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There’s blood on the shower wall.
It’s smeared over the tile at chest height, handprints just barely distinguishable in the bright red streaks. Thin, watery droplets glide slowly down the wall. Fresh—as if it’d been splattered there seconds ago.
It hadn’t been there this morning.
Scott stares at it, panting raggedly.
Where has he been? Does he know? He doesn’t think he forgot anything, but he hadn’t the first time, either.
His vision tunnels.
Someone is dead.
Someone is dead and there’s blood in his shower and—
Scott’s head slams against the floor.
He blinks back stars as he rolls onto his side, hissing and grabbing at the base of his skull. “Ow.”
It comes out more plaintive than he’d wanted, but there’s no one to answer. Stiles is long gone, and his mom’s taken an extra shift at the hospital tonight.
He thinks.
He waits a moment for his vision to clear, then pushes himself up on trembling hands.
The shower wall is clean.
He scrambles to his feet, half-falling out of the room to get to the clock on his dresser.
9:02.
It’s dark out, so it’s not morning. And it was just before nine when he got back from Derek’s.
He lets the clock slip through his hands, uncaring when it bounces on the carpet.
Cautiously, he creeps back to the bathroom, clinging to the doorframe when he reaches it.
Still no blood.
Had he imagined it?
His hand doesn’t leave the wall as he steps towards the shower, fingers trailing along behind him.
He was at school today. Stiles stole half his chips at lunch. He stole a handful of Stiles’ gummy worms during free period. He studied for chem in the library. He went bowling with Allison.
He found out there’s something called an Alpha and it bit him and it isn’t Derek and it wants him to be a murderer and maybe he is a murderer and he can’t even remember—
He stops in front of the tub.
The curtain’s still half covering the wall. Anything could be behind it.
Scott huffs out a frustrated breath.
He’s not a coward.
He pulls the curtain all the way back.
No red.
He reaches for the faucet.
Blood blooms across his forearms, filling his nostrils with copper and terror.
Scott snatches his hand back.
It’s gone.
He brings his hand up to his face: it’s nothing but his own skin, covered in dust and dirt and ash from the Hale house.
He looks at the faucet.
The blood had disappeared as soon as his fingers had left the metal.
Dr. Deaton had said wolves had memories.
Derek had said his senses would remember.
He had said the blood on the bus had been his.
He would’ve bled all over himself, skin cut up and clothes in tatters. Just like today’s shirt, which he’s going to have to stuff in one of the outside garbage cans so Mom doesn’t ask why there’s four claw-shaped tears running through the front of it.
Maybe he’d done that with last night’s clothes, too.
A whimper gets lodged in his throat.
He’s so tired of blood.
He could skip the shower tonight. Slip into school early. Use the showers in the locker room before first period.
Unless he finds blood there, too.
Or causes it.
Scott bites down on his lip, just hard enough for it to hurt, and steps into the shower.
Blood pools around his feet.
It’s not real.
He turns the water on, pushing it all the way to hot.
He feels the spray of water for a split second before it stops.
Scott blinks, turning around.
The knob is still pointed to off.
He hadn’t turned the water on just now. He must have turned it on this morning.
A wave of dizziness sweeps over him, and he reaches out blindly towards the wall.
It’s sticky.
It’s not real.
It’s dry again.
What if that’s not real?
Scott shoves a knuckle in his mouth and bites down hard, forcing back a sob.
Then his fingers find the shower knob, this time, and water bursts cold and then hot across his back. The water dripping down his torso shifts from clear to red to clear again. He washes out dirt except for when he’s washing out blood.
Each new touch sparks a memory he hadn’t even known he’d forgotten.
It’s the longest shower he’s ever taken.
He keeps scrubbing until the water droplets rolling off his arms just look like water.
He turns the knob to off, just once this time. Lets the water drip down the drain. Steps out onto the bathing mat and ruffles a towel through his hair.
Then he stands there just as long as he’d showered, before finally working up the courage to look back.
The shower wall is clean. So is his skin.
Not a single speck of blood.
He thinks.
Stripping off his rain-soaked shirt doesn’t take as long as it should.
It’s uncomfortable where the dried blood sticks the cloth to his skin, but it doesn’t hurt. Scott doesn’t bite back a scream when he twists his torso, doesn’t nearly pass out when his core muscles engage. It’s all as casual as if he’d spilled soda down his shirt and needed a quick rinse to get rid of the stains.
The shirt is in tatters as it falls to the floor.
His pants and jacket are already off, lying in a crumpled heap by the sink. The blood smells that miserably familiar smell, all soaked in fear and pain. He’s pretty sure not much got on the jeans—maybe just the waistband—so they might be okay after a soak. Nothing’s fixing the hole in the back of the jacket, though. Matted threads all raveled and frayed where the blade had cut through.
