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Allison's funeral is a somber affair, worse than the last funeral Stiles attended, likely because the last was Kate Argent, a bitch from hell who didn't have the decency to actually die, and this is Allison of the smiles and hair-end curls, the bow and arrow bowling champ.
Allison had the decency to die in Scott's arms, and Stiles has been holding Scott and Lydia's hands for the past ten minutes. Scott is broken down, sobbing, and Lydia has a literal veil over her face (but he dares not say anything). She's wearing navy, and he thinks she's the only one not wearing black.
Chris Argent shows no emotion when he speaks. He was strong for Allison after her mother's death, and he's strong now. Stiles can't tell for who until Argent steps away from the grave and back next to Isaac, who is still frozen in the same horror he had the night she died. Argent puts an arm around Isaac, and Stiles realizes he hasn't stopped being a father.
When Scott goes, it makes everyone cry. His mom has moved next to Stiles and she whispers shakily that he can stay the night if he wants to and Stiles knows who it is for. He wants to tell his father, but she says she will and indeed she does, going over there to squeeze his dad's hand and-no way. But way. Stiles can't focus on it too long because Scott is back next to him (did he use wolf speed in public?) and shaking all over. Stiles finds himself rubbing Scott's back, like his alpha werewolf best friend is a little kid in third grade having an asthma attack all over again.
The girl who explained in painstaking detail to an eight year old Stiles what an asthma attack was in front of their entire class is now speaking.
She clears her throat for several seconds.
"Allison is the most beautiful person I have ever known."
And now Chris Argent chokes up.
....
Scott's bedroom is silent by eight pm, the owner engaged in fitful sleep that Stiles can bear watching over for only about twenty minutes before he has to get up and go into the kitchen. He sits with Mrs. McCall, drinking herbal tea(0/10 would not recommend).
Later he calls Lydia up. It's about ten. She answers on the first ring and says "Is Ally-"
There are five minutes of silence as each one fights for something to say. He asks about her outfit and she says this before abruptly hanging up:
"Allison always wore so much black. I wanted to remind her there were other shades of sadness."
He thinks he doesn't get it, but then as he lies in bed thinking about the disparity in reactions-Chris Argent's stoicism, Lydia's cold grace, Scott's complete mental breakdown, and his own fight to keep from crumbling as he watched the girl get lowered into the ground because of him.
There are several shades of sadness, and he's a nasty color.
~~~
She walks over to her closet and opens it.
"What are you doing?" He flops down on her bed. A year ago this would have been impossible to imagine, and six months ago he would be scared of messing up her covers. Today he notices they're freshly laundered, and it must be the first time she's changed them since Meredith died, because the stains from a) crying, b) his spilling beer, and c) pasta sauce are now all gone. It'd been like a collage, a filthy one at that, of the days she'd spent in her room, him coming over in afternoons in between figuring out the deadpool. It's nice to finally smell cleanliness, because it reminds him of her before this all happened, when she was still happy enough to spend hours on her outfits and hair, spritzing herself with some sort of strawberry perfume. It also marks the end of a very short era, one where he once got drunk enough to say he loved her but not right now and she had the grace to never bring it up.
"Selecting what I'll wear at your funeral."
So very Lydia Martin. She manages to be both melodramatic and blasé at the same time, and she can pull it off effortlessly.
He hears her moving hangers. "Come on, it's not impossible." He's definitely got at least a forty percent chance of surviving if he can get the mountain ash down in time.
"Is red too gaudy? I can be mournful in red. It's a dark red. Can I pull it off? Yeah, I think I can." She can pull anything off. Her voice is cracking a little and he sits up to face her. She whirls away, and it becomes clear she was watching him.
"Lyd-"
"It's a suicide mission." She says flatly.
