Fic: Lay Your Hands on My Soul Tonight
Author: tryslora
Title: Lay Your Hands on My Soul Tonight
Rating: light R
Pairing/s: Stiles/Jackson
Character/s: Cora, Stiles, Jackson
Summary: Stiles has been sober six months when he meets Cora Hale. He’s trying to ignore the fact that it’s the one year anniversary of when his boyfriend disappeared, and he doesn’t know what to think when Cora claims she might be able to find him.
Warnings: temporary character death, grief
Content Notes: actual wolf/coyote transformation, alcoholism
Submission Type: Fic
Word Count: 5525
Prompt: #136 - Kept
Author's Notes: This is absolutely unbetaed, sorry. I thought of things kept after someone dies when I saw the prompt, and then I was listening to the song “Desperate” by David Archuleta and one line stood out to me (gorgeous song, go listen). That line has been paraphrased to become the title in this story about grief, recovery, and hope. As always, I do not own the world nor characters of Teen Wolf, I just like to play with them.
Stiles hates meetings, but he also hates the way he is when he drinks, so he makes it to meeting once a week like clockwork, every Tuesday at six. He greets his sponsor by the door, grabs a cup of coffee and takes a seat to one side, idly looking out at the crowd.
There are some new faces, but then there always are. People come and go and that’s okay, everyone heals at their own pace. What’s sad is when he realizes old faces are missing, when people who’ve been sober for months or years fall off the wagon and disappear back into the abyss. Not this week, though. This week he sees Clancy off to one side, and Emilia heading his way with two cups of coffee in hand, just like always. There are small knots of familiar faces, and he nods to the ones who greet him, raises his cup in silent hello.
“You don’t look old enough to be an old-timer.” The girl sits down next to him, turning the chair so she can straddle it backwards, her arms across the top.
“You look like you should still be going to Alateen,” Stiles counters, and she raises both eyebrows before a quick smirk slips free.
“Cora,” she says, sticking one hand out. “And I’m twenty-five. Plenty old enough to be stuck with the adults, and at this point I’m also five years sober.”
“Stiles. Also twenty-five, but only six months sober.” And one year grieving, but he doesn’t bring that up, doesn’t point out the moment when his life tilted from under control to spiraling downwards. The door opens at the back of the room, and Stiles glances over to see who’s coming in late, a small smile starting when he sees who it is.
“Someone you know?” Cora asks, and Stiles nods.
“There’s a cake at the back for after, and coffee. It’s six months today.” Stiles pushes his chair back, nods to Santorini and motions to hold on just a minute. “I think I’m supposed to talk, but I’m actually going to get my dad to do that for me. Since he’s my sponsor.”
Stiles doesn’t like meetings, and he doesn’t like being on display. But it’s been six months since he crawled out from under the bottle, and he supposes they deserve to celebrate it. Someday he’ll be fifteen years sober, like his dad, and looking back on the irony that both of them fell into their addiction in the same damned way.
#
“So.” Cora knocks into his hip, holds out a hand until Stiles places a paper plate with cake in it. “Hereditary, huh?”
“I drank when I was a teen,” Stiles admits. “Stupid stuff. Never let it get out of control. I saw what shit it was for my dad after my mom died, and I wasn’t going to let that be me.”
“And then?”
Because of course she wants to talk about. They always want to talk about it. That’s what this is: talking. It’s getting feelings out so you don’t drink to each and every one of them. Stiles inhales, holds the breath for a moment. “Then my boyfriend walked out of our apartment and didn’t come back. They found his car, and his clothes, and they never found his body.” Stiles shrugs, presses his lips together, fights with the ache that still comes. “And the funny thing is, the only way I ever saw to deal with grief was with a bottle. So I did. And it sucked, and I still did it.”
“But you’re here now.”
“I’m here now.” Stiles raises the plastic cup full of punch in a silent toast to his father, to Scott and Allison who are talking with someone he doesn’t recognize, to Melissa. “I have great people to support me, and they were happy to tell me that I could hang without them, that they weren’t going to force me into anything. But Dad reminded me about what it was like when I was ten, and Scott reminded me about the time his father pushed him down the stairs, and I managed to see for myself how bad it had gotten.” He takes a long drink, wrinkling his nose at the sweet taste of the punch. “So. What’s your story?”
“My family died when I was six.” Her voice is light, as if she’s told the story a few too many times. “My parents died, my aunts, my uncles, my cousins, and most of my siblings. Only three of us made it out, and we were a mess. Laura was barely an adult, and she had to take care of me, and we weren’t very good at it. She lost herself in college, and Derek lost himself in art, and me, I started drinking when I was thirteen, and when I was sixteen I ran away to Argentina because I thought it would be cool. I nearly killed myself drinking when I was twenty, and I realize that I could keep on trying to commit suicide, or I could try to live my life. So here I am.” She spreads her hands. “Five years sober, and finally back in Beacon Hills for the first time since I was six years old.”
It takes him a minute to figure it out, and when he does he knows that her story is worse than his in so many ways. “You’re Cora Hale.”
“Of the infamous Hale fire, yeah.” She makes a face. “I’ve heard thirty different people tell me versions of my own life story since I got here, especially when I started looking into getting control of our property. Laura and Derek don’t care, and I’ve decided that maybe I do.”
Stiles is curious-he’s heard of the Hales but no one has seen them since he was six years old, at least not until now. But Scott’s coming over with Allison, and he finds himself introducing them to Cora, and somehow they end up all deciding to go out with Melissa and his dad as well for a celebration dinner.
Stiles bites his tongue rather than remind them that they’re celebrating the one year anniversary of when Jackson disappeared. It’s for the best, really. He needs help to get through the night without falling back under the influence, and having friends is the best distraction.
#
“You kept everything.” Cora peeks into the closet in his room, the last stop on the quick tour of his small apartment. It’s still hard to think of it as his and not theirs, and she’s right, Jackson’s things are still everywhere in the space.
Stiles shrugs one shoulder. “I never had the strength to box it up, send it over to be donated. I really should get there, but it just needs to…” He raises a hand to his heart, fails at finding the words.
“Hurt less,” Cora supplies. She’s right there in front of him, her hand pressed against his chest where his heart beats beneath her touch. “I get it. Believe me, I get it. I’ve been avoiding this town for almost twenty years-and I spent a good part of that drunk so I didn’t have to think about it, not to mention doing wild things I will never talk about. But sometimes it helps to just move on.”
He gently wraps his fingers around her hand. “Is that a proposition?”
“If you want it to be.” Cora twists her hand in his, leads him back out to the living room. “Sex is always a good way to pass the time, if you happen to be into girls as well as guys. So’s snuggling, talking, watching movies.”
