A/N - Hey! I've been away for the last few weeks visiting family, so I haven't had much time to focus on my writing, but I want those of you who are following Red Herrings and waiting for updates that it's currently being worked on, so please forgive me for the wait. My little boys are running me ragged, so by the time I sit down to write, I'm a bit cross-eyed. I want to make sure you get something worth waiting for, so bear with me a little longer. I'm doing my best :)
Thanks again to everybody who has left reviews and put this fic on their favorites/alerts lists. You seriously make my day everytime FF shoots me an email.
Un-beta'd and fancy free!
"...so then he offered to bite me and turn me into a werewolf," Stiles said with a giant exhale, as if he'd told the entire tale in one long breath.
After checking for cars, he turned the steering wheel of his Jeep to the left and took the turn on a red light.
"And even if Peter didn't have to put his mouth on me to do it, which was totally enough of a deterrent – because seriously, those bedroom eyes he was batting at me while mouthing my wrist almost had me reaching for my rape whistle – being a werewolf is just...ugh. No thanks. The ROI is kind of shitty, you know? Being actively hunted down by a bunch of bigots on a bimonthly occurrence in exchange for a shortened sexual refractory period is just not really a great trade-off. Of course, I could be wrong. I'll get back to you after I've been boned."
Been boned?
Logan cocked an eyebrow in Stiles direction.
Stiles raised both hands off of the steering wheel in mea culpa for his turn of phrase. "...or, you know, engaged in boning...took a trip to the bone yard – or whatever the kids are saying these days. Do people even still use the phrase 'boned'?" His nose scrunched up in thought. "It's not painfully obvious that I'm a virgin, right?"
"No." Logan shook his head, hiding the bemusement that was playing across his face. "You're golden."
"Just to be clear...this is sarcasm." Stiles spiraled one lazy hand in the space between the two of them.
As the passing street lamps illuminated Stiles's features from above, which appeared vulnerable for a moment before sliding into mirth.
"So...you really weren't tempted?" Logan asked, wondering how Stiles could be so sure about turning away such an attractive offer. Having the ability to heal from injury and gaining super strength and speed made being a werewolf seem pretty fucking appealing. In fact, he was really struggling to see the downside from this whole thing. "I'm talking about the werewolf thing, not sex. I think we both know what your answer would be if somebody offered you that."
Stiles shook his head with conviction, then seemed to drift off into his own musing. "I mean, I guess I was a little...tempted. Scott got like, a seriously hot girlfriend, popularity, and became co-captain of the lacrosse team within a month of getting the bite. We were both bench-warmers before, as well as social pariahs." He glanced at Logan and then sighed heavily. "Bet you had all of those cool things without having to endure violent lunar rages, roving gangs of hunters out to kill you and uncontrollable sexual desire?"
Logan laughed out loud. "Actually, all of that kind of happened to me too on some level...except for the lacrosse thing, because team sports are not my thing, bro. Apparently, I'm 'not a team player'," he recounted, with air quotes. "According to my high school guidance counselor. Though she was once arrested for check fraud, so I'm not sure she really held the moral high ground."
"Your guidance counselor was a thief?" Stiles slowed down for a red light and casually shrugged. "Mine was a Druid."
"Was she also a veterinarian?" Logan failed miserably in holding back a snicker.
"Ha. Ha. The vet's her older brother. It's not like we have a plethora of Druids hanging out in Beacon Hills...I think." Stiles shrugged again. "I do know there's gonna be one more here soon though."
Logan's eyes widened. "You? Don't you have to be born a Druid?"
"Suddenly an expert on Druids, Logan?"
"I assumed they were an ethnic group," he said, with a look of embarrassment.
"No, but I'm totally going to tell people that from now on if they fuck with me." Stiled eyes glinted with mischief. "Druids are kind of like the guidance counselors of the supernatural world. You have to be good at analyzing problems and providing appropriate strategy and solutions...usually of a magical nature." He drummed out a complicated beat against the leather of his steering wheel. "Oh, and you have to be human. Since we discovered that Lydia was a banshee, the job kind of fell to me."
"They are better off with you. Lydia would not have made a good Druid," Logan said, gaining a new appreciation for the stealth under which Stiles kept his skill set. At first glance, he was easy to underestimate, which was probably exactly what he wanted, since it kept his adversaries off-guard.
Veronica is the same way with her PI work - always loves to take the marks by surprise.
"She has poor people skills."
Stiles laughed hard at Logan's estimation. "She would probably tell you that her people skills were directly proportional to the quality of the person she was dealing with. Bet she even has a graph somewhere detailing it all out. And before you ask – that was not a joke. I really think it exists."
