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.*･｡. WAITING FOR SUPERMAN .*･｡.
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013.
GUILTY NOT CARING.

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——

    "Stop glaring, Lo."

   The brunette rolled her eyes, rather judgementally, but kept on watching Erica adjust her hair in the mirror she had put in her locker. She fixed her red lipstick with a smirk. It made Lois want to ram her own head into a locker; it was quite that irritating.

   With Erica having turned, it was like having another Jackson.

    "Look at her face, Scott." Lois seethed, "Look at it!"

   He shrugged, "Her face looks fine,"

    "That's the problem!"

During their morning physics class, Scott had come up with the terrible plan of confronting Erica about Derek's next move. Seeing as Isaac couldn't come to school with his fugitive — and possible murderer? — criminal status, and right now Derek was refusing to talk to them or even stand near them with a ten-foot barge pole, he had decided that they needed to go to the most recent player in his game. The newest and shiniest pawn. It had been a tangent the whole way through their class, one that Lois had tried to listen to while completing her work (and failing in the latter), and one that she saw as a pretty damn stupid. So, she agreed.

She knew fully well that Erica wasn't going to tell them Derek's next plan, let alone who he was going to turn. There was no way.

   Lois understood that Scott felt obliged to protect everybody, like it was his sole purpose now that he was a werewolf, but he didn't see that he couldn't. Scott couldn't stop any teenagers from getting the bite, or change their mind. Not when it sounded like the better of two options; the life they had versus the life that they could have.

   They didn't understand what it would entail; the hunters, all of the fighting, the amount of danger that they would out themselves in. Derek hadn't told them that part, for if he had, Lois knew that Isaac and Erica probably wouldn't have wanted it. She knew all about the supernatural life, she had encountered it all first hand with Scott and Stiles by her side, and she certainly didn't want it. In fact, there was nothing she wanted less.

It had changed Scott's life.

   In so many ways, it had turned the boy's life completely upside down. And these changes were not all for the better, why couldn't they see that?

Lois knew that Scott wanted to warn the next teen about what would happen living this life, but she also knew that he couldn't. Scott couldn't change their mind if they saw it as an escape, as something even better than the life they had dreamed of living. She had learnt that Derek was rather convincing.

   But, she followed after him anyway.

    "Two's not enough for Derek."

   At his words, Erica body stiffened, only slightly. Lois watched intently as she relaxed as Scott continued to speak, even if she wasn't going to listen to him, "I know he needs at least three."

    "So, who's next?" Lois finished for him, crossing her arms over her chest and cocking a hip.

    "Why does there have to be a next—" the blonde spun on her heel and smile deviously, her eyes focused on the werewolf at Lois' side. She sauntered forward a few steps, though retreated an inch when the other girl glared icily, "—when we've already got you?"

   Scott stood still, his body like stone. Honestly, Lois had to give him props; she probably would have ripped Erica's throat out on the spot if she could do what they could, but it seemed like Erica's words hadn't even affected him. Not in the slightest. He was very grounded, having lived this life for months now. Scott knew where he stood, and what he wanted. He would never join them, and Lois knew that too, hence why her expression didn't even falter. It was a bond, that they had. One that Derek Hale wasn't able to try and break — he wanted Scott, but he couldn't have him. Not with Lois and Stiles by his side. They would never let him go.

    "Who's next?" He demanded.

   She was impressed. Lois had to admit, she had never seen her friend act so cold. He was a warm soul, but right now Scott was adamant to get what he wanted, and he wanted any answer that Erica could give him. Even if they both knew, deep down, that she wouldn't give them anything at all. It was worth a try.

   Scott would have felt even worse if he hadn't tried at all, and Lois mainly came along to make sure that he act too nicely.

   Clearly, her pep-talk about not being nice had worked.

   She was rather proud that he had taken her feedback on board.

    "Y'know, I never knew what I looked like in a seizure," Erica said with a frown, "Not until someone took a video of me once and put it online."

   Lois was bored already, "We don't care."

   Feigning hurt, Erica placed a hand over her heart and scoffed, which Lois happily reciprocated. She couldn't believe that she had used to defend Erica, and now the blonde hand ended up like this. It was a but of a slap in the face. Perhaps it was because she had reminded Lois too much of herself, when she had been grieving the most and felt like the worst person in the world, so she had acted that way. That was back in middle school, but it was similar.

   Erica had spent years suffering, so now she was trying to change that. Lois would have felt bad...

   If she wasn't a bitch.

    "It happened during class. I started seizing at my desk, and everyone was talking about how they should put something in my mouth," The blonde grew irritated at the thought, "Well, until some genius read the card on my key ring which tells him not to because it could break my teeth."

    "Erica—"

   "Do you know what happens next?" Erica whimpered, "I pissed myself. And they start laughing,"

   She slowly sauntering towards Scott who hedged backwards, sympathy now filling his eyes. Lois cursed. Watching as he soon felt guilty for something he hadn't been able to stop was an issue.

