♡ 𝙩𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪 ♡
𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘳 eighty-two.
a feast fit for gods.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
WARNING: ADULT AND EXPLICIT CONTENT TOWARDS END OF CHAPTER.
MARILYN GARCIA WAS FIERCELY PROTECTIVE.
Especially, undoubtedly, most definitely when it came to her daughter.
James said she couldn't see her -- so she didn't. Or, in better terms, she never let Dallas see her.
She saw Dallas all the time. From observing her day-to-day free periods at school to her walks home (just to make sure they were always safe), to her occasional visits to friends.
It was all in the name of motherhood.
The proclivity to make sure her daughter was fed, full, and fawned was just as instinctive as breathing and blinking. James could toss his empty threats into her net all he wanted, he'd be the one all tangled up in the loopholes, not her.
A garnet scarf wrapped around her hair and a pair of sunglasses slid down her sloped nose. Soft lullabies echoed from her car radio and porcelain pearl-white nail polish remained chipless as she dug them into the steering wheel.
Dallas could visit her friends. Sure, have fun, sweetheart.
But Derek Hale wasn't a friend.
Dallie's oversized jacket and too-thin-for-the-weather shorts disappeared into the darkness as she climbed to the loft. A smile was plastered across her young face, as charming as Marilyn always remembered, but frowned when it was painted for Derek. Not her.
Her seatbelt swung to the side as she wriggled out of its sling. Not him. Not them.
Boots slid against graphite as she fumbled her way after her, heels hot like hand-crafted hellfire. Her scarf was coming loose. Her sunglasses hid hopeful eyes.
It didn't matter how her dress tore at the seams when she climbed the concrete stairs. Or how her ears couldn't pick up the voices above as they were just a little too far away.
She wanted to hear it. She wanted to hear the good news. She wanted to be a good mother somehow, someway.
Her ankles tipped sideways as the mumbling above her head, circulating like an auditory halo, became clearer and more cohesive with each step.
"No, I'm listening. I always did listen, but nothing is ever important unless it's about you, is it?"
If her pointed heels didn't make her buckle, that sentence alone would.
The handrail could've collapsed beneath her and the stairs could've caved in beneath her feet. That's how heavy Marilyn felt at that moment -- like a falling star burning everything around it into oblivion.
"That's not fair."
It wasn't. It never was for women like them. Always misunderstood, misused, and misheard.
The pitchforks sharpened already. Marilyn could hear it, the clanks of metal and fire storming her way. She'd stop it. She'd stop it if she had to burn down the loft with their torches and finish what Kate started.
Her eyes squeezed shut. That was the curse talking. Another symptom of a Garcia's eventual descent into destined destruction.
"It's not, is it?" He paused. "You Garcias do nothing but hurt and that's all I feel when I look at you."
Not fair. Not fair at all. Not when Dallas was so much better, so much more pure, so above of what Marilyn and her sisters did on that island.
"Go fuck yourself, Derek." Marilyn could hear the tears clogging up her voice. "I came to return your key, I won't need it."
That's when the red-hot rage crept up behind her like Cade himself. She could feel his hands on her shoulders, his fire beneath her feet as she was burned at the stake, and his voice in her ear telling her that he was hurting what was hers.
Fists balled into asteroids.
A swift slam of the upstairs door made her heart skip a few beats. If it ever decided to beat regularly, anyway. Sniffling broke her heart and the disbelieved laughter ripped the pieces out from beneath the ribs.
Marilyn ducked out of sight as Dallas stormed through the exit doors. Her fists, smaller and cleaner, balled also.
Her eyes narrowed like tides between the sand and sea. Glass granules got caught up in her breath until it made it hard to breathe. This time, she didn't climb the concrete stairs with yearned dreams, she climbed it with an outdated apathy that rotted her from the inside out.
Marilyn was a bad mother. Whatever. She was flawed, ugly, and dark in all of the shades the world bruised her with. She didn't care. While James took her to school, she was planting decoy disasters to emulate her death. James could braid her hair, but Marilyn had to hide hers.
Running was a coward's game, but what happens when you have no choice but to play?
And perhaps abandoning her wasn't an act of love. But with love so flawed, so doomed, that it poisoned the family tree she was born from, wasn't it?
There were a lot of things Marilyn did incorrectly in the youth of the Siren. But she'd kill for her -- she'd literally kill for her -- as nothing was as raw and ancient as a mother's love.
Marilyn felt the door creak underneath her charred fingertips as she slipped through Derek Hale's door. She stepped in the mud Dallas left. She wanted to bury herself in it, become Jim's widow at last, but the anger she felt kept her heart beating past the threshold of life.
Peter was the first to scrutinize. That was until Derek stepped in front of her line of shattered sight.
"You're not welcome here."
Marilyn's eyes were empty behind the sockets. "Is that how you speak to my daughter, also?"
Guilt blotted his face. "That's none of your business."
Her hand pressed against her stomach idly.
"It's all my business." her thorned teeth sank into her bottom lip with venom coating the tips. "I made her, didn't I?"
Her shoulders tensed as she glared at Peter. "Not you, though you like to take the credit."
Inherited madness. He saw it, finally, in its split form. Eventually, a Garcia's tendency to fall from a grace they could never reach to begin with.
Peter crossed his arms with eyebrows twinged sarcastically together, pushing her away with his hand. "Back off, Mare-Bear."
Marilyn dodged it and pressed the edge of her nail against his chest. "And you ever lay a hand on her ever again, I'll make sure you receive Malia's head in the post. An eye for an eye, I see it."
Teeth flashed before her eyes and in a single fleeting moment, Derek would've let Peter handle Marilyn his own way. Alas, he didn't.
"Stay away from Malia."
"Stay away from Dallie, then."
Her eyes became the soulless pits of Dante's Inferno. "This'll be your only warning." She mused. "I'm above Kate Argent.. but only barely."
Marilyn had passed him an invitation to war wrapped up in the baby blanket of protective motherhood. She was cold, calculated, and so very serious.
A wedge had set itself between two families. A dam, almost. The prize wasn't ownership of the teenage Siren or the love of her enthusiastic father. It was more than that. It was the primal instinct of which pack was stronger; which victor would sit at the top of the food chain.
Because god knows it wasn't either of them.
⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰
Beacon Hills had its fair share of big dogs.
Peter Hale. Derek Hale. Scott McCall. Klaus Mikaelson. Theo Raeken. Whoever else unhinged enough to make the list.
And Dallas Garcia.
If it sounded like she didn't fit in the group — it's because she didn't.
Half their height and twice their wit, her petite frame wasn't winning any points in the intimidation contest. She was impulsive — emotional. Too erratic. Not strategic enough.
They were Alphas. She was just another teenage girl with a god complex.
"Is this it?"
Dallas wasn't a dog. Her claws weren't thick. Her ears weren't wide. Her bite didn't stop at one.
"Yeah, this is where his scent ends."
She was a shark. Her bites were harder and more strategic. Her eyes could see better. Her claws switched out for fins.
Stiles remained by her side as they approached the empty building. Damp coated the walls and sunlight became a nuisance to the residents. Her stare dragged like a heavy weight across the broken decor.
Droplets of water pricked the linoleum while scented moss grew beneath her feet. Why did nobody hide in nice, clean hotels?
If Dallas couldn't feel Stiles' breath hitch beside her, she'd feel his hand snake around her waist and pull her back against his hard chest with a flicker of hesitance in the brown eyes that devoured her in a single look.
"You sure?"
It was dangerous for Stiles to be paddling in the waters of her life when everything that lurked below could easily pull him under with a gentle tug. It was selfish of Dallas to want him there. It was selfish of her to fret a moment without him.
"You don't have to be here," her hands intertwined his as they slid against her mid-drift. "But I do."
There was a range of things Dallas expected him to do next. Roll his eyes. Narrow his brows. Tut lowly at her boundaries growing bigger in times of crisis.
He didn't do any.
Pulling the back of her hand up to his lips, he pressed a chaste kiss on the knuckles before pulling at her wrist and yanking her into his chest.
His shirt bunched up beside head and his musky scent soaked up her senses until she felt a little light-headed from his presence alone.
"Don't be crazy."
She chewed on her bottom lip. That was a hard promise to make.
Stiles Stilinski couldn't keep his hands off his devil —and Kai Parker couldn't stop thinking about putting some on his angel.
Dallas expected Kai to be still hazy from his time in rolls of faux fur and stitching. Instead, his face was lit up with candlelight and longing.
"Kai."
"Freya."
"Dallas, hi."
The Siren broke their intense stare. Kai's heart-shaped stare shattered into spiked edges as he took a glance at her. It was clear she interrupted something. It was also clear she didn't care.
"If it's not your father giving me a headache it's you." He narrowed his eyes into thin slits. "And your breakable boyfriend."
Stiles stood in front of her, pulling her behind his back with their intertwined hands. "Yeah, to make sure you don't pull any fucking tricks."
Kai stood up, stepping in front of Freya with a sharpness in his tone. "I'm a witch, it's my brand."
The two girls shared an uneasy look. A deadpanned one. Men.
"Kai isn't going to pull any tricks, I assure you." Freya was the first to speak, swatting the heretic on the shoulder. "Stop being so grumpy."
Stiles chuckled lowly.
Dallas caught it. "I don't know why you're laughing. What are you and your fists gonna do against a witch?"
Stiles quirked a brow. "Ask Theo."
Dallas felt her heart skip a beat inside her chest. Then it ached terribly, as did her hipbones, from the butterflies that couldn't fit in her stomach.
Freya glanced between the two with curious eyes. She was Cupid, obviously, so she could sense the twin flames flicker from the moment they walked through the door.
Stiles' stare was admirable, drinking up her features with his eyes. Dallie's was thicker, eating him up with everything else.
And while Freya was warmed by them, she didn't notice Kai had a stare of his own on her.
His voice became softer. "Unless you're here to put me back into the rug, what do you want?"
Dallas managed to keep her eyes set forward this time. "I need you to reverse a spell.. kind of."
"No."
"Kai." Freya hissed.
He paused. "...What spell?"
Dallas didn't want to say it. Saying it made it real. Dallas liked to pick and choose her reality. This wasn't it.
Luckily, Stiles spoke for her. "She took the cure."
Kai glanced between them uneasily before tugging at his angel's sleeve. "She wants me to reverse the cure.. she took?"
He burst out in a fit of scrambled laughter.
Oh, what a joke.
⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰
James Garcia was never skilled at facing things head on. He's rather take everything on his sleeve. Or cufflinks, maybe. That way it'd be easier to shake off.
But still.. Derek Hale clung to him like cologne.
Enough cold showers couldn't wash away the scent. Not even the packets of B-positive and scotch whiskey could fill the pothole in his stomach.
It only tore bigger as he stood at his door.
James didn't want to talk. He'd rather do anything but. Talking involved honesty, honesty involved emotion, emotion involved loving -- and it all became a little too much from then.
He tried to swing the door shut but a hand slotted between the ridges of the doorframe and the wood.
"Is she here?"
Jim barely had time to stumble back as his shoulder slashed against his own. "Is who here?"
Derek gave him a frosty look. "Your fucking wife."
From the get-go, he should've known the ice in his tone came from the Siren herself.
That, James didn't know. Keeping tags on that shark wasn't an easy feat. Sometimes she'd lurk deeper than intended. Sometimes she'd tug out the tracker with her teeth. James could never keep her at arm's length, either. Not if he still wanted it attached to the rest of his body.
"Bet you keep in close touch, right?" The werewolf rolled his eyes and shook his head in disinterested dismay.
"Quite the opposite, contact isn't recommended while a divorce pends." He quirked a brow curiously. "Why, what did she do?"
His fists clenched like leather gloves.
"Threatened Malia." Derek kept a sour stare. "And Peter. And me, and just about any other Hale ever, it seems."
James stiffened. "And why, pray tell, would she do something like that?"
He glanced around. Messy court documents. A small, faint scent of blood. Stained dress-shirts. James adjusted to vampirism in his own way -- a science experiment of self-destruction -- but he was adjusting.. slowly, like the legs of a rickety dock adhering to the changing tide.
"I may have said some things to your kid that I find myself regretting." He worked his eyes back to the lawyer. "But I would never hurt her. Your wife on the other hand-"
"Ex-wife. Continue."
Derek stared long enough to forget his train of thought. "Your family drama is yours, I won't be a part of it." He paused. "But tell her I'm sorry, honestly, but not because her mother told me to be."
".. What'd you say?"
"I.." The words felt much more bitter, much more distasteful, on his lips this time he said it. "I merely pointed out how you Garcias cause hurt. A lot of it. A bucket full, at times. There's not much else you do."
The colours dimmed into similar shades of Dallie's as Jim heard it. His reaction was like hers. His eyes widened and narrowed exactly the same. For a moment, he could smell the same sadness on him like it was squeezed from the same fruits.
"How-" James wiped his fingers over his mouth and clutched his jaw momentarily, forcing the words back into his mouth and rearranging them to spit out in a calmer tone. "How.. could you say something so hurtful? Something so terrible? Something you know is a fear of hers? Of mine?"
"James-"
"No, no.. no, Derek, I didn't mention the divorce so I could keep her plate manageable. I don't need you dumping more on it than she already has." He spat. "How could you be so cruel?"
Derek shouted over him. "Maybe because I love her as much as I love you? Ever thought of that?"
James blinked and opened his mouth to speak.
"It was wrong of me, I owe it to tell her that myself." Derek swallowed. "But save the speech, Marilyn already gave me one barely minutes after."
"What do you mean, minutes after?" James quirked a brow.
"She followed Dallie."
"What do you mean, she followed Dallie?" He spat. "Where to?"
".. Everywhere."
⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰
Dallas blinked desperately. Her heart was pounding louder and louder in her chest until she was sure it would cave through her ribs.
Kai was laughing and Dallas was barely coping.
Her teeth gritted down to the core and her nails dug into her arms with her shaky breath. The teenager didn't like to be minimized — and she hated being the butt of the joke.
Especially when cruel kids always made her feel that way because of her mother, her name and her skin.
The anger built up quick and before she knew it, Dallas was stamping half-crescent moons into her palms.
"I should've left you in that fucking rug."
Dallas slithered past Stiles with rage in her step and words clotting in her throat.
She was stuck with a cure she didn't want in her bloodstream. A longing for something she once hated. An irony that crushed her.
Stiles tugged at her wrist. "Dallas, hang on-"
He watched fire light up her eyes and melt the brown into an almost scorched black stare. "Maybe it's a good thing."
There was a shared heartbeat between the two before splitting into two halves with one sentence. "I'd rather die than be back human." She kept her voice steady, promising herself not to buckle in front of people she didn't know. "I can't be that girl again."
He grew bitter at how low she held herself and how high she ranked the Siren. "It's a real shame, because I love her."
Dallas felt the cool glaze of gloss coat her eyes and chewed on the inner side of her lip before pulling away.
"Well I don't."
Stiles tried to tug at her wrist once more — but like a loose string strapped to a ball of helium, she spiraled into the sun.
Sending a hard glare to Kai, his laughing came to a simmer while Freya wore a lopsided frown. It made her marble features crack a little. Such little self worth from someone who sat themselves so high on a pedestal.
She took a quick peer at Kai herself. A trait she saw somewhere else before.
Kai dragged his eyes to Freya. "You wanna tell him or should I?"
"Tell me what?" The Stilinski hissed with too much snark in his tone.
Freya gave him a sympathetic look. "He can't reverse the cure." The Valentine whispered. "Because she can't be cured."
"—Wha— No, I saw her take it."
"Stiles," Freya spoke gently. "She was born a Siren. It's always gonna be there. Death just brought it forward."
"You're wrong. You're wrong because she's been upset and sensitive all day. That's the humanity.. Isn't it?"
"Wimp." The witch chuckled. "Did she throw up?" Kai cocked his head to the side.
"...Yeah."
"Yeah, her body's empty. That's the hunger." He hummed silently. "God help whoever she runs into."
Stiles widened his eyes at the minutes between them as she left.
"Shit, Dallie!"
⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰
Dallas Kimberly was devastated. Truly, devastated. There was nothing wrong with being human - she loved one endlessly - but that just wasn't her.
Her hands settled between her thighs and her head bowed between her shoulders. You okay?
It was a weird question to ask. It was like flipping her world upside down and asking her if she could still see straight, like her soul in another body, and asking if she recognized herself. It was like asking a question you already knew the answer to.
Dallas took the sucker-punch to the chest admirably. It made her breathing rickety and swallows sore, but it never diminished her stone-cold exterior.
She could still feel the glass on her tongue. No matter how many kisses Stiles gave her the taste would never change. In a dreary haze, her entire life flipped in a singular move.
The teenager gripped the edge of the sink hastily. Her reflection in the bathroom mirror didn't just copy her movements but judged them harshly.
The reflection wore a stiff look. It felt abnormal to her - like she really was talking to someone else.
She expected white eyes to stare back. They never did. Instead, they reddened around the iris and forced her to finally blink.
It wasn't until a knock on the bathroom door shook her from her thoughts. "I'll be right out."
Another knock. "I said I'll be right out!"
One more.
Swinging open the door with a huff, her eyes settled on a very surprised, then very smug, Theo Raeken.
He paused. "Have you been crying?"
"Oh, you'd love that, wouldn't you?" She snapped. "Why are you creeping around the girls bathroom, weirdo?"
Theo cocked his head to the sign. "This is the boys, genius."
She peeked her head out. "Ah, so it is." Dallas muttered. "Now, go away."
While the Siren attempted to slam the door shut, his arm propped up against the wood. "Or you could tell me all about your melodrama. I always was quite fond of your ability to dramatise everything."
Dallas narrowed her eyes. And inside, so the did the Siren.
"How did Stiles leave your lip, Raeken?"
"All healed up, wanna feel?"
Her eyes couldn't roll fast enough. Surely, one day, they'd scuttle out of her sockets and collect dust bunnies on the floor. "How long until you break him, huh?" Theo took a step forward. "Or have you already? That the reason for the tears?"
"Aw, don't be jealous, Theo." Dallas stared up at him. "You were always too brittle to break."
Theo let a moment pass. One. Two. Three. Dallas was sure her glare was staring to ache her eyebrows and bend the bone into place.
Just when she opened her mouth to speak, his lips planted against hers.
It was an uncomfortable kiss. It felt like two jigsaw pieces that used to slot together, but had worn and deformed over time. Dallas was no longer fourteen and finding herself. Theo was no longer the biggest distraction she could find.
Maybe, at some point, she did love him. In her own fucked up hysteric way. But she didn't love him like she loved Stiles. She'd never loved anyone the way she loved Stiles.
And so, it made every other boy nothing but a slab of meat.
Biting down on his lip, warm blood coated her tongue and fragments of flash gritted beneath her teeth.
Theo dragged his jaw away and gave her a wide-eyes. "Did you just bite me?"
The metallic taste on her tongue was familiar. Craved, even. Dallas wanted him against her lips, sure. She wanted him against them in pieces.
Eyes of amber and gold shifted into a porcelain pearlescent as skin dawned a blueish tint.
"I used to think, man, what does she see in Stiles?" He wiped his lip with his sleeve. "But now I'm thinking what the hell does he see in you, cause you're fucking nuts, Dal."
She cocked her head slowly to the side. "Let's see how that lip heals now, hm?"
Dallas took a step forward. Theo took one back.
"Remember when you locked me up and sent me to my assured death by the Dread Doctors, Theo?" She swung her hands behind her back. "Or when you completely left town without telling me and made me feel like it was me who drove you away?"
He didn't respond.
"Tsk, I forgive you."
"What?"
"I forgive you," she repeated. "Because now, when I eat you, you'll finally have served me some kind of purpose."
"Like Scott would let you."
Dallie glanced around.
"And where is Scott?"
⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰
James and Derek had to put aside their differences.. temporarily.
In fact, Derek watched in complete silence as the vampire knelt on the floor and inhaled the scent of copper, chlorine, and burnt rubber.
He could smell the car's pipes and the rust that embarked on the metal. He could feel the heat from the running engine. He could see her, almost clearly, sitting outside and people-watching like a stray cat waiting to dig her claws in the next mouse she'd see.
He glanced at Derek's loft. "She'd been here maybe ten minutes, maybe?" He paused. "I can't get a firm grip on her scent, though. It's too close to Dallie's. That's why I've never been able to smell her around."
"She's her mother, what's the worst she can do?"
"Take her to Mystic Falls, change her name, and never let me see her again?" James stood up hastily. "Or conspire against me with her psycho Siren sisters? Or better yet, kill us all, Derek, that's a firm possibility for Marilyn because the moment she thinks I'm not looking, she'll punish me. I'm nothing but another man on her menu, you don't know her like I do."
"Yeah, but again, she's her mother. You can't just kill her.. or any of them."
"No, I couldn't do that to Dallie. I wouldn't. I couldn't do that to anybody."
"Dallie's gonna have to make a choice. I know her answer. You know her answer. Marilyn needs to hear it. I won't kill her.. but that will."
"Cause Dallas will pick us. She'll always pick us."
Derek smiled dimly. Us.
⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰
Pink frosting. Sprinkles. Buttercream filling and Victoria sponge.
That's what Dallas tasted.
The vanilla cake was soft underneath her fingers as she pulled at the tiers. It was warm, fresh out the oven, and placed before her in a shape bigger and thicker than her.
She didn't care about the calories as her teeth sank into the side. It had been so long since she had sugar; so long until her sweet tooth could finally sink into something savoury.
The cake bled on her tongue. Jelly, if you were wondering. A sugary concoction of ripe fruit and sweetener made the crumbs falling down her shirt feel like seasoning on her skin.
Dallas was a foodie. A wine taster, cake tester, feast eater foodie that dined with the gods on the pedestal she sat atop. She was at the end of their table, cake filling her cheeks, and jewels dawning her olive skin.
A plate of cookies sat between them, heart-shaped and covered with cream. Dallas lifted the cake to her mouth as another plate was offered her way.
She didn't recognize the man at the other end. He was dark, barely any hair, but godly in a wicked way.
Dallas took the cookie and crumbled it between her teeth as fragments of skin-tinted custard warmed her mouth. He wasn't eating, she noticed. There was mounds of sweet food piled up in plates topped with chocolate, cream and custards of all kinds but he never took a bite.
He wanted her to eat it all. Dallas wanted to eat it all, too, as her stomach never filled with the desserts she ate. Instead, they fell into the empty black hole inside of her and glued her to her high pedestal with their melted sugar.
"Dallie?"
Her head turned slightly as she heard a familiar voice. It was distant, so distant, like it came from miles away and miles below.
She tried to listen but another plate inched closer to her face. Everything on it was honeyed, candied, glazed and sweetened. The voice was tempting, but the dessert had her heart.
So, Dallas took another bite. And another. And another. And another.
"Dallas!"
Her eyes snapped up as the voice came from right in front of her. It hurt her ears and made her hands tremble enough to clatter the cookies back to the porcelain plate. Stood at the end of the decorated table, eyes wide and filled with feeble minded horror.. was Stiles.
Dallas still had crumbs between her teeth.
"Don't look at him," the God brushed him off, "Eat, please."
The teenager did as he said, oddly, and brought another cake to her lips. This was one was the gooiest yet, the fondant more watery and the cake tougher to chew.
"Dallie," he was hesitant to step forward. "Dallie, stop!"
Her head shook in dismay like a bratty child. If she wanted cake for dinner, she could. If she wanted ice cream for supper, she would. If her teeth never rotted from the sweetness, she'd swallow as much as she could.
At least, until Stiles lunged forward and swiped all the plates from the table.
The shattering of broken plates and squashed goods wasn't what startled her. What did, however, was how he leaned over the table and gripped her wrists with a type of urgency that made her heart race inside of her chest.
His hands were still gentle, even now. His eyes were horrified, sure, but they were still warm and brown and looking at her like she was the only person in the room.
"Dallie, listen to me, stop it. Please."
The man at the other end of the table stood up and slammed his napkin against the white wood.
She tried to speak but her cheeks were still full. "But he-"
"Baby, please."
Dallas stared down at the hands gripping her arms. And so, reality around her began to glitch.
It wasn't cake crumbs and frosting pooling down her elbows. It was stickier, warmer, red.
It wasn't fondant she chewed on. It was meat. Tougher, hotter and raw.
It wasn't a pedestal she sat on. It was Theo.
She'd been straddling him this entire time. Her lips on his jaw, her fingers in his hair and her teeth in his neck. He was inside her mouth, on her clothes, under her nails.
He was the sweetest boy — but only to her tastebuds — and she made sure to take the candied kindness from him wherever she could.
Dallas jumped back, elbows scraping against the plastic flooring and feeling the heaviness in her stomach from everything she did swallow.
Stiles turned to Theo. While there was a chunk taken out of his shoulder and hickeys on pale skin, his chest still rose and fell with liveliness.
"I'll get him up, you're gonna have to help me, okay?" He hoisted one arm. "Can you do that? Dallie?"
She blinked rapidly. "Yeah, yeah."
Pulling at the bloody mess of his arm, Dallas waited for Stiles soft, echoing counting before pulling him up onto his feet.
"One, two, three." He groaned helplessly at Theo's heaviness. "Good, you're doing great. Now, help me move him to that stall."
Dallas didn't deserve how gentle he was being with her. She'd rather be yelled at. She'd rather him run the other way.
The Siren steadied her hand against his chest as Theo's head dropped between them. His hand slung over her shoulder when all Dallas wanted was to wash all of him away.
Steadying him on a closed toilet lid, Theo slumped backwards into the stall while Stiles pressed two-plied toilet paper against his open wounds.
"I thought you hated him." Dallas dropped her hands to her sides and spoke too softly for the situation at hand.
"I despise him, babe." Stiles swallowed. "I despise him enough to not let him give you more guilt by dying."
Stiles pulled the stall door shut and fiddled with the lock until it clicked into place. It was an easy enough to hide him until his wounds healed over. A Chimera could survive a Siren bite, at-least.
Well, only if it stopped at a bite. Or two.
"The cure didn't work." Dallas muttered to herself. "It never did."
Stiles turned to her with wide eyes. "Hey. That's not your fault, 'Kay?" He watched as she didn't believe a word he said. "Fuck Theo, he's fine. He'll sleep it off."
"It could've been you."
"No, it couldn't."
Dallas still felt the stickiness of red syrup on her chin. Stiles noticed it too. Pulling at the bottom hem of his shirt, he wiped her lower lip with it and cleaned up the garnet mess on her neck.
When his fistful of fabric loosened, a red stain blotted his stomach. "Your shirt."
"I don't care." Stiles wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into a hug that made her senses hazy. "I'd take a thousand dirty shirts for you."
She gave him a simple look, "You have a death wish."
He split a faded grin.
"I never expected you to be perfect." He stroked the skin that she hated wearing. "Being so close to it is good enough for me."
Dallas slapped her hand against his chest. Close, ugh, if only.
"He's gonna kill me when he wakes up, isn't he?"
"Ha, he can try."
⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰
Warm water slid down Dallie's skin, washing away fragments of dead skin and red copper stains. Everything in the shower was provided by Stiles, so, usually, men's shampoo and conditioner was only accompanied by the odd razor or two.
Dallas needed to wash off the day, and Theo.
Noah Stilinski was usually on duty, so no questions about the copper smell and made sure to cover her up with his jacket, so no neighbourly comments about the bloody teenage girl he brought home.
The two made quite the smart pair. Although, Dallas never imagined this is how she'd bond with her boyfriend.
Stiles swung from side to side on his chair, fiddling with a lightsaber in his hand and aiming it towards the boyish decor in his room.
"Is that your little toy? It's cute."
Dallas stood in the doorway, one hand clutching the towel close to her chest and the other running through her hair.
Stiles almost dropped it to the floor when he saw her. His eyes trailed her bare shoulders and legs before climbing back up to her face. Her patient, smug face.
"Wha- Heh, no." He kicked it under his desk. "It's a sports.. thing. I'm very into sports. Athlete guy, you know me."
Dallas tutted disappointedly. "That's such a shame because I have a really big thing for nerds-"
"-Its a lightsaber."
Dallas felt her lips purse up into a smile. It was true, her stomach always tensed a little when he was his goofy, sarcastic and nerdy self. His boyish humour and warm smiles always made her feel more at home than leather and cigarettes ever did.
Her laugh didn't filter when she slipped one of his flannels over her shoulders. It was oversized, even for him, and hung gently over her bare thighs with mixed stitching.
It was a mix of red, white and blue; painting her like an American flag he wanted to pledge his allegiance to.
Stiles allowed his eyes to linger over her before gesturing her over with the bend of his fingers.
"C'mere."
Dallas shook her head from side to side. Her lips parted into words. A national anthem, almost.
One leg tucked behind the other and head cocked gently to the side. "No please?"
Stiles didn't budge. He didn't seem to blink much either. "Please?"
Dallas liked his manners. She liked how he'd pull at her hands and ask her for the simplest things whether it was a touch or a kiss he could always take anyway.
With the tug of cherry wine lips and an inhale of the grape seed scent, she hoped her hipbones wouldn't scar his hands with their thorns.
The cushioning of the carpet beneath her feet deepened as she took the step forward. She never felt insecure when his eyes burned into her skin.
Even when his finger twisted around the hem of her flannel, inspecting it against her bare skin, and looking up at her with soulful brown eyes.
"Am I ever gonna get any of these back?"
"Do you want it back?"
Lips upturned like a crescent moon and teeth shined like meteors in the sky as he nodded, fingers extended towards her. "Give it here."
She nodded along, clipping one button slower than the last. "You never let me keep anything."
"You always lie like that?" Stiles muttered lowly, knuckles sliding against her rib cage as he brushed her hand away and unbuttoned the flannel himself.
"You know I only lie when it's for your benefit." Dallas felt his fingernails trail her stomach as he moved onto the next button. "You're a great lacrosse player, by the way."
Stiles let out a deep laugh and tutted slightly. "You're talking shit right now?" He tugged another button open. "Who's half dressed in who's room?"
"Changes each week."
The boy paused as he reached the button just below her stomach. Instead of undoing it, he tugged at the plastic and brought her closer before standing up to close the inches between their lips.
His hands traced the outline of her ribs, counting the dips of her skin like dints in Egyptian gold, and moved the thin fabric aside with his knuckles.
And there it was, the click of a jigsaw that fit. The slotting of broken fragments of mirror that made her reflection feel whole again.
There was that gnawing in her stomach that made her unfold like the stitching of his shirt.
She readjusted his hand to linger a little higher on her chest.
Stiles seemed flustered as he pulled away to take a deep breath. "You can keep the flannel, you know, I was just teas-"
Her hands pulled at his jaw and forced him to lean forward as her arms wrapped around his neck.
"I'll earn it." She murmured into the kiss. "Let me earn it."
Her thumbs settled on his temples as the redness on his cheeks faded away. "You don't have to earn anything."
His lips pressed firmly against hers and left them a little swollen with each bite of his. Dallas pulled away to speak but his hand pulled at her chin and guided it back to his own.
Her fingers clawed his shirt away and traced his structure. He was warm against her. He had stiffened against her.
He hoisted her up by her thighs and planted her against his desk. His hand trashed his belongings, caring little about the noise and the mess and focusing all his attention onto the Siren who sat atop it like the best piece of decor he could ever attain.
"You gotta stop breaking all your stuff, Stiles." Dallas managed to mumble as his lower lip traced her jawline.
While the hands caught up in his hair disrupted the gel and left it disheveled, he didn't seem to care all that much about trashing everything about himself for an hour or two.
"Yeah, I've gotta clean up a few messes."
After remaining silent for a few moments, she noticed how his teeth dug into his lower lip and eyes lit up as they carved into her skin. "And what messes are you referring to, exactly?"
"That one." His pelvis pushed against her hips while he chewed on her earlobe. "And another one I'm about to make."
The kisses pressed against her neck were chaste. Dallas wasn't sure if the warmth on it were from his lips, her body heat or an intoxicated mix of the two.
But then his hands sank underneath the flannel and underneath the one button he didn't open. Unlike the fabric, Dallie's lips parted in a whimper that left her clutching his arm desperately.
"Stiles."
"No please?"
Dallas couldn't muster up a glare even if she wanted to because the moment she tried, her eyebrows folded inwards and head threw backwards with the waving of her white flag.
He waited patiently. Too patiently, almost as if he had all the time in the world to hear those six letters and begging tone.
"Please." Dallas murmured lowly.
"Sorry, I didn't hear you."
She wouldn't try the glare again. Instead, she dropped her head to watch his frozen hand between the crevices of her lap.
Stiles used his other hand to push her chin upwards. "One more time for me, I promise."
Dallie's eyes flickered between his own before sweetening up her tone to match the cinnamon grounds sprinkled across her nose in the guise of freckles.
"Please, Stiles?" Her words hit him like a sucker punch. "Will you?"
He brushed the hair from across her shoulder with his free hand and used the button to slide her closer to his side of the desk with the other.
His hand made her thighs and hipbones tighten til they locked against his fingertips. He was following the structure of her pelvis, then the structure of her skin on-top of it, then something else entirely.
A pressure dipped into the space between her legs and knotted up her lower stomach. Fingers toyed with her, moulding her into whatever shape he wanted just so she could feel them against her one last time.
A good chunk of her dominance was swallowed as he ran circles around her before filling up the empty space with his middle and ring fingers. Her hands gripped his shoulders while breathless gasps had no choice but to leave her lips.
He played her like an old pair of guitar strings, stroking her brass edges and fiddling with her tuners until all the music she could make were moans.
"Tsk," she managed to hiss. "Right there."
As she waited to feel his hands on her once more, the heat settled down once he tore them away.
"What are you doing?" Her ruffled hair fell before her almost whitish eyes. "Why'd you stop?"
Stiles didn't respond. Noticing her conflicted expression, he ran his tongue down her thigh and murmured against her skin. "Who said I stopped?"
She threw her head back in a pleasured whimper as his tongue carved her edges. Hypersensitive and heinously daydreaming on the wood, her hand tugged against his hair and rocked her hips to his rhythm.
Pulling even harder at his hair, her vision became clouded as she felt his hands lightly grasp her thighs as he tasted her. "Don't be gentle." she managed to hiss out.
His soft-grip soon turned into nail-deep gripping before his hands slid up her shirt to attack her waist with his merciless touch. Her legs swayed with the movement of both his head and tongue.
As the movements became rougher and her back was clashing against his desk, uncontrollable throaty moans climbed up her throat. She used her hands to guide his head against her and pushed it deeper between her thighs.
"Fuck, Stiles, I'm close." she whimpered out. She tried to grab anything else around her that would allow her to release all the adrenaline inside of her but nothing seemed to help. No matter what, she couldn't keep still.
Within moments, her calmness and stoicism hit a brick wall and she came out the other side as wild as ever. Slurring her words into a stretch of incoherent moans and whimpers, her voice held a high pitched tone.
When he used his fingers to aid him, she became louder and louder. "I think," eyebrows creased together. She was surprised his jaw hadn't become sore already. "Stiles, I'm gonna-"
She barely got to finish her sentence before the euphoric feeling coursed through her veins and the sound left her mouth. It coated her hips and by the satisfied hum of the boy between her legs, reached his lips too. Yet, his movements didn't stop but only grew harsher.
She ran her hand down along her legs to help him but it was soon pinned down by his own. He didn't want - or need her help, obviously. "Stiles, I can't-"
A string of soft moans entered his ears while her thighs grew tense around his touch. The tension made her bones ache and body throb uncontrollably. Her heartbeat shook each part of her body, especially the one between her thighs, as she felt dizziness cloud up her mind.
Stiles glanced up at her from between her legs and watched as her face contorted with pleasure once more. At the end of it, she could do nothing but don pretty breathless pants.
"See, you earned it." he kissed the inner side of her thigh. "Want another?"
☆ word count: 7,458. ☆
a/n: for extra content, drop by my tiktok @ venusdeity.wp, maybe some of you can remind me to update this with smut tomorrow because i have goldfish brain!
future a/n: "a feast fit for gods" dallies punishment for eating theo is being eaten herself ig