"I'm so scared that the moments we shared
wont happen again,
i don't want this to end."
word count: 5.4k
trigger warning; allusions to self-harm
Max slipped onto the back porch of the McCall house without being noticed by Scott or Stiles, who were on top of their game, looking for files on their laptops to pass the time. The rest of the pack was yet to arrive.
Last night's escapades had left him exhausted. Truth be told, sometimes he went so long without any kind of a vision that he forgot he was a seer. Premonitions popped up whenever they felt like it but they stayed buried for the most part, occasionally popping up to remind him it hadn't gone anywhere.
That was, until the fucking dread doctors decided to turn him into a middle school biology project. These days, he was lucky to go twenty-four hours without a vision. It was sucking the will to live out of him (and he didn't have much of that to begin with, either).
Kneeling on the wooden deck, he rustled through the weaved wicker basket until he found a fleecy blanket. Shuffling his way to the porch swing, he lay with the blanket wrapped around him. It swayed from side to side as he watched the roof of the porch swim, trying to take a moment to breathe before it all kicked off.
The back door creaked open, something that he used to complain about every time they snuck in from the latest supernatural adventure. He didn't have to look to know that it was his sister. It took her long enough because she had been watching him like a hawk ever since he had relapsed. He didn't think he would even make it out of the door without her pouncing at him.
Shuffling his way to sit up, he wrapped his arms over his knees, making room for her to sit on the opposite end of the porch swing. Jade pushed herself into the corner, pulling half the blanket into her lap. "Who're we waiting on?" he rested his chin in his hand, green eyes piercing a hole through the neighbours' fence as their dog barked gratingly loud. Max normally would not have batted an eye but with the way his migraine was progressing, he didn't have the head for it.
"Mal is coming with Lily, so they should be here at a fashionably late time," she snorted, both of the twins knowing what their appearance-obsessed best friend was like when it came to time deadlines. "Lib and the Lawless' are here. So is Parrish. Waiting on Kira and Liam, too, but they should be here soon enough."
Humming in agreement, he watched a robin hop up onto the polished white bannister, hopping around on its two legs. It reminded him of his mom; she said she wanted to come back as a robin. His dad wanted to be a baboon, so a pinch of salt, he supposed.
"Was it bad?" Jade kept her emerald eyes trained on the red-breasted robin, toying with the teeny charms attached to her silver necklace. In the six months she had turned off her emotions, this was the first time it started to really tug on her will to let the feelings slip back in.
She didn't need to say anything else for Max to know what she was talking about. Deep down, they knew it would happen sooner or later—— she didn't have the patience to not know. Whether she would admit it or not, she didn't like the unknown, especially when the unknown was about her future.
"It wasn't bad."
"Liar," she smiled half-heartedly, nudging him in the knee with her foot. Maybe it was their twin telepathy or the fact that he couldn't lie to save his life that was his downfall. Either way, she knew it was bad. It was sweet that he tried to spare her worrying but she had expected it in a way. His visions were rarely anything good. "I know you can't tell me. I haven't forgotten," she tapped the side of her head mischievously.
He chuckled under his breath, rolling his eyes at her dramatics. Ever the theatre kid. Even if he wanted to he couldn't change the future. All the risky things he had done pushed aside, he would never dream about messing with prophecies. It was unknown territory— for all he knew, he could destroy everything in a split-second impulsive decision.
She sighed heavily, allowing gravity to take over the porches rocking without her magic boost. "I honestly don't care what you saw. You and I both know I'll be outliving the lot of you," she laughed, trying her best to lighten the mood.
Ducking his head and laughing, he didn't doubt that she was right. If someone would outlive their friend group, it was her—— she had managed to survive the benefactors' million-dollar hit on her head. Even if there was some truth behind the vision, there was no one better suited to defeat the nogitsune. Most of them had lived to tell the tale once, why did it matter if they increased that number?
Lily pushed down on the handle leading to the back door, peeking her head outside to see where her best friends had disappeared to. Chatter drifted out to the porch, the twins craning their necks and peering over their shoulders with identical smiles. It made them look youthful and unharmed by what the world had to offer. "Am I interrupting an important convo here?" they pouted, pointing a manicured nail at the pair.
