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He first sees her, he later knows, because of two reasons. One: she allows him to. Two: because there is such a thing as the aligning of stars.
He is walking down the corridor with Scott, arguing about the possible connotations in a girl saying it’s-a-date, like, what, does that really mean they’re going on a date or does it mean it’s a plan sort of thing?, and the sun shines in through half-dusted windows, filtering dust beams and flashes of red. Stiles does a double-take as a strand of light momentarily blinds him, squints, and when he reopens his eyes, there is a girl standing on top of the staircase. A girl with fire-spun curls and a dress made of see-through blue. Startled into blinking, by the time Stiles looks again, there is no one there.
"What the hell," he says, and Scott levels him with a look.
"You can’t be serious," Scott says. "It has everything to do with how long you’ve known each other – "
"Dude, dude, no,” Stiles cuts him off. Lowers his voice in a hiss. “At the top of the staircase – I think I just saw a ghost – "
Scott laughs and Stiles eyes him with serious distaste. "Nice try," his supposed best friend says. "But hey, I wouldn't put it past this place."
And the truth is, neither would Stiles.
The second time he sees her, he is heading back to his dorm room, having stolen a cup of root beer from one of Danny Mahealani's house parties. He’s fumbling with his keys when something whispers past his ear and it is enough to still his movements for a moment, listening. When the only sound he hears is the distant humming of the lights above, he shrugs and shoulders his way into his room, the rim of the cup clenched between his teeth.
At first, he doesn't notice her. In hindsight, she sits in a plush chair a similar color as her dress which, you know, doesn't really help. He is throwing his book-bag onto his bed and heading over to make his usual surveying of the contents within the fridge when the hair on the back of his neck begin to rise in a way that is never good. So he braces his nerves and one hand casually on the fridge handle, and slowly cranes his neck around –
"OKAY," he says loudly, stumbling backwards until he’s pressed against the fridge. The girl from the stairway is seated in his armchair. The sun lighting through the window makes a halo of her hair, burning it a color that makes the breath still in his throat, and then his throat catches for another reason: the light is passing directly through her.
*
"Hello," she says, and he drops his drink.
*
The ghost talks to him. Says hi, as calm as you please. Stares straight at him and gives him a slow, measured look and a coronary all at once.
*
Lydia watches him fumble with his cup, his hands, his words. "Uh, hi," he stutters out, his stare flickering wildly between her and the root beer-splattered floor. It’s almost comedic, and she tells him as much.
"Oh," he says. "Yeah." And there is almost a caustic undercurrent that runs behind that petrified expression. She smiles. "You got me. Comedian to a ghost. That’s definitely the reason why I stay in school. Glad to be of service."
"Good to hear," she says. "Because I’m going to need your help."
*
"I mean," and here Stiles skirts cautiously around the edge of his coffee table, far from the apparition, "is this some kind of weird ‘help-me-leave-the-world-peacefully’ kind of deal, because okay. I get that. In fact, I’m all for that right now. But I don’t know what I have to do with it?"
The ghost smiles grimly. "Everything actually," she says, and Stiles resists the very real urge to shiver at the – in his opinion – unnecessarily ominous way she words it.
*
"Aren't you, like, I don’t know, uh, dead?" Stiles asks after an awkward few minutes of trying not to look directly at her and failing.
The girl, who had been looking out the window, turns her face slowly to stare at him with those unblinking eyes, giving off a distinctly unimpressed sort of look. "Well, aren't we off to a great start," is her caustic reply. "Yes, I’m dead. I’ll give you another one: I’m also good at haunting. Is there anything else you’d like to learn about me?"
Her tone of voice rather offends Stiles, but he manages to keep his mouth shut. Sort of. "Okay, okay," he says. "Fine – okay, let’s say you’re – whatever you are – and you actually exist, and if Scott walks in right now I won’t totally be talking to thin air like I've gone insane – " his hands gesture wildly with that last word. "So yeah, okay, what if. Why are you telling me this? Shouldn't you be calling I dunno, the FBI or the president or something?"
The ghost is beginning to look increasingly disenchanted with mankind. "I’m a ghost, remember?" she snaps. "That means there are boundaries for me; I can’t just go and talk to whoever I want to, wherever."
"Okay, and how come you can talk to me?"
For a moment, there is a pause. The corners of the ghost’s mouth curve downward before she pursues them to a side. The ghost has a dimple, he thinks faintly. "That’s for me to know," she finally says airily. "All we both need to establish right now is whether you’re going to help me or not."
"Uh." He tries to put the next words as delicately as possible: "And what if I… don’t? You know. Help?"
"Oh, I don’t know." Her head is tilted to a side, auburn curls brushing against her collarbone, and she twirls one around a finger. "I guess I’ll just have to haunt you forever. Make your life miserable. Until you give in."
"Doesn't that count as harassment?" he squeaks.
"Does it?" And Stiles wishes that ghosts with questionable intentions weren't capable of smiling like that.
The ghost’s name is Lydia. Lydia, who Stiles figures out is kind of bossy and doesn't really know how to cut corners. "I need you to obtain something for me," she tells him on his second day of knowing her. They are in his room again, him having finally gotten past the cardiac arrest that seems to happen every time she appears without prior notice.
"Obtain?" Stiles’ fingers tap out a rhythm on the keyboard of his laptop. "Are we officially using FBI words now? What does that one mean – bring-back-dead-or-alive?" He glances up from his screen then. "Wouldn't you be better at the clandestine activity stuff? I mean" – he gestures pointedly at her – "since you’re a ghost."
"In case you haven’t noticed" – here, aforementioned ghost deliberately motions through Stiles’ laptop, her hand passing neatly through the screen – "I’m not exactly up for that kind of activity right now."
He stares a little too hard at the spot where her hand passed through. "Oh. Yeah. Good point."
She shrugs her shoulder in a casual display of modesty. "I’ll go with you though," she says. "I know where it is."
"Ah, yes. Cold fucking comfort," he mutters to his screen.
"The person you want me to steal from is my best friend?" Stiles’ incredulity causes his voice to break the sound barrier. They stand in what is the middle of Scott’s dorm room, his bed half-made and the boy nowhere in sight ("Obviously spending a little quality time with this chick called Allison who happens to be something called his girlfriend. I mean, that’s what I’d be doing – if I was Scott – if I had a girlfriend – "). Tearing his eyes away from the object of their attention, Stiles turns to look at Lydia. "Is this a joke? Am I being Punk’d? Are my loyalties being tested? Did I somehow become worthy of Ashton Kutcher's fleeting affections?"