The vibrations from Logan's phone cut through Stiles's laughter jeep like a buzzsaw.
"Jesus. That's what your phone sounds like on silent mode?" Stiles forehead wrinkled in disbelief. "What does it do when the ringer is actually on? Does a brass band march out and smack you over the head with a tuba? Seriously, the volume is shocking."
"What's really shocking is that you even know what 'silent mode' is," Derek's voice boomed from the backseat.
Logan's heart startled in his chest at the sudden intrusion. He'd almost forgotten the werewolf was there until he spoke, since he'd been conspicuously silent for nearly the entire ride.
Stiles smirked at Derek through the rear view mirror. "Jealousy is not a good color on you, dude. Just because Logan has actual friends who call him for non life-saving reasons, doesn't mean you get to be bitchy about it."
"Ever think that maybe I have friends, but just don't introduce them to you because I'd rather people not think you're the type of person I like to hang out with?" Derek's words sounded much angrier than their teasing cadence.
"Nope." Smugness oozed out of Stiles's every pore. "In fact, I'm 100% positive that whole scenario is patently impossible. Especially the part about me not being the type of person you like to hang out with."
Derek's impressive eyebrows kissed his hairline, begging Stiles to elaborate.
"You have serial killer eyes, a sketch reputation, and the emotional constipation of a 19th century Englishman. We both know I'm one of the only people even willing to be seen in public with you who doesn't either work for the police department or grow another set of teeth when the moon is nigh. In fact, I'm most likely already on a terrorist watch list because of you. I'll probably never see Paris, now."
"Looks like Paris owes me a thank you note." Derek grunted his irritation and turned away.
As Logan lifted his ass up to dig in the back pocket of his jeans for his phone, he caught Derek's murderous glare. The guy wasn't even really pissed off and he looked like he was about to disembowel his friend with one swipe of his pointy claw.
Logan's phone rattled the air with its vibrations again before he was able to reach it. "Keith?"
"Finally!"
Keith sounded relieved to hear from him, and a little irritated, but not depressed - so Logan assumed nothing horrible had transpired, like the sheriff's department finding Veronica's body in a shallow grave somewhere. He wondered at what point on this journey he'd become an expert on deciphering Keith's state of mind from the way the man uttered one single word.
"I've tried you a few times already, Logan. I was starting to think you'd gotten yourself in trouble."
Logan moved the phone from his head and squinted at the receiver for a moment before replacing it. "It's been, like, an hour. Why would you assume I'd gotten myself into trouble?"
"We've met?"
Logan figured Keith phrased it like a question to take the sting out of the joke. It stilled burned.
"Anyway, I've got a little news, but before I tell you, I want you to try to stay calm - -"
"The blood was Veronica's," Logan interjected, cutting him off.
"Ah. Scott got to you first, huh? Melissa told him not to say anything to you before I got the chance to explain." Keith's voice was muffled, like he'd placed his hand over the mic to block out the sound. A woman's voice mumbled something in the background and Keith responded with a muted laugh. "Sorry. Melissa said Scott has a really shitty poker face and that I shouldn't blame him for jumping the gun, because everybody probably knew before he'd gotten off the phone with her."
"Melissa said that, huh?" If Logan weren't positive that Keith was devastated by his daughter's disappearance. He might accuse the man of being smitten. "Well, she definitely knows her son. His poker face is indeed shitty, especially around a pack of werewolves."
Stiles swallowed a laugh. "Don't you dare tell him that! Scotty thinks he's a good player and I let him...at least for the first few hands, and then I take him for all his lunch money. It's almost impossible to win a game of 'Texas Hold 'em' when you're playing against a werewolf. They can always tell when you're bluffing, so please do not take this from me, man."
Logan waved Stiles off with a grimace.
Keith sighed. "Right."
"Okay, so what else did you find out?" Logan asked, not sure if Keith caught his reference to the furry beasts and wasn't ready to chat about it, or if he assumed it was just one of Logan's more bizarre quips.
"Well...I was told you've met Lydia?"
"The banshee."
"Lovely girl," Keith said, playfully.
Okay, seriously, is he not getting any of this?
"According to Lydia, we have good reason to be hopeful," Keith said, "assuming we both aren't experiencing some kind of shared hallucination."
Finally!
Just to be sure, Logan asked for clarification. "By shared hallucination, you're referring to...?"
"The werewolves," Keith said plainly, as if he were discussing a group of Germans or carpenters.
That went quite a bit differently than I was expecting.
"Ah, yes. Just wanted to make sure we were on the same page in regards to the mythical creatures."
