Chapter Text
Sins of the Mother
Chapter Seven: Father and Son
The midday sun shone into his bedroom warming his face and made his eyelids want to flutter, pulling Stiles from what felt like the deepest, most restful sleep he’d had in his life.
Including that time that he’d broken his arm in two places as well as sprained his ankle and been given the good drugs at the hospital in seventh grade.
He let out a content little huff, shifting as he started to give into the sun insisting it was time to wake up.
Turning his head on his pillow, he nuzzled his face against the soft, well-worn-and-washed fabric of his pillowcase, reassured by the scent and feel of his bedding that all was well and he was right where he was supposed to be.
His limbs had the warm lassitude that came from the best sleeps. When he didn’t sleep too long or not enough. Where he was able to rest and dream in peace, undisturbed by nightmares or his unconscious mind twisting up his memories to make them worse than they already were.
A gentle hand ran over the top of his head, Stiles able to pick out familiar calluses and he turned into it, a soft whine in the back of his throat.
“Hey kiddo.” His dad said, sitting on the edge of his bed next to him as Stiles slowly peeled open his eyes and looked at him. “How’re you feeling?”
“Good,” Stiles said after a moment, actually meaning it for the first time in…months really. “Really good, Daddio.” He blinked in confusion, waking up more fully and finding himself surprised at how true his words were.
Between stress, his natural clumsiness, trying to keep up with wolves, and the bumps and bruises that came from a wolfy best friend that didn’t know his own strength half the time, Stiles hadn’t felt truly good in a long time.
And that was before actual-facts torture had been added into the mix.
“Good,” Noah echoed his son, relief coursing through him.
Harry and Quinn had sworn up and down that Stiles would be fine, that if he could rest the way he needed that he’d wake up more refreshed and at ease than he’d probably ever been in his life. Like he’d gotten the best and most energizing nap ever…that just happened to last more than a week. But there had been a part - a large part at that - that’d been skeptical. And the longer Stiles slept, the stronger that skepticism had grown. Magic was supposedly sustaining his son, holding him in a form of stasis while he slept and everything realigned. Noah wasn’t in a place yet where he could trust a force like magic, no matter what those around him seemed to believe.
“I’m…really glad to hear that, Stiles.” He let out a gasp that wasn’t quite a cry, leaning over to press a hard kiss to his son’s forehead, a forehead that took six days before it lost the last traces of scales. “God, kiddo, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry that I didn’t see what you were going through, that I brushed off my own worries about you and your behavior when all along you needed me.”
“You know, don’t you, Dad?” Stiles asked, a bit of dread springing to life deep in his stomach. “It wasn’t a dream, was it?”
“No kiddo,” the noise Noah made was far too strangled to be a laugh. “It wasn’t a dream given the group of guys who popped out of nowhere and have set about cleaning up Beacon Hills and taking care of you with a vengeance. And I hope that you weren’t planning on trying to keep what happened to you a secret, even if the scales hadn’t been a dead giveaway.”
Stiles squirmed a bit, feeling seen in a way that was never quite comfortable even when it was his old man doing the seeing, looking away sheepishly.
Even as he filed away that bit about the “guys” cleaning up Beacon Hills.
He had a feeling that he’s really going to have some regrets about missing out on the brainstorming sessions that Harry and his lot undertook to manage that, but at the same time couldn’t help the feeling of bone-deep relief:
First - they were real. Not some figment of his imagination that his mind had dreamt up to deal with being tortured. Not a hallucination because he couldn’t cope and broke under Gerard’s version of an attitude adjustment.
They were real, what had happened to him - and what he’d done - was real.
Then came the second thing, which might be an even bigger relief:
Whatever decisions had been made, whatever the calls were, none of them were on Stiles.
Or his conscience.
He would have to live with what happened when he lost himself to the creature inside of him that had burst out of him when the hunters went that step too far.
But what came after that?
While Harry and his guys had let Stiles take charge as he actually knew the players and the playing field in question, it had definitely been at their judgment and discretion that he’d had any control of the situation.
There was a…comfort in that.
That if they thought - strangers who knew nothing about him or about the situation other than what they’d managed to discover for themselves - that he was crossing a line, he had no doubt that they would’ve stopped him.
It was nice to have his judgment trusted like that without arguments and fighting and having to have a dozen different bits of evidence to back it up.
Satisfying, in a way that had the monster in his chest puffing up and preening.