"I guess the only good thing about seizures was that I never remembered them," was what Erica said next, mustering a smile that grew angry. She then proceeded to shout and slam Scott into the lockers, the latter barely wincing at the impact. Erica moved in closer to his face and grit her teeth, "Until some brilliant jerkoff had to go and put cameras in everybody's phone!"

Marching forward with fire in her eyes, Lois ripped the blonde away Scott. She allowed her bitchy gaze to travel over Erica and pursed her lips in the most Lydia Martin fashion that she possibly could.

   "Cute story—" she mused, "—but, I really don't care."

After a moment of quiet, Erica let out an airy laugh. It was chilling in a way that it shouldn't have been, and it echoed through Lois' soul. Unfortunately for the new werewolf, Lois wasn't scared of her. How could she have been? She had been friends with Lydia since they were young, she had faced alphas and dead bodies, and she had fought hunters and new betas on nights of the full moon. Lois was sure that nothing could scared her now, she had seen it all. Nothing scared her — not even a bubblegum bitch with a set of new claws and an impeccably bad attitude.

Lois' expression was one of steel as Erica cupped her cheek with one hand, her sharply grazing over the skin. Lois didn't flinch.

"Look at me now, Lois..." She whispered, clicking her tongue when she received no reaction. The blonde gripped her cheek much harder, but Lois still didn't threat.

"...I'm invincible."

• • •

"You know, that was an awful plan."

Scott sighed heavily as he held a tissue filled with from his soda to the girl's cheek, hoping to stop the bruising early. "I know..."

    "Like, really awful—" Lois repeated. She grimaced when the ice started to melt and dripped along her jawline, but appreciated the fact that the boy was taking the cold from his drink to help her out, nonetheless. It was sweet, sweet in a very Scott McCall kind of way. "—as in, it couldn't have been any more awful, Scott."

    "Yeah..." he dragged out the word, screwing up his face.

   She was completely right. It had been an awful plan, one that he should've realised wouldn't lead them to anything useful, before it had turned so south and gotten Lois injured.

   He was quiet for a minute, glancing at his best friend with the guilty facial expression that only he could truly perfect. It was the same one that he had given her when he had almost attacked her on the night of his first full moon, when he had apologised for all of the terrible things he had said to her and Stiles. Scott had given her that exact look when he had forgotten to walk her home from a party back in freshman year like he promised, and the same one that appeared when he had eaten her last candy bar and made her cry. When Scott hadn't been at the station to help when Argent's hunter had nearly killed her, when he had heard that she wasn't sleeping due to the nightmares that had plagued her most nights after an incident from childhood — it was that look.

   Scott McCall had perfected that guilty expression and whenever Lois saw it, she felt the need to smack it off his face. He felt far too guilty for everything and, one day, he would have to learn how to stop. Compassion sometimes lead to darkness, they both knew it.

    "I'm sorry, Lo." He stared at blue tinge to her cheek, "I really should've pulled her off you, sooner."

    "I'm a big girl, Scott. I can help myself," she near scolded him, adamant not to be seen as weak. It was true — Lois had always been able to handle herself. But that didn't mean that Scott hadn't felt terrible each time something had gone wrong and he wasn't able to prevent it. She shrugged, "It hardly even hurts, anyway."

   A smile tugging on his lips, Scott had to resist from informing her of the small black vein venturing up the inside of his wrist, deciding that it probably wasn't a good idea.

   He knew that she hated feeling weak.

"So— what do we do, now?" Lois asked as she peered up at him through her thick lashes. Everything seemed to freeze, suddenly.

   In all the years of knowing her, Scott had never really seen Lois as anything more than a best friend. Sure, he had formed a crush on the girl the first time he had met her — which had only lasted a measly six months — partially because of her cool bike but other than that, she had just been Lois. But right now, as she looked up at him with those big brown eyes of hers and even with some soda sticking her hair to her face, he realised that Lois was actually kind of beautiful. Really beautiful, actually.

She was going to make someone really happy, one day.

   He knew it.

The brunette girl continued, unfazed by the odd way in which he stared. Scott often zoned out for no reason; he got distracted, sometimes. "How are we going to know who's next?"

"I'm not sure, but we'll figure it out." Scott assured himself more than her but she didn't really mind, "We always do, right?"

Well...he wasn't wrong. So, she nodded.

"Guys! Do you see—" Stiles quickly interrupted himself as he noticed the ice being held to his best friend's cheek, what had he missed? "Woah— uh, what happened here?"

"We tried to talk to Erica," Lois told him a bit too carelessly, pulling away from Scott and cringing at the sugared drink all over her face. She grabbed a napkin and wiped at it, cringing at the slight pain she still felt. "Safe to say; it didn't go too well."

"Well, I can see that—!"

Rolling her eyes, Lois ignored him, "Good observation."

