Blog dedicated to the amazing Stiles Stilinski & Lydia Martin, who together make Stydia, and especially to the fanfics about the pair. Feel free to request or ask anything anytime you want, the ask box is always open.
Hi guys so a fiend of mine just went missing yesterday. I’m freaking out and hoping that it isn’t something bad but if anyone in the San Bernardino area sees her or know where’s she is please call 911 immediately. Please boast this
I’m literally fucking begging you. I don’t care how shitty this looks this is a friend of mine someone with a family, she could be alone, she could’ve been kidnapped y'all talk about how much you care about fucking kids now please for the love of god just help this girl be found
Request: Lydia gets really hurt and Stiles tries to help her.
Rating: M
Genre: Hurt, Angst, Canon Divergence
Timeline: Post 6A
Warning: Torture
There’s nothing like thinking the person you love is going to die.
It was supposed to be a light run, he thought. They were supposed to be okay. For the first time since Scott was bitten, there was peace and quiet and Beacon Hills and the baton’s been passed onto the younger generation. They were supposed to let go, to be free.
Just to have the two months of happiness bite them back in the ass.
One weekend. That’s how long the McCall pack were supposed to spend in Beacon Hills, just to catch up before they all go to college, now that Malia’s passed summer school. It was supposed to be fun and entertaining and lighthearted, not like this.
Not with Lydia spending her last breaths pleading for their lives, ignoring her own.
He didn’t know how it happened; he hadn’t a faintest clue.
They were in the Jeep, having just picked up Scott. The werewolf was in the back and the girl in the front, with three of them throwing around light banter with no worry in sight.
“How are the girls?” asked Scott.
Stiles laughed at the question. He didn’t have to look at Lydia to know she rolled her eyes. “Mine’s fine, thank you.”
Lydia playfully slapped his hand, both of them laughing.
It was nice. Their situation was somewhat different to most couples’ -- in their case, there was never much smooching and constant touching and obsession he’d seen so many people go through. It was more of feeling like they’d just decided that they could kiss and openly express their emotions, but not much other things changed.
It was perfect. They still had their problems, occasional arguments and situations in which things would feel bad, but they’ve been through enough to make them realize it could’ve been worse.
Stiles brushed Lydia’s hand lightly. Soft smile appeared on his lips; this kind of ending was all he ever asked for.
“Can’t believe the day’s come when I’m disgusted by Stiles Stilinski and Lydia Martin.”
And the moment was gone, with the trio busting out laughing at Scott’s tone.
When they finally arrived at Malia’s place, the three of them practically crashed on her couch. Most of Saturday was spent going around the town, visiting places and people they were going to miss the most.
It was the visit to the Dunbars’ after which everything fell in water.
“Hey, Liam!” Scott said affectionately at the sight of the new pack leader.
The subtly-hidden distress on the latter’s face was the first sign of something being wrong, but he didn’t show it. Even when Hayden and Mason came to the doorstep looking less collected than Liam, Stiles subconsciously chose to ignore it.
He’d spent two months trying to not worry over his town every other minute. It was in good hands.
“What’s up?” asked Mason, once they were all seated on the couch in the living room. “How come you guys are here?”
“We’re sort-of on a goodbye tour,” explained Malia. “You guys are the last stop.”
“Oh. Well, that’s cool.”
Tension that filled the room, the feel of something bad waiting to happen, should’ve been the second sign for the original pack. They all felt it yet they all thought something else of it.
Scott’s hand brushed Stiles’s when he got up to get himself a glass of water. He got the memo; not even half a minute later, the boy in a plaid shirt excused himself to go to the toilet.
His best friend waited for him in the kitchen, drinking water.
The look on his face, Stiles was sure, mirrored his own.
“Something’s wrong,” Scott whispered. “Liam’s worried about something.”
“I noticed, too.” Stiles agreed with a sigh. Leaning against the counter was the only support he could seem to get; his eyes were fixed on Liam and Lydia talking in the living room, watching them from the crack of the open door. “They’re all worried.”
“We should do something. Help them, somehow.” Scott looked at Stiles; they both knew the idea was going to mess with their plans. “You know they won’t ask us for help.”
“We need to be back by Monday, Scott.”
“They need us.”
Stiles bit his lip; this was wrong, they weren’t supposed to be doing this. They were done saving the day, done risking their asses because they were the only ones who could.
He glanced at Lydia, catching her eye.
Somehow, he knew she agreed with Scott.
“Fine.”
That’s how things went south. That’s why Lydia ended up on the other side of the cage, chained and bloodied and he couldn’t do shit about it.
His fingers itched from the amount of force he used to push the bars away, to no avail. When his cries stopped feeling like a part of himself and became a sound he could ignore; when her pleads were all he could hear, apart from his own.
He was begging for her life and she was beginning for theirs. Not even Scott could fix this with his true alpha powers, or Liam with his rage or Hayden or Corey or Mason with the abilities they had.
And him?
