author: letrie
title: a connotation of infinity
summary: sawyer talbot. jared talbot. connor talbot. the names of the last living members of the talbot pack, who were killed at the hands of their alpha. when this ragtag team of werewolves stumble into beacon hills with howls on their lips and blood on their cheeks, they manage to catch just about everybody's attention.
pairings: sawyer/derek jared/? connor/lydia
warnings: strong language, adult themes.
setting: beginning of season two.
rating: T (subject to change)
disclaimer: i do not own teen wolf, but i do own sawyer, jared and connor. (and isn't that kinky?) i also don't own the poem this is named after.
notes: so, hi. i don't even really know what this is, but the idea got into my head and stayed there, so i figured i'd put it out there. so, endgames for this are sawyer/derek and connor/lydia, but jared is totally up for grabs. also, endgames don't mean i can't have a little fun with my characters, so expect a lot of that. none of the pack this chapter, unfortunately, since it's more of a chance to 'set the scene', so to speak. erm... constructive criticism is appreciated, but flames aren't. so don't bother.

The one major road leading into Beacon Hills, California has seen many things; car accidents, drunk drivers, newly-graduated teens getting out as quickly as they can, you name it. Being one of the only ways out of Beacon Hills, – besides those awful woods, of course – it was oftentimes very busy. Or, as busy as a small town nestled in a valley could get. However, these cars often died out after rush hour, and it was few that would travel into – or out of, for that matter – town after night fell. It's with these few that our story starts.

Two solitary headlights gleamed out like a beacon in the darkness, twisting with the road and casting light on trees and scattering stray animals making their way through the undergrowth. The car turned another corner, passing a wooden sign declaring 'Welcome to Beacon Hills'. In the passenger seat at the front, a tall, well-muscled teenager with a lazy grin tossed a cheeto in the air and easily caught it in his mouth. His hair fluttered, mussed by the wind streaming in through the open window, and he eyed the girl in the driver's seat with something akin to amusement. In the backseat, his mirror image drooled onto the seats as he nuzzled into the seat, mumbling something in his sleep. It became apparent that the two could hear his sleepy mutterings, for both of their lips quirked in near-identical grins. The car was silent, save for the rustling of the bag of cheetos, and the driver's smile slowly faded. She heaved an exasperated sigh and rolled her eyes, turning to the teen in the seat beside her with a raised eyebrow.

"What?" Her voice was irritated as her eyes met his, and he smirked frustratingly, rolling his own chocolate brown orbs. He lazed against the seat arrogantly, popping another cheeto in his mouth as he shrugged.

"Nothin'." He replied, and she rolled her eyes again, shaking her head.

"Seriously Jared. You obviously have something to say. Out with it." Her gaze turned back to the road as she said this, turning the car another corner and eyes catching the first few buildings of their new home.

"Alright, Sawyer. Fine." Her brother said with another shrug. "I just think it was stupid, pointing to a place on a map and deciding, 'hey, let's go live here!'," he put on a girly voice in a horrible imitation of the brunette, "when we could have, y'know, gotten a place in Seattle?" He put as much emphasis as he could on this last bit, and she scowled her eyes, though he couldn't see it.

"Fuck off, Jared. Besides, where's the fun in Seattle? You hated it there and you know it." Jared sighed, looking out the window for a cursory glance of the new road and its buildings, before replying,

"I hated Uncle Thierry, dipshit. The guy looked at us like he had no fucking idea what to do with us." Sawyer sighed.

"At least he bothered with us. He could've sent us away." She shrugged one of her shoulders. In the backseat, Jared's twin stirred, grousing in a rough voice,

"I leave you alone for five minutes and you're brooding like fucking Edward Cullen." A fond smile curved Sawyer's lips and Jared shook his head amusedly as he looked over his shoulder.

"Morning, Sleeping Beauty." Sawyer called, turning another corner as Jared added,

"Mind telling me how you know who Edward Cullen is, Connor?" Connor blinked at his twin blearily, before a sleepy smirk pulled at his lips and he shrugged.

