This is mostly wishful thinking, especially with all the new spoilers we've been getting today. But I just wanted to write this for no other reason than I love Stydia and I love these two trying to help the other one.
No beta, I apologize. I did my best to review but as always, things slip past me. It's short but it ended up longer than I intended, which is why it's here now. So...enjoy? Maybe? Reviews are like cupcakes.
Stiles lied in the middle of his floor, staring at the ceiling, tracing shapes and patterns with his eyes until they all blurred into nothingness. It was easier than thinking, easier than allowing his mind to go to the dark place that was consumed with loss and guilt and hurt. If he went there, he wasn't sure how long it would take to get out again.
The house creaked as the wind blew, a storm brewing. Stiles almost smiled at the clichéd thought of the storm matching the storm inside him. Poetic, he thought with a scoff. Or stupid.
He finally shut his eyes, hearing his dad shuffling through the house, going to make morning coffee. He'd be in to wake Stiles up and Stiles considered maybe moving to his bed so that his dad wouldn't worry about his mental state.
At least Eichen House was out of the question…no he'd just be forced to talk to a therapist.
How do you feel, Stiles?
Because his feelings could be picked apart until he was raw and exposed. Because he could just put into so many words what it was like to have someone in his head, controlling his actions, his life. Because something with his face and his voice caused the death of one of his closest friends and reaped havoc into every corner of his life was simple to explain. Because feeling death squeezing life from his lungs and feeling part of his sanity slip away could be put into words.
Stiles felt miserable. He could sleep, but he couldn't because when his eyes shut at night, there he was, standing in front of him, Stiles but not, smiling through the dark, promising to bring more pain, more chaos.
The nogitsune was gone but he lingered in every corner of his mind, reminding him that if maybe he were stronger, if he was better, this wouldn't have happened. Maybe Allison and Aiden would still be alive…maybe his friends wouldn't still flinch imperceptibly when they saw him…maybe things would return to some semblance of normal. It's one thing when the enemy looms over you, dark and unrecognizable, but when the enemy wears the face of a friend, things change whether you want them to or not. There is no avoiding it.
Then Lydia told him she needed time.
He understood. Of course he did, Stiles was an understanding person. She didn't blame him but things calmed down and the dust settled and there was Stiles, the person she clung to when he was slipping away, with the same face that she put with the person who kidnapped her, who threatened her, who was responsible for the death of her best friend. It was too much.
Lydia Martin carved out a space in his heart years ago when he was just a small, sarcastic third grader and she had strawberry blonde hair pulled back into pigtails. As time went on and they grew closer, the space in his heart grew larger and larger so now that she's gone from it, it feels empty and hollow.
Just one year ago he would have called Scott, found a bottle of his dad's whiskey, and gone off into the woods to drink and drown his sorrows. It seemed like the best way to deal but he's since learned that perhaps it was best to face his problems head on instead of hide behind them.
He sat up, back aching from lying on the hard floor. He stretched slowly, sitting on the edge of his bed just as there was a knock on the door. "I'm up, dad," he mumbled but then the door still swung open, revealing, not his dad, but a girl with strawberry blonde hair and a sad smile. "Lydia," he said failing to keep the surprise out of his tone.
She shut the door and leaned against it, lips pursed tightly, eyes trained on the floor. She finally drew in a deep breath before saying, "I made a mistake."
Stiles leaned forward. "Well, you came to the right place. I'm the expert in mistakes," he said flatly.
She hesitated for a moment before sitting down next to him, eyes focused on the wall. She remembered lying across the bed, red yawn wrapped around her finger, a completely normal evening for them, discussing unsolved murders and psychopaths on the loose. She had told him just days before that he always figured it out and he told her that night just how much he believed in her and he looked at her with such love and sincerity that she could barely remember how to breathe at the time. No one had ever looked at her like that before. As if the sun rose in her eyes and the moon reflected in her skin, like she was all he wanted to look at for the rest of his life.
Lydia Martin was a smart girl. But even an idiot would know about Stiles crush on her. The only thing that surprised her was just how important he eventually became to her. So important that when she thought he was dead, she really couldn't remember how to breathe. She knew he was dying. That feeling inside her was inescapable. Stiles was living on borrowed time until the nogitsune died for good and it terrified her.
But then everything returned to what could only be called normal for them and Allison was dead, Scott was in mourning, Kira distanced herself from Scott and Lydia helped her learn to function even through her own grief, and she avoided Stiles because his face was attached some of the most awful memories of that night. And she was ashamed because she was better than this. She could dissociate Stiles from the nogitsune, she knew better than to think that it was Stiles who threatened her, who intimidated her, who held his power over her like a shield. She had never felt smaller in her life.
"I'm sorry, Stiles. I was selfish! I left you and you were obviously suffering and I chose my own needs over yours!" She said quickly, words spilling out before she could stop to consider what she was saying.
Stiles was quiet for a long time. He shifted, body twisting to face her. "Lydia," he said softly, voice filled with longing and sadness. "I don't blame you. It wasn't selfish. Thinking of yourself and your needs is not selfish. And you don't need me to tell you that, you already know that."
Lydia sighed. "I want to not feel guilty and I don't know how. I don't know how to do this," she admitted pathetically.
"You see death doesn't happen to you Lydia, it happens to everyone around you, ok? To all the people left standing at your funeral trying to figure out how they're going to live the rest of their lives in it."
