Teen Wolf- "Like a Grown Up"
Title: Like a Grown Up
Universe: Teen Wolf
Theme/Topic: N/A
Rating: PG for really mild language I guess.
Character/Pairing/s: The Sheriff, Isaac, Chris Argent (Derek kind of grumbles in the background?)
Spoilers/Warnings: Spoilers through S2.
Word Count: 5,010
Summary: Companion Piece to “Picking Up Strays” and “Grounded”- Derek may be the alpha, but the Sheriff is the adult.
Dedication: Sonia, who wanted more Sheriff fic.
A/N: I don’t even know, I am just stalling on my novel.
Disclaimer: No harm or infringement intended.
It’s three in the morning and Sheriff Stilinski is sitting in the dark beside Isaac’s bed, watching the rise and fall of the kid’s chest like it’s a magical thing. Right now, it kind of is.
Isaac is sleeping somewhat restlessly, burrowed under a pile of blankets with his eyes rapidly flickering behind closed eyelids as he dreams whatever it is teenaged werewolves dream of after they’ve survived being shot and poisoned in the woods by men with guns.
The Sheriff takes a deep, slow breath through his nose to keep his heart rate down. The memory of what happened earlier threatens to make his blood boil all over again but he doesn’t want to wake Isaac with it, or Derek, or whoever else is camped out on sentry duty outside the perimeter of his fence (he’s thinking probably Scott). The Sheriff is exhausted and his head hurts, but he’s still too keyed up to sleep so he’s watching Isaac do it instead, because it’s reassuring to know Isaac is still alive.
The Sheriff had come home from a surprisingly uneventful double shift at work that night only to find all the action he’d missed on the job happening right in his own home. His kid was curled up in a convulsing ball of pain in the corner of the kitchen, turning purple and growling pitifully in a puddle of his own brackish looking blood. In the meantime, his other kid was out God knows where finagling a poison-filled bullet from some psychopath whose chosen career in life involves shooting at teenagers in the night.
The Sheriff, needless to say, is angry. Also relieved. He’s very, very relieved. Because Stiles had finagled a bullet out of one of the hunters eventually - after minimal shouting and threatening even, according to Derek - and they’d made it back to the house in time to set fire to the powdered wolfsbane inside the shell before smearing the ashes into the growing wound crawling up Isaac’s left side. They hadn’t made it back before Isaac ruined the Sheriff’s uniform with a putrid-smelling mouthful of black blood vomit mind, but Isaac is still alive, so the Sheriff figures that means the kid can do the laundry for him in the morning. For now, he sits at Isaac’s bedside and makes sure the kid keeps breathing.
This, he tells himself resolutely, is not something that can happen again. Derek had said just as much himself earlier, scowling darkly (and kind of tiredly) in his borrowed flannel PJ pants over a midnight bowl of relief Cheerios, but for all the Sheriff knows, that just means Derek is going to try and fix this problem by going out tomorrow night and terrorizing the first hunter he sees walking down the street. Derek, the Sheriff is learning, doesn’t always make the best decisions when he’s emotional. Or ever.
In his sleep, Isaac makes a high-pitched whimpering sound as he curls in on himself like he’s been shot again. The Sheriff’s heart stutters at the sight, and then he’s reaching out and carding a hand through Isaac’s hair gently, murmuring soothing sounds under his breath until the whimpering subsides and some of the tension drains from the kid’s shoulders. Isaac leans into the Sheriff’s palm as he sleeps, seeking comfort, and it makes the Sheriff’s heart stutter again, but in an entirely different way. Eventually Isaac relaxes completely and goes still and calm under the Sheriff’s touch.
Once it looks like Isaac is finally sleeping peacefully, the Sheriff gets up and wanders back to his own room, because his back is no longer up to sitting in chairs all night at the bedsides of people he loves. He’s had way too many nights of that in his life already, and he is sick of it. This can’t happen again.
He plops onto his bed with a quiet groan of relief and stares at the ceiling for a long time. He still doesn’t sleep.
Instead, he squares his jaw and thinks that he is going to fix this, because even if Derek is the big, bad alpha of the pack, the Sheriff is its only adult.
*****
He patiently waits for the clock on his nightstand to tick to six am before he sits up in bed and grabs his phone. He scrolls down the contact list and dials Chris Argent’s number. Deaton had been the one to give him the number, because Deaton is also an adult, and thinks ahead like that. None of the wolves have it handy after all, and they’re all stupid and young.
Argent picks up on the first ring, which is encouraging. “Sheriff?” he asks blearily, sounding as exhausted and world weary as the Sheriff feels.
“Meet me at the diner on 3rd in twenty minutes,” the Sheriff says flatly, and hangs up without waiting for Argent’s response. Then he pulls himself up off the bed, ambles into the bathroom, and takes the time to wash his face and change out of his uniform, which still has the dried remnants of Isaac’s black blood vomit splashed across the pants. He brushes his teeth too, and by the time he makes it downstairs, he finds Derek awake and leaning against the banister in his most intimidating pose (which the Sheriff doesn’t find intimidating at all, considering he’s seen Derek drink milk directly from the carton too many times to count).
From the severe furrow of the alpha’s eyebrows, the Sheriff realizes that Derek probably heard his entire brief phone conversation with Argent from his makeshift bed on the Sheriff’s couch. Under normal circumstances the Sheriff finds Derek trying to look scary like this flat out ridiculous, probably because he’s pretty much still a baby in the Sheriff’s book, but right now, his scary face is even more absurd than normal because his hair is standing straight up on one side of his head while the other side is pressed flat against his skull like a really unfortunate helmet (or half-helmet, as the case may be). Right now, Derek looks as lost and young and clueless as the rest of his ridiculous pack. It makes the Sheriff want to protect him. Maybe even more than usual.
“I should go with you,” Derek says gruffly, and because the Sheriff is too tired to deal with his alpha posturing this early in the morning, he simply holds up his hand somewhere in the vicinity of the front of Derek’s face.
“Stay,” he says, and doesn’t even mean it as a dog joke. Well, not entirely.
Derek seems to take it that way and growls in his throat, kind of low. “They shot Isaac.”
“I'm aware,” the Sheriff returns sharply, and something in his eyes must be really fucking scary in that moment, because Derek blinks and the arms he has crossed over his chest kind of go a little slack, like he wants to take a step backwards and apologize for whatever it is he’s done wrong. It’s the equivalent of tucking his tail between his legs, the Sheriff thinks. Sometimes Derek is his own dog joke.
