Chapter Text
Friday
...
The scent hits like a truck when Derek opens the door to the only place open for thirty-five miles.
Derek doesn't know where he expected to run into Stiles Stilinski again, but a shitty bar in Georgia wasn't it. He sure as shit wasn't expecting him to be on the ramshackle stage in the corner, guitar in hand.
At first, Derek assumes his senses are playing tricks on him, that the bearded, bedraggled man isn't Stiles. That his exhausted mind is conjuring scents from nothing. The thought passes quickly when the man starts to sing, something immutable in Stiles' voice.
The song is an old one from back when Stiles was in high school, some folksy something about not going back to Barton Hollow. It feels pointed, but there's no way Stiles knows Derek is here.
"Hey there, honey, welcome in. I'm Margo, and I'll be taking care of you tonight. Can I get you something to drink?" The waitress' accent is thicker than the humidity, but she's genuine in a way Derek hasn't felt in weeks.
"Whatever whiskey you like best and a menu, please."
"You've got it, baby. Go ahead and snag that table in the corner. It's better for sensitive patrons," she says, patting his arm. "Your hearing will appreciate it."
She knows. Derek doesn't know how this Margo person knows he's were. He can't bring himself to care. His attention is on Stiles, even as he moves to the table Margo suggested.
It takes Derek some time to realize there's a girl on stage as well, perched at a shitty keyboard, the tell-tale marks of a near-evisceration on her neck. Stiles always did like collecting misfits.
"Now, I saw Michaela sneak in without telling me, so this one is for you," Stiles tells the growing group, and a blonde in a GSU tank-top cheers. "Which Amazing Devil song? I'm feeling morose."
"Farewell Wanderlust," Michaela demands, and Stiles nods.
"Your wish is my command." He looks to his partner, who counts them in.
Derek doesn't know what he was expecting with a title like that, but the song he gets is haunting.
"I promise you, I'm not broken. I promise you, there's more-"
The look on Stiles' face when he makes eye contact is gutting.
Derek should go. He should leave some cash on the table for Margo and get in his truck and get the hell out of Dodge. Stiles has roots here, has friends and a musical partner and an amazing voice, and Derek being here will remind him of what he's running from.
"This here is not makeup, it's a porcelain tomb..."
Derek can't fucking move, pinned to the spot by familiar whiskey eyes and a not-right smile. It takes Derek a second to register the scar, the marred left side of Stiles' mouth, half-hidden in beard.
"And this here is not singing, it's just screaming in tune, because -"
When the fuck did that happen?
Derek really ought to go.
Margo is back with his drink and menu before he can convince his limbs to move, her perky salt-and-pepper ponytail swinging.
"You know our Stiles, then? You must be one of his friends from out west. I'm sure he'll be glad to see you." She pats the menu. "Specials tonight are the Ruben and the Pimento cheese, and the soup is broccoli cheddar. Let me know when you're ready, darlin."
Margo can't be human. Derek doesn't know what she is, but it sure as shit isn't human.
There's no escaping now.
...
Stiles is going to kill someone.
He doesn't know who, or how, or when, but someone needs to pay for the fact that Derek fucking Hale just appeared in Bumfuck, Georgia, on a night Stiles and Addie are playing.
Addie leans over during a musical break.
"Is that…?"
"Yup," Stiles says between clenched teeth, masked behind a smile.
"Here?"
"Yup!"
"You good?"
"Nope!"
Stiles launches into the next verse before she can ask another question.
They have a limited set, and Addie has to get home to the girls, so Stiles can't stay on stage forever. Derek is still in Margo's favorite booth, though from what Stiles can tell his food is long gone.
"One more request," Addie calls out to the thinning group. "Then I've got to pack it in and move on out."
"No, not a request." Stiles shakes his head. "I've got this one."
It's stupid. It's stupid, and sentimental, but Stiles knows exactly what he's going to play.
"Friends break up, friends get married. Strangers get born, strangers get buried. Trends change, rumors fly through new skies, but I'm right where you left me."
Addie picks up after the first verse, her mellow alto soothing Stiles' nerves enough for him to hold it together. For now.
