A/N: Hello beautiful people. Someone mentioned in a review that I forgot Finn, but I just wanted to make it clear that, at this point in the story, Finn is daggered – and for those of you watching closely, Finn was daggered long before Juliet was ever even born, so she never met him, only heard stories – and therefore wasn't mentioned.
Enjoy this chapter of pure, unadulterated fluff (with some angst on the side).
I gotta say something I've been thinking about.
I can't wait to lay around with you.
And tell you all the secrets I've been keeping to myself.
It's been awhile since I've felt butterflies.
Do you feel the same way too?
If every single second could last that much longer.
Would you hold me?
Kiss Me Again – We Are The In Crowd
"That's not a word."
"Yes it is."
"In what language?"
"Uh, Spanish."
"You can't use other languages!" Stiles exclaimed furiously. "That's not how Scrabble works."
"You never specified that I had to play in English," I countered with a smirk.
His caramel eyes widened and his lips pulled together as he stared at me incredulously. "It's implied," he all but shouted at me, only serving to widen the smirk sitting comfortably on my lips.
"Do you want another drink?" I asked him as I rolled my eyes, pushing myself to my feet and holding my hand out for his cup.
"Yeah," he grumbled, still getting over my linguistic betrayal. "See what's taking Scott so long," he told me as I left the room, stepping over Scott's vacated spot on the floor and wandering into my kitchen.
"Hey there, teen wolf," I greeted my boyfriend's best friend as I entered the room, heading for the table filled with bottles of alcohol, beginning to pour Stiles a bourbon and coke, and myself a vodka tonic. Scott was staring out my kitchen window into the shadows, a far away look in his eyes. He jumped when I spoke, surprising, considering his supernatural senses. "Penny for your thoughts?" I asked the boy I regarded as a friend.
Scott turned around, giving me his full attention. "Thinking about you, actually," he responded, and I paused, cocking my head at him and watching him warily.
"I'm flattered," I told him cautiously, picking up the vodka bottle and filling my glass more than usual. "But you should know I consider myself thoroughly taken, by your best friend, in fact. And, I'm not really one for polygamy – surprising, I know – but I've tried it in the past, and honestly, it's not all it's cracked up to be-"
"Please stop talking," the werewolf muttered, shooting me an exasperated look. I sealed my lips shut, peering across the room at him, waiting for him to continue. "I meant that I was thinking about you and Stiles," he corrected me kindly.
"Oh," I muttered, but refused to be embarrassed by the miscommunication. I finished pouring the drinks, narrowing my eyes as I listened to Stiles in the other room. "Quit cheating!" I yelled over my shoulder, startling Scott briefly.
"I'm not!" Stiles yelled back, ignoring the fact that I could hear him rifling the bag of tiles. I couldn't help but roll my eyes fondly, smirking down into the clear liquid in my glass. I glanced up, and Scott was grinning at me in a way that instantly put me on guard.
"What?" I asked the wolf self-consciously, nose crinkling as I awaited his reply.
He continued to smile. "You're good for him, you know?" he said, completely surprising me.
I raised an eyebrow, immediately suspicious. "Excuse me?"
"I know you don't think you are," he continued on boldly. "Because of what you are. But, you should just know that you are, in fact, good for him." I stared at him skeptically, green eyes narrowed with apprehension. "I never got to apologise," he said, the subject change practically giving me whiplash.
"What?" I asked confusedly. "Apologise?"
"For last week," he elaborated gently, picking up his own cup of simple beer and taking a sip, even though we all knew it wouldn't do shit. "None of it – any of it – would have happened if I hadn't let it," he sighed, ducking his head, clearly ashamed. "You nearly died because I was too weak, and I'm sorry."
I put down my own cup, stepping closer to the boy and placing a firm hand on his broad shoulder. "Scott," I said softly, making him glance up at me with sorrowful eyes. "Shut the fuck up."
He blinked dumbly for a full minute, struggling to process what I'd said. "Huh?" he finally asked, strong brow furrowed confusedly.
"I never wanna hear you apologise for that bullshit again," I demanded strictly, glaring at him with only half the severity that I usually did. "It's not your fault. It was my choices that got me bitten, and mine alone. You were simply on the sidelines. If I had to go back in time and relive the night over again, I wouldn't change a damn thing," I assured him, staring into his puppy dog eyes to make sure my words sunk in.
