Chapter Text
Noah found him asleep on top of the comforter sometime after midnight still fully dressed except for his shoes.
One sock had made it halfway off before apparently becoming too ambitious of a task.
The bedside lamp was still on. So was the heating pad beneath him turned to low. Empty electrolyte packets and wadded tissues littered the nightstand alongside three different medication bottles and an untouched protein bar that had probably seemed optimistic earlier in the evening.
Stiles looked less asleep than powered down unexpectedly.
Noah stood quietly in the doorway for a moment taking in the scene.
There had been a time when he would’ve looked at this and thought normal teenager exhaustion. Finals week. Too much caffeine. Too little sleep.
Now he knew better.
Now he knew why there were compression gloves shoved half under the pillow. Why Stiles owned enough antihistamines to medically sedate a horse. Why there was an air purifier running in the corner of the room loud enough to sound like a small aircraft preparing for departure.
The sheriff’s department sweatshirt Stiles was wearing had ridden up slightly at the waist exposing the edge of kinesiology tape disappearing beneath it.
Noah looked away almost immediately, because sometimes the evidence of how much pain his son lived in felt unbearable in its sheer casualness.
Stiles stirred slightly as Noah stepped further into the room.
“You’re home late,” he mumbled thickly into the mattress.
“Big crime wave,” Noah said quietly. “Teenagers keep stealing traffic cones.”
“Wasn’t me.” Stiles replied automatically
“This time.” Noah chuffed.
“I was eight.”
“You told Scott to hide under one.”
Stiles snorted a small laugh. “He looked ridiculous. He tried, with such gusto.”
“You take your meds?”
Stiles went still. “Some of them.”
“That confidence inspires confidence.”
Stiles made a tired sound somewhere between a groan and a laugh before finally pushing himself upright with visible reluctance. He immediately winced at the lamp and slapped one hand over his eyes.
“Light.”
Noah reached over and clicked it off.
“Better?”
“No,” Stiles groaned. “But less personally offensive.”
“Rough day?”
That earned him a flat look.
Noah pulled the desk chair over and sat down backwards in it beside the bed. “That bad, huh?”
For a second Stiles looked like he might brush it off.
The instinct was practically muscle memory at this point. Noah had seen him do it so many different ways by now: deflect, joke, change subject, pretend everything was manageable if he stayed entertaining enough while doing it.
Then his shoulders dropped. “I left my final early.”
Noah stayed quiet.
“I couldn’t finish the essay section.” Stiles rubbed at one eye hard enough to redden the skin beneath it. “I knew the material, my brain just... stopped cooperating halfway through.”
“The teacher say anything?”
“He tried.”
That tiny irritated emphasis carried enough information on its own.
Noah exhaled slowly through his nose.
Stiles picked absently at the fraying edge of the pillow case next to him. “I think everybody in that room thought I was just another student freaking out over finals.”
The room fell quiet except for the steady hum of the air purifier.
Noah’s gaze drifted briefly around the bedroom.
Heating pad.
Medications.
Salt containers.
The little routines and adjustments that had slowly accumulated over the years until they blended into normalcy or as close as they could get to it.
Stiles leaned his head back against the wall behind the bed and closed his eyes. “I wanted to be like you when I grew up.”
The sentence landed softly enough that Noah almost missed it.
Stiles gave a short laugh without humor. “Which in retrospect is hilarious considering I need an hour to recuperate from showering.”
“Stiles.”
“No, seriously.” He opened his eyes again, expression tired and sharp around the edges all at once. “I can’t even make it through statistics finals without my body rage quitting halfway through. I don’t think my body is built for police work though.”
Noah didn’t answer immediately.
Because the awful thing was that none of this was new information.
The medications weren’t new.
The exhaustion wasn’t new.
The migraines and braces and heating pads and electrolyte powders weren’t new either.
“I really wanted that.” Stiles sniffed, a tear rolling down his cheek. “It’s not fair.”
Noah shifted onto the bed, wrapping his arms around Stiles and pulling him against his chest. “Oh, kiddo. I know. I’m sorry.”
But none of that mattered. The grief was there.
Like he was only just now realizing Stiles hadn’t merely lost comfort or convenience somewhere along the line.
He’d lost futures quietly. Without anybody noticing they were gone.