A/N: Here comes another fun fact: this chapter was the very first I finished in this story. I write my stories completely out of order after I outline them, to the point of writing the ending of one scene, then the beginning, then the middle. But hey, if it ain't broke.
It's Thursday night, and there's a body in Stiles' backyard.
It's not the type of event that colors his everyday routine, even nowadays, when finding a headless corpse in his bushes would be likelier than ever. It happens very suddenly—one moment Stiles is flipping through late night TV and the next he's heading to the kitchen for a refill of soda, and that's when he sees the dark shape in the grass through the porch door.
The good news, he supposes, is that it's not someone he knows. Of course it's not good news that someone's bleeding out like pieces of pulled pork on Stiles' property, but nowadays he counts his blessings that the bloodied bodies are not those of his friends. Still, not his preferred way to spend his evening.
The woman is facedown, body unnaturally twisted on its side and arms pale against the moonlit dirt, and when Stiles kneels by her to feel for her pulse and ends up with a hand smeared with blood, the panic sets in. Her throat is slit, too wide to be a knife's work, too jagged to be anything but a claw, and when Stiles frantically tells this to his father, he spends five minutes being soothed and reassured that it's still unsure who and what killed her. It falls a little flat when Stiles has seen this sort of crime before, but he appreciates the gesture nonetheless.
It's May, and he really doesn't need the blanket draped around his shoulders courtesy of the EMTs who ushered to coddle him after they arrived with the ambulance to carry away Jane Doe. It's rattling, sure, but Stiles has seen worse. The fact that this is his reality is sad, and probably mildly concerning.
The police are here too, to check all their bases and the evidence, and probably check on the sheriff's son and his mental state as well. Stiles takes it all in stride, sitting on the fender of the police car parked on the curb playing with the hem of the fleece blanket while the emergency lights flash red and blue into the dark neighborhood and officers bustle around him, hardly noticing his dark shape amid all the hustle that is starting the paperwork and dealing with forensics that is murder.
He texts Scott about it as the police trample around the backyard while the radios rustle with incoming updates, just something to recap the night like murder in my yard, nbd. And then the one thing that could possibly make this night worse comes strolling out of the shadows wearing a leather jacket, and Stiles groans under his breath.
It's Peter, the leather jacket draped over his shoulders shining in the moonlight, and his eyes sweep over the scene of muttering cops and flashing ambulance lights with an interested cock of his eyebrow. Of course he's interested. This sort of incident is right up one's alley when murder is their hobby. Stiles shrinks into his blanket, trying his best to disperse into the shadows until he's no longer visible, but then Peter's eyes fall right on him through the darkness and his cover is blown. Just what Stiles needs tonight after the traumatic event of discovering a body. Chatting with Peter.
"Do you have some sort of sick internal murder radar or is it a hobby for you to peruse through neighborhoods like this looking for incidents?" Stiles says once Peter steps close enough.
"It's flattering how you think that as a killer, I've been granted the ability to find killings by happy accident," he murmurs, gesturing to the crime scene as the police tape is rolled out. "What happened?"
"Watch the news if you're interested," Stiles says. Seeing Peter on any given night irks him; seeing him on the night of a murder is going to give him nightmares. He looks up from where he's teasing the hem of his blanket into frayed threads and sees Peter smiling at him. "You're being creepy. Not that that's anything new. Are you here for the reason I think you're here?"
"Why do you think?"
Stiles purses his lips, not in the mood for indulging in Peter's obvious questions. He nudges his thumb accusatorially at the murder scene.
"You killed her," he ticks off the options on his fingers. "You're in cahoots with whoever killed her. You're thirsty for her blood. Or you're here at this crime scene by accident and you're actually looking for small kids to prey on and eat."
Peter's grin is not wiped from his face. If anything, it cements in place, and he tips his head back to the moon to laugh, the light licking at his cheeks.
"Very imaginative," Peter murmurs, sounding appreciative of the laugh Stiles just gave him. "Did you discover the body?"
"Wouldn't you like to know," Stiles grumbles, not in the mood to hash out the sordid details of how he'd gently rolled her over and felt his heart lodge in his throat at the sight of her bloodied clothes, sticky in the moonlight. "I'm not exactly in the mood to chat about a horrifying murder, thanks."
Peter tuts. "Calm down, you've seen something like this before."
"I'm so sorry if my sheer terror is inconveniencing you," Stiles seethes. Honestly, it couldn't get more disrespectful than this. The body's still warm and Stiles still feels the phantom dampness of her blood on his hands as he tried to compress her wound while keeping his panicking at bay.
He rubs at his arms in a vain attempt to massage the tension out of his body. Spending the evening camped out in from of the television with a bowl full of mixed nuts would have been so much easier, if not more boring. Not that Stiles needs the excitement in his life. He needs the exact opposite alongside a long, uninterrupted nap that lasts approximately thirty-two hours, and instead the universe decides to take a dump on his head because he hasn't been scared for his life in the last few weeks. Maybe some people are just fate's chew toy.
"What are you so nervous about?" Peter asks him like he's unimpressed with Stiles' antics. Stiles glares, arching his head to the backyard to see if any police officers are taking note of the fact that Stiles is being accosted by a mysterious man that's appeared on the scene of a gnarly crime. Naturally, none of them are.
"Oh, I don't know," Stiles mutters. "The dead body comes to mind."
Peter rolls his eyes, like Stiles is weak and malnourished and overreacting, and Stiles purposefully ignores him. He stares ahead at where the car headlights are flashing red on the pavement, an easy distraction to focus on before Peter slides closer.
"You look like you need some," he seems to ponder his choice of words carefully, "relaxation."
Stiles furrows his eyebrows, his attention pulled away from the lights. "What exactly are you offering, Bad Touch?"
Peter takes a slow step forward and doesn't bother to address Stiles' question or his newfound nickname. "All I'm saying," he says, perfectly innocent, "is that you look horribly stressed."
"No," Stiles cuts in, pulling the blanket he doesn't need tightly around his shoulders. "Normal teenagers are stressed. Normal teenagers have tests and school dances. I have all of that plus murders, werewolves, and pretty much every supernatural character from the Grimm books to deal with—as in I wouldn't even be surprised if Rumpelstiltskin would come hopping out of that bush over there." He points an accusing finger at the ragged hedge scaling the side of his house as if it's done him a personal wrong. "I'm so beyond stressed it's a miracle I'm still here when I could be in Hawaii on a beach wearing a grass skirt right now."
He heaves an enormous sigh that shakes his whole rib cage once he's finished, listening to the distant murmur of police officers rather than focusing on Peter's intense gaze pivoted directly on him. He looks down at his feet and notices the polished tips of Peter's shoes slide closer, almost imperceptibly so.
"Do you know what the best form of tension relief is, Stiles?"
Well, this conversation is turning odd. Stiles can think of quite a few—massages from surprisingly strong old Asian women, long yoga sessions, stress balls, unapologetically wolfing down an entire carton of ice cream with no spoon necessary—but Peter's voice is low and dripping with suggestion in a way that has Stiles certain that all of his ideas are off the mark.
"Probably," he begrudgingly admits, averting Peter's eyes. "I'm not sure I want to know. And if you tell me anyway I am sure I won't be wanting it from you."
Peter chuckles. "Sex."
"Yup, there's what I didn't want to know," Stiles says, suddenly feeling a fair bit hotter even though the night is nippier than most. He looks fixedly at the tree over Peter's shoulder rather than directly in his eyes and pretends he is somewhere where this conversation isn't.
"Let's have sex," Peter says with absolutely no regard for Stiles' discomfort.
