The Long Game - aurevell (2024)

i.

“I just don’t like it,” Stiles mutters again. “And I don’t trust it.”

Scott glances over, amused. “What, marriage? The entire institution of marriage?”

“Don’t say it like I’m wrong. For people our age? No, I don’t like it. I don’t get how people are even thinking about it. I mean, I’m still a child. A literal infant.”

“No sh*t, Stilinski,” Erica mutters under her breath. Stiles tries to kick her, but she jerks her leg back too fast. Stupid werewolf reflexes.

The three of them are scattered in a loose ring around the coffee table, just near enough to the open loft window to catch a hint of the evening breeze. Even all these years later, Derek’s place has always remained their go-to meeting spot when everyone’s back in town. Stiles likes to think that’s not just because they’ve learned (the hands-on way) that it’s easily defensible, though there’s that: it’s also roomy enough to fit the whole pack without crowding, and it’s way nicer than it used to be. Six years’ worth of accumulated belongings has turned the downstairs living room into something more cozy and less prison-chic.

Stiles is perched on a fuzzy floor pouf Kira crocheted a while back, paging through a few manuscripts on minor magical beings of the western states, and Scott’s slouching on the armchair beside him, pretending to do the same. Erica’s not pretending at all—she’s just thumbing through messages on her phone—and everyone else is scattered about, Boyd and Isaac arguing somewhere in the kitchen, Derek caught up in a phone conversation with Cora upstairs, Kira off running a quick errand for her mom.

It’s a bit nostalgic, Stiles thinks idly. They haven’t had this in a while, pack meetings and research and movie nights. Almost the whole group is back in town for the summer, with the exception of Cora in South America and Lydia at her fancy summer program in New York. The fact that they’re looking up a supernatural problem together (fortunately just weird blue lights in the woods) is even novel enough at this point that Stiles is savoring instead of dreading it.

And because research is involved, even Peter’s graced them with his presence, sprawled as usual across half the opposite sofa and pretending not to care that they’ve got their grubby little fingers all over his family’s manuscripts. His eyes are closed. But he did provide several of the additional texts they’re using, and Stiles is certain he’s been listening to the whole conversation. It’s right there in the minute twitches of his mouth.

Stiles should know. He’s gotten good at reading the guy. Somewhere over the past few years, at some point when Stiles wasn’t really paying attention, he and Peter have gotten to a good place. A weird place. A good, weird place. A place where, yeah, Peter’s still kind of unhinged sometimes, and it’s hard to argue about it, but the werewolf mostly dials it back unless they need to put down some kind of unholy terror. So really, Stiles and everyone else benefit from it, you know?

And Peter’s an asshole still—also undeniable—but it’s kind of funny now. He’ll look Stiles up and down and lament his taste in clothes, and then later he’ll come over and murmur into Stiles’s ear about all ways he could kill Isaac with a spatula for spilling coffee on their preferred bestiary. He thinks it’s hilarious to leave all kinds of misleading evidence for the police after the pack has killed some kind of creature, but he’s also saved Stiles’s life more times than Stiles can count on one hand. And in spite of all the annoying boasts, it’s kind of hard to hate a guy after that.

But he’s also fun to be around, in a way that makes Stiles’s brain melt if he thinks about it too hard, because see above: Peter’s done a lot of sh*t. So Stiles just…tries not to think about it too much. Even now, he makes himself turn away from Peter, from the rare relaxed look of him and the hint of a smirk on his face.

“I can’t believe Greenberg’s getting married,” Stiles says under his breath. “It’s not natural.”

“Again, he’s twenty-two. We’re all twenty-two, twenty-three.”

“That’s what I’m saying! We haven’t even finished college. Or well, most of us haven’t.”

“Did you hear it’s to that girl Claire from high school?” Erica asks, not even looking away from her phone.

“Holy sh*t. Didn’t she almost get arrested for selling fake IDs? What’s she see in a dude like Greenberg?”

“Not Clare, Claire with an ‘i,’ the one who used to be in band. Claire Wagner.”

“Ohh. Yeah, that checks out. No, actually—that makes it even weirder! She’s so…normal. And yet, her and Greenberg. Getting married. As literal children, both of them.”

Erica snorts. “Talk about children. What’s really weird is how everyone’s popping out babies, too. On purpose. Liv Costilla just had her first kid, it’s all over Instagram.”

“Okay, yeah, that’s wild. No thank you. I can barely take care of myself.”

“Seconded,” Scott says.

“Not to mention, you know. The whole sh*tshow that is our lives,” Stiles adds, with a vague wave toward the stack of books and papers on the coffee table. “Dude, can you even imagine running away from the monster of the week, only you’ve also got a papoose strapped onto you? And the thing inside is actively screaming to give away your location? Stuff of nightmares.”

Erica rolls her eyes. “Yeah, let me rephrase. Everyone normal is getting married and having kids.”

“Everyone normal plus like, Scott and Kira,” Stiles adds.

“We’re not getting married.”

“You’re not getting married yet. We all know it’s coming, dude.”

This makes Scott flush. Erica snickers.

“If even Greenberg’s landed someone, you know all the good ones are gonna be gone by the time the rest of us are ready to settle down,” Stiles jokes.

“Better figure your sh*t out now, Stilinski.”

“Yeah. I really need a plan. One of those pact things. My Best Friend’s Wedding style. Marriage by age 30, you know what I mean?”

He’s lost Erica to her phone again. “Never seen it,” she says, bored.

Scott nods. He knows the film well—it was a favorite of Stiles’s mom, and they both sat through at least a dozen rewatches. “No one actually does that nowadays,” he scoffs.

“Lydia and Jackson have one. Or had one.”

“No way.”

“I’m serious! But with Jax dating Ethan for so long, it’d be weird if it panned out at this point. Anyway, the problem for me is, who would I even do it with?”

“Isaac’s available,” Erica says.

“Ew.”

“What? I heard my name,” Isaac calls from the kitchen, his voice only loud for Stiles’s benefit. “Whatever you’re saying, f*ck off.”

Stiles snickers. When he glances over, he finds Peter’s eyes slit open. Watchful. “Okay, Peter, it’s you and me, bud,” he jokes.

“Fine,” Peter replies at once.

Stiles co*cks his head, kind of incredulous. And maybe, because this is Peter, just a tiny bit suspicious too. “That was fast. You got no objections to walking me down the aisle, creeperwolf?”

“Why not?” Peter gives a lazy shrug, like he really could not care less about this stupid joke. He lays his head back down and closes his eyes. Right back to feigning his little nap. “See you in eight years.”

Scott is staring. He’s never really gotten used to Peter’s presence in the pack, just tolerates him for his sheer utility. He probably can’t figure out the joke or the angle. For once, Stiles is right there with him. Beside him, Erica is snickering again.

“Why does that sound like a threat?” Stiles complains. But Peter doesn’t answer.

ii.

By the fall, when Stiles returns to Berkeley, he’s managed to put the pact out of his mind. Mostly.

It hasn’t been as easy as you’d think. For a five-second exchange that Peter will have completely forgotten by now, it’s kind of weird how much real estate it takes up in Stiles’s head. Intrusive thoughts and all.

Sometimes, he can’t help but circle back to the calm way Peter agreed, because it was just that out of left field: Stiles wasn’t expecting it, even for a dumb joke. And sometimes, he just snorts at the entire concept when it pops into his head. Him and Peter, living under a roof, being all domestic or whatever. What a batsh*t idea.

Besides, anyone could tell Stiles isn’t exactly in a marrying mindset. He’s still in college. And even three years in, it sometimes feels like he’s still figuring out where he stands and who he actually is away from the pack and the sh*tshow their lives often are back home. Not like things aren’t a sh*tshow out here every now and then, but at least it’s a different kind. Just for the novelty. (Sure, there’s a ghost in the school’s ancient bell tower, and he’s seen questionable meetups for some witchy cult thing in a local cafe, but the worst things he usually has to deal with are late-night submission deadlines and communal showers and his phone dying in the middle of a boring lecture.)

Anyway. He’s done mulling it over all the time. The whole thing was obviously just for laughs. It’s not like Peter ever brings it up in conversation again, or mocks Stiles about it, and he has a lot of chances to.

Peter and Stiles talk all the time now, and have been for a while. Weirdly enough, they probably catch up more often than Stiles does with almost anyone else.

It started back in freshman year, with Stiles calling Peter for his take on the weird animal sightings in a cemetery outside of town, and then maybe again to insult him for thinking it was some hairless chupacabra when it was clearly a reanimated being. They were both sort of right in the end: it turned out to be an undead, goblinish figure that looked a bit like someone twisted a giant greyhound and a porcupine together. Not a fun thing to put down. But Stiles called with a begrudging update when it was done, and Peter refused to surrender the victory, and then…well, their conversations never really ended. Somehow.

It’s just because Stiles likes to argue, probably, and Peter does too. And besides, now that everyone else is graduating this year, they often seem busy when he calls. Which is fair: most of them are cramming in senior work or doing internships off in New York or working their first entry-level jobs, and even Derek’s got a thing going where he’s buying a local mechanic shop to run it himself.

In the midst of that chaos, Peter’s turned out to be this steady rock. Weirdly reliable. Who could have seen that one coming? Yeah, he’s snarky and smug, but at least Stiles knows the guy isn’t absorbed in the same torrential life changes as everyone else. In fact, Peter’s always free when Stiles needs someone to rant at. (Or maybe he’s just always free for Stiles. Derek’s complained more than once that he can never get hold of his uncle.)

Either way, before Stiles knows it, Peter’s the first person he thinks of when he has something to say. He calls Peter to ask where he gets those fancy cracker things he eats, or to rant about the stupidity of group assignments. Hell, he could call Peter at two in the morning—and has done—knowing he’s probably awake, just to ask what he thinks about runic wards, because Stiles is maybe thinking about upgrading his apartment security after watching one too many horror movies.

It’s not weird. Until Stiles sees how it probably looks from the outside.

“Your boyfriend gonna visit this year?” his roommate asks him one day.

Layne Ackner is a portly, cherub-faced guy with a crop of pale blonde hair and stylish black glasses, and Stiles has been lucky enough to room with him in the same off-campus apartment for two years now. Not because they’re best friends or anything—though Layne is pretty chill in general in the rare times where Stiles sees him for more than five minutes, with the guy’s busy schedule—but because of their mutual lack of curiosity. Stiles is interested in figuring out most puzzles, but Layne is not one of them.

Stiles skulks into and out of the apartment in the wee hours of the morning when supernatural sh*t is afoot. He’s growing wolfsbane and vervain on the kitchen windowsill, because you never know. He once, after chatting with Peter about wards again, pulled the fridge back to carve a few protective runes right onto the wall behind it (and thus permanently out of sight of their landlord). And Layne gave him a weird look but said nothing at all.

