spamalot } { of token humans and complicated situations

[bravebartender]

Stiles: [grins] Nice place.

Cami: [nods] It is. The Devereaux family have been running it for a long time.

Stiles: It seems that everything down here has some link back to like, certain families.

Cami: [she nods] The French Quarter has a lot of history. Like the Devereauxes - their coven, I guess? Have always been emissaries to the pack that was running the Quarter. The bayou wolves, Andrea's people, have been out there for hundreds of years.

Stiles: And I know the Mikaelsons have been around forever as well.

Cami: About three hundred years? They came when the city was still being settled, and they basically just went to war with the wolves of the bayou but Klaus has actually been managing to improve relations with this wedding, which according to my uncle is a miracle in and of itself.

Stiles: Ew, I’ve been in the middle of a pack war. It's not pretty.

Cami: [cringes and nods] It's a great big mess.

Stiles: Yeah, my best friend was actually bitten to start off the whole thing. I didn't know anything about all this before that.

Cami: I always knew ... fringes of things. My parents raised us out of New Orleans to try and keep us out of it, but my uncle wouldn't abandon his parish and kind of got dragged right into the middle of it.

Stiles: Yeah, I get that. But sometimes it's better to know than not.

Cami: [nods] And they've never outright lied to me about it. They just ... didn't talk about it.

Stiles: Oh yeah, I had to do that with my dad for a while too. Kinda sucks being the one avoiding the topics when you just want to tell them the real deal.

Cami: [nods] Kieran told me when I moved back here. It was ... a lot to take in all at once.

Stiles: But you got the handle of it now, right?

Cami: [she nods] Yeah. It's just rough though, because my family ... we're not emissaries. We're strictly Team Human. Which means when things between the packs are good for humans, things are good. But if they're bad ... we're not hunters, but we won't stand for our people being abused.

Stiles: Yeah, that would be rough. But hey, hunters aren't all that they're cracked up to be with a few exceptions. You're probably helping yourself more this way than just trying the whole mass murdering your enemies’ route.

Cami: [shakes her head] Oh, God no. My uncle's a priest - he's not murdering anybody.

Stiles: [laughs] see, you're already on the right path. ... Does he try to bring the wolves to find Jesus kind of priest?

Cami: [laughs] I think he's given up on the Mikaelsons. But he's fair, more often than not, so people have learned to count on him to be somewhat impartial.

Stiles: Always good. [believes that Werewolves for Jesus would be a great band name now]

Cami: [she nods] He's a good guy. Right now it's him and my brother at the church.

Stiles: And then you have the bar to be counsel to the non-church type people.

Cami: Yep. We are all-purpose that way.

Stiles: Saving souls in creative ways. I like you.

Cami: [laughs] We do what we can, anyway. But when Sean was doing his seminary work here, it's not like I was going to be anywhere else. We haven't been separated for long periods of time since we were born.

Stiles: ... Twin brother?

Cami: Yep. Fraternal, obviously. The church isn't quite that open minded yet.

Stiles: [laughs] But God loves surprises. At least he has to if he puts up with me on a constant basis.

Cami: You're not that bad.

Stiles: [grins] I have moments. Cora can attribute to that.

Cami: At least he was wise enough not to let there be two of you at the same time.

Stiles: You haven't met my daughter yet.

Cami: I'd like to think that you've mellowed in your middle age.

Stiles: [thinks] Yeah, I have. It's this wonderful thing called Adderall.

Cami: [eyebrow goes up] ADHD?

Stiles: Primarily.

Cami: Are you worried about it passing to your daughter?

Stiles: Oh, I already know she has it. It was diagnosed at three. There are worse things that she can develop. I can handle the ADHD. The family that drugs together keeps from taking over the world with paperclips. [grins]

Cami: [laughs] Well, if you're worried about drugging her - she's young enough where you can balance it with behavioral intervention methods. I was reading a study that mentioned that there are summer camps for kids with ADHD that helped with behavioral interventions to help keep them on target. [a beat] In addition to working at a bar I'm also a psych major.

Stiles: [smiles] I'd been looking into those. Cora's sister, Laura, talk with us both sometimes when we're having issues to help us find balance. After what I put my dad through as a kid, I want to make sure she's going to be able to handle it herself better from the get-go.

