you fill me in and you are permanent

Notes: I have four years worth of patience in waiting for Delena vested in me.

Stiles and Lydia will happen. And I will be triumphant.

It almost happens like this:

"Stiles! Stiles, come on–"

"Focus," intones Deaton (easy for him to say, Scott is already up, already staring with wide eyes, trying not to struggle beneath Deaton's grip on his shoulders because– "they must do this,"–

fuck you Deaton and your plans that endanger them all, they're just fucking kids how did they become this?).

Out of the corner of her eye Lydia watches a desperate Isaac bow his spine to Allison's cold and still form, his closed eyes and nose and lips landing somewhere east of the hollow of her throat. He is folded over her like something ruined, like perhaps his lips could whisper some prayer that would be enough to breathe life back into Allison's body.

And then it is.

The youngest Argent rejoins them in a gasping, half-scream; between one breath and the next Isaac has crowded her close, wrapped around Allison as though he were an impenetrable force and she the most fragile of sacred things. He's hushing her watery gasps and Allison's eyes are closed again almost as if the sterile, slated shades of the room are too bright.

Lydia has never seen her best friend look so small before, so young or so frightened.

And then she is the only one left.

Stiles still won't breathe.

Lydia feels her throat closing over as she holds his face between her hands, trailing thumbs over the bladed edges of his cheekbones. He's so pale.

"Come on Stiles, don't give up on me now, okay? Don't you dare. You have to get your dad back, remember? You have to save the world with your stupid sarcasm and a damn baseball bat – seriously did we not do all that training with actual weaponry?"

Tears are sliding down her face now; she lets go of Stiles' face and curls her fingers into the sopping fabric of his t shirt. Lydia too bows her head until her forehead brushes the pale triangle of exposed skin where the neckline ends. He looks so much better with long hair, she thinks. She's never told him.

When she manages to speak again, she can barely hear herself.

"Don't make me kiss you again in front of all these people."

Lydia closes her eyes and tries to remember what if felt like to hold enough air in herself for two, what panic tasted like on his lips, or even the roar of some nameless thing that told her, 'yes.'

"Please just come back." Lydia has not prayed in a long time. But she'll pray for this. "Come back to me."

And Stiles does.

He lurches up coughing and gasping; panic is a live thing trying to burst out from behind his irises – Lydia is abruptly torn between wanting to take on all his demons or just let Stiles return to himself on his own.

In the end Stiles doesn't give her the choice. Lydia can only focus on the frigid press of his forehead in the bare junction of her neck, the clammy sound of his breathing, so it takes a second for her to realize that he's clutching at her dress with shaking fingertips and those are their only points of contact, as though Stiles doesn't have the strength to pull himself (or her?) closer.

So she becomes strong enough for both of them.

"Stiles–" Lydia surges forward, wrapping her arms around his back, smoothing her palm up between his shoulder blades and trying not to tremble as he breathes into her skin: in, out, in out. "It's okay, you're okay, you're back."

Even sopping wet his hair is soft.

Slowly but surely, they come back together.

—

Instead it happens like this:

"Strong connection, huh?"

Lydia raises a perfect eyebrow at Isaac, trying to cling to something bright to combat the creeping darkness.

It's been 37 minutes since she'd had to drown her– since she'd had to drown Stiles. Isaac looks up from his intent stare of Allison's pale, water-distorted face.

"Emotional tether," he shoots back, and the look on Stiles' face after she'd kissed him flashes in Lydia's mind's eye.

"Touché."

Isaac smiles and it's practically heartbreaking in and of itself.

"We're going to talk about this," she tells him primly, as if they weren't currently standing over the almost-corpses of their best friends.

"Of course we're not going to do that."

Lydia pretends to sigh and is rewarded with bright, devastating eyes. "Hey Isaac?"

"Hmm?"

"They're going to be okay, right?"

Isaac looks from her, to Allison, and across to where they both know Scott is likewise still and silent. "Yeah."

He sounds so sure – it's the least she can do to pretend to believe him.

—

They've been under for over four hours.

"Lydia."

