Chapter Text
It had been a year since the hell that was the last night of Hackett's Quarry summer camp, the time in between a blanked out blur of stress, grief and recovery. The first couple of months of their fantastic brand new traumatised lives were spent in custody of the police and pleading their innocence in and out of courtrooms.
Despite the media desperately trying to prove their guilt, theorising what really went down that night, they got out of every crime they had been charged with after Ryan's favourite podcast used the evidence they had all collectively sent in to prove their innocence. "The cosmic space gods" Jacob had half-heartedly joked the last time Ryan had seen him.
His phone buzzed once beside him, then a second time and a third. He picked it up, scanning the text on the screen. It was three text notifications from Dylan, all of them with an unholy amount of typos; how did someone even mess up their spelling that bad?
Dylan and Ryan had been dating for 8 months now. When Ryan had finally gotten permitted to visit him in the hospital, Dylan (who had been extremely high on every painkiller known to man) had immediately lit up when he had entered the sterile hospital room.
"Can I help you with anything?" He had asked at the time (which he realised now was an awful question to ask when your the reason the person was in hospital).
Dylan didn't think about his answer for longer then a second before saying, "You can help pick the time?"
"Pick the time? For... what exactly?"
"A date. I think I've earned at least one," he said before following it up with, "Oh, and your number too, by the way."
He put his phone back down.
He was sitting on the bathroom floor, knees pressed up against his chest, squeezed tightly by his arms wrapped around them in a desperate attempt to curl up in a small ball and forget.
He planted his head in his hands and took a deep breath. He couldn't mope and cry forever no matter how much he wanted to, he had a life to live, a family he needed to help care for.
But even though he had people who understood him, a boyfriend who went through the same trauma, and his family who were more then supportive and understanding, sitting alone on the floor just before midnight made him feel very alone.
It was this night last year everything happened, 'a needed hurdle in your journey to recovery' as his therapist had said, but he wasn't feeling like there was much recovery going on, just a lot of emotions and breakdowns on all levels.
He removed his hands from his face and pushed himself off the floor, but as he began to move towards the door, his world became a sickening blur of colours and weird wobbling shapes. His ears wouldn't stop ringing and the light of the bathroom had suddenly become extremely intense.
He stumbled forward, his head spinning at the sudden movement. His fingers had just brushed the door handle before everything came to a crashing stop, or more realistically, he came to a crashing stop as he met the ground with a muffled thud.
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18:52 | AUGUST 22 | RYAN
Ryan was having what was probably the most peaceful sleep he has had all year long, the dulled throbbing pain in his head barely noticeable with how relaxed he was.
Wait.
His eyes shot open, the bright light of the sun immediately making him regret it. He blinked rapidly, sitting up a little too fast and with a little too much force, making his growing headache feel twenty times worse.
Ryan looked around, a tight feeling growing in his chest. He was lying at the front door of the lodge, that one very specific summer camp lodge. Everything was different in a sense, though.
Ryan had made the mistake of going on social media after the whole ordeal and was immediately exposed to thousands of videos and posts about him and his former coworkers. Although, a very specific video had drawn his eye from the sea of content, which was: 'exploring THE Hacketts Quarry summer camp (urban explorers)'.
Watching it had been... an experience, to say the least. The entire building had been covered in crude graffiti, previously untouched windows had been shattered and what remained of the furniture had been broken and even burnt in some cases. Chris would've been distraught if he had seen the state it was in. After that thought, his mind had strayed to Chris Hackett's limp werewolf form and he had very quickly closed the tab.
But now, everything seemed to have been magically restored. No sign of spray paint, glass, ash, broken furniture or even blood stains from one of their countless injuries.
Everything was perfect. Like it had been before.
It was horrifying.
Suddenly, there was a loud groan from beside him. He looked over, panic rising in his throat, but he relaxed as soon as he saw who had made the sound. "Ahh, shit, what the fuck was..." The culprit's voice trailed off as he met Ryan's gaze with wide eyes. "Hey! Is that you, Ryan?"
Ryan gave him what he hoped was a pleasant smile, "Hey, Jacob, what's up?"
He hated how casual that sounded seeing as he had just randomly appeared in the middle of the place where his entire life was simultaneously remedied and ruined after passing out in his house but that's what his and Jacob's friendship was. Extremely casual;
After that night, Ryan hadn't planned to reach out to any of the ex-coworkers, but Laura had refused to let him leave the courthouse without a promise of keeping in contact, stating: "I know you've got this 'brooding loner' act but the least you owe me is your number or something."
