They were running down the longest corridor Stiles had ever seen. It was dark and never-ending; the only light was moonlight shining through the windows of the cells on either side of them. It shone in patches on the floor, but otherwise, they could hardly see.
Stiles had shifted his grip from Lydia's arm to her hand, and they ran down the cement corridor to wherever it led them, hoping it was a door to the outside.
"I can hear them," Lydia said, panicked. Her voice shook with both fear and breathlessness.
Stiles could hear them too. It was hard not to. They may have taken out Heather and Jaymie, but the two male wolves were pissed. One of them was blinded by Lydia, which could be an advantage, though they were most likely healing as they began chasing after the two teenagers.
"Don't pay attention to them. Just keep running," Stiles said calmly.
He got a chill down his spine despite the chaos, because he could hear Heather starting to scream bloody murder.
He really hoped he hadn't sounded like that when the poison was running through his own veins.
"There's a turn up ahead," Lydia said.
"How can you possibly see a turn up ahead?!" Stiles asked, his voice raising a few octaves with disbelief.
"You can tell by the refraction of the light on the- Oh, would you just listen to me, Stiles?! There's a turn up ahead. Take it," Lydia yelled over the sounds of their feet hitting the ground and the wolves growling and howling far behind them.
He did as she said when they reached a turn. It wasn't a corridor. It was a staircase.
They figured they should get as far away from the werewolves as possible, so they started up the stairs and Stiles had to grind his teeth together to keep from crying out. His leg was weakening more and more, and he felt the wound beginning to bleed again from the repeated aggravation and lack of treatment.
It also didn't help that it was so fucking dark in the narrow staircase.
But, he didn't want to get ripped to shreds, and he didn't want to slow them down, so he kept going.
Lydia was leading the way now, a few steps ahead of Stiles but still holding his hand tightly. When they reached the top of the stairs, they reached some kind of lobby. He figured that this would be where the main desk was when this asylum was still up and running. He would have been totally creeped out by the plastic wrapped furniture covered in dust and the eerie feeling of death that surrounded this place, but he and Lydia were too busy looking around frantically for a door.
Stiles felt something on his skin - a beautiful thing he felt like he hadn't experienced in a very long time.
A breeze. Fresh air. Where was it coming from...?
"There!" Lydia yelled. Sure enough, there was a door to their right that was blocked with plywood and wheelchairs.
Just as they heard the wolves climbing the dark staircase behind them, they bolted for the door.
Lydia was making some weird half screaming, half moaning noise now. Stiles was probably making some kind of noise too. He always hated the feeling of being chased.
He remembered when his cousins used to come over to his house and play with him in the basement, they would chase him up the stairs. Even if they were considerably younger than he was, he always had that heart-pounding feeling that something was about to grab his ankle and drag him back down.
The feeling wasn't a lot better when it was two pissed off werewolves chasing him.
"Get the- get the thingy!" Stiles yelled, gesturing wildly to the gigantic piece of plywood leaning against the door.
Lydia probably would have rolled her eyes if the situation wasn't so completely terrifying. Stiles grabbed the five wheelchairs lying in different angles and positions before the door. He threw them behind him, ignoring the stinging in his forearms. He went over to help Lydia just as the plywood almost fell and crushed her.
And then the werewolves burst out of the staircase, and Stiles and Lydia crashed out the door. Stiles grabbed Lydia's hand and held on for dear life, because he would not let them catch her. Not after all of this.
Stiles caught a glimpse of the wolves. Raynes and the other werewolf that Stiles now decided to just call Rocky, were full on werewolf, their claws shining in the moonlight and their teeth glistening. There was blood on Rocky's face, leaking from his half-healed eyes. Raynes looked uninjured, but his junk must have been throbbing.
"We'll never outrun them," Lydia whispered.
"Just shut up, Lydia, shut up," Stiles yelled, and gripped her hand even tighter. They were running through a field, the grass reaching up to his waist and making it even harder to move. Lydia was right of course, and Stiles felt the stone of upcoming death settle in his stomach even as he kept running at a nauseating speed.
The werewolves were so close now, Stiles could smell them.
And then something pulled Lydia to the ground. Her hand was wrenched from his and she screamed, long and terrified. Stiles stopped in his tracks and spun around just in time to see Raynes' face in his as Rocky was grabbing Lydia by the ankle and dragging her through the grass. Stiles punched Raynes across the face, which of course did nothing but crush his hand.
But Stiles didn't care what would happen to him, he lunged into the grass and screamed something unintelligible and grabbed Lydia's hands.
It was like the world had paused and begun to turn in slow motion.
Lydia's terrified face looked up at his and she was straining so hard to keep hold of his hands. Rocky was pulling hard enough to pull Lydia's leg off and Stiles could hardly keep himself grounded to keep her in place. At the corner of his eye, Stiles could see Raynes' leg coming down to crush his spine, but it never made it.
