Author's Note: Finally! Some Sterek interaction :)

Stretched out on Lydia's bedroom floor, Stiles stared menacingly at the ceiling and tried his hardest to blend into the carpet beneath him.

"Come on, Stiles." Scott pled, peering over the edge of Lydia's bed to make puppy eyes down at him. "Please? I promised I'd go over and open some windows, air the place out and drop off a few necessities, but I have to pick Allison and Isaac up in twenty minutes."

"I don't see how this is my problem." Stiles shrugged, ignoring the way his stomach crawled into his throat and set up camp.

Scott huffed an irritated breath. "Dude, you're the only other one of us allowed in Derek's loft without Derek actually being there. Other than Isaac and Lydia, but-"

"I have things to do." Lydia called from her en-suite bathroom, curling iron wrapped up in strawberry blonde strands.

Nodding, Scott's pleading eyes intensified. "Stiles, if I miss this dinner, Allison and Chris will skin me and hang me above their fireplace. These other hunters are no joke, man."

"Can't you just go to the loft after?" Stiles whined. He knew he was fighting a losing battle but he was determined to go down swinging. "Dude is a full grown werewolf. Why can't he do his own grocery shopping?"

Scott rolled off the side of the bed, landing with a solid thud beside him on the carpet. Stiles didn't look over to see the sympathetic frown turning down his brother's lips.

"Derek will be home in the morning," Scott said quietly, as though lowering his voice would somehow make the words themselves less grating, less likely to cut where they landed. "And I don't know how late dinner will run. He's been driving since Mexico City, Stiles. He's gonna be exhausted by the time he gets home. I'm just trying to look out for my beta, the same way I would for any of the rest of you."

Stiles let his eyes fall shut, his fists clenching at his sides, and silently cursed Scott to Hell and back for using his Alpha instincts as justification for torturing Stiles. Scott knew how much he was asking of his best friend, how much Stiles would rather be absolutely anywhere in the galaxy other than near Derek or his loft. As the only other person in existence who knew just how pissed Stiles was at Derek, he expected a certain amount of leeway from Scott when it came to the subject.

Since the moment Derek took off again, headed for South America and Cora, Stiles refused to even acknowledge his name in conversation, would change the subject if it came up and glare at whoever dared utter it. Petty? Sure. But it was what it was and Stiles didn't see it changing anytime soon.

It wasn't that he didn't understand why Derek bailed on them, yet again. What happened in Mexico; Derek dying only to come back howling, Scott becoming a berzerker and Kira almost following in Derek's fatal footsteps, Peter turning out to be the mastermind behind Kate's plan and attacking the pack, including his own daughter... Not to mention the whole thing with the Dead Pool and the insurgence of assassins within Beacon Hills.

All of it was enough to have anyone in desperate need of a vacation. Hell, if Stiles could have afforded it he would have been happily planting his ass in the sand of some desert island, enjoying the peace and quiet of solitude for a change. Instead, Stiles and the rest of the pack stayed in BH, protecting it and its citizens while occasionally being forcibly turned into creatures of the night. Unlike Derek, they didn't have the luxury of taking off whenever things got heavy.

Stiles understood Derek wanting to visit his sister, to see someone who really got what it meant for Derek to gain the ability to shift into the full wolf form, someone who knew the Peter that Peter was before the fire, who would get why Derek still struggled with severing pack ties to his uncle.

The part he wholeheartedly could not understand was the fact that Derek left at all. He just couldn't wrap his head around it. One would think he'd be used to it at that point, honestly. Leaving was something Derek excelled at, after all. He'd made a habit of it, taking off whenever the shit hit the fan. Sure, he stuck around long enough to help defeat whatever supernatural dickhead was hellbent on wiping out the pack or just straight up wreaking havoc in BH, but once the dust started to settle? Bailing was Derek's go-to means of dealing with the fall out. It was practically his signature move, if one discounted his patented bitch face and ability to communicate with only his eyebrows, of course.