“God, Stiles,” Noah groaned, burying his head in his hands. “What am I going to do with you, kid? Magic? Werewolves? Supernatural Romeo-and-Juliet starring Scott and Allison? Why didn’t you come to me when you realized how dangerous everything was?”
“It wasn’t my secret to tell, Pops.” Stiles said softly, still avoiding his dad’s caring - but devastated - gaze. “There was no way to tell you what was going on with me without bringing up everything else. It felt like drowning in the dark, no way to tell which way was up to fresh air even as staying where I was, was suffocating me. I couldn’t see a way to untangle everything by the time I was ready to tell you - and I was, Pops, I really was - without telling you everything. Even the stuff that wasn’t mine to tell.”
“You mean how Derek was abused by Kate Argent.” The Sheriff noted perceptively, able to tell what Stiles was dancing around saying instead of just that he was avoiding being totally honest with him like before.
Stiles blinked in surprise, propping himself up on his elbow and staring at his dad with wide, shocked eyes.
“Yeah…” He said slowly, frowning. “How did you…?”
“You’ve been sleeping for longer than I think you realize, Stiles.” Noah told him, arching a brow. “And once I had the whole Hatfield-McCoy: Werewolf Edition explained, it wasn’t hard to put those pieces together. You know the Hale Fire never made sense to me, especially with the deaths earlier in the year connected to them. All I was missing was a motive that made sense other than faulty wiring or a woman who was batshit insane and the picture cleared up pretty quick.”
Kate Argent did have issues from what he’d been told. But dismissing her as simply crazy was a disservice to both her victims and the scope of her crimes. She was a bigot, and likely at the very least unable to see anyone supernatural was a person rather than a thing to be destroyed, but she wasn’t incapable of reasoning or empathy.
Those who survived her violence and bloodlust deserved more care than being dismissed as victims of a madwoman when her hate and violence was both systemic and intentional.
“I didn’t take Harry and his guys as such gossipy gusses.” Stiles pouted, flopping back down onto his bed in an only partially-meant huff.
“Oh, they’re not.” Noah groused. “But they haven’t been the only ones pulling shifts standing vigil while you slept. And getting information out of Derek Hale might take a bit of work, but it is possible if you know what to ask.” He smirked. “And his betas aren’t nearly as good at keeping their voices down as they think they are.”
“God, I know,” Stiles moaned, rolling his eyes in exasperation. “You’d think with how good their hearing is that they’d have better inside voices but nooo. Honestly if I didn’t have the entire school population convinced that we’re all involved in a niche subset of D&D everyone would know about the supernatural by now.”
Noah snorted, lifting one hand to rest in front of his smiling mouth, holding back tears of relief through sheer will.
Stiles was awake.
Stiles was awake and snarky and himself.
And with that, the last few reservations he had about the plan he’d made together with Harry and the others washed away.
He would do anything to keep from watching his son slip back into the hollow-eyed, skittish kid that coasted around the edges of their home like he was some kind of apparition all in an effort to keep everyone around him protected - even, or maybe especially, from each other.
Yeah, Stiles wasn’t the same kid that Noah fondly recalled taking to San Francisco to a Mets vs. Giants game last summer.
But that was life.
You raised your kids, did the best you could to support them, but eventually they grew up and into their own people instead of little clones of their parents.
At least if you’ve done it right.
Granted, most parents didn’t have to contend with werewolf shenanigans, homicidal hunters, or their teenager suddenly sprouting wings and fangs.
But it didn’t make a difference to Noah.
Stiles was still the mischievous, loving, and far-too-smart for his own good kid that he’d always been.
Extras like magic and claws or not.
Stiles was still Stiles.
And at the end of the day, that was all that mattered.
“I’m sorry too, Dad.”
“Oh, not as sorry as you’re going to be.” Noah accepted the apology with equanimity. “But accepted.”
“I’m really going to regret giving you time to plot against me, aren’t I?” Stiles narrowed his eyes on his old man.
“Funny thing about that, when you have kids it’s just called parenting.”
“That doesn’t reassure me.”
“It wasn’t meant to,” Noah ruffled his boy’s hair. “Consider stewing on just what Harry and I came up with once we got on the same page, as just desserts for all the worry and stress you’ve put me through these last few months.”
Stiles just whined high in his throat and buried his face back into his pillow.
He knew that tone.
His Daddio was going to lay down the law in a way he rarely did - and this time, even if Stiles wanted to protest, he didn’t have a leg to stand on.
Fuck.
He hadn’t heard the ultimatum that he could tell was coming and he already hated it - on principle if nothing else.
