Disclaimer: 'Teen Wolf' isn't mine. Shocking, right? But it's true. If there are any similarities in content or dialogue, it has probably originated with the show.
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Chapter 6 – Tapetum Lucidum
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Tapetum Lucidum. Spoken together, the two words sounded something like an elaborate, mangled sneeze. Or possibly a lesser known character from one of the earlier J.K. Rowlling books. Translating the phrase from its original Latin it technically meant 'bright tapestry', but that particular combination of words didn't mean anything to anybody. But, for the past few days, the phrase held a bizarre sort of significance in Charlie's life.
The tapetum lucidum was quite the remarkable piece of biology. It was a layer of tissue that existed inside of the eye, forming a ring around the retina. The basic function was to catch light, reflecting it within the eye to allow an animal to see in the black of night. Additional fun fact courtesy of the Discovery Channel—the tapetum lucidum also caused those animals' eyes to glow in the night. All those unearthly flashes in the brush you see as you drive home at night? Brought to you by the tapetum lucidum. Also provided by the tapetum lucidum? The inability to take flash photography of your pets. The raccoons that flipped over the trash cans, the neighbor's dog, her old cat Chairman Meow that used to pee on everything—every photo could come out with some sort of lens flare around the animals' eyes.
After Charlie trudged back up the stairs to her apartment—dropped off by Jackson's disturbingly polite and grateful mother—she had gone into Mel's closet and extracted one of the few boxes filled with her and her father's old life. Funny how little physical space it occupied. They were carefully wedged in like Mel had been playing a game of high stakes Tetris, filling the space that should have been occupied by tasteful heels. It took a little rooting around, but eventually she found the one with all the old photo albums. Charlie flipped through them until she settled on one in particular—one of the cheap ones with plastic coating—and thumbed her way through the pages until she came across a photo of her eight-year-old self holding the spectacularly fat Chairman Meow. Pulling her phone out of the pocket of her jeans, she held up the photos of the party to compare. Yup. The weird laser eyes on her cat were identical to those of Scott and Derek Hale.
There was just one problem. Humans didn't have a tapetum lucidum. So unless Scott and Derek were planning on transferring to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, something was off with this scenario.
Charlie leaned forwards, resting her forehead against the glass of the vending machine. The options inside sat within reach, colorful wrappers shimmering under the fluorescent lights, but cruelly separated by glass. Taunting her. Should she taste the rainbow? Were Funyuns truly fun? Maybe she could finally discover the wrong way to eat a Reese's. Surely there was at least one. Charlie had both the time and inclination to do so, but did she have the cash? Weighing the assorted coins she had fished out of the couch cushions in her hand, Charlie estimated she had a respectable $2.15 or so. Unfortunately, given the absurd inflation on vending machines these days, that would only afford her one snack plus some useless change.
For the second time in three days, Charlie found herself stuck in the hospital while various medical professionals—including Lydia if the number of medical journals the girl had read meant anything—waited for any word on Jackson's shoulder. As such, it was inevitable that she and the hospital vending machine had become fast friends. They had the same taste in food, which seemed a strong basis for any relationship. Sometimes Bob—she had decided to name him Bob—would even give her an additional candy bar free of charge, the generous soul that he was. But their relationship was threatened by one little quirk. Bob always had so much to offer, but Charlie wasn't always certain of what she wanted—chocolate, chips, those weird cheese crackers smeared with peanut butter, there were just too many choices. Too much pressure. So she shoved the coins in the machine, blindly punching buttons until she heard the whirring of the machine followed by the soft thunk of something hitting the bottom. Equal opportunity snacking.
"Snickers, nice," Charlie whispered, leaning down to retrieve the two candy bars. She gave the machine an affectionate pat. "Thanks, Bob. Good choice."
Charlie shoved one of the candy bars into her bag and ripped open the packaging of the other, taking a bite out of it. Chocolate, caramel, and the lovely contrasting crunch of peanut. It was the one thing that could get her through these hospital visits. Other than whiskey, but Charlie was fairly certain that wasn't readily available in the ER. Lydia had been more of a pain in the ass than usual what with her rants about Scott McCall—both about him injuring her boyfriend and his apparent refusal to play in the game the next day—and about her aspirations for Jackson and his destiny to 'go pro'. The latter of which made even less sense to Charlie than the former seeing as nobody gave two shits about professional lacrosse. Hell, she couldn't even name a professional lacrosse team. But seeing as Charlie liked her eyebrows and preferred not to have Lydia set them aflame, she kept that thought to herself.
Clutching the candy bar like she was holding onto a lifeline, Charlie collapsed back against the wall next to the machines, her eyes darting around. Stark white walls, off-white tiles speckled with black, cork board ceilings, scratchy intercom messages, the doctors wandering in starched lab coats and scrubs of varying degrees of wrinkledness depending on how far they were into their shift—all the typical hallmarks of hospitals. And she hated them. She hated them all. Not to mention the incessant beeping of monitors and acrid stench of disinfectant. It bombarded her senses, leaving her with a headache and poor attitude.
Hospitals held so much uncertainty. Hundreds of clipboards lying about, and each held a person's fate, scribbled in illegible handwriting. One room could be occupied by someone with a bad case of the flu and the one next to it might house a case of stage four pancreatic cancer. The people could be fine or dying, and you never knew which room held which. They certainly hadn't told her which when it mattered. All she got was morbid speculation followed by grief. Uncertainty plus death only ever yielded bad things for her. Yup, hospitals sucked.