Max, her boyfriend (that reminded Ryan of a kicked golden retriever puppy), had eagerly agreed, "I don't know you that well man, but you seem like a cool guy so it'd be great to get to know you."
Then, Jacob had welcomed himself into the conversation and excitedly offered up his number and handle on literally every social media app that existed.
After that, he had met up with the three of them a couple of times and even though Jacob still annoyed the shit out of him, his unchanged optimistic attitude accompanied with his lack of social awareness was oddly comforting. He was just genuinely really nice to be around.
"It's great to see you again and all but like..." Jacob's voice trailed off as he looked around before meeting Ryan's gaze, a nervous smile on his face, "how did we get here?"
Ryan opened his mouth to reply but he paused, because the truth is? He didn't fucking know.
He passed out on the night that just happened to be the same night that marked the first anniversary of the day his life as he knew it ended. And then he wakes up in the last place he ever wanted to return to.
Was it a coincidence? He stopped believing in those a while ago.
He recouped himself before replying; "Uhh —-well, to be honest? I have no idea. Last night, I just kinda randomly passed out."
He stood up, suddenly aware of the fact he was sitting on the floor, helping Jacob up after him.
"Oh, dude, seriously?" He murmured a quick 'thank you' before his face lit up, "That's what happened to me too! It was like I had taken the holiest kush with the shit I was hallucinating and then boom! Here I am!"
Ryan's face scrunched up as he tried to translate what Jacob had just said into basic English, but it didn't take very long for him to decipher that Jacob had experienced the same whacked out shapes and colours he had.
"Yeah, that's a... way you could put it." He clapped his hands together awkwardly as he put together his next sentence but whatever he had in mind to say next immediately disappeared when the front door opened without warning.
In came Kaitlyn Ka, aggressively fiddling with her phone muttering something along the lines of "Stupid dumb brick, what are you good for?" Before looking up at the two boys, who were very subtlety gawking at her.
"Hey, aren't you two meant to be preparing for the party or something?" She raised an eyebrow in annoyance but her face quickly melted into confusion as she looked the two up and down. "You guys look... did you get changed while we weren't looking or something? Also, wait, Jacob where did that beard come from, I—" She cut herself off as she seemingly kept finding more and more irregularities.
Not that she was lacking in them herself. Jacob had told him that Kaitlyn had burnt the clothes she and him had been wearing that night in Jacob's backyard (much to his dismay), and had a much shorter pixie haircut in a random photo Jacob had shown him.
But right now, she was wearing the exact same outfit as she had been that night, her hair was the same as it always was and was weirdly relaxed.
He glanced over at Jacob desperately, hoping he somehow knew what was happening but he didn't think he could look more lost if he tried. Jacob met his gaze, holding it for a moment before turning back to Kaitlyn, a new scary amount of confidence painted on his face.
"Ohh, yeah, right, but aren't you supposed to, umm —- supposed to be preparing too?"
Ryan resisted the urge to punch the guy right in the face. "Smooth..." he mumbled, which earned him an elbow to the ribs that he couldn't dodge in time.
Kaitlyn watched them with an unreadable expression, eyes narrowed as she shoved her phone in her pocket in favour for crossing her arms. She didn't stay quiet for long though, deciding to grace Jacob's fumble with an answer.
"Yeah, well, someone, and when I say someone I mean you, Jacob, someone didn't give me anything to do when they started to dish out the party planning," She said, every word dripping in passive-aggression, "But I was gonna go check out the fire pit and wait till you and Emma came back with the drinks."
Every word she said raised alarm bells, one after the other, and the way Jacob's face paled into a sickly shade of green told him he wasn't feeling any different. She was talking about that night but in the present tense, like it was the present.
Not that it wouldn't make sense; The seemingly magical repair to the lodge, Kaitlyn's shifted appearance and the way she was speaking, there was no normal not-supernatural explanation to this.
Or maybe Ryan listened to too many supernatural podcasts.
He cleared his throat, formulating the words in his head before speaking. "We're just talking about the... about the van." He couldn't help but feel bad as he watched Jacob's facial expression shift in guilt. They all had made bad choices that night; Dylan needed to be reminded that constantly when he felt guilty about the whole party suggestion instead of listening to Mr H's warning.
It was all the Hackett's fault anyway.
