Jackson &/or Danny gen-fic
CATCH
RATING: PG/PG13
LENGTH: 2500 words
DISCLAIMER: don't own anything related to TW.
ORIGINAL POST DATE: 09-12-11
SUMMARY: Jackson gets bitten by Derek and goes to Danny for help. (Fill for this prompt.)
WARNINGS: blood
When he opens the front door, Danny expects pizza, not Jackson barely hanging onto the frame, skinned with sweat and trembling, his shirt dyed a soggy, sopping red. Danny barely has a second to think, before Jackson moves to straighten up and instead just stumbles forward into his chest, feet taken right out from under him. He's slippery and hot and Danny chokes back a gag at him feeling like death in his hands, trying to get a solid grip around him because Jackson clearly can't get one on himself.
"Jackson-" he pushes him off just enough to see his face, make sure he hasn't fainted, and Jackson blinks his eyes hard, scowling in humiliation. "What the hell happened to you? We need to get you to the hospital now."
"No," Jackson says, wet, shaking his head. He grabs Danny's sleeves in desperate fists. "You can't- I- I can't go there now. You have to promise- promise me you won't take me there."
"What?" Danny steadies Jackson out at arms' length, so that he can get the collar of Jackson's jacket peeled back to see the damage. There’s a large bite mark cut straight through the white of his shirt, like his shoulder’s been torn into by an animal- a dog or mountain lion, the same as the attacks that they'd been talking about on the news, lately. Except all those people died and here Jackson stands, alive but barely.
Jackson jumps despite Danny trying his best not to touch the wound, grounding his pain out in an angry seethe.
"Jackson, you really need medical attention now-"
"Danny?" Ren calls from the living room, and Jackson spits a curse blunt enough for the both of them. "Pizza here?"
Without a moment's hesitation, Danny gently gets his hands around Jackson's shoulders, wills himself to ignore how Jackson is shaking apart against him, and guides him backward toward the side table near the door, careful to slide the phone and message pad out of the way before Jackson can sit on them or knock them on the floor.
"What'd I interrupt?" Jackson mumbles, tilting his head back into the wall.
"Nothing. Stay there. I'll get rid of him."
"Zip," Jackson's face scrunches in effort, "zip your hoodie up. There's...blood on your shirt. I got blood on your shirt."
Danny glances down and sees what Jackson means, the huge blotch spread across his stomach, like he's been gutted. He jerks his zipper up in a fury and jams his bloody fingers into his pockets too, almost rubbing them raw. "Okay, stay there," he says over Jackson nodding drunkenly.
Danny's wanted to break it off with Ren for days now, but somehow, telling him that his best friend is dying in the hallway doesn't seem like the way to go. He fights with himself not to move any faster than normal, so he won’t spook Ren into investigating or wanting to stick around. But something about him must seem off anyway, because when he comes back into the living room, Ren gives him a weird look, like he's just been kicked off a cliff.
Danny forces a smile, not sure how else to start off. "Jackson came by, and I have to-"
"Be his puppy?" Ren shakes his head and grabs his keys off the coffee table, standing up. "Why do I always believe it when you say there's nothing between you two?"
"Because there's nothing between us? And you should trust me?" It sounds like Ren is two seconds away from dumping him, and why he even bothers defending himself, Danny doesn't know. Saving face, maybe. Clinging to an ideal, maybe. It was hard enough to find a guy to date in Beacon Hills, much less someone he actually liked and who wasn't afraid to be out with him. It doesn't seem fair to just let it go so easily. But he can't find a damn to give right now, and Ren isn't worth Jackson’s life. Not much is.
"Sure. Every guy chooses his douchebag friend over sex." Ren stalks out into the hallway and Danny is quick after him to make sure he doesn't turn for the front door or see Jackson out of the corner of his eye.
"Hey, he’s not a douchebag."
"Yeah, keep telling yourself that. You know, Danny, just one time I'd like for you to hang out with me without mentioning him or talking to me about your problems with him or asking me what I think something he said or did means. I'm dating you, not you plus him." Ren's rough opening the kitchen door, shoulders knotted tight. "And now maybe I'm not even dating you."
It might catch up to him later, but right now it doesn't faze Danny that he's probably just been walked out on, because as soon as Ren's profile disappears from the windows, he's staggering back out toward the front door, heart thudding. He doesn't want to find Jackson unconscious or worse, dead-
But Jackson just follows his approach with a shallow glare, melted over in the same spot where Danny left him. "Told you I hated that guy."
"I know," Danny frowns, relieved but still stunned in confusion. "Now tell me what the hell happened and why I can't take you to the hospital? I'm two seconds away from hauling you there anyway, fuck what you say."
"Where's your family?"
"I told you yesterday, they were going to Portland for the weekend. Stop stalling."
"You won't believe me."
"Should I be offended that my best friend doesn't trust me anymore? What's been up with you, lately? Why won't you tell me what's going on? What happened at the video store? And school that night?" Danny shakes his head. "I can't help you if you won't let me, Jackson."
Jackson shuts his eyes, taking a phlegmy breath. He seems even worse now than he did propped up on the doorframe, and Danny isn't sure why they're still here, why he's just standing around, watching Jackson die. They could’ve been halfway to the hospital by now.
"I'm a second away now."
Jackson grunts. "...There are werewolves, all right? Werewolves- in Beacon Hills."
Danny makes an aggravated sound, moving to slam the front door shut, which had just been hanging open for anyone to look inside, since Jackson staggered in. He's pissed, way beyond pissed. This is so much more than just one lie. Jackson's been cagey for weeks now, and Danny's tired. Danny wants to break it off with him, too. He's done. "Werewolves? Do you really expect me to believe that?"
Jackson's eyes fly open. "I'm not lying!" he barks, followed close by a sharp frown as he sinks down a little farther on the table. "-I'm not. Everything- everything is about them! If you’d just- listen to me, I can explain everything. You know the Hales?"
Danny crosses his arms over his chest, but humors Jackson with a nod, urging him on, however disbelieving. He can't wait to hear this.
"They're all werewolves. And the Argents? Werewolf hunters." Jackson can hardly get a hold of his jacket collar to pull it back, so Danny sighs and comes forward to do it for him. "And that... That’s a werewolf bite. Derek Hale bit me."
"The guy who all the papers say is a murderer bit you?" Danny's tentative stretching his t-shirt away from the wound, murmurs an apology when it sticks and Jackson shivers through the grind of his teeth. It really does look like something big got a hold of him, bigger than a dog, and more purposeful. There are no other bites or scratches that Danny can see. It's a clean, calculated bite, though Jackson is still bleeding out. A- werewolf bite?
"So..."
"So what?"
"So if he bit you, and he's a werewolf," Danny looks over at him, "does that mean you're a werewolf too, now?" His fingers are gentle touching around the wound, but even still-
Jackson shuts his eyes again, jerking his head in a choked nod. "...If I- don't die from it."
"Die?" Danny pushes away from the table and goes for his keys on the hook, "No way am I just sitting here and watching you die. This is ridiculous. Come on, I'm taking you to the hospital."
"No!" Jackson has the sheer will enough to shove Danny back when he tries to get his hands around him, wobbling off the table and putting a few feet between them, though he clings to the wall for support, dragging it with blood. Danny flinches toward him.
"No!" Jackson shakes, "I told you no! I'll heal. I'll heal soon. If...I'm in the hospital and I heal so fast, they'll want to do tests on me. ...They'll, they'll turn me into a lab rat."
Danny raises his hands in defeat. "Okay, Jackson-"
"No, I, I need to know you won't take me to the hospital-! Promise me-"
This is fucking ridiculous! But Danny can't do anything for him if he chases him off. He'll say whatever he wants him to, to keep Jackson here. "I promise. Jackson, I promise."
It's like Jackson was holding out for just those words, in just that tone, because as soon as Danny says them, he goes to his knees, and Danny can barely pitch forward in time to keep him from smashing his face into the hardwood floor.
"Whoa. Whoa," Danny whispers, collapsing beneath his weight, one hand cradled around Jackson's chest, the other pressing Jackson's face into his shoulder, his slow, haggard breath shivering against Danny's neck.
"...I got you."
^
Danny wants to put Jackson in the back of his mom's old junker and drive him to the hospital, but something about the way Jackson was so adamant about everything overwhelms him with doubt. If Jackson was telling the truth, the doctors will dissect him like an animal when they find out. They'll cage him up, never let him leave.
And if he was lying- the whole thing is too weird to be a lie. Isn't it? Danny never heard Jackson talk about werewolves before. He's never been into that kind of stuff.
So he just carries Jackson upstairs to his room, every step a jab at how ignorant he's probably being. They should go to the hospital. He should take him to the hospital. Jackson will die and it will be all Danny's fault.
^
He gets Jackson out of his wrecked shirt and jacket, most of the blood wiped off him, and the bite bandaged up, before Jackson comes around, mumbling words through a thick, cotton mouth.
"...time is it?" is the first thing Danny can make out. He looks over at the clock, though he already knows what time it is. He paced through almost every minute of the last two hours, had his cell keyed up at 9-1-1 too many times to count. Nearly midnight.
"11:50."
"’m I healing?"
Danny sighs. "Yeah. Just...like you said. It's actually pretty cool." He'd been cleaning the wound when he'd noticed the crackling, and he’d watch it for a little while, saw the snap of the tendons growing back in place and the pooling blood. It'd been horrific and amazing, and the most reassuring thing Danny had probably ever seen in his life. He'd been so glad to see it. "…You can even hear it, if you lean in close."
Jackson turns his head to the side to look at it, and Danny fights back the urge to still him, not let him strain himself. They've always been close, but that's not the kind of friendship they have. They've also never been in a situation like this, so maybe Jackson would forgive him overreacting. Just once. Jackson didn't have to see what Danny did, how hard it was to watch Jackson seizing up on his bed, how much Danny would've blamed himself if he hadn't pulled through.
Jackson smiles, and Danny suddenly has the profound itch to punch it off his face. "I did it…"
"You did it? You did what? You're unbelievable! Do you realize that?" He springs up, starts pacing around again, this time in rage. "You almost died, Jackson. What if you'd just collapsed somewhere out on the road- if someone hit you? How did you even get here in the first place? And where’s Derek Hale? If he did this to you, why didn't he help you through it? Why do you do these things to yourself?"
"First of all," Jackson grits, the veins in his neck tight, "I drove."
"And that’s somehow better? You could've killed someone else, too."
