Archive of Our Own

Stiles stirred, eyes blearily opening in the darkness. He glanced at the clock; it was 2am. He shut his eyes again and rolled over, tugging the sheets over his shoulders before he heard a tap sound as something hit against his window. He frowned in the darkness, then there was another tap sound; this time slightly louder. He tossed the sheets of with a sigh and headed over to yank open his window. He leaned out to see who was trying to get his attention when-

“Ow!” He yelped, flinching as a pebble hit him in the forehead. He froze and threw a hand over his mouth, listening out to see if his dad had woken up. He hadn’t. Stiles sighed, rubbing his head before he looked down and spotted Lydia standing in his back yard, handbag dangling off of one arm and smiling at him in that vacant, almost professional kind of way.

Stiles checked his watch and turned back to glare at Lydia, “Are you high?”

“No,” she answered primly. “We’re going on a road trip.”

“Lyds, it’s 2am,” Stiles moaned, head slumping down on the wooden frame. 

“We’re going on a road trip, now. Allison’s already in the car, get some clean clothes and say bye to your dad.”

“It’s 2am.” Stiles repeated weakly, bringing a hand up to cover his face.

“We’ll be gone for a while,” Lydia said in responce. “Make sure you let John know.”

And with that she turned and trampled gingerly off his his lawn, onto the garden path and disappeared around the side of the house, as the click of her heels echoed through the street. Stiles took a minute, staring out blankly at the spot where Lydia had stood before he managed to drag himself back into the room and pulled shut the window. 

Road trip.

With Lydia and Allison. 

He’d always wanted to go on a road trip; he and Scott had planned one for the summer after their sophomore year but then Scott was Becoming A Better Person, and a cross country road trip got pushed to the wayside. If Stiles was to be honest with himself Scott probably couldn’t have afforded the time off work andyway and wouldn’t have accepted Stiles trying to give him any money to help out. 

Well, it wasn’t like he had any other plans.

He yawned and stretched, clicking his back into place as he switched on his bedroom light, wincing away from the light and sheilding his eyes to let them adjust. He grabbed his emergency rucksack; it was a precaution that he’d had it sitting under his bed for over 6 months now, always there incase he needed to run, fast. It was stocked with his passport, a fake, older, passport, a new phone, snacks, cash and two possible letters to leave to his dad; one for if he knew he was coming back and one for if he didn’t. 

Stiles sighed, grabbed his wallet and iPod form his desk and shoved them in the front pocket of his bag, before he slung his coat across his shoulders and creeped out into the hall. 

His dad had gone to bed after he had, so there had always been the possibility that he would be up watching TV. Stiles pushed open the door carefully and his dad let out a snore, rumbling through his chest. Stiles sighed, and so creeped quietly into the room leaving the letter on the empty side of the bed, before tip-toeing back out and closing the door quietly behind him. 

He ran down the stairs, (pausing briefly to grab some chocolate from the kitchen) unlocked the front door, and stepped out onto the front porch. 

Lydia was leaning against the shiny car parked at the bottom of his drive, arms crossed over her chest grinning at him. It was a nice grin, real, and while Lydia spent a lot of time smiling, an unfortunately tiny percentage of it was real. 

Stiles spotted some of his neighbours curtains twitch. He ignored them. 

“Good to see you there, Stiles. I thought you’d gone back to sleep for a minute," Lydia said dryly.

Stiles rolled his eyes and opened his arms for a hug, “C’mon Lyds, let’s be serious, you wouldn’t let me sleep.”

“True,” Lydia said, before stepping forward and grabbing him into a tight hug. She was still wearing heels but Stiles could still tuck his chin on top of her head easily. She wrapped her arms tightly around him, leaning heavily against him as  he rubbed his hand up and down her back a few times before they pulled back, smiling with weary grins. 

“So, that was a hard year,” Stiles started sliding into the back seat. He caught sight of a petite figure with short dark hair sitting in the drivers seat and he did a double take. 

‘Cause that was Allison.

She turned around and rolled her eyes at his expression, “I cut off all my hair.”

“I noticed,” Stiles blinked, before twisting his head to get a better look. “With a machette, or…?”

Lydia reached back and hit him in the shoulder, “We don’t talk about the haircut.”

Stiles opened his mouth to talk about the haircut, (because of course he did, that was Stiles all over,) then he had a flashback to the Alpha Pack Fiasco and Allison being dragged away by her hair.

So instead of prodding it, he said; “I can get behind the important haircut, I shaved my head after Mom died.”

Allison gave him a small smile before turning back to the road and twisting the car key in the ignition. “Right, so let’s get out of here.”

“Definitely,” Lydia said. “I can’t stay another minute.”

Allison glanced at the dashboard clock which told her that it was 3am; Lydia and Stiles had fallen asleep at 2:30 and 2:35 respectivly, Lydia curling up in the passengers seat, all tucked around herself, while Stiles spread out on the back, limbs cast everywhere. She should probably have pulled over to sleep but all of them sleeping simultaneously was a bad defensive stratagy.

She sighed, and glanced in the rear-view mirror, still surprised at the lost pale reflection. 

No one’s had called her beautiful since she cut her hair. 

It’d only been a week but not even her father had, and he was big on positive re-enforcement ever since the Kanima incident. It was surprisingly a relief more than anything, she was relieved that she could go grocery shopping without being given a phone number, or get a bus without having some weird creep sitting touching himself while he watched her. She liked not being beautiful. She felt stronger. She looked stronger

Which Lydia had pointed out to her several times is a fucked up mentality, but Allison was kind of fucked up. She was 18, she wasn’t meant to have gone through that amount of loss already in her life. 