"It's always good to be thorough." Keith reminded Logan of the way he always bantered with Veronica. "So, I guess what I'm asking is..."
"You want to know if I slipped something into your coffee?" Logan asked tersely, an unintended edge clinging like a vine to his larynx. Obviously, Keith was joking, but any Veronica-adjacent reference to drink-drugging was an immediate mood killer for him.
"I'm kidding, son! Relax." Keith sounded truly confused by Logan's tenor. "I was led to believe you had a sense of humor."
"You'd kind of have to if you were in my position, no?" Logan leaned his head against the window and released a hot burst of air against the glass pane, fogging up a sizable swatch. He lifted his index finger and carved a set of fangs into the fog. "And that's before the whole werewolf odyssey."
The soft staccato of Keith's chuckles soothed Logan's nerves. "I was told the werewolves," he stopped to laugh at the absurdity of what he was about to say, "are out looking for the missing women by scent. This is crazy, right? We've both gone crazy."
"I'm actually riding in a car now with an alpha werewolf. I saw him change right in front of my eyes." Logan peeked at Derek through the reflection of his window, totally unsurprised to find that he was still glowering.
"Huh. I guess that's that, then."
"You believe me?" Logan was a little taken aback by Keith's steadfast faith in his claim.
"What possible reason could you have to lie to me, Logan?" Keith asked. "Also, Isaac did not have a scratch on him after getting hit by an SUV. That was a bit of an eyebrow raiser."
"Yeah, I saw him change into a werewolf, too."
"Melissa explained everything to me about Scott and the others. She doesn't appear to be clinically insane, but it wouldn't be the first time I was fooled by a pretty face."
They were both quiet, as the reality of the situation came down on them like a ton of bricks.
Keith cleared his throat. "Lydia - the banshee - said she was positive that Veronica was still alive and safe. The sheriff backed up Lydia's track record in helping his department. I mean, I don't know if it's true or if she's psychic, but lots of clairvoyants are brought in as consultants on cases, so I suppose it is possible she knows something. Stilinski seems pretty salt-of-the-earth, so if he says she's on the level, it's good enough for me."
"You're not just saying that because nobody believed you when you were sheriff?"
There was a beat too long of silence and Logan worried he may have pushed Keith a little far with that last jibe.
Great. Now he'll be sure to put in a good word with Ronnie for me when this is all over.
"You had me worried for a minute there, Logan. I thought maybe you'd decided to go straight."
Logan's mouth tugged up into a grin. "Never fear, sir. I was, and always shall be, bent."
"Glad to hear it." Keith's voice was muffled again, but this time there was a man's voice in the background. "I'm about to leave the hospital. Sheriff Stilinksi and I are going to go through some recent assault and kidnapping cold crimes to see if there are any similarities to what's happening now."
"Sounds like you're back in your element."
Veronica would be chuffed to see her dad working in a station again, even if it were because he was trying to track her down.
"I am. What about you? I hear you're going to visit a Druid? Sounds...terrifying. Should I be concerned?"
Logan could almost hear Keith's face pulling into an amused expression.
"Not unless they're also into Scientology."
Outside of the animal clinic, Jackson shifted Allison's weight from bridal carry into fireman's hold. "How much of that charcoal stuff did you give her?"
Veronica angled her body to get a look at Allison's face. She was pale, and though it appeared she was still breathing, her intakes were shallow at best. "I'm not sure exactly. I dumped the contents of about ten capsules into my water bottle, but it was hard to get her to drink since she's passed out."
He angled his body back to look at Allison's face. "She's not looking too hot."
Veronica blew a stream of air into her bangs with mock frustration. "That's being kidnapped for you."
"Ring it again." Jackson jutted his chin toward the animal hospital's doorbell, instead of rising to her bait.
She pressed the buzzer next for the third time and rested her hand on the outside of the bag she still held against her chest. Her fingers traced the outline of her taser, over and over again like a mantra, as she waited for somebody to answer. "So...assuming your friend isn't on call, I'm really hoping you have a Plan B."
"Do I look like I need a Plan B?" Jackson spat, his eyes still fading in and out of an electric shade of blue, like a lamp with the bulb not screwed in tightly enough. "He's here. It would just be nice if the asshole could be bothered to answer his fucking doorbell."
The front door swung open, revealing a handsome black man in his early 40's, his chrome dome offset by a carefully manicured goatee. "I never answer when I don't know the person at the door. Can't be too careful with strangers in this town." His eyes rested on Jackson's fully wolfed-out face and he actively fought a smirk. "My apologies, Mr. Wittemore. In this light, I didn't recognize you...not without your reptilian tail."
Veronica's eyes widened with glee. "Werewolves have tails?"
