Minor edits 27/11/16

Chapter Twelve:

Derek wasn't overly keen on sticking around once Erica settled enough to start snarking at him – Stiles heard him mutter something about teenagers while he glared down at the carpet – but he stayed for half an hour or so while they walked her through a lot of the potential dangers of the bite and being a werewolf in general.

Because he was wary of saying something he wasn't supposed to know, Stiles left most of the talking to Derek, who was giving some real blunt, no-holds-barred explanations. It was obvious he didn't care about scaring Erica – in fact, that was probably exactly what he was trying to do: make sure she was tough enough. Stiles would complain, but he had to admit that it wasn't a bad idea. He'd already been struggling to fully explain what she would be getting into, but Derek had no qualms about laying out all the facts.

One thing Stiles had been hesitant to speak about in detail was the hunters. Erica didn't have any particular feelings about Allison, positive or negative, but he was worried she might do or say something that would make Scott suspicious if he told her about the Argents. It was his own fault then, really, that Derek took that decision out of his hands, and handed out a brief but bitter warning.

He held back on defending Allison in front of Derek, because there was no way he could know that in the here and now (and no glaringly obvious ways to bullshit an explanation of how he'd stumbled across it), but he ached to. Scott wasn't the only person Stiles was trying to give a second chance; Allison didn't need to be dragged into all of this, not in the convoluted shit-show of betrayal and violence that played out the last time around.

After Derek left (this time leaving his number, because Stiles was sick of traipsing through the preserve whenever he needed to talk to him) Erica stayed, sprawled out across Stiles' bed. She was still brimming with questions, that much was apparent, but she didn't voice any of them, and Stiles let her be. Instead of dwelling too much on werewolves, Stiles grabbed some drinks from the kitchen and put on another movie.

Erica lay on her side, hogging most of Stiles' bed. Stiles sat on the floor and leaned back against the mattress, his laptop turned towards them on the desk. When Stiles passed Erica her drink, her hand was shaking, just slightly. In what his old Derek would likely have called a 'rare moment of tact', Stiles didn't comment on it. She'd asked for time to process it all, and he would give her all the time in the world.

oOoOo

One positive to come from Wednesday's mess was that The Great Reveal seemed to satisfy whatever instinctual part of Stiles had been causing his sleepwalking escapades. That was the sort of turn of events Stiles could get behind; sleep deprivation was only something he tolerated when he was doing it on purpose, foregoing sleep for research binges or monster hunts. Now it was a waiting game to see if it was enough for a permanent solution or if it was only temporarily satisfied.

Stiles hoped like hell it was permanent. If it wasn't, if it somehow hinged on Erica's decision, then he'd never mention it again, not even to Derek. The sleepwalking had been beginning to scare him, just a bit, but he would never put that sort of guilt on someone else's shoulders – he would not pressure Erica into a decision, no matter what it did to him.

Please, please let it be enough.

oOoOo

Sleep issues aside, Thursday came with its own mix of ups and downs, both related and not to the previous day's discussions.

Erica was quieter than usual. It wasn't really something anyone else would notice, because aside from him and Scott no one really took an interest in Erica's general behaviour, but it was there. It was a calculating silence, he realised come lunchtime, when the three of them were sitting together at the back of the cafeteria.

During their shared classes, he'd caught her watching him more than once, but after everything that they'd talked about it was only to be expected. What he'd been hoping wouldn't happen – what he had known was going to happen – was the way Erica was pondering the curve of Allison's back, eyebrows furrowed just slightly as though she were trying hard to imagine something.

This was why he hadn't really wanted to mention the whole hunter thing – at least not to that level of specificity and not that bluntly. Because if Erica started acting noticeably strange towards Allison it would definitely catch Scott's attention, and he'd want to know what was going on, and it would become yet another layer in the tangled web of careful deception and withheld truths that had become his day to day life.

Erica was probably trying to imagine Allison with a gun – that's why she seemed a little confused. Stiles didn't doubt she was capable of using a gun if the situation called for it, but she was really an archer through and through. He wasn't going to tell Erica that though. Not now. Not yet.

Sometimes he really hated being right.

oOoOo

Lydia ambushed him after school.

Finding people lying in wait by his locker was starting to become a thing, as though it was suddenly the only way people could think of to drag him into conversations he didn't feel like having. The development wasn't one Stiles was sure he was all that happy about. It was only effective because he still sometimes struggled to say no to the one and only Lydia Martin.

Lydia leaned delicately against the locker next to Stiles, managing to appear effortlessly regal yet also as though she'd rather be almost anywhere else. He chose not to bother taking offence to that – he'd rather be somewhere else too, away from the loud, confining school hallways and away from the sort of questioning he was certain was about to begin.

