Chapter Text
Stiles didn’t even like NASCAR.
That’s what he told himself, anyway, as rain pounded down on Roscoe’s windshield, smearing the night road in front of him as he drove into Beacon Hills. The radio buzzed weakly, the static occasionally breaking with spatters of old Top 40s Hits and the actual station. The newscaster’s voice dipped in and out as if from underwater. Maybe he was; the entire town could’ve flooded, if the endless water pouring from the sky was anything to go by.
“…first circuit… qualifying rounds… Argent… steady race to—”
The report cut out to a tinny recording of La Bamba.
“Dammit,” Stiles muttered, barely able to hear himself over the rain and the trumpeting staccato beats of Ritchie Valens.
He didn’t even like NASCAR. But as it was, it was the only thing keeping him invested in the four-hour drive up from Berkley. The only reason to come home anyway. It wasn’t like he’d formulated his entire life plan from the moment Scott and him had crashed Hot Wheels together in the preschool sandbox, or when, in middle school, Lydia Martin had rattled off the season’s probabilities from memory based on the previous year’s standings with a single flip of her strawberry blonde hair, or even when the Allison Argent had moved to Beacon Hills in their sophomore year, further rounding out their entirely-too-obsessed team. It wasn’t like he’d spent the past four years getting a double major in mechanical engineering and aerodynamics, theorizing new designs to run on the track and completely overtake the competition.
It wasn’t like that at all. Really.
Okay, so maybe he liked NASCAR a little. But if anyone asked, he really just liked Allison, and Lydia strong-armed him into designing stock car modifications so that she could focus on the business of it all, the probable betting odds and the competitive chances they all had to actually make it big.
Or maybe that was Scott’s excuse. At least it might have been back in high school. But by college they’d already forged that bond, so, really, if asked, Stiles should just blame Scott.
Yeah.
Not that anyone would ask him anyway, if they saw the state that Stiles was in now. He loved Roscoe dearly, the blue jeep chugging along, but she wasn’t a race car by any means. No, she was a beautiful hunk of metal, fighting against what must have been a monsoon touching down on the coast. There was no other way to describe the torrent of rain that thundered down onto his poor baby, past the point of a drumming rhythm and now just a constant roar on the roof.
“I know, baby, I know,” Stiles murmured, rubbing the dashboard soothingly as he felt the engine straining. “Just twenty more minutes, I swear. God, I can’t see the sign anywhere.”
He cursed again, ducking his head to try and look around the solid sheet of rain on his windshield. Absently, he reached for the volume dial, raising the sputtering radio to catch the rest of the announcement.
“…following… disqualification of Kate Argent… seeking sponsorships… local circuit—”
The radio suddenly cut off with a pzzt! of static.
“What the hell?” Stiles asked.
And then Roscoe’s headlights flickered.
“Oh no. Oh no, no no no no no—”
A groan rolled through the car like a rusty, creaking tower, then the headlights flickered off, and the engine stalled. Stiles shouted curses, keeping the wheel steady and pumping the brakes as his jeep rolled to a slow stop.
“God-dammit!” he cried, slamming his hands on the steering wheel. Immediately, he rubbed the dashboard again. “Ugh, it’s okay, baby. I know it’s not your fault.”
He sighed, leaning back in his seat as the roar of the rain filled the vacated silence around him. For a moment, he imagined drifting off into the constant thrum of bullets on the roof, transporting himself to the garage where the rain would echo throughout the wide, open space. There, it would calm him, bringing his mind to a level of focus as he opened Roscoe’s hood and got to work fixing her up. As it was now, however, it was starting to feel claustrophobic.
He opened his eyes and grabbed the keys from the ignition.
“Well,” he said, “we might as well see what we can do.”
With one hand, he reached behind his seat to grab the umbrella he kept stashed for emergencies. In the other he retrieved his phone and dialed Scott.
His best friend picked up on the second ring, just as Stiles opened the door to the storm outside.
“Hey Stiles, where are you? You were supposed to be here an hour ago,” came Scott’s tinny, earnest voice through the speaker.
Stiles popped open his umbrella before he could get soaked to the bone. Already, his shoes were done for, and he’d barely touched the pavement. “In case you haven’t noticed, Scotty, it’s raining a literal shitstorm out here.”
