♡ 𝙩𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪 ♡
𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘳 fifty-seven

heathens. 

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

"WHAT'S A HUMANITY SWITCH?"

It was the question that popped up a lot. One that was rarely ever answered. You either knew or you didn't. Life was often complex in ways like that. 

Still, Sybil tried to explain the best she could. "It's a state of mind." she rubbed her sore throat and averted her eyes. "When someone has supernatural abilities, whether it be vampires, hybrids, werewolves or sirens, it comes with heightened emotion. And along with that sometimes comes the ability to switch off all that emotion completely." she tilted her head to the side. "I mean, no offence Derek, but an Alpha should know that. Maybe that's why your pack gave you the boot." she ended.

Derek narrowed his eyes at the girl who tucked her slicked-back hair behind her ears. "I thought it was only a vampire kind of thing."

"And yet again, you boys think wrong." 

The Lawyer turned to the werewolf. "Wait, so all I've gotta do is find a way to turn her switch back on and she'll be okay again?"

Derek frowned outwardly. "It's not really as easy as that, Jim." he watched as he furrowed his eyebrows. "If she really has flipped her switch, then it was her choice completely. Just like turning it back on has to be."

"And the longer it stays off the worse the pain and regret will be when it's back on, so honestly, I wouldn't bother trying." Sybil butted in. "I mean, she already has a tally of dead bodies. That guilt alone could break someone like Dallas. Why hurt her like that?"

James shoved past Derek with eyes fallen into slits. "You think you can manipulate me? I was married to your kind, Sybil. I know desperation when I see it." his voice was taunting. "You know as soon as Dallie's humanity is back, she's gonna drop you faster than Marilyn did-"

There it was. The infamous Garcia viciousness. What people assumed was just a singlehanded trait flowed through them all. 

"James!" Derek pulled at his arm. "Acting out on her isn't gonna help us figure out what to do."

"Get the hell off me." James snatched his arm from his grasp. "This entire situation stemmed from the supernatural. I should've left Beacon Hills the moment I knew I was the only human here." 

Sybil glanced up with furrowed eyes. "James," she spoke out loudly. "You don't know you're a doppelganger?"

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

Dallas Garcia stood idly beside Lydia Martin and she rummaged through her locker. Her eyes were directed ahead and she chewed on her lower lip while the cogs in her brain turned to the beat of her thinking. 

"And now Tracy's missing, and you know, at first, she looked like the Kanima? But then she was a wolf? Anyway, Scott wants us all on the lookout for her." she turned to Dallas who kept a blank stare ahead. "And you're not listening." Lydia huffed. 

"Hm, what?"

"Scott wants us on the lookout for Tracy Stewart, Dallas." Lydia frowned at her distance. "You seem different. Are you okay?"

"Peachy." she hummed while picking at her nails and laying her head back against the cold metal of the lockers. "You can tell McCall that I'm no longer his errand girl anymore. I was never a part of this pack, anyways." 

The Banshee gave her a sorrowful look. "Don't say that. If this is about what Scott said, he's really sorry, Dallas. You should talk to him." she stood forward and placed her hand on the Siren's shoulder. "To all of us."

Lydia stumbled backwards as images of dead bodies, splattered blood and splashing water clouded over her green eyes. The faint smell of corpses entered her nose and when she looked at Dallas, her instincts told her to run the other way. 

Chills ran up her spine as Dallie's skin felt much colder than usual, and her tone much icier than usual. 

"What's wrong, Lydia?" The Garcia's voice pulled her from her visions. "You look like you've seen a ghost," she spoke innocently while stepping forward. 

Her hand slipped from her shoulder and with her mouth agape, Lydia Martin stepped backwards once more. "I, uh..." she struggled to find the words. "I just remembered I left my books in my car."

Dallie's eyes fell into suspicious slits. "Why don't I come along?" she tilted her head to the side while the tip of her finger brushed away the end's of the Banshee's hair so it lay over her shoulder. 

"No, its okay." Lydia forced a smile, "I'll probably just go ask Scott if I can lend his."

Dallas soured at the mention of Scott. She hummed in response as the strawberry blonde took another step backward and tried to smuggle her fear. But before she could, Dallas grabbed her arm and shoved her back rather roughly against the lockers. 

