Dreaming With Your Eyes Wide Open

The clock was ticking down and not just until he could get out of the world literature class that had been a last ditch effort to round out his class load when the end of summer had been approaching and Stiles had been fairly sure he wasn’t going to get into a single damn college. World literature sounded like it was going to make him look widely read but the truth was he couldn’t remember a single character name from Don Quixote. Now, the concept of tilting at windmills was faintly familiar as the teacher had droned on about it but twenty minutes ago even that had faded into the sort of muted buzz that was instant white noise to his tangled brain. His legs kicked at angles under the desk, his thumbs tapping out a slow, quiet rhythm on the scarred wooden top of it, Stiles stared at the clock with his mouth faintly open. A minute and thirty seconds until the bell would sound, allowing him to shoot out of the class like a bullet from a gun. Twenty nine … twenty eight … twenty … Mr Stilinski. What? Clapping his mouth shut, Stiles glanced back, found the teacher staring at him with narrowed grey eyes. It should’ve been terrifying, the gorgon like death stare but having moved on from the Odyssey a fortnight ago Stiles was pretty confident that he wasn’t going to turn to stone. ”Sorry … just thinking about …” he groped for a name from the book, his own narrowed eyes squinting at the blackboard looking for inspiration. ”…Sancho and his … uh …” The scrabble for something remotely appropriate dried up, his voice trailing off again. The teacher’s mouth thinned before her lips peeled back. Stiles squirmed in his seat, tugging his notebook back towards himself, slowly flipping the cover closed.

Any venomous words or threats of detention were drowned out by the first clang of the bell. Stiles wasn’t sure he’d ever been gladder for the sound. Huffing out a sigh, the woman rolled her eyes skyward. He felt sorry for her, honestly he did, but sympathy wasn’t even to keep him in his seat as he scrabbled out of it and joined the rush for the door. This time of day it was like someone had pulled the drain and practically every student in the school was flooding out of the front doors like they were caught in the mad cyclone of water. Usually the pull would’ve drawn him with it, tossing him up back in his bedroom to spend his evening hunched over his laptop, researching everything but Don Quixote, or at Scott’s front door making sure that his best friend hadn’t managed to get turned into puppy chow … again. Stiles’ gaze raked the hallway as he broke into a jog. He caught sight of Riley’s lanky frame coming out of biology, his arm around Danny’s shoulders and Allison heading for her locker too but there was no sight of Scott and none of Bonnie either. Fingers crossed that meant that they were off somewhere together, being ridiculously cute and moon-eyed, and staying, for the love of God, out of trouble.

Really he should’ve been aiming to do the same but as he finally spotted who he was really looking for at her locker Stiles knew that was an impossibility. Him trying to stop himself doing that was like Lydia stopping herself from finding dead bodies. They both knew it was going to happen no matter what they did to stop it. The only question was how they were going to channel those particular talents. Stiles was pretty sure the answer today was going to be … together. Seeing Lydia starting to move away from her locker Stiles cursed under his breath and tried to dodge around a couple of the football players who were proving why they were in the state championships this year by blocking the hall. ”Lydia, hey, Lydia! Wait up. Aw, come on guys.” The last couple of words emerged in a whine. Stiles shouldered one aside finally and trotted down the hallway. He puffed his cheeks out as he slowed to a stop in front of her. In his chest every time he looked at her lately probably wasn’t the answer she was looking for. Something had begun to shift sideways between them, shifting further when she’d ended up spending the night on his couch with him and he’d kissed the tears right out of her in the way she’d once stopped his panic attack, but they hadn’t shifted that far yet and there was no guarantee that it would ever get that far. ”Under my ass, as always. What are you doing tonight?” he asked, lips quirking at the corners finally as he narrowed his eyes at her. ”I’ve got plans and you should totally have plans too … with me.” Shoving his pack further up his shoulder with one arm Stiles held the other hand out, palm up, fingers wiggling, encouraging her to take it.

