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Just after the New Year Boyd's family moves from El Sobrante to Beacon Hills. When Boyd stops being angry about it - or when the anger dims, banked instead of live and raging, because Boyd doesn't know how to stop being angry - he supposes he understands. Boyd's mom took the transfer because she was tired of being That Family; Boyd's father agreed because he still sees Alicia everywhere he goes. But El Sobrante was supposed to be the last move before Boyd graduated high school, and he doesn't want to leave behind what he has left of Alicia anyway. Not now.
Apparently Boyd's input doesn't count for much.
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The second worst part is telling Derek that Boyd is moving to Beacon Hills. Boyd knows Derek's history there, the bare bones of it, and when Boyd gets the words out something in Derek's face twists. It makes all the hair raise on the back of Boyd's neck. It makes him want to whimper and show his belly. It makes the bite on his hip throb. None of these things are necessarily what you want to feel in the presence of your Alpha, and for a moment Boyd is terrified.
"At least I already have a house there," Derek says after a moment. He rolls his shoulders, something cracking in his spine, and the tension bleeds out of the room as suddenly as it had appeared.
Boyd doesn't know what he would have done if Derek had told him to stay - isn't sure if he could have done anything about it at all. Derek has only used his Alpha status on Boyd during the lead up to the full moon, and its almost frighteningly effective. He certainly doesn't know what would happen to him if Derek wasn't going to come with him.
"Does it look anything like this?" Boyd asks. Derek seems to like what could be called 'alternative living spaces,' if you were feeling artistic. Or generous. Or you were a serial killer in disguise.
Derek cuffs him on the shoulder. "It has a basement for the full moons," he explains, which Boyd certainly understands to be on their list of must-haves for a new place.
"As long as it has a running water," he counters, and Derek's eyebrows twitch.
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Beacon Hills is apparently a buyer's market, which means Boyd gets his own ensuite bathroom, and a big bay window that looks out onto a nearby preserve, and a finished rec room in the basement for all the friends he isn't going to be making. His mother starts to smell a little like desperation when she shows him around, the movers bustling in the background. Her voice is falsely cheerful, gratingly bright, look how great things are going to be here, the same song and dance for as long as Boyd can remember, and Boyd hates her, and hates himself for hating her, and hates this place. He hates everything so much it feels like a knot in his guts all the time, but some days its the only thing that keeps him from drowning, the only anchor he's got. He learned that much before Derek ever came around.
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Derek pushes open the charred door to what used to be his family's home and Boyd resists the urge to facepalm. It's so much creepier than he'd imagined it. He'd known Derek for months now and he'd thought they'd plumbed the depths of creepy. Apparently not.
"So what you're saying," he says, slowly. "Is that it doesn't have running water."
Derek's baseline glower deepens, and Boyd can feel something like a laugh bubbling just inside his chest.
"I'm signing a lease on a place downtown," Derek admits, begrudging. "But the basement here is still mostly intact."
In El Sobrante Boyd had weathered the full moons in an empty warehouse on the outskirts of town, with Derek grabbing Boyd by the scruff of the neck and slamming him to the ground whenever he'd tried to escape. It had still felt good, amazingly - left him the good kind of bruised, the good kind of tired in the morning after, and he and Derek would go and nearly eat the local diner out of hash browns. He can only imagine what it'll be like when he has a real anchor.
"You'll get it," Derek promised, and scooped more scrambled eggs onto his toast.
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Boyd gets dressed for his first day at Beacon Hills High School with all the excitement of a prisoner going to his execution. He picks through a pile of new clothes, barely taken from under the Christmas tree before they were packed away for the move, trying to summon any sort of preference for this shirt or that, for grey or red or blue. He ends up in a pair of jeans and a light grey henley, topped with a leather jacket from Derek that smells just like him.
When Boyd goes downstairs his mother is already at work, but Boyd's dad has a plate of pancakes and bacon ready for him. They eat in a near silence only broken by the scraping of forks on plates and requests to pass the syrup. Boyd and his dad are both men of few words, which Boyd's mother had always called 'their Vernon thing.' It used to be funnier.
"Need a ride?" Boyd's father asks, and Boyd shakes his head as he rinses his plate and sets it in the sink.
"I might as well get used to taking the bus," Boyd says, and slings his backpack over his shoulders before heading out to the stop at the end of the road.
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His new homeroom teacher reads out his full name when she introduces him. When he tells her he prefers just Boyd, one of her eyebrows wings upwards in question.
"Do I look like a Vernon?" he says, curt, because its a bad enough name when you're not already fourth in a line. The class titters. There are two empty desks in the entire room, and Boyd takes the one closest to the back. There are twenty other people in this room, and they're scraping every one of his nerves raw.