Cloth doesn’t knit itself back together.
Maybe that makes the loss of the jacket worse than what It did to him.
Scott stares in the mirror, and the bloodied mess on his stomach stares back. Guilt gnaws at him, more real than the wound that isn’t there.
Mom’s had to buy him an entire new wardrobe over the course of the past year: shirts and jackets and even socks, torn up almost as soon as she buys them. It’s another expense they don’t need, along with the broken window, the mess the Oni made of the kitchen, and whatever’s going on with the roof.
She hasn’t said anything about it, but she doesn’t have to. The way her brow pinches every time he asks is enough.
Scott hasn’t told her what happened yet. She won’t be home for another hour, and he couldn’t bring himself to call.
That’s what the shower’s for. It’ll be easier to tell her if he doesn’t look like—like—
He grips the sink and breathes through his nose.
The blood crusted at the small of his back itches. Something underneath his skin, too. Maybe some of the fibers from his shirt, trapped inside when the wound had closed over.
He doesn’t want to think about it. The henley had been one of his favorites—one of the few things he still has from sophomore year.
Dude, you still got—
It’s me, Scott. I swear to god, it’s me.
A shiver runs down his spine. His completely healed, totally fine spine.
He’s wasting time.
He steps in the shower and turns the water on.
It doesn’t feel so different from the rain.
He drops his head, letting the water cover his face until it drips off his nose and chin and lips, hands hanging weightlessly at his sides. The steady stream works away at the blood: familiar, reddish-pink lines running down his skin.
They look like veins.
His hand trembles as he brings it up to touch his face. The pads of each tip are wet, wrinkled against his cheek.
He presses a little harder. Stronger.
He’s never tried pulling his own pain.
It wouldn’t do any good, taking it out just to put it back in. But at least he’d know what it felt like. If it—hurts. Typically.
Give it to me.
It’d been agony. Then nothing at all.
Maybe it’s always like that.
Can you do something? It had asked. Anything to make it easier?
The deputy’s pain hadn’t even been that bad. Not that much worse compared to Coach’s. Maybe even better compared to Isaac’s.
Scott’s hand drops away from his face, and water chases after it, eager to follow the line of gravity.
He’d been breathing in time with the deputy, when it happened. His own muscles clenched to match the other’s, the tha-thump tha-thump of the deputy’s heart overlaid with his own.
Then it was just—
The spray is ice against his skin.
He turns to twist the handle further towards hot, waits for the temperature to rise.
The soap block is heavy when he picks it up.
It’s lemon-ginger scented, handmade—a gift from one of Mom’s coworkers. It’s in his bathroom instead of hers because she hadn’t liked it. Too powerful, she’d said.
That’s why he likes it. It takes a lot to mask a scent from a werewolf.
He still smells like Stiles.
He drags the back of his hand across his nose, once the soap is lathered up, but the smell is just as stark. Even past the blood, the soap, his own lingering fear. Seeped into him, everywhere Its hands had pressed against his body.
Even if it weren’t on his skin, it’s in the walls. The furniture. Scott’s house has been Stiles’ second home as long as Scott can remember, and the smell of him is everywhere.
Scott slumps against the wall and breathes through his mouth.
Everything smells the same.
The citrus of Stiles’ anxiety. The sweat of his slept-in clothes. The trace of morning breath, familiar from summer camp and finals week and sleepovers at each other’s houses.
Only the eyes had changed.
The blood on Scott’s stomach keeps flaking away. Swirling down the drain, like nothing ever happened.
He hasn’t even touched it yet. The water pressure doing just fine on its own, blood peeling off as easily as the costume blood he’d worn for Harley’s third grade Halloween party. Except he’d discovered too late he’d been allergic to the gel, so he’d an angry rash across his skin for days afterward.
He stares down at his blemish-free skin.
There’d been a sword through his stomach barely an hour ago. Eviscerating his pancreas and part of his intestines, according to Deaton.
He doesn’t even know how long the wound lasted. Minutes, maybe. Seconds.
Funny how that happens.
Soap burrows under his nails, the pressure building uncomfortably. He’s clenching the bar too tight.
He keeps staring at his stomach. Even with the sharpness of his eyes, the red blotches at his navel have faded almost entirely. He can scrub away the last remnants with just a couple swipes.
It’ll be like nothing ever happened.
“I need to shower,” Scott says, pulling away from Kira the second they make it to his room. If she says something in response, the blood pounding in his ears—her veins—is too loud for him to hear.