The Banshee's eyes connected with hers and with the slight settling of a grin on her primrose lips, Dallas lifted her hand and twirled the pen infront of the girl's face. It didn't help that Dallas was a few inches taller than her, as even though it was mere inches, made Lydia feel like a deer caught in headlights. 

Dallas cocked her head to the side. She had never really tried to read anything but a boys mind before. And when she saw the dizzied look on Lydia's face, she quirked a brow.

Perhaps she could. And perhaps she would.

After all, Dallas being a siren didn't directly correlate to just men, right? Dallas had surely pulled in one or two women over the years regardless. 

However, when she tried to peek inside of her mind, anguished wailing echoed back like a metaphysical barrier.

Damn it. Probably shouldn't have tried it on a Banshee.

Fluttering her eyes closed with a wince, Dallas met the gaze of Lydia Martin. "Don't forget your pen." she mumbled out with underlying distaste.

Lydia swallowed harshly and grasped the pen from the Siren's fingers. "Thanks." Her voice was meek and her eyes did anything but meet hers, however, when they did she was met with maddening hunger and inhuman glow. "Well, I .. better go get Scott." She slid from underneath Dallie's close proximity. 

When Lydia glanced back, Dallas was still leant against the lockers and giving her an eerie wave goodbye. No matter what, she couldn't shake the feeling of rotten death.

Dallas, however, followed the scent of Scott McCall - and wherever he was, it was not the direction Lydia was scurrying off too. 

Tsk, Liar. 

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

 Stiles Stilinski was obsessive. He knew that already, From his obsession with the Hale fire, to the Garcia disapperance, to his obsession with Scott's lycanthropy. Stiles knew when the red strings on his wall became tangled, it was a clear indicator that they were all connected.  

But as he sat at his desk, jerking off his backpack and spending his free period staring dimly at the broken reminants of his phone, the boy struggled to connect the dots. 

He pushed through the pieces of broken glass and snapped wire with a large huff. He tended to get Dallas a little too excited sometimes - and his phone paid the price. 

"Worth it." he mumbled underneath his breath while running his hands over the deep claw marks etched into the oakwood. 

However, his prurient daydreaming came to a halt as his father's voice echoed from the doorway. Standing with his arms crossed and eyes narrowed, Noah frowned at his son. "How the hell did you manage that?" he referred to both the scratchmarks and tattered device. 

Stiles scratched the back of his neck and leaned backward in his chair. "Oh, you know, uh-" he stammered while picking it up. "Clumsiness." the Stilinski barely muttered out before it sprang from his hands and clattered to the floor. 

Noah shook his head in dismay as he watched his son scramble to pick it up while pixelized words dimmed across the screen. 

"Is that clumsiness also the cause of the noise complaint?"  

Stiles was at a loss for words once again. He didn't really feel like having that conversation with his dad right now - or ever, to be quite honest. 

"Mhm." The human nodded along. "Definitely, yep."

Noah rose a brow before running a hand across his forehead and stepping away. The eldest Stilinski decided that he too, did not want to have that conversation either. 

Blowing out a breath of relief, Stiles gripped the screen and watched his father disappear from the doorway. He muttered out grateful profanities before brushing the dust from his phone and staring downwards. Little by little, the words shone out from the sheer darkness of the screen. 

YOU WERE RIGHT. 

He knitted his eyebrows in confusion. "Right?" Stiles flickered his eyes at the fuzzy pixels that barely made out the Garcia's name. "Right about what?"

STAY AWAY FROM DALLAS.

His phone clattered back to the floor as he stood up and backed away from the desk with wide eyes. It couldn't be. She couldn't be. He ran his fingers across the wood before grimacing. 

James wouldn't lie. 

Stiles had slept with the enemy. 

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

"Elijah Mikaelson."

Jim's eyebrows fell to a fustered furrow. He had known of the supernatural most of his life. His knuckles, stained red, clenched along with his fist. "Who?"

"One of the first original vampires to ever walk the earth." Sybil taunted with a mystical tone while watching the Lawyer's face light up with terror. "He cheated mortality along with his siblings." she leaned forward with a wicked grin. "Which worked for some of them.. but not for all. Nature had to balance itself out somehow, Jamie, and so it spat out you."

