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On his third day as a werewolf, John Stilinski wakes to the smell of bacon. It doesn't just waft in as a tantalizing hint, either, but practically sizzles in the air, full of the promise of bubbling fat and crisp flesh that makes his mouth water before he's even out of bed. His bedroom is as far from the kitchen as you can get in the house, upstairs and to the back, and he can hear the pop and crackle as it fries.
It's a little disconcerting. He tries to stop listening, but it's like a pink elephant and now he can hear Stiles scrapping the pan and pick out the scent of parsley and black pepper. He didn't even know you could smell parsley this far away.
John scrubs his hands over his face and takes a deep breath, which just makes everything sharper, and reminds himself that it's just breakfast.
He dresses slowly, and manages not to break the water faucet in the bathroom when he pushes is shut, but only just. By the time he gets downstairs the scent of fresh coffee has layered over everything else, and Stiles has two plates of bacon and eggs already on the table.
"Good morning!" he says cheerfully.
"That bad, huh?"
Stiles's face falls, a little confused, a little blustery, but he recovers quickly. "What? Nothing's bad. It's morning! It's good! I made you breakfast."
"You made me bacon and eggs and you only do that when you've either done something or need money."
"I can't make you a nice breakfast anymore?"
John just raises his eyebrows and give Stiles a pointed look which does the trick of making Stiles both roll his eyes and avoid looking at John. The weird thing is that this time, he can hear the rushing thump-thump of his son's heartbeat and knows that that's what it sounds like when he's uncomfortable and worried.
John doesn't say anything, however. He sits and starts digging into his bacon before Stiles changes his mind and decides he needs another lecture on cholesterol. The quiet is strained, however, and John watches as Stiles fidgets as he pretends that everything is normal. They are so far outside of their routine, John doesn't even know where to begin. He can't even remember the last time they ate together, let alone breakfast. Months at least, and knowing why Stiles was cagey and running off all the time does not help at all.
So they eat in silence for a few minutes, while John waits for the other shoe to drop. He wonders if he'll hear the change in Stiles's biorhythms first, but their forks are loud in John's ears when he tries to listen, scraping across the plates, and they only seem to get louder. The clicking is almost as bad as the sound of them dragging across the ceramic. He can't help wincing and --
"Dad. Dad!" Stiles's voice breaks into his train of thought, the absence of sound as they both pause is jarring for its suddenness.
"What?"
"You were totally zoning out," says Stiles. His heartbeat is rapid again. John hadn't noticed till now.
"Sorry."
Stiles taps his fork against his plate, clank clank, and John's eyes immediately follow. "What is it?"
John shakes his head. "Nothing." It's ridiculous really, and definitely does not warrant the concern Stiles is practically vibrating in his direction. John gets up to get more eggs.
"Dad," says Stiles.
"What? I'm fine."
He double takes when Stiles stays quiet. His son is looking at him with such a serious expression. His eyes are dark and stare right through him; John has to take another breath for how much he looks like his mother.
"Stiles." John takes another breath as he sits, squares his plate, and gives Stiles his full attention because this is important. "I'm fine. I promise."
In the end, Stiles nods. His knee starts bouncing under the table too, and it's reassuringly normal. John finishes his eggs and two more strips of bacon. Stiles hurries off to grab his book bag, his shoes, and his keys before bolting for the door in a whirlwind. The house is devastatingly quiet after the door slams shut.
But only for a moment. Then John hears the refrigerator and the central air unit wheezing away, the cars passing in the street, and it takes the strong smell of the coffee under his nose, twice as thick as he's used to, to get him to his feet and out the door.
John didn't lie to Stiles. He is fine. His sudden transformation into a werewolf is not going to change things. He's still the sheriff of Beacon Hills, he still has to make sure Stiles graduates from high school more or less a decent person. He's been around the block; he knows life throws curve balls every chance it gets and sometimes, if you're not quick enough, they sock you in the nuts. But he's gotten through worse and "werewolf" does not define him.
He pulls into his spot at the station and stops worrying about Stiles and starts thinking about the backlog of resumes on his desk to fill the empty deputy positions, the patrol shift he assigned himself for this afternoon since they're shorthanded, and the terrifying prospect of new and flagged items in his email inbox from his unexpected sick day. He really hopes it isn't going to be a regular thing or he's going to be out of a job.
Wanda is on the front desk, an admin on loan from city hall to free up his remaining deputies for other duties, and John is really hoping to steal her permanently.
"Hey, Sheriff!" she greets him cheerfully, standing up behind the counter.
"Hey -" and John gets a whiff of her perfume, that he's never noticed before, and doubles over in a coughing fit.
Wanda rushes over, saying something, but John waves her off, trying to breathe past the cloying scent of some sort of flower that he sure is very nice when it's not aerosolized and laced with enough chemicals to make his eyes water.
"I'm all right," he coughs, his hand still outstretched. "Just give me a sec."
"I'll get some water," Wanda says, rushing out.