The other reason Stiles was so angry, the reason that he would die rather than admit, was because he was hurt. He thought that things would be different this go round. The pack was closer, more cohesive. They'd become a family somewhere along the way and Stiles thought that family was supposed to stick together, the way he and Scott always had. Derek had changed over the years, become a little less sharp around the edges, a little more open and quicker to smile. His presence in Stiles' life had become something Stiles relied on, something that he was reluctant to accept but once he had, couldn't imagine living without.

Waking up to a text that simply said 'Going to visit Cora. Be back eventually', twisted something in Stiles' heart that hadn't managed to untwist in the whole three months Derek had been gone. Angry and bitter was probably a terrible way to deal with missing someone, but Stiles was nothing if not stubborn and committed to what he started. He had abandonment issues as it was and he didn't need Derek exacerbating them.

Scott shifted closer to Stiles' side, dragging him back from the ugly snarl of his thoughts. "Look, I know that you have issues with him-"

Stiles barked out a laugh that made Lydia jump and drop something in the bathroom, swearing at him under her breath.

"Issues, Scott? My issues with Derek Hale could fill the Library of Congress." Stiles met Scott's eye, let him see the Beta Gold bleeding into whiskey brown, triggered by the heavy wave of emotions.

"Please, Stiles?" Scott tried again, his eyes wide and earnest where they blinked owlishly above a pouted mouth. "I'll owe you big time."

Rolling his eyes, Stiles levered himself up off the floor and tamped down on the annoyed growl building in his chest. "You already owe me, dude. But, Fine." he relented. "Give me your credit card, though, because I am not spending my own money on him."

Scott was on his feet and digging his wallet from the pocket of his jeans in an instant, smiling brightly at him. "You're the best, bro." he praised as he slapped the little plastic rectangle into Stiles' palm.

"That's well established, Scott. Where the hell have you been?" Stiles smirked, tucking the card into his pocket as he headed for the door, stopping only long enough to peck a kiss to Lydia's cheek on his was out.

Dust and stale air greeted him when he slid open the door to Derek's loft, tickling his nose and making him sneeze before he even stepped inside. He left the door open as he walked through to the kitchen, dropping two bags of groceries onto the counter and flinging open the window above the sink. He staunchly refused to pay any mind to the pang in his chest at being there, surrounded by Derek but further away than he'd felt in months.

Leaving the non-perishables on the counter, Stiles put away what needed to be refrigerated before he moved through the rest of the loft, opening windows and convincing himself that dusting was absolutely not his responsibility despite what his mother's voice whispered in the back of his mind.

After Peter had been committed to Eichen House, Derek moved into the upstairs bedroom. The living room looked a little strange without a queen size bed taking up space but Stiles was glad that Derek seemed to settle into his home a bit more. It gave the place a sense of permanence it had been severely lacking, made it feel more like a home and less like a crash pad.

Standing at the bottom of the spiral staircase, Stiles debated. He'd done what Scott had asked. By all rights he was in the clear as far as his responsibilities went. But, Scott had said Derek would be exhausted when he got home, after all. Would it be so difficult to simply do the kind thing and swap out Derek's musty sheets for clean ones? He'd no doubt want to collapse into bed the moment he was home and it would be so easy for Stiles to do one tiny little thing to facilitate that.

Sighing at his own stupidity and inability to not take care of the people he loved, despite how pissed off at them he was, Stiles climbed the staircase. He grabbed clean sheets from the linen closet in the hallway before heading for Derek's bedroom. The moment he opened the bedroom door though, Stiles froze in place. He could feel the Gold burn into his eyes as the scent of the room, of Derek's den, assaulted him. Stiles' head whirled, making him dizzy in its intensity.

"Oh, you've got to be fucking kidding me." he growled, the sound hitching into a whine halfway through.

His wolf was practically purring, so content was he to roll around in Derek's overwhelming scent. Somewhere inside Stiles everything shifted just a fraction and snapped into place, knocking him breathless. In a single suspended moment Stiles felt like he suddenly fit better inside his skin, like the low buzz that kept him and his wolf from settling, from being one solid entity rather than two opposing ones, was simply gone. Deep behind Stiles' ribcage, where before had been an uncomfortable sort of emptiness, there was now a solid feeling of connection between Stiles and his wolf. His eyes melted back into their human shade and Stiles had to reach out a hand to grip the door frame in order to keep himself standing, his knees feeling like jelly under him while he breathed what felt like his first breath with new lungs.