James stumbled backwards as the brickwork of his homely little life fell apart one by one. In a town full of werewolves, sirens, vampires, kitsunes,  and even the odd demon, James Garcia had come to the realisation that his life would never be normal.

But still, he reveled in the fact that it was still his own. 

That was all a lie. All along, his life was never his. He was the copy-and-paste of somebody else's life. Elijah Mikaelson's life.

He sat back on the couch opposite Sybil and allowed his breathing to labour and shake. Derek noticed this and crept before him before kneeling to his sat height. "Jim, hey, Jim?" he called out to the man he found himself trusting more than anyone else. "Don't listen to her, okay? Listen to me. Don't let her trick you from what we came here for."

Sybil butted in with a laugh. "Oh, it's no ploy, Derek." She tutted. "I've never met him myself but let me tell you, Mystic Falls were just as fond of the Mikaelsons as they were of me. You think James and Marie came to Beacon Hills out of coincidence? We're standing in a literal beacon for the supernatural. This is no place for humans."

Derek shot her a glare before turning back to the panicked doppelganger. "James, you're here for Dallie. She needs you."

"Does she?" Jim glanced up. "Or is she something that should've belonged to Elijah.. that I ended up with instead?"

Derek felt like the only sane person there. Everybody around him was starting to crumble one way or another and he found himself at the collapsing crossroad. Jim stared back down at his hands as pieces of his identity began to fall apart and clatter into his supernatural soul. 

"You're not getting away with this." Derek bared his teeth at the Siren. "None of you will." 

He stood up and turned his back to bolt for the door and follow the scent of his goddaughter but Sybil's voice caused him to pause momentarily. "You can't stop her without the fork." Sybil called out to him with a hint of sass and narcissim. 

The Werewolf turned his head to her and with the slight narrow of his eyes, Derek responded. "I know." he soon turned into the sour-wolf many knew him as. "And I know her well enough to figure out where she's hiding it."

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

Dallas Garcia made her way down the halls of her highschool and slid past the students with her eyes set forward while she followed the scent of Scott McCall. Her hands trickled the side of her jeans while the underbags of her eyes darkened ever so slightly. 

As the last bell of the day rang, Scott scurried off through the halls without much thought. He didn't notice how Dallas trailed behind him - claws bared and pearlescent eyes trained on him like fresh prey. 

Whistling a cheery tune, Scott disappeared into the boys lockerrooms to pick up his uniform and not soon after, became one of the only ones left. 

Or so he thought. 

Dallas trailed her nail across the bare brick as she came within metres of the doorway. Her shoulder lay against the frame and her eyes glared towards Scott who had his back turned to her while he stuffed his bag with his lacrosse jersey. 

Instantly, his head rose and the steady beating of her heart entered his ears. His actions paused momentarily before he spoke up. "I'm guessing you're here to talk."

Dallas felt the fangs sharpen underneath her cold lips and bit back a scoff. "And what made you come to that assumption?" Her fingers slid daintily against the changing room lockers while her nails chipped at the rusted metal. 

His back was still turned to her. "I thought I'd smell anger when you came in." Scott furrowed his eyebrows. "Maybe hate. I really didn't want it to be sadness, but Dallas, I smell nothing." His face finally met hers and before he knew it, she had ripped the locker door from its hinges and tossed it to his face. 

He barely had time to duck before it buried itself in the drywall behind him, the sharp edge cutting deep into what could've been his face. The werewolf gawked at the broken pieces of brick before sending a crazed look back to the Siren. "Jesus, Dallas!" he hissed out as he stood up. "Listen, If this is about our argument-"

Dallas opened her mouth to speak but was cut off - soemthing that made her groan outwardly and narrow her eyes.

"It's not, Scott." The faint smell of werewolf entered her nose and the familarity of the voice washed over her. Dallas turned her head to meet the conflicted gaze of Derek Hale. "Hey, Dallie."

She narrowed her eyes. "You truly do have terrible timing."

His arms were bound behind his back. "You think killing Scott is gonna help you?"

