Author’s Note: This story takes place during Season 1, Episodes 1 and 2. Some lines are directly from the show.
Disclaimer: I don’t own any of these characters and I’m not making any money from this story.
Warning: Non-consensual spanking of a minor by a parent. I do not advocate spanking minors in real life, only in fiction.

Sometimes, being the sheriff of a small-town, sucked. It was almost midnight, and instead of being at home in bed, I was stomping through the woods in the pouring rain with my fellow officers looking for a body. Technically the second half of a body. A concerned citizen already found the bottom half of an unidentified female and called it in to my office. We’ve been at it with the cadaver dogs for over an hour with no luck, and the nature preserve is huge, so we’ll most likely be out here all night.

One of the dogs barked and snarled, which was quickly followed by a human’s startled yell.

“Hold it right there!” one of the officers yelled and aimed his flashlight at the suspect.

My heart sunk. There on the forest floor was my teenage son, Stiles, shielding the flashlight’s glare from his eyes.

“Hang on,” I called out. “Hang on. This little delinquent belongs to me.”

I walked over to him as my men dispersed and continued the search. Their lack of surprise told me that this sort of thing happened way too often. I knew it did. And I knew I should crack down before he got so out of hand that I couldn’t control him. But he reminds me so much of my late wife that it hurts, and I can’t find it in myself to be harsh with him. Especially when I know his heart is always in the right place, the same way hers always was.

I gave my son a hand and helped haul him up off the forest floor.

“Dad. How are you doing?” he asked congenially as if we were meeting in a coffee shop and he wasn’t in serious trouble.

My brain connected the dots, and I knew without a doubt that he must have listened in when the station called me about the body. He’s way too smart for his own good. “So, do you listen in on all of my calls?”

“No.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“I mean, not the boring ones.” His voice trailed off. But I appreciated the honesty. I hate lying, and he knows it.

Sighing, I shook my head. “And where’s your usual partner in crime?”

“Who Scott?” he scoffed as if my question was ridiculous. “Scott’s home. He said he wanted to get a good night’s sleep for the first day back to school tomorrow. It’s just me… In the woods… Alone.”

At least my son was a terrible liar. He’s always been a bit too talkative, and prone to filling silence with awkward words, but when he’s lying it’s worse. But, I’m a lot more forgiving about him lying to protect someone else, and he knows it. 

I aimed my flashlight in the direction my son had come from. “Scott! You out there?” I waited for a second before calling again. “Scott?” I was ninety percent sure my son’s best friend was still out there, but I was also sure it would be impossible to find him in the dark by myself when most of my men had gone further into the woods. Luckily, we weren’t far from the entrance, so Scott shouldn’t have trouble finding his way back.

With a deep sigh, I turned to my son. Time to be strict. My least favorite part of parenting. And the part I wasn’t very good at. To the outside world I’m sure I appeared strict, but when push comes to shove, Stiles can talk me out of most punishments.

“Well, young man, I’m going to walk you back to your car.” I grabbed him by the scuff of the neck to emphasize my displeasure.

He grunted at the rough handling, but followed where my hand pulled him.

“And you and I are going to have a conversation about something called invasion of privacy.”

He groaned.

Good. I hope he dislikes my lectures enough to try and avoid them in the future.

“Don’t think I don’t know about that police scanner you’ve got in your room.”

“You gave it to me!” he protested.

I gripped his neck tighter as I propelled him through the forest. “So you could reach me in an emergency, not so you could listen in when dispatch calls. Are you a police officer, Stiles?”

“No.”

“Are you the sheriff?”

“No.”

“Then the calls coming from dispatch on the police scanner aren’t for you. Are they?”

“No,” he admits with a sigh.

“When I get a call on the landline, or my cell, are those calls for you?”

“Obviously not,” His tone was almost belligerent.

I stopped our forward momentum to give him a stern glare.

“No,” he amended. “No, sir. Not for me.”

