Spitefic: To Catch a Monster (Part Two)
Jun. 12th, 2012 07:12 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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twispiteficTitle: To Catch A Monster
Author:![[info]](https://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.5)
afterandalasia
Artist:chosenfire28
Fandom(s): Twilight
Rating: R
Word Count: 10,622
Inspiration: Leah's incomparable awesomeness.
Warnings (skip) Graphic violence, character death, strong language. Discussion of imprinting, not taken to extreme lengths, which could be considered problematic.
Summary: Set a thief to catch a thief. To catch a monster...
Leah Clearwater knows that there are more dangerous things than her in the world than her, and she figures that it's her job to go out and fight them when humans can't. Then in one day, she gets in a fight, talks to a man, and meets a woman. Those aren't the sort of things that are usually exceptional, but this time they might just turn out to be. Perhaps it's time to remember that the word 'monster' was not always negative, and that there might be some hope still to come.
Disclaimer: Twilight is not mine, and I make no profit from this work.
Notes: This was actually produced for the![[info]](https://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif?v=92.5)
werewolfbigbang, but it was done with this comm in mind. On that note, I really want to thank the mod and artist chosenfire28 and the last-minute beta Kitt who helped me with this.
I started from scratch. Once I was done making rude gestures at the pedestrians meandering all over the road and was on the highway, of course. Cruising makes holding conversations a hell of a lot easier.
I started with, “vampires are real.” Seeing as Julian didn’t immediately return to his freak-out stage there and then, I figured this made a pretty good start. “They’re not like what you see in the movies, but they are real. They’re strong, fast, immortal, attractive, and they reproduce by biting. There are two main things that pop culture gets wrong: first, they aren’t made of flesh like us, and they don’t turn into dust. They’re a sort of… living stone, or something. And second, they don’t die in the sun, they don’t even get weaker like the original Dracula stories. But they are… well, highly visible, let’s leave it at that. So the smart ones don’t go out in the sunlight.”
I risked a glance. Aside from one hand gripping the inside handle on the door, he was doing pretty well so far. Vampire mythology in a nutshell was actually one of the easier parts of the story, especially with that little bit of fear in everyone’s mind that remembers vampires, even when they’re supposed to not believe in them. The little voice that is afraid of the dark depths of caves and moonless nights. The little voice in my head which was silenced when the wolf took over.
Bad thing dark danger cold one bad thing cold thing dead thing dead DANGER DEAD KILL–
“They drink human blood,” I said. “They don’t have to, they can survive on animals. There are some who do and they are…”
I groped around for a suitable word that didn’t reveal too much of my true feelings.
“Safer. They’re still vampires, but as long as they don’t harm people, I’m not going to harm them. You with me so far?”
“Yes.” I was expecting a weaker voice, but Julian’s reply was firm. He was nodding, as well, as if something was falling into place.
“Vampires are supposed to be secret. They have laws among themselves to stay secret, and they enforce them.” Badly, when it came to the Cullens, I thought privately. But they had laws all the same. “But they’re quite happy to have false rumours going round, garlic and holy water and a lack of reflections. It makes them less likely to be caught. But remember, they’re still eating humans. They’re still dangerous.
“That’s where I come in.” I licked my dry lips. My right arm was truly throbbing now, reddish streaks going almost from elbow to wrist. I might have to find somewhere to sleep it off for a day or two if it got any worse. For now, I resolved not to shift gear and kept both hands firmly on the wheel.
“My ancestors weren’t happy with the thought of being treated like prey. They made a deal with the spirits, and a group of them became hunters strong enough to take on the vampires and protect their own. They cleared out the area, went on living, and as long as there were no vampires there was no need for wolves. It’s only when vampires moved back into the area that we started firing up again, a new generation to protect people.”
That hadn’t been as clear, and I knew it. I pulled a face at my own blathering, but Julian remained thoughtfully quiet, staring straight ahead. Dear lord, let him not have a breakdown over this or something. I’d have to drop him off at a hospital, but I really wasn’t sure how I could do that without risking too much. Take him back to Forks and Dr. Cullen, perhaps? That was probably even worse.
“So you are a werewolf,” was all he said.
“You… could probably think of me as one. There were other werewolves in Europe, real werewolves. We call ourselves shifters to distinguish between us and them, and because when we get older we can stop phasing and go back to being human. Plus we have nothing to do with the full moon.”
“Actually, a lot of the original werewolf myths from Europe aren’t lunar,” he said. There was the faintest giddy note in his voice as he finally let go of the door handle and ran one hand through his hair. “The original myths involved people, usually men, choosing to change into a wolf by ritual or being forced to do so because of a curse. It’s only more modern culture that has linked them to the moon.”
I was at an honest loss for what to say. Of all the reactions, I could never have expected that, and I blinked in surprise before managing to gather myself and give a reply that wasn’t on the script I’d worked on in my head. “That’s a new one.”
“I’m an anthropologist. I specialise in beliefs in magic and the supernatural.”
“Please tell me that you weren’t deliberately vampire hunting.”
He gave a weak chuckle, but at least it was a chuckle. “I was just on vacation in the sun.”
“Well, stick to the sunlight in future and you should fare better. Like I said, the smart ones don’t go out in it. And the stupid ones don’t live too long.”
I heard him give a deep breath, almost a sigh. “So… vampires are real, werewolves are real, and werewolves protect humans from vampires.”
“Mostly the shifters stick to their home soil and keep their own families and friends safe,” I said. “But yes, that’s pretty much the gist.”
“How many of you are there?”
“Shifters or vampires?” I asked, but it probably counted as rhetorical bearing in mind I didn’t give him a chance to stop. “Vampires… I have no idea. Maybe a handful per million people, but even that’s pulling figures out of my ass. But probably thousands, the world over. As for us, there were eighteen of us when I left. There might be a couple more now, if some of the younger boys have reached the right age.”
“Not the best numbers,” he observed.
“Well, even without me it’s three packs to protect a few thousand people. It works out. And even most vampires don’t know that we exist, so it gives me the upper hand.” I shook my head. “How the hell are you taking this so calmly? If somebody had said this to me four or five years ago, I would have been climbing out the car window to get away from the lunatic.”
“Partially because a strange-looking woman hypnotised me into following her into a basement and then I was saved by another young woman who can change into a wolf,” said Julian. I had to give him that one. He propped his elbow on the sill of the open window as if in response to my comment about climbing out, sighed, and spoke more softly for a second time. “And partially because, when I was younger, my sister went missing. She was always a troubled kid, talking about… strange things. But then one day, she just disappeared. Never seen again.”
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly. An idiot in a van undertook me and I resisted the temptation to blare the horn at him. Julian had gone back to staring at the horizon again, and I shifted in my seat as I tried to think of something more to say. “And you think…”
“She used to talk about beings that glittered like diamonds in the sunlight,” he said. My blood ran cold. “I never knew whether they were real or not. But if you’re saying that there are things other than humans out there…”
My hands had tightened on the wheel until it felt almost as if it was going to snap beneath my fingers, and I made myself loosen my grip even as the edges of my vision seemed to develop a red haze. I didn’t trust myself to speak, eyes fixed sternly on the car in front of my, and Julian must have noticed from the way that he turned cautiously towards me. I could just see him in my peripheral vision, the tension that had been seeping away coming back again. Considering I felt as if I was on the verge of fursploding again, I couldn’t blame him for that either.