Lydia folds her arms and gives him a long look. "Pay attention," she says. "There was a reason why I mentioned that it’d be most effective if you did it. Besides, we’re not stealing. We’re borrowing."
"Borrowing," he repeats. "Oh, yeah. Borrowing. That’s totally okay." A deliberate pause. Then, "What the hell do we need Scott’s bear claw for? Like. We’re talking literal bear claw, here. Not the edible kind."
Lydia blinks before sending him a scathing look. "It’s not a bear claw," she says. "It’s a werewolf claw."
For a long moment, Stiles’ mouth seems to continuously enlarge as the imprint of her words ring ominously around them. "WHAT," he finally explodes, "IS A WEREWOLF CLAW AND WHY DO WE NEED IT?"
Her plan is ingenious, really. Lydia resists the urge to pat herself on the back. It’s been a long time coming, she thinks, and pauses here for a moment to consider the underlining gravity behind these words because it truly has. Past worlds are but faint thoughts and distant memories, but they are still there and their compiled weight makes the light in Lydia’s eyes a little older when she passes by her reflection, the curve of her mouth some little harder. And that constant weight is another reminder – that this time – this world – may very well be the end of the serpent’s tail. Because here, her head is clearer. And, more frighteningly yet, the fact that it is, is a conscious realization. She finds herself recalling things she knows her past selves did not, could not.
Case in point: the werewolf claw now lying on top of Stiles’ table.
Too often now, Lydia remembers that she has had past selves, past worlds. (Past failures.) She is swimming close to the surface of consciousness, she thinks. Too close to breaking out from the waves holding her under. And the thought terrifies her as much as it grounds her, because she looks to this boy who is gesturing wildly over an inanimate object and in her ribcage sits some quiet, deep surety that there is no other place she would rather be. It is a revelation, she thinks, and there is some wonder in that thought. And Lydia may be only seventeen, marked with cicatrices telling of a thousand lifetimes, but not once has she forgotten the powers that manifest in both her hair and temper.
"Okay but," Stiles is in the midst of saying, "we gotta get that back in one piece. No damaging the claw. It’s like a gift from his uncle or someone – I think they shot it or something – anyway, Scott has formed a weird attachment to it over the years. So I mean, either his uncle has been lying about who he’s been harvesting these bear claws from, or you."
Lydia listens to his rambles and it doesn’t mean to happen, but something eases in her heart, some deep-rooted familiarity lulling the faint pulsing in her veins. She startles when the stream of words abruptly comes to a stop. "What?" she says, blinking.
Stiles gives her a glare that notices just how much attention she had not invested. "I said, what are you going to use the claw for?"
She sighs.
*
"You didn’t tell me that there was a MURDERER INVOLVED." Lydia watches idly as a vein bulges on the right side of his neck.
"I might have," she begins delicately, "left that part out."
"Are you kidding me. How could you have just left that part out – "
"Listen," she cuts him off. "There isn’t much time. Especially since those recent cases of wildlife slaughter has a high chance of suggesting some kind of ritualistic vitality absorption." Catching the growing horror on his face, she expands, almost defensively: "I keep up with the news, okay? My point is – this is not just any killer. It’s definitely supernatural."
"And is that supposed to be comforting in any way?" Stiles hisses out.
"No," Lydia says. "But it’s something. That means there’s a way to kill it. Get me a calendar."
Numbly, Stiles retrieves the calendar hanging over his nightstand and spreads it out on the coffee table. "What’re you looking for?" he ventures to say.
"Something tacky and ominous," she replies, her eyes flickering through the dates. They stop on a square two weeks away. Friday the 13th. She reads the fine print underneath the large number – 'Full moon.'
Lydia smiles grimly. Incredible. Also, perfect.
Stiles leans over her and looks where her finger is pointed. "The thirteenth?" he reads. "Why – oh, wait, Friday the 13th. Okay, ominous enough for me to begin feeling even more unsafe, if that can even be a thing at this point. Is that when the ghost party is? The one that I’m definitely not invited to and have nothing to do with whatsoever?"
He nearly jumps out of his skin in the next moment, when she tilts her head up to look at him. Stiles takes it as a bad sign that the cardinal thought running through his head is wow their mouths are really, really close. "Yeah," Lydia says, and he swears the air between them stirs with her words. "And you’re going to be my plus-one."
Stiles, as is expected, does not take too kindly to the memo. Lydia leaves him foaming at the mouth, with the promise that she’ll be back tomorrow to collect his decision. (It is an unnecessarily ghoulish way of wording something, and Stiles makes sure to shout this at her retreating back.)
But she needn’t have worried about that. As the moon slowly rises overhead, she feels him approach her position on the balcony before she hears him, and something in the very center of her chest aches. "Hi," she says, quietly, and he pauses from where he’s standing.
Moments later, those familiar, frayed sneakers come into view beside her, and he lowers himself onto the ground so that they’re staring out over the campus, side-by-side. "Hey," he answers the trees.
She sends him a glance, askew. "How did you find me?"
He glances back at her just as matter-of-factly, one hand reaching out to gesture towards the moon. "It’s not that hard when the person you’re looking for glows. Literally."
She hides the beginnings of a smile behind a large inhale and does not allow herself to revel in his unconscious substitution of person for 'ghost.'
"So I was thinking," Stiles is saying, and pauses. His hands seem to gesture helplessly for a moment. "I don’t know if you know, but my dad’s the Sheriff of this town. But I mean, whatever. You don’t have to be the Sheriff’s son or a rocket scientist or whatever to keep up with the news around here. I mean, hell, you do it and you’re a ghost" – he is rewarded here with a dry look – "But this – there was something that happened a few months back… about how they dug up the bones of a female from the woods – my dad was there when that happened. Said she had marks like the ones used by whoever’s been slaughtering off the wild animals recently."
He glances over at her, and something works in his jaw. His mouth opens slightly, as if to ask something, before deciding against it.
She lifts her eyebrows. "What?"
He studies her for a moment before shaking his head, looks back down at his entangled fingers. She does not take her eyes off of him. Then, "Did…" he says. Swallows. Picks idly at a callous on the palm of one hand.
