Sibling Rivalry
By tenshinrtaiga
Disclaimer: I don't own the Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Characters: Lydia & Gigi (and Lizzie, Darcy and a little Mr. Bennet)
Summary: Written for the prompt 'sibling rivalry' for the love-bingo. Lydia and Gigi find it hard to share a sister.
Lydia shouldered her bag higher up her shoulder, feeling the weight of it threaten to slip. She grumbled under her breath as she climbed the stairs higher and higher. The elevator just had to pick this weekend to break down. The Darcys just had to live in the penthouse. Stupid elevator. Stupid Darcys.
"Finally!" Lydia nearly screamed, collapsing on the ground at the top floor. Her legs hurt, her shoulder hurt and she still had a car full of things that needed to be carried. This weekend was not looking good. She wondered if she could convince Darcy to hire some guys to bring her things upstairs.
After a long minute's rest, she stood and knocked on the door labeled 'PH'. She didn't have long to wait before it swung open and she was engulfed in a hug.
"Lizzie!" Lydia squealed, dropping her bag to hug back. Ever since the George Incident, Lizzie had made more of an effort to be there for her sister and Lydia had eventually come to appreciate her older sister's steady (if occasionally annoying) presence. The younger Bennet sisters were closer than ever as a result.
"You're here!" Lizzie leaned back, but kept her hands on Lydia's shoulders. "And sweaty…?" she asked in confusion.
"Ugh!" Lydia grunted, waltzing into the apartment, leaving Lizzie to carry her duffel bag. She heard a soft huff of annoyance behind her, but soon heard the shuffle of Lizzie lifting. "I can't believe you didn't tell me the elevator was broken! I had to lug that thing up a billion floors!"
A soft, unfamiliar giggle filled the room causing Lydia to blink in surprise and look around. For the first time, she realized that she and Lizzie weren't alone in the apartment. In the living room corner, curled up with a book and one earbud in was the youngest Darcy.
She and Gigi had met a handful of times. It kind of came with the territory considering that their older siblings were dating. Still, they had never been very close. In the beginning, Gigi had made an effort to reach out to the redhead, but it had been too soon after George and Lydia hadn't been comfortable with it. Gigi seemed to sense her discomfort and quickly dropped it.
"What's so funny?" Lydia asked, crossing her arms lightly. She couldn't help but feel defensive. It had been nearly six months since George and Lydia was almost completely over the incident, but she still felt wary around Gigi; like the girl could see her deepest scars and it didn't matter if they were healing, they were still there.
"Only one elevator is broken," Gigi explained. "The other one works fine."
Lydia blinked in surprise before scowling. "Seriously!" she cried out, throwing her hands up while simultaneously collapsing on an overstuffed chair. She gave a weary sigh, exhausted from climbing those stairs, apparently unnecessarily.
Lizzie took pity on her younger sister. "Gigi, why don't you and I go down and grab some of Lydia's things while she takes a quick breather."
Gigi stood up, dropping her ipod and book on her chair, and followed the older redhead out. Lydia watched them with tired eyes before quickly looking out the window at the spectacular view.
It wasn't her choice to come here. There wasn't a whole lot of choice, to be honest. Darcy may have kept her sex tape with George from being released, but everyone still knew about it. Around town, at school… They all pointed at her, whispered like she didn't know what they were talking about.
People that used to be her friends snubbed her. No one wanted to hang out with the girl dumb enough to almost become an internet porn star.
One day, she had come home in tears, unable to stand it. Girls used to look up at her wistfully, wishing they could be her. Now they were all calling her a slut, looking down on her. None of her friends were really her friends and even Mary was getting dragged down by Lydia's reputation.
"Pumpkin?" her father had asked in concern.
"I can't do it anymore," Lydia sobbed, her makeup running down her face. "I'm dropping out of school."
Mr. Bennet was silent for a moment before he slid down to sit next to her on the floor. "Is this about… what happened with George?" he asked gently.
