"You shouldn't have let him do that," a female voice claimed, her voice sending violent chills down his spine.
Derek Hale faltered with his steps, brows inching closer together as he turned around in bid of trying to find the source. The field was empty – or so it appeared – a light mist rolling over the grass; the lingering smell of sweat, excitement and adrenaline resting heavily in the air, the aftermath of the first game of the season; tufts of grass littered everywhere, leaving behind large muddy mounds; the beamers were off, but there was still a soft heat emitting from them – all seemed still. Normal, even.
"Excuse me?" He asked gruffly into the darkness, adjusting his eyes to the pitch blackness of the treeline – could they possibly be there? He zoned in his senses on the boy who had remained on the pitch, listening as he pushed open the locker room door with force and aggression, the type that was usually possessed by immature, stuck-up, selfish brats.
He focused on his surroundings next, listening to the soft rustling of the leaves in the wind, the chatter from the parking lot, the jeers and celebration from the winning team, searching actively for any sign of life within close proximity. He came up blank, not a single heartbeat to be heard on the field but his own.
Derek shook his head. He was hearing things, a guilty conscious he was sure. The voice – a figment of his imagination? Echo of his deceased mother expressing her disappointment over his inability to control and mentor a teenage boy, nearly letting him maul an entire field full of people to death? He wasn't sure what it was – had no source, and therefore could not be real. He buried his hands in the depths of his leather jacket, sourcing his car key and wrapping his fingers around it.
"I said –" he flinched – entirely unbecoming of him and he'd be lying if he were to say that it wasn't at all embarrassing – and there was no denying that there definitely was a voice, and it was getting closer –" you should not have done that."
"Done what?" he asked impatiently, done with pleasantries before they had even managed to form on his tongue. Whoever or whatever this was had to stop; if there was something Derek didn't need was a reminder of, it was definitely his most recent failure that was adding onto a very long list of other failures.
Sudden movement to his right caught his attention and he turned quickly to face it, staring intently at the path between the bleachers, heart stuttering and claws emerging on the defensive as a figure emerged.
Female, that he was sure of long before the thing had ever made itself visible. Human? Definitely not. He toyed with the idea of this thing being dead, after all, he had heard heart no heartbeat or any sign of life. The suspicion that this could very well be the Alpha who had turned Scott McCall played on his mind and despite the knowledge that this being was more than likely not on the same spectrum as a werewolf, he sniffed the air. It smelled human from what he could tell, but his nose hadn't had much exposure to any supernatural beings that were beyond werewolf.
"Scott McCall playing tonight was risky." Derek grit his teeth together and squinted into the air – it was almost as if he didn't already know this information, as if he hadn't cursed the very ground Scott McCall walked on when he saw him upon the field, eyes ablaze and heart hammering rapidly. "But you already knew that."
"Who are you?" he demanded unkindly, "what are you?" he amended rather hastily, deciding that it was probably best to get out supernatural identity first instead of formal pleasantries.
"Eleanor Richards." The thing – Eleanor, apparently – stepped out from the shadows, her pace annoyingly slow.
Her build was petite and from what he could tell she had very little muscle to her arms or legs, but it was possible that the thick coat she had encased around her wasn't doing her physique any justice. Her hair was dark and straight, hanging around her face and cascading down her back, stopping just above her waist. From what he could tell, her eyes were darker than her hair, possibly the darkest brown he could imagine without it verging on black, but for all he knew it was a trick of the light. Her hands hung down by her jeans and he could see something shiny on her right wrist – a piece of jewellery, no doubt.
"And I don't think we should worry about what I am."
"Are you dead?" The words left his mouth – a perfectly logical question, if he was to say so himself – and as they did, a thumping heartbeat from the girl's body radiated through his ears. One of her manicured brows arched with a silent challenge and she came to a stop a few metres in front of him. Good judgement on her part, he thought grimly, taking herself out of reach from claws that so desperately wanted and so easily could rip her body to shreds.