Isaac has to crouch down and duck his head to catch her eye; Lydia is tempted to be childish and turn away from his sharp and probing gaze. But instead she lifts her chin and refuses to cower against his knowing (and somewhat pained) expression.

"Lydia c'mon, the floor can't exactly be comfortable."

"I'm not leaving," she tells him flatly, leaning her head back until it touches the cool side of Stiles' metallic and watery almost-grave. She cannot follow to the place her dearest friends have gone; standing (or sitting) vigil is the closest alternative. Isaac's sigh is contemplative, and the the sharp motion of his hand through his hair familiar.

"So stubborn," he mutters. There is an undercurrent of affection there that makes her warm. Lydia scrunches her face, though he probably doesn't even see it as Isaac slides foward to sit next to her until they're pressed together from hip to shoulder.

Lydia's head falls against his shoulder practically of its own accord as Isaac's arm winds around her waist, anchoring her to his safe space. He is as warm as ever and she is drowsy all of a sudden–adrenaline crash maybe? She thinks she feels him place a kiss in her hair but she can't be sure.

"Just...try and get some sleep, okay?"

She doesn't want to, she can't not be here–

"I'll keep an eye on them, I promise."

Isaac's chin is a grounding weight against the top of her head as Lydia closes her eyes (just for a minute) and drops off.

—

She sleeps for five hours.

They're still not back.

"We just have to be patient," Deaton says calmly (how can he be calm at a time like this? they've pratically drowned) and Lydia wants to snarl at him, rip that serenity from his face maybe, but she's probably not looking all that menacing, dwarfed in Isaac's jacket that she'd found draped over her twenty minutes ago.

"Belief," Scott's mentor says softly, looking at Lydia and Isaac in turn, "is a powerful thing."

Lydia can't quite summon enough thought to speak. She just turns around and stares down at the muted edges of Stiles' face beneath the water. Is it really possible she can just will him back? Her throat is tight (not now, she can't break down now) and somehow she feels Isaac take up familiar space at her side more than she can really see it.

He takes her hand and squeezes.

Lydia closes her eyes and starts composing prayers for every god.

—

Isaac has taken to pacing.

He at least has the decency to do it out in the hall, where he can't make Lydia dizzy.

Deaton forces them to eat at some point; Lydia can't even recall the taste of her food, let alone what she's actually eating. She took a seat against the wall by the door, behind a cabinet so she can't see the clock anymore – around hour nine the pneumonia stastics became overwhelming, so she figures it's better this way.

The sound of Isaac turning on his heel for the 34th time outside is as comforting as it is grating.

Lydia doesn't know what she would do if she had to face this abyss alone.

Scott's mentor had disappeared to his office some time ago and returns to sit not far away on the other side of the door frame. Lydia thinks she spies a fracture in his placid façade and it's oddly vindicatiing. Deaton's eyes move from the three wash basins to the darkness outside in such a periodic way that she thinks she can still keep track of the time – she thinks they rounded hour fifteen a little ways back, and are about to hit sixteen when–

Lydia has never before considered what it sounds like when water gushes up to strike down on cold concrete – it may be the most beautiful thing she's ever heard.

They're back.

All three shoot up with coughs and gasps. Lydia and Deaton scramble to their feet as Isaac just appears in the doorframe. She can't keep track of what they're saying, or what any of it means, but that doesn't really matter yet because they're alive.

And then they catch the no doubt three-fold expressions on their friends' faces.

"What?"

"You guys were out a long time."

"How long's a long time?" Stiles demands, steady despite the fact that he's probably freezing, and when Deaton replies with (her surprisingly accurate count of), "Sixteen hours," there is such frustration in the way his face falls that Lydia half wants to apologize for having disappointed him.

"We've been in the water for sixteen hours?"

Deaton seems to wear a permanently grave expression these days. "And the full moon rises in less than four."

A beat of stunned silence. Allison's teeth chatter audibly, which at least shakes Isaac out of his stupor, because he's already grabbing towels from the shelf and tossing them to his friends. He strides over to Allison and wraps one around her shoulders, rubbing his hands up and down her arms in an attempt to warm her up.

