i. sin one: wrath
The door opened silently, allowing Jennifer to enter her apartment.
It wasn't homecoming. That implied that there was an actual home to come to, not this soulless apartment at the edge of town which she only used to sleep. She hadn't known a home for years, couldn't even remember what made an apartment a home. Was there sound instead of the familiar silence that welcomed her as she closed the door behind her and threw the keys into the bowl that stood on the cupboard? Was it a feeling of warmth and welcoming instead of the unmoving air and coldness that seeped from the walls and blanketed her like snow on the streets in winter? Was it warm light shining from the living room, instead of the cold light of the street lamps shining through the windows, casting everything in half-shadows and darkness? Was it the smell of food instead of dust?
Jennifer didn't know. Didn't care to remember. Home was for people that were whole. For people with families, for people that loved and lived. Jennifer did none of it. She walked through the hallways, past the kitchen she never used and the living room she rarely entered. Between the doors that led to those two rooms there hung a mirror on the wall, having been installed there by the people that had lived here before her.
She hated the mirror with the passion of thousand burning suns. She hated the face that would stare back at her: the brown curls that framed unblemished white skin, blue eyes that sometimes twinkled as if they knew a secret that no one else knew, the thin red lips that curved into a seductive smile whenever she laughed, the petite nose and the high cheekbones. She hated all of it because she knew that it wasn't her. She hated it because all of it was an illusion, because she didn't know who she really was, how she really had looked.
Jennifer had lost herself. Somewhere between Kali attempting to kill her and her resurrection, she had lost the woman she had been – her emotions, her desires, her hopes and her dreams. All that remained were her memories and that all-consuming desire for revenge. To look Kali into her eyes as they widened with fear and terror, as her spirit was crushed by the inevitability of her death and have her experience the same fear, the same panic, the same pain, the same hurt that Jennifer had felt when Kali had slashed her skin open again and again.
Jennifer let go of the magic that kept the illusion alive, that anchored the false skin on her like a sticky film of oil (always wrong, always false, never true, a lie, a lie, a lie). The creature staring back at her from the mirror was a grotesque caricature of a human being, its skin crinkly and yellow like old parchment, her head bald and covered in angry red scars that even time could not heal. Eyes of a sickly white like purulence and a mouth framed by black lips and full of fangs that bared themselves to the onlooker whenever she attempted the mockery of a smile.
This was what Kali had reduced her to. This sad and broken mockery of life that held not a single drop of beauty. No one would look at her and see something worth being cherished, worth being kind to – worth being loved. No, everyone would see a monster that needed to put down; everyone would hate her, be disgusted and avert their gazes.
Jennifer didn't want it any different. That is what she told herself every time she stood in front of the mirror and threatened to shatter like glass; when she walked past a stranger who would smile at her, not knowing the monster that hid behind her beautiful crafted façade; when she laid in her bed at night, phantom pains wracking her body and just wished for all of this to end; when she saw the students at school under the spell of their first love, reminding her that once upon a time that had been Kali and her, that she would never experience it again.
Love and compassion hadn't saved her when she was bleeding out on the forest floor, the stars and the moon the only witnesses as she laid there in her last throes. Love and compassion hadn't been enough to stay Kali´s claws as she stood there above Jennifer, maniac glint in her eyes, high on the power she just had received. Love and compassion hadn't given Jennifer the power to come back and exert her revenge.
No, hate and wrath were what was driving her on now. An insatiable fire that burned in her chest and which she fed with all the fantasies of death and destructions she could conjure in her mind. Jennifer was burning and one day she would burn up, but as long as it was after her revenge she didn't care. She didn't care beyond that single point in the future, that one fixture that had kept her going through it all.
Even more than Kali she hated Deucalion. Hated the man for dripping his poison – his false promises of power and strength – into Kali´s heart until it reached her heart and took root in her mind. She hated him for being the depraved, loathsome monster he was and for being the reason Jennifer was now the same. She hated him for destroying his life and she feared him for being able to do so in the first place. And she loathed herself for feeling that fear.
