Chapter Text
At North Carolina, Stiles hated breaks between his classes. Usually it meant time without Scott, left to his own devices, and it never felt right to him. He didn’t’ know how to fill free time. He always wanted to retreat back to his dorm room, back to Scott. Now, at Berkeley, he’s grateful for any extra time to orient himself. The campus is still new and he realises now just how heavily he leaned on Scott to take care of everything for him, including the location of his next class. He was such a burden. Sometimes he doesn’t know how Scott put up with him for a whole year.
But now he’s on his own and he knows that the history building has benches outside it and that two minutes to the left is a food hall where he can grab something to eat and study, and five minutes to the right is the library and, more enticingly, the glade where he can lay out on the grass and read or people watch or daydream for the next couple of hours until he has to go to his lecture. So he’s doing okay on his own.
He still uses points of reference to get himself around, making his world smaller. It helps him cope with the overstimulation and the anxiety. His therapist in North Carolina taught him the method and it’s become second nature to him so much so that he doesn’t even see it as a coping mechanism. It just makes sense this way. Everyone should do it.
He comes out of the building, passing the murals on the outside of the art gallery, choosing his route by the landmarks along the way. He crosses the plaza and goes through Sather Gate, bringing him out in front of the history building. He pauses for a moment, safe in the knowledge that he’s exactly where he should be, and then turns to keep walking towards the glade.
Someone rushes past him in the other direction, and there’s people everywhere, Stiles doesn’t even know why it sticks out to him, but he turns, watching their retreating back, and before he’s even consciously aware of it, his mouth is calling out “Peter?”
The man turns, an expectant and frankly bitchy look on his face, but it only takes a fraction of a second before he looks like a deer caught in the headlights. Stiles can’t help but grin with a sense of wonder. Peter. It feels surreal to have him stood in front of him, turning his random Friday afternoon upside down.
Peter looks around cautiously, like it must be some kind of trap, an ambush, and there’s a certain surrender in him already that makes Stiles sad. He gave up so easily when he was cornered. Stiles wouldn’t have believed that possible of his Alpha. But then Peter was never his Alpha.
“Hey,” Stiles greets, lifting his hand in an awkward little wave, taking a step closer.
Peter continues to gape at him for a moment before his eyes are darting around again, not with fear now so much as bewilderment. His gaze settles back on Stiles. “Are you a student here?”
“I am now,” Stiles says. “I transferred for my sophomore year. I was in North Carolina with Scott but my dad had a heart attack towards the end of last year, and he’s fine now, he’s totally fine, but I just… I didn’t want to be all the way over there again.”
Peter nods, his eyes so sad and sincere. “I’m sorry.”
Stiles shrugs, like it wasn’t the most terrifying thing that ever happened to him, and he was sex trafficked and held in a basement. The pack clubbed together and bought him a plane ticket and those hours that he was in the air, not even knowing if his dad was going to be dead or alive by the time he got there, were easily the worst of his life. He made the decision before he landed that, if this all worked out for the best, he couldn’t stand to be this far away again.
Berkeley is a good distance, a three hour drive, far enough that he’s not expected to go back every weekend but close enough that he can be there if he needs to. There’s a sense of independence and responsibility that comes with that. He likes it. He can handle it. He wasn’t sure going in, but he’s really truly doing okay.
“It’s nice here,” Stiles offers, because they’re just standing there and it’s starting to feel awkward. “I mean, it’s weird, because everyone else is in their second year together and they have their little friendship groups and I don’t know anybody. But I started a study group for my sociology class and people actually came to it so that was kind of cool. And I joined the quidditch league because it sounded like something fun to do, but it is surprisingly athletic and I am not good at it. I like it though. All I did in North Carolina was follow Scott around, and I needed that, I don’t think I would have got through that first year without him, but it feels good to step out of his shadow now. I was ready for it.”
Something softens on Peter’s face, some kind of recognition. “You’re not a sidekick.”
Stiles smiles. “I’m not,” he agrees, remembering the comics that he never got to finish, the ones that told him he could be the hero of his own story. His eyes fall down. “I don’t think I’m a superhero either though.”
“None of us are,” Peter says.
Stiles looks up, meeting his eyes. “I don’t know, I still think Scott might be.”
“Don’t put people on a pedestal,” Peter tells him. “They can only let you down.”
