#his attitude is a nice change of pace considering the. gestures vaguely. everything else about the antaam

[dungeons-and-dragon-age]

oh huh. the Butcher is interesting

[momentofmemory]

FICTOBER 2020 - day seven

Prompt #6: “That was impressive.”

Fandom: Teen Wolf

Characters: Hayden Romero, Scott McCall

Triggers: Discussion of Death

Words: 1711

Author’s Note: Hayden’s adjusting super well to being a werewolf. Adjusting is what she does. But adjusting to everything else that happened to her... That might be a little more of a struggle. Set post-5B, pre 6A. Hayden POV. For @daughterofluthien

>> incremental steps

Running.

So fast and so far and so strong it feels like she’s flying, leaves kicking up under the balls of her feet and wind ripping freely through her hair.

It’s her favorite part of her new body.

She’s always loved to run, first out in the backyard with her sister and then on the field for soccer, but running alone has always been her favorite. It feels like nothing—no one—can ever catch her, ever tell her to stop.

There’s a power that thrums through her veins now, buzzing in time to the rhythm of her steps. This is running the entire preserve in under a half hour without pausing for breath; it’s pushing up off the ground and landing a dozen yards away without even trying, it’s leaping off a ledge and flipping three times midair to land—

“Oh, shit!”

It’s the quick pivoting of the body below her that saves her from crashing headfirst into it more than anything else, but the impact still sends both of them tumbling into the dirt.

“Sorry!” Hayden scrambles upright first, spitting leaves and shaking twigs out of her hair, slowly bringing her senses back down to the present. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t—”

She takes in the grey henley, crooked jaw, and surprisingly chill attitude at getting blindsided from a height of thirty feet. “Wait, Scott?”

“That’s me,” he says, sounding far too cheerful for the situation as he brushes his shirt off.

Hayden blinks, trying to refocus her eyes and tune out the sound of their heartbeats, hers purring gleefully along from her run, and his idling at a much more sedate pace. Her brow furrows.

“But—what’re you even doing out here? I thought you guys had lacrosse practice—” A new thought occurs to her and her blood pressure spikes, crashing her fully back into reality. “Wait, were you following me?”

“Uh.”

That’s a yes.

All the freedom she’d felt to just be from earlier vanishes, now viewed from the perspective of an outsider.

“So you saw—” Hayden flushes, remembering the excessive flipping she’d done. “Oh, god.”

“No, it’s okay, really.” Scott heaves himself back onto his feet, nodding towards the ledge she’d just jumped from. “Actually, I, uh—I was just going to say that was impressive.”

Hayden feels like the words should be mocking, but there’s nothing but sincerity in his voice.

“…Oh.” She hadn’t been expecting that, and a warm rush of pride overtakes the heat of embarrassment. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Scott’s smile is warm, too. “I just—you’ve been adjusting to your powers really well. Faster than most people.”

Hayden’s pretty used to adjusting to things. Losing her parents, her kidney, her life. Gaining something for once is a nice change.

She shrugs like it’s not a big deal. “I had powers before the bite, even if they were a little different. Guess being a fish boy’s science experiment has some perks.”

Scott arches his eyebrows.

“Mason’s fault,” she says. “Their outfits looked like those weird old diving suits with like, the copper plating and tubes and stuff, and fish are—look, it doesn’t have to make sense.”

Scott laughs, and Hayden’s startled to realize it’s a sound she’s never heard it before. “Probably a good mindset for most of the things that happen around here.”

“Yeah, I’m getting that idea.” Hayden fidgets, her muscles upset at the sudden end to her workout. Too much thinking, not enough running.

Since Scott seems unbothered by the delay, she pursues it herself. “So like. If I’m doing great at the whole werewolf thing, why did you follow me?”

Instead of answering directly, Scott looks over at the ledge that’d started the whole altercation and nods towards it. “How’d you know you could fall that far?”