It’s been like this since he woke under her hands, gasping, the smell of hospital sanitation and the ozone from her lightning in his nose. She probably thinks that’s what he wants to wash off, and he’s not going to correct her.
The saliva pooling in his mouth is much harder to explain.
He stumbles into the bathroom, still off balance from dying, again, and kicks the door shut behind him.
The hitch in her breathing briefly pierces his focus, and guilt presses against his chest.
He doesn’t want to shut her out. Not when she’s still so rattled from everything that happened—the dead pool, the berserkers, her mom—but he needs to shut himself out.
The worst she could feel is nowhere close to the worst he could do.
His eyes find the mirror, and he blinks at the nothingness in his reflection. He pulls his upper lip back, drags his tongue across blunted teeth. They’re white—white as the Beacon Hills sweater the frazzled nurse had given him.
They’d been bright red when Liam’s blood had splattered across them, his fangs lengthening with pleasure at the taste.
The memory of something sweet coats the back of his throat.
Scott gags.
He fumbles for the shower handles, twisting the water as hot as it will go, then claws the sweater over his head. He shucks off the rest of his clothes in a red-tinged haze and half-steps, half-falls into the tub.
The steam rising from the water feels like the Mute’s breath against his neck.
Let me help you, he’d said. Let me show you how.
A hysteric laugh forms in Scott’s chest.
As if he needs to be shown. As if the two inch claws and armor-piercing fangs and all-consuming rage aren’t enough already. Dad had said taking a life wasn’t easy, even if you’re forced to do it, but the Mute hadn’t forced him. Just set the axe in place and watched Scott swing it.
He wouldn’t have stopped at Liam.
Even with the door between them, the rushing of the water, Kira’s heartbeat still pounds at his senses. Faster than normal, pumping warm, hot blood through her veins.
If he clawed her open, maybe she’d bleed out faster than normal, too.
Maybe it’d stain his teeth.
He snatches the bar of soap off the shelf, not even bothering with a rag, and scrubs at his forearms to block out the noise. The smells.
The soap cakes under his fingernails, working into every crevice as he lathers it over his body. There isn’t any blood to remove.
There’d been so much.
There could be more.
He rakes his nails through his hair hard enough to make his scalp ache. He tilts his head, exposing his neck and letting the water pour into his mouth. He swallows down the harsh chemical taste in the hopes it’ll burn everything away.
His teeth feel too big for his gums.
His breath turns short as he scrubs harder.
You’re the Alpha, Liam had said. You’re a predator.
He’d known how the phrase was supposed to end. What he was supposed to say.
He hadn’t been able to get it out.
Not when he feels that rage all the time, thrumming under his skin even without the pull of the moon.
It’d be easy.
Pinning Violet to the wall and tearing instead of throwing. Garrett, too. The Mute. Even Araya Calavera, bleeding out on his claws as soon as he’d broken free. He knows better than Peter—he wouldn’t cut deep enough to turn. Not unless he wanted to. Drive his claws just right into her skin, watching it tear and bleed and—
The soap bar crumbles under his fist.
He blinks, watching the pieces tumble.
It doesn’t feel real until they splash into the water.
Shit.
Scott drops, desperately scooping up the pieces before they disappear down the drain. There’s too many of them, all swirling around—fragmented into pieces so small they’ll be almost impossible to use.
They keep slipping out of his hands.
He keeps trying.
Stiles would laugh at him for trying to salvage it. Tell him it’s too late, that it’s just a bar of soap.
It’s the last one from the cabinet. They’re fifty-four cents a piece, plus the gas to get to the drugstore.
Mom was counting literal pennies two days ago, when she thought he wasn’t looking.
Scott slumps against the side of the shower, legs and arms trembling, and stares at the chunks in his hands. Destroyed, because of him.
Stupid.
He lost control. All because he was thinking about—how could he even consider—
His teeth are just at the edge of fang.
He could’ve done anything.
Just outside the door, he hears Kira shifting on the bed, completely unaware of how much danger she’d been in.
Is still in.
The dream hadn’t felt like a dream at all. Not muted. Not half-remembered. All of it right at the surface, waiting to be unleashed.
He’s the highest value on the dead pool.
Maybe the Benefactor isn’t all wrong.
His vision blurs as he arranges the broken pieces on the lip of the tub.
He shouldn’t have used the bar in the first place. Soap was never going to fix what’s wrong with him.
And now he’s wasting the hot water, too.
Scott pushes the faucet to cold and stands.
The water runs over his skin, traitorously clear, for a few more seconds as he rinses out the soap. He sniffles, hot tears slipping down his face, but it doesn’t matter.
