Title: Live Hard
Summary: He may not even be considered much of a person anymore but the moon does things that bring out what he used to be, there's a reason the doctor has him on a sedative and there's one unlucky nurse's name on the bottom of the incident report following the bite.
Rating: M
Warnings: Language, violence, sexual content
Spoilers: There are some but they are few and far between for the most part, this story works around the main storyline while incorporating it at key points.
Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Wolf
A/N: Here we go a chapter happening after the finale and while up until this point the story ran with canon depending on what happens in season two it may not, we'll see. This story will probably be finished before the next season starts. As far as what happens to Jackson and Lydia and who Chris Argent and his wife were talking about coming to town in the finale I'll try to mediate some things into the storyline but I may not even touch upon them, it depends. I've tried not to rehash the whole alpha show-down scene because we've all seen it, for clarity though Lucette is hiding in a tree and the big gaping hole of plot of what happens after the show-down is filled, sort of.
Day 56:
The stand-off ended spectacularly and she let her thoughts roam and reach out like tendrils, snatching at fragments of information and patching snippets of conversations together, sink holes of incomplete motives and machinations filled and leveled out to connect to other things.
The other werewolf and their identity, the network of ordinary people connected to him, the werewolf hunters, unexplained melodrama between the two factions, the girl who took after robin hood and the man with the magnum, Peter Hale as the big bad and how the other werewolf chased the girl into the house, the pyrotechnic display of laboratory chemicals brought on by boys in tuxedo jackets and button downs.
It was there in the way the younger werewolf yelled at Derek Hale and the way one of the ordinary boys restrained him from lunging at the older werewolf, the desperate anger and futility in his rage, she could relate. It was there in the way the girl's father shoved her in the direction of the red sport's vehicle and sent her speeding away with a few paternal commands that broached no opening for discussion. It was there in the way the lone boy leaned against the silver luxury vehicle and numbly followed the command of the other to help the younger werewolf into the car driving off on the dirt road without another word between them. It was there in the way Derek Hale spoke with the man remaining behind in a muted, but not so low she couldn't hear it, conversation beginning and ending warily. It was there in every shift of stance and every sound and every unspoken word and she knew that there was more to what was taking place than she was aware of, things she wanted to know despite not needing to.
Things Derek Hale hadn't and wasn't and wouldn't tell her. It rankled her. The metal door behind her slid open with a bang and a rattle of the wheels on the ceiling track.
"Why are you here?" He sounded particularly volatile that she had snuck down from the tree and had found her way underground in the makeshift laboratory of horrors she likened the small cement room to. "…you howled Master Hale," she deadpanned without turning from her inspection of the electric battery and coils rigged to leads meant to stick to skin.
"You answer every howl you hear?"
She frowned at the edge in his tone but waved it off with the rationalization that he was angry and tired and running on empty, she sympathized. "I knew the second one was you and you haven't been around lately, figured that since it sounded like you were dying maybe you were."
"Did anyone see you?"
"No. I was a shadow in the night."
"Good."
He offered no explanation to the conversation between him and the man that had stopped the gun toting crazed woman from shooting the younger werewolf. She understood enough of why to not have it bother her, the world would take as kindly to werewolf hunters as it would to werewolves. Mutual survival and prosperity as long as no one was stupid and killed someone. Threats and thin compromise seemed to be the nature of Derek Hale's and the older man's sentiments.
Lucette turned only to find his back instead of his face greeting her, he took steps towards the door and she wondered suddenly as to where exactly he thought to go.
"Where are you going?"
"…" Derek Hale merely stopped moving for a moment and then walked out the door as if her question had no merit, it irked her and she caught him by the elbow with a sharp tug which earned her an even sharper glare tossed over his shoulder.
"Hey!"
"…" He turned his face away and tugged his arm free starting his stride down the long cement tunnel. Grabbing again and digging her fingers in she turned him and it surprised her that he let her do that much, "What's wrong with you?"
Watching his hands curl into tight fists she put steel into her posture and made herself ready to dodge a hit, nothing came but it did nothing to make her relax and release the tension in her muscles.
"Wolfsbane."
The word meant nothing to her, "Wolfsbane?" She watched him take a breath and his fingers loosen from their clench, "It makes transforming harder to temper."
His eyes flashed red for a moment and in the sodium yellow light of the tunnel it looked like embers dying in a fireplace grate.
"You can't shift now," she informed him taking a small step back and crossing her arms while cocking a hip and examining his nails grow and retract.
"I know that!" It was a snarl from his chest and it sounded wrong through a mouth full of sharp teeth and a misshapen jaw. "Calm down, jeez," she huffed and spun her body sideways and swept her arms in a gesture of accommodation. He got the hint and entered the concrete room again.
There was a stony silence built up between them as he sat down in the chair she kicked over to him and she contemplated the situation and what exactly to do, what she could do, "You were injected with it?"
"And a sedative," he nodded and tightened his grip on his knees with his fingers.
"Well you're not very sedated," it wasn't a joke but it sounded like one despite the lack of a laugh she would have made if she'd meant it that way, she flippantly shrugged off the glare he gave her, "It wore off in the opposite way."
"What else did they give you?"
"Nothing."
Lucette regarded him with a scowl and a leveled look of impatience, "You can't give a powder by injection. Wolfsbane is a plant; it has to be in something."
"Glucose."
"Oh."
She thought of the implication and took a breath that she let out behind clenched teeth; already looking around the room for materials that she knew weren't there.
"Is there anything you can do?" His tone ragged and forced made her turn away from the table of medical instruments and actually look at him, she didn't like the hunched shoulders or the labored breathing or the way he'd visibly paled in the overexposed glare of harsh lightening.
"I could flush it out with a saline IV but there's nothing here to do it with," she picked through vials set up like soldiers in neat little lines on the table-top. "Epinephrine would make it worse, Benedryl is to lessen an adverse reaction, what the fuck did they do?"
Meaning it as a question she grimaced at how he didn't answer but took a breath as if having to force it into his body. She turned the vials to read the labels and found a veritable pharmacy contained in the spread.
"Cardiac meds and diuretics for heart failure, steroids for inflammation. Seriously?" A plastic bag of vials packed sloppily caught her attention, she held it out to him without turning from the table, "Here. Look through that for…," she tugged the bag back when she came across a black leather zip case for syringes. "Never mind. Did they rob a pharmacy?"