Tagged: LYDIA MARTIN * Word Count: 843

Even before she’d come out as a genius Lydia had been the sharpest tool in the box. Some hadn’t seen it through the veneer of air-head high school queen she’d slapped on until everything had started crumbling around them but Stiles liked to think he had. At the very least he’d felt just how much of a weapon Lydia’s bluntness could be. That’d been before they’d been anything but adorer-adoree to one another, before Lydia had even learned his name. How much things had changed since then was honestly, seriously, mind blowing, but still, some things were the same as they’d ever been. Derek was still scowling 24/7, his dad was still working almost every hour, trying to solve things that most would’ve just closed the book on, and danger still hung around them all like a bad smell. It would’ve been easy to blame the Hales and the Argents for that but Stiles knew that it wasn’t that easy. Their little feud might’ve been what had dragged them all into this mess in the first place but honestly, barring Peter, Gerard and Kate, he couldn’t blame any of them for what had happened. They were all innocent bystanders and even now they didn’t deserve the trouble lingering around them in the town. That didn’t mean it was his job to keep that trouble at bay and his friends safe but honestly, how was he meant to stand by and watch it happen?

He wasn’t. Simple as. Which was why he’d hared off down the hallway to try and catch up with Lydia. She’d been feeling the weight of it all on her of late, her sleep as disturbed as his had been at times. Kissing her to stop the tears that’d emerged as the dam had cracked and dragging her on to the couch to catch a couple of hours sleep with him had only been temporary measures. Stiles knew he had to do better than that to avoid the tumble down the slippery slope. None of them were heading anywhere near it again, even if it meant doing faintly risky stuff like heading out into the woods. If it came with the added benefit of getting to spend a little more time around Lydia and perhaps seeing where this … shift … was going between the two of them then that was just the cherry on top of the sundae. Seeing her smile set that flutter in the pit of his stomach going even before he managed to make her laugh at the idea that maybe his ass was just a little hot … in slightly other words. Hands slipped into his pockets for a moment, Stiles raised his brows hopefully. It would’ve been an easy enough matter for Lydia to turn him down. His brows hitched higher for a moment as she asked what the plans were. ”Uh…” he managed, tugging his hands free before he stood there gawping for too long. ”A little fresh air, some exercise maybe … dinner after if you’re up for it …” It was the truth wasn’t it? There was plenty of fresh air out in the woods, a walk would give them an appetite and they both had to eat at some point.

At this rate he was gonna have to tape his mouth shut. Lydia had agreed with far less argument than he’d expected. Stiles clapped his mouth shut as she actually reached out and took the hand he’d offered. The grin was instant, broad enough that those poetic souls amongst them might actually have called it beatific. ”Technically,” he admitted as he drew her towards the front door of the school. ”It’s a little trip out to the woods. I’ve been reading up on a few things … some of the things banshees are meant to be capable of and I figured it might be a good time to test some of them out. You know, give us some offence advantage here.” The hand he wasn’t holding on to Lydia’s with rose, scratching faintly at the back of his neck as he tugged her out of the path of a couple of freshmen. Tucking her closer to his side Stiles headed for the parking lot. ”I know neither one of us has exactly got a great track record with that stuff but practice makes perfect right?” And maybe, just maybe, knowing there was something she was capable of doing other than playing bloodhound for them all when it came to dead bodies, it would give Lydia the peace of mind to sleep better than she had been.

Tagged: LYDIA MARTIN * Word Count: 769

For longer than was sane it had felt like they were on the back foot with everything. Things kept swinging for them all and they were practically on their asses each time before they got a lucky hit in and managed to take back control. Stiles was pretty damn sure he’d lost count of how many times people had almost died, including himself. He might’ve lost count of those they had lost too but each and every single one of them, including Allison, especially Allison, had haunted his dreams. Not just since the nogitsune had taken advantage of the open door in his mind to turn him into a hand-puppet either. The dreams had been there before that, leaving him tossing and turning more nights than not, etching shadows under his eyes and leaving him just convinced enough that he was losing his mind that he’d asked to be locked up in Eichen House.