He stands, coming over to her. "But if it works-"
"I'm not coming to watch you kill yourself. I've seen it happen to everyone else I care about and you're all I've got left, so if you don't give a damn about me-"
"You know that's not true" he said vehemently, pushing his face into her shoulder. She's so difficult sometimes. He stands up again, waiting for the next attack.
She stops rifling through her clothes to stare at him directly. She doesn't like to look at him, he'd noticed, not when they are alone. She is always scared of what he would see in her face, avoiding his eyes like he wasn't once a nogitsune, with a murderer staring out of his eyes. He can take whatever she has to offer.
He starts to remind her that even if she doesn't know Kira and doesn't like Malia (Lydia was good at lying, but not that good when she could barely keep from rolling her eyes at every word out of the girl's mouth), she had Scott forever. The alpha. Far preferable and better for protection-
He swallows those words when she meets his eyes.
"Death is about the people left behind, remember that Stiles?"
He almost calls her baby like he does in his dreams, the ones where he wakes up from a nightmare and she's there in his bed because she loves him, not out of worry. He doesn't call her baby because she's not a baby, she's Lydia freaking Martin, banshee and scholar extraordinaire. He doesn't call her anything at all.
"What is your father going to do without you?"
"I cause him trouble anyways, he'll-"
Lydia makes like she's going to slap him and then closes her hand into a fist. He flinches.
"No. Don't you dare. He loves you, and you're never trouble. You're a solution, you're always the one who figures it out. Who ever told you you were a problem, Stiles?"
"I-I just-"
She's going to cry in about two seconds, and he does a whoa there kind of hug, folds her into himself so she doesn't have to cry, and he still doesn't get it but he's got a feeling he should.
"If you're worried, you can come with me."
"Okay." Is the muffled verdict.
"Wait, really?" He's instantly regretting this. He's going to put her in danger, Scott's going to be pissed because at one point or another Scott started loving Lydia like a sister and you do not bring your sister to magic wars. Unless it's like World of Warcraft and she's a high level healer-not relevant.
"I'm going to drive too."
"Uh, okay."
"Come on."
She squeezes her hand into his left pocket, sliding out the key ring, and it's almost like she didn't notice it, he's almost home free-but then she smirks and his whole face heats up. She dances out the door, dangling his keys like catnip.
~~~
She comes quietly, a couple shudders and a muttered name. She hasn't been thinking too hard about what she'd focused on until someone knocks at her door. The guy who'd just been sinking into her, telling her she smelled like strawberries and cream, sounded like sunshine, screamed like-(well, a banshee's got practice, she thinks wryly, but the idea of screaming not out of fear and knowing but pleasure simply brought Jackson to mind, something she didn't need to ever think about again)-like, well-
"Lydia?"
She wipes her hand on her leg frantically, and throws off the white duvet.
Skirt (ruffled white reaches mid-thigh eighty dollars at Macy's Monday night receipt in her third drawer tag in the trashcan). Where is it.
It's wrapped up in her sheets and she shakes it out before stepping into it, combing her fingers through her hair haphazardly.
Her hand is still sticky, and thank god she keeps hand sanitizer in her bag.
"Are you-decent?" Stiles asks apprehensively on the other side of the door, and she nods first before coming to her senses.
"Yes. Obviously."
She's fumbling through her purse for the little bottle of cleanser when he steps in. He's got ADHD and heavy steps, so she has no idea how he's snuck up on her. She jumps at his hand on her shoulder.
"You okay?"
When she sees the look on his face, oh god, he must have thought she was thinking about Allison again. She almost laughs, but that'd scare him.
"Yes."
"Just checking up on you. It's been like two days since we've talked and I thought maybe you missed my voice-"
He's joking but he's not. He gets worried about her now, really worried especially when he's not around Malia whose specialty is utter apathy about anyone but Stiles himself and Mr. Alpha Scott. (She doesn't hate Malia, not really, not even when the girl gets algebra horrifically wrong, but Stiles was once so accessible.)
