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“Remind me why you’re doing this again?” Malia’s eyes narrowed, her nose scrunching up the way it did whenever her boyfriend did something her bluntly logical mind couldn't process.Stiles heaved a long-suffering sigh as he tossed another couple of socks into his backpack, not bothering to check if they matched. “Because, he’s my brother.”“That’s not an answer, Stiles. That’s a statement of fact. That says nothing about why you’re postponing our trip by another two days to help him. Stuart. Remember who we’re talking about here? Evil twin Stuart? Your brother that you hate?”“I don’t—I mean, hate is pretty strong—”“Your word, Stiles, not mine. Your word from all the millions of times you’ve told me how much you hate your twin brother. How much you and your dad both hate him!”“Well—yeah, okay. Your point?” Stiles grabbed the pillow from his side of the bed, straightening out its moth-eaten pillowcase.“My point is, you don’t owe him anything. And now you’re putting off the plans we made together, again, for him of all people. Are you that desperate for an excuse? And you really need to let me buy you new pillowcases because that one is disgusting, Stiles.”“It’s my favorite,” Stiles mumbled with a frown. “Anyway, he’s still blood, okay? I have to go. He asked me to.”“And if he asked you to jump off a bridge, would you?”“If it meant getting away from this conversation, I might,” he muttered.Malia ignored him, charging on. “And why is blood so important, anyway? Just tell him to go bleed on someone else so he can rope them into carting his shit all the way back to Beacon Hills just because his girlfriend dumped his pathetic ass.”Stiles licked his lips as he checked his phone distractedly. “I don’t think—don’t think it works like that, Malia. Aaand my Uber’s here.”Without waiting for acknowledgement from his girlfriend, Stiles ducked out of the room and trampled down the stairs, backpack and pillow in tow.“Stiles, wait!” Malia caught up to him at the front door.Stiles threw her a cheeky grin. “Change your mind about that goodbye kiss? Or uh, y’know, that goodbye roll in the hay? Horizontal hula? Beast with two backs—”“You’d have to beat your own record time for most disappointingly premature ejaculation, considering your ride is already here.” Her eyes narrowed.“Or, I could pay him to wait—”“I’m still pissed at you, Stiles! Ugh, just—don’t take any longer than you have to. Don’t let him weasel any more favors out of you, okay? He doesn’t deserve it. I don’t deserve it! I don’t deserve any of this!”“Yes, dear, I know—” Stiles reached for her shoulder only to have his hand swatted away.“Just go!”“How much will you miss me? That much? Aw, how sweet,” Stiles muttered under his breath as he hauled the pillow up under his arm and opened the door. “You know I will, too, sugar pie. Chickpea. Love dove. Light of my life.”Malia scoffed in disgust and slammed the door behind him.…Despite the fact that for the past year he had been living less than an hour away in San Francisco, Stiles had never visited Stuart in Palo Alto. He lounged in the back seat and relied on the Uber driver to find the address, wondering idly just how outrageously overpriced the condos they passed on the tree-lined streets were.“Here?” the driver asked over his shoulder.Stiles sat up straight and glanced out the window. Before he could spot the street number to confirm the location, he saw him. Same pale face with the wide mouth and upturned nose, only his was bespectacled with a pair of black-framed nerd glasses. Same dark, spiky hair, only his was partially tucked away under an insufferable hipster beanie. Same stiff posture, arms crossed high on the chest, that radiated self-conscious unease, only his slim torso was hugged by a form-fitting cardigan Stiles wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. And, Stiles thought with a hint of smugness, there was no way his own face could ever adopt that uniquely him expression that said ‘I just threw up in my mouth and don’t want to swallow it again but can’t spit it out either.’“Yeah,” he sighed. “Here.”“You’re late. I wanna be out of here by the time Neha gets back,” Stuart stated in a monotone as Stiles approached him across the parking lot. Stiles couldn’t tell if his twin’s narrowed eyes were due to the sun beating down on them, or if he was glaring.Stiles made no effort to disguise his own glare as he shot back a “Nice to see you too” with faux sweetness. “And you’re welcome, by the way, for taking forty-eight hours out of my life, which I will never get back and can’t hope for any form of recompense for, to help your homeless ass get your shit out of your ex-girlfriend’s apartment. Really, just, don’t even mention it.”Stuart’s bored features didn’t so much as twitch, and for some reason that annoyed Stiles even more.“How much was it?”Stiles blinked. “What?”“The ride, how much?” Stuart snapped, as if it were obvious.“Uh…” Stiles’ hand went reflexively to the back of his neck, his stomach and mouth twisting simultaneously. He hated asking for money from his closest friends, let alone from his estranged, asshole brother.Stuart sighed impatiently. “Suck up your pride, Stiles. It’s hardly cheap coming all the way from the city. Plus I know you’re like, dirt poor and living in a house you really can’t afford because you’re actually just a glorified pencil pusher at the FBI. Do you know how much Google pays me?”The words shot by so quickly Stiles barely had time to process his anger at the pencil pusher comment—it was true, dammit, that was what made it sting—and he was left spluttering in the way that told him his cheeks would be an embarrassing, splotchy red just about now.“That’s not—”“Do you know how much?” Stuart repeated flatly.Stiles tongued his molars in irritation. “No, no I can’t say I do.”“A fucking lot more than you make. That’s how much Google pays me. So how much was it.”Stiles rolled his eyes. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered.Stuart was apparently done waiting for an answer because the next moment he cut in: “I’ll Venmo you an even hundred and you can keep the change, yeah?”Stiles narrowed his eyes further. “What’s Ven-mo?”It was Stuart’s turn to roll his eyes and mutter under his breath. “Fine,” he spat, pulling out his wallet and counting out five twenties. “Here.” He practically flung the cash at his brother.Stiles’ chest burned, but he caught the money and stuffed it in a pocket.“Thanks. What a gentleman. You know, I almost forgot what a real charmer you are.”“Yeah, runs in the family.” Stuart turned on his heel and made for the door. “Come on, let’s load up.”Stiles stared after him for a moment, shaking his head.“Malia, you were right. I do hate this asshole.”…“That’s it?” Stiles asked as he stared into the open trunk of the hatchback rental, arching an unimpressed eyebrow.“What do you mean ‘that’s it’?” Stuart frowned.“I mean where’s all your stuff? You had to ask for my help with this? You couldn’t handle a few boxes and suitcases yourself?”Stuart pursed his lips and pointed to the flat screen TV lying in its box across the folded down backseat. “That thing’s heavy.”Stiles glanced skyward for patience. “I cannot believe I let you talk me into this. Give me one good reason I shouldn’t just order another Uber right now and go back home. At least then Malia might consider forgiving me for—”“Can we just go?” Stuart’s voice was tight.Stiles glanced sidelong at his twin, noticed the pinched look on his face and the way his long fingers pressed against the sides of his phone so hard the tips were white. Stuart was staring fixedly down at the device as if consulting it, but Stiles had always been able to recognize when his brother was only pretending to look at his phone. He did it more often than most people realized.Stiles felt like pointing this out, making a jab—God knows Stuart deserved it—but something held him back. Maybe it was the way Stuart’s tense shoulders reminded Stiles of his own at the onset of a panic attack—an occurrence that Stiles hadn’t been plagued with in years, fortunately, but which he still couldn’t shake from his muscle memory.Instead, Stiles licked his lips and set his jaw. “Fine. You owe me, so big time.” He slammed the trunk shut.“’So big time’? That doesn’t even make sense. That’s not grammatical.” Stuart scowled.“Just shut up and give me the keys.”…“What the fuck kind of name is ‘Twombly’ anyway? Sounds like some Connecticut WASP shit to me,” griped Stiles, clutching the steering wheel a little harder than necessary. He pitched his voice so he was speaking from the back of his throat, his mouth turned down at the corners. “Oh, look at me, I’m Stuart Twombly and I eat caviar and would you like to see my yacht—”“That’s fucking British, you moron, not New Englander.”“—and I know the difference between an English accent and a New English accent, how could you not, you philistine—”“No one asked for your opinion on my name, Stiles! I wasn’t gonna bring it up.”Stiles tried not to acknowledge the sick satisfaction he felt at finally getting his brother to raise his voice. He seemed to have hit a nerve.“It’s not your name. You’re a Stilinski. At least until Dad finally decides to just disown you and be done with it.”“Very funny.”“Uh, no it’s not. I swear, he gets closer with every year. And honestly? It’s like you’re doing everything in your power to convince him to. I mean, a legal name change? What the fuck, man? Were you really that desperate to rid yourself of any association with us?”Stiles hadn’t meant to get so worked up; he really hadn’t. He’d told himself he could go forty-eight hours without flying off the handles at his brother for any of his countless (by Stiles’ estimation) transgressions against the family.But the name change was a sore point. Stiles could still remember clear as yesterday the wounded look on his father’s face when he’d found out. It hadn’t even been from Stuart’s own mouth; he was too much of a selfish coward for that. No, it had been a piece of mail sent accidentally to an old address on record, rather than forwarded to Stuart’s shiny new Silicon Valley abode. Addressed to one Stuart Twombly.Stuart at least had the decency to look chagrined as he shifted lower in his seat, his eyes fixed on the darkening landscape out the window.“You don’t know what it was like, man.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “Ninety percent of interns were coming from Ivy Leagues, Stanford, MIT, and before that from fucking Andover and Exeter: you know, places where people still make Polak jokes and actually think they’re funny. It was just for the job, but now that I’m in, it would be a hassle to change it back.”Stiles thought of contesting the point—seriously, it was a stupid excuse considering the diversity of names in the tech world, and surely there were more than a few Poles among them—but for all his defensiveness, there was a note of apology in Stuart’s tone. Stiles let his shoulders sag with a sigh. It wasn’t good enough, not by a long shot, but it was the best he was going to get from his brother. Arguing wouldn’t change anything.A tense minute passed before Stuart spoke up again.“Stiles…” He sounded almost timid.Stiles grunted, not sparing his brother a look.