"How's Violeta going?"

That was the one question everyone in Beacon Hills was asking one person.

Stiles Stilinski honestly did not understand how it all fell down to him. That the night of her death, two of the people closest to Violeta asked him to be take care of her. That was ignoring his run in with D-Bo who expressed the same sentiment and on behalf of all the crew. Everyone had charged Stiles with the unimaginably difficult task of helping Violeta through yet another death in her life.

But, it wasn't unimaginably difficult.

Everyone had told Stiles that she would push everyone away, which she did. They all said that she would let herself go, which she did. It wasn't that drank or smoked or did any drugs, it was the lack of sleep and general lack of self-care. Stiles could only work through calling and messaging Violeta with the reminders to eat, to go to sleep, to stay on the phone with her for hours until Tomei picked up Violeta's phone one time and told him to just come to their place and gave him the address.

So now Stiles was always at her place.

It was a nice little house. A little run-down but it was a pleasant home that Stiles could tell Tomei had tried her best with. Peculiar pieces of Ikea furniture mixed with Persian rugs that covered every inch of the floor and paintings Tomei did in her spare time were notable features. Well, that and the depressed teenager who stood there when he first walked in. With a sigh, he saw her red-rimmed eyes and closed the distance between them and hugged her tight.

And she let him.

Which is why it was not unimaginably difficult. Violeta did everything everyone would say. She grieved and she did it in the most Violeta way of lashing out and cussing in several languages— if she was speaking. She didn't go to school and she didn't accept people who wanted to come over and offer their condolences. The latter was often a point of argument between her and Tomei, saying that she had to now since it was her duty.

To which Violeta would prompt say "Fuck duty and fuck off," in Spanish, and get up from the dinner table with a slam. Tomei would sigh and look at Stiles who offered an awkward smile and scrambled out of his seat after her.

Yes, Stiles Stilinski was having dinner at Violeta Rodriguez' house. He was also driving there after school to check up on her. Sometimes, he even drove there from school.

Yes, Stiles Stilinski was sleeping at Violeta Rodriguez' house. His father of course knew what had happened and was thus allowing it due to circumstance. He knew Stiles truly cared for her with how much time his son was spending with her. The nights when Stiles came home and Noah asked the question everyone asked, Stiles would sleepily nod and say what progress he had made.

"I got her to sleep three hours."

"I got her to eat an entire bowl of cereal."

"I got her to not punch the post man in the face after her told her sorry for the fifteenth time."

Then Noah would hear what Stiles was doing with Violeta. How he let her teach him to bake one night when he woke up and saw elbow deep in dough, saying she wanted to make bread from scratch. Then there was that morning he found her Googling how to self-teach the Korean script. Stiles swore she was a genius by how it was lunchtime and she was writing his English essay in hangul.

"How was Violeta doing?"

People in school asked him. Scott and Allison would ask and Stiles knew they were getting desperate and needed her help with the kanima but after seeing how adamant Stiles was to leave her out of it, Scott said 'okay' and made sure no one brought up asking her about it again.

Though, it was more than just Scott and Allison. D-Bo and the guy who sat on his left in English get up in a scurry and change seats. He sat there and asked how she was doing, asking if there was anything he could do for her or him. Stiles had blinked at that and shook his head, saying it was okay.

Then it got weird. People Stiles didn't even know— people he wasn't sure even could have any way of knowing he was friends with Violeta were asking him. He stopped by to fill up petrol? They offered him their condolences. He picked up some eggs Tomei asked for on his way to their place? The cashier asked if there was anything she could do.

Without realising him realising it, he, Stiles Stilinski, had become the corner stone in Violeta Rodriguez' life.

-

"It's Lola's birthday on Saturday." Tomei told Stiles as walked into the house. She was washing dishes as he put the eggs in the fridge. He then picked up some grapes from a bowl and threw them all into his mouth, resembling a chipmunk as Tomei waited for an answer. He began furiously chewing and trying to speak at the same time but it just made everything worse and he began coughing. Tomei continued to stand there, staring at the weird boy as he leaned against the counter and wondered if green grapes was seriously going to be his cause of death.

"Are you okay?" He had just managed to get everything down when Violeta appeared in the doorway, freshly showered from the likes of her wet-hair. Her eyes shone with concern and Stiles waved a dismissive hand.

"He just got excited by grapes." Tomei said as she turned off the tap and began drying her hands.

"So how old is Lola turning?"

"Four." Tomei answered.

"Cool," Stiles said, then immediately asked, "do you need me to go get a present? I saw these awesome roller-skates that glow-up and I thought she might like them like I know ice-skating isn't rollerblading but they light up and play music! And-"

"Violeta doesn't want to go." Tomei said with a frown, turning around to lean against the kitchen bench and cross her arms.

"What? Why?" Stiles asked. Violeta gave him a dead-panningly look, scoffing and turning around. Stiles winced, realising that was probably the stupidest thing he could say. He looked at Tomei who had the 'well shit,' look on her face.

"She said she won't but I know she will if you do."

"Me?" Stiles thought. "Come to Lola's party?"

"Well... yeah." Tomei said. "I know it's a lot and you've been doing a lot like I feel bad for your dad and if you don't want to—"

"No, no, no." Stiles shook his head quickly. "I'm, uh, happy to go! I'm just... surprised, is all."

"Really?" Tomei said with a laugh, "You're surprised that Vi needs you for for support in something like this." She turned around and he thought about her words. It was true. To think that was a joke. To think that Violeta wouldn't want him there was funny. It was funny to think that because everyone told Stiles that she would push everyone and everything away.

