No. Aside from her lab, it's like she was never here. You know when you first moved into your apartment? And also I guess before you moved out? It looks like that, but without the carpet stain.
[ stiles goes quiet for a minute or two so he can keep looking around, mostly poking around the lab to see if he can find any kind of note or clue - and there isn't one. however. ]
She told me about the substitute. Kind of accused her of wanting to poison Duplicity's vampire population. Or starve them for a profit, at least. This was back when she was still human, though. Or... close to human.
[ whatever it is she was. time ghost. it doesn't matter now, he supposes. ]
[ derek accused her of potentially wanting to commit genocide and she still wanted to fuck him? that's... wild. but stiles isn't thinking about that right now.
rosalind is gone and that - kind of sucks. a lot. he may have just fought with her yesterday and left things kind of sour, but he cares about her, and it's gonna eat at him for a little while that they parted ways on a bad note. because he couldn't keep his mouth shut.
stiles starts gathering things he should probably clear out of here, grouping things together on a lab station and pausing in between to answer derek. ]
Sort of? The prototype is here. I mean I'm pretty sure that's what I'm looking at. I wasn't too involved with this stuff for Obvious reasons.
[ because blood often makes him woozy in most situations. ]
Didn't want to contaminate the samples with your greasy Dorito fingers. I understand.
[ jokes jokes jokes. derek starts pacing around the house, and - surprisingly - the cat follows him. he doesn't notice at first, because she's padding along so softly and so silently, but when he turns around, he sees her from the corner of his eye, standing stock still like they're playing red light green light. or what's the time, mister wolf.
he's not hungry, but he needs to do something with his hands between messages, so he just pops some leftovers in the microwave and turns it on. he leans against the counter while he finishes the rest of his thought to stiles. ]
Bring it home. We'll keep it at the den until we decide what to do with it. Seems kind of dangerous to just leave lying around. Last thing we need is someone stealing the prototype, figuring out how to recreate it, taking over the synthetic blood market with their own derivative product and actually trying to kill the people who relied on Rosalind for help.
Man that joke was so good You should quit your day job Become a comedian.
[ dick.
anyway. stiles rifles through cabinets, flipping through lab notes made by both himself and rosalind, separating some pages from others, likely a pile to keep and a pile to discard later. ]
I'm still gonna take it, but She worked on this with that guy who threatened to kill her, you know. She's not the only one who knows how to do this.
[ so doctor murder could still potentially fuck up a whole lot of people if he wanted to, especially now that rosalind isn't around to monitor things. ]
I fought with her yesterday. I said we got done early and that's why I was home before I usually am But we fought so I'd just kind of left.
[ stiles... can't catch a break, huh. losing his best friend was hard enough - but losing allison without getting a chance to warn her of what she's been through in his timeline, and now losing rosalind a day after they parted on bad terms? two things hit derek pretty hard - a sad, aching sympathy, and... a little bit of surprise.
he didn't know stiles lied to him. couldn't even tell. stiles is a pretty good liar. derek doesn't dwell on that, doesn't think anything of it - he's just surprised, for a second, that he's only finding out about this fight now. not that it matters? not that it's a big deal.
the cat meows. it's the first time she's meowed at him. derek looks at it. it looks back. the microwave bings, and maybe it's just because derek still makes her tense, but she startles enough to run to the bedroom, presumably to curl up on stiles' side of the bed. he lets her go. ]
Think you're going to talk to that guy about all this?
[ technically, it wasn't a lie, just - an omission of some truth, which probably still counts as lie in some ways, and still calls for a steady heart. they did finish early, but only because stiles decided he was done for the day, if only so he wouldn't snap at her and say things he wouldn't have meant. he'd told her he wasn't waiting for her to apologize, but it would have done wonders if she'd just - accepted that she'd hurt him instead of making illogical excuses about how she purposely wanted to hurt him by implying she would sleep with derek simply because she missed her husband.
stiles looks at everything he's collected so far. beakers - some empty and some containing labeled chemicals and acids -, a stack of plastic petri dishes, notes, the blood prototype, different instruments and tools. there's no way he's going to be able to carry everything in one go, which is - annoying, but it is what it is. ]
I don't know. I've never spoken to him before. I think the only reason I know what he looks like is because I found his dub profile once. Otherwise he's just a voice on the network at most.
[ and stiles is only text, but that's not the point. ]
[ derek... is unsure of how he feels about stiles getting in touch with this guy. it does sound like a necessity, at the end of the day, but despite having been rescued by stiles time and time again, and despite knowing that being human has never been a limitation for him, derek does kind of feel uneasy about sending him off to talk to a scary, dangerous vampire. derek will be there for him, sure, but - still.
all derek knows about this guy, really, is that he's violent, potentially a liar and quite possibly a self-hating xenophobe. sure, yes, okay, that could all be super fucking off base, but if there's one thing derek's good at, it's judging a person's character.
ha ha.
derek gets his food out the oven and hears the cat trot back from the bedroom, and he pointedly doesn't look at her. her footsteps stop, ostensibly because she's fucking staring at him again, and when he grabs a fork from the drawer and clatters it against her plate, she starts walking faster than before, like she's trying to get past him without pissing him off. he is pissed off. today is pissing him off. ]
[ stiles stands there with his hands on his hips, looking at everything he wants to take with him, trying to figure out if there's stuff he can spare and leave behind. eventually, someone will come to clear the rest of the apartment out so someone can move into it, but stiles feels - weirdly sentimental about a lot of the shit in this lab. he's... spent a lot of time here.
maybe he could strip one of the sheets from the bed, use it kind of like a sack. see if he can find a brook, tie the sheet to the end of it, carry everything out that way. there's a lot of glass, though - a lot of fragile things. a lot of chemicals that probably shouldn't mix, like, ever.
stiles takes a break from thinking for a second to answer derek. ]
And say what to him, exactly?
