Archive of Our Own

Fuck Derek Hale.

Stiles Stilinski wants to make that very, very clear. 

He has never been so angry at a person before, and the fact that Derek flat out rejected him without actually saying that he rejected Stiles makes him want to scream. He thought that everything was fine, and Derek hadn’t seemed put off by Stiles’ silly declaration of love. In fact, Stiles swears that the feelings were mutual, because how else would someone interpret their crush grabbing their face and kissing them speechless?

But maybe he read the room wrong. Because when he came back to see Derek again, he found Derek’s place completely empty and there was no sign of Derek himself. Stiles could have handled being ghosted, sure. No texts, no phone calls, completely avoiding each other's friends, he would’ve been fine with that, but having someone completely move their stuff out of their already somewhat empty loft to avoid him is a low blow. 

Stiles was basically told in the most brutal way possible to just fuck right off.

He’s been wallowing in self pity for dealing with the worst possible break up/not-break up he’s ever experienced for the last few months (six, if he wants to be exact), and he wants to kiss Scott McCall on the mouth for giving him a new distraction. 

(11:32 am) From: Scott 

this is an emergency!!!! meet up for lunch?

Stiles looks at the text message and he knows that the meeting Scott had with Coach Finstock didn’t end well. Scott mentioned briefly to him that Coach had asked Scott to stay behind after the second period, and when Stiles had asked him what about, Scott shrugged his shoulders. Stiles has somewhat of an inkling that it could be about one thing and that one thing only.

Scott doesn’t have enough credits to graduate.

It’s the culmination of him missing too many days and failing all of his classes. Stiles did everything he could to help him out like planning study groups with their friends and doing tutoring sessions; he even did some of Scott’s homework if they were in the same class. It wasn’t that Scott didn’t necessarily try, he did . It was just that whenever Scott would finally be on a good streak of studying, something always happened that would make him put his focus on saving Beacon Hills rather than graduating. 

When the school bell rings, Stiles puts his phone away and shoves all of his books in his backpack. Swinging his backpack over his shoulder, he walks into the crowded hallway and makes his way to the cafeteria. He feels his phone vibrate again and glances at the notification on his screen.

(12:01 pm) From: Scott

????? dude where are you?

He rolls his eyes and shoves his phone back into his pocket. He understands that Scott is panicking, but it literally takes two minutes to get from his class to the lunch room. As he walks into the cafeteria, he quickly spots his friends at the far corner table and he makes his way towards them. He sees that Scott has his head in his hands, and Kira is trying to comfort him by rubbing his back. Lydia and Jackson are there, too, and there is an empty spot for Stiles right next to Lydia. Sliding his backpack off his shoulder, he takes a seat.

“Alright, spill,” Stiles demands. “What’s going on?”

Scott brings his head up and Stiles can tell right away that he is on the brink of a melt down. 

“Stiles, I have no idea what I’m going to do,” he groans. “I mean, just because I missed a few days of school doesn’t mean that it should affect my chances of graduating! My mom is going to kill me.”

Called it.

“Really, McCall? Are you that surprised?” Jackson asks, shifting his attention over to Scott. Looking at him with disbelief, Scott scoffs.

“Yeah, I am!” He looks over at Stiles. “Help me out here, man.”

“Dude, I hate to say it, but he has a point,” Stiles responds. “Look, we’ll figure it out, okay? We always do.” Jackson smirks as he takes a bite of his apple.

“I just don’t understand –”

“What are you not understanding?” Jackson leans back in his chair. “You missed a shit ton of school, you’re failing almost all of your classes, and now you have to make it up. Does Finstock need to spell it out for you?”

Before Scott can respond, Stiles cuts him off.

“What are your options?” 

“Coach said that he could either do summer classes or make it up with volunteer hours,” Lydia informs them and Stiles feels thankful. The more that Jackson and Scott keep bickering, the more annoyed everyone is going to get. “I mean, just pick an easy summer class. It can’t be that hard.”

“Says the girl with perfect grades,” Scott mumbles.

“We all missed just as much school as you, the only difference is that we’re all passing our classes and you’re not. Even Malia is graduating,” Lydia says as she starts to twist off the cap of her water bottle. “You’re acting like we didn’t try to help you.” She takes a sip of water and places the bottle down.

“No I’m not–”

“Scott,” Kira pipes up. Everyone looks at her and she takes her hand off of Scott’s back. “You’re going to graduate. Like Stiles said, we’ll figure something out. You have a free period after lunch, right?” Scott nods his head. “So we’ll go to the library and we’ll start studying for your finals, does that sound like a plan?” Nodding his head again, Scott takes his girlfriend’s hand and gives it a small kiss. 

“Gross,” Jackson coughs. 

The group continues to talk until the bell rings, when they all go their separate ways. Kira and Scott make their way to the library while Jackson heads to the gym. Lydia and Stiles head to their next class together. 

“Are you worried about Scott?” Lydia asks as they walk into the classroom. Stiles shrugs. He doesn’t know, to be honest. He takes a seat at a desk in the middle of the room and Lydia takes a seat at the desk next to him. 

“I mean, it’s Scott,” Stiles says. “Somehow we always figure something out. I’ll take a look at some volunteer things tonight when I get home.”

“It’s nice that you take care of everyone around you,” Lydia acknowledges. “But have you thought about doing the same for yourself? Have you been getting enough sleep?”

Stiles wishes that he could say yes. Instead, he pretends that he didn’t hear her and starts to focus on Mr. Yukimura as he writes on the board. 

—

Stiles would be lying if he said he wasn’t excited to be leaving. As much as he loves Beacon Hills, there are so many things that haunt him when it comes to his hometown. The house that he and his dad still live in has so much of his mom embedded in the walls that sometimes he feels like he’s suffocating in grief. Most of the time it’s tolerable and he doesn’t think much about it, but the times that he does think about his mom, his heart aches and he shuts down for a bit. 

While both he and his dad have handled the death of his mom in their own ways, Stiles kept himself busy with other things, like helping Scott and his friends save Beacon Hills from whatever supernatural thing happens next. He used to not be home as much as his dad would’ve liked, but Stiles didn’t seem to care that much. He’d stay the night at Scott’s place sometimes, but he hasn’t been doing it that much anymore. 

It was rough at first when his dad had finally figured out what Stiles and his friends had been up to for the past couple years. His dad treated him like Melissa treated Scott. Gave him the silent treatment, spent most of his time at the station, and overall just avoided Stiles as much as he could. It wasn’t until his dad went to look back at old cases and realized that some cases involved the supernatural. That's when he started to talk to Stiles again. 

His dad apologized to him that night. He was just worried about his son, that’s all. He didn’t like that his son had been lying to him for so long. Didn’t he trust his dad? Of course Stiles did. He just didn’t want to see his dad get hurt, and when he got kidnapped by the Darach, Stiles’ biggest fear had come true. Before the two of them went to their own rooms, his dad gave him a hug. His mom would be so proud of him, the Sheriff never failed to remind him that. 

Their relationship got better. They started to spend more time together, his dad stopped taking as many night shifts, and Stiles genuinely looked forward to going home and hanging out with his dad when he had the night off. His dad made Stiles promise to not hide things from him again, and Stiles had kept that promise. 

After the whole situation with Stiles getting possessed by the Nogitsune, Sheriff Stilinski made sure to keep Stiles close by. They checked in with each other frequently, especially when his dad would have to constantly work nights again. He doesn’t blame his dad for being a helicopter parent. He gets it. He would do the same thing if his kid got possessed by some evil fox demon and murdered a bunch of people, including his best friend’s ex girlfriend.

Things were starting to get better, though. Things were starting to look up.

At least that’s what Stiles thought.

Then the nightmares started to come back again.

He likes to pretend that they’re not that bad, though. He still wakes up sweating and in fight or flight mode, sometimes he’ll wake up screaming and yelling and his dad would burst through the door and have to help calm him down. But the actual nightmares themselves? Before, it would be Stiles trapped in a room with the Nogitsune and it would be torturing him. Stabbing him, cutting off certain limbs, watching it harm or kill his friends, and it would beg Stiles to let him back in. If not, it’d cause more harm and chaos. Stiles would have to force himself awake and tell himself it’s not real. 

Don’t get him wrong, sometimes it was still like that (hence the screaming and the yelling), but it’s mostly just the Nogitsune trying to convince Stiles to let him possess him again. He knows that the Nogitsune isn’t around anymore, but sometimes it just feels so real. It’s almost as if it’s starting to be like how it was before; that it was becoming an issue to tell what was real or not.

After the third nightmare, his dad finally confronted him about it. Did he need to go back to therapy? Did he need to talk to Deaton about what’s going on? Stiles assured his dad that it’s not as bad as it used to be. It’s not like he was sleep walking again. Stiles told him that he couldn’t figure out what was triggering them to come back. His dad came to the conclusion that it was him getting anxious about being separated from his friends, from having an opportunity to leave Beacon Hills, to go out and to live a normal life. His dad won’t say it out loud, but Stiles knows that he’s also thinking it’s because no one has heard from Derek Hale in months.

They haven’t really talked much about the nightmares since. Stiles knows that the Sheriff knew better than to keep pushing him to talk about it.

Stiles pulls in the driveway after driving home from school and parks next to his dad’s patrol car. The yellow house with the white trim never fails to bring him some type of comfort. Yellow was his mom’s favorite color, which is ironic because his dad absolutely hated the color. After his mom died, his dad never complained about it again. 

He grabs his backpack and hops out of the Jeep, climbs up the cement stairs and opens up the screen door. Taking his keys, he unlocks the door and walks inside. He puts his backpack on the floor and takes off his shoes, and he can hear his dad on the phone. 

“Yeah, let me call you back later,” he hears his dad mutter. Stiles walks into the living room where he finds his dad sitting on the couch tossing his cell phone on the coffee table.

“Who were you talking to?” Stiles asks while he makes his way to the kitchen.

“Oh, it was just Parrish.”

“Anything new? Exciting? Something you’d love to share?” Stiles says a little louder while he walks into the kitchen. 

“Nope, you know I can’t do that,” his dad responds just as loud. “How was school?” He hears his dad get up from the couch and listens to the footsteps make their way towards the kitchen. Stiles is in the middle of searching through the fridge for a snack, but doesn’t find anything appealing. He decides to grab the half eaten bag of carrots and hummus. He places the items on the counter and he can hear his dad pulling out one of the dining chairs and takes a seat.

“Uh, it was alright,” he replies, opening up the container of hummus. He takes a baby carrot and dips it in the hummus. “Heard some pretty shitty news about Scott, though.” He takes a bite of the carrot and turns around and looks at his dad, who is looking at Stiles with a concerned look. 

“What’s going on with Scott? Does Melissa need to know what’s going on?”

“I don’t think we should be the people to tell Melissa that Scott doesn’t have enough credits to graduate,” Stiles says, eating another carrot. 

“Oh,” his dad doesn’t sound shocked. “So what? Does that mean that you don’t get to spend your last summer with your friends?”

“I mean, Scott’s just going to be a little bit more busy.”

“So, what can he do?”

“He can either do volunteer work or he can take summer classes,” Stiles takes his snacks and goes over to the table where he sits with his dad. He hands his dad a carrot, who shakes his head profusely. Stiles rolls his eyes. “Okay, it’s a carrot, not poison.”

“It’s practically the same thing,” his dad argues. “I don’t need to eat any more vegetables today, especially after you secretly packed me salad for lunch. Anyway, back to Scott.”

“Yeah, so anyway, Scott doesn’t know what he’s going to do. Lydia thinks he should just take easy summer classes and call it good but knowing Scott, I think he should just do the volunteer hours.” Shoving another carrot with hummus in his mouth, he starts to get up from the chair to put them away. “What are we doing for dinner?”

“Why don’t we go pick up some Annie’s tonight?” 

Stiles nods his head. “Sure, give me an hour and we can head out.”

—

Annie’s Diner is, and will probably always be, a Beacon Hills gem. 

The place has the best burgers and milkshakes that Stiles has ever had. The cookies and cream milkshake is practically Stiles’ lifeline. His dad is actually the person who convinced them to switch out their steak fries for curly ones, and Sheriff Stilinski makes sure that he tells everyone when they say only good things about the fries. 

Annie’s is the place where Stiles would spend his Saturday afternoons with his parents when he was growing up. They had a booth that they would sit at every time, but after his mom died, they don’t sit in the diner as much anymore. But when they do, Amelia, the waitress that has been there for over fifteen years, would sit them at the same booth. 

The last time that the two of them came here was when Stiles got accepted to Berkeley, which is where his mom also went to college. To be honest, he didn’t know if he really wanted to go there or not. It was close to home, he could see his dad on the weekends and the holidays, overall it would just be cheaper for him to go there. Especially since he got a pretty big scholarship. Without telling his dad, he also applied and got accepted to go to University of San Diego, just to get a little further away from Beacon Hills.

It didn’t take long for Stiles to decide to go to Berkeley instead, he didn’t think he could handle being that far away from his dad.

Most of the time when they don’t eat inside the diner, they sit in his dad’s patrol car and just…talk.

Don’t get Stiles wrong, there have definitely been times where he comes here without his dad. When that’s the case, he just sits wherever he wants, but actively makes sure that he doesn’t sit at the booth that holds so many memories of him and his parents.  

Annie’s is definitely something he’s going to miss when he heads off to college.

So when Sheriff Stilinski comes back to the patrol car holding a large brown bag and a cup holder with two drinks (one diet coke and one cookies and cream milkshake), Stiles can’t help but smile. He watches as his dad places the drinks on top of the car and opens the car door. He hands Stiles the brown bag and grabs the drinks. Stiles opens the bag as his dad gets in the car. The sheriff puts the drinks in the cup holders in the car, and Stiles hands him his to-go container.

His dad opens it up and lets out a satisfied sigh. The two of them each pick up a curly fry and take a bite, both letting out small moans. Stiles will never get over how amazing the fries are, and he has no idea how he’s going to cope with not being able to eat them for a few months straight.

As they finish up their food, Stiles shoves his empty container back in the brown bag and grabs his milkshake, taking a sip.

“Dad,” he says, putting the milkshake down. “I don’t think you ever told me what you used to do as a kid during summer vacation.”

“Well,” his dad shifts in his seat. “I actually spent a lot of time at summer camp.”

“No way,” Stiles laughs. “Summer camp?”

“Your mom and I talked about sending you to summer camp when you were a kid, but when she got sick, obviously we decided against it. I think you would’ve had a lot of fun,” his dad says. “I met a lot of my friends from summer camp, especially when I was your age and I got to go as a camp counselor.”

“Sorry, Dad, I don’t think doing arts and crafts all summer sounds fun.”

“It wasn’t all just arts and crafts, Stiles,” his dad scoffs. “You get to do things like kayaking, go on overnight trips in the woods and learn survival skills, you get to go hiking, and a bunch of other stuff.”

Stiles takes another sip of his milkshake. He takes a look at the clock and sees that it’s getting kind of late, and a part of him wants to tell his dad they need to head home so he can look to see what Scott can do for volunteer hours but he also–

“You know, being a summer camp counselor counts towards volunteer hours. And you get a little cash in your pocket, too.”

Stiles pauses. Sometimes his dad’s brain scares him, especially when it feels like he’s reading his mind.

“Dad–”

“It’s just an idea,” his dad shrugs. “I’m just saying. It could be one last fun thing with your friends before you all go to college. You get to hang out with a bunch of kids for a couple weeks, that doesn’t sound too bad.”

“I’m sorry, but have you met Jackson?” Stiles snorts. “That guy makes kids cry by just even looking at them. Also, can you imagine werewolves being camp counselors?”

“Why don’t you just consider it?” His dad grins. “Plus, I think they might actually like being outdoors. You know, being around nature. Don’t wolves like being outside?”

“They’re werewolves, Dad, not actual wolves.”

“I still don’t understand the difference,” the sheriff grunts.

Stiles still feels unsure about the whole thing, but it wouldn’t hurt taking a peek at it.

“What’s the camp called? I can look into it tonight.” 

“Meadow Creek Camp,” the sheriff replies, turning on the patrol car. “Tara’s son went there last summer. She mentioned though that they just got new management this year, so I’m not entirely sure if it’s going to be different or not.”

“Huh,” Stiles puts the rest of the trash in the brown bag and buckles up his seat belt. His dad starts to drive and turns on the radio. “Can you ask Tara a little bit more about it?”

“Sure.”

Stiles and his dad start to talk about small things on their way home, like how things were going at the station and if there were any cases that Stiles could try and help him on. They talk about how the sheriff couldn’t believe that Stiles was about to graduate and how he still needs to talk to Melissa about planning the graduation party.

As they pull into the driveway, his dad parks the car and Stiles takes the bag of trash as they both get out of the car. They slowly walk up the stairs and while his dad unlocks the door, Stiles pulls out his cell phone and looks at the screen. He sees that he has a couple messages from Scott and one message from Lydia.

He starts to frown. He knows that it’ll probably never happen, but sometimes he can’t help but think that maybe one day he’ll get a text from Der–

“Hey, kid,” his dad says, which causes the boy to jump a little and lose his train of thought. He shoves his phone back into his pocket. “Come on, it’s getting cold out here.” Stiles walks into the house and shuts the door behind him and locks it. He slides off his shoes and goes into the kitchen where he throws the bag of trash away. As he walks out of the kitchen, he sees his dad already sitting on the couch with the remote in his hand.

“I’m going to look into the camp and somehow convince all my friends to hang out with a bunch of middle schoolers,” Stiles says as he makes his way up the stairs. “Night, Dad.”

“Goodnight, Stiles,” his dad calls out. Stiles walks down the hallway and opens his bedroom door and makes a beeline over to his bed. Laying down, he pulls out his phone again and looks at the text messages from his friends.

(6:39 pm) From: Scott

my mom found out :(

guess the coach called her and gave her the bad news.

if i end up dead in the morning, just know you’re my best friend.

Stiles laughs and rolls his eyes. He types out a response.

(8:02 pm) To: Scott

Okay, first of all? Dramatic.

Second of all, talked to my dad and he gave me an idea of how we can get you some volunteer hours.

(8:03 pm) From: Scott

for real?? what did he say? 

(8:04 pm) To: Scott

I’m gonna do more research on it before I say anything else. You can wallow in anticipation until then.

(8:04 pm) From: Scott

you suck.

He then takes a look at the text message that Lydia sent him.

(7:21 pm) From: Lydia

Did you happen to find anything? 

(8:05 pm) To: Lydia

Still working on it.

Stiles gets up from his bed and tosses his phone on his pillow. He’ll put it on the charger later. Right now, he needs to start looking into this summer camp that his dad talked about earlier. He slowly walks over to his computer and takes a seat at his desk. Opening up his laptop, he opens a new tab on his web browser and types in the summer camp name in the search bar. He presses “enter” and a bunch of links pop up. Clicking on the first one, it takes him to the camp webpage.

The first thing that Stiles sees is a group of kids with colored powder all over them and they’re all smiling and seem to be laughing. Okay, that’s a good sign, right? The next photo that appears on the slide show is a group of kids swimming in the lake, and some of them are on kayaks. The lake seems to be surrounded by trees and a dock that had a couple of kids sitting on it. So far it doesn’t seem that bad.

Feeling bored looking at the photos, he goes over to the menu and clicks on the activities link. If Stiles is planning on trying to convince his friends to go to a summer camp for two weeks, the least he can do is at least see what’s available to them. He knows that the one person that is going to take more convincing is Jackson, but if Stiles could find just something , then maybe Jackson wouldn’t say no.

He looks at the long list of what the activities were. Holy shit, his dad wasn’t kidding when he said it wasn’t just arts and crafts. This place has so much to offer. They have archery, field sports, music lessons, kayaking, paddle boarding, and of course, the arts and crafts. Stiles leans back in his chair and sighs. 

Maybe hanging out with some middle schoolers wouldn’t be so terrible. It’s only for two weeks, and then he’d be able to spend the rest of the summer being home. Scott will be considered an actual graduate, and they’d be able to spend their last summer together stress free. 

At least that’s the dream. Stiles just fucking prays that there won’t be any more weird, evil things that decide to pop up this summer. The last thing he wants is to deal with one last supernatural related thing before leaving. 

He closes his laptop and goes back to his bed. He takes his phone and plugs it in, placing it on his nightstand. He has no idea how he’s going to tell the group that he’s thinking about volunteering at a summer camp, but it’s not like the conversation is going to be that bad, right?

—

“I’m sorry, I could’ve sworn I just heard you say the words summer camp,” Lydia says as the group walks over to a cafeteria table. Stiles takes a seat in between Scott and Lydia. 

“What was the camp name again?” Kira asks, pulling out her phone. 

“Meadow Creek Camp,” Stiles answers. “It’s an easy way to get the hours that Scott needs and the rest of us would be getting paid. They mentioned on the website that volunteers will also have more scholarship opportunities if they were heading off to college.”

“Are you out of your fucking mind, Stilinski?” Jackson asks coldly. “Just because McCall is struggling to graduate doesn’t mean that we have to suffer along with him.” 

“Come on, guys, can’t you picture it? All of us hanging out at this super cool summer camp? It’ll be fun! We can go kayaking, we get to do some overnight hikes–”

“Are you trying to convince yourself that this is a good idea, too?” Lydia interrupts him while she twirls her hair.

“Babysitting a bunch of kids was not on my list of things to do this summer,” Malia says, crossing her arms. “Stiles, this is literally the worst idea you’ve ever had.”

“He’s had worse,” Scott jokes. 

Stiles smacks Scott’s arm. “Uh, hello, Scott? Are you forgetting that this is all because of you?”

“How could I forget when Jackson keeps throwing it in my face,” Scott mumbles. Jackson shrugs and gives him a smug look. “Stiles, I appreciate you trying to figure out what I can do for volunteer hours, but maybe I should just take the summer classes.”

“And what? Fail those, too?” Stiles flinches when Malia says this. While Stiles always admired Malia for being so blunt, this was probably not the best time to do that. Scott doesn’t say anything in response, instead he just looks down at his lap.

“Okay, I’ve been looking at the camp website, and it actually doesn’t seem that bad,” Kira says, holding out her phone. Everyone inches closer to look at the screen except Stiles. “I mean, I wouldn’t mind going.”

“Thank you, Kira!” Stiles exclaims. “Finally! Someone with some common sense.”

“Really? You want to play in the mud with a bunch of little kids?” Jackson is rolling his eyes as he says this, and Stiles can’t help but feel a little frustrated. 

“Stiles, we’re not trying to shit on your idea or anything, but you really couldn’t come up with something better?” Scott asks. He turns to Kira. “And you really wouldn’t mind being a camp counselor?”

“I think it would be fun, they have a lot of cool activities that we can do as a group,” Kira looks over at Stiles and gives him a small smile. “It’s not a bad idea, don’t listen to these guys.”

“Alright, just forget about summer camp,” he says as he starts grabbing his stuff. He swings his backpack over his shoulder. Is he acting a little dramatic? Probably. He’s happy that Kira agrees with him, that it would be great to do this as a group, but it just sucks that no one else could see that. “We can talk about it later, it was stupid. I’ll come up with something else.”

“Stiles–” Malia tries to say something, but Stiles quickly cuts her off, and he gets closer to the table.

“Don’t you guys just want to do something fun for once that doesn’t include risking our lives all the time?” Stiles quietly says. “Every single year since we were sophomores, we’ve had to sit here and fight Peter, deal with Gerard and making Jackson his weird little minion–”

“First of all, I was not a fucking minion–”

“Shut up, Jackson, I’m not done,” Stiles demands. “Let’s not forget about the alpha pack, and for fuck’s sake, I was possessed! Is it so wrong of me to want us to do something fun? Where we can just be normal for once?”

The table goes silent, and Stiles suddenly feels hot. He needs to calm down, but he’s just so angry and so frustrated that his friends don’t understand where he’s coming from. But how can they when he’s the only human in the group? Maybe he shouldn’t have bursted out like that. His anger slowly turns into embarrassment, but he feels a hand touch his arm and he looks down and sees Lydia, who looks concerned. 

“You have every right to feel that way,” Lydia says. “I think we can all agree that at some point we’ve felt the same way, because you know, this table has werewolves, a kitsune, and a banshee.” Stiles is frowning, and he knows that Lydia is right.

“Like I said, let’s just talk about this later, yeah?” Stiles says. Lydia removes her hand from his arm and Stiles shifts his backpack a little more. “I’m gonna head to my locker before I have class.” All of his friends (except for Jackson, but who’s surprised?) look at him as if they just crushed all of his hopes and dreams, and he walks off to his locker. 

He’s not shocked the conversation went the way it did. He could’ve kept the normal comment to himself, but he just wants his friends to understand. He doesn’t know why he wants things to be so normal for once. It’s not that he doesn’t like how life is now, he loves being able to fight everything supernatural with his best friends. But at the end of the day, Stiles just wants his last summer to be just about his friends, not his friends and supernatural creatures that are out to kill them.

As he approaches his locker, he starts to mess with the lock. Putting in his combination, he opens up his locker door which right away, gets slammed shut. Stiles groans and turns his head, his eyes landing on Jackson and Scott.

“What?” Stiles mutters. 

“Are you seriously going to act like a giant baby because no one wants to go to a stupid summer camp?” Jackson asks, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m not acting like a giant baby–”

“You are definitely acting like a giant baby.”

“Okay,” Scott interrupts loudly, squeezing between the two boys. “Stiles, we didn’t follow you to your locker to call you a giant baby–”

“I did.”

The bell starts to ring but the three boys stay where they are.

“Okay, Jackson, we get it!” Scott rolls his eyes and continues. “Anyway, I just want you to know that we’ll think about it, okay? Kira obviously seems like she’s down to go, which is great. But Jackson is right, not all of you guys have to suffer because I’m the one failing my classes.

“I just want to make sure that you graduate,” Stiles says.

“And I will,” Scott reassures with a small smile. “We can meet up after school and we can come up with other ideas, okay?” Stiles watches Scott as he slowly stops smiling and his eyes get big as if he got caught doing something bad. All of the sudden, Stiles feels a pair of large hands on his shoulders and he flinches.

“What are you going to talk about after school?” The familiar voice belongs to Coach Finstock. “Don’t know why you’re just standing around, McCall, you’re literally failing school.”

“Uh, I was just talking to Stiles about the, uh, volunteer hours!” Scott stutters. “He had a pretty great idea for what to do and I was just, you know, going over the details with him.” Stiles sees Jackson subtly shove Scott, as if to tell Scott to shut up. 

“Oh yeah? Care to share?” Coach Finstock asks. Stiles feels the coach remove his hands from his shoulders and Stiles quickly turns around. The three boys look at Coach Finstock, and he’s standing there with his arms crossed, ready to hear what Scott has to say.

“It’s really not that important–”

“Important enough to just be standing around the hallway, missing class though, right?” Coach fakes a laugh. “Come on, McCall, don’t be shy. Considering that I’m the one that has to approve the volunteer hours, I would love to hear what it is.”

“You know, Coach, it’s just a really stupid idea that Stilinski had–” 

“Summer camp!” Scott exclaims, cutting Jackson off. Jackson and Stiles look at Scott with disbelief, and Jackson is muttering under his breath. Scott awkwardly laughs. “Yeah, you know, um, Stiles, what was that summer camp name again?”

“Meadow Creek Camp?” 

“Yeah, that’s right,” Scott nods his head. Stiles isn’t sure why Scott is acting scared of Coach Finstock, but it could be that the coach is right, Scott is failing, and the fact that he’s missing class? Doesn’t really look good. Stiles is also under the suspicion that Scott is already facing the wrath of his mom that he doesn’t want his mom to give him another reason to be grounded. Coach raises his eyebrow, as if he didn’t believe Scott.

“Yeah, Coach, you’ve heard of it, right?” Stiles asks, trying to convince the man. “They were looking for volunteers and I was just telling Scotty over here that there’s nothing better than getting to hang out with your friends and a bunch of kids at a cute little summer camp, right?”

“Huh,” the man pauses. “You know, that’s not a bad idea.”

“What? You’re joking, right?” Jackson asks. 

“Do I look like I’m kidding?” Coach says, his tone dripping with sarcasm. He pauses some more, his eyes going back from Scott to Stiles to Jackson. After what felt like an eternity, he finally says something. “Well, congratulations, McCall, you successfully found your volunteer hours.”

“Wait, what?” Scott looks baffled. “I just said that I was thinking about it, not actually doing it!”

“Well what else were you planning on doing, picking up trash? Helping old people at a retirement home?” Coach asks. Stiles doesn’t even know what to say at this point, and there’s nothing that he can do to help his best friend get out of a situation he didn’t even want to be in. Scott is still standing there with a look of regret. “I’ll let the office know that you’ll be volunteering at a summer camp with a bunch of goblins. Now get to class, the three of you. Go! Get! Scram!”

The three boys turn around and start walking towards the classroom, but Stiles knew that they had no intention of going to class. Stiles sees Jackson turn his head and he grabs Scott’s shirt sleeve and Stiles’ arm and starts to pull them towards one of the exit doors that lead to the parking lot.

“Hey! My mom just bought this shirt, be careful!” Scott whines. Jackson pushes the door opened and shoves them outside.

“Are you a fucking idiot, McCall?” Jackson walks up and gets close to Scott, shoving his finger to his chest. “You realize what you just did, right?”

“I’m sorry! I panicked!” Scott smacks Jackson’s finger off of his chest. “You guys don’t have to go with me, okay? I can go by myself, it won’t be that big of a deal.”

“No, you don’t get it,” Jackson snaps. “Stilinski over here will follow you wherever you go, so you wouldn’t even be alone to begin with. The second that Kira finds out, she’s going to want to come with you. Then, she’s going to somehow convince Malia, which means that Lydia is going to go, which means that I have to go. Do you understand?”

“Okay, you’re acting super dramatic right now,” Stiles says, irritated. “It’s a fucking summer camp, Jackson. Not a prison.”

He scoffs. “You think I want to be around a bunch of kids?”

“Dude, it’s not going to be that bad,” Scott argues. “It’s just for two weeks.”

“Whatever,” Jackson shakes his head and goes back inside the school. Stiles and Scott stand there, looking at each other.

“I messed up, didn’t I?” Scott asks. 

“No, you didn’t,” Stiles says with a sigh. “Jackson’s just being an asshole, just ignore it. It’s going to be fine, Scott. Come on, we should go back inside and head to class before the next bell rings. I’ll text you.”

Scott nods his head slowly and they walk back inside the school and go their separate ways.

–

(7:19pm) From: Lydia

Hi, care to talk for a couple minutes?

Stiles reads the text message as he lays in bed and sighs. He’s been avoiding his friends since Scott threw them all under the bus. He knows that they all probably blame him for ruining their last summer in Beacon Hills, and Lydia is probably going to tell him that in a way that Lydia Martin does. He hits the phone icon on his phone and brings it up to his ear. After two rings, he hears Lydia’s voice.

“Took you long enough.”

“You sent the text less than a minute ago,” Stiles responds.