“Stay,” the Sheriff repeats again, more gently this time. “Watch over them.”
Derek’s eyebrows furrow even more magnificently. “But…”
“I will handle this,” the Sheriff says decisively, leaving no room for argument in his tone. Then he turns and grabs his car keys before heading out the door.
Derek, gratifyingly, doesn’t move to come with him.
*****
Minnie’s Diner is kind of a Beacon Hills institution, insofar as it is probably the only diner in Beacon Hills that is open twenty-four hours. Granted, a couple of years ago, Denny’s had tried to move into the vicinity to compete with lower prices and a bigger senior’s menu, but Minnie’s has milkshake varieties fifty flavors strong, so it really hadn’t been much of a competition in the end. The Sheriff likes the seasonal pumpkin pancakes with bourbon whipped cream that Minnie’s serves at the end of October through the middle of December. Their coffee is decent too.
When he arrives Argent is already there, sitting in a booth tucked in the back corner, strategically away from the windows and facing the entrance. He’s got a cup of coffee in one hand and is keeping a glowering eye on the door in a way that makes the Sheriff feel like he’s in one of those old westerns that he used to watch on TV from his father’s lap as a child.
Argent catches sight of him and the Sheriff walks over in a way that’s purposeful but not aggressive. He’d made a conscious decision to come here in his civilian clothes, completely unarmed, because they are here to talk, like adults, and solve a problem. He takes a seat across from Argent and when Dana, the twenty-something waitress who mans the midnight-to-seven shift, comes over to get his drink order, he smiles at her like today is just any other day and asks for coffee and a glass of OJ.
Once she’s gone, he turns back to Argent, who is regarding him with a quiet intensity that means he expects some sort of direct retaliation for his henchman’s violence against Isaac earlier. Argent has clearly been dealing with hotheaded idiot teenagers for too long if he thinks the Sheriff is going to make a scene or threaten to kill someone right now.
The Sheriff leans back and rubs at his eyes. Then, after a minute, says, civilly, “Good morning.”
Argent blinks once. “Good morning,” he echoes, warily.
“One of your boys shot my boy last night,” the Sheriff adds next, because he doesn’t want to dance around the issue. His voice is even though.
Argent winces. “My man saw Isaac running in the woods.”
The Sheriff arches an eyebrow. “That’s grounds to shoot in your book? I’ll warn the joggers.”
Argent shakes his head. “Of course not. Hans is… new.” He looks somewhat sheepish as he admits this. “This is his first week of field training and he panicked when he saw Isaac in his wolf form.”
The Sheriff gets that, he does. It doesn’t mean he thinks it’s okay. “That sounds like an excuse.”
Argent huffs and sips at his coffee absently. “It’s not. It’s just a fact,” he says grimly. Then he sighs, and the tiredness in his eyes really comes across in that moment as he leans forward and lowers his voice. “He’s spent years training in our compound in Europe,” Chris says, somewhat regretfully. “It’s very…traditional there. I’m still trying to teach him - and the others - about fighting past the fear and the instinct to shoot on sight so that they’ll think instead. So that they’ll remember the code. They aren’t used to it. Not yet.”
So apparently young, inexperienced hunters are as reckless as young, inexperienced werewolves. It makes sense. The only problem is, this trigger-happy mentality is going to get someone killed. Or ignite a war and get a lot of people killed.
“What was he even doing, running around like that?” Argent poses after a moment. It’s a fair enough question, the Sheriff supposes.
“He was late to work,” the Sheriff admits, and winces himself, because when they put it like that, when he realizes Isaac wolfed out and sprinted through the woods in the middle of the night in order to get to his job on time and ended up getting shot for it, it really sounds incredibly stupid. And irresponsible. Especially knowing that hunters patrol the woods on a regular basis.
Dana comes back with the Sheriff’s drinks and the two of them order breakfast after that. The Sheriff pours creamer and sugar into his coffee and thinks that even though it’s mostly the hunters’ faults, it’s a little bit Isaac’s fault too. If this was a normal world, last night’s incident would have been the equivalent of speeding to avoid being late to work and causing a car accident on the way. The hunter might have been the one to make an illegal right turn, but if Isaac hadn’t been trying to race through the intersection during a yellow light, the collision could have been avoided altogether.
From the expression on Argent’s face, it looks like he’s feeling the exact same way about it. The Sheriff isn’t sure what to do about it now, because past the initial anger and panic of seeing Isaac poisoned, the fact of the matter is, both sides have to do something to keep this kind of pointless accident from happening in the future, especially since Beacon Hills always seems like it’s on the brink of horrible supernatural violence and they need to keep it together enough to protect themselves from actual threats instead of each other.
Argent finishes his coffee and leans back, crossing his arms and looking thoughtful.
“Derek isn’t planning on retaliating, is he?” he asks eventually, because he’s the adult of his household too, and he has to protect the people in it. “Hans is eighteen, Sheriff.”
The Sheriff sucks in a small breath. So it definitely is a stupid case of bad teenage driving. He finishes off his OJ and sets the glass aside for Dana to refill when she has time. “I don’t know what Derek is planning,” the Sheriff admits, because it’s true. He doesn’t even know if Derek is planning anything, really, because Derek is notoriously bad at plans and having the patience to make them. “But I’m not letting anyone get killed,” he adds, not only because it’s his job, but also because that sort of thing definitely won’t solve any of their problems in the future.
“How are we going to pull that off?” Argent poses, and when he says “we” instead of “you” it’s the most cooperative the Sheriff has ever seen him. He thinks maybe if the pack tried to reason with Argent like grownups more often they’d be pleasantly surprised.
The Sheriff considers their options while Dana returns with his pumpkin pancakes and extra whip. Argent seems somewhat amused at the sight of dessert for breakfast while he insists on being boring and eating his egg-white omelet with spinach and tomato. The Sheriff totally notices how he gets the home fries instead of the fruit cup or cottage cheese on the side though, which proves that maybe Argent knows how to have a little fun after all.
They eat mostly in silence for a while and Dana ends up having to refill coffee and OJ for them three times before the Sheriff gets an idea.
Back when Stiles had been in kindergarten, he’d gotten in a fight with an older kid named Joey Frank, mostly because Joey had been picking on Scott since Scott had been kind of an easy target back then. Stiles had ended up with a busted lip and scraped knees, and the older kid had been left to endure some pretty wild scratch marks up and down his arms from Stiles’s valiant struggles against a much larger foe.
