Oh, What A Night (Beacon Hills, 2011)

[whatisastiles]

Stiles and the damn fools that follow him back to Beacon Hills step into an ordinary looking teenage boy's bedroom. There's the usual furniture—bed, desk, dresser, bookshelf—and decorations—band posters, telescope, pile of smelly lacrosse gear. It doesn't look like much in the way of a werewolf investigative headquarters.

"Welcome to mi casa," says Stiles. "Dad's not home, thank God, so he won't notice we're here."

Add 'weird people traveling in through my closet' to the many things Stiles would rather not have to explain to his father.

"I need to talk to Scott," he say, punching the speed dial on his phone at the same time. He pauses for a moment listening to the phone ring, ring, and finally go to voicemail before hanging up. "And he's not picking up, so I'm going to go see if he's at home. You staying here or coming with?"

Comments

[whatisastiles]

"You're kidding me, right, Grace?" asks Stiles. He lifts up a pile of mail and yesterday's newspaper from the kitchen table and unearths the keys to his Jeep.

"Her Dad is a werewolf hunter."

Did he fail to mention that before? Oops.

"He shot Scott in the arm. With an arrow."

What is this, like, medieval times?

"Also, no. Absolutely not."

He can see that gleam in her eyes. He knows it. He does the same thing. It's not to be trusted.

[mnt_raph]

While Grace and Stiles discuss their next move, Raph bides his time by giving the living room a closer inspection.

That is until he realizes he's being watched by Grace. That's about the time he turns, makes and holds eye contact, all the while keeping his expression as purposefully neutral as he can.

Raph's a giant marshmallowy lug of a man once you get to know him, but...it's not something he shouts from the rooftops.

"Silver heads on the arrows?" he drawls?

[headed4hell]

Good question.

Grace tucks her chin in and snickers.

"I was a teenage girl, man. Sometimes goin' against Daddy's wishes is part of the appeal."

Beat.

"That don't explain Scott's choice to date the daughter of a werewolf hunter, but hey. Live and live dangerously."

Oh, that's not how the phrase goes? Too bad.

[whatisastiles]

"I don't know about the arrows. Derek pulled the arrow out and they just ran for it."

Maybe they should've stopped to ask?

Grace has a point about rebellion, and it's not necessarily unique to teenage girls either.

"He didn't know Argent's a werewolf hunter until after he fell for Allison."

Whether her dimple's would've had less power over Scott if he already knew? Eh... doubtful, honestly.

Stiles leads his new posse out to a luxurious aging Jeep CJ5 parked in the driveway. The doors aren't locked. They don't really do that.

[mnt_raph]

"Smart," he mutters with regards to the kids actually running from the badguy, rather than towards. And from the sounds of it he means that.

Raph doesn't even blink before he heads towards the driver's seat of the Jeep, but pauses just as he's about to put his hand on the door to get in.

It's been a damn long time since he's driven anything with more than one horse power, and even then...he was walking along side the horse.

"It's probably best I don't drive."

[headed4hell]

Grace snorts and lets out a loud "Ha!"

Just before she grabs shotgun.

You snooze, you lose.

"Yeah, the fastest thing he's been drivin' comes in ponypower, not horse."

[mnt_raph]

That's quite all right. Take shotgun. That leaves the entire back of the Jeep for Raph to sit in, which works just fine for him, thankyouverymuch.

If there was an insult to be had by her statement, he ignores it.

[whatisastiles]

It's good that Grace and Raph resolved that one their own. It saves him the explanation that nobody else is driving Roscoe. She's temperamental.

Stiles climbs in after his companions get settled and starts up Roscoe's engine. The transmission makes a strange noise as Stiles shifts into her into reverse.

He prepares himself for the disparagement of his Lady's character that are sure to follow.

[headed4hell]

...Roscoe?

Grace can't say anything, though. Her porsche is named Connie.

"So."

Grace is hanging on to the top of the door, watching Stiles. If her eye twitches during that shift, well, it's not like she comments on it.

Some things are sacrosanct.

"Are we stoppin' for snacks? It's not a road trip without snacks."

Grace realizes they are going somewhere else in the same town. She doesn't care.

