Chapter Text
Stiles adores his godson.
Really, he does. He is also on the verge of buying one of those child leashes he's seen online and inflicting it on the kid, because Eli just won't stay put. This isn't exactly a new development — god knows he's babysat the boy enough to wonder if his ADHD somehow managed to rub off on the youngest Hale — but it is the first time the eight-year-old decides to simply take off on his own. In the middle of Yards Park.
This is Derek's fault, Stiles decides, sprinting after the little menace.
Derek had decided to drop his son off at way-too-early o'clock — also known as six a.m. — and instead of taking a nap until a more reasonable time, the pup insisted on going out to play; so off to the park they went. If Eli wasn't a baby werewolf, Stiles is pretty sure he'd have caught up to the kid by now, and thus the root of the issue is entirely to blame on a certain Sourwolf and his magical genes.
“Eli, c'mon, stop running!” Stiles nearly whines, weaving out of the way of a couple.
Eli does not, in fact, stop running.
When Stiles checks exactly where the kid is running to, he realizes the direction might not have been quite as random as he'd first assumed. There are a couple of food trucks ahead, and his godson is nothing if not a deceptively adorable eating machine.
“Slow down, you're gonna-” Stiles trails off as his warning becomes entirely obsolete, watching as Eli turns his head to look at a truck while running and bumps against a man's legs at full speed, bringing them both to the ground. “Eli!”
He finally closes the distance between him and the pile of limbs on the floor, noticing with a grimace that the man — messy-haired, vaguely familiar, and wearing an eye-catching purple scarf that immediately reminds him of Isaac — had been holding a cup; the contents of which has predictably soaked both his godson and the unfortunate victim of his momentary distraction.
“Ew, ew, ew!” Eli complains, scrambling to his feet and waving his arms around to remove the liquid, which thankfully doesn't seem to be hot.
“Come here,” Stiles calls with a sigh, shrugging off his plaid flannel shirt and kneeling to use it to dry the kid's arms and face. “I'm so sorry,” he adds, glancing over to check on purple-scarf, “Are you okay? Did you hit your head?”
“Just-” the man sits up slowly, visibly winded. The dangers of baby wolves, everyone. “got the air knocked out of me for a second,” he finishes after a breath, glancing down at his beverage soaked button-up and suit jacket with a grimace.
“Eli, what do you say?” Stiles prompts as he stands, having dried the kid as much as possible already, and offers his hand to help the man up.
“‘m sorry, mister.” Eli mumbles, scooting halfway behind him like the shy kid he is when he's not busy being a menace. “I didn’ mean to.”
The man accepts his hand, and Stiles easily pulls him back to his feet, “Apology accepted,” purple-scarf says with a small reassuring smile at Eli. “I'm just glad I ordered an iced coffee.”
“Here, this side's still dry, just-” Stiles pats the dry end of the flannel to the man's chest where his button-down had absorbed most of the liquid, like he'd just done to Eli. “I'll buy you another one! I mean- another coffee, not another shirt; unless you want me to buy you a new one, but this doesn't look totally ruined, so-”
“It's all right,” The man's fingers close around his wrist to stop the movement and Stiles stills, realizing he'd basically assaulted a stranger with his shirt like some sort of overzealous mother and feeling the heat climb up his neck and straight to his face.
“Sorry,” he offers sheepishly when his wrist is released, pulling the shirt back to himself. “I mean it, though. It's the least I can do since my godson ran you over,” Stiles emphasizes the last part with a look at Eli, who returns it via those wide brown eyes — clearly inherited from his mom — that make his resolve to be upset melt into the ground like the spilled coffee. “Don't give me that look, I told you to stop running.”
“I smelled cookies,” Eli says like that justifies taking off like a rocket through half the park, and Stiles only just refrains from sighing.
“The cookies weren't going anywhere,” Stiles rebuts, ruffling the kid's hair and smiling slightly when Eli just leans into his hand instead of fighting it off. “So, coffee?” He prompts, looking back at the man.
Purple-scarf hesitates for a moment before giving a slight nod, “Sure. Thanks.”
“If he's getting coffee, can I get cookies?” Eli asks, stepping closer.
“All you're getting is a shower,” Stiles replies.
Cue the pouting. “But…” Eli pauses, probably thinking of something to say, then looking up at him. “Y'said cookies have dope-mean that makes the brain happy. I want happy brain!”
Stiles chuckles, “Dopamine,” he corrects, “Isn't in the cookie; it's what your brain makes when you eat sweets. It also makes it when you run around like you just did, so you don't really need any more.”
“But- but-” Eli frowns, trying to think of something else.
