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Something snapped under the weight of Stiles’ bare foot, and he paused, waiting for his body to tell him if it was bad or not. Pain and pleasure didn’t tend to register with him the same way it did for other people, hadn't since the nogitsune (and perhaps even before then), but he had learned patience long ago. He closed his eyes, imagining that the nerves inside his body weren’t like other people’s, but a jumbled, tangled mess of sprawling lines that resembled celtic knots more than the orderly, purposeful lines one saw in anatomy books. He imagined the flash of sensation caused by the broken twig sparking along, dancing wildly, before moving upwards to fulfill its purpose. No pain, he realized. Just the feel of broken, dried wood.
Relieved, Stiles kept walking.
Tonight was one of those nights, one of many that blurred together in a blend of thoughts, feelings, and visual impressions that seemed more like a dream the next day than a memory. He’d tried, he’d really tried, to stay in bed with Blake. But despite what Blake seemed to think, insomnia wasn’t something to just be willed away by shutting one’s eyes and holding still — especially when one carried the horrors of Stiles' memories. The weight of the starlit mountains had pressed in all around him as he tried to push it all away, and suddenly the bed had felt much too small and Blake’s breathing far too loud. Stiles had gotten up as silently as possible, thrown on a light cotton t-shirt over his boxers, and walked.
Another twig snapped under Stiles’s bare feet, pinching his skin, but he couldn’t bring himself to regret not wearing his shoes. The cool earth under his feet anchored him, helping to counteract the way the nighttime silhouette of the pine trees along the horizon seemed to waiver, flickering like the background of an old movie. Lightning bugs blinked in and out of existence like fairies, and Stiles decided that, without proof to the contrary, that’s what he’d let them be. Fireflies didn’t actually live in the Pacific Northwest, after all, though they did tend to follow druids. He loved it here, with his little cottage nestled at the base of the Sierra Nevadas. He could wander along the valley’s footpaths and feel the natural, peaceful magic all around him. But he was restless tonight. Something felt off. Wrong.
Hours and miles later, Stiles found his way back to his and Blake’s bed. He stripped back down to nothing, letting his leaf- and dew-covered t-shirt and boxers to fall in a pile on the floor so that he would have a reminder of what happened the night before. He didn’t always remember his insomnia-driven walks — or Blake tried to convince him they were merely vivid dreams rather than reality — but something about tonight seemed important.
The edge of the sun had just started to peak over the ridge of the mountains when Stiles finally crawled in bed. He pressed his cold, dirty feet to Blake’s, to Blake’s flinch and bitter objection, and, finally let sleep take him.
~~~
Stiles had never been the best at keeping track of time, but his possession by the nogitsune, however brief, really wrecked it for him. After discussing it at length with Deaton, Stiles had decided it was because of the lingering phantom images of the nogitsune’s memories. They were hazy, incomplete things — like a photocopy of a photocopy — but still dominant enough in his mind that Stiles could pass a lie detector test whenever he claimed to be hundreds of years old.
Sometimes days passed by in moments, triggered by a lack of focus or interest. Even in his twenties, Stiles had to continue to medicate himself for ADHD, so it was no surprise that such spells came frequently.
Not that it stopped Blake from being impatient with him when Stiles lost time.
“I just closed my eyes,” Stiles muttered as he pushed Blake’s hand away from his stomach. “Let me sleep.”
“The alarm went off ten minutes ago,” Blake argued, shifting behind Stiles to better position his hard-on against Stiles. He rolled his hips to drag his cock in the cleft of Stiles’ ass and his fingers tightened painfully on Stiles’ bicep.
“I’m exhausted,” Stiles objected. He batted at Blake’s hand on his arm, painful and bruising, but Blake was used to objections and, goddamn salesman that he was, had training in ‘overcoming’ them.
“C’mon, gorgeous,” Blake moaned, his breath hot and fast against Stiles’ neck. This time, his free hand slipped below Stiles’ navel, burning against the soft skin, and Stiles had to repress a shudder as his stomach roiled.
Stiles considered fighting, but only for a moment. If he pushed Blake away now, not only would he get the cold shoulder until he put out, but, due to Blake’s increasing sexual frustration, he’d suffer twice the attention when he finally agreed to sex. Best to get it over with now, when Blake only had about 20 minutes before he had to get in the shower or be late for work.
