Work Text:
Lydia’s stomach literally vanished when she felt her foot press the trigger of the animal trap and heard the sickening snap of metal. She wanted to scream, but it was as if her voice box had disappeared along with her insides.
When she finally managed coherent syllables again, she squeaked out one word.
“Stiles.”
He turned to look at her, cell phone still in his hand from his call to Scott. Lydia watched as his gaze fell to the trap she stood in. Eyes wide in panic, Stiles ran to her side, stopping several feet short as if he was afraid standing too close would activate the mechanism.
“Stiles!” she repeated more urgently, willing him to do something – anything!
“Alright, don’t move.”
“Look for a warning label.”
“Warning label?”
“Instructions for how to disarm it!” she nearly shrieked, fear making her voice sharper than she’d intended.
“Lydia, why the hell would they put instructions on the bottom of a trap?”
“Because animals can’t read!” He knelt down to look at the trap more closely as Lydia attempted to slow her unbelievably fast heart rate, but as much as she tried, her body wouldn’t obey.
“Lydia we got a problem. I can’t read either.”
Lydia’s eyes collided with his, and she was surprised how much she could read in his expression. Stiles gazed up at her with uncharacteristic ignominy, clearly desperate to act, but shame clouding his ability to think rationally.
“You don’t need the instructions. When was the last time you have ever used instructions, am I right?” She injected her voice with as much conviction as she could muster through her panic, not feigning an ounce of it. “You don’t need them, because you are too smart to waste your time with them, okay? You can figure it out. Stiles, you’re the one who always figures it out. So you can do it. Just figure. It. Out.”
She watched as her words sunk in. Then he seemed to pull himself together and really examine the trap. It could have been several hours or several seconds that she stood there, waiting.
Then it suddenly occurred to her how close he knelt to her bare leg, that he was just about eye-level with the hem of her short skirt. Her heart pounded again, but not from fear.
“Okay,” Stiles said, breaking her of that strange train of thought. “Okay, here we go. Ready?” She nodded and prepared to jump. “Okay, here we go.”
He twisted the knob on the side of the trap feverishly, and then she half leaped, while Stiles half pulled her, off the spring. The loud clash of metal a split second later made her shudder as she wrapped shaking arms around Stiles’ neck to steady herself. Her heart was beating so fast that she almost missed the answering pounding in Stile’s chest.
He’d been afraid for her, she could feel it.
Lydia sensed Stiles reach up, like he was about to cradle the back of her head, but his hand dropped to rub her shoulder reassuringly. For a minute, she allowed herself to rest in the shelter of his arms. It was rare for anyone but her parents to simply hold her like this, not expecting anything in return, only wanting to comfort. In fact, she couldn’t think of anyone but her mother and father who’d embraced her like this.
None of her boyfriends, or boy toys, really connected on a deep enough level for her to expect it of them. She thought of Jackson. She’d loved him, but when she looked back on it, she saw it for what it was, empty and vain. Popularity had meant so much back then, how other people perceived her had mattered immensely.
She certainly wasn’t popular anymore. Spending so much time in the vicinity of Scott and Stiles had caused irreparable damage to her social standing, yet she didn’t mind it in the least. Hiding behind the visage of a vapid, brainless Barbie doll was demeaning. Lydia liked that her friends appreciated and relied on her knowledge and logic. They weren’t just using her to boost their own popularity.
“Are you – are you – are you okay?” Stiles stuttered, pulling back to examine her at arm’s length. “Did it get you?”
“I’m fairly certain that if any part of me had still been in that trap when it snapped shut, you’d be the second person to know about it. I’d have alerted you to it by screaming my head off.”
“Good, good. That’s good,” he murmured, unperturbed by her sarcasm. “Do you want me to take you home?”
“No,” she said after a second’s hesitation. “I want to help.”
Stiles smiled at her with his eyes. If she had to name the emotion that rolled off him now in waves, she’d call it pride.