So I've got this massive ten-maybe-twelve chapter fic brewing, and despite it's un-beta'd state I couldn't help but post a peek. More will be coming soon if people seem interested in reading it.
The summer after the Kanima is difficult. Gerard vanishes after the battle, and her father is silent for weeks. There's no one left to fight with except this stranger she's become.
Jackson goes to London and the wolves are left to lick their wounds, with two Alphas too exhausted to squabble over leadership. They think they've won.
They're wrong, Allison thinks, they've survived, that's all.
She's spent the last two years being a survivor. Surviving her aunt, her mother, and now this strange adopted family.
She's only human, and she wonders how much more she can endure.
Its Lydia that finally breaks into Allison's self imposed banishment.
Her father lets the other girl in, giving his daughter an anxious glance as he shuts the door.
She brings wine, tucked away in an oversized designer handbag, and she flops on the bed telling Allison that she's fully prepared to get her completely wasted if that's what it takes.
They talk. And Lydia cries about Jackson, and how he's an oaf, and how she keeps waking up without knowing where she is. And that makes Allison cry about how she knows exactly how she got to be where and what she is, and it's scary to be this powerful and not care, and maybe this is what Gerard wanted and she just really hates him.
In the morning Lydia buys her a manicure, and they end up in starbucks, with sticky nails and slightly red eyes. They see Scott in line and end up ducking beneath a display. It feels weird and normal, as if they're just two teenage girls avoiding an ex boyfriend.
They laugh at the ridiculousness of it, and for a moment it feels like everything might be sort of okay.
Lydia likes spending time in the Argent's new apartment. It's fresh and cool in the summer heat, and the Mr. Argent is always knocking on Allison's door with offers of snacks and iced tea.
Memories of Jackson aren't pasted all over these walls like in her own home, and it feels safe. Allison is quiet sometimes, but it's a comfortable silence for the most part, and for the first time in a long time Lydia feels no pressure to cover it with chatter.
She's knows Allison's dad is tired and resigned and desperately afraid of his daughter being hurt. But he doesn't lock her up, or send her to counseling like Lydia's parents would.
The Argents are weird and twisted in so many ways, but she wishes sometimes that her dad would teach her to fight off the bullies and how to escape when kidnapped or chased by werewolves and other monsters.
It's a useful skill in this town.
When she mentions the dreams, Mr. Argent gives her a short, wicked looking knife, and shows her how to throw it. She holds it under her pillow at night, and when Peter Hale appears her fingers tighten around the handle and she remembers that she has claws now too.
Before school starts again Allison takes her to the secret room where they keep rows and rows of weapons hanging on steel blue walls. She holds each in her hands, memorizing them, their weight and width and the way each implement fit into the whole.
She has the whole of the artillery categorized in her head when she turns to Allison and asks "So where do we start?"
It's just the basics, Allison tells her, but with each swing and punch, with each new bruise and bead of sweat Lydia finds that she feels a small bit less helpless.
Stiles will be in the next chapter! And actual dialogue! And plot!
The review button is right there. Click it. Click it for Stiles.
