
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/761191.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Teen_Wolf_(TV)
  Relationship:
      Peter_Hale/Stiles_Stilinski
  Character:
      Peter_Hale, Stiles_Stilinski
  Stats:
      Published: 2013-04-14 Words: 9431
****** Feet on the Dash ******
by veterization
Summary
     It's strange, because to the random unknowing passerby they're just
     two friends, maybe even family members, taking a road trip in the
     middle of a sweaty, endless June, but Peter's an ex-serial killer
     werewolf and Stiles is a little puny human who's eating all the chips
     like Peter won't rip his throat out if he eats the whole bag without
     sharing. The road trip part, however, is true.
Notes
     This story is lacking all the delicious aggression and dub-con that
     most Peter/Stiles do are so rich in, but I heard the Death Cab For
     Cutie song "Passenger Seat" and instantly thought of this plot where
     Peter and Stiles go on a road trip and couldn't let it go. This ship
     takes you as its prisoner.
     Even though it's incredibly unrealistic that Stiles and Peter ever
     take a road trip, I still hope everybody enjoys. (◕‿◕✿)
When Stiles tries to make sense of it, none of it adds up. Maybe he needs to
get away. Maybe he needs a release from being caged into a tiny town
overstuffed with a lot of crazy that seemed to swallow him whole every day, and
maybe a long stretch of hot road and blurred landscapes is exactly what he
needs. God only knows why Peter is here.
It's strange, because to the random unknowing passerby they're just two
friends, maybe even family members, taking a road trip in the middle of a
sweaty, endless June, but Peter's an ex-serial killer werewolf and Stiles is a
little puny human who's eating all the chips like Peter won't rip his throat
out if he eats the whole bag without sharing. The road trip part, however, is
true.

Even stranger than that is that neither of them are talking about it. The
murders, the way Peter physically assaulted Stiles against the hood of his car
in that creepy parking garage, the way Stiles was responsible for setting him
on fire the second time in one lifetime. It's knowledge they both know is
settling under their skins but mutually decide to keep quiet for the sake of
keeping the peace, and Stiles thinks maybe this is what letting go of grudges
feels like. It's oddly refreshing. The whole thing is refreshing, Stiles' knee
on the dash and the windows cracked to let the summer aromas of grass and
tangible heat waft into the stuffy car. Never mind the fact that Stiles is
letting a werewolf drive his car to God knows where.

They just drive, soft music on the radio while Stiles' mouth turns orange from
Cheetos. Maybe Peter really has changed. Maybe reincarnation does wonders for
some people like yoga retreats do for others.

Stiles has no idea where they are, and he supposes that might be part of the
thrill, not that it isn't thrilling enough that he's secluded in a Jeep with a
bloodthirsty creature of the moon. He saw a sign earlier when he was letting
his eyes droop, something like "Fullerton" and "Santa Ana," but his brain
wasn't really processing, too busy dozing against the cool glass of the
passenger window. His dad knows he needs a trip, something to just get away and
rebel before school's over, but he thinks he's alone. Stiles wouldn't know how
to explain a thirty-something grown man road tripping with him anyway.

--

The best part about traveling is the food. All of it's greasy and none of it
tastes like home even if all the Burger Kings have the same layout and the same
grumpy cashier who's probably spitting into the fryer during break time.
There's something about eating a flat, sad little hamburger and mangling his
straw with his teeth when he's sitting in a diner in a town he doesn't even
know how to pronounce the name of let alone point to on a map.

They're sitting in a dinky booth poorly nailed to the floor next to a sticky
table like a myriad of children have smeared ice cream on the counter over the
years, Peter digging into a hamburger like this is where his true animal side
comes out for the world to see. Stiles has seen the man with claws and fur and
watching him attack his happy meal is mildly more terrifying. Stiles is nursing
a chocolate milkshake next to him while he's stealing Peter's onion rings, and
he knows nothing gets past those werewolf senses so maybe Peter's actually all
right with sharing or merely finds Stiles' thievery endearing.

Over by the counter, a tourist family of seven all wearing the same baby blue
shirt broadcasting their family vacation is steamrolling into the place and
ordering everything on the menu. Stiles remembers taking family vacations when
he was younger, barely remembers, but he does, snippets like his mother guiding
him around by the hand and his father asking strangers to take pictures of them
together. Stiles went through a phase where he never understood the concept of
smiling for photographs, only staring interrogatively at the lens, and his
mother found it hilarious, tickling his sides to get him to giggle before the
flash went off.

"What happens when you die?" Stiles asks Peter, who takes a moment to chew
through a truly challenging hamburger the size of his whole face, tomatoes
oozing out the sides while he considers the question.

"Nothing," he says simply, and Stiles knows Peter has no reason for lying. It
scares him only a little that Peter can actually answer this question, the ones
that are supposedly unanswerable, more so reminding him exactly how adventurous
his life has become even if he's one step closer every day to a game over
screen just because he has a friend that gets himself into trouble and an
insatiable curiosity.

"Nothing, huh?" Stiles murmurs, and guesses all that malarkey about white
lights and a heavenly voice are the things of legend.

"And if you're lucky," Peter adds with a shit-eating grin, "then you come back
to life."

Peter winks around another bite, chasing melting cheese with his tongue, and
Stiles feels very much like laughing.

--

Stiles wonders why Peter's here, but sometimes, when he's breathing in the
country air and trying fruitlessly to grab a visual hold of the blurry houses
zooming by, he gets why. There is no Trauma for Beginners class and nobody
teaches you how to cope when you get older. Stiles, he's scared of dying and of
everybody else dying, and maybe Peter is too. He's already experienced both,
after all.

Sometimes he looks over at Peter when he's driving and he sees glimpses of
somebody unguarded and naked, somebody he might've been before the fires. He
imagines how the Hales were beforehand, cautious but carefree, perfectly
content to live away from the town gossipmongers and the bustling of human
curiosity. Stiles likes to imagine Peter was a wicked prankster. He has that
ghost of a sly glow in his eyes.