"What do you think?" she asked, her words sending chills down his spine again, her condescending tone sending a rush of inexplicable violence in the chills wake. It was entirely logical to absolutely loathe the things a person could make you feel and even more so to loathe the things a person can make you do. This "Eleanor" girl infuriated him to no end, and if there was one thing he was rather certain of it was that Eleanor Richards had to go. "I know your incarceration set you back but I expected better from you, Derek Hale."
"Excuse me?"
A smile lifted the corners of the girl's mouth and the same urge to maim coursed through his veins. His claws dug into the palm of his hand and he could feel the small droplets of blood pool into the bed of his nails.
"Derek Hale – that is your name, isn't it?" the tone of her voice told him that there wasn't a doubt in her mind that she knew exactly who she was. "Last well member of the Hale family. Early twenties, from what I could tell. Lived in New York for the past few years – family friends, apparently, but I'm not quite sure just how friend you were to them. You studied art for three years at NYU but you dropped out before your Senior –"
"Enough," Derek groused, hands growing clammy and his suspicion rousing at an alarming rate, "how do you know me?"
Eleanor shrugged and she seemed far too relaxed for his liking, it seemed like her shoulders weren't as tense as his felt (they actually didn't appear tense at all), her lips were upturned into the slightest of smiles, and she smelled completely normal, not a hint of anxiety or fear to her in any way, shape or form. "I like to keep tabs on the werewolves of Beacon Hills."
"Isn't this a little unfair?" Derek asked through clenched teeth, repressing the urge to lean forwards and snap violently, "you know my identity but I can't know yours?" The girl pursed her lips and seemed to be in thought and Derek started to wonder if all it took was a little probing to get the information he so desired.
"I like to think that my identity isn't defined by my supernatural capabilities." Derek scowled, feeling like a petulant child but he couldn't exactly bring himself to care, not when this girl – this thing was walking freely, judging his choices, blaming him for things that extended far beyond his control. After all, it wasn't his fault he was held in a jail cell, falsely accused of murdering his sister while his accuser went against his warnings and put every person within a 20-mile radius at risk of death.
"I'm not here with bad intent." He had a hard time believing that. "I'm here to help you, believe it or not." He had already decided that that was something he was definitely unwilling to do. "All you –"
"El!" a voice from the parking lot yelled into the darkness, "come on!" The girl bristled very visibly, momentarily letting her guard down. It was only for a few seconds, nothing at all, really, Derek had definitely let his guard down when surprised for far longer than she had but it didn't matter. In the time it had taken her to recompose herself, Derek caught whiff of her scent – her true scent for she had somehow managed to mask it to the point where he had thought she had none. It was peculiar, a tang of sharpness that clung to the undertones of her perfume, body wash, shampoo and conditioner. Notes of the sharp warmth, combined with apple, coconut and vanilla.
Her face twisted darkly, and she let out an impatient sigh. "All I'm saying is that I'm here to help – whether you want it or not." Eleanor backed away slowly, possibly a good move on her part as Derek was certain that if he wasn't stuck in an odd state of confusion he might just have reached forward and swiped at her throat.
He watched her walk away, a deep-set frown settling on his features that didn't feel like it could possibly be removed anytime soon. Eventually Eleanor Richards was eaten up by the thickening moisture of the mist and if even possible, Derek was left feel more agitated than he had before she arrived.
/ / /
The first time Eleanor Richards was aware that Derek Hale had been watching her was three nights after the Lacrosse game.
Reaching out of the window to retrieve a sprig of mint that she grew off the ledge, the flare blue of his eyes – his true eyes – caught her attention, the glare of her ceiling light reflecting against her window, passing over his face.
She couldn't help but jump, the darkened silhouette just lurking beneath the tree in the driveway out front shaking her to the core momentarily. "My God," she thundered, pressing her hand and her leaves against her chest, "what are you, insane?" Adjusting to the lack of light, she thought she could see some sort of malicious leer twitch at his facial features. It was the second emotion she had seen from him that wasn't pure anger.
"Are you seriously spying on me?" She didn't know if she had actually expected an answer, to think that Derek Hale would speak to her? Waste his breath on answering her question? Foolish. Not while he was in control of the situation, because she was looking for answers now, so under what obligation did he have to comply? After all, she did play a good game of evasion during their first encounter and she was heavily suspicious that Derek would not be one to let that go.
