Keep Walking
unless it's the time to stop
"What did you do?" Stiles whispers, his eyes big and round and so very wide, because Jackson couldn't have done that.
That was… that was crossing a line – the type of line that most times has no way of being put back together again.
"What needed to be done" answers Jackson, apparently apropos of nothing, because the humans in the kitchen hadn't heard Stiles.
"Needed to be done? Are you freaking serious? What are you, a cowboy in a bad movie? What did you do, Jackson, what right did you HAVE—" Stiles starts raising his voice, but Jackson gets up and goes towards him, making Stiles take an involuntary step back, just to grow angry at himself for doing it a second later.
"Hey!" Jackson interrupts him, "You TOLD US your dad didn't know anything about this, you TOLD US you wouldn't accept the bite because he didn't know, I am SOLVING THE PROBLEM here!"
Stiles has never, ever, wanted to punch so much as he does right now.
"You complete IDIOT! I didn't say I wouldn't accept the bite because my dad didn't know about this! I said I wouldn't accept the bite, and I said my dad didn't know. Those two facts do not go hand in hand! I won't get bitten, Jackson, and you can't make me."
Jackson growls and his eyes flash electric blue, but before he can actually do anything his mom gets up and shouts his name at the same time they can hear a gun being cocked.
"Leave" says the Sheriff in a deadly voice, gun raised and ready to fire, and Jackson advances towards him, but Stiles grabs the sleeve of his shirt.
"I swear to God if you touch him I'll call Chris Argent myself."
Jackson's look at this is almost hurt, but he does back away, the unnatural blue in his eyes fading.
"I just want this to work" he says again, but it's not apologetic or even resentful, it's determined, as if by doing this behind Stiles's back he gets something.
"Leave" Stiles repeats, and Jackson does leave with his parents.
The door shuts and the Sheriff lowers his gun, putting it on the table. His hands are trembling, and he massages his temple, a gesture Stiles has seen before when his dad is at his wits end with some case.
"You are going to explain this to me" says the man, and Stiles nods, helpless. This… this is not what was supposed to happen.
His father shouldn't have to deal with this shit, never. His father didn't need this.
"I just… I need…" he takes in a deep breath and pulls out his phone, "I need to call Derek, ok? And then I'll tell you… everything."
"Hale? Derek Hale?" his dad asks, and Stiles wants to punch Jackson even more. What the hell? What did he tell his dad, anyway?
"What did he tell you?"
His dad takes another deep breath and sits back down.
"He showed up, said there was something very important I should know about you both, and then he says werewolves are real. That's when I texted you. And then when I started suggesting his parents get him some medical help, he does that… that thing with his face. Then you came in."
Stiles wants to kill Jackson.
"Well, he didn't tell you anything then" he mumbles, and dials Derek, "I… I'll tell you everything, okay?" he reassures again, and his dad keeps looking at him, as if he thinks Stiles will just disappear before explaining what the hell is going on.
Finally, after at least ten rings, Derek answers.
"What do you want, Stiles?"
"What I want? Derek, I want Jackson's head on a plate. I want his dead, cold body on a stretcher at the morgue. I want his fucking ashes in a jar!"
"I don't have time to deal with a lover's spat, Stiles" Derek deadpans with an impassive voice, and Stiles snorts.
"Oh, you better make time, because he came here and told my dad about werewolves."
"He did what?" Derek actually growls, and Stiles actually smiles.
Oh, this will be good.
"Yeah. So now I have to explain to the Sheriff a lot of what went down the past few months. Thank your Beta for that."
"I'll talk to Jackson and then I'll head over to your place. If your dad has any doubts…" he doesn't say anything else, but Stiles is a bit grateful for the almost offer.
"Yeah, okay" Stiles mumbles, and then takes a deep breath, "Tell him if he shows his face at my place before I contact him I'll make good on my threat to call Argent. I mean it, Derek, I will. He hurts me, or my dad, or anyone else, and I'm letting the hunters handle him, I don't care if you don't want to lose your new boy-toy."
Derek is silent for a long moment, and Stiles starts to wonder if he'll threaten to kill Stiles instead, but he surprises the teen.
"I'll tell him."
And then the Alpha hangs up.
Stiles takes a moment to think, and he can feel his dad's gaze, as if telling him I'm waiting.
The boy finally sits down, and takes in another deep breath. This is it. This is the moment where he actually tells his dad all about the lies and the pain he has been putting them through for a whole year.
