"Moving in the Dark"

Lucawindmover

Chapter Seven

"Show Me How"

…continued…

"So the bodies were the same?" Scott asked, watching his best friend pacing back and forth.

Stiles glared at him, pausing in the middle of his bedroom. "What? No. Oh my god, were you listening to anything I just said? This body was a guy. The first body was a woman. I'm failing to see how they're the same to you."

Scott, who was sitting in the computer chair, groaned and closed his eyes. "Okay, not the bodies. The wounds. The wounds were the same."

Stiles threw his hands up in the air and continued his pacing. "Yes. Thank you. The bodies were different but the wounds were the same. Big hole in the middle of the body that went all the way through. No blood. No fluids. And this guy was just as shriveled up as the woman was. It was really gross and really weird."

Lydia was watching this unfold from Stiles' bed. She'd propped his pillow up against his headboard and made herself comfortable, curling her legs up underneath her. She hadn't really moved since Scott had come in, asking for the details about the body they'd found. She really had nothing to add. Stiles had done the actual investigating while she'd dozed in the Jeep. She could give him no other pertinent details.

She kind of felt like dozing right now, despite the boys' loud conversation over the state of decomposing corpses. The adrenaline of finding the body had long since worn off and now she was exhausted. Between the sandwich that she'd had, which was way more amazing than she intended let Stiles know, and the cozy bed she was nestled in, she was surprised she wasn't already asleep. If it weren't for the promise that Stiles had made to tell her about this vision with his mother, she might not have fought it so hard.

But as she watched him pace and take his frustration out on his best friend, she knew that she couldn't back down. She had to make him tell her. He was going to break. He was going to end up with another panic attack and she couldn't guarantee that she'd be around to pull him out of the next one. She could see it in the tremor of his hands, hear it in the vibrato of his voice. Stiles was trying to hold in too much. He was trying to shoulder too many burdens.

And Lydia needed him, whether she'd ever admit it out loud or not. She needed him whole and healthy. It had taken her a long time to come to that realization and she wasn't comfortable with it yet. But the friendship she had with this goofy, warm, lovable idiot was the most important relationship in her life right now. She loved her parents and Allison was her best friend. But Stiles had somehow become her center. He grounded her. And if something were to happen to him, she would have no idea how to orient herself.

Tether.

The word suddenly made so much more sense to her.

Scott frowned when his phone rang. He stood and pulled the device out of his pocket, walking out into the hallway to take the call.

Stiles shoved his hands in his pockets and plopped himself on the foot of his bed. He still hadn't looked at her. Not since his revelation. She didn't know why he was so nervous. Surely he wasn't worried about what her reaction would be. She had also seen someone who wasn't alive. She definitely understood how that felt. Which led her to believe it was something else bothering him, something else holding him back.

Stiles turned toward her, making eye contact for the first time since Scott had shown up. "You doing okay over there?" he asked.

Lydia shrugged. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"I mean, you know. You just look a little tired," he continued, reaching up with one hand to rub the back of his neck.

Lydia rolled her shoulders a little. She really was tired. "Stiles, I said I'm fine."

"Are you cold?" he asked, noticing the way that her legs were tucked beneath her. "I mean, you can pull the blanket up if you want."

"Stiles!" she said, throwing her arms out. "I said I was fine, okay?"

"Yeah, sorry. Sorry," he said, holding his hands up in his defense.

They could hear Scott pacing in the hallway, talking heatedly to whoever was on the phone. Lydia wasn't sure if Stiles could hear what was being said but she knew that she couldn't.

"It's just that you've had two wailing incidents pretty close together," Stiles said, unable to drop the conversation. "And I worry about how it affects you, okay?"

Lydia furrowed her brow. "Affects me? What do you mean?"

Stiles shrugged. "You know. I mean, usually you get all twitchy for a couple of days. You either eat a ton or don't eat at all. Most of the time it seems like you can't focus. I'm just concerned about how wailing two times this close together will, I don't know, magnify things? I mean, I don't know that it will but I'm just kind of worried about it, I guess."

"You noticed all of that?" she asked, crossing her arms and staring at him, thoughtfully. "I mean, not even Allison seems to notice the side effects sometimes."

Stiles laughed. "Well, no offense to Allison or anything but she's not, you know…." Stiles slowed his sentence down and Lydia watched as he started to blush. He swallowed hard and cleared his throat. "She's in love with Isaac these days. Not completely observant of the world around her."

Just then, Scott burst back into the room. "Sorry guys, I gotta go. I need to beat some sense into my stupid goddamned beta."

