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escritoireazulTitle: Another Confession to Make
Author: escritoireazul
Written for:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
carlyinrome who basically made my life complete by suggesting that Veruca and Lauren were cousins in a family through which lycanthropy ran. Many thanks to mari_luvs_gcfa for introducing me to "Gorgeous Nightmare."
Spoilers: Set in the nebulous future of the next year in Glee, and informed a lot by "Silly Love Songs" but not a lot of specific spoilers, though one about things they will do at this year's Regionals. /vague It's very AU from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in a lot of ways, including how lycanthropy works. It is also pretty AU for future Glee, I'm sure.
Author's note: This is a transformative work of fiction for the television shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Glee. The summary and title comes from "Gorgeous Nightmare" by Escape the Fate. Apparently, Somewhere in Time is an actual Lima club. I make no claim to realism other than its name. It is amazing how often I want to use the title "wolf woman wild" which I have, of course, already used.
Word count: 3500
Rating: 13+
Soundtrack: Because how could this not have a soundtrack? Ignore the horrible videos, I wasted all my music time trying to track down a cover of "Hungry Like the Wolf" that sounded right. This one is not perfect but close.
A couple Shy (aka T.H.C.) songs from Buffy the Vampire Slayer
"Hungry Like the Wolf" by Hole (cover)
"Gorgeous Nightmare" by Escape the Fate
Summary: I've got another confession to make / So complicated let me try to explain.
First impressions are hard to erase
It's in my mind and just won't go away
Maybe I'm playing my cards way too safe
I've gotta change (Change) (Change) (Change)
"Gorgeous Nightmare" Escape the Fate
Twenty-four hours ago, Tina Cohen-Chang did not believe in werewolves and vampires, witches and ghosts. (Don’t even try to pretend you did. Shedoesn’t didn’t believe in mindreaders either, but she still knows the truth.) Looking back on it, though -- well, no, it still doesn’t make any sense.
Of all the weird things Figgins says, no one could have known that the vampire thing would be truth.
Not that they have vampires. What they have is a family of werewolves who just might be set on biting the entire McKinley High School glee club. (That might put a stop to the slushy facials and being locked in port-a-potties and stuffed into lockers. Nothing like snarling, really snarling with fangs and all, to put a little bite into their defense.)
#
Rachel Berry does not understand why she is the only person who consistently puts glee club first. People simply have no dedication and loyalty. At least if Lauren was a vampire, she could still perform at Regionals. There is something delightfully dramatic and every so slightly melancholy about a cold and beautiful creature of the night, which would add a certain je ne sais quoi to their performance. But no, she cannot be something as ethereal and seductive as a vampire, she must be a snarling, frothing beast.
Regionals falls right in the middle of the three day full moon cycle, and somehow Rachel doesn’t believe Lauren turning into a wolf on-stage is exactly how the judges want to see the music-as-life theme interpreted.
It presents quite the challenge, though. Perhaps if they considered adding one appropriate cover song in addition to her amazing original compositions -- they worked so well last year she has written more and certainly they will use them, and the metaphor of physically transforming into an uncontrollable monster is an apt one for high school -- Rachel starts a new list in her Potential Set Lists notebook:
Songs for the Wolf Girl
1) “Werewolves of London” by Warren Zevon
2) “Bad Moon Rising” by Creedence Clearwater Revival
Surely there are more appropriate songs than that?
#
“I don’t understand,” Brittany says. “Lauren’s a puppy now?”
Santana strokes her hair, twisting it around her fingers. “She is, quite literally, a bitch.”
Brittany frowns. “She’s a mean puppy? With fangs? I don’t like mean puppies with fangs.”
#
Mercedes and Quinn start wearing crosses more regularly than they did before.
“I feel bad,” Quinn says, fingering the simple lines of the delicate one she wears. “I like Lauren.”
“Me too. Mostly.” Mercedes leans a little closer to Quinn. “I just feel safer this way. Werewolves--” She trails off, but Quinn understands.
Sam stops near them, even though he can’t quite look Quinn in the eye. “Crosses are for vampires,” he says. “Silver is for werewolves.”
Quinn’s voice is very soft. “Oh.” Then, “Thanks.”
The next day, Mercedes shows up with silver jewelry for everyone. When Quinn slips her necklace over her head, letting it fall on top of her cross, which she will not remove, she’s so glad -- so thankful, with the bite of cruelty to it -- that Lauren’s face stays perfectly blank when she realizes what they’re doing.
#
Kurt stares at his phone, eyes wide. He’s so intent he doesn’t even notice when Blaine reaches out and lightly ruffles his hair -- at first. Then he carefully fixes it and turns a sharp glare on him.
