I awoke to the customary chirping of birds just outside my window...which was open. I never left my window open while I slept. With all of the werewolf stuff going on, there was no way that I could do it without feeling paranoid, so I stopped sleeping with it agape. Why was it open, then? I quickly hopped out of bed to get my baseball bat that I always grabbed when I felt like I was in danger. As my eyes adjusted to the light, I saw a figure sitting in my chair. Before I could become violent, I realized that it was Derek.

"Derek! What are you doing here?" I asked, appalled that he sneaked in through my bedroom window while I was asleep.

"I need to talk to you," he answered as if he had done nothing wrong.

"And sneaking in through my window was the only way?" I asked in disbelief.

"It's important. I need you to help me and Issac chain up Erica and Boyd. They're getting better at controlling themselves during a full moon, but they're still too dangerous not to have at least some light chain cladding."

"Okay," I agreed, yawning and stretching. "So, what time are we gonna start," I asked as I turned my back to him to see what time was displayed on my alarm clock.

When I turned back around to hear his answer, he was gone. Derek was always disappearing. It just added to the large amount of mysteriousness that he already exuded.

It was 11:15 A.M. and a Saturday. I needed to pay a visit to the shopping mall to buy a gift to give to Allison on Sunday night. To my surprise, my mom was gone with the car. She was probably at the grocery store. She sometimes ran errands instead of coming straight home from work. I sent Stiles a text message asking if he was awake yet. Stiles slept late on Saturdays sometimes.

A few minutes later, my phone was vibrating; it was Stiles calling.

"Hey, dude," he said immediately after I answered, before I could even say "hello".

"Uh, hey. I said, flustered by his quick response this early in the morning. It took me a lot longer to "wake up" in the morning than Stiles. I wasn't surprised, though. Sometimes, it seemed like Stiles had sugar and caffeine flowing through his veins instead of blood. "Can you take me to the mall? My mom has the car."

"Sure, buddy. Just freshen up; I can smell your wolf-y morning breath through the phone," he said before hanging up. Stiles could probably tell I had just woken up because of how slow I was talking. I smiled at my friend's keen observation of me and headed for my bathroom.

As I was looking in the mirror after taking a shower, I started to experiment with my damp hair. Maybe I could have a new, nice hairstyle for Sunday night. Not long after I'd started, I rolled my eyes at myself and decided that my hair was fine the way it always was. I knew that Allison would never want me to change. She had told me herself that she loved me just the way I was.

I quickly got dressed and browsed the internet for a while as I waited for Stiles to get to my house. I was looking up things to make the night after the bonfire romantic. I could take her to dinner, but that was too typical. I needed to do something for her that was as spectacular as she was. That was when it appeared to me: a picnic. I knew that Allison loved cutesy things like that. We could have a picnic at the forest preserve on Sunday night. The fact that it was gonna be the nighttime would make it all the more romantic, I thought. I hadn't thought about the fact that, even though we'd be at the bonfire together, we wouldn't be together. We were still having to pretend like we weren't madly in love in order to keep Allison's family from bisecting me. It made me feel a little down. I was so tired of pretending. I wanted things to be back to the way they used to be, when me and Allison could kiss and cuddle in public without a care or worry in the world. I was getting tired of only being able to see her in one place (the forest preserve) and during one time (the nighttime). It was truly wearing on me.

I snapped out of my state of deep thought after I heard the sound of Stiles' distinctive car horn. I quickly grabbed my wallet and phone and headed out the door.

After I got into the car, I was silent. Stiles still hadn't pulled off, so I turned my head to look at him. He was looking at me with analytical eyes.

"Hmm. What's wrong with you?" he asked, seemingly certain that I had something on my mind.

"It's nothing: just Allison stuff. You know."

"Well, you couldn't shut up about her yesterday, so what the heck could be wrong now?" he asked as he pulled off from in front of my house.

"It's just...Stiles, I'm tired of hiding all the time."

"Oh my god. Are you coming out to me? Is it Danny? You and Danny have a thing going on don't you? Oh my god; I knew it!"

"Stiles, no," I responded, not amused.

"Sorry." Stiles tried to get serious, which he was terrible at. The only time I ever saw him become serious was when there was imminent danger or when has was talking about his mom, which he hardly ever did.

