Chapter Text
Click, click, click, click.
There were whispers and wolf whistles as Lydia Martin made her way down the school corridor. She might have been a banshee who fought the supernatural every day after school, but she still had it. She definitely still had it if the look on Greenberg’s face was anything to go by.
She loved the attention, it made her feel powerful, and it silenced that voice in her head telling her she wasn’t loved. The voice telling her nobody cared.
She waved to her friends as she stopped to drop off some books for the day in her locker. She touched up her lipstick and Stiles swore he saw her wink at him.
“Pick your jaw up, Stilinski,” Liam jested as Lydia made her way past, on her way to homeroom. Stiles stuttered and stammered, eyes following Lydia. God, she was so beautiful. So, so beautiful, and she knew exactly what she was doing to him.
Liam waved his hand in front of Stiles’ eyes.
“Hm?” Stiles looked around, as if realising where he was.
“Are you with us?” Liam laughed, closing his locker door. Stiles gave a nod and leaned back. Liam thought he was going to break into song.
“Sorry, I’m tired, we were up, you know,” Stiles trailed.
“Yeah. Where’s Scott?”
“Library, him and Malia are looking up something Deaton sent over this morning,” Stiles shouldered his bag, and they started walking up to the second floor. They both had homeroom on the second floor.
“Him and Malia, eh?” Liam cocked his eyebrow.
“It’s not like that and you know it,” Stiles said. Plus, Stiles had made it very clear to Scott that she was off limits, being his ex and all. Best friends don’t date exes.
As they passed Mr Sawyer’s room, Stiles noticed the new girl looking incredibly lost, staring down at the timetable and map in her hand, looking panicked. He wondered how awful it must be to be the new kid three quarters of the way through the year. Stiles stopped in front of her and pulled the timetable from her hand, looking for homeroom. She looked as though she was going to protest, until she noticed him.
“Over there.” He gave his best smile and pointed to Miss Rodriguez in 207. They were in the same homeroom, but he didn’t plan on going for another ten minutes. That woman had had it out for him since she took over Coach’s homeroom, and he didn’t plan on spending any longer than he needed to there.
The new girl – God, he couldn’t remember her name – gave him a smile, and turned, heading for 207.
Liam shot Stiles a look.
“Who was that?” He teased.
“New girl, can’t remember her name. Started yesterday.” Stiles answered, staring forward.
Liam dropped it after that, preferring to talk about lacrosse instead. Who did Stiles think was in with a chance of captain next year? Did he think coach would leave after this year? Stiles answered as though he cared, but he really didn’t, and Liam could tell, but appreciated him trying.
After Stiles walked Liam to homeroom, he stopped by the library, but Scott and Malia were already gone. He walked back towards Miss Rodriguez’s room, and found his usual seat beside Lydia was taken, by Lydia herself, so he sat one behind, in front of the new girl. Scott and Malia were already there, sat next to Stiles and Lydia.
They both looked exhausted.
Miss Rodriguez took roll call, gave a few announcements (the pool was still cordoned off after the explosion, and there would be a memorial assembly on the 17th, that everyone must attend), then let everyone go.
Stiles let the new girl pass through the door first. He heard her laugh at something someone said, then she slipped into the crowd.
Stiles and Scott had gym first, and they spent most of it on the bench, feigning injuries from lacrosse practice two nights ago, talking about Derek, and the explosion, and how Stiles was one thousand percent sure he was failing Spanish.
Coach bounced around, calling out everyone for their poor form, and how pathetic they looked.
“If these idiots weren’t so banged up from actually applying themselves, they’d be running circles around you!” He shouted, pointing directly at Stiles. Since joining the lacrosse team (and becoming Coach’s favourite players), it was so easy to skip gym and have Coach mark them down as if they participated.
“Do you think the Calavera’s will send us their bestiary?” Stiles said once Coach’s attention was off them. “It’s just, the Argent’s is incredibly Euro-centric.”
“I guess?” Scott didn’t even know how he could get hold of the Calavera’s anymore, except driving down to Mexico. Half of them had been wiped out by an Ahuitzotl and Scott had no idea who was alive and who wasn’t.
Stiles was beginning to run out of options, but he was trying to make it look like he wasn’t grasping at straws. Everything was coming up empty.
Stiles and Lydia had even tried using her banshee thing to see if she could hear anything about what had happened from the dead, but nothing. Deaton had said he would try it again, but Stiles knew Deaton was as clueless as the rest of them.