He was aching for the power he had when he was possessed, knowing it would’ve gotten them out. He was desperate enough to know he’d let him in again, lose everything he was, if it meant stopping this charade.
All because they wanted to play heroes one last time.
They were dealing with entities far beyond anything they were experienced for. There was no name, no lore, no anything to help them. The younger pack was running blind and time was running out.
“You should’ve called us,” Lydia had told them. “We could’ve helped.”
It was true; if they’d known the pack and their hometown was in danger, there was no doubts all four of them would leave everything and come as soon as possible. Stiles knew that, Lydia knew that and everyone knew that.
Liam scratched his cheek, shaking his head. “We thought we could handle it on our own.”
“But you couldn’t,” Malia said. “You couldn’t handle it and now we’re in this mess.”
The silence that fell was awful because her words were true.
They could’ve helped. Now, with the monsters -- whatever they were -- coming back for the whole pack in less than forty minutes, there was almost nothing they could do but wait.
Even then, when they surrounded the entire house with mountain ash, armed themselves with every kind of druid weaponry Scott managed to sneak out from the animal clinic, they knew there was little it would help.
But they weren’t going to leave the resident pack on their own.
“I’m scared,” Lydia admitted to Stiles; quietly, voice quivering.
Stiles grabbed her hand and pulled her closer to him, into a tight embrace. Her warmth was the only soothing thing right now; she could barely talk because she’d caught a nasty cold few days before so her banshee abilities were out of the question.
She never said it, but he knew she felt guilty about it.
“We’re going to be all right.”
Stiles lied, Lydia nodded, Hayden screamed and the entities -- all too much resembling the nasty druid they’d dealt with back in junior year -- stepped over the mountain ash as if it were nothing.
Last thing he could remember was holding Lydia close but behind him, ushering her away. He placed his body before hers, shielding her as much as he could.
It wasn’t enough.
“Stiles, come back,” he heard Scott calling for him.
They were all mourning her already; her and themselves at the same time. The druids wanted her because of her power and they were going to harvest them for theirs. Mason had a bit of the Beast left and Stiles had the Nogitsune, but not enough to summon it back.
They were torturing her and she was still pleading with them.
“Lydia!” he screamed.
Her eyes flickered towards his and she tried to flash a smile. It was a toothy grin, filled with blood and devoured in pain. Needles were stabbed through several places on her body, each bigger than the previous.
She was not more than a lab rat to them.
“Stiles, come back!”
At last, Scott pulled him away from the bars. His fingers hurt and bled and he continued to scream her name in agony; this wasn’t how their story was supposed to end.
“We need to help her, Scott,” he stammered. “She needs our help.”
But his friend looked broken and hopeless and Stiles didn’t know what hurt more. He said nothing; the hug spoke more words than either of them could.
“I’m making a run for it.”
There was no time for Stiles to prepare. All of a sudden his arms were empty and his best friend was headed for the bars, roaring and growling like never before. He clawed against the cage until his claws broke and fingers began to bleed; until he fell to his knees, powerless.
It couldn’t have lasted for more than two minutes. The bars were filled with an amount of wolfsbane that irradiated everything around them.
Scott’s growls were reduced to quiet sobbing. Stiles walked to his side, saying nothing.
Lydia was still out there, screaming with a broken voice, getting weaker by the minute. He couldn’t watch it anymore yet he felt like the moment he’d take his eyes off of her, it would be over.
“Stiles.”
A whisper; that was all she could muster.
Her hand reached for the cage, so distant and not on this world anymore. He could see her skin getting paler, her body losing strength. Even her screams sounded tired.
“Lydia,” he whispered back, “don’t leave me.”
After a thousand years and all at once, it was over.
Lydia’s hand fell limp and they threw her body to the cage, treating her as nothing more than a bag of wasted food.
The scream that left Stiles’s lungs wasn’t agony; it was a whimper of the universe falling apart.
Her fingers were cold and eyes were closed. He thought she was gone in every way, but when he saw her chest moving; faintly, so faintly he wasn’t even sure what he was seeing.
He held onto her until it was him they wanted, when he began to scream and fight and everything he could to stay with her, to help her get through it. She wasn’t going to make it if he wasn’t there to keep telling her to stay awake and he wasn’t going to make it if she wasn’t there to tell him she’s alive.
Stiles looked at the druid that held him; still, and dead in the eye. And he felt it, like a bug crawling up his lungs; like poison and venom at once spreading his veins, one at a time.
The smug smirk at his face when it reached the tips of his fingers, the back of his neck and the metallic taste in his tongue; the darkness in his heart.
The Nogitsune was back.
He found himself standing at the edge of a cliff, holding Lydia’s limp body in his arms. Scott was standing close to him, panting with a hand over his chest, supported by Malia who had blood all over herself. On his right were Liam and Corey supporting Mason, with Hayden looking at them but seeing nothing at all.
He didn’t know what happened, but he could still feel the evil inside him -- only it was now retreating back to the single place in his soul where he couldn’t wash it away.