Pushing herself off the wall, Charlie shook out her limbs in an artificial shiver before striding back down the hall. Bad thoughts—she shouldn't dwell on them. Especially when her life was being assaulted by so much other weird crap. Plenty of other topics to think about. Plus once her thoughts strayed in that direction, they tended to spiral. Like a broken toilet that refused to stop flushing. Yes, her brain was a giant toilet.
Half of the Snickers bar disappeared with her next bite.
Lydia was easy to spot in the waiting room. Those surrounding her had sunk low in their seats, either with heads drooping from boredom or worry or staring vacantly at the small, flickering TV in the corner that constantly blared daytime soap operas. Meanwhile, Lydia sat with her head up, back straight, and ankles crossed primly to display her spectacular heels to their full advantage, a flash of the red soles just barely visible to the passerby. She chatted idly into thin air, her Bluetooth successfully obscured by her glossy curls. Most likely she was in the process of emotionally manipulating Scott into playing the game on Saturday, using Allison as bait, but Charlie chose not to dwell on that fact. As a rule, Lydia didn't share those plans with Charlie and Charlie didn't ask. Mostly because Lydia knew Charlie would get pissed and Charlie knew she had no leverage to bring Lydia to modify her behavior. They were both equally stubborn on the issue so, much like political discussions during family reunions, the topic had been silently forbidden. For the good of their relationship. And mankind.
Rolling her eyes heavily, Charlie trudged back towards her empty seat, now occupied by Lydia's purse. Just as she began to round the front desk, however, her path was blocked as a tall, somewhat gangly figure slid in front of her. Pale skin, close-cropped hair, general twitchiness, clad in one of what she could only assume was an endless supply of plaid overshirts... Charlie smirked slightly as she found herself looking at the back of Stiles Stilinski's head. He was as good a reason as any to stop eavesdropping on Lydia's pouty monologues or her half of an over-the-phone conversation with various lacrosse players. She reached forwards to tap him on the shoulder, but before she could he broke out into a rambling speech. Charlie drew back and leaned against the main desk, preparing herself for the in flight entertainment.
"Hey, Lydia!" Stiles blurted out breathlessly, leaning a hand against the wall in a manner that was probably meant to seem casual. "You probably don't remember me...um...I sit behind you in biology?" He paused for a moment, waiting for Lydia to respond, which, of course, she didn't. "Uh, anyway," he barreled on, "I always thought that we had this kind of connection. Unspoken, of course."
Charlie, her expression caught somewhere between a smile and a grimace, slammed her fist into her forehead—call it sympathy facepalming. Stiles had a crush on Lydia, the poor, misguided idiot. Lydia smiled and nodded in Stiles's direction, radiating an uncharacteristically soft and encouraging aura, and twirled her hair absently. Her usually sharp eyes had fogged over, leaving her face open and vacant. To Charlie it was glaringly obvious she was still on the phone, but to someone caught unawares it could be construed as tacit interest.
Stiles cleared his throat, removing his hand for the wall before replacing it again, actively trying to find the most nonchalant posture possible. "Soooo, maybe it would be kind of cool to, uh....get to know each other a little better."
Lydia let out a soft, superior laugh and brushed aside her curtain of hair to reveal the Bluetooth. "Hold on, give me a second," she muttered to whoever it was on the other end of the line and removing the small piece of hardware. She turned back to Stiles, her eyes narrowed with a mixture of frustration and condescension. "Uh, yeah, I didn't get any of what you just said," she bit out, waving a hand in Stiles's direction. "Was it worth repeating?"
Stiles let out an awkward chuckle and scratched at the back of his neck. "Uh, no," he stuttered out. "Sorry." He slid backwards a few steps in Charlie's direction, still looking at Lydia, and gestured to another set of equally uncomfortable chairs. "I'm just gonna sit...you don't care."
He finally turned fully around, only to find himself face-to-face with Charlie.
One high-pitched yelp and violent twitch later, Stiles swallowed heavily and stared at her through bugged eyes. "Waaaaa-uhhhh, hey Charlie!" he exclaimed a little too loudly. She smiled and gave a small wave, allowing him a chance to collect himself. Stiles planted his hands on his hips and nodded at her. "How are—how are you doing? How's life treating you? School going good?"
"School's fine," she said simply, bobbing her head along with her words. "Not much has changed since the last time you saw me in fourth period chem class which was..." she checked her Avengers swatch watch for the time "...six hours ago. Yup, pretty much the same."
"Great! Um, why—why are you in the hospital?" he stammered out. A frown tug at the corners of Charlie's lips. Each of their conversations seemed to begin with one of them asking the other what they were doing there. Which left Charlie with the distinct impression that she was interrupting him, or walking in on something she shouldn't see. Though, to be fair, this time she actually was.
"The spark plugs for my car haven't gotten in yet," she replied with a shrug, readjusting the strap of her bag on her shoulder. "Until then I go where Lydia goes, and Lydia goes pretty much wherever the hell she wants. Jackson's getting some anti-inflammatory meds for his shoulder before the game."
"Right, the game—the big game," Stiles said, waving his hands around enthusiastically before placing them back on his hips. The air between them filled with an awkward silence which prompted Stiles to remove his hands from his hips yet again, instead shoving them deep in his pockets. "Soooo," he drawled out hesitantly, "I'm guessing there's not even the remotest chance that you didn't hear that."
Charlie's eyes instinctively flicked to Lydia, making Stiles's shoulders slump as he resigned himself to his fate. Charlie gave him an apologetic look, though a hint of her ill-concealed smile managed to fight its way to the surface as well. "Yeah...I'm afraid so."