There’s a part of him that’s tempted. Really tempted, because it’s been a solid year with nothing more than his right hand for company. But at the same time, pretty as she is, and obnoxious as she is (which has always been a turn-on for him), he’s just not ready. “How about snuggling and a movie?” He’s not sure he can manage the talking; he’s pretty sure he’s all talked out.
They end up on the couch and by the time the movie is twenty minutes in, they are sprawled together and Stiles has to admit that it feels good. He has Scott and Allison, but it’s not like this, not this easy comfortable closeness that feels like it could be something else if he lets it. And hell, if Cora’s staying in Beacon Hills, maybe this is a new friendship that could change in the future, could find its way to being more. Just not yet. Not now. Not one year after losing Jackson.
It turns out that Cora is terrible at watching movies. She can’t keep quiet any more than Stiles can stay still, and she asks about everything. She wants to talk through the plot, speculate about what hasn’t happened yet, and when Stiles refuses to spoil the story, she starts asking questions about things in the room. They cover the art on the walls (all bought by Lydia and Allison as gifts because they thought they place looked empty when Jackson and Stiles first moved in). They talk about the curtains (bought by Jackson because he wanted the place to look real). She asks about the books on the shelves, which ones belonged to Jackson and which ones were Stiles’s favorite things to read.
The movie is almost over when her gaze lights on a small piece of sculpture on the front of a shelf. Rather than ask about it, she gets up to go look at it, touching it lightly, then picking it up when Stiles gestures to say she can. “Where did you get this?” Her voice is softer than before, almost careful as she speaks.
“Jackson.” It’s the same answer he’s given for almost everything. Stiles didn’t care about decorating, but Jackson wanted the place to look perfect. And Stiles refuses to change any of it, because it’s comforting to be surrounded by Jackson’s taste and style. “He found this sub-basement under the high school and he brought that out. Said it was a strange place. I was going to go look through it with him, figure out if it’s anything we need to report to the sheriff’s office, but he disappeared before we could go.”
She has it in her hands, turning it over and over. “So he found this, then he disappeared?”
“About two days later, yes.” Stiles doesn’t want to go over the details, the taste in his mouth quickly going sour. “Look, Cora, I think I’m tired, and maybe-”
“You kept this.” She waves it at him, and he barely sees it, all too familiar with the piece of carved stone.
“Yes, I kept everything. We’ve already talked about exactly how pathetic I am in my grief,” Stiles grumbles. “And I’m done. It’s been one year since he walked out, one year since he disappeared and probably died, and I am done with company. It’s time for you to go.”
“Did you keep anything that would smell like him?” Cora ignores him, pushing past him to go into the bedroom. She yanks open the closet, pulling things close to her nose. “These have all been washed. Do you have anything he used?”
“What the hell are you doing?” Stiles is almost too exhausted to be angry, his body limp and drained and he’s just frustrated and exhausted. “Cora, just leave this alone. I don’t know what-” He goes silent when she pulls a hoodie from the back of the closet where he threw it. She presses it to her face, inhales roughly and grins.
“This was his.”
“That was his,” Stiles confirms. “But what-?”
Cora leans in, grabs his shoulders and kisses him once on each cheek. “I need to go, Stiles. But I’ll be back. Give me some time, and I promise, I’ll be back, and if Jackson can be found, I’ll find him.” She still has the hoodie in her hands as she backs towards the door.
“What are you going to do, sniff him out like a bloodhound?” He’s bewildered and confused and the movie still plays in the living room, a cheerful, strange counterpoint to the conversation.
“Two days,” she says. “You want him back, right?”
What the hell kind of a question is that? “I want him to not be dead,” Stiles says slowly. “I want him here, if he wants to be here. But most of all, I just want him not to be dead.”
Cora nods once sharply. “I’ll be back in two days to let you know.”
She takes the hoodie when she goes, before Stiles can argue the point, and as the door slams in her wake, he is, for once, speechless.
#
It takes two days, and during that time Stiles resists going out to find just one drink, just one sip that might ease the anxiety that pricks his skin. There’s something about what Cora did and said, something that makes his skin itch and makes him wonder what’s really going on. He’d thought he was making a friend, possibly a friend with benefits that might ease the pain of having been alone without creating a tie he isn’t ready for. Then she walked out with a carving and Jackson’s hoodie, claiming she might be able to find him.
And she comes back with a dog.
Stiles stares at the blond beast that looks more wild than domestic. Cora has her hand twisted in its ruff, and it stares up at Stiles, eyes bright and blue.
“You brought me a dog,” Stiles says, voice flat. “Is that even a dog, Cora?”
“Actually, he’s a coyote.” Cora says. She gestures at the small space between him and the edge of the door. “Are you going to let us in?”
“Are you vampires and need to be invited?” Stiles yanks the door open, gives the coyote a wary look. “Sure, fine, come in. Don’t get on the furniture,” he yells at the beast as it moves into the living room, sniffing the corners. He slams the door and turns back to Cora, his hands going wide. “I don’t know what the fuck is going on here, but you came into my place, I thought we were connecting, and then you took off with keepsakes that I actually wanted and you bring me back a fucking coyote.”
“It’s complicated.” Cora holds out a sling bag, tugs it open to show the hoodie inside. “The stone is in there, too. Everything’s fine, Stiles, I didn’t hurt any of it. I just needed Jackson’s scent, and I thought the artifact might help if it turned out I was right about what happened.” She waits until Stiles takes the bag, then she crosses her arms, legs slightly spread in a solid stance. She watches the coyote prowl around the room and she sighs. “It turns out I was completely right about what happened, but fixing it is going to be harder than I thought. I’m pretty sure you’re the key to getting it fixed.”
She’s not making any sense. Stiles rubs at his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose. “I have made it six months without a drink,” he mutters. “And for the six months before that I was completely out of it most nights, to the point where half the time I was still drunk when I woke up in the morning. I went to work drunk. And it didn’t dull the pain, but it was there, and it made everything…” He waves a hand by the side of his head. “It made it easier. Fuzzier. So please, please don’t drive me back to drinking, Cora. Make sense of this for me.”
She worries at the nail of one finger, idly chewing it in a way that makes Stiles think that she’s trying to find the right words. “I’m not joking when I said it’s complicated. That stone.” She nods at the bag that Stiles still holds in his hand. “That carving on it, it’s from my family. Not my branch-not me and my siblings. We’re a large family.” Her mouth twists in a rueful expression, and she says, “We were a large family. Different branches had different ways of making their mark in our family tree, and that’s one of them. And our vault? Was in a space under the school.”
