these words are my own

#posts: replies #c: erica #replies: erica

Hey, no. No need to apologize. It doesn’t sound like she has any right to miss you, at all. If you want to unload, I’m not going anywhere.

I would love one!

beautiful-everything-erica

….My stupid ex-girlfriend called me. I’m baking it out instead of murdering her. I call that progress.

{Erica stops and looks around at all the cooling gingerbread, then back to Fiona.}

Obviously, it hasn’t exactly been working.

What’d you want?

#posts: replies #c: erica #replies: erica

Oh, honey. Bad break up, I’m guessing.

Not much. Just surprising you guys with a visit. Looks like I came at the right wrong time.

beautiful-everything-erica

{It’s been bad the last few weeks. The disassociation. Erica grows more and more paranoid every day that goes by and she knows she’s going to have to do something soon if she can’t manage to calm down. Something drastic.

It’d been manageable the first couple of months, a few dead bodies dropped and it’d felt like a return to form. Bizarre murder capital of Northern California. Home, sweet Hellmouth and all that. She knew it was terrible to wish murder and chaos, but it was the whole point of coming back here. Terrible, unimaginable things happened here, things even her own mind couldn’t cook up. But it’s been quiet, and Erica hasn’t ever liked the quiet even before she lost her mind.

She can’t sit through a lecture hall without obsessively counting the number of hats in the room, the number of cracks in the ceiling, etc., and only then to frantically recount them to see if the number had changed. Her grades were starting to slip. Obviously, it had to happen around finals, because the universe has never particularly liked her.

And then, like icing on the fucked up cake, she calls.

Out of the blue, like doing this was just as normal as could be, despite the last time they’d spoken Erica had thrown something at her (a hairdryer, she thinks, a silver and black one) when the other girl came to clean out her half of their shared room. That had been a nasty fight, on both their parts. Erica brought up her dead brother and how she’s a sheep who’ll do anything to keep her status with mummy and daddikins as heir apparent, which were absolute no-go territories, and she brought up Erica’s insecurities, her omega status, and her failed relationships with basically everyone who’d ever walked into her life, especially that they were her fault. It wasn’t a fair fight, really. They’d walked around inside each other’s minds, knew precisely the buttons to push, knew where to hit where it hurt.

(Erica thinks she vaguely remember s the other girl coming to visit her when she was in the hospital’s psych ward, but most of those weeks were hazy at best. It probably wasn’t real.)

They hadn’t spoken since, but she called. Because it was Christmas time and she ‘knows how Erica gets this time of year’ and she ‘just wanted to make sure she was doing okay.’

Oh, and that she missed her. As if she wasn’t the entire reason they weren’t together right then, sitting on the floor of their dorm watching all the stupid claymation movies and drinking wine straight from the bottle. As if she wasn’t the reason they weren’t going to be sneaking around the grounds at night to break off part of one of the school’s pines so they can have a tiny live tree in their room, because they both love the smell. As if she wasn’t the reason they weren’t wrapped up in each other under the covers of one of their too small twin beds, staring up at the fairy lights and glitter snowflakes they hung all over the room.

Erica had snapped on her, hung up, fled campus to hide out in her old house, and bake it all out while blaring her bitter anti-Christmas/break-up playlist.

So far, it wasn’t working. An hour and one hundred fifty gingerbread cookies later, she was still muttering under her breath. At least she wasn’t crying anymore.}

Stupid goddamn… how dare she…. of all the times to…. that bitch…

#( HI omg I missed you!! How are you?? )#posts: replies #c: erica #replies: erica

Someone sounds less than happy...

I come down to surprise you and find you all grumpy gills. What’s going on?

ooc: Hi, friendlies! I’m sorry I haven’t been around much. I’ve literally been doing homework all week. BUT I am now done with all of it, and have lots of free time! (I mean, I have to study for finals, but it won’t take up as much time.) So if you have any plots or ideas, or just want to headcanon it out, text/message me on Lydia! Love and miss you all!

#posts: ooc

Psh, totally no such thing!

Whatcha makin’?

#posts: replies #c: katie #replies: katie

I can’t make anything else. At least, not until my mom goes shopping again.

But! I have an assortment of cakes, tarts, pies, and cookies.

....Yeah, I kind of overbaked. Again.

