Chapter Text
Stiles could actually hear the distant sound of the larger crowd at the lacrosse field cheering, which meant they'd won. He would have liked to have been out there celebrating, or at least the opportunity to do a little victory dance while snooping around Gerard's office. Unfortunately-
“Ow, ow, that’s my ear, I need that!”
Trying to keep a blank face as Erica dragged him down the hallway was pointless - it wasn't like Stiles didn't know she could at the very least hear his heartbeat. Depending on how instructive Derek's been for the last few weeks, she might even already know what panic smells like, and if Stiles could smell his own fear sweat, then she definitely could.
He just didn't have it in him to let people see his fear.
Erica wasn't listening to him, anyway. He skittered a little, trying to keep up with her - seriously, she was almost as fast as Lydia in those heels - and held onto her wrist before she pulled his ear off his head completely.
He frowned as he smelled chlorine and realized where this hallway led. “Are you going to drown me?”
She snorted. “If I wanted to kill you, I could just slash your throat with my claws.”
“That is not comforting,” Stiles said as they rounded the corner to the pool. “Like not…at…all…”
Derek stood by the edge of the pool with a nasty smile on his face and a basketball bouncing from hand. Stiles was so caught on the incongruous image that he didn’t realize Erica had let go of his ear until she was standing right beside Derek.
“Wonderful,” Stiles muttered, looking between them while rubbing at his ear. The basketball's rhythm sounded smooth against the blood rushing in his head. “Something tells me you didn’t bring me here to go skinny dipping.”
Erica leered. She really enjoyed being the Hot Girl way too much.
The basketball stopped bouncing.
“What did you see at the mechanic’s garage?” Derek demanded, basketball caught between his palms.
Stiles’ hand throbbed as he remembered.
“Um, several alarming EPA violations that I’m seriously considering reporting,” Stiles said. He tried not to wipe his hand on his pants. Sweat wasn’t as slimy as that paralytic slime on the doorknob, but it was close enough for discomfort.
Derek gripped the basketball in both hands. “Don’t, Stiles. You need our help, you always-”
“Dude, you’re the one who once snuck into my bedroom and begged me for help!”
“Begged?” Derek asked. He raised an incredulous eyebrow while Erica looked at Derek in askance. She was probably going to ask Derek about it later. “I don’t recall any begging. In fact, I mostly remember how terrified you were." Derek stepped forward, smirking at how Stiles automatically stepped back. "I could hear your heartbeat. I could smell the fear on you.”
“And yet, you still put on a show with your shirt,” Stiles said, trying to smirk to match Erica. It probably looked stupid on him, but at least Erica’s expression promised a lot of awkward questions for Derek the next time they had their little pack meeting. “Or should I say, without it?”
Erica raised a bemused eyebrow.
Derek’s facial expression didn’t change at all as his claws pierced the basketball, deflating it into a lump of leather.
“Holy god…” Stiles muttered as one of the hardest things to ever hit his face in gym class collapsed like a soufflé under Derek’s grip. He couldn’t take his eyes off it as Derek threw it on the ground, but at least he didn’t flinch when it landed.
Barely.
“Let’s try that again,” Derek said.
Stiles glared down at the ball, then up at Derek.
“You know, after the last few months, that doesn’t actually scare me,” he lied.
The false amicability as Derek shrugged grated on Stiles’ nerves. “Okay. It doesn’t have to. You know what I can do. You were there when I killed Peter.”
“Yeah, after I set him on fire for you,” Stiles said. “And the Argents shot him half a dozen times.”
“You set someone on fire?” Erica asked. She sounded caught between disbelieving and impressed.
Stiles shrugged this time. “We had a self-igniting Molotov cocktail. Gift from Jackson, who learned how to make it from Lydia.”
Now Erica looked fully impressed, while Derek rolled his eyes. “That’s not the point, Stiles. Tell me: what did you see?”
“What makes you think his death was any of your business?” Stiles asked. “It could’ve been just an accident. Mechanics have to deal with a lot of dangerous and heaviy equipment and all that.”
Derek crossed his arms, feet spreading until they were shoulder width. Beside him, Erica also crossed her arms. That pushed her boobs up just that slightest amount, enough that Stiles knew it was absolutely intentional.