“What’s wrong?” Blaine asks, tucking himself in next to Kurt in one of the big leather chairs in the Warbler’s lounge. “With your phone,” he quickly clarifies, because obviously the hair thing was pushing it, even for a boyfriend. Especially for a boyfriend.
Kurt squints at it and then shakes his head. “I think my friends have been visiting the hot dentist again. Last time, there were Britney Spears hallucinations.” He frowns. “Shared hallucinations.”
“What is it this time?” Blaine asks.
“You really, really don’t want to know.” Kurt puts away his phone and curls one hand along Blaine’s cheek, tilting his face up for a kiss. And curled so warm and comfortable together with his boyfriend -- his boyfriend and the word lights sparks inside -- Blaine really, really doesn’t.
#
Tina likes stories that have a definite beginning, even if they fade off into vague literary allusions by the end, and this one begins with Lauren’s seventeenth birthday. She doesn’t treat it like any big thing, and in fact, when they meet up at her locker before school to surprise her with “Happy Birthday” in three part harmony with some really fine ass dance moves by Mike, mostly she glares, though if Tina looks close, she can see the smile lurking.
She also shoots down Puck when he goes in for a kiss -- that’s normal. Then they disappear for all of first period -- that’s normal too.
“Nice lip gloss,” Tina teases when she sees him on the way to second period, and he grins and winks. She’s pretty serious though. That shade of pink does really delightful things to his mouth.
That is the prequel, at least.
The story really begins when Rachel asks Lauren what they are doing to celebrate her birthday, and Lauren, voice flat, says that she is going to see Shy at Somewhere in Time. Which means nothing to Rachel, but Tina and Santana both a) know who Shy is and b) apparently love them and c) know Somewhere in Time is twenty-one and up and d) know the show’s been sold out for weeks.
“How did you get tickets?” Tina asks at the same time Santana pops off, “How the hell are you getting in? Plan to flatten all the bouncers?”
“I’m on the list.” Lauren says it flat, not like she’s bragging at all. Probably she’s not. She’s not really one to care about lists and backstage passes, which makes it all the more strange. “My cousin’s the lead singer.”
“Can you,” Santana’s voice is strangled, “get us in?”
Lauren stares at her, mouth pressed into a tight line. Tina expects her to tell Santana to fuck off -- and it’s not even a Puck thing, it’s just two badasses who clash. Frequently. And loudly -- but she shrugs instead.
“Maybe.”
(Tina’s sitting close enough to hear Santana’s muttered, She totally got laid.
That’s why she’s happy? Brittany links their pinkies together. You should be happy too.
Santana’s smile is soft for approximately a second and a half.)
“That would be awesome.” Tina bounces a little in her chair, beyond excited and unable to rein it in. (And maybe a little bit she’s making sure to cover whatever else Santana might say, because she does not want her to fuck this up.)
“You all want to go?” Lauren arches an eyebrow and sits back, crossing her arms over her chest. Tina can’t tell if she’s pleased by this or pissed off. Probably a combination of the two.
That’s how the entire glee club ends up in Somewhere in Time when the story really, truly begins.
#
There’s a bouncer waiting to let them in the backdoor. Maybe he’s a roadie. Whatever he is, it takes less than a second for Lauren to figure out he’s all twisted up around Veruca. She collects people, looks at them with her big eyes and sings them her siren song and that’s it, they’re hers forever.
(Veruca is why Lauren sings at all.
Lauren was eleven and Veruca eighteen when she got sent out to live with them for what started as a few weeks, then became the summer, and ended up being almost a year, even though Veruca spent a lot of time in Chicago and Detroit and Indianapolis instead of in Lima, Ohio. But when she was there, she’d turn the music up and dance around the living room, drawing Lauren in to sing and whirl. That’s the first time Lauren ever felt the music move in her.
Glee club is the second.
She still doesn’t know why Veruca was sent to them -- when she asked, her mother, who normally tells her everything because if you’re brave enough to ask, I can be strong enough to explain, would only say Veruca ran with a bad group of friends and that was that -- but she has never stopped being grateful. Veruca is tiny and delicate, but she was one of the people who taught Lauren all sorts of things about being a fierce woman.)
Shy is about to go on stage, but Veruca rushes up to wrap her arms around her neck and press their faces together and promise to talk to her after. She’s a whirlwind and a powerhouse in a short little package and she whips through crowds like they’re paper.
The guitars and the pianos come in first, and everyone but Tina and Santana spread out, off to do whatever it is they’re doing -- trying to sneak alcohol and if they get kicked out she is not going to save them, not even Puck -- but when Veruca starts to sing, right back they come. That is what Veruca does, with her voice and her hands on the mic, clinging like she’ll be swept away otherwise, and her body bending like she has fewer bones than anyone else.
