Heroes & Sidekicks
"Sometimes sidekicks make the best heroes."
Author's Note: Hey guys! Hope you all enjoyed the prologue to this story! Here's the actual first chapter! I'm hoping to get Chapter 2 out by Friday just so you know. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Wolf or any of its characters.
Chapter One
Royce Callahan hated feeling disoriented. She liked knowing exactly where she was and where she fit in that place at all times. Since she had arrived in Beacon Hills a week and a half ago, she had not felt as though she fit once and it had her filled with nerves that she hadn't felt for years. Standing amidst the bustling hallways of Beacon Hills High just before the first bell was not helping. Maybe it would have felt less crazed if she had joined at the beginning of the year—during the time when even kids who had lived in the town for their entire lives were deciphering where they needed to be and when. But no, she had been thrown into the sophomore class mid-semester, leaving her alone in her disorientation.
She leaned against the metal locker that had been assigned to her twenty minutes ago—the one that it had taken her the full twenty minutes to find between dodging students and trying to read her ancient map of the hallways.
She had planned to only look at the map once and quickly memorize it so that she wasn't wandering the halls like a lost tourist. The fact that the map had not been updated to accommodate for major renovations to the school from years before had not factored into her plan. She should have taken the administrator up on the offer for an escort to class.
She looked up from the map to study the hallway and at least figure out what direction she should be heading toward. While taking in the numbers printed across the doorways, a familiar face caught her eye.
It was him—the cute guy from the comic book store. And he was looking at her. She smiled at him, which seemed to make him panic. He dropped one of his hands from his backpack in surprise. He immediately realized what he did and tried to catch all of the books and papers that started spilling out when he leaned forward. She laughed, not in a mean way. She actually found his spazziness cute. Geeky can be very hot. She decided to put her own frustrations aside and help.
She shoved her map into her back pocket and crossed the hall to kneel down in front of him. He didn't notice she was there until he realized one of his piles of paper had disappeared when he was reaching to shove it back into his bag.
"Oh, um, here. I picked up your…" Royce turned her head to read what she just realized were unusual folders, "case files?"
She straightened her head to look at him and held the folders up for him to take. He looked at her skeptically with his mouth hanging open. He slowly took the folders from her hand. "Uh, yea, they're…they are for a—a research paper. Just old case files for a paper on local true crime." He tucked the folders tightly into his bag where no one else could possibly see them.
"Okay. I wasn't trying to pry. Just to help." Royce stood and brushed off her jeans, more out of a self-conscious need to do something with her hands than to actually clean her jeans. She started to back away.
"No—sorry! You did!" The boy zipped his bag and slung it over his shoulder. "Thank you. You just surprised me."
"Yea? I don't look like the type to help?"
"You're on a higher level than the girls around here who usually don't even notice me on the ground." He admitted.
She felt like it was a weird compliment. She decided to bypass it. "So you spend a lot of time on the ground?"
He laughed. "More than I'd like to admit."
She nodded with a small smile on her face. As much as she wanted to keep talking to him, she had to figure out where her class was. She moved a few steps backwards to restart her search when he spoke up.
"Can I return the favor?" he asked.
"How?"
"I was watching you—."
"Watching me?" She cut him off with the question. She raised her eyebrows at him.
"No! No, I…not watching. I noticed…you need help finding your class?"
"Am I that obvious?"
"Depends on how you define obvious."
"Clear. Evident. Prominent. Glaring. Conspicuous. Overt. Blatant. Etc."
"Yea, that about covers it—that's how lost you looked. Where's your first class?" He moved closer to her peer over her shoulder at the map that she was holding. He looked it over and promptly took it from her. "This is useless." He crumpled it up and threw it in the trashcan at the edge of the door inside one of the classrooms.
"I have chem. With Mr. Harris—room 118." She read to him from the schedule taped to the bottom of one of her notebooks.
"Nice. Me too. It's just down that hallway and around the corner—two doors down. We can walk together if you want." he offered.
Royce smiled. "Yea, that would be great." But as she answered, she saw his eyes flick away from her face and focus completely on something else.
"Great. Just give me a second," he told Royce without even looking back at her. She barely had time to react before he took off down the hallway towards a petite redhead wearing a skirt that was way too short and heels that were way too high. "Lydia!" he called to her as he skidded to a halt in front of the girl's locker. She barely acknowledged the boy, but it didn't impede his efforts to get her full attention.
Royce sighed. This was clearly going to take more than a minute. With his directions, she figured she could find her way to class. She wasn't here to flirt with boys anyway. She looked back at him one last time and then followed his directions to chemistry.