She pulled the zipper and smiled at the contents and the fifty milligram vial enclosed with the needles. She drew one up and faced him.
"What is that?"
His eyes were unfocused and he coughed his lips wet and red after his chest stopped shaking and it made her stomach bottom out.
"Rapid acting insulin."
"…," he gave her a look that made her stare back in confusion until she realized the cause of it remembering the last time she'd brandished a syringe in his presence.
"Seriously, this time I really am going to stab you with an insulin syringe."
"Hilarious," he exclaimed without any real humor as she reached to help him shrug out of his jacket, it fell useless and limp onto the floor. She informed him of what to expect as she made him lean back and crouched close to his knees, "It's going to make everything run through you faster, insulin breaks down glucose for energy so just control yourself through the worst of it."
"Worst of what?"
Pulling the cap off with her teeth she pulled at the bottom of his shirt and he jumped when she grabbed at his abdomen with thumb and forefinger to have a spot to inject. Mumbling a half-hearted and preoccupied apology she pulled her hand back and prepared to stab.
"It might make you wolf out, since that's what it's doing to you now. It's just going to hit you like a truck for about five minutes."
His hand rubbed the bones in her wrist together and she let out a pained squeak of surprise and a harsh grunt when he shoved her back unto her butt, her tail bone bouncing against the cement and sending sharp stabs of pain through her lower spine and the backs of her thighs.
"No," he breathed.
"No?" She hissed sliding a hand to rub at the bottom of her spine, angry at the throbbing lash still spiking out down her legs.
"Don't inject me."
"I have to otherwise…"
"No, you're not doing it," he stood and she jumped up and pushed on his shoulders, "I am, sit down."
"You can't," he put a hand on her clavicle and shoved, she stumbled back a step but held out a hand to tell him to stay put, he remained barely seated but stopped moving.
"Why? So you'll wolf out, big deal. I can handle myself for five minutes."
"You can't handle yourself for five minutes," reaching for his jacket he pulled on one sleeve and started to rise.
"Dude, just sit the fuck down."
Pinning her with a look of agitation and leashed violence he made his tone as sharp as possible, "If you couldn't go five minutes when I was a beta I'd slaughter you now that I'm an alpha. You try to inject me and I'll break your arm."
"Listen to me, if it stays in your system for the next few hours it could kill you."
"I'll be fine."
She blocked the door as he started to walk towards it and with a breath tried to spit out every reason she could think of as to why it would not be beneficial to leave and start walking around.
"Your heart is throwing off beats that shouldn't be there because you've been shocked multiple times with over ten thousand volts, you've probably already had a heart attack and your heart muscle is necrosing, now you're body is trying to heal that and the damage from the arrows and being shot and trying to filter out the sedative and the werewolf version of catnip from your body," when she advanced a step he took one back and looked at the door, she knew instinctively he would rush her and prepared for it, "When's the last time you've slept? Eaten? You need symptom management so your body can deal with the damage better; right now it has no idea what to do first," Lucette took another step, "So I'm injecting you, let me."
He flung out an arm to swing her out of his way, "No."
She grabbed at his wrist as she spun to the side and turned him, when he made to hit her she ducked under his arm and dropped her knee into the cold, hard floor feeling the impact all the way into her shoulder, he slumped with the added weight as she wrapped an arm around his midsection and she lifted his arm with her head and shoulder, the leather of his jacket falling over her face and sweat soaked, blood caked shirt wrinkling up in ridges on her cheek and against her nose.
The all too unwashed male scent of him was enough to make her gag and want to command him into a river to bathe, he struggled hard and she pinched with clawed fingers the tendons on the inside of his thigh, the sound was half gurgle and half pained whine. There was sour sweat dampening her temple from underneath his arm and she stifled a gag of disgust trying to grab at the arm smacking her underneath the fold of the jacket effectively trapping her against the line of his side.
She pressed a knee in his shin and heard him stumble into a table, a sneakered foot came down on her hip and she tore lines across the flesh of his back with her nails trying to anchor him into the table edge. An elbow hit her eye socket and she punched him in the anatomical location of where his kidneys would be located.
He snarled and tore at her hair while she slid her hand into the sleeve of his jacket; she pinched at the back of his arm and held the mound of flesh as she worked the syringe into position.
A second after she depressed the plunger she was sliding across the floor and overturning a chair with her body, "Too late," she proclaimed smugly sitting up and shaking her hair out of her face to find him gaping at his arm and then at her.
"Run, get in a tree. Shoot me if I start climbing," anger was deep garnet eyes glaring in her direction and the rip of leather in a room that was suddenly too small and Derek Hale turning into something only barely recognizable as human. He didn't need to tell her twice.
She ran and got a ten second head start out of it before he followed with a howl that made her skin prickle and her blood spike hot, she shook off an involuntary shiver and ripped through low branches and tore over fallen logs like it was an Olympic sport. A wayward thought stuck and she found herself breathing to a rhythm that matched a mental chant of U-S-A U-S-A U-S-A she almost snickered but another howl made her scramble faster through the woods.
Five minutes she reminded herself, she could sprint for five minutes. She could do anything for five minutes, so long as the alternative was something rending her limbs from her body.
He was too close behind for her to climb a tree, she scooped up a rock and turned, running backwards and rolling a large branch under the sole of her shoe as she threw back her arm and launched it into his snout, the meaty smack was more soothing than the vehement howl and snarl ripping from his throat.
The rock snapped his head to the side and made him stagger but not enough to not keep coming after her. She came to a decline in the path and rang along the ridge of it trying to decide if she could run down the rock strewn slope and not trip and end up in an unconscious roll.
The rebound of his body off a tree in her direction made the decision for her when she weaved and found no surface under her right foot for a long moment and then slammed into the uneven slope, she tripped and ran down the steepness of the decline to high to be called a hill, and there were moments when she felt like she was more jumping and falling fast for a few second than actually running.
There were no sounds of pursuit behind her and it took no longer than a quick glance back for her to figure it may have been better to not look over her shoulder and lapse in concentration because her toes caught the ground instead of her soles and the tops of her feet rolled into the ground followed by shins and knees and then the extent of how long the way down the slope was hit her like the large rock buried halfway in the ground hit her temple.
