Chapter Text
Stiles settled down into his desk chair, he pulled his laptop out of his bag and started typing away. He wasn’t really paying any attention to his assignment; he just needed to get the words out of his head. When Stiles noticed that he had finished an entire page of text, he scrolled up to look over it. He stopped right in the middle to blink slowly at a particular phrase written twice in a row.
“I must find Derek. I must find Derek!” Was written right in the middle of his essay about the American Civil war. This was ridiculous. Stiles couldn’t write an essay while he was this distracted. He deleted the two sentences and picked up his cell phone. He pulled up Derek’s contact and hit the call button.
“Hello, You’ve reached Derek Hale…”
Stiles thought he’d gotten Derek’s voicemail, again. “Fuck you Sourwolf, you never answer my calls.” he muttered, he didn’t realize that the ‘voicemail' message had cut off once he started talking.
“Stiles?”
“Wha… Fuck! Derek, Who the hell answers the phone like that?”
Derek huffed on the other end of the line, “I do. Are you okay? Why did you Call? Do you need help? Is everyone else okay?”
“Yes, everyone is fine, I just…” Stiles paused to bite his lips. “I was writing an essay and I was thinking that it had been a while since I talked to you, so I thought I would try and call, and normally when I call you, or anyone really... they don’t answer anymore so when you answered, weirdly! I thought I had gotten your voicemail, again.”
“How many times have you called me Stiles?” the question was soft, with a hint of worry behind Derek’s voice.
“A lot.”
“How’s School going? Your dad told me you’re going to NYU now.”
“I… I don’t have any friends here Derek... Scott’s too busy, Lydia’s busy… Even my Dad’s too busy for me anymore.”
“I’m not too busy.”
“You..?”
“I was planning a trip to New York anyway, I haven’t been to the city since Laur… Are you free at all this weekend? We could go camping, upstate.”
“All weekend, my last class ends Thursday at five. You really want to go camping with me?”
“Of Course. I wouldn’t say it if it weren’t true. Text me the address of the dorm, I’ll pick you up Thursday at six.”
“Okay, Sourwolf.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Fine… Derek?”
“Yeah, Stiles?”
“Thanks.”
“No Problem.”
*****************
As promised Derek picked Stiles up at six on Thursday night. Derek was driving a brand new pickup truck with heated leather seats.
“What happened to the soccer-mom-car?” Stiles asked as he hopped up into the passenger seat after he tossed his backpack into the bed of the truck with Derek’s few bags.
“I told Cora she could borrow it for school, I needed something with a little more power.”
“Where are we going?”
“Upstate.”
“You told me that already, but where upstate?”
“Tucker Lake. It’s a town, look it up.”
As Stiles searched on his phone he made a little sound. “You’re taking me to a town with a population of fewer than 60 people? ”
Derek laughed and nodded. “Yeah. you’ll see why when we get there.
Stiles fell asleep on the ride up, only waking when Derek nudged him., and started speaking.
“Wake up, or you’ll miss when we pass through town.”
“Wait, we’re not even staying in town?”
“No, We’re not staying in town; But we are staying close to town, about a ten-minute drive.”
Derek kept driving, but as they went through the town he pointed out the market, the library, the two-screen movie theater, and the dog park to Stiles. Derek turned right at the end of the road up the side of a hill, a mountain really. At the end of the road the pavement ended, and there was a gate that kept them from going any farther; that was until Derek parked the truck and opened the gate so Stiles could drive the truck through. After Derek closed the gate and got back in the driver’s seat he kept driving on the now gravel road going up the hill.
Eventually, they came to the top of the hill and as they rode over the crest, a cabin came into view, as well as a huge lake behind the house. It was still light outside, but barely. The sun was setting and it would be dark soon. The cabin was white with Blue shutters and a yellow door. The light above the door was on, there was a faint glow coming from the front room indicating that someone had been here recently, and there was smoke coming from the chimney meaning it would be warm inside.
“Wow.” Stiles was breathless, stunned by the beauty of this place.
“Wait until you see the sunrise over the Lake,” Derek smirked, parking on a more graveled patch of the driveway on the side of the house. “I came up earlier this week, to make sure the house was clean and we’d have supplies for the weekend.” he paused as he got their bags out of the back, handing Stiles’ bag to him. “This was Laura’s favorite spot to get away when she was too stressed… we’d pack up her car and drive up here just to get away from the craziness of the city. It’s a calm place. I thought you might need a little calm, especially after everything.”
Stiles nodded, relief flooded through him, his eyes welled with tears and he was just so grateful at that moment that… he wrapped his arms around Derek’s middle and hugged him tightly. “Thank you,” he whispered, knowing that the werewolf would hear is words.
“We’re friends Stiles. Friends do nice things for each other.”