Chapter Text
If Stiles hoped to never, ever have to admit to his dad that he'd got himself mixed up with werewolves – freaking werewolves! - because of his dumb-ass best friend, then this is the opposite of what he wanted.
Of course, if Deputy Marsham wanted to live a long and happy life and die in his bed surrounded by grandchildren then he got the opposite of what he wanted, too, so Stiles guesses his life isn't too bad. He thinks he's probably good for oh, at least another five minutes. Marsham is lying at their feet drained of blood and his kid (kids? Stiles isn't exactly sure, but he thinks there's at least one poor thing lying in bed right now hoping Daddy makes it home from work) is going to grow up really hating May, and probably in about ten years Derek is going to think it's a great idea to turn the by-now-teenaged kid and give it some big dramatic rage vendetta against vampires and Stiles is going to have to be the one that talks him out of it and God, his life.
(Stiles, incidentally, is smarter than his teachers give him credit for, and he knows how his hyperactivity works, and he knows he's focusing on this, now, because that means he doesn't have to think about how Dad is here, right beside him, finding out about what a freakshow Beacon Hills actually is not in the mature and calm conversation in their own den Stiles has occasionally imagined, but rather in the latest of many scenarios in which Stiles has found himself staring death in the face in the last couple of years, and. Danger for Stiles is fine. In fact at this point it's approaching the boringly normal state of things. Danger for Dad is not something Stiles woke up this morning prepared to deal with.)
“Stilinski, I think?” the lead vampire says. She smiles and her sharp little canines protrude over her lower lip and her eyes glimmer dangerously. It's all very Twilight and disturbing. Part of Stiles' brain is noting it, cataloguing the differences between her teeth and werewolf teeth, both Scott's beta teeth and Derek's longer toothier set, now he's turned 25 and grown into his full-wolfass alpha form. Stiles hates that part of his brain.
“I'm Stilinski,” Dad says quietly and oh hell no because now she knows. Stiles thinks about how proud he is of his dad, fronting up to this weirdness without even a quirk of the eyebrow to show it's anything out of the ordinary, but when Dad actually steps in front of him he has to do something. Dad may think he's just doing his job, but she and her little pals are fucking vampires, and from where Stiles is standing that makes them pretty much down to him.
“Wonderful,” she says tartly. “I wasn't talking to you.”
“Yeah, it's me,” Stiles says.
Her full set of teeth glint in the moonlight. “Just you?”
One of her goons cracks his knuckles, closing their loose semicircle behind her in towards Stiles and his dad, and then-
Fucking finally. A huge black shape bowls into the goons, roaring, scattering them like Lydia fishtailing through the school parking lot in one of her I-rule-this-school moods. There's a discordant echo of howls in Derek's wake and then Scott and the betas are crashing through the woods as well, mopping up the goons Derek isn't currently occupied in tearing into tiny bloody bits.
“It's pretty much never just me,” Stiles says. He reaches out without looking and puts his hand on Dad's wrist, trying to communicate I got this, I know them, for Christ's sake don't shoot anything through touch. From the tension running through his father he's not sure it's taking. He's spoiled by werewolves, by now Derek can read that kind of thing off him practically from the next state. “I'm not saying I don't sometimes think longingly of the days when five werewolves didn't feel free to pass comment on my every move, it's true, but mostly it works out okay.”
“Werewolves-” Dad grunts next to him, quietly. The word is a pretty major part of Stiles' vocabulary these days and it surprises him how weird it sounds in his dad's mouth.
Stiles swallows and ignores him, even though it kills him. Vampire first. Vampire, then he can fix things with his dad.
Maybe.
He keeps one hand securely hanging on to Dad. It's as much protection as it is wanting to keep Dad near him, and it's not just the vampires – well, the one remaining vampire. Like this, territory invaded and bloodlust up, the betas wild and hyped by Derek's fury... if Dad took off, he's not sure he could be in time to stop the pack chasing him, faint Stiles-scent or not.
His other hand, he stretches out. Careless, confident; he keeps his gaze on the vampire leader and doesn't show any reaction when Derek comes to him, circles Stiles and Dad protectively, growling, before he slinks under his hand and lets Stiles curl trembling fingers into the thick dark fur between his ears.
“Stiles,” Dad murmurs, alarm running through his voice.
“Dad, please,” he says out of the corner of his mouth, praying for Dad to trust him, just this one time.
The vampire is watching them with an expression of polite distaste. “It's true, then,” she remarks.
Stiles summons up as much fake joviality as he can, under the horrible circumstances. “What, that the second I so much as hint I'd like to see your head ripped off your neck, it's done? Yup. All true.”
It is true. And it's still – okay, Stiles shouldn't admit it, because it's petty and stupid and maybe even slightly crazy, but it's a rush, just how true it is, Derek's leashed power under his fingertips, the pack behind them both. The pack is Derek's and Derek is Stiles' and it's just – yeah. He likes it more than he hopes any of them know.
She glances pointedly at the bodies around them. “Let's talk plainly then, child who runs with werewolves. What do I have to do to leave here alive?”
He stares at her. It's pretty unusual, in his experience (which by now is extensive), to be asked.
“Stiles,” Dad says softly. He risks a look over. Dad's face is open and – and awful, red and shocked and sad.