The Sadie Hawkins dance is coming up and of course Lydia wants to ask Stiles, but she holds off asking him so that he can sweat a little. She's enjoying watching squirm a lot until she sees another girl asking Stiles to the dance.
Add a little jealousy into emotions and you get a territorial!Lydia. (x)
Request: The Sadie Hawkins dance is coming up and of course Lydia wants to ask Stiles, but she holds off asking him so that he can sweat a little. She's enjoying watching squirm a lot until she sees another girl asking Stiles to the dance.
Rating: T
Timeline: 6A
Genre: Romance, Fluff, Jealousy, Canon Divergence, Missing Scene
There was only one person she’d even consider asking to the dance. That -- and that solely -- was the reason why she’s been putting it off since the dance was announced.
Everyone knew she was going to ask him out. After shit they’ve been through and the way they’ve been acting ever since Stiles came back to the existing, it wasn’t even a question.
That was, at least, what Lydia thought.
“Are you going to the dance?”
It was Friday and Lydia was helping Malia with school homework. The girl didn’t exactly excel in biology, whereas it was the redhead’s main strength. Besides being a banshee, of course.
Lydia looked up at the brunette, with a tiny smile forming in the corners of her lips.
“Of course,” she said. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“I don’t know.” It came out as a blubbering mess as Malia had a highlighter between her teeth. “You still don’t have a date.”
“I do. I just haven’t asked him yet.”
“Who?”
“Stiles,” deadpanned Lydia. “I thought you knew.”
Malia shrugged. Her fingers ran across the page and a frown across her face, but she didn’t say anything.
It was a tricky subject, for both of them. Lydia’s feelings were new to everyone and with Malia being Stiles’s only real ex, it was something they didn’t talk about. Lydia still felt guilty because of what happened between the two, even though it wasn’t her fault.
Sometimes she needed to remind herself that none of it was her fault.
Lydia’s eyes flickered towards the werecoyote with caution, but Malia wasn’t paying attention to her. Her face was emotionless as she highlighted sentences in her book, but her shoulders were tense and her breathing was painfully even.
“Malia, I’m--”
“Don’t say you’re sorry.” Her gaze found Lydia’s and she smiled, warmly. “It’s okay. My only problem is with you not asking him out.”
A breath of relief passed Lydia’s lips.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I want to, but I don’t want it to seem eager and desperate.”
Malia huffed, rolling her eyes. “I never understood human flirting games.”
“That’s because you spent half your life as an animal.”
“Yeah, well, we didn’t have flirting games. We’d just mate. You should try that.”
Disgusted expression passed Lydia’s face, bringing a laugh from the other girl. Both of them placed away the books, binders and flash cards, deciding they wouldn’t do much work anyway.
Besides, now that the Stiles-related-tension was out of the way, Lydia was desperate for telling someone. There was no way she was telling Scott because he was a boy, and telling Hayden would be like . . . telling a five-year-old.
They shuffled around Lydia’s bed until both of them lied on the pillows, ready for a sleepover.
“When he came back, we just hugged. And that was all,” she said quietly.
It was the first time she said it out loud.
Malia snorted. “Yeah, but it’s not like everything’s the same between you two.”
“I know.”
“He doesn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“He doesn’t know you like him back, Lydia. You better ask him out before someone else does.”
“Who’d ask him out?” Lydia chuckled; even the thought of it was irrational. “He’s going with me.”
Turns out, Lydia made several mistakes.
No. 1: Waiting to ask him out.
No. 2: Not actually letting anyone except Malia know she was going to ask him to the dance (turns out, it wasn’t as obvious as she’d thought.)
No. 3: Kind-of avoiding him. (That one was a complete miss; she thought he’d be all over her like a puppy, but turns out a ten-year-period of her ignoring him made him resistant to that.)
No. 4: Deciding to ask him out two days before the dance.
She was a scientist; she knew about chain of events. She knew that one thing led to another, but she thought she was better at this game than she thought.
Four days before the dance and almost a month since it’s been announced it was a Sadie Hawkins, she passed him in the hall. His cologne was mixed with an earthly scent (he’d probably ventured off into the woods to try and find the Nemeton again) and her heart raced.
He looked at her, but she only nodded. Their exchange was brief and for the first time since she started playing the game, there was something different in the way he talked to her.
No. 5: She didn’t realize what was going on.
By the time she got to her locker, Stiles wasn’t alone anymore.
“Hi, Stiles?”
“Hey?”
Lydia watched them from the corner of her eye. The girl was a senior, too -- her name was Harper something. Her brown hair cascading her back reminded Lydia of autumn, for some reason, and the big smile she wore resembled the way Stiles used to look at her.
And was now how he looked at Harper, too.
“Would you like to go to Sadie’s with me?” asked Harper quietly, but Lydia heard it anyway.
Bang.
Bang.
You’re dead.
Lydia gritted her teeth; the pencil in her hand broke into two, stabbing her in the palm. Her glare would’ve created a hole in the back of her locker if that was her ability as a banshee.
