Work Text:
Sheriff, I may be wrong, but I think your son just kidnapped me, is sadly not the strangest text message John’s ever received, though it’s still pretty confusing.
Especially since it’s from his newest deputy, who’s both been off the clock for several hours, and hasn’t even met Stiles as far as John knows.
His eyebrows raise even further up his face as another message vibrates through his phone, this time with a blurry shot of Stiles in the passenger side of Hale’s Camaro, both hands jabbing forward, mouth open.
Or carjacked, maybe? Threw himself into the car at a red, yelled drive like a crazy person.
You better not be texting and driving with my idiot son in the car, Hale, John sends back. Where you taking him, so I can come collect him?
Wouldn’t dare.
John snorts at the obvious lie.
To the woods.
The woods? Ah, yes. The remains of the Hale estate. Kid’s been going over after work most days and trying to take it down himself, according to John’s shameless gossip mongering. Looking for closure, maybe, or to rebuild.
He sighs, and eyes the godawful monstrosity of a fake burger Stiles attempted to pass off as real food, before turning tail and running like the brat he is. “They can wait a bit,” he decides as he angles the car into the closest drive-through line.
He’s going to get a bacon burger for this. And double fries. He deserves it.
When John coaxes the cruiser down the broken drive, he’s not overly surprised at the scene beyond his windshield. Derek Hale stands at the base of his family home’s ruined steps, with his arms crossed over his chest. He’s stripped down to a pair of jeans and a black tank top, toolbox at his feet. Poor kid is blinking, like he’s dazed, at a visibly ranting Stiles, marching around up on what’s left of the porch.
Understandable. Stiles probably started on something like how pirates used to frequent the cove some miles up the coast and ended up talking about the type of moss growing on the side of the Hale House. Not too many folks can keep up with how fast Stiles’ mind moves.
Rather than risk his car further, John kills the engine and climbs out. He’ll walk the last bit and hope he can turn the damn car without too much fuss on the way out. How the Camaro’s tires haven’t bit the dust yet is a mystery.
Stiles spins abruptly, throwing both arms wide in Hale’s direction. His voice carries, something about the old house and metaphors, something about the flowers creeping between the steps.
John stops. Stares, not at his loud and ridiculous son, but at Hale’s face.
He recognizes that face.
There’s a face John was expecting, if he’s honest. It’s not uncommon to find new folks wide-eyed and slack-jawed when Stiles gets going.
That… is not the expression on Hale’s face.
This face is very, very different, and John is glad no one’s noticed him yet when he has to blink his eyes clear.
He knows that look from the inside out, knows how it feels to press the edges of his own mouth together to try and stop the smile, knows how it feels when his eyelids slip down just the tiniest amount to try and cover to softness he can feel in his own eyes. He knows that tilt to the head, the unconscious way Hale— no. Derek keeps shifting his body, blading himself, to allow Stiles to become his true north.
It’s been years since Claudia was taken from him, but John remembers the first time she smiled, and he aches.
But oh, watching Derek watch his son, the minute twitches in his fingers every time Stiles gets close, the light flush across his cheekbones? The way Derek drifts up the steps as though Stiles is reeling him in, as though he hasn’t quite realized he’s inching closer at all? It’s an entirely new ache.
John’s worried, over the years. Again and again, Stiles has reached out, and again and again John’s watched his son end up alone. Even Scott seems to have faded away in the distance of college and time.
His kid is so full of love. He deserves better. It’s like no one has bothered to look, to really look at him, see how amazing he is.
Except now.
Derek is looking as though he can’t help himself.
Derek is watching Stiles, rapt, as though he doesn’t know how to stop, as though Stiles’ smallest gestures hold the answers he hadn’t known he’d sought.
From the softness in Derek’s gaze, John knows he won’t be looking away any time soon.
John smiles.
Derek is a good kid, for all he’s been through. Loyal, intelligent. Maybe too intense, but so is Stiles.
Stiles, who pauses mid-word as he notices how close Derek’s gotten, who goes red when Derek asks a question that proves he’s been listening as well as looking. Stiles, who drags a hand through his already messy hair and has to drag his gaze away from Derek’s arms.
John tilts his head up, lets his broad grin crawl across his face. “See what you’ve left me to put up with, love?” he murmurs, hearing a ghost of Claudia’s laughter as he resettles himself and strides forward to insert himself into whatever moment is unfolding on the porch.
Yeah, John thinks, watching both of them straighten as they notice him. Neither of them so much as step away from each other, the distance between them hardly a breath.
It’ll be nice to be a family of three again.