He says it very easily, like the idea is simple and reasonable, when it actually makes most of Stiles' worst plans feel better about themselves. Stiles huffs out a dry laugh. "I can think of a million reasons as to why that's the worst idea ever."
"Why?" Peter asks, and Stiles sputters. "It's not like you're attracted to me. It's not like I'll fuck you and you'll fall in love with me."
"Um," Stiles says, lost for words, and waits the obligatory few seconds for Chris Hansen and company to come swooping in. He doesn't. "I'm concerned for your sense of humor."
Peter says nothing. He arches an eyebrow carefully, waiting for Stiles to let the defense mechanism of his jokes sizzle and wither. Stiles is more than just concerned now, and draws the blanket over his shoulders like a protective shell shielding him from these advances.
"Haha," is his dry response. "No. No. Just—no. Not even if I end up being a fifty-year-old virgin."
Peter tsks, just something quiet and unimpressed with Stiles' rejections, and leans in to push aside the scratchy fleece blanket and snake his hand inside Stiles' jeans. Stiles goes rigid because oh my god, that's a hand. A hand on his cock. A hand circling and dragging slowly up his cock. Stiles feels the gasp slip from his mouth like it's being pulled from his throat by a string. He doesn't need to catch a glimpse at Peter's face to know he's smirking. Bastard.
"What were you saying?" Peter murmurs, right by his ear, and then his hold on Stiles' dick tightens and pumps downward, his fingers paying special attention to the head of his cock before sliding smoothly back up. It's foul play, Stiles is sure, except the referee is too busy to throw down the red flag, and then Peter pumps downward with a strong grip and Stiles feels his restraint slip because he's a desperate teenage boy with no self-control.
He comes embarrassingly fast, all the tension wound tightly around his spine spilling from him in one broken cry, and then the fingers on his cock are slipping away and Stiles is left with nothing but the residual shock and fierce waves of an orgasm.
"Think about it," Peter says, brushing his hands off on his pants, all nonchalance and private smiles, and Stiles feels like he's just been struck over the head with an anvil.
He thinks about it.
The dorm room is unspeakably small, musty, and smells nothing like home.
It fits two beds crammed up against the wall, a wardrobe with a crooked leg Scott is using his biology textbook for to keep upright, a mini fridge full of booze, a tiny countertop with a sink that is probably masquerading as the kitchen, and a bathroom that approximately half of Stiles can successfully fit into. Peter would look good pushing him against every surface.
And there they are, the thoughts that pop up intermittently and make Stiles want to jam his iPod earbuds in his ear and blast Weezer. He's not fucking heartbroken. If anything, he's angry, especially at his brain and the way it's apparently even hard wired to supply images of Peter sweaty and orgasmic whenever Stiles masturbates in the shower. It's like a trying to program someone off speed dial but he doesn't remember how to operate his phone.
He's grumpy too, and probably frumpy as well if the state of his clothes are any indication. Scott keeps giving him looks, looks like he knows, and Stiles doesn't even want to tell him because the idea of hearing the words out loud makes him cringe. It's like when he was in high school trying to brainstorm for an essay, the words all wrong and the ideas jumbled. Not that there is a right, organized way to say "my judgment in lovers lapsed and I picked one who probably fantasized about killing me and the entire town too."
He sets down the box he's holding, full of ratty pillowcases and worn picture frames. A new start is what he needs. Surely college will provide that, and in a few months life will be happy again, full of good decisions and dorm room parties. Go find yourself a frat boy, Peter had so generously advised. They'll be gagging for it, he had said. Stiles is looking forward to it.
So here's his new start, in the shape of a smaller living space, paper thin walls, and a daily schedule of running across an unfamiliar campus, and a new him, complete with a slightly more bitter view of the world. At least he's no longer in danger of running into Peter at the supermarket and catching his eyes over the frozen pizzas, and at least he's still got Scott with him, even if he comes with concerned glances when he thinks Stiles isn't looking. Things couldn't be better.
Stiles looks over his shoulder and waits to see his father thumping up the stairs with yet more boxes, instead finding a handful of giggling college students lugging hampers up on their hips into the room across the hall. They look like fun, the kind of friends Stiles could stand to have, so he closes the door before they notice him.
For a while, anger feels the best out of all of the emotions clawing their way out of his brain.
Anger feels really good, actually. Anger doesn't disillusion him like affection or happiness did. Anger knows perfectly well that what he and Peter had was never anything more or anything less than what he originally agreed to, and anger keeps him from wanting to fill up his gas tank to drive back out into the city to Peter's place and knock uninvited on his door. Anger is his new best friend.
After the anger comes the name calling, revenge's slightly more mature older sibling, and after that comes homework. And that's enough stress to drown out everything from unfinished emotional business to the kind of bitterness that makes him consider using hoodoo to ease his conscience.
Peter was like a toxic substance, the sort of poison he had to sweat out of his system. Never would Stiles look back and label that monstrosity as a relationship, because Stiles is a firm believer of the feet-on-the-ground mentality. There was sex, and then there wasn't. Surely there'll be new sex soon, sex with strangers and handsome college kids, and then Peter will finally have the decency to crawl out of his dreams and his thoughts.
"So, um," Scott says. He's sitting by the desk, tipping left and right in the creaking swivel chair, while Stiles stays sprawled over the bed trying to drown out the sound of what he's pretty sure is Taylor Swift bleeding through the wall next door while he's trying to focus on studying. His eyes are running over the words without ever reading them, the same sentences boring into his eyes as he tries to restart paragraphs and will his concentration to try harder. "When is Peter coming?"
He asks it apprehensively, almost like he already knows the answer. Stiles looks up from his scrawled notes and feels Peter's name hit him like a bucket of cold water chattering his teeth. He can't deny Scott, not when he's looking at him with gentle eyes that are wordlessly telling him he doesn't have to share anything he's not comfortable talking about. Stiles simultaneously hates and adores that particular character trait.
"Yeah, we're not," Stiles wishes there was something he could hold onto just to occupy his nervous fingers, the pages of his notebook too thin. "We're not doing that anymore."
He avoids Scott's eyes and waits with his breath lodged in his throat for the inevitable questions. What happened? Are you okay? Did he hurt you?
"Oh," is what Scott ends up saying softly, probably picking up on all of Stiles' thoughts. "How come?"
"Well," he thinks about it, and all the answers he could respond with, most of them probably true. Scott probably knows anyway. "College, and... you know."
Scott nods slowly with an apologetic smile and lets it drop, Stiles mildly disappointed that Scott didn't persist if only to get the weight of the truth off his shoulders. What would he have even said if Scott had touched his forearm in the way Stiles can never deny and asked for honesty? That Peter's the same vengeful villain that everyone warned him he was? That he'd rather kill off Stiles' best friend instead of invest time and energy into becoming an actual three-dimensional human being?
The music is pulsing through the wall now, a truly terrible wailing from the sophomore girl next door that knows nothing of dorm room etiquette, and it's making Stiles' head hurt. He looks up and Scott's still looking at him, just a soft glance that isn't demanding any more answers. He remembers their conversation from weeks ago, how Scott had told him he was worried about Stiles getting hurt and how Stiles had dismissed it. There's an unspoken told you so in the air, one Stiles' own brain is singsonging. He feels incredibly stupid. He feels duped.
He gets up, feeling slightly jittery and his chest a little tighter, and he moves to grab his backpack from where he dropped it by the door. He opens it up, pushing aside notebooks and scattered pens to feel for the bottom. He scrapes the floor, nothing but gathered crumbs and bit of paper, and realizes with lead in his stomach that his inhaler is just another piece of collateral damage that Peter got custody of.
Alongside his sanity, probably.