Maybe she’s not as note perfect and powerful as Mercedes or Berry, but Veruca can teach them a thing or two about stage presence. Once you look at Veruca, you can’t look away.
Shy has a lot of new music, stuff Lauren hasn’t heard yet. She’d feel guilty about not keeping on top of it, but she’s been so busy with wrestling and school and her family and glee -- and Puck -- so she’s not actually guilty at all.
Lauren dances some, subtle little hips and shoulders and hands, because she doesn’t want to distract herself from the show, but oh, how can anyone sit still with this music rolling over them, as steady and driving as she imagines the sea?
(By the end of the first song, Puck’s right back to her, his quest for alcohol abandoned, and she lets him touch her while they dance, his hands in her hair, on her hips, curling up her sides until his thumbs brush her breasts and she can feel him hard against her ass. He traces the line of her jaw light as air, and when his fingers slip across her lips, she catches one with her teeth, gentle gentle and her tongue against the salt of his skin.)
The energy of the crowd builds and builds, washing over her like a breath, and it’s so weird, because she can smell them, perfume and sweat and cigarettes and alcohol and more. She can smell the way Brittany and Santana mix and the sour-bitter bite of jealousy when Mike dances up on Tina -- she just can’t tell from whom -- and twining through everything, Puck. She would know him anywhere, cheap laundry detergent and “spring rain” dryer sheets because his sister loves them and Axe and gasoline and guitar strings on his fingertips and metal piercings.
Her eyes snap open and Veruca is staring at her, singing at her, eyes rimmed in shadow powder and mouth so very red-black her teeth look sharp and white behind her lips and the moment stretches out into something that surely feels more important than it can ever be.
In touch with the ground
I’m on the hunt I’m after you
Scent and a sound, I’m lost and I’m found
and I’m hungry like the wolf.
"Hungry Like the Wolf" Hole (cover)
It’s not. It’s exactly that important and maybe a little more.
#
“Little sister,” she says and grips Lauren tight. “I have a story for you.”
#
Tina can’t believe she’s standing so close to Shy. She clutches her hands together and her words fill up her throat until she cannot even swallow. She’s listened to them for so long, played their music and let their lead singer’s -- let Veruca’s, oh my god, she’s standing right there close enough to touch -- voice speak for her.
Even though she’s found her own voice now, there’s something to this still, absolute adoration that burns through her right up until -- no, even after -- Veruca opens her mouth and starts talking about werewolves.
#
Veruca doesn’t want to say anything in front of anyone else -- except the band, she’s fine with the band being there, they are hers and the way she says that makes Lauren’s skin crawl -- but Lauren already knows better than that. Once one of them knows something, it is literally, in the most trite teen rom-com kind of way, only a matter of time before everyone else knows too. She may still be an immensely private person, but she has no true secrets, not after so many months sucked into the group.
She says all this in a flat voice, because no matter how she feels, it is the truth and because she’s never sure anymore if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. Veruca listens and eyes the others and when her mouth curves, she’s not smiling, she’s baring her teeth.
“Very well,” she says, and there’s a dark humor threaded through her words, “but I am not the one who will turn them on you.”
Lauren has no idea what she means by that, but there is a menace there which makes her want to reach out and grab Puck’s hand and Tina’s and Brittany’s. If she had three hands. Which she doesn’t. And she wouldn’t anyway, so she presses her fists against her thighs and stares at Veruca, who has simultaneously transformed into her adored cousin and something so much worse.
“I am a werewolf,” she says, as if she does not sound broken, as if it is something of which she is proud, “and so are you.”
#
Much later, Lauren will remember Puck bending in to whisper to her at some point, his breath warm on her ear. This is hot and Weird but... and No, just hot. When she remembers, she will be surprised but not really and it will spark something wicked deep inside in that space where the wolf curls within her, pressing against the cage of her flesh for all but three nights a month.
#
They don’t believe her. Or maybe they do. Lauren doesn’t know. Lauren doesn’t believe her, but when Veruca leans forward and says, her eyes bright, “The full moon is coming,” something unfurls deep within Lauren, stretching and yawning and claw pricks from the inside.
#
“This is weird,” Sam says, but he takes it best. He eyes Veruca speculatively, not as if he’s checking her out, but as if he’s weighing her words and the rules he knows about monsters. “How does it work?”
