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Stiles had been knocked out so many times that upon his reentry into consciousness he didn’t even need to question what had happened, and honestly that shit was probably bad for his brain. He didn’t have that fancy werewolf healing he kept getting kidnapped over.
It was dark but he could tell by smell alone that he was in some sort of warehouse and really, why the hell was warehouse even a smell?
The back of his head was extra sore and his neck hurt from the way his head was hanging over his chest, and Stiles was tired of it. He had half a mind to have Derek give him the bite just so that he wouldn’t be the token human perfect for kidnapping and holding hostage anymore. He wasn’t even the only human in the pack and yet he was always the target.
So yeah, kidnapping was a regular occurrence that he assumed would continue until he freaking died.
“I am so tired of getting kidnapped. It’s Alison's turn.” He groaned into the pitch black room.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” A voice, a very familiar fatherly voice, said from behind him.
Stiles head snapped up, skull cracking against another skull painfully.
“Ow fuck!”
“Jesus Stiles!”
“Dad?” And no, fuck that, this can’t be a thing. He must still be unconscious.
“Yeah Stiles, who else? Don’t sit back so hard.”
“What are you doing here?” Stiles tried to reach up to rub his doubly sore back of the noggin but he couldn’t. Because he was tied to a chair. Because of the whole kidnapping thing. Which his dad was apparently a part of. “Fuck.”
“You say that one more time and you are grounded for a month.”
“I really don’t think that’s important right now!” Stiles shook himself in the chair for emphasis and yup, ropes were tied on pretty tight.
“It's important to me.” His dad growled.
“Oh my g-Dad what are you doing here?”
“I don’t know Stiles but lower your voice.”
Stiles snapped his jaw shut because yeah, he had forgotten in the shock of his dad being tied to the chair behind him that there were kidnappers somewhere beyond the windowless black room they were in.
“Sorry. It’s just, I was surprised you were here.” Which he quickly followed up with, “and I was surprised to be here too. Totally a shock being tied to the chair, an absolutely new experience for me. Anything I have said before this point can’t be held against me because I am in shock and I think someone smashed something over my head and-”
“Stiles calm down.” John commanded. “It’s going to be alright. Are you hurt badly?”
Stiles took a breath. He wiggled his toes and rolled his ankles best he could under the ropes connecting him to the chair legs. When they were deemed fine he bounced his knees a bit and wiggled his torso. His chest and arms were tied down in regular kidnapping fashion, but they all felt fine. His right shoulder hurt and he figured it was from where he hit the ground.
“No. My shoulder is sore and where I was hit hurts, but other than that I’m fine. You okay?”
Stiles could feel his father shifting behind him in what he assumed was a similar assessment of his own body. “I’m about the same. Might have busted my wrist but I can’t really tell.”
“Good. That's good.”
“Listen kid,” his dad sighed. “When they come in don’t say anything. I don’t know what they want yet. I only woke up a little before you did, but it’s probably just someone out on parole or something but it’ll be fine alright? We are going to get out of this. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
Awe jeez, his dad thought this was about him. It was a slim possibility that it was related to his fathers work at the station but Stiles was pretty sure that this was werewolf business. Because it felt like bullshit and that was a really good indicator of werewolf business. How the hell was he supposed to explain that under the current circumstances? His dad was going to think he had a concussion and that would certainly freak the man out and Stiles did not want to deal with that.
He'd had a plan! A good plan, a great plan even! After he was an actual adult and couldn’t be grounded for lying and flirting with danger on a daily basis he was going to come clean about all the supernatural shenanigans that had been going on for the past two years. Scott was going to come over and give a demonstration of wolfy features and tricks, probably several, and then they could answer all his questions. There would be absolutely no mention of his relationship with Derek anywhere near the conversation, that would be reserved for further in the future, and he was going to let his dad have two steaks per week for a month.
Sure his dad would freak out a bit, but he could deal with that.
