Chapter Text
That summer before college doesn’t feel real.
It’s the hottest they’ve had in years, and no amount of cold drinks is going to fix it. The grass crunches underfoot, the air thick with heat, a lingering wish for downpour that never comes.
A few nights of stifling heat, late mornings at Scott’s playing video games, cooling off in Lydia’s pool, and midnight runs for burgers and milkshakes, and it almost feels like the monsters they fought, the horrors they survived, were just a dream.
Almost.
There’s a strange anticipation hanging over all of them that summer.
It feels like a beginning.
It feels like an end.
They’re all heading in different directions, but still clinging to every moment together like it might be the last.
They’re jittery, restless, pretending they’re fine. Pretending they don’t wake up drenched in sweat. Pretending they don’t flinch at shadows or see threats in every darkened hallway.
Stiles is heading to Arizona State University to major in criminal psychology.
(How he got in, he still doesn’t know. Some admissions officer probably took pity on him.)
Malia’s traveling with Peter for a bit, then maybe community college.
Scott, Isaac, and Lydia are all taking a year off before committing to anything. Isaac’s back and working at a bike repair shop. Scott’s at Deaton’s clinic, where Kira wants to start volunteering too.
Lydia’s taking extra classes to prepare for the computer science major she wants to pursue at Berkeley next year. She says it’s because she missed too much because of all the supernatural drama. But honestly? Everyone knows she’s a genius. She probably just needs to take a breather.
Liam and Mason still have to finish senior year, even though their junior year was a trainwreck.
And there are rumors Derek might leave too.
Stiles can’t even begin to think about that one.
The pack is breaking apart, and no one’s talking about it.
Why is nobody freaking out?
Stiles is even more restless than usual, which is saying something.
His dad’s patience is wearing thin. And then, one Saturday morning, Stiles breaks a plate, pours salt into his own coffee, and proceeds to spit it all over the sheriff’s breakfast.
That’s when his dad shoves him out of the house with a firm, “Go. Somewhere. Anywhere.”
Stiles texts Scott first.
Scott’s busy helping Isaac with something extremely boring.
Lydia’s getting a pedicure with her mom.
Malia’s off the grid, again.
Kira’s never up this early.
God knows what Mason and Liam are doing.
So he goes to bother Derek in his loft.
The door isn’t locked.
Stiles figures when you’re as badass as Derek, you don’t worry about trivial things like locks.
He finds him at the kitchen table, surrounded by newspapers, laptop open on the counter, scrolling through news feeds.
“Hey, wolfie. Whatcha doing?” he asks, sidling up to him.
Derek glances up, unsurprised to see him. “Just checking for anything out of the ordinary.”
Stiles nods. Figures. It’s been quiet lately, but with their luck, you never really know.
He grabs half the untouched pile of newspapers, finds a comfortable spot, and starts flipping through pages without another word.
Derek just shifts the laptop to the space between them and keeps working.
They end up like that for hours.
Eventually, they’re sprawled on the floor, empty coffee cups scattered around them. Each one the result of them taking turns getting it. A stack of pizza boxes shoved off to the side.
Stiles glances at Derek out of the corner of his eye. For once, the usual tension in Derek’s jaw is gone. The way he’s sitting there relaxed, shoulders loose, eyes lazily scanning the pages… it’s like the silence itself has wrapped around him.
Just the two of them. No immediate danger.
No hidden threats.
At least, if the newspapers and forums are anything to go by.
Normally, Stiles would be bouncing off the walls, filling the quiet with chatter or pacing, but right now… he isn’t. He’s just sitting there on the floor, letting the moment exist instead of racing ahead or scanning for the next thing to do. Even his thoughts have slowed. And somehow, that stillness feels good.
And for Derek, Stiles thinks, that quiet might be exactly what he needs.
The light continues to travel across the floor through dirty windows, casting long shadows in shades of orange and red.
After another few minutes of pretending to read, his eyes picking up nothing but smudges of color on the page, Stiles leans back on his hands, stretching out and tipping his head to ease the crick in his neck.
He reaches for a cup that doesn’t seem completely empty and takes a swig. The cold, sugary sludge hits his tongue and he grimaces.
“God, we’re so ridiculous,” he mutters, shaking his head. “It’s the middle of the summer!”
He laughs, and to his surprise, Derek does too, he huffs a laugh, his face splitting into a real smile, unguarded.
Their eyes meet. Hold.
There’s a flicker of something in Derek’s, something open, and it shakes something loose in Stiles.
Derek tilts his head back, mirroring Stiles’s posture.
“Cora would call me a nerd.”
Stiles grins wider. “Or worse.”
“Or worse,” Derek echoes with a wry smile.