She wondered if she’d been plainer looking then maybe her family would have trusted her with the whole Werewolf-Hunter-Secret earlier, they wouldn’t have assumed her to be helpless, weak. If she’d known about werewolves would she have fallen for Scott? Would she have let herself? If she hadn’t loved Scott her mom wouldn’t have died. 

If she hadn’t loved Scott a lot of people wouldn’t have died. 

She wondered if she still loved Scott. 

Lydia woke up to the sound of Allison and Stiles bickering in the bright morning sunshine. She stretched out her back, before pulling down her sun visor and checking her reflection. He hair was a mess, but there was nothing she could about that, so instead she grabbed a hair tie from her make-up bag and pulled it into a pony tail before touching up her lip gloss. 

It occurred to her that they hadn’t really discussed where they were going on this road trip. 

“Canada,” Allison said firmly. “You and I are both pale, Stiles, we’ll spend two weeks in Mexico being burnt to a crisp before coming home dripping in moisturiser and peeling skin.”

“Sun Cream, Allison!” Stiles whined, head rolling back against the seat. “I wanna go see the sun.”

“We live in California; go outside. Canada will be good, wilderness, no thinking about things.”

“I am not going on a wilderness retreat,” Stiles insisted stubbornly. “That shit is too cold up there. It’s summer.”

Lydia cleared her throat, “We’re not going to Canada.” Stiles punched the air, grinning to himself, so Lydia smirked and rolled her eyes, “Or Mexico.”

“Awww, why?” Stiles said, slumping down in his seat with his arms crossed like a petulant child. 

“Well, for one,” Lydia said, watching as a road sign told them that they were entering Nevada. “I don’t have a passport with me, so unless you fancy driving all the way back to Beacon Hills and breaking into my house to get it then we’re stuck in the country.”

“Lydia, you’re ruining all my fun!” Stiles whined. “Where are we going then? I’ll plan a route for us, ever since Danny fucked around with my laptop I can hook into the mobile internet system on it.”

“New York,” Lydia said with a smile. “We’re going to New York.”

No one pitched a fuss at that; Lydia didn’t know if it was because they wanted to go to New York or because they knew that she wouldn’t let them go anywhere else, but she didn't really care. They'd enjoy new york, and it was longfarenough away that they’d get to enjoy the journey too. 

Lydia wanted to go to New York for all the reasons that Allison wanted to go to Canada, to lose herself. Allison wanted wilderness, but Lydia wanted people, she wanted more people buzzing around her than she could fathom, all caught up in their own lives entirely to busy to be fucked with their Small Town Bullshit. She wanted to see something horribly supernatural happen and be able to walk away because in a city that big someone else could handle it. 

They were listening to some pop shit on the radio in companionable silence when Stiles sat bolt upright, head sticking out between the front two seats.

“Dudes, I’ve got a Road Trip playlist!”

‘Oh no.” Lydia said.

“Oh, yes, me and Scott started making it in freshman year, it’s a couple hundred songs long and we’ve been continually adding and removing things. It’s beautiful.”

Allison was quiet, and Lydia rolled her eyes, so Stiles leaned back, dug the iPod out of his pocket and shoved it into Lydia’s open hand. “It’s called ‘Scott and Stiles Roadtrip1!”

“As if you were planning to have multiple road trips. And road trip is two words, idiot,” she muttered, but she put the headphone jack into Stiles’s iPod and hit the play. Some song from the eighties started to play, as Stiles settled back in his chair, grinning.

‘I saw the crescent; you saw the whole of the moon.’

There was a pause, “You put that on there, didn’t you?” Allison finally asked.

“Yup,’ Stiles said, popping the ‘p’.

“You’re such a dick,” Lydia sighed.

Allison started to crash just past the Nevada boarder, sleep deprivation catching up with her.

“Stiles, how did that itinerary thing go?” Lydia asked him, unclipping her seatbelt and wiggling her way into the backseat surprisingly gracefully. Allison kept her eyes on the road as Lydia started typing away on the keyboard. “Allison, we’ve got like ten miles till we’re in Carson City. Can you make it or do you want one of us to drive?” Stiles asked.

“I can make it,” Allison replied, the clock on the dashboard informing her it was almost 6am. Allison doubted their ability to get a hotel room at that time of the morning, but then if anyone could, Lydia could. 

They made it to Carson City with ‘She Wolf’ by Shakira accompanying for the last few minutes. The roads were empty at such an early time of the morning, and Lydia slid back into the front seat and took over directions from Stiles who had the nasty habit of informing her of turns she had to take after they had passed them. 

They checked into some casino hotel using fake I.D.’s, and a wad of cash Lydia produced seemingly from nowhere. None of them were particularly short of money, Lydia’s family were rich, and Stiles and Allison both had dead mothers which, while horrifically emotionally scarring, tended to be quite beneficial money wise.

Allison didn’t pay much attention to the suite they had, pushing past Lydia, kicking off her shoes and collapsing ontop of the large double bed, climbing under the covers and pulling off her bra through her sleeve. She threw it across the room before she promptly rolled over and fell asleep.

“Allison’s out fast,” Stiles said as he exited the bathroom, eyes firmly trained on the black bra lying over the back of their couch.

Lydia cleared her throat, looking pointedly at him. He blushed and averted his eyes.