A few seconds went by and she let out an impatient huff, "well," she muttered, straightening out her back and placing the mint leaves back into their pot, deciding to resume what she had been doing at a later date when a hulking werewolf wasn't perving on her through her window, "if you're going to snoop on me, do it inside. My friend lives across the way and gossiping is family to her and quite frankly, it's the last thing I need for some stupid rumour to fly 'round school about a man looking through my window from my drive!"
Derek arched a brow but the rest of his face remained like the emotionless pit she was so accustomed to receiving from him that gave away absolutely nothing. Letting out a sigh of annoyance, Eleanor took a small step back, drawing her window back with her. Maybe it was room he was looking for? After all, he wasn't a small guy. Tall, muscly and incredibly intimidating, he'd need more room when jumping up an entire floor.
She stood around like an idiot and certainly felt like one, too, especially as the seconds drew longer and the air in her bedroom grew a little warmer, the heat from the outside slowly seeping in, settling heavily over her skin in the most uncomfortable way. The sound of a car door slamming shut nuzzled at her suspicions and she stepped forward to peer out the window, scowling deeply when Derek's smug face could be seen through the sleek windows of the deep black car parked on the side of the road. Eleanor held up her middle finger with her left hand, retrieving the sprout of mint that she had set down. She made sure to tightly draw her curtains to avoid creeping eyes.
The second time she was driving back from school, completely oblivious until Miranda Walter – one of the two girls that Eleanor supposed would fall under the category of a "friend" – let out an undignified scoff, one that could only be let out by the worst of back-seat drivers, "the jerk off behind us is totally riding your ass, El."
Relieved to not have her driving scrutinised again, she flicked her eyes up toward the rear-view mirror rather leisurely. "Wha – are you kidding me?"
Derek Hale's typically stoic face stared back at her through her rear-view mirror and it annoyed her more than it probably should have. She could feel her heckles rising, because this damned werewolf actually had the gall the stalk her.
Spurred by her out of character range, Miranda got up on her knees and turned with interest, letting out a chortle of sick pleasure. "I dunno," she cackled gleefully, "I'd let him ride my ass any day." Eleanor briefly wondered if Miranda would be so bold to say that if she knew Derek would hear her as if she were speaking right into his ear. With a salty demeanour such as his, however, she would put her bets that she wouldn't even try. Curling her hands a little tighter around her wheel, she quickly set her foot down on the break, enjoying the sound of his car's tires squealing against the gravel road.
The third time Derek Hale was actually in her room, fingers slowly drifting over the trinkets, perfumes and bottles she had laid out on her vanity. He hadn't noticed her stood in the doorway, her school bag hanging heavily over her shoulder, weighing her down and a seriously put out look very evident on her face. She didn't exactly expect him to take notice of her, after all, it was a conscious decision to fully engulf herself in a bubble so that every noise and smell she let off wasn't heard or smelled unless she wanted it to be.
"Having fun?"
He had the decency to look a little startled, his pale eyes widening and his hand retracting back into his body, taking a single step back to put some distance between her innocent items and his offending digits. "How do you do that?" He asked quickly, immediately jumping on the offensive, "how do you mask your scent? How do you not exist?"
Eleanor gained a sick sort of pleasure from the on-edge reaction she was able to provoke from him and didn't bother trying to hide it. "It's part of what I am," she answered simply, shrugging to drive home her nonchalance. "Why are you following me?"
Derek didn't miss a beat. "I don't trust you."
"Do you make a habit of following every person you don't trust? Or should I consider myself a very lucky girl?"
His eyebrow quirked and his mouth downturned. "You're the only person I don't trust who has an unknown supernatural ability."
"Unknown to you, maybe," she replied with a slight grin. Eleanor let her bag slip down her arm, landing on the floor with a heavy thud. "Did you hear about the bus driver?" She claimed the space on her bed, sitting up against the wooden headboard and stretching her legs out. Derek remained standing and hadn't really moved at all since he stepped away from her vanity and he looked rather rigid. She wondered if he'd make a hasty leave when the conversation would inevitably die out.