He seemed to get choked up with emotion, making my eyebrows raise in discomfort. "If I'd gotten you killed...Stiles would have-"
"Moved on," I interrupted him. He looked like he wanted to argue me on that one, but I changed the subject before he could. "Look, the point's moot anyway. I'm still alive and kicking, so no harm, no foul," I shrugged, shooting him a bright smile that was only slightly forced. "Now, come on, don't be the guy that ruins game night with feelings."
He cracked a small smile, and I felt proudly accomplished.
"Come on," I continued with a grin, scooping the drinks up in my hands and gesturing for him to follow me out the door. "I think Scrabble's run it's course for the night. What are your thoughts on Cards Against Humanity?"
"You only wanna change games because you're getting a major ass-kicking at this one," Stiles chirped, the only even mildly tipsy one in the room as he took his glass from me and sipped it eagerly.
Scott glanced at me, laughing as I rolled my eyes and settled into my spot next to Stiles.
And just like that, everything was back to normal.
Things may have been going well, but something still hung over Stiles and I like a raincloud.
It had been a long time since I'd taken human lives so easily, so mercilessly. It took every bit of strength I had in me to keep denying that I'd enjoyed it. I thought I was succeeding in acting like nothing was wrong, but Stiles knew me too well.
Everything came to a head a few weeks after the whole disaster. I was pulling weeds from the flowerbeds lining my back porch. I didn't really care about the state of my garden, but I had to do something, anything to keep myself occupied. Being alone with my thoughts at that point in time wasn't going to help matters.
"What are you doing?"
I looked up at Stiles, wincing as the sun made my head ache. "Uh, lawn maintenance?" I asked, genuinely confused by the question.
"What's wrong with you lately?" he countered, clearly on a mission.
I knew what he was talking about, and as much as I wanted to deny anything was in fact wrong, I knew I couldn't treat him like a child. "I nearly died." It may not have been the whole truth, but at least it wasn't a complete and utter lie.
"You're already dead," he responded, and though it sounded cruel, I knew he was merely echoing my own words back to me. I looked away, focusing on the task at hand and ripping a stubborn weed out with only slightly too much force, dirt flicking past my face. "Is it...did I do something wrong?"
I glancing up at him sharply, furious with myself that he thought this was his fault. Though, I suppose I could see how he'd think that. I hadn't allowed myself to be close to him since the whole ordeal only weeks before. He'd seen me at my worst, seen me in a way I'd sworn he never would. I felt like I let him down. And if he wasn't a hormonal teenage boy, he probably wouldn't want me touching him anyway.
"I did something wrong," I muttered before I'd realised I'd spoken. I pressed my lips together, exhaling through my nose and continuing to tug the little green plants from the garden. I wondered why humans did this sort of thing. I never looked at someone's yard and judged their character. I couldn't have cared less if their roses were wilting or they had weeds lining their flowerbeds.
I guess it'd been so long since I'd been human that none of it made sense. I may have gotten my humanity back, but it didn't mean I was any closer to actually being human. My own thoughts made me choke, there wasn't anything even slightly human about the way I'd revelled in ripping out those innocent people's jugulars. The way I loved the feeling of their hot blood sliding down my throat.
I longed for the days where I could do the same thing and feel nothing but pleasure. But, that was the price of flipping the humanity switch. And though I ached to flip it off and go back to the way I'd spent the last two centuries, I knew I couldn't.
And the reason was standing in front of me.
"It's about what happened, isn't it?" Stiles asked, though he already knew. "That night in the alley."
I was silent, clenching my fist around a plant that I wasn't even sure was a weed and yanking it from the ground.
"It wasn't your fault."
I glanced up at him sharply, brows pulled together incredulously. "I don't know what massacre you witnessed, but the one I was there for was definitely one hundred percent my fault."
He winced like something I'd said pained him, eyes on his feet as he padded down the stairs to meet me in the yard. I didn't move from my crouched position, glaring defiantly at the dirt, hands braced on the ground.
"You're a good person, Jules," he murmured softly, sincerity overflowing in his tone.
"You've known me less than six months," I growled, shooting upwards and spinning around to glare at him. "You don't know what kind of person I am."
He looked inexplicably hurt by my outburst, and guilt instantly curdled in my stomach. No matter how much remorse I may have felt, I wasn't going to go through the embarrassment of retracting the statement.