Stiles gives her a look because why the hell would someone have a vault under the high school?
“It predates the high school. There’s a confluence of telluric currents and you know what? The details don’t matter.” Cora points at the coyote, which is now on the sofa, stretching out with its paws under its chin, watching Stiles. “What matters is that Jackson is stuck as a coyote and we need to figure out how to turn him human again.”
Stiles sinks to the floor, legs giving out because that is just too much. “You believe that,” he says. “You actually believe that you brought Jackson home to me as a fucking coyote.” He can’t breathe, can’t parse that, because it is completely non-sensical. “Get out.” He drags in a rough breathe, holds it before he yells, jabbing his hand at the door. “Get out! You are making this harder than it has to be. I was getting better and then you gave me fucking hope and now you do this? I wish you hadn’t shown up that night. I shouldn’t have talked to you, and I sure as fuck shouldn’t have believed you.”
The coyote whines, and Stiles jumps to his feet, glares at it. “Don’t you get started. You’re just a fucking dog.”
Cora stands there, staring at him, and Stiles just can’t deal.
“You know what, I don’t care. Stay a while if you want, but this is not how I’m spending my evening.” He stalks out of the room, slams the door to his bedroom and stands there, breathing roughly, trying to get enough air in his lungs. He wants a drink so fucking desperately, wants to just forget that the last two days, the last year, ever happened. He sinks to the floor again, leans back against the door, and he closes his eyes.
By the time he goes back out there, Cora had better be gone. And she needs to take the damned dog with her.
Stiles opens the backpack, pulls out the hoodie, and twists it in his hand. He bows his head and buries his face in it, just barely able to catch the scent of Jackson’s soap, his skin, the warmth that Stiles can remember. He chokes on a sob, and tries to be silent as the tears come.
#
He falls asleep with his head tilted back against the door, his mouth open, and he wakes up when he falls over and hits the floor. There’s a whine from outside the door, and he groans. “Go away,” he says, but the whine is louder, over and over, punctuated by nails scratching at the wood, and he realizes that Cora probably left the damned coyote. He can’t figure out if that’s supposed to be some kind of sick joke or if she really believes it’s Jackson.
And it’s a dog essentially, which means it needs to piss, and he doesn’t want that happening in his living room. “Fine,” he grumbles, pushing to his feet, yanking the door open. “I’ll let you out, but don’t think I’m walking you like you’re some kind of domestic… what the fuck?”
The coyote is on the couch, eyes glinting in the moonlight that filters into the living room, just barely visible down the hall.
Sitting in the hall, right in front of him, is a fucking wolf.
It’s black with a grey muzzle and feet, and a grey blaze down its chest. Its ears are tilted forward, and it whines again, sniffing at his hand, and it takes everything Stiles has not to yank himself back.
“Two wild animals.” He scrubs his hands through his hair. “She left, and brought me another one.” He starts to laugh, even though it’s not at all funny. “Is this one supposed to be Jackson, too?” he yells out, even though Cora’s not there to hear it. “C’mon, Cora, you can’t bring me every damned wild animal in Beacon Hills and tell me they’re Jackson. At some point the joke just gets worn out.”
He heads into the kitchen, figuring that he has to do something. He has to feed them. Give them water. Let them out to go run into the night. He grabs down a mixing bowl and starts filling it with water, muttering give me a minute when he feels the wolf’s muzzle at his hip.
“I’m not thirsty,” Cora says, and Stiles just barely manages to keep from screaming when he jumps and turns to face her.
“Where the fuck is the wolf?”
She grins and her teeth are bright and sharp in the moonlight. “I’m the wolf,” she says. “And Jackson is a coyote, and he can’t figure out how to get back. He needs you to be his anchor, Stiles. You need to help him be human.”
His heart is ratcheted to an abnormally fast beat, and he clutches at his chest like he can somehow keep it from escaping. “This isn’t happening. I’m still asleep.”
“It’s happening.” Cora covers his hand with hers, twines their fingers together. “I know it seems unreal, but I’m a werewolf. And if Jackson can get into that vault, then he’s a Hale, probably a distant relation, and by the looks of things, he’s a were-coyote.”
“Let’s say I take this at face value,” Stiles says, nudging at Cora. She takes the hint and gives him space, and he turns off the water, leaves the overflowing bowl in the sink. “Jackson was adopted. His parents died when he was a baby-long before your fire. So if he’s related to you, there are no records for it. Closed adoption, sealed records, he can’t get into them and believe me, he tried. He’s not the kind of guy to take no for an answer.”
“Asshole is a dominant Hale trait,” Cora says.
Stiles laughs, and he thinks there’s an edge of hysteria to it. “But if I’m going to accept this, you need to prove it.”
“Transforming into a wolf and back into human wasn’t enough?”
Stiles points at the living room. He heads into it and sinks onto the sofa, then jabs a finger at the rug. “Do it again. While I’m watching. Party tricks behind my back is one thing, but I want to see the whole transformation with my own eyes.”
“Humans don’t believe what they see,” Cora says slowly. “The brain makes up excuses for the supernatural.”
“I’m expecting to see something really fucked up right about now,” Stiles says. “If you want me to believe, you need to give me a chance. So change. Right here, right now, while I’m watching.”
She’s naked.
He doesn’t know why it didn’t occur to him before, how he could possibly have ignored the fact that Cora Hale-who is fucking gorgeous-is naked in his home. But she is, and she doesn’t honestly seem to even care about it. She just sinks to her knees on the rug and kneels there, hands on her thighs. “Fine,” she says. “But it’s not pretty. Don’t look away-you’ll want to, everyone does. But if you look away, you’ll miss it. It’ll just be girl one second and wolf the next.”
“Got it.” Stiles fiddles with the phone in his pocket, and Cora shakes her head.
“Don’t try to record it. Just trust me on this, we can talk about how the supernatural interacts with technology later, but the short version is, we are not photogenic, even thought we’re good looking.” She smiles, and he swears her teeth are sharper and longer than before. “Don’t blink.”
She ducks her head and stretches her hands out, and Stiles watches her skin ripple. It shivers over her bones, shifts and changes as her hands grow claws, change to paws as she bends her back, moves to all fours. She arches her back, fur sprouting out to cover her, the pelt thick and dark. She whines through the process, and in the end the coyote is off the sofa, sniffing at the wolf’s backside, while Cora nips at him.
Not the coyote.
Jackson.
Because if Cora really is the wolf, then maybe she’s not lying.
“How do you know this particular coyote is Jackson?” His voice sounds tight to his ears, and breathing isn’t easy.
