"Don't bury thoughts that you really want,"
•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••
Allison drives the two girls in her car - as Lydia's car was totalled. They were heading for the address Scott told Allison they were going to. None of the girls recognized the address - it belonged to a house in the suburbs.
Lydia traces the outline of her bruise with a marker - trying to get a clearer image of what it was.
"I don't know... It doesn't look like much to me." Lydia skeptically says, holding her arm against Allison's again.
"It's a pattern. It means something." Isabel confirms again, Lydia's eyes soften as she looks at the younger girl.
"You really think Scott's gonna know what it is?" Lydia asks Allison.
"No, but he might know someone who does." Allison sighs, keeping her eyes fixed on the road.
"How are you so sure that it means anything at all?" Lydia quizzes the two girls.
"Because that girl wasn't just looking for Scott - it's like she needed to find him, like, she had to, and that means something," Allison answers, determinedly.
•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••
"What?" Stiles asks Scott.
Scott looks over to see Stiles staring at him. The two walk down the street of the suburban street Stiles had taken them to.
"What do you mean, 'What?'" Scott frowns.
"I mean 'What?', and you know what." Stiles counters.
""What" what?" Scott questions again, genuinely confused now.
"That look you were giving!" Stiles accuses.
"I didn't give a look." Scott scoffs.
"Oh, there was a distinct look, Scott." Stiles insists.
"What look?!" Scott asks, exasperatedly.
"The look that says the last thing you feel like doing right now is going to a party!"
"It's not that... It just seems weird, going to a different high school's party." Scott shrugs, looking around at the surrounding houses.
"What? Would you..." Stiles trails off and groans. "God, one drink, all right? You'll be fine! I went to nursery school with this girl, okay? She promised to introduce us to all of her friends. So, tonight, no Allison, no Isabel. Tonight, we're moving on."
He can't tell whether he is trying to convince Scott or himself. Part of him felt guilty coming here. No part of himself wanted to 'move on', but he was too scared he had already lost his chance with Isabel.
Scott pulls out his vibrating phone, spotting Allison's name on the screen as she tries to call him. He felt guilty already answering her message and telling her where they were going - but a part of him was desperate to see her.
"You're right." Scott nods.
"That's right I'm right!" Stiles exclaims, but he knew he wasn't. They were both too in love with the girls they possibly lost their chances with. None of them truly wanted to 'move on'.
"Moving on." Scott sighs, trying to psych himself up.
"Onward and upward!" Stiles agrees, both trying to convince the other.
"Let's do this." Scott nods, too late to turn back now.
"That's what I'm talking about. Now, look at me." Stiles says, holding his hand up for a high five.
Scott high fives him, Stiles turns, holds his hand out low and Scott follows his movements, low-fiving him before they make their way into the party.
"Okay. How's my breath smell?" Scott lowly asks.
"I'm not smelling your breath." Stiles shakes his head, body filling with anxiety as the guilt started to burn his throat.
"Do you have any gum?" Scott questions.
"No! No gum! You're fine!"
"Can you at least tell me what kind of party this is?" Scott says, but it's too late as they enter the doorway.
Scott looks around as a blond girl grins, approaching the two with a drink in hand.
"Stiles! Hi!" Her voice calls out. Stiles smiles back at the blond.
"Hey! There's the birthday gir-" He begins to greet, but he's cut off by lips meeting his.
His heart sinks, but it's too late. His eyes remain wide as freezes in place. Heather pulls away finally, not even noticing he didn't kiss her back. Scott watches with a shocked look.
"So glad that you made it!" Heather slurs.
"Me, too." He forces out, overwhelmed. He tries to turn and look at Scott but Heather demands his full attention.
"Come downstairs with me and help me pick out a bottle of wine?" Heather asks, but it wasn't a question. Before he can respond, Heather has pulled the boy away.
Scott moves forward, mouth open in shock as he approaches the girl he recognized - Danielle. She had helped sober up Stiles when Lydia had spiked the punch at her birthday party.
"Hey." He greets.
Danielle has an unreadable look on her face as she turns back from watching Heather and Stiles. She knew from watching at school that Stiles had something going on with the Martin girl.
She gives Scott a look of disapproval before leaving without a word to him. Scott looks back down at his phone to see Allison calling again.
"Hey, remember when we were little kids, and we used to come down here all the time, and then we would-" Stiles begins to talk to Heather as she quickly pulls him down the basement stairs. Heather cuts him off again by pulling him in for another kiss. He feels the hatred for himself building as he didn't have the confidence to push her off. "Yeah, we never did that." He awkwardly comments as Heather pulls away.
"Stiles... I just turned seventeen today." Heather slurs, dragging Stiles back between the wine racks.
