A/N: SO THE SOUNDTRACK IS AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD NOW?
i'll be posting all the mixes and songs mentioned along the story here - indoor fireworks is already up -, so you can download them or listen to them or do whatever it is that you want to do.
warnings for the fault in our stars spoilers.
The afternoon is blazing by the time Derek and Stiles hit St. Louis. After the aquarium they decided to spend another night in Oklahoma before heading to Missouri - which was a good thing, considering how fucking exhausted Derek felt after admitting he felt guilty about Laura.
They set out for the Gateway Arch. There are white pod-type cars for the trip up, and in a few minutes they're at the top viewing area, where the small windows treat them to a breathtaking view of the city and the blue sky.
"This is…" Stiles trails off.
"Like falling," Derek fills in, and Stiles laughs.
"I can't believe you remember that."
"It's hard to forget something when you're standing on top of glass in the Grand Canyon."
"You mean it's hard to forget something when you're terrified out of your mind that you'll fall to a horrible death, right?"
"I wasn't terrified," Derek frowns, because he hadn't been. "It just felt…"
"Like falling," Stiles says, and Derek rolls his eyes.
"I'm not discussing this with you anymore."
"Which means I win," Stiles beams at him.
"No one wins."
"You're only saying that because you lost."
"I'm only saying that because it's true."
"That's what a loser would say," Stiles pokes him in the arm and Derek grabs his hand securely in his, but they don't say anything else.
They buy some chili hot dogs and Cokes after they get down, and go for a walk through the park.
"What do you want to do next?" Derek asks Stiles. "Museums? Garden tour? The zoo?"
"No zoos. They make me depressed," Stiles says, frowning.
"No zoos. They make me depressed," Stiles says, frowning.
"Zoos make you depressed," Derek says flatly.
"Yes. When I was in third grade we went on a field trip to a zoo and I tried to convince Scott to help me free the penguins so they could be free to find their life mates in other zoos if they wanted to."
"Life mates."
"Is this the thing where you repeat everything I say again?" Stiles rolls his eyes. "And yes, life mates. Penguins mate for life, and I thought they should, you know, have options. Not just the other penguins stuck in the zoo with them."
Derek stares at Stiles for a minute before saying, "It's good to know your weirdness was already there when you were a kid."
"And I bet your broodiness was already there when you were a kid," Stiles raises an eyebrow at him.
Derek rubs his hand over his face and sighs. "Does this mean you don't want to do anything?"
"We could just chill in the park until we're bored," Stiles shrugs.
"Knowing you, that won't take very long."
"Shut up," Stiles punches Derek in the arm, then reaches a hand inside his pocket and pulls out a deck of cards. "How about you show me how you won all that money and got us kicked out of Vegas?"
"I wasn't the one who got us kicked out of Vegas," Derek narrows his eyes at Stiles.
"Technicalities," Stiles brushes him off with a wave of his hand. "So, are you gonna teach me or not?"
So that's how Derek spends his afternoon, sitting on the grass and hopelessly trying to teach Stiles how to play poker along with the benefits of having a poker face, the latter which is something Stiles fails spectacularly at. He understand the rules of the game perfectly, but when it comes to turn his expression blank and not give anything of what he's thinking away, it just doesn't work. It's not so much as he can't control his face muscles as it is the way his eyes give everything up. That's probably one of Derek's favorite things about Stiles, how you can tell everything he's thinking about by staring at those golden brown eyes of his.
At some point Stiles gives up on trying to win a game and they move on to playing crosswords on Stiles' phone. They're on their third round when Stiles starts feeling sleepy, his grip on his phone loosens and he gets smacked in the face with it, making Derek burst out laughing. They lay down on the grass, Stiles' head pillowed on Derek's chest, and Derek stares at the sky while Stiles sleeps. He gets bored after a while and starts tracing the line of Stiles nose with a grass leaf, lips twitching up a little every time Stiles wrinkles his nose or huffs in his sleep. It gets even better when Stiles makes a movement to try and bat whatever it is that's disturbing his sleep out of the way and ends up smacking his on face. He rolls of Derek, clutching his nose, while Derek buries his face in his hands and laughs until his stomach hurts.