“Yeah, trust me, I learnt that lesson,” Stiles says wryly.
Peter looks away, embarrassed or ashamed, but Stiles doesn’t take the words back. He doesn’t apologise for his emotions anymore. They’re valid, even when they’re messy and unpleasant. He looks to his right, the direction of the glade, but he knows they’re not done by a long shot. He turns back to Peter.
“What are you doing here, anyway?” he asks. “Aren’t you a little old to be hanging around university campuses?”
Peter looks at him, hesitant, and Stiles’ eyes flick to the building they’re stood in front of and then to the leather satchel he’s carrying, a grin coming over his face.
“Oh my god,” he says. “You work here. You’re a professor. This is where you were going every week for your office hours.” He laughs, the pieces slotting into place. “Hey, remember when you told me that college is overrated? That’s hilarious.”
Peter looks distinctly unamused. “Stiles,” he says cautiously.
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell,” Stiles dismisses. He shakes his head. “Of course you’re a professor, it makes perfect sense. What do you teach? History?”
“Yes,” Peter agrees tightly.
“What course?” Stiles asks. “Something to do with South America?”
Peter sighs, so close to the scathing looks Stiles is used to receiving when he was being tiresome. “Apocalyptic and Millenarian movements in the Atlantic world.”
“I nearly took that course,” Stiles enthuses. “I figured it might be too depressing though. I have enough horrors in my life. I went with gender and sexuality in the twentieth century instead. Fits my whole aesthetic a lot better. Yours sounds really interesting though. Can you imagine if I turned up for the first day of class and you walked in. Would you even recognise my name on the class list? Do you even know my name?”
“Mieczyslaw Stilinski,” Peter says.
Stiles stares at him for a moment. “That is… surprisingly good pronunciation.”
Peter nods. “Your dad corrected the defence lawyer every time he butchered it. He was nearly held in contempt of court.”
A fond smile comes over Stiles’ face. “Yeah, that sounds like dad.” He looks at Peter. “You got dragged into the trial, huh?”
“I did,” Peter agrees.
Stiles nods. “They let me give video testimony from North Carolina so it didn’t interrupt my school, which is good because I don’t think I could have handled being in a room with any of those people.”
“That’s the least you deserved,” Peter says.
Stiles nods again, that vulnerable feeling creeping over him. It can come out of nowhere.
“Anyway, I have a lecture that I need to go… fuck up now,” Peter says, gesturing behind himself.
Stiles gives a little laugh, brought back to the moment and the sunshine and the freedom to do anything. “Yeah,” he agrees. “Hey, we should get dinner.”
“I really don’t think we should, Stiles,” Peter says.
“It’s kind of the least I deserve,” Stiles says. He’s not afraid to use people’s pity for him against them. He hates pity, it deserves to be punished. Pity is not the same as support. Peter gives him a pained expression. “Look, we’re both here and we’re going to run into each other and I don’t need that hanging over me, okay?” Stiles says honestly.
Peter gives a nod of understanding. “I’ll hand in my resignation.”
Stiles gives him an incredulous look. “You’re not going to do that. You threw me away like a piece of trash so you didn’t lose this job. You’re not throwing that away too.”
“I did what was in your best interests,” Peter says. “I’m still willing to do that.”
“The martyr act doesn’t suit you,” Stiles responds. Peter opens his mouth to speak again but Stiles cuts him off. “We did the whole being brave thing, right?. We did the ripping off the band-aid thing. But we never did the closure thing. The sorting through it and the clearing the air and the putting it all away. You owe me that, right? We owe each other that.”
Peter sags but he doesn’t argue. It’s not resignation though, it’s acceptance. Stiles knows the difference.
“There’s this Brazilian steakhouse place,” Stiles says. “I’ve been wanting to go there but I don’t have any friends. I have a study group tonight and I have quidditch in the afternoon tomorrow, but we could meet at 7?”
“Okay,” Peter agrees, hesitation still hovering at the edge of his voice.
Stiles nods. “Go fuck up your lecture then, professor.”
“Believe me, I will,” Peter says dryly, and there’s something so familiar about it that Stiles almost feels homesick.
They stand there for a moment, looking at each other, before Peter takes a step back, turning away. Stiles watches him go, trying to remember which emotions are supposed to feel safe. Safe just jumped out of the window though. Safe has gone all the way to hell. Stiles just hopes he isn’t going to join it.