Stiles closes his eyes, and they sit in comfortable silence for a few more moments.
Then Derek says, quietly, “I don’t think I know how to do anything else.”
Stiles turns to look at him. Derek meets his gaze without flinching, something raw behind his calm.
“How to be anyone else,” Derek continues. “When there’s no threat around.”
Stiles wants to move closer, to reach out and wrap an arm around his shoulders and offer comfort.
Instead, he says, “You don’t need to be anyone else.”
Derek’s eyes hold his, searching.
“You just need a purpose,” Stiles adds, voice more certain now. “And people.”
He thinks of the pack, messy, hurting, still bound together in ways none of them really know how to name. Derek needs them. Whether he admits it or not, he’s not meant to be alone.
“You’re leaving in a month,” Derek says, quiet, almost bitter. So quiet Stiles might’ve imagined it, if not for the way Derek won’t meet his eyes. He didn’t imagine it.
And suddenly, Stiles is rattled for the second time in just a few minutes.
The idea that he was the first person Derek thought of when Stiles said he needed people, that’s...
It sends his heart thudding hard against his ribs, almost painfully.
Derek lifts his gaze, a flicker of concern in his eyes, but Stiles is already moving, jumping to his feet, suddenly jittery. Maybe Derek will chalk it up to all the coffee they drank. He starts collecting the mugs off the floor, grasping for something to do with his hands.
“For college,” he says quietly, like it explains everything. “Not forever.”
Derek doesn’t respond. Doesn’t react. Which might mean he’s mad. Or hurt. Or something else entirely that his wolfy macho self isn’t about to explain.
He heads for the kitchen, trying to put space between them, trying to figure out how to tell Derek he’s not abandoning him. That if he could, he’d throw Derek in a duffel bag and take him to Arizona. That if Derek gave him even a flicker of a reason to stay, just a hint that maybe there’s a them to figure out, he’d cancel everything and stay right here.
But Derek follows. Stiles fills the sink with warm water and listens to the rustle of pizza boxes shifting as Derek picks them up. Hears the soft thud as they’re set down nearby. Feels the warmth of him a second before he steps in close. Leaning against the counter to Stiles’s right. Not touching. But there.
Derek picks up a towel. Gently takes the first clean mug from Stiles’s soapy hand and starts drying it.
The simple domesticity of it, the way they move in sync without speaking, makes heat crawl up the back of Stiles’s neck. A lump forms in his throat. His eyes sting with something he doesn’t have a name for. How can Derek be this blind to the effect he has on him?
They fall into a rhythm, working silently side by side.
Then Stiles breaks the quiet. “Scott told me you might be leaving too.”
It’s not an accusation. Not even a distraction.
He just wants Derek to deny it.
Wants to hear him say Scott’s full of shit.
But Derek just shrugs, taking another mug from him.
“I don’t know. Doesn’t feel like there’s much tying me to this place anymore.”
“You were born here. You’ve got land here,” Stiles offers, but even to his own ears it sounds weak. He gets it, Derek’s past here is soaked in pain and fire. He understands why he’d want to leave it all behind.
He just worries that if Derek goes now… he won’t come back.
And that feels… unimaginable.
“Where would you go?”
“I don’t know. Maybe New York. Still have a flat there. From when Laura and I...”
Derek trails off, Stiles sees the wince when he says her name.
If it still hurts just to say her name, how could he go back to where they last lived together?
But then again, this town, this place, is where he lost everything else. Boyd. Erica. His family.
“Or just... away,” Derek adds. “I don’t really care.”
Now it’s Stiles’s turn to wince. He really can’t wait to leave, huh?
Derek turns it back on him.
“What about you? Are you coming back after?”
Stiles doesn’t hesitate.
“Everyone I care about is here, for now.”
He meets Derek’s eyes when he says it, hoping Derek understands he means him too.
There are no more mugs left to clean, so he takes the towel from Derek’s hands, dries his own, then turns and mirrors Derek’s pose, hip resting against the sink. “As long as that’s true,” he says softly, “I’ll keep coming back.”
Derek nods, his eyes still on Stiles.
Another quiet settles over them before Stiles breaks it again, his voice tentative, careful.
“Would you say goodbye? If you ever decided to go?”
He tries to hide the break in his voice, but it’s there.
Because the thing is, knowing Derek, he might just disappear one day, no warning, no note.
And that would wreck him.
“Would you let me know?”
He holds Derek’s gaze, vulnerable in a way that would feel humiliating with anyone else. But this is Derek. And what’s a little pride compared to the thought of losing him without a word?
Derek’s breath hitches. His hand twitches toward Stiles, like he’s going to reach for him, but then he pulls it back. His eyes shut down, going unreadable.
He nods. Just once. Sharp.
And then he steps back.