Stiles let out a loud groan and rocked back on his heels, staring up at the ceiling. "Well that's just...awesome. I can't imagine how this could possibly get more awesome. The awesomeness of this situation is really overwhelming." He collapsed into one of the waiting room chairs around the corner from where Lydia was seated, still chatting on her Bluetooth. He snatched up a pamphlet, sliding down in his seat and holding it up to cover his face, hiding both from her and the world in general. Charlie choked back another laugh when at the title of said pamphlet—MENSTRUATION spelled across the front in big, bolded letters. She hoped he was only pretending to read it. In her experience, any sort of talk about periods or tampons turned guys into weepy puddles of awkward discomfort.
Moving around to Stiles's other side, Charlie took the seat next to his and dug around in her messenger bag. "Man, I hate hospitals," she mused, ignoring the giant, pink, tap-dancing elephant that had taken up residence in the waiting room. "It just...it feels like the Grim Reaper could be chillin' in that chair over there, waiting for somebody to croak so he can play cruise director and get them to board that boat and play shuffleboard while they cross the river Styx."
"Well that was a lot of references crammed into one sentence," Stiles mumbled to himself, still not looking at her. "Not so sure if it made sense."
Charlie waited for more of a response, but when she didn't receive one she extracted the extra candy bar from her bag. "Snickers?" she asked, holding it out as some sort of peace offering. After a few moments, Stiles's eyes appeared, peeking over the top of the pamphlet to observe the chocolate suspiciously. "It doesn't have a razor blade in it," Charlie said drolly, waving it back and forth in front of his face like she was trying to hypnotize him. "The vending machine likes me—it keeps giving me extra snacks. Do you want it or not."
After a few more moments of contemplation, he grabbed it from her, opened it, and shoved it in his mouth so quickly odds were he ate some of the wrapper along with it. It might be a cheat, but Charlie had come to understand that one of the ways to put Stiles in a better mood was to feed him. Thank God it wasn't after midnight or would have been seriously screwed.
"Sooooo," Charlie drawled out, not entirely sure of where to direct the conversation from that point, "I guess you have a bit of a crush on Lydia then."
Stiles snorted and took another big bite of the candy bar. "What gave me away?" he mumbled with as much sarcasm he could muster as the caramel from the candy bar fused his teeth together.
Charlie pursed her lips and shrugged. "Little things," she sighed. "The fact that the first words I ever speak were 'Lydia Martin is the best thing to ever happen to Beacon Hills'...stuff like that. And now that I think about it, you say her name a lot. 'Don't you usually eat with Lydia', 'doesn't Lydia usually drive you home'—it's all coming together. And then there's—"
"My recent self-inflicted humiliation?" he prompted, indicating to the spot where he delivered his ill-advised speech.
Charlie frowned and bit her lip. "Well, I wouldn't go that far," she murmured. "Plus Lydia didn't hear any of it, so it's not like you've got anything to worry about. Mum's the word. Mum is my middle name."
Stiles sighed dejectedly and ran his hands down his face. It was like those hands were paint rollers, liberally applying a shade of red to his complexion that Charlie decided to call 'Lover's Lament'. It sounded like a song off a Baz Luhrmann movie. Maybe 'Crush's Curse'? 'Curse of the Crush'? Eau d'Embarrassment? Shit, now she was just brainstorming perfume names. Okay, she really needed to get back on topic. The red of Stiles's face faded away unevenly, leaving behind pink splotches. "I know what you're thinking," Stiles mumbled through the food, his voice quiet and garbled.
"That I still can't find a word that rhymes with orange?" Charlie supplied.
"This is the part where you tell me that she's out of my league and I should aim for something else, right?" he sighed out. "You know somewhere more—" he held out his hand at shoulder level "—more here."
The bitterness in his tone wasn't directed towards her. It was angled inwards, like he was berating himself for allowing his crush to be witnessed. Charlie blew out a breath, puffing out her cheeks as she steeped in the awkward. "No," she said, inclining her head in his direction. "But this is the part where I remind you that she has a long term boyfriend and that public declarations of love are usually better received by the single. Just as a general rule."
"Right," Stiles muttered, bobbing his head in resignation. "Jackson. Good ol' Jackson. Lacrosse captain Jackson. Stoic, non-rambling-declaration-making Jackson. With his stupid Porsche and stupid face." He kicked out his feet in front of him and sank down in his seat, trying to make himself as inconspicuous as possible—quite the feat seeing as she was sitting right next to him. And he was failing miserably. Which for some reason made Charlie feel oddly guilty. More often than not, when someone dug themselves a grave of awkward like that she would lean back in her chair, hands behind her head and feet propped up like she was at a movie theater. But seeing Stiles without that jittery enthusiasm somehow felt...wrong.
"You know," she drawled out, trying to keep her voice light-hearted without lapsing into being flippant. "You know, there was this one time last year I had a crush on this guy on the soccer team. So I managed to get access to the P.A. system and sang through the speakers. The whole school heard it. Lots of laughing was involved. You want embarrassing moments, that one there takes the grand prize right there."
Slowly, Stiles's head lifted and he looked up at her through narrowed eyes. "That's the plot to 10 Things I Hate About You."
Charlie blinked innocently and cocked her head to the side. "Is it?" she demanded. "What a strange coincidence. Talk about art imitating life."
"The movie came out like ten years ago," he deadpanned.
"Talk about life imitating art."
"O—okay," Stiles said, waving her off, a little bit of a smile pulling at the corners of his lips. "I get it."
"There was this one time," she barreled on, staring at him with wide, earnest eyes, "my friend was running for class president, and I did this really awesome disco dance in solidarity."
"That's Napoleon Dynamite."