The scent still lingers, but it isn't as overpowering with her gone. John gets his breath back and breathes slowly and methodically until he feels in control again. Christ on a stick. Prepared for it when Wanda comes back, it's not so bad, and John murmurs the polite responses to Wanda's sympathizing with his terrible cold before beating a hasty retreat to his office. Which smells like nothing chemical or out of the ordinary.
John lets out a little sigh of relief and boots up his computer. It's going to be fine. He wipes the sweat off his brow and takes a reassuring breath. Just fine.
It doesn't take him long to get lost in a dozen emails competing for his attention, and he's in work mode for the rest of the morning. He just has to remember to hold his breath around Wanda and give everyone else a careful sniff when they knock on his door. He copes fine.
"You all right?" Deputy Mayfield asks on her third visit while he's getting ready to go out for lunch then patrol
"What?" John freezes, not sure what he was doing a second ago.
"You've been jumpy all day. Everything all right? Stiles okay?" she asks.
John lets out a breath. "Yeah. Good. I'm good, Stiles is fine, as far as I know." He looks around at his desk, going through his mental checklist -- email done, computer off, no manila envelopes from city hall waiting, no case files lying open where anyone can see them.
"It's by your left hand, sir."
"What?" John looks up and Mayfield nods at the corner of his desk. Right. His gun and holster, which he takes off when he's doing paper work. He checks the magazine and buckles it on. "Thanks."
"You sure you don't want-"
"Hey," John interrupts her because she's got the night shift already. "I'm fine. Stiles just cooked me breakfast this morning is all. Yeah, exactly," he says when Mayfield raises her eyebrows at that.
"Better watch out."
"As long as no one's pregnant or-" John stops, leaving unsaid dead which is how he usually ends that particular phrase. Because someone is dead, more than one someone, and John just spent all morning writing up a report for the one dead and one rescued hiker that makes no mention of the fact that they were terrorized by a werewolf that his son's friend killed, who oh by the way, is John's new alpha of his very own werewolf pack.
Mayfield reads into his sudden silence the fact that they are dangerously short staffed because of a teenager on a rampage. John hasn't gotten that full story out of Stiles yet, and he suddenly doesn't want to.
"Call me if anything comes up," he says, and gets out to his cruiser.
Driving is automatic, but John feels twitchy as the sounds of the road seem to echo in his car. At a stoplight he can here the guy in the next car over talking to his wife on the blue tooth. When he turns onto Fourth, the scent of ginger from the Chinese place is so strong it make him cough. He can feel his engine vibrating like it's under his skin. One at a time, it wouldn't be bad, but everything at once has a sharp pulse burning behind his left eye. Any minute now, it's going to spread into a full blown migraine.
He tries concentrating on his breathing, which gets him to Mike's Deli where Derek Hale's Camaro is waiting. It's the one thing that seems to be going right all day.
Derek is waiting just outside the door, and his frank unblinking gaze follows John as he gets out, squints at the too bright sun, and nods a greeting.
Derek nods back but doesn't say anything, just opens the door. John winces when a new onslaught of smells and sounds greets him, but he goes on gamely. He asked Derek to meet him for lunch, twice a week and no reporting what he ate to Stiles as one of his conditions for joining Derek's pack.
Whatever that's supposed to mean. For Derek it had been his family. Now it's a bunch of lost teenagers and one lost young man who is currently holding himself stiffly next to John and pretending they don't know each other even though he only moves forward in the line when John does. The girl behind the counter gives them an odd look, but John's just happy being this close to processed meat isn't making his headache worse that he cheerfully gives her his order. It actually smells really good, none of it overwhelming, which is a nice change to his day.
"I'll have what he's having," says Derek behind him, and John turns, startled, because his voice is really close. Derek is even closer, standing less than a foot away from John, well within his personal space bubble, which, the Stiles-voice in his brain points out, John didn't even notice till now.
Derek glances up from watching toppings go on their sandwiches, nostrils flaring so subtly, John would have missed it if he wasn't so keyed up. He shouldn't be this keyed up. And he doesn't want to know what Derek smells on him either. He feels completely out of his element, like a gangly teenager himself, when the cashier asks him if he wants to make it a combo.
John grabs a bag of potato chips and a cookie before he pays.
"Let's sit outside," says Derek and he doesn't wait before heading back for the door.
They end up on benches around the fountain a block over. The steady shh-shh of the water blocks most of the ambient noise, and John feels his shoulders relax. His headache has gone away too. John looks over at Derek who barely left any space between them on the bench. He's carefully opening his sandwich wrapper as if John isn't there.
John's no stranger to teenagers, but he has Stiles, who never shuts up even if he doesn't say anything, and Scott, who would never be able to let a silence like this one go on. Pretty much every other silent kid he encounters is through work and they're usually either copping an attitude or scared. Derek's just uncomfortable and not bothering to hide it.
John's hungry enough that he lets it go for the moment. It's his show anyway, and he figures eating will put them both in a better mood for talking later. So they sit and stare at the fountain and John just takes a fucking moment to breathe.
"So," he says ten minutes later. He crumples up his empty wrapper and opens up his chips. Derek doesn't look at him, but he goes still. "Are you the reason my headache's gone away?"
