"This is one of your worst ideas. Ever." I told Stiles, shaking my head in disgust at the bottle of Jack Daniels in his hand. He shook it in my face to piss me off even more and then handed it to a sulking, heart broken Scott.

"C'mon, Scotty." He cooed. "When life goes to shit, get drunk."

Scott sighed sadly and looked blankly at the bottle of poison.

"Don't take it," I advised but Scott reached out and took a good few gulps of it. He wiped his mouth, handed it back to Stiles, and began to mope again.

Stiles took a long drink and offered it up to me. "You sure you don't want a drink, Mase?"

I shook my head resolutely, crossing my arms, and turning my back to him. I really didn't condone this kind of behavior, no matter how good of interests Stiles had at heart.

It had been a week since the incident at the school. The school had been cleaned up over the weekend and was closed on Monday. School resumed on Tuesday but Scott, Stiles, Alison, Lydia, Jackson, and I had been given a week off after the events that had taken place. I spent the week locked in my house by my father who I was becoming increasingly suspicious of as time went on. He knew about werewolves, I could just tell. He was so freaked out when Sheriff Stilinski told him that I had been attacked by Derek that he smuggled me back home without another word to anyone and basically put me on house arrest. I didn't protest.

After all that went down, after kissing Stiles and trying to forget about it, after Scott revealed that the Alpha wanted Scott to kill his friends and be the one to change me, and after having another too-close call with the Alpha, I wanted some alone time to think things over.

Things kind of fell to shit that night. After a week a solitude, I was really starting to see how bad we really had it. Alison broke up with Scott that night, saying she couldn't trust him anymore because he locked them in the room.

Stiles and I hadn't talked once about the kiss. In fact, I was surprised I was even invited to come out here because Stiles hadn't texted me once until tonight. I couldn't put all the blame on him, though. I just sat in my room, cursing myself for kissing him in the first place. I don't know why I even did it, I know that Stiles has, and always will be, in love with Lydia Martin.

I sat there, transfixed on the moon. The full moon was in about two weeks. I stared at it, wishing we didn't have to go back to school tomorrow. If it was up to my dad, I would probably be home schooled the rest of my life, but I needed to be around people. Sitting alone in my room, moping like Scott, wasn't healthy.

I could hear Stiles singing some song he was making up as he went along. He was already drunk. Unbelievable.

"Scott, you should consider yourself lucky," Stiles slurred. I considered Stiles lucky that he could still keep his eyes open and speak knowledgeable sentences.

Scott merely looked at his friend, not seeing how his condition could be lucky in the slightest.

"I mean, you've loved and been loved! Some of us have never had that." He stood up suddenly, waving his hands wildly in the air as if it emphasized his point. "Alison was your first love and now that you've experienced that, you can move on and find more loves and eventually you'll find the love of your life and settle down and have a few wolf cubs of your own!"

"But I don't want anyone else but Alison." Scott said grumpily. Stiles sighed exasperatedly and placed a hand on Scott's shoulder.

"Scott, Scott, Scott," He shook his head comically. "I know I'm not the best person to talk to you about this cause I've never been in love or had a girlfriend—"

"Or have any experience with girls, whatsoever..." I added, tilting my head to look at the boys. Stiles laughed loudly and then put on a straight face again.

"Anyways, Scott, bottom line is: You'll get over her!" He cried, taking another swig of Jack, some of it dribbled down his chin and I could help but think (even in his drunken state) Stiles was adorable and that pissed me off. Why couldn't he be fat and have a terrible personality? It would be much easier to hate him and get over him.

Scott shoved Stiles' hand off him, his dark eyes brimming with gold. "But I don't want to get over her! I want to get her back!"

"I'll talk to her." I offered. Alison and I were good friends. She, at least, had bothered to call me in this week hiatus from the world.

"Would you?" Scott brightened up, a sappy smile on his face.

"I'll talk, but I can't promise she'll listen." I told him. He shouldn't get his hopes up. "The best thing is to just give her time."

"See," Stiles slurped some more alcohol, throwing an arm over each of us, spilling some Jack Daniels on me, "I told you this would work out! Getting drunk solves everything!"

"Why did we agree to do this?" Scott questioned me, setting the wasted Stiles on a rock.

