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.*･｡. WAITING FOR SUPERMAN .*･｡.
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017.
DON'T SHOOT THE MESSENGER.

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——

   Lois pursed her lips tightly, occasionally glancing at the pink gloves on Lydia's hands every few seconds. "Do you want to talk about it?"

    "No."

   The brunette nodded her head obediently and fell silent again, her eyes travelling back the watch the scenery of Beacon Hills pass by them as they drove. She knew better than to try and push Lydia Martin, even if she was a close friend, in fear that the redhead would explode. Sounded dramatic, but it was very much possible.

   She looked at the gloved hands upon the steering wheel once more, and sighed, throwing her head back.

    "How about now?"

    "No—!" Lydia shot down with a sharp tongue and a tight smile. She barely even glanced at her friend as she spoke, keeping her eyes on the road and glaring bitterly into the distant traffic ahead of them. Lois cringed at the tone, not afraid but hesitant to tread any further into the danger zone, "I said no, Lois, okay? There is nothing to talk about. I'm fine."

    "Totally!" The girls word was sarcastic, which Lydia didn't appreciate, but Lois didn't care. She was going to get through to her at some point, even if it took her years.

   She would get through to Lydia, eventually. She always did.

   They continued to drive to school in silence, dwelling on the crazy morning that they'd had. It had been eventful, to say in the least, like something out of a horror film from the eighties. And it was only currently eight'o'clock.

   Lois had woken up and shifted around, pulling herself up and out of the sheets when Lydia's mother had knocked on the door. But, upon pulling the sheets back, Lois had been given a heart attack — blood. Everywhere. On their sheets, on her pyjamas, over her face and hands. At one point, Lois thought that she had been shot in the night and magically survived, but that theory had been quickly thrown aside when she found no fatal injury to herself. In fact, the blood wasn't coming from her at all.

   The sound of screaming had forced Lydia's mother into the room, shocked to see a panic-stricken Lois Lane in her daughter's bed and covered in crimson. The worst part was, however, that the blood was coming from Lydia's hands, and was splattered upon a shattered mirror on her desk. Lydia had punched the mirror.

   Lois wasn't surprised that the woman had almost fainted.

   They had quickly patched Lydia up and gotten ready for school, washing away any trace of blood and dusting up shards of glass that had scattered. She has slipped on gloves to cover it up and applied a coat of lipgloss, hiding her trembling with her usual glamour. The strawberry blonde was shaken from the event, deep down, and Lois couldn't exactly blame her. It was scary, and Lois' heart was still thumping out of her chest. She didn't understand how she hadn't even noticed that Lydia had gotten up in the night, let alone smashed a mirror to a thousand pieces and dragged blood through the room and all over the sheets. It sounded insane.

   Then again, Lydia hadn't managed to noticed herself doing it, either. Lois could hardly believe it. She was just glad that Lydia wasn't harmed too significantly — she wasn't sure what she would have done, otherwise. Perhaps cried for years on end, or die.

   But, Lois knew how it felt to act out in dreams.

   She was usually more aware than Lydia was, and she had never broken glass, but she had definitely been overcome by unconscious states in the past. Night terrors were familiar to Lois, as there were several years that she hadn't gone a night without them, and she had been hardly aware of what was happening while she slept.

   Lois had walked out of her room and fallen down the stairs, one time, and she had accidentally pushed Stiles out of bed another.

   Lois had screamed and cried, gotten stuck within her sheets and been convinced that she was drowning, and she had woken up everyone on the block with her plagued mind and broken heart. To an extent, Lois understood what Lydia was going through.

   Not exactly, but almost.

   Most of the car journey was silent. Every now and then, Lois would pipe up with a comment or query, hoping to get her friend to talk to her, but Lydia was having none of it. It was infuriating.

    "You'll talk to me at some point," she pointed out as she unclipped her seatbelt, "I know you will."

   Lydia hummed sarcastically as she stared at herself in the mirror, pushing her curls out of her face, "You're right, Lo. I will talk to you at some point," there was a silence as she pretended to deliberate, "But that time isn't now."

   And with that, Lydia flipped her hair over her shoulder and pushed herself out of the car. Lois scowled and rolled her eyes, grabbing her bag and slinging it over her shoulder as she quickly clambered out. They had done well the night before; Lydia had spoken to her, given her an insight to how she was feeling, and now it seemed to have all been reversed. It was as if every step foreword, meant ten steps back.

   She wanted her friend to be alright, and waking up in the state that she had done certainly wasn't alright. Anything but. At the end of the day, Lois just wanted Lydia to be okay.

The school parking lot was dead. Which was expected, seeing as they had gotten there incredibly early. Due to the big fright of a morning, Lydia's mother had demanded that she had to go and see their school counsellor. There was no choice anymore — it was a matter of her daughter's safety, and Lois understood that, but Lydia didn't.

