A/N: Written in honor of Femslash February, even though it's not quite February yet. I just got so excited.
Warnings for: off-screen canonical character death, Erica/Lydia, lightly implied Boyd/Erica, weird supernatural stuff. Also, I fangirl over the Arctic Monkeys quite a bit. The title comes from 'Suck It and See' by, you guessed it, the Arctic Monkeys.
The first time it happens, Lydia's convinced that it's just a mistake, a simple trick of the light. She's walking across the school parking lot with Allison when a flash of sunlight against gold catches her eye. Her gaze flicks to the left, just briefly, and all she catches is a glimpse of dark leather and long honey-blonde hair before it's gone. There's no one there; instead, she's staring at the rear window of a blue Honda Civic. She falters mid-step, but resumes walking almost immediately, determined to pay the moment no mind. Unfortunately, Allison - who somehow manages to be pretty perceptive even when her personal life and her mental state are in shambles - catches it.
"You okay?" she asks, raising an eyebrow at Lydia.
"Fine," Lydia says primly. "Just wondering what that bumper sticker means."
Allison buys it and throws the decal a glance. "Arctic Monkeys? It's a band." Allison's suspicious expression vanishes in favor of a smile as she launches into a campaign speech about why Lydia should listen to them, and the moment is successfully forgotten.
But then it happens again. Lydia is sitting in Coach Finstock's class, minding her own damn business and checking her hair in her compact mirror. When she tilts the mirror just so, she can see out the window by virtue of reflection. She doesn't expect to see a face other than her own, but she does. Lydia drops the mirror and tenses up, refusing to look over her shoulder and verify what she thinks she just saw.
No, she tells herself firmly, as everyone in the class turns to look over at her, startled by the clattering sound of her compact hitting the floor. No. No, no, no.
"Lydia," Coach Finstock says, as she shifts in her desk and leans down to pick up the mirror. Her hands are shaking slightly, she notes. "Everything alright?"
"Yes," Lydia replies, putting on her most nonchalant expression before straightening up and slipping the mirror back into her purse. Lydia doesn't need any more freak-outs in Finstock's class, thank you very much.
"Good," Finstock says, with his usual irritated tone. "Then leave the beauty shop and join my class."
Lydia purses her lips and doesn't say what she's thinking, which is that she could probably teach these kids more with a terrycloth robe on and curlers in her hair than Finstock could on his best day. Class proceeds as usual after that, and Lydia carefully avoids making eye contact with Scott or Stiles, because she knows they'll be able to tell something's up. Lydia doesn't want to explain to them that Erica Reyes may or may not be standing outside, looking very much alive, watching Lydia's every move like a hawk.
Lydia goes about the rest of the school day feeling paranoid, like someone's following her, or waiting around every corner to ambush her. She doesn't see any more pretty supposed-to-be-dead blondes lurking the halls of Beacon Hills High School, but she's learned enough in her short time running with werewolves that just because she doesn't always see it doesn't mean it isn't there.
After school, Lydia heads to the gym like she would on a normal, stalker and/or ghost-free day. She spends some time on the elliptical machine, but her heart's just not in it today - it's kind of hard to devote your energy to working out when you're too busy looking over your shoulder, as if a ghostly she-wolf is going to be lifting weights across the room. She heads back to the locker room and takes a quick shower, then puts her clothes back on as fast as possible. She leaves in such a hurry that she completely forgets to fix her hair and makeup, but she makes it back to her car without bumping into anyone important, so it doesn't really bother her. She has bigger things to worry about, after all.
When she gets home, she decides to put the whole Erica situation out of her mind for a while. She works on her homework, paints her toenails, and then - after receiving multiple text messages from Allison telling her which songs to look up - she gets on the Internet and starts looking into that dumb band (which actually turns out to be not very dumb at all.) She's listening to a mix on 8tracks and reading Cosmo while her nails dry when she hears it - the barely audible sound of footsteps outside her room. Her first thought is that it must just be her mother, coming to tell her something, but her parents aren't due home from some stupid work-dinner-party thing for another hour or two.
It takes a few seconds for Lydia to swallow her fear and do something. She doesn't move from her place on the bed - in fact, all she does is reach out and tap the volume button on her laptop several times, until the music is playing at a much lower volume. Despite the fact that her heartbeat is going at nearly nine miles a minute, she doesn't start really freaking out - at least, not until the footsteps stop right outside her room. It's then that she starts fumbling around on the bed for her phone, her fingers shaking so much that she can hardly type.
But who should she text? Stiles might know what to do, since he's basically had to research every single supernatural being known to man at this point - and he can bring his bat - but what chance does he really stand against a werewolf? There's Allison, but she's as human as Stiles, and her marksmanship isn't really up to snuff at the moment. Lydia's best bet is definitely Scott, and she's about to tap his name on her contacts list and send him a message reading simply 'need help now' when the knob on her door turns with a rattle and the door slowly creaks open.
