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TW: SUICIDE

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.*･｡. AN ODE TO CLARK KENT .*･｡.
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021.
SAD THINGS AND
PUPPET STRINGS.
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——

    "I can't find Scott, anywhere..."

   Lois cringed at the stirring in her stomach. She tried not to trip down the staircase and focused on her feet, rather than the anxiety she felt, but it was difficult. The fact that they couldn't find Scott in the motel was worrisome. Incredibly, so. Considering the state that they had found Boyd and Isaac, Lois wasn't sure if she wanted to know where Scott could have been.

   Wherever it was, it couldn't have been good — Lois Lane was sure of it. Scott McCall didn't just go rogue; this was Scott McCall.

She had an awful feeling. A really, terribly, awful feeling that she couldn't shake. It was like a sixth sense. An intuition that she held for her friends, for their safety and wellbeing.

Something told her that Scott wasn't safe.

Not here — and not in this motel.

The state that Isaac and Boyd were in had terrified Lois. Boyd had nearly died — and hell knows what Isaac would have done, if she hadn't found him under that bed. Both of them would have been goners if the group hadn't figured that heat would pull them out of their hypnosis. Goners. Dead. They had come so close.

Truthfully, she hadn't wanted to leave Isaac and Boyd. It felt so wrong to leave them there, after all of that, but she had to find her best friend. Scott was one of the most important people in Lois' life and if she let him die, god forbid, she would never forgive herself for it. Not if she could have tried to stop him; not if she hadn't done everything in her will to save him. He was Scott. The boy who came to her rescue when she had fallen off her bike, having only met her once, and who had befriended her without so much as a question because she was Stiles' best friend and if she was Stiles' best friend, then she was already his. The boy who now climbed through her window and kept her company, or went on runs with her to clear their minds when it all felt foggy.

He was the boy that drove her around on the handle bars of his bike, with no helmets on and Stiles' following behind in the jeep, so they could distract themselves from the crazy life they lived. So they could spend the day being silly teenagers, doing silly teenager things, no care in the world. That was Scott.

He was kind, and compassionate. And caring. Scott was funny, even if his humour was often unintentional, and he was a good friend. He had always been a good friend — Scott was one of the best; she was lucky to have met him.

So lucky.

Above all, Scott was always saving people. Doing everything that he could to save the innocent, to save his friends. One of a kind, the truest of true, loving in every sense of the word. Scott was the boy that had a heart of gold in his chest, the boy that always made sure to look after her, and that had always kept every single promise they had ever made. Never letting people down. Always saving the day. And he did it all, not because he had to, but because that was who he was and that was what he did. Because he was Scott.

He was Scott, and she was Lois, and she was going to save him before he did something that couldn't be taken back. Before they lost him. Perhaps, even, forever.

"It's happening to him too, isn't it?" Stiles asked, although he already knew the answer. They all knew the answer.

"It has to be," Lydia nodded her head, firmly. She made it to the bottom of the stairs first, Stiles and Lois after her, and Luna and Allison after them. Turning to face them at the bottom, she thought, "Didn't you say there was another flare? On the bus?"

"Yeah— yeah," he nodded, "We'll get it."

As he and Luna made for the bus, the others following in tow, they skidded to a stop when Allison stuck out an arm as though it was a blockade. Lois crashed into her back, frowning deeply.

She was going to ask why they had stopped — they didn't have time to be stopping — but her own question was answered when the light of the GLEN CAPRI sign crackled to life. The haunting crimson glow now illuminated the parking lot, as well as a dark figure that stood in the distance. Upon closer inspection, that dark figure was no ordinary figure. It was dripping wet, head to toe.

Lois squinted, and then she paled.

For, that figure wasn't just a figure; it was Scott McCall.

A pregnant moment passed, and Lois wondered if this was it. If they had been too late. Was this it? Was it the time they lost him?

It wreaked of gasoline. Her watery eyes flickered from the liquid adorning his clothing to the empty can on the ground, and then to the flare that sparked away in his hand. The combination was far dangerous, it was deadly.

If Scott dropped that flare, then he would go up in flames. And while he was a werewolf that could heal, this seemed like an injury that he wouldn't recover from. He would die.

