John had only been on the force for a couple years and had never seen a house fire quite so disturbingly amazing. Firefighters were rushing around, frantically trying to put out the flames that just seemed to get bigger by the moment. He flinched and tightened his arm around the boy next to him as part of the second-floor roof collapsed into a spectacular display of sparks.
The boy didn 't make a sound. Hadn 't since a fireman had stopped him from running into the house. John turned to the paramedic that had been hovering and had to fight himself not to snap at the man. "I assume he needs to go to the hospital to get checked."
"Yes, we 're just waiting for someone from DCFS to meet us out here."
"I 'm going to take him... get him out of here.
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He showed Derek to the guest room, getting him a spare shirt on the way, and then woke up his son for a minute.
"Stiles?" He rolled over with a groan, looking so much like his mother that, as was happening less and less frequently, John had to fight back memories of his lost wife. "Stiles, wake up. I need to talk to you about something."
Like always, Stiles was instantly awake. He had never been one of those people that could pull off half-awake. As with everything else, sleep was all or nothing. "I 'm awake. What 's going on?"
"We have a house guest, Derek Hale. He just lost almost all of his family in a house fire. There 's just him, his sister in New York, and his uncle... and the doctors aren 't sure if his uncle 's going to make it. He 's going to be staying here for at least a few days. He 's pretty fragile, so go easy on him, please?"
Stiles smiled sadly and nodded, before falling back asleep in an instant. With a smile, John made his way to bed.
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John slept in the next morning and wasn 't at all surprised when he realized that Stiles had gotten up before him. As he walked down the stairs, he heard Stiles excited chatter and realized that