He slammed the car door behind him as he made his way to the front of the jeep. He didn’t bother to jump over any puddles; the rain seemed to fall sideways, completely skipping the umbrella and splattering across Stiles’ calves in his jeans. Damn, those were going to itch later. He pulled his jacket around him the best he could before popping open the hood.
“Oh, damn, yeah, we’ve been hearing it all night. Wow, we didn’t even think about the roads out there.”
Stiles snorted. “That’s a first.”
He flipped on his phone’s flashlight and peered into the workings of his baby. God, with the rain and it being nighttime, it was hard to see anything wrong on the surface. There wasn’t anything smoking, which was a good immediate sign, but it also meant that whatever it was wasn’t going to be an easy fix.
“Hey, I’m just the mechanic,” Scott was saying. “It’s not my job to monitor the road safety. That’s all on Kira.”
“Mmhm,” Stiles said. “Speaking of our resident trucker, is she there?”
“Yeah, just a sec,” said Scott, before a quick shuffling came through as he passed the phone off.
Kira’s voice came through, already anxious as she asked, “What’s up, Stiles? Is everything okay?”
“Not quite. One of Roscoe’s parts died. Might have been the alternator. I’m gonna need a tow.”
“Oh no!” Kira cried, although Stiles could hear her calming down as she assessed the situation. “Where are you, are you in town yet?”
“Oh yeah, just outside,” Stiles said, straightening up and swinging the flashlight around to see if he could gauge his exact location. The beam of light landed straight on a broad, worn green wooden sign. “Oh, ha, I’m actually right outside. I’m next to the town sign.”
Welcome to Beacon Hills, indeed.
“That’s perfect,” said Kira. “I can probably be out there in about… twenty minutes? I’ll just have to get the truck ready.”
“Yeah, no, that’s fine. I’ll just wait in the— hold on a second.” Stiles stopped, gazing down the road where he’d come from as a pair of headlights shone through the dark. “Someone’s coming, I’m gonna try and flag them down.”
He stepped out into the street, raising his flashlight and waving it under his umbrella.
As the car approached, it rolled to a slow stop. It was a sleek black Camaro, and the light from Stiles’ phone bounced off of the shiny metal hood, lighting up the pelting raindrops as the splashed across its surface like bolts of neurons firing from the sky. Even as the car slowed, its engine growled low under the rain, overpowering the atmosphere with a full rumble. Stiles felt it in his chest, sparing a brief moment to be amazed - and remembering why he loved sports cars - as the passenger side window rolled down.
And then he froze, shocked still for a completely different reason.
“Derek?”
Derek Hale, the Crew Chief for Hale Industries, stared back from the driver’s seat. In the nighttime, his face was lit up only by the light from Stiles’ phone and the soft glow of his dashboard dials. He looked—
Stiles swallowed. He hadn’t seen Derek since, well, since before college if he was remembering correctly. And that had been when Derek had gone off to Northwestern, taking the same path Stiles would follow from a different school to get to the same goal. Back then, he’d worked in his family’s garage with Stiles and Scott, and he’d been wiry in the way that teenagers are when they’re just building their muscles, aided by the physical labor that came with working on cars. And now—
He looked good.
Stiles couldn’t see much in the sparse light they had, but he could see leather, and that Derek’s shoulders were much wider than he’d remembered. And in the soft light he noticed the rough stubble brushed across a jawline that had once been smooth, framing sharp cheekbones and full lips that were parted in - was that surprise? Stiles met Derek’s wide eyes - they seemed dark in the green-blue glow of the dashboard, a flash of gold and black and something else Stiles couldn’t see, because—
Derek sputtered out, choking, “Stiles?!”
“Oh wow, hi,” Stiles started, wetting his suddenly dry lips - oh my god, Derek was driving a Camaro - only to be cut off when, in an instant, everything changed.
The moment Stiles spoke, Derek sat bolt upright as if he’d been punched, and he snapped his face forward back on the road. Before Stiles could say anything further, he heard the squeal of tires and the roar of an engine as Derek slammed on the gas. The rubber screeched against the wet pavement, slipping in the rain and sending a spray of water up and around and all over Stiles’ shirt.
“Holy—” he cried out, but the Camaro was already gone, a blur of red taillights down the street. “What the hell, Derek?!” Stiles shouted after him, sputtering and shaking the dirty groundwater out of his face.
