┌─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───┐
extra number two!
CHEMISTRY CLASS
└─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───┘

─ ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ─

context:
the pack doesn't know who
the kanima is. they assume
it's lydia because she isn't
exhibiting her banshee powers yet
and was bitten by peter at the end
of season 1. they think a kanima cannot
be poisoned by its own venom, so derek's
betas try to discreetly feed lydia
the venom to see if it affects her.
vera is not a fan of this plan.

─ ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ─

( 2x05: venomous )

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

MR. HARRIS'S CHEMISTRY CLASSROOM becomes ripe with tension the second that Erica, Isaac, and Vera file into it from the back door. They each catch the eyes of Scott and Stiles standing at the front of the room. Though Vera's heart is plagued with dismay and dread for what Derek had ordered them to do, the two wolves flanking her have smug expressions and eyes that gleam with malice. She doesn't need supernatural senses to feel the bloodlust wafting from them.

Each of them has a small vial of kanima venom in their pockets. Once the edible crystals form during their lab today, they're instructed to smear some on their creation and allow Lydia to eat it— Derek's rationale is that a snake cannot be poisoned by its own venom. They'll know it's her if she doesn't have a reaction.

Vera had tried to remind him that a kanima is a type of lizard, not a snake, but he didn't listen. Whatever.

Erica flashes Scott a serpentine grin that makes his mouth drop open in shock. He mumbles to Stiles, continuing the conversation they started before she'd entered the room, "I think here and now."

Vera glances at the empty spot beside Lydia, who is seated in the front row as usual. Just as Erica takes a step forward to steal the seat, Scott outruns her and slides into the chair as fast as lightning. Stiles pulls up a stool on her opposite side. However, this doesn't deter Erica or Isaac, who nonchalantly take the empty lab table behind them.

"Take a seat, Pérez," Isaac tells her with a cocky grin. "You'll need a partner for the lab."

Vera narrows her eyes into slits at him. He knows she isn't fond of this plan — trying to paralyze Lydia in broad daylight in the middle of Chemistry class — which she had voiced her disdain of in front of the entire pack. Derek hadn't seemed to care. He doesn't see Lydia as a person. He allows himself to be ignorant of her intellect, of her hopes and dreams, and how her loved ones will be affected in order to eradicate the threat of the kanima.

It's just one thing that's different about her brother since he'd arrived from New York. As time goes on, that list seems to grow. Sometimes she doesn't recognize the hostile Alpha as the same terrified boy who'd fled after the fire that killed his family. Life has made him venomous.

"Don't mess up your crystal, Lahey," Vera bites back with a sickeningly sweet smile. She turns around and notices an empty spot next to Allison at the table to Scott's right. Dropping the grin, she plops down in it with enough annoyance to make Allison look up at her in questioning.

"What's going on?" she asks.

Vera glances back at the three Betas in the room, conscious of the fact that they can hear every word that she says, and also that Derek is waiting outside. She sighs. "Derek's orders. He's hellbent on finding the kanima."

Before they can say anything else, the bell cuts through the air and class begins with a speech from Harris.

"Einstein once said, 'Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.' I, myself, have encountered infinite stupidity." He claps a hand on Stiles's shoulder as a mocking example. "So to combat the plague of ignorance in my class, you're going to combine efforts through a round of group experiments. Let's see if two heads are indeed better than one. Or in Mr. Stilinski's case, less than one."

Vera's hand curls into a fist to prevent her fingers from tapping restlessly on the desk, her nails threatening to slice into her palms. A round of group experiments? This doesn't sound good.

"Erica, you take the first station. You'll start..." Harris cuts himself off when nearly every boy in the class raises their hand to be her partner. Erica grins to herself at the amount of attention while their teacher sighs. "I didn't ask for volunteers. Put your hormonal little hands down. Start with Mr. McCall."

Erica's brown eyes drift to him, her malicious grin widening like a predator assessing its prey. Vera shakes her head. She's known that Erica has had her eye on Scott since he'd helped her during her last epileptic seizure, but because he and Allison are still dating in secret, she hasn't been able to make him the least bit interested. It doesn't stop her from trying.

