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It’s nearly three in the morning by the time Stiles drops Lydia off. His shoes are still wet, his feet chilled in squishy socks.
Lydia perches at his window like a tropical bird.
“You should come inside,” she says, brow furrowed with a delicate wrinkle he would have written a poem about before they were friends. Really friends.
“My dad gets off work pretty soon. He’s gonna... I think we have to talk,” Stiles says, drumming his thumbs on the steering wheel.
She watches, hair in place, mouth thinned.
“Listen,” he says, “it’s fine.”
“I know,” Lydia says, as sharp and tired as he feels. They’re both fine. They have to be.
**
Stiles turns the radio up on the way home. He half-heartedly sings along to Aerosmith on the oldies station before it sounds too energetic and cheerful and fun. He flips the volume down like he’s swatting a fly. When it’s silent again, the road whispers a lullabye.
Between Lydia’s neighborhood and his, there aren’t many houses. It’s nothing dense or half-scary-at-night like the preserve. Just bike trails and a creek and a cemetery. Street lights too far apart to establish a rhythm.
The road curves gently.
He blinks.
His vision kaleidoscopes briefly, sharpened and warped by tears he swipes away as they leave itchy, wet lines down his face. The sound of his own sharp sniffle startles him and he squints, trying to remember which turn he was looking for. Did he miss it?
The road keeps humming.
When flashing lights flare in his rearview mirror, Stiles jerks the wheel in surprise, overcorrects — from the wrong freaking side of the road — and squeals to a messy stop in the gravel on the shoulder.
“Sorry,” he says, before he notices that he’s driving by himself. He doesn’t remember seeing headlights approach, let alone the telltale silhouette of a patrol car.
Of course it’s his dad.
Stiles rolls down his window and turns the engine off.
“I’m going to assume you haven’t been drinking,” Stilinski says, pinched.
There’s an ache Stiles can’t name, waiting in line behind the other four thousand fucking things he doesn’t want to name, and he feels a scowl distort his features. He swallows back an ugly response and mutters, “Correct.”
“Stiles.”
“Yep. Still here.”
“You’ve been weaving for a quarter of a mile. At about eight miles per hour.”
“The good news is, that’s an entire,” Stiles glances up, trying to remember which road they’re on, “twenty-seven or so miles per hour under the speed limit.”
“Stiles,” his dad says, gently this time. Not pitying or anything, just a dad-shaped sound that pings something in Stiles and makes him feel like he’s eleven. Stiles ducks his face, but not quickly enough to somehow mask the rumbling scrape of a sob.
“Believe it or not,” Stilinski says, without skipping a beat, “this isn’t my first time pulling over a distraught teenager.”
“I’m not,” Stiles starts. Distraught is a Jane Austen kind of word. He’s just tired, that’s all. He’s just so tired.
“Let me give you a ride home.”
Stiles nods.
**
It feels like a betrayal to leave his Jeep on the side of the road in the dark, but Stiles falls asleep before they get home.
**
“All right kiddo,” his dad says, holding the back seat door open. “I hate to say this but there’s no way I’m hauling your ass inside.”
Fuzzy-mouthed and dry-eyed, Stiles nods and climbs out. He stumbles out of his shoes at the front door and only makes it as far as the couch. If he goes upstairs, he’ll look at his wall and he’ll have to add a thumbtack and another encrypted note about another dead friend and then it’ll be time to get up for school.
“When did you sleep last?” his dad asks as he drapes a threadbare Rugrats sheet over Stiles.
“I sleep. I love sleeping.”
“We found Scott’s boss. He’ll be okay.”
“Yeah, Scott texted me. You, uh, thanks. Dad.”
The couch dips with his dad’s weight.
Stiles follows the dip and ends up with his head in his dad’s lap. It’s awkward and they’re both too big for it, but Stiles is too tired to care. He has to ration out his concerns these day. Being too old for cuddling is way down on the list, farther than the first C he’s ever gotten on a test and the oil change his Jeep needs and the symptoms of sleep deprivation and the unspoken weight of werewolves. And the empty nothing-sound a dead body makes.
“We can talk in the morning,” his dad says. “I’ll make bacon before school.”
“Turkey bacon,” Stiles says, a reflex.
There’s a pause long enough that Stilinski’s next words startle Stiles out of a freefall.
“I’m proud of you, son.”
Stiles closes his eyes again. Tonight, he’s too tired to care about that, either.