I'm back! This was very fun to write hehe. Canon is slowly but surely shifting.
"What the hell, Stiles?" Caroline exclaimed in a whisper - something he hadn't known was possible until then - while dragging him a few steps away from Damon's convertible and out of his hearing range, almost making him drop the cake they'd picked up as a peace offering. "What are you doing with my mystery hottie?"
Stiles holds back a snort, "First of all, Damon is nothing of yours other than your ticket to being grounded 'till graduation," he whispers back, "Secondly, he's Stefan's brother, so I figured why not let him tag along?"
"You're the best," she reiterates her words from their call with an excited smile.
"I did not bring him for y-"
"Hi, I'm Caroline," his cousin says as she proceeds to completely ignore him and introduce herself to Damon, holding out her hand, "I'm this one's cousin."
"So I've heard," Damon, like the asshole Stiles is starting to find out he is, takes her hand and kisses the air above it like some aristocrat from a romance novel, smirking all the while. "Damon Salvatore. It's a pleasure."
"Not yet it isn't," Caroline replies with a coy look and Stiles decides he's had about enough of that.
"Oookay, let's go, we'll be late to crashing the party," he pointedly pulls Caroline to the other side of him with his free hand and throws Damon a glare before heading to Elena's door.
Caroline rings the doorbell and it doesn't take long for Elena to open it, "Surprise!" Caroline announces with a smile, already stepping through the doorway.
"We heard you were doing dinner," Stiles adds, "we brought dessert," he holds up the cake.
"Hope you don't mind," Damon quips from behind him.
"Oh," she blinks in confusion for a second, following Caroline's path with her eyes.
"What are you doing here, Damon?" Stefan asks, showing up at the doorway and blocking their passage, looking at his brother with that same puzzling stare Stiles had noticed in the library.
"Getting to know my little brother's girlfriend, of course," Damon says in a 'duh' kind of tone, "Stiles thought it'd be a good idea."
"Way to throw me under the bus," Stiles mutters under his breath before looking at Elena with his best puppy eyes, the ones that even work on Aunt Liz sometimes, "so, can we crash your dinner?"
"Sure, just come on in," Elena caves, interrupting whatever Stefan was about to say, with an exasperated expression Stiles remembers usually being directed at Jeremy.
Stefan looks to be between frustrated and resigned but only steps back to let them walk into the house.
What's that about?
"I can't believe that Mr Tanner let you on the team," Caroline brings up when their conversation eventually gets to the subject of school, "Tyler must be seething."
They'd migrated from the dinner table to the living room after eating dessert, with Caroline leading most of the conversation along with Damon, mostly trading childhood stories about Elena and Stefan respectively - with their sparse interjections - like some parody of proud parents exchanging baby pictures, or at least that's how Stiles chose to view it in his mind, to his amusement and in an attempt to ignore the amount of flirting going on between Damon and Caroline. The subject had eventually turned to sports and naturally to Stefan's addition to the Timberwolves.
"I can. He's clearly a douche, but he's a douche that likes to win," Stiles points out, shifting on the couch for the third time in just as many minutes, "but good for you. Go for it."
"That's what I always tell him. You have to engage," Damon agrees, "You can't just sit there and wait for life to come. You have to go get it."
"Yeah, Elena wasn't so lucky today," Caroline points out, "It's because you missed summer camp," she adds placatingly, "I'm not sure there's enough time to learn the routines…"
"We'll work with her, she'll get it," Bonnie interjects, lightly bumping Stiles' side with her elbow.
"Right… wait, who's we? Why do I feel like I'm being volunteered for this?" He narrows his eyes at Bonnie and Caroline, "It's not like I went to summer camp."
"Oh, so I video-called my other cousin to run through my camp routines with me?" Caroline raises one brow at him.
"You're a cheerleader?" Damon asks him in a voice dripping with amusement.
The question immediately earns narrow-eyed looks from Caroline and Bonnie, but Stiles just shrugs, "Not officially, but you try living with Caroline for any amount of time and not get dragged into her schemes."
