𝟰𝟯 , 𝗰𝗼𝗴𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲

✯☾✯

𝗜𝘀𝗮𝗮𝗰 𝗟𝗮𝗵𝗲𝘆'𝘀 𝗿𝗼𝗼𝗺 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘀𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝗮 𝘄𝗮𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝗮 teenage boy could be. Clothes draped over the back of furniture, sneakers kicked off just shy of the door way, socks scattering the floor.

Posters littered the wall. Action shots of famous lacrosse players no one could remmeber the name of, a signed The Smiths vinyl mounted in a frame. Yes, a depressing genre of people but Isaac was an unexpected fan of the tragic indy music.

On the sleek wooden dresser, though, was an ivory framed picture of Isaac and Lizzie after one of Isaac's lacrosse game, smiling too wide, clutching onto each other. Beside it, a snap of him and Scott, arms slung around each other.

His lacrosse stick leant against the wall beside his unmade bed, taped at the handle.

Isaac was horizontal on the bed, Lizzie a top of him. They were surrounded by undone homework and the contents of Lizzie's sparkly handbag.

The world outside had slipped away a few hours ago as their mouths met over and over again, hungry, greedy, messy. Her fingers curled around his shirt, his around her waves. Isaac was pulling her impossibly closer until even breathing felt like too much space between them.

And then...

"You are joking."

They broke apart haphazardly, heads snapping so fast they almost hit eachother. Stiles and Scott were stood in the doorway, Scott amused, Stiles horrified.

Lizzie's face flushed as she scrambled off Isaac's lap. The curly-haired boy rubbed the back of his neck, something he always did in awkward situations.

"Our innocent little baby," Stiles barged into the room unhappily.

"Stiles..." Scott chastised, chasing after him.

"How dare you." Stiles snapped at Isaac who could only role his eyes. The Stilinski boy reached towards the bed, pulling Lizzie by the arms off of it and into his grasp.

Isaac's eyes widened, "What? No! You can't take her away."

Stiles gently pushed the pixie girl behind him into the hands of an awaiting Scott, ignoring her shouts of disagreement.

"We'll be having a talk." Stiles said blankly, pointing between him and Scott. Lizzie's giggle betrayed her embarrassment.

Stiles began to back away from a stern looking Isaac, jostling Lizzie and Scott out of the room with him.

✯☾✯

"I really think the art teacher likes me," Lizzie's words jumbled as she attempted to speak whilst sucking her juice from a straw simultaneously.

"She's likes everyone who doesn't spill the paint all over the floor," Annie quipped back uninterestedly, much too focused in the sight of her glimmering reflection that stated back at her from the pocket mirror she held in front of her face.

"Okay, but she smiled at me when i showed her my sketch of David." Lizzie reasoned, the grin on her face echoing her glass half full attitude.

Annie scoffed, delicately swiping her forefinger along the bottom of her red lip, "She probably smiled because it wasn't a cat this time."

Lizzie whined at the negativity, "You're so mean."

Humming happily, Annie clipped her mirror shut, "I call it encouragement, honey."

The red head girl then began to frankly ignore Lizzie's incessant jitters about needing to be liked and let her eyes wander inquisitively around the room they were positioned in the corner of.

God, she hated this school.

She watched a boy half her size yell ignorantly at a bewildered lunch lady, a group of freshmen being louder than they should be at this time, a girl from their year brisk past Greenburg's table, knocking his lunch all over him.

Then, her eyes swept over to Allison, Scott, Stiles. Each clones of eachother, sporting matching empty expressions as if they couldn't tell what was real and was a lie.

They'd each been having visions since they came out of this ice cold baths that connected them to their parents. Each of them seemed to carry a psyche scar and left them feeling detached from reality.

The school bell rang, ripping Annie out of her concerned trance and catalysing the scraping of chairs in the lunch rooms as everyone headed to their post lunch lessons.

In Annie and Lizzie's case, it was history.

It was in this classroom that Lizzie was most unfortunately seated in front of Stiles' desk and got to experience the pure joy of his incessant kicking of the back of her chair just to see how long it would take for her to whip her head around to glare at him.

A small dark haired man had positioned himself at the front of the classroom, clad in a neat suit and a warm smile, he began.

"Good morning, everyone. My name is Mr Yukimura. I'll be taking over for your previous History Teacher."

Kick.

"My family and I moved here three weeks ago. I'm sure by now you all know my daughter, Kira. Or you might not since she's never actually mentioned anyone from school. Or brought home a friend from that matter."