"Second, he tried to make me stay, but I left anyway."
Why doesn't that surprise Danny? "Because you thought you could do it all on your own. Like usual."
Jackson looks at him in shock. And right now, Danny can't even get mad at him for that, for always forgetting how well they know each other. Jackson hates himself enough to believe everyone else is just using him until they can leave him, and it's been a long road to prove to him that Danny isn't like that. Even still, there are moments like this where Jackson gets suspicious and brittle. Just once Danny would like to go a day without being treated like he's an enemy.
He’s bitter. Doesn’t he have a right to be?
Is he supposed to feel lucky that Jackson came to him, of all people? Is that supposed to prove something? Sometimes Jackson just makes it so hard to feel grateful for their friendship, and Danny hates that he hates that about him. But it shouldn't feel like work as much as it does. It’s become a relief lately, when Jackson goes off wherever and is someone else’s problem for an hour, and Danny can't figure out how to go back and fix it.
"No, I just." Jackson sits up, words strangling out of his throat in frustration, "I just- wanted... I can't trust him. He did it, and instead of being great, all I could think about was that I, I had to get out of there. He looked like he was insane, Danny, I just-"
"So you came here. To me." To clean it up.
Jackson glances down at the bite mark again, makes like he's inspecting it, but Danny knows he's just embarrassed to admit it. That he needs anybody. Even one time. If Jackson said it even one time, Danny would consider it all worth it. I need you.
But neither of them say things like that to each other. Why start now?
"I...can't go anywhere else, Danny."
Something looses in Danny's chest. That was close enough.
"I'm kind of flattered, actually," he says after a minute, just to lighten them both up. Jackson snorts. "No, really. Of everyone in Beacon Hills, you chose my house to die in. Apology accepted."
"Yeah, well...I'm sorry." Jackson can't look him in the eyes. "About this. I didn't plan for it to be like this. I thought- I thought it would go differently."
"You don't have to apologize." Danny sits back on the bed, propping an arm on Jackson's good shoulder. His skin is still a little hot, and he pulls a face, but he has enough strength and sarcasm to shrug Danny off, which is a good sign.
Danny smirks. "So...what happens next, Teen Wolf?"
HEART BREAKER
RATING: PG
LENGTH: 4000 words
ORIGINAL POST DATE: 07-16-12
SUMMARY: Danny said he didn't watch Jackson's video...but he really did.
WARNINGS: blood
“Hey, Danny. What are the chances of seeing you here? Oh, what're you reading? Giants, Monsters and Dragons,” Stiles paused, and his silence bred in Danny a sinking feeling that spread like quick-working virus, the same way it'd probably just hit Stiles. “…An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend and Myth. Well, that answers that question.”
Danny rolled his eyes. “Go away, Stiles.”
“Yeah, sure. But I need to ask you something first.”
He didn’t bother looking up at him. “The answer’s still 'no.'”
“I appreciate your consistency. But it’s not about that.”
Danny turned the page he was on, though he hadn’t even read the last half of it, still not looking up at Stiles. “Does this have anything to do with Scott being a werewolf or my best friend turning into Godzilla?”
He did, however, look up in time to catch Stiles’s mouth fall almost to the floor.
“You guys aren’t really quiet, Stiles. I sit right behind you in Chem.”
Stiles snorted and glanced around the library, like that was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard and he wanted someone to laugh about it with.
Except no one else was laughing.
“Oh come on,” he said after a second, “we’re, like, ninj-”
“No,” Danny shook his head.
“Not even a litt-”
“Not even any.”
Stiles pursed his lips, head swaying side to side in a sluggish, considering shake. “…Maybe we could tone it down a few notches.”
“Yeah, who do you think covers for you when people start asking questions? I keep telling them you’re just talking about mmorpg characters, but eventually someone else is gonna figure it out.”
“Okay, so we underestimated you.”
“Big time,” Danny muttered, turning another page he hadn’t read.
“Okay, so we underestimated you big time. Now, considering your reading material, can I ask you a fav-”
“It’s about Jackson’s video.”
Stiles squinted down at him, tongue lagging out the corner of his mouth. “…Again, underestimated you. Big time.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, well, I was kind of gonna ask about Jackson's parents, but since you brought that up... I know Scott asked you about it the other day, but you didn’t really tell him anything.”
“He didn’t get my ID back.” Danny stuck his finger in the book to mark his place and shut it, hoarding it up under his arms on the table. “And you think I’d tell you something-why?”
“I really don’t. But they say insanity’s doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results, and I’m no stranger to insanity. So…did you watch it before your tablet got stolen?”
“No.”
Stiles deflated.
Danny didn’t know what possessed him to open his mouth again, after that. He could’ve just let that be the end of it and watched Stiles slug off somewhere in dejection, kept it all to himself and waited Jackson out, like he usually did. But Stiles obviously knew something-maybe something that would help Danny help Jackson, or at least just…fill in some of the missing pieces. And if talking was the only way to get Stiles to talk back, then he’d more than gladly sacrifice whatever trust points he had left after going to Matt with the footage, in the first place.
Besides, he was supposed to meet Jackson here twenty minutes ago, and Jackson still hadn’t shown. Keeping his secret wasn’t really high on Danny’s priority list right now, especially since it was starting to feel like every minute spent reading a book or waiting and wondering was another minute wasted.
“…I watched it after.”
Stiles’s hands shot up in excitement. “What-how?!”
Danny waited a second for the rest of the library to stop giving Stiles the evil eye, before he came back with an answer, “You know about my police record, but that’s just the stuff I got caught for.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’ve been around the block. I know not to make rookie mistakes. What’s the most rookie mistake anyone can make?”
“Choosing a Mac over a PC?”
…Seriously?
Danny sighed. “Not backing things up.”
“Yeah, that is pretty-wait, so you’re saying you have a copy of the video?” Almost like his brain was ahead of his body, Stiles tripped over into the chair opposite Danny at the table, book bag and all, so fast it rocked up onto its side for a second before righting back, his hands scrambling uselessly at the tabletop.
Again, Danny found himself waiting a second for everything to calm back down.
Sometimes, it really took it out of him just watching Stiles move.
“Yeah. I back up everything important on my flash drive and my email, in case something happens to my tablet.” And maybe that last part came out a little strained, but he was still pissed off about it. It was a brand new tablet, and insurance wasn’t going to cover even half of the busted lock on his car or the bills from the night’s stay at the hospital. Not to mention his parents weren’t going to be letting him off the hook anytime soon for sneaking into a club underage. So forget leaving the house for anything other than school and practice, much less trying to get a new tablet. “And I had my flash drive on me that night at the club, on my key ring. So it wasn’t jacked with my tablet.”
“And when you say you back up everything important, that includes Jackson’s video.”
He nodded. “That includes Jackson’s video.”
“And you watched it.”
“I wasn’t going to,” Danny said with conviction because he really wasn’t, and he needed to say it out loud to someone, if not Jackson. Even now he kind of wished he hadn’t watched it because it just meant he knew how big the secret was that Jackson was hiding from him, and it didn’t make him feel good that Jackson hadn’t come to him about it. Or felt like he couldn’t, for some reason. But somehow Stiles and Scott knew. They knew more than he did, and Jackson hated them. So what did that say about his and Danny’s friendship? “But when Scott showed up at the club and then the hospital and was really, really weird about what was on it and asking me if Jackson wanted to kill me…” He frowned. “I thought I should check it out. So I watched it last night.”
“What was on it?”
“No.”
“What?”
“I said no. If I’m gonna tell you what’s on it, you’re gonna have to tell me what’s really going on.”
“Okay, and I will. But after you tell me what you saw. Good deal?”
Danny just stared at him.
“No good deal. Okay, I can respect that.” Stiles chewed his thumb a second, thinking, foot thumping at the floor under the table. “Brief summary, then. Me and Scott went out that night they found the half of Laura Hale’s body in the woods. Big, bad Alpha werewolf bit Scott. Totally my fault, totally awesome. Suddenly, he’s Super Scott-”
“That’s why Scott’s so much better at lacrosse now?”
“Yeah. Heightened senses, super strength, no more asthma, the whole nine yards. Anyway, he and I had to find out who this Alpha was, so Scott could try to kill him and get magically cured. Somehow Jackson found out about it and wanted in on it, like the psycho, perfectionist that he-”
Danny gave him an unimpressed look.
“Okay, not that important. You’re right, good call. So Jackson goes trolling around for the Alpha to bite him, but no luck. Next thing you know, we’ve got a showdown at Little Hale House between the Hales and Allison’s family- by the way, the Argents? Yeah, werewolf hunters. And Peter Hale was the Alpha, also by the way.” Stiles stopped a second to take a breath, let his brain catch up to his mouth. “Peter kills Kate Argent to avenge the death of his family a few years ago - I’m sure you read about the whole arson thing in the papers - and then his nephew, Derek Hale, aka ‘pretty much the biggest, most homicidal asshole on the planet,’ or, to you, ‘my cousin, Miguel,’ kills him and becomes the new Alpha. Jackson goes to him and gets the bite, but the bite goes wrong. Now he’s a snake…man. Person. Thing. I don’t really know if he has a gender.”
All that would’ve been a lot to take in at once…if Danny hadn’t known seventy percent of it already. At least he had the whole story now.
“…He didn’t turn into a wolf.”
“Unless wolves have scales and tails and…venom that paralyzes you.” Stiles grimaced, shoulders bunching up. He rubbed gingerly at the back of his neck, and Danny’s mouth turned down in painful sympathy. He had to will his own hand back, even, or he’d have been doing the same.
So…that had really been Jackson, after all.
Are you sure everything’s okay between you and Jackson? You didn’t do anything to make him angry? On a scale of one to ten, one being kind of irritated and ten wanting to kill you violently…
Now it made sense.
At least he’d gotten Danny’s ex, too. Jackson’d never liked him, and for once Danny was actually happy about that.
“Scott told me Derek said sometimes the shape you take represents who you are. So Jackson’s a snake. No shock there.” It was delayed, like it took him a second to remember who he was talking to, but at least Stiles had the presence of mind to flinch unprovoked this time. “Just curious, how much of that did you already know?”
“A lot. Does this thing have a name? I’m not having any luck with these.”
Stiles looked over at the huge stack of books by Danny’s elbow, all of them myth, legend or creature-related and all of them pretty useless so far. Danny would’ve gotten better results burning them.
