A/N: I own nothing, obviously. Happy Holidays!
Lydia and Jackson have a perfectly normal dinner with his parents, do their chemistry homework together while his mother roasts a chicken and pretend to listen to his dad complain about his latest case all the way through dessert.
Jackson drives her home when they're finished; he even carries her book bag out to the car for her, his free hand clasped around hers. It's colder outside now that it's dark out, Lydia shivers in her sleeveless top and snuggles closer to Jackson.
Across the street Isaac Lahey's dad pulls his car into the driveway. The passenger door opens and Isaac falls out of the car, still in his lacrosse practice uniform, catching himself with his hands on the bitumen. Mr. Lahey gets out and walks around the front of the car and picks Isaac up by the back of his neck.
Even from across the street Lydia can hear Isaac cry out in response, watches his body arch and struggle. His dad cuffs him on the back of the head, hard, and suddenly Isaac is completely quiet, like a switch has been turned off. He lurches forward from the momentum of being hit, stumbling toward the front door, hands held protectively across the back of his head.
Lydia can't help but watch in fascinated horror. She's never seen violence like this before, brutal and explicit; she had no context for this.
"Jackson," she says tightly. "Why isn't anyone doing anything about that?"
Jackson unlocks the Porsche and opens her door for her. "About what?"
"That," she says, pointing her chin towards Isaac's house.
Jackson shrugs. "It's none of our business."
"But - he hit him!"
Jackson raises a suspicious eyebrow. "Since when do you care about Isaac Lahey?"
"I don't," she says defensively. "That doesn't mean it's okay."
Jackson sighs. "Just get in the car, Lydia."
When they get to her house Jackson parks and leans over the console, his hand curving over the back of her neck. His grip is familiar; she can imagine all the delicate nerves and discs being held together by him. She knows this touch by memory, knows easily it can shift from affection to aggression.
How easily he could break her, bone by bone. If he wanted to.
Jackson kisses her softly. "You know I love you, right?"
She nods, an unpleasant shiver creeping up her spine.
"See how much easier it is like this, when you just do as I ask?" His thumb strokes under her ear.
"Nothing happened," she protests softly. "I love you."
She does, she loves him, even though she knows she shouldn't. There's something wrong with Jackson, something deep inside him: a dark and twisted piece of DNA, mutated cells, something cold and sharp that craves blood and chaos.
Something bad.
/
She sees Scott and Stiles the next morning in the halls. Lydia braces herself but Scott barely looks at her and Stiles gives her the same friendly smile he gives her every day and brightly calls out, "Hi Lydia!"
She doesn't say hi back but she gives him a tight smile and a little wave, a clear polite acknowledgement. When she passes them she hears Stiles loudly say to Scott, "I told you we were friends!"
Lydia can't help but smile. It feels strangely good to be nice, such a small thing to give to make him happy. The feeling carries her all the way to lunch; she flounces over to Jackson's table and sits down next to him.
"You look hot babe." Jackson tugs her into his lap and she goes willingly, giggling when he kisses her neck.
She perches on his thighs like a trophy, a doll, a pretty princess doll with a crown observing her territory from her throne. Three tables over Stiles is staring at her, mouth half open and crammed full of onion rings.
Lydia smiles coyly at him and mouth hi, wiggles a few fingers at him, and Stiles chokes and sprays food across the table.
"Get it together Stilinski!" Jackson shouts, and chucks an empty Gatorade bottle at Stiles' head.
The bottle misses but only because Scott sticks his hand out and catches it right in front of Stiles' face, an impressive demonstration of quick reflexes.
Jackson growls and jumps up from his chair. Lydia slides right off his lap and flies to the floor, landing hard on one wrist. At the other table Scott, Stiles and Isaac all leap to their feet, Allison literally gasps out loud and covers her mouth.
What is she doing on the floor? Get up!
Lydia scrambles to her feet and gives Jackson a venomous glare. "I don't know what is going on but whatever this is-" she gestures between Jackson and the other boys, who all look like they're ready to throw down - "this is over!"