This is how it works:
Lycanthropy runs in their family, through Lauren’s father who died the year Veruca came to stay with them and Lauren has never given that much thought but now she feels vaguely ill. The men, they are carriers. The women, they shift. It all comes to head on the first full moon after their seventeenth birthdays. Lauren sits and stares at her hands and doesn’t even twitch when Tina leans into her from the right and Puck rubs his fingers against the back of her neck.
#
“Prove it.” Santana does a good job of snarling for someone who isn’t a werewolf. If werewolves are real. Which apparently they are supposed to be. Lauren stares at her hands, but she can’t miss the wave of malevolent energy rushing off Veruca.
“Come run with me beneath the moon, little girl,” Veruca says, her mouth wrapped around words hidden behind what she actually says.
Santana leans forward, her hands pressed flat on the table. “You’ll never be as scary as Coach Sylvester,” she snaps. It is then -- or maybe later, looking back on that moment -- that Lauren realizes Santana is protecting her. That something in Veruca’s words has actually scared her enough to push past their antagonism and into these assholes are mine damn it.
That is when she knows they are actually in trouble.
#
“We’ll build you a cage,” Sam says. He squares his shoulders and faces the others, and even though the way his hair flops into his eyes is disgustingly endearing, he is serious and strong. “We will build you a cage and keep watch with tranquilizers in case you break free.”
“Right,” Santana sneers, her arms crossed over her chest. “Where are we going to get elephant tranquilizers by tomorrow?” There’s heat and bite to her words, but they’re not hollow, exactly, and certainly not soft. Just different.
“Coach Sylvester,” Quinn and Brittany say together and just like that, they’re in charge of the tranq guns.
Veruca sits on the piano -- oh, Brad’s going to pissed if she scratches it -- and picks at her nails. “You shouldn’t start down this path,” she says and arches an eyebrow at Lauren. “Locking yourself away is not a life.”
“She could hurt someone.” Rachel nods, as if that answers everything.
“Yes. Probably.” Veruca’s smile is sly and dangerous. “Do let me tell you how smart it is to lock up a werewolf and then stand around waiting for her pack.” The full moon is coming and when Veruca tilts her head, she looks more animal than woman.
“Don’t.” Lauren’s moving before she’s fully thought about it, putting herself between Veruca and the others. There’s a moment where it feels like she’s tearing in two -- Veruca her cousin, so beautiful and cool and adored, and Veruca the threat -- and then she’s baring her teeth. Veruca matches her snarl for snarl, but Lauren has never, ever been one to back down. “You’re not going to hurt them.”
“And however will you stop me,” Veruca slithers off the piano; Lauren moves with her, planting herself when Veruca stops. Werewolf or not, they both look human and Lauren knows how to grapple and throw, “locked in your little cage?”
“You won’t hurt them,” Lauren says again and she believes it with everything inside her. If she has to, she will tell her mother everything -- and for a moment she is so viciously mad at her father for not sharing the secret before he died that she swears her bones strain, ready to shift and reform -- and pour the damn silver bullets herself.
She doesn’t have to snarl it, doesn’t have to say the words to claim them, because somehow this horrible, ridiculous, sometimes cruel, sometimes wonderful group were people she tolerated, and then people she sorta maybe halfway didn’t mind, and then people she actually kinda liked, and now they are hers no matter how much she sometimes hates some of them. (No matter how much she sometimes loves some of them.)
Veruca huffs and some of that intoxicating mystery falls away from her, letting Lauren see the nasty twist of her mouth and the way she stares at the others, hunger carving through her.
Then, like smoke, it’s gone.
“I expected more from you,” she says, and in the flat anger, Lauren hears herself. “Enjoy your cage and beating yourself raw and your silly little fake human life.” She flicks her fingers, this slightly mocking good-bye, and then she’s gone. Lauren’s breathing hard, anger and a bit of sadness and mostly, god, this is really, actually true and the full moon is coming, she can feel it pulling on her sinew and muscle and bone.
Puck’s the only one who comes near her and yeah, she can smell their fear, but mostly they don’t come to her because they’re making plans for the cage, because it has to be built fast. Puck curls a hand around the back of her neck and she rests her head on his shoulder for a moment, breathing him in.
#
The cage works and they don’t even have to shoot her. On the morning after the third night, Lauren wakes up to coffee and donuts and Puck and his guitar, which is pretty much her favorite way to wake up period, minus the smell of the tranq gun, but before she even gets a chance to enjoy it -- hell, she’s barely fully dressed -- Rachel goddamn Berry bursts into the basement waving a calendar in the air and shrieking something about an emergency meeting regarding Regionals and the full moon and how perhaps she can save them all.
Puck grins and winks and hands Lauren a cup of coffee fixed just right. She slumps against him, drained and sore, and if she stays that way, allowing the others to see her weakness when they arrive, well, where else can a werewolf let her guard down than when surrounded by her pack?