Stiles never tore his eyes away from Lydia's as Raynes howled and fell backwards. Stiles felt more than saw Rocky let go of Lydia's ankle and fall backwards as well.
And that's when the world caught up to normal speed again and Stiles looked up to see Jaymie sputtering and bleeding and crying, holding a knife in the air. It looked as if the knife was coated in some kind of liquid that could only be some kind of wolfs bane concoction.
Stiles caught her eye and felt the same thing he had felt only a few minutes before when he looked in to her eyes. An understanding. But he saw an awful sadness in them too. Grief. Pain. Loss.
He saw the regret that she was desperately trying to get Stiles to see.
And then she stabbed herself in the stomach with the wolfs bane blade. Her eyes flashed yellow, her face frozen in pain. Stiles' stomach flipped, his heart wrenched.
Jaymie collapsed in the grass, and she never got back up.
His heart pounding, Stiles turned back to Lydia. Her eyes were wide and shocked as she lay in the grass.
And then in one quick, swift movement, she crawled up and threw herself at Stiles and they held each other tight enough to break bone. She was sobbing, and Stiles face was frozen with a kind of shock that was taking hold of his entire body.
For now, Lydia wasn't just the girl he'd had a crush on since third grade. He didn't think about the fact the girl holding on to him right now was the one who hardly ever spoke to him or recognized his existence for years. No, this was the girl who had survived the same horrific thing that he had that no one would ever, ever understand. This was the girl he loved with all his heart and the only person he would die for without hesitation or thought. He wanted nothing more than to sit here forever and hold her like this and smell her hair, matted with dirt and sweat and everything Lydia truly was. He felt like he couldn't hold her close enough and she was gripping on to him like he was life itself and they were both rocking back and forth with a kind of unspoken trauma and relief that was consuming them both.
They sat there until the sun came up, Lydia crying and Stiles stroking her hair and ignoring his physical pain that was nothing compared to what he felt in his heart.
The loss of an innocence they would never get back. The gain of an anguish and love no one would ever, ever understand.
As much as they both wanted to get home, they were too exhausted to try. They didn't know where they were, and they didn't have the strength to get up and try to make their way back to Beacon Hills.
And there was something about lying against Stiles' chest that seemed a lot safer than her bed at home. Her bed was where she had the nightmares. Her bed was where Peter Hale would lay beside her so many times before. Her bed was where she bloodied her sheets from the glass wounds in her hands.
And though they could still see the ramshackle asylum a few hundred meters away from them as they lay in the field, it was still a comfort to see the sun rising again. The orange light cast upon the grass filled her with a warmth that she never thought she could feel again.
They had made sure to move far away from the corpses of the three werewolves.
She looked over at Stiles, who was using his arm as a pillow and had the other arm still around Lydia's shoulder in a comforting, protective position. Lydia didn't know if this snuggling counted as romantic, considering the circumstances, but for now, she didn't care what it was.
She only knew that she enjoyed it.
Stiles looked about ready to pass out, but Lydia needed him awake a little longer. She still didn't feel entirely safe being the only one awake in this field. After all, she was allowed to be a little paranoid. So, she shook him, and he jolted a little bit, looking confused.
"You okay?" Lydia asked.
Stiles was grimacing a little, like something was acutely painful but he was trying to hide it as a discomfort. "I think it's getting infected."
"What is?" Lydia asked, shifting her position to look at him better.
"My arms," Stiles replied. "Ugh, douchebags."
Lydia felt the urge to roll her eyes again. Stiles had a marvelous gift when it came to severely underestimating things. Instead she asked; "should we go?"
Stiles' reply was quick and immediate. "Oh fuck no. I think my leg is done for tonight. Or, forever, really."
Lydia was relieved that Stiles didn't want to leave the field just yet, but she was also worried. She had done a lot of first aid and biology classes, and Stiles was not getting the proper treatment. No doubt his arms were infected with those disgusting bed sheets wrapped around them, but his leg wasn't far behind.
But there was also another thing that was bugging her. Lydia noticed that whenever Stiles thought she was looking away, his mind would wander to some dark place of his. She wanted badly to know what the poison did to him and what he saw.
Stiles caught her looking at him again. "You have that look on your face."
Lydia flipped her hair behind her shoulder and looked around herself with a theatrical look of innocence. "What look?"
"That look that you use when you're trying not to say something. You get it when you're talking to Jackson and he makes a stupid comment about the laws of physics or something."
Lydia sighed. "Stiles, do you have anything to do in your spare time besides analyzing everything I do."
Stiles looked offended. "I don't analyze you. I'm just a naturally perceptive person. And I'm good with people, you know?"
Lydia raised her eyebrows, disbelieving.