"When we found out my dad and I were going to lose our house, me and some friends found this treasure map in the attic—"
"That's The Goonies," Stiles interjected.
"That Fratelli family," Charlie continued, ignoring Stiles's curious looks and staring wistfully off into the distance. "I'll tell you what, those bastards almost had us. But we found that treasure. And you know what else? We found ourselves too."
By that point the decidedly forlorn expression had faded somewhat from Stiles's face, replaced by the slightest hint of a smile. "You realize that each movie you bring up is getting less and less relevant to our current situation, right?" he demanded.
Charlie shifted in her seat, angling herself so she was facing himself fully. "Alright, one," she said, lifting a single finger, "The Goonies will never not be relevant so you can go ahead and shut your mouth. Two, getting away from the topic was kind of the point seeing as you didn't seem terribly inclined to keep talking about it."
Stiles made a face and bobbed his head along with her words. "Yeah, but you're still thinking that I'm that cliched dweeb who has a crush on the pretty, popular girl who doesn't know he exists."
Charlie shot him a sympathetic look. "Okay, I'm not saying you're 1980s Anthony Michael Hall, but no offense Stiles...isn't that kind of the case? Minus the 'dweeb' bit?"
"Yeah, I guess it is," he muttered, bouncing his leg up and down nervously as he suddenly became fascinated by the patterning of the floor tiles.
Again, the dejectedness of his appearance gave Charlie pause. Those the tile pattern was far too uninspired to merit that degree of scrutiny. "Hey, I get it," she declared, clapping her hands on her legs. "Lydia has a ton of great qualities. Hell, if she wasn't so high-maintenance I might even make a go of it."
That managed to make his head perk up. Actually, it kind of snapped up. It snapped up with so much manic energy Charlie was surprised it didn't pop off his neck like an old Barbie doll and roll down the hallway. He stared up at her with wide, almost scared eyes. Charlie just smiled serenely and shrugged. Guys really were so easy to manipulate. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad. "And anyways," she breezed on, "I think I might have a solution to your problem."
"Oh really?" Stiles scoffed. "And what would that be?"
"I could just kill Jackson," Charlie offered. "It would open a door for you and Lydia, I wouldn't have to put up with his whining anymore, it removes him from the gene pool......Honestly I'm not seeing anything but upsides, for you, me, or the human race at large."
An indelicate snort forced its way out of Stiles's nose and he smirked at her. "That's an insanely generous offer."
"What can I say?" Charlie sighed in response. "I'm a humanitarian."
"I can see that," he replied, eyebrows raised. "Still, though, I think I'll have to pass. You know, my dad being the sheriff and all that might represent a bit of a conflict of interest. And, you know, if you're arrested then who would I humiliate myself in front of?"
Charlie took a moment to survey Stiles. His eyes kept flicking to the corner of the waiting room where Lydia was still chatting away on her Bluetooth and generally looking like a crazy person talking to herself. But the way Stiles looked at her was different from the usual superficial admiration that so often came with the unrequited crush. Maybe he put her on a bit of a pedestal, but it wasn't that typical 'idolize what you can't have' look. He looked at her like she was a person. Not some crazy far-off dream he was lusting after as some sort of external manifestation of the American Dream or some metaphorical shit like that—she was a person. And that was more than Charlie could say for most of the male population. He was only mildly delusional, and, believe it or not, that was saying a lot.
"So, Stiles," she drawled, "can I say what I was actually thinking now?"
"What?" Stiles said, blinking in confusion before nodding quickly. "Oh, yeah. Sure."
Charlie smiled wider and elbowed him in the side. "I was going to say that I wish that Lydia would get her head out of her mind games long enough to notice the people worth noticing."
Stiles blinked again and looked around, trying to see if there was anybody else around. "Me?" he asked, pointing to himself with a pleased expression. "Are you talking about me?"
Charlie rolled her eyes and let out an amused sigh. "No, the dude over there wearing the tinfoil hat," she said sarcastically, gesturing at a twitchy guy in the corner. "One word of advice though—never ever use the word 'connection' again when referring to anything romantic. Ever. It sounds like you're a) a stalker or b) trying out an internet dating site. And the second of those is referring to wifi connection. Neither of those seem particularly appealing to me."
Stiles let out an uncomfortable laugh and began nodding again. "Duly noted. Henceforth that word will be completely removed from my vocabulary. No more 'connections'." He shot her a few sidelong glances, cringing slightly. "Can you do me a huge and not tell anybody about that? Like ever? Like if Colombian drug lords invade Beacon Hills, kidnap you, and start torturing you, you will still tell nobody."
Charlie snorted and threw her hands up in submission. "Bros antes de putas, man."
Stiles gave her a funny look eyed her suspiciously. "Bless you?"
"That's 'bros before hoes' in Spanish," she responded wisely. "The Colombian drug lords will never break me. And don't worry, you're the bro in this scenario. The Colombian drug lords are the hoes. Though I probably shouldn't call them that to their faces."
"So you speak Spanish now too?" Stiles said raising his eyebrows at her.
"¿Dónde está la biblioteca?" Charlie replied, looking at him with wide, earnest eyes. "Me gusta el queso. El caballo está saltando. " Stiles stared at her a moment before busting out into laughter, with her soon following him. "That's it," she replied through giggles. "That's all the Spanish I've got. I learned most of it from watching this one weirdass movie about a giant, blue-green Spanish-speaking bear when I was a kid."
"Well it was inspired," Stiles said through a snort. "Really, it was beautiful."