“You uh, didn’t tell Dad, did you? About why you were helping me out this weekend?”Stiles snorted. “You mean did I tell him that your girlfriend dumped you and kicked you out so you have nowhere to live or even put your stuff?”Stuart made an uncomfortable sound in his throat that made Stiles smirk.“No, I did not. I just said I was helping you move. It’s not like he knew you were living with your girlfriend, anyway. Or that you even had a girlfriend. Hell, the only reason I knew is from Facebook.”Stuart quirked an eyebrow. “So you stalk my Facebook?”It was Stile’s turn to make an undignified sound that was most definitely not a squawk. No freaking way.“I do no—look, it’s not my fault if the Facebook algorithms make it a priority to let me know when my brother changes his relationship status, okay?”“You could get rid of our sibling status on Facebook,” Stuart pointed out.“If only it were that simple in real life,” muttered Stiles.“Actually, I should just unfriend you. I think I will. The thought of you creeping on my timeline makes me feel unclean.”“I do not—” Stiles nearly growled as he cut himself off. Stuart was just trying to get a rise and Stiles wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction.“Why haven’t you already unfriended me?” he challenged instead.“Why haven’t you?” Stuart deflected.Stiles’ mouth scrunched up in frustration. It was a reasonable question, actually. He wracked his brain.“Well, someone has to keep an eye on you. Given the penchant that evil twins have for wreaking havoc. You could go dark-side any day. Actually, pretty sure you already have, you’re just pulling a Two-Face and not everyone's caught on yet.”Stuart looked at him like he was crazy.“You know, Two-Face? Batman?” Stiles’ head jutted forward in incredulity. When Stuart’s blank stare didn’t become any more comprehending, he shook his head. “Fuck’s sake. Hopeless. How are we related. How are we twins.”Stiles frowned to himself, tapping on the steering wheel, before finally voicing something that had been playing on his mind ever since getting Stuart’s terse call asking for help (and the guy sounded so hopelessly uncomfortable on the phone it was no wonder he usually insisted on texting. Not that he ever texted Stiles).“Why did you ask me, anyway?”“What?” Stiles could tell Stuart was only feigning ignorance as to his meaning.“Don’t you have, like, Google friends you could have asked? Or did you just want an excuse to torture me all weekend. Y’know, in line with your evil twin proclivities and all. Pleasure from my pain, et cetera.”Stuart was silent for long enough that Stiles risked a glance at him. His brother looked surprisingly awkward, which only intrigued Stiles further.“They’re all sort of… Neha’s friends, too,” Stuart admitted at last. He was slouching so low in his seat it looked as if he were trying to sink straight into it and disappear.The gears clicked together in Stiles’ mind. “A-ha,” he said slowly. “And let me guess; you, being you, were an asshole about her dumping you, and they all took her side.”Stuart muttered something so quietly Stiles found himself leaning in.“You’re gonna have to speak up louder than that, Mumbles McMumbleface.”Stuart gave a frustrated sigh. “She didn’t dump me.”Stiles blinked and sat upright. That was… unexpected.“Wait, so you…”“I dumped her.”Stiles shook his head as if to clear it. “Wow. So, you really were an asshole. And a stupid asshole, because you couldn’t let it wait till you had somewhere new to live. And, because of your assholery—Neha-related and otherwise, I can only assume—none of your friends will talk to you, let alone drive your stuff halfway across the state as a favor.”“…Something like that,” Stuart grit out through his teeth.“So…” Stiles’ eyes narrowed. He shouldn’t care, he really shouldn’t, but he could feel the morbid curiosity tugging at his brain. “Why did you dump her?”Stuart shrugged noncommittally. “I dunno. There was just… something missing.”“What, that’s all you got? That has to be the least convincing, most asshole cop-out answer you could possibly give. Y’know, I may expect nothing but bullshit from you, Stu, but I’ve actually come to expect at least a certain grade of bullshit. Your finely-aged in an oak barrel bullshit, if you will.”“Why do you care?” asked Stu defensively.“I don’t, for the record. But right now I’m stuck in a small, enclosed space with you, amped up on Adderall, and in desperate need of some entertainment. Some Shadenfreudic entertainment, and lo and behold, here you are to provide. So, provide.”“You want to talk about Schadenfreude? Only one of us here is making six figures, okay, and it isn’t you.”“So is talking about your salary the only thing that makes you feel good about yourself? Because you know you’ve got nothing else? That is truly pathetic, even for you—”“Shut up—”“Okay, don’t wanna talk about that? Then spill about Neha. Why’d you break up, man? You just, get bored or something?”“Maybe,” sneered Stuart.“Seriously, dude? That’s a real low, even for you, Stu.”“Since when are you calling me Stu?”“Since—what? I’ve always called you Stu.” Stiles squinted at the road. “Don’t change the subject.”“Not in a long time, you haven’t,” Stuart continued.“Yeah, well, I haven’t exactly spent much time with you in a long time, have I? And it’s coming back to me why that is. Hey, I’m talking to you.”Stuart had pulled his phone back out and was fiddling with it.“Yes, unfortunately you are,” he said distractedly.Stiles grumbled to himself. “Fine, ignore me. See if I care. Asshole.”…“Are you serious?” Stuart glanced at the garish neon sign of the motel as Stiles pulled into the parking lot. “I really don’t feel like getting axe-murdered in my bed tonight.”“Oh, really? Because your behavior for the past several hours has sort of been screaming ‘please axe-murder me.’ I was seriously thinking of complying, too.”Stuart cast him a withering glare.“Anyway, you’re welcome to walk to the nearest hotel,” Stiles suggested amiably. “But I’m done. Driver makes the rules on when to stop.”“We should just keep on going to Beacon Hills.”“We’d get there at like, one a.m. And as much as I am enjoying your pleasant company and lively conversation, right now I am in need of some well-deserved R&R.”He hopped out of the car with his backpack and pillow and glanced around. His brow furrowed. “Y’know, I think I’ve been here before.”“To this shithole? What, is this the type of luxury accommodation the FBI reserves for its lowest level security clearance employees?” Stuart scoffed as he grabbed a suitcase from the back.“Fuck yourself,” Stiles muttered, looking up at the sign again. Motel Glen Capri. It jogged something in his memory.“Yeah… No way. Track meet, back in high school. Dumb thing ended up getting cancelled, but we got a free night in this fine establishment out of it. Anyway, if I survived a night here before, I can survive one again. Can’t really speak for you, though.”He headed towards the reception lobby, Stuart trailing grudgingly behind.The clerk with the tracheostomy tube in her throat did little to inspire confidence in either of them, but Stiles blithely ignored Stuart’s mouthed “Seriously?” when the woman turned away to find them a key. He merely drummed his fingers against the counter and let his brother glower at his phone.“We only got one room open, darlin’,” croaked the woman, holding up a key marked 115.Stiles’ eyebrows shot up. “Really? Only one room? Business is swingin’ at the ol’ Glen Capri, huh?” His mind flashed to the near-empty lot. “Lemme guess, word of mouth? Reputation precedes ya? The Yelp reviews must be truly effusive.”The woman cast him an unimpressed look. “Most of the place’s closed down. For remodeling.”“Oh, remodeling. Can’t imagine why. What could you possibly improve on in this… state of the art… auberge,” he finished with his whole face pinched and cleared his throat.“It’s a double, you want it or not?” she asked tersely.“Double, as in…”“We got one bed open. Take it or leave it.”Stiles could feel Stuart’s seething gaze boring into him, and so it was on principle that he grit his teeth and gave a sweet smile. “We’ll take it.”Stiles ignored his brother’s low groan and continued tapping his fingers, peering behind the desk as the clerk put them on the books.“What’s with the numbers?” he asked, jutting his chin at the hanging display of the digits ‘236’ on the back wall.The clerk’s eyes practically lit up as she followed his gaze. It was an unsettling look on her.“Well, you may think we’re not much to write home about here, but we do carry one particular distinction. Highest number of suicides since opening out of any motel in the state.”Even Stuart looked up at that, the ‘throw-up in the mouth’ look back on his face.“Ah,” said Stiles pleasantly. “So, you keep a running tally. On prominent display. Naturally. Because you wouldn’t want to turn away any potential customers. Especially not the… suicidal ones.”“Make sure to look inside the Bible in the dresser. There’ll be newspaper clippings on the incidents specific to your room.” The woman positively grinned.“I hate you so much,” Stuart muttered just loud enough for Stiles to hear.“Well.” Stiles smiled chummily at the woman as he slapped down the deposit on the counter and snatched up the key. “If you’re lucky, you might just have two more to add to the count by the end of the night.”…“‘The siblings are suspected to have formed their suicide pact following a scandal in the family. According to an unnamed source, the brother and sister were recently discovered to have been—’ Oh. Oh.” Stiles sat up straight, holding the clipping out at arm’s length.“What,” sighed Stuart. He reached over from where he was lounging on his side of the too-narrow bed and snatched the paper from his brother’s hand. His eyes scanned the page. “‘…discovered to have been in an incestuous relationship spanning years,’” he drawled. “‘Following the shocking revelation, the pair were disowned and reportedly threatened by family members for refusing to end the illicit affair.’ Seriously, who publishes this crap.”He flung the article onto the nightstand and glanced at Stiles. “What, you squeamish or something?”“Uh, disturbed, I think, would be a good descriptor. And slightly concerned that you’re not?”Stuart merely shrugged. “After a year with Neha not much would faze you either.”“What. Does that—No, scratch that, I don’t want to know what that means.” Stiles shifted on the bed. “I feel unclean.” He pulled a face. “I’m gonna shower.”Stuart shrugged again and returned his attention to his phone.The towels smelled vaguely of nicotine and smoke, but at least the water was hot. Stiles would count every blessing he could get at this point. After all, it was his own damn stubbornness that had landed them here in the first place.He had stepped out of the shower and was reaching for one of the cigarette-scented towels when the bathroom door swung open and Stuart barged in, toothbrush in hand.Stiles yelped—in a low, manly way, of course—and clutched the towel to his chest.“Dude! There’s this handy social convention called ‘knocking’—heard of it?”Stuart just raised an eyebrow at his twin's reflection as he uncapped the toothpaste. “Not like you’ve got anything I haven’t seen before. As in, every single day of my life. In the mirror.”Stiles fumbled to wrap the towel around his waist. He joined his brother at the sink to brush his teeth.