Maybe that’s because Layne, for his part, isn’t squeaky clean either, and he knows it, and he also knows that reciprocal prying isn’t what anyone wants here. He doesn’t work, but he’s getting loads of cash from somewhere. Stiles has found SAT paperwork under various false names, and he’s pretty sure Layne’s taken the exam for at least a dozen high schoolers. (It’s the cherub face, Stiles guesses.) He’s also got some kind of music phone farm setup over his desk, two dozen devices going at all times. But utilities are included in their rent, so Stiles couldn’t give a sh*t.

Peter, without having ever met or spoken to Layne, is a big fan. In his own words, there’s nothing better than someone who knows when to mind their own business.

All that to say, Layne and Stiles’s whole relationship is based on mutual assured destruction. They’re civil, and they don’t ask questions, and they mostly look the other way. Even on personal stuff.

Which is why it’s weird that Layne is bringing this up at all.

“What?” Stiles asks. He drags his eyes from his computer screen, trying to jump from coding to conversation.

Layne shrugs. He’s sitting on the sofa against the wall, a joint between his fingers. He blows the smoke through the open window beside him. “Your boyfriend. That guy you’re always talking to.” When Stiles just looks at him blankly, Layne adds, “That Peter guy.”

That startles a laugh out of Stiles. “What? Dude. f*ck no. Peter’s just a…uh…” He pauses. For a few seconds, he scrounges around for the right label. Maybe there isn’t one. “I mean. Just…no. If you even knew him, you’d never ask that sh*t.” He ends on an awkward laugh, then clears his throat. “Why would you think that?”

Layne looks at him weird. Neutral, but weird. Same look he gave Stiles about the runes hidden behind the fridge. “Just always seemed like it? You talk to him a lot. Couple times a day, sometimes, and you’re always like—smiling. Kinda assumed you were long-distance.”

“No way. We’re not. We don’t…”

“Okay,” Layne says at last, dismissive. He has people over a decent amount (somehow, it’s the cherub face) and Stiles figures he’s probably trying to figure out if he’s gonna get sexiled at any point this year. Like he thinks he could get sexiled by Peter Hale. With Stiles. It’s a thought that makes Stiles’s head spin. “Just asking, man.”

When Layne heads out ten minutes later, off to some party with his annoying business school friends, Stiles is still staring into space. Because it’s a weird thing to think about, okay? What with the dumb pact and all.

Again, Peter will have forgotten the whole thing by now, and anyway, Stiles was only kidding. It has to be a joke, because Stiles cannot be into Peter Hale. The guy wouldn’t look at him twice, and he spends a quarter of every call insulting Stiles’s intelligence, even if the insults are mutual. Even if Stiles doesn’t really mind the barbs. He tries not to look too hard at why he sometimes loves when that cutting smirk is directed his way, loves how it makes him feel as if he’s the center of Peter’s attention for that one instant.

Just because he can, Stiles spares a moment to think about it. Him and Peter, dating. A wild idea, seriously absurd, but it’s not as revolting as it would have been back in high school. Peter’s annoying and full of himself and rude, but he’s also Stiles’s kind of person—obviously. When they talk about real stuff, it’s about books or the insanely good recipes Peter likes to try out, and he’s funny and weird in a way Stiles likes, even if he takes himself a bit too seriously.

There’s also the fact that Peter’s stupid attractive, a thought that Stiles has been carefully shoving way the f*ck out of his mind, on repeat, for as long as the two of them have been friendly. And honestly, probably even before then. He doesn’t need to offer up further ammo the wolf can laugh about, like gaping stares or the smell of arousal. And he doesn’t want to make things awkward and strained between them, which might be even worse.

But every now and then, in the privacy of his own apartment two hundred miles from Peter, Stiles will give himself free rein to think about what it would be like.

Reaching out to touch Peter, knowing that touch is wanted. Having free rein to kiss him. Christ, the sex would be f*cking amazing—sometimes you can tell just by looking at a guy, and Peter looks like he could take you apart—and he sometimes wishes he could see all the things that mouth can do besides smirk.

That’s a really bad road to go down, though. Not just because Stiles absolutely does not have time to jerk off at the moment with this assignment due by midnight, and holy sh*t he is not going to jerk off thinking about Peter Hale, but also because of the general pining. He’s self-aware. He knows how obsessive he can get. And how hard it would be to hide that obsession from Peter if he lets things go too far. Read: how absolutely mortifying his poor attempt at hiding it would be.

Okay, Stiles decides, I really gotta get out there.

Layne seems to think the same thing. Much later, when he returns smelling of cheap beer, he comes to lean drowsily against the side of Stiles’s bedroom door.

“Dude, there’s this girl,” he says, and then stops. Covers a burp with his fist.

“Okay,” Stiles says. “Great? I thought you were still with that…Eliza? Right?”

“No, not for me. She’s kinda…your type. I think. If you don’t have that long-distance thing going on.”

Stiles stares for a long minute, long enough that Layne starts to look like he might actually nod off standing up.

“You know what?” he says slowly. “Yeah. Okay.”

iii.

And that’s how Stiles gets back into dating.

Which goes okay. At first.

It’s not like he’s new to it or anything. At the start of college, he was all about it—which is kind of par for the course when you’re a freshman, based on the general vibes of literally everyone else in his year. He spent half his first semester just checking out different campus groups and meeting new people and, yeah, being pretty excited about the possibility of dating and having sex without having to bring someone back to his childhood bedroom with his dad two doors down. And it turned out that outside the tiny pond that is Beacon Hills High, most people don’t consider Stiles unappealing, and he sometimes even turns heads, so he did end up hitting it off with a couple people. Even if they were short-term things that didn’t really go anywhere.

Maybe the novelty of his new freedom wore off somewhere along the way, or maybe it was the pressure of his growing workload. Either way, Stiles hasn’t recently made much time for anything besides school and his work-study stuff and the occasional party or video game session with friends.

Anyway, Layne was right. Hannah turns out to be really cool.

They meet up at a cafe not far from campus. She’s a dark-skinned geology major with immaculate hair and cat eyes sharp enough to kill. If Stiles is being honest, she seems way out of his league. But she also has a silly laugh, which she looks embarrassed about the second he starts cracking dumb jokes, and there’s a cool lightsaber tattoo on her forearm. It leads them into an intense debate about the comics in the expanded universe, and she steals half his fries to retaliate for some point or another, and he doesn’t even pretend to stop her.

Three and a half hours later, she’s got an afternoon tutoring session to prep for, so Stiles does the smooth thing you’re supposed to do and walks her to her car. For once, he’s so absolutely sure he’s reading it right that he even goes in for the kiss, and by then Hannah is already there to meet him halfway. She’s beaming as she drives off, and yeah. Stiles feels pretty suave about that. Hell, he’s kind of walking on air.

He ends up telling Peter as much later that night, even though it’s not the kind of thing they usually talk about. Far from it.

Stiles never glosses over the touchy-feely emotional stuff of his life, if only because it’s funny how bored the werewolf gets when you go into great detail about interpersonal dramas, but he doesn’t bring up his love life. Mostly because he hasn’t recently had one. But right now, he feels kind of like James Bond or something, high on that forgotten feeling of success, and he can’t keep his mouth shut.

“I cannot believe how cool she is. She does all this, like, super athletic stuff during the summers. Indoor rock climbing or something, apparently she’s been doing it since she was a kid. You can tell, too—her arms look like she’s got a mean bench press. And did I mention that tattoo?”

“You did. Several times.”

“Well, it was rad. And she even said she’s got tattoos all over, you know? Like maybe dropping a hint. Aw, man.”

Peter’s responding huff sounds more annoyed than usual.

“Oh, am I bothering you?” Stiles asks, amused. “Or is it just your allergy to good vibes and enthusiasm?”

“Not at all. I love getting play-by-plays of your little romantic experiments. You’re so…dewy-eyed. It’s cute.”

“Ugh. Never mind, I don’t even know why I brought it up. Obviously it wasn’t going to be a big deal for you.”

“What does that mean?”

“Like, this kind of stuff doesn’t happen to me! I don’t get the girl, or the guy, or whatever. So you don’t have to do the—you know, ‘Oh, I’m such a hotshot, I’m so experienced.’ I’m aware the great Peter Hale just snaps his fingers and anyone he wants falls into his lap. But we can’t all be like that.”

“They fall into my lap less often than you’d think,” Peter sighs.

“Oh, boo hoo, your dating life must be so hard as a hot dude in a tiny town. Cry me a river.”

There’s a short pause in which Peter says nothing and Stiles realizes what he’s just said aloud—but then, come on, it’s not like it’s even that weird. Peter is hot, and anyone with eyes can see it. It’s just an objective fact.

He clears his throat. “Anyway! Back to Hannah. So—”

“Dial it down, Romeo. What I meant to say, before the interruption, was that you’re approaching this with a horribly uncritical eye, even for you. Did you even vet her?

Stiles snorts. “No, I didn’t. God. Some people are just normal, non-supernatural people. Like, 99% of all people are like that, in fact. For my own sanity, I’m taking the ‘normal until proven otherwise’ approach to life. And I’m not slapping everyone I meet with a sprig of wolfsbane or hemlock or mountain ash or a combination of all of the above. Not everyone is cursed, my dude.”

“Most people are. One way or another.”

“You’re such a pessimist!” Stiles laughs. “Look. Just once, I’m having this cool, normal, totally non-supernatural thing happen to me. And it’s really nice. Can you just let me have this one?”

A grunt, low and displeased. Peter really does not enjoy letting people have fun. “If I must.”

“Plus, again, like…a girl wants to show me her tattoos. I haven’t gotten laid in forever.” Stiles snickers. “Is that TMI?”

“Yes,” Peter grumbles at once, and then he promptly changes the subject.

If he’s particularly scathing after that, well, Stiles doesn’t take it too personally. Peter gets in weird moods whenever someone does the great sin of outbidding him at an auction or mocking his stupid car. Or when Stiles does something he’s deemed idiotic, which, let’s face it, is very often. So if Peter’s going to be butthurt about Stiles making his own adult decisions, there’s nothing Stiles can really do.

⬩

Of course, it’s just Stiles’s luck that things immediately go to sh*t after that.

“Sick?” Stiles asks. He’s halfway ready when Hannah calls, hopping on one foot to yank one of his sneakers on, phone tucked into the crook of his neck. He pauses, straightening up. “No, yeah, we can totally cancel. Oh, man, that sucks. I’m sorry.”

Hannah lets out a weak laugh. “It came up out of nowhere.”

“Well, we could reschedule? If you want, there’s this free concert thing they’re doing at the—”

“No—no! No, actually, it’s really serious,” she says, almost tripping over the words. “A serious health…condition. I don’t know when I’ll be able to—or if I’ll…um.”

Stiles thinks he’s getting the picture. “Oh. Wow. Okay.”

“So we probably shouldn’t see each other again.”

“Right.” Stung, and almost at a loss for words, his brain cobbles together anything else he can add to help his chances: “Well, if you ever change your mind…”

That sentence was going in a really stupid direction, but fortunately, he’s saved the embarrassment of finishing it. The call has gone weirdly silent on the other end. He pulls the phone away to find she’s hung up.

“Guess I’ll lose your number, then?” he mutters.

Okay. What.

