Summary: Missing scene from 6x10, between The Kiss and The Look.
Rating: General
Tags: Fluff, Romance.
Author's Note: A shout out to bebethsas who looked this over because it's past 5am here and I spent all night writing and editing and revising, back and forth between four different fics and my brain is fried.
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"In a world full of temporary things
you are a perpetual feeling."
- Sanober Khan
Lydia hasn't left his side.
Not when the battle was finally over. Not when his father and his friends welcomed him back. Not when the Sheriff decided to drive both Stiles and Lydia back to the Stilinski's residence because their hands wouldn't part for anything.
She doesn't let go of his hand during the entirety of the ride either, when the Sheriff has to play chauffeur so that the kids can enjoy the closeness for a bit now that things have calmed down.
Neither does Lydia disentangle her fingers from his when Stiles nudges her to get inside the house, then stopping for a moment in the living room as if he's taking it all in for the first time.
Lydia definitely does not let go, and even squeezes his hand for comfort, when his eyes find a picture of Claudia on the mantelpiece. Stiles is drawn to it and picks it up with the hand that's not holding Lydia's, and for a moment neither of them talks. Not Stiles, who's getting emotional. Not Lydia, who wishes she could take away their pain. Not the Sheriff, who's still standing by the front door watching the scene.
But then Stiles braves and puts the frame back in its place because the present is not the past, smiling down at Lydia and she returns it with a teary grin that makes him want to kiss her. Instead, he makes his way to his dad and hugs him tightly again for good measure, whispers that he loves him because he knows he'll never say it enough, and Stiles only realizes he'd let go of Lydia's hand when the Sheriff pats his son on the back and faces the banshee.
"Lydia, would you like to stay for dinner?"
Stiles lets go of his dad with excitement in his eyes at the man's words, looks back at Lydia over his shoulder and nods subtly - or as subtly as Stiles ever does anything - in a way of asking her to stay.
To his surprise, her cheeks redden. "I'd love to."
Her expression is so soft, so shy that Stiles aches to touch her again.
"Then you're gonna have to help me," the Sheriff says jokingly, "because I can't cook for the life of me." Truth is, some boundaries should be established right away. While he does want to give his son and the banshee some privacy, Noah knows that this has been a long time coming, and that sooner or later things are bound to happen. Not with him around in the house, that's for sure, so keeping an eye on them seems like the best approach for right now. "Why don't I give you two a minute and then you can meet me in the kitchen while Stiles takes a shower and changes?" He asks Lydia, then turning to Stiles. "I'm sure you'd like that."
Stiles nods emphatically in answer to both things. "God, yes. Please."
Lydia's grin breaks through and Stiles thinks it could lighten the whole room. It's genuine, honestly pure, the same way she's been doing ever since the two of them were reunited just a couple of hours before. It seems that she hasn't stopped smiling since. "Thank you, Sheriff. We won't take long," Lydia murmurs softly as she walks up to Stiles and waits for him to move.
For his part, Stiles sends a pleading look his father's way. One that rather obviously asks for more than just a moment alone with Lydia, but the Sheriff only tilts his head to the side a little and makes a face, gives him a pointed look with narrowed eyes and Stiles knows that he's defeated. Still, when they part ways, all three of them have a contented smile on their faces.
Lydia follows Stiles into his bedroom and closes the door behind her, leaning against it. She watches in wonder as Stiles takes in his room as well, a room that she came to fear wouldn't have him in it ever again. It looks completely different now. It's not bare and dark anymore but instead full of light even though it's night outside. Now it's full of him, and his presence there is overwhelming to her.
Lydia has gone months without having Stiles in her life, in the reality that she's come to accept and love and live in. She doesn't want to waste any more time with fear of the unknown.
He turns around to face her just then as if he knows what's going through her head, and Lydia can feel herself blushing once more, an almost embarrassed smile taking over her lips. Stiles smiles back the same way, somewhat bashfully, because while their kiss - second kiss, actually - was a moment of desperation and repressed frustration and raw passion all coming together, now there's no impending doom hanging over their heads. Now it's just them, a boy and a girl in love, paving the way to a future that starts now. A future that has actually started before either of them was really mindful of to acknowledge it, as if fated.
Lydia moves first, slowly until she wraps her arms around his torso and rests her head on his chest. As much as she knows that Stiles has missed her these past three months, she can't shake how terrifying it was to miss someone she loved irrevocably and that she suddenly knew close to nothing about.
Stiles holds her just as tight as he did back in the locker room, kisses her hair and whispers repeatedly that "It's okay, we're okay now" and Lydia revels at the sweetness of his voice, at the steadiness of his heartbeat and the warmth of his body.