“Okay, now I can’t get it out of my head that I know exactly what you look like naked, because I know what I look like naked. I don’t wanna know what you look like naked. I never asked for this, God.” Stiles glanced heavenward and began brushing.Stuart managed to look contemptuous even with a toothbrush sticking out from between his lips. “You never reawized tha’ befowe?” he asked through a mouthful of toothpaste.“Never reawy though’ abou’ it,” Stiles responded. Maybe it was true, maybe it wasn’t. It had been a long, long time since the thought had crossed his mind, at least. “An’ I’ like to unthink ’bout it now.”Stuart just shook his head and rinsed his mouth before beginning to strip off his own clothes. Stiles nearly choked on the water he was gargling and was out of the bathroom before his brother could get too shamelessly indecent in front of him.Stuart had caught on to Stiles’ discomfort, though, and seemed determined to make the most of it. That was the only way to account for his suddenly adopted exhibitionist streak, because before Stiles knew it his twin was strolling out of the steam-filled bathroom, towel slung over his shoulder instead of around his very naked hips.Stiles, blessedly clad by now in his typical pajama ensemble of oversized t-shirt and sweats, found it was his turn to pretend to be absorbed in his phone as he lay sprawled on the bed. If a reaction was what Stuart wanted, Stiles wasn’t going to give it to him.But Stuart paid him no mind as he leisurely sorted through a suitcase, pulling out a set of sleepwear not dissimilar to Stiles’. And if Stiles took advantage of Stuart’s apparent indifference to study him just a little longer than necessary, no one had to know that. Considering Stiles’ recent epiphany, he was simply curious to know how he looked naked, from the outside, to other people rather than in the mirror. And it was with a slight narcissistic thrill that he came to the conclusion he didn’t look bad at all. In a slightly twink-ish sort of way, but still. Broad shoulders and torso that tapered to slim hips in a pleasing inverted triangle. Round, taught ass—okay, enough. It was still Stuart, after all.Stiles felt his face redden as he averted his eyes. “Quit picking lint out of your belly button and put your clothes on,” he snapped. “You trying to prove a point or something?”Stuart shot him a bemused look as he finally pulled his pajamas on, in no hurry to cover himself. “Are you one of those weirdos who like, doesn’t even like looking at themselves in the mirror nude? I would’ve thought, seeing how well acquainted you got with your right hand in high school, you wouldn’t have that sort of issue with your body, but.” Stuart cut off with a shrug before flopping down on the bed and picking his phone up from where it was charging on the nightstand.“Please, like you weren’t constantly walking around with chafed dick back then. Not like you had any more luck with girls than me,” retorted Stiles.He braced himself for his brother’s comeback, but Stuart simply set his phone down on his sternum and gazed thoughtfully at the ceiling.“You have a boyfriend these days?” he asked, apropos of nothing.“Boyf—she’s a girl, Stu. A girl. Malia. And I’ve been dating and living with her for nearly a year. You can’t even be bothered to remember the gender of the person I’ve been cohabitating with for the past eleven months?”Stuart’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you were, like, gay now, or whatever.”“Oh my God—” Stiles practically rolled his whole head in exasperation. His hands gestured wildly as he spoke. “It’s called bisexuality, Stu, and it’s a thing. That is real. ‘Bi’ as in two, as in both genders, as in boys and girls. It’s not that hard to grasp, really.”Stuart merely hummed and frowned at the ceiling.Stiles fluffed his pillow and reached towards his lamp. “Okay, I’m gonna—”“Shh!” Stuart’s hand shot up to silence his brother.“What?”“Do you hear that?”Stiles listened; he did hear it. The faint creak creak of bedsprings and the high-pitched gasps of a woman in pleasure. Stiles clapped a hand over his face.“Oh, for the love of—”“Think it’s the clerk from the lobby?” Stuart smirked.Stiles looked at him, horrified. “Oh God, no.”Stuart chuckled. “You’re right. Voice’s too high. Not croaky and toad-like enough.”Stiles wrinkled his nose. “Aw, dude, why you gotta put these things in my head. And you are enjoying this way too much.” He was beginning to wonder if his brother had always had an exhibitionist and voyeuristic side, and he had simply never been aware of it prior to tonight.“Eh, not really. You can tell just by the sounds they’re making that they’re a fugly pair. I mean, beautiful people do not come to a place like this to make love. It’s just fact.”“You are horrid,” Stiles said weakly.“Just listen and tell me I’m wrong.”“I’d really rather not—”“Listen to those grunts. Not hot. Guy’s probably got a neckbeard and three chins. And a chode.”Stiles snorted in spite of himself. “You really are an asshole.” But now he was grinning, glancing up at his twin, whose eyes sparkled with a rare mischief. Without his glasses, he looked more like Stiles than ever.“Well, they keep this up—” Stuart jerked his head at the wall, “you might just get your heart’s desire.”“Which is?” Stiles quirked a brow.“I might just have to smother myself with my pillow. You’ll be an only child at last.”Their eyes met, and neither could help the amused smiles that tugged at the corners of their mouths.Just then, the noises in the other room came to an abrupt halt.Stuart’s brows drew together. “Hm. Anticlimactic. Literally, for her, I suspect.”“Guess you get to live to see another day. Darn,” Stiles said without malice. “Now seriously, I gotta get some sleep if you don’t want me driving into oncoming traffic tomorrow.”The switched off their respective lamps and settled under the duvet with their backs to each other.Then, just before too many seconds of silence had passed for it to feel appropriate, Stuart spoke quietly: “’Night, Sti.”Stiles was so caught off guard he almost forgot to answer with a hasty “’Night, Stu.”Stuart was the only one who ever used that shortened version of his nickname. Stiles hadn’t heard it since… well, he couldn’t remember when.Soon enough, Stuart was snoring softly beside him, but Stiles was still tossing and turning. Maybe he’d overdone it on the Adderall. It helped with long drives, but tomorrow perhaps he ought to lay off.He was convinced Stuart was taking up more than half the bed. Probably on purpose. Doing anything he could to annoy Stiles, even in his sleep.Stiles snorted. Yeah, that seemed like his brother.When Stuart rolled towards him, a hand and knee brushing up against Stiles’ side, Stiles was close to shoving him off. It would only be fair that Stuart couldn’t sleep if Stiles couldn’t, after all. But when he caught sight of his twin’s face, only a foot away on the pillow, something held him back.Stuart looked peaceful, his usual scowl smoothed off his features. He almost looked… innocent, like this. As if he could be a good person. A good brother.Stiles could almost forget all the things about his twin that made his blood boil when he was like this. He sighed and closed his eyes.Almost.
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“Called it.” Stuart nodded to Stiles over the roof of the car, leaning on the passenger door. “Neckbeard, three o’clock.”Stiles turned to his right.“My three o’clock, idiot.”Stiles rolled his eyes. “Then you say nine o’clock, moron.” He glanced to the left and, sure enough, there was a heavyset man emerging from room 116: the culprit of last night’s auditory entertainment. And he happened to fit Stuart’s hypothetical description quite well—at least as far as Stiles could tell. The accuracy of his guess on dick size was, however, impossible to gauge.“Congratulations,” muttered Stiles, squinting his eyes. “That is actually… pretty impressive. Disturbingly so. Sure you weren’t spying, you pervtastic voyeur?”Stuart gave a mocking smile. “Sorry, between the two of us I’m hardly the one who deserves the title ‘perv’. I remember what you had saved in your porn folder in high school—”“Oh, and remind me again why you were looking in the first place? ’Cause you actually had to hack into it, so it’s not like it was an accident—”“—swear to God, scarred me for life—”“—don’t try to tell me there’s nothing voyeuristic about snooping through your brother’s porn collection, probably jacking off to it, too—”“Uh, excuse me?” cut in a new voice.Stiles turned and balked at the sight of Neckbeard himself not three feet away.“Heyyy, how you doin’?” Stiles drew out the words, hand raised in an aborted attempt at a wave before going to the back of his neck as his face contorted into a vaguely ill expression. “Doin’ good, right? I bet you are. What a night, huh. At least, for you, sounded like. Not that we were listening,” Stiles rambled.The man shot him an alarmed and affronted look, his face beet red.“Do you mind?” he huffed, gesturing to the car reverse-parked next to Stiles. His eyes looked ready to pop from his head.“Oh, this yours, buddy? I in your way? Righto, we’re just leaving—” Stiles noticed that Stuart had already sunk down into the passenger seat in mortification. “Fact, we’re already gone.”With a quick wink he hopped in behind the wheel and they were peeling out of the parking lot in record time.“‘What a night’?” Stuart repeated incredulously, his ears still tipped in pink.“Hey, I’m not the one who was describing the man’s genitals in detail last night.”Stuart snorted. “I did not go into detail.”“Well, you still started all this. Take some responsibility, man.”“Riiiight. I’m not the one who can’t help but shoot my mouth off in front of a complete stranger. You forget your meds today or something?”“Okay, for the record, I do not have to take my meds every day. Which is a good thing. I get to choose when to take them, and I chose not to today.”“Lucky me.”“Mostly because last night I couldn’t get to sleep, though that might have had something to do with the fact that you were hogging the blankets, and the bed, and basically trying to crawl all over me in your sleep—”“Was not.”“Oh really? Because I swear to God you tried to smother me with your body more than once and ohmygod pancakes.”Stiles swerved so quickly Stuart had to brace a hand on the dashboard.“Dude! The hell are you doing?”“IHOP, man. Gotta fuel up for the road.” He pulled into the parking lot and lurched to a stop in front of the International House of Pancakes.Stuart’s long thumb and middle finger wrapped over his eyes to massage his temples beneath his glasses. “I think you ought to reconsider laying off the meds, because I cannot last the day stuck in the car with an insufferable spazz.”“Dude, that wasn’t the ADHD,” Stiles insisted, mocking offense. “That was simply my deep and abiding love of breakfast foods.”“You just had a continental breakfast at the motel.”“One white-bread wannabe bagel does not a happy, sated Stiles make.”Stuart opened his mouth again, but his brother cut him off with a raised finger.