“Besides the fact he died on the last full moon? I heard what the police said,” Derek said, ignoring Stiles’ indignant how?! “There was a lot of talk about how you were half-paralyzed on the ground when they got there.” Derek shifted his weight, leaning back like he didn’t have a care in the world. “They still can’t figure out what that toxin on your hand and the doorknob was.”
Derek took a step forward, then another. Stiles may have leaned back a bit, but he refused to actually step back again, unwilling to concede any ground to Derek.
“According to some conversations I...overheard..." Derek said. "Your father doesn’t believe that you didn’t see anything.” He uncrossed his arms and held his hands behind his back like a drill sergeant. “And neither do I.”
Stiles gripped the sides of his pants.
It was one thing to see the hesitation in Dad’s eyes, hear it in his voice, every time they talked at home. It was another thing entirely to be confronted with verbal confirmation that his dad thought Stiles was lying.
Knew Stiles was lying.
“I get why you wouldn’t have told him,” Derek continued. For a brief moment, his voice softened. “You want to protect him. That’s admirable. But the best way to keep him safe is if we get to whatever it was that killed the mechanic before the police do. They aren’t prepared to handle werewolves.”
One deep, shaky breath as he tried not to imagine his father going up against a werewolf and…
It wouldn’t end well. Not without wolfsbane bullets involved, and Stiles still didn’t know how to switch out the bullets in Dad’s gun without him finding out.
“It wasn’t a werewolf,” Stiles said, letting go of his pants and wiping his sweaty palms on them. “It was some kind of…reptile.”
That took both of the werewolves by surprise.
“A reptile?” Derek asked.
"Yup," Stiles said, popping the p ever so slightly.
Both werewolves abruptly frowned.
Stiles continued. “It was pretty slick-looking."
Erica gasped, actually gasped, which was a bizarre reaction in Stiles' opinion.
"Dark scales, webbed hands…yellow-slitted eyes…” Both of them looked alarmed. “What, have you seen it?”
“Um…” Erica said, and Stiles narrowed his eyes at her.
She didn’t just look alarmed.
She was looking up.
“Did it have a tail?” Derek demanded, sounding as terrified as Erica looked.
Stiles pursed his lips.
“It’s behind me, isn’t it?”
Erica nodded, not looking at him. With a dejected sigh, Stiles muttered, “And to think, I always wanted to say that.”
Before Stiles could say anything, there was a demonic hissing sound that echoed throughout the pool room, emanating from above and behind Stiles.
He whipped around just in time to see a giant…lizard…thing land on the ground right in front of him. He sprinted back several steps to get behind the werewolves. Erica, aggressive and over-confident, threw herself at the thing - leaving herself ungrounded and wide open.
Stiles winced at the sound of her skull smacking against the concrete when the...thing...threw her against the wall. His eyes flickered between her, Derek, and the lizard thing, and when they went back to her, she dropped, completely unconscious.
He couldn’t help the one, tiny whimper as the lizard thing looked away from Erica to focus on them. He could admit in his own head that he may have ended up bawling like a baby had it not been for Derek shoving him in the chest and yelling, “Run!”
Stiles stumbled back, but before he could even turn around to make a break for it, the lizard thing leaped at them. Derek body-slammed it from underneath to turn it aside. Stiles nearly did as Derek said and ran...until he saw the back of Derek’s neck. A jagged cut was bleeding down his nape - and simmering with a sticky, clear substance.
Damnit.
Even as Stiles watched, Derek stumbled, paralysis already starting to set in.
"Lydia's going to kill me for this," Stiles muttered, and grabbed onto Derek's arm just as he started falling.
~*~
Scott could still see Gerard's back, walking away, as Mom made her way over to the car, checking something on her phone.
Swallowing down on every scream of pain clawing its way out of his throat, Scott bunched up his shirt over the stab wound, tying it in a knot, then zipped up his hoodie and prayed.
"You okay, sweetie?" Mom asked when she finally looked up from her phone. "You don't look so great."
That was probably the biggest understatement of his life.
Scott smiled shakily. "Yeah, I, uh - got nervous at the Argents and over-ate. Stomach hurts now." He thought about trying to drive like this and said, "I swerved twice on the way here, actually."
