[text to: summer] yeah i think so. finally don’t have school looming over my shoulder.
[text to: Stiles] summer break yay! which car?
[text: summer] will the telescope even fit in your car, didn’t you say it was tiny?
[text to: Stiles] the inside of the car is tiny. the trunk is huge. I can put the roof of the car in the trunk.
iamthefirechild:
[text to: Stiles] stargazing tonight. Still up for it?
[text to: summer] yeah i think so. finally don’t have school looming over my shoulder.
[text to: Stiles] summer break yay! which car?
Summer just stands there, in the rowan gap, arms wrapped around Helios, looking slightly bemused. She waits patiently for the laughter to subside again, at least to the point where she can be heard. Then, “I can call a cab,” she says mildly.
It’s almost certainly one of those injokes that would lose greatly in the retelling. But that’s fine; she just wants to get Helios back home where he can run off and sulk properly at the way he’s been mistreated (his concept, not hers). She buries her nose in his fur and watches the two boys over his ears, patiently waiting.
Eventually, the boys get themselves under control. Stiles straightens up, managing to hold himself on his own two feet again, and uses one hand to wipe tears from his eyes while the other stays wrapped around his middle, like maybe he needs the support.
“Are you sure?” He manages to speak a few moments later, expression suspended between concern and residual amusement. “It’s not a big deal, I could drive you guys, I mean I’m right here and I don’t charge fare.”
If Stiles had bothered to actually examine the expression on her face, she wouldn’t’ve needed to ask the question; it’s clear she’s teasing lightly, reminding him she’s here and trying to be unobtrusive about it. So she simply says, “I only didn’t want to interrupt your time with Scott. Whenever you’re ready.” The motion might be a little bit pointed when she sits down in one of the chairs and bends her head over Helios’.
Summer just huffs a chuckle, smile turning wry, at the outburst of laughter. It’s a very familiar kind of full-throated outburst, and she glances over her shoulder toward the sound. Scooping the thoroughly-violated feeling Helios into her arms, she looks up at Dr Deaton. “Does that mean there’s something you should put a stop to?” she teases.
He just shrugs slightly, with a knowing look, and opens the door for her. She tells him, “Thank you,” then calls, “Stiles? I think I’m done here. Helios wants to go home.”
There’s the faintest quirk of an eyebrow from Deaton as he refocuses his attention on Summer. He considers her question for a few long moments before commenting quietly, “No, I don’t generally find it necessary to put a stop to happiness. It can be rare enough. Take care, you two. I hope I don’t see you back here until Helios’ next check-up.” He even reaches to hold the door open for the departing cat and his mistress.
Stiles hasn’t answered Summer’s call, the reason for which might be evident the moment they get back into the waiting room. It’s empty but for he and Scott, and Stiles has taken the opportunity to regale his best friend with some kind of story which has more or less at this point degraded into hysterical laughter. They’re leaning on each other, hands on opposite shoulders, and Stiles keeps gesturing with his free hand in a circular motion as he laughs, trying to continue the story but unable to get his breathing in the appropriate gear. “And then he—he—hhh—”
Scott looks up first, but their synergy causes Stiles to look up a moment later. There’s a split second of silence as they blink at Summer like they’ve been caught out at something.
Then it all dissolves again, straight into helpless guffaws. Stiles starts laughing so hard he’s melting to the side and Scott shifts his grip to hold Stiles up by the arm without even thinking.
Summer just stands there, in the rowan gap, arms wrapped around Helios, looking slightly bemused. She waits patiently for the laughter to subside again, at least to the point where she can be heard. Then, “I can call a cab,” she says mildly.
It’s almost certainly one of those injokes that would lose greatly in the retelling. But that’s fine; she just wants to get Helios back home where he can run off and sulk properly at the way he’s been mistreated (his concept, not hers). She buries her nose in his fur and watches the two boys over his ears, patiently waiting.
“And that’s why you’ve made /no/ effort to actually introduce us to each other,” Summer teases Stiles. “It’s as if you thought he wouldn’t like me!” It’s only as the words come out of her mouth that the potential truth of that hits her. Fortunately Dr Deaton comes in just then.
The little examination room is a little over-crowded with four people and an unhappy cat in it. She raises her own brows as both boys leave, eyes comically wide at Stiles’ parting shot, before she turns back to Dr Deaton. ”I can’t imagine why I would need good luck,” she says to him. “Are you secretly an alien from outer space?” It’s the weirdest thing she can come up with that’s not the truth — although come to think of it Stiles never said anything about the vet being special.
That’s how she’s decided to think of them all. Special.
