Chapter 2

Talia leads Derek into the dining room. She whips the tablecloth off, centerpiece, candlesticks and all, and tosses them into a corner of the room. Derek places Stiles on the table; it's really the best space for something like this. They make quick work of removing his clothes so they can look for injuries, the smell of Derek's blood on him so thick it's hard for Talia not to stop and look Derek over for wounds as well. Underneath the blood-stained clothes they find sluggishly bleeding claw marks along his ribs, as if clawed hands had him in their grasp and he managed to slip away. His left elbow and shoulder are dislocated, he has scars from past wounds littering his torso, a small triskele tattooed on his right hip and he appears to be underweight, but none of his injuries seem life threatening.

Talia sends someone to call for Deaton, to help put the arm back into place and stitch the claw marks on Stiles' ribs. While they wait for Deaton to arrive, they begin to clean Stiles' body of the blood, dirt, and debris. Talia has a lot of questions and it doesn't seem as if Derek is going to provide answers. He had stopped talking again, not having said another word once he got Stiles to his mom.

"Derek," she says to him, "Could you explain what happened? Who this is?"

Derek wants to, he really does, but why would she believe him now? She hadn't believed him about Paige, preferring to take Peter's side of the story over his, so how can he trust her with something like emthis/em He sighs, watching as she wrings out the blood-stained cloth she's using on Stiles, then he very deliberately takes out his phone and begins typing. Even if he'd been willing, it was frankly too much for him to say to her after so many years of not speaking.

"I was running and I smelt blood. My blood, his blood. The scent was so familiar to me. I hadn't smelled it in six years, but I knew as soon as I did that it was Stiles. Don't you smell it, Mom? Smell him? A little bit Claudia, a little Sheriff, and a whole lot of Stiles?" He hits send, tucks his phone in his pocket, and goes to fetch a blanket from his room so Stiles won't be cold.

When Derek returns with the blanket, he sees that Deaton has just arrived. Talia, having gotten Stiles as clean as he was going to get lying unconscious on the table, sets aside the basin and looks expectantly at Deaton. Stiles' lower half is covered as Deaton begins getting out the supplies to stitch him up and bandage his ribs; once that's done, he sees to the arm. As Deaton rolls Stiles onto his side to check his back for injuries and get his ribs in a better place to be worked on, they find another series of tattoos on the left side of Stiles' back. It's an odd collection and Derek is definitely going to ask him about them later.

Derek stays by Stiles, one hand touching him, siphoning off pain. Talia steps back to let Deaton work and fishes out her phone to read Derek's text. To say that she's surprised by what she reads is an understatement. She looks over at Derek and says, "You really believe this is him?"

Derek nods at her, not taking his eyes off Stiles for even a second. Talia leans in close to the boy's throat and inhales deeply, trying to catch his core scent. It's buried beneath blood and death, but Derek sees the moment she recognizes it: the core scent is one she knew almost as well as her own children's scents once upon a time, and it is all Stiles.

Derek watched as his mother gave herself a few minutes to digest this new information. She looked as confused as he felt trying to figure out how this could be happening. They had all been there when Stiles died, when Derek and John lost it, and when John buried him. He wondered if she would be able to come up with a solution for why six years later Derek had found him older, battered, and near death in their woods. When Deaton finishes his ministrations and packs up his supplies, Derek wraps Stiles up even more in his blanket leaving a place for his hand to reach through and touch one of the uninjured places on Stiles' body.

As he listens to his mother and Deaton discuss aftercare, he realizes that none of their solutions are that Stiles will be staying with Derek, so he gathers Stiles in his arms and walks away. He carries him straight to his room, hip checking his door closed, and places him gently in his bed, where he belongs. Then he climbs in with him, arranging himself carefully around Stiles, holding him close, his face buried in Stiles' neck.

Straining his abilities, Derek listens to the conversation that's still taking place downstairs between his mom and Deaton."Did you get a sense of magic from the boy? Because I really need you to find out if there is a way for that boy to be Stiles Stilinski. Derek is sure it's him and he has his scent, but that shouldn't be possible. So I need you to find out how, Alan."

"I sensed magic around the boy, but I would need more time to figure out where it came from. I really don't think Derek is interested in giving me that time right now. Perhaps we will learn more from the boy himself once he awakens. I will research in the meantime to see if I can find any possibilities," Derek hears Deaton respond, some of the words almost too soft to pick up clearly.

Derek listens to Talia walk Deaton out, then falls asleep to the sound of his mother's calm voice explaining to their excited pack what's going on. Surrounded by a scent that he has been missing for so long his sleep is more peaceful than it has been in six long years.

Stiles POV

Some hours later, Stiles wakes up, the weight of Derek's body pressing him deep into the mattress. He feels a brief moment of panic until he realizes that the body on top of him is warm and breathing and that it's a mattress under him and not dirt and leaves. He's not really sure how he got here or where emhere/em even is, but for this moment he's going to enjoy it.