#wolfoutstarter

We’ll Laugh About It in Ten Years || Fiona, Allison, Chloe, Liam & Katie

Allison smiled and nodded, attempting to keep calm and keep the obvious distress to a minimum. Whether or not Chloe had something going on with her, it was pretty clear that she didn’t know enough to be in on what was going on now, and someone had to keep things as normal as possible for her. Looking over at the girl, Allison’s head inclined a fraction of an inch at her behavior; reading. It was clear that Chloe was feeling uncomfortable and somewhat distressed, and Allison couldn’t blame her. She hadn’t walked into the most normal situation.

As Katie and Fee left the room, Allison picked up a piece of paper herself and took a seat at the table. “I think I’ll draw too,” She said, lifting a pencil and letting it drift over the page. After a few moments, she asked, “What are you guys drawing?” She didn’t ask in a way that was demanding or insisted either of them answer her; she didn’t know Chloe’s story and didn’t want to distress her any further, and she certainly didn’t want to do anything to set Liam off. She did want to talk to both of them, but unfortunately, she needed to talk to both of them about something very different.

She could only hope that Fee and Katie could reverse…whatever this was. They’d dealt with age regression once before, but even then, Derek had been a teenager, not a toddler. And they hadn’t been able to fix it; it had worn off on it’s own. But was this going to wear off for Liam? And if so, how long would it take?

Allison was good at keeping concern off of her face; her expression rarely gave away her emotions. It wasn’t comforting to people she was supposed to be helping if she looked concerned; it wasn’t good business to look afraid in the face of danger. Her expression was only friendly and curious as she asked her question, but she couldn’t keep the worry out of her mind. They had to figure this out. What had happened to Derek had been awful; he had thought Cora was Laura; he had thought she was Kate. The implications had been awful for them both; for all of them. Having Derek not know or trust that pack had been hard, and it hadn’t been easy for him, either, especially after he saw his old house. But on a tactical side, their only benefit had been that Derek was an adult; there was no one they had to hide him from. The important people in his life all knew. But with Liam…how could they hide this from his parents? From school? Their best bet would be inventing an event he had to go to, or saying he was crashing at Mason’s or Scott’s. But the length of that cover was limited.

Despite the severity, Allison still had to admit, Liam was an adorable toddler. And he seemed to be pleased to have juice, and be drawing. She just hoped he still remembered who she was.

Biting her lip as the others left the room, Chloe let herself get lost in her own head for her own sake—if not, she’d probably pick up scraps of whatever Fiona and Katie decided to talk about, which would probably end up being more of a headache than a help.

It took her a while just to recognize that Allison was even addressing her; once she did, the blonde shrugged in reply. Without a specific subject (which was the majority of the time), Chloe had no clue what she’d be drawing before she did it. Right now, it was shaping up to be that place, and the corners of her mouth tugged down because of it. But, speaking of which… “I drew your brother,” Chloe announced suddenly, flipping through a collection of drawings before landing on a portrait of Liam at his kitchen table, drawn entirely from memory the night she’d gotten to the house. The image was black and white—plain pencil—and in excruciatingly realistic detail. Satisfied with the final result, she held the open pages of the sketchbook towards Stephen with a small smile. “There.”

Her nose crinkled at the sight of the boy, half curious and half confused. Nothing Liam had said the first time they’d met hinted towards any other siblings, but anyone lying for no real reason didn’t seem to make much sense, either. Still, Chloe didn’t say a word about it, which was somewhat of a feat for the girl’s general lack of a filter; it probably wasn’t her place.

Chloe looked down as her fingers faintly burned; she’d been absentmindedly fiddling with her pendant, and her skin hummed where it came into contact with the metal. Her lips pursed, and the blonde squirmed, murmuring a soft “Stop,” to herself as she attempted to concentrate on the sketch. Or, more importantly, turning it into something else.

If Liam were his normal self, he would’ve noticed the deflection. He would’ve been seriously suspicious at the fact that instead of answering Allison’s question, Chloe chose to show him an older drawing her of himself – um, his brother. (This lie was starting to be a bit confusing.) But, as Liam was not really himself, he could only stare at the drawing in amazement. “Whoa,” he said, genuinely impressed by the art. Liam wasn’t much of an artist himself, so pretty much anyone who could draw was pretty damn amazing in his book. “It looks so real!”