Helios lays his ears back at the vet, apparently not having forgotten his impromptu visit a few weeks before. Summer tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and scratches the cat’s neck, trying to coax him to relax.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Scott likes everybody,” Stiles says, the statement easy camaraderie and a sort of throw-away quality around the edges. And then they’re gone, leaving Summer and Helios alone with Dr. Deaton.
Dr. Deaton, who has a patient smile and a gentle touch even when Helios hisses at him. “I’m a vet,” he says, plainly, but in the same immutable way a mountain refuses to budge when one puts a shoulder into it. That’s all she’s going to get out of him, unless she’s asking about advice on how to deal with Helios.
The vet doesn’t seem to mind a few scratches, if he earns them, while he checks up on Helios’ health. Eventually he even gives Helios a clean bill of health, which comes about the same time that Scott’s voice suddenly explodes into laughter, setting one of the dogs off in the back on a barking fit. Deaton—looks longsuffering, but then he always does.
Summer just huffs a chuckle, smile turning wry, at the outburst of laughter. It’s a very familiar kind of full-throated outburst, and she glances over her shoulder toward the sound. Scooping the thoroughly-violated feeling Helios into her arms, she looks up at Dr Deaton. “Does that mean there’s something you should put a stop to?” she teases.
He just shrugs slightly, with a knowing look, and opens the door for her. She tells him, “Thank you,” then calls, “Stiles? I think I’m done here. Helios wants to go home.”
Helios flicks an ear at Scott and cranes his neck, sniffing. He does that cat-sniffing thing that curls back his top lip, eyes slightly narrowed, and watches Scott. Summer keeps her hands on him, feeling the faint tremble of his limbs ease away slowly when Scott speaks directly to him. Helios appreciates that kind of courtesy, though he’s still not at ease enough to actually relax.
“Is that what you call it?” Summer says to Stiles, grinning. “You didn’t seem to mind being fetched. As I recall, he suckered you in quite handily. Something about ‘I’m just going to sit here and pet your cat,’ wasn’t it?” She crouches a little, to look into Helios’ blue eyes, laughing. “And fetching you appears to have brought me Scott too.”
“Well, I mean, given the choice between figure out who his owner was and return him or let him get run over by a car, yeah, I picked the first one, I’m not that much of a jackass,” Stiles says, almost sounding a little wounded, his chin and jaw angling upwards as if he feels somehow he needs to defend his stance. “I have occasional days where I’m not a terrible person. But, yes, I tried to warn you, Scott and I have been a matched set since like preschool.”
Scott looks up from the paperwork he’s filling out with a shrug and a glance to the side, wordlessly sort of grudgingly agreeing with Stiles’ assessment of the situation with an attitude not unlike ‘what am I gonna do about it now?’
Before he can say anything else about it, though, Dr. Deaton enters the room. He perks an arch eyebrow to see both Scott and Stiles in the room with Summer and Helios, but he doesn’t say anything, really, only suggesting in a gentle voice, “Thanks for keeping them company, boys, but I think I can handle it from here.”
It isn’t a suggestion, but both of the teenaged boys take it well enough. Stiles wiggles his fingers in Summer’s direction. “Be in the waiting room, okay? Good luck.”
“And that’s why you’ve made /no/ effort to actually introduce us to each other,” Summer teases Stiles. “It’s as if you thought he wouldn’t like me!” It’s only as the words come out of her mouth that the potential truth of that hits her. Fortunately Dr Deaton comes in just then.
The little examination room is a little over-crowded with four people and an unhappy cat in it. She raises her own brows as both boys leave, eyes comically wide at Stiles’ parting shot, before she turns back to Dr Deaton. ”I can’t imagine why I would need good luck,” she says to him. “Are you secretly an alien from outer space?” It’s the weirdest thing she can come up with that’s not the truth — although come to think of it Stiles never said anything about the vet being special.
That’s how she’s decided to think of them all. Special.
Helios lays his ears back at the vet, apparently not having forgotten his impromptu visit a few weeks before. Summer tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and scratches the cat’s neck, trying to coax him to relax.
If she had a hand free, at this point Summer would have cuffed Stiles on the back of the head gently. She settles instead for lifting her eyebrows meaningfully at him, and making a mental note to ask him about the mountain ash. Why would it be important to have a /rowan/ barrier in a /vet’s/ clinic?
It does amuse her to watch the way Stiles changes under Scott’s influence — the little flashes of … responsibility seem to be absent, replaced with a higher level of clowning around. Summer untangles herself from Helios and deposits him on the examining table, where he leaves slightly sweaty pawprints and makes another pitiful meow. “No, he’s been behaving pretty normal, except for deciding to go out and /bring me back friends/,” she answers, making an exaggerated face of displeasure at Helios.
Then she winks at Stiles and Scott.
