Meltdown [Derek Hale]

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"Ugh, what the hell is this?" Noah asked, groaning as he bit into his burger.

"Veggie burger," Stiles said, without remorse.

Stiles had picked Julie up at the end of her shift, and the pair had got food and gone to the Sheriff's station so that they could have some sort of family dinner.

"Stiles, I asked for a hamburger."

"Well, veggie is healthier. We're being healthy."

"Oh hell... Why are you trying to ruin my life?" Noah groaned, and Julie laughed into her own salad as he looked down at his food in disgust.

"I'm trying to extend your life, okay? Could you just eat it, please?"

"He doing it to you too?" Noah asked, as he noted his daughters healthier option.

She grimaced at the thought, "no, I was in the skills lab all morning and I don't think meat's really on the table for me any time soon," she admitted. "God, it was disgusting."

"Jules, sweetheart, you picked that as a job," he reminded, and she looked at him with her face scrunched up in denial.

"No. I didn't."

"Yeah you did," Stiles agreed.

"I picked brains as a job, I didn't pick bowel resections."

The three settled into a natural silence as they continued eating. However, Stiles was on a mission and he wasn't going to let anything get in his way, "so, tell me, what have you found?" He asked, and Noah looked at him incredulously.

" No, I'm not sharing confidential police work with a teenager..."

"Is that it on the board behind you?" Jules asked, and Stilinski looked between his children irritated.

"Don't look at that..." Stiles moved to stand up so that he could see and Noah did the same trying to block the board.

"ay-"

"Avert your eyes..."

"Okay," Stiles agreed, moving to sit down and as soon as Noah went to sit down as well he sprung back up.

"Hey!" Noah shouted, and Julie smiled as she watched the pair.

"Just-it's just-I see arrows pointing at pictures!"

"Okay, okay, stop. Fine. I found something," Noah sighed, and Stiles moved his chair closer to them so that he could listen to it. His whole plan had to get the information, and although Jules protested at first she also thought having Stiles go to their dad to talk and have dinner (for it to be entirely Stiles' idea) would look better and bring their father some comfort. It was heartbreaking to hear him say he thought he was losing his own kid. "The mechanic and the couple who were murdered-- they all had something in common."

"All three?" Stiles asked, even if that was already implied. He didn't want to get a single detail wrong.

"Yeah. You know what I always say... "One's an incident. Two's a coincidence--""

"--Three's a pattern."

"The mechanic, the husband, the wife? All the same age. All twenty-four."

Julie slowly lowered her fork at the words, "wait, what?" She asked, she was an old twenty-four. Going on twenty-five, but even so, she was now apart of the demographic.

"Wait, what about Mr. Lahey? I mean, Isaac's dad isn't anywhere near twenty-four..."

"Which made me think that either A) Lahey's murder wasn't connected, or B) the ages were a coincidence... Until I found this, which would be C)-- Did you know that Isaac Lahey had an older brother named Camden?"