She immediately started coming around the car, making a shooing motion with her hand. "Then I'll drive."
"Mom-"
"Go," she ordered, pointing to the passenger seat, and Scott 'reluctantly' agreed, going around the back of the car and easing himself into the seat. "Wow, you really had it bad, huh?"
"...yeah..." Scott said. "It was, um, awkward."
"You sure it wasn't food-poisoning?" Mom asked, starting the car. She sounded like she considered it a legitimate possibility. "They are pretty overprotective of their daughter. Having her ex-boyfriend over..."
"Nah," Scott said, and then tried not to make any noise whatsoever when Mom suddenly braked for another car. "J-just. Me."
Mom hummed in agreement. Thank god she'd come off a double, and had to devote all her attention to driving - and didn't notice that Scott was in way more pain than a stomach-ache would warrant.
Oh, god, it hurt. It hurt so. Damn. Much. His vision was starting to black out just staring out the window, and every turn the car made had him biting his lip to keep from screaming in pain. He would've cried in relief when they finally pulled into the driveway at home, if it wouldn't have made Mom too suspicious.
Getting Mom not to pry into his stomachache was thankfully short work - she was exhausted after her double-shift. Once he convinced her that his problem was nothing a heating pad, personal time with a toilet, and a bit of sleep wouldn’t fix, she bid him goodnight and went to her room. Scott went into the bathroom, locked the door, and collapsed into the bathtub.
It took two tries to peel off his hoodie, especially since the blood had started to seep through. His hand was coated in it from literally holding himself together in the half hour since Gerard walked away from him. He didn’t even try with his shirt, instead fished out his phone and called Stiles.
“Hey, Scott, I’m kind of-”
“Need your help,” Scott gasped into the phone. He leaned his head back against the tiles, shutting his eyes at the pain and the feeling of blood dripping down his body. “Now.”
“What-”
“Stabbed,” Scott said. “Gerard…stabbed me…”
“Oh, sh-”
Scott tried to curl up, then tried to stretch out. The least painful option involved contorting himself so his legs were half curled under him and he was slumped diagonally across the wall of the bathtub. He squirmed, listening to and not hearing Stiles’ voice on the phone, until he gasped as he found the least painful position possible.
“Scott?” Stiles said, sounding like he’d been saying it a lot. He sounded panicked, an all too familiar sound these days. “How bad are we talking?”
Scott whimpered into the phone.
“Oh, god,” Stiles said. “Maybe you should call an ambulance, your mom, someone-”
“N-no,” Scott said. “Can’t…explain it…can I?”
Stiles continued to curse as he moved around wherever he was. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes, okay, just hold on.”
“Can’t…do…else…” Scott mumbled. “Mom’s home.”
Stiles cursed again. “Make it twenty. Just hold on for twenty minutes, okay?”
Scott hummed into the phone, and then a few moments later there was silence. He let go, hearing the phone clattering on the tile floor. He hoped it didn’t break.
Now that he no longer needed to do anything, he used both hands to clutch at his stomach, and tried to breathe as little as possible.
He may have done it too well and passed out, or maybe all the agony swallowed up his sense of time. Either way, it felt like someone was picking the lock of the bathroom door in both forever and no time at all. Stiles slipped in, eyes wide and terrified as he closed the door behind him.
“Dude!” he hissed, setting down a backpack on the toilet lid. “What the hell were you thinking-”
“Can’t…hospital…” Scott murmured, looking up at him. “Please,” he implored, the plea stretching out on a groan. He didn't even know what he was asking for, anymore.
Thankfully, Stiles did. With a frustrated and all-too-human growl, he tore open his bag as he said, “I’m going to have to cut your clothes off.”
Scott nodded weakly, his temple rubbing against the warming tiles. “Whatever, just…make it stop…please…”
Stiles pulled some kind of medical kit, and extracted a pair of surgical scissors from it. He knelt down by Scott, then asked one last time, “Are you sure you don’t want professional-”
“M'mom can’know!” Scott slurred out.
Stiles sighed, and started cutting away at Scott’s shirt, hissing as he revealed more and more of the blood and the wound.
“God, Scotty…” Stiles murmured. He pulled out a roll of paper-towels from his backpack, ripping off several sheets at once and wetting them in the sink before wiping down Scott. Unfortunately, while it wasn’t gushing anymore, it was still bleeding a lot.