Lydia freezes, eyes wide as she stares at the door. The hallway outside is dark, but she can see well enough to recognize the figure standing in the doorway.
"Erica?" she says, her voice trembling.
Erica steps into the light of Lydia's room. "Hey," she says, her pink lips twisting into a wry smile.
"Jesus Christ," is all Lydia can think to say.
"Not quite," Erica responds, shifting to shove her hands into the pockets of her jeans.
"So you're - you're not dead?" Lydia asks, slowly sitting up on her bed. She might be a little bit in denial - okay, a lot - but she's still holding on to hope that maybe she's not seeing a ghost, or hallucinating (because let's just say, that is so sophomore year.) Maybe Erica really is back from the dead (or was never dead in the first place.) Stranger things have happened, although none of that explains why Erica is following Lydia around.
Erica shakes her head, smirking as if she's slightly amused by Lydia's confusion.
"Are you shaking your head like 'no, I'm not dead' or . . . ?"
"Sorry, guess that was misleading. I'm pretty dead, yeah."
"Jesus Christ," Lydia repeats, her voice getting high and panicky again. She allows herself to freak out internally for a couple of seconds, and then she sucks in a steadying breath of air and tries to pull herself together. She can handle a ghost, can't she? She's stared down her ex-boyfriend-turned-terrifying-lizard; a ghost shouldn't be so bad.
Erica is watching Lydia with raised eyebrows, her expression far too casual for a dead girl. "Are you about done, or should I give you a minute?"
"Why are you here?" Lydia asks. She's still working on the whole 'pulling herself together' thing, but her voice is steadier than it was before. "Shouldn't you have - I don't know, gone to Heaven? Hell? The afterlife?" Lydia's not particularly religious, but the fact that Erica still exists while her body lies moldering in a coffin somewhere seems to fly in the face of whatever logical or rational explanation Lydia can come up with for life after death.
"I've been asking myself the same questions for months," Erica says, a sudden tinge of bitterness lacing her tone. The moment lingers for a second before Erica shakes it off and moves on, her gaze drifting around Lydia's room before finally coming to rest on Lydia again. "Nice color scheme."
"Thanks," Lydia says. She's well aware that the color scheme is great, but she's more concerned with the fact that she just accepted a compliment from a ghost. Her life gets weirder and weirder by the day.
"Can I ask you a question?" Erica says, taking a few steps closer to Lydia's bed, which Lydia still hasn't moved off of. "How come you can see me?"
"You mean I'm the only one?"
"Yeah," Erica says. "At least, the only one so far."
Lydia sighs. "I'm a banshee."
Erica raises her eyebrows skeptically. "A banshee," she repeats.
Lydia really shouldn't feel offended by that, but honestly, this situation can't get any more bizarre. "You're a werewolf and you can't buy me being a banshee?"
"Calm down, Haley Joel Osment," Erica says. "Don't banshees just scream a lot?"
"Well, yes," Lydia says, "but apparently, that's not all we do."
"Apparently," Erica concedes. "I've got another question for you."
Lydia can't help but roll her eyes. She's never been fond of Twenty Questions; she's too good at figuring things out for it to be any fun, and everyone else is so bad by comparison. "Shoot."
"Where's Boyd? Do you know where he went?"
Oh, no.
When Lydia doesn't respond immediately, Erica continues, her tone suddenly much quieter, less confident than before. "I - after I died, I hung around town for a while, watching over him. But when I realized that no matter what I did, nobody could see me or hear my voice, I started to wander. But now I can't find him."
Lydia avoids meeting Erica's gaze. She was never friends with Boyd - not even close, actually - but she can still remember how he looked the night he died, lying on his back in several inches of blood-tinged water, his dark brown eyes open and empty. Lydia might be a banshee, a glorified death fairy, but death will never feel anything less than unsettling to her.
"I even went to his house," Erica says, a hint of desperation leaking into her voice. She knows, Lydia realizes. She must suspect, but she just doesn't want to believe it. "Did they move away?"
"Erica," Lydia says finally. "Boyd's - Boyd died."
Erica stares at her for a minute, then swallows hard. "No."
"I'm sorry," Lydia offers, though she knows it won't help.
Erica just stands there for a moment, absorbing the truth. After a moment, she takes another couple of steps forward and sits down on the foot of Lydia's bed, bracing her elbows on her knees and covering her face with her hands. For a moment, Lydia wonders if she's about to have to coach a ghost through the grieving process, but Erica doesn't start crying or screaming or anything like that, so Lydia doesn't say anything for a few moments.
Eventually, Erica lifts her head again. "I stayed in this world for him," she says quietly, her voice loaded with so much bitterness that it's a wonder she can speak at all. "And now he's gone on without me. My only real friend."
Lydia worries at her lower lip with her teeth. "If it helps," she says, "he probably - went on thinking that he would see you again."
