Disclaimer: I do not own or profit off of Teen Wolf in any way. :(
I'm... back, baby? PREVIOUS CHAPTER PRANK PARAGRAPH REMOVED.
So much talking about feelings this chapter. I warn you now.
That weekend, the movie came around and I could feel the parents mentally applauding my decision to do something without Scott. As I shrugged into my jacket and grabbed my keys, my father was watching from the kitchen doorway like a proud mother hen.
"Honestly, stop it," I told him, brandishing the keys like weaponry, "I'm just going to the movies with a friend and a not-so-friend, and I've done it before and I will do it again."
"Not recently," Dad crossed his arms and I waved him off grumpily before leaving the house.
Scott and I had come to an accord on the panic attacks, so if something did come up that needed me I would have a good excuse. To be candid, I would've left without one if Scott was wolfing out somewhere, but I think that's just common sense. Know how to stop werewolf; werewolf is happening; go stop werewolf. Who would even pause to grab their coat?
"What movie are we even seeing?" I asked myself as I drove over to Allison's. Jackson had offered to drive her, and in a moment of panic, she'd told him I was doing so.
Since I am the best chaperone there ever was, I followed through with her lying lies to keep this friendly outing from dipping one shining toe into the murky water of date-like atmosphere. I wouldn't put it past Jackson to think he deserved two girlfriends or some other jerk reasoning.
I pulled up, texted my arrival, and as she got into the passenger seat, repeated my question, "What movie are we even seeing?"
"Brokebeak Hill," she replied promptly, "I figured it would work with your interests." I stopped pulling out of the driveway and stared at her for a moment before she broke. "No, we're going to see the newest Speedy and Angry movie," Allison laughed, hitting me in the shoulder and fastening her seatbelt, "I already told you this, Stiles."
"Isn't it just called Angry Six or something?" I mused, and she nodded.
"Yeah, because this one's supposed to be less about the speed and more relationship-focused."
"So, maybe…" This was serious business, "Should it have been called the Friendly Six?"
She looked thoughtful, "Yeah. They're still pretty angry though. The Angry Friends?"
"I think we've deconstructed the whole movie."
"Maybe."
As we approached the theater, Allison got edgier and edgier. She was practically gnawing at the quicks of her nails when I pulled into a parking spot towards the end of the lot. Rubbing at my face, I wondered who I wasn't going to play therapist for and blew out sharply, "Okay. Tell me what's wrong."
"Nothing," she dismissed, unbuckling.
"That was not the answer you're looking for," I continued, "Do you want to just blow this off and vanish into the ether?" I was completely fine with removing this burgeoning Hunter-to-be from Jackson's anti-Scott grudge miasma. Two birds, one stone, give Stiles a round of applause.
"No, I just…" Allison huffed in frustration, and I told my mental audience to hold the applause, "I'm trying to make friends, you know? But lately Jackson's been weird and Lydia's been weird, and the fact that you're the most normal person this week is weird, too."
"I will accept that judgment."
"Plus the whole," she lowered her voice, "werewolf hunting thing. Should I even be going out and watching a movie? Shouldn't I be obsessively training to keep people safe? It's my family's tradition, and it's the right thing to do, but I'm…" Allison lost steam, looking at me helplessly, "Is it bad I just want to be normal? I want to have friends and… And I'm pouring my heart out to the guy who stole my boyfriend in the parking lot of a theater. God, this is pathetic." She buried her head in her arms with a groan and I hesitantly put a supportive hand on her shoulder.
A few awkward pats were placed.
"I'm not crying, Stiles," she told me flatly.
"Oh, good," I breathed, before realizing how that might sound, "I mean, there's nothing wrong with crying. I've cried. I cry all the time. Not as much as Scott does, but still."
"Stiles."
"Yes, right, your problems," I gave another awkward pat to her shoulder without really thinking about it, "I think you deserve a life as much as anyone else does, you know? The werewolf-y thing isn't really your burden to bear. You said you had a bunch of cousins that did this stuff, too, didn't you?"
