· 1st Time They Meet Its Silently – Because The Library Is Better Than The Classroom.
Because they need to be seen doing something other than flipping through books and occasionally chatting for the following weeks, Stiles took full advantage of being the Sheriff's son.
When Stiles first presented the idea to Lydia, he had a smile fit to burst, and the fact that she didn't shoot him down outright boded well for him. She humored him, let him slide temptation under her nose in the shape of ancient unsolved case files. Soon after, she took charge in picking apart what she deemed to be the more interesting case files. Why?
"Some of these predate impression kits or blood pattern analysis," she said, smiling briefly and went back to analyzing the report of a cannibalistic family. Since the bite marks on the victims didn't match anything human or animal no one could prove how they'd murdered victims, why or even if the Walcott family knew they were living on top of a freezer full of human bodies.
A smile qualified as progress in their relationship but he had to ruin it, "I always thought their forensics were interesting. That's why I would dig through my old man's stuff when he's not looking."
"Technically, these cases remained unsolved for years because of their lack of forensic evidence," she huffed prettily and flipped through the case file nearly as dispassionately as she would a fashion magazine, she definitely seemed to digest the pages slower.
"They're just inconsistencies." He defended the honor of the Beacon Hills Sherriff's department.
"They're missing anything relevant enough to build a case," Lydia's irritability seemed to flare with amusement. "And anyway, they could have closed cases if they were more receptive to nontraditional methods of speculations. Just by applying Sir. Conan Doyle's method of logic; once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable..." She let the suggestion dangle in the air and gestured toward his burgeoning backpack, at least a half dozen case files of interest inside.
"Are you suggesting aliens?" He edged even further. "Because I do have some theories about that."
At that, she rolled her eyes and pushed him back in his seat.
Like a spider detaching from a crumbling web, Stiles' flailing limbs tried to catch himself before he hit the ground. He almost did but ultimately didn't. He caught himself on Jackson's sweater and nearly yanked them both to the ground. The shouting match that followed was unbearably embarrassing and when eyes turned to Lydia to pick a side ('whose fault was it?'), she had long since vanished. Along with the case files.
At first thought he felt hurt that she hadn't been there to back him up, it took him a split second to reflect 'why would she'. After all they weren't friends and Jackson was her on-again-off-again thing?
In a second thought, he felt panicked that the case files were gone as well.
When Mr. Harris assigned him detention for the disruption he went to the library after school to restock shelves. There he found Lydia at the farthest table with their case files waiting impatiently.
"I knew you were coming," she said quietly, once more pointing toward the seat across from her with the end of her pencil. "Mr. Harris hates you. Giving you downtowners detention is his favorite pastime."
Once she said it she regretted it but she didn't apologize because it was the truth. After all she walked straight out of the room during class and Mr. Harris later let her off with a warning. But Stiles stumbled and got an afterschool punishment.
"Why not?" he shrugged, and sat at her invite, ignoring the obvious hurtful and honest bias of her statement. "He never checks the book count. He won't even be back until Monday."
Lydia smiled in relief to watch him drop into their rapport, eager and ready to pick up where they left off.
"You're smiling at me," smirking, he said in hushed library tones and without looking up.
"I'm just thinking," she looked at their work and tried not to smile. Which only made her smile more. "I like a fascinating distraction. What do you get out of this ultimately?"
"I like helping my dad," he said with a shrug and handed her photo that she misfiled when she packed up in a rush. "It's rare, but if I do find something relevant I can slip it across his desk. Someone has got to bring up the solved case numbers. And if I get to take credit for your intellect, so be it. It's not like you're going to."
With that she kicked him sharply under the table, then immediately reprimanded him for yelping loudly in the library.
It was a bundle of conflicts; Stiles could be rewarded tens of thousands of dollars for helping lead to the killer in some of these cases. At the same time, Stiles could be charged with first-degree theft if he got caught stealing from the police evidence. Neither of these came into his mind, just the priority of making his dad look good at the end of the day, which she thought leaned more on the side of foolish than admirable.
She could never claim to do likewise for her dad, and besides she felt like his answer had only been partly true. And therefore he deserved to get kicked, maybe even a little harder.