8. Crow's Landing Road

Derek found a big rig in the lot of a gravel quarry and Stiles figured out there would some kind of tool shed and repair bay that yielded them several five gallon containers. They siphoned diesel from the truck and after debating it, went back for the van and drove it to the quarry, where they filled its tank and loaded the extra diesel in the back.

The quarry had proved disappointingly free of anything edible, so they'd ranged back through Crow's Landing. They were still people in the small town: candles and oil lamps flickered behind the windows of many houses.

Derek had used his ears and his nose to pick out places that were empty, but Crow's Landing seemed to have survived the Crash nearly intact. He'd begun to think it would be better to drive on, out into farm country again, and shift. He knew he could find another rabbit or two. Stiles would eat them if Derek got his shit together and made a fire to cook them on.

Stiles hadn't said much since they began their search, so when he stopped, Derek immediately went on alert. It didn't matter that Derek had better senses, he had to filter data and Stiles could easily register something he dismissed. He'd learned to pay attention to Stiles years before they found themselves here.

"So," Stiles said, "that thing you said."

"What thing?" He said things. More than one thing. He wasn't some monosyllabic Clint Eastwood clone, no matter how the pack teased. He wished the pack was with them or they were with the pack. Just having one pack member with him wasn't enough.

"Uhm, well, the flashlight thing."

It took Derek a beat to connect the dots and then he cursed silently. Stiles had attracted the attention of something supernatural or at least magic using – Derek still couldn't sense anything.

"Crap. I told you – "

"I know, okay," Stiles protested and held up his hands up, "I know." He cocked his head. "For what it's worth, I don't think this is someone bad. I just have this … tug … it's an invitation, I guess."

"Where?" Derek demanded.

Stiles pointed. "Thataway." He took a step in the same direction and nodded. "Yeah. C'mon."

Derek wanted to protest, but bit it back. He had to trust Stiles about this, the way Stiles needed to trust Derek when claws and fangs came out. "Wait," he blurted.

Stiles turned and raised both eyebrows at him.

"I'm going to shift."

Magic had less effect on the wolf shape and he could move faster.

Stiles rolled his eyes as Derek stripped and handed him his clothes. "You're really getting way too fond of going full wolf, I swear."

Derek hesitated, wondering if Stiles wasn't right, if this wasn't slipping out of his control, if there wasn't a reason alphas and other werewolves avoided complete shifts. The change had already started, though, and fighting it would only result in pain. He let it sweep over him and human thought blinked out with the sensation, awareness only returning once he was four-footed.

He leaned into Stiles affectionately, because it came so easy when he didn't need to put how he felt into words that never were exactly right. Maybe Stiles was right, maybe werwolves needed their own language, but then they never seemed to need it with themselves, only in trying to make humans understand.

Until Stiles, Derek had forgotten that there were humans he'd _want_ to understand him.

Stiles rocked on his feet and made a complaining sound that didn't match the _pleased_ way he moved and smelled in response to Derek. He zipped his otherwise empty pack closed over Derek's clothes and said, "What are you waiting for – oh, okay, so, just follow me."

Derek padded beside Stiles, lifting his lip once to snarl at a dog barking from backyard, intimidating it into silence. He hadn't forgotten the dogs in Los Banos, though this dog remained loyal to its masters – because its masters hadn't broken faith with it; Derek could hear the dog's good health and full belly in its voice.

His own belly felt hollower than he liked. He pushed back the instinct to hunt. He needed to stay with his pack mate. They were passing through territory not their own and might need to fight.

They ended up before the doors to a simple, single story office building, brick and cinderblock with oleanders and plum trees planted around it. A small car lot sat empty behind it. The soft flicker of a kerosene lamp lit the shallow, wide concrete steps up to the door. Three heartbeats sounded inside, steady and healthy.

Stiles stopped on the sidewalk. "Hello inside?" he called out, loud enough Derek winced.

A tall woman in a denim dress opened the glass door and stepped out. Her iron gray hair was cut short and she wore no makeup. Her eyebrows shot up when she spotted Derek standing beside Stiles and stayed up as she studied both of them.

"Well, you're no child and not in need, are you?" she said when she'd finished looking them both over in a three-pack a day cigarette voice.

"No, I'm not," Stiles replied.

"I'm Gladys. You and your friend?"

"Just passing through."

"Like you were just passing through Los Banos last night?" she asked.

"Just like that," Stiles said. "We like to keep moving."

A snort of laughter ending in a harsh cough escaped her. She gestured to the door. "Well, come in and have a bite – "

Stiles snickered and Gladys laughed again too.

" – to eat with us. I've got a pot of mulligan going."

