Tumblr needs to stop inspiring me to write. (This is a lie.)
Disclaimer: Don't own shit
"Well, what about Rusalka?" Stiles asks. He can see that Lydia is going to say no already, by the little twist of her mouth. He's fluent in Lydia, okay. He can tell.
"No." Called it.
"Why?" He huffs, exasperated. "There are Rusalka in Beacon Hills, we've seen them, Lydia. One of them could be the killer." He plops the book down sulkily, clicking his knuckles in frustration.
"Rusalka tend to be the victims. They're the ghosts of young women who are killed by loved ones. So while there are Rusalka here, they aren't related to this spree, Stiles."
Lydia flips her hair over one shoulder, sighing loudly. There are dark circles under her eyes and her skin is pale from lack of sleep. The two of them have been awake for nearly thirty six hours now, researching and sneaking into crime scenes, using Deputy Parrish to get into evidence, thankfully getting a decent look at the incident reports for each of the seventeen young women that have gone missing over the past two weeks. Stiles is existing on caffeine and sugar, thanking his lucky stars that there's a Starbucks in town. It opened a month ago, and Lydia has been sending various members of the pack to fetch the two of them coffee every few hours for the entirety of their research marathon. He never thought he would say it, but Stiles is a bit sick of double shot caramel machiattos after six of them in a day. He doesn't know how Lydia is still awake, because she hasn't been drinking much coffee at all. She had a double espresso this morning, but she asked Kira for green tea half an hour ago, and Scott must have fetched her at least four earl greys today.
Stiles groans and thumps his face into the dusty old book that Deaton had asked an 'old friend' to bring from Indiana. It had arrived this morning after the request sometime last night, and Stiles didn't ask how it got here so fast. He also isn't really sure he wants to know. Maybe sometimes Deaton is cryptic for a good reason.
He just wishes the vet was less annoying about it.
"I'm fairly sure you don't want your face in that book." Lydia murmurs distractedly. He lifts his head long enough to grunt out a word.
"Why?" Lydia looks at him, sips her tea nonchalantly. He's fairly sure she's trying not to smirk.
"Because it's bound with human skin." He yelps and flails upright, falling against the back of his chair with an expletive on the tip of his tongue. He swallows it back out of habit.
"Jesus, Lydia! Warn a guy, would you?"
Lydia just turns back to the book she's been working her way through for the last hour, hand wrapped around the take out cup marked with the Starbucks logo, leeching its warmth. Her legs are folded under her, and she's barefoot for once; she'd kicked off her heels after throwing a book at the wall last night. Three AM and shrieking, that is Lydia in a nutshell. But she's perfectly serene now, immersed in ancient texts and translating some dead language almost effortlessly. He thinks it's mid fourth century Aramaic, and she's translating it using a battered dictionary she had bullied out of the library staff.
He's more focused on Lydia than research now, to be honest, and so he gets up, wobbling slightly as he pads unsteadily over to stand beside her.
"Lydia." He sounds a bit hoarse, and he isn't sure whether it's due to lack of sleep or if(yet again) he has to attribute it to the redhead leafing through a dictionary that probably hasn't been used for a century.
"Mm?" She isn't paying attention, fiddling with the end of her plait. He likes that her hair isn't perfect, for once. It makes her seem more real.
"Would it help if we made out for a bit? Y'know, for science." He jokes(he isn't joking), dropping down to her level, next to her chair. He still can't see her face, her hair is draped over the part he should be able to see, like an orange curtain. A really, really pretty orange curtain.
She tilts her head, considering.
"No."
His smile drops off his face, and he stands up. She moves as well, turning to face him. Up close he can see how tired she is, how she's staying awake from pure force of will. Her eyes are bloodshot, and a little swollen around her eyelids, and Stiles can see the blue of her veins through her skin; it's almost translucent with exhaustion. But she's smiling at him, perfect little teeth showing through the gap between her lips. Her lipstick has long since rubbed off, probably mostly on coffee cups.