To his credit, Derek doesn't pretend he doesn't know what John's talking about. "Probably. Your senses feeling overwhelmed?"
"Yeah. Sounds, smells, the sun. Things just jump out at me. It's distracting."
"It's sometimes hard for bitten wolves to adjust to the change, especially when they're older."
John looks over. "You calling me old?" he asks.
Derek's head jerks toward him, and while John meant it as an icebreaker, Derek doesn't seem to know what to do with it. "Teenagers adapt better," he says matter-of-factly.
And Jesus, John did not want to know that. He just stares at Derek as that sinks in, until Derek looks away.
"Does it get better?" John finally goes back to the relevant point.
"It should."
"Let me guess, spending time with you will help."
Derek shrugs. "Being with pack is always better." It's not exactly the detailed answer John was looking for, but he figures he'll ask Stiles how Scott coped by himself and get a better answer. Probably with a spreadsheet and tabulated graphs.
What he's more curious about is the pack. On the full moon he held onto better control of himself. The need to get back to Stiles safe and whole grounded him so he could run with Derek and the kids through the woods without wanting to kill everything in his path. It's an odd memory, like remembering being drunk where you know more or less what happened, but with time jumps and fuzzy details and odd emotions.
John had felt free. No demands, no worries, no responsibilities except to Stiles. He'd wanted to run, so he did, trusting Derek to lead him safely out the other side again.
"How does this pack thing work?" John winces. "I mean, when were not werewolves. I felt the instincts when we were out there…"
"We're always werewolves," Derek gives him a sideways look.
"You know what I mean."
"We're just pack. Or we should be anyway," Derek mutters the last bit.
"What I'm getting at is, I don't feel the least bit like I need to bow and scrape to you, or show respect like I did when we were changed," John says and is not inspired by the confused expression of Derek's face.
"You're still who you are."
John tries another angle. "What do the kids do? Boyd, Erica, and Isaac?"
"They go to school."
"And when you're together? As a pack?" John says pointedly. He has a feeling he's not thinking about pack the right way. Derek had talked about his family -- maybe it's just that simple with changing into a monster as a monthly bonus.
"I try to show them stuff sometimes, but mostly they eat my food," Derek says, which makes John chuckle because of course they do, they're teenagers. They might be lost, but they'll always know how to eat.
"How are they doing?" John asks, giving up on figuring out the metaphysics of being a werewolf.
"Fine."
Now it feels like he's interrogating a prisoner. "Just fine?"
"Yeah. Why wouldn't they be?" asks Derek, defensive.
"No reason." John raises the hand not holding his chips. "I just don't know them at all. What do they like to do?" This time Derek blinks, his stare turning into another frown so John helps him out. "You know, hobbies? Lacrosse? Isn't Isaac on the team?"
"Yeah?" Derek says like he's not sure. Like he doesn't know what the kids he says he's responsible for are up to.
John waits, but no other answer is forthcoming. Then he eats his chips, one at a time to give himself a moment, because he suddenly gets what Stiles meant when he said Derek was a terrible alpha.
He can feel Derek's eyes on the side of his face, can feel his body heat and the total stillness Derek brings to the park bench just by being present. The fountain bubbles, the jets shooting out of an abstract twist of flattened metal before splashing back into the concrete basin.
John crumples the empty chip bag. He knows what he wants to say, but with his new instincts wants to make sure he says it the right way. "You should ask after them," he says as if it's no big deal. "I bet it would make being a pack easier."
"We're fine," Derek snaps, any uncertainty gone from his voice. John gives him his best unimpressed look that has cowed criminals and Stiles alike. Derek glares, but John senses it's all a front.
The first time John arrested him, he'd thought Derek was another punk kid with too much bravado, a tough history, and not enough sense to keep himself from repeating it. Finding out about the supernatural hasn't changed his mind, and John worries that the werewolf ability to heal physical wounds only hides the real ones deeper. Derek's been alone for a long time now.
The worst thing he can do right now is tell Derek what to do. John has to get back to work anyway, so he lets it go and just lets the idea sit out there in the open.
"Well," John says, standing and holding a hand out for Derek's trash. "Good talk. Thursday?"
A little bewildered that he's getting off the hook, Derek hands it over, standing too.
John smiles to himself as they head back to their cars.
John has patrol for the last part of his workday. It's nice because it gets him out of the office, but by the end of it, he's determined that his cruiser is getting a thorough cleaning on Saturday. He can smell lunch from four days ago -- tuna salad on white with french fries Stiles doesn't know about -- and it's driving him crazy.
He pulls into the driveway with a sigh. His headache is back and he feels tired in every muscle of his body, a weighty drag that settles like a fog. But the usual twinge in the small of his back isn't there like it usually is after sitting in the car for four hours. Neither is the creak in his knee when he gets out of the car. Any lingering stiffness shakes off by the time he gets up the steps and into the house.
John has to stop in the doorway, all thought of his new and improved body gone, as his nose floods with the scent of Stiles.