“Ah-ah, no arguing. You will thank me once you’ve tasted the artificial syrupy goodness that awaits you.”Ten minutes later, they were seated and had ordered. Stuart was absorbed in his phone while Stiles busied himself drawing patterns in the pile of salt he’d poured onto the tabletop.Stiles saw his brother’s eye twitch and wondered how long it would take for him to make some snide comment about Stiles’ chosen method of entertainment.Sure enough, not ten seconds later Stuart’s mouth opened, though he didn’t lift his eyes from his screen.“I doubt this establishment appreciates patrons using table condiments as their own personal Etch-a-Sketch.”“And I doubt a multimillion dollar corporation based around the 24/7 marketability of breakfast foods is concerned about absorbing the costs of a little excess spilled salt.”Stiles smirked to himself, satisfied by his brother’s grudging silence, though he did manage to look sheepish when the waitress eyed his handiwork disapprovingly while setting down their plates.A minute later, however, all shame was forgetten as his taste buds reveled in a sugary explosion.“So, how long you taking off, anyway?” Stiles asked around a mouthful of chocolate chip pancake.Stuart shrugged as he pushed his eggs around with his fork. “I dunno.”Stiles narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean, you dunno? You put in for some personal time, right? So when do you have to be back?”Stuart sighed and rested his cheek in his hand. “I got two weeks, but… I don’t know if I wanna go back.”Stiles’ eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “What? Dude, this is like, your dream job. You said you wanted to work for Google when we did those ‘where I’ll be in ten years’ presentations in ninth grade.”“Well, maybe it’s not all I hyped it up to be in my head.” Stuart didn’t meet his brother’s eyes.Stiles shook his head. “No. No way, man. You’re not doing this to yourself again. It’s the same fucking thing you did back in high school. The reason you didn’t get into Harvard or MIT like you wanted. Because you were definitely smart enough, you just—I dunno, hit the self-destruct button or something. You sabotaged yourself and you’re fucking doing it all over again. In fact—” Stiles stabbed his fork towards his twin’s perturbed face, triumphant at his epiphany—“that’s what the thing with Neha is about, isn’t it? That’s why you dumped her. Self-sabotage.” He leaned back with a smug smile.Stuart rolled his eyes and glared at Stiles. “That is not why I dumped Neha. Don’t try to armchair-psychoanalyze me, Sti. You have no idea what you’re talking about.”“I think I have a pretty good idea, because I know you, Stu, and I know that you’re incapable of admitting any blame—”“No, you don’t have an idea, and you don’t know me. And it’s not like you’re one to talk.” Stuart’s nostrils flared in the way Stiles had only ever seen when his twin was truly incensed. “You wanna talk about self-sabotage? Wanna talk about fuck-ups? How about the loser who never had an independent idea in his life so he just decided to follow in Daddy’s footsteps and join the FBI—”“Dad isn’t in the FBI, fuckwad—”“—or in McCall’s daddy’s footsteps, because yeah, let’s get Freudian, there’s some weird displacement shit going on there, not a surprise considering how you trailed that poor kid like his own goddamn shadow for years, just like you followed me around when we were little, because you are incapable of doing anything on your own!” Stuart spat the words out, eyes narrowed to slits. “Only I’m smarter than McCall, so it didn’t take me all the way until college to figure out how to shake you off! No fuckin’ wonder he made sure to escape to a school across the goddamn country from you.”Stiles was cold. Hollow. His voice sounded distant in his own ears when he spoke.“Is that right? Well, at least I’m not the one burning every single fucking bridge I cross to make sure I end up alone, every fuckin’ time. At least I don’t pretend I hate everyone and everything because really, I just hate myself. At least I don’t act like I’m better than everyone and only interested in my fucking phone to hide how pathetically alone I am because the fact is, Stu, no one cares about you, because you only care about yourself. And now your so-called friends at Google have finally wised up to that, because why else would you be stuck with me now instead of someone who actually likes you? But—news flash—no one likes you, Stu. No one gives a fuck about you, not even your own family. You made sure of that.”It wasn’t until Stiles had finished that he realized how loudly he’d been speaking, and how silent the diner had fallen around them. Stuart just sat, staring at him expressionlessly. Stiles could feel heat creeping up his neck, some sickening mixture of self-consciousness and gloating and maybe just a touch of regret, and he was stuck there hardly breathing, just waiting for something to happen—Stuart pushed out his chair with an abrupt grating sound against the tile floor that made Stiles flinch. Without a word, he stood and walked out of the restaurant.Stiles sat hunched over his plate, feeling the eyes of the other diners on him like the crawling of a thousand ants over his skin. He swallowed dryly and looked up.The man at the table next to him was too slow to drop his eyes and ended up caught in Stiles’ furious gaze.“What the fuck you looking at?” Stiles spat.The nearest waitress seemed to jerk out of her shock at that, and scurried over.“Excuse me, sir, I’m going to have to ask you to—”Stiles stood before she could finish, digging a twenty out of his pocket and throwing it down on top of his half-eaten pancakes. He’d lost his appetite anyway.“I’m going,” he muttered, and stalked out after his twin.Only, once he was out in the parking lot, he realized he didn’t know where Stuart had gone. Stiles had the keys to the car, and Stuart wasn’t standing there expecting to be let in.Stiles sighed, annoyed but also relieved to have a bit of space. He unlocked the car and sat inside, waiting for Stuart.A full fifteen minutes passed before the passenger door was finally yanked open and a stony-faced Stuart buckled in next to him. Neither said a word as Stiles started the engine pulled out onto the road again.…The buzzing of Stiles’ phone punctured the tense silence of the car for the third time in as many minutes. Stiles, who had been pointedly ignoring it, finally relented and glanced at the screen. He cursed under his breath and changed lanes to take the turnoff.Stuart glanced sideways at him but said nothing.Stiles pulled into the nearest gas station and hopped out to fill the tank, phone pressed to his ear. He didn’t spare a look for his brother as Stuart got out and headed into the convenience store.When Stuart returned, iced coffee in hand, Stiles was in the parking lot next to the car, still on his phone and running an agitated hand through his hair.“No, I don’t—I don’t know, Malia, okay—Yeah, I know, but—I will. I won’t! I said I wouldn’t, didn’t I? And he isn’t—” Stiles turned and caught sight of Stuart on the other side of the car. “Uh, I gotta go, Malia. No—babe, can’t talk right now,” he muttered through his teeth. “Right. Sorry. Yeah, I promise. Fine. Okay, lov—” Stiles pulled the phone away from his ear and frowned at it before shoving it in his pocket with a disgruntled eye-roll.He pointedly avoided meeting his brother’s appraising gaze. “What’re you looking at?” he grit out as he fumbled with the door handle.Stuart merely arched his eyebrows by way of answer before getting into his seat.Stiles had the keys in the ignition when he noticed that his brother was struggling to pull on his seatbelt. He watched out of the corner of his eye as Stuart pulled at it awkwardly with his right hand, coffee in the left. He cursed softly to himself and switched the beverage to his other hand, only to lose his grip and drop the cup into his lap, spilling its contents all over his front.“Oh fuck, shit! Fuck, fuck!” Stuart shoved the cup onto the floor and brushed ice off his lap.Stiles covered the laugh bubbling up his throat with a cough. Normally he wouldn’t have bothered sparing his brother’s pride, but it felt too distasteful to break into riotous laughter before their post-argument frost had thawed, even for Stiles.“Shut the fuck up,” Stuart snarled nonetheless.“I didn’t say anything,” Stiles said reasonably, only earning a death glare for his troubles.“I need to change,” muttered Stuart. “Grab me something from my suitcase, pants and shirt.”Before Stiles could object and tell him to get his own damn clothes, Stuart was out of the car and storming towards the bathrooms, his stride so bowlegged to accommodate the wet crotch of his pants that Stiles allowed himself a smug snicker.He grabbed the first wardrobe items he found at the top of his brother’s suitcase and headed towards the restroom after him, not bothering to check if his picks matched. He secretly hoped they didn’t.Stiles glanced down. Gray chinos and a white button down. Dammit, no such luck.He faltered at the door to the men’s room. The hand dryer was running inside. He lifted a tentative fist and knocked.“Uh, Stu? I got your—”The door yanked open and Stuart tugged him inside by the wrist before closing and locking it again.He had already stripped off his jeans and… was apparently in the process of drying the front of his underwear.Stiles failed to suppress his snort this time. He couldn’t resist the perfect opportunity. It was too awkward not to say anything, anyway.“Didn’t realize caffeinated beverage spills was what did it for you, bro. Lemme give you a tip I learned in, oh, 8th grade; wait till you’re in the shower, or at least over a toilet. Doesn’t leave such a mess—”“Ha, ha,” Stuart deadpanned. He peeled off his t-shirt and went to the sink to run water over the stain.Stiles waited by the door, stomach suddenly rolling nervously as he shifted from foot to foot, wondering where his eyes should rest. Stuart wore really tight boxers. Stiles wanted to make a wildly inappropriate comment, fill the silence with the sound of his own voice and force the discomfort back into his brother’s court, but he could still feel the frosty barrier between them, putting ice in his gut and apparently freezing his tongue.“What?” Stuart was looking at him in the mirror.“What?” Stiles responded automatically, his face going red.Stuart shook his head. “I don’t get it. Didn’t you spend like, your entire high school career in the boy’s locker room? You saw dudes in underwear all the time. And less.”Stiles grimaced at how easily his twin had read him. “Well, yeah, but no one on the lacrosse team wore…” He made a vague gesture in Stuart’s direction.“Wore what? Underwear? That concerns me.”Stiles snorted. “They wore underwear, just not, like, hug-my-body catwoman wetsuit booty shorts. Except Danny, sometimes. But… that was Danny.”Stuart looked at him like he was crazy. “First off, these are boxer briefs. They’re really pretty common. Second, didn’t you see them all naked in the showers?”“Well, I didn’t look in the showers. That is not locker room etiquette, man.”