Moving to Mystic Falls, getting Allison free was supposed to have been a fresh start, an opportunity for them all to put their heads down and get through senior year without them losing anybody else but that idea had gone out the window. They didn’t even have Fluffy on their heels when it had happened. Unless Niklaus Mikaelson had earned himself a new nickname. That one, Stiles imagined, would’ve left him bitter enough to start ripping out throats instead of snatching hearts out of people’s chests or undoubtedly hinting that beating werewolves into submission would get people into his good books. Thanks to Bonnie Scott had come through it all but they weren’t always going to have a witch or even Scott here. He and Lydia were the weak links in all of this and that meant unless they were going to stay on the back foot the two of them had to do something about it.

Undoubtedly Lydia wasn’t expecting her afternoon to end in the way he’d suggested, in fact, the notion of some fresh air and exercise was met with the same sharp, dry wit that used to turn his throat into a desert and have him gawping at her. Now he tilted his head, trying to a poor man’s version of Scott’s big brown puppy dog eyes. ”Come on, this is a hundred times better than a gym. All that fresh air, some sight seeing … and a whole afternoon and evening with me. I mean, what’s not to like?” Raking his teeth over his lip Stiles wondered for just a moment whether the sports field or even his own back yard would’ve been a better idea. Both were too overlooked though, the risk of somebody hearing Lydia scream or seeing what she could do way too high. They had big enough targets on their backs anyway, he wasn’t about to make them any bigger. ”Just consider going back out there like getting back on the bike. I used to enjoy heading out to the woods back home. Didn’t you?” The word no was ringing through his head even before Lydia hinted at it. She’d never been the sort to see camping as anything but a chance to roll around in germs all night. Lydia had been a princess beneath she’d revealed that warrior underneath.

That warrior had become one of his best friends but the feelings he’d worn on his sleeve for years hadn’t entirely disappeared. They’d re-emerged, slightly less obsessively, definitely less blinkered, of late. His affection was another of the reasons he wanted Lydia to stay safe, and what had his heart giving a jackrabbit kick in his chest as he laced his fingers with his and guided her out of the school, keeping her safe from idiots and leading her towards Roscoe. There was a faint trace of embarrassment over the jeep still but like a decent guy he opened the door for her when they got there, only wincing slightly at the groan it made. ”I’ve been out there a few times in the last couple of months. Not on my own … most of the time. There’s a couple of places I think are safe enough and well away from prying eyes.” With Lydia safely in on the passenger side he jogged round the front of the jeep, climbed behind the wheel. As if Roscoe knew he needed it the engine started first time and he had to resist the urge to fist pump. ”Have you .. you know … tried anything since we got here?” Stiles peeled a hand off the wheel, flapped it in the direction of deeper into the woods. Strictly talking, he had, poking his nose in where he shouldn’t and finding himself in more than a little trouble. Fingers crossed he didn’t need to be rescued by a girl again today.

Tagged: LYDIA MARTIN * Word Count: 800

There should’ve been a fresh start after they’d decided to move en masse to Mystic Falls. Sure, they’d had the demon to deal with but they hadn’t known the true scale of the supernatural troubles here until well after they had the demon exorcised and Allison was laying in the hospital in a coma. Perhaps they should’ve run when it all became apparent, when Riley had been snatched and used in Klaus’ little ritual but it would’ve been a matter of locking the door after the horse had bolted at that point. So they made the best of it. He’d made a promise to his dad that Stiles knew he’d never be able to keep one hundred percent, and absolutely hadn’t so far. They’d all settled into the new school, trying to keep their grades up until they graduated. Perhaps most important of all they’d tried to watch out for each other, their pack, the others they’d met here in town. Him planning to drag Lydia out into the woods with him now was all in the name of that. She could crab about it all she wanted, they were going. Stiles shot her a look, his mouth drooping at the corners as she practically whispered at him. ”Since you’re gonna be out there finding them anyway isn’t it better to get some practice in?” he asked, flapping a bit with his hands. ”Find the lay of the land, maybe come up with some way that you’re not gonna be heading out there on your own in the middle of the night?” Find some way to fight back instead of constantly feeling like they were running away from something.

