𝑅𝐸𝑄𝑈𝐼𝐸𝑀 - M.R.

[REUNION Pt.1]

By the time Mitch is done with his research, the sun is starting to set in the sky.

The golden glow on the horizon is lighting his room in a way that could almost look nice; if it didn't illuminate the sheer amount of dust floating idly through the air.

Leaning back in his chair with a huff he shuts the lid off his laptop, rubbing a hand down the side of his face as he stares out the sole window in the room - the one that gives him a clear view of the other side of the building and not much else. Empty rooms, dirty curtains, they look how he feels, respectfully drab and still tired from that long drive in a way that's seeped into his bones.

There's a pain in his stomach begging him to eat and an itch on his jaw he can't scratch that's synonymous with growing out his beard.

He stretches as he stands, joints cracking as he rolls his neck - back and legs aching with the need to move.

Rarely, he sits still these days, it's like his body knows he's procrastinating and is pleading with him to just get up and go. To just get it over with. The more he thinks about it though the more he figures that sitting still was never really his thing, especially when he was sixteen and juiced up on Adderall. Not even those damn pills could keep him calm.

It's only now sinking in that it's been nine years since he's seen his father and now he has to go knock on his door, be civil, act as any son would. There's going to be so many questions. He hates questions, anything with the potential to become too personal too fast. Even before it didn't go against all his years of training, sharing private information wasn't something he was ever big on.

If it's intimate, it can be used against you. If you wouldn't tell it to the guy serving you your coffee, you shouldn't tell it to anyone else either.

Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Anything that can be used against you, will be used against you. Simple really, the words he's learnt to live by.

Shaking his head of stray thoughts, he packs everything he's brought with him back into the duffel bag sat at the end of his bed, zipping it up and grabbing it with a firm hand.

With trepidation, he grabs his keys off the table, slicks into his jacket and walks to his car, making sure to lock the door on the way out. He booked the room for a week, so if all goes wrong, at least he's still got this.

He stops by a gas station on the way to the sheriff's house, grabbing an overpriced bottle of water and one of those prepackaged salads that have too much salt and not enough of anything else. He chugs the bottle and eats alone in his car. He doesn't feel remotely full, but for now, it'll do.

When he gets to his old house he realises, with furrowed brows, that the lights are off and there's no car on the driveway. The corners of his lips turn down as he checks the time on his watch, Noah should definitely be home by now, if his shift is the same as it was back then.

Instead of using it as an excuse to turn back around and head back to the motel like he wants to, he puts his foot back on the gas and heads further in town toward the sheriff station. The very place he wanted to avoid for as long as possible. A man presumed dead turning up to a sheriff's station nearly ten years later turns more than a few heads and news like that spreads like wildfire.

He could, if he really wanted to, wait on the driveway for his fathers return like a coward, but he's starting to think he wants to get this over with as soon as possible so he doesn't keep making up worst-case scenarios in his head.

And to his credit, he only spends five minutes parked outside the station staring at his own white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel before he swings open the door to the jeep, jumping out and slamming it shut behind him with a faux sense of confidence he hopes sticks with him through the whole reunion. It doesn't.

He adjusts the beretta in the waistband of his jeans as he walks toward the main doors, pulling his t-shirt and jacket down to cover it - because walking into a precinct visibly carrying a military-grade firearm doesn't feel like the best way to start off his first official night back in town. Even if it would make for an interesting conversation starter. Ending up in cuffs this early on in an assignment would be a new low, even for him.

Alternatively, he walks in with his head held high, shoulders straight as he knocks twice on the front desk in a way of greeting. "I'd like to speak with the sheriff," he requests amicably, voice passive but confident.

The deputy doesn't look up from the monitor she's staring at to remark, "and I'd like to be in Barbados right now sipping on a margarita in the sun, but we can't all get what we want, sheriff's busy, sorry." She doesn't sound very sorry.

Mitch squints at her in annoyance, she doesn't see it.

"And I'm sure the sheriff would like to see his missing son," Mitch states a little harshly, staring pointedly at the aged missing person's poster pinned to the wall behind her - a version of him ten years younger with spiked up hair and a wide grin staring happily back at him. Just you wait kid, he thinks spitefully, soon you'll have nothing left to smile about, and he instantly feels like an idiot about it. Chastising his former self won't solve anything.

The woman finally looks up, looking between him and the poster and back again, her head tilts thoughtfully as she stares at the weathered man in front of her, "you're Stiles Stilinksi?" She asks, accusatory and Mitch can't help but ask himself, who thought it'd be a good idea to make this woman a cop?

Fighting the urge to offend her with a brilliantly witty remark, he smiles fake and bitter, holding out his hands wide and declaring deadpan, "in the flesh."

She looks at him, eyes searching for a moment before she shakes her head, "no, I just don't see it."

It takes everything in him not to drag her forward by the collar of her shirt and scream in her face. Luckily, it doesn't come to that, because then Deputy Parrish is walking around the corner. He glances up at Mitch before going to carry on, but then he glances up again, stops, blinks.

"Stiles?" He asks, quizzically.

Mitch can't mutter out more than a, "finally," before Parrish is running back round the corner yelling, "Sheriff! Sheriff! Stilinski you have to see this, you won't believe-!"

Mitch presses his lips together, breathing out sharply through his nose is exasperation as he slowly rounds the corner and everyone in the room turns to look at him at once.

There are some gasps, some turn to whisper, bewilderment and disbelief on their faces because most of them recognise him, most of them know before Parrish swings open the door of the sheriff's office to inform him - his son is home.

~~~

WHATEVER YOU DO, REMEMBER, DON'T LET IT GET PERSONAL.