“But… you’re looking now?”Before Stiles could give his indignant response, Stuart cut him off. “Look, you are making this way more weird than it has to be,” he said, coming over and stuffing his wet clothing into Stiles’ arms so he could grab the spares. “I’m a guy. I’ve got what you’ve got. Like, exactly what you’ve got. And I’m your brother. Just, chill out.” He pulled on the button down.“Exactly, you’re my brother!” spluttered Stiles. “And that… that sort of came out wrong. What I mean is—” He scratched his eyebrow, wracking his mind. “I’m not very, uh, open. With that sort of thing. I got used to it in the locker room and I knew the guys on the team, so I didn’t mind there so much.” His eyes were still determinedly looking everywhere but at Stuart. He wet his lips nervously. “But I haven’t seen you… like this… since, like, middle school? I dunno man, but it’s like, a private thing, and we don’t… we don’t share private things,” he finished, the blush hot in his cheeks.Stuart just looked at him blankly. He’d stopped dressing and stood there in his open shirt and boxer briefs.He heaved a sigh and took the bundle of clothes from Stiles’ arms. “Button this for me,” he muttered.That finally forced Stiles to look at his brother. “What? No.”Stuart set his jaw. “I can’t button it, my fingers are janked up. You chose a button down, so you gotta button. Unless you want to go get me a different shirt.”Stiles frowned. “What’s wrong with your fingers?”“It’s nothing.” Stuart rubbed the knuckles of his right hand. Now that Stiles was looking, he could see they were red and maybe even swollen.“Dude, that’s the hand you dropped the coffee cup from. What’s up with it?”“I said, it’s nothing,” Stuart insisted, but Stiles wasn’t having it.“No way, dude. If I gotta button up your goddamn shirt for you, you better believe I’m gonna goddamn know why.”Stuart jutted his jaw out, his eyes focusing on the ceiling in his most recalcitrant expression. “I… sort of… jammed it.”“…How?”Stuart barely moved his lips as he spoke. “Punching a wall.”“Punching—what? Punching a wall? What—When did you do that?”Stuart was silent a moment before finally lowering his eyes to glare at his brother. “After I walked out of the restaurant.”Stiles blinked. Oh. Now that he thought of it, their earlier argument had induced the desire to punch a wall in him, as well. And considering the things he had said to his twin…Stuart grimaced, and Stiles realized he was bracing himself for Stiles’ laughter.But he didn’t laugh. Instead, he looked at his feet and nodded. He swallowed, straightened himself up and very carefully didn’t look at his brother’s face as he reached for the top button of the shirt.Only to be bewildered and slightly ticked-off when Stuart immediately batted his hand away.“Not the top button, Jesus Christ. You wanna make me look like some fucking choir boy?”Stiles rolled his eyes and dropped his hands to the next button.“Not that one either! I’m not some middle-aged suburban dad!”“Oh, okay, so you just wanna be hanging out of your shirt, flashing man boob everywhere. Got it.” Stiles started on the third button down.Stuart scoffed. “I don’t have man boobs, thanks very much. And for your information, usually I wear a t-shirt under these things, but this is what you brought me so we gotta work with it.”“Oh, so it’s my fault?”“Obviously.”Stiles rolled his eyes, but a soft smile tugged at his lips as his fingers moved deftly down the shirt. It may have been a weird situation, but it was better than the stony silence between them before.“I am so not doing up your pants for you,” said Stiles when he was finished.Stuart pursed his lips and stuffed the wet clothes back into his brother’s chest, grabbing the chinos and pulling them on in irritation. He struggled with the zipper and button while glowering at his brother, but Stiles simply smiled blithely and made no move to help. Stuart got it in the end and crammed his sneakers back on his socked feet.“Hey, but uh,” Stiles said as they exited the restroom, “you should really ice that hand. I’ll get something cold for it,” he offered, handing the soiled clothes back to Stuart.Stuart nodded and went to wait in the car while Stiles jogged to the shop door.When Stiles returned with a bag of frozen peas, Stuart was absorbed in his phone. Rather than his usual bland expression, though, he looked contemplative. Stiles tried to steal a glance at the screen, but all he could make out was that Stuart was looking at a photo.“Y’know, having your hands in the same position on your phone twenty-four seven puts you at high risk for carpal tunnel later in life,” said Stiles conversationally. “Just wait, couple decades it’ll be like an epidemic for our generation, and you, sir, are a prime candidate. What’s so interesting on there, anyway?”He reached over and snatched the device from his brother’s fingers before Stuart could stop him.“Hey—” Stuart was cut off by the bag of peas being tossed into his lap.Stiles squinted at the photo, holding the phone up in one hand and pushing back on his brother’s shoulder with the other as Stuart made a swipe at him.“Give it back!”“Who is that?” Stiles’ eyes flicked over the smiling faces of a group of people. Two middle-aged men, Neha, whom he recognized from his twin’s previous Facebook profile picture, a couple guys roughly Stuart’s age, and Stuart himself in their midst. Stuart, Stiles’ grouchy, apathetic and often antisocial twin, actually smiling—maybe even laughing?—with his arms slung over the shoulders of his neighbors, mouth open and dark eyes crinkled in mirth. Looking genuinely happy. Happier than Stiles could remember seeing him in a long, long time. Since before their mother died, most likely.Stiles felt something twist in his stomach, like he’d intruded, seen something he shouldn’t have.
We don’t share private things.
He swallowed against the suddenly sour taste in his mouth and handed the phone back without struggle. Stuart snatched it away to stow it in his pocket and return to nursing his hand morosely.“Those your Google friends?” Stiles asked quietly.“So-called,” Stuart huffed.Stiles felt a pang in his chest, recalling his own words at breakfast. “Nah,” he said, struggling to keep his voice light. “They look like real friends.”“They were. Probably hate me now, though.” Stuart looked out the window.“Because of Neha?” Stiles ventured hesitantly.Stuart nodded.Stiles sighed, his hands going to the steering wheel on reflex. “Look.” His fingers lifted outwards in a shrug-like gesture. “They don’t… hate you. They might be pissed right now, but... just, apologize, man. Be their friend again. And be nice to Neha. She might not be ready to hear it, but it still counts to try. Just, don’t be an asshole. So, yeah, might be sorta hard for you. Impossible, actually—”Stuart snorted, but he was smiling, just barely.Stiles chuckled and thumbed at his nose before continuing. “No, but really, an apology can go a long way.”Suddenly his throat felt thick. His brow furrowed as he swallowed through it. “I mean, I’m sure things were said, on both sides… hurtful things. And it can feel just about fucking impossible to say sorry, and maybe you wouldn’t even believe her if she said she’s sorry too, but the truth is, when people are angry they say some really stupid shit.” The words were rushing out now, tumbling over each other as Stiles stared at his hands on the wheel. “They say things they don’t mean, because they just wanted you to hurt, and they know what will hurt, so they say it, but that doesn’t mean they really think those things, and they’re probably even really—ashamed, of what they said.”He had to stop and clear his throat, gain control over the slight tremor that had appeared in his voice. “So.” He licked his lips. “Would you… If she. Apologized. Would you accept her apology?”Finally, Stiles risked looking at his brother, lip caught nervously between his lips.Stuart was staring at the bag of peas pressed over his hand, eyes unreadable behind his glasses.“Only if she would accept mine.”Stiles let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. He turned back to the steering wheel and nodded, the shadow of a smile on his lips.“Yeah,” he breathed, like he’d just run a marathon. “Believe me, she would.”He turned the keys in the ignition and took them back out onto the road.Silence filled the car once more, only it was content this time. There was no need to fill it.Neither spoke for a long minute, until Stuart held up his injured hand. “Thanks for the, uh, peas.”“No prob, man.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It felt strange to Stuart, walking the streets of Beacon Hills once more. He hadn’t given much thought to his hometown—not really his hometown anymore, just the place he had grown up—since he’d left it for college. He’d been back a few times, of course, for the mandatory holidays, but not in the past couple years. He didn’t have to go through the motions of being a dutiful son once he’d been assured of a steady income from Google, at which point he’d asked his father to stop paying towards his tuition. He could pay off the loans himself within a few years, and most importantly, he didn’t have to feel guilty anymore.At least, that was what he told himself.When it came to his father, there was plenty Stuart felt guilty about, but even more he felt resentful for. Then again, the guilt and resentment had been so wrapped up in each other ever since his mother first fell ill so many years ago that perhaps he was incapable of distinguishing them from each other at this point. He knew Stiles blamed him for making things harder on their dad since their mom died, and worse, Stuart knew he was right. It felt too late to admit it now, though. Things with Stiles would pretty much patch themselves up if Stuart ever reconciled with their father, but he couldn’t bring himself to. Not yet, anyway. Which was why Stuart had specifically chosen one of those rare weekends when the sheriff of Beacon Hills was away to make his trip back home.There was really only one place in his old town that Stuart missed, and it wasn’t the house he’d once called home. It certainly wasn’t the high school, where he’d counted down the hours till his freedom: freedom from his teachers, who couldn’t teach him anything relevant to his future because he was going to be a programmer, goddammit, and he didn’t need to know the fucking chemical equation for cellular respiration or the dates of Supreme Court cases that happened over a century ago; freedom from his classmates—not friends, as the only real friends he’d had at that age were confined to the virtual sphere of the internet—and their insufferable social cliques; freedom from his family, who made him feel increasingly like an unwanted interloper in his own house (and if that was thanks mostly to his own stubbornly antisocial behavior, Stuart refused to recognize it).No, the one place Stuart still felt occasional nostalgia for was the pizza shop on 4th street that served a better pie than any he’d yet to find in Silicon Valley (and if the nostalgia had more to do with his memories of coming there as a family, happy and whole with a still-living mother, than with the taste of the pizza, Stuart refused to recognize that either).And so it was that Stuart found himself retracing old, familiar sidewalks as he walked from the parking garage to the pizza shop to pick up dinner for himself and Stiles, whom he’d left at the house after making a short job of the unpacking.It was uncanny, seeing how much was exactly the same as six years ago but noticing how many little things had changed at the same time. A vacant lot turned to a construction zone, the drycleaner’s boarded up with a for sale sign out front, the old diner rebranded as a chic, vegan-friendly café. More than once, Stuart thought he caught sight of an old familiar face crossing the street and nearly did a 180 just to avoid bumping into a high school acquaintance, but it turned out he was just being paranoid.Take now, for instance: he could swear he knew that tall, long-faced boy with the athletic build and olive skin, and that petite redhead with the plump lips coming towards him on the sidewalk—Oh shit. He did know them.And he was making eye contact. There was no getting out of this.Two large eyes widened in recognition. “Stuart? Stilinski?”Danny Mahealani flashed him half a blinding-white grin, apparently confused, or maybe just surprised.Lydia Martin furrowed her perfectly plucked brows and glanced between them. “You know him?” she asked her companion, unconcerned if Stuart heard her.