Everything hurts.
His head hurts and his heart hurts and his paws hurt, the very tips of his fur hurts, and he can't move fast enough to outrun it.
Having wriggled under the gap in the fence on the far side of the cemetery, Peter sheds his clothes and shifts, the change coming over him hot and bubbling, like being burned alive. He drops to all fours at a dead run and puts on the speed, busting tail out into the Preserve, heading for the thickest, deepest part of the woods.
Bad, bad, he hadn't meant to do that, he hadn't meant to...
Hadn't meant to what?
Hadn't meant to react, hadn't meant to tell him the truth, ever?
Hadn't mean to hurt him?
That wasn't what he'd wanted, not that. He certainly hadn't meant to share his own pain. Sarah was an ache he'd never let go of, always there at the back of his mind, buried deep in his heart, and god damn his soul-bonded for showing up and tearing him to pieces again.
His logical mind knows that all the things he's afraid of, all the things that haunt him in the middle of the night aren't real.
He knows that no matter what his family had said, his and Sarah's relationship had been just as passionate and just as loving and just as valid as any other wolf's.
She used to trace the Hale pack triskele that marked him bonded, inked low on his hip in deep, dark navy, and she would spin him stories of who his bonded would be. It was her way of reassuring him, her way of promising him that nothing would change, but he would always pull her fingers away, press them to his mouth and kiss the words from her lips.
He'd never wanted to be bonded, not since he was old enough to understand what it really meant. Werewolves were a stupidly superstitious bunch, and most believed that being born with a mark, a soulmate meant that you weren't quite whole in yourself, that you were born missing something. Peter had snarled and raged against that sentiment, learned to fight and dared the world to tell him that he wasn't enough on his own, that he wasn't all himself. Then Sarah had come along and quieted him, and he'd actually prayed that she was the one that fate or god or hell had planned for him.
The first time he touched her hand he knew she wasn't his, but he didn't care.
They'd been together for six years when she got pregnant. Peter thinks that was probably the best day of his life. He'd walked into the kitchen at two in the morning to find her standing at the fridge stuffing her face with dill pickles, and he'd heard that quick, nearly-silent echo of her heartbeat. He'd gone to his knees right there to press his ear to her belly, and when he'd looked up at her from the floor she had been just as surprised as he was.
But then Kate Argent happened, and with her came war and destruction and a devastation he hadn't known it was possible to live through.
Missing a step as pain lances through his chest, Peter trips and goes tumbling ass over tea-kettle down the bank that led to the river, splashing into the water below. Panting, overwhelmed, he lies in the water and ducks his head, pawing over his ears and his eyes like he can scrub out all the things that hurt so much. He shivers and shakes and bites back the howls threatening to break out of him until his stomach feels stretched and bloated with bile and unsung hurt, and he wants for things he hasn't had in a very, very long time.
His wife.
His family.
His pack.
He's distanced himself ever since the war, he knows that, but it had been as much for everyone else as it had been for himself. He's grown solitary and morose, rarely every goes up to the main house, and only ever seeks out the company of his youngest niece. He doesn't like to think too hard about his attachment to Cora, about why he'd bonded so closely to the baby girl that his sister had stupidly conceived, so soon after the fighting that had introduced wolfsbane bombs and weaponized mountain ash to their worldview.
He understands the drive for affirmation of life, for reestablishing bonds, but he's never seen or heard of a werewolf being born without perfect senses.
Doesn't matter.
Cora's ok, and he plans to keep her that way, no matter what he has to do. There's a reason he's cultivated his reputation so carefully, a reason he's grown it into what it is, a warning to all who know the famous Hales. As his sister's left hand, he holds position but he's not loyal to her the way most seconds are and she knows it. He hadn't been surprised when Talia turned Luca his way – that reputation he's built names him both a threat and a prize. He has to give his sister that much credit – it was a smart move. Either he tears Luca a new one and sends him running, or he marries the little weasel and she's rid of him for good, forging pack alliances in the process by foisting him off for a dowry.
Too bad he enjoys disappointing her so much – he'd done neither and now he almost regrets it. Luca's become an unrelenting pain in the ass, one he'll be happy to see go, but the idiot actually expects things of him now, and that could put them in some serious trouble with the Patralias.