There was a slam that caused the whole class to swivel their heads to the back of the classroom where a dark haired Japanese girl avoided eye contact sheepishly.

Kick.

"Either way. There she is."

Kick.

"Now, let's begin with American History at the turn of the 20th century..."

Kick. Kick. Kick.

Stiles had won, he could tell from the way Lizzie's head twitched before she spun round in her chair and yanked his pencil from his hands.

Stiles giggled, joyous with the reaction he'd got, "Hey! That's my..."

"Not anymore," Her tone was a facade of concern and her smile gave her away, "Now if you don't stop kicking my chair i will throw this-"

She froze. Stiles held up another pen, triumphant.

Before she could exclaim in annoyance, Mr Yukimura rapped impatiently at her desk, insisting that she'd turn around and pay attention to the lesson.

When the lesson had finished and the trinity were loitering in the corridor aside Stiles' locker, Lizzie felt it acceptable to explode with jabs and quips that only amused Stiles further.

The boy tried to tie in Scott into the joke, "Scott do you hear this...Oh, dude, your eyes."

Lizzie squinted her own pupils and was shocked to see the crimson orbs of Scott's werewolf form, leaking into his human state.

"What about them?" Scott questioned, confused.

"They're glowing!" Lizzie's whisper was practically a shriek.

"You mean like right now?"

"Yes, right now!"

"Scott, stop. Stop it." Stiles insisted as Scott began to pant in panic, bile creeping painstakingly up his throat. He was losing control of his abilities.

"Alright, just keep you're head down. Look down."

Stiles pushed Scott's head down, hiding his scarlett eyes from the sight of students in the corridor, guiding the wolf into an empty classroom, Lizzie hot on their heels.

The door was shut, Scott yanked his flannel jacket off, breathing heavily and clutching into the nearest desk for support.

"Get back away from me!" Scott growled, hunched over. The line had been crossed between life and death and it was haunting him, attacking him from the inside out. He was helpless.

And all Lizzie could see, as he struggled for breath, itching internally, sinking his own claws into his palms, was the scared boy she befriended not that long ago, the boy who was so lost, so confused, so uncertain in his new form.

She saw the reflection of what Scott McCall once was in the streams of blood seeping fown his forearms.

This was real. Stiles and Lizzie crouched down beside Scott as he started to come down from his disillusioned state. It was starting to get for Stiles and Allison as well.

Stiles couldn't read, couldn't sleep. Allison was plagued by visions she couldn't decipher. Scott was beginning to fear himself.

It wasn't just in their heads.

✯☾✯

The picnic table the pack had 'claimed' at the beginning of the year was under cover of the large oak tree on the edge of the school courtyard.

Six of them were crammed around a weathered wooden table, bags dropped haphazardly, bewilderment and sheer confusion flitting through the light breeze.

"Okay so, what happens to a person who has a near-death experience and comes out of it seeing things?" Scott asked the obvious question. His mind felt foggy, logic just out of reach.

"And is unable to tell what's real or not?" Added Stiles.

"And is being haunted by demonic visions of dead relatives?" Added Allison, picking and chewing on her blush red lips.

"They're all locked up because they're insane," Isaac responded, his wit was dry and lazy. He spoke as if the situation both amused and concerned him at the same time, "Shouldn't we be waiting for Lizzie before we launch into the group discussion?"

"Ha." Stiles spoke humourlessly, "Can you at least try and be helpful, please?"

"For half my childhood. I was locked in a freezer. So, being helpful is kind of a new thing for me." Isaac all but spat back. His tone was flat.

"Hey, dude, are you still milking that?"

"Yeah, maybe im still milking that."

Before Stiles and Isaac could launch into their daily childish dispute in which they both demonstrated their clear dislike and annoyance for each other, Lizzie had bounded over happily.

In her hands, she was originally clutching a tupperware box containing a batch of cookies she'd made in cookery class. Said cookies were now scattered along the concrete floor alongside the cracked tupperware box.

"Guys, this is Kira!" She exclaimed, plonking herself delightedly on her boyfriend's lap, "She can help."

Isaac's strong arms wrapped around Lizzie's middle, pulling her flush against him as Kira introduced herself.

"I couldn't help overhearing what you guys were talking about." She muttered nervously, wringing her hands out, "And I think I acrually might know what you're talking about."

"There's a Tibetan word for it. It's called 'Bardo'. It literally means 'in between state'. The state between life and death."

Lydia was unimpressed by this newcomer. "And what do they call you?"

"Ki-ra." Lizzie leaned forward and sounded out her name to Lydia.

