It's become familiar, Lydia waking up and not knowing where in the world she was.
"You didn't tell me we were leaving." she says, head pounding as she takes in her surroundings, what looks to be a small cottage. There are no walls, save the four that makeup the wooden home. The kitchen is directly in front of her and to the right. While a wooden stove and couch make up the left corner. She spins to the windows, outside, nothing but green pastures. European countryside, maybe.
"After that stunt you pulled, I didn't feel too generous." he murmurs lowly, and she finally allows herself to take him in. He stands next to a bright red kettle, arms crossed.
She know he means dancing with Stiles instead of him, and her heart drops, though she isn't sure why.
"You know," she says, swinging her legs out of the bed and starts searching the kitchen cupboards for any food she can find, suddenly ravenous. "I'm quite familiar with jealousy. I'd get it from girls the most though. You should have seen the stuff they wrote about me on the stalls in the bathroom."
"L.M. sucks cock. If it wears a lacrosse jersey, L.M. will fuck it." he smirks, and Lydia tries not to think about how he knew that, or the way he says 'sucks cock,' and 'fuck.'
Desperate to hide her flushed face, she busies herself around the kitchen, finding a package of biscuits and moving to put water in the kettle.
"I already started it for you." he says, not looking at her but the window outside.
Lydia stares at him. Stiles' handsome features remain, despite the nogitsune's sickly effects, and again, she finds herself frustrated.
"You're jealous, aren't you?" she whispers, and moves so she's standing in front of him. Her tiny frame makes no difference as he continues to look over her head, so she rests her hands on the counter on either side of him. This gets his attention.
His gaze shifts down as he looks at her. She watches as his eyes bore into her own, before smirking and shifting down to her cleavage.
"Nice, Martin."
She moves quickly, pushing her weight off the counter to turn away, furious. But he latches onto her shoulders and pulls her chest to his so violently her head snaps back.
"What do you want me to say, Lydia. That I'm angry you danced with Stiles? I got to experience it too." he whispers with hot breath, arching down, face inches from her own.
"I got to see that gorgeous body move against my own. I got to smell your hair from behind you. I got to see everyone stare at you just as openly as I did. I felt your chest and your ass and your hips-"
"Let go of me!" Lydia shouts, trying in vain to wriggle from his tight grip. She's heard enough. She was foolish for thinking she had the upper hand in any way. When it came to pure manipulation, the nogitsune was always in the position of power.
"What, baby, you don't like it rough? That's a lie. I know you do. I know what you did to Jackson's back. I know how you practically mauled Aiden in the Coach's office-"
"You shut your fucking mouth about Aiden." she hisses, no longer caring about maintaining her cool facade. He just brushes it off, dark eyes like tunnels, burning into her own.
"I know how you think about Stiles. How desperate you are to be with him. What you would do to him. What he would do to you." he continues mercilessly, gaze sliding down her body with appreciation. "What I would do to you. Bet I could make you scream like the banshee you are."
Lydia frees herself with a final tug, and they stand apart in the kitchen, glaring and chests heaving.
"What the fuck do you want from me, Lydia?" he snarls, and Lydia knows he means more than the obvious; answers, Stiles safe, to be left alone.
"I want books." she huffs, and watches as his face actually, for the first time ever, seems taken back. Confused.
The kettle begins to shriek.
He leads her through winding cobblestone paths and cramped alleyways. Wooden signs hang from doorposts in a language she can't read. It's not French or German, and she suspects some Slavic influence. Lydia almost wants to laugh at herself. She can read Archaic Latin but struggles with a modern language currently used in parts of the world. The streets are a contrast to their previous location. They are empty, smelling of water and wine, and the subtle smoke of a flavored cigar. She counts the number of people they pass on one hand, and no one looks twice at them.
Finally, the stand in front of what appears to be a small store. The windows are dirty and there is little light filtering from inside.
"Do you even have money to pay for this?" she asks, arching an inquisitive brow.
"Yes."
"Is this place even open right now?"
"Yes."
"How do you know?"
His mouth forms a tight line as he points a pale, bony finger to a small sign in indecipherable scribble.
"Apparently you can read hieroglyphics. How do you know they even have books?"
"It's a fucking bookstore. Just, go in, Martin."
When she pulls open the door, she hears the soft, familiar chime of a bell, and the scent of stale air and old paper fills her nose. Books, rows and rows of books line shelves moving deeper into the store than it appeared on the outside. An owlish looking man with round spectacles passively observes them from a desk in the front before returning to his newspaper.
Lydia moves to follow the shelves, and she feels him hover closely behind.
"I know you love being up my ass at all times, but can you just give me a moment of privacy? Just once? Picking out books is a sacred ritual for me."
He glowers at her, but actually takes a step back.
"Stay." she places her hand out, mockingly treating him like an obstreperous dog learning a new trick. She knows it infuriates him, and she grins, flipping her hair over her shoulder, trying to ignore the pounding in her chest.
His glares and stony silence were getting easier to dismiss, but she would be lying to herself if she said she wasn't still terrified of him. He was a demon, he had destroyed her pack from the inside out, and no amount of childish teasing or sassy language could quell that fact. He had the ability to break her, but he chose not to, and she found that was the worst part. Like sitting on top of a live landmine.
Most of the titles of the books are in strange languages, and she wanders among the dusty shelves until she comes across and English section. The majority of the books are travel guides to European countries, cookbooks, and strangely enough, a few random reads like Tom Sawyer and an instruction manual for a VCR. She pretends like she's considering them all.
If he knew what she was really up to...no. She shakes her head, vigorously trying to clear her thoughts. She can't even allow herself to think about it. She thinks of him instead. Thinks of the last time she was laying in his bed, listening to his ramblings as the Sheriff moved around in the kitchen below.
The smell of waffles in the morning, Словарь русского языка, Russian.
Who was letting Prada out to use the bathroom while she was gone? Slovník současné češtiny, Czech.
Will her mother file a missing person's report? The Oxford-Duden German Dictionary: German-English, English-German. Not it.
Was Scott at their previous hotel room, searching for her scent? Angielsko-Polski.
She blinks, and her heart pounds so hard it's in her throat but only for a second.
Polski. Yen-zik-pol-ski.
Immediately, she starts humming a catchy jingle to an incessant commercial that was always on television, and her eyes dart from the book title, as if caught in an illegal act.
She picks out a weathered looking book on Metaphysics, and the medical reference book, Gray's Anatomy. She wills herself to keep her heart level and continues to hum the commercial, as she slowly peels the Polish/English dictionary off the shelf, reaching underneath her flowing cotton dress and shoving the book in the space between her stomach and the elastic of her underwear. Still humming, Lydia pretends like she's mildly interested in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, even though she read it in third grade, before adding it to the pile in her hands.
She makes her way back to the front of the bookstore, and the elderly man rings up her books as the nogitsune pushes a handful of heavy coins over the counter.
She tries to act normal and keep her mind clear, but she's beginning to sweat.
She's never stolen anything in her life. Especially something as valuable and as precious as a book. But Stiles would have done it.
Stiles had no aversion to bending the rules if it was for the greater good.
And his life was definitely the greater good.