"…Yeah," she conceded, but I could tell I wasn't really making any progress.
"Look, if you decide you absolutely must be part of the family tradition of death dealing, you can do that and still live your life. In fact, you have to. You have to go watch this movie now, and you will have fun and not think about werewolves or magical pixie dust or whatever else your family deals with; just… Just watch a movie with… friends."
"I do," she said, and I glanced at her suspiciously.
"What?"
"You asked me once before if I still wanted you to be my friend and I do. Even if you're dating Scott." She was leaning across the car to hug me before I knew she'd pulled her head from her arms, "I kind of wish you weren't so… Not a jerk, though."
I patted her back in an awkward repetition of what was apparently my only method of dealing with emotional women. Mom would've known what to do. "If it makes you feel better, I've wished you were less not-a-jerk, too."
"So you'd feel better about stealing my now ex-boyfriend?"
"He was my best friend first," I pointed out innocently, and at least I knew how to deal with the punch to the arm.
Angry Seven, as I learned the actual title was, turned out to be boring. Jackson also turned out to be boring. Turns out, they both really did have an interest in the movie, and their rapt silence was wearing on me only a quarter of the way in. Being who and what I am, I tended to talk right through movies, and being shushed by the two I was meant to be chaperoning was not my idea of a fun time. Allison was enjoying herself, though, and it seemed Jackson was behaving. I excused myself to "go to the bathroom" and sat down in the hall to scroll through my texts.
Scott, Scott, Allison, Scott, Scott, Scott, Paul, Scott, Scott, Allison, Scott… Maybe there was something to that whole codependency thing… Or maybe we just had a shared secret. You know, like the furry problems. The werewolf ones. If that was not clear.
Whatever. Texting Scott, ahoy.
Aren't u at a movie? Was his obnoxious response.
I'm in the hall outside a movie, I corrected.
?
They really don't need a chaperone and I'm bored, I elaborated.
5 min, he texted.
Does that mean what I think it means? No reply. Deciding to wait it out, I wondered if Jackson and Allison would even notice my absence. Judging by the way only Jackson had even grunted to acknowledge my leaving in the first place, I doubted it.
Answering Paul's aimless query I'd accidently ignored for a day or so, I fiddled with the phone until it wasn't silenced anymore and wandered into the bathroom so it looked less like the loitering it was. I couldn't take another… what, hour and a half? Another hour and a half of people forging bonds of brotherhood and axle grease. I wandered over to the mirror and checked to make sure no one was lingering just out of my line of sight before running a hand across my hair. "Is it… too short, though?" I murmured, contemplating whether more hair would let my manliness shine all the brighter and momentarily forgetting what I was waiting for.
"What are you doing?" Scott's amused tone echoed ever so slightly as he entered the bathroom after, obviously, not finding me in the hall.
"Checking myself out," I dropped my hands from my hair and spread them to the sides, "Clearly."
"Who could resist all that?" He asked gamely, hands sliding onto my waist.
A thought occurred to me, "Did you pay for a ticket?"
"Yes," he admitted, pushing me back towards the wall.
"You beautiful idiot," I marveled, and pulled him toward me. It escalated quickly.
"We probably shouldn't mention this in the sessions," I managed to pant out some time later, digging my nails into Scott's hips.
"Why?" he paused, moving away from my collar bone to see me, "Besides the obvious."
"Well, telling the counselor that the one time I went out on my own this week you hunted me down and pinned me against the wall in a public restroom doesn't sound healthy."
Scott visibly processed this, "…Maybe you should go back to the movie?"
"No, no, I didn't mean that," I denied hastily, tightening my grip on him, and he grinned.
A minute or so later, it was Scott's turn to realize something and he pulled slightly away, "How is it this is the only time we haven't been interrupted?"