But if this was werewolf business his dad was going to find out before the plan and all hope of a nice unveiling was out the window. Hell, he might as well tell him about Derek now and get it over with. Maybe he would just pass out from shock and stay out until it was all over and they had been rescued.
Before he could land on anything there was a distinct sound of a door opening and footsteps coming closer to where they were.
“Dad, listen. This isn’t about you and I need you to trust me and pretend to be unconscious.”
“What? Stiles-”
“Just do it.” Stiles hissed through his teeth. If their captors were werewolves his volume wouldn’t matter, but it was worth a shot.
The door opened before his father could respond and Stiles flinched against the light coming in a halo around two people. He could tell they were hunters. Hunters and Wolves both carried themselves in very distinguishable ways and at this point Stiles could probably pick either out in a crowd. Before his father could say anything, and he knew he would, Stiles went on the offense.
“I can't even tell you how much information I am not going to give you. You have to know this isn’t my first rodeo.”
The woman laughed. “Clearly I didn’t hit you hard enough.” She stood to his left and the man to his right and for the moment his dad was silent and that was good.
“Well I’m sure you will have a chance or two before I leave.”
“Pretty cocky for a boy tied to a chair.” The man sneered. What was it with bad guys and sneering? Was it like Hales and growly eyebrows?
“All I've got is my wit and my looks which is certainly more than you seem to have.” Stiles smiled broadly. It earned him a sharp punch to the face.
“Hey!” His dad yelled. So much for playing dead.
“I’m fine.” Stiles spit blood onto the floor. His lip throbbed and he hated when his lips split. It took forever to heal. It would help if he didn’t lick it constantly. Or let Derek lick it in some sort of attempt at healing it with his wolfiness.
“What exactly do you want?” Stiles turned to the woman. He needed to keep his father as removed from the situation as possible, which was hard when they were strapped back to back. “Am I bait? Do you want information? Both? What is it?”
The woman, he was going to call her Karen even though she lacked the haircut for the name, smiled. “Bait.”
TWTWTW
It wasn’t the first time he had been used as bait to draw Derek and the pack out. It was, however, the first time he’d been stabbed within minutes of waking up as said bait. Stiles wasn’t sure if they knew he was the Alpha's boyfriend but smearing Stiles' blood around town was definitely going to get his attention.
“That will be enough to bring the dogs running, don’t you think?” Karen laughed as she pulled her blade from Stiles' thigh. He groaned through gritted teeth, because fuck if she was going to get to hear him scream, as she wrapped a handkerchief around his now bleeding thigh before leaving the room. The door shut loudly enveloping them in darkness once more.
She had known where to strike, of course she did, probably didn’t want him to die too quickly. Hunters always wanted the pack to come and see their human hurting, for their betrayal against humanity for joining a wolf pack.
Werewolves didn’t care so much.
“Stiles! Stiles, are you alright?”
His father was craning around as if he could see Stiles in the dark.
“Dad, I’m alright. She didn’t stab anything important.”
“Stab!”
Right, he hadn’t seen her stab him. Because he couldn’t turn around.
“Yeah. It’s not serious though. Really small knife. Like a swiss army one.” It hadn’t been a small knife. And had she not wanted to keep him alive she could have nicked an artery easily. Still he was bleeding and left long enough without a bandage it would be problematic, artery or no.
“Stiles, what is going on? Who are those people? What do they want from you?” It was the Sheriff's voice he was using. The one that meant he was really in trouble if he even tried to withhold information. Stiles took a deep breath, and then another.
“Okay.” Stiles breathed out. “Okay. So I am going to tell you the truth and it’s going to sound insane. Like clinically, institutionally insane. But I’m not lying, and I have proof for when,” if his mind unhelpfully supplied, “we get out of here. But I need you to trust me.”
“Of course I trust you Stiles. Now what the hell is going on?”
Stiles breathed out quickly. “Right, so Karen and Hanson-”
“You know them?”
