Chapter Four
When the bell rang, Daisy practically fell out of her chair in surprise, throwing a glare behind her when she heard a snort coming from the direction of a certain boy with a buzz cut. Lydia and Allison seemed really nice, telling her that once she was settled, they would take her out for a night on the town.
Daisy didn't mention that she had been living in Beacon Hills for over six months.
The dancer took her time gathering her belongings together, piling them up on her desk and then standing, pulling the books into her arms and balancing them on her hip, the one opposite of where her bag rested. She walked to the door with the girls, waving goodbye with promises to text them tonight. Daisy stood by the entrance of the classroom, waiting for Stiles to get his ass in gear. She looked over to him and tilted her head in confusion when she saw her project partner and his friend in deep conversation. Scott's eyes kept flicking over to the teen by the door and he had a steady grip on Stiles' hoodie clad arm. They were talking in hushed tones, so Daisy had no idea what they were saying. If she focused hard enough she could make out a few jumbled words coming from Scott's mouth.
"...careful...her...not human, dude."
Stiles said something back and Daisy tilted her head again, this time trying to hear their words. Her eyebrows furrowed together in absolute confusion at his words. She couldn't hear anything Stiles said.
"...don't know...smell..not we-..wolf."
Stiles' shoulders lifted up and fell back limply, as if sighing. He patted Scott's back and turned to Daisy, back pack being strung over his shoulder mid-stride. From behind him, she could see Scott glaring at her with such intensity that her heart pounded a little faster, mostly out of fear. They made eye contact, and the dancer was forced to break it, opting to stare down at her shoes.
There was definitely something different about Scott. Daisy wasn't sure if she wanted to know exactly what.
Stiles walked up to her and gave a wobbly smile, hands slipping into the pockets of his skinny jeans. "Hey," he greeted, "you ready to head out? My house isn't too far from here." The girl nodded, fingers catching the end of her hoodie and twisting it in an almost compulsive manner. "Yeah," she told him, "lead the way." She pushed herself away from the wall and waited for the other teen to start walking.
He did, she followed close behind.
Stiles led them to the closest exit, which was only a few doors down from their last period classroom. He skipped the last two steps, jumping down onto the pavement while Daisy walked down them with light and well placed footsteps. It was a short walk to Stiles' car, a well-kept blue jeep, and just before coming upon the vehicle, the boy suddenly stopped and turned, facing the dancer.
"Before you embark on my beautiful jeep and all her glory," he began, finger raising accusingly, "you must know I refuse to tolerate any bad talk about her. And no feet on the dash."
Daisy rolled her eyes, a smile finding its way across her lips. "What? Do you want me to wipe my feet before getting in, too?" Stiles squinted down slightly at her, giving a sarcastic "ha, ha, very funny" and then walking to the drivers side of the jeep and plopping inside. Daisy followed suit, opening the passenger side door and slipping into the seat, dropping her bag by her boot clad feet.
The ride was only a few minutes. Stiles pulled into an empty driveway connected to a decent looking house. He turned the keys in the ignition and pulled them out, turning around and pulling his bag from the back seat. Daisy waited until Stiles was opening the driver-side door until she got out of the car.
They paused in front of the door while the boy sorted through his key-chain, trying to find the key that unlocks the door. "It's not much," he said, looking down, "but it's home. Don't mind the mess, by the way, my dad doesn't bother to clean up after himself sometimes. I guess everyone's parents are like that sometimes then, huh? Speaking of family, where did you move here from? Why little ole' Beacon Hills?" He was rambling again while walking around his home, toeing his shoes off and dropping his keys into a bowl next to the door.
Stiles flung himself into the kitchen and pulled open the fridge, bending down to see the selection inside.
Daisy stood awkwardly at the entrance of the house. She reached over and gently pushed the door, which Stiles left open, closed. His sudden array of questions made her overwhelmed and shy. Tentatively, she moved to the kitchen where the other was and leaned against the counter, crossing her arms over her chest in insecurity.
"I moved from, uh, Los Angeles a few months ago." The dancer started to answer the other teens questions, oblivious that Stiles was now standing straight and leaning against the closed door of the fridge, two water bottles in his hands. "My, uh, I just," a sigh, "we just needed a changed in scenery. That's why I, we, moved. Yeah." It was obviously a lie to anyone around them, but Stiles didn't say anything about it, nodding thoughtfully with a frown. His lips spread into a grin and he thrust the unopened bottle into Daisy's hands while fixing his book bag strap all in one motion.
"C'mon, " he said, "we can go up to my room to do this project. My computers up there too, so we can do research. Hey, if we're lucky, we could get this all done tonight!"
They don't.