Sometimes Jade wondered if they fucking came out of the womb like this; without so much as a perfectly curled hair out of place. She must have changed their nails in two days; these were bubblegum pink with a selection of hearts designed on top, contrary to their eye-catching red. "Because if I am, blame Blair, she told me to find you," she explained quickly, waving a hand through the air as they spoke. It was a striking resemblance to talons.
From the depths of the kitchen, someone shouted a reply that they couldn't quite make out, but they had an idea that Blair was trying to defend herself. With a hmph of defeat, Jade folded the blanket into a little square and returned it to the wicker basket.
Max groaned when the two girls expectedly turned to him, lamely trying to hide behind a pillow. Covering his head with his arms, Jade used that very pillow to attack him. Lilith held out her hands to help him up. "Come on," they sang, wiggling their fingertips in his direction. He grabbed one of her free hands, yanking himself to his feet and laughing.
Lily always knew how to do that, somehow. When it had been the worst day, she could smile and you had to smile too. It was like a yawn spreading throughout your classroom on a Monday morning when the rain drummed on the windows and your eyes were bleary from sleep.
The kitchen was chaotic when they stepped in; Scott and Liberty were preparing a bunch of pictures of experiments and Stiles scrolled through a lengthy Word document on his laptop while Nate and Liam hovered over his shoulder. Kira came out of the living room with Malia in tow, both girls holding lots of blueprints. Despite this being a pack meeting, the alpha in question had decided to take a step back for today and let Blair take over. She flipped through an old, battered folder at lightning speed while Parrish stood beside her (and watched her like a love-struck puppy).
Blair spun on her heels as the back door clicked shut, folding her arms over her lemon cardigan and fixing the trio with a tired smile. "I simply asked where you were and she decided to go on a manhunt," she lifted a stencilled brow at Lilith as she hopped onto one of the countertops with a shrug.
Sorting through a photocopied replica of her bestiary was easy while the others got settled for the meeting. Most had surrounded the island in the middle of the room while others (particularly the more restless of the group) had opted to sit on any available surface— or in Nathan's case, the floor.
Glancing up from her notes, she felt her face flush at everyone's gaze on her. You'd think she'd be used to the attention when her job involved working with people twenty-four-seven, five days a week. "Okay," she cleared her throat, checking that her wrists were covered. Jordan squeezed her hand under the island, smiling encouragingly.
"First off, these are pictures of Dr Valack's patients," she reached across the table and turned over a photo of a man in excruciating pain, a hole drilled into the side of his skull. Moving to another picture, she held it up; a banshee was screaming, clutching at the side of her head as blood seeped through the gaps in her fingers. Scott and Stiles didn't seem phased— seeing them with Deaton this morning must have made the shock subside. "A banshee. She died screaming," she swallowed, breathing deeply once the picture was on the island again.
"Dr Valack's planning to drill a hole in Lydia's head," she said, not wanting to sugarcoat it, but taking care to keep her voice gentle. The teenagers surrounding her were Lydia's best friends and it would be cruel to lie. "Lydia's special. Her abilities are more advanced than any other banshee I've met. If Valack drills this hole, she's going to hear every death and scream, all at once. It'll kill her," she thinned her lips, picking at her fingernails. "Her dying scream will kill everyone around her, too."
Her words settled in the air like a damp blanket that weighed them down into the depths of doom. "We're gonna get her out," she mustered up a tiny smile and tried to get back on track now that the introduction was out of the way. "There are 4 steps; into eichen, into the closed unit, get Lydia, get out. There's gonna be a ton of guards, orderlies, electrical door locks and a—— a mountain ash barrier," she trailed off, casting a look at the supernaturals on the last sentence.
She had barely taken in a breath when the questions were being fired her way—— Lilith had a pessimistic view that this was a suicide mission, Malia wondered if this could even be classed as a plan and Liam was just confused about what the key card had to do with all of this.
"Ok," Jordan laughed, holding up his hands for them to stop talking. Blair's hands trembled as she yanked on the clasp of her earring and it didn't go amiss by a watchful deputy. She had been quiet ever since their encounter in the hospital yesterday evening. The car ride home. All of this morning. The car ride here. He knew her; she didn't like silence. She hated it. It made her nervous!