There's a cute guy in Stiles' literature lecture, messy mop of blonde hair and bright eyes that look perpetually sun-kissed even under the harsh lighting of classroom fluorescents, and it takes four days of class for Stiles to pick up on the covert stares he's been throwing him.
It takes him another four to come up to Stiles, sliding up to his desk after class is dismissed and throwing a breezy, very white smile in his face. He's very cute, something in his shy grins oddly endearing.
"I hope this isn't too forward or that I was getting the wrong vibe from you," the boy says as everyone else files out the classroom around them, one hand on the back of his neck like he's charming and sheepish all at once. "But maybe we could go out sometime?"
He really does have a nice smile, Stiles thinks. All bright teeth and genuine interest, like he actually cares about what Stiles has to say, and all Stiles can think of is I want to corrupt you and kiss you so hard I leave bruises when this nice boy is asking him for a date. The thought hits him like a snowball to the head, this one definitely part ice, and he tries to shake it off. He's screwed in the head.
Oh, he realizes, staring right into the boy's innocent face. So that's how Peter got as fucked up as he is.
He says no.
The good thing about living in the dorms? Parties. Parties with alcohol. Parties with so much alcohol Stiles is trying to drum up the wittiest pick up line in his repertoire to use on everybody in the room, ranging from the guy making eyes at him to the lamp in the corner.
Stiles doesn't know the name of a single soul in this entire dorm room, about two floors over his and Scott's humble abode, and isn't even entirely sure how he got invited. Then again, as he looks around and gets a good look at the array of girls in pleather shrieking karaoke by the drinks and the boys grinding up on inanimate objects, Stiles figures this kind of party definitely isn't the type to turn anyone away at the door. He looks over and feels hungry eyes on him from the corner again.
The guy in question by the corner is fairly hot considering he's already shirtless, and in the blur of Stiles' drunken vision, looks vaguely like a fresh out of the box life-sized version of a Ken doll—but really, a large plant could catch Stiles' interest right now. He's so over it, so very over all of it, so over the persistent memory of Peter's fingers dancing up his thighs, and he feels the aching need to prove it to a room full of clumsily dancing strangers.
He downs the last of the vodka shot in his hand, oddly pink and quite tropical in his mouth right before it runs down his throat like gasoline, and there come Peter's words floating back to the surface.
Frat boys will be gagging for a mouth like yours, he had said. I don't care if you fuck other guys is what he might as well have said after he had cracked a joke at the idea of minding if Stiles becomes a freshman lothario and turns his dorm room into a twenty-four-seven brothel. Such a bastard.
But he seems to have found the frat boy who will be gagging for it, and that's exactly what he needs to get his revenge and seal the prophecy, so he trots up to him with minimal stumbling and steadies himself on the wall as a picture of natural nonchalance. He's drunk thanks to all the tequila and vodka, past the point of harmlessly tipsy but not yet at the point where he thinks passing out in the bathtub is a good idea. In Stiles' opinion, it's the perfect level of intoxication for shameless flirting.
"Nice shirt," he says, and right, he's shirtless. It seems to work anyway, though, because the pretty boy is laughing and tilting his body towards him. He looks nothing like Peter, tanned skin from head to toe and sharp green eyes like he spends his free time lifeguarding at the beach or catching waves, and that's exactly what Stiles needs right now. The anti-Peter. Someone without facial hair who gets squeamish around blood will probably do the trick.
"Thanks," the boy says, deep laughter tumbling out his throat. "You're new here, right? I would've remembered your face."
Stiles resists the urge to pump his fist into the air because hook, line and sinker, he's got himself a live one. "1988 called, it wants its pickup line back," Stiles says with a wink that was all the alcohol's doing. "I'm a freshman."
"You're cute," pretty boy says, clearly intrigued by Stiles' mouth if nothing else if the way he keeps openly staring is any indication, so Stiles cuts the small talk.
"I know," he says with a cheeky grin, and then leans in closer. "Wanna get naked in the bathroom?"
Pretty boy's eyes flash, probably a blend of arousal and surprise that Stiles takes as a yes. It's all in the charm of the crooked smile, he thinks, and then the boy is grabbing him by the elbow and guiding him to the bathroom. Helpful, he thinks, because Stiles probably would've led them both to the refrigerator and pulled his pants down.
He's being ushered into a bathroom before he can blink, people squeezing in too tightly around him as they dance and stumble, and a relieving wave of silence engulfs him as he makes it to the tiny bathroom. The noise is muted here, the door closed and locked as Stiles' companion slips inside after him. Perfect, great, now to the promise to get naked.
"Yeah, let's do this," the boy says, clearly pumped, and Stiles drags him in by the belt. His lips are sugary like he's been licking off the rim of tequila glasses, and Stiles is really, really not interested in kissing him.
A knock on the door sounds a moment later, loud and intrusive, someone whining about needing a piss. Stiles has no sympathy for any full-bladdered fellow at the moment.
"Fuck off!" Pretty boy yells at the door, mumbled swears filtering through a second later. He turns back to Stiles, unabashedly eager. "How about a blowjob, yeah?"
There's a thumb rubbing on Stiles' lower lip, wiping off the shine of alcohol, and Stiles vaguely registers the word blowjob making it through his ear. God yes.
"You first," Stiles says, and then the boy is cursing about Stiles' mouth, his body, how he's hard through his jeans, and Stiles just nods through it all. Who cares what this kid has to say? All Stiles wants to know is what else that tongue can do.
The boy pushes him against the counter, Stiles' eyes finding a neat selection of deodorant and hair ties by the sink. He has a brief moment of wavering confusion poke through the swamp of inebriation that set up camp in his mind where he wonders whose bathroom he's in, or what that boy's name even is, and then the moment gives way for more important things, like hands on his waist. The boy's fingers land in the curve of his hipbones, right where Peter would hold him, right where the bruises would turn purple, and Stiles pushes his hands away.
"Not there," he mumbles, and the boy doesn't even hear him over the thump of the bass from outside. He maneuvers Stiles against the counter and sinks to his knees, the question and answer portion of the evening over.
The sink is jammed into the small of his back, the hands fumbling with his jeans insistently pushing him into place. The music is loud, too loud even through the bathroom door, and Stiles squeezes his eyes shut to block out the noise.
"God yes," the boy on his knees is saying, his hands tossing aside Stiles' belt. "Can't wait to suck you off. Can't wait to have you suck me off, all cause of your damn mouth."
Stiles smiles lazily and twines his hands into the boy's hair—a little greasy for his liking—and pulls him to his erection. Serves Peter right, after all he's put him through. Turns out he wasn't wrong about Stiles' mouth being the hottest attraction in town.
"Yeah," Stiles slurs back, the only word he can manage to pull from his word bank. It seems to be enough for his companion, who chortles at just how drunk Stiles is as he hiccups. Vodka, now there's a friend Stiles can always trust.
His pants are off now, pooled around his ankles, and his boxers are next to go. His mind wanders, remembering the last time he had vodka. Peter's apartment, sprawled on the cool floor, Peter's lap warm like the beach under his head. He remembers laughing, the room being too hot.
A rough hand cups him through his boxers, the touch foreign, but it still runs through Stiles like a spark. He pulls on pretty boy's hair.
Peter, he thinks, Peter, Peter, Peter, that same lazy smile still curving his lips. He's crazy for his name, even how it feels like coming just circling through his mind.
The hand feeling him harden through his underwear slides to an abrupt stop, Stiles looking down at the furrowed eyebrows kneeled between his legs.
"Who's Peter?" the boy asks. "You don't have a boyfriend, do you?"