He closes his eyes and just breathes for a minute. It's like walking in to the smell of his mom's cookies when he was a kid, or Eliza's chili -- everything that is right and warm and wonderful in the world, right there. John can feel himself relaxing. His shoulders drop and the tension he didn't realize he was carrying all day slides away.
"Dad?" Stiles's head pops up from over the back of the couch. His backpack is on the floor by the arm, and he's watching tv.
Love, warmth, and joy all overcome him so strongly John can barely sort them out. He smiles. "Hey."
"You okay?"
"Yep."
Stiles looks skeptical and watches as John goes to his office to lock up his gun then up the stairs to change out of his uniform. He comes back in jeans and a flannel shirt and taps at Stiles's feet until he moves them to the coffee table. John takes their place, startling Stiles when he wraps his arm around Stiles's shoulders and pulls him close. He kisses the top of Stiles's head and just stays there for another minute, breathing him in.
"Dad?" Stiles is at an awkward angle so he can't really return the hug, but he doesn't move away.
"I love you," says John.
"I love you too." Stiles shifts a little, making himself more comfortable. "So, uh, what's the occasion?"
"I can't hug you now?"
"Hugs are fine. I love hugs. We do hugs. We don't usually do, uh, cuddling on the couch."
It's true. John has always been affectionate with Stiles, but since his kid turned fourteen, they pretty much stuck to the occasional manly embrace.
"Maybe we should."
"Uh huh. This is a werewolf thing, right?" says Stiles.
John's headache is gone, and he refuses to feel bad that it's his son that made it go away. There's a metaphor in there somewhere. "You smell good."
"Creepy."
"Get used to it," says John, settling himself in on the couch with Stiles tucked against him. "What are we watching?"
It's an episode of Family Guy they've both seen before, but it's nice to watch together anyway. They don't this that often either. Lately Stiles spends his time rushing upstairs straightaway or playing video games with Scott. John tries not to think about all the times he was lying and rushing back out the door into the night again when John wasn't looking.
As nice as it is, however, Stiles gives it till the end of the episode before reclaiming his personal space. John doesn't mind. He feels grounded for the first time all day.
As Stiles flips channels, looking for something new to watch, John asks, "Isn't Isaac on the lacrosse team?"
"Yep," says Stiles absently. "First line. Werewolfed himself onto it just like Scott. He's not as subtle about hiding it either."
"What about Boyd? Does he play sports?"
"Coach tried to recruit him. Got him to play one game last year, but it didn't stick." Stiles shrugs and glances over. "I think he gets bored with stuff. He's in my U.S. History class and he's always drawing in his notebook. He's pretty good, too. Got mad skills with the pen."
"What about Erica? What does she like to do?"
This time Stiles grins. "Totally a closet comics fan! I think she wants to be Batgirl -- she's got every issue of the 2009 run and the entire Cassandra Cain."
John just stares blankly at Stiles's expectant face. He'd been more of a Superman kid himself and has only a vague notion of whatever geek cred Stiles has imparted about Erica.
Stiles, sensing this, rolls his eyes and explains. In detail. John doesn't really listen, just lets Stiles voice hum along, soothing and companionable. Eventually they move to the kitchen and cook dinner. Then afterward, John asks what Stiles is reading these days and gets a long diatribe about the DC reboot that ends with them both discussing Superman, shaking their heads at the powers that be.
Stiles pauses for breath while he's loading the dishwasher. John sips coffee at the table and tries to remember the last time they talked like this.
"Mostly I read mythology now, though," says Stiles. "It's really hard to find stuff that's actually real but every every bit helps, right?" When he looks at John, his face is as serious as a heart-attack. "Derek's no help even though he should be, but no one taught him the stuff he needs to know. He was never supposed to be alpha."
That's at least the fourth time Stiles has told John that since he was turned. "But he is," he says, because like him being a werewolf, it's a fact they can't change.
"Yeah," Stiles sighs. He leans back against the counter and looks at John with eyes too old for his seventeen-year-old face. "He tries, I guess," he says. "But you should be careful. He doesn't listen, and his plans are terrible and he never tells anyone about them until he's already done somethings stupid. I still can't believe you joined his pack."
"He said it would help, and I thought it was a good idea," John says.
"You could have made a pack with Scott."
"Stiles," John shakes his head, wondering that Stiles can see so much but he can't see this. "It's not about choosing Scott or Derek. It's about helping everybody."
After that, managing at home becomes a lot easier. John knew that between the running off and the lies that he was missing Stiles, but he doesn't realize how much till he has him back. The stilted conversations hiding too many things disappear. Stiles is still cagey -- he's seventeen -- but he lets John know who he hangs out with at school, which turns out to be mostly Scott and Isaac (who aren't talking right now because Scott's apparently furious about John being turned. Stiles says he went over to Derek's for a messy fight, but so far he hasn't shown up at the house. John's not sure how he feels about that coming conversation, but it's the one with Melissa he's really worried about.) Stiles sees Boyd and Erica in class and is also on speaking terms with Lydia and Danny (which John didn't believe until Stiles told him another horrific story about raising the dead). He tells John about Boyd's caricature of their U.S. History teacher earning him detention, and Scott's creepy eavesdropping on Allison's heartbeat all day.