[whatisastiles]

Stiles rejects your gender norms in car naming conventions. So there.

He also thinks he literally just had this "we just came from the bar" conversation in the narration not ten minutes ago. What is with these people?

"Sure, 7 Eleven it is," he says, rolling his eyes.

It's actually not on the way and will make this trip at least twice as long, but whatever. Gotta feed your partners.

[mnt_raph]

There's no schooling of Raph's expression. Not when the kid's motor sounds like that, and not with the way he drives.

Though...to be honest, Raph doesn't really approve of anyone's driving but his own.

He's just about to make a recommendation that Stiles take his truck to Donnie for a tune-up when 7-11 gets mentioned.

Raph hasn't seen a 7-11 in quite literally years.

"No shit, really?"

It's like Christmas, but with Slurpees!

"They still got them corndogs on the rollers under the heat lamps?"

[headed4hell]

Grace lets out a moan that would make most people blush.

"Hell yes. Wash 'em down with a coke slurpee?"

Which would, of course, get spiked with Jack Daniels under normal circumstances. Given their mission here, however, she might make do with a 40.

"Also they've got these churros now. I tell you what, those things are goddamn delicious," Grace blasphemes cheerfully.

[whatisastiles]

Stiles driving isn't bad so much as he drives like a 16 year old boy in a vehicle held together with duct tape and force of will.

But it sounds like these two won't complain so long as he delivers them to the flickering fluorescents of the local 7 Eleven.

(He's never introducing them to Dad. No way can the Sheriff think Stiles condones eating that kind of crap.)

"Don't forget those sausages wrapped up in pancakes," says Stiles. "It's like the breakfast version of a corndog."

Look what you've been missing Raph!

[mnt_raph]

"The fuck you say," says Raph...who doesn't quite believe that such things exist. At least not in the realy real world where he can eat them.

[headed4hell]

Grace leans her head out the window and looks at the sky. It's cloudy. Might rain. She opens her mouth like she's trying to catch non-existent raindrops, narrowing her eyes as they speed up and the wind blows her hair around her face, messing up what was already tangled and wild.

It's amazing, if she stops to think about it. Is this what it feels like to Earl? Go through a door and find yourself in a different part of the country? The world?

"Heh," she says into the wind, just before letting out a loud whoop.

"We there yet?" she yells a moment later, eyes shut now as she laughs.

[whatisastiles]

"Don't make me turn this car around!" Stiles yells back at Grace.

He turns the corner onto what's obviously one of the main drags through town, and the glowing lights of the 7 Eleven are visible ahead.

By the time he's pulled the Jeep into a spot out front and wrestled with the stubborn parking brake, Grace's weather predictions have come true. The rain starts out slow, the roll of thunder in the distance makes it clear it won't stay that way for too long.

"Everybody out," says Stiles, pouring out of the driver's door in his usual graceful gazelle fashion. "Get some snacks before the flood starts."

[mnt_raph]

Raph leans forward, craning his neck past Grace to get a better look at the convenience store before them.

"...well i'll fuckin' be," he says with a quiet reverence of a guy who's chosen to live in a place without running water...let alone a Slurpee machine.

He smiles. Not a smirk. Not a grin. A full blown smile.
"It's callin' me like the moon," he says in a voice that's more like his youngest brother's than his own. Raph never did practice his impressions as much as Mike did.

Raph starts reaching around Grace to get at the door, when he realizes that clambering out of the driver's side is probably easier.

"Mitheros, it's beautiful," he says when he's finally outside and basking in the glory of the 7-Eleven.

[headed4hell]

Grace stares at Raph, mouth slowly dropping open as he reacts to the sight of the 7-Eleven.

"Shit, man. Remind me to take you to Waffle House before we go."

If he feels this way about slurpees, imagine what he'd do for some scattered and covered hash browns.

And waffles. Sweet, sweet waffles.

"C'mon, big guy."

She hops out, moving fast like an unleashed kid in a candy shop, and shoves the door open ahead of them.

Within seconds, she's got a twizzler between her teeth and is pulling snacks off the shelves.

[whatisastiles]

Yeah, that is not the reaction Stiles expected either, even if they do have Slurpees.