Lois' heart constricted in her chest, unable to beat without Scott McCall in her life. Without him close. Scott was apart of her; he was one third of her everything — her heart, her mind, her entire soul and being. He was in the air that she breathed, the angel that sat on her shoulder, and a part of the safety net she clung to in her moments of fear. Moments like these. How would she live without Scott? How would she go on? Lois ceased to exist without Scott. It would never be the same. Scott was one third of her. Stiles was the second, and her father was the third. Without them, Lois feared she would be nothing. She would wither away, and lose hope.

She wanted to run to him. Lois wanted nothing more than to hold him close, to have him cradle her, but she couldn't. It wasn't the time for Scott to comfort Lois — it was the time for Lois to be strong for him, to talk him down from this ledge, to hold him close while he cried. He was strong...

...but people couldn't be strong all of the time.

"Scott," Gently, Allison tried to talk to him. She inched a bit closer, "Scott...?"

As to not frighten him, Stiles and Lois slowly stepped towards them, careful to avoid the gasoline puddles that floated like oceans. Lydia and Luna stayed slightly behind, holding onto one another.

"Scott," Allison tried, again.

"There's no hope."

No hope? Lois glanced at Stiles, her eyes red and prickling with more tears. The statement was not like Scott McCall, not like the optimistic boy she had known, not the omega who always kept on going. It was the words of a stranger, but in his voice.

Allison shook her head and steadied her breathing. She forced a smile, "What do you mean, Scott? There's always hope,"

"Not for me," he muttered. His body shook, "Not for Derek."

"Derek wasn't your fault."

He didn't listen to his ex-love. His still love. Scott loved Allison Argent with every fibre of his being. She had been it, for him. The girl of his dreams; the only girl he had ever wanted. And he had her, but then he lost her, and now he hurt every day. It was another of the reasons he felt hopeless. Scott had let Derek die, he had lost his girl, and he was only going to make things worse.

"You know Derek wasn't your fault..." she told him, her voice wavering. Allison couldn't force optimism, anymore. Not when she was seeing him, like this.

It broke her heart.

"Every time I try to fight back, it just gets worse." Scott said, a tear running down his cheek. The gasoline in his hair dripped into his eyes, "People keep getting hurt. People keep getting killed."

"Scott— listen to me, okay?" Stiles stepped forward, sucking in a shallow breath. It was hard for him, to feel as though he would lose his best friend at any moment, to feel like he would lose one of the most important people in his life. Stiles had almost lost Lois only hours ago, his Lois, and now there was a chance he would lose Scott. He couldn't let that happen — not to Scott, not to him, not to Lois. "This isn't you, alright? This is someone inside your head telling you to do this. Okay? Now—"

"What if it isn't?"

"Scott..."

"What if it is just me?" Scott's eyes were far and distant. It was as if he were lost, in some far away state that wasn't this one, as if he were no longer in control. "What if doing this is actually the best thing that I could do, for everyone else?"

"You can't think, that way." It was Lois who had spoken up, this time. Her voice was shaky, and trembling, and she was crying more tears than she had cried all summer. She tried to keep her breathing even, but she cracked a sob when he looked at her. He looked so broken. "No— no, you can't think that way, Scott."

"What if it is?" He pressed, "It all started, that night; the night I got bitten. You guys remember the way it was, before that?" Scott looked at Stiles, "You and me, we were— we... we were nothing. We weren't popular, not like Lois." Her heart sank, and she wondered if that was how Scott had always thought. If he had always felt less than Lois, or if it was simply a voice telling him that he felt this way. He continued, "Lois was popular. But Stiles, we weren't good at lacrosse. We weren't, and we weren't important. We were no one... maybe I should just be no one, again. No one, at all."

"Scott, just listen to me— okay?" Stiles stepped closer, "You're not no one, alright? You're someone."

"You're our best friend."

Scott's eyes travelled to Lois, whom was closer than before.

"You are the bravest, smartest yet stupidest guy I have ever met, okay? You really are," A sad, wet laugh fell from her lips. "And I need you. We need you. Scott, you're our brother..."

Her tears grew heavier, and they fell faster, and the dark space between the back of her eyes and before her brain started to ache.

Scott felt unimportant, when he was anything but. He was one of the most important people in the world, to Lois and Stiles. They were nothing without each other, not really — Lois, Stiles and Scott were a trio of kindred spirits. Three beings that had been destined to find one another.