She hoped she had made it past the five minute mark.
The blissful velvet dark of unconsciousness made the prospect of being dismembered and eaten less horrifying.
When she swam back to awareness and forced her eyes sealed shut with crusted blood to open as far as they could, she found that she was still capable of moving all fingers and toes and that despite being brained by a rock her skull was intact.
Small mercies she sighed mentally before the clangor and brilliant flaring of pain arrived and enclosed her skull. She winced and clenched her teeth wanting to vomit and cry as she forgot how to breathe for a moment and the pain ebbed away, her body healing the hairline fracture of her skull into nothing but smooth bone.
"You here?" She questioned the sprawl of forest around her hoping nothing growled back at her in response.
"Mmm," she sighed in relief until remembering he'd been trying to kill her however long ago it was that she'd fallen down the slope and that the sound of assent could have been a variation on a growl.
"You human?"
"Obviously."
She let out the breath she'd been holding and turned her head in the direction his voice was coming from but found nothing.
"My head hurts."
"You hit it on a rock," she was looking in the right direction but he was in the dark somewhere.
"You don't seem too concerned caregiver over there. Shouldn't you be patching me up, licking my gruesome head wound, something?"
"I'm naked."
She was glad he wasn't licking her head wound while nude.
"Why are you naked?"
It seemed preposterous for him to be naked.
"They don't make jeans in alpha werewolf size."
"Oh. Are you okay now?"
"I'm fine."
He sounded better, not fine, but better.
"Now what?"
"I'm going back to my house."
"Okay. Who's here besides you?"
There was a heartbeat not belonging to them nearby.
"A hunter."
"His heartbeat is slow," she wondered if he was dead.
"Sedative."
"You went back and got a syringe to inject him with?"
"It was in his pocket."
They lapsed into silence.
"What if the police are at your house by now?"
"…"
"Can you make it to my house or should I go get my truck?"
"Faster to go now."
He came out of the woods and she stopped his progression with a raised hand, shrugging out of her zip-up sweatshirt before he came close enough for the darkness of the forest to not be dark enough to hide things like Derek Hale's dick. She tossed it in his direction.
"Here. Put that on. There are mosquitoes and ticks and…"
"You're sweater is going to ward them off?"
She sat up and imagined the incredulous expression he was no doubt facing her with.
He came closer and seemed unaware of how strange it was to have a conversation in the middle of the woods while naked. It seemed as if he was used to it, she however fixed her stare on a tree in front of her as her held up the thrown item of clothing in his hand instead of in front of him.
"If you want to go swinging dick in through the woods be my guest but I'd rather not watch you scratch your balls every five seconds when they get chewed up by bugs."
"I've got clothes in my trunk."
Her heartbeat rose at the mention of his car, she'd forgotten about it, "…"
"…my car. It's in your garage."
"Yep, it is."
He inhaled sharply and she knew there was no way he missed the guilty rise in her pulse.
"What did you do to my car?"
"Retribution for my tires."
"Specifically?"
"So you're paintjob ain't pretty, but compared to the bullet holes it's no big deal."
"What else?"
Closing her eyes and setting her lips into a thin line she turned her head away and cringed at what his reaction would be to her driving his car.
"What else do you think?"
"…"
Anger. She knew it was there. She didn't have to open her eyes and turn to look up at him to know it.
"It was in my garage, it's a Camaro, you left the key. Really? Honestly? What did you think I was going to do when I found it?"
The crunch of leaves under bare feet and the overwhelming stagnation of the air and the scent of sweat and dirt and blood made her look and find him crouched at her side.
"…If you touch my car again...I'll break every single one of your fingers. Understand?" His palm connected with her cheek and she dropped her mouth open in shock that he had just smacked her in the face. "Mosquito."
He held up his hand with the smushed insect evidence, she picked at the plumping bite on her cheek. She turned her head as he stood and dropped the jacket she had offered at his feet, she reached into the pocket where her cigarettes had been and hoped they hadn't been crushed and split open.
The spark and flame of the lighter made certain anatomical things on his body enter her peripheral vision more clearly; she suppressed a shudder when he scowled down at her when she made a new flame in the lighter after already lighting her cigarette and stared.
"Tick. Want me to take of that?"
She pointed and was immensely pleased to find him swat at himself for ticks and bugs that weren't there. She watched with clinical detachment, no stranger to nudity in general but most definitely to the sort of nudity belonging to guys younger than seventy.
"Do you mind?" He chastised. She looked up.
"What?"
"Stop staring at my dick."
She realized the lighter was still lit and took her thumb off the button keeping it lit.
"Quit bobbing it around at eye level then," she countered.
"You're a child."
She threw her jacket at his head as she stood up, "Says the naked man."
He tied the arms of the jacket at his hip and effectively covered himself, "Better?"
"Much."
She started walking. He pointed in the direction of her house. She made no comment about how she knew where she lived already.
"I wouldn't think a nurse would have a problem with naked people."
"I get paid to look at genitalia while I'm working not in my off hours."
"So you're only comfortable around naked people when you're getting paid?"
"Don't even finish that line of thought."
"Why not?"
"Because I'll shoot you."
"Uh-huh."
"In the dick."
"Tree branch."
She sputtered with a mouthful of crisp leaves and pine needles as she ran into the low branch.
Day 57:
The clock on her cable box informed her of the early morning hour, ungodly and dark and dismal was all four in the morning could be described as in her current state of adrenaline, black coffee, nicotine sleepless haze of whirring thoughts.
She was going to crash later once her mind settled down and the headache and uncomfortable stickiness of too little sleep and too much sweating chills of rest withdrawal hit. She'd sleep later, she needed to think. She needed to plan and formulate plots.
It seemed a touch nefarious to think of herself as someone who plotted and schemed. But she was and at four in the morning it seemed the right sort of thing to do, balanced evils. She likened herself to a mad scientist for a moment before realizing she was going too far into her thoughts and getting off track.
Derek Hale remained oblivious and asleep as she sat and pondered the events of the night gone by. It seemed right. The idea had no reason behind it but it made sense in her sleepless musings that he should be resting and she should be high-strung and neurotic at the early hour.
The excitement of having stayed awake long enough to plan made her jittery and in need of someone to share her enthusiasm with, she climbed the stairs and opened the door to the spare bedroom.