"Who else is inside?" Stiles asked. Derek could feel magic tingling through Stiles fingers where he'd tangled them in the fur between Derek's shoulders. It pulsed into him and pulsed back stronger. Stiles was tracing the triskele and it had created a loop of building power. It made Derek stronger and gave Stiles more magic to fuel any spells he wanted to use. They'd done something similar fighting the Alpha pack, but it had been jerky and uncertain, the power fluctuating thanks to Stiles' inexperience and Derek's lack of trust. Now Derek let Stiles' magic fill him and let Stiles draw on his own without stint. It felt almost addictive.

"My sister Irene and her daughter Eleanor. There's no one else in our coven."

So Gladys was a witch. Derek had thought so.

Gladys sighed in exasperation. "Boy, I'm hardly going to poison you. If I did, that Alpha standing next to you would rip me to pieces." She switched her gaze to Derek. "Wouldn't you?"

Derek flared his eyes scarlet and bright. In the darkness, with only the dim light from a single lamp inside silhouetting her, his eyes were bright enough to reflect red off Gladys. She held her ground, but he heard her heart rate tick up.

"You are a big one."

"He is," Stiles agreed and added amiably, "try to fuck with him and I'll sear you to ashes. Now, you'll excuse us, but it's never a smart idea to eat or drink anything a witch offers."

"You'll want to move on before morning, then, won't you?" Gladys promptly replied, sweet as sugar and cyanide. "Crow's Landing Road will take you straight on up to Ceres and Modesto, if you're being smart and staying away from I-5."

"Thank you for the advice." Stiles and Derek stayed on the sidewalk while Gladys went back inside before heading back to the gravel quarry.

"I honestly don't know if she was a threat or not," Stiles muttered at one point. "Is that weird? That's weird. I kind of worried that she wanted to add us to the mulligan. There are an awful lot of fairytales with witches eating a succulent and nubile youngster like myself, after all, and while a lot of stuff gets twisted up, there's always that grain of truth at the center. You know?"

Derek grumbled because he hadn't been able to tell either. Witches were hard to read. Also, he needed to shift back, because rolling his eyes at Stiles just felt strange in wolf form. Play nipping at him might serve the same function for another were, but he thought Stiles might yelp or zap him with all that magic he was still hoarding if Derek tried it.

He dressed as soon as they reached the van. Then they opened the last can of Spam and shared it after getting back to the road.

Crow's Landing did take them out of town and northward toward Modesto according to the road signs.

It also took them by an LDS church.

At least the Mormons started shooting immediately. They just wanted whoever was in the dusty white VW to keep on keeping on away the fuck from them. The bullets never hit anything but dirt, sending up puffs of it following the crack of the bullets.

Stiles started chanting a protective spell, something that stopped anything inorganic from passing through it. It was one of the first Derek remembered him using. He used it to block wolfsbane bullets from hunters. It cost more energy than Stiles could afford to maintain it for long and stood out like a flare in the dark to anything with supernatural senses. Using it was always a last resort.

Derek shoved the gas pedal down and pushed the old van to its maximum, bone rattling, engine moaning speed. He almost sympathized with the Mormons; after years of being mocked for tithing and keeping stores of goods, suddenly they were the only people who still had food. They'd likely quickly become targets, not just of strangers but of their neighbors.

He was heartily sick of being shot at, however, and they were lucky he was driving. Otherwise he might have let his control slip and given them a bloody object lesson on why it wasn't wise to be that trigger happy.

Long past the church and out of range, Stiles blurted, "That bitch."

"We'd have likely taken this road anyway," Derek said.

"Yeah, but she knew. Seriously, there's obviously a reason witch and bitch rhyme, it's because the former is always the latter. Look at Consuelo. That old woman is pure mean if you get on her wrong side. But this Gladys. Jeez. I am so glad I didn't give her our names. She'd probably have cursed us." Stiles sat back and made a series of unhappy, pissed off faces. "I should curse her."

"With what?" Derek asked. "Genital warts again?"

"Hey, would you want – "

"No, no."

"Besides, it's more like a pox," Stiles went on. "Like lesions and seeping and – "

"Stop." The sun streaming through the trees lining the road on the east glared off the dirty windshield, the flash and shadow half blinding Derek. His eyes were gritty with exhaustion and his bones ached thanks to shifting with too little interval between. He didn't need Stiles giving him an in-depth description of the effects of cursing someone with warts or pox. "Please."

"It's actually historically – "

"No."

"You're boring."

"Terribly," Derek agreed.

Stiles yawned widely and slumped down. "So, you figure we're going to find something awful in Modesto? Since _Gladys_ mentioned going there?"

Derek flexed his hands on the steering wheel. He did. "Yeah."

"Me too."

They still weren't prepared for the field.

Stiles had the little emergency radio out again, searching the dial for anything after cranking a charge into it again. When he thought about, it surprised Derek that the radio hadn't fried like most other electronics. Stiles must have had it stored someplace insulated against the magnetic pulse -- his spell box was lined in silver and lead – or maybe it had just survived. It had become increasingly apparent since leaving LA behind that more things had survived than had first been evident, even some newer vehicles.