Even so - he couldn’t really disagree.
He had put his dad through hell, and that was before he sprouted new appendages and an ability to produce scales that would glitter under the sunlight better than a disco ball - or a Twilight vampire.
“Are we talking a summer doing community service rather than playing video games, sorry,” Stiles fished unrepentantly for a hint. “Or shipping me off to military school, sorry?”
A smug half-smile tugged up one side of Noah’s lips.
“Well,” he drawled. “It ain’t military school, so there’s that.”
The whine that Stiles gave at that non-answer was possibly only audible to certain species of canines - or the local werewolf population.
And was tinged with the sweet, sweet tone of revenge for sleepless nights and worrying his kid had fallen in with a gang or started doing drugs to Noah’s ears.
Eventually, Stiles’s body made its needs known and the father-and-son pair vacated his bedroom, if only after a long, much-needed love-and-life-affirming hug.
The Sheriff headed downstairs to the kitchen, muttering under his breath as he tried to remember which carafe of juice had been “spiked” by Quinn - the healer? Stiles thought that was the healer’s name - for Stiles.
Which - no.
He was seventeen not seven.
There better not be any hiding of yucky medications in his food in Stiles’s future or he would be having words.
He’d much prefer suffering through the immediate taste-bud cringe of meds than the lingering what-the-hell-is-that-aftertaste of trying to slip him something and wasting perfectly good juice or milk or coffee in the process.
Gathering up a change of clothes, Stiles darted for the bathroom down the hall where he took a shower that he could only describe as near-orgasmic.
He knew he was clean - he could smell it, like woah - without so much as a stray bit of grunge or grime from head to toe but it was more than a physical need after…everything.
Bracing his hands on the tile wall of the shower, Stiles let the near-burning water of the shower pound on his shoulders and the back of his neck. He knew it wasn’t literally washing away tension and worry. But the routine of it more than anything else - hot, pounding showers after tough lacrosse practices or tense days at school or running with wolves - helped center him.
His dad was fine - and plotting against him which, rude - and Stiles had survived Gerard.
Compared to the worst-case scenarios his head had dreamt up over his sheriff father finding out about the supernatural, dire warnings of something like military school but also not was cake.
No one had been shot - or at least he hoped not.
No hearts went into cardiac arrest, no cop-brains decided to stroke out.
Everything else he could handle.
His people were all alive despite the two very disparate parts of his life colliding into each other at the speed of dragon-people - dragels, Peter had called them dragels, and they hadn’t protested the label - popping up out of the ether to save his ass.
From both himself and Gerard at the same time, which in hindsight was a hell of a thing to manage, even with magic at their disposal.
For some reason that Stiles hadn’t figured out - at least not entirely.
Without the adrenaline rush and pain and apathy from the magic used on him, without his instincts screaming at him to run run fight fight fight PROTECC! - without all that clogging up his head and his senses, he had some ideas.
Whether they’re right or not remained to be seen until Harry and the others popped back up like the world’s most terrifying - and protective, which was just…weird because of how right it felt - jack-in-the-box.
His dad yelling up the stairs that food was ready seemed both louder and clearer than normal - which had implications he wasn’t ready to dive into on an empty stomach that took that moment to let out a loud sound that was more pissed-off-alpha-werewolf than a regular demanding growl.
It had been mentioned that Stiles had been asleep longer than he realized, so there was that he supposed as he stared down at his stomach in shock.
Reaching out he slapped the shower off and then clambered out into the bathroom with far less stumbling and near-misses with countertops than normal.
Chalk one more up for things he wasn’t thinking about at the moment.
For now, all he wanted to do was revel.
His dad, the pack, the town - everyone was safe from Gerard’s personal and ruthless brand of crazy.
Magic, dragels, hunters, werewolves: it could all wait.
They’d won.
And for once - without having to make some awful trade-off, though he imagined Scott and the remaining Argents would vastly disagree.
That was tough cookies.
If the price for what had been accomplished before Stiles passed out was him becoming something rather than staying vanilla human?
He’d take it.
The potential alternative was simply too horrifying to imagine.
That way led the path to paranoia and hypervigilance beyond what he already dealt with thanks to Peter’s brand of vengeance and Kate Argent’s everything.
He’d pass, thanks.
After eating what felt like his entire body weight in steak and chicken with waffles and fresh fruit - his pops was really pulling out all the stops before they had the incoming talk that lingered on the edges of their mutual relief over the other being okay - Stiles gathered up the dishes and loaded the washer.
