Scott McCall | Teen Wolf

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[lucidseduction]

TFLN

[goes_by_a_code]

Clearly my hormones are sending beaming lights to every penis in the area

[cant_trust_the_fox]

MATURITY, AWAYYYYYYYY!

[theresalwayshope]

When she woke up for her morning run, he was still dead unconscious next to her in bed. She kissed his bare shoulder, but he didn't stir...he was either being nice about letting her get up without bugging him, or he was just that wiped out.

She allowed herself five seconds to let that idea make her feel just a tiny bit smug.

Changing into her running clothes, Allison spent a couple of hours out jogging, saving the hard run for the last leg that brought her home. By the time she got back to the house, she was drenched in sweat and had a cramp forming in her left thigh. A hot shower ought to take care of everything...

...and as she slipped back into the bedroom, Scott was still asleep.

Glowering at him for a second, she finally melted into a smile and unzipped her hoodie. Shrugging out of it, she casually tossed her sweat-soaked hoodie onto the bed...and onto Scott's head.

And, pretending she didn't notice if he woke or not, started walking towards the bathroom as she stripped off her t-shirt, letting it fall to the floor--then stopped moving to work her way out of her sports bra, leaving her bare back and the triskele tattoo in the middle of her spine visible to his gaze, along with a portion of the nine tailed fox that wrapped around her ribcage.

Whistling cheerfully, she tossed the bra back over her shoulder, then headed into the bathroom, still shedding clothes as she went. The door stayed open behind her, and it wasn't long before the sound of hot water could be heard running in the shower.

[focusscottfocus]

One person who has always been a constant in his life is Samantha. She's never not been there. It's sort of the way twins work. They're just always around and you can't ever get rid of them. So, when he started having things go sideways after being bitten in the woods that night with Stiles? Well, it didn't take Sam long to figure out something was wrong. And she's been right here, by his side, through every last thing. Being turned, being hunted, dying-- more than once...

But the thing is, eventually...a person just can't take it anymore. After awhile, things get so hard they just have to quit. And in Beacon Hills? The hits never stop coming. Month after month, year after year, it just. Keeps. Rolling. And being the oh-so-powerful True Alpha? It all tends to fall on his shoulders.

And Samantha had had enough. She'd watched him take the entire world on. Try to fix everyone's problems while he let himself be run further and further into the ground. And she said "no more". She didn't let him ask questions. She didn't tell him a damn thing. Just grabbed some essentials and dragged his ass to the car. They were leaving. If they came back, it would be because of Mom, more than anything. But right now? They were gone. Away from Beacon Hills. Away from losing Allison. Away from everything going crazy, from all their problems.

Scott stirs in the passenger seat up front, "Where are we?" he mumbles, words a little slurred, his vision still laced with sleep.

[focusscottfocus]

The whole long-distance thing? It's not Scott's favorite part. Even if he understands why Kira insisted the way she did. She had to go back to her ancestors roots, she needed to control the fox instead of letting it control her. But.... it's still hard. And he isn't even sure where she finds the time or cell signal to talk to him at all, but somehow she manages.

"Hey, everything okay?" She'd called a few times, back to back, so it had him worried.

[lucidseduction]

Things had gone to hell and back while living in Beacon Hills. People dying or leaving and never returning. Her brother dying, more than once, had been the final nail in the coffin. One of the main things that had made her decide to get them the hell out of there. Out of California all together. She'd even told their mom that she'd keep in touch. That way she wouldn't worry all that much.

Reaching over she gives her twin's hand a squeeze," Go back to sleep, Scotty. You look like you need it." It didn't really matter that, for the moment, they were inbetween states. Hell, she hadn't really decided exactly where they went. All she knows is that it had to be a place with no pack and one that wouldn't look twice at two kids coming to live.

To possibly stay for good.

[cant_trust_the_fox]

The last thing she wanted to do was worry Scott. That hadn't been her intention. Then again, she hadn't realized just how many times she'd called. A part of her more worried about him than about herself. So when she finally she gets through she can't stop the sigh of relief.

"Everything's fine now," She tells him with a small smile. He wasn't there to figure out what chemosignals were coming off of her and what ones weren't. "I just..."

"I miss you."

The tone alone probably says that she's worried too.

[proudofus]

I still think of you when I sneak away to the nature preserve.