Things that had failed were being fixed, but there was no organization to it. The information infrastructure had been wiped out and the grid was still down. A barter economy would rise up, probably in the next few weeks, if nothing else went wrong. But the longer the grid was down, the worse things got and the harder it became to fix anything.

It would have been nice to think that once they made it to Beacon Hills the pack would be there and various family members and all they'd need to do was hold out and get along, take care of each other and the town, until everything returned to something like normal.

Nice things didn't happen to Derek and that was just too much of a pie in the sky dream even for someone with better luck than him.

What he'd seen in LA had been just the beginning. The ambush in Baja, the thugs that stabbed Stiles, even the lunatics at El Nido, they were threats to individuals, but not to civilization. Even a nuclear meltdown at Diablo Canyon would only wreck a chunk of the state, poison an area of the ocean. The Bleed, though, would be the end if it wasn't stopped.

Everything else could be fixed in time, but not a plague that seeded itself and waited to catch a new host and spread again.

The Bleed made a nuclear meltdown look simple and safe. Hunters thought werewolves were monsters? Derek curled his lip, thinking about it.

A harsh blurp of sound, a voice, cut through the white noise. Stiles sucked in a loud breath and then delicately tuned the radio in on the transmission.

_" … dated list of Quarantine Zones, no travel zones, and mandatory fire evacuations areas on repeat. Benecia, Fairfield, Lake Tahoe, Martinez, Monterey, Oakland, Palm Springs, Salinas, San Jose, Reno, Santa Cruz, Santa Monica, Santa Barbara … "_

"Down the coast highways," Stiles muttered.

_"Folks, I can‛t tell which of those places have the Bleed and which are just burning, but if you can hunker down, stay where you are, and if you can‛t, then good luck and steer clear is all I can tell you."_

"East too," Derek pointed out. Infected had made it to Tahoe and Reno. Running for false safety in vacation towns that could never support an influx of population – even aside from the disease – without constant supplies from outside. Of course, he didn't know if those two had been shut down because of the Bleed or out of control fires or as stop points in an attempt to keep anything or anyone from moving east.

"You think Beacon Hills is okay?" The ghost of the boy Stiles had been when Derek met him echoed in his voice, the worry he'd always hidden under babble and sarcasm, but that had defined him – still defined him – from the day his mother died.

Derek didn't know. He was shit at lying, not to mention Stiles could see through even his best efforts. He rolled his shoulders in an uneasy shrug. "Should be. It's isolated, pretty far from anywhere, and there are easier routes to follow north or east … "

"Or south or west," Stiles finished. Beacon County sat sort of catty-corner to Lassen and Modoc Counties and didn't have a single other major population besides Beacon Hills or any recreational attractions beyond the Preserve and the nearby national forests. It had no remarkable history to draw tourists. Rock falls and washouts regularly took out sections of the two lane highway that wound its way back to the town. The high school kids had bemoaned that nothing ever happened there and they had to drive south to Redding or all the way to Chico to find anything approaching excitement unless they headed up to Klamath Falls.

It wasn't the sort of place anyone ever heard of who didn't live there. That had been one of the reasons the Hale Pack had established themselves there when it was no more than a logging camp.

He tuned back into the radio litany when Stiles didn't say anything more.

_" … thousands of acres still burning in Butte, Calaveras, El Dorado, Glenn, Humboldt, Lake, Lassen, Mendecino, Placer, Plumas, San Benito, San Bernardino, Shasta, Tehama, and Tuollumne Counties according to radio reports on military frequencies and amateur radio operators in the affected areas. All information is unconfirmed."_

A shudder ran down his back. Would anyone be fighting the wildfires, beyond whatever personal effort people caught in their paths would attempt? He could smell the smoke, see it hanging like a dirty stain on every horizon, and his instincts matched old trauma, whispering of firestorms and no escape. He would rather be shot with wolfsbane than trapped by a fire.

"Beacon County's okay."

"As far as one guy with a transmitter knows," Derek said.

"Way to make me feel better, dude."

_" … no way to predict deaths due to the fires, with little or no warning of fire movement and the majority of people still without reliable transportation … "_

"I'll turn it off," Stiles blurted.

"Leave it, any information is better than none." He forced himself to loosen his grip on the steering wheel and when he'd managed that, he cranked the driver's side window down.

_"Containment burns are also being used in the Los Angeles Basin and Bay Area in an attempt to limit contamination after reports of infected animals escaping the quarantine zones. National Guard and Army units admitted yesterday that they have been authorized to take lethal measures against anyone trying to leave a quarantine or no-travel zone. Anyone inside is advised to remain in their home and avoid contact or confrontation with possible infected. Evacuation and relocation efforts are ongoing … "_

"Yeah, sure," Stiles drawled. "Stay home and starve, go out and get sick, try to get away and get shot. Stellar fucking advice."