He's sure he wasn't saying that out loud. Positively. He turns a little pink at the idea and shakes his head, and that was a big mistake, because the alcohol seems to rattle in his brain and push the nausea forth. "Not even close." He frowns hard, because how did Peter get involved? It's all anyone ever wants to talk about, over and over until Stiles thinks getting over his fuck buddy is impossible, the kind of feat only accomplishable in the movies. "How do you know about Peter?"
Pretty boy's eyebrows get more perplexed by the second. "You just said his name."
"What?" Stiles laughs, laughs so hard he hits the back of his head on the mirror. The pink on his cheeks persists, spreading to his ears. "I didn't. I wouldn't." He raises his head, eyes scanning the room from the tacky shower curtain pattern to the rug by the toilet that's been slid out of place by his new friend's knees. "He's not here, is he?"
"Fuck if I know," he's no longer on his knees now, indignantly rising to his feet. "Why, is he big?"
"Oh, yeah," Stiles heaves through a sigh. "Bit of a tummy, but—damn, he's strong."
Probably not what pretty boy wanted to hear, Stiles realizes a moment later as a flash of panic flits over his eyes. Stiles tries to grab him by the arm and reel him back in, just now noticing how neglected his cock has become, and the boy twists his arm free of Stiles' grip.
"I don't want to get involved in something complicated, man," the guy says, and Stiles tries to shake his head to convince him to stay even as the room starts shaking again. He doesn't look as cute anymore, too panicked to look good wrapped around Stiles' dick.
"It's fine, it's fine," Stiles tells him, but he's already slipping out the door, Stiles' drunken babbling clearly not persuading him to stay.
The door closes with a finality a second later, briefly letting in the sounds of happy laughter and loud music from the other room. He realizes then that he's in a foreign bathroom with his pants pooled around his ankles, and fiercely humiliated and dizzy to boot, he falls onto the toilet seat to ground himself. He was promised college would be nicer.
And god knows how it would be if Peter was here. If it had all gone down like Stiles had tentatively suggested that day in Peter's apartment with all that wine. Maybe if Peter hadn't been so stubborn, they'd be here together, naked on Stiles' bed trying to suck marks into each other's skin—Peter more successfully than Stiles. Maybe stubborn isn't the right word. Maybe invested, or even interested. Maybe Stiles wasn't the first boy Peter had played around with for shits and giggles.
So here he is, alone on a toilet in a dorm room he doesn't belong in, no blowjob the wiser. This is probably a new personal low.
A soft knock on the door breaks Stiles out of his thoughts. A voice, muffled by the door, speaks up a moment later. "Stiles?"
It's Scott, thank god, and Stiles watches as the door opens a sliver and Scott's face pokes through. He slips inside and shuts the door behind him, kneeling by the toilet.
"I need help," he says morosely, "getting my pants up."
"It's okay," Scott is saying, always helpful, always kind. Stiles reaches out to pet him on the head as a dry sob breaks through his mouth. This is the lowest of the low, so low he's passed the gutter, so low he's passed the earth's crust and is now swimming uncertainly in lava. Scott brings him to his feet and buttons his pants up for him, and then he's slinging Stiles' arm over his shoulder and steadying him on his way out.
The world stumbles underneath him, the tequila blurring the floor, and Stiles clutches onto Scott as his knees buckle. He's pretty sure if the blowjob had been successful, he would have passed out on the toilet and woken up with a sandy mouth and a construction site drilling in his brain in a bathroom he didn't recognize. Finding his way back to his room definitely wouldn't have been an option, not with the way the floor keeps trying to magnetically pull him down.
"You're not really yourself these days," Scott says, and he sounds sad and worried and somehow distant as the ringing in Stiles' ears mutes out the rest of the noise as Scott lugs him across the loud party. People are jumping, grinding, bouncing together and Stiles feels like all of Beacon Hills has squeezed between him and the door out.
"I know," Stiles tells him miserably, but the words get swallowed up by laughing partygoers and remixed dance songs. He lets his eyes droop shut.
And then all he remembers is falling on something soft, something that feels like his unmade bed and smells like the cheesy chips he ate before lunch that now make his drunken body want to vomit as he presses his nose into his pillow.
Look at me now, he wants to scream with confidence off the rooftops, but he's afraid people would actually look.
He deletes Peter out of his phone after that, still hungover and spending his Monday coddled in bed while Scott picks up greasy Mexican for him. It feels a little heavier than it should as he scrolls down to the delete button in his contacts considering he's not exactly going to miss Peter's late night booty call text messages, but it feels final nonetheless. Like with his number vanished from his contacts, Peter could fall off the face of the earth and he'd never know. Or get killed in his sleep, which is the likelier option.
He sweeps through a week's worth of text messages despite the sirens warning him away before he pushes them all into cyberspace trash, his eyes catching on messages like "my mouth is missing you in it" and "get some rest, I'm planning on wrecking you tomorrow ;)"
Winky faces, for god's sake. Stiles doesn't know anybody else who can make winky faces work. With Peter they look suggestive and flirty and even a little naughty, probably endearing in a way that nobody else would agree with Stiles on. Everybody else using winky faces instantly turns into an eleven-year-old who's arguably too young to have their own phone.
It's strange, because Stiles doesn't think anybody else has received text messages from Peter with any kind of decorative faces attached. Actually, he's pretty sure they haven't received texts from Peter at all. Maybe it was something Peter reserved for him, something private just like the marks on his thigh hidden from the rest of the world. For fuck buddies, they sure had a lot of private things exclusive to them, Stiles thinks, and then as a tiny flicker of hope lights up in his brain, he smashes it down.
So what if Peter saw him as more and decided to push aside his feelings for the sake of his evil reputation? So what if he was too proud to say what he was really thinking, like that he was jealous and interested and becoming prey to emotions, and thought indulging in such human things would make him weak? In the end, Stiles didn't win out. He came in as runner-up to Peter's plans to become the Alpha and take over the world and be crowned the king of hell, and that's what actually matters.
He presses delete and flings his phone across the bed. He could get the number back, text Derek asking for it or track it down online, but he won't. He won't.
Stiles is wearing a pair of pajamas that haven't seen soap in weeks and has mustard stains dribbled down his shirt when two weeks into freshmen year, a knock raps on his dorm room door.
He looks down at himself and the state his habitat has fallen into, notes scattered on the floor and empty cans of soda starting an army on his desk. This is the sad result of higher education, he thinks, or possibly the result of misguided fuck buddies. There's no way he's letting anyone but Scott see him this way, not while others still believe the illusion that he's a real boy who knows how to shower.
The knocking stops, only to continue insistently a minute later. Maybe if Stiles stays very quiet, he'll be left in peace with his mountain of homework.
"Scott?" a familiar voice calls through the door, and Stiles perks up.
He gets up, brushing the crumbs off his lap to peer through the peep hole, and yup, in all of his leather jacket glory is Derek, face grim and hands stuffed in his pockets. Stiles opens the door and tries not to notice the patronizing arch of Derek's eyebrow as he gives Stiles' disheveled pajama fashion a onceover.
"Hey," Stiles says. "Scott's not here right now."
Derek shrugs, just a tiny lift of his shoulders. "Mind if I come in?"
Stiles looks over his shoulder at the cluttered mess his room is, boxers on the floor and papers scattered on the desk, and figures might as well. He moves aside from the threshold and lets Derek step inside.
"Guess not," he says, and closes the door behind him as Derek looks around with a few glances here and there. There's something reserved in his step, a small rigidness to his posture, and it only takes one pointed look directly at Stiles for Stiles to figure out why. He frowns.
"So you heard," Stiles says dryly. "Big news in the Hale Family Newsletter or what?"