He follows his little mental map of landmarks to the glade, laying out on the grass and taking out his reading. His life is all about compartmentalisation now. It’s not like it was a year ago, he can be spontaneous now, he isn’t held back by rules, imagined or otherwise, and he feels so much better for it. But he likes everything in its place, filed away neatly in his mind, another trick the therapist taught him. He just doesn’t know where to put Peter, so he keeps bumping into the front of his mind.
A little part of Stiles wants to retreat, wants to lock himself away with these thoughts, out of either shame or protectiveness, he’s not sure which. And while wallowing occasionally might be healthy, he knows that this urge isn’t. He’s not cutting himself off from the world for anyone.
So he goes to his sociology study group for his sexual cultures class that evening instead of ordering pizza and sitting alone in his room to eat it. He joins in with a discussion about the role of pornography in stereotyping societal hierarchy, staying present and accountable. It’s heated but respectful and Stiles know that he’s skating on thin ice with some of these subjects he’s chosen, Companions and sex trafficking can come up at any moment, but he doesn’t want to shy away from that. He doesn’t want to be scared of it forever. He wants to explore it.
A couple of them suggest going for a coffee afterwards and Stiles joins them, ordering himself a decaf. He never passes up an opportunity to make friends. He’s not as lonely here as he worried he would be. It was definitely time to go long distance with Scott. He still skypes him the next morning like he does every Saturday though, chatting about their weeks as though they haven’t texted almost every day and wouldn’t be in touch the second anything interesting happened. It’s nice to see his face though, to spend this time together in a way that feels close and intimate. Sometimes they add Lydia into the conversation and it’s just like old times. Nobody gets left behind, even if they’re not in the same place right now.
By the time he gets back from quidditch later that day, he’s sweaty and sun-kissed and really hungry. His roommates are playing the X-Box in the living room, throwing teasing remarks back and forth. They have a lot of inside jokes. They’re nice guys though and they don’t exclude him on purpose. They invite him to join them playing video games and ask him how his day was, but when he sees the way they interact with each other he can tell it’s mostly politeness. Apparently, friendships are forged in fire freshman year. Stiles wouldn’t know about that. He didn’t step out from under Scott’s wing long enough to find out.
He goes to take a shower, standing in front of his closet afterwards, everything suddenly becoming real and immediate. Peter. He’s going to meet Peter. For dinner. He screws his eyes shut. He very pointedly didn’t mention it to Scott or Lydia this morning which tells him that he’s probably doing something wrong. He starts to tell himself that they just wouldn’t understand, but that’s the logic that led him to running away from home and sitting on Peter’s porch. Twice.
He sighs, opening his eyes. He doesn’t want to run away with Peter now, he knows that much. He also knows what he was googling at two o’clock this morning. But he doesn’t need all the answers right now, he reminds himself. It’s okay to not know things. It’s okay to explore things. It’s okay to be curious.
It felt good to see Peter yesterday, it made him happy on some instinctive level. Happy like seeing a familiar face rather than being reunited with his Daddy though. That word feels strange to him now. He takes that as a good sign. That’s not the life he wants. His therapist told him it’s okay to only have certainty in negatives, even if he feels like it’s taking chunks out of his life. He’s managed to find something more than negative space over the last year. He’s grown. He’s proud of himself. He’s still so far from finished though.
He grabs some clothes, choosing whatever he’d wear to a study session. He’s going to present an honest version of himself and this isn’t a special occasion anyway, even if it might be monumental to them. It’s just a steakhouse. It’s just a conversation. Stiles never expected it to happen, but it still feels like a long time coming.
When he gets there, Peter is already waiting outside, and the relief that Stiles feels upon seeing him makes him realise that he didn’t quite believe that Peter was actually going to show up. But here he is, dressed in nice clothes, but not too nice. Stiles knows the contents of Peter’s wardrobe. This is casual for him.
Stiles approaches him with a smile, feeling so much more at ease already. Peter opens the door for him, like a gentleman, requesting their table with the hostess, and Stiles wonders if this behaviour is automatic for Peter with everyone, or whether he’s unconsciously slipping back into taking care of Stiles, doing everything for him. Stiles isn’t offended by what could be just chivalry, but he’s not about to turn meek and submissive. He’s learnt that there’s a time and a place for that.