“That’s better.” I pushed him forward again. “Would you like it if I listened in on your personal calls?”

“What? No!”

“Exactly, so don’t listen in on mine.”

“That’s different!” he protested.

“Different how?” I asked, genuinely curious as to why he was so indignant.

“Because it was a work call not personal. If Scott’s mom called I wouldn’t…” his voice trailed off again, and he ended on an uncertain note, “…listen in?”

“Right,” I scoffed. “Like you didn’t listen in when Melissa called to let me know Scott sprained his ankle on that hike. Or the time she called to let me know he couldn’t spend the night because his asthma was acting up.”

“But that’s because I was worried about him.”

And there it was. Just as ‘your grounded’ was about to roll off my tongue, my son’s true nature comes to the forefront. It would be different if he was listening in for nefarious reasons, but Stiles’ motives were always in the right place. Even being out here in the woods at midnight while a killer might be on the loose wasn’t malicious, just misguided.

We made it out of the woods and there was his Jeep in the parking lot on the opposite side of the police cars. I let go of his neck and we stood next to his Jeep staring each other down. He broke eye contact first with a pout and rubbed the spot on his neck that I’d gripped.

“Stiles.” My tone was less stern and more disappointed.

He winced.

“It’s not safe for you or Scott to be out here like this.”

Glancing away Stiles muttered, “I told you Scott’s—”

“At home. Sure. Still not safe. If you show up during a police investigation again, you’ll be grounded for a week.”

“A week!” he protested.

“A week,” I confirmed, pleased that I got the words out. I walked back toward the woods and called over my shoulder. “You’d better be home when I call the landline in an hour.” Home is only twenty minutes away, so that would give him plenty of time to wait for Scott and drive him home.

“Yeah, okay.”

I heard the door to the Jeep open and close before I stepped into the trees to continue the search.

* * *

A few short days later I got a call from dispatch as I drove back from lunch. “Sheriff Stilinski?”

“Yes?”

“We have a report of half a body found on the old Hale property.”

“On my way.”

“Uh… you should probably know that Stiles called it in.”

I sighed. Of course he did. “Thanks for the heads up. Have couple of units meet me up there along with forensics.”

“Yes sir.”

I flipped on my siren, turned the car around, and headed out to the burned down wreckage that used to be the Hale family home. Most of the family died in the fire, but their son Derek Hale still lived in town.

During the drive I reminded myself repeatedly not to embarrass my son publicly by yelling the second I arrived.

Luckily for him, Stiles looked more spooked than usual when I pulled up, and Scott looked positively traumatized. They were also standing far away from the hole in the ground where my officers were milling around.

Somewhat mollified, I got out and put a hand on each of their shoulders. “You boys okay?”

“Yeah, Dad, we’re okay.”

“Scott?” I asked.

He nodded, but I didn’t buy it. I’d have to call Melissa once this was over to give her a heads up.

Scott gasped at something near the burned house, and I followed his line of site. One of my officers was taking Derek Hale into custody. The officer put the broody young man in the back of a squad car.

Turning back to the boys, I said, “Okay, you guys stay right here while I go talk with the first officer on scene. Then I’ll get your statements and you can go home. Okay?”

Stiles said, “Officer Barns already took our statements. We’re just waiting on you to give us the okay to go.”

I’d have to thank Barns personally for making sure the kids could leave sooner rather than later. “Great. I’ll just confirm that we don’t need anything else and then you can go.”

I walked over to the group of officers near the hole in the ground and took a look. I could see why the boys were spooked. Half a dead body wasn’t a pretty sight. I waved down Officer Barns and asked some questions. Once I was satisfied with the answers, I turned to tell the boys that they were free to go, when I realized only Scott was standing where I’d left them.

Confused I glanced around, but Stiles was nowhere to be seen. I walked towards Scott, but when he saw me coming, he bit his lip, glanced at the squad car where Derek Hale was waiting, and then looked at the ground.