“It’s called a kanima,” Stiles said. “I couldn’t find much about it online. But Allison’s grandfather has this thing called a beastiary-there was a lot more in it. So far what we know is that it supposedly goes after murderers and it doesn’t like its reflection, which is kind of hard to believe with Jackson, right?”
Silence.
“Yeahhh. Also, it apparently has deep-seated emotional issues and a master that controls it. So Jackson has no idea what he’s doing when he’s…scalin’ out. With the scales.”
“I guess that explains why he was acting so weird earlier, when I tried to talk to him. And the footage being edited out, and the person in the video.”
“What, person? What? Seriously? Did you get a good look at him? Uh-her?”
“No. They kept out of the frame.” Danny took in a shallow breath, chest tight. “Then he’s killing people?”
Stiles couldn’t bring himself to answer for a long minute; that was enough confirmation for Danny.
Too much confirmation.
“If it helps, I think it’s just murderers and really evil people? He’s sort of a vigilante, when you think about it. Like Batman.”
“He was covered in blood in the video,” Danny said, watching the way the color dragged out of Stiles’s face the same as his mouth dragged open, freckles and moles startlingly dark all of a sudden, tongue nervous wetting his lips.
It was a lot better than Danny’d handled it. Then again, he’d seen the footage firsthand.
He couldn’t get all the way through it the first few times he’d tried, and even fast-forwarding it had made his stomach roll. The images had been seared into his brain forever. Jackson’s body cracking up on itself, his bones twisting until they broke, his skin sheathing in scales, nails growing to claws, teeth like saw blades, eyes cold and sharp. It hadn’t been him anymore, in the end. There wasn’t any part of Jackson in that thing, and Danny guessed it made sense. Especially if he was being controlled.
And the blood… Jackson shuffling back into his room hours later, himself again but somehow still not, dropping dead on the end of his bed and just watching the blood dripping off his hands like he wasn’t even seeing it.
“The person-” master? “-must’ve cleaned it up. Or made him.” It shocked Danny, how dry his voice had become.
“…So he wouldn’t know,” Stiles mused out loud.
“Who’s he killed?”
“What?”
“Do I have to repeat myself?” He really didn’t want to.
“Uh, well,” Stiles started, counting off on his fingers, “there’s the mechanic at Good Gears Co and one of the hunters. Isaac Lahey’s dad, we’re pretty sure, too. Not to mention the really great job he did paralyzing the both of us…that’s, like, what, two half-deaths right there. So four? Maybe-probably more. Definitely…more.”
“There has to be a pattern.”
“Yeah, his master’s making him kill murderers.”
“Not just that. Think about it. Has your dad ever shot someone?”
“Yeah. Product of the job.”
“He’s not getting threatened. If Allison’s parents are hunters, chances are they’re murderers, too. Her grandfather?”
“Scott said he saw the kanima leave him alone. And-” Stiles heaved a sigh of an epiphany. “Scott saw him kill a werewolf.”
“There has to be another connection.” Danny backed his chair out and stood up, slinging his bag over his shoulder. “Maybe try and ask your dad? See what else he knows or if there’ve been any other murders here, the last few weeks.”
“Snooping’s always on my to-do list, so consider it as good as done. And you’re going…?”
“To talk to Jackson. He was supposed to meet me here after he talked to Mr. Webb about his paper.”
“Talk to Jackson?!” Stiles barked, prompting people to give him the evil eye again. He waved awkwardly and tried to fold himself up invisible in his seat, voice hushed down to a whisper, but his expression still loud, “Why? You know he’s kind of on a murder kick lately. Just a thought.”
“You’re underestimating me again.”
“No, no…just trying out this whole new hobby of being scared for humanity.” Stiles wiped a hand over his face. “But he’ll just get angry and play dumb.”
“So he gets angry,” Danny shrugged. It wasn’t like that’d be anything new with them. “At least it’ll be at me.”
Stiles conceded the point with a resigned nod, like he’d be doing the exact same thing if he had to.
Maybe he’d already had to.
“Well, try to stay in plain sight, at least,” he said, as good advice as any. “And if he starts turning green and, you know, hulking out, get the hell outta there.”
^
Danny jumped a little when he opened the library door and found Jackson standing there in his way, head cocked to one side, broad smile on his face.
It had to be a testament to how good of friends they were because Danny could immediately tell that something was off. He could just feel it in the air between them.
He returned Jackson’s smile, but reluctantly, heart struggling to come down off the shock. “Hey. Where were you?”
“Got held up with Mr. Webb on my paper. Sorry about earlier, I don’t know what got into me.”
What got into me.
“It’s cool.”
“You said you wanted to talk? Let’s go somewhere.”
“Sure?”
Danny followed a step or two behind him, hand tight around the strap of his bag.
Maybe the act was good enough to fool everyone else or maybe everyone else just didn’t care, but Danny didn’t buy it for a second. Even the way Jackson was carrying himself was off, the way he was walking, just that one millimeter wrong that threw the whole picture out of whack enough for Danny to notice. So he was-he was being controlled right now? Without any of the kanima stuff? Was he going to go murder someone? Coming back from it? Mr. Webb…?
Him?
Despite his better judgment and Stiles’s advice, Danny went where Jackson led, walked down the hall and through the front doors, across the parking lot to Jackson’s Porsche, bright in the daylight. There were a few people milling around outside with lunches or goofing off on their free period, but not enough to be comforting, and Danny’s heart started to pick up again, in spite of him.
It was as if Jackson could hear it, too, because he turned around to give Danny another smile, like he knew he needed reassuring.
He did.
But this was Jackson.
This was his best friend.
Kanima or not, master or not, scared or not, Jackson still had to be in there somewhere. Danny couldn’t just write him off, turn and run-
He couldn’t just leave him.
Jackson took his keys out and popped the locks with his fob, “Get in.” He circled around to the driver’s side.
Danny stopped short in front of the headlights, hand still tight around his bag strap.
“Something wrong?” Jackson smiled again, and Danny’s heart thudded, body tingling with the memory of the paralysis. He tried his best to school the fear off his face, though, for Jackson’s sake. In case-
He shifted around to the passenger door, but he didn’t go to get in. He just cast a look at Jackson over the car roof, staring at him waiting for he didn’t know what, until Jackson shrugged and pulled his door open to climb in without him, like it was all so normal. The car swayed under the weight.
Huffing at his wild paranoia, Danny popped his own door open and slung his bag in ahead of him, so at least that’d be between them.
He left the door open when he went to sit, too, only a crack, as though he wanted the breeze or had to be somewhere soon, but Jackson reached across him after a second and shut it for him, that smile still splitting his face.
“What’d you want to talk about?” he said, melting back in his seat, slinging a casual arm around behind Danny’s headrest.
Danny was quiet a minute.
Then, “Who are you?”
Jackson’s brows knitted together. “What?”
“You’re not Jackson right now.”
“What’re you even talking about? Of course I’m-”
Danny scowled at him. “I think I know my best friend better than that.”
There was a long, tense stare before Jackson ducked his head, chuckling.
“Is something funny?”
“What’re you gonna do, Danny?”
“What?”
“To stop me? What,” he raised his head, eyes now slit like a snake’s, words enunciated sharp through his teeth, “are you gonna do?”
Danny flinched.
“That’s right,” Jackson pouted comically. “You’re not going to do anything. See, it’d be one thing to disarm someone if they had a gun or a knife to Jackson’s head, but the thing is, I have his head. It’s like the ultimate shield. If you want to stop me, you’ll either have to find me or kill him. And we both know you’d never do anything to purposefully hurt Jackson, don’t we, Danny?”
Behind Danny’s head, the headrest ripped under Jackson’s claws, and Danny lurched forward too fast to stop himself, sparking Jackson to laugh again.
Danny grounded his hand on the dash and turned a hard look at him, like that would shut him up.
Normally, it would have.
“So we’re going to keep this between us.” Jackson’s hand came around from behind the seat and cupped Danny’s shoulder, bunching up tight in his sleeve. He could feel the graze of Jackson’s claws through the fabric, this close to tearing into him.
They stayed like that for a long second, just looking at each other, neither saying anything, Danny’s heartbeat pounding in his head.
And then Jackson had Danny easily yanked over his bag and the shallow console between them. Danny snorted out the sudden scrape of pain up his side, teeth grit tight, his hands everywhere, trying to get a grip.
Jackson dragged him in even closer, until Danny was riding up against his chest, to whisper, “You’re not a murderer, are you, Danny? Well, it doesn’t matter anymore, anyway. I’d hate, for Jackson’s sake, to have to make him kill you. I don’t think he could live with himself after that.”
With a grunt, Danny grabbed Jackson’s hand and forced it off so hard his sleeve went with it, tore right down the seam. He reeled back into his seat, goosebumps pocking up his arms.
There was something violent to the air in the car, now.
Jackson just looked down at the fabric and smirked, running the shreds between his fingers. Almost affectionately. “I like you, Danny. Jackson likes you, too. You’re not a stupid guy. So I know when I tell you to do something, you’ll be smart and do it, won’t you?”
Danny didn’t waste any time snatching up Jackson’s collar and jostling him around, more forcefully than he meant to. “Jackson! Wake up! Wake up! It’s Danny!”
Jackson got one hand around Danny’s wrist, soft and desperate, and Danny slowed up a second, thinking maybe he’d come back to himself. But then Jackson’s other hand was at Danny’s neck, claws pinned up against his jugular, ready to slit his throat if he moved wrong.
He didn’t let go of Jackson for a long second, just frozen there with shock, feeling the way his heartbeat thumped his throat against Jackson’s nails, fear sweating down his back. But even when he did finally uncurl his fingers and sit back numbly in his seat, Jackson’s eyes were just cold and dead on him, not satisfied or arrogant or even cruel.
He wasn’t fazed at all, good or bad.
“I forgot love and friendship make even smart people stupid…” Jackson sighed, sagging back against his own seat like he was suddenly done with the world, Danny most of all. He clicked his eyes between Danny and the door, and the message was clear. “I don’t really have anything else to say to you right now.”
Danny didn’t have anything else to say, either. Not to whoever was controlling Jackson, at least. And no matter what, he couldn’t do anything to them without hurting Jackson. He didn’t know if there was anything he could do, anyway, even if he did know who to go after.
There’d been very few things in his life that he couldn’t do anything about, but this had to be one of the worst. If not the worst.
Damn if he wouldn’t try, though.