"Fuck if I know," I smiled slightly, "I just agreed to get outta the house."

"How's the house arrest going?" Stiles asked loudly.

"Awesome. It's really shown me who my true friends are because they're the ones who call and make sure I'm doing okay." I narrowed my eyes pointedly at him.

"Who?" Stiles looked around, "Me?"

"No," I laughed coldly, "The guys behind you..." I pointed behind him and let out a scream. There were people coming up from the forest behind us. Two men, an evil glint in their eyes as they eyed me and the bottle in Stiles' hand. They looked like they were up to no good in their ratty clothes and smirking faces.

"Hey cutie," The taller of the two barked, "Hows about you get your little boyfriend to give us the drink and come party with the big boys?"

I felt nauseous. This thirty-something-year-old was hitting on a high schooler. Things don't get more pathetic than that.

The short, fat man grabbed Stiles' drink and took a swig. "Hey!" Stiles' protested, his words slurred worse than ever.

"Come on, sweet cheeks, we'll show you a good time," He winked and make a rude hand gesture. That set Scott off. He got right in their faces and demanded the bottle back.

"Aw, yeah? And whattaya gonna do about it if we don't?" The tall man cackled along with his friend. Scott let out a deep growl, clenching his fists as his eyes began to turn gold.

"Scott," I walked swiftly up to him and grabbed onto his arm, "It's just a Jack Daniels. It doesn't matter."

Scott let out another more menacing growl. These guys picked a bad night to start a fight with Scott. This break up was making Scott more irritable and unstable when it came to phasing.

The men exchanged frightened looks as I snatched the bottle back. Scott grabbed it from me and chucked it at the tree by their heads raining shattered glass shards over them. They glared at Scott but did nothing else. I pushed Scott's shoulder to lead him away. Just as I turned my back, the short man smacked my butt.

I let out a horrified gasp and this seemed to wake Stiles' from his drunken state.

"Hey, dude! What the hell?" He shouted, his eyes alight with fury. Scott, however, was more of an actions man and punched the guy in the face, halting their obnoxious laughter.

"Scott, lets just go," I begged, feeling unsafe. Scott was heaving in deep breaths, trying to calm himself. I grabbed his hand and tore him away, expecting Stiles' to follow.

"Oi! You fucker! Leave the little treat with me and we'll call this even little boy," The drunk man chortled. I heard something crack and then a high pitch yelp. I shot around to see Stiles' nursing his hand, which was slightly bloody and clenched.

"Stiles!" I breathed, shocked. I glanced down at the man who was saying vulgar things to me, and he was clenching his nose, tears streaming down his face as he howled in pain. "Did you just hit him?"

He shrugged, "Maybe."

"That was a rhetorical question!" I scolded as the two men scrambled up and left without another word. I looked back at Stiles and felt it better to contain the urge to kiss him this time.

"I think we better get him home before he gets in a gang fight, or something." Scott muttered, just as shocked as I was.

Shockingly, Stiles was at my house at seven. Even more of a shock, it was in the Sheriff police car. I walked apprehensively up to it.

"My dad set you up to this, didn't he?" I questioned, feeling slightly peeved. His over-protectiveness was getting a little out of hand.

Sheriff Stilinski reached over his son and pushed open the car door.

"What Mayor Mayfield wants, he gets. You've got police protection to get to school until your dad sees fit to let Stiles just take you." I sent him a look that clearly said, 'you've got to be kidding me?'. He chuckled and beckoned me in. I squished in awkwardly next to Stiles, who was staring out the window. I was practically sitting in his lap as he shifted his arm to get more comfortable. Just my luck.

We spent the whole ride in silence and when we shuffled out of the car, my blush deepened as I noticed the packed front pavilion was staring and whispering at us.

"Thanks, Mr. Stilinski," I sent him what I hoped was a thankful smiled and then ran to catch up with Stiles.

"Mason!" Another familiar voice called. I glanced around Stiles to see Alison beckoning me over to her, and to my annoyance, Lydia.

"I'll see you later," I muttered but Stiles didn't seem to be listening. He was staring at Lydia again. And I had thought we were over this.

I trudged over to the girls and put on a smile.

"Hey," I readjusted my backpack over my shoulders.

"How have you been?" Lydia asked, catching me off guard.