It's more or less the same thing in every class. The teachers give him books and handouts and homework, slurring through rote assurances about helping him catch up if they need to. None of the other students say much of anything to him. Boyd hears a remark or two whispered behind his back, but mostly they're caught up in comparing their holiday presents and the vacations they took, bemoaning that they're already back in school. A new kid who isn't talking to anyone doesn't seem to make much of a splash on their radar, and Boyd's okay with that. He doesn't care. He got used to when he was younger, when he was the chubby black kid starting halfway through the year, but that's not him anymore. He only has a little over a year here before he heads to college. Hardly worth making friends for if he's going to have to do it all over again.
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"How was school?" his mother asks that night at dinner. She's pouring the chili sauce on top of the meatloaf carefully, not looking at Boyd, just flicking little glances out of the corner of her eyes. Her heart is hammering. "What do you think?"
Boyd nearly shrugs. Part of him wants to keep piling potatoes onto his plate, wants to wipe the smile right off her face. But the smile is wan enough as it is, and just because he's mad at everything doesn't mean he's mad at her, really. He remembers that some days better than others.
"Okay," he says. "My English teacher seems cool. And they're reading In Cold Blood here too, so that should be easy."
His dad doesn't have much to say, but he claps Boyd on the back right before they start to do the dishes.
Boyd lets himself hope for a moment that maybe it is like everyone says. Maybe it will all be okay eventually.
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On his second day, Boyd's economics teacher accosts him in the middle of class.
"You!" he bellows. "New kid!"
Boyd raises an eyebrow. He's expecting a question on human capital, but what he gets instead is:
"You play lacrosse?"
"... yes?" Before, Boyd had been a third stringer at best in El Sobrante, chunky and slow, unhappy and distinctly unmotivated, but he'd played.
"Good! We have open tryouts this afternoon, and I could use someone who looks like the Hulk fornicated with a brick wall."
Boyd thinks about being insulted - he's probably a little insulted? - but considering turning into a werewolf also got him into the best shape of his life, well, he supposes it could be seen as a compliment.
His economics teacher and apparent lacrosse coach whirls around. "Greenberg! Do you know anything about how Adam Smith? Anything. I'll take a one word answer! One syllable!"
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Can you pick me up at 4? he texts Derek. Lacrosse tryouts.
ill b ther Derek texts back, because he has an old Nokia that could double as a brick and is probably going to survive longer than Derek will.
Also, that's not what Boyd meant at all.
you're going to look weird.
Derek doesn't text back, and Boyd allows himself one big mental sigh before texting his parents he'd be a little later today.
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Derek watches the entire practice from the treeline, and it totally looks weird. He's like the socially inept older brother Boyd never had.
Boyd does make the team though.
"That's what I'm talking about!" Coach Finstock yells, when Boyd starts to serial bodycheck. "The bigger they are, the... the bigger they are!" A few of the other tryouts are glaring at him, one or two muttering things that Boyd would never repeat in front of his mama, but some of the older players look distinctly impressed. "You, new kid --"
"Boyd." How is that so hard for everyone to grasp?
"Boyd! Whatever! Welcome to first string!"
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"Good job," Derek says, when Boyd throws his backpack into Derek's minuscule backseat and slides into the front seat. "Good control."
"The full moon isn't for a few days yet," Boyd says. Like a dodge, because now that compliments keep coming his way he doesn't know what to do with them.
Boyd's report cards were littered with words like polite, respectful, hardworking -- good things, sure, but low on the interesting or memorable scale of things. Old Boyd had warmed the lacrosse bench and brought home decent grades and taught his sister how to ride a bike. He'd had an after school job working at an ice rink, and he kept his room clean and did his chores. He'd kissed exactly one girl and jerked off one boy, neither of which had been particularly satisfying beyond being able to say he'd done them and the ability confirm he wasn't entirely straight. He wasn't the type of person who turned into a werewolf. He wasn't the type of person who made first line on the lacrosse team.
Boyd never thought he was the identity crisis type of teenager either, but here they are.
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The next day people start saying hi to Boyd in the halls, which is weird enough considering his lackluster first two days, but when he sits down to eat lunch a swarm of people sit down around him, and he twigs right out.
Boyd likes to think he has a pretty good poker face, but apparently he looks so confused that the redhead girl sitting across from him rolls her eyes slightly and takes pity.
"You're first line on the lacrosse team," she explains, while the blond guy with one arm slung around her waist absently presses a kiss to her cheek as he sits down. "As far as the social ladder goes around here, that's as good as it gets."
"Especially if you're going to help get us to the State Championship," blondie says. "I'm Jackson, Captain of the lacrosse team. This is Danny, and Brendon, and Chase, and Veronica--"
"I'm Lydia," the redhead says, and elbows her boyfriend in the side. "And you're Vernon Boyd the Fourth, call me Boyd." Her smile and tone are friendly, but practiced and brisk. His acceptance into her circle is rote: he's a first string lacrosse player, ergo, he belongs. She doesn't strike him as mercenary, exactly - someone who was mercenary wouldn't have bothered to explain - but she doesn't seem like the particularly friendly type either.
Which is fine, Boyd reminds himself. Because he doesn't need friends.
