Stydia one-shots

69. Saturday Night

She kept him in her phone: out of sight, out of mind and protected by a six-digit passcode. A picture, a memory she was desperate to delete, but didn't have to heart to. Lydia checks her phone under the lunch table.
No notifications.
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As if unlocking her phone would automatically make messages appear. No snapchats, no texts, no direct messages from Twitter or Instagram, not a single missed call. She bit her lip and glances up to see if she had missed out on any real conversation. She hadn't. She opens up her photos app and swoons over that picture of him from Saturday night...again. He had too many freckles from July still high on his cheeks, something spilled and staining his shirt, and a smile that was nearly a laugh from how tipsy he had been. It was the first weekend before school started up, last weekend to be precise.

Lydia was never one to miss out on a party, especially since the entirety of their friend group had been there, which was a rarity considering either one or two of them usually had prior plans and couldn't attend what would eventually become a potential hangover.

She grinned walking up the steps to some no-names household, loud music and drunken laughter beginning to fill her ears and she could already picture the next morning, going out for croissants and coffee and downing aspirin like it was the sweetest candy ever. The door opened before she could let herself in and there he is, drink in hand, a smile forming on his lips as they catch eyes.
"Hey, I saw you walking up the sidewalk." He offers her his cup which she initially declined until he explains it's nothing too strong.
"Yeah right," she chuckles, noticing the glaze across his eyes, "Stiles you should see yourself right now." He was tipsy at least and they both knew by the bottom of that cup he would be drunk entirely. Lydia took her phone from her pocket, raised it to eye view and snapped a photo of him, turning to phone around so he can, in fact, see himself.
He squints at the image, "must've spilled a bit on my shirt," he laughs, "Isaac and I took shots together."

"Ah," Lydia takes the cup from his hand and drinks, causing Stiles to grin. Isaac was by no means a lightweight so Stiles' current state was now understandable. "Are we going inside now?"

Lydia sighs and locks her phone. It was a risky thing to be looking at that photo of him at the lunch table like that. Scott could've seen, or Isaac, or Allison and how would she explain her actions, how she couldn't stop herself from looking at that photo every few minutes, as if the image wasn't already engrained in her brain. She blushes just thinking of how embarrassing that would be. And when he still hadn't shown up, she checks her phone one last time.
No notifications.
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Nothing.

But, by some miracle, Scott is laughing. No, Scott is snorting, and Scott only snorts like that when Allison gets adorably frustrated or when Stiles trips over invisible objects. Lydia's eyes snap up and she melts. If she was ice a minute ago, worrying about the picture on her phone, now she is water, focused on the picture coming to life before her. He's already grumbling profanities at Scott, a light hand brushing across Allison's shoulder blades to greet her as he passes. He fist bumps Isaac, quickly inquiring about a pop quiz to get some conversation going before he turns to Lydia with those gorgeous brown eyes, "Hey," And he smiles like a goddamn gentleman and doesn't ask back for his memories of Saturday night and plops down onto the lunch table bench next to her and doesn't stress or worry when their knees and shoulders touch like she does because touching him now feels like a sort of sin. Such a heavenly sin. Suddenly Lydia feels silly for having worried about the situation so much and knowing Stiles doesn't care makes her the happiest person alive. They're okay and they are normal and all is well within their lunch table. She takes a breath and tries to focus on the current conversation.

His voice is smooth and clean cut, gliding through conversation with ease as Scott asks where he's been all morning. Stiles shrugs and makes something up since he genuinely can't remember what took him so long to get ready this particular morning, and Scott doesn't really care (this was more a formality question, something that felt easy to ask), so he strikes up a new topic with Isaac. And with the attention no longer on him, Stiles nudges Lydia's foot with his own. "Why are you so quiet?" He asks softly, under his breath so only she can hear.
She can feel a blush on her cheeks. She's the outgoing one, the loud one, She's obnoxious and unfiltered but, "you make me nervous."
He's grinning because he knows he has the upper hand. "Don't be. It's just us, like it always is."
"Okay."
"You never hold back, don't start now. Nothing has changed."
"Everything has changed." She murmurs and a sigh escapes her. And when Scott asks if she's okay, she nods, and when Allison asks again a few minutes later, she smiles. She's okay. She's more than okay. She's perfect. Her heart is soaring and she's trying so hard not to spontaneously combust. And yet she's entirely confused. Nothing has changed, he had said. Nothing? Did he genuinely think nothing had changed? They were still friends? That sitting beside her at lunch today, so close she could smell his cologne, wasn't ruining her inside because she felt everything was different and he felt they were the same as always? She was almost hoping he wouldn't remember. But a text from him the morning after that Saturday had read: I know what happened last night, and she nearly had a panic attack until the next one had read: I'm really glad you kissed me, and she knew then that he really hadn't meant, nothing has changed. He just meant she shouldn't be so stressed or worried about the situation.
"I gotta ask, though," he whispers to her, when their friends are way too distracted to notice, "why are you freaking out about this?"