Speaking of which, she felt the need to unleash the anger.
She waited. Time moved painfully slowly.
“I was going to do something special to ask you,” Harper continued, “but I didn’t know how. I’m sorry. I thought you were going with someone already and I found out you didn’t, I just wanted to ask you before someone else.”
Oh, I’m so going to kill somebody.
Then, she heard it.
“Yes.”
Bang.
This time, it was the sound of her locker door slamming shut.
When Lydia’s heels clicked against the linoleum, she could’ve sworn everything else stopped. No one dared breathe and everyone’s eyes were glued to the Queen Bee coming to reclaim her throne. It was a side of her no one’s seen in over a year.
Most importantly, both Stiles and Harper stared at her.
It took an eternity to finally reach him. Once she grabbed his upper arm and flashed Harper a sinister smile, she said “Excuse us. We need to have an urgent conversation.”
The poor girl stammered in agreement and Lydia would’ve felt bad for her if she hadn’t messed this all up.
No. 6: She blamed everyone but herself.
Had Lydia been thinking rationally, she would’ve been less abrupt about the whole situation. She would’ve come up to the two and asked if she could borrow Stiles for a minute without lashing out on Harper or grabbing Stiles and dragging him away.
But she wasn’t thinking rationally.
The two ended up in the janitor’s office -- a series of memories flashed before her eyes, receiving nothing but ignorance.
He was waiting on her to ask him, she’d later come to find out. A dozen girls asked him already and he’d always say no, but when it came four days before the dance, he gave up the hope. He thought she was going with someone else or not at all.
That was what Scott told her when she asked, later. But she should’ve known it from the moment she saw him in the hallway.
“You can’t go with Harper.”
He took in a sharp breath; but there was no surprise. “Why?”
“Because I want you to come with me.”
There, she said it. After weeks of debating when and how to do it, with a dozen plans on making the best proposal in the history of Beacon Hills High dances, she was degraded to a simple declaration of her wishes.
Because she’d made seven mistakes.
No. 7: She should’ve told him as soon as he came back. She should’ve invited him immediately. This wasn’t the time for playing stupid, stupid teen games of love and hate. She was stupid.
“I already told her I’m going with her.”
“Change your mind,” she was quick to suggest. “It won’t hurt.”
His hazel eyes -- there was so much blue and brown and gold in them -- softened, and she could tell he knew it wasn’t the truth. They both did.
But Lydia was selfish and she didn’t want to care about Harper, not right now.
“Lydia.”
His lips enchanted her as they formed her name; vibrating in her chest like a spell. The way he said it, phrased it, felt it made her think he was the reason her name came to be.
“If you asked any other day, I would’ve said yes,” he whispered. “But I thought you weren’t going to ask.”
“I was. I just--”
“Wasn’t sure?”
“No,” she whispered back. Her eyes were glued to his lips because if she looked him in the eye, all self-control would’ve vanished in an instant. “I’ve always been sure.”
His fingers found hers and warmth ran its way to her chest; he traced her palm, softly and gently, as if she were glass and he was embracing the masterpiece.
“I don’t want to do this if you aren’t sure.”
You know, there was a time when Lydia wouldn’t think twice about words like these. When she would take them and go, not caring about the sincerity they were spoken with or the hidden layers of hurts that went beyond any words.
When she wouldn’t be taken aback by the genuine care and concern and worry and fear. When she wouldn’t feel her heart shatter because of his disbelief in her feelings when lately, they’ve been one of the few things she’s been certain of.
When she wouldn’t care he didn’t want to be broken.
But this was a time where a different Lydia was here, and this Lydia fell in love with the boy before her. She’s been falling in love with him for over two years and it finalized at once.
Right here.
So she kissed him; violently, passionately. With every word she never said, every emotion words couldn’t convey. Where she tried to show him the intensity of her feelings toward him, knowing his feelings were as strong if not even stronger.
Guys. There are 60 mins left. One hour. Vote, vote, vote, as many times as you can. Vote. And if you do… you will get a Stydia-plus-baby fic out of me. I promise :) And it could be grrrrreeaaat.
Needless to say, Stiles always wondered what it was about Lydia that made him like her so much. He often thought it was the way she looked - even a blind man would know she was exceptionally beautiful. Sometimes, he thought it was more of how she acted than how she looked - as if she owned the world. Sure, he thought, if she put her mind on it, he didn't doubt she could do it. She knew her attributes, strengths and weaknesses and she knew how to use them to her own advantage.
Lately, though, with everything they've been through together and he realized that it most definitely wasn't just her looks he was attracted to, he started wondering it there was something else. He'd always known that she wasn't just this shallow go-getter, yet kept her emotional and empathetic side buried deep within, scared to show it.
He wished he could understand that.
Now, he realized it was more of the way she looked at things that he loved so much. Whenever she spoke, it was as if he were listening to her telling him the story of the brightest star, concealing it into a story of a broken man. He knew how different they were and how, perhaps, there wasn't much chance for anything forming between them, but it didn't matter anymore.
