A/N~ My version of Season 5, even though it hasn't happened yet. Very, very slow burn Sterek. Pretty much everyone but Stiles, Lydia and Parrish have left town for the summer. Stiles decides to make his own fun. Which has its own set of consequences. Don't like slash, don't read. ~A

Spark to a Flame

Chapter 1

Stiles is sitting on the floor in his room, surrounded by papers and books. For the past several minutes he has been playing wall ball with himself, to say the teen was bored would probably be an insult to boredom.

His phone starts buzzing on his nightstand and he nearly brains himself with the ball, when he misses it trying to scramble for the phone. He looks at the screen quickly before answering, "Hey Lydia, what's up?"

"Stiles," replied the strawberry blond, already sounding annoyed, "I am not having any luck finding out what Jordan is in the bestiary. I was wondering if you had found anything."

"Narrowed it down to about five things," said Stiles going back into his funk when he heard what his supposed friend was asking. Not really surprised though. Lydia and Deputy Parrish had started dating shortly after they had arrived home from Mexico, although for Lydia's moms sensibilities, they weren't calling it dating. They were serious enough that the strawberry blond had decided to throw the older man a surprise birthday party.

"Stiles his birthday is in four days," Lydia said impatiently, "aren't there some tests we can run or something?"

"Yeah sure," Stiles said with his own brand of snark, "If he doesn't mind losing an appendage of his choice or giving a few quarts of blood."

"Lydia it's like Derek said, your boyfriend is a little outside our area of expertise." he said, glancing at the list of possibilities, he had narrowed down for the deputy, "Usually we're more interested in how to defend against other things or possibly kill them. Not identifying them for identity's sake."

"Gee thanks Stiles," Ms. Martin said, and Stiles could mentally see her checking her fingernails, "I was hoping to have this done for him by his birthday."

The teen just barely held in the snarky comment that maybe Lydia should have actually been here helping Stiles do the research. Instead of leaving it for Stiles to do and then taking credit for it at the birthday party as he suspected she planned to do. "Hey, I've even tried to contact Chris Argent to see if he might have some insights into the deputy's supernatural heritage and I still haven't heard back from him. So you're stuck with me."

As soon as they were done with Lydia telling the teen to hurry up and finish the research, she hung up the phone. Stiles went back to being bored.

Normally he might hang out with some members of the lacrosse team, unfortunately all of them were gone. The Coach had arranged a lacrosse camp in Seattle, Washington. So Scott, Kira, Liam, and Mason were all in Seattle and just to make things more annoying, the coach had banned all electronics. No communication except through the pay phone near camp. Needless to say the players usually kept those phone calls for their family members. Stiles didn't begrudge them that, but a message or two through the parents would have been nice.

Stiles would have liked to have gone to the camp, if only to spend time with his friends. Unfortunately due to the added financial strain on his father, he hadn't been able to attend the camp. His father was still receiving therapy for the gun shot wound he had received from Deputy Haigh, so the bills were still piling up. Stiles had searched desperately for a job every day, only to discover that there were no jobs in their small town.

On top of the rehabilitation, his father against doctors orders of course, was once again taking extra shifts at the Sheriff's station to try and cover the bills. Stiles was frustrated and upset that when his father should have been resting and recuperating from his injury he was actually working harder than ever. The only positive was that Agent McCall had been able to quash the investigation into the Beacon Hills Sheriff's Department.

Derek and Braeden were AWOL, neither of the two had been seen by their group since Mexico. Lydia of course putting a romantic spin on it, had said they were probably just shacked up somewhere having a romantic interlude. Shacked up was Stiles wording, romantic interlude was Lydia's.

Peter was still residing in Eichen House and they had probably thrown away the key. Malia had visited her father twice, with Stiles in tow of course. At first it had just been Peter and Malia doing the talking. Well mostly Peter apologizing again and Malia listening or maybe not because after the second time, she informed Stiles she was going to hang out in the woods for a while.

Stiles wasn't foolish enough to think that she meant camping. He saw her a few times in her coyote form hanging out around the edge of the woods. She would ignore him when he called out to her, Stiles just hoped she would come back on her own before school started.