"What's this about hiding?" he asked.

"You know, how me and Allison can't go public anymore."

"In all honesty, Scott, PDA isn't really welcome by much of anyone, especially me, so I don't see the big deal about only being able to make out in the privacy of your own homes...or, uh, cars, in you guys' case."

"This isn't about making out. I'm talking about the little things, like holding her hand or pushing her hair back from her face." I smiled a little as I remember how sweet it felt to do those things. "As a matter of fact, you can even forget all of that stuff too. How about the fact that I can't even talk to her when we're in public? Do you know how it feels not to be able to talk to the person you love?"

"Well, actually, I kind of do."

"Stiles, Lydia doesn't count; she just ignores you."

"Thanks for reminding me, asshole."

"Sorry. I'm just in a tough spot right now."

Stiles shot me a caring smile before he zipped into the parking space that was nearest to mall's entrance.

"Hey, I never asked; why are we here, exactly?" he questioned.

"Oh. I need to buy something for-"

"For Allison," he finished for me.

I blushed a little when I realized that I talked to him about Allison more than anything else, and now I was dragging him to the shopping mall to buy something for none other than that very girl. I knew that couldn't feel good for Stiles. He said he understood that she was my girlfriend and that she was naturally a priority of mine, but I didn't like it. I didn't like the fact that I felt like I was neglecting him. Even if it didn't bother him, it bothered me.

We got out of the car and walked toward the entrance. I took quick steps to get ahead of Stiles. He looked at me with a raised eyebrow as I passed him up. He realized why I'd walked ahead of him when he saw me holding the door open for him. I smiled innocently as he walked through the door. It was only several seconds later that I realized it was a mistake. I called myself trying to be friendly to Stiles to show him that Allison wasn't the only one who mattered to me, but instead it came off as a plain oddity. Holding the door open for someone wasn't friendly; it was polite.

"Which store do you wanna go to first?" asked Stiles.

"Let's go to the department store around the corner from the fountain."

Stiles nodded, and we casually walked through the mall toward our destination. The mall was a fairly large size. It was anchored by four department stores and had two levels. It was fairly crowded that day. Considering that it was a Saturday, that came as no big surprise. We saw and waved to a few friends that we recognized from school. We walked through the large, rectangular opening that served as an entrance to the department store, bordered on each side by theft-prevention sensors. The area where you first entered was the bedding department.

"So, Scott, what ya gonna get her?"

"I don't know. I'm not good at these sorts of things. There's bound to be something good in here, though."

We passed many items that Allison would enjoy owning as we searched the store for a proper gift, but, for some reason, none of them seemed like they would be sufficient. I started to feel ill. Why couldn't I find her a good gift? These all seemed like nice things, but just not nice enough. Why? I needed to go home. I wasn't in my right mind. Stiles must have seen it on my face because he was starting to appear concerned.

"Scott, are you okay?"

"Yeah. I'm fine. Let's just get out of here."

Stiles didn't complain about wasting his time driving me here, probably because he didn't wanna make me feel any worse. After we left the mall, I felt significantly better.

"I don't know what happened to me in there. I started to feel sick," I said as we got into his Jeep.

"Maybe it's a wolf thing?" he guessed.

"I don't know. Can you come home with me. I feel like I need you there."

"Okay. Are we gonna watch a movie?" he asked.

"Yeah; actually, we are," I answered cheerily.

"Awesome." He was genuinely happy about it.

We stopped by Stiles' house to pick up a few of his favorite films. I looked at some of his posters while I lied on his bed. Most of them were for action movies.

"Are you done yet?" I asked, becoming impatient.

"Yeah, I guess so. These look good?" Stiles flashed me two handfuls of action films.

"They look awesome, Stiles, now let's go," I answered, not caring what movies he chose because I was just ready for him to be finished searching. He shot me a dirty look, knowing that I was answering carelessly. We gathered our things and left out the door.

"I think I'm gonna ask Derek if he knows what might have happened to me back at the mall," I said to Stiles from the passenger seat of his car.

"If I was you, I would avoid speaking to him at all costs. If you haven't noticed, he's kind of a jerk."

"Yeah, but he's a jerk with a lot of answers."

Stiles pulled into my driveway and shut off the car. We walked up to the door and I went in one of my pants pockets for my keys. After located them, I unlocked the door. We went inside and up the stairs to my bedroom.

