Chapter 1: 1: Cheesecake
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"Nuh uh!"
Noah Stilinski sighed, shoulders slumping even as he cursed internally; he'd thought for sure he was in the clear with Stiles off doing…whatever supernatural things he was doing these days.
"Hand over the contraband, Daddio." Stiles held out his hand expectantly, and Noah begrudgingly passed the plastic container of cheesecake over. "I can't believe you!" Stiles said, turning and tossing the still open container into the trash. Noah mournfully watched it land top down right on top of pencil shavings. He wasn't desperate enough to eat it out of the trash regardless, but even if the thought had crossed his mind there was no way he could act on it now. Not that he would have.
Damn, but he'd been looking forward to that cheesecake all day.
"-turn my back on you for a second!" Stiles was saying, flailing his arms dramatically as he ranted about Noah's health and the sting of betrayal and just in-general let loose enough drama to embarrass a soap opera. Noah made sure to look appropriately contrite (or at least tried to; given the indignant sputter and accusations of sulking he probably wasn't pulling it off very well) and "Uh huh" in all the right places. Stiles would run out of steam and leave eventually.
And only once he had, and Noah was absolutely sure his son had left the station, would the sheriff retrieve the second piece still hidden in his desk drawer.
Chapter 2: 2: Liar!
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Despite what some people (coughDerekcough) probably thought, Stiles wasn’t stupid. Yes, he was spastic. Yes, he tended to alternately obsess and go off on wild tangents, but that didn’t mean he was incapable of noticing something that was right in front of his face.
Who was the first to figure out Scott was a werewolf? Stiles, that’s who!
Ok, strictly speaking, the first person to figure it out was probably Derek, but he’d totally used his freaky werewolf senses to just smell it on him (Which, like, sounded alternately amazing and horrifying because on the one hand you could smell everything and on the other you could smell everything!) and was totally disqualified because of it.
And that was a tangent that was not at all relevant to the current issue. The point, again, was this: Stiles was perfectly capable of noticing something that was happening right in front of his face.
And what was happening was that Stiles’ dad—his father, his daddio, his one remaining parent—was putting on weight.
Yeah, it wasn’t a lot, and someone with less of an eagle eye than Stiles might not have noticed, but Stiles noticed. Stiles noticed everything. And what he was noticing right now was his dad’s stomach was pushing forward against his shirt slightly. And once he noticed that, it was impossible not to notice that Dad’s face was ever-so-slightly fuller than it had been the last time Stiles visited.
It probably wasn’t a lot; probably only ten pounds or so, fifteen tops, (and since Stiles hadn’t been home in four months it really wasn’t all that much) but that wasn’t the point! The point was Dad was supposed to be on a diet! A strictly regulated one designed to maximize his health and ensure he didn’t develop any health problems! And one did not put on 10-15 pounds if one was actually following said diet!
“So, Dad,” he said, folding his arms and leaning against the kitchen wall to give his traitorous father the best judgmental stare he could muster.
His dad, poised leaning against the kitchen sink as he hurried through breakfast to get to work, paused in the act of lifting a spoonful of Stile’s best oatmeal (flavored with honey rather than sugar, thank you very much) and regarded his son warily. “Yes?”
“Anything you want to tell me? Any confessions you want to get off your chest?”
“Noooo,” Dad said slowly, but Stiles saw the telltale wince he couldn’t hide and felt a surge of indignation that he quickly suppressed. He’d give the old man a little more time to come clean.
“You sure about that?” He asked, leaning forward and staring as judgmentally as he could. “Are you really sure, padre?”
“Son, you’re acting crazy,” the sheriff said, rolling his eyes (and coincidentally removing Stiles and his epically judgmental gaze from his line of sight).
Stiles lost patience. “You’ve been cheating on your diet!” He exploded, flailing his arms wildly. His dad looked at him in affront.
“I have not!”
“Oh, yeah?” Stiles crossed the kitchen and gave his dad a deliberate poke in the midsection, prompting a yelp of offense. As expected, rather than meeting the pliable-yet-flat stomach of a man who didn’t ignore restrictions put in place for his own good, his fingertip encountered the squishy, burgeoning pudge of a lying-liar-who-lies! “Then what’s this, Dad, huh?”
For a moment, Stiles thought the sheriff would try to keep up with the lie, but the older man apparently decided there was no point in hiding it anymore.
“Ok, I admit, I’ve cheated a little. But Stiles, I’m the parent here, even if you are grown up now, and you do not get to mandate my diet anymore. Especially since you’ve moved out!”
The resulting argument ended with the sheriff late for work and with Stiles vowing that for the rest of his visit his dad would be eating nothing but steamed vegetables and liking it, or else.
