Chapter Text
The first time Stiles visits, he shows up unannounced at Peter’s law firm about three weeks after Peter and his family head home to the East Coast. Peter is in the middle of strong-arming a competing associate off the deal he’d had to drop in order to fly out to Beacon Hills, and by the time he comes back to his office and realizes who his visitor actually is, it’s late. Taking the man out to dinner at a pricy restaurant is just decent manners, never mind Peter’s reputation or Stiles’ still considerable magic or anything else.
“It certainly wasn’t a bribe,” Peter mutters, pinning Stiles’ hips down to the bathroom counter.
“Yeah, well, not if I’m getting the pasta. Dry-aged prime rib, maybe, if I’d ordered that, but not—not—oh, come on, you can get deeper than that, I saw that dick,” Stiles grunts, and then he thumps the skinny heels of his feet into Peter’s buttocks.
Peter’s foot skids and he loses his grip on Stiles’ left hip, his weight tipping unexpectedly. He’d complain—about that, and about the annoying fwap noise Stiles’ shapeless khaki pants make against his shins, and the whole idea of public bathroom sex to begin with, as if either man or wolf want to fuck where other males shit themselves—but when he skids, his head plunges into the sweat-perfumed crook of Stiles’ neck and his nose is suddenly inflamed with the instinctive hooks of salt and blood and heat and he’d rather just fuck the man.
So he does, curling his freed hand around the chilly marble edge of the counter and pressing the flats of his teeth as hard into the flesh of Stiles’ throat as he dares. Stiles’ stream-of-consciousness verbalizations quiet to a burble interspersed with an increasing number of harsh sucked hahs; his fingers scrabble and jab into the meat of Peter’s shoulders, sending spikes of pain just the right side of rough down Peter’s spine. His ass is delightful.
It’s good sex, if Peter says so himself. “Great sex,” Stiles says too, still wobbling, though he bats Peter off in favor of figuring out how to reshape his hideous pants back over his hips. “Seriously, and I know my victory sex from my rebound and fuck-off and fuck-up sex, believe me. Though again, that brings up my longstanding point about what exactly does the bite upgrade, because nobody ever wants to admit to the ‘before’ part of the survey and why not, it’s not like—”
Peter tears his eyes away from admiring the lovely sloping curl, echoing the jawline, that his teethmarks have made down the side of Stiles’ throat. “Excuse me?”
Stiles looks up. Then grins and ambles over, and puts his filthy, unwashed hands on Peter’s damp but otherwise unstained shirt-tails. “Oh, we gonna talk about possessive instincts now?” he says, smearing his fingers across hand-sewn premium American Pima cotton. “’cause I have files on this, and it’s all biased, because we just get the expansionists. And not only that, the ones who are crazy enough to want to expand to Beacon Hills, right? And Scott. But Scott is Scott, and even he still got all triggered when I got kidnapped by a wannabe alpha to be his Emissary slave—”
“Who?” Peter says.
“It was planned, I was fine,” Stiles says immediately back, and then he blinks. It’s obviously a stock response, and even more tellingly, he’s clearly annoyed at having it pop out of his mouth. He frowns, then sticks his hands into the trousers Peter’s trying to rezip. “Also, um, demon magic? By the time we got to the asshole’s house, I had him sobbing about his childhood religion class to the ghost of his ultra-fundamentalist grandma. And the worst part was actually the fact that his shitty little serial-killer house in the woods didn’t get good cell reception, so after he blew his brains out, I had to hike three miles in flip-flops.”
“Stiles,” Peter says, intercepting one wrist. He can’t intercept the other without dropping his pants, so he sighs and lets Stiles fondle his cock. And twists the arm he is holding up, so that when the silver tattoos start to wind their way up the forearm, he can lick along one while watching where the flush starts in Stiles’ face. “Stiles. You can’t just say you drove someone to madness.”
“What, I gotta show you too?” Stiles says, grinning even wider, as if he isn’t fully informed on what that communicates to a werewolf. “Like with this dumbass who thinks he’s going to pip you to partner, that’s what you’re saying? I mean, not that your plan to manipulate him into getting messed up by the local lizardmen chapter isn’t hot as fuck either. Or wouldn’t work. I mean. If you’re into five-year-plans. I’m just saying, I feel like two is doable.”