He wasn't just in love with her - he was in love with the way she saw the world, like a puzzle she needs to solve. He wanted to be the one to give her the pieces to fill the blank spaces.
So, perhaps, that's why one day he showed up at her door with mouth hanging open, ready to spill all his secrets - but he couldn't. The moment his hazel eyes caught her green ones, everything he meant to say perished.
That's why he said, "Hi."
Lydia looked at him in confusion, but with a small smile on her lips. "What are you doing here?"
"Been in the neighbourhood, decided to pay a visit," Stiles lied.
"Wanna come in?"
"Ugh, I was - I was just gonna say hi."
"Oh. Okay then."
He had one intention and he couldn't do even that. Maybe that was why he wasn't the one who became a werewolf. Besides, not accomplishing something made him feel uneasy, even more so when it made someone else uncomfortable.
(Stiles mentally slapped himself.)
"Do you wanna grab a drink, or something?" he then asked; his voice was shaky so he prayed Lydia didn't notice how nervous he was.
(Maybe there was still chance for him to tell her - actually, no, screw that, the idea was horrible.)
Lydia smiled at him. "Let me just get my bag."
That's how the two of them ended up sitting at some cafe place (Lydia's choice), drinking a double espresso and a mocaccino.
"You know, I'm just waiting for something bad to happen," Lydia said.
"Yeah," Stiles replied, "me too. It's kind of weird when it's all calm. There's no thrill. I mean, I know it sounds weird and I am grateful for the fact that nothing's happened yet, but I'm always looking behind my back. When something's out there, at least I know that I need to be looking back."
Lydia chuckled, taking a sip of her espresso. "We're never going to be the same. Not even after the kanima. The rest just made sure that wasn't going to happen."
"It's pretty messed up."
"We're laughing about it," she noted.
"I'm kind of glad, though," said he. "If it weren't for Peter and all that crap, we wouldn't be friends. I'd still be pining after you and Scott and I would probably still be on bench... but Allison wouldn't be dead and Jackson would still be here and so many people would be alive."
"Stiles, many people would've died, too. You stopped murderers, remember?"
"We," Stiles said. "We stopped them."
"I wasn't a part of it back then."
"No, but you were. You helped us without even knowing and, you know, that still counts."
"It does?" Lydia smiled at him.
He wondered why her smiles made him all giddy on the inside.
"Definitely. I think you were one of our best assets, mainly because you didn't even know it. See, we manipulated you into working with us and helping us and you thought you were only helping Allison and sometimes you helped without knowing you were useful. But, damn, when Peter bit you it was really shitty because I thought you were going to die."
"Hey, Stiles?"
"Yeah?"
"Remember that thing you said a while ago, in your room, about what would happen to me if I died?"
Stiles inhaled a long breath, his eyes wandering away from Lydia's. Yes, he did remember - he remembered how frightened he was and how frightened she looked when he'd yelled at her. The whole situation reminded him of his losing his mom, the one person he was never going to get back. Lydia was the only living person - at the time - beside Melissa McCall that Stiles cared about.
He couldn't afford losing her - neither could he afford losing her now.
"Yeah," he finally spoke. "Why?"
Lydia was playing with the straw in her glass of water, twirling it around her fingers. "I remembered it the other day. Did you really mean that?"
"Yeah."
"I never thought you did," she admitted quietly. "I thought you were just talking about your mom."
"I was - I was talking about my mom, but I was talking about you, too."
She looked at him and sent him a sad smile. "Do you still think that?"
It’s been a while and I apologize - I’ve been so busy I didn’t have time for myself, even. But in other news, Stydia is canon and it was emotional as hell, but the fics aren’t going to stop coming (at least not for that reason).
I’m currently working on some requests and the first should come today, another one probably only next week. I’m still accepting requests!
When Lydia was lying on the couch at 2am on a Friday night, she didn’t expect anything. Her pale pink and blue coffee mug was sitting on the coffee table next to her, waiting to be refilled; her notebooks filled with incomprehensible words and tiny doodles, for she needed to have something to let her thoughts out on. She was studying for her AP Bio class, now that she was finally home alone. Usually, when her mum was home, Lydia simply couldn’t concentrate – hence why she was now drinking coffee to keep herself awake, reading with all lights on so she wouldn’t become sleepy.
She was curled up and in her pyjamas, and a fluffy blanket was keeping her warm (even though it was only early October, and not really cold, Lydia loved being wrapped up in a blanket like a burrito). It was extremely comfortable for her, with quiet pop music playing in the background. It was all she needed to concentrate on the words in front of her, but somehow, the letters seemed to run across the page whenever she’d try to read something.
So, instead of torturing herself any longer, she got up to make herself yet another cup of coffee, hoping it would help. She was extremely sleepy, but she knew she needed to know absolutely everything by Monday, for the teacher could very easily give them a pop-up test, and Lydia couldn’t risk having bad grades her last year before university.