That’s weird, he thinks. Right? Sure, maybe she’s actually sick or whatever, but why the sudden three-sixty?

Hannah seemed into him before. They had a good time. That’s—he’s not just convincing himself of that, it’s just a fact, he thinks. It’s not like Stiles thought she was “the one” after a single date or anything, but he figured it would be cool to get to know her.

Or…now that Stiles is thinking about it, maybe he’s just a bad judge?

He’s rusty, after all. God knows he can’t always read a room. Maybe he f*cked up somewhere without realizing it. Missed a step, said the wrong thing. Texted too late or too early. Acted a little too forward.

This is the part of dating he kind of forgot, the whole intricate mating dance, the invisible steps you’re supposed to somehow know and follow. Miss one, without knowing it, and you come across as weird or creepy or something.

He also forgot the part where every wrong move makes you start dissecting yourself. Trying to solve the mystery of your own rejection.

Turns out, he forgot how much modern dating actually blows.

Stiles scowls, dressed and ready to go and standing in the middle of his apartment and suddenly free for the whole rest of the evening. Scott knows about the date, and Stiles could call him to complain, but the idea sours on his tongue. Talking to Scott about this, at least while it’s so fresh, would be kind of the worst. Especially with Scott’s habit of bringing up how amazing Kira is at least once every five minutes, how totally in love with her he is, like it’s a contractual obligation. God.

Instead, Stiles dials Peter for a distraction.

The werewolf picks up almost at once. “Thought you were on a hot date,” he drawls.

“Nope,” Stiles says shortly. If the world were a just place, Peter would have forgotten the whole thing. Usually, Stiles is fine with a barrage of insults, but he’s not feeling it right now. Not while he’s still trying to pick apart every word he’s said in the past seventy-two hours. “You are mistaken. I’m free as a bird.”

“Something happen?”

“Just—plans changed.” He drops onto the sofa, kicking his shoes off. “She had to call it off at the last minute. Not really interested, I guess.”

“Hm. Too bad.”

“Yeah. It’s whatever.”

“Well. I’m sure she wasn’t worth your time,” Peter offers, instead of the snide comment Stiles was sure he was dreaming up.

Stiles tries to absorb this. Weird take, coming from Peter, but okay. “Guess not.” He clears his throat. “Anyway. Distract me. What are you up to? How’s that goal to spend all your money within the next five years going?”

There’s a short hesitation, like Peter is figuring out if he wants to let the subject be dropped after all, but he eventually bites. “I’m no closer, unfortunately.”

“What? My dude. You flew all the way out to an auction and didn’t even buy the car?”

“Sometimes it isn’t meant to be.”

“Wow. What made you change your mind? Did some billionaire swoop in and steal it out from under you?”

“Maybe even I am at the limit of how many cars I can reasonably own.”

Stiles laughs in surprise. “Yeah, true, but I never thought I’d hear you say it. So, what, you knew in advance you weren’t gonna buy it, but you just flew over for a quick look anyway? What’s the point of looking at something you know you won’t have?”

“What’s the point of walking into an art museum?”

“Sure. Fair enough.”

“It’s even better than a museum, I’d say. It’s nice to appreciate pretty things. Especially knowing they might be yours one day.”

“Right,” Stiles replies with a smile. “Like me eyeballing that LEGO Millennium Falcon set every year at Christmas.”

Peter lets out an amused huff. “If you say so.”

“Man, if Scott could ever hear you being a totally chill dude—well, as chill as you can actually be—who fully ‘lives and lets go’ sometimes, maybe there’d be less infighting at pack meetings.”

“I don’t know about that. He’s smart to be wary.”

“Okay, big bad. You’re so right.”

“I don’t believe letting go is in my nature.”

No, maybe it isn’t. Peter’s clingy in that way: he holds onto gripes and grudges, won’t let a hypothesis drop until he’s definitively proven right or wrong, won’t let anyone touch what he believes to be his. Not in a bad way—if you ask Stiles, at least—just sort of relentless. He doesn’t know when to stop. But unlike Scott and the others, Stiles doesn’t think that trait is black or white. It’s just a neutral part of Peter to take into account.

“Besides,” Peter adds lightly, “What would be the fun in that?”

They talk for a while longer, just about this and that. Peter’s only gotten back from his flight a half-hour ago, and the soundtrack of him puttering around his apartment and putting things to rights is a soothing backdrop to the call. It’s weirdly familiar, weirdly homey, and maybe Stiles needs that right now in his tiny shared apartment with nowhere to go for the night.

When it’s late enough to get off the phone, he finds himself really grateful he called Peter after all.

“Thanks for…” he trails off, trying to find the right words. For making him forget. For helping him feel like things are back to normal. “For picking up, I guess.”

Peter’s voice comes gentler than he’s ever heard it. “Anytime, Stiles.”

⬩

Stiles refuses to let one bad date dictate anything. Plus, now that he’s built up enough momentum to actually try, he can’t lose steam. Otherwise, he’ll never get back out there. And there are plenty of fish, or so he’s heard.

He signs up for a couple dating apps and—with a bit of long-distance help from Erica—drafts profiles that make him seem way more confident than he actually is. He pushes them live without letting himself stress too much about the details. And then he starts swiping.

Despite his best efforts, though, that one initial date gone south turns into two. Then three. Suddenly, there’s this whole string of disastrous encounters, weird stuff that even Stiles, with all his fatalistic anxiety, could never have dreamed up to be anxious about.

After two pretty decent dates with this marketing guy who works out in Menlo Park, Stiles gets a weird email from some burner account that just lists out the guy’s entire background check—including two pending assault charges—complete with links to news reports to back up the data. So Stiles ghosts him, obviously, thankful for whichever injured party is clearly still dogging the guy’s footsteps.

A few days later, the spark plugs in the jeep go missing right before he’s supposed to meet a girl across town. They’re not messed up, there’s no bad connection, they simply are not in his f*cking engine, even though he drove out for a grocery run earlier just that morning. By that evening, they’ve turned up right on top of the hood, like someone was just messing with him.

Three of his dates never show up at all, just make zero contact after agreeing to meet him, despite what Stiles feels to be a passable amount of chemistry in their messages and multiple attempts to reschedule.

Oh, and there’s this one time where Stiles is chatting with this guy at a bar, and right in the middle of it, some chick storms up to them with a look of cold fury, shouting that she f*cking knew he was cheating, that the two of them were done, that he could get one of his friends to pick up his stuff because she never wanted to see him again. “What the f*ck are you even talking about?” the guy kept demanding, shooting dumbfounded glances at her, but you can’t really blame Stiles for sneaking away after that one.

Another date checks her phone, halfway through drinks at a bar, and offers a sudden excuse about some kind of burst-pipe emergency in her apartment…and then Stiles never hears from her again.

A few days later, Stiles goes on a great date with this French transfer student, after which she immediately leaves him a voicemail saying she’s been summoned back home for some kind of arranged marriage, which. Yeah, that’s a new one. By that point, it’s almost funny. People are coming up with literally any excuse to get away at this point.

So…yeah. Maybe that first date gone wrong was all beginner’s luck—the easy interactions and the kiss and all that. Because apparently, Stiles is pretty bad at judging people.

Stiles complains to Peter about them all anyway, the weird excuses and ghosting and assorted mishaps. He laments about his low hopes for upcoming dates, about wading through some of the weird-ass profiles. The sh*t taste he apparently has. Honestly, if it weren’t for Peter giving him free rein to rant and ramble, Stiles would probably be losing his goddamn mind.

“This whole thing has been weird,” Stiles complains to Peter later that week, almost muttering it into his pillow. “Just…really f*cking weird.”

They’re on a video call for once, in part because Stiles wanted to show off his new layer of runes earlier—he’s been trying to give them a bit more nuance, to get them to recognize a person’s intent when they walk through the door—and in part so he could see the impressed look Peter makes when he sees them. (Peter did, in fact, look suitably impressed, and Stiles is still trying really hard to pretend he hasn’t been dying to see that expression for basically days now. It’s nice that somebody thinks Stiles is impressive around here.)

“Don’t be dramatic. It’s just bad luck.” Peter’s set his phone down against something in his kitchen, his voice momentarily distant as he searches for a utensil in one of his drawers. He appears in the frame only as a bit of brown hair just barely in view.

“It’s not bad luck.” Stiles turns onto his side, watching the messy curl of hair bob higher into frame—Peter almost never keeps it all slicked back and meticulous when he’s home. It’s kind of nice. “I mean, sure, I have bad luck sometimes. But this? This is unreal.”

“Dating is a nightmare,” Peter replies sagely, reappearing to hover over the pan on his stove.

Stiles nods. “Am I actually cursed, you think?” He’s only half joking at this point.

It must come out a little desperate, because Peter doesn’t even make fun of him like he usually would. “You’re reading too far into it,” he declares. “Dating apps are a cesspool these days, I’ve heard.”

“I dunno, man. Some of them are because of the whole sh*tty dating environment, maybe, but you weren’t there. Some of these people seemed like they’d run through traffic just to get away.”

“Well. I can’t imagine wading through the awful matches you must be getting. I doubt it’s anything you’ve done.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

“I don’t usually say anything when you first bring them up, but some of them have sounded awful. That transfer student sounded too presumptuous.”

“Clémence? Nah, she seemed cool.” Peter frowns, scraping at the side of the pan. “Kind of like you, actually—a little smug, I guess.”

“In a good way, then, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Stiles echoes, smiling.

“Who’s next?”

“Hm?”

“On your list. Who’s the next candidate you’re chatting with? ‘Tinder guy number twelve,’ ‘Bumble horse-girl with preachy profile.’”

“f*ck off, I shouldn’t have told you that I save them like that. But seriously, how else are you supposed to add people you don’t know to your contacts?”

“I don’t know, their names?” Peter drawls.

“After the most recent ones, it’s not like I can keep all of them straight.” Stiles catches a hint of a smirk on Peter’s face. “Yeah, get your kicks, it’s so funny that I can’t find someone to save my life. Just hilarious. Anyway. I guess I’m kind of on pause? Or at least, there’s no one waiting in the wings for now. I’ve kind of stopped with all the messages.”

“Really? No more dates?”

“Nope. Been thinking, maybe all this was a sign I should take a break. Get my head on straight, or something. It’s just…it’s kind of sucked.”

“No harm in that,” Peter agrees. He is still stirring, more slow and thoughtful now. Man, his pork chops are going to be dope—he kind of rocks at cooking. Stiles is hungry enough right now that he wishes he could smell it through the phone. “And you do always have the pact to fall back on.”

At this, Stiles lets out a surprised laugh, a weird thrill running through him. For a second, he has to reassure himself that he heard right. “Wow. I didn’t think you remembered that.”

Peter has turned to glance at him, and his smirk is making Stiles’s heart try to flutter out of his chest. “Of course I do.”

It’s the first time either of them has mentioned it since that initial conversation a few months back. Stiles guessed the exchange didn’t leave any kind of impression on Peter at all, but he clearly thought wrong. The fact that Peter even recalls it enough to make jokes is weirdly…flattering? And also kind of embarrassing.

