Work Text:
“Oh, come on, Derek! Please,” Stiles begs.
“No.”
“Just-Just for a couple of hours. Just for dinner or something.”
“No.”
“Derek—”
“You’re not even 18 years old. You have to be twenty-one to even step foot inside a casino.”
Stiles opens his wallet and produces a fake ID. Derek immediately snatches it from his grasp with an eye roll. He pockets it.
“What the fuck, sourwolf?! Give me my ID back!”
“We’re not going to Vegas.”
“Fine, but at least give me back my fake ID please.”
“No. You’ll just get in trouble. Or the both of us in trouble.”
“We’ve been on the road for 3 days, and not once have I abused your company with my—”
“Antics?”
“I was going to say ‘colorful charm’, but if you want to be a dick…” Stiles slumps in his seat and pouts.
Derek tries to ignore him, but Stiles is quiet, and upset. Superficially or not, he’s upset. And has decided instead of pushing the issue relentlessly, to simply stew.
Derek hands him back his fake ID.
Wordlessly, Stiles takes it and returns it to his wallet. Had he known all these years Derek was easily persuaded by silence and a poked-out lip, he would have cut off so much fat from all their arguments and gotten exactly what it was he wanted a lot quicker.
But there’s no fun in that. The fun is in Derek seething with annoyance as he grits his teeth, trying to control his wolf when Stiles continues egging him on, way past the point of necessary. The fun is in the fact that within those moments, as weird as it may seem, Stiles is completely aware that he’s the only thing on Derek’s mind.
“The Hover Dam.”
“What,” Stiles asks.
“The Hover Dam. We’ll go to the Hover Dam.”
It’s not Vegas, but it’s somewhere. And it’s somewhere Stiles has never been. He smiles. “Okay.”
Derek nods, eyes still on the long stretch of desert road in front of them.
»»»
Stiles has asked his 7th question to their tour guide, and is thoroughly impressed with how accurate, and how confident, she’s answered each one. Everyone else on the raft, however, is shooting him murderous stares, that quickly turn to sheepish fear when Derek turns to them and snarls.
He’s wearing dark shades, but his sneer it seems, needs no direct eye contact to be intimidating.
Stiles smiles with child-like glee as the raft turns toward a cave. He unconsciously squeezes Derek’s bicep. “We’re going in,” he grins like an idiot. “God. I wish I brought my ‘night vision’ goggles.”
He catches the smirk Derek tries to hide.
»»»
Derek lets him take two pictures of him as they stand on the Colorado River Bridge. He sneaks the first one, earning a meager growl from the werewolf, and actually gets Derek to pose for the other.
It isn’t much of one. Just Derek leaning on the rail, looking out toward the dam, sunglasses on, and turned just a little toward the human. The setting sun’s light makes his tan skin glow warm and inviting. Magic hour.
Stiles begs for a smile, and Derek gives him just the slightest upturn of the corners of his mouth.
It’s enough. And Stiles takes the picture.
It’s a good one. He can’t help but to smile at it.
“Let me see,” Derek says.
Stiles steps close to him so he can see it on his cellphone. “The sunglasses work. You know, for your eyes. Not that you should cover them, but you know, for pictures.”
Derek shrugs. “I guess.”
And Stiles hates that Derek has no idea just how attractive he is. Even more, he hates that Kate made him feel like that.
“I think it’s a great picture,” Stiles says.
“It’s just a picture. Of me.”
Exactly, Stiles thinks.
»»»
He shoots video of them driving over the dam. Narrating it for…whoever, whatever reason.
He turns the camera toward Derek.
“Stop. Filming. Me.”
“I’m changing your name to ‘grumpywolf’.”
Video works better. There’s no flash, so there’s no effect when he shoots Derek.
“That was really beautiful, you know. With Black Canyon and the river. I mean, I thought it was going to be lame, but it was really cool, and the tour guides know their shit. They made it interesting. The dam itself is interesting, but all the stories and facts they told made it even more so.”
Derek nods. “It was nice. Beautiful. Like you said. You hungry?”
Stiles stops filming, putting his phone down. “I don’t know.”
“Soup. We can go and get you some soup. At a diner somewhere or something.”
He’s hungry. Famished actually, but at the mention of food, Stiles feels his insides knot and a taste of bile hits the back of his throat.
“No. Not right now. Later.”
“You have to eat something, Stiles.”
“I ate today.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did. When we got coffee this morning. I had a Mocha Frappacino and a blueberry scone.”
Derek sighs heavily, closing his eyes a brief second before focusing back on the road. He’s biting his tongue about something.
“I did eat, Derek!” Stiles doesn’t know why he’s shouting so defensively.
“Fine, Stiles,” he says in that tone. That “I’m just going to drop this”, dismissive, tone.
Stiles glares at him. “Why are you attacking me?”
“We’ve been in enough arguments for you to know that I’m not attacking you, Stiles.”
“I feel attacked with your condescending bullshit!”
He doesn’t know how this happened. How this escalated so quickly. How he got so pissed off with so little effort.
“I’m not hungry, okay? And I’ll eat when I want to eat. Is that alright by you, dad?”
Derek’s jaw tightens and he exits off the dam toward the highway.
Stiles flips the radio on.
He can’t get a good station. It’s either church music or static, and the last thing he wants to do is sit in tense silence.
He settles on a soft, country voice singing a hymnal about Jesus and sparrows.
Derek doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t even turn in Stiles’ direction, let alone look at him. And Stiles hates it. Hates himself. They were having fun. Something he forgot he was capable of until today.
It hurts, making him squirm in his seat.
He wants to apologize. He wants Derek to smile again. Like the smile he had on the raft, all shy and secretive. He liked that smile. It felt earned, from the usually stoic werewolf.
Just like he’s earning the stillness between them now.
I should have just said yes to soup.
»»»
Derek’s asleep. And who wouldn’t be at 3AM, but Stiles is restless. Itchy. Buzzing under his skin.
He quietly fishes through his duffel bag, pulling out the postcard he got at the dam’s gift shop. He slips under the covers completely, clumsily grabbing his cellphone and a pen off the nightstand separating the beds.
He uses the light from his phone to see the postcard.
A moment ago he could think of a million things to say, and now…
“Fuck,” he whispers to himself.
What will sum it all up? What can he say on the small, blank square that could put into short words how alone he’s felt since Scott became a werewolf? What can be said about how terrified he is everyday for himself, his dad, and his friends? How can he explain the darkness that took over him, made him a killer, but gave him control? How can he apologize for Allison?
I need this. Try to understand. Will be home when I’m better. Love, Stiles.
He addresses it to his father, then turns off his phone, crawling out from under the blankets. He puts the postcard on the nightstand, under his phone as to remind him to mail it in the morning.
He lies back down. Wide awake and eyes on the water-stained ceiling. The buzz under his skin now is just a soft humming.
“You can’t sleep,” Derek asks. His back to Stiles, facing the heavy curtained window.
“No.”
“…Come here.”
Stiles wishes he weren’t so eager to climb out of his bed and into Derek’s, but he is, nearly tripping the two feet divide between them. Derek doesn’t turn around. Just slides closer toward the window.
“Thanks.”
“Sure.”
Stiles could hear a pin drop. Or better yet, the drunk couple arguing outside in the parking lot.
“…You should have called me out. You know I didn’t eat that stuff at Starbucks this morning. I didn’t even order anything.”
“You’ll get there, Stiles. You’ll get better.”
“We’ll get better. Right?” Because to Stiles, that's just as important.
“…Right.”