The Sheriff, in true fatherly fashion, had called Joey’s father, who ran the hardware store in town. They’d had a very reasonable conversation over the incident - not unlike the one he and Chris Argent are having over breakfast now - and from there, something a lot like a playdate (except with punishment) had been arranged.
The Sheriff smiles down at his pancakes abruptly.
Argent’s eyebrows dart up as he puts down his fork on his half-eaten plate of mostly joyless food. “Sheriff?” he asks, and wipes at the corner of his mouth with a napkin.
“I think I have an idea,” the Sheriff says, and waves Dana over for the check.
They split the bill down the middle and head their separate ways after they finish eating. The Sheriff takes the second half of his meal to go with an extra order of bacon and eggs because he imagines Isaac will be close to ravenous when he wakes up.
*****
When he gets home Derek is still pacing around the living room with a hunch to his shoulders that is going for aggressive but really comes across as sulky more than anything. He practically jumps on the Sheriff when he gets back, raising his eyebrows at the sight of the to-go containers when he smells the bacon inside.
“You’re not supposed to have that,” Derek blurts in the same tone Stiles uses when the kid is complaining to the Sheriff about sodium and saturated fat and the state of the Sheriff’s heart. The Sheriff feels a smile tug at the corners of his mouth at that because it’s sweet that Derek cares too.
“It’s not for me,” he answers, and glances towards the stairs. “Isaac awake yet?”
Derek frowns. “Now he is,” he says, looking accusatorily at the bag of takeout.
The Sheriff ignores Derek being judgy (Stiles’s phrase, not the Sheriff’s) and heads up the stairs to Isaac’s room. Isaac is sitting up blearily in bed, rubbing at his eyes and yawning. He looks fine, which makes the Sheriff breathe much easier. He also looks sheepish, which leads the Sheriff to believe he also knows exactly where he messed up last night already.
The Sheriff wordlessly hands the takeout box over. Isaac’s eyes light up in that adorable way they do that makes it impossible to stay mad at him no matter how stupid he can be. Stiles hides behind those eyes a lot lately, hoping they will eliminate the brunt of the Sheriff’s wrath whenever the two of them end up in some idiotic life-threatening situation. It works sometimes, but the Sheriff is building a slow immunity. Maybe.
“How do you feel?” he asks, while Isaac pops open the container and has two pieces of bacon shoved into his mouth at lightning speed.
“Fine,” Isaac murmurs around his food, before going for the eggs. The Sheriff watches him inhale the food with a mixture of awe and disgust, but congratulates himself on remembering to ask Dana for extra plastic cutlery before leaving, because if he hadn’t, he’s pretty sure Isaac would have just faceplanted right into the container and sucked everything up in one disgusting mouthful.
“Stiles called the cemetery for you last night and said you had a car accident on your way,” the Sheriff says in the meantime, and is quietly amused at how strangely accurate Stiles’s lies can be. Not too amused though, because his kid shouldn’t be so good at lying on the fly.
“Okay,” Isaac says as he zeroes in on the half-eaten stack of pancakes in the second box. The Sheriff winces as they disappear in about two bites.
“Slow down,” he warns, somewhat needlessly.
Isaac obliges by chewing all of six times before swallowing the next mouthful. “Sorry about the blood,” he manages, as he puts the decimated Styrofoam containers on the nightstand, balancing them precariously on top of his textbooks and what looks like a dried up, crusty-looking dinner plate that has obviously been sitting in this room for way too long. Teenage boys are disgusting.
Isaac follows the line of the Sheriff’s eyes and winces when he sees the plate too. “I’ll clean up today,” he promises.
“You definitely will,” the Sheriff tells him, because the joy of Saturdays after he’s had a double shift is that he has all day to keep an eye on his stupid kids and make sure they remember to live like human beings. Just because one of them changes into something not-human every once in a while doesn’t mean they can forget about the details.
Isaac looks wary at the Sheriff’s very matter-of-fact tone. It’s the tone he uses when there is punishment on the horizon.
“Sorry about getting shot?” Isaac offers, after a beat.
“You don’t have to apologize for that,” the Sheriff says, and perches on the chair he’d been in last night, right at Isaac’s side. He reaches out and puts a hand on the back of Isaac’s neck, squeezing gently. “I’m glad you didn’t die.”
Isaac smiles a little. “Yeah, me too.”
“What you did was still stupid, though,” the Sheriff adds, because they can’t forget that part.
Isaac shrinks a little under his hand, but the Sheriff chases after him, keeping his fingers firmly in place. “Which is why,” he begins, not letting Isaac’s sad, adorable face do him in, “you are spending today with me.”
Isaac looks inquisitive, like that is not the worst punishment ever. The Sheriff is glad the kid thinks so.
“And Chris Argent, and some kid named Hans,” the Sheriff adds.
The sound of footsteps pounding up the stairs makes him sigh. “Derek, stay,” he says, and the pounding stops about halfway. Derek grumbles something dark about the Argents that even the Sheriff can hear, but after that, normal-sounding footsteps can be heard descending obediently back to the first floor again.
It’s good to know the alpha can be trained.
Isaac looks somewhat incredulous. “Mr. Argent?” he says, and starts to squirm like this is the worst possible punishment the Sheriff could ever come up with. There is some fear there, and the Sheriff hates that more than anything. He moves his hand from the back of Isaac’s neck to the top of his head so that he can ruffle the kid’s hair. “I will not let anything happen to you,” he vows, and knows Isaac can hear his heart when he says that, how steady it’s beating and how much of his words are not, and will never be, a lie.
Isaac huffs and leans against the Sheriff’s shoulder a little. “Yeah, okay,” he says, sounding resigned to just give in and deal with whatever the Sheriff has in store.
The Sheriff smiles. “Great. But before that, get up, get showered, get changed. You have laundry to do.”
Isaac groans. “I was shot!” he protests. Then adds, “The chore wheel says it’s Stiles’s turn.”
“You’re all healed up from being shot, and you vomited on me, not Stiles,” the Sheriff reminds him as he stands and heads out of the room, intent on starting breakfast for the others, who will be around probably in the next hour or so to eat him out of house and home.
“It’s eight in the morning on a Saturday,” Isaac calls after the Sheriff’s retreating back, like no self-respecting teenager should be forced into chores so early on the weekend.
“Our meeting is at eleven,” the Sheriff replies deftly as he descends the stairs. If Isaac has the energy to whine, he’s definitely okay to do laundry before they head out for the day. “Derek can help you.”
