Nick Bennett was not exactly the parenting type. Well, he really hadn’t thought he was. The last year however, had taught him better. He’d learned to change diapers, spent more time in a bloody nursery than he did in his own bed and knew how to make a baby stop crying. Okay, he knew how to make Alex stop crying. Sitting with his back against the headboard, the vampire stands their nearly year old son up on his lap, smiling. Alexej giggles in return, tiny hands curling around his father’s fingers. “Would you look at that. Alex is standing!” He leans forward, giving the baby an eskimo kiss. Cole was…out doing Coleish things, leaving Nick and the baby to wreck havoc. Okay no, they generally just watched cartoons and ate cereal. But whatever. Alexej coos, as Nick lets him lean forward, his head resting against the vampire’s chest. He drops a kiss on the baby’s forehead, the sound of the door swinging open catching his attention. “Hey, I think your Daddy’s back..”
It’s a pride thing.
See, Stiles doesn’t actually want to become a werewolf. He doesn’t. Well, like, sometimes he thinks “yeah, it’d be super fucking convenient if I didn’t have this broken nose” or “bug bites would be a thing of the past; I would literally never have a bug bite ever again,” but, generally speaking, he knows that lycanthropy is not always a glamorous thing. You know—uncontrollable rage, an overabundance of facial hair, getting shot at on a daily basis. That sort of thing.
Stiles doesn’t want to become a werewolf.
Not right now, anyway. Though, with his life, it’s best to keep all his options open, you know, just in case.
But Isaac had said something the other day at lacrosse practice; maybe if anyone else had said it, ever (Boyd, Erica—hell, even Jackson) it might not have been a big deal. But Isaac had said it, and well.
Stiles doesn’t consider himself a competitive person by nature. He’s kind of the king of the Beta Males as far as he’s concerned; clever enough to crack jokes that go over the Alpha Males’ heads (thus not offending them into Hulk Smash) while accepting that he’d lose to them in any show of athleticism any day. He’s got nothing to prove wit-wise and he’s not stupid enough to think his prowess is in raw masculine displays of strength. So, no, he’s not competitive.
But fucking Isaac.
People seem to think, these days, that Isaac is just the best. They’re like “Isaac Lahey? Ohmygod, he’s so tall and that bone structure and he totally made me laugh the other day with that witty thing he said under his breath in chemistry!” And, okay, maybe it’s just Scott saying that last part, but still. Stiles isn’t buying it. He refuses to believe that Isaac has seen the light (of Scott McCall’s megawatt smile) and is now a reformed puppy.
Like, maybe no one else remembers this, but Isaac had been totally on board with the let’s-kill-Lydia fiasco of March 2011, and there’s a reason the Alpha Pack targeted him when they had “let’s get Derek Hale killed dead” on the mind.
And that reason is because Isaac is a sneaky, manipulative best-friend stealer who cannot be trusted.
And Stiles hates him.
And maybe people are like “Stiles, Scott totally needs a werewolf-bro for all of his werewolf-themed needs!” and “They can totally trade tips and tricks for not wanting to murder innocent people (see: you) on full moons!”
Bullshit. It’s all bullshit.
Maybe you could argue, too, that if Isaac hadn’t stuck his stupid nose where it didn’t belong (namely in Stiles’s one true friendship) then some of the really awesome parts of the last year wouldn’t have happened. Maybe you could say, “But, Stiles, being separated from Scott actually brought you and Lydia closer as friends!” and “But, Stiles, remember how you got laid that year? And continued to get laid? And are still getting laid? By the same person? A person Scott would never have been okay with you getting laid by if he hadn’t been occupied being besties with Isaac?”
To which Stiles would say, “Fuck you and your logic!”
So, when Isaac said at lacrosse practice the other day, after taking too much satisfaction out of tackling Stiles to the ground (because Stiles is pretty damn sure this hatred of his is mutual), “Maybe you should ask Derek for the bite sometime so you don’t suck so much.”
Stiles had been halfway to saying, “I didn’t see you making the championship-winning goals last season, you curly-headed douche,” when Isaac had continued.
“Not that Derek would ever give it to you, anyway.”