"No!" Jackson's spine snapped ramrod straight and he brushed past Veronica toward the entrance, hip-checking her out of his path to the clinic.
Veronica cursed his name in three different languages in her head, then shuffled her feet as she followed him inside. If she knew how to hot wire a Porsche, she would have made a run for the border by now, but the stupid thing had biometric locks that apparently had both of Jackson's fingerprints stored in its system.
Do werewolves even have fingerprints with all that fur?
"He wasn't always a werewolf, my dear." The older man took Veronica's right hand and gave it a limp shake as they walked side-by-side toward the back of the clinic. "I'm Dr. Deaton. It's always pleasure meeting friends of Jackson's, even if it is after-hours."
"Veronica Mars," she said, "and I wouldn't exactly classify myself as a friend of Jackson's."
Deaton chuckled to himself and pulled a set of keys from the right pocket of his white lab coat, and used one of them to unlock the door to the back room. "You wouldn't be the first."
Veronica followed the vet into the dark, operating room and forced back the feeling that she was living a scene out of a 'torture porn' horror film. This man performed surgery on cats and dogs, not people. Nobody was going to turn her into a human centipede or make her amputate her own leg with a saw to free herself from Jackson's imprisonment.
If he remained insufferable though, it was good to have options. She could still hold a camera with one leg.
Deaton knocked the switch on the wall on his way in, activating the fluorescent lights above. They flickered on too slowly for Veronica's liking, which only added to the whole 'Pet Sematary' vibe the town was working.
A long metal table dominated the center of the room, surrounded by trays of covered tools and various other accoutrement used for light surgery. The doctor gestured to the exam table with a hurried wave of an arm. "Put her on the table."
As gently as possible, Jackson leaned over and deposited Allison's limp form onto the cold steel.
A frown crossed Deaton's lips before he'd even reached the patient. He angled the overhead exam light onto Allison's face and switched it on high. "Wolfsbane?" He looked toward Jackson, who replied with a short nod. "How much has she had?"
Though his ears had mostly returned to their natural shape and his forehead was now smooth, Jackson's brow quickly furrowed with concern. "I have no idea. I wasn't with her when it happened."
Deaton held open Allison's eyelids and pulled the light a little closer. Her eyeballs jerked left and right quickly in their sockets but didn't see to be show awareness of any kind. "She's in a variant of deep REM."
"Is that like a coma?" Jackson asked in a strained voice, clearly afraid of the answer.
"No. Not yet, though judging from the amount of Wolfsbane she must have ingested, she really should be." Deaton turned to Veronica. "What did you give her?"
Veronica was surprised Deaton assumed that she had been the one to treat Allison, until she caught the unimpressed glimmer in the man's eyes as they slid over to where Jackson was standing.
Jackson's certainly left a trail of cheer all over Beacon Hills.
"Why? Did I make her worse?" Veronica's breath caught in her throat and her knees began to buckle. If she had somehow managed to fuck things up made Allison sicker, Deaton would soon have two patients to treat. Her fingers clung to the side of the metal table for support. "Activated charcoal. Though I'm not sure how much I actually got into her. Was that a mistake?"
Deaton smiled and placed a comforting hand on Veronica's shoulder. "Clever girl. It probably saved her life."
She exhaled her relief and relaxed her hold on the table.
"I assume you brought a sample of the Wolfsbane with you for me to treat her with?" Deaton looked directly at Jackson, whose ears grew long and pointed under the strain of the question. Jackson's constant shifting in and out of form earned him a head shake from the older man.
"I-I didn't know you needed it!"
"You didn't listen to me about London, did you?" Deaton asked, his mouth tightening with unsaid words. "No. You couldn't have called any of those contacts I gave you. If you had, you would have known that only the exact Wolfsbane she ingested could be used to make an antidote. It's practically 'Werewolfing 101'."
Veronica raised a finger to speak, but was interrupted before a sound could escape her throat.
"I – I was going to, but I just – after the whole kanima thing – I just wanted to feel normal okay?" Jackson ran a hand harshly through his hair, tugging his puckered forehead into an odd shape as he passed over it. "Nobody knew who I was there, what I was, and-"
"Just because nobody knew you were a werewolf, didn't mean you stopped being one." Deaton pegged the wooden tongue depressor in his hand into the garbage can below, then took a cleansing yoga breath. "It was irresponsible to allow you to go off to another country with no knowledge of how to handle what you had become. I told Derek he never should have let you leave."
"That wasn't Derek's call. I make my own decisions. What the fuck position is he in to tell me what to do? He's the bitch who accidentally turned me into that...that...monster!" Jackson's mouth awkwardly contorted into a pout over his lengthened canines.
