Work Text:
Lydia unlocks the door to her study around 4:45 in the afternoon. Stiles knows this because he has been staring at the clock on top of the TV for a long time now, at least the past thirty seconds, waiting for the ad to finish on the YouTube video he’s watching. He’s sprawled out across the couch, his left leg draped over the top, his hands busy fiddling with a ballpoint pen. There are several of them scattered in front of him, the fancy kind with the nice tip, that he’s spent the day dismantling for something to do with his hands. Stiles’ first instinct when the door opens is to scramble upwards and shield them from Lydia’s gaze, which he meets with the type of false confidence that comes off more like a grimace, causing far more suspicion than he means to.
She narrows her eyes upon seeing the look on his face-- one of those pens is most definitely tucked behind her ear right now, doing nothing to keep the wispy pieces from falling. Lydia’s got the windblown type of look that she always gets when she’s been in her study all day, circles under her eyes, hair messy from being tugged up into a bun and pulled out all day long, trying to get comfortable. Despite how tired she seems, she immediately cottons onto his guilt, not even having to look at the table before releasing a long sigh.
“The pens?”
Goddamn it.
“How do you always know?”
He sits up on the couch, hitting mute quickly on the TV remote, and Lydia peers over him to the coffee table, taking a few moments to inspect the ceiling.
“It’s always the thing that’s closest to you and most inconvenient for me,” she informs him, walking around the couch to sit next to him. “And seeing as my advisor needed these to give out at the presentation tomorrow, I should’ve known.”
Stiles leans forward, nudging her temple with his nose before kissing the same spot. Lydia leans into him, pressing small fingers against his cheek as she reaches around to pull him closer.
“It’s too early in the semester to be this stressed out,” she says, eyes fully closed now.
“Not when you’re smart enough to think of every possible scenario that could go wrong,” replies Stiles, and Lydia opens one eye.
“Are you talking about yourself now?”
“I’m talking about you .”
“Oh, sweetheart. I’m also smart enough to immediately think of the solutions.”
“So what are you stressed about?” he asks, readjusting the two of them so that Lydia is lying against his chest, fingers twisted gently around his shirt. He runs a hand over her hair, smiling to himself at the knots and tangles that give away her anxiety. She’d picked that habit up in middle school, he thinks. One moment her hair would be perfect, the next she’d manage to have it tangled up in itself from fiddling with it too much.
“The usual,” she replies lightly, not seeming to want to talk about it.
“Being super into me?” The sympathetic nod that Stiles offers her is enough to give Lydia a reason to laugh, and she sits up so that she’s straddling him now, running a thumb down his jaw.
“Of course,” she says, voice dripping so strongly with false-sincerity that he actually thinks it may have done a 360. “That’s why I have to lock the door to my office when I need to focus, you know. I’m so deeply distracted by you.”
He rolls his eyes easily, leaning up to catch her lips between his. Lydia doesn’t bother to hesitate, placing her palm flat on his chest and gently pushing his head back down as she kisses him back. He can feel it, the smile that isn’t quite there but is still present in the way that she is loose for him, willing to become pliable and softer and his.
“I’m distracted by you too.” When he replies, it comes from low in his stomach, almost as a grumble, and Lydia squeezes her legs around him just slightly, so that he knows it’s subconscious. “But you gotta cut yourself some slack. If doctorates were easy, every motherfucker would have one.”
“You’re right.” Lydia nods resolutely. “Only the original Oedipus has a PhD.”
She rolls off of him and heads into their kitchen, perusing the tea cabinet briefly before letting out a huff and moving towards the wine instead.
“You know you’re the smartest person in the world though, right?” Stiles hedges from the couch, causing Lydia to toss him a sarcastic look before turning back to the red solo cup she’s pouring her drink into. It’s the cheap ten dollar wine that they buy for bad days, the one that Stiles thinks is hilarious because it’s got bare asses on the label. Lydia adds some club soda and lemon into it before heading back over to the couch. She winces as she takes a sip, then hands it to Stiles. “Oh yeah. That’s gross.”
“I’m not the smartest person in the world.” She ignores the last part and Stiles smirks to himself. “If I was, I wouldn’t let you keep buying this wine just because you think the name is funny.”
“ And the label,” replies Stiles indignantly. “And, besides, you’re the smartest person in this house, and this house is basically the whole world, so it counts.”