"I don't scheme," she protests, wrinkling her nose in distaste, "villains in movies scheme, I simply encourage you to get involved in my interests."
"I just meant that he didn't seem like the type," Damon explains in a slightly apologetic tone, probably due to the looks his question earned him, "actually, neither do you, Elena."
"Oh, it's because her parents died," his cousin blurts out, delicate as a bull in a china shop, "I mean, she's just totally going through a blah phase. She used to be way more f- ow!" She glares at Stiles for the pillow that hit the side of her head and fell to her lap, but he only sends her a pointed look that's also mirrored by Bonnie. It eventually gets through to her since she sends Elena an apologetic look while adding, "And I say that with complete sensitivity."
"I'm sorry, Elena. I know what it's like to lose both your parents," Damon offers in sympathy, or at least that's what it looks like, "In fact, Stefan and I have watched almost every single person we've ever cared about die."
"We don't need to get into that right now, Damon." Stefan declares, sending his brother a look Stiles can't quite read.
"Oh, you're right, Stef. I'm sorry," Damon's apology would almost seem genuine to Stiles if he hadn't kept speaking, "The last thing I wanted to do was bring her up."
There's an awkward silence, and Stiles really can't stand to let it go on, "So. I'm just gonna say it, next time we do this, I'm cooking." Bonnie is the first to chuckle, followed by Elena who shakes her head. "Just saying, putting takeout in a bowl doesn't stop it being takeout, and that cake was way too sweet."
Caroline rolls her eyes, "you brought the cake."
"Excuse me if my favorite bakery was closed," Stiles quips back, "any more disrespect from you and you don't get any of my kołaczki."
"What's that, Russian?" Damon asks, glancing between Stiles and Caroline.
"Polish," somehow, the three girls manage to reply at the same time, prompting a couple of smiles and a laugh from Stiles who was definitely the one to condition them into it.
"I thought your family was from Mystic Falls?" Stefan ventures, mostly looking at Caroline.
"Oh, Mom and Dad are, but Uncle Noah moved out after graduating and got married," his cousin explains, "Aunt Claudia was Polish, and Stiles learned all of her recipes."
"Was?" Damon glances at Stiles.
"You guys don't have the monopoly on dead parents," Stiles shrugs.
"Did you find what you needed in the library?" Stefan asks when it's just him, Stiles, and Caroline in the living room. Elena and Damon ended up on dishwashing duty - or dishwasher duty most likely - and Bonnie had just gone to check on them.
"Yeah, what are you looking for there, anyway?" Caroline adds in curiosity, "I thought you'd had your fill of it last summer."
"Never," Stiles denies, "and just witchy stuff," he gives his cousin a pointed look before replying to Stefan, "but nothing much yet."
"For Bonnie, I take it?" Stefan concludes, to their surprise. "She mentioned ancestors from Salem."
"Yep," Stiles confirms, "but don't tell her I'm looking into it, who knows if I'll even find anything?"
Stefan just nods in agreement, "And Damon didn't… do anything?"
"He was fine," Stiles tells him, "I'd even dare say helpful."
"High praise, don't stop on my account," Damon quips as he walks back into the room and Stiles can't help but think speak of the devil and he doth appear. "Though I'd rather it came from the other cousin," he adds with a wink at Caroline, who only smiles in response.
Alright, that's it.
"Hey Care," Stiles starts with forced levity, "Why don't you go see if the girls need help in the kitchen?"
Caroline scoffs, "Do I look dressed to do dishes?"
"So you'd rather talk about that time in the diner when-" Stiles doesn't even get to finish the phrase before she's standing from the couch.
"I'm going, going, gone!" She exclaims, speeding toward the kitchen at nearly supernatural speed.
"That's gotta be some interesting blackmail material," Damon points out.
"Which you won't be finding out," Stiles says in agreement before also standing up to face Damon, "I think you don't mean harm, but I'll have to ask you to stop flirting with my cousin."
