The sun had long since set by the time they reached the motel off Route 88 and Stiles was more than ready to get out of the damn car and stretch his legs. The backseat was definitely more cramped than the front he had discovered upon trading seats with Sam at that pit stop a ways back, and Stiles was kind of regretting that he had made the considerably taller man suffer through the confinement for so long.

They were only an hour away from their ultimate destination, but Stiles' phone display told him it was almost 2am and Allison was practically nodding off on his shoulder. She was exhausted, strung out on worry and quiet panic. At a guess, Stiles would say she hadn't slept a wink the night before, and if he hadn't agreed with the Winchester's gameplan before he would now. She definitely needed a few hours of sleep before doing anything risky, and he could use them too.

He nudged Allison fully awake as Dean pulled into a parking space in front of the main building.

"Hey," he said softly. "We're at the motel. I'm gonna go rent us a room, okay? Don't fall asleep before I get back."

She nodded blearily at him, rubbing at her eyes, and Stiles smiled as he slipped out the door and made for the office. Dean was already there, halfway through booking two rooms with two beds each, apparently having taken it upon himself to make the arrangements.

Stiles cleared his throat pointedly before the old lady at the counter could finish entering the information. Dean turned around at the interruption and Stiles waved his wallet in the man's face.

"I can pay for my own room, you know," he said. "I'm a strong, independent woman and I'm not afraid of going Dutch on dinner."

Dean snorted, but he tucked his fake credit card back into his wallet anyway.

"Of course you are, kid," he said, condescension personified. "You sure you're old enough to rent a hotel room? How old even are you?"

"Old enough not to be jailbait, if that's what you mean."

Dean made a noise like he'd swallowed his tongue and Stiles had to bite his lip to keep from crowing over his victory. What was twice as satisfying was that Dean's eyes followed the motion, even as the man turned red and stammered out some kind of denial that was only half coherent.

Stiles ignored him, turning instead to the clerk with his most charming smile and saying, "One room for two, if you would, ma'am. Thanks."

He handed over his card and his ID for her to verify and took them and his room key back from her with a wink. Then he tossed another wink Dean's way just to see the affronted look on his face before strolling out the door with all the swagger he could muster up.

Allison was leaning against the car with Sam, both her overnight bag and Stiles' at her feet, but she pushed off to follow Stiles when he gave her a wave.

The motel room was as generic as any other. Ratty wallpaper with dull, inoffensive patterns and a few bland landscape paintings scattered around. Plasticky comforters on the two twin beds. A desk, one chair, and an ancient television atop a set of drawers that probably didn't open.

Allison tossed her bag onto the rickety table and handed Stiles' his own before she threw herself face down on one of the beds. Stiles took the time to kick his shoes off and shed his jacket, though he didn't blame her for collapsing first thing. He was damn tired considering they hadn't done anything but sit in a car all day, and he was feeling sweaty and sticky and all-around kind of gross. Personally, his desire for a shower outweighed his need for sleep, but he was more used to late nights than Allison was just as general rule.

He nudged her shoulder, a little concerned that she hadn't come up for air yet.

"May not want to rub your face all over that," he said mildly. "Might get herpes or something."

Allison rolled over to make a judgmental face at him. Stiles held up his hands in surrender, peeling off his flannel and tossing it onto his bed.

"I'm just saying! Motel rooms, you know," he said meaningfully. "Wouldn't want to look around with a blacklight, is all. I'm surprised the Winchester bros haven't caught something nasty with all the time they spend in these things. Although, I guess, they could've and we just wouldn't know. I mean, Sam not so much, but that Dean guy, wouldn't put it past him—"

"Why were you such a jerk to him?" Allison asked.

"Who, Sam?" Stiles asked, rummaging around in his bag for his sleep pants, shoving books out of the way to get to the clothes underneath.

"Don't be a dumbass." She pushed herself up to sit cross-legged, leaning back on her hands and watching Stiles closely. It was probably meant to be her no-nonsense, you-can't-fool-me laser stare, but she was too tired for it to have its usual intensity.

"I meant Dean," she told him. "Sam too, I guess, but mostly Dean. Why were you so determined to piss him off? Is it a trust thing? Do you think they're bad news or something?"

Stiles sighed. He shoved his bag aside and plopped down on the side of his bed closest to hers.