"What?" she says again, and Stiles thinks he could die from how she says the word, as if in that moment she has just enough compassion to see his thoughts straying, to see that he’s trying to pick up the pieces of her puzzle. As if in that moment she carries an insurmountable burden inside her bones, but the only thing that would cause them to break is if he were to catch wind of her pain.
(In hindsight, it is here. It is here and now and fuck it, it’s her. In hindsight, it is this one, wild moment that resolution first cements within him and half his heart decides to follow her to the ends of the earth.)
"Did whoever it was," and Stiles glances up at her then, breaking off, "were you – " that girl?
She smiles, and teeth peek out from a mouth that can still somehow be flushed even though she’s a fucking ghost. It kind of breaks his heart in that moment, just a little. "That’s confidential," she tells him.
*
In the long silence that follows (understandably), Lydia tucks her knees under her chin and stares out at the starless night. From the corner of her eye, she sees the movement of Stiles’ throat as he considers what would be his next words. She closes her eyes and leaves him to that because, despite the inclination of her hair to suggest otherwise, she can be patient when she wants to be. (The thought passes unbidden through her: she has had enough patience for nine lives.)
So they sit in unhurried silence until Stiles is the one ready to break it. His words come out low, offhanded. "You got a plan you said?"
Lydia allows the corners of her mouth to curve upward, just slightly. "I have a plan," she agrees, and ignores the pounding of her heart.
She can tell his heart is pounding too, though most likely for an entirely different reason, in the slightly breathless way he says his next words. "Like, okay, it can’t just be a plan – it has to be a damn good one. One that has a success probability of at least ninety percent? I don’t know, maybe even over ninety-nine? Just putting it out there that I am totally fine with it being over a hundred."
And Lydia understands what he is trying to say, the unspoken acquiesce behind those babbling words. So she nods, once. Opens her eyes to tilt her gaze towards him. "Like I said," and her voice is grim, "definitely a plan."
—
When Lydia runs into a wall a few days later, and when she pulls away to rub irritably at her forehead, she has the most unwelcome feeling that things are only going to keep snowballing from there.
The first time they kiss, it goes like this:
She falls in-step with him and Scott and gives that adorable (adorable? adorable?) peeking-teeth smile when he jerks in response, accidentally loses control of a "holy crap!"
Scott raises an eyebrow. "What?" His eyes turn to scan their surroundings. "Hot girl?"
"Uh" – Stiles coughs – "yeah. Yeah – something like that," prompting Lydia to scoff beside him.
"'Something like that,'" she mimics his tone of voice. "Excuse you? I actually have eyes, so believe me when I say that I’m pretty much the hottest person on this genuinely distressing campus."
Stiles clears his throat uncomfortably. Then, when Scott isn’t looking: "You’re also dead," he hisses from the side of his mouth. Lydia scowls.
"Thank you for the daily reminder. I’m going to have to spirit you away from your boyfriend for a while, so you might want to make your excuses, "she tells him. "There’s something I want you to see."
—
When she shows him the makeshift chart on his coffee table, his brows furrow and his mouth drops open. "What the hell did you do to my table Lydia?" is his response.
She ignores this. "I’ve been in the library while you and your buddies have been leading a poor man’s definition of 'living it up.' I browsed through a few related books and managed to find some things that might be useful."
He gives her a startled glance, attention snagged by a particular sentence. "Browsing books is a thing for you now?"
Lydia blinks. “Yeah.” Reaches out to lift a nearby textbook in her still slightly transparent hands. "See?"
But by then his eyes are already caught on another revelation. "You tore out the pages," he says in a small sort of voice as he looks over what comprises a large section of her chart. "Can we please burn this after we’re done? I don’t want to die from county fines."
She rolls her eyes. "Sure," she says acerbically. "Go to town on that. After," she emphasizes, because Stiles looks ready to burn the whole thing now. "Sit," she directs instead, and once he’s in a grudging position on the floor, legs crossed, she breathes out deeply through her nose.
"I am," she says, "going to give you an extremely brief, travel-version of an actually very crucial topic to understand because I can see that your attention is diverting away already." He looks up from where his hands are picking at the carpet.
"What?" he says and blinks hard underneath the force of her disapproval. "Oh. Yeah – no, yeah, I’m listening. All ears. That’s me. Go on."
So she points out to him the newspaper clippings of the maimed animals, her sketches of the silver-headed arrows displayed in the main hall ("You can’t just steal them," Stiles yelps, aghast. "They’re national treasures – "), pages from folklore on the nogitsune, and everything else her mind could pull.
By this time Stiles is slouched in the armchair, sucking on a can of root beer he’s retrieved from the fridge. "This is beginning to sound more and more like an exorcism," he mutters, eyeing the contents of the chart. He then leans over, bracing his forearms on his knees as he studies the table. "What is that?" He sets his can down on the edge of the table to gesture at the circled picture of Sorbus scopulina torn from a botany book, under which Lydia has scribbled 'Mountain Ash’' in red highlighter.
"That," Lydia says, "is precaution. Just in case the nogitsune decides to call for reinforcements."
For a moment, Stiles stares unseeingly at the mountain ash before he swings his gaze onto Lydia, her words having finally completed processing. "And remind me what the hell a nogitsune is again that he has his own potential gang of supernatural thugs?"
"Something that needs to shower at least fifteen times and also feeds off of your pain and misery. Among other debilitating pastimes."
"Great." Stiles is smiling his wide, sardonic smile that practically reeks of panic. "Wow. That’s just. Great. When is this all going down again? In two weeks? Wow, I sure don’t know about you but I am pumped."
Lydia fixes him with as withering a look as she can manage. "There should be some mountain ash around this area," she says, turning back to point at a map on the chart, but something in her chest loosens. There is something so familiar about this scene – crouched over something with this ranting, obstinate boy beside her – ironing out ideas through unsaid glances and words unafraid to wound. And for a sharp, breath-stilling moment, Lydia imagines that this is all that she’s ever wanted. This is something she wants to do for the rest of her life (though definitely sans any involvement from homicidal mystical creatures).