The smell hit Derek first, thick and choking and he swerved the van across the center line, eyes watering blind as he coughed and gagged on it. Stiles reached over and caught the wheel, straightening them out as he demanded, "What is it – Oh, holy God, Jesus on a pogo stick, that's – what died!?"

Derek let his foot off the gas, allowing the van to coast, spat out the window, and got his sense of smell under control. Stiles had his right hand clamped over his mouth and nose. He still had his left hand locked onto the steering wheel.

Rolling up the window didn't make any improvement. Derek considered reversing until they could take a cross road and try to detour around whatever reeked up ahead, but they needed to know what it was. It was the same scent he'd caught in Los Banos, napalm and nidor, but worse, fetid and decomposing and roasted.

They came around a curve, past a line of native oaks, and it was there: a field of blackened bodies.

The sound that ripped out of Stiles throat combined horror and fury.

The dead lay in wavering pattern. Bodies piled on bodies in an uneven row, then a stretch of barren ground with only scattered forms collapsed in places, and then the center, where charred black limbs and torsos were tangled and knotted together in a scene from hell, an endless, silent scream, burned and melted into each other.

"I'm not going to puke," Stiles mumbled, "I'm not going to puke, I'm not – Derek, get us out of here. What – why – what did this?"

Derek shut down. He couldn't muster the strength to speak, though he could parse the scene well enough. The people had been gathered in the field, coaxed or coerced, and then the guns had come out. They'd been surrounded, jammed together, fighting to take cover behind each other, beneath the dying. The bravest or most desperate had tried to run beyond the firing line. Others had gathered enough courage and tried to storm forward en masse. They were the people lying in a thick border.

It was possible some had made it through, but Derek doubted it. The field had been leveled and prepared for a rice crop. Winding dikes had provided the shooters an easy vantage and the plowed up dirt would have made for terrible footing. There was no cover for anyone moving.

The ones who had been shot were luckier than anyone who had tried hiding under the dead. They hadn't been alive to burn.

The gas pedal sank under his boot and the van lurched forward. Over the whining of the engine he caught the deeper note of another vehicle approaching.

"Stiles, get down," Derek snapped. He shifted gears and wished for his Camaro, left behind in Beacon Hills, for the big SUV that died in the desert, or even the wrecked Monte Carlo with its V8. The van had never been meant for speed even when it first came off the assembly line.

"What – crap on cracker, are those the bastards that did this?"

"How the hell would I know?" Derek replied as he shifted one more time and had the van pushed to its shuddering, hard to steer limits and straddling the center line. He might have tried to swerve from side to side, but the van's narrow frame, poor steering and worn rubber made that a bad idea. He settled for trying to miss any bad pot holes out of fear they'd blow a tire. "You want to stop and ask them?"

Stiles ducked down below the line of the window. "Oh, hell no!"

Derek dared a glance in the rear view mirror. An older farm truck bumped and rattled behind them, the cargo area in back filled with armed men in uniform. At least one tried to shoot at them, but between the two vehicles moving and the patched and rough road, the odds of a hit on a tire were damned low. The odds of Derek wrecking them if he attempted any evasive driving were much higher. He gripped the wheel hard and kept his foot down on the gas. The speedometer needle jiggled and jerked spasmodically, offering no clear idea of their real speed.

Stiles laughed almost hysterically, "Dude, it's like the worst car chase ever. You're barely hitting seventy – "

Derek didn't think the van was reaching seventy. He worried more that if he kept shifting, the transmission was going to finally crap out.

" – and the assholes behind us still can't catch up! This would be hilarious if it wasn't so pathetic, really."

"Shit," Derek remarked with a calm he didn't entirely feel. Two more trucks were parked in a blockade across the road ahead of them. He really wasn't that afraid of men with guns – he could fight his way through them before they could set him on fire unless someone managed a very, very lucky shot to his spine – but Stiles couldn't. He'd stand and fight for Stiles and that would end badly for both of them. "Brace yourself." He found what he'd hoped for on the left side of the road: a wide dirt siding where semis pulled off to have their trailers loaded during harvest.

And there, just beyond, was an irrigation pump and the dirt road turning off from it and leading out into a field that had been plowed up but not planted yet. A tractor with a wide cultivator still hitched to it sat in the middle of the field, the harrowing only half finished.

Stiles slid down even further in his seat while holding onto the door handle with both hands.

Derek shifted down, turned the wheel and plunged the van off the road onto the dirt at an angle that cut the corner the irrigation pump and power pole occupied, nearly losing control despite avoiding the right angle turn as the shocks couldn't compensate for the rough going. A wall of dirt flew into the air behind the van. His head grazed the roof of the van at least once, but he kept his foot down and shifted back up the instant the wheels were on the dirt road. It took more strength than human to keep control of the steering as the van skidded sideways. Derek compensated, spinning the steering wheel left then right then left again to straighten the wheels while building up speed. Stiles screamed and then whooped out loud.