Stiles let out a dramatic huff, though let the conversation go for the time being. There was no doubt that he would interrogate Lois later on to find out what had really happened, but for the current moment he decided to give her break. There was too much he had needed to say, right now.

"Do you guys see that?" He kneeled down between the back of their chairs and pointing towards an empty table not too far away.

    Whatever he was getting at, he seemed rather excited about. It was just a shame that neither of his friends quite understood, yet. There was nothing there.

"What?" Scott frowned as he stared, "It's just an empty table,"

"Yeah—!" Stiles emphasised, "But whose empty table?"

    "No one own these tables, Stiles—"

    "Just think!"

As Scott and Stiles spent their time bickering, it didn't take long for Lois to eventually rack her brain and figure out the answer to his question. In fact, it took hardly her any time at all. It was easy.

"Boyd."

Stiles nodded urgently, waving his arms around in signal for someone to do something, to say that they saw exactly where he was going with this — that he was right.

"I'm going to go to the ice rink, to see if he's there." Scott explained as the trio rushed out of the cafeteria, side by side and ready to stop Boyd from making the one of the worst decisions of his life. They pushed past a few people on the halls, ignoring the dirty looks that they got, racing to get out of the school. "And if he's not at home, you call me. Got it?"

At Stiles' sheepish expression, Scott faltered, "...what?"

"Maybe we should let him— Boyd, y'know?" Stiles shrugged his shoulders, once. "You said Derek's giving them a choice, right?"

"We can't—!" Scott immediately denied.

"You have to admit, though, Erica looks pretty good." He said, making Scott and Lois frown. They didn't really like Erica, at least not anymore. "You know—" Stiles hummed, "—I think the word sensational comes to mind."

Lois smacked his arm, scowling when he sent her a look. She didn't like the way he was speaking about Erica. Partially because girls weren't just pictures to be looked at, kind of because she had gotten onto Lois' bad side in the last couple of days, and because he had a beautiful girlfriend who was walking down the hall and right towards them.

"Oh, yeah?" Luna had heard him, "How good do you think she's going to look with a wolfsbane bullet in her head?"

Stiles hesitated, unsure of how to respond, but eventually sighed.

    "Alright— but all I'm saying is, maybe, this one isn't totally our responsibility."

"They're mine; they all are."

   Guilt laced through Scott's veins. He hadn't been able to stop Isaac or Erica, but he could stop Boyd. There wasn't a chance he was going to pass that up. "And we know that this thing is going to get out of control," he said, "We know about all of it. If we sit and wait it out, it's my fault. That makes me responsible,"

The three teenagers around him were quiet, unable to find a reason to tell him that he was wrong. It wasn't their job to stop Boyd from getting the bite, sure, but it would have been wrong for them to not even try.

"Then, we're with you." Lois was the first to speak up for all of them, nodding her head defiantly. Luna and Stiles didn't object, they knew that she wad right.

   She continued, "I mean— I don't like Boyd, like at all, but we have to at least try. I think I'd want someone to try and stop me."

Ignoring her comment about the boy, Scott smiled.

    "Thanks, Lois."

"I gotta say—" Stiles turned to Scott, "—this newfound heroism is making me very attracted to you."

"Shut up," Scott chuckled.

Lois and Luna thought they were strange.

"No, seriously— do you want to just try making out for a sec?" He kept prodding Scott's shoulder, "Just to see how it feels?"

The moment of laughter was short lived. Shoving Stiles away from him, Scott shook his head and cracked a playful smile, fixed his hair the best he could. "Go to Boyd's house, remember to—"

"Call you," Stiles nodded, "I know."

"I'll probably end up doing the calling." Luna was the first to comment on the plan they had created, raising an eyebrow when she noticed the confusion in the air. She scoffed once, "What? You don't think that I'm seriously letting him go alone, do you?"

"You don't have to, I'll be fine." Stiles assured.

   He didn't want her to get hurt if anything were to happen to them, which Lois found sweet but unrealistic. Luna was apart of this, now. She had been for months. Since almost the very start, when she had walked into the locker rooms when Scott had wolfed out and was trying to kill them. There was no point in trying to keep her out of danger now, because they were all far in too deep.

"No, no— it's a good idea. We'll split up," Lois agreed. She usually went with Stiles, but this time she didn't mind. "Luna goes with Stiles, and I'll go with Scott."

Before she could walk in the direction of Scott's bike, she was carefully tugged back into the boy she called her best friend. He held her arm gently, his eyes fluttering up to observe her now bruised cheek, courtesy of Erica Reyes — he didn't want her to go. He didn't want her to get hurt, again.

But, that was selfish of him. And knowing that there was nothing he could have said to change her mind — for when Lois made a decision she always stuck to it — he didn't bother. Instead, Stiles sent her a small smile, "Be safe, okay?"

She grinned, "Aren't I, always?"

——

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