[ not that stiles has anything planned, but at least he spent a lot of his days working with rosalind. it's something in common. ]
[ this feels - kind of like something that derek can't answer honestly, because he'd either say something aggressive to this guy, or - ]
I don't know. I could just kill him.
[ - treat him like a threat, like he did to jackson, and take him out before things escalate. derek grabs some water and takes his food after firing that last text off, and he moves to the living room, ignoring the distant skittering of Track 01 and sitting cross-legged on the floor by the coffee table.
the cat's following him. derek's getting used to it. he stabs his fork into his meal - it's fish, they had fish - and the cat creeps a little closer. derek looks at her and she stops. frowning, and keeping his eyes on her, he takes a sip of water and texts stiles without looking. ]
Ejsy ertr upo hpomh yp dsu yp jp,?
[ he looks back at his screen. wait, shit. hold on. ]
[ stiles stripped the bed. stiles stripped the bed and grabbed a pillow case, too, and now he's back in the lab with a sheet spread out on the floor and his hands back on his hips because this - probably isn't going to work the way he wants it to. he's going to end up with a bag of broken glass and chemical burns down his back or something - if he can even manage to get out of the building without someone stopping him for looking suspicious.
his phone buzzes. stiles steps over the sheet and stretches his arm out to reach for it, sliding it closer to him on the table.
nobody is killing anybody, at least - not derek. not unprovoked, not without a good enough reason to maybe keep him out of jail. ]
Yeah, and then every vampire will try to kill you, and I don't feel like making a bunch of wooden stakes. I don't even know how to whittle.
[ he starts to put his phone down so he can try to tackle this - lab shit, but his phone vibrates in his hand before he can. he blinks. blinks again, a little harder this time, but the text still makes - absolutely no sense.
stiles panics a little, just a tiny flare of a sick feeling in his stomach, because the last time he was having trouble reading and comprehending was - back home, when the nogitsune—
another text comes through, bumping up the jibberish. stiles sighs quietly, rubbing his fingers against his forehead. jesus. what the hell. ]
What the hell was that? You have a stroke?
I was going to ask if he's seen Rosalind, for starters. I know she's probably gone But if you're right, it wouldn't hurt to let him know someone's looking for her. I don't think I'd mention the prototype.
Staring contest with the cat. Wasn't looking at my phone. Sorry.
[ they're having a very serious conversation that derek needs to get back to, but the cat's creeping closer again and derek sullenly puts his fork down like one of the more asshole-ish characters in matilda. she stops at the noise, again, and he feels himself getting annoyed. again.
maybe she's hungry. that's annoying, too, because it's not his job to fucking feed her. stiles clearly spoiled her too much in the down. he breaks off a piece of fish, holds out his hand for her to take it, and she just fucking bolts. just hightails it out of there, her claws skidding over themselves in fear and leaving scratch marks in the hardwood. derek stares after her, then puts the bit of fish in his mouth. ]
She doesn't like me. Seriously. She's liking me less and less. Honestly surprised she hasn't tried to fucking kill me yet. Most cats do. Give me a reason not to turn her into a lasagne.
[ whatever. wow, okay, this is wildly inappropriate, and derek's at least self-aware enough to realize that. he cleans his hands off on his shirt, feels even less hungry than before, and leans back against the bottom of the couch while he types. he hears the cat creeping around again and fucking pointedly chooses not to care. ]
Anyway. A vampire couldn't fucking kill me. Half of them are skinny little twinks who cry about their feelings. They're like Scott, but somehow even more hairless. What are they going to do? Yell at me about their girlfriends to death? I'm not afraid of them. I'm not afraid of anyone.
Whatever. Asking him about Rosalind is a good idea. Think you'd be able to tell if he was lying?
[ stiles fed her. stiles fed her like he's fed her every morning, whether he's had to get up from finally, finally falling asleep just to put a bowl down for her, or is still awake, or actually got a semi-decent night's sleep. she's just being an asshole, probably.
or maybe she just wants fish, because that's all stiles used to feed her back when he was living in the down. dry, kinda-gross tuna fish, picked off of an equally-dry sandwich.
stiles is mildly amused, though, by the mental image of derek and no name staring each other down. derek complains about her, maybe sorta threatens to kill her, asks for one good reason to let her live to see another day like she's done more than just stare at him and get a little cagey around him when stiles strays too far. ]
She hasn't tried to kill you yet. That seems like a pretty good reason. Also I'd be kinda pissed. Whichever one works for you.
[ anyway. vampires. ]
Have you ever actually met a vampire that wasn't Rosalind before? That's a genuine question, I don't know a whole lot about vampires. Except for all the stereotypical Hollywood BS. And that they're like, super strong.
