The night goes smoothly, despite a brief scare when both Derek and Stiles think his dad is going to check in on his son before leaving for work at seven. It's a false alarm, though, and they're able to roll over and fall back asleep quite easily. When Stiles wakes up at nine, though, Derek's gone. "Derek?" He stands up, and the urge to vomit grows as he takes in the empty bed. "Derek!"

"Downstairs!" comes a yell. Stiles yelps, but his heart rate goes down by twenty.

"What are you doing?" Stiles finds Derek in the living room, watching the Today show.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Ignoring the sass, Stiles sits down next to Derek and tries not to appear aware of the irony of the fact that his shirt has a cartoon version of Legolas stamped across the chest.

"Feel better?" He looks better. Derek's color has returned, and aside from the bloodstained strip of gauze circling the middle of his right thigh, he looks completely healthy.

"Yeah," he grunts. "Now shut up – Al Roker's about to do the weather."

Stiles gives him an odd look, but he complies, getting up and heading for the kitchen. It's probably better if he's just not in the room, period.

He decides to surprise Derek with some breakfast. If he's going to get any kind of answer out of him, he might as well do his best to put the odds in his favor. Trying to be as quiet as possible, he throws together an omelet, adds some buttered toast, and is pouring a glass of orange juice when Derek shuffles in. He looks surprised as he takes in the spread. "Breakfast?"

Stiles nods. "I figured, you know, after last night…" He shrugs. "I hope you feel better?"

Derek's smile is small, but it's there. "Thanks." He goes to sit down but stops halfway. "What about you?"

"Nah, I'm fine." Stiles waves a dismissive hand. "I'm more of a cereal person, personally."

"This looks really good." Derek's looking at the cooling plate of food as if it were a precious gift. He takes a bite. "It tastes really good. Where'd you learn to cook like that if you don't eat it?"

"I cook a lot for my dad," he says as he pours a bowl of Frosted Flakes. "He gets really busy, and I get tired of takeout every night."

Derek nods. He's almost done already. Christ.

"So," Stiles says as he sits down. "What happened last night?"

Derek looks down at his now-empty plate. "Let me scramble some more eggs, and then I'll tell you." He eyes Stiles' bowl carefully. "It's probably better if you eat first, anyway."

Stiles pushes his bowl away. "No, I can wait. Talk now."

Derek breathes loudly through his nose, looking around the room as if he'd find answers on the green wallpaper. "Seriously?" he says.

Stiles crosses his arms. "Yeah, seriously. I need to know why those people wanted you dead." Among other things, he adds in his head.

Derek rolls his eyes, but he settles down to talk. "You really want to know what was happening last night."

"No, I was kidding." Stiles rolls his eyes. "Of course."

Derek takes a deep breath. He closes his eyes. "You're probably not going to like it."

"I won't like it if you keep trying to put it off like this." Stiles leans back in his chair. "Talk."

Another heavy sigh. "Fine." He pauses, collecting his thoughts. Stiles is patient. "What – what do you want to know first?"

"Who were those people?"

"Hunters."

"Excuse you?"

Derek rolls his eyes. "Hunters. They were hunting me."

Stiles snorts. "What, they're like those crazy people in movies who hunt people for fun and keep their skins as a trophy?"

"No," Derek says with a glower. "They hunt supernatural creatures."

"What, are you an actual wolfman?" Derek narrows his eyes at the casual mention of his username, but he nods nonetheless. Stiles' jaw drops, his anger momentarily forgotten. "Wait, seriously?"

"For God's sake, yes!"

Stiles doesn't jump out of his chair; he falls out and manages to pick himself up just as quickly. "Oh, my God! You aren't kidding!"

"Why would I?"

He's quiet for a moment. He licks his lips. "I… just…" He swallows spit and puts his hands on his hips. "Seriously? Like, legitimately, the full moon comes, and you turn into a wolf."

Derek's eyes are bugging out by now, his eyebrows blending into his hairline. "Yes!"

So I wasn't hallucinating last night when his face changed. Huh. Stiles can't help himself. "You're sure?"