Lydia can see his lips moving close to Allison's ear but she can't make out the words. Allison smiles very faintly and Lydia looks away, feeling vaguely like she's intruding on something private. Scott and Stiles are both viciously scrubbing at their hair, and it's not until Stiles stops and finally looks at her that Lydia feels the twisting knot in her stomach unfurl.

He's alive.

Allison and Isaac perch on the edge of her metal basin, their shoulders pressed together as Allison wraps herself in another towel. Lydia's heart goes warm before she forces herself to focus on the conversation unfolding in front of her.

"So we're gonna trust him. The guy that calls himself, "Death - destroyer of worlds," we're gonna trust that guy."

Lydia has to smother a laugh.

"I wouldn't trust him, no. But you could use him to your advantage. Deucalion may be the enemy, but he could also be the bait."

The front door bell chimes, jarring everyone from their thoughts, and it's only after she feels Scott touch the small of her back reassuringly that Lydia can talk herself into stepping out.

"What do you want?"

"I need your help."

"With what?"

She doesn't notice that Stiles has gotten up until he's right in front of her, taking up space in the doorframe in a way that partially blocks Ethan's view of her. Lydia's eyes land on the sharp slashes of his shoulderblades and feels, just for a second, protected and safe.

"Stopping my brother and Kali. From killing Derek."

—

"You don't have to go with him."

If she doesn't look at him, he can't talk her out of it.

"Lydia, hey!" He grabs at her shoulders and forces her gaze, his eyes wide and dark. "You don't have to go."

"I'm not leaving Derek to a death sentence, okay?" Lydia snaps, strangely enraged because he gets to drown himself to save his dad and I don't get to help save Derek? "You said I was pack, Stiles."

Stiles looks sufficiently chastised; her anger cools as they look at each other. "Just let me do this, okay? I'll be fine. Ethan won't hurt me."

"It's not Ethan I'm worried about."

Out of the corner of her eye, Lydia can see Stiles' hand reach up before he thinks better of it and drops his arm. "Just be careful, okay? Please."

"Just take your own advice and we'll both be alright."

He nods, once. "Call me," when you're safe, "after."

Lydia grabs his hand and squeezes before she can talk herself out of it. "I'll see you after you've found your dad."

She turns to leave without looking back, thinking of Aiden with a pang of regret because they deserve better from each other, don't they?

If only Stiles' eyes on her back were not like twin flames lighting her from the inside.

—

The first thing Lydia does upon sight of Stiles with a gash in his forehead is smack him hard in the centre of his chest.

Then she hugs him.

She possibly cries, though she will never admit it.

Stiles laughs, a soft and shuddered perfect sound, and curls strong arms around her.

"I'm fine, Lydia I swear. We're fine, everyone's okay."

Lydia can just make out Sheriff Stilinski from her vantage point in the centre of Stiles' grip, who looks like this shock is the one that's going to tip him over the edge into cardiac arrest.

She doesn't exactly blame him.

Stiles' hand slides up her back, his fingers tangling in her long-since lost cause hair. Lydia is acutely aware of his nose pressing against the top of her head.

He breathes.

She breathes.

And they're okay.

—

Weeks go by.

Even as the leaves turn there is a kind of calm stillness in the air, as though the very earth had heaved a sigh at their victory and this is their reward. Every morning Lydia gets up without a nightmare, the feeling of something settled grows inside her chest.

She can smlie at her mother and actually mean it, for a change.

Even the pack has settled, somewhat. There is change still – Isaac and Allison keep looking at each other like they're trying not to but it happens anyway – and Scott spends even more time with Deaton than before, in an attempt to master all there is to his newfound alpha-ness.

Ethan and Danny make her want to puke with their adorable everything, and Aiden...

They tried.

Lydia can honestly say that she felt something for Aiden, something beyond the distraction she set out for him to be, but in the end her allegiance to Scott and the twin's unwillingness to submit anew to another alpha was too much.

So they nod at each other in the halls and her attempts at smiles are genuine – Lydia can only hope that this sharp twist of regret will heal in time.

And then there's Stiles.

