Few things can take Allison off guard. Few and far in between.

This is one of those things.

Allison's eyes can pierce through a person like her arrows. Can go even deeper, tear through flesh and spill blood faster. She's got the advantage of her own kind nature; that's such a misleading quality. It brings people to her, lets them fall into her gravitational pull, makes them want to stay for those big caring eyes, and those dimples so filled with joy.

People fall for her, for the part that's all good, all nice, all laughing and adapting and soft.

And that's... That's her alright. That's an enormous part of her.

There's more. There's always more.

There's the way she'll claim whoever she feels close to her with her lingering gaze, with a soft meaningful touch here and there. How her words will go honey sweet and promising and full of forever, when she honestly doesn't have a clue what'll happen in the next month.

And more.

More, like how she'll sit around the people who belong to her, how she'll get lost, with a strong churning belly, and think 'anything'. How she'll think 'really, anything. Everything. Even more than that. It doesn't matter if it comes to that'.

Because, although at first she didn't understand the paths her mind and body considered on their own- that subtle thrumming rippling under her skin that sang 'danger' and kept her at her toes (and even when she couldn't, and even when she's felt helpless. Maybe even because of that, she'd felt so humiliated back then), she's an Argent through and through. She's determination and strength and pure drive, beneath the looks of a calm person.

And she'd simply do anything, anything it would take to keep the people that's hers safe. She would pull all stops, go as far as needed, step as into the dark as it was required. Turn into whatever's necessary.

That's the extent of her, of her love, that's the true that's hidden in her core, when you peel all her layers until she's a bare mess of honesty.

That must've played a big role in her falling for Scott, probably. The fact that she's a blur of colors instead of a big black and white, that despite living in a bubble of a fantasy world, down in the aching of her bones and the strain of her muscles and the steady pumping of her blood she has a different way of looking at morals.

Scott is... He's so innocent. So frankly gullible, so sweet, such a light, such a happy presence. There's a mystery within him too, at first; a little something that makes her doubt, that enrages her and weakens her.

But taking that aside, those circumstances that reside in him but do not define him (completely), he's... He's the very essence of what Allison feels like she has to protect. Everything in him is little boy who believes too easily and thus is hurt and led astray easily, too.

He's chivalrous and good in an irredeemably uncomplicated way. He has a line in the sand which he does not cross, there's nothing behind that line. He doesn't see past that line. A line more like a wall, a wall taller than all the trees that surround Beacon Hills, and so vast that it goes across the universe and back, and encircles him.

It should make him unattainable, his stance too definitive and immalleable for the kind of things she'd do, the kind of things she'd let slip, the ones that probably wouldn't trouble her much (at least not her whole life).

Instead she craves his attention. Scott's eyes are a rose-tinged mirror that only brings you back your virtues. A mirror that shows you who he believes you to be, who you could be if you devoted your all to it. Who you'd want to be for him.

Instead, she's drawn to him, drawn to him in a way that feels both utterly childish and a bit jaded. Childish because he excites her, brings out the teenager in her, the simple girl. He transforms her fully into this lighter, funnier, more relaxed version of herself, for a little stolen while. Jaded, for those other feelings that incite her to keep him close, 'look at that purity, someone has to protect that purity. That purity can be yours to preserve, yours to cherish'.

And that's where Stiles fits in all of this. Seamlessly, silent and cunning and sneaky, enough that Allison doesn't notice until she's already sunk.

'Sunk', actually, is much too strong a term for what she is. But it feels like it, like having unknowingly taken a plunge into the ocean, and consenting to sink there, choking a little on the perplexities of the situation.

Stiles, Stiles is a force of nature. He's all energy waiting to be spilled, thrown everywhere; he's an overwhelming person, a little too much to take in in one go.

But he's also-

He's a needle.

He stings like a needle, for a while, and then you get used to the feeling and he vanishes from all senses as he's going in, and when you notice he's so far inside you that you just have no idea how to take him out.

And sometimes you don't even want to.

Bit it's not just that, about all this.

It's the way he'll look at her. For she has the strength and piercing quality of an arrow in her gaze, but Stiles' eyes work like an X-ray scanner.

It's the way he used to talk to her, all stiff "hey, Allison"s with fake smiles, while his eyes would pin her on the spot and dare her to harm Scott. The way his look spelled danger, clearly stated 'anything. Really, anything. Everything. Even more than that. It doesn't matter if it comes to that'.

It's the way he reminded her of the best and worst of herself. It's what's written on the set of his jaw, on the tip of his nose, just how similar they are in their desire to protect and the lengths they'll go to accomplish that goal.

It's the way she could instantly understand how Scott had remained like this, his views on the world so sweet. Because before Allison was in the picture there was Stiles, cherishing and taking care. Because this is the guy that'll give and give and give; the guy that'll take and take and take; the guy that'll fabricate a replica of this world for Scott that's close enough to the real deal but still different and precious in these little ways that allow him to retain his boyish naiveté.

It's how he looks at Scott, and says "I love you", and means it to the last letter, without reservations. How he doesn't even need to say it, doesn't have a real need to form the words because they're on his body language, on the upturn of his lips, on the red tips of his ears, on his lashes and his dilated irises (and she's all huntress, all dedicated viewer, taking it all in). It's the beaming smile on Scott's face, that is an 'I love you' so strong that it can't mean anything other than 'forever'.

It's the way one day he looks up at her and says "Because I love you". Scott's words on his lips, meant for her ears.

And it's the way she locks eyes with him, eating up this new warmth, and grins. The way her eyes never leave his when she says, "And I love you, too."

It's all that that makes this so much more complex (and yet so stupidly simple), that sinks her until there's no air and no light and no nothing else that can supersede the way her heart beats oddly inside her ribcage when Scott looks at them both in adoration. When he brings them together and encourages them, and builds them up like the three of them are a single unit, knit together like yarn.

It's that and the way the three of them fit together in Stiles' bed, half on top of each other, warm and content and platonic, for the time being.

It's that, but there's more.

There's always more.

"Not everything that's big and complicated and sneaks on you is bad, right?"

Lydia's eyes meet hers through the mirror's reflection, as Allison keeps brushing her hair.

"Well," she drawls. "If it's not about to get us all killed, I guess not."

Allison has to laugh, at that.