Disclaimer: I own not of the Teen Wolf movie or series nor am I making any money from this.

This is a shorter chapter, but at least it's a chapter. Gotta get back in the groove.

"So…" My father began slowly when we'd stared at each other in silence for a few minutes. "You think you love Scott."

Think, know, same thing, really, right? I mean, it might seem a little fast if we'd just met each other, but these feelings had had quite some time to form, hidden under the surface. Sort of like a pimple. "Yeah," I agreed simply.

Another few moments of strained silence stretched between us, taut like the strings of a violin.

"Have you two…?" He trailed off, making vague hand gestures and looking uneasy.

"No," I asserted firmly, "and no need to speak more of it, Ms. McCall beat you to the bat."

"Ah, good. She's sort of a doctor," Dad nodded, more to himself than me.

This wasn't really clearing much up, though. "Sorry," my hand came out in front of me almost defensively, "but does all this mean you believe me now?"

"I don't think you're gay," he said, and held up a hand to forestall my irritable outburst, "but I believe you believe you feel something for Scott." He hesitated, and added, carefully, "Are you… Are you sure it's not just, you know, a brotherly love?"

"For reasons I'm not willing to share, I am ninety nine point nine nine percent certain that I do not have brotherly ties to one Scott McCall," I replied, "Unless it's some creepy incestuous-"

"I get it!" Dad cut me off, "I get it."

I shut my mouth, crossing my arms over my chest and leaning back, "So…?"

"I don't like it," he started, "You're just kids; kids shouldn't be dating and- macking on each other-"

"Stop. Point," I demanded. Nothing was weirder than hearing my dad talking about macking, of all the word choice in the world-

"Hey," he pointed at me with his Serious Eyes, "You do it in front of me; I have a right to say something about it."

"Your point," I repeated less assertively.

He sighed and rubbed his temples with one hand, before recapturing my gaze, "Look. Just be careful, okay? It's easy to ruin a friendship with this… stuff. I don't want to see you moping around for months if it goes wrong."

Suppressing my initial impulse to make a snappy remark, I turned his words over. "...Alright."

"Alright?"

"Alright."

xo0O0ox

"You know," Kate said slowly, "looking back, that Stiles kid is super sketchy."

"No," Allison replied, putting a clip into her gun and checking the safety, "He's super spazzy."

"No, think about it," her aunt said, moving in front of Allison and causing her to hastily point the gun down and away. Care about your safety more, Allison berated her mentally. "He hangs out with Hale," she began ticking her reasons off on her fingers, "sneaks into your house via window, stole your boyfriend-"

"Why did I tell you that."

"-visited that friend of yours who swore she had a picture of a mountain lion that attacked her and mysteriously had her phone when the picture disappeared-"

"He picked it up on accident, while he was visiting her, because he was worried."

"-pretty astutely figured out our pendant for you, but in the wrong way-"

"Stiles is smart."

"-and I'm pretty sure he went through my bag when he visited you."

Allison and Kate stared at each other in silence for a moment as Allison tried to think of a reason.

Finally, the younger female ventured, "...He's a pervert?"

"He's gay!" Kate exclaimed, but Allison just shrugged and holstered her gun, reaching next for her bow.

xo0O0ox

Allison abducted me before school the next morning, dragging me deep into the school's library and proceeding to drill me on keeping safe when werewolves were about. "And another thing," she was saying, when she suddenly drew her pendant over her head and shoved it into my hand, "I need you to get Isaac with this after practice."

"...What?"

"We think he's a werewolf," she explained, "he had a sudden improvement in his performance this year, and he's seemed more aggressive to his close friends. Kate doesn't think I should involve you, but I know you'd want to help. It's your town, too."

Isaac? Like, the kid who flinched when you raised your voice? "Are you serious, right now?" I looked down at the pendant in my hand and back up at Allison's definitely serious face, "Isaac would flee from his own shadow. The kid is a jumpy ball of nerves, and you want me to throw a poisoned pendant at his face."

