A/N: I don't remember what season I was watching when I wrote this. But it's before Sheriff Stilinski finds out about the supernatural world and stuff. And most likely before Sexy Stiles (a.k.a. Dark Stiles a.k.a. Nogitsune). Also, this is a currently unfinished piece. Don't know when, if ever, I'll complete it. Fresh out of ideas over here.

Stiles balanced the still-sizzling frying pan in one hand and two plates in the other as he turned to face his father. "Dinner," he said with grandiose bravado, "Is served." He set the items down with a flourish onto the kitchen table. Granted, supper hadn't taken much to prepare, seeing as it'd consisted of reheating Chinese takeout, but it was about as close as the Stilinski household ever got to a home-cooked meal.

Stiles' dad spooned greasy chicken onto one of the plates as Stiles plopped into a seat with that graceless quality he'd managed to perfect over the last few years. "So," his father began, lifting a forkful of rice towards his mouth, "How was school?"

Stiles mused about that quietly, helping himself to the Chinese on his own plate and being careful not to let his long sleeves dip into the sauce. He'd fallen asleep in History (again), helped Scott organize a meeting with Derek and his were-groupies (again), and been yelled at by Coach (again).

And, of course, there was that other thing.

But Stiles didn't like to think about that. It made his stomach twist into tiny knots and his lungs deflate until he was struggling to inhale. It made his neck burn with shame and his mouth dry up with fear.

So, yeah, thinking about it was not an option. Let alone discussing it at the dinner table with his father.

"Oh, you know," Stiles said, shoveling an enormous amount of food into his mouth. "Same old, same old."

His father raised an unimpressed eyebrow at him. Then he set his fork down on the table and leaned forward, his hands clasped in front of him, his gaze searching. Stiles hoped his gulp wasn't as audible as it sounded in his ears. This was Dad's interrogation posture. This was how Sheriff Stilinski made criminals crack and spill everything they knew.

It was also a very familiar pose to the sheriff's son.

"Stiles," his dad said. He sounded . . . Stiles wasn't sure what his father sounded like. Concern tinted the sheriff's words, but so did wariness. His dad had never been wary with him before. Ever since his mom had died, it'd been just the two of them. Father and son. They could trust each other implicitly.

Or, at least, had been able to trust each other before this stupid full moon business. So, while the wariness in Dad's voice shouldn't have come as a surprise, it still kind of stung.

His father continued, unaware of Stiles' thought process. "Stiles, you've been acting . . . off, lately." He seemed to realize the error of his word choice, because quickly amended with, "Er, more off than usual, I mean." He frowned. "You've been quiet. Is there something you want to tell me?"

Stiles' hand, which had been reaching for the pan, spasmed into a fist as raw memories flooded his senses. Hot breath against his neck. A brick wall scraping into his chest. Whispered words, too close (too close too close too close) to his ear: "Well, what do we have here?"

Stiles forced his hand to relax, but he caught his dad's quick glance downward and knew the action hadn't passed unnoticed by the cop. He tried to laugh, but the sound that left his throat sounded strangled. "I would think me being quiet would be a reason to celebrate."

"Stiles," his father snapped, all humor gone from his face. "I'm being serious. What is going on with you?"

Stiles instinctively shrunk back in on himself. I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine. Maybe if he said it enough, it'd be true. "I'm – I don't – it's nothing. I'm fine." He hastily began clearing the table, his normally bottomless appetite suddenly gone.

The elder Stilinski lurched forward. "Son," he said softly. One large hand wrapped around Stiles' thin wrist.

Stiles jerked his arm back as though he'd been burned, a quiet hiss sliding past his clenched teeth. Crap, he thought immediately afterward, freezing in his tracks. Did he see that? Oh gosh, please don't let him have seen that please don't let him have seen that.

But really, when was the last time the universe had actually decided to play nice with Stiles Stilinski?

As Stiles' dad leapt to his feet, Stiles' mind helpfully supplied the answer: Never.

"Stiles," his dad said urgently, and Stiles almost shivered at the intensity in the sheriff's words. "Are you hurt?"

