Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Stiles swings his sneakers under the dispatch counter because his legs are too short for the chair, the rubber soles scuffing the cabinet every third swing.

The whole place smells like old coffee and printer ink and the lemon cleaner they use that never actually smells like lemon, just the vague idea of it. Radios crackle in short bursts that make him look up every time: 10-somethings, units checking in, the dispatcher’s voice moving from bored to alert and back again.

Dad had said, “You can sit there, kiddo. Homework, quietly. If you’re bored, there’s a word search book in my bottom drawer.” Which is what dads say when they’d rather you not wander near anything with an evidence tag.

He finishes the word-search from the drawer — forty-three minutes, two false starts, one puzzle with 'GENDARME' that shouldn’t be in a kid book — and tries to do math after that, but numbers are slippery today and the 7s start looking like hospital IV poles if he stares too long. He puts the pencil down and looks at the dispatch window instead.

A paper is taped to the glass at eye level saying ‘CITY OF BEACON HILLS Waste & Recycling Schedule’ and someone highlighted it within an inch of its life. Green bars for 'GREEN CAN PICKUP', blue for recycling, black for regular trash. Monday: Northside. Wednesday: Eastside. Friday: South and Hills. The green is loud, and it keeps flashing in his eyes even when he blinks.

Across the room, the whiteboard is the city in dry-erase, two rectangles wide, with pins and post-its spread all over it. A cluster of green pins along the east and south, a few up north.

Tiny white flags with neat block letters label each pin.

GARAGE B&E — BIKES/TOOLS.

GARAGE B&E — SIDE DOOR PRIED.

GARAGE B&E — NO FORCED ENTRY — REMOTE?

Stiles counts them with his eyes. He looks from the board to the schedule to the board again. Green. Green. Dates. Monday. Wednesday. Friday. He thinks of his neighbor next door—Mrs. Abbot—who always forgets the cans and then knocks to ask if they remembered. He thinks of the whole block dragging lids that clack, cans wobbling, garages left gaping an extra minute while a hand fumbles with a remote.

The idea clicks into place. Not fireworks, just a radio tuning from fuzz to clear.

“Why are the garage break-ins always the night before the green cans go out?” He hears himself say it too loud.

Heads turn. Connie at dispatch tilts her head slightly, which is her version of paying attention. One deputy stops typing. Dad’s pen pauses mid-word.

“The what, now?” Dad asks without looking up all the way. That voice means keep going, make it make sense.

“The garage ones.” Stiles points, finger curled because pointing is rude. He taps the schedule lightly so the glass won’t thwack. “The green pins and the green-” tap “cans. They line up.”

“Stiles,” Dad warns, but his eyes shift to I’m listening.

Mustache Deputy — Miller, Stiles is pretty sure. The mug says so — swivels. “What’s he on about?”

“Hold on,” Dad says, and now he comes around the desk.

Stiles rocks forward, then back, and clamps his hands on the counter  so he won't keep tapping on the glass.

Dad stands at the board and squints at the clusters. He uncaps a marker with a soft pop. “These are the ones?”

“Yeah. Look at the dates.” Stiles reads the flags sideways. “WED 7/12, WED 7/19, FRI 7/21. And some Mondays up north, but fewer because there’s the preserve. It’s-”

“Like what?” Dad prompts, already tracking with him.

“Like they hit on green-can nights.” He finishes.

Connie makes a low sound, almost a laugh. Miller stands and comes over. “Kid might be right. Those are Wednesdays and Fridays.” He taps a flag and then the schedule on the glass.

The desk sergeant in the back — deep voice and a name Stiles can't remember half the time since he's a new transfer and there's no helpful mugs on his desk — calls over, “Makes sense. Folks leave the garage open while they pull cans. More movement on the block, noise to hide in.”

“Or they dress like sanitation,” Connie says. “Two callers told me about a ‘trash man’ in their yard this month. No names, no dates, but it's something.”

Dad circles two green clusters with the marker cap, then prints small G next to the dates and adds to the key: G = GREEN CAN NIGHT. He steps back. “Huh.”

It’s not a full compliment, but it’s interest, and that's enough for him these days.

It beats the interest of the nurses with pity eyes in the hospital.

“What made you think of it?” he asks Stiles.

“It was green,” Stiles says, and shrugs. “Green here, green pins there. And Mrs. Abbot next door always forgets, so I thought about everyone being out on the same nights.”