Still, Scott stared at his best friend when he fished under the bathroom cabinet and came out with the spare box of tampons Mom always kept there.
“Seriously?” Scott asked with a jolt, only to groan and slump back when the movement tugged at the edges of his wound.
“These things were made to staunch blood,” Stiles snapped, unwrapping one. “They were meant for bullet wounds in World War One. Then nurses in the military hospitals noticed how useful they were for periods.”
Scott rolled his eyes, but didn’t object when Stiles pushed a tampon out of its applicator and into the wound. He would probably be grossed out by it tomorrow morning, but right now he could not care less beyond the fact it hurt.
But even he could see the usefulness. He wasn’t spilling more blood across his skin as Stiles was still cleaning it up.
Confident that Stiles knew what he was doing - or close enough - Scott leaned his head back and closed his eyes in exhaustion as Stiles wiped him down.
“So Gerard knows you’re a werewolf?” Stiles asked finally.
“Yeah…” Scott swallowed, remembering the entire encounter. It was only a few minutes, but it still shook him to his core. Gerard had been friendly and even intimate as he stuck a knife in Scott's gut and literally twisted it. “Said he could feel me healing around the knife…when he was holding it.” He shuddered. "He looked like he enjoyed it."
Stiles grimaced, turning to pull a plastic bottle from the backpack. “That is creepy and wrong on so many levels. God, Scott - how are you even alive? What did he want?”
Scott winced as the overwhelming scent of rubbing alcohol hit him as soon as Stiles unscrewed the bottle cap. But it was alcohol and something else, something faintly herbal Scott always smelled when Deaton treated him. It was never used on any other animals. Looking over, Scott realized it was a bottle he'd actually seen at Deaton's office. Stiles must've stolen it.
He watched as Stiles folded up one of the paper towels and doused it with the supernaturally treated disinfectant.
“Said I…said he needed a…” Scott hissed at the first dab of Stiles’ impromptu disinfectant wipe. “Do him a…” Another pained hiss. “Favor or he’d…hurt m-mom.”
Stiles paused, looking as scared as Scott felt, but shook himself out of it in an instant. Scott only watched as Stiles fished around his bag until he could pull out a needle and thread. He also started tapping at his phone. Scott shut his eyes as he realized Stiles was looking up how to stitch someone up.
Jesus. Out of all the things to do off of an online tutorial, this had to be one of their worst ideas yet. But even Scott could see they didn't have any better options.
He turned and bit his own hand as the needle first went into his skin, Stiles muttering hasty apologies as he worked. Scott whimpered when Stiles pulled out the tampon, already blood-soaked, and wiped the wound down with Deaton's antiseptic. He winced as he felt something like a needle enter his skin.
Stile was literally stitching him up. In his bathtub. God, Deaton was going to be pissed if - when - Scott asked him to check the wound tomorrow.
“Did he say what the favor would be?” Stiles asked, trying to distract Scott from the pain.
Scott shook his head, letting go of his bite on his hand.
"He..." he took a medium breath - any deeper and he hurt the wound. "He smelled so weird."
"Weird, how?" Stiles asked, voice low and even. Calming. "C'mon, Scott, keep talking to me."
Scott swallowed, looking away from where Stiles was stitching him up. "Sick," he mumbled. "It's - I've smelled it before. On some of the animals. And around the hospital. He's really, really sick...and not just in the head."
Stiles laughed with no humor whatsoever, entire upper body bent over the edge of the tub and Scott's stomach. "That doesn't exactly help us much."
Staring at the top of Stiles' head, Scott said, "Actually, I think it does."
"How?" Stiles asked. He turned his attention away from the immediate wound to poke at a gash running from Scott's right pec, over his sternum, and down his left side. "And why isn't this one healing?"
"Wounds inflicted by Alphas heal differently," Scott recited."Especially if it's...Intent...like with a Bite. And new Alphas...want to make pack...have a lot of Intent. Lasts for months. Don't always remember to hold back...hard to hold back...'s what Deaton said..."
This time, there was a trace of dark humor when Stiles laughed. "Okay, so how does Gerard being sick help us in any way?"
