This one's a little shorter, but also one of my faves ;) hope you guys enjoy!
I do not own Teen Wolf.
It was the irritating trill of her alarm that woke Lydia in the morning.
Reluctantly, she patted along her night table until she found the device and effectively shut it off.
She sighed, stretching her arms as she sat up.
Her phone beeped as she got up to change into her day's clothes.
Still on for the usual?
Lydia smiled to herself. Stiles.
What a weekend. They had parted ways the previous afternoon and Lydia had given him a quick hug goodbye, a final thank you, and headed into her dorm.
Instead of reading ahead for her classes like she planned, she mostly smiled giddily to herself and was completely distracted by thoughts of the amber-eyed boy.
When did she become this sort of girl? The kind that drools over a guy instead of being in charge of her own emotions? Damn that Stilinski boy.
Lydia looped her arm through her shirt sleeve as she texted back with her other hand.
Definitely x
"Shit." she groaned as the text shot off to his phone. She hadn't meant to add the little x on the end, indicating her sending a kiss in text-speak. It was just the slip of a finger, okay? He'd probably see it as a typo, right? Oh god, should she just tell him it was a typo?
Awesome :) see you then. have a good day xx
Lydia couldn't even help herself from sighing, so glad that he definitely hadn't been weirded out.
She tried not to get too excited. It was just a dumb study date. And a dumb text. And a dumb boy. Nothing had changed between them, they were still just friends. At least, for now.
Lydia grabbed her perfume bottle and made sure to spritz a little extra for the day.
Naturally, when you're anxious for something, the hours drag on.
Lydia was tapping her pencil absent-mindedly against her notebook, impatient for class to end. She had completely zoned out of the lecture she was physically present in. All she could think about was how soon she could head to the library and meet up with Stiles.
It was, of course, the one day she didn't have classes with Stiles. It had been over twenty-four hours since she had seen him, and she felt like there was something missing from her insides.
She had gotten so used to having him around, so used to spending all of her time with him, that it felt absolutely strange to have not seen him since the previous afternoon.
It felt like forever, but the professor finally dismissed the group of students, and Lydia half-ran in direction of the library.
She didn't know what she expected. She just knew that she wanted to see him. The nice thing about being back at school was that she didn't have to feel so guilty about hogging him. On the weekend, there was always the nagging reminder that his family and friends hadn't seen him in months, but now they were back and the others weren't around for her to steal his attention away from.
Lydia nearly ran right into him when she turned off the stairwell on the second floor.
He grinned at the sight of her, catching her shoulders to balance her.
"Hey, lightning. Slow it down there."
"You're here early."
"Class got out early." he explained a little too quickly, leading the way down the hall. "Did you bring your Calc review? I was hoping you could help me go over some of those more complicated polynomials. Why we have a textbook that only has half the answers in it is beyond me…"
Lydia settled next to him at the table, pulling out her homework folder and sifting through for the right page.
He accepted it gratefully, his fingers brushing hers, and she stupidly felt butterflies fill her stomach.
Why the hell did this guy have so much control over her physiological condition?
They got to talking like normal, over homework and soon diverting into other things, and Lydia felt herself relax.
She knew things would be different after spending the weekend together, but it was a good different. The kind that she had hoped for, where they could talk more freely and not feel awkward around each other.
She even caught him smiling to himself as he worked and she had a feeling it wasn't over getting the correct answer he'd been working on.
The week went by in a blur, no professors bothering to take it easy on them just because they were still recovering from their holiday weekend fog.
Lydia's floor-mates wanted to go to a party that Friday night, at a frat house a couple down from their dorm. She wasn't exactly enthusiastic, but she also didn't have any other plans and it beat her sitting in her room alone getting ahead on homework. She contemplated texting Stiles to see if he was going, but she figured he probably wasn't. He, too, wasn't big on parties—he had made that clear on more than one occasion.
Her friends were really pushing her to go, claiming it would be fun to flirt with boys and dance with each other.
Lydia eventually caved, but now that she was there, and her friends had forgone 'girls night' for 'hook up with random boys night', she wondered why she had bothered. She was bored out of her mind, fishing out a drink between the many crammed bodies and attempting to slip through the crowd to find a safe spot to hide.
She had completely lost track of her friends, so once she downed a drink, she planned on heading out. The party scene just wasn't her place anymore.
Before she could locate the nearest spot near the exit, where she could pretend to enjoy herself until she made a quick escape, she spotted a familiar boy who looked about as excited to be there as she was.
He was leaning against the arm of a chair, where a couple was engaged in flirtatious whispering, and he was tipping back his beer while scanning the crowd.
When he spotted her, his face immediately broke out into a smile and he raised his beer at her in greeting.
With a coy smile, she made her way over, saddling up next to him.
"Hey."
"Hey! I didn't know you were coming to this thing; I should've texted you. I could've saved myself the agony of spending time with my roommate while he uses me as a wingman to hook up with girls."
She laughed. "I lost my friends to boys too. So much for ladies night."
"Funny how our lives seem to mirror each other's… sucky party companions, sucky lab partners…"
Lydia grinned. "At least we can be miserable together."
"I wasn't planning on staying long. Kind of contemplating going back to my dorm room, since it's now free of my roommate, and watching Netflix on my laptop or something." he said slowly, as if he was planning on going somewhere else with it.
But his face suddenly changed as he looked past her shoulder. He suddenly put his beer down on the sidetable as he looked around him as if searching for somewhere to hide.
"OH shit, oh shit, oh shit."
"What's the matter?" she asked in surprise, wondering what the hell just happened, placing her drink down too now.
Stiles turned his body so he was blocking what no doubt was somebody's view of him. Lydia couldn't see anyone in particular looking in their direction—it just looked like a mass of bodies to her.
