“Am I attractive to gay guys?”

Stiles vanished over the summer break.

He needed space. After the kidnapping, Jackson's death, everything that happened, his dad sent him for a fortnight camp for other troubled kids. He came back a bit more subdued for a while, introspective, and it was only Scott threatening to drag him to the other werewolves for a check over to make sure he wasn't a pod person that picked him up again.

On the night of the new moon, he shaved his head again and packed up a bag, sneaking out through his window and making his way down to the graveyard.

He marked out the compass points in a circle, trailed a small dash of mountain ash to make the ring and carefully set his markers. A smoulder of incense, a dash of water, a feather stuck in the ground quill first and a small rock.

He folded his legs and closed his eyes, letting himself relax.

Stiles had had to kick Isaac out sometime around two in the morning, because he needed some sleep before school.

He got up the next day, avoided his father like the plague and wore Isaac's jacket. He could have tried to cover up the hickey with a scarf, but it was too high to do much good unless he wanted to go for the hijab look and that seemed culturally inappropriate, even by his standards.

Being Stiles, though, it meant no one really noticed that he was a bit quieter, or a bit more marked up than normal. And he avoided Scott's queries by Scott being back on with Allison again.