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The boy shows up on Peter’s doorstep the day of the Argent girl’s funeral. Boy might not be the right term, anymore—teenager neither.
“Stiles,” Peter says, working to cover up his shock at not sensing his arrival. Stiles’ footsteps are different, the beat of his heart slower and less erratic, his scent changed—from chemosignals down to the tang of his sweat.
“Peter,” Stiles says back, a weak imitation of his usual mocking snark. He holds his phone out for Peter to take. It’s a map, zoomed in on a cluster of trees. “A rogue Alpha hiding away from a coven of witches.”
Peter tightens his hold on the phone, memorizing the purposefully vague picture as if that will help him any. His blood sings but he doesn’t listen to it, not one to indulge in hope. Handing the phone back, Peter raises a single eyebrow.
A spike of irritation mixes in the Stiles-but-not-quite-Stiles scent and Peter smirks to cover up the relief he feels at something familiar.
“I’m leaving,” Stiles says. The irritation fades. “You’re waiting for a chance to get out of this hellhole and I’m offering. Come with me and I’ll make you an Alpha and be your packmate to keep you anchored.”
Peter waits, letting the silence stretch to the end of his patience, and when Stiles doesn’t fidget or twitch, he asks, “The price?”
He expects a smirk, something a little sinister or triumphant. What he gets are wide empty eyes. “I get out of here,” Stiles says.
Peter scrutinizes the boy, teen, whatever category Stiles fits in now. Peter’s saying yes, there’s no doubt or hesitancy in his decision. It’s Stiles he wants to figure out, make the first chip away at what will be months of picking him apart if things go right. There has always been so much in this clever boy—more so than before, unfortunate as the circumstances are.
Stiles can get out of here on his own. It’s a matter of being able to fall apart once he’s out of here and having someone there, if not for comfort then for safety.
“And you’ll finance everything,” Stiles says, tacking it on after too many silent seconds since he last spoke.
He’s too late on throwing Peter off. He’s zeroed in on Stiles expecting Peter to have his back—trusts Peter to have his back. Smirk twisting into something of a smile, his blood singing a little louder, Peter tilts his head in acknowledgment to financing.
“Five minutes,” Peter says.
Stiles’ face doesn’t twitch, no sign of relief or pity that Peter only needs five minutes to vacate his so-called home. He simply nods and says, “We’re taking your car.”
Stiles turns as he speaks, his body tensing finally, and Peter’s curiosity peaks. His thirst for knowledge is written all over his face and no doubt the reason Stiles moved, preemptively avoiding Peter’s expression.
Leaving behind that ugly emotional crutch of a car…
Careful, she grinds in second. One misstep away from death and yet the boy had made a point to ask a murderously feral Alpha to be thoughtful of a car.
Figuring out a puzzle is far more satisfying to piece together than asking outright. Peter can play a long game—he always is. Instead of commenting about the car, he asks Stiles where his bags are.
If he’s running away, Stiles isn’t dumb enough to leave his jeep parked here and he’s only wearing the usual jeans and layered shirts, no duffel bag or backpack.
Stiles glances over his shoulder to meet Peter’s eyes. There is no teasing smile on his face but Peter sees the potential for it to be there one day. “Financing everything, Peter,” Stiles reminds him.
Peter should protest all the ordering, the assumptions, the fact that he’s buying Stiles a whole new wardrobe and who knows what else, but, truthfully, Peter’s only focused on the way his name sounds in Stiles’ mouth.
—
Stiles is unnervingly, frustratingly lifeless on the drive across states. The sudden constant companionship would have driven Peter crazy pre-Nogitsune. Even without the inane chatter and restlessness, being confined to a small space with someone has Peter on edge.
Peter can appreciate it, in a way. The road trip gives them time to adjust to what will be an indefinite amount of time together for the foreseeable future. Getting used to each other’s habits—Peter’s pickiness over rest stops and snacks and Stiles’ urgency to pee, eat, drink, etc, because he forgets bodily functions until the last moment.
Peter needs some level of noise but not too loud and Stiles hates staying on one station for more than an hour. When the radio is out of range, Stiles throws off a packed punch of distressed chemosignals at the static sound.
They fight over the windows being down or up, fight over who drives, fight over being fine when they wake up with a roar or a scream.