"But." The word keeps him on tenterhooks for one brief, stretched out moment. "I could use a break."
"So...yes?" Lydia screws up her face into an admittedly attractive exasperated expression. In lieu of answering him, she stands up on her tiptoes, cups a hand around the back of his neck and draws him down into a kiss. It turns into making out pretty quickly, mostly because Stiles licks at her mouth, seeking entrance. Her arms wind around his shoulders, and he ducks just a little to slip his arm around her waist and pull her up to his level. She makes a noise against his lips, and he gladly muffles it with his own, biting at her lips gently. He decides he's basically holding her up now anyway, and hooks his hands under his thighs, lifting her up and waiting for her to wrap her legs around his hips. She does so before he even finishes having the thought, and he chuckles into her mouth.
"Shut it, Stilinski." She pulls away long enough to speak, and prevents him from answering, biting a sharp pain into his bottom lip and leaving it to fade naturally against her lips. His arms are anchored around her waist, and he pulls her as close as he can, then decides it isn't close enough, pushing her against a wall as carefully as possible. She leans back against it and looks at him, holding herself up just with her legs around him and the help of the wall.
"This is new."
"Isn't it just." He replies, distracted by the curve of her smile and the low cut, very flattering dress that she's wearing. "I like this dress on you, by the way."
"Thank you."
"So much." He murmurs, running his hands over the material. Then he concludes that it might be fun to slot his thumbs into the dips of her collarbones and along her neck, up into her hair. Then he just winds his fingers into her hair happily.
"Having fun?" She laughs.
"With you? Always." And then he kisses her again. She gasps into his mouth, and their breath mingles, and for some reason that's the hottest thing ever, so he kisses her harder, and fists a hand in her hair, tugging her head back so he can get her mouth on her neck. He sucks a little mark into the hollow of her throat, delights in the noises she makes as he does. Her hands are in his hair, now, and she's grabbing handfuls as he presses kisses under her ear. She stiffens just as he sucks her earlobe into his mouth. He pulls away right away, frowning, worried.
"What? What is it?"
Lydia scrambles down to the ground, hurrying over to the book she had abandoned to make out with him. Which, in his opinion, they should go back to. Right now.
She scrambles to turn the pages of the book to a specific one and runs her finger down the page until she finds what she's looking for.
"It's a Bunyip. Stiles, pay attention!"
"What's a Bunyip?" He fiddles with a pen.
"Bunyip, or Kianpraty, literally means devil. It's a mythological creature from Aboriginal Australia that was said to lurk in swamps, creeks, riverbeds and waterholes. Freshwater, Stiles! All the murder victims have been found half devoured in freshwater pools! Aborigines thought they could hear their cries at night, and hikers have been saying that they can hear weird sounds that are reminiscent of owls but not quite. Stiles. They believed that Bunyip took humans as a food source, preferably women, and they're who've been taken, Stiles. Bunyip supposedly have flippers, a horse-like tail and walrus-like tusks." Lydia looks almost manic, flushed and the most gorgeous he's ever seen her.
He pushes away his attraction for later, and focuses.
"How do we kill it?" She goes back to the book, scanning text rapidly.
"Beheading. Kira ought to be happy to oblige, don't you think?"
"Yeah, sure." He fires off a quick text to Kira and Scott, and tosses his phone on the table after the answer comes back.
They stand in the room, not sure what to do now they've solved their conundrum. But then Lydia's mouth curves up into a wicked smirk.
"Hey, Stiles. Wanna make out some more?" His mouth drops open in surprise. But honestly, it's a no-brainer.
"Um. Yes." She beckons him over with a crooked finger. He goes like he's a puppy after a treat. Just before he touches his lips to hers again, she says something.
"It isn't science unless you write it down." She says it with a grin, and he smirks back.
"Screw science."
And then he kisses her silent.