here’s my secret santa artwork for the @witchersecretsanta exchange! My recipient is @mxximum-effort , I hope you enjoy these two old mushballs under the mistletoe! Happy holidays!
Happy Christmas @slowburnotptrash!! Here’s your gift for @twsecretsanta‘s gift exchange, for the prompt Scott, Stiles, Lydia + Stydia. I’m so so sorry this is late, but I hope it was worth the wait. I think I’ve become invested in this AU so we’ll see how it goes - there could be more eventually :D hope you enjoy!!
Also on Ao3
Tags: Soulmate AU, Angst, Sense8 AU (kind of)
Word Count: 1415
Stiles nights are plagued by dreams.
He dreams of being lacrosse captain, and helping his mother; of winning prizes in mathematics, and reconciling his parents, and hiding himself in layers of lies and makeup to convince people to like him.
He has two soulmates. He figures it out when he's five, because of their vastly differing dreams. These people, who sit in the back of his head - on the tip of his tongue, in the corner of his eye - they're so different, yet so achingly similar and familiar all at once.
He always wonders what dreams they receive in return, and shudders to imagine what they must think of him.
As the years progress they reach out to him in the day, too. During a particularly difficult math test he feels her - definitely a her - in the back of his head, staring through his eyes, and suddenly the question makes sense, the answer laid clear before him like it's as easy as breathing. When he sits on his own at lunch, there's the other presence - male, he thinks - to comfort him.
He pushes them away. Love is weakness, his mother always said - in Polish, of course; his father never found the time to learn Polish. It was her parting gift to him, the words she left him with as she stroked away that first tear from his cheek that last night in the hospital. Love is weakness, kochanie, and don't let life trick you otherwise.
Why do you hate us? The thought appears one day in his head when he's twelve, stronger than anything before, slipping in between the cracks of the wall he's put up in his mind. He ignores it, pushing the wounded voice that accompanies it as far from his thoughts as he can. It never quite leaves, though - it never has. The constant streams of whispering in his head should probably drive him insane, but instead he finds them comforting, like the murmuring babble of a brook, or the steady croon of the lullabies his mother used to sing him to sleep with.
After those first words, more things break through. Within a few years his carefully constructed walls are in ruins.
I'm Scott, the male voice says - always there when Stiles feels low, when the black abyss tugs relentlessly at his heels once more; Scott is warmth and light, a mass of curved edges barely contained by a heart that defies its limits. She's Lydia.
She can speak for herself, Scott - the other voice snaps back immediately, with all the sharpness and reprimanding a thirteen year old can muster - though there's a fondness behind it, a mental eye roll which tells Stiles that these two voices converse often despite their polar opposite personalities - for where Scott is soft and comforting, Lydia is quick wit and calculating decisions, a kind soul wrapped in barbed wire and fortified against the world. He thinks his mother would have liked Lydia, if not for the fact that the girl clearly cares for her soulmates.
Tell us your name, Lydia says, with that edge of strangled desperation which always slips into their words when they beg for his attention.
He wants to talk to them, really - they're kind, and patient, and they've helped him in ways he would never have imagined; yet he refuses to turn to them, to give as much as he gets. His mother's words echo in his ears. He's seen how love destroyed his father, how it would have destroyed him if not for his mother's warning in her final moments; how can he condemn himself to that?
They chatter to each other, Scott and Lydia, and he can't help but learn things about them. They know each other in real life - which essay question did you pick? Did you hear about the curfew? How the hell did you get detention again? - Lydia has a boyfriend, some popular jock who Scott hates for more reasons than he has time to list - You don't even like him, Lyds. You know he punched me during lacrosse today. You deserve so much better - and so many other things - both small and trivial, insurmountable and life-changing.
Stiles stays quiet, a silent observer to the bickering married couple in his head. Their relationship is casual and easy, and they seem to trust each other more than he trusts - anyone. They are each others' shoulder to cry on, the first port of call in crisis. Stiles' heart aches on those days - when Lydia wants to scream at the world, and Scott can't see the end of the tunnel; but he stays quiet.