"Nah, it's not— It's nothing like that," he said. "I don't think they're bad guys or anything. They seem pretty legit, and they're helping us out when they don't have to. But Dean's just such a hardass, you know? He's uptight. It's so easy to get a rise out of him."

"Well, that's great, but could you maybe pull it back a little on the antagonism?" Allison asked, pulling her knees up to her chest. She wrapped her arms around them tightly, and she sounded every bit as tired now as she looked. "We kind of need them. My dad can't afford for you to run them off just because riling Dean up is fun."

At the first hint of tears in her eyes, Stiles was off his bed and on hers, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and squeezing.

"Hey, don't think like that," he said. "Your dad's gonna be fine."

Allison nodded quickly, sniffing and blinking away the wetness.

"No, I know," she said. "Everything's gonna be okay. It has to be. It's just— I'm just scared. I'm really scared, Stiles. I mean, he's all I've got left, a-and we don't even know that he's not already—"

Her voice broke and Stiles pulled her that much closer, tugging her head down onto his shoulder.

"He's not, Alli," he murmured into her hair. "He's holding on for you, you know that. And Sam and Dean? They're legit. They know what they're doing and if anyone can get us to your dad, it'll be them. And besides, this is Chris Argent we're talking about! He's hella strong. It'll take more than one measly Djinn to take him down for good, you know that."

Allison let out a watery laugh.

"Did you seriously just say 'hella'?" she asked. "Like, out loud and unironically?"

"Damn right I did."

Stiles pulled back, brushing Allison's hair behind her ear and wiping away a tear track on her cheek with his thumb. She scrubbed away the rest of the wetness with her sleeve and gave him a weak smile.

"Now here's how I'm gonna cheer you up," Stiles said. "I'm gonna take a two minute cold shower and leave all the hot water to you so you can take as long as you want. How's that sound?"

"You'd do that for me?" Allison asked, actually looking a bit touched by the offer.

"Just this once," Stiles said sternly. "And don't say I never did anything for you."

Allison laughed again, smiling that sunshiny smile that Scott had always been so enamored with. Honestly, Stiles couldn't blame him. It was a damn good smile. She made a noise of protest when Stiles ruffled her hair, half-heartedly batting at his hand, but Stiles ignored it in favor of snatching up his discarded pajama bottoms and heading for the bathroom.

"Stiles."

He turned in the doorway, humming in question. Allison propped her chin on her knees and shrugged just a little bit, a fond half-grin still lingering on her face.

"Thank you," she said quietly. "For coming with me."

Stiles smiled back.

"Anything for you, Alli. You know that."

He held up two fingers, mouthed "two minutes" at her, and closed the door. He strongly suspected she'd be asleep by the time he got out and he'd have to wake her up again, but it would be worth it anyway.

Dean probably should have knocked. That would've been the polite thing to do but, honestly, Dean hadn't really been raised in a polite environment where everybody had doors and privacy and crap like that. So when he went to Stiles' and Allison's motel room to let them know they would all be leaving first thing in the morning and to be ready quick, he didn't think twice about just pushing the door open, already halfway through his sentence.

He had really thought Stiles was scrawnier than this.

Not that he had been thinking about what Stiles would look like shirtless. Because he hadn't been, at all. It was just that if someone had asked him to think about, he would not have told them that Stiles was this broad-chested. He just hadn't expected so many muscles, that was all. Abs didn't translate well through the kind of layers the kid wore, so Dean could be forgiven for assuming there wouldn't be any.

He also hadn't expected tattoos, but there they were. A swirling pattern of black and red lines gracefully sprawling over pale skin. The densest part of it was centered over Stiles' sternum, high enough to sit just under the junction of his collarbones, and the rest spread out in a thick horizontal band before trailing off into more delicate strokes as it dripped down his torso to pool around his navel in a sunburst symbol that Dean was intimately familiar with.

There were more on his arms, too, other symbols wrapped around his biceps and spreading over the expanse of his inner forearms. Dean thought he could make out words hidden in the patterns, or maybe the whole lot of them were made up of elaborately transcribed words, but before he could get closer—close enough to look more carefully, to pick out the details on Stiles' skin, to maybe run his fingers over the designs—the harsh sound of a throat clearing made him jump.

Stiles was watching him, one eyebrow raised and the corner of his mouth hitched up just a little bit. An itchy flush climbed up Dean's neck as he realized that he'd been staring for more than a few seconds, which was...rude. Yeah, he was being rude, and that's why Stiles was giving him that expectant look.

