Author's Notes: A (hopefully) developing series on how each member of the pack comes to see Stiles as one of their own in a concrete way and trust him as much as they do their alpha. Will most likely contain Sterek, Allison/Scott, and Jackson/Lydia.

Overall Summary: Stiles doesn't know why he's able to act like he does around them and stand and fight when he's afraid and wants to run OR How the pack come to trust and love Stiles one by one.

Summary (This Chapter): It's just another night spent running from a rogue shapeshifter, nothing unusual. Derek's waiting and the pack is almost back to- where the hell is Issac?

Becoming Pack- Part 1 (Issac)

They're running, making it to the door and out to relative safety. Stiles knows because he pauses just outside to make sure they all clear it, accounting for them in his head: 'Scott, Allison, Boyd, Jackson, Erica, Issac…'

Where the hell was Issac?

Stiles is back through the door, eyes landing on the beta, backed up against the wall. The shifter is advancing on him. He looks like Issac's father.

Stiles curses and he's running opposite the rest of the pack with absolutely no plan. Issac's breath is short, panicked and Stiles picks up some random piece of steel on the ground of the factory and heaves it at the creature. It does almost no damage of course, but it startles it enough for it to change back to it's natural form and daze it a second. Stiles uses that second to grab Issac's wrist and pull him up and away, voice chanting anxiously;

"Come on. Let's go, let's go. Run, run!"

He's mostly dragging the kid behind him until Issac seems to snap out of it and gets his legs to cooperate. They clear the door just as the rest of the pack is turning back to help, noticing they weren't there. Stiles hears the thing behind them, but doesn't look back. He pushes Issac forward and feels the swish of claws millimeters from his back as the shifter takes a swipe at him.

Damn, he liked this shirt.

Issac rounds on him, darting around Stiles and shoving the monster back before slamming the door and buying a few seconds. They run then, all of them; some vague knowledge that they're heading back toward the Hale house to rejoin their alpha.

They don't stop for a long time. When they do, Stiles hunches over, so out of breath there are black spots in his vision. When he can finally breathe again, he straightens up and flinches back a bit. The entire pack is looking at him.

"What? I got something on my face?"

He looks at Scott, who just shakes his head. His friend looks a bit confused, but Stiles doesn't worry about it much. Scott looks like that a lot. But they all seem to be staring at him in some variation of that familiar confusion, like they don't know quite what to make of him. Except Allsion and Issac. Allison just has a small smile on her face and Issac…

He's looking at Stiles strangely. He's smiling very slightly, but it's huge for a kid who hardly ever looks genuinely happy. Stiles thinks he's just thankful that he managed to get him away from the shifter. He realizes later what that look really was, sees varying degrees of it in the others.

Reverence, like a child to a parent.

He'll know he should be freaked out, if only because most of them are actually older than him by a few months, and he's definitely no one's parent; especially not Jackson's. But the only thing that will actually make him panic is how very not panicked he is.

And maybe the soft, foreign way Derek will be looking at his strangely-timed reaction to this realization. He doesn't even think he says anything at the time, just some hyperventilating with pieces of words. But Derek will only look a bit amused and lean toward him and say the exact right thing, which was just all kinds of wrong in and of itself, let alone apparently knowing what Stiles was thinking.

"Not parent. Protector."

And it will fit so perfectly that Stiles will forget to have a breakdown even when Derek doesn't pull his hand away from where it's just touching Stiles' hip.