He was met only with a new sense of silence, alone on the street, before the sound of the rain came back to him as it continued to thunder down. Stiles cursed again and adjusted his grip on his umbrella - not that it had been any use against the attack from below - as he heard Kira’s voice chirping from his phone.
“Stiles? Is everything okay? What just happened?”
Stiles shook his head, putting the phone back up to his ear. “I think I just— Nothing, the car just passed me. I’m going to wait in the jeep. You said twenty minutes, right?”
“Yeah, on it. See you soon.”
“Cool. Be safe.” Stiles ended the call and then dropped Roscoe’s hood closed. He ignored the splash of water as the metal slammed shut. It wasn’t like a few more drops would hurt at this point.
Besides, he thought as he climbed back into the Jeep, cringing as he felt the water seeping into the fabric of the seats, he was almost home.
By the time he was climbing the front steps of his father’s house, Stiles was shivering from the cold water soaked into his clothes. His wet denim jeans itched on his thighs, but he ignored it as he hefted his duffel bag over his shoulder and waved goodbye to Kira.
“I’ll swing by the garage early tomorrow morning to see how she’s doing!” he called out to her. Kira honked the horn in response and drove off, the loud rumble of the tow truck fading down the street.
In the way that the universe always seemed to operate, the rain had calmed down in the time it had taken Kira to pick him up and drive him home. In it’s place, the cool night air settled around him with a stillness, anticipatory in it’s wake to welcome him home.
It did nothing to warm him up, however, and Stiles shivered again as he turned to the door.
Before he could even raise a hand to knock, it swung open, and he was swept up into his father’s sturdy embrace.
“It’s good to have you back, kiddo,” the Sheriff said, patting Stiles on the shoulder. “I was worried you might’ve drowned in that storm.”
“I could say the same for you,” said Stiles. He smiled, though, and took a moment to bury his face in his father’s shoulder. “It’s good to see you, Dad.”
The Sheriff gave him another strong thump on the back before pulling away, holding him at arm’s length. He looked tired, and not just from staying up waiting for Stiles’ arrival. Stiles could see the worn laugh lines around his eyes, the ragged way his stubble grew across his cheeks. No matter; he seemed to think something similar of Stiles, because they both gave each other that same half-smile of recognition that meant neither of them would mention it, and the Sheriff gestured to lead Stiles inside.
“How was the drive?” he asked, as Stiles kicked off his shoes in the front hallway.
“Fine up until that last stretch,” Stiles replied. He hefted the duffel bag off of his shoulder, letting it hang by his side.
“Is that all you brought?”
“Nah, there’s a bunch more in the Jeep. This is just my overnight bag. I’ll be stopping by the garage in the morning.”
The Sheriff shook his head. “Kid, I know you love that car, but for an engineer you really should consider—”
Stiles cut him off, “Getting her better parts, that’s what I was going to say, yeah.” He started towards the stairs, really wanting to put the bag down.
The Sheriff snorted. “Sure. Let me know when you have the money.”
Stiles grinned over his shoulder. “Hey, who knows. Now that Jackson’s back in town…”
“The day you personally accept Whittemore money is the day I retire.”
“What else is a sponsorship good for?” Stiles said, halfway up the stairs. “Melissa still at work?”
The Sheriff started to follow him, smiling softly. “Yeah, she’s got the graveyard shift tonight.”
“I thought promotions were supposed to get you off of those shifts. Maybe you two should retire.”
“In this economy? Not happening.”
Stiles chuckled to himself as he padded across the landing towards his room. He glanced at the wall of pictures as he walked by, seeing his mom’s shining eyes peering out from a Halloween more than a decade ago, Stiles a hook-handed pirate in her lap.
The next photo was of the summer barbecue the year she got sick, sitting at the table in her wheelchair, scarf wrapped tight to her head. Melissa was talking to her, both of them oblivious to Scott and Stiles running through chaos with model airplanes. His father was shouting at them from the grill, brandishing the spatula like a commander’s baton.
There was a gap of missing time until the next photo, where Stiles and his father didn’t bother taking pictures anyway in the wake of Claudia’s death. Any memories they wanted to keep they’d experienced together, and everything else couldn’t be documented in a frame. It didn’t diminish the wedding photo, however, with Melissa in her lace-paneled white dress and the Sheriff in a stiff, formal suit. No, no amount of missing time could take away from those happy moments, where high school seniors Scott and Stiles made faces at them from their positions as best men. Where Claudia’s favorite flowers adorned the altar, and petals filled the air like a bittersweet blessing.