Stiles' mouth was open, ready to respond with an easy, "No, I'm fine," but the lie caught somewhere in his lungs and refused to budge, like an edged piece of shrapnel. But if the lie was in his chest, then the truth was lodged somewhere in his throat, because, when it came to his dad, the truth was what he was always choking on. He couldn't continue lying to his dad like this. One of these days, he was going to break and tell his father everything.

But not today. Not now. Because this truth, this problem, this nightmare, was Stiles', and no one else's. Not Dad's, not Scott's, not Derek's. It was his, and he was going to keep it that way. He was so sick of being a burden to everyone – in his dad's eyes, he was too young; in the werewolves' eyes, he was too human. They all viewed him as a liability, but he could protect himself.

Except he knew he couldn't.

Just like he knew he couldn't lie to his dad again.

But telling the truth still wasn't an option, and his father was just standing there and looking at him, and he knew that if he let any kind of noise exit his mouth, the truth would peel off the back of his tongue and splatter all over the older Stilinski in a macabre image of brutal honesty. And it would feel nice. He wouldn't be the only one shouldering this problem (this hell), and his dad would help, and he'd have someone to lean on when everything got to be too much.

But with the truth would come shame and disappointment, and he could still remember the hushed words breathed into his ear: "I'll kill them. I'll kill them all. And you know I could."

So he bit down on his tongue hard enough to taste blood. He didn't trust himself to speak (couldn't lie, couldn't tell the truth), which meant that there was only one course of action left available to him. He turned and bolted out of the house, ignoring his dad's startled shout behind him. He couldn't deal with this right now. There was so much pressure pushing down on his shoulders while lies and silent screams plugged his airway and he couldn't breathe.

When he reached the shelter of his Jeep, he shoved the keys into the ignition. He didn't turn them, though. He knew his father would recognize his need to be alone right now. However, if he drove away without telling the sheriff where he was headed, then he would be in serious trouble. So he was content to just sit in the unmoving car and let his mind wander. He closed his eyes and rested his head on the steering wheel, trying to get his focus back by inhaling and exhaling in slow, measured breaths.

"What are you doing."

Stiles certainly did not scream like a six year-old girl at the unexpected voice. No he did not, because he was a mature teenager who dealt with horrifying, supernatural occurrences on a regular basis. So once he was done not-screaming, he handled the situation in a mature kind of way.

"Oh. My. Gosh," he shouted at the unwelcome visitor sitting in the back of his car. "What the actual heck is wrong with you people?"

"I needed to talk to you," Derek answered, unfazed.

Stiles gripped his hair with both hands. "I have a phone!"

"Yeah," Derek conceded, "But it's harder to smell your fear in a text."

Stiles stared at the other man for several seconds before dropping his face into his hands, muffling his words. "I hate my life."

Stiles raised his head in time to see Derek roll his eyes in the rearview mirror. "Whatever," the werewolf responded. "I just came to tell you that there's still no sign of your Chemistry teacher anywhere."

"You almost gave me a heart palpitation for something that could have easily – easily – been said over text?" Stiles probably would have been angrier with the young adult if he weren't so terrified of the wolf that said young adult could become.

Derek cocked his head at Stiles. "There's something going on with you," he said, abruptly changing topics.

Stiles crossed his arms in front of his chest and sunk lower in his seat. "That seems to be the topic of conversation today," he muttered crossly.

Derek, bless his wolfy soul, completely ignored the hostility and continued. "When you were talking to your dad, I could hear your heartbeat from all the way out here." He leaned forward. "You were upset."

"You know, if this whole Jacob Black thing doesn't work out for you, you could always take up a job as a detective," Stiles said seriously, "Because you're a regular Sherlock Holmes." Okay, so maybe he was being a bit more obnoxious than usual, but he didn't know what else to do with himself.

Derek sniffed. "You smell different, too."

Ignored again. Shocker.

"Okay, Derek, I'd say you've outstayed your welcome, but I don't recall ever welcoming you in the first place, so just get out of my car." He hoped that if he spoke with enough authority, Derek would actually believe he had it.