He pushed the door handle down enough that the door came away from the frame, but he couldn’t make himself open it all the way. There was some part of him that thought, even if Jackson wasn’t himself right now, maybe he was still inside there somewhere, looking out at him, listening to his voice; if he could see or hear Danny, even subconsciously, at least that was something. It might be reassuring or fortifying or just enough to overcome this ‘master’ and bring him back. Every second was potential, and if not now, maybe Danny just had to wait a little bit longer. It might not be this second, but the next one, or the next one, or the next one that Jackson came back-
He didn’t want to leave him alone like this. Jackson was worth all the time Danny had to give, and he couldn’t make himself walk away. Even if right now the hope was more a placebo than anything, and he was just wasting time better spent trying something else.
“You’re a good friend, Danny,” Jackson drawled, body still slack with boredom, fingers still crawling with the shreds of Danny’s shirt sleeve. He grinned though, lazily, one last time. “I hope you’ll do what’s best for him.”
“I will,” Danny grit out of spite, and, in a surge of helpless rage, he was shoving out of the car and slamming the door so fast it caught the edge of his bag, expression gutted into a scowl. His breath tore out of him ragged, he hadn’t even realized how cramped his chest was with anxiety, and his skin was hot. He picked angrily at the frayed sleeve seam of his shirt as he stalked back to the school entrance, like he’d lost an arm instead.
He needed to find Scott and Stiles again.
TO SPITE THE FACE
RATING: PG
LENGTH: 1800 words
ORIGINAL POST DATE: 07-08-12
SUMMARY: Jackson shows up naked and confused in town, after escaping the prisoner transport.
WARNINGS: mentions of nudity?
NOTES: Scanner codes used are from here (hopefully they're accurate, but ah well.)
“Sheriff? Unit One, you there?” crackled over the radio on his shoulder suddenly, startling both him and Mr. Whittemore, who’d stopped back in to fill out the Missing Persons claim on his son.
Stilinski unhooked it and pressed it close to his mouth, gruffing out a short “what?” People knew better than to mess around on his frequency, calling in crap. Especially lately, with all the messes around town. It sounded like one of the new guys, too. Rodrigo or something. This had better have been good. This had better have been him saying they’d caught the perp from The Jungle scene.
“We’ve been getting in calls of…a 314 downtown. A male streaker, by the sound of it?”
“A streaker?” Stilinski took his finger off the transmitter to curse, shaking his head. Awe hell, just what they needed right now, another person running around town without clothes on. As if that Lydia Martin girl wasn’t lesson enough. Now he had people poisoning people by the half dozen, not to mention the Lahey case and Jackson Whittemore missing…and he’d have to deal with someone’s cold dick on top of it all.
He took a deep breath. “I know you’re green, Rodrigo, but you really should know better than to call my frequency with 314s. Come on, you know what to do, son. Pick him up and bring him in.”
“That’s the thing, it doesn’t seem like it’s a run-of-the-mill 314. It’s a-the calls are saying it looks like a boy. And that he seems like he’s distressed or confused or something. Possibly even a 261. It’s too dark for anyone to get a good make on him, dispatch said. It was hard to even tell what it was at first. People were calling in all kinds of weird things…”
Mr. Whittemore was at the edge of his seat in a second, clipboard thrown back on Stilinski’s desk, report half filled in.
“He’s running down the backstreets. Dispatch said the way the calls are lining up, he’s making his way toward your neck of town. I’m going to try and head him off on Baker.”
“Say again, a boy? How old?”
“Yeah. Maybe early teens. Fifteen, sixteen at the most. It’s a possible on your 10-57.”
“10-57? What’s that?” Mr. Whittemore said.
Stilinski held up a hand to silence him back a second, “Have you intercepted him yet?”
“I’m turning onto Baker now. I don’t see…okay, there he is. There he is. I have him in my lights now,” Rodrigo said, and there was the muffled blip of the sirens going off, just two short pops to get the boy’s attention. “He’s-he’s slowing down some. Looks Caucasian, uh, medium build, average height, short, dirty blond hair.”
Mr. Whittemore sprung out of his chair.
Stilinski followed fast. “Get him picked up before anyone else gets an eye full and bring him in asap.”
^
Despite the closed door and distance, he could hear them all perfectly, standing down the hall, whispering about him like his parents did sometimes, when he did things they thought were “a direct result of his being adopted” or things they “needed to sit down and discuss with him at the right time,” but then never actually did. He threw the police blanket down on Sheriff Stilinski’s office couch and started to yank on the stale, cheap uniform he’d been given, still shaking with rage at what McCall and Stiles had put him through. He didn’t know what those two assfaces had been so damn on about. A danger to people? Killing people? His best friend? He hadn’t killed anyone. He hadn’t done any of that- nothing had even happened, not on the full moon, not after the game, not in some mechanic’s office or at the school pool, nothing! He would know! He had proof!
Besides, they’d tested him already. It couldn’t be him, Derek had said so. He’d been paralyzed, Lydia hadn’t. She was the kanima. Snakes can’t be poisoned with their own venom-Derek had said that. It had to be Lydia! There was something messed up about her. Peter's attack hadn't done anything to her- she had to be the kanima! It was the only explanation that made sense.
“-the hell even happened?” Sheriff Stilinski asked, sounding beat to shit.
“I don’t know…it was like he didn’t even know what was going on until I got him into the back of the car, and then he flipped out on me,” the cop who’d brought him in said in a real put-out voice, like it was all Jackson’s fault he was out there in the middle of the street, running around naked. He couldn’t even remember getting there.
If anyone was to blame, it was McCall and Stiles. They’d probably done something to him…drugged him and dropped him out in some alley, maybe to get him back for ditching them and Lydia the other night. Or just for the hell of it. He knew they weren’t above that kind of shit.
“I get him covered up nice with the blanket, get back in the car, and next thing I know, bam! He started screaming and banging on the cage, telling me to stop the car and let him out.”
“Of course he did!” Jackson's father barked, heartbeat picking up. “He was scared. Who knows what he’s been through in the last twenty-four hours? He’s a teenage boy. What do you think you’d do if you were in his situation?”
The cop sighed. “I'm sorry, sir. I...I don’t know. He calmed down a little when I told him I was bringing him here, but.” There was the sound of heels shifting on the floor nervously, sweat beading. “...Sir, does your son have a history of mental illness? He was legitimately out of it when I first got to him.”
“Mental illness? Are you seriously going to talk to me about my son like that?” his father said, bewildered. The fabric of his suit coat was scratching and stretching in his excitement, grating up Jackson's spine. He never talked with his hands, not even when he was really worked up. And somehow it surprised Jackson, him this emotional about him disappearing for one night. “I think I’d know if my own son was prone to bouts of running around town naked.”
“Rodrigo, maybe you better get back to your beat,” Sheriff Stilinski said quietly, even though it was as good as a warning. “You did fine.”
Jackson could hear the sharp pat on the back and Rodrigo nod, then swallow, his boots clicking as he turned and walked off. Somewhere farther on, the front door opened and shut.
Jackson set his jaw, pulling the pants zipper up. He wasn’t mental. He hadn’t done anything wrong. It was all McCall and Stiles’s fault! They were the ones who should've been down here right now, getting in trouble for what they’d done to him. He was naked in the back of a cop car, for chrissake! He’d been running around town naked! There was no telling how many people saw him making a complete fool of himself-
He was going to get them back so bad they’d wish he’d never gotten loose.
“-m sorry about that,” Sheriff Stilinski said on a long exhale. “He’s new…he hasn’t learned all the, ah, etiquette that goes into this job. But we’ll get to the bottom of this, Mr. Whittemore. I’m sure Jackson’ll be able to fill in some of the blanks, once he’s gotten dressed and had a second to calm down.”
“He’s not crazy. Something happened to him.”
“I believe you. And we’ll find out what. It might just take a minute for everyone to get their heads on straight around here.”
His dad made an offended noise, but he didn’t argue.
He probably would’ve won, if he had. Sued this half-assed police station for all it was worth. Did they even do anything around here? They sure as hell weren’t stopping people from getting murdered or kidnapped.
And suddenly there was no more conversation, just dead quiet and then footsteps coming down the hall, louder and more painful in Jackson's ears as they got closer, digging into his skull. They stopped short right outside the office door. Jackson couldn’t make out either his father or the sheriff through the shut blinds, but he could smell them. Hear them. Feel the anger and concern vibrating through the wood of the door.
Sheriff Stilinski’s cuffs jangled in their holster when he raised a hand to knock. “Son, you okay in there?”
“I’m decent,” he said after he’d shrugged on the jacket and zipped it up, going over to get the door for them.
His father was first into the room, despite that Sheriff Stilinski was closer, and he startled Jackson back, putting his hands on his shoulders to guide him toward the sofa and sit him down, even though Jackson didn’t really feel like it. He went without a fight though, rolling his eyes, half expecting his dad to sit down next to him and smother him. But he didn’t. He just propped himself against the windowsill, arms crossed, looking completely unimpressed with the whole situation, but still somehow intent on Jackson.
Sheriff Stilinski took a seat on the corner of his desk, waiting to give them all a second’s pause before he opened his mouth. It was sort of amazing he had that kind of self-control, considering his son couldn’t ever keep his shut.
“Jackson…long time, no see. Do you remember anything about what you were doing out there? What happened?”
“What happened?” He sat forward in his seat, “I was kidnapped.”
“Kidnapped, all right,” Sheriff Stilinski nodded. “That’s a start. Did you get a good look at who it was? Any identifying marks or names, any thing we can go on? Did it have anything to do with you changing your statement on the Lahey case? Is someone threatening you?”
“No. It has nothing to do with that,” he spit. “But it has everything to do with Scott and Stiles.”
Sheriff Stilinski’s brow furrowed, heart thudding sharply. His eyes turned hard against Jackson, like he thought he was lying to him again. Fat chance this time. “…What’d you say? Scott and Sti-my Stiles?”
“You heard me. Your son and his little friend kidnapped me. They chained me up in your prison transport van. What kind of a place are you running around here? Did you even realize it was missing? Who else knows how to get a hold of one of those but Stiles? Huh? I got free somehow and next thing I know, I’m completely naked and I’ve been manhandled into the back of one of your cars, like some crook,” Jackson grit through his teeth. His dad put a hand to his shoulder again to calm him down. But he didn’t want to be calm. He’d been calm enough already, considering what they did to him. They deserved every last thing that was coming to them. “I want a restraining order on them-now.”
