04: Triggers

Skylar found herself alone for once during her free period, deciding to let Ariel's good influence corrupt her as she found herself in the library. She wasn't sure if she had been in here before. After wandering around, she manages to find a quiet space away from others, pulling out her books and sighing.

"I can't believe I've sunk this low," she mutters to herself.

A cough makes her jump and looks up to a pair of amused brown eyes, "Are you, dare I say, studying?"

Sky looks away, quickly flipping her book face down, "I would never."

Ariel hums as she slips into the seat next to her, "Of course."

Sky shuffles awkwardly, "How did you find me?"

Smirking, Ariel leans forward with her head in her hands, "Well, McCall, as the observant person I am, I couldn't help but notice the foreign entity that is you, enter the library."

Sky glances around them, "I'm not that obvious, am I?"

"I almost felt you shudder as you walked in."

Sky's eyes roll, "Is there something you wanted, other than to grace yourself with my presence, Martin?"

Ariel sighs, "Yes. I guess I wanted to know if you were okay."

"Oh."

Ariel smiles at her, "We are friends, aren't we?"

Sky swallows, "Yeah," she waves her hand. "I'm dealing. Did you tell anyone what you saw?" she asks quietly.

Ariel scoffs, "As if anyone would believe me. And besides, I wouldn't do that to you," She places her hand on her arm.

Sky takes a deep breath, forcing her heart rate to calm. She was not going to turn in the library because a girl touched her arm.

"Well," Sky clears her throat. "We discovered that playing an aggressive sport like lacrosse wasn't exactly helpful when trying not to trigger our new violent beast tendencies."

Ariel chuckles quietly, "I can imagine," she pauses to look at her with serious concern. "You know you can come to me if you need anything, right?"

Sky bites her lip, nodding. She then cracks a smile, "Careful," she warns. "Us McCalls are like worms. Once you let us in we won't stop burrowing our way into your heart." she jokes.

A smile spreads across Ariel's face and Sky finds herself basking in the warmth of it.

"I don't see anything wrong with that."

***

The buzzing of her phone jolts Sky from where she had fallen asleep watching a movie on the couch. Groggily, she lifts herself up and blindly fumbles for the device, rubbing her eyes as she grabs and unlocks it. Reading through her messages, she realises she had been asleep long enough to miss Scott and Stiles leaving to look for the other half of the body in the woods. They had been sure Derek was involved and wanted to prove it.

Another vibration comes through her phone as a text from an unknown number came up. Sky furrows her brows as she opens it, only to be pleasantly surprised.

"Hey, it's Ariel. Stiles gave me your number." it read. Sky quickly adds the number to her contacts before replying.

"The amount of personal information Stiles is giving out alarms me."

"It should. Are you watching your brother play tomorrow night? I know he's playing now."  Sky frowns when she realises she would have to still go. She needs to make sure Scott makes it through the game safely.

"Yeah. I need to make sure he doesn't maim anyone." Sky replies.

Ariel's reply is quick, "Well, I'm hoping I don't have to sit next to Lydia..." she trails off.

"And you want to sit with me?"  Sky wonders.

"Why, yes McCall. Thanks for the offer."

Sky could practically feel the smirk through her phone, "Well played."

"You know you love hanging out with me. See you tomorrow, Sky. x "

Sky stares at the 'x' on her screen for a solid five minutes.

***

The following night, Sky makes her way up to the stands and plants herself down on one of the benches closest to the lacrosse field. She watches her brother warm up, thinking about what he had told her about the night before. It turns out that they had actually been able to find the other half of the body, enabling the police to arrest Derek, but in doing so discovered that they had a bad reaction to wolfs-bane. It had been surrounding the body when Stiles picked it up and kept it in his bag, leaving it to slowly affect Scott.

A hand landing on her shoulder startles Sky out of her thoughts and she turns her head to see Ariel smiling and moving to take a seat next to her.

"So, why didn't you want to sit with Lydia?" Sky asks as they watch the boys jog onto the field.

Ariel simply points behind them, where Lydia was sitting next to Allison with a rather large sign displaying the words, 'We Luv u Jackson'.

"Ah."

The game soon starts, and as time goes on it becomes painfully obvious to Sky that Jackson had taken it upon himself to make sure Scott never gets the ball, making her clench her jaw as she glares at him from a distance.

As the game went on, Sky could see how aggravated Scott was starting to become as it seemed like both teams were against him. Sky takes deep breaths as she tries to resist the itching part of her that wanted to stroll right onto the field and rip Jackson a new one for ruining her brother's first game. He had always been a bit of a bully to him, which is where most of her deep-rooted hatred for him came from. And now with extra anger issues with becoming a werewolf, she has to struggle daily with not outright clawing his face off when she so much as catches a glimpse of him at school.