The cafeteria is silent; everyone is staring at them.
"Jackson," Lydia says sharply.
He's fixated on Scott, upper lip curled into a snarl. He doesn't look at her, doesn't even flinch. He looks like he's a hair trigger away from throwing a punch. Lydia spins on her heel and stomps away, her hurt wrist cradled against her chest.
She doesn't start crying until she's halfway down the hallway, ignores the sound of the cafeteria door slamming shut and converse sneakers squeaking against the floor.
"Lydia!" It's Stiles, because of course it is, chasing her down the hallway.
"Leave me alone!" she shrieks without turning around.
"Lydia, c'mon, wait-"
"I said, leave me alone!" She runs away, doesn't stop until she's in the girl's bathroom and locked in a stall.
Lydia waits until the next class period has started to leave the bathroom. She half expects Stiles to be waiting outside the door for her - they have precalc right now together - but the hall is empty so Lydia slinks to the nurse's office without an audience.
She told him to leave her alone, and he listened. She should be relieved but strangely she feels disappointed. Now that she's calmed down she realizes she shouldn't have run away from him like that. Like a coward, Lydia thinks shamefully. Like a silly little girl.
Everyone at lunch saw and she can't face them yet, all those girls who stare at her with a mixture of envy and hatred, all those boys who stare at her legs and cleavage when she walks by them. She convinces the nurse she has a migraine and curls up on a cot in the dark, the ice pack the nurse gave her for her head wrapped around her wrist.
Allison is waiting by her locker when the final bell rings, hair pulled back and black jacket zipped all the way up to her white throat, like she means business.
"Hey," she says, her voice full of false-bright charm. "Study at my house?"
"Alright," Lydia agrees. She shrugs into her cream quilted sateen bomber jacket and carefully checks that she has the right books before shutting her locker and hiking her bag up on her shoulder.
Allison slides her arm in hers to link elbows. "Come on, I'll buy you a latte."
"If you want," Lydia agrees amicably.
Allison has the decency to wait a few hours, until they're back at the Argent's house spread out with their completed English lit homework on Allison's bed, an almost finished iced venti white mocha with almond milk on the nightstand, before interrogating her.
"Let me see it," Allison demands, reaching for her wrist.
"It's nothing," Lydia snaps, holding her wrist protectively against her chest.
"Lydia-"
"It was an accident!"
The worst part is how disappointed Allison looks. "Lydia, I'm not stupid, okay? I know what's going on."
Lydia blinks. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
Allison groans and flops back on her bed. "Why are you acting like this is no big deal?"
"Like what is no big deal?"
"Lydia." Allison's voice sounds strange, high pitched and tight. "Do you really think people don't see what's going on with you and Jackson?"
"Allison, I told you it was an accident, you're being dramatic."
Allison's mouth drops open. "He hurt you!"
"It was an accident!"
"Yeah, this time!"
Lydia pulls away, suddenly feeling sick. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"Hey Alli- oh Lydia, I didn't know you were over." Allison's dad has opened her door without knocking, leaning casually against the door frame.
Lydia rolls on her side, flipping her hair over her shoulder, and smiles brilliantly. "Hi Mr. Argent!"
"Hi sweetheart." Mr. Argent gives her a warm fatherly smile. "Allison honey, Mom and I are going to order Italian soon, let us know what you want. Is Lydia staying for dinner?"
"She can't," Allison says, before Lydia can answer. His dad gives her a little look of surprise but Allison raises a defiant eyebrow at him and he shrugs and leaves the room.
"Rude," Lydia comments lightly.
"Do you have to flirt with my dad?" Allison complains. "It's gross."
Lydia sits up and starts packing up her book bag. "Face it Allison, your dad's hot."
"Lydia." Allison groans and writhes around on the bed dramatically. "That's so gross."
Lydia grins evilly. "You already said that."
Allison gets off the bed, straightening her shirt and fixing her hair, pouting. "Well it is."