They’re seated at a small table towards the edge of the room and Stiles wonders if the hostess thinks they’re on a date. Judging by the way Peter is warily scanning the room, looking for people he might know, or students from the university that might know him, he’s wondering the same thing.
“Are you worried about being seen with me, Professor Hale?” Stiles asks.
Peter gives him a look. “I don’t think it would be in either of our best interests to start rumours.”
“We’re not that close to campus,” Stiles dismisses. “Besides, according to the Faculty Code of Conduct, it’s only unacceptable if you have academic responsibility for me in an instructional, evaluative or supervisory capacity. Which you don’t, and I think I can live without your depressing ass classes, so no one can say shit about us having dinner together.”
Peter stares at him for a moment and Stiles can’t tell if he’s worried or impressed by Stiles’ recitation. He guesses Peter isn’t sure either.
“I looked into university policies last night,” Stiles says. “I have this three point system. First is legality, and this is legal, so we can tick that box. Second is morality, which the jury’s still out on. Then it’s want. Want comes last. Because you have to be smart about want. I’ve learnt that. And want is…”
He looks at Peter and he feels a familiar pull, as distant as it is, because those eyes are so blue and he’s so handsome and, fuck, Stiles knows exactly what those hands could do to him. He knows exactly what that brain could do to him too. He pulls his lip between his teeth before he catches himself, shaking his head.
“Want comes last,” he says firmly.
“You don’t even know me,” Peter says.
“I do,” Stiles insists. “But I know me now too. This last year has contained a lot of soul searching and exploration. You could probably write a YA novel about me. Except it would be pretty X-rated.” He looks up sharply as the server steps up to their table. “Hey.”
They order drinks and sides and the server explains how the restaurant works, placing a token down on the table that tells the servers whether they’re ready for more meat to be brought to their table or not. Stiles plays with the edge of the green disc as the server walks away.
“I’m glad you’ve had some time and space to figure yourself out,” Peter says.
“Yeah,” Stiles agrees. “I mean, I’m still learning. I’m figuring things out. I joined this student group at North Carolina, BDSM discussion, but we were pretty hands on. I felt safe with them, we were all equal, we were exploring things together, and that felt nice. It felt good.”
Peter is watching him, patient, attentive, but he doesn’t speak.
“The summer before I went, I fell down one of my research holes,” Stiles goes on. “Safe, sane and consensual, responsible kink, all of that. I had this therapist that my dad found for me. Kink friendly. He talked me through the come down after you left me and he helped me sort through a lot of stuff. You and I were not playing safe. Did you know that?”
“I did,” Peter admits solemnly. “And I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, I always figured that you did,” Stiles agrees with a shrug.
Peter looks troubled. “You’re not supposed to forgive me.”
“That’s kind of my decision to make,” Stiles says. “You don’t get to make it for me.”
Peter nods his head in understanding. There’s a chastised look on his face that Stiles doesn’t recognise. Peter looks so much smaller now. So much less powerful.
They get served their first meats and Stiles eagerly takes a bit of everything. He’s starving and it all looks amazing. He shoves some marinated steak into his mouth, talking around it.
“If it makes you feel any better, I had to work to get here,” he says. “I fully went through the five stages of grief over you. I got stuck on the denial and the bargaining for a long time, and then the depression, but I got angry too. I was mad at you for what you did to me. You made me totally helpless and then you just left me there. So yeah, I got angry. But eventually, by working with the therapists and spending time with my friends, and going to university, I let it go.”
He shovels more meat into his mouth, looking up at Peter who is carefully cutting his steak up, looking so prim and proper. It makes Stiles smile.
“I mean, what was the alternative, I just stay hurt forever?” Stiles asks. “Then you’d still have power over me. So I forgave you because that was the same as admitting that you were wrong and that let me reclaim myself. I don’t want to be bitter because I don’t think that you’re a bad person. I don’t think you ever acted out of malice. And you really did teach me a lot about myself. I’m grateful for that, even if you didn’t do it in a very responsible way.”
“I was awful to you,” Peter says. “Please don’t forgive me.”
“I already did,” Stiles says cheerily. “No take backs.”