As he relearns Stiles, John is beginning to learn a whole new way of reading Stiles. His scent is ever present in the house, grounding and calming. His heartbeat always is a touch too fast, skipping sometimes when he's particularly excited. With those two things, the rest of John's senses behave.
Outside of the house, they still trip him up. John's headache forms as soon as he gets in his car, even after he makes Stiles sit in it for an hour with him on Wednesday night and then steals one of his shirts to keep in there. The scent helps, but not enough. It's Stiles or nothing.
His headache leaves him in a bad mood at the station, and his normal coping methods fall apart when each new person comes in with their new scents and sounds. John's getting better at distinguishing between his deputies out of sheer self defense. He needs to brace himself against Wanda's perfume, the wet dog smell that clings to Harrison, the weird fish sauce scent that comes off Kevin. The worst is when Pat bangs on his office door, sounding like thunder and he's so startled he sprouts claws and fangs. He has enough presence of mind to jump over his desk and lock the door, but it freaks him the fuck out.
He tries to bring his senses down, tries to think about Stiles and how he smells and sounds. It works to return him to his human form, but as soon as he's not concentrating entirely on his son, his senses goes haywire again. Instead of getting better, he feels like he's spiraling out of control.
The only other person that doesn't bother him is Derek Hale. They meet for lunch on Thursday, and as soon as Derek steps inside the Jack in the Box, all John's senses zero in on him and then level out. Even as he's grateful for the reprieve, John also finds it incredibly frustrating. When they sit down at the table outside, he bites into his burger viciously.
"This has got to stop," he says, pointing. Derek freezes, like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and it would be funny if John weren't so serious. "I can't function like this."
"Like what?"
"Like a crazy person," John says, feeling his calm slipping. "I . . . changed at work this morning, and that is unacceptable." He takes a breath and tries to stop the underlying panic that's been brewing for the last three days from sneaking out of his subconscious. John hasn't felt this helpless since Eliza was dying in the hospital.
"What happened?" Derek's gaze sharpens on him. "Did someone threaten--"
"No," John cuts him off. "Someone knocked on my door. That's it." He waves the burger in his hand in a there-you-go gesture. "I told them I needed a minute and it took ten before I calmed down enough to change back." John lets out a sigh. He hasn't been able to talk about it, that's the worst part about all this. Now that he can he hopes it can get fixed.
His original plan to ask Stiles how Scott had coped had backfired when after Stiles explained about focusing on Allison, John asked, "What about when she's not around?" Stiles eyes got big and he assumed something was wrong. He demanded that John stay home immediately, said he would skip school to stay with him, and neither of those were an option. John told him the shirt worked and hadn't let on how bad it was.
"Control is tied to your anchor," Derek starts, but again John cuts him off.
"It's not working. I'm fine at home, but even Stiles's shirt in my car doesn't even things out completely.
"You should try wearing it," Derek says. John lifts an eyebrow, but Derek's serious. "It would keep his scent close to you. That would help."
At this point, John's desperate enough to try it. He sighs. The very idea makes him feel skeevy, but he's at the end of his rope. He finishes his burger letting the quiet settle while it can. Derek stares over his shoulder at something in the distance while he eats.
"How did you learn to control it?" John asks eventually. "Do you remember?"
Derek doesn't look at him right away, but when he does, he shrugs. "We spent most of our time at home when we were little. Mom was always with us when we came into town. She usually knew before it happened if one of us was about to shift in public. It was freaky," he says, a small smile showing up at the memory. "By the time school started, I didn't really have to think about it. Laura was a grade ahead of me so she was always close by."
The sense of safety that came with a secure childhood, John supposes. He wonders if that's his problem right now: he doesn't trust his new abilities -- doesn't trust himself with them. The first time he fully relied on them, he'd been so lost to the wolf he nearly murdered a young woman. Derek and Stiles had stopped him then, but no one at work was capable of stopping him if he lost it at the station. John couldn't live with himself if that happened.
"Did the others go through anything like this?" he asks. "Stiles said Scott settled down pretty quickly."
"Not so bad as you described," Derek says. "But they're-"
"-Teenagers. Right." Their young brains were more adaptable to being shanghaied by the supernatural. John sighs again. Despite the fact that he'd be able to cope better, John wants to go back to being a teenager even less. Doesn't matter who you are or where you're from, adolescence is a rotten couple years. He can't imaging trying to navigate becoming a werewolf as a teenager.
"How are the kids doing? How are they holding up?"
"Fine, I guess," Derek says, but unlike last time John asked, it's not as definitive.
"You guess?"
"They don't really talk to me."
"Do you talk to them?"
"They don't live with me," Derek says like that has anything to do with it.
"But they come over, right? You must see them, since they eat your food," says John.
"Isaac comes over most days. They sometimes show up on the weekend. They complain about school."