[ there's a faint bruise on his inner wrist today from when Rosalind grabbed him yesterday to stop him from potentially rubbing chemicals into his eyes. ]
I could maybe tell if I asked him in person. But I was just planning on texting him. Unless what you're saying is you'd rather do it Talk to him I mean In which case... fine, I guess. So long as you don't kill him. Or give him any reason to want to kill you.
Do we have any empty boxes left from the move or did we break them all down? I know we didn't start out with a lot but like Do we still have the box from the microwave? Anything like that?
I would kill lots of things that haven't tried to kill me yet. Cat. Doctor Vampire, over there. I wanted to kill Jackson before the pool. Hell, I wanted to kill Jackson back when Scott had just been bitten.
[ but yes. stiles would be kind of pissed, and derek doesn't want to piss him off. derek also doesn't want to kill the cat. derek just wants the cat to like him. again, he's not hungry anymore, so he's just going to leave the plate where it is and sulk. he lets his neck go slack and lolls his head against the couch, staring up at the distant ceiling.
they're going to need to check the heating system, once it gets to the cold months. assuming they're both still here. he doesn't let himself think about what could happen if stiles just - disappears, one day, but it's on his mind a lot. it's hard not to worry if maybe this place is too transient to be in love. he could just wake up tomorrow to an empty bed and a voided contract and have nothing left. he doesn't think he could survive that.
... anyway. vampires. ]
I've met two, since coming here. Other than Rosalind. Some guy named Godric. Really fucking sad. Another guy named Cassidy. Kind of like a raccoon, but skinnier. Never back home, though. I know there are rumours of them, especially further north - but I don't think any Hale has ever met one. They were probably smart enough to know better than to come to a town plagued by hunters.
Anyway. If I talk to him, I'm just going to threaten to kill him. Text him, but - do it when you're at home? Just in case he... I don't know. Brainwashes you through an SMS. Hypnotizes you, like Dracula, into flashing your ankles to all the upstanding Victorian men around town who would call you a harlot for such impropriety. Or tracks you through your phone somehow and wants to start a fight.
I can go looking. There's probably something in storage. Why?
[ but now london has him, so he's their problem now.
stiles takes his phone and does one more sweep of rosalind's apartment, looking for anything else he might be able to use to carry stuff back. he does end up finding the flannel shirt he left here months and months ago, after rosalind had given him so much shit for the way he dresses, but other than that, he comes up with nothing. ]
Godric's a good vampire name. Like there's a guy here named Alucard. Dracula backwards. Come on. Really? Godric's like. Appropriately vampire-y without being too edgy. Anyway. Maybe it's not that the vampires back home are smart enough not to come to a town crawling with hunters. Maybe hunters are smart enough not to go to a town inhabited by vampires. They could be super badadss.
You're right though. I do have really nice ankles. Why do you think I never wear shorts? Too tantalizing. I'll wait.
Anyway. I didn't exactly show up here expecting to have to clear out a bunch of her stuff. I was gonna use a sheet and try to like. I don't know, bag it up? Santa Claus it out of here. But there's a lot of glass, and chemicals, and things I kind of don't want shattering or leaking everywhere. If you can find some boxes for me, I'll come home and get them.
Alucard is a pretty horrible name for a vampire. Then again, my name is fucking Derek. My sister's name was Laura. My uncle's name was Peter? Or... is Peter, I guess. The Hales didn't exactly rule over a kingdom of good werewolf names from atop a moonlit throne. I'm in a very stones and glass houses situation.
[ but also maybe he shouldn't talk to """""stiles""""" about what makes a decent name. stiles isn't even his real name. derek really has to dig into that a little deeper, at some point. truth or dare kind of sucked last time, though. maybe he'll have to just ask him a genuine question like an actual adult.
anyway. he gets up, abandons his food. he heads towards the cupboard he's been stacking a lot of storage shit into, because marie kondo wasn't commercially established in 2011 and derek isn't used to buying things so he doesn't know how to throw them away. there are a few boxes, yeah - enough to help stiles carry whatever it is he wants to bring home. derek gets them out, heading back towards the living room.
nameless is eating his fish. derek looks at her, she looks at him, and she panics and bolts. he'll... deal with that later. he puts the boxes on the kitchen counter, texting stiles with his free hand. ]
You do have incredibly fuckable ankles, it's true. Do you want me to bring these over? The boxes. Someone could try to check in on Rosalind while you're coming back, so.
Derek's a good name. It's a normal name. A safe name. Like nobody's gonna hear your name and be like YEAH THAT GUY SOUNDS LIKE HE WANTS TO MARRY THE MOON Now if your mom had named you something like Shit, I can't think of anything that sounds stereotypically wolfish. Lucien? Beowolf. If your mom had named you Beowolf we'd have to come up with something else for me to call you in bed.
[ cough. anyway. ]
Someone could try to check in on Rosalind while I'm here. I'm not sure what would be worse. I guess you can bring them? I didn't say before, because I was kind of panicking a little bit and trying to just Get the important things out, but She left her library behind, too. So if you wanted to come and pick through that while I box some lab stuff up. I'm sure you'd appreciate the books more than anyone else would.