Then he blinked at the pure shininess of the stainless steel front of the appliance.
What the-?
He hadn’t ever seen the old work-horse of a machine look like that.
Taking a closer look around him now that his stomach was appeased - and no yucky meds hidden in his juice had helped him suck down the entire pitcher until he felt like he sloshed when he walked, there had been some kinda lusciousness to it that wasn’t familiar, but maybe his dad had splurged on the good juice instead of the frozen concentrate to celebrate - Stiles blinked again and shook his head as if that would help dispel what he was seeing.
It had to be some kinda illusion.
Stiles and his dad had never been slobs, but they weren’t exactly going to win any Good Housekeeping awards for cleanliness of their abode either.
Dust always seemed to gather in corners and on the tops of surfaces faster than they could wipe it away, the windows always had at least a couple streaks from their attempts to clean them if not actual grime, and Stiles couldn’t remember the last time they’d gotten around to waxing the hardwood floors.
Floors that shone under the light pouring in from sparkling windows and squeaked under the rubber soles of Stiles’s slippers.
Seeing his confusion, Noah chuckled and then swung his arm around his shoulders - shoulders that were broad and had a lean cushion of muscle, a change and sign of maturity that he’d missed while burying his head in his work to his dismay - and led his kid out of the kitchen before Stiles could start babbling questions.
“C’mon, kiddo.” Noah sighed, leading the way into the living room and settling down on the couch next to Stiles instead of across the room in his recliner. “I think it’s time we talked about what’s been going on while you were pulling your Sleeping Beauty routine…”
“So…” Stiles dragged out the word as his busy brain rushed to process everything his dad shared with him. Harry and his guys basically adopting him and his dad, and as a result working to clean up the supernatural bullshit plaguing Beacon Hills. Hunters disappearing, secrecy spells on anyone who’d noticed all the supernatural bullshit. The list seemed almost endless. And he still hadn’t gotten to what happened to the pack, Scott, or the Argents after Stiles metaphorically washed his hands of everything at the warehouse. “Dragels.”
“Dragels, werewolves, hellhounds, and druids, oh my.” The Sheriff snarked, still perturbed over all the supernatural shenanigans that had been going on in his town under his nose and over the last few months involving his son. “All of which, if what Hartwood says is true, are only the tip of a very complex, massive part of the world that most people never even realize exist as they go about their business.” He snorted, shaking his head. “Makes me wonder how much I’ve written off under there’s no way… when I could’ve been digging for answers.”
“I don’t think most people’s minds are really prepared to deal with magic and everything that comes with it.” Stiles speculated, having done a lot of thinking on the subject himself ever since Scott was bitten. “Kinda like Sunnydale Syndrome only without having magic actively doing anything to make people look the other way or provide excuses for what they see.”
While Noah was willing to admit that his kid had a point, he couldn’t help beating himself up for not following his gut.
There were times - enough of them that in hindsight he felt like the dumbest, most hard-headed bastard in creation - where if he’d had even a fraction of his kid’s open mindedness he would’ve discovered that the world was a whole hell of a lot bigger and more diverse than he ever imagined.
It was like the after-image following a flash of bright light.
Noah had had the outline of something being there, just out of his reach for years but never had the curiosity or flexibility to follow up instead of brushing it off.
“Who’s Hartwood, again?” Stiles asked, changing tracks before his dad could really start to brood.
“One of Harry’s guys, he’s been around almost as much as Harry and Quinn, the Healer.” Noah sighed, shaking off his issues for another time. Stiles came first, and there was only so much time for the two of them to spend together before the plan that he’d agreed to with Harry came into play. “He’s been a big help with explaining things to me while we waited for you to wake up.”
Pareya, that little voice inside his head - what he figured now was his inner dragel and not a sign of oncoming mental illness which was a relief like woah on top of everything else - whispered. It came with a sense of, well, his dad actually. Safety. Ready to stand between Stiles and the world if that was what he needed.
A protector.
One who apparently also felt the need to protect Stiles from germs if the way the house was sparkling was any sign, either that or his dad had taken up stress-cleaning instead of tearing through cold cases while he waited for Stiles to wake up.
(Somehow, he doubted it given historical precedent.)
“There’s a book and a letter for you, once you’re ready for them. If they’re anything like the reading Hartwood brought over for me they’ll answer your questions about dragels and everything and then some.” Noah told him, making a face over all the glorified homework he’d been doing since Hartwood had brought Stiles back to him safely. But it was for his kid, so he muscled his way through it even when it was making his head spin and had him questioning everything he’d ever thought he knew about the world, his family, and life in general. “Harry left them with me when the monitors they had on you warned that you were close to waking up so he could finish making arrangements on his end. And give us some time together after everything.”
