divine || emptier than the void pt. ii

- - - - - -

Lydia stood by the table for the next hour while Stiles slept, trying to refrain from stroking his hair, smoothing his wrinkled shirt, dabbing at the small prick on his neck, or performing any other gesture of the like. She felt as if she had already crossed a line by kissing him.

Something was strange, though, as she watched him wake up. She no longer heard the whisper of wind across a parking lot, or smelled gasoline. But she didn't know if that meant that the Nogitsune had won or lost.

"Lydia?" Stiles croaked, trying to push himself up onto his elbow and frowning when he realized that he was cuffed. "What's going on? Why am I handcuffed?"

"It's...a long story." Lydia helped him up into a sitting position. "But you've gotta keep them on. At least until we can meet Scott at his house and he can...determine some things."

"'Determine' things?" Stiles scowled. "Like what?"

Deaton smiled warily from where he stood at the counter. "If you're who you say you are."

"Why--why wouldn't I be who I say I am?" Anxiety flared in Stiles' chest, and he gave the handcuffs a little tug. "Is this because you think I might hurt somebody?"

Lydia shook her head. "We're pretty sure we poisoned the right one. We just have to make certain."

"Wha--poison?!"

"Lydia, please." Deaton made a silencing motion with his hand. "Look, Stiles, as I'm sure you're aware by now, you're not yourself. You've been experiencing blackouts in between your partial seizures, and so has the other persona you've adopted. One of them has been infected, for lack of a better word, with a type of fox spirit."

"So--so you killed the other person inside me?" Stiles asked, fidgeting with his hands and tugging restlessly at the chain between them. "Am I back to normal?"

Deaton clicked his tongue and grabbed his car keys from a hook on the wall. "Not quite. After we make certain that you're you, there are certain steps we're going to have to take to get it out of you. For good."

"What kind of steps?" Lydia asked, and he shrugged.

"That's the part I'm not sure about. We're going to have to wait until Scott brings the scroll back. That'll have all the answers we need."

- - - - - -

After getting some fluids into a light-headed Stiles, Deaton and Lydia helped him to Deaton's car. He seemed a little frightened, obviously, but pretty much back to his old self. The realization was almost too good to be true, Lydia thought as she helped him into the backseat, trying to ignore the lightning scar-like marks marring his neck, disappearing beneath his shirt and down his back. She had watched them for the past hour as they had set in, darkening as the poison took hold.

When they faded, Deaton had explained, Stiles' darker persona would be back in control. The possessed one, who presumedly wanted them all dead.

Lydia sat in the backseat with him as Deaton drove to Scott's, routinely checking her phone to see if Scott had messaged her about finding the scroll yet. So far, nothing. They would just have to be patient.

And, she thought as she darted a glance at Stiles, be ready for anything.

It was then, when they pulled off of the main road and onto a quiet one, that Stiles glanced over at her and smiled. She tried to return it, but she saw something off about his eyes. She couldn't put her finger on it.

Faster than she could comprehend, Stiles ripped his hands apart, snapping the handcuffs with a definitive clink.

- - - - - -

Scott and Kira were riding back to the McCall house on his newly repaired motorbike, Aiden following close behind. The Shugendō scroll was hidden safely in Kira's pocket, which she clutched tightly with one hand. The other was wrapped around Scott's waist, clinging on for dear life. Both of them had begun to feel numb within a matter of minutes.

As they rounded a corner, they ran into a sight that made Kira's heart jump into her throat. Alan Deaton's car was stopped on the side of the road at an awkward angle, as if it had swerved, smoke rising from the engine. She felt Scott tense beneath her hand, skidding to a halt.

"No, no, no..." he was saying as he took off his helmet, jumped off the bike, and sprinted over. Kira was right on his heels, holding the scroll even more firmly.

"Stiles!" Scott called. "Lydia!"

"They're...not here," Deaton said weakly, raising his head from where it had been pressed against the steering wheel. His lip was cut, and a small bump was rising on the side of his bald head.

"What do you mean, they're not here?!" Scott ripped open the driver's side door, revealing that Deaton was handcuffed to the wheel. The chain linking the cuffs looked like it had been knotted together by hand. Which would be impossible.

Unless...

"Lydia," Kira said, dread filling her up and weighing her down like an overflowing water balloon. "He took Lydia."