[ actually he kind of would, because he likes it when stiles says derek, but that prevents the joke from landing. anyway. derek leans back against the kitchen counter, watching nameless stuff her fat little face with whatever bits of fish she managed to run off with. there's crumbs all over the floor. he's going to have to clean that up when he gets back, but - for now, he's scooping the boxes under one arm and laying them flat against his side, heading to the front door. ]
Seems kind of like a dick move, going through her books and taking what I want. I mean, I'm going to, obviously, but. Should at least acknowledge that I'm being a vulture.
I'll get there as quickly as I can. Uh. Don't open the door for anyone. Except me. I'll give you a codeword, or something, so you'll know it's safe to open up. Something that only means something to us.
[ which he's not going to say on the network, obviously, but. that is because he is a paranoid man. ]
stiles moves to lean back against the work station, unknowingly mirroring derek. if derek is coming, he might as well just wait until he's got all the proper things he needs to cart as much of this stuff away. he'll fold the sheet back up in a minute. ]
Do you have to think of it that way, though? You could just be saving them from people who wouldn't take care of them as well as she did. As well as you will. Besides, whenever the city gets around to sending someone out to clear everything away, they'll probably just toss it all.
If you say Beowulf I'm not opening the door. You don't have to rush, though. This stuff isn't going anywhere.
What humiliating fictional character has freckles? That's you. You're that person. I wish Milhouse had freckles. You're basically Milhouse.
[ he doesn't... really want to stop talking to stiles, so he doesn't tell him he's leaving. he just locks the front door, stares at the cat, gestures at his plate still sitting on a coffeetable in the universal sign for go ahead, and she doesn't understand but he doesn't really care. he locks her inside and makes for the train, just to cut a bit of time between here and rosalind's. ]
You're right. Sorry. Being cynical. It'd be good to have something for you to remember her by that isn't just... some kind of utility. Not that the lab isn't important. Just, you know. Sentimentality.
I mean, if you want that.
[ he doesn't know how stiles feels about mementos, really. he knows that roscoe belonged to claudia - he knows that very fucking well, because paranoia and self-doubt grips him every time he works on the jeep on hold for him at the garage for when he's squirrelled away enough money - but he doesn't know if stiles likes that kind of... physical sentimentality.
then again. derek fondly runs his thumb over his ring. maybe he does. ]
That's a weak comeback, Beowulf. Can't even come up with a single freckled character that would actually be insulting. It's not my fault people with spots are always impressive in one way or another.
[ stiles sets his phone down for a moment to he can get to work picking the sheet up off the floor. he considers just - shaking it out and putting it back on the bed, and decides that's probably the better idea. the less it looks like someone let themselves in and picked through someone else's stuff, the better.
he takes it back to rosalind's bedroom, gives it one big fluff so it spreads and coasts back down to the bed, straightening out the edges before he folds the quilt back up over it, and returns to the lab and his phone. ]
I do. Want that, I mean. Like, we got into it a little bit About the texts, on my birthday But I didn't want her to leave. I didn't know she was going to leave. And the last thing she's gonna remember about me is that I was so upset over nothing that I couldn't even stand to be around her long enough to finish my shift. If she even remembers me at all.
[ found one. nailed it. maybe they should drop this part of the conversation, if they're getting real. ]
You spent months with her. Helping her, trusting her, being her assistant, letting her in. She'll remember that. Not one tiny little fight that didn't mean much, in the grand scheme of things. Do you think Rosalind - Rosalind - can't put a fight between friends into context? She's as intelligent as she is abrasive. You can't have been the only person in her life she "got into it" with.
[ but he... understands the regret. he should have been more to her than he was. helped her more with her vampirism. been more understanding when she tried to convince him she wasn't human, back before she was bitten. he did a lot of things wrong. it's like - if he puts his walls up, he fails, and if he keeps them down, he fails, too. it's getting harder to know how to talk to people. ]
[ and that's all he really knows about chuckie finster, beyond the fact that he was also a nervous wreck of a toddler. kind of accurate, actually, but stiles isn't going to say as much. ]
She thought I was quitting. I just needed some space to breathe and cool off so I wouldn't say anything to her that I would regret and wouldn't mean. And she thought I wasn't coming back.
[ stiles starts to wander idly around the lab as he texts, pausing every now and then when he catches himself trying to chew on hi thumbnail. rosalind would have scolded him for putting his fingers anywhere near his face inside of her lab, especially after handling all of the chemicals he's handled just gathering things to take with him. ]
She used to be really good friends with Dr. Murdervamp. And then he threatened to kill her And I'm not sure but I think they stopped being friends Which makes sense, I would hope they'd part ways after that just for everyone's benefit. Maybe she thought the same thing was happening. I don't know. I guess it doesn't really matter now.
Edited (i'm done what the fuck) 2019-05-13 23:45 (UTC)
You could have left on amazing terms with her. You would still find a way to worry about what you could have done differently. Things you should have said. Shouldn't have said. Second-guessed whether or not you really mattered to her. Trust me, I get it more than anyone. But she's smart. Empathetic. You have to trust her. I'm sure she knew your relationship was stronger than any one argument.
