Stiles sat in his car for a minute after dropping Scott off, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel. Scott wanted to kiss him! Scott had agreed to kiss him! This was unprecedented and amazing and the perfect portent for the summer. They were best buds, and the odds of them spending the next three months living at each others' houses were so good that they weren't even worth speculating about, and now there would be kissing. With a little time for Scott to get over Allison leaving him, he and Stiles could move on to touching, and then maybe...Stiles's eyes widened as his brain supplied all kinds of possibilities. He shifted in his seat, his body's response to the mental imagery swift and strong enough to pull a long groan from his throat.

"Not yet, boy," he murmured to his lap. "We can't get ahead of ourselves. It's not a race. This is Scott we're talking about. Our Scott."

His dick was eager for a lot, and being talked down was not one of them. Stiles pressed his palm to his crotch and sent himself a silent promise. He was not about to jerk one off while sitting parked in front of Scott's house.

His phone buzzed, sending a jolt through his dick that made him hiss. It was Scott; it had to be Scott. Scott was texting him to come in the house right now and claim that kiss. Fumbling the phone out of his pocket, he promptly dropped it into the floorwell, then knocked his head against the dash as he scrambled to retrieve it.

It wasn't Scott.

He squinted at the screen, turned the phone upside down and shook it, without any success at rearranging the letters. Deflated, he slumped in his seat, and read the text.

The message was from Lydia, a demand that he meet her for lunch at his favorite burger restaurant.

"Now?" he typed back. His stomach rumbled in a sympathetic reminder that the half day at school had not included lunch and he frowned at succession of anatomy parts that had chosen to develop opinions in the last few minutes.

"Right now," she answered.

He glanced at the house just as the front door swung shut. No one stood on the porch beckoning to him, no one stood in a window waiting for him. From the driveway, the house appeared unoccupied, like everyone had gone out and forgotten to tell him. "Fine," he answered with a shrug that she couldn't see. It wasn't like he had anything better to do until Scott got ahold of him.

At the restaurant, he pulled into the first available space, cut the engine, and looked at his phone one more time. The message still wasn't from Scott. The two of them texted each other dozens of times a day; Stiles icalled/i Scott multiple times a day, often for no reason except to share his conclusion about whether the meatloaf wrap was worth eating or which person had vandalized the equipment shed this time. Their call logs contained so many entries to the other person that if Stiles's dad actually did want to know what was going on with his son, all he'd have to do was look at his phone and then he'd have a record of half the thoughts that passed through his son's mind.

But Scott was not following protocol.

Stiles's face twisted into a visage of disgust. He cleared his screen and got out of the Jeep.

He found Lydia at one of the outdoor tables, the only one with its umbrella mounted. She looked up when he arrived at the table, the glare through her sunglasses daring him to offer a good explanation for his presence.

"You texted," he replied, holding up his phone for her to examine if she doubted him.

"You're late," she countered.

Stiles scowled in frustration. "I can't make the traffic go any faster than it does. Speed limits are a thing, you know." Not that he generally cared about speed limits, but until he learned how to drive ithrough/i the other cars on the road, there were still some laws he had to obey. "Danny," Stiles acknowledged, to the other member of the dining party.

Danny nodded at Stiles with a flat smile. "Hey." Though polite, he had a distance to his expression like he had been coerced into doing a favor he really didn't want to do.

Oookay, Stiles thought. He sought for a distraction and found it in the food already piled on the table. "You ordered already! What'd'ya get?" Plopping onto the sun-warmed plastic seat, he began rooting through the wrapped packages.

Lydia slapped his hand away from the first burger he picked up. "That one's mine." She pushed a second, messier, package toward him. "That one's yours. Danny doesn't eat red meat, so he got the chicken fingers." She indicated a paper box, which Danny accepted as if Lydia bought him lunch all the time.

Stiles's burger was the one he always ordered, and as he wrapped his hands around the seeded bun, he had a moment of pause to wonder how Lydia iknew/i which one he always ordered. He couldn't remember that detail ever coming up in casual conversation, nor would it be the kind of thing Danny might know. Shrugging to himself, he took a giant bite of the burger. Ketchup and mayonnaise slopped out of the back and over his hands and he let out a loud groan of pleasure at both the taste and the aesthetic sensation of being so fully immersed in what he loved.