Author: escritoireazul
Written for:
carlyinrome who basically made my life complete by suggesting that Veruca and Lauren were cousins in a family through which lycanthropy ran. Many thanks to mari_luvs_gcfa for introducing me to "Gorgeous Nightmare."Spoilers: Set in the nebulous future of the next year in Glee, and informed a lot by "Silly Love Songs" but not a lot of specific spoilers, though one about things they will do at this year's Regionals. /vague It's very AU from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in a lot of ways, including how lycanthropy works. It is also pretty AU for future Glee, I'm sure.
Author's note: This is a transformative work of fiction for the television shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Glee. The summary and title comes from "Gorgeous Nightmare" by Escape the Fate. Apparently, Somewhere in Time is an actual Lima club. I make no claim to realism other than its name. It is amazing how often I want to use the title "wolf woman wild" which I have, of course, already used.
Word count: 3500
Rating: 13+
Soundtrack: Because how could this not have a soundtrack? Ignore the horrible videos, I wasted all my music time trying to track down a cover of "Hungry Like the Wolf" that sounded right. This one is not perfect but close.
A couple Shy (aka T.H.C.) songs from Buffy the Vampire Slayer
"Hungry Like the Wolf" by Hole (cover)
"Gorgeous Nightmare" by Escape the Fate
Summary: I've got another confession to make / So complicated let me try to explain.
First impressions are hard to erase
It's in my mind and just won't go away
Maybe I'm playing my cards way too safe
I've gotta change (Change) (Change) (Change)
"Gorgeous Nightmare" Escape the Fate
Twenty-four hours ago, Tina Cohen-Chang did not believe in werewolves and vampires, witches and ghosts. (Don’t even try to pretend you did. She
Of all the weird things Figgins says, no one could have known that the vampire thing would be truth.
Not that they have vampires. What they have is a family of werewolves who just might be set on biting the entire McKinley High School glee club. (That might put a stop to the slushy facials and being locked in port-a-potties and stuffed into lockers. Nothing like snarling, really snarling with fangs and all, to put a little bite into their defense.)
#
Rachel Berry does not understand why she is the only person who consistently puts glee club first. People simply have no dedication and loyalty. At least if Lauren was a vampire, she could still perform at Regionals. There is something delightfully dramatic and every so slightly melancholy about a cold and beautiful creature of the night, which would add a certain je ne sais quoi to their performance. But no, she cannot be something as ethereal and seductive as a vampire, she must be a snarling, frothing beast.
Regionals falls right in the middle of the three day full moon cycle, and somehow Rachel doesn’t believe Lauren turning into a wolf on-stage is exactly how the judges want to see the music-as-life theme interpreted.
It presents quite the challenge, though. Perhaps if they considered adding one appropriate cover song in addition to her amazing original compositions -- they worked so well last year she has written more and certainly they will use them, and the metaphor of physically transforming into an uncontrollable monster is an apt one for high school -- Rachel starts a new list in her Potential Set Lists notebook:
1) “Werewolves of London” by Warren Zevon
2) “Bad Moon Rising” by Creedence Clearwater Revival
Surely there are more appropriate songs than that?
#
“I don’t understand,” Brittany says. “Lauren’s a puppy now?”
Santana strokes her hair, twisting it around her fingers. “She is, quite literally, a bitch.”
Brittany frowns. “She’s a mean puppy? With fangs? I don’t like mean puppies with fangs.”
#
Mercedes and Quinn start wearing crosses more regularly than they did before.
“I feel bad,” Quinn says, fingering the simple lines of the delicate one she wears. “I like Lauren.”
“Me too. Mostly.” Mercedes leans a little closer to Quinn. “I just feel safer this way. Werewolves--” She trails off, but Quinn understands.
Sam stops near them, even though he can’t quite look Quinn in the eye. “Crosses are for vampires,” he says. “Silver is for werewolves.”
Quinn’s voice is very soft. “Oh.” Then, “Thanks.”
The next day, Mercedes shows up with silver jewelry for everyone. When Quinn slips her necklace over her head, letting it fall on top of her cross, which she will not remove, she’s so glad -- so thankful, with the bite of cruelty to it -- that Lauren’s face stays perfectly blank when she realizes what they’re doing.
#
Kurt stares at his phone, eyes wide. He’s so intent he doesn’t even notice when Blaine reaches out and lightly ruffles his hair -- at first. Then he carefully fixes it and turns a sharp glare on him.