"Talk to me, Juliet," he practically begged, and the sound of my full name, spoken curtly and emotionlessly, falling from his lips, made me wince.
"There's nothing to talk about," I said with a shrug. I'd been so happy to spend the weeks pretending nothing was wrong, to laugh with him over something stupid Derek did, or the way Isaac wears a scarf every time we see him; to sit in silence as he begrudgingly did his homework while I read an old first edition classic and listened to my favourite jazz album; to have Scott come over and mess around, playing lame boardgames and squabble over who was cheating. It was bliss, if only we didn't have such darkness hanging over our heads.
I hated myself for it.
"How can you even look at me?" I asked quietly, too tired to keep pretending.
"What do you mean?" he replied, though we both knew he already knew.
"The girl you..." I paused, not sure how to continue. "The girl you decided you cared for, that wasn't her. I don't know if I can go back to being her, either. I don't know if you could ever care for me again."
"I think that's up to me to decide," he responded with a heavy frown.
I grimaced, glancing up at the sun before my eyes flickered down to my daylight ring, where the lapis lazuli stone glittered in the rays. Stiles was better with words than he thought he was, but not when he was trying to. I knew he was struggling to come up with an appropriate response, trying to put words to his emotions.
"You're wrong."
Finally, he found the words. Only, they weren't particularly good ones. "Excuse me?" I asked, my voice like steel, looking up at him with a single raised eyebrow.
"You were never a different person. You're just you, only with a little more humanity over the last few months, a stronger moral compass," he swallowed, cringing as he listened to himself speak. "You're trying to be better than what vampire society dictates you should be." My frown didn't let up, so he tried a different approach. "I like to think of you as an addict. So you slipped up; you fell off the wagon. You made a mistake. It happens."
My expression hardened into a hard glare, a look I never shot at my human boyfriend. "A mistake that ended two innocent lives, Stiles," I growled, eyes narrowing at him. "If it were anybody else you wouldn't put up with it; you'd want to slay them."
"But it isn't anybody else," he snapped back, jaw clenched defiantly. I felt the fight leave me, the fury in my eyes softening. Why did he think so highly of me? What did I do to deserve his reverence? The fire didn't leave him like it did me, something in my gentle expression seeming to fuel him. "It's you. And I know I should hate you, I know I should be disgusted by all of this; by all that you are. But I'm not." He took a deep, shuddering breath, shoulder sagging as his melted chocolate eyes slid closed. "Not even slightly."
I'd forgotten what it felt like to be loved. What it felt like to be accepted. It was wrong, he was a human and I was a vampire and we had everything against us, but I couldn't help the tug I felt for him, like magnets being drawn together.
I couldn't even tell you what was so special about the kid. I couldn't put words to it, I just knew he was special, I just knew that he was my lighthouse, a shining beacon breaking through the darkness that was my existence.
I never thought I'd be one of those people to become consumed by love for a person, let only someone I met but a few months ago. But suddenly I was looking at him and I knew he was it for me. It wasn't like Klaus, whom I'd held a burning admiration, a burning passion for. This – Stiles – was different. Stiles was encompassing me, he was everything, all that mattered. I'd been struggling, recently, with a purpose, with a reason for being. I was a vampire who didn't kill people, what did that mean? What did that look like?
Now I knew, Stiles was my reason.
"So you don't hate me?" I asked, sounding more vulnerable than I would have liked.
Stiles' eyes glistened, but he didn't cry. "I don't think there's anything you could do that could make me hate you," he answered honestly, heart beating steadily, albeit quickly, in his chest. "Not a damn thing."
I wouldn't admit it, not even under oath, that my eyes began to water. I sucked in a shaky breath, glancing down at my hands. The blood had taken so long to wash off. It'd been stained on my skin. I'd spent over an hour in the shower, the water long since turned cold, as I scrubbed my bloody skin, desperate to be free of the delicious smelling drug. I could still see the colour on my pale hands, still see the human's screaming eyes as I drained the life from them with pleasure.
Another set of pale hands slid into my vision, long fingers winding around my wrists, their skin toasty warm against mine.
My eyes slid shut, a better alternative to pathetic tears. "I just want to shut it off," I whispered brokenly, not for a second over-exaggerating. "I want it gone."