“Well she drove all night,” Lydia said, reasonably.

"Also you can't go in the bathroom, I didn't bring enough underwear, so I'm having to hand wash it in the sink," Stiles informed her.

Lydia wrinkled her nose. The suite she’d gotten them was open plan, and rather large and sleek. There was only one bed, so Lydia and Allison could share; Stiles would get the couch. Lydia folded herself down on the sofa, as Stiles hovered awkwardly.

“What?” Lydia snapped, breathing in heavily.

“You’re not… tired, are you?”

“Why?”

“This hotel has a casino, Lyds.”

“And?” Lydia asked, primly.

“And?” Stiles repeated, lifting his shoulders and looking at her expectantly. “Lydia, you’re a Math genius.”

“So? It’s not like we’re short of money,” Lydia reasoned, reaching over and picking up one of the hotel information booklets.

“Really?” Stiles asked. “It’s not about us getting money, it’s about the hotel losing money!”

Lydia blinked at him, pursing her lips before she hopped up to her feet and grabbed her handbag. “Okay.”

“Okay? What, really?!”

So the thing was, they did try to blend in. It helped that Stiles was terrible at blackjack, and Lydia was hot so no one assumed she’d be smart too.

They made a little money, then they gambled it away on fruit machines and games of chance, before returning to the cards table and allowing Lydia to carefully count the game, rigging it in their favour so that they would win a little more money, spend a little more.

After dinner however, they perhaps got a little greedy, and before they knew it, Lydia was having her giant pile of chips taken away and they were rushing to the room to get Allison so they could hi-tail it out of there.

She was sitting up in bed, room service tray on her lap as she watched some shitty rom-com, but from her expression you would’ve thought it was some horrific angst-ey love story. 

“We’ll deal with your broken heart in the car, we’ve just gotta go, now,” Stiles said, bundling her pile of clothes off of the floor and into the first bag.

Lydia stood holding the door open as Allison wiggled into her jeans while Stiles grabbed their belongings and as many of the hotel toiletries as he could carry.

Stiles was playing a fun game; it was called 'let's pretend I don't exist for two hours!".

Allison and Lydia apparently needed ‘girl time’.

“I could totally help,” Stiles grumbled, laying down flat in the backseat with a blanket covering him.

They ignored him. Stiles was not very good at pretending he didn't exist.

“Allison, I can’t even begin to understand all that you’ve gone though-“

“I can,” Stiles interrupted, sticking a hand in the air. “I lost my Mom, I know the feeling.”

That one was received with a glare from Lydia, so Stiles rolled over as best he could, facing backwards on the seat as he tried not to listen in. 

Allison broke all at once; she semed to be keeping her stoic front up very well, as Lydia pried for information about Scott and her family, telling her it was okay, that she was safe, that she didn't have to be strong, but Allison just kept her jaw clenched and a firm smile over her face.

...Then suddenly they were pulling over in a lay by and she was sobbing her heart out.

Lydia was the first to react; she's had Allison cry on her once before and she'd learnt that Allison needed to be held, so she wrapped her arms around her shaking frame and pulled her close. Stiles sat bolt up right and lunged toward them, getting tangled in his seatbelt before he uncliped it and wrapped himself around the both of them.

“I just… I keep remembering,” she eventually said when she’d calmed down enough and Lydia and Stiles had disentangled. “I mean… I was a horrible daughter and I don’t know how to deal with that?”

Stiles resisted saying ‘I told you so’ to Lydia, because it wasn’t the time, but this wasn’t boy problems Allison was having, this was Mom problems, and that was firmly within Stiles realm of help. Allison blinked at them, eyes shinning, and Stiles leaned forward to hold her head to his chest, stroking her head soothingly. 

“I’m… I’m trying so hard to be strong, all the time and it’s been over a year now and I still can’t deal with the fact she’s never gonna see me get married, or have kids, or….” She hiccuped another sob. “How do you deal with that?”

Stiles took in a deep breath, holding her close, “You just have to keep going, keep your head up until it doesn’t hurt so bad.”

“If it wasn’t for me she wouldn’t be dead!” Allison sobbed. “Me and my stupid relationship with Scott.”

Lydia pulled herself over the gearstick and clutched Allison too, shushing her, “This isn’t anyone’s fault, Allison, least of all yours.”

Stiles didn’t believe that. Stiles believed the blame was firmly on Mrs Argent who tried to kill his best friend, then killed herself rather than live with what she’d become.

Stiles decided not to tell Allison that; instead he kept her as close as he could, what with his legs still across the backseat but torso on the front. 

“You don’t need to be strong all the time, Allison, and crying isn’t a weakness,” Lydia informed her when they finally started to pull apart.

Allison nodded and dragged a sleeve across her eyes. "I'm fine. I'm okay, honest,' she gave them a weak smile.

They spent the night driving through the nevada desert, taking turns to try and sleep. Allison took the first driving shift but neither Stiles or Lydia slept, just singing along to the pop-ey  yunes, windows firmly wound up as they drove through through the night.

“Genital licking is weird,’ Stiles lamented shortly after Lydia had taken over driving and he was trying to get some sleep. 

Allison blinked, “Sorry, Stiles, what?”

Flo Rida’s song; Right Round, had just started on the radio, as they sped through the dark desert. Stiles pursed his lips and sat up, “Like, I get that it’s meant to feel good and all that-“

Lydia snorted, not turning around, but her eyes flickered up and met his in the rearview mirror, an amused expression on her face.