OK, that last might’ve just been him. Scott probably hadn’t run away from a fight since the night he’d been bitten. Before that they’d been pretty similar, two goofy kids who couldn’t even get popular-clique adjacent. It had taken Allison to build that bridge and stop him from just mooning over Lydia at a distance. Stiles shook his head as he blew out a breath that was meant to regain him a little of the near non-existent patience he’d been born with. ”You look like you enjoy long weekends at the spa,” Stiles countered, knowing he wasn’t giving Lydia her full credit there. ”Look, if I knew somewhere else in town to try this out I would’ve said forget the woods but when you want privacy around here, it seems like that’s about it.” In town there were too many sets of eyes and ears that could sense more than any organ ever should’ve been able to. That included his dad’s and the Sheriff’s. ”There are some bits out here that aren’t that wild, we’ll just head far enough out, somewhere I can park up.” If necessary, after he’d dropped on his knees and begged, he’d carry Lydia on his back to avoid lectures on ruining her heels.

Thankfully it hadn’t come to that and the engine had started without it’s usual five minutes of choking and gasping. At that point Lydia probably would’ve balked and made her escape before he could chase her down and go knees to blacktop. Stiles goosed Roscoe forward cautiously but there was no need, the jeep managed perfectly well as he pulled out of the school lot and headed in the direction of the woods. His fingers tapped lightly on the wheel, his teeth denting his lower lip until Lydia said she thought she was doing everything that banshees could manage. The grin split his face instantly, just enough wickedness to it to make the blood of anybody who knew him run cold. ”Not even close he crooned.” Grimacing faintly, Stiles looked away from her, out at the trees as his own admission began to slip out. ”I’ve been researching since we got here. Like deeper than the bestiary. Nightmare kinda deep, and I found out some things. I mean, half of them might be total bull but it’s worth testing them and seeing right? Did you ever manage to do anything else when you were screaming?” Like shattering objects or driving people to their knees with their ears bleeding. The sites he’d gotten into were pretty arcane and on some occasions confusing but bits and pieces of what he’d found had been backed up by that book he’d stolen from the store.

Tagged: LYDIA MARTIN * Word Count: 728

Going solo had been dangerous from the moment Peter had emerged from his coma and had decided to make himself the all powerful Oz by biting a whole bunch of teenagers and building himself a pack. Getting separated that night meant that Scott had been the one bitten and every time one of them slipped away on their own since only gave something an opportunity to try and strike. The nogitsune had known it and it was one of the reasons it had taken Lydia. All that power in one incredible little red headed package and the way that none of them would ever have left Lydia on her own with an evil fox spirit. The thought of her being alone out in the woods here in Mystic Falls, where there were even more bodies turning up on a daily basis than there were back in Beacon Hills, had Stiles grimacing and scrubbing a hand frantically over the back of his head. ”We could arrange that maybe,” he muttered. A pack wide net, a GPS chip, just making sure that Lydia was absolutely never alone. That last one had its appeal and there was a chance Lydia might let it happen occasionally.

There was a better chance of him suddenly becoming her shadow than her enjoying actually being out there. Staring at Lydia, Stiles waited for the other shoe to drop, the grimaced. Spas were definitely female territory, all those scents, all that nail painting, massages … actually, that didn’t sound so bad. ”Do I look like I pay attention to that stuff?” Stiles asked, grimacing all the same. ”You can find out, you can totally go to one, but you start screaming the place down to try and get yourself trained up’s not gonna end well.” People would look at her like she was insane, some might even start muttering around psych wards, just as they’d done back home. They never wanted to consider that there was something inhuman about what was going on. Way easier to bury your head in the sand than admit that the world was a scarier place than you’d ever imagined.

Lydia might not’ve had a clue who he was when Scott had first been bitten but that’d changed since. Now Stiles was pretty sure she knew him as well as he knew her. That made her question all the funnier. Stiles snorted as he took the twisting road through the trees carefully. ”A weekend with too much time on my hands,” he said honestly. ”And with everything else going on here I figured we needed to power up. I think Scott thinks I’d reading too much into it all but something’s building up here and I don’t want us to be caught with our pants down again.” Maybe it was bordering on paranoia but he’d been right about Derek’s girlfriend hadn’t he? He was right here too. Something was coming and maybe Lydia had the sort of power that could give them an edge.