She is infinitely glad now that Stiles never took Peter up on the offer, because if this boy had a super sense of smell she might just have to throw herself out the window and hope Kira at least could throw a classy wake. God,
For about two weeks she had considered that seriously. The throwing herself out the window part. It was really, really dark without Allison, even in broad daylight. She didn't tell anyone. The only one who'd care is the only one that'd benefit, and Allison wasn't available for discussion anymore anyways.
"Lydia, seriously, if something's up, you have to tell me. Remember, the order goes me then Scott then my dad. Police are always the very last resort. Course, you can just give me a shout and I'm here in like two seconds. Well, more like a scream-"
"Stiles. Why are you here."
"Your mother let me in. She likes me. I think she thinks I'm a good influence, isn't that crazy?"
Lydia stares at him blankly. Her mother does praise Stiles a lot when he stays for dinner. He continues.
"I thought maybe you might want to see a movie?"
She rolls her eyes. "So now we're doing Pack movie nights? Is it Teen Wolf? Tell me it's Teen Wolf." She tastes the irony in her mouth, but it might be lipstick.
"You know that movie?"
"I'm not a monster, Stiles. I like eighties movies."
"No, it's not the whole pack."
"I'm not being a fifth wheel, Stiles. Please don't."
Stiles forms a word that suspiciously resembles Allison and stops himself. "It'll be just you and me."
"Really."
"Yeah."
"Where's Malia?"
"Working with Scott. Full moon's in a couple of days."
She crooks a thumb at her calendar in response, which has two red circles. One's the full moon, and the other marks the beginning of a different cycle. Stiles flushes, and she remembers idly that at some point he figured out when that was, and those are the days he brings chocolate.
He's so-ugh.
"What's the smile for?" he asks
"I'll see a movie with you. My schedule doesn't exactly fill up these days."
"It's a date." He says, and then he freezes.
She digs her nails into her palm. "Friends, Stiles, I know."
"Right. Right. Because of-"
"Your girlfriend."
"Yeah, yeah. Malia. I should probably text her what I'm doing so she doesn't get scared going home to an empty house."
"That girl gets scared?"
Stiles shakes his head. "Let's just go. I think it's like an old vampire movie. Not Dracula, something really awful."
"Ooh, a bad movie." She surprises herself by saying that genuinely. He's rubbed off on her a bit.
"Come on."
He holds his hand out to her and she stands up quickly, leaving him with his palm up.
"I'm going to wash my hands."
"Okay." he says in mild confusion, but the accepting kind he always has around her.
She uses liquid soap. Strawberry scented. He mentions how she smells when she's sitting shotgun in his Jeep, and she has to roll down the window to get some air.
~~~
She only does it maybe three times. He's dating Malia, but it always feels more like she's a kid they're babysitting till the father gets here (although Lydia has put some pieces together that make her not want the father involved) and Lydia is bad at respecting other people's boundaries because frankly, they should not have boundaries.
She likes to make out with people. People meaning guys. Allison would roll her eyes at the details Lydia liked to go into but Lydia loves, loves loves kissing. Aiden was good at it. Jackson was masterful. Stiles is timid and guilty, understandably so.
"Lydia. Lydia."
"Yes?" She tries to say, but she's distracted by snaking her hand down his shorts and she may not have even said an actual word.
"I'm dating Malia." He says gently, but she notices he doesn't try to stop her hands. She just stops. It's like the third time. He always takes forever to remind her too, because she knows there's half of him that still can't believe she wants him. That half constitutes a few minutes of paralysis and then kissing back, and the practice he's had with (she doesn't know? Malia can kiss? She was a coyote? How many girls has he-is he a-HOW MANY GIRLS-he is good at this, damn, makes her wonder) people lends a certain finesse to the situation and then all of sudden he remembers and it stops.
She has her hands to herself, sitting back on her own bed, trying to think of how to salvage the situation. It isn't interrupted this time. Scott hasn't called either of them (Malia still doesn't like phones) and her mother hasn't knocked to announce dinner because it's only four thirty, meaning it only took Lydia about twenty minutes to lose control.
