Blood Runs Cold

Chapter Ten

By the time Stiles was finished with school he had a massive headache and he felt sick to his stomach thanks to all of the smells and sounds he couldn't block out. Trying to focus in class had been impossible while at the same time Finstock was rambling on about some comparison of lacrosse to economics, down the hall some dude was taking the most massive shit of his life.

It fucking sucked and Stiles wasn't looking forward to having to deal with it again the next day.

Scott and Liam were covering for him at lacrosse practice, they had some story ready for Why Stiles wasn't able to make it. It's not like they really needed to, Stiles would never be too missed at practice, but it felt good that Scott was still on his side. Besides the obvious fear of him wolfing out, Stiles also just wasn't entirely sure he could make it through an entire practice without passing out from overstimulation.

He had never been good at focusing before thanks to his ADHD and apparently getting the bite had done nothing to solve that. It just gave him a million new things to fight for his attention and he just wanted to shut it all off.

The rumble of the motor of his Jeep was enough to block out some of the noises of the outside world. Stiles rested his head on the steering wheel and let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. It would get easier, he knew on some level, but when would it get easier was the question. He didn't want to fail all his classes because he was too busy listening to conversations and lectures halfway across the school.

Claws dug into the meat of his palms as he clenched his hands around the steering wheel and he hissed in pain. He had been good at keeping his claws in during the day but it was like as soon as he got to a semi-private spot he couldn't hold himself in any longer. All of his pent up anger just came bursting free at once.

He was just so fucking mad. Even knowing the anger was irrational overblown thanks to the wolf in his brain freaking out, he couldn't do anything to stop it. Every attempt he made to calm down just made himself get madder and madder. He was mad with Peter for putting him in a situation where he could get turned and he was angry with himself for not having prepared enough to avoid it.

Stiles forced himself to breathe in and out slowly, counting each breath. It was like calming himself down from an anxiety attack and he had plenty of practice with those. Thinking peaceful thoughts of cuddly bunnies hadn't worked so the only thing left for him to do was to trick his body into calming down.

It took five minutes of breathing exercises to make his claws retract. Five painfully long minutes where every single noise of teenagers horsing around in the parking lot made him want to rip a hole in someone's chest.

As he pulled out of the high school's parking lot, Stiles thought back to what Peter had said before they left to take down the caster. Stiles wanted to reason out the angry and violent side in him because that's how he could really make himself feel better. If he could understand why things happened, he could find ways to make them not happen. Peter had said that it wasn't the wolf side of werewolves that caused them to be cruel and violent, it was the human side. As he thought about it, Stiles wasn't entirely sure that he agreed.

Like yeah, obviously humans were the fucking worst and loved coming up with new ways of killing each other, but Stiles had never felt particularly murderous for no reason. His threat to kill Jackson had only been half exaggerated, but Jackson had been killing people and was a gigantic dick. Peter in his pre-death alpha days had honestly deserved to die so Stiles didn't mind his involvement in his death. As for the caster, the fucking claws that his nails could turn into were justification enough. But the thing that all of those had in common was that it was never anger that made him decide that yes, death is acceptable here , there had always been something more.