“Hear me out though; if you call it what it is, which is genital licking, then it sounds weird all of a sudden! Like you just…. lick at someone. If you were to sit and lick their face for five minutes then that would get you a restraining order! But when it’s on your… bits then suddenly it’s okay.”

There was a pause, before Allison snickered and Lydia just reached backward and placed a hand on his arm

“Oh honey, no.”

Stiles glared. “Fine then, just ignore the valid point I’m making. I wouldn’t lick your genitals anyway.”

“I really wouldn’t want you to,” Lydia said dryly.

“Stiles, why am I seeing signs for Salt Lake City?”

“I missed the turn off at Delta, and now we’re going to Salt Lake City.”

Lydia winced.

“It’s fine, I worked it out, there’s a really cool museum in Salt Lake City that I wanna co see, then we’ll go into Wyoming and I’ve found us a motel to stay in before we go back to Colorado and we’re right back on track, look, I adjusted the route map!”

Stiles watched out of the side of his eye as Lydia pulled the laptop onto her lap and opened it up, frowning at the new and improved route map Stiles had made. She sighed, pinched the bridge of her nose and firmly shut the laptop. “It’ll do.”

Stiles grinned.

Stiles phoned Scott shortly after they arrived in Salt Lake City. He picked up after the second ring.

“Scotty!” Stiles said, faking enthusiasm as he paced outside the hotel that they’d found. 

“Stiles,” Scott said.

“So, I’ve got something to tell you…” Stiles started, rubbing the back of his head and taking a deep breath

“You’re on a road trip with Lydia and Allison,” Scott said.

“What, no!” Stiles yelped. “And if I was, how would you even know that?!”

Scott chuckled over the phone, “Dude, you, Lydia and Allison all disappeared as did Allison’s car so we got Danny to do his computer thing and check the airport long stay parking, the car wasn’t there so, hence, road trip.”

“Urgh, I hate you,” Stiles grumbled. “I’m sorry for leaving you dude, it’s just-“

“Yeah, I get it,” Scott said. “I miss you dude, but we’ll go on a road trip another time, deal?”

“Yeah, now can you just not tell-“

“Your dad? He know’s you’re on a vacation.”

“What? How?” Stiles could imagine Scot rolling his eyes at him over the phone. “I mean, I left the letter that said ‘Supernatural shit going down, gotta run, I’ll be back but might not be in touch.’” 

“Please tell me it didn’t say  ‘Supernatural shit going down, gotta run?’” Scott asked exasperatedly. 

“C’mon Scott, you know me,” Stiles said as a way of a reply. “Seriously though, how does he know I’m on a vacation?”

“Well he called my Mom at 3am when he woke up to find you gone-“ Stiles winced,”-and found out I was still in town. Not to mention he knows we had that whole ‘supernatural shit has stopped going down’ party last week-“

“I don’t know if I would call that a party,” Stiles mused. “Essentially we all napped and ate cake, while you guys sucked some of the pain out of me, Al and Lyds.”

“Anyway, he put two and two together, as well as the missing person report from Lydia’s parents. He’s not a detective for nothing, Stiles,” Scott said. Stiles could practically hear him smiling over the phone. 

“Lydia’s parents filed a missing person report? Aw man.”

“Yeah, careful with your bankcards and I.D.’s they’ll be tracking her since she’s a minor.”

“That’s just great,” Stiles sighed, dragging a hand across his sweat soaked brow. “Urgh, thanks for the heads up. Christ it’s hot here-“

“No, don’t tell me where you are!” Scott yelled. “Dude, your dad’s pissed and I can’t lie to him for shit, if you tell me where you are I’ll let it slip!” 

“You are hopeless. Look I dunno when I’ll be back, I’ll let you know when I have a vague date, okay?”

“Yeah, Stiles, that’s fine. You stay safe, okay?”

“Yeah, Scott, I’ll stay safe. Enjoy working all your holidays!”

“Enjoy skiving off with Lydia and Allison,” Scott replied. “Urgh, I’m jealous dude, just letting you know that.

Stiles snorted, “The two of us couldn’t sleep in the back of the car anyway. Don’t work too hard,” Stiles paused, swallowing. “I miss you, dude.”

Scott was probably grinning like mad on the other end of the line, “I miss you too, idiot. Go enjoy your road trip, and you better not be playing our special playlist!”

“Of course not,” Stiles lied, “I can’t believe you’d assume such a thing!”

Scott just laughed and hung up on him, just in time for Stiles to see Lydia poking her head out of the lobby doors. 

“Stilinski, c’mon, we’ve gotta give them all our details.”

Stiles sighed, following her into the lobby, he leaned forward, putting a hand on her shoulder so he could talk into her ear, “Lyds, your parents have put you down as a missing person, we’re gonna have to avoid using your credit cards at all cost, and Dad’s probably checking mine too.”

“I guess we’ll just have to use the massive wad of cash hiding in the boot of my car then,” Lydia replied easily. “C’mon Stiles, I’m not stupid.”

Stiles would never in all of his 17 years have dared to call Lydia Martin stupid, he didn’t know why he expected anything different. 

They checked in, ditched their backpacks before they headed to the ‘museum’ that Stiles had wanted to go to. It turned out it was a Dinosaur park that contained some robotic sculptures of Dinosaurs. 

Because of course it was.

Lydia and Allison were unwilling to admit that they liked the park, but Stiles had a picture of them both pretending to cower away from a T-Rex that he could use as proof to say otherwise. 

