Tony came to with a start. Heat and cold flashed through his body as if it were resetting its own temperature. He gave a soft groan as he rolled to his feet. Thank Thor that he had been on the sofa when "it" happened and therefore hadn't hit the steel table or any of his tools when he lost consciousness. And what the hell was "it"? What had happened? He wasn't some heroine from a Victorian gothic novel swooning out of the blue!
Oh for the love of red and gold shiny things. The Blue, the damn Blue. It was something to do with that spiritual shit, wasn't it? It just had to be.

It was telling that there was no sign of Perro, and the mutt was usually lurking around the place these days as his spirit animal was utterly enamoured with his guide John, even if the oversensitive prissy incorporeal canine was still pissed off at Tony because he had basically ignored him for years. That coyote could hold a grudge like a damn boss or like his sentinel.

To be fair Tony wasn't letting go of his grudges against Obie, Justin Hammer, SHIELD or his damn father anytime soon so he could understand where his spirit guide was coming from, especially since they were both besotted with his actual guide.
He scowled as fear began to knot in his gut. John, his guide, was John alright?

Tony hadn't even had a chance to open his mouth to give voice to the thought, when JARVIS offered calmly, "Your guide is also just regaining consciousness Sir, he …"but before JARVIS could utter another syllable, Tony took off like a bat out of hell and he was sprinting towards the living area where he had left his guide reading and leisurely sipping his coffee earlier that morning. He barely heard JARVIS's attempt to calm him down, focusing his hearing on the beat of his guide's heart.

John opened his eyes wide and then sat up abruptly from the slumped position on the chair. His mug slipped to the floor with a crash when he managed to elbow it from its precarious position on the arm of said chair. The noise startled him even further, but he dismissed the puddle of shattered fine China and cold coffee spreading across the expensive white rug out of mind because he could only think of his sentinel.
"Jarvis, is Tony okay?" he queried urgently as he thrust himself out of that damn enveloping seat
Then he heard the pounding feet coming towards him.

"Never mind kid" he muttered just before his Sentinel rounded the door and practically skidded his way across the rug dotted marble tiled floor to crash into his guide's arms and take them both down into the extra wide seat John had only just risen from.

"Oof Tony, calm down, we are good, we are okay" John reassured in a breathless voice as he tried to right himself and his armful of worried Sentinel before the pair of them slid of the chair like jelly off a plate.

"I have taken the liberty of cancelling the emergency lock down protocol Sirs, and you have a voice message from Alpha Prime Guide Dr Blair Sandburg" Jarvis delivered in a carefully neutral voice.

"Come on Tony, we're okay, you can quit with the sniffing and tasting and touching" John refused to let his amusement at his Sentinel's handsy behaviour out in his voice. He also wouldn't reveal how touched he was by the guy's concern. It had been a while since anyone but Stiles truly worried about him to such a degree.

Tony took one more deep breath to inhale John's amazing scent from the crook of his neck and then raised his head to stare into those fascinating blue eyes. Such beautiful blue eyes, windows to the soul, yada yada, Iris full of amazing rods and cones. If he stared hard enough, he could probably work out the melanin ratio in his Guide's eyes which gave him such a spectacular colour. He just had to stare harder, look deeper, focus...

"Tony, Tony, I need you to come back to me now, come on babe, no zoning right now, listen to my voice, feel my hands on your face and close your eyes for me love. That's it close those gorgeous eyes just for a couple of minutes til we get you sorted."

Tony shuddered as John's calm even voice and the gentle fingers stroking his face brought him back to himself. He took a deep breath, inhaling John's scent sprinkled with cold coffee and newspaper, then lifted his head to stare into concerned blue eyes.
"What the hell John?" he murmured as he focused on balancing his senses. "I don't know Sweetheart but we'll find out and then we are spending the afternoon meditating and resting"
Tony began to grumble his disagreement but stopped when John raised that damn eyebrow "its for the two of us Tony, not just you. We just got whammied by the spirit plane out of the blue, pun intended" John gave him a quick unrepentant grin and continued "we need to make sure there are no lurking surprises or aftereffects so you'll just have to deal with it sentinel"

Tony handed John a fresh cup of coffee and took a sip of his own before asking JARVIS to play Blair's message.

"Hey guys. Woops, owe you an apology for not warning you but to be fair, I didn't know that was going to happen until it did, so I guess I couldn't really warn you. But hey, everyone's fine. Stiles is fine. Will tell you guys all about it when you get to Beacon Hills. Woops, Jim wanted Stiles to contact you, let the cat out of the bag there, but hey no panic, everything is cool. Stiles just needs his dad so maybe you could pretend to be surprised when he rings you? He's fine, Scouts honour, well I've never been in the Scouts but as an anthropologist I totally understand the tribal culture and mores involved so if I had ever been in the Scouts, I would totally use that oath. Speak soon" And the call cut off.

John and Tony stared at each other in stunned silence then before either could say a word, Blair's voice was back sounding even more sheepish " Woops again. Sorry guys, I didn't tell you what happened did I? Okay, had a bit of unpleasantness to deal with on the spirit plane and your spirit animals turned up to help unexpectedly. Oh boy did they help! Anyway, obviously there's a bit more of a story behind this so best to speak in person when you get to Beacon Hills. But I swear to you Stiles is fine and safe so don't panic. Gah, forget I said that, I always panic when someone tells me not to panic so I don't know why I say it. Just ignore that. But really don't panic and we'll see you soon. Bye guys" and the call cut off again.