Turning to the car, I saw my son sitting in the passenger seat animatedly chatting with a potential murderer. My blood pressure skyrocketed. I made a beeline for Stiles, grabbed his upper arm, and physically yanked him out of the squad car.

“Ow! Ow!” he complained.

I let him go and tried not to flat out yell. “There. Stand. What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m just trying to help.”

He sounded sincere, but that excuse was only going to fly so often. “By talking to a potential suspect?”

Stiles shrugged and didn’t elaborate on how that would be helpful.

I counted to five in my head. “Okay. How about you help me understand exactly how you came across this crime scene in the first place.”

“We were looking for Scott’s inhaler.”

I didn’t believe that for a second, and Stiles was already sounding belligerent. If that’s how he wanted to play this, that was fine with me. I have been well versed in interrogation tactics.

“Which he dropped when?”

“The other night.”

“The other night when you were out here looking for the first half of the body.”

“Yes.”

And there it was. I’d smirk if I wasn’t still pissed. “The night that you told me you were alone and Scott was at home?”

“Yes.” Stiles’s eyes grew comically large as soon as the word slipped out of his mouth. “No! I mean…” He saw my face and didn’t even try. He looked down and muttered, “Crap.”

“So, you lied to me?” It was the final nail in his coffin.

And then my son glanced up and me and said with complete sincerity, “That depends on how you define lying.”

It reminded me so much of my late wife, that I had to play along. “Well, I define it as not telling the truth. How do you define it?”

With a doubtful expression he said, “Reclining your body in a horizontal position?”

I had to bite my cheek so I didn’t laugh. Instead, I forced a scowl and muttered, “Get the hell out of here.”

“Absolutely,” he agreed and rushed toward Scott.

“And Stiles?”

“Yeah?”

“We’re going to talk about this tonight after the lacrosse game.”

His shoulders slumped. “Yeah, okay.”

Soon the boys had driven off in the Jeep, and I was still trying to calm down enough to do my job, when one of my officers walked by carrying a very familiar looking shovel in an evidence bag.

I put my hand out to stop her. “Let me see that for a minute.”

She handed the shovel over. There was no mistaking it. It was the one my son kept in the Jeep in case he gets it stuck in the mud. Stiles had carved an ‘s’ in the hilt of the shovel eight years ago when the Jeep still belonged to my wife.

I closed my eyes as I realized they didn’t just discover the body. They dug it up. Then they conveniently omitted that fact when Officer Barns questioned them. And that was the straw that broke the rose-colored glasses I’d been wearing.

I love Stiles. He’s all I have left in this world. And I’d never forgive myself if he got hurt, or God forbid, killed because I didn’t have the strength to crack down on his risky behaviors. Firm resolve settled in my chest as I handed the shovel back to my officer and gave her a nod to continue on her way.

It was time for some tough love, which was probably going to be a lot tougher for me than it would be for Stiles. I could barely ground him when I knew he’d done something wrong, but digging up that body and lying about it wasn’t a grounding offence, it was a spanking offence. I never wanted to become my father. He would have taken a belt to me if he’d caught me out in the middle of the night looking for a dead body. I wanted to be a better parent than my father had been, but maybe I’d gone too far in the opposite direction.

It wasn’t like I’ve never spanked Stiles. But the last time was before my wife passed. After that we were grieving for so long, that by the time he’d done something deserving again, I decided he was too old, and went with grounding instead. Maybe that had been a mistake. Or maybe that had been exactly the right call, and going back to it now was a mistake. But that’s what parenting was, according to my late wife. A series of mistakes as you ‘trial and error’ your way through raising a child.

One of my officers called to me, pulling me out of my thoughts.

Later that night, I watched my uncoordinated son sit on the bench during the entire lacrosse game while asthma prone Scott played an amazing game, to everyone’s shock. I’d have to ask Melissa if she has him on some kind of new medication.