Stiles swears, when Derek sighs heavily, it sounds like a horse snorting. "No, I just have a hunch about what I've been my whole life."

He gapes. "Your whole life?"

More eye rolling. Stiles is pretty sure Derek's eyes are going to fall out if he keeps doing that. "Yeah. It runs in my family. It's genetic."

"No way!" He's grinning now, despite the fact that he's clutching the back of his chair so hard his knuckles have gone white. He's pretty sure he'll fall if he ever lets go. Okay, maybe he's grimacing, not grinning.

Derek sighs, shaking his head. "Never mind."

"What?" Stiles furrows his brow and adjusts his grip on the chair.

Another sigh. "You know what? I'm leaving. Forget I said anything." He stands, and he's brushing past Stiles before he can process what's happening.

"Derek, don't –"

He whirls on Stiles, face contorted with anger. "No, I'm done. You're not taking this seriously! Do you have any idea of how much danger I put you in last night? How fragile you are? How guilty I feel because, had you been shot by one of those hunters last night, you could have died – and the person that killed you either wouldn't know, or wouldn't care?" Stiles pipes up with something, but Derek drowns him out as he shouts, "It's not a game! This isn't like the Internet, where you get to gallivant around, playing wizard and going on adventures! This isn't an adventure. It's not fun – it's awful. It's horrifying. Stiles, I've killed things – not – not a person, but…" He stops, swallowing as he collects himself. "I – I'm dangerous, Stiles. I could hurt you, I…" He shakes his head again, turning away. "Just, never mind. I'll pay for the damage to your Jeep. It's – don't worry about it."

Stiles is speechless as Derek opens the door. It's only until after he's let it swing closed that he realizes what's happening. "Wait, no!" By the time he's slowing to a jog at the end of the driveway, though, Derek's gone. "Don't… go." The street's empty, and a bird starts shrieking in a tree somewhere as Stiles grinds his teeth. "Great. Just great."

He cleans the kitchen, dismissing the soggy cereal as a lost cause; he isn't hungry anymore, anyway. Angrily muttering about manners and communication skills as he works, he remains irritated until he clomps upstairs to his room, where he just stands in the doorway for a few minutes and stares at the mess of sheets and blankets left behind by Derek. Then he's just kind of sad.

He takes a shower. He tries to keep his mind away from Derek, tries to focus on being angry, on sulking, but soon enough he's bracing a hand against the tile, tilting his head back and opening his mouth in a silent scream as he rubs himself into a nice stupor. Hey, he's only human. When he gets out, he doesn't even bother finding clothes, just grabs the comforter from the bed and wraps himself up in Derek's manly scent.

Obviously, he isn't expecting any visitors, which is why he nearly falls out of his chair when Scott's voice disturbs his Buffy: the Vampire Slayer marathon. "What the fuck?" he cries from the floor. "How did you get in?"

"You do remember that I've had a key to your house for like, two years now, right?" Scott's looking at Stiles as if he'd caught him doing something really shady instead of watching TV on his computer. Granted, Stiles is naked under his blanket, but Scott doesn't need to know that. "You okay?" Scott asks.

"Yeah," he says, nodding. "Fine."

"Why are you wrapped up like a burrito, then? I've never seen you do that."

"I… Can you give me a moment?"

"Why? You're not naked under there or anything, right?"

"…What if I was?"

He leaves.

Stiles finds him in the living room, slumped in the same spot Derek had been occupying a few hours ago. He's watching cartoons. "So, what brings you to my humble abode?" he asks, falling back into the recliner.

Scott shrugs. "Allison was busy, and we haven't hung out in a while."

"You couldn't call?"

He shrugs again. "I figured you weren't doing anything?" He sits up and looks at Stiles. "Oh, God, was Derek here? Was that – Did you guys – You were naked!"

"Oh, my God, no, no, no no no no no." Stiles shakes his head vehemently, and he can feel the heat rising up his neck. He laughs, a little hysterical. "You – seriously?"

Now it's Scott's turn to blush. "I just – last time we talked you – I mean, you've known him for a long time, so it's not… like… I'll just shut up!" He buries his face in one of the surrounding pillows while Stiles continues to laugh. "Shut up!" His voice comes out muffled, but it's thick with embarrassment.