Chapter 3: 3: Scale
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Noah stared at the bathroom scale the way other people might stare at a venomous snake.
That wasn’t nearly as crazy as it sounded, considering the scale had been a “present” from Stiles at the end of his last visit.
“The old one’s so old dad,” Noah’s beloved son had insisted, with flailing that Noah had dodged with long practice. “They get less accurate as they get older!”
“It’s not like I ever really use it, Stiles,” Noah had pointed out reasonably.
“Yeah, and that’s why you put on 15 pounds between me leaving for college and my first visit home,” his son had shot back without missing a beat.
There’d been some back and forth about Stiles not being able to prove Noah had put on that much weight, with Stiles insisting he didn’t need proof because he had eyes , and somehow that had culminated in Stiles extracting a promise that he would use the new scale at least once a month.
He hadn’t used it in three, not since the day he first stepped on and discovered a reading of 212, a full 20 pounds higher than he’d been when Stiles moved out. He hadn’t been surprised; his work pants had gone from “a little snug” to “actually pretty tight” and he’d discretely switched to the next size up the day before he bit the bullet.
He’d also had to loosen his belt a notch, but that really went hand in hand with the pants-upsize, so no surprise there, either.
What was a surprise was Stiles insisting that Noah wasn’t keeping his promise and using the scale. Noah had tried to protest (lie) that “Yes, son, of course I have,” and the resultant sputtering and yelling had ended with him promising to weigh-in before week’s end just to get some peace.
Now that the moment had come, though, he was feeling a little trepidation.
He wasn’t wearing anything other than his briefs (he had a feeling the number was going to be high enough without any added weight from extra clothing), and his bare-chested reflection left no doubt that he was starting to get a belly. It wasn’t anything huge (not yet, at least), but he couldn’t pretend it was just a little softness: there was a definite bulge and roundness to his midsection that hadn’t been there before.
(Even if his reflection hadn’t made it obvious, the joking comments about “Too many donuts” and “middle age spread” he’d been subjected to, along with a disconcerting number of belly pokes and stomach pats from the more irreverent deputies and frisky women did the same.)
Thankfully his chest was still fairly strong looking, and the added weight had actually smoothed some of the signs of aging his face was showing, so that was a plus.
Well, there was no more use delaying it: Time to bite the bullet. With one last glance at his reflection, he stepped up onto the scale.
It was one of those fancy ones that beeped when it had finished, so he just stood there for a moment until it let out a cheerful chime. He looked down, suddenly hyper-conscious of how he had to lean forward just a little to see past the curve of his burgeoning belly, and let out a low whistle when he saw the reading: 237.
‘237,’ he thought to himself. ‘Dang, that’s a full 25 pounds since Stiles last visited; 45 altogether.’
‘Guess Stiles had a point about all those burgers,’ he mused. ‘Maybe I should cut back…’
Then he actually pictured what it would be like going back to the bland, tasteless health food Stiles had been forcing down his throat for years, and promptly decided a little extra weight never hurt anyone.
He also decided he was going to lie when Stiles asked him what the scale said. He’d just say something vague like “Oh, about the same,” and switch topics to Stiles' studies before his boy could build up steam. It was the perfect plan.
His phone, on the bathroom counter in case of work emergencies, abruptly rang. He answered without looking at the caller. “Stilinski here.”
“237 POUNDS!” Stiles shrieked into his ear, loud enough that Noah reflexively jerked the phone away. “DAD, WHAT THE FRACK?! YOU’RE CHEATING ON YOUR DIET AGAIN, AREN’T YOU!”
“Son, how the hell do you–” Noah trailed off as he abruptly put several pieces together: The way the box had been taped instead of glued down, how eager Stiles had been to replace the old scale, how quick he’d been to dispose of the box, not even allowing Noah to read the list of features and, most damningly, the “Weight Tracking” feature the big words on the box he had managed to read bragged about, combined with the bluetooth icon in the lower left corner of the scale’s platform.
“Stiles,” he began, holding his temper by a thread, “did you rig this thing to notify you of the results?”
“Don’t change the subject!” Stiles squawked, immediately confirming all of Noah’s suspicions. “Besides, I had to do something to stop you from lying to me! You can’t deny it anymore, old man: You’re a cheating-cheater-who-cheats!”
Noah took a moment to breathe deeply and pinch the bridge of his nose. Violations of privacy aside, his son did all this because he cared. To the point of borderline psychosis, perhaps, but it was a little bit endearing. Very little .
That said, Noah already had the perfect punishment in mind for his sneaky, underhanded, weight-watching spawn.
“For lunch today,” he told Stiles calmly, “I’m having a triple cheeseburger, a double order of curly fries, and a hot fudge sundae for dessert.”
He hung up before Stiles could do more than shriek in outrage.