Stiles jumped up from the foot of the bed. "Whoa buddy. What's going on? What happened?"

Scott paced from the door to the window before stalking over to the computer chair to grab his motorcycle helmet off the floor. "You want to know what Isaac and Allison were up to this afternoon?"

"Uh, probably not," Stiles replied with a grimace, taking a step back from his friend. Lydia had to bite her lip at his reaction to keep herself from laughing, despite the tense energy in the room.

Scott stopped and whirled around and for the first time Lydia saw his eyes flash red. She'd known he was the Alpha, intellectually, but she'd never really seen him transform. She was suddenly reminded that this was a huge responsibility for a teenage boy and she wondered if he'd be able to hold it together.

"They were out in the woods tracking the murderer!" Scott shouted, throwing his hands up. "They thought it was a freaking good idea to be out there, all alone, and following the thing's goddamned tracks. I swear to god, I'm going to kill them both."

Stiles took a few steps forward, waving his hands in front of him to get Scott's attention. "Hey, hey. Calm down, okay? You don't really want to kill them."

"The hell I don't!"

"Scott!" Stiles yelled. The pacing Alpha werewolf stopped and growled at him, his fangs menacing in the enclosed space. Lydia felt her stomach clench in something akin to fear. She didn't have to be a wolf to understand that warning. She kind of felt like hiding her face behind her hands while they sorted this out but she couldn't even move.

Stiles grabbed his friend's upper arms and shook him a little. "You have to hold it together man. Answer me this. Did they get hurt?"

Scott clenched his jaw, his nostrils flaring. "No," he said. His fangs had retracted but his eyes still red.

Stiles let go of him but didn't step back. "Are you pissed because they could have gotten hurt or is it because they were out there without you?"

Scott closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them again, they'd shifted back to their usual shade of chocolate brown. "I don't know. Can it be both?"

"Okay. So you have the right to be pissed. They were stupid, but then again we are talking about Isaac here. Not the best track record when it comes to making decisions," Stiles said. "But you don't really want to kill them. You love them. We need them. Remember? We're already short on werewolves? And I'm pretty sure Mr. Argent will end us all if you take out his daughter. Am I right?"

"Ugh!" Scott groaned and threw his hands up. "When the hell did you become the voice of reason?"

Stiles shrugged but before he could reply, Scott turned to Lydia, pointing a finger. "You. It's you. I totally blame you. Somehow, you've rubbed off on him and made him all logical."

Lydia smirked and looked down at her hand, pretending to be interested in her nails and hoping her receding fear wasn't too obvious. "Oh no. Nope. I am so not getting pulled into your bromance squabbling. You two can figure this one out all on your own."

"Yeah, and she's totally not rubbing off on me. I still don't care about handbags and little dogs," Stiles replied, waving toward her distractedly. "Just go over there and talk to them," Stiles said. He grabbed Scott's motorcycle jacket off the back of the computer chair and tossed it to the werewolf. "But calm down about it. And don't go killing anyone tearing around on your bike. Please?"

Scott caught his jacket and headed out into the hallway. "I'll be fine."

"I'm serious, Scott. You drive like a crazy person when you're mad. Be careful, okay man?"

"Yes, Dad," he replied as he left.

Stiles leaned out of his doorway, shouting down the stairwell. "Don't make me take your keys young man!"

Lydia couldn't help the smirk on her face as he came back in the room, shutting the door behind him.

"You're good at that, you know," she said.

"What?" he asked, glancing back over his shoulder. "Shutting doors? What can I say, it's my puny human super power."

Lydia rolled her eyes. "No, talking Scott of the ledge."

"Oh that?" he said. "Nah, that wasn't a ledge. He wasn't even that mad."

"Are you kidding?" Lydia said, sitting up a little straighter. "He was half-transformed."

Stiles shrugged. "Yeah, but not because he was mad. He was worried. Whenever he's worried he tries to pass it off like he's pissed. But usually he's not."

"How could you tell the difference?"

"He's my best friend," Stiles replied. He turned and kicked his shoes off, leaving them by his closet door. "What kind of best friend would I be if I couldn't tell the difference?"

Lydia bit her lip and watched as he shrugged out of his long-sleeved flannel shirt and left it draped over the back of his computer chair. She suddenly realized that she was cold and took his advice, pulling his comforter out from underneath her and bringing it up over her lap.

"If you two are such good friends, does he know about the vision you had?" she asked. She had to do it. If she'd left it up to him to resume their conversation, she was pretty sure it wouldn't happen, regardless of whether or not he'd promised.

