Six Feet Under | Sterek

eighteen;

Derek drives for a few days, and Stiles doesn't care. He sits in the passenger seat, curled in a ball without his seat belt on, and watches the world go by. They listen to Derek's music, which is a weird mix of classical and punk, and they don't talk to each other which Stiles is fine with. His throat is too tight too talk anyway.

Stiles would spend his time his drinking if there was any alcohol left in the car. There isn't, of course, but he wishes there was just so he could do something other than fiddle with hands and not say anything.

So he talks. 

"You wanna stop in at the next town?" He says to Derek, keeping his face turned to the window. "We must be getting low on petrol and I want a drink. And maybe some more snacks."

Derek says nothing, but they do stop at the next town. Stiles leaves the werewolf to fill up the car and disappears into the bottle store. He roams the shelves, reveling in the quiet and the calm and the familiarity. How nice to know that bottle stores are the same, no matter how far away from home he goes. 

He picks out a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of brandy, and he takes both up to the counter. The weathered man sitting behind the register raises an eyebrow at him and the alcohol. "You got any ID, kid?" His voice crackles with the warmth of a bonfire, and creaks like wooden cabin in a winter wind. 

Stiles digs out his license, managing to keep his hands from shaking as he hands it over. The man looks it over, humming to himself as he compares Stiles and Stiles's picture. After a moment, the man gives it back. "Thank you," Stiles says quietly.

"What are you doing out this way, kid?" The man asks as he scans the bottles. 

Stiles lifts his shoulders in a half-shrug. "Just passing through."

The man gives him a knowing look. "Ain't nobody end up here unless they outrunnin' something. What are you runnin' from?"

Stiles hands over some cash, and this time his palms sweat and his arms tremble and he can't quite keep his breathing steady. He is running from something, isn't he? He's running from the truth, from his constant lying, from the disappointment in his dad's eyes. He's running from the words 'you could be a murderer' and he's running from the heartbreak in Scott's eyes.

Stiles is running from himself as well, but he doesn't want to admit that yet.

Still, the man is obviously waiting for an answer. Stiles says, "I don't like running. I like to think I'm sauntering away from my problems," and the man roars with laughter like it's actually funny.

Stiles leaves the bottle store wondering when he decided to give up on himself too. 

Derek meets him back at the car, the werewolf's arms full of chips and chocolate and soft drink. Stiles smiles when he sees it, and Derek smiles back as if it's an instinctual reaction, but then he sees the two bottles and his smile dims. Stiles ignores it and clambers into the passenger seat again. Derek dumps the food in the backseat before he gets in and he starts the car, but he doesn't drive away.

"Stiles-" He starts and then stops, looking frustrated. "Stiles, this has to stop."

Stiles blinks at him and says, "What?"

Derek motions to the car, to the bottles, to Stiles and the mess that he is. "You keep running away, keep using the alcohol as a weapon against everyone. You have to stop running eventually, or you're going to kill yourself."

And maybe Derek might've been right if Stiles didn't have a monster shifting under his skin, but Stiles does, so Derek has no idea what he's talking about. "Then let me die," Stiles says, something dark and hollow and bitter seeping into his voice. "Just let me die."

Derek starts driving with white knuckles and a clenched jaw.

Stiles doesn't know what the werewolf expects from him. It's not really fair, he thinks as he watches the little town disappear in the mirror. It's not really fair that Derek expects so much of him, because Stiles has a reputation for disappointing himself so really Derek has nobody to blame but himself when Stiles opens the bottle of brandy and starts drinking.

It burns, it burns, but Stiles keeps drinking because he wants to wash away the knowledge that he started this journey with no intention of finishing it and coming home. He drove away from Beacon Hills knowing that they'll find his car on some abandoned side road and Stiles won't be there, that Stiles will be found nearby with glazed eyes and no pulse and a bottle in his hand.

Stiles knows exactly why he let Derek come with him, because he knows that Derek won't let that happen and some small part of Stiles that's afraid of death is grateful.

"You should've stayed behind," he says to Derek, voice small but angry. "You should have just let me go."

Derek swallows something that sounds like a pained laugh. "If I'd let you go, would you have come back?"

No, Stiles sighs silently. No, and that's the point you useless fucking werewolf, stop caring about me.

But Derek won't stop caring about him, and that's pretty fair because Stiles cares about Derek too, so what the fuck do they do now? They can drive to the ends of the fucking earth, but nothing will change, Stiles won't change, so what's the point?

"I hate you," Stiles chokes out, and his voice is thick with everything he doesn't say but he knows that Derek understands anyway. "I hate you. Why did you come with me? What do you want? Why won't you go home?" His voice cracks, and he takes another burning swig of brandy.

Derek's pretty gemstone eyes are vulnerable as he says, "Because I don't fit in Beacon Hills either, and I thought we could not-fit together."

And oh, Stiles has been a bit of a prick hasn't he? Not once has he stopped to consider that maybe Derek has things to outrun as well, that maybe Derek can't stand the stagnated silence that infects Beacon Hills and worms it's way into everyone's soul. Maybe Derek realised that he doesn't want to sit in a hollow loft with only himself for company while Peter stands as a testament to everything they've lost.

Maybe Derek came with him because Stiles said he was going nowhere, and anywhere, and Derek thought that suited him just fine.

Stiles rests his head on the closed window and closes his eyes.