Dallas rolled her eyes. Boy, was he a buzzkill. "I wasn't going to kill Scott, I was going to eat him." The Siren deadpanned. "He probably would've still been alive while I did it." she paused and cocked a brow at his presence. "Why am I even talking to you? Shoo." she fluttered him away with her hands before turning back to Scott who narrowed his eyes at her. 

"I can't let you do that, Dallie."

Dallas turned back to Derek once more with an unamused look. "Ugh, what are you going to do? Bark at me?" she scoffed. Although, her smug look came to a fall as his hands dropped to his sides - as did his grip on the tuning fork. "Where did you find that?" Derek finally saw one emotion reach her eyes - fear. 

"Where you keep everything important to you," The Hale brushed his finger against the metal. "In the box at the back of your closet, hidden underneath your first skates." 

Scott glanced between the two as one emotion lingered back into the air. Rage. Derek had started to know her a little too well for her liking and as she watched it glimmer in his hands, she knew he was right. Pictures, polaroids, jewelry amongst other things she had an unhealthy attachment to lay in that box. She had to get around to burning it - and changing her hiding spot. 

The bubblegum bitch herself fell sour. Her back turned to Scott and instead fixated her icy gaze onto her godfather. "I don't wanna use this unless I have to." he held out his hand for her. "Come on, Dallas, turn it back on."

Scott was lost. Truly. Yet, he was confident Derek would explain sooner or later. 

Tears pricked the Siren's eyes. Her head bowed down and she brushed the hair out of her face with a glum look. 

Derek frowned and placed the fork down on the benches before taking heavy steps towards her. "Hey, hey-" he placed both hands on her shoulder and softened his usual sour-wolf gaze for her. "It's okay. What happened, Dal? What's wrong?"

Derek held his hand up to Scott who shook his head with a panicked gaze. 

She swallowed down her tears and stared up at Derek. "I'm just thinking about how hard it's gonna be to get all that blood out of that cotton." was all she muttered out. 

"What blood?" Derek raised a brow. 

 She didn't respond and instead dug her claws into his stomach, watching idly as he stumbled backwards while it blotted across the lower half of his shirt. She felt the sticky liquid coat her nails before bringing it to her lips and tasting the blood on her bitter tongue. 

Dallas then turned to retrieve the fork from the bench but felt Derek's clawed hand drag her to the floor. He attempted to climb across her but fell forward when she gripped the back of his neck and shoved him face-first into the lockers with a clustered grunt.

The Siren noticed how Scott scrambled to grab the fork too, much to her annoyance, and with the slight flick of her wrist she allowed a steam-pipe to burst right infront of him before his hands could even begin to grip it. 

Her confident grin didn't spend too much time on her face before she was tackled to the floor. Holding her arms at the side of her face and hissing with a scolding tone, Derek Hale hovered above her. "Stop!" he warned. "I mean it, Dallas, stop!"

She bit so hard on her cheeks that she was sure she could taste the blood, although, that didn't stop her from kicking out and bolting her knee up into the ridges of his stomach. As he let out a holler of pain, Dallas shoved him to the side and leapt towards the bench. She clasped both her hands around the fork before she held it up in the air as the two werewolves bared their teeth at her from afar.

Blood trickled down the bottom of her lip and bruises had started to heal as quickly as they came. But even so, she still held a menancing look in her eyes. "Whew," Dallas blew the hair out of her face with a sarcastic huff. "All that.. for nothing." 

Derek clutched his gut with one hand and turned to Scott. "Wouldn't really call it nothing." He muttered dryly. "Stiles?" Derek called out once more. However, it sounded less like a question and more like a que. 

Before Dallas could even turn her head, the fork was pried from her fingers and a syringe found it's way underneath the skin at the back of her neck. She tried to scratch and struggle against the arms that had folded around her, but with darkening vision and a heavy tiredness settling on her muscles, Dallas could no longer fight. 

Stiles kept his arms coddled around her as she fell limp, placing his chin on her shoulder and muttering in her ear with knitted eyebrows. "I'm sorry, Dallie."

They had outnumbered her.

☆ word count: 3,384. ☆

a/n: yes i made the doppelganger theory canon. but now james is having an identity crisis so let me ask you, was it worth it?