Stiles stops laughing. "Nah, I don't even think Derek has any plans for that right now…" He stares at the far wall of the room, grimacing.

Scott's concerned face re-emerges from the pillow. "What do you mean?"

Stiles' eyes turn to his hands, which are fidgeting in his lap. "I… He slept over last night, and this morning we… had a fight." A one-sided fight, but whatever, he adds bitterly.

"He slept over?" Scott raises an eyebrow, but when Stiles only glowers, he puts it to rest. "What did you fight about?"

"Well, you see –" Stiles stops talking, suddenly unsure of what he should say. Knowing Scott, simply going with the whole-truth-and-nothing-but-the-truth approach would probably only end in panicked yelling and a broken lamp (seriously, it's happened before), but completely and outright lying would only come around to kick Stiles in the ass later. Do I? Do I really? He goes for it. "I'll have to show you."

"What?" Scott's already jumping up, though, and as Stiles leads him to the garage, he can practically see his friend leaning so far forward he looks like he's about to fall over.

Before he opens the door, though, he turns around, eyebrows raised in warning. "Before I show you, Scott, you have to promise that you won't tell anyone, okay?"

"Okay, I promise," Scott says impatiently. Stiles rolls his eyes, twisting the knob. He flips the light switch. "Holy crap!"

There she blows. And there she was, in all of her battle-scarred glory. Pockmarked by bullets, the back window blown out (there were still shards of glass littering the interior), she was a sight to see. Scott's jaw looked like it was about to hit the floor. "What happened?"

"Now, that, I don't know if I can tell you," Stiles says, crossing his arms. Scott starts to protest incredulously, but Stiles is having none of it. "To be honest, I don't know how much I even know." That's mostly true. "But something crazy happened, and when Derek tried to explain it to me, it ended in a fight, and he left." He shrugs. "And that's all there is to it, really."

Scott scoffs. "You're seriously going to show me this and then have the nerve to tell me you can't explain it? What kind of friend are you?"

"A smart one." Stiles turns off the light, going to close the door whether Scott's following or not. They end up back in the living room.

"And I mean it," Stiles says once they're sitting down again. "You actually cannot talk about this. To anyone."

"Not even –"

"Nope! Not even Allison. Especially not Allison."

"Why not?"

"Because…" Stiles doesn't know how to say because I don't need more people realizing my boyfriend is a werewolf without actuallysaying it. He goes with, "Because Derek hasn't told me everything… and I don't want rumors being spread. That's all."

Already, Scott's sulking. "Fine."

They go back to watching TV, but there's still some tension in the room. Stiles knows that Scott knows he isn't telling him everything – and he feels this hard lump of guilt in the center of his stomach because of it, but he knows that he also has to protect Derek. Fucking werewolves, he grumbles silently.

It takes Derek less time to contact Stiles after this catastrophe than last time, and for that, Stiles is grateful – but not too grateful Mostly because apparently, Derek doesn't understand the idea of Stiles still being in school.

"What?" Stiles hisses into the phone. It's the middle of fifth period, he's taking notes on romanticism in the nineteenth century, and his phone has been vibrating on and off against his leg for the better part of ten minutes. Now he's hunched over, pretending to dig through his backpack for another pen so his teacher might possibly fail to notice the phone he's squeezing between his ear and shoulder. "I'm in school."

"Oh, sorry." That's the thing – Derek doesn't sound sorry at all. "I would call back, but – I hope you're not busy."

Stiles involuntarily twitches, but he feels like he's doing a pretty good job handling his urges to smash everything in the room and scream. "Have you even been listening to me?" he snarls.

"Stiles!"

Shit! He drops his phone into his bag, forgetting to hang up in the process. "Y-yes, Mrs. Page?"

"Your presence is required somewhere else," is all she says. Stiles, speechless and gaping like a grouper, doesn't notice the yellow slip of paper she had dropped on his desk until the girl sitting next to him taps an electric blue nail next to it and whispers, "You should go."

