Beacon Hills, October 2013.
Reese and Stiles walked in Coach's class as the bell rang.
They went to take a seat beside each other but a girl was seated at Stiles' place.
"Hi, sorry, I usually sit there." Stiles said sweetly to the girl. But she just did signs.
"She speaks sign language?" Reese asked as Stiles shrugged.
"It doesn't matter." He went to sit behind the strange girl, beside Reese.
After a moment, Stiles flipped his pages as everyone, except Reese and himself, looked straight in front of them.
The lovers shared a look before returning their attention to the coach.
"Hey coach. Thought we were in wrong class for a sec." Stiles chuckled awkwardly. But the coach started to speak in sigh language too.
"What the fucking hell?" Reese mumbled beside Stiles.
Then he talked about the fact that he didn't know sign language. But the older man just continued to do signs.
Reese gulped and packed her things. "Well, this has been good. We're probably gonna, y'know, head out." She took Stiles' hand and started to walked out.
But Stiles turned around, making Reese do it too. All the class was doing a series of signs as they looked at them. They all started to do them faster.
Then the air became more and more rare for the two. A whistle was heard, making the two jumped and wake up.
They looked around to see that they were in Coach's class but they didn't do the weird signs, they were talking. It was normal again.
"Stilinski! Olson!" The coach yelled. "I asked you two a question."
"Uh, sorry coach. What was it?" Reese asked, still shaken from what happened.
"Oh, it was, 'Stilinski, Olson, are you paying attention back there?'" The man repeated.
"Well, we are now." Stiles answered.
Then the coach said something about drinking every night but Reese's attention was more on Scott who watched the two worryingly.
"I'm okay." She told the werewolf. "You don't have to worry about me.
Scott shook his head. "You're like my sister, Reese. I don't want you to get hurt."
The Valraven smiled sweetly at him before he moved his gaze away from her to stare at his best friend.
"I'm fine. I guess we just fell asleep for a sec." Stiles simply said which made Reese nodded in agreement. But Scott didn't seem to believe him.
"Guys, you weren't asleep." Scott said, making Reese and Stiles looked at each other with concern. A lot of concern.
When they looked down at their sheets, they saw 'wake up's' written on the whole sheet.
What was happening?
✺
Now, the whole pack was seated on a table outside while Scott asked,
"Okay, so what happens to a person who has a near-death experience and come out of it seeing things?"
"And is unable to tell what's real or not?" Stiles said as he glared at his girlfriend who looked like she hadn't sleep for a while, and it was the case, just like him.
"And is being haunted by demonic visions of dead relatives?" Allison added.
"They're all locked up because they're insane." Isaac blurted as everyone looked at him with wide eyes.
"Thank you Isaac for this freaking positive attitude that you have." Reese commented sarcastically while he gave her a death glare.
Stiles nodded and questioned, "Ha. Can you at least try to be helpful, please?"
Then Isaac explained about his poor childhood, not that it wasn't interesting but they had bigger issues for the moment.
"Hi" A pretty girl interrupted them. They all looked at her and waited for her to say something. "Hi, sorry. I couldn't help but overhearing what you guys were talking about."
They all shared a worried look. Did she hear it all? If she did, they were screwed up. Very screwed up.
"And I think I actually might know what you're talking about." The girl said. "There's a Tibetian word for it." She informed but was cut off by Reese's whispered.
"Bardo." They all looked at the Valraven but she just shrugged and returned their attention on the Asian girl.
"Yeah, it literally means 'in-between state'. The state between life and death." She continued.
"And what do they call you?" Lydia asked a bit too harshly.
"Kira." Scott responded for her as they held eye-contact and smiled at each other. Everybody oddly looked at him, wondering how he knew. "She's in our history class." The werewolf simply replied.
"So are you talking Bardo in Tibetan Buddhism or Indian?" Lydia asked, again a bit harshly.
Kira took a seat next to Reese as she kept talking, "Either, I guess. But all the stuff you guys were just saying? All that happens in Bardo." She said slightly too enthusiastically. "There are different progressive states where you can have hallucinations." Reese looked at Stiles. "Some you see, some you hear, some you dream." Reese looked at the ground as Kira kept telling them. "And you can be visited by peacful and wrathful deities."
"Wrathful deities? A-and... what are those?" Isaac stopped her and pointed a finger at her as he asked his question.
"Like demons." Kira smiled like it wasn't their problem. But she didn't know so it was okay.
"Demons." Stiles repeated and nodded once before turning his head toward the rest of the pack. "Why not?"
"Wonderful." Reese mumbled as she ran a hand in her hair.
"Hold on, if there are different progressive states, then what's the last one?" Allison questioned Kira.
There was a silent before Reese's voice echoed.
"Death."
Kira nodded and answered, "Death. Just like Reese said. You die."
"Wonderful." Reese muttered sarcastically.
✺
Stiles, Scott and Reese were at the clinic to figure out what happened in the 'dream' that Stiles and Reese did at the same time.
"It sounds like your subconscious is trying to communicate with you." Deaton informed while he walked toward the operation room, following by the three teenagers.
"Well, how do we tell our subconscious to use a language that one of us know?" Stiles asked.
"Do you remember what the sigh language looked like?" Deaton questioned. "The placement and the movement of the hands?"
"You know sign language?" Scott interrogated the veterinarian. Earning a 'I know a little' from him.
Then Reese started to show the movement as the older man tried to understand them. After she finished Deaton concluded,
"When is a door not a door?"
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Reese mumbled quietly.
"When is a door not a door?" Stiles repeated.
"When it's ajar." Scott guessed.
"A riddle? Seriously?" Reese said loudly.
"Our subconscious wants to tell us a riddle?"
"Not necessarily. When the three of you went under the water and Reese the sacrifice, when you crossed from unconsciousness to a kind of super consciousness... you essentially opened a door in your minds." The veterinarian said as he glared at Scott.
"Okay, so what does that mean?" Scott asked, clearly worried about what could happen. "The door's still open?"
"Ajar." Reese realised, making Deaton nodded in her direction.
"A door... into our minds?" Stiles sighed loudly, it didn't make a lot of sense.
"I did tell you it was risky."
"What do we do about it?"
"Well, that's difficult to answer." They all frowned.
"No, wait a sec, I know that look. That's'we know exactly what's wrong with you and we have no idea how to fix it' look." Stiles raised his voice.
"One thing I do know is that having an opening like that into your mind," Deaton shook his head. "It's not good. You each need to close that door. And you need to do it as soon as possible." He advised.
Okay, so if we summarise, Scott have to control his shift. Stiles have to read. Allison have to stop shaking to use correctly a weapon and Reese have to wait for the mistletoe to disappear.
It's what Deaton tell Reese, so at least she knew what she had to do.
✺
After that the sheriff came to get help from Scott to find a girl, which didn't succeed, and learn that Agent McCall tried to get fired the sheriff, Stiles and Reese were lying on the boy's bed as Scott entered the room.
"Hey, what's going on?" Stiles asked tiredly.
"You, Reese and me. We're going to go out and find a body. A dead body." Scott replied as he turned his torch on.
It's how they found themselves in the woods, at night, walking to find a dead body.
Stiles and Scott talked but Reese didn't pay attention, she was more focus on not falling face first in the dirt.
They all stop when Stiles moved in every direction as he heard a coyote howling. This make Scott's phone slid down directly in the water.
"Sorry, buddy." Stiles muttered and continued his explanation on why he hates them.
Scott jumped to get his phone as Stiles and Reese tried to follow but finished on almost falling.
"It still works." Scott blurted.
"Let me see the flashlight." Stiles muttered once again before taking it from Reese' hands. "I think we found it." He said, referring to the Tate's family's car.
They all moved closer to it as Scott asked stupid questions, like : isn't it an evidence? And so on.
✺