bakerstreet | (no subject)

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A Picture is Worth.... Meme
This ain't your mama's meme. Forget your RNG, forget your tired old prompts.
A picture is worth a thousand words.
It's easy. Comment with your character. Then go comment around.
But instead of pre-filled prompts with words or numbers, you find a gif or image (any gif/image from any canon or scenario you please) that sets the scene.
The picture is the prompt.

WARNING: THIS POST WILL BE IMAGE HEAVY. AND POSSIBLY NSFW AND THERE MAY BE TRIGGERS.
Some images will not be able to be hidden behind cuts, so please be aware that triggery material may be found within.

If you post an image that is violent or sexual in nature please LINK it, do not embed it into the comment.

Feel free to use this template to stick your image in there.

Good resources for images/gifs are weheartit or tumblr. For not so safe for work gifs/images go here and here.

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I don't want to go home.

[It's the first thing she's said that hasn't been airy-fairy and clearly not all there. Which may be why it's more of a whisper and less of a statement, but nonetheless, she voices her protest to the collar of his shirt, resolutely not making eye-contact.

There's nothing for her at home.

Well, that's not true. Memories of Peter wait for her at home, of the times he made her believe he was lying in her bed, the time she punched her mirror hard enough to slice up her hand and have her bleeding all over everything, that worm moon when he led her through the house and whispered madness into her ears.

It should be pretty clear why being outside is preferable to going home right now. Even so...]

I want IHOP. [The nearest one is on the other end of town; hopefully that'll put enough distance between Lydia and her demons for her to function right now.]

[This response, while not the most positive thing, is better than the flinching. She's talking to him, at least, even if she refuses to look up at him. It's a step.

Derek turns in the direction he plans on walking and looks over at Lydia, waiting. He can't leave her after finding her like this. Not when he knows what else is out there. So, he's relieved when she mentions wanting IHOP, which is far from where they currently are and way more public.]

IHOP it is, then. Come on. [He makes no move to reach for her to urge her on. It's up to Lydia whether or not she'll actually come along, but he does watch to see if she plans on moving.]

[It takes her a minute, but then she's turning to follow him. If you watch closely, you can see her pulling herself together; her shoulders straighten, her head lifts, her mask falls across her face, her gait becomes more of a sashay and less of a stumble. By the time the reach his car, she's — for all intents and purposes — the old, bossy Lydia of before, a haughty look on her face, her movements calculated and precise.

She levels him a look as she minces around to the passenger door.]

You're buying.

[By the time they make it back to his car Derek's pretty sure Lydia might be the best person at faking things that he's seen in a while. He moves to the driver's side, unlocking the doors as he does, and looks at her over the top of the car.]

Already planned to.

[Then he slips inside and waits for her to join him, starting the car as he does and glancing over out of the corner of his eye.]

You don't have to act like that.

[She climbs gracefully into the car, her knees together as she sits before swinging her legs in after her like she's wearing a skirt. She seems perfectly at home in the expensive interior of the Camarao; then again, her ex-boyfriend drove a Porsche, so she would be.

Her seatbelt is buckled and she's flipped down the visor to check her reflection in the mirror by the time he speaks to her. It only gets a mild hum in response, she's busy rubbing under her eyes with her ring finger to wipe away any smudged mascara that's clinging to her skin. It's too bad she doesn't have any lip gloss in here, she really needs some color on her face.]

Like what?

[Derek completely turns his attention to her once she's in the car and making herself at home, checking her reflection and just barely paying any attention to him in the process. He rolls his eyes as he turns his attention ahead of him so he can pull out and onto the road after he clicks his own seat belt into place.]

Like that.

[He nods over toward what she's doing, but he doesn't take his eyes off of the road once he's on it. The speed limit is something he's sticking to for the sake of not getting pulled over and ending up in jail with some ridiculous kidnapping charge thrown at him for lack of a good reason why he would be driving Lydia around in the first place.]

[Oh look, even Derek Hale wears his seat belt. For some reason she thinks that's hilarious.]

I'm not doing anything.