She feels fucking guilty, too, not the way she should for the cheating, but for making Stiles look so conflicted and angry and sad.
He can't break up with Malia because he likes her and she loves him and she's scared and new, even if she plays tough.
Lydia is the problem.
~~~
It is the fourth non-date when he finally mentions Allison, because they're at the ice rink. This was not Lydia's idea. She has been done with this place since Peter Fucking Hale. However she must admit she's missed it. She's good at skating, and dragging around Stiles is like a flashback to that one pseudo double date that was partially fun (before the vision stuff), and that's why Stiles says her name.
"Remember Allison teaching Scott how to skate? Oh man."
He laughs, and she stops abruptly. He smashes into her and they fall down on the ice. They're not the only people there this time, and a crowd gathers to watch them pick themselves up. Lydia's nose is bleeding.
"Sorry. Oh god. Lydia, I'm sorry." He's got blood all over his hands and wrist now, and it's splattered on the ice. He pulls her up in a way so clumsy she almost misses the fact that her weight doesn't phase him, like he's stronger now.
It's not important though, she thinks as she sits at a picnic table indoors with napkins stuffed up her nose. Stiles is across from her, eyes cast towards the table's surface.
"I couldn't remember her face." Lydia says quietly.
"I'm sorry-"
"No. You don't have to be. I have to be. I couldn't remember her face, Stiles! I saw her ice skating with Scott on the ice and he was laughing and so was she but she had no face! It was blurry, like she could have been anyone."
"It happens. It really does, Lydia. I know. It has nothing to do with whether you were a good friend."
"I have her picture on my wall. How can I not know what she looks like? What's wrong with me?" More warmth dripping down her face, but it's tears.
Stiles takes one of her hands in his, and his voice goes up an octave.
"When my mom died-"
She sucks in a breath because she'd forgotten his mom died.
"I was little, and I didn't really understand. My dad said she wasn't coming back and I got so angry because I thought it was my fault. I hated myself. But you know what, Lydia? It wasn't my fault. It isn't yours either. You were taking care of me when she died, okay? If anything, blame it on me. I'm the reason she had to be there anyways. I sicced those things on her, and I basically killed her myself. If you had just left me-I mean, she was a lot better than I was."
He's not doing a pity party here. Everything he's saying feels like he's saying it to comfort her, like it's the truth and she has to get it. But he still doesn't get it.
"I can never blame anything on you."
"What? I just made your nose bleed, Lydia. You've got blood on your face here." He touches her chin across the table ruefully.
"Allison did it to save us. I was a banshee. I could have predicted it-could've stopped her somehow-"
"If you'd stopped her we would never have defeated them. Allison saved all of us. You, me, Scott, Isaac, Kira-"
Lydia's still crying when she gets up to hug him.
"Allison and I used to talk about it sometimes. Our mothers being dead. It helped having someone else who knew what it was like, an my best friend's not dead so I don't know what you're going through at all but I loved her too and-"
"You get it. I believe you." She whispers into his hair. He's buried in her chest and she really does believe him.
"I don't know what my mother looks like unless I see a picture now too. People's faces can fade from memory, but that doesn't mean we forget them completely. Allison's up there and she knows you'll remember her. You're her best friend, after all. That doesn't stop just because she had to leave us."
Stiles and Lydia stay until closing time, talking about Allison, and a little about his mom, and what he almost had, and when it's over she kisses his cheek, thinking maybe he doesn't need her anymore, and she has to be as strong as Allison ever was and not need him.
She has to do the unimaginable and stop relying on Stiles.
~~~
When Malia breaks up with him, she fucks up the line.
"It's not me, it's you."
The past months she's been gaining control of herself and she's been needing him less and less. She's been growing more aware of how weak he is compared to her, how fragile.