She laughs, not able to keep herself from it when she sees how high his eyebrows have gotten on his forehead, proving his earnestness.
“Remember the one time you knew something that I didn’t know?” Lydia teases fondly.
“Yeah, it was that song by The Doors, wasn’t it?”
Next thing he knows, he’s getting smacked over the head with a pillow.
“ Every time!”
“What?”
“Every single time you can, you find a way to bring that night up.”
“It’s like, seriously, for real, the most romantic thing I’ve ever done.”
“It definitely is not.”
“I was like ‘oh shit, I’m about to die? I’m gonna look like a fuckin’ hero in front of the girl I like. Bam, I love you.’”
“And meanwhile, double-oh-seven, you were too busy looking like a hero to kiss me before vanishing off of the face of the earth, possibly forever.”
“I said romantic , not perfect .”
She takes the cup of wine out of his hands and kisses him, really kisses him. They both taste like cheap wine, and he loves her even more than he had that day, even more than he had the day before that day, even before the time before that , when he thought he knew what it was to love her and thought he’d felt it all. With Lydia Martin, though, every moment is just the tip of the iceberg.
“You’re a little perfect,” she murmurs against his mouth, warming him more than the wine ever could.
“So why do you lock me out of your office?” he challenges, pushing his luck very strongly, and Lydia groans, falling back against the couch.
“Because you’re also a little shit.”
“Heh.” Stiles lets a slow smile cross his mouth. “Yep, I like that. I’m into that one.”
“Ridiculous,” Lydia informs him, sliding off of the couch. “Can I borrow a sweatshirt?”
“Sure,” he says with ease, and she walks over to the front hall closet to begin sifting through his clothes. Lydia’s not usually cold, but sometimes he thinks she just likes to be as wrapped up in him as possible. Sometimes he thinks that makes her feel safe. “Oh, no, not that one.”
Lydia pauses a with her hands on a random blue hoodie from a concert, eyebrows pinching together.
“Why not?”
“Well, because that’s where I’m hiding your engagement ring.”
She stares at him harder, taking a moment.
“Um. What?”
“Your engagement ring is in the front pocket so, like, don’t wear that one.”
Lydia stares some more.
“You know you could,” she says, saying it very slowly and carefully, “just propose .”
“Nah,” Stiles responds cheekily, taking another sip of wine. “I’m good.”
“You’re good.”
“Waiting for the right moment and all that.”
“So are you going to re-hide the ring?”
“Eh, probably not.”
“So you’re going to… do it soon?”
“Who knows, even.”
“So you’re just going to leave the ring there… with me knowing where it is… until further notice?”
“I think I’d rather you know it’s there and just torture yourself with the knowledge that you don’t know what it looks like than waste my time proposing to you.”
She finally walks back towards him, her arms crossed in front of her as she stares down at him in befuddlement.
“And how, exactly, would proposing be a waste of time?”
“Because,” he says happily. “For the first time in our… eighteen? Yeah, eighteen years of knowing each other, I have something that you want, and you cannot convince me to give it to you. And we both know I’m gonna do it eventually, but will you kill me first? I don’t know, and I’m really excited to find out.”
She stares at him for several moments, lost in thought, most likely also in his stupidity, and Stiles tries not to grin at the way he can see all of her musings flit across her face like a slideshow. Finally, she moves into the living room and perches on the edge of the couch once more, hands folded neatly in front of her, eyes thoughtful.
“Wow,” begins Lydia, and in that moment Stiles can feel the upper hand sliding out from underneath him. “We’re going to make diabolical children, aren’t we.”
He gawks at her, notes the smug smirk toying at her mouth, and then gawks at her some more, incapable of anything else.
“I hate it when you play that card,” he says, far too happy all of a sudden, and Lydia melts back into his arms, resting her head on his chest.
“I hate when I have to lock you out of my study,” she says softly, stretching a bit to kiss the corner of his jaw. “But the thing is, I’d rather spend all day, every day with you.”
He kisses her when she reaches out to him, always one to grab on when she’s offering up honesty and affection and the kind of love that he should’ve gotten used to by now, but definitely isn’t. Not when it comes from his favorite damn person.
“Okay,” Stiles says, pulling back. He squeezes Lydia’s ass. “Hang on.”
“Hang on?”
“Yeah.” He peels himself off of the couch for the first time all day, feeling his bones creak and protest under him. “I just gotta grab the ring.”