"You should hear me read the menu at an Italian restaurant," she replied through a laugh, waggling her eyebrows. "It's like poetry, really. My description of the fettuccine alfredo will make you cry. And not just that single, solitary tear coursing down your face that can actually be kind of hot in a vulnerable way, I mean ugly cry. Face all blotchy, phlegm everywhere—"
"Remind me never to eat Italian food when you're around," Stiles managed to cough out. "It sounds like a traumatizing experience."
"I get it," Charlie murmured, patting her mouth in a theatrical yawn. "Big manly men can't cry in public."
"That is exactly the problem," Stiles said, latching onto her words and nodding enthusiastically. "I am a big strong manly man. That is definitely the biggest one of my character flaws."
The overall mood of conviviality was brutally cut short as the ultimate buzzkill entered the room. Jackson waltzed by them, rolling his injured shoulder and affording them a contemptuous glare before making his way over to Lydia. Charlie rolled her eyes and let out a passive aggressive grunt, but both her eyes and Stiles's followed Jackson. In a flurry of movement, Stiles grabbed that same pamphlet—the one titled 'MENSTRUATION'— and used it as a shield as he watched the couple.
Seeing Jackson's approach, Lydia quickly said goodbye to whoever she was speaking with on her bluetooth and hung up, getting to her feet. "Did he do it?" she asked abruptly, folding her arms across her chest, her eyes flicking up and down Jackson's form like he was a show horse.
"He said not to make a habit of it," Jackson growled resentfully, "but one shot won't kill me."
Lydia pursed her lips in contemplation. "You should get one right before the game too," she declared in that tone—the one that meant you were going to end up doing exactly what she wanted regardless of how much of a fight you put up. Jackson's hand twitched in frustration as he let go of his arm, letting it collapse against his side. The general pissed off expression marring his absurdly symmetrical features clearly stated he did not want to participate, but Lydia the beautiful steamroller kept pushing. "The pros do it all the time," she continued, a mild hostility seeping into her tone. "Do you want to be a little high school amateur? Or...do you want...to go...pro?"
With the last few words, Lydia slipped into her 'seductive' voice, the one that always made Charlie cringe instinctively because she knew what would follow: gratuitous making out in public venues. Charlie's lip curled slightly as the pair began to go at it. For some reason, Jackson and Lydia making out always felt sleazy to her. Mainly because it always seemed to come with some calculated purpose—staking claims, power plays, manipulation. A kiss was never a simple gesture of affection. It was strategy.
"Ugh," she muttered under her breath, wrinkling her nose at the display. "I think I just threw up in my mouth a little."
Stiles didn't seem to hear her. He was busy watching the couple, more for masochism's sake than voyeurism's. After a few moments Jackson and Lydia ceased with the making out and began striding down the hallway without so much as a word to her. Charlie sighed loudly and grabbed her bag from its spot on the neighboring chair.
"Well that's my cue," she said, clapping a hand on Stiles's shoulder and getting to her feet. "Stay frosty, Stilinski. Good luck with that rash."
"Wait—what?" Stiles said, staring at her wild-eyed as she rose from her seat. "What rash? I don't have a rash. What are you talking about?"
"Oh, I made up a reason for you to randomly be in the hospital," Charlie replied, waving a hand absently. "And generally when I invent ailments, the grosser the better. You also have a really bad case of athlete's foot. It's basically gangrene at this point. They might have to take the leg."
"Well thanks for that," Stiles drawled. "That was totally a mental image I needed."
"You're welcome!"
She began to trail down the hallway after Lydia and Jackson, lest she be abandoned for a third time, but before she could get more than a few steps a voice called after her.
"Hey, Charlie!"
Charlie turned to see Stiles waving over at her, still peeking over the top of his pamphlet. She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion and shrugged at him. "What's up?"
He cleared his throat and leaned in her direction, hanging over the armrest of his chair in a way that could not be comfortable. "This, uh, this might sound like a weird question," he said, "but what just happened?"
Charlie exhaled loudly and scrunched up her face in thought. "Well I guess it depends on your opinion as much as mind, but from where I'm standing it looks like we might have just sorta become friends. Unless you've got a problem with that."
Stiles's face morphed into a strange expression—a vague look of terror flitting behind his eyes—but a tiny smile pulled at the corners of his lips. "What? No. No problems here. Friends are good. Everyone needs friends."
"I'll see you tomorrow, Stiles."
With one more wave, she spun on her heel and continued on her way, jogging now that she was in imminent danger of being left behind. At some point she had to start asking her if it was even intentional abandonment. Maybe she was just that forgettable.
Nah. She was way too loud to be forgettable. And Lydia was too slow in those heels to leave her behind without direct access to motorized transport.
About halfway down the hall, though, she shoved her hand into the pockets of her jacket and found the both of them alarmingly empty. Before going to the vending machine—back while she was seated next to Lydia—she had been playing a non-stop marathon of Angry Birds and Snooker while actively trying to ignore the constant stream of irrelevant and idle chit-chat that somehow seemed to arise from that massive brain of hers. A good thing she had realized it too. As a millennial, that phone was basically her pacemaker. Without it, her heartbeat would become erratic and the likelihood of her survival would be severely compromised. At the sound of her loud swearing, Lydia stopped and spun around on her three-inch heels.
"What's wrong, Charlie?" she demanded, her perfectly groomed eyebrows raised questioningly.
"Nothing," Charlie replied, waving her off. "I just—I just forgot my phone in the waiting room. I'll go grab it and meet up with you at the car."
"Are you sure?" Lydia said. "We can wait for you here."