Peter prides himself on learning a fair amount about Stiles by the time they reach the Alpha’s cabin. Stiles struggles with his new body because it’s foreign to him and the body is physically weak. Something is obscuring his chemosignals that’s not depression and the body’s sweat is missing Stiles’ saltier taste. He’s a carefully controlled type of feral, mind disconnected from body.
And he doesn’t trust Peter, not fully. He might let Peter see this lifeless side of him, sleeps fitfully with Peter in the bed next to him, but he’s always on guard. Peter’s not sure how Stiles would protect himself—he hadn’t brought any possessions, no knives or guns or anything wolfsbane related—but Peter doubts he’ll be able to seriously harm Stiles if he tries.
Peter’s satisfied with what he’s uncovered already and eager to peel away more layers with a heightened werewolf status.
Killing the Alpha is anticlimactic and easy with Stiles listing off all the man’s weaknesses. Peter breaks the rogue’s neck. In the rush of power, different this time in a more coherent state of mind, the urge to bite and claim Stiles possesses him.
Stiles, in the shadows of the trees, doesn’t waver at Peter’s red gaze. He stands steady as a hundred-year-old tree. Peter thinks, again, there could be a smile on what’s a blank face right now. It pulls him out of the nearly uncontrollably haze, curiosity taking over once more. Stiles watches Peter like he knows exactly what’s going through Peter’s mind, like he expected Peter’s first instinct to be about him.
Stiles doesn’t add distance between them.
Shifting out of the advanced Beta form—not full Alpha, Peter’s not ready to try that out yet, to see if his wolf form is twisted and ugly and monstrous like before—Peter composes himself. He’s different this time. Sane, to a certain degree.
The power has a faint pulse of wrong, unnatural in being stolen, but not as much as when he’d taken the Alpha Spark from Laura. There’s a rightness to it, a recognition that the now-dead feral Alpha didn’t deserve this status.
Closing his eyes, Peter focuses internally, blocking out those darkened honey eyes watching him. His body is stronger than last time, adjusts to the power faster and less painfully. There’s no need to use it immediately on healing. The Spark has time to settle, to poke at his wolf and start the dance of feeding into it, weaving together into something stronger.
It’s delicious. Peter savors it, welcoming it slowly, letting it sharpen his senses. No need to drain it for brute strength on a revenge kick.
He switches his attention externally, familiarizing with how much louder his surroundings are, the farther he can hear, the sharper smells are and the more intricate.
Taking a deep breath, he inhales Stiles, scenting him a good few yards away—tasting Stiles better than he’d been able to in the car, only a foot apart.
One of the hundreds of Stiles pieces clicks into place. The whole not-quite-Stiles-body isn’t just a replica of Stiles’ old body. It’s something Stiles, inside his original body’s mind, created when he split from the Nogitsune. He pulled the essence of magic together and pressed it through the cookie-cutter of what a human looks like.
Stiles isn’t learning how to be a person again. His creation is trying to learn what a body is—imitating bodily functions with a detached understanding, lacking the uniqueness of Stiles’ original heartbeat and breathing rhythm and scent.
The urge of bite and claim comes back, fainter but no less urgent, a strong need to help Stiles find his way back to himself inside something so foreign.
Opening his eyes, he drinks Stiles in with this new information.
Everything else might be artificial but the eyes are the same, if a little darker and underlined by tired bruises. The heart can be Peter’s anchor when it adjusts back to Stiles’ faster beat. For now, darkened honey is enough.
“Ready?” Stiles asks, hands in pockets, sounding almost bored.
Peter grins. Again, the smile potential is there. Peter’s no closer to achieving an upward twitch of lips but he’ll keep counting the moments until he succeeds.
—
In the aftermath of dealing with the coven, Peter learns again that his grasp on Stiles is far more shallow than he gave himself credit for.
Peter hadn’t questioned the logistics. If there’s one thing he’s certain of, it’s Stiles’ reliability and ruthlessness in getting what he wants. Peter didn’t need to know the hows of Stiles contacting a coven and making a deal with them to get the Alpha’s location in exchange for killing and handing his dead body over.