Behind them, the truck in pursuit failed to turn fast enough and slammed into the pump, sheering it off and then t-boning into the power pole. The pole snapped and came down on the truck's cab as water boiled out of the broken off connection to the pump tank.

"That was _awesome!_ " Stiles yelled. He turned around in his seat and stuck his head out the window just to see the disaster they'd left behind them. "Amazing! I take it back, dude, that was the best car chase action ever ever!"

Derek shot out his right hand, grabbed the waist of Stiles' pants and yanked him back inside the van. They were throwing up so much dust that when he checked the rear view mirror, he couldn't make out if they had gathered any other pursuers through it.

"Do something useful and ward this thing so they can't find us," Derek snapped.

"Buzzkiller, dude," Stiles complained, but an instant later his hands were moving, tracing runes onto the van's dash while he chanted under his breath. The skin crawling tingle of magic filled the van and Derek risked relaxing enough to pull in a deep breath or two.

Stiles raised his voice a little and ended with, "And motherfucking Gladys, she knew we'd drive right into that, so 'may you get as you give, bitch'." His hands shaped a rune in the air that glowed poisonous green before it dissolved. "Take that," Stiles added.

"What did you do?"

"Rebound magic," Stiles explained. "It won't even hurt her until she tries to screw someone else and then she's going to find out exactly why everyone says karma's a bitch."

Derek snorted but didn't object. Witches were always bad news and he didn't mind one of them learning a lesson a la Stiles. He tried to hide it, but once they were away, a series of shudders ran through him, hard enough the van's steering picked it up. He could still smell it, thought he would always smell it, the burning meat, the death and pain and betrayal. He gasped for air despite himself, wondering if he could keep driving like this and knowing they couldn't afford to stop.

Stiles dropped his hand onto the back of Derek's neck, warm palm on bare skin, and he had such big hands, all long fingers and they reached around with his thumb and squeezed gently. His hand was enough to absorb the shakes so Derek could breathe again. It wasn't magic, just Stiles and Stiles understanding and accepting that it had got to Derek, silently telling him with his touch that that was okay.

Stiles talked all the time, except when he didn't, because he knew when Derek needed quiet and when he needed company and gave him both. Taut muscles in his neck and shoulders released and he managed a deep breath that didn't choke him with memories.

"Thanks," he muttered, because he hated acknowledging that he'd needed something, even something from Stiles, but Stiles just squeezed his neck again.

"Any time, big guy," Stiles said. He left his hand on Derek's neck. Derek leaned back into it, just a little, just enough to let him know he wanted it there.

~*~

They skirted Modesto and every large population center after it, driving miles out of the direct route, sleeping during the long sweltering days and chugging through the humid, short nights. Stiles complained steadily, but the creeping sense of danger set between Derek's shoulder blades wouldn't go away and he refused to take any more risks if they weren't necessary. More than once, Derek parked the van behind some cover and watched military patrols roll along a road they'd been on earlier, with Stiles snuffling in his sleep inside.

Playing with the radio got them another broadcast from Pirate Pete. The virus had a name now, the Bleed, and more details had leaked out past the quarantines on LA and the Bay Area. It spread through mucus membranes, open wounds, and infected blood and no one was immune. No one got over the Bleed either – some people just died slower.

Derek cringed when Pete added his own thoughts.

_"Listen, folks, don't think you can suit up with some gloves and a bandana over your nose and take care of someone with this thing. The infected, they're gone, and, and if you've been in the same house or car as them... well, if you didn't breathe it in from their breath, you likely touched something it settled on. And then you touched your face, your mouth, your eyes... Of course, if you've done that, you probably aren't in any shape to be listening to this broadcast. So remember and stay safe, stay away from anywhere anyone with it has been._

_"This thing, the Bleed, it stays. God knows how long it stays. Until it's burnt up along with whatever it's on. Now, I don't know everything, but I know enough to figure out what the authorities aren't saying and it's bad: bioweapon bad. This thing didn't pop up now by accident. Someone made it and so far no one's come up with a way to stop it. Maybe the wildfires aren't such a bad thing. Maybe they aren't all accidents, either."_

A trip that should have taken a day, two at the most if they dawdled, kept slowing down. They could only move after dark and every other night, they had to stop and forage for food and try to find more diesel for the van. Conveniently abandoned vehicles with full tanks were becoming scarcer.

The pirate radio station they'd picked up on Stiles' emergency radio kept filling them in with ever more bad news, reports of new fires and quarantine zones, outbreaks of the Bleed on the East Coast, along the Mississippi, and in other countries. It cut out one afternoon while they were sweating and drowsing, waiting for nightfall, with the van hidden among hundreds of other vehicles in a vehicle scrapyard east of Stockton. Their stomachs were half way full with snacks from a vending machine in the office break room.