Derek shrugs with his hands lodged in his pockets, quite ambiguously, like that's the extent of how involved he wants to get.
"He told me," Derek says. His eyes are watching Stiles carefully, like there's something on his face. It's probably emotion, but there's a good chance that it's mustard as well.
"Well?" Stiles dwells when his gaze doesn't relent. "How is he?"
He doesn't care, he doesn't care, he so does not care. He bites on his lip to refrain from adding that bit even though it itches insistently at his tongue. Derek shrugs again.
"Like Peter," Derek tells him.
"Good," Stiles grits out with a laugh that even grates on his own nerves. "Cause I was imagining him drowning in his own tears because he lost the hottest thing he ever had."
It falls a little flat when his voice sounds more bitter, wistful, and just jaded enough to rival an old woman's, rather than jovial and snarky. Was his wit another thing he accidentally left behind in Peter's apartment?
"He's not exactly a big sharer," Derek says. "So if you're looking for answers, you should probably talk to him."
"No way," Stiles says much too quickly. Derek's eyebrows rise with the barest hint of interest, and now Stiles feels the obligation to unload his worries onto Derek Hale of all people. "It's nothing."
"You going to tell me what happened?" It's fairly gentle considering Derek is the one speaking, but for a question, it sounds an awful lot like a demand. Seems that particular trait runs in the family.
"Didn't he tell you?"
"Not really."
"Okay, fine," Stiles says through a frustrated sigh. "He's a fucking psychopath, did you know that? All he cares about is becoming a big bad alpha, and whatever I was along the way was slim pickings to the prize he really wants."
He feels the strong urge to sit down and hold onto something solid, but under Derek's unwavering gaze, he holds his ground and stays on his feet. He's a bit too sober for this conversation, but it's only four in the afternoon and it's probably too early to sneak the booze he has hidden under his bed away from his RA's eyes into the daylight.
"He said that?"
"He didn't have to," Stiles says. Derek's eyebrows furrow, unconvinced, and Stiles scowls. "Trust me."
"I believe you," Derek says, even if his eyebrows and fists in his leather jacket say differently. "You left?"
"No, I went to college," Stiles says hotly. "I just didn't ask him to come visit."
It's a very neat way of looking at it, similar to the condensed version of half-truths he tells Scott. Except for the bit where he had asked him to come visit, and Peter had laughed it off. Stiles refrains from adding that bit for the sake of his own dignity.
"I told him you would," Derek says. His eyes travel away from Stiles' face, falling on the piles of clothing on the floor and the scattered homework on Stiles' unmade bed. His eyes stop on the upturned bottle of Ibuprofen and tall glass of water on his nightstand, Stiles' homemade hangover remedies. "Leave, that is."
Stiles blinks, and Derek's attention falls back to him. "Why are you saying that like he's the one who drew the short stick in all of this and I just snubbed him?" Stiles asks, drawing himself up. It makes him wonder what Derek's not telling him, what version of this story Peter is blabbing all over town. He doesn't seem like the type to gossip about his sex escapades, much less his feelings, but Derek's statement is heavy with too much subtext. "I'm the one who drew the short stick. My stick is so short I have a fucking toothpick. No, I have that tiny piece of lead that breaks off from a pencil. That is how short my stick is."
Derek seems taken aback at that, raising his eyebrows. Stiles doesn't even want to have this conversation, doesn't want to worry about rehashing the things he spent most of last night and a lot of vodka on trying to forget. "Is that so?"
"I offered that we continue this—this thing," Stiles says, still unsure as his tongue tries to wrap around a word that'll properly describe it. He can't find one. "He said no." He crosses his arms. "I don't know what he's been telling you, but he's not the poor rejected soul in all this. He knows exactly where to find me."
"He didn't tell me anything," Derek says. Stiles wishes he would say more, even if it's judgment. He could probably really use someone snapping him out of his funk, someone to grab him by the shoulders and slowly tell him that he's mooning over Peter Hale.
"Oh," Stiles deflates a little. Of course he didn't. Of course Peter wouldn't share. Peter's not as human as Stiles is always pretending he is. He has such bad taste in men. "I'm not really surprised."
Derek's giving him an odd look now, too scrutinizing to be comfortable. "You really asked him to visit?"
"Yeah," Stiles says. He waits for the laughter because ha, ha, Stiles tried to rehabilitate a cold-blooded murderer like some twisted version of Pretty Woman. Derek doesn't laugh.
"And he said no?"
"Yeah? Is that surprising?"
Derek considers it. "Actually, yes," he says after a moment's pause.
Stiles scoffs. "Why, because he's such a big softie? Because I turned him into a giant Carebear?"
Derek smiles this time, directing it at the floor. Stiles wishes he was in on the big secret, on all the thoughts Derek is locking away inside his brain for the greater good. Or maybe just to keep Stiles in suspense. Maybe it amuses him to watch a disaster unfold when it doesn't involve his own pain for once.
"Tell Scott I stopped by," Derek says, already headed for the door. Stiles tries to reel him back in, taking a step after him, but Derek seems to have no interest in revealing whatever he knows. Is Peter secretly mourning Stiles and has shut himself away in his apartment? Does he miss him? Does he actually have a working, beating heart?
Derek shares nothing. He's being so cryptic, as usual. Stiles watches him close the door behind him, the gears clearly turning behind his eyes and completely uninterested in sharing. Stiles hates the whole fucking family.
Stiles parks the jeep and listens to its answering whine, long and croaky, as the engine settles. He needs a new car. Maybe he needs a whole new look, starting with a new haircut and new clothes. Maybe he should just bite the bullet and buy a leather jacket already.
"What if I shaved all my hair off again?" Stiles suggests, running a hand through the untamed strands by his forehead. "Once finals come around I probably shouldn't have anything on my head long enough to tear out in sheer frustration."
Nothing for Peter's hands to hold onto, nothing to use as leverage while there's a mouth hollowed around his dick. Yeah, a haircut might be in order.
"That'd be weird," Scott tells him. "You haven't had hair that short since… sophomore year."
"I miss my buzzcut," Stiles says, and runs his hand through his hair, ruffling the strands. It's too long for comfort now, too much maintenance when he's busy throwing himself into procrastinating his schoolwork and wasting his life on the internet. He turns to Scott. "So what's on the agenda tonight?"
"I have plans," Scott says vaguely, something suspicious in his voice as he waves casually at the air while he holds open the dormitory door for Stiles.
"Oh, that's fine," Stiles says. "I have a cup of noodles and season two of One Tree Hill calling my name."
Scott stops in his tracks. "No, I mean," he pauses. "I have plans for you."
Well, that's concerning. Stiles freezes and considers the possibilities. Fun day at the carnival? Long marathon at the movies alone to wallow in the misery of his over-buttered popcorn?
Scott's face breaks out in a happy grin, like he's just managed to single-handedly fix a problem. Stiles feels something that is probably incoming nausea and nearly trips over the stairs they're walking up.
"What did you do?" Stiles asks, paralyzed.
"I talked to Peter," Scott says, biting down on his lower lip to contain his bliss at the idea of bettering Stiles' life. It's so, so sweet and simultaneously so, so wrong, and that's probably what Stiles gets for lying to his best friend. "And told him how... upset you've been. And he agreed to come out here and talk."
Scott looks so proud, reaching out to squeeze Stiles' shoulder like a dad handing out allowance, and Stiles almost can't bring himself to burst his bubble of satisfaction up until he remembers that Peter is coming here to see Stiles face to face when Stiles still can't even think about his name without tasting regret and bad decisions on his tongue.
"Oh my god," Stiles desperately latches onto tufts of his own hair. "Here, coming here—when?"