“Jesus, Blake, that feels amazing,” Stiles sighed, grasping Blake’s hand and pushing it over his heart. As much as Stiles disliked sex, he hated being alone even more.
~~~
“You look like crap,” Annie said, all good cheer and sunshine as Stiles sank into the cracked and torn yellow vinyl of the diner booth.
“Yeah, it’s called insomnia chic. Don’t I pull it off well?” Stiles smirked and made duck lips at her in his best Blue Steel impression.
Annie laughed and swatted Stiles’ shoulder. “Attractive as ever, handsome.” She set a giant glass of orange juice down in front of him, and Stiles grinned.
Stiles had left Beacon Hills proper by necessity rather than by choice. The fact was that it would have been uncomfortable and weird to work for his father, so when he graduated from Washington State with a degree in criminal justice, then the Butte College Law Enforcement Academy, he chose the next best thing: a neighboring town in Beacon County where he could still be close to Scott’s pack without stepping on his father’s toes.
Paradise was slightly smaller than Beacon Hills but much less plagued with high mortality rates. The PPD (and yes, Stiles still had to hide a snicker whenever he had to say that) had only two in its Detective Unit: Stiles himself and a Community Service Officer, Claire. Stiles was in charge of dealing with all felony-related crimes in their jurisdiction, but those were uncommon enough that he still had time for pack business.
At first, Stiles had been heartbroken to learn that PPD officers were actually expected to live within city limits. But, as the years wore on, he found more and more that he appreciated the separation. It didn’t take long for him to settle first as a respected member of law enforcement, then as someone the locals could count on to deal with the supernatural spill-over from Beacon Hills, and finally as a friend. It was small things like this — that Annie knew his ADHD brain processed caffeine as a depressant rather than a stimulant, and gave him orange juice instead — that made him never want to leave. Here, he wasn’t the hyperactive spazz son of the sheriff with impulse control issues. Here he was a little different, but valued all the same.
“What are you in the mood for this morning?” Annie asked as she pulled an order pad out of her apron pocket and the pencil from the tangle of curly black hair by her ear.
“He’ll have a full breakfast,” Scott answered cheerfully from behind her as he flopped into the seat across from Stiles. “Bacon and sausage, too. We’ve got big plans!”
“Oh yeah? What sort of trouble you boys getting into today?” Annie asked, sparing Scott only a glance before turning to judge Stiles with her raised eyebrows.
Well, respected didn’t mean free from good-natured ribbing.
“Hey!” he objected, sitting up straighter in his seat. “We’re honest-to-god upstanding citizens here, Annie. In case you forgot who saved your pretty butt from the Vodník that was hiding out in your pond.”
Annie rolled her eyes. “And lost me every one of my chickens in the process.”
Scott laughed as Stiles threw up his hands in exasperation. “Some people just want everything.”
“Just the moon,” Annie shrugged, scribbling on her order pad. “Is that really so much to ask?”
“Not from Stiles,” Scott chuckled. “That’s probably easier for him to get for you than —”
“The promise of safe passage for poultry?” Annie asked as she tucked her pencil back in her hair.
“Oh man,” Stiles groaned. He dropped his head in his hands and sighed heavily. “You guys are never going to let me live that down, are you?”
“Never,” Annie said cheerfully. “I’ll be back with coffee for Scott in a sec.”
Stiles shot Scott what he hoped was a withering look across the diner table, but it didn’t faze his friend at all. The recent years, since they’d shut down the Nemeton, had been kind to Scott; a large and stable pack had finally allowed his laughter lines to overcome the premature stress lines that had started to take over in their senior year of high school. Now, Stiles felt nothing but calm and centered as he relaxed under the happy gaze of his friend. The stress of his work week, the aftereffects of his insomnia and time skips, and the stress of dealing with Blake melted into background noise as he basked in Scott’s positive energy.
But then Scott frowned and Stiles felt his heart skip a beat. He knew that frown.
“Don’t,” Stiles said, raising a hand defensively.
“Don’t what,” Scott sighed, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “I can’t help what I smell.” He leaned forward and spoke in low, gentle tones. “I don’t know why you let him —”
“Let him what, Scott?” Stiles interrupted with a groan, throwing himself back into the seat. “Love me?”
“Stiles, someone who loves you wouldn’t make you do things you don’t want to do,” Scott replied earnestly.
