Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Wolf.
Last time:
I went through the usual- shower, cologne, nice clothes, handcuffs, brush the hair for the first time in a week… What? I don't have time usually- oh yeah, the handcuffs. Just in case, you know, calming powers don't work on full out wolf-y men. So Scott doesn't kill the mood. Or something else.
It took me a few seconds to get my slightly hysterical laughter under control.
At seven, someone knocked and I ran out the door, swooned into Scott's waiting arms and-
No, actually, at seven Scott honked twice, I teased him about "picking up his date first" until I had to physically hold his wrist to calm him down, and we arrived at Allison's house.
Scott tried to stop me when I began to unbuckle my seatbelt and I looked at him questioningly. "It's not cool to bring your friend up to the door when you're picking up your date!" He explained, eyes darting up to said door as if it were his last and final obstacle in Skate Xxtreme.
"No, Scott, of course that's totally cool. Just as cool as letting your date ride in the back." I stared him down until he realized what I meant.
"Oh," He let go of my hand and blushed, "I thought-"
"Try not to do that," I teased, getting out of the car, "Just stand there and look pretty while I do the deep stuff." Luckily, I closed the door to the back seat in time and Scott retreated to get Allison instead of continuing his charge through the car's window.
She was something, I admit. Not as beautiful as Lydia, of course, but close. Didn't even really have to get dolled up. Her smile was radiant as she got into the passenger seat. I shrunk down in the back to be as unobtrusive and unnoticeable as possible. It was quite an effort; I even timed our seatbelt clicks in near unison.
Then Scott had to ruin it. Of course, the awkward silence in the front was getting old by the halfway point.
"Did Stiles mention he was in the back, or is he lurking silently without your knowledge?" Scott feebly joshed, jerking a thumb in my direction. I mimed biting it off.
"Stiles is back-?" She turned and got a good look at my snapping jaw before bursting into giggles, "Do you know what he's threatening your thumb with?"
I threw another snap for Scott's benefit as he glanced in the rearview mirror. He jerked his hand back, then rapped my nose lightly, "Bad Stiles."
I grinned as the two in the front laughed together, the tension destroyed. I expected them to finally start chatting each other up and move on to a more date-like atmosphere, but Allison dashed my hopes.
"Have you two been friends a long time?"
Scott grinned without taking his eyes from the road, "Too long."
"Hey!" I glared at the back of his head, "I'll wreak my vengeance when you're not driving."
"But seriously," Scott continued, "We've been friends since before I can remember."
"Really?" Allison turned slightly to try and incorporate me in the conversation, "So you don't even remember meeting?"
"Nope," Scott shook his head.
"Actually, I remember it." I volunteered, surprising myself at this willful encouragement of the tangent. I almost backed out of it, but Allison was watching me with querying soulful brown eyes and Scott's ears actually seemed to perk up. Whatever floats their boat, I guess. "When we were three, I think- I got the age from your mom- our parents had each taken us to the park and Dad lost me on the way."
"Oh wow," Allison drawled.
Scott snorted, "He would've, back then."
"Yeah, yeah, no interruptions!" I fixed them both with a mock evil eye. "As I was saying, Dad lost me. Mom panicked and started running everywhere we had already been while Dad called his police buddies. Meanwhile, I had made my way safely to the park and I spotted this kid sitting alone on the swings."
"A handsome kid?" Scott prompted, sensing where I was going with this.
"Ugly as a rock," I retorted. "So anyway, there I am, feeling as lonely as the kid looked, and I made the kind of split second decision I can only make on the wrong dosage of Adderall." Both teens in the front replied with a sort of choking laugh. "I snuck up behind him, and pushed him as high as I could! He fell off and started gasping. How was I supposed to know he was resting from an asthma attack?" I assume the expression of indignant self-righteousness I knowingly cultivated was more realistic than I gave it credit for, because Allison simply couldn't keep a straight face when she looked at me. "I ran over and tried to give him CPR until his mom sprinted there and gave him his inhaler."
"CPR?" Scott laughed, "I was having an asthma attack and you started pounding on my chest?"
"Well actually, it would be better to say I tried to give you mouth-to-mouth resuscitation," I admitted with a shrug.
Allison really needed to stop for a second and breathe between laughing fits. Her method of laughing could not possibly be healthy.
