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

There's No Such Thing As Werewolves

What greeted her was not Donald's frenzied grin, but a wall of grey tile. "I—I don't understand," an unfamiliar male voice protested. "I thought you said we were going to an office."

"We are," Donald's voice declared. "We're going to my office."

"But this is the bathroom."

"You know, buddy, you are really perceptive."

"But why do we have to be in the bathroom to talk about your friend's movie?" the voice continued. "And we've got like two minutes till the bell rings. I can't be late for trig, Mr. Nester'll kill me."

Charlie swore loudly, slapping a hand to her forehead. "Donald, please don't tell me you've been showing around the video—I showed you that in confidence."

"Don't worry about that, Oz," Donald announced as the picture righted itself. His face settled into frame next to one she presumed belonged to the new voice. It featured a pair of rather skittish brown eyes hidden behind round-framed glasses, skin left bloodless and clammy under a somewhat rosy complexion, and a mop of dark hair brushed back with a compulsive neatness. "This is my dude Vincent from our A.V. club. I recruited him to help with that student film you're working on. You know—" he gave a wink so gratuitous Charlie's eyes rolled back until she was staring at her own occipital lobe "—you know that special effects sequence for the film that you wanted to submit to a couple of local competitions. Vinny here is a film buff. He's got all kinds of insight. Isn't that right, Vinny?"

If Vincent did, in fact, have any insight to provide, it died somewhere between his vocal chords and the tip of his tongue. He stared at her a moment, lips pinched in a thin line, before abruptly reaching forward and angling the camera away from him. "Dude," he hissed to Donald. "She's a hot girl! You didn't tell me 'your friend Charlie' was a hot girl! I was expecting some guy in an Invader Zim T-shirt!"

"So what if she's a hot girl," was Donald's blase reply. "She's a gross human like the rest of us. Look at her, she's got a bit of drool in the corner of her mouth and all that smudged mascara has got her looking like a mime school reject. You can't tell me that's attractive to you."

Charlie let out an unappreciative scoff. "It's five in the morning my time—leave me alone," she grumbled under her breath. But all objections were lost in the rapid-fire nonsense that was Vincent's stammering.

"I don't think this is a good idea—I—"

Though the camera was still aimed at two pairs of sneakers, Charlie knew Donald had planted a steadying hand on his friend's shoulder. "Look, Vinny," he said evenly, "I feel like your fear of talking to girls is mostly rooted in a fear of rejection. I get it, it's rough. But that also means that you're putting every single girl in the 'romance' box, and I'm sorry dude, but that is a pretty backwards ass way to treat people. When we look at Charlie, we don't see a girl. We see a nerd who is occasionally funny. Like you! Trust me, she's actually super-lame."

"Shut up, I'm awesome," Charlie growled.

Vincent let out a heavy groan. "Oh my God, she heard all that!"

"Of course she did—just because you can't see somebody doesn't mean they can't hear you. Object permanence, man."

"But—"

"Dude, chill," Donald reassured. "We're here to talk movies. Which is something you know how to do better than anybody else I know. Except maybe me. We good?"

The indistinct mumbling that followed apparently indicated in the affirmative, as the camera slowly angled back to the boys' faces. Some of the pink returned to Vincent's cheeks, though the flush of embarrassment was likely not his ideal alternative to the previous pallor. "Right, uh, so the movie..."