Multi-Fandom One-Shots Part 2

have you ever thought just maybe (you belong with me) - Stydia (Teen Wolf)

Really, Stiles can't help thinking, it's calculus's own fault for being so damn boring.

Maybe if his homework wasn't so horrendously not-attention-holding, he wouldn't have been distracted by the goings-on in the house next door. Granted, he isn't exactly sorry that he got distracted so easily, because he can see into the bedroom across the teeny strip of lawn that separates his house from his neighbors, and he can clearly see the girl in that room on the phone, looking ready to tear her hair out.

His heart pangs, because this is becoming a sight more common than not as of late. He pushes his abandoned calculus to the side, rolling over his bed to reach his bedside table, yanking open the drawer and pulling out his trusty spiral bound, 8-by-11-inch notepad.

By the time he tracks down the sharpie in the drawer and sits back up, Lydia is hanging up the phone, tossing it angrily onto her bed. He pulls the sharpie cap off with his teeth, flipping to a clean page in the notepad, ready to write "is your boyfriend being a total and complete asshat again?" on the paper. (Well, probably something a little more eloquent than that. He might completely hate Lydia's boyfriend, who is definitely an asshat, but he's still her best friend, so he has to be somewhat supportive, he figures.)

But then he sees Lydia run her thumb under her eyes, wiping away tears, and he freezes.

Regardless of how many times he's seen his best friend fight with her boyfriend over the past few months via late night phone calls, he's never seen her cry after their conversations. It makes him want to throw the notepad back down on his bed, storm out of his house, hunt down Jackson and make him pay for whatever he said to upset Lydia, regardless of the fact that Jackson is in noticeably better physical shape than Stiles could even dream of being. One of the (not) perks of being a constant benchwarmer in lacrosse as opposed to the captain of the team.

Instead, he settles for a much calmer "you okay?" scrawled across his notepad, and a gentle tap at his window to get her attention.

She startles at the noise, wide green eyes flying to her window, and her expression softens a little bit when she sees him and his notepad. Stiles offers what he hopes looks like a sympathetic smile, but is probably more of a grimace, because he still hates seeing Lydia cry.

Lydia smiles back, albeit a little less brightly than usual, but leans over her bed as well, grabbing a similar notepad.

"I'm alright," she writes, flashing it at him quickly through her window, before turning to a new page. "It was nothing. Just a misunderstanding."

Stiles knows that misunderstanding is code for Jackson being a complete jackass to her through no fault of her own, but Lydia, while literally a genius, seems to have a blindspot when it comes to her boyfriend's heinous behavior. He lets it slide, because he isn't going to be the person who argues with her over how she deserves better, even though she does. As much as it pains him to see her like this, she needs his support, not another emotional beatdown.

"Okay," Stiles writes back, holding his notepad up to the chilly window pane. With a few days left in November, it's finally starting to cool off for the wintertime in Beacon Hills. He flips to a new page, his eyes flicking up briefly to see her sitting cross-legged on her window bench, waiting for his next message.

If Stiles had a dollar for every time that someone (read: Scott) told them they should stop wasting paper and just text each other like normal human beings, he would probably be able to afford a Jeep that wasn't literal days from falling apart. But he and Lydia have been communicating this way for years and years- since the start of their friendship, practically- and now it's so ingrained in them that they couldn't change it if they wanted to. Back when Lydia had moved into the house next to Stiles's, right before they started third grade, they hadn't had cell phones. Their bedroom windows were maybe ten feet apart, their rooms directly across from each other on their respective first floors, and so one day Lydia has thrust a spiral-bound notepad into his hands and told him this was how they could keep talking after playtime had ended for the night and they were supposed to be in bed.