Chapter Text
Prologue:
He almost said it. Looking at the smug look on the buff and certified evil werewolf, he almost said it out aloud. “I swear to God Scott, I’ll..”. The words died on his lips as he realized what he was going to say. Some part of his traitorous brain laughed at the pun in that sentence. But the other part, the part which had slowly been stewing in a poison of guilt, terror and denial, that part wasn’t impressed. Kill him – two words that would have been nothing but an empty threat months ago were now nothing lesser than a confession. Theo knew that, the conniving scumbag that he was. Stiles could see the smug grin widen on his face when the words almost spilled out.
It isn’t like you couldn’t do it again. The words were clearly etched in the werewolf’s eyes and Stiles hated it. He hated that Scott couldn’t see it, that Malia and Kira couldn’t read what it meant. He hated that Theo could say it without saying anything. But most of all, he hated that it was true. He could do it again.
Turning on his heels, Stiles walked out of the bedroom, ignoring Scott’s shouts and Malia’s calls. He couldn’t face them. Not when he knew what his face would reveal. He couldn’t tell them anything now. He could see that Scott thought this was a reaction to the current situation they were in. If his heart wasn’t bursting out of his chest in panic, Stiles would definitely have laughed at that thought. He should be crying right now; beating up Theo, cursing Malia or anything a normal boyfriend who got cheated upon would do. But all he could think of was what he would have revealed.
He had almost said it. And no one would understand that feeling.
Chapter 1:
It was the seventh day the chair was empty. Lydia was a smart girl, everyone knew that. She liked Malia, she really did, but she also knew that the girl wasn’t a positive factor in the group right now. She didn’t blame her for what had happened, ironically. She knew Theo and his kind. The charm, bad boy image and the whole ‘I’m so lonely and I just want to be friends’ charade. She knew what had happened and who was responsible for it. But that didn’t mean that she understood what was happening right now.
When Kira had told her about the night they stumbled on Theo and Malia together in his bedroom, she had done what any good friend would do. The crack of the baseball bat against Theo’s balls was satisfying, even more than the horrified but impressed look on Scott’s face. Then she had barged into Stiles’ house and demanded that he let her in or put up with her Banshee scream. She felt victorious when he opened the bedroom door but all the victory drained out when she saw the look on his face. Lydia had seen Stiles at his worst before. She had seen him as the Nogitsune, seen him go through the Dementia scare, seen him battle Scott’s demons for him and even seen him go through his family issues. But nothing, nothing had prepared her for this.
The sharp eyes that always twinkled with mischief, anger, irritation, happiness, despair or even misery were now simply empty. They were looking at her but seeing nothing. It was like someone had taken Stiles out of his body and left a vacuum within him. It was colder than the ice she had braved before.
She had tried talking to him, telling him that he still had the group, promising that they would torture Theo for what he did. For good measure, she even told him that he should forget Malia and date her instead. That was a sure shot way of getting Stiles’ attention. But she got nothing. She had made Scott, Kira, Liam and even Parrish take turns to talk to Stiles and get him out of the house. Malia had tried too, though that was a disaster when the Sheriff threatened to knock her out if she ever came back. Nothing seemed to work. So she had assumed that Stiles needed time to lick his wounds.
But today was the seventh day. Lydia didn’t care what Scott said, this was not normal. Stiles was an expressive person. He wouldn’t hide from people, especially not his friends who would stand by him. This didn’t seem like something he would do over a break up, especially when he had bigger concerns on his shoulders, like saving his father and the town. Throwing one last look at the empty chair beside her, the young diva got up and decided to get to the bottom of things.
“For the last time Lydia, I don’t know!” Scott wanted to scream but knew that it wouldn’t stop the 5’3” strawberry blonde, “I’ve tried everything. You think I didn’t try to talk to him? I sat through three nights at his house door howling, just to have his dad come and tell me to go away with a gun. I’ve been calling him every fifteen minutes, leaving messages every 5 minutes and circling his house every night. He won’t come out! He used damned mountain ash from the 3rd day to stop me from entering the house!”
“But that’s the point!” Lydia countered ferociously, “Why would he barricade you?! Scott, you’re like his other half. If anyone should be there, it should be you! Why is he pushing you away?!”
“Maybe because Scott hasn’t killed ‘The(wh)ore’ yet?” Liam was never the bad mouthing kind but he would gladly make an exception of Theo for Stiles, “Maybe he wants to stay away from anything that reminds him of those two?”
Kira nodded sagely, chewing on her straw “He just got cheated on, Lydia. Maybe he just needs time. He’ll get over it, we’ll help him.”
Lydia looked at Parrish who simply shrugged. She let out a strangled noise of frustration “This is Stiles we are talking about!” she said, looking at everyone, “He doesn’t run away! He doesn’t escape things, especially not when he is needed by his friends. C’mon you guys, do you really think that he would stay cooped at home with the Doctors wreaking havoc on the town? He should be out screaming and confronting people! Stiles is a badass, not a whump. He would never use mountain ash on his best friend to avoid talking about a break up!”
Nobody seemed to disagree with her but she could see that they didn’t get what she meant too. Taking a deep breath Lydia decided to let things go for now. She would find things out on her own later.
Later that night, as she stood at the Stilinski doorstep, Lydia wondered if she was over reacting. But something in her gut, her mind and soul, told her that there were issues lying beneath the whole break up layer. Something far more serious and important than a teenage romance gone wrong. Pulling on her patented Queen courage, she pressed on the doorbell thrice and waited.