"Oh." He numbly collects his things and leaves, bumping into what seems like ten desks on his way out. Once in the hallway, he looks at the sheet of paper. Apparently, he's being checked out. Good God.

When he gets to the attendance office, he can't tell if he's surprised or not to find Derek waiting. The lady behind the desk doesn't look impressed. "He says he's your cousin," she says dubiously.

"I – he is." Stiles signs himself out, and as he's following Derek out, he notices the secretary checking out Derek's retreating form. He glares at her, but she doesn't appear to have any shame.

Derek doesn't notice Stiles' scowl until they're safely in the Camaro. "You're seriously still mad at me for calling you during school?"

Stiles makes a face. "No, I'm not." (He is.) "The lady behind the desk was checking out your ass as you were leaving. I didn't like it."

Derek laughs. "You're kidding."

"I'm not!" Derek just continues to laugh, though, pulling out of his parking spot and zooming away. Stiles grabs onto the handle of the door to keep from sliding out of his seat. He's scowling again, too. Can't believe he has the nerve to laugh after all the shit he's put me through. Idiot.

A few minutes pass in silence, but after a while Stiles can't contain himself (he never can). "Where are we going?"

"Back to the Hale house."

"What?" Stiles scrambles into a more upright position, and he's pretty sure that, had there been no door, he would have fallen out of the car. "Why do we have to go there? Can't we go somewhere safe?"

"It should be safe, that's the thing." Derek keeps his eyes on the road as he speaks. "The Argents will think that I wouldn't risk going back there, and –"

"Wait, the Argents?" Stiles isn't sure he heard right, and Derek doesn't answer immediately. In fact, he waits until they reach a red light (it takes seven minutes) to turn and face Stiles, who's seething by this point.

"How do you know about the Argents?"

"Um, I don't know about them. Scott's dating an Allison Argent."

Derek turns his attention back to the road as the car in front starts moving, his brow furrowed. "I don't know her. But I'm sure they'll start training her, if they haven't already."

"Training?"

"You don't think she's not going to become one of them?"

"I…" Stiles feels the knot in his stomach grow tighter. "I wish she wouldn't."

"And why is that?"

Stiles looks at his hands, fidgeting in his lap again. "Because that means there's one more person out there who wants to hurt you," he mumbles. He might want to tie Derek to a chair and hit him a lot, but he still remembers the kissing and dating and, well, their relationship.

Derek's silent for the rest of the ride.

When they arrive at the Hale house, Stiles isn't sure what's supposed to happen next. Derek parks and turns off the car… and then he just settles into his seat and continues looking forward, almost as if Stiles isn't even there. Stiles adjusts his position in his seat a bit. He rubs his nose, sniffs. He blinks. He sits up straighter and opens his mouth.

"Is this the moment where you're going to explain everything that's happened so far?"

Derek glares. "I thought I did."

Scoffing, Stiles says, "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize telling someone you're a werewolf completely absolves you of the fact that you put someone unwillingly through what was without a doubt the most terrifying and stressful night of their lives." As Derek tries to respond with something, Stiles perks up. "Oh! Not to mention the fact that said terrifying experience was meant to be the moment where you explain why, exactly, you decided to completely fall off of the planet right after initiating phone sex with me!"

Derek sighs. "Yeah, I probably shouldn't have done that."

"Oh, really?" Very good, Derek! "So after making that mistake you decided it was a good idea to just pretend the last year of knowing each other, as well as the last four months of some kind of… thing happening between us didn't happen? Yeah, that sounds like a really logical thing to do!"

"Stiles, I'm sorry!" The way Derek's yell sounds in the silence of his car attracts part of Stiles' attention; the other part is focusing on the anger and confusion playing tug-of-war across Derek's face. "I'm sorry I've been like this. Sorry I was stupid, and that you got hurt in the process." He looks down at his lap, dejected. "I feel so shitty for the way I treated you last week, and then the disaster that was the other night, I –" He lets out a sigh before looking up. "It wasn't like I planned for us to get chased by gun-toting hunters, okay? I still feel awful about the way I put you in danger like that."