"Fine..." I stuttered, giving her a weird look.

"Lydia has something she wants to tell you," Alison nudged said girl lightly.

"I'm sorry for how I've been treating you and I would like to be friends," She sighed, looking up at the sky.

"Wow, so heartfelt it must be true." I said sarcastically.

"Lydia and I had a talk this past week and she wants to put whatever bad blood you guys have between you and learn to be friends." Alison smiled.

Lydia nodded but didn't seem too thrilled.

"Okay." I said.

"O-okay?" Lydia furrowed her brows, glancing back at Alison. "You want to be friends?"

"Why not?" I shrugged. I wasn't sure what Lydia was getting at by doing this, but I was officially done with high school drama. My best friend was a werewolf and the other one I was madly in love with. One of my good friends just broke up and my werewolf best friend and I wasn't sure if that made things better or worse. Sufficient to say, I was over what ever this was with Lydia.

"Good." Lydia smiled sweetly and Alison hugged us both.

"Yay!" She laughed. We headed into school.

"On a more interesting note," Lydia started, "What are you wearing to the Homecoming dance?"

"I'm not going." Alison sighed sadly, sneaking a glance to where Scott and Stiles were, who happened to be staring at us. Alison shook her head, upset, and mumbled something about getting a good testing seat. The SAT's had been moved til today, for reasons only known to us.

"Whatever," Lydia shrugged and turned to me, "What about you, Mason?"

"Uh, to be honest, I had totally forgotten about the dance." I confessed, tossing books into my locker.

"You can't be serious!" Lydia laughed, which was disconcerting all to itself. It was mind blowing that Lydia and I were having a conversation. A civil conversation. Just to ourselves. "You're going, it's already been decided. Whether Alison decides to get over Scott and find a new date or to forgive him and take him, it doesn't matter because we're all going."

"Whatever you say," I laughed slightly, privately thinking that the only person I wanted to go with would do anything to take this perky red head.

"So this means you haven't been dress shopping?"

"Not even a blimp on my thought radar." I said truthfully as we headed off to homeroom.

"Alison, me, and you are going today after cheer. I've already got mine, since the dance is next Friday." She reminded me sternly. I nodded, agreeing just to finish this dance talk. I didn't want to go but since Lydia had decided to be friends, I wasn't going to get out of it.

The bell rang, scaring Lydia and I half to death. I guess we were still on our guard from last Friday. We laughed awkwardly and took seats next to each other and behind Alison.

Jackson strutted into the room, five minutes late, and took the seat next to Alison.

"You okay?" He asked quietly. Lydia was too busy redoing her make up to notice how close Jackson was sitting next to Alison or the lust that was in his eyes. She nodded, flashing an appreciative smile and the test started a few seconds later.

"I'll let you know when the next subject begins. You have thirty minutes for this section. No talking. I'll take your test away and you'll have a real fun time getting into college without your SAT scores and cheating on your permanent record." Ms. Gunderson, our stern homeroom teacher declared and took her seat at her desk, surveying the class like a hawk, expecting us all to randomly start asking each other for answers.

I was three-fourths the way done when I noticed Scott was struggling to focus and breath calmly. I glanced over at him so see Stiles' face was in full panic mode. He was kicking his chair, trying to distract him from what he was glaring hatefully at. I followed his gaze to see Jackson smiling flirtatiously at Alison who smiled back, but hers was just an innocent smile.

I cleared my throat and Scott's concentration went to me.

'Calm yourself!' I mouthed. He glared at me and accidentally snapped his pencil in his hand. He shot up, leaving his bag and test where they sat, and bolted from the room. Alison watched worriedly after him. Stiles looked around in alarm and just as he caught my eye, as I made to go after him, he got up, grabbing his and Scott's stuff and ran from the room. Ms. Gunderson looked so off-put that she didn't know whether to yell after them, or faint over a test not being finished.

I sat through the rest of the test, worrying constantly on whether Scott had phased out in the hall or if Stiles had been able to calm him down. After what felt, like, twenty-years, the test finished and I hurriedly got all my stuff together and made for the door.

"Remember, dress shopping after cheer!" Lydia called after me.

"Uh huh," I said distractedly and chased after where my best friends had been, an hour previously.