What Would You Do Without Me? // Teen Wolf

It's a Hyperfixation, Not an Obsession

Today was going to be an interesting day. Not that other days recently hadn't been interesting, but today he was going to Skype Lydia for lunch and catch her up on everything that was happening. He knew she didn't like being out of the loop, so he was bringing her into the fold over lunch. He'd been shopping the day before to make sure he could make something for his lunch that Lydia would actually approve of, that way she wouldn't scold him and distract him away from the topics that he needed to cover. He'd even made a bullet point list of points so that he wouldn't forget anything - college had made him a new man.

"Hey Stiles." She greeted with a smile and a mug of presumably coffee in hand when she answered the call. She was sitting in what Stiles assumed was her dorm room, while he was sitting in the same bedroom he'd had since he was thirteen. Some people, some things, just didn't change.
"Hey, Lyds. How's college?" He asked as he sipped from his Dr Pepper can, muting his phone so that nothing pack related could keep him away from making sure Lydia knew everything she needed to and any advice she might be able to give him. After that, they spent about two hours catching up. Lydia told Stiles all about college and the people she'd met, Peter had gotten in touch with someone at her college that he knew in order to get her onto a special extra class given only to those who were in the know and she was taking full advantage of it. Stiles made sure to tell her everything that he'd been learning about the Nemeton, the way she'd been taking the forms of people he knew and shared every detail down to Arabella's comment about Lydia's body being the wrong one.

"She's an all powerful being, she wants to make sure you're as comfortable as possible when you interact. I wouldn't be surprised if she tried Scott next." Lydia replied with a shrug. She'd been the first person that he'd told when he first felt the pull of his connection to the tree - he'd figured that she was the best to ask considering she was also pulled to locations against her will.
"And she said I have some hidden memories." He said with a sigh. Just thinking about that idea gave him a headache. More things he had to think and worry about.
"About your mother." Lydia pointed out with a single raised, perfect eyebrow. She sipped from her drink, looking to be in thought and Stiles just waited for her revelation to fully form. "You're a spark. You've formed a connection with the Nemeton. You have missing memories about your mother. Maybe.. Your mother also had a connection with the Nemeton." She said, as if that was something perfectly normal to suggest.
"But my mom was human."
"Was she?" Lydia asked, looking up from her drink to look at him and it felt like she could see directly through him when she looked at him like that.
"I have missing memories. If she wasn't.. I might not remember." He conceded, figuring that was where she was going with it. "So what do I do about it?"
"Let Arabella do what she plans to. Let her unearth the memories." She said with a shrug. She had a point. Peter too had had memories of his taken and he'd never managed to restore him, only find out that they were missing to begin with, so he'd leave it to Arabella to help.
"Think you can find me some books?" He asked her hopefully. That was something else they'd covered - if she had supernatural classes, she must have access to supernatural reading and Stlies was desperate for it.
"If I find anything of note, I'll copy it for you." She said with an amused smile that had Stiles narrowing his eyes at her.
"What's that look for?"
"You just can't slow down, can you?" She asked with a slight tilt of his head and the two of them laughed together. They spent a while longer talking before eventually Lydia had to go so she'd make it to her next lecture on time.

Stiles spent a while pouring over some things Scott had already sent to him and took that time to think about what Lydia had said. His mom might not have been human. It made sense to him now, that if she hadn't been and he'd had those memories taken from him, that he could so easily settle into a life surrounded by supernatural creatures that could kill him faster than he could so much as step out of arm's reach. He wondered whether that's why he had so easily taken to magic, whether on some level he could remember seeing his mom do it, even if he couldn't recall the memories. He had no classes tomorrow, so he'd spend the day with Arabella, uncovering the things he'd lost.

It was dark when Stiles looked up again, and spotted an amused if not slightly frustrated werewolf at his window. He shuffled over and opened it to let Derek inside, dropping back onto his bed while he waited to see what the wolf wanted.
"You've been ignoring your phone again." Derek said, walking over to Stiles' desk where the phone in question had been left and then tossed the device over to him. When he checked, Stiles saw a myriad of missed calls from his dad, Peter and from Derek as well as texts galore.
"I've been busy." Stiles said with a shrug, scrolling through the texts before deciding to ignore them since they were all just about him ignoring them.
"Doing what?" Derek asked, leaning against the wall behind him with folded arms.
"Why are you here? Why did you come from the window?" Stiles asked in return, waving his arms around as he spoke.
"I'm here because the Sheriff called me when his son wasn't answering the phone to ask if there was a new supernatural threat. I called Peter to ask if you were at the library again after I couldn't get hold of you either. Now I'm here." He explained, looking nothing if not tired.
"The window?"
"Figured if you were ignoring us cause you were doing work, which you were, you were more likely to hear a knock on the window than the door." Derek replied with a one shouldered shrug.
"Well, I was doing research." Stiles said, standing to go back to his desk and put his phone on charge, then dropped back into the chair he'd spent most of his day in, grabbing some papers to wave at Derek as proof.
"You're obsessed." Derek accused, perching himself on the edge of Stiles' desk to see what he'd been looking at. The pages had things crossed out, circled and highlighted with various extra notes written in about whether things were credible or what they may have meant.
"It's a hyperfixation not an obsession. Besides, this is kinda my life so excuse me if I wanna know what's going on with me." Stiles replied, folding his arms over his chest and raising his brows in a poor imitation of the look he'd received from Derek so many times over the years. Derek in response just rolled his eyes and pushed away the papers Stiles had been looking at.
"Eat something, drink some water, leave your room even for at least ten minutes. Your dad is worried." He said, heading for the door to leave, thankfully not the window.
"You're starting to sound like him." Stiles accused, standing from his chair to see Derek out like he was supposed to.
"Then maybe you should take proper care of yourself." Stiles waved him off as he followed him down to the front door, brushing off more comments made during the short walk.

"Oh, one last thing since you want to play concerned." Stiles started, leaning against the doorframe. "I'm going to the Nemeton again tomorrow and I'll be there for.. A long time probably. She has some things she wants to talk about and I have a feeling it'll take a while."
"Okay?"
"Thought you'd want to know so you don't start greying when I don't reply to any texts."
"Want me to come with you in case something happens?" He offered, opening the door to his car while he waited.
"You can come if you're worried about it, I'll be okay though, Arabella protects me." Stiles said with an amused smile. He figured that Derek would come given the way he'd been acting more recently around Stiles' relationship with the Nemeton, though he said nothing about it and just got into his car with a roll of his eyes, and drove away.