tampered | that is why all the girls in town follow you all around [semi-open]

"Cursed? Wh--I'm here because Mel..." No, edit that, make it sound good. "Your mother invited me and I didn't want to refuse."

He looks down and aside for a moment, a nice little show of faint emotion.

"I'm fond of her, you know? Very fond. Sure, it was a chance meeting and it all seems completely against the odds, but...try to understand. I'm just a widower from Nebraska who wound up in this crazy city months ago and I never expected anything... I never even hoped anything this good would ever happen to me again."

A small sigh, and he leans away from the table.

"But, you know, I understand it. You're in this crazy city too, and you have to look out for the people you love. I know I'm the stranger at the table tonight. So I don't blame you. But if there's something I can do to, I don't know, explain myself or make peace between us, just say so."

He's not lying. Maybe, he's great at controlling his heart beat but Scott can tell, at least for now, that he's genuine. Whether that be because he's cursed or because he's some insane stalker has yet to be seen. But, the tenseness in his shoulders loosens.

He'll reassure Lydia when she returns to the room.

He accepts what Rory says. Enough that he recognizes what must be happening. He can't create trouble. He can't piss him off if he is dangerous. So, he'll keep it together, they'll have dinner and Rory will leave. He still has to tell his mother about Lydia.

"You're from Nebraska?" he asks. He'll slowly ask about his life. He wants more detail.

"Melissa," Lydia begins awkwardly once she slips into the kitchen. "Just...be careful, okay? He isn't everything he seems, this guy. He's dangerous."

Of course, Melissa doesn't know about Lydia's penchant for picking up death-vibes, so this is possibly about as helpful as a hairbrush.

She's still rummaging for the pie, but she doesn't snap at Lydia. She gets it, honestly. Scott put her up to this, out of too much concern for her. He did this with Peter Hale, too.

Of course, Peter Hale turned out to be bad news as well. Hmmm. But then the curse's magic works its way further into her brain, and all rational thought is erased.

"Why would you say that?" she whispers back, looking aggrieved and worried and hurt all at once. "He's really not. Look, I get you kids are just wanting to protect me. But it's not necessary. Okay?"

Meanwhile, in the other room:

"Yeah. A little town called Broken Bow. I wouldn't blame you if you've never heard of it. That's some of why I wanted to get out of there."

And now, a demonstration of the ancient and delicate art of mixing truth and lies, past and potential, stories and fact. As spiders do their webs weave. Even if the desire, the affection for this woman, this poor boy's mother (let's be fair, "Rory Fletcher" was a right motherfucker, at least when he was called "Marten" and knew better another mother and her son), was brought on by a curse, there was little else changed about him.

"I don't know if you get the feeling, but I get restless sometimes. Around about the late summer, I start to get a feeling that I want to move on. I got that feeling a lot as a kid. So I moved on, went off to school, and never really went back."

It's like a soap opera right now.

"We're from Beacon Hills. Nobody's ever heard of it." So, he gets that, at least - to an extent, anyway. "But, you knew that." He assumes his mom and this guy have already had some kind of conversation. He knows they've exchanged names. He hopes they've exchanged useful yet not incriminating information. No bank account sharing - not that his mom has one yet. They should get on that. He makes a mental note.

By now, Scott realizes how much of a curse has been placed on them. His mother really likes this guy and normally if there'd been weeks of interaction, a date or three, he'd expect a dinner or something. He thinks. She's never dated before. Not until Peter Hale and that did not and would never count.

Not ever. Period. Exclamation point.

"I'm seventeen." Who gets restless at seventeen? "What were you doing before you ended up here?" Because his past really isn't Scott's business. He's mostly listening for lies.

The pie is a lie, and soon enough Melissa will realize it.

"Look, you know everything in Beacon Hills is weird, right?" says Lydia haplessly, lowering her voice so hopefully nobody in the dining room can hear it. "I get these...feelings. Right before bad things happen." Lydia is in earnest. "Please, you have to listen to me. That man is off the scale even for me. Do you remember when I was in the hospital? Like that kind of bad." Lydia is all but pleading. "Please." No strike that, she's pleading.

Edited 2013-08-29 05:12 (UTC)

Why would you lie about pie? That's just wrong.

Melissa listens to all of it, and she feels her heartbeat pick up. The kids wouldn't be doing this if it weren't legit. But every single instinct in her head is screaming at her; this is the one! He loves you, you love him, it's fate, it's meant to be! Don't give this up without a fight!

With a sigh, Melissa bows her head for a moment, and then shakes her head.

"All right. I'll call off the date tonight. But if it turns out he's fine, can I please please please have one night alone with him? It's been so long...!"

Not something she wanted to confess to her son's maybe-girlfriend.

"Yeah, 'fraid I've never heard of Beacon Hills, so I guess we're even. Anyway, I got restless at seventeeen," he says and shrugs. "But it's different for everyone. Anyway--"

What had he been doing before he ended up here. Oh yes, that's right: trying to finagle and negotiate his way close enough to a monstrous child with powers potentially beyond reckoning so as to steal its leg (with birthmark thereon) and, in...four days at the outside and trying very hard to outpace his competition, make his way from the veritable edge of one world to the nexus of all time and space (because whatever they said about this place being a connection point for all worlds? no, definitely not--part of the whole, a significant part, perhaps, or it was some level or other, but not the true place itself, not the Tower) by using that birthmarked foot, sneak past the old red thing who fancied himself Lord and Master of the place, and ascend to the top and then...