Cora sniffs at Jackson’s throat, nips at him until he nips back. Stiles blinks and a moment later Cora is there, still completely bare-arsed naked and sitting cross-legged on the floor while Jackson nuzzles in close to her throat.
“He smells like the hoodie,” Cora says. “He smells like this place, and he even smells a little like you. This has to be Jackson.” She tugs at the coyote’s ears, ruffles his fur before she stands. “That artifact was an anchor, a way to help kids learn how to control their shift. But it was also a way to encourage the shift for those who need it. And if he grew up and never knew what he was, just touching it might have triggered his heritage. We’re a rare family-we can shift all the way to the animal. Most have a halfway stopping point. The problem is, if you didn’t grow up learning how to handle it, it can be really hard to come back.”
“What do you recommend?” Stiles is lost now, completely out of his element. This isn’t the kind of mythology he’s going to find answers for on the internet. This is something that’s been hidden from the world, a kind of reality that is so far from his experience that it still makes no sense.
“Sleep.” Cora nods towards the bedroom. “Strip down, and we all get into that big bed of yours-you, me, and Jackson.”
His gaze narrows and he crosses his arms defensively. “Why you?”
“You smell like pack and home, and I smell like wolf and family.” Cora spreads her hands. “Stiles, naked is just a part of life. If you want me to jump you, I’ll do that, but if you want to just snuggle, that’s all we’re going to do. We’re going to give Jackson something to come back to, and it’s not like coyotes understand clothes. Skin to skin contact, Stiles. It’s the best way to handle it.”
What does he have to lose?
At the worst, he spends the night with a naked woman and a wild animal in his bed, and he wakes up thinking that he’s completely nuts and needs even more help.
At the best, he gets Jackson back.
“Fine.” He goes to his knees, lets the coyote get close, trying not to flinch when it nuzzles in close, licks at his throat. He’s shaking with the thought of it, with the idea that this could be it. When he comes to his feet, the coyote sticks close to him, walks down the hall right by his side. It leaps up onto the bed and hunkers down, head on its crossed paws, watching Stiles.
It’s weird if he thinks of it as a dog, but in some ways it looks just like Jackson when he’d lie down on the bed and watch Stiles strip.
He skins off his shirt and drop it on the floor, almost laughing when the coyote growls softly until he picks up the shirt and tosses it into the laundry basket. “It’s not like you’ve been here to clean up after me,” he says, as if maybe it is Jackson, and the coyote snorts softly.
It only takes a few minutes for Stiles to yank off his socks and shove down his jeans. He keeps his boxers on, even though Cora is completely naked; it just feels better to him that way. Even so, he can feel her eyes on him.
She sits down next to the coyote, tangles her fingers in its ruff and leans in to whisper loudly, “You have good taste. But I get it, he’s taken. All you need to do is get out of your fur and stake your claim properly.”
The coyote doesn’t leave much room for Stiles on the bed, which isn’t a surprise-Jackson was always good at imitating a blanket when he draped over Stiles, and the coyote is just the same. Cora ends up on the other side of the coyote, her fingers in its ruff like an anchor, and Stiles feels it heave a heavy sigh and relax.
Even if it’s not Jackson, it’s domesticated, and it’s like sleeping with a big dog. It’s relaxing listening to the little huffs and whines, and he closes his eyes, letting his fingers idly comb through the fur, stopping only when he bumps into Cora’s hand in his way.
“If you are Jackson,” he murmurs sleepily, “this had better work. Because if you think I’m feeding a coyote steak, think again. Either you go hunt for yourself, or you get kibble. Get back in your skin if you want pancakes and bacon tomorrow morning. Or an egg white omelet, Mr. I’m Picky About What I Put In My Body.”
The coyote licks his cheek, and Stiles almost laughs at it. By the time he falls asleep, he has Cora’s fingers tangled with his as they both hold on tight to the coyote, and he has to admit, he feels weirdly right for the first time in a year.
#
Stiles wakes to the feel of a body wrapped around his, hips idly moving, rubbing morning wood against his butt. He sighs and stretches, turns towards Jackson and captures his mouth for a kiss, licking into his mouth and lazily finding his way out of slumber and into the waking world. He’s halfway to climbing on top of him when he realizes where he is and what he’s doing.
He pulls back, leans on both hands and looks down at Jackson. Just stares at him, at the kiss-swollen mouth and the hooded blue eyes, and the lazy smirk. “Fuck…”
“Don’t stop on my account.” Cora wiggles her fingers at them, lying on her side just past Jackson, her chin propped on her hand. “No really, I mean it, don’t stop. You guys look good together, and I think a reunion is what, a year overdue?”
It’s not really possible. It can’t be possible, and yet, here he is. “Jackson.” Stiles can barely breathe, then Jackson has flipped them, stretches over him and holds Stiles’s hands down, bends in to kiss him hungrily. “Fuck, Jackson.”
Jackson growls softly. “I couldn’t find my way back.”
“You’re back now. You’re here. Fuck, you’re here.” Stiles cradles his face, just stares at him. As much as he wants to rub closer, go full on octopus and never let him go, he also just wants to look until he memorizes his face all over again. “We thought you were dead. We found your car, your clothes.”
“I didn’t exactly plan on leaving.” Jackson rubs his cheek against Stiles’s cheek, nuzzles in against his throat and nips. “I didn’t plan on spending a year in the woods as a coyote. And I believe someone promised me bacon and pancakes, which is going to be a hell of an improvement on squirrel.”
“I like squirrel,” Cora says idly. “Deer is better, but squirrels are a perfect snack.”
“More than I want to know.” Stiles holds up a hand, stops the bonding conversation between the two very naked people in his bed over talking about wildlife. “I just… Cora, go into the living room. I am thankful, more than I can say, but right now, I am throwing you out of this room so I can talk to Jackson.” Talk is a euphemism, and he’s pretty sure both of them aware. “And after we talk, we will shower, and we will have breakfast, and then we will all discuss exactly what happened and how this family and pack thing works, and I will try to wrap my head around this because it’s almost too much right now, and I just want… I just want…”
“Me.” Jackson smirks, and Stiles kisses him just to shut him up.
“Yes,” Stiles agrees. “I want you.”
Cora leaves, the door snicking shut behind her, and Stiles reaches up to touch Jackson’s lips.
“We are not going to talk about what happened,” he says softly. “Not yet. Right now, I want to welcome you home, and we’ll figure out the rest later. Let me just enjoy this and you can prove to me I’m not dreaming.”
“You’re not dreaming.” Jackson nips at his throat, sucks a mark to life. “You’re not dreaming, Stiles. I’m finally home.”
