Chapter Text
The itch started somewhere around the base of Alec’s spine right after dinner, a restless, humming current that made his knee bounce hard enough to rattle the coffee table in Derek’s loft. It wasn’t the wolf. The wolf was perfectly fine, curled up and quiet in the back of his mind. It was just him. His brain was a radio stuck between stations, playing static and three different songs at once.
Did I finish that English essay? Principal Thomas is definitely going to suspend me if I wear the combat boots with the metal spikes again. I should probably care about that. I wonder if Liam wants to play Xbox. No, Liam is asleep because normal people sleep.
"Stop vibrating," Theo muttered from the armchair, not even looking up from his book.
Alec sprang up from the couch, grabbing his heavy denim jacket. "I'm going for a run."
Theo finally looked up, his eyes narrowing in that hyper-suspicious. "Where to? And don't tell me 'just around.' There are still hunters out there, Alec."
"Just around," Alec grinned, zipping up his jacket. "Relax, mama. I know how to use my nose. I'll smell trouble before it sees me."
"You're a dumbass," Theo sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Don't get shot. If I have to explain to Derek why there's blood on his expensive hardwood floors, I'm letting you bleed out."
"Love you too, Theo!" Alec called out, already half-way down the sliding metal door.
The moment his boots hit the dirt line of the preserve, the itch lessened. He didn't shift fully—he didn't need to. He just let his eyes bleed gold to catch the ambient moonlight and took off. The cold air rushed past him, carrying the scent of pine, damp earth, and asphalt. His thoughts finally stopped screaming and smoothed out into a driving, steady rhythm. Left, right, dodge the root, duck the branch. It was simple. It was momentum.
He didn't really have a plan, just a fluctuating trajectory aimed generally upward toward the old lookout point. Usually, it was empty. Usually, he could sit on the edge of the cliff, dangle his legs over the drop, and let the sheer altitude force his racing mind into a quiet, grounded rhythm.
He burst through the final line of trees, skidding slightly on the loose gravel, and immediately halted.
The spot wasn't empty.
There was a car parked near the edge—a somewhat beat-up sedan. The engine was off, but the radio was on low, a moody, rhythmic bassline bleeding through the glass alongside a woman's voice singing something low and hypnotic. Sitting on the hood, staring blankly out at the scattered, neon lights of Beacon Hills, was a guy.
When Alec’s boots crunched the gravel, the guy flinched violently, his shoulders snapping up to his ears as he scrambled backward against the windshield, eyes wide and terrified.
Alec instantly threw his hands up in a universal 'I come in peace' gesture, though he knew he probably looked like a nightmare—feral, breathing hard, dirt literally smudged across his cheek, and wearing a jacket that looked like it had been through a war.
"Whoa, hey, chill," Alec said, his mouth moving before his brain caught up, stepping out of the shadows. The pale moonlight hit the stranger's face. Pale skin, dark, exhausted eyes with circles so deep they looked bruised. He looked like he was about to vibrate right out of his own skin. Alec recognized him.
"I saw you talking to Liam the other day," Alec blurted out, dropping his arms and stuffing his hands into his jacket pockets. Standing still was making the itch come back, so he rocked back on his heels, talking to fill the sudden, tense silence. "You're in my literature class, right? Nolan? I sit in the back. I'm the guy who got yelled at for wearing a chain wallet on Tuesday. Which is stupid, by the way, because it's an accessory, not a weapon. Unless things get weird, but they usually don't in second period."
Nolan just stared at him. His chest was rising and falling rapidly. "You're... you're Alec," he managed to say, his voice tight, scraping against the night air.
"The one and only," Alec beamed, completely ignoring the sheer panic rolling off Nolan in waves. He sauntered closer, not aggressively, but with the loose, casual energy of someone walking into a cafeteria. He leaned his hip against the side of the car, right near the headlight, putting himself in Nolan’s line of sight but keeping a respectful distance.
The music from the car radio was pulsing steadily.
"You come up here a lot?" Alec asked, tilting his head. He could hear Nolan's heartbeat. It was frantic, a hummingbird trapped in a jar, but the longer Alec stood there—just talking, just being an annoying, chatty teenager instead of a monster out of the dark—the heart rate began to stutter, slowing down by fractions of a second.
"Sometimes," Nolan swallowed hard, his grip on the edge of the hood loosening just a fraction. He looked utterly exhausted, like he was carrying the entire town on his back and hadn't slept since last year. "It's... quiet."
"Yeah, well, my brain is never quiet," Alec admitted cheerfully, tapping the side of his head. "It's like a beehive up there. Plus, my roommate is a total control freak and thinks I'm going to get myself killed every time I walk out the door, so I gotta burn off the energy. You hiding from someone, or just hiding from homework? Because if it's the literature essay, I completely gave up on it an hour ago."
Nolan blinked, completely thrown by the conversational whiplash. The tension in his jaw slackened in sheer confusion. "I... the essay is due tomorrow."
"Exactly," Alec said, grinning. "A tomorrow problem. Tonight is for dirt, daylight's for the consequences."
Nolan let out a sound that might have been a scoff, or maybe a broken half-laugh. It was rusty, like he hadn't used it in a while. He shifted his weight, pulling his knees up slightly, looking at Alec like he was a puzzle with missing pieces. "You're weird."
"I get that a lot," Alec replied brightly. He didn't move to leave. He just leaned against the cold metal of the car, letting the rhythmic bass from the radio wash over them. Nolan didn't tell him to leave, either.
Up on the cliff, with the town asleep below them, the frantic energy inside Alec finally settled, matching the slow, moody pulse of the song. He looked over at Nolan, noting the way the neon glow of the dashboard lights illuminated the exhaustion on his face.
Yeah. They were definitely going to be friends.