And then--?

And then.

It was a vague ambition.

"Don't judge me too harshly, but I was taking a shot at making a living in Vegas. Honestly, though. Not gambling my way along. It's not as easy as you'd hope."

Scott can relate to that.

It's different for everyone.

At sixteen, Scott McCall was bitten by a werewolf and his life changed forever. At sixteen he fell in love for the first time. At sixteen he saw more death then some people see in their entire lifetimes. And at sixteen he managed to come out ontop, best the bad guy and prove that he's a force to be reckoned with. And then, at seventeen he went through it all again. More death. More danger. With a dash of leader-like tendencies. He'd fallen into that post almost accidentally. Stiles, Allison, and Lydia - and Isaac now, they were his pack. Or, they'd been his pack.

Scott thought clearly lately. He had plans. Ambitions. He didn't go in blind, anymore. Or, he tried not to.

"Why would I judge you for doing that, if you weren't gambling?" he asked. "You were trying to live. You, got a job there?"

"Thank you." Lydia says gratefully, adding, "If it helps to move things along, Scott and I have news. Maybe it would help to facilitate you calling things off for the evening? I don't know."

She's just relieved Melissa's going to at least give it a try, and didn't automatically, immediately protest to Lydia in disbelief.

No doubt like the rest of them, Lydia thinks Melissa's probably seen too much for her time.

This is just...so frustrating. Even when she was in nursing school she wasn't this thoroughly chaperoned. Nobody told her that having a kid was going to mean the end of her social life forever. Wasn't she supposed to be able to get out on her own once they were past puberty? She was pretty sure she read that in the manual.

So, forgetting the non-existent pie, she returns to the dining room. Seeing her man again just makes the curse hit her full force once more, and she feels almost dizzy with need, with affection, with the desire to give this man her world. She takes a small breath against it, and clenches her jaw. And...her eyes water over. It's just not fair.

At least he and Scott are talking like civilized people. She slides back into her seat, and takes Rory's hand. Maybe if she doesn't say anything for a bit, she can put off their separation for just that little bit longer.

"Yeah, I got a job there. You can make something of a living behind hotel desks. Not ideal work, but it's work..."

He trails off, completely distracted by his lady love's return to the room. You'd think he hadn't seen her in days, not minutes, the way he stares at her. The pie, whether it existed in the first place or not, is forgotten entirely. Maybe it never mattered in the first place.

"Hey, welcome back. I'm glad you're here. I was boring Scott to death with stories of the workaday world."

He squeezes her hand and grins at her and looks into her eyes--and sees how bright they seem, how...wet they seem. He throws her a worried frown (without care it could slide into a pout) but says nothing about it at first.

This could get interesting.

Scott waits for more information but Rory trails off, having been distracted by his mother's return.

"He lived in Las Vegas. He works at a hotel," he explains, as his mom joins them again. He can smell Rory's concern. Whatever he thinks he feels for his mother he thinks it's genuine. Scott can understand that. He's found real love. If it's anything like what he felt for Allison and what he feels for Lydia he knows it can't just stop.

"We've never been outside California," he says, continuing the conversation. Well, Scott hasn't, anyway. Maybe his mother has. He never asked. Plus, Scott is seventeen and has zero interest in Las Vegas altogether.

And then Lydia returns and his heart lightens as does the tension. He smiles, trying to reassure her. It's going to be okay. He's not so bad. In full view of his mother and their guest, he takes her hand. Maybe now's the time, then. If his mother had something to say then so did he.

"Like Lydia said, we have news," he starts, knowing full well his mother isn't surprised he heard everything. Rory might be confused but Lydia could've told his mother on the network. His thumb massages the back of her hand encouragingly. He locks eyes with her. It's time. Looking front, he tries to stay calm, pushing away any nervousness he feels. His mother is going to be happy. Why shouldn't she be? "We're together. And in love. I love her." He gives her one more sideglance. "That's what we wanted to say. It's why we put dinner together."

"And I love Scott." Lydia chimes in for good measure, completely lacking in any hesitation when it comes into squeezing Scott's hand with her own.

"We hope you're okay with it. We just...didn't really see each other until now." Lydia can't help beaming at Scott before looking at Melissa hopefully.

Still gripping Rory's hand, that's startling enough for her to blink back her upset, and stare at them both like they'd grown extra heads. Each.

"...Okay, is this a joke or something? Scott, you're in love with Allison, and Lydia...weren't you dating Jackson for a while? I thought you and Stiles were gonna...um."

She's very confused, looking back and forth at them with a gobsmacked look. Then she turns to Rory.

"Can you tell them how ridiculous they're both being, please?"

Oh yeah, this was gonna be good.

He looks just as shocked as she does, glancing between the happy young couple across the table and his own particular romantic attachment.