I hadn't actually noticed. "You've jinxed it. Scott, why would you point that out?"
"Whoops," he traced a line down my chest, "My mistake."
"Also, now that we're sort of on pause, this is pretty gross," I realized, looking around and trying to judge how much of what I could see splattered on other surfaces would also be on the wall behind me.
"Um," Scott glanced around, too, "Yeah, you're right about that."
"I won't just abandon Allison here without a ride, though," I told him before he could say anything else and he rolled his eyes.
"Yeah, I wasn't going to even try that."
It turned out Scott had bought a ticket to some princess show called "Flaming" about a crazy chick with fire powers that he actually wanted to see. So he dragged me into it. I guess I had paid for a movie, so it was semi-moral.
"It's shorter than that Angry 7 movie so we'll be out around the same time Allison is," he explained. I shot her a text anyway that I'd meet her when her movie was over.
I assume crazy chick movie was pretty good. Scott laughed, Scott cried, Scott laughed again, Scott sang until I stopped him so he wouldn't traumatize the little children scattered throughout the theater.
"How did you know all the songs?" I asked pseudo-sweetly when the credits began.
His neck and cheeks went a little red, "I may have…" He trailed off into something I couldn't hear and I stared at him expectantly until he repeated, "I may have been waiting for this movie since the trailers came out and have listened to all the leaked songs on WeTube."
"You could have told me you wanted to go instead of stalking me to the movie theater and dragging me away on a pretext," I informed him teasingly, chin propped on my hand and elbow on the chair arm between us. "We could have brought Allison. I think she's over you. Not that it should be too difficult to get over you."
"Ouch, my feelings."
I planted a noisy, wet kiss on his nose with a dramatic, "Mwah. Now I'm abandoning you to get Allison."
"Double whammy," he declared as I left to do just that.
Allison was in a considerably better mood when I picked her up and I was both pleased and disappointed to see her engaging Jackson in friendly, enthused discussion over the movie's key points and underlying meanings.
Yay, she had friends now. Boo, they included Jackson.
My feelings are simple and easy to explain.
"Get in da car, if you want to live," I intoned as we neared said vehicle, and she got in without complaint.
"Where were you, anyway?" She plopped into the passenger seat happily. "I got your text but you didn't say what you were doing."
"To be honest, Angry 7 isn't really my favorite kind of movie," I confessed, putting the car in gear, "I saw you and Jackson were utterly fine without a chaperone and booked it to the closest open door. Turns out 'Flaming' is alright for a princess movie."
"You went and watched that instead of a car movie," Allison drew out as if she were trying not to laugh.
"Am I not allowed one stereotype?" I asked instead of explaining, beginning the drive to Allison's.
"Sure, sure," she put her hands up as if I were the one prying, "I mean, it's both girly and a kids' movie, but if you want…"
Hmm, there was something about that sentence. Oh, "Are you insinuating I am not a kid?"
Later that night, I got an unexpected text.
Heard about therapy, it read, Counselor at school suspicious. Try to be discreet.
How in the world, I asked myself, did Hale hear about the therapy? He wasn't in contact with Scott on a traceable setting, was he?
Giving some thought on how not to mention Scott's name, I shot back, You're not texting or calling the other one, are you?
Not stupid. Could have fooled me. Just know stuff.
I wasn't sure whether to be in awe or fear for the sanctity of my next shower.
Thoughtfully, after the mini-fear that Hale could have been linking himself and Scott through text logs, I changed his name in my address book to Isaac. I didn't have the other boy's actual number and only someone who knew Isaac's or Hale's number would notice the switch if they looked closely; under light scrutiny it would hold up fairly well.
"I'm a super-spy," I told myself, falling backwards onto the bed and throwing my cell phone haphazardly at the bedside table.
Surprisingly, very little went horribly wrong for the following three days. Then Tuesday happened.