"Wolfsbane is only-"

"Wolfsbane is fatally toxic to humans," I interrupted, "Not just werewolves. I hereby call into question the safety of this pendant thing and you're not getting it back until you can prove it to me." I'd looked the toxicity up once Hale and Dr. Deaton had agreed I was crawling with it. Deaton, at least, seemed to think I was still human, with an immunity to the plant. Hale seemed skeptical.

"What?"

"If you're our only defense against the things that go bump in the night, we can't risk you getting contact-poisoned before the fight even starts; what if long enough exposure to it drives you crazy?" I reasoned, squirreling away the evil thing while she was distracted. Plus, this got rid of one of their only werewolf-sensing tools. Win, win. Just had to fend Scott off until I could explain the situation. Tackling me and then wolfing out would be somewhat telling.

"Oh, come on, Stiles," Allison rolled her eyes, "It's been in my family for generations."

"Your aunt is the last one that had it, right?"

Her hands landed on her hips and she leaned forward threateningly, "What are you implying?"

I backed up placatingly, "Nothing, not- a- thing, but yanno," I held out my hands in a what-can-you-do kind of gesture, continuing, "think about it," and vanished from the library. Or, well, I took off. Running. Like a bat out of hell.

"I can hogtie you seven ways to Sunday!" She shouted after me, and the staff member currently roaming the aisles of books gave her a slightly sickened look. "Sorry."

xo0O0ox

"And now he's stolen the pendant."

"Shut up, Aunt Kate."

xo0O0ox

That wasn't even my only ambush that day. I'd never felt so wanted. Classes went by as normally as they could while Allison eyed Isaac as if she were sizing a noose for his neck by sight alone. During practice, however, someone grabbed me off the edge of the field, dragging me behind the bleachers with a hand over my mouth.

"Don't scream," a familiar voice warned me tightly, and when I nodded frantically, I was released to lay into one bothersome Hale.

"What the hell are you doing?" I hissed, "Don't you have my number in your phone, now? Scott called me from it? Are bells ringing?" I could, however, tell why he hadn't grabbed Scott; if I came under suspicion, I could easily pass any are-you-a-werewolf tests, whereas Scott… Yeah, not so much.

He shook his head, more dismissively than as a response, "That's traceable; just listen. Keep Scott from going to the vet's, if you can. The doctor smells… Off, and I think he's involved with the alpha, somehow." Leaning in, eyes flashing with intensity rather than magic, Hale continued urgently, "He might even be the alpha, so I'm going in."

"Going in? What?" Hale just looked at me with his lips pressed into a thin line, and his eyes emphatically wide. "Oh, no. You are not going to…" I glanced around for eavesdroppers and lowered the volume of my voice even further, "Do not kidnap and-or interrogate Scott's boss!" What was going on with the supernatural and their Hunters? Jumping to conclusions and endangering lives was not the correct plan of action! "Wait, look," I dug around in my pocket and produced my prize, "This pendant is infused with wolfsbane juice, somehow, and it forces a transformation on contact." Hale shifted back like it could lunge over and bite him. "I'll follow Scott to work like a creeper and ask Dr. Deaton to take a look at this without mentioning what it's infused with. If he doesn't wolf out when he takes it, we'll know. I mean, you can't smell any of the wolfsbane, can you?"

"…No." A little tension eased from Hale's frame, but he still looked ready to leap into action at the drop of a dime, "And what if he is the alpha? Then what'll you do? Try to hug him to death? He killed my sister when she was alpha."

"Well, you could lurk around the area," I offered with the air of one explaining to a toddler that grass is green. Brightening, I smirked, "We could have a safe word."

With a grimace, he crossed his arms over his chest and asked, reluctantly, "Can you whistle?"

"Yep."

"Just," he winced, "Just whistle if you need me. I'll be around near the beginning of Scott's shift." The crease in his brow and the defensive stance screamed that he was still not entirely on board with this plan, but at least he was willing to play along and put off breaking the law, for a while. Now I just had to decide whether or not to tell Scott. On the one hand, it would be better if he was prepared if Dr. Deaton did turn out to be the alpha. On the other, he might object to the plan on principle, since it put a weak little human in the alpha's path. However, I was relatively certain that Hale was just being paranoid. Deaton would have been less creepy and more… Malevolent-feeling, I think, if he was really the alpha. Sure, that's a shallow way of figuring it out, but so far, shallow seems to work when judging the supernatural. Plus, he still worked with cats well, and that was more than I could say for Scott, lately. Hale waved a hand in front of my face, "Earth to idiot."