That was why she was here now, in Beacon Hills, a small, non-descript town she would have never bothered to visit before. Her scrying had shown that Deucalion and his pack of Alphas were planning on setting their camp here. Jennifer had wasted no time, had packed her things and arrived before them, establishing herself as harmless English teacher at the local High School. She knew the history of the supernatural around her, about the Hale clan whose benevolent hand had steered the town until it all burned down around them. About the Nemeton that lurked somewhere in the vicinity of the town and just waited to be re-awoken, it´s vile and cruel energy leaking even into the heart of Beacon Hills. Jennifer could feel the ley lines that crossed underneath the steel and concrete, could feel them thrumming, full of energy, welcoming her as if she was an old friend they had waited for all this time.
Beacon Hills had woken from the sleep it had fallen in after the Hales had either died or left. Jennifer knew that the main branch of the Argents lived in the town as did the last surviving Hale; she had seen them in the waters, living their insignificant lives, scurrying around not noticing the dark clouds that drew nearer and nearer with every day. She had noticed the two boys in her class, had seen the wolves underneath their skins. One a scrappy, near feral thing, barely kept in check by the boy´s will who had looked at her with hate and fear in its yellows eyes, baring its fangs at her but unable to attack because its other half wouldn't – couldn't – listen. The other wolf a majestic white beast with red eyes that appraised her with cool calculation, not bothered by her presence in the least because it knew of its place as apex predator. An Alpha.
Jennifer wondered if the boy would notice her or if he wouldn't as his wolf didn't see her as danger (not yet). She asked herself if she should warn the boy (only a few years younger than she had been when she died, eyes still inquisitive, still full of curiosity, skin still pure and unblemished) that the Alpha Pack was coming for him, ready to either break or take him, but she hadn't. She couldn't allow herself to become invested, to form connections that Deucalion and his ilk would break like glass. So, she watched him and mourned him for he was already dead, even if he didn't know it yet. Even if he survived the Alpha Pack.
Maybe she would light a candle for him after she was finished with Kali.
A candle for him and a candle for herself.
ii. sin two: envy
Scott watched as Stiles retracted his claws, forced his face to change between the monstrous visage of the werewolf and his human face all the while Hale stood in front of him and talked him through it. Maybe Scott wasn't as observant as Stiles could be, but even he noticed that there was a certain comradery between the two of them – a softness in the way Hale spoke and moved – that hadn't been there when Hale had tried to reach out to Scott. Maybe it was because Stiles was an Alpha and Scott wasn't, or maybe because they had kind of accused Hale of being the murderer of his own sister.
Yeah, that definitely would sour any relationship.
Scott hadn't been that enthused when Stiles had rung him out of bed and told him that they were going to the old Hale house where Hale would train them and tell them stuff about being werewolves. Scott didn't really care much about the latter, because he just wanted to control this curse and didn't want to know about history or other stuff. When he had told that Stiles, the other had just rolled his eyes and continued to drag him towards the Preserve. Scott doubted that Hale would be happy to have Stiles drag him along to their training, but Stiles had told him that it had been Hales idea that he should come, too, because they couldn't really have Scott running around, unable to control himself, not with only a fragile peace hanging between them and the Argents.
Scott wanted to protest: He had been able to control himself quite well and the Argents weren't that bad. Allison was sweet and kind and wouldn't hurt a soul. She had just been deceived by her aunt and Scott couldn't really fault her for that. If Stiles was to ask him for help, he would agree without asking any questions, too, and Stiles wouldn't fault Scott for it. So, Allison wasn't really to blame. Victoria was scary as hell and Scott didn't really know her that well, but Chris was just a man who wanted to protect his family.
He didn't tell that Stiles, though, because Scott didn't think that his friend wanted to hear that right now. When they had arrived at the clearing in front of the Hale house, Hale had already been waiting for them, standing there arms crossed, that familiar scowl on his face. He had run Scott through some exercises to get a handle on how far advanced Scott: He could control his shift (thanks to what Stiles had taught him) when he was in a calm and controlled environment, but he had difficulties when he couldn't control his emotions and in fine-tuning his strength. So, while Hale assisted Stiles with his shift, Scott stood there, doing breathing exercises and trying not to break the twig he was holding between his fingers.