After Salt Lake City they headed and through Wyoming, for no other reason than apparently it was a nice stretch of road. They stopped off over night in the motel Stiles had booked ahead of time when he’d started on the Salt Lake Detour.  

The place was god awful. The AC barely worked, and was so noisy that between that and the heat they couldn’t sleep (bar Stiles who could sleep anywhere, and passed out on the couch, ten minutes after lying down,) and the bathroom was just a health hazard. A disgusting, humid, mouldy health hazard.

Lydia insisted that she should always be in charge of places to stay after their motel incident, considering if she’d been told the name of the place they were planning to stay then she would have done a quick Trip Advisor search and never allowed them to stay in such a horrible place. Stiles instead it had character and it really didn’t matter anyway, it was just a place to lay their head for the day. 

It did matter. They were never staying in a place like that again, not when they could afford not to.

Allison leaned her head out of the window, watching the flat empty landscape pas her by as they headed towards Denver. The sun beat down on her face and she smiled, before pulling her head back in the car and winding up the window slightly. 

Stiles was driving, one hand lazily sitting on the door, holding the wheel loosely with his other hand.

“I’m glad you came,” she said to him.

He blinked, before a smile settled on his face, “Yeah, me too.”

Allison settled back in her seat, putting her feet up on the dash top as the radio hummed to life. She didn’t recognise the song in the slightest, some cheerful indy tune, so she reached over and turned it up.

‘I saw you blink, and I missed your eyes, your blue eyes.’

Stiles sighed, “Scott could never find songs about brown eyes.”

“What?”

“He was always complaining about it, y’know when you guys were in love, that all the songs were about dark haired, blue eyed girls. He adored everything about you Al, he once talked for 20 minutes about how beautiful your smile was. I felt like clawing out my own ears so that I wouldn’t have to listen anymore.” Stiles gave her a weak smile.

Allison rolled that around in her head for a minute, before she brought her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on her knees, smiling slightly. 

The reminder of Scott didn’t hurt quite as bad as it used to. 

Lydia had to admit that Stiles was pretty good at this road trip thing, what with the cheerful upbeat playlist, and the route he’d planned. Occasionally some of the pit stops seemed slightly to few and far between, but they made it.

Lydia leaned forward and skipped the rather sad Johnny Cash song, frowning at the disney melody that started up in it’s absence.

“Really?” She asked Stiles, who shrugged in the passenger seat. 

“I like Tangled. Sue me,” he shot back. “It’s what me and Scott watch when we’re hungover, or more frequently now; battle weary.”

Lydia closed her eyes, begging for strength, before she leaned back in her seat, the car was silent until;

“‘Cause, way down deep inside I got a dream,” Allison sung, reaching forward to turn up the speakers.

Stiles brightened immediately sitting forward with a giant grin on his face as he joined in “He’s got a dreeeam, he’s got a dreeeam. See, I ain’t as cruel and vicious as I seem!”

“Though I do like breaking femurs, you can count me with the dreamers. Like everybody else I’ve got a dream!” Allison and Stiles sang in an uneven, horribly pitched harmony. 

By the time they got to Rapunzel singing as well, Lydia had long since given up pretending she didn’t enjoy the song as well.

Somewhere between Denver and Kansas city, (after visiting the giant ball of twine) the three of them connected the fact that they all had crazy itchy scalps to the cheap ass motel they’d stayed in.

“You gave me lice, Stilinski!” Lydia shrieked from the bathroom of their newest hotel, over the sound of the shower running.

Stiles paced outside the bathroom door, clenching his fists in an attempt not to scratch at his head or touch the disgusting goop that was now starting to trickle down his temple. “I gave you lice? Lydia, out of the three of us, you probably picked them up and gave them to the rest of us!”

“How do you figure that?!” Lydia snapped, before Stiles could hear the shower turn off. 

“You’ve got longer hair, it’s easier to catch them!” Stiles yelled, before sighing, “Can I come in, I wanna wash off this cream stuff pretty badly. It stinks." 

“Yeah," Allison sighed, voice obviously letting them know she was tired of their shit. Stiles pushed open the bathroom door, Allison was sitting crouched on top of the toilet lid, while Lydia sat infront of her, wrapped in a towel while she picked up the comb and started to comb free her hair.

“Guys,” Stiles whined, “I need to shower.”

“In you go then,” Lydia said. “We don’t care.”

“At least avert your eyes,” Stiles insisted stubbornly. Lydia lifted up her hand and covered her eyes for him.“Happy? Now get in; if you leave that stuff on too long you’re loose all your hair,” Lydia said, hand still covering her eyes.

Stiles shrugged off his shirt and shorts, leaving him standing in his underwear. “That’s a myth,” Stiles said, stepping into the shower cubical before pulling off his boxers and throwing them over the shower door. “I feel like we’ve gotten too comfortable around each other.”

“I’ll comb your hair out next, Stiles,” Allison said, ignoring him. “But Lydia’s might be a while.”

There was yelp and a curse from Lydia as Allison must’ve got the brush caught on a tug. Lydia swore vehemently, “I hate you much right now, Stilinski. You and your stupid cheep motel.”

Stiles snickered, before tilting his head back and rinsing out the lice poison.

They were stopped in a Diner at the side of the road, Allison in the middle of middle of trying to drink her bodyweight in milkshake for some sort of prize winning challenge where she would get her picture on the Wall of Fame, when Lydia’s phone started to win. 