"Hey, wake-up."
"…"
He rolled over away from the pillar of light the open door cast across the bed his shoulder bunching in lines and divides of muscle that she spared a glance only because he was male and the tattoo was a visual landmark that drew her eyes to its location.
"You're still wanted by the law, right?"
"You're waking me up for that?" He mumbled to the pillow under his head.
"Okay, that's a yes. How would you like to not be wanted by the law?"
"Whatever it is, it's not going to work. Let me sleep."
She threw the decorative bed pillow on the floor at his unenthusiastic head; he stirred enough to roll onto his back and perch up unto his elbows to look at her.
"No, if you listen then do what I say it will work, I just have to fill in a few blanks so get up. We need to talk."
"…"
She took his silence as invitation to continue and settled on a spot on the floor at the side of the bed, she leaned an elbow on the mattress and blinked away a twitch in her eye. She was too lazy to raise her head and settled for staring at the line the bottom of his pectorals made on his chest and the barest hint of male abdominals playing over the edge of the sheet.
"That woman set your house on fire, right. With everyone else who's been dying around here lately?"
"Yes."
"Is there anyone who isn't dead that was involved."
"Yes."
"Okay. How many people?"
"Two more."
" And the woman's brother, what does he do?"
"Raises dogs and sells guns."
"And she and the other two, no, three guys are all tied to him?"
"Yes."
"And one of those kids who were there tonight told the police that it was you chasing them at the highschool."
"Yes."
"Who killed Jennifer?"
He looked away, "It was an accident."
She ignored the way he didn't look at her and picked at the edge of the sheet hanging off the bed, "Who stole her body and her car?"
"Peter."
"Who the police still think is comatose."
He looked at her and flopped down onto the mattress, his head hitting the feather-down pillow with a muted pummeling sound.
"Your point?"
"That woman," she started.
"Kate Argent," he finished supplying the name.
"Kate Argent and the three guys are connected to burning down that house and your sister came to town to try and Scooby solve the mystery, they find out that she was sniffing around and kill her, and then they start killing everyone else that was connected. The two guys that weren't there tonight ran off because things started to get weird with Kate and the bald guy…,"
"Marcus."
"Kate and the bald guy, Marcus, okay. So then Kate gets to Jennifer, doesn't matter how, blackmail, extortion whatever who cares, Jennifer lets Kate in the nursing home and Kate or Jennifer kills everyone and Kate kidnaps your uncle, then Kate kills Jennifer and later steals her body…,"
He cut in.
"Why would the police think that she stole the body?"
"Because it's the only one that doesn't fit the pattern of the animal attacks, don't interrupt, just listen, full circle in about five minutes if I can finish this," she punched the bed to make it clear she didn't like his interruptions.
"..."
"So she steals the body and the car and your uncle, brings him down here to get you down here and all of that. Then the animal attack on the highschool girl happens as a way to throw the police off track. Now the family raises dogs right, the police are going to interview that guy because it's his sister that's dead in that living room, you go and make sure he knows to tell the police that as a gift or whatever he gave a dog to one of the three guys as a gift for Christmas or whatever one year."
"I'm doing this?"
"Yes, you are."
"…"
"And then we have to make it look like you were utterly incapable of committing these crimes and that it was an attack dog attacking and killing people and later the crazy woman in your living room because there was a break-down of the partnership between her and one of the three guys, doesn't matter which one, maybe baseball bat would be the easiest."
"How does that work?"
"You'll fit in that burlap sack, I'll tie you up, put you in the bag and beat you with the bat enough so there's physical evidence and then to keep up with the attack dog image I'll tear the shit out of the bag from the outside and leave you in the woods somewhere where you'll be found quick. You can control your healing right?"
"Yes."
"Okay and then when they interview you at the hospital you'll tell a very moving and horrific story about how you were tortured and left in the woods to be mauled to death by an attack dog for sport and blah blah blah. Oh and you have no idea what happened to your uncle, ask about him, cry or look grief stricken and shut-down when they tell you he's dead. And then say 'that bitch,' or something like that when they tell you he was burned to death."
"…"
"It will work; the Sheriff already has second thoughts about you as a suspect."
"And how would you know?"
"Because he was here the other day dropping off my gun carry papers and we had coffee and I planted some seeds."
"…"
"I'm not an idiot, dumbass. The other day was setting the stage now everything is prepped for the show, you just have to sell it and they'll eat it up."
"What makes you think it will work?"
His head rolled on the pillow and he stared at her face sleepily.
"Imagine that in the police station there's this giant board with everyone's picture on it and they're all arranged in categories of victim, and suspect, and then the stuff that doesn't fit. All the inner connections that can be made with the information they have are made already, but if you add some more information and 'facts' to the mix then other connections can be made. It's like a decorating a room with furniture, not everything is going to fit in the space left over by the other pieces, the police have to fit every piece of information together that's concrete before they can close a case," she paused and sucked in a breath because she was talking and not breathing for too long to be healthy.
"Occam's razor, horses not zebras, attack dogs owned by person who breeds and raises attack dogs being commanded to attack people in order to bury an old arson case by killing everyone tied to it, not werewolf hunter gone rogue still trying to kill werewolf that got away years ago that is trying to protect new werewolf who was created by comatose werewolf uncle whose brain healed and is now a killing machine. People are simple, they do simple things, pattern and design appeal and a dash of what's illogical is logical when it's people doing things. At the very least, you won't be a suspect anymore and at the most the whole case is solved and the animal attacks end, unless you choke and start talking about werewolves."
"…"
He stared at her and she waited for the idea to set in enough in his sleep addled brain to gather his thoughts on the whole thing. Impatience set in, "Are you going to get in the bag or not?"
"Where in the woods are you putting me?"
"Park ground, jogging trail."
"When did you come up with this?"
"Over the past hour, hour and a half, I guess. I mean, really if you're going to hang out here then I'd prefer it if you weren't a fugitive, you know?"
"You in the habit of hiding fugitives?"
She floundered until she realized he was joking.
"Nope, just stretching the truth, acting oblivious, lying to authority figures. That sort of thing."
"Because you're schizoid," his lips twitched in the oddest of ways that made her think that if he were the type to smirk then that's what it was, but he was half-asleep so the half-smirk wasn't really something that counted.