Stiles who, Lydia realizes, she hasn't actually had a proper conversation with since the night of the eclipse, who avoids her gaze in class, who looks (if possible) even more harried and worn than he had that day in the boy's locker room.

She doesn't understand it – she doesn't know how to ask, whether she should, if Scott's even aware of how exhausted his best friend looks these days–

and then the phone rings.

at 12:14 AM.

on a Tuesday.

The caller id reads not Stiles, nor Allison or even Isaac (the great).

It reads: Stilinski.

Lydia jabs at the accept call button so fiercely she almost drops her phone.

"Sheriff? Sheriff, is Stiles alright?"

"Er, well..." Lydia has never heard the Sheriff sound anything less than composed and collected; something cold wraps around her heart and squeezes. "He's–he's in a bit of a rough way, I'm not sure how to help him." A sigh. "Scott told me you'd actually be best to call?"

A part of her brain had always wondered what Deaton's cryptic reasonings for pairing them all off that night had really meant.

someone to pull you back.

"I'm on my way," she says into the phone, nearly tripping in her haste to find an actual pair of pants. Lydia's hands land on pilfered-from-Jackson sweats she only ever wears to fly and she starts pulling them on before she can think too much on the state of undress she'd been in while talking to the well-respected Sheriff of Beacon Hills.

"Now Lydia," the Sheriff says sternly, "I don't want to be hearing any reports of you speeding down towards my house, are we clear?"

"Yes sir."

"Then I'll see you soon."

Lydia drives exactly seven notches above the posted speed limit – though she spends about two extra minutes in the Stilinski driveway trying to talk herself into going up to the door.

Get it together, Lydia. Stiles needs you.

Stiles needs you.

She knocks. After only a moment or two the Sheriff opens the door, worried lines ageing the planes of his face. The cold hand around Lydia's heart squeezes harder.

"Come in," he says. "He's in his room."

That pep talk takes a little longer.

—

"Stiles?"

Lydia opens his door gingerly, trying not to think too much on the last time she'd been here in the middle of the night. He doesn't reply, and as Lydia steps fully into the room, she takes in the sight of his back, sitting on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands.

"Stiles, it's me."

He moves so quickly she almost jumps. Stiles whirls around, surprise and panic making the sunkenness of his eyes even more frightening. Even from here Lydia can tell he's trembling. "Lydia! What–"

"Your dad called me," she says, resisting the urge to step forward again, lest she spook him like one would a wild horse. "He said–he said you needed help."

Stiles' jaw goes slack before he scrubs at the back of his head with both hands. "Well he was wrong." It comes out sharp and cold and Lydia flinches. "I'm fine."

"No you're not." She makes up her mind and moves closer, slowly. "You're not fine, Stiles."

There is something profoundly lost in his eyes; her heart aches. Lydia stops within arm's length of Stiles even though she wants to be closer – she's not sure when closeness with Stiles became so immediately comforting, but this isn't about her tonight. "You know I'll always be here for you."

He shudders (she watches the motion in every line of his body) and when he looks at her again, Stiles' eyes are wet.

"I can't sleep," he says, soft and broken like a child, and the feeling of her heart shattering and debris sinking into her ribs is momentarily all-consuming.

"How come?"

Stiles opens his mouth to reply, but nothing comes out. He swallows, the brightness in his eyes threatening to spill over like stars falling down to grace the earth.

"You."

"Me?" It takes everything she has not to flinch again. "What do you mean?"

His Adam's Apple bobs again in his throat. "I keep...I keep having these–these nightmares. You're always in trouble and I can't–I can't help you, I was too late with Jennifer in the classroom or Peter or I crash the jeep, it's always my fault and I can't–"

Stiles' chest heaves as he takes a shaking breath.

"You can't sleep," Lydia finishes for him softly and Stiles just nods, looking haunted. "Why didn't you tell me? I'm–"

"My tether?" It's like flipping a switch: Stiles' lips twist, an angry slash against his pale face as he turns away from her. "You're my emotional tether, my strong connection, so I have to run to you every time I have a bad dream? Every time I feel like I'm suffocating or that something's coming that's going to wipe out anyone and everyone I care about?"

