Author's note: I was creeping myself out writing this chapter in the middle of the night but hopefully you guys like it and it'll be worth it. Please review if you can! Enjoy :)
Stiles.
"Lydia?" he quickly mumbled an apology when she flinched, his voice breaking the silence seeming to have frightened her.
He'd just gotten back from the kitchen with the glass of water she had requested and found her in the exact same spot she'd been when he'd left. She stood staring out the window, her arms wrapped around herself and looking just as vulnerable as she had back at the clinic. He saw how she was still shivering, despite wearing his sweater.
She took the glass he offered her with a small smile but then her eyes widened when he turned to head out the door again. "Stiles-?"
"I'll be right back," he promised, heading to the linen closet in the hallway. When he returned, Lydia was watching him curiously. He smiled gently at her and then approached her cautiously, not wanting to startle her again.
He carefully pulled the blanket around her and when her eyes met his, she looked touched. "Thank you," she whispered and he just waved it off with one of his wild gestures.
"Drink," he told her, nodding at the glass in her hands.
She complied wordlessly, taking a sip. She shivered again and pulled the glass away from her lips. "Is there ice in this?"
He shook his head. "No, but I can get you something warm. Tea? Hot chocolate?"
He saw her open her mouth to reply but is cut off by the ring of the doorbell. He frowned, wondering who it could be. His Dad was not due to come home anytime soon as the Sheriff was working an overnight shift. Scott, he knew, was out with Isaac and Derek trying to come up with a way to subdue the Alpha Pact.
He left Lydia in his room as he made his way downstairs. He opened the door only to find the porch empty. Confused, he stepped back into the house shutting the door closed behind him and briefly considered the possibility of pranksters.
Seconds later, he heard glass break from upstairs.
It was never that simple in this town.
He whipped around, hearing Lydia scream and suddenly his room felt miles away.
She was quiet as he rocked her, no longer crying into his shoulder and having long exhausted herself with her screams. He would have held her until not one part of his shirt was left untouched by her tears but he was grateful that her crying had subsided. There was something about Lydia's sobs, which were born out of nothing but pure fear, that was heartbreaking and had made his own eyes fill with tears.
It had been hours since the doorbell had rung. Stiles had raced to his room to find Lydia in a state of absolute terror. She had barely responded when he'd taken her face into his hands and he'd feared that it was the clinic all over again and she'd have to be sedated into coherency.
Fortunately, her eyes had focused rather quickly and as soon as she'd recognized him, he'd pulled her into his arms. It had taken much longer, however, for her to quiet. The sobbing had lasted the longest, fading into tiny whimpers and gasps, before she finally settled into some sort of calm. She was still as he held her now, sniffling occasionally but only the remnants of tears on her face.
Lydia's knees had given out a couple of moments after he'd surrounded her in his embrace, which was why they both sat on the ground now, in the middle of his room, not having moved from that exact spot for hours. His back had started to hurt a while back but he'd ignored it. He did not have the heart to let go of her when she clung to the front of his shirt so tightly.
So he rocked her. It was a simple movement but effective nonetheless because as soon as he'd started, Lydia's calm became tangible. Her grip on him had not loosened, but the rest of her body had relaxed. He had noticed how every now and then, she'd turn her face into his neck and he'd feel her eyelashes flutter against his skin as she squeezed her eyes shut.
She hadn't told him what had caused her screams this time. He had found her in the midst of shattered glass and damp carpet just...screaming. Screaming and crying. This, in retrospect, was not unusual for Lydia. He'd witnessed it not eight hours ago at the clinic. But this time she had not been clawing at herself and when she'd tried to speak, all that she had managed to voice was his name. Stiles Stiles Stiles. Over and over again.
He hadn't understood why she had kept calling his name like that. At first, he had just responded with assurances, telling her that he was there. And then he'd realized that it wasn't because she was unaware of his presence. She knew he was there. She had been trying to tell him something.
"Stiles…" he'd pulled back just a little so he could catch her face between his palms again and noticed how her eyes would dart around everywhere in the room. "Stiles-"
She seemed to get distracted every time after she'd say his name and by the time she'd refocus, she would begin with his name again and it became a cycle.
"Lydia, what is it? What did you see?" At first, he'd tried coaxing her to finish her sentences but soon realized that she was beyond the point of persuasion. "You can tell me, Lydia, I swear-I won't let it hurt you."
It frustrated him, not knowing what it was because no matter the number of promises of protection he offered her and his readiness to give up anything and everything to keep her safe he still had no idea what he was shielding her from.
Lydia.