Stiles had taken the old, brown corduroy couch while Derek chose to spread himself out on the floor where it felt marginally cooler. He was drifting, dozing, and contemplating if Stiles' dangling foot kicking at his was irritating enough to warrant moving out of range.

Stiles sat up from the couch he'd stretched out on when Pirate Pete stopped in the middle of a sentence about black helicopters and the new capitol. The transmission didn't turn to static, instead there was just the hum of silence on the other end, followed by a loud bang, gun fire, and command voice ordering, _"Shut that thing down."_

Another bang, loud even through the tiny speakers on the radio, terminated in blaring static.

Derek got to his feet. Stiles stared at him, big brown eyes wide and dark with alarm. "Did they – they just offed Pirate Pete, didn't they?"

That was what it had sounded like. Derek forced himself to nod. Pirate Pete's broadcasts hadn't had much hard information, but they'd been comforting in their way, a reminder of before. The abrupt, violent silence pointed to a clamp down on any information dispersal outside official channels. It meant things were getting worse.

"I liked him," Stiles said. He waved his hand, still clutching the little radio, "I mean, he was crazier than a shithouse rat, but he was out there and he was trying … Damn."

"I know."

He sat down next to Stiles, lining up their hips and thighs and leaning in close. He meant to comfort Stiles, but the contact helped him too, despite the sticky heat. He listened to Stiles' heartbeat jackrabbit fast with his spinning thoughts. They both kept moving uncomfortably until Stiles swung himself over Derek's lap and Derek twisted and fell backward under him. Some flailing and grabbing at the back of the couch resulted, but they didn't tumble off.

"This is too hot," Stiles commented, but didn't move from blanketing Derek with his body.

"Okay."

Neither of them moved.

Derek settled his arms around Stiles and stroked idly at the small of his back, insinuating his fingers under his t-shirt and his waist, soothing himself with the smooth skin, the sweaty, healthy smell of him overwhelming all the odors lingering in the couch's cushions. Stiles mouthed at the side of Derek's neck, but it was lazy and aimless. Derek tipped his head back anyway, luxuriating in the way he could trust Stiles at his throat. He liked the contact even when it wasn't going to lead to sex.

His hand stopped between Stiles' shoulder blades as he caught the distant _thwop-thrum_ of a helicopter. It dopplered in and out, distant, then went loud as it approached, the heavy bass blade sounds rumbling into Derek's bones. Stiles heard it too and scrambled off him, heading for the door.

Derek bolted after him, nearly upending the couch and caught the back of Stiles' belt just before he made it out the door.

"That's a helicopter!" Stiles was delighted, excited, buzzing himself. "It's – "

"Military," Derek yelled as the noise rattled the windows. "They're not our friends!"

Stiles stopped trying to pull away.

"Who do you think shut down Pirate Pete?" Derek asked softly as the helicopter moved into the distance.

The late afternoon light, spearing between dusty Venetian blinds, caught in Stiles' eyes, reflected in the irises like amber, almost as bright as a bitten beta. His mouth was open, lips chapped again, and he'd gone long enough he needed a shave for his patchy beard. He blinked and pulled an angry face. "Okay, yeah, your paranoia may have a point for once," he said at last, speaking slowly as he detached Derek's hands from his waist – Derek hadn't realized he was still clutching at him. "But it's still this great big sign that maybe everything will be okay. Someone somewhere is getting things working again. Sure, it's the military first, but it'll be cars and stuff soon. Once the electricity is back on, things'll get better."

"I hope so." Derek did. He just didn't believe it would work that way. Instead of saying so and enduring a Stiles' lecture on looking on the bright side, Derek reeled Stiles closer and tucked his nose behind his ear, breathing in the scent of him, the wiry strength in his limbs, the way they were so close in height and fit together. He could make himself believe everything would be okay while he had Stiles in his arms.

"Things are going to get better," Stiles insisted, hugging him tightly.

~*~

Derek heard a helicopter next that night. They were in the open, a flat stretch of road headed north, fields on both sides of them and the waxing moon bright enough even human eyes could see the white van. The windows were down and Stiles had his arm stretched out, palm catching the wind of the passage. Derek had been waiting for him to stick his head out instead, ready to pop a dog joke of his own for once.

The distant buzz-whap of a helicopter reached him sooner than it would have a human, but his subconscious didn't register it as a threat. The Beacon County Police Department didn't have its own helicopter, so he'd never been hunted from the air. His instincts were tuned to land threats, even though he'd been the one to warn Stiles against showing themselves the day before.

It was only as it grew louder that Derek remembered they were driving through what was probably another no-travel zone and even if they weren't, a moving vehicle drew attention now. One operating without head or brake lights would definitely look suspicious.

"Shit."

He slammed the brakes on and only remembered to grab Stiles before he went face first into the dashboard at the last second.

"Some warning next time, dude!" Stiles yelled indignantly.