“I just—did? I mean, I’ve jumped pretty far by myself. And it’s not like it’s the first thing I’ve jumped off of.”

Scott nods. “Incremental training. You do something at lower levels of risk until you know you’re ready for the real thing.”

“Sure, I guess.”

Scott falls quiet, his hands slipping into his pockets. Hayden senses—something radiating off him, that wasn’t there before. She’s good at controlling the physical aspect of her powers, but the finer points like chemosignals or whatever are a little fuzzier.

Not that she has any intention of telling him that. She can figure it out on her own.

And if not, she can still read body language well enough to know that what she’s sensing in Scott is unease.

She really doesn’t want to have that kind of conversation right now.

“I probably need to—”

“The full moon’s coming up in about a week.” Scott winces, either at interrupting her or at the statement itself. Probably both. “I know we already gave you the basic run-through before you got bit, but. If you have any questions, I can help. Your first time can be a little… intense.”

“Apparently not just your first.”

It’s a terrible thing to say; she realizes that the second after it crashes into the conversation. But she’d be lying if she said she hasn’t thought about it.

A lot.

“Um.” Scott rubs at the back of his neck, turning into the massage just enough to avoid eye contact. “That doesn’t usually—I mean—”

He sighs. “There were a lot of factors involved.”

Despite how much she doesn’t want to have this conversation, Hayden doesn’t miss the way Scott’s hand drifts over his chest.

She checks her eyes for mercury sometimes, too.

“I’m sorry,” she blurts out, before she can think better of it.

For his part, Scott just cocks his head to the side. “For what?”

“I’m kind of—I mean, he used me—” Hayden gestures vaguely, hoping he’ll get the point. She’s not good at this. “With Liam.”

Scott, obnoxiously, just looks even more confused. “What—”

“Liam chose me over you.”

It’s blunt, but. Judging by the way Scott flinches, it gets the point across.

“He shouldn’t have done that. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’d have been a fan of not dying, but…” Hayden shrugs and her eyes focus on the scuffed up toes of her shoes. “…He shouldn’t have done that.”

Scott bites his lip, his eyes clearly focused elsewhere, then slowly drops down into a crouch on the forest floor. He looks up at her, and she takes that as an invitation to do the same. He only starts speaking after they’re both settled.

“Liam wasn’t…” Scott sighs. “Anger’s not exactly like that.”

Hayden’s own anger flares. “What, moral?”

“No, it’s like… you dying was a reality for Liam at the time, right? Whereas me dying was just… a hypothetical.”

“Pretty messed up hypothetical.”

“No argument there,” Scott agrees. “But being angry that you were dying—that was a good thing. The problem is that anger is really, really powerful. And sometimes we’re so angry about one thing, we let it make us do some other thing that winds up being just as bad.”

Hayden’s angry about a lot of things. Even before all this.

“So is that gonna be me? I’m just angry all the time until one day I snap and try to kill someone?”

“No,” Scott says. “You’re not a monster.”

“Then what am I?” There’s the anger again, and wouldn’t it be so ironic if this were what made her snap? “Because so far all I’ve accomplished is helping to get you killed, working for the guy that did it, and then just getting saved again.”

She can feel her claws wanting to come out, and she wants to run, to run where she can’t hurt anyone and no one can stop her and—

“Hayden, hey, it’s okay.”

A sense of calm washes over her, and when she glances up, Scott’s eyes are tinged crimson. She takes a deep breath, then another.

The claws recede.

“See? Incremental steps.” Scott smiles. “And I’m still here, so you didn’t get me killed.”

“You still died, Scott.” The anger’s gone from her voice, replaced by its worser cousin: fear. “And don’t tell me that didn’t matter because I—because I did, too.”

And there it is.

Treacherously, a tear escapes her eye, and she hastily wipes it away.

But not before making sure it isn’t bright and silver.

Scott doesn’t comment on it. “If it makes you feel better, it’s not the first time I’ve died.”