They were happy. And more importantly, in the present, Stiles was still freezing.
He turned away from the photos and crossed to his bedroom door, turning back around to face his father.
“I’m beat,” he said as his father followed. “I think I’m gonna get a shower and head to bed. Catch up in the morning?”
The Sheriff smiled, not bothered at all. “Sure, kiddo.” He paused, then, and clapped his son on the shoulder one last time. “I missed you.”
Stiles tilted his head, smiling back. “I missed you too,” he said. “Night, Dad.”
“Goodnight, Stiles.”
With that, they parted, and Stiles swung his bedroom door before dropping his bag to the floor.
He heaved out a sigh as he took stock of his room. Not much had changed since he’d been back for Spring Break. His game controllers were still tangled up in wires on his desk, a pile of books haphazardly stacked up next to them. The sheets were clean, though, the bed made and waiting. Stiles wanted nothing more than to fall right into his pillows and conk out for the next eight hours, but then he shivered and thought better of it.
Shower first.
As he waited for the water to warm up and he got undressed, his thoughts drifted back to that scene in the rain. Derek had looked so… startled? Like Stiles had been the last person he’d expected to see, which, fair, what are the odds? But still, the way he’d slammed on the gas and sped out of there, almost as if panicking at Stiles’ presence, confused him.
The warm water beat down on his shoulders, washing away the tightness and cold of the rain and soothing his thoughts. Stiles ran his hands across his neck, lathering soap into his skin.
As if Stiles could make anyone panic. Sure, he knew from cringing high school memories that sometimes he could be little too loud for some people, but there was nothing he’d done tonight to make Derek look like that. He was only Stiles. Soaked in the rain, honestly looking downright pitiful; if anything, he’d looked like a charity case.
He moved to soap up his back, digging his fingers into the stiff muscles of his shoulder blades. Always a little tight, his anxiety never letting him fully relax, but it felt good to put pressure there, as the suds dripped down his body.
Heh, maybe Derek had just been horrified at the thought of Stiles getting his leather seats wet. God, that Camaro was something else. The Derek he remembered from high school — quiet, reserved, present in the background as he worked hard in the garage — he didn’t seem like the kind of man to drive a sports car. But it suited him.
Stiles’ fingers brushed through the thick trail of hair below his navel. He felt himself stiffen. His blood was rushing in his ears, making him furrow his brow; he bit his lip.
The dashboard light cast stark shadows across Derek’s cheekbones. Stiles wondered how rough his stubble felt, what it would be like to caress his face. Those lips parted, no longer surprised, no longer panicked, just open, beckoning.
He braced himself against the shower wall, gripped himself in his hand and shuddered as the slick slide of the soap on his skin. A gasp worked its way from his throat without volition, caught on a groan as he pulled again and again.
Those leather seats, soft beneath him, no longer freezing, but tempting with their own chill of anticipation. He felt strong hands on his wrists, sinking into the smooth fabric, holding him back as his heart worked its way into his chest. Derek’s eyes, dark, a flash of gold. Stiles wished he could see their full color in the daylight. He tried to think back to his memories from before. What were they? Green? How wide would they be as Derek leaned in, keeping them open as his breath ghosted across Stiles’ face like steam from rushing water.
Stiles’ eyes clenched shut as he felt himself getting closer. He pumped his fist faster, feeling more than hearing his breath catch as his entire body tensed. His toes curled on the linoleum of the bathtub’s floor, his hand against the wall clenching into a fist. Blood rushed in his ears as he reached his peak.
With a final groan, he came, spilling out onto the shower wall.
He breathed out in ragged, shuddering exhales as his mind cleared. The sound of the shower filtered in through the haze as he came back to himself. Slowly, stiffly, he pulled his hand from his cock, making a face as his cum dripped from his fingers down the drain. He ran it under the water and rolled his shoulders, straightening up and tilting his face towards the showerhead.
Like a veil falling from his mind, reality gently made itself known to him. He opened his eyes.
“Fuck,” he whispered.