But not him.

When Tomei couldn't get her to come out of her room for breakfast, Stiles sighed and asked her if she could show him the right way to make French toast. And Violeta would come out of her room. If Tomei couldn't get Violeta to respond to anything she'd say, Stiles would start repeating whatever Tomei was saying in Spanish. He soon realised that incorrect sentence structure and bad grammar would always break Violeta. At approximately 7:15 every Tuesday, the post-man would walk down their street and Stiles would have to distract Violeta until Tomei could get the mail before Violeta could make do on any of her threats she'd made against the innocent mail-deliverer.

Endless movies were watched. Music was always playing in the house and Stiles had gone from having no idea what music Violeta liked to being able to recite her playlists. Yes, there was a lot of old school 'gangsta' rap to the point that he, Stiles, could now sing along with most Biggie Smalls songs. However, there was a mix of RnB as he was introduced to the likes of Frank Ocean and various songs that were not in English. There was Spanish, of course, but also Italian, Greek, Portuguese, Turkish and French rap. He learnt her favourites; the Egyptian Oum Kalsoum, the Ethiopian Aster Aweke and Stiles discovered that Violeta's favourite song in the world was a six minute track called 'Safi' by a Malian artist called Idrissa Saumaoro.

Amongst this were the brief blips where she played music for him. The brief blips of Alternative-Rock in her playlists got longer as she mixed in more Arctic Monkeys and other artists he had told her he enjoyed. The Kooks. The Smiths. Michael Jackson. Queen. Elton John. David Bowie. The Beatles.

If Violeta appeared to feel extra sad, Stiles began telling her a random story of a random moment him and Scott got into their usual shenanigans growing up. Or maybe he was telling her about younger Stiles' adventures of trying to find out whatever his father was doing on some case and eventually getting caught.

One night, after a particular story which had him actually helping his dad catch the guy, he admitted how this was probably to do with the fact that he'd always wanted to be a detective. He loved mystery novels growing up and while he loved Sherlock Holmes, his father was his number one role model. He would tell her things like how he once threw up from eating too many mandarins and that up until he was eleven years old he had to sleep with a light on because he was scared of the dark.

It was once when he felt her head hit his shoulder, falling asleep that he saw where he was in that moment. He was in Violeta's bedroom, Violeta laying in his arms as he told her of his hopes and dreams and fears. And she listened to everything he said, hanging onto every word that imparted from his lips until she sleep overtook her.

This was where he'd life had come to; hugging Violeta Rodriguez in her bed, at night, comforting her, and being the only person who could do so.

-

"What? What?" He blinked, rubbing is bleary eyes to adjust to Tomei's excited frame in the darkness. He looked around and didn't see Violeta anywhere. He was all alone in her bed that Tomei was tugging him out of.

"Shh, shh. Listen. Look." Tomei pushed him out the door. She pointed to his right to where Violeta was on the couch. He saw a small yellow ukulele in her hand as she strummed the instrument. Stiles moved to hide behind a wall, Tomei quietly moving to the other side of the wall of the archway they were spying into the living room from. Stiles watched as she strummed the ukulele and the random notes fell into a familiar beat.

"Hold me close... and hold me fast..." Violeta began quietly singing,"... the magic spell you cast, this is La Vie En Rose..."

Stiles' mouth dropped open, never ever imagining Violeta to be someone who sang.

"When you kiss me heaven sighs... and though I close my eyes, I see La Vie En Rose."

It was clear that she was rusty. That she hadn't sung nor played in quite some time.

But it was still beautiful.

God, it was so beautiful. He couldn't believe he was actually watching what he was watching. To see her like this, almost baring her soul, he once again felt like he was intruding in an intimate moment, that he shouldn't be there, behind a wall.

"When you press me to your heart, I'm in a world apart, a world where sunflowers bloom." Stiles frowned at the changed lyric and he could see Tomei now looking at him, awaiting his reaction. He glanced at her, a tinge of confusion evident on his face. She smiled a smile that he had become familiar with. It was a smile Tomei had whenever she'd found them making bread at three in the morning, or when Violeta started correcting his Spanish. It was the smile that simply said, 'That's Violeta.'

"And when you speak, angels sing from above..."

Tomei was still watching Stiles even when his attention turned back to Violeta. Which it should've. There was a reason she woke up in the dead of the night. There was a reason she opened the door, thinking some hot chocolate would make her sleep better. There was a reason why this house was designed in such a way that should go to Violeta's room and get Stiles without Violeta seeing either of them.

"...everyday words seem to turn into love songs..."

It was so Stiles Stilinski could finally see the girl hidden underneath the Nike, Adidas, chains, street-life, to look beyond the powers and abilities, to see the incredibly beautiful, sweet girl that would've been had her parents not died and set the chain of events that lead to so many layers of a hardened exterior. As Abuela, God bless her soul, would always tell her, without fail, in every conversation Tomei and her ever had... there was, is and will be a reason for everything that happens.

"so, give your heart and soul to me and life will... always be... la vie en rose..."

Stiles Stilinski fell asleep here tonight to see Violeta play the ukulele and sing aloud for the first time since she was eleven years old and her parents were murdered.

As Tomei watched Stiles watch Violeta finish strumming the chords of the song, she saw how he looked at her. She saw the emotions reflected in his eyes. Tomei smiled, looking at the teenage boy and finally understood why he was the one, the only one, who could be destined for Violeta.