The self-control it took not to post this chapter as soon as I finished typing was too much... so I chose not to exert it XD
September 11th, 2009
"So we're going together to the party tomorrow," Scott finishes the story about how Allison showed up at the clinic with a hurt dog the night before and it somehow turned into him asking her out.
"Nice, your first date, how's it feel?" Stiles asks as he finishes shoving his school books into the open backpack on his bed, glancing at the computer clock to make sure he's not making both of them late.
"First date?" Scott responds dumbly.
"...Scott, you're going out with a pretty girl, on a Saturday night, to a party, and you both agreed to go together," he explains like he's talking to a five-year-old, "yes it's a date, dumbass."
"It's a date," his friend repeats dazedly and Stiles glances up to see a dumb look on Scott's face through the Skype call, "shit, I've never had a date, what do I do?"
Stiles burst out laughing, shaking his head at the other's despair, "figure it out, buddy. I've gotta get to school," he says before closing the call and swinging his backpack over his shoulder.
He and Caroline bicker from the moment they're out the door to when they finally step out of the car in front of the school, the blonde annoyed that her phone wasn't charged, Stiles annoyed that she was blaming him for that when she's the one who forgot to put it to charge, and Caroline annoyed even more that she only forgot because he was borrowing her charger and then forgot his perfectly charged phone at home when they were already late and couldn't go back to get it. Needless to say, Stiles is very relieved to step out of the car and doesn't stop walking until he bumps into Bonnie.
"Morning, Cinnabon," He greets with a grin, followed by a huffy Caroline.
"Stiles!" She looks relieved, "You and Care weren't picking up-"
"Whose fault is that," his cousin snaps at him with a glare before walking past them toward the doors, making him wonder if it's really all about the phone or if there's something else, maybe she's PMSing or something.
"...What got into her?" Bonnie asks with a frown.
"Who… knows," his sentence peters out at the scene happening right behind Bonnie, which she turns around to see when she catches him staring. Lockwood had thrown a football right at Stefan's head and he'd somehow, miraculously, managed to turn around and catch it perfectly before throwing it right back.
"Boys," Bonnie huffs out, hooking her arm through Stiles', "come on, we've got English first period."
Classes go surprisingly well, with Stiles finding that the lack of a troublemaker reputation means teachers actually call on him when he raises his hand instead of keeping an eye on him out of the corner of their eyes in case he's up to something. Well, most teachers anyway, since Mr Tanner seems to have it out for him, though at least it seems to be the same amount of animosity he holds toward the whole class instead of a targeted focus. Still, he could at least call on Stiles when he raises his hand.
"Anyone got anything?" Tanner looks at the class, conveniently ignoring Stiles' raised hand, "Miss Yuan?"
"September 2nd, 1945," Stiles blurts out, tired of being ignored.
"Thank you, Miss Yuan," Tanner drawls, not giving him time to respond before continuing the pointless quizzing, "Pearl Harbor?"
"Thanks," Lin Yuan whispers from his left.
"Nothing? Miss Gilbert?" Tanner asks, then clears his throat, interrupting Elena and Stefan's whispering. They should really try to be a little less obvious.
"Hm?" Elena clearly hadn't heard the question.
"Pearl Harbor," Tanner reiterates.
"December 7th, 1941," Stefan replies before Elena can stumble through a response.
"Maybe I should remake the roll call," Tanner comments pointedly, "since everyone's apparently changed names."
The class tries their best, but there's audible chuckles in response to that.
"The fall of the Berlin Wall?" Tanner continues.
"1989," Stefan answers once again, "I'm good with dates, Sir."
"Are you? How good?" Tanner's tone turns challenging, "Keep it to the year. Civil Rights Act."
"1964," Stefan clearly accepts the challenge, and the class watches like a tennis match as their teacher throws out event after event, and Stefan seems to get every single date right until a disagreement on the Korean War has Lin pulling out her phone and looking it up.
"It was 1953," she confirms in a slightly vindicated tone
Stiles chuckles when the class offers Stefan a few congratulatory claps.
Luckily, Tanner doesn't have time to retaliate before they're literally saved by the bell. Stiles grabs his stuff and leans on the side of Bonnie's desk, glancing at her doodle-covered page. Lydia also does to do that, he's seen it before, her margins are usually covered in sketches and scribbles. It makes him wonder how she still kept up with as many AP classes as him if her mind kept wandering during classes, but it's Lydia, she's just perfect like that.
"What's that about?" he points at the repeating numbers on the page when she goes to close it.
"Hm? Oh, I just keep seeing these numbers," she shoves the closed notebook into her bag, "8, 14, and 22."
"Huh," he blinks, not sure what to make of that.
Bonnie shrugs, "it's probably nothing."
Stiles is on his way to the corner of the field where Caroline is leading cheer practices when he spots Stefan sitting alone in the bleachers, watching the football team. He climbs his way to the loner's side, dropping down backward on the bench in front of him.