"That's all you remember from that conversation?"
Lucette lay her head on her arm and closed her eyes tired and satisfied that she'd gotten her thoughts out of her head.
"No."
"I don't remember half of the things I say in conversations, not specifically, because they're still in my brain. It's like rewriting by hand something you've typed on a computer. The fact that I don't remember how I insult you or if I do shows how little it meant when I said it in the first place, understand?"
She did, but only because she was so tired. She could understand that she was telling him because she was tired but it didn't matter. She was half-asleep and ready to pass out on the floor.
"Do I have to get in the bag now or can I go back to sleep?" He however was waking up with every moment she stuck around to keep him from going back to sleep.
The uneven parallel was making her edgy.
"Go to fucking sleep. I'll wake you up later," she dragged herself up off the floor and went to leave.
"Shut the door," he commanded rolling over onto his stomach and tangling the sheets around him.
"How much you got left in you to not die from severe injury?" She questioned leaning against the door frame eyeing the line of his spine and the swell of man butt covered by thin sheet, she needed sleep.
"Why?"
"Because the police know you have an abdominal wound, go to sleep I've got to think up something suitable for that."
"Whatever," he lifted an arm in a motion that she took as a gesture to get the fuck out.
"You got money?"
"My accounts are frozen."
"Make them unfreeze them, check into a hotel, when no one's watching you anymore come back here. You'll have to check out of the hospital against medical advice. Ask a nurse in front of the Sheriff if you can have the number for a place that does private patients."
"Why?"
"Because the Sheriff will call me and ask if I want a job."
"He won't call you."
"Wanna bet? Containment of the situation, I'm already inadvertently involved, plus I mentioned that you didn't really seem like a killer so he knows I'd be more open to the idea of caring for someone who was up until recently considered a crazy killer so there you go."
"Close the fucking door and go downstairs."
"You mean close my fucking door and go downstairs in my house?"
"…"
"I know I'm brilliant and wonderful and incredibly smart don't choke on the compliments just go to sleep," she shut the door and tripped going down the stairs, catching herself roughly and scaring her dog. She stumbled up and undressed on the way to her bedroom, kicking the door shut and climbing in between cold sheets and the oblivion of dreamless sleep.
Day 58:
They had each gotten up and eaten sporadically and made their way back to bed multiple times by the time the early morning after the morning after of the big showdown as she called it in her own thoughts rolled around, she'd asked about why she was so goddamn tired and with a shrug and a remark about healing and the energy it took he said little else in the way of conversation.
She was happy at least that he had put pants on, she however remained unenthusiastic about the prospect of having to get dressed further than her blood encrusted and dirt smeared thermal and underwear, and it was only after the third comment on her choice of panties that she scowled and threw on the jeans she'd worn into the woods.
To her there was nothing wrong with the birthday gifted underwear that displayed a cartoon nurse in a reprehensible uniform with a catchy phrase written across the back of them. She was eating waffles over the kitchen sink due to a lack of clean plates when he came in searching for coffee.
"Ever hear of utensils?" He asked with a sneer. She refrained from answering with something snarky around a mouthful of chewed breakfast much more content to watch the crawl of syrup down her hand and around the bite marks in the two slabs of toaster baked treats.
"Sorry didn't know you wanted breakfast, alpha don't eat first in this house bitch," she replied after a thick swallow. He snorted once, quietly and she hunched over the sink in an effort to keep him from her food despite him having made no move to take it, it was instinctual.
She turned her head to look at him through the fall of her hair and found him watching her eat, it was not comforting. "Quit staring."
"Quit chewing with your mouth open."
She opened her mouth and shoved mashed waffle forward with her tongue in an infantile gesture. He walked forward and snatched at her food, he grabbed one before it fell in the sink and finished it in three bites while she gaped in stark surprise at the lone waffle floating in the dirty dishwater.
He seemed entirely too smug as he sucked at a spot of syrup on his forearm. She reached in the sink and pulled out the soggy half-eaten waffle and flung it at him, he smacked it back and it hit her in the throat before collapsing wetly on the floor at her feet.
She cleaned it up with a scowl as he sat regarded the coffee maker with confusion and started to pull out drawers looking for a filter and grounds.
"I'll do it," she snapped pawing at strands of hair sticking to her sticky syrup mouth.
"You've got syrup on your face."
"I know."
"Do you know how to eat without wearing your food?"
"Do you know how to have a conversation without making someone want to stab you?" She countered as he turned and sat down at the table.
She made coffee and caught him staring at the remnants of the back door she'd broken propped up next to the fridge and the new one she'd put in, "What did you start that whole thing for? That's bipolarism. You know."
"What "whole thing'?" He sounded like he knew but she didn't look back to see if he looked like he did too.
"Unspecific thing: knocking me out all the time. Specific thing: the whole thing where you broke my back door and disappeared for like a week and killed your uncle and then everything else."
She spooned in coffee grounds and pushed the tray back into the coffee maker hitting the switch to brew and turning to lean against the counter.
"That was awhile ago. I was angry."
"Well next time I'm kicking you in the balls. It wasn't long enough ago to not be gone from my short-term memory."
"Noted."
Steam rolled out of the top of the coffee maker and it gurgled as it sucked up water.
"You're really nuts."
"I'm not."
"You hit me."
"I know I hit you. Are you looking for an apology?" He looked at her with a dare to ask for one plain on his face.
"You meant to hit me, don't apologize for things you mean to do. You're not sorry so apologizing is a really dumb thing to do."
"So you don't want me to apologize?"
"No, I want you to not hit me and leave me outside on the porch so it can rain on me," she scowled and turned to watch the coffee drip down before adding a muttered, "Asshole."
"I was angry, don't make me angry enough to hit you and I won't hit you."
"You said that."
"…," she could hear him light a cigarette in his silence.
"I made you angry enough to hit me. I don't toe the line; one punch…two punches is not going to get me to not do it again," she grabbed a mug and placed it next to the coffee maker before sitting down across the table from him, "So what made you so angry?"
"You did," he exhaled a plume of smoke and took a drag.
Lucette threw her feet and legs onto the table and leaned the top of the chair against the wall, closing her eyes and crossing her arms, "Keep your angry switch secret to yourself then."
"I hit you because you were being annoying," he insisted.
