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argentum_ls) wrote2013-12-18 11:01 pm
WIPs
Going through my google drive while looking for something else, I found so many story bits: Orphaned conversations excised from other stories, beginnings of prompt fills, false starts, random scenes to be developed later.
I'm throwing some of them here for posterity's sake. Warnings: Selections may stop in the middle of a word.
One of six extant attempts at a Death Defiant sequel
The last person Scott expected to see waiting in his bedroom was Jackson. He hesitated with his hand on the bottom sash of his window, watching the older boy pace across his floor, and debated turning around. What possible reason could Jackson have to be visiting Scott’s house, especially this late at night? The sun had been down for hours and the night had started to quiet, only the low hooting of an owl interrupting the silence. Scott’s breath still came hard from his run through the forest; the sweat on his skin was evaporating, leaving him chilled. He wanted a warm shower and to fall into his bed, and all that stood between him and those goals was the guy whose best description was antagonist.
Scott took a deep breath, fortifying himself. The faint taste of electricity that he always got around Jackson prickled at his lungs and made the hairs on the arms stand up. He opened the window and slipped into his room. Jackson jumped, his eyes darting between the window and the mostly closed bedroom door as if it had never occurred to him that people could perform a task through other than the officially designated approach.
“You use the window a lot?” Jackson asked, his voice cracking. He rubbed his hands down the front of his jeans, drying them, then crossed the room to finish closing the door. His eye caught the extra lock mounted on the wood and he reached up and touched it softly, then turned back without comment.
“Sometimes,” Scott answered.He kept his hands behind him, on the window sill, the window still open a couple inches, in case he wanted to get away. “Depends where I’m going.”
Jackson nodded in understanding. “Your mom doesn’t know, does she?” He might have been referring to the fact that Scott was a werewolf; he might have been referring to Scott’s recently developed habit of sneaking out at night. Knowing Jackson, he was probably referring to himself.
“Does yours?” Scott answered, raising his eyebrow and subtly trying to get some clarification on which was the conversation was going. Ever since he had hauled Jackson’s corpse to his front porch and seen it come back to life, their relationship had been largely non-existent, which struck Scott as a perfectly Jackson way to handle an awkward situation. Jackson interacted with Scott precisely as much as protocol required for the two co-captains, and he carefully positioned himself to never be alone with the younger boy. Scott understood the desire for space, even if he wasn’t quite clear on what the motivations were. He hadn’t told anyone the specifics of what he’d witnessed with Jackson—not even Stiles—though, Jackson had no reason to know that.
Jackson scoffed. “You’re the only one,” he replied. His blue eyes looked black in the dim lighting of the room. When Scott had left, he’d turned off all the lights except for the small lamp next to his bed. Jackson hadn’t changed that. For however long he’d been standing in Scott’s room, he’d been doing so in the dark.
Scott’s brow furrowed. “Is something wrong?” As he asked the question, he tried to imagine what would be enough to bring Jackson to his house. The last time, it had taken Jackson’s death. Was someone after him again? He ran a hand through his hair, his fingers catching on the shredded remains of a dried leaf. Pulling it out, he let it flutter back out the window.
Jackson brought his arms up, then let them drop to his sides. “Because something has to be wrong for me to want to pay you a visit?”
Was that supposed to be sarcasm? Scott blinked. “Pretty much, yeah. It’s not like you even knew where my house was until a couple weeks ago, and you’ve hardly said two words to me since then. So, if you’re here—“ He gestured toward Jackson, then made a sweeping motion around his room, “—I’m going to assume it’s because a crazed killer is lurking in the bushes outside.”
“Is that my life you’re describing, McCall? Or yours?”
Scott rolled his eyes. He had to concede the point, but he didn’t want to. “Maybe we should start a club?” he offered.
“I saw what happened at the game tonight,” Jackson said, as if they hadn’t been talking about this all along.
Scott’s jaw went tight and his fingers gripped the window sill. “What happened?”
“You lost your shit, is what happened,” Jackson replied. “I thought you were going to kill someone out there.”
Scott closed his eyes against Jackson’s accusation. So did I, he thought. Lacrosse was a violent game. There was no getting around that, and despite having gained a lot of control over his transformations, Scott still sometimes struggled during games when adrenaline was pounding and his focus was on the moment, on the game.
“The way those guys from Valley were coming after you…” Jackson trailed off, shaking his head. Getting hit and tackled was no big deal. Even verbal taunts, a little smack talk, was part of the game. Tonight had been too much, and both of the co-captains recognized it. Too bad the referees didn’t. “What that ass did with his stick—“ He cringed in sympathetic pain.
“I held it together,” Scott responded, sounding defensive. He had, though he didn’t know how.