Watching Stiles and Hale interact and seeing the easiness with which Stiles took to this new weirdness made something dark coil in his stomach. He and Stiles had been best friends since kindergarten – 'brother from a different mother' – but Scott was keenly aware of how he always stood in Stiles' shadow. Maybe Scott possessed kindness and stubbornness and generally 'was like Captain America' (according to Stiles), but if Scott was Captain America, then Stiles was like Tony Stark: smart, good with words, suave and unbothered by other´s opinion of him. Spending his time in summer school because of his bad grades more often than not, Scott had often wished that he was more like Stiles.
Don't get him wrong, Scott wasn't jealous of Stiles all the time, or even enough to make himself notice, but every now and then Scott wished there was something he was better at than Stiles.
So, when he had been turned into a werewolf there had been a small part of him that relished in finally having something that Stiles didn't possess. Scott tried to silence that part of his mind, because he hated being a werewolf and the conditions it forced upon him, but he couldn't help but feel that satisfaction when he did something he previously couldn't have done and saw the expression of awe and admiration on Stiles' face. Scott knew that it was wrong, that he shouldn't feel that way, but he couldn't help it.
"You´re better at this than Stiles." Scott nearly fell over when Hale suddenly spoke up from beside him. The twig in his hand broke. "This is your third, isn't it? Stiles already had a whole heap of broken twigs in front of him by now."
"Hey!" Stiles mock-protested. "Don´t undermine my Alpha authority in front of Scott." Hale just raised one eyebrow at Stiles which somehow managed to convey utter exasperation and indulgence.
"If you don´t want your 'authority' undermined, I´d suggest you take a page out of Scott´s book and control your strength better," Hale remarked. Maybe Scott should revaluate his opinion on the older werewolf.
"Whatever," Stiles brushed him off. "Next time I´ll totally be in control of myself." Both Scott and Hale snorted.
"You can barely control what comes out of your mouth," Scott joked. Stiles put his hand on his chest as if he had been shot and let out a painful wailing.
"Et tu, Scott?!" he exclaimed. "Who can I trust when I can´t even trust my brother from another mother?" Against his will a smile snuck on Scott´s face at Stiles' antics.
"Hey, Scottie, wanna grab some Pizza on the way home?" Stiles asked. "I´m starving. I think I could literally eat a whole cow."
"You have to ask?" Scott exclaimed incredulously. Maybe he had some issues, but Stiles was his best friend and didn't deserve them. Scott could deal with them on his own.
iii. sin three: lust
Lydia had been awake for four hours, thirty-six minutes and fourteen seconds when the door to her hospital room opened and Stiles Stilinski entered. The boy looked fatigued, his eyes framed by dark circles while his skin was even more pale than usual, but that didn't diminish the smile he flashed at her when he noticed her looking at him.
"Hi Lydia," he waved at her. Lydia didn't reply anything, pursing her lips instead and looking at Stilinski expectantly. She didn't act like this just to be cruel or dismissive, but because she really didn't know what the other wanted. She didn't know Stilinski that well; they could barely be described as acquaintances. They went to the same school, had a few classes together, nothing more.
Lydia was aware that Stilinski was obsessed with her – or at least pretended to be – which only made her avoid him even more. He didn't even know her, and yet he had professed his love to her several times which she found beyond creepy. She was a living, breathing human being and Stilinski hadn't even bothered to get to know her before he started objectifying her. To him she was not a human being but a concept he could cling to, a conquest so to speak, and because of that she showed him the cold shoulder whenever he was in the near vicinity of her.
Some girl – Heather, Lydia thought her name was – had once angrily demanded to know from Lydia why she would string Stiles along if she wasn't interested in him anyway, to which Lydia replied back that she didn't owe Stilinski anything, lest of all giving him the time of the day, just because he thought he was in love with her. No wonder women still had to fight to be treated as equals if even they themselves thought that they should give boys a chance just for being nice.