"Go on, Honey," Annie prompted before the girl was scared off. She seemed the type to be skittish.

"All the stuff you guys were saying?" Kira delicately took a seat in the empty space on the bench beside Annie, "It all happens in Bardo. There are different progressive states where you can have hallucinations. Some you see, some you just hear. And, you can be visited by peaceful and wrathful deities."

"Wrathful deities?" Isaac's words carried the faintest edge of sarcasm. "And what are those?"

"Like Demons." Kira replied quite cheerfully.

"She's like a damn textbook." Annie murmured.

"Hold on, if there are different progressive states then what's the last one?" Allison inquired.

"Death. You die."

Kira smiled sweetly.

✯☾✯

"I can't believe we're doing this!"

A hushed exclamation to declare just how Lizzie was feeling. For someone so strict and rigid on enforcing the law, it was a wonder as to why Sheriff Stilinski had asked his son and his two best friends to sneak in the Tate household.

Noah had voiced his suspicions now that he'd been informed of the supernatural and was no second guessing every case he'd ever been assigned to check if the unsolved could be explained by wolves and druids.

One certain case came to mind. A missing girl of the name Malia Tate whom of which Stiles, Scott and Lizzie were now standing in her childhood bedroom to attempt to find something of hers that Scott could use to track her down.

The man was at risk of losing his job with Scott's father still in town and he wanted to be able to solve one more meaningful case, bring together a broken family whilst he was still Beacon Hills' Sheriff.

Stiles hit the girl lightly on the side of her head to shut Lizzie up as they set to work passing Scott random objects in the bedroom whilst the sheriff distracted Mr Tate deeper into the house.

"All i'm getting is some animal smell." Scott came to a weak conclusion, inhaling the scent of a plush toy.

"What kind of animal?" Stiles pushed, gathering up more and more items that could be of use.

A low growl interrupted the trio's flow, a large dog stood in the doorway, blocking off the corridor.

"Dog."

It snarled quietly and Lizzie extend her hand out towards it.

"Doggy!" She cooed hoping to create some sort of friendship with the animal. The hound was not impressed, snapping its jaws at her fingers as Stiles dragged her back by the collar of her shirt.

"Get rid of it." Stiles hissed at Scott. The three stood motionless, cautious not to make any movement that could aggravate the dog and lead them to get caught in a clear felony.

"Me?"

"Yes, you. Glow your eyes at it or something. Be the alpha." Stiles instructed.

Scott shook his head, void of confidence. "I can't. I don't have control."

"Okay, Buddy," Stiles reasoned, "You're gonna have to try something."

Scott came to the only possible conclusion his mind landed on and mirrored Lizzie. He crouched down slowly, palm outstretched.

The dog clearly didn't like it and launched into a fit of barks and howls.

The teens jumped backwards, clutching onto each other whilst Mr Tate bellowed at the dog, Apollo, to shut up.

Eventually the vexed animal grew tired of barking and ran off down the corridor, whining.

Stiles carried on searching the second the dog was out of sight, riffling without any ounce of restraint.

"Nosy Parker." Lizzie commented to herself as she observed Stiles' hands move wildly through a chest of drawers.

Eventually, the tawny eyed boy pulled out a thick pocket book that was bound by pure leather and looked like it meant something.

"Here, try that."

He turned back to his searching and Scott didn't even attempt to hold the book up to his nose, his senses lost and unmanageable.

"All I'm getting is that dog."

Stiles sighed deeply, scouring the face of the chest cluttered with figurines and pictures. In one particular photograph, trapped in a pink wooden photo frame, young Malia was clutching tightly to a toy doll.

"Now, where is that?" Lizzie jabbed her finger towards it erratically and Stiles opened up the camera app on his mobile.

✯☾✯

Amatory weight pressed securely against Stiles' broad chest, two pairs of lungs moving up and down in sync. The heat of two bodies tangible, intimate.

His teeth snagged at his lip, holding back a smile from forming at the feeling of soft kisses littering his neck sending shocks of pleasure straight through him.

The boy sunk deeper and deeper into his bed, staring down with half lidded eyes. He watched a shock of red hair nestle just underneath his chin.

"Lydia.." He rasped out in bliss, lost in the caramel scent, face buried in the shimmering locks.

His lover let out a moan in response. It was a noise of assertiveness and control, not the quiet and softness Stiles would have expected from Lydia.

In lust filled haze, Stiles wrapped his warm hands around the girls head, pulling her up to meet his eyes.