Erica looks over at her. Her eyes, Lydia notes, are a very warm shade of brown. They're also wet with unshed tears. "But he won't. Because I'm still here."
"You can't move on?"
"I don't know how," Erica admits, shrugging, her lower lip trembling slightly.
Without thinking, Lydia reaches out and presses a comforting hand to Erica's upper arm. She can't help but pity Erica. It must suck to be trapped like this, wandering the world of the living when the person you stayed for in the first place is long gone. "I'm sure -," Lydia says, but stops mid-sentence when she notices Erica's expression. Erica is staring down at Lydia's hand on her arm with an expression of - shock? Astonishment? Wonder? Lydia can't quite figure it out, so she quickly drops her hand. "Sorry."
"You can touch me," Erica says, looking up at Lydia like a blind woman seeing the sun for the first time. "No one can touch me."
"Oh," Lydia says, mildly surprised. So ghosts apparently have some pretty funny rules, then. Erica can touch things (she opened Lydia's bedroom door, after all), but nothing can touch her. She can make noise, like footsteps on a hardwood floor, but no one - besides Lydia, apparently - can hear her voice or see her face. Erica is trapped in a world where she's just out of everyone's reach, there but not there all at once. It sounds utterly miserable.
Suddenly, with werewolf speed, Erica reaches out and grabs Lydia's hand. Lydia gasps, but nothing else happens - Erica just takes Lydia's hand. "Sorry," Erica says distractedly, looking down at their hands as she twines her fingers loosely with Lydia's. "You forget so much when you're dead. I forgot what someone else's skin feels like."
"Oh," Lydia says again, trying to imagine a world without touch. It sounds very unpleasant - numb and cold. Erica, however, feels as warm as any other human being - maybe a little warmer, given her status as a werewolf. Lydia doesn't know how she ended up here, holding hands with a dead girl, but it's the least she can do for Erica. Lydia suspects that if she were dead, she might want someone to hold her hand, too.
Lydia is suddenly struck by the thought that she hardly knows Erica. All she knows about Erica is that she - along with Boyd, Isaac, and Derek - once tried to kill Lydia, and what else she's heard from those who did know her, even briefly - Scott, Stiles, Allison, and Isaac. But yet here she is, trying to offer some small piece of comfort to this beautiful wolf-girl. Maybe this is her role as a banshee; not just to signal death, but to guide people into it. Death, real death, is waiting for Erica - Lydia can almost sense it now that their hands are touching. It's like a whisper in the back of Lydia's mind, a whisper saying, you can help her. Free her.
"I've been all over the country, you know," Erica says quietly, squeezing Lydia's hand lightly, as if she still can't quite believe someone is touching her after all this time. "Time and space don't mean very much to me anymore. I've been in restaurants. Museums. On top of the Empire State Building. And not once has someone been able to see me, or touch me, or hear me. Until today, when you saw me in the parking lot."
Lydia studies her for a second, transfixed by Erica's long, shiny blonde hair, her full pink lips, rosy cheeks - the very image of vitality, of beauty and life. But her eyes are full of longing and sadness; those are the eyes of a ghost. "Let me help you," Lydia offers.
"How?" Erica asks, her gaze meeting Lydia's.
It's like some primal sense has taken over her mind - the same sense that tells her to scream, the sense that makes her a banshee. Lydia leans in quite without meaning to, her eyes sliding closed. Her lips are a breath away from Erica's when Erica stops her.
"What are you doing?" Erica asks. "I didn't think you were into girls." She sounds like she's trying to be funny, but her voice trembles.
"You don't know me that well," Lydia points out, opening her eyes and cocking her head slightly. "I think - I think I can help you move on. To wherever it is you've got to go."
"Making out with you is going to help me move on?" Erica sounds skeptical again, and Lydia doesn't blame her. It's crazy, but Lydia just knows.
"Just trust me," Lydia says. "'I see dead people', you know."
Erica smiles slightly at that, and leans a little bit closer to Lydia. This close, Lydia can tell that Erica smells like strawberries. It's like she carried the scent of her perfume with her into death. "I guess it's worth a shot. And, uh, thanks."
"No problem," Lydia says, with a little shrug. Like it's perfectly normal to just perform some kind of kiss of death on girls you barely knew when they were still alive. Lydia supposes that given this mixed-up world she lives in, this isn't all that strange, really.
"See you on the other side, I guess," Erica says, and right before Lydia closes her eyes and kisses her, she sees Erica's eyes flash gold.
For a moment, nothing happens, but then everything starts feeling a little bit fuzzy. Erica's lips feel less and less solid, like Lydia is kissing a cloud. Or a ghost.
When Lydia opens her eyes again, she's alone in her room, with nothing but the scent of strawberries and Alex Turner's voice for company.
"Suck it and see, you never know, sit next to me before I go, go, go ..."