Cami: [nods] That's good. There are some really simple things that can help, like noticing good behavior as much as you notice the bad - positive reinforcement can go a long way.

Stiles: Yeah, I try to. And now having Cora in the picture has helped too. If she was able to handle me as a teenager, she can handle my four year old clone.

Cami: [she nods] I just ... worry about medication, especially when they're starting so young. Everyone wants the instant gratification fixes to deal with their problem child, and no one really thinks about the long term results, or the fact that the brain is a muscle. It can be trained too, you just need a little time.

Stiles: [just grins at her] If it makes you feel better, I don't actually drug her yet. It's been talked about, but right now I'm going more natural methods with her. But seeing how bad it was in me, and knowing the difference it made in my life, it's not something I'm going to eliminate. I just want to see how she develops more and if she is able to learn coping mechanisms on her own or needs that bit of help to even her out.

Cami: [nods before taking a sip of her drink] Sorry. I didn't mean to ... make it sound as if I was telling you how to parent your kid.

Stiles: Trust me, you're not the only one. I don't see it as being lectured though. I mean, technically I'm still a single father and I'll admit that Google can only show me so much.

Cami: Then you are wiser than most parents. A lot of them don't want to admit when they're wrong.

Stiles: [smirks and reaches for his beer] Oh, I've been wrong many times, and paid the price for not admitting it when it matters. Not doing that again as long as I can help it.

Cami: Smart man.

Stiles: [grins, but the times he's thinking of were times were he was not so very smart at all]

Cami: [yes, well, Cami doesn't know that] Anyway. Anything else you want to know about New Orleans?

Stiles: Well, so far we've seen. [lists off all the touristy sites they've been to] Anything I've missed we should see before we go?

Cami: [thinks for a moment] Well, you should be in town long enough for the Casket Girls festival.

Stiles: What's that?

Cami: When the city was first being settled, French fathers would pay to send their daughters to New Orleans to be married off. They were called casket girls because all of their belongings would fit in a casket. It got all tangled up in supernatural lore but the ones who were married off became part of the founding families of New Orleans.

Stiles: And so there's a festival to celebrate them? Cool.

Cami: [nods] They even say that's how "vampires" found their way to the quarter.

Stiles: Vampires? Really? I mean, okay yes werewolves are real, but I've yet to see a vampire.

Cami: [shakes her head] There are no vampires. It's just a story.

Stiles: Good, because my neck apparently is already taken. [smirks]

Cami: [laughs] I'm pretty sure all of you is taken at this point. Cora might snarl at anyone who says otherwise.

Stiles: Yeah, yeah she probably will. [blushes a bit. yup, totally in love] So, what about you...? [and that's the look. the I want to know how you and Klaus are doing look]

Cami: [totally playing dumb] What about me?

Stiles: What's going on in your life beyond things like your family and your bar?

Cami: [shrugs] School? School is good. But I don't know if you want me to start rambling about psychology right now.

Stiles: Probably not. I think I've gotten enough of that already today.

Cami: So yeah. That's it with me.

Stiles: No broody tall, dark and handsome man in your life?

Cami: Nope, not last I checked.

Stiles: Well, we need to fix that. Unless you don't like broody. Are you more into geeky? Or like, men with way too much responsibility who needs someone to ground him?

Cami: What makes you assume I'm into guys at all?

Stiles: [jaw drops a bit because wow... um] Um, well... I mean okay... sorry?

Cami: [she laughs] I am, for the record, but still need to be careful about those conclusions you're jumping to.

Stiles: So that means I've been right then, so far? Not that you need a guy. Or girl. But there is maybe one that you want to be looking your way?

Cami: [she hesitates for a moment, before shaking her head] I'm not looking.

Stiles: Too busy...?

Cami: Not really in the right place for it. I've kind of had this bad habit of attracting bad boys. I'm taking some time for me.

Stiles: Bad boys like motorcycling riding men in leather jackets, or jerks who don't know how good they got it?

Cami: Sometimes a combination of both?

Stiles: [nods. He knows though what it's like to be the guy on the other end of the "needing time for myself" equation. And it was never good] Well, hopefully you come out better for it with that time.

Cami: [well, no. But Klaus needs to sort out his own issues before they can go there] Me too.

Stiles: [finishes his beer and leans back, smiling at the beer buzz] You know, I was a werewolf for like, a month. Weirdest month of my life.

