Work Text:
The first text comes as they cross the border into Oregon. Cora has her feet kicked up on the dash (their Mom hated it when the kids did that but Derek can't bring himself to tell her off) and Derek has one arm hanging out the window. She grabs his phone from the centre console and snorts after she reads it.
She holds the phone out so Derek can glance at it, slowing down for a moment when he sees Stiles' name across the top. Thanks for not saying goodbye, douchewolf. Derek snorts and waves the phone away.
“Where're we going?” Cora asks after she drops the phone back down.
Derek shrugs.
“Anywhere,” he says. “Somewhere not there.”
“Okay,” Cora turns back to looking at the window and Derek flexes his fingers on the steering wheel.
He doesn't look at his phone again for three days.
–
A flurry of texts come through when he caves into Cora's complaints and recharges the phone. He'd let it die somewhere in Washington, tired of Peter's false pleasantry just checking up on my family bullshit. Cora wants to google a song lyric that's been driving her out of her mind for nearly a week.
Derek is weak to family. Always has been.
Nearly all the texts are from Stiles, Peter must've got the hint when Derek never replied, but Derek checks the one from Scott first. Nothing happening in Beacon Hills. Derek almost smiles at that. Almost.
He goes back to the beginning of Stiles' thread and reads down it:
Tuesday
So I guess you're not talking to anyone back here.
Not that I've been asking everyone.
Okay I have been asking everyone.
Wednesday
It was just kinda shitty the way you fucked off without saying goodbye. You know. After all the times I saved your ass. Figured I deserved that. At least.
Saturday
derekkk, y arre y7ou igrnoing me??!! thats n0t faiir dude!!1! ihtink i miss u cos your teh worst
Sunday
Ignore whatever I texted last night. Scott wanted to get drunk because of Isaac and Allison. Forgot he couldn't get drunk. I got very drunk.
You would've thought it was hilarious. I can even see your judging eyebrows. The ones you're probably making right now.
Then one more, the most recent, from the night before: Just let me know you're okay, man. Apparently I care.
Derek doesn't really think about it, just types out a reply and hits send. I'm good. We're good. He taps the phone against his hand for a moment before adding: Are you okay?
Stiles' reply comes before he can even hand the phone over to Cora. All good here, wolf buddy.
Derek's mouth quirks up and Cora sees it. She very wisely doesn't say anything, just takes the phone with a shake of her head.
Derek goes to get food and leaves her to it.
–
Derek has to admit he has a problem somewhere in Montana. He never meant to take up a text-based correspondence with Stiles but, well, here he is. Having a text-based correspondence with Stiles.
Cora thinks it's cute. Derek's sister is the worst.
It's just – he'd thought he was completely done with Beacon Hills, that after everything that had happened he could leave and finally try and move on the way Laura always wanted him to. He thought there was nothing there for him any more.
He was wrong. Stiles is there. And Scott, the brother Derek had always wanted. Isaac, the only surviving member of his created pack. The girls; Allison and her new code (Stiles had texted it to him) and Lydia and her one woman war to 'not let Peter get away with shit' (Stiles' words).
It's Stiles Derek thinks about the most, though, in a guilty-weird sort of way. Apparently he'd worked himself under Derek's skin somewhere between threatening to leave him on the side of the road to die to repeatedly coming back for Derek at serious danger to himself.
Derek doesn't know how to deal with it.
And Cora thinks it's cute.
–
They swing down into Wyoming to stay with an allied pack – some Hale had married into them years ago, Derek doesn't remember, Laura was the one who knew this shit – Derek spends a lot of time sitting in the middle of nowhere and thinking.
He sends Stiles a picture of the full moon hovering over the fields and is a little startled when Stiles calls him five minutes later.
“Man, where are you? The moon looks huge!” Derek had forgotten how deep Stiles' voice was, how easy it slips into Derek's skin.
“Wyoming,” Derek says, lying in back in the grass with one hand tucked under his head. “But you already know that.”
“I have no idea what you're talking about -” Derek puts the phone on speaker and rests it on his chest, the vibrations of Stiles' indignation tickling a little. “- even if I did know a guy who could hypothetically hack the GPS on your phone I definitely wouldn't be using it to track you!”
“I don't mind, Stiles,” Derek says, running his hand back and forth over the grass.
“I mean, seriously, I'm not a stalker no matter what Scott – wait, you don't?”
“I kinda like it,” Derek admits. He'll blame the full moon for the honesty in the morning. “It's not worse than anything I did to you guys.”
“Yeah, dude, you full on stalked Scott back in the day. You're lucky you didn't get arrested. Um. For that, I mean.”
Derek smiles as Stiles coughs to cover up his embarrassment. “So, what happened with the new girl?”
“Oh, right, her! Yeah – so Aiden, and man can you tell me why everyone seems to have forgiven the dicktwins? I mean, I don't care how sickly sweet Ethan is with Danny, they still terrorised us for months and made you – you know...anyway. Apparently we have to give them a second chance or something – I don't think Isaac is, though, pretty sure he's just biding his time -”
Derek lets Stiles' voice wash over him. Stiles doesn't ramble as much as people think he does, everything he says is chosen before it comes out of his mouth, but apparently not talking to him for a month means Stiles is going to save up everything he has to say so he can say it all at once.