“I said that vampires didn’t go out in the sun,” I said through gritted teeth. “And it’s because they fucking sparkle. Your sister knew about vampires.”
“Sparkling vampires.”
I had to give him points for the deadpan. Even I had to admit that it sounded like some ridiculous joke.
“Yes, sparkling vampires. I’m guessing that they’d rather have people think they burst into flames than that they sparkle. And I can see why.” The highway was still rolling beneath us, and we were a way beyond the city now, but I didn’t want to stop just yet. Despite the hunger, perhaps because of it; hunger and anger braiding themselves together and building up through me. I swallowed, but couldn’t drag my thoughts away. “Where are you from? Your accent’s all over the place.”
“Canada,” he said. “Originally. I lived in Britain for a while, then America, before I moved back again.”
“You were in Canada when your sister went missing? Where?”
“Quebec. Quebec City, in fact.” Finally, he seemed to catch on to what I was saying, and turned to me with a shocked expression. “But it was almost thirty years ago! There’s nothing to say that they’d be there now!”
“Vampires are generally nomadic,” I said, speaking like I was reciting words from a textbook. In truth, I’d just thought about them for so long, gone through so much of my own head, that I probably could have written the textbook. “But the further north you go, the less they move around. Less sunlight, more cloud cover, more excuses to be indoors all of the time. They don’t have to move around so much. There’s a chance they could still be there.”
“And what good would it do, after thirty years?” he said softly.
The words bought me up short, all but sobered me. My skin still felt hot, tight, like I was on the verge of phasing, but the world came back into focus as I took deep breaths and told myself that it wouldn’t be worth racing thousands of miles after a thirty-years-gone bloodsucker.
Get a grip, Leah.
The worst part was that I didn’t know why the thoughts were in my head. Why the wolf wanted so badly to kill fight danger fight cold one kill threat teeth kill burn. Usually after I’d dealt with one vampire all that I wanted to do was crawl under a duvet and sleep for a couple of days, sick of the fact that no matter how many I did deal with, there would always more to replace them. But I hadn’t even finished with this one and I was already keyed up to fight again. No, I corrected myself, keyed up to get revenge.
I wanted revenge. I wanted vampire-flesh tearing beneath my nails and my teeth, and I wanted it to be the vampire that had killed Julian’s sister. And so help me, with so many vampires in the world to worry about, I did not know why.
It was like my world was starting to tilt. Before now, I had been moving along a plane, free to move around, but suddenly I had hit the brow of a hill and was moving down a slope. It might have been gentle for now – perhaps I could have gone against it if I had worked hard enough – but it was there and it was constraining and I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. For now I could get angry and concerned out of the mess in my head. I was working on the rest.
“I need to head down to the beach,” I said, “see if I can find a fire pit that isn’t in use. The only way to really kill vampires is to burn them, and I don’t want to risk running into the local police while I do.”
We fell into silence once again, this one less uncomfortable than before, though I could still feel the tension in my muscles and the way that my hands kept tight hold of the steering wheel.
“This isn’t a conversation I ever thought that I’d have,” said Julian after a short while, not so much quietly as directed away from me. Unsure whether to reply, I kept my mouth shut and my eyes on the road. “I spent years thinking about what happened to my sister, and now… you have all of the answers in one go.” He rubbed his chin, something haunted in his eyes, then shook himself slightly and looked over to me again. “Are you going to need a doctor for that arm or something?”
The throbbing seemed to become stronger when I thought of it, and I clenched my jaw for a moment as from the corner of my eyes I had to acknowledge, again, the streaks of red beneath the tan of my skin, the swelling around the bite marks. “I’ll be okay,” I said. “There’s no way I could explain it to a doctor, and I’ve had it happen before. We’re built to fight vampires, after all; one little bite isn’t going to kill me.”
“There’s a risk of infection from any open cut,” he said, more firmly. “And you can hardly go walking around with a bite mark on your arm.”
“Shit,” I said with a tight laugh. “Now you sound like my father.”
There had been one occasion before now when I had thought of vampires as being individuals enough to hate them more than their peers. The Cullens may have killed fewer people, but for me they would always be the ones that killed my father. I didn’t buy the story we were told on the Reservation, the story that one or two vampires passing through had ‘activated’ us. There were so many vampires in the world that if that were the case, we would never have stopped being wolves. My money was on the Cullens, living on our land and crossing paths with our people. I had considered returning to La Push once they got caught out not aging and had to move on once again.
It didn’t mean that it didn’t hurt to say it, but I figured that perhaps that was why the wolf was so loud in my head, baying for blood in the name of protection.
“You’re not much like my daughter,” he replied, and I voiced the addition that might have been hidden in his words.
“Thank God. I’m not sure what the world would do with more like me.”
I explained the rest of my story as we made our way down to the coast. How my generation had started to turn to shifters after a long time without the need for us, how it had spread and picked out apparently all of us with blood, how I was the only female. We had started as one pack, I said, then as there became more of us, it reached the point that it was too complicated to contain us all. The split into three packs had happened after I left, after I had given in and chosen to go solo. I didn’t tell him about the telepathy, didn’t add what happened with Sam and Emily, but made it clear enough that I was happier on my own.
It had been three years ago that I left, I told him; I had slowly made my way down the West Coast, with occasional forays inland. On average, I probably ran into a vampire every four to six weeks, and the one currently stinking out the pickup was number twenty-seven. I kept a record: dates, places, how I had found out about them. Julian asked all of the sorts of questions that I had, four years ago, when there hadn’t been answers. For our origin, I offered him our legends; for our fight with vampires, I didn’t have so much to say. They killed our families, our friends, the people around us – it would have been stranger if there was not bad blood between us.
We reached the beach a little after midday, when there were some people around but not too many. When you had the choice to visit the coast whenever you wished, you could pick the best days, and it was threatening to rain as I parked up. In Washington, we wouldn’t have cared, but in California they did. The same went for remembering to get a goddamn permit before I hit the beach; culture shock in less than the length of the country.
I built the bonfire mostly out of wood which I had ready in the back of the Chevy, throwing on some pieces of driftwood for the look of authenticity in case anyone came walking past. The pieces of vampire were buried amidst it, barely visible as glimpses of white. The hands and head, the most recognisable, went right in the centre.
A healthy splash of gas and a couple of matches later, it was alight. Disarmingly easy, I suppose. For a while after that we sat on the sand, looked out over the grey-blue choppy waves, and watched the fire burn down more quickly than a normal bonfire would have done. A celebratory beer would have been appropriate, I thought, but wishes don’t get, as my father would say. It was more Julian that I was celebrating than the actual vampire; the latter was a job, a messy and distasteful one at that, but directly saving a human was not something that I had done before. It made it seem a little more worthwhile.