“I’m drawing all of us,” he announced. He then went into detail about who he was drawing, and why they were standing as they were. He made sure not to say the words pack, wolf, banshee, psychic, or witch. He couldn’t remember everything, but something told him not to say those things.

The worrying part was that he could hardly remember names. They were slipping away – names, memories, voices, faces – were slipping away by the second. It was starting to hurt, trying to remember everything. He knew these people were important to him. They felt like… like they were his family, but also deeper than that.

So… Who were they?

He trailed off, having forgotten what he was talking about, and looked up to the girl with the dark hair. She was pretty. “Hi,” he greeted after a moment. “What’s your name?”

“Oh, jeepers!” Katie bit her lip. “Okay, so I mean, the red marks were probably initially for like, spells that totally didn’t work, right? Like, as a way of marking them off. So why in the heck did this one work?” She made sure to keep her voice extra-quiet. Chloe was probably (definitely) a witch, but she didn’t have super hearing, and Ally, badass as she was, didn’t, either. But Liam was still a werewolf, even if he was a preschool werewolf, and they totally didn’t need him overhearing them and flipping out. Especially if that flipping out entailed him going all claws and fangs. Chloe might have magic, but that did not mean she knew about the rest of the supernatural world, and having a five year old wolf out on her was so not the introduction she needed.

“Can you show me the spell?” Katie asked. “Maybe if we look at it, we can figure out how to counter it.” She tried to remember the things her dad had taught her about countering spells. She knew she could totally call him, except…okay, she so did not need another lecture about responsibility. Maybe they could fix this for themselves! “Maybe it worked for you because you are extra powerful,” Katie suggested. “And it just didn’t work for whoever crossed it off because they weren’t as strong as you. But either way, we like, really need to figure out what happened and how to undo it.”

#posts: para #c: katie #c: liam #c: allison #c: chloe #para: Katie #para: Allison #para: Liam #para: Chloe #scene: we'll laugh about it in ten years

Fiona nodded, feeling a bit relieved at Katie’s suggestion. When Fiona had been deciding who she should call, it had been a no brainer to alert Katie to the situation. Even if she had to carefully choose who else to call, there was nothing she could or would do without the eccentric blonde. They worked best when they put their heads together, and Fiona’s was too frazzled to work on its own.

“Got it. I think it’s upstairs.” She turned towards the stairs, but not before glancing back at the kitchen to see what was happening. It looked like Allison, Chloe and Liam were all drawing, in various states of contentment, with Liam rambling along without a care in the world. Until, at least, he stopped himself and asked someone for their name. Was his memory all gone now? Or just their names? And who had he forgotten? She shared a look with Katie. “It sounds like we need to work fast.” Taking another glance back towards the kitchen, she lead up the stairs and towards Liam’s bedroom.

Her book was still lying there on the bed. She had told Liam not to touch it, and thankfully he’d listened to her. If he got his hands on it, it could’ve been bad. She open the book, flipping to the page with the spell. “Here,” she said, showing Katie the spell that she’d recited. It wasn’t very long, and had a red mark through it. There were notes on the side, saying that it was an age reduction spell and to be careful with it. Her mother’s writing, she thought. But she still had no idea why it worked for her, when the other spells didn’t.

We’ll Laugh About It in Ten Years || Fiona, Allison, Chloe, Liam & Katie

Allison smiled at Fiona’s explanation, giving nothing away in her expression, but the message was loud and clear. People didn’t exactly move to Beacon Hills very often if there wasn’t already something going on.

Turning to Chloe, she smiled as well. “It’s very nice to meet you, Chloe.” She said. Despite the fact that there might have been something going on with her, Fiona didn’t elaborate, and Katie seemed to be trying to cover just in case, so Allison didn’t press the issue. “We can definitely give Liam a message for you,” She agreed.

Despite the fact that she was relieved that no one was seriously hurt, it didn’t mean that all was well. Liam was age-regressed, and though he seemed to remember enough right now, how long would that last?

Taking the juice from Katie as she held it out, Allison placed it down in front of Liam. “Two hands, okay, buddy?” She said as she did. “I always spill when I don’t use two hands!”