"Malia. My high school ex-girlfriend I mentioned? We broke up before we went off to college, but we already applied to the same school. I was never entirely sure if she came, because I haven't seen her and we don't keep in touch and god knows Derek would tear off my head if I asked, but she's here. Oh god, I should've left when I had the chance. I don't know what I'm going to say to her."
He glanced past Lydia and looked down.
"Shit, I think she saw me. I think she's coming over here. Oh god, what the hell am I going to-"
Lydia didn't know what made her do it. All she knew was Stiles was bordering on hyperventilation, and she was moving before she could stop herself.
Her palm wrapped around the back of his neck, dragging his mouth down onto hers and her other hand naturally fell to his shoulder as she kissed him sexily on the mouth, the way her body curved into his giving no one any room to doubt that they were intimately involved.
Stiles faltered in surprise at first, caught off guard by the sudden attack, but his hands slipped to her waist and his mouth began moving with hers.
Lydia kissed him deeply, making it last and dragging away the breath from both of their lungs in the process, which caused them to pull apart.
Stiles was breathing heavily. "Wh-why'd you do that?"
She swallowed, using the time to come up with an excuse. "I thought you were having a panic attack. I read once that you can stop one by holding your breath. So when I kissed you, you held your breath." she explained, a little more breathlessly than she would've liked.
"I-I did?"
She managed a soft smile, looking away as she wiped her smudged lip gloss with her pinky finger. "Yeah." she murmured shyly, fearing he could actually hear how fast her heart was beating. He looked to be pretty zoned out, so she held her head higher. "Also, it had the added benefit of scaring off your ex."
Stiles looked around and saw that Malia had disappeared completely. "Wow. Thank you. For both things. That was…. That was really smart."
Lydia shrugged, flashing him a quick smile of gratitude.
They were still standing only a few inches apart.
Lydia couldn't help herself from staring at his mouth, wanting very much to reacquaint it with her own.
Stiles seemed even more jittery than usual, his eyes seemingly unable to focus on anything for too long, so Lydia figured the exchange hadn't been as dazzling for him as it had been for her.
"Um, I think I'm going to head out."
Lydia nodded, tucking her hair behind her ears awkwardly. "Right."
"Can I walk you back to your dorm?"
She looked up, and he was smiling softly at her, forcing her heart to overreact.
"Sure."
She found herself blushing when his fingers slipped between hers and lead her away from the party.
There were no words between them on the walk home, but Lydia couldn't stop her smile. She very much liked holding Stiles' hand, and the way his thumb brushed along hers reminded her of the night before her birthday on the porch.
Lydia turned her head as she heard some sort of whining sound, like an animal crying out in pain.
"Do you hear that?" she asked her companion, slowing her walking.
"Hear what?" Stiles replied curiously, answering her question.
Lydia shook her head. It was silent now, as if a switch had turned off. She probably imagined it. "Nothing. I think my ears are still ringing from the music at that party."
Stiles smiled. "Too bad it wasn't anything decent playing. Maybe we would've stuck it out longer."
She laughed as they approached her dorm. "Hmm, I don't know. I think we were destined to wallflower and then bolt. We accomplished that quite well, as expected."
Stiles' hand remained in hers and she wondered if he was reluctant to separate them like she was.
"So we should really do this again sometime. Attend a crappy party, get abandoned, wallflower in the corner, leave early. We're fulfilling all of college students' dreams."
Lydia giggled and rolled her eyes at him.
Stiles stepped forward, Lydia's breath leaving her instantly, and he reached out to finger a strand of her hair.
"Lydia…"
She bit her lip, pressing closer. Please, please, please…
His eyes slowly roved over her face, and before either of them could move, a loud group of party attenders ran by, screaming and laughing and making more noise than a damn Saturday afternoon parade.
It caused Stiles to step back from her, out of protection or embarrassment, Lydia wasn't sure. But there was no question that the spell had been broken, once again.
Why did this keep happening? First Derek, now some college idiots…
Stiles smiled, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "Well, I guess I should let you get some sleep. Maybe we can hangout tomorrow, go get breakfast in town or something?"
Okay. Definitely a better compromise than she was expecting.
"Sounds good to me. I haven't really left campus much."
"Yeah, me neither. Seems like it's about time though, right? We really only have a couple weeks until finals and then winter break."
Lydia nodded. "Okay, so, pick me up at nine?"
Stiles nodded. "Nine works for me. Night, Lyds."
"Night, Stiles." she murmured, smilingly coyly before turning to head up the path to her building.
Stiles continued on his route, further up the hill and a few buildings away from her place.
Lydia had her hand on the door handle when she heard the same noise from earlier. Only this time it was louder and came out as more of a growl.
Instinct should've forced her to throw herself inside as quickly as she could, where there were tall glass doors and security and her nice safe dorm room.
But something else pulled her away. Maybe it was her unquenchable curiosity. Maybe she wanted to prove that she wasn't hearing things.
She stepped away from the door and turned towards the shrubbery underneath the bay window.
"Is anyone there?" she couldn't help herself from asking, feeling like a character in a horror movie.
You'd think that that fact alone would make her re-evaluate, since those stupid curious people always got killed first.
The growling grew louder and she began backing up towards the door again, the panic beginning to set in. She definitely wasn't hearing things.
"LYDIA! RUN!" Stiles was suddenly screaming at her, a terrifying contrast from his usual softness, and on reflex her head snapped in his direction. He was running at full speed towards her, the fear on his face enough to paralyze her.
She waited a second too long, and next thing she knew she was screaming as something heavy collided with her, sharp pain unlike anything she'd ever felt gnashing her side.
And then everything went black.