A Sheriff-knows-about-werewolves story
“...and you expect us to believe that a man who’s been catatonic for six years stood up one day, walked to the forest preserve without anyone seeing him, and spontaneously combusted?” Incredulousness dripped from the Internal Affairs agent’s voice as she summarized the contents of the official police report. She planted one hand on the table that sat between them and leaned forward, peering over the tops of her red-framed glasses at Sheriff Stilinski. She was of East Asian extraction and not too far off from Stilinski in age, if the lines around her mouth and eyes were any indication, and she carried an authority about her that Stilinski recognized as hard-won.
Stilinski shrugged, his own face twisted in agreement with the agent’s doubts. No part of the story on the report made any sense. Because he’d been unable to create a real-world narrative of the events that led to Peter Hale’s immolated corpse turning up in the woods, he’d been forced to turn in a bare-bones report that told what happened, even if it didn’t tell the truth. “As I said in the note I appended,” he repeated, trying not to sound exasperated, “the report lists the facts as they occurred.”
She narrowed her eyes, assessing no doubt, but also waiting to see what more he would offer.
“It doesn’t help that our prime suspect turned up stuffed into the trunk of her car,” he added, pointing at the report where all of that was spelled out, including the fact that the coroner had been unable to rule conclusively which death occurred first. One working scenario had Hale murdering his nurse and using her car to escape. Another had the nurse murdering Hale and then ending up the victim of an unrelated crime. A third had both Hale and the nurse being the victims of a third party. That one seemed the most likely, despite the fact that no other leads at come forth about whom that third party might be. Without any leads on that front, he’d been forced to focus on the nurse’s involvement in Hale’s death.
The last time he’d been on this side of the interrogation table had been half a lifetime ago. He knew the agent was only doing her job, and he frankly couldn’t blame her for questioning the report. That didn’t quell the unease eating at him, the sense that he had to have done wrong or he wouldn’t be here. The room was too cold, the air-conditioning set too high, and his shoes squeaked against the Linoleum floor.
The agent glanced at the report. “The nurse was named Jennifer....”
Stilinski didn’t hear the last name she used. The way the agent was looking at him suddenly made him feel all of twenty-four again: young and filled with bravado and good intentions, his mind working furiously to peel back the layers of what he was being asked so he could feed his inquisitors the answers they needed to hear.
“Jake,” his interrogator spoke, slapping his hand on the table in front of him. Stilinski raised his eyes slowly, not impressed by the show of force. The interrogator was a solid, white man with a reddish complexion and a cheap sports jacket. He was a man used to throwing his weight around, and probably not used to dealing with people who could hold their own. “Your cooperation is … a matter of life and death, if you will.”
Stilinski looked around at the room they’d brought him to, leaning back in his chair as he did. The walls were cinder block and painted a brownish-yellow, the table in front of him bolted to the floor. The sole decoration was a large mirror on one wall that Stilinski assumed held one-way glass. The room had the air of interrogation rooms like he saw on cop shows, but there was something off about it that gave Stilinski the certainty that the person before him was not with any legitimate police force. Still, he had come this far with the two men who had shown up at his apartment door, flashing badges that could have been toys for all Stilinski knew about them. Jenni’s whispered, “Please,” still echoed in his ear, probably always would.
Stilinski nodded, at the same time suppressing a shiver. The ghi he wore was still damp with sweat from his race back to his apartment after Jenni’s call interrupted the class he’d been teaching, and the room was super-chilled. He’d probably end up sick when this was all done.
“Hey, I’m happy to cooperate,” he said, spreading his hands in a show of compliance. “I’ve got nothing to hide.” Which, would be true if they were talking to the person they thought they were. He’d been accused often enough of courting trouble, but damned if chasing trouble wasn’t fun. Pretending to be someone he wasn’t? Well, he was always up for a challenge.
“Let’s start at the top, then,” the man said. Before Stilinski could agree or argue, the questions started. They were easy enough at the beginning: What’s your name?; What’s your relationship with Jennifer Combs?; How long have you been living here?; Where were you last night?
Stilinski answered each as if he were his roommate, Jake. The disguise was easy enough to don. Though the only thing physically he and Jake had in common was shoulder breadth, Stilinski had always been an observer of people and was quick to learn their mannerisms. As he spoke, he found himself slipping into Jake’s speech patterns, East Coast vowels overtaking his own California lilt.
During his last answer, the door opened soundlessly and another man slipped into the room. Without comment, the new man moved to stand in the corner. He crossed his heavily tattooed arms over his chest. His jeans were torn, and he sported a black heavy-metal t-shirt. Without question, his purpose in was to be intimidating. Stilinski wondered why that decision had been made now, so far into the interrogation. He was cooperating and he knew his answers were good.
A flash of disgust crossed Interrogator’s face when Muscle entered, the only indication he gave of the new man’s presence. The expression was gone almost before Stilinski could put a name to what he’d seen. “What do you know about werewolves, Jake?” Interrogator asked, once again slamming his hand onto the table. He looked smug, like he’d just scored a point.
Stilinski’s eyebrows shot up at the question, certainly not one he had expected. He dragged his fingers through his hair in a gesture he’d seen Jake make so many times. “Not much,” he replied. “I saw American Werewolf in London at the revival theater. Does that count?”
