Here comes Stiles, to save the day! *doot do dooo*
Disclaimer: I neither own nor profit from the Teen Wolf compendium of merchandise and intellectual property.
Last Time:
"As for me," Scott popped his head out to fix me with an accusing look, "I find your lack of faith disturbing."
"Inappropriate quoting," I scolded.
"Appropriate in that I do find your lack of faith in me disturbing," Scott corrected, "But I do agree that I'm not an evil Jedi."
"A Sith Lord, Scott," I was going to go on a tirade about the title "Darth," but more important things popped back into my mind, "Where's the pendant?"
"In a mountain ash box," Dr. Deaton replied, placing said small box in my hand. At my querying look, he elaborated, "It's rowan. Objects made of this sort of wood cannot be opened by many supernatural creatures, lines of the wood's dust cannot be crossed, and homes made of it cannot be penetrated. Well," a chagrined half-smile crossed his face, as if he were remembering something, "so long as you don't open the door."
"Whoa, what, that's super cheat-y," I examined the little box more closely, "The Argents could just circle the school with dust and hunt down everyone who didn't make it to class."
"That's disturbing," Scott decided.
"I doubt they know of its use," the doctor reassured us, "It's more commonly known to Druids than Hunters."
"Are you a-"
"Why don't you take the night off, Scott?" He interrupted me, "Go spend time with your friend." Seriously? This guy had an intense problem with sharing information about himself. For now, though, he seemed to be more of an ally than an enemy. Plus, he was always pretty cool about it if I showed up towards the end of Scott's shifts to wait for him.
"Fine; keep your secrets," I told him somewhat sullenly, and gained raised eyebrows and an innocent expression in response. Taking Scott by the arm, I said, "You heard him. Go spend time with me. Accept the bribe."
Now Deaton was trying not to make eye contact with me. Apparently, he wasn't used to people calling him out on this particular method of avoidance. Still, he looked more amused than uncomfortable- trying to keep a straight face rather than keep from giving anything away.
"Oookay, then." Scott's stance was as wimpy as I expected as he retreated entirely from the situation with me in tow. The parking lot was practically deserted and I laughed as Scott unlocked the door and jumped in.
Climbing in the other side, I kissed just under his ear and whispered, "Do you know how hot it is when you flee in terror?"
"What was I supposed to do?" He asked with the edge of a demand, "My boss and my boyfriend were having some sort of Wild West standoff."
"Hardly." But, I sat back in my seat, and abandoned that line of teasing, "So, is there anything else we need to get done today?"
"Not that I know of," Scott started the car with a little more fiddling than usual.
"Your mom has a late shift, today, right?" I mused, and Scott glanced at me before pulling out of his spot and exiting the parking lot.
"Yeah. She's taking over for Debbie or someone."
"Let's go hang out at your place, then," I decided. We had barely had any non-crazy, un-tense, not-waiting-for-something-to-explode time to ourselves recently, and I knew my dad would be home today. I'd texted him that I was following Scott around this afternoon and he'd texted back that he was home this evening and to complete any homework I had while Scott was at work.
Unnecessary. Even if Scott had stayed at work.
Unlike poor Scott, I didn't need hours to get these things done. Though, he did have me beat with his color coded study guides. Freaky organization powers.
"And maybe for some of that time, I should actually help you with your homework."
Scott graced me with an odd look before refocusing on the road, "As opposed to pretending to help me with my homework?"
"Well, I'm not going to tell our parents, 'Oh, for the first two hours, I helped him with his math, and then I tackled him to the floor and found out what spots made him whimper,'" I explained, and there was a little fission of victory when the speedometer jumped slightly.
Scott cleared his throat, almost whining, "Not while I'm driving. Jeez." He dug his fingertips into the steering wheel, peeking at me once and almost unconsciously wetting his lips, "Please hold that thought, though." Zipping my lips with a smirk as a promise to end the distraction, I sat back and watched the speed limit lose its hold on him. To be perfectly honest, though, if I had been the one in the driver's seat, I'd be hitting the same speeds. It wasn't reckless, but for once, Scott was actually passing other cars instead of being left behind.
Upon arrival, he parked, unbuckled, and then unclipped my seat belt and got out of the car, waiting impatiently at my door as I exited the vehicle. His pupils were already wide, eyes dark, and I mentally shrugged off my feelings about public displays of affection to slip my fingers in his jean pockets and pull him closer, nipping and then sucking at the side of his neck, surprising a quiet moan out of him.