Peter’s wary, an instinctive dislike of handing one of his species over rather than dealing with it personally, even if that meant disposing of it through gory means. A deal with a coven they’ve never interacted with before doubles his wariness.
He’s not surprised when the witches try to take them as living sacrifices and with a special interest in Stiles specifically. They slaughter the coven effectively. Peter’s new status takes over with an obsessive and brutal need to protect what’s his.
Then there’s Stiles—the eruption of a real, authentic scent on him, the ozone of magic so thick that the stench of it damages the witches’ bodies before the magic hits them.
The thunderstorm smell cuts off as quickly as it came once the last witch’s heartbeat goes out.
Stiles, pale and shaking, takes in Peter’s red stare, mumbles, “Filled their lungs with water. Thought s’better than fire,” and faints.
—
Peter wars with where to go. The witches, thankfully, are dealt with because Peter doesn’t give a single fuck in this scenario to deal with their bodies. Tree roots slither up to the surface and bring the bodies into the earth. Stiles twitches in Peter’s arms, magic working to handle the mess, protecting the two of them even in sleep.
The untrained wildness of the Alpha racing in Peter’s veins sings with approval at a worthy packmate that takes care of their pack of two.
Bite and claim.
Peter’s not a mindless beast and he wrestles for control, fighting the need to create a space for pack to care for Stiles in. He compromises not having a den by throwing their low profile to the wind and going to a higher quality hotel.
It’s alarming, the way Stiles’ body walks upright through the hotel, stands in the elevator, and walks to their room. He’s still unconscious, a pair of sunglasses hiding his closed eyes. Whatever magic is inside him understands the oddity of an older man carrying a passed out teenager and conjured this act of normalcy.
Once the hotel door closes, Stiles collapses in Peter’s expectant arms.
For six hours, Peter paces and orders room service and fusses over the bedding Stiles sleeps on.
By the time Stiles’ heart and breathing change to something quicker, Peter’s worked up in a panic. The click of another puzzle piece slotting together keeps his anxiety at bay. The lifelessness of their road trip had been partly to store up energy for the impressive magic he unleashed on the coven.
“You knew they’d attack us,” Peter states, neither a question nor an accusation.
“I wanted to see what you’d do,” Stiles says. Peter holds off on handing over water—the truth sounds better in a hoarse voice. “You stayed. You had my back.”
Eyelids flutter open at half-mast, a deep honey stare before Stiles closes them again as he turns his chin and bares his neck.
Everything floods in. Stiles choosing Peter to leave Beacon Hills with, Stiles finding an Alpha to kill, his cleverness in testing Peter’s loyalty with the surprise of the coven’s attack, the zero hesitancy in killing to protect Peter, the compassion in killing through water and not fire, the amount of trust given by passing out with only Peter there. Stiles’ eyes and the smiles that aren’t there but could be and the beautiful line of his neck. Submitting to Peter, not in the shadows of the forest under the stare of red eyes but now, having found reciprocating worthiness in Peter being a packmate.
Bite and claim.
The bond snaps into place, stronger than any pack link Peter has experienced. It’s nothing like the flimsy barely-there tug from Beacon Hill’s rag-tag “pack”. The strength of it knocks Stiles back out, not that Peter expected he’d be awake much longer.
Peter himself finds exhaustion gripping at him from the force of the bond. Climbing into the one bed, he scoops Stiles into his arms, burying his nose in the boy’s neck, and falls asleep.
—
“There’s word of me. Of someone who survived a Nogitsune.”
“You’re being hunted,” Peter says, holding back the growl.
Stiles shrugs. “I was planning on splitting from Beacon either way.” He eyes Peter in hesitance. It’s more for show, the bond reflects very little suspicion. “I don’t really know what the fox did to me,” Stiles goes on. “I’m sort-of magic, I guess. But warped or something.”
Peter hands over a protein bar, glaring until Stiles opens it and starts eating. They’re sitting on the hotel bed, Stiles flushed pink from sleep but bright-eyed in full restoration.
Peter considers their next move. They’ve been keeping a low profile but this news calls for more careful plotting. “Do you want to pick out the cities and living arrangements,” he asks, “or take over the research in finding what information we can piece together about what you are?”
Stiles’ heartbeat picks up for a few seconds, his body flickering into something natural for a moment before returning to a too-perfect body with a constant heart rate of forty beats-per-minute.