"A kamina isn't any more or less of a monster than a werewolf is. They're just another species of the same type of supernatural creature," he explained in a rote tone, as if he'd given Jackson this lecture many times in the past.
"Yeah, totally. They're exactly the same." Jackson's face screwed into a repulsed mien. "I was a fucking iguana. I had scales and a tail, man."
Deaton took another deep breath. "Yes. And now you have claws, sharp teeth and more body hair."
"I had claws and teeth before," Jackson said through a clenched jaw. "I was like the 'Creature from the Black Lagoon'. Except that I was apparently afraid of water. What kind of asshole lizard is scared of water? He turned me into a fucking loser!"
Deaton's fierce glare relented and a look of empathy crossed his face. "Derek is your alpha. It's his responsibility to train you, since you're a part of his pack."
Alpha. There that word was again. Veronica involuntarily shivered.
"I left town. I'm not part of his pack." Jackson looked at his shoes and clicked his jaw. "I never was."
"Derek gave you the bite. You'll always have a connection to him, Jackson." Deaton placed a temporal thermometer to Allison's left temple and smoothed it across her forehead until it reached the other side. "Even if you choose not to be a part of the Hale pack, it would behoove you to learn the basics from somebody who has experience dealing with lycanthropy."
The thermometer beeped and Deaton brought it closer to his face, exhaling hard when the number '104 F' flashed red in the readout window.
Veronica cleared her throat to get the attention of the two men. "How much of the Wolfsbane do you need?"
"I could drive back and get it," Jackson offered. "With my Porsche, it probably wouldn't take me more than 25 minutes, if I skip some lights."
Deaton brought a hand to his head as he reset the thermometer onto the tray. "She'll be dead in 20."
The idea that she might actually cause a person to die as a result of her clumsiness made the bile rise high in Veronica's throat. "How much of the Wolfsbane do you need?" she repeated slowly, hoping Deaton would actually process what she was asking this time.
Deaton's gaze narrowed in her direction and the corners of his mouth picked up in realization. "Why? How much of it do you have on you?"
Veronica dug into her pocket, pulled out a handful of indigo dust and thrust it at the vet. "Will this do?"
He looked down into the palm of her hand and sighed. "That'll do just fine. You are clever, aren't you, Veronica Mars?" He gathered the dust from her hand and scraped it into his own.
"I thought the doctors would want to know what she took." She shrugged her shoulders, and then cleaned off her hands with an antiseptic wipe from her bag.
Veronica could almost feel Jackson's face flushing with embarrassment next to her for not thinking ahead. "Also, seeing as I was abducted by a werewolf, and this poison was historically used to kill wolves, I figured it couldn't hurt to have a little of the blue stuff around." She shot Jackson a menacing smile. "You know how I like to be prepared."
Jackson smirked back at her like a naughty child.
Deaton dumped the contents into a small metal ramekin, struck a long match on the side of the table leg and lit the dust on fire.
A shocking flash of light burned brightly, blinding Veronica with its intensity. She quickly brought up her upper arm to shield her eyes.
"Sorry. I should have warned you about that. It should be safe to look now." She lowered her arm and watched with amazement as blue smoke trailed upward from the small metal bowl and disappeared into the ether.
The vet brought the bowl to the sink and dripped a few ounces of water into the Wolfsbane ash, then vigorously mixed it with a surgical curette. "Jackson, hold her in a sitting position."
Jackson switched places with Veronica and pulled Allison's body taut against his chest.
Deaton brought the mixture back over to the table, held Allison's jaw open with one hand and poured some of the liquid into her mouth, which promptly dribbled out of the corner of her lips. "Make sure her throat isn't bent to the side like that."
Jackson's hands tightened around the column of Allison's neck and held it steady as Deaton poured the rest of the concoction down her throat.
As the last drop hit her tongue, Allison gasped loudly and her arms flailed wildly, reaching out for something in the distance. "Scott? Scott!"
Deaton cradled her face in his hands and her eyelids fluttered open. "It's Dr. Deaton, Allison. You're okay now. You're safe."
Prompted by the vet, Allison took a few deep breaths as her sense of reality began to return. "How did I...?" She drifted her touch over the hands wrapped around her waist and then angled her head back to see whom they were attached to. Disappointment clouded her delicate features. "Oh. I thought I'd dreamed all of that. You're really here."
Allison looked around the room and noticed Veronica standing quietly to the side. "And you..."
"Veronica," she reminded her, matching Allison's warm gaze.
"I knew you'd come through for me, Veronica. I don't know how, but I just knew it." Pulling further out of Jackson's reach, Allison grinned knowingly at her, as if they shared some dangerous secret between them.
