Lydia Martin is a genius, not a psychic (yesgenius) wrote in wariscoming, @ 2014-07-17 22:34:00 |
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Entry tags: | lydia martin, stiles stilinski |
WHO: Lydia Martin & Stiles Stilinski
WHAT: Bumping into each other in-- their room?
WHERE: Beacon Hills Household
WHEN: After Melissa yells at Stiles
WARNING: Definitely a ton of awkward with a chance of yelling and a side of angst. Mostly just angst.
STATUS: Complete/Closed
The trip to New York had been-- fairly uneventful. Which was a lot more than Lydia could have asked for. Most of her was already preparing for the worse and considering how little she knew about this world, she was fairly sure she wasn’t going to be prepared for any of the bad that could happen to them. No matter how many powerful others she was with.
Meeting up with Stiles had eased her anxiety some, but it all built back up when they agreed to just follow him over to where he was going to meet these supposed Druids. Again, luckily that was uneventful as well and they turned out to be some hippie tree huggers instead of a bunch of Darachs or someone with real power that could have caused some serious damage to any and all of them. And that was her main concern all the time these days, someone getting hurt.
And then they ended up getting back on the plane and heading back to Kansas. There was nothing for them in New York, anyway.
She had barely spoken with Stiles during the short trip. She was angry, frustrated and worried about him, so she knew it was better for everyone if Scott handled the talking. All in all, he had agreed to come back with them without much of a fight, so she figured that was a wise decision on her part.
Once they got to the house, Melissa asked to speak with Stiles, so Lydia made her way up to the bedroom so she could take a long shower. Once she was done, she picked up pajamas instead of actual clothes since she had absolutely no desire to do anything else for the night and sat down in front of the vanity so she could go through her nightly routine of getting her skin and hair ready for bed.
After the talk with Melissa, Stiles had located Reese’s leash and taken him on a nice long walk. He was tired, and what he wanted was to sleep, but he doubted that was going to come any easier than it normally did. Didn’t mean he wasn’t going to at least give it a shot for awhile. What he hadn’t considered was that the last time he and Lydia had been in this house together, they’d been sharing a room.
And a bed.
It didn’t occur to him that she would be in their bedroom as he made his way down the hall and paused in the door, breath catching in his throat at the sight of her sitting at the vanity the way she had every night since they’d moved in. She was already in pajamas -- a tank top and shorts which on nearly anyone else wouldn’t have given him pause, but Lydia always looked amazing in whatever she was wearing.
“Uh. Hey,” he said hesitantly after a moment.
Lydia stopped with the comb midway through her hair when the door opened, then turned on her seat to face it, her eyes widening a little when she realized it was Stiles of all people. She half expected Allison or Scott to come check in on her, but she didn’t think he was going to considering their latest conversations had been on the tense side.
“Stiles?” She stood up, cocking her head a little. “What are you-- oh.” For a second, she forgot everything she’d found in this room when Scott first took her there. Not just her clothes (which took up 3/4s of the closet), but his as well. And plenty of signs that they were doing more than platonically sharing a bed for comfort.
“I just -- need to grab some clothes real quick and I’ll be out of your hair,” he told her with a faint smile that didn’t reach his eyes. He remained standing at the doorway, shifting from one foot to the other and waiting for her permission to enter the room.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Stiles,” she said, shaking her head and walking around the bed, to ‘her’ side, or at least the side of the bed she’d claimed as her own. She had no idea if it really had been hers when they were-- together, or whatever this was supposed to be. “This was your room long before I got here. Scott just told me it was where I’d been staying before so I stayed here while you were gone. Let me grab a few things and you can have it back.”
“No,” he said, immediately. He shook his head. “You can have the room.” He didn’t want to stay there anyway. Not when everything was so different. And frankly he wasn’t sure how long he’d even be staying at the house at all. “Really.” His voice grew softer. He drew in a breath and moved over to the dresser, grabbing out a clean t-shirt and a pair of flannel pants and a clean pair of boxer shorts.
