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Christmas movies at Scott’s have somehow become a tradition over the past few years.
Stiles doesn’t remember how exactly it started, but it’s definitely become a thing, because it’s all his friends have been talking about for days. Not that he minds in the slightest— he would so rather sit on Scott’s couch and watch Christmas movies while drinking cocoa and eating pizza with his friends than have to go to Danny’s raging holiday party and be forced to interact with all the people in his grade.
That’s how he finds himself at Scott’s front door the Friday night before Christmas, arms full of various presents for his friends and enough snack food to (hopefully) feed most of the pack. All his friends’ cars are already parked outside, so he shoves the door open with his shoulder without even knocking, letting himself into Scott’s house. He can hear his friends’ voices echoing down the hallway, so he follows the sound down the hall, discovering the rest of the pack sprawled across Scott’s living room.
“Stiles!” Scott says, bounding up from his seat on the couch next to Kira, taking the food out of Stiles’s arms before it all topples to the ground.
“Thanks, Scotty,” Stiles says, shifting his arms now that there’s only presents in them. “Where do gifts go?”
“By the tree,” Lydia says, and Stiles whips around at the sound of her voice, meeting her eyes. She’s got her feet tucked under her on the end of the loveseat, Malia next to her with a bowl of popcorn nestled between them. She’s wearing leggings and a festive Christmas sweater, just like the rest of them (Scott is ridiculously insistent about the wardrobe requirements) and she’s looking at him with that soft look that has just recently returned to her green eyes. Their friendship feels like it’s almost back to where it was before the whole… nogitsune thing, and to Stiles it almost feels like he can breathe again, like all this tension between them is finally beginning to dissipate.
but he’s cut off by Kira.
“Careful, Stiles, they look like they’re gonna fall,” she warns him, gesturing to the presents in his arms, so Stiles hurries over to the tree, depositing his armful of gifts next to the things his friends had brought.
“Okay, everyone’s here now,” Scott says, reentering the room with a bowl full of chips, just as the doorbell rings. “And that’s the pizza. I’ll get Netflix up and running.”
“Liam, go get the pizza,” Stiles says, grabbing the empty armchair in between the two couches. The younger werewolf pouts, pulling a face as he looks between Scott and Stiles.
“Why me?” he demands, arms crossed.
“Because you’re the beta,” Stiles says, frowning, because that should be obvious. “Now go get it before all the food gets cold.”
Liam leaves the room with only minor grumbling, and Scott queues up Elf on the television, starting the movie as everyone grabs slices of pizza from the boxes Liam returns with. They all settle into the familiar routine of pack movie nights, laughing through the film, eating too much junk food, and enjoying each other’s company. It’s nice to feel like they’re normal kids sometimes, Stiles thinks, in the absence of supernatural disasters. The moments when they just get to act like teenagers are few and far between. Maybe that’s why they always feel more special.
Time seems to pass like they’re in a bubble— they finish the pizza and open presents before starting up another movie. Kira fetches a huge platter of cookies from the kitchen at one point, and there’s champagne too (which feels like a waste to Stiles, seeing as approximately 7% of the people here can actually get drunk, but whatever) and by midnight they’re onto their third movie, most of the pack beginning to doze off on the couches. Stiles vaguely registers what’s happening on screen— he doesn’t even really know what movie they’re watching right now, but there’s some girl out in a snowy courtyard with a bow and arrow in hand, taking aim at a target that she misses spectacularly. Stiles makes a face as he reaches for another Christmas cookie— why does there always have to be archery in movies about royals? he thinks, but then his eyes flit over to where Malia is dead asleep on the loveseat, the seat next to her vacant.
Everyone else is asleep or zoned out, so they haven’t noticed, but at some point Lydia slipped away.
Stiles doesn’t even really think before he stands up; he’s out of the living room before anyone can ask what’s going on, Christmas movie long forgotten. He wanders down the hallway of Scott’s house, looking for her, before he finally spots her perched alone at the kitchen island, hands clasped tight around a mug of cocoa.
“Hey,” Stiles says quietly, approaching her. She looks up at him, a barely- there smile playing at her lips when she sees him, and Stiles sighs in relief, stepping closer to her. A few months ago if he found her like this he probably would have walked away— there had been so much distance between them, suddenly, and Stiles was too scared of intruding while Lydia processed everything that had happened in the past year. He wanted to give her the room she needed, and he didn’t want to drag her down with his own emotional baggage— he still hasn’t completely recovered from the nogitsune— but the thing that scared him most was the thought of losing her. Now that they’re getting back to where they were before, it feels like Stiles can finally breathe again.
“Hi,” Lydia returns, and she doesn’t flinch or back away when he takes the seat next to her.
“You okay?” Stiles asks gently, looking over to meet her eyes. She’s still got her sight trained on the mug of cocoa in her hands, watching the steam curl off the liquid in slow, dreamlike swirls.
“Yeah,” she says, hesitating. Stiles can tell she’s lying, but he doesn’t want to push her, so he just sits, waiting for her to tell him what’s really bothering her if she wants to.
“Actually, no,” she says, shaking her head a little. “I… that movie… I couldn’t watch it anymore.”
Stiles huffs in laughter, because that was really not what he was expecting, but he gets it. “Yeah, it was pretty cringey,” he says, glancing down at his hands. “I mean, who goes sneaking around trying to secretly record people with their phone volume on? I thought that girl was supposed to be a reporter; she should be smarter than that.”