"Your humanity?" he asked softly, stepping closer, clasping our hands together. I breathed in his scent, the chocolatey mint smell calming me better than anything else could have.
"It's so much easier without it," I admitted weakly, shuffling even closer and burying my head in his shoulder, nuzzling the sliver of skin his collar revealed as the hot sun beat down on my back.
"I won't pretend to understand," he murmured back to me lips gently brushing my hair. "But you should know that you're the strongest person I know, and I'll care about you, humanity or not. As long as you want me."
My lips tipped up slightly, pleasure curling through me. "Better get comfortable," I told him softly. "It's going to be a long time."
"What are you doing out here?" the familiar voice of the local alpha spoke up, but I wasn't surprised by the appearance, having heard him walk up to me through the shadows.
"Having a smoke where my boyfriend can't give me shit about it," I retorted effortlessly, sucking in a lungful of chemicals and blowing them out in Derek's direction to piss him off. "What are you doing lurking in the woods outside Stiles' house?"
"Merely passing through," he shrugged, arms crossed over his black leather jacket.
"Any word on Erica and Boyd?" I questioned conversationally, flicking the ash from the tip of my cigarette, glancing up at the starry night sky.
"None."
I hesitated, pursing my lips as I thought. "They probably got away just fine," I assured him in a moment of weakness. "God knows I'd wanna get the hell out of town if I had you as an alpha."
Derek shot me a sour look through the darkness, but decided not to rise to the bait. "I wouldn't be so sure," he muttered after a moment, glancing over his shoulder and peering into the thick shadows of the forest.
"Something you want to tell me?"
His head whipped around to face me, and he shot me a suspiciously innocent look through the gloom. "Why would you ask that?"
"That pack that got me bitten, the Original so close to town; something brought them here," I listed, frowning at him as I puffed on my smoke. "I'm not an idiot, Derek, and I don't appreciate being treated as one."
"I'm handling it," he responded, knowing full well that it wasn't an answer.
Losing what little patience I had, I dropped my cigarette, stepping on it apathetically as I stalked towards the alpha, who didn't even have the decency to look afraid. My fingers curled around the fold of his jacket, and I used the leverage to pull him closer to me, bringing myself to my full height as though that would make me more imposing. "If I find out that whatever you're so brilliantly 'handling'," I made angry quotation marks with my free hand, glaring at him through the dark, "is putting Stiles or Scott in danger, you're gonna wake up one testicle lighter. Am I clear?"
Derek looked like he wanted to argue, but probably knew this wasn't an argument he was going to win. So, with a begrudged glare and an angry huff, he nodded his head. "Crystal," he confirmed snidely, stepping back and forcefully shoving off my grasp.
"Beautiful," I hummed lightly, the menace gone from my expression with but a blink. "Well, if that'll be all..." I trailed off without waiting for an answer, spinning around and heading for the soft light illuminating the back porch of my house.
I wasn't sure if I expected him to say any more, but either way I was relieved when I made it inside without any extra comments.
"I know you were smoking," Stiles said bluntly as I wandered into the kitchen, where he was leant over a pot, cooking some kind of fat-free soup for he and his father. "You can do it inside, you know?"
"Secondhand smoke kills," I retorted, though it wasn't really the real truth.
He rolled his eyes over his shoulder in my direction, and my lips twitched up in a smirk. "Please don't go all 'Edward Cullen' on me," he muttered, forcing the amusement from his tone.
"...I don't understand that reference."
Stiles snorted indelicately. "You know? Twilight?"
"I'm aware of who it is," I said, crinkling my nose at him as I moved further into the room, stopping beside the bench next to the stove and easily propping myself on the hard surface so I was within touching distance of my boyfriend. "I just don't understand how the reference relates to our situation."
He shot me an incredulous look.
This time it was me rolling my eyes. "I mean, aside from the obvious vampire/human-interspecies-dating thing," I elaborated with a displeased scowl.
"Well, in the fictional relationship of Edward Cullen and Bella Swan, the former was always weirdly protective, to the point of insanity. He wouldn't let her do anything, he had to constantly save her, and he watched her sleep every night," Stiles paused, looking up from the pot to narrow his honey brown eyes at me. "You've never watched me sleep, have you?" he asked suspiciously.
I huffed in amusement, "I've seen you asleep, but I've never snuck in to your room with the specific intention of watching you sleep."