Stiles watched Derek wrinkle his nose in the mirror. Then the werewolf's eyes narrowed with what looked like perplexity. "Someone else's smell is on you . . . a werewolf's."

Stiles could hear his own blood pulsing through his ears. Derek couldn't find out. Derek was not allowed to find out – perhaps for different reasons than Stiles' father, but the fact still remained: Derek couldn't know.

"Derek," Stiles ground out between his teeth, making eye contact with the older male through the rearview mirror. "Get. Out."

A strange expression had manifested itself on Derek's face. "Why don't I recognize the scent?"

Stiles wondered if it was obvious that he was breathing too fast or that his skin was growing uncomfortably warm. Why couldn't Derek just leave it alone?

He stormed out of the Jeep, walked over to Derek's side, and yanked the door open.

No words were spoken, but the look on Stiles' face must have been serious enough for Derek to take the hint. The werewolf held up his hands in mock surrender. "All right, I'm going."

Stiles didn't say anything in response, choosing instead to let his (what he hoped was) stony glare fill the silence as Derek hopped out of the vehicle.

He was scared. He was so, so scared. But, as familiar as he was with fear, anger was more manageable. Frustration was more comfortable than the weak, helpless feeling that overtook him whenever he was reminded about how vulnerable he was.

So when he slammed the car door shut and disregarded Derek entirely by stalking back towards his house, it wasn't really Derek's fault.

He walked through the front door of his house and pretended like he couldn't see Derek still standing where he'd left the werewolf, right by the Jeep.

His dad was finishing putting the dishes in the sink when Stiles slammed the front door closed. "Stiles?" His dad's voice was cautious. "Do you want to talk?"

Stiles sighed, suddenly very, very tired. "Not now, Dad," he said softly, trudging up the stairs. "I'm just gonna go to bed."

His gait faltered a little when a hurt expression crossed his father's face. His relationship with his only remaining family was crumbling. He couldn't keep doing this.

"I'll kill them," the low voice echoed in his head. "I'll kill them all."

And so he said nothing.

The next morning passed without incident, besides the sideways glances his dad would throw at him over their breakfast. But Stiles' easy smiles and never-lacking sarcasm seemed to dissuade most, if not all, of the sheriff's fears.

It was around the afternoon that everything started falling apart.

"Stilinski!" Coach Finstock barked. "Move your butt!"

Stiles gave Coach the "okay" sign. His classmates were already done changing into their gym clothes, and he still had yet to take off his shirt.

Coach rolled his eyes. "Today, Stilinski," he said when Stiles made no move to change for gym class.

Stiles forced a quick flash of teeth that might have passed as a grin and slowly reached for the hem of his shirt. Scott, standing next to him, huffed in mild annoyance. "I'll see you outside," he told Stiles as he made his way out of the locker room.

Coach was close on Scott's heels, but he stopped in the doorway and gave Stiles a searching look. "Er, Stilinski," he said, looking extremely uncomfortable. "Do you – are you doing all right?"

Whoa. Stop. Did Coach just ask him about his well-being? Did Coach actually sound concerned? Am I in the show The Twilight Zone? Actually, that would answer a lot of the questions he'd been asking about his life over the last year.

He realized he was staring at Coach, his mouth gaping open like some kind of retarded fish. He shut his jaw with a snap and hoped he'd managed to salvage what little dignity he held in Coach's eyes.

Coach hastily coughed into his arm, his gaze flitting to the side. "Not that I care, or anything. It's just, I'll get fired for not asking that to weirdly behaving students every once in a while."

Stiles was shamelessly touched. It was nice to know that even Coach had a heart somewhere underneath his uniform.

Coach snorted. "But you're always weird, so who am I kidding?"

Well, the moment had been nice while it'd lasted.

A loud clatter in the hallway caught Coach's attention. He stalked out of the room, hollering, "Greenburg! What did I say about touching things?"

