Shifted

25 - Tense Conversations Part 2

After Stiles reassured him that he was alright, Noah decided to clock out early and get his little delinquent home to rest his leg. That honestly took a bit more fight than Noah was expecting. Stiles was adamant that his leg was just sprained and his dad was needed at the station.

"Don't you need to be here, you know when the M.E. finishes his report?"

Stiles protested but Noah was already getting his stuff together.

"I'll be on-call Stiles but I do need a break. Besides, didn't you just say you'd still be at the game tonight to watch?"

"Well yeah but dad, I'm still not playing."

"I know son." Noah said, "But I don't go to those games because you play, I go because it matters to you and I want to be a part of it."

Unable to deny his father this, Stiles remained on the small couch in his dad's office his injured foot elevated on the arm of the couch with an ice pack covering it. Looking at his foot, he vaguely wondered what kind of damage he's done to his foot by fracturing it and refusing to let it heal.

"Good, wait here for a few minutes, I just have to check on a few things before we leave."

"Got it dad." Stiles replied.

Hesitating by the door, Noah looked at Stiles' foot and wondered if it would stop Stiles from looking through his desk (something he's done plenty of times before, even when he was too small to see above his old desk when he was still a deputy). Not trusting that it wouldn't, Noah went back to his desk and locked all the drawers.

"Stay on that couch, please."

"I will."

Stiles sighed when Noah left. His dad might have been worried but Stiles honestly had no intention of snooping around his desk. With everything going on in his life right now, he just didn't have enough brain cells left to play detective with his dad's cases. Not when he already knew the culprit to his biggest case.

More than that, he wanted to sleep.

For days now, sleep has been the last thing on his mind. He didn't need caffeine or Adderall anymore but the adrenaline in his veins and the fear that was left over from that nightmare of the burning house and murderous hunters shooting him full of arrows, were more than enough to keep him up. He'd spend part of the night on his computer adding to his crime board, and the other half sitting on his windowsill and just staring at the moon.

He was drawn to it, like it held everything good and perfect and wonderful, the answer to all his problems. And yet, he resented it as well for its part in the curse he had to suffer through.

But right now, with the game a non-issue and Derek and Laura's freedom from police custody all but assured, and secure in the fact that he was in a police station with an experienced werewolf a few feet away, Stiles drifted to sleep.

OoOoO

Letting his deputies know about his plan to go home was only part of the reason Noah didn't take Stiles home immediately. After finding and speaking with Deputy Matthers to call him immediately of any new updates regarding the Hale case and/or Dooley's investigation, Noah headed straight for the gun range at the back.

There, he found just the deputy he was looking for emptying a nine millimeter at the long abused wooden target 10 meters away. He waited until she finished and her gun safely cleared on the table before he made his presence known.

"Sheriff." She greeted.

Noah smiled at the young woman. Tara Chadwick was one of his most trusted deputies. She hasn't been on the job as long as some of the other deputies, but Noah trusted her. He was her training officer when she first got hired and they quickly formed a familial bond that spread to their families. Stiles saw Tara as an older sister and Noah knew that Tara felt a similar sibling bond with his son.