It isn’t even a conscious change Stiles makes—this is the Stiles most people see, given how often he is in Scott’s presence, how rarely pried from the other boy’s side. This is probably how he prefers to be, in the company of someone whom he knows will take up the slack, able to let go of his white-knuckled stranglehold on the thread that moves through his mind, so easily lost or broken, that represents his ability to focus and concentrate. Scott can concentrate for both of them, and Stiles can relax a little. The line of his shoulders changes a little, less sharp-edged, less tense.
“He’s the only cat I’ve ever met that plays fetch, but I have to say I’m used to that kind of thing being with sticks.” Stiles quips from the corner, still grinning toothily. Scott’s expression doesn’t budge from its place between ‘kind and sympathetic’ and ‘incredibly longsuffering’.
Scott has been very careful not to get too close to Helios’ personal space, although he does this with a sort of confidence that implies it’s probably a force of habit at this point. Still, he appears to be addressing the cat when he speaks, filling some kind of form in with sincerely terrible handwriting. “Don’t let him get you down, Helios, he doesn’t have any idea what he’s talking about most of the time anyway.”
Helios flicks an ear at Scott and cranes his neck, sniffing. He does that cat-sniffing thing that curls back his top lip, eyes slightly narrowed, and watches Scott. Summer keeps her hands on him, feeling the faint tremble of his limbs ease away slowly when Scott speaks directly to him. Helios appreciates that kind of courtesy, though he’s still not at ease enough to actually relax.
“Is that what you call it?” Summer says to Stiles, grinning. “You didn’t seem to mind being fetched. As I recall, he suckered you in quite handily. Something about ‘I’m just going to sit here and pet your cat,’ wasn’t it?” She crouches a little, to look into Helios’ blue eyes, laughing. “And fetching you appears to have brought me Scott too.”
Stiles has clearly forgotten that she’s already mentioned she recognises Scott from previous visits to the clinic. The expression Summer shows Scott is very much ‘yes I know he’s this kind of person and it’s okay I like him this way too’. Sympathetic. She would wave back, but both hands are occupied with unhappy cat.
“Hey Scott. I have an appointment, actually; it’s time for his checkup.” Helios makes the most pitiful mew possible, and hugs her neck even more tightly. She peels one set of claws from over her shoulder, and looks back up at Scott and Stiles, eyes merry. “Stiles, I promise we can do the friendship thing once we get this furball into a smaller room with no doors to the outside.”
At the very best, Stiles is not a person who could be accused of having a lot of presence of mind. He has indeed seemed to forget just about any conversation he may have had with Summer previously about knowing Scott. Instead, he just sort of buzzes around the edge of the conversation, in the way Stiles is wont to do.
“Let’s get him settled before he tears your shoulder to shreds,” Scott says to Summer, trying to give her a sympathetic smile. The little gesture he makes clearly means ‘follow me’, wherein he starts to lead to the open examination room. Stiles waits for Summer to pass through the wooden partition before he swings it closed again, stage-whispering seriously, “Mountain ash. Very important to keep it closed.” He thumbs the side of his nose briefly, and turns it into a guileless ‘who me?’ look when Scott turns to give Stiles a notable look over his shoulder.
Pressing one hand against the door to keep it open, Scott is gesturing to the room with his other hand. “Dr. Deaton should be here to check Helios over soon. Has there been any kind of—Stiles, don’t touch the sterile gloves, please—behavior or anything that’s concerned you, so I can be sure it doesn’t get missed?”
There’s Stiles in the corner of the room, retracting his fingers from the place where he was definitely reaching for the gloves to play with, flickering them as he does out of vague frustration that he’s been called out.
If she had a hand free, at this point Summer would have cuffed Stiles on the back of the head gently. She settles instead for lifting her eyebrows meaningfully at him, and making a mental note to ask him about the mountain ash. Why would it be important to have a /rowan/ barrier in a /vet’s/ clinic?
It does amuse her to watch the way Stiles changes under Scott’s influence — the little flashes of … responsibility seem to be absent, replaced with a higher level of clowning around. Summer untangles herself from Helios and deposits him on the examining table, where he leaves slightly sweaty pawprints and makes another pitiful meow. “No, he’s been behaving pretty normal, except for deciding to go out and /bring me back friends/,” she answers, making an exaggerated face of displeasure at Helios.
Then she winks at Stiles and Scott.
Summer is impressed at the way Stiles just stonewalls that discussion without even seeming evasive. He just nopes out of it, and her expression is bemused as she watches him bounce toward the clinic like nothing in the world is wrong. She exchanges glances with Helios, then heaves him up to her shoulder and wraps an arm tightly about his middle.
She knows what’s coming next.