His first taste at effecting Stiles and addiction has sunken its claws in—a dangerous temptation in its sweetness. Hunger overwhelms Peter and he reigns in the Alpha Spark, keeping tight control of its demanding instincts.
Stiles bites into his protein bar instead of answering. Peter watches with rapt attention as Stiles processes Peter’s question.
“I’ll plan out identities and how long we can stay in one place,” Stiles decides, staring at Peter with equal intensity.
“I have a few phone calls in mind that might help,” Peter says casually, drinking in the small hints of Stiles’ appreciation for a split workload. His face twitches with hints of confusion but emotion mainly comes through the bond, thrumming with a quiet hope.
Peter’s gums itch to drop his larger fangs, adrenaline coursing from the start of a game. Chasing away the disbelief of a pack being competent is absolutely thrilling.
Stiles chews his bar, his observing stare thoughtful. “You know,” he says, “I’m going to be a depressed piece of shit. Hella trauma going on here.”
Peter rolls his eyes. “Yes, Stiles, I do have some intelligence. You were possessed, darling.”
No heartbeat change at the term of endearment but Peter’s a patient man.
“I’m going to be a mess for a while. Like, a long time. Long. Maybe forever,” Stiles presses.
Peter takes a water bottle and hands it over to Stiles in exchange for the empty wrapper. “I’m your Alpha.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
Peter takes private triumph in the fact that Stiles didn’t dispute the Alpha statement. “You didn’t ask a question. Drink the water.”
Uncapping the bottle, honey eyes take on a darker look that Peter assumes is meant to be a glare. After a long drink that stretched his pale neck, Stiles asks, “How’s the whole Alpha adjusting going?”
Based on the mocking question, Peter’s private triumph might not be so private. Not that you can blame a guy for reveling in Stiles putting up little resistance to accepting authority, or perhaps better phrased as pledging loyalty with confidence.
Peter cocks his head, frowning like he’s mulling it over in his head. “Seeing as you’re so concerned, I’ll admit the adjustment would be better if you wear one of my shirts.”
Peter catches the water bottle lodged at his head. Stiles frowns, close to the scowl that should be there.
“You’re over-playing the Me Alpha, You Mine card. I let you spoon me and basically hand-feed me—” Stiles frowns deeper at Peter’s pleased growl “—but I’m going to start drawing the line, dude.”
“If I’m going to take care of your messy, falling apart depression,” Peter says, “then you have to indulge in my superior Alpha instincts.”
Darkened honey eyes. “I didn’t sign a contract for that.”
Peter breezily points out, “You bared your neck.”
An hour later, they check out of the hotel. Stiles sits in the passenger seat of the car, arms angrily crossed over a v-neck shirt that’s satisfyingly soaked in Peter’s scent.
—
They move from city to city, state to state. With their combined intelligence, crossing the wrong people rarely happens. The hunt for Stiles means they can’t escape all encounters, however. They have to knowingly walk into traps in order to get the information they need.
Within mere months, they’re working flawlessly together. Peter’s charm combined with Stiles’ verbal sparring makes a perfect team in misleading and deceiving their way out of suspicion or trouble. The few physical fights end quickly, and with little injury. For now, Stiles works with a bat but once the trauma smooths over and they can work on controlling and sharpening his magic, he and Stiles will be an unstoppable force.
Peter’s not complaining for Stiles to hurry up soon. He makes it abundantly clear that the bat is more than enough for years if need be. After they bought the simple bat at a sports store, it turned into a deadly combination of rowan wood laced with wolfsbane and an unknown number of supernatural repellants overnight.
The unintentional magic of that transformation had put Stiles under for forty-eight hours. The upside to those two panic-filled days was that once Stiles woke up, he was in deep debt to Alpha indulging. Stiles in Peter’s clothes is a treasure that never gets old. Being insufferable in taking care of Stiles is immensely amusing, not to mention how it feeds his ego.
—
They don’t talk about Beacon Hills. There’s a lot they don’t talk about. The people Stiles left behind and the deaths he blames himself for. The pack Peter lost in the fire and the rage-coated grief of his comatose years. Their nightmares and the way their dreams have started settling down from soothing each other through their bond.