"You don't just hit me because I'm annoying. I'll figure it out when it happens again, probably," she shrugged and turned her face towards the breeze coming from the open window next to the table.
"…"
His lack of comment made her eyes snap open and her feet fall off the table as she thought of what else she had to yell at him for, deciding to get everything settled at the same time. She leaned forward and pointed a dirty fingernail at him, "And stop breaking things, what are you He Man? I really meant it when I said I'd find out where you live and break your things if you didn't quit it."
"That."
"That?" She looked at him confused and not quite getting what he meant.
"Yeah, that."
Thoughts clicked, "That made you angry enough to hit me last time?"
"Not the breaking my things line, that's not what you said."
"Crap, what did I say?" She sat back all loose limbs and little grace pondering her exact words during their last argument.
"That you burn it down."
"Yeah, okay. Way to be dramatic."
"…"
She rolled her eyes.
"Someone burn down your house already?"
"Yeah."
There was awkward and weighty silence as she considered his face, it gave nothing away and broached no emotion before she realized what his house looked like. "…oh. That house in the woods is your house too."
"Yeah, oh."
"So where do you live?"
"In my burnt down house."
"Why did they burn it down in the first place?"
He visibly tensed and tapped out ashes looking for an answer, "Because they wanted to," was the gruff reply he returned. She blew a raspberry and his eyes widened and his eyebrows jumped angrily. "Buy a new fucking house; don't go around hitting people over it. It's just a house."
"It wasn't just the house they burnt down."
She wasn't one for melodrama so early in the morning, "Jeez, so it's you're ruined childhood they burnt down with it, don't hit me over that."
He snapped and pointed his cigarette at her, "No, it was the rest of my family they burned to death in my house."
"…"
"…"
She considered him and he sat back in his chair glaring, his jaw tight and hard and his lips blanching from the tight line he'd forced them into, "That blows."
"Yeah," he turned his head to look out the window.
"Not to sound casual about it."
"I get it."
He got up to pour his coffee, it wasn't until he was at the fridge scrounging for milk that she spoke again, "The dead woman, Kate, and those guys. That makes more sense than just them burning down the house sparking this whole thing, they killed people."
"Yeah."
"And your uncle killed them."
"Yeah."
"Why'd you kill him then?"
"What?" He capped the milk and turned to look at her the jug still in his loose grip.
"Did you not want him to kill them?"
"No."
The fridge door blocked her view of him, "So then did you want to kill them instead of him doing it?"
"Killing them wasn't a priority," he explained standing at the counter staring at his coffee.
"So why'd you kill your uncle?"
"…"
He didn't answer.
"…"
She waited.
And waited.
Until the obligatory waiting period ended, "Was it just something you did because you were angry?"
"No."
"Then you have a reason."
"He killed my sister."
"That doesn't take ten minutes to think of as a reason," she tried with a tone meant to provoke an answer from him.
"What do you want me to say?" He turned sharply and looked at her. "That I killed him because I had to, because I was angry, because he was a threat, or because I wanted to?" He stared at her like he was waiting for her to nod at one of the proffered choices.
"It's not about the reason in itself; it's about why you chose that reason. Why did you want to kill him?"
"Does it matter?"
He picked up his coffee and took a sip and then a final drag off his cigarette before tossing it into the sink, it sizzled and sputtered weakly.
"Depends," she shrugged.
"On what? Your cooperation, whether you think I'm good or bad or evil?"
She shrugged and looked out the window, studying a broken branch hanging haphazardly from a crosshatch of other branches above her backyard.
"Does any of that matter, really? Does it change anything?" He pressed coming back to stand near the table, she looked up at him. "Depends."
"On what? Are you just going to talk in circles all day?" He slammed his mug down on the table and sloshed liquid out onto the placemat in front of her. She looked at the tan puddle of over-milked coffee and then up at him again.
"Are you going to answer the question or feed me rhetorical ones of your own?"
"Depends. What do you think?"
"What I think is only based on what I know; I can't jump to my conclusion devoid of information."
"You wouldn't get it," he responded dragging his mug off the table and going to stand at the counter again, she turned and placed an arm over the top of her chair, swinging her legs out from under the table and crossing them in front of her.
"Why you killed him?" She tilted her head and watched him scowl.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because you don't know what it's like to be part of a pack, it's something you're in from birth or you grow into. You weren't born like this and you're not going to grow into someone who's meant to be part of a pack."
"So you killed him because he was weak," she looked out the window of the back door and waved a hand flippantly.
"He wasn't weak, he was an alpha."
"That doesn't mean he was a good one, right?" She turned back to look at him. "That's part of what I'm not going to get. That whole pack mentality, where an alpha who can't hold a pack together needs to be done away with or whatever," she waved her hand again and his eyes followed the movement contemptuously.
"…"
"You know why you killed him."
"…"
"You just don't want to say it because you think I'm too stupid to grasp the concept."
She was suddenly too irritated to remain casual.
"…"
"You think you can make a pack and hold it together and that he couldn't, so you killed him," she pointed at him with a stiff finger and a lowered brow, looking at him warily.
"It's not so simple."
"What makes it complicated, that he also killed your sister or that you killed him more to be alpha than for anything else?"
"For you it's simple."
"What is?"
"Everything."
"…"
"Being bitten and changing hasn't made you less human. It's just another thing for you and you deal with it as something completely separate, it's just another role."
"…"
"For people like me that were born into it there's nothing that feels faker than going around and trying to act like a person, we're not. You still think you're a person instead of something else. It's not a sometimes thing, you're always something else, you're always a werewolf. That's why you can't get it."
She got up and stood at the door, looking out at the porch and popping a hip out while she crossed her arms, "Not everybody in the world needs other people around or a pack. Some people are better off without anyone else."
"There's no such thing as a real lone wolf, you know that? Lone wolves are just wolves looking for a pack."
"That's not what I meant."
"What did you mean then, that some people are so much better than others that they don't need them?"
"It's simpler than that," she told her reflection and then letting her eyes jump to his in the corner of the paned glass.
"It's simpler than what?"
"Most people aren't good enough for some people," she turned and caught the sneer that lasted for a moment on his mouth.
"People like you," it sounded like an insult. It was.
"There are no people like me, there's just me and most people in the world aren't good enough for me to bother with if it's not necessary."