That was, really cool of them, actually, Stiles admitted if only to himself.
With how target-locked they’d all been on him after finding him in Argent’s basement, he’d honestly been surprised to wake up alone with only his dad around.
Enough that he almost started questioning whether it all happened - at least until his dad started apologizing.
Then he knew that everything he’d been keeping from his dad - for one reason or another - wasn’t only out in the open but also growing claws and popping out wings.
“What about the pack?” Stiles asked, even as his fingers itched to get his hands on actual answers about what was going on with him. “And Scott?”
“Mentors are apparently a big deal with the supernatural, or at least the branch of it we belong to.” Noah answered, smiling a little when Stiles beamed over him saying “we” and not “you” - oh yeah, Hartwood and the rest had not been exaggerating when they told him connection was important to their kind. A kind that now included his son, and by extension Noah even if he never used a drop of magic or manifested wings himself.
If it included his son, he was in it right there with him until they put him in his grave.
And given some of the things he’d heard bandied around about Peter Hale over the last ten or so days, even then that might not be as big of a barrier as people tended to think of death and dying.
“Harry or one of his guys - I’m not actually sure who - set up a thing for Hale and the rest to get some guidance from a pack up in the Pacific Northwest.” He continued. “I guess Hale never got any training on how to alpha?” He frowned, glancing down at where his kid had pretty much pretzeled himself into the corner of the couch next to him.
Stiles nodded slowly. “Makes sense.” He admitted after thinking it over. “Kinda explains all the frustration he was leaking everywhere if he was having to deal with a huge power-up like the alpha spark and building a pack without any training or info beyond what he saw from his mom and sister before they died.”
Stiles was not counting Peter in that equation, except as maybe an example of what not to do.
Didn’t stop Derek entirely from having epic moments of douchebaggery, but he didn’t Bite anyone who wasn’t willing or go on a murder spree either.
And with what Stiles knew about Derek’s background he was definitely willing to give him some grace now that it didn’t feel like the sky was going to come crashing down on their collective heads at any moment.
“As for Scott,” Noah sighed, rubbing one hand over the back of his neck. “Hell kid, I know you’re not going to like what happened with him.”
Stiles darted upright, feeling a spark of panic in his chest.
“They didn’t kill him or anything did they?” He squeaked, pulse racing. “I mean, he’s just a kid, yeah he did some epic level bullshit but…”
“Woah there, hold your horses, kiddo.” Noah turned a bit and rested his hands on Stiles’s shoulders with a firm grip. As if he could hold him together with just his hands alone. “Calm down, it’s nothing like that.”
Sucking in frantic breaths, Stiles nodded, tears edging in at the corner of his eyes as he focused on his dad’s breathing the way he knew to help dodge a panic attack.
“Scott is fine.” Noah told him firmly, eyes clear and focused on his son’s. “Might not be feeling fine after being made to own up to his mistakes - including a couple of actions that are illegal whether you’re talking magic or not - but physically he’s all in one piece, including his werewolf status.”
He shook his head, a bit confused at the phrasing then asked: “Why’d you say it like that?”
Noah blew out a breath, giving Stiles’s shoulders a squeeze, then lowered his hands to rub along his upper arms.
“Because from what a couple of Harry’s guys were saying, some of the powers-that-be that have sway over were-creatures weren’t sure if they were going to let him keep his wolf or not.” Noah admitted what he’d picked up in bits and pieces from Devrim’s complaints regarding Scott. “In the end his age and the fact that he wasn’t a willing Bite saved his bacon as far as remaining a werewolf goes. He’s got a suspended sentence and has to do community service along with being relocated far away from the Hale Pack or anyone with the name Argent, and has to agree to wolf-lessons from an assigned mentor, but he’s alive, healthy, and getting help.” Noah hesitated a moment then added: “he also has a spell or something on him that’ll keep him from spilling the beans on the supernatural, and his memory about dragels has been wiped. I guess how obvious he was about his new status really rubbed a couple people the wrong way.”
Stiles had to scoff and roll his eyes at that, even as he felt a deep sense of relief over Scott being alright.
Feeling sorry for himself, if he knew anything about Scott, but fine.
Then the last main point his dad made hit him right in the noggin.
“About dragels?” He asked, eyes wide and searching. “All dragels?”