That was the nicest thing Coach had ever said to him. Stiles had half a mind to run after Finstock with one hand clasped dramatically over his heart, crying, "Oh Captain, my Captain," but a) that would effectively ruin the small amount of good grace he'd somehow managed to win from Coach, and b) he needed to use the empty locker room to his advantage.

He traded his stiff jeans for baggy shorts and began lifting the hem of his long-sleeved shirt. Stiles had had to start wearing more layers than normal once his . . . unique situation had begun.

His shirt was over his head when he heard rapid footsteps enter the room. No, wait, his panicked mind pleaded frantically. He tried to get his arms to pull his shirt back down, but he felt as though his body was moving in slow motion even as his brain fast-forwarded into overdrive.

"Dang it," Scott was saying above the white noise inside Stiles' head, "I left my –"

The silence after Scott's abrupt halt in speech was deafening. Stiles' head was still covered by the shirt, preventing him from seeing anything, but he cautiously peeked his eyes over the hem to view Scott's reaction.

Scott's eyes were fixed on Stiles' torso, his mouth half-open, as though he'd forgotten to shut it when his brain stopped feeding him words. "Stiles," Scott finally said quietly, one hand slowly reaching forward. "What happened?"

Stiles immediately shoved his shirt back down, hiding his bruised, bleeding skin from sight. The last time he'd seen his bare upper body (this morning), four long, shallow gashes in his side had finally stopped seeping blood, and the multiple bruises littering his stomach and back had been a pale combination of green and purple.

He let out a shaky laugh. "Oh, you know me – can't seem to stop running into things. It's like a hobby, you know? Like, some people draw, others play baseball," he was rambling, but maybe if he talked long enough, Scott would forget why they were having this conversation in the first place, "Others smoke pot. Me, I run into things. But, I mean, it's not like it's my only hobby; I do other things, too, and –"

"Why are you lying to me?"

Stiles refused to look at Scott. "It's nothing," he said quietly, turning away.

"Bullcrap," Scott immediately responded and gripped Stiles' forearm.

Stiles released an involuntary cry of pain and tried to shift his throbbing arm out of Scott's firm grasp.

Scott had relaxed his hand at Stiles' shout, but his eyes were narrowed, and he looked more determined than ever when he said, "Stiles, let me see your arm."

Stiles stopped fidgeting and stared hard at the ground. "No."

The word had barely made it past Stiles' lips before Scott was yanking Stiles' sleeve up to his elbow.

Large bruises adorned his entire forearm, but the most prominent features were the deep, red gash on his inner arm and the long, thin purple marks that wrapped around his wrist. It looked worse than it really was, though. Besides, he could handle a little pain.

Scott sucked in a gasp, his eyes riveted on the myriad of colors. "Those are finger marks." The words were said with cold certainty, and Stiles thought he caught a flash of yellow in Scott's eyes.

"I –" Stiles began, but then Coach Finstock rounded the corner of the lockers.

This week really could not get any worse, Stiles decided.

"Coach," Scott said, "Stiles needs –"

"I see it," Coach interrupted briskly, his eyes fixated on Stiles' arm. "McCall, get out."

Stiles might have snickered at the devastating look Scott sent Coach under any other circumstances. "But, Coach –"

"McCall!" Coach yelled. "Leave!"

Scott scowled, then sent Stiles a look that clearly meant, You're not getting out of this conversation that easy, buddy, before he stormed out of the room.

Not that it mattered where Scott was, since he would probably use his super-hearing to listen in on this anyway.

"Stiles," Coach said, and Stiles blinked. He could count on one hand the number of times Coach had ever used his first name. "Is – is someone hurting you?" Coach looked visibly upset, but not in the "we're-about-to-get-beat-in-lacrosse" kind of way. It was in a display of emotion that Stiles couldn't quite put his finger on.

"No," Stiles answered immediately, pulling his sleeve back over his wrist.

Coach's face seemed to shift in anger. But not at Stiles, it felt like. "Tell me who it is," he said, his voice low and tight. "Tell me who it is so I can kick their face in."

