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(If you are reading this on any PAY site this is a STOLEN WORK, the author has NOT Given Permission for it to be here. If you're paying to read it, you're being cheated too because you can read it on Archiveofourown for FREE.)
Stiles finished his child- appropriate demonstration about safety when 'scary things happen' and headed towards the pre-school story group nearby in one of the clusters of people enjoying the Youth Are Our Future day in the park. Beacon Hills was a lot calmer since they brought in an arborist who specialized in old growth oaks. Well, ok, she was a dryad, but she'd also gone to college and got a degree in trees. Well fed with bone meal, blood meal and other supplements purchased from the garden shop, the Nematon had resprouted and returned to its original purpose of keeping the ley lines balanced instead of luring every Tom, Dick and Hairy in like flies to its web.
Stiles' job as police chief mostly involved stray dogs that were really dogs, and confrontations with people who had a little too much to drink and started swinging pool cues around. He liked it that way.
He and Lydia even felt secure enough to adopt. She hadn't wanted to risk seeing what a Banshee/Spark child would be like. Stiles thought it would be cool, but after all, he wouldn't be the one carrying the baby.
They'd both fallen in love with the baby mysteriously left at the police station. Mysteriously as in, Derek walked in with a bundle in his arms and a wild look in his face. "Here," he had said holding the child out like a sack of potatoes. "I made a mistake."
Stiles immediate response had been to grab the bundle. "Don't say that! This precious little... whatever is no mistake."
Derek had rolled his eyes and explained that the baby wasn't his. His mistake was leaving his car door open while he had a run in the woods, only to return and find this child along with the well-chewed remnant of a note so Derek had no idea where the baby came from. The kid had good teeth. Good teeth and the scent of a werewolf. Derek hadn't been able to handle teenagers, did Stiles really want to think what he'd do with a baby?
And then Lydia had walked in, pulled the swaddling back, glanced and said, "Wilk."
"Wilk?" Stiles asked.
"It's Polish, that's as close as I'm willing to get to your real name, Stiles."
And then Noah had come into the room. Lydia said, "Meet your grandson, Wilk."
Noah blinked. Then he moved over to peer at the baby. "That was quick."
That was four years ago, and Wilk was now a happy, well-adjusted baby wolf, who giggled far more often than he growled. Derek often came by to 'show him how to wolf', but today he was demonstrating fire safety in another area of the park with the fire station volunteers (he had refused to dance 'Gangnam Style' so this was a compromise), and Lydia was mentoring Female Future Physicists in a tent (there were a few boys too, but she refused to change the name of the program) so Wilk had gone with the pre-schoolers under the kindly direction of elders who volunteered at these functions.
Wilk loved a good story, so Stiles was surprised to hear him crying when he approached. "What's the matter, Wilkie?" Stiles picked up his son, who snuffled and hid his face against Stile's uniform shirt, avoiding the badge by long practise.
"I don' wanna starve my black wolf! I love my black wolf!" Even upset, Wilk knew better than to mention 'his Uncle Derek who is sometimes a big black wolf'.
"What?" Stiles blinked and looked at the storyteller, who was wringing his hands and looking nearly as upset as Wilk.
"He asked for a story about wolves. I don't know too many nice Christian stories about wolves..."
Stiles sighed. "You told him 'the wolf you feed?' "
"It has a good moral lesson," the man said. "We all fight against original sin, and the old Cherokee..."
"Stop," Stiles said. "Wilkie, baby, the Cherokee don't believe that we're all born with something evil in us that we have to fight."
"But," the old man said, "It's a Cherokee legend! Isn't it?"
"Billy Graham invented the story. It's a Christian parable, and you know, if you want to believe in it, that's fine, but don't go putting the words in the mouths of other people." Stiles turned his attention back to Wilk. "The color of a wolf doesn't mean anything... well.. except that black wasn't originally a wolf color, and they got that from making friends with dogs. So, a black wolf is even nicer than a white wolf."
Wilk lifted his head and tried a little smile. "So I can have a white wolf and a black wolf in me and feed them both?"
"Absolutely, Wilks. No wolf goes hungry in the Stilinsky house."
Wilk giggled. "Curly fries?"
"Curly fries," Stiles confirmed. He waved off the old man's apologies and headed for the concession stand. He had a wolf to feed.