Call it fate, or luck, but they were a trio connected in ways that others simply could not understand. If they lost one, then they had lost all three of them. Then, they were nothing. They were meant to find each other, to cross paths, to intertwine. Lois, Stiles and Scott had all crossed paths and gotten entangled within each other, lost a piece of them and gained another in its place. That piece was valuable. It was the piece that tied them together, in a knot.

Back in middle school, Lois had read about soulmates. Not the soulmates that fell in love, the Romeo and Juliet motif, but the kind of soulmates that were the same. The type of soulmates that had been split from one soul and sent away, and that spent lifetimes searching for each other, living life after life in body after body, all to find the pieces of their original puzzle.

Until, they did.

Until, they found each other.

Until, they were complete.

Lois firmly believed that she, Stiles and Scott were soulmates; they were three of the same soul, same spirit.

They had come into this life — this life, as weird and twisted as it seemed — to find each other. To seek the rest of them. And now that they had, there was no chance in hell that she was losing them.

She had found them; she couldn't let them go.

"Alright, so..." letting out a breath, Stiles reached forward and took Scott's hand in his. His sneakers hit the puddle of gasoline with a light splash! and Luna let out a strangled cry from behind them. Stiles didn't look at her, though. He couldn't. In a sense, he was torn. She understood. "So, if you're gonna do this, then..."

Another step, another splash! and another cry. Lois was now at his side, her beat up shoes in the gasoline, peering up at her best friends with a watery smile.

Live together, die together.

"If you're gonna do this, Scotty boy— then, I think you're just gonna have to take us with you." She hummed. A sad laugh fell from her tongue as she gripped Scott's spare hand. They were all crying, now. Tears of despair, tears of pain, tears of love.

It was a bond that would go unbroken. Beyond all life, beyond all death, beyond all time itself. Lois, Stiles and Scott had a bond that could not be tainted. Not destroyed. A tether that would go unsevered. It was Lois, Stiles and Scott. It had always been Lois, Stiles and Scott. And, as Allison, Luna and Lydia watched on with heavy hearts and tears in their eyes, they knew that. They could see it, they could hear it, they could feel it. Anything that was not each other paled in comparison, to Lois, Stiles and Scott. Together, they were an endgame unlike the one you saw on television or read in books. But, they were an endgame, nonetheless. Their chemistry was electric. That was why no one made move to stop them, no one toyed with fate. This moment was apart of their fate.

It was just a matter of what fate had in store.

"You can't go down without us, Scott." Lois whispered.

His heart swelled in his chest, as he sobbed. She squeezed his hand tightly, and grasped onto Stiles' when he had carefully taken the flare and disarmed the omega, throwing it aside.

Together, the three of them stood: teary, lost, but breathing. It was a circle of three connected hands and three connected hearts.

It seemed that Scott started to come to, his eyes widening and his breathing more erratic. He looked terrified, and confused, and so pained that it had Lois gasping for breath. But when he looked at them, when he looked at Lois and Stiles, he found great comfort and great belonging. It was alright. He was no longer stuck in his own mind. Everything was going to be okay. Lois and Stiles were with him, now. Scott wasn't alone. He could never be alone, with them on his side. His loss filled with warmth.

As souls sang and tears fell, the flare rolled. Lydia noticed.

    "No!"

   The gasoline caught alight.

   She threw her body forwards and dove onto the trio, sending them flying to the ground metres ahead. Allison followed and launched her body to the floor, but Luna found herself unable to move. In the fear of it all, she had stumbled into a puddle and frozen. And the explosion was going to be right under her feet.

   Stiles yelled, fighting to get back up.

   Heart racing, Lois threw out a hand and screamed, "Luna!"

   A gust of air shoved the blonde back and into the school bus, a huff passing her lips at the contact, while a trail of water hit the flames and smothered them — with it, the silhouette lurking deep within.

   The explosion was extinguished and the water fell, hitting the floor, and the night was silent.

   Only heavy breaths.

   Only palpable confusion.

   It was then that they noticed that their cheeks were dry. 