Sheriff Stilinski didn’t look surprised to see her. “I was expecting you. The others tried coming in through the windows every night. When I heard the doorbell, I knew it was you. The only one who knows to use a goddamn door” he shook his head, looking older than his years.
Lydia smiled at that and went in, hoping to ease into the conversation she had planned in her mind. “Thank you sir” she was specific in not using ‘Sheriff’, hoping to sound more personal yet respectful, “I was just here to..”
“It isn’t the damn break up” John interjected, taking a seat on the couch and resuming his glass of alcohol.
“..talk to you..What do you mean?” Lydia was glad to avoid any theatrics but also surprised that the Sheriff noticed the difference.
John raised an eyebrow, silently judging if he should say any further. When Lydia held her ground in silence, he seemed to crack.
“Stiles was five when he had his first heartbreak” John observed the two fingers of whiskey dancing around in his glass “Over some broken toy.”
Lydia blinked “Okay…” she didn’t understand why the Sheriff was going down the nostalgia lane but there was something here that she was expected to catch on to.
The older man shook his head softly “It wasn’t his toy that broke” he continued in the same distanced voice “it was somebody else’s toy. Scott’s I think. Could have been somebody else’s, I don’t remember. Anyway, Stiles came one day from the park with his mom and that was the first time I saw him absolutely silent. No hyper tales, no run off the mill ideas, nothing. Just silence. I thought he had lost his tongue somewhere. His mother…”
John swallowed a shaky breath and placed the glass down “His mother was really worried. Said he was hurting. I didn’t understand a damn thing. It was just a toy! But Stiles and the kids his age thought that toys were just like them. Like people. You know, the whole Toy Story shit we see nowadays?”
Lydia frowned slightly at the route this conversation was taking.
“Two days later his mother found Stiles hiding in her wardrobe, eyes red and puffed from crying. Took us hours to calm the kid down and get him to talk.”
John finally looked up dead into Lydia’s eyes. “He had broken the toy. He had gotten into a temper and tore another kid’s toy apart. He was broken because he had destroyed something and the other kid had gotten scared of him. He thought he was a bad guy.”
“The second time I saw him like that was when his mother died. He blamed himself for her death, no thanks to any help from me.”
Lydia could hear the words even before he said them.
“He’s not upset about the break up. He’s not upset about somebody hurting him. He’s scared that he hurt someone. He’s destroyed some toy. Or some person.”
The door wasn’t opening and her knuckles were getting sore from knocking. Lydia had a good mind to yell the door down, because she could do that. She was not a diva for nothing. But the entire conversation with the Sheriff had sobered her from any passionate rants or fiery steps. She didn’t like what had been insinuated. Stiles had been in tonnes of horrible situations and not once had she seen him being illogical. Logic was his strong point. His mind was his weapon and there was no way he was in some depressed state because of an obviously misguided thought. Because what could Stiles have possibly done that could make him feel that guilty? Lydia remembered the million times he had talked her down from the dangerous ledge of self-blame or self-destruction and knocked harder.
“Stiles? Stiles, come on!” she was close to pleading because nothing else was working “You know that I’m not going to stop knocking or trying to get through to you. Open up already. Don’t make me break this door down Stilinski, because you know I can. Stiles?!”
There was absolutely no noise from inside, almost like a lifeless heart sounded. She remembered the last time she had seen him and felt her own heart clench. Even as the dreaded thought crept into her brain, she shoved it off. No freaking way she decided vehemently there is no way I’m letting him rot anymore.
“You remember that box you got me?” the strawberry blonde changed tactics and sat down, talking to the door “The Hulk sized vanity kit? I remember thinking to myself, “If he can do so much for a crush, what would he be like as a best friend?” For a minute, I got jealous of Scott. Can you imagine? Me, jealous of Scott!” Lydia chuckled at the memories “For a long time, I thought that you were doing things for me because you had a crush on me. And I thought that things would end when you got over that crush. I mean, you were just another boy, right?”
“But then I started to see things better” she sighed as she thought about the incidents that had forced her to grow up faster “I started losing people I thought friends and making friends with people I thought losers. I..We started changing. Every day became a literal birthday, what with the whole dark and doom chasing us. Getting a peaceful night of sleep became a gift. Meeting our friends hale and healthy became causes for celebration. I became a fricking supernatural thing. And I hated it all. Felt like giving up and going away to some place better.”
There was a slight scrape of a chair from inside, almost silent, but it encouraged Lydia to go on.
“I would have too you know, given it all up and gone. But somebody stopped me. Somebody, who had once followed me around, decided to take the lead and help me up. Somebody I had once thought ‘just another boy’ made me realize that wherever I went, the place would only be as good as I saw it as. Made me believe that I could make a difference and that I was special. Somebody who once gave me the largest gift box I had seen, gave me another gift, this time larger. Friendship. You made me your friend, Stiles, and you pulled me up every time I wanted to slink under the seat. You made me realize that I didn’t have to be invincible to be visible. And I’m asking you to let me do the same thing for you. Let me..”
The door opened with a whoosh and Lydia almost fell in. She looked up to see a pale and frail shell of Stiles looking down at her. Lydia had to bite back all her exclamations and urges to check if he was actually alive under the deathly persona, but she was silenced by the next words.
“I killed Donovan. I killed him.”
The crash from the stairs echoed with Lydia’s shock and she didn’t need to look back to know that the eavesdropping John Stilinski held a similar expression to her own.
Another toy was broken. And this was beyond fixing.