[focusscottfocus]

I think about you all the t It is a pretty special place, huh? [He knows, in the deepest parts of his heart, she doesn't say things like this to hurt him. But it does, a little bit, when she so plainly made herself clear-- they weren't together. Couldn't be, at least not for awhile. And Scott does believe that it's temporary, and that they will find their way back to each other in the end, later on. But these earliest pieces of post-breakup-dom? They're brutal.]

[sanguinescry]

As a rule, Lydia doesn't really...do cemeteries. She can't. They're too loud and uncomfortable for her in a way that they can't ever be to someone who isn't also a banshee. When Lydia needs to grieve, she does it in other meaningful places which would explain why she's out in the middle of the woods of Beacon Hills, following instinct and a feeling more than anything else, and lowering herself onto the forest floor in what feels to her like the spot where once she comforted Allison after the whole thing with the Nemeton had changed her so severely that she'd struggled with the archery she loved so much.

It's never quiet for Lydia anymore, but she's learned to tune the voices out when she doesn't want to hear them. Right now is one of those times. She wants some semblance of quiet. Lydia, like probably everyone else in the pack, mourned Allison's death in a vacuum. There's never a dull moment in Beacon Hills and no one gave themselves the time, at least where anyone else could see, to appropriately grieve after Allison's death. Lydia spent the time she should've been grieving trying too hard to pretend that everything was fine so the others could still count on her for the ability that failed to save Allison's life in the first place.

She still feels it, sometimes; that sudden, acute emptiness in her chest that hit her like a freight train the instant Allison had been impaled. It's times when that feeling crashes into her that Lydia will come out here or go back to the spot where Allison took her last breath, or sit in her car across the street from Allison's old house, looking up at the window of Allison's old bedroom where the two of them spent so many hours when their friendship had first bloomed.

Tears prickle in her eyes but no one is here to see them, so Lydia lets them fall. A sob is lodged at the back of her throat, not because she's trying to hold it back, but because it doesn't seem to have the strength just yet to tear itself free. It's the first time Lydia's returned home from MIT since leaving Beacon Hills in her wake a few months ago at the end of the summer and the nip in the autumn air is crisp enough to keep her, probably, from staying too long.

"It's really nothing like we thought," she suddenly says to seemingly no one. Lydia sniffs daintily and clears her throat against that lump back there. "I haven't had the time or energy to go to a single frat party. Almost everyone goes to class in their pajamas. I've spent practically every weekend in Boston, though; it's so weird riding the trains and having to switch lines and remembering which stops...being in a big city is crazy. But it suits me, I think. It would've suited you, too."

She does this sometimes without really thinking about it; talks to Allison as if Allison is sitting across from her or beside her listening intently. Lydia doesn't really know if, wherever her best friend is, she can actually hear Lydia, but the sentiment is nice. It feels comforting to think that Allison can and does listen to her when Lydia talks to her like this, so Lydia lets herself believe that she does. "I saw a guy in Boston Common wearing a scarf who looked just like Isaac from behind the other day and it threw me for a loop. I felt like I was getting shuttled back through time. I wish you were still here. I'm sorry I wasn't good enough to save you so you could be..."

That does it; drags the sob up and out of her, dry and succinct, followed immediately with a hitching breath as Lydia attempts to center herself again. She didn't come here to cry. She just...came here to check in with her friend, now that she's come home for the first time from college across the country. So what if that friend has been dead for two years, now, and isn't actually here to reciprocate?

[focusscottfocus]