"Of course." He hissed between gritted teeth, shaking his head and making himself cross the room to Derek's bed on unsteady legs. "Of course it's you." he snapped to absolutely no one as he ripped the sheets from the bed and tossed them across the room. "Why wouldn't you be my anchor? It makes total fucking sense."

Stiles made the bed as angrily as one possibly could, grumbling under his breath the whole time about the idiocy of not only developing feelings for asshole werewolves but unintentionally coming to rely on them so heavily that they turned into the only thing capable of reminding you that you were still human beneath your wolf's snarling facade.

When he finished tucking the new sheets under the mattress, Stiles quickly stuffed the used ones into the hamper inside Derek's closet, fighting the urge to roll around in them with every ounce of strength he had. Apparently, having an emotional connection to your anchor intensified the warm and fuzzies, if the new affinity Stiles had for Derek's scent was anything to go by. He stopped to open the window beside the bed, grateful for the small reprieve from the overwhelming scent of the room as fresh air swirled in around him.

"And here I was thinking this werewolf thing wouldn't be so bad." Stiles ranted as he made his way back downstairs. "What a welcome home present. 'Hey Derek, how was South America? By the way, I'm sort of a werewolf now. Oh, no, it's all good. Yeah, except for the fact that you are apparently the anchor to my humanity, everything is just fucking peachy."

He was glad no one else was around to hear him bitch all the way back to his Jeep, or to hear his desperate and near hysterical call to Lydia when he was already on his way back to her house.

"Stilinski!"

Stiles jumped, barely managing to catch the phone knocked from his lap before it could crash to the floor. "Sorry, what?" he questioned, blinking up at Finstock who was standing a few feet away, looking as though that hadn't been the first time he'd called Stiles' name.

Coach narrowed his eyes at Stiles, jabbing a finger toward his face. Stiles crossed his eyes in order to follow it. "There are still three days until vacation, Stilinski. I expect to have your full attention until then."

"Got it, Coach. My bad." Stiles nodded, discreetly shifting away from the finger hovering uncomfortably close to the tip of his nose.

When Finstock turned his back, Stiles slouched back onto his desk and fought the urge to let his mind wander again. His ADHD may have been mostly cure by the bite but old habits died hard. A severe lack of sleep didn't help his case but there was nothing he could about that now. How was he expected to sleep when he had Derek Hale rattling around inside head like a squeaky wheel that wouldn't shut the fuck up about needing a good greasing?

Huh. That sounded dirtier and dirtier the more he thought about it.

"Hey." Kira murmured from the desk right behind his, her voice low enough that only he and Isaac, who was on the other side of the room watching them, could hear her. "Are you okay? You seem... Edgy. And you don't smell right." She wrinkled her nose even though he couldn't see her.

"I'm fine." Stiles mumbled back, hoping she wouldn't call him on the lie. "Didn't sleep well last night." Or, you know, not at all.

He hadn't told any of the pack, save for Lydia, about having found his anchor. Partially because he didn't know how to explain why Derek was the one thing that kept him tethered to his humanity and partially because he didn't think he'd ever live down the humiliation Jackson would no doubt rain down upon him. Telling Lydia was more about necessity than anything else, though he trusted her implicitly. If he could have spared himself the embarrassment of having to admit everything to her, he would have.

Isaac, far too observant for his own good, muttered, "Derek's home, you know. Texted when he hit the BH border."

Stiles tensed, a fresh flicker of temper sparking in his chest. Checking his texts as subtly as he could manage, he found nothing that wasn't there the minute before. Temper melded seamlessly into a hot stab of angry disappointment. Derek had texted Isaac that he was home, probably Scott too, but hadn't bothered to let Stiles know? It was a dick move on his part, Stiles couldn't help but think.

"Good for Derek." Stiles snapped, earning himself a few confused glances from the students around him and a nice glare from Coach.

