It's not his most favourite thing to do, but habit has Stiles rising with the sun. He sighs as he sits up and sticks his thumbs back into the thumbholes on his shirtsleeves. In the past few years he's found that the jitteriness he's had in his hands and body his whole life fades out a lot after he's been using.

He cracks his neck and rolls his shoulders a couple of times. Belatedly he realises that the panicked sigil* jump from yesterday meant he didn't have his car with him. Or his wallet. Or money. Or a spare change of clothes.

Stiles sighs again, the now familiar feeling of exasperation with himself making his shoulders hunch as he murmurs a frustrated useless. Mentally he does a once over, glad to discover that nothing hurt. Next, he gives himself a mandatory pat down and smiles with relief when he discovers his cell phone in the pocket of his jeans.

Not completely useless.

The half charge he sees broadens the smile on his face.

Deftly, he speed dial's 3.

-x-

Derek hadn't bothered trying to sleep after ordering Stiles to do the same. He gets through a few chapters of Inferno before it's almost 6AM and he's antsy and twitchy. He decides to go for a run and is almost to his room to grab some clothes before he realises that the risk of waking Stiles after yesterday's ordeal isn't the best idea.

He's paused in the hallway half deciding to go back downstairs when he hears the muffled hey.

Half a second of wondering if Stiles somehow knew he was out in the hallway passes, before Stiles speaks again and Derek realises that there was no point in worrying about waking the kid in the first place.

"I told them. I mean, I had to after, well – Jesus, you think?! I pulled the speech out of my ass! …Yeah – no – I couldn't—it was Derek …yes. Look, can you come get me? I didn't exactly jump my car over – I know – yeah, Malia, stop. I know."

Derek holds his breath as he hears Stiles sigh on the other side of the wall.

"Well, I'm about to find out. Ahuh – yeah, ah-huh. Thanks."

Derek doesn't wait to hear Stiles hang up the phone before heading back downstairs.

-x-

He's got bacon and eggs cooking by the time Stiles meanders into the kitchen fifteen minutes later, untied shoelaces swishing carelessly against the floor.

"I love breakfast food," he says.

Derek watches him out of the corner of his eye as he replies. "And good morning to you too. How are you feeling?"

Stiles takes a seat at the bar and leans forward on his elbows. "I'm good, dude. Whatever was in that potion Deaton left me must've had some awesome stuff."

Derek shifts the bacon and eggs onto a plate and tosses more strips into the pan. He takes advantage of the lack of other pack members to reacquaint himself with Stiles' scent. He's familiar with the usual cinnamon and innocence, but there's a new, stormy, undercurrent that he can't quite place. He's got half an eye on the bacon as he catalogues the similarities and the differences in Stiles – mostly the differences. He's left his hair longish and some of the brown locks almost touch his brows. There's a surprising absence of flannel as he notes the kid's plain black long sleeve stretched all the way out over his thumbs.

Derek absently shifts more bacon onto the heaping plate beside the stove. It takes him a while to notice but finally he spots the biggest difference. Stiles is still. His usually twitchy fingers are motionless. There's no continuous bounce in his leg, and Stiles is quietly sitting on the bar stool watching him, eyebrows raised in a silent question.

Derek lets go of the pan and switches off the stove without taking his eyes off Stiles.

"You're different," he declares, tone even.

The closer the pack had grown throughout the years, the less need there had been for scent marking in the hey, I haven't seen you in forever, I need to make you smell like pack again, kind of way - but all of a sudden Derek finds himself stepping forward, eyes narrowing as he tunes all his senses in on Stiles, whose mouth forms a casually sheepish "O" as he nods slowly.

-x-

Derek's eyes are blue and bright, and Stiles expected a confrontation, but nothing quite like this. He reminds himself not to make any sudden movements as Derek takes another step forward, narrowed, glowing eyes never leaving his face.

"Oh-kay," he drawls without any feelings of anxiety. He likes to think he stopped fearing Derek's aggressive nature years ago now. "You go ahead and you do what you gotta do, buddy. I'll just sit right here."