She'd stopped looking up. Lydia had figured that if she just focused on one spot on Stiles' grey shirt, she wouldn't have been able to see anything else.
Lydia was familiar with monsters. She had been Peter's victim for a long time. Her ex-boyfriend was a Kanima-turned-werewolf. She had seen the face of the Darach when no else could. She would have thought that after all she'd been through, monsters were not something that would destroy her.
And yet, here she sat, on the carpet of Stiles Stilinski's bedroom clinging to his chest with a grip she was quite sure could rival a werewolf's. She had told herself that she would let go as soon as she'd stopped crying, that she would relieve Stiles' of the awkward position he was currently sitting in and his surely aching back. But she hadn't. It had been hours and her fingers had not loosened their hold on the fabric of his shirt.
There had been a flash of black that she had seen at the corner of her eyes, just over Stiles' arm and Lydia had started telling herself all sorts of nothings- not looking at it I'm not looking at it- Stiles' shirt is grey- it's grey and grey and black and grey-
She had pulled herself up a little so she could rest her cheek on Stiles' shoulder instead of his chest. She had just started to relax, having found peace for a moment, before the black had appeared right in front of her eyes.
The image of it, which she had been trying to scrape out of her mind for the past couple of hours, popped into her mind again. She feared that this face would never leave her, in memory if not reality.
It was similar to the Darach in outward appearance. A hooded being in a black cloak. The face, however, was not marred by scars. The attention catching features being ithe eyes and its smile instead, both of which were much more terrifying than the Darach's.
Lydia couldn't explain it. It was as if its eyes held a red abyss, dark and frightening and powerful and evil. The smile was so much worse. It looked malevolent and devilish and held the terror of the combined horrors of all of her nightmares. White skin, red eyes, and a smile that seemed to come straight out of a horror movie and Lydia remembered how she had no more tears left for it as it hovered before her face.
And the only comfort Lydia had found was by burying her face into the crook of Stiles' neck. Fear had kept her paralysed, kept her silent.
She was suffering in silence, but she knew that this entire experience would be significantly harder without Stiles. She found peace, however small, in him and she may have let that thing terrify her beyond belief but she would be damned if she let it take her away from Stiles.
Every once in awhile, she'd turned her cheek back onto Stiles's shoulder and the face had been there. She had not flinched. She had not screamed. She had stared at it, her face the perfect façade of impassive and then returned to hiding against the skin of Stiles' neck. Every time she'd closed her eyes, she had wished for the being to be gone. And every time she had opened them again, it had still been there, like clockwork.
If Stiles' had been curious about her movements, he hadn't showed it. Every time she dug her face into his shoulder, his right hand had come up and rested on the back of her head, his thumb stroking her hair. It had consoled her immeasurably and Lydia found herself continuing to turn into his shoulder even after the thing had apparently left, about fifteen minutes after it had first appeared in Stiles' room.
The thing that had thrown her into such a state of chaos and then left her a mess on the floor in the arms of a very bewildered boy had disappeared hours ago and it was only now that, after they both came to some sort of unspoken agreement, that Stiles shifted under her and then started to get up. He pulled her up with him and kept his arms around her as he led her to the bed, holding her up like he was afraid she would collapse if he didn't
"You take the bed and I'll-" One look from Lydia and he backtracked so quickly that it would have been comical if in any situation less dire. "-sleep over the covers?"
He probably realized that leaving her alone in his room while he slept somewhere else, however close, was not an option. Considering that she had only unlocked her fingers from his shirt just seconds ago, she was not going to pretend like she didn't need him to stay with her. She needed him to. She wanted him to.
He waited until she had crawled into his bed and gingerly laid herself against the pillows. She still had the blanket wrapped around her and Stiles made no move to take it from her. She wouldn't have given it to him, anyways. The ice in her stomach had thawed slightly in the hours spent on the floor but she still felt chills all over her.
Her eyes filled with tears as Stiles tucked her in. It had been a long time since someone had tucked her into bed and even longer since someone had done it so tenderly. He pulled the comforter up over her body and then let her hold it before standing up straight. She felt his hand on her hair for a split second before he retreated to the other side of the bed. He did not turn off the lights and she was grateful.
"Stiles?" she turned her head to face him once he'd settled on top of the covers beside her.
His eyes were gentle as he watched her. "Yeah?"
"I'm sorry. Thank you."
She hoped he could hear what she really meant by those words. I'm sorry you have to stay with me. Please stay. Thank you for not leaving. Please don't ever leave.
And she read his response in the small squeeze he pressed into her hand-always- and in the soft caress of his thumb- never.