"Annie." Stiles breathed, shock filling his lungs. This wasn't right, this isn't who it was meant to be.

Annie, using her forearms as leverage to hold herself up and hover over Stiles, her curls framing his aghast face.

She seemed to experience no shock, her face and neck were suffused with a pink glow where the blood was diluted by the colour of her milky skin dusted in gold blemishes.

They held gaze a moment longer, Stiles couldn't pull any part of himself away. He was motivated by compulsion, driven by a greater force he could not resist.

He pulled her into him and wrapped both arms around her so she could not escape. Her eyes were shut and he kissed her open and awaiting mouth.

Stiles felt Annie's hands press to his back, theb she tried to pull away from his tight grip. But, Stiles was too intoxicated with her warmth, her scent, he just could not let her go.

An alien aggression overcame desire and passion, an emotion he had never felt before as he gripped onto cloth, tearing Annie's black satin shirt, revealing a thin crimson strap beneath it.

And then, she was fading, like smoke being pulled away by the wind. Stiles kissed her face desperately. The edges of her figure were starting to blur.

Stiles awoke, arms outstretched as if reaching for someone who wasn't there.

✯☾✯

Lizzie found, as she ambled throughout Beacon Hills Reserve in the dead of night, absently following Stiles and Scott, she was getting severe déjà vu.

The shadows the trees constructed, the eerie ambience of the woods, even the slight movements that caused her to jump in panic. It was all so familiar to her.

Scott had rounded Stiles and Lizzie up this evening, determined to make more of an effort to secure Noah's job and piss his own father off. Resolve settled in his chest like a weight he welcomed, unlike the pressing mass hounding on him recently.

"You know, if my dad's right that means there's another werewolf in town that we haven't met yet." Stiles said.

The frail leaves crunched under their feet, lit up periodically by the wave of the flashlight in Lizzie's hands.

"I know," Scott replied, distracted by the map up on his phone.

"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." Stiles' tone was so dry, it could have caught fire.

Scott laughed, "Yeah. Me neither. Especially if I can't even control my own transformation anymore."

They continued wandering through the forest, Scott leading whilst Lizzie struggled to keep her feet on the floor behind him and Stiles grabbed onto him at any noise resembling a wolf and promptly knocking Scott's phone into a puddle of mud and grime.

"I hate coyotes so much, man. They always sound like they're mauling some tiny, helpless little animal."

Scott could only roll his eyes and fish out his surprisingly still working phone from the dirt.

"I think we found it." Stiles muttered, swiping h the flashlight from Lizzie's unstable hands and directing it more steadily in front of them.

When Malia was nine, her family's car was ambushed and wrecked, killing supposedly everyone but Mr Tate.

And there, the vehicle. Overturned and neglected.

"Why haven't they moved the car? Isn't it evidence?" Scott threw a question out.

Stiles shrugged, edging closer to the car, "Probably too much of a pain in the ass to tow out."

The three of them stepped closer to the wreckage, boots crunching over shattered glass and gravel

Stiles's eyes narrowed as he shined the flashlight on the side of the door. The beam flickered up and down it, then stopped.

"Look at this."

Claw marks, etched deep into the rusted metal.

"No freaking way." Lizzie whispered slowly.

Scott moved his hands, fingers kissing the claw marks along the mangled door frame.

"Animal claws would be closer together, right? A lot closer." Stiles and Lizzie leaned in.

"Then, it was a werewolf." Scott's pupils dilated as the pattern unfolded in his mind.

"So, my dad was right."

The group crouched down further, the light invading the interior of the truck, dancing around the bashed up seats and dilapidated dashboard until it landed on something else.

Clarity screamed.

The doll.

Stiles yanked it from out the car and held it delicately in his hands. It was creepy; with its empty glass eyes and faded spotted bodysuit.

"I'm hungry." It squeaked out and Lizzie let out a high pitch squeal of surprise, Stiles flinging it up in fear.

"I think I just had a minor heart attack."

Scott was about to reply when a sound came, guttural and off to the side.

They froze.

Lizzie jerked the flashlight towards the sound.

A coyote stood a few yards away, teeth exposed in snarl, drool dripping down its stood up fur, spiked to the heavens.

Its eyes reflected the beam of light. Deep, cold azure pupils.

Stiles reached his hands out to gather up lizzie, the only thing between them and the incandescent animal was the car.

Scott's instincts kicked in and he leapt up, chasing the coyote off into the night.

╭── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──╮
hope you all enjoy!!
let me know all your thoughts and predictions
xx