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They don’t have a minivan, okay? It’s a sport utility crossover vehicle, Stiles. It’s utilitarian, and it makes sense, and considering Stiles once called the Camaro a “penis replacement,” it’s kind of hypocritical of him to knock the Toyota, too. Stiles’ Jeep — which Derek is convinced only runs on magic at this point because the thing’s long overdue for the scrap heap, not that he’d ever say that to Stiles out loud — doesn’t even have airbags, much less room for the carseat. One of them has to be the grown-up, especially since they took in the kids, and it’s not like Stiles is volunteering.
He doesn’t volunteer to drive on their first family road trip, either. He does call shotgun, loudly and obnoxiously, and actually engages in a footrace with Adam to get to the passenger seat; the only reason he wins is that Adam isn’t actually trying that hard, and also Stiles cheats by giving himself a head start. Adam gives it just enough effort to make a good show of it, and then races back to help Derek carry out the cooler and the sleeping bags — since Stiles isn’t helping — and then helps with the harness when Derek gets Lena into her carseat — since Stiles isn’t helping — and they all pretend not to hear Stiles gloating from inside the car, because that would only encourage him.
Mostly, Stiles isn’t very helpful on road trips, never has been. He eats a lot of Twizzlers that make his breath smell like stale wax, he’s the worst navigator in the history of time because he keeps flipping away from his GPS to play some obnoxiously noisy new game on his phone, and he doesn’t offer to drive even once.
It’s probably because he knows Derek wouldn’t take him up on it anyway, but it doesn’t matter, because road trips with Stiles have always been kind of amazing. The first time they did this, driving to San Francisco and back to pick up some specialty items from a magic dealer, Stiles nearly killed them both with his determination to give road head, and instead of spending the night like Derek usually would have — by himself, driving straight home, even through the night — they got a hotel room and fucked themselves silly. Stiles spent the whole drive back moaning about his strained muscles and acting like he had some kind of sex-hangover and convincing Derek to pull into three separate rest stops because Stiles needed “a break from the road,” which turned out to actually mean he wanted to make out on a picnic table, fuck into Derek’s hand, blow Derek against a redwood tree. In that order.
They were new then, still skin-hungry all the time, but it’s not like they’ve changed much. Gotten older, maybe. More domesticated. They have to squeeze the sex in when they can now, because of the kids, and Derek never imagined having to schedule that, but it’s not a sacrifice, not really.
This trip, Stiles spends easily half the ride twisted around in his seat, entertaining the kids, playing stupid license-plate spotting games, coming up with completely made-up facts about the landmarks they’re passing, engaging Adam in a series of challenges that Derek doesn’t admit out loud that he’s impressed by.
"I’ll bet you can’t shift just your right thumbnail into a claw," Stiles says, and Adam struggles but he finally does it, crows triumphantly, even though the claw shifts back again the moment his attention wanders. The game goes on like that for awhile, and Adam even manages most of it — shifts into just his baby-fuzz facial hair, just his brow, just his teeth, even if only for a split second before he loses control of it, and of course this isn’t the first time they’ve done this, of course Stiles is solving all of Adam’s shift-control problems with an escalating series of dares. He’s ridiculous.
It takes a lot of effort for Derek not to pull off at the next rest area sign, not to drag Stiles out of the car and throw him up against a tree and do things, but he drives on by instead, and when he glances over Stiles is looking back, grinning wide like he knows exactly what Derek’s thinking about.
"Are we there yet?" Stiles says, and it’s an old and terrible joke but the tone of his voice is making a suggestion that Derek really wants to get behind. They’re still too far from the campsite, hours out, and Derek’s going to go crazy by the time they get there, with the warming scent of Stiles’ interest.
"We’re never going to get there if you don’t use the GPS,” Derek says, but Stiles just laughs, throws his head back in a way that shows off his neck, and when he twists around toward the back seat again, he braces his hand on Derek’s thigh, squeezes his fingers against the muscle in a way that feels like a promise.