Interrogator didn’t so much blink in response.
“Wasn’t there a show on a couple years ago called Werewolf?” Stilinski continued. “I only saw the ads; I think there was a pentagram involved in the storyline?” Still no response. Stilinski dredged his memory. That one Corey from The Lost Boys. He’d been in a werewolf movie, hadn’t he? Stilinski opened his mouth to ask and a growl rumbled through the room. Muscle had his top lip pulled back and the noise was coming from him.
Interrogator made a slashing motion in the air without turning around and the growl stopped.
Sensing that he had gone too far, Stilinski concluded with a shrug. “Not much to know,” he said. “Since there’s no such thing.”
Howling interrupted Scott before he finished sidling within reach of his intended target. He went ramrod straight when he heard the noise, his head whipping around to find its source in the crowd. Another howl loosed from some distance, some direction, he couldn’t pinpoint; what he did see clearly was that no one else was reacting. The chants and sign waving of the protestors continued without abatement or recognition of the unearthly sound. Scott didn’t know what had brought the people out to the streets in front of the NuTek corporate offices—nor did he care—as long as he could use the crowd to hide his liberation of some cred sticks from them. And now he’d been stopped before acquiring even one.
“Smart move, boy,” the man spoke.
Scott looked up into the face of his intended target, who was looking down at him with a glint in his blue eyes like he not only knew what Scott had been about to do, but had been looking forward to it. Scott gulped and took a tiny step back. Any denial sputtered out on his lips and he threw his hands up instead in what he hoped was an innocent “who me?” gesture. The man was older, probably Scott’s mom’s age, with shaggy brown hair, too-white teeth, and the kind of wary posture that Scott saw a lot amongst people who’d grown up in the shadows.
Not like himself.
If Scott had noticed the posture a few seconds earlier, he would have crossed the man right off his target list without even a conscious thought. Instead, he’s stuck under the man’s intense glare. The shouting and chanting of the protesting crowd dimmed to nothing, the heat of their bodies and sense of their presence fell away, and Scott was left feeling like the lone survivor of a devastation. A chill raced down his spine, along with the sure knowledge that ll ha
[Notes: Scott is getting the first hints that he's a Dog Shaman. I don't remember what Peter's role in this story was supposed to be.]
A First Season Allison Story
Her dad sat her down for The Talk. Allison curled in on herself, buried her head in her hands in pure mortification. Not only was it The Talk—one she had received quite enough, thank you—but it was her dad. She intellectually understood that he knew things about the female body, but delving any farther into the idea than that was repulsive. Girls’ bodies were supposed to be a mystery to boys, and dads, by definition, were boys. She remembered when her mom had revealed to him, over roast beef and new potatoes, that thirteen-year-old Allison had started her period, and how badly she had wanted to crawl under the table at that moment and die because how could her father even know what a period was?
Except, he didn’t want to talk about sex. He wanted to talk about werewolves. And his idea of The Talk was that damned rabid dog story—again. Did he have any other stories? From “rabid dog,” he segued into his real points: Scott was a monster. Scott was going to kill her, maul her, rip her to shreds. It was only a matter of time. Scott was a wild animal, an untamed beast, … a rabid dog.
“What do you do with rabid dogs?” he insisted, leaning in so close that she could smell the bourbon on his breath. A fierce glint sparkled in his blue eyes.
After the condom incident, her mom had come into Allison’s room and, after staring thoughtfully at her teenage daughter for a long, sad-eyed minute, said: “I was your age once. You’re making a mistake, but you won’t understand that until you’re older.” She touched the chunky necklace hanging on her chest as if for courage. “You have a gynecologist appointment in the morning. No arguing.” Not the most positive or advice filled discussion ever, but accepting, if she thought about it the right way. Aunt Kate’s version had been a more blunt, “Get screwed. Don’t get screwed up,” with a later offer to buy Allison more condoms so she wouldn’t have to steal them from her.
All of them just wanted to protect her. She could appreciate that. In some sense, she recognized that fathers threatening to kill their daughters’ boyfriends was as old as time. But this was going too far.
The things her father was saying were just wrong.
“You’re not going to hurt him,” Allison whispered to her father. Even as it came out of her mouth, the temerity of her own voice appalled her. How could she still be that person? She remembered standing out in the forest with her bow drawn, arrow nocked, and the strength that filled her because she was in control. Drawing on that memory, she straightened, pushed her hair from her face. “You’re not going to hurt him,” she pronounced.
“Allison, you don’t know what you’re—“
“You. Are. Not. Going. To. Hurt. Him.” she repeated, even more strenuously. “Scott is my boyfriend. I love him.”
Her father shook his head, his expression set. He clearly had his own opinion about the direction of this talk, and she wasn’t following the script. But if he was so determined to kill Scott, then why was he even in her room? It was almost like a small part of him wanted to be talked out of it, wanted to be convinced to let Scott go.