"How were things before the fire?" Stiles asks one afternoon. It's amazing how
effortlessly the days blur together with nothing but a faded car clock and an
endless line of trees and street signs surrounding him. "What were you, y'know,
like?"

"Which fire?"

Peter's actually smiling, a dry grin, like he was waiting for Stiles to ask,
and Stiles thinks about the time he burned his hand on a candle at his mother's
funeral service by accident. The skin was red and sour for weeks. It hurt.

"The last one."

"Well," Peter says, and Stiles knows he'll stop him if he asks too many
questions. "I didn't have any facial hair."

Peter meets his gaze over the console, his smile real this time. Stiles
supposes it's things like this, witty quips and a startling bluntness that
makes Stiles like being in a car with this guy for twenty-four hours a day. He
would've thought that it was going to end badly, perhaps only agreeing because
he wanted to get out no matter who with, but their odd little arrangement
works. Maybe it's because Stiles doesn't see the murder in this guy anymore,
doesn't see the urge for blood under the Alpha red eyes, doesn't feel the same
thrum of terror when he sees his face. Or maybe Stiles is just a sucker for bad
ideas.

He cracks a window and hears the rush of wind push in, shoving past the hot air
trapped in the car that has Stiles in his t-shirt and his sweatshirt crumpled
in the backseat. He looks through the window just in time to see a red barn
whiz past. He wonders who lives there, or who ever lived there, or how they
ever did so far away from society or even a grocery store. He imagines a life
where his backyard doesn't bump into someone else's fence but rather stretches
on for miles with nothing but a tire swing and a muddy little pond. Right now,
with school and werewolves and Lydia awaiting him back home, the idea sounds
like the ultimate release, the kind he knows Peter wants too since what awaits
him isn't much better than Stiles' reality, like a pack that doesn't trust him
and a burnt shell of a home.

A rickety, taupe SUV with at least ten bumper stickers passes them. Stiles taps
Peter's wrist and smiles.

"License plate game?" he asks, and Peter takes on his challenge.

Peter sucks at the license plate game. Stiles thinks it's funny.

--

Their snacks run dry a few days in, nothing but crumbs of salt left in the chip
bags and warm gulps of water left sitting in the cup holders. The convenience
store they decide to stop at doesn't look like it's seen a mop in decades, let
alone actual customers, and the whole place reeks strongly of rotting chili
poorly veiled with Febreze.

The place has souvenir magnets and Slim Jims, though, so Stiles fills his arms
with junk food and meets Peter by the cashier after a quick bathroom break.

"Okay, the bathrooms?" Stiles hisses conspiratorially over by the noisy hum of
the refrigerated beers. "Are not actually bathrooms. They're just glorified
buckets in a lockable room."

"Should we leave a complaint with the cashier?" Peter murmurs while he stacks
pretzels into his grip. The cashier, a beefy guy who looks like he has more
tattoos than he has words in his vocabulary, is not exactly somebody he's
looking forward to bellyaching to about the state of the sanitation of the
restroom. Peter smoothly steps into the next aisle where a poor selection of
nasal sprays and themed bandages meets them.

"Um, no," Stiles sneaks another look at the man, eyeing the two of them like
they're invading on his personal alone time with his merchandise, and shakes
his head. "He looks like he'd like to eat us both for lunch."

Peter smirks and suddenly there's a hand on the small of his back, a slight,
protective pressure that feels almost fatherly with the exception of the finger
that's brushing against the waistband of his jeans.

"You realize I'd eat him first, right?" Peter says, giving Stiles a look that's
somehow simultaneously impish and disappointed that Stiles is doubting his
ability to guard either of them from harm. Sometimes, miraculously, Stiles
forgets who he's traveling with.

"Yeah, what was I think—" Stiles' sarcasm gives way for more important matters
when he zeroes in on the box in Peter's hand that he plucks from the shelf to
investigate. "Condoms? Dear god, why?"

"You don't have any," Peter shrugs, swapping the box he's holding out for
another, larger one. "I would've thought that you would've gotten a talk by now
about being safe about sex, Stiles. And having condoms in your car is
definitely a way to be safe."

He fixes him with an arched eyebrow that doesn't feel at all like the type of
grim glare that all sex-ed teachers are known for having to intimidate their
students into buying condoms and avoiding sex, much more suggestive with a hint
of—

"Do you have to be so creepy all the time—"

But Peter's already at the cashier laying down his bag of jumbo sized pretzels
and lifetime supply of condoms, which Stiles will not look at because
apparently he has the sexual maturity of a seven-year-old, and Stiles hustles
on over there to add his own armful of snacks to the pile.

Stiles looks fixedly at the ceiling when the cashier rings up the condoms, only
looking horizontally at the world again when they leave with their bags, and
tries his hardest not to think what the implications are of Peter Hale buying
him condoms when he catches the keys to his Jeep, settles in the driver's side,
and watches Peter tuck them into the glove compartment.

--

The thing about this road trip that really gets Stiles is that he knows that as
well as Peter and him seem to get along when it's nothing but a tinny radio and
the odd horse grazing in a field streaking by, it won't last when they get back
to reality. If they were back in Beacon Hills with Derek's pack and Scott
surrounding them, Stiles would side with everybody else and call the man a
freak of nature. He knows what he's capable of, things that shouldn't be easily
forgiven, things like murder and torture. Stiles wonders if Kate Argent doing
it to him first justifies any of it. The whole thing is grey matter.

Maybe Peter knows too, but the peace will be broken when they go home. Maybe
the hustle of the town will return them back to being shaky enemies who happen
to fight on the same side, back to distrusting each other, back to expecting
the worst. When Stiles thinks of it that way, he never wants to leave this
stuffy old Jeep again.