Her favourite mug was with her, and she tried not to stumble as she walked. She was rubbing her eyes, the sensation burning through her body. She needed to force herself to open them again, so she wouldn’t walk into a walk or something. But she didn’t, and soon she made herself another cup of coffee, filling the mug completely. Considering she was on the verge of falling asleep and the caffeine hadn’t kicked in yet, she was singing quietly and dancing along to the music.
When someone knocked on her door, she almost dropped the mug. Instead, she put it on the cupboard, her eyebrows furrowing as she began to wonder who the hell that could be. It wasn’t her mum, that’s for sure – she was somewhere in Dallas for the weekend; it wasn’t her friends, either – all of them were going out that night.
But she figured if someone was knocking at 2 in the morning, she might as well open the door for them. For all she knew, it could be the police, saying that something happened to someone she cares about. Besides, she had a metal baseball bat next to the main entrance, so if anything, she could swing it into intruder’s face.
But really, she most definitely didn’t expect to open the door only to find a boy standing there on the rain. His hair was dripping wet as rain was falling on his head – side note, Lydia didn’t even know it was raining – and he was looking at her with a broken, sad and almost nostalgic look in his eyes that seemed dark brown under the dimmed light.
Most importantly, Lydia didn’t even know who he was.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a low voice, cracking at the end. “For what I did. I am sorry, I could never forgive myself but if you – if you forgive me, give me another chance . . . maybe I could. Please, Lydia.”
Now that she heard him speaking, she was almost certain she had seen him in one of her classes in junior year, and he was the guy who sat in the back of the class. But apart from that, she knew not even one single thing about him. Meaning, there was no way in hell he had anything for him to be sorry about.
“Okay, what the hell?” she whispered, looking behind him to see if she was being pranked by her friends of something, because this entire thing was completely nonsense.
“Lydia, I – I miss you,” he told her, managing to crack the tiniest smile. She could see the sadness inside his eyes, his face being broken. “I miss what we had.”
“I don’t know you,” she said.
Although her instinct was screaming at her to close the door, for some reason, she stayed there. There was something about him that made her look at him – meaning really look – noticing almost every single thing on his face she could. The way the raindrops were dripping down his face, the moles scattered all over his jaw, the way his nose crunched up in emotion . . . So she stayed. And she felt genuinely sorry for him, and guilty because he looked like he was genuinely sorry and hurt and as if it had taken a lot of willpower to get here, but she couldn’t do anything. She didn’t know him.
“Do you think I deserve a second chance?” he asked her, staring directly into her eyes.
Lydia felt vulnerable, small and exposed by the way he looked at her – like she was the one who broke him and the one who could put him back together. “I don’t know you,” she repeated. “But I guess you do? Doesn’t everyone deserve a second chance?”
He smiled briefly, his face still clouded. “Thank you, Lydia.”
Not knowing what to say, she nodded and put her hand on the door handle, planning to close the door. But his hand stopped the door from closing, his stare still strong on her. “Please, don’t go. Don’t leave me alone. I don’t want to be alone anymore.”
With a sigh, Lydia told him, “Look. You should probably call someone to pick you up, because I don’t even know what you’re doing here. I wish you all the best, but I have no idea who you are.”
“Every time I look at you, Lydia . . . I see a reason to live. I see your smile, and God, I wish you were smiling at me. And you look so beautiful no matter what you’re doing, or wearing, or saying. And I think you’re the most beautiful person on this entire world, and you don’t even know it. I know you are, I know you’re one of the brightest people in our generation, the next winner of Fields Medal, that you’re a great person and a great friend, and I—“ his voice cracked, and he took in a shaky breath. “I think you’re beautiful, on the inside out.”
Lydia knew nothing about this boy – but she did, however, know that this was the most beautiful thing someone had ever said to her, and she couldn’t help but smile sadly. “I don’t think I’m your Lydia.”
But, a part of her wished she could be his Lydia – because he seemed like one of those boyfriends who would glorify their girlfriend, and not treat her like their toy.
He smiled at her, rain still falling down. “You’re the only Lydia I ever liked. And maybe – maybe you don’t know me, but we can fix that. All I am asking for, is one date. Just one.”
Giggling and realising that this was just some kind of a very well made pick-up act, she nodded. “Fine. You got yourself a date, whatever your name is.”
He smiled at her brightly, his entire face lightening up. “My name’s Stiles.”
“What an odd name,” she commented.
“I’m an odd boy,” he replied.
They were silent for a couple of moments, smiling at each other (Lydia couldn’t believe how played she just was). “Well, if that’s all—“
“It’s not,” Stiles said, smiling cheekily at her. She wanted to frown, but all she could really do was smile. And as he started leaning closer to her, she – completely instinctively – gave in, and he placed a kiss on her lips. A part of her started screaming from the softness of his lips, and that part of her wanted him to stay there. And even as rain was now falling onto her freshly-washed hair, she didn’t mind one bit.
“Have you got someone to pick you up?” she asked after they parted, both of them grinning.