Meanwhile, Scott actually almost ran us off the road before he swerved dangerously and returned us to the center of the lane. "You did what?"
"I'm sorry, Allison," I stated somberly, "You won't be his first kiss."
Scott's eyes were wide in shock as he drove mechanically. I was starting to understand why Scott's mom had thought it would be a bad idea to tell him that particular story any time soon. My fears were, however, assuaged when he belatedly joined Allison in an inhumanly long laughing spasm.
We spent the rest of the trip sharing embarrassing stories about one another with Allison, who seemed more than happy to stick to the topic.
The first half hour of the party was somewhat fun. I relentlessly worked to give the couple some "alone time" but either one or the other would pull me back before I could slip into the crowd.
"Just until your date gets here," they would say with a grin.
However, after that half an hour came another half an hour and I began to suspect she wasn't going to get there.
"I'm going to go get some punch," I shouted over the din of the music.
"Get me one?" Allison gestured to herself and I nodded, moving towards the refreshment table. Werewolf trouble had not reared its ugly head, and I felt almost foolish for having been so insistent that the full moon would do anything. I mean, werewolves? How would a man turning into a wolf be physically possible? The Chemistry teacher spent enough time hammering into my head that different animals have different chemical mixes in their system when I tried to substitute- …well- it's not important. I knew different animals had different chemicals and things.
When I turned around, Allison was dancing closely to Scott, her arms loosely around his neck and Scott was glancing uneasily in the direction of Jackson essentially defiling Lydia with their clothes on. Great. I can't believe she would lower herself to that. I would bet anything she just gave in this once so Jackson would stop bugging her about it. He's such a dick.
A shout from the dance floor caught my attention as Scott doubled over in pain, clutching his head. "Scott?" Allison moved forward in concern, but using my incredible adrenaline-fueled skills, I dove through the crowd and pulled her back just in time. She looked at me with a little fear in her eyes, "What's wrong with him?"
"Uh, his heart beat too fast with you and now he's having an asthma attack?" Why, oh, why did that come out sounding like a question? "I need to get him home. He refused to bring his inhaler tonight because he didn't want you to think he was a loser."
"Oh, um-" Allison hedged, "I guess I'll go with. Can you drop me off at home once Scott's okay?"
I already had a hold of Scott's arm but all it seemed to do was keep him quiet as the pain wracked his body, so I wasn't sure leaving him alone was the best idea. The split second of hesitation was all Lydia needed to flounce in angelically as my saviour. It appeared the minor commotion involving Allison had attracted her attention.
"We can get her home; can't we, Jackson?" Lydia volunteered, dodging dancers to drape an arm around Allison's shoulders, "Okay?"
"Great," I took a cue from their position and pulled Scott's arm over my shoulder, half carrying him out to the car and tossing him into the passenger's seat. I hopped into the driver's seat and patted my pocket. "Okay, I think I have my license…" It wasn't in either of my front pockets but it was possible I had it in one of the back ones…
After a bit of fiddling around for my missing license, Scott had had enough and ground out in an animalistic growl, "Drive, Stiles."
"But my dad's the sheriff!"
"Stiles?" Scott was much closer than I was comfortable with and- were those fangs coming out of his mouth? Yes, they were. He was a werewolf. Why wasn't I feeling triumphant? His pointy incisors almost brushed against my ear as he whispered threateningly, "You need to get me out of here."
The car was in gear and down the street like lightening. Speed limits had no hold on me today. "On the plus side, you look really cool," I offered as offhandedly as possible, driving into the forest.
"The woods?" He questioned tersely, his fangs muffling his meaning and adding an odd slur to his words. The yellow flash of his eyes was inhumanly bright and I redirected my gaze to the road as I parked the car.
"Isolated," I explained, jumping at every shadow while I helped him out. Suddenly he pitched forward, clutching my arm and shirt for balance and roared. My hands rose to his arms to steady him of their own accord, and the contact seemed to soothe the worst of the pain. Unfortunately, that's all it did. Shining yellow eyes in a nearly familiar face met mine and just as quickly Scott drove me backwards until I was pinned against a pine tree by his abruptly exaggerated weight.
