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You are eight when you realize life is not like the movies.
If it were, your father would not be walking down the front path, leaving the rusty door to slam shut on a silent house. Your mother would not being crying soundless, sullen tears into a mug of tea, as she leans against the counter like it’s the only thing holding her up weary bones, her form a tired warrior who can go no further.
You would not be picking up pieces of broken glass with clumsy fingers, would not be doing anything in your power to damn the rivers of grief on your mother’s face, would not feel a deep and intense anger towards the man you call father settle into your bones if your life were like the movies.
--
The movies say to marry your best friend; but at fourteen, your best friend is a gawky, awkward thing, whose body never manages to be still, who has fallen in love with a strawberry-blonde slip of a girl, who looks at you and sees a brother.
Whose eyes you can’t help but try to assign a color to in your head when you lie awake at night, when the moon is high and your heart is heavy and restless (whiskey, amber, honey? ).
The truth is, if your life were a movie, you would be tripping over your feet to give your heart, and everything else, to this girl who inspires awe in you like no other has. The girl whose gangly limbs you cannot stop imagining wrapped around your neck, whose long, bony fingers you itch to wrap in your own when they turn red from winter’s harsh bite, the girl whose sarcasm is sharp and burning, whose kisses you can feel like a brand on your cheek hours after her lips are gone.
Because if your life were a movie, she would offer up her heart right back, would fall into you like the sea to the shore.
Experience tells you better. Tells you that your hair is not auburn and her eyes do not linger, and that hearts are mean to be broken. So you listen to her laugh trill like bird song, and wonder from afar what it would be like to trace the flush of embarrassment from high on her cheeks past the line of her shirt to see how far it goes.
--
At sixteen, you rethink what you’ve accepted as truth for half of your life, because all of the sudden your world has narrowed down to werewolves and vengeance, billowing flames and the taste of ash on your tongue, the song of the moon in your blood, the feel of the forest in your veins-
It’s everything a terrible slasher flick should be.
So why shouldn’t you be able to add a dash of romantic comedy?
You’ve long since learned that your best friend’s heart will beat for who it will, gender an irrelevant detail, and you think maybe- maybe it could be you to make her pulse race, maybe you could finally explore the curve of her waist, trace the constellation of moles that rests in the dip between stomach and thigh. You know that her childhood crush has settled from obsession to a friendly adoration, and you know her scent has been different around you lately. So you can’t help but think in the darkest hours of the wolf, when the moon is full above your head, and howls are stuck in your throat, what if you just let yourself-
But that line of thought cuts itself off more often than not. Especially after you’re held down by your reluctant ally, forced by the alpha to watch exactly what happens to wolves who run by themselves.
Your girl is sweet and sharp, funny and brilliant, and far beyond involved enough as it is.
And if your life resembles a movie in any way, it’s only the bad parts; you know exactly the kinds of things that befall the love interest of the protagonist (not the hero, never a hero, because you can’t save anyone, it all just slips through your fingers-) and wish every day that you didn’t. You think of how much you lean on her, how strong her thin, seemingly frail form is. You wonder if you could carry the weight on your shoulders without the pillar of strength you call home, or if your back would break without the grip of her love that carries you through the longest nights. You decide that the answer matters little in the scheme of things (your feelings will never trump her safety, no matter how gut-wrenching); you push her gently away from you, even as you long to bury yourself in the cage of her ribs, listen to the steady, flitting beat of her heart, and never, ever leave.
You would rather see her alive; confused, and wounded, than to have your worst nightmares (the image of Laura Hale still haunts you in the starlight, these days the dead eyes staring back at you are honey-whiskey and accusing more often than not) come to pass.
--
At seventeen, there is a darkness around your heart, a stricture that pulls and throbs through every second the clock ticks by and you are too tired to fight yourself anymore. You think she must feel the same (it’s always been disconcerting to outside observers of your friendship, how absolutely in-sync all your thoughts and actions are) because she is sitting on the edge of your bed when you come crawling in from a midnight run, the moon casting her body into equal parts light and shadow.
You know better than to think you can draw salvation from another person, but somehow the slope of her nose, the gentle curve of her lips, keeps the feeling of drowning at bay, makes you feel tethered when you are lost at sea. You wait for her to start speaking, to hear the soothing rush of words spring from her lips, but she has been your best friend since before you can remember and she will always find a way to surprise you. Instead of opening her mouth, she opens her arms.
There is something different about this, and you don’t know why or when or how it changed, but you know inherently that this embrace will be different that all others that came before it. All your previous hesitations seem petty under the weight of your room’s static-charged silence.
So you do what you always have (and now realize you were always meant to) and fall together.
You cradle her face in your hands, and it is only when she rests her slim fingers on top of yours that you realize you’re shaking. The first press of lips feels like a lock clicking open, and something you can’t explain settles in you. When you probe around the undefined shape of it in your chest, you feel a permanence and steadiness that makes you think of still waters and inevitability, but the time to examine it is not now.
Now, you move her hands to wrap around your shoulders like you’ve always wanted to, allow one of your own to fumble at her plaid blouse, and as soon as you’ve loosened enough buttons, place it on the smooth expanse of skin over her heart. The rhythm under your fingertips races in a way that satisfies a primal part of you, the wolf you’ve always tried so hard to contain. You think it doesn’t matter though, not with her, not with the person who has seen the best and worst you have to offer, and regardless, has taken your mangled heart into her hands, over and over.
