First Day Jitters (Conner and Nell)

It was his first day at this new school. His last school hadn't exactly been fancy, or private, but it was a lot different than this. He was used to school uniforms and things being a bit more strict and orderly. But this seemed like a bit of a madhouse. Maybe it was just his old school that was like that? Or was this new American school just as insane as he thought it was?

Conner was used to wearing slacks, a buttoned shirt with a tie and a jacket, but here, he was in a pair of jeans, a regular t-shirt and a hoodie. He had his bag on his back and was trying to walk down the halls, but he couldn't move more than two feet without running into someone.

He knew that some people were staring at him, simply because he was the new kid. He knew that there were others like him in the school, but could he find them? Could they find him? His mind suddenly began to shift into panic mode.

Suddenly, in his mind, everyone was staring at him. They knew. They just had to. How could they not know? He was the freak running through the halls. He chest begin to tighten and he swallowed past the lump in his throat. He clapped his hands over his ears when the bell rang to signal the start of the first class of the day.

His heart hammered against his chest as the students began to clear the hallway. Soon he was left alone, trying not to hyperventilate. Too late. He ran to the nearest bathroom. He ran through the first door he found, not even noticing it was the girls room. He stopped at a sink, and stared at himself in the mirror, trying to calm himself down, but the image looking back at him had bright blue eyes and a slightly wolven face. He stumbled backwards and into a stall where he sat down hard on a toilet.

His breaths came fast and sharp as he sat there, pressing his face into his hands, trying to make himself look normal again. He hadn't even thought to lock the bathroom door, or even the stall door.

Nell still felt like the new kid at school, even though she'd been here for a few weeks now. Other than Stiles and some of his friends, he didn't really know anybody. Of course, that was probably her own fault, because she didn't want to get too close to any of her classmates. What if they discovered her secret and treated her the same way the kids at her old school had? Stiles knew about it and didn't treat her differently, but that didn't mean the others wouldn't.

As the bell rang, she was supposed to go to biology class, but her head started hurting like crazy, like it would every now and then. She stopped right in the middle of the hall, holding one hand up to her forehead and squinting her eyes. Some students bumped into her and cursed at her, but she hardly noticed. Her eyes still closed, she felt something warm and liquid run down from her nose to her mouth. Great, another nosebleed again, she thought. Holding her hand up to her nose, she opened her eyes again to find the now half empty hallway appearing in a soft blur to her.

As quick as she could, she made her way to the nearest bathroom, little drops of blood making their way from her nose to the floor. Once inside the bathroom, she rushed to the sink and grabbed as many paper towels as she could, pressing them to her nose. When her initial panick had disappeared and her heart rate had slowed down, she started to hear something - rushed breathing coming from one of the stalls.

"Hello? Is anybody there?", she called out, turning around, still holding the paper towels to her nose.

Conner's breath hitched in his throat when he heard the bathroom door open. Why hadn't he locked it. Maybe they would leave before they heard him, or maybe they would hear him and not care. But in his mind, he knew they were going to hear him and come investigate. It's what people in small towns did, they knew everything about everyone. He gripped at the wall, scratching some of the off white tiles Was that a girl's voice? Had he run into the wrong bathroom?

"Go away!" He said, trying to make himself sound as normal as possible. "Leave me alone!" His voice cracked slightly and he closed his eyes, gritting his teeth as he leaned his head back. He moved a little too fast and a little too hard, cracking the tile behind his head in the wall. Yeah, that's great, tell the girl to leave him alone, then smash your head against the wall, that will make her leave.

His rapid breathing continued, no matter how hard he tried to slow it down and a quick feel of his face confirmed he still had his new wolf face on. The girls couldn't see him like this. She would tell the whole school about him and they would hunt him down and either throw him out of town or kill him!

He reached out to push the stall door closed, but he pushed a little too hard and managed to bend it slightly outward and push it open hard enough to bang against the wall, leaving the stall he was in wide open. He brought both his hands up to try and cover his face then. "I'm fine, just leave!"

Nell heard a voice coming from one of the stalls now, but didn't that sound like a boy? Was he some pervert, waiting for girls to come in so he could watch them? But surely, he wouldn't even have spoken if that was true. He must have been in a real rush to run into the wrong bathroom though. The voice did seem a bit panicky and Nell didn't feel quite comfortable leaving the person alone, whoever he was.

She was still trying to figure out what to do, when her headache kicked in again and her vision blurred, pulsating in the rythm of her quickening heart beat. "Are you sure I can't help you?", she asked, sounding out of breath. She stumbled back a little until she hit the sink, moving her hands back to grip the edge of it for support. She couldn't black out for god's sake - not here and not now.

The stall door was bent pretty bad now and was wide open, resting against the wall. Conner felt like he couldn't get a good enough breath in him. He put his hood up and yanked on the pull strings to tighten the hood all the way around his head in an effort to hide his face from the girl.

"No one can help me," he said gripping at his legs, feeling his own claws dig into them. He knew he hadn't broken the skin, but he could smell blood. Was this girl bleeding? Was smelling it going to start some kind of blood lust? He was going to try and kill her, he just knew it! He heard her stumble back against the sink, was she injured? Is that where the blood was coming from? The metallic scent was so powerful to him with his new senses now.

"Please, you have to leave! I don't want to hurt you!" He gasped for breath every few words as he continued to try to calm himself down. Panicked thoughts of himself ripping some poor girl apart in the bathroom and tears streamed from his eyes. Every time he went to wipe them away, he could feel his changed face under his fingers.