Ship To Wreck

He wouldn’t have admitted it, but packing up his bag had left him weak as a damn kitten. Stiles sat on the edge of the bed as Lydia walked out with it, taking his bag down to her mom’s car. Grimacing, he rubbed a hand over his stomach, carefully below the bruises that still streaked across his chest in shades of yellow and green. Roscoe hadn’t fallen to pieces as they’d towed her out of the woods, that was probably the best he could ask for with the jeep though. Whatever he’d hit had near wrecked it and him.

Dragging one knee carefully up on the hospital bed, he twisted to look out the window. The sky outside was threatening. Another storm in a string of them that seemed to have been hitting Mystic Falls for weeks. So much for summer, they were gonna be lucky if they got a glimpse of blue skies again before fall. It wasn’t like he had to worry about missing out on the best weather when he went back to college now. That was as done and dusted as Roscoe seemed to be. In a week or two he’d be marching across that stage – by then he wouldn’t be hitching his step anymore, clutching at the walls when another wave of the clinging dizziness hit – his dad beaming with joy in the crowd. After that they’d all continue to scatter, but he’d take even that over not being there at all. There was nothing like a near death experience for getting to see things a little clearer.

In a couple of weeks he’d be starting some work experience at the sheriff’s station – a paid opportunity to stick his nose into everything in town, hell yeah. Come October it would be more than that, if he managed to make it to the FBI academy in one piece. Right now he’d have said he was still in a couple, although the bruises and cracked bones were already healing well enough that he didn’t do more than curse faintly as he heard Lydia’s heels clicking their way down the hallway – the sound of them had been achingly familiar and welcome each time he’d heard them up until now.

Stiles pushed his way slowly to his feet, trying to look like he was ready to bounce out of there. ”More than ready,” he puffed. As the nurse appeared he turned up the wattage on his smile – nothing to see here, but the perfectly healthy guy you were gonna let go home finally. His signature was scrawled across the form and then he was walking out with his arm around Lydia’s waist – and hers around his thankfully. ”I’m gonna miss you,” he shot over his shoulder at the nurse, twisting to turn that beatific smile on her.

Still, he let out a deep, relieved breath as they stepped out into the lot. The sky looked even darker from down here. Stiles frowned, feeling that little twitch of unease in the pit of his stomach. Cars crashed when the weather was bad, roads got slick and dangerous … Lydia was driving this time, but still. ”This is Mystic Falls. Anything anybody tells you about the place you’ve gotta think the opposite’s probably gonna happen,” Stiles quipped dryly. ”If we’re lucky we’ll be back before it starts raining. You’re gonna be OK driving.” There was no question to it – it wasn’t like he was gonna be much good if things got a bit dicey out on the roads.

With a real effort, Stiles went to take his next step forward, but he froze. There’d been a flicker of lightning somewhere beyond the car, a movement at the centre of it. Frowning, he stared at the spot with an after image of the light almost burned into his retinas. His hand gripped Lydia’s waist tighter as she spoke to him. ”Did you see someone there? I thought there was …” He’d had an impression of a long jacket, the sort of hat that looked stupid enough in Westerns, let alone in the middle of Mystic Falls. There was a scrape of sound from the opposite side of the car, the shadows that fell thick back there. ”He was tall, had a rain coat on I think. Lydia …” His throat went dry, the hair on the back of his neck rising as he tried to take a step back with her. Just beyond the corner of the car the figure came into view again, what light there was catching on the high points of a face that looked the bark of some ancient tree.

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They’d fussed about observation, making sure that the brain bleed wasn’t going to reoccur if he rushed home and did something stupid (he suspected that someone had opened their mouth to the doctors and nurses over that one). He was weak after days in a coma, and would be that way for some time to come. There were a dozen excuses out of their mouths why he had to stay put, ones that Stiles had tried to shred the same way he did any other argument he’d been presented with. It might’ve made total sense – especially when he’d tried to get to the bathroom on his own the first time he’d been left on his own and had narrowly avoided face planting straight into the sink – but it didn’t mean he’d accepted it easily. He wanted to be in his own bed, with his girlfriend, not a lumpy hospital bed, disturbed every five minutes by a nurse wanting to jab some fresh part of him.

At least she hadn’t appeared with a needle in her hand this time – for one last blood draw before he was allowed to bolt (well, at least as he could since he was still as weak as they’d predicted he would be). It was relief that had him smiling at the nurse as they walked away. ”I’m not attracted to the whole Nurse Ratched trope, but if you wanted to borrow some of those scrubs you might just get one of those smiles,” Stiles promised, his smile softer, more genuine, as it was aimed at Lydia. She got his real smile, not that feigned thing that was meant to reassure whoever he aimed it at that he was completely harmless.

