#(yes I'm a slow writer and yes that means this has been skimmed over once for major errors)

[anchorsandadderall]

Save Net Neutrality or the Vampires Win

February 2nd, 2018

Time: 1:30 PM

Stiles swears fitfully and slams his hand down on his desk. He’s hit the computer one time too many already, and one more good one will probably kill the monitor. It also doesn’t make the stupid thing run any faster. He grabs his phone while the hourglass turns endlessly on a half-loaded webpage with a black background and white text. One of the old Geocities pages, and it looks promising. A lot of good information got dumped onto the web, hidden behind the shitty programming and the glut of amateur content all coming online at the same time. But the midi music and the little animated bat that replaces the cursor are killing what little internet speed he had these days.

Stiles grabs his phone and dials Scott, wiggling the mouse around so maybe the page won’t crash while it’s loading. The little bat shivers in one spot and then follows his mouse in a jerky, broken line.

“Yeah?” Scott asks, picking up on the third ring.

“Scotty! No time for questions. I need you to get on the internet and check something for me,” he says, grabbing a notepad. “I’ll tell you exactly what to put in Google.”

“Uh… I’m on Verizon, so I have to use Yahoo! to search,” Scott says, keys tapping on the other end.

Stiles tightens his fist. Goddamn it, FCC. “Okay. Well, this was on page 33 on Google, so you’re gonna have to skip ahead as quick as you can. Put in ‘Vampirism cure, obsidian rune circle, foxglove syrup recipe.’”

“Wait… what?”

Stiles groans. “Scott!”

“Stiles! You can’t just have me searching something like that and not tell me why!” Scott protests. Stiles can hear him typing again and reminds himself that yeah, that probably sounds really fucking scary coming out of nowhere. Although it’s also really fucking scary no matter what.

“So Isaac got bitten by a vampire. We have him chained up right now, but we only have until sundown to either cure him or feed him or he starves to death. Deaton said to check for rituals that use obsidian as a grounding agent, so-”

“Isaac got bi… what?? Stiles, what? Derek said vampires are bullshit!”

“Scotty, focus. Start scrolling through the search pages. Go to page 30 and start looking for a Geocities site called Penny the Pretty Pagan.” Stiles slams down on the F5 key as the page gives him a loading error. The screen blanks and gives him back the hourglass.

“Stiles. I thought-”

“Yeah, Derek thought vampires were bullshit. Apparently they’re not. Or there’s some other creature that infects people by biting them and sucking their blood.” And if there was, Stiles’ internet was way too slow right now for him to try and research a distinction.  He shakes his mouse in frustration at the scant two inches of black page that have loaded.

“I’m gonna call you back. Keep searching. Penny the Pretty Pagan.” Stiles hangs up and dials Lydia. Her voicemail picks up, so he hangs up and dials again, bracing himself for the onslaught.

“Stiles! I was in class!” she hisses into the phone when she picks it up, making Stiles wince a little. He owes her huge for stepping out of a class she found important enough to attend.

“I know, but it’s an emergency. I need obsidian and foxglove. Go to the library and find out where I can get some. Today, in Beacon Hills. Nothing on etsy.”

“Obsidian?”

“Vampire cure,” Stiles says, checking his phone as it buzzes. “Scott is calling. Let me know what you find.” Stiles drops Lydia’s call and takes Scott’s. “What are the ingredients in the syrup?”

“I dunno, I can’t access the website,” Scott says sheepishly. “It’s not included in my internet package.”

“How is a Geocities page not included?”

“I dunno, man! It was super expensive, so we cut back to the Netflix and email packages.” Stiles can almost hear the helpless shrug because he knows what Scott sounds like when he does that helpless shrug. “I don’t know how they pick what counts. Want me to call Verizon?”

Stiles checks the time. 2:12. “No time for that. Um… okay, see if you can Google florists and crystal shops in Beacon Hills. Call them and see who has obsidian and foxglove.”

“I have to use Ya-”

 “Yeah, Yahoo. Just search it. If you can’t open the page, use the phone book and just start calling places.” Stiles hangs up and immediately dials Lydia.

“I want you to know I’m getting super dirty looks for commandeering a computer for this,” Lydia whispers into her phone. “Seriously, everyone has to use the library computers for everything now. I had to pull rank on someone to get their computer.”

“There are ranks at MIT?” Stiles asks, then shakes his head. He’s gonna ask about that later. Right now… focus. “Never mind. Scott is looking for the stuff. His internet package sucks for research. I need you to find a Geocities site..”

 ~~

 February 2nd, 2018

Time: 4:00 PM

Stiles has a paper bag full of wine-red foxglove flowers in the backseat. He has half-written, half drawn directions to a new age shop just outside of town. The paper crinkles under his fist as he steers the Jeep with one hand and dials a number he hates dialing with the other.

Peter picks up halfway through the first ring, like he knows Stiles doesn’t actually want to talk to him. “Stiles. What a surprise.”

“I’ve got a recipe I need you to translate out of Latin,” Stiles says, in lieu of a greeting. Greetings are for when time isn’t almost gone. And for people he likes.

