Sorry for the delay! Enjoy!
Allison led her through the maze of lunch tables easily, and slid into a seat at a sparsely-populated table without so much as pausing. She shot Fern another warm smile, one that possibly had mind-controlling abilities, and motioned for her to sit.
"Allison!" The tan, dark-haired boy she'd sat down next to turned towards her abruptly (dang, would you look at that jaw) and plastered himself to her side. Allison giggled good-naturedly, sparing him a kiss (the kid with the buzzcut sitting next to him pointedly gagged) before she turned back to Fern, who had cautiously slid into the seat across from her.
"Scott, Stiles, this is Fern. She's new," Uneven Jawline and Buzzcut Kid whipped their heads around to stare at her in near-perfect tandem.
"Wait, there's a new kid- "
"What- "
" … -So be nice." Allison cut them off, giving them both a pointed look. Uneven Jawline (Scott, was it?) at least looked a little sheepish, but the other kid, Stiles, just opened his mouth again to continue firing off questions.
Allison cleared her throat and shot him a warning glare.
He closed his mouth with a soft click.
"So, where are you from, Fern?" Allison turned back to her with another soft smile.
"Coldwater, Michigan." Fern replied casually.
"I've never heard of Coldwater." Stiles prodded.
"That's not surprising. Honestly, Beacon Hills is probably bigger." She sighed, crossing her arms on the table.
"Smaller than Beacon Hills? Is that possible?" Scott looked from Stiles to Fern, unconvinced.
"Probably," Stiles unscrewed the cap to his water bottle. "The midwest is infamous for their small, backwater communities." Fern rolled her eyes, and tried not to be offended. It was, painfully enough, somewhat true.
"It must be pretty different to move all the way out here," Allison commented. "I know it was for me."
"Why, where are you from?" Fern cocked her head. Allison glance at her hands uncomfortably. "I mean, I was just wondering, you don't have actually have to answer- " Great, thirty seconds of conversation, and she'd already screwed this up.
"No, it's alright, my family has just moved around a lot." Allison shook her head, lifting her eyes to meet Fern's gaze again. Scott scooted closer (was that possible? He was already like a tumor) and wrapped an arm around her.
"Scott, I'm fine!" She rolled her eyes, and punched his arm lightly, fighting a smile.
"Scott, buddy," Stiles prompted, elbowing him friend as he dipped down to kiss Allison. "Scott," he tried again.
Scott waved him off distractedly, and Stiles rolled his eyes, before catching Fern's eyes and motioning exaggeratedly towards the PDA next to him. "Do you see what I put up with? Every day. It's like they're parasites."
Fern nodded grimly. Yeah, he had a point. They were very, uh...attached to each other. Allison broke away after a moment, returning her attention to the world around her. She blushed lightly when she met Fern's eyes. "I should probably go," She coughed. "My grandfather wanted to see me after lunch."
Fern raised her eyebrows in question.
"The principal, Mr. Argent, is her grandfather," Stiles clarified, sharing a look with Scott.
There was an awkward beat of silence. Fern felt a small grudge forming against Allison for abandoning her so abruptly. This was probably the most awkward moment of her life. This moment could win a medal.
Why, Allison, why would you subject-
"So," Stiles broke the silence (she was starting to see a pattern form, here). "What class do you have next?" He leaned over the table to paw at her schedule, which she belatedly realized she'd been desperately clutching the entire period. Her face tinted pink, and she unfolded it, sliding it across to him.
"Chemistry, I think," Stiles nodded along as he combed through her classes and teachers. "Not that I have any idea where that is." She muttered bitterly.
"Stiles and I have chem next, too." Scott gave her an awkward smile.
"Yeah, you're with us. With Harris." Stiles spat, looking up at her, pity in his eyes.
"I take it that's bad." Fern probed, meeting his gaze.
"Harris is kind of a dick." Scott agreed.
"Kind of? Kind of, Scott? The man is a- " Stiles', er...flailing, for lack of a better word, was cut short by the bell.
Scott patted him on the shoulder, and clamored away from his seat at the table to grab his backpack. "Come on. Don't want another detention from Harris, right Stiles?"
Stiles rolled his eyes, and huffed.
They were in Chemistry. Scott and Stiles rushed to sit next to Lydia, flanking her, Erica smirking behind them.