“Yeah, remember, the Stilinski twins? From high school?” Danny said, making a valiant effort to keep the words under his breath. Lydia simply squinted at him as though he’d started speaking in tongues.Danny looked back at Stuart. “Hey, is Stiles around?”Stuart’s eye twitched in annoyance, because why did everyone always assume that where one twin was, the other had to be lurking around some nearby corner? He and Stiles hadn’t even been close back in high school, when Danny had known them—or more accurately, known Stiles, from lacrosse, which made the fact that Danny remembered Stuart at all somewhat surprising and, actually, mildly flattering.“Uh, no, he’s not. Around. He is in town, though. At home. We just drove in together today.”“Oh.” Danny looked even more surprised at that detail, so maybe he did remember that the Stilinski twins weren’t close after all. Stuart supposed the guy’s reputation as socially savvy and universally likable was well-earned.“What are you doing back in town?”Which, of course, didn’t save him from asking inconvenient questions.Stuart’s hand went to the back of his neck. “Uhh, I’m just, in the middle of a move. Stiles was helping me haul some stuff I don’t need back home.”“Oh, you guys both in the Bay Area now?”Stuart blinked. He was fairly certain he and Danny were Facebook friends, but that didn’t mean he knew a single thing about what the guy had done since graduating from Beacon Hills High. He tried not to feel embarrassed about that. Really, it was just weird that Danny remembered personal details, like where he lived, so well. And, yes, just a little flattering.“Yeah, yeah, we are. He’s at the FBI in San Francisco; I’m at Google.”Lydia, who had been twirling her hair and checking her nails, not even pretending to be interested in this spontaneous catch-up session, perked up at that.“You work at Google?” Her eyes practically lit up as she took a step forward, appraising Stuart in a way that made his mind abruptly jump to the fly of his pants, fervently hoping he hadn’t somehow forgotten to zip it up. Not that there was a high likelihood of that, but he would have checked had there been any inconspicuous way to do so.“Uh, yeah,” he responded, and he was beginning to think his vocabulary had shrunk down to those two words alone.“What do you do for them?”Stuart was fairly certain Lydia had no idea who he was, or who his twin was, despite his brother’s infamous crush of nearly a decade. Why she was taking such sudden interest in him at the mention of his employer had him nonplussed.“Um, I’m… an engineer. Programmer.”Lydia tilted her head, eyes doing one final scrutinizing sweep of his body before apparently reaching a conclusion. Her face broke into a smile made for the cover of a magazine.“You should come to the party I’m hosting tonight.”Stuart blinked.“Just a few from the old high school crowd.” As though Stuart had been a part of that crowd. “It’s at my house. The address is—”“Ah, no, that’s okay—” Stuart cut himself off, realizing the words ‘I know where you live’ might sound a bit odd to a girl who hadn’t been aware he existed until just a minute ago. “I remember where your house is. From one of your… birthday parties,” he tried, hoping that didn’t sound suspect. It didn’t even occur to him to turn her down. Somehow, that didn’t seem like an option.Luckily, his answer appeared to please Lydia.“Good. Dress is semiformal. Ties for men, no jeans. Be there at nine.”Before Stuart had a chance to respond, Lydia was speaking to Danny again.“Come on, you have to help me pick out a new dress. It’s going to take a while.”She brushed past Stuart and Danny started after her. Glancing back over his shoulder, he added, “You should bring Stiles, too.”“Who?” Lydia asked distractedly. “Whatever, sure, he’s invited too,” she said with a dismissive wave of the hand.Stuart watched them go, Lydia charging ahead, high-heeled sandals be damned, Danny stumbling to keep up despite his long legs. Looking at him from behind, Stuart was suddenly reminded of what Stiles had said about Danny and hug-the-body booty shorts. With that unsolicited image in his mind and two very pink ears, Stuart continued on his way to the pizza shop.…“Y’know, it’s actually… it’s not going as bad as it could be.” Stiles readjusted his grip on the phone as he allowed himself to slide back over the arm of the couch till he was lying down, feet dangling in midair.“Oh no. No, don’t tell me that. I knew this would happen,” Malia’s accusatory tone cut through the speaker.Stiles frowned. “Knew what would happen? Isn’t that a good thing? Aren’t you glad to hear I’m not on the verge of committing a murder-suicide?”“No, I’m not! Because this is what always happens, Stiles! And it’s what I warned you not to do!”“What are you talking about?”“You’re letting him weasel his way back in with you. It’s what he does, Stiles. He convinces you he’s not really so bad so he can get what he wants before he goes and screws you over again. And you never even see it coming, but he always does, it’s always something, you always think he’s changed but he hasn’t, and only then do you remember why you hate him so much.”“What? What—okay, that is not true—”“I remember you telling me how good the Google internship was gonna be for him, and maybe he’d finally apologize to your dad—and then boom, name change. Didn’t see that one coming, did you?”“That was, like, two years ago,” he mumbled defensively, neglecting to mention that yeah, that one still rankled him.“And then he cancelled going home for Christmas that year because he wasn’t taking any more of daddy’s money, so just, fuck you guys, I guess? He had Google, who needs family?”Stiles sighed through his nose. “Okay, but that was just his thing with Dad, that doesn’t really have to do with us—”“Oh my god, you’re doing it again! You’re defending him! You’re actually defending him, Stiles. You ranted to me for over an hour after he cancelled that Christmas. Even if you have selective memory when it comes to your brother, I don’t.”“Well, what do you want me to do?” Stiles couldn’t help but raise his voice. He wriggled around on the couch in agitation. The corner of a throw pillow was digging into his neck. “Is it so bad if we actually get along for once? I mean, it’s not exactly like we’re braiding each other’s hair and making friendship bracelets, but c’mon, just being able to sit in the car together and not want to bite each other’s heads off—it’s an accomplishment! You want me to sabotage that, or something?”“If it means getting you home faster, then yes! Just watch, he’s gonna try to drag this out, ask some other favor or something.”“Yeah, well, at this point I’m beginning to wonder why you want me back so quick. You seemed eager enough to push me out the door.” The words were past his lips before Stiles could catch them. He raised a fist to his mouth and waited with bated breath for the blowback.When Malia spoke, Stiles could tell it was through clenched teeth. “That’s because I didn’t want you to go in the first place, Stiles. Do I need to remind you that you agreed to help him without consulting me? That you agreed to postpose the vacation we’ve been planning for months for a second time without even asking me first?”“I’ve said I’m sorry! What do you want me to do? What should I have done differently, huh?” Stiles sat up properly, shoving the offending pillow onto the floor to make room. “The first time was because of work, you know that—”“And I said I understood that! Work, I understand—”“—and this time was because my brother needed my help! You should have heard him on the phone, he really needed me—”“Keep telling yourself that, Stiles—”“—he was counting on me, and he’s family!”“Yes, Stiles, he is, and I think that means something pretty different to him than it does to you.”Stiles tugged the pillow back onto his lap, hugging it to his chest as he tried to ignore the tightness in his throat. He didn’t trust himself to speak just yet, so he let Malia continue.“So, if you want to let him keep taking advantage of that, be my guest. But I’m getting pretty sick of saying ‘I told you so.’”Stiles swallowed, fidgeting with the corner of the pillow. “No one’s taking advantage of anyone here, okay? There isn’t going to be an ‘I told you so’ this time. It’s not like—it’s not like I’m letting him get close, or something. Okay? I know who I’m dealing with, here. I just think he’s… He’s in a rough spot.”“So, what, if you’re there to pick up the pieces he’s gonna suddenly want to be your best friend? He’s gonna be grateful? Is that what you think? It’s pathetic, Stiles.”Stiles’ nails scratched at the fabric of the pillow. “I don’t want him to be my best friend,” he grit out.“And yet you chose him over me this weekend! I can’t believe you actually chose him over me.”Stiles opened his mouth and closed it again. His eyes stung and he could smell saline in his nostrils. “You wouldn’t und—” He sighed, closed his eyes. “Never mind. I gotta go.”“Oh, you gotta go. How convenient—”Stiles hung up the phone and tossed it onto the coffee table. He hunched over, clutching the pillow, and stared at his shoes.She was wrong. She had to be. Yeah, so things had been rocky getting started. They always were. There were issues to work through after barely speaking for a year, and there were plenty of things about Stuart that just rubbed Stiles the wrong way; it was their personalities, plain and simple. They were different. Or maybe they were too much the same. He wasn’t really sure; all he knew was that they didn’t mix well.But Stuart did seem grateful. He had been desperate when he’d first called Stiles up, would have to be to call Stiles at all. But now that they’d made it to Beacon Hills some tension seemed to have gone out of Stuart, like he’d unpacked more than the physical burden of his suitcases and boxes. He’d even offered to go get them pizza. Stuart didn’t do things like offer to pick up pizza from their favorite childhood pizza shop. And yet, here they were.
You always think he’s changed, but he hasn’t.
Stiles gripped the pillow tighter.
You never even see it coming.
Pathetic.