Stiles looks down and takes a deep, raggedy breath. He looks around. The pack is arrayed behind him, poised to fall into defensive positions or attack as necessary. He's vaguely aware of a cracking-leaves-and-twigs sound in the woods that means Allison, wanting to let him know she's there with her bow, ready.
Dad is next to him, alien in this environment, like a sunflower in the middle of a smooth grass lawn. Derek rumbles under his hand and Stiles pets him absently.
“How many kids does Marsham have?” he says quietly.
“Two,” Dad says.
Two kids. Two – well, he's already thinking it. Two kids like Stiles, crying way too young at their parent's grave.
He lifts his hand off Derek's head, slow and deliberate, and says, “Go.”
She doesn't get far, although further than Derek probably would've let her get if Stiles and his dad weren't so close. It's a quick, clean kill, and then the pack is surrounding Derek to be nuzzled (checking for injuries, Derek calls it, whatever, Stiles knows being nuzzled when he sees and feels it), faces melting back smooth and human, eyes losing their inhuman neon light. Scott looks over guiltily at Stiles and his dad when Allison joins the huddle and Stiles nods at him. He wants to be over there too, of course he does, but – Dad.
“That's a crossbow,” Dad says.
Stiles blinks. “That's what you're focusing on?”
“Animal attacks... seemed clearcut,” Dad says heavily. “The damage we could never figure out. Must've been the arrows.”
“Yeah,” Stiles says. “So. There's some things I need to tell you?”
“That was vampires,” Dad says. “Is that Derek Hale? The big one – the alpha wolf?”
“Yeah,” Stiles says. He'd hoped maybe he could get away without going into this part right now, at least, but clearly nothing is going his way tonight. Derek detaches himself from the pack love-in and trots over, leans against Stiles' leg and noses at his foot in a way that conveniently hides his scary, scary glowing red eyes.
“So this all-” Stiles is briefly heartened to hear his Dad's tone falling all businesslike and cop. “All of this, since – all the way back to his sister? Jesus. I want to talk to him.”
Okay, that was not the direction Stiles was looking for. “He doesn't like to change around people,” he says, which is true, it's painful and Stiles is used to it now but it looks seriously whatthefuck in parts, and also Stiles himself does not like Derek to be naked around his dad, which is a thing that would happen if Derek changed. Derek sighs dramatically, wolfy sides heaving, and Stiles automatically drops his hand back down to rest on Derek's head.
“Right,” Dad says. “Right. Stiles. I need – we need to talk about this. But first, I need to get this straightened out. Paul-” he gestures helplessly and Stiles looks down. Right, Paul Marsham. “And then I need to look again at two years' of case files. I want you to come with me,” he adds and Stiles looks over at his friends. They're still standing in a tight knot, watching them, and Scott shakes his head no at Stiles, wants him to stay with them.
“You can tell Scott-” Dad says sharply and Scott starts and looks straight at him. “Jesus. They can hear me? From there?”
“Yeah,” Stiles says. “You don't have to- it's Scott! And Boyd and Isaac and Erica, Dad, come on. They're not some 'them'. They're at our house all the time.”
There's a pain in his chest, a tightness that feels almost like when he used to get panic attacks, even though he hasn't had one in years. Derek picks up on it, stands up at his feet and growls softly, hackles raising and then Dad is, for fuck's sake, he looks almost surprised to find the gun in his hand but it's there and pointing at Derek's head, practically point-blank range, and Derek's red gaze is fixed on Dad.
“Oh are you – are you kidding me with this right now?” Stiles shouts. “Both of you! Dad, Christ, put the gun down. And you, you stop that.” He swats at Derek, who subsides, grumbling, and turns to the pack.
“It's okay,” he calls over. “I'm gonna go with my dad, help explain this. I'll come over later.”
“Yeah, we'll see about that,” Dad mutters behind him and Stiles closes his eyes, suddenly exhausted and feeling about a hundred years old.
“No, we won't,” he says quietly. He swings around to look at Dad, coldness in his limbs but needing, willing his dad to understand, to see that he's not being defiant, not being rebellious, just – being who he needs to be. “I'm an adult. And I've been dealing with adult things for a long time now, and you're – you're my dad, you're my family, I love you. But they're my family too. They're my pack. And none of you are going to make me try to choose between you, okay? I can't deal with that.”
Derek whines, then, and Stiles drops to his knees and hugs him, burying his face in Derek's wiry black fur. Derek nudges at him and then fits his jaws very gently over the scruff of Stiles' neck like a cub, just for a second, because even after years Derek is totally weird and doesn't know what to do with his feelings.
Then Derek breaks off and starts herding the pack away, back towards the old Hale place, and they fall in with him. Scott gives Stiles a forlorn wave and Stiles stands there, hating to watch the pack leave without him.
But, no, Dad. He meant it – he doesn't want to choose between them. He's lost people to things he had no control over and couldn't hope to stop, he's not losing anyone over something as stupid as a difference of opinion.
They're in the car before anyone says anything else. “We're gonna work this out,” Dad says awkwardly. “And I – you handled yourself well, back there, Stiles. I'm proud of you.”
“Thanks, Dad,” Stiles says softly, and he winds down the cruiser window and smiles at the distant sound of howling wolves.