Chapter Text
Stiles is in Harris’s class for detention. Again. It’s maybe the seventh time this month, and the third time this week.
It’s a Wednesday.
It really wasn’t his fault, okay? Aiden had been acting like a douchenozzle and rubbing up against Lydia every time Stiles’s gaze happened to venture in that direction. Harris really can’t expect him to be in a room with some ridiculously volatile chemicals and ridiculously volatile assholes and expect everything to go smoothly.
And while he’s not saying he did set Aiden’s cross country duffle on fire; he isn’t exactly denying it either. It’s all about the street cred.
Plus he’s not even into Lydia anymore. He’s currently about 80% into dicks and 20% into chicks (It may even be 85% to 15% but he can’t really be fussed with the specifics). The fact that Aiden is fucking with him just to fuck with him is what set him off. Not to mention that Aiden is at best a flavor of the month. There’ll be a new hunk in a couple weeks, while Stiles is fairly certain he’ll be Lydia’s second in command when she takes over the world. No matter how far in the future that ends up being. Lydia’s got a lot of things on her bucket list.
Anyway, back to the point. What is he talking about? Oh yeah. Detention. For the third time. With evil fucking Harris who insisted that today, he isn’t going to let Stiles out without a chat with his father first. His father doesn’t get off work till nine.
Luckily he’d had track practice (where he goaded Finstock into making it run late) and it was nearly 6:30 by the time he got to Harris’s classroom but still. He should be at home and elbow deep in some Doritos right about now.
Instead he’s cleaning nasty beakers that don’t look like they’ve been cleaned since the 90s. They actually have some unidentifiable brown substance congealed on the outside. It’s all he can do not to barf. Stiles knows these aren’t the beakers they use in day to day experiments, which means Harris has pulled them out as a special brand of torture just for Stiles. Fucker.
He grabs a dish towel and a beaker, thanking whatever force is out there that he only has to be here till his dad can get here. He wouldn’t put it past Harris to keep him there until the beakers were spotless, knowing full well that that would probably never happen. Like he said: fucker.
--
His dad walks in two hours later, a whole half an hour before expected, and Stiles almost wants to cry a little out of gratitude. More often than not, his father is late getting off work and for him to be early today is indescribably satisfying. He shoots Stiles an exasperated look, while Stiles throws him one of Bambi-like innocence. He rolls his eyes and turns to face Harris.
Mr. Harris is looking at the Sheriff with utmost respect, and it’s kind of a baffling look in Stiles’s opinion. He sure as hell has never seen that look, or anything like it, grace Harris’s face before.
“Sheriff, thanks for meeting me today. Would you like to take a seat?” Harris shoots Stiles a quick look then, face reverting to disdain and annoyance. Ahh, that’s more like it.
“Well, here’s the thing, Mr. Harris. I’d really like to get out of here as soon as possible. It’s late, and it was Stiles’s night to make dinner, and because of his detention there isn’t any dinner, so can we just make this quick and painless, please?” Stiles hides a gleeful grin at the thoroughly reprimanded look on Harris’ face and silently vows to let his dad have a cheeseburger tonight. Maybe one or two fries.
“Of course, Sheriff. Look, I get it. It’s senior year. Stiles is applying to colleges, and while it seems that high school has become trivial, I can assure the both of you, it has not. He needs to continue to do well for the rest of his year, as do the rest of his peers, and they cannot do so when we are having daily distractions by Mr. Stilinski here. He nearly set a student on fire today.”
“Hey, you have no proof of that!” Oh shit, did he say that out loud? Looks like his brain to mouth filter is currently AWOL. Nothing that hasn’t happened before.
The sheriff turns around then and shoots Stiles a look, ‘Really, Stiles?’ before turning back to Harris.
“I’m sorry Adrian, Stiles must be off his meds or something because I know my son is not that stupid. You can rest assured that nothing of the sort will ever happen again.”