Coach kept Scott and Stiles behind after class to try to coax out the real reason they sat out (“it’s drugs, isn’t it? Oh God, it’s drugs, I knew this would happen someday!”), but they stuck with their stories.
After school, everyone made their way to Deaton’s office, including Lydia, who had been transcribing archaic Latin for the past three nights, after Deaton’s ‘friend’ sent them some more information. She looked good for someone who claimed she’d not slept for three days.
“This was a bust,” She threw down the manila folder, and opened it up, pulling out some of the pages. “Basically, end of days, earthquakes, tremors, you name it, it’s all in here,”
“And why is that a bust?” Malia grabbed at the folder, reading some of the translated pages.
“It gives a date, the year 79 A.D.,” Everyone looked around, unsure of the relevance, “Pompeii, guys, it's basically some Roman essay on what happened at Pompeii.”
“Ah, shit.” Stiles cursed under his breath.
“So, you’re saying what happened at Pompeii couldn’t have happened here?” Malia looked confused. She had no idea what this Pompeii was.
“Malia, Pompeii was, it was a volcano. There’s no volcanos in Beacon Hills.” Lydia explained, looking around for help.
Malia nodded, though she still had no idea what Pompeii was. She felt a little dumb, everyone else knew what Lydia was talking about except her. It wasn’t her fault that she’d spent the majority of her life as a werecoyote.
Stiles bumped her shoulder, trying to make her feel better.
“Someone from Chile is sending me some files, but they can’t promise it’ll do us any good.” Deaton said, putting his hands in his trouser pockets.
“What files?” Scott asked.
“Someone who’s dedicated their entire life to researching… phantom lights and the phenomena around it,” Deaton read from a piece of paper in his pocket.
“Oh, so that’ll be a bust, too,” Lydia muttered, mostly to herself. Everyone heard her, but nobody dared to comment. They knew their options were wearing thin. Things were silent for a while, nobody sure what to say at first, but then the quiet stretched on and on.
“Have you heard anything else on Derek?” Scott asked when the silence became too uncomfortable for him.
“No, unfortunately not,” Deaton frowned. “I’ve heard from a hunter in Idaho who says a peace treaty will hold until he’s found. Unless he attacks them first,”
“A peace treaty? Hunters make peace treaties?” Scott snarked.
“They do when they owe you favours,” Deaton replied, simply. “It’s not all of them, just some,”
Things became uncomfortably silent again.
“I think we should all go home, get some sleep. I didn’t sleep last night and Lydia’s been up for three days working on this, I think we’re all tired and need rest before jumping into this,” Scott looked down at the pile of books Deaton had brought from home, some which hadn’t seen the light of day since Derek’s mother had died.
Everybody murmured their agreement, packing things away before going their separate ways. Scott tried not to feel a pang of jealousy when he saw Stiles and Malia leave together, Stiles’ hands ghosting on Malia’s hips. He didn’t like Malia, he just missed that. Going home with someone. With Kira. With Allison. Anyone.
He didn’t exactly have time to date while he was trying to save Beacon Hills.
He waved goodnight to Deaton, who returned the gesture. He walked through the clinic to the parking lot, trying to get his mind on anything but Kira, anything but Derek or what happened three weeks ago.
He swung his leg over his bike and kicked at the stand, planting his feet firmly on the ground. He stared at the dashboard for a minute before putting his keys in the ignition. It took him four attempts to start the engine. He revved the engine for a second, listening for something wrong, then sped out of the parking lot. He took the shortcut home, instead of riding around on his bike because he could.
Once home, Scott walked his bike round to the back garden, then let himself in through the backdoor, locking it behind him. He made himself some dinner, then sat and watched TV, falling asleep on the sofa, fully dressed.
******
“So, how are you finding it here at Beacon Hills?” Lydia smiled down at the new girl, who was assigned to sit next to her in biology.
“Good, I guess,” Ellie said, not taking her eyes away from the worksheet they’d been given. Ellie would be lying if she said Beacon Hills High had been everything she hoped, but what did she think would happen transferring three months from the end of school?
“Any boys?” Lydia asked, eyes wide and mischievous. If there was one thing that Lydia Martin was good at, it was setting people up.
“Well, there’s one,” Ellie put down her pen and folded her arms. Her face was tinted red, and Lydia knew exactly what the look she was giving meant. Lydia gave a look that said go on so she did. “He’s in a few of my classes, he sits near me in world history,”
Lydia thought about where everyone sat in world history, counting how many spaces back from her that Kira had sat.
