Burning Slowly

Chapter 15

Scott paced restlessly; he wished Lydia had been clearer about what was going on. Suddenly everything was different? Was Stiles ok? He growled low in his chest, if somebody had messed this up and Stiles was hurt more, if he was gone again, Scott didn't know what he would do.

He looked at his phone; the display told him that Lydia should be wandering by with Stiles in tow within the next few minutes. He did the little calming breathing exercises that Derek taught him. They didn't work; Derek was such an ass sometimes, he needed to learn how to teach better. Scott looked at his text messages again, reread the same message he had been reading over and over.

'Derek messed up, the game is changing, skip part a, I'll update in two hours, steer clear of big bad wolf if you see him.'

Scott didn't even remember what 'part a' was supposed to be, but seriously, what the hell had Derek done? Scott was ready to punch his face in. He wasn't afraid when he had to kick the Alpha who was on fire when it went after Allison, so he certainly wasn't afraid to kick Derek if he had hurt Stiles. He noticed his reflection in the window of the shop he was standing in front of. His eyes were pulsing amber, traces of dark anger evident, his canines were starting to elongate.

Happy place, happy place, he had to get to his happy place. He thought about the first night he had spent with Allison in the beach house. Anger drained out of him slowly and he started to drift...

"Dude, you have your Allison face on, what are you doing standing in the middle of the sidewalk?"

The words pulled Scott back into reality. He shook his head and glanced around. Stiles and Lydia were standing a few feet from him; oddly Lydia was taking shopping bags out of Stiles's hands. He looked up into the sky to make sure frogs weren't about to rain down.

"Well, I'm leaving," Lydia said, brief and authoritative.

Scott hated brief and authoritative, it made him think of Derek and wanting to curb stomp him.

"But-" Stiles started to say more, but Lydia was already walking away without looking back.

"What a bitch," Scott said, he hated that she was so short with Stiles. She didn't know what she was missing; she needed to open her damn eyes.

"It's cool," Stiles said.

Scott studied his friend for a second; normally he would have expected more from him than that. He reached out a hand, stopped it in mid air. Now probably wasn't the best time.

"Wanna get some pizza?" Scott asked. Stiles loved pizza.

"Yeah I guess."

Scott noticed, Stiles's eyes wander to the large brown paper bag he was holding with the top rolled down a bit. Normally Stiles would have been begging him, pushing him, and doing everything he could to convince Scott to tell him what was in it. Instead he just made a little huffy sound and crossed his arms over his chest.

"You go swimming today?" Scott asked.

"What?" Stiles shifted in place, looked down at the sidewalk.

"You're wearing swim trunks."

"No... I was just..." Stiles waved his arms in the air, like he wasn't sure what he was trying to say with his gestures.

A strong scent of something Scott couldn't identify hit him in the face, made him consciously examine the other smells. There was Allison, he loved that smell, even coming off of Stiles, Jackson, Lydia, Stiles's regular smell, sun block, and... and an overwhelming amount of Derek?

What the hell? If Lydia had just been with Stiles, and Derek hadn't been in over two hours, how did his stink linger all over his best friend? He narrowed his eyes, tried not to get mad. He tried really hard.