“So, about today.”

“Lyds–”

“No, no, I think we should talk about it.”

“Right, but what if I don’t want to?”

“Well that’s just too bad, isn’t it?” Lydia asks. Stiles gets up from his bed and starts to pace around his room. Why is he suddenly feeling nervous? “What’s going on, Stiles?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Stiles, there’s something clearly bugging you and I want you to be able to talk about it.”

“I promise you, there’s nothing–”

“You’re having nightmares again, aren’t you?” And just like that, Stiles stands still in his room, his eyes wide open. How did she figure it out? Did he make it obvious? “I’m not dumb, Stiles. You’re acting like how you were when you were first getting them. You’ve been looking like you’re not getting enough sleep.”

Stiles sometimes has a hard time recognizing that Lydia is also one of his best friends and she knows him better than he knows himself. Scott may not have been able to pick up that something was going on with Stiles, but it was a matter of time before Lydia caught on. She’s right, she’s not stupid, she’s a literal genius who pays too much attention.

“It’s okay,” Stiles lies. “They’re not as bad as they used to be.”

“Okay,” she replies slowly, almost as if she knows that he’s lying. “You know you can talk to me about them, right?”

“Yeah, I know.” 

“Have you heard from him ?”

“No, I haven’t,” Stiles says, frowning. Lydia doesn’t even try to say his name anymore. She knows that just hearing it will make Stiles feel like shit. While he appreciates Lydia and how much she cares about him and his well being, he just wishes that she quit bringing Derek up. “It’s whatever.”

“It’s not though,” she says with a soft voice. “Scott hasn’t heard from him either.”

“Yeah, doesn’t surprise me. He pretty much dropped off the face of the earth. I can’t do anything about it. Probably for the best, I guess.”

“He’ll come back around, somehow he always does.”

“Yeah.”

She quickly changes the subject. “So, care to explain to me what happened with Scott? Jackson was too busy being upset about it to actually tell me.” 

“Uh, well,” Stiles starts. He explains to her what happened and Stiles can already picture her sitting at her vanity, nodding her head. After Stiles tells her in detail about what happened, she sighs.

“I thought a lot about what you said during lunch, about wanting to do something together as a group before we all leave for college,” she says. “And you’re right. I noticed how excited you were to bring up the idea, so I wanted to tell you that I’ll go with you and Scott.”

“Wait, seriously?” Stiles laughs. “Lydia Martin, at a summer camp?”

“You know, I used to go to summer camps as a kid, Stiles.”

“What? Why didn’t you say anything at lunch?” Stiles puts his phone between his shoulder and ear.

“You never asked.”

“So…does that mean we’re all going?”

“Basically.”

Thank God for Scott and his big mouth.

“Anyway, I just wanted to let you know my thoughts. I’m going to go to bed, so I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Sounds good, Lydia. Goodnight!” Stiles says. He hangs up the phone and quietly celebrates to himself about them going to summer camp. Taking a second to calm down, he looks at his phone again and goes to his contacts and scrolls until he sees Derek’s name. Sighing, he taps on the name and puts the phone up to his ear, and he’s not surprised that it goes straight to voicemail.

“You’ve reached Derek Hale, I’ll try to get back to you as soon as I can.”

Once he hears the beep, he almost wants to hang up but quickly chooses not to.

“Hey, just calling to see if you’d answer but, shocker, you didn’t,” Stiles fumbles his phone for a second and once he readjusts his phone, he laughs a little. “Maybe I’m just wasting my time leaving you these stupid voicemails, I don’t know. Anyway, let me know that you’re not dead, yeah? Anyway, if you do plan on coming back, I’ll be busy for some of the summer. Uh, talk to you soon, maybe?”

Hanging up the phone, he goes and plugs it in. He takes this time to start getting ready for bed.

He doesn’t know why he keeps torturing himself like this. He knows that Derek isn’t going to call him back. He knows that Derek isn’t going to send him a text. It’s wishful thinking, and he wants to stop so badly but for some reason he can’t . He doesn’t even know why he bothers, but a part of him hopes that Derek listens to them.

When Derek left, Lydia was the person that Stiles went to once he realized Derek wasn’t going to come back. Lydia was the one that had to listen to Stiles and watch him mope around. Lydia was the one that Stiles confided in when he started to leave the voicemails for Derek.

There was a night that Lydia heard Stiles when he was leaving Derek a voicemail within the first couple weeks of his absence, and she could hear the pain in Stiles’ voice. When Stiles had finished begging Derek to come back, she told Stiles that he needed to stop leaving the voicemails and that it was time to move on. Stiles thought he could do it, and he did for a while until the nightmares started to come back. 

Lydia had told Scott about Stiles and Derek, which Stiles wasn’t surprised about. He also wasn’t surprised when Scott had come over to check in on him to see how he was holding up. Scott had made it very clear that he was pissed with Derek for hurting Stiles the way he did. He had to listen to Scott rant about how shitty Derek’s actions were, and he made the classic remark that no one hurts his best friend.

Laying in bed silently, he closes his eyes and he can’t help but fall asleep to the thought of being with Derek again.

--

“Come on, group photo!” Melissa McCall yells. 

The group of teenagers all scramble to pose for a photo. Stiles is standing next to Scott and has his arm wrapped around Scott’s shoulder. Lydia goes over to the other side of Stiles and has her arm wrapped around his waist. Jackson stands next to Lydia while Kira runs over to the other side of Scott, who proceeds to wrap his arm around her waist. Malia stands next to Kira, and they all smile at the camera while Melissa takes the photo.

“Wow, I can’t believe it,” she says, laughing. “High school graduates. Well, except for Scott until he gets his volunteer hours.”

The group pulls apart from each other and Stiles can’t help but have the biggest smile on his face.

They’re all at the backyard of Scott’s house where Melissa and Sheriff Stilinski spent the night before working on the graduation party. The two parents look exhausted, but they did a pretty good job with the decorations and prepping the snacks. Stiles and Scott offered them help, but their parents refused. 

The graduation ceremony itself was super boring, Stiles felt like he was going to fall asleep during it, and it didn’t help that he didn’t get to sit next to his friends since it was all alphabetical by last name. While he didn’t pay attention to any of the speeches except for Lydia’s, he definitely made sure he paid attention when his friends got called on stage to get their diploma. He screamed and cheered for them, and the group did the same to him when he walked across the stage.

After the ceremony, his dad came up to him and gave him the biggest hug. He kissed Stiles on the head multiple times and told him again that his mom would be proud. When things started to calm down, the group met up with their parents and they all decided to start to head over to Scott’s house. So here they all are, crowding around in the backyard.

“Are you guys excited for your little summer camp adventure?” Melissa asks the group. “It means a lot that you guys are going to support Scott, you know.” 

“I mean, we didn’t really have a choice,” Jackson mutters under his breath, but Stiles hears him and slaps his arm. 

“We’re all really excited, Ms. McCall,” Kira says. 

“Please, Kira, call me Melissa.” She puts her camera away. “Alright, let’s hear it, let’s hear where we’re all going to college.”

Stiles listens as everyone lists off where they’re going to college. Lydia’s going to MIT, Scott and Kira are going to UCLA, Jackson’s going to NYU, and Malia is planning on staying in Beacon Hills a little longer before deciding where she wants to go.

“What about you, Stiles? Are you still planning on going to Berkeley?” Melissa asks. Stiles nods his head while he shoves a cupcake in his mouth. “Well, I’m all very proud of you, you know, considering the circumstances you guys had to deal with.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Scott says as he gives her a hug. “You really are the best.”

“So I’ve been told,” she says, hugging him back. “But I swear, the second I find out that you are dealing with more of this supernatural crap, I will drag your ass back home.”

“...I would still be dealing with stuff like that anyway if I came back,” Scott snorts.

“When will everyone leave for this camp again?” Noshiko, Kira’s mom asks. 

“Tomorrow morning, bright and early,” Kira answers.

The night continues with everyone going around and talking about their memories of high school, who they were going to miss, what they were nervous of when they got to college, and so on. Stiles takes a look at everyone around him, and he just feels so overwhelmed with happiness. This is something that he’s going to miss when he’s away at college. He knows that everyone is still going to keep in touch (how could they not after almost dying with each other every year?), but he still worries sometimes that they’ll drift apart. 

When it starts getting late and cold outside, some of the parents decide to head out for the night.

“Don’t forget, you guys need to be up early in the morning,” Sheriff Stilinski says as he pats Stiles’ shoulder. “I’m serious, kiddo, don’t be up too late.” 

“I won’t, Dad, I’ll be home soon.”

“Alright, I’ll see you when you get there. Love you,” his dad gives him a warm smile and squeezes his shoulder a little. 

“Love you, too,” Stiles returns the smile and watches as his dad leaves Scott’s backyard.

“So,” Malia starts. “Are you guys nervous about going to this place or is it just me?”

“Just you,” Lydia responds. “Why are you getting nervous? It’ll be fine.”

“Just a weird feeling,” Malia says. “It’s probably just nerves. I’ve never been to a summer camp.”

“Yeah but you’ve lived in the woods as a feral coyote, so it’s like the same thing,” Jackson responds. Malia rolls her eyes.

“No, it’s not the same, you idiot.”

As Malia and Jackson continue to bicker, Stiles looks over at Lydia who is yawning and looks exhausted. 

“Hey, do you want to head out? I can take you home since your mom dropped you off,” he says to her. Lydia looks around and nods. “Alright, here, take my keys,” he digs in his pants pocket for his keys and hands them over to her. She gets up from the chair and goes over to Jackson, letting him know that she’s leaving. He whispers something in her ear and Lydia smiles and starts to walk away.

“Are you leaving?” Scott asks, his arm wrapped around Kira’s shoulders. “Your dad literally just left.”

“Yeah, but Lydia is exhausted and so am I,” Stiles answers. “Plus, we’re supposed to wake up at the ass crack of dawn to go to camp.”

“Alright, see you in the morning. Are you still cool with picking me up?”

“Always, Scott,” Stiles says with a smile. “See you guys in the morning!” He calls as he makes his way to the front door. He faintly hears everyone say their goodbyes to him as he leaves the house. He closes the front door and sees that Lydia is sitting in his car. She looks like she’s asleep, but she made sure to turn on his car so that it was all ready to go for him. He skips down the steps and walks over to the driver’s side of the door. He gets in the car and when he closes the door, he looks over at Lydia who has her head against the window with her eyes slowly blinking. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t, I was just resting my eyes.” 

“Sure.” He smiles. He puts the car in drive and starts to make his way towards Lydia’s house. At first, the ride there is quiet, and it isn’t until Stiles is a few streets away from her house that Lydia finally says something.

“You know, I may not enjoy being outdoors, but I will admit that I am slightly excited to be there.”

“Yeah? Do you have something in mind that you’re looking forward to?” He asks, taking a quick glance at Lydia. He notices in the corner of his eye that she’s shifting a little in her seat, almost as if she’s nervous to tell him. 

“Hanging out by the lake, it looks like a good place to relax,” she says, but she pauses for a second. “Archery, too.” Her eyes flickering up at Stiles, who tries to pretend all of his focus is on the road. His hands grip the steering wheel a little more tighter, and he frowns.

“Oh,” and for the first time in a while, Stiles doesn’t know what to say. Sometimes he can’t help but think that sometimes his friends blame him for Allison’s death. He knows that they’ll never tell him or say it out loud, but he just wonders if the thought ever crosses their mind. The next thing that Stiles knows, they’re already outside of Lydia’s house. It’s times like this that he’s thankful that she doesn’t live that far away from Scott. “I see.”

“I think everyone else will like it, despite them being rude about it,” Lydia says as he parks in the driveway. The two of them sit quietly in the car for what feels like forever. “So, I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Yeah, sounds good,” Stiles responds.

Lydia makes her way out of the car, and when she’s standing in the driveway, she looks at Stiles and gives him a small wave and a smile. She closes the car door and Stiles stays there to make sure that she makes it inside safely. When he sees that Lydia is inside the house, he pulls out of the driveway and makes his own way home.

Week 1, Day 1

“Alright, you got everything you need?” the sheriff asks. Stiles shoots his dad a look, because he is definitely not ready to leave. His dad holds his hands up, surrendering. “I told you to pack earlier. You’re supposed to be leaving in the next fifteen minutes.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” he mutters, grabbing some underwear and shoving it in his duffle bag. So far he had a few t-shirts packed, a couple pairs of shorts, and the underwear that he needed. He already packed his toiletries and he’s absolutely positive that he’s not forgetting anything else. “Why do I feel like I’m missing something?”

His dad leans against the doorway and shakes his head. “Phone charger?”

“Got it.”

“Toothpaste and toothbrush?”

“Yeah, packed it.”

“Your ADHD medication?”

“I packed that, too,” he sighs. “Whatever, I’ll figure it out when I get there.” He zips up his duffle bag and both he and his dad walk down the stairs to the living room. Stiles walks to the front door and places his bag down so he can put on his shoes. His dad stands there watching him, and when Stiles looks up, he sees that his dad is frowning. “What?”

“Two weeks without you is going to be very quiet,” his dad says. “Is this what I’m supposed to deal with when you go to college?” 

“Hey, it’ll be fine! But just because I’m not here doesn’t mean you can go to Annie’s every single day. I told Parrish to keep an eye on your diet.” Stiles smiles. His dad makes a disgusted face while Stiles stands up and straightens himself out. “Okay, I’m going to go get Scott. Do you need anything before I take off?”

His dad goes up to him and wraps his arms around him, giving him a big hug. Stiles doesn’t hesitate to hug his dad back, because how the hell is he supposed to be without his dad for two weeks? There is no way he is going to survive college without him. 

“Are you sure you’ll be okay? With the, you know, nightmares and everything?” The sheriff asks as he pulls away. “It’s not too late to just stay home, kid.” Stiles nods his head.

“They’re getting better, I’m not worried about it, which means you shouldn’t be worried about it.”

He hates lying to his dad, but he knows that if he were to be honest about how much more consistent the nightmares have been, his dad would definitely make sure that he didn’t go to this summer camp.

But he’s so fucking worried about it–the nightmares. The last thing he wants is him being in a cabin full of campers and he’s screaming his head off in the middle of the night.

Stiles opens up the front door, grabs his duffle bag and makes his way down the steps, his dad standing at the front door. Stiles makes his way to the Jeep where he opens the door and shoves his bag in the passenger seat. Scott can move it later. He looks over at his dad who is still standing there, and it’s obvious that he looks conflicted about Stiles going. 

He waves at his dad, who hesitantly waves back at him, and hops in his car. He turns it on and pulls out of his driveway. He starts to make his way over to Scott’s place, and he turns on the radio at a slightly quiet volume. He’s not paying attention to whatever is playing and just focuses on the road.

When he reaches Scott’s house, he sees that Scott’s already standing outside with his backpack and a duffle bag. When he puts his car in park and his best friend grabs his stuff and jogs a little bit over to the car. Opening up the passenger door, Scott looks at the duffle bag on the seat and rolls his eyes. Stiles shrugs as Scott moves the duffle bag and tosses it in the back. Scott then puts his own stuff in the back of the Jeep and gets in. Shutting the door, he turns to Stiles with the biggest grin.

“Dude, are you excited?”

“Yeah, are you?”

“I can’t believe you’re even asking me that question,” Scott replies, still smiling. Stiles pulls out of Scott’s driveway and starts driving towards the highway. 

“I can, because not even a couple weeks ago, you were completely shitting on the idea.”

“I’m sorry for making you feel like it was a bad idea,” Scott says. “But genuinely, I’m excited. Oh, hey, by the way, Lydia texted me and told me that everyone was on their way over there, so we’ll see them soon. Wait, how long is the drive again?”

“Three hours.”

Scott turns up the radio to where it’s almost at full blast and rolls his window down. Stiles laughs as Scott starts to sing poorly to the song that’s currently playing on the radio. 

—

During the first hour, the two boys sing their hearts out to the songs that played on the radio. At some point, Scott decides to turn down the volume.

“So,” Scott says softly. “Ready for college?”

“I mean, yeah,” Stiles responds, shrugging his shoulders. He keeps his eyes on the road. “Aren’t you?”

“I don’t know,” Scott admits. “I mean…yes? I just don’t know if I’m ready to leave Beacon Hills yet. Don’t you feel the same?”

“No, not really. Don’t get me wrong, love the place, it’ll always be home, but I don’t know, man,” Stiles says with a sigh. “It just holds a lot of bad memories, you know? What’s making you question it?”

“I’m worried about when we’re gone,” Scott states. “How are we supposed to make sure that everyone is going to be okay and that nothing bad is going to happen?”

“Scott, we can’t be responsible for that anymore,” Stiles tells him. “This is our time to get away and move on with our lives. Yeah, helping Beacon Hills was cool and all, but don’t you think we’ve dealt with enough?”

“We’re always going to be responsible, Stiles, whether you like it or not.” Scott turns his head and stares out the window. “You’re really that eager to leave, huh?”

“I mean, I’m not ready to leave you guys,” Stiles says, taking a quick glance at Scott. He wants to avoid an argument with him.

“We’re not going to stop talking, right?” Scott asks, who doesn’t even seem to notice the subject change.

“Dude, we’re like a five hour drive from each other. We can spend weekends together or something. We could even travel together back home,” Stiles suggests. “We’ll be fine. You want me to text you every single day?”

“Nope,” Scott says with a laugh. “No thanks.”

“You sure?”

“Positive.” Scott leans his head against the window, and Stiles takes one more look at his best friend before focusing his attention back on the road.

And that’s when Scott decides to take a nap.

Something that he didn’t tell Scott was that the second that they left Beacon Hills, he started to feel the absence of his constant anxiety. It shocks him a little bit, because if this is how it’s going to feel when he’s actually in college, he feels better about his decision to leave. He hasn’t felt this calm in years, and while it kind of freaks him out, he likes it. He can get used to feeling like this.

When Stiles finally sees a sign that says that they’re ten miles away from the camp, he feels so relieved.

He drives a little faster out of excitement and nervousness. He passes a few signs, some sketchy motel, and doesn’t pay much attention except for when the signs tell him that he’s just getting closer. He wants to wake up Scott, but decides to just wait until they actually get there. 

Something catches his eye, under a regular city road sign, there seems to be a handmade wooden sign. He’s not close enough to read it, so he looks in his rear view mirror and notices that no one is behind him. As he continues to drive, he goes a little more slowly so that he can read the sign better. 

Fairmont RV Park

1 1/3 miles away

Stiles raises his eyebrow and starts to drive the normal speed limit. There is a possibility that there will be cell phone service at the camp, but if not, he’ll have to go explore and find the RV park and see if he’ll get service there. Getting tired of listening to Scott’s snoring, he turns the radio back on at a low volume until he sees a hand painted welcome sign for the camp and turns down the dirt road.

When he makes it to the end of the road which leads to the camp parking lot, he parks next to Kira’s car and shuts off the engine. Turning to Scott, he softly shakes his arm to wake him up.

“Hey, we’re here,” Stiles announces. Scott slowly opens his eyes and takes a look around. Yawning, he nods his head and starts to get out of the car. Stiles gets out as well and grabs his duffle bag, swinging it over his shoulder. He locks up the Jeep and walks over to a boardwalk path where both him and Scott start making their way towards the camp.

“I’m so nervous I could throw up,” Scott says.

“What?”

“I think it’s just now hitting me that we’re going to be in charge of a bunch of little kids,” Scott responds, shifting his bag. “I mean, it can’t be that bad right? What if they hate me? Or try to take me down or something?”

“Scott, you’re literally an alpha werewolf and you’re nervous about children ?” 

“And you’re telling me that you’re not nervous?”

“I never said I wasn’t, I just think it’s funny that you were able to take down some of the most dangerous werewolves and hunters with no problem but suddenly you’re nervous about taking care of a bunch of kids,” Stiles laughs.

It’s only fourteen days, what could possibly go wrong?

—

“Welcome to Meadow Creek Camp, everyone!” says a tall, lanky boy. He looks like he’s around Stiles’ age, maybe a little younger. He’s smiling and waving his arms everywhere, greeting the group of counselors that are sitting in the lodge. Not going to lie, the kid is kind of freaking Stiles out a little bit with how happy he is. The boy is wearing khaki shorts and a white t-shirt with a small design on the pocket area. It looks like a mountain range with three peaks, and Stiles kind of likes it. 

“My name is Gabe, and I’m the admin assistant here. The camp director will be arriving tomorrow when the campers come in, so I’m here to help with orientation. If you’ve previously been a camp counselor here, then you guys know that a new management took over. I promise that we’re still a fun team!”

Taking a look around the room, there are a few people that Stiles has never seen before, but he wouldn’t be surprised if they came from other places in California. He remembers that Lydia had mentioned at one point that people actually travel around to help out at summer camps. They all look around their age, and he has a feeling that he’s going to be around a good group of people. 

They’re all sitting in a circle, and Gabe takes his seat next to some random kid and Jackson. Already, Jackson looks like he would rather die than be here right now. 

“Alright, guys, let’s go around the circle and introduce ourselves! Once we do that, I have the itinerary of what every day is going to be like here at the camp. I also have a map that you guys can look over. Afterwards, I’ll give you guys your cabin and camper assignments.” Gabe holds up a stack of paper and places it back down on his lap. “We’re going to go counter clockwise, and we’re just going to say our names and what we’re looking forward to doing at camp.”

If there’s anything that Stiles hates the most, it’s fucking ice breakers. They’re so uncomfortable and so awkward and he just hates the energy that comes with them. He gets it though, they’re going to be around a bunch of kids and they’re going to have to do ice breakers themselves. If the kids have to suffer, then they should as well, he supposes. 

Gabe looks over at Jackson and smiles. Jackson makes eye contact with Gabe and rolls his eyes, crossing his arms. 

“I’m Jackson, and I don’t have anything to look forward to.”

“Come on, there has to be something!” Gabe urges, nudging Jackson who clearly looks like he wants to punch the guy for even touching him. “It could be anything. The food? The activities? Just even being around the campers?”

“No. Your turn, Lydia.”

Everyone looks at Lydia, and she tilts her head a little. 

“My name is Lydia, and I’m looking forward to spending time near the lake.”

“Oh, yes, the lake is going to be a pretty popular place this year,” Gabe jumps in. “It’s supposed to be a hot summer. Good thing we have kayaks and paddle boards that everyone can use!” 

Why does this feel like he’s trying to advertise the camp when they’re already there? Is Stiles the only person who finds this guy weird?

Stiles learns who the other camp counselors are outside of his friend group. Their names are Joseph, Katie, Paul, and Cody. Apparently the three of them, specifically Katie, Paul, and Joseph are returning camp counselors. Katie has been coming here since she was a kid, and she mentions that she’s excited to be helping teach kids how to play some musical instruments. Joseph and Paul are actually step siblings who started as camp counselors a couple years ago, and they’re most excited for the water activities. Cody is some new guy who came here because his mom forced him, and just like Jackson, he wasn’t excited for anything. Gabe, of course, isn’t happy with Cody’s answer and keeps pressing him until Cody says he’s excited for arts and crafts.

While everyone else goes around the circle, Stiles mentions that he’s just excited to hang out with some of the campers. There isn’t anything specific that he’s excited for, but Gabe seems content with his answer. Gabe claps his hands and nods his head.

“Great answers, everyone. I can tell already that we have a great team. Alright, I’m going to go ahead and pass out the itineraries and the map of the camp. We’ll go over everything so if you have any questions or concerns, we can go over it. I want to point out that the major event is left out of the itinerary, which is the talent show that we hold on the day before everyone goes home.” He takes two pieces of paper from his stack and passes it along to Jackson, who takes two pieces of paper and passes the stack in turn. As the stack of papers gets moved around the circle and Stiles grabs his own two pieces of paper, he starts to read the itinerary.

Meadow Creek Camp Schedule

7:00 am: Zero hour

Early riser campers can spend this time doing yoga, a morning run, a quick morning hike, or read some books near the lake! Every camp counselor will be required to participate in two zero hour sessions throughout camp.

8:00: Breakfast

Enjoy breakfast made by our kitchen team! Each cabin will be expected to volunteer once a week to help with kitchen preparations.

9:00: Cabin clean up

Help your cabin mates clean up the place and have a chance to win the cleanest cabin award at the end of camp! 

9:30: Activities

Campers will have a choice of which activity they would like to participate in. Options are archery, arts and crafts, water sports, hiking, survival skills, climbing wall, acting, dancing, music, and more!

12:00: Lunch

Enjoy lunch made by our kitchen team! Each cabin will be expected to volunteer once a week to help with kitchen preparations.

1:30: Activities

Campers will have a choice of which activity they would like to participate in, but it needs to be a different option than what campers did in the morning.

4:30: Cabin time

Campers and camp counselors will have an hour and a half of rest time. This could be taking a shower, taking a quick nap, whatever helps you feel relaxed.

6:00: Dinner

Enjoy dinner made by our kitchen team! Each cabin will be expected to volunteer once a week to help with kitchen preparations.

7:30: Evening activity

During this time, campers and camp counselors will participate in either an evening hike, flag football, camp fires, soccer, water sports, and more!

9:00: Lights out!

Get ready to sleep so campers and camp counselors can feel rested and do it all again tomorrow!

“Seven in the morning? That’s so early,” Scott mutters as others in the room also groan at the morning start time.

“I know, I know,” Gabe says. “But you’ll be so full of excitement every single day that waking up early won’t even be a problem!”

Is this guy serious? Stiles is starting to wonder if someone put drugs or something in Gabe’s coffee, there’s no way that this guy can be this positive about every single thing. He almost wants to tell the kid that it’s okay to think that something sucks.

“Does anyone have any questions so far?” Gabe asks, looking around the circle. No one says anything, and Gabe continues to talk. “Alrighty, so let’s take a quick look at the map! So if you look, you’ll see that the lodge is in the center of the camp ground. This building is also where you’ll be eating and down the hall next to the kitchen is where you’ll find the camp director’s office, my office, and a few classrooms.”

“So how many cabins are there?” Malia asks.

“Great question! There are ten cabins overall, but one of the cabins is specifically for the camp director. So there will be a counselor in each cabin. They’re scattered all over, but they’re close enough to the lodge where it’ll be less than a five minute walk. You’ll see signs that point towards each cabin, so hopefully it should be easy for you guys to find everything,” Gabe then looks at Lydia. “And yes, there are also signs that point to the trail where you can find the lake.”

Gabe gets up from his seat and starts to walk over to a couple cardboard boxes. He digs through one of the boxes and pulls out a shirt that’s identical to his. He walks back to the circle and holds up the t-shirt. “This is also going to be your new camp uniform! Everyone is expected to wear this shirt so that campers know who the camp counselors are. You guys don’t have to wear them during your free time, but other than that, it’s expected that when we see you, you have this on. Everyone will be getting three. So come on, let’s get you guys your shirts!”

Everyone gets up from their chairs and goes to the corner where the boxes are. Everyone lines up while Gabe starts to pass out shirts and gives everyone the correct size. When Stiles receives his shirts, he walks over to Scott who is in the process of taking off his own shirt and putting on one of the new ones. 

“These shirts are kinda nice,” Stiles says, analyzing the logo again.

“Yeah, they’re pretty soft. I like them, I like the little mountain peaks logo.” Scott replies. Stiles takes another look around the room and sees that the girls are all huddled, talking quietly while Jackson is surprisingly having a decent conversation with the other counselors. 

“Okay, before we get too crazy, I’m going to give everyone their cabin assignments,” Gabe says loudly, making sure that people are quiet in the room and paying attention to him. He makes his way to Kira and hands her a small slip of paper. “The campers have already received theirs in an email that was sent to the parents.” He hands another one to Lydia. “If you guys have any concerns about the campers or about the arrangements, let us know.” Another to Malia. “We want to make sure that everyone is safe here, so if you guys see anything even slightly suspicious,” another to Katie, “please inform someone.” 

“Define suspicious,” Jackson says. Gabe starts to make his way over to Paul, Cody, Joseph, and Jackson.

“Mostly behavior. If a camper is being too aggressive, you know, that sort of stuff,” he answers as he hands a slip to Paul. He hands another one to Jackson who doesn’t hesitate to grab it from Gabe and glares at the piece of paper. Right away, Stiles can tell that Gabe isn’t going to be getting along with Jackson any time soon. But if he’s going to be honest, who really gets along with Jackson anyway?

“Are all these cabins named after fruit or something? Why the hell is my cabin called Huckleberry Cabin?” Jackson asks. After giving Cody and Joseph their assignments, Gabe makes his way towards Scott and Stiles where he hands the two of them their slips of paper. Stiles looks down at his, and smirks when he sees that his is called Raspberry Cabin. He lightly smacks Scott’s arm, who glances over at Stiles and looks to see what Stiles has. Scott tries to subtly show Stiles what his says, and Stiles can’t help but let a small laugh out when he sees that Scott is going to be in the Wolverine Cabin. Scott rolls his eyes, clearly not amused as much as his best friend is.

“The camp director wanted to rename the cabins, and they’re not just all berries, some of them are named after animals.” Gabe answers.

“I knew these sounded different,” Katie says. “Kind of a bummer that whoever this camp director is switched up something that has been here for years.”

“Well, you know what they say,” Gabe responds with what seems like a forced smile. “New management means new beginnings. I can assure you that Meadow Creek Camp is in good hands. Anyway, why don’t we take a break? Everyone can go and take a look at the camp for a couple hours. Get a feel for what the next two weeks are going to be like.”

The second they make it outside, Stiles sees that Katie makes her way over to Paul, Cody, and Joseph. He watches as the small group takes a right and walks towards the trail that takes them to the lake.

“Do we want to take a look at our cabins?” Kira asks, linking her arm with Scott’s.

“Wait a damn second,” Jackson clearly looks annoyed. “I want to know what your cabins are called. I don’t want to be in a place called Huckleberry Cabin, that sounds so stupid.”

“Scott got placed in Wolverine Cabin,” Stiles says quickly before anyone else can answer. Lydia smiles while Kira and Malia try to hide their laughter. Jackson rolls his eyes.

“Seriously, Stiles? It’s not that funny!” Scott whines. 

“It’s just the irony of it all, buddy,” Stiles responds.

“I’m in Elk Cabin,” Lydia says. “Malia, what’s yours?”

“Coyote Cabin,” she replies with a sigh.

“Are you joking? Do these guys secretly know about us?” Scott asks quietly, looking around. 

“I wish I was joking. Kira, what’s yours?”

“Blueberry!” She says with a smile. “Let’s go and take a look around, yeah?” 

Instead of going the way that the other group went, the pack takes a left and walks down the path. Stiles points out the signs that Gabe was talking about earlier and sees that they point to two cabins, which are Blueberry Cabin and Bear Cabin. Since Kira’s cabin is the first cabin they see, they all walk over to it and Kira sprints over to the door and opens it. Everyone files in the cabin and Stiles is actually pretty impressed with how nice they are. 

