Chapter Text
The thing about Stiles is that things happen to him. It’s not like he actually courts trouble (anymore) or that he likes dealing with massive chains of vending machines toppled over in rapid succession. Things just happen, and Stiles generally finds himself right in the middle of it all and, more often than not, with the blame placed entirely on his shoulders.
Stiles can even tell when things are going to happen. Most days, Stiles will pop out of bed and small things will start happening. He’ll wake up in the morning and his toothpaste will fall from his hands into the toilet. He’ll accidentally tell the kid next door that he’s adopted, or find that he’s been drinking his coffee with milk that’s been gone for seven days and that’s the reason why his tummy is throwing a fit. Small things, small things that Stiles can leap over and (mostly) forget.
On the days where nothing happens, where Stiles is able to get breakfast and coffee, head down the street to his car without tripping over his elderly neighbor, drive to the airport without a single red light stopping him, he knows for sure that Something Big, something Vending-Machine-Dominos-Big is going to happen.
On some rare occasions,these things lead to reasonably satisfactory endings. Stiles can think of three separate occasions where this has happened: Scott, Thomas, and his Dad’s eating habits. The exact details of what transpired during all these events, however, are better left unexplained and forgotten by all parties involved
Mostly though, Stiles survives the aftermath of these happenings, races through life with enough enthusiasm that he’s able to pick up a few friends and a promotion or two along the way. It works, and Stiles doesn’t think that life could get any better until, all of a sudden, it does.
It’s Thursday. As a rule, Stiles hates Thursdays with a burning passion for no reason at all. There might have been fairly good reason when this rule was implemented, but if there was, Stiles has forgotten it. But its become a thing now, where Stiles wakes up on Thursdays, lets himself sleep in an extra ten minutes, chugs down twice as much coffee, and spends the rest of the day wishing it was over.
This is why when he wakes up one Thursday morning raring to go and humming to himself, Stiles should have taken this as a sign of eminent disaster and just called in sick.
Instead, he brushes it off because he has a long weekend coming up and he did spill coffee over his shirt. This Thursday would be just like any other Thursday; Scott will bring Thomas into work, and Boyd is due to pass him those video games he ‘picked up’ from his ‘friend’. Then, Stiles can race back home and sleep off hit jetlag and maybe hop over the Scott's house for dinner and cake.
But then things start not-happening. He holds open the door for a pretty girl on the way out of his apartment complex and gets a small smile in return. The cute drive-thru guy laughs at the totally lame joke he made and Stiles is pretty sure he put his number on one of the napkins. He finds a parking space in record time and checks that yes there really is a number and smiley face scrawled on a slightly greasy napkin.
It’s a bloody good day, this Thursday, and it doesn’t last.
He reaches work to find that his schedule has been tampered with. Poorly and cruelly tampered with. Somehow, instead of a long weekend off after last week’s tampering, Stiles is going to be on a ten-hour flight to Paris so that he can fly another plane back about seven hours later. Not cool.
A closer look reveals that this change makes things a great deal easier for Allison, and a quick call confirms that Scott was the one who did the schedule planning. Stiles whacks his head against the board. There is no way he is getting out of this change. The only good thing that comes out of this will be the baked goods that Allison will make him in apology, and even those don’t serve to fully cheer him up.
“Scott, I swear - ”
Stiles bursts into Scott’s office on a whirlwind of fiery rage to find little Thomas curled up on the sofa in the cutest way possible (the cruel manipulation and trickery or it all), and Scott conspicuously missing.
Stiles sighs, because this means that Scott isn’t going to show till Stiles actually has to fly off and can’t spend the next few hours beating him to death with his bag.
(His bag, which, as Stiles realizes sadly, does not carry a change a clothes, video games, books or anything to withstand a long haul flight across several different time zones. It does contain his schedule, one notebook, his phone and pair of fluffy socks.)
In short, Stiles is Very, Very Angry with Scott, because Allison has obviously been schedule tweaking over Scott’s shoulder to maximize their family time. It’s the third time this little inconvenience, sorry Stiles, has happened in a month and Stiles is so not doing this again-
Thomas stirs in his sleep and rubs a tiny fist across his face. Stiles caves. It’s not the kid’s fault that his daddy is a whipped potato. With some luck, he might even get through this flight without incident.
“The things Uncle ‘Tiles does for your childhood,” he whispers, giving Thomas a goodbye pat on his head. Thomas gurgles contentedly and really, it should be illegal for a child to be so cute. Stiles makes a mental note to lock the door on the way out in case Jackson decides to peek in and squish Thomas to death. Scott totally owes him for this.
He still pinches all the mars bars and some of the Easter eggs out of Scott’s Super Secret candy drawer on the way out though, because the loss of a weekend is Seriously Business, and Stiles is hit with the nagging feeling that it’s going to be a rough one.