She found the classroom with relative ease and took a seat towards the back. She took out a notebook and the textbook that she had received from the front office and started flipping through.
The bell rang. Royce noticed the boy hadn't made it to the classroom yet. Mr. Harris started his lesson. She could tell off the bat that he was kind of a prick. Her point was proven a minute later when the boy stumbled into the classroom and tried to quietly take a seat.
"Mr. Stilinski, did you have something better to do than to show up on time to my class this morning?"
"I usually do," the boy joked, but Harris didn't appreciate it. "Sorry," he added when he realized that it didn't land. He cringed like he knew what was coming next.
"Feel free to take another seat Mr. Stilinski. You already have one in this afternoon's detention."
"Oh, come on!" the boy protested.
"Would you like one in tomorrow's as well?"
The boy seemed to know that any answer he gave would just do more harm. He quietly slumped into his seat and let his head fall to the table that he sat behind. Royce felt bad for the guy, but he brought it on himself when he went after the redhead.
Royce made it through the rest of the school day without attracting too much attention to herself. She found her classes with the help of other teachers. She sat quietly in class and at lunch as to observe her new surroundings. She avoided delving questions about her past through chitchat with other students. And she saw the cute comic book boy in several of her classes, though she didn't talk to him again.
By the time the end of the school day rolled around, Royce felt good about getting caught up in all of her classes except one. Harris was the only teacher unwilling to offer her any help. As soon as the last bell rang, she stopped at her locker to sort through her books and then made a beeline for Harris's classroom.
She got to the room, gave a brief knock of warning, and opened the door. As soon as she stepped inside, she could tell that she had interrupted something. Harris was looming over the comic book boy, most likely yelling at him about something. She stopped in the doorway, feeling awkward from the glare that Harris shot at her.
"What do you want?" he snapped.
She narrowed her eyes. Why was he such a dick? "Hi, I was hoping you could point me in the right direction of some make-up work so that I don't stay behind in your class for too long. I just started here today."
Harris shot the boy a look that clearly signaled that they weren't finished and approached Royce. "Why is it that you are the one stupid enough to start at a school in the middle of a semester and I end up the one having to suffer for it?" he griped. He walked towards his desk and rummaged through the drawers.
Royce followed. "It was my evil plan actually. To get uprooted from everything I know and sent here just so I can punish you," she said in a voice that was intentionally too sweet. The boy laughed. Her teacher did not.
Harris stopped to shoot her a jaw-clenched glare that was meant to intimidate, but she just smiled back.
"Well, let me return the favor." He slammed the drawer shut with one hand and carrying a notebook with the other. He walked to the back of the room and she assumed she was supposed to follow. "That notebook has the date and name of every assignment from this semester. This," he said, pointing to a giant recycle bin, "is where the extra sheets of every assignment has been thrown for it to be recycled at the end of the year. You are to sort through this bin to find every assignment listed in this lesson plan to date." He handed her the leather bound notebook. "You will complete each assignment and turn them in by the order they were given. Earliest first until you're caught up." Harris smirked when he finished speaking.
She looked back and forth between the notebook and the recycle bin. "Ya know, you could save us both a lot of trouble—you grading, me doing work—and just give me an A for the semester." Royce smiled brightly, assuming her good mood would piss him off more than anger would. She was right. The smirk dropped from his face.
"No."
She shrugged. "Fair enough." She looked into the bin and started pushing the papers around. "Thanks so much Mr. Harris. This is very green of you."
Harris turned back towards his desk and she dropped the act. She could feel the boy watching as her shoulders and head slumped heavily.
"Mr. Harris, I think my punishment could be well spent helping her find and go over the assignments," He offered.
Harris paused in consideration. Finally, he flicked his hand in a gesture that said 'very well' and the boy joined Royce at the back of the room.
Royce smiled at him and mouthed 'thank you'. He nodded back with a grin.
Harris got up from his desk, gathering his things. "When the two of you have collected the assignments and cleaned any papers from the floor, you may leave. I have better things to do," he said and walked swiftly out of the room.
Royce sat back in disbelief. "Ya know I can see why he became a teacher—it's clear how much he loves the work and his students."
"Yup, you hit the nail on the head with that one."
They both looked up from the papers at the same time to catch each other in a smile.
"You really don't have to stay. I can do this myself," Royce offered.
"That wouldn't be very gentlemanly of me."
"So you're a gentleman?"
"Sometimes," he held out his hand for her, "I'm Stiles, by the way."