Immediately, Jackson let out a gigantic scoff. "Speak for yourself. I'm not sticking around in this hospital any longer than I have to. For all I know one of these guys is going to sneeze on me and give me pneumonia." As if on cue, a stooped, elderly man being escorted down the hall by a scrub-clad orderly let out a wheezing, hacking cough. Jackson shuddered violently and threw his hands in the air. "That's it!" he announced, backing away towards the door. "I'm out!"
"Jackson!"
Lydia called after him, but he was already stalking down the hallways with the same cadence of a pissed-off henchman in a Bond movie. She turned back to Charlie, but Charlie waved her off. "Go ahead, I'll meet up with you at the car," she said. "And do me a favor and get the obnoxious making out stuff over with before I get there. I want to be able to eat my dinner tonight. I'm making chicken parm."
That disturbingly coy smile slid back onto Lydia's face. "Oh, Charlie," she sighed. "You should know better than to make requests I can't guarantee."
Charlie's face contorted into a grimace and she let out a plaintive whine. "Gross. You're gross. That's gross."
"God, you're so immature."
"Tell that to the whole grain cereal I ate for breakfast this morning."
Lydia levelled Charlie with an unamused look. "Just go get your phone. If you take too long, Jackson and I will have to find a way to pass the time."
Cringing heavily, Charlie slowly spun in place, the rubber souls of her Converse squeaking loudly against the laminate tiles as she turned away from Lydia. She trudged back to the waiting room, actively trying not to think about Lydia and Jackson. As she turned the corner, though, all thoughts were startled away. Stopping short, she ducked back behind it, almost ramming into a wearied-looking middle-aged nurse with greying, frizzy hair and salmon-colored scrubs. A clattering noise soon followed, and Charlie looked down to find a large pile of tongue-depressors scattered across the floor. "O—oh, I'm sorry," Charlie stammered out, crouching down to help scoop them up. Her eyes went down to the name badge the woman was wearing and looked back up at her, her teeth clenched together in a guilty grin. "So sorry, um, Gladys."
The woman made no response. At least she didn't say anything specifically to Charlie. The words 'and I still have another two hours on this damn shift' were most certainly uttered, but they were more of a general curse lobbed into the universe. She marched away, violently chucking the spilled tongue-depressors into a bin marked 'biohazard' as she went, allowing Charlie to redirect her attention to its original object and the ultimate reason for her bizarre behavior. That reason? Two idiots she was becoming increasingly familiar with.
Charlie peeked around the corner, staring at the seat she had left all of three minutes ago. It wasn't just Stiles standing there anymore. Scott had somehow managed to conjure himself out of thin air as well. The two of them stood close together, heads bowed conspiratorially and frantically discussing...something. Knowing the two of them, the topic had to be bizarre, and even though there was too much space between them to catch the whole conversation, she did overhear at least one word. One name, actually.
Derek.
Stiles smacked Scott on the arm and the pair of them spun around, stumbling in her direction. Again, Charlie dodged back around the corner, turning to face the wall and practically shoving her head in her messenger bag as she pretended to root through it. Again, she wasn't sure why she did it. Unlike the two of them, she had nothing to explain or justify—she just forgot her phone. But secrecy begets secrecy. And weirdass behavior begets suspicion. Given the never-ending supply of bizarre Stiles-Scott interactions, she was left feeling like she had witnessed something she wasn't meant to.
The pair waltzed past her, completely unaware of her presence. Apparently whatever it was the two of them were working on, it had gripped their attention firmly. Charlie felt them go, highly aware of each footstep. When those steps faded and enough distance was put between them, she extracted her head from her bag and peered at their retreating figures.
Dodging back around the corner, Charlie didn't make a beeline for her old seat as she had originally intended. Instead she stopped by the front desk. "Uh, excuse me," she murmured to the woman, whose phone was propped up by her ear. The woman held up a hand, indicating for her to wait a moment before barking some loud orders into the receiver and hanging up. "Yes, how can I help you?" she finally said, her voice tired and frustrated.
"Those two guys," Charlie pressed, waving her hand to the space Stiles and Scott had just occupied. "Is there any chance you know what they were here for?"
"I can't disclose any patient information to anybody other than their parent or guardian," the woman replied shortly.
"No—I know that," Charlie said, shaking her head. "I don't want access to their patient information. I was just wondering—"
She was cut off by the abrasive ringing of the telephone, which was immediately followed by a frustrated sigh as the woman wiped at her eyes. "Look," she said, her tone clipped. "Neither of those boys so much as came to my desk. I really can't help you, and I've got more pressing things to do. Like my job."
Charlie offered up a weak smile and sucked in a breath through her teeth, giving rise to an inadvertent hiss. "That's for your help."
She was dismissed with a simple 'yeah' and wave of the hand.
Rapping her knuckles against the desk, Charlie retreated away from the nurse and moved towards her old seat. Her phone was still there underneath the old 2003 issue of Highlights magazine—so that crisis was averted. Objective achieved. But now she had to deal with another one entirely. One that was much more mysterious and, dare she say it, ranked even higher on her list of priorities than a missing phone.
What exactly was going on with Stiles Stilinski, Scott McCall, and Derek Hale?
Quickly collecting her phone, Charlie shoved her hands into her pockets and trudged out of the waiting room, heels dragging against the floor and eyebrows furrowed. Derek Hale. Derek freaking Hale. The scrimmage, the party, now—he just kept cropping up. And each time he did, Stiles and Scott were either right there or not far away, generally doing inexplicable shit. Charlie liked those guys—she really did. But she couldn't shake the feeling that there was something going on beneath the surface. They couldn't possibly be that socially deficient—it had to run deeper than that.