Title: Lay Your Hands on My Soul Tonight
Rating: light R
Pairing/s: Stiles/Jackson
Character/s: Cora, Stiles, Jackson
Summary: Stiles has been sober six months when he meets Cora Hale. He’s trying to ignore the fact that it’s the one year anniversary of when his boyfriend disappeared, and he doesn’t know what to think when Cora claims she might be able to find him.
Warnings: temporary character death, grief
Content Notes: actual wolf/coyote transformation, alcoholism
Submission Type: Fic
Word Count: 5525
Prompt: #136 - Kept
Author's Notes: This is absolutely unbetaed, sorry. I thought of things kept after someone dies when I saw the prompt, and then I was listening to the song “Desperate” by David Archuleta and one line stood out to me (gorgeous song, go listen). That line has been paraphrased to become the title in this story about grief, recovery, and hope. As always, I do not own the world nor characters of Teen Wolf, I just like to play with them.
Stiles hates meetings, but he also hates the way he is when he drinks, so he makes it to meeting once a week like clockwork, every Tuesday at six. He greets his sponsor by the door, grabs a cup of coffee and takes a seat to one side, idly looking out at the crowd.
There are some new faces, but then there always are. People come and go and that’s okay, everyone heals at their own pace. What’s sad is when he realizes old faces are missing, when people who’ve been sober for months or years fall off the wagon and disappear back into the abyss. Not this week, though. This week he sees Clancy off to one side, and Emilia heading his way with two cups of coffee in hand, just like always. There are small knots of familiar faces, and he nods to the ones who greet him, raises his cup in silent hello.
“You don’t look old enough to be an old-timer.” The girl sits down next to him, turning the chair so she can straddle it backwards, her arms across the top.
“You look like you should still be going to Alateen,” Stiles counters, and she raises both eyebrows before a quick smirk slips free.
“Cora,” she says, sticking one hand out. “And I’m twenty-five. Plenty old enough to be stuck with the adults, and at this point I’m also five years sober.”
“Stiles. Also twenty-five, but only six months sober.” And one year grieving, but he doesn’t bring that up, doesn’t point out the moment when his life tilted from under control to spiraling downwards. The door opens at the back of the room, and Stiles glances over to see who’s coming in late, a small smile starting when he sees who it is.
“Someone you know?” Cora asks, and Stiles nods.
“There’s a cake at the back for after, and coffee. It’s six months today.” Stiles pushes his chair back, nods to Santorini and motions to hold on just a minute. “I think I’m supposed to talk, but I’m actually going to get my dad to do that for me. Since he’s my sponsor.”
Stiles doesn’t like meetings, and he doesn’t like being on display. But it’s been six months since he crawled out from under the bottle, and he supposes they deserve to celebrate it. Someday he’ll be fifteen years sober, like his dad, and looking back on the irony that both of them fell into their addiction in the same damned way.
#
“So.” Cora knocks into his hip, holds out a hand until Stiles places a paper plate with cake in it. “Hereditary, huh?”
“I drank when I was a teen,” Stiles admits. “Stupid stuff. Never let it get out of control. I saw what shit it was for my dad after my mom died, and I wasn’t going to let that be me.”
“And then?”
Because of course she wants to talk about. They always want to talk about it. That’s what this is: talking. It’s getting feelings out so you don’t drink to each and every one of them. Stiles inhales, holds the breath for a moment. “Then my boyfriend walked out of our apartment and didn’t come back. They found his car, and his clothes, and they never found his body.” Stiles shrugs, presses his lips together, fights with the ache that still comes. “And the funny thing is, the only way I ever saw to deal with grief was with a bottle. So I did. And it sucked, and I still did it.”
“But you’re here now.”
“I’m here now.” Stiles raises the plastic cup full of punch in a silent toast to his father, to Scott and Allison who are talking with someone he doesn’t recognize, to Melissa. “I have great people to support me, and they were happy to tell me that I could hang without them, that they weren’t going to force me into anything. But Dad reminded me about what it was like when I was ten, and Scott reminded me about the time his father pushed him down the stairs, and I managed to see for myself how bad it had gotten.” He takes a long drink, wrinkling his nose at the sweet taste of the punch. “So. What’s your story?”
“My family died when I was six.” Her voice is light, as if she’s told the story a few too many times. “My parents died, my aunts, my uncles, my cousins, and most of my siblings. Only three of us made it out, and we were a mess. Laura was barely an adult, and she had to take care of me, and we weren’t very good at it. She lost herself in college, and Derek lost himself in art, and me, I started drinking when I was thirteen, and when I was sixteen I ran away to Argentina because I thought it would be cool. I nearly killed myself drinking when I was twenty, and I realize that I could keep on trying to commit suicide, or I could try to live my life. So here I am.” She spreads her hands. “Five years sober, and finally back in Beacon Hills for the first time since I was six years old.”
It takes him a minute to figure it out, and when he does he knows that her story is worse than his in so many ways. “You’re Cora Hale.”
“Of the infamous Hale fire, yeah.” She makes a face. “I’ve heard thirty different people tell me versions of my own life story since I got here, especially when I started looking into getting control of our property. Laura and Derek don’t care, and I’ve decided that maybe I do.”
Stiles is curious-he’s heard of the Hales but no one has seen them since he was six years old, at least not until now. But Scott’s coming over with Allison, and he finds himself introducing them to Cora, and somehow they end up all deciding to go out with Melissa and his dad as well for a celebration dinner.
Stiles bites his tongue rather than remind them that they’re celebrating the one year anniversary of when Jackson disappeared. It’s for the best, really. He needs help to get through the night without falling back under the influence, and having friends is the best distraction.
#
“You kept everything.” Cora peeks into the closet in his room, the last stop on the quick tour of his small apartment. It’s still hard to think of it as his and not theirs, and she’s right, Jackson’s things are still everywhere in the space.
Stiles shrugs one shoulder. “I never had the strength to box it up, send it over to be donated. I really should get there, but it just needs to…” He raises a hand to his heart, fails at finding the words.
“Hurt less,” Cora supplies. She’s right there in front of him, her hand pressed against his chest where his heart beats beneath her touch. “I get it. Believe me, I get it. I’ve been avoiding this town for almost twenty years-and I spent a good part of that drunk so I didn’t have to think about it, not to mention doing wild things I will never talk about. But sometimes it helps to just move on.”
He gently wraps his fingers around her hand. “Is that a proposition?”
“If you want it to be.” Cora twists her hand in his, leads him back out to the living room. “Sex is always a good way to pass the time, if you happen to be into girls as well as guys. So’s snuggling, talking, watching movies.”