His head jerked upwards in a half nod and a gruff, scratchy hum of agreement came from the back of his throat.
"Any ideas who it could have been?"
It looked like it physically pained Derek to have to actually reply to her question with something useful. "The Alpha." The bitterness in his voice didn't go unnoticed and Eleanor was feeling both particularly charitable and particularly uncaring, so she didn't bother to bring it up. "I don't know his – their identity."
"I meant what I said on the field," Eleanor murmured firmly, drawing a single leg up to her chest and resting her chin on her knee, "I'm here to help." She failed at making eye contact, Derek moving his entire body so he was facing the opposite direction, leaving her to look at his leather-clad back. She hoped the sincerity in her voice would convey just how honest she was being, although even if it could be heard, she didn't put it past Derek to purposefully ignore her intent in favour of being so obviously childish.
He drew and released a breath, his shoulders rising and falling as he did so. His head twitched around but he didn't reveal his face, still half masked by shadows, saying "I don't trust you," like it was something that had to be repeated, as if she hadn't received the message loud and clear the first time.
"Are you really in a position to deny my help?" she challenged, her brows ticking upwards and a pleased smile tugging at the corners of her mouth as Derek let out a dissatisfied noise. "Between Scott McCall not trusting you and this Alpha now killing people to their deaths, I don't think you can afford to reject my offer." This seemed to be the final twist of the dagger into Derek's stomach.
Turning to face her with a very disgruntled look, his head jerked upward in what she assumed to be a nod of acceptance. Eleanor clasped her hands together and smiled pleasantly, definitely not rubbing it into his face. "Wonderful! Now, I need to see any records you might have on other packs – I want to check for any motivation. Why they might want to come to Beacon Hills, what would they get from killing –"
"Any records my family had would have perished in the fire." Derek interrupted abruptly, his eyes downcast, turning towards the window like he was thinking of making a hasty move away from the situation entirely, "you'll have to think of an alternative method."
Eleanor frowned and shook her head, "no, they would have been magically bound – disguised, even. Knowledge is the greatest weapon."
With a very resigned look and a matching puff of air, Derek took a firm grip of the door handle and looked to her accusingly when she didn't immediately get to her feet to follow. His brows jerked and she got the very distinct impression that he was saying are you coming or not without actually saying it. She raised her hands in silent surrender, pushing herself off her bed and following Derek through the upstairs hall, coming to a stop at the top of the stairs.
"Wait, let me tell my uncle I'll be heading –"
"He's in the kitchen. Tell him as we leave."
Apparently Derek Hale didn't care about the other presence in her household if breaking and entering still seemed like a good idea with a witness.
"Hey," Eleanor huffed out with a scowl, "did you map out my house?" Because apparently Derek Hale didn't care about privacy, either. The roll of his shoulders told her all she needed to know.
/ / /
The charred skeleton-like remains of the once grand Hale house was chilling to bear witness to – a place that used to be ripe with life, love and happiness now nothing more than the ashes and rotting wood. Eleanor didn't dare look in Derek's direction – both weary of him catching her reaction and also not wanting to potentially see a waiver of emotion on his usually monotonous face – and made the very conscious decision to mask her scent heavily.
She kept quiet, entirely unsure on how to address the very large elephant in the room (hello, Derek, what a nice house this used to be, before your family in its entirety burned to death, looks a bit sad now, though, doesn't it?) so she just didn't. If Derek had noticed her oddness, he didn't say anything about it. Not that she expected him to, anyhow, she had very limited contact with Derek that had all been awkward and incredibly uncomfortable as they each struggled to have the upper hand, and she had already figured that communication was not his strong suit.
Eleanor found the records masked as plank of wood that had once been the bottom stair – it was uncharred, still pristine and pine smelling, and how nobody thought this odd in their search of the house to find one singular piece not touched by the flames was mind-boggling. Their search brought them to a dead end, however, the pages that got covered with soot finger prints as the two of them took turns flipping from back to front only filling their heads with mounds of outdated information and didn't aid the start of their conjoined investigation a single bit.
