Log: Julie and Stiles Who: Julie Molina and Stiles Stilinski What: A driving lesson and a probing question or two When: Backdated to a weekend before this Why (are you writing a log with yourself, Em?): This is Danika's fault, because Stiles had a log with the rest of the band and she said she was expecting one between he and Julie. My brain would not let it go.
“You’re sure Yelena won’t mind? Because I’m not interested in being killed and no one being able to find the body, Julie.” He pulled up in the high school parking lot, currently all but empty, being a weekend.
Julie scoffed. “You’re as bad as Luke. Yelena is not that scary. And this is fine, you’re just giving me a lesson. What’s the worst that could happen?” She punctuated the rhetorical question by opening the passenger door of the jeep in expectation of him doing the same, rounding the front of the car to get in on the driver's side.
Knowing when he was beaten, Stiles did the same, switching sides with her and hopping back in on the passenger side. “How much experience do you have, anyway? Because the jeep is not the easiest car to learn on.” He’d never forget his first time driving it, when he’d wound up straight in a ditch.
“Uh -” Here Julie looked at him a bit sheepishly. “Not much. But! I’m a fast learner. And I don’t want to turn up to my first lesson with the instructor not knowing anything. So I figured, why not?”
“You’re going to be one of those people who clean their house before they hire a cleaner, aren’t you?” Stiles asked rhetorically, before handing over the keys he’d pulled from the ignition so she could go through the motions. “Okay, lesson one. Keys go in the ignition, then turn.”
“Thanks,” Julie shot back with no small measure of the sarcasm she’d grown familiar with him directing at the rest of them.
An hour or so later, and Julie was pretty confidently driving around the parking lot and even changing gears. She’d only stalled a half dozen times, too, doing her best to ignore the way Stiles cringed whenever she did. He was no better with a poker face than the boys. When she pulled to a stop and gave him a self-satisfied look, he spoiled her whole moment by reaching over and pulling on the handbrake. Right, she kept forgetting that one.
“Not bad.” A short afternoon’s work and she could go into her first actual lesson with some basics covered, which was what she’d asked for.
“Thanks, Stiles. Really. I feel better about it now.” She looked over at the building, her thoughts straying to next year. Things would be so different with the rest of the band done and…at college? Maybe? “Can I ask you something?” She shifted a little in the seat to face him. “How are you liking college? Is it better than school?”
Of all the things she might have asked him, Stiles had not been expecting that. “It’s good. But if I miss a class no one cares, which is kind of dangerous when you’re me. I like it, though.”
“I kind of can’t wait. The guys will probably be going next year and I’ll be so jealous,” she admitted. She’d never say it out loud to them because she didn’t want Luke coming up with any crazy not going ideas - if he did want to go. They hadn’t really talked about it. Not that he would or should change his plans for her. He was too smart for that, she thought. “What are you going to do when you’re done? Become a policeman?” She wanted to ask if he planned to fight crime but she didn’t know if she knew him well enough for that sort of teasing yet.
“Something like that. To be honest I don’t really have a plan anymore.” The FBI wouldn’t be quite so easy to swing without Douche McCall there to put in a good word for him, which had been the angle before. He probably needed to stop referring to him with unflattering names if he ever did expect his help. But that was another problem for future Stiles. “It’s good, though. For now I’m just liking what I’m learning and that’s enough.” Some of it was stuff he knew already, but he never thought he’d enjoy learning some of the basics of criminal law and yet here he was, reading ahead in his free time.
“That’s the part I want,” Julie enthused. “To get to focus on the subjects I’m really interested in.” She didn’t mind school, but she was not in it for the algebra. “And the downtime. Not that it’s downtime. But you know what I mean.”
“I do. Means you can work around other things. Maybe fit it around your music. Alex mentioned he was thinking about taking a few classes, at least.” He didn’t know how that would work, but there were other options besides college, anyway.
Julie hesitated, seriously contemplating the pros and cons of the shovel talk. Something told her she wouldn’t be very convincing. But he just happened to have landed them right in the middle of an opportunity to discuss what she’d been wanting to all day. “Alex is a good friend,” she responded, dropping the college talk completely.
“He is.” Stiles agreed, the words coming with no hesitation, though maybe a hint of questioning. She gave him points for that. “Look, Julie -”
“Can I ask you something?” She cut him off, probably pushing the point but not wanting to miss her shot. She had to know where he stood.
“Something tells me you’re going to whether I want you to or not.”
She almost looked apologetic about that. Almost. “Is he…important to you?”
Any number of possible responses flew through his head at that. He was almost compelled to say he wasn’t going to hurt him, because he got the feeling that was the reason for this whole line of questioning. But that fell a bit too close to agreeing there was some reason for her to worry that he would. And that wasn’t really her business. Or, more accurately, anything they’d even talked about. And that was a can of worms he had zero interest in opening right now, sitting here in his jeep with Julie on a Saturday afternoon. “Look, I can see where you’re going with this,” she wasn’t exactly being subtle, “but this is something he and I need to talk about, you know?” Or not. He didn’t know.
“Okay, okay. I get it. It’s just that - well.” She paused, gathering her thoughts. “This feels like the part of the conversation where I’m meant to tell you if you hurt him, I bury you. I think that’s how it goes? Or is the shovel part just metaphoric?” She shrugged innocently.
He probably shouldn’t have laughed. It was just that looking at her, it was kind of hard to be intimidated. When you’d faced off with psychopathic alpha werewolves, sixteen year old girls weren’t all that threatening. “I’m sorry,” he said, spoiled a bit by the laughing. Julie gave him a truly impressive unimpressed look and he held up his hands in surrender. “Just - look. He and I haven’t even - ugh. I promise, whatever happens, I’ll be careful. But this conversation stays between us, yeah?”
Her unimpressed face morphed into a disgruntled sort of acceptance, but she nodded, satisfied for now. “I won’t say a word. Just remember, Yelena’s taught me things.”