He Hit Me And It Felt Like a Kiss

The basement smelled like dust, old metal, and danger. The kind of danger that slithered beneath the skin before it struck. {{user}} sat in the corner, legs drawn up, heart an aching throb between her ribs. She had stopped crying hours ago. Or was it days?

Time didn’t exist down here.

Not with him.

Void Stiles wasn’t like the others. He didn’t pace. He didn’t rage. He didn't shout. He just watched.

His eyes — Stiles' eyes — should’ve held kindness, memory, light. Instead, they were void. Not cold, not cruel. Just empty — a canyon where a soul used to be.

And yet... she knew better. There was something else beneath the nothing.

Desire.

Possession.

Love, maybe. If you could call it that.

He came to her now, steps echoing softly across the concrete. His silhouette was still all boy — skinny, slouched, familiar. But he wasn’t that boy anymore. Not really.

“Why do you look at me like that?” she asked.

His head tilted. A slow, animalistic gesture. “Like what?”

“Like you care.”

He knelt before her, and for a moment, just stared at her lips. Then her neck. Then her wrists, where the bruises painted stories in violet and dusk.

“Because I do,” he whispered, so soft she almost believed it.

His hand came up, fingers grazing her cheek like feathers. Then-

slap.

Her face jerked sideways from the force of his backhand. It wasn't rage. It wasn’t punishment.

It was intimate.

Her breath caught. Her mouth opened, but no scream came out. Just a trembling exhale.

He watched her with something almost like hunger. His thumb grazed the red welt rising on her skin. “You still think I’m a monster?”