Stiles makes a lot of noise about them sleeping in the same bed but he craves it as much as Peter does, even if it’s not in the same way.
—
A year passes and they’ve gained enough of a reputation to settle down somewhere for more than a few weeks.
Stiles lives up to the depressed piece of shit he claimed he’d be and Peter endures it like he promised in saying he’s Stiles’ Alpha.
There is an unspoken leeway in Alpha-indulging when creating a temporary home. Peter excessively scents Stiles and keeps the one-bed rule despite the weakening of the bond’s urge for closeness.
Full moons are Peter’s favorite time, no matter the season of their moods. Stiles always finds a safe woodsy area for Peter to run freely in. Stiles never experienced a proper full moon with werewolves and Peter’s intent on showing him how the gift of pack includes this.
The first few moons, Stiles leans against a tree and waits the night out, Peter running back to him from time to time for scenting and offers of dead animals.
On the fourth full moon spent outside, Stiles snaps at Peter to fucking shift. Peter doesn’t know when Stiles picked up on that avoidance—probably before Peter knew it himself—and he almost gnashed his teeth. But Peter was used to Stiles’ outbursts, how anger usually hid something, and he caught the change in Stiles’ scent and heartbeat, thick with emotion and fast. Real.
“Are you too much of a coward to see if you’re even uglier as a wolf than you are without eyebrows,” Stiles had goaded.
Peter accepted the challenge, not out of spite like Stiles tried provoking—but out of a need to prove to his beloved packmate that he’s a capable Alpha unafraid of anything.
The fear keeping Peter from trying the Alpha full-shift turned out to be a waste of worrying. He’s not the malformed beast from his feral days. He’s a wolf, on the bigger size of the already large animals and—
“Pretty,” Stiles had said, more life in his voice than Peter had heard since the possession. He can mimic the lingo of dude and bro but there’s no faking the pure energy of a Stiles.
As a wolf, Peter’s been able to lure Stiles into running with him. It’s not as flawless as other parts of their life and Peter wishes to bite and claim but there’s something exciting about teaching and learning. It’s a very juvenile type of joy but Peter’s starting to suspect that maybe life is best to enjoy and indulge without judgement.
Stiles stumbling and getting annoyed at Peter chasing him too closely slowly shifts to bursts of sprinting mixed with jogging in a play of genuine chase. He’ll flop against Peter, letting the wolf support most of his weight when he gets tired and needs to walk.
On a particularly bad month, Stiles curls up next to a tree, no childish playing, and Peter curls around him. Stiles huffs a breath that’s not just the potential of something but borders on nearly being a laugh.
As each full moon approaches, Stiles’ chemosignals mix with as much excitement and anticipation as Peter’s.
—
Peter gets his first smile a year, six months, and a handful of days after Stiles showed up outside his apartment. Technically, there’s been plenty of smiles, though none were genuine or Stiles-real.
Of all possible scenarios, the smile happens in the middle of an argument. Of course Stiles would smile for the first time over a fight. Little brat.
Stiles offered to make dinner and, honestly, if anyone should understand losing track of time, it should be Stiles. Peter only wants to read one more page of a very rare journal they spilled a lot of blood over acquiring.
“You said one more page twenty minutes ago!”
Peter has to reread the last line, distracted by Stiles talking. “Exaggerating.”
“Fuck you,” Stiles snaps, the heat behind the words sincere for once. The hurt hiding in it almost draws Peter out of his trance. “You can read after you eat. Your food’s getting cold, Peter.”
Peter hums. He oh so loves it when Stiles says his name. “One more page, dear.”
“I’m going to kill you with my bare hands.”
“Hm.”
Stiles stomps away and bangs around in the kitchen. Blocking out the noise, Peter loses himself in the pages of how magic needed to be used daily or else the powerful magic-user’s body suffered terrible pain.
By the time Peter forces himself to take a break, he sees that a significant amount of time passed, actually. He discovers the banging in the kitchen and the suspicious, in retrospect, lack of pestering was due to Stiles throwing Peter’s dinner in the trash. Not just the meal but the plate and silverware and glass of wine.
Stiles kindly put away his dishes, though pointedly dirty beside the sink.