Dad’s face softens in a way the room doesn’t need to see. He nods once, then pivots back into Sheriff. “Let’s put an extra car on East Wednesday, South and Hills Friday, 2200 to 0200. Unmarked if we can. Eyes on alleys, garages, anybody taking a scenic route with a mountain bike after dark.”

“Copy,” the sergeant says, already lifting the phone. “I’ll adjust the duty roster and ask Pike to swap his Friday.”

“Loop in sanitation,” Dad adds. “Have them brief crews. If they see shadowers, call it in. I’ll take one driveway decoy if we’ve got a volunteer who enjoys boredom.”

“Attention units,” Connie says into the headset, voice firming the room. “BOLO for suspicious persons on green-can nights…”

Miller lifts his mug toward Stiles. “Good eye.”

Stiles’s ears go hot. He gives a shoulder shrug that could mean anything.

Dad leans his forearm on the counter. “Hungry?”

“Always,” Stiles says on reflex and his dad produces a slightly squashed granola bar.

Stiles accepts it like an award and peels it slow so the crinkle doesn’t sound like hospital gloves.

“Finish your math,” Dad says. “We’ll swing by the hospital at shift change to say goodnight.”

Chapter Text

Late evening at Murphy’s Mini-Mart feels like a place that’s already halfway to closing: a hum from the coolers, checkered floor that always looks clean even when it isn’t, the bell over the door tired of ringing. Stiles is here for highlighters and chocolate milk. He’s got three neon pens in his hand — yellow, green, blue — and the cold bottle sweating onto his palm. He’s turning toward the counter when the bell rings again.

A kid — because he's too scrawny to be any more than one or two years older than Stiles himself — drowning in a gray hoodie steps in with his head down, hidden by a ski mask. Not a costume one, but thin knit, dark, cut wide at the mouth. He moves like he hasn’t slept right in two nights and his hands don’t know where to be. The gun comes out of the hoodie pocket with the breath he drags in.

“Hands- hands up! Just-” The barrel wobbles. “Open the register.”

Murphy freezes. He’s been robbed twice in twenty years, and he always tells the stories like they happened to a distant cousin. He looks straight at Stiles for a half-second. Don’t. That’s all the look says.

Other bodies stutter into the aisles. A blonde woman with a blond toddler ducks away from the fridges and behind the candy shelves. The man with them stops at the endcap, jaw locked, eyes on the gun. Married, probably — matching bands, he'd noticed before but it only vaguely matters now. The toddler hiccups a confused “mama?” and the man’s shoulders go tight.

Okay, rules, Stiles’ brain says, too fast.

Don’t run. Don’t shout. Don’t surprise. Hands visible. Keep space. Don’t be between muzzle and person. He feels hot and then very cold. He catalogs anyway because that’s what he does when he’s scared: the kid’s hands shake, elbow trembles enough to make the barrel drift, and it's not even pointing at anything lethal. The hoodie is too big, and unzipped just enough to show a green lawn-service polo. The logo is familiar, something he's seen in passing before but not in some time. The shoes have dried grass bits stuck along the laces.

Local. Working. Panicked. Not a guarantee of anything, but…

The safety's still on, the kid's hold is all wrong like his hand's never touched a gun before, and a glance at the couple — the husband's clenched hands and feet already pointed toward the counter like he wants to step in — tells Stiles that if he doesn't take his chance, someone else will, and it might make things a whole lot worse.

He moves. Not into the line between the barrel and Murphy, because he’s not a wall, but he steps left, slowly, into the kid’s eye-line. Palms open, chest angled. He keeps his voice low, trying to put into practice all the theory he probably shouldn't have been reading in the first place.

“Hey,” Stiles greets, like he’s talking to a skittish dog. “Okay. We’re all having a night.”

The barrel jerks toward him, then off, then back. Behind the knit, the kid’s eyes are red-rimmed. Stiles clocks the rest and says none of it out loud, keeping the observations inside where they can’t set anything off.

“Stay there,” The kid speaks, and it comes out half plea, half command. “Just- stay.”

“I can do that,” Stiles placates. He sets the highlighters on the counter with the chocolate milk so his hands are empty where everyone can see them. “You want the drawer open?”

Murphy’s mouth is tight. “I can open it,” he says, careful.

“Open it,” the kid agrees. Then louder, like he remembers there’s supposed to be yelling in this scene, “Open it! Now.”

The husband by the candy shelf shifts, one of those little forward rocks that means he’s about to do something dumb. Stiles cuts a glance at him and shakes his head once, small and firm. Please don’t. The man freezes, not relaxed, just stopped, his hand on the toddler’s hair.

