Black Water ↠ Stiles Stilinski [Teen Wolf, Vol. One]

Seeing Red

Oddly enough, sitting on a couch, licking artificial popcorn butter off her fingers, and watching Donald decimate a bunch of video game characters while giving the speech from Independence Day could be considered the most normal part of her weekend. The shadow of what had happened at the party cast a pall over the majority of the weekend. Lydia was probably completely ignorant of the misadventure—her Saturday would be dedicated to sleeping it off and Sunday served as the panicked cleanup for which Charlie was determined to be completely unavailable, what with all of the incredibly pressing things she had to do. Allison, though, had called Charlie the following morning to rehash the bizarre series of events. 

Actually, to call it 'talking' would have been somewhat of an overstatement. Charlie's lips didn't move enough to categorize her as an active participant in the conversation. It was more along the lines of listening to Allison going back and forth between wondering if Scott was okay or if she had done something wrong and the mildest expression of righteous anger Charlie had encountered in her life—if a dude bailed on her right before a kiss, she would be sketching out a retribution checklist. Charlie was left to nod and say 'mmm-hmmm' every minute or so. Emotional advice had never been her forte, but she could still listen. She was good at that.

Charlie had managed to cobble together a good number of the elements of that night in her head. Derek's appearance, Scott scampering off, Stiles apparently showing up at Allison's door, winded and wild-eyed....If she took all those odd events at face value, it was just freaking weird. Scott may have just had a panic attack, freaked out, and left. Maybe the prospect of kissing a cute girl had been too much for him and he bolted. Based on Jackson's grumbling, Scott McCall was not accustomed to being a lacrosse star or going to giant high school parties. But with Derek thrown in the mix, it was more mystery than random sequence of events. It was a puzzle, and Charlie liked puzzles. Usually she could solve them, be they little chunks of cardboard in a box, pieces on a chessboard, or people. It only took time and determination, and she had plenty of both. And what's more, she also had an inner line on random guy crap.

"Hey, Donald," Charlie drawled out as the boy blasted a tank with a laser cannon, "you're a guy."

"And it took you all this time to notice?" he laughed. "I'm going to try and not take that as an affront to my masculinity. I'll have to blow up more stuff in this game in a move of classic testosterone-induced overcompensation. Crap, Oz, I might even have to go out and buy a Hummer now. Just think of what you've done to the environment."

"Hilarious," Charlie deadpanned. "But I just had more of a general inquiry into bizarre dude behavior that you're better equipped to answer than I am."

"I do have that equipment," he replied, the immature grin in his voice making Charlie groan. "Alright, shoot."

"Okay," Charlie continued. "So this Friday I was at this party Lydia, the hot redhead, was throwing and while I was there this guy—"

Suddenly the image on the screen tipped to the side as the helicopter began spinning out of the air. His thumbs must have slipped against the controller. "Oh, gross," Donald gagged as the helicopter righted itself. "Is this actually you asking me about guys? Okay, so I know I made that crack about your love life the other day, but that was purely for comedic effect. If you are actually macking on someone, I can be spared the gory details."

Charlie let out an offended scoff. "Donald, you've gone into such explicit detail describing your crushes I might as well have been drawing a police sketch."

"Yeah, but that's me," he said dismissively. "You never have crushes. This is new and weird. I...do not care for it."

"Okay, that double standard is actually ridiculous," Charlie protested, sinking lower into the sofa cushions and wrapping her arms around her middle, "but I'm not asking for me. That other new girl I told you about—Allison—had a date and he sort of freaked out and bolted for no apparent reason right before they kissed. She wants advice—"