There’s a part of him that’s tempted. Really tempted, because it’s been a solid year with nothing more than his right hand for company. But at the same time, pretty as she is, and obnoxious as she is (which has always been a turn-on for him), he’s just not ready. “How about snuggling and a movie?” He’s not sure he can manage the talking; he’s pretty sure he’s all talked out.
They end up on the couch and by the time the movie is twenty minutes in, they are sprawled together and Stiles has to admit that it feels good. He has Scott and Allison, but it’s not like this, not this easy comfortable closeness that feels like it could be something else if he lets it. And hell, if Cora’s staying in Beacon Hills, maybe this is a new friendship that could change in the future, could find its way to being more. Just not yet. Not now. Not one year after losing Jackson.
It turns out that Cora is terrible at watching movies. She can’t keep quiet any more than Stiles can stay still, and she asks about everything. She wants to talk through the plot, speculate about what hasn’t happened yet, and when Stiles refuses to spoil the story, she starts asking questions about things in the room. They cover the art on the walls (all bought by Lydia and Allison as gifts because they thought they place looked empty when Jackson and Stiles first moved in). They talk about the curtains (bought by Jackson because he wanted the place to look real). She asks about the books on the shelves, which ones belonged to Jackson and which ones were Stiles’s favorite things to read.
The movie is almost over when her gaze lights on a small piece of sculpture on the front of a shelf. Rather than ask about it, she gets up to go look at it, touching it lightly, then picking it up when Stiles gestures to say she can. “Where did you get this?” Her voice is softer than before, almost careful as she speaks.
“Jackson.” It’s the same answer he’s given for almost everything. Stiles didn’t care about decorating, but Jackson wanted the place to look perfect. And Stiles refuses to change any of it, because it’s comforting to be surrounded by Jackson’s taste and style. “He found this sub-basement under the high school and he brought that out. Said it was a strange place. I was going to go look through it with him, figure out if it’s anything we need to report to the sheriff’s office, but he disappeared before we could go.”
She has it in her hands, turning it over and over. “So he found this, then he disappeared?”
“About two days later, yes.” Stiles doesn’t want to go over the details, the taste in his mouth quickly going sour. “Look, Cora, I think I’m tired, and maybe-”
“You kept this.” She waves it at him, and he barely sees it, all too familiar with the piece of carved stone.
“Yes, I kept everything. We’ve already talked about exactly how pathetic I am in my grief,” Stiles grumbles. “And I’m done. It’s been one year since he walked out, one year since he disappeared and probably died, and I am done with company. It’s time for you to go.”
“Did you keep anything that would smell like him?” Cora ignores him, pushing past him to go into the bedroom. She yanks open the closet, pulling things close to her nose. “These have all been washed. Do you have anything he used?”
“What the hell are you doing?” Stiles is almost too exhausted to be angry, his body limp and drained and he’s just frustrated and exhausted. “Cora, just leave this alone. I don’t know what-” He goes silent when she pulls a hoodie from the back of the closet where he threw it. She presses it to her face, inhales roughly and grins.
“This was his.”
“That was his,” Stiles confirms. “But what-?”
Cora leans in, grabs his shoulders and kisses him once on each cheek. “I need to go, Stiles. But I’ll be back. Give me some time, and I promise, I’ll be back, and if Jackson can be found, I’ll find him.” She still has the hoodie in her hands as she backs towards the door.
“What are you going to do, sniff him out like a bloodhound?” He’s bewildered and confused and the movie still plays in the living room, a cheerful, strange counterpoint to the conversation.
“Two days,” she says. “You want him back, right?”
What the hell kind of a question is that? “I want him to not be dead,” Stiles says slowly. “I want him here, if he wants to be here. But most of all, I just want him not to be dead.”
Cora nods once sharply. “I’ll be back in two days to let you know.”
She takes the hoodie when she goes, before Stiles can argue the point, and as the door slams in her wake, he is, for once, speechless.
#
It takes two days, and during that time Stiles resists going out to find just one drink, just one sip that might ease the anxiety that pricks his skin. There’s something about what Cora did and said, something that makes his skin itch and makes him wonder what’s really going on. He’d thought he was making a friend, possibly a friend with benefits that might ease the pain of having been alone without creating a tie he isn’t ready for. Then she walked out with a carving and Jackson’s hoodie, claiming she might be able to find him.
And she comes back with a dog.
Stiles stares at the blond beast that looks more wild than domestic. Cora has her hand twisted in its ruff, and it stares up at Stiles, eyes bright and blue.
“You brought me a dog,” Stiles says, voice flat. “Is that even a dog, Cora?”
“Actually, he’s a coyote.” Cora says. She gestures at the small space between him and the edge of the door. “Are you going to let us in?”
“Are you vampires and need to be invited?” Stiles yanks the door open, gives the coyote a wary look. “Sure, fine, come in. Don’t get on the furniture,” he yells at the beast as it moves into the living room, sniffing the corners. He slams the door and turns back to Cora, his hands going wide. “I don’t know what the fuck is going on here, but you came into my place, I thought we were connecting, and then you took off with keepsakes that I actually wanted and you bring me back a fucking coyote.”
“It’s complicated.” Cora holds out a sling bag, tugs it open to show the hoodie inside. “The stone is in there, too. Everything’s fine, Stiles, I didn’t hurt any of it. I just needed Jackson’s scent, and I thought the artifact might help if it turned out I was right about what happened.” She waits until Stiles takes the bag, then she crosses her arms, legs slightly spread in a solid stance. She watches the coyote prowl around the room and she sighs. “It turns out I was completely right about what happened, but fixing it is going to be harder than I thought. I’m pretty sure you’re the key to getting it fixed.”
She’s not making any sense. Stiles rubs at his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose. “I have made it six months without a drink,” he mutters. “And for the six months before that I was completely out of it most nights, to the point where half the time I was still drunk when I woke up in the morning. I went to work drunk. And it didn’t dull the pain, but it was there, and it made everything…” He waves a hand by the side of his head. “It made it easier. Fuzzier. So please, please don’t drive me back to drinking, Cora. Make sense of this for me.”
She worries at the nail of one finger, idly chewing it in a way that makes Stiles think that she’s trying to find the right words. “I’m not joking when I said it’s complicated. That stone.” She nods at the bag that Stiles still holds in his hand. “That carving on it, it’s from my family. Not my branch-not me and my siblings. We’re a large family.” Her mouth twists in a rueful expression, and she says, “We were a large family. Different branches had different ways of making their mark in our family tree, and that’s one of them. And our vault? Was in a space under the school.”