Lydia reached out for the pillow she’d been planning on picking up and hugged it against her chest unconsciously, her lips pouting slightly as she watched him for a moment. She was comfortable in that room, it had felt-- oddly welcoming. And not so empty because there was so much Stiles around it. But it still felt wrong for her to stay there now that he was back. “I’m serious. You need to rest and you’ll sleep better in your own bed.”
Stiles paused on his way to the door when she spoke again. He turned to look at her, expression giving away nothing. “I gotta shower. And...the guest room down the hall is fine. It’s the same kind of bed and everything so it’ll be just as comfortable.”
She took a second to watch him closely because she really couldn’t read him. And that rarely ever happened. Well. It didn’t used to happen. Lately, considering she barely saw him, it had been harder to tell just how much progress he’d been making. After watching their lives on TV most of the past week, though, she was able to understand that Stiles was as good at faking normal as she was. If not better. “Go shower, then. I’ll be in the comfortable guest room by the time you’re out.”
He sighed, looking down for a moment. “There’s a lot more of your stuff in here than there is of mine,” he said honestly. “It makes more sense for you to stay in the room. It’ll take me about five minutes to move all my junk.” Stiles glanced up at her again. “I won’t even have to move any furniture. Which is good because I don’t like moving heavy crap.” He tilted his head toward the vanity.
“Stiles,” Lydia sighed, shaking her head. Why did he have to be so difficult about everything? She took a few steps closer to him and held his gaze. “I’m not stupid, okay? I know there was something going on for us to be sharing a room like this when there were perfectly fine rooms just down the hall. And considering I don’t remember any of what was happening, you should stay with the room that might actually mean something to you and not a guest room.” She kind of wanted to know if he had good memories about what was going on, but she also kind of didn’t want to know considering everything that was going on back home and how much it was getting to her.
“I know you aren’t,” he said honestly, tired. He ignored the stab of sharp pain at the implication of her words. Of course the room meant nothing to her. She didn’t remember it. Which was par for the course, really. He chewed his lower lip for a second, then shrugged. “We can sort it out later.”
She saw the flicker of pain there and her chest tightened. She wasn’t sure what exactly it meant, but it was hurting him and she wanted to know why, but she didn’t want to hurt him more. That was never the idea. Not unless he was hurting her first -- even if unconsciously -- like he’d been at home. And even then, it was mostly just a shield to protect herself.
Despite knowing he wasn’t trying to hurt her now, Lydia held her chin up and nodded, then started closer to the door, which he was still blocking. “We’ll figure it out tomorrow. Stay.”
He sighed softly, but stepped aside to let her leave, letting the discussion drop. It wasn’t like he was going to actually sleep anyway, so it was a moot point. “Goodnight,” he told her quietly, looking toward the window.
As she walked past him, she looked up at him, her chest tightening when she realized he wasn’t looking at her. “Goodnight,” she answered, hugging the pillow tighter to her chest once he couldn’t see her anymore but pausing at the door without turning back to face him. “You’ll still be here in the morning, right?” Her voice was tighter than she’d have liked for it to sound, but she had to make sure before she left him alone.
It wasn’t so much the words but her tone that made him wince. He’d known she was pissed just from the texts they’d exchanged when she’d shown back up in Lawrence. Which was kind of weird in a way since she had no idea about anything that had happened in this world, so he couldn’t help but figure it was carry over from their world. Not that he could blame her for that. And it wasn’t like he could tell her he was just trying to find a way to fix all of it. Not without alarming her, and alarming Scott and upsetting Allison and Melissa, and whoever else wound up showing up from Beacon Hills since it was starting to seem like the whole town was suddenly popping up.
“I’ll still be here in the morning.” His voice was emotionless.
She sighed in relief and quickly covered her mouth with the pillow as her eyes teared up. She glanced over her shoulder quickly to make sure he hadn’t heard her, but before she could even tell, she stepped out of the room completely and started down the hall. She didn’t know what was going on with this version of him, she didn’t know what was going on with this version of them. But protecting herself from him behind sarcasm and smartass remarks had become second nature to her lately.
And this Stiles felt just as distant as he had back home.