Lydia slips her feet back into her shoes and pulls on her jacket. "It's not my fault he's a total silver fox."
"I officially hate you," Allison grumbles as she follows Lydia out of her room and down the stairs.
"Hate all you want, I speak the truth."
"Ugh, whatever." Allison crosses the foyer and opens the front door. "Look, just - be careful with Jackson, okay?"
Lydia sighs heavily. "I'm fine."
"Lydia, please. Scott says-"
"Scott says? You talked to Scott about me? About me and Jackson?"
Allison's forehead scrunches up. "No, he just - come on Lydia, you know what Jackson is like to Scott."
"So now it's about how he treats Scott?" Lydia retorts.
"I don't like how he treats you."
"Well it's a good thing you're not dating him, then."
Allison drops her head, defeated. "Come on, I'll drive you home."
"Don't bother." Lydia stomps out the front door and slams it shut behind her. She gets to the end of the driveway and sinks down on the curb, her injured wrist cradled in her left hand.
She sits there, staring blankly out at the street.
It didn't used to be like this. She and Jackson used to be easy; they used to make sense. Back when Scott and Stiles were barely hovering peripherally in the background of her life. Before Allison moved to Beacon Hills last year, before she and Scott started dating.
Before Lydia started questioning everything.
After a while she gets up and starts to walk. She lives in the same suburban section of Beacon Hills as Allison; all the houses are large and display manicured lawns, leafy trees with dripping leaves from the earlier rain.
She heads for her house, fifteen blocks away, tolerable when Lydia's wearing her Nikes and the sun is out, but today she's wearing little grey wedge booties and a baby blue romper under her bomber jacket and the wind is blowing like it's about to storm.
Lydia frowns, looking up at the overcast sky. It rained all morning while she was in school but she doesn't remember the weather report saying anything about afternoon thunderstorms.
She shivers and walks faster, pulling the cuffs of her jacket sleeves over her hands.
What Lydia needs is a plan. She's brilliant; she should be able to fix this. Get Jackson back under her control so they can continue to be Beacon Hills' star power couple, win lacrosse games and awards, their future unfurling in front of them like a red carpet.
Lydia imagines a Field Medal shining next to a lacrosse trophy, graduating Summa Cum Laude from the Ivy of her choice, because she and Jackson are winners. That's what Allison doesn't understand. They belong together.
Don't they?
The problem is Scott. Everything was fine last year, before Scott made first line and became majorly popular overnight. He's the anomaly, something must have happened to him, or he's involved in something. There has to be a reason for Jackson's newfound obsession with the kid.
She needs to figure out what's going on with Scott.
And wonders suddenly, about Allison, if she knows something, if she's involved too. Considers for the first time the possibility that the girl who Lydia thought was her best friend ever since she moved here last year is a liar.
Is that why Allison told her to be careful? Because she knows something Lydia doesn't?
The sound of a car engine makes her jump and turn, startled, and she's somehow completely unsurprised to see Stiles' blue Jeep pull up to the curb next to her. Lydia waits only for a moment before stepping up to the car and opening the passenger side door.
"You stop for all the girls?" she teases, squaring her shoulders so he can't tell how cold she is.
"Do you ever dress for the weather?" Stiles counters. His eyes roam down over her bare legs and Lydia flushes.
"I wasn't planning on walking," she says, the wind whipping her hair around her face.
Stiles sighs. "Come on," he says. "I'll drive you home."
She swings herself up into the Jeep and slams the door closed with her good arm, careful to hold her injured wrist close to her body. She drops her book bag on the floor next to her feet and buckles herself in, aware of Stiles sitting next to her, the car still in park.
She leans back in her seat and arches an eyebrow at him. Well?
He checks his mirrors, signals, shifts the car into drive and pulls back onto the street, fingers tapping against the steering wheel. "Are you okay?" he asks, eyes on the road.
Lydia stares out the window, clutching her throbbing wrist. "I'm fine. What are you doing here, anyway?"