He never thought he'd see it this way, but Peter makes things simple.

--

They sleep in the backseat and in the passenger seat, which folds back a grand
five inches. Hotels are too sleazy of a thought for Stiles to comprehend, the
idea of stopping at a motel that smells of cigars and chlorine with Peter in
tow much too seedy. Things are safe in the car, a confined space that keeps
both their proverbial demons out of sight and out of mind, and Stiles likes
sleeping tucked into the parking lot of a rest stop or in the nook of a forest
trail even if the backseat makes his spine ache and his feet can't stretch out
all the way. Peter always sleeps in the passenger seat, reclined only a smidgen
but still enough to lure him to sleep. Oddly enough, driving all day is
exhausting, like there's something in the air that's cleansing his very bones
and refreshing him, urging him to sleep off whatever burdens he keeps hidden
under his shoulders.

Peter always sleeps with even breaths, a tranquil face that the moonlight
illuminates like the soft glow of a desk lamp. Watching him motivates Stiles to
fall into slumber too, like watching the peace that sits alive and well under
the roar of the wolf is the world's way of balancing out the bad and the good.

He pillows his head under his sweatshirt and soaks in the sound of the
crickets, nature looming over his car in swaying trees and grasshoppers napping
on the roof. He feels like he's five-years-old and camping again, closer to
nature than he ever feels amid the looming buildings of the city, and even the
way the car gets sticky with the night's heat isn't enough to keep him from
being dead to the world for at least eight hours. Everything is moist and warm
like standing behind the gust of a truck's exhaust pipe, the random breeze that
slips in from the cracked window like gulping down iced tea in the most
sweltering hour of a sunny July day.

He wakes up like a pretzel, folded awkwardly into the back seat with his t-
shirt riding up his chest and his calves burning from the cumbersome position
he's held all night, but it hurts in the best of ways. It makes Stiles feel
rugged and alive when his muscles are sore the next morning and Peter's
cranking the seat back upright before clambering over to the driver's side to
ride over to the nearest McDonalds for a breakfast so oily it'll throw both of
them into early graves.

--

Days into their trek, Stiles still doesn't know where they're going. There are
no maps and no GPS voices directing them to take a certain turn or speed off a
highway ramp. Now and again Peter changes highways just for the hell of it,
like fate will end up bringing them somewhere in the end anyway. Stiles likes
to amuse himself that one morning he'll wake up and they'll be parked outside
the Grand Canyon, or grazing the beach where college kids are throwing
volleyballs and doing shots in the sand. Stiles goes straight when he's driving
because the street lets him. It's amazing how long the roads are, how they
stretch and roll with the hills for miles, nothing but black asphalt plus faded
yellow lines reaching the horizon.

The front window is huge, like what's to come is what's worth focusing on, and
the rear-view mirror is so small because what he's leaving behind isn't nearly
as special or worthy of his attention. He barely thinks about home or the video
games sitting in his Xbox, just the occasional rumination over if his father is
eating right or if the station is overworking him. He can expect things to be
complicated at home, whether it be with his father's work, or Scott having
waded knee dip in shit, or Derek attracting trouble, as usual. Stiles would've
thought that he would've been used to it, like mayhem is just part of his daily
routine, but he's not. Maybe he's not cut out for the Batman and Robin life,
and maybe he should've learned that earlier.

He and Peter don't talk too much about the serious things, like what was the
coma like or where's your mom, Stiles, but they still seem to understand each
other. Peter knows things about Stiles that even his father doesn't, like the
fact that Stiles runs with wolves in his free time and escaped the Reaper that
was narrowly close to knocking on his door multiple times in the last year.
They talk about other things, easy things, things that don't worsen the burden
of what reality has in store for them.

"An American Werewolf in London," Stiles says with certainty. Peter snorts and
sighs heavily next to him like he expected better, halfway through a box of
crackers that Stiles bought exclusively for himself.

"The Wolf Man," Peter refutes. "It's a classic."

"And which one is more accurate?"

Peter shoots him a critical look after popping another cracker into his mouth.
"Why, Stiles. You're acting like werewolves are real."

"Amazing what wonders resurrection did for your sense of humor," Stiles says
dryly as he pilfers a cracker from the nearly empty box.

"Maybe you just bring out the best in me, Stiles," Peter murmurs, looking
highly amused, and Stiles wonders how on earth he went from fearing his life
around this guy to bantering like they're lifelong friends.

It's definitely strange, but he decides now is not the time to investigate.

--

The weirdest part of the whole journey is definitely the impromptu trip to
Disneyland.

They notice they're in Anaheim when they stop for drive-through hot dogs and
see a handful of signs advertising "Anaheim's most coveted theme park: the
happiest place on earth" hanging crookedly off the side of the road. Stiles
mentions as an offhand joke that Peter would look good with mouse ears and the
next day they're there, a road with much more traffic than they've experienced
all week, two toll booths, and a parking lot clogged to full capacity with
shrieking children in Disney character costumes and their weary parents.

Stiles has never been to Disney before, just the shitty town fair that rolls in
late summer and features a few rickety Ferris wheels and a wooden roller
coaster that is basically just fifteen ways to crack your neck in under thirty
seconds, and he certainly never imagined he'd go with Peter. It's such an
unexpected detour that Stiles can't help but laugh at how ludicrous the
situation is when they're stuffed on a tram while young children screech at the
top of their lungs to the dismay of their parents and continuously stumble over
Peter's shoes.

"How badly do you want to rip those kids' throats out?" Stiles whispers over
the noisy hum of the tram. As much as he doesn't advocate the public mauling of
youngsters, he's pretty sure these little terrors will only grow into the full
potential of their iniquity after puberty eggs them on.