That is definitely not the sentence Hayden had expected to come out of Scott’s mouth, and if it’s meant as a distraction, it works pretty well. “That mean anything?”

“Means I’ve had more practice.”

Hayden snorts. She wipes at another tear, one that’s definitely still just salt and water. “Didn’t know it worked that way.”

Scott smiles ruefully. “I’m pretty sure I got worse at it every time, actually.”

“Your pep talks suck.”

The laugh from before returns. Hayden counts that as a win, somehow.

“Look,” he says, eventually. “The thing about anger is that it’s really easy to let it get anchored in the past. And life’s like that, too. But… if you get too focused on the past itself, instead of what it means for now, or even for the future, it’s easy to let it take you to some messed up places.”

“Like with Liam?”

“And a bunch of other people that had it even worse, yeah.”

Hayden considers this. “So what do you do?”

“Well, you don’t ignore it.” The way Scott says the words makes it abundantly clear that he’s tried. “And you can’t go at it all at once. So—” Scott nods towards the ledge—“you work at it a little bit at a time.”

The corners of Hayden’s lips quirk upwards. “Incremental steps?”

His responding grin is blinding. “You got it.”

Scott rises to his feet, dusting off his jeans again, while Hayden watches—this time, a sense of shared understanding between them.

Hayden clears her throat and looks up at him. “So what’s the first step?”

“For now,” Scott says, and he reaches his hand out to her, “think you beat me in a run?”

Hayden looks at Scott’s deep red eyes, then his hand, then his eyes again.

They’re a rich, warm brown.

She takes his hand.

“You’re on.”

[alltheselights]

Vampire Fic Snippet

Hiiii so here’s the vampire fic snippet that I promised. This is obviously from the draft of the fic, so some stuff might be changed before the full fic is posted.

Warning: Mentions of vampire biting (no graphic detail in this snippet at all).

Louis can feel the exhaustion and annoyance deep in his bones before he and Niall even make it into Bite Me. He was snappy with the kids in his classes all day, and Louis isn’t sure if there’s something in the water that’s putting everyone in a bad mood, or if maybe it’s just him and he’s projecting. As Louis considers throttling someone who accidentally steps on the heel of his shoe while they wait in the line to enter, he thinks it might be the latter.

Niall is waxing poetic about what he ate for dinner tonight when they finally reach the bouncer, and Louis can’t help but sigh in relief when their IDs are checked and they can finally step inside.

The club smells the same way that it did last week, a mixture of alcohol, sweat, and the lingering metallic scent of blood, and it takes Louis a few breaths to adjust to it. It’s not a combination that he would normally enjoy, but he can’t bring himself to mind. There’s just something about joint vampire and human clubs that makes a night out about a hundred times more exciting.

They make their way through the crowd to the bar, and Louis can’t deny the burst of energy that courses through his veins when the bartender hands he and Niall their drinks. Before he takes the first sip of his rum and coke, he closes his eyes and takes a moment to appreciate the bass thumping through his body.

Niall clangs his glass against Louis’ and laughs loudly, already tipsy from the beers he downed at dinner, and Louis lets himself smile. There are people everywhere, dancing, singing along with the music, and over on the darkest side of the room, Louis can see the shadows of vampires making out with and feeding from people up against the wall.

Niall taps him on the shoulder to reclaim his attention and Louis startles slightly, breaking his gaze away. The music is too loud to make out what Niall’s saying, but when he gestures over toward a group of tables in the corner, Louis nods. He’s really not in the mood to dance tonight, but he welcomes the chance to rest his feet.

There’s still the ghost of a smile on Louis’ face when he sees a familiar figure leaning against the wall beside the group of tables Niall is leading them toward. His hair is pushed back, but Louis can see the curls fighting free at the base of his neck, and he looks so good in a black jacket and skinny jeans that Louis almost chokes on his saliva. The vampire has on the same black nail polish and rings that he had on last week, and Louis tries very hard not to think about what he knows those hands are capable of.

