A Place to Hide Away- Sterek

Meeting of Wife and Husband

"Derek, for god's sake, you made it sound like Stiles was dying." Erica frowned and the others agreed with her, nodding their heads. Derek shrugged helplessly and placed a hand on Stiles' head where it laid on his lap. The pack moved to sit down. Scott and Allison sat to Derek's right and Isaac at Derek's left. The rest of the pack sat down on the other couch and Stiles' dad sat in the armchair.

"I didn't see a problem with it. I didn't want to scare all of you with 'Stiles is a five year old and a werefox. Come over.'" Derek raised his eyebrows at Erica.

"Would've been a lot better than 'an incident.'" Lydia said, raising her eyebrow.

"That doesn't matter anymore. Why was Stiles turned into a child?" John asked, crossing his arms even though he had a fond look in his eye as he looked at the young boy slumbering in Derek's lap.

"I don't know. He was on my front door step asking me why I smelled good and that he didn't know where he was. The last thing he remembers is Scott's sixth birthday." Derek shifted back against the couch and Stiles' ears twitched in annoyance.

"He's tiny. He must be like four or five." Scott said with a frown.

"Five and a half." Derek said automatically. The others turned to him strangely and he looked down. "He told me when he came in."

"So you don't know why he was turned into a kid. Do you at least know why or how he was turned into a werefox?" the sheriff asked, leaning forward onto the edge of his seat.

"No. I called Deaton, but he's out of town."

"Yeah, he's going to some conference where they'll be selling some rare ingredients or whatever." Scott put in. "He won't be back until like Friday or next Saturday."

"So we're stuck with a mini-Stiles for practically a week?" Jackson groaned and Lydia elbowed him in the side. " I mean, come on, he's okay as a teenager, but as a kid, he was annoying as heck."

"Watch it. You're talking about my son." John warned and the werewolf sighed and rolled his eyes. Derek growled warningly at the beta.

"Well, we can look around and see if there's anything suspicious around town. Lydia, you can look up and see if there's anything about age regression spells and about werefoxes." Allison turned to Derek who nodded his head at the plan. This wouldn't be the first time they targeted Stiles simply because he looked like the weakest link. He definitely wasn't, but he could certainly act like it.

"Erica and I can look around Stiles' neighborhood and anywhere he was this week." Boyd said, holding Erica's hand and she nodded.

"Scott and I will cover the school." Allison threw in.

"I can help with school too." Isaac chimed in, smiling at Scott who returned with a grin.

"Look, that's great and all, but who's going to take care of Stiles while we're all running around looking for what made him small?" Jackson said snarkily.

"I will." John and Derek said at the same time, and they turned to each other frowning. The tension that had been slowly rising between the alpha and the sheriff suddenly peaked and everyone looked in worry between the two.

"You have to work. You don't have time to take care of Stiles." Derek said logically, as his hands found themselves on Stiles' head, stroking his fox ears and hair, subtly intermingling his scent with Stiles'. The boy smiled in his sleep, leaning into the hands with a low purr.

"I can take leave. Don't try to pull that on me. There's no way in the world that I'm letting my five year old son with you." John readily said back, his eyes zeroing in on where Derek was touching his son. The worry coming off of him was suffocating to the rest of the werewolves.