I was about to tell Stiles it was time to go when my phone rang. It was the station.

“Stilinski.” I answered.

“Sir, forensics came back. The Jane Doe is one Laura Hale.”

That was a shock. I thought all of Derek’s siblings had died in the fire. “Okay.”

“And they confirmed that Ms. Hale’s injuries were caused by an animal, not a human, so Derek Hale has been released.”

“What?”

“Uh, I said—”

“No, I heard you, I was just surprised. Good work. I’ll get the rest of the details in the morning.”

I hung up and found Stiles standing by me. “What happened?”

Normally I wouldn’t share information about a case, but since my son had been talking to Derek earlier today, and since he’d found the body, I figured it would be better for him to know.

“They let Derek out.”

“What?” Stiles yelled, glancing around the field. “Why?”

“Forensics says the wounds that killed that woman were caused by an animal, and the woman in question is Derek’s sister. Laura Hale.”

Stiles’ eyes opened wide. “His sister?”

I nodded. “Come on, let’s head home.”

“I’ve got to change out of my jersey, and check on Scott before I go.”

“Okay, I’ll meet you at home. No detours. I want you home in less than half an hour. We’re still having that talk.” Probably more than just a talk, but he didn’t need to know that yet.

“Do we have to?” he whined.

I simply glared.

“Okay, okay. Home in half an hour. I got it.”

I was sitting on the sofa in the living room watching the clock when Stiles rushed in with thirty seconds to spare. He glanced at the time, smirked, and closed the door behind him.

“Hey, Dad.”

Unimpressed, I pointed to the spot next to me on the couch. “Sit.”

With a dramatic sigh, Stiles flopped down in the indicated spot.

“Wanna tell me how your shovel ended up in the hole beside the dead body?”

Stiles froze. “Uh… Well, you see… I uh…”

It was now or never. Clenching my jaw, I grabbed Stiles’ arm, and yanked him face down across my lap.

“Hey!”

Thankfully the element of surprise was on my side, and Stiles didn’t struggle until after I’d wrapped my arm around his waist to keep him there.

“What the hell, Dad!”

I smacked the seat of his jeans harder than I ever had before.

“Oh my God! Are you spanking me?!”

“Looks that way,” I replied dryly before landing a flurry of smacks on his backside.

“Ow! Dad, wait, wait! Can’t we talk?”

I paused. “Why, so you can lie to me some more?”

“What? No. I’m not going to lie, I swear.” He craned his head back to look me in the eyes.

“Great. Let’s hear it. How did your shovel end up in that hole at the crime scene?”

“Can I get up?” He gave a half-hearted attempt to push himself up.

I gripped him tighter. “Nope.”

Giving up, he turned back to face the couch in front of his face and muttered, “We dug her up.”

“What was that?” I asked, giving him another harsh swat.

“Ow! I said we dug her up! Satisfied?”

“Far from it.” Now that he was over my lap, I didn’t find it as difficult as I thought I would to land another five smacks to his squirming backside.

“Ow! Dad, come on! I’m telling you the truth!”

“You’d better be telling me the truth, or this is going to last a lot longer than either one of us want it to. I want the entire story, beginning to end, without any lies. Then we’ll see how much more you’ve got coming.”

“More?” He whined.

“A lot more if you don’t start talking.”

Stiles rested his forehead on the couch and blurted out his confession. “I listened in when dispatch called you about the body. I drove over and talked Scott into going to the nature reserve with me, even though he didn’t want to. I lied to you about Scott not being there that night, because I didn’t want him getting in trouble, too. He did lose his inhaler in the woods, and we did go back to look for it the next day, but we ran into Derek in the woods, and—”

“Derek Hale?” I interrupted.