Scott frowned in thought. "Have to see...what his favor is...but - he's weak. Somehow." He swallowed, and remembered the first time he learned about the Hippocratic Oath. "Can use that against him. Hopefully."
Stiles was quiet, and it made Scott nervous - despite seeing how much Stiles was trying to concentrate on what he was doing. Stiles processed by talking through ideas and conclusions, ripping them apart outloud even when his brain was miles ahead of whatever he was actually saying.
A quiet Stiles scared him.
"Even if he's sick," Stiles said, voice flat in the way it only got when Stiles was trying to hide his actual feelings. What was he trying to hide from Scott? "He was still strong enough to cut a werewolf in half with a sword."
...terror.
Stiles would try to hide his fear. He always tried, and never quite succeeded.
"I know," Scott said. He flexed his fingers, brushing against Stiles' hands where they pressed the gaping hole in his stomach that Stiles was still trying to close. "Believe me. He was strong. Is. I know." It was hard to get out full sentences between the feeling of air on his internal organs oh god and Stiles sewing his body back together. Scott could barely think through the pain. "But...h'has...the advantage. I need one, too."
"We!" Stiles snapped, tugging on the thread. "We need an advantage."
Scott bit his lip and jerked his head in what he hoped Stiles understood was a nod. "And this might be it."
Stiles snorted, and sat back on his heels. Scott blinked, and looked down to see that Stiles was done. He inched his fingertips closer, inspecting the stitching carefully.
"This is good," he said as Stiles cleaned up his supplies. "Really good. Deaton'll be proud."
"He should be able to take them out for you by tomorrow," Stiles said, frowning and inspecting the wound. "It should be gone completely in a few days, maybe a week tops. Right?"
"Everything goes away eventually," Scott said. "Even the stuff from before," he added, quiet and bitter. The bite scars he got from Roxy had disappeared within days of the Bite he got from Peter, and Scott...kind of missed them, despite all the bad memories they brought up. On the plus side, though, the scar from his 'fall' down the stairs was also gone.
"Right," Stiles said, shoving everything into his backpack. "Can't do anything about those. You need anything else, though? Because I gotta get back home before my dad notices I'm gone."
Scott winced and sat up as carefully as possible. "Grab some pajamas? For me? I need to shower. Wash off the blood."
Stiles nodded, slinking out the door as Scott made his way to his feet. He kept a tight grip on the handle of the glass door of the shower, wincing at the bloody handprints all over it. And the bloody clothes on the tile floor by the toilet. And the blood in the tub.
At least there was no blood on the bathmat. That would've been hard to clean up. As it was, Scott had to remember to replace the towels, because those had some drops of blood, too.
"Here," Stiles said, slipping back in to set some clothes on the counter by the sink. "Anything else?"
Scott shook his head. "Thank you. So much, for this, for all of this-"
"Don't worry about it," Stiles said, smiling softly and gripping Scott's shoulder. "You're my brother in every way that counts, I'll always help you. I'd even hug you, except right now you're covered in blood so let's not."
Scott smiled, experimenting with letting go of his side as Stiles shouldered his backpack and opened the door. Stiles was about to step out, before pausing and looking back at Scott.
"Hey," he said, voice soft and smile encouraging. "We'll figure this out. Promise."
Slumping against the tiled wall in relief, Scott nodded. "Thank you."
Rather than answering, Stiles saluted jauntily with two fingers, then left, locking and closing the door behind him.
With a sigh, Scott turned his attention back to his most immediate problem: how to get these pants off so he could take a shower.
It was the only problem he had the energy to worry about, right now.
~*~
Allison didn't have enhanced hearing of any kind, but she didn't need it to know that most of the school called her that arsonist's niece. She heard the usual lull in conversation that followed her everywhere these days as she walked into the chemistry room, and instead scanned the room until she found Scott and Stiles waiting for her. Stiles even moved over to the end so she could sit between them, next to Scott.
As soon as she did, he leaned against her.
"...how's the stomach?" she asked quietly. She looked down, half expecting to see blood-spots on his shirt. Of course, there was nothing.
"It's fine," Scott murmured, nuzzling his temple against her shoulder for a moment before sitting up. "Stomach's a little achy, but otherwise I'm fine."
