Chapter Text
It wasn't like he was looking for a werewolf dating site, okay.
No seriously, he was researching. It was how he spent a good 80% of his downtime these days—trying to read up on things that might kill him, or find out more about the things that were keeping him alive a lot of the time. Namely his best friend and the local werewolf pack.
Because seriously, this is his life now.
The forums were funny—being in the know, you could tell which members were just weirdo RPers, and which were legit wolves. And it was funny how often the real wolfs's threads had TOS violating complaints on them, about how "Come on man, real werewolves wouldn't be all emo over it—look how fucking cool they are now!" or, Stiles's favorite, "What an ass, don't you think werewolves would actually still have SOME empathy?"
One of the legit wolves who was named Dale Erickson was sort of Stiles's automatic favorite, because he played by the rules, never called people out for their bs werewolfisms, but he would point out inconsistencies in their stories that most people probably wouldn't pay enough attention to. Human things. Bad storytelling things.
And he about passed out laughing when he found Jackson on there.
So just for fun, he decided to make an account.
He knew about werewolves, and he'd played enough video games and read enough books and seen enough movies—he could tell a good story. He bet he could balance everything out and make a compelling character.
Or at least one more popular than The_Whittemore_Beast.
Yeah. Seriously.
What did Lydia even see in this guy?
So he went through a proxy to sign up for a brand new yahoo email address. And then he used the same proxy to sign up for an account on WOLFMOON.org
He filled in the fields. Name, Stephen Jacobs. Because lol Twilight is dumb and so is this site. Age, seventeen. Location, Northern California. Username, he paused, thinking.
TriskeleSpiral. Avatar, a Microsoft paint recreation of Derek's tattoo.
Lending to legitimacy and all.
Account made, he activated it with his fake email, and logged in. YOU ARE VISITOR: it told him, sans the number of what visitor he was. He laughed about it and got to work on writing his introductory post.
Hi. My name's Stephen. You can call me Steve. (Hi Steve!)
I've been a werewolf ever since I ran into this bundle of fur and red eyes and teeth in the woods a few months ago, and while I have sort of gotten used to the weirdness of changing against my will and running around chasing the neighborhood cats, I feel like I have a lot to learn. I've been browsing the net for tips and tricks a lot lately, and while some of the posts have been really useful… some were nearly disastrous. Telling people to break fingers that you have a pretty good feeling will heal is one thing. Having them order wolfsbane pills off of Amazon? Not cool at all. I sweated and hallucinated for days.
Not pleasant.
Anyway, I was hoping there might be like, an opposite-of-wolfsbane drug (catnip?) that I could take to maybe help me not get all toothy and naily at school? I get that a lot of it is not being pissed off, but that can be rough when you're the (ha) underdog.
He posted it, went over to his AIM window to see if Scott was logged in (not likely. Not since Allison, really—most of Scott's free time was either keeping them from getting killed, or making smoochy faces with her.
He flipped back to the other window and refreshed the screen.
Hey Steve. Where in NorCal are you?
Jackson operated with his usual amount of subtlety.
Bay Area. But seriously, it doesn't matter where the plants grow naturally, you can buy anything online these days.
Just to be dense. Noobish. Let Jackson think Stiles had no clue who he was.
This was fun.
Hey Steve. I'm Linda. The real answer to how to keep your inner beast tamed is to keep him satisfied if you get my drift. I do camera shows daily at eight PM PST, if you're interested. Here's the link. I take card. ;)
He hovered over the link, but scoffed when he saw the bit about needing to pay for it. Seriously, who actually paid for porn?
Sorry. Can't. Seventeen.
And then… nothing. He refreshed, and worried that he'd scared people away with the age thing. Half the accounts just wanted RPS anyway, but seriously? Can't even say hello?
Finally, there was a new one.
Steve:
Sorry, no magic herbs to make life easier. But if you can find a focal point for your humanity, an anchor, you can usually use that to try and balance yourself out. Like Peter Pan's happy thoughts, give yourself something that will be easy to bring to mind, and that calms you down.
-Dale
Stiles stifled a grin.
Yeah, okay, Dale was awesome, and obviously for real. Before he could answer him though, Jackson replied again.
I don't know about plants, but I have an alpha who would maybe teach you if you're looking for someone to learn from. Wolves are stronger in packs you know, and we could always use another beta. –J
Dale: Like a song, maybe? Would that work? Are we talking psychological triggers? Or are we talking Inception, spinning tops, tokens type of things? Seriously, I'll give pretty much anything a shot at this point.
J: No offense, but um BDSM sort of terrifies me, and also I'm underage, so you and your alpha probably don't want the trouble that would come with me, regardless of whatever kinds of membership bonuses you might get.
Amused and imagining Jackson's spluttering at that, he logged out and went downstairs to make himself something to eat.