Without looking at him, Danny rolled his eyes. He was, in fact, keeping his face averted in a way that was awfully suspicious.

Swallowing, Stiles prodded Danny's arm with his elbow. "So, are you the good cop, the bad cop, or another interogee?" He raised his eyebrows at Lydia as he asked. Her strawberry blonde hair hung in coifed curls and her flawless skin was perfectly made up. This was more effort than she, or anyone, would put into the last day of school. Which meant, that she had an agenda.

Danny busied himself with emptying packets of condiments into the top of his box, splotches of color against the white background like poultry diacritics. Another prod brought a reluctant, "Honestly? I'm not really sure." With that, he clammed up.

"We were just talking about our summer plans before you arrived," Lydia chimed in, sounding cheerful in the ditzy way that she used to talk when she was trying to hide how much she knew. "Danny's going to Hawai'i to visit family and I'm off to Europe in a couple weeks. There's a new fall wardrobe there calling my name. What are you doing? Anything exciting?"

"God, I hope not," Stiles blurted out. His mind flashed through all of his near death experiences of the last few months. The cut and bruises on his body from Gerard Argent's assault were long healed, but they had left permanent scars in his memory. "I've been looking forward to rest, relaxation, and lots of dedicated down time." He brightened up again at the recollection of what he could possibly be doing with some of that down time, if the first kiss was as glorious and life-changing as he knew it would be.

"Is that really why you brought me here?" he continued. "To talk about our summer vacation? We could have used the phone function of the phone for that. You know, that thing it does where it's like text messaging but with our voices instead."

"You're here because it's lunch time," Lydia answered. She bit into her burger which, though piled high with toppings, had the temerity not to drip all over her. She chewed, swallowed, and dabbed at her mouth with her napkin. "Also, we have business to discuss."

"Business?" Stiles asked.

At the same time, Danny frowned. "Is this about Jackson?"

With a huff, Lydia set her burger down and folded her hands behind it like a fence to keep either of them from sneaking in and stealing it while she was distracted. "Since no one in this town is willing to pass vital information on to those of us who need to know it," she started, her words clipped and enunciated, "-I have taken it upon myself rectify the matter. Once we are all on the same page, we will be better equipped to help each other with the unique needs of our situation."

The burger froze enroute to his mouth as Stiles tried to figure out what, besides the obvious, Lydia could be referring to. "Um," he said. "Are you sure?"

Lydia shot him a withering glare. Of course she was sure. Everything she did, she did because she was sure about what she wanted and how she was going to go about getting it.

Accepting the inevitability of his lunchtime fate, he bit off another mouthful, then kicked back in his seat with his condensation-wet cup of soda to watch the fallout.

With a flip of her head, Lydia dismissed him and turned all her attention onto Danny. "I'm going to say this as clearly as possible and if you have any comments to make about my mental health, you can kindly keep them to yourself," Lydia informed him.

Danny's face paled, his gaze darted to Stiles and back. "Lydia, I-"

She interrupted him with a click of her tongue. "Let me rephrase. You can keep all your thoughts to yourself until I'm done because I am going to be heard. Is that clear?"

Danny nodded. Stiles nodded, too, even though she had not directed the question at him. Lydia might have fallen from Queen Bee status in the high school hierarchy, but she hadn't lost the sting.

"Good." Lowering her voice fractionally, she stated. "And, yes, this is about Jackson. In a way. Jackson is a werewolf. Did he tell you that? No, of course not. He apparently told everyone except his best friend and his girlfriend." She sighed in frustration, then continued, "Also, Scott is a werewolf. Werewolves are real. This town is full of werewolves. I, however, am not a werewolf. Neither is Stiles. And we should all count our blessings for that." With the barrage of sentences finished, she leaned back and crossed her arms triumphantly.

