Title: Enigmatic
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Pairing: Jackson/Lydia, Aiden/Lydia, Derek/Lydia
Rating: G
Length: 490 words
Content notes: Spoilers for Season Four's 117. Mentioned canon character death.
Summary: Cracking codes is just what Lydia does.


Lydia has a type. She’s always said she has a type, always revelled in it. Always declared she goes for winners, for people who are strong and smart, who can keep up with her or something close to it.

Turns out, she’s been grossly mistaken.

Because Lydia’s type, the people she really goes for, they’re the ones who are tough to crack. They’re the riddles, the challenges, the ones who don’t believe in wearing their heart of their sleeve when instead they can bury it so deep nobody will be able to tell they even have a heart.

There was Jackson, who was aggressive, intense and bitter. Who never broke for anyone, but let Lydia see a glimpse of the cracks. Who could be caring and almost tender towards her behind his mask of snark before the world got too big for them, before supernatural claws dug into Jackson’s soul and bought out all his worst qualities.

She worked so hard on Jackson, and it hurt so much to lose him, even back before she recognised just what she was chasing in him.

Then there was Aiden. Nobody thought to tell Lydia he was an Alpha until she’d already set her sights on him, and she can admit now that it just made her want him more. He was dangerous, with a hair-trigger temper, but he was so careful with her, to the point she had to tell him to stop being so damn respectful more often than not. He was so convinced of his own evil that he insisted there was no point trying to fight it. But Lydia could see him struggling with it every day, beneath the surface, so ingrained in him that she’s not sure he was aware of it, even at the end when he conquered it one final time.

Lydia mourned him, although she’s not sure the others realised just how much.

Because that’s who she is, and that’s her type. She’s drawn to the tough cases, and she’s never been into the idea of reforming bad boys but she loves a puzzle.

So when they find Derek in Mexico, de-aged and vulnerable, she’s not surprised to find herself reaching for his hand. She’s not surprised she feels that pull, when she gets a glimpse of the boy he used to be, before he learned to put up walls.

When she says she’s done with teenage boys, the others give her wry smiles. Maybe they don’t believe her, maybe they’re worried about what trouble she’ll get into if she starts dating outside of school.

Like dating within the school has ever been safe.

But the next time she sees Derek, back in his adult body and just as withdrawn and closed as ever, he looks at her, really looks. And she knows, from the way her heart flutters, from the way his pupils dilate, that she’s found her next man.

He’s just her type.