#radruby

"His name is Derek Hale," Stiles told Stu in a rush of words, "He's a few years older than us. He just moved back into town from New York. I met him in the woods with Scott. He was kinda grumpy at first, but then he saw my mark. We're going to dinner tonight. I need to find something to wear."

Stiles ran up the stairs without waiting for Stu to say anything. 

Two hours later, Stiles stepped out the shower and toweled himself off. while wiping the stem from the mirror. He froze when the saw his reflection, unable to comprehend what he was seeing.

"No," he mumbled, raising a hand to his neck to touch the empty stretch of skin where he mark had always been. "No," he repeated, squeezing his eyes closed and hoping that this was a bad dream the could be changed with the force of will.

His neck remained bare, his mark faded out of existence. He drops his damped towel on the floor and stumbles naked out of the bathroom. He grabs his phone as soon he reaches room and dials the number he'd just programmed into it a few hours before. It rings. It rings. It rings. "The number you just dialed as a voice mailbox that has not been..."

He hangs up and dials again. And again. And again.

"I told you," Stu said from the doorway, "you don't need that mark to find love." The neck of his shirt is stretched out and misshapen, as if someone had grab a hold of it and there's four angry red lines going over his shoulder. Scratches deep enough that blood is slowly oozing from them.

"What did you do?" Stiles asked, not accusing because he didn't need to accuse, he already knew for certain that missing mark on his neck was the result of his brother's actions.

"I told you that I would decide for myself the person I would love. And that person was you, Stiles. It's always been you. I didn't need a mark on my skin to say you were mine, because you left a mark on my soul before we were even born. I thought you knew. I thought I'd marked your same way you marked mine."

Stu raised a hand a swiped it down his face and Stiles noticed for the first time that sharp metal of a knife gripped in his fist. "It should have been obvious that no one could love you like I do," Stu continued. "I mean, I've been with you from the start. I've always been at your side. Nothing and no one has ever been able to pull me away. When you had no one else, you had me. Isn't that what a soulmate is? Someone fixed at your side like the other half of your whole? Someone who would fight for you, die for you, kill for you."

Stu pointed the knife towards Stiles as he took slow, measured steps across the room. "You were going to leave me for some guy you didn't know. Nothing could ever drag me from your side, but you were ready to sprint away from mine just because you saw a stupid little mark that looked like yours."

"I'm sorry, Stu," Stiles said, tears filling his eyes. "I'm sorry." Stu acted as if Stiles hadn't even spoken, just kept approaching him, knife in hand.