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“-don’t know where the fucking Allen key is goddammit!” Derek is screaming over his shoulder when he swings open the door. He only looks around at the sound of a cleared throat and then he pales spectacularly and goes red at the same time.
It’s amazing to watch.
He seems to forcibly relax himself and then says, “Um, something I can do for you Sheriff?”
The Sheriff offers a wry smile and flips open the notebook he has in hand. It doesn’t actually have anything written in it other than his grocery list, but it’s always a good prop. “We got reports of a domestic disturbance from this address,” the Sheriff says in his most professional, not messing around, tone.
“What?” Derek splutters, blinking hard. “Domestic... what?”
“Yes, apparently a lot of yelling and screaming and banging noises.”
“There... what?”
“Possibly some crying.”
“No crying. There’s been no crying,” Derek says and to punctuate the point, there is, of course, a wail from deeper in the house at that very moment. Derek scrunches up his face in defeat and turns back towards the inside of the house. “What have you done now?”
“I hit my thumb with the hammer!” another voice, Stiles if he’s not mistaken, calls back, managing to inject in his tone a feeling of being mortally wounded. The Sheriff has seen Stiles limp into the emergency room, blood-covered and with his shoulder hanging out of the socket when what later turned out to be a goddamn werebear took him and the jeep out at high speed. He didn’t sound anywhere near as hurt when he’d been explaining what had happened that night as he does now.
“Why are you using a hammer?” Derek yells, turning all the way around in the doorway and putting his hands on his hips, exasperation plain in the muscles of his back. The Sheriff thinks it says something about his life that he knows that much about Derek Hale’s back muscles.
His deputy, a young woman who will definitely be riding his desk one day named Shona, says, “Sir?”
Stiles slides into view then on socked feet, only stopping when he hits the opposite wall and rebounds and the Sheriff is once again left wondering if Stiles will survive werewolves, homicidal Argents and an evil tree, only to die in a weird, slip-related accident because Derek didn’t listen to his warning about Stiles and wooden floors.
“Ew, look Derek, there’s blood! Blood under the nail, gross!”
The Sheriff shoots Shona a glance out of the corner of his eye and sees her blink in surprise when Derek’s annoyed stance immediately melts and he rushes forward to cup Stiles’ hand in both of his and make gentle sympathetic noises as Stiles hops from foot to foot and then practically shoves his thumb into Derek’s nose to share the grossness.
“That’s your kid, isn’t it?” Shona asks out of the corner of her mouth. She’d been a little bewildered when he’d insisted on taking the domestic disturbance call himself, but as soon as he’d heard the address on the scanner he hadn’t been able to help himself. There was no telling what you were going to find when the werewolves were involved but he hadn’t been exactly expecting... this.
The Sheriff sighs mightily and then nods.
“Oh, hey dad!” Stiles says brightly then, belatedly noticing them. “Sorry, we’re just trying to put a set of bookshelves together because apparently Derek needs to own all the books. Like, all of them in the world.”
“You own books too,” Derek grumbles.
“I own like, eight books. You have about six hundred and ninety three million-”
“It’s not that many,” Derek says.
“It’s like you’ve never even heard of epubs.”
“Ugh.”
“IKEA bookshelves, right?” Shona asks and three heads swivel in her direction, all in curiosity. Shona straightens up, cracks her knuckles and says, “If you don’t want this to end in bloodshed, you’re going to need my help. I’m an IKEA master.”
“Bless you,” Derek says, using an arm to sweep Stiles out of the way and motion Shona into their house as Stiles makes indignant noises of protest.
“I can totally-”
“Die doing this? Yes, I agree,” Derek cuts him off with a smirk.
“Dinner tonight?” the Sheriff asks, obviously no longer needed and desperately thankful for it.