Mr Harris smiles, “I thought you might say as much. I do believe, however, that Mr. Stilinski over here isn’t being challenged enough. He breezes through the coursework, and then just sits around aimlessly, wreaking havoc and disrupting others.”
“Well what do you suggest I do about it? I know my son, and I know he’s taking a pretty heavy course load this year.”
“Well, I’d like you to consider this. Considering Stiles’s propensity for chatter, it shouldn’t be very difficult and I’m sure it would be greatly appreciated.”
Stiles can’t see what Harris has handed his dad, but it makes him anxious nonetheless. Anything Harris comes up with can not bode well for Stiles.
“You know, this seems like a pretty good idea, Mr. Harris. I’ll see to it that it happens.”
“Thank you Sheriff, Stiles is free to go.”
Stiles nearly knocks the desk over in his haste to pick up his pack and track things, and one of the beakers goes flying. It smashes into nearly a million pieces not far from Harris’s desk, and Stiles looks up to see both men with incredulous looks on their faces. Stiles’s dad looks like he’s holding back a laugh or an aneurysm, and it’s really not a good look for him.
Harris sighs, “Just get him out of here Sheriff, I’ll take care of the mess myself,” shooting Stiles one of his patented ‘why the fuck am I a teacher again?’ looks.
His dad just walks out without a word, and Stiles scrambles behind, not wanting to be left alone with Harris.
The Sheriff takes whatever sheet of paper Harris gave him in his own car, so Stiles is left to stew in his own thoughts the entire ride home. What the hell could it be? It can’t be anything too horrible right? His dad had agreed to whatever it was pretty readily. It’s going to bug him to no end but he’s not gonna ask about it till his dad brings it up. Whatever it is will mean more work for him, and that’s never a necessity right?
--
He lasts all the way through dinner, and even keeps his mouth shut as his dad disappears into his office and Stiles puts on Tosh.0 to have as background noise while he finishes his homework. He has a boatload of worksheets from (who else?) Harris, and a bunch of reading for Finstock’s class. Normally he doesn’t mind reading about economics, and Coach usually manages to make things interesting by throwing in a couple of current event articles, but today he cannot fucking focus. He hates that his curiosity always manages to get the better of him.
It takes him about an hour longer than normal, but he’s finally got all his actual work done. He should probably study for his upcoming Spanish test, but he can’t really bring himself to care. He’s scrolling through channels trying to get the energy to go upstairs to bed when his dad finally emerges from his office, Harris’s paper in hand.
Stiles scrambles up from where he’s sprawled out on the couch, his hint of fatigue disappearing upon his dad’s arrival.
“Stiles, I nearly forgot to give you this. Harris thinks it may be a good idea, and I agree.” He hands the paper over to Stiles and ambles on upstairs to bed.
Stiles glances at the top of the page where it says “Operation Gratitude” in bright red letters and thinks that he really needs to calm his brain down somehow 'cause this is way tamer than anything he’d come up with.
By the next morning, Stiles has googled the hell out of Operation Gratitude, and found out more about it, and is actually really on board with this idea. It seems like something right up his alley,; he has no problems talking to strangers and enjoys meeting new people. Plus, it’ll earn him brownie points with Harris, and, as much as he hates doing things that Harris will approve of, it is his last year, and if he’s going to get into Berkeley, he needs to maintain his good grades.
He’s figured out that he needs to fill out an application about himself and email it to the people at Operation Gratitude and then they’ll match him with a soldier stationed overseas who doesn’t have anyone to write to. Stiles has really only had his dad and Scott and Lydia for most of his life, but he knows that all three of them would write him letters if he were in the military. The fact that there are soldiers out there without anyone to write to, despite wanting someone to write to, strengthens Stiles’s resolve.
He brings the application to lunch with him, snagging an end seat at the table Scott, Lydia and Danny are already seated at and looks over it for the millionth time. He isn’t gonna come out and say what it is, but he’s hoping someone will notice and ask him about it. He wouldn’t mind a second opinion on the app.
