Beta-read once again by the amazibg Rachel (rongasm/writergirl8)
Title from Lose It by Oh Wonder, which is really just a song I love. And sorry in advance if there's any formatting problems.
There were no nightmares, for once. No whispers or humming either. For once, her head felt blessedly empty, and the silence rang in her ears like white cotton.
No, this time, on a Thursday night or a Friday morning—who counted, really?—Lydia was kept wide awake by her treacherous body. She could feel it completely, and every one of the billions of nerves in her tingled and buzzed. She was aware of the sounds of the night outside of her window, the way the thin silver thread in her drapes caught the light of the moon. Most of all she was aware of the rich scent of jasmine in her hair, the softness of the sheets around her, and of the uncomfortable heat in her lower stomach.
She closed her eyes and tried to sleep again. When she opened them, her left hand had found its way to her panties once more. She rolled her eyes and on her side, searching for a fresh spot on her pillow.
Tick, the clock on her night table said, tick. Tick, tick. Tick.
The sound felt like mocking to her. You're one second farther from sleep. Tick.
Her phone blinked awake.
No, Lydia thought, physically preventing herself to reach it. No blue wavelengths.
She rolled on the other side and tried to resist from answering the only person who could ever text her at one forty-seven on a random Thursday night, or Friday morning. It was probably a video or an article he'd watched or read and that had made him think about her.
Though if she was honest, she was pretty sure he didn't need any help in the last matter. At least, she knew she didn't. When she closed her eyes, she could picture him just right—slouching at his desk, or spread on his bed, maybe browsing on his computer. His eyes would be focused, and his fingers flying away on the keyboard, or fidgeting on the bedspread, because he'd taken too much Adderall again.
Or maybe he was thinking about her too, and then the laptop would be discarded, and his fingers otherwise occupied.
The throbbing increased between her legs, and she absentmindedly rubbed her thighs together as she tried to count sheep.
Her mind, for once, was tired; her brain was ready to sleep. Her body, however, wasn't.
She was still counting sheep, rubbing her hand slightly against the wet spot on her panties. One sheep. Two sheep. Thee sheep. Four weird looking sheep—
The sheep gradually morphed into more dangerous-looking figures of supernatural creatures, and her sleep-crazy brain forced her, for a brief moment, to picture a kanima jumping over a fence like Shaun the Sheep.
What had that boy done to her? She was a hundred percent certain that prior to knowing Stiles, this wouldn't have happened.
Maybe because you didn't get turned on by thinking about his hands when you didn't want to see him, she thought against her will.
Lydia Martin used to be comfortable with her body, and sex, and her needs. But now there was Peter and Jackson and the supernatural in her brain, clogging the precise mechanism of logic she'd spent years building. There was a grain of sand, or two or three or a hundred, that stopped the cogs and grated between the imaginary metal.
The thought made her want to scream.
Her hand left her core and she brought it to her stomach, under the thin nightgown she insisted on wearing to bed. The satin-like fabric brushed against her knuckles, sending cooling waves to the wrong part of body. For a moment, she tried to lose herself in the softness of the moment, the sheets, the fabric, of Stiles' eyes in the soft light of any waking moment.
Her fingers skidded along one of the ragged lines barring her left side. Her right hand flopped down on the bed, halfway to her phone.
The skin felt blotched here, hard and pink under the touch, deformed and obscene, and also achingly familiar. She knew that it was an index-and-a-half long, a hair-width thinner than her pinkie, and that it curved slightly downwards at the end, like the corner of Stiles' mouth when he smiled at her. The second scar, an inch closer to her hips, was shorter and thicker; straighter, too. Uglier.
Her finger left the rough skin and glided on the smoothness of her stomach, traveling up to her chest. She circled her own breasts, and she thought of the look on his face when he'd taken off her shirt for the first time, fingers slightly shaking around the little buttons of her blouse, later along the embroidery of her lace bra.
She brushed against her nipple and sighed, reaching out across the bed again.
He'd sent her a link to a National Geographic article on the advance of the research on Mars, and she would have opened it if her physical predicament hadn't been brought back to the front of her mind when her nightgown fell back on her breasts.
Are you still awake? she answered, even if his text message was only ten minutes old. There was no way Stiles would have fallen asleep in ten minutes—or, as was the case some nights, at all.
Stiles [1:58] No, it's my ghost texting back
Lydia [1:59] What a pity.
Stiles [2:01] Do you need me in person? cause I think I can make a deal with my buddy Satan here
Don't trade away your fingers, she typed before she could help herself. They could come in handy.
He was silent for forty-two seconds longer than usual, and Lydia knew she'd taken him by surprise.
Stiles [2:03] Nah just my soul, he finally answered.
And then, immediately after: Do you want me to come over?
She hesitated. Her mother was probably asleep, and Lydia knew she wouldn't hear someone sneak in—or wouldn't want to. Her thumb was hovering over the Y when a new text came in.
