little mccall || stiles stilinski

Keep Your Eyes Open

The first thing I do when I get home from school is text Tessa and ask her to come over. I'm trying to be independent, but I can't do this without my partner in crime. Luckily for me, she is the most loyal person in existence so she drops everything to come over.

I wouldn't say that I'm panicking. No, that would be embellishing things. Sure, I'm anxious. The more I think and speculate about what could be happening, the worse my hypothetical situations get. After a while, it gets to a point where I struggle to draw a single breath, so I try to distract myself.

I make my bed, set out my laptop, and grab snacks in preparation for our research session. I'm hoping that I passed some time doing that, but when I glance at my watch, it tells me that all of that work only took me about two minutes.

I run back downstairs into the kitchen. Cookies. I'll make cookies. Baking isn't my strong suit, but we buy precooked dough anyways. Bad cooking runs in the family.

I'm placing the cookies in the stove when Scott walks downstairs. I feel my spine start to tingle, which is ridiculous. This is my brother. Why would I be scared? But he's been different lately. He's not acting like my brother. I understand that it's likely not his fault, but it's hard to calm myself down when I'm so in the dark about everything.

"Cookies?" He smiles looking over at the pan.

"Um," I stutter "Yeah, cookies."

"Save me some, please," He begs.

"Okay," Apparently I suck at acting because Scott can definitely sense how uncomfortable I am.

"Are you scared?" He sniffs. Sniffs?

"No, why would I be?" I ask, trying even harder to look natural, but he still doesn't buy it.

A knock on the the door interrupts whatever awkward tension was building in the kitchen.

"It's probably Tessa," I say at the same time Scott says "Must be Stiles,"

We both shuffle to the door, stepping in front and over each other the whole way there. Turns out I was right, because Tessa is standing in the doorway with her eyes darting quickly between between me and Scott.

"Hi!" I blurt.

"Um, okay," Tessa side eyes Scott as she steps through the door.

As we make our way back to the kitchen Tessa asks "So what's going on?"

I can't really explain what I really need to her while Scott's inches away from us so I just tell her "Baking cookies!"

"Really?" She sounds frustrated, which is understandable. The friend emergency text is a big deal, and definitely meant for baking cookies. I try to send her a look implying there's more to the story, but I'm not sure how to so I just end up looking slightly crazed. Surprisingly, she catches on.

"Okay well, I've gotta go," Scott scratches the back of his head.

"Where are you going?" I question a little too intensely.

"Derek's," His eyes go wide once he realizes what he said.

"Hale?" Tessa asks, just as confused as I am.

"Isn't he, like, old?" I add.

"And a criminal?" She continues.