Disclaimer: Not mine, if you recognize anything, it's probably not mine. Anything you don't is.

A/N: So I wrote this ages ago, and I was procrastinating on studying and took a few minutes to re-read/ and edit a bit. It's probably filled with loads of mistakes and stuff but I thought I'd share because I haven't put anything up in a while and I didn't realize how addicting it can be. So. yeah. :P R&R kids, if you like it! It's a bit different than the other one but...I suppose that's to be expected with different stories. :P

-S

Miss Imprint

by Savinasi

Chapter 1: RISD

"Seth! If you don't get down here in the next minute, I swear to God I'm leaving without you!" I hollered up the well-worn staircase, its dusty steps marred with age. Like all the rest of the Quileute properties. I heard a thump upstairs and a load groan and finally, my best friend appeared in all his disheveled, slumping glory. At least he was wearing the button down and tie I picked out for him yesterday.

He squinted down at me through lightly rimmed glasses, and scratched his head benignly.

"What?"

I could kill him. I could literally kill him. I'd told him about the college fair at school every day for the last two weeks, it was our one chance to get noticed and our one shot out of here. The Rhode Island School of Design was sending two representatives, to our school in a last ditch effort to "fully enrich they're artistic arsenal with unparalleled diversity." I had been drawing since I could walk, and sketched my first starry night at age eight, I was talented and perhaps that seems arrogant but it's true. Which meant that today was the most crucial, the most incredible vital day of my life, but naturally, my completely moronic counterpart couldn't seem to remember that.

"You're incorrigible. And if you don't get into my car in ten seconds, I swear I'm leaving you here, and I won't even think tw-" A large hand clamped over my mouth as Seth strolled by me.

"It's way too early for talking. I think I'm going to grab some breakfast. What're you making?" He tossed a lazy grin back at me before striding into the kitchen with some semblance of purpose and I saw red.

"That's it. I'm done. You can stay here and rot for all I care. I will see you on Monday." I stormed passed him, fuming, when all of a sudden I was airborne and all I could see was his bright red boxers sticking out of a pair of tired jeans.

"Calm down, I was just kidding. Let's go meet with this rep from Ritzy."

"It's RISD, R-I-S-"

"Oh my god, if you spell that damn word for me one more time, I'm going to throw you into the street."

"It's an acronym, and I was just trying to better your intell-"

I felt the air rush passed me he began to heave me off his shoulder and I quieted down immediately. While I had a feeling he'd never actually throw me onto the street, I didn't really want to push my luck. Besides, the brand new pumps I had on went perfectly with the pencil skirt, gorgeous teal dress shirt and embossed belt that I'd put together last night, I'd hate to scuff them.

Five minutes later, we were on our way to school and I looked over at him, slumped over in his seat, eyes barely open and felt a bit sorry for my haste this morning. Perhaps I should have let him get something to eat.

I pulled into the rez's only coffee shop, "Cup o Bro's", whose title was a miserable attempt at intertwining the owner's Irish heritage and our own Quileute sense of kinship. At least they served a killer espresso.

"Seth?" I gently shook the closest shoulder too me and then ducked as his arm swiped out and patted my head.

"Shhh, I'm sleeping."

"Seth, I thought we could grab some coffee before the fair."

"What?" He blinked at me drowsily, eyes half-lidded and for a second the rising dawn lit up his face and his deep brown irises twinkled and my breath caught. And then it was shoved under the irrepressible cloud cover of Washington and they were their usual muddy brown.

"Well, you're so tired, and I guess the least I could do for you coming with me, is caffeinate you." I shot a smile at him, expecting his usual sloppy grin. But instead his brows furrowed in confusion.

"I thought we were in a rush."

Ah. Damn, I was hoping he wouldn't connect the dots. This would be …well rather unfortunate. It was too late to backtrack now.

"I might have woken you up a bit earlier than perhaps completely necessary but it was simply because I know your careless, irresponsible sleeping habits and I just wanted to make sure we were there on time."

I could have sworn I heard him growl at me. Uh oh.

"Cassie."

"Yeah?" It wavered a bit at the end, I'm not ashamed to admit.

"What time is it?"

"Oh you know…eight-ish."

"Cassie." Well, I'll be damned if my knees weren't shaking at this point. I checked my exits, if I was really surreptitious, I could unbuckle and walk.

"So maybe it's seven…ish;" walking was looking like a fantastic option.

"Cassie."

"Okay, okay, it's 6:38 but really I just wanted to be on time. And you know you'll thank me when Brown see's how punctual and sharply dressed you are. May I just say that tie really brings out your-."

"Cassie! The fair is at 10:30."

"Well, yes."

"You woke me up four hours early, to drive for five minutes in a town with one traffic light and therefore no chance of not completing said commute in five minutes."