Stiles' throat tightened, and he felt wetness burn behind his eyes. He blinked hastily. He was not about to cry in front of Coach. He refused to cry at the fierce (comforting) emotion his teacher seemed to be directing at him right now.

But, even if he wanted to take Coach up on his offer, he couldn't. This was too big, too complicated for someone with absolutely zero knowledge of the supernatural to be involved in.

He shook his head, his eyes squeezed shut.

There was a long pause before Coach exhaled loudly. "Well, you know I'm going to have to tell the administration about this, and they'll have to inform your father –"

Stiles wrenched his eyes open at that bit of information. "No!" he cried. "No, no, you can't do that." His dad already suspected that something was up - Stiles was actually surprised he'd gotten away from the sheriff that easily last night. And if his dad became entangled in this, there was no sure way Stiles could protect the elder Stilinski. Ignorance was Sheriff Stilinski's only defense in this matter - everyone's only defense.

Coach froze, his eyes fixed onto Stiles'. Then, in a voice Stiles could only describe as scary, Coach said, "Stiles . . . did your father do this?"

"No!" Stiles immediately responded, shocked that Coach was even considering that idea. He could have screamed in frustration. Nothing was working out right today. "Of course not!"

Coach still looked skeptical, but all he said was, "I'm going to have to send you down to the office."

Then Scott was standing in the doorway. "I'll walk him there," he volunteered.

Coach cast Scott a suspicious glance, then shook his head. "I'm taking him. McCall, just – just make sure nobody's dead when I get back, all right?"

Scott was clearly unhappy with the decision, but he only nodded. "Yes, Coach."

Coach jerked his head at Stiles. "Stilinski, let's go."

Stiles snapped to attention. "Coming, Coach." He quickly changed back into his jeans and followed Coach out the door, deciding to ignore the panicked thoughts teeming in his mind for now.

"For now" being the entire silent walk to the principal's office. Once Coach pointed at one of the chairs outside the office with a short, "Sit," and strode into the principal's domain, the thoughts could be staved off no longer.

Stiles sank into the furniture and put his face in his hands. This was so, so wrong. No one was supposed to know about this, let alone blame his dad for it.

He forced himself to breathe. That's fine, that's fine – I'll fix it. Just like I always do. He'd tell them he'd been playing lacrosse with a few members from a rival team, and that things had gotten a little out of hand. Except, he thought with a scowl, You've already used lacrosse as an excuse for a previous beating. You're gonna have to get a little creative here, Stilinski.

He could do creative.

Then Scott slid into the empty chair next to Stiles, and Stiles wondered why he'd ever thought Scott would wait until the end of the day to question him. "Aren't you supposed to be supervising Coach's class or something?" Stiles said snidely.

Scott waved a dismissive hand. "Danny's on top of things." Then he turned serious. "Stiles, why won't you tell me what happened to you?"

Stiles shrugged, hoping he looked nonchalant. "Because it's not a big deal."

Scott's mouth dropped open, his puppy eyes wide. "Not a big deal?!" he started to yell. Then he seemed to remember that they were right outside the principal's office, because he lowered his voice into a whisper-shout. "My best friend is hurt and he won't tell my why. If that's not classified as a big deal, then I don't know what is."

Stiles couldn't help but respond in a snarky tone, "Oh, I don't know, maybe your best friend turning into a blood-thirsty monster and trying to slash your throat open once a month."

Scott delivered his classic "that's not funny, Stiles" look and said, "I heard what Finstock said. About it being your dad."

Stiles cut in heatedly before his best friend could say anything more. "It's not!"

"Of course it's not!" Scott exclaimed. "I never said it was! Your dad would never do something like this."

Stiles leaned back in his seat, relieved that Scott knew his dad well enough to disregard Coach's theory.

"Besides," Scott continued, "Those wounds are obviously from a werewolf."

Stiles tensed in his seat, any relaxed posture forgotten. "Wh-why's that?"

And cue Scott's classic "I'm not stupid, Stiles" look. "They're claw marks, Stiles. Give me some credit."

Oh. Right. Stiles should have thought of that.