“Actually, I think if you look up ‘long-term relationship’ in the dictionary, ‘compromise’ would be a pretty big part of the definition.”
“Not on certain things,” Scott insisted.
“And if I didn’t compromise?” Stiles demanded, sitting up straighter. “I should just be alone? How is that better?”
“It’s not better, but th—”
“Oh, god,” Stiles interrupted again, this time loud enough to attract the attention of half the diner. He gave them all a half-smile, waited until they turned back to their meals, then leaned over the table as close to Scott as he could get. “Don’t say there’s someone out there just waiting for me. Paradise has a population of less than 30,000, Scott. So does Beacon Hills. And Beacon City is off limits thanks to that treaty you put in place when we started college. I’m not gonna find someone —”
“Who wants you just the way you are?” Scott interrupted, frowning. He opened his mouth to continue, but Stiles cut him off before he could.
“Who can put up with a cop, an emissary to a pack of werewolves, and —”
“An asexual,” Scott cut in quietly.
“ — sexually dysfunctional,” Stiles finished under his breath, barely loud enough for even Scott to hear.
“You’re not dysfunctional,” Scott insisted darkly. “No matter what that jackass —”
“Blake is not a jackass.”
“He is when he calls you dysfunctional,” Scott growled.
“Can we not?” Stiles folded his arms over his chest, watching Annie approach with their breakfasts. “It’s eight in the morning on a Saturday, Scott, and I don’t want to have this conversation anymore. Today it’s just you, me, and the river.”
“‘River’ is pretty generous, don’t ya think?” Annie chuckled as she doled out their hashbrowns, pancakes, eggs, and meat. “Inskip is just a creek.”
“It’s fifteen feet wide and at least three feet deep in most places,” Stiles pointed out. “And we had a huge storm just last week. I don’t think we’ll have any trouble.”
Scott gave Stiles a look, one that said their discussion wasn’t over, but didn’t say anything else other than thank you, Annie.
~~~
Stiles climbed out of the Jeep, feeling his eyes unfocus the moment his bare feet touched the ground. It was nice to be back.
He hadn’t sought out the title of emissary, but had just fallen into it when Deaton announced his second (final, he’d insisted) retirement. They had just finished burning every last winding root of the Nemeton, using a spell that had left the entire pack shaky for days, and Deaton said his job was done. There were two choices: find an emissary without a pack (or who wanted to relocate), or train someone from within.
A person didn’t inherently have to be magical to be a druid, as it turned out. They just needed the spark of belief inside them that said they could be. Stiles, naturally curious and more than happy to learn new ways to be useful, immediately stepped up and began his training.
He was a natural, as it turned out.
As the McCall Pack emissary, Stiles drew comfort and power from the woods in a way Deaton never had. Stiles suspected it was because over the years he’d spilled enough of his own blood on Beacon County’s forest floor that it embraced him as part of its ecosystem. Now that the Nemeton was gone and the supernatural population settled under Scott’s forgiving but powerful leadership, Stiles’ role — maintaining the balance — had been reduced enough that he more or less just monitored. He kept the magical expenditure of their locals in check. He kept the forest healthy, and its growth in competition with the towns and cities around it. He ensured that neither humans nor supernaturals ever gained enough power to consider eliminating the other side. (One supe/human war had been enough, thank you.)
These trips, embarked on about once a month, were a way for Scott and Stiles to keep an eye on the overall health of the area. Inskip meandered southwest along the southern border of Beacon County for about 15 miles, and because there was barely any current, it would take them about four hours to paddle — five or six if they stopped often enough.
As Stiles watched Scott singlehandedly pull their kayaks off the Jeep’s roof rack, at ease in his powerful body in a way it’d taken him almost a decade to grow into, Stiles knew he’d make them stop as often as possible. Stiles loved his job, loved his new town, loved his role as emissary. But more than possibly anything else, he loved these days of just him and Scott together, being comfortable in their own skin. Out here, Stiles didn’t have to hide any part of himself as cop-emissary-queer and Scott didn’t have to be alpha-strong-righteous-brave. They were just ScottandStiles in the same goofy way they’d been for decades.
Stiles stripped down to his green SPF-50 tech shirt and khaki paddling pants and tossed his jeans and plaid in the jeep. With reluctance he strapped on his water boots, hating how they short-circuited his connection to the earth. The waterways could be muddy and the rocks slippery if either of them got stuck, though, and it wasn’t worth the loss of footing if either of them had to portage.