The water rinses away the evidence before it forms.
Scott leaves muddied footprints all over the bathroom floor.
He’s covered from head to foot in sweat, dust, blood—the latter dried on, sticking to him in patches. Pulling at his skin as he moves.
It isn’t his. Mostly.
The blood on his collarbone is, where one of the Berserkers sliced his shoulder open. The blood encircling his wrists, too, where the leather straps dug in as he’d struggled. A streak on his arm, a dried cut on his forehead, all from the fight with Peter.
The blood on his knuckles is Kira’s.
Four dark splotches on his right hand, where he’d sunk the blade into her chest.
He hadn’t even realized what had happened at first—his memories all fogged over between the altar and breaking free. Then he’d caught the smell, just slightly richer than the rest. Matching the ink-thick blood on Kira’s chest.
Nauseating. Intoxicating.
Impossible to ignore.
It makes his head spin as he fumbles with the edge of his shirt. He has to drag his knuckles too close to his mouth to take it off.
There’s fur from the bear still stuck to his elbow.
He blinks.
He’s staring at the shower wall.
Blood-covered arms wrapped tight around dirt-covered legs, knees tucked up against his chest. The porcelain floor of the tub cold against his bare skin.
He doesn’t remember how he got here.
He should care more than he does.
He blinks again, twice, trying to bring the faucet handles into focus. He gets distracted by the wall—there’s blood on it. Handprints. Streaked, like something had slid down it.
Him?
He doesn’t remember.
Scott drops his head against his arms, neck too tired to hold it up. He flexes his toes. Shivers into his arms. He’s so cold, even though he’s practically blanketed in blood.
So is everything else.
Reddish-brown smudges on the sink, the toilet, the floor. Everything he’s touched is going to have to be cleaned.
His clothes.
Where did he put his clothes?
A spike of anxiety runs through him. He curls his hand around the edge of the tub and peers around the room. He can’t lose them. They’d been fine. Good, even. He was supposed to—
He spots them on the floor.
Carefully folded by the hamper, ready to be taken to the laundry room.
He lets out a relieved sigh, sinking back down.
That’s good. That’s—they can’t afford another shopping trip right now. Not with the utility bill past due, and the roof, and Mom’s double shifts at the hospital that wind up tripled at least once a week.
It’d be especially bad since his clothes really are fine. Dirty, stained, but not ripped this time, and the black material will hide anything that doesn’t come all the way out. Malia had even found the jacket Kate had taken from him, lying in a discarded heap just a few feet away from the altar.
It had been fine, too. Kate had taken it off with disturbing care.
And then she’d strapped him down and smiled as he screamed.
Had he smiled when he’d stabbed Kira?
The blood on his knuckles burns.
He sucks his lip into his mouth.
Salt from the blood and sweat bites at his tongue. His stomach twists like it knows what’s inside him.
He could’ve killed her.
Would have killed her, if she hadn’t discovered her healing in time. He’d stabbed straight through her chest. Fatal, just like—
Scott pulls himself tighter.
Stiles had formed a black eye by the time they’d dropped Scott off at his house. Stiles wouldn’t say how he’d gotten it. Not that he needed to.
They won’t know what they’re fighting, Kate had said. Or killing.
She hadn’t understood.
It wasn’t his first experience with this—with someone else in his head. It wasn’t even his first attempt at killing his friends. But it was the closest he’d come. Kira, Stiles, Malia, Liam—he would’ve killed them all. Wouldn’t have stopped.
Like he’d wanted to.
Like he’d dreamed.
Blood drips down the shower wall, all the way to the tub floor. It gathers near his feet, merging with the smudges from his heels. Making more of a mess.
He still hasn’t turned the water on. Hasn’t even moved since he got in.
He shivers.
There were twelve hours between when Kate forced the mask on and he’d finally broken free.
They’re a complete blank.
He drops his head again, the palms of his hands pressed up against his eyes as his thumbs massage at his cheekbones. They’re not chafed from where the skull had pressed against his face—werewolf healing too fast for any lasting damage—but there’s a phantom ache at each point of contact.
He braces his fingers against the sides of his head, nails boring towards his skull.
The mask is gone.
He’d broken it in half, let it fall to the ground. Taken off all the other bones, the bear skins, the clothes that held their stench.
It doesn’t matter.
Its scent is locked deep in his bones. Impossible to get out, even if he clawed down to the marrow.
He understands now why she was called the Bone Woman.
He blinks down at the faucet.
He doesn’t remember standing.
He’s freezing, fingers trembling as they hover over the metal. The fan roars in his ears, ready to disperse the steam from the hot water as soon as he turns it on.