The second round of sex is quite satisfying too, even if they have to relocate it to the parking lot in order to preserve Peter’s ability to use the place for business meals. And so is the third round, once they’ve gotten back to Peter’s apartment and an actual, custom-ordered for full support in all positions, mattress. So yes, Stiles very successfully distracts Peter. As mentioned, it was late, and Peter was coming off a fairly stressful situation, and he didn’t exactly have any warning that Stiles was coming.
So when he falls asleep, pleasantly exhausted with one hand on Stiles’ knee as Stiles drowsily rattles on about the vintage witchhunt engravings Peter’s got on his wall this season, he doesn’t think anything of it. Which is a complete amateur move, and no, he doesn’t need his sister to tell him so.
“I really wasn’t saying anything,” Talia says, blinking ridiculously big eyes, as she sits at the island in Peter’s kitchen and makes it clear with gratuitously nonverbal cues that she’s willing and prepared to outwait him making breakfast if that’s what it takes to make him talk to her. “I don’t have to be able to read your mind either—”
“I did read your note about John saying they could still do that,” Peter snaps.
Talia stares at him. Peter turns his shoulder to her and looks at his espresso-maker and mentally runs through how he’d have to alter the piping in order to convert it for wolfsbane brewing. It’s a comforting exercise for him. It allows him to take a few deep breaths, and put away how she even knew to come over, and…
Stiles didn’t stay the night. In fact, he’s not even in town anymore, this having turned out to just be an extended layover on the way to him visiting Lydia, who apparently, when she’s not busy threatening Stiles’ romantic connections, attends MIT. He did leave an explanation for his sudden departure behind, in the form of fifteen long text messages about how he’s really bizarre and he knows that and he also does know it’s not all down to Peter’s one-night-babysitting gig but he’s going to mention that anyway, two emails with zip files attached that claim to hold scans of rare Igbo divination texts, one direct-messaged ‘ghost’ meme, and a thick envelope that’s sitting in front of Talia, still unopened.
“He’s weird,” Talia finally says.
Peter snorts before he can help himself. Then, after another breath, he turns around and looks at her. She shrugs, her eyes annoyingly sympathetic, and then pretends her fingers aren’t inching towards the envelope. “Oh, just open it,” he mutters, taking out his cup and then putting in a new one.
“I’m on tea this week, you know I can’t do espresso when I have to deal with our financial advisor,” Talia scolds him absently, as she slits the envelope at one end with a claw.
“You always say that and then he talks you into another board position and you stay up longer than you should before you admit you might as well just go find an uppity alpha to beat up,” Peter points out. He stops to eat an orange, then swallows his pride and goes over to see what’s in the envelope. “Talia. The entire point of hiring a Taoist Immortal is so you can get long-term forecasts from someone who is impossible to kill.”
“Well, I know, and he makes us plenty of money and charges a very decent commission for it,” his sister mutters. Her nose wrinkles. “It’s just I know he doesn’t even need the commission, he really does it just because he thinks I’m adorable.”
Peter shrugs, because that is the truth, and also, the same motivation for at least half of his and Talia’s interactions, and Talia makes another face at him. Then she empties out the contents of the envelope, and for the next fifteen minutes, they’re both absorbed in puzzling them out.
It’s mostly paperwork—copies of various official reports, with one flash drive that turns out to house videos pulled off social media. Put together, they tell the story of how in the three intervening weeks, some idiot calling himself a Satanist came to Beacon Hills, attempted to brainwash local teenagers into a creating a cult with him at the center, and got his ass handed to him at the point he tried a Black Mass on the site of Peter’s old family home.
“I thought they came up with a better cover story than Gerard Argent being into the occult,” Talia says, frowning.
