"Okay, no one can get in touch with Derek, the Alphas have Erica and Boyd, they have all our addresses, and they have wolfsbane bullets."
The desks have been dragged in a haphazard circle, and Stiles can see Lydia glaring at Scott's especially crooked one.
"Stolen wolfsbane bullets," Allison mutters, as if that's their biggest problem.
Scott ticks off the Alpha pack's advantages on his fingers and looks up at Stiles with his eyes large and scared. "We're doomed."
"No. No," Stiles says, aiming for reassuring. Missing it, as he's chewing on the string of his hoodie as he speaks. He sits a little straighter and pushes his desk forward a few inches, putting himself in command. "It'll be fine. We just have to, you know, come up with a plan."
"Can someone explain to me again how there can be a whole pack of Alphas?" interrupts Danny.
"Can someone explain to me again why we got another person involved in this?" asks Stiles, because seriously, enough people are in danger already.
"Hey!" says Jackson. "I resent that. If Scott gets his best human friend, who for some reason is you, I get Danny."
"And now I'm seriously reconsidering that friendship," says Danny, and Jackson rolls his eyes.
"I mean it," he says.
"Fine, whatever, Jackson," says Scott. "We have a serious problem here."
"Several, actually," says Allison, with a hand on his arm. They stare longingly at each other, and Stiles looks around for a distraction. Any distraction.
"Why are we meeting in the school?" asks Isaac. Thank you, Isaac. "I mean, isn't it kind of...an obvious location?"
"Technically, though," says Stiles, "we're not supposed to be here. And they're really not supposed to be here. Both technically and...untechnically."
"Not a real word," says Lydia.
They're bickering about linguistics when Coach Finstock opens the door. "What are you guys doing here? It's seven o'clock. It's dark."
Stiles looks wildly around the room for an answer, and the first thing he sees is...Danny, who looks like he might snap and kill them all at any moment.
Danny, Danny, what can he—
"Gay-straight alliance!" he blurts, hoodie string falling out of his mouth. "It's a GSA meeting!"
Finstock's expression softens for a moment-Danny's does the opposite-and then returns to normal. "How is it a gay-straight alliance if all of you are straight except for Danny? Sorry, Danny."
There's an awkward silence as Stiles and—he assumes—everyone else tries to figure out why he's apologizing.
"Stiles is bisexual," Danny says to break it, with a smile Stiles is going to have nightmares about, and it's not just Finstock who turns to stare at him. Danny shrugs. "Ask him."
"Uh, yeah," says Stiles, going with it before he finds an even worse excuse. He flails his arms and grins wildly, says, "Yeah. Sure. Dudes. I like dudes. It's a thing. In which I like dudes?"
That's when Derek shows up in the doorway.
"Who are you?" asks the coach, momentarily distracted.
"Miguel! My cousin! Hello, cousin!" yells Stiles, attempting to communicate via eyebrows and feeling that there is a chance he is slightly hysterical.
"Hey," says Danny, significantly less so. Man, how is Danny so cool all the time? Stiles would ask for lessons, but he thinks, somehow, that that would not go over well.
"I'm just going to go to my office," says Finstock. "Don't stay too long, okay?"
"Okay!" they chorus, and Derek sits down as the door closes, shifting awkwardly at a desk that's too small for him and scooting it over to the rest of the circle.
"What'd I miss?"
"What the hell, Derek?" Lydia swats him on the arm. "What happened to your phone?"
"I take it you're not actually Stiles' cousin Miguel," Danny murmurs.
"I couldn't find the charger," Derek says. "What did I miss?"
"Everything is horrible and Stiles likes boys?" says Jackson, watching the clock.
Scott bursts out laughing. "Yeah, that was a really good one, Danny. Stiles. Bisexual. Stiles. Ha."
"Uh," says Stiles, "what the hell? I could be. Why does no one ever believe me when I pretend to come out to them?"
"Your life must be very difficult," says Danny, and Stiles is pretty sure he's being sarcastic, but hello, his life is very difficult. "You know, on Buffy they just said they were studying."
"Or an archaeology club," adds Derek.