"Waffle House?" Stiles asks. "Yeah, we don't have one of those."

There is a diner in town. They serve waffles. Grace will probably insist that's not the same.

"But, dude, where the hell are you from that you don't even have a 7 Eleven?"

The moon?

Perhaps the wrong joke, given the local lunar complications.

In the meantime, he kind of is a kid in a candyshop and goes in search of some Reese's Pieces.

[mnt_raph]

Raph walks around the store like he's casing the joint, partly because he is....and partly out of habit.

"I'm from New York City, you knob. I just ain't been home in a longass time. My brothers an' I though, growin' up. We used to use these places to test ourselves. Time how quickly we could get in an' out during that one-hour cleanin' break."

He's speaking at a normal conversational tone. Just walking around a convenience store talking about how him and his brothers used to break into them as kids...just to see if they could.

Raph looks up and makes eye contact with the kid behind the register.

"Always paid for crap we took, don' worry. Splinter woulda' skinned us alive if we didn't," he says fondly. Because that's something only someone raised by Splinter could say fondly.

It doesn't look like he's picked anything up, but in truth he's got a bag of sour gummy peaches, Swedish Fish, circus peanuts, candy necklaces and buttons, and at least a half dozen ring pops. (his fingers are the right size for them now...well, sort of.)

[headed4hell]

"Heathens," Grace concludes when Stiles says they don't have Waffle Houses. She shoves another Twizzler in her mouth and shakes her head.

Ooooh, ring pops.

"Well I bet you had more than one element of surprise workin' in your favor," Grace tells Raph when he's done with story time, leaning sideways to peer down the aisle he's on.

She knows about the whole turtle thing, after all.

"Here, catch."

Grace lobs a plastic packet at Raph, then turns and does the same thing to Stiles. Now they each have cheap, plastic convenience store ponchos!

See? She's already wearing hers over by the slurpee machine, trying to decide between coke or cherry coke... or both.

[whatisastiles]

Splinter?

Did he just steal the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' origin story?

"Dude, if you want to stay all mysterious and shit, just say so. You don't have to lie about it."

Oh, it's not that Stiles doubt that he could run into people he thought were fictional. It's just that Raph is most definitely not a giant turtle.

Stiles catches the poncho Grace tosses to him, but doesn't put it on. It's like umbrellas, right? Don't open them inside.

He does grab some Twizzlers of his own, and a bag of Cheetos.

[mnt_raph]

"There is that, yeah," he says to Grace with a smirk as he catches the poncho.
The smile of delight from before has faded back into his usual smirk of amusement. Which...remains in place right up until Stiles accuses him of lying.

Now, a Younger Raphael would have thrown something at the kid.
A Younger Raphael would have gotten up in the kid's face.

But Raph's not that young anymore. Oh sure he's still got a default setting of Angry, but his scorching case of Little Man Syndrome has been in remission for a while now.

Blame Abigail.

"I don't lie. Least, not 'bout that," he says honestly. Not since Mike tried fix his lies for him, and paid the price with the loss of both his memory and Mel Fray.
Then he turns his attention to the portion of the aisle that has the jumbo sized Pixie Sticks.

"These're Mikey's favorites," he says conversationally to Grace, before turning on a dime and heading towards the till.

[headed4hell]

Grace isn't young anymore, and she's never met Abigail.

"Hey! Kid. What gives?"

She does an aggressive shrug in Stiles's direction. It looks ridiculous in the poncho.

"Remember where we all met, man!"

Frowning, she stalks over to the Pixie Sticks and grabs a few, then comes back and grabs a few more.

"Mikey's favorites," she grins and tells Stiles, like this is the world's weirdest game of telephone.

[whatisastiles]

Adults. Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em without a court order.

"My bad, man," he says, holding his hands up in surrender.

Is Stiles's expected to get more Pixie Sticks? I mean, okay, Milliways is crazy, and sure, let's say the big dude who could probably snap Stiles in half is the decidedly less reptilian alternate universe alter-ego of a mutant turtle, fine. But it stops at Stiles buying Pixie Sticks for a dude he doesn't know.

Whatever. He's got all the snacks he needs, and quite a few that he doesn't, frankly, so he heads up front to the register, too.