The aluminum rim touches her lips before she can process the action, the can a subconscious weight in her hand. And as the dark, still-bubbling liquid washes down her throat, Lydia is hit with two separate revelations – one, how she didn’t realize before this that she was thirsty, and two, how the tin between her teeth has the faintest aftertaste of sorrel and something else she can’t quite identify –
It is at this point when she accidentally meets Stiles’ eyes across the table. A wide, stunned gaze the sun has decided to paint warmest of hazels. It is at this point that Lydia chokes on the drink, abruptly lowering the can down onto the table with reflexes that startle even her. "Oh," she splutters out. One hand rises to clap over her mouth and she feels the wetness that still clings to her lips. "I wasn’t thinking – " she begins to say, but he shakes his head. Doesn’t say a word.
Simply leans over to pick the can back up and holds it out as a silent offering until she reaches out her hands, curls her fingers around the cold, dripping weight of something that has somehow, in the course of a minute, become more than a shared drink.
The second time they kiss, it goes like this:
Of course the Nematon has to be in the buried under an unnecessarily creepy storage basement. When Lydia tells Stiles as much, her only reward is a pointed look that conveys just how much she’s not helping.
("One more thing," she tells him the day before. "I've been reading about the history of this place, and it said that it was built on top of a behemoth tree."
When he looks over at her with raised brows, she says, "But I couldn't find anything about which part of the campus was built directly over it." Here, she meets his gaze. "So I need you to find out. I need to know exactly where the tree would have been.")
She makes a disgusted sort of noise as a piece of unraveled cobweb catches against her shoulder.
("Why are we doing this again," he says as he fumbles with the stolen – "borrowed," Lydia corrects automatically – custodian keys. When he pushes open the door, the heavy metal grates loudly against the cement floor. "If I somehow survive the end of this week there’s a really high chance I’ll be kicked out of school. My future looks great one way or another, actually."
"Trust me," she says, leading the way inside. Stiles’ hand finds a panel of dusty light switches and when he flips them on, equally dusty lamps begin flickering to life overhead. "The Nematon is a source of power. The nogistune will want to be here that night if it plans on taking over this town."
"Can it stop trying to be original and take over New York like the rest of the supervillains do?" Stiles mutters.)
Stopping in a more hidden portion of the room behind a rusting metal column, Lydia stops. Looks carefully around at their surroundings before gesturing for Stiles to move faster. "This place," she says, "is going to be where we hide. It’s going to be our safe zone."
Stiles watches as she takes out a small bag from within her pocket and begins to sprinkle powder in a circle around the area. "Don’t," she snaps when his foot nudges against the outer edge of the circle. "The line has to remain unbroken."
"What is this? Mountain ash?" he asks, crouching down so he can peer at the tiny, black granules.
"It’ll help with keeping anything supernatural at a respectable distance," she confirms grimly.
"Aren't you supernatural though?" he says suspiciously.
"Which is why I need you to finish the circle," she says, and pushes the bag into his hands and her hands brush against his.
She stiffens and feels Stiles react similarly in response.
"Lydia?"
She stares at the bag for a long moment, at the way the veins stick out from his hands. "Nothing," she says then. "Go ahead and finish the circle. It has to be complete," she emphasizes, resulting in his exceedingly vocal display of annoyance. But Lydia watches him spread the mountain ash as she’d directed, and she cradles her hands to her chest. She stores that tiny flash of warmth in a corner of her soul, right next to his voice saying that was really smart and the color of his eyes when he looks at her.
—
That night, when he falls asleep in his bed, face-first on the keyboard of his laptop, she tugs until the blanket is beneath his chin. He sighs, his head flopping over to a side, and he clutches a fistful of blanket against his chest as he rolls over.
She dares, then. She presses her mouth briefly to his forehead, his skin uncannily soft and so warm beneath her lips, and she breathes in that smell of cotton and soap that doesn't change, even here. She allows herself to momentarily touch his cheek, to fuss unnecessarily with stray members of his hair.
"Good night, Stiles," she makes sure to say quietly when she leaves his room.
The third time they kiss, it goes like this:
Stiles mourns the continued mutilation of his coffee table. Pictures and print are now spread over the table like a roadmap, held in place by pins and red yarn. A marker is clenched between Lydia’s teeth, and she takes it out –draws a squeaking, red circle around a Polaroid picture of the storage room. Writes underneath it 'three circles.' On a hand-drawn blueprint taped beside the picture, she circles three distinct spots.
"Four days until the full moon," she reminds him. "I hope you’re keeping track."
"I’ve been counting the days." Stiles’ sarcasm is muffled by the pillow against his face. "I’m sorry I’m not as excited to die as you seem to be. 'Die again,' or whatever, for you."
Lydia’s resulting glare bores holes into him from across the room. "We can do this," she says firmly. "Just stick to the plan."
"My question is whether the plan will result in a lot of screaming and pain and possible casualties?"
She allows herself an extremely satisfying eye-roll. "Stiles," she says.
His head pops up from the pillow. "I can’t help it, okay? Sarcasm is the default defense mechanism here," he says loudly. "When something helps you get out of getting beat up by those unusually big-boned neighborhood bullies, you learn it fast and extremely well."
"Well, the nogitsune isn't a bully," she says in a pseudo-thoughtful sort of tone. "No, not really. He’s more like, shall we say, a sadistic murderer."
"Yeah?" Stiles mutters. "Well I wouldn't put it past Eddie Abramovitz to join the rankings of 'sadistic murderer' if he had the chance, either."
An almost comfortable silence settles between them then, with Lydia at the table and Stiles returning to a face-down position on his bed (presumably having fallen asleep). So the pen Lydia is tapping against her chin jerks up to poke her in the mouth when she hears Stiles abruptly speak from behind her.
"What do you think will happen after – if we manage to stop it?" And she knows he isn't only talking about the fate of the town.
Lydia blinks down at the table, considers his words. "Well," she begins slowly, "hopefully it means that no one else will die?"
She can almost feel the heat of disdain he has trained on her back. "Is that why you’re doing it?" is his next question, and it is accompanied by a shift in the atmosphere. She turns to see him lying face-up on his bed, his eyes fascinated by something on the ceiling. As if he isn't dying to know the real reason why she chose him of all people, why they’re doing what they’re doing.
Lydia wets her lips.
"Once, a long time ago it seems," she says then, "there was a boy who was crazy enough to run with wolves."
Stiles’ head raises off the bed, and the look he gives her is half-incredulous, half-accusatory, and just long enough to showcase his confusion. She blithely chooses to ignore this. Buckles herself down for the impending consequences of her following words.