With a strange, floating sense of numbness, he cleaned himself up, turned off the shower, and went to bed.
The next morning, sitting at the the kitchen table over a bowl a cereal, he spoke to his father.
“Do you remember Derek?” he asked, casually.
The Sheriff paused, coffee halfway to his mouth, and looked up from the morning newspaper. “Derek Hale?” he said after a slow moment, before sipping his coffee. “Yeah, I see him often.”
Stiles sputtered. He coughed, spitting wet chunks of Captain Crunch back into his bowl. His father said nothing, just passed over a paper napkin.
“When?” Stiles asked, wiping off his face. “When were you going to tell me this?”
“Should I have?” his father responded.
“I don’t know, should you have told me that you see our rival team’s head mechanic on the regular? Maybe, yeah!”
“I never said I see him ‘on the regular’,” his father said, finally putting his newspaper down. His badge glinted on the front of his uniform. “When the only two stock racing teams in the county are based out of the same garage, it’s kind of expected that I’ll see the other mechanics there.”
“Oh,” Stiles said. That made sense. He looked down at his cereal again, and took a bite.
His father studied him, coffee abandoned on the table. Stiles tried to ignore it, but knowing the scene he’d just made, he knew something else was coming.
“Why do you ask?”
There it was. Oh, I dunno, Dad, I just ran into him outside of town last night, he abandoned me in the rain, and now I can’t stop thinking about what it would’ve been like if he’d let me into his car. His sleek, black, absolutely sexy—
Stiles stopped his train of thought right there. Instead, he shrugged.
“No reason,” he said, “I just haven’t seen him since high school.” Lie. “Um, so what’s he been up to?”
The Sheriff cocked an eyebrow at him, clearly still suspicious, but he let up, returning to his coffee and morning news. “As far as I know, just work. You know me, I don’t ask about all that car stuff you do. So no, I don’t have any good info on what their specs are looking like.”
Stiles snorted. Yeah, he wouldn’t be going to his dad for espionage work, at least not on that front.
But then his dad said, “He’s quiet, that kid. Ever since all that business with Kate.”
Kate Argent, Allison’s aunt. Stiles remembered her. An idol in the minor leagues, a racer gearing up to make it big in the NASCAR circuit. Until the crash. Until she left Argent Industries two years ago, sponsorships in tow, abandoning her brother and niece to podunk Beacon Hills. Stiles still didn’t know the details; he didn’t know if Allison knew either, but if she did she’d never told him or Scott. But soon after, something else had happened. Kate had been disqualified.
More importantly to this conversation, she was also Derek’s ex. Stiles tried not to think about that too much, already feeling his cheeks redden as he remembered his shower the night before.
The Sheriff cleared his throat. “Is Kira coming to pick you up?”
“Scott,” Stiles replied easily. As he said the words, his phone buzzed on the table. “Oh, that must be him. I’ll see you after work?” Stiles didn’t wait for a response, shoveling the last of his cereal and standing up from the table. He dumped his bowl in the sink and started to put on his hoodie.
“Yeah,” his dad said. “Tell Scott I said hi. And that his mother wants him to call!”
“Yeah, yeah, will do,” Stiles said, absently opening the text that Scott had just sent him.
From: Scotty; 8:43 AM
>> sorry :(
Stiles paused, hand on the front door knob. Sorry? What did Scott have to be sorry for?
He heard the rumble of a car engine outside, and pocketed his phone again. As he turned the handle, he had the strangest realization: that engine, while familiar, sounded far too low to be Scott’s minivan. It almost sounded like—
He froze. A sleek black Camaro idled on the curb next to his mailbox.
Derek’s Camaro.
Fuck, the seats were soft. Stiles felt the fabric beneath his fingers, picking at the seam where his hands clutched for dear life. His foot jiggled on the floorboard, knee bouncing up and down in an incessant rhythm that honestly did nothing to calm his nerves.
Derek, for his part, looked like he’d swallowed a porcupine, or something equally unpleasant. His jaw was clenched, his knuckles turning white on the steering wheel. Stiles wanted to scream at himself for how much better he looked in broad daylight. Even with sleep-mussed black hair and scratchy morning stubble, Stiles couldn’t help the way his mouth felt dry every time he glanced over at him. But Derek seemed unfazed, eyes hidden behind dark glasses as he stared straight ahead on the road.