“How old is the Latin that you need me to translate it?” Peter asks, doing that thing where he’s interested and trying to sound really uninterested. “Some lost page of the Bestiary?”

“Newer than that. My internet is being stupid. I called my provider and they said my searches were flagged as suspicious and now the pages won’t…” Stiles eases his grip on the steering wheel when his fingers begin to lock up from gripping the wheel too tightly. Calm. Calm, Stiles. “Look. I’m sending you two pictures. The ingredients were in English but the instructions are in Latin. Just tell me what they say. It’s for Isaac.” Not that that means anything to Peter except that Derek will owe him if he helps his Beta, and Peter likes it when people owe him. Stiles sends the photos at the next red light and sends Derek a short text, apologizing for indebting him to his psycho uncle. Derek doesn’t answer because he’s trying to contain a half-formed werewolf/vampire hybrid.

It takes Peter less than two minutes to call him back. “I hope you don’t need this tonight.”

Stiles feels his heart sink down into his stomach. “Uh… I need it in about an hour, actually. I got the flowers, it won’t take that long to boil them down, right?”

“The syrup has to be brewed when Mercury is in retrograde.” Peter pauses like that means anything in the world to Stiles. After a few seconds, he sighs. “When Mercury is in retrograde, it’s a period that’s astrologically sound for making preparations on-”

“Okay, but when does it go into retrograde?” Stiles asks, but he kind of expects the answer isn’t ‘in the next twenty minutes.’”

“March 22nd.”

Stiles lets out a long string of curses that have built up over the last four hours. “Okay… so we have until sunset to find another cure for vampirism. What internet package do you have?”

“Just Facebook. What else does one need?”

Stiles pulls over and rests his forehead against the steering wheel. His brain hurts. It feels like he turned it inside out and wrung it dry. Come on, Stiles. Just… think.

“Have you considered robbing a blood bank?” Peter asks cheerily on the other end, sounding like this is all quite enjoyable for him.

Stiles gives his brain one last thorough scraping, then turns his head just enough to see the dashboard clock. 4:21. 90 minutes to cure a condition he’s still kind of surprised exists. 90 minutes for a Hail Mary miracle pass. Just one little miracle.

 ~~

February 2nd, 2018

Time: 5:25 PM

The sun is just beginning to dip below the horizon. In the bowels of the abandoned train station, Derek can’t actually see the sun, but he can tell. The wet, base snarls Isaac has been making from where he’s chained in the rail car (the trick proved to be chains and piling debris on him, then adding more debris and more chains when he begins to pry free) are changing to something that sounds more painful. Derek flexes his fingers anxiously, claws flicking in and out. He checks his phone again.

[Where are you? -DH] -sent 5:10 PM

[Stiles. Answer me. -DH] -sent 5:18 PM

[What’s going on? Where are you? -DH] -sent 5:20 PM

Still no answer. He looks at the time and forces in a deep breath to tamp down the panic. There’s still… time. A little time. But there’s still…

“Derek!” Stiles half runs and half trips down the stairs into the crumbling lair and brandishes a blue lunch cooler at him like a trophy. “Here!”

“Is this that syrup you were talking about?” He pushes open the cooler and snorts harshly, turning his head at the rushing smell of copper from inside. “…blood bags?”

“If we can’t cure him, we have to feed him, right?”

Derek frowns, instantly disliking the idea, but… the sounds Isaac is making are turning from enraged pain into something weaker. More piteous. “What about the ritual you found?”

“Didn’t work out.” Stiles pulls out a bag. “Can he drink it cold? It’s probably gross either way, but he sounds hungry enough not to care, right?”

“I saw in an episode of Buffy once that crumbling crackers into it makes the texture nicer,” Peter says, using the stairs far more effectively, carrying another cooler in each hand.

“So… the backup plan is that we keep Isaac as a vampire?”

“Werepire,” Peter offers helpfully.

Stiles scowls and shoves the bag into Derek’s chest. “Like you can talk. You said vampires were fake and you don’t even have internet anymore.”

“I didn’t understand the-”

“Yeah, I know!” Stiles snaps, grabbing Derek’s shoulder’s and turning him towards the train car. “The internet sucks now. Make your angry call to the FCC after you get Isaac turned into a werepire. And make sure he won’t kill us all.”

 -End

#ficlet #net neutrality #sterek #teen wolf #my writing- beware #I'm sure everyone has been following the news on net neutrality #let me put this into another perspective #this ficlet is about 1770 words long #I wrote it in about 3 hours #(yes I'm a slow writer and yes that means this has been skimmed over once for major errors) #in that time I had to look up the colors foxglove comes in #the time the sun sets in California in February #gem stones with protective properties #and when Mercury will be in retrograde in 2018 #4 bits of research for a very short and straight forward drabble #imagine you or your favorite writer trying to get out the next chapter of a 50k+ masterpiece #or worse- imagine them not having access to a forum to post it on #check out the net neutrality tag for a ton of great posts on who to contact to register your feelings about keeping the internet neutral #the internet is pretty important to me for a lot of reasons including fandom #and I bet it is to you too #let's do what we can to keep it neutral