"He was in love with a nutjob of a girl who, you know, was actually very smart but tried not to be. Outwardly, at least. And this boy – this strange boy she hadn't even considered twice before – he was the only one who realized that, who called her out on it, and as circumstances led them to spend obscene amounts of time together, she slowly found herself growing to respect him. So one day, when he decided to get lost in the worlds within his mind, she decided to jump in after him. Why it had to be her – the reasons for this she was told, but did not fully understand. But you see, once inside his mind, she had lot of lifetimes to think, and she realized that it was because she had grown to care for this weird, offbeat boy. That during the course of their time together, an invisible, unbreakable bond had somehow woven itself into the space between their fingers. She loved him, and so did his other friends who were waiting in the outside world for him, and so, despite the grief and pain it would cause her, the girl decided she would bring him back no matter what."
Stiles is looking at her when she finishes. She catches his eyes and he drops her gaze, lashes brushing over his cheeks as he toys with his fingers. She turns back to the map after a moment. "Was that girl you?" he finally asks, his voice low.
She studies the picture of Sorbus scopulina, tongue peeking out to press against her upper lip. Then, "You mean, 'is that girl"?"
There is a pause, and she can almost see the bobbing of his throat as he carefully selects his answer. "Yeah."
The smile she gives is absent, halfhearted indentations of the corners of her mouth. "How does that figure?"
"Because that sounds like something you would do," he replies, and something cracks in her chest then, hurts behind her eyes, because there it is – he doesn't even know it, but there it is, that steel surety in his voice. The one he had used the night when everything she knew about her life began changing. Everything. (Doesn't he see how important he is to her? How central a part of her life he has become? If he knew, would he have allowed her to lead him back by now?)
Stiles is speaking again. "What happened to that boy? Is that why you came back – because the nogistune got him too?"
Lydia presses her mouth into a thin, stubborn line. "Not if the girl can help it."
*
"Can I ask you another question?"
She heaves a long-suffering sigh. "No."
He asks anyway, of course. "You’re becoming corporeal, aren't you? I’m not becoming completely crazy?" And she knows he is thinking of how she can carry three books at a time now and how she has to wait outside his room until he gets back from class.
"I can’t see through you anymore," he adds softly.
Lydia doesn't know what to do with that tone of voice, that muted look in his eyes, so she opens her mouth and says, "I’m sorry, did you like being able to see through me, you pervert?"
Stiles splutters indignantly, throws his hands up to the ceiling. "You know what I mean," he says loudly, exasperatedly. "Unbelievable. The whole world probably knows what I mean. Just answer the question, Lydia!"
She can’t help it – she smiles, the tiniest breath of a laugh escaping from her. Stiles gives her a look as if she’s not only gone mad, but plans to take him down with her. "Okay. I’m not see-through anymore," she concurs, and the dimple that forms does strange, life-threatening things to Stiles’ heart. "And?"
Stiles startles out of his reverie, shrugs. "I was going to ask you," he says. "It’s not everyday a ghost begins reverting back, or whatever’s happening to you." He does not know why he says the next words. (No, the truth is that he does. It has something and everything to do with blue-moon dimples and that strangest sense of humor and the way she breathes as though every intake brings her closer to some intangible goal. And the strange, surmounting hope within him that what if – what if – )
So really, he doesn't know what possesses him to ask her, "If we manage to pull off being big damn heroes on Friday, does this mean that you’ll become human again?" Does this mean you’ll stay?
For a moment Lydia almost forgets how to breathe. "Is that a good thing?" she asks him, and her words come out all wrong, tiny and strangled and tripping over each other. When she glances in his direction, he’s looking at her. And in that one second it takes for the clock hand to catch its breath, the muscles working in his throat may tighten and words may lose purchasing power, but the look in his eyes is enough. It is enough to fizz through her veins like sudden bursts of sunlight; it sweeps waves beneath her feet and tips her weight into something no more substantial than that of paper leaves.
"You touched me yesterday night."
And just like that, the almost tangible atmosphere between them deflates. Somewhat unceremoniously in fact, and Lydia will never know whether it is strictly relief or malcontent that floods through her in that moment. She does, however, manage to look appropriately disturbed. "What?"
It is Stiles’ turn to roll his eyes. "Ha ha. Hilarious. Can we be adults here, Lydia, can that be a thing?"
"Aren't we still considered underage though?" she makes sure to ask innocently, and wants to both cry and laugh when he fixes her with wide, disbelieving eyes, his hands beginning to gesture wildly, high-pitched sounds of frustration escaping from behind gritted teeth.
"You touched me!" he finally explodes, both hands gesturing towards her. "Yesterday night! Like, skin-to-skin. Contact. I felt it."
This is the part where Lydia tries to look unaffected while clamping firmly down on her quickening pulse. "Oh," she says offhandedly. Damn it, she thinks. And then, not quite as casually, "Your forehead smooths out when you sleep." She abruptly clamps her mouth shut and begins to chew the inside of her lower lip.
The slight pause that follows rings tinnily in Lydia’s ears. She closes her eyes, resigns herself to her fate. "Did – You kissed me?" Stiles’ voice rises as, naturally, two and two come together.
She breathes out slowly through her nose. Reopens her eyes. Manages not to sound anywhere as panic-stricken as she’s feeling when she answers. "Yes. Can we get back to the topic that is actually pressing, now?" she says tersely. "If you haven’t noticed, we don’t exactly have a lot of time left – "
"You kissed me?" he asks again in the strangest voice, and some part of her chokes then, because she is in another world and there is suddenly the smell of rust and panic and the sound of that same tone saying that was really smart -
The abrupt, loud clattering of her marker hitting the tabletop snaps her out of her reverie.
Lydia allows a moment to collect herself, to emit a sigh as she picks the marker back up. "Can we get back on topic?" she asks again, exasperatedly. "Before all this," she makes sure to add when he begins to reopen his mouth.
There is a momentary battle of wills as they stare at each other. Then, "Fine." Stiles throws up his hands, drops back down onto his bed.
Her chin tilts up in unspoken victory. "Good," she comments airily. Turns her attention back to the table and feels some of that frivolous buoyancy flee from her body when her eyes land on the nogitsune portion of the chart.
She stares blankly for a moment as she considers her next words, then further angles her body so that he cannot catch that moment of dread that courses through her. "Stiles," she says. "The nogitsune is most likely going to summon help. I can stave them off. But you have to be the one to get your hands on the nogitsune."