Peter growls, a low, threatening rumble in the dark as he drags himself up out of the river and onto the bank, shaking the water from his fur. With their territory being threatened on all sides, he knows this isn't the time for divided loyalties, for games.
But...
But his sister is making deals with the Argents, trusting their future to children, Laura and Derek and Stiles...
The fur between his shoulder blades and all down the crest of his back stands on end, all his instincts warning him that this is wrong, that this is dangerous...
And it isn't just him.
Somewhere close, down in the valley that the Hales call home, his bonded is having a panic attack.
It's not kindness.
It's not mercy or fairness or anything like gratitude.
Peter knows what it's like to have a panic attack, and it's pity, nothing more, that has him focusing on the bond, channeling it into his chest, breathing slowly in and out in long, smooth breaths.
It takes a while, but Stiles eventually calms down. He can feel it, rippling through his muscles, through whatever mystical bullshit links them together. His heartbeat slows, his chest doesn't feel so tight, and the next thing he knows everything goes flat, like the kid's passed out.
Hell.
Getting to his feet, Peter trots back toward the Hale property, slowly because he's not worried, damn it.
So stupid, because he doesn't want a soul-bonded, but he wants to lose the one he has even less.
He hates everything about that, hates everything he'd said to Stiles back in the cemetery, all the vulnerable parts of himself that he'd exposed. He doesn't want Stiles to take Sarah's place, is afraid of moving on and letting go of her, but he thinks a good therapist might have some scathing things to say about that. And Stiles...
Well, Stiles had promised him things hadn't he?
Never once had Peter thought that his bonded would be accepting of the fact that he was in love with someone else, that he had a wife, not when she was alive or after. He knows not all bonds are romantic in nature, but those that aren't are few and far between. He hadn't expected Stiles to react the way he had, to be calm, to listen, to understand all the things he didn't say.
He doesn't know how he feels about that.
He bristles as he comes to the edge of the woods, looks out onto his home and scents the air. His pack are quiet, all inside for the night, and thank god for that because he still doesn't want them to know what he really is, what he can do. He feels for his bonds, searches them all out, and is surprised when he finds that Stiles isn't with his brother, isn't up at the house with Calvin and Nicky.
Where...
His house.
Peter had challenged his place, threatened his future, run from him, and Stiles had still come back, had let himself into Peter's space and...
And what?
Chuffing, irritated and lost, heartsore and confused, he darts a careful look around and dashes from the trees, keeping to the shadows until he can slip up the steps and inside, safe. Following his nose, he trots into the living room and finds the kid – not passed out on the floor – but curled up asleep on the sofa, hugging a throw pillow to his chest.
Little asshole.
Flicking his tail, Peter climbs up into his Lazy Boy rocker and lays down, his heavy head resting on the arm of the chair so that he can observe his bonded.
Bonded – he hates that word.
He hates what it means, hates the mark on his hip and everything he'd been afraid of his whole life.
Everyone calls soulmates romantic.
Him, he doesn't understand that.
How horrible to wait your entire life, terrified to fall in love, to grow close to anyone for fear of what might come. How awful to be eighty-five and waiting faithfully for 'the one,' to die never having found them and never having known what it is to be loved for who you are. Worse still, to find someone as he had, someone beautiful and perfect who you love with your whole heart, and to have that love tainted by doubt and fear and the unbearable waiting for the day it all ends.
Peter shivers and curls himself of tighter, tucks his face against the cushions so he doesn't have to look anymore.
If there is one small mercy in all of this, it's that he never had to find out what it would be like to see his marriage falter when Stiles showed up. It's not worth it, that small comfort, not worth Sarah being killed, but...
He doesn't think she would have left him.
Hell, she probably would've thought Stiles is adorable, what with his pale, fragile skin and clumsy determination.
What would have happened, what could have happened if she were still alive today, how would this brave klutz of a teenager fit into their lives, their daughter's life?
It doesn't make sense, and he doesn't want to think about the what-ifs.
They hurt too much.
Huffing, Peter squeezes his eyes shut and falls asleep with the scent of talc and spearmint and sunshine in his nose.
AVAVA
"Holy crap!"
Peter opens his eyes slowly, as if he's been awake this entire time, as if Stiles' frightened yelp and the jarring thud of him falling off the couch hadn't startled the shit out of him. The kid is sitting on his ass on the hardwood, has scrambled backward until he's pressed up against the coffee table, and he's staring at Peter with eyes that are huge and dark and shocked, all the color drained from his face.
"Nice boy," he says slowly, carefully, and what...
Oh.
Right.
Standing up, Peter stretches long and hard, then shakes out his fur and jumps down out of the chair, walking past Stiles with another imperious flick of his tail. Climbing the stairs, he refuses to look back, but that doesn't stop him from listening. As he enters his bedroom and shifts up onto two feet, he hears Stiles cursing and muttering to himself in the living room below and he smirks.
He takes a shower, a long, slow one. Takes his time getting dressed too, doesn't rush. He's hoping the kid will take the hint and get gone, but apparently, he's going to have no such luck, because as he heads back down on bare feet – he'd left his favorite house shoes in the woods, damn it all – he can hear clattering coming from the kitchen.
There's coffee brewing in the pot. He doesn't begrudge Stiles the mug he's sipping from because he's made enough for two, even if they both go back for thirds. Steadfastly ignoring him, and the bond that seems to be humming between them, he pours a cup and adds a spoonful of sugar, a drop of cream.
Luca had made fun of him that first time he'd stayed through morning. Said with all the product in Peter's bathroom he'd have expected him to have a nicer coffee-maker, something that foams the milk. Peter had taken a good swipe at him, told him to get the fuck out with words and with claws, and tried not to think about the old tubes of scar-softener he still keeps in the medicine cabinet above the sink.
Besides, he likes good coffee.
He likes the way an expensive Columbian roast tastes, smooth and dark, and he likes the way it smells, so rich.
Stiles sips at a mug of black as he cracks eggs into a bowl, no milk, no sweetener, and Peter finds that he hates him just a little bit less for that this morning.
That and he's keeping his mouth shut.
He makes scrambled eggs, with cheese and salsa from the fridge, crisps up a package of bacon in a pan. He flicks Peter cautious glances the whole time, but they don't say anything so he ignores them. When the food is nearly done he moves to the cabinets and takes down a couple of plates, leaning over Stiles to do it, just to see how he'll react, and though he stiffens slightly and holds himself still, it's not fear, not a flinch.
It's respect.
Serving himself without a word of acknowledgement or thanks, Peter carries his plate to the table and sits down, actually gets a few bites in before his bonded finally speaks. His voice is calm, steady, and he actually manages to surprise Peter with the first words out of his mouth.
"So. You can turn into a real wolf huh?"
Peter just cocks an eyebrow at him, crunches a piece of bacon, because that question really didn't deserve an answer. He'd seen him there on the couch – though god knows why Peter had let that happen - and there weren't exactly a lot of alternatives to the truth.
"I didn't know you could do that."
"No one does," Peter rumbles, flashing his eyes.
It's a stupid, pathetic effort at a threat, but Stiles just nods, message received.
"Right. Got it."
Silence reigns again, for all of a minute.
"So, um... you didn't answer me. Last night. About what you..."
Peter just glares.
He doesn't know what he wants anymore, because all the things he did he can't have.
He doesn't want to have to admit that.
Stiles frowns, hurt flickers briefly across their bond, then he's getting to his feet and putting his dishes in the sink.
"Maybe you could tell me about her sometime," he says, and his voice is tight, like his throat hurts.
"You want all the filthy details?" Peter growls, thrown off by the suggestion and more than a little horrified by it. "How I met her, or how I lost her?"
"Not about what happened to her," Stiles says, turning around to look at him, and it's a hard look even though he smells like saltwater. "About her."
"Why?"
"Because she's a part of who you are," he says simply, like Peter's voice hadn't just cracked, broken. "You don't have to hide that."
Peter swallows, clenches his teeth so that he doesn't snarl, doesn't say something unforgivably cruel, because he's going to be stuck with this kid for life. He must be trying to help, must think he's doing a good thing, but all Peter wants to do is break his arm so that he can understand even a fraction of what this is, of what it's like.
"I have to go," Stiles murmurs, drying his hands on a dish towel and snapping the sides of his hoodie around him, stiches stark black across the shoulder where Peter had slashed it away from his skin. "We're doing the town hall in a couple hours. Wish me luck ok?"
Peter doesn't reply, but he watches him go, all the way back up to the house with his shoulders hunched and his hands shoved deep into his pockets.