“Okay,” Stiles says, filling his own lungs — breathe in for three, out for three — so there’s a rhythm to keep him steady. “He's doing that, slowly.”

Murphy hits the key, and the drawer slides open with its familiar ding and metallic sigh. The kid flinches at the sound. Sound is bad right now.

Note to self: keep it quiet.

“What happened today?” Stiles asks, gentle, like the question is about homework. Keep it small. Today, not your life story.

The kid blinks through the ski mask. “What?”

“Today,” Stiles repeats. “Before this.”

The barrel wobbles. It isn’t aimed right at anyone, which is almost worse, but the safety's still on, which is a small relief. Stiles angles his body a hair more so his shoulder is forward and his chest isn’t a big target, and wonders if the kid even knows how to switch the safety off.

“Who are you trying to help?” Stiles asks, because all he's seen so far is someone desperate. “You, or someone else?”

The kid swallows. “I need-” He swallows again like the word cash is too big for his throat. “They’re taking our truck at dawn,” he blurts. “My dad’s. For work. If they take it there’s no jobs Monday. I just need-” He flicks the gun at the drawer like he hates it already. “Enough.”

The full picture drops into place: repo at dawn, lawn service, kid on the crew sometimes. Truck equals food. Panic writes the script when you don’t have one.

Stiles knows this town’s scripts.

“Okay,” Stiles continues, nodding like they’re planning who brings chips to a group project. “So we need something that doesn’t get anybody dead and still gets you wheels tomorrow.”

Murphy’s eyes cut right. Stiles doesn’t look away from the kid.

“Kline at Central Repo will sometimes do a forty-eight-hour hold if a local business vouches,” Stiles says. “And Mr. Murphy cashes checks on Fridays.” He lets one corner of his mouth tilt up. “Around here, paperwork and gossip solve more problems than yelling.”

The kid’s breath hitch-stutters, then evens a little, but not a lot. “I don’t have time,” he insists, but it loses the edge.

It sounds like something he heard his dad say at a kitchen table at 11 p.m. instead of the words of someone determined to see something through.

“We can make time,” Stiles says. “But we need quiet to do that.” He lifts his hands another inch, not higher than his shoulders. “Mr. Murphy, can you slide the till shut? Keep your hands where we can see them.”

Murphy closes the drawer without the ding. His palms stay on the counter, fingers spread. “Kid,” he adds, voice rough, “nobody wants your dad to lose his truck.”

From behind the candy shelf, the toddler whispers “mama, milk,” which almost makes the husband bolt again. Stiles shakes his head a second time. Fast, certain. The man clamps both hands on the toddler and thankfully stays put.

“Okay,” Stiles says, back to the kid, back to the breathing count in his own head. In for three, out for three. “Here’s what happens next. I call my dad. He brings a form and calls Kline from his desk. You sit, drink water, keep your hands where we can see them. Mr. Murphy calls whoever you need for a check. We stack it. No one moves fast.”

The kid’s eyes drop to Stiles’ hands and back. “You call your dad, there’ll be sirens.”

There's both a downside and an upside to being known as the Sheriff's kid.

“No sirens,” Stiles guarantees, because that's one of the upsides.

He tries not to think about how his own hands feel shaky. Keep them open. Keep them steady enough. He pulls his phone out slowly at the kid's shaky nod, like it’s a bird he doesn’t want to scare. Thumb visible, he taps ‘boss man’ and flips the speaker on. The chocolate milk sweats a ring on the laminate. Focus on that, not the barrel. Okay.

“Stilinski,” Noah answers, definitely without looking at the call number.

“Hey, Dad.” Stiles keeps his voice soft. “Can you bring the blue form?”

There’s a breath’s pause, his dad reading the situation in under a second. That's what they have their codes for.

“Copy,” Noah confirms. “Blue form. Where?”

“Murphy’s,” Stiles says, eyes on the ski mask. “We’re staying very still.”

“All right,” His voice lowers into the lane meant to bring people off the edge. “Stay on the line.”

“Okay,” Stiles says. He nods at the kid, like see, this is fine. “We’re good.”

“Murphy with you?” Dad asks.

“Here,” Murphy says.

“Anyone hurt?”

“No,” Stiles says. He doesn’t look at the gun to answer. “No.”

“Units are close,” Noah informs, calm. “No lights, no sirens.”

The kid licks his lips. “I didn’t-” He chokes on the rest. He looks at the gun like he just realized it's there. “I don’t want-”

“Okay,” Stiles repeats like the mantra it's become. “You can set it down. Muzzle away, on the end of the counter.” He tips his chin toward the scuffed wood “I won’t touch it. You set it down and step back.”