From what Stiles can tell, there’s six bunks, including one that will belong to a counselor. He feels a little relieved knowing that he’ll only be responsible for five kids, he doesn’t think that he would be able to handle any more than that. Malia points out that on the bunk that Kira is supposed to be, there’s a small banner with her name on it. Jackson sits on one of the mattresses and mutters to Lydia that they’re not that bad.

After taking a look at Kira’s cabin, the group leaves and continues to make their way around the camp. They all took turns going over to each other’s cabins and checking them out, which of course, they all look the same. Stiles realizes that all the cabins are in a staggered row, which makes him feel a little comforted that they’re all near each other. After walking through the trails that lead to the cabins, they continue to keep walking and find themselves at the field. They notice a shed that Malia checks and tells everyone that it’s just equipment for soccer, tennis, volleyball, and flag football.

After looking around the field, they cut through the woods and find themselves in the archery range. They spot another shed that also has equipment as well. Lydia makes a comment about how large the place is, and they all agreed. Walking out of the archery range, they see the tip of a climbing wall and start to walk down the trail that leads over to it.

“A climbing wall?” Scott asks, walking closer. “This is insane. This thing is huge!”

Once they all take a look at the climbing wall, they notice that the trail leads them over to the main walkway that takes them towards the lodge. 

“Okay, before we go inside, what do we think about Gabe? Please tell me I’m not the only one that’s freaked out by him,” Malia shudders.

“He’s probably just excited about being here,” Scott says. “He doesn’t seem that too bad.”

They all enter the lodge and see that the other group of counselors are already back and sitting in their chairs. Gabe welcomes everyone as they take their seats.

“Alright, now that you guys have taken a peek at the camp, let’s get started on CPR training!”

—

“I’m exhausted!” Scott exclaims as he plops himself down on Stiles’ bunk. The welcome banner with Stiles’ name on it keeps hitting Scott on the head, so he leans forward so that it stops touching him. 

Everyone had gone back to their cabin to get themselves situated except for Stiles and Scott. They had agreed to hang out together before they went to bed, mostly to calm each other down for what the next day was going to bring them and to help each other get settled.

“Yeah, today was a lot,” Stiles says as he sits down on another bunk, facing Scott. “But hey, how are you feeling now after orientation?”

“Good, still nervous,” Scott admits. “Like, if I’m exhausted today, I can’t even imagine what the next two weeks is going to be like.”

“It’ll be fine. Plus, didn’t we sign up for a bunch of activities together?” 

“Yeah. I wanted to try and do some paddle boarding, but Jackson hogged all the water sports with Cody. Anyway, it’s getting pretty late, so I should probably go back to my cabin. What time do we have to be at the bus stop?”

“Eight in the morning,” Stiles fights back a yawn. He grabs his cell phone from his pocket to check the time, and he notices that there’s no service. He frowns and places his phone back down on the bunk. 

“Man, I hate how early these things start,” Scott groans. “I really thought I’d be sleeping in all summer.”

“And I thought you’d be able to get the credits you need to graduate, but here we are,” Stiles says, grinning. Scott rolls his eyes and reaches over to smack Stiles on the arm. 

“Shut up, dude. When will you guys let it go?”

“Probably never,” Stiles responds. Scott gets up from the bunk and stretches out his arms. 

“See you in the morning,” Scott says as he walks to the front door.

“Hey, can you shut off the light on your way out?”

Stiles watches as Scott leaves the cabin, shutting off the light behind him. He gets up from the empty bunk he was sitting on and goes to his own. He reminds himself that at some point he needs to find a spot where he can get cell phone service. He knows that he can call his dad from one of the camp phones, but he wants to try and avoid talking to him around his friends that have super hearing. 

Unzipping his sleeping bag, he crawls into it and zips it back up. 

If he’s going to be completely honest, he’s terrified of falling asleep. He doesn’t want to know what kind of nightmare he’s going to have, and now that he’s in a place that is outside of Beacon Hills and isolated in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, he doesn’t know what’s going to happen. The only person who knows what’s going on is Lydia, and she’s four cabins away from him.

Maybe he should’ve listened to his dad. Maybe he should’ve stayed home.

He sighs and rolls over, facing the wall. He closes his eyes and forces himself to fall asleep.

Week 1, Day 2

Stiles shuts off his blaring alarm clock on his phone and groans. Slowly opening up his eyes, he sees that it’s seven fifteen in the morning. He sighs and sits up from the bunk and unzips the sleeping bag. It takes him a couple seconds to actually get out of the bunk, but once he does, he stretches and yawns.

He walks over to his duffle bag and pulls out one of the camp t-shirts that they’re required to wear. Taking off his shirt, he slips the new one on and grabs a pair of khaki shorts and puts that on, too. He looks outside his cabin window and sees Lydia and Jackson walk out together, probably on their way to the lodge to grab something quick to eat before the buses come. He grabs his phone from the charger and shoves it in his pocket. He doesn’t even know why he’s bringing it with him considering there’s no service out here.

Stiles takes a moment to pick up some of his stuff and put it away so the cabin looks somewhat decent for the campers. After he makes his bunk, he puts on his shoes and walks out of the cabin. For the first time in a while, he feels well rested. He didn’t wake up in the middle of the night like he normally does, and that’s when it hits him.

He didn’t have a nightmare last night.

In fact, he slept like a fucking baby. 

Okay, this is good. This is really good. 

The only thing that he can think of that would allow him to sleep like that is the fact that he’s not in Beacon Hills. He’s in the middle of nowhere, far from home. He doesn’t have any constant reminders of what’s happened to him and his friends in the past few years. 

Walking into the lodge, he sees his friends sitting around one of the dining tables, eating a quick breakfast. Stiles looks over at the table that’s holding all the food and walks to it. He takes an apple and a bottle of water and walks to the table. He takes a seat next to Malia, who is eating a bowl of oatmeal with some blueberries.

“Are you guys ready?” Kira asks. “The kids come in less than twenty minutes!” 

“How many times are you going to ask if we’re ready or excited?” Jackson scoffs. 

“Well I’m excited,” Lydia says. “It’ll do you some good to not be such a downer, Jackson. You’ll scare the kids away.” Jackson mutters something under his breath and takes another bite of his banana. As the group takes time to talk to each other, the front door of the lodge slams open and everyone looks over and sees Gabe standing there with a giant smile on his face.

“Good morning, everyone!” Gabe yells. Stiles glances over at Malia who rolls her eyes and takes the last bite of her food. “Today is the day, folks. We’re going to have some good, camp family fun for the next fourteen days!” Stiles can’t help but snicker a little bit, and Lydia kicks his foot under the table. Stiles mouths the words “camp family fun” back to Lydia, who gives Stiles a look that is clearly telling him to shut up. “You guys have about five minutes to finish up breakfast, so hurry up, let’s go!” 

Everyone quickly finishes their food and cleans up. The group leaves the lodge and makes their way to the main path. It takes them about ten minutes until they reach the board pathway that Stiles walked down yesterday when they first arrived at the camp. Cody complains about how long the walk is (when realistically it’s only fifteen minutes in total and Stiles is already sick of this guy), and Gabe tells Cody that it won’t be too long.

Once they reach the parking lot where all of their cars are parked, they all crowd around Gabe.

“The buses will be here shortly. So here is what we’re going to do,” Gabe says. “Our job is to find the campers that belong to your cabins and to help take their stuff over there. We’ll get to know our campers and let them wander around the camp a little bit. The welcome dinner is at six, and afterwards we’ll have a welcome campfire. Sounds good?” Everyone nods their head. 

As they all wait patiently, Scott is the one that warns everyone that the bus is coming. Gabe looks over at Scott with a confused look, but when everyone sees the bus start to come through, Gabe doesn’t say anything. When the bus comes closer, Stiles notices that there’s a second bus that’s following closely to the first. When the buses pull up in front of the group, they come to a halt and Stiles takes a deep breath.

The door opens and the next thing that he knows, there’s a swarm of kids running out. 

Stiles can hear Gabe yelling at the kids, welcoming them to the camp. Scott nudges Stiles, and the two boys make their way over to the school bus where the back door is open. They help the bus driver take out all of the luggage off the bus. 

After what feels like an eternity, the boys finally finished bringing out all of the luggage from both buses. Stiles watches as everyone is engaging with some of the kids. 

“Guess we should probably go and talk to some of these guys, huh?” Scott says, putting his hands on his hips.

“Yeah, probably,” Stiles responds, huffing. He didn’t realize how much of a work out it was to sit there and pull out luggage from a bus. What the hell are kids even packing these days? Rocks? 

They both make their way over to the giant group of kids who are all chatting among themselves or to the other counselors. Stiles and Scott split up, and Stiles starts to feel a little overwhelmed. He looks over at a bunch of different groups of kids, and he can’t even decide which one to talk to first. He looks over a group of boys that are hanging around the welcome sign, and they have lacrosse sticks hanging from their backpacks. Looking around, he makes his way over to the group.

“Hey!” Stiles greets, waving at them. The group of boys shoot Stiles a look as if they don’t want him near them. Suddenly feeling embarrassed and not sure what to do, he points at their lacrosse sticks. “You guys play lacrosse? I played on the team back in my high school!”

“Yeah? Bench warmer?” A boy with short, red hair snickers. What the fuck? Who pissed in their cereal? Are all middle schoolers this rude?

“Uh, no, I’ll have you know that I played first line once,” Stiles retorts. They don’t need to know that he actually didn’t get a chance to play first line. “What cabin are you guys in?”

“What’s it to you?” a boy with bright blond hair says. 

“Dude, I’m a camp counselor, I’m just trying to help you guys out, no need to be aggressive,” Stiles says as he puts his hands up. 

“Huckleberry,” A brown haired boy responds. “Are you in charge of that cabin?” Stiles hears the blond kid mutter over to the red head kid that he hopes not.

Makes sense that these assholes would belong to Jackson’s cabin. 

“Nope, that’s actually my friend Jackson’s cabin,” Stiles says, turning and pointing towards Jackson. The boys take a look at Jackson who is currently standing there, trying to avoid making eye contact with any of the kids that are running around in front of him. “Hey, Jackson!” Stiles yells, waving his arms. Jackson looks over at Stiles and then looks at the group of boys. He hesitantly walks over to the group of boys and stands next to Stiles.

“What do you want, Stilinski?”

“Found some kids staying in your cabin,” he says. Jackson takes another look at the group of boys and quickly notices the lacrosse sticks.

“You kids play?”

“Well what do you think?” Brown haired boy says with a snarky tone. Stiles can see Jackson tighten his jaw.

“I was the captain of the lacrosse team–”

“Co-captain,” Stiles coughs. Jackson shoots Stiles a nasty look.

“Does it matter? I was still a captain.”

“Okay, I’m going to leave you with your campers,” Stiles says as he pats Jackson’s shoulder. Stiles starts to walk away and he can hear Jackson arguing with the group of boys. He can’t help but find some type of entertainment that Jackson would be dealing with kids that are exactly like him. As he continues to look around, he sees that Lydia is chatting with a couple girls and Kira is helping a boy carry his stuff. 

Stiles isn’t paying attention when he runs into something, and when he looks down, it’s a small kid who has a face covered in freckles and shaggy brown hair. 

“Oh, dude, I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you there!” Stiles exclaims as he reaches out a hand to help the kid up. The kid looks up at Stiles and takes his hand, standing up. He brushes the dirt off himself and shrugs his shoulders.

“It’s okay, I was just trying to find my stuff,” the kid responds. 

“Yeah, no, I get that, there’s a lot happening. Do you need help finding it? What does your bag look like?” 

“Uh, it’s a lime green duffle bag with a blue ribbon on it.” 

“Okay, I think I remember seeing something like that over by the second bus,” Stiles replies. Stiles and the kid head over to the second bus and look at the pile of bags. They both start to dig through the pile, and Stiles hears the kid say that he finds it and drags the duffle bag out. The kid swings the duffle bag over his shoulder.

“Thanks,” the kid says.

“Yeah, any time. What’s your name?” Stiles asks. The kid pushes up his glasses and wipes his nose.

“Quincy, what’s yours?”

“Stiles. Nice to meet you, Quincy! What cabin are you in?”

“Raspberry?”

“Oh no way, that’s my cabin! I don’t know who else is staying in my cabin, but I’m glad I finally met someone.”

As the two of them continue to talk, Stiles ends up really liking this kid. He learns that Quincy has five siblings and comes from a small town in California. He loves to play with Legos and wants to become some type of scientist one day, and Stiles can’t help but think that they’re pretty similar personality wise. Once Quincy kept talking, it was hard to get him to stop. The two of them end up finding the rest of the campers that belong in the cabin, and when everyone gets together with their camp counselors and has their things, Gabe blows on his whistle to get everyone’s attention.

“Does everyone have their things?” Gabe yells, and when the large group says yes, Gabe smiles and claps his hands. “Alright, let’s get going then! And again, welcome to Meadow Creek Camp!”

–

“Dude, okay, I don’t want to make it a big deal or anything, but there’s other werewolves here,” Scott whispers to Stiles as they wait in line to grab their dinner. Stiles looks around the lodge and Scott smacks his arm. “Don’t make it obvious that we’re talking about the kids!” 

“Well can you tell specifically who it is?”

“I mean, not really. It’s hard because there’s so many people here, but there’s more than one, that’s for sure.”

“Guess we have to keep our eyes out then,” Stiles says as he puts a forkful of spaghetti on his plate. When they’re done grabbing their dinner, the two boys take a seat next to each other and wait for the others to sit at the same table with them. The lodge is extremely loud, full of yelling and laughing. While they start to eat their food, Jackson comes up to them and drops his tray on the table, causing Stiles to jump a little.

“Do you smell that?” Jackson directs the question to Scott, but Stiles is the one who responds.

“Want to be more specific?” 

“You know,” Jackson whispers while looking around the lodge. He leans forward a little bit so that Scott and Stiles could hear him better. “There are others, McCall, I just can’t pinpoint on who.”

“I mentioned it to Stiles, but I can’t figure out who they are either,” Scott tells him. “Trust me, when I figure it out, I’ll let you guys know.”

Lydia, Malia, and Kira all take their seats at the same table, and they all catch up with each other on how their day went so far. Malia mentions that her and her campers climbed a bunch of trees and explored the woods a little bit while Lydia and her campers took a walk around the lake. Scott took his campers to one side of the field and did some icebreakers while Jackson was on the other side giving lacrosse lessons to his campers. Kira did a small tour with her campers and Stiles mostly hung out with his campers inside their cabin and helped them get situated while also asking them questions to get to know them better.

Stiles actually really enjoys spending that time with the kids in his cabin. He has Quincy, Wyatt, Carter, Hudson, and Cooper. Stiles is pretty impressed with how intelligent these kids are listening to Wyatt and Cooper talk about their favorite mystery books while Quincy, Hudson, and Carter talk about their science projects from school. 

The kids are constantly asking Stiles questions about high school, about girls , which sports they should try out for, what clubs they should be in, and so on. Stiles is pretty exhausted by dinner time by answering all of their questions, so he is relieved when they hear the dinner bell ring.

Stiles takes a drink of his water, but quickly notices the bluish, purple drink that Jackson has. 

“What is that? Why is it blue?” Stiles asks. Jackson is the only one at the table drinking it while everyone else has water, and he shrugs.

“The weird lunch lady over there said that it was something called butterfly pea tea? It’s mixed with lemonade. You want to try it? It’s not bad.”

“Okay, I just want to say that Gloria is not weird, she’s nice, thank you very much,” Stiles says defensively. He met Gloria once in passing right before dinner and she offered him some Oreos. To Stiles, she’s probably the best thing that ever happened to this camp. “But yeah, sure, I’ll try some.” He takes the cup from Jackson and takes a small drink from it. Stiles automatically makes a disgusted face the second the drink touches his tongue. It’s sour, almost like there’s too much lemon and not enough sugar. He quickly gives Jackson the cup back, and shakes his head. “Yeah, I’m never drinking that shit again.”

“Your loss, Stilinski,” Jackson shrugs as he takes another drink of the lemonade. 

As they continue to spend dinner time together, they hear Gabe’s whistle throughout the lodge. God, it reminds Stiles so much of Coach Finstock that he just wants to toss the whistle in the lake. Everyone quiets down and looks up at Gabe who is standing up near the table with all the other employees of the camp. He turns on a microphone and taps on it lightly, and once he hears some feedback, he starts to talk.

“Hello! I am so glad that all of you are here today joining us at Meadow Creek Camp. As all of you know, my name is Gabe and I’m the assistant of the camp director here. I know that you all are antsy to meet her, so I’m going to pass the microphone over to the one and only, Tamora Monroe!”

Everyone starts to clap their hands and cheer, and Stiles is looking around at his friends with questioning looks. If Stiles remembers correctly, there wasn’t anything mentioned about the camp director at all on the website when he did his research. Stiles turns his attention back at the employee table and watches as a short lady stands up with a giant smile on her face. She takes the microphone from Gabe and thanks him.

“Good evening, campers! As Gabe said, my name is Tamora Monroe and I’m the new camp director here at Meadow Creek Camp. I’m so happy that all of you are here, and it’s so nice to see all of your smiling faces. Our goal this summer is to have fun!” Tamora takes a look around the room. “I just want to take a quick second to thank our camp counselors this year, so let’s give a quick round of applause for those guys.” Everyone starts to clap, and once it starts to die down, she continues to talk. “If our camp counselors want to stand up real quick so all the kids know who you are.” 

Stiles and his friends stand up, and across the room, he can see Katie, Paul, Joseph, and Cody stand up as well. All the kids start to clap again and they all awkwardly wave at the kids. 

“Thank you guys again for taking time to be here for our campers. I don’t want to take too much of your time, so I’ll make this super quick. If you have any questions or see anything that makes you uncomfortable, please let us know. This is a safe space. I just want to go over the rules. Number one, everyone is responsible for cleaning up after themselves, and we have a reward for the cabin who stays the cleanest. Number two, no going by yourself late at night, everyone is to be in their cabins by ten, no exceptions.” 

Tamora goes over more rules, which of course include no bullying, stay within the trails, and not going in the lake without a lifeguard. Once she finishes, she hands the microphone back to Gabe and sits down.

“Okay, campers! Let’s hurry up and eat dinner, we have a fun welcome bonfire that will be happening outside next to the lodge where we’ll have s’mores for dessert!” Gabe yells with excitement.

—

Stiles finds himself sitting between Quincy and Hudson, roasting marshmallows. 

“Hey, how do you make your marshmallows so perfect?” Hudson asks Stiles. “Can you show me?”

“It’s all about technique, Hudson,” Stiles says as he takes Hudson’s stick. Stiles gets up from the log they’re sitting on and holds the marshmallow over the fire, but not too close. He slowly turns the marshmallow, making sure that it gets golden. Once it does, Stiles hands Hudson back his stick. “See, you can’t just shove it in the fire, you have to treat it carefully.”

“I tried telling Hudson that having a burnt marshmallow is disgusting,” Wyatt pipes up. Stiles jumps, not expecting Wyatt to be right behind him. 

“Where did you even come from?” Stiles asks. “You can’t just appear out of nowhere! Weren’t you just over there talking with the girls in Kira’s cabin?”

“Yeah, but then they started talking about boys and feelings and I had to get out of there,” Wyatt answers. Hudson grabs the marshmallow from the stick and plops it in his mouth while Quincy takes a regular marshmallow and eats it.

“You know, those aren’t bad things to talk about,” Quincy replies, his mouth still full of marshmallow. 

“Yeah, but when you hear girls start talking about how hot the camp counselor over at Huckleberry Cabin is, you start to get kind of grossed out,” Wyatt says. 

“What? Who said that Jackson was hot?” Stiles snorts. “Wait, did they say anything about Raspberry Cabin?”

“Make me a perfect marshmallow and I’ll tell you.” Wyatt smiles. Stiles rolls his eyes and takes the sick back from Hudson and starts to roast a marshmallow. When he’s done, he gives the stick over to Wyatt who happily takes it and makes himself a s’more. When Wyatt takes a bite of the s’more, he moans and takes another bite. “I still don’t know how you make such a perfect marshmallow.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay, spill. I want to know who said that Jackson was hot,” Stiles says, grabbing the stick from Wyatt and handing it over to Quincy. 

“You see that blond girl over there with the bright pink shirt? Rose?” Wyatt asks, pointing his sticky finger towards the girl. Stiles looks over and sees a group of girls, but knows exactly who Wyatt is talking about. Wyatt takes his last bite of the treat and burps. “It was her. You didn’t hear that from me, though.”

“Okay, but did they say anything about Raspberry Cabin?” Hudson reiterates.

“Uh, yeah, Rose and her friends said that Quincy was cute, too,” Wyatt replies. “That’s about it, though.”

The boys quickly look over at Quincy, who is blushing while eating a s’more.

Before anyone could say anything else, they hear the whistle that clearly belongs to Gabe (because who else would be that annoying?), and everyone perks their head up to try and look for him. Gabe makes his way over to the area where Scott’s campers are sitting.

“I hate to say this, campers, but it’s time to start heading back to your cabins!” A sea of groans start coming from the kids and everyone starts to pack up. “I’ll take care of putting the fire pits out, camp counselors. Have a goodnight, everyone! We’ll see you bright and early tomorrow for breakfast!”

Stiles grabs the empty bag of marshmallows and takes it over to one of the trash bins. He turns back around and sees that Wyatt, Hudson, and Quincy are behind him. 

“Okay, where’s Cooper and Carter?” Stiles asks the boys. They all shrug their shoulders and Stiles sighs. “Okay, just…stay here, I’m going to look around real quick.” The boys nod their heads and Stiles starts to walk around the fire pits to try and find Carter and Cooper.

He finds the boys hanging out with Jackson’s campers who are picking up around their fire pit. 

“Cooper, Carter, come on, we have to head back to the cabin,” Stiles yells, trying to get their attention. The two boys perk their heads up and smile when they see him. 

“Stiles, we got to hang out with Jackson and he was telling us all about you in high school!” Cooper says, running up to him. Carter shortly follows him and stands next to Cooper. Stiles raises his eyebrow and looks over at Jackson, who is helping one of his campers grab one of the roasting sticks.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, and he said that you were really bad at lacrosse and that you’re a giant nerd,” Carter replies.

“Nice,” Stiles says with a monotone voice. “Great. Love that.”

“But he also said that because you’re so nerdy, you were able to help him and your other friends out a lot,” Cooper quickly says. “He didn’t only say bad things. He said that you’re really caring and that we’re lucky to be in your cabin.”

Stiles is almost taken aback by this comment, like it’s almost unbelievable. Stiles hasn’t heard Jackson compliment someone like that in a really long time, and if he did compliment someone, it was somehow always a backhanded one.

“Okay, well, that was really nice of Jackson. Come on, let’s get going.”

The three boys make their way over to the rest of their campers and start walking to the cabin, running into Paul’s campers. Paul tells his campers to tell Stiles’ cabin goodnight, which they all do. He waves at Paul, who waves back and walks into his cabin. Stiles makes sure that all of his campers are inside first and shuts the door once they’re all there. 

Before turning off the light, Stiles looks around and makes sure that everyone is in their bunk and ready to fall asleep. Once he sees that everyone is laying down, he turns off the light and goes to his own bunk. Kicking off his shoes, he crawls inside his sleeping bag and zips it up. He takes his cell phone out of his pocket and plugs it in, reading that it’s nine thirty.

Within minutes, he can already hear the soft snoring of the boys. Even though he was able to sleep peacefully last night, he’s nervous that it doesn’t mean that he’ll be able to sleep tonight. He tosses and turns a few times before finally giving up. Maybe he should just go on a small walk. No one will know, and the boys are knocked out. Taking his phone off the charger, he gets out of his bunk and quietly puts his shoes back on. 

He grabs one of his hoodies from his duffle bag and slips it on. He walks out of the cabin as quietly as he possibly can and once he gets the door closed, he finally lets himself breathe. Stiles starts to make his way towards the lake, and it’s times like this where he’s really glad that the camp has lamps everywhere so that it’s not completely dark. 

Before he fully walks past the lodge, he looks over to make sure that no one is walking around to make sure that people are sneaking out. He starts to slowly walk past the lodge, but sees that the camp director’s cabin still has the lights on. How the hell was he supposed to get past that? He could go around behind the lodge and the cabin, but what if someone was behind there and caught him?

Not knowing what else to do, he takes one last look around before he crouches down and slowly starts to get past the cabin. He can hear voices coming from the building but doesn’t take the time to listen. It’s probably about something boring and camp related, and the only thing that Stiles wants to do right now is just get to the lake.

Once he makes it past the camp director’s cabin, he gets up from crouching and starts to speed walk towards the trail that goes towards the lake. Once he feels comfortable enough knowing that he won’t get caught at this point, he starts to slow down his pace. Not going to lie, walking through the woods at night shouldn’t bother Stiles as much, considering that he did it all the time back home.

He remembers that Scott and Jackson mentioned that there are other werewolves around. He tells himself to get a grip and when he finally sees some of the lake, he feels a lot more calm. The walk itself is nice, and being out in the cool air is helping him get some peace of mind. As he starts to walk around the lake, he feels his phone start to vibrate and hears sound notifications coming from his pocket. He quickly pulls out his phone and turns the sound off. 

He looks around to ensure that he’s by himself, and then looks at his phone. He sees that he has a few bars of service, and he sees notifications coming in from social media and his dad. Grinning from ear to ear, he checks all of the messages that his dad sent first.

(8:00 pm) From: Dad

Hey, you forgot sunscreen. Make sure that you can get some from someone at camp.

(8:39 pm) From: Dad

Weirdly quiet here. Hope you made it safe. Love you.

(11:04 pm) From: Dad

Do you not have service? I’m assuming not since you haven’t responded. 

(7:46 am) From: Dad

Morning, kid. Hope your first day goes well. Love you.

(12:01 pm) From: Dad

You told Parrish to meal prep? Can’t believe you don’t trust your old man.

(5:27 pm) From: Dad

Miss you, kid. Hope you have been sleeping okay.

Stiles can’t help but feel himself tear up a little bit, but he quickly wipes his eyes. He’s only been away from his dad for two days, but he thinks it’s a mix of getting all these texts at once and already being on edge that’s causing him to cry. He thinks he has enough bars to make a phone call, so he presses the phone icon under his dad’s contact and presses the phone against his ear. After the third ring, he hears his dad pick up the phone.

“Hello? Stiles?”

“Hey, Dad!” He says, and fuck, he can’t stop smiling. 

“Hey! You have service?”

“I mean, I didn’t think I did, but I decided to walk around the lake and the next thing I knew, my phone was ringing with all the texts I got from you.”

“Oh, yeah, those,” his dad mutters. “Well, glad you got all of them.”

“How are you?” Stiles asks. 

“Good, good. Things are a little hectic over here at the station, but nothing we can’t handle. How’s camp?”

So Stiles spends the next fifteen minutes telling his dad everything so far that has happened. He tells her about Gabe and how weirdly happy he is, he tells him about the campers he has in his cabin and how he really loves hanging out with them already. His dad just takes in all the information that Stiles is spewing at him and once Stiles finishes, his dad sighs.

“Jesus, Stiles. How is it that you’ve only been there for less than two days and you somehow had so much happen?” 

“No clue, but I’m having a lot of fun.”

“How are you sleeping?” the Sheriff asks. Stiles kicks some dirt into the lake.

“Pretty good, actually.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, I mean, I didn’t have a nightmare last night so I consider that a win.” 

“I’m really glad to hear that,” his dad says softly. “Why do you think that is?”

“Probably different environment. I’m not having constant reminders of one of the worst times of my life,” Stiles responds. “Anyway, I just wanted to call you and update you.”

“Well hey, since you finally found a spot with cell phone service, you can call me as often as you want.”

“Yeah, I will,” Stiles says. “Love you, Dad. I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Love you, too.” 

Stiles hangs up the phone and goes back into his contact list. Scrolling until he finds Derek’s name, he clicks on it and holds the phone up to his ear. 

“You’ve reached Derek Hale, I’ll try to get back to you as soon as I can.”

“Hey, it’s me again. Uh, I’m at the summer camp with the whole group, and it’s actually pretty fun. The campers in my cabin are great, I think you’d really like them. Scott says that he was able to sense werewolves here, but he’s trying to figure out who they are. Uh, I didn’t have any nightmares last night! Which is great, because I didn’t want to freak anyone out. I found some pretty spotty cell phone service so I thought I’d just give you a call. Don’t know why I keep expecting you to pick up. Just…call me when you can, okay?” Stiles hangs up the phone again and shoves it back into his pocket. 

He turns back around and starts to walk back to his cabin. Getting back to his cabin isn’t as bad as leaving it. The lights in the camp director’s cabin are off, so he didn’t bother trying to sneak his way past. Once he makes it back to his own cabin, he quietly walks up the steps and slowly opens the door. Peeking his head in, he sees that the kids are still fast asleep. He fully steps inside the cabin and slips off his shoes, his hoodie, and crawls back into his sleeping bag.

He closes his eyes without having any trouble falling asleep.

Week 1, Day 4

Stiles would be lying to himself if he said he wasn’t fucking exhausted.

Day three of camp was the first full day where they did all of the activities that were listed on the itinerary that Gabe had given them on the first day at orientation. The morning of the third day was Stiles struggling to get up early after staying out late from calling his dad. Once the kids forced Stiles to get out of bed, they all made their way over to the lodge where they helped themselves to breakfast.

Gloria, the lunch lady, caught Stiles before he sat down at his table and had given him extra bacon, which he was extremely thankful for. He was fine having Gloria on his side, he really liked her. Once they all ate breakfast (and also listened to Malia complain about having to do zero hour that day), they went back to their cabins to clean up. Hudson had made it clear that he really wanted Raspberry Cabin to win the cleaning award, so the boys really took their time cleaning up. Gabe was pretty impressed by how clean it was, but had made a comment about how Elk Cabin was a little more tidier. After Gabe left their cabin, Hudson didn’t even hesitate to talk shit about Lydia’s cabin and Stiles could’ve sworn he saw a tear start to form in the corner of Hudson’s eye. Once Stiles had calmed him down, they all went to do the activities that they signed up for.

Stiles and Scott were in charge of the arts and crafts room which was inside of the lodge, and they got to hang out with a bunch of other campers from other cabins. Stiles had to admit that the campers from Lydia and Katie’s cabins were pretty nice, but also super creative. He wasn’t surprised that none of Jackson’s campers were in arts and crafts. He met a couple of Scott’s campers, including Timmy, who Scott claims has the worst gas he’s ever smelled in his life. They had decided to do painting, but Stiles and Scott spent most of the time making fun of each other’s work rather than doing actual painting. Carter had taken it upon himself to tell them that they both sucked, and Stiles had never felt his ego get so bruised.