Courtesy should be the standard, not the exception.
In a moment of weakness Lydia had agreed to be Stilinski´s date for the prom, even though she had known the moment she said yes that it was a mistake. But Jackson had left her and had poisoned everyone else against her and Allison had asked her to take Stilinski to the prom as favour and so she had agreed. Maybe she had hoped that it would end his obsession with her, that he would finally realise that they weren't really meant to be together, that she didn't really want them to, but apparently it hadn't. Maybe she had hoped that this one evening of socialising with each other would humanise her enough in Stilinski´s eyes so that he would finally accept her choices, that he would recognise that he was feeling for her (what he thought he was feeling for her) wasn't real, but – again – apparently it hadn't.
For a split-second Lydia wondered how long it would take the nurses to get to her if she called them in case Stilinski started to confess his love to her again.
"I wanted to ask how you were feeling?" Stilinski told her after an awkward moment of silence between them. "You had us all pretty shocked."
"I´m fine," Lydia replied curtly.
"That´s good," Stilinski mumbled. "Really good. I´m glad. Did they tell you how you've been found?"
"They told me that it´s been you and Derek Hale," Lydia answered.
"Yeah, the police didn't really know where to look," Stilinski told her with pride colouring his voice, his whole posture straightening. "Seems to be a running theme with us; first at the prom and now this. Hope it won´t happen the next time." He smiled at her.
"What makes you think there´ll be a next time?" Lydia wanted to know in icy tone.
"Well, we did go to the prom together," Stilinski pointed out, face crunched up in confusion. "To be honest, going to prom together comes much later in my 10 Years Plan, but I can rearrange and adjust the whole thing…"
"Let me make this clear to you, Stilinski, even though I doubt it´ll keep," Lydia interrupted him in mid-semtence. "I don't like you. Not a bit. You think I owe you for 'saving' me? Well, newsflash for you: I don´t. Quite the opposite, the fact that you knew exactly where to look for me when my friends and the police didn't, creeps me out far more than it creates any kind of gratitude." Stilinski opened his mouth to say something, but Lydia didn't allow it, instead continuing to talk over him. "Even though you barely know me, you have never just accepted that I don't want to have anything to do with you. 'No means No' seems to be a concept that you apparently have repeatedly failed to grasp, even though we´ve been taught it since kindergarten. Again and again you ignored my wishes of being just left alone and instead put your own desires above my autonomy with 'grand, romantic' gestures that in context are just creepy because they invalidate me and reduce me to nothing but an object for you to project your desires and fantasies on."
If she had been her normal self – not laid up in a hospital, still emotionally and physically weak from her ordeals, she would have just continued to ignore the other boy in the hopes that he would get the silent hints, but right now she didn't have the strength to go through with it and just the thought of another three years of evading Stilinski in the hallways made her sick, so everything just spilled out.
She took a deep breath and continued. "You´re probably telling yourself that you know my 'real self' and that if I only saw yours, I´d see that we belong together to which I can only reply: How. Dare. You. How dare you implying that you, a boy who barely knows me and who has never taken the effort to get to know me, knows me better than my friends, my family or even myself? How dare you taking away my agency and claim that you know what´s the best for me, which in your opinion is you, an average, unremarkable white boy? Just because you´re nice – whatever the hell that means – and male doesn't mean I owe you anything. Even if I hook up with Greenberg, it´s still my choice and it´s not false or wrong or misguided, just because it isn't you!"
She had to grasp for air at the end of her rant, but she just couldn't stop, because for once Lydia had the hope that she would get through Stilinski´s delusion and finally put him to rights. She didn't care that his expression looked like she was gutting him alive, didn't care that his eyes started to get wet, because for long enough he hadn't cared about what she wanted either.
"So, take whatever pride you may feel for being the one who found me and leave," she finished. "And if I ever, against all odds, decide that being with you is the thing I´ve always wanted, it´ll be I who decides that and it´ll be I to let you know."