It especially wasn't helped by the fact that Derek had decided to keep a vital piece of knowledge under his belt that could have fed into Eleanor's unspoken theory of the Alpha never have had been recorded in the first place and had gained his position through slaughter long after the books had been updated.
("Wait, who got the Alpha status when your mother passed, then? Could you call to ask for assistance? Teaming up with an Alpha will be a great advantage, and surely your need to save Beacon Hills from the wrath of a rogue isn't that –" "My sister got it. She was killed in the woods the night Scott was bit. Think of another approach." "My God, are you kidding me? Communication, Derek!")
(It was needless to say that she was beyond a little infuriated with his antics and had no qualms on flaunting it.)
"What are you doing?"
Derek pulled his Camaro into the bay of the gas station, parking primly and tugging the key out of the ignition. It was late, around half ten and all Eleanor wanted was for Derek to stick to the road towards her house so she could abandon the evening that had left her unfed, clogging her lungs with years of soot and endless reading in bid of laying in bed and staring at the ceiling, doing absolutely nothing. Apparently, Derek wasn't in a rush to abide to her needs.
"The gas light turned on."
"And?" she pressed staring at him with owlish eyes.
"And I need gas."
Eleanor's eyes narrowed, fed up of his subtle snark and blandness. "Well, then," she huffed, jabbing her thumb harshly at the belt clasp, the trigger sending it rearing back into position, the rough edge running against the side of her neck, "I'm going inside. Maybe I'll get lucky and get a cashier who can hold conversations that aren't as dull as a goddamn spoon."
Through the very faint reflection in the tinted window, Eleanor could have sworn that she could see Derek's face screw up petulantly, but a quick glance back at his typically neutral face proved her wrong, or at the very least showed exactly how quick Derek's werewolf reflexes were. With a hum of disapproval, she swung her legs out the car and slammed the shiny black door of the Camaro closed behind her.
The bell jingled above her and a petite blonde woman eyed her curiously as she walked in. Eleanor smiled and quickly turned the corner, immersing herself into the stocked shelves, nose wrinkling as the smell of heavy disinfectant offended her nostrils. She decided not to think too much into it.
The shelves were stocked with numerous off-brand items and nestled in between were the rarities of recognisable brands like Lays, Nestle and Kraft, but they were all few and far between, each looking a little outdated and pale with the sun exposure. She snagged a slab of fifty cent chocolate, feeling a little resigned with the selection yet feeling a little too under pressure from the clerks watchful eye to walk out without purchasing anything. The worst she could possibly do with it is eat it all in one sitting and spend the next twenty-odd hours regretting it immensely, but the best could be somehow accidentally leaving it unwrapped in the footwell of Derek's car, leaving it to melt overnight in the heat. With a keen smirk, she turned and smiled again at the woman, doing her best to appear a little more friendly as she walked toward the cash point.
"Gas?"
"Oh, um, I think I'll –"
"-something I learned from my family." Too new to be familiar and too threatening to be considered an innocent passing stranger, Eleanor's curiosity peaked, and she looked out the window, brows furrowing at the position of the few extra cars that had Derek's gridlocked.
The man speaking had a fresh and prim look to him, his greying hair cut finely, clothes form fitting and flattering to his body type, and the car he had parked behind him looked clean and on the more expensive end. A threat nonetheless, she could gather just by Derek's tense shoulders and even more pensive demeanour. "You don't have much of that these days, do you?"
"Ma'am?" Attention diverted, Eleanor pinched her lips closed and looked at the woman, the conversation now a mere niggle at the back of her mind. "Are you paying for gas?"
"Breathe, dammit," she uttered under her breath, "just breathe." She could only hope that Derek would be able to hear her. "Um, please, yeah. Pump two."
The woman nodded and punched her fingers at the till, scanning the bar of chocolate. "That'll be thirty-six dollars and two cents."
"-so much clearer?"
"Thirty-six – Jesus. You accept card, right?"
The woman's answer was drowned out. "You forgot to check the oil." Eleanor's stomach plummeted to the floor and her eyes flutter shut.
You forgot to check the oil.
She grit her teeth and exhaled patiently through her nose, where had Derek's new crop of apparent humour been hiding all this time? Why he had decided to showcase it when in the face of apparent danger was beyond her.