RATING: PG/PG13
LENGTH: 2500 words
DISCLAIMER: don't own anything related to TW.
ORIGINAL POST DATE: 09-12-11
SUMMARY: Jackson gets bitten by Derek and goes to Danny for help. (Fill for this prompt.)
WARNINGS: blood
When he opens the front door, Danny expects pizza, not Jackson barely hanging onto the frame, skinned with sweat and trembling, his shirt dyed a soggy, sopping red. Danny barely has a second to think, before Jackson moves to straighten up and instead just stumbles forward into his chest, feet taken right out from under him. He's slippery and hot and Danny chokes back a gag at him feeling like death in his hands, trying to get a solid grip around him because Jackson clearly can't get one on himself.
"Jackson-" he pushes him off just enough to see his face, make sure he hasn't fainted, and Jackson blinks his eyes hard, scowling in humiliation. "What the hell happened to you? We need to get you to the hospital now."
"No," Jackson says, wet, shaking his head. He grabs Danny's sleeves in desperate fists. "You can't- I- I can't go there now. You have to promise- promise me you won't take me there."
"What?" Danny steadies Jackson out at arms' length, so that he can get the collar of Jackson's jacket peeled back to see the damage. There’s a large bite mark cut straight through the white of his shirt, like his shoulder’s been torn into by an animal- a dog or mountain lion, the same as the attacks that they'd been talking about on the news, lately. Except all those people died and here Jackson stands, alive but barely.
Jackson jumps despite Danny trying his best not to touch the wound, grounding his pain out in an angry seethe.
"Jackson, you really need medical attention now-"
"Danny?" Ren calls from the living room, and Jackson spits a curse blunt enough for the both of them. "Pizza here?"
Without a moment's hesitation, Danny gently gets his hands around Jackson's shoulders, wills himself to ignore how Jackson is shaking apart against him, and guides him backward toward the side table near the door, careful to slide the phone and message pad out of the way before Jackson can sit on them or knock them on the floor.
"What'd I interrupt?" Jackson mumbles, tilting his head back into the wall.
"Nothing. Stay there. I'll get rid of him."
"Zip," Jackson's face scrunches in effort, "zip your hoodie up. There's...blood on your shirt. I got blood on your shirt."
Danny glances down and sees what Jackson means, the huge blotch spread across his stomach, like he's been gutted. He jerks his zipper up in a fury and jams his bloody fingers into his pockets too, almost rubbing them raw. "Okay, stay there," he says over Jackson nodding drunkenly.
Danny's wanted to break it off with Ren for days now, but somehow, telling him that his best friend is dying in the hallway doesn't seem like the way to go. He fights with himself not to move any faster than normal, so he won’t spook Ren into investigating or wanting to stick around. But something about him must seem off anyway, because when he comes back into the living room, Ren gives him a weird look, like he's just been kicked off a cliff.
Danny forces a smile, not sure how else to start off. "Jackson came by, and I have to-"
"Be his puppy?" Ren shakes his head and grabs his keys off the coffee table, standing up. "Why do I always believe it when you say there's nothing between you two?"
"Because there's nothing between us? And you should trust me?" It sounds like Ren is two seconds away from dumping him, and why he even bothers defending himself, Danny doesn't know. Saving face, maybe. Clinging to an ideal, maybe. It was hard enough to find a guy to date in Beacon Hills, much less someone he actually liked and who wasn't afraid to be out with him. It doesn't seem fair to just let it go so easily. But he can't find a damn to give right now, and Ren isn't worth Jackson’s life. Not much is.
"Sure. Every guy chooses his douchebag friend over sex." Ren stalks out into the hallway and Danny is quick after him to make sure he doesn't turn for the front door or see Jackson out of the corner of his eye.
"Hey, he’s not a douchebag."
"Yeah, keep telling yourself that. You know, Danny, just one time I'd like for you to hang out with me without mentioning him or talking to me about your problems with him or asking me what I think something he said or did means. I'm dating you, not you plus him." Ren's rough opening the kitchen door, shoulders knotted tight. "And now maybe I'm not even dating you."
It might catch up to him later, but right now it doesn't faze Danny that he's probably just been walked out on, because as soon as Ren's profile disappears from the windows, he's staggering back out toward the front door, heart thudding. He doesn't want to find Jackson unconscious or worse, dead-
But Jackson just follows his approach with a shallow glare, melted over in the same spot where Danny left him. "Told you I hated that guy."
"I know," Danny frowns, relieved but still stunned in confusion. "Now tell me what the hell happened and why I can't take you to the hospital? I'm two seconds away from hauling you there anyway, fuck what you say."
"Where's your family?"
"I told you yesterday, they were going to Portland for the weekend. Stop stalling."
"You won't believe me."
"Should I be offended that my best friend doesn't trust me anymore? What's been up with you, lately? Why won't you tell me what's going on? What happened at the video store? And school that night?" Danny shakes his head. "I can't help you if you won't let me, Jackson."
Jackson shuts his eyes, taking a phlegmy breath. He seems even worse now than he did propped up on the doorframe, and Danny isn't sure why they're still here, why he's just standing around, watching Jackson die. They could’ve been halfway to the hospital by now.
"I'm a second away now."
Jackson grunts. "...There are werewolves, all right? Werewolves- in Beacon Hills."
Danny makes an aggravated sound, moving to slam the front door shut, which had just been hanging open for anyone to look inside, since Jackson staggered in. He's pissed, way beyond pissed. This is so much more than just one lie. Jackson's been cagey for weeks now, and Danny's tired. Danny wants to break it off with him, too. He's done. "Werewolves? Do you really expect me to believe that?"
Jackson's eyes fly open. "I'm not lying!" he barks, followed close by a sharp frown as he sinks down a little farther on the table. "-I'm not. Everything- everything is about them! If you’d just- listen to me, I can explain everything. You know the Hales?"
Danny crosses his arms over his chest, but humors Jackson with a nod, urging him on, however disbelieving. He can't wait to hear this.
"They're all werewolves. And the Argents? Werewolf hunters." Jackson can hardly get a hold of his jacket collar to pull it back, so Danny sighs and comes forward to do it for him. "And that... That’s a werewolf bite. Derek Hale bit me."
"The guy who all the papers say is a murderer bit you?" Danny's tentative stretching his t-shirt away from the wound, murmurs an apology when it sticks and Jackson shivers through the grind of his teeth. It really does look like something big got a hold of him, bigger than a dog, and more purposeful. There are no other bites or scratches that Danny can see. It's a clean, calculated bite, though Jackson is still bleeding out. A- werewolf bite?
"So..."
"So what?"
"So if he bit you, and he's a werewolf," Danny looks over at him, "does that mean you're a werewolf too, now?" His fingers are gentle touching around the wound, but even still-
Jackson shuts his eyes again, jerking his head in a choked nod. "...If I- don't die from it."
"Die?" Danny pushes away from the table and goes for his keys on the hook, "No way am I just sitting here and watching you die. This is ridiculous. Come on, I'm taking you to the hospital."
"No!" Jackson has the sheer will enough to shove Danny back when he tries to get his hands around him, wobbling off the table and putting a few feet between them, though he clings to the wall for support, dragging it with blood. Danny flinches toward him.
"No!" Jackson shakes, "I told you no! I'll heal. I'll heal soon. If...I'm in the hospital and I heal so fast, they'll want to do tests on me. ...They'll, they'll turn me into a lab rat."
Danny raises his hands in defeat. "Okay, Jackson-"
"No, I, I need to know you won't take me to the hospital-! Promise me-"
This is fucking ridiculous! But Danny can't do anything for him if he chases him off. He'll say whatever he wants him to, to keep Jackson here. "I promise. Jackson, I promise."
It's like Jackson was holding out for just those words, in just that tone, because as soon as Danny says them, he goes to his knees, and Danny can barely pitch forward in time to keep him from smashing his face into the hardwood floor.
"Whoa. Whoa," Danny whispers, collapsing beneath his weight, one hand cradled around Jackson's chest, the other pressing Jackson's face into his shoulder, his slow, haggard breath shivering against Danny's neck.
"...I got you."
^
Danny wants to put Jackson in the back of his mom's old junker and drive him to the hospital, but something about the way Jackson was so adamant about everything overwhelms him with doubt. If Jackson was telling the truth, the doctors will dissect him like an animal when they find out. They'll cage him up, never let him leave.
And if he was lying- the whole thing is too weird to be a lie. Isn't it? Danny never heard Jackson talk about werewolves before. He's never been into that kind of stuff.
So he just carries Jackson upstairs to his room, every step a jab at how ignorant he's probably being. They should go to the hospital. He should take him to the hospital. Jackson will die and it will be all Danny's fault.
^
He gets Jackson out of his wrecked shirt and jacket, most of the blood wiped off him, and the bite bandaged up, before Jackson comes around, mumbling words through a thick, cotton mouth.
"...time is it?" is the first thing Danny can make out. He looks over at the clock, though he already knows what time it is. He paced through almost every minute of the last two hours, had his cell keyed up at 9-1-1 too many times to count. Nearly midnight.
"11:50."
"’m I healing?"
Danny sighs. "Yeah. Just...like you said. It's actually pretty cool." He'd been cleaning the wound when he'd noticed the crackling, and he’d watch it for a little while, saw the snap of the tendons growing back in place and the pooling blood. It'd been horrific and amazing, and the most reassuring thing Danny had probably ever seen in his life. He'd been so glad to see it. "…You can even hear it, if you lean in close."
Jackson turns his head to the side to look at it, and Danny fights back the urge to still him, not let him strain himself. They've always been close, but that's not the kind of friendship they have. They've also never been in a situation like this, so maybe Jackson would forgive him overreacting. Just once. Jackson didn't have to see what Danny did, how hard it was to watch Jackson seizing up on his bed, how much Danny would've blamed himself if he hadn't pulled through.
Jackson smiles, and Danny suddenly has the profound itch to punch it off his face. "I did it…"
"You did it? You did what? You're unbelievable! Do you realize that?" He springs up, starts pacing around again, this time in rage. "You almost died, Jackson. What if you'd just collapsed somewhere out on the road- if someone hit you? How did you even get here in the first place? And where’s Derek Hale? If he did this to you, why didn't he help you through it? Why do you do these things to yourself?"
"First of all," Jackson grits, the veins in his neck tight, "I drove."
"And that’s somehow better? You could've killed someone else, too."
