I decided to take a stab at the soulmate marks trope.
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The marks aren't definite. That's what Stu always reminded him. Sure, it was a nice fairy tale, finding the person whose mark matched your, falling madly in love, and living happily ever after with your soulmate, but it was just that: a fairy tale.
Stu was one of those people who refused to believe in destiny. Who refused to let a little mark on his body dictate who he was meant to be with. "I have a mind of my own and I have freewill. I can choose who I want to love. Besides, the marks aren't definite."
Their mom and dad had been soulmates. Stiles couldn't remember what their mark had been, because his dad's had faded when his mom had died. But he could remember how everything between them had been so effortless. He could remember how they were so connected, so in tune with each other. He could remember how his dad had never smiled larger or laughed louder than when he was with his mom.
Stiles wanted that. He wanted his soulmate.
"Well, you go ahead a waste your life looking for them then," Stu said. "But remember, finding them isn't going to be your ticket to a happy ending. What if they don't want to meet their soulmate? What if they already love someone else? What if they just don't want you? No little mark will be enough to change that."
But nothing Stu said could changed his mind. Stiles wanted to meet his soulmate and he was going to make it happen.
And when they were sixteen, he did.
"His name is Derek Hale," Stiles told Stu in a rush of words, "He's a few years older than us. He just moved back into town from New York. I met him in the woods with Scott. He was kinda grumpy at first, but then he saw my mark. We're going to dinner tonight. I need to find something to wear."
Stiles ran up the stairs without waiting for Stu to say anything.
Two hours later, Stiles stepped out the shower and toweled himself off. while wiping the stem from the mirror. He froze when the saw his reflection, unable to comprehend what he was seeing.
"No," he mumbled, raising a hand to his neck to touch the empty stretch of skin where he mark had always been. "No," he repeated, squeezing his eyes closed and hoping that this was a bad dream the could be changed with the force of will.
His neck remained bare, his mark faded out of existence. He drops his damped towel on the floor and stumbles naked out of the bathroom. He grabs his phone as soon he reaches room and dials the number he'd just programmed into it a few hours before. It rings. It rings. It rings. "The number you just dialed as a voice mailbox that has not been..."
He hangs up and dials again. And again. And again.
"I told you," Stu said from the doorway, "you don't need that mark to find love." The neck of his shirt is stretched out and misshapen, as if someone had grab a hold of it and there's four angry red lines going over his shoulder. Scratches deep enough that blood is slowly oozing from them.
"What did you do?" Stiles asked, not accusing because he didn't need to accuse, he already knew for certain that missing mark on his neck was the result of his brother's actions.
"I told you that I would decide for myself the person I would love. And that person was you, Stiles. It's always been you. I didn't need a mark on my skin to say you were mine, because you left a mark on my soul before we were even born. I thought you knew. I thought I'd marked your same way you marked mine."
Stu raised a hand a swiped it down his face and Stiles noticed for the first time that sharp metal of a knife gripped in his fist. "It should have been obvious that no one could love you like I do," Stu continued. "I mean, I've been with you from the start. I've always been at your side. Nothing and no one has ever been able to pull me away. When you had no one else, you had me. Isn't that what a soulmate is? Someone fixed at your side like the other half of your whole? Someone who would fight for you, die for you, kill for you."
Stu pointed the knife towards Stiles as he took slow, measured steps across the room. "You were going to leave me for some guy you didn't know. Nothing could ever drag me from your side, but you were ready to sprint away from mine just because you saw a stupid little mark that looked like yours."
"I'm sorry, Stu," Stiles said, tears filling his eyes. "I'm sorry." Stu acted as if Stiles hadn't even spoken, just kept approaching him, knife in hand.
"I've always been marked as yours, Stiles! Always. Just because you couldn't see the mark, doesn't mean it wasn't there. But if you need to see it, I will carve it into your skin for all the world to see."
They say lovers who commit double suicide are reborn as identical twins.
Maybe that was the cause of all this. Some residual affection carried over from a past life that twisted the bond of brotherhood into something perverse.
Maybe this was always meant to be their fate. From the beginning of time, they'd been born under a bad star and that star followed them forever.
Or, perhaps, it was the other way around. Their destinies had always been tied to one another, but outside influences acted to keep them apart.
Maybe they were meant for each other on a level so deep, that silly things like blood and gender wouldn't dare stand in their way.
Maybe none of that mattered.
Maybe all that mattered was the way Stu touched him. How it heated his skin and made his heart stutter. And the look in Stu's eyes that said Stiles was the center of everything. The sound of Stu's laughter, and the way he said his name. How Stiles only ever felt complete when they were together.
Yes. These were the things that mattered. The taste of Stu on his lips. The flush of his skin. How he could trace a map of the universe between his freckles and moles. How they fit so perfectly together, as if one was shaped for the other.
Nothing else could compare.
Past lives? Bad stars? None of that was important.
This was important. Stu's arms around him and the words on his lips.