   No one's skin was tear-stained, their eyes no longer wet, and the moisture within the air seemed thinner. Lois raised a hand to her cheek and felt it, but there was nothing there. As if the tears had never even fallen. The water was gone. Completely gone.

    "Luna—!" Stiles scrambled up from the floor and rushed to his girlfriend, relieved to find her in one piece and only a bit bruised.

   How had that happened?

   He turned to question the rest of the group, but fell back when he caught sight of the girl he had known since birth. Stiles was lost for words, gobsmacked even. "Lois..."

   Stiles sucked in a breath.

    "Your eyes."

   As she turned, the rest of the group saw it, too.

   Lois' eyes were glowing blue.

• • •

Coach groaned loudly as he observed the sleeping teenagers, "I don't wanna know! I really don't wanna know—!"

Grunting, Lois slowly cracked her eyes open.

Her brows knotted tiredly when she found coach's shoes in her vision, the wrong way up for that matter, rather than his face being the right way. Craning her neck, Lois tried to look around the bus and figure out why the world was upside down, but soon realised that it wasn't the world that was upside down — rather, she was.

Lois pulled her head to see her body sprawled along one of the seats, feet kicked up onto the window, while her head had fallen off the edge of the seat closest to the aisle. She frowned, how had she slept, like that?

Honestly, she wasn't very sure. But, with the small amount of sleep that they had all gotten, she wasn't surprised. Lois probably would have slept on the ground, outside. Hell— she would have slept anywhere, as long as it wasn't in that motel. Lois Lane would happily never sleep again, if it had meant that she was as far away from the GRAND CAPRIS as humanly possible. After last night, it was a price that she was willing to pay. That place was haunted, or something. It had driven them all crazy. Absolutely insane. Lois was planning on never going back, as long as she lived.

   After talking Scott off a ledge, the teenagers had rushed back to their rooms to grab all of their things, as well as Isaac and Boyd, and then onto the bus for refuge, in fear of the motel making them do anything else remotely self-damaging. It wasn't worth the risk. All of them were far too traumatised to spend an entire night in there, and had instead each taken seats on the bus and used them as temporary beds. Lois hadn't been able to sleep for a while, and had opted to watch the sun come up over the early hours of the morning. She wasn't sure if anyone else had been asleep — in fact, she very much doubted it — but if they had been awake, no one had breathed a word. They all had too much on their minds. Last night had been chaos. Lois Lane still couldn't quite breathe.

   The pack hadn't discussed her glowing eyes — which, Lois was incredibly grateful for. She was too scared to even think about it.

   It didn't make sense.

   Then again, none of last night had made sense.

   Lois had a lot of questions. Why had she been affected by the cruel temptations of the motel? She wasn't a werewolf, so why had she been close to being a sacrifice? Was she supposed to be one of the sacrifices, or was it something else? A coincidence? General mania and insanity? She wasn't sure.

   What were those hallucinations she had seen in the bathroom? The blue lights? Were they hallucinations? Visions? Concussion? If she hadn't actually hit her head, as she had thought she had done, then there was no chance that Lois could have been concussed.

   Rather, Lois had been drowning — trying to drown herself. But, Lois was terrified of water. Terrified of drowning. If there were a way she chose to go, it certainly wouldn't have been by drowning.

   Most of all, why had her eyes been blue? Twice. Lois wasn't at all supernatural. At least, not to her knowledge. So, why did her eyes now glow? Had she been the one to force Luna away from the fire of burning gasoline? What had extinguished it? The tears on their cheeks? None of it made sense. None of it, at all. Lois didn't — she couldn't understand. That was what had terrified Lois, right to her core. It petrified her. Her eyes. Her bloody eyes. Those blue eyes were what suffocated Lois, so she opted not to think about them.

   Lois had fallen asleep thinking of Isaac, instead.

   Not in a good way.

   Once again, Isaac Lahey had succeeded in irritating Lois Lane. However, this time, it wasn't necessarily his fault.

   The last year had given Lois a role in Isaac's life. A role to him that always seemed to end up with her being played. It was like a game of chess: Isaac was the player, and she was the pawn. Being pushed across the board in favour of the other pieces, vulnerable to attack, moving forward only one step at a time — but, it felt as though she were constantly moving back. He was the puppeteer and Lois was the puppet. It was like she had been attached to a set of strings and Isaac was contorting her in any which way. Back in sophomore year, when she had asked him to the underground rave to save her from being Matt's date, he had told her that she had been playing a game; a game that he was living up to.