The distance hits like a gust of cold air. A shiver runs through Stiles. He drops the towel on the counter, only now realizing how tightly he’d been gripping it.
“I guess that’s my cue. See you around?” he says, forcing a lightness into his voice that he doesn’t feel. He grabs his hoodie and phone from the floor.
“Yeah.” Derek’s voice comes from across the room, his back to Stiles, gaze fixed out the window. “See you around, Stiles.”
He doesn’t turn around. His shoulders are too tense. Closed off.
Stiles wants to go to him. Wants to rewind time to that easy laugh they shared earlier on the floor. But the moment is gone. The walls are back up.
So he lets himself out.
Two weeks later, he hears it from Isaac, over burgers and fries, that Derek is staying in town a while longer.
They’re catching up, half-listening to the game on TV in the background, when Isaac casually drops the news.
Apparently, he and Scott had been hanging out with Derek, shooting the shit, when someone asked if he was really leaving.
And Derek said he figured he’d give the town another chance. That leaving now, just when things had finally calmed down, felt like running.
A coward’s way out.
That maybe it was worth sticking around.
To see if he could actually be happy here.
Stiles is relieved. Of course he is. The tightness in his chest he hadn’t realized was there loosens just a little.
But still.
It stings, that he had to hear it from Isaac. Not from Derek.
Even though he gets it.
Stiles never brought it up again after that night at the loft. And maybe Derek didn’t know how to tell him, not when Stiles was still the one leaving. Abandoning them.
So he lets it go.
The pack has been trying to squeeze in as much time together as possible since. Like they all know, without saying it out loud, that things are about to change.
They’ve hit the movies, twice, both times arguing over popcorn flavors more than the plot.
They did karaoke (Kira and Stiles predictably dominating the stage).
They even had a backyard barbecue at the Stilinski house, hot dogs, music, and too many s’mores.
Stiles’s eyes keep finding Derek in every room. Always invited, greeted, included, but constantly gravitating toward the edges. Never truly in. It gnaws at Stiles.
That last night, though…
It was perfect.
Homey. Loud. Full of laughter.
And for Stiles, at times, it was so perfect it actually hurt. There were moments he couldn’t breathe right, chest tight, heart too full. Like he was already grieving something he hadn’t even lost yet.
He caught Scott looking at him more than once, the same expression mirrored on his face.
Like they both knew: they might lose this.
They’d already lost so much.
And the thought of losing this, this rare peace, this messy, beautiful, makeshift family, cut deeper than he expected.
Stiles has also been… busy.
Unreasonably, single-mindedly, Stiles-level busy.
It all started the night he left Derek’s loft, something sparking under his skin and refusing to die down. A plan has begun forming, and once there, it takes hold of him like wildfire.
He throws himself into it like his life depends on it. Researching, traipsing through the woods, the library, local coffee shops, a hundred tabs open in his brain. He even takes random day trips out of town, comes back sweaty, mosquito-bitten, and wildly excited about obscure thrift finds or an old totem he saw in passing on the highway.
Lydia lends him stacks of colored paper and pens, no questions asked. His dad raises eyebrows at the sudden ever-presence of the polaroid camera, especially when he catches Stiles snapping photos of himself, sticky notes on his forehead. The sheriff even takes a few pictures of Stiles himself, Stiles grinning like a maniac among his half packed stuff.
Stiles bombards him with questions about his mom and where they travelled before he was born. He spends a full evening on the floor flipping through old albums with smudged fingers and watery eyes.
His room becomes a war zone: half-packed boxes stacked against one wall, others half-empty, overflowing with random clutter. CD sleeves scattered like breadcrumbs. His closet an avalanche risk. He keeps rewriting his packing list, then losing it, then rewriting it again.
Coffee consumption hits an all-time high. Sleep becomes optional. Music blasting at all hours.
There are random pieces of tape sticking to his clothes. His fingers are constantly stained with sharpie and sticky from glue dots.
He keeps catching himself muttering to no one as he rearranges clues or reopens an envelope for the fifth time.
But it’s coming together. And sometimes, when he lets himself slow down, it feels like the most important project of his life. Like he is bottling up a piece of himself, making something impossibly honest.
He triple-checks every item in the box. Leafs through the binder so many times he nearly wears the corners off. Rewrites the final note, again, and dots the last period with trembling fingers.
Then, sitting on the floor in the middle of his room, surrounded by chaos and half-packed memories, he cries.
It’s not even sadness exactly. And sure, it’s the middle of the night, and maybe he is overtired and dehydrated and strung out on caffeine and heat and nerves. But that’s not it.
It’s the hope.
Like handing over something that might change everything, or nothing at all. It might just completely break his heart.
Either way, he gave it everything.