"'Do I look like a Vernon,'" one of the other guys at the table - Chase? - snickers. Boyd vaguely remembers him from homeroom. "Hilarious, man."
"Thanks," Boyd says, dry as dust, and picks up his sandwich.
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The full moon is only two days later. A Saturday. Boyd feels it a little in practice on Friday afternoon- the aggression, the heightened drive, the way everyone reeks even more than usual, and teenagers already reek, believe him. Chase-or-Brendon invites him to a party, but Boyd deflects, says his parents want family time, maybe next weekend. This gets him a punch on the arm he emphatically does not want, and the way he bares his teeth might be called a smile if you were feeling very, very generous.
By the time he wakes up on Saturday morning he's ready to crawl out of his skin. It takes a long run before he feels halfway to human, and his mother still levels his father with a look over the top of Boyd's head. He doesn't get a chance to sneak out until its dark, and he can only hope that neither of his parents check on him. They've caught him sneaking back in a few times, both pre- and post-bite, and the combination of worry and disappointment always chokes an airway that already feels slammed shut. What could he tell them anyway? After Alicia - every explanation starts 'After Alicia,' and Boyd still can't get his mouth around those words.
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"The first full moon in a new place can be rough," Derek warns him. "It won't feel right."
"It doesn't smell wrong," Boyd hedges. The basement of the Hale house smells charred, and still and damp, like the underside of a log, but there's also something there like Derek too, like pack, and he doesn't exactly hate it. He's already spent full moons in worse places.
Derek rolls his eyes. "Don't whine to me tomorrow morning, then," as if Boyd is the type to whine.
When Boyd shrugs the chains around his wrists and ankles clank.
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The second week of school begins to settle into a pattern, including the weird skinny kid who starts borderline stalking Boyd.
Boyd says 'borderline' because they have a few classes together - its not like Skinny Dude shouldn't be there - but he stares a lot, and his heartbeat is so unique, trippity trippity tripping all over the place that Boyd keeps hearing him around corners and on the other side of walls and everywhere. He's a mouth breather and a lip smacker and he only sort of whispers to the curly-haired Latino kid that appears to be his only friend.
Boyd finally corners him between classes one day. He gets in close enough for Skinny Dude's heart to race, enough to seem serious, before taking a step back.
"Do we have a problem?" he asks, because Skinny Dude is the kind of person who refuses to be ignored, and Boyd has had enough of this someone-is-watching-you-hair-raised-on-the-back-of-your-neck bullshit. It does weird things to all his werewolf instincts, being stalked like that. Like prey. It can't continue.
"Um. No?" His voice lifts a little at the end, panicked, and his friend - two lockers over, and Boyd is starting to wonder if they actually need to maintain some kind of life support radius - looks concerned. "No, definitely not, no. Nope. No problem."
"No?" Boyd parrots, and raises an eyebrow. "You haven't been talking about me all week? Just following me around for fun?"
"You're the one talking to me, actually," Skinny Dude insists, heart beat settling. He flashes a 'we both know this is bullshit' grin, and Boyd bites down hard enough to grind his teeth.
"Is this because I'm black?" Boyd asks, because Beacon Hills isn't the whitest place Boyd's ever lived but its pretty close, and there are places in California that have nothing on the South. It certainly wouldn't be the first time someone was an asshole to him because of it, even if not to his face. And it's certainly worth it for the panic on Skinny Dude's face.
"What? No!" Skinny Dude squawks. "Well, I mean, obviously you are, but that's not - you're just - uh - fuck, you're hot, okay?"
His friend abruptly starts laughing so hard he wheezes, and Boyd has to worry about whether he's getting enough oxygen. It takes a few seconds for what Skinny Dude actually said to sink in.
"Hot?"
"Are you processing?" Skinny Dude asks, anxious. "Because it doesn't seem like that should be news to you. You've seen yourself naked, right?" He pales. "Not that. Uhm."
"Oh my god," his friend mutters. "Look, dude, I understand if you want to kill him -"
"Scott!!"
"- You would not be the first - "
"Scott," Skinny Dude hisses. "Stop helping!"
"You're not saying anything!" Scott hisses back, like thirteen year olds arguing about their favorite member of One Direction, and this is all a little much for Boyd to take.
"You're stalking me because you think I'm hot," is what finally dribbles out of Boyd's mouth, fuck. Why is this happening.
"Not stalking," Skinny Dude mutters, and looks up at Boyd through his absurdly long eyelashes. "We have class together. And lacrosse practice! And it's more like, you know, reconnaissance. Totally legit and not at all creepy." He makes little fingers guns, and a clicking noise with his mouth.
Jesus Christ, Boyd is attracted to this.
"I don't even know your name."
"Neither do I," his friend mutters, but Skinny Dude grins, and his scent - something in it spikes, it fucking blossoms, and Boyd didn't even know that was a thing. Shit.
"Stiles," he says, and holds out his hand like a proper fucking human being, even as the bell to get to class rings out over their heads. "Everybody calls me Stiles."