He seemed satisfied with my answer. "Anyway," he continued surprisingly smoothly, picking up the big spoon and stirring the broth he was attending to. "Just because I'm human, it doesn't mean I'm helpless. It doesn't mean you need to keep every danger, such as driving in wet conditions and secondhand smoke, away from me. And it certainly doesn't mean I need you to save me every other day."
I smiled at him brightly. "Good," I told him sincerely, and he looked away from the full pot to raise an eyebrow at me. "I'd be disappointed if that's what you wanted," I grinned. "I'm your girlfriend, not your babysitter."
We were quiet for a moment, the sound of the smooth jazz pouring out from the radio on the opposite counter, my favourite station that Stiles put on whenever I came around. He pulled a spoon from a drawer, dipping it in the broth and holding it up to my lips. Heat not being a problem for me, I didn't bother blowing on it before sealing my lips around it, tasting the admittedly delicious soup.
"What do you think?" he asked, looking between me and the food.
"It's good," I shrugged honestly.
"Yes, but does it need more salt?" he questioned.
My brow furrowed. "Uh, no?"
Stiles huffed impatiently, "you're useless."
"Oh, that's lovely," I snapped back with no real anger. "Boyfriend of the year."
"Ah yes, when we're old and grey we'll tell our children about the year I won this award," he jested, and instantly my heart fell into my stomach. He seemed to register the sickened expression on my face, and for a moment he was confused before realisation fell over him. "Oh shit," he hissed, dropping the spoon into the pot with a plop and turned to face me fully, heart hammering in his chest. "Crap, I'm so sorry. I spoke before thinking. Dammit, why do I always do that? I know you can't-we can't, or won't-"
"It's okay," I told him reassuringly, forcing my lips to tip up into a fake smile. I slid off the bench, my boots clicking against the tiled floor. I felt solemn, and so very ill. I made my way from the room, "I'll see you later, enjoy your night with your dad."
"Wait, Jules," he called out, spinning around and racing after to, latching onto my wrist before I could slip from the room. I let him pull me to a stop, turning back around to face him, face expressionless.
There was a look of sincere remorse in his eyes, and I couldn't help the way my lip wobbled.
"I know I'm only in high school and not at all ready for those kinds of things, I was just joking around, and I mean, I know it's not an option for you-for us but-"
"Do you want kids?" I asked, pain in my chest that wasn't from any visible cause. I was able to keep my eyes from watering thanks to years of finely tuned skill.
"I mean, I'm only sixteen, I don't really think about it that much," he hesitated, but I merely stared back until he gave me a real answer. "I guess I do, eventually, yeah."
I blinked, his words making me ache. "And you know that I can never-"
"I know," he assured me, stepping closer and licking his lips nervously, his heart racing. "I mean, we could always adopt," he tried to jest, but the joke fell flat.
"When?" I asked with a sneer. "When you're thirty-five and I'm 238 in a nineteen year old's body?"
Stiles bit the inside of his cheek and averted his gaze to the floor, something like shame in his expression.
"What?" I asked with a worried frown. "What aren't you telling me?"
He looked reluctant to answer, but knew I'd ultimately give him no choice. "I know we haven't really talked about it, but I thought, maybe – eventually – you might...turn me."
I stared.
And stared.
Of course I wanted to turn him, but I hadn't thought for a second that that might be something he would want. In the parking garage so many months ago with Peter, he'd turned down the bite and I'd assumed that was it. Besides, who would voluntarily become one of the undead?
I mean, sure I did, but that's a bad example.
"You would want that?" I asked, my voice embarrassingly weak.
Familiar red blotches appeared on the (currently) human's pale face. "Well, I mean, it wasn't an overnight decision," he said, letting go of me to twist his hands together anxiously. "And not for a while, there're still things – human things – that I wanna do. But maybe, if you want to, we could do it when I'm your age – physically, I mean."
I watched him through apprehensive eyes. "You don't want to be a vampire," I finally said, shaking my head and turning away.
"What?" he asked, confused by my response.
"You're not vampire material," I tried with a mean scowl on my lips, but my human was too bright, not falling for my ruse for even a second.