Once they had finished up and cleaned up the mess that everyone made, they made their way back to the main area of the lodge, it was Wolverine Cabin’s turn to help with lunch prep. When everyone had lunch, they went to their second round of activities. Lydia and Stiles were helping out at the archery range where the camp had hired an instructor to help the campers. Lydia and Stiles learned the basics, and Stiles could tell how much it meant to Lydia that she was able to do something like this. Stiles was also excited to see that Hudson and Cooper were doing archery the same time that he was, so he got to introduce them to Lydia.

When the second round of activities ended, they all went back to their cabins to relax and take time to unwind. The boys played a couple rounds of Uno that Quincy’s mom packed, and Stiles was bummed that he lost each round to Carter and Cooper. After that, Stiles had time to take a quick shower, and he didn’t realize how bad he needed to shower until he could smell his own body odor. When he finished his shower and got dressed, he met up with his cabin where they all went back to the lodge to have dinner, which Blueberry Cabin helped prepare. Stiles notices that Jackson gets another one of the purple lemonades and makes a face at him. Jackson tells him that it’s good, but Stiles begs to differ. When Lydia comes and sits down also with a glass of the blue lemonade, he rolls his eyes and pretends to gag. Stiles and his friends all talked about their experiences with the activities that they did that day, and he loved hearing every single thing.

He loves hearing that Kira gets to do some acting exercises with an actual instructor and gets to know some of the other campers. He loves hearing that Malia is able to spend some time on the climbing wall and helps some kids conquer their fear of heights. He isn’t that excited to hear about Jackson talking about paddle boarding (considering that Jackson and Cody took over all the water sports), but Stiles refrains from making any smartass comments. Scott talks about how he got to hang out with Katie and learned a few things on a piano.

When dinner is over, the camp decides to go on an evening hike where they all sit on a hill and watch the sunset. When they all get back from the hike, everyone is so tired and heads back to their cabins for lights out. However, once Stiles makes sure that the boys are fast asleep, he sneaks out to go to the lake and calls his dad to update him on his day. 

Of course, he leaves another pathetic voicemail for Derek, and he hates that he sounds a little more desperate to hear back from him. When Derek first left, Stiles had left him so many voicemails begging for him to come back, or at least to explain to Stiles why he left in the first place. After a couple weeks of that, he vowed to never beg for him to come back. If Derek didn’t want to, then so be it. 

He still doesn’t know why he does it, he can stop at any time. It isn’t healthy at this point.

When he falls asleep, he has another night with no nightmares.

—

Stiles wakes up on the fourth day feeling more well rested. He slept hard last night, and it was probably one of the best sleeps he’s had in ages. The boys didn’t have to try and wake him up this time, in fact, Stiles has to be the one to wake them up. 

“Hey, get up!” Stiles says loudly as he slips on his camp t-shirt. “Come on, guys, we have to get going if you want to have breakfast this morning.” 

The boys start to slowly get out of bed and get dressed for the day, and when everyone is all ready to go, they walk out the door together. Stiles looks over at Paul’s cabin and sees that they’re all still getting ready. They start walking down the trail that takes them to the lodge.

“Stiles, what activities are you doing today?” Quincy asks.

“Uh, I think I’m doing survival skills in the morning and the climbing wall in the afternoon. Why? What are you doing this morning?”

“I’m going to sign up for music, I heard the instructor there is really nice.”

“Yeah, that’s what Scott said yesterday. Do you know how to play any instruments?” 

“I can play a little guitar,” Quincy replies, shrugging his shoulders. “I’m not very good at it.”

“I can already tell you’re lying to me. I bet you’re amazing at it,” Stiles looks down and smiles at him. “The huge event at the end of camp is a talent show, are you going to participate?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You should!” Stiles suggests, nudging the boy a little. “Dude, you’d be so good. Come on, what’s the worst that could happen?”

“Uh, everyone thinks that I suck,” Quincy responds. “Carter said that last year there was a kid who did the talent show last year who did magic, and he was so bad that everyone made fun of him and he didn’t come back to camp this year.”

“Don’t listen to Carter,” Stiles says. “I’ll be there in the front and cheer you on. Just think about it, okay? I think it’d be cool if you participated in the talent show.”

“Yeah, okay.”

They make it to the lodge where they walk in, and the boys make their way to the tables that they normally sit at. Stiles sees Scott and Gloria place some of the food on the dining table, and he walks over to them and waves when Gloria notices him. 

“Oh, good morning, Stiles!” Gloria greets with a smile. “How are you this morning?”

“Great! And how are you doing, Gloria?” 

“Wonderful now that Scott’s here helping me out. I have to say,” she leans in and gets close to Stiles so only he can hear. “Scott has been the most helpful out of the ones that have helped me so far.” 

“Yeah, he’s a pretty helpful guy,” Stiles says. 

“Hey, what are you guys talking about?” Scott asks. The two of them look at Scott and smile. 

“Nothing, buddy,” Stiles says as he puts his hand on Scott’s shoulder. “You almost done?”

“Yeah, I just have to grab the case of chocolate milk and I’ll meet you at the table,” Scott replies. Stiles takes his hand off Scott’s shoulder and he goes back to the kitchen while Gloria continues to finish putting things together.

“Do you need any help?” Stiles asks.

“Oh, no, Stiles. You can wait when it’s your turn to help with one of the meals. What day do you help in the kitchen?”

“Uh, I think in like three days? It’s for dinner, though.” 

“Great, well you can help me then. Why don’t you go have a seat and wait for Scott?” 

Stiles nods his head and makes his way over to the table and waits for everyone else. He sees Jackson’s campers walk in with Jackson slowly following behind them. When those boys take a seat at their table, Jackson takes a seat across from Stiles, and he can’t help but notice that Jackson looks a little pale.

“Hey, are you good?” Stiles asks.

“Yeah, I feel fine,” Jackson says, clearly annoyed.

“You sure?”

“Do I need to repeat myself, Stilinski?” Jackson snaps. “I’m fine.”

“Okay then,” Stiles utters, surprised by Jackson’s attitude. It’s only eight in the morning, and Stiles has no idea what made Jackson so mad this early, so he changes the subject. “Who did zero hour this morning?”

“Lydia,” Jackson answers in a calmer tone. “She did yoga.”

Before Stiles can respond, suddenly everyone starts coming through the front door of the lodge. When everyone seems to be accounted for, people start to get up and start grabbing breakfast. When Stiles gets in line, he feels like it’s forever until he gets his plate and Gloria starts giving him food. He smiles when she gives him extra bacon again, and he goes back to his table.

When his friends come and sit with him once they grab their breakfast, Scott looks over at Stiles’ plate.

“Dude, I can’t believe Gloria gave you extra bacon again! I even helped her this morning and I thought I’d get extra.” 

“You’re going to have to work harder than that, Scott,” Stiles says as he picks up a piece of bacon and takes a bite. Scott mutters something under his breath and starts to eat his food. 

“Jackson, you’re barely eating,” Lydia points out. “Are you sure you’re okay?” Everyone looks at him and sees that his plate is still full of food, and Jackson shrugs. 

“Of course I’m not feeling good, have you eaten some of the stuff that the lunch lady makes?” he replies. “Plus, I’m not that hungry.” Lydia cocks her head to the side as if she’s suspecting that he’s lying to her, and Scott looks at Jackson’s plate.

“Well if you’re not hungry and you hate Gloria’s cooking so much, can I have your bacon?” Scott asks. Jackson slides his plate over to Scott who happily takes some of the extra food.

“You look like you’re going to puke,” Malia says bluntly. When Lydia opens her mouth to say something, Jackson quickly gets up from his seat and walks down the hallway where the bathrooms are. Everyone looks at each other confused, and Lydia takes a sip of her chocolate milk.

“He probably has food poisoning or something,” Kira shares. “I didn’t feel all that great after dinner either.” 

“He’ll feel better after breakfast and we’re doing some activities,” Scott says. Everyone shrugs off Jackson’s weird behavior and continues to eat.

—

While Stiles spends most of his morning doing survival skills with Gabe being the instructor, he looks over at Hudson who keeps rolling his eyes every time that Gabe trips on something or misplaces something. 

“Are you sure you should be teaching this course?” a girl with long black hair asks as she pushes up her glasses. “No offense, but you don’t seem to know what you’re doing.” The group of campers start to laugh and Stiles feels the need to step in. 

“Hey, he’s trying,” Stiles says defensively. “I mean, he did a pretty good job with building a campfire!”

“Yeah, but it took him a long time to figure out that the fire wouldn’t start because the branches are wet!” Stiles recognizes this red head from Jackson’s cabin, and he was the dick that was mean to him on the first day of camp. What the fuck was his name again? Franklin?

“Just because–” 

“It’s okay, Stiles, you don’t need to try and defend me,” Gabe says, sounding defeated. When he lights a match and starts to burn a small branch, he gently places it with the pile of wood. It starts out strong, but it starts dying fast. “They’re right, I really shouldn’t be teaching this course. Technically Ms. Monroe is the one that does all of this.”

“Oh, well then where is she?” Stiles asks. Gabe shoves the box of matches in his fanny pack.

“She had something come up, so I volunteered.” 

Stiles hums as he looks down at Gabe’s sad excuse for a campfire that finally died out, and the group of kids surround it and start to laugh. 

Kids can be so brutal sometimes.

—

Lunch is uneventful and Jackson barely touches his food.

He doesn’t look any better than what they saw from this morning, but he’s more talkative and didn’t feel the need to run to the bathroom again. 

Maybe Kira was right, it was probably food poisoning.

—

“I’m afraid of heights,” Wyatt states as Stiles fixes the kid’s harness. 

“Now you say something? Really?” Stiles asks. 

“Look, Rose is over there,” Wyatt quickly looks at the group of kids behind them and Stiles sees Rose standing there, talking to another group of girls. “I just want her to think I’m cool.”

“Dude, she’s not even paying attention.”

“Well maybe she will when I start climbing!” 

“Oh my god,” Stiles groans. “You mean if you can climb! You just said you’re afraid of heights! Plus, didn’t she say that she liked Quincy?”

“No, she said that she thought Quincy was cute . There’s a difference,” Wyatt huffs. 

“Okay, so what’s the game plan?” 

“I don’t have one,” Wyatt frowns. “Just make sure I don’t fall, okay?”

“Yeah, of course,” Stiles assures him. He finishes up harnessing Wyatt, and gets himself ready so he can belay. Wyatt shakes his arms and walks up to the wall. 

“Stiles, climbing.”

“Climb on, Wyatt!” He calls back. Stiles watches as Wyatt starts to climb up the wall, and he can see that the kid is already shaking and he’s not even a foot off the ground. “Come on, Wyatt, you got this!” 

Wyatt quickly turns his head as much as he can to try and give Stiles a nasty look, but he faces his attention back on the wall. Stiles keeps up with the rope as Wyatt slowly makes his way up the wall. Stiles slacks the rope just a little bit, and he’s impressed when Wyatt keeps climbing. Stiles looks over his shoulder and sees that Rose is suddenly paying attention to Wyatt, and he sees her pat another girl’s arm and point at him.

“Uh, Stiles?” Wyatt calls out. Stiles quickly turns his head back around and looks up at Wyatt, who has stopped climbing.

“What’s up? Are you done climbing?” 

“Yeah, but,” Wyatt pauses for a moment and looks down, and Stiles can tell right away that he’s panicking. There’s only so much movement that Stiles can do since he’s supposed to be belaying him. Looking around and realizing that he’s pretty much the only counselor around at the moment, he looks back up at Wyatt. 

“Alright, Wyatt, here’s what we’re going to do,” Stiles yells. “I’m going to lower the rope, okay? And you’re going to just push yourself off the wall until you’re on the ground, does that sound good?”

Wyatt quickly nods his head and closes his eyes. Stiles starts to lower the rope and he tells Wyatt to start kicking. Every time that Stiles lowers the rope, he tells Wyatt when to push off the wall. Once Wyatt makes it to the ground, Stiles unhooks the carabiner and goes over to Wyatt.

“You did such a great job!” Stiles says, shaking the kid’s shoulders. “You didn’t even look like you were afraid of heights.” Wyatt looks up at Stiles and smiles a little, and Stiles feels relieved when he notices that Wyatt isn’t as panicked anymore. 

“Thanks. Wait, was she looking?” 

“Yeah, she was. If you ask me, she seemed pretty impressed,” Stiles responds. Wyatt pumps his fist in the air with excitement.

“See, I told you!”

“You’re right, sorry I ever doubted you,” Stiles says as he helps him take off the harness. Wyatt wiggles his way out of the harness and walks over to the group of kids. Turning around, Stiles holds up the harness and looks at everyone. “Who’s next?”

—

Stiles hangs out with his campers during cabin time again.

This time, rather than spending time inside, they decide to go on a small walk around the camp. They run into Scott’s cabin, and Scott mentions that he thinks they should combine and hang out over at the field. Stiles and his campers agree and the large group make their way to the field. When they get there, the campers all run over to the shed where they pull out soccer balls and start to play while Stiles and Scott sit a little further away, keeping an eye on the kids.

“I feel like we haven’t been able to get any one on one time,” Scott points out, pulling some of the grass from out of the ground. “But we’ve both been busy. I heard about Gabe’s survival skills activity, it sounded pretty bad.”

“Oh, it was terrible,” Stiles laughs. “Gabe’s a good guy, but watching him try to start a campfire was brutal. Who told you?”

“Jonathan was there this morning,” Scott replies. 

“Any news on who the werewolves might be?” 

“Not really, but Stiles, I’m pretty sure that some of them are the kids.” 

“What? Like they were born like that?”

“I think so, unless somehow they got bit at some point. My cabin is clear though, so that rules out five of them.”

“Huh,” Stiles murmurs. “Well, we still have a whole other week to find out who they are.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Scott says. “How are your campers?”

“Honestly? Amazing,” Stiles responds with a smile. “These kids are so cool, Scott. I lucked out.”

The two boys talk a little bit more about how it’s been so far, and Stiles even listens to Scott complain about Timmy again for another five minutes. It’s at this point that Stiles hears about Scott’s favorite camper whose name is Goob. (“Who the hell names their kid that?” “It’s just a nickname, but what a terrible nickname to have.”) Scott makes a couple comments about how he misses his mom, and he debates on telling Scott about the shitty cell phone service by the lake. Ultimately he decides against it. As selfish as it sounds, he kind of likes having that secret to himself. 

At some point, Carter and Harley from Scott’s cabin come up to them and beg them to play soccer with them. They get up from the ground and brush themselves off, and they run to the field and play with the rest of the group until they hear the dinner bell.

—

“Hey, did you know that Quincy is really good at guitar?” Malia asks Stiles, nudging his shoulder a little too hard. Stiles almost drops his tater tot, but he catches it before it falls on the floor. 

“I knew he played, but he said that he wasn’t very good.”  

“You should convince him to do the talent show,” Malia says, stealing one of Kira’s tater tots when she wasn’t paying attention. “I mean, seriously,” she pops the tater tot in her mouth. “He’s good.”

“I tried telling him this morning but he shrugged me off,” Stiles tells her. “I’ll try again, though.”

—

Tonight’s evening event is lacrosse.

Of course it’s lacrosse.

Stiles feels so much relief when Gabe announces that not everyone has to participate in this event. He didn’t want to play, but Scott begged Stiles to play against his cabin at some point.

“You only want us to play so your cabin can kick our ass,” Stiles mutters, and Scott laughs. Stiles convinces Scott to sit this one out, which Scott’s campers are not happy about. “You’ll thank me later, kids.”

Gabe asks everyone who wants to play the first match, and Jackson doesn’t even hesitate to raise his hand. 

“Alright, great! Thanks for volunteering, Jackson,” Gabe says. “Who wants to go against Huckleberry Cabin?” 

Cody raises his hand as his cabin cheers behind him, and they walk to the field with Jackson’s cabin walking not far behind them. The group grabs the lacrosse gear that they need and get themselves ready to play. 

“I’m surprised Jackson’s playing considering he didn’t feel good earlier,” Malia says, sitting next to Scott. 

“Maybe he started to feel better,” Scott replies. “Plus, I heard that Cody and Jackson have some weird rivalry going on?”

“Yeah, I heard that, too,” Malia says. 

Everyone starts cheering for the two teams when they get themselves positioned on the field. When Gabe blows on his whistle to initiate the game, the crowd starts yelling and cheering even louder. Some people are screaming for some of the campers, some girls in Lydia’s cabin are screaming strictly for Jackson, and Katie’s cabin cheers for Cody. Stiles and Scott pay close attention to the game, and Stiles can’t help that his right leg starts to shake due to how anxious he’s feeling while he watches Jackson play.

Something doesn’t look right.

“Hey, does Jackson seem a little slower to you?” Stiles whispers to Scott. Scott takes a quick glance at Stiles and looks at Jackson again. After a moment of watching him play, Scott nods his head.

“Yeah, but it has to be related to him feeling sick.”

“But look at Tristan from Cody’s cabin, he seems really slow, too.”

“Maybe he just sucks at lacrosse?”

Stiles rolls his eyes at Scott’s comment. “Dude, Jackson’s moving slow and you and I both know that he doesn’t suck at lacrosse. We can’t just assume that Tristan sucks.”

“Well what do you want me to say?” Scott whispers irritably. 

“I’m just saying, something’s up.”

“I’ll check in with him after the game,” Scott says. 

After a while of watching the game, Stiles starts to feel a little better once the game is about to come to a close. Cody’s team is one point behind Jackson's, and Stiles isn’t really surprised considering all of Jackson’s campers are lacrosse players.

Stiles watches as Jackson successfully gets the ball that was passed to him by Franklin. As Jackson starts to run towards Cody’s team’s goal, Stiles notices that Cody is quickly catching up with Jackson and tries to block his throw. But instead of actively trying to catch the ball that Jackson throws, Cody rams into Jackson, making them both fall to the ground.

Hearing the gasps in the crowd, Stiles and Scott quickly get up from their seats and run over to the field where Gabe is jogging to get closer to Jackson and Cody. When the two boys make it over to Jackson and Cody, Jackson is groaning in pain, holding his arm. Cody is just laying there, breathing heavily. The campers that were playing are surrounding them, all of them asking too many questions. 

“Okay, let’s back up, give them some room!” Gabe yells, and the campers go quiet and back up a bit. Stiles kneels down next to Jackson and takes off his helmet for him. Jackson grabs the collar of Stiles’ shirt and pulls him close, making Stiles yelp.

“Something’s wrong,” Jackson croaks. 

“Well yeah, I’m pretty sure Cody broke your arm–”

“Stiles,” Jackson pulls him much closer, his mouth near Stiles’ ear. “I’m not healing.” He lets go of Stiles’ shirt and Stiles pulls back and quickly looks at Scott who is trying to convince Gabe that Jackson doesn’t need to go to the nurse. Stiles looks back down at Jackson who is still writhing in pain. He tries to sit up, and Stiles helps him.

“Wait, what do you mean?”

“Get Scott.”

Before Stiles can go and get Scott, he sees that Tamora Monroe is making her way to the field. 

Well shit.

“What’s going on here?” She says in a loud voice, eyeing Jackson and Cody. Gabe’s eyes go wide and he laughs nervously.

“They just went a little too hard at lacrosse, it’s nothing serious!” Gabe replies. “I have it handled.”

“Do you?” She asks, eyeing Gabe. She gets closer to Jackson and kneels down beside him. “Where does it hurt? Is it just your arm?” Jackson nods his head. 

“I’m fine,” he says, wincing as he tries to move his arm. “See? I don’t need help.”

“I think we should get you to the nurse,” Tamora says. “Gabe, help me get Jackson up without hurting him more.”

“What about Cody?” One of the campers asks. Everyone looks down at Cody who is sitting up, but he’s not talking. 

“Cody, are you hurt?” Tamora asks. 

“No,” Cody grunts. “I’m fine.” 

“Well if you’re feeling fine, do you mind getting up?” Tamora replies with a smile. She puts her attention back on Jackson. Gabe gets on the other side of Jackson and they lift him up. 

“I don’t need to go to the nurse,” Jackson says. “Seriously, I’m fine.”

“Jackson,” Scott says, his tone harsh. Everyone looks at Scott. “Go to the nurse’s cabin. I’m sure it’s nothing, but you need to go and get it checked out.” Stiles knows that Scott is only wanting him to go to make things less suspicious, but the problem is that Scott doesn’t know that Jackson isn’t healing. Jackson huffs and nods his head.

“Will one of you please take Jackson’s campers back to their cabin?” Tamora asks them.

“Uh, yeah, I can do that,” Scott says. The three of them start to walk off the field, and Jackson’s campers start to surround Scott and Stiles. “I’m going to take these guys back. Can you stay back and watch the kids real quick?” Stiles nods his head and Scott tells Jackson’s group to follow him back to their cabin.

Once they seem far away, Stiles turns to Cody who is standing up, brushing the dirt off of his clothes.

“What the fuck is your problem, dude?” Stiles asks angrily, walking up to him. He shoves his finger into Cody’s chest. “Seriously? You just had to ram into someone like that? You could’ve really hurt him!”

“It’s lacrosse, Stiles, it’s a violent game,” Cody says nonchalantly, as if he didn’t just try and break Jackson’s arm. He looks down at Stiles’ finger and whacks it away. “Don’t you think it’s a little unprofessional to be cussing like that in front of a bunch of kids?” He points his thumb over to his campers that are standing behind him. Stiles looks at the group, and rolls his eyes because the kids aren’t even paying attention to them, they’re all just talking among themselves.

“Why did you do that?” Stiles is getting more pissed, and he’s not understanding why Cody keeps dodging the question. 

“I don’t know why you’re getting so worked up about someone who’s an asshole,” Cody responds. 

“Is this because of your stupid rivalry thing going on?” 

“Jackson will be fine,” Cody snaps. “I highly doubt I hurt him that bad.”

Stiles is taken aback by Cody’s comment, because he doesn’t know if he’s just saying that because he’s trying to belittle his own actions or if he knows about Jackson being a werewolf. He doesn’t know what to say, so Stiles flips him off and walks away. He sees that Malia is running towards him, looking concerned.

“Is Jackson okay?” 

“I don’t know, I guess we’ll find out tomorrow.”

—

When he goes on his nightly walk around the lake, Stiles decides that he doesn’t feel the need to call his dad. 

Tonight is one of those nights where all Stiles wants to do is talk to Derek. 

It’s times like this where Stiles can’t help but get so angry at himself. Scott had warned him, too. He warned Stiles to not spend so much time with Derek. Scott said that Derek has the tendency to run away, so don’t get too attached. And what did Stiles do? He got too attached. 

It shouldn’t have been a surprise when Stiles went to see Derek at the loft and most of his stuff was gone. Stiles looked everywhere in the building, trying to find Derek. When he realized that Derek had left without saying a word, he remembers sitting in the middle of the loft, replaying the last conversation that they had. Did he hint that he was going to leave and Stiles completely missed it? Did Derek even have intentions of telling Stiles goodbye? Was the kiss Derek’s way of saying goodbye?

Why did Derek even leave Stiles like that in the first place?

Stiles shakes his head. He pulls out his cell phone and walks to a spot where he can get a signal. Once he sees a few bars pop up on his phone, he goes straight to his contacts and clicks on Derek’s name. His finger hovers over the call button. Taking a deep breath, he clicks on it and puts the phone up to his ear.

“You’ve reached Derek Hale, I’ll try to get back to you as soon as I can.”

“Derek, hi. It’s me again. Something’s going on with Jackson, and I don’t know what it is. He looked really sick this morning, but everyone thinks that it was food poisoning. Then today, he got hurt pretty bad because of some asshole named Cody. But the weird part is that he told me he couldn’t heal. I don’t know what could be affecting him like that, and I don’t think Scott knows either. Maybe you might know something we don’t. If you do listen to these, can you just call me back?” Stiles hangs up the phone and sighs. 

He knows that Derek won’t call him back, no matter how desperate he sounds in these stupid voicemails.

Putting his phone back in his pocket, he makes his way back to his cabin where he tries to ignore the thoughts about Derek.

Week 1, Day 5

“Jackson really left, huh?” Stiles asks Scott as they make their way to their lunch table. "Without telling anyone?"

Stiles had spent most of his morning looking for Jackson, and he was a little confused when Scott had run into Stiles and told him that Jackson and Tristan from Cody’s cabin left camp. When the two boys had come back to the lodge to eat breakfast, Tamora had pulled the male camp counselors and let them know that they had to take one or two boys from Jackson’s cabin.

Stiles refused to take in Franklin, so he pawned the kid over to Cody. Since the asshole was the one that injured Jackson in the first place, he can take the kid. So Stiles took in Ameer, one of the boys who didn’t play lacrosse and he mostly kept to himself from what Stiles could tell so far. He thought that he’d make a good addition to the cabin, especially when Stiles caught him reading a comic book over breakfast.

Since Jackson had gone home, there was finally an opportunity for other camp counselors to participate in the water sports. Stiles happily signed up for paddle boarding and spent the morning relaxing on the lake. 

So here is Stiles, sitting next to Scott, Kira, and Lydia at the lunch table.

“Yeah, I guess,” Scott says, shrugging his shoulders. “I mean, let’s be honest, he didn’t even want to be here to begin with.” 

“Jackson was actually starting to get used to being here, but it also wouldn’t surprise me if he really did want to go home,” Lydia replies, raising her eyebrow. She leans more forward, her voice quiet. “I’m more concerned why he went home with a broken arm when he can heal himself.” 

“Well that’s the thing,” Stiles murmurs. “He told me that he couldn’t heal.”

“What do you mean he couldn’t heal?” Scott asks. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Dude, you were too busy taking Jackson’s campers back to the cabin.”

“You still should’ve found a way to tell me,” Scott scolds. Malia finally comes to the table and takes a seat next to Kira. She takes a drink of her lemonade, and places it down.

“You cannot be drinking that, too,” Stiles frowns. “It’s so nasty.” Malia rolls her eyes at his comment and looks around the table.

“Where’s Jackson?” She questions. 

“Went home,” Scott grumbles.

“He went home? Why would he go home?”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Kira says. “Lydia’s right, Jackson wouldn’t have just gone home due to a broken arm. But he wasn’t feeling good earlier either, remember? So maybe it was a mix of both?” 

“Yeah, maybe,” Stiles replies. 

The group continues to eat the rest of their lunch, and Stiles can’t help but think about Jackson.

—

Stiles spends the afternoon hanging out with his cabin where they all decide to do the music activity, even though Quincy is heavily against it. The group of boys even include Ameer, who is actually pretty talented at playing the drums. Everyone begs Quincy to play them guitar, which he ends up doing towards the end of the activity. 

Stiles is impressed with Quincy and how well he could play the guitar. Stiles gives him a hard time for not being truthful about his skills, but Quincy just keeps blushing from embarrassment and shrugs off Stiles.

When their break comes up, the group of boys goes back to their cabin where they practically interrogate Ameer. At some point Stiles has to break up an argument they are having in regards to who is better, Superman or Captain America. When they hear the lunch bell, they don’t hesitate to start making their way towards the lodge.

—

Dinner is uneventful. 

It isn’t the same without listening to Jackson’s commentary. 

The group eat their dinner in silence while all the kids around them are talking and laughing.

—

“Dad, can you do me a favor?” Stiles asks while he walks in small circles. 

“How can I help?” 

“Jackson wasn’t feeling well and he went home, can you just check on him tomorrow and see how he’s doing?” 

“What do you mean he wasn’t feeling well?” 

Stiles spends the next five minutes explaining to him about how Jackson wasn’t feeling ill and then tells him about Cody the Asshole.

“Yeah, I can check on Jackson tomorrow after I do my rounds,” his dad replies. “I’ll wait for you to call me tomorrow night to let you know how he’s doing.”

“Thanks, Dad.” 

They say their goodbyes and Stiles hangs up the phone. A part of him wants to leave Derek another voicemail but ultimately decides against it. It didn’t feel right since he’s done it every night since he’s been here, but he shakes off the feeling and sneaks back into his cabin.

Week 1, Day 6

This morning is Stiles’ turn to run zero hour, and he chooses to do something simple and easy: reading.

He and the small group of kids that decide to participate that morning go and hang out on the dock while reading books they borrowed from the lodge.

Stiles doesn’t actually read the book he picked; instead he lays down on the dock with the book covering his face and sleeps a little longer.

—

“Good morning, campers!” Gabe says on the microphone. There are small groans here and there, the campers still obviously tired. “Nice to hear your lovely voices. I just wanted to remind you guys of the overnight hike tonight!” 

Shit.

Stiles and Lydia look at each other, the both of them clearly forgetting about the overnight hike. Kira looks so excited because she’s grabbing Scott’s sleeve and is pulling on it slightly. Scott looks at her and gives her a small smile and a quick kiss on the cheek. 

“All of the camp counselors will be leading the overnight hike, so unfortunately that means that I won’t be coming along and neither will Camp Director Tamora. Does anyone have any questions before we finish up breakfast and clean our cabins?” No one says anything and Gabe nods his head. “Great! I hope we all have a fun day today, Meadow Creek Camp!” 

He can’t believe that he forgot about the overnight hike. He wouldn’t be able to call his dad tonight to find out how Jackson’s doing, and his dad is probably going to be worried that he didn’t call. Either way, he needs to go to the lake and send out a quick text to his dad, he just needs to find the right time to do it before they leave.

As everyone starts to clean up their breakfast dishes, Stiles calls over his campers and they start to make their way over to their cabin to clean it up.

Hudson doesn’t hesitate to start encouraging everyone to make sure that their spaces are super clean. Every time that Gabe has come in every morning, he’s always impressed with how clean it is. Hudson asks Gabe if they’re going to win the award, and Gabe shrugs his shoulders.

“Oh, I don’t know! Blueberry Cabin is starting to wow me with–”

“I didn’t ask about Blueberry Cabin, I want to know if we’re going to win or not, dummy.”

Stiles eyes widen and quickly claps a hand over Hudson’s mouth. Hudson doesn’t even try to fight Stiles. Ameer, Wyatt, and Carter are snickering in the background while Quincy and Cooper are still tidying up their bunks, not even paying attention to the conversation.

“Sorry, he’s just a little, uh, you know, testy this morning,” Stiles says while nervously laughing. “Don’t mind him, he’ll be fine later.”

Gabe raises his eyebrow. “Make sure your campers have a better attitude, Stiles.” With that, Gabe finishes writing something on his clipboard and leaves the cabin. Once the door shuts, Stiles removes his hand from Hudson’s mouth.

“Dude, you can’t just call people dummies.”

“Sorry,” Hudson mumbles.

“What happened?” Quincy asks. “I wasn’t listening.”

“Hudson called Gabe a dummy,” Carter replies before Stiles can say anything. 

“Guys–”

Ameer interrupts Stiles. “He kind of is a dummy.”

“Okay, okay–”

“Yeah, do you remember when Gabe tripped and fell into the lake when he was trying to show us how to paddleboard?” Wyatt asks the group. “Total dummy.”

“Guys!” Stiles says loudly, getting the boys to look at him. “Hudson, you have to apologize to Gabe.” Stiles sighs. “You don’t have to do it now, but maybe when we come back from the overnight hike you can apologize.” 