“Is there more that you want to know?” I asked eventually, as the bonfire settled to a steady, wood-fire look which probably meant that the vampire flesh was done burning. “Anything more that I can say?”
Julian gave a sigh that was half-laugh. “I’m an anthropologist, my dear, I want to know everything. But I don’t think there’s anything more that I need to know.”
“Fair point.”
I watched a group of kids some way down the beach, hoping that their game of Frisbee wasn’t going to bring them to close. They seemed to be a safe distance off for now. The wind coming inland bought with it a fresh salt smell that made me think of home, and comfort and pain twanged together in my chest. “I’m sorry, again, that you got caught up in this shit.”
“It wasn’t you that did that,” he replied. “It was… that other one. You got me out of the mess instead. And then explained things to me.”
“I’m afraid my world has more questions than answers.” I was used to that, by now, but the injustice of it still rankled sometimes. For everything that I thought I had figured out in the last few years, new questions sprang up in its wake. Sort of like the hydra, I thought – except that this time the solution wasn’t simply fire.
Though fire did help.
I was staring out to sea as I spoke, watching the ripples of waves on the never-still grey surface. I’d always found the sea calming, ever more so recently. It was probably one of the reasons that I didn’t want to leave the coastal states. A shadow on the sea looked like rain; I was just trying to gauge whether it was when a hand came to rest on my arm. I looked round sharply to see Julian watching me tenderly, thankfully. “You gave me the most important answer,” he said. “One I’d waited a long time before.”
I smiled, albeit crookedly. It had been a while since I’d managed a full smile for anyone. “Thanks. Mostly I do what I do to… stop that happening.”
“You do what’s right,” he said.
“I think it’s nearly burnt through,” I said, rather than reply to his words. I picked up a long piece of driftwood that I had laid aside and used it to prod at some of the remaining pieces of wood. They crumbled to ashes.
“I wish I knew why those things are so flammable, but I’m glad of it.”
In a pinch, I could burn a vampire piece by piece in a normal fire. A bonfire was just quicker, and felt more right, than shovelling handfuls of vampire into a fireplace in a foreclosed house or some steel drum in the dark corner of an alley.
“I should probably drop you back off in the city. No need to add kidnapping to my list for the day.”
I’d figured a long time ago that trespass didn’t really matter, as long as I didn’t get caught. I was running through a different landscape, one that had different laws and different rights of access. I just needed to keep it out of the sight of the local law enforcement. I needed Julian to know, however, that I was going to return him to his everyday life and not expect him to run off and fight vampires with me or something similarly ridiculous. Only it didn’t feel ridiculous when the urge to protect him was still burgeoning in my head, and the wolf snarled in the back of my mind to not let him go.
“Are you in a hotel?” I continued, speaking over the wolf to silence it.
“I’m staying with my daughter, actually,” he replied, and I winced. Please say that she hadn’t noticed that he was gone. “She’s out with her friends today. I said that I’d occupy myself in the city.”
“Fuck.”
“Well, I’ve certainly been occupied,” he said, and this time I laughed with him. “Really, it’s fine. She isn’t expecting me at a set time. And Leah–”
I wasn’t expecting him to use my name, and it made me turn where I sat like a summoned pet. In my mind, I tried to claw back along my path, back up that slope.
“Thank you. For everything. I owe you my life – and my peace of mind.”
I couldn’t even find words to respond. I nodded dumbly, feeling a faint smile finally on my lips, then got to my feet and held out one hand to help him up. “Come on,” I said, effort though it was. “Let’s get you back.”
My arm was already hurting less by the time that we hit the highway back, and thunder boomed overhead as the storm finally broke. The rain went from a light speckling to torrential downpour in a drastically short time, and I could see other drivers pulling off into rest-stops rather than drive in it. I put my windshield wipers on full and kept going, mostly just amused that the rain cleared the roads for me.
This time it was Julian’s turn to talk. He was Québécois, he said, though he had lived for many years elsewhere. His sister Deborah had been only fifteen months older than him, and their younger brother had been some years behind. She had always been a troubled child, he said – distant, obsessed with ghosts and monsters. Only Julian had even wanted to believe her, and even he found it difficult to do so. Then one day, when she was seventeen and Julian sixteen, Deborah had disappeared without a trace. For years they had searched; his parents had never really given up. Even Julian, though he had gone on to study and then teach, had never quite escaped. His subject was anthropology; his speciality, magic and the supernatural.
He talked about werewolves for a while: the dominant European mythos that werewolves were cursed or evil men who chose to transform into wolves to hunt down human victims; the more Slavic belief that werewolves and vampires were variations on the same creature; the very different Native American folklore about benevolent shape shifters. It was interesting, even if the most surprising thing that he said was that it was Hollywood who had made the link to the moon famous.
I’d figured that a full moon always made vampire hunting easier, seeing as our night vision wasn’t quite as good as theirs. You lived and learnt.
The worst of the storm had passed by the time that we got back to the city, and Julian directed me through the streets to his daughter’s townhouse. It was a nicer part of town than I was used to being in: the sort of area where people would notice if someone went missing, or if someone acted strangely. Not a vampire’s hunting ground – ergo not my hunting ground.
I parked up outside and looked round, feeling a pang of envy. I understood why Jacob and Sam and Quil and all of the others had wanted to stay in Forks: they could settle down, have families there. Hunting vampires would last forever, and if I became too good at it was only going to become more dangerous. Perhaps one day I’d end up facing down the Volturi themselves. Strangely enough, the idea had never really frightened me; at least this part of my life I had chosen.
“You can’t tell her what really happened,” I said, before Julian could reach for the door handle. I turned off the engine and let the car fall silence again. “Vampires, werewolves. It’s not just for the good of vampires that they hide away: it’s dangerous for humans to know, as well.”
“The law-makers you talked about?” I nodded in response. “I understand. Come on, I’ll tell her something else.”
He had indicated for me to come with him, but an unfamiliar reticence came over me and I shook my head, holding up both hands. “Woah, no. Sorry. I don’t do guest appearances.”
Julian gave me a faintly exasperated look, like my father always used to when I was trying to wear a boy’s school uniform or sulking because Sam wasn’t letting me play basketball with him. I knew he didn’t realise how much that one look was making me shake in my seat, but it hit me all the same.
“You saved my life,” he said again. “This isn’t the part where you just vanish off into the distance. Please, at least let me introduce you to Sonia.”
I glanced down at the dress and sandals that I was wearing, and concluded that I was probably just about fit to be seen. “One moment,” I opted for, holding up a finger, then rifled under my seat for a hairbrush. My hair was bobbed; most people were surprised as the neatness, but when your haircut as a human affected your entire body hair as a wolf, you learnt fast enough to take care of it. There was a purse under my chair as well, and I threw in my phone, wallet and car keys before climbing out of the car and nodding for Julian to lead on.
It wasn’t even as if I had wanted to run off so quickly; that was just how things worked. I fell into place behind him like an awkward shadow as he made his way up to the front door and rang the bell; it must have not been a long stay, if he didn’t have his own keys.