He had been wrong. Lois may have been lying, but Isaac had been the one playing the game. He had baited her there in hopes of her being the kanima's master. He had been the one kissing her, and toying with her. It was Isaac who had kissed Lois last night, at the hands of sacrifice, when he had known that Boyd had liked her for years. Isaac had known that before Lois, and while the beta hadn't been himself, he had still done it. To make Boyd angry.

   Isaac hadn't kissed Lois for any other reason.

   Only for selfish intent.

   She was a pawn in his game, once again. And it hurt.

   Lois yawned, kicking her feet down but remaining sprawled over the seat she had occupied, too lazy to move. Stiles and Luna were on the one in front of her, cuddled together, with Scott at the front of them. On the other side of the aisle were Allison and Lydia, leaning on each other for support in their half asleep state.

   Both of Derek's betas were squished up on the seats at the very back of the bus, barely managing to fit due to their tall physiques, and Lois nearly snickered at the sight of them. Nearly.

    "But, in case you losers missed the announcement, the meet's been cancelled! So, we're heading home." Coach Finstock told them, then turned to the rest of the teenagers and ushered them onto the bus. "Pack it in— pack it in!"

   Before anyone else had made it on, Ethan had thrown himself into the seat next to Scott. They all stared at the alpha, weirdly.

    "I don't know what happened, last night..." he sighed, "But, I'm pretty sure you saved my life."

    "Actually, we saved your life—" Stiles corrected, signalling to himself, Luna and Lois with a hand wave, even though Lois hadn't really helped. She'd been too busy with Isaac and Boyd, but that didn't really matter. Either way, it hadn't been Scott. Ethan acted as if he hadn't even heard, and Stiles pursed his lips, "—but not that it matters, that much. It's just... it's a minor detail."

   Ethan focused on Scott, "So, I'm gonna give you something."

   This interested Lois, and she tilted her head to listen.

    "We're pretty sure Derek's still alive."

   Okay— she hadn't expected that. A warmth burst through her chest and her shoulders sagged in relief. Derek was alive. Perhaps a little worse for wear, but if the alpha packed assumed him to no longer be deceased, then she didn't doubt it. Derek Hale was alive.

    "But he killed one of ours," Ethan continued, "That means one of two things can happen: either, he joins our pack—"

   Scott frowned, "And kills his own..."

   He nodded.

    "—or, Kali goes after him." Tone stiff and serious, the alpha twin looked Scott straight in the eyes. "And, we kill him. That's the way it works."

   The relief that Lois had felt dwindled, and her shoulders grew heavier than before. She knew that they were a murderous alpha pack, who had a passion for trying to kill Derek, but the poor guy couldn't catch a break.

    "Y'know— your little code of ethics, there, is sort of barbaric. Just an F.Y.I." Stiles shrugged.

   Rolling his eyes, Ethan stood from the seat and made for the back of the bus, where Danny had saved them a space. He sent Lois an odd look when he noticed that she was still laying down, her head over the edge of the seat, but said nothing when she shot him a glare. Not for any reason in particular, just a general glare.

    "Coach— can I see your whistle, for a second?"

   Lydia snatched the whistle from his neck before he could really question it, already sitting down and staring at it intently. The man let out a sigh, "I'm gonna need that back! Hey, Ethan—?"

   While he went back to his conversation, Lydia held her hand over the whistle and blew into it. The fellow teenagers watched, confused but not fazed by how bizarre it seemed. After all, last night had been bizarre enough in itself. They didn't question her.

   She pulled back her hand to look at it. Her eyes widened, and she raised her palm in the air so that they could it, "Wolfsbane."

   Lois had recognised the purple dust, immediately.

    "So, every time that coach blew the whistle on the bus," Stiles added up the pieces, "Scott, Isaac, Boyd..."

   Luna nodded, "And Ethan..."

    "We all inhaled it." Scott breathed out the words.

    "You were all poisoned, by it." Glancing at Lois, Allison pressed her lips in a tight line. She recalled her glowing eyes, her attempt to drown herself in the bathroom, how she had felt ill on the bus and beaten the daylights out of Ethan. It was all starting to make sense, "And I think that Lois was, too."