Something was going on with his girlfriend and he'd find out what it was. If he had to ask her a million or two times, he would. His job surrounded figuring out the clues and investigating things—— it was what he did best. He wouldn't overstep, but he would figure out what was up. "Jade stole the key from eichen. It's our way in and out. The code resets itself every night but Stiles pulled the history off the card."
"Two weeks ago, there was a brown out," Blair cut in and picked up where he left off, hand reaching up to tug on her earrings in a bid to keep her cool. It's fine. There was a door right behind her that she could get out of. She was safe and it was fine! "Throughout the brownout, the system reset itself. The cards go back to the default code when the system reboots. So if we can cause a brownout, we can get inside."
Kira anxiously bit on the inside of her cheek. By the sounds of it, she knew where this was going. "How'd we cause a brownout?" she furrowed her brows in an anxious state, praying that her assumption would be wrong in the long run.
Her father had forced her to snap her katana in half yesterday. Despite her protests that she was useless without her sword, both of her parents remained adamant that the sword needed to be broken. It was a gateway to the fox. Right now, it would be too risky to keep the katana.
"That's where you come in," Blair explained, offering the kitsune a sympathetic smile. It was clear that she wasn't keen on the idea. "You're going to draw power from the main line but you have to be careful. Taking too much power will cause a blackout and put us in lockdown," she tucked a stray piece of hair out of her eyes, glaring at Stiles when he said that it would be a very bad outcome. "Two breakers run power through eichen in an electrical room behind reception."
Kira drummed her fingers on the tabletop, chuckling nervously, her eyes darting around for support that never arrived. "Slight problem— I don't know how to do that," she said, trying to bring her voice down a solid eight and a half pitches.
She didn't understand why Blair thought it would be a good idea to give an out-of-control kitsune a part to play in saving their best friend. Just a couple of days ago, she had been fighting skinwalkers in the middle of the desert!
From the one step of the plan that she had heard, it sounded like the majority of responsibility landed on her shoulders. If she couldn't do it, would the others still be able to carry on? Maybe they should come up with a backup plan in case. If Dr Valack successfully managed to drill a hole into Lydia's head, she might as well be in eichen when she screamed because the banshees girlfriend would rip her heart out.
Malia rolled her eyes as Scott tried to reassure his ex, allowing Lilith to move her head as she sectioned off her hair in preparation for braiding it. "Let's say all of this goes perfectly," she turned her head to the left at the redheads' request.
She didn't miss Max raising a suggestive brow at her, wondering why his best friend, who had once bit him when he tried to hug her, was allowing Lily to braid her hair. Hm. Glaring at him, she asked, "How does a brownout get us into the closed unit?"
"The system takes five minutes to reboot. The alarms will all be switched off in those five minutes and the key card should work," Stiles answered, not instilling confidence in any of them. In all fairness, he couldn't blame them—— ninety-nine per cent of his plans had a reputation for being appalling. "Liberty, Scott and Liam are gonna get me into the closed unit," he pointed at all three in turn, pulling on the collar of his plaid flannel.
"Jade will go with you guys, but she'll be using invisibility. The nurses and orderlies at Eichen know all about her and what she can do," Blair twitched her nose twitched as she explained, eyeing the door behind her just in case someone had blocked her in. "The mountain ash in eichen can't keep her out, so she'll go with Stiles while the others keep watch."
Everyone seemed to look at the pair, wondering if Scott had a death wish for either of them. Jade and Stiles could hardly stand to be in a room together, so what made him trust them to work together to get Lydia out? Staying silent, holding their breaths, they watched them have a staring competition, waiting to see who would object first.
At the very least, they had expected either of them to roll their eyes and ask if they had to be partners or if it was an optional thing. They had not expected Jade to nod curtly (and almost break her molars with how hard she was clenching her jaw). Lydia's safety took priority over their feud.
"When we're gone, all anyone's gonna be thinking is that the system had a reboot caused by a brownout," Scott spoke up, straddling the back of a chair that he was sitting on. Liberty rested her chin in the palm of her hand, lazily drawing circles on her thighs as she read a cookbook.