Including…including him?
Stiles was pissed at Scott. Like epically, pissed off. And betrayed. And questioning everything he thought he knew about him.
Because the kid who’d been his brother from another mother most of his life?
That kid didn’t have it in him - at least, Stiles never would’ve thought he did - to commit what amounted to bite-rape if he’d gone through with his plan with Gerard Argent and forced Derek to turn the bastard.
Especially after being bitten against his will by Peter.
But he was still Scott, his friend who Stiles had stood by through thick-and-thin, the same shy kid who’d been right there in the trenches with him when Stiles lost his mom.
A decade - give or take - of brotherhood and all that entailed didn’t just go away.
At least, not for Stiles.
But if Harry and his guys - or whoever the Big Kahunas of were-creatures were - had taken Scott’s memory (and that was a fresh nightmarish possibility that was going to keep him awake, thanks) of dragels…
“He remembers you,” the Sheriff reassured him, able to anticipate exactly what mental minefield that bit of information was sure to spring to life in his son. “He knows you came and brought help to rescue everyone at the warehouse. It’s just everything about you being anything but a regular homegrown human that’s gone and with no way to bring it back if he even realized that there’s missing information in his head - which, I mean,” the sheriff shrugged. He loved Scott like another son, but a deep thinker the boy was not. The clusterfuck with Hale and Argent being an excellent case-in-point example.
Stiles choked on a laugh, feeling too raw to really want to admit the humor in his dad’s words but - yeah.
If someone else went digging through Scott’s brainpan - since that was apparently a power that people had if they could alter and/or remove memories - then the fact that something’s missing might occur to Scott.
But find it on his own?
Not very high on Stiles’s likelihood scale, if not entirely impossible.
“What’s he think happened, if those memories are gone or altered?”
“That you have a little more magic than Deaton gave you credit for, and you managed to call in the calvary - just not one with wings.”
Fair, Stiles nodded, given that Deaton was a vague asshole at the best of times.
Though one with his own problems to be all druidy about, given what his dad said about him and Harris both being arrested - Deaton by the dragels for a reason that his dad danced around and Harris apparently in conjunction to the Hale fire by the werewolf elders or whatever.
Which Stiles was kinda bummed about.
If that pair of assholes were going to get some comeuppance, he’d have liked to have been awake to see it.
Damn it.
That the school counselor Ms. Morrell had been taken as well…Stiles didn’t know what to think about that. She’d always seemed decent if stoic. To find out that not only did she know about what was going on right under her nose, but that she could’ve helped and actively chose not to… Stiles didn’t know what to do with that.
Though it sure as hell wasn’t going to help his issues with trusting and opening up with people, that was for fucking sure.
Later that night, after spending the day just sinking into having his Dad’s full and undivided attention, Stiles cuddled up in his bed and turned the letter in his hands over in curiosity.
His phone had been recovered from his lacrosse locker and charged up, Stiles using it during one of the breaks in their father/son movie-and-food marathon to read his missed messages and catch up on his voicemail and social media.
Listening to how alternately dismissive and demanding Scott had been that night all the while Stiles was being held captive by Gerard had done nothing good for his head.
He was glad Scotty was getting help - he was.
But somehow, much like hitting him where it hurt, it didn’t actually make him feel better about, well, any of it.
What was genuinely surprising - or maybe not, given…everything - were the amount of texts from Derek and his pack checking in on him.
There were a bunch from the first four days, then nothing - guess they either figured out or were told that he was Coma-Lite - but then a couple more from each member of the pack dated from that same day.
And a voicemail.
From Derek.
Thanking him.
Honestly if it weren’t for his dad coming back in with some truly excellent timing on the part of the lawman, Stiles didn’t know what he would’ve done.
Other than stare off into the middle-distance in sheer disbelief.
He still didn’t know what his dad had decided was Stiles’s punishment.
Both of them had had a silent but tacit agreement to save anything non-fuzzy-warm-times for tomorrow in favor of just reveling in the fact that they were both alive and Stiles wasn’t keeping a whole pack worth of secrets from his dad anymore.
There was just one more thing Stiles needed to do before he put a pin in the day and called it good.
Eyeing the book that his dad had handed over before they said goodnight that Stiles had put in pride of place dead-center on his desk, Stiles took a deep breath and studied the letter waiting patiently in his hands.
Then he took another.
Edging one nail under the fancy-looking wax seal, Stiles braced himself for anything that the innocuous envelope might contain, then flicked it open and began to read:
Dear Stiles…