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They’re on wolf-watch.
It’s September again and the pack is enjoying the full moon. They’re all more than trained by now; every one of them can resist the change. The feeling of power and the rush of adrenaline is too good to pass up on a night like this. A night where you don’t need a flashlight, even the middle of the woods. A night that feels like it might go on for hours more than it should.
Lydia can barely see straight she’s so tired… no, not tired. Content.
Lydia is content to sit here in the car, with the windows rolled down and the pack howling in the distance with Allison at her side. The perfect silence between the two supplemented by Stiles inane chatter over the radio two miles away, sitting in his own jeep with Danny. The humans of the pack protecting the wolves while they obey their instincts for just the night.
Tomorrow they will all be back at school, leaving Derek to the task of deciding whether his childhood home has enough good memories to be saved. They will be back to Chemistry and dating.
Lydia isn’t sure about where she likes to be more.
In school she knows all the variables; she can account for every scenario.
Out here, looking through a moon roof, she knows almost everything. She doesn’t think about that though. She doesn’t feel helpless or out of balance. She feels like she’s safe.
Miles from anything, but sitting next to Allison waiting for something that will never come she feels protected.
“It’s so clear out,” Allison wonders staring up at the same sky.
Lydia wants to say something about weather patterns and water molecules, instead she says “It won’t always be.”
“What do you mean?” Allison says looking down from the sky. The light from the stars is lighting up her hair now, highlighting the braid holding back her hair from her face. Her lips are revealed and Lydia thinks she must have been biting them they look so bright.
“I mean, it won’t always be like this. Things won’t always be so clear. It’s already cloudy.”
It takes a minute for Lydia to understand why she’s admitted this. She never feels the need to share; she’s been comfortable keeping herself to herself since she could remember. But this is Allison, and if anyone could ever trust anyone else, Lydia could trust Allison.
“I know what you mean. Things used to be simple.” She gets this look in her eye and Lydia just knows she’s thinking about Scott and her parents and the way everything ended. Lydia knows she still can’t think about it too long before it hurts. She doesn’t want Allison to hurt.
“I think they’re better now though.” Lydia says looking away from Allison out of the car and into the woods. “Everyone is better now.”
“Derek at least seems to be smiling more,” Allison laughs.
“Stiles has that effect on people,”
“He’s better to; I think he likes being a part of something,”
“Everyone does, it’s a part of the human condition to seek people to be close to, we’re social animals the only way we survive is through cooperation…or manipulation, either work really.”
“I was never really sure which you preferred,” Allison admits softly wondering what Lydia’s doing. Lydia never opened up like this.
“I know I preferred the latter. Now, I’m not so sure. I’m not really sure who I am anymore. After everything that happened with Jackson and Peter, it feels like everything that was me was taken away. Even the bad things, even the things that I hated, I still miss them.”
Somehow Allison is the one that starts crying. She never really is crying but the look is clear on her face. The eyes full to bursting that make even breathing without letting a tear spill an Olympic sport. mouth open, unbelieving. Eyes understanding.
Lydia doesn’t know where she belongs anymore. She’s lived in one world her entire life and that place doesn’t exist anymore. The house she built herself from a foundation of snark and walls of seclusion looks a little too much like Derek’s for comfort. And there is a new place sure and it’s warm and comforting and she’s beginning to trust it, but she doesn’t. Not yet at least. So for now she’s homeless, comfortable only out here in the woods surrounded by monsters and hunters.
Allison reaches over the console, rubbing her hand against Lydia’s until the concession is made and hands wrap around one another as if they were glued. Then Allison crawls across the car, hunter training clearly paying off, and suddenly Lydia is enveloped in more than just a hand. Allison takes her whole body, attempting to soothe Lydia…or herself, neither really cares which.
“You’re my best friend you know that right?” Allison asks suddenly “You are the only friend I’ve ever had like this.”
“This isn’t friendship.” Lydia did not mean for it to come out quite like that, her voice cold, eyes far away. She’s pretty sure that she didn’t mean to say anything at all. The look in Allison’s eyes when the brunette pulls back from the hug though is something else.
Allison looks like she’s on the edge of an epiphany.
She moves forward. Slowly closing in on Lydia’s space like she’s trying to ask something but not ask it.
Lydia moves back. She’s already confused enough. Tonight was supposed to be simple and she’s had enough of people not telling her what she should know.
“Can I?” Allison starts trying to find the words she’s not used to needing to express. Scott never asked and never needed to be asked, they just did. Lydia is different; Allison wants it to be different. “Would you like it if I…”
“Yes”
Lydia is sure in an instant. She knows what she wants and this time no supernatural event will stop her from getting it. Only Allison could stop this, and Lydia is almost certain stopping is the last thing on Allison’s mind.
It’s not planned, not by a long shot. Allison’s hair cascading down to cover both their faces, the way the air turns dry in an instant, the desperation…all of it is new. And all of it is wonderful. The feel of gentle lips, hesitating for just a moment before pressing firmly is a novelty that Lydia is looking forward to getting used to. Allison does this thing with her tongue; it’s a bit of tease, and more than a bit wonderful. Lydia is looking forward to getting used to that one too.
If she ever could.
Lydia wants more. She wants to crawl in the backseat and do everything. She wants to do it again later tonight after the pups tire themselves out and tomorrow morning. She wants to do it in her bed and in Allison’s. She wants to get out of here so that they can do it somewhere where they both live. She want’s Allison to come to the ceremony when she gets her PhD in theoretical mathematics.
It’s all a bit soon, but then again so is the hand that slips down and across her body, running softly so as to never relieve her anticipation, but increase it ten-fold. The stroke of lips to neck and fingertips to hip bones is a strange dilemma. Her brain can’t quite decide where to put its energy. When Lydia takes her own hand to slip down onto Allison’s thigh, slowly working it up past the skirt so stubbornly in the way, she’s almost certain where Allison’s brain has decided to focus.
They look up at each other.
They both know that what they want to do cannot be achieved in the car, even in the spacious backseat. The question now is how to proceed. Lydia imagines Allison sliding back into her seat with all the hunter-grace she could manage in their state and driving them both out of there as fast as possible. She imagines them flipping themselves over into the back and managing what they can. In the end though they do nothing. They stay in their positions breathing heavily and looking anywhere but in each other’s eyes.
“We should pick this up later,” Lydia says, turning the authoritative statement into a question of sorts. She’s asking if Allison understands why there stopping. She’s asking if Allison feels the same way about their pack, about their family. Mostly, she’s asking what she’s sure she’ll never vocalize- are you sure you want me?
“Yeah, definitely” And Allison gets that goofy look on her face that she used to give to Scott, that Scott now gives to Danny and apparently Allison is giving to her. And fuck if that doesn’t give her all the assurance in the world.
They should really get back to wolf-watch.