“What’s wrong?” Blaine asks, tucking himself in next to Kurt in one of the big leather chairs in the Warbler’s lounge. “With your phone,” he quickly clarifies, because obviously the hair thing was pushing it, even for a boyfriend. Especially for a boyfriend.
Kurt squints at it and then shakes his head. “I think my friends have been visiting the hot dentist again. Last time, there were Britney Spears hallucinations.” He frowns. “Shared hallucinations.”
“What is it this time?” Blaine asks.
“You really, really don’t want to know.” Kurt puts away his phone and curls one hand along Blaine’s cheek, tilting his face up for a kiss. And curled so warm and comfortable together with his boyfriend -- his boyfriend and the word lights sparks inside -- Blaine really, really doesn’t.
#
Tina likes stories that have a definite beginning, even if they fade off into vague literary allusions by the end, and this one begins with Lauren’s seventeenth birthday. She doesn’t treat it like any big thing, and in fact, when they meet up at her locker before school to surprise her with “Happy Birthday” in three part harmony with some really fine ass dance moves by Mike, mostly she glares, though if Tina looks close, she can see the smile lurking.
She also shoots down Puck when he goes in for a kiss -- that’s normal. Then they disappear for all of first period -- that’s normal too.
“Nice lip gloss,” Tina teases when she sees him on the way to second period, and he grins and winks. She’s pretty serious though. That shade of pink does really delightful things to his mouth.
That is the prequel, at least.
The story really begins when Rachel asks Lauren what they are doing to celebrate her birthday, and Lauren, voice flat, says that she is going to see Shy at Somewhere in Time. Which means nothing to Rachel, but Tina and Santana both a) know who Shy is and b) apparently love them and c) know Somewhere in Time is twenty-one and up and d) know the show’s been sold out for weeks.
“How did you get tickets?” Tina asks at the same time Santana pops off, “How the hell are you getting in? Plan to flatten all the bouncers?”
“I’m on the list.” Lauren says it flat, not like she’s bragging at all. Probably she’s not. She’s not really one to care about lists and backstage passes, which makes it all the more strange. “My cousin’s the lead singer.”
“Can you,” Santana’s voice is strangled, “get us in?”
Lauren stares at her, mouth pressed into a tight line. Tina expects her to tell Santana to fuck off -- and it’s not even a Puck thing, it’s just two badasses who clash. Frequently. And loudly -- but she shrugs instead.
“Maybe.”
(Tina’s sitting close enough to hear Santana’s muttered, She totally got laid.
That’s why she’s happy? Brittany links their pinkies together. You should be happy too.
Santana’s smile is soft for approximately a second and a half.)
“That would be awesome.” Tina bounces a little in her chair, beyond excited and unable to rein it in. (And maybe a little bit she’s making sure to cover whatever else Santana might say, because she does not want her to fuck this up.)
“You all want to go?” Lauren arches an eyebrow and sits back, crossing her arms over her chest. Tina can’t tell if she’s pleased by this or pissed off. Probably a combination of the two.
That’s how the entire glee club ends up in Somewhere in Time when the story really, truly begins.
#
There’s a bouncer waiting to let them in the backdoor. Maybe he’s a roadie. Whatever he is, it takes less than a second for Lauren to figure out he’s all twisted up around Veruca. She collects people, looks at them with her big eyes and sings them her siren song and that’s it, they’re hers forever.
(Veruca is why Lauren sings at all.
Lauren was eleven and Veruca eighteen when she got sent out to live with them for what started as a few weeks, then became the summer, and ended up being almost a year, even though Veruca spent a lot of time in Chicago and Detroit and Indianapolis instead of in Lima, Ohio. But when she was there, she’d turn the music up and dance around the living room, drawing Lauren in to sing and whirl. That’s the first time Lauren ever felt the music move in her.
Glee club is the second.
She still doesn’t know why Veruca was sent to them -- when she asked, her mother, who normally tells her everything because if you’re brave enough to ask, I can be strong enough to explain, would only say Veruca ran with a bad group of friends and that was that -- but she has never stopped being grateful. Veruca is tiny and delicate, but she was one of the people who taught Lauren all sorts of things about being a fierce woman.)
Shy is about to go on stage, but Veruca rushes up to wrap her arms around her neck and press their faces together and promise to talk to her after. She’s a whirlwind and a powerhouse in a short little package and she whips through crowds like they’re paper.
The guitars and the pianos come in first, and everyone but Tina and Santana spread out, off to do whatever it is they’re doing -- trying to sneak alcohol and if they get kicked out she is not going to save them, not even Puck -- but when Veruca starts to sing, right back they come. That is what Veruca does, with her voice and her hands on the mic, clinging like she’ll be swept away otherwise, and her body bending like she has fewer bones than anyone else.
