When Stiles looks at her, when he looks at her, his whiskey eyes light up and his breath is taken away. Whether it be in a panic and she's kissing him and he holds his breath because it's not like she's the air pumping back into his lungs, it's because it's like he forgets how to breathe when he's with her. And he doesn't even care because he's too focused on how beautiful she is. He doesn't breathe because he watches her big eyes and they're like the forest. He watches her hair fly behind her as she struts down the hall and it's like a whole strawberry field. And he loves forests and strawberry fields, he realizes, no, he's always known. And he notices how he has to look down at her, how shes so small that he can easily look over her head and see straight past, yet he doesn't, because he can't take his eyes off of her.
Or whether it be in guilt and he looks at her and there are tears running down her face and he hates it, Stiles hates it so much. And he wants to fix it, he wants to hold her and make everything better. He looks at her and he hates himself because she's broken and he's broken and how can something broken fix something broken. Stiles watches Lydia wince every time Allison's name is mentioned and he thinks he knows how Lydia feels now. How it feels when she just wants to scream and scream and never stop screaming. He can't breathe when he looks at her and he sees how hurt she is and he feels so guilty like he's the one that hurt her. Because when she walks into the room it's like the sun comes out and without the sun Stiles doesn't even know who he is.
But he doesn't, Stiles doesn't hold her or try to fix her because he's with Malia now and it breaks him even more when the girl he's been in love with since the third grade unconsciously grabs his hand in the school hallways or tugs on his flannel, pulling him away from danger without even knowing it. It hurts being so close to her and having to tell himself to stop, stop looking at her perfectly pinks lips and her strawberry blonde hair and her green eyes and her 5'3" stature. It hurts when he has to tell himself to not love her. But it never works, not loving her.
Stiles can't help but bite back to Lydia's snarky remarks with sarcasm lacing his lips. He can't help but feel his heart leap when he gets a call from her at two in the morning because he's her best friend, and she needs him. He can't help but seek her out when detective work needs to be done and the police force of this town can't seem to solve anything and they figure things out together. Because they're pretty good together. He can't help but swoon when she says something amazingly brilliant and he just wants to kiss her right then. He doesn't, instead he only asks what she meant because she's really smart and Stiles finds it hard to keep up with her long words that don't sound English most of the time. He can't help but let his cheeks burn when she smiles at him. And he can't help but be in love with her.
He loses his breath in fear when he's running into the police station and he sees the blood pooled up around her shaking body and he can't move. He can't move because he stares at her laying there, helpless and on the cold ground and if she dies he would literally go out of his freaking mind. If Lydia died Stiles would die with her, only his body would be left to roam the Earth. His soul, his heart, his mind, his everything, they'd leave with her. And his eyes, his eyes would die if Lydia died because they wouldn't be greeted with the sun anymore. Stiles can't move, he can't breathe when he's watching Lydia's tear sunken face nod at him.
"Stiles, I'm fine." She tells him.
But she isn't. She isn't and Stiles knows it, because she's bleeding out on the floor and Theo is tieing a belt around her and her voice is ragged yet the sun is still there, so Stiles goes. His stomach is churning and he thinks he might pass out but he goes, because she tells him to.
Since the third grade Stiles Stilinski cannot breathe when he's with Lydia Martin, when he sees Lydia Martin, when he thinks about Lydia Martin, which is basically always, so Stiles Stilinski pretty much can never breathe. But he's okay with that because when Lydia Martin walked into the room just then, it's like the sun came out. And Stiles Stilinski isn't Stiles Stilinksi without the sun, and Stiles Stilinski is in love with Lydia Martin.