The two Bennets automatically scowled at the mention of his name, but she nodded slightly. "They all look at me," she whispered, hating how pathetic she sounded. "I can hear them whispering about me behind my back. They all know."
Mr. Bennet hummed, disturbed but unsurprised. He heard them whispering, too. He reached out and gently rubbed his youngest daughter's back. "Perhaps… Perhaps you should leave school," he replied thoughtfully.
Lydia stared at him in shock. Their father was the one who always pushed education growing up. Their mother believed that their looks would catch them a husband and who needed a degree for that? But their father always believed they deserved more than to just be someone's wife.
"You mean it?" she whispered, still surprised. She wasn't even all that certain she had meant it.
"Well, what I meant was perhaps you should consider leaving that school. Maybe you should think about transferring somewhere else instead," Mr. Bennet finished.
"Where?" Lydia asked. She didn't have the extra-curriculars like Jane had and her grades were decent, but hardly anything spectacular, not like Lizzie's. And their family couldn't really afford to send her away to college. They were barely able to afford the school in their town and that was with the discounts for living in-state and in-county.
"Well, you do have two sisters who live near some nice schools now. Three if you count Charlotte," he replied with a shrug. Charlotte counted as a Bennet most days anyway.
Lydia's first thought was 'NEW YORK!' But it was a quick thought. Jane's apartment was miniscule. She had barely enough room for herself, let alone Lydia. And while Jane spent most of her time at Bing's anyway, she still insisted on keeping up her own apartment. Jane and Bing were taking things slow this time; Jane was still really scared of getting hurt again.
Which left Lizzie. And Darcy. In San Francisco. (Because Charlotte may be as good as family, but even Lydia wasn't rude enough to impose on her like this.)
Unlike their oldest sister, Lizzie seemed to have jumped into her relationship head first. Maybe it was to make up for all the lost time the two (awkward) love birds had wasted in confusion and miscommunication, but Lizzie had moved out to San Francisco the minute she graduated and moved into the Darcy penthouse.
"I'll think about it," Lydia answered, but her mind was already intent on the plan. All she needed was an application form and google, to see what schools were in the area. Oh, and to call her sister and inform her of the plan. Okay, fine… to beg for a place to live and for Lizzie to go along with the plan (because they all knew that all that was needed to get Darcy to do something was to have Lizzie be the one to ask him).
And that was how Lydia wound up moving into the Darcy penthouse a month before the start of her new school, San Francisco State University.
Once Lydia was moved in, she sort of expected to be cramped (not that that wasn't something she had been used to at home when both Lizzie and Jane were still living there). There was, after all, four people all living in one apartment. But it was surprisingly spacious; she guessed that was why it was called a penthouse.
It was weird to see Lizzie like this, though. This was a new Lizzie, one Lydia hadn't encountered before. Lizzie was always mature, but now she sat at the kitchen counter paying her bills, and went grocery shopping and 'talked to the housekeeper about switching to a different cleaning brand'. This was adult!Lizzie and she seemed right at home living with the Darcys.
To be honest, it made Lydia a bit jealous. She wanted something like that. Not Darcy, because God only knows that her sister was the only person who could put up with his awkward ways, but someone Lydia could share her life with.
But there was more to her jealousy than that. It wasn't just having someone and it wasn't just making a new home. It was also Gigi.
Lydia scowled as she watched Lizzie and Gigi laughing and dancing in the kitchen as they baked chocolate chip cookies. Lydia was finishing up some last minute paperwork for her school and was sitting curled up in the living room.
This wasn't a foreign feeling for Lydia. She felt it every time Jane and Lizzie went out without her or every time one of them had a problem and Lydia was the last to know. She expected that. Jane was 26 (soon to be 27) and Lizzie was 25. Meanwhile, Lydia was the baby at 21. Jane and Lizzie had grown up together whereas Lydia had always been their tag-along baby sister. And she was okay with that. She knew that her sisters loved her in a different way than they loved each other and to be honest, sometimes she liked it; liked being the baby of the family.