“They did. They went with that for the uninformed, but in supernatural circles they’ve been pushing the line that Gerard had a curse laid specifically on him, to make it clear the circumstances aren’t reproducible,” Peter says. He turns his laptop for her to see, then zooms in on the timeline Stiles created to show the online chatter. “I sent over a few things for John to use for seeding, but these ideas that are popping up, they’re completely unrelated. And you see—that detail could only be—”
Talia’s frown deepens. “So somebody else who was there has to be spreading counter-rumors. I’ll have to call John, I want him to be completely clear it’s not us.”
“If they weren’t sure about that, do you think Stiles would’ve showed up here?” Peter says, drinking his espresso. Then, when she twitches, he raises an eyebrow. “Of course, it’s reasonable to still call him. Just for reassurance. Perfectly normal alliance-building behavior. Perhaps an in-person visit might even be in order.”
“Don’t even, Peter, you’re still anger-sipping,” Talia says.
Peter pulls his cup away from his mouth. Then makes himself not grimace. “I have no idea what that is.”
“Yes, you do,” he sister says, relentlessly calm. She reaches over while he’s still slowed by his annoyance and starts shuffling through the timeline. “It’s a first date, Peter. And I realize you know this, but—”
“He’s still chronologically under twenty? And well-versed in magic and combat and everything to do with werewolves except how they function outside of traumatized? And even if he wasn’t that, he’d still be under twenty with a handful, at best, of relationships under his belt?” Peter says. He doesn’t keep his irritation out of his voice because one, she already can smell it, and two, she should have to put up with it, if he has to put up with her delivering shopworn platitudes to him when he didn’t even call her, just texted that he wanted to skip family lunch later today. “Yes, Talia, I know. And I don’t need to be lectured on being considerate.”
“I actually—oh.” Talia stops mid-irritated retort and they both look at the last video on Stiles’ timeline.
It’s shot from a phone, but somehow, Peter doubts that it’s been posted anywhere. Publicly, at least. The amount of blood alone would violate the terms of service of every major platform, although personally, he thinks it’s far less than merited.
When it’s done, Talia sits back, tight-lipped. She’s still tense when Peter puts a hand on her arm, but he keeps it there till she finally turns to him.
“At least that means they’ve wrapped up the loose end. And you were already tracking Kali,” he reminds her.
“Well, not close enough,” she snaps. She’s stiff for another second, and then she slumps back. Rubs one hand over her face, then lets it drop into her lap. “Not what I wanted to call John about, but he deserves—deserves congratulations. And—”
“You were right about letting her get enough slack to hang herself, Talia, so don’t get ruffled about not being there for it,” Peter says. She jerks her head around and he smiles at her, and after a moment she sighs and pokes his arm. “You know that even with video proof, you’re going to have to handle Ennis. You can let John know about that, at least.”
Talia still looks unhappy, but she nods. “Muscled moron. I should make Deuc do it, honestly. He could’ve clued Ennis in about Julia years ago and saved us—well, full moons already set. Anyway. And you know, Peter, it’s not so much about being considerate as remembering this is the first time it’s somebody you very much don’t want to have to kill if it goes south. You know that, right?”
Peter yanks his espresso down before he chokes on it and stares at her. His sister stares back, unsmiling. Her hand does move up once as if she might pat him, or make a pass at his hair, or something gratingly affectionate, but she restrains herself.
“You can’t kill me. If you end up alpha, you won’t have any time to go off and tell him this whole self-sufficiency thing just makes points to him, and not to you,” is all she says.
“I hate you,” Peter says.
Talia shrugs. “Just make sure John isn’t sneaking down to the police station, would you? He’s still supposed to be on sick leave—”
“Oh, yes, and I suppose you want me to start snooping about for what Jordan likes for Thanksgiving sides, too,” Peter mutters.
“Well, since you’re offering,” Talia says brightly, finally smiling at him.
Peter pauses. Looks at her, then puts his espresso down and rolls his eyes as she slips off the chair and hugs him and rubs his hair. She needs to do that once in a while, and he puts up with it because she is his sister and however annoying she is, she is the only person he trusts to keep an eye on his work politics while he’s out. Because it does appear that he needs to make travel plans.
* * *
“Really, Stiles. Public bathroom sex,” Peter points out.