Since Lydia wasn't actually obstructing him in any way, and he was in no hurry to kick-start whatever conversation she had come to have, Stiles tried to ignore the heavy weight of her gaze as he unlocked his locker. He silently bemoaned that she'd planned for that; his locker door opened away from her, leaving him unable to hide behind it.

The longer Lydia maintained her quiet stare, the more Stiles felt the urge to fidget or shuffle his feet. She always managed to appear so unreadable, and it didn't help matters that Stiles still had no idea why she was so set on this little investigation of hers – he couldn't get inside her head anymore, because in some ways this Lydia might as well have been a stranger to him.

When she did finally break her silence, it wasn't what Stiles had been expecting to hear.

"Danny likes to think he's subtle."

He'd been beginning to think that she was just going to stare him into submission. The sound of her voice, carefully nonchalant but oh so very pointed, startled him. He smacked his hand on the edge of his locker, pausing his rummaging long enough to shake out the sting and glance sidelong at Lydia. Although she was affecting a disinterested look, as though discussing old, well-worn gossip, the spark in her eyes and the curve of her lips all dared him to interrupt, to ask, to speak up.

It was a trap. There were no two ways about it. Lydia was a master at twisting people and situations to her liking, and Stiles was no stranger to that fact. But if he ran – and he could and she would never be able to catch him – she would know she'd hit a nerve, and her persistence would only blossom.

Maybe he wasn't at her level, but two people could play at this game of words. His hands moved aimlessly, fingers gliding over paper scraps and textbooks but no longer truly searching for anything; a pretense, to attempt to seem like he wasn't carefully watching her from the corner of his eye.

"Has he been making bedroom eyes at Jackson?" Stiles tossed out casually, trying to infuse a level of calm and scandalised into his voice that he wasn't sure he achieved. "That's such a shame. I really thought he had better taste than that."

Maybe that was a low blow, but Lydia had never had any illusions that Stiles liked Jackson, so the barb didn't carry much weight. In any case, there wasn't an ounce of offense in her expression; her lips twitched, like she wanted to smile but refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing it.

"As if." She added an exaggerated eye-roll for dramatic effect, dismissing the idea with a wave of her hand. "But don't you play coy with me Stiles Stilinski. For a cop's son you don't play innocent as well as you think you do. Danny's hiding something from me, and I'm at least 95% sure that it has something to do with you. You could save everyone a lot of trouble by just coming clean."

"Everyone?" Stiles abandoned all pretense of motion, more than a little confused at this new angle Lydia was taking. "Trouble? Who are we even talking about here? Aren't you pretty much the only person in the entire school who cares about this mysterious 'thing' you think is happening?" He quickly snatched the book he'd been looking for from the back of his locker, suddenly wary about the conversation. He refused to look at her, staring at his hands as he shoved the book into his bag. "Can't you just believe in the 5%?"

Stiles knew the moment the words left his mouth that it was a protest too much. His fears were confirmed by the triumphant way Lydia held herself when he chanced another cautious glance in her direction.

"The very fact that you're asking me to means that I'm right. You two are conspiring about something."

The thoughtful motion of perfectly manicured fingertips tapping gently against Lydia's upper arm sparked Stiles' fight or flight instincts – he knew the answer would be flight. However, to Stiles' immense surprise, Lydia seemed satisfied with whatever she had managed to gleam from him. At the very least, she wasn't going to continue pushing him on the issue right then.

After a long moment of what Stiles was willing to call pure intimidation, Lydia turned on her heel and waltzed away without a single word of farewell. Once she was out of sight, Stiles slumped against the wall of lockers, wondering if this new life wasn't even more complicated than when he'd been in a near constant battle for his life.

All this supernatural stuff refused to give him a break.

oOoOo

Friday started more or less the same as Thursday had.

Stiles had slept through the night – or, rather, he hadn't gone on any new late night strolls at any rate; he couldn't claim to have gotten much sleep regardless of that fact, but any sleep that kept him safely in his bed was better than sleep that ended out in the open. When he passed by Erica and Scott in the hallways before school started neither of them made any attempt to talk to him – Scott probably still frustrated by Stiles' vague promise; Erica still lost deep in contemplation – yet he caught them both watching him during shared classes when they thought he wasn't looking.

None of that was new. They'd done it on Thursday, and they'd keep doing it until they were satisfied somehow or another (though Stiles didn't think he could say the same for his sleeping patterns – he was still paranoid about it all).