Giving the boy Liam’s sandwich was something the blonde didn’t take lightly — it was for Liam, after all — but he didn’t seem to be around, and stale sandwiches weren’t all that great to eat, anyway. She pulled out a plastic-wrapped peanut butter and jelly sandwich and walked over, setting it on the table in front of him before retreating back to the far side of the kitchen.

All of the girls, plus Liam’s younger brother, were looking away from her, to each other, and back again. Which was fine, normal even, when she did it — but as she learned, not so much when most people did. Lack of eye contact meant they were either hiding something, or didn’t want her to be there, even though their words said otherwise. Warily, Chloe scrunched her nose at the offer to leave a message, shaking her head and ducking down to pick at the wrapping on the other sandwich instead. It was all incredibly confusing, and she’d much rather not have this visit end up with a headache (or setting the Dunbars’ kitchen on fire). She took a small bite of her sandwich, and slid the strap of her bag down her shoulder in order to reach into it.

With a little effort, Chloe’d managed to claim one of her sketchbooks; before she could free it from the bad completely, she fumbled and dropped it to the floor, pages fanning open on a variety of drawings before settling on one set. Quickly, she scrambled to pick it back up. Pressing her back against the wall and propping the book on her knees, Chloe sat there drawing, a pencil in one hand and half a sandwich in the other.

Only just remembering his manners, Liam thanked the blonde girl for the sandwich. Just as he was about to grab at the juice when the girl with the long dark hair warned him against using one hand. “I wasn’t gonna,” he muttered, though it was a very flimsy lie. He was a big boy. He could handle using one hand. Knowing better than to question an adult, Liam used both hands when he took a sip of his juice.

Then he paused. What were their names again? He slowly bit into half of the sandwich, tuning out the world around him as he tried to put names to faces. They were all familiar faces. The older three girls were so familiar, it was as if they had always been in his life. But he didn’t remember them. He remembered the other girl even less so. But he knew that he knew them. What were their names? F… Fin… Fiona! Fiona, and… Allison? And Katie! And the pretty girl who gave him the sandwich was Chloe! Even when their names finally came to him, he couldn’t remember how he knew them. He just knew that he did. Fiona, Katie and Allison smelled like home. They felt like home. But Chloe was more distant. She was… different.

His head starting to hurt from the intense thinking, Liam took another bite of his sandwich. He observed the older girls before him. Allison, Katie and Fiona seemed to be constantly exchanging glances, as if silently sending messages back and forth. It took him a moment to realize that it was about Chloe. She didn’t know about this; about them. She wasn’t aware of the supernatural and… and he wasn’t really five years old, was he?

Remembering the predicament he was in, Liam gave the girls – were they his sisters? They felt like they could be. – a look that he could only hope conveyed his message: FIX THIS. He then looked back to Chloe, who had pulled out some paper and a pencil. “I wanna draw, too!”

“Um,” Katie said, looking at Fiona and Allison helplessly, and shrugging. She didn’t know what to make of Chloe’s reaction, and she really didn’t know what to do now. Biting her lip, she said, “Sure!” Before passing the pad of paper Chloe hadn’t wanted, and the pen, to Liam.

Okay, so he was stuck as a toddler. And Fee couldn’t tell them what had happened until Chloe left. But Chloe didn’t seem to want to leave, and it wasn’t like they could kick her out. Cocking her head, Katie paused, then said, “Hey, Chloe?” She waited for the other girl to acknowledge that she had spoken before continuing. “Can you and Stephen draw together for a little bit, and Fee and I will be right back? I just need to show her something really quick.” She felt bad leaving Allison, but if anyone was equipped to deal with the weird, it was the huntress, and besides, it wasn’t like they could actually just leave Liam and Chloe alone.

#posts: para #c: kaite #c: allison #c: chloe #c: liam #para: katie #para: allison #para: chloe #para: liam #scene: we'll laugh about it in ten years

Fiona gave Chloe a smile, then gave Allison a brief looked saying, I don’t know what to do here, so let’s just go with it! She then took Katie’s hand, pulling her out of the kitchen. Liam’s memory would probably be leaving, but he hopefully would remember Allison enough to help her out if things got too awkward or anything. And she just needed a quick second to explain things to Katie.