    "That's how the Darach got in our heads," Lois muttered, her heart in her throat. "Whatever happened last night, that was how they did it."

   No one said anything else. Lois wondered if they were perhaps too scared to bring up Lois' newfound powers, at the moment, in fear of upsetting her, or overstepping the mark, or being too tired to really question it at the moment. Either way, she was glad; Lois didn't want to talk about it, further. And Stiles must have sensed that. He took a glance at her, then at the whistle, then snatched it.

   As the bus started up, he scrambled to the window and yanked it open, thrusting the whistle over the top of Scott's head and onto the concrete below. Slowly, the bus pulled out of the parking lot.

    "Hey— hey, hey, hey! Stilinski!"

   While he got a lecture from coach, and a clip around the ear, Lois sank further into her seat and shut her eyes tightly. She tried to block out the world in favour of more sleep, but that plan was soiled when a silhouette darkened the sun.

    "What are you doing?"

    "What's it look like I'm doing, smart guy?" She quipped, eyes still shut. She didn't want to look at him. "I'm trying to sleep."

    "Upside down...?"

    "It's called reclining, look it up."

   Isaac let out a small laugh, "Of course."

    "What do you want?" Lois deadpanned. She cracked one eye open and looked up at him, him being the wrong way entirely. She could still see his apprehension, though.

    "Uh—" he stuttered, embarrassed, his cheeks flushed red. It was one of the few times that she had seen Isaac Lahey look nervous, if not totally flustered, and Lois was taken aback. Isaac scratched the back of his neck and puffed out his cheeks, but when he saw the twinkle of amusement in her eyes — well, one eye — he shot her a glare and nudged her head with his knee. He ignored her when she scowled and nudged her again, "Move over."

    "No."

    "I won't ask again, gumdrop."

    "You didn't even ask!"

    "Just move!"

    "You're so annoying..." Lois grumbled, but moved nonetheless.

   Isaac slid into the seat beside her and his thigh brushed against hers, and Lois was suddenly hyper aware of how close he was to her. Perhaps not the closest they had ever been, but close enough for the breath to catch in her throat. She tried to ignore it.

    "Well, this is riveting." She remarked after a moment's awkward and tense silence.

   He rolled his eyes, "Do you always have to be so difficult?"

    "Me?" A scoff fell from her lips, "Speak for yourself."

    "Look—" leaning forward, Isaac place an arm around the back of the seat, his fingers grazing her shoulder. Lois tried not to reel away from the close proximity and blinked, her mind suddenly at a blank for sarcastic comments. "—last night was... strange. I don't really remember much of it, but Boyd said I was acting weird."

   Lois smiled tightly, "Really?"

    "Yeah," he furrowed his brow. "He said I went to your room, at some point, and I just wanted to make sure that..." Isaac sighed, "I— I didn't hurt you, did I?"

   He didn't remember.

   He didn't remember, because Boyd didn't tell him.

    "Hurt me...?" She echoed, voice barely a whisper.

    "I dunno, Lo. I always seem to put you in danger when I lose control..." the nickname rolled off his tongue like honey, "I guess I just wanted to make sure that I didn't do anything, this time."

   Her heart pounded in her chest, and she briefly wondered if he could hear it. For a moment, Lois felt as though she was going to cry, but the tears never fell because she figured there was nothing to cry about. Isaac didn't remember kissing her, which meant he didn't remember hurting Boyd while doing so, and Boyd hadn't told him. Isaac didn't know that he had kissed Lois to hurt Boyd, and he didn't know that he had hurt Lois in the process. A part of her heart stung, and it was a bigger part of her heart than she would have liked to admit. Why did it cut her so deep?

   Lois knew why.

   She was just a pawn.

   Realising that she had been too quiet for too long, and seeing a certain worry blossom in his eyes, Lois cleared her throat. The girl shook her head a few times to many and forced a smile, "No— no. You didn't hurt me."

    "Good," he breathed deeply, "So, what happened?"

    "Nothing..." Lois told him, chest weighted.

   She slipped into the seat and under his arm, which fell to rest over her shoulders without either of them realising it.

    "...nothing, at all."

  
——

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