She needed him at one point and now she doesn't.
He realizes she didn't fuck up the line and kisses her on the hairline. She wrinkles her nose and hopes they can be friends out loud "or it'll be awkward."
He's sad about it, but Scott gets him through it. Kira's very nice about it too, but Lydia?
Lydia?
Her mother always says she's out, and Scott refuses to discuss what happens when he's hanging out with her. After nine years of patiently listening about Lydia, Scott won't talk about her. Stiles sees her once when they need a banshee, tells her the person they need to find, and then he doesn't see her again.
~~~
She's distant at school. He doesn't know why. He thought it helped her to talk, but it seems like it made her hate him. He corners her after school because of the dull ache in his chest.
"Lydia?"
"Yeah?"
He knows they couldn't be something else, but he'd hoped they could be friends. Thinks of Malia right then because the coyote's got it right. It's awkward.
"What are you doing today?"
"Study group for AP Chemis-" she stops. "What day is it?"
"Friday."
"Oh. I...I'm going home, I guess."
"So you're free?"
"Why?"
"You've not been part of the pack lately."
"I can't do that right now stiles. I can't pretend to want to be part of that. Besides, I already went shopping with Scott yesterday."
He gapes at her.
"He needed a tie." She offers in explanation. "And moron didn't realize it, but a new suit too."
They lapse into silence again.
He notices ink under one of her short sleeves. "Is that a tattoo?" He's shocked.
"No." She gives him a look like do you know me, and then it vanishes because she must remember he doesn't really, not now. "It's a note to myself."
"What's it say?"
"Something."
He shifts his footing. "Is that all I get?"
"We haven't been talking for two months now, Stiles. What more do you want?"
"And that's my fault?"
She shrinks back. He yelled at her.
He automatically goes into apology mode, and after ten sorry's she holds out a hand to stop him.
"Please."
"Can we just talk?"
"I don't want to yell."
"I-I didn't mean to yell at you."
"I just want to go home."
"Can I-"
"Yeah. You can come."
It feels like victory, but as he follows her in his Jeep, he feels also like an asshole, like a Jackson, manipulating her even though he's really not.
Her mother has never been so cold. She greets him curtly and has a whispered argument with Lydia before they can go upstairs, calling that she will have snacks for them in exactly ten minutes. Exactly.
Stiles pulls out his phone on the way up and puts on the timer.
He sits on a blanket he didn't recognize. It's red and blue.
"How are you?"
"How do you think? I miss you, Lydia. What happened?"
"I needed space."
"I would have given you space." he insists, coming closer to her. She starts flushing bright red.
"Are you okay?"
"I just haven't seen you in a while."
"I never meant to leave you alone any of these times."
"I got used to being alone."
"Did you?"
"What do you mean by that?"
"You go to movies with Kira, you go shopping with Scott, Malia says you're tutoring her again-you're not alone when it comes to anyone but me. Why are you avoiding me?"
"I just got sick of relying on you all the time. I shouldn't have to rely on people. Allison never had to."
"You're not Allison. And Are you kidding me? Allison relied on Scott all the time!"
"Yes, because he was in love with her and it wasn't a burden."
"Oh yes, Lydia," He cannot believe his own sarcasm, although she should be able to recognize it by now. "I am not in love with you. That's completely true."
"Look-"
"No. No, you always interrupt me, Lydia. I'm going to finish talking. I'm in love with you. I always have been. I miss Allison, no one blames you, and I have missed you so badly these past few months that it has been physically painful. And Malia broke up with me."
Lydia lifts her head. "Seriously?"
"Which part? Of course I miss Allison. You're not alone, Lydia."
"Not that."
"She thinks I'm too weak for her now."
Lydia smiles faintly. "You are weak."
"I think I can lift you up now, so don't test me." He's joking, but he's not. He's been doing a lot of moping, reading, and exercise lately.
"No one blames me."