On the usual visitation day he went to Eichen House voluntarily and by himself. Something he had promised himself he would never do again. He figured that even Peter deserved to know that apparently his daughter wasn't planning to come back and visit her father. Rather than possibly waiting in the vain hope that she would be coming to visit.

It was as he was sitting in the visitation room waiting for the elder Hale, He decided rather impulsively to continue to visit. He remembered what it was like to sit in this dismal place waiting for someone, anyone to come visit.

Stiles saw Peter's expression fall when he saw Stiles sitting alone at the table waiting for the former werewolf to come through for the visit. "Hey Creeper," the teen's jibe sounded lame even to his own ears.

The wolfs smirk didn't reach his eyes as he replied, "I take it my paternal dues are considered paid and she sent you to let me know?"

As much as he tried to hide it even Stiles heard the grief in the elder Hale's voice, "She didn't send me no, but she's decided to spend the rest of summer getting back to nature so to speak," he said as he looked around at the several orderlies moving between the visitation tables.

"Sort of figured it might be something like that," Peter said as he started to rise. "Thank you for letting me know Stiles. You are an exceptional human being," and then he leaned forward and whispered, "You would have made an even better wolf though."

"You don't have to leave, you know?" Stiles said quickly. "I thought you might like to talk or something. Unless you have something more pressing to do?"

Peter Hale was startled, that much was shown on his face before he regained his composure and his face smoothed out into its usual bland expression. "Well this is Arts and Crafts hour, but a little stimulating conversation does sound infinitely more entertaining than putting foam and paper flowers into little plastic jug baskets." The former was said as he sat back down at the table.

His movements drew the attention of one of the guards and Peter lowered his head submissively. Stiles however gave the hulky orderly a steady gaze, he only smirked to himself when the other man looked away deferentially. The pair had talked about TV, (Peter hated reality TV, but loved the forensic based cop shows). Stiles told him about trying to discover what type of supernatural creature Parrish might be. Peter suggested a few reference materials he might try. Favorite foods, curly fries, pizza, and Twizzlers for Stiles, Peter preferred Reese cups, venison steaks, and a particularly good curry.

Stiles of course also used the time during these meetings to pick the Omega's brain The golden wolfs bane had taken the wolves power but it was possible that at some time his powers would come back. Even if they didn't though Stiles and Peter both knew his station in the pack hierarchy was changed. He would be lucky if he would still be considered a member of the Hale/McCall Pack if he managed to ever get out of Eichen House.

Stiles asked him questions about pack hierarchy and rituals, Extracted information on creatures that weren't even in the bestiary. He also began creating his own Bestiary, computerized of course, from information he had gotten from the Argent Bestiary and from Peter and other sources.

Truthfully though their interactions were mostly friendly with a little "business" mixed in. It was several visits later that Peter explained to Stiles, "I knew that you and Malia weren't going to last long."

When Stiles had widened his eyes in shock and started to stutter a response, the Creeper wolf raised his hands in a pacifying gesture and said, "Not your fault, I know. Let me just say, I've known you were bi for a while, my boy. It's fine, wolves don't judge unless they were born during a more strict time period and then we usually grow out of being a prude fairly soon."

He pretended to be divulging a great secret behind his hand as he continued, "Don't let the human historians fool you. Truth is the werewolves were the original hippies," he said with a smirk. He raised the King-sized Reese's cups and the book of Wordsworth poetry, "With a few notable exceptions we were very much their predecessors."

"Except of course we had better taste, we were better read, and had much better hygiene." he said with a smirk, adding, "Fleas as a wolf is one thing, while in your human form is another matter entirely."

Stiles had laughed so hard his ribs ached and tears were streaming down his cheeks. He had ended up leaning on his elbows on the table while several of the orderlies were staring at the table warningly but the boy ignored their gazes, Peter leaned forward from his relaxed sprawl as the boys laughter was finally winding down and said, "So Stiles, how long have you known you had a crush on my nephew?"