Stiles [2:04] Seriously just let me put on jeans. I can sneak out. Dad's passed out in his room.
She sighed and called him, instead.
"Lydia?" He answered at the first ring, slightly breathless, or so she imagined. "Uh, are you okay?"
"I was thinking about you," she said simply, and she could hear him inhale deeply.
"Sure you don't want me to come over?"
He sounded a bit desperate—nearly as much as herself. She thought about him sliding on her bed with her, the warmth of his hands and the soft smell of detergent on his hoodie. She also thought of his eyes, hooded with tiredness and his wired brain, refusing to sleep; of the time he drove back from her house in the middle of the night and asked her to stay on the phone with him so he didn't end up as one of his father's statistics. She shook her head.
"I can't see you shaking your head," he said at the same time.
There was a lull in the conversation during which Lydia tried to fight the disastrous mix of her mind's drowsiness and her burning senses. They breathed together in the phone. When Stiles spoke again, it was in a low and slightly raspy voice.
"Lydia? What... what do you want me to do exactly?"
Her hands flew back down and her legs fell open.
"Just... talk to me."
He ignored the question mark creeping at the end against her will, and laughed a bit breathily before he did as she asked. If there was one thing Stiles did well, it was talking. Talking about anything, really; the way he loved how her skirt fluttered against her thighs when she walked, and how smooth her hair had been, that afternoon, when he'd buried his hand into it, and did she know strawberry blonde was called venetian blonde in French?, and come on, Lydia, for me.
She let the sounds of his voice and his laugh, and the little breathless noises he made when her own stifled moans escaped the pillow she buried her head in, drown her. His voice soothed her and made up for the thinness of her own fingers. She closed her eyes when she came, the world black against the vivid colors Stiles painted in her ear.
"All good?" Stiles said after a minute, as her body sagged in the hot sheets and her breath loosened.
"Yes," she said rolling on her side, shimming out off her damp panties. "Thanks."
"Great. So... go to sleep. You sound exhausted. And you have that chemistry test tomorrow. Can't look sleepy for that."
She arched an eyebrow, even though he couldn't see her.
"Stiles."
"Lydia."
"I believe in reciprocity, you know."
"I'll go to sleep too, jeez."
"Don't try to tell me you're not hard," she coaxed, refusing to hear awkwardness in his tone. "Come on, Stiles."
"It's alright, really," he said. "I—you need to sleep. I'm okay. Don't worry. Later," he insisted, with such conviction that she nearly believed him.
But he couldn't really hide from her, even if she couldn't see him with her own two eyes.
"You already came?" she asked as it dawned on her, and there was a warm spot in her chest that spread in her whole body.
He made a vague noise of agreement. She gripped the phone tighter.
"Stiles—"
"Yeah, Lydia?" His voice was soft and sleepy, much like Lydia herself felt.
"Do you want me to pick you up tomorrow?"
"Only if we can swing by the coffee shop before school."
"But you don't drink coffee," she said, before checking the time again. "Stiles, you haven't been drinking coffee, have you?"
"Nah," he said, smacking his lips. "I'm a hot chocolate drinker. You will only ever find Nesquick in my cupboards. The coffee's for you, though," he added after a beat.
"Is this a jab about me not being a morning person?"
"Never."
"Good. Because I'll let you know that I'm way better at mornings than you are."
"Well, that's not very difficult. Have you seen me in the morning?"
"Not yet," she said immediately, and for a moment they both knew they were beaming at each other in the dark.
Lydia closed her eyes while Stiles sighed in her ear, and burrowed herself in the covers.
"You asleep?" he asked.
"Mmmm."
"Okay," he laughed. "Hey, did you know that they discovered a two-million-year-old skull in Georgia?"
She fell asleep before he could finish the sentence, which may have been his goal all along, because his voice had taken a soft and lulling tone, one that she only ever heard from him when they stripped each other's soul bare and worked on building them back together.
Her phone was dead when she woke up, but soon enough it vibrated with several texts. The first one read:
Stiles [3:27] just hung up sorry if your phone is dead
Stiles [3:28] I mean we got cut so either your phone is dead or you rolled over it in your sleep
Stiles:[3:29] Lydia did you roll over your phone in your sleep?
Stiles [3:30] i knew it
Stiles [3:31] since you missed it:
Stiles [3:31] Lord of the Rings looking more like a documentary: Beautiful Skull Spurs Debate on Human History
Stiles [3:31] totally found it by accident
Stiles [3:31] see you in four hours? Sleep tight (don't roll over your phone again)
Lydia [7:04] Good morning to you too.
Lydia [7:58] I'm heading out, are you ready?
Lydia [7:59] Stiles, I'm here in five minutes
Lydia [8:06] Stiles?
Lydia [8:09] Don't tell me you're asleep NOW
As always, don't hesitate to hit me up on tumblr where I'm also youaretoosmart, or to read my other stories on ao3 where I'm cave_canem.
Thanks for reading and your feedback!