"Jealous?" Damon smirks, taking a step closer.
Stefan, watching from the sidelines, looks a little apprehensive. Stiles can't tell if it's for him or for his brother.
"She's sixteen," he doesn't even deign the man's insinuation with a response, "and you're what, twenty-two?"
"Twenty-five," Damon corrects, brows raised.
"So you've got no business flirting with the underage daughter of the Sheriff," Stiles concludes, crossing his arms.
Damon takes another step forward, leaning into his space. "Should I flirt with you instead?"
Stiles scoffs in disbelief, "Yeah, right," he sighs, looking up slightly to meet the man's eyes, "Look, I just don't want her to get hurt, and that big an age gap is asking for it."
There's a tense moment where Damon just tilts his head slightly and stares at him as if he's trying to look into his soul or something. From the corner of Stiles' vision, Stefan seems like he's seconds away from standing and stepping between them.
"Fair enough," Damon declares with a shrug, stepping away, and Stiles almost sags in relief, "It's all in good fun, don't you ever just flirt for the sake of doing it?"
Stiles snorts, "Yeah, no, I've actually looked in a mirror recently," he rolls his eyes and ignores Damon's brows rising slightly, "I'll go see what the girls are getting up to in the kitchen," he spares the brothers an amused glance, knowing that as soon as e steps out, Stefan will probably blurt out whatever he's been holding back all night, "don't kill each other."
"No promises," Damon calls as he leaves.
Stiles makes his way to the kitchen to find his three friends huddled near the entrance, eyeing him with expressions ranging from amusement to anger.
"What the hell, Stiles?" Caroline shout-whispers as she drags him to the further corner of the kitchen, followed by Bonnie and Elena, "I don't need you to chase off guys to- to protect me or something!"
"Care, come on, does he seem like the relationship type?" Stiles tries to make her see reason.
"Maybe I don't want a relationship, ever think of that?" She snaps back, "Maybe I just want the hot older guy to fuck me."
Stiles takes a deep breath, hands curling and uncurling from fists at his sides, "I get it, Care," he starts and keeps going before she can interrupt him, "Eighteen-year-old virgin, remember? I do get it," he ignores the amused looks from Bonnie and Elena to continue, his hands moving to Caroline's shoulders, "I've read you every fairy-tale where the princess finds her prince and gets married to the love of her life, multiple times. I've heard you talking about boys being dumb and about dreaming of a relationship like Elena and Matt's." At the edge of his vision, Elena seems to soften at that revelation, "You've made a different wedding binder every year because you want it to be perfect, but it's always missing some details because you want your future husband to get involved too." his hands slide down her arms to grasp her hands between his before he looks up to see her anger replaced by slightly teary eyes, "You want romance and for a boy to sweep you off your feet, and you'd regret it if your first time was with some random, older hot guy that won't even remember your name after just for the sake of getting it over with."
Elena and Bonnie trade a look, "He's not wrong, Care," Bonnie points out.
Caroline lets out a teary chuckle, "god damn it, Stiles," she pulls him into a hug, squeezing him with all her might before looking to the side and pulling her two best friends into a group hug, "I love you guys."
"We love you too," Elena replies with a chuckle, with Stiles and Bonnie not far behind.
Caroline takes a moment to recompose herself, whining about Stiles making her ruing her makeup, before a smirk stretches her lips and her eyes fill with mischief as she looks at him, "So you think Damon's hot, huh?"
Elena and Bonnie burst into laughter from Stiles' incredulous look at his cousin's question.
"So what?" he mutters defensively, "I have working eyes!"
If I don't include a scene, just assume it happened as close to canon as possible whilst in the context of this AU. I think I'll be sticking to Stiles' POV for the whole thing, though I may eventually add another story to the series with other POVs.
Stiles' self-confidence needs some work XD and I feel like I'm setting something up, but I'm not sure what lol. We'll find out together I guess.
Thoughts?