[Except pushing at her eyelashes with her fingertips in an attempt to make them curl a little, combing her fingers through her hair to fix most of the tangles and pick out the pieces of leaves that have somehow nestled in, eventually turning her head slightly and braiding her hair over her shoulder. Hopefully it looks artfully messy and not like she hasn't curled it.]

[It's not like a car accident is going to be the end of him, but he prefers the idea of acting like a seat belt saved his life if he does end up in one. That's a much easier way to explain things.

He casts a look over at her out of the corner of his eye then sighs, shaking his head. As much as Derek wants to tell her to just say something about why she's been wandering around in the woods, he can't quite tell if she's putting up her front because they don't know each other or if it's because she's in that much denial. There's no room for him to argue, though, since he's hardly an open book.]

Nevermind.

[Lydia is pretending that everything is fine because her mask is the most comfortable thing she can wear. She's grown so used to faking normalcy — perfect normalcy, mind, not the regular angsty teenage kind — that being honest is much too hard. Especially with people she doesn't know. Her therapy sessions are basically an hour where she stares over the doctor's shoulder; even if she wanted to open up, she couldn't. No way is she going to tell someone that she was bitten by a werewolf who then used the connection that formed to drive her insane and then make her kidnap his nephew so he could rise from the dead to be a huge pain in everyone's collective ass.

She'd get shipped off to the loony bin before she could even say "Prada."]

Okay. [And she reaches out to turn on the radio, picking an obnoxious pop station just because she can.]

[Derek knows something about keeping things to himself since he's mastered it to the point of driving people away from him. Share as little as possible, trust no one, stay alive. He can't completely fault Lydia for wanting to act like nothing's wrong. It is, after all, sometimes a much easier route to take than actually acknowledging anything.

He doesn't really think she'll last the way she is, though. Not with the way she reacted to him when they were outside. All it'll take is one honest attack, one member of the alpha pack taking an interest and deciding to go after her, and he's sure she'll lose it. And, from the looks of it, she has no one to turn to when she does.

The sound of pop music interrupts his thoughts and he reaches out to immediately change the station, flipping to something softer and less obnoxious to keep some sound in the car as he drives them across town.]

[She immediately switches it back.]

I happen to like this song, thank you.

[She doesn't, it's Taylor Swift — god, how awful, Lydia cannot for the life of her understand how this bitch is as popular as she is — but whatever. She needs to control something right now, and if that's just the radio then so be it.

She hums along quietly as she picks at her nails, trying to get most of the dirt out from under them. It wouldn't do to be seen in public with dirt and leaf bits caked under her nails. Not if she's going to be getting breakfast with someone as unapologetically hot as Derek. If there's going to be rumors spreading around town of her rebounding after Jackson abandoned her, she wants to look as good as she can, not like she's spent a night roaming around in the forest.]

[The sigh he lets out is loud and obviously pained as the girl on the radio sings about getting together with some guy she knew was trouble, but he leaves the station alone because there's only so much fighting with her he's going to deal with before he decides to be done with it. Derek figures he'll save the rest of that quota for breakfast and whatever happens after that since he's not exactly sure she'll agree to go home.

When they reach IHOP, after the song is over and an equally annoying one about calling someone (maybe) has played through, he immediately parks and shuts the car off the spare his ears and sanity. Considering what he's seen of Jackson, he's not quite sure how a relationship between the two of them ever worked. He assumes, though, that Lydia led it.

Once he pulls his key out of the ignition, he climbs out of the car and moves around to the other side to wait for her.]

[Lydia absolutely led that relationship. There was no question who wore the pant; Jackson was almost too eager to be whipped into shape. Well, except when he was being a raging bag of dicks, like he was towards the end. She misses the Jackson that would watch The Notebook with her and snuggle on the couch.

She would have opened her own door and slid out, but he's around at her side of the car before she can even take off her seat belt, so she waits for him to open it for her, her eyes flicking from his face down to the door and back.

Well?]

[Derek catches the look and very obviously rolls his eyes at her, reaching out to pull the door open as he does.]

You lost control of the radio for that.

[And he's possibly joking, but he delivers it with a flat, unamused sort of look as he waves a hand like it'll hurry her out of the car. There's no real rush since the pancakes aren't going anywhere, but he's actually getting hungry and standing outside of the building for too long will lead him to walk in without her.]