"This is going to be hard and difficult, but I need you to listen to me until I finish, okay?" his dad looks impatient, but he does nod, and Stiles begins.
He tells him about going to look for Laura's body in the woods, and Scott getting bitten. He tells him about them thinking Derek was guilty of everything and finding out he wasn't. He tells about the Argents, and how they are hunters. He tells his dad about Peter, and about Peter's offer to bite him. He tells him about Peter's death, and Derek's new Alpha status, and about Lydia's immunity. He tells his dad about Matt and the Kanima, and how Allison blames Derek for her mother's death, and how Victoria was actually killing Scott. And then he tells his dad about Gerard, and the beating, and Erica and Boyd hanging by electrical wires and him being unable to help.
He tells him about seeing Lydia save Jackson, and having his heart broken.
And then he tells his dad about being bitten by Jackson, and how now they were mates.
He was claimed. For all intents and purposes, he is Jackson's, and that is what left a bitter taste in his mouth.
His dad, of course, doesn't listen to all of it in silence. He asks, he prods, he makes Stiles tell things twice, three, four times until he gets it. He disapproves of so many things and lets it be known, but he listens.
And he believes his son for the very first time in months.
Stiles isn't sure for how long they talk, and when he ends with telling what led them to this situation – the argument he and Jackson had the day before – the kitchen is silent, and that silence is heavy, as if taking up all the space in the room.
"Why didn't you?" his father finally asks, after a good five minutes in absolute shocked silence.
"Why didn't I what?"
"Accept Peter Hale's offer. Become one of them" the look in his father's eyes is not only understanding as it is curious too, he knows Stiles too well to believe that Stiles wouldn't want to be better. To be the hero he denied being all those weeks ago.
"I'm not leaving you" Stiles answers, looking down, "There's… there's a chance the bite won't take, and I'll die. There's a chance I'll be so bad at controlling myself I'll kill someone, and then I'm fair game to the hunters. I would want the powers, yeah, but I don't want to be like them."
The Sheriff stares at his son for so long Stiles is forced to look up again, just in time to see his dad smiles a bit regretfully.
"I'm proud of you. I don't approve of pretty much anything you did this past year, but I'm proud of you."
Stiles smiles a bit at that, but his dad goes on.
"Still, what can we do about this Jackson thing, Stiles? You don't love him. You don't even like him. What are we going to do? Is there a solution?"
"Killing Jackson" says a voice form the stairs, and the two inhabitants of the house look around to see Derek coming down the stairs. Stiles stares at him with his mouth open, but the Sheriff doesn't even twitch.
"How did you even get in?" Stiles flails, and Derek looks at him unimpressed.
"Through your bedroom window, which was open. You tell me you don't want Jackson coming here, and then leave your window open."
His tone indicates that Stiles must be stupid, but the boy doesn't care. He looks at his dad, waiting for a reaction, but the man just sighs again.
"I would tell you I'd arrest you, but honestly? After all I've heard, I'm more interested in answers than in dragging you to the station. There has to be a way to get rid of this mate business."
"There isn't" Derek bites out shortly, leaning against the sink, and staring at the Sheriff, "You can kill Jackson, and, honestly, most hunters would go for it on the issue of him having been the Kanima alone. That's the only thing that will make him not want to be with Stiles. Your son was claimed, and that claim is forever. It's up to the two of you if you can live with the knowledge that the death of a sixteen year old is on your backs."
Father and son stare at the man, and Stiles can see his dad is intrigued by Derek.
"Won't you have to avenge his death or something?" Stiles asks, and Derek stares at him with the same expression as before, as if Stiles is a few fries short of a Happy Meal.
"Not in this case, I won't. Chris probably wouldn't do it right now, because what Allison pulled off was completely out of the rules. But you can find someone, and honestly? Just for what Jackson did today I'd let you do it. He had no right of telling your father anything. Not only because he is your father, but because he didn't contact me, and I am his Alpha. He doesn't have the power to decide who knows what, and who to tell. He should have come to me, and he obviously thought he didn't have to. That assumption has been corrected."
Stiles stares wide-eyed at Derek. The way he spoke makes a shiver run down his spine.
"What do you mean?" he almost whispers, and the Sheriff looks at the other man expectantly too.