Cami: [eyebrows go up] How were you a werewolf for only a month?

Stiles: Some kinda of spell. We never really did figure out who did it, but it ended up making me a wolf and Cora human for a month.

Cami: Huh. That must have been crazy.

Stiles: Psh, totally. I am like, the worst wolf ever.

Cami: You were only one for a month. How can you tell?

Stiles: I had no control whatsoever. I tried to get it, but couldn't.

Cami: From what I've heard that kind of stuff tends to come with time more than anything else.

Stiles: [he scratches at his neck a bit] There's a bit more to it than that.

Cami: [a beat] Want to talk about it?

Stiles: It's not really much to talk about. I just have... well, literal brain damage. Got an x-ray to prove it and all.

Cami: [her face softens at that] I'm sorry.

Stiles: [he shrugs] It's nothing. I had a few bad years, but they're over now. Fresh starts.

Cami: Fresh starts are good, but it doesn't mean that those things go away completely - you wouldn't be the person you are now without the person you were then.

Stiles: True.

Cami: And there's also nothing wrong with needing time to work through those issues.

Stiles: When you're given the time and space to do it.

Cami: Do you think you're not?

Stiles: Well, at first I wasn't. But there were circumstances. Now, yeah, I'm doing a lot better.

Cami: Good.

Stiles: [he sighs and leans forward] Alright, full disclosure - I was married before to a very not so nice woman and her mobster type family took exception to the fact I didn't want to help the business.

Cami: [shifts so that she's matching is lean] I take it the head injury?

Stiles: Among others. The head injury came though after I had left with my daughter, and her brothers came to teach me a lesson.

Cami: [winces] Yikes. [there's a pause] Well, with the wolf thing - wouldn't the healing factor help fix the brain damage over time?

Stiles: If it's healed, even wrong, it won't. I was…um... actually recovering from a gunshot wound when the switch happened and it fixed that. But like, all my scars and things that I had before that had been healed stayed.

Cami: Oh. Huh. I just ... I heard that it can fix some neurological disorders.

Stiles: Maybe. But as I'm reminded... constantly... it's not science so you can't really predict what it will and won't do.

Cami: Some of it is science. My uncle says that some hunters know the exact voltage that can stop their ability to shift, what can stop them from healing, all that.

Stiles: ..... That’s just messed up.

Cami: [nods slowly] Yep.

Stiles: I mean... that's torture, trying to learn all that.

Cami: Hunters see it as protecting themselves against a threat.

Stiles: Sure they do.

Cami: [shakes her head] It's a rough world to live in.

Stiles: I guess my next of the world isn't as bad as it is here then.

Cami: I don't know a lot about Beacon Hills, but hunters have come in and out of the Quarter for years. It's the one thing that the Mikaelsons and the bayou wolves could agree on - the hunters needed to get out.

Stiles: The Argents have set up shop in Beacon Hills, but they have a vested interest in keeping the peace and keeping other hunters from coming into the area.

Cami: Allison, right? I've heard about her.

Stiles: Yup, married to my best buddy Scott and they have their own little litter of baby wolves of their own. Or they may be wolves, they may be human. Won't know until their older from what I've been told.

Cami: Yeah, there aren't a lot of hunters like her.

Stiles: Not even in her own family. But she's great, and we like her so we're keeping her.

Cami: I don't blame you. I have a feeling Klaus would want to keep her too.

Stiles: Well, he can't have her. He'll have to find his own beautiful woman to keep.

Cami: I'm sure he'll get right on that.

Stiles: [just grins, because come on, Cami, you have to have noticed]

Cami: [makes a face] Shut up.

Stiles: I didn't say anything.

Cami: It is all over your face.

Stiles: [he just makes noises and hand motions, the whole I don't know what you’re talking about routine as he leans back]

Cami: [eyeroll] Look, all I'm going to say is he's not waiting on me.

Stiles: Maybe, maybe not. Maybe he's waiting to try and do right by you.

Cami: [shakes her head] It's not like that. It's ... I don't want to be a werewolf. So he needs to be sure that there won't be ... unwanted side effects.

Stiles: I know it's harder for him, because he's an alpha and all... but I don't even want to be a wolf again, and Cora and I can make it work. But the being apart when you know that you are supposed to be together? I'll take all the pain from my ex-wife every day for the rest of my life to never feel that pain again.