Down at the bottom of the stairs, Derek scowls up at the Sheriff. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” he mutters. “I don’t know why I’m being punished too.” It is, frankly, adorable.
The Sheriff keeps from chuckling to himself by reaching into his wallet and handing Derek a twenty dollar bill. “We need more milk, eggs, bananas, and syrup,” he says, before heading into the kitchen.
Derek sighs and pockets the twenty before grabbing his car keys. “Can I get blueberries?” he asks, after a second.
The Sheriff bites back a snicker. “Sure. Blueberry pancakes it is.”
Derek rumbles in satisfaction and heads out the door.
*****
When they leave Derek to the lowly task of pairing socks so they can drive out to the Argent house later that morning, a veritable contingent of grim-faced hunters in dark jackets is waiting for them upon arrival. The Sheriff can feel the tension radiating off of Isaac from the passenger seat of the cruiser as they turn into the driveway, the kid’s eyes flashing gold for a moment at the sight of so many dangerous men waiting for them.
The Sheriff reaches out to put a steadying hand on Isaac’s shoulder and the growling slowly subsides to a low rumble as the Sheriff parks in front of the house and kills the engine. Argent is standing in front of his door waiting, next to a hulking mass of a human being with a surprisingly young face. Hans, the Sheriff assumes. Argent’s hand is resting at the back of Hans’s neck in a very familiar way and Hans is keeping his eyes trained steadily on the ground like a sulking kid who doesn’t want to apologize for doing something wrong. In that moment, he looks a hell of a lot like little Joey did, when Mr. Frank had dragged his son over to the Sheriff’s to see Stiles after their fight.
Before long, the Sheriff gestures to Isaac to get out of the car, and reluctantly, the kid pushes the door open, also keeping his eyes trained on the floor as he climbs slowly out of the passenger seat. The Sheriff follows, and they silently march up to meet Argent and Hans on the Argents’ perfectly manicured front lawn.
Silence reigns for a good minute or so after that, before the Sheriff and Argent, in perfect tandem, both clear their throats and nudge their respective charges forward.
Argent raises his eyebrows expectantly at Hans, who frowns and looks like he would rather be anywhere else on earth than here right now. But eventually, Hans hunches forward and says, quietly, “Sorry I shot you.” It definitely sounds more forced than sincere, but it’s there, so there’s that.
Isaac blinks like he hadn’t been expecting an apology at all. “Oh. Okay.”
“Isaac,” the Sheriff barks, clear command in his tone.
Isaac huffs and scratches absently at the back of his head. “Uh, sorry I scared you, I guess.”
Hans starts. “I wasn’t scared,” he insists, somewhat churlishly. Teenagers are idiots.
To confirm, Argent frowns and snaps, “Hans,” at him in disapproval.
Hans immediately deflates. “I mean, okay. Thanks.”
Isaac smirks a little. “Yeah, okay.”
Around them, the other Argent men shift uncomfortably, like this whole apologizing to those they hunt thing is deeply unsettling. Chris Argent notices, and turns a sharp eye on all of them.
“We have a code,” he announces in a tone of terrifying authority. It’s a far cry from the tired, wary man who’d shared breakfast with the Sheriff earlier this morning. “We follow it, or we’re no better than murderers ourselves.”
“Yes, sir,” the contingent responds in perfect military tandem.
“Those who break the code will be punished accordingly,” Argent adds, and the announcement has Hans suddenly becoming as scared and young as Isaac had looked last night.
Isaac, on the other hand, is starting to look like this isn’t going to be a totally horrible experience after all. The Sheriff hopes he still feels that way in five minutes.
Argent obligingly gestures to Sheriff Stilinski. “He’s all yours, Sheriff.”
Hans pales.
Isaac looks less certain of himself.
The Sheriff crosses his arms. “Well,” he admits, eyes hard on Hans, “last I heard, the Community Center needs a couple of volunteers to help put together holiday care packages for soldiers in Afghanistan.” Because the Sheriff believes that learning to work together towards a common goal is more likely to keep their two sides from killing each other in the future than any public flogging or Derek-backed plan of action could. Little Joey Frank had never touched a hair on Stiles’s head again after the two of them had spent an entire weekend weeding the Sheriff’s yard together, after all.
Everyone becomes somewhat incredulous at his announcement. Well, everyone except for the Sheriff and Argent.
“That sounds fair,” Argent answers evenly, that edge of authority in his voice tamping down any protests Hans or Isaac might have on spending their Saturday afternoon together like that. The rest of the Argent men keep admirably silent.
The Sheriff just smiles. “Since I’m heading there anyway, I’d be happy to drive you, Hans.”
Hans looks over his shoulder at Argent uncertainly. Argent just nods again, grim-faced and dead serious.
Hans sighs and his shoulders slump even further. “That would be nice of you, thank you, sir,” he says, and trudges towards the cruiser in defeat.
The Sheriff turns to Isaac next, who has an expression on his face that seems to think this is somehow worse than nearly dying. “I was shot,” he reminds the Sheriff pathetically.
“Because you were being reckless and stupid and late to work,” the Sheriff reminds him.
“It’s Saturday,” he complains more lamely after that, as the Sheriff turns them around and marches them back to the car after a sullen Hans.
The Sheriff squeezes his kid’s arm. “It’s Saturday, you’re alive, and you’re helping your country,” he murmurs cheerfully into Isaac’s ear.
“Also,” the Sheriff adds, once they’re in the car and driving towards the Community Center, “I talked to Mr. Argent and you’re both under house-arrest through New Year’s now so I don’t know where you’d go or what you’d do besides what we say you can anyway. Even if it is Saturday.”
Isaac groans at the announcement and leans against his seat despondently. From the backseat, Hans looks like he feels the exact same way the werewolf does, because what kind of sadistic people ground someone through the Holidays? The two beleaguered teens actually share a moment of genuine sympathy with one another out of the corners of their eyes once the Sheriff pulls up in front of the Community Center. At the very least, he thinks this means they’re both beginning to learn who the real monsters in this town actually are.
“I’ll pick you two up at six,” he tells them brightly, and waits in the parking lot until they are both safely inside the building.
Then he turns around and drives home to finally, finally get some sleep.
*****
Needless to say, after six hours of working together at the Community Center that Saturday, Hans - or any of Argent’s other goons - never shoots one of the Sheriff’s kids ever again.
Isaac is also never late to work again and Derek learns that he likes pairing socks, which are just added bonuses to what ends up being - for the Sheriff - a very constructive weekend.