"What?" She hears the faint creaking of his bed. "Why me?"
There are many reasons, she would have liked to say. There are so many factors, but I cannot tell you. So instead she says, "Because in two days' time I still won’t be fully corporeal. Mostly; enough to cross through mountain ash, but not yet completely human. So there won’t be enough physical force for me to destroy him."
She almost feels that calculating gaze on her backside. "So does that mean you’re 'mostly corporeal' already?" he asks.
She sniffs, exhales irritably out from her nose. "Clearly."
"Is that why you kissed me?"
"Stiles."
"Okay, okay. Just – " he pauses here. "Last question, I promise."
She makes a small, irked noise in the back of her throat. "What?"
The next words come out oddly, low and strangled and fierce all in one: "Can I kiss you?"
Whatever retort she would have made to his last question dies on her tongue, leaving a strange dry, numbing taste. Slowly, she turns to face him and finds him still sitting on the edge of his bed, arms leaning on his thighs, looking straight at her with those eyes. Flickering, glowing tourmaline eyes somehow conveying the steel-bound determination his clenching hands cannot.
"Oh," she thinks she says aloud and hears as a small, wild laugh chokes from her throat. Oh, she thinks again as they stare at each other and something clenches tight in his jaw, in her stomach. And Lydia thinks of yesterday, of today, of tomorrow, of the pasts and the future, of full moons and red strings, and she smiles at him. Watches the rigid muscles outlining his arms and says sadly (wistfully maybe if she allows herself to think harder about it), "Yes." And then, softer still, "Okay."
The echo of the word has not even yet faded when he is there, faded callouses and warmth, and his mouth crashes against hers. There is something desperate in the way he curls her body into him as he kisses her, as if he needs to drink that sadness from her veins, and she sighs, exhales into his mouth, warm and wet. He swallows that, seems to swallow her whole as she feels the coldness of the wall press against her backside, his hand cradling the back of her head, and she arches up into him because everywhere is Stiles, Stiles, Stiles.
And when she sighs it into his mouth, Stiles feels the floor give away and I love her, he realizes in a rush of desperation and wonder and fury. I am in love with half of a ghost who is more than half in love with someone else, and the ground beneath them seems to tremble.
The fourth time they kiss, it goes like this:
This time, he is the one to catch her unaware.
"Hi," he says, and his voice is a warm, surprised presence above her head.
Her head jerks up from where she’s sitting, leaning against one of the trees on the campus edge. His shadow dwarfs over her in the late afternoon light and his thumbs idly tap out a staccato where his hands have been shoved stiffly in denim pockets. "Hi," she says, and when he doesn't say anything more, she knows something has changed between them. She licks her upper lip in a subconscious motion. "You saw me?"
He gestures up the building towards the window of his shared room. "More like Scott did."
"Oh." She is caught off-guard by this. "He can see me?"
His mouth turns downward and his shoulders shrug in a way suggesting that this is as much a novel idea to him as it is to her. "Yeah, I guess. You didn't know?"
"No," she says honestly, and her stomach clenches as she realizes that they are running out of time.
His eyes study her. Narrow when he realizes she is deliberately choosing to not elaborate. “What?” he demands.When she shakes her head, he says in that same tone, "What are hell are you doing out here Lydia?"
It’s Lydia’s turn to narrow her eyes. "I’m sorry," she snaps tartly, "but do you own this place? Is there a memo about you being the scion to this academy that I completely missed somehow? Should I vacate the premises?"
His roll of eyes is obvious enough to guide warships home. He drops cross-legged onto the ground beside her, a forceful huff expelling from his chest. "Okay. Fine." His tone becomes scathingly polite: "What are you doing out here Lydia?"
"None of your business Stiles," she answers just as graciously.
An incredulous sort of noise escapes from the back of Stiles’ throat, one of his eyes squinting in minute twitches as he proceeds to stare her down. "Are you kidding me? It kind of became my business when – oh, I don’t know – some monster decided killing us – 'us,' so that would mean me included – would be a nice little recreational activity before going on to destroy the rest of the world."
She gives him a pointed look and they dissolve into glaring at each other.
"I haunt this place," Lydia finally says testily, breaking away. "I’m a ghost – that’s what I’m supposed to do, okay? I’m good at it."
"Okay," he returns, "but you’re not a ghost now are you?" He pauses for emphasis. "Scott can see you."
She bristles. "I might still have some ghosting tendencies – "
"Ghosting. Tendencies." He enunciates each word as to replay it so everyone within a five-mile radius can hear how ridiculous he clearly thinks that sounds.
A huff escapes Lydia’s mouth. "There are two days left," she says waspishly. "Just let me do what I want, Stiles."
"Why?" he asks, that ever-present affinity for being nosy continuing to grow in size. There is half a second of silence the follows, but it is enough, and suddenly the atmosphere shifts between them. The change is instantaneous, almost tangible in the way something tautens in his neck and his eyes sharpen, as though he’s seeing her for the first time that day. His next words are cautious, measured. "What happens after two days, Lydia?" And she knows, this time, he isn't talking about the fate of the town at all.
She gives a shrug, "World peace, hopefully."
He is staring at her again, with those hearth-colored eyes that perceive too much, that come up and rub raw against her soul. So Stiles narrows his eyes and changes his words, says, "Great. World peace – that’s great. What about you?"
The smile she gives does not reach her eyes. Does not crinkle into half-moons like that time a few days ago when she thought he wasn't looking and finally caved in laughing at Scott’s continued failure to teach his best friend trick shots. It makes his heart pound, but not for reasons he wants. "Not a ghost anymore, hopefully," she says airily, and in that moment his stomach plunges and he knows. He has known all along.
(Because, the thing is, he’s only known her for a little over a week and a half but why does it feel as if he’s known her for as long as he’s been able to breathe? And in those times he allows himself to think about it, that thought scares him as much as it makes the blood pound through his veins. Because his eyes keep returning to her, turning around thinking she’ll be there. She has somehow become all he sees these days, and he may be hyperactive but he certainly isn't dense, and so he catches the startled look she gets when it takes her a moment to lift her hand to reach something on a shelf, he sees the darkening of the veins in her fingertips, the way she has had to catch herself against these last few days. He touches her hand when she allows it, weighs it in his, and he feels something in his heart sinking when he realizes her hand is stone-cold.