Stiles took a long slurp of his drink and watched Danny's face work through a series of expressions, starting with the "are you nuts?" response that Lydia had had the foresight to forbid and moving immediately into a more generic confusion.

"Isaac Lahey is also a werewolf," Stiles interjected. "In case you were wondering." He held back the last three names—Boyd, Erica, and Miguel—as trump cards.

Danny carefully dipped a chicken finger in the barbeque sauce, swirled it around, then set it down. "I'm not sure what you want me to say."

"You could start by saying that you believe me," Lydia supplied.

Danny splayed his hands helplessly. "I believe you? Look, Lydia, I thought you called me here to set us up," he stated, gesturing between himself and Stiles. "No offense," he said to Stiles, "but I'm not interested in you."

Stiles grinned. Even yesterday, he would have been offended. There was no way that being rejected could have been anything other than offensive. Today, however, was different. Today, he didn't need to care if Danny found him attractive. "No worries."

Danny frowned, looking like he was trying to figure out if he could be offended or not. "You're not upset?"

"Nope."

Lydia cleared her throat. "Excuse me," she said after both the boys brought their attention back on her. "Is there a reason we're not focused on the important information?"

Stiles shrugged. "Werewolves are old news on my end, and Danny's probably trying to work out what the punchline is." He tucked the last of the burger into his mouth, chewed, and washed it down with a long sip of cola. "Hint: There is no punchline."

"You're both serious?" Danny asked. He twisted in his seat, searching the people around him as if looking for the true instigator of the joke. No one so much as looked their way. "You're both serious. Is this some kind of end of the year practical joke?"

"Think about it," Stiles replied. "All the things you saw during practice that didn't make sense, like the time that Scott was sniffing everyone."

At the reminder, Danny's eyes narrowed.

"And the chains that fell out of my locker that one time. Don't think I didn't see you staring at them."

"Jackson," Lydia supplied. Just his name. No reference to an event or a situation, no other words to hide it or to bury it under. Just Jackson. As his best friend, Danny should have been the most able to spot all the ways that Jackson changed.

Danny pushed his food away, crumpling it all together in mess of uneaten chicken fingers and colorful sauces.

Watching Danny put the clues together was kind of fascinating, except for how disappointing it even happening was. He'd always tagged Danny as one of the smart ones at Beacon Hills High, and yet the guy hadn't figured out that his best friend was a werewolf? Stiles had put it all together in less than a day, and that was iwithout/i his friend bleeding black blood all over the place.

"So, I guess that makes you part of the club now." Turning to Lydia he inquired, "Why is there a club?" Telling Danny made sense. It would be a lot easier to use his hacking skills without having to trick him every time. But, that didn't explain the timing. They weren't exactly under any kind of threat right now.

"I told you," Lydia answered. "We humans need to do a better job of looking out for each other. If we've learned anything over the past few months, it's that communication prevents a lot of problems."

"You mean like-"

"Stiles!" Lydia cut him off before he could get the elder werewolf's name out.

Stiles pasted on his most innocent look, ready to hit her with the patented "Who me?" that always—rarely, a small voice in the back of his head corrected—worked against his father. "OK, so a club. With us as members. Just in time for you two to leave the contiguous United States. Does anyone else see a problem with this?"

"I'm still having trouble with something," Danny interjected, as if Stiles and Lydia hadn't been talking. "When you say that Jackson is a werewolf..."

Stiles's phone beeped with an incoming Facetime request before he could hear the rest of the question. When he saw who it was, his mouth split into a wide smile. Finally!

He scooped up the last traces of his lunch, crumpling the paper hamburger wrapper into a ball and pitching it toward the garbage can. It missed. "Speaking of werewolves, I have to take this," he stated to no one in particular. Neither of his lunch companions were paying any attention to him now. It was starting to feel disturbingly like a pattern: join the club, hit the bench.

He thumbed the accept button and watched the picture resolve. "Hey, Scotty."

Scott's distressed face popped into view on his phone. His brown hair was a mess like he'd been using it to stick balloons to walls. "Where are you? Can you talk?"

"Hang on." A nod toward Lydia and Danny excused him from the rest of their conversation, which had changed to the two of them leaning across the table to whisper conspiratorially about all the oddities they'd observed.

