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One week into summer vacation, Scott gets antsy.
Maybe it’s thanks to all the stuff they’ve been through since he was bitten – for weeks there was never any room to breathe, let alone sit around and actually have free time. There was always some problem to solve, some mystical creature to fight. But now school’s out, sophomore year’s over, and everything’s different. Everyone’s busy with god knows what, and Allison’s gone – for good, it looks like. And Scott?
Scott’s bored. And with boredom comes overthinking, and with overthinking comes moping. Before he knows it, it’s three in the morning and he’s sending whiny texts to Stiles that would embarrass him to read in broad daylight.
So when Stiles pulls up in his jeep the next morning morning, honking until he rouses Scott out of bed, and says, “Pack the car”, Scott does immediately.
“Why –” Scott starts, swinging his bag into the backseat of the jeep. Stiles shakes his head.
“Because if you send me one more mopey text, I’m going to kill you.” But Stiles grins, and Scott understands.
Scott laughs sheepishly. “Sorry,” he says, climbing up into the passenger’s seat.
“Yeah, yeah. You don’t get to pick the music for the first hour.”
There’s no destination in mind, not at first – Stiles borrows the GPS from his dad (“He’s a cop! Their cars have GPS, he’s gonna be fine. He knows this town like the back of his hand, anyway. If he got lost in Beacon Hills, he’d deserve to drive around for ages until he found himself again.”), turns it on once they hit the highway, and they drive. It’s freeing, Scott thinks. There’s no need to worry about safety, or his friends, or kanimas or hunters or any of the other crazy stuff they’ve run into in the last few months. No, now they have two whole months ahead of them with nothing but nice weather and free time, and it’s exciting. It’s what teenagers should be doing. Better this than fighting mythical creatures or moping over ex-girlfriends, that’s for sure.
Scott does call his mom once they’re a couple towns away, though. He knows she worries.
Eventually, the GPS woman’s voice gets annoying. “Please program a route,” she asks, every couple of minutes, and Stiles gets so agitated Scott thinks he’s going to toss the GPS out the window.
“Okay!” he finally cries. “Scott, put in the Grand Canyon.”
“Isn’t that like… only twelve hours from here?”
“What, did you want to drive to Antarctica? We’ll start with the Grand Canyon and then see where we end up. Anything to make her shut up!”
So Scott fiddles around with the GPS, and the woman’s voice falls silent. Stiles sighs with relief, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.
***
Later, Stiles spends a good hour alternating between hurling curse words in Scott’s direction and hurling his cookies into a ditch. Scott rubs his back and promises to spring for the motel room that night.
“I hate you, you know that?” Stiles says between retches.
“I know.” Scott gives him his water bottle.
***
“It’s all they had,” Scott says when the door swings open, revealing the one double bed standing in the center of the small room.
Stiles shrugs, moving forward and dumping his duffel bag on a chair. “Could be worse. I could have to share a twin bed with your ass. And you kick.”
“I don’t anymore!” Scott argues, going for the tv remote.
“Mhm. Sure you don’t.” Scott chucks his sweater in Stiles’ direction.
They watch tv for a couple hours, too keyed up from the excitement of the spontaneous trip to sleep right away. They flip back and forth between informercials and a Simpsons rerun, and Scott makes Stiles laugh when he quotes an entire six-minute segment with Homer and Flanders verbatim. He’s grinning when he finally trips over a line. Scott likes making Stiles laugh.
Stiles eventually dozes off, slipping down the headboard, and Scott turns the volume down low.
“You glad we came?” he asks quietly.
Stiles mumbles something unintelligible, his eyes still closed. There’s a smile on his face, though, and Scott takes that as a good thing.
“Me too.”
When he wakes a few hours later, it’s still dark out and the television’s playing a soft stream of static. His eyes feel heavy with sleep, and Stiles is snoring quietly. He’s tucked up against Scott’s chest, their legs entwined atop the blankets.
Scott shifts just enough to find the remote and turn off the tv before closing his eyes again.
***
“Have you heard from Allison?” he asks. His eyes stay focused on the road, but Scott sees them flick over to his face once or twice, checking in.
Scott shrugs, sighing a little. “Nah. Not since school let out – I don’t think she wants to talk to me, and I haven’t really tried. I don’t even know if she’s coming back next year.”
This time, Stiles looks at him a little more openly. “You okay?”
Scott thinks of the car horn honking wildly in his driveway the morning before, of eyerolls and flailing limbs. He thinks of Stiles’ ankle tucked between his own, Stiles’ heartbeat steady against his chest, and he smiles. He doesn’t want to overthink things for once, doesn’t want to obsess or wonder or question what’s going on in his head. It’s comfortable, whatever it is. And that’s good enough for him.
“Yeah,” he says. “I actually think I am.”
***
“Damn,” Stiles says, shaking his head. They’ve parked a ways back, hiking as close to the edge as they can get, and it’s taken longer than they expected. The sun’s already gone behind the rocks, casting a dull grey over everything as night sets in. “I didn’t know it’d take this long to walk out here. Sorry, dude.”
Scott raises his eyebrows, looking out over the shadowy crevice. “What’re you sorry for? We made it!”
Stiles shrugs, but stays quiet. There’s something in the air, something unsaid – Scott can feel it. He doesn’t know what Stiles isn’t saying, but he slings an arm around him anyway.
“We made it,” he says again, tucking Stiles right up against his side. “That’s what counts, right?”
He sees a smile tug at the corner of Stiles’ lips. “Yeah, man,” he says, finally. “We made it.”
“It’s pretty cool,” Scott says, gesturing in front of them.
Stiles snorts. “It’s practically night, there’s nothing to see.”
“I still think it’s cool.”
They stand like that for what feels like ages, arms around one another, eyes turned out over the gaping mouth of the canyon. The destination may be underwhelming, not the life-changing view he’d been expecting – but somehow, that doesn’t matter. Not to Scott. They’re miles away from Beacon Hills, away from problems and drama, and he’s with his favourite person in the world.
What could be bad about that?
On the way back to the car, Stiles bumps Scott’s side gently. “Where to next?” he asks.
“Does it matter?” Their arms brush again, and Scott slides his fingers into Stiles’ own. He feels him tense, just for a fraction of a second, and Scott squeezes gently. He can almost hear the exhale as Stiles relaxes and squeezes back.
“No,” Stiles says, and Scott can almost hear the smile in his voice. “It doesn’t matter at all.”
end.