"Second, he tried to make me stay, but I left anyway."
Why doesn't that surprise Danny? "Because you thought you could do it all on your own. Like usual."
Jackson looks at him in shock. And right now, Danny can't even get mad at him for that, for always forgetting how well they know each other. Jackson hates himself enough to believe everyone else is just using him until they can leave him, and it's been a long road to prove to him that Danny isn't like that. Even still, there are moments like this where Jackson gets suspicious and brittle. Just once Danny would like to go a day without being treated like he's an enemy.
He’s bitter. Doesn’t he have a right to be?
Is he supposed to feel lucky that Jackson came to him, of all people? Is that supposed to prove something? Sometimes Jackson just makes it so hard to feel grateful for their friendship, and Danny hates that he hates that about him. But it shouldn't feel like work as much as it does. It’s become a relief lately, when Jackson goes off wherever and is someone else’s problem for an hour, and Danny can't figure out how to go back and fix it.
"No, I just." Jackson sits up, words strangling out of his throat in frustration, "I just- wanted... I can't trust him. He did it, and instead of being great, all I could think about was that I, I had to get out of there. He looked like he was insane, Danny, I just-"
"So you came here. To me." To clean it up.
Jackson glances down at the bite mark again, makes like he's inspecting it, but Danny knows he's just embarrassed to admit it. That he needs anybody. Even one time. If Jackson said it even one time, Danny would consider it all worth it. I need you.
But neither of them say things like that to each other. Why start now?
"I...can't go anywhere else, Danny."
Something looses in Danny's chest. That was close enough.
"I'm kind of flattered, actually," he says after a minute, just to lighten them both up. Jackson snorts. "No, really. Of everyone in Beacon Hills, you chose my house to die in. Apology accepted."
"Yeah, well...I'm sorry." Jackson can't look him in the eyes. "About this. I didn't plan for it to be like this. I thought- I thought it would go differently."
"You don't have to apologize." Danny sits back on the bed, propping an arm on Jackson's good shoulder. His skin is still a little hot, and he pulls a face, but he has enough strength and sarcasm to shrug Danny off, which is a good sign.
Danny smirks. "So...what happens next, Teen Wolf?"
HEART BREAKER
RATING: PG
LENGTH: 4000 words
ORIGINAL POST DATE: 07-16-12
SUMMARY: Danny said he didn't watch Jackson's video...but he really did.
WARNINGS: blood
“Hey, Danny. What are the chances of seeing you here? Oh, what're you reading? Giants, Monsters and Dragons,” Stiles paused, and his silence bred in Danny a sinking feeling that spread like quick-working virus, the same way it'd probably just hit Stiles. “…An Encyclopedia of Folklore, Legend and Myth. Well, that answers that question.”
Danny rolled his eyes. “Go away, Stiles.”
“Yeah, sure. But I need to ask you something first.”
He didn’t bother looking up at him. “The answer’s still 'no.'”
“I appreciate your consistency. But it’s not about that.”
Danny turned the page he was on, though he hadn’t even read the last half of it, still not looking up at Stiles. “Does this have anything to do with Scott being a werewolf or my best friend turning into Godzilla?”
He did, however, look up in time to catch Stiles’s mouth fall almost to the floor.
“You guys aren’t really quiet, Stiles. I sit right behind you in Chem.”
Stiles snorted and glanced around the library, like that was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard and he wanted someone to laugh about it with.
Except no one else was laughing.
“Oh come on,” he said after a second, “we’re, like, ninj-”
“No,” Danny shook his head.
“Not even a litt-”
“Not even any.”
Stiles pursed his lips, head swaying side to side in a sluggish, considering shake. “…Maybe we could tone it down a few notches.”
“Yeah, who do you think covers for you when people start asking questions? I keep telling them you’re just talking about mmorpg characters, but eventually someone else is gonna figure it out.”
“Okay, so we underestimated you.”
“Big time,” Danny muttered, turning another page he hadn’t read.
“Okay, so we underestimated you big time. Now, considering your reading material, can I ask you a fav-”
“It’s about Jackson’s video.”
Stiles squinted down at him, tongue lagging out the corner of his mouth. “…Again, underestimated you. Big time.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, well, I was kind of gonna ask about Jackson's parents, but since you brought that up... I know Scott asked you about it the other day, but you didn’t really tell him anything.”
“He didn’t get my ID back.” Danny stuck his finger in the book to mark his place and shut it, hoarding it up under his arms on the table. “And you think I’d tell you something-why?”
“I really don’t. But they say insanity’s doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results, and I’m no stranger to insanity. So…did you watch it before your tablet got stolen?”
“No.”
Stiles deflated.
Danny didn’t know what possessed him to open his mouth again, after that. He could’ve just let that be the end of it and watched Stiles slug off somewhere in dejection, kept it all to himself and waited Jackson out, like he usually did. But Stiles obviously knew something-maybe something that would help Danny help Jackson, or at least just…fill in some of the missing pieces. And if talking was the only way to get Stiles to talk back, then he’d more than gladly sacrifice whatever trust points he had left after going to Matt with the footage, in the first place.
Besides, he was supposed to meet Jackson here twenty minutes ago, and Jackson still hadn’t shown. Keeping his secret wasn’t really high on Danny’s priority list right now, especially since it was starting to feel like every minute spent reading a book or waiting and wondering was another minute wasted.
“…I watched it after.”
Stiles’s hands shot up in excitement. “What-how?!”
Danny waited a second for the rest of the library to stop giving Stiles the evil eye, before he came back with an answer, “You know about my police record, but that’s just the stuff I got caught for.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’ve been around the block. I know not to make rookie mistakes. What’s the most rookie mistake anyone can make?”
“Choosing a Mac over a PC?”
…Seriously?
Danny sighed. “Not backing things up.”
“Yeah, that is pretty-wait, so you’re saying you have a copy of the video?” Almost like his brain was ahead of his body, Stiles tripped over into the chair opposite Danny at the table, book bag and all, so fast it rocked up onto its side for a second before righting back, his hands scrambling uselessly at the tabletop.
Again, Danny found himself waiting a second for everything to calm back down.
Sometimes, it really took it out of him just watching Stiles move.
“Yeah. I back up everything important on my flash drive and my email, in case something happens to my tablet.” And maybe that last part came out a little strained, but he was still pissed off about it. It was a brand new tablet, and insurance wasn’t going to cover even half of the busted lock on his car or the bills from the night’s stay at the hospital. Not to mention his parents weren’t going to be letting him off the hook anytime soon for sneaking into a club underage. So forget leaving the house for anything other than school and practice, much less trying to get a new tablet. “And I had my flash drive on me that night at the club, on my key ring. So it wasn’t jacked with my tablet.”
“And when you say you back up everything important, that includes Jackson’s video.”
He nodded. “That includes Jackson’s video.”
“And you watched it.”
“I wasn’t going to,” Danny said with conviction because he really wasn’t, and he needed to say it out loud to someone, if not Jackson. Even now he kind of wished he hadn’t watched it because it just meant he knew how big the secret was that Jackson was hiding from him, and it didn’t make him feel good that Jackson hadn’t come to him about it. Or felt like he couldn’t, for some reason. But somehow Stiles and Scott knew. They knew more than he did, and Jackson hated them. So what did that say about his and Danny’s friendship? “But when Scott showed up at the club and then the hospital and was really, really weird about what was on it and asking me if Jackson wanted to kill me…” He frowned. “I thought I should check it out. So I watched it last night.”
“What was on it?”
“No.”
“What?”
“I said no. If I’m gonna tell you what’s on it, you’re gonna have to tell me what’s really going on.”
“Okay, and I will. But after you tell me what you saw. Good deal?”
Danny just stared at him.
“No good deal. Okay, I can respect that.” Stiles chewed his thumb a second, thinking, foot thumping at the floor under the table. “Brief summary, then. Me and Scott went out that night they found the half of Laura Hale’s body in the woods. Big, bad Alpha werewolf bit Scott. Totally my fault, totally awesome. Suddenly, he’s Super Scott-”
“That’s why Scott’s so much better at lacrosse now?”
“Yeah. Heightened senses, super strength, no more asthma, the whole nine yards. Anyway, he and I had to find out who this Alpha was, so Scott could try to kill him and get magically cured. Somehow Jackson found out about it and wanted in on it, like the psycho, perfectionist that he-”
Danny gave him an unimpressed look.
“Okay, not that important. You’re right, good call. So Jackson goes trolling around for the Alpha to bite him, but no luck. Next thing you know, we’ve got a showdown at Little Hale House between the Hales and Allison’s family- by the way, the Argents? Yeah, werewolf hunters. And Peter Hale was the Alpha, also by the way.” Stiles stopped a second to take a breath, let his brain catch up to his mouth. “Peter kills Kate Argent to avenge the death of his family a few years ago - I’m sure you read about the whole arson thing in the papers - and then his nephew, Derek Hale, aka ‘pretty much the biggest, most homicidal asshole on the planet,’ or, to you, ‘my cousin, Miguel,’ kills him and becomes the new Alpha. Jackson goes to him and gets the bite, but the bite goes wrong. Now he’s a snake…man. Person. Thing. I don’t really know if he has a gender.”
All that would’ve been a lot to take in at once…if Danny hadn’t known seventy percent of it already. At least he had the whole story now.
“…He didn’t turn into a wolf.”
“Unless wolves have scales and tails and…venom that paralyzes you.” Stiles grimaced, shoulders bunching up. He rubbed gingerly at the back of his neck, and Danny’s mouth turned down in painful sympathy. He had to will his own hand back, even, or he’d have been doing the same.
So…that had really been Jackson, after all.
Are you sure everything’s okay between you and Jackson? You didn’t do anything to make him angry? On a scale of one to ten, one being kind of irritated and ten wanting to kill you violently…
Now it made sense.
At least he’d gotten Danny’s ex, too. Jackson’d never liked him, and for once Danny was actually happy about that.
“Scott told me Derek said sometimes the shape you take represents who you are. So Jackson’s a snake. No shock there.” It was delayed, like it took him a second to remember who he was talking to, but at least Stiles had the presence of mind to flinch unprovoked this time. “Just curious, how much of that did you already know?”
“A lot. Does this thing have a name? I’m not having any luck with these.”
Stiles looked over at the huge stack of books by Danny’s elbow, all of them myth, legend or creature-related and all of them pretty useless so far. Danny would’ve gotten better results burning them.