Stiles sits up on the bed, scooting back against the wall to make himself more comfortable, and runs a hand through his hair. “You’d make a great husband,” he teases.

“Of course I would.”

“I mean, case in point—I would probably die for your deglazing thing.”

Peter rolls his eyes. “I’ve told you, deglazing is just what you do for the sauce. They’re pork chops.”

“Fancy, deglazed pork chops. That I would die for. Rude of you to make them in front of my face like this.”

“Well. I suppose I’ll have an excuse to make them around Thanksgiving.”

“f*ck, would you? I forgot how fast that’s coming up. Two weeks-ish. I’ll actually see you pretty soon.”

Peter smiles. “You certainly will.”

⬩

As if all this weird stuff hasn’t been wild enough, Stiles starts having weird dreams. About Peter. It’s as if a switch got flipped somewhere after all the dates stopped, and Stiles’s brain had to put all that interest somewhere else (and it hasn’t gotten the memo about not jerking off to Peter goddamn Hale.)

It’s not like Peter never features in his dreams—they talk often enough that the guy probably shows up about as often as any other major player in Stiles’s life.

But these dreams are different.

When Peter shows up in them now, everything changes. Everything stops. Whatever bizarre story his mind was trying to tell him in his sleep, all of it gets side-tracked to focus on the simple fact of Peter Hale being extremely gorgeous around him. Turning to him, talking to him. Touching him.

Sometimes, Stiles remembers it all after he wakes, the soft feeling of Peter’s mouth, the sounds he makes. Sometimes, all Stiles can remember is the rhythm of their movements, the taste of Peter’s skin.

He wakes up two separate times, just in the lead-up to Thanksgiving alone, with Peter’s name in his mouth and his boxers soaked.

This is the danger zone, he thinks, lying there in the dark all gross and vaguely sweaty. This is the line from which there is no return. On the other side is obsession, if he doesn’t step back. Stiles knows all about that.

Fortunately, stepping back from that ledge is easier than you’d think.

The logic’s all right in front of him. He and Peter talk all the time, and the guy’s a total babe—of course Stiles would get hooked on that. In the dead of night between nebulous dreams, when his brain’s flipping through the spank bank for something to dial up his pleasure centers, it’s an easy decision: “Who’s a hot guy to set the mood tonight? Oh, right, Peter Hale, f*cking duh.”

It’s a tiny little crush. So small you can barely even call it that. There’s nothing more to it; there can’t be. Peter would do…god knows what, some weird smug thing if he knew about it. Or maybe worse, he might do something even more humiliating, like actually try to let Stiles down gently since they’re kind of pack-friends. (It would be kinder to kill him than that. Thank f*ck Peter isn’t around to catch his scent.)

What a nightmare. Stiles is going to have to be smart about this whole Thanksgiving break thing. The last thing he needs is to mess up a real relationship with someone who matters, the same way he’s been doing with all these dates.

iv.

The actual reason for the Thanksgiving trip home—which makes little logistical sense otherwise, since everyone’s winter breaks are coming up less than three weeks later—is that there’s a new pack in town. And not in the usual threatening “We’re here to take over your territory” way that gets everyone up in arms, but in a cool, diplomatic way. It’s a refreshing change.

During his time in vet school, Scott met some new beta who happens to be from a neighboring pack from out in Valley Oak. And Scotty, seizing the moment, is trying his best to cement that relationship. They’re all getting a little tired of doing everything alone.

Which is great. Really great. Stiles is so freaking proud of him, growing alpha and all.

The only “problem,” per se, is that the visiting pack turns out to be beyond annoying. To Stiles specifically.

The logistics of the visit are kind of chaotic: when Stiles gets to town, one of the first things he hears about from his dad is the giant camping party in the woods. The Daugherty pack has reserved every single one of the available campsites in west side of the preserve, and it’s such a big group that when Stiles makes the trek out there, he can hear their chatter through the trees long before he sees them. They’ve brought these big white tents that are tall enough to stand up in, some with little see-through plastic windows and everything, and some with inflatable mattresses and fancy throw pillows and string lights plugged into an actual generator they toted along. Which, sure, there’s no reason a modern werewolf should have to rough it.

The atmosphere is celebratory when Stiles arrives at midday, like they’re throwing a party instead of cementing a pack alliance, with the intermingled packs sprawled out in the grass or sitting on folding chairs in small groups. Off in the trees, there are sounds of scuffling and playful howls. Scott bounds over to greet him excitedly—it’s the first time they’ve seen each other in months—and then introduces him around.

Twenty-four werewolves in all, ranging from their early teens to late thirties. They’re all cordial enough, but Stiles doesn’t think he’s imagining the weird vibes when he draws close. (Again, not we’re here to play nice before stabbing you in the back vibes, thank god. Just sort of…superior.) They smile at him in polite bafflement, which he doesn’t get until he realizes they’re doing the exact same thing when faced with Lydia and Melissa.

But some packs are like that, he’s found. They don’t “get” the inclusion of humans in pack affairs, but they also don’t feel strongly enough to speak up about it. The Daughertys speak in these airy tones and refer to Beacon Hills as a “quaint little town” and make weird joking-but-not-joking jabs at the small size of Derek’s place as a pack house, since they’ve all been cleared to visit the loft if they ever want to use a real shower or kitchen or whatnot.

All that to say, Stiles doesn’t love them right off the bat. But he’s gotten on with packs far worse than this one. And he’d be lying if he said those were his biggest reasons for all the distaste.

“It’s not just me, right?” Stiles mutters skeptically. He keeps his voice low, assuming no one will be listening given the cacophony of voices. After the polite round of pleasantries, he’s worked his way toward Erica, who sits on a tree stump at the edge of the clearing. She, at least, can always be trusted to feel reasonably surly about the intrusion of anyone new in their territory, so he’s sure of commiseration.

“No. You’re right,” Erica mutters back. Her hands are tucked into her fleece jacket, her blonde hair coiled inside the turned-up collar. “Never seen another werewolf seem so weirdly into Peter.”

At the other end of the clearing, a tall woman in a floral dress sits in a folding chair beside Peter’s, simpering at him over her beer. Peter’s actually paying her some modicum of attention, though you wouldn’t know without the hint of a lazy smirk. He’s not looking in her direction, just reclined in his own chair, eyes half-lidded—he’s barely moved all afternoon, like his only goal in life is to absorb what he can of the sparse autumn sunlight. (Sometimes, Stiles thinks he resembles nothing so much as a cat.)

“I guess they don’t know all the sh*t he’s done,” Erica muses as they both watch the woman laugh a little too loud at something Peter’s said. “All of us still see the do not cross caution tape. The Daughertys just see him as some hot dude.”

Stiles grunts. Because yeah, strip away all the antagonism and general assholery, and you just have a really hot dude who looks like he could make you see god if he got you into his bed.

Erica snorts. “He is objectively attractive,” she admits, though she sounds almost offended about it. “God, I’ve never witnessed anyone being actively into him. It’s kind of unbelievable, when you think about it. Like falling in love with a snake.”

“Hey, it’s not that unbelievable.”

“He gaslit Lydia into thinking she was going crazy so she’d bring him back to life.”

Yeah, hard to argue that. Even if it was a pretty desperate situation. “Fair enough.”

The woman’s hand comes to rest on Peter’s arm, her hair falling in a curtain almost onto his shoulder as she lowers her voice to speak. Peter still hasn’t moved, just listening to her babble on, but he’s smirking in full now. Here and there, he says something back, almost out of the corner of his mouth.

Stiles would cut off his own arm to know what they’re even talking about.

But then, he reminds himself that it’s none of his business. It doesn’t matter what Peter does with his free time, or who he sees, and anyway, Peter must get this kind of attention anytime he stumbles across normies who don’t know the rumors or his tragic history or whatever. He’s probably drowning in unsolicited phone numbers.

“It’s like a trainwreck.” There’s a weird, amused glee in Erica’s tone. “You couldn’t imagine it before, but you can’t look away when it happens.”

“C’mon,” Stiles scoffs. “You’ve really never thought about it at all?” Erica’s never been afraid to stare or flirt when someone catches her eye. Hell, she and Boyd worked on their celebrity exception lists together. “Strip away the caution tape for a second, and you wouldn’t be into it? Just once?”

Erica barks out a laugh. “I don’t think so. I don’t think I could strip all the tape away.”

“Seriously?” When he drags his eyes from Peter, Erica is raising her eyebrows in disbelief. “Man, you have zero curiosity.”

“Zero death wishes, more like. I know you have a high tolerance for him, but is there something you want to share with the class?”

“Nope. Definitely not.”

Across the clearing, Peter’s still loose-limbed and comfortable, still smirking. His expression looks almost polite if you don’t catch the sharp edges. The man glances around, finds Stiles staring back at him like some kind of creep. But he only inclines his head, the smirk relaxing into something warm and lazy, and Stiles smiles back at him without even thinking, just on reflex. Even from this far away, Stiles can see Peter’s clear eyes glittering, the haughty tilt of his jaw promising snark and sarcasm and wry humor, and probably some sort of joke at Stiles’s expense.

And then, unfortunately, Stiles crosses the metaphorical line. Steps right over it to the land of no return.

Erica’s nuts, he decides. Why wouldn’t you be into that?

The woman beside Peter has stood to take her leave, summoned by one of the betas in the main tent. She murmurs her regrets and slips gracefully away, dress swishing behind her as she goes. Stiles almost moves to go take the vacant chair, but he suddenly has a hell of a time working up the nerve. Uncertainty, at least in recent weeks, has become his new norm.

He’s missed Peter. A lot. They saw each other briefly this morning, surrounded by half the pack at Derek’s loft for a quick meeting, but that doesn’t feel like nearly enough.

Peter’s still looking his way. The man tilts his head in question at the vacant seat, a clear invitation, and the fluttering warmth in Stiles’s chest grows overwhelming.

He hesitates for a beat too long, though. Before he can even step forward, someone new has wandered over to talk to Peter. A tan guy with a crooked smile. After a moment, he drops into the empty seat. Peter offers Stiles a shrug and turns away.

Which is fine, Stiles reminds himself. It’s the whole point of them gathering here. Getting to know each other. Creating ties.

Stiles turns back to Erica to busy himself, but he finds her watching with narrowed eyes. He can only guess what his expression looked like just then.

For a second, she looks like she might say something, ask something. Stiles braces himself, but she thinks better of it in the end. There’s nothing to stop prying ears from listening, after all, which isn’t great if a certain werewolf’s attention has been peaked—and as blunt as Erica always is, she’s also just barely kind enough not to grill a packmate in this kind of company.

“I really hate being all diplomatic,” she complains instead, taking a sip of her beer.

v.

Stiles’s villain origin story is going to be all the people who won’t keep their eyes off of Peter.

You could argue they’re kind of justified. As established, Peter is a total babe, and worse than that, he’ll flirt at any time with any bipedal being. He doesn’t even know the meaning of the word “inappropriate.”(Two years back, he kept dropping the world’s most obvious come-ons and innuendoes with a bookseller whose text the pack desperately needed—while her husband was in the room. Stiles and Lydia were both sure they were all going to die, either from violence or sheer mortification. Luckily, the husband ended up thinking it was funny.)