Scott didn’t bother with any protective gear (damn werewolves) and opted for an off-white tank top and paddling pants just a shade darker than Stiles’ own.
Stiles rolled his eyes as Scott strapped on their drybags and compasses. “We really don’t need those,” he said, gesturing at the compasses.
“Speak for yourself,” Scott huffed as Stiles checked their gear. “If you pass out again and leave me alone to try and navigate us back, in the middle of the woods where everything smells like humus, you’ll be thankful.”
“‘Again?’” Stiles protested, tugging on his grapple anchor to make sure the rope was securely attached. “I don’t think —”
“Five years ago, with the visiting pod of sirens,” Scott pointed out as he retrieved a couple gallons of water from the Jeep.
“Fine, but that was —”
“Three years ago, the elves who thought you were trying to put up a magical boundary line around their section of the valley.”
“True, but —”
“Two years ago, with the fairy who’d taken an unhealthy interest in you.”
“Yeah, but he —”
“Six months ago, when we saw that bear —”
“All right, all right!” Stiles shouted, throwing his hands up just in time to miss catching the quart jug of orange juice Scott threw at him. The air rushed out of him with an undignified oof when it hit his stomach, and Stiles fell on his butt on the damp bank. “I get your point,” he said, glaring at Scott.
“Glad to have cleared that up,” Scott chuckled. He held out a hand for Stiles, who took it grudgingly for Scott to haul him up.
And if he didn’t let go as quick as he should have, revelling in the rareness of a touch that didn’t hold an accompanying sense of expectation, well… that was his own problem. Who had a live-in lover and still considered themselves touch-starved and lonely?
“Ready?” Scott asked, not letting go.
Warmth travelled through their connection, spreading from where Stiles’ hand grasped Scott’s to under his ribcage, causing his heart to beat a little faster. Not for the first time, he wished Scott wasn’t straight, wasn’t hung up on Allison’s death and Kira’s choice to move back to New York, wasn’t obsessed with sex. It was too fucking hard to let go.
“Yes,” Stiles answered after a few beats too long. He pulled his hand back, gave Scott a small smile, and climbed into the cockpit of his kayak. “C’mon, Mr. Muscles. Fifteen miles and lots of swamp-stomping before dark. Make it so!”
“What are you talking about?” Scott asked before he gave Stiles’ kayak an impressive shove. Fortunately, Stiles had been expecting it. He had his paddle out and dragging enough to turn himself downstream before he hit the opposite bank. “There are only two swamps in the entire county, and we aren’t near either of them,” Scott pointed out.
“It’s just a figure of speech I happen to like,” Stiles shrugged.
Scott just laughed as he launched his boat.
The first twenty minutes or so were quiet as Stiles and Scott shifted their gear around and relaxed into the rhythm of the river. It was a little deeper and moving a little swifter than it was last time they were out, thanks to recent heavy storms. The fact that their trip might be over faster than usual gave Stiles a sharp pang of regret, and he frowned as he watched the water flow swiftly over the rocks on his right. Thanks to the distance between Paradise and Beacon Hills, Scott’s responsibilities to his pack (which now included a handful of born werechildren, who were to be protected at all costs), and Stiles’ job and live-in partner, they didn’t have nearly as much time together as they used to.
But duty called, and Stiles pushed aside the negativity to focus on his job. He waited until there were a few yards of clear, unobstructed river in front of him and dropped his hand into the water.
Eatrunhuntpreyquietsleepfree rushed through Stiles’ head as he focused on the consciousness of the forest. He closed his eyes in concentration, willing the water to keep him floating straight down the river rather than spinning him sideways, and slowly starting picking apart the voices. There was fear, exhilaration, pain, loneliness, joy, and so much more, but it was all part of the daily cycle. Nothing struck him as out of place, and he let out the breath he’d been holding as he opened his eyes again and withdrew his hand from the cold water.
Scott was holding onto the grab loop at his bow, paddling with his free hand, watching him carefully.
“So far so good,” Stiles reassured him, dipping his paddle back into the river.
Something in Scott’s shoulders — that little bit of his teenage self that always expected trouble — uncoiled. “Thank god,” he sighed, giving Stiles the tired look of someone who put on a good show for everyone else, but was happy to let his guard down at the right moment.
