Ember

Compelling Argument

A/N: ... Happy New Year? XD

The good news is my computer is more or less fixed (still has some issues but at least it's usable) so I'm back to writing! The bad news is writer's block is a pain and I've had to rewrite this chapter three times so far. The third time's the charm, right? Or at least it's what you're getting.

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October 4th, 2009

Hero Hair(4:52p.m.): Are you free?

Stiles stares momentarily at the text that interrupted his homework, wondering what Stefan could possibly want with him until the memory of a whole person shoved in the Salvatore cellar hits him. It feels like so long after the full day he'd had at the Bennet house, but it's only been three- oh, right, that's why.

The vervain is probably out of his system.

Stiles(4:54p.m.): yep

Stiles(4:54p.m.): b there in 15

Hero Hair(4:54p.m.): Ok.

It's easy enough to leave schoolwork for another time – yay procrastination – and flip through his recently named Supernatural Notepad for the list of questions he'd come up with for the news guy. Aunt Liz and Caroline are thankfully out – the first working and the latter doing something related to the school committee – so he doesn't have to explain his haste to leave or make up a reason why his cousin can't come along. He glances through the questions one last time before adding a final one and shoving the notepad into his pocket as he leaves.

The ride to the boarding house is filled with the sound of his foot nervously tapping against the floor, and by the time Stefan opens the door his anxiety seems about to reach an all-time high.

"So he's awake?" He asks, stepping past the vampire and into the house, "He's gotta be, right? For the whole compulsion thing to work. How exactly does that work, by the way? It's got to affect something in the hippocampus or the prefrontal cortex, has anyone ever been scanned while-"

"Stiles," Stefan places a hand on his shoulder to stall his pacing. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Yeah, sorry," he makes a point of taking a deep breath and holding it before letting it out loudly as if the sound was equivalent to the expected effectiveness of it, "but you'd be lost without me," he points out, fishing the notepad out of his pocket and presenting the pages of questions to the vampire, "I'm just on edge, maybe it's the possibility of kidnapping charges, but who cares about a potential twenty-year sentence right?"

The eternal teen's expression tells him the possibility hadn't even crossed his mind, which might make sense for a nearly immortal being but still shows an incredible carelessness regarding the consequences of his actions, or at least their potential ramifications for people without a built-in imperius.

Is that a supernatural thing or a Stefan thing? He muses silently.

"It'll be fine," Stefan insists, though Stiles can't help but notice a slight waver in his tone and look at him questioningly, "Well... I should tell you, my compulsion isn't quite as strong due to my- lifestyle choices."

"You don't feed on humans, so your mojo isn't completely reliable, is that it?" He inquires incredulously. "Shouldn't you have thought about this before kidnapping the news guy?"