For a moment she didn't think he was going to answer, "What the fuck did someone do to you to make you so stuck up?"
"I'm not stuck up," she bristled with indignation and walked forward a few steps closer to where he stood. He straightened and rose to his full intimidating height pushing away from the counter but not moving any more than that.
"You should listen to yourself talk; you sound like you're trying to convince yourself."
"Why do I bother you so much?"
"Because nothing about you is real, you're fake, completely, and you think it makes you some righteous example of what-the-fuck-ever," his voice rose in volume as if he was offended by her.
"You don't think I like being alone?"
"No one likes being lonely."
"Being alone and being lonely are two different things. There's a difference, being lonely implies that someone's looking for a connection with someone else or other people but it's not there or it's not happening. Being alone means that someone isn't looking for anyone else, it's a choice. It's a state of being."
She clenched her hand into a fist and took a breath to keep the flare of anger and heat contained.
"…"
"You're lonely Derek and you think a pack and a vague ambition of some ideal or purpose will change that. It won't. I'm alone because I don't have the patience to deal with people who aren't as smart as me if I don't have to."
"…"
"I'm alone because I don't care what happens to people who do stupid things while thinking they're not stupid."
"You don't know a thing about me," he hissed with a step towards her, she didn't move.
"I don't need to know your favorite color or what music you listen to in order to be able to tell if you're stupid or not."
"So I'm stupid?"
"It doesn't matter if you're stupid, you're necessary and you making sure I can deal with the fucking fallout is necessary so everything else doesn't matter. You can think I'm fake and I can think whatever the hell I want about your winning personality."
"But you think I'm stupid."
"I think you're not as able to be alone as I am and I think people that can't stand to be without other people are…,"
"Are what?"
"Not looking at the big picture."
"…"
He waited for her to explain.
"Life is not a team effort, it's personal and if someone can't be alright with themselves and what they know and don't know and do and don't do then what's the point? It's selfish to drag other people down with you if you don't know if you can support their weight before you start carrying them around with you. Which is what you're doing, snatching people up to carry them around with you to prove that you're a better alpha, when you fuck up you're not the only one who has to figure it all out it's everyone else to. Why would I, if I even was the pack-type, want to be in a pack like that, why would anyone. Figure your own shit out first is all I'm saying."
"I have to go," he stepped around her and made for the back door.
"Wait," she caught his eyes in the glass of the door.
"What?"
"Think what you like, but I don't say things just to piss you off."
"It happens anyway when you talk a lot of the time."
"I say what I want."
"Maybe you should filter what you say if you don't want to piss people off." He turned and let the words sink in.
"I don't care enough to not say things that will piss you off, you're necessary sure, but you're not an integral part of my existence it doesn't bother me if you're pissed off, that's your deal not mine."
"I'm going now."
He turned again and she stamped a foot in aggravation that he was leaving before she said everything that she wanted to say, "Hey!"
"What?"
"I'd rather you say what you want than spew out useless bullshit or leave because you're irritated it's counterproductive to the whole reason you show up and my acknowledgment that you show up for a good reason. When you leave just because you're pissed off I start thinking that maybe you are stupid to not really understand your pride is secondary in this whole thing."
"Okay," he looked at her, "You're a cunt. How's that for being not counterproductive to showing up and you acknowledging my showing up?"
"If it makes you less of a sour wolf then, by all means, call me a cunt all you want. See you later."
"Tonight," he mumbled without turning for the door.
"Okey dokey," she replied pouring his remaining coffee into the sink
"…"
When the door didn't open she stopped reaching for the sponge to do the dishes with, "I thought you were leaving."
It came out of her mouth sounding like a taunt, even to her.
"If you think I care more about ego than people dying you're an idiot."
She sighed, a parting shot. He wanted to argue, so did she. She turned fixed him with an impatient look, "I didn't say that."
"You did and maybe you shouldn't contradict yourself if you want to seem smarter than me."
"Are you trying to make a point?"
She leaned into the counter and took up a careless posture of indifference with her bare heel against the bottom of the cabinet, toes pressing into the tiled floor.
"You've got a lot of pride and not much else right now and you want to lecture everyone else but you can't point that finger at yourself."
"You know Derek it's hard to believe your bullshit when I know exactly what it is you haven't been telling me," she snapped wanting him to take the bait so she could get out what had been bothering her for the past day and a half.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I heard what that kid said to you about killing your uncle. Why would he have to do it, why would he want to? What did he mean by he'd die if he'd have to stay this way?"
"…," he stiffened and seemed uncomfortable with the topic; she pressed on with a smirk and a quick raise of her eyebrows.
"No remark? Yeah, because you may not have lied but you have secrets and I don't comment but I know you know things and you haven't exactly been forthcoming with information."
"So?"
"So, you never mentioned there might be a cure."
"I wouldn't have told you it was a possibility."
"Why?"
"Between you and that kid, he would have deserved the opportunity before you would."
"Who said I wanted a cure?"
"Why bring the subject up then?"
"Because between me and the highschool kid I'm worth more, consider that the next time you hide information from me."
"You think so?"
She didn't know how to respond to the question, the fact that he would ask offended her. As if she was worth less than a silly highschool kid who thought he was going to die if he had to live life as a werewolf.
"…"
"What are you not sure of your self-worth all of a sudden?" He goaded looking smug and self-assured.
"It's your's I'm not sure about," she spit.
"I'd reconsider that."
"Would you, really? Why? Because you're an alpha? Because you hide stuff and lie about others? What do you know that I can't find out with a little time and practice? What do you do that I can't do myself quicker because I'm not a fugitive?"
"…"
"What have you got that I want? Nothing, there is nothing coming from you I can't get for myself, your way is quicker but not if you jerk me the fuck around."
Her hands clenched tightly around the edge of the counter.
"If you feel that way by all means ride out the full moon by yourself without help, see how far that self-worth gets you," his tone was venomous and his eyes narrowed in half-awake rage.
"Where has yours gotten you?"
"I'm leaving."
"Are you? I'd hate for you to get captured again."
He turned fully and walked a few steps in fast progression before catching himself and snarling, "What is your problem?"
"You and you're stupid ego."
"What the fuck are you talking about!"
"You think you're the solution to whatever problem it is you're trying to work out and when you fuck up where does that put me? In the middle of the whole thing!"