Stiles crosses his arms. Yeah, okay. He's not going to forgive Derek that easily. When he doesn't say anything, Derek hits the steering wheel, and both jump when the horn breaks the tense silence. Huffing in frustration (Stiles still swears he sounds just like a horse), Derek gets out of the car to pace. Stiles waits a minute before joining him outside.

"Honestly, I don't know what else I can do to get you to believe me when I say I'm sorry," he says, throwing up his hands in defeat. "I'm sorry I fucked up. I don't know how else to put it."

Stiles shoves his hands into the pockets of his hoodie, glaring at him. "Yeah, you did fuck up."

"And I'm trying to make it up to you!"

"Well, trying isn't hard enough!" Stiles flinches involuntarily when Derek takes a sudden step towards him.

He turns and takes a few steps away from him, his hands clutching his hair in frustration. "What can I do, Stiles? What can I do to get you to stop being so angry with me?" He kicks a stray rock, and it goes sailing into the trees. "I don't want you to be mad at me forever!"

"I don't want to be mad at you forever, either!" Derek stops pacing angrily at this, and Stiles can't help but notice how nice his mouth looks when it's hanging open in surprise like it is now. He shrugs at Derek's blank expression. "It's not like I enjoy this, you know. But at the same time, you can't expect me to roll over and ignore all this shit that's been going on with you."

Derek doesn't speak, just kicks another rock out of the clearing. "I'm only seventeen, Derek," he says. "I'm still a kid, my hormones are still rampaging through my body, and I'm only just starting to figure out who I am. I spent nine years of my life worshipping the same girl. Still worship her, actually," he adds as an aside to himself. "But then there's you, who notices me, and likes me, and wants to have phone sex with me." He notices the twitch of a smile at the corner of Derek's mouth, and he's encouraged. "And maybe he happens to be a werewolf. So what?" He shrugs.

"You seriously don't care that I'm a werewolf."

"Well, I'm hoping you like me enough to stop yourself from eating me." He smiles, but Derek's dour face kind of kills it. "Look, it's weird, yes, and I'm still not sure it's actually sunk in." (It hasn't.) "But I think I know you well enough to trust you. I want to, at least. But if you keep up this habit of being a total flake about everything, well, maybe you're not the person I thought I knew."

Derek shakes his head. "I don't want that to happen."

"And you think Ido?" Stiles sits down on a nearby stump. "You have to trust me, Derek. You have to believe that I won't abandon you because of some weird werewolf shenanigans."

"And if I do? Start trusting you, I mean," he adds when Stiles wrinkles his brow.

"Just reply to my texts, damn it."

"Well, if that's all I have to do…" Stiles narrows his eyes, but Derek laughs. The tension seems to be gone now – for the most part.

After a few minutes of easy silence, Stiles asks, "Did you live here?"

"Yeah. When I was a kid." Derek picks up a stick – well, a branch – and tosses it into the trees, and it takes much longer than Stiles would normally anticipate before he hears it hit the ground. He carefully watches the werewolf as he picks up another one, the scorched shell of the old Hale house squatting behind them.

"And your family left when it burned down." It isn't a question; Stiles remembers the fire, mostly because he remembers how his dad hardly slept trying to piece it all together. He also remembers that the arsonist wasn't caught, and that no one had been home when the fire had started.

Derek nods to the branch in his hand. "My uncle got wind of the Argents' plan, and thankfully he was able to get everyone out." He looks up, eyeing a good spot to throw. "After that, my parents decided it was too dangerous for me and Laura and had us pack up and go to New York, where we have some family."

"Why did you come back, then?"

Now Derek makes eye contact with Stiles, a slight smile tugging at his thin lips. "To see you." Stiles looks at his knees, still knobby even through the thick denim of his jeans. He's blushing. He hears a laugh from Derek's vicinity. "What, you think I just happened to be in the area?" When he doesn't look up, he hears footsteps, and within a few seconds he sees Derek's worn boots enter his field of vision. He feels a hand graze his arm. "I wanted to meet you. To be able to do this." The hand moves to rest against Stiles' waist as the other gently nudges his chin up so green eyes could meet brown. For a moment nothing happens; Derek just rests his forehead against Stiles' head as the teenager hardly dares to breathe.