Stiles was pretty sure the nurses had known it was fake from the moment they’d rushed into the hospital room to check on their newly awakened coma patient. They’d called bullshit every time he’d told them he was feeling alright, knowing that him going pale meant that one of those skull crushing headaches was back, or that him squirming in the bed meant that his ribs were nagging at him again. He guessed that working at the hospital left them all a little psychic. He made a soft pffft sound as Lydia spoke the truth. Stiles squeezed her waist lightly. ”Honestly, I’m glad to see the back of them too – in the best way. I’ve never wanted anything more than I want to go home with you.” He’d been desperately working his way towards it in those slow, painful steps.

In a couple of hours the buzzer would probably start ringing and the apartment would be filled with the pack and his dad. Maybe by then he could squeeze in a little nap and get rid of that sense of unease that came with seeing the sky so dark. His smile flickered like lightning as Lydia smiled at him, but he couldn’t keep it up the entire time. ”True, but you’ve gotta admit, it’s weirder with just about everything here than anywhere else.” Lydia could probably have reeled off facts about Beacon Hills and a hundred other places to refute his argument, but maybe she’d take it easy on him considering he was still a little fragile. And a little paranoid.

The guy was weird, even for Mystic Falls standards. Long coat, grizzled skin, creepy – and after everything they’d been through, he knew creepy. He saw Lydia look for the guy, but she was already shaking her head. Stiles squinted, scanning the parking lot again as he stepped back. A headache was already starting build at the back of his head, the precursor to an evening of misery. Probably caused by his blood pressure rising, the very thing he was meant to be avoiding. ”He’s right there! Lydia, how are you not seeing this?” Because supernatural shit never bothered to play by the rules.

Doing what Lydia asked, Stiles gripped the edge of the door, white knuckle hard, and slipped in. He’d sat down with a thump, a little more desperate to get away from the hospital now. He was fumbling the seat belt on, craning against it the minute it was clipped to try and see where he was. Lydia was rattled, all thanks to him. She wasn’t waiting to clear out of there. They raced away from the hospital, his relief growing with every corner they took. ”No,” Stiles admitted with a faint huff of amusement now that they were away from whatever that had been. ”I feel like I lost my mind for a minute back there. Maybe I did, you know? Head injury, brain’s still a little rattled, seeing things that aren’t there – it’s not like I haven’t been that way before.” Except then there had been a very real threat right in front of them.

Lightning flashed down ahead of them, the bolt sizzling its way across the sky before it seemed to lance down on the road up ahead of them. His hair stood on end, his heart fluttering in his chest – too close. Stiles shook his head, daring to glance at Lydia as he did. ”Not since back there. You honestly think there was someone there? You didn’t see anything…” Frowning, Stiles lifted a hand to rub at his eyes and flinched as he saw another bolt of lightning come down in the road ahead. There was a flash of something in the afterglow, someone. ”Stop! Stop!” He braced himself against the dashboard as the thing moved again, that long coat fluttering as one hand lifted, the gun in it visible now.

Tagged: LYDIA MARTIN * Word Count: 934

”I’m pretty sure we can get them on next day delivery from Amazon,” Stiles joked, his brows rising hopefully. ”I’m still a sick man after all.” Not that he wanted to play on that after all that had happened. He’d seen the strain of what had happened on Lydia’s face, on the faces of his dad and their friends too. They’d all been scared shitless that he was gonna die. Walking out of the hospital proved he hadn’t, but it was gonna take time for them all to accept that he wasn’t on the brink of it happening anymore.

Having been on the other side of things himself, Stiles knew it was gonna take more than those kisses and him being able to walk unaided for more than the length of a room to prove that he really was fine. In that way she’d hidden for a long time, smart Lydia could see through straight through his bullshit to the fact that just packing up to leave and getting this far was sapping his energy. Leaning in, Stiles smacked a kiss against Lydia’s cheek before he let out a pffft, then held his free hand up, fingers an inch apart. ”Maybe I exaggerated a little, but honestly, I’m gonna be better at home than I am here. I’ll be able to sleep.” With his girlfriend beside him and decent pillows – and even better, no nurses in and out of his room to check on him all night.

The storms would probably still be rolling in and out, but even those were easier to deal with when you were somewhere you felt safe rather than in a place that brought up bad memories with every antiseptic laced breath. Out here it was easier to breath, but with the storm pressing down overhead, Stiles couldn’t wait to get home. The place was creepy at the best of times, in a way that hadn’t felt quite as bad back at home. There were plenty of weird people lurking on the streets of Beacon Hills, but most of them they’d known. Here it was a mass of strangers, ones that left him feeling absolutely paranoid, especially when Lydia couldn’t see them. At least she believed him enough for her to start radiating that nervous energy as they drove away too.

Stiles felt adrenalin slam into his system as they pulled away his gaze shooting from mirror to mirror, from the road in front to the sidewalk. The longer it stretched out without the guy Lydia hadn’t seen reappearing, the more he felt like maybe the crash had just made him paranoid as hell. ”Right,” Stiles muttered as Lydia started to assure him. Neither one of them wanted to say that maybe the brain bleed had done more than just half kill him. Brain injuries left lasting damage and for someone who’d already been paranoid, maybe it was just gonna amp things up until he was jumping at every shadow.