Stiles dug the heels of his palms into his eyes and rubbed hard.Just then the front door swung open. Stiles jumped; he hadn’t heard the car pull up.“Pizza!” Stuart called out in a singsong voice. “Get it while it’s hot!”He strode through the living room towards the dining table, stopping short when he caught sight of Stiles on the couch.Stiles stood and straightened himself out rapidly, hoping his face could pass for normal.“Dude, everything okay?” Stuart asked hesitantly.Stiles licked his lips and stared at the carpet. He swallowed twice before attempting speech. “Yeah, just. Malia.”Stuart nodded, as if that one-word explanation was enough for him. Maybe it was.Or maybe Stiles was seeing what he wanted to see. His fingers rubbed the hem of his shirt.“I got your favorite,” Stuart blurted out, holding up a pizza box. “Uh—” His ears went pink. “Sausage and onion. It is still your favorite, right?”Stiles blinked and looked at his twin. It occurred to him Stuart was asking because it had been that long since they had had pizza together. Stiles couldn’t even remember the last time. In fact, he was surprised Stuart remembered his favorite toppings at all.“Yeah, yeah it is.”Stuart nodded, visibly relieved.He was silent a second before adding, quietly, “Same as Mom.”Stiles’ lips parted, dumb. He’d forgotten that those had been their mother’s favorite toppings, that that was the reason he had grown to love them in the first place. How could he have forgotten that? Every detail about their mother he tried to keep locked like a treasure in his memory. He couldn’t believe he’d let this bit of information—even something as trivial as pizza toppings—slip through.But Stuart had remembered.“Yeah,” Stiles breathed at last. “Same as Mom.”There was a silent moment between them. It was broken when Stuart resumed course for the dining room, shrugging a shoulder.“Well, all for you. I haven’t been able to eat sausage since we watched that video in tenth grade health class. You’re probably eating cow colon, so, enjoy that.”Stiles rolled his eyes, but was all too happy to follow his brother to the table. “I will, thanks, because I have erased everything about tenth grade health class from my mind, and I especially don’t think about it just before eating, because I’m not a masochist.”“Shut up. It’s not a personal choice. That shit was traumatic.”Soon, their mouths were too full of melted cheese and hot crust to gripe at each other. It wasn’t until Stuart was on his fourth slice that he took a break from chewing long enough to say to his twin, “We should wait till tomorrow to head back.”Stiles eyed him warily. “I thought you wanted to get out of Beacon Hills as soon as possible.” The plan had been to drop stuff off, get food, and hit the road again. They could make it to San Francisco the next morning.And as much as Stiles didn’t want to admit it, Malia’s words were still buzzing around his head like mosquitos he couldn’t swat away. He’s gonna try to drag this out. Ask for some other favor. He didn’t want her to be proven right.Stuart shrugged. “There’s a party tonight.”Stiles looked at his brother like he was crazy. “Who the hell in Beacon Hills is throwing a party you would want to go to? Or be invited to in the first place?”“Lydia Martin,” Stuart responded casually.Stiles nearly dropped his slice of pizza.“Lydia—like, the Lydia Martin?”“I’m only aware of the one.” Stuart glanced up nonchalantly. “Catchin’ flies there.” He tapped his chin.Stiles closed his gaping mouth indignantly and narrowed his eyes. “Lydia doesn’t even live in Beacon Hills anymore.”“Well, either she’s moved back, or she’s visiting; but she’s definitely in town. And throwing a party tonight.”“How do you even know that?”“I saw her downtown. With Danny Mahealani.”“Danny? What, are Beacon Hills High’s Most Popular having their five-year reunion or something?”“If they were, I don’t think we’d be invited, bro. Sorry to break it to ya.”“Mm.” Stiles shrugged in agreement. “Which also begs the question, why would you even want to go to a party with those people? You’re not the one who harbored an epic crush for a decade.”Stuart chewed thoughtfully. “It’s true I kind of hated that whole clique back in high school. But, that’s sort of the point. Back then I was the loner nerd, now I work at Google.”“…Where you are still a loner nerd,” supplied Stiles.“Shut up,” said Stuart without inflection. “The point is, now’s my turn to laugh about whatever they’re doing with their pathetic lives. Revenge of the nerd kid.”“That’s your idea of an entertaining evening? You know, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: you are an asshole.”Stuart shrugged. “I figure it could be cathartic.”Stiles snorted. “Well, that’s nice, but I don’t consider your search for catharsis quite important enough to put off getting back to San Francisco by nearly another whole day. Malia’ll kill me. Like literally, first-degree murder me.”“Lydia said you’re invited, too.”Stiles’ eyes snapped up to his twin’s face. “What do you mean—I mean, I figured I’m invited de facto, but like, did she say I was invited? Me?”“She said you’re invited.” Stuart seemed more interested in rolling bits of crust up into dough balls than making eye contact.Stiles’ tongue darted out to wet his lips. “Well—whatever. That doesn’t mean anything. I don’t care. She’s still with Jackson fucking Whittemore. And—shit. What I meant to say is that I’m with Malia, so, doesn’t matter anyway.” He cleared his throat.Stuart eyed him. “Sounds to me like there’s trouble in paradise.”“Paradise? With Malia?” Stiles snorted, then caught himself. He coughed. “Um, that’s not—I don’t want to talk about Malia.”“Then don’t. Don’t even think about her. Just blow off some steam tonight. Sounds like you could use it. You deserve it, driving me all the way down here—”“Oh my God, you bastard. Stop trying to manipulate me.” Stiles thought again of what Malia had said, and brushed it off. Surely it didn’t count if he knew he was being manipulated, if the manipulation was this transparent.Stuart shrugged noncommittally. “Tell me you don’t want to be manipulated. Look into my eyes, and tell me you don’t want to be talked into going to a party at Lydia Martin’s house, which she invited you to.”“I have a girlfriend!”“And, given the chance, you wouldn’t make out with Lydia Martin?”Stiles glared. “Irrelevant. Not gonna happen.”“Oh, I think it’s highly relevant. You can’t honestly tell me you wouldn’t make out with Lydia Martin, given the opportunity. Maybe do even more.”“Stu!”“What? Don’t be such a prude. Is this Malia’s doing? I don’t remember you being like this before.”“Like what?”“A prude. Uptight. A blushing virgin in some respects, yes, but very eager for experience sorely lacked and none too shy about his excessive masturbatory practices—”“Okay, dude, you’re one to talk. I’m not the one who spent all his time locked in his room jacking off to anime porn or whatever—”“Okay, first of all, it’s called hentai, and second of all, I did not jack off to that stuff in high school.”“Wait, so. Does that mean you have… since high school?” Stiles squinted suspiciously.Stuart’s ears went bright red. “It’s not—I mean, I’ve seen—Neha was into that stuff, okay? So, naturally…”“Neha? Seriously?” Stiles blinked and sat back in his chair. “Wait, it’s all starting to make sense now.” He nodded slowly. “She’s the one responsible for unleashing your inner, closet perv—thus all the sexualized talk and behavior—”“Sexualized? Dude, you’re the only one here sexualizing his brother being undressed for entirely functional purposes—”“Oh, it is not me. You’re doing it on purpose—”“—and for your information, just because I didn’t talk to you about sex stuff when we were younger doesn’t mean I was some sexless teen—”“I think you were pretty sexless, if you know what I mean—”“Well you can’t have it both ways! Was I a shamelessly horny teenager who spent all his time jacking off in his room or did I only recently undergo a belated sexual awakening with my kinky ex-girlfriend?”“The answer is both, because you may have been a horned up virgin then, but now you’ve actually gotten to live out your degenerate fantasies—”“You know, I think you have a really skewed idea in your mind about how much of my time shut away in my room was spent on self-gratification, which I can only assume is based on your own personal habits. You know only one thin wall separates our rooms, and you never bothered keeping too quiet—”“Augh! God, enough with the sex talk!” Stiles ran an agitated hand through his hair, his face red. The idea of his brother listening to him jack off, intentionally or not—and still remembering it years later—was making him highly uncomfortable.Stuart leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest smugly. “So. We going to this party?”Stiles glared. “You know, I’m really tempted to say no just because you seem to want to go so badly. Which I still don’t really get, by the way, but that’s besides the point.”“You’d only be hurting yourself, bro. Lydia Martin. Don’t kid yourself. If you say no it’s only because Malia’s got you on such a tight leash.”Stiles crossed his arms in turn. “Relationships are built on respect, compromise, and communication—something I doubt you understand, given your pathetically selfish reasoning behind dumping your own girlfriend.”“Hm. Respect, compromise, communication: yeah, that sounds a lot like Malia,” drawled Stuart.“You don’t even know her,” Stiles spat back.“Two words: Lydia. Martin.”Stuart held Stiles’ irked gaze unflinchingly, until finally Stiles had to look away.“…But,” he admitted quietly, “Malia has been… an especially sanctimonious pain in my ass recently, so… I’m not going to let her unreasonable standards ruin my only chance to catch up with some old high school friends.” He could feel the blush rising in his cheeks.“And share some spit with them.”Stiles bit back a growl. “I am not a free man, Stu.”“No. No, that you most certainly are not.”“Shut up.”…“These. And… this.” Stuart pulled a pair of khaki slacks and a navy button down from his suitcase and handed them to Stiles.Stiles hesitated. It wasn’t that he actually minded changing in front of his brother—he was a normal, functioning human no matter what Stuart probably thought of him by now; it was just that after all their talk about various states of undress, Stiles felt like it had become a thing and Stuart was going to comment on it, whether Stiles stayed or insisted on taking the clothes to his own room to change.That would be too much, though. There wasn’t anything weird about changing in front of his brother, given the situation, after all. Stiles felt he needed to prove he knew that, now, and if it hadn’t become such a damn stupid thing he wouldn’t even be standing here overanalyzing it.Before he could think himself into a new dilemma, Stiles was tugging off his shirt and wiggling out of his pants. He grabbed the slacks and pulled them on before Stuart could make any teasing remark.But his brother was merely sitting on his bed, looking slightly bored, eyes only occasionally flicking over to check Stiles’ progress.There was something oddly… nice, about that, Stiles concluded. ‘Comfortable’ wouldn’t exactly be right—not when Stiles’ heart was still pounding abnormally hard in his bare chest and he could feel the heat in his cheeks every time his brother’s eyes swept casually over him—but there was something about it. Maybe because it simply seemed like something brothers did, should be able to do. Hadn’t that been Stiles’ earlier complaint? That they didn’t share private things? And now they were. It wasn’t a big deal. It was just… nice. A marker of closeness, of familiarity, of intimacy. Just of an emotional sort, of course. Stiles did not sexualize this type of situation, despite what Stuart said.Still, he did feel slightly relieved once he had the shirt buttoned. He turned to examine himself in Stuart’s full-length mirror.“Dude, why are your shirts so tight? Aren’t we the same size?” Stiles frowned at the way the fabric pulled over his chest and shoulders.