“Hello again,” a deep voice says, and Louis wonders if Niall would follow him if he ran away right now. Judging by the way Niall’s face has already lit up at the possibility of making some new friends, Louis assumes Niall would just stare confusedly at Louis’ retreating back if he bolted.

Louis doesn’t respond to the greeting, but his eyes fall down to the lines of the vampire’s very dark lips. When he sees them curve into a smirk, he forces himself to look down at his glass, taking a sip that’s just a few seconds too long to be respectable. Whatever. It’s a Friday night and Louis can chug if he wants to.

“You look familiar,” Niall says, brow furrowed as he tries to recall how he recognizes this particular vampire. Louis is still standing a couple of feet behind Niall, but Niall reaches out to yank him a few steps closer.

“Oh, shit!” Niall says, snapping his fingers when he places the face. “You’re the vampire who went home with this guy last weekend,” he adds, grinning obnoxiously when he motions to Louis. “Harry, right?”

When Louis forces himself to look back at Harry, he sees him smacking his gum with that damn smirk still on his face.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” Niall says, clearly not registering the tension radiating from Louis’ body in waves. “I was trashed. I barely even remember the face of the person I hooked up with, let alone yours.”

“Relatable,” the man sitting down at the table closest to Harry says, laughing. Niall reaches out to high five him and Louis bites his lip to avoid screaming out loud. Harry’s eyes are still burning holes into him, but Louis refuses to look back. He hates the awareness prickling all over his body just from the feeling of Harry’s gaze on him, raising the hair on the back of his neck and sending blood straight to his groin.

Finally, Niall glances over at Louis again and his facial expression changes to one of understanding.

“Right, so uh, we’ll just go find a table somewhere else,” Niall says awkwardly, and Louis breathes a sigh of relief. He flits his eyes over Harry and his companion briefly and gives them small wave goodbye.

“Nice to see you both,” Louis lies, beyond ready to turn on his heels without looking back. 

“Oh, please,” Harry says, and Louis closes his eyes briefly and grits his teeth. “Just sit down with us. We’ve got plenty of room at this table. This is my friend and fellow vampire cop, Nick. He was here last week too, practically lives here, actually, but he was probably busy sucking the neck of some random guy in the corner most of the night.”

Nick laughs at that and gives an unashamed shrug when Harry reaches forward to squeeze his shoulder.

Louis was far too overwhelmed by everything about the arrogant vampire standing in front of him to really focus his attention on any of Harry’s friends last week, but he supposes Nick’s features are vaguely familiar.

Niall is already enamored by Harry’s charm and Nick’s lack of shame, far too easy for anyone who is even remotely friendly, so Louis isn’t surprised when his friend grins and takes a seat next to Nick without hesitation. For a brief moment, Louis imagines throwing every single one of Niall’s articles of clothing, including the ridiculous paperboy hat that he wears at least three times per week, out the window of their apartment into the dumpster below. If he does it when Niall is still drunk, he can probably even convince Niall that he did it himself.

“Louis?” Harry says, interrupting Louis’ extremely detailed daydream. The vampire pulls out one of the rickety chairs, playing the role of a perfect gentleman, and he’s clearly waiting for Louis to take a seat

Louis sighs and flops down into the chair, suppressing the shudder that runs through his body when Harry’s hand accidentally grazes his shoulder. Niall and Nick have already jumped into a conversation about something that Louis doesn’t care about, so he just sits there with both hands wrapped around his glass and both eyes focused on the dance floor.

With every passing minute, it’s becoming more and more difficult to ignore the presence now sitting beside him, and Louis hates that he’s hyperaware of even the slightest movement Harry makes. Every time Harry leans back in his chair or raises his glass to his lips, Louis can feel the pace of his heartbeat increase. Harry can probably hear it too, the bastard.