I heard the playful thud of footsteps running down the stairs, then the door was pulled open and a wave of fresh, light perfume-scent hit me. My body reacted with a sneeze, and I was already mortified as I looked up again at the woman throwing her arms around Julian’s neck.
“Dad! When you didn’t answer your phone I was worried!”
Julian laughed and patted her shoulder. “I’m fine, Sonia. Just been on a bit of an adventure. Ended up in a bit of a rough area, and some chap had me cornered in an alley, when this young lady – Sonia, this is Leah – came and scared him off.”
My impression of Sonia had been a blur of energy and movement, a fresh fragrance in the air, and a mass of gold-highlighted brown waves of hair. As her father pointed her out to me, however, she turned to face me.
Our eyes locked.
The world lurched giddily as I looked into her eyes, green-flecked brown ringed in thick dark lashes. Somewhere in the distance, Julian was still talking; a heavy warmth was filling my body with every instant that I looked at Sonia. I wanted to scour out every inch of evil in the world to protect her, wanted to carve the earth to her desires. My heart glowed, soared, pounded in my chest, and if there was something in the world that was stopping her from doing the same then it was me who had to fix it.
“So,” said Sonia, “it’s you that I have to thank for keeping my father safe today, then?”
She had faint spots of pink in her cheeks, like she had run downstairs at the sound of the door, terrified that something had happened to Julian. A slight smudge of ink was just visible on her jawline, and it took every ounce of control I had not to reach out and wipe it away.
Since the moment I had phased, I had lived in Sam’s head, in Quil’s, in Jacob’s. I’d told myself a thousand times that I was ready for whatever my wolf nature might have planned out for me in the future. I had not known that the echoes that reverberated through the pack were only one-tenth, one one-hundredth, of the feeling, that moment, when the world falls together.
“They don’t belong to themselves anymore,” Jacob had said, back when he had looked at the imprints and their wolves with pity, before he had fallen to his knees before the perfection of this world.
I don’t care, I answered him now, across the years and miles, if I can belong to her.
I imprinted, and for the first time in four years the world turned the right way on its axis.
“Looks like it,” I managed to reply, my tongue feeling clumsy in my mouth. Still I was looking at her, my eyes locked on hers, drinking in every second that she offered me her presence. It didn’t seem to be unsettling her, at least not yet. “I’m Leah Clearwater.”
“Well… thank you, Leah,” she replied. There was something in her eyes as she watched me. I wanted to tell her everything, even what I hadn’t told Julian, take her back to Forks where the pack could protect her and I could be anything, everything she needed.
Needed. I knew humans better than to think that they needed the life that I lived. I still claimed to be one, after all.
“It’s nothing,” I said. I swallowed, and forced the words to continue even as they tore across my chest. “Look, I’m sorry, but I really should be going.”
“What? No!” Sonia reached out as if to take my arm, and I shied back. I knew what her touch would do, what it would make me do. And I knew what she needed. “Please, just stay a while!”
“Really.” I backed down the steps. There was a lump in my throat, but I could do it, I had to. “I’m just passing through, I really need to get going if I’m going to get there by nightfall…”
Julian wasn’t speaking, just looking at me curiously, though whether it was my behaviour or the lies that were leaving my mouth I didn’t have the time to guess. Sonia looked away for a moment to grab something from behind the door, and it gave me a moment with, once again, only me in my head. I grabbed the instant before it escaped, clung to the thought that arose in it. Clung to the word need. She passed me something, pressing it into my hand before I could pull away, and I glanced down at the rectangle of white card.
“If you’re ever passing through again,” she said, this time a little more quietly.
One last time, I raised my eyes to hers, and held an infinite moment of her gaze. “Yeah,” I said. “That sounds good.”
For her, I smiled. She smiled back. And the moment was perfect, until fat drops of rain began to fall again and she jumped back inside, pulling her father with her, and I fled down the steps and back to my truck again. My hands were shaking so much that I could barely open the door, but then I managed to climb in, and caught sight of them both waving at me from the doorstep as I started to drive on once again.
When you imprint, your world moves. It isn’t gravity that holds you down, it’s her. You become whatever the imprint needs. We all understood that.
But I hoped that I understood more. The word need is the important one: nobody needs to have my world, my life, forced upon them because the wolf inside me decides that I am meant for them. I had given Julian back: that was what Sonia needed. And maybe in one year, or two, or five, I would be just ‘passing through’ the city, and I would get in touch, and we could talk. Perhaps we could go for coffee, or catch a movie. Date. And then perhaps we would fall in love, if that was what was right, and if I was what Sonia needed.
Sometimes what people need is nothing at all.
I wrestled the Chevy into gear and started driving. There was enough money in my wallet to buy a fresh tank of gas if I ran out, and I had a few days’ of food. Time to find another city, find another vampire, and get back to work.
The tears in my eyes blurred my vision more than the rain on the windshield, but I blinked them away as, finally, I smiled to myself once again. Maybe, just maybe, there would be an end to this after all.
But until then, there were vampires, and I was a shapeshifter. Somewhere in the world, there was something for me to do, something that would keep the wolf in my head quiet that bit longer, and give me a little more time of being myself.
I slipped Sonia’s card, with her number and address, into my purse, then turned the radio up loud. There was still plenty of the day left, after all, and I had plenty now to fill it.
Author:
afterandalasiaArtist:
chosenfire28Fandom(s): Twilight
Rating: R
Word Count: 10,622
Inspiration: Leah's incomparable awesomeness.
Warnings (skip) Graphic violence, character death, strong language. Discussion of imprinting, not taken to extreme lengths, which could be considered problematic.
Summary: Set a thief to catch a thief. To catch a monster...
Leah Clearwater knows that there are more dangerous things than her in the world than her, and she figures that it's her job to go out and fight them when humans can't. Then in one day, she gets in a fight, talks to a man, and meets a woman. Those aren't the sort of things that are usually exceptional, but this time they might just turn out to be. Perhaps it's time to remember that the word 'monster' was not always negative, and that there might be some hope still to come.
Disclaimer: Twilight is not mine, and I make no profit from this work.
Notes: This was actually produced for the
werewolfbigbang, but it was done with this comm in mind. On that note, I really want to thank the mod and artist chosenfire28 and the last-minute beta Kitt who helped me with this.I started from scratch. Once I was done making rude gestures at the pedestrians meandering all over the road and was on the highway, of course. Cruising makes holding conversations a hell of a lot easier.
I started with, “vampires are real.” Seeing as Julian didn’t immediately return to his freak-out stage there and then, I figured this made a pretty good start. “They’re not like what you see in the movies, but they are real. They’re strong, fast, immortal, attractive, and they reproduce by biting. There are two main things that pop culture gets wrong: first, they aren’t made of flesh like us, and they don’t turn into dust. They’re a sort of… living stone, or something. And second, they don’t die in the sun, they don’t even get weaker like the original Dracula stories. But they are… well, highly visible, let’s leave it at that. So the smart ones don’t go out in the sunlight.”