Then they're kissing, and it's all Stiles can do to keep from falling off of the stump when Derek nudges his thighs apart and presses himself into the gap. He gasps and shudders at the close contact, making Derek smile into the kiss. "Watch yourself," he murmurs. When Stiles does nothing but moan, he laughs and pulls away. Stiles whines, but he shakes his head. "You're going to go into cardiac arrest if you keep this kind of behavior up," Derek says with exaggerated concern.

"No, it's going to be because you keep denying me catharsis," Stiles mumbles angrily.

"That's only because you are underage." Stiles glares, but he knows Derek's right. Doesn't mean he can't complain about it, though.

He tries changing the subject to something a bit less awkward. "How's your leg?"

"My leg? What about – oh." Derek shrugs and smiles like he's be caught doing something he knows he isn't supposed to be doing. "It was healed by the time we were going to sleep that night."

"It what?" Stiles gapes. "I don't know what I'm angrier at. Is it because you withheld that kind of information from me, or because I went through all of that effort sterilizing and bandaging something that healed in less time than it took to take the arrow out?"

He shrugs again, the bastard. "In response to that first one, I didn't tell you because I didn't really have a chance to. And as for the latter, sterilizing the wound did help. That arrow was tipped in wolfsbane, and if you hadn't cleaned it out, I probably would have died."

"You're kidding! Wolfsbane is actually a thing?"

More shrugging. I swear, I'm going to punch him if he shrugs again. "Yeah. It's like a toxin to us."

Of course. "I don't suppose silver bullets work, too, then?"

He scoffs. "That one's just ridiculous."

"Please, excuse my ignorance of what kills werewolves. Information on that is everywhere, I know, I'm just apathetic at best."

"Ha, ha."

Stiles scowls as he kicks away a rock. "You don't have to be a jerk about it," he grumbles.

"I'm not the one using sarcasm as a defense mechanism."

"You –" Stiles chews the inside of his lower lip. "Shut up."

He laughs again, and he comes closer when Stiles holds his arms out as an invitation to hug. They stay like that, with Stiles' face smushed into Derek's chest as Derek bends his head to bury his nose in what hair Stiles has. "Why do you smell so strongly of me?" he asks, his voice muffled by hair and skin. Stiles can feel the rumble of the words in his chest, though, and it feels nice.

Now it's his turn to shrug. "I haven't had time to wash my comforter," is all he says. He doesn't mention the bit about wrapping himself up in it naked.

They're quiet for a few minutes, with Stiles hugging Derek and Derek, well, smelling Stiles. Nuzzling into Derek's warm chest, Stiles mumbles, "So, we're agreeing that I shouldn't be mad at you anymore if you start trusting me more, right?"

Derek pulls away, and Stiles groans in complaint. He gets a faint smile in response, but it's quickly replaced by a grim expression. He grabs Stiles' hands unconsciously, studying them as he says, "I'm still not sure if this is a good idea." Stiles immediately starts to protest, but Derek shushes him. "I… I still feel guilty about what happened with the hunters, how…" He swallows, and Stiles watches his Adam's apple bob. "I think about how easily you could have been hurt, and how all of it would be my fault. And I keep thinking about how, if you stay with me, it's bound to happen again." He meets Stiles' eye. "You're constantly in danger, being with me. And I'm still not sure if I can handle constantly weighing the risk of having you around."

Uncharacteristically enough, Stiles is quiet for a moment as he contemplates this, and the whole time Derek's watching him and playing with his hands. "You know," he finally says. "I do like to think that I'm smart enough to handle myself." He smiles reassuringly at Derek's dubious look. "I can learn everything there is to know about werewolves, and full moons, and hunters, and I wouldn't be surprised if there was a website with tips for handling your supernatural better half." When Derek quirks an eyebrow, Stiles adds, "And if there isn't, you can sure as hell bet there will be, if I have anything to do with it."

"I'm not surprised." And then they're kissing again, and it feels like all is as it should be.