Hudson nods his head as if he understands but Stiles knows that this kid isn’t going to apologize and doesn’t have any intentions on doing so.

“Alright, guys, let’s start packing up. I’m going to run over to the lodge real quick, so I expect everyone to be ready by the time I get back, got it?”

“Got it!” All the kids say in unison. Stiles nods his head and makes his way out of the cabin.

—

Stiles almost gets caught with his cell phone out. Luckily, he’s able to quickly shove it back in his pocket while Tamora and Gloria are making their way towards Stiles.

“Stiles!” Gloria yells, waving her arms. Stiles waves back shyly.

“Stiles, what are you doing out here? Shouldn’t you be helping your campers pack for tonight?” Tamora asks, and he can detect the suspicion in her voice. 

“Oh, you know, I just wanted to take a quick walk!” He replies. He mentally smacks himself on the head. What a stupid answer.

“Why would you want to go on a walk when you’re going to be hiking?” Gloria asks him. 

“Uh, you know, I want to warm up my legs before we go on a massive hike,” Stiles laughs nervously. “Don’t want to get those awful leg cramps!” Tamora is looking at Stiles like she doesn’t believe him, but she doesn’t say anything. 

“Okay, well, have a good time tonight! We’ll see you lovely kids tomorrow afternoon. We’re going to continue our walk,” Gloria tells him, patting his arm as they walk by him. 

“Alright, see you tomorrow afternoon!” Stiles calls out as they continue to walk. They don’t respond to him, but he doesn’t care at this point. He just wants them to hurry up and walk further away so he can send this text. Once Stiles loses sight of them, he whips his phone back out of his pocket and walks around a little until he sees a few bars of service.

He quickly opens up his messages and pulls up the text conversation between him and his dad. He takes one quick look around him to make sure that he’s completely alone and starts to type his message. 

(9:47 am) To: Dad

Hey! I forgot that we have an overnight hike. I won’t be able to call you tonight, so I’ll call you tomorrow night when I get back to hear how Jackson’s doing. Thanks again. Love you.

Hitting send, he waits until his message delivers and that’s when he shoves his phone back into his pocket. Taking one more look around, he starts to make his way back to the cabin.

—

Stiles wants to rip his legs off of his body.

He has been secretly taking Scott’s water so he didn’t have to drink his own yet, but he knows that once Scott finds out, he’s dead. 

None of the campers seem to have any issues with the hike so far, and considering they’ve been hiking for over three hours already, he’s surprised that no one has wanted a break yet. He wants a break so bad, but he doesn’t want to be the one to ask for one. 

“Hey, are you holding up okay?” Kira asks when she reaches Stiles. “You’re breathing kind of heavy.”

“I’m fine,” Stiles huffs. He thought he was hiding his heavy breathing pretty well, but apparently not.

“Do you want a break?”

“No.”

“Are you sure? I think you might need one.”

“Kira–”

“Okay everyone, let’s take a quick five minute break!” Kira yells. Everyone stops walking and pays attention to her. “Let’s just take a second to eat a quick snack and take a drink of water.” 

“We can keep going,” Joseph says, shifting his backpack. “Or at least I can take the kids who don’t want to take a break.”

“No, I think we should stick together,” Scott says. “It’s safer.”

“Who made you leader, Scott?” Cody jumps in. Katie flicks Cody’s arm as if she’s telling him to shut up, but Cody ignores it. 

“No one, I’m just saying–”

“Well I’m just saying that we’ll take the kids who don’t want to take a break and keep going,” Cody snaps. Scott doesn’t try to argue with him, and Lydia crosses her arms and rolls her eyes.

“I agree with Scott, we should all stick together,” Katie says softly. “Don’t you think, Joseph?”

“I think that this argument is a waste of time. Put your dicks away and just stay with the group,” Malia argues. The rest of the counselors look at her, shocked that she said something like that in front of a bunch of kids. “We’re not separating. Suck it up, Cody.”

Cody scoffs and storms off, Joseph and Katie following behind him. Paul is over with a group of kids, handing out some granola bars from his backpack. 

“God, who pissed in his cereal?” Stiles mumbles to Kira. Kira shrugs and takes her backpack off. “Who does that guy think he is anyway? Did I miss something that turned him into an asshole?”

“No, he’s always been that way. You were just too busy with your campers to notice. Plus, you never had activities with him,” Lydia tells him. “Do you see why he and Jackson didn’t get along?”

Stiles nods his head and grabs his own water bottle this time, taking a drink of it.

When everyone finishes up their granola bars and takes a drink of water, the large group continues to hike.

—

“We finally made it!” Stiles yells. A smaller group of kids start laughing at him as he runs towards the waterfall and falls to his knees. He almost wants to just fully collapse, his legs feel like fucking jello. “That was terrible! Never again. We are never going for a hike this long ever .”

“Maybe you should get outside more,” Franklin says with a smug look. Stiles shoots him a nasty glare.

Paul takes it upon himself to start giving everyone directions on how camp should be set up. Before they had started the hike, they told the kids that they wouldn’t be sleeping in tents and that everyone was going to be sleeping in their sleeping bags. No one really complained except for a few girls, but it didn’t seem to be a big issue. Paul directs the other camp counselors to go to different parts around the waterfall so that there’s still some distance between everyone.

Stiles hates to admit it, but Paul is actually a pretty good leader for someone who acts like they have one brain cell.

He tells Stiles, Scott, and Lydia to go and start getting wood so that they have everything to build a fire.

“I want a massive bonfire.” Paul grins. “I stole the stuff for s’mores from the kitchen, but don’t tell anyone back at the camp, promise?”

While Stiles, Scott, and Lydia start walking around the woods together and pick up branches, Scott decides to start walking in the opposite direction, leaving Stiles and Lydia alone together.

“So,” Lydia starts. “I think we need to talk.”

“About what?” Stiles asks, bending down to pick up a decent size branch. 

“I haven’t been able to get you alone, but I saw you the other night around the lake.” To Stiles, her tone almost sounds accusatory, like he was doing something wrong.

“Okay? I was just going on a small walk.” He can feel himself getting defensive, and it’s only because he knows what Lydia is getting at. He just doesn’t want to admit to it first.

“Stiles, I know that you’ve been calling someone. I saw you on your phone. Who was it?”

“It was just my dad,” Stiles replies, his body tensing up.

Please, please don’t mention–

“Then why did we hear you say Derek’s name?” 

Stiles stops what he’s doing and looks at Lydia, who is just standing there holding a bunch of branches. “Who the hell is we?” 

“Malia and I,” she answers. Stiles takes a deep breath. 

“You told Scott, didn’t you?” Lydia doesn’t say anything, but her silence answers his question. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding–” 

“Stiles, it’s unhealthy–”

“You don’t get to tell me what’s unhealthy and what isn’t,” Stiles snaps. “You shouldn’t have been eavesdropping.”

“And you shouldn’t be calling someone who is never going to call you back,” Lydia argues. They both stare at each other, breathing heavily, and Stiles is ready to leave this conversation. “You promised me that you would stop.”

“And I did,” Stiles says, his voice soft. He feels so defeated. Not only does he feel defeated, but he feels betrayed and embarrassed.

He knew that at some point they were all going to find out one way or another. 

“Stiles,” Lydia says quietly. “Look, I’m sorry for what I said. I just want what’s best for you. I wasn’t trying to fight with you–”

“Then what were you trying to do? Did you really think that having this conversation with me would just magically make me not call him anymore? Make me not miss him anymore?” Stiles asks, his voice cracking. “Lyds, it just hurts, okay? It just fucking hurts. I can’t keep pretending that it doesn’t. He left me with no fucking explanation. I’m trying, Lydia. Believe me, I’m trying.”

“I know,” she says, frowning. 

“Let’s just hurry up and get the wood,” Stiles mutters bitterly, picking up another branch. 

—

Everyone crowds around the large bonfire, and Paul wasn’t kidding when he said that he wanted it to be massive.

In fact, this is probably the biggest fire that Stiles has ever seen. 

Katie and Joseph had gone out and found pieces of wood that would make good roasting sticks, and they had a group of kids help shave it down until it was sharp enough to poke something through clean. There were a group of kids that wanted to play in the water at the bottom of the waterfall, which Cody and Kira watched to make sure that no one drowned. 

Lydia, Malia, and Scott had left Stiles alone throughout most of the evening. He knows that Lydia had told Scott about the conversation, but he’s also fully aware that Scott was probably listening in. He feels as if his friends are almost ganging up on him, but he keeps telling himself it’s because they care about his well being. They all remember how miserable Stiles was, and how he was emotionally drained. He can’t blame them for caring.

The night is cooler, which Stiles is thankful for. His legs aren’t as sore, but he knows that he’s definitely going to feel it in the morning. 

There’s about fifty of them, crowding around this fire. Some of them are roasting marshmallows while some of them are just talking among themselves. Stiles is shocked that no one brought a guitar with them, but he’s okay with just listening to the sound of a cackling fire and the loud voices of excited kids.

He roasts a bunch of marshmallows for a lot of the kids, and he curses silently at Cooper, Hudson, and Carter for telling almost everyone that he can make the perfect s’more. 

Time passes by, and it’s getting obvious that some of the kids are getting tired. While Stiles is putting away some of the s’mores ingredients, Scott calls Stiles over to him. He’s standing a little further away from everyone, and Stiles looks around, wondering if this is some kind of trick or if Scott is going to try to have his own conversation with him.

However, he feels a sense of relief when Scott is smiling from ear to ear as he makes his way closer to his friend. 

“What’s up?”

“I have a plan,” Scott says, his smile not going away. “I think we should tell a scary story. You know, scare the kids a little bit.”

“No, absolutely not.”

“Come on, dude! It’d be so fun,” Scott whines. “Plus, everyone else is down.”

“What did you have in mind?” Stiles asks, raising his eyebrow. Scott looks around to make sure that no one is looking, and once the coast is clear, he looks back at Stiles with his red eyes with a shit eating grin. “No. Scott, we are not doing that. I refuse.”

—

“So there’s Angela, standing in the middle of the woods, lost and confused,” Stiles says, his voice eerie. “All of her friends are gone, and no matter how loud she screams, no one can hear her.” 

The campfire is still cackling away, but it’s slowly dying. The kids are so close together, and from what Stiles can tell, they look terrified. Stiles has no idea what he’s doing, he’s just making this shit up on the spot. He always did have a knack for storytelling. Even Cody the Asshole is sitting at the edge of his seat, staring at Stiles, waiting for him to continue.

“She’s looking around the woods, paranoia taking over. She couldn’t forget those blood red eyes, how could she? She didn’t know what the monster’s face looked like, and she had no intentions of finding out. She needed to escape, but where could she go? The campsite where her friends were brutally killed was obviously out of the question. She needed to find a place to hide so she could at least wait it out until the morning.” 

Everyone is looking at each other, and Stiles looks over at Katie who is frantically looking around. He sees that Paul has his arm wrapped around her, trying to silently comfort her. 

“Hearing a growl not too far from where she’s standing, she starts running through the woods with her sprained ankle. She needs to take a second to rest. She stopped running, trying to catch her breath but also trying to give her ankle some time to calm down. She doesn’t hear anything around her except for the crickets in the background, but she knows that she’s far from being safe.”

Stiles looks over at Wyatt, who is covering his ears and has his eyes closed. Quincy is sitting next to him, nudging his shoulder every so often, and Stiles hears him whisper to Wyatt that it’s not real. 

“She hears a twig snap, and it sounded so close.” On cue, Stiles hears a twig snap, and it’s loud enough that the campers gasp and start to look around them. “She starts to run again, tripping on roots and trying to find the road or a light. Anything. She turns her head, trying to see if she sees anything behind her. But because she’s not paying attention, she rams into something, causing her to fall to the ground. She’s shaking, crying, too scared to look up and see what she ran into. She hears a low growl–”

Insert Scott growling.

Which then causes some of the girls to scream. Cody and Paul tell the girls to calm down, it’s just a story, nothing is actually there.

“When she finally has the courage to look up, nothing is there. She looks again, making sure that she didn’t miss something while she was running. When she gets up, she hears the growl again, and she starts to run as fast as she possibly can. When she starts to think she lost the monster again, she starts to hear something chasing her, causing her to scream for help. She trips again, falling straight forward. At this point, she’s accepted her fate. She’s accepted that she isn’t going to make it out alive. When she gets up again, she sees a pair of red eyes in the distance, and she points at it and starts to scream.” Stiles points where Scott is hiding in the woods, and everyone follows Stiles’ finger. “Get away from me!”

When Scott hears those words, Stiles can see Scott’s red eyes within the shadows of the woods. All the campers jump up and start to scream while Stiles is laughing and about to fall off of the log he’s sitting on. Scott comes out from the woods, and when everyone sees him, they all start to yell at Scott about how awful he is.

“Good going, Scott!” Joseph yells, clearly upset that he fell for the trick. “Now all the kids are going to be scared to fall asleep.”

“Okay, everyone, let’s settle down,” Malia says. The campers start to calm down a little bit. “Now that Stiles and Scott had their little fun, it’s time to start getting ready to go to sleep.”

Some of the campers groan, clearly not ready to go to sleep yet. Scott walks up to Stiles and pats him on the back, and they’re both giggling among themselves that they don’t notice Cody walking up to them.

“Hey, how did you do the red eyes?” Cody asks. Scott stops smiling and pulls out two small flashlights from his pocket.

“Oh, I just took these from my cabin. It’s just a trick,” Scott lies. 

“Can I see?” Cody asks, staring at the flashlights in Scott’s hands. Scott nervously laughs and puts them back in his pocket.

“Sorry, they’re pretty dead right now. I used the last of the power for the story,” Scott says, shrugging. “I can show you when we get back to camp and I replace the batteries?”

“No, it’s fine, I was just curious,” Cody says. Cody turns back around and walks away from them, and the two boys are looking at each other. Kira must’ve seen and heard the whole interaction because she’s coming up to them with a concerned look.

“Seriously, guys? Scott, you can’t do stupid things like that,” she whispers, smacking Scott’s arm. Scott winces, not from the slap but because she’s right.

“Sorry,” Scott says.

“Sorry isn’t going to help if someone starts to catch on,” she tells him. “Just be more careful next time, okay?”

Scott nods his head and they go back to the campers where they round them all up and get them ready to go to sleep.

Week 1, Day 7

When Stiles wakes up in the morning, his legs are so sore. He’s dreading hiking again, but once everyone eats a small breakfast and pack up their things, it isn’t so bad.

Stiles spends most of the time hanging around the kids in his cabin, which they all berate him for telling the scariest story that they ever heard. 

The hike back to camp is not as brutal as the hike to the waterfall, and the only thing that Stiles is looking forward to is talking to his dad to see how Jackson is doing.

—

They make it back to camp in the evening, and everyone is completely wiped out. Due to everyone being exhausted, Gabe decides to cancel the evening activity which was supposed to be flag football. Gabe promises that they’ll play it the next day and tells everyone to get cleaned up for dinner.

Stiles and his group drop off all their things at the cabin, quickly tossing their sleeping bags back on their bunks. They make their way to the lodge where people start to slowly trickle in. Stiles had a reminder from Gloria that it was his cabin’s turn to help out with dinner.

The entire time, the boys cause havoc in the kitchen. Tonight is taco night, and Stiles isn’t shocked when he finds Quincy and Carter smacking each other in the face with tortillas. He can already tell that Gloria regrets having them help out, she even makes a comment to Stiles about how his cabin is one of the worst ones so far.

“They’re so misbehaved,” Gloria says with a huff. 

“They’re not misbehaved,” Stiles argues. “They’re just, you know, excited?”

“Excited to slap each other across the face with a flour tortilla?” She asks, cocking her head to the side. “Whatever you say, Stiles.”

“I promise they’re not usually this bad,” but he knows for a fact that they can be that bad.

Gloria doesn’t say anything else, instead instructing the boys to be in charge of dish duty.

When they finish helping Gloria in the kitchen, Stiles sits at the regular table with his friends, where they’re all eating their food as if they were starved on the overnight hike. 

Stiles tries the lemonade one more time, because he just wants to understand why everyone loves it so much. Again, he thinks it’s disgusting and hands the cup back to Malia. Scott refuses to try it, saying that he doesn’t trust whatever butterfly pea is. Stiles doesn’t blame him, but he can’t help but admire the pretty color.

After they finish up dinner, everyone heads back to their cabin to start settling down.

When Stiles and his group make it back to their cabin, the boys lay in their bunk (well, except for Ameer who unfortunately had to sleep on the floor with a makeshift bed) and talk until one by one, they started to fall asleep.

Once Stiles is sure that everyone is asleep, he looks at his phone and sees that it’s around ten forty five. He grabs his sweatshirt and quietly puts his shoes back on, making his way out of the cabin. He constantly looks around, making sure that no one is around and able to see him walk towards the lake. He still horribly sneaks past Tamora’s cabin, where he can hear her and Gabe talking. 

He makes it to the lake and pulls out his phone, and he walks around until he sees that he has service. He doesn’t have any new messages, which is kind of surprising since he expected his dad to at least respond to his text. Going to his dad’s contact, he hits the call button and presses the phone up to his ear.

It rings a couple times before his dad finally answers.

“Hey, kid!” His dad says, and it sounds like his dad is driving. “How was the overnight hike?”

“It was okay,” Stiles replies. “Told a scary story at camp and scared a bunch of the kids. I’d say it was a pretty successful time.”

“I’m glad you had fun.”

“How’s Jackson?” 

“Uh, well,” his dad’s tone changes, and it feels like he’s hesitant to tell Stiles anything. “Jackson’s not home.”

“What?”

“I went over to Jackson’s house and his parents answered the door. Told them that I heard Jackson wasn’t feeling well and that I was just coming by to check in,” his dad says. “Jackson’s parents said that they had no idea what I was talking about because he’s still at camp.”

Stiles freezes and feels his stomach drop.

“So, he’s not even in Beacon Hills?” 

“Nope.” His dad takes Stiles off speakerphone and he can hear the sheriff a lot more clearly. “Stiles, are you sure that Jackson went home?”

“I don’t know where else he would be.” The two of them are quiet on the phone, and Stiles isn’t sure exactly how to take the news. If Jackson isn’t home and he isn’t at the camp, then where the fuck is he? “I have to tell Scott.”

“Keep me updated. I’m serious. I’ll keep an eye out over here and see if there’s anything suspicious.”

“I know, I will. I’ll call you when I can, okay? Love you.” 

“Love you, too, kid.” His dad hangs up the phone first, and Stiles sighs, running his hand through his hair. There’s nowhere Jackson would go, and Stiles doesn’t even know where to begin to try and look for him. There’s a possibility that Stiles may not get a response, but he sends a quick text to Jackson asking where he is. When he sees that the message got delivered, he goes into his contacts list and presses on Derek’s name. He hits the call button and he brings the phone back up to his ear.

“You’ve reached Derek Hale, I’ll try to get back to you as soon as I can.”

“So everyone knows that I’m leaving you voicemails again. Lydia admitted to me that she caught me out by the lake and had Malia eavesdrop to see who I was calling. This is so pathetic, isn’t it? Me sitting here, leaving you voicemails that I’m not even sure you listen to.” Stiles looks up at the sky and tilts his head. “I miss you. I’m sure you probably can figure that out by now. And maybe I’ve just been in this constant state of denial because I don’t want to admit out loud that I’m still upset that you left. I hope you’re okay and safe.”

Hanging up the phone, he starts to walk back to his cabin, sulking all the way there until he makes it to his bunk and falls asleep. 

Week 2, Day 1

Stiles wakes up early enough to go on a walk around the lake. 

He just needs to know if Jackson texted him back or not, and if he did receive a text back, then he’d let this whole thing slide and never mention it to his friends. If he didn’t receive a text, he’s going to be running to everyone and tell them about what his dad told him.

When he zips up his hoodie, he steps out of the cabin and makes the walk over to the trailhead of the lake. Sometimes Stiles doesn’t know how he was able to walk here at night, because even at dusk the trail is still creepy. He doesn’t bother trying to sneak around, but he does take precautions before pulling his cell phone out of his pocket.

He walks around a little bit until he sees service and waits a couple minutes, hoping that maybe he’ll receive a text from Jackson. 

When he realizes that he’s not going to receive a text, he groans.

God damn it.

So much for having a normal summer with his friends.

He knew that it was too good to be true. He goes back to his cabin where the boys are still fast asleep. Stiles kicks off his shoes and crawls back into his bunk. He sleeps for another hour before hearing the bell for breakfast.

—

For some reason it’s incredibly hard to find his friends at breakfast, but Franklin tells him that it’s because all of them were helping out with Scott’s zero hour and are still cleaning up.

Stiles feels a little left out, but tries to ignore the feeling.

—

None of his friends are in the same morning activity with him.

So he spends that morning with Joseph and helps out in the arts and crafts room.

—

Stiles finds himself having to take care of Wyatt who is throwing up in the bathroom during lunch. Wyatt keeps saying he doesn’t know why he feels so sick, so Stiles keeps handing him his water bottle to stay hydrated.

“Why is your puke blue?”

“I had some Gloria’s lemonade.”

“I keep telling everyone that stuff is garbage, I don’t know why no one listens to me.”

He doesn’t get back to the lodge on time and misses everyone at lunch.

—

Gabe cancels afternoon activities after a huge storm starts to make its way through camp.

So everyone heads back to their cabins and spends the rest of the afternoon there and waits until the dinner bell.

—

Stiles has had enough.

He’s getting frustrated that he hasn’t been able to see his friends all day, and the only thing that he wants is for someone to understand that something isn’t adding up about Jackson.

Dinner isn’t going to be for another hour, and there’s no reason for him to stay with the boys since they’re all just taking a nap anyway. Wyatt still isn’t feeling well but was very adamant about taking a nap so he could at least feel somewhat normal for dinner.

He leaves his cabin and starts to walk over to Scott’s cabin, but ends up jogging, not wanting to get soaked.

When he makes it over there, he knocks on the door and Goob answers.

“Hey, what’s up?” Goob asks, pulling out the lollipop from his mouth.

“Is Scott around?”

“Scott’s not here.”

“Okay,” Stiles sighs. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know, he ran after Timmy.”

“Do you know anything?” Stiles asks rudely. Goob glares at Stiles and shuts the door in his face. 

He deserves that.

Sighing, he tries to go over to Kira’s cabin. Running up the falling apart wooden stairs, he knocks on the door. No one answers at first, so he knocks again, and that’s when the door finally opens. It’s some girl that Stiles doesn’t remember seeing (but if he’s going to be honest, he never paid enough attention to the campers that belonged to Kira). 

“Hey, is Kira here?” 

“No, Kira is over at the lodge helping Lydia and Gloria.”

“Cool, thanks.” Stiles turns around and jogs to the lodge, and he can feel the rain seeping through his hoodie. When he makes it to the lodge, he opens up the back door that leads to the kitchen and sees Kira, but no sight of Lydia or Gloria.

“Kira!” Stiles says loudly, and Kira lifts her head up from looking down at the cookbook that’s in front of her. She looks surprised to see him at first, but is quick to give him a small smile.

“What’s up?” She asks him. Stiles takes a second to calm down his breathing from all the running around he’s been doing. Yeah, he’s definitely out of shape.

“Okay, look, I tried to find Scott but I couldn’t find him, but I need to tell you something–”

“Kira,” a voice yells, and the two of them look over at the doorway where Gloria is standing there, holding a bunch of pans that seem a little too heavy for just her to hold. “Oh, Stiles, what a nice surprise. Do one of you mind grabbing some of these?”

Stiles goes and takes a couple of the pans from Gloria and places them down on the counter. She thanks him and turns back and leaves the kitchen again. 

“Sorry, you were saying?” Kira says, trying to bring the conversation back.

“Okay, well, it’s about Jackson–”

“Stiles, what are you doing here?” Lydia asks, appearing out of nowhere. Stiles jumps and feels like his heart is about to leap out of his chest. Kira looks just as freaked out, but quickly recovers. Why does everyone keep appearing out of nowhere? Is there a sticker on his forehead that says to scare him?

“I came here to talk to you guys about Jackson.”

“Look, I know that you’re worried about Jackson, but I’m sure he’s fine at home,” Lydia reassures.

“Right, but that’s the problem–”

“Stiles, we’re kind of busy. Did you try finding Scott?”

“He’s doing something with Timmy,” Stiles answers Lydia, frustrated. He couldn’t believe that his friends are blowing him off right now, or at least not even taking a second to listen to what he has to say.

“Maybe go talk to Malia then, she’s in her cabin. Katie took over watching her campers so she’s in there alone. We can talk about whatever is going on with Jackson after we finish helping Gloria,” Lydia says.

“Fine,” Stiles mutters. He turns around and leaves the kitchen, walking back to the cabins and goes towards the one that Malia stays in. He hasn’t been over to her cabin other than the first day they got here. He slowly walks up the stairs and knocks on her door. He hears a faint voice that tells him to come in, and he opens the door and steps inside the cabin.

He looks around the somewhat messy cabin and spots Malia laying in her bunk, and she does not look good at all.

She looks like how Wyatt looked at lunch time.

“Hey,” she croaks. “Sorry, I sound like shit.”

“Yeah, you kind of look like shit, too,” Stiles points out. She rolls her eyes and scoots her body over so Stiles could sit down next to her. “How come you’re so sick?”

“No idea, but I’ll get over it. Anyway, what are you doing here?” She asks him, trying to sit up a little bit. Stiles notices that she doesn’t really have any energy, so he encourages her to just lay back down, which she does.

“I need to tell someone about Jackson, and everyone is so fucking busy that no one will listen.”

“Oh, so I’m your last option?"

“No, of course not.”

“You know I can tell when you’re lying, right?”

He tells Malia everything that his dad told him. Stiles takes notice that she doesn’t ask him how he’s able to talk to his dad, considering that she’s the one that was convinced by Lydia to eavesdrop on him. Malia is listening intensely, and when Stiles finally gets to the point that Jackson never made it home and that his parents are still under the impression that he’s still in camp, Malia raises her eyebrow.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Malia replies after Stiles is done explaining. “Like where would he go?”

“That’s the thing! I have no idea!”

“Stiles, you have to tell everyone about what’s happening. That doesn’t seem right,” Malia urges. “Seriously, like tell Scott the second you see him.”

“I will. Thanks for listening.”

“Anytime,” she nudges his shoulder. “Now go away so I can sleep some of this sickness off.”

“Okay, okay,” he laughs. He gets up from her bunk and starts to make his way towards the door. “Let me know if you need anything.”

“Will do.”

—

Stiles doesn’t have a chance to tell anyone else because he’s too busy cleaning up Wyatt’s puke and misses dinner.

Luckily, Hudson and Quincy bring them back some food back from the lodge, which Wyatt throws up not even twenty minutes after eating. 

—

Stiles doesn’t try to call his dad. He doesn't have the heart to leave Wyatt alone.

When did Stiles get such a soft spot for these kids?

Week 2, Day 2

“Hey, where’s Malia?” Stiles asks as he sits down. His friends look at each other, almost as if they didn’t realize that she hasn’t shown up yet. “No one has seen her?”

“No, I was under the impression that she wanted to sleep in and skip out on breakfast,” Scott replies, shrugging. 

“Didn’t you see her yesterday? How was she?” Kira looks over at Stiles, getting ready to take a bite of her oatmeal. 

“I mean, she looked pretty sick, but she seemed fine otherwise?” Stiles answers. 

“Like Wyatt sick?” Scott raises his eyebrow. “He was down pretty bad.”

“Yeah, I don’t know what’s going on and why people are getting super sick.” Stiles hesitates. “I think I’m going to skip out on morning activities and check in on her. You know, just to make sure that she’s okay.”

“Did I tell you guys that Timmy went home this morning?” Scott asks the group. Stiles perks his head up, intrigued. “It was weird. He also wasn’t feeling good–not as bad as Wyatt, but still pretty bad. Anyway, I mentioned it to Gabe, and the next thing I know I’m being told that Timmy asked to go home because he wanted his mom to take care of him.”

“I wonder why Wyatt didn’t go home either considering he was puking his guts out,” Kira says. “But maybe you took a really good job taking care of him, Stiles.”

“I didn’t tell Gabe that Wyatt wasn’t feeling good,” Stiles replies. “Wyatt asked me not to before he fell asleep because he didn’t want to get sent home.”

“Are you going to say something?” Kira pops a blueberry in her mouth.

“Maybe,” Stiles says with a sigh. “I don’t know. Probably not.”

After breakfast and cabin clean up, Stiles doesn’t bother signing up for an activity, because he meant what he said about trying to find Malia in the morning. She’s not the type of person that would actively miss breakfast, nor is she the type to leave her campers hanging like that. Stiles makes his way out of the lodge and walks at a fast pace towards Malia’s cabin. He’s not trying to get caught for not signing up for an activity, the last thing he wants to deal with is getting scolded by Gabe.

When he reaches her cabin, he races up the stairs and knocks. He almost decides to just walk in, but he doesn’t want to risk walking in on something he shouldn’t be seeing. When he doesn’t hear anything for a minute, he takes that as a sign that it’s fine. He carefully opens the cabin door and slowly pokes his head in, looking around.

No one is inside the cabin, not even Malia. He fully walks inside the cabin and looks behind his shoulder before shutting the door. He starts to inspect Malia’s space, and it’s weird, because some of her stuff is there and some of it is missing, like her sleeping bag. Her duffle bag is still shoved under the bunk, and Stiles pulls it out and sees that a lot of her clothes are still there. 

Where the hell is she?

Okay. Maybe he’s overreacting. Maybe she wanted to sleep outside last night (wouldn’t be the first time) or something and just hasn’t come back yet. He really needs to stop thinking about the worst case scenario, but it’s hard for him not to, considering all the shit that he and his friends have been through. And now that not only Jackson is missing, but Malia, too?

Something is up, and Stiles is determined to figure out what’s going on.

He puts her duffle bag back under her bunk and takes one last look around the cabin to make sure that there isn’t something that he missed. A part of him wants to check the woods around the lake, but there’s too many people hanging out there that he doesn’t want to risk getting caught. Not seeing anything else suspicious, he leaves the cabin and makes his way to the center of the camp where the lodge is. 

Walking inside the empty lodge, he looks over at the list of activities. He still has about half an hour before morning activities are over, and he thinks he can easily sneak into one that one of his friends are in. He tries to find Scott’s name, which he finally sees under the acting sign up sheet. Stiles grabs one of the pens hanging from the bulletin board and signs his name right under Scott’s. Dropping the pen, he turns around and is face to face with Tamora Monroe. Stiles yelps, because how did he not hear her?

He could’ve sworn that the place was empty.

“Hi, Stiles,” she says with a sweet smile. “What are you doing here?” 

“Oh, uh, I’m just looking at the morning activities,” he replies. He’s not lying, but he can see how this does not look good. “I forgot which one I signed up for so I was just looking again.”

“Activities started almost an hour ago,” she says slowly, and he knows that he’s fucked. “Let’s be honest with each other, Stiles. I’ll ask you again, what are you doing here?”

