"I'm so cold!" Lydia moaned, wishing Jackson was better at warming her up, her eyes roaming over the arms which were flung over her shoulders and doing none of those lovely rubbing up and down warming movements.

"Stop complaining." Stiles told her through chattering teeth as they all made for the cliffs at the edge of the beach, hoping to find some shelter to set their tents up in. Stiles was unsure if they were actually allowed to camp on the beach – something about high tides – but he was sure they'd be okay by the cliffs. They had spent a wonderful – meticulously photographed by Stiles – few hours exploring together, fishing trough the small pools in clusters of rocks to find little sea creatures, picking shells and barnacles that had washed up on the beach, Stiles even got got Scott to make a sandcastle with him. But now they needed somewhere to sleep. Derek led them all up a narrow, precarious path of natural rock, onto low shelves covered in sea weed – clearly the tide came up here. Glancing up, he decided to try for a higher spot. Stiles, Lydia, and Allison struggled along as Jackson, Derek, and Scott ran forward, their wolf bodies well able to handle the cold and the trek.

"This isn't fair!" Allison shouted up at Scott, who was stood on an outcropping with his fists resting on thrust out hips. Allison blushed when she noticed his stance, the wind blowing his shorts back and making his most intimate parts very obvious.

"Put it away!" Stiles said in mock horror as he finally reached the outcropping, almost giving Scott a playful shove which would have probably resulted in a very much dead wolf at the bottom of the cliff, but his arm was roughly grabbed by Derek, just in time.

"Are you sure its safe up here?" Lydia's bottom lip trembled as she looked down, she hadn't realised how high they'd came up.

"No." Derek's reply did little to calm her.

"How about here?" Jackson shouted from his position a little way ahead of them. The shelf they were on was relatively large and completely seaweed free, as they approached Jackson they noticed it dipped a little, and more space was available behind a few large rocks that had created a cave of sorts by the base of the wall.

"What if a rock falls down and kills us?" Stiles asked nervously as he glanced up, expecting a huge boulder to come and smash him in the head any second.

"We'll set up the tents here." Derek motioned to the sort of scoop into the cliffs face, looking like a giant had came with a spade and scooped out a huge chunk of rock. It offered them protection from the relentless wind as well as safety from any of the unlikely falling rocks.

"This is great!" Stiles beamed as he sat down on the sandy coloured stone, sighing when he felt how much warmer it was. "This is what the trips all about," he said to no one and everyone at once, "just being spontaneous and stuff, finding a rock to camp under and setting up shop!"

"Yeah, yeah, it's real sentimental – now help me with our tent." Derek growled, taking the tent off his back and unfurling it. Scott and Allison did the same on one side of them, while Jackson tried to get Lydia to help him but failed miserably. Setting up the tents turned out to be much harder work than anyone had imagined. The wind made it almost impossible to work, it was warmer and much less winder than it was beyond their rock-wall, true, but it was still pretty damn windy, and things had to be firmly secured to the ground with the help of numerous clumps of stone as they set up. Another problem was trying to tie the tents down, there was no grass for the pegs to go into, and while Allison had found a few cracks in the rocks to secure hers and Scott's with, the other two tents had to be practically filled with rocks on the inside edges to keep them down.

"I'm going inside this tent now and I won't be coming out until tomorrow, when we go to San Francisco and actual civilisation." Lydia fumed before she vanished into the small blue tent.

"How about a fire?" Stiles smiled at everyone from under his three hoodies.

"I dunno man," Scott said, wanting to please his best friend but really not wanting to stay out in the wind any longer than was necessary, especially as the sun was beginning to set and he could be with Allison. "I mean, I'm pretty beat..." He scratched the back of his head as he spoke, looking anywhere but at Stiles.

"Oh." Stiles' face fell. "Well, okay then, have a good night." He bit his bottom lip to stop it trembling as Scott and Allison's guilty faces disappeared into their own green tent. "I suppose you're going to bed too." He didn't look at Derek as he spoke, but he knew that Derek would be able to sense how upset he was.

"Stiles, I'm sorry about these guys." He put a comforting hand on Stiles' shoulder before gesturing to the figure of Jackson, a little way down the cliff, trying to find some wood for a fire, "at least he's up for it, right?" Derek felt like he was being patronising and hated it, but he didn't know what to say – he didn't do well with upset people.

"Oh yeah – Jackson." Stiles snorted, roughly shaking Derek's hand from his shoulder. "My best friend, my biggest fan, a real laugh riot." He wished he had some grass to sullenly pick it. Rolling a rock through his hands had to do instead.

"He's kind of funny." Derek said warily, not even convincing himself. He busied himself with pulling out the fire lighters and making a small circle of rocks for a fire. He was tired, hadn't slept since 5 AM, but he could see how much Stiles wanted to do something.