He imagines talking to them, telling them as much as they tell him. About the promise his mother's ghost holds over his head, and the alcohol cabinet downstairs that his father is in a committed relationship with, and the aching, echoing loneliness hollowing out his chest whenever he hears them talk, whenever he has a spare moment to breathe. He always talks himself out of it before he can start - if there's one thing he can do for them, he can save them the unnecessary weight of his problems on top of their own.
His dreams begin to change. He's not sure when - it's a slow, gradual alteration that slips under his guard, until suddenly he looks back and realises he can't remember the last time he slept well. His nights are black woods and glowing red eyes, screaming that echoes in his ear drums for days, sobbing that infects him too, drowning him in the agony of a despair he doesn't even know the cause of.
They stop talking to him so much. Now there's nothing more than the occasional poke in his direction - tentative, and lacking any of the original fervour. Scott's vibrant light dims, and Lydia's barbed wire tears at and strangles her throat.
It scares him more than anything - more than his mother - so he's barely thinking when he asks, Are you okay? - and just like that the dam breaks, and the tide rushes in. Their voices trip over each other in a babble of desperation and intrigue. The complete lack of barrier leaves Stiles feeling vulnerable and raw, an exposed nerve against icy wind. Thoughts rush back and forth in his head, and the warmth he's always felt in the back of his mind now encompasses his whole body.
Baby steps, he tells himself. There's no going back now, after all.
I'm Stiles.
Stiles! They echo his name between each other like they're volleying a tennis ball.
Tell us about yourself, he would recognise Scott's excitable energy even without the voice. Where are you? Who are you? Why've you been ignoring us? What-
Why now? Lydia asks shortly, suspicion mixing with the warmth of their happiness.
I- Stiles tries to formulate words to match his hollow emotions. I was worried.
Lydia's presence softens slightly. Where are you?
New Jersey. He's been here since a few years before his mother died, the same crappy house with the litter on the grass and the peeling front door, the loose tiles and unpaid gas bills. He's always hated it - but it's home. He can barely remember life before anyway.
He has no idea how the connection works, but he guesses that they probably heard his reminiscing, if their brief silence is anything to go by. His heart hammers in his chest, and he considers pulling away again-
We're in California, Scott says, breaking through the quiet. Beacon Hills. It's tiny, you've probably never heard of it-
I have, Stiles admits. My dad grew up there.
Wow, that's such a crazy coincidence.
Stiles doesn't believe in coincidences. In a world where the ones you're closest to can be defined by a predetermined bond, and events can be manipulated by people long dead, it's impossible for him to believe that things just happen.
He takes a deep breath. So...
Yeah? Lydia answers immediately.
You guys never answered me. Are- are you okay?
There's nothing but silence in his head - static, buzzing in his ears like the droning of flies. It seems to encompass everything - every movement, every sound, every sight swallowed up by the sudden empty air where his soulmates' voices should be. He's spent so long trying to block them out, he always thought their silence would be welcome; now all it does is turn his limbs to lead, his blood to ice.
“I think you should stay with me. You’ll be warm. My lights work, and I have access to the internet and a working television.”
“Way to rub it in,” Stiles mumbles under his breath, folding his arms over his chest. “I’m very okay with me and my nest.”
“I’ll call your dad,” Scott counters, mimicking Stiles by folding his arms over his own chest.
Stiles squawks, dropping his arms. “You wouldn’t."
Scott nods. “I would. I’ll even call my mom,” he threatens and Stiles’s mouth drops open.
Stiles glares at him like he can threaten Scott back with his eyebrows, even though there is nothing that could beat the threat of calling Scott’s mom.
“Fine,” Stiles sighs, throwing his hands up in the air. “You win. I’ll stay with you.”
lexxel \\ 9.5k \\ sciles \\ teen \\ on ao3
written for the @twsecretsanta , as a gift for @catrance . merry christmas! sorry i wasn’t smart enough to double check that i actually posted this instead of saving it to my drafts, but i hope you enjoy it now that it’s out <3
Remember how you were the first girl I ever danced with? Or how I had a crush on you freshman year. Sophomore year? Junior year? Remember how you saved my life? You saved my life too.