She pushed her card into the reader, leg bumping up and down as she waited anxiously for the mans reply. The piercing sound of breaking glass was enough to distract the very human cashier who let out a loud gasp, turning wildly towards the window. She looked positively shaken, a sentiment Eleanor supposed she should have also shared, but the growing bubble of frustration was too much, showing when her thumb pressed harshly into the enter button.
She watched as the cashier scrambled for the phone on the counter, listening as a second voice made a witty remark about the oil. "No!" Eleanor snapped feverishly, rubbing the pads of her thumb and index finger together in small, frantic circular motions, "nothings – look at me! Nothings going on, okay? In fact, so much of nothing that you've decided to go to the back for stock."
Eyes glazing over, the woman's hands stopped for the phone, dropping slowly to her side and her feet moving automatically.
Eleanor let out a soft sigh of relief, listening to the soft crunch of gravel as the cars made their retreat. She stayed still by cash register, waiting until the sound of tires rolling was far gone enough.
"You forgot to check the oil," she mocked in a high-pitched voice as she flicked the gas station door open with a wave of her hand, storming forward towards Derek who didn't appear to be as bothered as a guy who just got a window of his very expensive car smashed. "You fucking moron! You moronic dick! The hell was that all about?"
"Hunters." Derek ground out, jaw clenched and body uptight, a little more peeved than she had noticed originally. He was very clearly unnerved and Eleanor really couldn't bring herself to care.
"So you thought you'd – great. There's glass on my seat." Eleanor's hands were up in the air with frustration. She sat down anyway. Derek scowled.
/ / /
The bus driver – Derek's final hope of a lead on the Alpha – had succumbed to his wounds. Facts that probably could have waited until he knew Eleanor was out of the bath, after all, he had made his desire to question him alone very clear.
"Christ, Derek!" Eleanor exclaimed, staring at him with furious eyes, bringing her arms up to her chest to protect her modesty. Never had she been more thankful for her last-minute decision on adding a dark blue glitter bath bomb – the deep colour and swirl of glitter ensured that nothing could really be seen more than two inches below the water surface, at least not clearly. She would happily suffer the consequences of having glitter stains on the porcelain for at least a month if it meant Derek goddamn Hale couldn't see every inch of her.
His eyes flickered over the vague outline of her naked body. Eleanor scoffed and flicked out her right foot, kicking water his way. It clung and dripped down his leather jacket, creating a few wet splotches on his jeans and t-shirt. He didn't react, perhaps understanding that by looking he deserved what he had got.
"He knew who I was." This appeared to trouble him greatly, his thick brows pulled in together and his near permanent smoulder got deeper and darker.
"And?" she spat, feeling rather heated, a hot burning rage burning down her spine. "You were arrested for murder the other week, Derek! There's not much people in Beacon Hills who won't know your name!"
"He said he was sorry."
"Maybe because he felt like he was seconds away from kicking the bucket right in front of you? Causing you years of emotional distress?" Years more of it, she sneered internally. If her cheeks weren't already a hot red from the temperature of the water, they sure as hell would be now. He wasn't looking at her body anymore, his pale eyes trained carefully on hers – almost too carefully, and her sense of embarrassment had never been felt more keenly.
Derek shook his head, adamant on the conclusion he had obviously already come to in his head. All he wanted was a second voice to agree with him and she was his only option. Eleanor really couldn't understand why this opinion had to be brought from her in the bathtub, surely it could have waited until the next day, or better yet if it was so pressing, another hour when she would have been out and clothed in pyjamas.
She ground her jaw severely, hating the feeling of utter shame that crawled through her body with no signs of it giving up. Deciding that enough was enough, that she would no longer be made to cower into the corner of the tub to preserve her modesty, she dropped her hands, curled them around the tub edges and stood. "Pass my towel," she ordered through gritted teeth, feeling the water roll down her body.
He didn't smirk or leer (a part of her almost wished that he would and stop pretending like it was very normal for her to be entirely naked around him – because it most definitely was not), instead he took a step back, grabbed the towel from behind the door and held it out towards her. She snatched it from his loose grasp, wrapping it tightly around her body.