They’d kept their phones with them, but never picked up when their parents had called. Stiles didn’t know if he could take talking to his dad before he went home, considering what an awful son he was. He didn’t know if he’d be able to take his dad’s face when he finally did get home either, considering that his dad knew he’d lied about having supernatural stuff to deal with, and instead had gone on a holiday without letting him even know.

He was going to hell.

Lydia glanced at the caller I.D. on her phone and her face paled, before she quickly answered it and got to her feet, fleeing from the diner. 

Stiles raised his eyebrows at Allison, who was still guzzling down milkshakes like ice cream headaches weren’t a thing that even existed. He marvelled at that girls stomach, he really did.

“I can’t go, I’m on a timer,” she said, gesturing the clock on the wall.

Stiles sighed and got to his feet, following after Lydia. He stepped out of the diner and spotted her across the car park. He started walking towards her but she just held up a hand to stop him, so he slumped down onto kerb and waited for her to finish her phone call. 

It was a short call, Stiles was to far away to really hear what she was saying, so he waited until she hung up. She looked at him from across the carpark and slumped over, dropping down to sit next to him on the sidewalk the phone still grasped tightly in her hand. 

She took a deep breath, pressing her lips together. Stiles didn’t say a thing, scared to brake the silence, scared that Lydia would break. She was never one for hiding her terror or grief but Stiles didn’t think he’d ever seen her looking so… fragile.

“It was Jackson,” she said finally, voice steady.

Stiles felt his stomach clench, and he winced and slung an arm over her shoulders. He felt sick, and he realised that it wasn’t because he Loved Lydia, but because he loved her. And Jackson was a douchebag, but mostly the completely platonic love thing.

“Aw, Lyds,” he muttered. 

“He’s coming back. He thought he’d let me know that all the shit I went through last year trying to get over him and missing him doesn’t matter now, because he’s coming back,” Lydia said, coldly. She clenched her hands together, breathing deeply, “Like, what am I supposed to do with that?”

“Nothing Lyds,” Stiles said immediately. “Just because he’s back it doesn’t negate the fact he left, willingly or not. You didn’t know he was coming back and you had to deal with that If he’s pissed at you for getting over him, please let me know so I can punch him.”

Lydia gave him a soft grin, leaning into his shoulder, “You’d use any excuse to punch Jackson,” she said.

“Yeah,” Stiles sighed. “I would. Especially now Allison’s been teaching me to punch.”

“He’d still beat your ass into the ground,” Lydia said after a beat, slightly calmer. 

Stiles got up to his feet and offered a hand to Lydia who pulled herself up and the two of them walked arm and arm into the restaurant just in time to see Allison getting her picture taken surrounded by a table of empty milkshake glasses, grinning victoriously. 

Stiles asked the owner if they could print out a picture for them, and then Lydia and Stiles got burgers while Allison lay down in the booth, moaning and clutching her stomach. 

They found a lost werewolf somewhere around the suburbs of St. Louis. 

They’d gotten out of the car by the side of the woods to allow Allison to pee for the fiftieth time since she’d completed the milkshake challenge, when they suddenly heard a yelp and Allison rushed out from behind a tree trying to yank up her pants as she went. 

Stiles and Lydia bundled out of the car, pausing to grab the various weapons hidden below the front seat. Stiles grabbed his baseball bat, as well as Allison’s bow while Lydia got her handgun filled with wolfsbane bullets. Allison reached out and took the bow before turning back around to face the forest, completely in huntress mode. Out of the three of them she had the best instincts, it’d been trained in her before she even knew that werewolves were real. 

Lydia and Stiles fell back behind Allison, weapons at the ready as they crept into the woods. Allison muttered a curse. 

“God, I wish I’d brought the night vision goggles with me.” 

Stiles spun around, keeping an eye on the flank, when Allison motioned for them to wait. Lydia nodded, and stood back to back with Stiles. It seemed like no time at all before Allison was guiding a whimpering, almost naked teenager towards them. Stiles glanced to the sky but the moon was only half full, he probably wasn’t prone to switch again.

“He’s lost, doesn’t know what happened to him,” Allison explained. The boy only looked 16, tops, but yet so much younger than their weary, battle worn faces. 

Lydia sighed and rolled her eyes. “Stilinski, give him something to wear, his wolf muscles don’t seemed to have kicked in yet, he should fit your things fine.”

Stiles glared at her, “Rude.” He dropped the baseball bat to his side, as Lydia slid the gun into her holster.

The boy whimpered once more. 

“Urgh, we’re going to have to fix this, aren’t we?”Stiles groaned.

“We need to find an alpha,” Lydia said. “Find the Alpha, hand him over.”

Stiles started walking back to the car behind Allison. They slid their weapons underneath the seat before Stiles grabbed his rucksack and tossed a shirt at the boy. Now that they were out of the dark woods he could get a better look, the boy was tall and skinny with dark hear and was wearing nothing but his jeans and a coat of mud. 

“Have we got a trash bag or something?” Stiles asked. Lydia rolled her eyes and pulled one out of the glove compartment. Stiles grabbed his backup knife out from under the front seat and cut up the side of the bag opening into a large sheet which he used to cover up the back seats. 

“C’mon, in you get, we’ll get you somewhere safe,” Lydia said finally, patting the boy on the shoulder. 

“Josh,” the boy said, before he slipped into the back of the car. Stiles got in the other side, and patted him gingerly on the shoulder as Allison started up the engine, driving them out of the woods.