“Don’t get too excited there, buddy,” Stiles joked, splashing at Scott’s kayak. “We’ve still got a ways to go.”
Scott stuck his tongue out at Stiles, but he looked more relaxed than he had in weeks. He leaned back into his seat, twisting his body lazily to paddle, and admired the view.
It never failed to impress Stiles, the slow rippling of power under the surface of Scott’s movements. Scott wasn’t a particular fan of the water, and he didn’t get blissed out the way Stiles did on these trips, but he always managed to look graceful despite himself. As much as Stiles didn’t enjoy sex, he still enjoyed the presentation of a good body, and good god was Scott’s nice.
Then Scott opened his mouth and Stiles felt a little knot of tension tighten between his shoulder blades.
“Don’t,” Stiles said, his grip on his paddle tightening more than was strictly necessary.
“You didn’t even know what I was going to say!” Scott objected, pouting at Stiles.
“You know what’s awesome?” Stiles said, giving Scott’s expression the full attention it deserved while still paddling. “You’re the true alpha of an incredibly powerful pack, the go-to supe for the little guys in trouble, well-respected across all the lands —”
“Stiles,” Scott cut in.
“But,” Stiles continued, “I can still make you frown and give me the puppy dog look you perfected back when I peed on your sandcastle in first grade.”
“We should do that!” Scott said, smiling, raising a paddle and pointing at Stiles. “The sandcastle part, not the peeing part. Well, the peeing, too, because that’s inevitable when you make me drink a gallon of water every trip —”
“Hydration’s important!” Stiles insisted.
“But not the peeing on the sandcastles part.”
“Scott, buddy,” Stiles said, raising an eyebrow at his friend. “This is Inskip. Rocks are more the order of the day.”
Scott’s eyebrows drew together as he surveyed the edges of the river, and Stiles had to suppress a laugh at his friend’s complete lack of situational awareness. They’d paddled here how many times, and Scott had never noticed the lack of sand?
“Well, your boyfriend before Blake. The engineer Seneca rockeater guy?”
“Jesus, Scott. Dag was an air elemental, not an actual rockeater.”
“But he showed you how to do those zen rock structure things, right? We could do one of those!”
“Really, Scott?” Stiles asked, shaking his head.
“I liked him,” Scott barreled on. “He was smart. And good to you. Except for —”
“Yeah,” Stiles interrupted, cutting his paddle into the water with a harsh slice. “Except for when he went on a bender.”
“Stiles…”
“What’s with you?” Stiles demanded. He didn’t look at Scott, carefully focusing on his posture and the way his blades moved through the water. “Blake and I have been together for almost a year. We live together. Everything is fine. And all of a sudden you want to ‘talk about it’?”
“You may have yourself fooled into thinking everything is fine, but I can’t ignore what I see, what I smell, Stiles,” Scott argued, tugging on the grab loop on the back of Stiles’ kayak. Stiles leaned to the left for stability and glared, but Scott kept talking anyway. “And even without those hints… I know you. I know what you’re trying to hide.”
Stiles lifted his paddle and set it across his shoulders, draping his arms over the shaft. The feathered blade didn’t smack Scott in the face, but it was close enough to the DANGER STOP signal that Scott should have been paying attention. Instead, Scott kept one hand on Stiles’ boat and used the other to effortlessly keep them drifting in a relatively straight line down the river.
“What am I trying to hide, Scott?” Stiles asked, though he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer, to have the coil of darkness in his psyche be given a name.
Scott breathed out slowly, let go of Stiles’ boat, and settled a hand on Stiles’ shoulder. “Despair.”
Stiles reached over to press his own hand over Scott’s, then pushed away.
They paddled in silence awhile, Stiles letting himself get lost in the beauty of the green mountains rising on either side of them. They were a perfect counterweight to the dark thoughts in his head.
Despair. Stiles hadn’t thought of it that way before. Acceptance, yes. Settling, maybe, when his mind was caught in the twisted paths of traumatic memory starting far, far too early. What was it the psycho bitch, Morrell, had quoted once? If you’re going through hell, keep going. Stiles was starting to wonder if there was anything but hell, anymore.