I risked a glance. Aside from one hand gripping the inside handle on the door, he was doing pretty well so far. Vampire mythology in a nutshell was actually one of the easier parts of the story, especially with that little bit of fear in everyone’s mind that remembers vampires, even when they’re supposed to not believe in them. The little voice that is afraid of the dark depths of caves and moonless nights. The little voice in my head which was silenced when the wolf took over.
Bad thing dark danger cold one bad thing cold thing dead thing dead DANGER DEAD KILL–
“They drink human blood,” I said. “They don’t have to, they can survive on animals. There are some who do and they are…”
I groped around for a suitable word that didn’t reveal too much of my true feelings.
“Safer. They’re still vampires, but as long as they don’t harm people, I’m not going to harm them. You with me so far?”
“Yes.” I was expecting a weaker voice, but Julian’s reply was firm. He was nodding, as well, as if something was falling into place.
“Vampires are supposed to be secret. They have laws among themselves to stay secret, and they enforce them.” Badly, when it came to the Cullens, I thought privately. But they had laws all the same. “But they’re quite happy to have false rumours going round, garlic and holy water and a lack of reflections. It makes them less likely to be caught. But remember, they’re still eating humans. They’re still dangerous.
“That’s where I come in.” I licked my dry lips. My right arm was truly throbbing now, reddish streaks going almost from elbow to wrist. I might have to find somewhere to sleep it off for a day or two if it got any worse. For now, I resolved not to shift gear and kept both hands firmly on the wheel.
“My ancestors weren’t happy with the thought of being treated like prey. They made a deal with the spirits, and a group of them became hunters strong enough to take on the vampires and protect their own. They cleared out the area, went on living, and as long as there were no vampires there was no need for wolves. It’s only when vampires moved back into the area that we started firing up again, a new generation to protect people.”
That hadn’t been as clear, and I knew it. I pulled a face at my own blathering, but Julian remained thoughtfully quiet, staring straight ahead. Dear lord, let him not have a breakdown over this or something. I’d have to drop him off at a hospital, but I really wasn’t sure how I could do that without risking too much. Take him back to Forks and Dr. Cullen, perhaps? That was probably even worse.
“So you are a werewolf,” was all he said.
“You… could probably think of me as one. There were other werewolves in Europe, real werewolves. We call ourselves shifters to distinguish between us and them, and because when we get older we can stop phasing and go back to being human. Plus we have nothing to do with the full moon.”
“Actually, a lot of the original werewolf myths from Europe aren’t lunar,” he said. There was the faintest giddy note in his voice as he finally let go of the door handle and ran one hand through his hair. “The original myths involved people, usually men, choosing to change into a wolf by ritual or being forced to do so because of a curse. It’s only more modern culture that has linked them to the moon.”
I was at an honest loss for what to say. Of all the reactions, I could never have expected that, and I blinked in surprise before managing to gather myself and give a reply that wasn’t on the script I’d worked on in my head. “That’s a new one.”
“I’m an anthropologist. I specialise in beliefs in magic and the supernatural.”
“Please tell me that you weren’t deliberately vampire hunting.”
He gave a weak chuckle, but at least it was a chuckle. “I was just on vacation in the sun.”
“Well, stick to the sunlight in future and you should fare better. Like I said, the smart ones don’t go out in it. And the stupid ones don’t live too long.”
I heard him give a deep breath, almost a sigh. “So… vampires are real, werewolves are real, and werewolves protect humans from vampires.”
“Mostly the shifters stick to their home soil and keep their own families and friends safe,” I said. “But yes, that’s pretty much the gist.”
“How many of you are there?”
“Shifters or vampires?” I asked, but it probably counted as rhetorical bearing in mind I didn’t give him a chance to stop. “Vampires… I have no idea. Maybe a handful per million people, but even that’s pulling figures out of my ass. But probably thousands, the world over. As for us, there were eighteen of us when I left. There might be a couple more now, if some of the younger boys have reached the right age.”
“Not the best numbers,” he observed.
“Well, even without me it’s three packs to protect a few thousand people. It works out. And even most vampires don’t know that we exist, so it gives me the upper hand.” I shook my head. “How the hell are you taking this so calmly? If somebody had said this to me four or five years ago, I would have been climbing out the car window to get away from the lunatic.”
“Partially because a strange-looking woman hypnotised me into following her into a basement and then I was saved by another young woman who can change into a wolf,” said Julian. I had to give him that one. He propped his elbow on the sill of the open window as if in response to my comment about climbing out, sighed, and spoke more softly for a second time. “And partially because, when I was younger, my sister went missing. She was always a troubled kid, talking about… strange things. But then one day, she just disappeared. Never seen again.”
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly. An idiot in a van undertook me and I resisted the temptation to blare the horn at him. Julian had gone back to staring at the horizon again, and I shifted in my seat as I tried to think of something more to say. “And you think…”
“She used to talk about beings that glittered like diamonds in the sunlight,” he said. My blood ran cold. “I never knew whether they were real or not. But if you’re saying that there are things other than humans out there…”
My hands had tightened on the wheel until it felt almost as if it was going to snap beneath my fingers, and I made myself loosen my grip even as the edges of my vision seemed to develop a red haze. I didn’t trust myself to speak, eyes fixed sternly on the car in front of my, and Julian must have noticed from the way that he turned cautiously towards me. I could just see him in my peripheral vision, the tension that had been seeping away coming back again. Considering I felt as if I was on the verge of fursploding again, I couldn’t blame him for that either.
“I said that vampires didn’t go out in the sun,” I said through gritted teeth. “And it’s because they fucking sparkle. Your sister knew about vampires.”
“Sparkling vampires.”
I had to give him points for the deadpan. Even I had to admit that it sounded like some ridiculous joke.
“Yes, sparkling vampires. I’m guessing that they’d rather have people think they burst into flames than that they sparkle. And I can see why.” The highway was still rolling beneath us, and we were a way beyond the city now, but I didn’t want to stop just yet. Despite the hunger, perhaps because of it; hunger and anger braiding themselves together and building up through me. I swallowed, but couldn’t drag my thoughts away. “Where are you from? Your accent’s all over the place.”
“Canada,” he said. “Originally. I lived in Britain for a while, then America, before I moved back again.”
“You were in Canada when your sister went missing? Where?”
“Quebec. Quebec City, in fact.” Finally, he seemed to catch on to what I was saying, and turned to me with a shocked expression. “But it was almost thirty years ago! There’s nothing to say that they’d be there now!”
“Vampires are generally nomadic,” I said, speaking like I was reciting words from a textbook. In truth, I’d just thought about them for so long, gone through so much of my own head, that I probably could have written the textbook. “But the further north you go, the less they move around. Less sunlight, more cloud cover, more excuses to be indoors all of the time. They don’t have to move around so much. There’s a chance they could still be there.”
“And what good would it do, after thirty years?” he said softly.
The words bought me up short, all but sobered me. My skin still felt hot, tight, like I was on the verge of phasing, but the world came back into focus as I took deep breaths and told myself that it wouldn’t be worth racing thousands of miles after a thirty-years-gone bloodsucker.
Get a grip, Leah.