"Every kid complains about school," John tells him. All that time together and Derek for all that he goes on about being a pack doesn't talk to them, not in the way that matters. Right now, his face has gone hard and blank, unreadable unless you notice that he's stiff and uncomfortable, which John does. He looks like any other young man he's come across who has messed up and doesn't want anyone to know.
It hits John again, that Derek is just a kid himself still.
"How are you doing?" he asks.
"What?" Derek startles, his heartbeat, so steady before, suddenly jumps.
"You. I'm asking how you're doing?" John waves a french fry around. "You know, with everything. Life."
Derek stares for long enough to make the silence awkward. But John knows how to work an awkward silence and just waits. Eventually Derek says, "Fine."
"Just fine?" he probes.
"Yes." And there's Derek's prickly defensiveness.
"You find a job yet?"
"No." His defensiveness turns into a glare. "Look, you should come over this weekend. We can work on your control. Being out in the woods should help too."
John gives Derek a look to say he hasn't missed the blatant subject change, but he doesn't push. He really does need to get this werewolf thing under control, and he's not going to antagonize his only non-Stiles source of help. He's got time to work more than one word answers out of Derek about his life.
"I'll be there."
John needs to get back, so he starts gathering their trash, soaking in the feeling of normal as long as he can. Only it's not quite normal. If he concentrates he can hear the employees talking inside, smell the bread baking in the deli across the street. But it feels normal, like any passing sound or scent he'd smell on the street that he would just filter out. Like he filters out the sound of Derek rummaging around in his trunk while he stares across the street at nothing in particular.
Derek comes up beside him. "Here," he says, snapping John out of his thoughts. In his hands he has white undershirt, folded haphazardly. John's nostrils flare. It's Derek's shirt, and it smells like he hasn't washed it in weeks.
"It should help too," Derek says, gesturing for John to take it.
The fabric is soft. "Thank you," says John sincerely.
When Derek leaves, the pervading calm cracks. The sun is too bright, the bread across the street turns distracting, and laughter from inside rings too loud in John's ears. Once in the cruiser, and feeling self-conscious as hell, John tentatively sniffs Derek's shirt. It helps, more than Stiles's on its own. It helps even more when he pulls Stiles's shirt from the glove box and holds them together. He stares at them in his hands for a minute. This is all kinds of wrong.
"Ah, what the hell."
He takes both inside with him to the men's room when he gets back to the station.
John drives over to the Hale house around ten on Saturday morning. He left Stiles asleep at home, with a note that says he's running errands for a few hours, call if you need me. He really hopes Stiles doesn't need him.
While wearing his son's and Derek's shirts have leveled out the degree to which his nose and ears are overwhelmed (eyes for some reason don't seem to be much of a problem), they haven't stopped him from being distracted by the things he can pick up that he shouldn't be able to. The novelty has worn off, and John is done with it. He needs his senses dealt with, preferably before Stiles catches on that all is not well and interrogates him with his friends. Stiles already asked if Scott and Allison could both come over for dinner tomorrow night.
The road out of Beacon Hills is quiet. Refreshingly quiet. John's getting used to his cruiser, its sounds and smells he can keep mostly in the background. But anything outside his little cocoon, and the headache comes roaring back.
Only Derek's car is parked at the house, but as soon as he opens the door, John can hear four heartbeats as loud as drums inside the house. He's never going to get used to that.
Derek's scent is the second thing he notices, mostly because his headache goes away.
Erica, Boyd and Isaac are downstairs watching cartoons on tv. All three of them look up from where they're piled on the couch when he walks in. None of them seem to know what to do with him. He's not sure what to do with them either. He didn't think you could pry a teenager out of bed before eleven on a weekend, and he definitely hadn't been expecting an audience for his one-on-one with Derek.
"Hello," says John, nodding to them. He hadn't talked much with them at the full moon, because Stiles was talking the whole time. Isaac looks away first, and Erica says, "Hey, Sheriff," as if it's no big deal and turns back to their show. Boyd's eyes linger, but he kind of nods back.
"How are you guys doing?" John asks. He can hear Derek upstairs, first his heartbeat then his footsteps down the hallway.
On the couch, the kids all look at him again. "Fine," they mumble, more or less in sync. Tough crowd. John maybe forgives Derek a little for not knowing what's going on with them.
"Sheriff," Derek says from the top of the stairs, taking them two at a time as he runs down with young, and John supposes indestructible, knees.
"Derek, good to see you." John holds out his hand automatically, and Derek seems a little puzzled, but takes it.
"How's your control?"
"The shirts helped, but it's still pretty bad," says John. Behind him, he can feel the kids' eyes on them.
Derek nods, face serious. "Okay. I thought of a few things we could try." He turns for the door, and John glances over his shoulder at the three curious faces still sitting on the couch.
"Are you guys coming?" he asks them. At the door, Derek pauses, hand on the doorknob.
"For what?" asks Erica.
"Werewolf school," John says, earning himself three pairs of raised eyebrows and Isaac trying to swallow a laugh. Damn, almost got him, thinks John.
"We're going to work on his control," says Derek, taking a few steps back so he can look through to the living room. "You should come."
