Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Wolf nor have any affiliation with it, and I am not making any money off this story.

Edit: 12/30/2012

Last time:

I hurried out of the locker room- I had something important to research.

Something important to research, my foot. Half the info on werewolves had nothing to do with Scott's situation! The other half, though, it looked somewhat promising. The site that most closely followed Scott's situation warned that any kind of stress could trigger a change. Well, maybe the date wasn't such a good idea after all.

"Stiles! Scott's here!" My dad shouted up the stairs, "See you tonight!" Seems like Scott caught Dad on his way out the door.

Scott loped into my room and fell gracelessly onto my bed with the dopiest grin he'd ever had stretching from ear to ear. "Your dad says there's Chinese in the fridge," he relayed dreamily.

I hit print on the most relevant articles, "And that's why you're acting like someone gave you a 'fun-time' dose of marijuana?" Turning dramatically in my awesome swivel chair, I handed Scott the papers, "Here. Research."

"Are you labeling it or commanding me?" Scott laughed, "And no, I'm not happy because of bok choy…"

"Labeling. So, please tell me you just won the lotto because if I hear one more word about how perfect Allison is-"

"She is perfect, isn't she?

"Oh, my God."

Ignoring the information I'd scoured high and low for, Scott proceeded to fill me in on all the amazing little bits about Allison I had no desire to learn in this lifetime or the next. Or he tried to as I surfed the web and looked up werewolf pictures.

Scott was murmuring, "And her hair is so soft; it smells so distinctly of her, too and-" when I discovered the grossest werewolf picture known to man.

Disregarding whatever Scott was blabbering on about, I turned the computer screen towards Scott, "Dude, do you think you'll look like this on the full moon?"

"I- What?" Scott leaned in without really knowing what he was about to see.

It had, like, tusks. And bulging muscles with veins like thin metal cords, as well as mangy-looking fur coating its all-too-naked body. "Because honestly," I confided, "I would stay really far away from you around the full moon if that's an accurate image."

"Stiles," Scott started incredulously, one hand on the side of the computer screen, "I'm not a werewolf!"

"Scott, why won't you just accept it? What else could be going on?" Really, what else? Oh, maybe he's a vampire now. Wait. I fixed him with the gravest look I could muster, "You're not a vampire, are you?"

"Stiles!"

"What! You could be!"

He pushed me "lightly" away and I hit the arm of my chair, "I'm not a vampire, Stiles!"

"I guess you didn't burn in the sunlight…" I summarized sullenly, rubbing my sore side. "But you do underestimate your strength a lot."

Scott's face contorted as he was torn between guilt and anger and he reached out a hand for my shoulder. When he hit skin, however (I was wearing a sleeveless shirt), he jerked back. "…What?"

"I don't know, what?" I repeated in exasperation, watching the shifting of his facial features as they responded to whatever tumultuous war of emotions was going on within him.

"I…" He grabbed my shoulder with slightly more force, and his face cleared entirely.

"…Scott, what's going on?" If I didn't get some answers soon, I was going to implode. Mysterious silences do not bode well for Stiles… es… Stiles-es… I'll work on it later.

"I'm calm," He muttered, then removed his hand and his expression twisted again, "Now I'm not calm."

I grabbed his wrist when it descended for another round of squeeze Stiles' shoulder and speak cryptically, "Scott! Tell me what's going on!"

The creases in his expression smoothed over again and I could actually see his muscles relax, "You make me calm."

"Wha- I-" I sucked in my lips for a moment in thought, then cocked my head in confusion. "Thank you?"

"Wait, I mean," Scott struggled for a second to find the words to explain what exactly he meant, "When I touch you, it's like- like something about it forces me to be calm."

It sounded plausible from how he was acting, but I could already see some discontinuities, "You were freaking out a night ago, and I was touching your wound."

"You were touching my skin when it healed, too," Scott continued as if to himself, "Maybe you can either heal or calm? But not at the same time?"

"Scott," I began, on the verge of panicking myself with Scott seeming so zen and unruffled, "Are you saying I have some sort of magic calming healing Gandhi power?"

"So, I'm not a werewolf, you're some ESP guy," Scott rationalized with his eerie tranquility.

"Your senses are still suddenly better," I reminded him in a tone bordering that of a whine. If I had ESP, Scott had bloody better have ESP with me. I was not going down that path alone. "You probably have some sort of extrasensory perception, too, then."

"I'm fine with that." Yeah, now. Just wait until you get out of my calming circle of influence. Or something. Scott was staring at me as if he'd never seen me before in his life. I had never felt more like some strange animal around him than in that moment.

"I still think you're a werewolf," I warned him, "You should reschedule your date with Allison tomorrow."

"I'm not rescheduling."

"Then I'm not leaving you two alone."

Scott rolled his eyes. Oh, sure; he's allowed to be melodramatic any time he so pleases, but one hint of drama from me and it's all "Did you take your Adderall?" or, even worse, "Did you take too much Adderall?"

Like I would take too much Adderall. More than once. Or twice. Or…. Well, I hadn't this time!

I returned my attention to Scott's even tone as he continued; "I'll wear a short sleeve shirt, then."

A short sleeve shirt? How would that help against the inevitable wolfing out under the full moon? His fur would be more visible? I summarized my thoughts in one fell swoop, "How would that do anything?" Scott attempted to explain, but I cut him off, "No, actually, how is that even relevant?!"

"You can't calm yourself with your power, I see," He grinned, "But if you're so worried about me hurting someone in a rage, then wearing a short sleeve shirt means you can just grab my arm and I'll calm down."

Mulling it over, I released his wrist and Scott, apparently toting the aftereffects of my calming touch, plopped down on my bed to read the research I'd been doing.

"This bit, here, proves I'm not a werewolf," Scott pointed out a paragraph summarizing the deadly effects of silver on a werewolf's system, "My mum wears a silver cross at all times. I can't not come into contact with it."

"Yeah, but, in this article," I rummaged through the papers and came up with the correct reference, "It says differently." We spent a good part of the night cross checking different articles with Scott picking out the bits that didn't quite fit while I found their matching counterarguments. Around 12, my dad came home and suggested Scott either remove himself from the premises or call his mother to ask if he could stay over since it was already so late. Almost needless to say, Scott called his mum and she firmly told him he should have come home earlier. …However, since he was already here, she'd feel safer if he just stayed put rather than wander the streets in the dark of night on his lonesome. Especially since she didn't want to have to drive over and pick him up.

After all, she had the car right then.