Mouth curving at the corners Stiles looked sideways at her. He hadn’t just poked half heartedly at all the legendary stuff about bnshees. He’d gone full on Pulitzer prize deep about the whole thing, getting himself into bits of the internet he honestly never wanted to see again. It was amazing what people put out there with the truth barely disguised beneath cover stories. ”Kinda,” Stiles admitted, tipping his head back and forth. ”It’s all about vibration though. You scream loud, you make their ear drums vibrate violently and they start to bleed. A little more focus and that vibration can be turned on just about anything … I think.” That was what they were about to test. Pulling up into the woods Stiles wondered whether he should’ve bought ear plugs with him. This was probably gonna get painful. Grumbling under his breath at the oversite he scrambled out of Roscoe and reached behind his seat for a bag. ”You can do anything you put your mind to,” he promised as he approached Lydia. Stiles lifted a hand, his smile twitching into place as he reached a hand up to cup her cheek. ”I’m not gonna go poking you with sharp sticks or anything but I honestly think you can do this. Trust me?” It was a question he’d asked before, one he knew the answer to after all they’d gone through.

Tagged: LYDIA MARTIN * Word Count: 733

Imperial Lydia might have had the freshmen scattering when she turned that frosty tone on them but he’d really known Lydia long enough now not to be cowed by it. Stiles met Lydia’s eye, trying to paste on a poker face of his own. This was their deal, all of their deals now. Nobody got to go walking into the lion’s den without someone to scream ‘what the hell are you doing’ and yank them out of there. That included her. Dropping his chin, Stiles looked at her with his attempt at a poker face. ”Security cameras and motion sensors?” he suggested, knowing that was twice as bad. Unless Lydia was permanently shackled to somebody there wasn’t going to be any way to watch her twenty four hours a day. It didn’t make the thought of her getting into trouble any easier though. She shouldn’t have been going through all of this, she should’ve been getting pedicures or taking yoga classes … not going to bed hoping this wasn’t the night she woke up in the middle of the woods. His mouth crooked up at the corner as the notion of the two combining had her laughing at least. ”You never know,” he quipped. You could always end up with a murder in a nail place. Nail files at dawn or something.

It wouldn’t be any worse than any of the other things they’d face over the last couple of years. Seriously, whoever would’ve thought there were ghost ninjas controlled by evil werefoxes? If there was one thing all that weird shit had taught them it was that they couldn’t sit there ignoring all of this stuff that was happening around them. They had to be prepared, had to know what they could do so that when that crap hit the next time they could do something about it without one of their friends dying. Raking his teeth over his upper lip as he drove, Stiles snorted at the idea. ”Would be way easier if we were…” His mouth hung open as he considered it, bringing the game to mind. ”You think that’s where they got that fox tail idea? Kitsunes I mean. Get a tail, get all these crazy powers?” Go totally off topic if you weren’t careful. He shook his head to push the thought of supernatural game designers out of his mind. This was about making Lydia as powerful as possible so she didn’t end up in the same situation again. He’d planned it and Stiles knew he would’ve been an absolute idiot if he hadn’t considered that he was going to be in the blast radius. ”I always carry protection,” he lied, only faint spots of colour brightening his cheeks. If he was lucky there’d be something in his bag he could use.

Going into this blind and unprepared would’ve been freaking dumb and while he might’ve seemed it on occasion, that honestly wasn’t him. Hours of research, to the point where it’d felt like he’d be bleeding out of his eyes if he wasn’t careful, and Stiles was pretty sure he had a handle on what Lydia’s powers could entail. They had distance so that half the town weren’t drawn here by Lydia’s screams and he had enough praise stored up to keep Lydia’s confidence up for days. Stiles smiled as she lifted her hand to touch his. ”I’ve always got your back,” he promised, sweeping his thumb over her cheek, ”and your ego.” He grin brightened as Lydia drew his hand down from her cheek and kept it in her own. Tugging at hers at her prompting he led her towards the trail that ran up amongst the trees. ”The kind that comes from all of you getting that what the hell look in your eyes whenever I suggest stuff,” Stiles said honestly. ”I mean, throwing the lacrosse balls at Scott and getting him beat up only happened once. That was before I knew what I was doing.” These days he had more experience and way better toys. Some of which he’d already set up out in the woods. ”I promise that all of this is safe. I was out here yesterday getting stuff ready.” Brown eyes sought out the trail that led off to the clearing he’d found. He drew Lydia closer as he moved onto it, his heart beat kicking harder as he waited for … it. The trip wire he’d put across the trail set off the little ‘trap’ he’d set, a mannequin suddenly swinging down across their path, almost knocking both of them on their asses.