The server brings their drinks, putting a cocktail down in front of Peter that’s full of ice and lime chunks. It looks so refreshing as Peter stirs it, crushing down the lime, and Stiles takes a forlorn sip of his soda.
“It’s Brazil’s national cocktail,” Peter tells him. “Caipirinha.”
“And you’ve probably been there and tasted the real thing,” Stiles says.
“I have,” Peter agrees, looking a little sheepish about it.
“What’s the drinking age over there, I bet they’d give me one,” Stiles says. He snorts a laugh. “Maybe we could have gone on our world tour. Were you really going to do any of that if I ever finished my training?”
“Absolutely,” Peter says earnestly. “I was on sabbatical when I met you, but it didn’t officially start until the summer. I was doing a research project on the collapse of the Mayan civilisation, that’s what I was working on in my study every day. I wanted as much of the scholarly research as possible done by the time I was officially released for the year so that we could go and do the field research together. I was always taking you with me.”
“Wow,” Stiles says, blinking at him. “I definitely thought you were bullshitting me. That would have been amazing.”
Peter nods, looking down at his plate. “I was supposed to make it to the summer, but my head of department could tell that I was struggling. I was having a rough time before I got you. I had a couple of breakdowns at work from the stress of trying to hold it together. I couldn’t stand the empty house anymore. I’d built myself a sanctuary and it was the loneliest place in the world. I used to avoid going home. I was in a bad place.”
Stiles wants to reach out, put a consoling hand on his arm, but he’s not sure what the rules are here. He’s not sure Peter would appreciate it, even if he probably craves it. This is a vulnerable side of him that Stiles has never seen before. He feels like maybe he saw those cracks though, when Stiles tried to contact Scott, the way Peter had clung to him when Stiles had promised not to forsake him again. He always suspected that he was all that Peter had. To have it confirmed hurts in a way he wasn’t quite expecting after all this time. But this is why they’re here. They need to finally get all the poison out.
“We made a deal,” Peter says. “I could have the time off early, follow through on my plans to buy a Companion, because I was telling the truth, I never hid your existence from anyone. But seeing as I was abandoning my students to a substitute, he asked that I still come in once a week to support them until the summer and help them finish up the course.”
“Office hours,” Stiles says knowingly.
“Precisely,” Peter agrees. “But once we got to the summer, I was going to take you travelling with me. I wanted to share that with you. You were my family. It wasn’t the same without you.”
Stiles smiles slightly. “See,” he says. “I told you you weren’t the bad guy.”
“I did terrible, unforgiveable things to you,” Peter says. “I fucked with your head, very deliberately. I psychologically took you apart. I made you believe that what I wanted was what you wanted.”
“No, a lot of it really was what I wanted,” Stiles says. “This group I went to, I tried out a lot of stuff, so I can say with pretty good authority what I like. I like being held down, and sometimes bondage, but I prefer body contact. And I like being told what to do because I always have a lot of thoughts, too many thoughts, but they get quiet when I let someone else take control. I like that calm space in my head that I can never find on my own.”
He can feel that familiar draw, the craving. He loves going under. He never went very deep, never found that same level of surrender that he did with Peter. There were no fireflies. He was okay with that though. He and his friends from the group, they were just playing around, exploring. He loved every second of it, but he always knew he needed more to be able to fully let go. He’d need to be in love. He’d need to trust them with his life.
“We do differ on a couple of fundamentals though,” Stiles admits, looking back up at Peter. “I am not into Daddy kink. Or honorifics at all. I don’t like true imbalances of power. Infantilism does nothing for me either. I like being looked after, I really appreciate being looked after, I am a slut for aftercare, but I don’t like to be babied. I don’t want to be powerless or have my autonomy taken away. I’m not here to kinkshame anybody, the whole Daddy thing is just… I don’t get it.”
“You were my family,” Peter says again.
“Have you ever been part of a functioning family?” Stiles asks. “Because that’s not how they act with each other.”
Peter looks down at his plate. “I have never been part of a functioning family, no.”
Stiles snorts a laugh despite himself, accepting more meat from the passing server. Peter waves him away.
“Hey, so, funny story,” Stiles says. Peter looks up at him. “I know your nephew.”
Peter freezes, dawning realisation turning to fear. “Derek.”
“Yeah,” Stiles agrees.
