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Last time:
Unfortunately for him, 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.
Said ex-inhabitant of our fair city was eyeing Scott with a significant amount of unease. "Has he been like this the whole time?"
"Been like what, the whole time what?" I parroted before I could help myself. Shaking my head, I backtracked to the really important question, "And why aren't you freaking out? What do you know about all this, anyway?"
"I am a werewolf, too, and- dammit, we have to leave," Running forward at a speed I couldn't fully register mainly due to disbelief, Hale grabbed my arm and pulled me along. Scott, needless to say, gave chase. What else is a dog without a toy to do?
Voices in the background gave me pause for a second, but Hale was essentially moving me through the air rather than leading me on my own two feet, so there was no way for me to stop. Scott suddenly dropped with a yelp, holding his shoulder as he shrank behind us.
"Wait, we have to help him!" I shouted at my fleeing abductor, struggling against the iron strong grip he had on my arm.
"Not you!" The elder man hissed, throwing me unceremoniously ahead of him with the whispered direction, "RUN!"
Not that I'd listen with my best friend in danger. Or at least, I didn't until an arrow zipped so close to my skull I could feel what hair I had sway in its wake. I was off like that arrow in a second. Not too long after, I heard pounding feet behind me and redoubled my speed. My breath was falling into familiar patterns as the "correct running technique" Coach pounded into us took over. In the end, it was the darkness that doomed me. My foot hit something awkwardly and I flew forward, landing in a sprawl across the dirt, needles, and leaves coating the forest floor. Detangling myself, I tried to spring up, but another body crashed into mine and we skidded another couple of feet.
"Ow," I moaned as Scott rolled off my back with a surprisingly human expression.
"Sorry," He offered a conciliatory hand up to my feet, "At least you didn't get shot?"
"You're you again?" I asked inanely as he helped me stand. Quickly realizing my mistake, I amended, "Not that you stopped being you, but I mean, you're human-y-looking again?"
Hale actually groaned at my sentence structure. Like I was causing him pain. Scott, however, had the decency to ignore my grammatical issues and answer the question. "Hale said enough pain snaps us out of it."
"Out of the furriness?" I questioned honestly.
Hale snorted irritably, "What are you, a third grader? We don't have time for this. Scott, we need to leave the area."
I pointed at the dark haired man with a scowl. "You," I decided, "I don't like you."
"I don't need you," Hale snarled with a flash of blue eyes as he got in my face, "to like me." I was close enough to bite the man's nose off and the thought crossed my mind that it wouldn't even be that difficult.
"Hey, man," Scott pushed Hale back a bit with a little eye flashing of his own, "Leave Stiles out of this." Really, with all the mystical eye-flashing going around, I was starting to feel a little out of the loop.
"He would be 'left out of this' if you had never told him," Hale accused, turning on Scott. "Now we need to get going. Those hunters will be right on our tail." He swept dramatically away and we had no viable option but to scramble after him.
"I actually figured it out before he did," I mumbled under my breath, wishing I could cross my arms over my chest as I picked my stumbling way hastily through the foliage. Hale was getting ahead of both of us since Scott was sticking to my human speed instead of rushing after him.
"Real great defense of your friend, kid," Hale called back. Scott said nothing, still holding his arm.
I gestured back in the general direction we'd come from, ignoring Hale's jibe entirely in favor of whatever was going on with Scott. "What happened back there?" Scott pulled his hand away so I could see the blood seeping from his shoulder. So that's what that 'at least, you didn't get shot' comment was about.
"Shit!"
Hale glanced back at my exclamation and Scott jumped a little, coming to a halt beside me.
"How are you walking around with that?" I cried, moving forward, "Give me your hand or wrist or something." The grabby gestures I was making with my own hands were not helping to get the point across and I about twitched with frustration, "Healing touch, remember?"
The confusion eased from Scott's face and, unexpectedly, he took my hand in his, "We should keep walking though."
I looked apprehensively at our joined hands, but nodded, "That's kind of what I had in mind."