The worst part was that I didn’t know why the thoughts were in my head. Why the wolf wanted so badly to kill fight danger fight cold one kill threat teeth kill burn. Usually after I’d dealt with one vampire all that I wanted to do was crawl under a duvet and sleep for a couple of days, sick of the fact that no matter how many I did deal with, there would always more to replace them. But I hadn’t even finished with this one and I was already keyed up to fight again. No, I corrected myself, keyed up to get revenge.
I wanted revenge. I wanted vampire-flesh tearing beneath my nails and my teeth, and I wanted it to be the vampire that had killed Julian’s sister. And so help me, with so many vampires in the world to worry about, I did not know why.
It was like my world was starting to tilt. Before now, I had been moving along a plane, free to move around, but suddenly I had hit the brow of a hill and was moving down a slope. It might have been gentle for now – perhaps I could have gone against it if I had worked hard enough – but it was there and it was constraining and I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. For now I could get angry and concerned out of the mess in my head. I was working on the rest.
“I need to head down to the beach,” I said, “see if I can find a fire pit that isn’t in use. The only way to really kill vampires is to burn them, and I don’t want to risk running into the local police while I do.”
We fell into silence once again, this one less uncomfortable than before, though I could still feel the tension in my muscles and the way that my hands kept tight hold of the steering wheel.
“This isn’t a conversation I ever thought that I’d have,” said Julian after a short while, not so much quietly as directed away from me. Unsure whether to reply, I kept my mouth shut and my eyes on the road. “I spent years thinking about what happened to my sister, and now… you have all of the answers in one go.” He rubbed his chin, something haunted in his eyes, then shook himself slightly and looked over to me again. “Are you going to need a doctor for that arm or something?”
The throbbing seemed to become stronger when I thought of it, and I clenched my jaw for a moment as from the corner of my eyes I had to acknowledge, again, the streaks of red beneath the tan of my skin, the swelling around the bite marks. “I’ll be okay,” I said. “There’s no way I could explain it to a doctor, and I’ve had it happen before. We’re built to fight vampires, after all; one little bite isn’t going to kill me.”
“There’s a risk of infection from any open cut,” he said, more firmly. “And you can hardly go walking around with a bite mark on your arm.”
“Shit,” I said with a tight laugh. “Now you sound like my father.”
There had been one occasion before now when I had thought of vampires as being individuals enough to hate them more than their peers. The Cullens may have killed fewer people, but for me they would always be the ones that killed my father. I didn’t buy the story we were told on the Reservation, the story that one or two vampires passing through had ‘activated’ us. There were so many vampires in the world that if that were the case, we would never have stopped being wolves. My money was on the Cullens, living on our land and crossing paths with our people. I had considered returning to La Push once they got caught out not aging and had to move on once again.
It didn’t mean that it didn’t hurt to say it, but I figured that perhaps that was why the wolf was so loud in my head, baying for blood in the name of protection.
“You’re not much like my daughter,” he replied, and I voiced the addition that might have been hidden in his words.
“Thank God. I’m not sure what the world would do with more like me.”
I explained the rest of my story as we made our way down to the coast. How my generation had started to turn to shifters after a long time without the need for us, how it had spread and picked out apparently all of us with blood, how I was the only female. We had started as one pack, I said, then as there became more of us, it reached the point that it was too complicated to contain us all. The split into three packs had happened after I left, after I had given in and chosen to go solo. I didn’t tell him about the telepathy, didn’t add what happened with Sam and Emily, but made it clear enough that I was happier on my own.
It had been three years ago that I left, I told him; I had slowly made my way down the West Coast, with occasional forays inland. On average, I probably ran into a vampire every four to six weeks, and the one currently stinking out the pickup was number twenty-seven. I kept a record: dates, places, how I had found out about them. Julian asked all of the sorts of questions that I had, four years ago, when there hadn’t been answers. For our origin, I offered him our legends; for our fight with vampires, I didn’t have so much to say. They killed our families, our friends, the people around us – it would have been stranger if there was not bad blood between us.
We reached the beach a little after midday, when there were some people around but not too many. When you had the choice to visit the coast whenever you wished, you could pick the best days, and it was threatening to rain as I parked up. In Washington, we wouldn’t have cared, but in California they did. The same went for remembering to get a goddamn permit before I hit the beach; culture shock in less than the length of the country.
I built the bonfire mostly out of wood which I had ready in the back of the Chevy, throwing on some pieces of driftwood for the look of authenticity in case anyone came walking past. The pieces of vampire were buried amidst it, barely visible as glimpses of white. The hands and head, the most recognisable, went right in the centre.
A healthy splash of gas and a couple of matches later, it was alight. Disarmingly easy, I suppose. For a while after that we sat on the sand, looked out over the grey-blue choppy waves, and watched the fire burn down more quickly than a normal bonfire would have done. A celebratory beer would have been appropriate, I thought, but wishes don’t get, as my father would say. It was more Julian that I was celebrating than the actual vampire; the latter was a job, a messy and distasteful one at that, but directly saving a human was not something that I had done before. It made it seem a little more worthwhile.
“Is there more that you want to know?” I asked eventually, as the bonfire settled to a steady, wood-fire look which probably meant that the vampire flesh was done burning. “Anything more that I can say?”
Julian gave a sigh that was half-laugh. “I’m an anthropologist, my dear, I want to know everything. But I don’t think there’s anything more that I need to know.”
“Fair point.”
I watched a group of kids some way down the beach, hoping that their game of Frisbee wasn’t going to bring them to close. They seemed to be a safe distance off for now. The wind coming inland bought with it a fresh salt smell that made me think of home, and comfort and pain twanged together in my chest. “I’m sorry, again, that you got caught up in this shit.”
“It wasn’t you that did that,” he replied. “It was… that other one. You got me out of the mess instead. And then explained things to me.”
“I’m afraid my world has more questions than answers.” I was used to that, by now, but the injustice of it still rankled sometimes. For everything that I thought I had figured out in the last few years, new questions sprang up in its wake. Sort of like the hydra, I thought – except that this time the solution wasn’t simply fire.
Though fire did help.
I was staring out to sea as I spoke, watching the ripples of waves on the never-still grey surface. I’d always found the sea calming, ever more so recently. It was probably one of the reasons that I didn’t want to leave the coastal states. A shadow on the sea looked like rain; I was just trying to gauge whether it was when a hand came to rest on my arm. I looked round sharply to see Julian watching me tenderly, thankfully. “You gave me the most important answer,” he said. “One I’d waited a long time before.”
I smiled, albeit crookedly. It had been a while since I’d managed a full smile for anyone. “Thanks. Mostly I do what I do to… stop that happening.”
“You do what’s right,” he said.
“I think it’s nearly burnt through,” I said, rather than reply to his words. I picked up a long piece of driftwood that I had laid aside and used it to prod at some of the remaining pieces of wood. They crumbled to ashes.
“I wish I knew why those things are so flammable, but I’m glad of it.”
In a pinch, I could burn a vampire piece by piece in a normal fire. A bonfire was just quicker, and felt more right, than shovelling handfuls of vampire into a fireplace in a foreclosed house or some steel drum in the dark corner of an alley.