She swallowed around the lump in her throat, the one that's been lodged there ever since Stiles called her and told her what Gerard did.
"Scott," she said, and both boys looked sharply at her. "I'm so sorry-"
"Don't be," Scott said, reaching over and squeezing her hand in his. "It's not your fault. You had nothing to do with it and didn't even know about it until Stiles told you about it."
"I still feel responsible," she said quietly. "I mean - I was able to save Isaac but I can't save you?"
"Hey," Scott said with a reassuring smile. "I'm alive, and I'm okay." He leaned over to kiss her cheek. "You save me every day-"
She was about to respond, but the bell rang just as Mr. Harris stood up.
Tuning out his ridiculous speech about human stupidity, Allison turned in her seat to see Lydia already preparing her chemistry notes...and Erica and Isaac smiling coyly at her from their own table just two rows away.
And then she heard that they weren't going to have the same partners for the day - that they would be rotating.
Damnit.
At Mr. Harris' orders for half the class to get up, Scott smiled at her with his puppy-positive grin, and gave her hand one more reasssuring squeeze before joining the other standing students to be reassigned a starting desk.
Even without werewolf powers, she sensed Scott's discomfort as he sat next to Erica. Of course, it was unfortunately easy to figure out the source of the discomfort, too.
Not many girls got the validation of watching their boyfriends get pissed off by the hottest girl in the school trying to feel them up. For all that he was a teenage boy, Scott was a romantic at heart. He couldn't seem to get into anything without some semblance of a relationship involved.
Even his favorite porn was sappy and romantic.
Allison smiled when the bell dinged and Erica wasn't remotely successful in duping Scott to her side. That smile dropped when, instead of going to another seat, Erica moved back to take the stool next to Allison.
Of course.
Flipping her hair over her shoulder, the werewolf ignored Allison as she started filling out the worksheet.
Allison tried to focus. This step was all math, figuring out the formulas for the next step. Except Erica was not just ignoring her, but pointedly ignoring her.
Finally, Allison couldn't stand it any more. Setting down her pen, she turned in her seat to face the werewolf.
"What are you going to do to her?" she asked, tilting her head towards Lydia.
"Don't you think the better question is," Erica drawled, looking at Allison sidelong. "What's she going to do to us?"
Allison glared, turning to look at Lydia, just to check...
It wasn't likely that Isaac would do anything to her while they were actually in the lab, in school, in public. Allison couldn't help worrying, anyway.
Lydia saw Allison, glanced at Erica, and rolled her eyes. Allison smiled. As far as Lydia knew, Erica annoyed Allison due to something Scott-related, nothing more sinister.
If only.
"I have to say," Erica said, and Allison turned back to see Erica smirking at the back of Scott's head. "You guys are cute together."
Allison snorted, shaking her head. "You think you can hurt me by sliding your hand up his thigh?" she challenged, maintaining her calm as best as possible. An emotional Hunter was a dead Hunter.
"Oh, I don't know," Erica said, turning on her stool to face Allison. "The thing about jealousy is that it's never really rational."
"The fact that you think this is about being jealousy is why I'm not jealous," Allison said. "I don't need a boyfriend to validate me. I'm better with Scott, but I'm still worth something without him."
The 'unlike you' hung unspoken between them.
Disappointingly, Erica didn't fall for it. Instead, she grinned, the wolf showing in every inch of her smile as her hand dropped to-
"Would you rather it was your thigh?" she said, trailing her fingers up from Allison's knee towards her skirt just like Scott did. Allison froze, staring at Erica with shocked-wide eyes and fighting hard not to look down. "C'mon, girlfight in the lab? It'll be hot."
Allison sneered, latching onto Erica's wrist. She twisted it back, just like Aunt Kate once showed her. She said, low and serene, "You wouldn't be able to handle me."
"Oh, I would love to find out," Erica challenged, wincing in Allison's grip but never dropping her smile. "Think your boyfriend would enjoy the show?"
"You mean the one where I beat you into the ground with your fancy new shoes?" Allison asked with mock-innocence. Then, micmicing Erica's tone, she said, "Oh, I would love to find out."
From the desk in front of them, Scott snorted, and Allison grinned.
Erica rolled her eyes, and twisted her hand right out of Allison's grip. "So you like it rough, then?"