The kid hesitates. The room holds its breath with him. The husband doesn’t breathe at all.

The kid moves. He puts the gun down where Stiles said, barrel turned away, and steps back with both palms up like the situation's been magically turned around.

Stiles doesn’t touch it. “Dad,” he says into the phone, never looking away, “firearm on the counter, muzzle away, three feet left of the till.”

“Noted,” Noah says. “Deputies at the door.”

“Law enforcement coming in,” Stiles says for the room, voice level. “No one move fast.”

The bell rings. Matthews and Ortiz slip in quietly. No shouting, no display, nothing to set the kid off. Ortiz’s eyes move: gun, kid, clerk, Stiles. It earns him a look he can't quite read. Matthews, gloved, collects the pistol.

“Hands on your head,” Ortiz says to the kid, low.

The cuffs come, but it's not rough.

The blond family gets walked outside. Murphy sits down on his own crate behind the counter and rubs his face. Stiles’ knees start to feel like knees again.

His dad comes in two minutes later in a raincoat over a polo, jaw tight in the way that means he’s keeping sound inside. He does a fast sweep of Stiles with his eyes: breathing? bleeding? standing? Then he looks at the kid.

“What’s your name?” Noah asks.

“S’Trent,” the kid mumbles through the mask. “Hargreeve.”

The name lands where Stiles thought it would with the lawn logo and the grass on the shoes. That tracks.

“Okay, Trent,” The Sheriff continues. “Let’s head to the car. We’ll talk at the station.”

They move. Ortiz walks Trent out, cuffs front, ski mask still on until the door, then off. Matthews finishes with the scene. Murphy and Stiles answer initial questions: who saw what, what got said, what didn’t. Stiles keeps his observations to himself, because he doesn’t want it turning into a story that someone else thinks is a trick.

It's happened before.

“Let’s go,” Noah says to Stiles. Not harsh. Not soft either.

Stiles follows him out, past the bell, into the cooler night. The walk to the cruiser is quiet in that way where quiet is a decision. Stiles gets in the passenger seat because that’s what he does when they come here together. He buckles in. The chocolate milk is warm now, but he holds it anyway.

Should probably pay for it later. It would be ironic to talk down a thief and then end up stealing something.

Noah drives. The muscle in his jaw ticks once, stops. “You do not step toward a gun,” he says, finally. Each word is carefully placed so they don’t come out as a shout. “Ever.”

“I didn’t-” Stiles starts, then stops because he did. Not into the line, but toward. He swallows, and his voice comes out thinner than he wants. “He was going to bolt,” he explains. “The husband. With the kid right there. There wasn’t time to-”

“You call me,” His dad cuts him off. “You put shelving between you. You do not give me the job of scraping my boy off the floor because you decided you’re a buffer.”

“I’m not-” Stiles hears himself and hates how defensive it sounds. “I know the rules, Dad, I do, I just-” He makes a useless little gesture with one hand. “He didn’t want to shoot anybody. He wanted the drawer. And the safety was-” He clamps his mouth shut. He wasn’t going to say that. He wasn’t. “It looked like there was a way to make it not get worse.”

Noah’s fingers flex around the wheel. “Don’t tell me about safety,” he says, clipped. “Don’t ever build your choices around a mechanical quirk that maybe you saw at a glance in bad lighting. If you say that in your statement, I will personally staple the range rules to your forehead.”

“I wasn’t- I didn’t,” Stiles mutters, stung. “I didn’t say it to anyone.” He swallows against the rush in his chest. He didn’t expect the anger to feel like this. Like he wants to cry and also punch a wall. “I kept it in my head so I didn’t panic, that’s all.”

Dad exhales through his nose. The station turns up at the end of the street like a notice that the subject needs to be wrapped up. “I am not yelling,” he says, as if he’s reminding himself.

“I know,” Stiles replies, appreciating it even with the lack of inflection. He presses the bottle cap line into his palm until it hurts. “I know.”

“At the station,” The Sheriff says, back to procedure because it’s safer ground for both of them, “you’re giving a full statement. No flourishes, no editorial. Then you go to the break room and you wait. You don’t wander. If you wander, I will find you and you will be very, very sorry.”

Stiles nods, then remembers nodding isn’t an answer. “Okay.”