Stiles hums in response to show he's listening, but he's really not. He's trying to come up with a thousand excuses to try and get out of there.
"And you know what I want for my birthday?" She asks, finally stopping. Stiles laughs nervously as he tries not to meet her eyes.
"A bike?" He jokes.
"To not be a seventeen-year-old virgin." She answers, causing Stiles to gulp. She kicks off her heels. She kisses him again, pulling back as she finally notices he's not kissing back. She instead messes with his belt, and his face goes pale. She just takes it as a sign of nervousness. "You've never done it before, either?"
"Turned seventeen? No, not yet, no." He tries to deflect. Heather gives an annoyed sigh.
"Stiles." She impatiently snaps.
"Yeah, maybe that other thing, too." He finally answers, awkwardly scratching the back of his neck.
"Do you want to? I mean, would you be okay with that?" She asks, Stiles spots his chance.
"Would I be okay with that?" He stammers, wanting to try and make an excuse so he didn't explicitly say no and hurt her feelings. "Well you know - I-I don't have any, uh-"
"My brother has some in the upstairs bathroom." She grins, taking his answer for a yes. His face drops at her answer.
"Oh, yeah?" He awkwardly says.
"Yeah." Heather drunkenly smiles. "You should go get them. Go!" She demands, pushing him up the stairs. He wordlessly takes his leave, almost stumbling into a wine rack as he does.
Scott leaves the party, receiving a text from Allison saying they were outside. His heart sinks as he looks at Isabel standing awkwardly next to Lydia. He sighs at Allison as he approaches.
"This isn't the talk we were gonna have, is it?" He tells the girl as he looks over at the two Martin cousins.
"I need to show you something," Allison says, shaking her head. She rolls up her sleeve and shows the bruise to the wolf.
Inside the party, in the upstairs bathroom, Stiles opens a drawer to see the condoms Heather was talking about. The guilt fills his body, but he takes a condom anyway and holds it in his hand as he runs a hand through his hair.
What was he doing? Was he really going to go back down there? Maybe he could just leave and tell her he had to leave.
His heart twists between the feeling of having lost Isabel and the feeling of wanting to fight for her back. He looks in the mirror and makes his decision. He needed to fight for the girl he loved.
He begins to make his way back down, he needed to tell Heather the truth, he couldn't leave her hanging without a reason on her birthday. Sure, she would understand, right?
Isabel enters the doorway as Scott talks to Lydia and Allison, examining the bruises on their arms. She wanted to speak to Stiles, she needed to. She missed him too much not to, it had been a hard four months without contact.
She freezes as she enters the party, spotting Stiles jogging down the stairs and frowns spotting something in his hand. She watches him fix his hair and take a deep breath before beginning to head down toward a doorway.
The sound of the front door shutting behind her catches his attention, his body spinning around. His body freezes up at the sight of Isabel, and his heart drops at the confused look on her face.
He watches the look fall into one of betrayal, his eyes following hers to the condom he stupidly held in his hand. He knew exactly what it looked like, but there was nothing he could do as she quickly leaves without a word, before he could even move a muscle.
He curses to himself as he looks at the basement door. He fights with himself internally for a moment before quickly placing the condom into his pocket and deciding to chase after Isabel. He spots Scott standing outside - watching Allison's car drive off.
He knows it's too late.
•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••
Derek agrees to meet the group at the school after Scott messaged that they might have a lead on Boyd and Erica's location. He stands next to Scott as Allison and Lydia hold their arms out, showing him the symmetrical bruise.
Isabel leans against the shelves in the back, as far away from Stiles as she could possibly get. She wasn't over the fact that he clearly was over them. He was about to sleep with another girl, yet she still couldn't get over him.
"I don't see anything," Derek says skeptically, drawing Isabel out of her daydreams.
"Look again." Scott sighs.
"How is a bruise gonna tell me where Boyd and Erica are?" Derek questions, frustrated.
"It's the same on both sides! Exactly the same." Scott tells the Alpha.
"It's nothing." Derek retorts.
Lydia shrugs. "Pareidolia." She comments. The group turns to her confused.
"Seeing patterns that aren't there," Isabel explains for the group, moving over to stand next to Allison.
"It's a subset of apophenia." Lydia quietly explains, only to annoy Derek further.
"They're trying to help." Scott quietly tells Derek. He give him an amused look.
"These two? This one, who used me and her own cousin to resurrect my psychotic uncle." He turns to Lydia and gives a false smile. "Thank you." He sarcastically says. Lydia shoots an apologetic look at Isabel. "And this one, who shot about thirty arrows into me and my pack?" He finishes, pointing to Allison.
"Okay, all right, now, come on. No one died, all right?" Stiles speaks up, but Isabel rolls her eyes.
"I almost died." She corrects him. Stiles gulps and nods, before attempting again.