END
Back to Grounded//On to Rewired
EDITS? IDEK.
Universe: Teen Wolf
Theme/Topic: N/A
Rating: PG for really mild language I guess.
Character/Pairing/s: The Sheriff, Isaac, Chris Argent (Derek kind of grumbles in the background?)
Spoilers/Warnings: Spoilers through S2.
Word Count: 5,010
Summary: Companion Piece to “Picking Up Strays” and “Grounded”- Derek may be the alpha, but the Sheriff is the adult.
Dedication: Sonia, who wanted more Sheriff fic.
A/N: I don’t even know, I am just stalling on my novel.
Disclaimer: No harm or infringement intended.
It’s three in the morning and Sheriff Stilinski is sitting in the dark beside Isaac’s bed, watching the rise and fall of the kid’s chest like it’s a magical thing. Right now, it kind of is.
Isaac is sleeping somewhat restlessly, burrowed under a pile of blankets with his eyes rapidly flickering behind closed eyelids as he dreams whatever it is teenaged werewolves dream of after they’ve survived being shot and poisoned in the woods by men with guns.
The Sheriff takes a deep, slow breath through his nose to keep his heart rate down. The memory of what happened earlier threatens to make his blood boil all over again but he doesn’t want to wake Isaac with it, or Derek, or whoever else is camped out on sentry duty outside the perimeter of his fence (he’s thinking probably Scott). The Sheriff is exhausted and his head hurts, but he’s still too keyed up to sleep so he’s watching Isaac do it instead, because it’s reassuring to know Isaac is still alive.
The Sheriff had come home from a surprisingly uneventful double shift at work that night only to find all the action he’d missed on the job happening right in his own home. His kid was curled up in a convulsing ball of pain in the corner of the kitchen, turning purple and growling pitifully in a puddle of his own brackish looking blood. In the meantime, his other kid was out God knows where finagling a poison-filled bullet from some psychopath whose chosen career in life involves shooting at teenagers in the night.
The Sheriff, needless to say, is angry. Also relieved. He’s very, very relieved. Because Stiles had finagled a bullet out of one of the hunters eventually - after minimal shouting and threatening even, according to Derek - and they’d made it back to the house in time to set fire to the powdered wolfsbane inside the shell before smearing the ashes into the growing wound crawling up Isaac’s left side. They hadn’t made it back before Isaac ruined the Sheriff’s uniform with a putrid-smelling mouthful of black blood vomit mind, but Isaac is still alive, so the Sheriff figures that means the kid can do the laundry for him in the morning. For now, he sits at Isaac’s bedside and makes sure the kid keeps breathing.
This, he tells himself resolutely, is not something that can happen again. Derek had said just as much himself earlier, scowling darkly (and kind of tiredly) in his borrowed flannel PJ pants over a midnight bowl of relief Cheerios, but for all the Sheriff knows, that just means Derek is going to try and fix this problem by going out tomorrow night and terrorizing the first hunter he sees walking down the street. Derek, the Sheriff is learning, doesn’t always make the best decisions when he’s emotional. Or ever.
In his sleep, Isaac makes a high-pitched whimpering sound as he curls in on himself like he’s been shot again. The Sheriff’s heart stutters at the sight, and then he’s reaching out and carding a hand through Isaac’s hair gently, murmuring soothing sounds under his breath until the whimpering subsides and some of the tension drains from the kid’s shoulders. Isaac leans into the Sheriff’s palm as he sleeps, seeking comfort, and it makes the Sheriff’s heart stutter again, but in an entirely different way. Eventually Isaac relaxes completely and goes still and calm under the Sheriff’s touch.
Once it looks like Isaac is finally sleeping peacefully, the Sheriff gets up and wanders back to his own room, because his back is no longer up to sitting in chairs all night at the bedsides of people he loves. He’s had way too many nights of that in his life already, and he is sick of it. This can’t happen again.
He plops onto his bed with a quiet groan of relief and stares at the ceiling for a long time. He still doesn’t sleep.
Instead, he squares his jaw and thinks that he is going to fix this, because even if Derek is the big, bad alpha of the pack, the Sheriff is its only adult.
*****
He patiently waits for the clock on his nightstand to tick to six am before he sits up in bed and grabs his phone. He scrolls down the contact list and dials Chris Argent’s number. Deaton had been the one to give him the number, because Deaton is also an adult, and thinks ahead like that. None of the wolves have it handy after all, and they’re all stupid and young.
Argent picks up on the first ring, which is encouraging. “Sheriff?” he asks blearily, sounding as exhausted and world weary as the Sheriff feels.
“Meet me at the diner on 3rd in twenty minutes,” the Sheriff says flatly, and hangs up without waiting for Argent’s response. Then he pulls himself up off the bed, ambles into the bathroom, and takes the time to wash his face and change out of his uniform, which still has the dried remnants of Isaac’s black blood vomit splashed across the pants. He brushes his teeth too, and by the time he makes it downstairs, he finds Derek awake and leaning against the banister in his most intimidating pose (which the Sheriff doesn’t find intimidating at all, considering he’s seen Derek drink milk directly from the carton too many times to count).
From the severe furrow of the alpha’s eyebrows, the Sheriff realizes that Derek probably heard his entire brief phone conversation with Argent from his makeshift bed on the Sheriff’s couch. Under normal circumstances the Sheriff finds Derek trying to look scary like this flat out ridiculous, probably because he’s pretty much still a baby in the Sheriff’s book, but right now, his scary face is even more absurd than normal because his hair is standing straight up on one side of his head while the other side is pressed flat against his skull like a really unfortunate helmet (or half-helmet, as the case may be). Right now, Derek looks as lost and young and clueless as the rest of his ridiculous pack. It makes the Sheriff want to protect him. Maybe even more than usual.
“I should go with you,” Derek says gruffly, and because the Sheriff is too tired to deal with his alpha posturing this early in the morning, he simply holds up his hand somewhere in the vicinity of the front of Derek’s face.
“Stay,” he says, and doesn’t even mean it as a dog joke. Well, not entirely.
Derek seems to take it that way and growls in his throat, kind of low. “They shot Isaac.”
“I'm aware,” the Sheriff returns sharply, and something in his eyes must be really fucking scary in that moment, because Derek blinks and the arms he has crossed over his chest kind of go a little slack, like he wants to take a step backwards and apologize for whatever it is he’s done wrong. It’s the equivalent of tucking his tail between his legs, the Sheriff thinks. Sometimes Derek is his own dog joke.