Allison shot Scott a look. He jerked his chin over his shoulder to Erica.
"Einstein once said that two things were infinite," Harris began. "the universe, and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the universe. I myself, have encountered infinite stupidity." He punctuated this by patting Stiles' shoulder. She felt the anger burning low in him, felt the urgency of more pressing matters.
Something about a plague of stupidity. Lydia smiling at Harris, as he continued to harass Stiles.
"Erica, start station one," He paused, as the back row raised their hands in unison. "I didn't ask for volunteers. Put you hormonal little hands down."
Isaac looking around, amused. Erica, smug at the attention.
"Start with Mr. McCall."
Dread on Scott's face.
Erica's hand on Scott's thigh.
"You're not my type."
"I'm exactly your type!" Erica snarled as he removed her hand, grabbing the back of his neck, her eyes flashing a vibrant yellow.
Harris rang the bell. "Switch."
The room blurred, but Harris' voice picked up again, after ringing the bell once more.
"If you've catalyzed the reaction correctly, you should now be looking at a crystal."
Stiles swirls a glob of something sandy and yellow-streaked at the bottom of his beaker, frowning.
"Now, for the last part of that experiment I'm sure you'll all enjoy," Harris continued. "You can eat it."
A man with dark hair and scruff that had gone a few days too long to pass for stubble and stood in front of a camaro in the parking lot, watching through the window.
Lydia plucked the crystal from Isaac's tongs, biting into it.
"What are you going to do to her?"
Fern jerked awake, sitting straight up in bed. Her alarm was going off next to her.
She shut it off numbly, shaking her head. Tossing the comfort off of her, she slid out of bed, and prepared for her second mind-numbing day of school with jeans and a soft hoodie. She could already tell it was going to be a long day.
Armed with a thermos of tea and a thick book, Fern made her way to school, having woken up early enough that she'd have time to walk, loathing to let another day go by on the bus.
By the time lunch rolled around, the Fern had opted to sit in the hallway with her tea, and lose herself in the pages of Dracula. She'd barely gotten through a page when two animal-print high heels stepped into her field of vision.
Fern raised her eyebrows, looking up. She was met with a leather jacket, and honey-brown eyes, framed by long blonde curls and artfully-applied mascara. Make-up artists around the world wept for the way this girl accented her eyes. A contemplative look crossed the girl's features.
"Are you out here by yourself?"
"I'm exactly your type!" Erica snarled.
Fern blinked, and shook her head slightly, color staining her cheeks. "Sorry, what?"
"I asked if you were sitting out here by yourself." She repeated, looking down the hallway.
"Um, yeah..." Fern adjusted her glasses.
Erica leaned back against the wall next to her, sliding down to sit.
"I read that book earlier this year," She commented, motioning to the Bram Stoker novel. "It was good. Not as good as English teachers make it out to be, but still worth reading."
"Yeah, it's a good book so far. I don't know that I'd gush over it, though," Fern agreed, setting the book down softly.
"You're Fern?" Fern nodded silently. "You sat at our table yesterday."
"Yeah..." Fern's eyes dropped, and she fiddled with her tea thermos.
"It's because you're new, right? You don't know anyone." Fern nodded again. "Well, don't feel like you can't sit there for some reason," Erica continued. "Boyd and Isaac don't bite. I, on the other hand, make no promises." She flashed Fern a toothy smile.
Yellow eyes and claws glowed in the back of her mind.
"Thanks. It's just..hard figuring things out, you know?" Erica nodded, listening.
No. She was not going to let a stupid dream get in the way of this. She did not have the luxury of being picky about friends. Erica had been nothing but pleasant to her. A weird, late night TV-induced dream was not going to screw this up.
"...I didn't make friends easily back home," Fern admitted, bringing her eyes up to meet Erica's. "I had a couple of people I was close with, but..." She trailed off, shrugging.
It was quiet for a moment, but not as awkward as it had been with Stiles and Scott.
Erica shifted next to her. "I used to get seizures," She looked up at the ceiling. "Before I found a way to make them stop, I didn't have any friends. Or confidence," Erica added, then paused, looking down the hallway again, head cocked almost as if she were listening for something. "...But, now I have Isaac and Boyd."
Fern sighed, and tilted her head back to rest against the wall. "Unfortunately, there's no secret formula for confidence."
"That's debatable." Erica laughed, standing and brushing herself off.
