A New Reality In Beacon Hills (Patreon)

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“Are you going to help me or are you just going to chicken out?” Theo growled, getting increasingly annoyed with the teen he had recruited into his makeshift pack. Like Theo himself and the others he had gathered to follow him, Corey hadn’t had an easy life but sometimes the younger male could be completely spineless, and it disgusted the chimera. He wanted people who could stand up for themselves and take decisive actions, not whimper and hide away at the threat of danger. Corey had a long way to go if he was going to start impressing Theo but at least he was giving him a chance to make that happen.

“You said it yourself, this is risky…” Corey murmured, all but radiating unease at the suggestion of what they were about to do. Messing with magic wasn’t the most innocent of ideas but even as far as Theo’s maniacal plans went, this was major. He wanted to change the very fabric of reality in his favor and that could bring about some dangerous situations if things didn’t go smoothly. Still, Theo had promised to keep Corey by his side in his new reality and the promise of that protection and safety was certainly exciting. All Corey really wanted was to feel appreciated.

The fact that he had been majorly crushing on the unfortunately straight Theo since their paths had first crossed certainly didn’t help either. How was it fair that guys like Stiles Stilinski could soften the hearts of big brooding hunks like Derek Hale but Corey couldn’t even get Theo to look twice at him?

The hard glare that Theo levelled at Corey sent a shiver down the smaller teen’s spine. “Are you in or out?” his alpha hissed, the muscles in his face and neck tensing. It was certainly threatening to behold but Corey saw a beauty in it too and he knew that ultimately, he would do whatever the other asked of him.

“I’m in,” Corey confirmed with a stiff nod of his head. Theo relaxed into a smile, knowing precisely why the other had agreed to help him. It was hardly a secret that Corey had fallen in love with him and while Theo had absolutely no feelings in return for the other, he was more than happy to use Corey’s crush to his advantage. It was just another way to get ahead in life and Theo had never been shy about using whatever he could in order to get what he wanted.

At the very least Corey was right when he had declared that what they were planning to do was risky. Beacon Hills was a hotspot for magical energy, helped in particular by the presence of the Nemeton, which made it the perfect place to rip a small whole in reality itself and stitch it back together precisely as Theo saw fit. The ritual was complex and took time to complete but Theo had been thorough in his preparation. He’d recruited Corey merely because he needed a second person to donate blood to the ritual and to keep his physical body unharmed as he left the mortal world to play with the threads of reality.

Reaching up to hold Corey’s chin in a touch that was deliberately tender, Theo flashed one of his most brilliant smiles at the other. “I’m going to give you everything you want,” he promised, his eyes sparkling with mischief. Corey gulped and nodded, accepting that the next few hours were probably going to be either the best or worst moments of his entire life.

Some time later…

Stiles had woken up to find things were wrong. Very, very wrong.

Even worse, he couldn’t quite pinpoint what about the world was wrong, there was just a twisting feeling in the bottom of his gut that assured him that something was different from how it was supposed to be.

He kicked off the sheets and looked around his tiny bedroom, hating how imprisoning those four walls felt. The family home was small, barely enough for himself and his parents, but they couldn’t afford much else given both his parents were earning barely above minimum wage in dead-end jobs. They had been pressuring Stiles to find work too in order to help them pay the bills – they argued that he doubled the cost of their electricity bills by playing on his PlayStation so often – but nowhere seemed to want to hire him. He’d even applied for a coffee-making job at the sheriff’s department and had been laughed out of the place by the deputies who all towered over him.

Every now and then Stiles had dreams that he was in the sheriff’s department, but things were not how they were in reality. In those dreams he was the son of the sheriff and welcomed by all of the deputies, especially that handsome Deputy Parrish, whose uniform was always so tight around his hard muscles. The fact that Stiles had ended up blushing and stuttering in front of the other before his interview there probably hadn’t helped his chances much, now he came to think about it.

In truth, Sheriff Stilinski did have a son, but Corey had never even looked twice in Stiles’ direction. The young man had an absolutely ideal life that Stiles couldn’t help but be resentful of: he had a loving father, was a surprisingly good lacrosse player and he even had a brooding hunk of a boyfriend in that Derek Hale! Stiles meanwhile was a perennial bench warmer for the lacrosse team and couldn’t even get a guy to look at him twice, let alone make out with him and hold him in their strong arms.

Worse still, Corey had one thing Stiles desperately wanted: a best friend who genuinely cared. The closest thing Stiles had to a friend was Scott but even that was incredibly strained. Scott was quick to anger and always placed the blame on Stiles, even if the smaller teen had nothing to do with it. There was no doubting that Scott was emotionally abusive towards him and even used Stiles’ crush on him to take advantage of him but what could Stiles do? All of the other kids at Beacon Hills High perceived him as an outcast – nobody wanted to deal with his weirdness.

Corey, on the other hand, had Theo: co-captain of the school’s lacrosse team, a complete ladies man and secretly a True Alpha werewolf. It was that last point that always made Scott the most irate. Like many of the teens in Beacon Hills they were ingrained in the town’s supernatural side but Theo was at the very heart of it as a natural born leader of a pack and the hero who had stopped countless villains from attempting to use the power of the Nemeton for evil. Of course, Theo and Scott had come to blows on a number of occasions, but Theo had always triumphed and Scott became more frustrated than ever, blaming his latest failure on Stiles.

Across town, Corey relaxed back into the strong arms of his boyfriend Derek. He could faintly remember leading a different life, one very different to the one he now led, but had no desire to hang onto those thoughts. He had everything he could possibly want: a hunky boyfriend, a caring best friend and a promising future in the sheriff’s department. Maybe one day he’d even be sheriff too!

Theo meanwhile was thrilled at his final – and ultimate – victory over Scott McCall. Now he was the True Alpha, while Scott was just another failed experiment of the Dread Doctors who was terribly jealous of him. He had stitched reality back together precisely as he wanted it and now all of Scott’s family and friends belonged to him while his former rival had to suffer from his dark past and never being trusted by anyone again. Stiles had been deliberately pulled into the changes too as a little reward for Corey too and at least he no longer had to worry about the other’s feelings for him as Corey was quite content dating Derek rather than pining for a straight guy, even one as handsome and charming as him.

For Theo and Corey, life was good. 

For Scott and Stiles though, they could only continue to wish that the dreams they had of living better lives were a reality. Alas, that would never be the case.