His nose nudged my neck. Oh my God my best friend is going to kill me because I can't heal him and calm him at the same time. Ahh, he's too strong to push off and too fast to escape without getting bitten! Just as I had closed my eyes, resigned to my fate, Scott drew a deep snuffling breath against my skin and nuzzled into the crook of my neck with a contented sigh. The pain must have stopped. My frazzled mind informed me, but I couldn't quite make heads or tails of this data until my train of thought snapped back into position. I can calm him but I can't completely stop the transformation?
After a few awkward minutes with Scott's clawed fingers running up and down my arm, I attempted to pull gently away. "Gently," however, does not even register in the resistance section of the Werewolf Almanac's strength chapter, and it would've seemed like wolfy Scott took no notice of it if he hadn't abruptly tightened his grip and pulled me to the ground. I did put up a valiant struggle but the wolf was not releasing its newly captured prey until it was darn ready and willing to. After some confusing manipulations on Scott's part, I ended up sitting next to my furry buddy on the pine needles and under his arm.
Well, this was all I'd been hoping for this weekend. No, this could possibly be the dream career I'd been looking for. I could see the conversation with the counselor now. Oh, no, Mr. O'Connell, I actually am dropping math for companion animal studies. My reason? Oh, I thought it'd come in handy in my future job as a werewolf teddy bear. No, the pay isn't all that great but I only have to work once a month. That'd go over well.
After a long, long period of silence- wait, scratch that… After a few moments of the most uncomfortable silence of my life, I gathered my courage and nervously squeaked, "So, this is great, right?" Scott rumbled in a way I assumed was questioning, so I continued, "You know, just uh, hanging out, in the woods, alone, me and your razor sharp teeth, I mean-" Scott's expression was unchanging and I prayed that meant he was beyond human comprehension at that moment- otherwise known as: that he hadn't understood a word I said. Trailing off without finishing my sentence, I tried to focus on the different constellations I could identify. Well, really, I looked for the big dipper since that's about the extent of my expertise when it comes to stars. It was increasingly hard to ignore Scott's arm about my shoulders, though, when he kept tracing patterns with his claws on my upper arm. The leaves obscured my view of the moon, but the stars that peeked between them twinkled smugly at my distress. I could imagine the moon was laughing its ass off at the trouble it had caused tonight. At least Allison didn't think Scott was a freak and was probably home safe right now. She was a nice chick. Nice figure, too- no, Stiles; a different kind of distraction…
I could easily say I was a little jealous of their relationship. They must just click. But… Thinking back on their stilted conversation, I hadn't really seen any evidence of it tonight. Maybe it was just me. My presence interrupted their flow or something?
Yeah, I'm pretty sure Allison and he had been talking pretty animatedly the other day. Then again, Scott had had his arm around her right then and, as I was experiencing, that seemed to have some sort of relaxing effect since- despite the dangers of it- I was close to falling asleep.
My head began to nod and even though I knew the wolf in Scott might read into it, I let myself lean into the embrace, my head falling onto his shoulder.
"I wonder if there's any bit of human-y Scott still in you right now," I murmured to the forcibly placid werewolf. Lucky, that. Whatever these powers were, they certainly had a good sense of timing.
I was musing over that when Scott's arm jerked around me, pulling me half into his lap while he growled at what appeared to be a leaf falling to the ground.
Weird. A falling leaf this early- wait a minute. Scott growled? I wasn't keeping him calm anymore?
As Scott kept me to his chest I quietly began to panic.
"Release the kid, Scott!" The shout seemed to bend a little as if the source were moving toward us at a high speed and something about it tweaked at my memory. Wolf Scott's teeth were very shiny as he bared them menacingly in the direction of the man's voice. He stood and I had little to no choice but to stand with him. Oh, the humility of being confined by another guy with no chance of breaking free. I needed to start working out more. Or get bitten. No, wait-
"Kid, listen up; I think he's too far gone to understand right now, so I'm going to need you to be very calm and try not to freak out about your friend's change."
Unfortunately for our mystery man, he chose that moment to step into the light, and as the shadows fell away from Derek Hale's face, I let out a tiny expletive and backed further into Scott's chest. Of course, my pal took this as choosing his side in the dominance fight or whatever he saw a confrontation as and he pressed his cheek happily against the side of my neck, keeping wary, yellow eyes on Hale the entire time.
Stupid wolf habits.
Stupid me.
Stupid Derek Hale surprising me.