disclaimer: disclaimed.
dedication: barfs.
notes: sorry but my headcanon Lydia is and always will be a necromancer so
notes2: also lesbians, but that was kind of a surprise

title: (we forge) recklessly onwards
summary: A hunter, a werewolf, and a witch walk into a bar. It's like a set-up for a really bad joke, only it's so not funny. — Erica/Allison/Lydia.

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"Congratulations," she said, looking down into a cold cup of tea two days after the world ended. "I feel like shit."

"Yeah, well," the other girl shook her head. The cigarette between her fingers smoked thinly, and she coughed, coughed. "Whatever. We did what we had to do."

"I still don't think it was necessary."

"You keep telling yourself that."

"You don't need to kill someone every time someone comes after us, Erica," Allison said.

"Yeah? And your point is?" Erica paused. Her eyes were narrow slats of gold-brown between thick dark lashes. She was a stark relief against the slick white suede couch that Lydia's mother had bought them, all blonde curls and black leather. Some things held over from previous lifetimes. Erica's leather fetish was one of them. "I keep us safe. I don't see what the problem is."

"I hate dying," Allison muttered to no one in particular. "It never gets any more comfortable."

"That's only because you don't embrace it," Lydia bared her teeth at a compact, wiping away dark red lipstick with a swipe of her finger. "Dying's easy, once you get the hang of it."

"Yeah, you know," said Allison, "I don't think it's something I'm going to get the hang of. I love you, Lyds, but we're on totally different terms with death."

Lydia waved her hand, snapped the compact shut. "Whatever. It's not like I can't bring you back."

Erica's cigarette smoked thinly, curling line of smoke obscuring her toothy grin for a moment. She ashed it against the scarred-up-sticky table, smirked when the proprietor of this shitty joint only stared at her, and then snapped her fingers to get her friends' attention.

"Are we gonna go back? Get that ransom? We did finish the job," she told them, boredly. "I need a pedicure, and that shit is expensive."

Allison looked a little queasy at the thought of the mess they'd left behind; the local authorities were going to be wondering just how, exactly, the serial killer who'd been plaguing them had splattered himself so viciously over the walls of his… um, hovel. Not that she blamed them, she would be totally bewildered, too, if she didn't know how violent Erica could get when she was pissed off. And vampires who slit their victims throats, drained their blood and then left the bodies to rot for the contingent of Wendigos that were blindly following them? Really pissed Erica off.

Ugh, gross.

"I suppose we should," Lydia sighed, stirred cream and sugar into her coffee with a twirl of a magic-sparked finger. "We could always use the money."

"Says the girl with the trust fund," Erica snickered.

"That is for emergencies," Lydia said delicately, wiping at her mouth with a napkin.

"We should probably eat something," Allison offered. "No meat, though. Those Wendigos were pretty…"

"Rank? Yeah, they were. Wuss," Erica said.

"Talk to me when you can shoot and skin a rabbit without losing the contents of your stomach everywhere, wolfgirl," Allison said coolly, and flagged down the waitress.

"Aww, Ally, c'mon, I didn't mean it like that!" Erica's laughter was just like her, darker than it should have been but just as amused, glitter-gold with a red mouth. She reached over to ruffle Allison's curls.

It wasn't long before they were batting at each other, giggling, the brightest things in this place.

Lydia watched them, lip slightly raised. "Could you two stop being children for five minutes so we can order? The waitress is here, and I think we all know how much I hate wasted time."

Erica unwound herself from Allison from a moment to consider this.

"Burger. Bloody," she said at last, before returning to hollow in Allison's throat.

"No pickles," Allison gently reminded. "You hate them, remember? And for me… Caesar salad, if there is. Hold the bacon."

The waitress snapped her bubblegum boredly, and then she was gone.

"You are such a wuss!"

"I will remember this the next time we're out in the middle of nowhere, and you can deal with finding your own food," Allison replied, but she kept her arms around Erica, kept her close.

"People are staring," Lydia said, examining her nails.

"What else is new?" Erica smirked and dropped her chin to Allison's shoulder. "Let 'em, like they'll actually do anything. Girl on girl is hot, remember?"

"Must you be so crass?" Allison asked. "And get your face out of my boobs."

"Well, yeah," Erica fluttered her eyelashes. "But Ally, they're nice boobs!"

"Not in public, you slut."

"So later in the bathroom?"

"Oh my god."

Lydia watched them for another moment, a little too tired from the resurrection to police the pair of them right at the moment (also, Lydia was not the one getting laid in this particular threesome, which made her about absolute zero interested). But a moment later:

"Food's coming," she said.

"Tell 'em to come back when Ally's boobs aren't interesting anymore," Erica replied.

"Which will be never, as far as you're concerned, so get off," Allison sighed, and shoved Erica back into her seat. "Boyfriend, remember?"

"Ooooh, so we're talking about MaCall, now? I thought that was still off-limits?"

"Dead people don't really have limits, remember?" Allison's voice went soft again.

A silence.

"We did what we had to do. He needed to think—they needed to think—"

"That doesn't make it right."

"Quit it," Lydia commanded. "We've had this argument too many times. There's nothing we could do. It's done."

"I just—Scott—"

"Hey," Erica said softly. "It's okay. I went through it, too."

"Of course it is," Lydia said with a toss of perfect strawberry curls. "It's fine. And just remember—" Here she paused, to smile delicately at the both of them, all her teeth sharp like knives, "—this is Beacon Hills. No one ever really dies."

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fin.