The crowd cheers for Jackson once again and she sees Scott turn towards them, no doubt seeing the girl he likes holding up the sign with Lydia. Sky notices his eyes flash yellow and, unknowingly, her own flash in return. Anger was simmering inside her.

Ariel inhales sharply when she notices the change in the girl next to her and grasps her hand, squeezing it tightly.

Sky leans her head down as she breathes heavily. She had never realised control would be so difficult.

Hearing another grunt from Scott had her tensing even more as she felt that she was about to lose it. Alarmed, the hand holding hers drags her up, quickly pulling her away from the crowd and towards the girls locker room.

"Skylar," Ariel says quietly but urgently as she closes the door. "Listen to my voice, I need you to calm down. Take deep breaths, okay?"

"I-- I can't," Sky groans as she hunches over.

Ariel grabs her shoulders, pulling her up to face her, "Yes, you can. You're already resisting it, otherwise you'd of clawed off my face by now," she puts her hands on Sky's cheeks. "Now look at me. Let me help you."

Sky lifts her golden eyes to meet the brown in front of her.

"I don't even understand why you're here!"

"Is now really the time for that? Just take deep breaths," She inhales and exhales slowly, making Sky copy her. "Yes. That's it," Ariel encourages.

Sky's breathing eventually slows, her heart rate lowering and her werewolf features slowly but surely fading.

"Damn," Sky mutters after a moment. "You're good at this calming down a werewolf thing."

Ariel shakes her head, keeping her voice low, "No, I'm good at calming down you."

Sky swallows, "Everything you're doing for me -- I don't get it - I - " she stutters.

Ariel's head bows as she sighs, "You really think I like studying that much that I want to spend all my time doing schoolwork and tutoring, Skylar?"

Sky's eyes widen as she gapes cluelessly, "What?"

Ariel helplessly chuckles to herself, "God, I just wanted to spend time with you," she admits quietly.

"What?"

"Is it so hard to believe that I could possibly care about you?"

"What - Oh -"

A pair of lips cover hers, her eyes flutter closed and fingers move up to stroke her cheeks. Sky can't help but melt into the warmth of the girl in front of her as her own hands come to rest on Ariel's waist.

After a moment, they pull apart and Sky can only blink at her.

Ariel bites her lip as she smiles, "Was that alright?" she asks.

Sky clears her throat as she looks off to the side, trying to act cool as if her cheeks weren't on fire and her heart didn't feel like it was about to burst out of her chest, "I mean, I guess it was okay --"

Ariel narrows her eyes, "Okay?" she repeats.

"-- but I think you should at least try to do better."

Sky's lips form into a sly grin.

"Oh," Ariel mutters in relief before she grins back. "I can do that."

The girls lean into each other again and meet in the middle with soft sighs, pulling each other as close as they can as they kiss slowly. Sky's arms move to wrap around the other girl's waist, whilst Ariel's hands slide up and tangle in her dark brown hair.

Sky pulls away mid-kiss, "I could definately get used to this new part of our tutor-student relationship." she jokes quietly.

Ariel pulls her back in with a smile, "Shut up, Sky."

Eventually, they had to come to a stop when they realised they had pretty much missed the game. The players could be heard cheering and moving around in the hallway outside and in the locker room across from theirs.

Ariel absentmindedly smooths out the collar of Sky's jacket, "Well, if you hadn't noticed, I care about you -- a lot." she says.

Sky grins, "You like me."

"Unfortunately."

Sky sways back and forth on her heels, "I could, quite possibly - "

"You like me too, yes, I gathered." Ariel smiles, amused.

Sky frowns, "Alright, ruin the surprise."

"You're not exactly subtle with your staring, Sky."

Sky scoffs, avoiding her eyes, "I don't stare."

Ariel grins teasingly, "Such a shame. I was staring right back," she comments offhandedly.

Sky pauses, "I can barely tear my poor eyes from your blinding beauty," she corrects.

Ariel laughs and Sky smiles at the sound before she looks around and sighs, "I should go look for my brother. He's probably killed someone by now."

Ariel steps back, "Yeah, and I should find Lydia. I'll see you tomorrow?" she asks hopefully.

Sky reaches out and grips her hand, squeezing it gently before letting it go, "See you tomorrow."

She turns around and leaves. Sky keeps a straight face until she turns the corner at the end of the corridor and fist pumps the air with a quiet cheer.

She heads to the empty locker room where she can hear her brother's heartbeat in and barges in, stopping immediately and scrunching her face up in disgust as she sees him kissing Allison. She turns and walks back out the door.

"Gross," she mutters.