As if to prove to Vera that Harris is adamant about making her life a living hell, he pairs her with Isaac first. She dutifully ignores him and focuses intently on carrying out the steps to make the crystal. Isaac seems set on doing nothing to help. He doesn't lift a finger to assist her, instead choosing to absentmindedly twiddle his thumbs as he leans back in his chair. His leather jacket slightly squeaks with the movement.

Blanketed by the cover of chatter in the classroom, she mutters, "You could try to help before you poison Lydia."

"I could," Isaac agrees, pulling his lips down into a thoughtful frown, "but you're already doing all the work, so why would I?"

Vera finishes emptying one of the test tubes into their beaker and sets it in its place on the rack. It lightly clacks against the others in the row, making a soft noise before she whirls to face him with a scowl.

"You're really going to let Derek kill one of our classmates?"

"Well, considering said classmate is a homicidal lizard, yeah. I think I am."

Her glare sharpens, her voice seething as she corrects him. "We don't know that."

He gives her an infuriating smile, showing off his perfectly straight teeth. "We will soon."

Vera wonders how much trouble she would get in if she punched him right in his stupid face.

Harris's bell cuts into their conversation as he taps his finger on it. "Switch!"

Isaac's gaze lingers on her for a moment before he pushes himself to his feet, swaggering to the next station. Vera is grateful she'd put the test tube away. If she hadn't, she'd probably be clenching her hand around it so tightly that it would have shattered in her grip, supernatural strength or not. His assholish nature has her glowering all the way to the table in the middle of the room.

Scott replaces Isaac as her partner. She sighs in relief, grateful for his summer rain that washes away the scorching heat of Isaac's fire. His presence begins to calm the rioting storm in her veins as he picks up the container of magnesium sulfate. It takes him five minutes before words burst out of his mouth as if it had pained him to keep them in.

"You can't want this," he says, his tone soft and brown eyes pleading. "You're not like them— I know it. Nobody has to die today."

"I don't want anyone to die," she huffs, plucking the container from Scott's fingers and measuring out half a cup. It seems that she's the only one aside from the oblivious Lydia who are actually conscious of the grade on this assignment.

"Then do something about it," Scott implores. "Derek listens to you."

"You don't think I tried?" she asks with more of a snap in her voice than she'd intended. She shifts her gaze to Scott, overly conscious of the shadow of her brother's car in the parking lot. "I tried to convince him to come up with another solution; it didn't work. And if I couldn't break through to him, well, it means he really wants this. Nothing will change his mind."

They work in strained silence for several more minutes. Scott's leg bounces restlessly under the table, illustrating his anxiety that he can barely keep a lid on. He bites his bottom lip like it's taking all of his willpower not to interrogate Vera further and risk annoying her. Eventually, the dam cracks.

"How certain are you that he won't?"

"He's my brother, Scott. One hundred percent."

The bell rings again. "And switch."

Scott doesn't look any more comforted after their conversation. Vera leaves him with a crestfallen expression twisting his face, a similar sensation clenching her gut as she moves to the next station. She feels a bit guilty that she hadn't been able to give him a more optimistic outlook on their situation, but it's not her fault that Derek can be such an ass. Not to mention that Erica and Isaac are eager to please their new Alpha so they'll do anything he wants.

Her last partner is a boy she doesn't know. She's almost grateful for that— it means she can actually focus on the lab instead of the terror rising in her gut. She welcomes the distraction with open arms. Even though she hates Chemistry, this experiment is as simple as following instructions. Surprisingly, she can be pretty good at that.

Her new partner has pale skin and golden blond hair swept over his forehead like a LEGO figure's hairdo. He actually lifts the rod to stir the forming crystals as soon as he sits down, which makes her relieved. With all of the wolves prowling around Beacon Hills High, she's almost missed basking in the presence of a regular person ignorant of the supernatural.

Vera glances up to see Isaac sliding into the spot beside Lydia. Her heart seizes in her chest, the movement nearly causing her to lose her balance in her stool. Stiles rockets himself to his feet. Harris slaps his hand with his wooden pointer before he can take a single step, causing the boy to yelp and sit back down.

"If you're trying to test my patience, Mr. Stilinski, I guarantee it'll be a failing grade," the teacher sneers. He then walks back to his desk at the front of the room, giving the rest of the class a warning side-eye as he goes.

