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Scott does this too often, holing himself up in his room and flicking through old texts and photos, laughing until he cries. Today it’s no different, his chest aching and his spine sore from how he intermittently grinds back against the wall, thumps his head into the plaster.
Some days Scott can almost believe he isn’t gone. He looks right, he sounds right, he even smells right. But he’s the opposite. Four and a half months have stretched, long and interminable, and he still can’t bring himself to kill the creature that wears Stiles’ face.
He has his memories, that’s the thing. Can and will talk to Scott about the time he and Stiles were trapped in the attic at the age of fourteen. He retells it all; Scott’s near-death rattle cough caused by dust, Stiles’ trembling panic, a botched kiss-of-life, the incessant ranting when Melissa finally found them. Whenever he’s a little hungry and he needs more than the ever-present harsh thrum of pain that Scott’s forced to live with, he reminisces. Scott thinks he isn’t actually being cruel, or wouldn’t think himself as cruel in those moments. To him it must seem like a gift. Surely Scott is thankful that those memories live on in more than his own mind?
And he is, that’s it, that’s what makes this so hard. Because part of him can’t let go. Refuses to, despite everything. Part of him says that if he looks right, sounds right, smells right, remembers right, Stiles isn’t truly dead.
It doesn’t --- it doesn’t feel like the kind of respect Scott knows Stiles deserves. It’s an illusion. It’s a reduction. But it’s a well-known fact that people cling onto things that harm them because the alternative is more terrifying. So he holds on, holds out hope that the compromises he makes don’t lead to more sacrifices in the long-run.
There’s a bang from below and then thunderous footsteps up the stairs. He stopped trying to lock him out weeks ago. There’s no point, he always finds a way. Scott tucks his phone under his pillow and is halfway through pulling a novel close when the door flings open.
“Yo! What’re you doing in a darkened room? Or is that a question I should already know the answer to?”
He comes to settle next to Scott on the bed, long limbs pressing tight.
“You seem sad,” he says with the same kind of delight Stiles used to use when talking about finally making first line in lacrosse, or searching for a dead body in the woods, or forcing Scott to listen to his Star Wars headcanons.
“Not sad. This is my resting face,” Scott replies, because if he doesn’t then he knows a hand will clasp onto his forearm and suck his sorrow away. There are times he relies on it, on the way it all floods out of him, the shame tight and coiled deep within. Today he just wants to feel his own pain.
“Your resting face used to be cheerful, what gives?”
And again, he isn’t really taunting. It isn’t a conscious effort to say things that make Scott want to crawl into a ball and tear himself to pieces claw by claw. It’s the way he is, now. He’s a trickster, a miscreant, an asshole and a tool, but he says he’s Scott’s ally and his actions haven’t belied that for a long time. Four and a half months. Scott wouldn’t still be alive if it wasn’t for his assistance. Though, yes, there are times that would be preferable.
“Oh, I don’t know, what could possibly have changed me this past year?”
“It’s my job to be the sarcastic one,” he says, bumping into his shoulder in the familiar kind of way that Scott’s finally stopped hating. “Scott, you gotta tell me what’s up or I can’t help you.”
He doesn’t look troubled, but he does look contemplative. Probably weighing up how much devastation he can feed from.
“I don’t need your help. When I do I’ll probably come running to you like always, but for now I’m fine.”
He shrugs away from the hovering hand, stares at the long, twitching fingers he once gripped while attempting to skateboard, age eleven. The ones he used to like watching as they danced a gesture in front of his eyes, overly expressive and dramatic. They still do that and Scott wonders if it’s sense memory, if the body moves in echoes because it doesn’t know any other way.
“No one who’s okay ever says they’re fine.”
“What have you come here for?”
“I was hoping for the end of boredom, but it doesn’t look like I’ll get my wish.”
“Can’t you go and suck on someone else’s soul?”
“I could, but they don’t taste as good as you.”
Some days Scott can almost believe he isn’t gone, because he still sees those eyes, warm and teasing and affectionate. There isn’t a word for that kind of heartache. Not a phrase, nor a concept. But that doesn’t stop him from feeling it keenly. He has no explanation as to why the nogitsune seems to like him so much. For why this has become a fucked-up but no less symbiotic relationship. However, they have foiled Peter’s plans twice, have triumphed against a mob of Chupacabras and are currently waging war against Gerard, so Scott has to accept it. Or, at least, he chooses to accept it. There are prices to pay and some debts run deep.
He isn’t sure if it’s the look on his face or his silence, but he’s given a whole-bodied wince. There’s a beat, two, and then, “Do you want me to pretend for a while?”
“No.”
“It’d be like nothing ever happened.”