"We don't need any help controlling ourselves," Erica tells him, and John would be insulted if it weren't so obviously a dig at Derek, whose eyes flash red and angry.
"Well, I do, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to need all the help I can get," John says before Derek does anything stupid. He takes a half step between the kids and Derek, not enough to directly challenge him, but just enough to distract his focus. It works; Derek stops short, looking over with a frown. John avoids his gaze by focusing on Erica. Isaac and Boyd have gone completely still, the tension in the room so thick you could cut it.
"So come on," John says in his best exasperated, no-nonsense tone. He's had years of practice with it for deflating exactly these types of situations while still getting what he wants. "Executive decision: everyone outside for remedial butt-sniffing."
And there it is, Isaac snorts, his shoulders shaking as he giggles. Erica tries hard but she's smiling too as she rolls her eyes. Boyd is a little more insulted, John thinks, but he's the first to his feet. The joke's on John, however, when Boyd farts as he steps past him into the foyer.
Derek, of all of them, looks the least amused but he says nothing as they all head outside.
"You just. . . reach out and listen harder." Derek waves his hand toward the woods, frustrated. John takes a deep breath and tries to remember that Derek never had to learn this and the peanut gallery are like those despicable people who are automatically good at everything and always showing off about it.
John reminds himself that he has more or less successfully raised Stiles, still has a job, and is a functional member of society.
"You remember learning how to drive a car?" John asks. "You know, put your foot on the break, put the key in the ignition, turn the key, shift into drive? You actually have to give me something to work with here."
Derek huffs. "That's what I'm trying to do." The expression on his face is one to rival Stiles's when he was about thirteen.
"Listen harder. That's your advice."
Isaac snickers. He and the other two are all sitting on the porch steps while Derek and John stand in front of the house. Since he's with them, John's not having any weird issues at the moment. But when Derek told him to try listening for the stream in the woods, John couldn't do that either. It didn't help when the peanut gallery had all chirped that they could hear it.
"You should be able to," Derek says. "It's not that far away."
"It's a mile and a half off!"
"So? You're a werewolf. You should be able to hear it."
John sucks in a breath. He's been dealing with this mess for a week now, and still, Derek just saying it like that -- werewolf -- it still catches John off guard. Everything he knows tells him he can't hear that far away, can't smell each layered odor clinging to the people and cars and trees around him.
"Sheriff?" Derek takes half a step forward, hand rising in a move to reach out that he aborts.
"Yeah." John lets out the breath. Tries to think. He doesn't know what he looks like as he realizes again that his life is forever changed, but he appreciates the gesture. Derek looks uncertain, like he broke John and doesn't know what to do to fix him. He only knows that John can do this, not how. How do you find something you don't think you can?
Baby steps, John thinks. "Just how far can you hear anyway?" he asks.
"A couple miles," Derek says, wary.
"You don't know?"
"Depends on how loud it is. Humans can hear a couple miles if its loud enough."
Thunder, John thinks, not a babbling brook. "Let's see how far. Isaac, we need your help here."
Isaac startles but gamely comes over.
"Count out fifty steps and stop. Then say a word or two in a normal speaking voice -- don't tell me now, something we wouldn't guess -- and when you hear us, count out another fifty steps."
"I want to go, too!" Erica jumps up from the porch. "We can go in two directions. See how far we can hear each other."
"You're never going to remember all the words," says Boyd, joining them too. "Fifty feet isn't that far."
"It'll be more than fifty feet by the end," Isaac says.
"Pen and paper are a good idea. You can keep track of how far you've gone, too." John grins a little at their enthusiasm. He has his pad in the car, so he gets it, but he only has one pen.
"I have a couple inside," Derek offers. He goes upstairs after telling John to check the kitchen, where there is indeed a pen on the table. Among the detritus of dishes, old mail, and someone's math homework, it's sitting on top of a few sheets of paper that have job listings printed off from the internet. Some of them are crossed through and notes are scribbled next to others -- a couple fast food joints and Macy's of all places. John doesn't have time to see more than that before Derek's back downstairs, giving him a frown, but he doesn't ask why John's smiling at him.
The distance experiment goes well. The three kids each go in a different direction while John and Derek stay put. For the first couple rounds, they can all still see each other and it's easy to hear them say car (Isaac), lipstick (Erica), and pizza (Boyd). But it's not long before they're all out of sight, still saying in normal tones that John is not-quite surprised he can distinguish, things like forklift (Isaac), tampons (Erica), and we should totally get onions, mushrooms and pepperoni for lunch (Boyd). Following the sounds of them moving, John can keep up as they walk farther into the woods, and by the time, they've devolved to mushrooms smell like ass (Isaac), ugh, I'm sick of meat-lovers (Erica), at least I don't like pineapple and ham (Boyd), and, shut up, I'm paying so I'm ordering (Derek), John can hear the brook.
"I can hear it," he tells them, getting whoops from the kids, and a grin from Derek that lights up his whole face.
"I told you," he says.
"No one likes an I-told-you-so," John tells him, but he's grinning too, a little in awe of himself, and if he's honest, a little freaked out.