Before either of them could say a word, Blair's voice sounded out for the third time. "Hi guys, swear to the goddess I will forget my own head sometimes, anyway if you need me please ring me, but you should be okay after a period of guided meditation. I'll be leading that for Jim, Stiles, and the others with us this afternoon so John if you want to link in the blue to help settle the pair of you, that's fine. Tony, listen to your guide, you will need to meditate and rebalance after this little episode. Please don't ignore your needs. I know you won't ignore your guide's"

Blair's voice had dropped into Alpha guide territory, no distraction, no waffling. It was obvious that it was not a request. He clearly expected the pair of them to do as he said. But the last remarks were full of rueful amusement as he signed off for the final time.

Tony had watched his guide as his face had changed from a wry paternal amusement because Blair had sounded so much like Stiles with his waffling wordy explanation to pale faced worry the more Blair said don't panic. The man's heartbeat had racked up speed on a par with Tony's Hennessey Venom GT supercar.
"I need to speak to Stiles" John shook his head "No I need to see him".

Before he could say anything else Tony interrupted " J, have my plane ready to go within the hour. Get a flight plan logged for Beacon Hills. John doesn't need to pack, except his unform, and we can do the damned meditation in the air."

"If I may Sir, I already took the liberty of having the Sheriff's uniform dry cleaned and sent back to his house. Your usual emergency "go" baggage have been refreshed and updated as of yesterday and are already on the aircraft awaiting you. Do you wish to take one of the suits?"

The tension had eased out of John as he listened to Tony and Jarvis make preparations, but the last question made him chuckle. "Tony, its Beacon Hills, a small town in Northern Cali, don't you think taking one of your Iron Man suits is a bit over the top"

Tony grinned wickedly at his guide and raised an eyebrow as he spread his arms wide and twirled " Over the top? Darling you do know who I am don't you? "

As John moved towards the kitchen laughing at Tony's antics, Tony muttered sotto voice "Make sure one of the suits is in the hold J, I want you active and available through the suit and the usual equipment."

Stiles stared at the cell the big guy handed him in response to his excuse. Admittedly not one of his best… well okay, the utterly pathetic attempt to get out of ringing his dad by claiming his own cell needed charging excuse.
Technically it wasn't a lie, all cells needed to be charged or they couldn't work, but Uncle Jim had just raised one of the eyebrows of doom and handed him his own phone. (Stiles hadn't yet decided whose eyebrows were doomier, was that a word? It should be a word. But whose were doomier? Grumpy Alpha Furball or Grumpy Alpha Prime Sentinel. He needed an adjudicator; Blair would do it in a heartbeat if Stiles mentioned the magic word research.)

He really wished he had kept his big mouth shut when Uncle Jim had been dealing with the "Educational" half of the Argent mob even if he really meant it at the time. He still wanted his dad; he just didn't want to talk to him. The thought of trying to tell his dad, of admitting he had lied to him for months, about the danger, his shameful behaviour over Derek Hale, was just exhausting.

He was also afraid of his dad's reaction. He knew he had disappointed him so much; he couldn't bear it if this was the last straw.

Ellison sighed with fond exasperation "Kid, John loves you; he might be mad for a while but he loves you. Don't stress yourself out about this." His deep voice was oddly soothing because Stiles' senses could tell that he really meant it.

Stiles looked down again at the cell in his hand, Uncle Jim had helpfully pulled up his dad's number, so he didn't have to scroll through. Stiles rolled his eyes before remembering that Jim was watching him, he winced as he raised his eyes and saw the amused smirk on the big guy's face.

The sound of a cell ringing startled Stiles enough that he nearly dropped the silent phone in his hand. He knew that ring tone, he slid his other hand into his pants pocket and pulled out his own cell. Then he watched both eyebrows of doom raise on Uncle Jim's face. Well crap.

"Must have had more charge in the battery than I thought" he offered weakly at the unimpressed Sentinel, a flush seeping up from his neck until his cheeks were apple red.

Jim had learnt a long time ago to hide his amusement, just because his Blair accused him of being a troll, it didn't mean he wasn't one. Blair hated when he used double negatives, which made it even funnier.

The cell continued to ring as Stiles tried to juggle both in his hands. Jim wondered how long Stiles was going to take to work out a solution but he finally lost patience and he gently plucked his own cell out of the equation.
Stiles offered him a nod of embarrassed acknowledgement as he quickly pressed answer "Hi Dad" he chirped suddenly desperate to hear his father's voice.

Ellison's fake scowl eased as he saw the kid begin to relax properly for the first time that day and the way his face lit up with relief when his father told him he was on his way home.

It was only after the call ended that Stiles seemed to remember that he had a confession to make to his father. "Oh crap" he groaned but Jim could tell relief was still greater than apprehension. He slung his arm consolingly around the kid's shoulder and pulled him into a one-sided hug.

"It's a shame they won't be here before Blair makes us meditate because of that spirit plane shit, er nonsense" Jim complained manfully, and was happy to see the kid distracted enough to laugh.