"Well, seeing as I'm not acquainted with any of the other people you mentioned, I'm afraid I can't be of much help."

But it sounded like a set of refugees from a soap opera. On the last episode of Days of Our Young and Restless Passions,, Scott has broken his engagement Allison to be with Lydia, whom he only recently encountered after she was hired at the Clockwork Cafe. Lydia's family has fallen on hard times and, in desperation, she has been forced to find work. Bereft, Allison plots revenge with Jackson, and she redoubles her efforts after she learns that Lydia left him--he assumes that she left him for Scott, but the truth is that her shame at being penniless after her father's business collapsed has driven her to cut all ties with her former life. The two hatch a plan to poison Lydia--and perhaps most of the town, if they aren't careful. Could there be a romance growing between them? A romance born of revenge? Meanwhile, Stiles, has returned from a year abroad with the Peace Corps and with a very different perspective on life in Citytown. And Melissa has also found new love when a mysterious and handsome stranger comes to town (introducing Rory Fletcher--a special guest appearance by Robert Fisher). Will Scott approve of her new love? Will Scott approve? Will he live long enough to approve? Find now today on...Days of Our Young and Restless Passions (cue theme music).

His smile wavers and then completely falters. It curls downward as he tries to see where his mother is coming from. Maybe this is sudden, but - that just seems mean. Mentioning Allison. Mentioning Jackson. Stiles. They cleared it with Stiles.

"Mom, don't ask him." In this case, him could be replaced by a number of expletives if Scott saw fit. "He doesn't know us. He doesn't know me. And he doesn't even know you." It's the curse talking. It's blind love and confusion and concern for his mother but mostly, right now, it's that he doesn't even recognize the woman sitting in front of him. "Allison and I broke up. You know that. It's been months. Jackson killed people and he's in London. He hasn't exactly kept in touch." And he never treated her well. "I'm ten times better for her than Jackson." He's more attentive, nicer, sweeter, more romantic, and all around better. "I'm the freaking true alpha."

This is going off the rails but thanks to the curse, Scott's just getting started.

"I know I can't know what it's like having a kid and a husband who sucks and then not dating but you can't be that lonely and sad that you'd bring home a stranger from the grocery store! You have me. You'll always have me." Just like Lydia will have him. And now she'll have Lydia. "You don't know us," he says, turning his attention to Rory. "So, please don't tell her what she wants to hear. Something tells me that's all you've been doing all day." His gaze back to his mother, now. "I thought you'd be happy for us. But, you're too busy being cursed with a hotel clerk from Wyoming."

He doesn't remember where Rory's supposed to be from. He doesn't much care anymore.

"I was dating Jackson, but he's gone. And he was, you know, kind of a homicidal lizard for a while there?" She nods in agreement firmly with everything Scott says. (And the True Alpha thing? Kiiiinda hot.)

She looks earnestly at Melissa, still holding Scott's hand. "I wasn't lying to you about what I said in the kitchen. And we're not lying about this, either. I love your son. We were idiots not realize we were perfect for each other sooner."

Her jaw drops the more Scott talks, and she completely misses what Lydia says, honestly. Her heart moves up in her throat, and she's done. And...what the hell is this about "true alpha?" She'll have to get that out of him later. When she's not so frustrated and furious and, frankly, cursed.

"You two are obviously under the influence of something. There is definitely something weird going on here, and I don't have to sit here and listen to this. I'm done."

She stands up, both hands flat on the table, her palms pressing down as if she can shove away the burning humiliation and need from this night. Even the desire she felt for Rory was subsumed in this anger she felt with her son. In the end, this would probably be something she'd thank him for profusely. But now, it just stung her pride.

"I'm not cursed. Rory's not cursed. You two? Obviously are. So until we can sort this out either way? Goodnight. Rory, honey...I'm sorry. I'll call you tomorrow morning, we'll have an evening outside of these two. I promise."

But just when everything is getting exciting! Foul! Not fair! Boo! Booooo! Kill the umpire! Boooooo! Cheat! Swindler! You probably end up with entirely too many pink fifties all of a sudden when you play Monopoly! Booooooooo!

He'd done his best to stay quiet and still, to look concerned but not too shocked, to keep out of the line of fire. Best practices, you know?

But now he slid back very slowly and carefully from the table.

"Yeah, this sounds like something that you should talk about without me here. Um. Still, it was nice to meet you, Scott, Lydia."

And he stood up. But before making a break for it (pity it had to be in the midst of such spectacular fireworks), he stood just a little too close to Melissa. No matter about the rage, she was still beautiful and he still loved her (and she was beautiful when she was angry, as the saying went).

"Call me, all right? I don't care what time."

Big, blue, pleading eyes. Please please please, call me?

And a quick peck on her cheek too (watch that add fuel to the fire, though).

He could probably just slide on into his old crow disguise and hang out nearby, hear the rest of this ordeal, keep an eye on her. Wouldn't be hard. Sure was tempting. Maybe he should.

Well, first things first: getting out. A last lingering glance...and he ducked from the room.

that is why all the girls in town follow you all around [semi-open]

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