"Ugh," Stiles grunted. He sat up and Lydia moved to sit cross-legged in front of him. The tall grass formed a sort of shelter around them that was both comforting and a little disconcerting since they couldn't quite see around themselves. If someone were to sneak up on them, they'd be caught off guard.
"What do you want from me, Lydia?" Stiles asked. There was exhaustion in his voice, but he wasn't irritated. If Lydia was going to ask, now would be the time.
"I had to sit in there and watch you for god only knows how many hours. I had to watch you go insane, Stiles. I just want to know what it could have possibly done to you to make that happen. I want to know exactly what I witnessed in there. I don't want to be left in the dark, Stiles. I am always left in the dark."
Stiles looked about to say something, but his words faltered and he looked down with a pained smile. "I don't understand why you would want any part in it."
"I don't know either. But I have to."
It was the truth. For some unknown reason, she had to know. Maybe it was because she had seen so much evil, she couldn't possibly believe that there was more out there to be experienced.
But Stiles had. And she just had to know.
Stiles looked back up at her and drew a shaking hand through his hair. He looked incredibly uncomfortable, and suddenly Lydia felt guilty for asking. But there was a look in Stiles eyes that said he was going to tell her.
"I had these nightmares," Stiles started. "You know, everyone has that one nightmare that they don't forget but would rather not think about for, like, ever, right?"
Lydia nodded. She knew those nightmares.
"Okay, well I don't know, that stuff must have triggered something in my head cause that nightmare came back. But it was like it was real, you know? After you have the nightmare, you still have that lingering feeling of fear, but the incident is long past. This time, it was right in front of me and nothing I did could wake me up from it cause it was like a real, living thing. But that was only the first part."
Stiles paused. He was avoiding eye contact and suddenly found himself very intrigued with pulling grass out of the ground. When his hands weren't occupied, Lydia could practically feel them shaking. But Stiles went on.
"God, I must have some really fucked up stuff in my head. When that nightmare went away for a bit, it was replaced with my-"
Stiles swallowed and looked up, still not directly at Lydia.
"My mom. I don't even understand what I was seeing but she was dead and she was angry and it was like I could feel her inside me or something. It's so hard to explain I don't know-"
Stiles was starting to talk faster, panicking. Lydia grabbed his hand and he finally looked her in the eye. There were tears there and Lydia decided that maybe she didn't want to hear.
But she didn't say anything.
After a while, Stiles started up again. "It was a little hard to believe you were alive for a while, you know. I saw them rip you apart, Lydia. It was the most real thing I've ever seen in my life and then you were right in front of me when I came out of it and I didn't understand what was real anymore. And there was this feeling like I was trapped somewhere and God, I hate that. But the werewolves must have laced it with some kind of acid or something cause I felt like I was on fire for a while there-"
Stiles giggled like he was trying to do something to distract himself from what he was saying. Lydia could feel a sense of finality like he wasn't going to say anymore, and that was totally okay with her, because she couldn't even imagine what he was saying. She squeezed his hand harder when it started trembling violently and he looked her in the face again.
He shook his head. "I'm sorry, I can't-"
"It's okay. It's okay," she said softly and she shook her head as well, letting him know that he didn't have to go on.
Slowly, she moved closer to him and put her head on his shoulder, keeping his hands in hers. She always knew Stiles cared for her, but the reality of it hit her like a brick in that moment. One of his worst fears...one of his nightmares was Lydia dying. Lydia couldn't remember the last time something made her tremble the way Stiles was, but she knew it couldn't have been anything less than traumatizing.
She'd learned so much about him in the last however many days than she had in the years that she'd known him. It was overwhelming and it scared her to death, but she felt so close to him now more than anyone else.
She never felt like this with Jackson.
When Stiles spoke, it sounded like he was realizing a horrible truth. "I'm gonna have these nasty scars on my arms to remind me of this crap every day. That's great."
There was that warmth inside her again that she was feeling for the millionth time since arriving in the asylum. She let it take control of her and consume her until she shifted to look Stiles in the face once more and she pressed her lips against his.
She half expected him to freeze up with surprise, but he responded with great enthusiasm and grabbed her face, running his hands through her disgusting hair. She grabbed the front of his shirt and they hung on to each other and kissed until they were out of breath.
She forgot about everything that had happened to them in that moment and suddenly she was the old Lydia. The one before the horror and the trauma, but with something better. Some courage and true confidence that only Stiles gave her. When they broke apart, Lydia looked up at Stiles, who looked a little stricken.
She spoke with the same bounce and sass that she used to have. "Now those scars will remind you of something a little better."
Author's Note: YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME THANK YOU SO MUCH. I have a little more of this story in store for you, so I hope you're not tired of it just yet. But seriously, how perfect is Stydia? This is the funnest writing experience I've had in a while. Reviews are still very much appreciated!