Glancing up at her through his lashes, he stifled a laugh at how her bulky doc martens hit off his leg as she swung them. Losing interest in the cookbook, she was sorting through a spice rack on the counter. "Anyone have any questions?"
Nobody wasted time in bombarding the alpha with a thousand questions; Malia wanted to know what the worst-case scenario was, Kira was anxious at the idea of having to cause a brownout, Nate wanted to know how important you had to be assassinated, Liam seemed to remember that they hadn't been told how to get into Eichen in the first
place and Liberty was more concerned that his mom hadn't got her spices in alphabetical order.
"Admittedly, a lot could go wrong"
"Everything could go wrong!"
Jade was getting more panicked by the second, tiny sparks flying from her hands as she slammed them onto the table. "Lydia is gonna die tonight if we don't do this. If any of you have a better idea, please let us know," she spat, eyes turning violet, knuckles white. A beat of silence passed by. "If you don't want to do this, fine, no judgement from me. But you're either in or out. No fucking about because if anyone isn't fully on board and it costs Lydia her life, you'll wish you hadn't come with us."
"Alright," Max laughed awkwardly, laying a hand on her shoulder to snap her out of the insane daze. Love made you crazy or whatever. "She means that Lydia's very important and all of us want her home safely."
"No, what I mean is that I'll kill whoever screws this up."
Blair cleared her throat, rubbing the back of her neck anxiously. "I think we get the gist of the plan. If you have more questions, you can swing by my office and ask me in school, which is where we all need to be in roughly—," she clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, tapping the home screen of her phone. A picture of the Lawless siblings snowboarding during Christmas popped up in the background. "—an hour. I wanna see every single one of you there 'cause your attendances are quite shocking," she warned lightly, muttering the last part under her breath.
The teenagers dissipated from the kitchen and Scott paused to thank her once more while she packed her things into her handbag, fussing that she would have been up at this time anyways. At least this way, there was something for her to do rather than spend half an hour contemplating her existence before work.
"Scott said he can walk me to school. Is that ok?" Lib shuffled on her feet as she slipped back into the large kitchen, picking up her sisters' notebook and firing it at Parrish, who caught it without missing a beat. She grinned at him, pushing herself up onto a counter to sit in front of her older sister. She could faintly make out Scott's heavy footsteps clambering around in his bedroom upstairs.
Blair barely glanced up from her handbag, her teeth nibbling on her bottom lip anxiously. "That's grand," she ran her hand through Liberty's curls, carefully trying to untangle the knots she had missed with the brush earlier this morning. "Nate's already gone with Liam," she mused aloud, peering around her sister to look out of the living room window. "Mason must've been outside."
"He was," Jordan answered, taking Blair by surprise as he appeared behind her. She could feel his breath fan against the nape of her neck with how close he was. Biting a bit harder on her lip, she tried to keep her cool—— or what remained of it.
Scott came thundering down the stairs with his bag slung over his shoulder and a spring in his step as he bounced towards the witch. "You ready?" he asked, a cheerful smile making his eyes crinkle in the corners.
Liberty nodded, wrapping her sister into a tight hug and waving goodbye to Parrish. Once Ace's lead was clipped on and her satchel was across her chest, they slipped out of the front door, laughter drifting inside before they disappeared into the fresh air.
Blair turned to face Jordan, sighing contently at how warm his hands were. "I might just keep you around. It's like having my own personal heater," she looked up at him through her lashes, nose scrunching.
He laughed gently, the pad of his thumb rubbing her knuckles soothingly. Sucking in a breath, he decided that he couldn't stand this anymore. "You know you can talk to me, right?" he murmured, feeling a pang in his chest at how deflated she looked with her eyes focused on a spot on the ground as she dug her shoes into the wooden floorboards.
Without thinking, he freed one of his hands from her grasp. Gently and carefully, he placed a finger under her chin, prompting her to look up at him. She hated how much willpower it took not to shatter under his gaze. "If you're not ready to talk about it, you don't have to. But I'll still be here when you do. Just tell me how I can help for now, hm?"
As the taste of blood and saliva filled her mouth, she was sure her teeth had torn a hole through her gums. Her heartbeat was roaring in her ears and she found it virtually impossible to focus on anything else.