“It’s called a kanima,” Stiles said. “I couldn’t find much about it online. But Allison’s grandfather has this thing called a beastiary-there was a lot more in it. So far what we know is that it supposedly goes after murderers and it doesn’t like its reflection, which is kind of hard to believe with Jackson, right?”
Silence.
“Yeahhh. Also, it apparently has deep-seated emotional issues and a master that controls it. So Jackson has no idea what he’s doing when he’s…scalin’ out. With the scales.”
“I guess that explains why he was acting so weird earlier, when I tried to talk to him. And the footage being edited out, and the person in the video.”
“What, person? What? Seriously? Did you get a good look at him? Uh-her?”
“No. They kept out of the frame.” Danny took in a shallow breath, chest tight. “Then he’s killing people?”
Stiles couldn’t bring himself to answer for a long minute; that was enough confirmation for Danny.
Too much confirmation.
“If it helps, I think it’s just murderers and really evil people? He’s sort of a vigilante, when you think about it. Like Batman.”
“He was covered in blood in the video,” Danny said, watching the way the color dragged out of Stiles’s face the same as his mouth dragged open, freckles and moles startlingly dark all of a sudden, tongue nervous wetting his lips.
It was a lot better than Danny’d handled it. Then again, he’d seen the footage firsthand.
He couldn’t get all the way through it the first few times he’d tried, and even fast-forwarding it had made his stomach roll. The images had been seared into his brain forever. Jackson’s body cracking up on itself, his bones twisting until they broke, his skin sheathing in scales, nails growing to claws, teeth like saw blades, eyes cold and sharp. It hadn’t been him anymore, in the end. There wasn’t any part of Jackson in that thing, and Danny guessed it made sense. Especially if he was being controlled.
And the blood… Jackson shuffling back into his room hours later, himself again but somehow still not, dropping dead on the end of his bed and just watching the blood dripping off his hands like he wasn’t even seeing it.
“The person-” master? “-must’ve cleaned it up. Or made him.” It shocked Danny, how dry his voice had become.
“…So he wouldn’t know,” Stiles mused out loud.
“Who’s he killed?”
“What?”
“Do I have to repeat myself?” He really didn’t want to.
“Uh, well,” Stiles started, counting off on his fingers, “there’s the mechanic at Good Gears Co and one of the hunters. Isaac Lahey’s dad, we’re pretty sure, too. Not to mention the really great job he did paralyzing the both of us…that’s, like, what, two half-deaths right there. So four? Maybe-probably more. Definitely…more.”
“There has to be a pattern.”
“Yeah, his master’s making him kill murderers.”
“Not just that. Think about it. Has your dad ever shot someone?”
“Yeah. Product of the job.”
“He’s not getting threatened. If Allison’s parents are hunters, chances are they’re murderers, too. Her grandfather?”
“Scott said he saw the kanima leave him alone. And-” Stiles heaved a sigh of an epiphany. “Scott saw him kill a werewolf.”
“There has to be another connection.” Danny backed his chair out and stood up, slinging his bag over his shoulder. “Maybe try and ask your dad? See what else he knows or if there’ve been any other murders here, the last few weeks.”
“Snooping’s always on my to-do list, so consider it as good as done. And you’re going…?”
“To talk to Jackson. He was supposed to meet me here after he talked to Mr. Webb about his paper.”
“Talk to Jackson?!” Stiles barked, prompting people to give him the evil eye again. He waved awkwardly and tried to fold himself up invisible in his seat, voice hushed down to a whisper, but his expression still loud, “Why? You know he’s kind of on a murder kick lately. Just a thought.”
“You’re underestimating me again.”
“No, no…just trying out this whole new hobby of being scared for humanity.” Stiles wiped a hand over his face. “But he’ll just get angry and play dumb.”
“So he gets angry,” Danny shrugged. It wasn’t like that’d be anything new with them. “At least it’ll be at me.”
Stiles conceded the point with a resigned nod, like he’d be doing the exact same thing if he had to.
Maybe he’d already had to.
“Well, try to stay in plain sight, at least,” he said, as good advice as any. “And if he starts turning green and, you know, hulking out, get the hell outta there.”
^
Danny jumped a little when he opened the library door and found Jackson standing there in his way, head cocked to one side, broad smile on his face.
It had to be a testament to how good of friends they were because Danny could immediately tell that something was off. He could just feel it in the air between them.
He returned Jackson’s smile, but reluctantly, heart struggling to come down off the shock. “Hey. Where were you?”
“Got held up with Mr. Webb on my paper. Sorry about earlier, I don’t know what got into me.”
What got into me.
“It’s cool.”
“You said you wanted to talk? Let’s go somewhere.”
“Sure?”
Danny followed a step or two behind him, hand tight around the strap of his bag.
Maybe the act was good enough to fool everyone else or maybe everyone else just didn’t care, but Danny didn’t buy it for a second. Even the way Jackson was carrying himself was off, the way he was walking, just that one millimeter wrong that threw the whole picture out of whack enough for Danny to notice. So he was-he was being controlled right now? Without any of the kanima stuff? Was he going to go murder someone? Coming back from it? Mr. Webb…?
Him?
Despite his better judgment and Stiles’s advice, Danny went where Jackson led, walked down the hall and through the front doors, across the parking lot to Jackson’s Porsche, bright in the daylight. There were a few people milling around outside with lunches or goofing off on their free period, but not enough to be comforting, and Danny’s heart started to pick up again, in spite of him.
It was as if Jackson could hear it, too, because he turned around to give Danny another smile, like he knew he needed reassuring.
He did.
But this was Jackson.
This was his best friend.
Kanima or not, master or not, scared or not, Jackson still had to be in there somewhere. Danny couldn’t just write him off, turn and run-
He couldn’t just leave him.
Jackson took his keys out and popped the locks with his fob, “Get in.” He circled around to the driver’s side.
Danny stopped short in front of the headlights, hand still tight around his bag strap.
“Something wrong?” Jackson smiled again, and Danny’s heart thudded, body tingling with the memory of the paralysis. He tried his best to school the fear off his face, though, for Jackson’s sake. In case-
He shifted around to the passenger door, but he didn’t go to get in. He just cast a look at Jackson over the car roof, staring at him waiting for he didn’t know what, until Jackson shrugged and pulled his door open to climb in without him, like it was all so normal. The car swayed under the weight.
Huffing at his wild paranoia, Danny popped his own door open and slung his bag in ahead of him, so at least that’d be between them.
He left the door open when he went to sit, too, only a crack, as though he wanted the breeze or had to be somewhere soon, but Jackson reached across him after a second and shut it for him, that smile still splitting his face.
“What’d you want to talk about?” he said, melting back in his seat, slinging a casual arm around behind Danny’s headrest.
Danny was quiet a minute.
Then, “Who are you?”
Jackson’s brows knitted together. “What?”
“You’re not Jackson right now.”
“What’re you even talking about? Of course I’m-”
Danny scowled at him. “I think I know my best friend better than that.”
There was a long, tense stare before Jackson ducked his head, chuckling.
“Is something funny?”
“What’re you gonna do, Danny?”
“What?”
“To stop me? What,” he raised his head, eyes now slit like a snake’s, words enunciated sharp through his teeth, “are you gonna do?”
Danny flinched.
“That’s right,” Jackson pouted comically. “You’re not going to do anything. See, it’d be one thing to disarm someone if they had a gun or a knife to Jackson’s head, but the thing is, I have his head. It’s like the ultimate shield. If you want to stop me, you’ll either have to find me or kill him. And we both know you’d never do anything to purposefully hurt Jackson, don’t we, Danny?”
Behind Danny’s head, the headrest ripped under Jackson’s claws, and Danny lurched forward too fast to stop himself, sparking Jackson to laugh again.
Danny grounded his hand on the dash and turned a hard look at him, like that would shut him up.
Normally, it would have.
“So we’re going to keep this between us.” Jackson’s hand came around from behind the seat and cupped Danny’s shoulder, bunching up tight in his sleeve. He could feel the graze of Jackson’s claws through the fabric, this close to tearing into him.
They stayed like that for a long second, just looking at each other, neither saying anything, Danny’s heartbeat pounding in his head.
And then Jackson had Danny easily yanked over his bag and the shallow console between them. Danny snorted out the sudden scrape of pain up his side, teeth grit tight, his hands everywhere, trying to get a grip.
Jackson dragged him in even closer, until Danny was riding up against his chest, to whisper, “You’re not a murderer, are you, Danny? Well, it doesn’t matter anymore, anyway. I’d hate, for Jackson’s sake, to have to make him kill you. I don’t think he could live with himself after that.”
With a grunt, Danny grabbed Jackson’s hand and forced it off so hard his sleeve went with it, tore right down the seam. He reeled back into his seat, goosebumps pocking up his arms.
There was something violent to the air in the car, now.
Jackson just looked down at the fabric and smirked, running the shreds between his fingers. Almost affectionately. “I like you, Danny. Jackson likes you, too. You’re not a stupid guy. So I know when I tell you to do something, you’ll be smart and do it, won’t you?”
Danny didn’t waste any time snatching up Jackson’s collar and jostling him around, more forcefully than he meant to. “Jackson! Wake up! Wake up! It’s Danny!”
Jackson got one hand around Danny’s wrist, soft and desperate, and Danny slowed up a second, thinking maybe he’d come back to himself. But then Jackson’s other hand was at Danny’s neck, claws pinned up against his jugular, ready to slit his throat if he moved wrong.
He didn’t let go of Jackson for a long second, just frozen there with shock, feeling the way his heartbeat thumped his throat against Jackson’s nails, fear sweating down his back. But even when he did finally uncurl his fingers and sit back numbly in his seat, Jackson’s eyes were just cold and dead on him, not satisfied or arrogant or even cruel.
He wasn’t fazed at all, good or bad.
“I forgot love and friendship make even smart people stupid…” Jackson sighed, sagging back against his own seat like he was suddenly done with the world, Danny most of all. He clicked his eyes between Danny and the door, and the message was clear. “I don’t really have anything else to say to you right now.”
Danny didn’t have anything else to say, either. Not to whoever was controlling Jackson, at least. And no matter what, he couldn’t do anything to them without hurting Jackson. He didn’t know if there was anything he could do, anyway, even if he did know who to go after.
There’d been very few things in his life that he couldn’t do anything about, but this had to be one of the worst. If not the worst.
Damn if he wouldn’t try, though.