When she looks up at him and meets his loving gaze, her voice falters when she whispers. "I missed you, Stiles. I missed you so much," she admits, because she had. And missing someone you didn't know you'd forgotten about in the first place is already hurtful as it is, let alone when she actually realized that the person she was missing was her best friend, her soulmate, her other half. The boy she loves unconditionally .
She tears up when she notices how deliberate Stiles' movements are, as if he's afraid to cross a line they haven't exactly erased yet. So she nods almost imperceptibly and Stiles cups her cheeks, stroking his thumbs feather-like across her cheekbones as he looks into her eyes until Lydia thinks she'll melt in his arms. He kisses her forehead gently before pulling back and murmuring "I know" because he does. Because despite how much it changed over the years, his love for Lydia Martin has been a constant in his life since he was eight years old, and having known that she loved him for a while now of course that Stiles knew how much she had to be suffering with this.
And he wasn't wrong in finally having told her before he was taken that he loved her. In firmly believing that loving Lydia and having Lydia love him back the same would be enough to bring him back from the Wild Hunt, and it was.
Stiles catches her stray tears, unaware that he'd started crying himself from how charged the moment is until Lydia cups his cheeks as well.
Stiles thinks time stills. Lydia thinks time is passing by all too fast.
She cups his chin and Stiles lets his forehead rest against hers for a minute as they breathe each other in, lips so close yet not touching, eyes never leaving the other's. His arms wrap around her waist to pull her closer just when Lydia shortens the distance between them for a kiss that in any other occasion Stiles would consider chaste. Now he's mostly unbelieving of just how much Lydia Martin is in love with him.
The kiss is tender and short, barely a graze of lips, his face in her hands and he can tell that Lydia is just as slightly reticent about truly giving in as he is. Because one thing was when the sole reason she kissed him was to stop his panic attack, regardless of how that moment changed how she saw him from then on; another when the kiss had been urgent, desperate, an inevitable moment of passion from the months and years of frustrations and the angst and hurt from the past few months. Now this is a new kiss, one that means that things are changing again and they'll both have to figure out just quite how much.
As it turns out it's pretty simple, for a change. Stiles pulls back and wets his lips reflexively, eyes locked on hers so of course he notices when her gaze fixes on his mouth, her lower lip trapped between her teeth invitingly. When her eyes wander up to his again, Lydia gives him one of the most beautiful little smiles he'll ever see on her even though her eyes are still wet, as well as her cheeks. But she's looking at him as enamored as he's ever seen her and it's warming, and new and exciting all at once so Stiles takes the chance with a bright smile of his own.
Stiles releases her lower lip from her ministrations with his left hand, tilts her chin up and kisses her fully, carefree and not mindful that his father can walk in at any moment, taking the opportunity to deepen the kiss the second that Lydia allows him. Lydia's hands mess with his hair as she pleases, as she pulls him down to her as much as she can to compensate for their height difference, tongues properly exploring the other's mouth for the first time.
They part breathlessly and suddenly, as if it's an offense that there's lack of air in their lungs.
And then they start laughing.
They start laughing, and truthfully neither could probably tell you why but it feels right, soothing. A glimpse of what their future has in store for them and so they hug again. And this time it doesn't hurt as much.
They take a couple of minutes to steady their breathing and recompose, kiss a little more before Lydia leaves him to his shower and goes find the Sheriff in the kitchen. When Stiles meets them half an hour later, Lydia is animatedly talking to is father while they cook and it's as if she's always belonged there. In his kitchen with his family worming her way in just like he does.
When Stiles drives her back to her house after dinner and walks her to her front door, he doesn't hesitate in kissing Lydia goodnight as he always thought he would one day, and it only tops his dreams because Lydia actually lingers, because she's blushing adorably when they part and has this same smile on her face that is still so new to him, shy and a little embarrassed and just of genuine happiness!
And when neither of them wants to end the moment but know that they have to - or at least that they should -, Stiles finally asks the question he's been dying to ask her ever since he heard her on the radio saying that she remembered.
"What about us, what does this means to us?" He murmurs in between pecks on her lips, too selfish to let go of her just yet.
Lydia grins smugly, stops the kissing to catch her breath before answering and holds his hands in reassurance. "Take me on a date tomorrow and we'll see," she whispers teasingly before getting on her tiptoes, kissing his cheek quickly and disappearing inside the house.
He doesn't have to wait until their date to find out his answer, thankfully, because the next day at school he already knows. He's by the lockers with Scott, who mentions how it doesn't feel as if things have really changed but they have, and when Stiles looks at Lydia he just knows. A few lockers down from his, she stops when she sees him looking at her and her cute smile from the day before is there again. So is the ardent way she looks at him as if she's thirsty and he's the oasis she needs to drink from, and Stiles knows the answer. He knows.
Everything's changed.
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Author's Note: Please leave a review and let me know what you think :)