“No,” he answered. “I’m gonna walk. It’s just half an hour, no big deal.”
Her eyes grew wide and she took in a sharp breath. “Don’t tell me you walked here, too.”
He laughed; “No, I was dropped off. But the friend’s already home and he told me he wouldn’t pick me up.”
Pondering for a moment, Lydia said. “Come in, you’re soaking wet. You can stay here until you’re warm, and I can try to find you some clothes.”
“Thank you, Lydia,” he said and kissed her on the cheek, the girl sighing with a smile. She took a step backwards so he could get past her, and stared wide eyed as he pulled down his right hand (which Lydia didn’t notice that was above her sight this entire time), holding a running water cable in it. He swiftly turned it off, dropping it on the ground before winking at Lydia and entering the house.
“Cheeky son of a bitch,” Lydia whispered to herself, laughing.
When Lydia moves into her dorm room in September, she barely plays attention to her across the hall neighbor. He’s a nice enough guy, with hair that flops into his doe-like eyes, but she is far more interested in hanging up her paintings, making her bed with her brand-new bedspread, and sticking her whiteboard on the outside of the door to her dorm room. Sure, she intends to socialize eventually, but in the beginning of the year, she doesn’t pay any attention at all to her across-the-hall neighbor or the people he hangs out with. Besides– he isn’t really her type.
Then again, maybe coming to college means that she doesn’t have to have a type anymore. But it doesn’t matter, because she’s here to study, not to be the same person as she was in high school, so she doesn’t really pay attention to Scott, or the people he hangs out with, until one day she comes upstairs and someone has written all of the lyrics to the Spongebob Square Pants theme song on her board.
Well. That’s not what Lydia wanted. She had intended it to be for messages, or for cute drawings from the group of friends she’s already cultivating. Annoyed, she erases it.
The next day, she gets back to her dorm room after dinner and sees the lyrics to a song to an SNL sketch written in sloppy boy handwriting. Annoyed, Lydia erases it again. But then the day after that, in the same handwriting, someone has written all the digits of pi that they could fit. The day after that it’s something in Chinese. Then brail.
Hi could make one of everyone forgetting about Lydia after Allison? Really dark and angsty. How she is feeling lonely and depressed, being suicidal (cutting herself and hiding), drinking to forget about everything and the pack finally realises.
Request: Everyone forgetting about Lydia, dark and angsty. She’s drinking, cutting herself, being suicidal and pack finally realizes.
Rating: M
Genre: Hurt, Comfort, Angst, Canon Divergence
Timeline: Post 3B
Warnings: Depression, Alcohol, Self harm
For a while, Lydia pretended to be okay. She smiled through her sorrow and stuffed everything inside of her. She watched people grieve, mourn and go on with their lives – something she couldn’t do. She couldn’t even grieve, let alone move on.
You couldn’t grieve a hole in your heart.
Everybody seemed to have moved on, one way or another. Life went on. Even Scott moved on – found himself a new girlfriend, new things to do. With time, they all forgot. But Lydia couldn’t.
You couldn’t forget about a hole in your heart.
As her friends moved on, they left her behind. No one seemed to so much as care too look back. They were all telling themselves they were giving her the time she needed. That’s what they were telling themselves. But the truth was, she wasn’t like them. She had it different. She had a hole in her heart.
You couldn’t pretend you don’t have a hole in your heart.
Everybody moved on, but Lydia was the one who still screamed her friend’s name in the deepest dreams. They thought wrong. She didn’t need time – she needed others. That’s the only thing she wasn’t getting.
Everybody forgot about her. Or maybe, they just didn’t care. Or maybe, things got better for them and they didn’t want her in their clique. Or maybe, they didn’t even need her. There was a hole in her heart, but not a hole in their pack.
Lydia was the lone wolf now.
She found her solace in the bitter taste of alcohol, the only friend she had. She could drink her sorrow away, forget about her loneliness and the holes inside her heart – because now, she had no one. One hole for everyone that got away.
You couldn’t be okay if your heart was so patched up it didn’t even resemble one.
Each morning, she would wake up, curse the fact she’s still alive, and try and not feel anything. She’s get everything done, and then, there would be nothing. She would sit on her bed, staring off into the distance, completely lost. There was not a single part of her that even wanted to fight anymore.
No one noticed, because no one wanted to. Her friends were doing fine without her, and there was no reason for them to even ask if she was okay. Her father couldn’t care less about her, and her mother was too busy helping the students to notice her daughter was in desperate need for help.
And Lydia was on the edge.
Every morning before she would open her eyes, she hoped it was all just a dream. When she would open them, the numbness would kick in, and Lydia became a machine. Every evening before would start drinking, she hoped she would forget everything. When she forgot everything, she could still feel the numbness. Every night before she would go to sleep, she wished she would die. When she fell asleep, the numbness vanished, and the entirety of her pain would kick in.
Lydia had been on the edge for months. No one noticed.