“No, that’s not what I meant,” Lydia says, voice still quiet. She looks up to meet his eyes, though, and there’s a slight smile playing at her lips. “Although the plot of that movie was completely ridiculous.”
“Right?” Stiles says, gesturing wildly with his hands. “Like, she seriously almost got eaten by wolves. That was a plot point. What is this, Beauty and the Beast?” He shakes his head, lowering his hands back to the counter. “Sorry, tangent. What was bothering you?”
Lydia shakes her head, eyes cast downwards. “It’s so dumb,” she mutters, refusing to look up at him. Stiles scoffs, reaching over and prying one of her hands away from the mug of cocoa, lacing his fingers with hers. He doesn’t even really think about it; she just looks so sad, and he wants to make that emptiness disappear from her eyes.
“Lydia, it is definitely not dumb,” he tells her. “What was it?”
“It was that stupid…” she shakes her head, looking down. “That stupid scene with the bow and arrow. It just… made me think of…” She trails off, but Stiles knows exactly what she was going to say next.
“Allison,” he finishes, and his heart clenches at the sound of her name. It’s been over a year, but no one’s ever truly healed from losing her.
“Yeah,” she says, turning towards him, and Stiles squeezes her hand, running his thumb back and forth over the back of her hand in a way that he hopes feels comforting.
“There’s nothing wrong with seeing dumb stuff like that and missing her,” Stiles says, voice still quiet. “It doesn’t matter how long it’s been. She was your best friend, and she was so important to all of us. We’re always gonna miss her.”
“That’s the thing that scares me,” Lydia says, biting her lip, looking up to meet his eyes again. He can see the glint of tears in her green eyes, and he reaches up instinctually to brush away the tear threatening to roll down her cheek with his thumb. “I didn’t even… I hadn’t even thought of Allison all day until I saw that scene. And I know this isn’t our first Christmas without her, but I still can’t help feeling… so guilty that I forgot her like that. The whole pack is here, and it felt whole to me. Not like something is missing. But there is something missing, because she… she’s not here.”
“Hey,” Stiles says, moving his hand to run it up and down her arm. “Don’t feel guilty, okay? Just because you’re not thinking about her every second of every day, that doesn’t mean you’re forgetting her or something. She’s always gonna be a part of us, even if we don’t think of her constantly.”
“Are you sure?” Lydia asks, her voice so shaky. “Because I feel like a terrible person.”
“Lydia,” Stiles says, squeezing her hand again. “Allison wouldn’t want you to dwell on her every single second of your life. She’d want to be remembered, but not, like, to the point where you think about her constantly. I know how it feels,” he says, sighing. “When my mom died, she was all I could think about at first. But eventually you get to that point, where other things start to creep back into your brain. And I felt so guilty, like I was forgetting her or something. But I think… that would be the way she would want it. For us to remember her something, when we see things that bring back good memories of her. That remind us of things we did together. And Allison would want the same for you.” He pauses, smiling softly at Lydia. “You’re never gonna forget her. She was your best friend, and that’ll never change. But it’s okay to let other things in too.”
“Yeah,” she says, nodding slowly, but there’s a hesitant smile on her face, and a little light has returned to her eyes. “You’re right. Thanks, Stiles.”
“Hey, I have something for you, actually,” he says, reaching into his pocket, pulling out the little wrapped box he’s been carrying around all night. The bow’s a little squished, but he did a semi-decent job wrapping it. And the wrapping paper he picked out is covered in festive Darth Vaders, tangled in lights.
“You already gave me a present,” she says, narrowing her eyes at him. He shrugs, because he did give her a gift card to that little book shop downtown she loves, but that was sort of a decoy for this one.
“Yeah, I didn’t want to give you this in front of everyone else,” he says. She just looks at him, but she unwraps it anyways, pulling the bow off and discarding the paper to reveal a little jewelry box. She flicks it open with her thumb, and her puzzled expression shifts into amazement as she registers what’s in the box.
“Stiles,” she breathes, pulling the delicate arrow necklace out of the box, running the fine silver chain between her fingers. “This is… oh my god. Thank you.”
“You’d been saying you wanted a necklace,” he explains. “And I thought you might like something that would remind you of Allison.” She just nods in wonder, still holding the necklace carefully in her hands.
Stiles knows on the surface it seems like he’s gotten over the whole nogitsune thing— he doesn’t talk about it very much anymore, his lingering guilt and the trauma that whole period had had on him— but there’s a small part of him that still feels responsible for killing Allison. He knows, really, it’s not his fault, and he’s heard those words from countless people. But there’s still some small piece of his brain that blames himself for Allison. For taking Lydia’s best friend from her. He knows he can never give Lydia Allison back, but maybe this little token will help her remember her more.
“This is incredible, Stiles,” Lydia says again, looking over to him, and this time, when his eyes meet hers, there isn’t any trace of sadness in them. “Thank you.”
He just shrugs, not exactly sure what to do with her praise. “I’m glad you like it.”
“I love it,” she whispers, and then she leans in, looping her arms around him, burying her head in his shoulder.
Stiles’s heart speeds up at the scent of her shampoo, the feeling of her soft hair tickling his chin, the warmth of her in his arms. He could stay like this forever, he thinks.
“Merry Christmas, Lydia,” he tells her, and she hums in response, tightening her arms around him.
The feeling of her heart beating against his skin, and the warmth of her words when she whispers the same sentiment back to him— that’s the best Christmas present he could ever ask for.