Treachery || Stilinski

Twenty-four: good friends and currents

Stiles' P.O.V:

By the time I make it to the Animal Clinic, my dad's already there, giving Scott the not-so-shocking news about Deaton.

"He's gone," he says, taking a step closer to a dumbfounded Scott. "I need you to tell me everything."

It's not a demand. He's not commanding, he's pleading. And it breaks my heart to see him like this, every single damn time. He's been in the dark this whole time, staying late night after night, trying to figure out a crime he will never be able to, because he's headed in the wrong direction.

You don't have to look for someone who goes around killing people in their sleep with a gun, Dad. You're looking for someone with supernatural power. We're not even sure if they even look human. How do I begin to explain such a thing?

And so, Scott tells him even more lies about how he took his free time to get something he had forgotten at work the day before and found out that his boss is missing.

With a loud sigh, I plop down beside Scott while my father talks with his deputies. We don't say a word, but I have a strong feeling we're both thinking the exact same thing.

Time's up. We must tell him.

"Alright," Dad says, walking up to us. "We're doing everything we can. For now, the best thing you can do is to go back to school."

Scott waits until the Sheriff's attention is focused on something else and motions towards the back room with his head before standing up and walking there himself. I have no other choice but to follow him, even though I won't like what he has to say, not in the slightest.

"We have to tell him," he states as soon as he closes the door.

Alright, that was just a little bit more direct than I had expected.

So I panic, and do what I do best in this kind of situations: I play dumb.

"You mean like...tell him, tell him?" I quietly ask, narrowing my eyes for dramatic purposes. "Or is it tell him something else that isn't telling what we want to tell him?"

"You know what I mean," he says.

An empty cage separates us, and I see Scott through the bars that keep Beacon Hill's pets from freedom.

"You remember how you mom reacted?" I try to reason. "She couldn't even look you in the eye for like a week."

I am very aware that Melissa didn't find out because we planned it, but because a psycho teenager with a childhood trauma and a psychic lizard in the form of Jackson Whittemore was attacking us.

Still, I do know my father. And even if we carefully plan it, cutting out the ugliest bits...he'll have a tough time believing it. And when he does, he'll be disappointed in my lack of trust in him, even though the only reason I'm hiding this is to protect him.

Despite every traumatic event that had occurred to me and my friends since Scott got the bite, the worst night of my life will always be the one in which Dad lost his job because of me. Because I had stolen that stupid car to keep Jackson from scaping.

The way he looked at me...I can't have him look at me like that. Not again. I wouldn't be able to take it.

"She got over it," Scott says, so quietly, I could have easily pretended I didn't hear it. "And it actually made us closer!"

I steal a glance at my dad, just in time to catch him running a hand through his face in tiredness.

"Come on, Scott..." I plead, eyes still fixed on the most important person in my life. "As overwhelmed as he is..."