"Nice, uh, ink."

Dean's voice came out rough and he had to stop and clear his throat.

"Uh huh," Stiles said dryly. He made no move to put on the t-shirt he was holding in one hand, a damp towel hanging from his other. His hair was messy and damp, sticking up in spikes and sending drops of water chasing each other down his neck.

The skepticism in his tone, like he thought there was something else Dean might have been looking at, made the flush on Dean's neck creep up to his face. He had just opened his mouth to defend himself—what the accusation was exactly, he wasn't sure, but he was definitely feeling attacked—when a hand fell on his shoulder.

"What's taking you so long?" Sam asked. He leaned curiously around Dean through the still open door until he caught sight of Stiles. Sam didn't seem at all phased by him standing there by the bed in just a pair of sweats that hung low enough on his hips that they were threatening to fall off. He just said, "Wow! That's a nice piece. Is that Ogham?"

It took another long second for Stiles to look away from Dean, blinking down at his own chest as if he'd forgotten what was there.

"Yeah, some of it," he said, abandoning both shirt and towel on the bed so he could point out some places. "Some is Sanskrit. A lot of it is archaic Latin, but most of it is actually Japanese."

Sam nodded appreciatively. "And is that an anti-possession ward?"

Stiles traced his fingers over the pentagram and flame symbol around his belly button and Dean could have sworn his knuckles lingered longer than than they needed to against the trail of dark hair underneath. Stiles was looking at him again, eyes narrowed, when he answered Sam's question with: "Yeah, it is."

"Neat," Sam said. "Us too!" He tugged down the neck of his t-shirt, baring the matching mark on his own chest.

Dean had one too, his last and strongest line of defense against being invaded and controlled like Sam had been not too long ago. He and Sam had gotten the tats together a while back, at some sketchy parlour in New Jersey between jobs, and it had felt good. Not just the being proactive, but having that tangible bond between them. It had sort of felt like a tether, like it meant that Sam was in this for the long haul and wouldn't run off for a simpler life at the drop of a hat.

Seeing it on Stiles was a little jarring, all things told. Like looking in a funhouse mirror, only strangely more intimate. His navel tingled, right where the mark sat on Stiles, and the muscles there clenched against the sensation.

"Sounds like there might be a story there," Dean said. It wasn't what he wanted to say, but he really wasn't sure what was. Mostly he just wanted the kid to stop looking at him like that.

"Everyone with even a toe in this business has got a story," Stiles said, which answered nothing of Dean's question but raised about a dozen more. "Sam, did you need something?"

"No, no, but I brought you this." Sam pulled out a few pieces of paper, xerox copies that were old and crinkly from being shoved into dad's journal for half a decade at least, and held them out for Stiles to take. "Info on Djinn. You seem to like having solid references, so I thought I'd pass these on in case you wanted to read up before we set off in the morning."

"Oh yeah," Stiles said easily. "Dean was just telling me. Bright and early, right?"

Dean hadn't told him any such thing, but he wasn't gonna admit to Sam that he had wasted several minutes getting into a staring contest with Stiles' chest. He just said, "Yes. Yes, first thing."

"Let Allison know," Sam said.

"'Course. She's just in the shower," Stiles told them, thumbing over his shoulder toward the closed bathroom door. "She'll probably be a while, and she'll crash hard once she's out, but she'll be on her game tomorrow. I'll set an alarm for 7:30."

"Sounds good."

Sam rapped his knuckles on the door and then disappeared, leaving Dean once again alone with a half-clothed Stiles. Dean bit his tongue and rocked back on his heels, feeling like maybe he was supposed to say something but unsure as to what that would be.

As usual, Stiles had no trouble finding his words.

"You angling for an invitation?"

Dean blinked at him. "What?"

"Well, not for nothing, but the last time someone showed up in my room and hovered like that, I got laid."

"What? No! No, I was just—"

Dean had no explanation though, no reason to be lingering in the doorway like this. What the hell was he doing? There was nothing for it but to cut his losses and get the hell out of dodge before he could dig himself a deeper hole.

He would've said goodnight or something, but his tongue felt like it was lodged up in the back of his throat, and Stiles was still fucking watching him like he knew something Dean didn't. It was infuriating. He sort of wanted to punch the smug look off the little bastard's face. But he also sort of didn't.

In the end, he shut the door without saying anything at all.