"Terribly," Peter says back, eyes hardly amused as they flash a theatrical
supernatural blue that Stiles is pretty sure is for show. He kicks him in the
shin and feels only slightly bad about it.

When they finally make it past the ticket booth, it feels like the entire
population of Russia plus an army of strollers meet them in the park, nobody
above pushing and kicking. Peter looks like he's about to go on his second
killing spree so Stiles jabs his elbow into his ribs. Funny how back in winter
when Stiles was sweating over the thought of being torn to mangled shreds on
that lacrosse field courtesy of Peter, he never would've even considered the
idea of digging his elbow into his stomach and waiting for the retaliation.

"Reincarnation is such a good look on you," Stiles drawls after a toddler
weaves through his legs and nearly causes him to tumble into the decorative
fountain. "I'd hate for you to waste your new life in prison because you ate a
two-year-old."

"Why would I eat a two-year-old," Peter says mildly, like they're talking about
tea, "when the teenagers have much more meat?"

Suddenly there's a hand squeezing his waist, five slender fingers digging past
the fabric and pinching the skin, and Stiles barely has time to react before
Peter's pulling away and snorting into his fist like making Stiles nervous is
his favorite new past time.

Stiles gets back at him by forcing him to ride Splash Mountain.

It's literally the only ride they make it through, Peter's short temper and
Stiles' hunger cutting their day short, but the best part is the fact that
nobody's taking pictures. There's not a single memento of the two of them with
cheesy grins with Cinderella's castle glimmering behind them, not a single
commemorative photograph taken by a friendly elderly woman of the two of them,
and Stiles likes that. He sees plenty of tourists with cameras looped around
their necks stopping every other second to snap shots of restaurants and goofy
family members, and Stiles thinks the world barely ever stops looking through
lenses to see the unfiltered rawness of it all. He soaks it in, literally soaks
until his t-shirt is damp with sweat courtesy of a blistering afternoon sun and
too much body heat, and they leave before the fireworks to get a head start on
traffic.

Stiles misses the quiet stretches of roads, so Peter gets him there.

When they're back on the tranquil road, not a single soccer mom van in sight,
Stiles rehashing the way Peter's face contorted when their boat tipped down the
plummet of Splash Mountain—where were his werewolf powers now—he briefly
wonders what Scott's doing, or Lydia, or Derek, and if they're as relaxed as
Stiles is right now lounging on the passenger seat of his Jeep with aching feet
and a badly tuned radio keeping his ears company.

--

The funny thing about driving is that it teaches you things about people you
never knew before, things like how much aggression lurks under seemingly
innocuous skin and how much of a stickler for the rules people really are.
Scott's a clumsy driver who can't handle a stick shift and Jackson's a pompous
driver who pretends he owns the road, just like their personalities, and Peter
just so happens to handle a car like a mechanical bull—at full power, and
constantly demanding more challenges.

With challenges, Stiles means speed limits, trivial things clearly under
Peter's concern as he makes it his mission to defy every single number if only
to revel in the fact that he's never pulled over. Stiles will personally cut
out his kneecaps while he's sleeping if he puts any marks on his Jeep's record.
Peter loves the acceleration lanes and drives over eighty miles even when the
Jeep groans and thunders down the road like a rogue ping pong ball, noises of
protest which always result in Stiles demanding he pull the car over so Stiles
can treat his car right if only to make sure they won't be hitchhiking back to
Beacon Hills with his trustworthy vehicle left in the dust as a historical
landmark.

Stiles is kind of a crazy driver too, but differently. He's erratic and jumpy,
just like he is without his ADD medication, braking at inopportune moments to
avoid woodland creatures scampering across the street and swerving off the road
when there's either an urgency or a funny face being pulled in the passenger
seat. He thinks maybe he uses the Jeep as his super power, a metal cage that
acts like armor to his otherwise vulnerable flesh, and he and Peter fit
together in that sense. Combining their driving styles would make for the most
lethally inventive race car driver on the planet.

The engine gives out at one point, which Stiles suffers only a mild panic
attack through while Peter cracks open the hood and stares at the parts. Stiles
knows his ups and downs with car mechanics, but when Peter has to wave smoke
away from the engine just like in what happens in the movies right before the
car commits suicide, he spends the next five minutes cradling his head between
his knees on the side of the road praying that Peter knows something about
cars.

Turns out, he does. He turns into MacGyver in under two seconds and sticks his
arm into the hood like he's performing open heart surgery, and next thing he
knows the car is rumbling to a start like it was only taking a slightly
dysfunctional nap and Stiles shoots back to his feet.

Peter looks smug and amused by the time Stiles realizes that they won't be
stranded on the side of the road and that Peter's hidden mechanical skills are
to thank. It makes him think, nine miles and no malfunctions later, what other
skills Peter secretly has that he wouldn't have expected out of him because all
he ever saw him be good at is being a monster. Maybe he makes a mean waffle, or
maybe he's computer savvy, or maybe he's an avid book reader. Stiles had never
stopped to consider that Peter does human things on his own time, like order
pizza delivery or do karaoke. The funny thing is that Peter was definitely a
person before he was the monster, a person with a job and a family and a life,
all things that were taken from him with the fire. He wonder how much of that
original Peter was salvageable after the coma, how much of him was pieced back
together to create the man next to him now.

"You were right, by the way," Peter says another thirteen miles later. "She
does grind in second."

--

A full moon peeks into the window one night against the black night, a shining
orb that lights the way of the road alongside the yellow headlights. Stiles
wonders how Derek's pack is doing at home, if Scott is controlling himself and
if Beacon Hills is safe tonight. He hopes his father has the night off.

"So is your blood lust at its peak?" Stiles asks cheekily from where he's
watching the moon loom over the trees from the window. Peter snorts elegantly.

"Not exactly," Peter says, and sneaks a look at him that looks obscenely
hungry. "But I do have other things at their peak."