Finally, Louis gives in and looks at him. Harry’s eyes are already on him, of course, and it looks like they’re sparkling, even in the dim lighting of the club. Louis remembers how green they were in his apartment last weekend just before they tumbled into the bed. He takes another pointedly long sip of his drink, noting that he’s going to need a refill soon.

“So,” Harry says, circling one long finger around the rim of his glass. Louis swallows and definitely does not think about that same finger making a similar motion anywhere on Louis’ body.

“So,” Louis responds in a dull voice. Harry smiles at his tone, stupid dimples and all, and Louis can see the flash of his fangs very briefly before Harry forces them to retreat. It should make Louis roll his eyes, the quick and obvious display of power, of Harry’s superiority as a vampire, but instead it makes him want. He takes another sip and swallows hard.

“You’re very beautiful,” Harry says finally, and Louis huffs.

“Is that the best line you’ve got, really?” Louis asks, voice dripping with disgust. He’s only been in the club for ten minutes and he’s already annoyed that he agreed to come here tonight. The last thing Louis needs is another vampire love interest in his life, not after the last experience, but here he is, forced to interact with a guy that he slept with once and should never have had to see again. If Louis gives in, he knows exactly how this will end.

“It’s not a line,” Harry says carefully, but he’s still smiling and smacking his gum. He seems completely unfazed by Louis’ attitude. “It’s just the truth.”

Louis laughs again and it sounds bitter even to his own ears. “All of you vampires are exactly the same,” he says, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest. Niall and Nick still aren’t paying any attention to them, and Louis’ grateful for that because it means he can say whatever he wants without Niall slapping him.

Harry looks amused. “Is that right?”

“Yeah, you are. My ex-boyfriend used to act the same way you’re acting — arrogant as hell. Just because you’re a vampire doesn’t mean you’re superior to me and other humans, alright? You don’t get to come in here and use cheap lines on me like you’re guaranteed a way into my pants tonight. I don’t fall down at any vampire’s feet, not now, not ever. You’re all so fucking full of yourselves and it disgusts me.”

Harry raises his eyebrows at Louis’ little rant, but he still has that infuriating smile on his face. “You were so fucking full of me last week and you didn’t seem disgusted by that,” he says lightly.

An embarrassing noise of rage escapes Louis’ mouth. It’s loud enough in the club that any human wouldn’t hear it, but super senses and all that. Harry’s smile grows at the sound, but Louis is definitely not amused.

He directs a harsh glare in Harry’s direction and maintains the eye contact for at least a full minute. Finally, Harry laughs and throws his hands up in a gesture of surrender.

“Alright, alright, I’m sorry. No more comments about your beauty, no more flirting, none of that. We fucked once and it was meaningless, I get it, so I’m very sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable in any way. I assure you that was not my intention,” Harry says. His words are sincere enough that Louis almost feels guilty for being so rude, but there’s a knowing look in his eyes that suggests he’s well aware that ”discomfort” is definitely not the feeling that Louis has when he looks at Harry Styles.

Louis sighs again.

“It’s alright,” he says, giving in. “Sorry if I was a bit of an asshole. I had some bad past experiences, so I’m a bit wary, but that rant may have been a bit over the top.” He scratches at the stubble on his jawline awkwardly. 

Harry just dimples again in response. “Ah, yes, the ex. You said.”

He reaches across the table for Louis’ hand suddenly, and Louis stares for a second before taking it, unsure of where this is going. He’s surprised when Harry just gives him a firm and friendly handshake. His hand is surprisingly warm and very big, completely engulfing Louis’.

Louis pulls away before Harry can feel the rapidly developing clamminess.

“Friends?” Harry proposes. The look in his eye is still far too knowing for Louis’ tastes, but Harry seems like a nice enough guy and Niall is clearly getting along well with Nick. It can’t hurt to try for friendship, right? He might as well.

“Friends,” he agrees. And with that, he downs the rest of his drink.