God, Stiles really wanted to know what color his eyes were. He was bursting from the silence, wanting to say something, anything really to address the night before.
But Derek spoke first.
“You still wear hoodies.”
That threw Stiles for a loop. “Huh?”
For a moment, he wasn’t sure Derek had even spoken. He kept his eyes on the road, almost as if pretending Stiles didn’t exist. But then he tilted his head to the side and glanced over.
“You still wear hoodies. Just like in high school.”
Stiles felt a flare of annoyance at that, and he didn’t know exactly why. Sure, he could’ve explained to Derek that, no, he was only wearing this because it was what he’d kept in his overnight bag, since the rest of his luggage was, you know, in his Jeep. He could’ve said that, actually, he’d expanded his wardrobe quite a bit, thank you, in no small part because of Lydia Martin. He could’ve just said nothing, and looked away from the strange turn this conversation was taking. He did none of those things.
Instead, he blurted out, “Why did you drive away last night?”
If Stiles had thought Derek was tense before, he’d been sorely mistaken. The effect was immediate; Stiles eyed the steering wheel worryingly as Derek’s grip tightened. He could almost hear his teeth grinding behind his perfect jaw.
“I thought…” Derek started, then stopped. He stared resolutely out the windshield, refusing to look over. “You startled me.”
What?
“What?” Stiles asked. “So you just abandoned me? On the side of the road? In the rain?”
“You seemed like you had it under control.”
“I waved you down, jackass.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t feel like dealing with… this,” Derek said, and he took one hand off the wheel to gesture at Stiles.
Stiles gaped at him. “Oh, wow,” he snapped. “I’m so sorry to inconvenience you. The great Derek Hale, too good to help out a friend.”
Derek gritted his teeth again. “We’re not friends.”
For some reason, even though Stiles knew it, the words stung. It felt like ice at the base of his neck, quickly spreading throughout his body and freezing him to the seat. He wanted to look away, but he could only stare at Derek, shocked, as he processed his thoughts.
He was right. They weren’t friends. They never had been. They’d barely even spoken when they’d worked together in the garage, not beyond the casual advice on tools or a specific job or two. But Derek had never really spoken to anybody, had he?
That wasn’t true either. He’d always been open, easy with Boyd when he was in the shop. He laughed at Erica’s jokes, a hearty, clear sound that had echoed through the garage. Stiles was lying to himself if he said he’d never noticed Derek back then. Always out of the corner of his eye, just out of reach, he was there, always close but never close enough.
He knew they weren’t friends. But he didn’t think they were enemies.
But no, Derek had left before Stiles. He’d graduated first, gone off to Northwestern, he’d come back for the holidays around the garage and had a woman - Kate - on his arm. He’d been cold, then. Reserved. Even to the people he knew he’d been distant. So Stiles had just assumed that that’s how he was with everyone.
Except he could remember Derek’s laugh.
So. He knew they weren’t friends. No matter what fantasies he’d conjured up in the eight hours since he’d last seen him. He felt heat rising in his cheeks at the thought, embarrassed, because he always did this. Always fell too fast. God, he was pathetic.
He shook his head. No, he refused to think like that. It wasn’t high school anymore. He had a job to do. And as he repeated those words in his head, he felt the heat harden into something firm. Something solid, like a ball of growing anger in the center of his chest.
Lost in his thoughts, Stiles hadn’t noticed they’d arrived at the garage. He swiveled his head around to look into the open doors as they passed, saw Roscoe waiting in the lot outside. He saw the open car bodies waiting in the garage; there was Scott, already poking around in Allison’s car. Kira looked up and waved as the Camaro rolled by.
And there were Erica and Boyd at the opposite station, casually talking while Isaac was rolled under their racer. Stiles couldn’t really tell from here, but he saw the distance between the two sides of the garage like a chasm.
“You’re right,” he said. Derek grunted noncommittally. “We aren’t friends.”
The Camaro rolled to a stop in Derek’s parking space. Before he’d even taken the key out of the ignition, Stiles threw the door open and climbed out. He didn’t slam it shut behind him, but it was close. Instead, he focused his energy towards the garage, ready to get to work.
They weren’t friends by a long shot. He balled up his fists as he stalked off, trying not to let his anger show. He had a job to do.
And he was going to kick Derek’s ass.