ladynorbert | "I'm sorry, I...I was only going to...I didn't know you turned..."

Title: Daydream Believer
Author:

ladynorbert
Fandom: Brutality (Original)
Prompt: 30-A, #12 Fantasy
Character/Pairing: Sarah Masterson, Chris Tyler
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1,147
Summary: Just this once, Sarah lets herself dream. (Set in the future, after the sergeants have become werewolves.)
Author's Notes/Disclaimer: This muse is awake and won't shut up, for the first time in months. I must make profound apologies to

clez, Chris's owner, because I am about to take a really, really HUGE liberty with him. Since it's still quite up in the air which way this will go in the game ~~no matter what the shippers say~~, I decided to handle it in the way you see here. For those of you who don't play the game, Brutality is predominantly a werewolf RPG; Chris and Sarah are definitely going to become werewolves later in the game, but it's not definite that they're going to become, to use the wolfy vernacular, mates.
This is actually a continuation from an unfinished RP we have lying around on our computers; Sarah has just had a sparring session and chat with Cole, the Alpha wolf (also played by Clez), who has encouraged her to talk to Chris about what she's been keeping from him. The RP file stops where she knocks on his door. This is one way things might go when he lets her in. Nate Wilder and Marion Barnes, who appear by mention, belong to Clez and

nentikobe, respectively.

Steady, girl, Sarah told herself. She was speaking both to her human nature and to the white wolf who paced in her mind. 'Diana,' as she'd nicknamed her lupine counterpart, was more or less convinced that her human side was a complete idiot. Both aspects knew perfectly well that this had to happen sooner or later, and it might as well happen sooner. After all, if it turned out to be completely one-sided (the wolf snorted at that idea), she had a long, long time to get over it and move on.

It was a long, deliberately slow walk from the sparring room up to the level where the sergeants were quartered during their visits to the Hyperion. Not being full-fledged pack members, they still maintained their own apartments and jobs and lives outside the hotel; but, having been taken in by the gracious wolves in their hour of need, they also maintained rooms in the building where they could stay at any time. During the three nights of the full moon each month, they were quartered in holding cells in the basement, and would be every month until they gained the ability to master their transformations, and were no longer a danger to anyone. But at any other time, they were welcome to lodge in the comfortable rooms they had been assigned when first they were brought in after the attack which turned them.

The rooms were, of course, side by side, and it was no very unusual thing to find one of the sergeants in the room belonging to the other. The first few days of their initial stay at the hotel, both had been unconscious, but Sarah was told later that there had been some serious lobbying to put them in the same room. Marion Barnes was a lawyer and a friend of hers; to the redhead's total shock, she was also legal counsel to this particular wolf pack. Knowing Sarah and her partner as she did, Marion had advised Cole not to separate them. Dr. Wilder, who frequently treated one or the other for work-related injuries at St. Benedict's hospital, had also turned out to be a medical advisor to the wolves, and had seconded Marion's opinion. They both said the same thing -- the sergeants did not do very well when kept apart.

It was true, as the pack leaders discovered when the patients finally awoke. Chris was almost angry; Sarah, frightened. Neither one would calm down until they had some sort of proof that the other was alive. Once well enough to be reunited, they relaxed further, although Chris had developed a very interesting new habit. It gradually wore off as he became used to the pack, but until he did, none of the other wolves -- particularly the males -- could approach Sarah without a growl emitting from the throat of her tall partner. When they transformed, it was again different. During the full moon, when the change was uncontrollable, they spent most of their strength and energy trying to break through the padded walls which divided them. When they changed voluntarily, and were in each other's presence, they were extraordinarily calm and content; Chris often slept with his head draped over Sarah's back, protective. Warm.

And things had changed between them. Hadn't they? She certainly thought so; but then, maybe nothing had. Maybe the whole thing had just been a matter of postponing the inevitable. That was the way Marion and some of her other friends treated it -- sooner or later they were going to end up in this position, and they would have to make the decision that would affect their relationship forever. The potential repercussions left Sarah almost paralyzed with fear. She was on the right floor now, but she wasn't sure she could make the final bit of the walk. She closed her eyes, breathing and trying to collect her thoughts...and just this once, she let herself get swallowed by the fantasy.

Chris opened the door. "I got your note about going to spar," he said. "Have fun?"

"Yeah. Cole was actually happy I came down; I guess most of the others won't spar with him because he's the Alpha." She moved into his room and, still agitated, started to cross it; his room had a balcony, hers didn't. She could feel him watching her.

"Something on your mind?"

"Well...yes. I, uh...I need to...talk to you." She slid back the glass door and stepped out into the cool night air, feeling her skin prickle pleasantly in the breeze. He followed, quiet. "I talked to Cole, and he said I should talk to you, so...here I am."

She knew he was unsettled by her seriousness; Sarah was normally playful, unless it was terribly inappropriate for her to be so. "Is something wrong?"

"Not exactly, just...I have something to tell you." She wasn't looking at him, keeping her gaze on the sky. "I...I think...you know how, um, they kind of told us that sooner or later, we'd...most likely pick mates? I think I...know...who I want mine to be."

There was a pause, and then he simply said, "Oh." No pressuring for the identity; no questions at all. That surprised her.

"I wasn't sure I was ready to admit it," she went on, "because I'm not sure how he feels. But it's just too big a secret to keep any longer."

"Well," he said after another pause, "if he's smart, he'll feel the same way."

If you only knew. "Thanks for that, Shep," she said instead. He had moved to stand beside her at the railing, and impulsively, wanting to reassure him (in case he needed reassuring), she turned and tilted her head upward to kiss his cheek. Only he'd turned at pretty much the same instant, probably to say something encouraging, and instead of either of them achieving their intended goals, they found themselves in a very new position.

She pulled back at once, blue fear flooding her green eyes. "I'm sorry, I...I was only going to...I didn't know you turned..." He was staring at her in a way that made her tremble; she couldn't read his expression at all. But then his hands were moving up to settle on either side of her face, and the distance between them was closing rapidly.

"Sarah?"

She gave a violent start, and looked around. "Oh...there you are." She tried to smile at Chris, who was standing in the doorway looking at her in some perplexity.

"How long have you been standing out here?" he teased. "Waiting for an engraved invitation?"

"What? Oh -- no. My mind was just...wandering."