The bell rang for lunch and Stiles was out of his seat before it finished its clanging. Kira was kind enough to leave him be, heading off to meet Malia rather than hanging around to pester him with questions. Isaac, on the other hand, fell into step right beside him, slinging an arm around his shoulders.

"He didn't text you, did he?" Isaac guessed, his tone empathetic and not at all mocking but making Stiles' skin prickle defensively nonetheless.

"No idea." Stiles lied through his teeth. "Don't particularly care."

Isaac steered them toward Stiles' locker, where Scott and Allison were undoubtedly already waiting. "Who are you lying to, Stiles? Me or you?" he asked, the words gentle but grating nonetheless.

Stiles didn't even attempt to stop the growl from leaving his throat.

"Hey, don't bite my head off." Isaac frowned, cupping a hand around the back of Stiles' neck to soothe him. "I just figured that since you and Malia are done, you'd stop dancing around your feelings for Derek."

Snarling at a pack mate, the Alpha's second for Christ's sake, in the middle of the junior's hallway was a terrible idea but Stiles went with it anyway. "I do not have feelings for Derek."

Isaac arched one unimpressed eyebrow. "Tell that to your heartbeat."

If snarling was a bad plan, lunging for Isaac was probably the worst idea Stiles could have come up with. Fortunately, Scott had impeccable timing and appeared in time to wrap an arm around Stiles' waist to prevent him from making a scene.

"What the hell, man?" Scott questioned, baffled.

Stiles and Isaac were close now and days, unlike they'd been in the beginning. A fight between them was as unlikely as walking in on Jackson learning to do the samba from a mermaid. Shit like that just didn't happen.

"It's not his fault." Isaac said, watching Stiles sag back into Scott's chest. "I was needling him about-"

"Fuck this." Stiles spat angrily, jerking out of Scott's arm and glaring at the small number of their pack that had come to investigate. "I'm out. Call me if someone's dying. Otherwise? I don't want to hear it."

Erica made to step forward, a frown pulling down the corners of her mouth, when Stiles turned to leave but Boyd put a hand on her shoulder to stop her. "Just let him breathe." he told her softly.

Stiles kind of really loved Boyd.

He made it to the parking lot and his Jeep without anyone following him, trying to focus on something other than his totally bullshit anchor in order to stay human. It worked well enough, his claws barely beginning to prick at his fingertips as he climbed in and slammed the Jeep's door behind him. By the time he pulled onto Main Street he was able to beat back the shift without focusing on Derek, and was already feeling guilty for his outburst. Not guilty enough to go back and apologize, though. He'd take Isaac out for burgers later, set things right.

Stiles' frustration with Derek, however, was nearing atomic levels. How could he come back to Beacon Hills, come home, and not say a word? Stiles had no doubt that the asshole had texted the rest of the pack to announce his prodigal return. How was it that Stiles didn't rank high enough in Derek's book to warrant a text of his own? Finding out from the pack rather than the man himself that Derek was indeed back within their territory left a bitter taste in Stiles' mouth.

Before he knew it, he was pulling into his driveway and throwing the Jeep in park. His father's cruiser was gone, meaning that he wouldn't be home to ask Stiles any questions about his repetitive ventures into truancy, which was good. He wasn't entirely confident in his ability to have a rational conversation just then.

Letting himself into the house, Stiles instantly went on alert, an all too familiar scent wafting down the hall from the living room. With an irritated growl that thankfully sounded more human than wolf, Stiles dropped his bookbag beside the door and headed for the kitchen. If Derek thought for a minute that Stiles was going to come to him, he was out of his mind.

Stiles was halfway through a can of Coke, perched on the counter beside the sink, when Derek came into the kitchen, scowling like Stiles was the one breaking and entering. Stiles was honest enough to admit he let his eyes slide over Derek, taking in his perfectly coiffed hair and skimming down his torso, pulse hitching at the way Derek wore his burgundy Henley open at his throat and his jeans slung low on his hips.

When Stiles didn't speak, Derek sighed. "You're still angry."

Stoic and silent was Stiles' new mantra.

Derek's shoulders fell, his eyes skirting down and away. "Look, I know that the way I said goodbye," Stiles snorted derisively and Derek glared harder at the cabinet between Stiles' feet, "wasn't exactly the best way to handle things. But, I'm home now. Can't we just... Go back to the way things were?"