"Is this woman even qualified?"

"Of course she is, Lyds." Lois dismissed the comment as they walked through the school hallways, heading to the office that Lois had visited before. "It won't be so bad—"

"It's going to be horrific." Lydia deadpanned.

"You're being dramatic."

"You're being phlegmatic!" She shot back, striding ahead with her heals hitting the ground.

    "You're the only person who knows what that even means!" Lois groaned, holding onto the bag over her arm a she hurried to catch up. She was wearing sneakers and was still trailing behind her friend. How was she so fast in those heels? "Hey— wait up!"

   Lydia shook her head and kept walking on, gloves still intact.

    "I don't need you to hold my hand, I can get there by myself."

    "Does it look like I'm holding your hand?" Lois scoffed, throwing her arms into the air for dramatic effect. "No hand holding, here!"

    "You wish you were holding my hand!"

   Brushing it off with a roll of her eyes, Lois pushed on. She had told Lydia's mother that she'd make sure that her daughter got to the counsellors office without making a snide getaway — which she didn't really want to do particularly but also didn't want to see what would happen if she didn't — and that was what she was going to do. She was going to walk her there, hold her hand, put her on a damn leash! Whatever it took, Lois would get her there. And that was the final plan, whether Lydia had liked it, or not.

    "I'm sure she'll have a degree," Lois assured teasingly, as they eventually made it to the counsellors office, back to the earlier conversation, "Why don't you ask her? Start a conversation?"

"You know—" Lydia glanced suspiciously, eyes squinted and pausing. "—I can't tell if you're mocking me."

She placed a hand over her chest, "Have I ever?"

Lydia faked a laugh and then quickly cut it dead, stepping into the waiting area and taking a seat proudly. Lois lingered by the doorway for a moment, waiting to see if her friend had needed her, but when she simply stared a head with her hands folded and her chin up high, Lois knew it was her time to go.

After all, Lydia was strong; she would be fine.

Or, at least, that's what Lois repeatedly told herself as she made her way back out of the school to wait for Allison, hoping to stop herself from worrying so much.

It hadn't taken long to find the Argent girl, whom sat upon the same bench that Lois had seen her perched on on the morning of her very first day. The memory made her smile, fond of how the girl had settled in. She silently acknowledged how far they had come, just for a fleeting moment of many others, and then swiftly took the free space to her left.

"Where's Lydia?" Allison asked, having spotted her car but not the actual girl. She would usually be with Lois, but she wasn't.

"Counsellors office." Lois told her, grimacing and pulling a face when she signalled for her to maybe explain the situation. "Bit graphic, really gory. I'll save it for later, brighten your afternoon." She rose a brow, "What about Luna?"

Allison nodded and then shrugged her shoulders, moving her body closer to the brunette. She scooted along the bench and peered around casually, looking for anyone who could hear them and decided that the coast was clear. She pursed her lips tightly and then responded, heart racing as she recalled the night prior. It was something that she needed to get off of her chest, and since she couldn't talk to Scott directly, Lois was someone she trusted to a similar degree. Who was she going to tell? Stiles and Scott?

"In the library doing homework." She spoke lowly, "Okay— so my grandfather was acting weird last night."

Lois blinked, "He is weird."

"Weirder." Allison rolled her eyes, even though it was the truth, and sighed. "He made me promise that I could trust him, told me I reminded him of my Aunt Kate. Isn't that strange?"

"Well, it's hardly a compliment," the shorter of the pair frowned at the information, remembering how much of a psychopath Kate Argent had been. From setting light to the Hale house, then killing werewolves left and right, and being a raging bitch, Lois had found it pretty rude that Gerard had dared to even put Allison and her psycho aunt in the same category. She was nothing like Kate, no matter how much she had thought that she was, and Lois didn't appreciate that her grandfather was trying to tell these things. It would mess with her head, and it was unfair of him. Kate was a bad woman — Allison, however, was not. "She was crazy!"

   Allison gave her a pointed look and Lois cringed.

    "...no offence."

She laughed lightly and smiled at Lois, "None taken." Allison peered around them and lowered her voice, worried that someone would hear and she would be caught out for her secrets. "It just meant that I didn't get to see Scott, I was kind of bummed."

Luna had ended up calling Allison to update her on what had happened the night before, being that she couldn't speak to Scott and the blonde was least likely to be thought that she was hiding something. Lois and Stiles were close to Scott, so it made sense that Luna — as a new addition to their group — would have been speaking to Allison. She was the easiest to lie about, anyway.

Lois knew that hiding their relationship was hurting Scott and Allison, and she wished that it all could have been different. But her family didn't approve of a teenage werewolf being near their daughter.

   And with Gerard around, Scott was as good as dead.

Unfortunately, the current arrangement of secret meet ups and no texting would have to suffice. They couldn't risk it.