Stiles gulps and looks around the room. He’s trapped, he has nowhere to escape and he’s feeling hot and incredibly anxious. 

“I was looking for Malia,” Stiles answers truthfully. Tamora is staring him down, and she crosses her arms. “She was gone this morning at breakfast so I just wanted to see if she was feeling better.”

“Well, not that it’s any of your business, but Malia came to me last night asking if she could be released from her duties as a camp counselor. She felt like she needed to go home, and so did a couple of other kids that weren’t feeling well either.” 

…Something really isn’t adding up here.

“Huh, I didn’t think she would do something like that,” Stiles responds. “I didn’t realize that a lot of other people were getting sick. Wyatt, one of the kids in my cabin, was pretty sick yesterday.”

He’s having a hard time reading her, he can’t tell what she’s thinking at all, but he can hear the gears clicking in her head.

“Oh, Wyatt was also sick?” She uncrosses her arms. “I’ll have to check in with him and see how he’s doing.” She starts to chuckle a bit, and this whole interaction is kind of freaking Stiles out. “Well, you know what happens at camp! There is always a bug that goes around. Kids can be kind of gross, you know.” 

Stiles hesitantly laughs with her, but he can’t help but think that this lady is acting super weird. “I should probably get back,” he says. “You know, back to my activity and all. Scott’s probably wondering where I am.”

“Well off you go,” she says, shooing him out of the lodge, her hand on his back. She starts to gently shove Stiles towards the door, which he opens up and starts to walk out.  “Have a good rest of your day, Stiles.”

“Yeah, you too,” he mutters. He hears the door close behind him, and he takes one last look over his shoulder at the lodge.

He has to tell Scott, and fast. 

—

“Why didn’t you tell anyone about Jackson?” Scott snaps. 

They’re all sitting in Stiles’ cabin during their break before dinner. Stiles had asked the boys if they could go hang out at Scott’s cabin until Stiles gave them the clear to come back. They tried to argue with him, but Stiles wasn’t having it. So here is Stiles now, sitting on his bunk, trying so hard to keep his composure.

“Are you kidding?” Stiles scoffs. “I tried telling all of you, and no one was listening to me! Scott, I tried looking for you and you were gone. I tried telling Lydia and Kira but they brushed me off and sent me to go bother Malia.”

“So, Malia knew?” Lydia asks, ignoring Stiles’ comment. “And now you’re telling us that she’s gone, too?”

“Yes! Jesus Christ, are you guys really not seeing how weird that is? And that a bunch of kids are getting sick and so did Malia and Jackson?” No one says anything, and Stiles groans out of frustration. 

Scott is about to say something, but he closes his mouth and starts sniffing. Stiles is giving him a weird look, wondering what the fuck he’s doing. 

“Are you seriously just smelling shit when I’m trying to tell you that our friends are missing?” Stiles asks, annoyed. Scott doesn’t say anything and gets up from Carter’s bunk. He walks over to Wyatt’s bunk, which is empty. Scott bends down and grabs Wyatt’s duffle bag from under the bunk and pulls out some of his shirts, smelling them. Scott’s head shoots up and looks at Stiles with wide eyes. Stiles looks at Scott frantically. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I think I found one of the werewolves here,” Scott answers, putting Wyatt’s stuff back in his duffle bag. “Like the smell was always nearby, I don’t know how I didn’t catch this earlier.”

Stiles wants to smack himself. How did he not realize that Wyatt is a werewolf? His best friend is a werewolf and he couldn’t even detect that this kid is one? 

“Did he shift at all?” Lydia asks Stiles. “Did you see him do anything?”

“No, nothing,” Stiles replies. He tries to think about all the times that they interacted, and he even looks back at the climbing wall incident to see if he did anything there, too. “Yeah, I never saw him shift at all.”

“Okay, let’s keep an eye on him,” Scott declares. “There’s others, we just need to figure out who they are. Do you think Wyatt knows who they are?”

“Probably not, but I also have no clue. He usually keeps to himself or he only hangs out with the other kids in my cabin. Should I tell him we know?”

“No, I think that might freak him out,” Kira says. 

They hear the dinner bell, and they all sit in silence for a minute.

“Let’s talk about this later. I think we should wake up before everyone else and meet up and talk about this,” Scott says. “We’re going to figure this out, okay?”

—

After the evening activity, which ended up being a quick game of soccer, Stiles takes his campers back to the cabin and gets them ready for bed. 

It’s the same routine that has been going on for a week.

Stiles tells them to go to bed, and the boys beg Stiles to stay awake a little longer. Stiles hesitantly agrees, and the group of boys talk about how excited they are about the talent show. Cooper, Carter, and Wyatt harass Quincy about participating. Quincy asks Stiles if he meant what he said about being in the first row watching him, and Stiles assures him that he meant every word. Stiles finally tells the boys that they really need to go to sleep, and within thirty minutes, the boys pass out from exhaustion. 

And just like he has been almost every night, he gets himself ready to head out to the lake to make a phone call to his dad.

Stiles takes his time getting there though. The night is much colder, and it sends shivers down his spine. He takes his time sneaking past Tamora’s cabin and when he makes it to the trailhead to the lake, he feels like he can breathe again. 

When he walks around until he finds service, he’s not paying attention to his phone when it keeps vibrating from text messages and notifications from social media. When he finally feels it stop vibrating, he looks down and almost drops his phone from what he sees.

Derek Hale

Missed Call

There’s no text, there’s no voicemail, just this stupid notifcation that Derek called him.

He feels himself getting angry, and he just laughs at himself bitterly because of course Derek would try to fucking call him when he doesn’t get service. He doesn’t want to admit it out loud, but Stiles is disappointed. He’s disappointed that he missed Derek’s call and he’s disappointed that Derek didn’t bother to even send him a measly text.

But would Stiles even respond? Would Stiles respond to the text if Derek had sent one? Would Derek even answer the phone if Stiles called him back?

“Should I do it?” He asks no one. “Do I call him back?”

He paces back and forth, having this internal argument with himself. He doesn’t think he’s ready to hear Derek’s voice. He doesn’t think he’s ready to even speak to Derek. He knows that the second he talks to him, he would just be yelling at him for how idiotic it was for him to just walk out without leaving him a note or something. 

Ultimately, Stiles decides not to call him back. He decides not to call his dad either.

It takes everything in him not to break down, but the feeling becomes so overwhelming that he just feels the tears fall down his face. He wipes them away, and he puts his phone back in his pocket. He tells himself that it’s not that big of a deal. Maybe it was a butt dial. Maybe Derek never meant to call Stiles in the first place.

Either way, Stiles walks back to his cabin, quietly cursing at himself for getting upset over Derek Hale again.

Week 2, Day 3

“Derek called me,” Stiles tells Lydia while they sit on the dock, watching the kids paddle board. Cody got assigned to a different activity for the morning due to Malia being gone, so Stiles quickly signed up so he could spend time with Lydia. They haven’t spent any time together alone since the small argument they had, which Stiles did end up apologizing for his outburst. Lydia apologized to him, too, admitting that she was wrong for eavesdropping.

“Did you talk to him?” She asks him, and Stiles shakes his head. “Did he leave a voicemail? A text?” Again, Stiles shakes his head, and Lydia moves her body closer to Stiles. She leans her head on his shoulder, and Stiles feels some sort of comfort. “I wonder why he called in the first place,” Lydia finally says. “I’m sorry, but he has the audacity to ignore you for months and all of the sudden he’s calling you?”

“Maybe it was an accident,” Stiles proposes, and he can’t believe that he’s even trying to defend Derek. “People do butt dials all the time. Remember when my phone was broken last year and I kept butt dialing you?”

Lydia rolls her eyes, ignoring Stiles’ question. “He called you once and didn’t try calling again?”

“I guess not.”

“I don’t understand Derek Hale’s brain,” she mutters. 

“I don’t either.”

—

It isn’t until lunch time that Stiles notices right away that Wyatt is nowhere to be seen.

Stiles runs up to Quincy and Ameer and asks if they had seen Wyatt anywhere, to which they both respond no. They only saw him in the morning, just like everyone else. Stiles is freaking out, because he really doesn’t want Wyatt to be missing as well. He goes over to the bulletin board to see which activity Wyatt was in, and it looks like he was hiking with Kira. He asks her if Wyatt showed up to the hiking, and when she says no and looks confused, that’s when he really starts to panic.

Stiles almost runs out of the lodge and scans the area, trying to see if he could see Wyatt. Not seeing him, he sprints over to his cabin. 

Maybe he decided to stay in and miss lunch? But he seemed fine this morning and not that sick, so he didn’t have much of a reason to stay in. Plus, he would’ve told Stiles if he wanted to stay in bed. 

Stiles slams open the door and looks around the cabin. Wyatt isn’t here either. He rushes over to Wyatt’s bunk, and the first thing he notices is that his sleeping bag is gone. He looks under the bunk, but sees that his duffle bag is still there.

What the hell?

First this happens to Malia, now Wyatt? What is going on?

He looks around to see if there’s anything that sticks out to him, and there’s nothing. 

“Wyatt, where the fuck are you?” He whispers out loud. Turning around, he walks out of the cabin and makes his way back to the lodge. When he walks in, he goes straight to his table and sits down.

“Did you find him?” Kira asks him, and he shakes his head. 

“I don’t know where he is,” he says quietly. He leans a little more forward so that only the table could hear what he has to say. “It’s the same thing as at Malia’s cabin, his sleeping bag is gone but his duffle bag was shoved under his bunk. Why would they leave his stuff but take his sleeping bag?” 

“Who are they?” Scott asks, and Stiles looks at him with disbelief. Scott clearly sees this, because he holds his hands up. “Hey, I’m serious! Did I miss the part where we figured out who it is?”

“Dude…who else would it be?” Stiles deadpans. “It’s obviously the weirdos who are running this camp.” 

“Maybe we should take this conversation somewhere else. Why don’t we just go on a walk?” Lydia suggests.

“Because lunch ends in ten minutes and we have to be back for the afternoon activities,” Stiles replies.

“Well who said we needed to really be there?” She says with a smirk. The group stand up from their table and make their way outside. While they walk out, Stiles quickly looks at Gabe who is watching them suspiciously. It takes Stiles everything in him not to just punch him in the face right then and there, but he needs to make sure that they act like they have no idea what’s going on.

It’s one thing to take teenagers who are werewolves and can kind of take care of themselves, but to take little kids?

That’s fucked.

—

“So, what’s the plan?” Scott asks, leaning against Stiles’ Jeep. The group decided to make their way to the parking lot, and because it was about a fifteen minute walk, they chose to just stay there until it was time for cabin relaxation time.

“We don’t even know where they’re hiding everyone,” Lydia says. “And we don’t fully know that it’s Monroe to begin with. Maybe Monroe has no idea and the mastermind is actually Gabe. He just doesn’t seem like he’s capable of doing something like this.”

“Come on, you’re telling me that you never suspected Gabe of anything? The guy is fucking weird!” Stiles exclaims. They all shake their heads, and Stiles groans. “I don’t believe for a minute that you guys didn’t have at least one thought that his behavior is weird. Malia thought he was weird!”

“I mean,” Kira says, shrugging her shoulders. “I just thought he was excited.”

“Yeah, excited to kidnap a bunch of kids!” Stiles shouts. Lydia and Scott hush him, because the last thing they need is for them to get caught. Stiles starts to speak more quietly. “We don’t even know what they’re doing to them. They could be like…torturing them or something.” He frowns, and everyone is looking at the ground. 

“I don’t think that they’d torture kids, Stiles, especially at a summer camp,” Lydia tries to assure him, but Scott shakes his head. 

“They would, though. Remember when Argent didn’t even hesitate to try to kill me? I was sixteen,” Scott reminds them. 

“Yeah, but these kids are like eleven and twelve,” Kira argues. “Let’s be logical here.”

“Kira, we are being logical,” Scott tells her. “Age doesn’t matter with hunters.”

“We can’t just assume that they’re hunters–” 

Scott interrupts Kira. “Why else would they take Jackson, Malia, and a bunch of kids? What do they all have in common?”

“I just want to find them,” Stiles interjects. “They have to be somewhere around here.”

“Well wherever they are, we can leave Timmy–”

“Scott!” Kira says, slapping his arm. Scott rolls his eyes.

“I was just kidding,” he mutters, rubbing his arm. 

“Terrible joke at a terrible time, man,” Stiles replies. “Let me think about this. I’ll come up with a plan, and when I do, I’ll let you guys know, okay?”

“Well you better hurry up and think fast,” Lydia says. “Camp is almost over and we have to figure out where they are before I feel the need to scream.”

—

Stiles spent the rest of the day avoiding anything that had to do with Tamora Monroe and Gabe. Stiles even skipped out on dinner, but he made sure to convince Cooper to bring him back some food. He stayed in his cabin most of the time, trying to think of something. 

He can’t even think of any places that they could possibly be hiding them. 

There was nothing around them for miles, and how would they have taken them without anyone else noticing? When did they even take Wyatt? It had to have been after breakfast, because that’s the last time that Stiles saw him.

He doesn’t bother going out for the evening activity. Instead, he spends that time eating some of the food that Cooper brought back, but Stiles makes a disgusted face when he sees that Cooper also brought him back Gloria’s stupid lemonade.

Wait.

Wait a second.

How did Stiles not figure this out before? How did he not put two and two together?

It all makes sense. Jackson and Malia were constantly drinking the stuff, and Stiles doesn’t even know how many other kids drank it. 

Stiles gets up from the floor of the cabin and grabs the clear cup of lemonade. He looks at the purple liquid and scoffs in disbelief, swishing it around. He knows exactly what else is purple and he feels like such a fucking dumbass for not realizing that it’s not butterfly pea.

It’s wolfsbane.

—

He has a plan. It’s not the best plan, but it’s better than standing around and waiting for something to fall in their lap. He didn’t want to tell Scott and the others because he knew that Scott would disagree. It’s a risky plan, but if it means getting his friends back safe and sound, he doesn’t care.

He’s willing to do whatever it takes to find them.

Stiles does his best to sneak out when the kids go to sleep, but of course Ameer wakes up while Stiles is slipping his shoes on and stubs his toe on the bunk.

“Stiles?” He asks sleepily. “What are you doing?”

“Just gonna go on a walk, buddy. Go back to sleep, okay?” He sees Ameer nod his head and he lays back down. Stiles sighs and waits a couple more minutes before sneaking out the door. He sees a couple of the other camp employees walk around the cabin area, which Stiles hides behind one of the giant pillars. Once he sees that they’re gone, he starts to walk to the lake trailhead.

He sees that the light is still on in Monroe’s cabin, and a part of him wants to try and eavesdrop to see if he could hear anything that involves his friends or the other kids. He needs to call his dad though, he needs to tell him about the plan so that he has some type of backup. 

When he sneaks past Monroe’s cabin, he darts for the trailhead and keeps looking behind his shoulder to make sure no one is following him. He feels so paranoid, he just wants to crawl out of his skin. He reaches around the area around the lake where he typically gets service and pulls out his phone. He walks around, holding his phone in the air until he spots the bars. Pulling his phone back closer, he quickly calls his dad.

“Stiles?” His dad asks when he answers. It’s weird, his dad almost seems startled. 

“Dad, there’s so much I have to tell you, and you have to listen to me, okay? The people who run this camp…I’m pretty sure they’re hunters.”

“Stiles–”

“No, Dad, seriously. Like, they’re making wolfsbane lemonade ! Who does that? It doesn’t even taste good, either! Malia and Jackson were drinking so much of it, it’s no wonder why they got sick. And not only that, but one of my campers disappeared, too! It all makes sense. Scott even found out that Wyatt, that’s my camper by the way, is a werewolf!”

“Hey, kid–”

“–And that’s not even the crazy part, Dad. I knew something was up with that Gabe guy, I had bad vibes the second I even made eye contact with him. Malia even thought something was up with the guy, too! God, how stupid are we? We got so caught up with this camp and I got so caught up with wanting a normal summer and now look at us! Half of us are missing!”

“Seriously, Stiles–”

“–I have a plan though. It’s a super shitty plan, but it’s better than nothing. So I need you to listen to me. If you don’t hear from me tomorrow night by ten, something happened. You need to come here and find me. Scott doesn’t know about any of this, so just make sure that when you get here, the first thing you do is go to Scott.”

“God damn it, Stiles, will you let me talk?” His dad asks, his tone harsh. Stiles is about to ramble more, but he closes his mouth. After he pauses, his dad finally starts to talk again. “Before you go and do something incredibly reckless, what exactly is this plan?”

“I was going to sneak into the camp director’s office. That’s why I’m trying to tell you that if you don’t hear from me tomorrow night, something happened. I don’t know what these guys are capable of–”

“No, absolutely not,” his dad says. “You are not going to do something like that. It’s dangerous, Stiles! What happens if you get caught?"

“That’s why I’m trying to tell you to come find me if you don’t hear from me,” Stiles replies. 

His dad lets out a loud sigh, and Stiles knows it’s because his dad isn’t going to win this argument. “I found some information about these people,” the sheriff pauses. “But I have to pass the phone to someone who can explain this nonsense better than I can. Okay?” He hears some shuffling over the phone.

“Stiles?” 

No. No, this can not be happening right now. Stiles feels his heart drop to his stomach, and suddenly he’s having a hard time breathing and he can’t form any words. 

“...Derek?” He finally croaks out. 

“Stiles, I need you to listen to me–”

This wave of resentment hits him like a ton of bricks, as if a flip switched in Stiles’ head, because now he can’t help but sound bitter.

“No. Are you kidding me? Why should I listen to you when all you did was leave me ?” he hisses. “Put my dad back on the phone.”

Derek doesn’t even seem phased by Stiles’ tone. It’s almost as if Derek expected him to respond like this. “Look, Stiles, I can explain everything but–”

“I can find them without your fucking help,” Stiles spits, cutting Derek off. “Tell my dad to come find me if he doesn’t hear from me.”

He hangs up the phone, and he almost wants to throw it in the lake. That wasn’t exactly the way that Stiles wanted to have his first conversation with Derek, but he couldn’t believe the guy! Listen to him? Stiles doesn’t care how much information Derek has on these people, it’s nothing that Stiles can’t figure out on his own.

He doesn’t need Derek.

Fuck Derek.

—

The lodge floor creaks with almost every step Stiles takes.

He doesn’t ever remember the floors making this much noise, but of course it’s when he’s trying to be sneaky that it’s the loudest it’s ever been.

He was able to sneak into the lodge with no problem. Well, actually, that’s not entirely true. Both the front doors and the back doors were locked, which Stiles didn’t think that they did. He tried the back kitchen door, hoping that Gloria might have left it unlocked, but it didn’t budge. He looked everywhere, trying to find an opening.

He feels so much relief when he sees that Gloria didn’t close the kitchen window all the way. Climbing through the window is a nightmare, though. He doesn’t lift himself far enough, so half of his body is hanging out the window, and when he finally is able to shimmy his way in, he accidentally kicks a pot that clatters on the floor. He pauses for a moment, trying to hear if someone is making their way to the lodge to investigate the noise, but no one shows up.

So here is Stiles, rattling the doorknob to Monroe’s office. Of course it’s locked. He looks over at the door across from him, which is Gabe’s office, and there was no way that Gabe would’ve locked his door. Stiles looks down the hallway, just to make sure that no one was there, and turns the door knob to Gabe’s office. 

Stiles pumps his first in the air when Gabe’s door opens without any issues, and Stiles goes inside and closes the door behind him. It’s pretty dark in Gabe’s office, but he knows better than to turn on the light. He’s not trying to draw any attention to the lodge if he could help it. He pulls out his phone and turns the flash light on and starts to look through Gabe’s desk for an extra pair of keys.

He opens up a couple drawers, and he’s trying to be super careful about moving things around. When he pulls the fourth drawer open, he spots a small box inside with a couple pieces of candy around it. Stiles raises his eyebrow, but he takes it upon himself to grab the only Reese’s peanut butter cup that’s there. He sticks it in his pocket, then puts his attention back on the small box. He opens it up, and he sees that there’s a pair of extra keys. There’s only three of them, and one of them has to be extra to Monroe’s office. If not, then what the hell do these keys belong to? 

He takes them and carefully closes the drawer. He turns off his flashlight and leaves Gabe’s office. He goes over to Monroe’s office door and he takes the first key and tries to stick it in the door knob. It’s no use. He takes the second one and tries, but again, it doesn’t fit in the key hole. He’s hoping and praying that the last key fits, and when he slowly takes the key and brings it to the door knob. He’s able to fit the key inside the slot, and he takes a deep breath before turning the key. 

It works.

He swings the door open and walks in, and the first thing he sees is a giant tapestry with the camp’s logo on it. He goes over to her desk and there’s papers everywhere, and in the mix are a couple polaroid photos. He grabs the first piece of paper that he sees and it looks like it’s just some bills. He sees that some of them are bills about the RV park that’s ten miles away from the camp. Not thinking much of it, he puts it back where he found it and grabs another piece of paper, and he reads it carefully.

It’s a contact list, and there’s a list of names and phone numbers that don’t ring any bells. He puts it aside and grabs one of the polaroid pictures. It’s a little blurry, but it’s clearly of someone who is younger, and Stiles squints his eyes a little bit to try and see if he recognizes the kid in the photo. They’re a werewolf, their eyes gold. He looks at the shirt the kid is wearing, because he’s definitely seen it before. Where has he seen it?

He thinks back to the lacrosse game that they played on the first week of camp, the game that caused Jackson to supposedly go home. He thinks about the players, and then that’s when it hits him.

It’s Tristan. 

One of the campers that were staying at Cody’s cabin.

Holy shit. He looks at the background, trying to see if he recognizes anything, but there isn’t. All he can see is what seems like light blue carpet and wood wall panels that look like they’re old. He has no idea where this could be, especially since there’s nowhere around the camp that has blue carpet. Or at least that’s what he thinks. Tristan has a busted lip in the photo from what Stiles could tell. He flips the photo over and sees that it’s labeled under “werewolf.” Starting to get more frantic, he pushes a few more pieces of paper away and grabs another one, and it looks like some type of report? 

Monroe’s Army

Captures:

Werewolves: 7

Five children, two teenagers.

Vampires: 2

2 children.

Witches: 3

3 children.

Kills: 

Werewolf: 1

1 adult.

Stiles raises his eyebrow and looks at the corner of the report where the logo for the camp, and Stiles looks back at the part where it says Monroe’s Army. He looks down at his own shirt and pulls on it so he has a better view of the logo. Stiles quickly looks up and tries to find a pen. Once he finds one on her desk, he quickly grabs a piece of paper–any paper, and he draws the logo one more time. He writes a capital M, and then he puts a capital A in the middle.

To anyone else, it just looks like mountain peaks.

But realistically it’s the logo for Monroe’s Army, and Stiles wants to throw up. He’s been sporting this t-shirt with their brand on it, and he wants to rip it off his body. 

“What the fuck?” He whispers. Stiles sets the report down and grabs another polaroid, and it looks like a girl who was staying in Katie’s cabin, and if Stiles remembers correctly, her name is Rebecca. He looks behind her photo and sees that it says “witch” on it. Stiles looks at the photos of Rebecca and Tristan out of disgust, he couldn’t believe that these weirdos are also taking pictures of them. Rebecca looks so disheveled in her photo, and Stiles can barely see it, but her cheek is bruised.

He finds a couple more polaroids, and he sees the ones of Malia and Jackson. Jackson is shirtless in his photo, and he has blood over his torso and his eyes are shut as if he was knocked out when the photo was taken. Stiles isn’t surprised when he sees Jackson’s photo labeled as werewolf. Malia looks just as beat up as Jackson.

When Stiles finds the polaroid of Wyatt, his heart sinks. Wyatt has a black eye and a busted lip, just like Tristan. He can see the blood on his face, and Stiles shakes his head, disappointed in himself.

This is all his fault, he shouldn’t have told Monroe anything about Wyatt feeling sick. He should’ve realized sooner what was going on, and the first thing that he’s going to do is give this kid the biggest hug and apologize to him a thousand times.

“What are you doing, Stiles?” He hears a familiar female voice that sends shivers down his spine, and he quickly looks up and sees Monroe and Gabe standing next to each other at the doorway. Monroe has a pistol aimed at Stiles, which the second he sees it, he puts the piece of paper down and puts his hands up, surrendering. 

“I was just looking–”

“All you have done is cause trouble the past couple days,” Gabe interrupts. Holy shit. “We should just put a bullet through your head. I mean, who’s going to stop us?”

Stiles rolls his eyes, still holding his hands up. “Come on, Gabe. No offense, but you’re not that threatening. You’re literally a useless twig.” Gabe almost looks offended when he says this, but he doesn’t respond to Stiles. Instead, they step forward, entering the office. 

“You should know better than to be sticking your nose in a place where it doesn’t belong,” Monroe snaps.

“It’s kind of hard not to when my friends start to go missing,” Stiles spits. “Monroe’s Army, huh? How original. So you’re hunters then?”

“Why would we answer you?” Monroe asks.

“I mean, you don’t really have to. You should really consider cleaning up the place if you’re going to be going around taking photos of kids you’ve been kidnapping,” Stiles argues. “You practically incriminated yourself. There’s evidence all over this desk.”

“It’s clear that he’s one of them,” Gabe says to Monroe with a smirk. 

“I’m one of what? You’re going to have to be more specific than that,” Stiles replies.

“A witch? A werewolf?” Gabe answers. 

“I’m not any of those. Hate to break it to you, pal, but I’m as human as can be,” Stiles laughs bitterly, putting his hands down. 

“Bullshit,” Monroe snaps. “I don’t believe that for a second.” 

“I’m telling the truth,” Stiles shouts. He has no way to escape this. If he even tries, he knows that she won’t hesitate to shoot. He sees Monroe and Gabe start to walk closer to him, and Stiles doesn’t try to run. He can’t run. He’s cornered and it’s moments like this where he wishes he listened to his dad. 

Gabe is grabbing Stiles roughly, and while he struggles, he sees Monroe raise her arm. The next thing he knows he feels a sharp, shooting pain on his forehead and he’s out like a light.

Week 2, Day 4

Stiles slowly wakes up in a musty, cold room. He tries to move, but he’s zip tied to a metal fence panel and his legs and arms being spread apart. Everything aches. His head is pounding, and he winces in pain every time that he makes some type of movement. He lets out a small groan and blinks a few times before actually taking a look around the place. The room is dimly lit, but he’s surrounded by a bunch of shelves, almost as if he’s in some type of storage room. There’s boxes everywhere on the shelves, but the scribbles on them are too hard to read. On the walls that he can see, there’s guns being showcased and what looks like maps are plastered around. 

Where is he?

He hears some shuffling around him somewhere on the right side of the room, and he tries to turn his head as much as he can before he starts to feel his neck strain. He sees what looks like a female hand zip tied the same way his are.

“Hello?” He says. “Who else is here?”

“Stiles? Stiles, is that you?” Stiles’s heart skips a beat, because it’s Malia, and he’s so fucking relieved that she’s okay and alive. “Jackson, hey, wake up, I think Stiles is here, too.” He hears some more shuffling around on the left side of the room, and Stiles turns his head the opposite direction. He sees another hand zip tied as well, but he doesn’t have any clear vision of the two. 

“Yeah, it’s me.” Stiles glances at both of his hands, and he tries to struggle a bit, but the zip ties aren’t budging. 

“Took you fucking long enough,” Jackson snaps. “Welcome to the club, Stilinski.”

“Where are you guys?” Stiles asks, ignoring Jackson. 

“We’re on the other side of the room, the shelves are blocking us from seeing each other,” Malia replies. “Stiles, how did you get here?”

“I–” Stiles gets interrupted when they all hear a door open and get slammed shut. Stiles can’t really see much, but he hears a couple pairs of footsteps. He sees Gabe come around the corner with the nastiest grin on his face, like he’s happy to see Stiles tied up with a nice gash on his head.

“Comfortable?” He asks as he gets in Stiles’ face.

“I was until you decided to breathe in my vicinity.” Stiles moves his head, trying to get some distance between him and Gabe’s hot breath. “Brush your teeth often?”

“You’re such a piece of–”

“Gabe!” Monroe barks, and he moves away from Stiles. He hears her walking, and he’s looking around to see where she is. When he turns his head to the right, he sees Malia clench her fist, and he knows that Monroe is over there. 

“Let Stiles go,” Malia snarls. Monroe lets out a laugh.

“Now why would I do that, huh?” She says. Stiles wishes he can see what she’s doing, how she’s looking at Malia. He hates that he can’t see her. “He’s one of you.”

“Do you only have one brain cell, lady?” Jackson calls out. “Stiles is human.”

Stiles hears Gabe scoff, and Stiles whips his head to look over at Gabe.

“No, seriously, are you stupid?” Stiles asks him harshly. “Do you see this gnarly gash on my head from when you guys decided to pistol whip me? It’s not healing.”

“Then you’re a witch of some type,” Gabe replies, shrugging his shoulders. 

“Then you’re an idiot,” Jackson says. Stiles can hear Jackson rolling his eyes. “Stiles isn’t competent enough to be a witch.” Stiles winces, not sure if it was from the pain or from the emotional damage. 

Stiles sees Monroe walk around the same corner that Gabe did, and she stops in front of Stiles. Gabe glances up at Stiles and looks back at Monroe. Stiles watches as Gabe pulls out a pistol and hands it over to Monroe. She gladly takes it, and she’s looking at the gun in a way that she’s almost cherishing it.

“Stiles Stilinski,” she starts. “Eighteen years old. Got accepted to Berkeley University with a partial scholarship. Son of Noah Stilinski and Claudia Stilinski–”

“What are you trying to get at?” Stiles questions. “Just fucking spit it out–”

“Previously possessed by a Nogitsune,” she interrupts as she stops looking at the gun. She looks at Stiles and tilts her head. “Who’s to say that you’re still not possessed?”

“I’m not,” he hisses. “If you did better research, you would’ve known that we trapped it back in Beacon Hills.”

“For some reason,” she starts to walk closer to him, and she digs the barrel of the gun under Stiles’ chin. The pressure of the cold metal makes it almost hard for him to breathe. “I just don’t believe you.” She cocks the gun, and Stiles doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t want to risk saying the wrong thing. “Gabe’s right, what’s stopping me from putting a bullet through your head?” He’s terrified, and as he’s shaking, Monroe removes the gun from under his chin. He coughs a few times while sucking in air. 

“I want names, Stiles.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about–”

“Don’t play stupid,” Monroe cuts him off. “You know exactly what we mean. All you have to do is give us one name,” she says in a sing-songy voice. “Give us the name of another werewolf and we’ll let you go.”

“Stiles, don’t listen to her!” Malia yells, shaking her body against the metal gate.

Monroe stops paying attention to Stiles and turns her head over to where Malia is at. She clicks her tongue and starts to walk over to Malia, and Stiles is internally freaking out. He doesn’t know what Monroe is going to do, he wishes that Malia would’ve kept quiet. Gabe leaves his side and follows her.

