Chapter Text
Derek was out of his time out. Scott was nursing his arm, which looked like it was pretty bad, but would be clear in a few minutes. And Conner still had a little gash on his cheek that he wouldn’t let Stiles fix for him. Peter was in the kitchen, apparently not poisoning their food, although Conner was confused on why Peter was being so domestic, since he was clearly the oldest one here. Stiles tried not to let all the casting give him a headache, these two were the most antagonistic people that could be in the same room.
“So, Conner. What’s flying like?”
Leave it to Scott to ask questions, but Conner didn’t seem to mind, “It’s like freedom and release and love all rolled up into one emotion and then you free fall for a bit, and it’s like bitterness get’s in there. You have to experience it for yourself, you know?”
Scott’s mouth was wide open. “Wow!”
Stiles rolled his eyes, and let the time out box drop from around Conner.
Peter came out, bearing sandwiches. Had it really been that long since he ate, “Don’t eat too much. You two have dinner with the Sheriff.”
Stiles stopped chewing on the meat bread cheese and lettuce. He didn’t forget, but he wished the rest of the world would. “Anyone else want to explain to me how I can keep all this from my dad?”
Scott of course came up with the brightest idea ever first, “Just tell him you found a boyfriend, but that he got kicked out. Your dad won’t mind. He’d probably just make you sleep on the couch.”
Stiles rolled the idea on his tongue, tasting it. “No, I don’t want to be grounded before I go to college.”
Derek grumbled, “Well, he can’t stay here.”
Conner picked up his second sandwich. “Well I wouldn’t want to stay here anyways, smells like dog.”
That got Derek’s red on. And so Stiles put them both into time out boxes, quickly. Yeah, he was going to have a headache. “Can we keep him at your place Scott? Your mom knows all, so this might be a bit strange for her, but she’ll just roll her eyes and make you clean out the garage again.”
Scott was frowning, “but there are spiders… big hairy spiders. And me and Allison were planning on using my room tonight. You know?”
Everyone but Peter cringed a little. “Fine, so you can’t stay at Scott’s tonight. And none of us has any money to really put you up in a hotel room for a long time. And none of us knows how long this will take us to figure out. So, I guess what we can do, what we should do is pull all of our brains together and wish for a solution.”
Peter looked at Derek, expectantly, “oh don’t be like that. It’ll be for a few days, and then he’ll be out of your hair. Don’t look so angry, you’ve been in bigger scraps than that!”
Derek glared red, “No.”
Stiles sighed. “My dad is going to kill me.”
And so it was that when Stiles and Conner climbed into the backseat of Derek’s Camaro, they were all silent. Conner kept on running his eyes over the upholstery, but Derek kept his eyes on the road, and once on the rearview mirror. Scott took the front seat, thanking Derek for the lift when they were close enough to the Animal Shelter to drop him off. That just left a few uncomfortable miles from the shelter to Stiles’ house.
“Thanks for the lift Derek; I’ll owe you one, ok?”
Derek didn’t miss a beat, “Just send him home, I’ll be happier when he’s gone.” Then he was peeling out onto the small road, clearly disregarding all traffic laws.
“Don’t worry about him, he’ll be alright, I just don’t think he is happy with me right now. I’ve never messed up like this. It’s going to take some doing.”
Conner nodded, and walked right into Stiles’ house, like he owned the place. And maybe, until he was finally returned to whatever dimension he was from, he would.
“Ok, first things first, we need to take pictures of the summoning circle, and we need to destroy it. You mind taking it out back to be burned?”
Conner was already done memorizing the damned thing, but Stiles needed photographic evidence in order to recall exactly what he did, and then try to recreate it. When that was all done, he called his dad, offered to make dinner and then decided that he should really be less tired than he was already.
“That sandwich wasn’t very filling.”
Conner smiled, “They were good, but I had three and I could use another one.”
Derek had four, Stiles remembered, “Were you two competing to see who could eat more?”
Conner pulled on an innocent face, “You know who you are messing with.”
Stiles sighed, pulled out of his room and booked it to the kitchen. Of course, Conner was there, waiting. “You know, I could tell every time you cast your spell. You say that they are non-verbal, but you have a tell. Your eyebrow twitches a bit. Concentration. I could have gotten away before you cast it.”