“No.”
“C’mon. We could kick back, watch a movie, play GTA? I know you savor letting your aggression out on unsuspecting pixels.”
“No.”
“It’d be like old times.”
“No.”
“Before you were even bitten.”
Scott huffs out a wearied sigh, feels his frown deepening. “Stiles.”
They don’t have another name for him. Part of his power comes from the fact no one has another name for him. Scott should’ve simply told him to shut up, but it escaped anyway. It does with alarming frequency. The truth is, he doesn’t have to pretend.
“No,” the creature that wears Stiles’ face says, shaking his head gently.
“I’m gonna…” Scott says, pointing at the door. Leave. Find somewhere else to wallow. Rip up another item of clothing or piece of furniture simply because they exist. He gets up, is almost free when he hears him.
“This is your room,” he says, standing, hands splaying wide. “I’ll go.”
Scott waits, but there’s no other movement. He squares his shoulders, takes another step.
“I know you don’t trust or believe me, but this was never supposed to be permanent. I had a mission. I did what I had to do to succeed, to survive. I love chaos, but I don’t love unending torment. It’s too sour. Destruction is… it’s addictive. I can’t always help myself. You know what it’s like to have a monster inside.”
Scott turns around. Realizes it’s a mistake, but makes it anyway. He’s looking at him with such a credible facsimile of mourning that it’s almost tempting to fall for it. The lips that are pressed into a tight, thin line, the eyes that are shadowed. The hands that hang limply by his sides.
“So, what? I’m supposed to forgive you? You think I should suddenly like you? Appreciate you? Amuse you? Why should I trust you when you’ve told me yourself that you’d fool anyone? You think I don’t remember the way you twisted a blade into me? How you’ve killed innocent people? You think I’m always blinded by your surface similarity to my best friend?”
“It’s more than surface,” he says, tone so soft it makes Scott want to snarl. His expression now is stricken, like he has a right to be disturbed by how much Scott wants to hate him.
Scott’s claws extend, burying into his palms, and it takes everything not to transform completely. “Toy with me another time,” he grits out. “Let me have this. It’ll probably be sweeter if you let it fester. You’ll gain more power from concentrated pain, right?”
“Right,” he says, stepping closer. “But I don’t want that.” He extends a hand and places it on Scott’s shoulder, kneading into the muscles there with tenderness. Scott expects him to start leeching his pain, but he doesn’t. “I don’t know if it’s residual, but I --- I care about you.”
“You’re a fucking liar.”
“Well, yeah, but so was he. Do you even know how often he wanted to hold you? Kiss you? He called you bro, but, this has never felt like brotherly affection.”
Scott sucks in a breath, feels it shudder throughout his body. “Stop.”
“And it’s confusing, you know? I wonder how much of it’s been lingering within me and how much is recent. Because you’re incredible, Scott, I admire your strength and your conviction, your inability to give up. Even when it’s futile, you still fight. You make me want to be better. I find myself drawn to you.”
They’re lies, Scott knows they’re lies. That gentle tapping against his shoulder-blade is the biggest of them all. He must be feeling particularly starving today to be willing to incite this much agony. This has to be deliberate, which hasn’t been his style since… since that day. That day Scott lost almost everything, lost the most important thing.
“I want to bring you pleasure,” he says, voice husky, body leaning in.
Scott’s feet refuse to move. His throat constricts and his eyes sting, but he can’t run away. Part of him always wondered what it would be like. Part of him wants to have this connection in a way he never had before. He wishes for so many things, and this one blindsides him, makes him question everything he thought he knew. He always loved Stiles. He didn’t think like this. And yet. He wants it. Needs to feel the press of Stiles’ lips against his own, the width of his hands traveling over his skin, the warm security of his hold. He wants to forge this connection, to know something new about something so old. That it could never really be Stiles slips away from him, easy to forget when his instincts take over.
He looks right, he sounds right, he smells right, he even feels right as he coyly cradles Scott’s jaw and tilts his head up for a close-mouthed kiss that quickly goes deeper. Is this what it would have been like? Shared air and stolen gasps? The slick touch of Stiles’ tongue as he drags it against the seam of Scott’s lips? The fingers on his hip dragging him tight and anchoring him there? It’s the worst kind of good and it hurts, it hurts.
He hums against him, a happy sound, something cherished and fond. Scott still expects him to take this ache away. All he does is open his mouth wider, push a hand up under the back of Scott’s shirt. He maneuvers him backward slowly, toward the bed again. When Scott hits the mattress he thinks now --- now he’ll be eviscerated. Now there’ll be a wolfsbane-laced blade. Or a bullet. Or an arrow. Now he’ll get what he deserves. Even as he arches up and sucks his tongue into his mouth, he thinks about a physical attack to match the mental.