Even still, I could practically sense him grin before he pushed me against the side of the car and pressed a leg between mine. He pulled back enough to look down at me, breathing happily, "I kind of like cornering you."
With his arms on either side of me and a car at my back, I smiled, "Figured." Kissing him shut him up pretty effectively, though, and I splayed one hand high on his thigh, sliding just a little up and in. Swallowing the hitch in his breath, I pressed my fingers briefly to the inner crease of his thigh before moving up to his lower abdomen and slipping under the edge of his shirt. Scott chose this moment to press forward and up with the leg between mine, and break away from the kiss, letting the resultant moan sound ten times as loud in the quiet neighborhood with nothing to muffle it. Asshole.
A smirk and a few sharp teeth came into being as he held my chin, tracing my lower lip with a thumb, "That is so hot."
"Oh, thanks," I said before continuing with a little more eloquence, "But with that, my exhibitionist tolerance has ended and we need to go inside. ...Plus, you got a little fang there." He smiled, showing those kissing hazards and conceded the point.
We practically dragged each other to the house, tripping over ourselves and pausing every few steps for a kiss or a suddenly-less-ineffectual bite. The teeth were an interesting experience, and I think we both nicked our tongues once or twice as we made our way to the door. Scott pressed me against it ("Any vertical surface? Really? That's what does it for you?" I could see his mental shrug) and he was still kissing me when he finally put the right key in the lock and the door opened. We stumbled slightly, and caught each other, snickering a little before Scott was on me again, and kicking the door shut behind us as my hand made its way under his shirt and the other into his back pocket.
A voice came from nearby, "Well, he's home ear-…" For a moment, no one moved, "oh."
We separated and I ducked my head, "Hi, Ms. McCall," adding a little half-hearted nervous wave without looking up.
"Hi, Mom," Scott said, sounding strained as he tried to keep his lips covering the fangs as much as possible, "Sheriff." My head shot up, and lo and behold, my father was standing in the kitchen doorway.
"Dinner and a show," I said without thinking, and all three pairs of eyes centered on me in various stages of incredulity. "Hey, I can't make this any more awkward," I defended myself.
"I got off work early," Ms. McCall crossed her arms over her chest, seeming to decide that the best thing to do was ignore me and focus on her own son. "Debbie showed up."
"Yes," Scott nodded, and the sight of his mother and my father must have been just enough to bring his teeth back to normal, because he wasn't hiding his mouth anymore, "I can see that."
"I'm not… mad that… you two were exploring-"
"Mom."
"-No, but shouldn't you be at work?"
"He got off early, too," I muttered, looking anywhere but at them, before realizing how my words could be taken, and amending at a normal volume, "But I mean from work, not- you know." They did seem to know, but I couldn't stop myself from rolling on like the snowball that starts an avalanche, "Not, like, sexually, yet; wait, I mean- oh, my god, someone stop me."
He was already covering his own face at this point, but Scott spared a hand to cover the lower half of mine and muffle my words, so I shot him a thumbs up.
"I'm too old for this," my dad groaned, shifting his weight uncomfortably and adding in a louder voice, "You're too young for this!"
"Well, we were planning to talk about it," Ms. McCall said, but didn't uncross her arms, "And now we can all talk about it together."
Closing his eyes, Scott growled quietly.
We were all sat at the little kitchen table Scott, his mother, and, occasionally, I ate breakfast at, in a little circle, making sure the kitchen didn't attack us. Scott was watching the stove behind his mother, Ms. McCall had the table under control, my dad was taking care of the ceiling, and I had the floor. They'd tried to make Scott sit out of it, but he'd insisted, I'd insisted, and now we were all keeping vigilance over the kitchen.
"This is ridiculous," Ms. McCall decided, "Everyone, look at each other. We're practically family." Scott and I glanced at each other with raised eyebrows and she rolled her eyes, "Stop it. Look, the Sheriff and I have been talking, and we have some concerns."
"Is it about how I feel about Scott- 'cause, you know, I think on that one point I know better than you do." They exchanged their own glances, and I felt the zipper I kept my thoughts behind burst, "Well, I was joking, but evidently, we're about to do this. Okay, let's have it. What horrible thing am I doing to Scott this week? Seriously, though, I'd love to know-"
"Stiles," Scott laced his fingers through mine, "Calm down."
Well, that's a turn around. "I'll shut up for a second," I nodded at the adults, "Go on."
