Author's Note: my big excuse for writing this and not WL is that I'm a moron and I have a strange combination of 1D songs in my head. also I keep getting distracted by AH let's plays, so... yeah. here you go. something silly, sweet, and ridiculously stupid. please don't judge me for my errant music tastes.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.
Stiles shows up to school one Friday morning with bags under his eyes the size of her super deluxe luxury magenta suitcases and a tremor in his hands that turns his usually neat writing into that of a six year's old nervous scrawl. She lasts all of five minutes watching him before she marches up to his side, wrenches his backpack from him and shoves it in her locker, spinning the lock closed before he's even registers what's happening.
"Don't argue," she tells him, her fingers curling around the collar of the graphic t-shirt he wore three days ago. She wonders briefly if he's been too tired to do laundry or if he just hasn't noticed yet.
"I haven't said a word yet," Stiles mumbles. He staggers after her, past a bewildered Isaac and Allison, his tall frame bent at the waist so that she doesn't have to reach up too terribly far to drag him along. It's that little thing that really gets her, that turns her lower lip into a quivering mess and puts her heart through a metaphorical blender; the way he's bending over backwards to make sure she's comfortable even though he's so obviously falling apart just kills her.
"Get in," she tells him when they reach her car. He does so without complaining, folding his gangly limbs into her passenger seat. He isn't even wearing a jacket, she realizes, stomach twisting. It's November, but he doesn't even realize it, does he?
"Call your father," she demands, turning the car on. "Tell him we're going to the beach. This is non-negotionable."
"Any particular reason we're going to the beach in October, Lyds?"
"It's November," she tells him. "Remember Halloween?"
"No," he tells her honestly. She shoots him a look as she backs up and he gives her a sarcastic little smile. "Everyday's a nightmare," he says, like it doesn't matter. "I've given up telling them apart."
The bell rings as they pull out of the parking lot. Scott stares at them from beside the front door and Lydia wonders what haunts him at night. Allison's mentioned her series of sleepless nights and dreams of her aunt coming back (which Lydia hopes like hell isn't going to happen because it's Peter Hale bad enough, honestly), but she's never heard Scott address the darkness he faces. She hopes he talks to someone. But she doesn't know how to broach the subject with him, so the best she can do is take care of his best friend.
"Put your seatbelt on," she says, because Stiles' body has gone near limp next to her, head pressed against the glass window. She puts her foot down on the gas and guns it out of the school's lot, taking the turn right a little too hard. Stiles sighs.
"Why? Lyds, what are you doing?"
"Stiles," she says. It's her primadona voice, the one that always told Jackson that she wasn't to be questioned. Stiles just looks at her, his eyes dead and flat, his cheeks pale and hollow. "Put on your damn seatbelt, because if I have to reach over and do it for you I'm going to make you regret it."
Stiles puts on his seatbelt. He doesn't call his father though. He doesn't speak again until they've left the town limits, until Lydia's gunned the engine and boarded the highway like a woman possessed. She thinks he falls asleep for a little while, but every time she glances over at him he's awake, neck at an uncomfortable angle as he stares her down. She ignores him.
"Call my mom," she says eventually, tossing her phone into his lap. He heaves a sigh and does so without straightening, holding her phone out to her. She swats at his hand, hissing speaker phone, I'm driving at him when a semi drifts a little too close to her for her comfort.
"Baby," her mom says, in lieu of a greeting. "Everything alright?"
"I'm going to the beach house for the weekend," she tells her mother. "Stiles and I need to get away from Beacon Hills, so I need you to call the power company and get everything turned back on for the weekend." Stiles is looking at her, mouth a little open, eyes a little bit bright. She tries not to let that shake her. The semi drifts closer and she backs off of it with a gritted sigh. "Please," she adds, when her mother doesn't say anything.
"Of course, baby," her mother says. "Anything you need. Promise me you'll be safe. Text me every day?"
"Of course," Lydia tells her mother. Her father never deserved her mother, she reflects as the woman hangs up. Her mother was a free spirit when they met, or so she's heard, and now that they're apart she's free again. If there's anyone who understands fleeing to the beach house for the weekend (and skipping school to do so) it's her mother.
"You're a lunatic," Stiles tells her. He's smiling at the very corner of his mouth and his hair sticks straight up when he runs his hands through it. He straightens in his seat, looking a little more like the spastic boy that was giving her a run for her money for the valedictorian slot that she saw around school last year.
"So are you," she answers, because it's true. Stiles laughs, the first laugh she's heard him give in weeks, and stretches.
"Good thing I've got the station's number memorized," he says, playing around with her phone. "You threw mine in your locker."
She bites her lip, suddenly feeling bad about that. Her mother might be alright with spending the weekend alone, but will the Sheriff? The Stilinski men are all each other have in life and it probably wasn't the kindest thing she could have done, to kidnap the Sheriff's son and force him to spend the weekend alone. She considers turning around, passing off the idea as a failure, but Stiles looks more alive than he has since he came out of the tub and she's not willing to give that up for anyone.
She was supposed to go see a movie with Aiden this weekend, she remembers abruptly. Oh well, she thinks, he'll get over it.
"Hey dad," Stiles says into her phone. Lydia doesn't let her eyes stray from the road and speeds past the drifting semi, resisting the urge to mutter something snide about road hogging drivers as she does. "Nah, I'm fine," Stiles promises beside her. "Lydia and I are going out to the beach for a couple days, that's all… Hm? Yeah, Lydia. I don't know, dad, but I think she needs it. She's had a rough couple months, man."