No, he couldn’t think like that. Hell was being possessed by an angry, thousand year old fox demon. Hell was being tied up in basements and warehouses and tortured. Hell was watching your family and friends die. Hell was watching your hometown suffer and burn at the hands of madmen and madwomen and being powerless to stop it.
Stiles had a good life. His father was healthy and happy, living with Melissa and working with Scott to bring casualty rates down to the lowest they’d been since before the Hale fire. His friends, the ones who’d survived Meredith and Peter’s slaughter, were all in places they loved, doing the things they wanted to do without looking over their shoulders. Stiles had a good job, a lover who didn’t pick fights, a chunk of land to call his own.
But, somehow, the lasting effects of his trauma were still there, hissing and sliding under his skin and behind his eyes like static, poisoning everything. He woke up every morning unexcited about the prospect of a new day, went to bed every night dreading the stillness. The world had just seemed to lose its color some time back, fading into shades of gray that held no fascination for him.
Or maybe it wasn’t just the trauma of watching his mother die, of spending too many years on the knife edge of death, of losing his place in the world under the weight of memories and actions that were his body’s, but not his.
“I guess I just always thought it would get better,” Stiles finally said, voice cracking with disuse. He blinked, surprised, and looked around. How long had he been thinking? How much time had he lost?
Next to him, a comforting presence that never strayed far on these trips, even when the river narrowed uncomfortably, Scott hummed in acknowledgement. “Which things?”
“At first, I just needed to get us through the changes, the worldview shift, the violence. Then I needed to help you keep everyone safe. Then I needed to get through college carrying more triggers than a combat vet. Then I needed to survive my sexual identity crisis, then the academy, then being on my own, then having a grown-up relationship, then having my own place, my own land…” Stiles spotted a familiar beach, a clear stretch of rock and dirt that he and Scott usually used for their first stop. He nodded at it, then starting paddling towards the clearest landing spot. “I just thought that once I had all these things — safety, security, freedom, love — that it would get better and better, and I would be happy.”
“And it hasn’t worked out that way?” Scott asked as he followed Stiles.
“The fear is gone.” Stiles slid his kayak in on an angle to the river bank, stabilized himself with his paddle, and climbed out. They didn’t actually need the break — they could have made the whole stretch without stopping once if they wanted to — but Stiles needed to get his feet on the ground every so often to check the health of the forest. “The pressure is gone.”
“Things that, let’s face it, you thrived on,” Scott said with an amused quirk of his mouth. He waited until Stiles had pulled his kayak up onto the shore before dismounting himself.
“Well, yeah,” Stiles agreed. “But I think I get just the right amount of adrenaline now between work and pack business. It isn’t that.”
“So what is it?”
“The endless stretch of days,” Stiles admitted, surprising himself. He hadn’t actually thought about it that way before. Now, though, standing at the river’s edge, watching the gentle roll of evergreen up the mountain sides, listening to the gentle hum of insects and the river over the rocks, he could finally put his finger on what was bothering him. “We were so busy fighting and dying and surviving that we didn’t really think about tomorrow, never mind the rest of our lives. And now what? What’s so great about all this?”
Scott tugged his boat next to Stiles’ and gave his friend a long look. “I really wish you lived in Beacon Hills,” he confessed.
“The pack connection really does it for you, and I get that,” Stiles replied with an easy shrug. “But it’s not the same for me. I don’t need them the way you do.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Scott pulled a couple bottles of water free from his rear hatch and tossed one to Stiles. Then he sat on the very edge of the bank, feet submerged, and starting picking rocks out of the water.
“What do you mean?” Stiles asked, sitting next to his friend. He drank half the water bottle in one go, then set it down to join Scott in adding rocks to the growing pile between them.
“Tell me what you’re okay with,” Scott said quietly, placing the first rock — flat and wide and smooth, roughly the size of two fists — in the dirt between them.
As much as Stiles felt a compulsive need to demand clarification, he bit his tongue. “Pretty much anyth —”
“No,” Scott cut him off, eyebrows drawn together in a frown. “Perfect world. What you’re really okay with.”
Stiles thought about Malia, about the way she’d cuddled him close to her, back to front, possessiveness in every line of even her sleeping body. He thought about kisses and caresses, and the way Dag would massage his skin almost every night until it glowed. He thought about rainy days in the cottage, Blake a warm pressure behind him where they sat together in their overstuffed chair, nipping at his neck as the fireplace flickered warm and alive in front of them.