     "Well, do you want me to talk to him?" Lois offered, noticing how upset the girl was. She may not have been in love with anybody, but she could imagine how much Allison was hurting.

    "Actually—" her eyes lit up, a large smile covering her pale face. It spread from cheek to cheek, "—could you give him a message?"

• • •

    "I love you."

   Scott smiled down at Lois, his heart warm as her eyes sparkled in the light. Her face was soft and glowy, and she fiddled awkwardly with her hands.

    "I love you more than—" the girl then cringed, taking a step back and shaking her head. It felt too weird, "-—no. I can't— why did I even offer to do this? You and Allison have to find a better way to communicate!"

   He whined, "Come on! You're one of the only people that we can trust. Is she coming to the game, tonight?"

    "Yes!" Lois sighed, "Okay, message complete."

   Stiles snorted a laugh from the side of them, finding pure joy in how awkward Lois had felt. He had grimaced almost the entire way through the message, having not remotely liked hearing Lois tell Scott that she loved him (even if it was via Allison), and he could only imagine how she had felt. But, Lois was kind and she had offered to find Scott and speak to him for her friend, which in turn would make he and Allison happy. Then again, giving him that kind of message hadn't been exactly what she'd imagined.

    "Now that that horrific event is over—"

   Lois scowled, "Shut it, Stiles."

    "—now, tell me about your boss," Stiles continued, ignoring her words. "What happened?"

   Sighing, Lois and Scott shared a look. It had been strange.

"He thinks that Allison's family keeps some kind of, uh— like, records of all the things that they've hunted?" Scott said quite uncertainly, glancing at Lois to check that he had provided all of the information they had been given by Deaton. She nodded her head to confirm that he had, and he smiled a bit more confidently than the last time, "Like a book."

"He probably means a bestiary." Stiles nodded to no one but himself, taking a seat next to Scott on the stairs as he thought about it. However, Scott definitely wasn't following him.

"What?"

The girl snorted loudly at Scott's wide eyes. She knew what was going through his mind and she didn't feel like correcting him before he got the chance to voice his mistake. Lois knew what he thought Stiles had meant, so she sat back and waited for him to say it. She had needed something to really brighten her morning.

    "A bestiary." Stiles repeated as Scott chuckled, "What?"

   Lois snickered to herself as the teen wolf grew a smug grin, feeling pleased that he had been able to correct his best friend for once. But what he didn't know, in classic Scott McCall fashion, was that he wasn't able to correct him. Because he was wrong. And Lois knew it, she just didn't feel like stopping him from humiliating himself. A best friend would never do such a thing — what they did do was let you embarrass yourself completely, and laugh about it all when it happened and for several hours after. She would have been a bad friend if she didn't let him finish his thoughts.

   Somehow, Lois always found herself laughing at Scott. It really sounded awful, but he didn't know that much. He was previously oblivious to most things in life, and he'd never been academically inclined. Certainly not now that he had other things to deal with, like hunters and full moons, and Derek Hale starting his own pack of teenagers. That took up a lot of braincells.

    "I think you mean bestiality," He spoke pointedly, to which the son of the sheriff blinked. Stiles then frowned and shook his head, making Scott's little face drop. It would have broken Lois' heart, had she not been laughing.

    "Nope!" Stiles popped the p then rolled his eyes at the suggestion, "Pretty sure I don't. Bestiary. It's like an encyclopedia of mythical creatures,"

   Scott scowled at the Lois' laughter and huffed, disappointed that he had been wrong. Though, he shouldn't have been.

   Like Lois said, Scott was usually wrong.

    "How am I the only one who doesn't know anything about this stuff?" He pouted.

   Stiles rolled his eyes at the dramatics and attempted to make the boy feel better, something that never really worked but was always attempted, nonetheless. He patted his back, "Okay— you're my best friend, you're a creature of the night. It's a priority of mine."

   Lois shrugged her shoulders, "I'm just smart."

   Both boy scoffed at her response and she rose her hands as if in confusion, unsure as to why they would have ever retorted in such a way. She smiled proudly to herself and leant against the stair banister, waving lazily at Danny as he strolled past them and to the locker rooms. Lois watched after him for a moment and pursed her lips, curious as to how he was. Now that Jackson and Lydia were no longer together, it meant that she hadn't seen their goalie as much as she used to. It was sad to think about, and she made a mental note to see him soon, if she ever got the time.

    "Okay..." Scott nodded to something Stiles had said when Lois wasn't listening. She gathered they were still talking about the book that the Argent's would have and tuned in better, taking part in the conversation once more. He sighed, "If we can find it, it can tell us what this thing is—"

    "And who." The teenage girl interrupted, glancing between them both with eyebrows raised. They stirred in silence, briefly.

    "We need that book!"

——

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