The unpleasant tromp through the foliage was made less pleasant by Hale's longwinded explanations of how he and Scott were brothers, now, as well as of the hunters behind us and what lay ahead of us (or rather, Scott), winding up with the little fact he should have started with: he did not turn Scott or kill the girl they found in the woods. That poor victim had in fact been his sister, and she had also been a werewolf. Hale's snarl that if anyone had killed her, it was the hunters we'd nearly managed to lose just minutes before sent shivers down my spine and fully convinced me that he had cared about his sister too much to have been her murderer.
About half way through the trip, Scott began to mellow and I suspected his wound had healed. Three fourths of the way through the trip, my fingers started to fidget; Scott still hadn't released them from his evil clutches, even if those evil clutches felt really good… I did not just think that. As we neared a burned looking house in the middle of a random forest clearing with a path to the main road, I wondered how a man so calm could have such an unyielding hold. On the plus side I hadn't fallen again and Scott mostly led me around obstacles I couldn't see as the moon dimmed in a strange way (there had been only one unfortunate tree trunk my forehead had had the pleasure of getting to know better). It was only after the third weird stare from Hale that Scott caught the drift of our combined messages and dropped my hand like a hot potato.
"S-sorry," He stammered through an obscuring haze of blush, "Must be a wolf thing."
"Contact." Astonishingly enough, Hale backed him up, and with no little distaste on his part, "You must view him as part of your familial pack even though he's not one of us."
"I have so had enough wolf lessons today," I sighed, sitting on the dilapidated front porch and stretching my crying legs out before me. Poor things weren't used to being abused with such uneven footing as the forest provided.
"Me too," Scott grumbled, joining me on the deck without any stretching necessary on his part even if he was still sporting some extra color in his cheeks. Darn his superior wolf muscles.
"This isn't actually supposed to be possible, you know," Hale continued with a hint of steel in his voice, "You were entirely taken over by the wolf, and Stiles could have been in serious danger if it weren't for some sort of very potent dumb luck."
Turns out Hale's a lecturer. Also, "You know my name?" I pulled my legs up onto the deck and moved away from the edge in a scuttling crab walk that Scott viewed with an amused snigger at my expense.
"I may have researched Scott's situation."
The too-calm tone pricked at something and I couldn't stop the so-stupid-it's-criminal part of me that seems to enjoy being in deep water from blurting, "You mean, you stalked him?"
For a moment there was dead silence.
And that's what I'm going to be. Dead.
I whimpered.
Hale turned to Scott, pointing at me with an out-flung arm, "Don't bring him here again. He makes me feel ugly things."
"Again?" Scott echoed, ignoring the threat to my well being the way any best friend would.
"You need to learn to control the wolf, and to remember what you do when you're completely taken over," Hale had hopped up onto the deck and opened the door to the house, "Come back tomorrow two hours before noon." He clomped dramatically inside, the door creaking shut behind him in a way that screamed 'condemned.'
After I thought he was out of hearing range, I whispered, "He couldn't have just said ten?"
"No!" Hale's shout took me by surprise and I leapt off the deck.
Laughing, Scott jumped up and made his way towards the main road, "Come on. It's going to be a long walk back if we don't start soon."
I draped myself over his back. "Help me," I whined, "I'm a poor little human. I need someone to take care of me." I was not entirely shocked when Scott jerked me off with a snicker.
We got back safely, if not soundly, and Scott waved tiredly at my father, beginning to jog quicker as he passed my house and I dragged myself up the steps.
Feeling like every bone in my body had liquefied, I played a rousing- read: exhausting- game of twenty questions with my father and, when he was satisfied with his interrogation, oozed my boneless way up to my room. The adrenaline must have worn off with a vengeance because I fell asleep before I made it to my bed, lolling across the floor with one arm extended towards my ultimate destination. It was lucky for me that there was no school tomorrow.
Though, you know, my luck has always had ways of balancing itself out.