“Stay,” the Sheriff repeats again, more gently this time. “Watch over them.”
Derek’s eyebrows furrow even more magnificently. “But…”
“I will handle this,” the Sheriff says decisively, leaving no room for argument in his tone. Then he turns and grabs his car keys before heading out the door.
Derek, gratifyingly, doesn’t move to come with him.
*****
Minnie’s Diner is kind of a Beacon Hills institution, insofar as it is probably the only diner in Beacon Hills that is open twenty-four hours. Granted, a couple of years ago, Denny’s had tried to move into the vicinity to compete with lower prices and a bigger senior’s menu, but Minnie’s has milkshake varieties fifty flavors strong, so it really hadn’t been much of a competition in the end. The Sheriff likes the seasonal pumpkin pancakes with bourbon whipped cream that Minnie’s serves at the end of October through the middle of December. Their coffee is decent too.
When he arrives Argent is already there, sitting in a booth tucked in the back corner, strategically away from the windows and facing the entrance. He’s got a cup of coffee in one hand and is keeping a glowering eye on the door in a way that makes the Sheriff feel like he’s in one of those old westerns that he used to watch on TV from his father’s lap as a child.
Argent catches sight of him and the Sheriff walks over in a way that’s purposeful but not aggressive. He’d made a conscious decision to come here in his civilian clothes, completely unarmed, because they are here to talk, like adults, and solve a problem. He takes a seat across from Argent and when Dana, the twenty-something waitress who mans the midnight-to-seven shift, comes over to get his drink order, he smiles at her like today is just any other day and asks for coffee and a glass of OJ.
Once she’s gone, he turns back to Argent, who is regarding him with a quiet intensity that means he expects some sort of direct retaliation for his henchman’s violence against Isaac earlier. Argent has clearly been dealing with hotheaded idiot teenagers for too long if he thinks the Sheriff is going to make a scene or threaten to kill someone right now.
The Sheriff leans back and rubs at his eyes. Then, after a minute, says, civilly, “Good morning.”
Argent blinks once. “Good morning,” he echoes, warily.
“One of your boys shot my boy last night,” the Sheriff adds next, because he doesn’t want to dance around the issue. His voice is even though.
Argent winces. “My man saw Isaac running in the woods.”
The Sheriff arches an eyebrow. “That’s grounds to shoot in your book? I’ll warn the joggers.”
Argent shakes his head. “Of course not. Hans is… new.” He looks somewhat sheepish as he admits this. “This is his first week of field training and he panicked when he saw Isaac in his wolf form.”
The Sheriff gets that, he does. It doesn’t mean he thinks it’s okay. “That sounds like an excuse.”
Argent huffs and sips at his coffee absently. “It’s not. It’s just a fact,” he says grimly. Then he sighs, and the tiredness in his eyes really comes across in that moment as he leans forward and lowers his voice. “He’s spent years training in our compound in Europe,” Chris says, somewhat regretfully. “It’s very…traditional there. I’m still trying to teach him - and the others - about fighting past the fear and the instinct to shoot on sight so that they’ll think instead. So that they’ll remember the code. They aren’t used to it. Not yet.”
So apparently young, inexperienced hunters are as reckless as young, inexperienced werewolves. It makes sense. The only problem is, this trigger-happy mentality is going to get someone killed. Or ignite a war and get a lot of people killed.
“What was he even doing, running around like that?” Argent poses after a moment. It’s a fair enough question, the Sheriff supposes.
“He was late to work,” the Sheriff admits, and winces himself, because when they put it like that, when he realizes Isaac wolfed out and sprinted through the woods in the middle of the night in order to get to his job on time and ended up getting shot for it, it really sounds incredibly stupid. And irresponsible. Especially knowing that hunters patrol the woods on a regular basis.
Dana comes back with the Sheriff’s drinks and the two of them order breakfast after that. The Sheriff pours creamer and sugar into his coffee and thinks that even though it’s mostly the hunters’ faults, it’s a little bit Isaac’s fault too. If this was a normal world, last night’s incident would have been the equivalent of speeding to avoid being late to work and causing a car accident on the way. The hunter might have been the one to make an illegal right turn, but if Isaac hadn’t been trying to race through the intersection during a yellow light, the collision could have been avoided altogether.
From the expression on Argent’s face, it looks like he’s feeling the exact same way about it. The Sheriff isn’t sure what to do about it now, because past the initial anger and panic of seeing Isaac poisoned, the fact of the matter is, both sides have to do something to keep this kind of pointless accident from happening in the future, especially since Beacon Hills always seems like it’s on the brink of horrible supernatural violence and they need to keep it together enough to protect themselves from actual threats instead of each other.
Argent finishes his coffee and leans back, crossing his arms and looking thoughtful.
“Derek isn’t planning on retaliating, is he?” he asks eventually, because he’s the adult of his household too, and he has to protect the people in it. “Hans is eighteen, Sheriff.”
The Sheriff sucks in a small breath. So it definitely is a stupid case of bad teenage driving. He finishes off his OJ and sets the glass aside for Dana to refill when she has time. “I don’t know what Derek is planning,” the Sheriff admits, because it’s true. He doesn’t even know if Derek is planning anything, really, because Derek is notoriously bad at plans and having the patience to make them. “But I’m not letting anyone get killed,” he adds, not only because it’s his job, but also because that sort of thing definitely won’t solve any of their problems in the future.
“How are we going to pull that off?” Argent poses, and when he says “we” instead of “you” it’s the most cooperative the Sheriff has ever seen him. He thinks maybe if the pack tried to reason with Argent like grownups more often they’d be pleasantly surprised.
The Sheriff considers their options while Dana returns with his pumpkin pancakes and extra whip. Argent seems somewhat amused at the sight of dessert for breakfast while he insists on being boring and eating his egg-white omelet with spinach and tomato. The Sheriff totally notices how he gets the home fries instead of the fruit cup or cottage cheese on the side though, which proves that maybe Argent knows how to have a little fun after all.
They eat mostly in silence for a while and Dana ends up having to refill coffee and OJ for them three times before the Sheriff gets an idea.
Back when Stiles had been in kindergarten, he’d gotten in a fight with an older kid named Joey Frank, mostly because Joey had been picking on Scott since Scott had been kind of an easy target back then. Stiles had ended up with a busted lip and scraped knees, and the older kid had been left to endure some pretty wild scratch marks up and down his arms from Stiles’s valiant struggles against a much larger foe.
