Scott should have known this would be a bad idea.
Since they were in eighth grade and he and Stiles had snuck off with a six-pack for the first time (okay, since Stiles had convinced him to sneak out and try a beer, and then himself was completely wasted after three), there was only one thing Stiles ever talked about when he got drunk, even just slightly.
"And her hair, god I love her hair… Everybody says it's red, they're wrong, it's strawberry blonde…"
Lydia Martin.
The girl herself wasn't present, which would be a blessing, except on this particular illicit excursion, Kira and Malia were. Malia, Stiles' girlfriend, who was staring at him and listening to this classic soliloquy on how crazy he was about Lydia.
"Her hair, and her eyes, and her face, and her nose, and her feet… Lydia's got really little feet. Everything about Lydia is little… except her eyes. And her hair. And her heart…" He sighed deeply. "She's so pretty. But she's so sweet and she cares about people so, so much. All I ever thought about was how smart she is and how beautiful but now I know that she's got like, like, like she was the Grinch who stole Christmas, y'know? And then, then I've gotten to know her, and her heart did that thing. What was that thing, Scott?"
After he managed to figure out what the hell his inebriated best friend meant, the werewolf answered. "It grew three sizes and busted out of the little imaginary frame."
"Yeah! Her heart grew three sizes. Only it was probably more, like, nine. Cuz remember how mean she used to be? That was such an act, though. She was afraid of getting hurt…" Stiles trailed off and his words dropped to a sad mumble. "I always swore I'd never hurt her. Because everybody else always did, she pretended to be okay but I knew it was all fake, I always knew. I was never, ever gonna hurt her like that. But then, but then I… I killed her best friend."
"Stiles, no – !" Scott blurted out immediately, but his drunkenly guilt-stricken friend kept talking over his protests.
"I killed her best friend, and I hurt her, and she'll never… How can she ever even look at me again? She can't, I know she can't… So I don't make her deal with being around me, I just stay away all the time. I miss her," he half-whimpered, and covered his face with his hands. "I miss her so much. But I don't deserve to love her anymore so I don't let myself. I don't think about it. Except I always think about it." He gestured broadly over at the werecoyote, who just about had steam coming out of her ears, but Kira kept a tight grip on her wrist. "Like, Malia, you're great and stuff, but sometimes I blink a few times and your hair is still the wrong color and you're too tall and you're not Lydia and I feel kind of nauseous. I should probably break up with you. Maybe tomorrow. God, I'm such a jackass. I kill her best friend and don't even have the decency to stop loving her…"
He made a show of blinking at the red-faced, fuming Malia. "Nope. Still not Lydia. I feel sick now. Is it the booze? Scotty, did you let me get drunk again? Last time you had to stop me from going to serenade Lydia. Outside her freaking window." Stiles snorted. "At least we were friends by then. But I still don't think she'd have appreciated me singing Taylor Swift outside her window at two in the morning."
"You were going to sing Taylor Swift?" Kira finally spoke up, too bemused by this particular detail to hold back anymore.
Stiles nodded vigorously. "Oh yeah. That uh, that duet with the British ginger… Ron Weasley." He smiled dreamily. "I'd like to park outside her window in a flying car. The Little Mermaid is her favorite but she likes Aladdin too. She'd probably prefer a car to a carpet. Even if it is my jeep. A whooole newwww woooorld," he sang loudly and wildly off-key. "God, how appropriate is that, right? She's the princess and I'm, I'm the stupid homeless dude. Scott, oh my god," he rolled over on the ground, "that totally makes you Genie. Cuz it was you becoming a werewolf that let me get to know Lydia, right? Or… or it was Allison…"
"It was both," Scott told him gently.
"Getting to know her took so long…" Stiles mumbled some more. "And, and even now she's super guarded, and she doesn't open up to anybody, but she, she showed herself to me, when it was just us, in my room, and there that time she was playing with the red string and she was worried about me and I wanted to kiss her so bad… I always want to kiss her. But even with me now, she's like, there's that weird-ass French movie in English that she likes. With the dude wearing the, the adamantium mask…"
"The Man in the Iron Mask," Kira supplied. Scott gave her an impressed look. He'd had no idea what his best friend was talking about.
"Yeah. Wolverine. Hannibal Lecter. She likes that movie. She's got on her big giant heavy mask all the time and then she takes it off and she's so, so beautiful. Only I mean like, she takes it off her heart, cuz her face is always beautiful, and then she takes off the thing and her insides burn my eyes…like the sun… when she walks into the room, it's like the sun comes out… I miss her. I miss her, Scotty. Can you get her for me? Get Lydia. I want to tell her I love her. And I'm sorry." His head dropped back onto the ground.
"Okay, dude," Scott murmured. "I'll get you Lydia."
Stiles started snoring softly.
When Malia stood up and took off into the woods, nobody stopped her.
Scott was never, ever letting Stiles drink again.