"You watched Buffy," says Allison. "You."
"I'm the only one here who was old enough to talk when it aired," Derek grunts.
"So. Alphas," Stiles says. "Seriously, how am I the one focusing here?"
The problem is, word spreads, first through the lacrosse team and then through the rest of the school, and the "GSA" has to start having regular meetings.
And they have to invite other people.
So Stiles being bi becomes a thing that's generally acknowledged and, by everyone except Scott and the rest of the gang, believed, and Stiles is just not going anywhere near it, perfectly happy to play along as long as he doesn't have to commit to the identity crisis he can see on the horizon, because seriously, he has enough to worry about these days. Does no one get that he has a lot on his mind?
Danny certainly doesn't. Danny has always managed to be super popular and singled out for things other than his gayness, like his hot jock status, so Stiles kind of gets why he doesn't want to be designated Beacon Hills High's Official Token Gay Student Extraordinaire. He gets it, but it's really unfair that the title seems to have fallen to Stiles in his wake.
Stiles decides to make the most of it, though. "I now call this meeting to order," he says, because it sounds official, and he remembers it from being in student government with Lydia in fifth grade. Good times. For a given definition of good.
They have a discussion, in which Danny pointedly refuses to participate, about acceptance and being good allies and how these meetings will work. Stiles pretty much makes it all up as he goes, because he has absolutely no idea what he's doing.
He does have a brilliant idea by the end, though, so he says, "Also, before we leave, I have a question. How many of you find me attractive?"
The meetings go surprisingly well, actually. Stiles kind of feels like he's learning from them. They introduce themselves at the beginning, things like, "Emily, I'm gay," and, "I'm Jackson. Straight, but flattered." Even Scott occasionally chimes in during discussions, and if their attempts at talking about pack business in code usually go awry, at least they're safe at school a few extra hours a week, no one questioning when the founding members stay late to clean up and wave off everyone's offers of help.
"So, Stiles, what's on the agenda for today?" asks Danny, who has declared Stiles president, Jackson vice president, and a bewildered lesbian freshman secretary.
"I was thinking we could talk about secrets," says Stiles. "If you're in the closet, how do you hide it? How do you keep a huge part of your life, your identity, a secret from people who love you and worry about you?"
There are murmurs, and then Scott, spectacularly missing the point, says, "I think you should just tell people."
Stiles leans over to Jackson. "Dude," he mutters, "can you take Scott outside and explain to him that I'm asking for advice on how to continue to keep this werewolf pizzazz under wraps?"
"Stiles," Scott continues, and of course he heard, because super werewolf hearing powers, duh, "I really think people tend to take it better than anyone usually expects."
Stiles thinks of Mrs. McCall, and he thinks of his dad.
He should really tell his dad.
He looks at the people in the room, a small collection of the most open-minded teenagers in Beacon Hills, and hey, you know what, he knows some of them shop in the paranormal romance section.
"We're not really a GSA," he blurts, and there's silence.
Peter answers Derek's phone and just laughs really hard, and Stiles decides to blame it on his being unhinged rather than his own accidental hilarity.
"You did what?" Derek says when he finally speaks. "Stiles. What the hell."
"Here's the thing, though," Stiles says hurriedly. "They're in on it now. They know."
"Yeah, I got that part."
"No, no, you're missing the point. The point is—"
"That we're going to get driven out of town?"
"God, would you let me finish? The point is that we have allies now. Safe people. With safe places. To go. And be safe. It's not that big of a club, and we know them."
"Stiles, we can't just trust random teenagers—"
"Derek. You run around turning random teenagers into werewolves. Yes. We can."
That isn't the end of it. It's more like the beginning.
So it's pretty cool how they definitely have the most badass GSA in the state. Not the country, though. Allison was in one at one of her old schools that now had several convicted felons as members.
Things get quiet after their little army defeats the Alphas. Things get really quiet.
Quiet enough that someone, Emily the secretary, in fact, finally remembers to ask, "Hey, Stiles?"
"Yeah?"
"Are you really bi? Or was that just a cover for the whole…hiding a pack of werewolves thing?"
"Crap." There's that horizon.