"You live like four blocks from me actually," he explains. "You're on my way home."
"Oh."
His fingers drum on the steering wheel in time to the music on the radio. "You want to talk about what happened at lunch?"
"Not particularly."
Stiles slows down for a stop sign. "Look, I know it's none of my business but...are you sure you know what you're doing with Jackson?"
Lydia stares at him. How dare Stiles ask her about Jackson, he barely knows her. "He's my boyfriend," she says stiffly.
"I know that," he says. There's something sharp in his voice that wasn't there a second ago. It's interesting.
"What's going on with Jackson and Scott?" she asks, eager to shift the topic away from herself.
"Scott and Jackson? Nothing's going on between Scott and Jackson, except for, you know, ridiculous alpha male posturing. Why, what do you think is going on between Scott and Jackson?"
"Well," Lydia says coolly. "Jackson likes to be the best. Scott is in his way. And there's the fact that Scott somehow magically became as good at lacrosse as Jackson is overnight, which, let's face it, is highly improbable."
Stiles makes a choking sound. "What are you talking about?"
Lydia narrows her eyes at him. "What are you talking about?" He's Scott's best friend, he's also on the lacrosse team, he has to have noticed Scott's literally unbelievable ascent to first line.
Stiles signals and turns onto her street, his eyes scanning between the road and his mirrors, looking everywhere but her. "I just think you should be careful, that's all."
Allison's earlier warning comes back to her and Lydia's stomach twists. "I've been hearing that a lot lately," she comments.
Stiles raises an eyebrow and pulls over in front of her house. "Yeah?"
Lydia nods, fiddling with her seatbelt. "Allison."
"Ah," Stiles says. "If I were you I'd consider taking her advice then."
"She doesn't know what she's talking about," Lydia dismisses.
"She's your best friend," he argues. "She cares about you."
"And why do you care, exactly?"
Stiles eyes widen, his hand flexing around the gear shift. "We're friends, right?"
It frightens her, how vulnerable he sounds, how unsure. Like he's handed over all of his power to her.
She nods gently because she's too tired to lie, because she can feel it - she's losing Jackson and with it everything she's worked so hard for.
There's a boy in a car with her, and all he's asking of her is friendship. It would be so easy: to give up, give in, open herself up and let Stiles stick his hands inside and take out everything broken and wrong.
Let him put her back together into something purified, holy, saved.
Something beautiful.
"You should know something." His voice is trembling but she doesn't know if it's from nerves or passion. "I care about my friends. I...I care about you, Lydia."
"Well you shouldn't," she says, and jumps out of the car and runs up the front walk and lets herself inside her house, pretending not to notice that Stiles waits until she gets inside safely to drive away.
/
Allison is waiting for her at her locker in the morning, brandishing a latte like a white flag. "Upside-down caramel machiatto."
"With-"
"Half almond milk and half coconut milk." Allison all but shoves the drink into Lydia's hand. "I thought the barista was going to cry when I ordered it."
She raises an eyebrow at Allison. "Is this an apology latte?"
Allison flushes. "I just feel really awful about how you left yesterday," she says earnestly. "I'm your best friend, I should be supporting you, not judging you."
Lydia takes a sip of her latte and sighs in delight. Heavenly. "You're forgiven."
Allison smiles hopefully. "Then you'll sit with me at lunch today?"
"Alli" -
"Please, Lydia? I have a French test eighth period, I could really use a study buddy."
Lydia narrows her eyes at Allison. "You're practically fluent in French."
"I'm still not as good as you," Allison says modestly.
Lydia cups her drink, the warmth sinking into her palms. She knows Allison is bullshitting her but she still appreciates the farce, that Allison is at least giving her an excuse, an out.
"Please?" Allison wheedles. "Please, Lydia?"
Since Allison starting dating Scott she sits at his lunch table.
Scott sits with Stiles.
"Fine," she decides. "But only because we're studying."
