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She was not supposed to tell him this way. She was not supposed to tell him that she'd very unwillingly fallen in love with his hyperactive, spastic self minutes before he left on a mission that she wasn't certain he'd even return from. But, her mind reasons in a small voice, is there ever a good way to tell someone they're everything you have left, no pressure? But Lydia Martin hasn't made too many love confessions in the past, discounting the time when she told her homicidal lizard-ex she loved him right after he transformed back into a human, again not the perfect setting, so she doesn't have much experience in this department.
She watches Stiles pull out something from his pocket, keys to his house presumably, and hand it to Parrish, followed by what she's sure is a detailed instruction manual on How To Train the Sherriff When His Primary Caretaker Isn't Around and she smiles inwardly because his sincerity and love for his father just warms her frickin' heart and she's wished on more than one occasion that he'd love her atleast half as much as he loves him.
She's not sure he'll waste precious seconds bidding her goodbye, because yeah, that's all their interactions are these days, seconds, and not for the first time, she tries to pinpoint the exact moment that he walked away from her, that things between them got so bad that it brought her here to wishing he'd just make eye contact with her for more than 1/5th of a second.
But surprisingly enough, he does. Once Parrish has got a crash course in handling the Sherriff, Stiles catches her eye and walks over to her ever so slowly, shoving his hands in his pockets and exhaling shakily when he's right in front of her. See, this is what she doesn't get. How he can go from assured, self-confident, actual pack-dad Stiles who takes care of everything, to nervous, fidgeting puppy-dog Stiles who looks at her like she's put the stars in the sky. Or atleast that's what he used to look at her like.
"So…I guess I'll…." See you around is, she thinks, the rest half of that sentence, but he never gets there because she knows her face is a badly-disguised veil of the terror and anguish and despair she's feeling, so its not surprising that he calls her out on it. Because Stiles Stilinski always call her out on it. Its why she loves him.
"Hey. Hey Lydia, what's wrong? You okay?" he steps closer to her and a wave of his incoherent babble sweeps over her, none of which she can really process because he's doing that thing again where he says a lot of concerned words hurriedly and she can never respond appropriately because she's usually in a demented state, and she wants so badly to just tell him and-
oh shit, she's taken too long to reply and now he'll never believe her.
"I'm fine, I'm alright!" She squeaks a little too loudly, and resigns herself to her fate because somewhere along the way she's turned into a terrible liar, and she'll have to pay the price.
"Lydia, you can tell me, okay. Its just me." he says and oh how ironic that he says that,which makes her wonder againwhen its just Stiles began to work against her.
"I'm okay, really. Its nothing. Just…" her voice falters at the sight of his earnest brown eyes hanging on her every word, and she knows she's gonna say it. "Just try not to get killed, will you. Stay safe, for me." she curses inwardly at the for me because they didn't say things like that to each other anymore. Once upon a time they used to exchange loaded things like "If you die I will literally go out of my freakin' mind" and "Stiles, you're the one who always figures it out" like hellos but now there was this unsaid rule put into place by him, and so she played along. But apparently, not today.
He lets out a short laugh and is about to respond with something light and funny to defuse the situation, she's sure, because she'd made everything sufficiently awkward, but then she sees his eyebrows furrow together and his eyes dart up to hers.
"Are you having another Banshee episode? Am I-am I gonna die…" his rambling continues until she decides its not fair to torture him with this anymore, or herself for that matter.
"Stiles, shut up, it's not, okay!" she snaps, and it really works because in half a second his mouth has abruptly shut itself and he's looking at her apprehensively.
"I just…there's something I need to say to you, and if you die before I get a chance to, I won't forgive myself."
The range of expressions his face goes through is comical to say the least. When he settles on confusion she thinks enough is enough and levels him with a very meaningful stare and if he still doesn't get it, then she's been wrong about him forever and he's actually a very dumb boy.
So when she sees his face register the full meaning of her words + the very unsubtle stare, she's a mixture of relief and regret because oh god, now he knows and at the same time, oh god he finally knows.
"No, Lydia, come on!" he says exasperatedly, and despite the fact that she's just very obviously told him she loves him, she can't help but feel amused because really, he seems more mad at the situation in its entirety than her confession.
So she settles on a shrug and a sheepish smile as her response, because she knows if she opens her mouth now, she'll have a sudden onset of verbal diarrhoea and Stiles would definitely not want to hear about all the pointless hours she spends thinking about what his hands could do to her.
"Lydia Martin, you officially have the absolute worst timing ever!"
"And you have a girlfriend."
"Who last we've heard, has joined forces with her psychopathic, egomaniac dad and is probably gallivanting across Mexico killing everyone in sight as we speak."
"She wouldn't!" Lydia says in mock-horror.
"I don't even know anymore." he shrugs, but the way he continues to stare at her longer than necessary leads her to believe that he may not be talking about his girlfriend anymore.
"Stiles! We need to go!" Stiles turns just in time to see Derek furiously signaling at him to join them in the car and he yells an annoyed "Coming!" back before he turns to look at her again.
"I want so badly to have that talk with you, I do, Lyds, but Scotty needs me and if I don't go right now, Derek will rip my throat out right here in Beacon Hills."
She finds herself nodding, a little too earnestly, but he's just said he wants to have that talk with her, and that can only mean good things right, so excuse a girl for being eager.
She thinks that's the end of it then, that she'll only have I want to have that talk with you, I do to hold ontofor two whole days or however longer it takes him to come back to her, but then she reads the reluctance in his eyes, a kind of urgency that speaks to her on levels his words never can and she knows. That he wants this as much, if not more than her.
And then he places a hand on her cheek, and he's saying in a voice so low she barely hears it, "Wait for me, okay." He drops the briefest of kisses on her forehead before she can process what's happening, and then he's sprinting away to his piece of crap jeep, stopping to look back at her only once, when he shuts the door of the jeep on himself.
And that'll get her through, she tells herself. He asked her to wait, and that's the least she can do. So she takes Parrish's hand when he offers it, and starts the long walk back to the station.