Charlie let out a sigh of relief as she stepped through those automatic doors and into the frigid night air. The interior had been oppressive. She sucked in a deep breath, searing the inside of her lungs with the cold. She felt oddly liberated as she made her way back to Lydia's Beetle, like a pressure pushing in at her from all sides had been lifted. Not that she'd be able to feel that way for long. Seeing Lydia and Jackson making out pressed against the side of the car? That felt pretty damn oppressive to her.
"Gross," she called out, making the couple draw apart. "Seriously guys, I think might be taking this PDA thing to a bit of an extreme."
"Don't be such a prude, Charlie," Lydia replied, her words somewhat undercut by the fact that they were spoken as she was trying to surreptitiously wipe excessive amounts of smudged color from around her mouth. Apparently making out with Jackson led to coloring outside the lines.
Jackson smirked widely as well, the menace in it rendered slightly less intimidating by the fact that his face was also painted with plum-colored gloss. "What took you so long, Chuck?" he said bitterly. "We can't wait around for you all night. Some of us actually have social lives we'd like to be getting to. You know what a social life is, right? That thing where you go out and do things with people you're not related to?"
Charlie fought back her near-constant urge to smack him over the head and instead opted to climb in the back seat of Lydia's shiny Beetle. She reached into her purse and pulled out her iPod, quickly shoving the earphones in her ears and cranking up the volume before Jackson and Lydia could get into the car—these days the two of them only ever argued or made out, and she didn't care to listen to either. Trauma couldn't be entirely avoided, though, as the two of them opted to spend even more time making out while leaning against the frame of the car. Letting out a loud sigh, Charlie sank lower in her seat, propping her feet up in front of her, waiting to get home and pass out in her bed. Or work on the mountain of homework Hobson had left for them to do. Or fall through the earth and sink to the ninth circle of hell. Any of those options were preferably to her current circumstances.
Life always seemed to suck a little bit. Maybe that sounded like some overly angsty teenage melodrama crap, but from where Charlie was standing—or sitting—it seemed to be the case. And not just because of exhibitionist couples who made out pressed against the car window directly next to her head. Everyone she knew was either hiding a part of themselves from everybody else or was lacking something they desperately wanted or needed. Lydia had this whole secret side to herself, Jackson was desperately clinging to his status as lacrosse all-star as attention was shifting elsewhere, Stiles had all sorts of feelings for a girl who didn't know he existed, and to top it all off every time she caught Stiles and Scott alone they seemed to be in the midst of conspiring to....do....something.
Maybe that was the human condition—being constantly dissatisfied so there was something to strive for. And if that was the case, what the hell did that mean for her? As far as Charlie could tell, she didn't have anything she desired with any sort of intensity. She just was what she was—what happened happened—and she dealt with it, accepted it, and moved on. Did that make her more well adjusted or more zen than everybody else, or more pitiable? She couldn't really be sure, and she honestly didn't want to know.
After dropping Jackson off at his place, Lydia insisted that Charlie move to the front seat. Charlie tried pretending she was asleep but Lydia, in her true fashion, yanked out her earphones and smacked her over the head. The rest of the ride was filled with top forty music and idle chatter, most of it revolving around the upcoming game. Lydia did most of the chatting. Charlie devoted herself more to making random guttural noises and staring absently out the window. When they finally pulled up in front of Charlie's apartment, Lydia slowed to a halt and let out a musical sigh. "So," she chirped, turning to Charlie with a satisfied smile. "You want to watch a movie or something? Maybe you could let me do your nails and fix the atrocity that is your cuticles?"
"Nah," Charlie replied, stretching out her arms and cracking her neck. "I've got homework and dinner to make. Then I am going to fall asleep and probably drool a lot. Have some lucid dreams. Maybe play Quidditch."
"Ugh," Lydia grumbled, wrinkling her nose a little. "Why do you always have to take it to a weird place?"
Charlie made a face and shrugged. "Because I'm weird."
"Understatement." Letting out a harrumph, Lydia glowered at Charlie out of the corner of her eye. "Fine. Go be simultaneously weird and boring. I've got better things to do anyway."
"Okey dokey," Charlie said, flashing her a smile.
"And don't say 'okey dokey'."
"Okey dokey."
"Get out of my car."
The smile on Charlie's face widened to a grin—molars and all—and she reached for the door handle, hand poised to make a quick escape. "Okey dokey."
Frustration bloomed in Lydia's face, making her cheeks flush as red as her hair. Charlie darted out of the car, slamming the door closed just toon enough to muffle the shrill tone of Lydia's voice. "What did I just say?!"
Charlie offered a sarcastic salute, met by Lydia's stern, judgemental glare. Maintaining eye contact, Lydia shifted the car into drive and slammed her foot on the accelerator, the wheels squealing against asphalt before she took off down the street. The car kicked up a cloud of dust, a thin layer settling on Charlie's skin. She smiled at the car as it vanished around the corner. Lydia was, if nothing else, an inherently dramatic creature.
Charlie spun around and dragged her heels to the front door. The windows on the top floor were still dark—all except for that one lamp in the living room that was set on a timer—and Mel's gleaming hybrid was missing from the front curb. Her own car occupied the driveway, sad, lonely, and abandoned, left un-driven for almost a week. Charlie could almost hear the rust creeping in, settling on the gears. It hurt to look at Gertrude like that. Charlie stretched out an arm, letting her fingers trace along the side. She had been neglected lately—Charlie needed to be sure to take better care of her. For her dad's sake as well as her own. It was more their car than hers.
As she approached the front door, a small cardboard package revealed itself on the front stoop. Frowning curiously, Charlie snatched it up from the ground and peered down at the label. Sealing the seams of the cardboard lid together was a giant sticker featuring a clip art stock image of a primary colored cartoon tractor with giant eyes and the caption 'MacEntyre's Automotive of Sacramento'.