"Which one do you wanna watch first?" Stiles asked.

"Uh, doesn't matter," I answered.

Stiles shrugged and grabbed the first movie he felt inside of his bag. Stiles put the movie in and got into bed with me. We watched the movie and chatted for about half an hour before Stiles protested.

"I'm bored. It's Saturday night. Why are we at home watching a movie?" he asked.

"What else is there to do?" I responded, curious as to where he thought we could go.

"Find a party, maybe. Duh."

"Who's having a party?"

"I don't know," he answered. His face began to look sad.

"Oh. Crap. Stiles, if you really wanna go to a party we can find one."

"No. It's not that. Scott, you would tell me if something was bothering you, right?"

"Yeah. Totally, dude. But, nothing is bothering me," I said, not understanding his point.

"Well, you do know I can take care of myself, right? I don't need you to settle for hanging with me just because you don't want me to feel neglected."

"What?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "Stiles, I'm here with you because I wanna be; trust me. What makes you think I'm doing this for your sake?"

"Well, it's just that, like when you held the door for me at the mall, it seems like you feel as if you need to please me. Scott, I know you care about me, and boring yourself by watching a movie with me on a Saturday night is pointless."

"Stiles, I will admit that me holding the door for you was a weird attempt at showing you that I love you, dude, but this, me being here, is not. I want to be here."

"But how could you, Scott?" Stiles was a little louder now. "How could you wanna be here when right now you could be making out with Allison or fighting crime with Derek and his pack? Huh? How could you?"

"Stiles, first of all, I see Allison almost every night. I don't need to be with her every waking moment. Secondly, being with Derek isn't fun; it's awful. I'm risking my life most of the time when I'm doing werewolf crap."

"But, it's so much more exciting than this," he said.

"Stiles, look at me." I grabbed his jaw and forcibly turned his face to mine. I saw the sadness in his eyes.

"Do you know how much I love you?" I asked sternly. "Dude, I love you more than I love myself. It's insane," I said, laughing a little.

"I love you too, Scott. I just hope you're not ever doing things you don't wanna do just because you feel like you have an obligation to spend time with your best friend."

I stared into his eyes. "Can I kiss you?" I asked.

"What?" he responded frantically.

"I wanna kiss you," I repeated.

"Scott, are you gay?"

"No," I turned away from him, wondering what was wrong with me.

"Hey, Scott? Why do you wanna kiss me?"

"Dude, I wanna show you just how much I'm enjoying being here with you so you won't think I'm settling."

Stiles looked like he was thinking.

"I don't need you to kiss me just to show me that," he said, obviously confused.

"Yeah, I know," I answered quickly.

"Well, why do you wanna kiss me?" He looked terribly puzzled.

"I love you, Stiles. I love you a lot. I don't completely understand my urge to kiss you right now, but it's strong."

"I love you too, Scott." He seemed to contemplate something for a few seconds. "I'm gonna kiss you, but just so you can see how you feel afterward, okay?"

Before I could respond, he leaned in and pecked me on the lips softly.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

"I don't know what's going on with me, Stiles. I just wanted to kiss you, and I still do."

Stiles leaned in and pecked me on the lips two more times.

"There. Now you have. We'll figure out what's wrong with you tomorrow. I just need to go home right now because you have my head all messed up, but, Scott, you already know that, if you do like me or something, we're still best friends and I still love you. We can work through anything, alright?"

"Okay," I said, smiling weakly.

Stiles got out of the bed, put his jacket on, and started to grab his things.

"I guess I'll bring a condom next time, just in case you need to sort out more feelings," he said jokingly as he left my room. I heard him descend the stairs, followed by the sound of the front door opening and closing.

I thought about what had just happened. Why did I want to kiss Stiles? I wasn't gay, but I loved Stiles. It was okay to love your best friend. As a matter of fact, most best friends loved each other. Kissing, though, was something that best friends did not do with each other. I could not figure out what was going on in my own head. Then, I thought about Allison. Wasn't kissing Stiles technically cheating on her? I started to feel guilt build up inside of me. I had always promised myself that I would never cheat on Allison. I came to the conclusion that I was gonna have to tell her what happened between Stiles and I. She deserved to know.