Tagged: LYDIA MARTIN * Word Count: 766

Dial this back a few years and he might’ve made good on his threat. Back then it might’ve been a little more about spying on the object of his affection as it would’ve been keeping Lydia safe. The latter had definitely become his focus after he, Scott and Allison had practically dragged her into what was going down in Beacon Hills. He smiled beatifically now, fluttering his lashes about it. They had bigger fish to fry when it came to keeping Lydia safe now, different ways of doing it that weren’t gonna involve him having to coming up with an excuse to feed her mom about why he was sticking up secret cameras all over the place. Lydia had her own early warning system, although the damn thing was fritzy as hell until the death part actually happened and then the entire town would know about it.

Knowing what she’d gone through with that multiple times Stiles knew he had to give her another weapon to deal with it. Maybe Lydia hadn’t wanted to go out to the woods to get her hands on it but it was the easiest place for him to try and coax it out of her he figured. Lydia still didn’t seem keen about it as he drove them towards the woods but at least it seemed as though she was ready to laugh about it. Stiles raised a brow at her, glancing back and forth between her and the road with his mouth hanging open until he snapped it shut again. ”She probably wouldn’t tell me, would she?” he asked, maybe a little too seriously. His lips twisted, his eyes rolling as Lydia smirked at him. ”It’s not that far a leap. Both are kinda magical and I’m pretty sure Kira’s mom could take on Bowser if she really wanted to. She’s bad ass.” Still, even with all those years of experience Kira’s mom hadn’t been able to get the nogitsune out of him. It had taken Scott in the end. Stiles huffed out a breath at the thought, worming his fingertips into the short hair at the back of his head for a moment.

His hand dropped away as he held it up in innocence to ward off Lydia’s worries about what he was going to make her do bursting his eardrums. Sure, he had a reputation for rushing into things but he wasn’t an idiot. He learned from his mistakes and he wasn’t intending on making another here. Stiles glanced sidelong at her, swiping a finger across his chest. ”I swear, I’ve got something,” he lied. If he didn’t then he’d call this off, maybe find some other way to do it that wasn’t going to result in Lydia thumping him when he ended up rolling around on the ground with blood pouring from his ears. At a distance maybe it would’ve been fine but that wasn’t the way he’d been planning on working here. Once they were at the top of the trail he’d go digging through his bag and hoped he’d get lucky. Nothing before that should drive Lydia into banshee overdrive. It might nudge her part of the way there though.

With his hand wrapped around Lydia’s Stiles began to lead her up the trail. He knew where the traps were coming and practically heard the snap when the thin wire set across the trail broke and let the mannequin free. Stiles still felt his heart leap into his throat as he stepped aside. Lydia dived away, hitting a tree as the mannequin swept past them. It flew up into the trees, then cannonballed back in the other direction, its ever shrinking arc keeping his gaze until he heard Lydia snap at him. Instantly the faint smile on his lips fell away, both hands rising in the air. ”Not fun, not really!” he promised, a faint yelp to his voice as he took another step back. ”It said shocks too. The website said shocks, emotions. The scream’s a part of you and it’s not just tied to the you know … dead. You should be able to use it at will, as a weapon. I thought maybe if I scared you enough, it would let you tap into something.” Dark brows drew together as he stepped back out onto the path, holding his hands out towards her. ”You’re OK right? I didn’t get you hurt with that…” Concern deepened his frown as he realized that maybe this had been a bad idea.

Tagged: LYDIA MARTIN * Word Count: 753