But Peter doesn’t flirt with people from other werewolf packs, or he never used to. He tends to be too wary for that.

The Daugherty pack is the obvious exception. Peter personally vetted each of them, apparently, which must be why he’s comfortable enough to be his usual indecent self. Most of the new pack seems vaguely flattered by the attention, their gazes lingering. They treat him—well, like a pack should treat him. Not like a creep or a weapon that might explode if you don’t handle it with care, but an asset. A source of knowledge. An ally.

But one of them seems too interested.

The tall woman from before, Verna, is older than Stiles by half a decade. With her dark, intelligent eyes and sharp tongue to match, it’s obvious why Peter would tolerate her continued presence; they’re remarkably well-suited. He doesn’t spend any more time with her than anyone else, continuing to sow his hints and innuendos evenly across the board, but she seeks him out a fair amount.

The one person Peter does not flirt with—or at least not nearly as often as he does with every other breathing being within a ten-foot radius—is Stiles.

Or, to be more accurate, it’s hard to tell. With everyone else, Peter’s obvious about it. He’ll drag his eyes noticeably up and down, or drop a bad pickup line, except that it sounds good enough coming out of his mouth that you kind of forgive him for it. His voice takes on this low purr sometimes that makes Stiles want to scowl and punch something.

With Stiles, though, there’s just…tolerance. Smirking. Oh, yeah, and the general host of minor insults.

Despite it, Stiles sticks close to Peter when he can over the next couple days. It’s habit at this point, and he’s not changing it because a few strangers have finally recognized Peter’s worth their time. He tags along like a loser when Peter heads back to Derek’s later that evening, hunting for a bestiary whose chapter on alternative wolfsbane treatments the McCall pack has agreed to copy and offer up as a show of good faith. He and Peter used the book last, sometime at the tail end of the summer, but it somehow got shoved in with all the other stuff that’s supposed to be stored in the secure Hale Vault but isn’t.

Peter gives an amused look when Stiles invites himself along, but he doesn’t bring it up until they’re stepping through the door to the loft. “You’re just here to steal more of my books, aren’t you?”

Stiles snorts. “Please. That was one time. I haven’t scanned it in yet. And when was the last time you needed a treatise on grindylow eating habits?”

“It’s the principle of the thing. I’m still waiting for my apology.”

“Yeah, well, I still haven’t returned it. Maybe you’ll get an apology then.”

“So you’re saying I should consider it stolen.”

“You’re a smart guy, you’ll figure it out. Besides, can you even call these your books when they live at Derek’s place?”

Peter shrugs. “We need them too often. If I kept them in my apartment, I’d have a never-ending line of people coming over to borrow them.”

His moue of distaste makes Stiles grin. “Okay, fair enough. But dude, I come over to dig through your sh*t all the time.”

“You aren’t ‘people,’” Peter says mildly.

Yeah, maybe Stiles isn’t. It’s been pretty clear that Peter prefers having Stiles as the go-between between himself and the rest of the pack, and they’ve gotten sort of close beyond that, even with Stiles away at college. But it’s still nice to hear Peter say it.

There’s a likely-looking book on the top shelf. Its tan cover has a familiar embossed title. When Stiles goes for it, Peter reaches out at the same time to clasp his wrist. Stiles turns in surprise to find him smirking.

“But that doesn’t mean you have free rein to steal my things,” the werewolf adds. “I’m keeping an eye on you.”

A familiar rush of heat blooms in Stiles’s chest at Peter’s tone: it’s low and amused, not so far removed from the teasing jibes he often makes around the others.

His hand is warm on Stiles’s skin. Clinging to Stiles like this, Peter seems eager. Interested. it makes Stiles’s mind jump to another moment, a moment when Peter was just an ominous stranger in a parking garage, a stranger lifting Stiles’s wrist to his lips and promising a whole new life with a single question.

They’re not those people anymore, but Stiles can almost feel the weight of that promise echoing around them. For one satisfying second, Peter seems very close—just within Stiles’s reach, in more ways than one.

And then logic crashes back in. He pulls away under the guise of tugging the book down from the shelf. Peter lets his hand fall, though his gaze lingers.

“Maybe you should,” Stiles fires back. He busies himself with checking the spine, as if he actually needs to confirm it’s the right copy. (It definitely is. Stiles recognizes the coffee stain he left on the back cover.) “I get grabby around a good book, what can I say.”

He is misinterpreting this. Again. Because A, this is Peter Hale, shameless tease, who’s always laughing at Stiles about something he’s done, and B…well, Stiles hasn’t had the best track record of figuring people out lately. He can’t read anyone for sh*t. Least of all Peter, he’s guessing.

Peter watches Stiles pretend to flip through the pages. He hums, leaning back against the bookshelf. “You do seem to need a lot of attention,” the werewolf adds.

Stiles frowns. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Is there a reason you like to poke around my place and take my things?”

“Other than the fact that you whine like a baby about it for a full week afterward?”

“That’s—” Peter cuts himself off, straightening a little. He turns toward the door with the expectant look that usually means he’s heard something of interest. Stiles glances over just in time to hear a knock.

The door’s unlocked, what with half the members of both packs coming and going all day, so it swings ajar to reveal Verna. A satisfied grin slices across her face once she’s spotted the two of them—well, Peter, probably—by the bookshelf.

“Hello there,” she says, pushing a curl of dark hair back from her eyes. “I was just coming to see this place. I haven’t been up here yet. I thought I might snoop.”

Peter turns on his megawatt smirk at her, the one with teeth. “We were just talking about the merits of prying, as a matter of fact. Though we can’t promise much here: my nephew’s tastes run a bit dull.”

Verna laughs. It’s annoyingly musical. “Well, I understand this is where all the secrets and mysteries are kept. Lucky I caught you here.”

“You could say that. The library is mine, at least.”

Verna beams. And yeah. Stiles isn’t going to sit here and watch this play out, eyes going back and forth like he’s watching some kind of amorous ping-pong match. Peter can play nice just as well without a witness.

He clears his throat. “That’s my cue to get out of here.” He holds up the book. “This is the one, it looks like.”

“See you around,” Verna says. She gives him a dismissive smile.

Peter’s frowning. “There’s no rush. I doubt anyone expects it right away.”

Stiles shrugs, tucking the book under one armpit. “Yeah, well—I’m sure Scott’s talked it up to Alpha Terence. You know how he is, making promises and being nice and all. Should probably run it over there.”

“They’ll be here for three more days.”

“Yeah, I guess. But it’s kind of stuffy in here anyway, you know? Just gonna get some air.”

Does that come across as a lie? Stiles isn’t sure. Either way, he ducks out before anyone can call him on it, Peter’s stare burning a hole in his back.

vi.

Yeah, it looks like Stiles is gonna have to go full villain on this one.

He might resort to murder if he has to see someone else on Peter’s arm right now. Let alone someone from a pack that grates on his nerves as much as the Daugherty pack. There are some things you don’t come back from.

Lying in bed later that evening, Stiles tries to reassure himself that it’s not exactly possessiveness, or the clingy obsession he used to be known for. Or, like, not in a weird way. He’s not that far gone. It’s just…he’s putting down a temporary hold, is all. (It’d be easier to convince himself of that if he could stop dreaming about Peter all the f*cking time.)

Here’s how he sees it: everything boils down to the marriage pact. It’s stupid to think of the thing now, especially since it was just a passing joke between them, but it feels like a claim. A trivial, short-term claim, but a claim all the same. As long as he defends it. Right?

His chances with Peter may be slim to none, but he’s not stepping aside without a fight. Even if it’s a fight no one else knows they’re having. Not even Peter.

Besides, he’s pretty sure he knows how to get rid of Verna without a fuss. If she and Peter were actually “meant to be” or something, it’d be harder, and he’d feel worse about it. Or at least, that’s what he reassures himself when he bothers to think it over.

Anyway. Now that he’s apparently in his sabotage era, Stiles has a shady convo to arrange.

“Verna. Hey. Got a sec?” Stiles asks early the next afternoon. From her seat on Derek’s sofa, Verna peers up in bemusem*nt and pastes on a lukewarm smile.

True to her word, the werewolf seems to have enjoyed her time spent poking around the loft instead of running through the woods with everyone else. A full day later and she’s still hanging around, though she must be a pro at ignoring the increasingly chaotic atmosphere. There’s a lot of meal prep happening in the kitchen, with Boyd already working his magic on tomorrow’s Thanksgiving feast. He’s roped Erica and Derek into it somehow—a triumph, considering how bad both of them are at being told what to do—and Peter’s been briefly in and out all day. Stiles has swung by to deliver a few last-minute groceries. And to take out the trash.

Verna’s planted herself on the sofa, flipping through one of the bestiaries drawn from the shelf. She’s been taking the odd photo of the pages on her phone—an act that hovers right on the cusp of acceptable behavior, now that they’re all allies. Clearly, no one’s told her to lay off, anyway. She’s smart enough to bank on the fact that the McCall pack really needs this alliance, probably way more than the Daugherty pack does.

Smart and curious and with little heed for boundaries. Verna’s the kind of person who would probably be great for Peter. (Yeah, Stiles is a sh*tty person. Whatever.)

At present, she looks Stiles up and down, nonchalant. He doesn’t have to feign apprehension: he’s already fidgeting, toying with the hem of his flannel. Luckily, being on edge will work in his favor for this.

“Of course,” Verna replies. “Is there a problem?”

“I was hoping to talk. In private,” he adds, when she doesn’t understand the pointed jerk of his head toward the door.

Her eyebrows creep up a little, but the intrigue on her face is clear. She sets aside the book and stands without another word, following him through the front door amiably enough. He leads her down to the first-floor landing. (Which means there are several floors separating them from the loft. In the pack’s experience, it’s the closest place in which you can keep conversations from being overheard, and the upstairs doors squeal if anyone opens them, making it easy to pick out an eavesdropper.)

“What’s wrong?” Verna demands when Stiles turns slowly to face her. She looks taken aback at his expression.

“Nothing. I mean, nothing’s wrong, per se. Look, it’s just…I feel weird saying this. But it’s about Peter.”

The wariness vanishes. She gives him a strange, knowing smile. “Is it now?”

“Yeah. It just seemed like you were maybe interested? In, uh, more than an alliance sort of way.”

“Is that what this is about? I’m not sure that it’s any of your business.” Despite the steel in her words, the tone is mild and good-natured. “What Peter decides to do with his time is up to him.”

Or who, her face says, given the smug smile. “I know that,” Stiles retorts.

“Do you? It’s cute, whatever this is.” Verna flicks her finger between them. “I thought this might be the case. You’ve been so…dogged about staying near him.”

“What?” Stiles laughs in her face, like it’s actually a wild thing to say. Like he can brush it off. “Yeah, right. We’re just—we hang out a lot, so.”

“Oh, don’t worry. It’s sweet. And I could only tell because I was looking for it. I couldn’t understand why I kept finding the two of you together so often.”