Stiles doesn't know whether to laugh or slap him over the head, and no, he
doesn't think about the condoms that are sitting untouched in the glove box at
all. Not at all.

--

Stiles makes the spontaneous decision to swerve off the beaten path one day
when he thinks they've left California. He can't be sure, but the trees start
changing shape and the road gets bumpier, like they've traveled to a different
land. He should be worried, being this far away from home with Peter, but he
supposes that just adds to the risk that comes with aimless road tripping.

He knows they have to go home eventually, face the reality that is school and
homework and werewolf drama, but not yet. So they keep stopping at gas pumps
and filling up and driving further. He wonders if at home, anybody's made
connections yet that Stiles and Peter are both gone. Derek will have gotten
suspicious first, trusting his uncle as far as much as he can outrun him, and
will have told Scott and made it their mission to figure out if the connection
is sound. If they've figured it out, Stiles knows Scott won't understand. He
doesn't understand it fully either.

"Why are you here, Peter?" Stiles asks that night. They're sitting against the
hood of the car looking out over a murky lake. Stiles had hoped that it was the
ocean when he pulled up to the shimmering water, but he sees the muddy bank of
marshy land far in the distance. It's an uncommonly chilly night, like the
water is cooling the air, and it makes Stiles feels like they've spent their
whole summer in a car and fall has crept up on them next to Old Man Time even
if it's still June or July.

"The food is superb," Peter drawls. Stiles stares at him, and amazingly enough,
it motivates the truth out of him. "I like you, Stiles."

The words are familiar, the night of the parking garage echoing in his ears. If
somebody had told him a year ago that he'd be road tripping with a werewolf who
tried to kill him on multiple occasions, he'd question their mental health. He
still doesn't get it himself.

"You're not here to convince me to let Derek turn me, are you?"

Peter shrugs noncommittally, readjusting against the front bumper of the Jeep
that croaks in protest at the movement. Stiles wonders how old he is, and if
the coma added more wrinkles than it should have. "Not my original plan."

"So it's really just the food, then?" Stiles smirks, fiddling with the moist
grass under his legs. It's dampening his pants, but he doesn't want to
readjust. Instead he grabs a handful of dirt and tosses it into the lake, where
it ripples through the flat line of water and sinks to the ground.

"The company," Peter says slowly, "is pretty good too."

Suddenly there's a hand on his knee, a light touch that's not even close to the
way the same fingers slammed him onto a car a few months ago. It's like a
ghost's hand, a few brushes that Stiles feels like electricity. The night is
cold and Stiles' body is too, but Peter's palm is a warm patch through his
jeans. He wonders if this is what this whole trip has been leading too, if this
is why Stiles said yes, if this is why Stiles doesn't want to go home. He
doesn't move his leg.

"You know, Stiles," Peter adds, "I'm really not a fan of the loveable geeky-
boy-gets-the-hot-girl trope."

Stiles looks at him, Peter's eyes shining in the light, and feels something run
through him like want. It's scary, considering it's a sensation he always
associated with red hair and a perky chest, and here he is feeling it thrum
through his veins for the grown man in front of him. Peter looks very much like
he'd like to lean in and suck at the flushed spot on Stiles' neck, and Stiles
wants him to, but the night air is making him woozy and he's not falling asleep
on this dirty ground with the mosquitoes nesting in his pants tomorrow.

So he gets up, pretends he doesn't hear Peter's heavy sigh as his hand slips
off his thigh, and climbs into the car again.

--
What he's trying to avoid, though, it's inevitable. There's something about
Peter that isn't black and white, good or bad, just pure in between that Stiles
wants to feel with his hands. In high school, no matter what the soap operas
say, it's easy. You find a girlfriend by your locker and you take her to the
movies and then to the homecoming dance. Her friends gossip about you in the
bathroom and you make out by the vending machines in passing period. With
Peter, it's dangerous. Whatever it is, it doesn't have a clear label. It'd be
savage and refreshing and aggressive, the kind of thing he'd never feel again,
and he knows he's running out of time. This thing they're tossing back and
forth on the road, it won't survive in the real world, too vulnerable to
others' words and the responsibilities of life to stay alive.

He thinks about what must be wrong with him to want Peter how he does, to think
about the feeling of his hand on his leg, how maybe all this time away from his
home has made him susceptible to bad ideas and masochism, but then he sees
Peter roll his eyes at one of Stiles' jokes and sit cross-legged in the
passenger seat with socks pooled at his ankles, socks, and Stiles doesn't see
any hint of the monster anymore.

"Do you think there's something wrong with me?" Stiles asks one day, long after
his duffel bag of laundry has run dry and he's wearing his t-shirt inside out
just to feel fresh fabric against his skin. He knows things like washing
machines and summer homework are calling him. He tries to ignore the calls as
long as possible, focusing on the smell of evergreen wafting through the window
and how the radio overheats every two hours and has to be turned off. The
silences aren't awkward.

"Of course there is," Peter says right away. "You're on a road trip with a
middle-aged werewolf."

Stiles considers it, oddly entertained with his own life when it's laid out in
front of him in such a clear summary.

"My best friend also happens to be a werewolf. And his friend the Alpha has
turned half the town into werewolves too. And my dad doesn't know about any of
it," Stiles wants to laugh at the hilarity of it all and wonders if Peter would
join in. "Maybe the question should have been if there's something wrong with
my life."

"Of course there is," Peter says again, and Stiles is going to miss this.

--

Stiles kisses Peter when he notices that they've turned around, a familiar
scratched sign catching his eye that he knows he's seen before. He doesn't know
how long it'll take for them to get home, or if that's where Peter's intended
on heading, but he feels the idea of this summer ending like a bus ramming into
his ribs and acts on pure instinct.