As soon as they were out of earshot, Fiona started speaking in hushed whispers. “I swear to all things holy, I did not mean to turn him into a five year old,” she began. “We’ve been playing around with my magic for a while, just to see which spells work and which ones don’t. And they were just, like, minor spells, nothing big! And then I ran into this one, and it had a red mark on it. Most of the spells with red marks didn’t work, but I figured I’d try this one. It said it was a de-aging spell, but I thought it would be a dud, just like the others! Next thing I know, Liam’s five years old again and trying to scratch my face off!”

She took a breath, glancing back at the direction they just came from, before looking back to Katie. “So what are we going to do?”

We’ll Laugh About It in Ten Years || Fiona, Allison, Chloe, Liam & Katie

Of all of the possibilities that had occurred to Allison on her drive over, this had not even remotely been one of them. Shaking her head in amazement, she watched as Fiona picked up Liam– a very definitely five year old version of him, but also very definitely Liam, nevertheless. He was unmistakeably himself, even if he was now a much younger version.

Following them into the house, Allison waited until everyone had entered before nudging the door shut behind them. She realized this must be some sort of spell, although clearly, something had gone wrong. Nodding when Fiona said she could explain, Allison shot a quick glance at the unfamiliar blonde and raised a quizzical eyebrow at Fiona and Katie, conveying the questions of who she was and if it was alright for her to be her for this nonverbally.

The moment Chloe’d decided to get herself together and approach the house was the same moment everything had gone…crazy. She’d counted two other cars pull up by the time she’d wandered by the front step Katie, and some girl she didn’t know — and it was too late to back out and go home when they’d already seen her. That wasn’t the weirdest part of it all, even if the speed at which everyone had been running signaled some sort of emergency (and was, she’ll admit, a little annoying; Chloe would swear she’d heard a tire screech or two). What had nearly stopped her in her tracks was the fact that a small child had answered the door—and Katie’d called him Liam. Before she could protest, she was herded inside of the place along with everyone else.

As the rest of them started heading for the kitchen, Chloe paused once she had just barely passed the threshold, slowly holding up the paper bag and pointing to it with her opposite hand.

“I…brought PB&J; it was pretty much the only thing my mom would let me make. One for Liam, and one for me,” she explained to no one in particular, looking around. As she did so, Chloe took a small step back, subtly bracing herself against the wall and aiming an increasingly puzzled expression at the little boy who couldn’t possibly be Liam. “You can have half of mine, though. And I didn’t know what Liam’s mom would like—but that doesn’t matter, because no one I came to talk to is here, so…”

“I’m not a kid, Fee,” Liam whined as she picked him up. He might have physically been five years old, but he was almost an adult between the ears! He hardly needed to be carried. Even as he said that, he still swung his legs back and forth, enjoying the feeling of weightlessness. Fiona had such a safe, secure grip on him, too. It was nice, and kind of made him want his mommy — his mom. Not mommy. Geez.

He allowed himself to be sat down, moderately oblivious to and completely unfazed by his friends gawking at him. Just as he was about to request PB&J, Chloe held up the bag that she’d been holding. “I’ll take Liam’s,” the five year old said, turning in his seat to face her. He blinked at her, realizing that Fiona probably hadn’t called her, too. “Why’d ya come over, anyway?”

He then looked to Allison and Katie. “Fee did a stupid thing,” he sang, teasingly. It was something that fifteen year old Liam would never do – he’d bite it out, maybe, accompanied with a fierce glare and glowing eyes. But five year old Liam said it with a grin and a giggle. It was so weird being five years old again. His emotions changed by the minute. One minute, he was angry with Fiona for turning him into a little kid, the next he was ecstatic, then he felt like crying, then he was angry again, and happy again.

He remembered these feelings from when he really was a little kid. Before anger started to dominate his every emotion, he’d had extreme mood swings. They were much calmer this time around; probably because he had years worth of practice on controlling them. Even so, the changes from happy to moody were going to wear him out soon enough. As long as he could play before then… He shook his head, forcing that thought away. He wasn’t really five! He needed to stop thinking like he was!

Upon realizing that Chloe didn’t know about magic, and thus wouldn’t believe that Liam was actually Liam, the boy looked to the older pack members. Seeing as Fee had gotten him into this mess, he looked between Allison and Katie. Would they explain things to her? Or would they make up some story? Suddenly, he remembered something.

