#crescentwolves

By this time, Stiles is almost done with college. He’s talked about grad school, but it sounds like he’d much rather come home and work and be with his dad than be away for another four years doing more school work that he doesn’t actually care about. So Derek decides to start now, to start talking to Stiles a little more, so that when he does come home, maybe they’ll be at the stage where he could make ask Stiles out to dinner and Stiles wouldn’t laugh in his face.

So he texts Stiles out of the blue. And he’s texted Stiles before and they’ve talked, but it’s just been friendly chit chat, discussion of pack business, and it’s always Stiles who had initiated it. So this time when he texts Stiles and asked him how his capstone was going, Stiles called him immediately.

“Are you okay?” Stiles asks.

“Uh... yes. Why are you--” Derek starts.

“Because you texted me. Out of nowhere. To ask me how school is.”

“Well, I was curious. Just wanted to see how you were.”

There’s a silence on the other end. A long silence. Long enough for Derek to even regret trying this because what was he thinking. He can have nice things sure, but if it involves other people, he might as well forget about it.

But then, Stiles says, “Oh. Well, umm. Okay. That’s... nice of you,” before going into how stressed he is and how research for school papers is so boring compared to researching supernatural crap. And Derek just smiles and nods (even though Stiles can’t see him) while Stiles rambles about school and he’s roommates, and his capstone professor.

And then it becomes a thing. Stiles will text. And Derek will text. And sometimes they call and talk to each other. And it’s usually just about their days and what they are up to, and that’s all. But it’s nice and pleasant and Derek finds that the rest of his day is a little brighter or happier after he talks to Stiles.

Then, it’s like a week before Stiles is due to come home, finals week, and Derek knows rationally that Stiles is busy that he’s studying and finishing his final papers and taking his exams. But he doesn’t hear from Stiles, and he kind of worries that when Stiles does come home and they are finally face to face again that it will be awkward. That the last few months of talking and texting won’t matter.

This is not the case, obviously. As soon as Stiles is done with his last final, his last box packed and in his jeep to head home, he calls Derek to tell him. He has to see his Dad first because he promised, but then Stiles told him he’d come by his new place, before he saw Scott. Like, the fact that Stiles is coming out of his way to see him before his life-long, childhood best friend, must mean something right?

So when Stiles finally arrives and knocks, Derek is nervous and excited and happy. He opens the door to a tired but happy Stiles who jump tackles him into a hug as soon as he sees him. And when he sets Stiles down, Stiles still has his arms around him (so Derek keeps his around Stiles’s waist too) and he’s smiling up at him.

“I missed you,” Stiles says.

Derek grins. “I missed you, too.”

They don’t kiss yet, but Derek can feel how they are different now than they were the last time they saw each other. Can see the sparkle in Stiles’s eyes that tells the promise of something more.

And it’s a start.