He gripped her hand as she slowed down, letting Lydia’s calm bleed through into him. The sky above was spitting out lightning, the tingle of it in the atmosphere raising the hair on the back of his neck. Stiles shook his head, glancing over at Lydia as he dropped his hand and she assured him he hadn’t seen anything. Of course she’d believe him, but it was hard to believe he hadn’t been hallucinating when Lydia had been standing right there and she hadn’t …

Jesus, she couldn’t miss him this time. He was right there in front of them, raising a gun towards them. Stiles braced himself this time, not wanting a trip back to the hospital – he definitely didn’t want to be knocked unconscious now. As Lydia slammed on the brakes, Stiles was already fumbling with his seatbelt. ”Right there! Lydia, he’s right there. How can you not seen him?” He pointed at the road, a dozen feet in front of them. The guy was tilting his head, like he was studying them through the windshield.

The gun inched higher and Stiles threw himself down over Lydia with a screech. ”Get down, he’s got a gun. We need to get out of here. Drive, Lydia, drive right over him!” He’d just said to stop, but there was no way on hell he was getting out and trying to run on foot with an armed guy chasing them. Stiles clamped a hand over her thigh, trying to push her foot down on the accelerator, but then the guy was right there in front of Lydia’s window, his gun aimed right at him. ”Lydia, he’s right there. A fucking cowboy is right there, he’s not…” Right. There wasn’t a face under the brim of that hat as the guy lifted his head, just a deeply wrinkled mask, like he’d been carved out of a tree rather than flesh.

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He’d smirked back at Lydia as she’d bought up the naughty nurse suggestion for the uniform, the innocence he’d tried to inject into his expression not lasting for five seconds. As though he’d have got an actual set of scrubs from Amazon in place of the little white skirt and cute hat. It sure as hell would’ve drawn a line between really sick Stiles, who’d needed the constant attention from docs and nurses for weeks and recovering Stiles, who was definitely feeling well enough to joke about this stuff. A do-over for both of them.

That thought seemed pretty damn far away once they’d gotten outside and he’d seen the creepy dude. Hospitals had always ended up being nightmare spots for him – his mom spending so long in one, his own trips there when he thought he was losing his mind, and Eichen House, the worst of them all. The further they got from there and the cowboy, the better he was gonna feel.

Tension stayed knotted tight in his gut, but as soon as they got home it’d vanish like smoke. They’d lock the doors, maybe he’d even talk Lydia into curling up in bed with him. It didn’t matter that he’d spent weeks in one, at home, with her, it was different. It was safe.

For a few minutes it looked like they’d make it, maybe they’d even beat the storm that was trying to break overhead. Home was like right there and so was that damn thing. Stiles was sure his brain would fly right out of his brain as Lydia slowed the car, the ache intensifying behind his eyes. Too early for crazy shit like this, too soon to nearly die again so soon after they’d literally had to open his skull up on an operating table. Panic ripped through him the same way the lightning did the sky. Maybe he was losing it and that was why Lydia couldn’t see the guy standing in front of them with a weapon aimed right at the car. His brain was bleeding again and he was hallucinating the sort of trouble they normally ended up in.

The crack of the gun would’ve sealed it, but maybe then he’d have been dying of a bullet to his head when he finally realised he wasn’t crazy, the supernatural world was instead. Lydia thankfully trusted him instead of waiting to see how it all turned out. She stomped on the accelerator before that skeletal finger could squeeze the trigger, the car lurched forward, leaving the guy behind in the road. ”Back there,” Stiles blurted, flapping a hand back in the direction of where the car had been a second before. ”He was in front of us in the road, then he was at your window. Baby, he had a gun…” Supernaturals usually went for claws, for fangs, even for supernatural tear your arm off strength, not actual weapons.

Stiles inched up a little higher, risking a look behind them, then forward. No! The thing was riding the hood of the car, clinging onto it with one hand, the other gripping the gun. The engine coughed, the lights on the dash dimming as the engine cut out. No, no, no! It only took the car a second to stop dead in the middle of the road. ”Lydia, you need to run,” Stiles ordered. He fumbled with his seatbelt, leaning over Lydia to try and throw open her door. ”Run and get help, baby, I’m gonna be right behind you. I swear.”

He pressed a kiss fiercely to her cheek before he started to try and get out of his side, but it was too late, the gun was already going off, a green light filled the car. Stiles started mumbling nononono, clutching at himself. There was no wound but something was happening. ”Lydia…” he croaked. ”He shot me … he’s … Scott needs to get Henrik, get him to bring me back if I die. Promise me.” He was shaking, his hand reaching for her to clutch at her shirt, but something was really wrong, it was like he was being hollowed out, the bullet wound a vacuum at the core of him. Was this what dying really felt like?

Tagged: LYDIA MARTIN * Word Count: 708