The road to La Iglesia is long, interminably so. Liam fell asleep somewhere between nowhere and nothing, his soft snores the only sound besides the tires on the road.
Stiles leans against the window. Somehow he's too exhausted to even dissociate.
Derek keeps shifting in his seat. Maybe he'd rather be up front with Braeden. Stiles can't bring himself to care.
"You okay?" Derek finally asks.
"No," Stiles says, too tired to bother lying. For the first time in his life, he doesn't elaborate.
Derek doesn't ask him to.
"They expected me to find somewhere, Some perspective, but I sat and stared, Right where you left me." Stiles doesn't choke on the words. It's a near thing. "You left me no, oh, you left me no - You left me no choice but to stay here forever."
The only place open is a diner, sticky vinyl seats and cracked plastic table covers. Stiles finds the furthest back corner away from the rest of them, curling into himself like he'll finally disappear if he tries hard enough.
The others get the memo that he wants some space. Everyone but Derek.
"Go away."
Derek doesn't go away.
"You said no." Derek's voice is zen, completely at odds with the hodge podge of an outfit they scrounged up for him.
Stiles doesn’t ask what he's talking about.
"It's the truth. I'm too tired to lie."
"You don't have to lie. You don't have to protect me." Derek reaches a hand out. "What's wrong, Stiles?"
Stiles falls apart at Derek's firm grasp on his hand, the words tumbling out faster than he can think them.
For once, he tells the whole story. No euphemisms. No redaction. No lies. Just the truth.
"Help, I'm still at the restaurant, Still sitting in a corner I haunt. Cross-legged in the dim light. They say, "What a sad sight. I, I stayed there - "
When Stiles wakes up in the back of the damn prison transport in the parking lot outside of BHPD, Derek is already long gone.
Derek is fast, but he's not fast enough to get into his truck by the time Stiles gets outside ,
"Don't you fucking dare." Stiles strides across the miniscule lot. "Don't you dare leave without talking to me, not again."
Derek winces. Good.
"Yeah, again, you coward." Stiles' laugh feels like glass in his throat, sharp and painful. "I don't know why I'm so surprised. You left without saying goodbye last time too."
"Stiles-"
"No, shut up, I'm talking. I've thought about this conversation for fifteen fucking years, it's my turn." Stiles scrubs a hand through his hair, shoving it out of his face so he can look at Derek properly. "You left. You left the pack, you left Scott, you left me, you bastard."
"It wasn't safe for you with me there," Derek insists.
"Horseshit. It wasn't any fucking safer with you gone." Stiles stifles a sob. "You got your big moment, your redemption, and then you left the moment we got back to Beacon Hills. How fucking dare you?!"
"Stiles, I thought-"
"We needed you!" Stiles can't stop the sob this time. "I needed you."
...
Derek has been stabbed before. He's been shot. Electrocuted. Burned.
This hurts more.
"I'm sorry." He doesn't have excuses anymore. "I'm sorry."
Derek eases the guitar case out of Stiles' hand and sets it in the bed of his truck.
"I'm sorry."
Derek holds his hand out and holds his breath. He doesn't deserve Stiles' forgiveness, his kindness, his time.
Stiles surprises them both by surging into Derek's arms, holding him so tight it hurts.
"I hate you," Stiles informs Derek's neck, beard scratching exposed skin.
"I deserve it." Derek clings to Stiles' shaking form, holding him together and hoping against hope this isn't both the first and last time he gets to do this. "I'm sorry."
"Shut up." Stiles tightens his grip even further. "Just shut up, please."
Derek shuts up. Stiles doesn't smell the same, but he still smells inexplicably like home.
(Derek knows why Stiles smells like home.)
When Stiles' sobs slow, he steps back and rubs his sleeve over his face.
"Why are you here?"
"I needed to stop and eat," Derek says softly. "This is the only place open for miles."
"Where are you headed?"
"I don't know."
"How long are you staying?"
"I don't know."
Stiles grabs his guitar from the back of Derek's truck, and Derek resigns himself to the brush off he deserves.
"I have a guest room. There isn't a motel for another forty miles." Stiles turns to walk to his car, stops, and turns back. "Stay? For the night, at least."
For this second chance, Derek would stay forever.