[ but he knows more than anyone that losing someone doesn't feel better, no matter what somebody else says. anxiety and guilt don't just suddenly go away because somebody says hey, don't feel anxious or guilty. he just doesn't know what he can do, other than speak from experience. he still regrets not opening up to laura before she went home.
he gets to the train, in any case, and he doesn't even bother looking like he wants a seat. he just - stands, in the section designated for dominants, staring at his phone and trying not to be seen. he wants to cheer stiles up. somehow. ]
The cat stole my food. By the way. I thought maybe she was willing to give me a chance. But no. She just stared at me because she was hungry.
[ it kind of makes him feel better, that derek knows him the way he did. he's being called out for all the worrying he does, all the worrying and fretting he would have done regardless of whether or not he and rosalind fought the day before - but it doesn't make him feel bad. it just makes him feel... understood. derek doesn't try to tell him he should feel differently, he just - offers a different perspective.
someone stomps down the hall outside of rosalind's apartment, and the sound is kind of distant from here in the lab, but stiles freezes anyway, twisting his head back a moment later to look toward the rest of the apartment, listening for someone at the front door. the footsteps keep going, though, and nobody tries to pick their way in, so stiles relaxes.
he looks back at his phone, and he smiles, laughing quietly to himself. ]
She got close enough to you to steal your food? Was it the fish? Did you heat up the leftover fish? Dry tuna's pretty much all I fed her back in the down when I was still living there.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Aside from her lab, it's like she was never here.
You know when you first moved into your apartment?
And also I guess before you moved out?
It looks like that, but without the carpet stain.
[ stiles goes quiet for a minute or two so he can keep looking around, mostly poking around the lab to see if he can find any kind of note or clue - and there isn't one. however. ]
Did she tell you about the artificial blood?
no subject
She told me about the substitute.
Kind of accused her of wanting to poison Duplicity's vampire population. Or starve them for a profit, at least.
This was back when she was still human, though.
Or... close to human.
[ whatever it is she was. time ghost. it doesn't matter now, he supposes. ]
Is that still there?
no subject
rosalind is gone and that - kind of sucks. a lot. he may have just fought with her yesterday and left things kind of sour, but he cares about her, and it's gonna eat at him for a little while that they parted ways on a bad note. because he couldn't keep his mouth shut.
stiles starts gathering things he should probably clear out of here, grouping things together on a lab station and pausing in between to answer derek. ]
Sort of?
The prototype is here.
I mean I'm pretty sure that's what I'm looking at.
I wasn't too involved with this stuff for
Obvious reasons.
[ because blood often makes him woozy in most situations. ]
no subject
[ jokes jokes jokes. derek starts pacing around the house, and - surprisingly - the cat follows him. he doesn't notice at first, because she's padding along so softly and so silently, but when he turns around, he sees her from the corner of his eye, standing stock still like they're playing red light green light. or what's the time, mister wolf.
he's not hungry, but he needs to do something with his hands between messages, so he just pops some leftovers in the microwave and turns it on. he leans against the counter while he finishes the rest of his thought to stiles. ]
Bring it home. We'll keep it at the den until we decide what to do with it.
Seems kind of dangerous to just leave lying around.
Last thing we need is someone stealing the prototype, figuring out how to recreate it, taking over the synthetic blood market with their own derivative product and actually trying to kill the people who relied on Rosalind for help.
no subject
You should quit your day job
Become a comedian.
[ dick.
anyway. stiles rifles through cabinets, flipping through lab notes made by both himself and rosalind, separating some pages from others, likely a pile to keep and a pile to discard later. ]
I'm still gonna take it, but
She worked on this with that guy who threatened to kill her, you know.
She's not the only one who knows how to do this.
[ so doctor murder could still potentially fuck up a whole lot of people if he wanted to, especially now that rosalind isn't around to monitor things. ]
I fought with her yesterday.
I said we got done early and that's why I was home before I usually am
But we fought so I'd just kind of left.
no subject
he didn't know stiles lied to him. couldn't even tell. stiles is a pretty good liar. derek doesn't dwell on that, doesn't think anything of it - he's just surprised, for a second, that he's only finding out about this fight now. not that it matters? not that it's a big deal.
the cat meows. it's the first time she's meowed at him. derek looks at it. it looks back. the microwave bings, and maybe it's just because derek still makes her tense, but she startles enough to run to the bedroom, presumably to curl up on stiles' side of the bed. he lets her go. ]
Think you're going to talk to that guy about all this?
no subject
stiles looks at everything he's collected so far. beakers - some empty and some containing labeled chemicals and acids -, a stack of plastic petri dishes, notes, the blood prototype, different instruments and tools. there's no way he's going to be able to carry everything in one go, which is - annoying, but it is what it is. ]
I don't know.
I've never spoken to him before.
I think the only reason I know what he looks like is because I found his dub profile once.
Otherwise he's just a voice on the network at most.
[ and stiles is only text, but that's not the point. ]
I feel like I'm gonna have to, though.
no subject
all derek knows about this guy, really, is that he's violent, potentially a liar and quite possibly a self-hating xenophobe. sure, yes, okay, that could all be super fucking off base, but if there's one thing derek's good at, it's judging a person's character.
ha ha.
derek gets his food out the oven and hears the cat trot back from the bedroom, and he pointedly doesn't look at her. her footsteps stop, ostensibly because she's fucking staring at him again, and when he grabs a fork from the drawer and clatters it against her plate, she starts walking faster than before, like she's trying to get past him without pissing him off. he is pissed off. today is pissing him off. ]
I can talk to him.