They do the distance exercise again, going farther until even the kids can't hear each other. Derek can still track all of them, but he says it not as easy. Boyd comes up with the idea of tracking the kitchen garbage to test out their sense of smell, which turns into a game of hot potato because none of them actually want to carry it around.
Derek's itching to run by then. He doesn't say anything, but he keeps getting up and pacing to the tree line and back to where John has settled on the hood of his car.
"You ever do stuff like this when you were a kid?" he asks.
"Kind of. We played hide-and-seek all the time, over the whole Preserve." Derek looks out into the trees, not really staring at anything but memory.
John's had enough of sitting around too. "Should we see if we can sneak up on them?"
Derek glances at him, eyebrows up in surprise for barely a second before he's grinning and wolfing out. John startles at the abrupt change -- eyes, teeth, and claws. Derek kicks off his shoes, and says, "Come on."
John takes what feels like his millionth calming breath of the day. Even with telling himself that Derek won't let him hurt anyone, it takes a few minutes before he can make himself let go. Derek's surprisingly patient about it. When John does finally change, it feels like slipping his skin, and the whole world sharpens into a new focus. But unlike during the full moon, when he could feel the lunar pull on the very core of his being, right now, John feels more or less himself.
"Okay."
He follows Derek's lead, and they're off. They find Erica first, because she's holding the garbage. Derek points John around the other side of her, and it's funny how much it's like tactics for cornering a suspect. She twigs on to them when they're about fifty feet away, but by the time she turns, Derek's already pouncing. He tackles her to the ground, and they roll till Derek lands on top. For a second, John freezes -- this wasn't what he imagined when he said sneak up on them -- but then Derek butts his head at her throat.
"Tag. You're it," he says and bounds away.
John blames not knowing the werewolf rules for how quickly Erica tags him next.
They play for a couple of hours before the boys are starving and complaining that it's a rigged game. Derek only lets them get close to him when he's tired of waiting around, and only counts himself It when John gets tagged. John's not too proud to refuse expert help, especially since he flat out refuses to tackle anyone, and the game morphs into two on three.
It's almost three o'clock when they finally go back to the house, and the pizza debates have started up again. Inside, John checks his phone and has a message from Stiles, asking if he'll be back from his mysterious errands for dinner or not. Feeling guilty, John looks over at the kids he's spent his day off with instead of his own. Now that he's done embarrassing himself for the day, he's not sure of the protocol here.
"You mind if I call and invite Stiles?" he asks the room at large.
The kids all look up and none of them seem to object, but it's Derek who answers for them. "It's fine. I'm surprised he hasn't already followed you out here."
"I didn't tell him I was coming over," John says, already dialing. "You better order us a veggie, too."
Stiles shows up with the pizza, storming into the house like a whirlwind. He gives John the full effect of his outrage, arms waving, eyes wide in disbelief. "You started werewolf school without me? That is so not cool!"
"Sorry," John says, not really sorry at all. While the others swarm over the food, he expertly gets around the Stiles-arms and pulls his son in for a hug that is fiercely returned. "You can come next time."
John's haywire senses aren't magically cured, but they are better. A lot better. Sudden changes in his environment still startle him, but they're not nearly as distracting, and he regains his equilibrium faster. By the time he meets Derek for lunch on Tuesday, John thinks he might be getting a handle on this.
"The practice was good," he says. "And by the way, Stiles won't shut up about it, so he'll definitely be there this weekend. I think he's making lesson plans."
"You're coming over again?" Derek sounds surprised.
"Yeah," says John, as if it's a foregone conclusion. "I'm doing okay now, but I could still be better. What, you don't want to?"
"No. I mean yes. I just didn't think . . ."
"What?"
Derek doesn't meet his eyes, prickly again, which seems to be his default when he doesn't want to talk about something. "Never mind. You should come over. It was good. I'll see if the others want to."
"Good." John searches Derek's face, sensing that Derek's not used to having people come to him for help, and when they do, he's not sure how to handle it. Even though by all accounts, Derek asked for it when he turned three teenagers, John is certain he had no idea what he was getting himself into. "Have they been over since Saturday?"
"Isaac and Erica came by after school yesterday," Derek says, picking up his sandwich. "Boyd had detention." He says it carefully, like he's not sure he should.
"Oh? What for?" John asks, even though he has an idea.
"Drawing inappropriate things about his teacher. History. Apparently it's his second offense. Stiles is in his class," he adds, apropos of nothing.
"Stiles doesn't have detention, does he?" John asks, just to be sure.
Derek chews for a second and shakes his head. "I don't think so."
"Good."
They lapse into silence as they finish eating, and John would go so far as to call it companionable. Derek still doesn't look directly at him, still sits stiffly, but every once in a while his eyes flicker over and he looks like he wants to say something. He doesn't, but that's okay too, John thinks. Baby steps. Soon they're wrapping up, throwing out their trash and heading back to their cars.
"See you," Derek says, his hand rising slightly to wave and maybe a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.
"Thursday," John confirms, smiling to himself as he gets in his cruiser. Derek sounds like he's looking forward to it.