After that, Stilinski bolted out of the room like a deer that was fleeing from the wolf. Lydia rest her head against the pillow, closed her eyes and let out a deep breath. She couldn't wait to get out of the hospital and have her life back.
iv. sin four: pride
The town of Beacon Hills stretched before him, nestled between the forest and the Preserve, its lights waging a hopeless war against the darkness of the night. Few stars shone on the horizon, the city itself a glowing point amidst the black forms of the trees. Every now and then two moving lights on the street would connote a car transporting its owner to their cosy home. Everyone was sleeping, seeking protection against the ills of the world behind walls of wood and concrete, secure in the knowledge that nothing could get at them while they were hidden behind their own four walls.
Deucalion bared his teeth in a sad mockery of a smile as he contemplated the sheep of Beacon Hills that didn't even know the danger that was coming their way. Was the new Alpha amongst them, sleeping soundly in his bed or did he notice the change in the air, the smell of danger, the whisper of change in the rustling of the leaves?
It didn't matter, anyway, Deucalion supposed. In all of his years building and leading the Alpha Pack there hadn't been a single being – human, werewolf or else – that had been able to stand against their combined powers. All of them had fallen to their – to his – might and this new Alpha wouldn't be any different. Deucalion had spent years to hone his abilities, to accumulate power never wielded by a single person before, had foraged beyond anything anyone had ever hoped to achieve. No newly-minted Alpha would be able to defy him, not for long at least.
"Something´s wrong with this town." Kali appeared from behind the tree line, stopping a short distance behind him as she rightfully should. "There´s too much power thrumming underneath my feet. It doesn't want us here." Deucalion had to supress the urge to scoff at Kali´s superstitious nonsense. She was a woman of loose morale and great strength, but those characteristics also made her susceptible to fairy tales and other imaginary absurdities.
"The only power in this town is the new Alpha and us," Deucalion replied. "And ours is far greater. There´s nothing to fear for us here." Kali didn't say anything, her gaze instead sweeping over the town in front of him.
"Collect the others," Deucalion ordered. "It´s time to settle down."
AN: For a very long time I considered whether or not I should include that particular Lydia POV, but in the end I decided for it because it´s something very close to my heart. I love Stiles, I really do, but let´s be real here, his behaviour in season one towards Lydia was creepy and obsessive. Insiting that Jackson wasn´t 'the right one' for her (honestly, the only person to decide that is Lydia herself), buying her gifts worth several hundred Dollars (I think it was a 32'' screen and jewelry), having a 10 Years Plan to 'make' he fall in love with him and ignoring her repeated refusals of his advances. Stiles sees Lydia as someone that needs to be protected (by him) 24/7 and he doesn't believe that she can take care of herself (or even that Scott can take care of her) and he also called Lydia by many hurtful names (ex. Soulless) just because she ignored him. Stiles made Jackson's death (and Lydia going to save him) all about himself and how he would suffer if something happened to Lydia and ignored Lydia's feeling all together even though her boyfriend had just died. And I think Lydia, being shown with a near-genius intellect, would be aware of all that.
If any men in real life would do that, the folks from tumblr wouldn´t even need one second to bring out the torches and pitchforks and honestly, even I, as a gay man, was really disgusted by that behaviour, so I really can´t imagine how a girl who´s victim of such 'affection' would feel.
In my interpretation of events, Lydia agreed to take Stiles to the prom because she was at her lowest: Jackson had distanced himself from her, she had several life-threatening occurences happening to her which nobody bothered to explain, she needed a date and then there was Stiles, the 'nice' guy, and Allison was asking her to do it as a favour, so maybe she did succumb to the social pressure and gave him a chance because of that, thinking that seeing her real self would destroy the perfect illusion of herself that Stiles had built up in his mind. So, when Stiles visits her in the hospital after another emotional draining occurence, Lydia just can´t hold back anymore and throws everything at him, because she´s off balance and feels vulnerable. And vulnerable people lash out.
Stiles and Lydia will become friends and kick ass (because I love Stydia friendship and male/female friendships in general), but before that can happen, I wanted to adress this issues and have Stiles do some soul searching.
So, rant over and I hope you don´t hate me (/.\)