Like nothing ever happened.
He curls his fingers away from the handles.
Bits of fur cling to his skin, their scent indistinguishable from his.
Maybe it would be better if he stayed like this. A warning, reminding them not to get too close. Of what he could do.
If he went down to the Sheriff’s station, would they arrest him? Could they charge him for attempted murder with no weapon in hand, and no scars on his victim’s body?
Proving something hurt when there are no marks is impossible.
His shoulders droop.
Even with the blood painted on his skin, they wouldn’t listen. Stiles might even try to scrape it off himself, hands too insistent to be careful.
The thought of anyone’s hands on him makes his skin itch, claws pushing against his fingertips.
He doesn’t know what he’d do.
Too dangerous.
Scott exhales through his nose and turns the water on.
He fights to stay present, this time. If they won’t remember—he will.
He drags the soap across his collarbone. Traces the rings around his wrists. Picks off all the little pieces of fur, and the dried blood, and the clumped dirt.
Then carefully, painstakingly, he washes the blood from his knuckles.
Scott’s body is so fucking loud.
He inhales and his lungs rattle. Exhales and they whistle. Breathes as shallow as he can, but the ever-reddening bandage at his ribs just wrinkles and squelches, disgustingly harsh against his ears.
He hates it.
Hates the pounding of his heart, beating along with maddening regularity in his chest.
His hands fists in his sheets and he whimpers—another fucking sound. Everything so loud his head might split.
Would he come back from that, too? Brains shoveled back inside his skull, slightly scrambled? Maybe he’d get a shower cap, just to hold them in place.
He chokes back a laugh. Not because it would hurt, but because it’s just more noise.
His eyes water.
He stares at the ceiling.
The screen door on the front porch is knocking against the doorframe, caught by the wind when Mom had let it fall shut on her way out. It’s a brief distraction, but ultimately pointless—there’s not enough inertia to keep it going.
In the garage, Mom’s car roars to life. The engine’s been making a weird clicking noise when it accelerates for the past few weeks, so he’s able to track the car’s location for four blocks down before it fades out. The screen door comes to a standstill at about the same time, leaving the house blanketed in silence.
Scott drops his head back against the headboard, the abrupt crack of his skull against wood disrupting the emptiness.
Then it’s just him.
Lungs expanding. Bandage crinkling. Blood rushing through his veins, round and round and round.
His eyes burn, so he squeezes them shut.
He didn’t cry when Theo shoved his hand in his chest.
It’s stupid to start now.
He drifts his fingers to the front edges of his shirt, looping them through the ragged holes. It’s in tatters—cut first by Liam, then Theo, then his mother, her kitchen shears slicing it cleanly from top to bottom. It had been their best option, since he’d nearly passed out trying to get out of his jacket.
It’s okay, sweetheart, she’d said. It’s just a shirt. We’ll get you settled after you heal a bit, okay?
He’d just nodded, the pain too overwhelming to do much else.
That had been over an hour ago.
He drops the strips of his shirt back onto his stomach and shivers, suddenly freezing.
Cold sweats. Blood loss. Side effect of dying.
Who even knows.
All that matters is how overwhelming the smell of blood is, coupled with sweat and fear and failure, and something else that makes him want to crawl out of his own skin just to get away from it.
He feels filthy. Used.
The thought has bile rushing up at the back of his throat.
He needs to shower, and fuck his stupid chest.
It’s only ten feet away.
He drops one leg off the side of the bed, choking back a gasp when it pulls at his abdominals. He doesn’t wait to recover, just sends the other leg over before he can think better of it.
He can’t hold back a pathetic cry of pain this time.
He lays there, half on his bed and half off, chest jerking up and down.
At least no one’s around to hear it.
He glances down—the bandage is redder than it was before.
That’s fine. It’s coming off as soon as he makes it to the bathroom, anyway—might as well make the most of it.
He pants for a moment longer before pushing himself up, gritting his teeth and dragging one shaking leg in front of the other.
Ten feet is maybe a lot farther than he’d thought.
He makes it three steps before pitching forward, just grabbing the doorframe in time. He stands there, wheezing. Then he slowly shuffles past the threshold, hands anchored to the wall for support, and flicks the light on.
He looks terrible.
Hair plastered to his forehead. Lips too pale and bandage too red. His jacket bunched uncomfortably at the sleeves, dried blood crusted in all the cuts.
He has to take it off. Throw it out when he’s done.
First things first.
He starts with his pants, the easiest since they only need a couple of tugs before gravity takes over, and the same with his boxers. His socks follow shortly after, loose enough to slide off at the heel, even as stiff and grime-covered as they are. That just leaves his jacket.
