Work Text:
i.
John set the bugs up the week before he was fired. Spying on his son isn’t something he ever expected to do, but once his decision is made, it’s frightfully easy to drive two towns over and purchase the parts from an electronics store.
Between the restraining order and the theft of county property, he doesn’t feel like he has a choice. There’s something going on with his son, and Stiles won’t tell him. The only option left is deceit and underhanded tactics John once scoffed at as extreme.
It’s not so extreme when it’s your child breaking the law and hiding things from you.
ii.
John listens to the recordings in solitude, locking himself in his room with his laptop and his headphones and his whiskey. He doesn’t know whether Stiles is home or not, and that’s another parental failing to add to the growing list of them.
Most of what he hears is innocuous — Stiles studying, Stiles dreaming, Stiles jerking off. The last is something that John wants desperately to burn from his mind, even though he realized what he was hearing and fast-forwarded less than twenty seconds in. There are things a man never needs to hear, and the sound of his child masturbating is definitely one of them.
It doesn’t get interesting until he reaches the stuff from the night he was fired.
iii.
He hears the buzz of a cellphone. There’s a brief flurry of rustling and swearing as Stiles rushes for the device.
“How’s Scott?” he demands immediately. He sounds panicked, and it makes John’s heart race, even though it’s been three days since that night and he knows for a fact that Scott is alive and whole. There’s a pause of silence as whoever is on the other end answers Stiles’s question.
“Thank God,” Stiles breathes. The bed groans as he sits on it. “And how are the puppies? Erica didn’t have another seizure, did she? Jackson got her again, and—”
John writes down the name Erica. The only Erica he knows that Stiles knows is Erica Reyes, the epileptic girl who attends Beacon Hills High. Witnesses saw his son’s car at the warehouse, which begs the question — what is someone with epilepsy doing at a rave?
“Good,” Stiles says. “And Boyd is doing okay? I know he got shot with— Okay, good.”
John pauses the recording and breathes for a moment. He writes down the name Boyd. He thinks, for as long as he can stand it, about his son being involved in someone being shot. Then he hits play again with shaking hands.
“What are we going to do about the Jackson problem?” Stiles says. “Really? You’re actually going to listen to Scott on this?”
John frowns. He writes down, Jackson Whittemore is involved. Is a problem? He underlines the word problem three times.
“This restraining order has seriously—” Stiles continues. “We should have just killed Jackson when we had the chance.”
John pauses the recording again and pours himself another glass of whiskey. His son wants to kill someone. Seriously kill them. That’s not his joking or sarcastic tone. He’s dead serious about wanting to—to murder a classmate. Is that what the kidnapping was? John wonders. Was it a lead up to murder? Were Scott and Stiles going to kill Jackson Whittemore and dump his body in the woods?
He resumes the playback.
“No, seriously, I’m down with the killing Jackson plan. I mean, I feel bad for the guy, but his Exorcist head-spin impression isn’t— I watched him kill someone, dude, and he did it again tonight. I’m aware of how dangerous he is.”
Jackson Whittemore killed someone? Multiple someones? And Stiles watched? John wonders when that could have happened before he remembers: The mechanic. Stiles swore that he’d only gotten there after the fact, and John hadn’t pushed it. Now he wishes he had paid more attention to the evidence. Maybe he could have stopped all of this before it started, before it got to this point.
“Scott will get over it,” Stiles says. “I’ll do what I have to to keep the idiot safe. Even from his own idealism.”
There’s another pause as Stiles listens to whoever is on the other side of the conversation. John wishes, for a moment, that he’d thought to tap his son’s cellphone.
“Really? You want to do this—?” Stiles exclaims. “Why—No, no, you’re not bringing anymore of this crap into my house. My dad got fired because of this shit, and I’m not going to put him in any more danger. This time, I’m coming to you. No creeping in my bedroom window tonight.”
John writes down, Observation on window as a reminder. Maybe he can set up one of those web cameras outside that will let him know when someone is coming and going. He doesn’t like the idea that someone went through the effort of climbing up to the second story. He doesn’t like the idea that someone might have done that to intimidate his son. Is that what's happening? Someone is using John and Scott’s safety to compel Stiles’s help? But why? He’s just a teenager.
Of course, that could be why he was targeted. Teenagers are, in theory, easier to intimidate and control than adults.
“The answer,” Stiles growls firmly, “is no.”
In theory.
“Okay, yes. What abandoned building or sketchy alley are we going to meet in this time?” There’s another answering pause. Then Stiles snorts with the same distain he exhibits whenever John drives past a fast food joint. “I’m just saying, Mister Alpha Sourpuss.”
Mr. Alpha Sourpuss, John writes down, even though he feels ridiculous. It’s the only lead he has right now. He needs to know who is on the other end of the line.
“Yeah, I know how to get there. Is this a formal meeting or business casual? Come as you are? Good, because I’m not getting dressed up for you. So, any hints as to what you need to talk to me about?”
There’s a long period of silence broken only by the moan of the bed as Stiles gets to his feet. John can hear when he starts pacing nervously, the creaking of the floorboards building until it stops, abruptly.
“You did what?!” Stiles screeches. The sound is loud enough that John startles and knocks the empty whiskey glass over. He doesn’t bother pausing to retrieve it.
“No, I’m not blaming you, just— Shit, we are so dead. Shit. Shit. They’re going to seriously kill us, kill us all dead, and now Chris won’t even feel bad about it afterwards.” John writes down Chris, and then, after a moment of hesitation, adds Argent??? Surely not.
But then, John isn’t ruling anything out.
“You know what, screw waiting, I’m coming over now. We need a game plan. We need to—”
A pause.
“Ugh, that fucker needs to stop hanging up on me.”
John listens as his son grabs his things and then slams out, banging the bedroom door like a gunshot.
iv.
John has a list of names that don’t make sense, a new sense of how truly bloodthirsty his son really is, and not one idea how this fits into the larger picture. Does this have something to do with who attacked Lydia Martin? With the Kate Argent murders? This all started, John thinks, when Laura Hale’s body was found in the woods. When he caught Stiles out that night. When Derek Hale came back into town.
Is that who is pulling the strings?
John stares at his pathetic little notepad and swears that, the next time his son leaves the house, John is going to follow him. He’s going to get to the bottom of whatever his son is involved in.
He has plenty of time now, after all.