“I should probably drop you back off in the city. No need to add kidnapping to my list for the day.”
I’d figured a long time ago that trespass didn’t really matter, as long as I didn’t get caught. I was running through a different landscape, one that had different laws and different rights of access. I just needed to keep it out of the sight of the local law enforcement. I needed Julian to know, however, that I was going to return him to his everyday life and not expect him to run off and fight vampires with me or something similarly ridiculous. Only it didn’t feel ridiculous when the urge to protect him was still burgeoning in my head, and the wolf snarled in the back of my mind to not let him go.
“Are you in a hotel?” I continued, speaking over the wolf to silence it.
“I’m staying with my daughter, actually,” he replied, and I winced. Please say that she hadn’t noticed that he was gone. “She’s out with her friends today. I said that I’d occupy myself in the city.”
“Fuck.”
“Well, I’ve certainly been occupied,” he said, and this time I laughed with him. “Really, it’s fine. She isn’t expecting me at a set time. And Leah–”
I wasn’t expecting him to use my name, and it made me turn where I sat like a summoned pet. In my mind, I tried to claw back along my path, back up that slope.
“Thank you. For everything. I owe you my life – and my peace of mind.”
I couldn’t even find words to respond. I nodded dumbly, feeling a faint smile finally on my lips, then got to my feet and held out one hand to help him up. “Come on,” I said, effort though it was. “Let’s get you back.”
My arm was already hurting less by the time that we hit the highway back, and thunder boomed overhead as the storm finally broke. The rain went from a light speckling to torrential downpour in a drastically short time, and I could see other drivers pulling off into rest-stops rather than drive in it. I put my windshield wipers on full and kept going, mostly just amused that the rain cleared the roads for me.
This time it was Julian’s turn to talk. He was Québécois, he said, though he had lived for many years elsewhere. His sister Deborah had been only fifteen months older than him, and their younger brother had been some years behind. She had always been a troubled child, he said – distant, obsessed with ghosts and monsters. Only Julian had even wanted to believe her, and even he found it difficult to do so. Then one day, when she was seventeen and Julian sixteen, Deborah had disappeared without a trace. For years they had searched; his parents had never really given up. Even Julian, though he had gone on to study and then teach, had never quite escaped. His subject was anthropology; his speciality, magic and the supernatural.
He talked about werewolves for a while: the dominant European mythos that werewolves were cursed or evil men who chose to transform into wolves to hunt down human victims; the more Slavic belief that werewolves and vampires were variations on the same creature; the very different Native American folklore about benevolent shape shifters. It was interesting, even if the most surprising thing that he said was that it was Hollywood who had made the link to the moon famous.
I’d figured that a full moon always made vampire hunting easier, seeing as our night vision wasn’t quite as good as theirs. You lived and learnt.
The worst of the storm had passed by the time that we got back to the city, and Julian directed me through the streets to his daughter’s townhouse. It was a nicer part of town than I was used to being in: the sort of area where people would notice if someone went missing, or if someone acted strangely. Not a vampire’s hunting ground – ergo not my hunting ground.
I parked up outside and looked round, feeling a pang of envy. I understood why Jacob and Sam and Quil and all of the others had wanted to stay in Forks: they could settle down, have families there. Hunting vampires would last forever, and if I became too good at it was only going to become more dangerous. Perhaps one day I’d end up facing down the Volturi themselves. Strangely enough, the idea had never really frightened me; at least this part of my life I had chosen.
“You can’t tell her what really happened,” I said, before Julian could reach for the door handle. I turned off the engine and let the car fall silence again. “Vampires, werewolves. It’s not just for the good of vampires that they hide away: it’s dangerous for humans to know, as well.”
“The law-makers you talked about?” I nodded in response. “I understand. Come on, I’ll tell her something else.”
He had indicated for me to come with him, but an unfamiliar reticence came over me and I shook my head, holding up both hands. “Woah, no. Sorry. I don’t do guest appearances.”
Julian gave me a faintly exasperated look, like my father always used to when I was trying to wear a boy’s school uniform or sulking because Sam wasn’t letting me play basketball with him. I knew he didn’t realise how much that one look was making me shake in my seat, but it hit me all the same.
“You saved my life,” he said again. “This isn’t the part where you just vanish off into the distance. Please, at least let me introduce you to Sonia.”
I glanced down at the dress and sandals that I was wearing, and concluded that I was probably just about fit to be seen. “One moment,” I opted for, holding up a finger, then rifled under my seat for a hairbrush. My hair was bobbed; most people were surprised as the neatness, but when your haircut as a human affected your entire body hair as a wolf, you learnt fast enough to take care of it. There was a purse under my chair as well, and I threw in my phone, wallet and car keys before climbing out of the car and nodding for Julian to lead on.
It wasn’t even as if I had wanted to run off so quickly; that was just how things worked. I fell into place behind him like an awkward shadow as he made his way up to the front door and rang the bell; it must have not been a long stay, if he didn’t have his own keys.
I heard the playful thud of footsteps running down the stairs, then the door was pulled open and a wave of fresh, light perfume-scent hit me. My body reacted with a sneeze, and I was already mortified as I looked up again at the woman throwing her arms around Julian’s neck.
“Dad! When you didn’t answer your phone I was worried!”
Julian laughed and patted her shoulder. “I’m fine, Sonia. Just been on a bit of an adventure. Ended up in a bit of a rough area, and some chap had me cornered in an alley, when this young lady – Sonia, this is Leah – came and scared him off.”
My impression of Sonia had been a blur of energy and movement, a fresh fragrance in the air, and a mass of gold-highlighted brown waves of hair. As her father pointed her out to me, however, she turned to face me.
Our eyes locked.
The world lurched giddily as I looked into her eyes, green-flecked brown ringed in thick dark lashes. Somewhere in the distance, Julian was still talking; a heavy warmth was filling my body with every instant that I looked at Sonia. I wanted to scour out every inch of evil in the world to protect her, wanted to carve the earth to her desires. My heart glowed, soared, pounded in my chest, and if there was something in the world that was stopping her from doing the same then it was me who had to fix it.
“So,” said Sonia, “it’s you that I have to thank for keeping my father safe today, then?”
She had faint spots of pink in her cheeks, like she had run downstairs at the sound of the door, terrified that something had happened to Julian. A slight smudge of ink was just visible on her jawline, and it took every ounce of control I had not to reach out and wipe it away.
Since the moment I had phased, I had lived in Sam’s head, in Quil’s, in Jacob’s. I’d told myself a thousand times that I was ready for whatever my wolf nature might have planned out for me in the future. I had not known that the echoes that reverberated through the pack were only one-tenth, one one-hundredth, of the feeling, that moment, when the world falls together.
“They don’t belong to themselves anymore,” Jacob had said, back when he had looked at the imprints and their wolves with pity, before he had fallen to his knees before the perfection of this world.
I don’t care, I answered him now, across the years and miles, if I can belong to her.
I imprinted, and for the first time in four years the world turned the right way on its axis.