"Maybe not," he shrugged, once again moving closer, and I found I couldn't step away. "Maybe I'm not vampire material. Maybe I'll be the worst vampire in the history of vampires, but I'm not choosing this for the strength or the speed or the reflexes or the lifestyle," a small smile quirked at the corner of his irresistible mouth. "I'm choosing this to be with you. So it doesn't matter what I'll do right or wrong, all that will matter is we'll be together," he paused, considering something for a moment. "And maybe it might be nice to be able to wrestle you without you having to let me win all the time."
Was there really anything I would have preferred to hear?
He wanted to – literally – trade his life to be with me. I couldn't help myself, stepping forwards and pushing myself onto my toes to press our lips together. He grinned triumphantly against my mouth as I wound my arms around his neck, pulling him closer. I pulled away quickly, needing finish the conversation before we went any farther. "How about we wait until you're nineteen," I suggested quietly, our noses just barely brushing. "And however you feel then, that's what we'll act on." A mischievous grin spread across my red lips. "After all, it has only been a few months since we started dating," I said with a smirk. "Don't wanna pull a Shakespeare and get my lover killed so soon in the relationship."
"We're not even lovers," he said with an eye roll.
I sobered, staring up at him with serious eyes. "Do you want to be?"
Stiles choked, coughing twice before righting himself and staring down at me with his wide, caramel gaze. "What?"
"Do you want to be lovers?"
He gawked down at me incredulously. "Are you-um-what, uh-"
"The only reason we haven't is because I'm worried about hurting you, you know that, right?" I asked, needing to be sure he understood.
"Shouldn't it be me saying that to you?" he asked, raising a dubious eyebrow. I stared at him levelly, anticipating a genuine response. "I want to go as fast as you need," he told me sincerely. "The rest doesn't matter to me."
I wanted to say more, tell him that I was ready now, but I knew that was a lie. I'd never slept with a human I hadn't seriously injured before, mostly because I'd never tried. But I didn't want to risk it with him, never with him. My head tilted as I heard the sound of the cruiser pulling into the vacant spot in the driveway, signalling the arrival of his dad.
"Soon," I vowed while I still could, pushing myself up to slant our lips together briefly. "Have a nice night."
"Stay," he requested before I'd even fully left his grasp, clutching me back to him tightly. "Have dinner with us."
I wanted to say no, but he basically just told me that he wants to be with me for eternity, and besides, how the hell was I supposed to say no to those eyes?
"Juliet," The sheriff greeted me as he slipped inside the kitchen, but not with any hint of surprise. I supposed I'd been such a permanent fixture in his son's life over the last few months that he was beginning to expect me to be there with him more often than not.
"Jules is joining us for dinner," Stile chirped, bounding over to the pot and stirring the broth gently. "Hope that's okay."
"Of course," he smiled at me as he turned to leave. "Happy to have you."
His boots thudded against the stairs as he strode up them, and I tuned out when I heard him rifle through his clothes to get changed. "See, my dad likes you," Stiles spoke up, knowing what I was thinking before even I did.
"I've never met a partner's parents before," I divulged softly, folding my hands together and staring down at my chunky daylight ring.
Stiles glanced away from his task in surprise, blinking over at me with bewildered honey eyes. "I'm the first?"
I wandered closer, taking a figurative step and winding my arms around his waist, leaning my chin upon his shoulder. "I may not have a lot of firsts left to give," I murmured to him, lips curved up in something of a smile. "But that's one that you get to have."
I saw his cheek lift as he grinned, continuing to stir the broth in front of him. A minute passed and I heard the footfalls of his dad on the stairs, so I pressed a kiss to the spot below Stiles' ear, smirking when he shivered, and moved away, putting a respectable distance between us.
"So," John began, taking a seat at the table and nodding gratefully at his son when the kid dished up a bowl of the, admittedly, appetising smelling dinner. "Only a week left until school," he said conversationally, and I couldn't help but cringe at the unpleasant reminder. "How are you two going to spend the rest of your summer?"
"There's a silent film festival down at the theatre the next few nights," Stiles shrugged once he'd swallowed his first bite and I raised an eyebrow at him in surprise. "I was thinking we could go to those."
It was the first I'd heard of it, but the idea gave me a warm sort of glow that only Stiles ever could. "Are you a fan of silent films, Juliet?" the older man asked curiously, waiting as I took a moment to collect myself, swallowing the hot, savoury soup, enjoying the way it heated my cold body.
"I like the classics," I told him with a gentle smile, eyes sliding to narrow at Stiles who grinned innocently.