“It’s kind of like having a personal space bubble that is based on red zones and percentages of okayness rather than existing in a predictable shape and size around me,” he said. He stacked a smooth, flat, wide rock on top of Scott’s and searched for a way to explain how he felt. If he couldn’t tell Scott, how could he tell anyone else? Maybe that was Scott’s point.
“You like being touched,” Scott pointed out, digging through the pile they’d formed for the next rock.
“Yeah, but only in the right ways, from the right people, when I’m in the right headspace for it,” Stiles said, watching Scott’s long fingers caress the rocks in a slow search for the right one. “Sitting close to you and the pack during movie nights is one thing. Being hugged or pulled on or pushed around when I’m in a bad place, mentally? You’ve seen me punch people in the face for that.”
“I think I can guess your red zones.” Scott pulled a thin, black rock free and set it on top of Stiles’. His eyes flickered to below Stiles’ waistline, and Stiles nodded. He wasn’t embarrassed; Scott was the first one he’d come to when he figured out he wasn’t into it — not just with girls, but with anyone.
“I can get off, obviously. I’m not malfunctioning. But it’s like other biological functions. It has to happen sometimes, it can even feel momentarily good, but I don’t want it from another person.” Stiles spotted a red and black speckled rock near the bottom of the pile and dug for it, his fingers scraping uncomfortably on stone. “It’s kind of like you and water. You love the way water looks. You enjoying watching waterfalls. You find the sound the river relaxing. You appreciate the view aesthetically. That doesn’t mean you enjoying swimming. In fact, you pretty much hate it.”
“Oh,” Scott exhaled, sitting back a little and staring at Stiles. “I… I get it.”
Stiles stacked his conglomerate on their tiny tower, steadying it before withdrawing his hand. “But if I asked you to… If I asked you to go to the ocean with me every once and awhile, just to hang out and be together, you’d do it, right? You don’t like swimming, but you’re my friend, so you’ll put up with it in the name of friendship.”
“But you’re a good friend, so you don’t ask me to do that,” Scott was quick to point out.
“It’s not the same and you know it,” Stiles huffed. He yanked a rock free from the pile and dropped it in Scott’s hand. “Swimming isn’t something most people have a biological need to do with their chosen partners.”
“What about… you touching someone else?” Scott asked hesitantly, eyes trained on their tower as he placed his rock on top with excessive care. “You’ve told me about how you enjoy making your partners feel good.”
“Well, yeah, that’s really one of the best things ever. As long as my dick or ass doesn’t have to be in the equation, and I can be in control,” Stiles said. Then he looked up, eyes narrowing, feeling something unhappy curl in the pit of his stomach. “Look, Scott, if you’re trying to set me up with someone, I don’t —”
“I’m not!” Scott objected, shaking his head earnesty. “It’s not that.”
“Then what is it?”
“You don’t love Blake.”
“This is turning out to be a real bummer of a trip, you know that Scott?” Stiles huffed, hiding his irritation, his… despair (thanks Scott), behind a sharp laugh. He stood, brushed his pants off, and headed into the woods.
The willow tree grove was the reason Stiles favored this spot more than any other on the trip. It was only a few hundred yards from the river, hidden by the surround pines, glowing shades of secret green under the bright California sun. Stiles climbed the biggest and oldest of them, an ancient, proud, lazy, massive centerpiece in what felt like a natural cathedral. He closed his eyes, feet swinging from the thick branch, and let the tree whisper to him.
“Anything?” Scott asked long moments later, jumping up to sit beside Stiles on the branch.
“Nothing,” Stiles replied with a smile. “No bat-shit crazy omegas. No faeries doing their version of normal. No ugly things even I can’t name. No red flags at all. It’s just… quiet.”
Scott nodded, looking thoughtful, and Stiles’ gaze flickered down to the purple drybag in his hand.
“What’s that?”
“It’s gotta be even more challenging, doing one in a tree, right?” Scott said, lifting the bag and grinning.
“What’s going on with you?” Stiles demanded. He watched Scott restack the four rocks they’d already started down by the river. Scott looked pensive in a way that reminded him strongly of how he acted around Allison and Kira when the arrows and swords were flying. “This isn’t about me, is it? This is about you? What’s going on? Are you falling for someone? Do you think she’s… like me?”
