Empathy.

Wolf Moon

Maeve had about 17 missed called from the one and only Stiles Stilinski, followed by several texts yelling at her to either pick up her phone or go straight home after swim practice. There was a sense of panic immediately as she managed to somehow get her jeans on her legs when they were still soaking wet from the showers.

As she ran into her house from Danny's car, she found her brother surrounded by papers and books, his fingers furiously typing on his laptop as his printer kept on releasing sheets of paper.

"Is everything alright, what's going on Stiles?" The brunette frantically asked as she threw her swim bag down the hallway towards her room.

As Stiles turned in his chair to look at his twin - it was so quick Maeve was surprised he didn't get whiplash. She scanned the papers around him, noticing drawings of half-man, half-dog like creatures on the papers, along with words lycanthropy and wolfsbane.

"I need all your research," the male twin bluntly stated.

She looked at him in disbelief, "But Stiles you said that wasn't-"

"I know what I said Maeve, but I also know what I saw today at the scrimmage, I know that no amount of lacrosse practice could give Scott the ability to flip over two players like a gymnastics routine, and I know from the intense smell of coffee from the kitchen and your bedroom that you spent the entire night doing research. So, please grab your shit and bring it in here so I can look at it."

Maeve was taken back by the sudden and somewhat aggressive words of her brother, though she heard the seriousness and even the fear in his voice. With a simple nod she quickly went to her room, placed her backpack down and picked up the papers she organized, typed, and printed, bringing it back to Stiles' blue room as closing the door.

He intensely looked over her notes while she picked up one of the books he had opened on his desk, and for the next few hours they just kept going through research about werewolves, following folk tales and stories that have taken place throughout history. Neither of them talked besides random blurbs of new information they'd find.

Both Stilinskis jumped when sudden knock on the door interrupted their mutual silence, Stiles quickly got up to open the door, pulling Scott in as if he wasn't supposed to be there.

"You gotta see this thing, Maeve was up all night reading," the spasic boy started, Maeve closed her book and sat up on her brother's bed. Her hair falling out of its bun, eyes bloodshot from the lack of sleep as she didn't even realize what time it was.

"How much adderall have you had today?" the shaggy haired boy asked in response to Stiles' frantic rambling.

Stiles just nudged his head, "A lot. Doesn't matter."

Scott turned to face the sleep deprived girl, noticing that even if her eyes looked tired, the pen in her hand was profoundly shaking, "And how much coffee have you had?"

It took Maeve's brain a few seconds to process that Scott was speaking to her, "three."

"Three cups, not as bad as I thought."

"Three pots."

Scott looked concerned by this information, but Maeve's mind was lagging so much she didn't seem to care that her heart was running a marathon while her mind was crawling up a hill.

"Okay just listen," Stiles grabbed Scott's attention, he started going into the previous conversation from when they were in the woods as Scott sat next to Maeve on the bed.

"Remember the joke from the other day? Not a joke anymore." Scott turned to Maeve to see if this was just another joke but the brunette only shrugged her shoulders. "The wolf - the bite in the woods. We started doing all this reading, Maeve actually started before me. Do you even know why a wolf howls?"