In one swift motion, she rushed forward, burying her head into his t-shirt and trying not to burst into sobs that would surely break her ribcage. He momentarily lost his footing, briefly taken aback. "I'm sorry," she murmured, voice muffled in the material of his shirt.
With furrowed brows, he rubbed circles on her lower back, his other hand smoothing out her hair. "Sorry? For what?" he asked with furrowed brows. He didn't understand why she would be sorry unless someone had told her that crying was a weakness (which was ironic, given that her entire job surrounded working through and analysing feelings).
"I don't know," she huffed, praying that the awkward blush would have scattered before she had to look up again. "I don't wanna talk about it," she whispered, a slight edge to her voice. He nodded into her hair and murmured that that was alright. Guilt rippled in her chest. "Thank you though," she hoped he wasn't able to tell that the liveliness in her tone was fake.
He was somehow able to see through her mask every other day of the week, so she doubted today was any different. Pulling away from his grasp, she plastered a smile on her face, squeezing his hands. "We should probably get going," she pressed a quick kiss onto his cheek, gliding past him to the other side of the island where her handbag was. "I'm sure Scott said Melissa would be coming home soon. You're stationed at the school today, right?"
Jordan knew that she was trying to change the topic to avoid answering any other questions—— she had never been good at being subtle. Still, he had let her know that he was here when she wanted to open up, and it might drive her further away if he pushed too hard. "Yeah, the sheriff wanted me to keep a lookout for the beast. Want me to bring you lunch during the break?"
"Sure!" she tucked her phone into the tiny pocket on the inside lining of her bag, grabbing Jordan's hands and pulling him towards the door with a laugh.
Blair threw her car keys at him so that he could start the engine. Whenever it was just them in the car, she let him drive, but she tended to drive when Nate and Lib were with them. They were chaotic in the car.
Kneeling on the gravel, she started searching under the flowerbeds for the spare key that Scott had left out. Finally finding it by the colourful tulips, she locked the door with one hand, balancing her bag in the bend of her elbow.
Bouncing towards the passenger side of the car and slamming the door closed, she flicked through their shared playlist until the way i loved you blasted out of the speakers. Singing along at the top of her lungs and dancing dramatically as Jordan placed his hand on his heart and swung his head in time with the fast beat of the song.
She couldn't shake the feeling that weighed heavy in her gut, a bottomless hole of shame and humiliation. It was like skimming a stone in a lake on a rainy day. If she dropped a pebble down her throat, she feared she would never hear it land.
That was why she couldn't bring herself to say what was on her mind. She was terrified that she might be unlovable. Jordan was the first guy that she imagined herself having a future with. The coping mechanisms she used to use, despite how hurtful they were in the long run, were nothing to be ashamed of. That's what she told herself, at least.
But with the reminders that seared her skin and the spiteful words from her parents that echoed around in her head, she was afraid of letting anyone in.
She was afraid that if Jordan knew the truth or saw her for what she really was, she would lose him.
⌜ • ° + ° • ⌝
"Lib, Malia and Kira are in the science labs to try and work on the brownout," Max whispered, passing by a few students who chose to spend their lunch break in the library. He didn't have much room to judge; four members of the pack, including him, had spent their free period collecting body bags from his aunt in the hospital morgue. Each to their own, he supposed.
Stiles twitched his nose anxiously, intertwining their fingers together as a form of comfort. Max looked up from the steps for a second, letting his gaze return to the square he had successfully managed to knit in art class. "Well, my dads got the lab working on the shoe prints and he said he tried to convince Natalie to get Lydia out of eichen."
"Did it work?" Scott asked, ever the optimist. With a small sigh, his shoulders dropped when both his best friends scoffed and shut him down with a blunt "no." Glancing to his left to see what else Stiles had to say, he stopped in his tracks, narrowing his eyes.
Theo Raeken glanced up from the book they were in the middle of reading, snapping it closed and placing it back on the shelf. All four of them knew they hadn't suddenly grown an interest in the female anatomy so the only reasonable explanation was that they'd been eavesdropping.
Scott asked what they were doing, a foreign coldness to his voice. It was clear that he was understandably still bitter about the whole "plotting to murder him" thing. At least Jade had got there first because she'd come back to revive him, whereas Theo would have probably left him for dead.