"I'm keeping myself from making a dog joke," I told him frankly.

"STILINSKI!"

"Shit." Why did Coach pick now to remember I was on the team? I gestured for Hale to go- or, er, shooed him ("Get, Lassie! Get!")- and dashed out from behind the bleachers, skidding to a stop and trying to look nonchalant as Coach walked over and tried to look behind me. Somehow, I just kept moving into his path. Don't know how that happened.

He stopped moving, craning his neck instead, suspiciously, "What were you doing back there?"

"I dropped my glove, but I got it back," I held up the glove with as straight a face as I could manage, "Ta da." Even Scott was giving me a weird look now.

For a long moment, Coach stared at me, before, almost disgusted that I had an excuse, he waved a hand, "Get in line with the others."

Thank all that is on my side for Coach's lack of patience. "Yes, sir."

"What was all that about with the bleachers?" Scott asked quietly in the locker room, after practice, easily invading my bubble and changing at the same time.

"Back up enough for me to move my freaking elbows," I demanded, "And I'll tell you." When he gave me enough room to change without smacking him in the side, I settled to my task, murmuring, "I'm going with you to work, today, so I'll fill you in on the way there." Or, after I'd already done it. Either one, really. I was still debating whether Scott needed to know before it was over.

"It's really a wonder that you two aren't gay," Danny smirked at us as he passed by, taking in the closer-than-usual whispering session.

We exchanged a look, Scott's eyes questioning, and I shrugged my permission. Outing ourselves in a locker room full of half-naked men wasn't the worst decision we'd ever made and the team was already pretty cool about Danny. "Actually," Scott began with half a smile, "about that."

Stopping dead in the walkway between benches was not usually an appreciated act, but Danny just gave his naysayers a rude, "Go around; I'm busy." He looked between Scott and me with an almost dejected expression, "You're serious? You're actually gay and that," he gestured at me, "got you?"

"Am I just horrifically ugly or is it my personality?" I wondered aloud with not a small edge to the tone. What was it with people lately and questioning Scott for being interested in me? Was no one interested in me? Did I not seem attractive to gay people?

Scott patted my cheek consolingly, "It's probably your fashion sense." Pausing to think about it, he added, "Or lack of one."

"My clothes are fine," I huffed and Danny chose this moment to remind us of his existence.

"I should have known," he muttered, "Why didn't I know?" It appeared we were putting him through some sort of existential crisis as he put a hand to head and wandered away to change. Nearby, Paul gave an unseemly giggle at Danny's distress and closed his locker, waving his good byes and obviously cherishing the moment when Danny's gaydar failed him.

Well, let's be honest; so was I. That little barb was really getting under my skin. That, indeed. I'd show him who was a that… Maybe… If I ever thought of any way to get back at him. Putting those thoughts on the back burner, I finished changing, and Scott and I walked out to the parking lot. Well, jogged out. With how quickly he was rushing me to the car, Scott was apparently still stuck on the fact that I'd had a mysterious adventure behind the bleachers without him.

It wasn't as if it was that suspicious with everything going on in our lives for someone to take me away for a secret conference, though, or even all that uncommon. I guess Scott was just feeling out of the loop.

"Okay," he said, settling in the passenger seat of my lovely Jeep, "Bleachers. What."

Impulsively, I made up my mind to clue him in beforehand. There was always a chance that I wasn't right. No matter how very few times it had happened before. "Hale thinks Deaton is the alpha," I explained, "And I know he's not, so we're just going to prove that to him."

"How's that?" Scott eyed me suspiciously, seeming to take Hale's accusation against his boss in stride and instead focusing on precisely the thing I'd hoped would go unnoticed.

