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“You don’t get to decide what’s best for me.”
“No. no, you’re right, I don’t. What I get is to see you trying to act as if I didn’t fuck us up.”
“What!? I swear to god Stiles I don’t- That is not what’s happening here!”
“Isn’t it though?” he asks coldly.
Her lungs empty. She straightens up as she realizes where this is going, her voice desperate, intent, “I don’t blame you for it.”
He ignores her. He’s painting a picture now, “This is what I think, you look at me and you see the pathetic boy who was obsessively in love with you. You see that boy on the verge of breaking and then you give him hope. You see him become your friend, someone who’s there for you no matter what. He falls in love with you again only to realise he’s never known anything else.”
She feels a little calm pass through her as he recites the facts of their story, she’s prepared for him to go on about how long it took for them to finally get over themselves. But the wind is knocked out of her lungs when he continues,
“But then he kills your best friend and breaks your heart. You’re grieving a colossal loss and need something to hang on to because you’re too tired to recover. You choose him to be there for you when you feel like you’re in hell, but you ignore the fact that he’s the one who put you there.”
She gapes at him for a good moment, takes one to collect herself, trying not to break under his challenging gaze.
“We’re different people Stiles, with different stories and apparently even more different perspectives. You did not kill Allison, the nogitsune did.”
He’s actively shaking his head now, scoffing at her. But she knows he won’t listen to belief so she gives him the facts too,
“You have a guilt complex stiles. You lose pieces of yourself every time someone you love hurts or dies. You turn your grief into guilt, because it’s easier to think you don’t deserve to be here than to think about who does, but isn’t.”
She sees his last piece of protection, the last wall he put up around his mind crumble as he realises how transparent he is in front of her. Not the least bit subtle as he thought he was.
“I know where the lines blur but Stiles, every single decision that lead up to that night was survival instinct.”
She can practically hear the system in his mind computing as he stares at her with pure anguish sketched on his features.
“Your only mistake was taking the blame for something you couldn’t have stopped from happening.”
He’s gone rigid now, trying to input new data into his mind.
She wonders how no one’s ever told him this before. Then she realizes no one knew that he needed to know in the first place. It breaks her heart a little more.
“You think you know what’s happening here? You think you killed my best friend Stiles?”
She sees him flinch, feels the pain radiating off of him.
“I’ll say it again, you didn’t. And as for breaking my heart, you might have done it then, but you’re definitely doing it now.”
It breaks him. He’s malfunctioning now. A million things are being processed yet his output doesn’t seem to be working.
He squeezes his eyes shut. Opens them.
“You think you’re broken beyond the point of fixing.”
He shakes his head, eyes peering over unshed tears.
“You think you don’t deserve happiness so you refuse to believe it when it seems to be coming your way.”
He’s muttering under his breath, whispering to her, “Stop.”
“You think the version of you before the nogitsune deserved what you have right now more than the person you’ve become, so you act like him, you try to speak like him, and you try to be him, thinking maybe it’ll make you feel alive again but it still ends up leaving you empty inside so you’re stuck.”
His face is one of betrayal now, of confusion, denial. He doesn’t believe her, doesn’t want to. Because what is she even saying? Who is she even talking about? She’s thoroughly mistaken, that isn’t the truth. She’s definitely wrong, there’s no way she knows.
But how does she know?
“Stop bullshitting everyone around you stiles, you would’ve-“Her voice breaks, “You would’ve let go a long time ago if it was up to you but you don’t.”
He sucks in a breath because it hurts and he hasn’t been able to feel something this strongly since a long time. So he shakes his head again and lets the tears flow to match hers and he just wants her stop. Wants her to forget everything she knows about him because no one else is supposed to know, it’s supposed to weigh on his back alone. Because it isn’t something to fix, it’s something that can only be carried.
“You don’t, because you know that there are people who still love that old version of you. People who still depend on him. So you stay. You keep going. You’ve don’t mind how much it hurts because you’ve forgotten what it was like when it didn’t.”
“Lydia, please. I’m begging you,” He rasps, still whispering.
Her voice is as raw as his. Wavering, her jaw starts to tremble, “No Stiles, I’m begging you. I’m begging you, please come back to me.”
He’s still frozen and confused, struggling. Broken.
She wants desperately to figure out what to say to bring him back from the edge. Nothing makes sense and for the first time she acknowledges how scared she is.
His breaths start to come out in huffs, continuous inhales of agony.
She slowly walks towards him and stops an inch from his feet. She raises her head a little and goes to touch the hair on his forehead and her heart almost splits into half when he flinches. But she keeps going and moves some of the hair out of his face. She remembers when it was cropped short. The kid with the buzz cut she couldn’t face. She wants him to know he may have hurt her but every time she let him be there for her was not for the sake of it, it was by choice. He needs to stop blaming himself because nobody else does. But that’s not enough for him. She can’t heal his past, she can only veer him onto the right future. He has to learn to want to be happy. Has to feel deserving of it.
Her breath hitches when she feels his thumb ghosting the length of her nose. She searches his eyes but they’re hazy, like he’s only just figuring maybe he could live for himself. Maybe give forgiveness a shot. Happiness feels a lot farther but hey, dream big right?
A ghost of a smile touches his lips as he simply looks at her, eyes and thumb tracing her features. “You are so unbelievably beautiful,” he whispers, his breath brushing the bridge of her nose.
Lydia blinks. Once, then twice. “I- What-?” she exhales harshly but there’s a trickle of relief there, “Are you serious?”
His smile is a tiny grin now, “Very. You’re utterly gorgeous, its-“, He’s at a loss for words and his eyes are clearer than they were before.
She waits for him to say something because what the fuck? Two minutes ago she was begging him to come back to her and now he’s- what? Okay? What the fuck?
So she waits because he’s sort of deflecting and he has something to say that he’s building up to.
And ten seconds later when his expression cracks and he clenches his trembling jaw, she proves to be right. Again. Shocker.
His red eyes fill with tears again as he whispers, “I’m sor-,” his voice breaks and trembles but he’s adamant to finish, “I’m so- Lydia. I am so damn sorry. I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry. I didn’t mean for any of it to happen, I-“He sucks oxygen to his lungs because he’s shaking and clinging to her and he’s so fucking sorry Lydia.
She supports his weight and presses him to her as tightly as possible because he needs this. He’s shaking so hard and gasping his words and she starts to break down right along with him.
She holds him, he holds her. They’re both broken, both so sorry.
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She calms down before he does. Taking deep breaths while he’s still lightly gasping. She stands there, for her person, holds him.
Slowly his tears dry to match hers, his body doesn’t shake as much as before and he clings to her like she’s going to forget him again. She’s clutching at his back and his hair, then his neck and his flannel.
She takes a deep breath, pulls away far enough for his red nose and wet lashes and amber eyes to come into view.
She thinks her voice correctly displays how tired and exhausted she is, “C’mon, let’s go,”
He looks at her, doesn’t have words sane enough for the things he feels when he looks at her this close up.
The way he’s looking at her hits her so hard she’s left feeling vulnerable in a way she didn’t feel even through all that.
“What?” she whispers.
A soft, reverent smile flits across his face, looks at her like she’s made out of fairy dust or something magical. It’s the corniest explanation that she has ever come up with but for once the 273,000 words in the oxford dictionary fail her.
He just quietly shakes his head links their hands together. Brings up her knuckles and presses them to his forehead, like a prayer. Lowers them to his lips, kisses them.
He doesn’t have words either, but they both understand, they both know.
And then, finally, they both go home.