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The thing about them being best friends is that they’re always touching. Have been since they met halfway through Middle School, when Mrs McCall won custody and immediately transferred Scott from his dad’s in Sunnyvale. It’s always so casual; a hand on a shoulder, slapping across a torso, wrapping around a wrist to tug and lead and coerce.
Stiles never really used to notice it. Not in any negative way. If he was feeling the weight of the world, if everything was a river of suck, the comforting heat of Scott’s palm against his neck would soothe him, but it was never anything more than that. Not until recently. He doesn’t know what’s changed. Maybe nothing has. Maybe some types of love gather like lint, slowly collecting into a tangled, varied mass of things best not analyzed.
Stiles knows where it started. With him enthusiastically shaking the hand of the new kid with the awesome taste in Star Wars themed T-shirts. It would take Scott three years to admit that he was only wearing the shirt because his mom had bought a small selection of ill-fitting clothes for a visit when he was nine, and wearing any of the ones his dad had given him felt like betrayal. Even that admission had been accidental, Scott not realizing his mistake until Stiles gave an indignant squeak. Stiles couldn’t stop himself from reeling that their entire friendship was predicated on a lie.
He knows where it continued. With them practicing lacrosse and saving each other’s asses every week. Reassuring brushes of their fingers to keep Scott feeling human, to keep reminding Scott that they were alive, together. Fistbumps and high fives and nudges. Tethers to say, hey, I’m here for you. You’ve got me.
And now they’re in college and always pressed together during the lectures they share, or in the commons, on their beds while watching something on Stiles’ laptop. Warm lines and hot hands, knees knocking and shoulders wedged tight. They’ve fallen asleep on one another so often Stiles jokingly suggested they should illegally sell Scott’s bed to pay for their meal plans.
It’s a visceral ache. Wanting Scott. Like a shard of glass edged under his sole, or the prick of a spiky leaf into the soft tissue just beneath a fingernail. Small, but not insignificant. Makes him want to tear it out, off, away, but he can’t, the result will be more damage. And maybe that’s usually his thing, his whole kinda pièce de résistance, raison d’être and other French phrases he likes to use for shits and giggles, but he’s been working to not have that be true. So the best he can do is try to ignore it, but it doesn’t matter how hard he tries, he’s constantly coming up with similes to best describe the pain. It’s a fixation, a compulsion, and Stiles gets hyper focused in the worst way. Where is his infamous distractibility in the face of Scott?
Because he’s so beautiful. Like, Stiles has always had eyes, he’s never really been ignorant to his good looks, but college is perfect for Scott. He grows his hair out again, too lazy to get it cut. He wears tank tops, goes unashamedly shirtless, or borrows one of Stiles’ shirts and doesn’t bother to button it all the way. He works out while studying, using the door to their dorm room to fix his resistance tubing. And Stiles would like to pride himself on his self-control — yes, he’s finally gained some after all this time — but he can’t stop watching the stretch and flex of Scott’s muscles, how sweat pools in the divots of his collarbones, how he’ll turn to Stiles with a self-satisfied smirk after rep number nine hundred and four.
One time, Stiles wouldn’t stop snarking about how he’d also be a golden Adonis if he followed Scott’s work-out routine, and Scott sniggered and said he already was. Scott insisted on manually showing him how to use his equipment. And the euphemism is only barely a euphemism. Scott’s hands went in many places Stiles knows they hadn’t gone before.
Stiles constantly has the thought strumming through his mind that he can’t be sure Scott’s real unless they’re physically connected. And because Scott’s always been tactile he doesn’t bat an eyelid when Stiles is handsy with him. Doesn’t flinch or shy away. He initiates the contact just as often, comfortingly and yet worryingly familiar. Casual. Which is why Stiles is hurting.
To Scott, them touching is common-place, average, ordinary. He clearly doesn’t feel the same desperation over it, the phantom splay of Stiles’ fingers. He likes it, obviously, but he doesn’t live for it.
Or so Stiles thinks. Until they’re sprawling together in Stiles’ bed again, having scored some weed, trying to test if Scott can get high. Scott coughs and splutters each time he tries to suck smoke in straight from the joint, like his asthma’s sick of being suppressed by his wolfy powers and must have its revenge. Stiles suggests shotgunning, pretty confident he’s going to be playfully shot down, but he’s faced with wide, excited eyes and a vigorous nod.