"Not from you," Allison drawled, still copying Erica's cadence.
Slowly, Erica smiled again, and Allison tried to analyze her words to figure out what kind of opening she just gave Erica.
Before she could hear it, though, the seat-change bell rang again.
Erica grinned, and with her new, lupine reflexes, she reached out and squeezed Allison's thigh again - this time with her fingers ending in claws.
"Oh, but I would really love to get rough with you," she said, and was out of her seat before Allison could rebuke.
She was still staring incredulously when Scott took the seat next to her.
"You know I won't ever actually leave you, right?" he told her.
Allison swallowed, then put on a smirk, blatantly looking over her shoulder in Erica's general direction, though not quite at her. Not yet.
"You didn't leave me even after you had Lydia throwing herself at you on a full moon," she said, matter-of-fact and casual. "Of course I know you won't leave me just for Erica."
Just. Erica frowned, clearly irritated.
Scott smiled in relief, glancing at Harris and leaning over to kiss her cheek as soon as the teacher turned away. "I'm sorry about that, by the way. I don't think I ever actually apologized."
"I forgive you," Allison promised. "I forgave you for that ages ago."
Smiling, he said, "God, I love you."
"I love you too," Allison said with a smile, then pointed at the beaker in front of him. "Now pour out half the solution, slowly."
Scott turned his attention to their work, and Allison turned to look at Erica head on.
'What now, bitch?' she mouthed across the room. Erica...rolled her eyes. Huh.
Allison kept her face blank as she turned her own attention back to the chemistry assignment.
A few minutes later, the seat-change bell rang, and Scott pressed one more soft kiss to her cheek as he got up to go sit next to Lydia.
She smiled at him, only for her smile to fall when Isaac sat down next to her.
For a few minutes, they worked in silence. Allison mixed the tinctures while Isaac wrote down the measurements.
"If you guys hurt Lydia," Allison said conversationally. "I will bring my entire Hunter's clan down on you so hard your Alpha will feel it."
Isaac didn't look up from the worksheet. "Don't get pissy with us because we're doing your job for you," he said, far more haughty than he had any right to be. "You know, protecting the innocents and all that."
"Lydia is innocent," Allison said.
Isaac snorted. "She's been killing people all over town. And even if she hasn't, it wasn't like she was a good person to begin with."
"...excuse you?!" Allison hissed, actually setting down her pippette to glare.
Now, now he looked up.
"I asked her out once, in freshman year," Isaac said, finally turning his head to look at her. "She said no, and told me to come back when the bike I rode to school had an engine, and not a chain."
Allison stared.
Isaac smirked.
"Lydia's cold-blooded," he said, as if it had any relation to his previous sentence. "With or without the kanima."
Allison clenched her fists, and wondered how much trouble she would get in if she stabbed him in the balls here and now. She could do it. It would be so easy-
"So really, one way or another," Isaac continued. "We're doing the whole town a favor by killing her."
"Don't even try it," she practically growled. "You don't care about protecting anyone. You were just a pathetic little asshole, and now you're mad that the Bite didn't make you any better and you're taking it out on her."
"She's killing people!" Isaac hissed back, dropping the smarmy act to glare at her. "Isn't it supposed to be your job to stop monsters from killing people? Or do you only kill werewolves, screw whether or not they've hurt anyone, and screw everyone else?"
"You aren't innocent, and it has nothing to do with being a werewolf, and everything to do with being a misogynist," Allison snapped. She kept her voice low and tried to mirror her mother's calm but terrifying tone she used to cow her dad's business rivals.
She probably used to intimidate werewolves, too.
Isaac didn't look intimidated - but he did look confused. "What?"
"You're just like every other guy who thinks that if they like a girl, they're entitled to her," Allison snapped in an undertone. A few classmates were eyeing her and Isaac warily, seeing their faces but not hearing their conversation. "As if we're all so desperate for a boyfriend that we should be grateful for the barest hint of male attention and drop our panties for the first dick that gets interested in us."
From behind Isaac, one row over, Scott grinned, proud and amused in equal measures.
Disturbingly enough, though, at the desk behind Scott, Erica also looked impressed. Allison ignored her.
