Hello Darlings! Welcome to (A)Morality, the long awaited sequel to Virtue is Sin Corrupted. I'm going to say that reading ViSC is pretty much a requirement before starting this one. I did a lot to baby Stiles, so some things won't make sense unless you read that first.

Please be aware that I am planning on editing ViSC when I have free time and that this fic is on a roster with two others.

Enjoy!

This is not how this was supposed to go.

(The call comes in when Stiles is loafing around the police station - the fun calls always seem to - waiting for his dad's break so that they can go eat dinner. What with August heat boiling down on them, the police have been more than a little busy. This year has been particularly hot, too. Tempers, and crime, have been far more prevalent than usual. What is not usual, though, is Dad slumping across his desk, hand cutting through graying hair as he takes a call.)

The alpha's howl cuts through the night. Loud. Feral. Uncaring if the humans - the police. Shit the police! - hear. Humans and hunters and the police.

(A body. Well, half a body. Some hiker found it in the Preserve. Dad looks torn between sending Stiles home or telling him to stay at the station, probably in one of the holding cells to ensure he stays there. But sheriff's kid or not, that's still illegal. And not a great use of resources. Besides, the holding cells are full. One of the mostly harmless druggies down on 42nd got a bad batch of something. He attacked some pedestrian. A couple of drunk and disorderlies pout in the cell over - it's barely six! Why are they drunk? A few over-eighteen shoplifters wait for their parents where they can't get into further trouble. That one guy who keeps yelling at anyone who might possibly look at him - so he's mostly looking at the druggie in the cell across from him and the teenager who looks willing to pick a fight - because obviously the heat has made him crazy. Yeah. Dad's not going to put him in there. So Stiles is ordered to scoot on home. No side stops. No anything. Home, dinner, bed.)

Stiles hasn't been paying attention. He has very carefully not been paying attention to the supernatural traffic through Beacon Hills since the Hale fire. Six years. Blocking his senses and suppressing his power and doing everything he can to look normal. Human.

(Which he did. He went straight home, cooked dinner - instant mac and cheese. The food of the gods - and crawling into his bed with Netflix and Wiki. That's almost never enough to distract him for long. Three episodes into Law and Order, and Stiles is eight tabs deep in Wiki looking up how fast bodies decompose in the woods and what could tear a body apart. But they found half. The call definitely said half. Which is oddly specific. Why half a body? Most of the time - according to TV and a quick look at the googley-machine - people mostly fine parts of a body in the woods. Animals and all. Take an arm or a leg or a hand and run off to eat it somewhere safely away from the larger meat source. But this was half a body.)

A normal fire wouldn't kill a pack of wolves. He knows this. First of all, enhanced senses; second, wasn't it daytime? A school day? Stiles is fairly sure he came back on a school day - which is so not the point right now!

"Scotty!" He reaches out, groping through the dark only for his fingers to brush Scott's sleeve and close on air. Stiles turns, too fast to be human, too slow to make another grab as his best friend falls down the embankment. "Shit shit shit!"

"I'm okay!" Scott wheezes, though if it's from his asthma or getting the wind knocked out of him while falling, Stiles is unsure.

(Of course he has to get Scott. They're Scott and Stiles. Stiles and Scott. They always go on adventures together. Adventures with growing up. Adventures with school. Adventures in the woods at searching for half a body. All good fun. And of course Scott complains. He always does. Nearly brains Stiles with a baseball bat too, for that matter. But he gets into the jeep and Stiles drives to the Preserve, cheerfully waving away all of Scott's Very Good Questions about what they're doing out here in the first place. Scott is very good at making Stiles think through his plans. After.)

Another howl. Closer. The press of power and the whisper of alpha, werewolf, alpha, alpha slipping snakelike through his mind. Dry scales and rough fir. Stiles blocks in out, concentrates on sliding down the embankment without falling flat on his face. Concentrates on grabbing Scott and hauling him to his feet. Concentrates on, "No, get up, get up now! Running would be good, come on Scott," and ignores the way it gets easier to pull his friend along. Adrenalin. It's just Adrenalin.

It's not. He knows it's not because he can feel the alpha at their backs and fucking self preservation jerks him away when the beat jumps, teeth catching Scott's side when it had been poised to get Stiles. Scott yells - shock and pain and fear - because even if it's going to heal, has to heal, a werewolf bite is still a bite and they were lucky the alpha was aiming for Stiles, not Scott, else Scott's ribs would have been crushed between the beast's jaws. Instead, it's a glancing blow. Teeth and blood, but no good hold. The wolf thumps into a tree, only momentarily distracted but a moment is all Stiles needs because fuck the rules. Fuck anything that isn't getting Scott away from here.

He grabs Scott's arm, ignoring the pain-blurred, "It bit me! It - it bit me! I'm - " and runs. Feet find purchase in leaf litter where before they had been sliding about like ungainly baby deer. Stiles and feel the change settle over his best friend like it belongs there. Good and bad since Scott's lungs heal before asthma can trip them up. Muscles work harder, better, faster as the two boys run and dodge through the trees.

Bad, because how is Stiles supposed to explain any of this? Explain why he's been keeping it secret? Explain what he is and why he was gone and why he came back. Explain everything Stiles never wanted to say in the first place.

They reach the car panting and fumbling at the doors, the alpha's growl lurking at the back of their minds. Stiles throws the jeep in drive and squeals out of the parking lot. Home. His home because Melissa's on shift and won't be back until after the boys are supposed to leave for school tomorrow.

"I'll help you clean that up," Stiles says, even though the wound will be gone in a day. Guilt, he supposes. It's his fault they were out there.

Scott heaves in air like it's going out of style. It probably hasn't occurred to him that he's not having any problems breathing. "What was that?" he demands. And isn't this just the perfect opportunity? Say it. Come on, Stiles, say it! "That was not a dog, Stiles, did you see that thing?"

"I - I dunno. I'll... look into it." The answer seems to appease the other teen as they settle into a huffing silence once more.

"Dude," Scott says after a minute. He pokes a little at the bleeding wound in his side and winces. "It bit me. Think I'm gunna get sick?"

"No." Not anymore.