He toys at the edges of his sleeves.
Can’t turn back.
He pulls at the leather and his shirt comes with it.
He’s on his hands and knees on the floor.
His lungs are seizing in his chest, coughing and wheezing with a force that would put his asthma to shame, and his jacket’s in a heap beside him, shirt still wrapped up inside.
He doesn’t remember how he got here. He’s not supposed to forget, he’s supposed to—he has to—
He smells it.
In his mouth, in his nose, in every agonized breath.
Theo.
Scott just barely makes it to the toilet before he hurls.
It smells like blood and bile and sick, but it isn’t enough. He’s still there, inside him, not—Theo’s claws hadn’t been in his stomach.
They’d been in his lungs, tearing and shredding, skin cells trapped inside when he’d finished.
Scott gags again.
Everything comes out but Theo.
He grabs the sides of the bowl and sobs.
Everything hurts so fucking much.
He feels so fucking stupid.
What the fuck is wrong with him?
A line of blood slips past the seal of his bandage, trailing down his thigh. He reaches for his chest and rips the bandage off in one unsteady motion, red splattering across the porcelain, and drops it with the rest of his torn and bloodied things.
The cloth puddles there, damning. Warning.
Ruined things get thrown out.
Scott grips the sides of the toilet tighter and shudders.
Shower.
He needs to get to the shower.
He stands on wobbling legs, the wound at his chest still weeping freely. His vision grays around the edges as he pulls back the curtain, but he doesn’t let it stop him from stepping in, bracing his hands against the tile to keep him upright.
The handles seem to glide across the wall as he stares down at them.
He licks his lips.
Mom would have a fit if she knew what he was doing.
She’s not here to find out.
He sucks in a breath and turns the faucet on.
The first blast of water is agony.
His back slams against the shower wall, one hand darting out to cut the water off as he heaves. All five gouges stand out, distinct shapes, before the blood rushes to the surface and coats his skin.
It’s a handprint. Gored deep into his chest.
He nearly vomits again at the sight.
He tips his head back against the tile, all-too-human nails digging into his palms. Everything feels as raw as when it’d first happened.
He needs it gone.
He turns the water back on.
The spray comes out just as fast, just as cold, just as painful as before, but he doesn’t stop it. Just lets the water pound into him until the pain of it blurs into everything else.
It’s not enough.
He picks up the block of soap—store bought, brand new—in both hands, too afraid he’ll drop it with just one. He’s washed dogs before at the clinic: ones that had gotten into fights with far bigger dogs and had the wounds to prove it. There’s a procedure—massage gently around the area, careful not to pull at the stitches or irritate the wound, keep the dog feeling safe and secure.
Scott stares down at his chest, blood dribbling sluggishly out of it.
He wants to shove the bar inside his ribs whole.
Like if it sits there long enough, somehow it’ll burn Theo out of him. Or maybe it’ll just burn him.
Either one would work.
Water patters against his skin, rain-like.
He’s so tired.
He moves the soap away from his chest to scrape across his arms, the white foam mixing in to turn the lines that familiar pink. The blood on the rest of his body comes off just fine—marks from Liam’s claws, scratches from broken bits of wood and glass. All healed. All disappearing.
Scott slams the water off with the palm of his hand.
The shower head drips for a few seconds longer.
Scott pants. Breathing getting louder.
The dripping stops.
The panting doesn’t.
Harsh and painful and stupidly loud, while his chest bleeds fresh patterns down his skin.
I’m with you, Theo had said.
His voice, his scent, his hand, all carved into him.
It’s not going away this time.
Scott sucks in a shallow breath, tears trapped in his lashes. The mirror reflects in his eyes, from the water still glistening on his skin.
Scott stares at his reflection.
Mom stores the extra bandages in the cabinet behind it.
He drags the back of his hand across his eyes and releases the breath he’d been holding, chest throbbing weakly.
If he can’t get rid of Theo’s presence, he can hide it.
He reaches for a towel and wraps it around himself, low at the hips to mitigate the stains, before stumbling towards the sink.
No one else needs to know. He can cover it up, bury it deep beneath cloth and tape and bandages, where no one else can see. Where no one else will have to think about it.
Not even him.
Scott doesn’t notice the blood until he reaches for Malia’s hand.
There’s really not that much—a thin coating across his palm, a few lines streaked down his wrist and forearm. His fingertips have the worst of it: stained a deep red from pressing against Ms. Finch’s chest, trying to stem the flow of blood. Still, despite the garishness of it all, it’s not as bad as it could be.
It’s just that he’d forgotten it.