"…that's what you're ragging on me about? What could happen? Hate to break it to you but you're a werewolf, what did you think that entailed? Meetings about finance and lunar calendars and networking?"
"I know what I am," she replied low and harsh.
He eyed her up and down for a moment before giving her a look that said he didn't believe her.
"Do you? Because in case you haven't noticed you're still wearing the clothes you killed Bambi in, do you consider that normal behavior, do you even remember killing it, why you did it? Huh? What's with the quiet stare, I thought you liked to talk?"
She smiled, slow and vicious, "I remember, hard to forget after I stalked it for six hours and wrangled it with dead rabbits, hard to forget when I started planning to do it a week ago when I first saw it. Hard to forget when you do something you've wanted to for awhile."
"You think you're in control of it but you're not, there's a reason for packs and you're the example."
"Example of what?"
"What happens when there isn't a pack for rogue wolves."
"I never said I wanted to be part of a fucking pack."
"Then you better learn to fucking control yourself on your own or someone will put you down, it doesn't just start and end with rabbits and deer. It's a progression and it escalates."
"Don't tell me that I don't know how to control myself."
"You think it takes a couple of days? It. Takes. Years," he stressed and for a moment his eyes flashed that hell-shaded red she'd seen in the woods.
"I'm a quick study."
"Be glib if you want and act like you know better, it'll take one moon, two, three if you're lucky but you'll kill someone and enjoy it and then someone with a gun will hunt you down and shoot you in the head and you'll be dead and that's it. That's how far pride will fucking get you."
"I know."
He threw up his hands and stalked a step forward and back, rocking in irritation as if wondering how he'd gotten into having such an inane conversation with her.
"If you know then shut up and it ends, the conversation doesn't need to go on with you getting the last word. Stop acting like a child."
"You know what else might get me shot? You," she didn't want to end the conversation. Didn't want to let it rest, there was something about seeing how far she could push him. There was something in her that wanted to fight and yell and make someone snap.
"Me?"
"Yeah, you. You think you're going to be a better alpha than your uncle? All you got is more problems, two werewolves maybe three, guys with guns, and then every tom, dick, and harry associated with that kid knowing all about what's going on," and then she saw the peek of white from behind his lips the gleam and sheen of his eyes.
She smiled but it didn't reach her eyes and it wasn't meant to do anything more than try and be demeaning, "And don't tell me about the moon, you're the only one here with their fangs hanging out."
He looked at his hands and forced the wolf down, caged it somewhere deep and took a breath through his nose. He was angry, she was pleased.
"What do you want me to do?"
"Don't ask like it's not your problem."
"…"
"You inherited all this baggage and you ask what I want you to do? You scowl at everything that comes out of my mouth because you don't like what it sounds like, because any idea that doesn't come from you isn't worthwhile but all you do is bumble along with your baggage and dropping it as you go."
"…"
"You're not taking this seriously."
"Fuck you," he said lowly his eyes dangerous.
"Fuck me? No, you're the one who's fucked. You don't have a plan for anything, dude. Get your shit together and start thinking of how to fix some things before you break other ones. Do you get that?"
"Yeah, and what are you going to do? Kill rabbits in the woods?"
"…"
"…"
"In total it took me about three days to figure out how to not make you a fugitive anymore, I also dragged you out of the line of fire and made sure you didn't die the other night. I'll do what I have to do in order to not die, do you understand that? I'll plan but it means nothing if you refuse to listen because you think I'm a cunt. Because I am. Not going to change, live with it."
"Fine."
"Fine?"
"Got any other plans?"
"I need details to make plans; I also need a situation to plan for."
"What good are you if you can't fill in the blanks?"
"One thing at a time, and to be honest I'm pretty sure I'm the least of your troubles."
"Scale and degree are two different things."
"What's that mean?"
"Figure it out, you're so smart."
"I'm not the biggest problem but I'm the most constant and aggravating?"
"You are smart."
"You're not proving what you're worth, you know, besides a migraine."
"If I hadn't shown up after he bit you you'd be dead."
"Too bad there's no way to know for sure."
"Heh, denial is comfortable I'm sure."
"…"
"I've proved exactly what I'm worth, all you've done is talk and occasionally it's useful but never necessary and that's the difference right there: I'm necessary to you surviving but not the other way around. Useful isn't the deciding factor necessary is, think you're saving me by cutting out a few arrows that will pop out anyway or injecting something that speeds things up all you like but realize that it doesn't take much effort or thought to draw a line in between useful and worth my time."
"Thanks for filling in the blanks."
"I'm leaving now."
"Tonight."
"…tonight," he affirms and she knows he only spoke to get the last word because he doesn't want her too.
The door clicks shut and her dog trots into the room with his snout low and his eyes down, reaching down to pet him she sighs, "Word," she states and snickers for too brief a moment to really count. Looking down at her dog she contemplates the situation and decides that despite the angry words and low blows the air is clearer than before, at least they're being honest with each other, "Mad skills and strategies, Brigs. You get me? Useful is the only thing worth anyone's time. Dumb fuck."
She can't bring herself to smile knowing that she's wrong and he's right, necessary and useful aren't worth the same thing.
It's with an edge of malevolent glee that she waits for dusk and the opportunity to tie him up inside a burlap sack and beat him with a baseball bat. Simple pleasures she sighs to herself as she does the dishes.
A/N: I know there were some moments in here where someone reading definitely thought I was about to write some smut, I apologize ahead of time for the frustration and angry yelling at the computer screen. Yes Lucette sees Derek naked, yes she thinks he looks good naked, no she doesn't start having explicit Derek fantasies. She's seen a penis before she's a nurse, a penis in itself is not the world's most beautiful thing to look at despite it being Derek's penis. Just putting it out there that being naked to Derek, in my opinion, wouldn't be a big deal since he is a werewolf and has lived with them I imagine that he's used to it. Not that werewolves are nudists but that if someone walks out of the woods naked it's not such a big deal for them. Lots of talking I know, there won't be so discussion next chapter, or at least not so much between just the two of them. For anyone that has read the Fever Series, yes I totally did write "Stop staring at my dick." I had to restrain myself from making Lucette say "I need to in order to compose an ode to its perfection." If you haven't read the Fever Series by Karen Moning, DO IT! It's an urban fantasy series with sex and violence and humor.