Allison slings her arm around Lydia's shoulders and kisses her on the cheek. "Thank you!"
Lydia rolls her eyes but she lets Allison walk down the hallway with her arm around her, safe against her shoulder, like a bodyguard.
/
Allison's waiting for her at the entrance to the cafeteria at the beginning of their lunch period, like she doesn't really trust that Lydia would keep her word. Lydia sighs to herself and follows Allison through the lunch line, carefully selects a pre-packaged salad and a bottle of water.
They've beaten Scott and Stiles to the lunch table. Lydia sits next to Allison and opens her French textbook, pretending she doesn't see Jackson watching her from across the cafeteria. They haven't talked since she stormed out of lunch yesterday and Lydia is dreading the inevitable.
"What are you doing here?" Lydia looks up to see Stiles staring at her from the other side of the table.
Next to him Scott coughs awkwardly, looking embarrassed, and pushes Stiles down in a seat next to him.
"Sitting," Lydia says shortly. "Is that a problem?"
"N-no," Stiles stutters. "Not at all, you can always sit here, you can sit here whenever you want-"
"Stiles!" Scott gives him a beseeching look and Stiles curls into himself, lips pressed together.
Lydia rolls her eyes and goes back to studying. Predictably, Allison only lasts eight minutes before she shuts her book in favor of flirting with Scott. Lydia continues to study, her head ducked against the accusing glances Jackson keeps throwing at her from where he's sitting with half the lacrosse team.
A few minutes later Isaac shows up, hunched over, clutching a sad squished pb&j in one hand, his sweatshirt hood flipped over his hair. "Hey," he mumbles, hovering near the empty seat to Scott's right.
Scott looks up at Isaac and immediately looks concerned. "Dude, are you okay?"
Isaac just tilts his head, like, not really, and his sweatshirt hood falls back. His bottom lip is split right open, clotted blood clinging to the torn skin, and his whole mouth is swollen, like someone punched him.
"Oh my god," Allison gasps. "Isaac, what happened?"
Isaac glances at Scott and back down at the empty seat. "Can I sit here?"
"Yeah, of course," Scott says impatiently. "Dude, what happened to your face?"
Isaac sinks into the seat next to Scott, his long pale fingers picking at the plastic wrapping on the sandwich. "It's nothing. Walked into a door."
"You walked into a door?" Lydia says in disbelief, before she can stop herself, because, please.
Across from her Stiles twitches, looking very quickly between her and Isaac, his forehead wrinkled, like he's trying to connect invisible dots between the two of them.
Isaac flinches. "It's not a big deal," he whispers, but his hands are shaking.
Allison reaches over to pat his arm and Isaac recoils so quickly he almost falls backwards out of his seat.
Allison's eyes widen and Lydia catches her shoot a worried look at Scott. "I'll go get you some ice," she says sympathetically, and jumps up from the table before Isaac can tell her not to.
Stiles gets Scott and Isaac distracted with a story about some stupid thing Greenberg did at practice yesterday and by the time Allison gets back all three boys are deep in a lacrosse spiral. Lydia manages to work through the rest of the lunch period, taking her time to pack up when the bell rings, waiting Jackson out so she doesn't have to talk to him.
Stiles stands up, backpack slung over his shoulder. "Walk to precalc together?"
"Sure." Lydia comes around the table to him and they walk out together into the busy hallway.
"Look," Stiles says as they turn right towards the math lab. "I'm sorry about yesterday."
Lydia sighs. "It's fine. You caught me in a bad mood, Allison and I had just gotten into it."
Stiles glances sideways at her. "About what?"
"Jackson," she admits quietly, staring straight ahead.
Stiles' jaw locks and he doesn't say anything until they get to their classroom. He stops just outside the door and turns to look at her. Lydia presses herself against the wall, the feeling she had that night when he drove her home from Danny's party returning.
Like there's nowhere to hide from him.
"Did you get your wrist looked at?" he asks pointedly.
Her eyes widen. "It's fine. It was an accident."