"Sit down, boys; I don't bite," the counselor, Ms. Morrell, smiled calmly at us, "I hope you brought your food; I wouldn't want growing boys to miss their lunch hour entirely." She pulled out a brown paper bag of her own, "Plus, I wouldn't want to seem rude."
I took out my own lunch for lack of anything to say in the awkward silence as she set up her food on her lap. At Scott's pouting look, I skillfully discerned he had not thought ahead and put an apple in his hands. For a moment, the pout grew, but when my eyes rolled, Scott dropped the begging look and bit into the apple with a crunch.
Creepily, the counselor had just watched this with a placid expression, rather than beginning any sort of conversation, and I almost jumped when she began to speak, "Why do you think you're here?"
"Paranoia," I replied promptly, before realizing how that could sound, "Not mine. Or Scott's. Our parents'. They're the ones being paranoid." Seeing Scott was willing to let my answer speak for both of us as he took another noisy bite of apple, Ms. Morrell hummed thoughtfully. "Aren't you going to take notes?" I asked before I could help myself. The last one had taken notes. Lots of them. Every word I said had seemed layered with implications to that guy. Granted, it had been a few years since I'd been in therapy, so maybe the approach had changed.
"I have a good memory," Ms. Morrell denied, taking her own bite out of a sandwich and chewing in pensive silence that stretched my nerves before asking, "What do you think your parents are worried about?"
"Didn't they already tell you?" Oh, my god, me. I was being incredibly antagonistic, without even thinking about it. What was wrong with me? I took a deliberate breath and centered myself, "Sorry, I'm just flashing back to my middle school visits to the principal's office. I'm sure my issues with authority are in a file somewhere."
"I'm aware of them," she nodded, sipping from an honest, hand-to-god juice box, "but I'd like an answer to my question."
"They think one of us is taking advantage of the other," Scott cut in, clearly having had enough of the standoff or at least, having finished his apple, as he gently tossed the core into the nearby wastebasket and dropped that hand to my knee, "Doesn't seem to matter to them which of us it is."
"I see," Ms. Morrell placed the empty juice box on the desk behind her, "Care to elaborate?"
A beat passed before I could answer. "Either I'm using Scott to experiment, or Scott's using my abandonment issues to keep me in a relationship, or I'm basically using my wiles to sequester my best friend away from any potential relationships with someone other than myself." I had counted off the three on my fingers somewhat bitterly as it came so bluntly out of me, that summary having been running non-stop under my thoughts since my father and Ms. McCall had made clear their opinion of us. "In the end, they think Scott's got the hots for me and my abandonment issues or my curiosity are somehow the basis of the reciprocity." Ms. Morrell seemed unfazed by the verbal diarrhea as she finished what she was chewing.
"They're wrong," Scott put in, suddenly, his hand slightly tense on my knee, "We already talked it out before they even knew about us," Sort of, "I would never- I couldn't do something like that to Stiles, and he wouldn't do it to me. That- it would be wrong." I put my hand on his and gave it a pat before he got too worked up. One of us being weird was enough for the first session.
That's me. In case that wasn't clear.
I was being weird.
Yeah.
I knew we'd have to cut it as close to the truth as we could to keep it all straight and to keep the counselor appeased, but honestly? Even if our parents were wrong, that didn't mean our relationship was a shining example of healthy interdependence, and maybe my hackles were raised a bit at the idea of anyone poking at real flaws.
Still, I needed to get myself under control and cooperate, if I didn't want Ms. Morrell bringing the guillotine down on our aboveboard relationship. Was it unhealthy to resort to sneaking around in the face of parental restrictions for our own good…? A small section of my brain kicked the rest back into gear and I realized time had not stopped for my internal turmoil, as both Scott and Ms. Morrell were looking at me expectantly.
"What?" I asked intelligently.
"You just kinda went into one of your monologues in your head, I think," Scott explained without explaining.
"I asked if you felt it would be wrong to do any of the things your parents think are happening," Ms. Morrell actually explained.