Cami: You don't have to worry about being turned if things go a bit too far and she uses her actual teeth.

Stiles: No, but maybe you could invest in you know, neck armor or something?

Cami: Yeah. Because that's very sexy.

Stiles: Well, a little leather and some inlay, bring it down into boning in a matching corset and arm bracers...

Cami: I'm not so much into that kind of play. And it's ... more than that. Look, Klaus is complicated. A lot more complicated than people realize. When he's ready I'll be here, but I'm not going to push him either. If we go too hard, and it doesn't work out there's a chance that he'll just see it as one more nice thing he can't have and he'll shut down even more than he already does.

Stiles: [he leans forward at that, and the playful, teasing persona is gone for the more serious one] Now see that... that's a reason I can stand behind.

Cami: [sighs] I didn't tell you that either. He's very ... protective of himself.

Stiles: Your secret's safe with me. [he reached out to put his hand halfway between them] Just... as one person who let the wolf go to figure it out to another... make sure he knows that you are there, and that you care and will be there. Because sometimes the things you don't say end up costing the other way more than you think.

Cami: [small smile] He knows.

Stiles: Good. And also - just if you happen to get knocked up by some other bad boy... you don't have to marry them. Just saying. [nods]

Cami: [laughs] I'm aware of that.

Stiles: Just making sure. [grins and the playful side is back]

Cami: [shakes her head] I think we need more drinks.

Stiles: Yes, I'm totally with you on that. [taps the table a few times, and then holds up his arm to flag down their waitress]

Cami: [And there's lots of drinking and eventually they stumble their way home]

Stiles: [yup, like the two humans they are, and finally Stiles finds the place he and Cora are at and lets Cami go on her way so he can go to his fiancée]

Cora: [and she's already curled up in bed. New Orleans wolves party hard. Ow.]

Stiles: Honey, I'm home. And Cami totally got me drunk. [silly grin]

Cora: [glances up and laughs a little before holding out a hand to him] Sounds like you had fun though. C'mere.

Stiles: [grins and stumbles over, tripping over the air honestly and falling half into the bed before kneeling on the floor beside her] Hi.

Cora: [laughs a bit] Are you okay?

Stiles: Yeah, yeah I didn't break anything. I'm good. [leans in close] You?

Cora: [kisses his nose] I'd be better if you were actually in bed with me. You make a good pillow.

Stiles: Okay, but you're totally going to have to help me get out of my clothes or I may get lost in them.

Cora: I can do that. [she gives his hand a tug so that he comes closer and she can start helping him out of things]

Stiles: [and he's going to laugh and eventually crawl all over her onto the bed as they struggle to get him undressed and he's so not helping in anyway]

Cora: [she laughs a bit but eventually they manage to get his shirt off over his head and onto the floor. Then she leans up to kiss him, hopefully distracting him long enough so she can get his pants and shoes off]

Stiles: [mmmmm, kissing his Cora. Nope, he's very distracted and happy and humming against her lips as he helps her on the pants part]

Cora: [and once he is in less clothing she breaks the kiss and guides him down under the covers next to her so that she can snuggle in close]

Stiles: [happy, content noises] I love you, Cora Hale.

Cora: [smiles as she tucks herself into her spot next to him] I love you too, Stiles Stilinski.

Stiles: And the next wedding is our wedding and I don't care everyone else can totally wait.

Cora: [laughs] I'll make sure everyone knows.

Stiles: Good. Because I wanna marry you, and take you on a honeymoon and totally make wolf babies with you and have a happy ever after.

Cora: [she glances up at him brushing her fingers through her hair] Sounds perfect.

Stiles: [grins and presses his forehead to hers] I'm so drunk]

Cora: [laughs again] I noticed.

Stiles: I'm so going to have a headache in the morning. No werewolf head healing ability for me.

Cora: [frowns and hums a bit] I can help with that, though.

Stiles: You can?

Cora: [she nods a bit] Wolves can take pain, remember?

Stiles: That's right, I remember.

Cora: So don't worry about it.

Stiles: Yay. Then I think I need to go to sleep. [pulls her closer]

Cora: [nods as she curls into him, letting her fingers stroke through his hair] I'll see you in the morning.

Stiles: Uh huh. [and he's out]

Cora: [smiles softly, and she'll curl up and be off to sleep not long after]