If you want.
no subject
maybe he could strip one of the sheets from the bed, use it kind of like a sack. see if he can find a brook, tie the sheet to the end of it, carry everything out that way. there's a lot of glass, though - a lot of fragile things. a lot of chemicals that probably shouldn't mix, like, ever.
stiles takes a break from thinking for a second to answer derek. ]
And say what to him, exactly?
[ not that stiles has anything planned, but at least he spent a lot of his days working with rosalind. it's something in common. ]
no subject
I don't know. I could just kill him.
[ - treat him like a threat, like he did to jackson, and take him out before things escalate. derek grabs some water and takes his food after firing that last text off, and he moves to the living room, ignoring the distant skittering of Track 01 and sitting cross-legged on the floor by the coffee table.
the cat's following him. derek's getting used to it. he stabs his fork into his meal - it's fish, they had fish - and the cat creeps a little closer. derek looks at her and she stops. frowning, and keeping his eyes on her, he takes a sip of water and texts stiles without looking. ]
Ejsy ertr upo hpomh yp dsu yp jp,?
[ he looks back at his screen. wait, shit. hold on. ]
What were you going to say to him?
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his phone buzzes. stiles steps over the sheet and stretches his arm out to reach for it, sliding it closer to him on the table.
nobody is killing anybody, at least - not derek. not unprovoked, not without a good enough reason to maybe keep him out of jail. ]
Yeah, and then every vampire will try to kill you, and I don't feel like making a bunch of wooden stakes.
I don't even know how to whittle.
[ he starts to put his phone down so he can try to tackle this - lab shit, but his phone vibrates in his hand before he can. he blinks. blinks again, a little harder this time, but the text still makes - absolutely no sense.
stiles panics a little, just a tiny flare of a sick feeling in his stomach, because the last time he was having trouble reading and comprehending was - back home, when the nogitsune—
another text comes through, bumping up the jibberish. stiles sighs quietly, rubbing his fingers against his forehead. jesus. what the hell. ]
What the hell was that?
You have a stroke?
I was going to ask if he's seen Rosalind, for starters.
I know she's probably gone
But if you're right, it wouldn't hurt to let him know someone's looking for her.
I don't think I'd mention the prototype.
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Sorry.
[ they're having a very serious conversation that derek needs to get back to, but the cat's creeping closer again and derek sullenly puts his fork down like one of the more asshole-ish characters in matilda. she stops at the noise, again, and he feels himself getting annoyed. again.
maybe she's hungry. that's annoying, too, because it's not his job to fucking feed her. stiles clearly spoiled her too much in the down. he breaks off a piece of fish, holds out his hand for her to take it, and she just fucking bolts. just hightails it out of there, her claws skidding over themselves in fear and leaving scratch marks in the hardwood. derek stares after her, then puts the bit of fish in his mouth. ]
She doesn't like me. Seriously. She's liking me less and less.
Honestly surprised she hasn't tried to fucking kill me yet. Most cats do.
Give me a reason not to turn her into a lasagne.
[ whatever. wow, okay, this is wildly inappropriate, and derek's at least self-aware enough to realize that. he cleans his hands off on his shirt, feels even less hungry than before, and leans back against the bottom of the couch while he types. he hears the cat creeping around again and fucking pointedly chooses not to care. ]
Anyway.
A vampire couldn't fucking kill me. Half of them are skinny little twinks who cry about their feelings. They're like Scott, but somehow even more hairless.
What are they going to do? Yell at me about their girlfriends to death?
I'm not afraid of them. I'm not afraid of anyone.
Whatever.
Asking him about Rosalind is a good idea.
Think you'd be able to tell if he was lying?
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or maybe she just wants fish, because that's all stiles used to feed her back when he was living in the down. dry, kinda-gross tuna fish, picked off of an equally-dry sandwich.
stiles is mildly amused, though, by the mental image of derek and no name staring each other down. derek complains about her, maybe sorta threatens to kill her, asks for one good reason to let her live to see another day like she's done more than just stare at him and get a little cagey around him when stiles strays too far. ]
She hasn't tried to kill you yet.
That seems like a pretty good reason.
Also I'd be kinda pissed.
Whichever one works for you.
[ anyway. vampires. ]
Have you ever actually met a vampire that wasn't Rosalind before?
That's a genuine question, I don't know a whole lot about vampires.
Except for all the stereotypical Hollywood BS.
And that they're like, super strong.
[ there's a faint bruise on his inner wrist today from when Rosalind grabbed him yesterday to stop him from potentially rubbing chemicals into his eyes. ]
I could maybe tell if I asked him in person.
But I was just planning on texting him.
Unless what you're saying is you'd rather do it
Talk to him I mean
In which case... fine, I guess.
So long as you don't kill him.
Or give him any reason to want to kill you.
Do we have any empty boxes left from the move or did we break them all down?
I know we didn't start out with a lot but like
Do we still have the box from the microwave?
Anything like that?
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Cat. Doctor Vampire, over there. I wanted to kill Jackson before the pool. Hell, I wanted to kill Jackson back when Scott had just been bitten.