“I’m Stephen,” he announced after a moment, looking at Chloe. “Liam’s my cool big brother.” Stephen had been Liam’s imaginary fried when he was younger. When no one else wanted to play with the destructive freak – his eyes fell to his lap, the cruel name hurting worse now than it had just a few hours ago – Stephen hadn’t minded. Stephen always wanted to play with Liam, no matter how angry he could get. Before Mason, Stephen had been Liam’s best and only friend.

He looked back up at Chloe, giving her an innocent look. Due to the change in his… everything, he managed to pull it off well. “You’re Chloe, right? You go to school with my brother.” It was more for Allison’s benefit than anything else. He figured the huntress hadn’t met the blonde girl yet, and figured he could at least subtly alert Allison to the fact that yes, they knew Chloe, but no, Chloe didn’t know anything.

“You sure do look like your brother, Stephen!” Katie chirped, grinning and silently thanking the now preschool aged werewolf for his quick thinking. Still smiling, she turned to face Chloe. “Did you come by to see Liam? Fee’s babysitting, and she called us over for an emergency, but it seems like it’s all okay now,” She said. “We can totally give Liam a message for you, though, if you want!”

Okay, so Chloe was clearly not dumb, and also clearly had magic, so there was a chance she would piece this all together. But there was also a chance that she would accept their story and move on. Either way, Katie knew they had to figure out what in the world happened to Liam– and how to reverse it. Even as she turned back to Liam-Stephen, she was mentally flipping through her grimoire. Holy fishsticks, what were they going to do?!

“Do you want some juice or milk, Stephen?” She asked. “Because I want some juice!” She headed for the fridge, pausing to grab a pad and paper and hold it out for Ally or Fee, if Chloe did want them to leave some kind of messge.

#posts: para #c: chloe #c: allison #c: liam #c: katie #para: katie #para: allison #para: liam #para: chloe #scene: we'll laugh about it in ten years

Fiona had to give it to Liam (Stephen?) for coming up with the excuse he did. It might not have been an elaborate lie, but seeing as five year olds weren’t exactly equipped to lie at the drop of a hat, it was kind of impressive. And even if Liam denied it, there was no denying that he was a five year old. She could tell from his behavior -- the way he enthusiastically cried out, “Juice!” in response to Katie’s question being a prime example -- that the spell was slowly but surely changing his mental state, too. She wondered how the lie would stick when he lost all sense of his former self.

She had to bite her lip, as she continued to gather items for food. When Derek had been reverted to his younger self, he had lost his memories of the past ten years. None of them had been his friends. His parents were still alive. Cora was Laura. Allison was Kate. How long would it be before Liam lost his memories, too? When he opened the door, he had struggled to place Chloe’s scent, or to remember her name. How long would he remember them?

Pulling out enough food to feed a mini army of werewolves, Fiona placed it all on the counter and smiled at Chloe, taking the pen and paper from Katie. “Chloe, this is Allison, one of our best friends. Allison, this is Chloe. She’s a friend from school. Her family just moved in a few weeks ago.” That was really all the biggest clue she could give to Allison that Chloe wasn’t exactly normal. Most people who moved to Beacon Hills were hiding one thing or another. Chloe definitely fell into that category.

Group Text → Pack

Allison: Hey! What's everyone bringing for dinner on Thursday?

Scott: Pie! :D

Fiona: Mac n' cheese!

#posts: texts #c: pack #texts: pack

We’ll Laugh About It in Ten Years || Fiona, Allison, Chloe, Liam & Katie

Allison practically ran out to her car, thankful that she had a spot so close to her dorm. Her heart was racing; her only relief came in the fact that Lydia hadn’t called her with any news. Still, it was hard to stay any shade of calm when getting any kind of frantic text from any of the pack members. They had all been in enough danger over the years for the text to worry her.

She sped towards the house, thankful that the streets were relatively empty. Her mind raced on the entire drive, but she forced herself to quiet it; panic wouldn’t help, but preparation would. She mentally ticked off the things that she had in her car should they need them, and braced herself for whatever type of scene she was about to walk into. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

Pulling up in front of Liam’s house, she saw Fiona outside and breathed a sigh of relief. Fee being outside meant that they were likely, at least, relatively okay. Parking and getting out of the car, Allison jogged up to the front door, slinging her bag over her shoulder as she did. “What’s going on? Where’s Liam?”