When Stiles runs his hands through his hair again, the tremor runs all the way down his arms.

Fine. Lydia sets her jaw and closes the distance between them, jabbing at his chest with a finger.

"Deaton may think I'm your emotional North Star or whatever the hell, but it wouldn't even matter if I wasn't. I'm your friend, Stiles. I'm pack. You're the one who told me how much that means, and it means something now, okay? Don't just shut me out because–"

Saying it out loud is harder than she thought it would be. "Because you think bad dreams are going to leak into your waking life."

It's his turn to flinch. Lydia returns to slow motions, reaching for his hand and dragging it up with hers to where her heart beats steady (if a little more forcefully) inside her chest. Some of the tightness around Stiles' eyes fades as they stand there, looking at each other and each holding a hand over her heart.

"I'm right here," Lydia says, trying to press conviction into his palm. "I'm right here, okay? I'm not going anywhere. And we've talked about this Stiles, remember? I know–I know you'd never hurt me." The memory of that long-ago Thursday flares warm in her chest. She tilts her head, half-considering. "Unless...you're not another kanima, are you?"

He makes a sound that seems a cross between a wheeze and a laugh. "No."

"Then we're fine, alright? I promise."

Stiles' hand seems to be reaching of its own accord; Lydia is too afraid to look away from his gaze when his fingers brush back a loose strand of hair and linger somewhere around her jawline.

"Lydia?"

"Hmm?"

There is a return of that lost little boy, whose voice cracks a little just like it had on the locker room floor. "I'm really tired."

She has to smother a fond smile. "I know. Why don't you get some sleep, okay?"

It's almost a relief to be able to turn away from the gaze that causes a kick drum rhythm in her chest, but before Lydia can get so much as a foot closer to the door, Stiles' hand on her wrist binds her there, frozen.

"Can you–" He pauses as though he has to coach the words out. "Can you stay?"

There is a split-second of Sheriff Stilinski is going to kill me before it just tumbles from her mouth: "Okay."

—

They've slept together before, of course.

Lydia recalls their first few pack piles with a swell of fondness; she still draws sometimes on the memory of the warmth and strength of Stiles' arms around her in Scott's room, his nose cool on the back of her neck. He's like sunlight.

But this time the air feels different, like it's charged somehow with the undercurrent of all the things they've never said. It's fortunate at least that Lydia is already dressed for sleep (she isn't sure anyone's (especially the Sheriff's) heart could handle the thought of Lydia sleeping in one of Stiles' t shirts – though it makes hers stumble all the same).

It only takes a very small push to get him onto the bed. Covers are a lost cause in the way all of his edges sink into the mattress; Lydia just crawls over to lie beside him, her heart in her throat. By some silent mutual agreement they lay on their sides, staring at each other.

From this close Stiles looks as though someone punched him underneath each eye. He looks awful. Lydia finds herself suddenly wishing she could carry any tune at all; the vague and faded memories of her father singing her to sleep still carry her down, sometimes.

Their knees brush. Lydia is too slow in deciding whether she should move closer or further away, because after a beat Stiles just hooks two fingers into the sleeve of her too-big t shirt and drags himself towards her until his forehead touches the bare skin of her arm. She wonders idily if he can hear her heart thumping there; to her it feels everywhere all at once.

It's instinct that trails her fingers through his hair, against the curve of his face. Stiles leans into her touch and Lydia almost freezes.

"Lydia?"

She will never understand how the syllables of her name sound so much more in his mouth.

"Yeah?"

His fingers curl a little tighter.

"I'm scared."

She can feel the pull of memory tugging on everything around them (Scott's bed for Stiles', stars for stucco, home for home–again, still, the drum of Stiles' heart for a careful, cautious silence that Lydia's afraid to break).

"Me too," she whispers, before she can take the thought back. There is that awful sensation of falling, suddenly–Lydia's eyes latch onto a smatter of dark marks in the shadow of Stiles' throat like they're anchors on a raging sea. How can that be? she wonders, how can he be her undoing and her salvation all at once?

"What is the Lydia Martin still afraid of?"

He sounds so little like his usual self (so soft and hollow and edged with the faint sting of derision) that Lydia feels honesty cresting up to wash her away.