Derek went for the emergency brake and killed the engine. Without its sound, even Stiles heard what he'd picked up.

The helicopter was approaching fast now, alerting Derek the van had been spotted. If they had night vision they might be okay. If they were looking for heat sources, though, the van's engine would stand out like a fire. He almost cursed that they weren't driving through a burned area, where hot spots would make it impossible to pick out the heat from an engine.

Derek didn't bother growling at Stiles to stop calling him dude. If he ever did, Derek knew that he'd actually miss it, no matter how annoying it was.

"Out of the van, Stiles," he shouted instead. "Now!"

Unwilling to wait for Stiles to move – or more likely demand an explanation before he moved – Derek grabbed him by the back of the neck at the same time he pushed the driver's door open. He jumped out of the van while pulling Stiles, resulting in tangled legs and cursing, but then they were both on the pavement.

"This isn't better, Derek," Stiles protested. "At least they can't see us in the van – "

"They don't have to see us in the van," Derek gritted out as he pulled Stiles into a stumbling run across the verge on the far side of the road, up the weed grown side of an earthen berm, and over. They plunged into the irrigation ditch, crashing through wild mustard, shoulder high cattails and nameless greens, down into the algae thick muck and mud and into the slimy, waist deep water.

"Oh my God, this is disgusting," Stiles exclaimed.

The helicopter was almost on top of them. The tough stems of the cattails and water weeds whipped into their faces and arms. The muck caught at Derek's boots, sucking them deeper and throwing off his balance with every stride. He heard Stiles inhale hard and smelled blood, guessed something had caught tender skin and cut it, and cursed under his breath. They couldn't move fast enough and the shifting cattails would give them away.

The realization brought Derek to a stop. He rocked as Stiles plowed into him from behind, foul smelling water sloshing up and under his shirt. It felt warm and gritty and stank from weeks of standing stagnant.

"We need to get down in the water and be still and quiet," he said. He had to lean close for Stiles to hear him, the helicopter had come to a hovering stop over the van. The wind from the blades whipped the cattails down toward the water, diminishing their cover.

"You're crazy, you know that? They're not going to do anything to us. They worst they'll do is stick us in a holding camp – we can get out easy enough and it might even be one farther north," Stiles argued.

Stiles opened his mouth then snapped it shut. He'd grown up the son of the county sheriff, in and out of the sheriff's station in Beacon Hills, and he had a bone deep belief and trust in law enforcement and, by extension, in the good intentions of other authorities. His brain made him cynical, but at heart, Stiles still trusted. Derek had been raised to trust no one outside his family and had the lesson burned into his soul when he broke that rule. It was as easy for him to expect the worst as it was hard for Stiles. He had to remind himself of that sometimes, when Stiles made him furious by not thinking, despite how smart he was.

"You saw what they did in Ceres." Derek didn't think he needed any more argument than that. There was no room for debate. Stiles needed to stop being contrary and do what Derek told him to do. Not that he would …

"But – "

"Just because they aren't hunting us because I'm a werewolf doesn't mean they aren't hunting," Derek snarled. Derek set his hands on Stiles' shoulders and _shoved._ He wouldn't hear the end of it for days, but he could take that.

Stiles went down into the rank water with a muffled shriek. Derek dropped too, all the way to his chin, and kept hold of Stiles to keep him down. Some part of his brain chuckled that they were in an inverse of the time Stiles held him up in a pool with Derek holding Stiles down in the water this time. Especially after he wrestled Stiles around and wrapped his arms around him to keep him from splashing and giving them away.

The noise from the helicopter assaulted Derek's ears so close and reeked of kerosene – fuel – as it settled downward onto the pavement ahead of the van. Derek sank himself and Stiles down until only their noses and eyes were above the water line. He couldn't see anything from there and the combined odors of fuel and vegetative rot overwhelmed his nose, so all he had left to tell him what was happening was his hearing. The spooling whoop of the idling blades and the engines and turbines overwhelmed all the small cues that he'd normally pick up.

Stiles twined one of his hands over Derek's and stopped fighting to get loose.

He didn't hear the steps or heartbeats of men exiting the helicopter. Their voices, just over the berm and echoing off the side of the van startled Derek and Stiles. They both jerked, sending the scummy water sloshing.

"It's a piece of shit, but it's still warm. Someone was in it."

"Yeah, well, good fucking luck finding them in the dark. They de-assed the vehicle and who knows where they are now."

"We could check the ditches."

"In the fucking dark. You want to hump through the mud until you run into a Bleeder, in the fucking dark, be my fucking guest. Me, I'm heading back to base. 'Sides, anyone that's still got the brains to hide from us is probably okay."

"Yeah, fine, okay, but this is still a no-travel zone." The firecracker pop of auto gunfire made Stiles and Derek jerk and huddle deeper in the muddy water. It wasn't aimed at them; whoever was shooting was shooting up the van. When it stopped, he declared, "That bitch ain't going anywhere now."

