An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Pairing: Derek/Scott, Allison/Braeden
Rating: T
Chapters: 1 of 3
Summary: Scott and Allison died young and became guardian angels. Unfortunately, they both landed some of the worst charges imaginable. They are both at their wits end. When Derek and Braeden come up with their most destructive plan yet, Scott and Allison must intervene, changing the status quo forever.
all the tw femslash aus: when a run in with a killer on a case leaves braeden scarred (literally and metaphorically), she decides to leave her life behind and move to a cheap apartment in new york and find herself. kinda hard to do that, though, when your ex boyfriend keeps calling you, you can’t find a job, and there’s a really cute ghost named allison haunting your new place. who doesn’t even know she’s dead.
things you said with too many miles between us + allison/braeden?
this turned out to be a little angstier than I expected, but it has a happy ending! I hope you enjoy! <3
this is also up on ao3 here.
Allison’s phone starts ringing while she’s making dinner in the tiny kitchenette that’s meant to be shared by everyone on her floor. It’s just after midnight and the place reeks of stale beer, but it’s empty and the stove is clean enough for her to boil water for macaroni. She’s sure that it’s just her dad calling to check on her, so she answers without even glancing at the screen.
“What are you still doing up?” she asks, turning back to the stove to stir her food.
“Could ask you the same thing, Ally.”
Allison drops her spoon into the pot. Water splashes up onto her wrists and fingers but she barely registers the sharp burn. She hasn’t heard that nickname in months. Almost a year now, actually. She swallows once, twice, three times before she manages to say a single word.
“Braeden.” Allison has enough foresight to switch off the stove before she slides down to the floor, back pressed against the splintering cabinets. She has no idea what to say so she waits for Braeden to speak. While she waits, every tiny noise sounds loud as gunfire; a creaking floorboard, the water cooling down to a simmer, the sound of breathing on the other end of the line. By the time Braeden finally says something, Allison feels like she might explode.
“It’s nice to hear your voice again,” Braeden says quietly. Allison wonders where she is, if she’s on surveillance somewhere, if she’s crouched in some creature’s cave or if her hands are drenched in blood.
She wonders, but she doesn’t ask.
“You could have heard it anytime you wanted,” she says instead. It comes out sharper than she intended, but she doesn’t regret it. She is not going to let this conversation be a repeat of last time.
“Fair enough,” Braeden says. "I probably deserved that.“
“What do you want?” Allison sighs. "If it’s weapons, I can give you my dad’s number.“
"Trust me, I have more than enough weapons. This isn’t about work. Am I not allowed to call just to say that I-”
“No,” Allison interrupts. Her fingernails dig into her palm, causing dull pain to radiate down to her wrist. "Don’t say it.“
"Why not?” Allison bites back a groan of sheer frustration. She knows that Braeden is pushing, that she won’t back down. She never does.
“You know why,” Allison says. "You can’t just fall off the radar for ten months and expect things to be normal.“
"I had my reasons, Ally. Lots of them. I didn’t leave because I wanted to.”
“It wouldn’t have been the first time,” Allison says. It’s cruel and childish, but she doesn’t bite the words back.
“Don’t act like you’re perfect,” Braeden snaps. "You ran away first.“ Braeden’s words are true, Allison knows they’re true, but knowing that doesn’t make hearing them any easier.
"We can’t do this again,” she says quietly. She lets the words linger for a few moments and when Braeden doesn’t answer, she hangs up and drops her phone into her lap. Her face feels like it’s on fire and there’s a lump in her stomach, sitting heavy as a stone. Both of those things make her even angrier with herself. There’s no reason for her to feel this way. Allison hasn’t thought about Braeden for a very long time. She’s moved on, tried to form relationships with people, people who stay put, who are predictable.
And she’s hated every last moment of it.
She snatches her phone from her lap, not allowing her reservations to keep her from calling back. Amazingly, Braeden answers on the first ring.
“I thought you were dead,” Allison says, voice cracking in the middle of the sentence. "Ten months, Braeden. Ten months.“
"I thought I was too, a few times,” Braeden says. "But I didn’t die. I did gain some scars and a new perspective on some things. Like us.“
"Us,” Allison repeats. It’s been so long since she’s said it out loud, but she’s never stopped thinking of her and Braeden as an us, not once in the three years. Saying it brings a smile to her face.
“When are you coming back?” she asks.
“I’m not sure,” Braeden replies. "I still have some loose ends to clean up here. Shouldn’t take more than a few days.“
"Good. Make it sooner rather than later,” Allison murmurs, feeling that smile spread even further across her face.
