Six Feet Under | Sterek

twenty-one;

Stiles wakes up in a holding cell.

His head is spinning and throbbing, his mouth is a desert and everything under his neck feels disconnected. His hangovers have always been catastrophic. Stiles's solution has always been to just keep drinking. Can't get hangovers if you're never not-drunk. 

"Hello?" He croaks, wincing as his raw throat scratches and scrapes. Man, what he wouldn't give for a glass of cold water. Or alcohol. Water first. 

Nobody comes to get him straight away, so Stiles settles back down, stretched out along the seat that's bolted to the wall. He's tired and his head hurts and he can't really remember much after telling Derek to get out. The memory makes something sharp and ugly flare up in his chest. Stiles is too tired to push it down. For once, he just lets himself hurt.

He wonders if they've called his dad. They should have, it's protocol, but maybe they haven't. Maybe they don't care enough about this wreck of a teenager, this nobody that isn't being missed by anyone. Fuck, not even Derek is missing him anymore. Stiles is well and truly alone, and he can't even be angry because he's done it to himself.

Maybe he goes back to sleep, maybe he doesn't, but someone wakes him up anyway. It's an officer, he's wearing the uniform, but Stiles looks at him and he sees his dad and maybe he hasn't woken up yet. (He has, he's just emotional and sober and sad. He wants his dad.)

"C'mon kid," the officer says, and his voice sounds like thunder clouds and hot chocolate. This man is not his dad. "We've got some questions for you, and then you can go."

Stiles rubs his eyes and sits up and tries to pull himself together. "Is my car okay?" He asks quietly.

The officer sighs, lips quirking to the side as he offers Stiles a small smile. "Yeah kid. All in one piece."

Stiles nods, stands, lets himself be led out of the cell and into the office. He can't see his dad waiting for him, but maybe that's because he isn't really looking. Maybe Stiles doesn't really want to look in case his dad is there, and then Stiles will have to deal with that problem and he really doesn't want to.

He does notice that Derek isn't there either. He tells himself it doesn't mean anything.

He sits where he's told to sit, and he stares vacantly at the desk as he scrambles desperately to find something in him, some small ember that'll get him through this so that he can go and he can buy more alcohol, and then drive. Maybe he'll go to the beach. Maybe he'll go to Hell. Who knows.

"We'll start easy," the officer says kindly, clicking a pen and staring at Stiles with calm eyes. "Would you please tell me your name."

Stiles chews on his lip. "Stiles," he says, and the officer raises an eyebrow and waits. But Stiles doesn't want to use his last name, because it'll tie him to his father and his dead mother and Beacon Hills, and that's the one that Stiles has been avoiding all these weeks on the road. (He won't get out of here without giving himself away. He hates that.) "Stiles Stilinski." 

The officer still looks skeptical but he writes it down on the form and Stiles lets out an internal sigh. "Alright. What's your address?"

"Where's my car?" Stiles shoots back defensively. Answering a question with a question - it's the only way he knows to deflect and irritate and make people forget that maybe they saw too much of Stiles's deeper emotions. "Wherever my car is, that's my address."

The officer is looking exasperated now, but Stiles doesn't care because being in a police station just reminds him of his dad and his skin is itching again and he wants to go. He doesn't like it here. 

The officer leads him through the rest of the questionnaire, and Stiles learns that they don't actually know who he is, so they haven't called his dad and he's equally relieved and miserable, because he really kind of needs his dad right now. But it's okay. Stiles is a big boy. He can handle being alone.

He misses Derek. Just a little bit.

The officer tell him that he's been fined, and the paperwork will be sent to his house. He hates the rush of vindictive glee that sweeps over him, because his dad will have to deal with that, and that means that he has to recognise that Stiles is falling apart.

Stiles needs someone to recognise that he's falling apart. He think he might kill himself is nobody does. (He thinks that maybe that's kind of the point.)

The officer hands him his car keys, and points out his car, and says, "Good luck kid," in his warm voice, and Stiles can only bring himself to nod. He doesn't need luck, he needs love because he sure as hell doesn't love himself. Derek's gone now. But maybe Derek didn't love him either. Stiles has a habit of falling for all the wrong people.

He gets in the car and he sits for a moment, because he remembers Derek sitting beside him, looking out the window and saying, "Can we go to the beach?"

Yeah, Stiles thinks and starts the car. Yeah, lets go to the beach.

There's one not far from here, he learns when he stops in at the nearest town for a pee break and fuel. A small one, just off the main road. Not very popular but it's pretty and there's water. Stiles thanks the lady who tells him, and she just gives him a sad smile that makes his chest hurt. He can feel her watching him as he hurries back to the car and drives away as fast as he can.

(He isn't running away. He isn't)

He's been driving for an hour when he realises that he never restocked on alcohol. He needs some, can feel a deep-seated cry in his veins for the heavy liquid. His emotions are roiling like angry waves, and his stomach twists with hunger, and Stiles just wants it all to go away. He needs it to vanish under a liquid ocean of hot and familiar and safe. 

Except he keeps driving and he doesn't stop to restock. His hands are glued to the wheel, and he can't make himself stop at another small town to buy something that will keep Derek away. He doesn't want to be his dad. He doesn't want his mum or Melissa or Scott to be disappointed in him. It always hurts too much when they're disappointed in him. 

So Stiles doesn't stop driving, driving, driving until he gets to the beach and then he sits and stares at the waves from the driver's seat. The lady had been right. The beach is pretty. The water is blue like Peter's eyes, and the sand is a crisp gold. It looks peaceful and secluded and pretty. It seems like everything Derek would have wanted.

Except Derek isn't here, is he?

Stiles lets his head fall back against the headrest, feeling inexplicably tired. He wants to go to sleep and wake up when things are okay again. Maybe, in another few years, his dad will have learned his secret and forgiven him for all the lies. Stiles snorts; that's a future he doesn't believe in.

The passenger door opens and he startles. Derek doesn't make eye contact with him as he settles into the seat.

"So, where are you going?"