The next time Derek appears in Stiles' room, it is slightly more expected. Scott has been acting like a lovesick puppy, staring at Allison whenever she is in the same room. And in her direction when she wasn't, which is really kind of creepy because in the middle of Chemistry Scott's head swings unerringly from looking in the direction of the math classroom to look the direction of the Econ room, and out of class he keeps looking like the only thing stopping him from running after Allison and puppy dog-eying her into taking him back is the fact that she has a mini crossbow in her backpack and keeps fingering it thoughtfully. So it's really actually pretty inevitable that Derek, as Scott's self-appointed-but-not-acknowledged-by-Scott-alpha, is going to show up to talk about the problem since Scott can't concentrate on anything beside getting back with Allison. Which includes concentrating on learning control without Allison as an anchor, and the next full moon is only a week away.

Stiles turns from mending his lacrosse stick at the sound of tapping from the window. He unlocks it and smiles proudly at Derek. "I shut my window. And locked it."

Derek just glowers at him. "Stiles, I could undo that lock without even having to break it. I told you to get new locks."
He crosses the room and glances around for a second before he sits on the bed resignedly. "And maybe some chairs."

"You're one to talk, Mr.-I-live-in-a-burned-out-building. And I have a chair." Stiles spins around in his desk chair to prove his point. "So you're here to talk about the Scallison problem, I assume."

"Yes. And stop calling it that."

"Why? I like it."

Derek just glowers at him some more and Stiles looks wholly unaffected. "So what are we going to do about it? I mean, Scott's a wreck. His grades are dropping to seriously dangerous levels and he has virtually no control over the shift. His eyes flashed in practice today when Danny friendly-punched him in the shoulder and he likes Danny. Everyone likes Danny. And it's just going to get worse with the full moon –"

"I know." Derek looks as dour as ever, but Stiles thinks he can detect a note of concern in his voice. "Any chance you can talk to the Argent girl about it? Get her to give him something definitive or even take him back?" He scrubs a hand over his face. "I can't believe I'm even saying that. She's an Argent, and there's no guarantee her influence will even still help in the long run."

"Not all Argents are evil." Stiles pauses, like he wants to say something else, then shakes his head and goes back to working on his lacrosse stick.

Derek gets off the bed and starts pacing. "He's not going to be able to control the shift at all during the full moon. I have a place he can stay during it, but he needs to learn control – find an anchor that's not a girl."

With an arrested expression, Stiles glances up, "What if his anchor is something along those lines, but less specific?"

"You mean, love in general instead of just for Allison?"

"Yeah, like focusing on his love for his mom or whatever."

Derek looks thoughtful. Which is to say, his face goes from looking like he's about to commit some violent act against Stiles' person to looking faintly constipated.

Stiles is paying a loose piece of netting on his stick elaborate attention as he asks, "So, what's your anchor?"

"Anger," Derek replies briefly, losing the constipated look and going back to 'I have about a millisecond's worth of patience left before I rip out your throat and/or heart so drop the subject now' face.

Stiles looks at him. "That cannot be healthy. Every psychiatrist I've ever seen is always saying to let go of your anger and crap and you're using it to keep you grounded which is all kinds of wrong."

Yeah, Stiles was never very good at following non-verbal cues.

Derek doesn't slam him into another wall, but he looks like he desperately wants to. "Stiles. We are not here so you can play junior psychiatrist" – even though a part of him wonders why exactly Stiles has been to see so many psychiatrists – "so can you just focus on the problem."

Stiles nods and sets aside his stick and leans forward in his seat, and becomes very intent. "It's a week 'til the full moon. Scott needs to not be around people, which includes me." He spares a quick grimace for his human-ness. "Thank God, the full moon is a Friday night, so he doesn't have school the next day. If I can keep him relatively grounded all that day, can you pick him up from school and take him to your super secret hideout for the night?"

Derek nods, moving back to his former position on the bed.

"Good. Then I'll come check on him the next morning and take him back to my house and see if I can talk him into regular training, non-the-full-moon-is-upon-us sessions and oh my gosh I am starting to sound like a mom with a difficult middle-schooler."

"At least you got the female part right."

"Dude, I am so not the girl here, it's definitely – hey, you just made a joke! This is awesome, man! You pretty much have the best deadpan face ever. Which is great because when you have that face that looks like you've decided I'd be a great appetizer I can be at least 80 – 10 – a good 30% sure you're joking."

Derek ignores Stiles' outburst entirely apart from an initial annoyed huff. When the human has finally wound down, he says, "Friday afternoon. 3:30. Don't let him be late."

He moves toward the window.

"Woah, hey!" Stiles springs up, blocking the way. His lacrosse stick is a flimsy barrier at best, his body weaker still, and Derek could rip them both apart in the time it would take to draw a breath, but he pauses, eyebrows raised. "What?"

Stiles looks abruptly nervous. "I just thought – I mean, Scott and I tend to get a lot of detentions – not on purpose!" he adds hastily, like Derek thinks he and Scott might possibly like sitting around for an hour after school, "just because we're trouble magnets, I guess, and plus also Harris really hates me because of my dad and the arson investigation and anyway my point is maybe you should give me your phone number in case I need to update you on any developments."

Derek huffs again (which is actually kind of funny because he really does sound like an actual annoyed wolf), but he pulls out a phone and shoves it at Stiles. Who fumbles and almost drops it before quickly punching in his number and then calling his own cell. He turns away slightly as he saves the number, but Derek can see him saving it under "Sourwolf". He thinks about slamming Stiles into another wall but he's tired and he really doubts it would do any good, so in the end he just says, "Good night, Stiles. If I find out you are staying up all night and overdosing on Adderall again – and I will know – I will rip off your arms and feed them to you."

Then he swings himself out the window and drops lightly to the ground.

Behind him, Stiles calls, "Finally got tired of the throat thing, huh? And you can't tell me what to do; you're not my alpha."