He’s had someone else’s blood on his hands since they’d fled the school, and he’d forgotten it.
“Scott?”
He snatches his hand into a fist around the blood.
Malia’s staring at him, brow wrinkled as she drops sideways onto his bed. “You good?”
She isn’t looking at his hand. Just trying to catch his eyes with that forthright concern he loves so much.
He swallows and tucks his hand behind his back, hoping the scent of the blood isn’t as obvious as it now seems.
“Yeah,” he says, plastering on the world’s weakest smile. “Sorry. I’m just, um. I should get cleaned up.”
“Oh. Okay.” The twist in Malia’s expression makes it clear she doesn’t believe him, but she doesn’t call him out on it.
She looks so small on his bed, the bullet in her pocket still smelling of fear and silver and Halwyn’s blood.
He wants to hold her.
He’d get blood on her hands, too.
He walks silently to the bathroom.
The room is dark—or at least, that strange twilight darkness has become ever since he learned how to see in it. It distorts the shadows, blurring out the tile on the shower wall and emphasizing the emptiness of the space.
He’s cleared everything out of his bathroom twice. First to pack for college, then to convince his dad he was leaving. Maybe if he had, none of this would’ve happened. Maybe Mom…
The stains from Monroe’s attack haven’t been cleaned up, either. Blood still soaking into the kitchen floor, getting harder and harder to remove. He just hasn’t had time, and Mom’s getting discharged tomorrow. Planning to go back to work the day after that.
Those bullet holes won’t pay for themselves, she’d said.
He needs to call their insurance. As long as they’re not working for Monroe, like the rest of the town apparently is.
Scott shivers.
He flicks on the light with the edge of his palm and blood flakes onto the switch.
It startles him.
He’d forgotten about it again.
He pulls his hand back, watching the way the blood cracks and darkens in all the creases. There’s no gaps in the red staining his skin to show where the piece might have come from.
He needs it gone before he ruins something else.
Scott shuffles over to the sink, head down to avoid looking at the shower. He doesn’t need it—it’s just a little on his hands, easy enough to wipe off. Besides that, he’d have to close the door.
The ten foot distance between himself and Malia already feels like too much.
He turns the water on and a few red flecks peel off.
Nothing else happens.
It’s not like before. Not like when it washes away in an instant, or bubbles back up as soon as he removes it. It just—stays. The water reddening as it pools in his hands, overflowing to splash against the basin.
If anything, the blood on his hands just looks thicker.
Impossible to hide.
Scott’s stomach twists as he starts scrubbing. Skin pulling against skin, nails raking against the flesh of his palms.
It doesn’t come out.
It hadn’t caked on like this after trying to help Mom—but he doesn’t actually remember cleaning them that night. Just the blood, so much blood, rushing towards him and coating the floor and Mom bleeding out faster than he can stop and Ms. Finch was a werewolf, but it didn’t matter if she wouldn’t heal and she needed to shift—
The springs on his bed creak.
Scott blinks.
Pink-tinged water whorls uselessly down the drain.
He should use soap.
Had he used soap earlier, to get Mom’s blood off his hands?
Scott panics, shutting off the tap water and grabbing the threadbare washcloth on the sink. It’s rough against his skin, different from the water but no more helpful. The cloth just smudges and smears the blood deeper into his palms, like his skin would rather absorb the stain than let it go.
His claws threaten to break the surface. It’s his fault for leaving it so long. If he hadn’t forgotten it, if he’d just fixed it sooner, maybe—
Malia’s hands wrap around his.
Scott freezes.
He hadn’t heard her coming closer.
She slips the cloth from his fingers, uncharacteristically silent as she holds him still with one hand while cleaning with the other.
Heat climbs up the base of his neck.
She isn’t supposed to see him like this.
“Thank you,” he murmurs, slurred with embarrassment as she slides the rag over his palms.
It’s far gentler than he’d been, but not any more successful.
Malia’s exasperated huff after another fruitless pass isn’t a surprise. He waits for her to give up and put it back in his hands, rightfully leaving the mess to him.
He doesn’t expect the cool press of the rag against his chest.
Scott inhales softly, glancing down, and sees the thick streak of blood across his collarbone.
Another thing he hadn’t noticed.
The blood smears into his plaid shirt.
It’s harder to hide the scent of his shame with her face so close to his.
“Kind of a mess, huh?” he tries, hoping to alleviate the tension.
It falls flat.
But all that happens is that his own throat closes up, lips pursed as he tries not to cry.
Malia drops the rag to her side. “There’s too much blood. You should just get in the shower.”
Scott flinches.
It’s blunt, completely Malia in its simplicity. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line; the fastest way to get out a stubborn blood stain is a shower.