Brittany Cherry on Instagram: “Lucky I got to spend my birthday doing what I love with these two awesome humans! So excited for Monday! Now off to celebrate! 🎈 #21 #DWTS #brallison”
Lydia and Kira go off to college on the east coast. Stiles and Scott settle in as Beacon Hills dual protectors—or maybe the truth is that Scott stays to protect the town and Stiles stays to look after Scott. Derek moves to South America to be with Cora again.
But for Allison, protecting the people of Beacon Hills isn’t enough any more. The Nemeton has been drained of it’s power and most stay away from the town because of Scott’s reputation. It helps that he has loyal betas—Isaac and Liam—constantly backing him up.
It was enough for a while, to walk the preserve with her bow in hand, running her fingers over the drawstring of her bow absent-mindedly while listening for anything out of the ordinary.
But it got boring. And when she was bored, she thought of Kate. And when she thought of Kate, she made mistakes—cutting herself with the tip of an arrow while trying to practice, tripping and falling while going for a run, running into trees because she thought she saw her aunt laughing at her a few trees away.
It wasn’t enough to protect a town that no longer needed protecting.
Thing is, she’s spent so long there, she doesn’t even know where she’d want to go. She has an associate’s degree from Beacon Hills Community, and while it would be easy to continue in her education, she doesn’t really want to. What would she study? Physical Education? French? Werewolf mythology?
No, college won’t work. It’s not for her, not now. Spending so much time alone, fighting monsters that shouldn’t be real, makes education seem pretty unimportant in the long term.
Inexplicably, she thinks of Braeden. Somehow, she can’t imagine her settling into a mundane, stationary life, either.
She calls Derek.
She works at the one Starbucks in Beacon Hills, and a lot of people come through. She used to catalog them, but now she doesn’t even bother. Most of them won’t be supernatural, anyway, and if they are, she can deal with them later.
So she doesn’t notice Braeden until she’s at the counter ordering a white mocha frappuccino with three pumps of hazelnut syrup, please.
“I heard you were looking for me,” Braeden says as she pays for the drink. She pays in cash that she pulls out of her cleavage, unrolls calmly, and slides across the counter.
“My break’s in five,” she answers, because it seems weird to ask how she can get into the mercenary business while she still has customers waiting for their caramel macchiatos.
“Sure.” She moves across the counter to wait on her drink. She doesn’t bother looking around the room to look for people of the supernatural variety, but then, maybe she did that when she came in. Braeden is efficient like that.
“Hold steady,” Allison says, quiet. She’s crouched behind a tree, watching a warlock try to bring his lover back from the dead. They have to time their shots exactly right—after the completion of the physical spell, while he was still concentrating on the mental aspects. Soon enough to stop the zombie from rising and causing other problems.
The warlock had been hired by a family of wendigos who wanted to hunt but didn’t want to attract people, and so asked for fresh corpses to be reanimated. The warlock hadn’t exactly delivered, and now they wanted him to pay.
Allison found the whole situation distasteful, but she didn’t really care if the warlock got roughed up. The ability to perform necromancy required a blood sacrifice from the person you love most—forcefully taken, and terminal.
She wasn’t really sure why he was trying to bring his lover back. Being drained of blood wouldn’t make him last long.
Braeden was several trees away. She had a gun trained on the warlock, but that was only going to be the secondary method of capture.
Only necessary if Allison missed.
She wouldn’t miss.
Finally, the warlock finished, and Allison stood, stance firm. She shot him in the thigh.
He screamed and collapsed. She could see him trying to take the arrow out, but his hands were slipping over the hilt, useless. They were moving slower, too, because the arrow was dipped in kanima venom.
By the time they reached him, he was completely paralyzed.
Braeden grinned at her. “Nice.”
“I did okay?” she asked, smiling and leaning up onto the balls of her feet.
“I’d say the trial run was a success,” Braeden agrees.
They hunt together, after that. Braeden still takes her own jobs—jobs where she’s hunting people who didn’t really do anything wrong, who Allison won’t hunt. Allison never tries to stop her, though she considers it.
And just when Allison thinks she’s falling back into the same pattern of boredom and mistakes, Braeden pulls her back to reality, grounds her with a kiss, rough and smooth all at once.
It’s not in her blood to stay still, to remain the same. Allison understands that now.
But, she thinks, as she presses Braeden into the wall, one hand curving around her hip while the other slides up her neck to tangle in her hair, neither is it in Braeden’s. And they can make that work.