Stiles gives her a look because why the hell would someone have a vault under the high school?
“It predates the high school. There’s a confluence of telluric currents and you know what? The details don’t matter.” Cora points at the coyote, which is now on the sofa, stretching out with its paws under its chin, watching Stiles. “What matters is that Jackson is stuck as a coyote and we need to figure out how to turn him human again.”
Stiles sinks to the floor, legs giving out because that is just too much. “You believe that,” he says. “You actually believe that you brought Jackson home to me as a fucking coyote.” He can’t breathe, can’t parse that, because it is completely non-sensical. “Get out.” He drags in a rough breathe, holds it before he yells, jabbing his hand at the door. “Get out! You are making this harder than it has to be. I was getting better and then you gave me fucking hope and now you do this? I wish you hadn’t shown up that night. I shouldn’t have talked to you, and I sure as fuck shouldn’t have believed you.”
The coyote whines, and Stiles jumps to his feet, glares at it. “Don’t you get started. You’re just a fucking dog.”
Cora stands there, staring at him, and Stiles just can’t deal.
“You know what, I don’t care. Stay a while if you want, but this is not how I’m spending my evening.” He stalks out of the room, slams the door to his bedroom and stands there, breathing roughly, trying to get enough air in his lungs. He wants a drink so fucking desperately, wants to just forget that the last two days, the last year, ever happened. He sinks to the floor again, leans back against the door, and he closes his eyes.
By the time he goes back out there, Cora had better be gone. And she needs to take the damned dog with her.
Stiles opens the backpack, pulls out the hoodie, and twists it in his hand. He bows his head and buries his face in it, just barely able to catch the scent of Jackson’s soap, his skin, the warmth that Stiles can remember. He chokes on a sob, and tries to be silent as the tears come.
#
He falls asleep with his head tilted back against the door, his mouth open, and he wakes up when he falls over and hits the floor. There’s a whine from outside the door, and he groans. “Go away,” he says, but the whine is louder, over and over, punctuated by nails scratching at the wood, and he realizes that Cora probably left the damned coyote. He can’t figure out if that’s supposed to be some kind of sick joke or if she really believes it’s Jackson.
And it’s a dog essentially, which means it needs to piss, and he doesn’t want that happening in his living room. “Fine,” he grumbles, pushing to his feet, yanking the door open. “I’ll let you out, but don’t think I’m walking you like you’re some kind of domestic… what the fuck?”
The coyote is on the couch, eyes glinting in the moonlight that filters into the living room, just barely visible down the hall.
Sitting in the hall, right in front of him, is a fucking wolf.
It’s black with a grey muzzle and feet, and a grey blaze down its chest. Its ears are tilted forward, and it whines again, sniffing at his hand, and it takes everything Stiles has not to yank himself back.
“Two wild animals.” He scrubs his hands through his hair. “She left, and brought me another one.” He starts to laugh, even though it’s not at all funny. “Is this one supposed to be Jackson, too?” he yells out, even though Cora’s not there to hear it. “C’mon, Cora, you can’t bring me every damned wild animal in Beacon Hills and tell me they’re Jackson. At some point the joke just gets worn out.”
He heads into the kitchen, figuring that he has to do something. He has to feed them. Give them water. Let them out to go run into the night. He grabs down a mixing bowl and starts filling it with water, muttering give me a minute when he feels the wolf’s muzzle at his hip.
“I’m not thirsty,” Cora says, and Stiles just barely manages to keep from screaming when he jumps and turns to face her.
“Where the fuck is the wolf?”
She grins and her teeth are bright and sharp in the moonlight. “I’m the wolf,” she says. “And Jackson is a coyote, and he can’t figure out how to get back. He needs you to be his anchor, Stiles. You need to help him be human.”
His heart is ratcheted to an abnormally fast beat, and he clutches at his chest like he can somehow keep it from escaping. “This isn’t happening. I’m still asleep.”
“It’s happening.” Cora covers his hand with hers, twines their fingers together. “I know it seems unreal, but I’m a werewolf. And if Jackson can get into that vault, then he’s a Hale, probably a distant relation, and by the looks of things, he’s a were-coyote.”
“Let’s say I take this at face value,” Stiles says, nudging at Cora. She takes the hint and gives him space, and he turns off the water, leaves the overflowing bowl in the sink. “Jackson was adopted. His parents died when he was a baby-long before your fire. So if he’s related to you, there are no records for it. Closed adoption, sealed records, he can’t get into them and believe me, he tried. He’s not the kind of guy to take no for an answer.”
“Asshole is a dominant Hale trait,” Cora says.
Stiles laughs, and he thinks there’s an edge of hysteria to it. “But if I’m going to accept this, you need to prove it.”
“Transforming into a wolf and back into human wasn’t enough?”
Stiles points at the living room. He heads into it and sinks onto the sofa, then jabs a finger at the rug. “Do it again. While I’m watching. Party tricks behind my back is one thing, but I want to see the whole transformation with my own eyes.”
“Humans don’t believe what they see,” Cora says slowly. “The brain makes up excuses for the supernatural.”
“I’m expecting to see something really fucked up right about now,” Stiles says. “If you want me to believe, you need to give me a chance. So change. Right here, right now, while I’m watching.”
She’s naked.
He doesn’t know why it didn’t occur to him before, how he could possibly have ignored the fact that Cora Hale-who is fucking gorgeous-is naked in his home. But she is, and she doesn’t honestly seem to even care about it. She just sinks to her knees on the rug and kneels there, hands on her thighs. “Fine,” she says. “But it’s not pretty. Don’t look away-you’ll want to, everyone does. But if you look away, you’ll miss it. It’ll just be girl one second and wolf the next.”
“Got it.” Stiles fiddles with the phone in his pocket, and Cora shakes her head.
“Don’t try to record it. Just trust me on this, we can talk about how the supernatural interacts with technology later, but the short version is, we are not photogenic, even thought we’re good looking.” She smiles, and he swears her teeth are sharper and longer than before. “Don’t blink.”
She ducks her head and stretches her hands out, and Stiles watches her skin ripple. It shivers over her bones, shifts and changes as her hands grow claws, change to paws as she bends her back, moves to all fours. She arches her back, fur sprouting out to cover her, the pelt thick and dark. She whines through the process, and in the end the coyote is off the sofa, sniffing at the wolf’s backside, while Cora nips at him.
Not the coyote.
Jackson.
Because if Cora really is the wolf, then maybe she’s not lying.
“How do you know this particular coyote is Jackson?” His voice sounds tight to his ears, and breathing isn’t easy.