A muscle in Stiles' jaw twitches. "You've been having a lot of accidents lately."
She steels herself against the implied accusation. "It doesn't even hurt anymore."
It doesn't hurt because this morning Lydia snuck into her mother's bathroom while she was in the kitchen making coffee and took one of her leftover hydrocodone pills from an old surgery, swallowed it and went into her room and selected a cream knit sweater with long sleeves that cover her swollen wrist.
Stiles glances at the clock on the wall; ninety seconds until the bell rings. "Can I take a look at it?"
She gapes at him. "No."
"Lydia, quit messing around, let me look at your wrist."
She crosses her arms defensively over her chest. "What part of no don't you understand?"
Stiles huffs and shoves a hand through his hair. He used to buzz it but he grew it out over the summer and it's - cute. Thick and kind of messy, sexy in an undone sort of way.
"At least tell me you're icing it," he says sternly.
Lydia rolls her eyes. "What kind of moron do you think I am?"
Stiles' eyes are soft and sad. "I don't think you're a moron."
The bell rings and Lydia jumps; Stiles steadies her with a hand on her shoulder. Instead of stiffening she melts into his touch, lets herself lean again his side.
She's just so tired. Tired of lying, tired of making excuses.
"So we're okay?" Stiles asks. "You and I, we're good?"
For a split second she almost does it - opens her mouth and confesses. Admits that she's lost control, that she doesn't know what she's doing, that she needs help.
But she's Lydia Martin and she's never asked for help from anybody. Pride may come before the fall but Lydia's never fallen down in her life and she's not about to start now.
She gives him her brightest, bravest smile. "We're fine, Stiles. Everything is fine."
/
Jackson catches her in the hallway between sixth and seventh period, one of his hands spreading flat between her shoulder blades and guiding her into a little alcove.
"What do you want?" she snaps. "I'm going to be late for gym."
Jackson snorts. "Like you give a shit about PE."
"Jackson" -
"You sat with Allison at lunch."
"She wanted to study for French together." Lydia twirls her hair and pouts, like she's already bored.
Jackson sighs, the hand on her back gently fisting the knit fabric of her sweater. "I'm sorry about yesterday," he says quietly.
Lydia stands very still. Jackson rarely apologizes, about anything. He must feel guilty.
"Whatever, it's fine," she says. "Let go of me, I'm really going to be late."
Jackson frowns but he pulls his hand away. "Come to practice later?"
"Alright," she agrees, because he apologized, he feels bad, he still loves her.
Doesn't he?
He bends down slowly and kisses her like she's a flower, a snowflake, something delicate and ephemeral. His body so close to hers and it feels like falling, or drowning, like lying down in a blanket of snow and going to sleep.
The bell ring and Lydia jerks away, eyes flying open.
"Oh no," Jackson murmurs. "You're late."
/
Lydia doesn't bother going to class after that, she goes to the library instead and heads for the history section. She has a midterm history paper she wants to start researching and finds a few different books on Russian history, the Romanov family, and the Bolsheviks, and sits at an empty table.
She finds hand sanitizer in her cosmetics case and rubs it on compulsively before opening the first book of the stack. She feels dirty, imagining the way Jackson had grabbed her sweater, treated her like a thing to be moved and manipulated however he likes.
He made her late. On purpose. Just because he wanted to.
Like Lydia is nothing but a toy to him.
She closes her eyes and thinks about Stiles instead, how she told him not to touch her and he didn't, how wide-eyed and earnest he was when he apologized, when he hadn't done anything but be concerned for her.
Like he really does care about her, like he said yesterday.
Like something pure, something real. She thinks about Stiles pushing a peanut butter cup into her hands, Stiles giving her his jacket, how his face had lit up in the hallway just because she smiled at him.
Lydia exhales slowly and closes one hand around the other wrist, pretending it's Stiles' hand, his long fingers wrapping around her bones, holding her still, keeping her grounded to earth.
Like an anchor.