"Well I have news for you," she continued, crossing her arms and ignoring their chemistry work completely. "Lydia doesn't owe you a damn thing just because you liked her. There are plenty of psychopaths in the world who kill women who reject them. Don't use the kanima to justify acting just like them."
Isaac's jaw clenched as he turned back to their chemistry work. After a moment, Allison did the same, making a note on the sheet that was supposed to stay with the table instead of the person.
"It doesn't matter what I think," Isaac said finally. "If Lydia kills someone after you could've stopped her, it's as much on you as it is on her."
Allison froze, pencil standing on the paper mid-word and mind reeling with déjà vu.
Her parents said almost exactly the same thing.
Swallowing, finished her section of the worksheet, her hands shaking so much that the handwriting was barely legible.
Mom and Dad told her a lot of things - and taught her a lot of things.
And long before that, Aunt Kate had taught her plenty, too. Looking back, so much of her bonding activities with her aunt were now obviously training in disguise. All their hiking, rock climbing, sparring, gymnastics, archery, shooting...but some things were less obvious.
In retrospect, the amount her aunt taught her to manipulate people...
She always disguised it as advice on how to make friends, how to flirt, how to do business - but so much of it was coming in handy with Hunting, Allison couldn't believe it was a coincidence.
The bell to change seats dinged, Isaac smirked, and somewhere on memory lane, Allison snapped.
"Regardless of whether or not she's the kanima," Allison said, voice as icy as possible as she shut her notebook. "You don't get to use 'protecting people' as justification. The only reason you want to kill her is because deep down, you are just as much of an abusive, entitled, and psychopathic asshole as your father."
Isaac paled, and behind him, Erica's gaze turned from reluctantly impressed to bluntly murderous, while Scott's eyes widened in shock.
"I'm not..." Isaac protested.
"No?" she asked sweetly. "I'm sure that's what your dad told himself, too."
He looked like he was about to cry as he stumbled to the next desk in his rotation. Erica bared her teeth at Allison in fury as she took her seat next to Isaac, the rage melting away as she turned to the boy and started murmuring low in his ear.
Whatever Erica was saying, Isaac either didn't hear her or didn't believe her.
"What was that about?"
Allison turned to Stiles as he slid into the seat next to her.
"I just made him face some hard truths," she said, opening her notebook again. "About how being a werewolf didn't make him a better person."
Stiles snorted as he tugged at the worksheet and compared it to the actual chemistry process. "It seems to make everyone into an asshole, honestly, even Scott." He paused, then murmured over his shoulder, "Sorry, Scott."
A moment later, a text chimed on Stiles' phone. No worries, it read, and Allison smiled.
"I talked to Jackson," she added. "I just asked him where he was at certain days and times...he said he's been having migraines."
"Huh," Stiles said, glancing over his shoulder before turning the pages of his notebook to a blank sheet. "Scott eavesdropped a bit in the locker-room, apparently he mentioned migraines to Coach once, so I guess it's true. Damnit. Would've been easy if it were just him."
In his notebook, Stiles wrote by hand, Did either of them say anything to you?
Stiles turned his attention to the chemistry project, squinting at the little lines on the beaker and writing down the measurement. Allison took the notebook and wrote with her own pen, Just that they think it's Lydia.
When he finished with his part of the mixture and read her response, Stiles pursed his lips. I'll turn them into fur coats if they hurt her.
Allison grinned, and wrote, Well, her birthday IS coming up, soon. Stiles snickered as Allison filled out another section of the worksheet.
We can make it a joint birthday present, he wrote, and Allison had to cover her mouth lest she laugh too hard.
She deserves something nice, she wrote.
Stiles' face, oddly, fell as he read that. Then slowly, he nodded, and wrote at the bottom of the page, Especially since this is our fault.
Allison swallowed, turning the page so they could keep chatting without the other werewolves overhearing them.
You really think so?
I know so.
She took a deep breath, centering herself as Stiles double-checked their work on the chemistry packet.
"We have to protect her," Allison murmured quietly.
Stiles nodded, not looking up from the packet. "We will."
Allison huffed in weariness, just as the bell dinged again.
"Werewolves," she grumbled.
Stiles nodded. "Werewolves," he agreed.
They shared a look, then looked over their shoulder and murmured in unison, "Sorry, Scott."