[ but yes. stiles would be kind of pissed, and derek doesn't want to piss him off. derek also doesn't want to kill the cat. derek just wants the cat to like him. again, he's not hungry anymore, so he's just going to leave the plate where it is and sulk. he lets his neck go slack and lolls his head against the couch, staring up at the distant ceiling.
they're going to need to check the heating system, once it gets to the cold months. assuming they're both still here. he doesn't let himself think about what could happen if stiles just - disappears, one day, but it's on his mind a lot. it's hard not to worry if maybe this place is too transient to be in love. he could just wake up tomorrow to an empty bed and a voided contract and have nothing left. he doesn't think he could survive that.
... anyway. vampires. ]
I've met two, since coming here. Other than Rosalind.
Some guy named Godric. Really fucking sad. Another guy named Cassidy. Kind of like a raccoon, but skinnier.
Never back home, though.
I know there are rumours of them, especially further north - but I don't think any Hale has ever met one.
They were probably smart enough to know better than to come to a town plagued by hunters.
Anyway.
If I talk to him, I'm just going to threaten to kill him. Text him, but - do it when you're at home?
Just in case he... I don't know. Brainwashes you through an SMS. Hypnotizes you, like Dracula, into flashing your ankles to all the upstanding Victorian men around town who would call you a harlot for such impropriety.
Or tracks you through your phone somehow and wants to start a fight.
I can go looking. There's probably something in storage.
Why?
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[ but now london has him, so he's their problem now.
stiles takes his phone and does one more sweep of rosalind's apartment, looking for anything else he might be able to use to carry stuff back. he does end up finding the flannel shirt he left here months and months ago, after rosalind had given him so much shit for the way he dresses, but other than that, he comes up with nothing. ]
Godric's a good vampire name.
Like there's a guy here named Alucard.
Dracula backwards. Come on. Really?
Godric's like. Appropriately vampire-y without being too edgy.
Anyway. Maybe it's not that the vampires back home are smart enough not to come to a town crawling with hunters.
Maybe hunters are smart enough not to go to a town inhabited by vampires.
They could be super badadss.
You're right though.
I do have really nice ankles.
Why do you think I never wear shorts?
Too tantalizing.
I'll wait.
Anyway. I didn't exactly show up here expecting to have to clear out a bunch of her stuff.
I was gonna use a sheet and try to like. I don't know, bag it up?
Santa Claus it out of here.
But there's a lot of glass, and chemicals, and things I kind of don't want shattering or leaking everywhere.
If you can find some boxes for me, I'll come home and get them.
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Then again, my name is fucking Derek. My sister's name was Laura. My uncle's name was Peter? Or... is Peter, I guess.
The Hales didn't exactly rule over a kingdom of good werewolf names from atop a moonlit throne. I'm in a very stones and glass houses situation.
[ but also maybe he shouldn't talk to """""stiles""""" about what makes a decent name. stiles isn't even his real name. derek really has to dig into that a little deeper, at some point. truth or dare kind of sucked last time, though. maybe he'll have to just ask him a genuine question like an actual adult.
anyway. he gets up, abandons his food. he heads towards the cupboard he's been stacking a lot of storage shit into, because marie kondo wasn't commercially established in 2011 and derek isn't used to buying things so he doesn't know how to throw them away. there are a few boxes, yeah - enough to help stiles carry whatever it is he wants to bring home. derek gets them out, heading back towards the living room.
nameless is eating his fish. derek looks at her, she looks at him, and she panics and bolts. he'll... deal with that later. he puts the boxes on the kitchen counter, texting stiles with his free hand. ]
You do have incredibly fuckable ankles, it's true.
Do you want me to bring these over? The boxes.
Someone could try to check in on Rosalind while you're coming back, so.
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A safe name.
Like nobody's gonna hear your name and be like
YEAH THAT GUY SOUNDS LIKE HE WANTS TO MARRY THE MOON
Now if your mom had named you something like
Shit, I can't think of anything that sounds stereotypically wolfish.
Lucien?
Beowolf.
If your mom had named you Beowolf we'd have to come up with something else for me to call you in bed.
[ cough. anyway. ]
Someone could try to check in on Rosalind while I'm here.
I'm not sure what would be worse.
I guess you can bring them?
I didn't say before, because I was kind of panicking a little bit and trying to just
Get the important things out, but
She left her library behind, too.
So if you wanted to come and pick through that while I box some lab stuff up.
I'm sure you'd appreciate the books more than anyone else would.
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[ actually he kind of would, because he likes it when stiles says derek, but that prevents the joke from landing. anyway. derek leans back against the kitchen counter, watching nameless stuff her fat little face with whatever bits of fish she managed to run off with. there's crumbs all over the floor. he's going to have to clean that up when he gets back, but - for now, he's scooping the boxes under one arm and laying them flat against his side, heading to the front door. ]
Seems kind of like a dick move, going through her books and taking what I want.
I mean, I'm going to, obviously, but. Should at least acknowledge that I'm being a vulture.
I'll get there as quickly as I can.
Uh.
Don't open the door for anyone. Except me.
I'll give you a codeword, or something, so you'll know it's safe to open up. Something that only means something to us.
[ which he's not going to say on the network, obviously, but. that is because he is a paranoid man. ]
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[ except he wouldn't call him balto, either.
stiles moves to lean back against the work station, unknowingly mirroring derek. if derek is coming, he might as well just wait until he's got all the proper things he needs to cart as much of this stuff away. he'll fold the sheet back up in a minute. ]
Do you have to think of it that way, though?