“No. She just reminds me of a Karen meme off the internet and Hanson resembles the take my strong hand -you know what. It’s not important. I just gave them nicknames to help deal with the terribleness that is this situation. Anyway, they are hunters and they want to know where Derek and Scott and the rest of my friends are and,”
“Why?” His father asks, then, “Wait, Derek Hale? What the hell has he gotten you messed up in?”
“Dad, focus. The why is the big issue here, and again, I cannot stress this enough, I am not joking around right now.”
“Just tell me what's happening Stiles!”
“Werewolves!” Stiles spit out. “All my friends are werewolves. Like full on howl at the moon, right out of a bad 80’s movie werewolves. Karen and Hanson are werewolf hunters and since I’m a human they figure ‘hey easy target. Let’s use fleshy fleshy human to draw out the werewolves so we can kill them and make them into rugs.’ She stabbed me in the leg to smear my blood around town like some crazy territory mark of a deranged person and honestly I am sick of it. It’s like my superpower getting rescued by the pack. But yeah, the big secret has been werewolves and I’m sorry I have been lying to you for like two years but I was going to tell you soon! I promise. I had a whole plan that Scott was going to come show you his werewolf face and then I would explain all the lying and then we would laugh about it. Oh my god please say something.”
Stiles breathed heavily from his outburst and from trying to manage the pain in his leg but it wasn’t really working. He really hoped that it was just the meat of his thigh she had hit. He didn’t feel woozy or anything yet but he couldn’t be sure without the light to see how bad the damage really was.
“Dad?” He tried after the silence stretched too long.
“I’m thinking.” His dad said quietly.
“Care to think out loud?” Stiles pushed. He needed to get something to distract him from the pain, even if it was an argument with his father.
His father sighed. “A lot of stuff makes sense all of a sudden.”
“You believe me?”
“I’m still going to want a demonstration.” He hummed. “That's why you’ve been hurt so much lately?”
“Running with wolves is a hazardous pastime.”
“I knew those all couldn’t be from lacrosse.”
“Yeah.” Stiles swallowed thickly. “Dad I'm really sorry I lied to you so much. Things were so bad for a while and I couldn’t risk you getting hurt.”
“That’s not your job Stiles. That’s mine.”
“I know. But I made a judgement call and I stand by it.” He could feel his father's shrug as if he was saying, ‘what can you do?’
“Is that why Scott's asthma went away?”
“Yup. Werewolf healing and all that. It’s not actually gone, it's just his body heals it so fast it’s like it’s not there. Same with Erica’s epilepsy.”
“Huh.”
Stiles looked down at his leg and sees nothing, which was probably good because he really didn’t like to see himself bleed. He could feel the dampness of his jeans around the stab wound growing. “So, I know that I said the stab wasn’t that big of a deal, but I think we need to at least wrap it better than a hanky does. But to do so we need to get out of these chairs. Between the two of us we can figure that out right?”
“You say that as if I haven’t been trying to untie myself this entire time.”
“Any luck?”
“None.” His father replied dejected.
“Well, those puppies better find us soon then.”
TWTWTW
His dad wanted to know about werewolf business that had been attributed to mountain lions, and what a bad rap they had gotten out of the deal, and it was enough to keep him occupied until the pack arrived. It was the usual howling, growling, and gunshots that accompanied these sorts of fun supernatural events. He smiled. “Oh good. They made it.”
“That is a terrifying sound.”
Stiles had thought so too once. But now it was a sound that meant help and rescue. A sound that meant his friends had come for him, and it only brought him warmth.
The shooting eventually stopped and Stiles could hear someone moving fast towards where they were. And he was sure it was the grumpiest one of the bunch.
The door broke open and Derek was in front of him before his eyes could adjust to the light.
“Stiles,” Derek breathed such relief into his name that he felt it in his heart. In quick steps Derek's hand was hot on his thigh, the pain dulling and giving him room to think. “You’re hurt.”
“Tis’ but a flesh wound.” Stiles smirked through the pain. “I need something to wrap it in. And I definitely need stitches.”