The bell rang.
Fern wandered into the chemistry room just as the bell rang, and hurried to an unoccupied seat near the back, silently cheering for having not gotten hopelessly lost. Just...kind of lost. Turned around, really. She made it before the bell. No one could criticize her.
"Einstein once said that two things were infinite," Fern's head snapped up.
"The universe, and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the universe. I myself, have encountered infinite stupidity." He patted Stiles shoulder. Fern couldn't see his face from where she was sitting, but remembered how he'd looked in her dream as if it were taken from a photograph.
"So, in order to combat the plague of ignorance in my class, you are going to combine efforts in a round of group experiments. Let's see if two heads are, indeed, are better than one. Or in Mr. Stilinski's case, less than one."
Stiles' shoulders hunched, ever so slightly.
"Erica, take the first station. Start..." He trailed off, critically eyeing the back row. "I didn't ask for volunteers. Put your hormonal little hands down."
Erica preened, glancing around her briefly.
Fern's hands shook in her lap, and she stuck them in her hoodie's pockets, and gulped in a breath.
"Start with Mr. McCall," Harris' voice echoed in her head, from the void where all of her monsters lived.
"Start with Mr. McCall." Harris said with a note of finality. It may as well have been a death toll (Scott certainly seemed to agree). Fern dropped her head onto her desk.
"Alright, next two."
Her heart was pounding. It was getting hard to breath.
Scott murmured something to Erica. She leaned in close, placing a hand on his thigh, whispering seductively.
Her lab partner cleared their throat in annoyance.
"Sorry," she muttered. The girl simply raised an eyebrow, and handed her a beaker.
"Never? You never get jealous?" She heard Lydia ask Allison across the room.
"Why would I?"
"Because that, right there, requires some jealousy." Fern followed Lydia' gaze, where it was fixed on Erica's hand traveling up Scott's thigh.
"You're not my type." He pried her hand off.
"I'm exactly your type!" Fern's head snapped up to watch the exchange. Her heart leapt in her throat when she saw the hand on his neck, and the hint of claws where fingernails should be. Fern blinked, and they were gone. of course they were gone. Because Fern was projecting, obviously, and probably needed to go home, sick.
And maybe get checked out for head injuries.
"Switch," Harris called, tapping the bell on his desk.
Allison leaned in to murmur something to Lydia, staring at her seriously.
"Let's go girls," Harris leaned between them. "Next station."
Scott practically dove into the seat next to Lydia, as Allison stood up.
Fern moved to the next table with her heart in her throat, watching as Isaac slid into the other side of Stiles' table.
By the time he Harris hit the bell again, Isaac had maneuvered next to Lydia while Harris was busy hissing something angrily at Stiles.
Fern moved again, ignoring her angry lab partner, eyes locked onto them.
"If you've catalyzed the reaction correctly, you should now be looking at a crystal. Now, for the last part of the experiment I'm sure you'll all enjoy- you can eat it."
Fern stared at the crystal sitting innocently in the bottom of her partner's beaker.
Nausea and anxiety roiled in her stomach as Harris reached towards the bell, eyes on his watch.
A man with dark hair and scruff that had gone a few days too long to pass for stubble stood in front of a camaro in the parking lot, watching through the window.
Fern practically launched herself across the room, stopping short in front of the chemistry teacher.
"Mr. Harris," she choked.
He raised his eyebrows. "You look pale, Ms...Mitchell, was it?" She nodded weakly.
"I need to go to the nurse. I think I'm going to be sick."
He studied her for a moment, and she tucked her chin against her chest as she fought a wave of nausea. Harris shook his head, as if to clear it, and hastily scribbled her a pass.
"For god's sake, at least make it into the hallway, first!" He extended the piece of paper, and urgently tipped his head at the door.
Fern glanced behind her, out the window, as she exited the room.
Across the parking lot, in front of the Beacon Hills Cyclones sign that advertised the school's lacrosse team, a lone, dark-haired figure stood in front of a black camaro.
Fern threw herself in front of the nearest trash can in the hallway, lurching as her stomach rolled, rejecting its contents.
What the hell was going on?
Whew, I'm sorry this chapter took a little bit to crank out. It was actually pretty fun to write, once I figured out what to do with it. I just had to wrestle with it for a while first.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it! Let me know what you think c: