Bend The Rules , Stiles Stilinski ² ✓

[ 12 ] the ledge

"Aspen, I love you—we'll get through this together, just like we always do—"

"Don't you get it?" she said weakly, turning her neck so she was looking at him again, her brown locks falling in front of her face,

"I signed your death sentence the moment I fell in love with you!"

Another wave of heart-crushing silence washed over, as that sentence left her lips, hitting both of them hard.

"Falling in love with you was the worst thing I could have done for you, Stiles." She spoke, completely defeated, "Because it was always going to turn out this way—Deucalion was always going to come back for me, he was always going to try and get me to join him and my brother—but if I didn't love you, then he wouldn't be able to threaten your life."

Stiles felt like his voice had gotten trapped in his throat, he was just filled with so much sadness that he didn't know what to do anymore— he was at a loss.

"If I hadn't have fallen for you... you would be safe... So now you know, and there's only three ways this can go: I slowly watch myself turn into a callous killer that I'll be ashamed to look in the mirror, my brother kills you—or I just put a stop to it all... right here, right now—"

"Aspen," Stiles finally said, trying to gather his words.

He knew that when you're trying to stop someone from taking their own life, the last thing you do is try to get them to live for you—

you have to get them to want to live for themselves.

"He's not going to win." Stiles spoke with a surprising amount of confidence, "Deucalion... your brother... they won't win. There is always another way—there's always hope."

Aspen didn't miss the way he had quoted what Allison said the Scott earlier that night— which only hurt her more, because she didn't believe those words.

She didn't see how there could be hope in this siutation.

"You're the strongest person I've ever met—" Stiles continued, inching closer to her on the ledge of the rooftop, "and I know you better than I know myself most of the time, I know that putting others before yourself is a habit you've always been stuck with... and it's one of the many, many traits about you that I'm so deeply in love with. But please, baby... you have to listen to me—this isn't the answer, okay?"

Stiles inched closer, reaching out to intertwine his fingers with hers, as they both remained on the top of this ledge, one slip away from their deaths.

"You are my other half—" Stiles continued, his voice soft but shaken, "Without you... I don't know who I am...

and I'm not too keen on finding out either."

It was like time had stopped for them in that moment— as the two of them stood, at one fell swoop from their deaths.

"So either you step off this ledge with me...

or you take me with you."

The next few seconds that passed felt like an eternity in Aspen's head.

Her mind was such a dark place at the moment—it was a miserable torment she wouldn't wish upon her worst enemy. She was drowning in fear, the soul-crushing thought of Stiles being dead because of her was like a threatening tidal wave engulfing her, and she failed to even keep her head above the surface.

But the thought of Stiles dying with her hurt even more—the thought that he would really leave his own life behind because she didn't want hers anymore— that's what crushed her the most.

She couldn't let him do that for her. Even though she was this close to doing it for him.

She squeezed Stiles' hands as their fingers laced with one another's repeating that same action she did when she technically told Stiles she loved him after he had confessed his feelings to her.

It was a small, simple action that meant so much to the pair of them.

The relief that fled through Stiles was mountainous as he watched Aspen look down at the ground of the rooftop behind them— he could see it in her eyes; she wasn't going to go through with this.

The pair of them slowly and carefully got down from the ledge, standing to their feet once they were on safe ground, their bodies so close they could hear the other's heavy, panicked breathing.

The neon purple lights shone on them, as Stiles cupped the sides of her face with his hands, staring at her with all the adoration and longing in the world.

"You'd die for me?" Aspen couldn't help the words from blurting out in a shaken whisper as she stared into the honey specs of his irises that were still glossy.

"In a heartbeat."