“It’s called a fitted shirt,” Stuart remarked patronizingly, pushing himself off the bed to come get a better look at his twin. “Which I know you’ve never heard of, judging by the awful over-sized things you call formal shirts that look straight out of a 1991 men’s catalogue.”“Hey.” Stiles scowled. “I’m afraid I’ll tear this thing if I reach out too far.”“It’s stretch fabric. And beggars can’t be choosers. Not my fault everything you brought for the weekend looks like a frat boy’s casual Friday.”“Dude. What’s with the jabs at my wardrobe? We need to talk about this?”Stuart rolled his eyes. “Look, I’m doing you a favor. Shows off your biceps.”He stepped behind Stiles and gave the mentioned muscles a quick squeeze.Stiles twisted away, feigning annoyance, but snuck a glance at his arms in the mirror, wondering if Stuart was right.“Now,” continued Stuart, assessing his own reflection, “luckily, due to my earlier coffee mishap and your no doubt entirely unwitting and unintended tasteful selection of clothing for me, I’m already dressed for success.” He preened, smoothing the front of his shirt.Stiles rolled his eyes. “Oh my God. You are so vain.”Stuart shrugged. “You should be flattered if I like looking at my reflection, twin of mine.”Stiles blinked, unsure if his brother had actually just paid him a compliment.Rather than parse it out, he cleared his throat and diverted. “Well, you’re not keeping that fucking stupid hat, that’s for sure.”Stuart glared at him in the mirror but grudgingly removed the beanie and fell to artfully disheveling his hair.“I’m only taking it off because Lydia said semiformal dress. And it is not fucking stupid, for your information.”“It screams douchebag.”Stuart scoffed. “It’s a personality marker. The glasses say I’m smart but the beanie says I’m laid back.”“It says you’re a douchebag.”“Shut up. As if I’m going to take fashion advice from a guy who still wears plaid cargo shorts.”“What—what is wrong with plaid cargo shorts? And I only have, like, one pair, anyway. Two tops.”“The shorts—actually, all cargo shorts—plus the short-sleeve plaids, plus your whole ridiculously extensive collection of zip-up hoodies might as well come with a sign saying ‘I have zero fashion sense and am so aggressively heterosexual I can’t come within ten feet of another male, give me pussy or give me death.’ Like, are you trying to scare away the gay guys?” Stuart turned to rummage through his closet.Stiles’ face was skewed with incredulity. “What? First of all—girlfriend. I am not trying to scare or attract anyone, guys or girls.”“But, you’ve always dressed like that, regardless of relationship status.”“Second—where do you get off using phrases like ‘aggressively heterosexual’? I’m not the straight twin, remember? And, y’know, why are you so concerned if I scare away the gay guys? You—” Stiles huffed in laughter. “You’ll make up for it. You oughtta watch out; your collection of cardigans gets any bigger and people are gonna think you play for the other team.”Instead of a response, Stiles got a tie thrust in his face.“Put this on.” Stuart sounded pissed off.He didn’t really want to aggravate his twin too much, so Stiles took the tie obligingly. Pushing each other’s buttons was just what they did; there was something almost enjoyable in the nearly forgotten familiarity of it for Stiles. He didn’t want to ruin that, as so often happened, by stepping over one of the invisible lines they each had drawn in the sand.So he fumbled with the tie in silence.Stuart had his own on in no time, adjusting the length in the mirror. It struck Stiles that despite their identical features, the effortlessness with which Stuart could pull off a slick look was entirely foreign to him. Stuart could have stepped off the glossy pages of a fashion spread, while Stiles, even in his brother’s clothes… could not have, he felt certain. He wondered if it was the sophistication added by the glasses. Or the maturity of the slightly longer sideburns? Maybe just the confident, I’ll-treat-you-like-shit-and-you’ll-love-every-second-of-it attitude?Stiles quickly dropped his gaze when Stuart turned to him.“Oh my God,” groaned his brother. “You still haven’t learned to tie a tie?”Stiles glanced down. Even he had to admit the lopsided knot he’d made was a lost cause.Stuart sighed and stepped forward, tugging the tie from Stiles’ neck.“How do you live without me?” he muttered.Stiles’ heart skipped a beat. He didn’t respond as his brother moved behind him to rearrange the tie. He swallowed, wondering if Stuart felt as awkward about that question as he did.He attempted a weak chuckle. “Well, it was rough for those college years, but… actually I get Malia to do it now,” he said lightly. Even in high school, when they hardly spoke to each other except to argue, Stiles had always had to ask Stuart to tie his ties for him.“Hm. Figures.”Stuart was standing close behind Stiles, his arms encircling him to reach the tie at his throat. He looked over his brother’s shoulder in the mirror as his long fingers nimbly manipulated the strip of silk.His breath was tickling Stiles’ neck. Stiles shifted slightly, feeling goose bumps spread up his scalp. Stuart seemed unaware.Stiles cleared his throat loudly. “Jesus, could you breathe any louder?”Stuart raised a dubious brow at him. “Just breathing, dude.”“I swear, it’s like attack of the mouth-breather over here.”Stuart’s eyes narrowed. “I was breathing through my nose.”“Well, do it more quietly.”Stuart’s other eyebrow joined its partner high on his forehead. “You want mouth-breather? I can give you mouth-breather.”Without warning, Stuart opened his mouth wide next to Stiles’ ear and let out a long, heavy exhale.Stiles yelped and pulled away. He laughed along with his twin to cover his alarm at the sudden wave of heat that surged through his body from the sensation of warm breath against his skin.“C’mon, let me finish that thing,” Stuart chuckled, pulling Stiles around by the shoulders to face him.Suddenly, Stiles wasn’t sure if he liked all this new closeness. Getting changed in the same room was one thing, but the physical proximity, the breathing and touching—warm, firm hands on the shoulders, knuckles skimming down his chest as Stuart straightened out his tie—was another. It was making him nervous, in a throat tight, stomach queasy, skin crawling sort of way, though he wasn’t sure why.His fingers itched. Maybe that was what made him reach up and pluck Stuart’s glasses from his face. Nerves had made him do stranger things before.He licked his lips. “Hey, if you wear contacts we could go as each other and see if anyone notices.” He grinned.Stuart looked at him, unimpressed. “You mean the Twin Game we played in fourth grade? It would never work now. Anyone who knows anything would immediately tell us apart by who has the better hair.”Stiles’ grin faltered. “Why do I have the feeling you’re not going to say it’s me?”Stuart finished with the tie and patted Stiles condescendingly on the cheek. “I didn’t bring my contacts with me anyway.”Suddenly, he leaned in close. Stiles froze, unsure of his brother’s intentions. His hand was still on Stiles’ cheek, fingertips grazing his ear and jaw. The fresh scent of his aftershave was thick in Stiles’ nostrils.Stiles’ heart was in his throat. In reality it was only one second, but it felt like much longer before Stuart’s free hand closed around the glasses still in Stiles’ grasp. Realization and relief flooded through Stiles’ system.“So, I’ll be needing these.” Stuart smirked.He started to pull away, but Stiles’ hand caught his brother’s wrist. Stuart glanced at him questioningly.“Uh.” Stiles licked his lips. He wasn’t entirely sure what he’d intended to say, but what came out was, “You smell good.” His face heated and he rushed to add, “Can I borrow your aftershave?”Stuart’s ears were definitely tipped pink as he looked at his brother in wary surprise. “Um, sure.” He tugged his arm gently from Stiles’ grip. “It’s on the bathroom counter; knock yourself out.”Stiles nodded. “Thanks, man.”He stood there for an awkward second before realizing that was his cue to go. He brushed past his brother and out into the hall.Once in the bathroom, Stiles leaned on the counter and let out a deep sigh. He hadn’t realized it before, but it felt much easier to breathe without Stuart in the same room.He glanced suspiciously at the aftershave sitting on the counter. Maybe it was responsible for interfering with his respiratory system. He put some on his hands and gave his jawline an experimental pat.Immediately, the smell of Stuart washed over him. It wasn’t unpleasant—just the opposite, in fact—but Stiles found he was incapable of separating the scent from its association. To him, now he just smelled like his brother, which was sort of weird.He went back to Stuart’s room, keeping his distance in the doorway as he asked, “Ready?”Stuart glanced up from where he was lacing his shoes on the bed. “Yeah. You got a decent pair of shoes?”“Yeah, I think there’s something lying around my closet.” Stiles went to check.He met Stuart at the front door a minute later, in a pair of somewhat worn but still presentable brown loafers.“I ordered an Uber,” said Stuart, lounging against the door.Stiles blinked. “We’re not… taking the car?”Stuart raised his eyebrows. “Being designated driver at a party populated with all the cool kids from high school is a fate I wouldn’t wish on my very worst enemy. We’re both going to need alcohol to get through this.”Stiles nodded. “Point taken.”Stuart fiddled with his phone as they waited, slouching with his shoulder blades pressed to the wall. It was silent between them until he pocketed his phone and asked out of the blue, “What’s the most awkward boner you’ve ever gotten?”Stiles spluttered. “What?” He could swear he caught Stuart grinning for a moment before he composed his features into an innocent stare.“What’s the most awkward boner you’ve ever gotten?” he repeated.Stiles squinted at him. “Again with all the sex stuff. What is it with you? See, I’m not making it up, it’s like—has the breakup left you that sex-starved it’s all you can think about?”Stuart shrugged. “Or maybe I just keep bringing it up because I’m enjoying how much it bothers you,” he said matter-of-factly.“I knew it. Asshole.”“So, was it from Lydia Martin?”“Hey, I had—and still have—a great deal of respect for Lydia, okay?”“And you can’t get boners from people you respect? That’s pretty sad.”Stiles rolled his eyes. “I have an idea. Instead of grilling me, why don’t you tell me your most awkward boner story.”“Okay,” Stuart agreed readily. “Doesn’t mean you’re off the hook, though. Anyway. Remember the chemistry teacher who died in that freak accident junior year?”Stiles frowned. “Mr. Harris?” Suddenly he wasn’t sure if he wanted to hear this story after all.“Yeah, him. Well—I remember this because it happened, like, just a couple days before they found his body. It might have even been his last day at school, I dunno. Anyway. I was sitting in his class and got this raging boner completely out of nowhere. He wanted me to come up to the board to solve some equation or some shit, and I wouldn’t do it. I mean, there was no hiding this thing. So I just flat out refused. He ended up giving me detention. So I got detention because of a boner, basically.”Stiles snorted.“It’s actually not that funny, to me,” Stuart continued. “I was just thinking, about high school, you know, and I remembered Mr. Harris, the poor bastard. Now whenever I think about him, I can’t help but think of boners. And death.”Stiles stared, unsure if he should feel sympathetic or merely horrified. “Wow. That’s really fucked up.”Stuart shrugged and pulled his phone from his pocket. “Car’s here.”Without another word, he was out the door.For the whole ride to the party, they didn’t speak a word to each other, and Stiles’ thoughts were left to meander from boners to Stuart, to Mr. Harris, to grisly deaths, and back again.