"Oh." More intelligence. "Of course, oh, my god. What kind of question is that? Using Scott like that would be both amazingly jerk-like and completely insane. He's my best friend and I care about him." I am the best at answering questions in a calm and rational manner.
"So, why are the two of you in a romantic relationship, at all?" At the pause, she elaborated, "I understand you were already very close, but why did you begin dating?"
Without looking at him, I could tell Scott was thinking something along the lines of a questioning, because…. I… love him? So, now would be a good time for my usual eloquence and cool-headedness under pressure to return to me. For the first time. Actually, I might really have an answer for this. "I can't say why Scott's dating me, but I realized that I wanted more from him than made sense in a friendship, even if I ignored the feeling for a while, and yes," I forestalled the rebuttal no one was making, "that included wanting to give more, too." Scott was beginning to look vaguely smug, but I wouldn't be taking his ego down any with my next sentence, "I knew he wanted to be with me, and I wanted to be with him. It's much simpler than the parents suggest." Probably, anyway.
"Why did you ignore that feeling, Stiles?" And the beat goes on. The rest of the session followed similarly, with her picking at word choice (I tended to refer to Scott as my "best friend" more often than "boyfriend," evidently, and Scott tended to say "we" rather than "I" fairly consistently), giving alternate reasoning (we learned that, amazingly enough, sex doesn't make a relationship, even one where sex has not occurred), and playing devil's advocate to an astonishingly accurate degree. Under the simmering irritation, a deep admiration had welled. Right then, though, the irritation took precedence.
At least Scott was happy.
"You do love me, you do," he cooed teasingly. I had taken the brunt of the prodding as the "less openly affectionate" of the two of us, and thus, openly proclaimed my feelings for Scott more times in one session than the rest of our relationship combined. Scott took my hand between his, "Under that brooding exterior is a heart of gold that can only be shown for me." Pretending to swoon, he swayed towards the floor and I grudgingly caught him. "Oh, Stiles!"
"I will drop you."
"That brooding exterior!"
I keep my promises.
Didn't stop the smirk in his voice as he watched me walk away with an admiring, "That great posterior."
He had an individual session the next day, and I, the day following. Needless to say, by the time Thursday afternoon rolled around, I was ready to flee the school and the country with Scott in my suitcase in search of freedom.
Somehow, I ended up following Scott to work, instead.
"Don't be mad," he told me ineffectually.
"I'm not mad," I denied, sulking and clearly not willing to talk it out yet.
He snorted, and glanced at me, catching the glare, "Oh, come on, you're pouting about being outmaneuvered by the counselor, aren't you? Did she make you talk about feelings again?"
"You must not know what outmaneuvered means if you think a counselor could do it to me."
"Fine," Scott smiled evilly, "She outsmarted you." I muttered my reply, letting the words butt up against one another so Scott's hearing meant nothing. He rolled his eyes at the unintelligible response, "What?"
A short, sharp exhale, "I said, she made me talk about my mom."
"Oh," he said. Crossing my arms tighter over my chest, I turned away a little more, and he ventured, "Do you wanna… talk about it?"
"No." To make it very clear, I didn't even point out the whole talking about talking about it thing.
A little lost for words, Scott took it as it was, "…Okay, then."
When we arrived at the vet's, Scott stopped outside the door and put a hand on my arm to turn me to face him, "I know it was hard to… do that and I want you to know I'm, um, grateful you would, for us. I mean, she-"
"Don't want to talk about it," I interrupted, stepping away with my hands held up defensively, "Get to work and junk."
Acquiescing suspiciously easily, Scott walked inside with myself following behind him, and asked, pseudo-neutrally, "Whatever happened to that job at the grocery store?"
"Fired," I shrugged, glad of the change in subject no matter how forced it was, "The usual."
"You told them how to do their jobs, again?" He flipped the sign to open, and began organizing the front desk.