Scott rolls from the balls of his feet to the tips, cheekier still. "Now. He's in there. In our dorm room."
Stiles looks over Scott's shoulder at their door, so seemingly harmless, except that Peter's sitting on the other side, and now the only place free of memories of Peter will be tainted with images of him leaning against wardrobes and rifling through Stiles' sock drawer. He can't go in there, not when he was doing a perfectly good job desensitizing himself of affairs with older men and shoving the past into the musty corner of his mind where all the cobwebs and morbid moments go to be repressed.
"I just—you seemed so down these last few weeks," Scott is saying. "And I know it's weird because—well, it's Peter—but I want you guys to work it out if you can."
He looks incredibly earnest, like he really does want to support Stiles' relationship with a man charged with murder and deception and suffering under delusions of taking-over-the-world-schemes, Pinkie and the Brain style. Stiles will not be Pinkie.
If only Scott knew, Stiles thinks quite morosely. He sees what's on the surface, what Stiles wants everyone including himself to believe, that Peter and him were in a functional, casual relationship that ended due to long distance. Except life isn't simple when it comes to Stiles, like the deities decided upon it the minute he was born—that one, he'll be great for entertainment.
"Scott, this is—wow," Stiles says around the lump in his throat as the door stares him down. There's a man a wall away waiting for him in the other room, and yet Peter being all the way across the sea in China probably wouldn't be enough distance. "But I don't think our problems can be solved that easily."
Scott grips his other shoulder. "You have to at least try. You owe it to yourself."
Stiles owes himself a lot of things, dealing with Peter Hale not being one of them.
Scott leaves, and Stiles spends the next two minutes pacing aggressively back and forth from the soda machine to the door, wondering if what's behind it is worth the effort it'll take to open the door and step inside and face the tsunami. He considers running, just grabbing the keys in his pocket and taking a long drive, because Peter's patience is nothing if not extremely thin.
But then he's staring at the door, so seemingly innocent, and curiosity pulls at him like a hook in his chest. It's his biggest flaw, the one thing that he can't curb even when he knows it never fails to get him in trouble. In this case, trouble is Peter.
He opens the door, and everything is just as he left it. His homework stacked up on the desk and his overused mugs sitting crookedly in the sink, and Peter leaning against the fridge.
It feels a bit like a punch to the stomach seeing him. There's Peter, hip against the refrigerator handle and hands occupied with a bowl of cereal that he must've found after rifling through the cupboards unlawfully, eyes captivated by a collection of photographs of Scott and Stiles with their arms around each other on the tiny fridge resting on the countertop that takes up a fourth of the entire room, and Stiles was not ready to see him. An entire lifetime could've passed and it wouldn't have been enough separation time.
"Long time," Stiles says, and stops himself. He doesn't even know what to say, or what to ask. He feels suspended in the moment, the tension that comes with not even knowing how to carry himself weighing heavily on his shoulders. Considering that he used to spend most of his time around Peter naked head to toe, the uncertainty is almost ironic.
His instinct should probably be to show Peter straight to the door, because this can't be good, this isn't a Lifetime movie where the sentimental music starts to swell, but he watches Peter's spoon dig around in the milky bowl and feels something hit him like a lightning bolt straight to the chest. They're not about feelings, they were never about feelings or emotions, but even just watching him scoop cereal into his mouth sends him reeling.
Peter looks up when Stiles walks in and drops his keys on the countertop. He misses by a foot and a half.
"Stiles," Peter says. He says his name like something lost, like the missing memories you find years later stashed under the mattress with the dust bunnies. "This is a lovely… tuna can."
His hands sweeps over the dorm, encompassing the entire room. It's all classic snark, the snark Stiles left behind along with his trust, and that's all it takes for the anger to settle again. He lets his backpack slide off his shoulder with a loud thud on the floor, Peter standing in his crammed room like he somehow belongs there, and Stiles wants nothing more than to have Scott next to him just to keep him anchored.
"Why did you agree to come here?" Stiles manages to ask levelly. "Come back for more? Missed your boy toy?"
Peter sighs, sending a look to the cereal floating in his bowl like he's waiting for it to back him up. He sets the bowl aside a second later, crossing his arms in front of his body, always on the defensive. Stiles is stuck between what he wants to say and what he's been conditioned to do, the get out on his lips but the urge to touch on his hands.
"Stiles, please," Peter says on his heavy exhale, like even coming here was a step of growth for him. No, fuck that, he can do so much better than drive a few miles and eat food out of his cupboard. "Let's not be nasty."
"No, let's," Stiles says. He crosses his arms to mirror Peter. "Why are you here?"
Peter smiles, a frustratingly calm tug of his lips. "I was invited," he says. "Scott reached out to me."
"I know that," Stiles grits out. "But I didn't. And Scott doesn't know everything."
"Oh? Your best of best friends, and you're keeping secrets?"
God, Stiles really can't stand him. If only his body could get in on the memo, because his hands are itching by his sides to grab onto him. He looks good, hair combed and body slim in his unbearably tight Henley, and all Stiles wants to know is if it can get any tighter.
"Would you rather I tell him how much of a psychopath you are?"
Peter tsks, unimpressed by Stiles' antics, and he takes a step closer. The overwhelming urge to step forward as well tugs at Stiles' legs, anxious to mirror Peter, anxious to bridge the gap between them. Stiles stomps the hell out of that idea and wavers firmly on the spot.
"Sociopath is probably the word you're looking for," Peter says, and it looks like he's scanning Stiles' face for signs of—what? Fear? Slowly, he says, "You're angry."
"Yeah, I'm fucking angry," Stiles growls. "You should've known better than to come to my home."
"As I recall, I used to be quite a welcomed visitor in your home."
The jokes are not funny to Stiles. Not when he hasn't reached the point of laughing over his misguided friends with benefits fling yet, let alone talking about what happened, and Peter is already using it as ammunition to rub in Stiles' face.
"Used to," Stiles emphasizes. "Used to, as in, before you decided to use me to get to Scott."
Peter steps forward, a flash of something akin to frustration in his eyes. If he didn't want this conversation, he shouldn't have come, because he sure as hell shouldn't have expected that Stiles would leap into his arms like a lovestruck recreation of The Notebook. He stops right in front of Stiles, close enough to reach out and touch, and Stiles firmly holds his ground, refusing to be afraid of the man in front of him, not when he's no longer sixteen and trapped in his high school running from a madman. He's a grown-up, dammit.
"I didn't use you, Stiles," Peter says, and he sounds gravely serious, like Stiles is misunderstanding. He crowds in that much closer. "Frankly, you had nothing to do with my plans."
Stiles straightens up so he's that extra inch taller, glaring directly into Peter's face. Thank god they're the same height, not uneven by the few centimeters that would force Stiles to look up into his eyes. "Yeah, right," he scoffs, a self-deprecating grin on his face. "Your precious plan could probably benefit from my brains. I'm the best fucking thing that ever happened to you."
He stares at Peter; Peter stares back. The glare stays suspended between them like a string of electricity, both daring the other to either break the spell or up the ante. Peter apparently goes for the latter, because suddenly he's reeling Stiles in by the neck and pushing their mouths together.
Stiles' eyes widen for that moment where the world seems to crash down around him because Peter's kissing him, here in his dorm, just like how he was always imagining they would. Forget studying, how about endless days grinding on each other's laps while a fall breeze ruffles through the tiny windows. Peter nibbles on Stiles' lower lip, probably a challenge to kiss back, to respond, to angle their chests together and let it all go. Stiles does.