Given all that, Stiles had been caught rather unawares when Erica looped their arms together in the hallway and steered him pointedly away from the cafeteria at the beginning of their lunch break. He spared a single moment to imagine the increased suspicion unexpectedly skipping lunch would undoubtedly cause, in both Scott and Lydia, but it was ultimately of less importance than whatever Erica had in mind.

They wound up perched on the bonnet of Stiles' jeep in the crisp air, lounging beneath the weak winter sun on cold metal. If the temperature bothered Erica, she made no note of it. Her fingers tapped absently against her leg, but she was otherwise outwardly calm.

Stiles allowed her to gather her thoughts without pressing her into conversation. She would speak when she was ready to. In the lull Stiles rolled his shoulders, attempting to dispel some of the tension that always built up in his body while trapped inside the school building with so many sounds and smells. It had never really occurred to him that he could just escape outside during his free periods – up 'til now, going outside was generally just part of the process of escaping the school grounds entirely, whether it was to go home at the end of the day or to run off into the woods to skip class.

Erica pulled him away from his musings as she straightened from her slouch.

"I've been thinking about what you said. Like, a lot. And two days is probably nowhere near long enough to make a decision like this, but at the same time it doesn't really matter how long I spend thinking since I'll just be going round and round on the same points."

Stiles hummed encouragingly before adding his own two cents. "As long as you remember that the decision is yours, time is probably irrelevant." He'd lied to Peter's face about not wanting the bite, and when he'd finally made his peace with the fact that he really didn't want it anymore he'd had that decision ripped away from him. Whatever choice Erica made, he would stand behind it.

"Time is part of the issue though, I reckon. Because, Stiles, I don't really want to die, but I want to live, and if I need to take a few risks in order to do that, well… I hate feeling like I have to live my life walking on eggshells, paranoid that something might set me off. This will let me do what I want with my life, right?"

"I won't say it'll be easy, but it will be different. The challenges are things we can work on together, and with time you'll no doubt overcome them. You're already strong here," Stiles reached over and poked Erica gently in the forehead, "this will just allow your body to match that strength."

Erica smiled, but it was still a little frail around the edges.

"You and Derek, you uh, said that the bite itself could potentially be dangerous. That sometimes the body rejects it. How likely do you reckon that is?"

That was a fear that would fester the longer she delayed making a decision.

Gently, Stiles wrapped supernaturally warm fingers around one of Erica's hands, cradling it between his palms. "Derek is a pessimist. You'll be fine, I swear."

"Man, Stiles." Erica sighed, the exasperated exhalation turning into a chuckle at the end. "You sound so freaking confident about it all that it's hard to doubt you. When did you become Mister Reliable?"

"Hey, I take offence to that. For the record I have always been perfectly reliable. Probably." He maintained serious eye contact for a few heartbeats before bursting into laughter. Erica grinned at him, less frayed, steady. The tense air from all their talk of death dissipated.

"I believe in you," Erica said once Stiles was quiet again, her grin softening into a small smile but not disappearing. "I want the bite."

"Okay. Then that's what we'll do." Stiles closed his eyes, imagining the lunar chart he'd printed off and pinned to his wall. "Ideally we'd do it on a Friday after school, so you'd have the weekend to begin to adjust, but the next full moon is on Monday, so this weekend is too risky. You don't want your first full moon being that soon after the change."

"You're the boss. Whatever you think is best. Although…" Erica glanced away, taking back her hand and interlocking her fingers. "I can't exactly say I'm upset with the thought of waiting a whole week for it. Today might have been a little startling."

Right. Today was a Friday. There was a difference between knowing that and realising it, Stiles found, as he hadn't even really registered the immediacy the whole thing would have taken on if he wasn't wary of the full moon.

"No, yeah, totally," he agreed softly. "I'll sort things with Derek for next week. All you have to do is figure out what to tell your parents to excuse you being gone most of the weekend. Werewolf lesson number one: creating good lies is an essential part of life. I'm not sure I ever really nailed that." The quiet admission was equal parts wistful and bitter. Half-truths and secrets and lying too well and not lying well enough – they'd all been the basis of so much turmoil. Part of him rebelled against the thought that he was once again dragging people senselessly into this life of deception. But it wasn't fair to anyone to claim he was overriding their free will. All he was doing, he had to remind himself, was laying out information. Erica made her own choice.

The warning bell rang, signalling that lunch was drawing to a close. Stiles launched himself off the jeep, for once actually graceful in his landing. He waited patiently as Erica slid to the ground. When she made to head towards the school building, Stiles grabbed her wrist gently, pulling her to a stop so he could impart some reluctant advice.