This time, when your lips meet hers, the small gasp she lets out is deafening, and allows you to lick into her mouth, an act you didn’t think could be any better than you imagined, but oh, how your girl loves to prove you wrong.
You try to stay present for these moments you never thought you’d have outside the silver screen of your mind, but from there you are overwhelmed by this beautiful, brilliant girl, losing snatches of time as you go. Everything is a mess of moon-song under your skin, soft curves under your hands, and breathless gasps into the darkness of your room.
You don’t even realize your lips have charted a course until you’re laving your tongue across the prominent bone of her hip. You take a deep breath, and once you’ve gotten a semblance of control, you look up.
Only to have it completely shattered.
Your eyes rove from kiss-swollen lips open on a moan, to lids heavy with desire, faming dark eyes, pupils nearly swallowed by lust. You have never wanted anything more in your life than to hearseetaste her fall apart beneath your touch, to touch and please and fill until she can’t take anymore.
So you do.
The first tentative touches to her clit have her arching off the bed, spine bowed in pleasure, but it isn’t until you slip your fingers through wet folds, slowly mapping out what brings her pleasure, that you have to hold her hips down with one arm.
You can’t help but stop what you’re doing for a moment, to look at her, stray locks clinging to her face, a blush of exertion creeping across her cheeks and neck, down past the slope of her breasts, and you find her so attractive your chest clenches around your racing heart. You have no idea how you secured this girl's trust or loyalty or love, but you’re going to do everything within your power to make sure you’re worthy of it.
It takes her a few seconds to catch up, to realize you’ve stopped, and when she looks at you, you have no idea what she sees, but it’s something that has her mouth curving into an affectionate grin through the haze of lust, like she can’t help this simple fondness and you have never loved her more than you do right here and now. You want to give the moment its due respect, record it and frame it in your mind, etch the memory into your bones; but the girl above you shivers, eyes taking on a pleading expression, so you lower your head back down and resume your exploration, savoring the salty-sweet taste of her under your lips.
You lose yourself in her wet heat with lips and fingers until her hands are in your hair, pulling hard, and the moans from her mouth have devolved into keening whimpers. She calls your name, warns you, and you look up just in time to see the pleasure crashing into her, head and shoulders coming off the mattress as she arches upwards, and you don’t think you’ve ever seen such a heady, powerful sight. It ruins you for wanting to do anything but worship her for the rest of your days; but as you crawl up her body, feeling the aftershocks coursing through her still, skin to skin, you think, realistically, you’d do it for the rest of eternity if you could.
You bring your lips to hers; slowly licking into her mouth, resting a hand in the juncture below the base of her neck, thumb stroking the wing of her collarbone until she regains her breath. You have no immediate plans besides lying here next to her, sharing your space with her, but Stiles has always been equal parts surprising and eager (really you should know better by now) and before you can blink, she’s reversed your positions, and is straddling your lap. She leans down, you think for another kiss, but reaches past your head and pulls out a small foil packet from under the pillow.
A true alpha you may be, but a seventeen year old boy you are also. So your mouth goes dry and by the time your mind has caught up with your libido, she’s rolled the latex over you and is lifting herself up to-
Oh.
Oh.
There are no words for this, for how it feels to be enveloped so thoroughly by someone you’ve loved nearly as long as you’ve lived, for how perfect it feels to slide into her while she presses her forehead to yours, her hair a curtain blocking out the rest of the world. In this moment, there is nothing but the two of you becoming one, all sounds fall away from your ears save for her deep, throaty moans, panting breaths, and the desperate noises coming from your own mouth. You are helpless to do anything but fumble until you find her hands, press them together with yours, and thrust up in time with her downward motions.
You lose yourself like this, tethered to reality only by thoughts of iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou and the safety you feel in this moment you’ve stolen in the dead of night, your own little paradise inside the hellish landscape that is Beacon Hills.
You feel yourself racing towards the edge, and pull back just a bit, enough to see her face without going cross-eyed, because you can’t imagine looking anywhere else but into her honey-whiskey eyes, and in that moment, just before you fall, you feel so much for your best friend, the girl who has always stuck by your side, from playground bullies to crazed alphas, you think your heart might actually leap out of your throat like in the cartoons the two of you used to watch on Saturday mornings when you were younger.
The only thing that comes out, though, is a shocked gasp that feels like it was wrenched from the deepest part of you, and all of your senses stutter as you come harder than you ever have before. Through the haze of pleasure, you feel her clench around you with a short shout that sounds vaguely like your name. Your vision sharpens enough to let you see her riding out the final waves of her orgasm, and you don’t think there is anything more beautiful in the world than this girl, there can’t possibly be, you decide as she collapses against your chest, warm, sated, and loved.
--
Life isn’t like the movies, no, but sometimes, it gives you a person you can call your best friend, and, if you’re really lucky, it lets you find a soul mate in them, a port of solace in the turbulent seas of reality, someone to drag your head back above the water, who will share their breath when your lungs have no more to give.
As you drift off, your best friend’s body tucked into yours, joined hands resting over her heart, you know exactly how lucky you are.