"Yeah, real impressive, Jameson, now get your ass back on the helo or the pilot's leaving you to hump back to base on foot."

Stiles squeezed Derek's fingers where they rested over his sternum. They listened and waited as the helicopter spooled back up and took off. They kept waiting, listening for any sign of anyone left behind to ambush them or the helicopter returning. All they heard were the slowly returning sounds of the night, insects and birds, a plop in the water Derek knew was a water rat, and the rustling of field mice out in the field.

When Derek was satisfied, they clawed and scrambled their way up the side of the ditch. Mud clung in clumps to the shoes and water weighed their clothes down.

"Yeah," Stiles muttered, "that little dip is going to do great things for the still healing hole in my side."

Derek cursed because he'd forgotten.

"We've still got the supplies in the van, we'll disinfect it," he said, but as they crested the ditch's berm, it became clear that they didn't have anything left in the van. Everything inside had been shredded by gunfire. Diesel from the last can leaked over everything.

Stiles peered past Derek's shoulder. "Well, crap. I guess that's proof it really is much harder to shoot up a vehicle and make it explode than the movies make out. I'm disillusioned and disappointed."

Derek let himself growl to vent a little of his rage. Somehow, over the years of being hunted, he'd come to hate it when the hunters turned vandal on anything he owned more than when they shot or cut or caught and tortured him. He'd tried to stop accumulating things – it made running easier – but once he'd established the pack, they'd begun nesting no matter what shithole he picked as a den and he'd given in to it over the years. Now, everything was burned and abandoned again, and all he and Stiles had had been inside that van. The petty vindictiveness of it bothered and bewildered Derek. He'd never understand it; the wolf might crave blood and death, but not destruction. That gained no one anything.

"I know, I know, I feel like I've been lied to all of these years," Stiles babbled. "The next thing you know, someone will tell me you can't shoot down a helicopter with a handgun or that green M&Ms aren't an aphrodisiac. And then my whole world view will be just shattered – "

"We need to go. Now."

Stiles sighed theatrically. "Yes, I know, I just wanted you to calm down. You were getting louder than the helicopter, I swear. Man, walking in wet shoes and socks is going to suck so bad." He made a whimpering noise. "Will you carry me when I have blisters? Puhleeeeeeze? Pretty please with sprinkles and those cinnamon red hot candies you not-secretly like on it?"

Derek made a grumbling noise. It utterly embarrassed him, but he would carry Stiles and he wouldn't wait for him to get blisters either. He hated to admit it, though. "Can we just get moving? We need to get to cover for the day and preferably beyond any search perimeter they might come back and check."

"Ugh. Okay. Fine. Walking. Walking now." Stiles started down the center of the road.

"Stiles."

"What?" He managed to sound like Derek had put the entire weight of the world on him.

"We're going north."

"What? I'm totally – going south. Like that's not embarrassing." Stiles spun on his heel and began marching, passing Derek with a haughty little shoulder check that didn't even rock Derek. "So? What are you waiting for?"

Derek caught up to him in three steps.

~*~

They slept in a barn through the day and ate boiled barley and oats that had been meant for someone's horses.

Derek's shoes came apart the next night and he shifted to wolf form. Keeping his pace to Stiles' slower one nearly drove him crazy, so he scouted ahead and to the sides in circles that were always within shout and run distance. He found something useful, though it took a minute to register through the haze of wolf thoughts: mouse in the grass, owl overhead, bats, squeaking irritating bats he wanted to leap and snap at, king snake … one less mouse, dead cow up wind, mud, coyote piss, rubber metal glass gas … car. There were still plenty of vehicles abandoned on or beside the roads. He ignored them unless he smelled food inside. This one had something else. He cocked his head at the car and the thing tied onto the roof.

Bicycle.

Derek loped back to Stiles and nudged him eagerly.

"What is it, Lassie?" Stiles joked, but he sounded too tired for it to annoy Derek.

Derek nudged him again.

Stiles ruffled his hand behind Derek's ears. "Something good?"

Derek licked Stiles' hand and waved his tail.

"I worry that I'm increasingly able to understand your wolfy body language without resorting to any _canis lupus_ study cheatsheets," Stiles remarked but lengthened his stride to follow Derek. It took an hour to reach the car in question and Stiles would have just tiredly stumbled past it if Derek didn't stop in front of him.

Stiles' knee nudged into his ribs.

"Dude, you make a great road block."

Derek sat and looked over at the car. Dawn was on its way, lightening the horizon to the east, so the world looked to be made of gray, uncertain shadows. The spokes of the bicycle's wheels gleamed dimly.

Stiles peered at the car and shrugged. He glanced down at Derek then back to the car. "Do you have some magical way of knowing it runs? If it does, why'd it get left here – Oh. Oh. Bike. The bike, of course, hey, good idea, Fang, you'll have to work to keep up with me on this baby."