Title: Monster
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Character(s)/Pairing: Chris Argent, Scott McCall, Stiles Stilinksi, Allison Argent
Rating: PG
Warnings: scene of werewolf killing; slight gore; mention of minor character death
Notes: Written for a Fan-Flashworks challenge on LiveJournal: "Win or Lose".
He wants him to kill Scott.
Chris rubs his temple with his fingers, waiting in his SUV for his daughter. He's never disliked anything more than waiting in a car-rider line at a school, but here he is, doing it for Allison. He'd do anything for her, even such an abhorrent activity as this.
Sometimes, though, he finds this abhorrence tested by other things; sometimes it's a passing thought, some brief realization he files away – other times it overwhelms him when he suddenly realizes how desperately he doesn't want to do what he's about to do. Most of these tests, these moments of clarity, are things he has to file away and forget about. Thus is the nature of an Argent.
He sighs and stares down at the LED numbers; they read 2:45.
He looks up in his rearview mirror at the man behind him. He's in his mid-forties, a little overweight, bald, frowning, and picking his nose. That's lovely. Chris laughs once and lowers his eyes to stare blankly ahead at the shaded rear-window of a truck.
Chris doesn't want to kill Scott. He doesn't want Scott to date his daughter, ever or in any manner, but he doesn't want to kill him. He'll shove him down on the hood of a car and press a gun to his forehead and hoot and holler various threats and deadly promises, but he'll never actually pull the trigger and embed an aconite poisoned bullet into the teenager's skull.
Gerard wants him to kill Scott.
He wonders briefly why he usually refers to his father as Gerard, pontificates and ponders for a few moments, when he finds himself pulled to an old memory he's surprised he'd managed to bury.
Kill or be killed, win or lose Gerard had said. Either they win, son, and you die - or you win and they die. Chris had swallowed around his dry throat, mouth feeling full of sand. They're monsters, son, all of them. He remembers looking back, then, over his shoulder in the darkness of the woods far behind his old home, up at the man hanging from a rope slung over a thick limb. The man's face was knotted around his nose in pain. His arms must have been throbbing. His hands were red, red to the point of swelling blue or purple – Chris hadn't been able to tell for certain under the moonlight.
Gerard had pulled a sword free of some expensive cloth, and held the hilt to him. This is your initiation, son. This is the beginning of your life. His hands had tightened around the hilt, knuckles whitened. This is justice. This is cleaning our world of trash, of garbage that wishes to do nothing but harm all that surrounds it, to kill. Chris had looked back up the man hanging from the tree. His face was gleaming under the moonlight, wet with tears. Gerard had set his hand on his shoulder and squeezed, a comforting motion. It's also a kindness. A kindness to a rabid animal that is suffering, that is out of control, that is incapable of understanding the damage it is doing to humanity.
His hands tightened on the steering wheel. His knuckles whitened.
Do it.
The man looked at him, then. He was limp. He was terrified. He looked just like any other person – only, there was a kind of sadness in his glowing eyes that Chris had never seen before, ever; especially not in a monster.
Do it, son.
He'd closed his eyes and tried to make himself believe the words, believe that this man wasn't a man, but really a monster. A rabid dog. He'd opened his eyes and stepped closer, raising the sword in preparation to do something unforgiveable. He was going to kill someone. He'd clenched his eyes shut. Monster he'd thought. This is a monster.
The sword had lowered, incrementally, his resolve fading, but he knew what would happen if he didn't do this.
Please…
The word had hit him hard, like a punch to the stomach or a sudden, severe migraine, and he'd found himself awash in dread.
Please, please… I have a fa –
Do it!
He'd done it. For years after, he'd struggled to forget the dull thump of the man's lower body falling to the dead dry leaves, and even now he'll sometimes hear a similar thump. It always makes him sick.
Since then, he hadn't thought of Gerard as 'dad'. His image of the comforting, nurturing man he thought a hero, a genuinely good person, fell away like the bloody intestines that fell from the man's torso. He'd witnessed and done the same thing many times thereafter. Every time, that same dreadful feeling leaves him empty.
Chris sighs and rubs his eyes. How many more times can he do it before there was nothing left inside? Before he was as heartless as Gerard? The image of Scott hanging from a tree, severed in half and bleeding, came unbidden to mind. He opens his eyes and stares ahead.
The front doors of the school fling open and the sheriff's son, Stiles he thinks, bolts out, Scott close behind. Chris sits up and watches, trying to catch every movement, every possible sign that the two were committing some bad deed, some kind of trouble, some kind of wrong.
Stiles stumbles to an unsteady halt beside his jeep, panting and shaking and rubbing his hands over his buzzed hair. Scott slows halfway and approaches cautiously, hands spread as if he were approaching a frightened, growling dog. Scott says something and Stiles turns and sort of shrugs, an unsure movement like he doesn't know what to say. Scott steps closer, slowly, and places his hands on Stiles's shoulders.
He says something else and Stiles's lips pull into his mouth, his brow wrinkles, and his eyes redden. He releases his lips from his teeth, his mouth curves downward, and he lowers his head and turns it to the side, away from Scott. He digs his palms into his eyes and his shoulders start to tremble.
His body hunches and Scott steps forward, carefully setting his hands on either side of his friend's neck. Stiles looks up at Scott, face lachrymose and flushed. Scott loosely wraps his arms around Stiles's neck. Stiles is limp for a moment with his head against Scott's shoulder. His shoulders are still and a moment passes, then he wraps his arms around Scott's waist, Scott tightens his arms around Stiles's neck, and Stiles's shoulders are again shaking. He clutches Scott tightly, like he's the only thing keeping him together, keeping him from tumbling back into dysphoria.
Chris feels suddenly uncomfortable, like he's watching a private moment, the kind of private moment in which a person falls apart. He looks away up at the doors of the school. Some time passes and Allison steps out among a throng of students, bag slung over her shoulder and books wrapped in her arms.
"Dad?" He jumps and looks over at his daughter, having drifted somewhere far from his environment. "Are you okay?"
He nods and says, "Of course, I'm fine. Just tired."
Allison glances around and asks, "Did you see Stiles or Scott come out here?"
He looks over to Scott and Stiles; out of the corner of his eye he sees Stiles's jeep turn out of the parking lot. Scott's driving.
"No." He starts his car and pulls out of his spot. "Why do you ask?"
She shifts a little, futzing with her hands like she doesn't know what to say, and settles on, "Well Stiles sort of ran out of class. Scott went after him and I thought maybe they came out here."
Chris slows to a stop and keeps his eyes on the red light.
"Why'd he run out of class?"
"I don't know." He looks over and she's frowning with her eyes turned toward her window. "Mom read a short story from the New Yorker. That might've had something to do with it. Maybe."
Chris taps his thumb on the steering wheel. "What was it about?"
"A funeral."
"Who's funeral?"
"The girl's mom."
Chris swallows thickly and turns as the light flashes green.
Stiles had been overwhelmed with dread, stricken by a terrible memory, an unforgettable feeling – Chris is familiar with this, knows how it feels. Scott had known what to do, known how to comfort his friend, and had done so like Chris would do for anyone he loved, and hopes his loved ones would do for him.
Gerard wanted him to kill Scott, win or lose, kill or be killed, and he realized he couldn't live with himself if he did it. Monsters are monsters – they don't love anyone, don't feel anything for anyone.
But Scott loves Stiles.
Allison steps out of the SUV and makes her way inside the house.
In his solitude, Chris finds himself overwhelmed by the realization that he can't kill Scott. He stares over at the line of trees and wishes he could take back the first man he ever killed; the man, not the monster.