Life in Beacon Hills has a way of never really slowing down, in the kind of way that makes it hard to fully and properly let yourself react to things in the right way. He knows his Mom said he'd find someone else. And he did, sort of, after awhile. He's dated since Allison. But Mom also said it would be just as amazing as the first time, next time, too, and it...wasn't. He's just not sure any relationship, with any other girl in the world, will ever truly compare to what he knows he might have had with Allison. In the two years that have passed since that terrible night, Scott doesn't actively think about it as often as he did at first. But it all comes sliding its way back in during the quiet moments at night when he's studying and his Mom is still at work. Everyone else was rushing out of Beacon Hills like they were escaping a nightmare (and honestly, weren't they?) but Scott just went to a nearby local community college for the time being. He wasn't ready to leave his Mom, even if he knows Mr. S would keep her safe as could be if he did. Melissa is kind of Scott's world, and he would rather be stuck in a town he isn't sure he even likes any more than leave her behind, alone. Summer is almost over and Scott has been going over courses he's supposed to take for his next semester, but he can't focus. Everything just sort of blurs on the screen as he tries to read over class summaries and he heaves a long-suffering sigh and scrubs a hand down his face. A break would probably be a good idea. He doesn't know why he chose to wander into the woods near his house on his walk, but if nothing else, living in this town has taught him to pay attention when he feels some kind of pull toward something. Sometimes it's nothing, but sometimes it's supernatural. Because of that second possibility, he's tense, muscles coiled and ready to jump into action if he has to (and honestly, he really expects it more than not, at this point) but he hopes he doesn't need to. Still. He's ready if it becomes necessary all the same. The further on the path he goes, the more that feeling seems to be trying to choke him. Or maybe it's in his head. He's seen nothing so far, so why would-- "...a big city is crazy. But it suits me ...would've suited you, too." "I wish you were still here. I'm sorry I wasn't good enough to save you..." He recognizes Lydia's voice instantly, once he's close enough to hear her. But her voice, while surprising (had he forgotten that she was coming home?), wasn't what really dug under his skin-- it was that sob, ripped from her throat, harsh and full of pain. He swears he can sense it from here and that makes his stomach twist uncomfortably as he continues toward where she is. It isn't long before he finds himself walking up on the friend he hasn't seen in months, except on the other side of a video call once in awhile. He hangs back, not quite half-hidden by one of the big trees in the forest. The sight of her on the ground, barely holding herself together, makes his chest tighten. "Lydia...?" His voice is quiet and a little more choked than he would have liked.

[sanguinescry]

There's a tightness in her muscles and her facial features as Lydia dips her head down slightly, willing a straight face; willing away the urge to just really and truly cry it out. She can do that later when she can hide the sound in her pillow. It's not terribly wise to be making a lot of noise out here because one never knows who or what might be out here with them.

Lydia's lips pull back, baring her teeth in something of a sob robbed of its voice, held back behind her teeth and a moment later, she takes a deep, shaking breath. Nearly centered again, she tells herself, just stay calm.

The sound of the familiar voice, as unexpected as it is, startles Lydia a little and she looks up sharply, sniffing, clearing her throat, and swiping under her eyes with two fingers quickly. It shouldn't surprise her as much as it does to see him out here. Even if he hadn't stayed behind to attend college locally, wouldn't he probably be home for Thanksgiving, too? "Scott..." she replies and it isn't a question so much as an acknowledgment.

Taking another deep breath and trying not to let it shudder back out again, Lydia gives him a small, tight-lipped smile that she neither feels nor probably manages to sell. "I'd ask what you're doing out here but that seems a little hypocritical, all things considered..."

[focusscottfocus]

He steps out from the treeline and further into the clearing toward where she's sitting. She can try to hide the fact that she had just been crying all she wants, but he can tell anyway. He can hear it in her heartbeat, he can smell the salt from her tears. And he just knows her, honestly. The little ways she tries to hide the vulnerable parts of herself. "Maybe a little." He agrees as he crouches down to sit next to her. For a few minutes, the silence stretches. He's not sure what to say, so it's easier to say nothing. But there's an obvious heaviness in the air, and he knows what she was doing. Scott hesitates for a moment, but finally says what's resting at the end of his tongue. "I miss her, too."

[sanguinescry]

Lydia sits beside him in silence, mostly focused on trying to center herself. She'd started the process before realizing Scott was there and that was for her benefit, not his. This continues in that vein. She knows that he probably heard her talking and almost definitely heard her crying, so she doesn't try to hide it so much as just calm herself down enough to go back to being numb. Being numb feels so much better than being in pain.

But he speaks again before she's finished composing herself and his words almost set her off again. Lydia's breath hitches and she nods, blinking to release the tears clinging to her long lashes so that they'll fall and stop tickling her eyes.

Her voice is tight and watery when she responds, but she can't make herself look over at him, yet. Not unless she really wants to lose it and she doesn't. She didn't even want to when she'd thought she'd been alone. She certainly doesn't want to when she knows she isn't.

"Sometimes I wonder what she would've picked for a major," she confesses, "and I try to guess what school she would've wanted to go to."

It's off-topic but not really. She's thinking aloud. "I really wish I'd been better back then," she adds in a voice so tight it's barely audible. "So she'd still be here to have gone to college like the rest of us."