"Stop laughing at me," Stiles snaps, voice muffled behind his hand.
"No," Derek says, trying to calm down. He's not being very successful, though.
"You know," Stiles rubs a hand his nose. "This will get back to you. And when it does, I'll be near. And I'll be laughing."
"Sure you will," Derek says, and he's still smiling. He grabs Stiles by the wrist and pulls the boy to him. "Here, let me see. You can't possibly have smacked yourself in the face that hard."
"You'd be surprised," Stiles mumbles.
Stiles' nose and part of his cheek are red from where his hand connected with his face, Derek snorts a laugh and traces the redden skin with his fingers. "You are a danger to yourself."
"And others if you don't stop laughing at me," Stiles narrows his eyes.
"It was funny," Derek shrugs.
"It hurt," and Stiles is actually pouting when he says that, so Derek can't resist but lean forward and kiss him.
The pizza in St. Louis tastes different. Not bad different, just… different.
"It's called Provel cheese," Stiles says, and Derek is not even impressed because he knows by now that that's the kind of shit he has in his head.
Now they're at some place, listening to jazz, because Stiles claims it would be nothing short of tragic and an insult to the universe if they passed through St. Louis without soaking up some music.
Derek doesn't know if he'd go so far as to use the word tragic, but he agrees with the insult to the universe part. He always feels like you should expose yourself to whatever it is the place you're in has to offer, because you never know who or what you might find.
"Every place you go is new, even if you've been there a million times before. Because every time you go there, you notice something different. And every other person who's been there will notice something different." Laura told him in one of their trips to New York as they made their way through the city. "And everyone you meet is better than you are at something, but you'll never know that unless you take the time to get to know them. People are interesting, and everyone comes from a different background, and they all have different opinions on things, and most of the time they don't even realize how unprecedented they are."
That's how he thinks of Stiles, sometimes. Stiles is so busy being him that he has no idea how utterly unprecedented he is. And right now he thinks Laura would be proud of him for paraphrasing John Green. He snorts at the thought, and Stiles takes his eyes from the slice of pizza in his hand to look up at Derek.
"What?"
"Nothing," Derek shakes his head.
"It's totally something, dude," Stiles says, pursing his lips. "You have a face."
"Of course I have a face, Stiles. I think it would be worrying if I didn't."
Stiles rolls his eyes, "I told you to stop trying to be funny. And you know what I mean. You have a face. A face that tells me you're reminiscing about shit."
"I was," Derek says, but doesn't offer more than that. He likes to see Stiles squirm.
"I know that," Stiles puffs his cheeks before letting the air out. "What I want to know is what you were thinking about."
"Why didn't you just ask?" Because getting a rise out of Stiles might be one of Derek's favorite things.
"Oh my god, would you stop deflecting and answer the fucking question?"
"There's no need to be mad."
Stiles makes a noise like a dying animal and throws a pepperoni at Derek's head. Who catches it with his mouth. Only to have Stiles start banging his head on the table repeatedly.
Deciding to put Stiles out of his misery, Derek answers, "I was thinking about The Fault In Our Stars. And how much Laura liked John Green."
"Dude," Stiles takes his head from the table. "That book is the worst thing that ever happened to me."
Derek remembers Stiles' mother died from cancer, and now he feels like an asshole for bringing it up and not coming up with lie about what he'd been thinking. But Stiles continues talking.
"But it was so fucking beautiful. To have two kids like that, in the fucked up situation they're in, I just. Fuck. I could relate so much to it. Of their choice to tell the sad stories the funny way. And how their thoughts are stars they can't fathom into constellations. That the world is not a wish-granting factory. And how pain demands to be felt," Stiles voice cracks a little bit at the last words. "I understood. Because I'm a sad kid making the funny choice. And my thoughts are falling stars. And I know that the world doesn't owe you or me anything, no matter how much we might think otherwise. And we both know that pretending things are fine doesn't magically makes it true."