"We're not saying you did anything wrong, Stiles," Ms. McCall assured me, but the rest of her sentence wasn't so positive, "Not on purpose. But… Isn't it a little odd that you discovered these feelings for Scott when he began to date a girl he seemed to really like? You said yourself you got that promise from him never to leave because you felt you were losing your best friend to a crush." Hadn't she been cool with us just a short time ago? Had the time to herself made her worries marinate or was it all my dad's fault?
"I was in sixth grade!"
"Stiles, Scott is your best friend," Dad began, and I couldn't listen to any more.
"I know," I cut in, "And that won't change."
"Exactly," he said, and stopped me cold, "And it hasn't."
"What does that mean?" Scott demanded, and I hoped he wasn't flashing any supernatural eye coloration at the folks just then.
"Stiles…" My dad was picking his words carefully now, "When your mom died, you latched on to the family you had left. You'd tell me to be careful if I was going to the store for milk, you were devastated when Grandpa passed, too, and for a while, there, I remember we couldn't pry you and Scott apart with a crowbar. If Scott went to summer camp, you were going, too. If he went to the park, we couldn't keep you away. And heaven forbid you went a day without seeing him, you'd start asking me if I'd heard anything from Melisa about how he was doing! It was unhealthy!"
"And… I… saw a therapist," I explained, as if to a three year old, "And together, we built a bridge and got over it." The clinging, anyway. I refused to even touch on my mother's death.
"You've got to understand, Stiles," he said, "Remembering how you acted then, and knowing that you got that ridiculous promise from Scott, this doesn't look good. You two barely have friends outside one another, and when you were just friends, it wasn't as worrying. When Scott started to date, we thought it was a good sign, but now..."
"I'm not, like… Using my body to keep him from dating people," I denied, with a bark of nervous laughter, "I'm not crazy." Still, hadn't I thought, myself, that Scott could only match what I gave to him if he wasn't dating Allison? Hadn't I had the awful thought that the two of them breaking up would be so much the better for me? I'd never have acted on it, I don't think, if Scott had never brought up our kiss again, if he hadn't suggested breaking up with Allison, himself, but…
I knew I wanted Scott, but this dissection was making me feel like maybe I wanted… Wrongly.
Shaking my head, I tried to rid myself of my stupid suggestibility; clearly, it was to blame for these thoughts. I hoped. "Yeah, this is crazy talk."
"You may have feelings for Scott," my dad was continuing, "but I don't think they're the kind of feelings you think they are."
A chair scraped back as Scott stood up, clenching his hand into a white-knuckled fist, "With all due respect- shut up, Sheriff." He took a deep breath in the pause made while the elder two were registering exactly what he'd just said. "Do you really think we haven't worked through this, already? Do you really think I didn't think about it? I was scared, at first, that I'd scared him into being with me like- …like this, and that he was just trying to keep me in his life, trying to keep from losing me, whether to Allison or something else." Oh, wow, I'd totally misinterpreted that conversation. It had been some time ago, after a lacrosse practice, during an argument, and I'd actually said aloud that I wanted him, for the first time. That particular heated discussion worked out solely by luck, I guess. "Stiles and I will always be in each other's life, but it's our decision how. I want Stiles, I love Stiles, and he feels the same way about me. He wouldn't tell me out loud if he didn't know it was true. You know he'd just keep silently mulling it over until he figured it out; you know him. Stop," he gestured vaguely, "all this. Stiles isn't taking advantage of me to experiment, and I'm not taking advantage of his fear of losing me to be with him." Well, that, again, was not the interpretation I'd come away with from this discussion, but it was all ringing truer than the muddled confusion my father and Ms. McCall's ideas had been bringing up in me. When I walked into this room, I'd known who and what I wanted. What was it about parents that let their opinions carry so much weight as to muddy what I knew before? "We chose and choose each other because we want each other. And…" Running out of whatever had fueled him so far, Scott groped for an ending, and came up with a weak, "That's that."
"Up until that ending, your sudden eloquence just kept making you more attractive," I informed him unthinkingly.
"Thank you," he replied concisely, a hand curling around the back of my neck before he turned back to his mother and my father, "I still have two hours until my shift would have ended. We'll be back then." He almost picked me up and set me on my feet through the forcefulness with which he "helped." Scott quickened his pace once we left the room, whispering, "Okay, when it all sinks in, I have this feeling they're going to be really sort of pissed, so it's time to flee and let them think about it without being able to yell at us."