It wasn’t until the very last day of their junior year that her friends noticed. When she didn’t show up on the bonfire for the end of the year – the one she claimed she’d rather die than miss it – they finally noticed something was wrong. One by one, piece by piece, they started seeing the bigger picture. They started seeing their mistakes, and each of them hated themselves for that.
But Lydia didn’t know that, as she was sitting on her bed, drinking to forget. She didn’t know that they started caring again, that they were talking about what to do. Each moment they wasted talking about her instead to her, Lydia used to get wasted.
And when they finally decided to come, it was nearly too late.
Stiles was the one they sent, and Stiles was the one who felt guilty the most. The others didn’t want to come – they didn’t want to push, they said. The truth was, they were too ashamed of themselves to even show up at her doorstep.
Lydia was sitting on her bed, a bottle of Jack Daniels in one hand, an almost-empty cup in the other. She was frowning, her eyes teary and her breaths heavy. The feeling of alcohol burning her insides felt almost as good as a blade pressed to her skin, filling the room with a sharp smell of metal.
When Stiles found her, she threw the now-empty bottle at him, missing by five inches. She wanted to scream, but all she could do was laugh with tears streaming down her cheeks. “Get out of here,” she told him, her voice cracking.
“Jesus Christ, Lydia,” he muttered. Taking a few steps towards her, he looked around; everything was a huge mess. Just like her. “What happened to you?”
“Get out of here,” she repeated, wiping her tears. “I don’t want you here.”
“I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s wrong,” he persisted.
“You could’ve asked me that months ago, when I’d still tell you,” she told him, almost soberly. “Now get lost.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Stiles, get – out – of – here!”
She threw the cup at him, and as she swung her arm, her entire body went flying forward. Stiles caught a hold of her, barely managing to hold her in his arms. But as she tried to get away from him, the sleeve of her right hand had managed to be pulled, revealing the nasty scars.
She could practically hear the new information sink in Stiles’ brain. He let out a sharp breath, before saying softly, “You hurt yourself.”
As quickly as possible, Lydia pulled the sleeve over the scars, walking away. She just wanted him to leave and let her be in her misery. “I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not fine.” He grabbed her arm, tugging her closer.
“Let go of me.”
“What the hell happened to you? You stink of alcohol, your hands look like a freaking canvas?”
“Stiles, let go of me,” Lydia repeated.
“I want to know,” he persisted.
With an inaudible whine, Lydia tried to free herself. “You’re hurting me!” she finally admitted, the pain in her arm becoming stronger each moment.
Stiles instantly let go of her, a shocked and apologetic look on his face. “I’m so sorry, Lydia, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I really didn’t. I’m sorry.”
Lydia didn’t say anything. She sat on her bed and looked at him. Neither said anything, and Lydia took time to calm down. “I was lost,” she spoke after a minute. “When Allison died. Things got better a while after, but not for me. I was alone.”
“We thought you needed some time, to heal,” he told her.
“No, I needed friends. I needed all of you. But you left me, and I was to cope all alone. And you ask me why I cut myself and I get drunk? How dare you? How dare you look me in the eye and say you’re sorry?”
“It’s not like that,” Stiles tried. He was visibly hurt by her words, but she wasn’t going to let herself care. “We were all alone, coping on our own. We thought you pulled away, that you didn’t want to be with us. We worried about you, but you looked all right. We were wrong. And we’re sorry.”
“No amount of ‘sorry’s is going to fix the damage.”
“I know.” He took a step closer, before sending her a small but warm smile. “We all do. But we all make mistakes.”
Lydia rolled her eyes with a sigh. “Please, don’t give me that talk! I’m fine on my own, thank you very much.”
“You’re not fine.”
“I’m not,” she agreed, “but who cares?”
“I care,” Stiles said. “Scott does. Kira and Malia, too. We care. We’re there for you. Or, should’ve been.”
“You made a mistake. Good. Now bye.”
“Do you really want me to leave?” he asked.
“Yes.”
With a broken look on his face, Stiles turned around and started walking out of her room. In that moment, Lydia realized many things, but the most important one was that when Stiles asked her if she wanted him to leave, he knew what her answer would be. He knew he would have to leave – yet he gave her the choice, the option to make him stay. All she had to do was ask him – he would’ve stayed. If she needed him, he wouldn’t hesitate.
And she did need him.
“Stiles?”
“Yeah?” The boy turned around with a blank look on his face, already on the doorstep of her bedroom.
“Don’t go.”
She needed him because she needed him ever since the moment she had lost her best friend. She was the one she was the closest to, after Allison, and the only one who could understand her without her needing to tell him anything. She didn’t need anything from him – she just wanted him to stay with her. For one moment, she wanted to feel better and not alone.
He walked to her bed and sat beside her, sitting there in silence for a minute before taking her hand into his. She could feel the emotions surfacing, and for the first time in months, she wasn’t alone in facing them. As soon as her breathing started to gain speed and become more irregular, she found herself in Stiles’ arms. And as tears started streaming down her face, Stiles was the one holding her.
And she knew that this time, he wouldn’t leave her.