"I'm going to get him to hold the wolfsbane infused pendant I sort of stole from Allison and make triumphant gestures when he doesn't wolf out?" And, now it sounded like a question. Scott seemed to be working himself up into some sort of fit, so I continued, "The cats still like him! He's not a werewolf!"

"Oh, why didn't you just say so?" Scott asked, with more sarcasm than I'd thought him capable of dripping from each syllable. "Just because cats like him doesn't mean he's not a werewolf. Derek and cats get along fine."

"Oh." I hadn't known that. "I knew that. But still, Hale is a born werewolf, right? It could be different for turned wolves and Deaton just isn't creepy enough to be alpha. I'm still going to do it." Scott inhaled sharply through the nose and pushed the exhale slowly through his teeth. "I knew you'd love this plan."

"No, and more no," Scott took another deep breath, "How could you think for even a second that I'd let you do this?"

"You don't get to let me to anything," I reminded him, a little testily at the implication as we left the school behind, "I choose to take this tiny, almost non-existent risk."

"That's not the point, Stiles; you aren't a werewolf," As if I was unaware, "and if you're wrong, you could die."

"If I'm right, nothing will happen," I retorted, "Just because I'm human doesn't suddenly mean I need to be kept in a little box and guarded from breaking. You were human, too, a few months ago, and I didn't treat you like glass."

"We were both human, then!"

"Yeah,

and you had asthma! I'm not surprised you've forgotten, since you seemed to forget it even then, too!"

Scott turned a blotchy red color, "That's not the same thing, Stiles."

"Oh, yeah? You'd go off without your inhaler, overexert yourself, and wheeze all the back. Sounds a lot to me like choosing to put yourself at risk, and for much less of a reason than I've got now." My volume dropped, but even I could hear the sharpness in my voice, "Do you even know how scary it is- was to hear you trying and trying just to breathe? How hard it was to keep myself from butting in and forcing you not to run, or try out for lacrosse, or do all the stupid things we did? I tried to treat you as normally as possible, even though you were the weaker one, then," Scott fidgeted uncomfortably, "and let you make your own choices."

"I wasn't going to die," the annoyingly placating tone Scott drags out when he thinks he's right made an appearance, "I know that it was still scary, but this is completely different. If I did get hurt, you knew, at least, that I did it for myself and to myself, but if you do this, and you… It would be all my fault, for getting you involved in the first place."

"Who got who involved, again?" I snapped, "I'm the one who made this plan, I'm the one who figured out you were a werewolf, and, when it comes down to it, I'm the one who got you bit!" The steam left me and I faltered in the silence following my tirade, "If… If you want to talk about fault, at least know where it belongs."

Scott looked at me, as if with new eyes, "Stiles, it's-"

"We're here," I interjected, deciding in that moment that if my mother was influencing timings from beyond the grave, that I wasn't going to complain. Slamming the car door behind me, I was already in the vet's office before Scott registered what had happened and caught up. "Dr. Deaton?" He looked up from a file and smiled.

"Stiles, what can I do for you?"

"I've got something, something supernatural-related, that I'd like you to take a look at," I hedged, pulling the pendant from my pocket but keeping it hidden in my fist. Deaton leaned forward and-

There were hands on my arms holding back and a babbled, "Derek thinks you're the alpha, and Stiles doesn't, and you can prove it right now, as soon as I get Stiles out of here." Deaton's shocked tenseness faded to something like amusement as Scott manhandled me out of the office and into the waiting room. His pointed finger was dangerously close to my nose as he demanded, "At least stay this far away," and pried the pendant from my fingers with a cloth-covered hand, going back into the office and locking the door behind him with a click.

"This is going to go horribly wrong, now!" I shouted through the door, thumping one closed fist against it ineffectually. Pressing my ear to the door, I could hear Deaton laugh once, and then agreeing to something. Maybe he'd listen to reason, "One slip and you're stuck in there with a slavering beast, Dr. Deaton!"

The door opened and I jumped back to avoid it, scrambling back to my feet. He grinned, "I appreciate your faith in me, Stiles."

"As for me," Scott popped his head out to fix me with an accusing look, "I find your lack of faith disturbing."