"And jazz?" My eyebrows rose in surprise at the question, but I should have known the police officer would pick up on it eventually. "It's all that plays when you're over."
"I'm a girl of simple pleasures," I replied coyly, lips twitching up in Stiles' direction. John didn't need to know exactly what those pleasures could potentially entail.
"I think it's nice," he smiled at me, reaching for the glass of water Stiles had put out for him, taking a sip. "It's a rare quality. What was your favourite year? Music wise, I mean."
"If we're talking twentieth century, 45' was great. But you can't get much better than 55', I mean you've got the King Cole Trio, and Julie London released a fantastic album. That one didn't gain much speed until later in the year, but once it did it was everywhere. Of course I have to mention Miles Davis who came in with a great album around March, and there was Dinah Washington who was gorgeous, I actually saw her live-"
There was a swift kick to my side, and I realised my mistake. John was staring at me through confused, narrowed eyes.
"She means on video," Stiles interjected, saving me from my embarrassing mistake. I was 200-fucking-years-old, I shouldn't have let my guard down so easily. "She saw her live on video."
"Obviously," John huffed with a grin, shoving another mouthful of soup into his mouth. "Do you want to do something in History when you leave school, Jules?" he asked with kind interest.
The question stumped me. I didn't have an answer prepared. I wasn't doing anything when I left school, except moving somewhere far away, changing my last name and starting high school again.
I glanced at Stiles, not knowing how to respond, and realised that wasn't what I'd do after school. I'd be with Stiles. Maybe he'd go to university, I hoped he would. He'd thrive there. And with one phone call I could get him in anywhere he wanted to go. I could study whatever he did, or maybe I could do an art history class or something. We could get an apartment together, maybe even get a dog. He'd make me unnecessary pancakes for breakfast, and we could go to dinner once a week, and take the dog on walks to the park.
And he wanted to be a vampire, eventually. Which meant after a while, if he wanted, I could change him. I could teach him about his speed, strength, and vampiric history. I could introduce him to my friends across the world. And after he finished university I could take him to London and show him where I grew up, then Italy, to the Colosseum and teach him Italian. He'd love the food, that I knew for certain.
Suddenly a realm of possibilities I hadn't even dreamed possible were opened up to me. I could have a life. Not just any life, but a life with Stiles.
"Jules?" Stiles prompted me, and I blinked, reality suddenly crashing over me. He and his father were watching me with furrowed brows. Clearly I'd been unresponsive for some time.
"I haven't decided yet," I blurted, a burning hot feeling burning in my chest – the good kind – as I gazed at Stiles, who had a curious eyebrow raised.
"And college?" the sheriff asked, smoothing over the odd break in conversation.
"Definitely," I nodded, glancing at Stiles briefly to see him covering a smirk. "I don't know what I'll study. I think I have a lot of options to consider," my own lips tipped upwards. "I mean, how many times will I get to be an undergrad?"
Stiles coughed on his soup, and I reached over to pat him once on the back as he desperately drank half his water in an attempt to clear his throat.
Cleaning up after dinner was a quiet but pleasant affair. John refused to let me help, so I reclined in a chair and watched he and Stiles squabble about who would be on drying duty. With a tired but content farewell, the sheriff bid us both a goodnight and padded up the stairs to bed.
"Were you serious about the film festival?" I asked to break the silence, and Stiles ducked his head sheepishly.
"I meant to ask you sooner, but I forgot," he muttered sheepishly. "Do you wanna go?"
"I couldn't think of anything I'd rather do," I told him with a sincere smile. "But we don't always have to do things I like, you know," I said quietly, and his brows pulled together in question. "You don't have to always listen to smooth jazz, or take me to silent film festivals. We could go to a death metal concert after watching a documentary on Bill Gates and I'd be thrilled, because we'd be together."
Although the sentimentality was spot on, he cringed at my examples. "When have I ever expressed enjoyment for either of those things?" he asked, nose crinkling at the thought.
"My point is," I rolled my eyes lightly, a small smirk on my lips. "I want to do things that you enjoy too."
"Noted," he said, hand moving like he was checking off an invisible list. His phone beeped from his pocket, and he pulled it out to scan the message, brows pulling together. "Question," he murmured, caramel eyes moving back to my face. "How ridiculous is it that our favourite werewolf wants to get a tattoo?"