Derek did that thing that Stiles loved when he had a lot of things he wanted to say but they were too emotional for him to make actual words. It meant things like ‘I was worried, ’ and ‘ Don’t scare me like that, ’ and of course the never said but always felt ‘ I love you, please don’t leave me.’
He leaned his forehead onto Stiles pushing gently like a dog might nudge another before bending his head further down to kiss his lips. If Derek ever found out that Stiles compared his intimate emotional moment to a dog nudge he’d probably leave him, but Stiles loved it nonetheless.
“If you are doing what I think you are doing while I am still tied to a chair I am going to scream.”
For the second time that day the back of Stiles sore head connected with his fathers as he quickly pulled away from Derek’s perfect lips. It was a side effect from being near Derek, especially when kissing was involved. He’d simply forgotten where they were and who was present.
“Stiles, Jesus! Stop doing that!” John groaned.
“Sir, I uh-we weren’t, and uh-” Derek started pathetically and at any other time it would be adorable.
“How is this my life!” Stiles insisted. Fresh tears formed in the corners of his eyes from the pain. If he hadn't had a concussion before he definitely had one now.
TWTWTW
Stiles needed 8 stitches and even though he asked very nicely, cried really hard, he did not get to be put under. It helped that Melissa was the one giving the stitches and she did shoot the general area up with lidocaine, so that was nice.
Derek held his hand and drained the rest of his pain, so that made it better.
What wasn’t helping was his father standing over him yelling his displeasure at werewolves, Derek, the lying, and basically anything he could shake a stick at. Seriously, Stiles had a headache.
Melissa, bless her, commanded John to stop yelling at Stiles because she had a needle and would stab him with it.
“I just wanted to keep you safe.” Stiles sighed pathetically. He didn’t even care how he sounded because he was tired and his head still fucking hurt.
“From werewolves?”
“Dad.”
“Or your boyfriend?”
“Dad.” Stiles whined.
“Oh wait, your boyfriend is a werewolf. Imagine that.”
“Dad!” Stiles spit.
“And what about you?” His dad rounded his verbal assault on Derek, who was doing a magnificent job of hiding behind Stiles and not making eye contact. “Do you routinely put all the teenagers in danger or is it just my son? Who you are apparently dating. How long has that been going on?”
“No. I don’t- awhile? Or not.” Derek sputtered and really Stiles did not envision the amount of uncomfortable his father would make Derek when this moment came.
“Well what is it?”
“Okay John,” Mellissa latched onto his arm drawing his attention to her. She had patched up Stiles thigh with a big band-aid and when he glanced down at it he found she had drawn a little smiley face in permanent marker. It was sweet. “Why don’t we take a break from the interrogation, yeah?”
“What, no!” His father sputtered. “I’m not done talking about this.”
“Well for now you can be.” She spun him around and pushed him towards the kitchen. “Leave the boys alone for a second alright? Let's go make coffee and talk about the joys of supernatural parenting.”
“Melissa!”
“Move it buster.”
The Sheriff grumbled but allowed himself to be manhandled from the room throwing a, “we are talking about this later,” over his shoulder.
Stiles turned his head around to look at Derek.
He at least had the decency to look properly embarrassed at himself.
“You were the most unhelpful there, big guy. Like the absolute worst.”
“I know.” Derek nodded his agreement. “I panicked.”
“Yeah,” Stiles barked out a laugh. “That was obvious.”
Derek’s ears were pink in his embarrassment but he had slid his hand up to cup the back of Stiles head and was pulling the pain there and it felt really nice.
“Well he knows now, so that's over.”
“It could have gone better.” Derek grumbled.
“That's true.” He turned his shoulder so that he could rest his face in the soft space of Derek's neck breathing out some of the stress of the day. “Thanks for coming to get me.”
“I got lost on my way to the gym. I found you by accident.”
“Oh whatever jerk.” Stiles laughed.
Derek pressed a kiss against the side of his head. “I'll always come for you.”
And Stiles just smiled because he knew that it was true. No heartbeat lie detector required.