Cautious not to slip and add more humiliation to her night, she stepped out and with a rough sweep of her hand through the air, the plug flew out from the bath a little too violently, bouncing off the wall, down to the ground and rolled somewhere she couldn't see.
Derek followed its journey with his eyes slightly narrowed. She hadn't taken her usual precautions but if she was honest with herself, she really couldn't care. He had seen her naked now and he knew she was something, so adding more fuel to this fire wasn't something she was keen to grudge.
"What did you ask him?" inquired Eleanor, brushing past him and walking through the door, stepping into the warmth of her bedroom, deciding to focus on something more productive. He should be thankful she was directing her attention towards the Alpha, she remarked grotesquely, she wasn't quite sure what she would have done if she hadn't. There would be light maiming, that she knew for sure.
"What he saw." Well, thank god for that. "But he just kept saying my name."
"Alright, what else?"
Derek stayed silent for a few moments too long and it took everything Eleanor had in her to not let out a groan. "So, what? All it takes for you to lose track of purpose is to say your name? Super useful if we're ever playing board games together – I'll keep that in mind, I enjoy winning."
Derek's eyes lifted up to the ceiling and she could see the tightening of his jaw. He was annoyed, that much was incredibly blatant, but there was a hint of shame lingering beneath his features that she was delighted to notice. Clearly, attention being brought to his moment of shocked weakness wasn't something he appreciated greatly.
Good, Eleanor thought with a small, wicked grin, feel embarrassed – god knows I am.
She untangled her hair from her bun. It was still dry (she didn't have the time to soak it before she was rudely interrupted) and stuck to her bare, damp shoulders as it fell. His eyes returned from her ceiling and an unhappy scowl replaced his typical grumpy smoulder. In two strides he was at her vanity, picking things up and reading them with apparent purpose, placing them down a few inches from where he picked them up.
It took a few seconds of staring at the back of his head in confusion before it clicked.
He's trying to regain the upper hand…
Perhaps it wasn't a sense of urgency that propelled him into her bathroom right when she was in a rather vulnerable position after all, something told Eleanor that this was much more about having that sense of higher ground. But she had gotten past that, he had underestimated what, exactly, him seeing her naked would do to her and had reverted back to old tricks when it didn't last quite as long as he had hoped. It wasn't a secret that having him rifle through her things was unnerving – as it would be with anyone – but this revelation made it overpoweringly sweeter. She let him read through a small notebook (all written in Gaelic, so no secret would be betrayed), fiddle with the grinder from her mortar, read the ingredients of her deodorant and push over three bottles of perfume "on accident".
She picked up her black robe, turning so her back faced Derek's, dropping the towel and hastily shoving her arms into the sleeves. Just because he had seen her nude didn't mean she was particularly keen on giving him more mental images. A strand of stress dissolved from her mind as she tied the belt around her waist, feeling much more secure with herself not being in something that could have easily unravelled.
A sickening shudder coursed through her body, a warning for something to come and she turned quickly, just in time to watch one of Derek's large hands knock into her expensive, 'special occasion' perfume.
"Stad!" she yelped, holding out a hand. The perfume bottle wobbled to a stop in mid-air and she let out a sigh of relief. "That cost ninety bucks! What, do you think I'm –" she broke off with a squeak. Derek was suddenly right in front of her and she was pushed right up against her door. The perfume fell to the floor with a heavy thunk.
"What are you?" he growled lowly, the vibrations of his tone wracking her frame unwelcomingly. Eleanor gulped, bizarrely over aware of the thin layer of fabric that separated her nude body from his form, barely two inches of distance between them.
He had been looking for a way to gain the upper hand and this was definitely his winning move. She could see on his face that he knew it too.
She could feel something brushing against her stomach and glancing down, happy to be provided with an excuse to avert her eyes from his, she could see the back of one of his hands purposefully reaching to touch her. There was nothing about his stance that was natural, one of his arms up and pressed against the door above her head, successfully encaging her, the other arm down just so he could touch her, head posed downward so their faces were shockingly close, an inch forward and their foreheads would be pressed together.