"Of course not. Least of all Allison. She's there trying to get you to wake up and live again, Lydia, can't you tell? Can't you hear her?"
Lydia sits up fully. She's quiet. "I do hear her sometimes. She likes to say things for Scott, and her father."
"Is that why you hang out so much?"
"Partially. He also just needs help with so many things. Fashion, school..."
"I'm glad you two get along so well." Stiles can't mask it, and she bites her lip.
"Scott couldn't understand why I wouldn't let you talk to him about me, or why I refused to talk about you. I guess if I had let him talk, I would have known about the breakup. Was it uncomfortable?"
"I've never been dumped before. It was an experience."
"Do you want something to drink?" She asks suddenly, going to her bureau. She opens a drawer and removes a half-empty bottle of red wine.
"That is definitely going to spill." He warns, eyeing it.
"I got a new one that won't show stains."
"Do you drink that often?" That's worrisome. Has she become a lush in his absence?
"No. I was...I guess I was waiting for you to come back."
They have both taken a sip when she stifles a giggle.
"What?"
"In elementary school when Max would share his juice boxes with the girls because he heard that sharing drinks was like kissing? Do you remember that?"
Everyone calls that kid Greenburg now, but he used to be Max. Stiles nods, laughing.
"It's so frustrating, you know."
"Greenburg?"
"Being in love with you."
In retrospect, he should never have let himself hold the bottle. It splashes across the covers, some of it getting on her jeans.
"Stiles!" She half-shrieks. "You ruined the bed!"
"Sorry-"
"How many times have you even said sorry to me?"
"Uh-sorry..." He trails off.
She leans forward and kisses him, but jumps back. That was cool, but now she looks disgusted. (That was more than cool.)
He must have done something wrong.
"I'm covered in wine. This is awful."
His phone is vibrating. He checks it.
"Who is it?"
"My alarm."
"Alarm?"
There's a knock on the door.
"Is that my mom?" She sounds annoyed, and he's too scared of the woman outside to grin even though he wants to.
"Lydia?"
Stiles makes to climb out the window or something equally drastic, he's unsure, but she stops him with a hand on his chest.
"Mom! I'm with a gentleman caller!"
"You should leave the door open."
Lydia groans. "I'm going to be like five minutes just give me a second please? Stiles is explaining calculus to me."
"You know calculus."
"I'm explaining it to him! Go away!"
Maybe it's because she sounds happy, but her mother does leave. Lydia stares at him, contemplating something.
"We either spend these five minutes of peace figuring out how to fix this problem-" she gestures at the bed under her. "Or we could make out on top of rapidly spreading stains."
"That sounds disgusting Lydia, we should probably-"
He doesn't get a chance to finish, and he's surprised he actually thought it was his decision.
~~~
Lydia's walking in the rain, thinking about how it's touching everyone in the world. Allison could be watching me right now, she thinks happily, and waves to the sky even as she squints against the water falling into her eyes.
"You didn't bring an umbrella?"
She flips her hair behind her shoulder, and it smacks her back wetly. "Why should I? I knew you would have one."
Stiles bends down and kisses her, and she was smirking before but now she's smiling. She pulls back and scrutinizes his face.
"You have something on your chin." she muses, rubbing at it with her sleeve. "Got it."
"Thank you ma'am." He winks at her, and takes her hand. "Kira says Scott is taking his motorcycle like an idiot." He glances skyward. "You sure she won't mind us bowling without her?"
"Not at all. She likes it, and she says she's rooting for our team." Lydia says confidently.
"Oh? Not Scott?"
"She knows to bet on the winning team."
"I'm not very good." He reminds her.
"Scott couldn't win against me in a million years."
Lydia drags him down the street, feeling her friend's hundreds of smiles rain down from the clouds to hit the umbrella her boyfriend carries carelessly. The sheriff has Scott's mom over for dinner, so Stiles is coming over afterwards. They're getting drenched, but she's warm all over.