Chapter Text
If only Stiles hadn't felt the unavoidable urge to bring up Jackson's adoption status in response to his especially incessant round of bullying during their lunch period earlier, maybe he wouldn't be stuck in this predicament.
Literally stuck. In the boy's locker room.
In a locker.
Jackson had waited for everyone else to clear out after practice (including Scott who was waiting outside for Stiles to finish using the bathroom) when he grabbed Stiles straight from the sink he was washing his hands at and shoved him into a locker without so much as a peep; his facial expression as solid and cold as steel. Stiles knew something to this effect was coming, but being locked in a locker was new territory. Stiles couldn't even fake being apologetic—his attempts at what could have been a simple "sorry" were laced with so much sarcasm that he's lucky Jackson was so generous as to not give him any bruises.
His phone was conveniently in his own locker and thus inaccessible, which made calling for help that much more difficult. There was no one around to hear his yelling and body-slamming the locker door wasn't yielding much of an effect. He gave up only a few minutes into his imprisonment and decided to wait for Scott to come back and find him—Stiles was his ride home.
And just like that, the familiar squeak of the locker room door echoed off the walls and Stiles perked up, having almost dozed off.
"Scott? That you?"
There's no answer, just the sound of hurried footsteps that sounded like they were headed towards the showers in the corner.
"Uhh... Scott?" Stiles tried again to no avail. He changed his tactic the third time around and called out, "Um, whoever's in here, can you uh... help me out here? ...Hello?"
Stiles grew agitated at the lack of response. He knew they could hear him but they were seemingly ignoring him. And, for a second, he swore he could hear a weird grunting, but he'd hoped it's just the water pipes as whoever it was turned one of the showers on. 'Who would even hook up in the boy's locker room anyway?' Stiles thought. (Stiles had considered it a few times, but that's not the point.)
"If that's you Jackson, listen dude, I'm sorry. I mean it this time, okay? Can you just punch me or something instead? I have homework to do."
The only response he heard was the sound of water hitting the hard tile floor.
"Okay, seriously? Who's out there? Let me out!" He strained against the tight metal walls to get a peek at who might be in there with him through the small slits towards the top of the locker, but the way they were angled he could only see absolutely nothing.
He began banging on the locker door, harder this time, and to both his surprise and delight, he felt a dent forming where the side of his closed fist was meeting the metal. Encouraged by this, he continued pounding close to where the lock mechanism was in an attempt to break it. No one would blame or even suspect that Stiles would have broken a locker, so he wasn't worried.
Progress was slow but the fact that there even was progress was astonishing. And the fact that someone was leisurely showering a few feet away as he was causing all this racket pushed him to use even more force—
BAM!
He came bursting out of the locker with a dramatic stumble, typical of Stiles, when one of his many punches finally did the trick and sent the locker door nearly flying off of its hinges. And just as he was about to celebrate his prison break, he looked up to see who was ignoring him and he froze.
It was Derek…but something was different.
There was no hiding the impossible blue glow of his eyes as he looked up and met Stiles’ gaze. The fangs weren't discreet either. He was soaked and trembling under the presumably cold water and had a look on his face like a hurt puppy with his brows drawn together and his mouth saying no words but pleading for forgiveness and understanding in the way it was frowning slightly. But there wasn't much of either emotion on Stiles’ end as he backed away slowly, unsure of what he was seeing or how to react. Was this even real? He would definitely have woken up from a nightmare by now.
“Stiles…” Derek barely choked out. "Stiles!" he repeated, clearer and louder this time.
Stiles couldn’t seem to utter anything but “I’m… I’m gonna… go…” as he found himself against the locker room door with his hand blindly fumbling around for the handle. When he found it, he swung it open and bolted out of there towards the school’s main doors where he found Scott waiting, face buried in his phone.
“Dude, did you fall in the toilet?” Scott looked up when he saw his best friend finally approaching him.
“C’mon, let’s go,” Stiles grabbed Scott’s jacket by the shoulder and yanked him towards the parking lot.
"Oh...okay," Scott complied, understandably weird-ed out, though this kind of sporadic behavior coming from Stiles wasn't new to him.
The whole car ride home in the Jeep was unusually quiet, however. Usually, Stiles would explain what's got him acting strangely, but he kept his mouth shut. It’s usually Stiles that strikes up the conversations and he had nothing to say. Scott wasn’t sure what to do or how to act and then before he knew it they had pulled up to his house.
“Dude, is everything alright?” He tried one last time.
“Yeah, it’s fine," he paused a moment, "I think." Stiles kept it at that.
Scott sighed because he knew something was bothering Stiles but he decided not to pester him about it for the time being. “Whatever you say. I know something's bothering you but it's okay if you don't wanna talk about it. Just let me know when you are, dude.”
“Yeah. Deal.”