It had been a long time since Eleanor had been touched by a man (and even longer since it had been one she found incredibly attractive) and this wasn't lost on her. A sick bubble of arousal erupted in her stomach, just near where his hand was, and she was too taken back to effectively mask it. He could smell it. By the way his touch got a lot more purposeful confirmed that. Catching the end of her robe belt between two fingers, he gave a light tug, just forceful enough to loosen it but not completely unravel, revealing a deeper sliver of her chest, right down to a good inch above her belly button.
Eleanor would have laughed if she knew what to do with herself – was Derek Hale seriously about to fondle her for answers? It was rather well known that desperate people did desperate things and very clearly he was not one to willingly sit in the dark. There wasn't a doubt in Eleanor's mind that he knew exactly just how good looking he was. Self-conscious people didn't use sexual allure to get what they wanted.
His hand moved to her waist and his forehead pressed against hers, now close enough that she could feel his even breathing. Her own was far less controlled. She could smell the lightness of his aftershave, the scent was a few days old – either intentional to stop him from offending his own senses or done out of convenience, like the thought hadn't occurred that he should be putting more on. It was nice regardless, a scent that was unmistakably man. Derek was having more of an effect on her than she wanted or would ever be comfortable admitting, and the wild thumping of her heart probably sounded like music to his lupine ears. She looked up, not wanting to further damage her dignity by staring down at her feet in a very obvious attempt at not looking at him. He wasn't looking at her, however, not how she expected him to be. She had anticipated eye contact, heavy amounts, just so he could witness what he was doing for himself and to rub in the fact that he had this ability over her, the upper hand that she would never be able to wrangle over him. But he wasn't, instead, Derek's pale green eyes were downcast, not particularly focused at all. She wondered if he was focusing on his other senses, sharpening them so he could hear just exactly what he was doing to her body and the reactions he was evoking from her.
Agonisingly slow, his hand creeped down her side until it got to the hem of her robe. A thumb slipped under the fabric, brushing against her inner thigh. Eleanor shuddered and his eyes ticked up for a short second. His nails turned sharp against her skin, pointed and longer, pressing so lightly into her tender flesh. "Derek," she breathed, thoroughly shocked by the surprising amounts of pleasure she was able to feel from his claws pricking her skin, not hard enough to indent or draw blood. He was shockingly gentle for such an angry, large individual. He was the sort who probably went to the gym for fun and bench-pressed motor homes for sport, and yet his touch was soft, almost too soft for it to be anything other than condescending.
She was struck by an intense desire to kiss him, to have him as close to her as he would allow, and if he didn't pull away when he did, she realised with a slight unease, she likely would have acted. Derek turned like he hadn't just had her pressed against her bedroom door, hand on her mid-thigh, their bodies almost pressed entirely against each other. He didn't say anything as he opened the window wide and he didn't look back at her once, not even for a split second, as he jumped out.
Eleanor tipped her head back and let out a throaty sigh, a hot blush crawling up her neck. "Damn you," she groused, knowing fully well he could hear her, tugging roughly at her robe so it recovered what he had undone. She gave herself until the engine of the Camaro could no longer be heard before pushing away from the door, crouching down and picking up her perfume from the ground.
/ / /
As some who follow me may know, I wrote a Teen Wolf fic way back in 2014 or so. This started out as a rewrite, because lets face it, who's writing was ever at their best when they were fourteen? I started out that story with absolutely no plot, idea of direction or destination on where I wanted Emily Evans – my protagonist – to go and end up. It was also way before Teen Wolf ended, so I had no clue of the direction the other characters would be going in either. I winged almost the entirety of that story and when I read it back that's the only thing I can focus on (well, that and my awful writing, but it shows a lot of growth).
So. Here I am, back with this sort of rewrite that's not really a rewrite at all. I kept some of the main themes that I won't give away to avoid spoilers and maintain an air of mystique, but I feel comfortable with how much I've thought out Eleanor's character and how she'll progress throughout. There will be no schedule for my updates so they will be somewhat sporadic – I'm rather busy at the moment with uni, work and other boring life stuff – but I do hope to make them at least somewhat regular.
Be sure to let me know what you think in the reviews!