“Oh God, it’s not Greenberg, is it?” Lydia gasped, appalled. Surely, she would have better taste.
“Who’s that?” Ellie shrugged. She had no idea what the guy’s name was.
Lydia looked around the room and found Greenberg, playing with the gas taps, which, thankfully, were off. She pointed him out to Ellie, who looked wide eyed.
“God, no! No, it’s not him.” She picked up her pen and started writing again. Lydia smiled at how red Ellie had gone. It was nice to talk to someone normal, someone who wasn’t in the pack. It had been hard to maintain friendships out of the group, and eventually she stopped trying, but it didn’t mean she didn’t miss someone to be normal with. “What about you, do you have a boyfriend?”
“There is this one guy, I don’t know,” Lydia looked off, as if she was picturing him, “but Cosmo says to act totes unavailable and it’ll send ‘em wild, and force them to make the first move.”
Ellie hummed in response. She had no idea how guys worked. She’d never had a boyfriend. She might have held hands with someone once, but it turned out to be her cousin so she didn’t count it.
Lydia was quiet for a minute, but she looked as though she really wanted to speak.
“His name’s Stiles,” She said, eventually. “We… He’s liked me since the third grade and I don’t know if I like him because I like him, or if I like him because he likes me.”
“Is he here now?” Ellie asked, looking around.
“No,” Lydia sighed. “I don’t know. Cosmo said I should hit it and quit it, best of both worlds, you know? I just don’t want to break his heart.”
“Who’s Cosmo?” Ellie knitted her eyebrows together. It was the second time she’d heard the name, and she felt like it was something she should know.
Lydia laughed, covering her eyes with her hand.
“Cosmo, Els, Cosmopolitan, the magazine?” She grinned, still laughing.
“Oh! Yeah, I’ve never read it.” Ellie said, trying not to feel warm at the fact Lydia had called her Els.
“How? You have so much to learn.” Lydia looked genuinely surprised. “Also, I’d like it if you kept that Stiles thing to yourself, I don’t even know why I told you, I haven’t even told my diary,”
They giggled, and Ellie wondered if this was the start of a beautiful friendship.
By the next period, she knew being friends with Lydia Martin was no easy task. She sat beside a girl she introduced as Malia and a boy she introduced as Scott, but there was no Stiles, or the boy that Ellie liked.
They were on a table of four, and Ellie felt pushed out and isolated from the second she sat down, like she didn’t belong or as if she wasn’t worth their time.
Ellie pushed it to the back of her mind and focused on her physics teacher trying to explain quantum theories basic concepts.
*************
Ellie sat next to the boy she liked next period, who seemed to recognise her. Or maybe he recognised she was new. Either way, she liked the way he looked at her when she sat down next to him.
They didn’t say a single word to each other the entire period (mostly because Econ was filled with the teacher talking continually), but Ellie kept stealing glances when she knew the teacher wasn’t looking her way. The teacher, who everyone was calling Coach, seemed to be constantly asking her if she knew what they were talking about. Thankfully, her old high school were a chapter ahead, at least.
“Can anyone explain what PPF is? Uh, Stilinski,” Coach pointed with his pen to the boy next to Ellie. She finally had a name for the boy she liked, even if it was an odd one.
“Production Possibility Frontier,” Stilinski sounded unsure of himself. Coach folded his arms, as if expecting more.
“Which is?” He demanded, staring at Stilinski intensely.
“The maximum possible outcome of three, no, two services an economy can achieve when all resources are employed.”
“Good. Well, looks like somebody actually did the reading. There’s a first time for everything,” Coach tried to sound angry, but everyone could see the smile he was trying to hide. Stilinski looked as shocked as everybody else that he knew it, and Ellie had to cover the smile on her face with her hand.
The rest of the day went by normally. Ellie sat with a boy she’d seen in maths at lunch, but they didn’t talk, and she watched him pick at the food in front of him before leaving, tray in hand, and shoving everything in the trash.
After lunch, classes were boring, but she shared a few with Stilinski, and he even spoke to her, albeit to ask for a pen, but he spoke to her.
When she got home, she told her mom everything about Stilinski, and Lydia, and even Scott and Malia. Her mom was happy she was making friends, and told her she should invite them round some time. When it was decorated, of course.
Ellie knew it was a little premature, but she started making party plans.