Peter sighs. “When I got dragged back to Beacon Hills after the FBI stormed my house, I did wonder. But you’d never mentioned him. And you talked about your friends. You were clinging to them.”
“He hadn’t been around for a while,” Stiles says. “He wasn’t really a part of the pack anymore. But he came back and he had some interesting stories to tell about you. One story in particular actually.” He meets Peter’s eyes. “He said you murdered his sister.”
Peter’s eyes fall away but he doesn’t deny it. Stiles’ heart beats faster in his chest. This is the one thing he’s never quite been able to believe, not from the man he knew. He’s passed thinking Derek lied to him, but he still hoped he could be wrong. He realises that some part of him still really wanted him to be wrong.
“What happened?” he asks. They have to drain the poison. Peter reaches over, turning the card on the table to red. “I’m not done, I want more meat,” Stiles complains.
“Maybe we could just not have any interruptions for a while,” Peter says, his voice strained.
“Right,” Stiles agrees. “Sorry. Go on.”
Peter sits back in his chair. “I was taken by some hunters,” he begins, his eyes falling down again. “They held me prisoner and they chained me to a wire fence and they ran experiments on me. They put electric currents through my body and worked out in precise detail what effect it had on my powers. They could pinpoint exactly how to stop me transforming, how to stop me healing, how to take away my strength. They did it over and over until they had it down to a fine art. They did it for months. And then they dumped me in the preserve, weak and helpless.”
Stiles remembers being in the Argent’s basement, Erica and Boyd strung up to electric currents, and he knows exactly who did this. The same people who started the fire. The same people who have been waging war with them ever since Scott got bitten.
“The Argents.”
Peter looks up at him. “I guess you know all the Beacon Hills classics.” He shakes his head. “I’m not making excuses. I’m just telling you what happened.”
Stiles nods, spearing some more meat on his fork. “Then tell me what happened.”
Peter sags. “My pack found me. They took me back to the house. I collapsed at Talia’s feet and I sobbed and I begged her to do something. I told her they were sick, they were dangerous, they were planning something. They wouldn’t have let me go unless they already knew how they were going to kill me, kill all of us. I begged her to stop them. And she just, she reached down and she petted my hair and she told that I was tired. I should rest. She’d deal with a threat if it presented itself. I told her it would be too late by then, that she had to act first, but she wouldn’t listen to me. And I’m not making excuses. But I was in agony and I wasn’t of sound mind, it had been months of torture. I wasn’t going to let them do to the rest of my family what they did to me. So I had to take matters into my own hands.”
“That’s why you wanted to be an Alpha,” Stiles says. “So you could fight them yourself.”
“So I could kill them,” Peter says. “Because I knew that Talia wouldn’t. And I knew that I couldn’t, not without Alpha strength. They’d left me in a mess and I wasn’t healing fast enough. I was too weak. It was a necessary sacrifice. It felt necessary at the time.”
He drops his fork, putting his hand over his eyes as he leans into his palm. Stiles can feel tears pricking at his own eyes, imagining the pain, physical and emotional, that Peter must have been going through. He knows first-hand just how ruthless and unhinged Gerard and Kate were, he knows that Peter was right about them planning a horrific act against his family, but he can’t imagine being faced with that impossible situation, of having to hurt someone you loved to save the day. And Stiles already knows the end of this story. It wasn’t worth it. They all died anyway.
Peter takes a deep breath and lifts his head, looking Stiles square in the eye. There’s so much pain and sadness there. “I ripped her throat out,” he says. “It was messy but it was quick. I wanted it to be quick. I didn’t want her to suffer for a second. I know that doesn’t make it okay. Nothing will ever make it okay.”
Stiles reaches across the table, he can’t help himself, taking hold of Peter’s hand in his own. Peter looks at him with imploring eyes, on the brink of falling apart, and Stiles is filled with a rush of love. He thinks it’s love. Maybe it’s just empathy. This is real though. This is everything Peter ever hid from him. It’s smashing through all of Stiles’ barriers. Peter pulls his hand back, his eyes falling away.
“The rush of power went straight to my head,” Peter says. “I ran out of the house and I hunted them down and I tore them apart. I was like a feral animal. I should have been smarter. I should have made it count. I should have started with her.”
“Kate,” Stiles says with a little nod.