Soon enough, Lydia must notice the general lack of nonsensical babble, because she looks over and sees Stiles’s head bent over a stack of papers.
“Stiles! What’re you doing? Danny’s been over here making plans for his 18th, and you haven’t said a single thing!”
Stiles looks up slowly, kind of amazed he managed to miss that entire conversation. Normally he’d be all over birthday plans. He must be more into this than he’d originally thought.
“So I’m doing this thing? It was for Harris, but now I just think I’m doing it 'cause I want to?”
Lydia wrinkles her nose, and Stiles realizes how weird that sounded. “No wait, I’m not doing anything for Harris but it was his idea and I really like it.”
Scott sighs, “What exactly is it, Stiles?”
He straightens fully and hands over the information packet he printed last night,but keeps his application to himself.
“It’s a program where high school students, or hey, anyone really, can write letters to soldiers stationed overseas who don’t have anyone to write to. Harris told my dad it might be a good idea for me to do when I’m bored in class, basically because I can never shut up. Might as well talk to someone who wants to hear it, right?”
Lydia snorts daintily at that (which should be an oxymoron, but Lydia is capable of pulling off anything she fucking wants, okay?) but looks genuinely interested in the info packet.
Danny smiles at him, “I think that’s a great idea, Stiles! It’s actually one of the sweetest things I’ve ever seen you do.”
Ah, well. Stiles isn’t sure what to do with that praise. Especially when it comes from Danny. He’s such a fucking ball of sunshine and puppies and dimples that a compliment from all of that is like staring into the sun.
He thinks he blushes, and stammers out some sort of thanks, but then quickly has his attention diverted by Aiden slamming down some notebooks, and shoving Stiles’s chair over a bit to stick one in between Stiles and Lydia. Douchenozzle.
Stiles watches smugly as Aiden tries to get Lydia’s attention, presumably for some sort of cafeteria PDA, and fist pumps in his head when she remains impervious to his attempts. She’s still engrossed in the informational brochures, and when she finally looks up, it's at Stiles-- she’s ignoring Aiden completely.
“I want to do this, too. Stiles, do you have an extra application? Also, let me see yours. I need to make sure that the hieroglyphics you call penmanship isn’t horrific. ” Stiles just grins bashfully, and hands her both his application and the blank one he’d kept, just in case.
--
Two weeks later, Harris stops Stiles and Lydia as they’re leaving class with a hint of a smile on his face and hands them each a crisp, white, sealed envelope.
“The names are not confidential information, but the addresses are. Do not even share them with each other.” His tone is stern, but his face is soft and open and pleased. Stiles has never experienced this from Harris before. It’s terribly unsettling.
He and Lydia grin at each other, and part ways. Stiles nearly sprints to his car, and once ensconced, he tears open the envelope, eager to see who he got.
He scans the page briefly. The soldier’s name is Derek Hale, he’s a Sergeant and his hometown is Berkeley, California, which isn’t very far from Beacon Hills. It says that he enlisted as soon as he turned 18, which means he’s been on tours for about 5 years, considering he’s nearly 23 years old. There’s no picture, and Stiles can’t help but be disappointed. He didn’t send one in of himself, though, so he doesn’t know why he thought he’d get one from Sgt. Hale. Stiles continues to scan the application and sees that Hale’s favorite food is steak and potatoes, his favorite ice cream flavor is vanilla and his favorite animals are wolves. Hale’s favorite movie is Remember the Titans and his music taste resembles that of Dean from Supernatural (Led Zep, ACDC, Black Sabbath, and Aerosmith are all listed). Looks like Stiles has got himself the epitome of the all-American soldier. He wonders if he can get away with calling Hale ‘Captain America’ at some point in the future.
The very bottom of the page has the mailing address which is a US Army Base mailbox number located in Qatar. Stiles grins, all set to go home, google the shit out of Qatar, and write his first letter.