It feels a bit like coming home, that feeling in his chest when he calls up a friend he's lost touch with, their hands familiar on each other's skin as Peter backs him up into the kitchen, pushing against the fridge in the process. Stiles tries to say something about scattering magnets, something like be careful, you gigantor, but then Peter grabs him by his ass and tries to lift him up onto the countertop, sweeping dirty plates and used glasses aside and wiping his coherent thoughts away in the process as well, leaving nothing but oh god, god yes behind. Their lips feel nearly fused together, mouths hot and demanding as if aching to make up for lost time, and Stiles can't imagine anyone ever heating up his body like this, ever needing a touch so badly.
The plates tumble into the sink as Stiles slips onto the countertop, Peter's hands roving past his jeans and under the waistband of his boxers to slide over his ass, Stiles already feeling heady and dizzy and all the things that come with being in Peter's presence. Their bodies know each other perfectly, know how to fall back into each other without missing a beat.
If Stiles had better will power, this would be the moment when he's pushing Peter away and disentangling himself from what is already a car crash seconds away from happening, because nothing's changed and their last argument is still perfectly valid. It's a shame he really doesn't have that firm of control over himself.
"I don't—I mean—" He breaks away from Peter's lips and tries to find the right words to say that this doesn't mean a thing, that this doesn't change anything, even as his hands slide up Peter's chest to his shoulders just to keep him in place. Peter's warm against him, so warm, so distractingly warm.
"Shhh," Peter murmurs on his mouth, tugging at his lower lip with his teeth, and if it's a distraction method, it's working well. Stiles wraps his legs around his hips, desperate to keep them close, to feel him hot and demanding near his body. "Put that mouth to better use."
It makes Stiles chuckle even if it should probably insult him, but that's just it, he's too used to Peter's banter to be affected anymore. They know each other pretty well for two people who are supposedly just intimate with each other's personal sausages, and Stiles thinks maybe he should mention that out loud just to watch Peter roll his eyes.
His attention gets riveted elsewhere a moment later when Peter's hand slithers down to pull up the hem of his shirt, so very much in the way, slotting himself between Stiles' legs and letting their hips press together. His jeans are in the way too, way too many obstacles and only most of them clothing, and Stiles lifts his hands up above his head to let Peter pull his shirt away before licking back into his mouth, deepening their kiss past frantic teeth and lips working together. His fingers trail slowly down Stiles' chest, always the tease, as Stiles drags his mouth away to taste the skin right in the dip of his collarbone. So familiar.
Peter's hands slide to Stiles' pants to unbutton them, straight to the goods, and Stiles feels his hips wriggle impatiently against the fabric. He bites down on Peter's shoulder to motivate him, but all it does is pull a few laughs from Peter's throat. It vibrates against Stiles' chest, lighter than before even with mountains of homework on his desk and a lack of laundered clothes in his closet, but this, this feels easy.
"I have a bed," Stiles murmurs on his neck. It feels like it's going by too fast, like when you blink and the best part of a roller coaster has passed, and he wants to remember more, savor the way Peter's body feels pressed against his.
"Really?" Peter says, his lips brushing Stiles' ear as he sucks a spot behind it. His hands find Stiles' hips, their favorite place, and nestle over the bones where his fingerprints have faded. His thumb presses the skin and Stiles moans. "Does it even fit in here?"
He snorts, Stiles slapping his ass in retaliation. It feels so familiar it almost hurts, the banter and the way Stiles' legs slot around Peter's waist like they've rehearsed it. If only it wasn't so fucking easy, this thing with Peter.
"Bring me over," Stiles demands, wrapping his arms around Peter's neck and latching on. "Fuck me already."
His choice of words seems to break something in Peter's reserve, his teeth sinking into pulse point of Stiles' neck to draw out a gasp and claim his territory before following orders. He grabs Stiles and pushes their mouths together, teeth knocking, as he lifts him from the counter and carries him to the mattress. Their bodies press together almost sinfully like this, the clothes a hazard that probably never should've been invented, Peter's jeans keeping him from feeling the heat of his tented erection.
Peter drops him on the bed, mattress croaking at the weight, and Peter crawls over to him, pushing him down onto the pillows and reacquainting himself with Stiles' neck. His tongue flattens over the curve of his shoulder, taking his time tasting him, and Stiles faintly wraps his hands into Peter's hair tilts his hips upward for more attention.
"C'mon," Stiles whines, scrambling to grab onto Peter's shirt and pull it away. Peter lets him, tossing it on the floor where it'll no longer get in between Stiles and miles of untouched skin. He lifts his legs when he feels Peter starts to pull his jeans down, ready to salute them goodbye as they're tugged off his ankles before Peter leans in to nip at his ear, mouth warm on his skin.
"You're going to turn around for me," Peter tells him, Stiles nodding along helplessly. "And let me give your pretty ass the attention it deserves."
Well, fuck, fuck, fuck, Stiles is gone for. He doesn't want to leave this bed, not for class, not for food, and certainly not to find himself a real boyfriend. Who needs real boyfriends when he has a man who whispers compliments about his ass in his ear? That's all he really needs.
He follows instructions, rolling over and stealing glances over his shoulders. This is the bit he doesn't want to forget, the way Peter's eyes go black from dilating just looking at the curve of Stiles' naked back, the moles on his skin. Warm palms drag down his spine, his touch firm like unspoken promises to take care of him, and then he pulls his boxers down to his thighs, fingers cupping his ass. Stiles feels his chest heat up, his lungs work faster, Peter's index finger trailing lines down to the back of his thighs.
"Give me your wrists," Peter says, and when Stiles holds his arms out, he grips them both in one hand, fingers circling around his wrists and holding them captive over his head. It sends a fresh rush through Stiles' bloodstream, wrists in a firm hold, and oddly enough, he feels perfectly safe.
He looks over his shoulder, craning his neck even as it strains his muscles, just to get a look at Peter between his legs, hands running over the back of his thighs as he toes off his own pants and Stiles vaguely registers the sound of rustling fabric as he kicks them aside with his underwear. They're naked, he's naked, and for a second it feels like the first time they ever touched each other like this, Stiles vulnerable and inexplicably small in his own skin. Every touch feels magnified, like this is what Stiles' body was exclusively waiting for, and he lets his eyes flutter closed as he rests his cheek on the pillow.
"Who else have you let touch you?" Peter asks, roughly at best. His fingers are demanding on Stiles' wrists, digging in at the pulse points where his staccato heartbeat thumps through, and Stiles angles his head over his shoulder again, unable to look away for long.
"Like I'm going to tell you," he says. He should've done as Peter suggested and found the first drunken frat boy who ground against his hips at a party and let him suck Stiles off in the hallway, only to gloat about it now. The incident in the bathroom, Stiles slumped on a toilet seat with his pants hanging off his ankles, flits through his mind.
Peter growls. "Tell me." His voice has gotten dangerously low, low enough that Stiles sees a flash of blue in his eyes before it's gone again a moment later. Stiles hates his body for how it shudders at the sight of it, thrilled adrenaline striking him like lightning.
"No one," Stiles says, then pokes the bear as he readjusts his ass to grind against Peter's cock, just far away enough to keep the friction torturously at bay. "But people wanted to. I could tell from the way they only ever stared at my mouth."
It fires Peter up, that's for sure, and suddenly there are claws on Stiles' hips, his free hand digging the smallest of crescents into his flesh. Stiles' mouth falls open at that, how just one push and he could be breaking skin, but Stiles continues anyway.
"Probably wanted to fuck my mouth," he mumbles, feeling headier by the second. There's a film of arousal blanketed over him, controlling his words, his teasing ruts back into Peter's cock. "Boy in my class even wanted to court me."
"You won't let him," Peter says, right on his ear. His breath is warm on Stiles' skin, pulling shivers to the surface, and then the claws are retreating into blunt nails, leaving white marks in their wake. "None of them."