Stiles bit his lips closed on an angry retort, tasting blood but not giving a single shit about it.

Derek eyed him carefully, as if looking for something, a foothold to grab hold of and drag them back to even ground. "Will you at least tell me why both you and your house smells like an unfamiliar wolf?" he asked, hoping to startle an honest response out of Stiles.

Stiles stared hard at the can of soda in his hand, fighting the urge to scratch at the rough woven strand of rope tied around his ankle, hidden beneath the leg of his jeans. Lydia Martin was his favorite person in the whole mother fucking world.

"I don't think it's really any of your business." Stiles said tightly.

Derek's eyebrows rose toward his hairline. "What about Scott and Malia?" he asked haughtily, thinking he had Stiles backed into a corner. "Is it any of their business?"

"They both know who the wolf is, Derek." Stiles smirked coldly at Derek's obvious surprise at hearing the truth echoed in his heartbeat. "Any other questions?"

Derek schooled his features into a blank mask, his eyebrows twitching as if to spite him. "We're pack, Stiles. You're going to have to get over it at some point, and I've got all the time in the world."

"Until the next time you decide to split, right?" Stiles mocked heatedly. "Because we both know it's just a matter of time before life here gets to be too much and you run away. Again."

He kicked himself for bringing it up, for laying half his cards on the table, but was slightly vindicated when Derek flinched minutely.

"I wasn't running away." Derek sighed dejectedly, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "I just needed-"

"To see Cora, to get some space from Peter's bullshit, to learn how to control your full shift, to get away from the pack, away from m-" Stiles cut himself off, closing his eyes and taking a steadying breath. "Pick an excuse, Derek, any excuse." he ground out, eyes completely human when they opened.

"You know it wasn't like that." Derek argued, advancing on him, eyes sharp. "I just needed some room to breathe. Is that so hard to understand?"

"No, it's really not." Stiles struggled to keep the growl out of his voice, to keep his fangs from dropping. He found it morbidly amusing that the thing sending him hurtling toward a shift was the very same thing keeping him human. "But you know what, Derek? The rest of us needed to breathe, too. We just found a way to do it without abandoning our pack."

"I did not abandon you!" Derek snarled, hands coming out of his pockets with claws already extended and the scent of anger leaking out of every pore of his skin. "I was always going to come back, Stiles. There was never any chance that I wouldn't."

Eyes pricking with heat, Stiles focused hard on the scent of Derek as he closed in, letting it lock him into place before he shifted and let the wolf he'd so carefully hidden out into the open. "Just go home, Derek. You and I have nothing to talk about. I think you made that pretty clear when you texted me to tell me you were leaving and then didn't text at all to tell me you were home."

Derek stopped mid-stride a few feet away, even that proximity making Stiles' wolf whimper pitifully in his head. "I didn't text you when I got back because I was going to stop by after school. The only reason I'm here now is because Scott called to warn me that you might be on your way to rip me a new one."

Stiles barked a laugh at that, hoarse and jagged. "Scott's trying to get his furry ass kicked." he snapped.

Derek's eyebrows did a weird wriggle, unsure if they were angry or amused at that. "Trouble in paradise?"

Stiles almost smiled before he remembered why he spent the previous three months pissed at the stupidly attractive werewolf currently looming in his kitchen, and the last hours of yesterday begging Lydia to blow off plans with Jackson to make him a scent masking charm just to delay the inevitable moment when Derek found out he'd been turned. The anchor bomb was never, ever going to be dropped if Stiles could help it.

"Go home, Derek." Stiles repeated, ignoring his wolf's whining.

Derek hesitated, clenching his fist as though trying to stop himself from reaching out. Stiles could smell the storm of emotions wafting off of him, a spicy combination of annoyance and frustration punctuated with something that smelled like arousal but had to be literally anything else, the ever present scent of pack lingering beneath all of it.

"Fine." Derek eventually nodded, one short movement. "But this isn't over."

Stiles shivered but covered it by tossing his empty can into the sink. "Whatever you gotta tell yourself, Big Bad."