Lydia snorts without meaning to. She's had a rough couple of months? They've all been through Hell and no one knows how to keep moving; they're just putting one foot in front of the other and praying they don't trip and fall off the edge of the Earth as it turns under them. It's idiotic and terrifying, but it's their lives and short of abandoning everyone she knows and convincing her mother to move somewhere else there's nothing she can do about it. (She's thought about it; her mother would agree to it if she said it's what she needed, but she can't just leave. She just can't.)
Stiles shoots a grin her way and reaches over to flick at her elbow. She jerks a little bit and he laughs, low and rusty. "We'll be fine, dad," Stiles promises. "Just call Lydia's phone if you need me, yeah? Mine's dead. …Yeah, yeah, I know. Love you too, dad."
I didn't tell mom I love her, Lydia realizes. She blinks away sudden tears while Stiles hangs up. He drops her phone in the cup holder and cracks his neck to one side and then the other. Lydia glances at him from the corner of her eye and finds him rooting around her purse
"Hey," she yelps. She tries to swat at him, but he ducks out of her reach.
"Road," Stiles screams back, "look at the road."
"Get out of my purse," she shrieks back. She focuses on the road, however, because it's only another hour to the town just outside the beach house and she doesn't quite remember which exit it is. "What are you doing in there anyway?"
"Looking for your iPod," he responses, easily. He pulls it out after another second, yanking her headphone cords from the jack without mercy. He stuffs it in the connection to her car before fiddling with the dial, bent like a cartoon to see the screen.
"Lydia," Stiles says, pausing. His tone is flat, but his eyes, when he looks up at her, are starlight bright and glittering with mirth.
"What," she snaps back, defensive. Stiles doesn't say anything, just clicks a button. The speakers fill with pop music, a song she recognizes instantly. Her face heats, cheeks flushing as pink as her pumps, and Stiles throws back his head and howls with laughter. She reaches over to change the song, but Stiles shrieks and bats her hand away, turning up the volume just as the words start.
"Maybe it's the way she walked," Stiles sang, badly. He adds in an over exaggerated yow at just the right time, stumbling over the lyrics in his enthusiasm. He twists around in his seat to dance to the song, his long arms swinging through the space between them.
"Shut up," she says, but he drowns out her words with the chorus, his hair flopping in his eyes as he sings.
"And we danced all night to the best song ever," he mimics. Lydia hits him in the chest, but he doesn't stop, head bopping and shoulders jumping to the beat.
"Like you don't have any embarrassing music on your iPod," she snaps, when his grin became too wide and he lost the trail of lyrics. She knows her face is flushed, more flushed than it's even been before, she'd guess, but she can't help it.
"Of course," he answers, flopping back against the door of the car with a great deal of over exaggerated show. "I have every album Ke$ha's ever done."
Lydia snorts with surprise, but she can feel her lips curving into a grin. "I have all of those too," she answers eventually.
"Hell yes," Stiles answers. He jumps around through the music on her iPod for the next hour while she tries to find the little town outside the beach house. He hardly ever lets a song finish, instead choosing a new one three quarters of the way through. She hits him eventually, when the constant change starts to drive her a little mad, but he doesn't stop.
"Make me," he says, when she snaps at him.
"I can't," she tells him, primly with her head held high. "I'm driving."
"Chicken," he taunts. She spots the exit for the town before she can come up with an answer to that taunt. Stiles looks smug and giddy the entire trip through the town's little corner market, his feet propped up on the bar underneath the cart while she leans against his back and pushes.
"It's going to flip," she tells him when he first hops on.
"Not if I do this," he argues. He drops a 12 pack of Coke in the other end of the cart before hopping on and she fakes a gusty sigh, leaning against his back so that she can steer the cart.
"You're actually five years old," she tells him. "The cashier is judging us."
"Let her judge," Stiles cheers. He throws his arms in the air, trusting her to hold him up. She does, but only just barely. "Let's get mac 'n' cheese. I'm a fucking boss at making mac 'n' cheese."
"Five. Years. Old."
They buy six things of mac 'n' cheese, the 12 pack of Coke, a box of tea, a pound of sugar, and paper plates. The cashier lady judges them the entire time, eyes tracking them as they rampage across her store. Lydia would be more offended, but they are two teenagers who are obviously skipping school. She would judge them too, if she didn't know better.
Stiles makes every box of mac 'n' cheese they bought and drinks most of the Cokes in the course of the next three days. He throws her in the sea and then drops in next to her, ignoring her shrieks about the temperature. He acts surprised when the water's cold and she retaliates by shoving wet sand down the back of her shirt. They end up buying several tourist shirts from a local beach bar after realizing neither of them have any spare clothes and at night they curl up together on the porch under a blanket with a cup of tea each. Stiles takes his tea with three spoonfuls of sugar and a dash of milk, which makes Lydia cringe. They blare music from Lydia's iPod on the beach house's speakers at all hours of the night, since none of the people who own the beach houses next to the Martin's actually live there year round.
Stiles laughs every day and when he sleeps he only wakes up screaming once. He has color in his cheeks again when they return home on Sunday evening, sunburn despite it being autumn, and he greets his father with a grin and a hug. The look the Sheriff shoots her over his son's shoulder makes Lydia feel like crying. But Stiles turns around and grins at her as she backs out of the driveway, shouting something as she straightens in the street. She rolls down her window, rolling her eyes as she does so to cover up the way her fingers tremble.
"I can't control it," he shouts at her, "Yeah, I know it's taking over me; I'm going crazy. Can't contain it." He lifts his arms, wiggles his fingers in the air while his father rolls his shoulders and sighs behind him. "So tell me just what I should do!"
"Good night, Stiles," she shouts back. Stiles continues to sing even as she drives away, his voice hoarse but lively. She finds every goddamn word he shouts after her endearing. The laugh she caught as she turned the corner was more than worth the six hundred miles she drove and the dirt Stiles now had on her music tastes.