Except she doesn’t get it.
The problem isn’t the shower or the rag or the water, or even the blood.
It’s him. The one common denominator in all his failures.
But that’s exactly why she shouldn’t have to deal with it, so he chokes down the lump in his throat and manages a rough-sounding, “Yeah.”
Malia doesn’t move.
Scott glances at the shower, then at the blood staining his chest. “Um…”
She cocks her head. “You’ve seen me naked.”
Scott’s breath catches.
Malia smirks playfully, leaning around him to turn the shower handles to “on.”
He hasn’t started the shower until after he’s already in it since sophomore year. A child’s impulse to save on utilities, in case those extra ten seconds of letting the water warm up were the difference between paying or not paying the water bill.
It takes the water splashing against the wall to get his fingers to move, instinctively unbuttoning down the front of his shirt. By the time he shucks off the sleeves, Malia’s turned towards him again.
He lets his shirt fall to the floor.
It’s disorienting, having her this close. Having anyone this close. He can feel her body heat against his skin, stronger than the steam from the shower.
There’s heat in her eyes, too.
He’s still not expecting it when her shirt joins his on the floor.
His heart beats faster in his chest.
She’s beautiful, but he’s known that. It’s the openness in her expression, the vulnerability in the curve of her lips, that has his pupils blown wide.
But it’s also what has him stepping back.
The blood from his shirt is already seeping into her bra in the pile of their clothes, staining it red.
He can’t get in the shower with her. Not like this. The water’s clear for now, but it’ll turn red as soon as he gets in. That’s what it does. It takes things, good things, and it ruins them.
He can’t do that to her.
Malia’s shoulders round, losing some of her confidence the longer it takes him to respond. “Is something wrong?”
“No! No, definitely not,” Scott stammers. Or at least, not in the way she’s thinking. “I just, I—”
“Do you want me to leave?”
Scott hesitates.
The still-open door is an answer itself. He could’ve closed it as soon as he’d walked in—probably should have—but he couldn’t stand the thought of being locked away from her.
He still can’t.
“There’s just… not much room,” he chokes out.
Malia tilts her head, searching his eyes.
Then she smiles. “Good thing I don’t plan on taking much.”
Despite everything, Scott finds himself smiling back weakly.
The rest of her clothes fall onto the pile.
Scott makes a dismayed noise, trying to nudge them away from his.
“Leave it,” Malia laughs, tugging him towards the shower. “They’re just going in the laundry anyway.”
Scott startles.
He can’t actually argue with that.
Malia pulls the shower curtain open a little wider, steam spilling out and fogging up the mirror. “Coming?”
The fan isn’t on.
The water is.
The door’s still open.
Malia’s already inside.
It’s too much and not enough.
Scott drops his pants to the floor, not caring where they land, and lets Malia guide him into the shower.
The water feels warm and gentle against his skin, soothing away tension he hadn’t even realized he was carrying. It’s a tight fit between the two of them, but Malia had been right—he doesn’t mind it. If anything, he’d be okay with her getting closer.
Except.
He looks down at his chest, his hands. The water lines taking on their red hue.
He presses back against the shower wall. “I’m sorry, I…”
Malia hums, placing a hand on his shoulder before reaching around to pick up the bar of soap. It’s an older one, the edges smoothed over from wear.
Scott doesn’t remember what it’s scented.
He doesn’t smell anything but her.
She lathers it between her hands, the suds building up and fusing with her scent, before pressing it against his palms.
It’s slow going, but Malia is methodical. Intent on her task as she drags the soap across his hands, the white surface slowly growing redder as his skin becomes cleaner.
Then she stops, growling with impatience, and drops the bar back onto the shower caddy.
Her hands are still soapy when she reaches for his chest.
Scott’s pulse races.
At least before, with the rag, and the soap, there’d been some kind of barrier between them.
“Wait,” he says, catching her gently by the wrists. “You don’t have to—I’ll get blood on you.”
Malia frowns up at him, nose scrunching like he’s said something fundamentally silly. “No. I’ll get blood off of you.”
Shock loosens his grip on her wrists, hands sliding down her forearms as she moves up towards the blood.
Her fingertips are hot where they press against his skin.
Kneading into his chest. Dissolving the stains.
It feels good.
Like he’s not being stripped down as the bloody water flows into the drain, but grounded. Made more real everywhere she touches.
Her hand brushes across the scar over his heart that isn’t there, and he gasps.
Malia stops. “You with me?”
Scott stares down at her hand, pressed flush against his chest.
Warm. Alive.
So is he.
“Yeah,” Scott says. “Yeah, I am.”