He knows from past experience that his instinct isn't to be trusted, but he
doesn't stop to filter before he grabs Peter by the hair and kisses him
straight on the mouth. The funny part is that the kiss isn't even the bad idea,
it's the kissing while driving that really isn't a great combination.

Peter slams on the brakes and the milk truck behind them honks indignantly
before swerving in front of them. Stiles feels the car jolt from seventy miles
an hour to what feels like a shocking zero, and next thing he knows he's being
knocked into the window and Peter's staring at him like he's never seen
anything like him before. The kiss sucked.

"That sucked," Stiles proclaims, and he feels a sting in his lip where he knows
his teeth dug in when the brake startled him. Peter hasn't looked at the road
in over ten seconds. It's a miracle they're still alive.

"The next one won't," Peter says after a terrifying moment of speechlessness
where Stiles stares in awe at the way Peter's lips are slightly redder when he
licks them.

It sounds like it could be either a threat or a promise. Stiles thinks it's
both.

--

The night seems hotter, somehow, when they finally park to catch a few winks of
sleep. Stiles lays in the backseat staring at the poor condition of the
upholstery on the ceiling with the sound of his own pulse beating against his
eardrums. He knows Peter hears it too, knows that he gets what the frantic
palpitations of Stiles' heart mean and can smell the lingering promise of
arousal in the air. He hears a breath, a soft exhale, from the front seat and
Stiles waits for something, anything, to happen. As badly as he doesn't want to
be a high school cliche and have sex in the trunk and then smoke a joint under
the stars, he wants Peter to climb back here. God, he wants Peter to climb back
here.

"Your heartbeat," Peter finally comments, and the words sound loud and piercing
through the crisp silence of the night air. He sounds oddly breathless. "You're
going to have a stroke."

"It's your fault," Stiles grits out. He feels like he's about to boil here in
this stuffy backseat in his own skin, and he hears Peter's breath hitch in his
throat.

"Stiles, if I go back there," Peter warns, "you know I won't let you back out."

"That's a lot of talk," Stiles' hands scrape down his own thighs where his own
pants feel sticky on his legs. "I can see where Derek gets his empty threats
from."

There's a growl and suddenly Peter's on top of him, the front seat abandoned as
he settles onto his hips and wastes no time grinding down into Stiles' stirring
dick. Stiles feels his hormones come to life like someone's flicked a switch
and now he's one hundred percent aware of every touch, every ragged movement of
Peter's hips as he fists at Stiles' t-shirt.

"You're such a tease," Peter growls as he all but tears Stiles' shirt away and
Stiles fights to keep up with the ride which he actually willingly agreed to
participating in. Oh, he's definitely a masochist.

"I'm the tease?" Stiles squeaks. "You bought condoms. Oh god, you planned this,
didn't you." There's a hot line of overheated flesh that's pressed flush
against his body and there's so many clothes in the way between Stiles and
Peter's dick that Stiles isn't even going to dwell on the fact that Peter was
scheming this ever since that day in the sleazy convenient store.

"Not exactly," Peter denies. "But you definitely fulfilled all my expectations
by making them necessary."

Stiles' foot jams into the window and this really isn't nearly as spacious as
he'd like it to be. It's dark, only a handful of rays of moonlight shining
through the window, and all Stiles wants is to lay Peter out underneath him on
the lumpy backseat and reduce him to a writhing mess. He's had it with jerking
off in dirty rest stop bathrooms when he's had a real, solid body next to him
this whole time keen on fulfilling all of his sexual fantasies and then some.
He can only imagine what Peter gets like when he's turned on, animalistic and
determined, and Stiles never knew he had such a fetish for being manhandled,
but then Peter fists him by the hair and kisses him and oh, yes, this is better
than the first time.

Peter kisses like it's his last kiss, with teeth and tongue and demanding
fingers fumbling with the waistband of Stiles' jeans. He's still wearing all
his clothes, and it's much too hot for clothes, so Stiles makes it his mission
to attempt to multitask between keeping up with the assault of Peter's tongue
against his own and unbuttoning his pants. His hands brush Peter's cock, tented
against his boxers, and wonders when he started thinking about dicks over
boobs. It must've happened out in the country a few weeks ago, or days, or
maybe months, because Stiles has lost track of how long they've been out here
just the two of them.

"Why do we even need condoms," Stiles demands when Peter finally pulls back to
move his mouth to Stiles' neck, where he swears he feels a brush of claws
before it's blunt nails scratching over the sensitive skin of his shoulders.
"You're a werewolf, you can't give me any diseases."

"You want to feel me inside of you," Peter mumbles against his ear where his
tongue is making fast work of licking up his earlobe. Stiles feels a full body
shiver course through him and he finds purchase on Peter's hips for support. He
never knew his ear was such sensitive territory and his eyes flutter shut while
Peter's teeth sink into the soft tendons on his neck.

"What?" Stiles pants, feeling already mildly incoherent as his hands graze over
the bare skin of Peter's thighs, hot under his touch.

"You don't want a condom," Peter drawls while he grinds his hips down into
Stiles. His responding grin to Stiles' groans at the sensations is positively
wolfish. "Because you want to feel me come inside you. You want to feel my cock
with nothing in the way."

"Oh my god, just take your clothes off," Stiles hisses, body overheating at
Peter's words alone. He would be flipping them over right now if he thought
that Peter would let him, shucking off his pants and socks faster than humanly
possible. Whether it's Peter or the thrill of sex, something wild has been
released inside him, urging him to bite and scratch and give as good as he
gets. "Let me touch you."

"I wouldn't dare stop you," Peter practically purrs above him, yanking off his
own shirt when he starts to notice exactly how desperate Stiles is about
getting off in this dirty backseat. Stiles touches, his fingers roaming over
defined skin and a firm chest while Peter retaliates by dragging his nails down
his stomach and pinching his left nipple, which Stiles thinks is definitely
playing dirty. He sees the true wolf come out here, laying claim and doing so
none-too-gently as Peter cages him in with his arms and sucks down the path of
his navel. Stiles tangles his fingers in his hair and tries to stay conscious
when Peter tugs his pants and boxers down in one pull and takes his cock into
his mouth without warning.