Veronica let out a puff of laughter. "That makes one of us."
Allison flashed her dimples, evoking memories of Veronica's friend Mac. Between the badass attitude and the dimples, the other woman was familiar enough to give her comfort so far from home.
"I had a feeling." Allison smoothed the stray hairs falling in her eyes back from her face and tucked them behind her ears. "You kind of remind me of a friend of mine. A lot actually."
"I was about to say the same thing. You wouldn't happen to be good with computers, would you?"
"Not even a little bit." Allison laughed and shook her head. "Your dad wouldn't happen to be a sheriff, would he?"
Veronica's laughter trailed off. "Um...actually...he is – or was. For a long time."
"You're serious?" Allison's face opened up like a cupie doll's. "That's an eerie coincidence. Or maybe it's not? I can't remember much from before, but...you said you're human, right?"
"Is – your friend – is she human?"
"He," Allison corrected. "And yes, he's human. His dad is the sheriff here."
Deaton was contemplative as he gave Veronica the 'once over' with his enigmatic stare.
"What about him? Is Dr. Deaton human?" Veronica asked, jerking her head in Deaton's direction. "I get the feeling that he's quite a bit 'smarter than the average bear'."
"Bears are actually quite sophisticated beasts," said Deaton. "Much like some breeds of wild dogs."
"That's what bears want you to think." Veronica arched an eyebrow at him. "But I've never seen a dog get his head caught in a honey pot, have you?"
Allison's musical titter quickly devolved into a hacking cough. "Sorry. I still have some of this crap in my lungs."
"It might take a day or two for it to all work itself out." Deaton lifted a stethoscope from under the tarp of his sterile tool tray and listened to Allison's lungs through her shirt. "You know, Allison, if it weren't for Ms. Mars's fast thinking, you might not be here right now. You owe her your life."
"No – you really don't." Veronica waved her hands in front of her in an attempt to erase the thread of conversation. "I'm kind of the one who got you into this mess in the first place, so please, do not even think of thanking me for mitigating the damage I caused. It was all my fault."
"No." Allison turned to look at Jackson with hurt in her eyes. "It's his."
Jackson paced to the end of the room and then circled back again. "I was just following orders."
"So was Joseph Goebbels," Veronica said with a scowl.
"You're comparing me to Hitler's number two?" He looked far too amused at the suggestion for her not to be infuriated.
"You know, Jackson, when I think of you, 'number two' is exactly the first phrase that comes to mind..." Veronica's hand crept into her bag and freed the miniature taser from the maxi-pad prison that she'd been using to camouflage it with. Manipulating her thumb, she flicked the device into the 'on' position and waited for it to warm up, counting slowly to 30 in her head. "I'm just not sure who's yet."
"What's that noise?" Jackson's eyes flitted nervously around the room and his ears pricked up in alert. "An electric charge or static of some kind?"
Shit! Damn that inconvenient sonic werewolf hearing.
Veronica's mouth dropped open and she pulled the taser from her bag, then held it out in front of her with an unsteady grip. She'd already been caught plotting, so she may as well go balls to the wall. "What you're hearing is 50,000 volts of electricity, which I plan to put through your lupine body if you take one more step toward any of us."
Jackson looked more personally offended than intimidated by her threat. "I was just standing next to you for ten minutes! If I wanted to kill you, I could have done it then."
Veronica looked over at Allison, who was staring back at her with a mixture of shock and pride. "Your hands were full at the time."
"Oh, I like you, Veronica. A lot. But there's no way you're human – or only human – I should say." Allison's eyes twinkled with intent at Deaton, who simply offered an opaque smile in response.
"What is she?" Jackson demanded to know, looking slightly sick at the idea that Veronica might house a covert, paranormal ability she could unleash on him.
He should be afraid, but not for the reasons he thinks. I don't need special powers to make his life hell. I can do that with one phone call.
Internally, Veronica rolled her eyes at the suggestion of being supernatural. If she were one full moon away from turning into a were-fox or some other weird nocturnal creature, wouldn't she have figured that out by now? She was a fucking private investigator, and a good one at that.
"I'll tell you what I am, Jackson...I'm just a cranky bitch who hasn't eaten a proper meal in days and has a stiff back from sleeping on a cellar floor. I'm pretty sure that would piss anybody off enough to make them want to smoke you, special powers or not."
"You don't need that. You know that, right?" Deaton approached Veronica, glancing with distaste at the tiny taser, blinking with promise in her hands.