"Look, there may have been a little maiming, okay? A little mangling, but not death! And that's what I call an important distinction." Stiles attempts. Isabel shakes her head at the boy.
"My mother died." Allison quietly says, narrowing her eyes at Derek.
"Your family's little honor code killed your mother, not me," Derek responds.
"That girl was looking for Scott. I'm here to help him, not you." Allison clarifies.
"You wanna help? Find something real." Derek shakes his head before leaving. Scott quickly follows after him before he leaves.
"Derek... Give her a chance. Okay?
They're on our side now." He quietly tells the older wolf.
"Well, then maybe you should tell her what her mother was actually trying to do that night." Derek raises a brow, fed up with the accusations when all he did was protect Scott.
Derek leaves without another word and Isabel sighs, moving forward and leaving the room too - not looking at any of the group as she leaves.
The group heads to their next class. Scott, Stiles, and Isabel had Economics together. Stiles takes his seat, spotting Isabel already sitting in her chair. His mouth opens like he wanted to say something but Coach slams his book on the desk, capturing his attention.
"The stock market is based on two principles - what are they?" Coach asks. He looks over as Scott raises his hand. "Yes, McCall, you can go to the bathroom. Anybody else?" He questions.
"Uh, no, Coach - I know the answer," Scott speaks up. Coach wheezes as he laughs at the teen, he coughs as he notices Scott's face is serious.
"Oh, you're serious." Coach frowns.
"Yes. Risk and reward." He answers.
"Wow! Who are you? And what have you done with McCall? Don't answer that! I like you better! I like you better! Does anybody have a quarter?"
The class checks their pocket for a quarter, Stiles digs in his pocket and pulls out the quarter - causing the XXL condom to fly out onto the floor with it. Isabel looks over and drops her eyes back onto the desk sadly. Part of her was glad he never seemed to go through with it - the other wondered why he even had it in the first place.
Coach reaches down and picks up the item. "Stilinski, I think you, uh...You dropped this." Stiles' face falls as he goes pale, completely forgetting he still had it. "And congratulations!" Coach lowly comments, causing scattered laughter across the room.
Scott looks over at Stiles and quickly glances back to see Isabel staring off through the window. He gives a sad smile to Stiles as he catches him looking at the girl.
Coach takes the quarter and heads back to the front of the class, "Risk and reward! Put the quarter in the mug, win the reward!" He tells the class, holding up the mug and placing it on the ground. "Okay, watch Coach." He announces.
He kneels down, blowing on the quarter before lining up the shot. He throws the quarter and it lands in the mug. The class applauds as Coach grins.
"That's how you do it! Okay, Danny... Risk? Reward?" He asks.
"What's the reward?" Danny frowns.
"You don't have to take the pop quiz tomorrow." Coach shrugs.
"Coach, it's not a pop quiz if you tell us about it," Danny tells the teacher.
"Danny, you know, I really expect more from you at this point, really." Coach shakes his head, moving forward to Scott's desk. "McCall! Risk. Reward. The risk: if you don't put that quarter in the mug, you have to take the pop-the, the quiz. And-and you have to write an essay! Risk - more work. Reward - no work at all. Or, choose not to play."
"But isn't this just chance?" Scott questions. Coach frowns.
"No! You know your abilities, your coordination, your focus, past experience. All factors affecting the outcome. So, what's it gonna be, McCall? More work, no work, or choose not to play?" Coach asks again. Scott pauses, looking at the quarter before placing it back down. "No play." Coach vocalizes with a nod. "Okay, who's next? Who wants the quarter?"
Stiles pounds on his desk rhythmically as he decides to play, he was already down on his luck - what more could go wrong? Coach grins as someone takes the chance.
"There ya go! There's a gamblin' man! Come on! Step up, step up! All right, Stilinski!" He bends over as Stiles lines up his shot.
Isabel looks up as the classroom door opens, revealing Noah Stilinski alongside another officer. He looks at his son before shaking his head. "Stiles." He calls out.
"Yeah, Coach, I got it," Stiles mumbles, focusing on the mug.
"Stiles," Noah calls again, Stiles immediately looking up at the tone. His face drops as he realizes something is wrong. He follows his dad into the hallway, his dad telling him about Heather's disappearance.
"I went back in, but I couldn't find her. I just figured she'd hooked up with her other friends. Has no one really seen her since last night?" Stiles questions, having explained what happened that night to his dad.
He tried to ignore the disappointed look that his father gave as he explained what happened. Noah sighs.
"No. We put out an APB, but... Stiles, all her friends say you were the last person who saw her." Noah tells his son.
"Me?" Stiles asks, confused.
"We hope that it's just a series of bad decisions based on too much to drink. But, if you remember anything else, you call me. All right?"