Wiping the image of the crumpled body of Chris from his mind at the thought of the Hackett's, he began idly playing with his hands. "We're going now anyways," he said, trying to catch Jacob's attention so that he stopped staring at the floor like it personally wronged him.
He perked up suddenly, "Yep, better catch up with... Emma!" Even though he had said that,
he didn't move from his spot like his feet were glued to the ground. The confusion didn't last long though, once he realised.
Jacob had his ankle crushed in a bear trap before the hunters found him and locked him in that creepy red dungeon, which Ryan hadn't realised until after he returned with Laura form the Hackett's house. Due to how bad the injury was, it damaged a lot of ligaments and tendons and broke a lot of bones, meaning he had to learn how to walk again. Even after he recovered, he didn't escape getting around with a limp.
And if Kaitlyn was already questioning them, Jacob having a limp wouldn't help.
"Well, uhh —- yeah, I gotta find Dylan too so." He looked at Kaitlyn, then back at Jacob, "See you at the campfire, Kaitlyn."
She squinted at them, but didn't say anything, crossing her arms. Jacob slid his arm around Ryan's shoulder, hitching it around his neck to make it look more like a buddy-buddy side hug when it was really just Ryan struggling to drag half of Jacob's weight out the door.
Once they made it down the stairs, Jacob put his arm down, freeing him from being crushed. They stood in silence for a few moments before the obvious elephant needed to be mentioned.
"Okay, so, what the fuck is going on?" Jacob was the first to break the silence, "'Cause like, if I didn't know any better, I'd say we've gone to like —- like the past or something."
"Dude, I literally don't think there's any other explanation." Ryan didn't mean to sound as exasperated as he did, but, to say the least? He was totally panicking. "I mean, obviously it can't be that because, what the fuck but... the way Kaitlyn was talking..." He trailed off.
"Hey, maybe we should actually try to find others, like Dylan and stuff," Jacob said the before adding, "I mean, seeing them might just 'ya know, prove we're in the past?"
Ryan wanted to disagree, because, really? Time travel? How is that actually possible? But after everything he's experienced — real werewolves, real curses and real witches — how could he draw the line at time travel?
He found himself slowly nodding, "Alright, but if that's the theory we're going with..." He took a deep breath before continuing, "...what if we run into ourselves?"
A funny thing about Jacob is you could always see when the cogs in his brain stopped and started moving, like watching the insides of an old rusty machine trying to function.
"We'll... cross that bridge if we get there?" He offered unhelpfully, which earned him a frustrated sigh from Ryan. "Oh, I don't know! Just like, hide or run, I guess."
Ryan let out another sigh but agreed with a nod. "Let's look for Dylan."
Jacob smiled and suddenly Ryan wanted to punch him. "You just chose him cause you wanna see your little boyfriend!" Ryan groaned and Jacob laughed but didn't say anything else as they headed in the direction of the cabins.
Ryan knew very well that if this was the past, him and Dylan would be in Chris' office probably bickering over Dylan's weird infatuation with holding the damn shotgun, but if they had gone straight to the office, there was a chance he'd come face to face with himself and just the thought of that happening sent chills up his spine.
"Hey, is that actual Kaitlyn over there?" Jacob's voice caught his attention as he followed his gaze over to short figure standing in the middle of the path they were walking up, staring at something in her hand. "What's with her and her phone?"
Ryan snorted, knowing well that he was obsessed with his phone too. "Call out to her, dude," He murmured, only because he didn't want to do it himself.
Jacob shot him an annoyed look, "Why do I have to do it? You do it!" He whispered back loudly, which caused a very middle schooler back and forth of "You do it!" "What? No, you do it!"
"I can hear you, by the way." It was almost comical how quickly they stopped bickering to turn to look at her. It probably would've even been funny if he weren't dying of embarrassment.
She was standing in front of them now, arms crossed and wearing the smuggest look he's ever seen. Her sudden appearance was relieving, because, well, her physical appearance was how it was meant to be.
Short hair, unfamiliar clothes and a worn out look in her eyes that probably matched his own.
He was dragged out of his thoughts as she raised an eyebrow, "Checking me out, Ry-guy?"
Ryan cringed, which caused Kaitlyn to laugh, apparently taking delight in his suffering.
"Well, we found the real Kaitlyn, that's for certain!" Jacob huffed, before adding, "And just letting you know, you never getting a man."
Kaitlyn seemed to have anticipated that kind've response from him because she immediately shot back with, "Says the guy who can't even land a one night stand... oh, that rhymed! I should've been a—" She paused all of a sudden, staring at Jacob like he was a ghost, before looking back at Ryan "Wait, 'real Kaitlyn'? What do you mean by that?"