"Well when you put it like that-" Yikes, and it had seemed like such a good idea last night…

"Cassie?"

"Mmm?"

"Run." And that was all the persuasion I needed, I was out of my seat like a shot, and I could hear his long legs easily catching up to me.

And there I was again, airborne, staring at those damn fluorescent boxers with the cherries all over them.

"Seth?"

"Yeah?" He sounded way to cheerful and alert. I knew his lethargy was a ruse.

"Put me down."

"No." The boy had the nerve to start whistling.

"Please?"

"No can do. We're going on a little trip." He gave me a little jostle. "Perk up, I promise it'll be fun."

"Seth, I will bite you."

"Go right ahead." He even paused slightly to tilt his tush towards me and I gave out a shriek of frustration.

"Seth?"

"Yeah?"

"Where are we going?"

"Why, alarm clock, we are going to take a nice little walk in the woods." Oh no, no, no, no he knew how much hated those blasted woods. They were so impenetrable and all the other synonyms for impenetrable that I couldn't think of because out of my peripheral vision I could see the edge of the forest getting closer. My stomach was in my throat and not because I was upside down but because we were literally ten yards away, and getting closer by the second.

"Well, maybe we could go to the beach instead, you could work on your tan." I tried to keep the tone of my voice light. Keep it casual; fear not an appropriate response to taking a walk in the woods that you grew up around.

"I'd rather go to woods so you can work on your paste." I felt him jostle me again.

"Seth, I'm not so sure I can do this." Honesty was the best policy. My mother told me that right before she told me that she cheated on my father and was leaving us. Perhaps I ought to rethink my influences.

"Sure you can, what's going to happen to you when I'm around." The floor beneath us suddenly turned a shade darker, moist with the morning dew that dripped from the canopy above us. It was dank and I could hear his boots squelching in the mud as we moved further into the forest.

"We could get robbed, we could get kidnapped, oh wait that's already happening to me." I knocked my head into his back.

"Hey, don't mess with the vehicle. You should be grateful I'm carrying you and not making you walk in those stilts."

"I'll have you know these stilettos are Calvin Klein and have more class than you ever will, you big brute."

"Really? Well I guess the big brute is tired and you're going to have to walk back yourself."

"Oh I didn't really mean, brute just …brute-ish, I mean when you say it quickly it even sounds like brood which really is so in right now-"

"I'm letting go..."

"Right."

And then all of a sudden, it was really still, and Seth stopped walking, and I felt him lower me to the ground carefully.

"What's-" A hand was clamped over my mouth again.

"Shh, I think I hear something." Oh I knew it, I knew these damn pine trees were hiding something; it was bad enough my bed room window faced a wall of them, but now I was stranded in the middle of nowhere and there was a murderer out there waiting to get us.

Then I heard it. It was soft, if you didn't listen well, you'd never have heard it at all. It was a dull thudding, like leather pads beating the mossy forest floor, and breaths, soft breaths. I could almost hear a rhythm to it, and the way the wind was rushing through the trees, brushing against the wood, it was almost a symphony, almost-

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" I think my heart, quite literally jumped outside of my chest, no really; I think I see it running away from me across the clearing. Something jumped on me, something jumped on me, I don't know what to do but something definitely jumped on me, I was going to die.

I whipped around only to find Seth bent in half, peals of laughter rocking out of him. He had thrown a handful of leaves at my head. Leaves, and mud and who knows what else and he was laughing. That's it; they would be finding pieces of him over these woods for years. It would be the sad tale of how a gangly little Quileute got lost in the woods and torn to pieces for tormenting his best friend.

"Your face-oh my god, the look on your face, 'ohh the leaves are going to kill me', priceless." He was still hitching, and he lifted a delicate finger to brush away a phantom tear.

"I hate you." I ground out, but his laughter had always been infectious and slowly I started to smirk and soon we were both giggling. He smiled ruefully down at me and I nudged his shoulder with my own.

"Come on, squirt, let's go meet the ritzy people." And before I could open my mouth to correct him, he shot me a devilish wink and I think my heart did a little reenactment of before. He bent over carefully and tugged me onto his back before racing back to the car.

We made it to school in time, coffees in hand and the day went fairly smoothly, the only hiccup when the RISD rep leaned over and asked me if I had a leaf wedged into my hair and I just laughed, winking at him, and asked if he said that to all the girls he was going to accept.

I looked over my shoulder, across the ancient hall at Seth who was easily charming the Brown representative. She turned away for a moment and he caught my eye, shooting me a wink and I felt a warm tendril of affection run through my system and I smiled back softly. And then he returned to his conversation and I to mine, but something was different. I wasn't sure what yet. But there was a vibrancy to us that I hadn't felt before and as I looked back at him again, and the lights bounced off his rich black hair, and glossed over his lanky form, I felt that warmth rushing through me again.

Something was definitely different.

TBC