[Sterek] Cupboard Love (boyxboy) (complete)

Chapter 23

After that it's two weeks of classes during which Stiles' professors remind everyone that they still have to hand in even more papers while studying for finals and going to class. Stiles cooks for Derek but he barely sees him, and the Sunday before finals he actually just finds a pile of cash on the kitchen island with a note that says Good luck with finals.

After shoving the food into the fridge, Stiles fumbles a pen out of his bag, flips the note over and scrawls Thanks. Maybe see you in BH over xmas?

Finals are brutal. While his ADD symptoms have improved over the years with different study techniques so Stiles doesn't have to take as much adderall any more, it's still really difficult to sit in a massive lecture hall and write a test for three hours. At least as a computer science major some of his finals are actually labs or assignments instead of actual tests.

By the time finals week is over Stiles feels like the little indent on his index finger from writing so hard might be permanent. That doesn't stop him from going to a massive house party with some of the people in his class to celebrate, though, which is why he's a little hungover when he picks Lydia up again from Oakland.

"What, no sign, no cheering?" She calls out when she sees him. "Did you fail? I thought you were too smart to fail."

"I need more coffee," Stiles groans, dropping his head to her shoulder, "but there isn't enough coffee in the world."

Lydia takes his mostly-empty cup from him and swigs the last of it. "I think there's an airport Starbucks in here. We'll get two for the road," she says generously, and steals his keys while she's at it.

Despite the nine and a half hour flight, Lydia is much more awake than Stiles and volunteers to drive, which is great because until Stiles gets a greasy breakfast into him and another six hours of sleep he maybe shouldn't be driving. Lydia, on the other hand, slept on the plane.

"You can take a nap, Stiles, it's not like I'm not going to see you while we're home," she offers, but Stiles scrubs at his face and his hair, sits up straight, and grabs one of her trivia books out of her bag.

"I'm good. Let's learn about - oh god - Canada? Really?"

"Canadian provinces are in the test questions and Trebek is Canadian. Hit me."