"What? He's seen the error of his ways?" she snapped, her voice coming out much harsher than intended. "Sorry, but in my world, when somebody kidnaps a couple of women, they don't get to drive their Porsche home to daddy's house afterward, they get carted off to jail."
Deaton placed his hands on top of Veronica's, loosening her fingers from their death grip on the taser. "What I meant to say, was that you don't need that machine to create a spark...because you can be that spark, Veronica."
She let him pull the taser from her grasp, more as a result of being distracted than an actual decision to give up her weapon. "I'm pretty sure I have no idea where this is going, but I do know I'd like my taser back. I'm not exactly comfortable being unarmed right now. I mean, he did kidnap me. And as much fun as it was peeing into a bed pan in the dark, I'm feeling pretty confident that I can finally check that one off my bucket list and move on."
"I told you, I wasn't the one who took you. Believe me, you would not have been my first choice." Jackson took a defiant step forward, managing to twist his jacked-up werewolf features into a haughty expression. "Anyway, your little taser won't do much to me anyway, so maybe you should just unclench and let the man speak. If you shut your mouth occasionally, you might actually learn something."
That heady feeling Veronica always buzzed with right before she ripped somebody a new asshole washed over her like a warm bath. Her eyes crinkled with anticipation and she licked her lips in preparation for one of her soul-destroying rants.
"Give it a rest, Jackson!" Allison shouted, interrupting before Veronica could launch into her tirade. "You really shouldn't give Veronica any more of a reason to mess with you than she already has."
"That's right, Jackson. I might use my spark on you," Veronica said in jest.
"The spark -" Allison coughed a few more times and pulled a hit of air into her lungs, "-is real. What Deaton means, is that you're magic. Sort of."
"I'm 'sort of' magic." Veronica repeated with absolutely no conviction behind it, but a broad grin on her face. "How maddeningly unspecific. Well, that clears it all up for me. I totally get it now."
"Magic is a complicated art form that evolved over thousands of years. The mechanics of it can't be explained in a few sentences. Not everybody has the skill required to perform the tasks necessary, but you do." Deaton looked up from where he was cleaning his exam table. "What I'm trying to say, is that you're special."
Veronica's chest began to tighten at the certainty of Deaton's belief. He really thought she was capable of magic? Was magic even real? "Are you trying to suggest that I'm a witch? Because I have to warn you, you wouldn't be the first..."
"You're not a witch." He bit his bottom lip to hold back his exasperation. "Not everybody who practices magic is a witch, but all witches practice magic. A witch is actually a type of species. You can't just become one by practicing Wicca, contrary to popular belief."
"Okay, so if I'm not a witch – which, by the way, I find extremely disappointing, solely for the loss of comedy value – what makes me different from any other yokel who wants to cast a spell on some guy who screwed them over?"
"A spell that you performed might actually work." Deaton's smile seemed less annoying this time.
Veronica's insides ignited. It was like an imperceptible, barely-burning ember had been stoked so hard it flared blue deep within her core, powering her subconscious awake. "You don't even know me."
"I don't need to know you. It's all over you," he said.
She looked at him with suspicion. "This kind of feels like something the dark arts professor at Hogwart's might say while trying to pick me up at The Hog's Head over a goblet of butterbeer."
"I have no idea what anything you said means."
"It's a 'Harry Potter' reference," Allison whispered, then turned to Veronica with an encouraging smile. "I thought it was funny."
Deaton ignored Veronica's tangent and continued on. "In order to provide the spark that magic requires, you have to be extremely smart, somebody who can think of their feet, a person of sound mind who has a strong moral compass. But above all, you need to be the type of person who can believe in something so strongly that your focus is almost single-minded in its nature, regardless of what's happening around you."
Veronica wanted to convince herself that Deaton had Googled every article about the Lilly Kane trial or the Hearst College rapist, and was using her storied history against her. But in her marrow, she knew that he'd never even heard of her until they'd met. Every single word out of his mouth about her was right, and he figured it out in less time than it took to make pasta.
"What are you?" she asked quietly, sounding vulnerable for the first time in months. "How could you possibly know these things about me? How do you know that I'm a 'spark'?"
Deaton leaned toward her with purpose, as if imparting the wisdom of the ages. "It takes one to know one, my dear."
The sound of shattering glass in the front room pulled Veronica from her identity crisis.
"Oh, fuck." Jackson's mouth tightened and a look of panic charged through him, causing his features to return fully to their werewolf form.
Veronica threw herself across the exam table and retrieved her taser, flipping it back on to the 'ready' phase and glared at her former captor. "Who's at the door?" she asked, softly.
Jackson's ears twitched. "There's no point in whispering. He can hear you as clearly as I can hear him."
