AN: An interlude. Agent McCall is physically absent from this chapter.
High school irritated Scott on days like this. Most days, he craved the normality of getting up, getting dressed, scrawling his homework on the kitchen table, eating lunch in the cafeteria with his eclectic gang of friends. On days like this, it made him want to scream, to rip and tear, tell everyone that they were blind. Couldn't they see?
He moved more like an animal on days like this, when there was that dark weight in the centre of his chest that took a lot to shake. He ranged down the hallway like he was stalking prey, curved a hand around the girl's elbow and slid them both around a corner, down a hallway and to the side, ignoring her initial protests.
"Scott! What the hell is your problem?" Kira Yukimura hissed, snatching her arm back and folding them. Her burnt almond eyes were twisting daggers right into him.
"Right now? Whatever the thing was that strung a piece of wire around my boyfriend's neck and tripped him into it"
"And you think it was me?"
"I don't know, Kira, you tell me" he snarled back, low enough to be called a growl.
She pushed him off her, eyes lighting up into the slitted golden-bronze orbs of a fox. Her human teeth flashed warningly and he bared his canines in return.
"We have a deal, McCall. Your pet goat-killer made sure of that. It's our job to make sure you don't get yourself killed, okay?"
"Stiles saw something in the woods last night, okay? Who do you know who hates Stiles and can make people see things that aren't there?"
She laughed, bitter and cruel. It was at odds with her pretty face, her kind mouth. Scott swallowed around a growl that threatened to rise out of his chest.
"Seeing things that aren't there, really? I suppose that makes two of us" she said stiltedly.
Scott flinched guiltily and looked away, his teeth retreating.
"Aww-kward" sing-songed a familiar voice.
They both turned their heads sharply, teeth showing again. Stiles was standing at the end of the hallway, coming towards them.
"Firstly, never killed a goat. Secondly; are you serious right now?" he exclaimed, waving a hand in front of his own face to illustrate the problem. Both of them looking chastened, the bronze eyes and fangs disappeared in a blink. With a roll of his eyes, Stiles checked around them and then approached, digging something out of his bag.
"Hey Kira, how's the rice business?"
She leaned against the wall, recrossed her arms and flattened her lips before locking gaze with Stiles, an expression that could only described as 'venomous'.
When not in it's human form, the soul of a kitsune was contained in a hoshi no tama, a pearl-like orb that they often carried in their mouths or tails. When Kira and her grandfather had come to Beacon Hills, drawn by the Nemeton's power, they'd caused mischief across the town, ranging from flat tyres or sugar turning to salt to the drowning of a conman and the brake failure of a crooked salesman. When Kira turned her mischief on the Pack, seducing Scott and breaking Lydia's heel halfway down the stairs, they'd taken a stand. Stiles had stolen her hoshi no tama, exacting a promise from her to protect Scott from any harm.
Sometimes he felt guilty about it; she'd truly had feelings for Scott, who'd been too wrapped up in Isaac and Allison to notice that he was actually using her. Other times, he remembered Lydia's pale face and pink cast and didn't feel guilty at all. She did make him nervous all the time, however, so he chuckled uneasily, flailed and finally fished out what he was looking for from his bag; a bunch of security images held together with an elastic band.
"Okay, so ignoring the massive unresolved tension we got going on here-"
"Hmph" said Kira, fixing the same expression on Scott, who didn't rise to it, keeping his eyes on Stiles, who raised both his eyebrows. The silence went on for a beat too long, and Scott grabbed the photos to end it.
"What the hell...?" he muttered.
Kira snatched them from his fingers, leafing through them.
"Yeah, so, that is what Scott was oh-so pleasantly enquiring if you knew anything about"
"Where'd you get these?" Scott asked as Kira continued to study the images.
"From your dick father. He gave them to me last night. Well. I mean, he left, in plain sight, them, on his desk. In his office"
"You stole these from an FBI Agent?" said Kira flatly.
"Wha-no, I...borrowed them, temper-permanently. I asked him for them. Look, whatever, he won't even notice they're gone. Is this you or not?" he gestured at the large, fox-like creature darting through a construction site at the back of the industrial district.
"You know it's not. My form is white, dumbass" she waved the papers.
"So-rry" muttered Stiles as Scott spoke over the top of him.
"Well, does your grandfather know anything? I mean-" he started, and she cut him off sharply.
"No. My grandfather doesn't know anything, and he's still recovering from the last time you wanted to 'just talk' so-"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, what? What? I'm sorry, but I coulda just, like sworn you just said your psycho grandad was 'recovering' from the ass-whooping he gave us! I mean, did you actually just-"
"It was not an ass-whooping-" Scott argued defensively. Stiles gave him an unimpressed look;
"Dude, it was an ass-whooping"
Kira spoke through a shadow of a long, thin muzzle on her partly human face.
"If you go anywhere near him, I will rip your face off, McCall"
"Oh for the love of-! Secrecy! Okay?!Does that word mean nothing to anyone?!It's this thing where you don't show off your freaky mythical monster powers in the middle of the freaking school! Sheesh!" Stiles flailed wildly, rasping from the back of his throat as he blurted out, checking over his shoulders again. When he looked back, Kira's face was human once more.
"It might be a nogitsune okay? I will ask. For Isaac's sake-" she slammed the papers into Scott's chest. He grunted; she may look slight, but Kira packed a serious punch.
"-would hate for you to be down a girlfriend, right?"
She strode off without another word, leaving Scott looking outraged and guilty in her wake. Stiles smacked his shoulder with the back of his arm.
"Ow!" said Scott instinctively.
"You know-" Stiles plucked the images out of his fingers.
"-If you'd listened to us about the whole Isaac-Allison thing, this never would have happened"
"What?"
They started down the hall quickly, late for their first class, as Stiles shoved the picture back into his backpack as they walked.
"If you hadn't been kissing Kira while totally in love with your ex- and her boyfriend, we would have it so much easier right now! Like not getting your butts kicked by an old man. Also, just by the way, what is it with you and picking girls who have total raging psychopaths for grandfathers?!"
Scott paused in his step to glare at Stiles.
"Thanks, man, really. I appreciate it"
"No problem, buddy. That's why you keep my around"
"Why do I keep you around?"
"Uh, for the sake of your wolfiness and my all around saving your ass ability?"