Maybe she’s not as note perfect and powerful as Mercedes or Berry, but Veruca can teach them a thing or two about stage presence. Once you look at Veruca, you can’t look away.
Shy has a lot of new music, stuff Lauren hasn’t heard yet. She’d feel guilty about not keeping on top of it, but she’s been so busy with wrestling and school and her family and glee -- and Puck -- so she’s not actually guilty at all.
Lauren dances some, subtle little hips and shoulders and hands, because she doesn’t want to distract herself from the show, but oh, how can anyone sit still with this music rolling over them, as steady and driving as she imagines the sea?
(By the end of the first song, Puck’s right back to her, his quest for alcohol abandoned, and she lets him touch her while they dance, his hands in her hair, on her hips, curling up her sides until his thumbs brush her breasts and she can feel him hard against her ass. He traces the line of her jaw light as air, and when his fingers slip across her lips, she catches one with her teeth, gentle gentle and her tongue against the salt of his skin.)
The energy of the crowd builds and builds, washing over her like a breath, and it’s so weird, because she can smell them, perfume and sweat and cigarettes and alcohol and more. She can smell the way Brittany and Santana mix and the sour-bitter bite of jealousy when Mike dances up on Tina -- she just can’t tell from whom -- and twining through everything, Puck. She would know him anywhere, cheap laundry detergent and “spring rain” dryer sheets because his sister loves them and Axe and gasoline and guitar strings on his fingertips and metal piercings.
Her eyes snap open and Veruca is staring at her, singing at her, eyes rimmed in shadow powder and mouth so very red-black her teeth look sharp and white behind her lips and the moment stretches out into something that surely feels more important than it can ever be.
In touch with the ground
I’m on the hunt I’m after you
Scent and a sound, I’m lost and I’m found
and I’m hungry like the wolf.
"Hungry Like the Wolf" Hole (cover)
It’s not. It’s exactly that important and maybe a little more.
#
“Little sister,” she says and grips Lauren tight. “I have a story for you.”
#
Tina can’t believe she’s standing so close to Shy. She clutches her hands together and her words fill up her throat until she cannot even swallow. She’s listened to them for so long, played their music and let their lead singer’s -- let Veruca’s, oh my god, she’s standing right there close enough to touch -- voice speak for her.
Even though she’s found her own voice now, there’s something to this still, absolute adoration that burns through her right up until -- no, even after -- Veruca opens her mouth and starts talking about werewolves.
#
Veruca doesn’t want to say anything in front of anyone else -- except the band, she’s fine with the band being there, they are hers and the way she says that makes Lauren’s skin crawl -- but Lauren already knows better than that. Once one of them knows something, it is literally, in the most trite teen rom-com kind of way, only a matter of time before everyone else knows too. She may still be an immensely private person, but she has no true secrets, not after so many months sucked into the group.
She says all this in a flat voice, because no matter how she feels, it is the truth and because she’s never sure anymore if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. Veruca listens and eyes the others and when her mouth curves, she’s not smiling, she’s baring her teeth.
“Very well,” she says, and there’s a dark humor threaded through her words, “but I am not the one who will turn them on you.”
Lauren has no idea what she means by that, but there is a menace there which makes her want to reach out and grab Puck’s hand and Tina’s and Brittany’s. If she had three hands. Which she doesn’t. And she wouldn’t anyway, so she presses her fists against her thighs and stares at Veruca, who has simultaneously transformed into her adored cousin and something so much worse.
“I am a werewolf,” she says, as if she does not sound broken, as if it is something of which she is proud, “and so are you.”
#
Much later, Lauren will remember Puck bending in to whisper to her at some point, his breath warm on her ear. This is hot and Weird but... and No, just hot. When she remembers, she will be surprised but not really and it will spark something wicked deep inside in that space where the wolf curls within her, pressing against the cage of her flesh for all but three nights a month.
#
They don’t believe her. Or maybe they do. Lauren doesn’t know. Lauren doesn’t believe her, but when Veruca leans forward and says, her eyes bright, “The full moon is coming,” something unfurls deep within Lauren, stretching and yawning and claw pricks from the inside.
#
“This is weird,” Sam says, but he takes it best. He eyes Veruca speculatively, not as if he’s checking her out, but as if he’s weighing her words and the rules he knows about monsters. “How does it work?”
This is how it works:
Lycanthropy runs in their family, through Lauren’s father who died the year Veruca came to stay with them and Lauren has never given that much thought but now she feels vaguely ill. The men, they are carriers. The women, they shift. It all comes to head on the first full moon after their seventeenth birthdays. Lauren sits and stares at her hands and doesn’t even twitch when Tina leans into her from the right and Puck rubs his fingers against the back of her neck.