[focusscottfocus]

He lets his lips shift slightly, a sad-laden thing that only traces what a smile should be, but can't quite call itself one in the moment. "Something in criminal justice, I think." That made the most sense to him for Allison, personally. But she might have gone into something completely different, too. She had plenty of surprises in her, sometimes.

He frowns at that first, self-deprecating comment from her and it makes him tilt his head to look at her fully. His mouth forms the shape for asking, 'What?' but the word never actually makes it out before she finishes that thought. His features fall and he shakes his head. "Lydia... it's not your fault." He slides an arm around her shoulder, biting his lip in thought as he tries to decide how much he wants a solid answer to his next question, even if he thinks he already knows it anyway. "Have you blamed yourself, all this time?"

[sanguinescry]

Her smile at that thought is automatic, but it doesn't reach her eyes. "Yeah, probably. Or mythology, or something like that," she agrees wistfully, sniffing a little and sighing softly.

Predictably, Scott tells her that it isn't her fault, what happened to Allison. It is and they all know it, if only the rest of them would be willing to think about it for a second. Allison was only out there to save Lydia. If Lydia had warned her better or been more clear, maybe she would've waited. If Lydia hadn't needed to be saved, she could've been fighting with them and maybe things would've been different.

Rolling her eyes a little and frowning, looking back at Scott with fresh tears swimming in her eyes, Lydia nods. "Yes, it was, Scott."

Her words come with a calm clarity that can only come with the acceptance of them. She feels guilty, yes. She wishes she could change things, yes. But she's accepted the blame for Allison's death and that makes it easier for her to say. She's known it since the voices didn't get quieter when Lydia left Allison that warning on her car window. She's known all along. Scott might not be ready to accept it, yet, because it's easier for him to say it was an accident or blame it on the nogitsune. Of course it's easier to blame it on the bad guy.

That doesn't make it true, though.

As she goes on, Lydia both stiffens and leans into him a little. The tears fall, but they're silent and she doesn't acknowledge them as they roll down her cheeks. She's had this conversation with herself a thousand times. It's just the first time someone else is hearing it.

"She was there to save me. She was there because I couldn't protect myself then like I can now. It was my fault, Scott. I should've been better. But I wasn't, so...she died to keep me safe. That's just my cross to bear."

[focusscottfocus]

"No, it wasn't," he repeats it with a conviction that goes down into his bones. He wouldn't blame Lydia for this, any more than he would blame Stiles, as much as he knows his best friend blames himself for so many things that happened, then, too.

"I was right there as it happened and I couldn't stop it-- does that make it my fault, too?" That's something that played in his mind a lot, especially back then, but it still slides into his thoughts from time to time now.

He shakes his head, wrapping his arm around her, rubbing a hand down her arm gently. "We were barely starting to figure out what you being a Banshee even meant, there was no way we could have known everything we do now, back then, Lyds..." He turns his head to press a kiss into her hair.

They hadn't always been the closest in high school, but after everything they went through together, it was hard not to feel so protective of her. Even against her own thoughts, and guilt. However far apart they might end up physically, whatever paths they might end up on after college, Lydia would always be pack.

[sanguinescry]

Of course, Scott will say that. Of course, he'll think that and feel that. Lydia believes that he believes that it isn't her fault, but if she had just been less cryptic in the message she'd left on the window or if she'd bothered to ask Allison to teach her how to defend herself instead of waiting until Allison was gone to ask someone else to teach her, then things would've been really different. She knows it and Scott knows it, but she doesn't ever expect Scott to actually agree with her.

"I feel like you were probably a little bit distracted, what with fighting for your life and all," she points out gently. "Besides, if I could've defended myself, none of you would've been out there without having time to formulate a more solid plan, so..."

She shrugs, but she leans into him and smiles sadly when she feels him kiss her head. It's weirdly comforting having this moment with Scott. The last time they were this close to one another physically, if she recalls, it was because she'd been trying to make Jackson jealous and she'd been making out with him. God, that feels like a lifetime ago. She supposes it is a lifetime ago.

"Do you ever wonder if she would be proud of us for the decisions we made along the way after she was gone?" she wonders aloud suddenly, tilting her head up just slightly to look at him and feeling suddenly very aware of their proximity; enough that she looks away again because she doesn't want to lose the comfort of his closeness, but having her face that close to Scott's is...it feels like she shouldn't, is all, she supposes.