He closed his eyes for a moment and sighed. He turned away from her and took a seat on the floor, scooting backwards until he was leaning against the side of his bed. His head and shoulders were next to her knees but she couldn't see his face as he spoke, which she figured he'd done on purpose.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, he knows."

"Does he have any opinions on it?"

Stiles laughed a little but there was no humor in it. "I don't know. Maybe. But he hasn't shared them with me. He…ugh. He doesn't want me to get my hopes up. I'm pretty sure he thinks I imagined it."

Lydia watched as he drew his knees up and rested his elbows on them.

"You know," he said softly. "I don't talk about her much, my mom. Not even to Scott. Hell, not even to my dad. And it's really stupid, I know that. But ever since I was a kid it's just like, I don't know. Like if I didn't talk about her then I could just keep her all to myself. I guess it's selfish maybe. I didn't want to share her. But I mean I guess my dad felt the same way because he doesn't talk about her either."

He was quiet for a moment.

"It's not stupid," Lydia said. She had the urge to reach out and touch him, reassure him. But she didn't know how.

"Yeah, it is. I mean, I know it is. Talking about her doesn't mean I'll lose those memories that I have. I know that it doesn't," he said. He paused to swipe the back of his hand across his eyes. "And now? God, I don't even know. I swear, Lydia, she was right there. I could have touched her again. Hugged her or something. And she was telling me something so important. I know she was. And now it's freaking lost to the abyss that is my stupid ADHD brain."

It was more than she could take. Lydia scooted down the bed a little until his head was even with her shoulders. She pulled the pillow down with her and got comfortable. And then she did the only thing she could think of. She reached out and ran her fingers through his hair.

He sighed and scooted down a bit, letting his head fall back on the bed. She pulled her hand away, unsure.

"No, don't stop," he said with his eyes still closed. "That felt really good."

So she reached back out and pushed her fingers through his hair again, letting her nails scrape across his scalp a little. His hair was a lot softer than she'd suspected it would be. She found that it felt good to her too, to be touching him like this. To be offering some sort of support, some small bit of comfort. She watched as another set of tears squeezed from beneath his eyelids and trailed down toward his ears. Without thinking about it, she reached forward with her thumb and wiped them away. He took a deep, shaking breath and smiled a little.

"I'm a baby, aren't I?" he asked. "I mean, I feel like I'm always crying around you these days. What is with that?"

"You should never be afraid to let people see you cry," she said, remembering the time when he'd said those same words to her. She felt a smile playing on her lips. "I think you're beautiful when you cry."

He cracked a grin, a genuine smile, and opened his eyes, looking at her upside down. "Oh my god, I really said that once, didn't I?"

"Yup," she said. "It sounds a little more corny the other way around though, doesn't it?"

He laughed and lifted his head. He turned around a little, regarding her thoughtfully. He leaned on the edge of the bed and pulled his comforter up around her shoulders, tucking her in. "You look really tired."

She was about to protest but couldn't because she was overcome by a long yawn.

"Look," he said. "You just take a nap. I'm gonna sit here and read these stupid pages."

Lydia sighed and watched him grab the closest stack of papers. He settled back down with his back to her again. She slid her hand out from under the covers, finding his hair again, and was pleased when his shoulders seemed to relax at her touch.

"Stiles?" she said sleepily, letting her eyes drift closed even as her fingers continued to play with the hair at the nape of his neck.

"Hmm?" he responded.

"We're going to figure this thing out," she said softly. "About your mom. We're going to find her, okay?"

She heard him sigh, heard the shift of the papers in his hands. "Thanks, Lydia."

"Hmmhmm," was the last thing she remembered saying as she started to doze off.

"What do you mean, we're leaving?" one of them said as he followed closely behind the first one. They looked nearly identical, though if he used senses other than his eyes, he found it was quite easy to tell them apart.

The first one turned around to face his brother. "I mean we're leaving! Leaving Beacon Hills. There's nothing here for us anymore. We should just move on."

In his bird form, he flitted from tree to tree, watching these hybrid intruders as they made their way through his forest. There had been far too many people in his forest today. Young humans, more investigating humans, the interesting man, and now several of these wolf-human hybrids. He followed this pair along as they argued, hoping that they wouldn't bother the surrounding plants and animals. He didn't have the strength to take on two of these hybrids together. He would have to feed several more times before he would have the strength for that. But he trailed after them anyway, keeping track of where they were going and what damage they might be leaving in their wake.