"Chicks dig guys who understand that kinda shit, J." Sawyer snorted a laugh, shaking her head.

"Guys." She murmured fondly, before her eyes fell on the block of apartments ahead. It looked just like it had on the real estate's website, but she eyed it warily all the same.

"That it?" Connor questioned, sitting up and leaning forward between the two front seats to get a better look. Jared gave him a look.

"No shit, Sherlock." Connor gave his twin an irritated look and smacked the back of his head for the comment, then studied his big sister.

"You alright, Sawyer?" Sawyer shrugged. Truth be told, she didn't really want to be stuck in this dead-end town. She was already starting to miss Aunt Poppy's pancakes and the giggles from her two little cousins, but she wasn't stupid. She was old enough to be living on her own anyway, and soon Uncle Thierry would tire of the twins' antics. Besides, being human, he wouldn't be able to keep up with any of them. It was for the best that they left him behind.

"'Course I am, asswipe." She replied with a roll of her eyes. Pulling over to the side of the road, she parked the car quickly and climbed out, legs shaky and wobbly from sitting in the car for the eight hours. Sawyer grimaced, leaning one arm on the hood of the car as she stretched out in an effort to dispel the horrible feeling.

The boys climbed out beside her, Jared stretching his arms above his head as a wincing Connor kneaded a knot in his neck that had formed from his awkward sleeping position. The two turned their gazes to the apartment complex, frowning thoughtfully. It didn't look like much, that was true; the building was as high as any building could get in a place like Beacon Hills, with a graffiti-ed tag marks and such on the walls and a lot of dark windows. Connor wrinkled his nose as Jared turned to Sawyer and stated bluntly,

"It looks like a shithole." Sawyer rolled her eyes, smacking the back of his head and replying,

"Don't judge a book by its cover, Jared. I mean, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you were a perfectly respectable young man." She rolled her eyes and Connor snorted beside her as Jared glared at her indignantly. "C'mon." Sawyer continued, nudging Connor with her elbow and heading for the trunk of the car. She pulled out a couple of boxes they'd forgotten to give the movers and dumped these in Jared's arms, before passing Connor a few bags and settling another box in her own arms, as well as a bag containing her clothes for the night. "Move your asses, kids."

"Alright, mom." Connor murmured, heading towards the door. "You've got the keys, right?" Sawyer pulled a face that he couldn't see with his back turned.

"No, Connor, I don't have the keys. I was planning on us living out of these boxes, see. Of course I have the keys, idiot." Jared snorted from up ahead.

"That's a shame. With the amount of boxes I have, I'd be the king." Sawyer shook her head fondly, balancing the box on one arm as her free hand dug around in her handbag for the keys.

"Of what? Stupidity?" Connor retorted, raising an eyebrow at his twin mockingly. Jared shot him a look over his shoulder.

"No. Sex, probably." Sawyer rolled her eyes as her brothers' banter continued, moving past the two and pulling the door open with the hand clutching the keys.

"Oh good, that leaves me with the title of God." Connor replied as Sawyer turned the key. Before it could escalate into a full-blown fight, Sawyer interrupted,

"Get inside. It's cold." Both turned to the door in surprise, seemingly not having noticed that it was opened. Without waiting for a reply or checking to see if they were following, she entered the block and headed for the elevator. The lobby – if it could even be called that – wasn't much to look at, and she immediately approached the elevator. The place wasn't very well-lit – was actually very dark – but her fine eyes could easily pick out the sign on the doors, declaring very clearly, 'OUT OF ORDER'.

The brunette growled under her breath, but turned to the stairs all the same and began to make her way up them. "This is bullshit." Connor grumbled from behind her, clearly having caught sight of the sign.

Sawyer rolled her eyes. "Whichever one of you that was, shut your trap." It was true, she supposed, that the travelling had left her in a bad mood. She'd never really liked travel, not even as a kid, and certainly not since the tension-filled ride to Uncle Thierry's after the death of their parents. Sawyer felt something in her grow cold at the reminder. Her pack had died eight years ago, when she was thirteen, after her Uncle – her Alpha – Ennis had gone crazy and started hunting them down. Uncle Thierry, for some reason (though both Sawyer and Connor suspected it to be his very human state) had been spared, and Sawyer and her brothers had been hidden from his sight by her parents.