Royce raised her eyebrows and stared at his out-stretched hand. Finally, she nodded and slipped her hand into his. It was warm and larger than she expected. An inexplicable tingle shot up her spine as soon as they touched. "Royce," she replied. They shook hands gently as they officially met.
"Pretty."
"Thanks. I didn't exactly choose it though."
"Maybe not, but it suits you."
Royce laughed. "Wow, so smooth. When did that happen? Last time we talked you were practically throwing your books on the floor."
"I've grown a lot since this morning."
"Clearly." Royce said. She looked down to where her hand was still tucked in his. "Unfortunately, I'm probably going to need this back," she said in reference to her hand.
"Right." He released his grip. He immediately looked down at the papers spread between them, avoiding her eye contact.
"Thank you for helping," Royce offered quietly after several minutes of silence.
He finally looked back up at her. "No problem."
"So, what can you tell me about this place? Any dirty little town secrets?"
"More than you'd believe, I'm sure."
"Well, come on. We've got time. Fill me in."
For the next hour and a half, Stiles regaled Royce with various stories and details of the town. He made sure to avoid all things werewolves and supernatural. It was surprisingly harder than he expected it to be. She enjoyed talking to him so much that she barely noticed the work that they were doing and the fact that they were almost done. Stiles couldn't believe how easy she was to talk to and how comfortable he felt.
"Okay, there's no way that's true. You're just trying to put one over on the new kid."
"I swear to you, I'm not. Look it up."
"Does that happen a lot here? A mountain lion attack? Or was that the first time?"
"First I've seen. The thing almost ate my dad."
"Oh, jeez! Is he okay?
"Yea, he's okay. More scarred by his recent run-in with a teenage murderer."
"What? What kind of town did I move to?"
"You should have done your research before coming here!" He said in a sing song rhythm.
"Clearly. I should have known something was up when we were trying to get my transfer papers in order and there were issues because the principal was missing."
Stiles took a long pause like he was trying to come up with something to say. "I heard he was sick—like really bad and suddenly."
"That's awful."
"Eh, he was kind of a dick," he blurted out like he forgot she was listening.
"Wow, speaking ill of the terminally ill. You are way darker than I anticipated."
"This town has a way of warping people." Stiles seemed to get lost in his thoughts. "Anyway, let's talk about you."
"I don't think I'm nearly as interesting as all that seems to go on here."
"I'll bet that's not true."
"Okay, what do you want to know?"
Stiles smiled. Before he could ask her any questions, the door to the room creaked open. A head popped through the crack in the door. Royce recognized him as the boy Stiles was with at the comic book store. He quickly looked around the room until he saw them alone on the floor.
"Stiles! What are you doing?" the guy asked.
Royce could see Stiles silently signaling for his friend to go away, but the kid wasn't getting the picture. "What?" Stiles finally hissed when the kid didn't get the hint.
"Dude, I need you! Come on!"
"I'm in the middle of something." Stiles responded, nodding at Royce.
She decided to speak up. "Hi, Royce Callahan."
"Scott McCall, nice to meet you."
"Same" She gave him a little wave.
"Sorry, but Stiles and I have something important to do." Scott told her. Stiles shrugged like he had no idea what that important something could be. "With Derek." Scott added.
"I'm doing something important now!" Stiles explained to Scott. "And I told her I'd help. So Scott, I'll meet you when I'm done."
Scott stood in the doorway, unwilling to take that as the final answer. Royce watched the two of them, highly amused.
"Stiles, I'm good. You can go," Royce offered. Stiles hesitated, but he didn't have much of a choice. "I swear. I'm almost done. Thanks so much."
Stiles nodded and walked over to Scott. He looked back at Royce when he got to the door. "You should sit with us at lunch tomorrow," he suggested.
"I'd love to." She smiled.
"Great," he said and with a cute little wave he left the room.
Royce kept smiling as she finished her assignment. She smiled through cleaning up the room and through packing up her things. She smiled as she walked her way through the school and the streets and the path through the woods. She kept smiling all the way home until she stood outside the beat up building and the last remnants of her afternoon with Stiles dissipated.
Royce straightened up and clenched her jaw before making her way inside. By her third step through the door, she felt someone watching her from the top of a shadowy stairwell. Royce froze.
"How are things progressing?" The figure asked. The voice was low and authoritative.
"Slow, but successful. I've identified the beta as instructed." Royce reported.
"And?"
"And I believe you were correct—he's the key to infiltrating the pack. He's our best chance at getting to the Alpha."