“Well, that has nothing to do with—Peter and I are—” Stiles scowls, waving a hand. “Look, I only came here to tell you he’s already engaged.”

This, at last, wipes the smile off her face. She blinks in surprise. “Excuse me?”

Stiles just nods. “Yeah. Pretty sh*t deal. It’s kind of a secret, so no one else really knows. Sorry.”

“Oh. I see.” The amusem*nt has faded. Her eyes are growing dark with frustration.

“I know he’s kind of forward. You’ve seen how he is by now. He’s that way with everyone. It’s just, he never really means it. So it’s easy to get—you know. Swept away. I just thought you should know.”

Verna flips her hair over her shoulder. She still looks like she can’t decide between annoyance and doubt. But the thing is, she does know Peter enough by now that she has to see how easy it is to get sucked into his orbit. You don’t even know it’s happening half the time.

“Fine. That’s fine,” she blows out a sigh. “I never minded that he’s obviously the type to flirt. I’m surprised he never brought up the engagement, though.”

“He’s not that kind of person, I guess,” Stiles explains. “Kind of private.”

If Verna’s heard any rumors about Peter—and she must have by now—and she still likes him anyway, she might not find this desire for privacy a total surprise. The guy’s got enemies, and issues, and trauma. Stiles does feel a little sh*tty, though, about making Peter seem like the kind of asshole who’d flirt during an engagement or cheat on his partner with some random fling.

“I don’t know if you guys were…” Stiles clears his throat. “Well, if you could not mention it, that would be great. Only like two other people know about the engagement, and Peter would know right away that I was the one who spilled. Which would suck.”

“Right.” Verna’s eyes are beginning to narrow. “It’s just…awfully convenient.”

“What? Why?”

“Who’s the fiancé?” Verna asks, suspicious.

“Better if I didn’t say,” Stiles hedges. “I’m already saying way too much.”

“He’s really engaged?”

“He’s engaged,” Stiles repeats dutifully, knowing his heartbeat will be steady when she listens for it this time.

Verna heaves out another annoyed sigh, this one louder. “Well, it’s not like I was looking for someone to mate with forever. If I were, it wouldn’t be Peter Hale,” she adds, with an airy little laugh that makes Stiles bristle.

“Well,” Stiles says, drawing the word out as he thinks of a counter for that. “It would suck to complicate the alliance at this point. It being so new and all.”

She waves her hand, annoyed. “Yes, I know. Alright. I probably should have seen it coming, given how—” she cuts herself off, sighing. “Is that all?”

“Yes?” It comes out kind of like a question, but it doesn’t matter: Verna’s already dismissed him, turning to go back up the steps.

“Wonderful. Thanks,” she adds, grudgingly, over her shoulder.

“Sure,” Stiles says. It’s really nice to see her retreating back. He tries not to feel giddy with the relief of it.

Back in the campground clearing, Stiles feels on edge for the rest of the day. The problem with this kind of thing is that there’s no way to make it totally risk-free, so there’s a decent chance it all blows up in his face. If Verna’s not quiet about their little conversation, or if she spills something by accident, Peter will find out what he’s done. And Stiles doesn’t even want to imagine how that would play out.

But it doesn’t go down like that.

Instead, Verna’s just…cool. Her lingering looks are resigned now, not heated. Her smile turns frosty every time she’s within eyesight of Peter, with none of the lively flirtation of before. She doesn’t approach him even once. In fact, when Peter brushes past her to speak with Alpha Terence, Verna turns on her heel and heads off, as if she’s got urgent business across the clearing.

Peter, the master of feigned disinterest, does a great job pretending not to notice the abrupt change of mood—even though it would be hard not to. But Stiles can tell he’s confused. There’s a weird little frown playing at the edges of his mouth all day. He’s trying to fit the puzzle pieces together.

And then Peter glances over at Stiles, catching his ongoing stare before Stiles can look away. Stiles’s heart thuds. He gives a fleeting smile and turns back to Scott.

vii.

There’s an informal pack meeting that night, more of a quick huddle to whip up an action plan than anything else. Back at the campsite, the energy has begun to die down—three full nights of running and howling through the woods will do it—and the McCall pack has a lot to coordinate if they’re going to cook and haul food over for the departure celebration tomorrow. The Daugherty pack is leaving in the evening, and this communal meal is an essential (if mostly symbolic) one, cementing the bonds between them all and the alliance newly formed.

Everyone’s cars are scattered across the dirt road leading back to town, so they end up gathered there to chat about the details: Boyd and Kira are on track to finish most of the food, with sous-chef help from Isaac and Erica, and Derek’s helping them haul it all over. Scott’s made arrangements to borrow a few folding tables from some retirement home his mom’s connected with, and Stiles making a couple trips to haul most of the non-food stuff over in his jeep.

Scott also reminds Stiles to bring over the copies of that bestiary, the copies Stiles now realizes he failed to actually deliver to Alpha Terence (or, you know, make at all). The book is still sitting on his desk, right where he dumped and forgot it. There seemed to be more pressing things to think about at the time. Peter turns to frown at him.

When the rest of the pack scatters to their respective cars to head for home, Peter sidles closer to Stiles. “What are you up to?” he demands.

“Nothing.” Stiles shrugs. Well, nothing anymore, at least. “Going home.”

He hopes he’s playing it cool, but Peter’s got this face that says, That’s not what I meant and you know it.

The others are beginning to pull away, the sudden glare of their headlights flowing across the dark woods around them, and he and Peter step off the dirt road and into the undergrowth to make way. Stiles lifts a hand as Derek and Boyd pass.

When Scott pulls by on his bike, Kira hanging onto his waist from behind, he does that thing with his eyebrows, the same silent question that pops up whenever he sees Stiles with Peter. Like he’s checking in to see if Stiles is sure about this. Stiles has been hanging out with Peter on and off for years now, sometimes thrown together for research and sometimes not, and Scott always makes this face.

“You good, dude?” Scott asks, glancing between them.

“Yeah.” This time, as always, Stiles ignores the dubious frown. He adds pointedly, “See you tomorrow, Scotty.”

To his credit, Scott just nods and pulls away without another word, Kira flicking them a little wave as they start down the road. They’re the last ones to leave, and as the red of the taillight disappears into the trees, the woods grow quiet again.

When Stiles turns back, Peter is still staring.

“Let’s go for a walk,” the wolf says casually, nudging his shoulder against Stiles’s as he takes the road in the opposite direction.

“It’s past midnight,” Stiles retorts, but he’s already falling into step beside Peter. It’s a token protest, anyway: all of them are used to being in the preserve far later than this and on far worse occasions. Besides, there’s little Stiles is afraid of, even here in the dark, with Peter beside him.

They keep to the dirt road. Narrow as it is, it creates enough of a break between the boughs overhead for moonlight to brighten the way, so even Stiles with his human eyesight can see well enough to be sure of each step. Their course will lead them across a confluence of hiking trails several miles out, but Stiles is guessing Peter won’t take them that far.

For quite a while, they walk together in silence. The night is calm, the air still and crisp, with insects chirping in the leaves just out of sight. It’s comfortable, mostly, though Stiles is reminding himself to play it cool. Peter can’t know what he’s done—there’s just no way. Not unless Stiles himself lets it slip by accident.

They’re out of earshot of the camp, Stiles thinks, where everyone will likely be winding down. But maybe not quite. Peter’s the type to make sure of that kind of thing, even with his own pack, so it’s no surprise that it’s several minutes before the werewolf finally speaks.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Peter says at last.

It’s not at all what Stiles expected as a conversation starter. He quashes the impulse to say I haven’t, which isn’t strictly true and could bring Peter’s suspicion to the fore if he catches the lie.

Instead, he bites his tongue for a moment and thrusts his hands into the pockets of his hoodie. Plays it off. “Maybe I’m just giving you a chance to talk to the others. That’s why we’re all here, isn’t it? Friendship and good vibes and all that stuff?”

“What makes you think I want to talk to any of them?”

Stiles snorts. “What? That’s literally the whole point. Making allies. Even you see the value in that, I know you do, no matter what you pretend. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t. Besides,” he adds, “Scott says you helped him orchestrate this whole thing. Sort of.” Helped is probably the wrong word. Coerced or mocked Scott until he figured things out might be better.

“I only stepped in once it became clear he was too stupid to know how to send the formal invitation,” Peter counters. “And you’re underestimating how much I enjoy having a break from tedious conversations with our esteemed alpha every now and then. And how easy it is to get on with a pack that knows nothing of my history.”

Stiles digests this for a minute. “Yeah, I bet.”

“These kinds of events also tend to be good chances to catch people one on one. To get closer.”

“Right. You’re doing great at that.” For a moment, it’s hard to keep the resentment out of his tone. “Anyway, so that’s what we’re doing. We’re good, if that’s what you mean? I’m just letting you—both of us—we’re all just trying to meet the other pack or whatever.”

The protests probably aren’t helping. Peter gives him a sidelong glance. “You don’t seem too keen on them.”

“They’re fine.”

Peter does that thing where he stays quiet, waiting for more. And Stiles knows it’s a tactic to make people keep talking, because Peter has point-blank told him as much before, but he falls for it every time anyway.

“They’re good allies,” he adds with reluctance. “It’s fine. But we’re just not gonna be best buds on a personal level. They’re kind of snobby or whatever. Not my kind of people.”

Peter hums. “Agreed.”

Stiles gives him a sharp look. “I thought you…you seemed to be having a good time and getting along. With some of them more than others. Verna seems to really like your whole vibe. You’re always good at charming people.”

“As you said, I know the value of allies. It’s good strategy.”

“Just strategy?”

“They’re a means to an end. This may come as a surprise to you, but I don’t anticipate being ‘best buds’ with them either.”

“Right…I mean, plus they’re going to leave tomorrow anyway, so it’s not like anyone needs to be really close to them for the long term. It wouldn’t be practical. The long-distance…friendship, or whatever.”

“No, it wouldn’t.”

“So we don’t have to worry about that,” Stiles agrees, relieved.

“I wouldn’t think so.”

They walk on for a short time in silence. Stiles feels like a chain constricting his chest has abruptly vanished.

He was reading too much into the Verna thing, then. Stupid, really. God knows Peter’s not one to make a connection like that on a whim. The pleasant wash of relief is probably strong enough that Peter can smell it.

“It is odd, though, on the topic of alliances,” the werewolf says out of nowhere. “Since you brought up Verna, and she and a few of her close packmates seemed very distant earlier. Someone mentioned you had spoken to her?”

Stiles stiffens. He casts about for an explanation, but Peter’s already continuing.

“I was wondering if you might have said something that rubbed her the wrong way? You must have, you’re very good at doing that.” His tone is light, almost teasing, but he’s clearly hunting for information. “And we don’t want to ruin things between us and our new allies, do we?”

“You know me,” Stiles replies, matching his tone. “I always speak my mind. Maybe she got offended by something I said. Can’t help that.”