"In the coming weeks, don't talk to me after school too much if Allison's dad's around. He's suspicious of me because he saw me hanging about with Derek, and I'd hate for him to get it in his head to go after you. I need to know that you'll be safe until you're settled enough to protect yourself."

For a moment, it seemed like Erica was going to protest. What in particular she took offence to, Stiles would never know, because she swallowed back whatever she had wanted to say when she took in the look on his face. Stiles wondered if he looked as panicked as he felt at the thought of Argent looming over them, as though trying to piece together a puzzle.

Erica extracted her arm from his grip, but nodded in acceptance, before leaving him standing alone in the parking lot.

oOoOo

The weekend was a mess.

Without the distraction of needing to concentrate on control at school Stiles was quickly becoming a twitchy ball of aggression as the peak of the full moon drew closer and closer. It was only his second full moon full stop, and his first as an alpha, and the draw was still incredibly strong. Perhaps even stronger than the first one.

Yeah, Stiles was glad that werewolves didn't actually go full-on beast under the moonlight and run about on all fours against their will every full moon, but he would have liked it better if the moon thing had been a total myth. Surely just being a supernatural creature was hard enough without being instinctively drawn to the lunar cycle.

After several snappish responses and a slammed door, Stiles' dad seemed to realise it was better not to bother him too much. And Stiles felt guilty about it, because his dad hadn't done anything wrong, Stiles was just antsy and nothing in his house smelled quite right and he felt unsettled.

To be an alpha was to be a slave to the moon.

That was what Stiles wanted to say, anyway. Except Derek had never been like that (but Derek didn't count, he was a born wolf, he didn't have to juggle so many new experiences at once). Scott had never been like that; not really, not after the first moon or two – Scott hadn't had lunar control issues, he'd had emotional control issues.

And Stiles was, generally, on the inside anyway, more level-headed than Scott. Wasn't he? He'd always been looking at the bigger picture, when Scott had still been worrying about how to juggle keeping his secret from his hunter girlfriend. (But Scott got better; once he started having to take responsibility for more people, he started trying to take a step back, but he would always think with his heart and not with his head.)

For as long as it was his role, Stiles needed to be an alpha who thought with his head. In order to do that, he needed to have control. But the moon sang to him. It was difficult to ignore.

oOoOo

It was with red cheeks and a healthy dose of self-loathing that Stiles climbed through his bedroom window in the early hours of Monday morning. He'd spent most of the night sitting on the roof, staring at the moon, hoping like hell that none of his neighbours would look out a window on the way to the bathroom and see his dark silhouette and glowing eyes stretched out on the tiles.

He had wanted to sleep, because the easiest way to ignore the pull of the moon was when he wasn't conscious to process it, but his body had refused to cooperate with that particular plan of action. It would get easier to ignore as the months rolled by. He had to believe that. He refused to be held captive by the universe.

Until that time came to pass, however, he was stuck with this endlessly restless feeling crawling beneath his skin. He didn't want to wolf out, exactly, although his skin itched, as though it were pulled a little too tightly across his skeleton. Part of him felt almost lonely, though his father's presence hadn't helped that in the slightest, but another part of him wanted to be alone. Stiles wasn't used to having such contradictory feelings; he hated it – couldn't it have been about something less confusing?

One thing he knew for certain was that he wasn't going to risk heading in to school. The precipice he could feel himself standing on meant if he went there was a very real chance he might just snap and try and throw a chair at one of his more frustrating teachers (maybe Mr Harris).

On any given day (so far) Stiles had found himself generally in control of himself – save his first few stumbling days of alphahood – but that also meant that he'd never really had to learn to cope. Coping was something that, as a beta, had come almost instinctually. Staying himself had posed no real challenge – in fact, it was utilising his new supernatural abilities that came with more struggle. Perhaps it was a mind-set, a natural resistance he'd built up from living in the company of wolves. Whatever it had been, it was no longer strong enough.

When Peter died, it had been like someone flipped a switch, killing the power to whatever mechanism had been sheltering him from his baser instincts. Now, with the proximity of the moon, it was like his sensitivity dial had been cranked up to max; he wanted to turn it back down, but it was just out of reach.

"I hate this," Stiles whispered into the quiet stillness of the house.

He made a note to talk to Derek about it when they met up in the evening. Although Derek had never had the dubious pleasure of being an alpha, there were surely still thoughts he could offer up in aid. What had things been like for Laura? How many bitten wolves had Derek actually met in his life? Could he even compare the two situations, born and bitten, or was he grasping at straws just as much as Stiles was?

If only he could calm his mind long enough to try and meditate.

With a long-suffering sigh, Stiles stretched out on his bed in the hopes of trying to chase a few hours of sleep while the sun was up.