Stiles turns his head and sees Gabe standing next to her arm, and he watches as Gabe takes a knife out of his pocket and he runs the blade down her arm. Gabe puts pressure on her forearm, which causes Malia to yelp. A small stream of blood goes down her arm, and Stiles turns his head away.

“Oh, Malia,” Monroe says softly, Stiles can barely hear her. “You would think that you would know when to keep that pretty mouth of yours shut by now.”

“Fuck you,” Malia snarls. 

“Gabe,” Monroe says. “Knife, please.”

Knife?

“No, no, wait!” Stiles yells, his voice cracking. “Just wait a second–”

Sitles can hear the blade stab into Malia. She lets out a pained gasp.

“Malia?” Jackson yells. “Malia! What did you do to her?”

“She’ll be fine,” Monroe seethes, pulling the blade out. She comes around the corner, holding the knife that’s dripping blood. Gabe pulls out a rag from his pocket and hands it over to her, which she then uses to wipe it off. She hands the red soaked rag back to Gabe. “Do you want your friends to live? If so, give me a name, Stiles.” 

Stiles opens his mouth, but closes it. She goes up to Stiles and puts the blade up to his throat, and he can feel a small cut form when Stiles swallows. He closes his eyes, a small noise escapes his mouth. There’s a lingering smell of copper that makes Stiles want to vomit.  

“Scott,” he whispers. 

“I can’t hear you, Stiles,” Monroe says. She presses the blade just a tad bit harder against Stiles’ throat. 

“Scott!” He yells this time, and she pulls the blade away from Stiles.

“Scott McCall?” She says with a giggle, raising her eyebrow. 

“We already knew about the True Alpha Scott McCall,” Gabe snorts, and Stiles feels so fucking violated. “We’re saving him for last. We take out his pack, Scott will be weak, and then we’ll kill him. We want you to say someone else’s name.”

Stiles shakes his head, and although this is the most defeat he has ever felt, he refuses to give up any more names.

“Let’s make a deal,” Monroe declares. “I’ll give you and your friends here some time to yourselves tonight. Possibly say your goodbyes, do whatever you need to do. When I come back in the morning, I expect a name or two. If I don’t get that, I will kill all three of you."

“Doesn’t really sound like a good deal,” Stiles mutters bitterly. “You should learn how to bargain better.”

“Oh, Stiles, I’m giving you a great deal,” she says with a venomous grin. “It’s just not the one that you want. A name or the life of you and your friends? It can’t get better than that.” With that, they both leave the storage room, the door slamming shut behind them.

“Malia, are you okay?” Stiles asks, and he can hear Malia struggling to breathe. 

“Fine,” she says, gritting her teeth. “I’ll heal.”

“What did she do to you?” Jackson asks. 

“Stabbed me, just like she did last time,” Malia replies in a pained tone.

“Original,” Jackson scoffs. “If she’s going to be torturing us, she should come up with something better.”

“I’m sorry, guys,” Stiles says, and he can start to feel his eyes welling up with tears. “I’m so sorry.”

“You didn’t do anything, Stiles,” Jackson replies. 

“None of this is your fault,” Malia assures him, groaning a bit. 

“But it is .” Stiles shakes his head and looks down at the floor. “I wanted us to have a normal summer. I pushed us to come here. I should’ve done better research or something –”

“Stilinski, do you not remember that it was McCall that threw us under the bus? If anything, we should blame him,” Jackson says, and Stiles knows that he’s trying to make him feel better in some way. 

“I just–”

“Will you stop feeling sorry for yourself?” Jackson snaps. “None of this is on you, okay? Get a fucking grip, Stiles.”

“You didn’t tell us why you’re here,” Malia says. 

“I got caught sneaking into Monroe’s office,” Stiles responds, sniffling. 

“Please tell me you told someone about your stupid plan,” Jackson grumbles. 

“My dad,” Stiles replies. “I told my dad. I told him that if he doesn’t hear from me tonight then something happened and he needs to come here.”

“So basically your dad isn’t coming until tomorrow,” Jackson deadpans. “Great.”

“You told Scott though, right?” Malia asks. 

Stiles doesn’t answer her, and he can hear Jackson mutter something but couldn’t quite understand. 

“You didn’t tell Scott,” Malia states. “Oh my god.”

“How could you not tell Scott?” Jackson questions. 

“I knew that he would fight with me about it.”

“Stiles, you’re a moron, you know that?” Jackson tells him. “By the way, you know that lunch lady that you love so much?”

“Gloria? Yeah, what about her?”

“Hate to break it to you, but she’s part of their little hunting group,” Jackson answers.

Stiles groans. Of course. Of course the one old lady that Stiles trusted is part of a group that wants to kill him.

—

Malia tells them that she’s fully healed by the time that Gloria comes in to drop off some food. Stiles frowns when he sees her coming towards him with a tray that just holds a piece of bread and a cup of water. She doesn’t say anything to him, instead just glares at him while she feeds him stale bread and helps him take drinks of water. He doesn’t even try to have a conversation with her, he’s too disappointed with this outcome.

Stiles notices that Gloria has a bottle of the wolfsbane lemonade, and he knows that she’s going to be giving that to Jackson once she’s done with him.

Gloria leaves Stiles after she’s finished feeding him and goes over to Jackson, who he can hear telling her to leave him alone. He hears a loud slap and surprisingly Jackson doesn’t say another word.

—

Stiles tells Malia and Jackson about the polaroid pictures that he found in Monroe’s office. 

He explains to them that there’s one photo per person that they took, and Jackson goes off about how creepy that is. He tells them about the report that he found and about the kids that she took.

“Do we even know where we are?” Stiles asks them. 

“Remember that RV park that we passed while on our way here? We’re there,” Malia answers. 

“How do you know that?” 

“I overheard Gabe mention it to Monroe,” Malia tells him. “You know, super hearing and all that fun stuff. I don’t know where the other kids are, though.”

“Probably in the same area, just in a different place,” Jackson states. “How many kids did she take?”

“About ten,” Stiles frowns.

The group goes silent and it stays like that for a while.

Week 2, Day 5

Stiles is drifting off to sleep, exhausted and sore from everything that’s happened, but wakes up abruptly when he hears the door slam open. 

“I heard that Stiles was in here!” A voice booms, and Stiles recognizes it right away.

“Cody?” Stiles asks weakly. Cody comes around the corner, completely ignoring Malia on his way over to him. Cody has a vile grin on his face, and Stiles isn’t surprised that Cody is a part of this whole thing. 

“So you’re one of them, huh?” Cody asks, crossing his arms while staring at Stiles. “Why am I not surprised? I knew that something was up with you, especially during the overnight hike with the glowing red eyes? I knew that Scott was lying to me. Later I find out that the dude is an alpha?” Cody leans in closer. “So what are you? Scott’s little beta?”

“I’m human,” Stiles argues. “How many times do I have to repeat myself?” 

“Yeah, that’s what they all say when they don’t want to die.” Cody laughs and pulls away from Stiles. The blond boy shakes his head. “Anyway, better make sure I get back to the camp before the morning activities start. Don’t want to blow my cover, you know?” Before he leaves, he makes sure to punch Stiles in the stomach hard, not once, but twice, and he cries out in pain.

All they have to do is play the waiting game and stall Monroe until his dad gets here. 

But Stiles doesn’t know how much more he can take.

—

Stiles falls asleep again, and a part of him hopes that he doesn’t wake up.

—

“Tell me, Stiles, what did you decide to do? It’s nightfall, tell us now so we don’t have to worry about the kids.” Monroe says. She’s holding a gun in her hand, and Stiles doesn’t know what to say.

He doesn’t want to just say a name, but his friends know about what’s happening. They know that at some point, these hunters aren’t just going to go after Scott–No, they're going after all of them. They admitted that to him, their plan is to take down Scott’s pack.

But what about the kids?

What are they going to do with the kids that they took?

Stiles looks up from the ground and looks at her. “Why did you take the kids?” Stiles asks. Monroe smirks.

“Deflecting the question, I see.” 

“Well, are you going to answer or not?” 

“The world doesn’t need to deal with the supernatural,” Monroe says, and there’s no emotion behind her voice. “Got to kill them young.”

“So what? You just decided to buy a summer camp and hope that you catch one or two werewolves?” 

“You got to admit it was a pretty good plan,” Gabe amuses. “We were able to catch some, and now we’re going to dispose of them. Humans shouldn’t be coexisting with the supernatural, Stiles. At some point, they’re just going to turn against you and kill you.”

“I just don’t think I’m able to wrap my head over the fact that you are planning on killing children ,” Stiles spits. “These are little kids that have a whole life ahead of them. What were you planning on doing with the bodies, huh? What are you going to do when their parents come and try to find their kids?”

“Burn them alive,” she answers. 

“You people are fucking disgusting,” Jackson snarls.

“You’re just going to burn the place to the ground?” Stiles couldn’t believe what he’s hearing. 

“Basically,” Gabe grins. “We burn the camp, burn the bodies, and when the parents come, we would just hunt them and burn them as well. It’s simple.”

“No one is going to miss them, Stiles.” Monroe states. “Now tell me, did you make a decision?” 

Before Stiles could answer, someone bursts into the storage room. Monroe and Gabe quickly walk away from Stiles, and he can barely hear what the person says. Stiles wishes that he could see who is talking to them because the voice doesn’t sound familiar at all. He hears Monroe telling Gabe to stay in the room. Gabe comes back into Stiles’ line of vision and he looks…scared, almost. 

“What’s going on?” Malia probes. 

“Your little friends are here, but they’re just wasting their time.” Gabe retorts. “Tamora is going to deal with them while I have to babysit you.” 

Gabe starts to make rounds around the storage room, and he has his gun ready in his hands. Stiles tries to ignore the eye contact that Gabe keeps trying to make with him, because he knows that he’s just trying to taunt him and scare him with the weapon. 

“This is such a waste of time,” Jackson announces as Gabe starts to walk past Malia. Stiles hangs his head again, and all of the sudden he hears something heavy fall to the ground. Stiles perks his head up, worried.

“Jackson? What was that?” Stiles asks. He hears a loud groan, and he tries to turn his neck as far as it could go so he could have a better view of what’s happening. Stiles sees that someone is lying on the ground, but Jackson is still tied up. In the corner of his eye, he sees a long, green tail.

“I’m not just a werewolf,” Jackson tells Gabe. “I’m also part kanima. Have fun being paralyzed, asshole.” Gabe doesn’t respond to Jackson, instead he keeps making these weird groaning noises that the three of them just choose to ignore. “I think that he has a knife somewhere in here that I can grab.” 

“Really? Now you decide to whip out the tail?” Malia deadpans. “Where was this a few days ago?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jackson mutters. “Sorry that I wanted to wait until there was only one of them here. Those two are glued together. I’m not trying to get killed.”

Stiles can’t see much, but he can somewhat see some of Jackson’s tail. He hears metal clattering on the ground a couple times.

“Are you good?” Malia asks. “You sound like you’re struggling over there.”

“It’s been a while,” Jackson grunts. “Okay, wait, I think I got it.” After a little bit, Stiles hears Jackson struggle getting out of the zip ties, but when he makes it out, Stiles tells Jackson to let Malia out first. 

Jackson’s weak, and it’s obvious by how slow he’s moving. Stiles can hear Jackson cut the zip ties, and the two of them race over to Stiles. When Malia and Jackson stand in front of him, Malia frowns. It’s obvious that the gash on his head is still pretty visible considering it’s fresh, and he has a slight cut on his neck. He can feel that his wrists and ankles have raw spots from the plastic rubbing against his skin.

Jackson cuts the zip ties off, and Malia helps Stiles to properly stand up. 

“We need to get out of here,” Jackson says. “Stiles, are you okay?” Stiles silently nods his head. “Let’s go find everyone.”

“I think we should stay here for a moment,” Malia interjects. “Look at him, Jackson, he needs to rest a little.”

“Malia, I don’t know if you’re aware, but the kanima venom only lasts for a few hours.”

“Right, and I’m trying to tell you that Gabe isn’t that much of a threat to begin with,” Malia states. “The only thing that makes this guy powerful is a gun, and if we take that away and tie him up ourselves, we should be fine.”

Jackson takes a peak over the corner of the shelves and sees that Gabe is still laying there, still making the annoying groaning sounds. He sighs, crossing his arms. “Fine. We tie him up and we leave him here to rot.”

Stiles starts to feel tired, and he can feel his body swaying a little bit, like he’s going to faint. 

“Hey, Stilinski–Stiles!”

The pain that’s around his body is too much for him right now that Stiles falls to the ground and passes out.

—

Stiles wakes up in a bed that he’s unfamiliar with. A heavy, plaid blanket is covering his body, and he takes a second before slowly sitting up. He pulls the blanket off and sees that he’s in his underwear and a t-shirt. He looks around, trying to spot his pants, but he can’t seem to find them anywhere. He pulls the blanket off more, revealing his ankles that are rubbed raw. He then looks at his wrists and sees that they look the exact same. 

His legs are entirely sore, and so are his arms. He looks over at the night stand next to the bed and sees that there’s a glass of water and a couple Advil. He eagerly grabs the cup of water and takes large gulps of water while swallowing down the medicine.

He’s so dehydrated, and the water feels so good going down his throat. He wants to get more, but at this moment he doesn’t think he has the energy to get up from the bed just yet. He looks around the room, and he recognizes the structure of the cabin. 

He’s back at camp.

But which cabin is he even in?

The cabin itself has only one large bed, a nightstand, and a dresser. It has to be Monroe’s cabin, but why is he in here? Where’s Monroe?

Before he decides that it’s time to get out of the bed, he sees that the door opens and in comes Scott, holding some clothes. When Scott realizes that Stiles is up, he can see the flash of sadness in his eyes.

“Hey,” Scott greets quietly. 

The silence in the cabin is so loud, and Stiles doesn’t really know how to respond in this situation. He feels so guilty, especially doing something so stupid like risking his life to find Jackson and Malia.

“Hi,” Stiles finally says, his voice hoarse. “How long was I out for?”

“A few hours,” Scott replies. He makes his way over to the bed and takes a seat on the corner of it. “How are you feeling?”

“Honestly? Like complete shit,” Stiles says with a small smile. 

“Stiles–”

“I’m sorry, Scott,” Stiles cuts him off. “I shouldn’t have done that. I should’ve told you.”

“It’s okay, man,” Scott assures him. “You’re alive, right?”

“Yeah, alive and even more traumatized than before,” and he wishes that he was joking. “Where is everyone? Also, where the hell are my pants and who took them off to begin with?”

“We’re all in the lodge,” Scott replies. “Jackson took them off of you, they were kind of gross and smelled bad. I brought you another pair of pants, though. You were only gone for a day and half, how do they smell that bad?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Scott, it’s kind of hard to use the bathroom when you’re zip tied to a fence,” Stiles says sarcastically. Scott scrunches up his nose. “Wait, where are the kids? Did you find them?”

“Lydia was actually the one who found them. Come on, get up so we can head over there.”

“Wait, okay, sorry for the questions but whose cabin is this?” Stiles asks. 

“Monroe’s ” Scott answers. “You needed a better place to rest and we didn’t want to freak out the kids more. Hurry up, we’ll explain everything after you get there, okay?”

Scott exits the cabin, leaving Stiles to put on fresh clothes.

—

Stiles slowly makes his way over to the lodge, and when he opens the doors, he sees all of his friends sitting around their usual table. However, there’s not a kid in sight.

“Why is it so quiet? Where is everyone?” Stiles asks. 

“Katie, Joseph, and Paul went to go do some wilderness exploring with them,” Lydia answers. “Apparently the kids learned nothing from Gabe’s poor excuse of survival skills and wanted a redo.” 

Stiles snorts and takes a seat between Jackson and Lydia. Jackson looks a lot better; his skin isn’t as pale. He nudges Jackson’s arm a bit, giving him some sort of affection.

“It’s about time you woke up,” Jackson says. “I was almost worried about you. Key word, almost.”

“You don’t look like shit anymore,” Stiles says, reaching over and grabbing a banana from the table. He peels the fruit and takes a bite out of it. 

“It was that stupid lemonade,” Jackson mutters. 

“Yeah, I figured that out before I found you guys,” Stiles says. He takes another bite of his banana and peels it more. “So, who wants to go around the circle and tell little ole me about what happened while I was passed out in a storage room?”

“Short version is that we don’t have to worry about Monroe anymore, or her psychotic followers,” Kira answers. 

“Long version,” Scott says. “Is that we noticed you didn’t show up to breakfast and we got kind of worried, especially with Malia and Jackson being gone. We tried doing our own investigation but you and I both know that it’s not, uh, my strong suit–” 

“Yeah, you suck at it,” Stiles chimes in. “Anyway, sorry, continue.”

“Before I was so rudely interrupted,” Scott smiles. “We looked everywhere all over the camp, and when we asked Monroe about you, she said that you had gone home, too. That just didn’t feel right, so we decided to wait until the next day to do something about it. We wanted to make sure that Monroe wasn’t suspicious of us.”

“Really, you waited until the next day? What if I died? ” Stiles asks dramatically.

“Well, did you?” Jackson snorts.

“Uh, almost! I literally had some lunatic try to slit my throat—“

“Okay, anyway,” Scott continues. “So the next morning, I hear this knock on my cabin door and I start to freak out because I thought I was going to be next. But it ended up being someone who I was not expecting,” Scott finishes.

Stiles finishes up his banana and puts the peel on the table. “It was my dad, right? I called him and told him that if he didn’t hear anything from me that he needed to come find you.” Everyone goes quiet, and Stiles is looking at his friends, confused. “What? He came, right?”

“Uh, not…not exactly,” Scott winces. 

On cue, the front doors of the lodge open up, and Stiles eyes widen when he sees Derek Hale in all of his glory.

“Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Stiles says, “Really? You just really felt the need to come here? Why do you always show up to come and save the day after you disappear for six months?”

Everyone at the table is clearly uncomfortable and tense. Derek doesn’t say anything, he just takes a seat across from Stiles and stares at him. Stiles wants to punch this guy in the face. 

“I think I need to go and make sure that, uh, everything is good to go when the kids get back,” Kira says with an awkward laugh. 

“No, wait a second, we’re still running this place? You guys didn’t even tell me what actually happened to Monroe,” Stiles states. Everyone looks at each other and it’s Derek that’s the one who talks.

“She’s been dealt with.”

“Okay? That’s all you have to say?” Stiles argues, he then looks over at Scott. “Just tell me what happened.”

“Argent dealt with her,” Scott finally says. “She’s not—“

“Oh my god, just to save all of us some time, she’s dead. Gone. Murdered.” Jackson answers Stiles. “So are her little goonies.”

“So Argent was here?” Stiles asks.

“Yeah, and then he left the second the job was finished,” Malia answers.

“What about Gabe? Did you guys…you know?”

“No, we let him go,” Malia went on. “He was just weirdly submissive towards Monroe, and once she died, he didn’t want anything to do with the camp and he ran off somewhere.”

“Okay, but what about the rest of the camp? What are we going to tell the kids?”

“We already explained it to them,” Lydia stands up and picks up the banana peel that Stiles left and throws it away. “We just told the kids that Ms. Monroe had to leave for a family emergency, and while she wishes she could be here to finish out camp, her family needs her.”

“We only have one more full day of camp,” Kira says. “And the kids have been constantly talking about the talent show, so we’re still going to try and have that happen. Then we just drop the kids off at the bus stops the next morning and bam, we’re done dealing with this hell hole.”

Stiles nods his head, understanding everything. He couldn’t believe that Monroe is dead, but he can’t help but feel a little satisfied about it. He looks at Derek and frowns. “So where is my dad?”

“He couldn’t come,” Derek replies. “He had something come up, and he was worried about you, so he sent me instead.”

His dad is fully aware of what happened with Derek, and the fact that he sent the one person Stiles wasn’t ready to deal with yet upset him. He feels almost betrayed.

“I didn’t want you to come here in the first place, hence why I hung up on you,” Stiles snaps. 

“Okay, you two need to figure out your shit,” Jackson declares. He and the rest of the group quickly get up from the table. “Let us know when you two are done fighting.” They all file out of the building, and Scott looks behind him and mouths to Stiles that he’s sorry. Scott shuts the door, and Derek and Stiles are left there, staring at each other.

“Stiles, will you just let me explain?” Derek asks. Stiles shakes his head.

“I don’t want to hear anything you have to say.”

“That’s rich coming from someone who was constantly leaving me voicemails and begging me to call them,” Derek says bitterly. Stiles glares at Derek, his face heats up from embarrassment, and this causes him to be even more angry. 

“Well, you never called back.”

“I tried, Stiles.”

“You tried once, Derek,” he spits. “You tried once six months later, and you never bothered to send a text? Leave a voicemail? You could’ve just told me if you were at least alive. I wouldn’t have tried to reach out anymore if that’s what you wanted.”

“Stiles, that’s not–I’m not trying to fight with you, I’m trying to tell you what happened,” Derek says, his tone sounding much calmer. This pisses Stiles off even more, because all he wants to do is fight with Derek. How dare he sound so relaxed when Stiles wants to rip this dude’s head off? He wants to yell in his face and make him realize how much he hurt him by just taking off the way he did. He wants Derek to know how miserable Stiles was without him, and he wants Derek to know how fucking selfish his actions were. 

“Feel free to leave at any point, sooner rather than later preferably. You know, since that’s the only thing you seem to be good at.” He sees the flash of hurt in Derek’s eyes, and Stiles feels a little guilty for his words, but refuses to show it. He doesn’t even need to show it, because he knows that Derek can sense the guilt anyway.

“I know I hurt you, but let me explain—“

“Hurt me? Derek, you did more than just hurt me,” Stiles hisses. “That night that I told you I loved you, I was terrified. I was so scared of how you were going to react. But then you kissed me and I thought that we were finally going to be together. Can you imagine how betrayed I was when I went back to your place and you were gone ? You screwed me over, Derek.”

Derek doesn’t respond right away, instead he runs his fingers through his hair and lets out a frustrated grunt. “You’ve always been so fucking stubborn—“

“And you’ve always been too chicken shit to admit your feelings!” Stiles yells, and Derek abruptly gets up from the table. Stiles follows the man’s actions and stands in front of Derek, who is trying to avoid making eye contact with him. “Just tell me why.”

“If you would just listen to me—“

“And be honest with me, Derek.”

“I am! Or at least I’m trying to, but you won’t let me talk!” Derek exclaims angrily. Stiles wants to say more, but he keeps his mouth closed. “Can I speak now or are you going to talk over me again?” 

Stiles scoffs. If Derek wants to act like that, then fine. “You know what? I actually don’t want to have this conversation, fuck you.”

Derek stares at him in disbelief, and Stiles can tell that Derek is pissed. He sees that his jaw twitches, and he’s standing there with his fists clenched. Stiles turns around and starts to make his way to the doors of the lodge, and it hurts Stiles even more when Derek doesn’t even try to call after him. 

When he exits the lodge, he makes his way over to his cabin, and he can’t help but look back behind him to see if Derek even tried to run after him.

Disappointed and not surprised, Derek doesn’t follow.

—

“And can you believe that he kept saying that I was interrupting him all the time? He said that I wouldn’t let him talk!”

“Well, in my personal experience, you don’t let people talk,” his dad says bluntly over the phone. Stiles rolls his eyes at his dad’s comment. For someone who made it clear they hated Derek for hurting their kid’s feelings, he sure isn’t hiding that he’s picking Derek’s side.

Stiles is sitting at the ledge of the trail, his feet a few inches above the lake. It’s around seven in the evening, and Stiles feels more relaxed knowing that he doesn’t have to hide the fact that he’s calling his dad now. 

He made sure to tell his dad about everything that happened to Monroe, but he also made sure to leave out the part that he was mildly tortured. He doesn’t want to scare the sheriff, that’s the last thing that the man needs. Plus, he’s okay! He’s fine! Yeah, he has some bruising on his torso and the cut on his throat is still pretty fresh. Let’s not forget the cut on his head, and he has no idea how he’s going to hide the ligature marks on his wrists and ankles.

Yeah, his dad is going to figure it out one way or another that Stiles downplayed being held captive. 

“Dad, you’re supposed to be on my side, not his!” Stiles shouts. He takes his phone and puts it in between his ear and shoulder. “I thought we all hated Derek Hale for being an absolute asshat.” 

“You know, I thought that, too.”

“Okay, so what changed? What did he do to make himself suddenly seem like such a great guy?” he asks the sheriff. “Please, enlighten me.”

“Stiles, I wouldn’t have sent Derek over to come help you guys if I didn’t think he wasn’t a good guy,” his dad points out. “Has it ever occurred to you that maybe there was a pretty good reason why he was gone for six months?”

“Of course–”

“That didn’t involve your crush on him,” his dad cuts him off. Stiles pauses for a moment and tries to think back to the last time he saw Derek in Beacon Hills. There wasn’t anything off about that time, everything seemed totally normal. He purses his lips, and shakes his head.

“I guess not,” Stiles admits.

His dad sighs. “He came to the station after listening to your voicemails. You never specified which camp that you were staying at, so I told him. He knew about Monroe because her team was the one that kidnapped him.”

Stiles blinks a few times, registering what his dad just said. Kidnapped? Derek was kidnapped? 

“Wait, what?”

“He didn't get up and leave like you thought he did,” his dad explains. “He never called you back because he couldn’t. They took his phone but he was able to get it back when he escaped.”

“But how did he escape?”

“I think that this is a conversation that should happen between you and Derek, son,” the sheriff says. “Go talk to him.”

The sudden guilt hits Stiles. He feels like an asshole for the way that he spoke to Derek. 

“Okay, yeah, I will.”

“Goodnight, kid. I love you, and I’ll see you in a couple of days. Just focus on you and your friends, okay?” And with that, his dad hangs up the phone. Stiles puts his phone back in his pocket. He stands up and brushes off his pants and makes his way back to the camp.

He decides to stop at Scott’s cabin first, because he needs to know if Scott knew about Derek. Walking up the steps, he knocks on the cabin door and Goob answers it. 

“Are you going to be a jerk again?” Goob asks, raising his eyebrow. “If so, you’re not coming in.”

“No, I’m not. Sorry about that, Goob.” Stiles says. “Is Scott in there?” 

Goob opens the door more and lets Stiles walk inside. He sees Scott just laying in his bunk, reading a book. Stiles goes over to him and Scott looks up from what he’s doing and scooches over in the small bed, allowing Stiles some room to lay down next to him. Goob takes it upon himself to tell some of the campers that are still in the cabin that they should go outside. They all leave, making Stiles and Scott the only ones there.

“Hey,” Scott says, looking over at Stiles. “How’d it go?”

“Did you know?” He asks, and Scott shifts his body a little bit. 

“About Derek? Yeah, a little,” Scott admits. “I mean, he only told me when he came here and asked where you were. He looked scared, dude.”

“Scared?”

“Yeah, like he was scared he was going to lose you, I guess,” Scott murmurs. “We were all scared, Stiles. We didn’t know where you were, and I lost track of your scent so I couldn’t even find you if I tried.”

“It’s okay, Scott–”

“But it’s not,” his best friend replies. “I should’ve paid more attention to what was happening. Like Jackson and Malia? Those guys can handle things, but you? Stiles, you’re human. These are going to leave scars.” Stiles is getting deja vu, because this reminds him exactly of the conversation that he had with Jackson and Malia. Stiles turns his body and faces Scott, who does the exact same thing. 

“So much for a normal summer, right?” Stiles can’t help but let out a small laugh as he says this. Scott also lets out a soft laugh, and he nudges Stiles’ arm. 

“You should try and talk to Derek again,” Scott says. “He seemed pretty upset after you guys talked.”

“Talked? It was more like a screaming match. I said some pretty terrible things,” Stiles sighs. “I was just so mad.”

“Hey, you had every right to be mad. However, now that you know the truth, Derek will understand.”

They both lay there in silence for a moment, and Stiles can’t help but think about the way he treated Derek. Derek literally came all the way to this camp to make sure that Stiles and his friends were safe, and when Stiles was missing, the first thing that Derek did was try and find him. 

He should’ve known better. He should’ve known that Derek would never just leave him like that. 

“Everyone likes flowers, right?” Stiles asks. Scott gives him a confused look. 

“Sure?”

“Want to help me pick some flowers for Derek?”

Scott rolls his eyes and pushes Stiles off the bed, which causes him to yelp when he hits the floor. 

“Really? After all the stuff I’ve been through? This is what you do?” Stiles gets up from the floor and shoots Scott a death glare. Scott, of course, has a shit eating grin on his face. He gets up from the bed and pats Stiles on the shoulder. 

“Let’s go pick some stupid flowers for Derek.”

—

Stiles is standing in front of Monroe’s (well, Derek’s) cabin door, holding a small bouquet of shitty flowers that have a mix of wilting flowers, torn up flowers, and straight up weeds. Either way, he and Scott tried. There’s not a lot of options when someone is in the middle of the woods that’s constantly terrorized by a bunch of little kids. 

He sighs as he brings his free hand up to the door, and before he can knock, the door flings open. Derek is standing there, not surprised to see Stiles there. 

“How did you–”

“Your heart sounds like it’s going to explode,” Derek answers before Stiles could finish his question. He looks down at the flowers that Stiles is holding and looks back up at him. “What are those?”

“Uh, flowers?” Stiles replies meekly. “Scott and I picked them out in the woods.” 

“Are those–”

“For you? Yeah,” Stiles shoves the flowers to Derek, who takes them with a surprised expression. “Can I come in?” 

Derek nods his head and moves out of the way, allowing Stiles to walk inside the cabin. Derek closes the door behind him and puts the flowers on top of the dresser. The two boys are just looking at each other, the tension in the air is almost getting too much for Stiles. 

Should he apologize first? Should Derek be the one apologizing? He has nothing to be sorry for, Derek shouldn’t have to apologize. Stiles just needs to bite the fucking bullet and just say something.

“So,” Stiles starts. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have kept cutting you off, I should’ve let you explain yourself. I said some really awful things to you that I didn’t mean.”

“You don’t need to apologize.”

“No, I need to. I need you to know how shitty it was of me to say that you’re incapable of talking about your feelings. And you know what sucks? Scott told me that the first thing you did was look for me when I was missing, but when you were missing? I didn’t even try to look for you, I just accepted that you were gone.”

“Stiles–”

“And earlier when I said that I wanted you to leave? I didn’t mean that. I didn't want you to leave, Derek. I don’t ever want you to leave.” Stiles takes a step closer to Derek, who stands still. “I was just so angry, you know? I was miserable. I finally had you and then you just…disappeared and I thought it was all my fault.”

“I know,” Derek says, and Stiles knows he needs to stop cutting him off at this point. His dad is right, he is notorious for cutting people off and not letting them finish. Derek looks down at Stiles’ hands and he slowly grabs for one of them. Stiles doesn’t try to pull it back, in fact, he wants this. He wants Derek to touch him. Derek looks back up at Stiles, softness in his eyes. 