They drove up to a diner on the outskirts of town, Allison and Lydia escorting Josh to get slightly cleaned up, and get him some food, while Stiles stood outside, toying with his phone. 

Lydia and Derek had worked on territory map during the last christmas break, it had missing points and some boundaries and leaders were bound to have changed in the past six months but it was a starting point at least.

His finger hovered over the call button, before he sighed and phoned him. 

Derek picked up after two rings.

“Stiles!” he hissed, “Where are you!?”

Stiles groaned, pinching his brow as he slumped against the wall of the diner. He cast a glance through the window, spotting Lydia and Allison laughing over a shared portion of fries. “We needed to get away Derek. Away from the shit that was going down.”

He expected yelling, about being selfish and worrying the crap out of them and all the horrible things that had been tearing through Stiles head for the last week or so, but instead Derek just sighed.

“I get that,” Derek said softly. “How come you’re calling though?”

“We need to know who the Alpha of St. Louis is,” Stiles said, scratching his jaw. “I can’t remember if there’s more than one territory or not but the boy lives in the suburb of Chesterfield.”

Derek paused, “Lemmie just get my laptop.”

“I’m waiting,” Stiles replied, smile tugging at his lips as he listened to Derek rustle around his apartment, there was a pause then he heard the slow click click of him typing away. 

“Right,” Derek started. “So there was defiantly a little bit of boundary issues going on between the packs, what with the only real woods being next to Chesterfield, but we had the alpha of the area down as a Mr. Rico Smith, uh” Derek paused, probably scrolling to see what information he had. “I remember Rico, he was a young alpha, but strong, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s still in power. I don’t know if he will pick up his phone to an unknown number, but we’ve wrote down that he had a headquarters of sorts in a warehouse down by the airport. He’s half latino, uh, five foot eight, maybe twenty two? You should be able to find him pretty easily.”

Derek paused, “He doesn’t seem like the type to randomly bite people though, I mean, he had a pack of approximately 20 people, plus attached humans. You said the boy knew nothing about what was happening, yeah?”

Stiles nodded, even though he knew Derek couldn’t see him, “Yeah, the guy didn’t have a clue what was going on, he must’ve got mad and wolfed out, ended up running through the woods. Allison met him while she was taking a whizz.”

Derek snorted, but his tone remained serious, “They might be dealing with a rogue alpha then.”

“Fuck,” Stiles muttered. “Well don’t worry, we’re not gonna get involved, we’re just gonna find this guy a werewolf Yoda and get the hell out of dodge.”

Derek sighed, “Good. Okay well I’ll let you get back to that.”

“Uh, Derek,” Stiles asked.

“Yeah?”

“Can you not tell anyone where we are, alright?”

Stiles looked in the window back to Lydia and Allison, they didn’t need their parents calling them anymore than they already were, or worse, heading across country to find them. They needed time to heal. 

“Yeah, Stiles. I can do that,” Derek said finally. “Keep yourself safe alright.”

“Aye, aye, captin,” Stiles said, grinning. 

He heard Derek chuckle before hanging up the phone. 

They managed to track down the Alpha; Derek had been right int hat he wouldn’t accept calls from a umber he didn’t recognise, but he did still have that warehouse down by the airport, and Allison, Stiles and Lydia managed to get in, (armed to the teeth) and talk with Rico. Rico hadn’t bitten the boy they’d picked up (who’s name turned out to be Josh) but Stiles said he didn’t really care, Josh lived on Rico’s territory and it was Rico’s job to either defend that territory from other alphas or take in any strays that resulted from his failure to protect that territory. 

Allison had hammered home the point by slamming an arrow into the Alpha’s shoulder. His beta’s flipped out, automatically protecting their Alpha, but Rico just held up a hand and chuckled at them, before pulling out the bloody arrow and throwing it to the ground.

“You’ve made your point, I’ll take care of the kid. Now I’d recommend you leave before my hospitality runs out, humans.”

Allison didn’t flinch, but she turned on her heal and stalked out of the warehouse, head held high and with Lydia and Stiles following behind her.

One of the beta’s by the door reached out a hand to grab her as she passed, but Allison’s reflexes were too quick and she immediately twisted his arm and slammed him over her shoulder, down to the floor. She turned back to face Rico with a bright smile on her face. 

“Now, if I’ve past your little test, myself and my pack will be off,” she said, falsely sweet.

Allison didn’t consider herself pack, but she knew when dealing with wolves that mentioning an alliance helped. If you had a pack then you had people to be mad if you were hurt or turned without your consent.

“Absolutely,” Rico gave her a small grin, “Let me know when you’re back in town, Allison.”

“No, thank you,” Allison replied sweetly. “Now we’re leaving.”

She spun on her heel and left, Lydia and Stiles trailing behind her trying to keep their heartbeats steady as they went. 

When they made it to the car and had driven out of sight, Lydia and Stiles agreed that Allison got unlimited badass points for that exchange and they all had to listen to everything she said ever again. Allison grinned.

They stopped once they got to Indianapolis, choosing to stay for a day. Indianapolis was one of the least exciting places they’d been to on their journey (and they had been to a giant ball of yarn on their way) but it was pretty enough, and they spent a day there, shopping and enjoying the running water before they moved on, but they’d been traveling for a long time, and they had to start making a move on. It wasn’t fair to stay away for too long. 