Stiles wanted to test that theory, but he’d be expecting it now. “We’ll see, next time I feel the need to keep you trapped in a box.”
“I just don’t like that Hale guy, he’s a jerk. His uncle seems nice enough.”
Stiles shook his head, gathering spices and sauces from the cupboard. “His uncle was a horrible person a few years ago. Killed Derek’s sister, killed a few arsonists, then tried to kill me using my best friend. Oh, and we killed him once.”
Conner must have had his mouth open. Stiles wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of letting him know exactly how glad he was that his world, no matter how normal it seemed to be, was just that much more strange because of it.
“So. You figure out what you are going to tell your dad?”
Stiles shook his head, “But I know I can’t keep lying as long as I have a super hero in my bedroom.”
Conner nodded, “I was thinking, he doesn’t need to know that I’m here. I mean, I know that I’ll sleep just fine, regardless of where. Hell, I used to sleep on a steel slab for a few weeks. It’s just a matter of perspective. If you leave your window open, then I’ll just fly in and out at leisure.”
Stiles shook his head, “my dad will notice if you do that. He’ll notice or someone will see you. There won’t be a place on earth that you can hide if you get caught. And then I’ll have to give this all up. I think I’ll just tell him that I was messing with magic, what’s the worst that can happen? I mean, I already summoned you, what is he going to say?”
The food was being prepared before Conner’s eyes, he watched Stiles cut green leaves of different veggies, he watched a pot being put on to boil, and he might have given it a boost. Stiles didn’t notice it. He was just too busy in thought. “So, if your dad finds out about you messing with magic, he’ll want to get some proof of it. Right?”
Stiles shuttered, “Yeah, I know. You mind checking to see if the water is boiling yet?”
Conner sighed, “It’s been boiling for three minutes.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Most of the people who still have family at Titan Tower, well the few of them that still have family. They aren’t very happy. Some of them hide it. Or some of them were thrown out. The few who have family still are aliens. I have… well I had Superman. But not really. I never actually met him. But I read on your internet here that he and I become close, so that’s nice. It’ll be sad if I never actually meet him.”
Stiles nodded, “You know, if what I think happened happened, I don’t know what will happen. I am starting to think that I plucked you out of my mind, not out of your universe. But that doesn’t make much sense. I used to read comics and wonder exactly who you were, and who Bruce Wane was. Who all of you were, I was depressed, I knew it. My mom was sick and I was depressed. And now, years later, you’re here, sitting in my kitchen, watching me cook dinner, and I have no idea what I’m doing anymore. And I have to tell my dad that his world, his already stress filled world, is a bit more stress filled than he could imagine.”
“I met the Kents. And Lois Lane.”
Stiles looked at the boy in front of him. He was only 15, in his universe. But here, here he looked older. Not by much, but just a bit. “How did that go?”
“They didn’t like me. I don’t think. They were freaking out when they saw me. I mean, I know I’m not him. I look like him, minus a few years, I act like him, I might even think like him. But I am not him. I found out I was a clone and I freaked out. I ran away. I hid from everyone. But then someone found me. I don’t even remember who, and I ran farther. Until I found someone who understood me. Even a little bit. Supergirl. She wasn’t very nice. But she told me that I’d have to live up to my name’s sake. Super meant something. And I have tried to do that ever since. I didn’t join the league because I didn’t want to have a huge responsibility. I joined the Titans because I wanted to be a kid, a kid I never was. I’m not the oldest or the youngest there, I’m just another kid. From a test tube yeah, but just a kid.”
Stiles had no words to add, “You mind grabbing me the salt from the table.”
Conner gave Stiles the salt.
“I don’t know how you feel. I can’t imagine it. Still, you have friends who care about you, and according to the comics, you have a very wonderful girlfriend. You also have a lot of good friends and you will have good family too. If I can get you back to where you came from, you’ll be ok. For now, though, you and I? We just have to get through the time between now and you going home.”
Another sigh, “ok, sounds like a plan.”
A few minutes later, Stiles asked him to drain the noodles. Which he did, without a pot holder. And Stiles asked him to put some scorch marks on the turkey breast, which he did, and it smelled amazing when the pepper started to crack. “If nothing else, if you have to stay here for a while, you’ll be a great sous-chef.”