He pushed the door handle down enough that the door came away from the frame, but he couldn’t make himself open it all the way. There was some part of him that thought, even if Jackson wasn’t himself right now, maybe he was still inside there somewhere, looking out at him, listening to his voice; if he could see or hear Danny, even subconsciously, at least that was something. It might be reassuring or fortifying or just enough to overcome this ‘master’ and bring him back. Every second was potential, and if not now, maybe Danny just had to wait a little bit longer. It might not be this second, but the next one, or the next one, or the next one that Jackson came back-
He didn’t want to leave him alone like this. Jackson was worth all the time Danny had to give, and he couldn’t make himself walk away. Even if right now the hope was more a placebo than anything, and he was just wasting time better spent trying something else.
“You’re a good friend, Danny,” Jackson drawled, body still slack with boredom, fingers still crawling with the shreds of Danny’s shirt sleeve. He grinned though, lazily, one last time. “I hope you’ll do what’s best for him.”
“I will,” Danny grit out of spite, and, in a surge of helpless rage, he was shoving out of the car and slamming the door so fast it caught the edge of his bag, expression gutted into a scowl. His breath tore out of him ragged, he hadn’t even realized how cramped his chest was with anxiety, and his skin was hot. He picked angrily at the frayed sleeve seam of his shirt as he stalked back to the school entrance, like he’d lost an arm instead.
He needed to find Scott and Stiles again.
TO SPITE THE FACE
RATING: PG
LENGTH: 1800 words
ORIGINAL POST DATE: 07-08-12
SUMMARY: Jackson shows up naked and confused in town, after escaping the prisoner transport.
WARNINGS: mentions of nudity?
NOTES: Scanner codes used are from here (hopefully they're accurate, but ah well.)
“Sheriff? Unit One, you there?” crackled over the radio on his shoulder suddenly, startling both him and Mr. Whittemore, who’d stopped back in to fill out the Missing Persons claim on his son.
Stilinski unhooked it and pressed it close to his mouth, gruffing out a short “what?” People knew better than to mess around on his frequency, calling in crap. Especially lately, with all the messes around town. It sounded like one of the new guys, too. Rodrigo or something. This had better have been good. This had better have been him saying they’d caught the perp from The Jungle scene.
“We’ve been getting in calls of…a 314 downtown. A male streaker, by the sound of it?”
“A streaker?” Stilinski took his finger off the transmitter to curse, shaking his head. Awe hell, just what they needed right now, another person running around town without clothes on. As if that Lydia Martin girl wasn’t lesson enough. Now he had people poisoning people by the half dozen, not to mention the Lahey case and Jackson Whittemore missing…and he’d have to deal with someone’s cold dick on top of it all.
He took a deep breath. “I know you’re green, Rodrigo, but you really should know better than to call my frequency with 314s. Come on, you know what to do, son. Pick him up and bring him in.”
“That’s the thing, it doesn’t seem like it’s a run-of-the-mill 314. It’s a-the calls are saying it looks like a boy. And that he seems like he’s distressed or confused or something. Possibly even a 261. It’s too dark for anyone to get a good make on him, dispatch said. It was hard to even tell what it was at first. People were calling in all kinds of weird things…”
Mr. Whittemore was at the edge of his seat in a second, clipboard thrown back on Stilinski’s desk, report half filled in.
“He’s running down the backstreets. Dispatch said the way the calls are lining up, he’s making his way toward your neck of town. I’m going to try and head him off on Baker.”
“Say again, a boy? How old?”
“Yeah. Maybe early teens. Fifteen, sixteen at the most. It’s a possible on your 10-57.”
“10-57? What’s that?” Mr. Whittemore said.
Stilinski held up a hand to silence him back a second, “Have you intercepted him yet?”
“I’m turning onto Baker now. I don’t see…okay, there he is. There he is. I have him in my lights now,” Rodrigo said, and there was the muffled blip of the sirens going off, just two short pops to get the boy’s attention. “He’s-he’s slowing down some. Looks Caucasian, uh, medium build, average height, short, dirty blond hair.”
Mr. Whittemore sprung out of his chair.
Stilinski followed fast. “Get him picked up before anyone else gets an eye full and bring him in asap.”
^
Despite the closed door and distance, he could hear them all perfectly, standing down the hall, whispering about him like his parents did sometimes, when he did things they thought were “a direct result of his being adopted” or things they “needed to sit down and discuss with him at the right time,” but then never actually did. He threw the police blanket down on Sheriff Stilinski’s office couch and started to yank on the stale, cheap uniform he’d been given, still shaking with rage at what McCall and Stiles had put him through. He didn’t know what those two assfaces had been so damn on about. A danger to people? Killing people? His best friend? He hadn’t killed anyone. He hadn’t done any of that- nothing had even happened, not on the full moon, not after the game, not in some mechanic’s office or at the school pool, nothing! He would know! He had proof!
Besides, they’d tested him already. It couldn’t be him, Derek had said so. He’d been paralyzed, Lydia hadn’t. She was the kanima. Snakes can’t be poisoned with their own venom-Derek had said that. It had to be Lydia! There was something messed up about her. Peter's attack hadn't done anything to her- she had to be the kanima! It was the only explanation that made sense.
“-the hell even happened?” Sheriff Stilinski asked, sounding beat to shit.
“I don’t know…it was like he didn’t even know what was going on until I got him into the back of the car, and then he flipped out on me,” the cop who’d brought him in said in a real put-out voice, like it was all Jackson’s fault he was out there in the middle of the street, running around naked. He couldn’t even remember getting there.
If anyone was to blame, it was McCall and Stiles. They’d probably done something to him…drugged him and dropped him out in some alley, maybe to get him back for ditching them and Lydia the other night. Or just for the hell of it. He knew they weren’t above that kind of shit.
“I get him covered up nice with the blanket, get back in the car, and next thing I know, bam! He started screaming and banging on the cage, telling me to stop the car and let him out.”
“Of course he did!” Jackson's father barked, heartbeat picking up. “He was scared. Who knows what he’s been through in the last twenty-four hours? He’s a teenage boy. What do you think you’d do if you were in his situation?”
The cop sighed. “I'm sorry, sir. I...I don’t know. He calmed down a little when I told him I was bringing him here, but.” There was the sound of heels shifting on the floor nervously, sweat beading. “...Sir, does your son have a history of mental illness? He was legitimately out of it when I first got to him.”
“Mental illness? Are you seriously going to talk to me about my son like that?” his father said, bewildered. The fabric of his suit coat was scratching and stretching in his excitement, grating up Jackson's spine. He never talked with his hands, not even when he was really worked up. And somehow it surprised Jackson, him this emotional about him disappearing for one night. “I think I’d know if my own son was prone to bouts of running around town naked.”
“Rodrigo, maybe you better get back to your beat,” Sheriff Stilinski said quietly, even though it was as good as a warning. “You did fine.”
Jackson could hear the sharp pat on the back and Rodrigo nod, then swallow, his boots clicking as he turned and walked off. Somewhere farther on, the front door opened and shut.
Jackson set his jaw, pulling the pants zipper up. He wasn’t mental. He hadn’t done anything wrong. It was all McCall and Stiles’s fault! They were the ones who should've been down here right now, getting in trouble for what they’d done to him. He was naked in the back of a cop car, for chrissake! He’d been running around town naked! There was no telling how many people saw him making a complete fool of himself-
He was going to get them back so bad they’d wish he’d never gotten loose.
“-m sorry about that,” Sheriff Stilinski said on a long exhale. “He’s new…he hasn’t learned all the, ah, etiquette that goes into this job. But we’ll get to the bottom of this, Mr. Whittemore. I’m sure Jackson’ll be able to fill in some of the blanks, once he’s gotten dressed and had a second to calm down.”
“He’s not crazy. Something happened to him.”
“I believe you. And we’ll find out what. It might just take a minute for everyone to get their heads on straight around here.”
His dad made an offended noise, but he didn’t argue.
He probably would’ve won, if he had. Sued this half-assed police station for all it was worth. Did they even do anything around here? They sure as hell weren’t stopping people from getting murdered or kidnapped.
And suddenly there was no more conversation, just dead quiet and then footsteps coming down the hall, louder and more painful in Jackson's ears as they got closer, digging into his skull. They stopped short right outside the office door. Jackson couldn’t make out either his father or the sheriff through the shut blinds, but he could smell them. Hear them. Feel the anger and concern vibrating through the wood of the door.
Sheriff Stilinski’s cuffs jangled in their holster when he raised a hand to knock. “Son, you okay in there?”
“I’m decent,” he said after he’d shrugged on the jacket and zipped it up, going over to get the door for them.
His father was first into the room, despite that Sheriff Stilinski was closer, and he startled Jackson back, putting his hands on his shoulders to guide him toward the sofa and sit him down, even though Jackson didn’t really feel like it. He went without a fight though, rolling his eyes, half expecting his dad to sit down next to him and smother him. But he didn’t. He just propped himself against the windowsill, arms crossed, looking completely unimpressed with the whole situation, but still somehow intent on Jackson.
Sheriff Stilinski took a seat on the corner of his desk, waiting to give them all a second’s pause before he opened his mouth. It was sort of amazing he had that kind of self-control, considering his son couldn’t ever keep his shut.
“Jackson…long time, no see. Do you remember anything about what you were doing out there? What happened?”
“What happened?” He sat forward in his seat, “I was kidnapped.”
“Kidnapped, all right,” Sheriff Stilinski nodded. “That’s a start. Did you get a good look at who it was? Any identifying marks or names, any thing we can go on? Did it have anything to do with you changing your statement on the Lahey case? Is someone threatening you?”
“No. It has nothing to do with that,” he spit. “But it has everything to do with Scott and Stiles.”
Sheriff Stilinski’s brow furrowed, heart thudding sharply. His eyes turned hard against Jackson, like he thought he was lying to him again. Fat chance this time. “…What’d you say? Scott and Sti-my Stiles?”
“You heard me. Your son and his little friend kidnapped me. They chained me up in your prison transport van. What kind of a place are you running around here? Did you even realize it was missing? Who else knows how to get a hold of one of those but Stiles? Huh? I got free somehow and next thing I know, I’m completely naked and I’ve been manhandled into the back of one of your cars, like some crook,” Jackson grit through his teeth. His dad put a hand to his shoulder again to calm him down. But he didn’t want to be calm. He’d been calm enough already, considering what they did to him. They deserved every last thing that was coming to them. “I want a restraining order on them-now.”