Unnecessarily nosy, she calls him the other day, but the look she gives him is almost one of grudging affection. He wants to shout at her then, wants to say how could you do this to yourself, how can you not even try. (How could she not have told him?) But then he sees the way her tongue is caught between her teeth as she pores over borrowed books, that fearless gleam in her eyes when she looks at the circled calendar, and he lies awake thinking about the girl who jumped through worlds to save the boy she loved. The boy who was crazy enough to run with wolves. And he knows he cannot ever blame her.)
His throat works as he struggles to find any words willing to come out. But there are none. Nothing comes out, and he can only stare at this girl with green eyes and hair the color of every sunset he’s ever known. This girl who, when she turns her hand over, he can still see blue lines mapping the curving slope of her wrist, whose mouth tastes like warmth and wind, and some part of him collapses into itself.
So he looks at her, and when she returns his gaze, he almost misses the glimpse that passes through her eyes. But he doesn't, and it’s enough to make the world turn hazy around him. Because hasn't he known her for a thousand years so it seems, hasn't he often thought about how disconcerting it is that he sees through her as easily as nothing else in his life – and for a moment, he almost wishes he doesn't – because if he didn't, he wouldn't understand that the only reason she allows either of them that look is if she believes all roads lead to one ending.
"No, Lydia," he hears himself say, and it’s almost an accusation, a question.
She tilts her head toward him and she sees in his eyes what he cannot say. "It’s going to be okay," she tells him. "You’re going to be okay."
But are you? he wants to ask her, maybe even shout this, but his throat can’t squeeze those words out. Or air. In fact, his brain proceeds to diagnose calmly, you might be finding yourself in the beginning stages of a panic attack. He bows forward then, cool blades of grass threading through his fingers as he considers the very real possibility that he doesn't know how to breathe anymore. Faintly, he hears the wheezing of his lungs, feels the world beginning to speed up around him – and suddenly Lydia’s hands are on his face and she’s saying "Breathe, Stiles," and for a wild moment he thinks how can he breathe when she’s stolen his ability to, when she has all the air and stars stored in her lungs, in her every cell –
"Up at me, Stiles. Breathe," her voice says firmly, and he feels those words trickle warmth down between his eyes, into his mouth, into the very last recesses of his will, so he does. He breathes. He tilts his head up, his nose brushing against her cheek, and she is on her knees when she bends over him and exhales stars and sky back into his mouth.
*
When he trusts himself enough, Stiles trails from her parted, flushed mouth to explore along her jawline, leaving wetted trails and wordless noises from her in his wake. His name is half a breath of an epiphany on her lips and she clutches instinctively at his shoulders when he presses her back against the tree, his body flush against hers until she wonders at how there is no telling where one becomes the other. How absolutely every contour of her body folds into his, how she even has room to think at all when he is touching her like this.
Stiles listens to the pitch of her heart against his, the smallest hitches of her breath when he finds those hidden spots along her neck. Her skin is heartrendingly soft beneath his and he doesn't know what to do with it, doesn't know what he will do if there’s not that blood-infused flush rising beneath it. He doesn't know how to tell her he’s only a teenager, how all he wants is for her to not go, that her plan better be damn fucking impressive and every other swear word in existence because in the course of two impressively short weeks he has somehow lost the ability to survive without this person anymore and look at this, look at them, doesn't she see that she has become his reason for breathing? But most of all, Stiles does not know how to formulate into words the desperation crashing against his ribcage, the realization that she is as fleeting as the minutes passing by. So he presses his mouth to her neck and traces promises and words against it until the skin beneath is as red as her lips.
The last time they kiss, it goes like this:
There is a glimmer of steel that protrudes from her stomach.
"You have to kill it," she says to him only minutes before as they crouch behind basement pillars, surrounded by the ring of mountain ash, and her voice is terrible – is grit and fear all in one. "I’ll distract the others. I’m human enough to touch mountain ash now and I've got the arrows, but you have to go after the nogitsune. Stiles. Are you listening to me? You have to kill it.You."
He is already bleeding from a cut above his eye from where the ground exploded moments before, and his eyes blink furiously to clear the blood staining his vision. Why me, he looks as though he wants to say. But she knows that is not the question in his eyes, that there is so much more. That he has unconsciously chosen to take her burdens upon himself, and he does not understand why it is crushing down on his heart. His soul.
So Lydia reaches over and takes his hand into her smaller ones, marvels at that steady pulse of warmth. "Because you’re the boy," she tells him, and his eyes freeze on hers.
*
In the course of a second, Stiles has forgotten which muscles do what, has forgotten a lot of things such as how to regain balance when the floor is being ripped away from beneath him. So he falls. With a distant roaring sound echoing in his ears, Stiles considers this girl with coriander eyes and a heart so tender and savage that it continued to beat for a (stupid, stupid, stupid) boy even when her body resisted, this girl who waded oceans if only to have another chance, and he feels something in him break, give away. The corners of Lydia’s mouth curve up at his expression, a grim, determined sort of smile. "You've always been the one."
Distantly, Stiles hears his voice say "Not that I’m complaining or anything, but maybe next time you can file these nonchalant, life-changing comments of yours two weeks in advance" and the smile she gives him is so fond, all curved lips and half-dimples and heartache. And Stiles heaves in a breath, tries to say something more substantial – something like, oh, I don’t know, you’re the love of my life Lydia, or even I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to be doing, Lydia – but he can’t seem to remember how to exhale, how to transcribe these thoughts into sounds or words. Numbly, he sways in place but she is already turning away and he distantly remembers reaching a hand out for her –
And then she goes and takes a sword to her stomach.
"Go, Stiles!" Her voice is half a scream of pain, but this is all cotton in Stiles’ ears because the only thing he can see in his mind is the point of the blade as it thuds sickeningly through clothes and burrows through flesh, the momentary widening of her eyes as it happens. She screams his name again, and the sound terrifies and grounds him all at the same time. Makes him scramble to his feet, mind lost moments behind but body somehow fueled by desperation now, by instinct, and his hand finds purchase on the claw – on the laughing, bandaged-wrapped creature – and he stabs it straight into the chest, through bone, into the heart –
Holds the claw in, clutches it like a promise even as the nogitsune's screams makes every part of his body shake in sweat and fear and he has to hold it in, he has to swallow his terror because Lydia, Lydia – Lydia with her bright, fierce gaze when she says it has to be you, Stiles, because even now, he’s still clinging on to that helpless, raging hope –
Beneath him, the bandaged body sags.