Peter looks up at him. “It was all for nothing without her.” His lip lifts in a little sneer that’s so canine in nature, like his wolf is fighting to come to the surface. “Talia found me. I was strong but I was still recovering. She was stronger. She beat me down and she dragged me back to the house. Down to the basement. Deaton was already waiting for us.”
“Right,” Stiles says, putting the pieces together. “He was your emissary.”
“He was Talia’s,” Peter says, clear distain in his voice. “He surrounded me with mountain ash and he performed some little Druid ceremony. He took my Alpha spark. He made sure I could never get it back. And then Talia gave me my share of the family fortune and she sent me out of the door.” He gets a distant look in his eye. “Sometimes I have these dark thoughts. I wonder if she realised, when she was burning to death in that same basement, that I was right.” He blinks, snapping out of it, looking at Stiles. “I’ve never talked about any of this. I’ve never had anyone to tell.”
“You could have told me,” Stiles says.
“I was trying to make you like me,” Peter dismisses. “But we’re past that now. I don’t deserve for you to like me. You shouldn’t like me. This is who I am.”
“That’s who you were,” Stiles says. “We’re all works in progress, right?”
Peter gives a little laugh of disbelief, the tension easing from his body. “Don’t follow my life advice.”
“No, but it’s true,” Stiles says. “It’s a really comforting thought. Sometimes we make bad choices and sometimes bad things happen to us, but don’t let that be the end of your story. I didn’t let the basement or the Foundry or you be the end of mine.”
“I’m glad,” Peter says. “I feel nothing but shame for what I did to you. You trusted me. I took you apart. I turned you against everyone who loved you so that you’d have to depend on me. And I was so happy doing it. I thought it was my right after so many years to have someone that was mine. Totally, completely mine. I treated you like you were a thing.”
“You loved me,” Stiles says. “You fucked up, but you loved me. That counted for a lot.”
Peter shakes his head. “It doesn’t count for shit when I was abusing you. That’s not how love works.”
Stiles licks his lips, sitting up a little straighter. “Okay, the summer after all this happened, my dad found a local support group. It was for kids who’d been caught up in human trafficking and some of them, like me, ended up at the Foundry. I heard some horrific things. There was one girl… Remember that room where we met? Where you got to decide whether you wanted me or not?”
Peter nods, looking intrigued but cautious.
“This girl got taken in there to meet her prospective Master,” Stiles says. “And he raped right there on the couch, except legally it’s not rape because Companions don’t have rights. Then he said he’d buy her and she was screaming and begging them and they let him take her home. They had to restrain her because she was fighting them so hard, she was terrified to go with this man who’d just assaulted her. But they didn’t care. They sold her. Those are the bad guys. I heard a lot of stories like that.” He looks up at Peter, meeting his eyes. “So love counted for a lot. What we had wasn’t right. It wasn’t a good thing. But it was something. That’s one of the things I had to learn to accept. I had to accept that you hurt me and that you damaged me. And I had to accept that we were in love and we shared something real. Those feelings were real, Peter. I know they were. But I don’t know if I want that again. I don’t know what I want.”
“You have to tick morality first,” Peter reminds him.
“Right,” Stiles says with a little smile. “Morality. Still on the fence on that one.”
“We would be a disaster,” Peter says, but there’s something fond in his voice. “I’m a disaster all on my own. I wouldn’t want to drag you into that.”
Stiles nods his head, not agreeing or disagreeing, but acknowledging. He feels like maybe Peter has more work to do than him. He hasn’t forgiven himself like Stiles has. Sometimes it takes someone else believing in you to give you the confidence to believe in yourself. He reaches across the table, turning the token to green and eagerly greeting the first server who approaches him with more steak.
“I didn’t really like that support group when I went last year,” Stiles admits. “I couldn’t relate to anyone. Because I was still in love with you. But I went to a few meetings over the summer when I was home. I feel like I get it now. Even if I was happy, what happened to me was wrong. It was terrifying. I don’t ever want to think about that happening to anybody else.” He looks up at Peter. “That girl I told you about, she does a lot of advocacy for Companion rights now. I think that’s something I’d like to be involved in. I’m a sociology major and I pick all the classes that have to do with the culture around sex and social hierarchy. Sometimes they cut a little close to the bone for me, but I think it’s what I want to do. I don’t know how, but this feels like something that’s not going to stop being important to me.”
