when: day of Isaac's arrival
where: their apartment
what: after Lizzie helps Isaac find the apartments, he finds his guardian, just as confused as him.
warnings: possible spoilers for teen wolf (but like it's a few years old), mentions of abuse/violence/death likely.
status: on going in gdoc
❝You used to be alright, what happened? Etcetera etcetera.❞
It was handy to have a room number to find, since Lizzie helped him find the apartment building in general, it was easy to locate his room.
There was a weirdness about all of this that he'd just started to get a little bit used to, although all the smells and everything else was just confusing his senses. He could almost pick up Lydia and Stiles, since he knew to look for them, but everything else in the area was mixing together.
He was mostly glad that his muscles didn't ache the same way they had, the shock of the electricity that'd run through his body before had left him aching, but that seemed to have stopped now. Either this place fixing him up, or his werewolf healing having kicked in finally and repaired the damage.
What really hit Isaac, when he stepped into his designated apartment.
"Derek?" Even with distance and the somewhat broken alpha/beta bond, Derek's scent was still one that Isaac could instantly place, since it was the first one he learned. Lydia had said that Derek was there, although they hadn't seen him, but that did seem rather normal for Derek. "Derek?" He wasn't instantly visible though, so Isaac just had to check that he hadn't missed the other wolf.
Goodland.
Entity.
On the scale of things this probably wasn't the weirdest thing that had ever happened. It was maybe somewhere between being turned into a teenager again and his entire childhood. So, scales.
Exploring the area wasn't leading to any big reveal, he could scene a lot of things, many people, but also something static in the air like magic. Which it probably was, given how he'd arrived there. He'd been with Braeden, they'd been on the search for the Desert Wolf, between leads and near a motel without a name and with poor cleaning staff.
And then he was in a replica of Manhattan. If it'd be the real Manhattan he would've been able to find the apartment building he and Laura had shared when they'd lived there, found her school and his work, probably ran into a few of the omegas that lived in the city. But instead, it was ... different.
He wasn't sure how much to trust from the letter, but finding the highest population of people led him to the apartment building in general, and from there it was easy to find the number listed. He could pick up a few familiar scents, something he knew he'd need to check on once he got his bearings properly. The communication system for this place appeared to be some kind of social network, but it would have to wait.
It wasn't about territory or even finding anything, but Derek felt compelled to look through the whole apartment, just to avoid surprises. Especially given there were several rooms. He only paused when he heard his name and caught the familiar but unfamiliar scent of his beta.
Winding back out into the main room, Derek didn't disguise his surprise at seeing Isaac. "Isaac," he'd been sure that Chris had set Isaac up safe and well in Paris, he certainly hadn't expected to see the kid here. "Do you know what's going on?" But it wasn't really like Derek was great at expressing any of that.
It wasn't like Isaac was expecting much from Derek, not really. A little consideration for the fact that he wasn't dying wasn't a lot to ask, but then...
"What was happening? Before here... I mean." Lydia said they were from different times, maybe Isaac hadn't just been sparked up like a 1000 watt lightbulb for Derek. And it was weird enough to think that people he was the same age as were at college now. It felt a lot like missing so much.
"I spoke a little to Lydia, it's like some kind of magical kidnapping thing. I think a few of us are here." He wondered if Derek knew Cora was there. He'd practically just said goodbye and came back to Beacon Hills, or maybe he hadn't.
The time thing was far too confusing. Like more than the kidnapping thing.
What was happening?
Derek felt his eyebrows pinch slightly, the furrow that was almost carved into his forehead flaring up. He was eternally grateful that headaches weren't something he suffered for very long, even though the people he spent the most time around seemed to take that as a challenge.
"Given everything since you and Chris left, there's a few things to run down." And not all of it something Derek wanted to go over again. "Can we just hit the highlights of 'insanity' and 'the usual shit' and call it a day?"
If he were brutally honest, he'd be hard pressed to remember everything to tell Isaac. The deadpool, Kate, Peter's return to form with betrayal and backstabbing. Dying, evolving, leaving. It felt like a life time in a small space of time. But everything about Beacon Hills felt like that.
"At least Lydia seems to know what's going on. I can smell Scott and Stiles too." Because it was easy to pick them out. And mixed in there he got the faint scenet of his sister but he wasn't sure how that could be a thing, but it wasn't out of the question.
Wait, since he left? With Chris? What did that even... "What do you mean leave? Leave where? With Chris? Why?" He could feel himself get a little anxious, honestly, he knew that if Lydia was telling the truth (and she had no reason to lie, Lydia wasn't the kind to play a cruel and odd prank like that) then he might be a little behind everyone in the scheme of what happened.
Having to get spoiler alerts for his life would be weird. Was it his life? Or just a possible way life might go? Was it like those alternate time line stories in comic books and movies, where you stepped on a butterfly and there was an earthquake in China?
Isaac wasn't doing so well in Chemistry, he hadn't even taken Physics, so all of this was going right over his head. "Does this mean... Lydia said she and Scott were in college, like at least a year, maybe two ahead of me, are you like... is that what you remember?"
He almost prefered running for his life, honestly.