"You mean there isn't anything here for you," said the second one. He crossed his arms and frowned at his brother. "Because I can count a number of things that I have to stay here for."

The first brother turned away and scoffed. "Yeah, whatever. Like what?"

The second brother held up his hand, ticking off reasons on his fingers. "Well, there's Danny. There's the chance to be normal for once and get an education. There's the invitation to Scott's pack."

"Ha, Danny!" the first brother said, turning back to face the second. "Right. I forgot. You're in love. And how do you think it's gonna go when you have to tell him you live in an abandoned warehouse?"

"Well we wouldn't have to if we joined the Beacon Hills pack," the second brother said, throwing his arms out wide.

"I didn't realize that an invitation to the pack also came with room and board," the first brother said with an eye roll.

"Look, Aiden, what is this really about?" the second brother said, crossing his arms again. "It's Lydia, isn't it?"

Aiden scoffed. "Right. Like I would let a human get under my skin."

"We both know she's not human," his brother said. "And we both know that she did get under your skin. Otherwise you wouldn't be so determined to leave."

Aiden growled. "So what? So what if I do care?"

"Then we should stay," his brother said, stepping closer. "She's a reason to stay."

"You don't get it," Aiden said with a sigh. "She picked the useless one, batboy or whatever his name is. She doesn't want me. She wants him."

"Stilinski?"

Aiden rolled his eyes. "Oh god, you even know their names? Yes, Stilinski."

"Hey, listen to me for a minute, okay?"

Aiden sighed. "What, Ethan? What could you possibly say to change my mind?"

Ethan looked away for a moment, considering his next words. "Look, we can't kill him. Scott would rip us limb from limb. But if you want Lydia back, there are other ways. Less messy ways of getting what you want."

Aiden growled again, his eyes flashing in the evening light. He turned and punched a nearby tree, showering himself in pine needles as they were shaken from their branches. "Are you sure we can't just kill him?"

"I'm sure," Ethan answered.

"I don't know, okay?" Aiden said, running both his hands through his hair.

"Can we at least stay until you do?"

The answer wasn't audible, though. From above them, he saw them both tense and turn their heads in the same direction at the same time.

"You smell that?" Aiden asked his brother.

"Yeah," Ethan answered. "Look, I don't want a confrontation. Let's just go."

With that, the hybrids left his forest in the opposite direction from whatever they had smelled. But he was curious. What could possibly make these two wolf-humans decide to leave? He wasn't sad to see them go, especially after the one had damaged his pine tree, but he was curious anyway.

He didn't have to fly very far to find the cause, though it truly confused him.

It was a human female and another of the hybrids. The two brothers should have easily had the strength to overwhelm these two. And yet they'd left instead. It hadn't seemed like fear. So what was it?

He took a moment to observe the ones in front of him. The girl was completely human and yet she was following tracks in the forest in the same way that a seasoned hunter might. His keen bird eyesight took in the prints that she was following and realized that the girl was tracking him. Those were his prints in the leaves on the forest floor.

They were tracking him? Were they related to the humans investigating near his second meal? He wasn't sure. He was discovering more and more that he didn't understand the humans of this era. They were all very complicated and continued to behave in ways he couldn't explain.

But when the hybrid rolled the human over his back and pinned her to the ground, he could smell their intent even from the distance of the forest canopy. This was behavior that he understood. They were about to mate. He could smell it. He didn't want humans and hybrids mating in his forest. He didn't want them in his forest at all. Surely they could find somewhere else to do this thing.

So he called out, shrilly, with his bird's voice, hoping to startle them enough to make them leave. It seemed to work.

He didn't bother to follow them to the edge of the forest. Instead, he flew back to the place that made his heart heavy. Seeing two beings with such intense feelings for one another had reminded him of his beloved.

Her flowers still bloomed where his tears had fallen. He shifted from his bird form to his human form and laid across her stump, across her lifeless body, and sobbed. How he would have loved to have children with his beloved. How he would have loved to live in this forest with her, watching over their home and keeping the balance of nature.

But she was no more. His heart filled with sorrow and he screamed into the air.

And as his tears fell to the ground, more flowers bloomed.

A field full of flowers. A field full of sorrow.

"Don't wanna let you down but I am hell bound. Though this is all for you. Don't wanna hide the truth."

"Demons" Imagine Dragons

Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Wolf, nor do I profit in this story other than working at becoming a better writer. I do not claim to own any of these wonderful characters. They belong to the creative genius Jeff Davis and the various copyright holders.

A/N: Does anyone else's heart hurt? This chapter hurt my heart. Please let me know what you think.