His face was serene, though, as if he'd said what he needed to say. When we got outside and into the car, I turned to him, "That conversation we supposedly had about all this, though…"
"We did have a conversation about all this," he started the engine.
"Well actually, I thought you were talking about your furry times scaring me," I admitted, adding hastily when Scott put the car back into park and turned to stare at me, "But the other thing makes way more sense in the context."
"Do I have to worry about that, too?" Scott asked with an edge of exasperated nervousness; his previous serenity was utterly destroyed.
"No, since I talked with you about that, while you were talking with me about my fears of abandonment," I summarized, "So, it's kind of like multi-tasking, if you think about it."
Scott rubbed at his temples, eyes shut and breathing deeply, before he looked at me again, "Okay. Okay. So even though you didn't know what the hell I was talking about, it doesn't really matter, because you still want me, and you still love me. That's all I need to know."
"I do," I agreed, because no matter why it happened or when it happened, it still happened.
Scott leaned across and kissed me, pressing his lips hard against mine as if pouring all of his frustration out through the contact. "I do, too," he breathed when we separated, "So let's get out of here and stop stressing about everything in our lives for an hour or two." He glanced back at the house and added, "Somewhere no one will find us."
"Sounds like a plan."
-x-
Unfortunately, it was not to be.
"Lydia's car," I pointed out as we drove through the nth parking lot like a fish swimming through the kelp in search of fire.
Unimpressed, Scott muttered as he drove to the exit, "Do we need to drive off into the woods to get away from our classmates?"
"There does seem to be a proliferation of them out and about suddenly," I agreed. Like cockroaches. Speaking of… "Did I ever remember to tell you and Hale about the fact that there are actually a bunch of Argents?"
"Yep," Scott took a sharp left and I could tell he'd given up on this strip mall entirely, "Something about cockroaches."
I smiled, "You do listen."
"Well, I try," he tapped the steering wheel, "I'm seriously considering just wandering into the forest at this point."
"We can't go bowling in the forest."
"I don't even like bowling."
"Fine, the forest, then," I shrugged, "We can test the extents of your and my abilities."
He cocked his head, glancing at me, "Like, how?"
To test his abilities? "Well, lifting boulders came to mind. I've also been thinking that my calming effect on you is fading… So, I wanted to go piss you off and then try it out." Out in the woods, where no one can hear me scream… Ah, I crack myself up. No, really, it was better to be out in the woods to piss off a werewolf. I didn't want him hurting anyone else.
"Uh, that sounds like a bad plan," Scott hedged, "What if you can't calm me at all, anymore?" Easy enough to check. I put a hand on his arm and he hummed thoughtfully, "Well, the plan doesn't freak me out anymore. It still doesn't seem like something we should do."
Shrugging, I pulled back my hand to give him full mobility in steering, "We could text Hale."
"He's hiding from the Argents," Scott protested.
"In his old house; easy to find, much?" I returned promptly. "Besides, if an Argent runs across us and your face is all wolfed out, it wouldn't make much difference to their suspicions whether Hale was there or not. It might even be better to have Hale there, then."
"Point," he conceded.
"I'll text him from my phone since I can pass any werewolf-y tests," I informed him, already tapping in a message. Pack needs your expertise. Calming powers decaying, I typed with a flourish, turning to Scott, "What parking lot are we walking in from?"
"North, A."
North preserve. From parking lot A. Hugs and belly rubs, Stiles.
My phone buzzed not a minute later, Hate you. Will do.
"He'll be there," I told Scott, and he rolled his eyes, having some idea where the evil smirk on my face must be coming from. It was just so fun to rile up the elder werewolf, in a, 'oh, look the lion can't reach me through the bars' kind of way. But since I'd be depending on him if Scott lost it entirely, I should probably have backed off on the dog jokes for a while…
Haha, nah.
Deep down, Hale appreciated my humorous stance on life and welcomed it as a breath of fresh air. …Deep down.
When we pulled in, he walked out from behind a tree like the creepy creeper he is, and leaned back on it with his arms crossed over his chest. Apparently, he could recognize the sound of Scott's engine. After safely exiting the vehicle, he waved us to follow him and trotted off into the undergrowth, ignoring the nicely outlined path we could have taken. Despite my dismay, I did get that that further from civilization was better, so I waded in without outward complaint. Judging from Scott's half-smile, though, he could read the whining from my face pretty clearly as I struggled to keep up
Wolves. What are you going to do?