A wide grin split across Charlie's face and she tucked it under her arm before grappling in the bag for her keys. She shoved them into the lock and twisted violently, slamming through door. Hell, she practically skipped her way to the kitchen island, and Charlie Oswin did not skip. Except when holding a lollipop and/or ice cream cone. In that event, skipping was an absolute requirement.
Grabbing a steak knife out of the drawer, she sliced open the lid—effectively murdering the cartoon tractor—and ripped open the cardboard. Those little, cylindrical pieces of metal gleamed like polished jewelry. Functional bits of jewelry she would cover in black, sticky grease—that was her kind of jewelry. If her cuticles were bad now.... Lydia would be appalled, which somehow made her cherish those spark plugs even more. They shone of a brighter future. A future where she could go where she wanted when she wanted with the music she wanted, free of Lydia's running commentary and the threat of being stranded. Freedom in a tiny metallic tube.
But then that feeling was overtaken by something else. Melancholy, sadness, nostalgia—whatever you want to call it—it filled her up and took her over. The last hands that had been in the engine were her dad's. Leaky radiator, dripping on the driveway like a September rainstorm. All day they had worked on that car, from morning until the sun sank low on the horizon, up to their elbows in grease and the caked salt of evaporated sweat cracking on their skin as they moved. They ended it on the front porch of their duplex, collapsed in sagging canvas chairs with their feet propped up, the grime of the car's interior covering them like a heavy layer of dust. He had even handed her a sippy cup filled to the brim with beer. Because, according to him, a day of hard work like that one necessitated a cold glass of beer. The cup was barely the size of a juice box, but her dad insisted he was maintaining the sentiment perfectly. The gesture was symbolic.
That had been a good day.
Slowly, Charlie closed the box, folding the cardboard lids over each other. She stared at that box for a good, long time, her mind straying to the one down the hall, still tucked in the corner of her closet. Full of treasures, that one was. Little bits and bobs that to anyone else would add up to a garage sale or maybe a table display at a thrift store. But given context, those little memorabilia added up up to a man. A good one.
Placing her hands on the counter, Charlie pushed herself up to her feet. Her movements felt slow and forced as she made her way down the hall, like a weak force field was trying to push her back, growing steadily in strength as she passed the threshold into her room. Her own hesitation formed a wall. But she battled through it, all the way to her closet door.
Charlie grabbed the door handle and twisted. The hinges squeaked as she pulled it open, almost like a cry of warning telling her to stop, to go back, warning her she wasn't ready. And there it was, lying in the corner, somehow managing to look ominous and innocuous all at once. Charlie settled down on the floor cross-legged, reaching out to pull the box closer. The glue on the duct tape holding the box shut had since dried, causing the once tight seal to buckle. Sucking in a deep breath, Charlie peeled away the dull silver tape and tossed it carelessly over her shoulder before opening it up and staring at the contents within.
That old pair of aviator sunglasses, the set of shell casings from WWII he had converted to salt and pepper shakers, his watch, the marksmanship and command badges from the Coast Guard—they were still waiting for her. And his face was reflected in all of them.
Charlie's hand clapped over her forehead, rubbing it soothingly as if the act could quiet the voices blathering in her head. She squinted her eyes, staring into the light to force them to well up, but they remained as dry as ever. Even after all this time, she didn't have any tears to shed. That hollowness was there, though. She still had that reminder.
Charlie stared at into that box for what could have been hours. It was like staring into a black hole—space and time ceased to exist. But then the silent whir of a gas efficient hybrid reached her ears, followed by the slamming of the front door and the clack of heels against hardwood floors. Charlie jolted to attention, shaking her head to cast off the cobwebs that had taken up residence inside her head.
Giving one last look, she grabbed the pair of Aviators, hooking them over the neckline of her shirt before folding the box shut. With one push, it moved back to that shadowed corner of her closet. How much longer it would stay there, she couldn't say. For now she had chicken parm to make and a shitload of English homework to finish.
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Chapter 6 Soundtrack
Visiting with Bob and seeing Stiles talk to Lydia.
-~-~-~-~-~Fishin With John - Sol Cat
Talking with Stiles about Lydia, joking around, seeing Jackson and Lydia kiss.
-~-~-~-~-~Fog - Mason Proper
Charlie comes back to get her phone, only to find Scott and Stiles being sneaky again.
-~-~-~-~-~Faun - Grass House
Charlie goes through her dad's things and finds that she still can't cry.
-~-~-~-~-~Lullaby - Dark Mean
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REFERENCES!!!
'Taste the rainbow' = Skittles slogan
'No wrong way to eat a Reese's' = Reese's slogan
Red soles of the shoes...Lydia is wearing Louboutin's
'Don't feed them after midnight' is a Gremlins reference.
MOVIES!!!!! 10 Things I Hate About You, Napoleon Dynamite, The Goonies, everything by John Hughes.
Chairman Meow. A lot of people might think that this is a reference to The Mortal Instruments. Unfortunately, I have never read TMI. This is actually a reference to Psych! Shawn talks about how he had a cat named Chairman Meow, who turned out to be Chairwoman Meow!
Xavier's School for Gifted Youngster (which Charlie suggests that Scott and Derek should attend) is the school where they teach the X-Men.
Avengers Swatch Watch! I had to add that in because I have a burning desire for one myself.
The giant blue-green Spanish-speaking bear is Muzzy! We used to watch those language videos in kindergarten and I loved them.
Quidditch