"I forbade him from seeing you. As his Alpha, you know I can make him bend to my wishes, and he's not as strong as Scott was. That was his punishment, as well as a way of giving you a few days, Stiles. I know we don't really get along, and I also know you don't like me, but I would never force Jackson on you, and he is my responsibility. You have to think things through. But you have to know that the only way out of this is killing Jackson, or letting him be killed."
Stiles looks down at that, because he honestly doesn't want to answer right now. The way Jackson kept talking down to him, the way the boy kept treating him as a possession and not a person – that got on his nerves like nothing else.
But honestly? He didn't known if it would be enough to have a person killed.
This was the rest of his life he had to look into, though. His whole life would be with Jackson if they didn't fix this mess.
Does he want that? To spend his days forever with the boy who tormented him and his best friend since forever? The boy who had Lydia Martin's love and instead of taking it had ruined all of their lives?
He bites his lip and looks down, not answering.
"Sheriff, if you have any doubts or problems, you can call me any time. It's good that you know what is going on in this town" Derek says after a while, nodding at the Sheriff and leaving through the front door without being escorted.
John looks like he'll complain about that, but Stiles has this feeling his dad is all talked out and exhausted from the income of news.
Too much in too little time.
The man stares at him for a moment, and then shakes his head, laughing ruefully.
"You know, things were never boring when your mother was around, but not even she would have been able to pull off this amount of trouble, son."
Stiles doesn't know how to answer to that, so he keeps quiet.
His dad gets up and stretches briefly.
"I'm going to head to bed. And I'm going to sleep. And tomorrow I'm going to let people at the station deal with things because we are going to talk. I would do that today, but I don't think I'm processing anything at all right now. Go get some sleep" he orders, leaving the kitchen.
Before he goes, though, he bends a bit and kisses Stiles on the forehead – and that makes the boy smile, because his dad forgives him.
He doesn't have to say it, Stiles knows.
Finally, he goes to his room, and almost has a heart attack when Derek comes out of the shadows.
"Jesus freaking Christ on a bike, will you stop doing that?!" he exclaims in a hiss, but Derek ignores him, sitting on his desk chair.
"I came here to tell you something else" the man begins, "And I want you to know that if you ever repeat this to anyone, I will kill you, and not even your father will find the very small pieces you'll be turned into."
Stiles's eyes widen, but he doesn't say anything. He just sits on the edge of his bed, and waits.
"This mate thing has never made any sense. It's not based on anything as insofar we can understand, and not even Peter with his know-it-all attitude knows anything else about it but the fact that they exist, and we need them to live. Having being claimed like you were is something that shouldn't have happened, Stiles. That's not how that was supposed to work. There's supposed to be consent for you to be claimed, and that's why I can't really blame you for wanting a way out" Derek pauses, and he seems to be gathering courage for something, "My mate…" he starts, and stops again, looking down angrily, as if saying the word makes him mad and hurt all at once, "Kate was my mate" he finally says, and Stiles gasps, his eyes going round with shock, "I didn't claim her, because she never consented. When she came back, even when she was torturing me, I couldn't bring myself to kill her. If Peter hadn't done it…" he swallows hard, and then shakes his head, and Stiles knows now that Derek wouldn't have killed her.
"You wouldn't have killed her, would you?" he says without thinking, and the look he gets in return could have melted iron.
"No, I wouldn't" he says back through gritted teeth, "And this is what I wanted to tell you. She wasn't even claimed, and I couldn't have hurt her. You are taking this thing with Jackson in the wrong way, probably because we scared you into it, and gave Jackson the wrong idea. He won't hurt you. He can't. You say someone is off-limits for him, and he'll have to deal. He doesn't have the power in this, Stiles. You do" he says the last part staring into Stiles eyes, "Maybe you'll never want this, though. Maybe Jackson will always be the bully and the jackass, and you can never forgive him, and I don't blame you. But you have to see that he won't be able to hurt you if you tell him no. You have to make this work, because that boy is too much of an idiot to do it" Derek finishes saying this and actually leaps out the window, before Stiles can answer.
What has the world come to, when Derek Hale is offering him advice on relationships?
And what's more, what does he want to do now?
He honestly can't decide.
Phew! I'm so sorry it took so long – I kind of hit a block in this one, and it blocked everything else. Hopefully, the issues are all solved now!
Next chapter, we have a bit of a Derek pov. Just to spice things up.
Let me know what you think!
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