Eventually, the brush fell away, and we entered a little canopied clearing. It was oddly circular, and Hale turned to me, "Go push the branch down." His gesture was clear, but his intentions murky, and I hesitated.
"The broken one?" At the twitch, I raised my hands defensively, "Whoa, okay. I'm on it." Now that I looked a little closer, the trees around this clearing weren't the same as those outside it. The broken branch was being held up by another, and with a little effort, it broke loose and landed on the branch of a nearby tree. I was going to push it further when Hale's voice stopped me.
"That's enough," he reached a hand towards the edge of the clearing and stopped, encountering some sort of barrier, "These trees are rowan; it's an old training ground we used to use when we had humans in the family. Now, should worst come to worst, you'll only need to step out of the clearing."
Hmm, we hadn't told him we wanted to test Scott's control, so that could only mean Hale had drawn his own conclusions from the knowledge that my effect was waning. Actually, there was a flaw in this plan, now that I thought it through, "What if the Argents show up?"
"Push the branch up and out of the way, or break a branch connecting two trees," Hale stated in a tone that screamed, You should know this already.
"Aw, you do trust me," I said, already moving slightly behind Scott- just in case.
Hale twitched again, that flicker of expression like he wanted to snarl, and turned his attention entirely to Scott, "Now, here's what's going to happen. I attack you; you take it and try to stay calm. If Stiles can't control you anymore, you have to learn to control yourself."
"How do I do that?" Scott asked, sounding not 100% on board with this idea. To be honest, though, I had just planned on chucking pinecones at his face.
"You have to find your anchor," Hale explained, "The thought you can hold onto to keep yourself human. Just keep cycling through things until it clicks."
"Okay, well, I'm not sure how I feel about sitting here watching you beat up my best friend," I put in, edging away from my Scott-shield and towards the other edge of the clearing, "Couldn't we just throw pinecones at him?"
"Werewolves heal quickly," Hale responded and delivered a kick into Scott's unguarded midsection, sending him flying into the barrier.
I winced and averted my eyes. Maybe I couldn't stop the beat-down, but I wasn't going to watch it, either. After a few minutes of listening to it, though, I gave up on stoic waiting. Sitting against one of the tree trunks, I pulled out my phone and started up a puzzle game.
-x-
"High score," I mused aloud as the grunts and swearing across the field had yet to abate.
"I still see fang and yellow eyes," Hale said to Scott, and the swearing increased. "What are you thinking about this time?"
"My-" a thud noise, "Mom." Another thud, "Or I'm trying to."
"Not working," Hale informed him, as if he didn't already know, "But I see we've moved onto people."
"You told me," Scott panted, "to start with concepts, and move on to family."
"And I'm aware of that," Hale continued, "But you need to bring up the emotions you feel towards them, too. If you can isolate them-" a sharp exhale and another grunt from Scott, "-that would be best."
"So, like, just think about all the-" another grunt, "-dammit, I'm asking a question."
It'd been an hour, and Scott had yet to fully wolf out, but he hadn't been able to suppress the little extras either.
"Like I said," Hale continued, throwing another punch without pause, "It's not necessarily something that calms you, but something that can make you human. My anchor-" this time he had to take a breath for the kick, "-is anger."
"Mine isn't," Scott groaned.
"That's clear."
My phone went off. Checking the caller ID and finding Allison's name, I looked up, "Lay off Scott for a minute; I don't think we want the Argents hearing werewolf wisdom lectures in the background." Scott let out a sigh of relief and trotted over to me, collapsing onto his back, spread eagle on the ground. Hale just sat cross legged where he had been, and my phone voiced its complaint at the delay. "I have great reception," I noted before answering, "Hello?"
"Stiles!" Allison exclaimed, "I've been looking for you everywhere. Where are you?"
I looked over at Hale and down at Scott, then glanced about the clearing, "Hanging out with Scott. Working on some super-secret lacrosse techniques. Why?" Afore-mentioned boyfriend made a little whimpering noise and I ran fingers through his hair consolingly.
"Okay, so, Jackson asked me to go see a movie with him, but I thought that was weird since he hadn't invited Lydia, and as far as I know they're dating, but she told me to just go with him because she didn't like the movie. Still, it's really uncomfortable, and will you come with us this Saturday?"
Well, my fingers paused in Scott's hair, that wasn't quite what I expected. "Uh, sure."
"Yes! 7PM at- you know what, I'll just pick you up. Dad's lending me the car, anyway. Thanks so much!"
"No-" she hung up, and I looked at the phone in dismay, "-problem."
