#gbernadon

It isn’t even that the temperature on the bus is intermittently ten degrees too hot and then ten degrees too cold without ever seeming to pass through a comfortable temperature even briefly, or that Derek can smell something he’s rather not consider closely every time someone opens the door to the small bathroom at the back, or even that all six of them are starving from a complete lack of available food.

It’s not the fact that Scott and Kira are nauseatingly adorable in the seats across the aisle—sharing ear buds and leaning against each other while they watch a movie on Scott’s laptop—and that Derek can hear all of their slightly inappropriate whispered comments and the smacking sound when they kiss.

It isn’t even Isaac’s bored huffing directly behind Derek’s head. (Lydia, for all that Derek had expected her to act like a princess, has been reading in near silence since they got on the bus and hasn’t so much as scrunched her nose in distaste or at their mode of transportation.)

Really, the biggest issue with the whole thing is that, somehow, in choosing seating arrangements, Derek ended up sitting next to Stiles. Stiles, who fell asleep on Derek’s shoulder three hours into the trip—causing Derek’s arm to tingle with pins and needles almost instantly—and has been drooling on him ever since.

As it turns out, Stiles also talks in his sleep. Derek’s not sure why he’s surprised, given how infrequently Stiles stops talking when he’s awake. But hearing Stiles talk in his sleep feels different then when Stiles is awake and, at least theoretically, in control of what he’s saying. Listening to his unconscious mutterings feels like an invasion. Especially when Stiles shifts in his seat, smacking his lips and smiling as he murmurs something mostly unintelligible about “that ass” that Derek knows by the smell of Stiles in that moment that he isn’t dreaming about someone he finds annoying.

Derek tenses for a moment when Stiles opens his mouth again, looking like he’s going to speak. Derek is entirely certain that he does not need to know anything more about whatever fantasy is playing out in Stiles’s dreams. Instead of more words, however, Stiles lets out a squeaky yawn and then sinks bonelessly even further into Derek’s space, nuzzling his cheek against Derek’s shoulder as he settles into silence.