Trigger Warning: there will be depections and allusions to domestic violence and child abuse. Substance abuse is also mentioned (not involving any minors). Also, anything that is from the MTV TV series, 'Teen Wolf,' by Jeff Davis, is not mine.
Nantaniele Ribiero is what I imagine Mary-Alice to look like.
Luca is quiet the next morning as they get ready, but that's okay, Mary is too. He says his first word of the day when she's dropping him off at kindergarten. "Mary-Alice?" he whispers as they stop a few feet away from his classroom door.
He looks down at the ground, lip quivering, "Do you think Isaac is okay?" Mary swallows, she'd been trying not to think about it. Her necklace stopped glowing sometime around midnight, four hours after she had cast the spell.
So, either he was dead or he was no longer in danger and in need of healing, there was no in between. Mary hesitates, and considers lying, but looking down at his downtrodden expression, she knows he wouldn't accept anything but the truth.
She sighs and tries to ignore the twinge her ribs give as she crouches down, hoping he'll look her in the eye, "I don't know, Luca," Mary admits and feels her heartbreak at the sight of his eyes filling with tears. She surges forth and draws him into a hug, "I don't know, but I'll find out," she whispers her promise into his hair.
She holds him until the bell goes off, signaling the start of class, as he lets go Mary rubs the tears and snot off his face with her bulky sweater-sleeve, uncaring if she has to go to class with snotty snail-trails on her arms.
Mary hold his face in her palms and looks him in the eyes, her hazel-green meeting his sea-foam orbs. "Whatever happens, it's not your fault," she says forcefully, hoping that this isn't something that will hang over him for the rest of his life. Empathetic imprints like the one Luca felt yesterday – Mary as well, to a smaller extent – have a way of lingering around those who can sense them.
"W-we could've stayed a-a-and–"
Mary pulls him in for another hug and whispers in his ear as she holds his head against her shoulder, carding her fingers through his hair, "No, Luca, we couldn't." Mary sucks in a quiet breath when he starts to protest, and admits, "I can barely stand being around the boys at school without flinching, I wouldn't be able to even function if I had to be face-to-face with someone so similar to Mark without freaking out," her breath catches and Luca's arms tighten around her, his objections dying in his throat.
Mary takes a moment to hide her wince in his hair, her ribs throbbing from under where his arms are wound tight around her, "I'd do exactly what Isaac did, curl up in a ball and hope he stopped, Isaac wouldn't want anyone to get hit for him anymore than me or you would." Mary pulls back to look at his blotchy face, "It's not your fault, okay? You're five-years-old, no one expects you to fight grownup problems."
Luca sniffs one last time and nods his head before trotting into class, shoulders slumped and his small Spiderman backpack drooping behind him. Mary watches him go and scrubs her face with a weary hand before getting up from her crouched position, body aching like a giant bruise.
Her own warning bell should be ringing soon and she still has to hop the fence that borders the two schools, and walk across the lacrosse field to get to homeroom for check-in. She starts her journey to the five-foot fence in question, and with one last, resigned grimace, she hauls herself over it.
The bandages bound around her ribcage tighten, constricting her lung capacity and she wheezes in pain as she finally topples over to the other side. Mary blinks up at the sky, flat on her back from where she fell; she takes this moment, and tries to remember how to breathe again.
Fucking stairs and fucking Mark, making her life more difficult than it needs to be.
"Excuse me," Mary mutters as she squeezes past a couple trying their hardest suck each other's faces off in front of homeroom.
Fucking freshmen.
When she finally makes it in the door, she immediately looks for Isaac, she needs to make sure he's okay; needs to make sure so that Luca will know he's okay. Her gaze darts over the seated students.
Hazel-green meet watery-blue in her next pass over the seats and Mary's heart thuds in her chest, the glow around him is more visible now, but he looks relatively unharmed. She drops her gaze, and feels his eyes burn holes through her as she slides into the seat next to him.
The minute her body lands in her chair she's already regretting it. Isaac's eyes are still on her, and when she looks at him, they lock eyes once again, "I'm sorry," Mary whispers and his eyes cloud over in confusion.
"For what?" Mary just shakes her head and turns away to stare at the board, waiting for roll call so she can get the hell out of here. The teacher comes in a few moments later to take attendance and Mary can feel Isaac's eyes on her the whole time.
"Mary-Alice Stellar?"
"Here."
Especially when her name is called.
"…Stilinski?"
"Present, sadly."
But roll call continues without much fanfare and when the teacher finally dismisses them Mary forgets– in her haste to get away from her growing guilt and Isaac's seeking gaze– the frantic rush that happens after dismissal. Teens swarm like flies to honey, hurrying to get to the door and enjoy their last five minutes of freedom before school truly begins and the lacrosse team heads to practice.
Mary who was just sliding out of her seat, gets knocked into Isaac, who coincidentally was also standing.
It's when tears are forming in her eyes after some asshole dug his elbow into her still cracked ribcage, that she becomes aware of two things:
One, her chest fucking hurts.
Mary can literally feel her ribcage shift under her skin and the suffocating sensation of her lungs not being able to expand normally. Mary sucks in a quiet breath and tries not to whimper too loudly.
Two, Isaac isn't human.
His head snaps down to look at her when she does, indeed, wheeze against his chest and Mary knows that it was too quiet for anyone to hear in the crowd. His hands land on her arms, keeping her upright and out of the way of oncoming traffic when she almost doubles over from the pain. Plus, most damming of all, when they lock eyes, his turn gold.
Beta gold.
Werewolf gold.