"I really thought that'd be about something else," Scott admitted as I nodded my agreement blankly.
Hale looked vaguely nauseous, but the expression faded when he glanced at Scott, replaced by something pensive. "Get up," he said, standing himself, and Scott emitted a short, high whine before rolling to his feet. "I think we've been going at this wrong."
"So you're not going to beat me up anymore?" Scott tried, and then received a punch to the stomach.
"Not that," Hale corrected belatedly, "I just realized I hadn't taken into account how soppy you are." Ignoring Scott's quick glare, he continued, "Think about Stiles. Cycle through how he makes you feel."
"Um," Scott glanced at me, looking almost embarrassed, and I rolled my eyes.
"Are you seriously chickening out now after your many and varied announcements of how you feel towards me to pretty much anyone who questions us?"
"It's different when it's not in the heat of the-" As Hale's foot connected, Scott's protest died with an, "oomph."
"Stiles," Hale looked like he was regretting what he was about to say before he'd even said it, "Talk to Scott."
"Um, okay." Figuring he just meant to try to get Scott thinking about me without being so self-conscious about it, I picked a random topic and went off. "So, lately, I've been thinking about um… Well, mostly werewolf-y stuff. Keeping you alive and un-hunted. The usual. Being all filled up with wolfsbane like I am, I was thinking that the Argents' amulet and I are closer together on the supernatural being scale than you and me, and that made me wonder if I might be toxic. Which would be extremely bad if you ever bit a little too hard, you know?" I could feel Hale grimacing, but Scott wheezed out a laugh, "But then I realized that the amount of saliva we've swapped should have killed you by now, if that were true. So, maybe 'cause the wolfsbane is all mixed up with my chemicals, it changes it up enough not to hurt werewolves? I dunno. It does bring up the question of how exactly I came to be a walking aconite repository, because I don't think I ever wandered the forest eating strange plants at any point in my life. My dad would have never let me leave the house again. Sometimes, I half-believe Mom spiked her special salads with the stuff, because I can't remember any other time I ate any sort of plant I didn't recognize. But that doesn't make much sense, since wolfsbane is toxic to humans, as well. Still, Mom always did seem like she had secret plans with whatever she did. She liked setting up surprises." I shook my head, "Not that she knew about anything supernatural, I don't think. We joked about ghosts and the occult, but…" Time for a topic change. That was more than I'd spoken about Mom in… A while. "Whatever. Wolfsbane. Maybe the government knows about the werewolves in Beacon Hills and laced the water supply to different neighborhoods, trying to ferret them out or something. Or maybe I was abducted by fairies. Why not? Mom always told me to wear a sock inside out to protect me from them, but I didn't always… You know, listen." Dammit, I thought I'd told myself to change the subject.
"Stiles," Scott said, and abruptly I realized he was standing in front of me, all human-y and tired. He crouched down and put a hand on my cheek, thumb rubbing slowly back and forth while Hale averted his eyes to the canopy. "You can stop."
"Yeah," I agreed absently, before snapping out of it with a light shake of my head, "Right. So, it worked, then?"
"Mm-hmm," he nodded, standing and offering me a hand. I took it and he pulled me to my feet.
"Guess I'm your anchor," I teased weakly, "Knew you couldn't live without me."
"Oh, god, let me out already," Hale muttered, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes.
"Aw, don't feel left out; we didn't forget you," I said, exchanging a glance with Scott that conveyed my message perfectly. Some of the gravity of the situation fell away as we tip-toed over to him like idiots. He eyed us warily, but still seemed caught off guard when we encased him in a hug from both sides. For a moment, he stood perfectly still, not even breathing, and then a light growl started up. Eep.
Releasing him quickly, I power-walked to the broken branch and pushed it back up, securing it behind the living branch that had held it earlier. A rushing noise later and Hale was gone, leaving Scott blinking behind him.
He jogged over to me, and held out a hand for his cell phone. I'd been carrying it since he was being thrown around the clearing like a ragdoll. When I dug it out and passed it back to him, he checked the time and sighed, "Ready to go face our parents?"
Actually, I'd forgotten we walked out on an argument with them until that point. I poked a bruise under his eye and made him wince, "Let's go sit in the car until that heals, first."
Will the adults in our heroes' lives finally accept their relationship for what it is?
Why is Stiles full of wolfsbane, anyway? ...I mean, really? How does the science on that work?
When will the two of them ever get time to themselves?
Tell me what you think :)