Jacob and Ryan exchanged glances. "Uhh— well, we kinda saw you earlier, but not you, like... past you? At least, we think. We don't actually know..." Ryan explained poorly and he watched as Kaitlyn's expression grew more alarmed, "But basically, we think we've gone to the past."
She took a moment to digest what Ryan had stammered out, open and closing her mouth as she went to speak but couldn't find the words.
"So, what you're telling me is you think you saw me from the past and now you think we're in the past." Kaitlyn said slowly, her eyebrows knitted together.
"Yeah, that's—that's right."
"Well, shit, I thought we drew the line at werewolves." She eyed them both, hands on her hips, "I don't know if I believe that, I mean, I haven't seen anything indicating that we are actually in the past, but... after that and everything that went down I guess anything's possible."
Silence fell over them. He wasn't sure whether it was because there was nothing else to add or because of the fact she mentioned that night.
Him and Dylan had spoken about it, spoken more about what happened in the hours between the pool house and the eventual reunion at the lodge but they avoided speaking about the supernatural side of it and generally steered clear of it as a silent way of moving on together.
"We're looking for the others, seeing if they’re also here," Ryan said eventually, rubbing his hands together idly, "Do you uhh— wanna come along?"
Kaitlyn didn't answer for a moment but she ended up shrugging, "Yeah, sure, why not. It's not like I have anywhere else to go."
Jacob smiled, back to being perky again, "Heads up, Kaitlyn, he's really just looking for Dylan." Ryan didn't hold back elbowing him hard in the ribs this time and he found much satisfaction in hearing Jacob yelp.
They started walking again and no one spoke until they got to the open space of the cabins. "So wait, why are we looking for the others? They might not even be here," Kaitlyn asked, stopping just after crossing the wooden bridge.
"I want to look for the others but I guess their... past selves? If that's the theory we're going with," Ryan replied uncertainly, before adding, "Plus, what else can we actually do...?"
Kaitlyn looked like she wanted to say more but she stopped herself, resigning herself to just muttered a very unconvincing sounding "Okay..."
Before taking the lead, apparently done talking.
"Hey, wait, where's Jacob?" Ryan looked around, catching up to her.
"What?" She turned back to him; scanning the area before rolling her eyes so aggressively they probably would've rolled out of her head if she tried harder. "For fucks sake, he must've wandered off like some dementia patient out of a nursing home." Ryan huffed out a laugh at that.
Suddenly, a cry sounded out from the trees ahead them, high pitched and distraught. He knew better then to panic, since it was still broad daylight but he was on edge being in Hackett's quarry of all places. He and Kaitlyn exchanged glances, silently agreeing to investigate.
Coming out at the fire pit at the other side of the cabins, there was no sign of anybody around besides the distressed far away voice echoing through the forest. Could it be Eliza? Not now, surely. She doesn't come out without the veil of the night, does she?
The voice got closer. Ryan feels like he's going to have a heart attack.
The words the voice was urgently repeating became clear as the person came into sight from the trees ahead. "Oh my god, what— you'll be okay, I promise, we just gotta get to the nurses office and—"
"I-I know it doesn't look fine but I swear I can explain!"
The familiarity of the voices almost made him pass out with relief. It was Dylan, his Dylan and a rather pale Abi.
Abi looked the same as she had that night, just like Kaitlyn back at the lodge. Red hair, cute bat backpack and she looked like she was about to pass out, eyeing at Dylan's lack-of-hand as she needlessly helped him down the stairs.
She noticed Ryan and Kaitlyn, awkwardly standing at the bottom on the stairs, her voice shaky as she stammered over her words, "O-Oh my god, guys, you gotta get Mr H back here or—or get some kind've help!" She tried to take a deep breath but it seemed to just make her panic worse, "H-How did something like this happen?"
Dylan's face lit up as he spotted Ryan but didn't address him, instead went on trying to console Abi, who was looking at him all wide-eyed.
Ryan felt bad for her, he really did. Dylan all of a sudden had no hand and he and Kaitlyn were just casually idling around like it was normal. She probably thought they'd gone into shock or something.
"Well, I'd say this confirms your theory, Ry-guy," Kaitlyn said in the most chill way possible, before reaching over and she giving Abi a comforting pat on the shoulder, as if this wasn't literally the worst outcome possible.
The second the sun goes down, they're all fucked.