#
“Prove it.” Santana does a good job of snarling for someone who isn’t a werewolf. If werewolves are real. Which apparently they are supposed to be. Lauren stares at her hands, but she can’t miss the wave of malevolent energy rushing off Veruca.
“Come run with me beneath the moon, little girl,” Veruca says, her mouth wrapped around words hidden behind what she actually says.
Santana leans forward, her hands pressed flat on the table. “You’ll never be as scary as Coach Sylvester,” she snaps. It is then -- or maybe later, looking back on that moment -- that Lauren realizes Santana is protecting her. That something in Veruca’s words has actually scared her enough to push past their antagonism and into these assholes are mine damn it.
That is when she knows they are actually in trouble.
#
“We’ll build you a cage,” Sam says. He squares his shoulders and faces the others, and even though the way his hair flops into his eyes is disgustingly endearing, he is serious and strong. “We will build you a cage and keep watch with tranquilizers in case you break free.”
“Right,” Santana sneers, her arms crossed over her chest. “Where are we going to get elephant tranquilizers by tomorrow?” There’s heat and bite to her words, but they’re not hollow, exactly, and certainly not soft. Just different.
“Coach Sylvester,” Quinn and Brittany say together and just like that, they’re in charge of the tranq guns.
Veruca sits on the piano -- oh, Brad’s going to pissed if she scratches it -- and picks at her nails. “You shouldn’t start down this path,” she says and arches an eyebrow at Lauren. “Locking yourself away is not a life.”
“She could hurt someone.” Rachel nods, as if that answers everything.
“Yes. Probably.” Veruca’s smile is sly and dangerous. “Do let me tell you how smart it is to lock up a werewolf and then stand around waiting for her pack.” The full moon is coming and when Veruca tilts her head, she looks more animal than woman.
“Don’t.” Lauren’s moving before she’s fully thought about it, putting herself between Veruca and the others. There’s a moment where it feels like she’s tearing in two -- Veruca her cousin, so beautiful and cool and adored, and Veruca the threat -- and then she’s baring her teeth. Veruca matches her snarl for snarl, but Lauren has never, ever been one to back down. “You’re not going to hurt them.”
“And however will you stop me,” Veruca slithers off the piano; Lauren moves with her, planting herself when Veruca stops. Werewolf or not, they both look human and Lauren knows how to grapple and throw, “locked in your little cage?”
“You won’t hurt them,” Lauren says again and she believes it with everything inside her. If she has to, she will tell her mother everything -- and for a moment she is so viciously mad at her father for not sharing the secret before he died that she swears her bones strain, ready to shift and reform -- and pour the damn silver bullets herself.
She doesn’t have to snarl it, doesn’t have to say the words to claim them, because somehow this horrible, ridiculous, sometimes cruel, sometimes wonderful group were people she tolerated, and then people she sorta maybe halfway didn’t mind, and then people she actually kinda liked, and now they are hers no matter how much she sometimes hates some of them. (No matter how much she sometimes loves some of them.)
Veruca huffs and some of that intoxicating mystery falls away from her, letting Lauren see the nasty twist of her mouth and the way she stares at the others, hunger carving through her.
Then, like smoke, it’s gone.
“I expected more from you,” she says, and in the flat anger, Lauren hears herself. “Enjoy your cage and beating yourself raw and your silly little fake human life.” She flicks her fingers, this slightly mocking good-bye, and then she’s gone. Lauren’s breathing hard, anger and a bit of sadness and mostly, god, this is really, actually true and the full moon is coming, she can feel it pulling on her sinew and muscle and bone.
Puck’s the only one who comes near her and yeah, she can smell their fear, but mostly they don’t come to her because they’re making plans for the cage, because it has to be built fast. Puck curls a hand around the back of her neck and she rests her head on his shoulder for a moment, breathing him in.
#
The cage works and they don’t even have to shoot her. On the morning after the third night, Lauren wakes up to coffee and donuts and Puck and his guitar, which is pretty much her favorite way to wake up period, minus the smell of the tranq gun, but before she even gets a chance to enjoy it -- hell, she’s barely fully dressed -- Rachel goddamn Berry bursts into the basement waving a calendar in the air and shrieking something about an emergency meeting regarding Regionals and the full moon and how perhaps she can save them all.
Puck grins and winks and hands Lauren a cup of coffee fixed just right. She slumps against him, drained and sore, and if she stays that way, allowing the others to see her weakness when they arrive, well, where else can a werewolf let her guard down than when surrounded by her pack?