[focusscottfocus]

He doesn't want to actually argue with her, so he lets it fade there, instead, focusing on the comfort he's giving her, and that he's getting from just actually having pack close.

The question she poses pulls something tight and taut deep within the center of his chest, makes his heart skip a beat. He wonders that a lot, actually, and is about to say as much when Lydia suddenly looks up at him and just how close they are is a little jarring. There's a beat of.... well, he doesn't know what it is, something before it's over as quickly as it started as she looks away.

Except something still lingers somewhere in his chest.

"I think about it a lot..." He finally says in response to her question, voice soft and thoughtful. "Especially Senior year..." That year was almost as hard as the one they'd lost her, in a lot of ways. This giant milestone she just never made it to. "But...yeah. I think she would be." He doesn't like to think the opposite-- but that side of the possibilities does come into his mind from time to time.

[sanguinescry]

Lydia's eyes close and she is steadily ignoring the flutters in her stomach in favor of believing it to be related to finally having someone to share these thoughts with who actually knew Allison. She does see someone back at school, but she has to be careful and the counselor at the university's clinic believes Allison to have been killed in a mugging gone wrong.

It just happened so fast, she'd echoed Chris Argent's instructions like gospel even several years later.

But she doesn't have to bullshit with Scott; he was there. He knows. That's all that feeling is.

She nods against him and opens her eyes again, looking out in front of them both and she can almost see Allison standing out here with her bow. "I think so, too," she confesses. "I talk to her a lot when I'm alone and sometimes I can just...feel it. I don't know. Maybe that's stupid..." she murmurs with a little shrug, shifting slightly in Scott's arms and absently resting her opposite hand over the one Scott has on her arm. It's her subconscious attempt at trying to offer him the same level of comfort he's already giving her.

[focusscottfocus]

He slides his hand along her arm again, offering quiet assurance, "If it's a comfort... it's not stupid. And, I mean... Lydia. You're a really powerful Banshee... maybe it is her." Maybe that's just wishful hoping on his part, that some part of her is still at least with one of them somehow, all these years later. But... even if it isn't true, it's a nice sentiment, still.

He slides his hand down to lace his fingers over the top of her own. He's glad he isn't alone right now, because he has been too many times, recently. And it's fine. It's normal. Natural. People go to college. They move away. But Scott isn't sure he'll ever leave Beacon Hills, and it's an isolating feeling sometimes.

"I didn't think it would still hurt so much by now..." he admits, a tiny hitch in his breath. "I mean, I...don't expect it to ever stop, but... I don't know. Sometimes, it feels the same as that day and I just- I thought it would ease up, over time." He can feel a stray tear roll across his cheek, but he doesn't try to hide it; Scott's never been the type to hide what he feels, and he's safe with Lydia. She's one of his best friends. She's pack.

[sanguinescry]

That thought is one that actually never occurred to Lydia and now that it is, she thinks the reason it never did before is that it's too hopeful and a part of her is afraid that she'll cling to the idea. Somehow, coming from Scott, it's a less stressful prospect even if she doesn't think he's right. Without even thinking about it, Lydia turns her hand over so that her palm is facing Scott's and she's holding his hand in earnest.

"Maybe," she says not dismissively but also not with much confidence. Her face turns up to look at him again when she hears his breath hitching and when she sees the tear, the foreign flutter in her stomach at their closeness is forgotten. Lydia gives his hand a squeeze.

She had expected it to be a little easier over time, too, and sometimes it is. But sometimes...it's not. Sometimes she can still feel Allison go, that hollow tear in her chest that felt a little like she imagines the fatal blow must've felt for Allison herself.

Lydia extricates her hand from his to brush her thumb over the apple of his cheek to push the tear away for him. "I know...I feel the same way." She pauses for a moment, unsure whether she should share this with him — or anyone. "...I felt it, you know. When she was stabbed, I felt that," she confesses a moment later, then drops her voice even more quiet before continuing, "sometimes, I still feel it. So I get it," she finishes, feeling her own tears wetting her own cheeks as she looks back up at him and gives him a half-hearted smile.

