Peter was grumpy.
Stoically settled atop Deaton's steel examination table, listening to Derek talk a few feet away, he was brooding. Peter's reputation certainly didn't exactly write him off as easy going and well tempered, but the scene he'd caused at Stiles' house was still running through his mind. It pissed him off in fact.
The wolf had always been an ill-mannered beast, driving his most primal behavior and actions, but he'd been alarmed with how quick his thoughts had been to jump from cuddly to serial killer- The way his instincts had been telling him to take, take, take. The sheriff was a tough, driven man... Locking him up in a bedroom probably wouldn't get him very far with the guy. Peter wanted to slam a fist down on the table. Instead he sucked in a sharp breath through his nose, willing himself to remain calm.
"He's going to need some time to adjust-"
"Adjust to what exactly?" Derek demanded, crossing his arms and furrowing his brow at the veterinarian.
Deaton sighed, lifting a hand to his forehead, "The chemical he got into is derived from an old native wolf remedy. Used back when we still did mating runs," he adjusted himself so that he was addressing Peter as well before continuing, "It used to be used for helping wolves "bulk up" for a chase, driving their instincts."
"How do you mean?" Peter questioned, beating Derek to the punch.
"As I'm sure you already know, mating runs were all about catching your mate before another wolf could claim them." Deaton began, extending his arm out to a shelf to bring a familiar jar down, "This remedy was used to drive wolves practically feral, hoping they'd be entirely focused on catching and keeping their mate." he tapped the jar with a finger, jostling the warmly colored liquid inside, "Used to be, just catching them wasn't enough. Another wolf could come in and challenge you for the rights to that mate at any moment. This stuff made the prime goal to claim immediately, not to waste any time, and made wolves extremely hostile towards anyone who would try to take their mate away."
Deaton seemed to be watching Peter's reactions, carefully recording information as he put the jar back, Peter's eyes trailing after it cautiously. "On top of that, it heightened their senses for detecting the right mate. It made them stronger, faster, and made the wolf more dominant than their human sides. In a sense, they truly became animals."
"Does it wear off?" Derek prompted, jutting his chin towards the jar.
"Traditionally they stayed feral until the proper claim on their mate had been made, then they were no longer in any danger of losing them."
Beside them, Peter let out a small whine, thinking about what it would feel like... if he ended up losing John. He could understand their dismay over potentially losing a mate. Just having John out of reach was making Peter feel physically sick, he couldn't even imagine having him gone completely, or worse, with someone else...
Derek scoffed at him, "If that's how it works, why isn't Peter feral?"
"Well," Deaton offered, letting a half smile twitch over his lips, "Normally its meant to be ingested. Peter just got it on his skin ."
"Why were you keeping a jar of it around here in the first place?" Peter barked.
"It pays to always be prepared."
Peter smirked, "You need feral sex drugs to be prepared? Never took you for the type, Doc."
"You'll be fine." Deaton huffed, waving a dismissive hand as he pulled Peter off his examination table, "It should wear off once you've claimed the mate you've chosen." he gave them a sudden, high eyebrow look, "Assuming you've found one?"
"Stiles' Dad." Derek muddled.
"The sheriff?" Deaton smirked, "Well you certainly don't do anything in halves, do you Peter?"
Peter didn't think it was that funny, dragging a civilian- well, not even a civilian... dragging a headstrong cop into all of this, without any consent. He couldn't even say he knew John that well, therefore John didn't know him. They were little more than strangers and he would be asking John for so much. It was like someone you'd met a few times on the street popping in one day and asking you to marry them. Of course, in werewolf terms that was something fairly natural, common even, for people who found true mates. But for a human... It was probably unthinkable.
Stiles' "creepy uncle" comments kept popping into his head.
"You should offer to take him out sometime." Smiling, Deaton placed an encouraging hand on Peter's shoulder, "Get to know him."
"And vice versa, you mean?" Peter grinned bitterly, taking his hint, "I'm not sure I can stay in my own mind long enough for something like that."