Vera tears her attention away from Lydia and trains her stare on the rapidly-forming crystals in their beaker. The kanima venom seems to be burning a hole in the pocket of her knit cardigan. She's never felt so guilty for carrying something in her entire life.

She wishes that Dominic had been in this class. Instead, he has Chemistry second period with Danny and Boyd, so they'd already completed their experiment. He would know exactly what to say to help calm her down. He'd probably crack a few jokes to get her mind off the prospect of a classmate's imminent death, allowing her to laugh for the first time all day.

"You seem to know what you're doing," her partner says, jarring her from her thoughts.

Vera's voice is detached and uninterested when she responds, "It's just reading instructions."

He chuckles. "Yeah, but my last partner didn't put enough magnesium sulfate and ours just turned into a weird goo."

She allows herself to huff a quick exhale through her nose in response. Then she focuses on stirring her own beaker, watching the white crystals form with fascination dancing in her eyes.

"Hey, maybe if you..." the blond boy leans closer, covering her hand with his own and changing the motions of her stirring. He's so near that she can feel his breath on her neck. His other palm settles to rest as close to her backside as he can get, his body heat seeping through the thick sweater that comes down to the tops of her thighs. And then, Jesus Christ, he's groping her.

In an instant, she rotates her wrist so she has his arm twisted around his back, forcing him off of his seat, and pushes him onto his knees on the floor of the classroom. All attention turns to them as the boy releases an agonized cry. Harris blinks in moderate surprise, his tiny eyes squinting incredulously.

"Miss Pérez, what the hell are you doing?" he demands, grabbing his ruler in case he needs to use physical force. "Let him go."

"He grabbed me, sir," she explains through a huff as she releases his arm. The boy gasps in pain, cradling the injured limb to his chest and hunching over the floor.

Harris gives the blond boy an unimpressed look. "What did I tell you about keeping your hormonal hands to yourselves? Go to the principal's office, Mr. Wheaton. And not the nurse— the principal's office. I'm sure he'll love to hear your explanation for your injury there."

The boy scrambles to his feet and darts out of the classroom. Vera takes her seat as if nothing had happened, shoving her revulsion down into her gut. She's pleased to see that the crystals had formed as they were supposed to— slightly glittering, clear rocks in the bottom of their beakers.

"If you've catalyzed the reaction correctly, you should now be looking at a crystal," Harris explains. "Now for the part of that last experiment I'm sure you'll all enjoy... You can eat it."

Vera's gaze snaps to Isaac and Lydia. Isaac had seemingly snuck the kanima venom onto the crystal, offering it to Lydia with a pair of metal tongs. The girl regards it thoughtfully before taking it between her forefinger and thumb. From her table, Vera can see the clear kanima venom dripping from the rock.

Just before she puts it on her tongue, Scott shoots to his feet and shouts, "Lydia!"

She jumps and turns to him with an irked expression. "What?"

Scott seems to realize that he can't possibly explain the situation to her in front of the entire class, especially when Lydia isn't even aware of the supernatural, so he plops back into his seat with a sigh.

"Nothing," he grounds out in defeat.

Lydia wastes no more time biting into the crystal. Vera's leg bounces beneath the desk, eyes trained firmly on her. She waits for her eyes to go wide as her body becomes paralyzed, but nothing happens.

Her heart sinks.

Nothing happens.

Isaac turns to Erica with an arched brow and a wicked grin. Erica's gaze shifts to Vera, who doesn't share her pack's gleeful expressions. This feels more like the nails on Lydia's coffin.

________

a/n:

i wrote this like 3 years ago so sorry if it's bad LMAOO 

baby verisaac <3 lowkey i miss when they hated each other because it was so fun to write, so i had a blast with this! also showing the budding friendship between scott and vera,,, ugh i love it. look at me, fangirling over my own character and her dynamics. but that's literally all i do, so,,,,

i'm REALLY excited to publish the next one because it's the rave one, and it involves erica x vera moments <<333 plus that episode was unnecessarily hilarious and i think you'll really like how i incorporated vera into the scenes!

as always, thank you for reading and i hope you liked this bonus chapter!

— kristyn

( word count: 2.5k )