"I still need to graduate," they raised their hands to their shoulders, feigning a look of innocence. It was hard to tell how Max was feeling. Was there a glint of compassion mixed in with the betrayal? No, perhaps they were only hoping there was.
"No. No, what you need is to be beaten severely over the head with a lead pipe wrapped in barbed wire—"
Theo cut Stiles off before he could continue with the creative insults. They got the gist of it, anyway. "Ok, I admit that mistakes were made."
"Murders. Murders were made," Stiles spat, almost jumping down their throat before they had a chance to finish. "You should count yourself lucky that Jade hasn't fully realised that you're the reason Lydia's in eichen," he hissed through gritted teeth. "She knows you had something to do with it but if she figures out that you're the reason she's catatonic, she'll have you slaughtered before you can even realise. And none of us are gonna stop her."
Scott glanced at his best friend, feeling pride rush in his chest. Stiles had stood up for Jade. Maybe saying that she was a good murderer might not have been a glowing character reference but it hardly mattered at this point. He did make a good point, though—— his cousin would have destroyed Theo by now if she had a second to spare.
"You know how the Soviets helped us win world war two? It's because they knew how to make it through a Russian winter," they explained, lounging against a nearby bookshelf. Uninterested in the history lesson, the trio went to leave before Theo spoke up again. "If you're planning to break Lydia out of eichen, you will need to get past the mountain ash. We, the chimeras, can make it through. You can't, Scott."
Scott narrowed his eyes suspiciously, a muscle in his jaw ticking threateningly. "What is it that you really want?" He wasn't buying it. They had conspired with a dark witch, hoping to murder him and take control of his pack, dangerously clawed through Lydias' head which resulted in her being locked in the closed unit, without a single regard for her life or the people they would hurt. What was with the sudden change of heart?
"I know you saw the fresco. Two seriously pissed-off creatures, the hellhound and the beast, fighting over a pile of bodies. I don't wanna be one of them. It's as simple as that. I can get you to Lydia," they answered honestly. "Or we can see who gets to her first," Theo smirked maliciously, lifting their shoulder into a half-shrug.
Max finally looked up from his knitting, holding onto the needles with so much force that he felt their form start to change. "I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt because I know that traumatic experiences can make people do bad things but, at some point or another, you're gonna have to start taking a level of responsibility," he cleared his throat to stop his voice cracking. Theo wouldn't make eye contact with him.
"Is power worth losing Phoenix and me, the only two friends you have?" he spat, finding it hard to feel angry when he was this exhausted from it all. "'Cause if you go through with this, you're gonna have your work cut out for you in regaining my trust. If you still want to try and build your pack, fine, but leave Nix out of this. You and I both know she's been through more than enough."
His chest heaved as he tried to catch his breath, both of them just as stubborn as each other. Neither Scott nor Stiles knew what trauma he was referring to when he was talking about Phoenix and Theo, so they kept quiet, exchanging confused looks.
With a final glare cast towards the alpha and human, Theo left the library, slamming the door on their way out and scaring a few of the studying students on the upper floor.
"Remind me why you're friends with them again?"
"Theo was one of the only things that kept me sane to be fair," Max replied nonchalantly, moving to sit at an empty table beside them and placing a blue ball of wool on the surface to make it easier to knit. All of this stress wasn't good for his recovery.
Stiles followed suit, dramatically collapsing into the chair next to the empath while Scott slipped into the seat opposite him, cracking his knuckles, listening to Stiles rant and rave. "There's no way they know what Valack's doing. Why are they so interested in her?"
"They're probably thinking what we're all thinking— that Lydia's got something bigger to do with this. That maybe she's the only one who can actually save us."
A/N
hi all!! hope you're well!
— max and jade heart to heart ❤️🩹 i love them.
—— i've missed the lily x max x jade trio so freaking much <3
—— max looking at lily braid malia's hair like👀 "i see u"
—— okay i know we said blair content and i'm sorry it's kinda sad </3 anyway i love blair + jordan so freaking much </3
—max is on his journey to recovery!! i'm like a proud mom rn 🥺also i love that he's finally sticking up for himself and not letting people treat him like a doormat, go max!!