“Looks like it,” I managed to reply, my tongue feeling clumsy in my mouth. Still I was looking at her, my eyes locked on hers, drinking in every second that she offered me her presence. It didn’t seem to be unsettling her, at least not yet. “I’m Leah Clearwater.”
“Well… thank you, Leah,” she replied. There was something in her eyes as she watched me. I wanted to tell her everything, even what I hadn’t told Julian, take her back to Forks where the pack could protect her and I could be anything, everything she needed.
Needed. I knew humans better than to think that they needed the life that I lived. I still claimed to be one, after all.
“It’s nothing,” I said. I swallowed, and forced the words to continue even as they tore across my chest. “Look, I’m sorry, but I really should be going.”
“What? No!” Sonia reached out as if to take my arm, and I shied back. I knew what her touch would do, what it would make me do. And I knew what she needed. “Please, just stay a while!”
“Really.” I backed down the steps. There was a lump in my throat, but I could do it, I had to. “I’m just passing through, I really need to get going if I’m going to get there by nightfall…”
Julian wasn’t speaking, just looking at me curiously, though whether it was my behaviour or the lies that were leaving my mouth I didn’t have the time to guess. Sonia looked away for a moment to grab something from behind the door, and it gave me a moment with, once again, only me in my head. I grabbed the instant before it escaped, clung to the thought that arose in it. Clung to the word need. She passed me something, pressing it into my hand before I could pull away, and I glanced down at the rectangle of white card.
“If you’re ever passing through again,” she said, this time a little more quietly.
One last time, I raised my eyes to hers, and held an infinite moment of her gaze. “Yeah,” I said. “That sounds good.”
For her, I smiled. She smiled back. And the moment was perfect, until fat drops of rain began to fall again and she jumped back inside, pulling her father with her, and I fled down the steps and back to my truck again. My hands were shaking so much that I could barely open the door, but then I managed to climb in, and caught sight of them both waving at me from the doorstep as I started to drive on once again.
When you imprint, your world moves. It isn’t gravity that holds you down, it’s her. You become whatever the imprint needs. We all understood that.
But I hoped that I understood more. The word need is the important one: nobody needs to have my world, my life, forced upon them because the wolf inside me decides that I am meant for them. I had given Julian back: that was what Sonia needed. And maybe in one year, or two, or five, I would be just ‘passing through’ the city, and I would get in touch, and we could talk. Perhaps we could go for coffee, or catch a movie. Date. And then perhaps we would fall in love, if that was what was right, and if I was what Sonia needed.
Sometimes what people need is nothing at all.
I wrestled the Chevy into gear and started driving. There was enough money in my wallet to buy a fresh tank of gas if I ran out, and I had a few days’ of food. Time to find another city, find another vampire, and get back to work.
The tears in my eyes blurred my vision more than the rain on the windshield, but I blinked them away as, finally, I smiled to myself once again. Maybe, just maybe, there would be an end to this after all.
But until then, there were vampires, and I was a shapeshifter. Somewhere in the world, there was something for me to do, something that would keep the wolf in my head quiet that bit longer, and give me a little more time of being myself.
I slipped Sonia’s card, with her number and address, into my purse, then turned the radio up loud. There was still plenty of the day left, after all, and I had plenty now to fill it.
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Date: 2012-06-15 02:46 pm (UTC)On the one hand, I'm shocked, 'cause Leah is pretty much the embodiment of "Screw Destiny" in this fandom. However, on the other hand, you made Leah react to it unlike the other imprinters in the series and thank God that you made her fall for a woman of consensual age.
As for the rest of the fic, I love the interactions between Leah and Julian and I love having him as well as Sonia show up again.
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Date: 2012-06-15 08:33 pm (UTC)So I decided that I wanted to explore the idea that imprinting doesn't have to have a set result. That you can imprint and still say 'screw destiny' - that the guys still had a choice about what to do after they imprinted, and they still acted like dicks. Leah faces imprinting and walks away from it, which... I felt, in the end, was something that we really hadn't seen elsewhere. So I went with that direction, and it felt right. I understand that it might not please everyone, though, but I wasn't sure how to warn for that without completely spoilering things.
*cough* Sorry, that got a bit rambly. This started as a day-in-the-life story and grew its own plots, with this result. I'm glad that you liked the OCs, I know they're never to everyone's taste. *grins* Julian sort of hopped over from original work I was doing... where he also ran into blood-drinking supernatural creatures, to be fair. The man does not have good luck.
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Date: 2012-06-15 11:13 pm (UTC)As imprinting is basically about who's going to make better babies, and more to do with brainwashing than love, how's it going to work that a girl imprints on another girl?
Other than that, it's an interesting story. I liked the character of Julian and Sonia quite a bit, so no complaints there.
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Date: 2012-06-16 06:39 am (UTC)I do like everything else, though, especially Julian. I'm actually hoping that Julian's family will show up again and his sister turns out to be a sparklpire.
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Date: 2012-06-16 09:47 pm (UTC)In terms of the reasons for my imprinting, I've answered the comment above you in a fuller manner, but the short version is that Meyer's canon is broken, and Leah breaks it even further, which is awesome but sort of frustrating. Also, I'm a femslasher at heart, and lesbians tend to work their way into anything I write.
You're right, though, about the basically sexual nature of it being really, really, creepy, and I hadn't thought about that so much.
If I were to go off on meta, I would guess that imprinting is loosely based on smell or something similar -- even standard humans are known to be influenced by the smell of sweat, particularly in terms of difference between individuals in the MHC region. I would love at some point to try to sit down and work out what science could actually be behind Meyer's rambling imitation of science, but I'm not sure if it would be suited to this comm or elsewhere.
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Date: 2012-06-16 10:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-06-17 06:22 pm (UTC)I wasn't actually planning on writing more in this 'verse, but... well, I did enjoy it, and I might consider it. I have vague ideas involving something rather bigger than just one vampire, but I'm not sure whether I'm up to going there fully.
It was intended to be bittersweet, I suppose; Leah talked about imprinting for a while, as a way of getting away from Sam, so this was a form of freedom for all that it was a painful one. Looking back, however, I see what you mean that it is at the very least abrupt, and somewhat awkward too. I really appreciate this feedback, and will hold it in mind for future writing.
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Date: 2012-06-16 08:49 pm (UTC)To be frank, it probably doesn't work. But this is partially because Meyer's canon doesn't work, and/or because Leah breaks the rules of Meyer's canon just by existing.
(Also, I'm an incorrigible femslasher. So that probably plays a part.)
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Date: 2012-09-05 02:13 am (UTC)Quebec folklore has a lot of werewolf stories. In them being the werewolf is not the result of a bite or a curse but because the aflicted (usually a man) hadn't gone to confession (sometimes mass, sometimes lent, sometimes being an all around bad catholic) for seven years.
(This lead to a good amount of student imagining the scale of the werewolf epidemy in the modern world if it were true)
Anyway, just had to share that tibit
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Date: 2012-09-06 11:10 pm (UTC)That would practically make humans the strange ones in the world. Certainly an interesting angle...