Stiles rubs his eyes. He's been staring at the bestiary so long that the words are starting to blur together.
"Have you found anything?" she asks. She's impatiently tapping a pencil against her phone.
He nods. "Apparently, kelpies can be killed by bullets made of either silver or iron. Different legends recommend different metals, so I'll guess we'll try both until something works. I think I can get Derek to ask Mr Argent for bullets."
"That's great," Lydia says. She seems kinda spaced out, and isn't as enthusiastic about his discovery as he thought she would be.
"Are you okay, Lydia?" he asks.
She shrugs. "About as well as can be expected," she says. Stiles is almost surprised to hear Lydia say that. She has always tried to project an aura of perfection - perfect boyfriend, perfect grades, perfect outfits - even as her life was falling apart. Her dad's been out of the picture forever, Stiles knows, and the last few months in this shitty town haven't been easy, and learning about her burgeoning banshee-death powers through a dead werewolf must have been unsettling. Stiles thinks that Lydia is probably scared to talk about the bad things in her life, lest she mars the perfect façade that she strives to portray. She's probably just as lonely as he is, and her best friend - her Scott - is dead because Stiles killed her.
Suddenly, she leans forward and kisses him. He's surprised as fuck, but lets himself enjoy it for a single moment - Lydia had been his crush for five years - and then gently pushes her away.
"I can't, Lydia, not now," he says.
"Why not?" she asks. She turns away from him, and starts looking down at her notes again. Stiles thinks she's trying to hide a blush. "You finally got over your crush?"
He shrugs. "Not really."
"So why did you push me away?" Lydia asks.
Stiles answers slowly. "I still think you're one of the most gorgeous girls I've ever seen, and I'm flattered that you think I have a chance with you, but now's not the right time. For either of us."
"Is it because of Malia?" she asks.
He shakes his head. "We're not involved. We've never really been in a serious relationship."
Lydia's still not looking at him. "She told me that you had sex with her. In Eichen. She said she was your first."
Stiles exhales slowly. He wishes that Malia didn't feel the need to share their fucked-up sexual history with other people. He doesn't really want to be angry at her, though. She literally has the maturity of a nine-year old, and probably didn't understand why having sex with him wasn't the best idea, or why he would be upset that she told Lydia about it without talking to him first.
"Lydia, neither of us were really capable of consenting," Stiles said. "She's a sixteen year old girl that's been living as a feral coyote since she was nine. She was in an insane asylum, and I was there because I was possessed by a freaking fox demon! Neither of us were in our right mind. As a teenage dude, yeah, I like not being a virgin anymore. But we didn't really have sex in the healthiest circumstances. And it took hella lot of talking to get her to understand that. Malia thought that because we had sex that we were, like, mates for life, or something."
Lydia finally turned to look at him. "I'm sorry," she said. Stiles thinks she might have tears in her eyes. "I didn't know. I-"
Stiles gets up, and hugs her. She's stiff and tense in his arms. "Hey, Lyds, it's OK. Like you said, you didn't know." He just pats her back and keeps his arms around her until she calms down.
"You okay?" he asks. She nods, and he goes to the bathroom to get her some tissues. He hands them to her, and as he re-settles himself on her bed, she dabs at her eyes with them.
"Lydia, like I said, I think you're gorgeous," Stiles says. "But I don't think I'm ready for a relationship right now. I'm sure you've noticed, I haven't been doing so well recently. Some days I'm okay, but others, well," he trails off.
"Others?" Lydia prompts.
"Others I'm not so okay," he says. "I get really sad, and depressed, and feel generally shitty. It's not every day, but it happens often enough that I don't really feel like I'm emotionally stable right now. I'm working on getting help, but I just don't think it's a good idea to enter a relationship. It wouldn't be fair to me or my partner. I don't know if I can handle it. You get where I'm coming from?"
Lydia nods. "Yeah."
"I'd be honored to be your boyfriend," he continues. "And maybe in like five years, if you're still interested, I will be. But right now, I know that it wouldn't be good for me, so I'm not."
They sit in silence for a bit, until Stiles finally musters up the courage to ask her "Why'd you do it?" They both know he's talking about the kiss.
She doesn't answer immediately. "I don't know," she says. Stiles waits for her to continue.
"I don't know," she says again. "I think that maybe, maybe I just wanted to feel close to someone? I just feel like everyone's gone. Or dead. Jackson's gone. Erica's dead. Boyd's dead. Isaac's gone. Alison's, Alison's," she breaks off, and dabs her eyes with the tissues again.
"Hey, it's okay," Stiles tells her. "Cry if you want, if you need to. I also cried, sometimes. I cry a lot about Alison." He pats the bed, and Lydia gets up from the chair and moves to sit beside him. She leans into him, and he wraps his arms around her.
"Even now?" she asks. He sees the tears pooling at the corners of her eyes, but doesn't mention them.
"Even now. And Scott probably will kill me for saying this, but he does too. We don't talk about it, but I know that it's hurting him too."
"It would have to," Lydia says. "She was his girlfriend for months. And he watched you. Your body. Kill -"
"Don't say it," he whispers. "Don't say it." He's silent for a minute. "I worry that Scott hates me because I-I killed her."
"You didn't," Lydia says. "You know that. Scott knows that."
"He says he does, but I'm scared. I'm scared that he holds her death against me," Stiles says. "I'm scared that you hold her death against me."
"I don't," she says fiercely, giving him a big hug. "You didn't do it. It's not your fault that you got possessed."
"That's what I try to tell myself," he says. "But I don't really believe it. I invited the 'darkness in my soul' shit that Deaton warned us about when I saved my dad from the Darach. Maybe if I hadn't done that, I wouldn't have gotten possessed, and Alison would be okay."
"Don't say that!" she says. "Of course you had to rescue your dad. No one blames you for that. And no one blames you for getting possessed. Deaton talks a lot of shit, and half of it is made up. I'm sure that his darkness was just some cryptic bullshit that he used to make everything seem more dramatic."
He sniffles. "He does that a lot."
"He does," Lydia agrees. "You have nothing to feel guilty about."
"I know that, intellectually," he says, pointing to his head. "But I don't really believe it."
"I believe it," she says. "I hope you will one day too."
Stiles shrugs. "Maybe." He doubts it.
"It's hard though, with everyone gone," Lydia says.
Stiles nods in agreement.
"I just feel like everyone important in my life is gone or dead," she repeats.
"I'm still here for you," Stiles says. "And so's Scott. And my dad and Melissa, even if your mom and dad aren't. And Derek and Mr. Argent. And we're making new friends, like Kira. And Malia, even though she needs a fuckton of help."
"Yeah," she says into his shoulder. "I'm sorry I kissed you. I know that you had a crush, and I just felt like maybe if I became your girlfriend, you'd be so thrilled that you finally got me that you wouldn't leave."
"I'm not going to leave," he tells her again. "I'm never going to leave you. I mean that in a completely non-stalkery way," he adds, just to clarify. "I mean, one day we're going to go to college, probably not the same one, so we will have to separate, eventually. But I'll -"
She punches him lightly on the shoulder. "I get it. You'll be here for me if I ever need to talk."
"Always," he says. "I'll always be here for you."
"And I'll be here for you," Lydia says. "If you're ever having a bad day, or whatever, call me, or come over, and we'll work it through."
"Same for you," Stiles says. "Always."