Derek knows he just got a glimpse of what's like inside Stiles' head he doesn't think many people have seen - if anyone's ever seen it at all. It's fucked up that he hides it, that he even thinks like this in the first place, that an eighteen year old should ever have to feel like this ever in his life.
But just like Stiles, Derek understands. He understands sadness and misery and loss better than anyone, because he's lived with it every day for five years. And it may not appear like it, but he also knows when to make the funny choice instead of the sad one, so that's why he says, "I cried for a whole week afterwards every time Laura said the word okay. I think sometimes she did it just to see the tears and laugh at me."
Stiles takes the out, smiling sadly at Derek. "I did too. And the best and worst part was that Scott had no idea what was wrong, so he kept asking me if I was okay and that only made me-"
"Cry harder," Derek finishes.
"Yeah," and Stiles smile looks a little bit more real this time. "So he started freaking out until he was crying too. Lydia and Allison found us hugging each other and sobbing and laughing at the same time, but instead of trying to calm us down they just pulled out their phones and filmed the whole thing."
"Do you think they still have the video?"
"Why would you-", Stiles brows furrows, but his eyes widen at seeing Derek's smile. "Oh, hell no! Nope. No way. No, they don't have the video. The video does not exist. In fact, forget I ever said anything about it."
"I can't do that. I always remember everything you say."
"That's…," Stiles blinks at Derek a few times. "The sweetest thing you've ever said to me and I can't believe it's because you want to see a video of me crying with Scott."
"Do you think there'd be a video of you doing more interesting things?" Derek asks, arching an eyebrow at Stiles.
"I…," Stiles swallows, his cheeks reddening a bit. "That could be arranged."
"I can't believe your making me do this," Stiles complains for the eleventh time since they got back to their hotel room.
"You said it could be arranged," Derek points out.
"I thought you meant something else!"
"You thought I meant something else," Derek muses, smiling a little.
"And you really were serious about remembering everything I say, weren't you?"
"Yes."
"I don't know if that's kind of creepy or incredibly sweet."
Derek shrugs, because he things of it more like a curse. He picks up his phone and sets it to video, angling it so he can get Stiles just right.
"Whenever you're ready," Derek says.
"I'll never be ready," Stiles says, jumping a little bit in place. "This is ridiculous. I don't know why I'm doing this. I shouldn't be doing this. I have a really bad feeling this will come back to bite my in the ass."
Derek just stares at him, waiting for Stiles to calm down. When that doesn't happen, Derek says, "We don't have to do this if you don't want to."
But Derek really wants Stiles to do it. He should say they don't really need to film the whole thing, but Derek likes the idea of having this saved for a rainy day.
Stiles must read this in Derek's face, and he should be bothered by how good Stiles has gotten at being able to take one look at him to know what he wants. "I'm doing this, but I want you to promise me something first."
"Promise you what?"
"And I want you to know that Stilinski promises are never meant to be broken."
"Promise you what?"
"You'll never show this to anyone. It's bad enough Lydia knows I can do it. Erica and the others don't need the ammunition. Especially not Jackson. So promise me you'll use this for your entertainment only, and I'll do it."
"How did you get Lydia not to say anything?"
"I told her I'd go shopping with her whenever she wanted, no questions asked, for the rest of my life."
"I'm sorry," Derek says honestly, because he thinks Lydia in a shopping streak must be a scary and possibly painful thing to witness.
"It's fine," Stiles waves him off. "But you have to promise me."
"I promise," Derek tells him, because he didn't really intend to show this to anyone, ever. Just like Stiles said, he would use this to his own entertainment only.
"Okay, put the music on."
Derek grabs Stiles' iPod connected to his speakers and presses play, the sounds filling the room as Stiles recreates the Just Dance 2 choreography to Spice Up Your Life.
And this just might just be the funniest and hottest thing he's even seen.