Say Something (Sterek)

Chapter 8

His father kicks everyone else out of his office, even though they're clearly involved in the process of working out whom or what was killed at the Martin's the night before, and who did the killing. They know what did the killing: homemade Molotov cocktails and crossbow bolts.

The sheriff's deputies grumble a little, but he is looking murderous, and so they abandon him to his fathering and return to their offices, where they're undoubtedly flipping through photos of the crime scene and coming up with increasingly far-fetched explanations.

His father glares at Scott and Stiles. Stiles tries not to cower. Scott gives up entirely and lowers his head."Is everyone okay?" he asks eventually.

"Yup," Stiles nods. "Yeah everyone's good. Great. Peachy."

"Except for the four 'unidentified creatures' we found at your friend Lydia's last night?"

"Oh, well, there may be a few more of those. But they were bad." Stiles stuffs his hands in his pockets; they're shaking and he's thinking of fire and fire and burnt fur and the way howls turned to screams as the alphas got caught between their forms.

"Right." His dad sits heavily in the chair behind his desk. "Okay." He breathes. "And why didn't you let me know you were okay?"

"My phone fell in the pool."

"And none of your...friends have a phone?"

"Yeah, that was a massive oversight on my part. I'm sorry. I was a little distracted."

"Right," his dad repeats. "Okay, Stiles, sit down. We are going to have our very honest Q and A session right now."

Stiles sits.

"Scott, you can go."

Stiles throws a panicked look between Scott, still lingering by the doorway, and his father. "But," he says.

"But nothing. I saw enough last night to believe anything you tell me. I don't need Scott to-do anything, especially not in the middle of the police station. Go home, son," he tells Scott.

Scott shoots Stiles a sympathetic look. "Stiles?" And that's new, Scott doesn't usually wait for Stiles to give him orders.

"It's fine, dude." He bounces his foot up and down, his left leg carrying out the jittering of his whole body. "Go see your mom. I'll call you later."

"Do you want me to tell Derek anything?" Scott offers, as he gets near the door, and Stiles's dad's eyes shut for a painful instant.

"Just, no, I don't know." Stiles tries to swallow the panic in his throat. "Tell him I'll see him later, okay?" And he knows he sounds really really vulnerable in a way that hurts, and Scott crosses the room to squeeze his shoulder before leaving. His dad is staring at his hands because Stiles is still a disappointment, even though his dad knows his reasons for lying.

"Okay," his dad coughs. "Okay. The beginning. Who bit Scott?"

So Stiles tells him about Peter Hale and Laura, and he tells him how Derek did not kill his sister. He leaves out some Derek's more threatening moves, because he's fairly certain his dad isn't okay with them dating even without hearing about the constant slamming-up-against-walls thing. And then he tells him about the hunters, and his dad's hands fist on the desk at the fact that Chris Argent almost killed Scott, and so he has to side-track to tell his dad that Chris actually has some good qualities, it's his father who was really the basket-case. And then he tells him about Kate and Peter and how they died, and how Stiles has seen death, a lot of it, caused some of it, and his dad's eyes shut again.

And then he gets to the Kanima thing and his dad drops his head into his hands. "So," Stiles says, once he's finished explaining how Scott had poisoned Gerard Argent, kind of, but that was okay because Gerard Argent had punched Stiles and killed people and wolves, "that's what I wasn't telling you."