Deaton laughed, "Honestly, I'm surprised you're as composed as you are. You're lucky you weren't drenched with a bigger dose."
"I would say that I'm thankful, but I'm really not."
"Come on." Derek gruffed, finally uncrossing his arms and nodding towards the door, "I'll call Stiles on the way back to the loft."
"Are you going to let the pups know what's going on?" Peter smirked, imagining how the other teenagers in Hale's little pack were going to react to the Peter actually having a mate. Having Stiles' dad for a mate even.
Derek groaned, "They'd find out eventually anyway. If Stiles hasn't already told them."
"Oh joy."
Deaton waved them off, "You'll be fine Peter, just do your best to keep control of your wolf."
He shoved his hands into his pockets on the way out, still feeling solemnly glum as he spoke, Deaton slowly fading out of hearing range, "How do we even know Stilinski will be on board with this? He might be too afraid of me after the way I behaved."
"I doubt it. They're tough. Stiles gets a lot of his courage from his dad." Derek offered, slowing a little in their walk to the car, leveling himself with Peter, "It'll be fine." he paused before adding, "And stop calling him Stilinski. Makes me uncomfortable."
Peter chuckled, "The scrawny one is all yours, nephew, don't worry."
Derek was taming a rumbling growl in his chest by the time they got to the car, sending Peter a small, sharp, warning glare.
Peter was thankful Derek had called Stiles with the news instead of John directly. It meant he wouldn't have to deal with hearing John on the line, probably freaking out, Peter wouldn't have to endure hearing his startled voice again. He wondered vaguely if John would be irritated with all the back and forth between messengers that he was getting, but it was better than the alternative. Peter didn't have the strength to be in the same room as John, let alone sit there and talk casually about sex and his condition. His thoughts drifted to a mental image of awkward little Stiles sitting there, explaining werewolf mating rituals to his own father. Peter ended up propping his elbow on the Camaro's window edge and hiding his smirk in his hand.
"Okay." Stiles spoke, the phone speaker a little too static-like for his wolf's liking, "So... that plan for contact we were talking about? Is that off the table? Do we have to keep them separated or something?"
"No." Peter snapped, whipping his head back towards the phone, alarmed. He acknowledged Derek's burning look and tried again, breathing sharply through his nose, "No... I'm... still in need of the contact... I just have to work on keeping my wolf under control."
"Yeah... Yeah, I've got you. Otherwise you'll- yeah, yeah no this is still super awkward for me. That's my dad." Stiles groaned, making a weird, throaty noise into the phone, reminded Peter a little of a dying cat, "Speaking of which, Peter! This should go unsaid, but if you hurt my dad, I know where he keeps his guns."
He chortled, "Threat acknowledged. However," he continued wryly, "I have an inkling your father would beat you to it."
"Damn straight."
Derek was grinning, "We'll talk later Stiles."
"Alright sourwolf. Keep me updated, I'll sit down with my dad and work on that schedule." he paused for a short second, "I love you."
Peter's eyebrows rose. He stared at his nephew, expecting him to close up in front of Peter, just grunt and hang up. Instead, a soft, adoring smile came over his usually stoic face. It was short lived, but clearly there as he returned the phrase, tolerating some more weird noises from Stiles before finally ending the call. Peter decided not to draw attention to it. He could settle with being content about Derek showing that side of himself to of Peter at all. It felt like progress. Derek caught his eye for a moment and did end up grunting, turning back to the road with that famous furrowed glare back in place. Well, take what you can get.
"You two are sickeningly cute you know. Setting the bar high."
Derek's second smile was smaller, but no less fond, and stuck for the rest of the drive home.
Now that was progress.
The phone call ended just as Stiles was about to break out into the first verse of a Celine Deon serenade (he'd hummed the intro beautifully in his opinion) when Derek had hung up on him. John sat with Stiles at the kitchen table, a piece of blank paper spread out in front of him and a pen in his hand. With his tongue dipped out the corner of his mouth, Stiles set to work drawing lines down and across the page charting out a planner. He'd just finished labeling the tops with days of the weeks when John decided to ask the questions that had been picking at his mind all night, "So... werewolves."