So once they left Indianapolis Allison drove, and drove, and drove. Stiles hadn’t slept well the previous night, to wired to settle and since they’d been taking turns sleeping during journey their sleep cycles were a little out of whack. 

They music had mellowed out, and Stiles seemed to have started sleeping. 

“Should we try and keep going till Harrisberg?” Allison asked, the early morning sunshine streaming in the window. With the June sunshine the car seemed to be constantly set to ‘Fuckin’ Hot’, so Stiles was sprawled out in the backseats, shirtless and sound asleep, knees bent and legs spread ridiculously in a gesture that would almost be provocative, if was wasn’t so obsurd.

“Yeah, if we don’t make it, then we don’t make it, but we should at least try,” Lydia said, settling back against the seats and closing her eyes as the mellow music washed over them. 

They heard a slight moan from the backseat. 

“Don’t tell me Stilinski gets night terrors,” Lydia said, trying to hide the concerned edge to her voice with exasperation.

“Well, he has enough reason to,” Allison reasoned, keeping her eyes firmly fixed on the road. 

Stiles groaned again, Lydia looked back before her head jerked back to the road, cheeks flushing. “Nope, not a night terror.”

“Wha- Oh!” 

Lydia pressed her lips firmly together, as they heard Stiles shuffle in the back seat, moaning in earnest. The heard him gasp out a name in his sleep, and Lydia winced.

“God,” Allison said, frowning at the road. “Really?”

“Uh huh,” Lydia said, eyes firmly forward. “You’ve not seen them together, it’s obvious.” She reached over and hit the skip button on the iPod, turning up the music to cover the sound of Stiles’s wet dream. 

‘It’s up in my heart when it skips a beat

Can’t feel no pavement right under my feet

Up in my lonely room

When I’m dreaming of y-‘

Lydia switched over to the radio and turned it up as loud as the volume would go, while Allison giggled.

“I’ll pull us over into a garage.”

“Make sure to break hard to wake him up,” Lydia added.

When they reached the gas station Allison braked so hard that Stiles went rolling off of the back seats onto the floor of the car, waking up suddenly and blinking at them.

“Pit stop Stiles, if you need the bathroom or anything,” Allison said diplomatically, not letting on that they knew about the wet dream he’d just had in the back of the car. 

“Uh yeah,” Stiles said, flushing red. “Yeah, that’d be good.” 

Allison smiled to herself as she got out of the car and started to fill up the gas tank, before Stiles clambered out of the back clutching his rucksack subtly infront of his crotch, slightly waddling over to the toilets. 

They’d stopped briefly at a spa hotel for a night, as Lydia and Allison had insisted they’d needed it after spending so long trapped in the car, and Stiles hadn’t put up to much of a fight, and had secretly adored the mud baths and face masks. 

He sat in the back again, grinning out as the city of New York started to unfold in the distance, sunlight still streaming overhead. 

“Dudes, we made it,” Stiles grinned.

“I would’ve placed money on someone killing you before we made it to Ohio,” Lydia said primly. Stiles reached forward and punched her lightly in the shoulder. "I tried actually. Allison wouldn't take the bet."

“Bitch.”

She rolled her eyes and turned back to blow him a kiss. He mimed vomiting. 

“Don’t make me turn this car around,” Allison warned, waving a finger at them, Stiles met her eyes in the rearview mirror, while she grinned. 

“I feel like we should let everyone know we’re not dead,” Stiles lamented as they drove through the Holland Tunnel into New York. “Y’know, our parents and such.”

Lydia pursed her lips, “Yeah, that sounds like an idea, and I know just the way.”

Stiles frowned, staring out the window as Allison pulled out of the tunnel, New York appearing infront of them. “Fuck, New York’s big.”

Allison laughed. 

Lydia took over directions until they found a place to park then she whipped out her smart phone and continued to direct them until they finally came to a halt infront of the Empire State Building.

“Oh my god my feet are so tired!” Stiles moaned.

“Perk up, Stilinski,” Lydia laughed, before grabbing the attention of some tourist family.

“Hey there, sorry, it’s me and my friends first time in New York, and we were wondering if you could take our picture?” Lydia asked, laying on the charm thickly.

The older man blinked, before smiling and taking the phone from her hand. Lydia grabbed Stiles and Allison by the waist and forced them closer to her. They all smiled, and the man took the picture, handing Lydia back her phone. She typed away on it, before finally flicking back over the cover and grinning back at Allison and Stiles. 

“There, you two are tagged, and everyone will know we’re in New York. I’d recommend ignoring your phones for a while,” Lydia said, pushing her phone into her pocket. As if on queue, Stiles could feel his vibrating inside of his pants. He ignored it, as the three of them set off to find a place to stay for the week.

As they hopped onto the subway Stiles sighed and he pulled out his phone, looking for the notification thread of tagged picture, before flicking it open. The picture was titled; ‘Me and my friends, in New York! Tagged: Allison Argent, Stiles Stilinski, Lydia Martin.’ and 20 people had already liked it.

To call he and Scott friends would be to severe insult their friendship; they weren’t friends, they were brothers in every sense of the word, blood be damned. Stiles had never really been good at making friends, he was to abrasive, to full-on. He always fixated on people until generally he was too much and they got sick of him. Scott had been the only one to stick. 

He looked to Allison and Lydia who were chuckling away at some joke he missed, before Allison turned raised her eyebrows and smiled at him. "You okay there?" she asked.

Stiles might not have been the best at making friends, but maybe he had a surprising knack for picking up family.