“I thought as much. But you’ve had a touch of guilt in your scent since I pulled you aside, which isn’t something that usually happens when you’ve let one of your little rants go too far.”

“I dunno about that. I’ve put my foot in my mouth before. Or I’ve let loose when I probably shouldn’t have. Happens all the time.”

“True.” Peter is smirking, as if this is a fact worthy of praise. “But you rarely let it bother you. It’s one of the things I like most about your delightful mouth.” Stiles gives him a look, and the smirk widens. “Oh, get your mind out of the gutter. I just appreciate the wit that comes out of it.”

“Oh. Yeah.” A flush breaks over Stiles’s skin. Peter isn’t one for compliments, usually, and they’re so rare that they always catch him off guard. “Absolutely.”

“So what was it, then?”

“What was what?”

“Stiles. Don’t make me circle around this topic any more. I’ll get far less charming.”

He heaves out a breath. “Fine. Look, I just told her some stuff. She doesn’t know you at all, doesn’t know anything about you, and she was just—talking to you like you were any guy off the street. I just set her straight, and…I dunno. Do we have to get into it?”

Peter’s quiet for a beat too long. When Stiles turns, his smirk has frozen in place. “What exactly did you ‘set her straight’ about?”

“Nothing. We just talked about you.”

The silence stretches again, and it’s started to feel far less comfortable. “Ah. Did you feel the need to bring up all of the important headlines she might have missed, then? Or did you fill in all of the gory details?” he adds coolly. “I’m just wondering how far you had to get before she started to think twice.”

Stiles frowns at his tone, at the way he’s carrying himself—too relaxed, too calm. Purposefully so, like he’s playing a part. “What are you…?”

And then it occurs to him all at once that Peter doesn’t have anything he hides, per se, but that there are plenty of things none of them really bring up anymore, not to his face. All the awful things Peter did after the fire, the way he clawed back to life almost at the expense of Lydia’s sanity. What he did to Laura.

If Stiles had dredged up Peter’s blood-spattered past, it might have been a more efficient way of making Verna balk at the idea of a relationship with Peter, sure. But Peter’s past is his own—to hide, to display, to regret, to reveal. It’s not something Stiles would ever use against him, and he’s kind of offended at the thought.

“f*ck no! How could you think I’d do that? If you want to tell her or any of them about all that stuff, that’s on you.”

Peter glances over at him, the stiff smirk falling away. Now, he just looks puzzled. “You didn’t—”

“Why would I ever tell her that?”

“Then what did you talk about?”

The fight goes slowly out of Stiles. In its place floods embarrassment, thick enough that the werewolf can probably scent it right away, if his co*cked head is any indication. Christ, their sharp noses are annoying. Stiles tips his head back, staring up at the dark leaves overhead, and wishes he didn’t have to say.

But Peter probably deserves to hear it. Because while what Stiles said isn’t nearly as bad as revealing the bloody and personal details of the guy’s past, Stiles isn’t exactly squeaky-clean either. He should never have poked his nose into it, mostly because the whole thing is technically none of his business, but also because he knew there was a decent chance Peter would notice something off.

“Stiles?” Peter prompts, gentle. He’s slowed to a stop behind Stiles now, like he means to have this out without distraction.

Stiles sighs, turning slowly to face him. “I just…told her you were engaged,” he says, with a sardonic laugh. “I mean, it’s technically sort of true. Kind of. Because of the, um, the pact or whatever. So she heard that, and it was an easy way to get her to back down.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see that Peter’s head is still co*cked. Like he’s scenting weakness now. f*ck.

“I mean, yeah,” Stiles adds hurriedly. “It makes you look like a giant jackass who flirts with other people behind his fiancé’s back. So. Sorry about that, I guess. But I didn’t give her specifics, like when or who or—”

“Why on earth would you tell her that?”

Stiles shrugs. “Wanted to get her off your back.”

“Oh, just as a kindness to me?” Peter asks, amused.

“Sure,” Stiles mutters. Now that it’s all out, the teasing tone is kind of grating. He’s seriously ready for this to be done. “A kindness.”

Peter nods slowly. He’s quiet for a minute more while Stiles looks off into the trees, quiet for long enough that Stiles is starting to vibrate with tension waiting for him to talk. Waiting for judgment or whatever.

“You know, you really shouldn’t flirt with me unless you mean it,” Peter says. “I might get ideas.”

Stiles’s thoughts shudder to a halt. And then what’s left of them dissolves into endless strings of question marks. There are so many confusing things about that statement that all he comes up with is, “Who’s flirting?”

“You’re so unbearably stupid sometimes,” Peter complains, and then he steps closer. “Last chance to back out.”

“Back out of what?” Stiles asks, dumbfounded at the werewolf’s slow approach. And then Peter’s closer, inches away, so close that Stiles can feel the warmth of his breath in the chill air. Close enough that his faltering mind does connect the dots: “Wait. Are you—?”

Peter presses their mouths together, dragging Stiles forward by the nape of his neck. It’s sudden and electric and not entirely gentle; there’s something hungry about the way Peter moves, even with Stiles’s halting response amid the fireworks going off in his head, most of them spelling out oh my god oh my god in glittering bursts.

The man’s arm slips forward, cradling the side of his jaw, thumb sweeping distractingly near his mouth.

When they part, Stiles is gaping. “What are you doing?” he asks.

“This is a thing people call kissing.”

“Don’t be an ass. I mean—since when is this something you were into. With me?”

Peter shrugs, smiling, like he can see right through the outraged shock. “We made a pact,” he replies, as if it’s obvious.

“Yeah, we did. An offhand, nobody-takes-it-serious kind of pact that you weren’t—I thought you thought it was a joke. You were almost asleep!”

“It might have been a joke. But then, with the right motivation, I thought it might turn out not to be.”

“So.” Stiles splutters for a second, trying to cobble his thoughts together. “You actually took it seriously. This whole time?”

Peter smirks. “I am nothing if not a man of my word.”

“But you—it didn’t seem like you were invested at all. I mean, for starters, you flirt with everyone all the time. And not really with me.”

“Sweetheart. I flirt with you all the time.”

“No, you don’t,” Stiles snorts. “Even just this past week, you spent this whole time being all friendly with everyone else in the other pack, with Verna and her friends.”

“That’s nothing. Pleasantries. None of it matters.”

“But it just seemed like—”

“When I do flirt with you, darling, it goes right over your thick head. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

Stiles laughs, half in incredulity and half in sheer relief. “Wow. Is that your idea of sweet talk?”

“I’m just using what works. Besides, you always seem to think it’s disingenuous when I act too forward around you. So I don’t.”

Maybe that’s…not wrong. Stiles can’t remember off the top of his head many times that it happened, but obvious flirting from Peter used to be kind of a red flag before they ended up getting closer. Who can blame him? Peter’s always had an angle, so it stood to reason that Stiles would take any unusual behavior with a heavy dose of suspicion.

“Oh.” Stiles frowns, trying to recalibrate. And then it occurs to him what a weird definition of flirting Peter has. This is what it took, Stiles f*cking with a potential relationship of his before it had a chance to bloom. That’s his version of making a pass.

“You alright in there?”

“Just…thinking.”

“Well, don’t hurt yourself.”

“I’m thinking,” Stiles repeats, “about how, if you weren’t being obvious about ‘flirting’ with me, you might still have tried it in other ways. So. Weird question, but have you been f*cking up my dates?”

Peter looks taken aback.

But not quite taken aback enough for it to be a hundred percent real.

“You did, didn’t you!” Stiles exclaims, pressing his hands to his forehead. “Ohhh my god. I cannot believe this.”

For a moment, it looks like Peter might keep up the charade, his chin raised, his mouth open to deny it. Then he sags. “I thought you might need a push.”

“Yeah, a push to the brink of insanity! Dude, that messed with my mind so much. I mean, I’m not always at the top of my game, but every date was just so disastrous.”

“That wasn’t an intended side effect,” Peter mutters. “You left me very little time to find better options.”

“That’s why you kept trying to reassure me. Like, ‘Oh, it was just bad luck, Stiles, and it’s not your fault, Stiles.’ And you knew it wasn’t. Because it was your fault.”

“In a sense, yes,” Peter says. At the unimpressed look Stiles gives him, he smiles and amends, “Yes, it was.”

“That’s f*cked up. You’re f*cked up. I should be so mad about this.

“Are you?”

Stiles absolutely should be. He knows that, logically. Holy sh*t, Peter Hale almost drove him to actual therapy over this.

But instead he’s just…charmed. Charmed that Peter was willing to go this far to extend his tenuous claim on Stiles, all over a pact he couldn’t have known Stiles even thought about. If Stiles was petty for lying to Verna, Peter’s outright batsh*t.

Something’s wrong with Stiles, and it starts and ends with how enamored he is with Peter’s expression right now, a mixture of hope and regret and vexation.

“To be determined,” Stiles retorts, folding his arms across his chest. “Tell me how you did it.”

“Well-timed phone calls.”

“Bullsh*t. No way.”

“I may have hopped a flight once or twice.”

“You flew out to Berkley? Just to f*ck with my dates?”

“I had to come in person to run a more extensive background check. I also had to come and have a little chat with your transfer student.”

“Oh god—you must have scared the sh*t out of her. And you yanked out my spark plug, too, didn’t you? I couldn’t figure that one out at the time.”

Peter is staring at him. Stiles realizes a grin has stretched across his face. He can’t even help it.

“That’s flirting to you, dude? You have really f*cked up views of romance.”

“Hypocrite,” Peter counters with a smirk.

“Yeah, maybe. Touche.”

“I can’t help if I find it appealing to have someone who goes after what they want in any way they can.” Peter never retreated all that far, but he’s inching closer now. Now that he knows what it tastes like, Stiles’s eyes keep dropping down to take in that smirk. “It seems you feel the same.”

Stiles does, goddamn it, even if he’s having a hard time wrapping his head around the wild logistics. So sue him, it’s really nice knowing that Peter cares—and not just a little, but very f*cking much, and in such a tangible way. More than Stiles could have ever known. It leaves no room to debate, no room to wonder. And that’s really, really nice.

“Did you want to keep talking about this?” Peter adds after a moment, all false politeness. “Or…?”

Stiles gives in. He leans in for another kiss.

That’s how he ends up, for quite some time, slowly losing his f*cking mind over the way Peter’s lips feel, the expert flick of his tongue. Peter has latched onto his shirt, hands fisted in the fabric like he thinks Stiles might still slip away into the night, like he can’t stand the idea of Stiles anywhere but pressed up against him, as close as possible, and Stiles isn’t complaining. He’d fold himself right up into Peter’s skin if he could. He’d do anything at all.

Maybe that’s why he winds up with his back against a tree, ignoring the bark jutting into his shoulder as long as it means Peter can lean into him like this, clever hands starting to lazily roam beneath fabric, as long as it means he can tilt Peter’s jaw for better access, for a filthier kiss that makes Stiles’s skin sizzle and light up, punching awful little moans out of him without his consent. His lungs are running out of air, but that never feels nearly important enough to break contact.