The feeling is heavenly, which is awfully ironic considering he's got a
perfectly evil man kneeling between his legs when he hollows his cheeks, sucks
Stiles into his mouth, and pulls back after one teasing second. Stiles throws
his head back, hits the car door, and curses into the night. Peter chuckles and
takes him back into his mouth, the tongue flat against the underside of Stiles'
erection easing moans from Stiles' mouth while his finger starts exploring
further. Peter's tongue follows, releasing the head of Stiles' dick again, and
just when he thinks it can't get any better there's a tongue licking circles
around his puckered hole and the warm, wet sensation pushes Stiles off a
proverbial cliff that gets him one step closer to coming before he should. He
bucks into the onslaught of feelings, from the hand pumping his length to the
tongue prodding into his entrance, and Peter takes all the demanding pushes of
his hips in stride and grips his thighs hard enough to bruise. There will be
mottled fingerprints on his pelvis for days, purpled reminders of how it felt
to have Peter rim him right there in his car, and suddenly all he wants is
fingers in his ass and Peter's cock in his hands.

But Peter doesn't let him touch, pushing back his knees and licking in deeper
while Stiles all but sobs into the seat and fists Peter's hair as
encouragement. Peter doesn't mind the strain of the hair pulling, responding in
kind by squeezing the base of his cock and retreating his mouth only to slide
in a finger that goes easily with the slickness of saliva. Stiles feels his
breath hitch in his throat and feels the twinge of discomfort, clenching down
on Peter's finger and ignoring the way Peter's throat practically rumbles in
anticipation at the feeling.

"Lube," Stiles chokes out. "Tell me you bought lube too."

Peter reappears from in between Stiles' legs to grab him by the neck and reel
him in for another kiss, and Stiles hopes to god it's an affirmation. The
finger slips out of his hole as Peter clambers to the front, still in his
pants, which is a crime, really, and pops open the glove box. There, lying
innocently by the unopened box of condoms, is a tube of lubrication Stiles
never noticed. It looks like a gift from the lord right now, and Stiles wastes
no time in yanking Peter back to the backseat and all but ripping his pants off
to get his own fair share of heavy petting in.

Peter gets with the program and helps Stiles fumble to get rid of his underwear
in record time, leaving Peter's cock open for display. For a second Stiles does
little but lick his lips and take in the sight of a man other than himself one
hundred percent in the nude, cock leaking and curling toward Peter's belly like
it's practically begging for Stiles to touch it, which he does. It feels
nothing like his own, length and weight in his hand completely foreign and
oddly arousing when he strokes it experimentally a few times and watches
Peter's stomach flex and his mouth let loose a myriad of sinful noises as
motivation to continue.

He wants to do all kinds of things, more things than his own self-restraint and
the amount of available room in his car will let him, like taste Peter for
himself and then kiss him for hours with increasing fervor, but he knows that
Peter has other plans, plans that involve him pounding against his prostate a
few times before he's even allowed to come. Stiles doesn't actually protest.

He pushes Peter against the window and pumps him at a steady pace while marking
up his neck with spots that he knows will fade despite all his hard effort to
bite and nip with his teeth, and Peter takes advantage of their position to
continue his work with Stiles. His hand slithers between their bodies after
arching his chest against Stiles' mouth and finds his entrance, two fingers
coated with lube working their way into his hole. It's still not comfortable,
even with his fingers slippery inside of him, but Stiles is so high-strung
everything feels like tantalizing touches bringing him that much closer to the
edge. He ruts against his fingers, silently demanding another, and Peter
complies until there's three fingers stretching him brutally open at a pace
that matches the frantic rhythm Stiles has developing on Peter's cock. A part
of him feels like the windows should be fogging up right about now.

They're both moaning, and Stiles can't tell apart their groans until Peter
slams him down against the seat with what has to be supernatural strength and
looks down at him like he's the dessert he's been waiting years to devour, eyes
raking down his kiss-swollen lips to his hard cock and prepared entrance. He
pushes at Stiles' knees again and doesn't even wait before he lubes himself up
and pushes in with one hard thrust, his eyes flashing blue before they shut in
pleasure. It hurts, a sting of intrusion that Stiles fully expected, but it's
mingling with a pleasure that blends with the pain to make Stiles moan for
more. He never would've expected this when he first complained about needing to
get away, not the endless road trip with Peter and not losing his virginity to
him in the backseat. There isn't anything about Peter that reminds him of
sweet, soft girls, his hands demanding and his movements uncontrolled as he
pulls out and builds up an abusing rhythm that has Stiles scrabbling for
purchase on the seat's fabric.

It's good, really good, and he already knows he'll wake up with an ache in his
ass that'll leave him satisfied like when his muscles are sore after a work out
and bruises on his hips as marks of Peter's possessiveness. Peter's relentless
in his thrusts, cock nudging his prostate and causing colors to explode behind
Stiles' eyes with every snap of his hips, sweat gathering on his forehead and
his throat raw from the moans he can't help from falling out. He never knew
that this is what pain and pleasure felt like together, an intoxicating blend
that makes Stiles sure that his hand will never be enough to get him off again,
the sight of Peter's face right before he comes ingrained in his memory
forever.

Stiles comes first when Peter touches his cock, nothing but a tight grip that
electrifies the feeling of Peter fucking him in earnest, and Peter's rhythm
loses all sense of finesse when Stiles finishes with a broken cry, turning hard
and fast while he grunts alongside his thrusts. It's sensitive and rough after
Stiles has come, but Peter doesn't relent until he comes with a groan that
Stiles will replay in his head like a broken record each time he masturbates
from now on, and Peter collapses on top of him as dead weight when he finishes.

