John Stilinski, Sheriff of Beacon Hills, stared at his teenage son. He saw his lips move and heard words leave his mouth but it was as if time slowed down and then reversed until the Déjà vu forced John back into the same man who had seen his wife for the first time in that crowded grubby Warsaw metro station. She had been on her way from her little apartment in the innocuous Imielin neighbourhood of the city to the Kabaty Forest, where she was working as a biologist in a private research laboratory.

Her sparkling green eyes and chocolate brown curls had seeped into his mind, heart and soul until John's usual icy focus on the job had been subsumed by an overwhelming need to protect and cherish, and a rising fury at her for getting herself into the kind of trouble that triggered the call for his expensive unique problem solving skill set.

Those emotions had once been familiar friends, loving, laughing and living with his beautiful brilliant infuriating wife and son.
But he had buried them away when the shining star who had been his darling Claudia had left them both far too early and now for the first time in years he saw their boy Stiles with that old familiar cold clear clarity.
The emotional lock down was over as if the sight of his beaten, battered and bruised son had blasted through the rusty deadlocked strongbox hiding his heart with explosive force.
The Sheriff didn't know what it was about this particular time, he had seen Stiles distressed or in pain, he had seen his loneliness and his underlying lack of confidence, he had seen all the traumatic grief Stiles had suffered since his mother had died. But nothing had pierced the thin but durable shell that had enclosed his heart as the moment that Stiles had stepped through their front door in his dirty lacrosse uniform, bleeding and afraid as he tried to talk his way out of the fact that he had been professionally beaten and badly hurt.

He studied Stiles with the same objective clarity which had made him so successful in the old days and which he now barely used to enhance his skills as a law enforcement officer.
The gaunt body, the purpling bruises, the cut lip, the bags under his eyes, the way Stiles held himself as if it hurt for him to breathe.
The boy had been severely beaten and he was trying to fob off his father, trying to fob off a law-man, trying to fob off the actual god damn Sheriff of this god damn town with some pitiful weak ass story about a lacrosse team of teenage sore losers getting revenge.

A weak smile trembled on Stiles' pale lips and dread peered out of those lifeless young eyes which used to sparkle with the same intelligence, mischief and defiant amusement as his mother, even when the kid was hurt or lonely. Stiles had always used his excess energy and intellect as a shield, but that shield was cracking under the pressure of his pain and fear.

John could feel the cold realisation and fierce determination seeping through his pores as he listened to his boy lie to him yet again. That painful bleak clarity subsumed the impotent self-pitying angry frustration that had lately come close to destroying his relationship with his son. How had he allowed this to happen?

Since the discovery of Laura Hale's body and finding Stiles at the crime scene alone, his boy had been lying or trying to hide the truth with varying degrees of ingenuity and success. Because John had chosen his work over his boy, he hadn't called him on it properly. Yeah he had made some half-hearted pathetic attempts to get Stiles to come clean but if he had really and truly wanted to, Stiles wouldn't have stood a chance any time he tried to lie to him. Sure Stiles was a manipulative little shit but he didn't just get that trait from his mother. Stiles had learnt most of his techniques from his old man.

What the hell had he done to his boy? Where was his loving mischievous young kid who couldn't keep a secret to save his life? More importantly had never wanted to keep a secret from his adored father. How had it come to this? His son was standing there in his blood mud smeared lacrosse outfit with tears, pain and unacknowledged deep seated fear in those beautiful whisky amber eyes that had not been passed down from his maternal side and Stiles was still not telling him the truth. He was trying to lie to him again.
When had his son decided he couldn't even trust his own father to look after him anymore?

The Sheriff determinedly pushed away the anger that was creeping up through his veins as something else came to his attention. Why the hell was Stiles alone? In this state how had he dragged himself home alone? Where was Scott? Where the hell was Scott? He was supposed to be Stiles' best friend. "Brother from another mother" as they had repeatedly told everyone as soon as the two boys had learnt the phrase when they were eight years of age.
It occurred to the Sheriff that he hadn't seen that kid recently even though Stiles was always claiming to be at his house. Where were any of those rag tag trouble making misfits his son was now hanging around with? Stiles might not have told him about his new friendship circle but the Sheriff had a veritable army of gossips, well-meaning and otherwise, in this town and the surrounding area who were more than happy to keep him informed on Stiles's activities and who he had been seen with.