She sighed. It wasn't a happy time, and she didn't like thinking about it. It was entirely likely that such melancholy thoughts had been brought on by their recent move. After all, Seattle had been her home since she was thirteen, and she hadn't moved since the death of her pack.

"Lighten up, Sawyer, I can smell your sadness from here." Jared called from behind her, and she rolled her eyes, before noticing the sign on the wall. They were on the right floor, at least. She pushed through the door on her right and began making her way through the corridor, counting the doors as she went. 12, 13, 14... She forced a smile as her eyes fell upon door fifteen. The door to her... apartment.

Opening it and stepping through, she wrinkled her nose. It was nothing at all like the homely cabin she and her brothers had shared with their uncle, aunt and cousins. The 'hallway', if it could be called that, led into a cramped living space, in which the battered couch she'd rescued from a street corner was thrown, as well as the fancy TV Thierry had insisted they let him buy, the small coffee table they'd ordered and the Xbox the boys had been missing since it had been sent on its way to their apartment four days ago. Settled between the nooks and crannies and, really, anywhere the movers could find, boxes piled up over each other, each hurrying to be unpacked as quickly as they could. Sawyer could feel a headache building in her temples, and she massaged her head for a moment as she considered the amount of work she'd have to do to make the apartment even vaguely resemble something akin to comfortable. The furniture was chucked haphazardly around the small room, and Sawyer manoeuvred around it with the resolve that she would start moving things around the next day, while the boys were at school.

"Christ." Connor murmured from behind her, raising his eyebrows as he studied the room, and Jared nodded his head in agreement to the sentiment.

"'Christ' is right." Sawyer sighed, inching past the couch with trepidation and eyeing the two doors situated in the wall behind the TV. Neither had much to distinguish from the other; no sign proclaiming 'Sawyer's Room' like there had been back at Uncle Thierry's, and for a moment, Sawyer was struck with a pang of homesickness that made her sorely regret moving at all. She pushed aside this feeling with effort, pushing open one of the doors to distract herself and quickly deducting that this was her room.

After much arguing and foot-stamping – the latter, ashamedly, on Sawyer's part – it had been decided that the twins would share a bedroom and that was that. Several cardboard boxes littered the carpeted floors and the cream walls – she made a note to pick up paint the next morning – seemed bare. Her room was decorated in much the same way as the living room, with her new double bed pushed against one of the walls – a box labelled 'bedroom necessities' in Aunt Poppy's neat handwriting lay on this – and the battered desk from her old room at Uncle Thierry's situated in the corner, a few more boxes stacked on top and a rickety old chair pushed behind it.

Sawyer sighed and ran her fingers through her hair, the same dark eyes that she shared with her brothers raking over every last detail. It certainly didn't feel like home, but she hoped it would soon. She dropped the box she'd been carrying – labelled 'kitchen utensils' – onto one of the others and reached for the bag on top of it. The pyjamas inside didn't look like much; an oversized tee her boyfriend – ex-boyfriend, now – Caleb had left at her house a few weeks ago and a pair of short-shorts. She didn't feel the need to complain; she was asleep, after all, so it wasn't like she'd notice what she looked like.

The brunette sighed again and quickly stripped, before pulling the pyjamas on and turning to the door to better make her voice heard, though there was no need, what with her brothers' werewolf hearing. "Night boys!"

One of them half-heartedly called back a 'goodnight', but the other was silent. From the second steady heartbeat and even hearing she could pick up, she guessed he was asleep.

From the box on her bed she pulled out a quilt, uncovered by a sheet but smelling sorely like Aunt Poppy's laundry detergent all the same, and she pushed the box away gently and settled the quilt on the bed, before hurrying under it in an effort to get rid of the goosebumps that had risen on her skin. Things would be better tomorrow.

Burying her head further into the comfy mattress and taking in the clean smell, Sawyer nodded her head. Yes, things would be better tomorrow.