As Derek begins waking up and shifts against him, Stiles realizes that he is naked. Naked, naked, naked, and Derek Hale is laying on top of him. He has some pain in his ribs, shoulder, and elbow, but nothing that isn't manageable. Focusing on his injuries helps a lot with the problem he'd been developing against Derek's thigh. Derek comes to full wakefulness and looks up to find Stiles looking back at him.

"Stiles?"

Derek's all rumpled and sleepy with the worst case of bedhead Stiles has ever seen, and he can't help but beam at him. He knows deep inside that this isn't his Derek. His Derek had died protecting him, but there's no doubt that this is ema/em Derek and Stiles is okay with that.

"Yeah," he says, his scent running a gamut of happy and sad emotions, "I'm Stiles and you're Derek."

He reaches up toward Derek's face, his hand pausing just before making contact with his cheek, unsure of his welcome. Derek leans his face into Stiles' hand, nuzzling into the contact, his eyes falling closed, a low rumble starting in his chest. He freezes rather suddenly, eyes popping back open, scanning Stiles' face.

"You died," Derek says. "How are you real? How are you here?"

Stiles heart clenches at the pain in Derek's voice. He knows that pain intimately and wouldn't wish it on anyone.

"In my world, you died a few hours ago, protecting me. So I'm going to go ahead and guess that I'm here because of magic. It's a thing that happens sometimes.."

Derek lets free a small snort of laughter, his eyebrows seem to be trying to be serious, but Stiles can read the amusement there.

"When and how did I die?" Stiles asks him.

Stiles can tell Derek really doesn't want to talk about this, both by the way his body tenses around him and by the heavy use of "constipated eyebrows no. 7". Derek buries his face in Stiles' neck for a moment, inhaling his scent deeply. Then he tells Stiles about his Stiles. How they met when he was born, how much he had loved his Aunt Dia. How Stiles had followed him around from the moment he could crawl and all about the night he died saving Derek's family and how he hadn't spoken a word until he found Stiles in the woods and knew he would need his mom's help to make sure he would be ok.

"My mom?! Aunt Dia? Derek are my parents alive here?!" Stiles gasps as he holds onto Derek as tightly as he can, searching his face for answers.

"It's okay, it's okay," he murmurs to the boy, pulling him into his chest, wrapping him tightly in his arms while being careful not to jostle his ribs or his arm. "Your mom passed away just after the fire. Your dad didn't handle it well, but we took care of him, just like I promised, He comes to Sunday dinner every week and spends holidays with us. He's part of the family, but Stiles, his Stiles died six years ago. I think this is something we should let my mom handle, so he doesn't get overwhelmed."

Stiles begins to calm knowing that he'll get to see his dad again, hug him again soon, "Ok, all right, we'll let your mom handle it, it's only a couple days, I can handle that," he says as he rubs his damp face against Derek's chest, enjoying the comfort his wolf's warmth gives him. They stay cuddled up like that until Stiles' bladder demands attention.

"Urm. Do you think maybe I could have some pants? I could really use a bathroom break and maybe some food..."

"Ooh, of course," Derek says.

He crawls off the bed and stalks over to one of the dressers in the room to begin rifling through drawers. He pulls out a pair of sweatpants, a soft, comfy-looking henley, and a pair of thick socks. After handing them to Stiles, he steps away from the bed, turning his back to him and telling him to let him know if he needed help.

Stiles doesn't want to ask Derek for help, but there really is no way for him to dress himself, though he appreciates the consideration.

"Derek, I'm gonna need you to dress me."

Stiles doesn't know exactly what to expect when Derek turns around and he shifts nervously in place. He scans Derek's face and is shocked by the open want in the man's eyes. He is looking at Stiles like he wants nothing more than to spend days devouring him. Derek strides forward and takes the sweatpants from Stiles' hands before dropping to his knees on the floor in front of him.

"You can brace your good arm on my shoulder," Derek says, looking up at Stiles through his lashes.

"Jesus," Stiles mutters under his breath, not quite quietly enough to prevent Derek from hearing it.

He rests his good hand on Derek's shoulder and steps into the pants, fingers digging into Derek's shoulder. Once he has both feet resting on the ground again, Derek starts to pull his pants up. The action forces his face closer to Stiles' groin, his thumbs dragging up the sides of Stiles' legs, an exhaled breath ghosting across his hip. It's the breath that's the final straw for Stiles; he was handling everything else, really he was, but that breath... He can't keep in the filthy moan that's been waiting for release.

Luckily for both of them, his pants are on now. Derek looks up at him and the heat in his gaze has Stiles blushing all the way down his chest. Derek gently helps Stiles sit back down on the bed so that he can put his socks on.

"Stiles," Derek says in a slightly rough voice. "How old are you?"

Stiles can't help the laugh that spills out of him. "Eighteen, I'm eighteen," he manages to get out, trying hard not to move too much.

"Oh thank God," Derek says as he slides the second sock on. He points to one of the doors in the room and says, "Bathroom first, then food."