Derek responds with a soft growl under his breath. Stiles watches him round the bar and move towards where he's seated. He knows better than to make eye contact and instead he moves his head slightly to the side and bares his neck for Derek's nose.

Stiles hasn't really had a chance to discuss with Scott or any of the others if he smelled any different, but if Derek's reaction is any indication, he figures that maybe his now active spark is giving off a little somethin'-somethin' of its own that has now managed to raise Derek's hackles.

So, he smelled different. That answers that question.

Goose pimples rise along the back of his neck as Derek leans in close enough to sniff him. Stiles suppresses the urge to shiver and gazes lazily at a strip of bacon as he waits for Derek to get a reign on his wolf.

Derek moves around him, nose nuzzling his temple and the tips of his hair. Stiles lets himself be nudged, gives off a small, huffed laugh at a particularly rough prod from Derek. Lets Scott's beta burrow into the space under his ear for as long as he wants to – because this is normal now.

-x-

The pole holding them all together is solid, dammit. He could feel Kira and Lydia struggling with their bonds behind him. Could feel the skin on his wrists becoming raw from his own straining.

"They're coming, I know it," Kira murmurs distractedly. He doesn't know if she means the wendigos saving them for dinner or Scott and the rest of the pack.

"I don't feel like screaming," Lydia counters just as distractedly. Good, Stiles mentally replies, it means nobody's dying today.

The three of them stop suddenly as they hear footsteps in the hallway. He hears one of the girls' breaths hitch and Stiles is about to renew his struggle to get loose when Scott bursts through the door eyes glowing red and teeth bared.

"Scott!" Kira cries with relief.

Derek barrels in right behind Scott, followed by the twins, Isaac and Allison.

"You guys okay?" Scott growls with his shifted vocal chords as he moves toward them.

Stiles rears back in surprise as he watches Scott try to reach for the three of them all at the same time, like he couldn't decide which one to grab first. Their alpha's hands are everywhere, ghosting over Stiles' shoulders and Kira's hair and the back of Lydia's neck.

"Dude, what—" Stiles mumbles in confusion as he tries to shake Scott's right hand off his face. He just knows that this is going to be something to laugh about later.

"Oh my god, Aiden!" Lydia's startled exclamation is followed by a muffled snuffle. He hears Kira giggle from beside him and frowns as he watches Scott nuzzle a nose into her neck.

"Let them," his head snaps to the front as Derek crouches down in front of him, eyes still blue and glowing but definitely much more in control than the bitten-wolves around them.

"You've been missing for 48 hours, they were worried. Let them," Derek says again. And realisation dawns over Stiles as all the reading he's done about wolves and scenting helps him finally figure out what's going on.

"Oh. Oh!" Derek meets his gaze with an apologetic one of his own.

"Oh, you-you go ahead and do what you gotta do, buddy. I'll just sit right here."

Derek lets out a small huff and reaches arms around him to undo his bonds. And Stiles…well, Stiles tries not to make a big deal about how Derek just happened to crouch in front of him first, or the following feeling of Derek nosing lightly into the crook of his neck and taking a long, deep breath.

-x-

"First thing in the morning? Really?" Lydia's voice ghosts into Stiles' brain and the bacon he's been staring at slides back into focus as he hears Derek reply to his friend.

"It's not like that and you know it," he murmurs, as Stiles feels him casually pull back from his neck. He doesn't quite recall when they stopped being bothered by the teasing, when Derek stopped being really bothered, but Stiles has found that it took less energy to let the teasing pass over him than protesting it every time. And with studying, and 'dabbling', and the ever occasional supernatural episodes filling their lives, it's not surprising that the random ribbing from one pack member to the other was more a comfort than anything else.

Lydia replies with a noncommittal shrug and sidles up beside Stiles. Her gaze narrows in mild annoyance as she notices the empty space between his hands on the bar in front of him.

"I would've thought you'd have coffee ready by now," she pouts teasingly, as she slips around them both and starts fiddling with Derek's Nespresso machine.

Before he can muster up an appropriate reply, Scott and Kira amble their way into the kitchen. Scott's hair is still sticking out at odd angles but Kira's all dressed and ready for the day.