Daisy gets the call around four. She and Stiles had only been studying for a few hours and she had just began to feel comfortable. All of their combined research was spread out over the bed with Stiles at the desk and Daisy leaning against the side of the bed, her shoes kicked off and resting about a yard away from her feet.
She jerks when she hears the beeping of her phone cut through the easy silence between the two. Stiles away from his computer screen, slightly surprised, with a frown of confusion. Daisy holds up a finger to signal him to wait and gives him a smile in apology.
"Hello?"
All she hears is a sigh of relief and Stiles sees something flicker behind her eyes.
" ? What's wrong? Are you okay?"
It's a moment before Daisy hears a reply, and she's already scrambling forward onto her knees to grab her shoes, the phone being held securely to the side of her face with one hand.
"Oh child. Thank Heavens."
The elders voice makes the younger dancer freeze in the middle of jerking her shoe onto her foot. Stiles looks more confused now, standing from his desk chair and pushing his phone into his pocket, waiting for directions.
"I need you to come into work. Something's happened and I need to go visit my brother, Dr. Deaton."
"Deaton?" Stiles pauses suddenly out of the corner of Daisy's eye, and she looked over to see him bent over his bed, hands hovering over the piles of papers.
"Yes. The veterinarian. I have to find instructors to come in. It's only a few classes and I'll pay double overtime."
Daisy stands, pushing her bag onto her shoulder. "I'm on my way." She suddenly hears the dial tone on the other end, and assumes the conversation is over. She pushes her phone into her bag and looks up at Stiles, who is standing silently by the door, looking at her strangely.
"Everything okay..?" He asks after a moment of silent staring. Daisy shakes her head. "No, uh, my boss... She's, something happened. I'm so sorry; I need to leave, she needs me at work, like, five minutes ago." Now she's rambling instead of Stiles.
She tries to push past him and leave, but he follows her down the stairs. He's already pulling his shoes back on. "I can drive you. It's no problem!" He reaches toward his keys.
"I have to go home and change first. It's okay. I can wa-"
"It's no problem," he repeated. "Really. "
And that's how she found herself back in the jeep, giving Stiles directions to her apartment. When he pulled into park in front of the building, Daisy unbuckled the belt on her chest and pulled the bag at her feet into her lap. "Do you want to come up? I just need to change, you can wait here if you want, I'll only be, like, five minutes." She said this over her shoulder, an afterthought, as she opened her door and jumped out of the vehicle. She waited until she heard a second door open and shut and footsteps behind her, before speeding up and unlocking the complex's front doors.
Holding the door open for Stiles, she turned slightly and vaguely gestured to the elevator. "Broken," she said, walking toward the stair case and climbing up quickly, "it's been that way since before I moved in." Stiles snorted. "And they haven't fixed it?"
Daisy just shrugged.
Her apartment was on the third floor and closer to the end of the hallway. She paused in front of the door, keys ready in her hand. "Um, it's kind of- well, I didn't finish unpacking? Exactly?" She pushed the key into the lock and turned, pushing the door with her free hand. The apartment itself wasn't very large. One bedroom, bathroom, and a kitchenette/living room in one. With boxes lined along the walls of the living area , the room seemed even smaller than it actually was. Dropping her bag by the door and kicking off her shoes, Daisy moved into her room, already pulling off her shirt. A "make yourself at home" was shouted as she struggled to slip her jeans off with a shirt still on her head.
Stiles moved silently around the small living area, almost tripping over the coffee table. There wasn't much around to make the area fully personalized. The only personal items that he could see outside of the boxes were a few books on the table and a framed photo of a man in uniform. He looked exactly like Daisy, and his name tag, which said J. DANIELS, clued the teen in that the man in the picture and his new friend were somehow related. Behind the picture was a folded flag encased in glass. The sight of the flag made Stiles' heart clench in sympathy.
The shelf under had another picture, with the man in uniform, Daisy, and a younger girl in between the two, practically a mirror image of Daisy.
"...so! Do you live alone or something?" Daisy heard from the living room and she paused, hips stilling as they were shimmying into her leggings. "Yeah, it's just me." She answered hesitantly. When her white leggings were in place, she bent down and stepped into her black unitard. She grabbed a few bobby pins and stuffed them between her lips and pulled her ballet flats from behind her door and stumbled back into the living room, where Stiles was looking at the pictures of Daisy's relatives.
Said girl froze momentarily, silently praying that he didn't ask anything about it. He turned when she came out, and she could swear she saw the tips of his ears turn red. She relaxed when he didn't mention the pictures and picked up her bag, stuffing the flats inside and pulling on a blue sweater in one motion. The dancer spit the bobby pins into one hand and toed her sneakers on.
"Ready?"
((thats it for chapter four! please review guys! a new chapter should be up by next week!))