With a last wave at them, Stiles headed back to his Jeep and the modicum of privacy it offered.

Scott was pacing around his bedroom, holding his phone in one shaky hand that was only more-or-less pointed at his face. A light in his room was on; Stiles could tell because it kept glaring off Scott's eyes into the lens of the camera.

"What's up?" Stiles asked, as soon as he was safely sequestered in the car. He double checked that his windows were rolled up.

Scott threw his other hand out and huffed out a breath, as if that answered the question. When Stiles didn't have a response for that, he added a half-wailed, "It's not fair!"

"Well, I would have had no problem kissing in front of your mom," Stiles countered. He checked the clock on his dashboard. "And aren't you supposed to be at work."

Scott's eyes darted to the clock in his room and he shook his head. "Not yet. Stiles!"

"It would help if you'd tell me what's not fair," Stiles pointed out. "Are we talking about taxes, teachers, or the general question of why bad things happen to good people?"

Drawing in a breath, Scott held the phone still for the first time and told him.

Stiles stared at his screen and the glowing-eyed image of his best friend on the other side of the camera for a long moment before bursting out with, "You can't go to your dad's. We don't even like your dad!"

"I know, right?" Scott replied. His voice crackled across the phone's connection. The video froze for a second at the end of his protest, then resumed. "Mom's making me go. She says she doesn't have a choice."

Stiles sputtered, racking a hand up and over the back of his head before concluding, "Well, she probably doesn't. Your dad's refusal to pay child support doesn't mean his parental rights have been revoked."

"How did-?" Scott shook his head. "Never mind. Stiles, I have to be there a month. A month! Do you know what that means?"

Stiles knew exactly what that meant, but he vowed to himself in that moment to not hold it against Scott. It wasn't like he was choosing to come up with another excuse to avoid his promise. That Scott would get his hopes up and then not even give him a proper let down was worse than if he'd just said 'no.' Instead of his real concerns, he opted for humor. Or, what might have passed for humor if he'd had more time to plan it out. "It means that I am going to be totally on my own when the dragon attacks Beacon Hills."

Scott went still, his eyes flaring yellow. "What dragon?"

"I don't know! Don't you think it's time we found a non-werewolf adversary? Since vampires and demons aren't real, I'm rooting for a dragon. Which will naturally show up as soon as you leave and there's no one left to defend our fair town-"

"You're an idiot," Scott interrupted. The accusation came across the line tinny and kind of flat. He reached up and did something that obscured the screen for a moment, frowned at his result, then shook his head. "Stiles! This is important! A month!"

"I heard you the first time," Stiles grumbled. "You're going away and you're going to leave me here. I'll bet there won't even be dragons. It'll just be me and Beacon Hills, for the first time since we were like, eight."

Scott kept talking, but Stiles's thoughts had careened off in their own direction, out of his control.

He could already picture how the summer was going to turn out. During the school year, he didn't have a lot of time to get bored. Mostly, he got home at night in time to collapse into bed and sleep until it was time to start over again. Sometimes he even managed to forget how empty the summers got.

Ever since werewolves were introduced into the equation, he'd had even less time to think about being bored. He was always running after something or being chased by something else. The amount of time he spent being scared out of his wits had gotten pretty high. And now that was over too. The bad guys were dead, the mystery solved, and Scott was going away.

The kiss almost wasn't even important.

In true sidekick fashion, Stiles was being left behind. Lydia was off to Europe to spend an exorbitant amount of money shopping. Danny was off to Hawai'i to visit his family. Stiles didn't even hang out with them normally, and he was already missing the time they still wouldn't have spent together. Allison was gone, Jackson was gone. At the rate people were fleeing to far more exciting locales, Beacon Hills was going to become a ghost town, and he already knew that it wouldn't even have the self-respect to bother with real ghosts.

Stiles dropped his head onto his steering wheel and let out the longest sigh of his life. This was not going to do. He could not be the only person at Beacon Hills high in the fall without a kick ass story for how he'd spent his summer vacation.