[focusscottfocus]

He smiles a little at the squeeze of her fingers against his. There's a comfort to be found there, and he squeezes back gently in kind. His eyes flutter shut when she brushes against his cheek and he frowns a little at what she explains. There's a sick sort of irony in that, considering how empty and blank everything had felt when he tried to take Allison's pain. "...it doesn't hurt." are words he still hears echoed in his mind sometimes. "I'm sorry, Lyds." he says quietly, pressing another kiss to her temple. "I never...realized..." He sighs softly, resting his cheek against the top of her head. "I tried to save her... to take her pain. But I couldn't... it was pretty instant, she...she didn't feel it." It's not much in the way of consolations, but it is all he has to offer.

[sanguinescry]

Her eyes close in in response to the kiss to her temple and the way that Scott leans his cheek against her head. It's intimate in a way she's never been with Scott. Her mother has comforted her like this. Allison had. Stiles and Jackson have been this close to her in a different sort of context, but she and Scott have never really had a close enough relationship to merit this intimacy whether romantic or not. It's weird, but it's nice, even if her stomach tumbles with guilt for liking the way this feels when it's Scott while they're talking about Allison. In her head, she tries to picture Allison and Stiles doing this and she can't; they wouldn't because they'd think it's weird. Maybe she and Scott shouldn't be, either.

But she doesn't pull away. "It didn't last. The pain. It was quick, but it was enough that I knew," she says quietly, her fingers finding his hand again to take it once more. "I think it was just to let me know that it happened, but I didn't know if—"

A part of her has always wondered what actually happened. She felt the stab and she'd known that Allison was going to die if she looked for Lydia, so she'd been able to put two and two together, but that's all she knows about it. She wasn't there and her premonitions don't work in a way that would give her any sort of visual. Nobody's proactively offered up what they actually saw and Lydia's never had the stomach to ask.

She turns her face to bury it in Scott's neck and keeps her eyes closed as a few tears leak out. They're sad, but they're also relieved. She didn't suffer. That's good. "I'm glad she didn't feel it. I never really knew and I was afraid to ask," she confesses, her voice tight and airy as it tries to push sound past the lump in her throat. She doesn't worry about it being too quiet because it's Scott; he'll hear it. "I was always kind of scared that she suffered, even with you guys there to take the pain and I didn't want anybody to have to confirm that worry, so I never asked. But I'm glad," she says, that voice coming out in a high-pitched whimper because it's being squeeze through such a tight spot in an effort not to let the sob escape, "I'm glad she didn't suffer," she finishes after a wavering breath, nodding against him and moving her free hand to wipe her eyes.

[focusscottfocus]

Scott doesn't think about affection, not really, he just gives it. But that isn't so say this is just completely natural-- there is an odd balance to it, because it is Lydia, and they never have been like this with each other.

But that doesn't stop him from sliding both arms around her when she leans against him, tears of sad relief falling onto his shirt as she actually processes what he just said. They never really talked about it, did they? He supposes she wouldn't know the scene itself, even though it's burned into his mind like a brand.

"Yeah," he agrees quietly, new tears rolling down his own cheeks with the memory so close now, dropping into Lydia's hair. "at least there's that." he reaches up with one hand and threads his fingers through her hair.

[sanguinescry]

It's more reflexive than intentional, but when she feels Scott's fingers threading through her hair, Lydia looks up again and, once more, she's made incredibly aware of just how close he is. He's upset, too. An urge from her past bubbles to the surface and she has to tamp it down.

Lydia used to be the type of person that drowned her feelings in physicalities. That is not something she should be, first of all, returning to the habit of indulging, and second, considering when the person she's with at the moment is Scott.

But reaches up with one hand and sweeps his tears away with the pad of her thumb again. "I can't believe we never talked about this until now..."

[focusscottfocus]

He tilts his head to look down toward her, the smallest of sad smiles on his lips. "We never really had time." Which sounds like the dumbest excuse in the world, but it isn't wrong, either.

Beacon Hills always had something crazy going on, back to back, one thing after another for years. There was never time to process what had happened before the next thing was slamming down on top of them. When he really thinks back on how much they dealt with in such a short span of time in high school, it's kind of overwhelming to consider that any of them survived at all.

[sanguinescry]

Looking back up at him, Lydia catches her bottom lip between her teeth as she frowns and nods her agreement. He's got a point. They never really had time. If it wasn't one thing, it was always another. Lydia never really had time to so much as take a breath until she got to Massachusetts for school.

"I guess we never really did..." she agrees aloud a long moment later. Don't let your eyes move away from his eyes, whatever you do, do not look at his lips. She makes the conscious note of it because if he was anyone else, she would've already done it as a silent invitation. She's fighting reflex right now.

And, realizing that, Lydia presses her lips together and wills her heart not to beat any faster — she's probably unsuccessful — and she tilts her head so that she's not looking straight up at Scott so much as she's got him just slightly closer to her peripheral than her direct line of sight. "I'm glad we are now. It had to happen eventually, right?"

@ ofwovenstone

[focusscottfocus]

[1. Currently I'm smoking a cigar on my balcony in a sports bra and underwear.]

---

Before I was turned, smoke would mess with my asthma. Now, it's just kind of an overwhelming scent.

Being reminded of home is never a bad thing, though.

[focusscottfocus]

"Yeah, I guess it did." he agrees with a slight nod. He can hear that tiny shift in the otherwise easy and steady thrum of her heartbeat and there's a small frown creasing his forehead. He tries not to point things like that out if he can help it, it feels like a massive invasion of privacy, all things considered.

But sometimes, he can't help the concern from spilling out. He bites his lip for a moment, debating, before--

"Hey, it's okay," he mumbles softly, rubbing a reassuring hand along her arm. He doesn't catch why her heartbeat quickened suddenly, and he just assumes it's because talking about Allison's death is upsetting her.

[sanguinescry]

Taking a deep breath, Lydia lets it out slowly when she hears Scott's reassurance and guesses that it's probably in response to picking up on her racing heart. It's another attempt at calming herself so that the heart rate will drop back to something more normal. Maybe it's because this is an especially emotional conversation or that she's been running dry for several months because she'd been too busy studying to find someone worth hooking up with, but whatever it is, Lydia tells herself that it's nothing to do with Scott specifically so, therefore, she can beat this.

"I know, I'm okay," she promises softly, still unwilling or maybe just unable to look back up at him, lest she gets her heart going too fast all over again over something silly. It's just Scott, for crying out loud.

Another deep breath in and slowly out later and she finally chances a glance at him. "Damn, all these years between us and her and it still hurts like it was an hour ago..."

[focusscottfocus]

"Okay," he says softly, though he keeps his hand on her arm for another moment or two longer, an added few seconds of additional reassurance before he pulls away and lets his hand drop back into his lap.

He nods a little, "Yeah... I think sometimes, you just never really put things behind you." And if anything in high school had a lasting impact that he might never be able to let go of completely, he can say that watching Allison die definitely qualifies. How do you ever really get over that kind of thing? He's sure the answer is a simple: You don't.

[sanguinescry]

"I guess not," Lydia agrees weakly. Maybe it's supposed to be that way. Maybe it's better that way. She'd hate it if she forgot how much she loved her best friend and she imagines that Scott feels the same to some degree or another.

The two of them sort of fall silent and Lydia's comfortable with that. It gives them both time to reflect in silence but without either of them having to be alone. Lydia lets herself relax in Scott's arms and pushes out of her mind the thoughts about how comforting and protective it feels and focuses instead on the fact that he's warm and solid when she needs both of those things to balance out the cold uncertainty that comes with these moments when she allows herself to really and truly mourn her friend.

"Maybe that's okay," she says softly. "It just means we'll never forget her." Lydia takes in a deep breath and sighs gently, her eyes closing in a slow blink as the rest of her settles itself back outside the confines of grief. After a moment, she sits up straighter and gently disentangles herself from her friend. "I should get back to my mom's...I've been out here for a long time," she says, giving him a small smile bordering on apologetic as she pushes herself to her feet and brushes off her backside with both hands. "Don't be a stranger, okay?"

[focusscottfocus]

The silence that comes between them is an easy, companionable thing, and Scott doesn't feel any tension in it, only the comfort and closeness of his pack. However disjointed they've gotten through the years, they're still his pack.

"Yeah," he nods a little. "I think you're right." He turns his head to look at her, a small smile on his face. "Yeah, I should probably get back, too." he says, pushing himself to his feet. "Same to you, Lyds. Come by the house before you disappear back to college, okay?"

and scene.

[sanguinescry]

Nodding with a small smile, Lydia looks back out into the woods where she'd been staring before. "Yeah," she agrees, looking back at Scott again. "I will. I promise."

And then, since she'd been here first and had the luxury of her alone time when he hadn't, yet, Lydia gives Scott another little smile and excuses herself, heading back to where she parked her car so that she can get home.