But it doesn’t come. A hand works into his jeans and cups him, fingers stroking reverently. His hips buck and there’s a bite to his lower lip, but it’s mellow, soothing. He’s getting hard and he likes it, loves the feel of Stiles’ hand against the thinnest of barriers. The heat is intoxicating, stifling any objections he may have.
“You’re so good for me, Scotty. Open, malleable. Makes me wonder what I could shape you into,” he whispers, pushing up his shirt and dotting kisses over his abdomen.
Scott hasn’t been touched like this in a long time and he’d almost forgotten how overwhelming the sensations are. He can feel a flush rising up from his chest, nerves setting alight. There are goose pimples on his arms, shivers in his torso. Just thinking about the wet kisses gracing his body makes his cock throb, but the feel of them has him even more keyed up. Everything’s a little too much, a little too bright, too hot, too demanding. Scott doesn’t know what more he can give.
He pulls down the waistband of Scott’s boxer-briefs and stares up at him as he takes the head of his cock into his mouth. Scott can’t close himself away, has to peer down. He swallows thickly at the darkness of the eyes gazing back up at him. He wonders how Stiles’ eyes can look so captivated when he’s the one who’s trapped. The expression might be half-veiled, but the intention isn’t. His thighs are spread wider as he settles in and takes him deeper, and Scott whimpers without a thought.
It’s the lightest of pressure, but everything in Scott tenses when he’s sucked for the first time. His brain stutters, caught up on the question, “Would he have done this? Would it have felt this good?” He’s dizzy with it, with the teasing tongue insistently lapping at his resolve. Scott grinds up into it, fisting the bedclothes. He’s being pinned down, hands firm and sure against his knees, and he doesn’t want to get out of it, doesn’t want to scream in anything but elation. It’s so wrong, sick, but he loves watching those cheeks suck in, those eyelashes sweep down, that skin grow steadily pinker. Loves how everything in him is curling up, how he can’t take it anymore.
Scott moves when he’s allowed, places his feet flat against the bed. He listens to their heartbeats, so loud they could be ricocheting off the walls. Why didn’t they do this when they have the chance? Why didn’t they see how perfectly they slotted together?
It takes a second to realize the cool breeze he can feel is because his cock is no longer enveloped in a warm mouth. A moment to understand that he’s being spoken to.
“He’d have loved this,” Stiles’ voice murmurs. “You, lying there, sprawled out for him, for whatever he wants. Fuck, I love it. You don’t know how good you feel. Hot, sweet and thick for me.” He palms his cock lewdly, stripping it with three quick strokes.
Scott squeezes his eyes tight, hates the throb of his cock at those words. He doesn’t know why he looks up again, stares into deep amber that could smother him. There’s the wet sound of damp skin against skin, forced breathing and the click of a jaw as it tenses.
He finds his voice, throat scratchy from all the sounds he shouldn’t have been making. “Must be hilarious, watching me break like this for you. The richest victory of them all.”
“No, I don’t find this in any way funny,” he says, head tilted at an angle that makes Scott’s spine go cold. His lips are bright red and swollen, a harsh splash of color in the paleness of his face. His chin is shiny with spit. “I find it breathtaking.”
He sucks him down again, shunting Scott’s legs higher, changing the position. Everything in him goes taut momentarily, before unraveling loose and pliant. It’s horrible how much his body wants release, how eager he is to let go. And he can’t lie to himself, this is the best he’s felt for a long time, balls drawing up tight as a thumb traces over the rim of his hole and slides in just a little, just enough.
The sensations are too much, the dual combination of him being within Stiles, Stiles being within him. Scott grunts, writhes down on it and then he’s coming, pulsing into the mouth that surrounds him. He trembles through the aftershocks, legs falling back down to the bed in a slump. It’s difficult to breathe correctly, impossible to think straight. He’s barely aware of the ropes of come hitting his chest, the scent of sex in the air.
All he can think about is how much he’s failed Stiles, how weak he’s become, how little hope he truly has.
There are tears stinging at the backs of his eyes as the warm body settles next to him, long limbs pressing tight. He chokes out a plea, holds out his hand. “Take it. Take the pain away. There’s enough for a sizable power boost.”
“No,” he murmurs, “I don’t want it. This was never about that.”
Scott looks at him and doesn’t see the exultation he expects. Instead, he’s met with something more calculating.
“You don’t get it, I don’t wanna destroy you,” he says, tone a kind of sly that’s worse for its familiarity. “I want to remake you.”
And some days Scott can almost believe he isn’t gone.