And Derek still doesn't mind.
–
“You miss him,” Cora says when they're driving down through Colorado. “Well, I guess you miss all of them. But you miss Stiles the most.”
Derek thinks about denying it but she's heard the phonecalls he and Stiles have been exchanging since the full moon. He shrugs instead and she sighs.
“How long are you going to pretend you don't want to go back?” she asks, watching the country side roll by.
Derek takes a breath and holds it, lets it out slowly.
“As long as it takes,” he says. Cora accepts the non-answer and he watches the road roll away beneath them.
–
They're in New Mexico when Scott's weekly 'nothing happening in Beacon Hills' suddenly turns into 'shit happening in Beacon Hills'. Cora peers over his shoulder to see the message and makes a thoughtful humming sound under her breath.
“When do we leave?” she asks when Derek turns, tucking his phone back into his pocket.
“Now,” he says, even as the phone starts vibrating with a dozen texts against his leg.
Cora nods and smiles and it's the smile of someone who's ready to fuck some shit up. Derek thinks his smile might be the same.
–
Stiles isn't answering his phone when Derek and Cora get into Beacon Hills on a cold, wet evening. He's not the only person who doesn't know a guy who can hypothetically hack someone else's GPS, however. At least you're mutually stalking each other Cora had said when she caught Derek staring at the little blinking Stiles-dot. Derek had growled at her playfully and been powerfully reminded of before the fire. For the first time in a long time it didn't gut him to think about.
Cora gives him directions and Derek almost laughs when he realises they're heading for the high school. What the hell is it with the fucking high school?
When they get out of the car Derek can smell fear and blood and too many people all at once. He remembers what his Mom told him, that if one sense is overwhelmed focus on another one, and closes his eyes to listen. There's Isaac's heartbeat, familiar from five months of living together, and Scott's, powerful and strong. The steady heartbeat must be Allison's and the fluttering rush of a heartbeat might be Lydia's. Stiles' rabbiting pulse of a heartbeat is, of course, at the opposite end of the school to his friend's and being tracked by something unfamiliar.
Derek shares a look with Cora and she's runs off to find out why the others seem to be trapped. Derek goes looking for Stiles.
He's in the gym and Derek is hit by a wave of nostalgia at the familiar smells. He pushes it aside to focus on silent movement and keeping himself upwind from the monologuing creature that has Stiles backed up against the bleachers. It has a tail and smells sweet and Derek has no idea what it is.
“There's always a little human poking their nose in where it isn't wanted,” the creature says, trailing a clawed hand down Stiles' cheek. Stiles is tense, his eyes moving everywhere as he tries to find an escape route, and Derek has missed him.
He hugs the shadows as the creature goes on, briefly longing for the days of Peter's monologues because at least Peter had amateur dramatic training to fall back on – this thing is just embarrassing. He'd even prefer to stuck in that elevator with Jennifer's info dump going on and on and on in his ears over this.
“Your Alpha's not here, Stiles,” the creature says as Derek moves within reach.
Never let it be said that a Hale didn't take an opportunity to make an entrance.
“No, but I am,” Derek says, punching the thing as hard as he can. It goes down with a thump, out cold, and Derek turns to Stiles with a smirk.
Stiles stares at him for a long moment, eyes wide and vulnerable, before he visibly gathers himself and rolls his eyes so hard his head goes back.
“Always gotta make an entrance, Hale,” Stiles says but he's smiling and Derek's smiling back because, yeah, he's really missed Stiles.
“I missed you,” he says, because why not? And Stiles blinks at him, smile becoming something smaller.
“Yeah?” he does one of those inexplicable Stiles movements that Derek doesn't even bother to figure out and ends up in Derek's space. “I guess I missed you too, asshole.”
Derek doesn't even think about it before it happens, just tilts his head into Stiles' space and waits. Stiles takes the cue and leans in to kiss him, a barely there brush of his lips, and Derek lets out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding.
“Is this -” Stiles starts but Derek doesn't let him finish, reaching a hand up and pulling him into a proper kiss. Stiles pushes against him, responding with his whole body at once, and, wow, Derek hadn't realised why he missed Stiles at all.
That's how the others find them, five minutes later, and Scott's choked off gasp of horror is the funniest thing Derek's heard in a while. Cora rolls her eyes when they separate to look at them, at Scott's pack, but gives him a thumbs up behind everyone else's backs.
Isaac squeezes Derek's arm when he comes over to help Scott move the creature, whatever the hell it is, and Lydia punches Stiles on the arm for making out with a dangerous thing right there. Derek gets a hand over Stiles' mouth before he can make a crack about making out with a dangerous thing and gets rewarded with a swipe of Stiles' tongue against his palm.
He doesn't let go.
–
“You don't get to not say goodbye again,” Stiles says later, when they're curled up on the dusty couch in the loft.
“Yes,” Derek agrees, pressing a kiss to Stiles' forehead.
It's a promise.