Veronica pulled Allison's still weak body down from the table and positioned her behind it for protection. "Who? Is it the alpha?"
Jackson shook his head and then changed his mind and nodded. "It's an alpha, but not the one who kidnapped you."
"It's your alpha, isn't it?" Deaton asked, appearing more put-out by the break-in than nervous.
"I don't have an alpha," Jackson hissed like a pedantic school boy, swearing to the heavens that no one would ever be the boss of him.
"There's more than one alpha?" Veronica's voice broke with sheer terror.
This is bad.
For once, Jackson wasn't looking too confident. "Yeah. And he's not alone."
Scratch that. This is very bad.
"Where are your scalpels?" Allison asked Deaton, while trying to pull herself up off the floor by the edge of the table. "I may be weak, but I can still throw a knife with perfect aim."
Deaton pushed a tray of tools toward Allison and then grabbed a jar of fine, black gravel from a high shelf in his medical cabinet. "Back away from the door, Jackson."
He scattered a line of the silt across the threshold to the room while mumbling something under his breath. "If they're supernatural, this mountain ash will keep them out."
"Yeah? Well if they're human, then this will." Veronica advanced toward Deaton, then waited by the side of the closed door with the taser pointed outward, ready to strike. Her heart was beating out of her chest, but the sensation was familiar enough not to be alarming.
Should I find it worrying that being in grave danger has become no big whoop?
The door jimmied open and Veronica held her breath to see if the creature would be able to pass over the line of mountain ash.
One large, red converse came into view and landed firmly on the other side of the line, prompting Veronica to engage the taser in its direction.
"No! Stop!" Allison shouted desperately, but it was too late. The taser had already deployed and found its mark, which was currently thrashing about on the floor at Veronica's feet like an epileptic.
Veronica quickly shut the power down on the unit.
Jackson exhaled loudly and rolled his eyes at the pathetic figure convulsing only a yard away from him. "Why am I not surprised, Stillinski?"
"Stiles!" Deaton rushed toward the taser victim wearing a distressed expression. He carefully removed the clips from Stiles's chest while simultaneously breaking the line of mountain ash with his foot.
"I'm guessing we know him?" Veronica's stomach soured with the sudden knowledge that her hare-trigger reflex had most likely injured a friend of theirs. She was two-for-two as far as accidentally injuring members of this particular group of buddies.
Veronica grimaced, watching the kid on the floor murmur incoherently with a sick feeling. "Shit. I'm really sorr-"
A fearsome-looking werewolf leaped over the prone body of the boy and pinned her against the wall by her neck. His eyes glowed red with anger as he compressed her lungs with his impossibly muscled chest
Seriously, were all werewolves 'Men's Health' models or something? Do they all live in a cave over a trendy gym?
The werewolf's growl was low and threatening, and the frequency rattled every bone in her tiny skeleton. "Who are you?" he barked out.
Unable to answer with her throat constricted, Veronica gasped fruitlessly for air, as her feet kicked at the wall behind her like a rag doll. Blood trickled down the sides of her neck from five shallow, crescent shaped cuts where each of his fingers pressed into her skin. She was going to die today - full of regrets - she was sure of it.
"Derek, let her go!" Allison screamed, barely catching his attention. Using the counter for support, she pulled herself along the room toward the door.
"Allison?" The corner of Derek's mouth picked up for a moment - breaking him out of his snarl - but a whimper from the guy on the floor pulled his attention back, and his eyes closed tightly in distress. A low groan escaped through his gritted fangs.
Is this some sort of symbiotic pain-sharing thing or did he stub his toe on the way in?
"She's okay, Veronica's a friend. Just put her down," Allison instructed in the kind of measured tone people use with feral animals.
"You know this person?" Derek's grip loosened slightly and Veronica was able to eek a hit of air into her lungs.
"I know her," a male voice called out from the lobby.
Veronica's head turned at the sound of a voice she knew almost better than her own. Heavy footsteps quickened against linoleum until a dark figure turned the corner into the back room. Her body shook as his stricken face came into view.
Am I dead? Is he really here?
"Logan?" she croaked out soundlessly.
The man's head turned to find her and their eyes connected.
It's really him.
Logan bounded in her direction with purpose, just as her vision began to blur and she slipped into the darkness.
A/N2 - Am I evil for stopping there? Probably, but hey...at least you know that LoVe will finally interact in the next chapter! Right? (hides under rock to escape angry glares)
Would anybody be opposed to be writing an entire fic where Jackson swans around and calls people losers and bitches while wearing just a towel? This is my crack!fic fantasy. There is nothing better than an unjustifiably angry, scantily-clad Jackson calling people names or talking about how awesome he is.