"We're supposed to be having a friends trip, having fun together, and the only guys who actually want to do anything are the two people here that hate me the most. All we need for a perfect Stiles Stilinski hate club is Lydia." He was glad Lydia would have her ear plugs in and wouldn't be able to hear him. Even without them, the wind hitting her tent repeatedly made annoying flapping sounds that made the voices outside sound like an alien language.

"I don't hate you." Derek stopped what he was doing and looked at Stiles, a little shocked.

"Try convincing a jury." Stiles muttered, throwing the rock away and looking at his feet.

"Stiles, I really don't hate you. I promise. Do you think I would have came on a road trip with you if I hated you?" Derek was confused; he didn't exactly love Stiles but he did enjoy his company every now and then, today had just been trying for him. Capitol Park had brought back memories he didn't want to revisit, and besides, he thought he had been pretty nice to Stiles. For the most part, that is. "Look, it's only our first night, there'll be plenty more like this for everyone to enjoy." Stiles just continued looking at his feet.

"I'm awesome." Jackson said proudly as he returned with an arm full of dry twigs – luckily Allison had taught him that wet ones really wouldn't work.

"Thanks." Derek took the twigs from his arms and began the arduous process of trying to light a fire. It had started out as just Stiles wanting one to try and recreate some camping fantasy, but now all three boys were desperate for the warmth it would give. Jackson was directed to different cracks in the wall of rocks that protected them to stop the wind while Derek got a little bit lit at a time, using a copy of The New Scientist - that Jackson had pulled confusedly out of Lydia's bag – as the starting point for the flames. By the time Stiles emerged from the tent, where he had zipped himself in to try and bear through his bad mood, the sun was almost completely gone, just a sliver of orange left on the horizon. Derek sighed in relief when Stiles finally came out, he had began to think that he was going to stay in the tent all night.

"Smore anyone?" The grin couldn't be kept off his face as he held up a bag of marshmallows.

"No chocolate for me." Jackson said with a shake of his handsome head as he accepted two crackers and a marshmallow, grabbing one of the sticks that they hadn't lit and shoving the little pink ball of sweetness onto the end.

"This is more like it!" Stiles said happily as he devoured his fourth smore, taking a picture of Derek with his, who, surprisingly, didn't throw the camera away. Their faces were lit by the orange glow of the flames as they laughed and joked amongst themselves. Stiles found himself surprised that Jackson actually made some funny and interesting points once in a while, though it was of course punctuated by remarks about wealth, beauty, and material goods. Still feeling bad for how he'd treated Derek earlier, he turned to him while Jackson was focused on his image in the inverted camera of his without signal phone. "I'm sorry for what I said." Stiles willed himself not to look away.

"Forget about it, I'm glad you made me stay up with your dramatics, I'm actually having fun." Derek shot him a wistful smile, putting a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

"Uh – well, you're welcome. Thanks for um – making the fire, because I probably wouldn't have, you know, came back out or whatever." Stiles ears were burning, and it wasn't because of the fire.

"Do you two wanna be alone?" Jackson joked as he took in the sight of Derek's hand on Stiles' shoulder. A reassuring touch from his alpha wasn't surprising, but he was making no move to take the hand away, leaving Jackson confused.

"Shut up." Derek said a little too quickly, glad that Jackson was a wolf and would bow to his authority, though he probably would have even if he was still human, Derek was pretty intimidating.

"Well, I'm beat." Jackson said, surprisingly using some initiative, taking his final bow and gladly accepting Stiles' praise for collecting sticks before vanishing into the tent were Lydia was already sleeping. Derek and Stiles sat up a while longer, roasting more marshmallows and just eating them straight off the stick. The red on Stiles' ears spread when he found himself imagining what it would be like to feed Derek one. The feeling he was having was strange and unexpected, apart from the few strange comments earlier in the day Derek had never shown any romantic interest in him, and he had never felt any back. He put it down to the romantic, other worldly feeling of the beach.

"I wish we could go walk it." Stiles said as he gazed into the flames, desperate to recreate his perfect fantasies of a beach camping trip. He already had the washed up souvenirs to account for one part of his fantasy; already had the laughter under the sun for another part; and had the marshmallows by the camp fire as the third part. He knew how cheesy it was, but he wanted the midnight walk on the sand, and he didn't care if Derek would be the unlikely partner to his romantic fantasy.

"Let's go then. I have pretty good eyesight." Derek tapped the flesh next to his eyes, laughing along as Stiles realised his heightened eyesight would enable him to make sure they didn't fall. The moon was pretty bright anyway. Stiles beamed as Derek pulled him to his feet, guiding him to the edge of the outcropping from behind with both hands on his shoulders. Stiles could see where he was going perfectly, but he wasn't telling Derek to let go any time soon.