“Yeah, and he was acting sketchy. I knew about the old burned up house, and told Scott we should check it out because I don’t trust Derek. I thought him being in the woods might be like him going back to the scene of the crime or something. So, Scott and I drove out to the house, and found a pile of freshly disturbed dirt. We dug up the body. It was… awful. I called it in, but I didn’t tell them that we’d dug it up, because… well I guess because I didn’t want you to know. I am sorry about that. I know that’s not a good reason to lie about a murder investigation. Not at all. I’ll revise my statement if you want me to.”

Any lingering irritation I’d felt about the whole ordeal vanished, and I wanted nothing more than to be done. But stopping now would send the wrong message. Stiles already thought a sincere apology fixed pretty much any mistakes he made, because I usually thought that was enough.

“Thank you for telling me the truth. I believe you, and I accept your apology. I don’t see any point in revising your statement now since they’ve cleared Derek’s name.”

“Thanks.” He tried to push himself up again but I held him in place. He groaned and stopped trying. “Come on, Dad. I said I’m sorry. And I’m way too old for this, anyway.”

That helped me get back into the right mindset. “Let’s go over this point by point. Number one. You were out in the middle of the night looking for a body when you were supposed to be home asleep.”

Before he could respond I started spanking again, but this time I gave him ten solid smacks, putting my arm into it. He didn’t take it stoically.

“Point by point? Ow! Come on Dad! That’s enough! We don’t have to, Ow! Go over every point! Ow! I already get it, okay? I know I messed up! Ow!”

I paused and said, “Number two. You lied to me about Scott being there with you.”

Another ten spanks had Stiles yelping, complaining, and squirming.

“Number three. You ran into Derek at the nature preserve and instead of calling it in, like you know you should have you decided to go investigate a potential murder’s house. I’m really unhappy about that one, Stiles.”

“Sorry,” he muttered sincerely.

Trying not to let that sway me, I gave him another round, but this time I gave him twenty instead of ten.

This time there were yelps, gasps, pleas for leniency, squirming, and once I got past the first ten there were some telltale sniffles.

Hardening my heart I ignored the tears. “Number four. Instead of calling it in when you saw the disturbed earth, you dug up a grave.”

“I’m sorryyy.”

Relenting a bit I said, “I’d say the natural consequences of having to see what you dug up is punishment enough for that one.”

“Okay,” he agreed, still sounding teary.

“Last one. Number five. You lied to an officer during an official police investigation, because you didn’t want your dad to find out what you’d done. That childish decision is the reason you’re over my knee, instead of being grounded.”

“I understand.” he said softly. “Sorry.”

“I know you are.” I doled out the last ten with slightly less force. To my surprise, Stiles wasn’t as vocal for the last set. He yelped and groaned a couple of times, but he didn’t ask me to stop.

When it was done, I let go of his waist, and pulled at his arm to get him upright. He sat next to me on the couch with a hiss, and wiped at the tears on his face with his hands.

I wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him into a side hug.

He turned into it, wrapped his arms around my chest and held tight as his shoulders shook with more tears.

I rubbed his back, and said gently, “You’re okay. Just give it a minute.”

“You forgive me?” he asked through his tears.

I squeezed him tighter. “Of course. Always. There’s nothing you could do that I’d find unforgivable, son. Nothing.”

He nodded against my chest.

Once his shoulders stopped shaking, I said, “It’s been a long day. You hungry?”

He sat up, winced again, and wiped at his face with the hem of his shirt. “I could eat.”

I rubbed his head with affection. “Come on. Let’s go see what we have in the fridge.”

He stood, rubbed his ass with both hands, and scowled. “That sucked.”

“I agree. Let’s not do it ever again.”

“Wasn’t my idea,” he groused.

“Let me rephrase that. Don’t do anything else that makes me think you deserve another trip over my knee.”

“Oh my God,” he muttered. “Could you never say that phrase ever again?”

“Tell you what, I won’t say it, just as long as you behave yourself.”

He groaned as he followed me into the kitchen to scrounge for food.

The End.