“I’m really proud of you,” Peter says, his eyes soft before he looks away with a huff. “I’m sorry, that’s so patronising, you don’t need me to be proud of you.”
“I’ll take it,” Stiles says with a smile.
Peter looks at him again. “You’re so strong. I always knew you were strong.”
“And yet you took me apart so easily,” Stiles says dryly.
“I think life had predisposed you for that,” Peter says.
“Yeah,” Stiles agrees. “I think you might be right.”
“It makes me incredibly happy to see you succeed,” Peter says. “I’m glad you weren’t held back by what I did. I’m glad you’re still getting a chance to do this.”
“I missed the acceptance window to take my spot at North Carolina,” Stiles tells him. “I called admissions and explained my story and they requested all this proof. I had to send in reports from the Sheriff’s Office and the FBI to corroborate my story, which is fair enough, anyone can pretend they missed a deadline because they were kidnapped, right? But once I sent everything over they put me at the top of their waitlist and I had a place before the end of the summer. Then my therapist diagnosed me with PTSD and wrote a recommendation that I be roomed with Scott and they gave us this awesome suite. I mean, at this point I was pretty much milking it, but I’d earned that.”
“You certainly had,” Peter agrees, waving off more food while Stiles continues to pile up his plate. Peter looks at it critically, reaching for the token.
“I’m not done,” Stiles insists, slapping his hand down on it to keep it green.
“You can’t possibly eat all that,” Peter says.
“Dude, I’m a poor student, I live on ramen, I’m making the most of this,” Stiles says, shoving another forkful in his mouth. “By the way, you know you’re paying for this, right?”
“Of course,” Peter agrees.
Stiles nods, a smile coming over his face as he swallows. “Hey, remember that restaurant you used to bring me food from? That must be around here, right?”
“It’s a couple of streets away,” Peter agrees. “I can give you the address.”
“You can take me,” Stiles says.
“I’m not sure we should make this a regular thing,” Peter says carefully.
“You promised you were going to take me when I finished my training,” Stiles says. “And I know I didn’t finish, but you said it yourself, I’m doing good. And I worked so hard to get here.”
Peter smiles fondly at him, but Stiles can already see the regret in his eyes. “I thought we were clearing the air,” Peter says. “So that it wouldn’t be awkward if we ran into each other. Not so that we could… what?”
“Hang out?” Stiles says. “We can hang out. I like your company.”
“You need friends your own age,” Peter says.
“I have some,” Stiles insists. “I’m making some. Some guys from quidditch invited me to a party tomorrow night. And I have Scott and Lydia. And Liam and Mason who, now that I’m nearby, call me any time anything weird happens in Beacon Hills or they have a question about anything supernatural, and then I have to go over there and deal with it. That’s what friends do, right?”
“That’s what emissaries do,” Peter says, looking amused.
Stiles stares at him. “I’m not an emissary.”
“I think you’d be a good one,” Peter says. “You’re very intelligent. And when you put your mind to something, you conquer it.”
Stiles feels a little glow inside him. “Flattery will get you everywhere. Also, I’m putting my mind to you taking me to that restaurant, so by your own logic, you have to take me.”
Peter gives him a scathing look and it makes Stiles grin. It feels like pure Peter, and that’s a greater indication that his walls are down than all of the guts he spilled from guilt.
“You can’t wear jeans or sneakers,” Peter says.
“Okay, I won’t,” Stiles agrees. “And we did all the regrets and the deepest, darkest secrets this time around. We should do the greatest hits next time.”
Peter smiles at him. “You’re going to that party tomorrow night though, right?”
“I’m going to the party,” Stiles agrees. “I need to try and get laid. California has been a dry state for me so far in my life. If I’m going to live here, I need to fix that.”
Peter laughs, picking up his glass. “To healthy sexual relations.”
“Safe, sane and consensual,” Stiles returns, clinking their glasses together.
He takes a sip, looking at Peter over the rim, a little thrill going through him. He doesn’t know if he can sort what they were from the man sitting in front of him now, but he wants to try. It feels like something that would be worth his time. In the meantime, he is definitely going to keep looking for friends and hook ups and people who might be interested in the lifestyle. He misses his old group from North Carolina. He wants to keep exploring, keep growing. He’s still a work in progress, but he kind of hopes he always will be. He doesn’t ever want to set limitations on himself.