Work Text:
Just pretend, Stiles asks silently.
Just keep pretending, he begs.
Keep pretending Theo pulls him close because that’s where he wants Stiles. Keep pretending he kisses so deeply because he can’t help himself. Keep pretending he holds onto him during the night because he doesn’t want him to get away.
Or at least, that Theo had better reasons to.
-
Theo doesn’t ask the questions while he’s fucking him. He doesn’t need to, because it’s not when Stiles is breathless, bare and open and being driven out of his mind that he’s most willing.
It’s after, when his body is warm and pliant, when his heart is even more so, that’s the best time. When Theo stays close, arranging them into what feels like an embrace, and kisses him softly, tender and convincingly, when Stiles lets himself have what he needs. Those are the moments when Theo asks things of him like: “Is Kira back yet?”
And Stiles is honest when he shakes his head. He’d have no reason to lie about that, even before. That isn’t the problem. The problem comes with:
“You’ll tell me when she is.”
It isn’t a question. It doesn’t need to be.
Stiles still nods, looking into Theo’s eyes as Theo says, “Good.”
And Stiles welcomes the next kiss.
-
They both get what they need in those moments. Both selfishly so, but Stiles is long past being scared of his selfish streak.
What scares him now isn’t even how Theo knows that those moments are what he needs. Theo reads him like Stiles was made for his eyes, and Stiles wishes that it was because Theo had reached out and rearranged him into something only he could understand, but he didn’t have to.
Stiles wishes that it was because Theo had managed to flay his chest open and see into Stiles’ heart, but he didn’t have to.
He only had to read the surface of Stiles’ skin and be there in a few strategic moments and that was enough to have Stiles ripping himself open.
He could have read him so easily, but he let Stiles do the work. And now Theo’s got all of him at the tips of his fingers, all of him within his sight and still he's only satisfied when Stiles answers his questions.
Theo can stand to hold him close, may even enjoy it, to touch and grasp and kiss someone like Stiles, someone like himself, but still, he doesn’t care.
What scares him is that Theo is the worst Stiles has ever known, so this must be the best Stiles can ever expect to be given.
-
He doesn’t smile.
That's the simplest way to explain how he knows. And it actually is simple, because like Theo knows him, Stiles knows Theo.
Theo never smiles when they’re together .
In those moments, in the quiet and the dark, his touch is gentle, so different than how they like to fuck, and he makes his kiss sweet and unrushed, but his eyes are flat and if his lips ever turn up, it’s a smirk, because he knows he’s won.
He never smiles. He knows he doesn’t need to.
-
Theo makes him feel, when Stiles holds his body between his legs, when Theo’s chest presses him down onto the mattress, like this won’t end.
Because it shouldn’t.
Because part of him doesn’t understand how it could end. Because he’s everything that fits with Theo, and could admit it, if he had to, and Theo just doesn’t... care.
And he’ll stare at himself in the bathroom mirror when he’s alone, and wonder how it got to the point that he so easily lets himself be used.
He wishes he could blame Theo, but he knows he was nearing this point on his own, had already reached it before, and Theo just had his timing right.
Timing, Stiles knows, because this time here will end.
He knows there's a goal that he'll eventually help Theo reach, knows that it's what he can do for Theo, what he is, at least what he could be, that Theo wants. And he'll get it.
So, Stiles knows there’s an end.
So he lets himself dive into these moments, not because he thinks the memories will cushion the fall when Theo throws him aside, but so he’ll at least have practice hitting the ground from such a height, to speed up the descent enough that he won’t feel the impact.
He knows he'll be the only one affected by it. He once knocked Theo down, and it was the only way Stiles had ever made him fall.
-
Just pretend, Stiles begs with Theo’s mouth against his, his hands pulling him tight against him because that’s where he should be.
Just pretend.