Treat others the way they treat you; it had been a basic guideline the Chamberlains had given to Chloe once they’d noticed she had a few problems with responding to situations in a way that most people would consider ‘appropriate’. It’s not that she wasn’t grateful; she just didn’t know how to constantly show it to other people. The blonde had been musing over the lesson one day before eventually realizing she’d never thanked Liam for helping them out the day her family had gotten into town. After some convincing to get herself into the kitchen (helped along by the fact that she’d been planning an entirely fire-free meal), Chloe set off on her way to the Dunbars’ house, delightedly unchaperoned and with a lunchbag in hand.

Turning the corner, her steps slowed to a halt. Looking down a house or two, Chloe spotted a car; it was a different one from the night she’d been there last, so it couldn’t be his mother. It could be his dad, or just as easily someone else, but doubt crept up on her regardless. Maybe now was a bad time. She slipped her right hand into the pocked of her jeans, warily walking in the house’s direction.

People like Fiona gave Liam trust issues. Deep, deep trust issues. It had a bit to do with the fact that she was, like, the worst person ever. And she did things that he explicitly told her not to – i.e., experiment on him with things that could forever change his life. And he wasn’t mad at her. He wasn’t! He knew that Fiona, realistically, hadn’t meant to hurt him or anything like that. She was genuinely curious. Her magic was still sort of new to her, and she just wanted to figure it all out. He highly doubted this was what she had planned.

A year or two ago, he would’ve been upset. Not enough to hurt her, but definitely enough to give her a piece of his mind. Twenty minutes ago… well, twenty minutes ago, he would’ve still been in this same damn position.

He sat on his bed, arms crossed over his chest as he listened for her heartbeat. He was pissed at her, sure – the claw marks on the back of his door were evidence enough — but he didn’t think it was wise for her to be out there alone. It was Beacon Hills, for crying out loud. Being outside and alone often meant being attacked, just for existing. And, yeah, he knew Fiona could take care of herself, but he still would’ve felt better if he was out there with her. After a huge spell like the one she’d just performed – stupid, stupid, stupid spell – who could even say how much magic she had left?

That, and there was one other huge problem.

He let out a growl, fed up with having to wait. Climbing off of his bed – carefully, mind you – he made his way to the door. Fiona had given him strict rules to stay inside, and though he hated to be disobedient, he couldn’t just sit here all day. What did she expect? He opened the door – with more difficulty than he would ever confess to – and exited his room, gently closing the door behind him. He had to pause for a moment to listen for her. Where was she, anyway? Outside. Why was she out there?

It took far too much time for him to get down the stairs – ooh, she was never going to hear the end of this – but he eventually reached the last step. Once he reached the bottom step, he ran the rest of the way to the door. Thank god, he could still do some things. Feeling a bit more triumphant than strictly necessary, Liam opened the front door. He was lucky enough to have one of those knobs that just had to be pulled down, instead of twisted. It was a lot easier to open the door this way.

“Fioooooonaaaaa,” Liam whined, opening the door. He pouted at the brunette witch. “I’m hungry. You can’t just…” He looked past her, at the other girl who’d appeared while he was trying to come downstairs. Taking one hand off of the door knob, he waved. “Hi, Allison. What are you doing here?” He paused, his face pinching in concentration. “Katie’s coming, too. And C… Chloe?”

It was totally hard not to freak out when you got ominous texts in Beacon Hills. And, okay, Katie herself could be called out for sometimes texting things that sounded ominous but were really about how she couldn’t find the candy, but still. Minor freak outs were bound to happen in response to even somewhat ominous text messages. Which was why she booked it out of her house as fast as she could and headed over to Liam’s place.

She parked– fine, badly, but whatever, she wasn’t like, on the street– and bolted up the steps, freezing at the sight that was before her. Okay, she knew Fee would be there. And she had fully expected at least one other pack member, and it totally made sense for it to be Allison. What she hadn’t expected was Chloe, and what she really hadn’t expected was Liam. At least, this Liam.

Skidding to a halt almost cartoonishly, Katie yelped, “Feezy! Ally! …Chloe? What are you…? Um…oh my fricking God?” She gaped at the person who had just opened the front door. “Liam?!”