Stiles Stilinski had been in love with Lydia Martin since third grade.

Lydia Martin had been in love with Stiles Stilinski since never. Seriously, he was just an annoying unpopular kid that worshiped the ground she walked on like so many others, and she just wasn't into him.

But then he let his hair grow out.

Still, Lydia never considered that maybe — just maybe — she felt something for the surprisingly intuitive teenage boy. It wasn't until she wrote his name down on the Deadpool without realizing she had done so, and then feeling such immense terror afterwards when he pointed it out to her, that Lydia took a moment to actually contemplate what it was that she felt when someone said his name.

But by the time she realized that she definitely felt something for Stiles — something more than what someone would feel for a friend — he was with Malia Tate. So Lydia retreated, and became the girl he would refer to as 'just my friend', even though she now knew that she wanted to be so much more than that.

Besides, Lydia had other things to worry about than the guy she liked dating a werecoyote. No, she had to worry about being a banshee.

Lydia Martin had to worry about the fact that she found dead bodies.

And so they went about their business, and she just got used to the way that she screamed and the way that sometimes she had no control over what she did; after all, it was her duty to her friends — to her pack — to find those that she is drawn to. Sometimes, Lydia found them before they die; and others, after. Death just didn't affect her the way it was supposed to, not anymore.

But then something changed.

Because somehow she was standing in front of Stiles and she was wailing. Lydia was screaming her goddamn head off, and that could only mean one thing: Stiles Stilinski was going to die.

And she never wanted that to happen; not even when he was annoying, or when he just wouldn't give up on her even thought she made it clear that she wanted him to, or when he was the goddamn nogitsune. Because throughout all of that, he was still Stiles Stilinski; the same Stiles Stilinski she took to the Formal, and the same Stiles Stilinski that stayed at the hospital she was in after being attacked by Peter Hale, and the same Stiles Stilinski that she kissed while he was in the middle of a panic attack because she heard something about how holding your breath helped.

Lydia never wanted him to die, and she never wanted to predict his death.

And there she was, screaming.

"Lydia," said Stiles once the shouting ceased, pronouncing each syllable as if they were their own word, "Why did you just scream?" He was worried that it meant what he thought it meant, because despite all of the insane things he had done over the past few years Stiles really didn't want to die— but if he did, then he wanted more than anything else to die as a human.

Lydia looked at him. Her eyes were filled with tears, already beginning to turn bloodshot despite no tears falling. "You know why," she whispered, heartbroken. This was not happening. Lydia was not going to let Stiles die, not before they— not before she— not before he found out how she felt.

Stiles shifted, uncomfortably, "I was worried you would say that." He stepped back, swinging the door of his house open, "Do you want to come in? I can— I don't know, make hot chocolate or something?"

She stepped forwards, crossing the threshold, "I don't think hot chocolate stops people from dying, Stiles."

"No, but it tastes good," he replied. Stiles led them to the kitchen; now that he had brought it up, he actually really wanted some hot chocolate, "Besides, we don't know when I'll— I mean, you said that Derek was going to die, and he didn't."

"Yeah," agreed Lydia, before she frowned and continued with what she was saying, "but he evolved."

"Maybe I can evolve too," he said.

Lydia looked doubtful. "I don't think that it works like that, Stilinski."

"Stiles," corrected the teenager. Seeing her confusion, he explained, "I— I like the way that you say my name." And then Stiles looked away in embarrassment, because he had a girlfriend now and he shouldn't still think about Lydia in that way; not when they were friends.

"Well, Stiles, I guess I'm going to have to stick around, huh?" she asked, smiling; but she wished that she wasn't, because her and Malia were friends and people don't just fall in love with their friend's boyfriend. "Can't have Stiles Stilinski going around, unable to hear me say his name," Lydia finished, lamely.

"Uh," said Stiles, ineloquently, "I suppose so?"

Lydia wondered why she was such an idiot when it came to him, when she was so smart with everything else. She had never gotten— gotten so giggly when she was around someone before; or at least she hadn't without having to fake it, like she had with all the men she 'dated'.

She remembered something that Allison Argent — and god, it hurt so much to think about the deceased archer — once said when discussing how she felt about McCall: 'Remember what it feels like. All of those times in school when you see him standing down the hall, and you cannot breathe until you're with him. Or those times in class when you— you can't stop looking at the clock because you know that he's standing right out there waiting for you. Don't you remember what that's like?'

Lydia had replied with how she couldn't remember something she never felt; she had never been in a relationship that made her feel like that. But... now, thinking back on it, she could say that she understood what Allison had meant that day at school.

Because that was how Lydia felt about Stiles.

"I don't want you to die, Stiles," Lydia mumbled, quiet enough that she didn't think Stiles would be able to hear her.

But he did.

"I don't want me to die either," Stiles told her, clicking on the kettle; he had been serious about making hot chocolate. "I mean, not before I—" he shook his head, blushing, "Nevermind."

"No," prodded Lydia, "What were you going to say, Stiles?"

Maybe she liked to say his name just as much as he liked to hear her say it.

"I have a— a bucket list, I guess. It's kinda stupid, but there are things I've always wanted to do before I die," Stiles explained, "I mean, some I just wrote down because there was still room left, but others..."

"What's number one?" she asked.

Stiles' face went beat red, clearly embarrassed. "Um," he stammered, "is that really important?"

Lydia smirked. "Yes, it is."

He wouldn't look at her, not when he was about to say something so totally embarrassing. But this was Lydia Martin, and Stiles was never going to say no to her (and yet he had said no to Malia before, without giving it nearly as much thought). "Lose my virginity," he admitted, softly.

"You and Malia have never—"

"Never," he interrupted, knowing what she was going to say. "I mean, we've— we've slept in the same bed, and we've made out before, but... no, we've never done that." Stiles couldn't believe that he had just admitted that to his lifelong crush, and she hadn't even— she hadn't even laughed.

"What's number two?" she inquired. Secretly, Lydia was thankful that Malia and him hadn't gotten that far in their relationship yet.

"That is... way more embarrassing than the first one, Lydia," Stiles told her.

"Oh, come on," she urged, shooting him one of her wide smiles; Lydia had heard him talking about how she had such a beautiful smile once, and maybe she was using that knowledge to her advantage. "What's more embarrassing than losing your virginity?"

"In my defense," he told her, "I wrote my bucket list when I first found out Scott was a werewolf."

Lydia's eyebrows raised. "So, what is it?" she prompted, twirling a strand of strawberry blonde hair around one of her fingers.

He hesitated, "To kiss the girl I've had a crush on since third grade."

"And who's that?"

"You."

Lydia froze. She had known that Stiles had liked her for a while, but— god, in third grade she hadn't been pretending to be such an idiot all the time. Back then, they might have had a chance to become friends, to eventually become more than friends. And she hadn't had a clue.

He froze. That was the reaction he was worried about. "Crap, I shouldn't have said t—"

Lydia leaned forwards, and pressed her lips against his own. And loyalty to Malia be damned, Stiles Stilinski kissed the strawberry blonde — the goddamn girl of his dreams — back.

She smiled, "It was always you, Stiles."

Anyways. About Stiles cheating on Malia: I know that he would never do that, but for the sake of the story it needed to happen— Lydia needed to feel bad about how she felt for him, and the only way she would would be if he was dating one of her friends. Which, canonically, he currently is. Or, was. They broke up this season, which... thank god. But when this story takes place, they haven't, so... yeah.