“Thanks.”
“Something smells good, you start up the grill?”
“Dad! You’re home early.”
The sheriff smiled, indulgently, “Well, you know me, I’m the boss. I pulled a few strings and decided I would just stop in and eat early. Plus, there is a game on tonight, and a few of the guys are getting together at Sneaky’s.”
Stiles didn’t have it in himself to chastise, not tonight. “Don’t get your hopes up, it’s just turkey, but yeah, it was seared. Anyways, Dad, this is Conner. Conner, this is my Dad.”
The Sheriff eyed Conner up. Taking in the T-shirt that was a bit tight on him, and the jeans that were a bit baggie on his hips. But not by much. “Conner, nice to meet you. Did you go to Stiles’ School?”
Conner shook his head, “I am actually home schooled, graduated a year ago. Decided to spread my wings a bit before I went to college. Decided to stay with some family in town. My neighbor invites me to a party last night, and well, I might have had a bit to drink,” Stiles saw a blushing Super, “and I forgot my cell in my neighbor’s car, and then I woke up here. Stiles was kind enough to spend the day with me, after you invited me over for dinner. It was fun. A good day.”
The sheriff ate it up with a spoon. “Oh, that’s nice. Who are your relatives?”
Stiles decided to speak up, “The Thompsons. He was at the party with Danny.”
The sheriff couldn’t catch a lie in that, surely. The Thompson household had more extended family than they probably could count. They had a family reunion once, just one side of the family. They had taken up a good chunk of the hotel business in Beacon Hells. His dad might not even bother to check.
“Huh, the Thompsons are out of town. Try again son.”
There were too many lies, and Stiles was freaking out, because he had just been caught in another one. And he really really didn’t want to tell his dad about magic spells and werewolves and bloodshed and violence. He really didn’t want to do any of that.
“INTERNET BOYFRIEND!”
Stiles looked over at Conner, and Conner had his eyes closed…
“Oh. Well nice to meet you. When did you get here?”
Shit… this was awkward. “He got here last night. He surprised me. I didn’t know how to introduce you to him… he wanted to get here for the party, but his bus, it didn’t get here until late. He text me and that was it. We just slept in the same bed together, nothing happened I promise.”
His dad, the sheriff looked them both over. “Well, next time you decide you are coming over, you might want to tell me first, I would have left the door open for you. Did you two do anything fun today?”
Stiles spoke, “We just went to hang out with Scott a bit. Then we met Derek out by his place.”
The sheriff nodded, they continued to discuss how good Peter’s sandwiches are, and how they had done some reading in the morning. How they were probably going to do much the same thing until Conner left. They were creating plans off the skin of their teeth, and Stiles was wondering if the beach didn’t sound like a good time, even Derek being a jerk.
The meal finished, conversation ending, the sheriff was getting up to leave for Sneaky’s. “So, I guess I won’t be a prude and say you can’t spend the night in the same bed. I won’t stop it, but it doesn’t make me happy. That being said, I know you know what condoms are. And the next time you try and sneak a guy in the house, or a girl or whatever, make sure you tell me first. I had to hear it from Mrs. Graven that there was a half naked man in your window this morning.”
Stiles felt his mouth drop, “YOU KNEW!”
The sheriff smiled, “of course I knew. It’s not like you fit the description of beefy hunk. Sorry Conner.”
“No need to apologize sir, I know I am a beefy hunk. Your son is a string bean, but I like him.”
The sheriff nodded, “That’s nice. I’ll expect to hear a bit more about you soon, got it?”
“Of course sir, I would love to know more about the man your son idolizes.”
The sheriff laughed, “Idolize is a bit strong. But I’m glad he made me seem better than what I actually am. Did he tell you I use him for target practice? I mean, it helps with his lacrosse game, wearing Kevlar, running from bullets. All fun and games I assure you.”
Conner of course was starting to crack up a bit. “He might have mentioned it at one point. Might have told me I should try it some time. I used to play football; he said it would have helped me get my cuts down.”
Stiles was staring at Conner, the new information of his old life, Clark Kent’s old life, it was interesting. “Well, I’ll see you too later, if I get home before you pop out of the house to run away in embarrassment. Bye guys.”
Stiles bumped his head to the table, “Love you too, dad.”