“They had marble and high-end toiletries and a towel basket! And a guy standing outside to go in after you come out and replace all the towels! At that point isn’t it at least halfway to love hotel status? Which, okay, still not at your preferred quality level, I get that, but…” Stiles says, dropping his chalk and his dagger and giving Peter big, pleading eyes. “No?”
“No, Stiles,” Peter says. “No.”
Stiles stops thinking the helpless-kitten ploy will work on Peter—he’s been up for the last thirty hours straight, is the only explanation Peter can think of—and rolls his eyes and restarts on the binding circle he’s been trying to do for the last ten minutes. “Oh, come on—”
He yelps and squat-hops out of the circle, then stares at the taser Lydia is pointing at Peter to keep him from charging her. Her and the stiletto heel she’d nearly jammed into Stiles’ hand. “That’s the third sigil you’ve reversed by accident,” Lydia says to Stiles, completely unrepentant. “I am not going to stand here and end up missing my midterms because you’re too tired to remember the difference between banishing a lamia and marrying one.”
“What? That’s not…okay, it’s the wrong one, but it wouldn’t do that,” Stiles says.
Lydia stares at him. Stiles twitches one shoulder, then the other, and then he sighs and takes Scott’s hand as the other man helps him off to the side. He sacks out on top of the airbed on that side of the room, looking dejected, and then Peter can’t see him anymore because Peter is looking at Lydia’s implacable glare. There has to be something else besides banshee in the woman’s background—more than a touch of basilisk, in his opinion.
“Finish it up properly and you can take him home,” she orders.
“I didn’t realize that was how consent works around here,” Peter snorts, but he does what she says, because he did not, in fact, come to Beacon Hills again to spend his time mired in this town’s absurd percentage of improbable homicides.
He also didn’t return just to have sex with Stiles, which confuses Stiles to no end. Witness:
“Um, what?” Stiles says, blinking owlishly as Peter removes the man’s hands from his ass, pushes Stiles into the backseat, and then goes around to the front. “Hey, for the record, immune to lamias, in case you actually are worried about consent—”
“Stiles, my family has paid for exactly as many of the police cars in this town as we ever want to,” Peter says. “Besides, I wouldn’t want to cause any new issues between your best friend and his father.”
Scott had looked embarrassed about having to slow his and Lydia’s approach with the rest of the gear, but when Stiles glances over and spots him and sighs, he doesn’t look nearly as relieved as Peter would have expected. He does deposit his bags and himself in the backseat with Stiles, but then he hands the keys to Lydia. “Really appreciate it,” he says with apparent sincerity to Peter. “Especially since Dad’s been pretty good about Derek randomly showing up too, actually.”
Peter frowns. Stiles cackles and slaps Scott on the shoulder; Scott hunches, wholesomely regretful about his little moment of sarcasm, and then proceeds to explain, sincerely, that Peter’s nephew is busy botching their cover-up at the morgue with Allison, so now Peter has to go fix that too.
Also:
“Okay, I will give you the public bathroom sex, even though I have a semester and a half of college left and am going to be losing valuable relationship immaturity development time,” Stiles sulks, arms crossed low over his chest. He kicks his sneakers at the carpet and pretends he isn’t interested in the way Peter is taking his time about smoothing the finger-rumples out of his sweater. “But this is a private office. With a lock. A good one. I should know, Dad had me upgrade it twice because I kept picking it.”
Peter tugs at his sweater, checks how his pecs are outlined in the door’s glassed insert, and then pulls the hem up over his belly to reseat the fabric. Because it’s cashmere and while cashmere is quite durable when treated properly, it does stretch like nobody’s business. And because if Stiles is going to shove his tongue in Peter’s mouth and Peter has to willingly stop that from proceeding, Peter is going to make sure the two other werewolves nearby are smelling it on both of them. He’s got a point to make, which is not the same as being a saint. “This is also not about bribery, Stiles.”
“No, just psychological and emotional manipulation,” Stiles mutters, shifting in his seat. “Okay, fine, you didn’t come down and help us out just because I look really cute sucking your cock with your bite-marks all over my neck and my fingers stuffed up my ass, getting ready for your big bad blow-me-out werewolf cock.”
Peter’s fingers slip. He doesn’t rip the sweater, but he does scratch himself. He looks at Stiles, who stares right back, brows slightly raised, and for once, Derek’s timing is spot-on when he suddenly opens the door.
Of course, Derek immediately closes it, and then looks miserable when Peter opens it again and walks out. “Do I have to deal with this?” Derek mumbles, breathing through his mouth.
“I think we’re done for today, so Derek and I are going back to our hotel,” Peter says as pleasantly as he can, to Scott and Allison and Lydia, who are all standing behind Derek and looking, with varying degrees of shame, as if they also wish they weren’t an audience to this. “We’ll see you all at breakfast tomorrow. Or lunch, if that’s more convenient. I know we’re all tired, so we won’t stand on social niceties.”
“What,” Derek says.
“What,” Stiles says. “But Lydia said you’re taking me home!”
“She’s not my alpha, Stiles,” Peter says. Lydia, he notes, looks mildly approving. She still doesn’t like him, but she will acknowledge his skills. “However, if you insist, I’ll order an Uber for you.”
“What,” Stiles says. “Are you kidding me.”
Peter orders him an Uber.
And:
“A double date?” Stiles says, glaring at Peter while slamming down his armful of balloons, as much as one can such things. Several of them slip out and waft up into his face, forcing him to paddle them down as he continues to hiss at Peter. “A double date. With your nephew, Scott, and Allison Argent. A double date to help the police here set up a community block party. That’s why you came back to Beacon Hills.”
“Well, Stiles, it’s clearly a different town and I’ve been away so long, and it’s generally deemed a good idea to familiarize yourself with your significant other’s background,” Peter says, smiling, as he plucks balloons out of the air and attaches brightly colored plastic ribbons to them. “Speaking of, it does seem as if Scott’s father is working hard to win over his officers as well as the rest of the town. He even asked me if I knew whether hellhounds have issues with wolfsbane like werewolves do.”
Stiles stops batting at the balloons. “And you said…”
“And I said that not being one myself, I’m not a primary authority, but I’d be happy to ask Jordan for him,” Peter says.
The far corner of Stiles’ left eye twitches. He stares at Peter for another moment, then throws his arms up and slouches against the table. “Ugh, why do you have to do that? You’re hot, and amoral, and smart and hot, and then you do that smooth charm thing and it’s hot as hell but it’s not just charming for being charming, it’s like you’re really paying attention like—like—”
“Like I’m dating you?” Peter says dryly.
“Yes,” Stiles snaps. Then he goes still. His face pales, then reddens, and a slight silver tinge enters his eyes.
Peter takes a deep breath, and doesn’t reach for the set of charms in his pocket that he made up after a little more research into Stiles’ remaining powers. He smells frustration and an unfortunate amount of disappointment rolling off the man, but not true anger. The shadows in the alley around them do double, then triple, but they never merge together into night.
After another moment, Stiles about-faces and walks off. That was not the reaction Peter had been hoping for, but he makes himself stay where he is. He can sense how delicately things are balanced and he thinks he can still be hopeful. The man is walking off, after all, not storming off.
“You sure about this?” When Peter turns around, Derek’s shoulders have a slightly defensive rigidity to them, but otherwise the man’s surprisingly confident. “Not about the being serious about this part, I meant the…I kind of have to agree with him. Double date here?”
Insightful as well, and much as Peter doesn’t appreciate being sneaked up on, he does want to encourage any stray shoot of intelligence he sees from his nephew. “Well, it was either this or go help out at Lydia’s mother’s campaign office, and one, I don’t want to owe that one a favor. Two, your mother will kill me if Scott’s father gets you into trouble.”
“Mom wouldn’t kill you, she’d kill him and then make you handle all the clean-up,” Derek points out matter-of-factly. McCall and that Argent girl really are doing something for him, Peter has to admit. He hasn’t been so able to focus since he realized getting a driver’s license meant he could go to parties thrown by people Laura didn’t know. “And thanks, but I think Scott’s dad actually is getting better. A little. He does want to make sure Scott doesn’t die.”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean he wants to keep you alive. Or Allison, for that matter,” Peter says.
Derek grimaces. “Yeah, I know, okay, I’m still looking out for that…but I want to give the guy a chance to not fuck it up. I think Scott’s starting to want to have a dad again, and he…he does deserve—anyway, so is this whole trip going to be watching you and Stiles do this…”
“No,” Peter says, and then silently asks if Derek wants to keep asking questions.
“Okay. Okay, good,” Derek says, because Derek occasionally displays a better sense of self-preservation than his sisters—not that that’s saying much—and then Derek grabs a handful of beribboned balloons. “Good luck with that, I guess.”
“Thanks,” Peter says, bemused.
His nephew makes a face at him and leaves. And passes Stiles coming back the other way. Derek looks sharply over but keeps walking, which is another reason why, if Peter is honest, he’s Peter’s favorite, and Stiles rolls his eyes and almost successfully uses that to mask how nervous he is.
“Okay,” Stiles says. He snags one of the ribbon spools along the way, then cuts off a length and fusses it into a fancy tie before he starts connecting balloons to it. “Okay. So…you take over the law firm yet?”
“Not yet,” Peter says after a moment, still cautious. “The timing is a little tricky—certain balance sheet matters I’d rather have stuck on the managing partner’s legacy than my own. And I take it you’re enjoying the Polynesian string magic book I mentioned?”
Stiles blinks hard, then looks down at the perfect calm-weather knot he’s just made. A smile nearly makes it onto his face before he shakes himself. “Oh, yeah,” he says, and quickly modifies it so that it’s nonmagical. “It’s cool, but I’m still figuring out how that kind of thing would interact with the telluric currents around here, since they’re really different from…so you didn’t just come down to one-up me on what I did?”
“What you did?” Peter says. He pauses, then puts down the ribbon he’d been cutting. “What did you do, Stiles?”
“I—” Stiles starts, looking up sharply. Then he stops. He and Peter look at each other for a few seconds before he snorts, shoulders hunching in a way that’s only superficially embarrassed. “Hey, so, I know we’re gonna do this party, but…when are you flying back? Because you are.”
The man isn’t accusing him, but simply stating something they both know. “Tomorrow afternoon,” Peter says as neutrally as possible, returning the favor. “I have a meeting Monday I can’t shift.”
“Okay, so…are you going to cockblock Derek this whole trip, or do you want to—you could come over to my place at least once while you’re here,” Stiles says. He looks at Peter again, swallowing slightly, his eyes clear of the silver and holding steady. “And there isn’t going to be sex, if you don’t want. You can just watch me play video games and edit my undergrad thesis, and—oh, I got hold of that unexpurgated copy, too. If you want to look at it.”
“I think I could accommodate that in my evening plans,” Peter says slowly, picking up the ribbon again.
Stiles’ mouth twitches, then lets itself smile. A little wry, still holding back, but it is a smile.
So after the block party is over, Peter does go over to Stiles’ house. Stiles’ father is not home, and Scott is too occupied to attend to the Stilinski chores as he tends to, so Peter cooks them dinner. They don’t play video games, but they do talk about Stiles’ classes, and the work Stiles’ father is being offered by the military. And they do have sex.
They have it in Stiles’ bed, after undressing each other. Which still has its ungraceful moments, largely thanks to Stiles’ choice in clothing. And to Stiles figuring out at some point that fingering Peter’s nipple while sucking hard at his jaw disrupts all higher levels of thinking in Peter’s brain, and Peter following up on his suspicions and tonguing the tattoo patterns he can remember up both of Stiles’ arms. But ungraceful can have its own charms—it certainly doesn’t lessen any of the urgency or need both of them feel, or the comfortable, if slightly humid, warmth that settles over them once they’re satisfied each other.
“Thighs,” Stiles says sleepily, squeezing one of Peter’s as he rolls lazily back on top. “Hmm. Might have to reorder my list here. I mean, don’t get me wrong, the arms are still good too, but thighs…”
“Should I be disturbed about the way werewolves seem to break down to anatomy, as far as you’re concerned?” Peter says. Stretching his arms up over his head, working a kink in his back out but also watching Stiles’ eyes run down his chest and back up, and then he flops back, folding his arms under his head. “We’re more than that, you know.”
Stiles rolls his eyes. Then pushes his arms up so that he’s leaning over them to look down at Peter. His ass wiggles around a bit before settling against Peter’s softened but by no means oblivious cock. “Yeah. But also, you have arms and thighs.”
“You tend to get fixated, don’t you?” Peter says.
“Says the guy who has a bigger charm collection than me,” Stiles says. Subsiding onto one arm, his face half-buried in his bicep as he lifts his other hand and shows Peter’s string of charms. He fingers the newest ones before flicking his gaze to Peter, who is deliberately waiting on him. “I know these aren’t because you’re afraid of me. That’s pretty clear at this point. And I think you’re smart enough to know trying to—take me over or something like that—”
Peter raises his brows. “Your friends have a very impressive kill record. Even Scott.”
“Yeah, well, he hates it but he’ll do it, if you push him hard enough. He’ll do it. Everybody underestimates him that way,” Stiles mutters. His face momentarily hardens and Peter silently curses the missteps. But then Stiles shrugs and tosses the charms onto the bedside table, and props himself up again to look at Peter. “So this is what I’m still having problems with. I mean, look, I know my worldview is permanently skewed towards abnormal, but that doesn’t mean I’m not—I’m not right. Everything I see is true, it’s just—dreams are true. They might not be real, but they’re still true. And a lot of times them not being real is about being not yet or not quite but it could go that way. I don’t see anything that couldn’t really happen, somewhere or sometime or with some people.”
“No, you don’t. And I’m not altruistic either,” Peter says slowly. “This is motivated by self-interest, Stiles.”
Stiles cocks his head. “Then why?”
“Because I want to,” Peter says. He hesitates, then decides against pushing himself up. He doesn’t think it’d make Stiles leave—he thinks they’re beyond that point. But it’s still set on the edge, he can still feel that, and he very much only wants this to go one way. “Because I want it this way, and not any other way. Because I’m that selfish, if I can’t have it the way I want it, I don’t want it at all.”
“I notice you’re not asking if I want it this way,” Stiles says, dry, in the way he is when he looks at Peter and his eyes are pure brown and yet just as agelessly tired as they are when he’s in the thick of his dreamtime-magic.
He quirks his mouth, then lifts one hand and pushes it back over the top of his head. Then, so quick it freezes Peter, he pushes forward and presses their lips together and pushes back. He puts his head down on Peter’s shoulder, his one arm trailing down to trace feather-light patterns on the soft, sensitive, nearly hairless flesh of underside of Peter’s forearm.
“I can see that,” he says quietly.
Not quite, Peter thinks. Not quite, and he has to bite back his impatience. He wants it the way he wants it—he too will have to settle for that. He looks at the ceiling—it’s plain white, like a million other ceilings, but in the blankness he thinks he sees a subtle swirling. His imagination, but it’s soothing. It takes his mind off things. “And you? Why not?”
“It’s not why not,” Stiles says. His fingertips slow, and then they resume their patterns as he shifts a little, kisses Peter’s collarbone. “It’s more…can I? Because…because I do really like you, that way. And I guess you’re right, when it’s like that. You have to really see the other person. So just—look, if you can just—just let me see. I’m sorry, I’m fucked-up, but I just need to see, this way.”
He’s putting Peter to sleep. Peter recognizes those patterns, in the last moment before his eyes fully close, and—and yes, Peter does see. He does hear the other man. And he does know what Stiles is doing, and it is exactly what Peter should have expected and Stiles still caught him out and damn it.
Damn it. But also…it’s a promise too. Peter heard that, before he drifted off.
In the morning, Stiles isn’t there, but he leaves out a hot breakfast and another fat envelope, which Peter tucks into his bag for the plane ride. Derek shows up afterward, manages to stay silent all the way to the airport, and then finally comes out with it as he and Peter are sitting in the VIP lounge. “Did you kill someone,” Derek says. “You’re smiling like that and it’s creepy and did you—”
“Shut up, Derek,” Peter says, stretching out his legs and checking his phone. Sixteen texts from Stiles already. “Trust me, you’re better off that way.”
“Shit,” Derek says, and goes to get coffee and doesn’t come back till five minutes before boarding.
It’s not really what Peter had planned, but it is what he wants. So Peter keeps smiling.
* * *
Unfortunately, Peter ends up having to revisit Beacon Hills several more times, and has to resign himself to having to add that damn town to his regular itinerary for the foreseeable future. Not because of Stiles so much as because of Laura, who finagles a job for herself out there so she can invade poor Parrish’s life more easily, and because of Derek, who, while he hates Beacon Hills just as much, seems perfectly fine with spending time on the Argent lands in the region. But he does get Stiles traveling in the other direction just as often, and he has small but viable hopes that he might eventually lure the man out of the place.
Still, it’s a surprise to him that when he finally wakes up and finds Stiles curled around him, snoozing into the crook of his neck, they’re neither on the East Coast nor in Beacon Hills. They’re up in Quebec, because of Chris goddamned Argent.
“But maple candy is great, and so is lumberjack food,” Stiles says, nuzzling at Peter’s nape. His hands wander down to Peter’s ass, thumbs sliding into the cleft, and then he lets out a startled huff as Peter arches and humps back into the touch. “Okay, um, then you’re gonna have to hand me the lube, and also, can I just say, if I knew that was gonna trigger that kind of mental porn, I would’ve bought a lot more ironic novelty syrup—”
“Lube,” Peter says, tossing it over his shoulder. Then he plants his hands and spreads his legs, and arches again into Stiles’ growing erection. “Now either fuck me with that or get off so I can fuck myself.”
Stiles snorts. “Okay, never would’ve started switching if I knew you’d be so bitchy about it, but—”
Peter twists around and kisses him. For motivation, although it works counterproductively in focusing Stiles’ attention where Peter wants it, but eventually, Stiles gets around to fucking him. And then he lets his pleasantly wrung-out body spread out across the mattress, settling into its exhaustion, Stiles’ cock still filling him, and he thinks at the least, he’ll fall asleep with the weight and warmth and closeness. Which will make it all the obvious when he wakes up by himself, as he knows he will, and he’s no martyr but he’s also no fool. There’s no point in denying himself at both points.
So when he does wake, and he isn’t by himself, the first thing he does is pull over his charms and test whether it’s a dream.
Stiles jerks sharply and the air swirls thickly around them, silver glittering momentarily where the shadows are deepest. Then he jerks again, less violently, and Peter can’t help holding a breath as the man’s eyes open.
“Oh,” he says. His tone is unreadable, and the sex in the air is still masking anything else in his scent. All his eyes tell Peter is that he is fully aware, with no waking transition. He lies there, for a moment, and then, very deliberately, he pushes closer to Peter. “Hey.”
“Stiles,” Peter finally says. Then forgets the rest, and drops the charms and just presses his forehead against Stiles’ cheek.
The other man makes a small noise, possibly amused, possibly more heartfelt than that, and then draws in a deep breath that wobbles once, near the end. Then Stiles moves his arm, snagging Peter’s wrist and pulling Peter’s arm more closely around him.
“I’m done. I get it, okay, I get he got stuck in dream hell for a couple years so he’s got to rebuild his rep, but two packs of rougarous at once is insane,” Stiles mutters. Pushes his head back into Peter’s throat. “I need a good long nap, and somebody to make sure I don’t wake up for at least a day.”
Peter smiles into his hair. “Well, I think that’s possible. I do have experience in naptimes, after all.”
Stiles is still for a second. “Peter. Was that a babysitting joke. Oh, my God, that was, you asshole—”
“Go to sleep, Stiles,” Peter says, kissing Stiles’ temple to push him back when he tries to raise his head. He keeps his mouth there till the man stops resisting and just grumbles into the bed, then goes back to smiling into his hair. “I promise I won’t tell you any bedtime stories this time.”
“Oh, my God,” Stiles says.
And then…and then he does go back to sleep, and Peter does watch over him. Without the interruptions this time.