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]

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.

[mnt_raph]

There really won't be much in the way of Stiles paying for anything, really. Raph's already got well wore Harley Davidson wallet out on the counter before Grace and Stiles reach him.

The thing about being born poor is that you're both stingy and loose with your money. You hoard it, and then you make wildly ridiculous luxury purchases with it when you get the chance because...you never know when you'll get that chance again.

It doesn't matter that Raph's been gainfully employed for the last ten years. Or that his wife owns her own business, or that he crashed in a Noble's house for a decade. In many ways he'll always been that poor kid who scrounged for spare change in the alleys and storm drains.

"Is this all together?" the cashier asks. Poor kid. He's probably not even supposed to be here today.

"Yeah." Beat. "This an' whatever you got on the rollers." Raph nods in the director of the heated display case.

"All of it?"

"To go," he says, instead of yes.

[headed4hell]

Grace eyes what's on the counter and what's in her arms, poncho wrapper included, and decides that's ridiculous.

"I've got a credit card," she mentions.

It's Paige's, but that's close enough.

The rollers comment distracts her, though.

"Heh. He's gonna think we're high, not tourists."

Beat.

"Toss some Marlboro Lights on up here when you get a chance," she calls out to the overwhelmed cashier.

[whatisastiles]

Stiles sometimes has some self restraint, which is how he manages to let Grace's cancer sticks go without comment.

He does give the back of her head a look though.

"You sure dude?" he asks Raph. "I've got some cash."

And after all, they are helping him, weird as they are. He ought to at least offer to pay his share.

"This is California. Pretty sure this is like routine."

That's what happens when you work late nights at a convenience store around here. It's not like there's much to do in Beacon Hills when you're not hunting supernatural creatures.

[mnt_raph]

Without taking his eyes off the case, Raph waves off Stiles' offer to pay with a dismissive wave of his hand.

He only looks away long enough to rifle through his wallet for appropriate bills. There is a lot of money in Raph's wallet, it's just not all legal tender. At least, not for this particular here and now. Thankfully, there are slips of rice paper between differing sets of bills thanks to Bar taking pity on the poor time-and-space traveling ex-turtle.

[headed4hell]

Grace's eye twitches like she feels that look burning through the back of her head. She'd forgotten. Some things are just second nature. When the clerk tosses the cigarettes at her, she catches them and holds them up as she nods silently in thanks. They get stuffed in the back pocket of her jeans for later.

Good thing her gigantic slurpee has a ridiculously huge straw.

"Damn, that smells good," she says, watching their food get packaged.

(It is theirs right? Raph's going to share?)

"What's that?" she adds, distracted by the money in Raph's wallet.

[whatisastiles]

"Monopoly money?" Stiles suggests.

Hmm. Maybe Bar accepts Monopoly money. He's never tried it. Is Monopoly money legal tender anywhere?

Is there a universe that consists only of the Monopoly version of Atlantic City?

It must suck to live there.

Stiles tears open his Reese's Pieces and pops a few in his mouth while he ponders.

[mnt_raph]

"What this?" He lifts a couple of the more distinctive bills from his wallet...which aren't really bills at all, but thin sheets of an electronically charged polymer.

"From D'Hoonib. A planet in Federation Controlled Space. Bar's bein' cute. She knows I got crap luck with dimensional travel."

He pockets his wallet after overpaying for their stuff, mutters "...keep it," to kid behind the till as he picks up the rather sizable bag of delectables and moves towards the door.

Are they ready to go? Because Raph is.

[headed4hell]

Bewildered, the kid watches Raph move away until Grace steps up in his line of sight, short and poncho-clad and wearing a badge that doesn't look like it belongs to the Beacon Hills police force.

She grins and gives him a flirty look.

"You LARP?"

The kid blinks, then looks slightly less confused. Without waiting for a response, Grace grabs a pack of gum and tosses the clerk some more cash, using the gum to salute as she backs towards the door.

"We were never here. You saw nothing. We ain't the weirdos you're lookin' for."

What? That's not how it goes?

Whatever.

Grace races ahead and hops into the jeep with an almost indecent amount of energy, reaching up to lightly bang on the side of the window.

[whatisastiles]

Stiles follows Grace out, keys in hand.

"Oh god, let's get out of here before Grace totally destroys my rep in this town."

Like it's not bad enough already without people pegging him as the weird LARP kid.

Once everyone's packed back into the Jeep, it's time to head back in the direction from whence they came—towards Scott's house.

"Any more important stops to make, or are we all set to track down Scott?"

There are things to warn him about.