But this was different. This was Lizzie but it wasn't Lydia she was treating as a baby sister, it was Gigi. This, Lydia would not stand for. She got so little attention anyway; she would not have more of it taken away.
"Whatcha doin'?" Lydia asked obnoxiously, entering the kitchen.
"Baking," Gigi replied absent mindedly, stirring her mixture as Lizzie opened the oven to check on the batch inside.
"Can I taste?" Lydia asked, reaching out for the bowl. She stuck a finger in, they were all family here, and pulled out a small scoop. Placing it in her mouth, she was loathed to admit it, but it tasted awesome. "Could use some more vanilla extract," she commented.
"Oh." Gigi blinked in response. Clearly the thought of not following the recipe exactly had never occurred to her. It made Lydia wonder if she hadn't baked before living with Lizzie ('cause her sister was a baker – not that Lydia minded the stock of muffins and cookies in their pantry). "Okay," she replied, reaching over to grab the measuring spoons and the vanilla extract. Lydia watched out of the corner of her eye and waited until the brunette had undone the top and was pouring before turning around. The bowl of cookie dough still in Lydia's hands knocked into Gigi causing the brunette to drop both the spoons and the bottle, making a mess of the kitchen. On top of that, Lydia had dropped the bowl of dough in 'surprise' at knocking into Gigi.
"Oh! Oh no!" Lydia wailed dramatically at the mess. The dough was on the floor, the bottle of extract was quickly emptying and all in all, it was a disaster.
Lizzie quickly hurried over, righting the bottle, picking up the bowl and wiping up the mess. Gigi, however, was busy giving Lydia a suspicious look. Lydia tried hard to look innocent, but knew she was failing miserably. Maybe it was the smirk on her face. Probably.
"Oh, Gigi, your shirt!" Lizzie gasped causing the two girls to stop staring at each other and look down. Gigi's pretty yellow blouse had a large stain on it from the extract. Lydia hadn't planned that, but she wasn't unhappy with the result either.
"I'll go change," Gigi said, backing up toward the stairs. Her eyes met Lydia's gaze once more and this time there was a challenge there. Gigi knew that Lydia had done and wasn't going to just let it go.
Well, that was fine. Gigi could just bring it on.
"Well… this is a predicament," Darcy said dryly.
"Can you help me out or not?" Lydia scowled, arms folded. She couldn't believe that Gigi had tricked her into doing this.
"I… am uncertain," he admitted. "Probably."
"Probably?" she replied, suitably unimpressed with his response.
"Well, I have experience in this regard, however Gigi was considerably younger, and thus smaller, than you are when she got her head stuck," he answered as he kneeled down.
"Gigi- Ooh!" Lydia seethed. That little brat knew this would happen! She wasn't sure how it happened but Gigi had managed to dare Lydia into sticking her head in between the rails on the staircase at the apartment where it had promptly gotten stuck. Then the girl had left her there for Darcy to discover when he came down from his work study. "I'm going to get her for this," she swore.
Later that night, Lydia sleepily padded out of her room, intent on getting a bottle of water from the kitchen when she ran into her worst enemy.
"You," she muttered with a glare, folding her hands over her chest. This was the first time Lydia had seen Gigi since the earlier railing incident.
"Me," Gigi replied smugly, Darcy's computer in her hand. She must have borrowed her brother's computer and was going downstairs to return it to his bag for work in the morning.
The two glared at each other before simultaneously walking down the stairs. However, low familiar voices made them stop.
"You know that they're fighting over you, don't you?" they heard Darcy murmur lowly.
"I know." They could practically hear Lizzie's smug smile. "It's kinda nice being fought over," she admitted softly. "Besides, it's gotten me out of having to do the dishes all month." She laughed. The two younger girls were so intent on winning Lizzie's favor that they had been going out of their way to help the older redhead.
Lydia jaw dropped in shock, realizing that they had been played. Her expression quickly turned into a pout and turned her head to look at Gigi who had a scowl. With a silent look, they came to an agreement. Their little battle would end in a truce for now. They had another sister to go to war with.