They haven't greeted each other good morning since they were three, but the true alpha slips a hand on his shoulder and squeezes it tight in an I'm-so-glad-you're-not-dead kind of way, and Stiles lifts said shoulder in a half shrug of acknowledgement. Kira shoots him an affectionate smile as she continues over to Lydia still working the Nespresso.

Derek's back at the stove now, frying eggs this time, as Scott slides into the barstool beside him and bumps his shoulder again. This time it's accompanied with a look on his face. The, I-can't-believe-you've-been-hiding-things-from-me, look. Stiles has enough conscience to look sheepish.

I'm sorry, he says with his eyes, and Scott rolls his own in exasperation.

"Can we not forget that not all of us grew up together here?" Isaac butts in from behind them, playfully shoving his head between Stiles and Scott.

Scott snorts and hooks an arm around Isaac's neck and rubs his knuckles enthusiastically into the pup's unruly hair.

Stiles feels more than sees Allison approach his other side.

"Glad you're okay, Stiles," she murmurs, planting a soft kiss against his cheek. He smiles at her as Lydia slides a mug of coffee in front of him. He recognises the look she has on her face. The cautious watchfulness that she always wears after seeing him pull a particularly hard spell. He always tries to play down the level of magic Malia makes him practice, mostly because he really wasn't that good at it, and it hardly ever worked - and also to avoid disappointment. But sometimes he wonders if Lydia thinks more of his spark than it really is.

"And he's alive!" Aiden declares from the kitchen doorway, Ethan and Danny silently trailing in behind him with small smiles on their faces.

Now that everyone was present and accounted for, Stiles straightens in his seat and takes a deep breath. He'd known this moment was long overdue and the last thing he wanted was for the pack to think he was some kind of demon, warlock, crazy - whatever.

"Okay guys, I know you all heard - or were duly informed - of what I said last night," he starts, watching Ethan cross his arms and lean back against the dining table and Aiden briefly lay a hand against Lydia's back before sidling away towards the bacon.

He sees Lydia shoot him a look from beneath her lashes and take her bottom lip between her teeth as she cradles her coffee mug with her hands.

"But, like I said, I'm mostly just really bad at it! What you saw yesterday was a complete and total fluke - probably from the panic of thinking that you all could have died if I didn't do something."

There's a flurry of movement as Scott whirls on him with an angry frown on his face, "but Stiles you died. Can we not forget that little part of this 'fluke' you're talking about? What you did yesterday literally killed you!"

And this is why his best friend hasn't said a word to him until right at that moment.

"Okay, you're angry," Stiles acknowledges in a calming voice. Again, he expected a confrontation but nothing quite like this.

"I told you," Lydia singsongs from somewhere on the other side of the kitchen.

Out of all the scenarios that had played out in his head, none of them had ever consisted of the pack being angry at him for studying magic because it was dangerous. Them thinking he was a freak of nature had been a scenario he'd quickly scrapped – for obvious reasons. Mostly, he'd been terrified of them seeing him fail. Of them thinking that this was an evil thing inside him. Of their rejection. Of them thinking he was possessed because since when did human-Stiles become magic?

Well, he's not anyway, because this spark of his was mostly useless except when it wanted to work.

"Okay, dude, listen. I know I took you by surprise, I mean, obviously you didn't expect me to materialise out of thin air and set fire to all the baddies and then die right in front of you, and I'm sorry. I didn't actually know that was going to happen either," he babbled. "But you guys brought me back, right?! I mean, you came through for me, and I came through for you. I mean, you have no idea how it feels to actually be able to scratch your back for the first time in a while now…"

"—Stiles, you're missing the point!" Scott exclaims incredulously as he shoves his stool back and storms out of the room.

"I told you," Lydia singsongs again. Stiles deflates in his seat and turns an irritated look at his previous crush of so many years.

-x-

Glossary

Sigil (n.) - an inscribed or painted symbol considered to have magical power.

-x-

A/N: What do you guys think so far?

Thank you for reading! 3