It takes Stiles five minutes just to get his breath back in his lungs, and it
takes Peter seven to pull out and reach between their bodies to finger at
Stiles' swollen hole where his come is gathering. It's sticky like the come
cooling on Stiles' stomach, a reminder of exactly how hard he just came, and it
isn't until he blinks away the stars of his euphoria that he starts to feel the
discomfort of a grown man splayed on top of him in a tiny backseat.

It's weird, because he doesn't feel regret. A part of him almost expected it,
that after the rush of hormones was over he'd be beating himself up over
letting Peter Hale help him reach his orgasm, but he feels sleepy and content
and pleasantly warm. There's a smell of sex in the air that's mingling with the
natural scent of trees and burnt asphalt, and Stiles is pretty sure this is how
all summer nights should be spent.

"That was good," Stiles murmurs, amazed at how breathless his lungs still feel.
Peter grabs Stiles' sweatshirt, wipes the come off of Stiles' chest, and balls
it up to toss into the foot room. "Dude! I liked that sweatshirt."

"We'll wash it," Peter grumbles, but he sounds sated and loose-limbed just like
Stiles, so Stiles lets this one slide and closes his eyes.

--

As it turns out, the backseat of a Jeep is not built for two people.

Stiles wakes up with an uncomfortable drying wetness between his legs he
quickly recognizes as Peter's lingering come, every inch of his skin stinking
of sweat, and Peter halfway draped into the foot room. A few birds are chirping
merrily in the trees and the summer heat is settling into the car as the
morning sun starts sizzling on the roof, and even though Stiles has plans to
get up and turn the air conditioner on, Peter stirs awake right after Stiles
sits up and the two of them don't leave the backseat until two blowjobs later.

Peter's facial expressions are ten times easier to appreciate in the light of
the morning, and Stiles may or may not come twice in under an hour.

The joy of youth.

--

They stop for McDonalds ice cream two days later, and they're both sitting
there in the parking lot watching the cars dart by on the highway while they
lick their cones with Peter's hand casually on Stiles' leg when he realizes
that this is it for them.

"Things aren't going to be like this when we get home," Stiles mumbles around
his scoop of ice cream. It's chocolate, clearly the best flavor, and next to
him Peter is nursing a cone of caramel cappuccino ice cream with nuts like it's
the most common flavor on the menu.

Peter's hand shifts on his leg, his fingers sliding to his inner thigh where
the seam of his jeans sit. Peter loves to tease him, loves to see Stiles squirm
from just a few pets of his hand, and it doesn't matter how convincing Peter's
fingers are, he will not die giving road head. The fact that the possibility
even crosses his mind is baffling to him, not to mention that Peter's hand
resting on his lap is as comforting and commonplace as it is. It's the sort of
thing Stiles knows they can't make routine outside of this Jeep. It makes him
feel like all he wants to do is turn around and drive away from Beacon Hills,
where he knows that Peter will have pack responsibilities and Stiles will have
obligations to hate the guy for what he did. This safe haven, the sanctuary
that his car and the road have created where the mistakes don't exist anymore,
he can't imagine leaving it. It doesn't sound nearly as peaceful.

"No, they won't," Peter admits. "But they can be if you leave your window
unlocked."

Stiles looks over at Peter and catches sight of a devilish smirk that vanishes
after a nanosecond. He feels laughter tumbling out of his throat even if the
amount of people that regularly refuse to use the front door of his house is
starting to exceed an acceptable amount. The acceptable amount being zero.

"What's wrong with the front door?"

"Not exactly keen on running into the sheriff on the way to your room," Peter
fixes him with a look like it's obvious. Stiles doesn't exactly want to witness
that scenario either, especially if Peter's on his merry way up the stairs to
deflower him.

He sits there, feeling lick after lick melt on his tongue and cool his mouth,
and wonders why he chases complications in his life like simplicity is for
weaklings.

Then, when they're driving again, Peter leans over to plant a biting kiss on
his mouth that tastes like caramel until a truck honks at them, and Stiles
thinks that maybe it isn't that complicated after all.

--

They arrive in Beacon Hills at night, and that's all Stiles can say for what
time it is. He doesn't know what day and is only vaguely certain that it's
still June. It feels like the years have gone by on the road, just him and
Peter and a steering wheel deciding their fate, but somehow they're back in the
present. Stiles feels it like a stinging slap to the face when he first sees
the "Welcome to Beacon Hills" sign standing in the dirt, and everything piles
back on his shoulders, like the fact that Peter's technically still a sociopath
and Scott's going to kill him for flying off the map without a word for so long
and his father probably deviated from sticking to healthy food while he was
gone.

Stiles knew it had to end eventually, the pile of dirty laundry in the backseat
only one of many signals that he can't escape home forever. He doesn't even
know where to drop Peter off, whether it be the middle of the woods or the Hale
house where he can practically mentally envision Derek standing sentinel as if
waiting for Peter to finally show up so he can chew him up and check Stiles for
bite marks and other abuse. He ends up driving past the preserve, going all the
way to his own home where he's sure Peter can slink off through the woods and
sleep under a bed of moss if he so pleases.

The Jeep grumbles up the gravel of his driveway after midnight, but Stiles
isn't tired. Peter's presence feels heavy and final beside him, like the spell
will be broken the moment he leaves the car. He looks over at Peter, who smirks
at him like there's more to come, and goes for the door handle like that's
that. A goodbye would feel too loaded anyway.

"Wait," Stiles says when he's halfway out the car. "I'll leave my window
unlocked."

Peter smiles like Christmas has come early, a pleased quirk of his lips. "I'll
take you up on that promise, Stiles."

And as it turns out, he does.
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      Feet_on_the_Dash_[Podfic] by RsCreighton, SomethingIncorporeal
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