"I offered helpful suggestions to make them more efficient," I corrected, sitting in one of the waiting room chairs, "Several times. They were exceptionally dim." Drawing my feet up and pulling my knees to my chest, "I've applied at the pizza place."
"Near the video store?" Scott's head popped up from the drawers behind the front desk, alarmed.
"Oh, come on, you know I'm pretty safe from rampaging werewolves," I wiggled my fingers, "Besides why would the alpha go back?"
"Because it's a murderous, crazy creature full of hate?" Scott suggested, standing up fully with his hands on his hips. "I've had my head hooked up to its and it's not exactly rational."
"So, really, it could go anywhere, and kill anyone," I postulated, somewhat uneasily.
"Well," Scott hedged, hands off the hips and arms crossing over his chest, "it was kind of focused on something. I just couldn't… tell what it was."
"Murder-machine with a mission sounds bad, too. What's Hale's plan for it, anyway?"
Here, Scott looked distinctly uncomfortable, "Try to find it?"
My almost-unsurprised exasperation was not given to spoken word, because a voice interjected, "And I thought I could retire peacefully." Dr. Deaton was shaking his head as he walked out of the supply closet- what had he been doing in there?- and glanced over Scott's work before settling at a point between us, "Sounds like the town's in some trouble."
"And mild-mannered vet-by-day Doctor Deaton transformed into…" I drew out the dramatic pause until it was clear Dr. Deaton wasn't falling for this approach, either. "Well, alright then. Are you offering help?"
He smiled; whether it was at my question or the blatant attempt at his mysterious secrets was uncertain. "I suppose so."
Hale was leaking aggression when he met us at the school. We'd realized, in our conversation with Deaton, that the alpha wanted Scott in his pack and he'd probably answer Scott's call. Scott wasn't really any threat to him, after all, but we still needed to amplify the sound. Hence, the school's speaker system being necessary. Deaton had given me some rowan ash (I refused to call it "mountain ash ash") to surround the office with, and I was to signal him once we knew the alpha was in the school. He was standing by to close a larger circle of the ash around the building. Scott had actually intended to work through his shift, first, but Deaton decided he was a little uneasy leaving an unstable alpha werewolf running unattended without a plan for dealing with it in the near future.
"I'm still retired, though," he told us before we split up to get to our prearranged positions. Hale would be sticking with the vet, and I was following Scott. Even though Hale had been proven not-werewolf, Hale was still a little wary of the man, and "providing protection" worked well enough to keep an eye on him. The only one fooled might have been Scott, and I wasn't even too sure of that.
Still, we were all in position soon enough, and Scott texted them we were ready. We waited for them to finish their circuit around the school (Deaton was making sure the ash lay close to the walls to avoid detection), and Scott…
Yowled would be a good word for it.
"Was that…" he'd taken his finger off the intercom, "Was that bad?" A text alert came from Scott's phone and I snatched it before he could see Hale's likely scathing critique.
"It wasn't good," I told him frankly, and he groaned. "Okay, come on," Grabbing his shoulders, I faced him towards the microphone. "You're a wolf," I told him, "A predator."
"Yeah," he agreed, still with a bit of a panicky undertone, "A wolf." That wasn't the mindset he needed for a good howl; of this, I was pretty sure.
"Come here," turning him back towards me, I pulled him to me and kissed him, fairly sloppily, but his response was fierce and soon he was pulling away.
"Okay," he said breathlessly, stealing another, quicker kiss, before repeating more calmly, "Okay." This time, it was a real howl.
I glanced down at Scott's phone, still in my hand, as it dinged at me. Ignoring Hale's first text from Deaton's phone (Was that a dying cat?), I scrolled to the second:
He'll come for that
.
.
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Don't forget to review about that funny feeling you got! Why not. I'm a captive audience. I check every review compulsively, to see if people aren't just clicking the story on accident, hahaha.. ha... .