"Hey," he greets, falling into his usual rambling tone, "that thing with Tanner was great, you were like a walking Google, dude. By the way, I kinda forgot my phone at home, like an idiot, but you're literally here so I thought I should just ask if I can check out that library today, after school?"
Stefan just stares for a moment, maybe because Stiles forgot to breathe through that entire sentence, "I- sure. I have a thing at dinner but that gives you a couple hours."
"Thanks!" Stiles exclaims excitedly, standing from his seat, "Oh, and that throw this morning? Epic. You should totally bait Mr Tanner into letting you try out for the team, he'd do it just to make you suffer and maybe then they'd actually have a shot."
Stefan huffs out a small chuckle, "Thanks, maybe I will."
"Good luck!" Stiles wishes him with a grin before skipping his way down the bleachers toward Caroline.
Her cheerleaders are in the middle of a pyramid stunt, and he stops to watch before realizing Bonnie is one of the flyers and is starting to tilt forward, in the exact opposite direction of her spotter. Stiles is moving before he realizes it, slipping past Caroline right when Bonnie drops, somehow catching her in his arms mid-fall.
"That was close," he mutters, letting his wide-eyed friend down and realizing she hadn't felt heavy at all. Huh, maybe she was on a diet?
"Thanks," Bonnie says shakily, while Caroline loudly chews out Tash for being a bad spotter and the girls at the base for the uneven support.
"Anytime," Stiles tells her with a smile that quickly turns teasing, "just don't make a habit of it."
"You try it, then!" She tells him with a glare.
"I'm not signing up to have Care yell at me for free," he jokes, but the blonde clearly hears him since he's pinned with a second glare a moment later.
"Great idea, Bonnie!" Caroline exclaims with a mischievous smile, "Stiles, why don't you fill in for Elena at the base?"
"Can't I just be a spotter?" He asks with a sigh, already moving to where Elena was stepping away from a group.
"I want the pyramids to stay standing," his cousin points out, to his utter confusion.
Oh well, what Caroline wants Caroline gets.
Stepping out of Caroline's car, Stiles waves her off and makes his way to the door of the Salvatore Boarding House. It feels weird, seeing it so empty of cars and people, he was used to stopping by during breaks and always seeing at least a couple of guests milling around. Maybe Zach closed it down when his nephews moved to town? It had still been open for business the last time he left. He shakes his head and rings the bell at the door, swaying on the balls of his feet.
The door opens a moment later, revealing Damon behind it. "Stiles, come to raid the library?"
"You know it," He replies with a grin, "Stefan's home, right? He didn't want me to be here without him."
"He's-" Damon starts, but is interrupted by the exact subject of the conversation, who peeks at Stiles from over his shoulder.
"Here," Stefan informs them and Damon takes a step back, leaving the passage open, "I trust this won't take too long?"
"Don't be rude, little brother," Damon scolds playfully, "Take all the time you need, Stiles. I'll be home all night anyway if Stefan insists on supervision."
"Right, thanks," he edges his way inside between the brothers, glancing around the parlor for any changes but it was mostly the lack of guests and some furniture placement that felt off, "When did Zach close the boarding house? It was open in July."
"Around the start of August, when I mentioned moving back in," Stefan replies and Stiles realizes the brothers are just standing there watching him.
"Makes sense. Anyway, library?" He makes the practiced path to his favorite room to avoid fidgeting under their stares, not used to this much attention on him.
Zach usually left him to his devices unless he came to him with questions, but the man's nephews apparently felt the need to follow him around and see what he did. He supposes that's fair, he is a stranger in their house and maybe they hadn't told Zach about his request, which would explain some of the hovering.
"You sure know your way around," Damon quips as they follow him inside, Stile's eyes already flitting from shelf to shelf, mentally cataloging a couple of visible changes and trying to spot any interesting titles.
"I told you, Zach let me loose in here a lot," he points out, crossing to the side of the room opposite to the door where he usually found the oldest books, "and I've been visiting Mystic Falls since I was a baby," his dad had stopped visiting with him once his mom died but he did eventually start sending Stiles on his own during breaks, "this was practically my playground when Aunt Liz wanted me out of the way for those council meetings. Well, here or the Lockwood mansion, but Tyler's kind of a jerk so-"
"Council meetings?" Damon interrupts, clearly interested.
"Hm?" Stiles hums distractedly, flipping through one of the books he pulled out of the shelf, "y'know, Founders Council stuff, a bunch of stuffy old people organizing events to commemorate the fact that someone with the same last name as them did something worthwhile over a hundred years ago," he pauses before adding, "except Aunt Liz, she's not stuffy or old, don't tell her I said that."
Someone chuckles, but he's too distracted to tell who. Stefan says something about being right back and when Stiles glances back up some time later, both brothers are gone from the room. He shrugs and goes back to browsing the shelves.
The two Salvatores show up again after a while, once Stiles has already set up his little research corner on the center table by one of the couches and is sitting on the ground, his back leaning on the front of the couch, devouring paragraph after paragraph and making notes as he goes, as well as taking a couple of pictures with his phone. Stefan's hair looks a bit messier than when he left, he notices at the sight of them, and Damon's shirt is ruffled, plus Stefan is frowning for some reason. He promptly sends the approaching duo a questioning look that goes entirely unanswered.
