that he wasn’t hallucinating, he took off after the creature, leaving Stiles in the dust with a helpless call of “Wait, Scott, hey! Scott-”
“Stiles?”
Shit.
“Hey, Dean.” Stiles plastered on a grin before turning to face the music. “How’s it going?”