"Yeah." Stiles smirked, huffing out a laugh, "Werewolves."
"And you and Derek?"
"Yeah. Me and Derek."
The sheriff nodded, crossing his arms over his chest and watching his son write his work schedule into the planner, scribbling out a few mistakes here and there. "He didn't..? You weren't forced into being his-" You weren't also forced into being his mate like me?
Stiles' pen paused mid-stroke leaving an incomplete 'T' on the page, whipping his head up, "No." he responded pointedly, quickly, "No it wasn't like that- like this for us. It's not... This is definitely not how it normally all goes down."
Of course, of course. John wasn't completely caught up to speed with their werewolf lives, but he understood that the situation between him and Peter wasn't exactly common. He bit the inside of his cheek. There had been an odd sense of resignation in his actions lately, John didn't know if it meant it he was crazy, or just too trusting. He'd found it easy to accept most of the things he'd been told, like that his son wasn't just spastic and odd- well, he was, but now most of his behavior could be explained away with werewolves. Late night sneak outs, unexplained new and sometimes older friends, mysterious scratches and bruises. Werewolves. His son was friends with werewolves. Mated to a werewolf, in fact. And John- John... was next apparently.
Of course, Stiles had told him he still had a choice. Peter would give him a choice. He'd proved that himself the previous night when he'd stopped and asked for John's permission. Damn it. John had forgotten to punch him in the arm for leaving before he woke up. He guessed it was awkward for Peter too, but... John wasn't sure why he'd let Peter do those things. Maybe he'd just been desperate for human contact. Well, maybe not human contact. Peter wasn't human.
John was busy running around different outcomes in his head. It didn't look like Peter was exactly in the right headspace... would he be affecting that even more by rejecting him? Could his decision make it worse? If that was the case, did he even really have a decision? He couldn't, in good conscience, let Peter just waste away like that. And if a werewolf mate worked the same as mates in the animal kingdom, losing a mate was no small thing. Some animals died of heartbreak when they lost their mates.
Nodding to his son again, he coughed. John uncrossed his arms and rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly before opting to braid his fingers together atop the table, rekindling the conversation. "So, I heard you say it, but... You love him?"
Stiles smiled. It was warm and happy, completely oblivious to the inner turmoil John had just suffered. Reminded him of his bad days at work; when Stiles was younger and he'd come home after a hard day's work to a cheery, gap-toothed kid. "Yeah." he grinned stupidly, "Yeah I do, dad."
"Good. That's good." John shifted his hands again, watching his son finish up John's side of the planner. "So, your mating thing... Isn't that like... wolf marriage? If it's for life?"
Stiles didn't look up from the paper, just nodded and hummed noncommittally. "Yeah, I guess?"
Huffing, he scooted closer, "So... did I miss your wedding?"
Stiles looked startled at that, slowly putting his pen down and looking back up at his dad, "I didn't think of it like that..." Stiles admitted, apologetic, "I mean, there wasn't a huge ceremony like there is for a real wedding and it's not technically a human marriage or anything... but... I'm sorry dad."
John sighed, "Well, it wasn't like you could have really told me anyway. I probably wouldn't have believed you either."
"I could've just had Derek shift for you." Stiles smirked.
"I would have shot him."
Chuckling, Stiles lightly punched his dad's arm, "Don't kill my husband, please." he laughed harder, "Holy crap! I have to tell Derek he's my husband now!"
He stood, whipping out his phone and starting up the stairs to his room, barely catching John's yell up at him, "Have a real wedding! One I can attend! Make sure he makes an honest woman out of you! Remind him that I have guns!"
John was still smiling when he turned to pull Stiles' chart closer. Along with a filled out time table for the month, there was a couple sentences written at the bottom with a winking smiley face next to them. Use protection. Werewolves CAN get you pregnant. "Wait... how do... Stiles? STILES?!"