"You." She closes her eyes. "This."

"Lydia..." There is a strain in his voice like he's fighting to stay awake–relief taste bitter on her tongue. Lydia opens her eyes and sees once again that confused, vulnerable boy from that slanted square of sunlight, and he is nearly her undoing. She shifts up on the bed (avoidance seems like the best strategy) and Stiles' body curls forward, closer, as though it's instinctive, beyond all reason or control.

His breath ghosts over the exposed skin of her collarbone and Lydia wants to cry.

"Later Stiles, okay?"

Stiles' fingers find a new latch in the furthest waist-edge of her t shirt; every inhale brings his dangling pinky too close to the strip of skin between hem and waistband, but Lydia finds herself unable–unwilling?–to move. Bad metaphors spring to mind: puzzle pieces and perfect harmonies and the beginnings and endings of all quiet and beautifulu things–the unsaid is actually deafening but deep down, Lydia Martin is too afraid of what her mind insists her heart wants.

"But.." Underneath the gaunt, hollowing exhaustion, there is familiar reproach. It's heartening, despite the new turn her fear has taken in her stomach.

"Sleep, Stiles." (does desperation still make her voice crack?) Lydia lifts a trembling hand and loses fingers in the soft hair at the nape of his neck. His next exhale shudders out of him and her heart twists. "Just sleep. Everything else can wait."

It seems even Stiles' stubornness has his limits; she smooths her thumb over his skin (back and forth, back and forth) until the tense line of his shoulders falls at last and Lydia feels his breath go deep and even.

She should be relieved, but all Lydia feels is a sharp anger at her own, awful cowardice.

"He finally asleep?"

By some miracle (or perhaps his male-ness) Stiles does not wake when Lydia's entire being leaps half-upright and her eyes land on his father, standing anxious in the doorway.

—

She is going to die.

"Sheriff, I–"

Sheriff Stilinski holds up a hand to still her (only half-formed and frantic) explanation. "It's okay, Lydia. I'd be surprised if this isn't how I found you guys."

Lydia looks down at the top of Stiles' head, the slope of his cheekbone, the flutter of his ridiculously long eyelashes. Is it that obvious to everyone else, that this is where she's supposed to be?

with Stiles?

When Lydia looks up at the Sheriff again, there is something so knowing (so loving) in the man's eyes that Lydia is horrified to find her eyes burning with tears.

"It's alright sweetheart," he says, opening Stiles' closet and pulling a blanket down from a shelf. He crosses the room and drapes it over both teens, and after running a hand over his son's head, the Sheriff leans over and touches Lydia's face very softly with calloused fingers.

"We Stilinski men are an oblivious bunch. He thinks he loves you," —her heart free falls and Lydia is lost— "but it's up to you to show him how that really goes. If you want, that is."

His gaze is searching then, and Lydia feels herself frantically throwing walls around the vapid and awful girl she used to be. She wasn't deserving of Stiles' attention then for what it is now (fierce devotion and uneering faith and maybe-love) and part of Lydia too-large is afraid this second attempt at herself isn't either.

And as though he can read her mind, the Sheriff says, "He just has to really see you. Then he'll know, trust me. If you're anything like his mother, which I think you are," (she'll never feel so profoundly unworthy again) "the boy's got a ways to go before he realizes just how lucky he's got it."

Lydia isn't aware she's crying until Stiles' father brushes her tears away. "Goodnight, Lydia."

"Goodnight Sheriff," she manages when he's almost at the door, one hand reaching for the light switch. Stiles' father looks back at her, and his eyes are fond.

"I may have to get a picture to mortify him with. I'm a dad."

"As long as I'm not drooling." Boundaries.

"Deal."

He smiles and flicks the light. Lydia listens to his footsteps fade down the hall before closing her eyes and letting Stiles' warmth carry her to sleep.

Somehow finding home there with him isn't quite as scary anymore.

More Notes: I struggled a ton with the ending, not to mention this fic changed direction about seven times. Have some of my Stilinski!family feels. I cannot hold them all.

help my otp. why is january so far away?

Annie