The Sheriff, in true fatherly fashion, had called Joey’s father, who ran the hardware store in town. They’d had a very reasonable conversation over the incident - not unlike the one he and Chris Argent are having over breakfast now - and from there, something a lot like a playdate (except with punishment) had been arranged.
The Sheriff smiles down at his pancakes abruptly.
Argent’s eyebrows dart up as he puts down his fork on his half-eaten plate of mostly joyless food. “Sheriff?” he asks, and wipes at the corner of his mouth with a napkin.
“I think I have an idea,” the Sheriff says, and waves Dana over for the check.
They split the bill down the middle and head their separate ways after they finish eating. The Sheriff takes the second half of his meal to go with an extra order of bacon and eggs because he imagines Isaac will be close to ravenous when he wakes up.
*****
When he gets home Derek is still pacing around the living room with a hunch to his shoulders that is going for aggressive but really comes across as sulky more than anything. He practically jumps on the Sheriff when he gets back, raising his eyebrows at the sight of the to-go containers when he smells the bacon inside.
“You’re not supposed to have that,” Derek blurts in the same tone Stiles uses when the kid is complaining to the Sheriff about sodium and saturated fat and the state of the Sheriff’s heart. The Sheriff feels a smile tug at the corners of his mouth at that because it’s sweet that Derek cares too.
“It’s not for me,” he answers, and glances towards the stairs. “Isaac awake yet?”
Derek frowns. “Now he is,” he says, looking accusatorily at the bag of takeout.
The Sheriff ignores Derek being judgy (Stiles’s phrase, not the Sheriff’s) and heads up the stairs to Isaac’s room. Isaac is sitting up blearily in bed, rubbing at his eyes and yawning. He looks fine, which makes the Sheriff breathe much easier. He also looks sheepish, which leads the Sheriff to believe he also knows exactly where he messed up last night already.
The Sheriff wordlessly hands the takeout box over. Isaac’s eyes light up in that adorable way they do that makes it impossible to stay mad at him no matter how stupid he can be. Stiles hides behind those eyes a lot lately, hoping they will eliminate the brunt of the Sheriff’s wrath whenever the two of them end up in some idiotic life-threatening situation. It works sometimes, but the Sheriff is building a slow immunity. Maybe.
“How do you feel?” he asks, while Isaac pops open the container and has two pieces of bacon shoved into his mouth at lightning speed.
“Fine,” Isaac murmurs around his food, before going for the eggs. The Sheriff watches him inhale the food with a mixture of awe and disgust, but congratulates himself on remembering to ask Dana for extra plastic cutlery before leaving, because if he hadn’t, he’s pretty sure Isaac would have just faceplanted right into the container and sucked everything up in one disgusting mouthful.
“Stiles called the cemetery for you last night and said you had a car accident on your way,” the Sheriff says in the meantime, and is quietly amused at how strangely accurate Stiles’s lies can be. Not too amused though, because his kid shouldn’t be so good at lying on the fly.
“Okay,” Isaac says as he zeroes in on the half-eaten stack of pancakes in the second box. The Sheriff winces as they disappear in about two bites.
“Slow down,” he warns, somewhat needlessly.
Isaac obliges by chewing all of six times before swallowing the next mouthful. “Sorry about the blood,” he manages, as he puts the decimated Styrofoam containers on the nightstand, balancing them precariously on top of his textbooks and what looks like a dried up, crusty-looking dinner plate that has obviously been sitting in this room for way too long. Teenage boys are disgusting.
Isaac follows the line of the Sheriff’s eyes and winces when he sees the plate too. “I’ll clean up today,” he promises.
“You definitely will,” the Sheriff tells him, because the joy of Saturdays after he’s had a double shift is that he has all day to keep an eye on his stupid kids and make sure they remember to live like human beings. Just because one of them changes into something not-human every once in a while doesn’t mean they can forget about the details.
Isaac looks wary at the Sheriff’s very matter-of-fact tone. It’s the tone he uses when there is punishment on the horizon.
“Sorry about getting shot?” Isaac offers, after a beat.
“You don’t have to apologize for that,” the Sheriff says, and perches on the chair he’d been in last night, right at Isaac’s side. He reaches out and puts a hand on the back of Isaac’s neck, squeezing gently. “I’m glad you didn’t die.”
Isaac smiles a little. “Yeah, me too.”
“What you did was still stupid, though,” the Sheriff adds, because they can’t forget that part.
Isaac shrinks a little under his hand, but the Sheriff chases after him, keeping his fingers firmly in place. “Which is why,” he begins, not letting Isaac’s sad, adorable face do him in, “you are spending today with me.”
Isaac looks inquisitive, like that is not the worst punishment ever. The Sheriff is glad the kid thinks so.
“And Chris Argent, and some kid named Hans,” the Sheriff adds.
The sound of footsteps pounding up the stairs makes him sigh. “Derek, stay,” he says, and the pounding stops about halfway. Derek grumbles something dark about the Argents that even the Sheriff can hear, but after that, normal-sounding footsteps can be heard descending obediently back to the first floor again.
It’s good to know the alpha can be trained.
Isaac looks somewhat incredulous. “Mr. Argent?” he says, and starts to squirm like this is the worst possible punishment the Sheriff could ever come up with. There is some fear there, and the Sheriff hates that more than anything. He moves his hand from the back of Isaac’s neck to the top of his head so that he can ruffle the kid’s hair. “I will not let anything happen to you,” he vows, and knows Isaac can hear his heart when he says that, how steady it’s beating and how much of his words are not, and will never be, a lie.
Isaac huffs and leans against the Sheriff’s shoulder a little. “Yeah, okay,” he says, sounding resigned to just give in and deal with whatever the Sheriff has in store.
The Sheriff smiles. “Great. But before that, get up, get showered, get changed. You have laundry to do.”
Isaac groans. “I was shot!” he protests. Then adds, “The chore wheel says it’s Stiles’s turn.”
“You’re all healed up from being shot, and you vomited on me, not Stiles,” the Sheriff reminds him as he stands and heads out of the room, intent on starting breakfast for the others, who will be around probably in the next hour or so to eat him out of house and home.
“It’s eight in the morning on a Saturday,” Isaac calls after the Sheriff’s retreating back, like no self-respecting teenager should be forced into chores so early on the weekend.
“Our meeting is at eleven,” the Sheriff replies deftly as he descends the stairs. If Isaac has the energy to whine, he’s definitely okay to do laundry before they head out for the day. “Derek can help you.”