“My dad told me what happened,” Stiles starts to rub Derek’s palm with his thumb. “How’d you escape?” 

“Argent found me,” Derek replies, shrugging his shoulders. “A couple of his hunter buddies that he keeps in contact with talked about me being held captive in an old cellar outside of Beacon Hills. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you guys are okay.”

“But it does matter–”

“We can talk more about it later, but right now? Right now that is the last thing I want to talk about. You’re okay, I’m okay, and everyone else is okay.”

Stiles changes the subject. “So you listened to the voicemails? Like, all of them?”

“It was the first thing I did when my phone charged,” Derek admits. “I was hoping that you’d try to contact me somehow. I didn’t know how angry you’d be.”

“Well that’s embarrassing,” Stiles laughs. “Sorry to put you through that.”

“It’s fine. I think my favorite one was where you called me a big baby and then proceeded to make a list of why I was a big baby,” Derek starts to grin. “But then it ended up with you crying towards the end–”

“I was drunk!” Stiles exclaims, his cheeks turning pink due to the humiliation. “Cut me some slack!”

Derek laughs and pulls Stiles closer to him, embracing him. Stiles buries his face in the crook of Derek’s neck, and he sighs from contentment. This is all Stiles wanted for the last six months. He doesn’t really know how to explain it, but being around Derek, being with Derek, it all just…fits. It made sense . 

Derek presses small kisses on Stiles’ head, and out come the million “I miss yous” and the one “maybe don’t get kidnapped again.”

Week 2, Day 6

Today is the day of the talent show, and Stiles is so excited.

Everyone spends the morning working on helping build a small stage on the field, and Stiles directs Katie to take a group of kids and help get all the instruments that they might need. Derek takes it upon himself to hang up outdoor lights around the small stage platform, and Stiles has to admit that it actually looks pretty cute.

Lydia is in charge of getting kids to sign up, and she does a great job because she tells Stiles that fifteen kids sign up, and almost all of them are going to be doing different acts. If Stiles is going to be honest, he really thought that the talent show might be a bust, so to hear that they have quite a lineup makes him feel more confident about it.

Scott decides that he wants to be the one running the kitchen, and Kira volunteers to help him out as well. The two sit there and use whatever ingredients were left from when Gloria was in the kitchen. Scott ends up mostly making a shit ton of PB&Js, but not one person complained about it. Stiles also found the candy stash, and he takes his time handing some out during lunch when they all take a break from setting up.

Stiles waits for mostly everyone to leave the lodge and go back to helping set up the camp. When it’s slightly emptied out, Stiles takes a seat at one of the tables and snags a half of a PB&J sandwich that Scott saved for him. He hears the front door of the lodge open up, and when he turns around and sees who it is, he’s surprised to see that it’s Katie, Joseph, and Paul. The three of them make their way over to the table and sit with Stiles, who looks confused.

“So,” Paul starts. “We just want to apologize.” Stiles must look even more confused, because he can hear Joseph snickering. 

“Care to explain the apology?” Stiles asks. Katie takes the other half of the PB&J, which Stiles almost wants to argue with her about taking it, but decides against it.

“We knew about the whole Monroe’s Army thing,” Joseph admits, frowning.

“Do I need to be worried?” Stiles looks around the room, and Katie laughs. 

“No,” she assures him. “We didn’t participate or anything, but we knew about it because we followed Cody one night who went into Monroe’s cabin. We were curious, but when we went to try and eavesdrop, Cody came out of the cabin.” 

“I cornered him later,” Paul cuts in. “That’s when he told me about the whole thing with the werewolves and other shit, and of course we didn’t believe him until he made us go with him to the RV Park.”

“Tristan was the first one that we saw,” Joseph continues, but Stiles can quickly see that he’s uncomfortable talking about it. “They, uh, they had him tied up with his hands behind his back and had duct tape over his mouth. He didn’t have any visible injuries at the time.”

“Cody punched him in the face,” Paul says, turning his head, not wanting to look at Stiles. “He, uh, just kept beating him up. Katie finally got him to stop what he was doing. He had us wait until Tristan started to heal, and then that’s when we believed him.”

“He’s a kid,” Stiles is furious now, because how the fuck did these guys not do anything about it? They just let some teenager beat the shit out of a kid? “They’re all kids. How could you guys not–”

“We tried, Stiles,” Katie interrupts. “We begged Cody to let him go, but he refused. We kept sneaking out and going to the RV Park, but every time that we tried to get him, there was always someone there with a gun.”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone else?” Stiles asks them harshly, and the group looks at him with sad eyes. “You guys should have said something.”

“They threatened to kill us if we said something to someone,” Joseph argues. “We’re just trying to apologize and explain to you our side of everything.”

“Don’t apologize to me,” Stiles says, his anger faltering. “Apologize to the kids.”

The three of them nod their heads and start to stand up and move away from the table. Stiles watches them walk out of the lodge, and the second that door closes, he can’t help but feel so guilty. He gets it, he understands why they didn’t say anything. Would he say something if they threatened to kill him? 

Well…actually yeah, he would.

But these guys are different. That was their introduction to something that Stiles has been dealing with for a few years. His life has been on the line since Scott got bit, so maybe he’s just used to it at this point. Sometimes he has to remember that.

Stiles sets his half eaten PB&J back on the paper plate, he lost his appetite during that whole conversation. He pushes the plate away from him and runs his hand through his hair. He hears the door of the lodge open up again, and he sees Derek standing there, looking concerned.

“Hey,” Stiles quietly greets, giving him a weak smile. Derek comes and sits next to Stiles, who proceeds to lean his head on Derek’s shoulder. “People fucking suck.”

“I heard.”

“Of course you did,” Stiles groans. “You can’t always listen in on my conversations, Derek.”

“I know, but I didn’t trust those guys,” Derek replies. He picks up the half eaten sandwich and takes a bite. Swallowing, he puts his hand on Stiles’ thigh. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Stiles lies. Derek glances over at Stiles, and that’s Derek’s way of telling him that he knows it’s a lie. “Let’s just finish getting ready for tonight, yeah?” He presses a quick kiss on Derek’s cheek and gets up from the table while Derek puts the rest of the sandwich back down on the plate. 

Derek catches up with Stiles, who takes his hand and intertwines their fingers. 

—

Stiles is ecstatic when he sees Wyatt hanging out with Cooper, Carter, Quincy, and Ameer. Wyatt looks almost good as new, like he wasn’t caged in a random trailer with a bunch of other kids. Wyatt admits to them that he’s not surprised that he got taken earlier, especially because Cody witnessed him shift one morning. Stiles feels guilty because he mentioned to Monroe that Wyatt was sick, but Wyatt didn’t seem to care. Instead, he gives Stiles a giant hug and runs off with the rest of the group.

If there is one thing that Stiles is going to miss, it’s going to be spending all this time with the kids. He also loves watching Derek interact with Stiles’ campers, and he can see how much they all really like Derek. 

“Do you always look that grumpy?” Quincy asks Derek, handing him a nail. Derek looks down from the step stool and takes the nail from him. 

“I don’t look grumpy,” Derek mutters as he starts to hammer the nail in the piece of wood. Derek is helping Stiles put up a terrible hand made sign that says “TALENT SHOW” in big, red letters on the back of the stage. 

“Yes you do,” Quincy says. “You look like you want to kill someone.”

Derek finishes what he’s doing and looks down at Quincy again. “I’m going to kill you if you don’t give me another nail.” 

Stiles perks his head up and smacks Derek on the leg. Quincy doesn’t seem phased by Derek’s comment, instead he does exactly what Derek wants and hands him another nail. 

“Stiles, can I go find Wyatt and help him?”

“Sure. He’s in the kitchen with Scott and Kira,” Stiles answers. Quincy nods his head and runs off towards the lodge. 

“He’s too much like you,” Derek comments. 

“What does that mean?”

“Loud and obnoxious,” Derek replies, smirking. Stiles rolls his eyes and smacks Derek’s leg again. “Hey! Careful, I’m on a step stool.”

“Well you should’ve thought about that before insulting my charming personality.” Stiles takes a step back from the stage to get a better look at it. “Hey, actually, the sign is a little crooked.”

“I am not fixing it,” Derek tells him, his tone giving Stiles a warning. “It looks fine to me.” 

“Come on, Derek, we just need to move it over to the left a little there.”

“No. Do you know how long it took for us to just get it to this point?”

—

Derek is unhappy at first about moving the sign over to the left a little, but Stiles knows he quickly got over it when he kisses him as a thank you.

—

The stage is as good as it’s going to get. Sure, it’s not the most perfect thing, but it’s perfect to them and that’s really all that matters.

When evening hits, Malia, Jackson, and Lydia help get the kids who are performing all ready. Stiles overhears Jackson talking to one of the kids about their magic tricks, so he pretends to tie his shoe to hear what he’s saying.

“Josue, you’re freaking out over nothing, it’s going to be fine,” Jackson tells the kid. Stiles recognizes him from Cody’s cabin. 

“What if I suck?”

“Then you suck. If you’re going to suck you might as well do it with confidence,” Jackson responds. 

“You give terrible advice,” Josue deadpans. Jackson shrugs his shoulders. “I guess you’re right.”

“I’m always right,” Jackson says as he pats Josue on the shoulder. “Now go wait in line for your turn, the show is about to start.” Josue nods his head and runs over to the other group of kids who are also performing. Stiles stands up after pretending to tie his shoe and walks over to Jackson. 

“Dude, what kind of advice was that?” Stiles laughs.

“The best advice I can give to a kid who has no idea how to do magic tricks properly.”

“And you can?”

“Fuck no, do I look like someone who would be interested in magic tricks?” Jackson retorts. “Don’t you have anything better to do than to stand here and critique my advice?”

Stiles nudges Jackson’s shoulder. “You’re right, my bad.”

“Lydia decided to MC the talent show,” Jackson states. Stiles looks at the crowd of kids that are sitting on the field, and they’re all loudly talking to each other. He sees Derek in the crowd next to Scott and Kira, and he gives him a small wave. Derek waves back at Stiles with a smile. Jackson watches this interaction and dramatically gags. “You two are disgusting, you know that?”

“No we’re not,” Stiles argues, rolling his eyes. “Who is going first?”

“Not sure, but we’ll find out.” 

Lydia walks on the questionable stage and the crowd starts to clap.

“Good evening, campers!” Lydia says as she brings the microphone to her lips. “Thank you to everyone for volunteering to help make this last event happen.” The crowd claps again, some kids even cheering a little. “Anyway, let’s give it up to our first performer, Drew Caldwell from Bear Cabin!” 

Drew slowly walks on the stage, which starts to wobble a little bit. Stiles tries not to notice it because he knows it’ll freak him out, but they didn’t do that bad of a job. Whatever, it’ll be fine.

Drew takes the microphone from Lydia who walks off the stage. Drew brings the microphone up to his mouth and starts breathing heavily, causing everyone to shift their bodies a little due to being uncomfortable. 

“Hi,” Drew mutters. “Uh, I’m going to be beatboxing. Hope you like it.”

The noises coming out of Drew’s mouth causes Stiles to slap his hand over his mouth to try and stifle his laughter. He’s not necessarily laughing at Drew being bad, but more so because this kid is so off beat that it just…doesn’t sound pleasing to the ears. Jackson covers his ears, making it blatantly obvious that the kid is bad.

After what feels like an eternity, Drew finally stops beatboxing. He takes a bow on stage, and no one claps for a second until Stiles sees that Scott starts to slowly clap. People start to follow his actions and the crowd is just awkwardly clapping. Drew bows again and runs off the stage, shoving the microphone in Lydia’s hands.

As the evening goes on, they watch kids do other things like dance, some of them sing acapella together, and some kids even do some yo-yo tricks on stage. Stiles is pretty impressed with some of them.

When Josue gets on stage, Jackson takes it upon himself to clap loudly and cheer for him, which causes Stiles to do a double take. Jackson notices this and shrugs his shoulders. “Am I not allowed to cheer for him?”

“Well you basically told him he sucked so,” Stiles says. “Guess you’re just throwing out mixed signals.” 

“I didn’t tell him he sucked,” Jackson corrects. “I told him that if he sucks then it’s not a big deal.”

Josue walks on stage and doesn’t bother to take the microphone from Lydia. Instead, he just goes straight into it. He starts to pull a long rope from his pocket, which causes some of the crowd to make some curious noises. Once the rope falls on the stage, he then takes out a card and makes it look like it’s levitating. 

Once he finishes that trick, he looks around and takes a bow, not saying a single word. He runs off stage while everyone cheers for him.

“What a weird kid, he told me he had three tricks. That was only two?” Jackson questions. 

“Maybe running off stage was his third trick, or maybe his last trick was all an illusion?”

“Shut up, Stilinski.”

Stiles laughs as Lydia walks back on stage.

“Alright everyone, our last performance of the night is our one and only Quincy Jacobs from Raspberry Cabin! Let’s give our last performer a huge welcome.” 

Stiles excuses himself from Jackson and makes his way to the first row. He takes a seat between Carter and Cooper, who scooch over to make some room for him. When everyone sees Quincy make his way on stage, the crowd goes wild. Quincy grabs the guitar that Malia is holding out for him. 

Quincy puts the guitar strap over his shoulder while Lydia runs over and grabs the microphone stand. She places it in front of Quincy and puts the microphone in place, and she takes time adjusting it to where he’s comfortable. Once he gives her a sign that he’s ready to go, Lydia pats his arm and walks off the stage. 

The crowd watches as Quincy coughs a little, and it echoes throughout the field. 

“Uh, hey. I’m just going to cover my favorite song.”

Quincy starts to play the guitar, and Stiles didn’t even realize that Quincy could sing either, so he is cheering his fucking head off because holy shit, this kid is so impressive. Stiles doesn’t even recognize the song at all, but he can guarantee that Quincy’s cover is probably ten times better than the original.

When Quincy finishes his performance, he takes the guitar off and takes a bow. Stiles stands up from the ground and cheers. Lydia walks back on stage, clapping her hands. She takes the microphone off the stand while Quincy walks off the stage.

“Alright everyone, that’s all for the talent show!” Lydia says, and Stiles jumps on the stage, making it wobble even more, causing Lydia to lose a little balance. Stiles apologizes as he takes the microphone from Lydia. Once Stiles recognizes that all these kids are staring at him, he nervously waves at everyone.

“Hi,” Stiles says, and no one says anything back to him. He sees Derek, who has his arms crossed and is watching Stiles like a hawk. “Um, I just want to say that these last couple weeks have been amazing, so thank you for letting us hang out with you.”

Everyone starts to clap for Stiles’ lame excuse for a speech, and he hands the microphone back to Lydia who starts to instruct everyone to bring things back to where they belong. As everyone starts standing up from sitting on the ground, people start to grab certain items and they start to trudge it back over to the camp.

When they’re done putting things away (which, Stiles doesn’t even know why they’re doing because they don’t even know what’s going to happen to this place), they start to make their way back to their cabins to start packing up and get ready for bed.

Stiles walks with his campers and when they make it back to their cabin, they all crash on their own bunks and just lay there for a moment in silence. 

“Hey, Stiles,” Ameer says while he yawns. This causes Stiles to yawn, but he makes a grunt to acknowledge Ameer. “Where were you?” 

“What do you mean?” Stiles asks, playing dumb. He doesn’t want to explain anything bad to these kids, but he can’t really hide much when he still has visible injuries. 

“You look like someone beat you up,” Carter pipes up. “Who did it?”

“No one, I just fell on a night hike with Scott,” Stiles lies. “It’s not that big of a deal, guys.”

Cooper sits up in his bunk and looks at Stiles concerned, but then focuses his attention on Wyatt. “How did Wyatt come back from home? I thought he was sick.”

“It’s a long story,” Wyatt replies, shrugging. “I was feeling better and begged my mom to bring me back.”

Stiles can tell that none of the boys believe them, but they don’t push it any further. Instead, they change the subject and start gushing over Quincy’s performance. Quincy is sitting on his bunk, his face getting flushed. Quincy finally tells everyone to leave him alone, so they all start going through the cabin and start to pack up their things, but they still make sure to bring up his performance a few more times.

“Hey, does this mean we don’t get a cleaning award?” Hudson asks. “I haven’t seen Gabe at all. Do you think that he forgot?”

“Gabe went with Ms. Monroe,” Stiles replies, quickly glancing at Wyatt. “You don’t need an award to show how clean our place was. We already know we won.”

Hudson lets out a huff. “What if the Blueberry Cabin was cleaner than ours?”

“Impossible,” Cooper says. “I’ve been in that cabin and their place was actually pretty gross. Gabe was just pulling your leg, Hudson.”

“Wait, why was it gross?” Ameer asks while he shoves a shirt in his bag.

“Because girls live there, duh,” Carter answers, giggling. The other boys let out a small laugh and nod their head in agreement. 

While everyone finishes up packing, Stiles makes sure that all the kids are laying in their bunk. 

“I’m going to be out for a little bit helping the others pack up things, will you guys be okay?” Stiles asks. They all in unison say yes and Stiles nods his head. “Alright, I’ll be back. Goodnight, you guys.”

Stiles walks out of the cabin, shoving his hands in his hoodie pockets. He walks over to Derek’s cabin and walks up the steps. Stiles doesn’t even have to knock on the door, because Derek is already standing there with the door wide open. Stiles smiles at him as he walks inside. Derek shuts the door behind Stiles, and when he turns around, Stiles grabs Derek’s shirt collar and pulls him in for a kiss.

They spend that night under a heavy plaid blanket, placing soft kisses everywhere on each other's bodies wherever they can. Derek makes sure to let Stiles know in his own way that he missed him, and Stiles gladly lets Derek make it up to him. 

After a while, they go to sleep later than intended, but when Stiles feels Derek pulling him closer in the bed, he can’t help but feel like his heart is going to explode. 

He’s finally able to sleep with the love of his life by his side, and it’s the best sleep he’s had in six months.

Week 2, Day 7

Derek wakes Stiles up early to push him to go back to his cabin to make it look like he came back at some point during the night. After a few morning breath kisses, Stiles slips on his shoes and runs out the door, heading towards his cabin.

When he walks in, he makes sure to be as quiet as possible. The boys are still fast asleep, and Stiles grabs his phone off the charger and sees that it’s only six in the morning. The buses are supposed to be in the parking lot around eight in the morning, so that gives him two hours to make sure that everything is all ready to go. He decides to let the boys sleep for another half hour, so he walks back outside and stands on the deck of the cabin.

He takes in the view around him, which is really just a bunch of ugly, worn down cabins and a bunch of trees. He hears the cabin next to them open their front door, and out comes Paul, who is stretching out his arms and yawning. Paul seems to notice that Stiles is staring, because he turns his head and looks at Stiles with a sleepy smile.

“Good morning,” Paul says. Stiles just nods his head in acknowledgement. He’s still pretty pissed about the conversation they had yesterday, but they’re all leaving each other in two hours, and Stiles is positive he’s never going to see this guy ever again. “You excited to leave?” Paul asks.

“Uh, yeah,” he answers. “I mean this in the nicest way possible, but fuck this place.” 

Paul lets out a laugh. “Yeah, I get it. This was definitely not the start of summer I had in mind.” He looks over at Stiles, looks down, looks back at Stiles, then walks down the steps and goes over to stand by him. Stiles makes some room, and they both lean against the railing of the deck. “So…all your friends are–”

“Yeah.”

“And you are?”

“Human.”

“Huh,” Paul clicks his tongue and looks up at the sky. “I thought you’d be something cool.”

“Nope. Just your regular human who seems to attract everything supernatural you could possibly think of.”

“You’re a good guy, Stiles,” Paul comments. The compliment comes out of nowhere, and he shoots Paul a confused look. Paul’s not even looking at him, he just keeps staring up at the sky. “You went out of your way to try and find your friends and the kids and you didn’t even think about the consequences. You could’ve died, you know.”

“I know,” Stiles says, frowning.

He lightly punches Stiles’ arm. “Seriously, I know we didn’t talk much, but I think anyone can see that you’d do anything for your friends.” Paul stretches his arms again. “Anyway, I’m going to head back to my cabin and start packing up. See you in the lot?”

“Yeah, see you there,” Stiles says. Paul leaves his side and goes back to his cabin, which prompts Stiles to go back inside of his. When he walks inside, he sees that Cooper, Carter, and Ameer are slowly waking up. “Hey, good morning.”

“Morning,” Cooper yawns. Ameer and Carter don’t say anything, they just stare at the wall, brinkley slowly. 

“We get to go home today,” Stiles announces as if the boys didn’t already know that. 

“Not ready to go home yet,” Carter tells Stiles, rubbing his eyes. 

“I’m sure you’ll change your mind when you’re getting ready to hop on that bus,” Stiles replies. “Come on, let’s start getting up and cleaning up the cabin a bit.”

Stiles softly wakes up Hudson, Quincy, and Wyatt, who try to fight with him about sleeping in a little bit longer. When the two boys finally stop whining, all six of them finish packing up their stuff. Stiles forgets that he let Wyatt borrow his sleeping bag, and while he appreciates Wyatt trying to roll it back up, Stiles has to redo the entire process. 

All of them grab their duffle bags and start to make their way over to the front of the lodge where they patiently wait for everyone else to meet them. Stiles looks around and sees that Paul’s cabin slowly follows them, which Paul walks up to Stiles and puts his hand up as if he wants a high five. Stiles hesitantly gives him one, and Paul gives Stiles’ a friendly slap on the shoulder.

He finally sees Derek come out of his cabin, and he just finds it so hard to believe that Derek Hale is his boyfriend. Well, maybe he shouldn’t say boyfriend, that hadn’t really talked about that yet. But he kind of is, right? 

Derek walks towards Stiles and gives him a small smile. “Need help with your bag?” 

“No, I got it,” Stiles replies. “It’s not that heavy.”

“Well mine is really heavy,” Hudson exaggerates, tugging on Derek’s shirt to get his attention. Derek raises his eyebrow as he looks down at him. “Like, super heavy. I can barely lift it up.” 

“Really? Because you didn’t seem to have a problem carrying it out of the cabin,” Stiles points out. Hudson smacks Stiles’ arm (and what is with everyone smacking him this morning?). 

“Shut up, Stiles, I was really struggling.”

“It’s true,” Wyatt speaks up. The three boys look over at him who is standing there, grinning. “Hudson is having a really hard time with his bag. Derek, you should help him.” 

“Okay, is there like some conspiracy going on or something?” Stiles asks, and Derek is just as confused as Stiles. 

“We just don’t think it’s fair that you have someone offering to carry your bags but not offering to carry our bags,” Carter butts in. “Derek seems like a tough guy, he can carry all of our bags.”

“Oh, did Derek agree to carry our bags?” Ameer asks, walking up to the group. “Thank goodness.” Ameer picks up his duffle bag that’s next to Carter and places it in front of Derek. “You’re the best, Derek.” And with that, Ameer takes off to go hang out with his old cabin mates for one last time.

Derek looks down at the duffle bag that’s in front of him and sighs. He picks it up, and Stiles shakes his head. 

As everyone starts to gather around the lodge, Stiles sees Scott and runs up to him. 

“Hey!” Stiles greets, and he can see that Scott’s eyes light up, almost as if Scott has been waiting to see him. 

“Remember when I said that we should’ve left Timmy behind?” Scott asks him, and Stiles nods his head. “We should’ve left him.”

“That’s messed up, dude,” Stiles says, stifling a laugh. “You do realize he was fully kidnapped, right? Lightly tortured and all?”

“Stiles, he thought it would be funny to pull a prank last night,” Scott argues. “It wasn’t even a good one!”

“Well what did he do?”

“Apparently, Timmy and Goob decided to go into Gabe’s office and found a small container of shaving cream–” 

“Let me guess, they waited until you were asleep and they put shaving cream in your hand?”

“And they took a stupid feather and tickled my nose? Yeah,” Scott grumbles. “That’s exactly what they did.”

“Okay, no offense, but that’s on you. You’re a werewolf with super hearing, how did you not hear them?”

“I was sleeping,” Scott answers, rolling his eyes. “Either way, they suck.”

“Well, luckily you don’t ever have to see Goob and Timmy again.” Stiles says, taking a look around. Once he realizes that everyone is present, he wraps his arm around Scott’s shoulders.“Let’s hurry up and go home.”

—

“Do you have everything?” Stiles asks the group of kids. The six of them nod their heads, and Stiles can’t help but feel a little emotional about saying goodbye. “Okay, look, here’s the thing, I’m super shitty with goodbyes–”

Quincy runs up and gives Stiles a hug, cutting him off. Stiles is shocked at first, but then he smiles and hugs him back. 

“I just want to say thank you,” Quincy says, his voice muffled. He pulls away and Stiles ruffles the kid’s hair. 

“Hey, if you ever make it big, make sure you send me some free concert tickets, okay?” 

“Deal,” Quincy says. He grabs his duffle bag and walks on the bus. Carter comes up to Stiles next and hugs him, and Stiles of course hugs him back. Carter doesn’t really say much other than a thank you, and he follows Quincy onto the bus.

One by one, the boys say their goodbyes to Stiles, each of them giving him a hug. Wyatt is the last one to say goodbye. He looks around, making sure that not a lot of people are around them.

“Hey, Stiles,” Wyatt starts. “I’m really going to miss you.”

“I’m gonna miss you, too, buddy,” Stiles says. He can feel the tears start prickling his eyes, but he is not going to cry in front of Wyatt. Sniffling, he pulls Wyatt in another hug. “Seriously, stay safe out there, okay?”

“We’ll see each other again, right?” Wyatt asks. 

“Hopefully, but maybe not at a summer camp that’s run by a bunch of hunters,” Stiles answers. “Now go get on the bus before it leaves you.” 

Wyatt nods his head and grabs his duffle bag and makes his way to the bus. He takes one last look at Stiles before waving at him. 

Stiles watches as the rest of the kids pile on the buses, and Derek comes up behind Stiles and places his hand on his shoulder. Stiles takes Derek’s hand and holds onto it. This feels weirdly domestic, almost like they’re sending their own kids off.

The bus door closes once all the kids are on them, and the teenagers run behind the buses and start waving frantically at them, telling the kids goodbye.

When the buses are out of sight, Stiles turns around and faces his group of friends. Katie, Joseph, and Paul are already far away from them. Paul looks over his shoulder and waves at them, which they all wave back. Once they’re all alone, Stiles lets out a sigh.

“Holy shit,” Stiles exclaims. “Talk about insane, am I right?” 

“We’re never doing anything like this again,” Malia declares. “If anyone ever mentions camp again, I will personally kill you myself.”

“Do you think the kids who were taken will be alright?” Kira asks softly.

“I hope so,” Lydia answers. 

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Jackson says. “I don’t ever want to see this place again. Come on, Lydia. We’ll see you guys back home.”

“Sounds good,” Scott tells him. Lydia and Jackson wave at them goodbye and make their way over to Lydia’s car. Stiles watches them as they shove their bags in the trunk of Lydia’s car and watch them get inside. After a moment, they start to drive away, leaving only Malia, Kira, Scott, Derek, and Stiles alone.

“You know,” Scott starts. “Even though this place sucked, I had a lot of fun. There’s no place like summer camp, you know?”

“That’s nice, most of my fun got taken away when I was trapped in a storage room,” Stiles deadpans. Scott rolls his eyes. “Almost died, you know.”

“Yeah, we’re aware,” Malia grumbles. “You don’t need to remind us every five seconds, I was right there with you.”

“So what’s going to happen to this place?” Kira questions. 

“Who knows, who cares,” Malia replies. “Seriously, can we leave now?” Kira nods her head. 

“Do you want to ride with us, Scott?” Kira asks her boyfriend. Scott shakes his head. 

“No, I’m going to go with Stiles. I’ll see you when we get back to Beacon Hills, okay?” Scott leans down and places a small kiss on Kira’s cheek. Kira and Malia make their way over to Kira’s car. The three boys watch the two girls place their bags in the car and watch them drive away once they’re settled.

“So–”

“I’m going to wait in the car,” Scott tells Stiles, cutting him off. He hands Scott the keys to the Jeep. “Just, uh, come when you’re ready.”

Leaving Stiles and Derek alone, they wait until Scott is further away and gets inside the Jeep. 

“Are you going to come back? To Beacon Hills?” Stiles can’t help but ask. 

“That’s the plan,” Derek answers. “I don’t plan on leaving you any time soon.”

The question that Stiles is dreading on asking. “What about when I’m in college?”

“Then I’ll follow you,” Derek murmurs, and he doesn’t even fucking hesitate with his answer.

And this is the conversation that Stiles is scared to have. Really? In the middle of a parking lot of a place that Stiles is probably never going to stop thinking about? He doesn’t want Derek to up his entire life and follow Stiles. What if they don’t work out? What if they’re stuck in this honeymoon phase and it’s not actually all rainbows and butterflies–

“Stiles, what are you thinking?” Derek interrupts his thought. Stiles doesn’t say anything at first, so Derek takes Stiles’ hands and holds them. He gently rubs his wrists where the ligature marks are, and Stiles automatically pulls his hands back. Derek isn’t shocked by this, but he looks more concerned. 

“You’ll follow me?” He asks, searching Derek’s eyes for confirmation. “Anywhere I go?”

“Anywhere,” Derek confirms. “I want this, Stiles. Do you?”

God, he wants it more than anything. He frantically nods his head. “Yeah,” he whispers. “I do.”

And that’s all Derek needs before he’s pulling Stiles in for a kiss. Stiles wraps his arms around Derek’s neck and presses his forehead against his. It doesn’t take long for Derek to lean in and press his lips against Stiles’ again, but before they can do anything else, he hears a blaring of a horn that clearly belongs to his Jeep.

The two of them separate and look over and see Scott sitting in the front seat, continuously slamming on the horn. He rolls down the window and pokes his head out.

“As happy as I am that you guys are, like, together again, I would like to maybe not watch you two make out,” Scott calls out. Stiles flips Scott off, and he can hear his best friend laughing as he rolls the window back up.

“See you back home?” Stiles asks.

“See you there.”

Derek kisses Stiles once more before walking back to his car, and Stiles can’t help but stand in place, dumbfounded.

If someone would’ve told Stiles that a stupid summer camp would have brought Derek back to him, he wouldn’t have believed them.

As Stiles walks towards his own car, he watches Scott move back to the passenger seat. Stiles opens the door and crawls in the driver’s seat. 

“Hey, wait a second,” Scott says. Stiles turns the key to start the ignition, and he looks over at Scott, confused.

“What?”

“Do you think I’m still going to get my credits?” Scott asks, and Stiles can’t help but burst out laughing, but Scott is looking more terrified. “Dude, this isn’t funny. Oh my god, my mom is going to seriously kill me!” 

While Stiles drives the Jeep out of the parking lot and Scott is externally freaking out, he can’t help but quietly thank the universe for Scott and his shitty attendance that got them here in the first place.