For a moment, Stiles' slack, kneeling form towers over the nogitsune. He watches blankly as ink-colored grease spurts and eats away at the wound. And then there is a slight sound from behind and the claw is clattering to the floor beside him as he doubles over, panting, crawls across that sticky, sticky floor towards the source of that noise. No. There ground spins mercilessly beneath him and there is nothing but static in his ears but the only thought left in his brain is why – why – is he moving so slow –
His hand slips in something as he reaches her – something wet and warm and cold, all at once, and he can't think about what it is right now – can’t think about anything except this girl with a thousand broken lives who still stares up at him as though he holds the answer to the universe. (But he doesn't. He doesn't, he doesn't – what is he supposed to do, what is he supposed to do with her looking at him like that – he’s just a boy – and she’s – (dying) – Lydia, Lydia – )
Slowly, as though he is drowning underwater, he reaches out a trembling hand, touches her stained cheek.
Please.
"Lydia? Lydia, no," he hears a voice saying from far, far away. His voice, he thinks hazily, and this startles him because what has happened to make him sound as if the world is being torn from his chest? "Don’t."
And she smiles – her mouth, half-parted in pain, curve up in a watery smile, and he wants to die, the pain breaking through his ribcage is so agonizing. "Stiles," she says solemnly, but her voice is so soft, so happy, and something about this is so wrong, so terrible, but he can’t take his eyes off of her. He can’t look away. This is not how it’s supposed to be – this is not how the books end; she has his heart. She has found the boy crazy enough to think he can run with wolves. The nogitsune is dead behind them. There’s nothing left without her. The thought chokes him, makes his words incomprehensible, loud, more than half mad:
"Can’t," and his voice wobbles, catches, "can’t you take my heart? Can’t it be yours? Take it, okay? Take it. Will that make you stay? Don’t go, Lydia."
She beams then, an uninhibited, bright thing, and he feels something perch perilously on the edges of an eye, turning his vision blurry. When she opens her mouth again, a small dribble of blood leaks out with her words. "You know that’s not how it works," she says, ever matter-of-factly. "But it’s okay. You did it. It’s going to be okay. Everything’s going to be okay, Stiles. You’re my reason for living and everything’s going to be okay."
Why can’t you stay then? he wants to know. Don’t leave. Don’t let go. If neither of us can live without the other, if even the essence of who we are is each other, can’t you let me be your tether? And he wants to weep this out, to cry this to the heavens, and perhaps he already is. When Lydia reaches up to touch his cheek, he catches her hand, holds it against him, turns his face so he can press his mouth to the inside curve of that small, brave, blood-stained hand. A quiet, pleased hum escapes from her as her eyes begin to droop.
"Lydia," and her name is the incomprehensible sob in his throat, the shudders that tremor through him. "No. Please. Please?"
"You’re my red string, Stiles," she is saying then. And she wants to say so much more but her voice is beginning to fade and this dim realization manages to generate a flash of irritation and pain up her side (not yet, not yet). “You’re my red string, and I’m yours. I followed you down here, but now you have to come back.” Her eyelids are fluttering shut now, and she can’t hear anything anymore, but she has to tell him – she has to let him know – "We did it. But you have to wake up now, okay, Stiles?"
"You have to come back with me," she tells him over and over and over. "We have to wake up now, okay?"
Lydia wakes up with a gasp and half-dried blood streaming down from her nose.
"Lydia!" A hand clamps down on her shoulders to steady her, and Scott’s pinched, worried face comes into view. His eyes ask what his voice cannot.
Lydia breathes until her lungs burn and shakes her head. She turns to look at Stiles on the chair beside her and tries not to cry when she sees his still unmoving form. "I tried," she tries to say. "I tried, Scott."
And Scott – faithful, patient, understanding Scott – nods once, lightly squeezes her shoulder, and that gesture is enough to make Lydia want to curl up and shatter into pieces. She failed. She was their biggest hope, she was Stiles' tether, his way back, and she had failed. It is to Scott’s credit when he does not acknowledge the tears that begin dripping down Lydia’s nose and cheeks.
But then there is a noise beside them. Scott’s eyes are torn away from her in an instant, focusing on his best friend in the chair beside Lydia. Her gaze follows. And for a moment, the world seems to stop as it tips one last stone onto burdened scales. Time, ever impatient, pulls at the reins, but Lydia and Scott pull back, shouting no, no, not yet and – simultaneously – please, please –
—
Stiles’ eyes open. His hand flies out to rip away the tape covering his mouth and he doubles over, coughs savagely until blood stains his hands and a fly comes shooting out from his mouth. Which Deaton very neatly captures in a jar.
—
The first thing Stiles becomes fully aware of is the blood that speckles his palms. The second thing he becomes aware of is Scott grabbing his shoulders, guiding him through his incoherent babbling, saying "It’s all right, Stiles. We got you. It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay."
It’s going to be okay. Stiles hears a voice echo in his mind, and there is a flash of bright green eyes and staircases and once, a long time ago, there was a…
He’s gasping something then, a name, a sound, he doesn't know, but he looks up and –
—
She is there when his eyes find hers. She is there when amber-bright eyes find hers, and she sees that terrible, ancient heaviness reflected in his eyes –
—
- His chest feels so heavy against him, but he is breathing and his bones ache in this revelation, that this is reality. His body weighs against his soul but in the same breath it grounds both parts of him down to earth, and he knows this is reality. And Lydia is there and she is breathing, and Scott, and Deaton, and this is reality.
And when he looks at Lydia again, there is only three feet between them but it feels like some infinite ocean of stars. It feels like a lifetime.
Here, then, is the truth: that the first time they kiss, it goes like this,
This time, he is the one who reaches across that expansion of space and time and finds her. One hand threads its way through her hair, cupping the back of her head, and his other pulls her towards him as she tugs on him. He lets her. Gravity does not exist anymore in the space between their bodies when he falls into a half-kneeling position in front of her and she reaches both hands out to cradle his face, to search his eyes with a watery, radiant smile. "About time," she finally says, the very ends of her words fracturing, and he closes the distance between them.
Above them, the stars begin to align.