[She smirks a little as she gets out — the same way she got in, swinging her legs out in one go before standing up, Lydia knows how to avoid upskirt shots, unlike everyone else in the world — taking a moment to toss her hair over her shoulder before stepping away and letting him shut the door.]

No I didn't.

[That settled, she turns on her heel and heads towards the front door, expecting him to follow. She breezes in to the reception desk, only turning to see if he's behind her when the hostess looks up and blanches a little, uncertain.]

Yes, it's the two of us, what are you waiting for? I want a booth, near a window. Away from any families.

[He comes close to reaching into the car to punch the radio out once she's out of the car, but he resists, closing the door a little harder than necessary and tilting his head from one side to the other before rolling his shoulders back to relax himself.

Maybe he'll just leave her in IHOP once they're done. There's not that much harm in that.

Derek trails in after her, hands pushed into his pockets again as he lets Lydia disturb the hostess into immediately seating them. She gets what she wants and she's good at commanding attention, he'll give her that. He shakes his head to himself as the nervous woman leads them to a booth at the very corner of the restaurant, away from the few other people that are in as early as they are. He slides in on one side and wordlessly opens the menu that ends up in front of him.]

[Lydia does get what she wants, because she's not afraid to demand it and she always acts like she deserves it. It's amazing how easy it is to get people to do what you want if you don't give them the illusion of another option.

She orders a coffee and an orange juice as soon as she sits, then promptly ignores their waitress as she turns her attention to the menu.]

...I forgot how unhealthy this place is.

[Derek glances up at the waitress, orders a coffee for himself, then returns his attention to the menu as she leaves to get their drinks. When Lydia speaks, he glances up over his menu and lets out a quiet snort.]

'Pancakes' is in the name of the place. How can you forget how unhealthy it is?

[But this is from someone that doesn't really need to worry so much about what he eats.]

I don't often think about what IHOP's acronym stands for. That's how.

[She flips the page, idly perusing the shiny menu with its brightly colored images and hazy wording.]

Oh look, they have heart-healthy options. That look utterly unappetizing.

[He lowers his menu, having decided what he wants, and looks at her over the top of hers then reaches out to pull it down toward the table, flipping a page to find the section of crepes so he can point to them.]

Have some of those. You could use the energy if you're gonna spend your mornings wandering around the woods.

[A pointed look comes along with what he says and it immediately shifts into something more friendly as the waitress returns with their drinks and he glances up to offer a thanks.]

You just want me to get fat.

[Because that totally makes sense, Lydia. Shh.

She ignores his pointed look in favor of staring at the menu with a vaguely disgusted look on her face. Shaking her head, she looks up at the waitress and pastes an insincere smile on her face.

Because she lives to be contrary, Lydia instead flips back to the heart-healthy menu and orders scrambled eggs, some brown toast, and a bowl of seasonal fruit.[

Sure, that's exactly what I'm aiming for.

[He belatedly realizes that the waitress very likely thinks they're there together because they're dating, but he doesn't bother to try to do anything to correct it. Lydia orders, Derek wrinkles his nose at what she gets, then he glances up at the waitress and rattles off a quick order of pancakes, scrambled eggs, and extra bacon.

Once she's gone and the menus are no longer around to serve as a distraction, Derek's gaze returns to the girl across from him.]

You always say the sweetest things.

[Yep, the waitress is convinced they're dating, if the weird look she gives them is any indication. Likewise, Lydia doesn't say anything to disabuse her of that notion.

Ignoring Derek's stare, Lydia busies herself with adding just enough sugar and cream to make her coffee palatable.]

[He follows a similar path with the coffee, adding some cream and a couple of packets of sugar as he's stirring.]

Do you plan on ignoring me the entire time we're here?

[Derek raises his eyes again as he bunches his trash up beside his coffee cup.]

[She curls her hands around her cup and lifts her eyebrows at him as she lifts it up to her lips.]

Uh, I'm pretty sure we were just talking. You and I have a very different definition of ignoring.

[Oh, gross. The coffee here is terrible. It clearly needs more sugar.]