You could just be saving them from people who wouldn't take care of them as well as she did.
As well as you will.
Besides, whenever the city gets around to sending someone out to clear everything away, they'll probably just toss it all.
If you say Beowulf I'm not opening the door.
You don't have to rush, though.
This stuff isn't going anywhere.
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That's you.
You're that person.
I wish Milhouse had freckles. You're basically Milhouse.
[ he doesn't... really want to stop talking to stiles, so he doesn't tell him he's leaving. he just locks the front door, stares at the cat, gestures at his plate still sitting on a coffeetable in the universal sign for go ahead, and she doesn't understand but he doesn't really care. he locks her inside and makes for the train, just to cut a bit of time between here and rosalind's. ]
You're right. Sorry. Being cynical.
It'd be good to have something for you to remember her by that isn't just... some kind of utility.
Not that the lab isn't important. Just, you know.
Sentimentality.
I mean, if you want that.
[ he doesn't know how stiles feels about mementos, really. he knows that roscoe belonged to claudia - he knows that very fucking well, because paranoia and self-doubt grips him every time he works on the jeep on hold for him at the garage for when he's squirrelled away enough money - but he doesn't know if stiles likes that kind of... physical sentimentality.
then again. derek fondly runs his thumb over his ring. maybe he does. ]
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Can't even come up with a single freckled character that would actually be insulting.
It's not my fault people with spots are always impressive in one way or another.
[ stiles sets his phone down for a moment to he can get to work picking the sheet up off the floor. he considers just - shaking it out and putting it back on the bed, and decides that's probably the better idea. the less it looks like someone let themselves in and picked through someone else's stuff, the better.
he takes it back to rosalind's bedroom, gives it one big fluff so it spreads and coasts back down to the bed, straightening out the edges before he folds the quilt back up over it, and returns to the lab and his phone. ]
I do.
Want that, I mean.
Like, we got into it a little bit
About the texts, on my birthday
But I didn't want her to leave.
I didn't know she was going to leave.
And the last thing she's gonna remember about me is that I was so upset over nothing that I couldn't even stand to be around her long enough to finish my shift.
If she even remembers me at all.
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[ found one. nailed it. maybe they should drop this part of the conversation, if they're getting real. ]
You spent months with her. Helping her, trusting her, being her assistant, letting her in.
She'll remember that. Not one tiny little fight that didn't mean much, in the grand scheme of things.
Do you think Rosalind - Rosalind - can't put a fight between friends into context? She's as intelligent as she is abrasive. You can't have been the only person in her life she "got into it" with.
[ but he... understands the regret. he should have been more to her than he was. helped her more with her vampirism. been more understanding when she tried to convince him she wasn't human, back before she was bitten. he did a lot of things wrong. it's like - if he puts his walls up, he fails, and if he keeps them down, he fails, too. it's getting harder to know how to talk to people. ]
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Totally badass.
[ and that's all he really knows about chuckie finster, beyond the fact that he was also a nervous wreck of a toddler. kind of accurate, actually, but stiles isn't going to say as much. ]
She thought I was quitting.
I just needed some space to breathe and cool off so I wouldn't say anything to her that I would regret and wouldn't mean.
And she thought I wasn't coming back.
[ stiles starts to wander idly around the lab as he texts, pausing every now and then when he catches himself trying to chew on hi thumbnail. rosalind would have scolded him for putting his fingers anywhere near his face inside of her lab, especially after handling all of the chemicals he's handled just gathering things to take with him. ]
She used to be really good friends with Dr. Murdervamp.
And then he threatened to kill her
And I'm not sure but I think they stopped being friends
Which makes sense, I would hope they'd part ways after that just for everyone's benefit.
Maybe she thought the same thing was happening.
I don't know. I guess it doesn't really matter now.
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You could have left on amazing terms with her. You would still find a way to worry about what you could have done differently. Things you should have said. Shouldn't have said. Second-guessed whether or not you really mattered to her.
Trust me, I get it more than anyone.
But she's smart. Empathetic.
You have to trust her. I'm sure she knew your relationship was stronger than any one argument.
[ but he knows more than anyone that losing someone doesn't feel better, no matter what somebody else says. anxiety and guilt don't just suddenly go away because somebody says hey, don't feel anxious or guilty. he just doesn't know what he can do, other than speak from experience. he still regrets not opening up to laura before she went home.
he gets to the train, in any case, and he doesn't even bother looking like he wants a seat. he just - stands, in the section designated for dominants, staring at his phone and trying not to be seen. he wants to cheer stiles up. somehow. ]
The cat stole my food. By the way.
I thought maybe she was willing to give me a chance. But no.
She just stared at me because she was hungry.
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someone stomps down the hall outside of rosalind's apartment, and the sound is kind of distant from here in the lab, but stiles freezes anyway, twisting his head back a moment later to look toward the rest of the apartment, listening for someone at the front door. the footsteps keep going, though, and nobody tries to pick their way in, so stiles relaxes.
he looks back at his phone, and he smiles, laughing quietly to himself. ]
She got close enough to you to steal your food?
Was it the fish?
Did you heat up the leftover fish?
Dry tuna's pretty much all I fed her back in the down when I was still living there.
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