It’s logistically awkward for a few seconds. They can’t seem to get their upper bodies close enough with the angle they’re sitting in. Scott eventually solves the dilemma by straddling his lap, thumb resting on Stiles’ clavicle, head tipping down. Stiles takes a hit and holds the smoke in his mouth, curls it around his tongue. He thinks Scott’s going to make a tunnel with his hands, but instead he presses his mouth sweetly against his own.
The resulting exhale’s not deliberate. Most of the smoke goes into the air between them rather than in Scott’s mouth. They have to try again. And they do, Scott tilting even closer, warm lips inviting and requesting all at once. He’s been imagining this for months and now it’s happening under false pretenses. This ghost of a kiss will be with him for all future fantasies; the perfect way they fit together, the brush of their lower lips, the feel of Scott surrounding him, solid and dependable and his in a way nothing else is.
Scott doesn’t climb off him even as they pull apart again. He stays perched, fingers playing with the fine hairs at the back of Stiles’ neck. He sort of shimmies on the spot, and oh, oh, that movement does all kinds of things to his resolve. Stiles feels giddy and light-headed, but not as drugged as he thinks he should. He’s startlingly aware that this is 11 on a 0 to 10 scale of inappropriate bro-bonding moments. The last thing he wants is to take advantage of Scott’s body when his mind’s offline. It’s happened to Scott before and anything remotely linking him to Peter Hale fills him with utter revulsion.
“Okay, you can be getting off now,” he states firmly, hands settling on Scott’s hips, but not pushing, not yet.
“I could,” Scott says. “Do you want me to?”
He’s just hazy enough he doesn’t bother to lie. “What I want’s irrelevant. Come on, up and at ‘em. Be free, little butterfly.”
Scott giggles, buries his face in Stiles’ neck. Stiles goes taut at the feel of his lips against his skin, imagines him kissing and sucking a mark. But Scott just rolls off to the side, smiles at Stiles with warm, abiding affection. They talk shit for a while, Stiles detailing all the people they’ve met that he’s convinced are supernatural creatures. He’s sure he gets three quarters of the way through his 207 person list before Scott’s laughingly smushing a pillow against his face.
“You’re so high,” Scott intones on a wheeze.
“So? So are you.”
“I’m really not. Sorry to say it, but I think weed’s as useless to werewolves as alcohol.”
“Then what was with all the cuddling, before?”
Scott shrugs, but Stiles knows that shrug, it’s the one he uses when he’s covering something up. “I just wanted to cuddle.”
Stiles is lucid enough not to want to force Scott into something he doesn’t want, but not enough to deny that he wants it.
“You could, if that’s your desire. I’m totally planning on declaring cuddling as my major. You should join me.”
Scott gives him another smile, but he really doesn’t think he’s imagining an edge of sadness to it.
“Maybe later,” he says.
Later, Stiles is musing on the fact that Scott’s the one person in his life that doesn’t get sick of him and asking why that is. He thinks he’s being rhetorical, but Scott answers like the question was a demand. Maybe it was. Perhaps he has to know.
“You’re my constant,” Scott murmurs, rubbing his hand over his arm. “You’re my always.”
“I’d really like to suck face with you right now,” Stiles states, decisively.
He’s always been too bold and too curious for his own good. He’ll claim he’s squeamish, or cowardly, or weak, but he’ll test his limits, just to make sure.
“That’s incredibly romantic.”
“But no less true.”
“It’s the weed talking,” Scott replies, flat.
“You’re adorable. By my reckoning it’s been four hours since I smoked half a blunt. My high began to dissipate about two hours ago.”
“Huh,” Scott says, eying him speculatively. He gestures toward his mouth. “Here’s my face. Suck away.”
Stiles reaches up, tugs Scott down until they’re perfectly aligned. He kisses him with as much intent as he can muster, which is a lot, as it turns out. It’s shockingly easy to surge up and climb Scott’s face with his face. Rub them together, stubble grazing. To lick and savor and linger. Scott’s instantly responsive, strong arms curling around him, one thigh sneaking between his. Stiles sighs into the contact, jelly-limbed and soul-sated.
The thing about them being best friends is that they’re always touching.