Peter finds the brat in their room, wrapped up in their comforter and scrolling on his phone.
“Do you need something?” Stiles asks, tone flat and gaze on his screen.
Peter takes a deep breath. They’ve been on a good streak. Stiles has been making progress in pulling out of his swings between numb and angry. Peter’s Alpha Spark has integrated with his wolf and his wolf fully connected with him after the full shift.
“Care to explain what happened in the kitchen?” Peter asks. His forced calm leans heavily into condescending.
Stiles waits a beat before responding. “Sorry, I’m busy reading.”
They get snippy with each other often, they wouldn’t be each other if they didn’t, and they’ll teeter into cutting comments, no holding back. But they’ve never actually fought before in a real sense beyond heated arguments.
This is the type of arguing that lasts and lingers and won’t fade.
Peter’s not even sure what they’re fighting about but it goes beyond dinner going cold.
Peter snarls eventually, fangs extended and eyes burning red. In his wolf-ish thinking, he expects the submission of a bared neck. What he gets is pursed lips.
That’s all it takes for the metaphorical rug to be yanked out from under Peter’s feet. The tiniest twitch in the corner of Stiles’ lip.
“Are you smiling?”
Both sides of Stiles’ mouth twitch. Dropped fangs slurring Peter’s words never fails to amuse Stiles. This time is no different.
“No,” Stiles bites out, clamping his lips together.
Peter keeps his fangs down. “Yes, you are. That’s a smile. You’re smiling.”
“No,” Stiles says again, then tries to glare, then bites his quivering lip, and finally just claps a hand over his mouth. “Shut up,” Stiles says, voice muffled.
Peter’s not missing out on his first smile. He’s waited so long for this, one of many things he’s been patient for. Receding his fangs, Peter strides to the bed and grabs at what he assumes is Stiles’ ankle through the layers of blanket. Stiles tries shaking him off. It’s utterly ridiculous, Stiles trying to cover his mouth while shimmying in the cocoon he’d made.
Peter laughs. “Stop being a brat.”
Stiles flails his legs, aiming for a cushioned kick to Peter’s gut. “Stop laughing, you dick.”
Unwrapping Stiles is futile—he’s nicely tangled himself up. Peter climbs on the bed, pushing Stiles in his blanket-burrito into sitting up, supported by the headboard. Stiles squawks at Peter crowding into his space.
“Don’t you dare think about touching me,” Stiles says. He’s uncovered his mouth to frown.
Peter rolls his eyes. He listens, as much as he wants to cup Stiles’ rosy cheek. “Why did you smile?” he asks.
Stiles glances away, his ruddy cheeks from anger darkening in a splotchy blush. “You’re being creepy again.”
“And you’re being an insolent brat.”
Stiles frowns down at the blanket. He mutters, “If I’m so annoying then just go find another Beta.”
Peter freezes. “Is that what this is about? You think I don’t care for you?”
Stiles meets Peter’s gaze with a glare. “No. I’m just—I put a lot of effort into dinner and you weren’t listening. And I got annoyed.” Peter snorts at that and Stiles works his trapped arm out of the blanket to shove Peter’s shoulder. “I just thought it was funny when you got all,” Stiles mockingly bares his teeth, “wolf-y as if that would do anything. The Alpha Spark loves me.”
Peter raises one eyebrow. “The Alpha Spark,” he repeats, “loves you.”
Stiles grins wickedly at Peter’s deadpan and that—that is a smile. That is a smile. A Stiles-smile.
Stiles chatters on but Peter can’t hear him. The world has narrowed down to that smile flitting between words, wide enough to dimple his cheeks.
“...like last moon and remember—hey! Hey, I said no touching! No-touchy, bad Alpha.”
Peter blinks, unaware that he’d given in to his impulse to cradle Stiles' face. His palms cup the underside of Stiles’ jaw, a thumb on each cheek to brush the curve of that miracle of a smile.
Peter doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t know what to say, frankly. He’s not sure why he followed this boy out of Beacon Hills and stayed and protected him and took him as a packmate and anchor and—well, no, he does know, he’s always known Stiles is special, but there’s something important to clear up first.
“You’re not just a Beta,” Peter says.
“I’m your anchor,” Stiles says like he’s reciting a fact, flat and boring.
Peter huffs. He slides one hand to rest on the back of Stiles’ neck. With the other, he takes Stiles’ chin in a firm grip. “No one,” Peter says, eyes bleeding red, “can replace you.”
For the second—or second and a half—time, Stiles smiles a real smile. “There’s my Alpha,” Stiles teases.
Peter wonders what he missed in Stiles’ ramble about the Alpha Spark “loving” him but it doesn’t matter if the end result has Stiles saying things like that. He growls playfully and pounces.
“No, not the disappearing eyebrows!”
Later, after Peter makes himself something to eat—because the stubborn brat stands by his decision of Peter not deserving his cooking, a lazy excuse to stay in bed—they curl up in a tangle of limbs without the pretense of falling asleep.
“I’m sorry I ignored you,” Peter murmurs.
“Just don’t do it too much,” Stiles says back. “I’m not really sorry about throwing the plate in the trash but I’ll try to keep my mood swings from dumb stuff like that. I’ll take a walk or something.”
Peter tightens his arm around Stiles. “I can handle your mood swings.”
“They’re getting better.” Stiles lays his head on Peter’s chest. He whispers, “I’m getting better.”
Peter kisses the top of Stiles’ head. “Yes, you are, darling.”
Stiles’ heart stumbles over the endearment.
—
Stiles’ first real laugh is the next full moon, running alongside Peter and laughing with the moonlight shining down on them.
—
On Stiles’ nineteenth birthday, two important events happen. Stiles calls his dad for the first time in two years and he kisses Peter.
It’s adorably determined. He marches through the front door and pulls Peter away from folding the laundry to plant his lips on Peter’s face. The kiss is off-center, Stiles’ mouth a little too high, and Stiles makes a frustrated little sound in the back of his throat before pulling back and trying again. He moves slower this time, slotting their lips together.
Kiss might not be the right word. This is a declaration. Stiles presses into Peter with more force than a chaste kiss calls for but it’s not aggressive. It’s full of intent and purpose and a promise. He keeps their lips locked like this for several seconds before pulling away.
Kissing, mouths wandering over skin, hands touching everywhere—that Peter could have handled. Something desperate and needy and messy.
But this? Slow and careful and no rushing to hide vulnerability. Peter’s not sure what to do.
Stiles scrutinizes Peter’s face and nods, a satisfied little thing to himself. “Yeah, I choose you.” He raises his chin, every inch determined, and declares, “I’m going to love you.”
Peter’s claws slip out.
Stiles laughs, bright and joyful. His honey eyes sparkle and his heart rate spikes in an erratic rhythm. “Yeah, I’m going to love you. Not because of circumstance or because you want me or from any influence of our bond. And not because of whatever you mean by me being your anchor and irreplaceable.” Stiles rolls his eyes. He huffs, “I already fell for you but,” he grins lopsided, “I’m deciding to love you because I want to.”
“You speak utter nonsense,” Peter says.
“And you love it.”
“I do.” Peter chuckles, too stunned to say anything beyond, “I was helpless to falling for you, you clever boy. I knew that when I chose to leave with you.”
Stiles smiles with lovely flushed cheeks. “Take me on a date,” he demands.
“I think I can manage that.”
“And I’m going to take you on dates.” Stiles loops his arms around Peter’s neck. “And we’re going to kiss and have sex and hold hands.”
Peter picks Stiles up with a long, rumbling growl.
“No, bad Alpha! Date first! I’ve never been on a date.”
Peter pauses and the enormity of it hits him. What Stiles has been saying in choosing Peter. Stiles has never been on a date before, never had more than what Peter guesses are less than a handful of kisses, never had any sex of some kind.
Stiles has recovered with enormous progress. He can easily go out and experiment if he wants or look for another partner but he doesn’t want that. He wants Peter. He wants Peter’s love.
Of all the people to love and be loved by, Stiles wants Peter.
“Yeah,” Stiles says. “Took you long enough. You’ve proven you’re a good Alpha but what about a good boyfriend?”
“Mate,” Peter challenges. Stiles chose him, he knowingly signed up for this pushiness.
Stiles relaxes in Peter’s hold, smelling faintly of salt and magic and full of life. He kisses Peter’s pulse point and agrees, “Mate.”