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John Stilinski had made a few mistakes in his life. He was probably not as much of a moral authority as most of the people in Beacon Hills would believe and he had as chequered a history as any boy growing up in Chicago would with a name like Stilinski. He’d followed a friend into police business rather than following another into a life of crime and he’d upheld the law strictly where it mattered.
He’d made a few mistakes here and there, but nothing that he couldn’t forgive himself for staring into his bathroom mirror at 3 a.m. He’d never done anything he thought his Nadine would have been ashamed of for him. Until now, that was.
He gripped the steering wheel tight enough for the skin of his knuckles to feel strained, bright orange under the glow of the street lights. There was a directional microphone on his passenger seat, along with a small set of binoculars. He knew that what he was doing wasn’t just a crime - though it was that - but if Stiles found out about it, their relationship would probably never recover.
Stiles was getting out of the black Camaro that had been parked in the lot of Chez Marie’s for a good ten minutes. He looked tense, but not exactly unhappy. Fidgeting nervously as if he didn’t quite know what to do with his hands, Stiles bounced on his feet and stared at the man getting out on the other side.
Derek Hale was wearing an actual button-down shirt and had traded his delinquent leather jacket for a dark grey blazer. John had been somewhat pleasantly surprised, but then his expectations when it came to Hale were pretty low. He was, after all, the twenty-something murder suspect corrupting his teenage son. There wasn’t really much further down to go.
John had allowed the date, had, in fact, not tried at all to curb their relationship when they had told him - all nervous smiles and surreptitious hand-holding - because after everything that had gone down in the last year, he knew Stiles wouldn’t listen to him if he tried. Better the devil he knew than Stiles sneaking out at all hours doing god knows what.
Derek and Stiles went into the uncomfortably upscale restaurant looking like two men heading for their own execution. There was a solid foot of space between them and neither tried to get any closer until they reached the door and after a moment of awkward indecision, Stiles grabbed the handle and yanked it open.
John sighed and told himself he should just go home, trusting Stiles to know what was best for him and Derek to realize that doing anything untoward to the Sheriff’s son was essentially a social, if not actual, death sentence. Unfortunately, trust was hard to come by these days and those two idiots were on notice. Thoroughly.
They stumbled outside again not ten minutes later, pale faced and a little out of breath, but laughing like they’d escaped near death. He’d seen that kind of euphoria before after a firefight. He didn’t like the way they smiled at each other, partly because he hadn’t seen Stiles this happy in weeks, maybe months.
Trailing the Camaro, he wondered what he was doing, why he was still trying to discover some kind of dark edge to this whole dating thing. He didn’t trust Stiles as far as he could throw him and that knowledge stung, but there was something here that bothered him beyond the inappropriate choice of boyfriend. Dating Derek Hale didn’t explain the weirdness of the last few months, not all of it, but maybe dating wasn’t all they were doing.
His current pet theory was some kind of cult.
Derek stopped at a drive through to pick up food, curly fries and burgers, and then they headed to the preserve. John cursed his luck. There were ways to follow someone in a forest, but none of them as easy as sitting in a car.
Fortunately, or not, depending on one’s point of view, they parked near the school, in a public lot. The area was residential and no one would look twice at a patrol car idling away for no particular reason. John picked up the microphone.
“Thank god,” Stiles said around a mouthful of the fries, sounding muffled and ecstatic at the same time. “That place was like a slow creeping death waiting to sink its fangs into my neck.”
Derek shrugged. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”
Stiles stopped chewing. “Hey, no. No, that’s not what I mean. This doesn’t mean this whole dating thing is a failure, okay? We’re having dinner right now! And if you want, we can always watch some shows on my laptop later.”
john noticed that Derek was hunched into himself as he leaned on the hood of his car that Stiles was sitting on. “You should have normal things. Date someone-“
“No,” Stiles interrupted, “we are not playing the Derek Hale sucks game right now, unless you want to be literal about it. I wanted to try a classic date because how are we going to know that we don’t like it, right? I mean, we could have been super awesome at it! But it’s okay if we aren’t those kind of people. We don’t have to be normal to be good.”
John rolled his eyes, but something in his heart began to warm up to the idea of these two as more than casual acquaintances. They looked solid together, like they fit. Maybe he didn’t have to arrange for Derek to disappear after all… not that he would. But he was letting go of the fantasy, even as his son leaned over to steal a kiss as well as Derek’s last fries.
He left them sitting there, half because he didn’t know how far they might go and there really were things he didn’t need to know about Stiles, and half because he needed to be alone with the shame welling up, now that the immediate rush of the chase had left.
When he got back to his house, the Camaro was parked in the driveway, and he wondered if he should check on his son’s room or just pretend he didn’t know what they were likely doing up there, when he found the two of them sitting on the couch, nervous like the day they’d come out about their relationship.
“So dad,” Stiles started, looking shifty. “Here’s the thing. First of all, I know what you were doing just now. It’s not really okay, but I understand and I need you to know that I love you before I tell you how I know.”
And in the next two hours, John mostly thought two things. First, hah, he’d been right, there had been something else going on. And second.
Werewolves?!