They go in through the back. Ortiz has Trent in a holding cell, sitting on the bench, head down. Noah steers Stiles to the small interview room with the bad chair and the humming vent. Matthews reads him the witness advisement they always read, even to the Sheriff’s kid. Stiles tells it in order, plain. He keeps it small, leaves out the safety, leaves out the husband’s ready-to-lunge face because it’s not directly relevant. He answers follow-ups. He signs.

“Break room,” Noah says afterward, an order instead of a question.

“Break room,” Stiles repeats. He goes, sits, and drinks water he doesn’t want. He tries to text Scott and then doesn’t, because the words look like bragging and he doesn’t want that taste in his mouth.

The hall beyond the break room is too familiar. He knows the back route to holding from a hundred take-your-kid-to-work days and afternoons doing homework at a desk pushed against the wall. He sits for five minutes. Ten. The quiet is hard when your insides are still running.

Stiles stands. He tells himself he’s just stretching his legs, and drifts. One left, one right. He ends up near holding like how people end up at the fridge when they aren’t hungry.

Ortiz is at the desk, typing. He looks up. Stiles freezes, halfway to guilty.

“Water fountain’s that way,” Ortiz notes, amused but tired, and tips his head the direction Stiles is already facing.

“Right,” Stiles mumbles. His feet don't budge.

Ortiz sighs. “Thirty seconds,” he says, low. “No nonsense. He’s calmer.”

“Thank you,” Stiles means it so hard it makes his chest hurt.

He edges to the bars. Trent sits on the bench, mask off now, younger than his voice sounded, eyes rimmed red and raw. He looks up like he expects no one to ever look back at him again.

“Hey,” Stiles says. He keeps his hands in his pockets so he doesn’t look like he’s about to do anything. “You okay?”

Trent lets out a breath that shakes on the way out. “No,” he answers, sounding honest. “Thanks, though.”

Stiles nods. He doesn’t know what to do with his mouth and the words feel either too big or too small. “It could’ve… it could’ve gone worse.”

Trent huffs, a humorless sound. “Yeah.”

“My dad’ll call Kline,” Stiles adds, like he’s reminding both of them that steps exist. “He does that. And Murphy, he didn’t want to wreck you. He just wants you nowhere near his place again.”

Trent rubs his face with his cuffed hands. “I shouldn’t’ve-” He stops. “I didn’t know what else to-” He stops again, voice breaking at the end. “I’m not… I’m not this.”

“I know,” Stiles says, and he does. Desperation makes monsters out of people, and he's just glad this one stopped in time. “You were trying to fix your dad’s morning.” He swallows. “I get that.”

Trent nods, quick. “Tell him-” He stops, eyes going frantic for a second. “Don’t tell him I cried,” he says, and then scrubs his face again, like he's furious at himself for saying it.

Stiles doesn’t smile. “I won’t.” He steps back because if he stays he’s going to start shaking all over again and he doesn’t want to do that in front of either of them. “Goodnight, Trent.”

“Night,” Trent says, small.

Stiles turns. Ortiz gives him a look that lands somewhere between don’t make me regret that and I know you. Stiles nods once, grateful, and goes back the way he should’ve gone the first time. He finds the break room and sits and stares at the vending machine until his vision starts going unfocused.

Noah finds him there fifteen minutes later, looking more tired than before. The muscle in his jaw ticks again, and he doesn’t sit.

“Home,” he says.

Stiles stands. “Am I-” He almost says grounded and stops, because he doesn’t actually want it to sound like a dare. “Are we-” He waves a hand between them, useless. “Okay.”

“We’re going to keep being okay,” His dad replies, which is not comfort and not not comfort. “Do not make me say tonight’s speech again.”

“I won’t,” Stiles tries not to sound twelve. He maybe sounds thirteen, which is better than the look his dad gives him, which makes him feel like he's ten all over again.

They walk out together. The parking lot is quiet, the air cooler than it was an hour ago. The drive home is mostly streetlights and the sound of tires, Noah’s hands steady on the wheel. Stiles watches his knuckles and feels both safer and worse.

At the house, Stiles goes up the stairs before being told.

He stands in his doorway a second longer than usual and touches the frame with his palm. He doesn’t say anything out loud, just breathes in for three, out for three. He pictures the clerk’s face, the husband’s hands on his son’s head, the way the room got one shade quieter when the gun left the kid’s fingers.

He pictures his dad’s jaw when he said do not step toward a gun.

He doesn’t sleep right away. He doesn’t not sleep either. He lies there as the scene plays again, but not like a movie he stars in, more like a security camera loop he can’t switch off.

He lets it run until it fades enough to blink.