Title: beauties can die
Summary: Lydia likes the inside of Stiles' head, but if anything, she likes spending a moment alone with him more. StilesLydia
Author's Note: Tried for like an hour to find a better title, but I adore the song by M83, soooooo... I'd suggest you listen to that or my other fav (at the moment) Let Men Burn Stars. This isn't my best work, and I've noticed I've been repeating a lot of the same themes throughout my StilesLydia pieces, but eh. I was obsessed with the exploration of Stiles' mind and I wish we got to see more! Ah, I shall just dream about it instead.
/
Stiles raises his head from the game and looks at her.
He's always looking at her, but this time, it's different. She's forgotten how much she missed him – forgotten how the real Stiles looks when he's looking at her and how it makes her want to reach out and envelop him. How when he looks at her like that, she wants to put her arms around him and say, "One day, you will find the person who deserves these looks. You will have a love story that will echo throughout history."
Stiles turns away and knocks the pieces off the board, freezing time in the same instant. He turns to her once more and quirks a finger – come here.
Lydia finds herself next to him without a single step. She does not understand Stiles' brain, yet she likes the directness of it. She likes the minimalist features of it. She likes the white walls and the white tiles. She likes the lack of clutter and the game pieces frozen in the air. Lydia likes the inside of Stiles' head, but if anything, she likes spending a moment alone with him more.
He does not look tired here. He looks as if he is still trying to figure out the puzzle. Lydia wonders if Stiles plays chess in his mind when he seems to be in his own world, trying to find the correct moves that will make the king surrender. Lydia wonders if he applies this to obtaining her, but she knows that he thinks about it much more than he lets on. She loves, selfishly, the way he so blatantly wants her. She loves the lack of confusion in his feelings. She loves the way he stutters when she looks beautiful and how his gaze is still fixed on her when she's human – no makeup, eating pizza on the couch.
But Lydia loves, secretly, the way Stiles looks right now. Loves how little he looks as he sits cross legged within the vastness of his mind, the slow movement of his chest, his wrinkled forehead. She is close enough to him that she can observe, but far away that her fingers cannot touch him.
"I forgot you," Stiles says, looking at his lap.
Lydia's breath hitches. He presses his fingers to the stump and sighs. Lydia cannot speak at the sight of him, and after a moment of trying, she realizes she cannot speak in general.
"It's my turn," Stiles whispers. But he does not follow his statement with any words for a long time, just allows the six words to repeat in Lydia's mind. They seem to taunt her. They spin around her head and she swears, then, that she will go mad.
But then, Stiles speaks.
"I forgot you and I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry that I keep wanting you and that you kissed me and that I liked it and that it made the panic stop for that brief moment. I'm sorry I've loved you and I'm sorry I still will and that I'm giving up and that it's my turn to speak because I don't want to speak anymore but I still am and I'm sorry you're looking at me like that because I still don't like to see you sad."
Lydia blinks rapidly. Her mouth is dry. She wants to cry, but won't allow it, because she doesn't know why she'd cry. She wants to cry, but won't allow it, because she knows why she'd cry.
Stiles starts to turn back to the Nosgitsune and she, finally breaking the silence he has created in his mind, says, "You're not sorry enough!"
He looks at her and underneath his calm demeanor, she sees the cracks of fatigue and sorrow and regret, and he simply states, "Everyone I love loves someone else."
She smiles and tries to say something – something with three words I love you or I want you or you're so stupid or maybe, kiss me dummy – but he has silenced her once more.
"I don't want you to lie, here," he whispers.
She mouths everything she thinks, three worded sentences and love poems and things to make him see, but he turns away from her.
Time unfreezes and the game pieces crash to the floor. The Nosgitsune screams; and before she gets yanked out of Stiles' brain, Lydia wants to scream too.