Cora sniffs at Jackson’s throat, nips at him until he nips back. Stiles blinks and a moment later Cora is there, still completely bare-arsed naked and sitting cross-legged on the floor while Jackson nuzzles in close to her throat.
“He smells like the hoodie,” Cora says. “He smells like this place, and he even smells a little like you. This has to be Jackson.” She tugs at the coyote’s ears, ruffles his fur before she stands. “That artifact was an anchor, a way to help kids learn how to control their shift. But it was also a way to encourage the shift for those who need it. And if he grew up and never knew what he was, just touching it might have triggered his heritage. We’re a rare family-we can shift all the way to the animal. Most have a halfway stopping point. The problem is, if you didn’t grow up learning how to handle it, it can be really hard to come back.”
“What do you recommend?” Stiles is lost now, completely out of his element. This isn’t the kind of mythology he’s going to find answers for on the internet. This is something that’s been hidden from the world, a kind of reality that is so far from his experience that it still makes no sense.
“Sleep.” Cora nods towards the bedroom. “Strip down, and we all get into that big bed of yours-you, me, and Jackson.”
His gaze narrows and he crosses his arms defensively. “Why you?”
“You smell like pack and home, and I smell like wolf and family.” Cora spreads her hands. “Stiles, naked is just a part of life. If you want me to jump you, I’ll do that, but if you want to just snuggle, that’s all we’re going to do. We’re going to give Jackson something to come back to, and it’s not like coyotes understand clothes. Skin to skin contact, Stiles. It’s the best way to handle it.”
What does he have to lose?
At the worst, he spends the night with a naked woman and a wild animal in his bed, and he wakes up thinking that he’s completely nuts and needs even more help.
At the best, he gets Jackson back.
“Fine.” He goes to his knees, lets the coyote get close, trying not to flinch when it nuzzles in close, licks at his throat. He’s shaking with the thought of it, with the idea that this could be it. When he comes to his feet, the coyote sticks close to him, walks down the hall right by his side. It leaps up onto the bed and hunkers down, head on its crossed paws, watching Stiles.
It’s weird if he thinks of it as a dog, but in some ways it looks just like Jackson when he’d lie down on the bed and watch Stiles strip.
He skins off his shirt and drop it on the floor, almost laughing when the coyote growls softly until he picks up the shirt and tosses it into the laundry basket. “It’s not like you’ve been here to clean up after me,” he says, as if maybe it is Jackson, and the coyote snorts softly.
It only takes a few minutes for Stiles to yank off his socks and shove down his jeans. He keeps his boxers on, even though Cora is completely naked; it just feels better to him that way. Even so, he can feel her eyes on him.
She sits down next to the coyote, tangles her fingers in its ruff and leans in to whisper loudly, “You have good taste. But I get it, he’s taken. All you need to do is get out of your fur and stake your claim properly.”
The coyote doesn’t leave much room for Stiles on the bed, which isn’t a surprise-Jackson was always good at imitating a blanket when he draped over Stiles, and the coyote is just the same. Cora ends up on the other side of the coyote, her fingers in its ruff like an anchor, and Stiles feels it heave a heavy sigh and relax.
Even if it’s not Jackson, it’s domesticated, and it’s like sleeping with a big dog. It’s relaxing listening to the little huffs and whines, and he closes his eyes, letting his fingers idly comb through the fur, stopping only when he bumps into Cora’s hand in his way.
“If you are Jackson,” he murmurs sleepily, “this had better work. Because if you think I’m feeding a coyote steak, think again. Either you go hunt for yourself, or you get kibble. Get back in your skin if you want pancakes and bacon tomorrow morning. Or an egg white omelet, Mr. I’m Picky About What I Put In My Body.”
The coyote licks his cheek, and Stiles almost laughs at it. By the time he falls asleep, he has Cora’s fingers tangled with his as they both hold on tight to the coyote, and he has to admit, he feels weirdly right for the first time in a year.
#
Stiles wakes to the feel of a body wrapped around his, hips idly moving, rubbing morning wood against his butt. He sighs and stretches, turns towards Jackson and captures his mouth for a kiss, licking into his mouth and lazily finding his way out of slumber and into the waking world. He’s halfway to climbing on top of him when he realizes where he is and what he’s doing.
He pulls back, leans on both hands and looks down at Jackson. Just stares at him, at the kiss-swollen mouth and the hooded blue eyes, and the lazy smirk. “Fuck…”
“Don’t stop on my account.” Cora wiggles her fingers at them, lying on her side just past Jackson, her chin propped on her hand. “No really, I mean it, don’t stop. You guys look good together, and I think a reunion is what, a year overdue?”
It’s not really possible. It can’t be possible, and yet, here he is. “Jackson.” Stiles can barely breathe, then Jackson has flipped them, stretches over him and holds Stiles’s hands down, bends in to kiss him hungrily. “Fuck, Jackson.”
Jackson growls softly. “I couldn’t find my way back.”
“You’re back now. You’re here. Fuck, you’re here.” Stiles cradles his face, just stares at him. As much as he wants to rub closer, go full on octopus and never let him go, he also just wants to look until he memorizes his face all over again. “We thought you were dead. We found your car, your clothes.”
“I didn’t exactly plan on leaving.” Jackson rubs his cheek against Stiles’s cheek, nuzzles in against his throat and nips. “I didn’t plan on spending a year in the woods as a coyote. And I believe someone promised me bacon and pancakes, which is going to be a hell of an improvement on squirrel.”
“I like squirrel,” Cora says idly. “Deer is better, but squirrels are a perfect snack.”
“More than I want to know.” Stiles holds up a hand, stops the bonding conversation between the two very naked people in his bed over talking about wildlife. “I just… Cora, go into the living room. I am thankful, more than I can say, but right now, I am throwing you out of this room so I can talk to Jackson.” Talk is a euphemism, and he’s pretty sure both of them aware. “And after we talk, we will shower, and we will have breakfast, and then we will all discuss exactly what happened and how this family and pack thing works, and I will try to wrap my head around this because it’s almost too much right now, and I just want… I just want…”
“Me.” Jackson smirks, and Stiles kisses him just to shut him up.
“Yes,” Stiles agrees. “I want you.”
Cora leaves, the door snicking shut behind her, and Stiles reaches up to touch Jackson’s lips.
“We are not going to talk about what happened,” he says softly. “Not yet. Right now, I want to welcome you home, and we’ll figure out the rest later. Let me just enjoy this and you can prove to me I’m not dreaming.”
“You’re not dreaming.” Jackson nips at his throat, sucks a mark to life. “You’re not dreaming, Stiles. I’m finally home.”