“If you make it a chocolate cookie, it has magnesium too,” purple-scarf chimes in, making Stiles’ brows rise slightly as he and Eli look at the man instead. “Besides, Most pediatric groups suggest keeping added sugar under 25 grams a day. A small chocolate cookie is only five, give or take.”
“What he said,” Eli says, looking back at him. “Please?”
Stiles mock-sighs, “Fine. One cookie,” he emphasizes, not at all ready to risk giving the pup a sugar rush.
“Yes!” Eli grins.
They get called next in line, and Stiles motions for the man to say his order first before ordering an iced mocha for himself and a chocolate cookie for Eli, who won't stop bouncing on his heels.
Once Stiles pays, he turns to the man. “I'm Stiles, by the way. And this little wrecking ball is Eli,” he pulls the kid closer so he's not interrupting the line they've just side-stepped.
There's another nearly negligible moment of delay before the man nods, “Spencer,” he offers in return.
It doesn't take long before their orders are in their hands, and the trio is stepping away from the food truck. Stiles can't help noticing the way Spencer keeps his movements small, wincing a little every time his soaked button-up drags along with it.
“D'you wanna take that off?” Stiles blurts out, hears how that sounds, and immediately adds, “I mean, like, a change of clothes? That looks uncomfortable.”
Spencer looks somewhere between confused and amused, “you don't have to buy me a shirt.”
“You can borrow one,” he offers instead, and Spencer's brows furrow slightly. “I live five minutes away,” Stiles explains. “And I need to open the bookstore anyway. You can wash up, borrow something, and I can put those through a quick cycle if you want,” he motions to the man's coffee-stained clothes.
Spencer visibly perks up, “Bookstore?”
“Stiles has all the books,” Eli chimes in, cookie crumbs in the corners of his mouth.
He snorts, “Not all of them.” Stiles raises his brows expectantly at Spencer. “So?” He prompts. “I'll let you pick a book to make up for the unplanned coffee shower.”
“You already bought me coffee,” Spencer points out.
“Call it treble damages,” he suggests with a smile, just glad the man hadn't made a big deal out of the whole thing.
He's had to deal with similar incidents before and not everyone was this chill about it at the time. Stiles may or may not have wanted to slap a Karen who kept making snide comments about Eli's upbringing, and the only thing that stopped him was wanting to set a good example for his godson.
If he covertly slipped a little bad luck knot into the woman's purse like a reverse pickpocket, well, Eli didn't need to know.
Spencer's lips twitch slightly, “That's not exactly how treble damages work, but I'll never turn down a book.”
“y’ smell like ‘em,” Eli points out, and Stiles doesn't freeze, already too used to justifying these.
“Eli, we don't tell people what they smell like,” he recites like it's not the first time he's said it — because it isn't.
Eli just keeps munching on the last bits of his cookie and Stiles pretends he doesn't notice Spencer's considering expression. People usually forget Eli's comments quickly enough, chalking it up to a child's creativity and putting it off their mind in a couple of minutes, so Stiles has learned to just roll with it. If he pretends it's normal, people accept it as if it is.
It doesn't take them very long — just enough that they've finished their beverages and Eli's cookie is already history — to reach their destination: A cream-brick storefront, the scalloped canvas awning above spelling out ‘THE RED STRING’. The big window is all books; a single red cord looping across the panes like a case board line, vanishing and reappearing between spines. The glass door advises customers to ‘follow the thread’, and a bell rings as Stiles unlocks the door and swings it open, motioning his two companions inside as he turns the ‘closed’ sign in blocky black font to the ‘open’ side, which is written in a thread-like red cursive font.
“I've never been here,” Spencer sounds a little disbelieving as he looks around, taking in the ridiculous amount of books cramped together in the not-so-small space.
Stiles raises one brow, tone turning teasing. “And you've been to every bookstore in DC?”
“Pretty much,” the man replies, to his surprise.
Stiles blinks. “Well, we've been here for the past five years, so… maybe fate didn't want you to find us yet.” He shrugs, leading the way to the spiral staircase near the end of the store. “C'mon, I live on the third floor,” he rushes Eli ahead.
“Fate,” Spencer muses, climbing the steps behind him. “So the name is referring to the red thread of fate,” he more states than asks.
“Not the Chinese one, but yes. Mostly.” Stiles replies as they pass the second floor — still as book-filled as the first — and reach the third, where he unlocks another door and opens it into his living space. “Eli, go get some water, you've been running all morning,” he tells his godson, who speeds over to the fridge and grabs a bottle of juice instead.
Brat.