The words meant nothing then and now they meant everything. "How did you get through your mom dying?" She finally asked, the guilt slamming painfully into her chest as soon as the words left her lips. She shut her eyes, pursing her lips together tightly. "I'm sorry," she whispered.
Stiles shook his head. "No. No, don't be. It's a reasonable question to ask someone who has already dealt with loss." He scrubbed his hands down his face, hoping to push some of the exhaustions away from his eyes. "I didn't really cope though. It took me forever to deal. But I also had time to prepare. I mean, she was sick. You have an idea now of what she went through. And it just seemed to, I don't know, drag on. But towards the end it wasn't really her anymore. She was gone. And then…well, dad wasn't there, and I just remembered there was a moment with her but she was gone. The nurses were pushing me out of the way and by the time dad got there, she was gone and I couldn't breathe. My very first panic attack, it was quite a moment."
Lydia nodded slowly, twisting her fingers together. "You told me death doesn't happen to you, it happens to those around you," she said softly.
He managed a weak smile. "Yeah, it does." He scratched the back of his neck. "No, um, Scott is calling Allison's phone. I just think he wants to hear her voice again. Isaac took off; I don't think he's coming back. I guess that was one more loss he couldn't take. Chris is out of his mind because compartmentalizing only worked up to killing the thing that killed his daughter. It doesn't happen to you. Everyone else is left scraping together the pieces of their life and seeing if they could glue what's left back together." He sighed. "But I don't know. There's a spot in our lives where Allison is supposed to be and she wasn't supposed to die. So I think we're miserable but Allison…Allison would want to be here," he muttered, standing to his feet, trying to put space between him and Lydia.
It was new. There seemed to be more and more space between the two, and once upon a time, he used to try and fill that gap. Now he put it there. She wanted time but she didn't want this. Was it like this with Scott too?
Lydia smiled sadly, staring down at her hands helplessly. "It's not your fault," she said quietly. "Allison. It's not your fault. It wasn't you, Stiles. You and the nogitsune, you were separate then. You couldn't have done anything."
"Do you know how many people were killed when I put that bomb in the sheriff's department? Imagine if my dad was there!" He laughed. "And what about coach getting an arrow in the stomach? Do you know I can still picture that sword in Scott's stomach, as I twisted it? I fought and it was useless. And then it goes around, killing and destroying and creating chaos from nothing with my face, with my voice. It might as well been my hands. When my dad looks at me, he sees me screaming in my sleep against monsters I can't fight. When Chris looks at me, he sees Allison's body lying on that ground. When you look at me, you see the person who took you, who used his power over you, making you live with Allison's death inside your head. And when Scott looks at me, he sees the person with the sword, the person with the power over the oni, the person who destroyed, and nearly killed everyone. Maybe it wasn't me. But maybe if I were stronger, if I fought harder, maybe none of this would have happened. Maybe…maybe Allison would be alive," he finished pathetically, fighting against the tears desperately.
Lydia stood slowly. "And what do you see?" She wondered.
He turned his head just slightly towards her. "What?"
"What do you see, Stiles? When you look in the mirror, what do you see?" She demanded.
He shook his head. "I don't-"
She stepped towards him tentatively. "I don't see that. Maybe I did at first but that isn't who you are. I see the guy who insisted I would win a Nobel Prize. You were the one who recognized how smart I was. You always thought I was special. And I see the guy who would do anything for his friends and who loves his father and who always believed in me and whatever it is that I do. And I can promise you that your father sees his son who he would do anything to keep safe and protected and happy, even if it meant driving through hell for him. And when Scott sees you, he sees his best friend, the guy who would literally walk through fire for him. Stiles, I lost Allison and the thought of losing you too physically hurts. I can't stand the idea so please, don't make me have to consider the possibility of it. Please," she asked, reaching for his arm.
He froze beneath her touch. "Lydia, you've always had me. You have to understand that," he told her, turning to stare down at her. "You can't lose me. It's not actually possible. I'm here. I just feel like I don't deserve you or Scott or anyone right now. And I don't know how to get past that."
She squeezed his arm encouragingly. "I want to pick my phone up to call Allison and then I remember she's not going to answer. And you know who I want to call next?" He shook his head. "You. So I'm going to help you get past this. Scott and I both will and then you're going to be able to answer your phone calls and we will find out how to get back to what we once were, or something close to it. It's possible, Stiles, I promise it is. We aren't going to go back to what we once were but life is about evolving. We'll grow and adapt and we'll find a way to fit into what we are now. Whatever that is. It's going to happen. But we can't do it without you," she told him.
Stiles managed a small smile. "Any suggestions?"
She grinned. "Yeah. Shower. And then we'll meet up with Scott and go from there. But eat breakfast with your dad. He's worried."
Lydia moved her hand from his arm but Stiles caught it with his own, holding in there. "Thank you," he said gently.
Lydia glanced at their hands and bit her bottom lip for just a moment before nodding curtly. "I'm always here for you. Just talk," she said quietly. She reached up, hesitated for just a moment, before kissing him softly. She stepped back before he could even register it was happening.
She glanced back over her shoulder, smiling softly, face lit up, and there was that look on his face again, the one that took her breath away. Maybe they could be okay, she considered, before leaving.