Down at the bottom of the stairs, Derek scowls up at the Sheriff. “I didn’t do anything wrong,” he mutters. “I don’t know why I’m being punished too.” It is, frankly, adorable.
The Sheriff keeps from chuckling to himself by reaching into his wallet and handing Derek a twenty dollar bill. “We need more milk, eggs, bananas, and syrup,” he says, before heading into the kitchen.
Derek sighs and pockets the twenty before grabbing his car keys. “Can I get blueberries?” he asks, after a second.
The Sheriff bites back a snicker. “Sure. Blueberry pancakes it is.”
Derek rumbles in satisfaction and heads out the door.
*****
When they leave Derek to the lowly task of pairing socks so they can drive out to the Argent house later that morning, a veritable contingent of grim-faced hunters in dark jackets is waiting for them upon arrival. The Sheriff can feel the tension radiating off of Isaac from the passenger seat of the cruiser as they turn into the driveway, the kid’s eyes flashing gold for a moment at the sight of so many dangerous men waiting for them.
The Sheriff reaches out to put a steadying hand on Isaac’s shoulder and the growling slowly subsides to a low rumble as the Sheriff parks in front of the house and kills the engine. Argent is standing in front of his door waiting, next to a hulking mass of a human being with a surprisingly young face. Hans, the Sheriff assumes. Argent’s hand is resting at the back of Hans’s neck in a very familiar way and Hans is keeping his eyes trained steadily on the ground like a sulking kid who doesn’t want to apologize for doing something wrong. In that moment, he looks a hell of a lot like little Joey did, when Mr. Frank had dragged his son over to the Sheriff’s to see Stiles after their fight.
Before long, the Sheriff gestures to Isaac to get out of the car, and reluctantly, the kid pushes the door open, also keeping his eyes trained on the floor as he climbs slowly out of the passenger seat. The Sheriff follows, and they silently march up to meet Argent and Hans on the Argents’ perfectly manicured front lawn.
Silence reigns for a good minute or so after that, before the Sheriff and Argent, in perfect tandem, both clear their throats and nudge their respective charges forward.
Argent raises his eyebrows expectantly at Hans, who frowns and looks like he would rather be anywhere else on earth than here right now. But eventually, Hans hunches forward and says, quietly, “Sorry I shot you.” It definitely sounds more forced than sincere, but it’s there, so there’s that.
Isaac blinks like he hadn’t been expecting an apology at all. “Oh. Okay.”
“Isaac,” the Sheriff barks, clear command in his tone.
Isaac huffs and scratches absently at the back of his head. “Uh, sorry I scared you, I guess.”
Hans starts. “I wasn’t scared,” he insists, somewhat churlishly. Teenagers are idiots.
To confirm, Argent frowns and snaps, “Hans,” at him in disapproval.
Hans immediately deflates. “I mean, okay. Thanks.”
Isaac smirks a little. “Yeah, okay.”
Around them, the other Argent men shift uncomfortably, like this whole apologizing to those they hunt thing is deeply unsettling. Chris Argent notices, and turns a sharp eye on all of them.
“We have a code,” he announces in a tone of terrifying authority. It’s a far cry from the tired, wary man who’d shared breakfast with the Sheriff earlier this morning. “We follow it, or we’re no better than murderers ourselves.”
“Yes, sir,” the contingent responds in perfect military tandem.
“Those who break the code will be punished accordingly,” Argent adds, and the announcement has Hans suddenly becoming as scared and young as Isaac had looked last night.
Isaac, on the other hand, is starting to look like this isn’t going to be a totally horrible experience after all. The Sheriff hopes he still feels that way in five minutes.
Argent obligingly gestures to Sheriff Stilinski. “He’s all yours, Sheriff.”
Hans pales.
Isaac looks less certain of himself.
The Sheriff crosses his arms. “Well,” he admits, eyes hard on Hans, “last I heard, the Community Center needs a couple of volunteers to help put together holiday care packages for soldiers in Afghanistan.” Because the Sheriff believes that learning to work together towards a common goal is more likely to keep their two sides from killing each other in the future than any public flogging or Derek-backed plan of action could. Little Joey Frank had never touched a hair on Stiles’s head again after the two of them had spent an entire weekend weeding the Sheriff’s yard together, after all.
Everyone becomes somewhat incredulous at his announcement. Well, everyone except for the Sheriff and Argent.
“That sounds fair,” Argent answers evenly, that edge of authority in his voice tamping down any protests Hans or Isaac might have on spending their Saturday afternoon together like that. The rest of the Argent men keep admirably silent.
The Sheriff just smiles. “Since I’m heading there anyway, I’d be happy to drive you, Hans.”
Hans looks over his shoulder at Argent uncertainly. Argent just nods again, grim-faced and dead serious.
Hans sighs and his shoulders slump even further. “That would be nice of you, thank you, sir,” he says, and trudges towards the cruiser in defeat.
The Sheriff turns to Isaac next, who has an expression on his face that seems to think this is somehow worse than nearly dying. “I was shot,” he reminds the Sheriff pathetically.
“Because you were being reckless and stupid and late to work,” the Sheriff reminds him.
“It’s Saturday,” he complains more lamely after that, as the Sheriff turns them around and marches them back to the car after a sullen Hans.
The Sheriff squeezes his kid’s arm. “It’s Saturday, you’re alive, and you’re helping your country,” he murmurs cheerfully into Isaac’s ear.
“Also,” the Sheriff adds, once they’re in the car and driving towards the Community Center, “I talked to Mr. Argent and you’re both under house-arrest through New Year’s now so I don’t know where you’d go or what you’d do besides what we say you can anyway. Even if it is Saturday.”
Isaac groans at the announcement and leans against his seat despondently. From the backseat, Hans looks like he feels the exact same way the werewolf does, because what kind of sadistic people ground someone through the Holidays? The two beleaguered teens actually share a moment of genuine sympathy with one another out of the corners of their eyes once the Sheriff pulls up in front of the Community Center. At the very least, he thinks this means they’re both beginning to learn who the real monsters in this town actually are.
“I’ll pick you two up at six,” he tells them brightly, and waits in the parking lot until they are both safely inside the building.
Then he turns around and drives home to finally, finally get some sleep.
*****
Needless to say, after six hours of working together at the Community Center that Saturday, Hans - or any of Argent’s other goons - never shoots one of the Sheriff’s kids ever again.
Isaac is also never late to work again and Derek learns that he likes pairing socks, which are just added bonuses to what ends up being - for the Sheriff - a very constructive weekend.
END
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