I want to belong (Teen Wolf)

Chapter 12

Noah was packing away some of his wife's crafts, gently placing an old but loved quilt in the bottom of the suitcase so her paintings wouldn't be damaged, when the doorbell rang.

Approaching the front door, Noah wondered who would be coming to visit. His deputies never did on his days off, knowing how few days the sheriff took for himself, and instead chose to call if there was truly an emergency.

His son was being doted upon by a pack of werewolves  and wasn't that a wake-up call? At least Stiles seemed to love the easy acceptance of the pack, thriving on the attention and love they were giving him. Stiles had rung him to tell him that Peter came and was accepted into the pack, and thanked his dad for giving Peter the address in the first place. Noah seemed to understand that his son had a special place in Peters heart, and visa versa. And strangely enough, he didn't have any issues with it, even knowing what Peter had been on a killing spree at one point. He understood his need for doing it, hell he would have done it himself if someone had killed his family.

Pulling open the door, Noah's mind blanked a little.

Derek Hale was standing on his porch, brows furrowed as he looked to be in a bit of a pissy mood, hand raised as if he had just been about to ring the bell again.

An unnatural calm settled over Noah.

"What is it?"

Derek blinked, trying to shift his face into something more gentle and failing horribly. His eyebrows and murder gaze, and unfriendly body language, were all working against him. Noah was starting to see why Stiles had never really had something nice to say about Derek, the few times he had mentioned him.

"Come on, I don't have all day Hale."

"I'm looking for Stiles."

Not even a question. Noah was going to actually strangle him.

"He's not here."

There was a short, uncomfortable silence. Derek shuffled a little, before speaking up again.

"Do you know when he'll be home? Sir?" Derek added, remembering a little too late to be at least a little respectful.

"He is home." Never let it be said that Noah didn't know how to fuck with people.

Derek's eyebrows drew together, looking both confused and angry. And a little bit like Noah imagined an angry puppy would look like if he were honest.

"But you just said......."

"Why are you looking for my son?" Noah interrupted Derek before the werewolf could even finish, raising an eyebrow questioningly.

Noah had to admit he was more than a little curious as to what excuse Derek was going to pull out of his ass to get around this question, because as far as he knew, Noah was still unaware of the supernatural.

"We are...having a night in with the...group tonight." Clearly struggling not to say pack, or pack meeting.  "Scott will be there too." He knew the sheriff liked Scott.

Derek seriously expected him to believe this. He barely refrained from rolling his eyes, but that didn't stop him looking extremely unimpressed.

"Right. I doubt my son would willingly go to a....what did you call it? Night in? with you. He doesn't like you. Besides, Scott hasn't spoken to Stiles in months, he has just blatantly ignored him in and outside of school, so you can't really call that a friendship now can you?."

Derek looked a little like he'd been punched, but Noah didn't stop talking. "And anyway, he already has other plans. For the rest of, well, possibly for the rest of his life. So no, you may not speak to my son. Now if you would be so kind as to get the hell off of my property before I arrest you for trespassing."

Derek swallowed whatever his retort was going to be when he saw the barely concealed anger in Noah's eyes, and gave a slow nod, turning to walk back to his car.

He tilted his head a little when Noah spoke up again.

"Just so you and your 'group' you have, know, Stiles recently switched phone numbers. So don't try calling him either. He'll take up contact with you if he wants to, and that is a big if."

Shoulders hunched, Derek walked just a little faster back to his car. Which was good, because if the Alpha that had hurt his son had stayed any longer, Noah would have been tempted to either punch him or call his deputies on him and some of his open tickets.

When he was sure Derek was both out of sight and out of earshot, Noah called one of his new contacts.

Kali: Hey Kali speaking

Noah: Hey, it's Noah. I just had a visit from Derek Hale, asking to see Stiles.

Noah was interrupted by a low, angry growl coming through the speaker, and he relaxed a little. Here, there was someone who so very obviously cared for his son, cared for his well being. And wanted to hurt whatever wanted to hurt him, of course.

Noah: He wanted to invite Stiles over for a 'night in' with the 'group' I've told him that Stiles changed phone numbers and didn't want to be visited, so he shouldn't be going looking for Stiles, but...

Kali: But he still might.

Kali finished his thought, and Noah hummed softly.

Kali: We'll get Stiles a new phone and phone number. We really should have already done that.

Kali cursed a little before shouting at the twins to get on that.

Noah: Just turn off his old phone for now, so they can't reach him on there. I don't want any of those people to try and talk to Stiles. Not right now, they'll just make it worse.

And they would. Noah was painfully aware of just how fragile his son was right now, how much he was clinging to the people who had shown him love and family so freely after he had been abandoned.

If Scott tried to reach out for Stiles now, it was likely that Stiles would go back into the shell he and Deucalion's pack had worked so hard to drag him out of the last week.

Noah would do anything to prevent that progress from being undone. Anything at all. He even rung the principle up, explained that Stiles wouldn't be in school until after the holidays. He knew that Deucalion had already enrolled the twins into the school so he asked him to look into rearranging Stiles schedule so it coincided with the Twins. He wanted at  least one of them if not both of them in every single lesson with his son. He knew he couldn't ask for Scott or the others to be removed from the same classes, so he asked the principle to speak with all the teachers and tell them not to let Scott or the others sit with him in class. When the principle asked what was going on, Noah told him that there had been some issues with Scott's group, and they had pushed Stiles away to the point where Stiles had severe depression, anxiety and panic attacks. He told him that Stiles was only just starting to recover and he didn't want any set backs. He told him that Ethan, Aiden, Erica, Boyd and Danny were the ones to call within the school, if he had a panic attack and gave him Deucalion's, Kali's, Ennis and Peters numbers, if no one could get a hold of himself. They would all be available to come to the school to collect him, should he need to leave.

The principle didn't ask any more questions. He was good friends with Noah, and he could hear the concern in his voice.

The principle told Noah that they would be having a staff meeting at the end of term and he would tell everyone then.

Noah also said to warn Harris, that he even looks at Stiles the wrong way, he would have himself and the others to deal with.

Noah felt better after speaking with the principle, knowing that Stiles will hopefully be a bit more comfortable in school. He knew that not everything could be avoided, but knowing that everyone had his back, calmed him some what.