The not so illustrious list had included Derek Hale, a former suspect in his own sister's murder because of Scott and Stiles; Isaac Lahey, a former suspect in the suspicious death of his abusive father; that muscle bound boy mountain and just as silent as one Vernon Boyd and the jail-bait epileptic Erica Reyes; not forgetting Stiles long-term crush and touted bride the red head Ice queen Lydia Martin and the DA's jock son Jackson Whittemore who had formerly obtained an injunction against Stiles after that stupid kidnapping prank with the official police vehicle.

How was it that only his son could have the kind of friends most people would call die hard enemies?

Things were going to change. Things had to change. He knew he had been too wrapped up in his own problems but when had his job become more important than Claudia's child? All his and Claude's plans and hopes for the future had been about keeping their boy safe and loved and happy. So he had failed his darling Claudia and her baby boy both. But that was over now.

He had a son to protect and cherish, so whether young Master Stilinski liked it or not, he was going to tell his father the truth and they were going to deal with it together.
And God help the evil bastards who had turned his bright beautiful vibrant son into this pitiful skin and bone shell of himself.

John Stilinski reached out and took his frantic terrified hurt young son's face in his hands. There was a sudden silence as Stiles's desperate babbling stilled on a deep breath and his wary exhausted eyes widened first in shock, then with the kind of unwilling hope that just kicked his father straight in the gut. The sheer longing that threaded through the boy's whispered uncertain "Dad" had John's eyes prickling with tears of a bone deep shame and anger.

He drew a deep breath, his eyes refusing to leave his boy's. He had to make this right, he had to restore the balance between them, he had to comfort and protect his child and he knew exactly how he was going to do it.

John smiled down at Stiles lovingly and his thumbs stroked the bottom of the boy's earlobes the same way he used to when Stiles was very small and needed to calm down for a nap.

"It's alright baby boy, Daddy's got you, and Daddy's going to make it all better" he murmured soothingly, unshakeable strength, conviction and confidence in the same words he had always used to this precious beautiful child from the time his boy had been in diapers. It had been a long time coming but they both needed to be reminded who the actual parent was in this relationship.

Then he bent his head and found the one spot on his kid's face that wasn't bruised or bloodied to kiss him gently. A promise of protection, a promise of redemption, a reminder of love.
The full body shudder that racked Stiles made him pull his boy into his arms despite the kid's initial stubborn resistance.

He held on until his poor traumatised kid finally stopped fighting, both himself and his father and gave in, until Stiles leant forward to rest his head on his Dad's shoulder. He held on whilst his kid began to weep, great gulping helpless sobs which racked his too thin battered young body. He held on when the crying stopped and whilst Stiles tried to wriggle free until his exhausted child finally stopped struggling and buried his face into his father's neck with a helpless broken whispered sob
"I can't lose you too Dad, I can't, I just can't but I don't know what to do any more I just don't know what to do, help me Daddy", and once more the tears fell and soaked into the collar of his uniform.

Grim satisfaction and relief flooded through him at the quiet despairing words, he had something to work with now, but the fact that Stiles had been trying to protect him by keeping silent burned like acid in his stomach.

Oh God Claude what had he done to their baby boy? Enough now, the boy had suffered enough. John rocked his son gently as it seemed like the tears were tearing him apart.

The safety, health and well-being of Genim Mariusz Stilinski was his top priority again, as it had been in the beginning, as it should have been after their precious Claude died but he had let their child down because of his own selfish blind grief. By God he wasn't making that mistake any more.

Sheriff John Stilinski was going to fucking bury the bastards who had done this to his kid.

AN: The Sheriff is in the story. I repeat the Sheriff is in the Story. Have another chapter because the Sheriff is now in the story and I was too excited to wait. The Sheriff is going to "avenge" so many wrongs... see what I did there. Yes pathetically I do laugh at my own jokes... Ok sleep deprivation is now kicking in but ... the Sheriff.

I do hope you enjoy this chapter. I did, I really did.