Scott looked up, horror skipping across his face, and Stiles winced. It didn’t feel so much like a punch to the gut as the last flames of hope being irrevocably extinguished.
“What? No!” Scott said. “It’s just… you love me, right?”
“Of course I do, bro,” Stiles sighed, reaching out to yank the bag free from Scott’s hand.
“In high school, when you kept offering to kiss me and have sex with me, you weren’t really joking, were you?” Scott said quickly, rushing to get it out. “You just thought that’s what happened next between two people who had a relationship like ours, when they wanted to, uh, level up.”
Stiles hand froze where it hovered over Scott’s. He dared a glance up at his friend, whose hopeful face was only inches from his own. “What?”
“I was so distracted, Stiles. And stupid. It was werewolves-girls-fighting-keep going over and over and over again for a really long time. I just thought you were being awkward and ridiculous.”
“I was,” Stiles chuckled uncomfortably, pulling his hand back to run it absently through his hair.
“Yeah, you were,” Scott agreed. “I just thought it was hormones in overdrive. It never occurred to me that it might be the opposite. Might be you worried about my hormones taking over for me. Taking me away from you.”
For once, Stiles was speechless. From his slightly lower position on the tree branch, he looked up at Scott, completely unsure of what he should say next.
“Then you had Malia, and Dag, and I thought you were figuring things out,” Scott continued, not breaking Stiles’ gaze, “realizing that just because I was your best friend didn’t mean you really wanted me. I wasn’t the only one in your world anymore. But when that whole string of people when you were in college happened, and you told me about how you thought you were broken…”
Stiles heard himself make an undignified noise, remembering how hurt and terrified he’d been when his search for that spark between his body and someone elses’ never materialized. At first he’d thought it was because of the nogitsune, because of the demon’s trashing of his mind. But during law enforcement training, when he’d taken a break from relationships to reevaluate himself, he realized he’d always been that way.
“I wish I had thought through it sooner,” Scott was saying. “Even after Kira left, and I went on that stupid self-realization thing Araya Calavares made me do, when I finally ended up letting go of the past, I didn’t know.” He rubbed his tattooless left arm absently, and Stiles thought about how shocked he’d been when Scott had come back from Mexico, his arm no longer banded in black.
“Scott, what…”
“I’m not saying I can give up orgasms. Because I don’t think I can. But I can jerk off in the shower, or use toys or something,” Scott continued, staring at the rocks precariously balanced on the branch between them. When Stiles didn’t immediately answer, he started putting them away, letting them clank quietly with the other stones still in the drybag.
“You love me, right?” Scott asked, his words a repeat of an earlier part of the conversation, one that Stiles knew now he’d misinterpreted completely.
“Yes, I do,” Stiles answered, waiting for Scott to meet his eyes.
“You love me,” Scott repeated, lifting his head, an unsure grin breaking out across his face.
“Yes,” Stiles said again, more firmly this time. He reached a hand out, delighting in the way Scott leaned towards it.
Scott slid forward on the branch, all predatory grace and grateful physicality. He leaned into Stiles’ warmth, tucking a nose into where Stiles’ shoulder met his neck. “Is this okay?”
Stiles wrapped his arms around Scott and relaxed, feeling almost punch drunk with relief and giddiness. “You just told me how long you’ve known I wanted this,” he chided.
“What about Blake?” Scott asked quietly, pulling back to meet Stiles’ gaze. He stroked through Stiles’ hair, waiting patiently for Stiles’ response.
“Last night, I left,” Stiles admitted, closing his eyes against the intensity of Scott’s gaze. “Everything hurt, everything felt wrong, and I walked for hours trying to shake it off. When I came back, I knew something was changing. Then we had sex this morning, and I felt so dirty. You sensed it at breakfast, Scott. I just — I can’t do it anymore.”
Scott let out a relieved breath and pulled Stiles closer. Then he chuckled, the sound a rumble in his chest that vibrated against Stiles’ ear.
“What?”
“Does this mean that I’m queer, now, too? ’Cause I gotta say, I never saw that one coming.”
Stiles straightened, his face a mask of false curiosity. “I guess it’s time we found out.”
When he tackled Scott into a kiss, forcing Scott to catch him and cushion him when they fell to the prickly forest floor, Scott didn’t do anything but laugh gratefully into Stiles’ mouth.