"So, why are you looking into…" Damon takes a seat at the couch Stiles has his back to and leans over his shoulder to glance at the books around him, a little too close to Stiles' personal bubble for comfort but nothing he feels the need to mention out loud, "witch trials?"
"Witches in general," Stiles corrects, watching Stefan take a seat on the couch opposite them, "it's for a friend of mine. Well, she didn't exactly ask me to look into it, but I figured why not? Worst case scenario I just won't find anything."
"And best case?" Stefan asks, inching closer to Stiles' meticulous mess of scattered texts.
"You wouldn't happen to have a grimoire or two laying around, would you?" He asks jokingly, startling at a low chuckle coming from behind him before reminding himself it's just Damon.
"So you believe in magic?" The older Salvatore questions, swiping one of the books into his lap and making Stiles itch to slap his hand away from his research, but it's their house, and their books, Stiles, don't do it.
"I don't not believe in it," he shrugs, "the world is too big for things we don't know not to exist somewhere. Plus, it's witchcraft or a History essay, pretty easy choice there."
"Fair enough," Damon decides, "I happen to know a thing or two about witches, I'd be happy to tell you about it… Say, Stefan, don't you have dinner to get ready for?"
"Damon," Stefan says in a warning tone as Stiles glances between the two in confusion.
"Don't worry your pretty little gelled-up head about Stiles, he's fine with me keeping an eye on him, right?" Damon offers him a smirk that Stiles is pretty sure usually spells trouble.
Unfortunately for Stefan, trouble is pretty much Stiles' middle name.
"Sure, I don't mind," he shrugs.
"Great!" Damon claps his hands together and stands up, "Off you go then, brother mine. Elena awaits," he pretty much shoos Stefan out of the room, and Stiles tries not to think too hard about the warning look in the younger Salvatore's eyes.
Damon definitely seems like a handful, but not exactly dangerous.
"You don't like each other very much, do you?" Stiles blurts out after the silence seems to stretch for too long.
"What are you talking about?" Damon sits back down on the couch, this time the one opposite him, "He's my brother, we love each other."
Stiles can't quite read the man's tone, "I never said you didn't," he elaborates without taking his eyes off the book he was currently reading, "no one ever said love and hate were mutually exclusive. You can love someone but not like them very much."
"Speaking from experience?" Stiles recognizes the evasion and slightly defensive tone for what it is and decides it's way too early into this acquaintanceship to keep poking the bear.
Especially when the bear controls his access to research material.
"Mhm," he hums, noncommittal, before looking up at Damon with curiosity, "So, witches?"
They're barely ten minutes into Damon's tale about a witch that allegedly lived in Mystic Falls during the Founders' time when Stiles' phone rings with Caroline's ringtone. He sends the man an apologetic look before picking up.
"What's up, Care Bear?" Damon makes a face at the nickname for his cousin and Stiles tries his best not to laugh.
"Why did everybody decide to abandon me today?" Caroline starts in a pouty tone that Stiles recognizes well "Elena was busy, and now I learn that Bonnie is having dinner with her and Stefan, but I wasn't invited. Why can't I be there? It's not as if they're on a double date! And you're off in a research binge so I can't even bribe you for food."
Stiles tries his best to reign in his amusement at his cousin's sudden bout of neediness, "If you miss them that much, just crash their dinner," he suggests lightly, "and you know I don't need bribes, I need ingredients."
"We should do that," Caroline replies with renewed determination in her tone, nearly giving him whiplash.
"That was a joke," he explains, "and there's no we, you're the one complaining!"
"It was your idea!" she exclaims, "besides, I can't show up on my own, that's just pathetic. Come on, we can show Elena we also want to get to know her new boyfriend!"
"...Sure, Care," he caves with a sigh, knowing a lost cause when he sees one, "let me know when you're outside."
"You're the best!" Stiles can practically hear her grin and it makes him smile slightly as he ends the call.
"Leaving already?" Damon asks in a curious tone.
Stiles looks at him for a moment, a positively awful idea blooming in his mind, one which he should probably avoid if he wants Stefan not to ban him from the Salvatore Library but might also get him enough favor with Damon that the man may consider sneaking him books if he does get banned.
Well… his mom did use to call him Mischief. "How do you feel about crashing your brother's dinner?"
The smirk that tilts Damon's lips at the question feels like enough of an answer.
"I'd love to get to know my little brother's girlfriend better," he replied with feigned innocence.
Stiles picks up his phone and shoots Caroline a text.
Stiles(8:12p.m.): nvm, I'll meet u there.
I had different, slightly more fluff inclined plans, but Stiles woke up and chose to be chaotic sigh
I wonder how that dinner will go... (no really I do cause I haven't written it yet lol)
Do u guys think I'm doing an ok job with establishing Stiles' previous history/presence in Mystic Falls? Any other thoughts? I'd love to read them.