It takes point five seconds for Helios to realise he’s been betrayed, and then he scrabbles his paws over her shoulder, clinging to the fabric of her shirt and dragging desperately. Summer gets the door open, wincing slightly as hind feet score at her middle, and kicks the door shut to get both arms around the squirming cat. One hand grabs the back of his neck, and he unlatches one paw to move it to the other shoulder and wrap around her neck, making a pitiful, high-pitched mew of distress.
She takes advantage of the brief cessation of struggling to open the door and slip inside the clinic.
And thus, as Summer and Helios make their appearance, so does the elusive creature hitherto known as Scott McCall. He’s slightly shorter than Stiles is, by an inch or two at most, but his body is more sturdily built, more obviously made of muscle even under the cameoflague of his shirt. Tattoo around one bicep, browner skin than Stiles’, but also something a little more blatantly kind in his expression than the one Stiles’ face tends to carry by default, although he is looking simultaneously happy to see the ganglier teenager and confused as Summer comes in the door. “…Stiles, what are you doing here?”
“Helping a friend.” Stiles says immediately, and he’s making a little hop-skip of a motion to meet Scott halfway, opening the door in the low wood partition before Scott even reaches for it. Scott comes out from the back area as Stiles rambles. “Yes, I do actually have some that aren’t you, don’t be a smartass. Scott, this is Summer, Summer, Scott, and here we have Helios who is bucking the curve by not having a name starting with S, but I guess that is to be expected, because he’s a cat.”
Scott gives Stiles a bit of a worried glance at the phrase because he’s a cat, but Stiles is already warding that off with one hand. “He seems a very reasonable and sweet cat ninety-nine point two percent of the time, maybe you can talk some reason into him. Anyway, Summer asked me to help her bring him ‘round for some kind of visit, I assume to see the good Doctor, so here we are. I didn’t bring you lunch, sorry bro.”
The steady current of words-from-Stiles finally slows and he looks between the other two like he’s proud of himself for having two friends in one space and also desperately needs them to like each other. Scott raises one hand and waves it. “Hi.”
Stiles has clearly forgotten that she’s already mentioned she recognises Scott from previous visits to the clinic. The expression Summer shows Scott is very much ‘yes I know he’s this kind of person and it’s okay I like him this way too’. Sympathetic. She would wave back, but both hands are occupied with unhappy cat.
“Hey Scott. I have an appointment, actually; it’s time for his checkup.” Helios makes the most pitiful mew possible, and hugs her neck even more tightly. She peels one set of claws from over her shoulder, and looks back up at Scott and Stiles, eyes merry. “Stiles, I promise we can do the friendship thing once we get this furball into a smaller room with no doors to the outside.”
She blinks for a second before she figures out where he’d gone with that, then shakes her head, little bits of hair flying around. “I mean the … werewolf stuff. I thought that was better.” She ignores what he says about his ADHD — it doesn’t seem correct, based on what she’s studied, but he has bigger problems. That’s really not relevant in the face of the dementia, or whatever he thinks is trying to kill him now.
The fact that she even has to think that last bit makes her shudder and feel vaguely sick.
“Oh.” Stiles seems genuinely surprised that she was asking about that, even as they finally get into the parking lot of the clinic and he pulls Roscoe to a stop. “Yeah, no, I mean…it also kind of is? Scott’s a werewolf, that isn’t changing. We protect the town, kind of, when we aren’t making things worse, which also isn’t changing and is just something I’m gonna have to learn to cope with. Right now there’s nothing attacking but who knows how long that’ll last. It’s nice to have some time to breathe though. Maybe enough time to get myself a new bat.” He grins at Summer, briefly, and then he’s hopping out of the Jeep, apparently unconcerned about anything like whatever is trying to kill him now.
Instead, he’s bounding towards the clinic doors, poking his head in to warble into a seemingly-empty waiting room. “OOhhHhh Scottyyyy~.”
It seems poor Summer is about to get a full dose of Stiles in maximum obnoxious mode. The sounds from the back indicate that somebody is coming forward.
Summer is impressed at the way Stiles just stonewalls that discussion without even seeming evasive. He just nopes out of it, and her expression is bemused as she watches him bounce toward the clinic like nothing in the world is wrong. She exchanges glances with Helios, then heaves him up to her shoulder and wraps an arm tightly about his middle.
She knows what’s coming next.
It takes point five seconds for Helios to realise he’s been betrayed, and then he scrabbles his paws over her shoulder, clinging to the fabric of her shirt and dragging desperately. Summer gets the door open, wincing slightly as hind feet score at her middle, and kicks the door shut to get both arms around the squirming cat. One hand grabs the back of his neck, and he unlatches one paw to move it to the other shoulder and wrap around her neck, making a pitiful, high-pitched mew of distress.
She takes advantage of the brief cessation of struggling to open the door and slip inside the clinic.