Much later, Stiles finally draws back, giddy, his hands wound in Peter’s hair. “I’m not marrying you for like, a really long time,” he pants. “We have to date first. A lot.”

Peter is smiling. “I’ll consider it.”

“You’ll consider it,” Stiles echoes in question, finding it almost impossible not to smile back.

“Well, I might be upset that you’ve slandered my good name—”

Stiles scoffs. “What good name?”

“—by painting me a liar and a cheat.”

Okay. Well. That’s kind of true. “Only if Verna rats me out,” he protests.

But who is he kidding? Of course she will, after the alliance is sealed. It may not reach the McCall pack for a while, but it’s still worth spreading around to her own packmates, if only because it’s juicy gossip.

“We’ll just have to clear the air and let the Daugherty pack know that you are, in fact, my mysterious fiancé.”

“Dude, not a chance. We just made out for like, a minute—a few minutes? A lot of minutes. What is time. And anyway, you didn’t put a ring on it.”

“I don’t mean we should tell everyone now,” Peter counters, rolling his eyes. “But it wouldn’t be a bad idea to let the news spread at some point when our packs next reinforce the alliance.”

“Wow, yeah, this kind of strategy is exactly how all the cool kids plan out their engagements these days, it’s so romantic. And, wait—that means I have to get outed as some possessive freak,” Stiles complains.

“No harm in that,” Peter says. Which, of course he would. “You were defending your own. Preventing someone who didn’t know the truth from getting too close. You’re territorial as a mate. Any decent pack would see that as a benefit.”

Stiles probably deserves to be a bit more up in arms about this whole tactic, but the word mate sidetracks his entire train of thought, sending warmth shooting through him. Warmth and the promise of more of the wonders he’s just discovered—Peter’s arms around him, their mouths joined together.

It takes him a beat too long to respond. “Yeah. Fine.”

“As long as we have rings to prove it by the next time they show up.”

At this, Stiles laughs. “Dude, are you low-key pre-proposing to me right now?”

Peter gives a shrug, though his playful smirk suggests anything but nonchalance. “I know your views on marriage at the moment, but I’m not opposed to waiting. Take it as you will.”

Yeah, Stiles is going to take it as a promise, if things keep going like this. It’s so giddying that it’s hard to wrap his mind around it, the whiplash from thinking he was interfering with someone Peter liked and then the certainty that the only person the werewolf likes is Stiles, the hard evidence backing it up as fact.

Stiles is never going to let Peter forget it. He answers with a sly grin of his own. “I’ll consider it,” he echoes.

viii.

At the next day’s ceremony, they are good little packmates. They toe the line. They each play their respective roles.

Stiles bullies his friends into hauling all the heavy stuff from his jeep, and they set things up in the clearing without Peter ever lifting a finger. Peter pastes on his smile and plays nice with the Daugherty pack, which fawns no less than usual over his empty flattery, while Stiles hangs out with Erica and Scott to move the string lights over the new arrangement of chairs. The meal unfolds slowly, Derek and Boyd conveying countless foil-covered platters to the table as the other pack pulls roasted vegetables off the campfire.

Peter and Stiles end up nearly at opposite ends of the spread, separated by the buzz of conversation and the cramped array of plates and platters and hands reaching for the foods within them. That distance feels intolerable, at least to Stiles, but they’re good about it anyway: they keep the lingering glances to a minimum, cut the quiet smiles short.

The Daugherty pack revels in this last meal, murmuring their appreciation for the food. They all speak of long ties and good fortunes and protection and yadda, yadda—Stiles should be paying attention to this part, because Scott’s not great with these kinds of ceremonial words and could probably have used a save now and then, but the Daugherty pack has bought into the whole good-natured true alpha vibe Scott has going on, so there isn’t much to worry about.

Anyway, Stiles is fully occupied with trying not to think about Peter. And specifically about the fact that just last night, a little ways through the trees, Peter stood in the moonlight kissing him until he couldn’t think straight.

It’s not working, as you can imagine. The pink elephant paradox has kicked in: the more Stiles tells himself to be chill, to stop smiling, to stop thinking of it, the less he can manage it. Even worse, every time he catches Peter’s eye, the asshole is smirking back like he’s very much aware.

But they manage. They’re good, even as the meal disappears, even as the next hours pass in meaningless conversation. They’re good, and they keep their hands to themselves.

And then, at long last, the Daugherty pack f*cks off. The clearing is cleaned up, leftovers and tables and chairs and speakers and whatever else packed away. Exhausted and probably a little too thankful for this conclusion, the McCall pack goes their separate ways for a brief respite from the uproar.

Later, after toting various borrowed odds and ends to their original owners, Stiles knocks on the door to Peter’s apartment. The werewolf answers at once, clearly aware of who’s standing on his doormat, if not why.

“Stiles,” Peter purrs, gaze roving up and down the length of him. Stiles wonders how he ever missed the way his eyes linger. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

The man inches back just far enough to make room, and Stiles slides inside with a smirk. “Thought we could hang out for a while before I leave,” he replies

He’s been to Peter’s place loads of times before, but it’s never felt like this. Sort of charged, like the air is alive and buzzing between them. Just the two of them, a quiet place, and a closed door, with Peter very near.

Peter raises an eyebrow. “Were you planning to skip the meeting? I thought our dear alpha wants us all on the same page before half of you scatter and abandon the territory.”

“No one’s ‘abandoning the territory,’ dude. And it’s just three weeks till winter break,” Stiles says, rolling his eyes. It’s a common enough argument, almost teasing, and they don’t dig into it again now. There are more important things to do. He plops down onto Peter’s sofa, making himself comfortable. “And anyway, we don’t have a meeting. Not anymore.”

“No?”

“I called Scott on the way over. Turns out, there were some weird footprints in the preserve that I noticed last night before we went home. They looked suspiciously like the footprints of those goblin-y things you and I dealt with over the summer. Very suspect. And who knows what kinds of sh*t they’ll get into if we let them come back?”

Peter’s smiling. “Is that so?”

“So, since you and I got rid of them last time, we’re also the best fit to deal with them now. Obviously we have to do it right away before I leave again. And we’ll report back if anything comes of them.” He shrugs. “So what if we look around and nothing comes of it?”

“Clever,” Peter murmurs, looking vaguely surprised. Though he carries out his pack duties, he does so to a soundtrack of constant complaints and will absolutely weasel out of the less interesting ones if he can. In contrast, Stiles rarely backs out of his. Scott wouldn’t have even suspected it.

He’s not above doing it now, though. And the way Peter is looking at him convinces him he’s made the right move. The werewolf has come to stand before him with his hands casually in his pockets, as if he isn’t imagining the same thing Stiles is: all the things they could be doing together now, with a few hours to themselves away from prying eyes and ears and noses. Stiles feels like a live wire just thinking about it, so charged with potential that he may very well spring onto Peter the instant the guy moves.

“Is this you trying to make up for the sabotage?” Peter adds with a smirk.

Kind of. But Stiles lets out an incredulous snort anyway. “Am I trying to make it up to you? You’re kidding, right? If anyone owes anyone—”

“Oh, never mind.” Peter eases down beside him, still smirking. Whatever argument Stiles was brewing floods instantly away with the werewolf this close, his mouth inches from Stiles’s own. It’s hard not to stare. “We can argue the details later.”

ix.

Stiles never planned to skip out on all of the pack’s final hours together over fall break. Just a few of the boring ones.

Everyone’s schedules for winter break are up in the air, with some of them visiting family or traveling or whatever, so it’s the last time they’ll all be in one place for months. No way is Stiles missing out on that.

The group’s last hangout comes two days later, so he heads over to the loft. Peter tags along, though his presence at this more affectionate sort of meetup would normally be hit or miss, and winds up lazing on the sofa as usual while Stiles gossips with Kira in the kitchen.

By the time Stiles makes his way back to the main room, Isaac and Boyd are trying to figure out the strength of their wolfsbane beer while Derek fights to make his ancient DVD player accept their chosen movie. Kira’s settling on the tiny little armchair, and Scott’s stretched out on a floor pillow at her feet. Erica is combing through Derek’s laptop in case there’s anything good on streaming as a backup.

Peter has stretched his legs out onto the coffee table to make himself more comfortable. He lays an arm across the back of the sofa beside him when he sees Stiles hovering, tilting his head at the empty cushion beside himself in invitation. Pleased, Stiles comes around to sit, and Peter’s arm falls onto his shoulders.

Erica glances up at them. Then she does a double-take, pointing. “I f*cking knew it,” she crows.

“Knew what?” Stiles tries, but he is doing a really bad job of hiding his grin, he can feel it on his face, and it’s giving the game away.

“You and Peter. I knew it.”

Stiles sips his beer, buying himself a second to weigh their options. Neither he nor Peter felt bothered about telling the pack this early in, though Peter was sure they’d all figure it out for themselves soon enough. Even now, the guy has clearly been expecting it: his smug, self-important smile has only gone wider. He’s leaving Stiles to squirm alone for this bit, obviously.

“Okay,” Stiles says at last.

Erica is never one to accept ambiguity. “You’re together, right?”

Stiles does not look at Peter. “Right,” he says firmly.

She cackles. Her confident declaration has caught the attention of the room. Reactions are mixed, as you’d expect. Boyd and Kira regard them with subdued smiles. Isaac’s face has twisted up like he’s smelled something foul. Derek rolls his eyes and goes back to fighting with the DVD player.

Scott is gaping in horror. “Wait, really?”

“How did you know?” Stiles asks Erica.

“You smell like each other,” she adds, triumphant. Boyd nods sagely.

“I told you so,” Peter murmurs.

“Alright,” Stiles mutters back. “You win.”

“But of course you were gonna smell like that. You always spend time together when you’re in town,” Scott tries. “I thought—”

“Not like this, you can tell,” Erica says, waggling her eyebrows. “Good for you, I guess. How was it?”

Three different voices chime in protest, both at the indelicate question and the reasonable guess that Stiles will answer in more detail than anyone’s comfortable with. Scott is scowling, and there’s probably gonna have to be a whole discussion between them, Stiles figures. The Maybe you should rethink this and Do you remember the crimes discussion.

But that’s a problem for later. For now, Stiles just grins.

“Whatever. It’s a good thing,” Erica adds, which is kind of a surprise. She’s already starting to lose interest, ducking back down to check her laptop. “Stiles wouldn’t shut up about it earlier.”

“What? When?” Stiles blurts. “That’s not true.”

Erica shrugs, smirking at the screen. “You had a lot of opinions when we were in the preserve with the Daugherty pack. I should have known.”

“Is that so?” Peter is smirking. Stiles elbows him in the side in protest, and of course the guy barely budges at all.

Scott’s air of wounded disbelief has shifted to resignation. It’s the same face as usual where Peter is concerned, brows raised in open skepticism, a questioning look in his eyes as if he’s silently asking Stiles if he’s sure about this. About Peter.

“Dude. I can’t believe you’re dating,” he mutters.

This time, Peter’s the one who answers. He curls his arm over Stiles’s shoulder, smirking.

“Oh, we’re a bit more than that,” he counters mildly.