And then he slithers down his body, pulling the wrists he's holding captive above Stiles' head down to the small of his back, his grip tight as he presses an open-mouthed kiss on the inside of his thigh before biting down on the vulnerable, pale skin there. Stiles' entire body feels it like a gasping breath after breaking through the waterline.
He doesn't waste time, not when Stiles has teased him to the point of nearly primordial possessiveness, and Peter's tongue spends time mapping out the skin on the soft underside of his knees, the expanse of his thigh, even the curve of his ass before he sucks a dark mark there, right on his butt cheek. He bites down a moment later, soothing the hurt with an attentive tongue, and Stiles knows right away it'll be a red bruise he'll feel every time he sits down, almost as if Peter wanted to leave the kind of imprint that makes him unforgettable. As if he wants Stiles to remember, remember his touch and his tongue and his words whispered on his neck.
"Get on with it," Stiles mutters, spreading his legs and flexing his bound wrists, Peter's index finger trailing a slow line down his ass, over his hole, past his perineum while he chuckles at the way every inch sends Stiles reeling. He pushes his face into the pillow, and then Peter flicks his tongue out over his ass.
God, he missed this. Then Peter trails his tongue along the rim of his ass, tracing his puckered entrance, and then he pushes in and Stiles feels the heavens pulse around him complete with an angelic choir. Peter, Peter, Peter, his mind chants, and this time he's actually with the right man, not some nameless college kid pushing him into a bathroom. God, yes, Peter.
"Stop wearing it out," Peter murmurs directly on his ass with a sharp bite, and he really ought to watch his mouth a bit more.
Peter's tongue goes straight back to work—flat and then curled and then oh, inside—and Stiles bites onto the pillow to keep himself in check. He's pretty sure a few shuddering curses still make it out before the pillows muffles him enough to keep his swearing at bay, because staying still is probably the hardest thing he's ever had to convince his body to do.
He feels something that's probably a primordial growl by his ass right before Peter's tongue breaches him, working him open and pulling him apart with thumbs on his ass cheeks, and everything is warm and wet and lovely and Stiles wants to bottle up this particular brand of euphoria for bad days. He looks over his shoulder and there's Peter, eyes directly on him, and his hands kneading the skin on Stiles' thighs.
It all feels amazing, and then Peter's stubble slides against him and sends Stiles reeling into another dimension. Peter's murmuring on his hole, tongue sliding in and out in a rhythm that feels like he's slowly trying to kill Stiles one lick at a time. It feels like he's taking care of him, like he's giving him exactly what he needs, and that makes Stiles wants to laugh against the pillow. Peter taking care of him, honestly.
He feels like there's so much they never did. Flavored lube, or edible condoms, whatever happened to those ideas? Stiles wants more time, more time exploring Peter and learning the secrets of every nook of his body. He's pretty sure he could pass a lifetime discovering Peter. Peter's tongue flattens on his hole before pushing in, further than before, and already Stiles is close and his voice is breaking.
"I'm—I'm gonna come," Stiles gasps, already feeling the tension coil in his midsection and the sweat gather on his forehead.
Peter pulls back instantly, teeth grazing his thigh to pull him back from the edge.
"Don't," he warns. "Not until I say."
Stiles whimpers, feels that all too familiar tug of submission run through him as the pleasure tingles through his very fingertips. He cranes his head to look over his shoulder and there's Peter, mouth slick from eating Stiles out and eyes dilated like they've been dipped in black ink. Stiles never wants to abandon this feeling, the rush of pleasure like the tide sweeping in and out in uncontrollable waves. That's what Peter is, a freaking force of nature.
"Please," Stiles moans, his fingers already sore from being tensed into fists and his pillowcase wet from where he's been biting it. "Peter, please."
Peter leans in to circle his tongue around Stiles' hole, so light it's almost ticklish, and the sight alone makes Stiles' body want to come right here and now with Peter's mouth on his ass and his gaze locked with Stiles'. He holds himself back.
"You have no idea," Peter murmurs, shaking his head. The unadulterated lust in his eyes has been replaced with something akin to reverence, almost as if he can't fathom even the idea of Stiles spread out naked and wanting on his bed, all for him. "You look so... it's a miracle I haven't wrecked you yet."
"Halfway there," Stiles rasps, and it's true. He's not sure he could survive a lifetime with Peter.
"I'm going to fuck you," Peter tells him, nearly whispering as his eyes rove down Stiles' body, and Stiles feels a fresh shot of blood go straight south to his dick at that. He's so ready, so willing, and he arches his ass upwards to encourage him.
"Thank god," Stiles groans against the pillow. Everything about the bed is hot now, no longer cool sheets on his skin, and he writhes impatiently on the mattress. The image he must make. "Get the lube already."
Peter soothes him with a squeeze to his ass and a soft shushing, and Stiles watches he pulls a small tube out of his back pocket. He's torn between laughing with relief and smacking Peter upside the head. His libido is leaning toward the former.
"Someone's smug," Stiles says pointedly as Peter squeezes lube onto his fingers.
Peter leans in to chuckle. He murmurs by Stiles' ear, his captive wrists stuck between their bodies as he whispers, "I just know you're easy."
It jolts through Stiles' memory, a muggy summer and Stiles pulling open Peter's door announcing his appearance, Peter teasing him for the condoms in his bag. It seems fuzzy by now, the evening blurred by wine, but Peter remembers. Like Stiles is worth remembering.
And then he pushes a slick finger into Stiles' hole, already wet from his tongue, and Stiles' words are stolen from his mouth. He takes his time, easing in to the knuckle before tortuously pulling out again. He's such a tease, the worst of them all, and Stiles keens, pushing his ass into Peter's hands only to have him retract his finger once more.
He's about to yell at him to get a move on, to get this show on the road, but then Peter pushes in deep enough to crook his finger and hit his prostate and Stiles' complaints are swallowed with a loud groan sliding free without permission from his lips. It's probably exactly what Peter wanted to hear, sliding his finger free.
"More?" Peter murmurs. It's quiet in the room, nothing but shifting sheets and Stiles' broken breathing, but it feels like Peter's voice is all around him, filling his ears.
"If by more, you mean your cock, then yeah, yeah," Stiles stutters out. Peter kisses his shoulder, and then the notches of his spine, and then his cock is nestled between his ass, sliding upward and slick with lube. He skips over his hole, carefully pushing his erection between his ass cheeks.
Up and down. Up again. Stiles thinks he's going to scream into the ethers. Every push of Peter's dick brushes over his hole, as if he's waiting for Stiles to beg for more, and Stiles refuses to give Peter the satisfaction.
"What the fuck are you waiting for?" Stiles groans, and he's so agonizingly hard his eyes are nearly leaking at the pressure of it all. He already feels a circle of a bruise form where Peter's fingers are unrelenting on his wrist, his cock sliding against the rough fabric of his scratchy sheets in his search for friction.
"Maybe I just like admiring the view," Peter murmurs. His tongue is still on his skin, meticulously following the bumps and curves of Stiles' spine like he wants to taste every inch until his DNA is permanent in his mouth. His hands smooth out over Stiles' ass, spreading it until air hits his skin where it's still damp from Peter rimming his hole. He whines, every fiber of him needing to be fucked, wanting to be full, aching to have Peter bent over his backside while his hips slide into him.
"Stop teasing," Stiles all but croaks. "Just fuck me."
"You can ask more nicely than that," Peter murmurs, tongue hot on his back. Stiles wishes he had claws, just here and now, so he could rip Peter's head off and hold it hostage until he's properly fucked. His patience has run out.
"If you don't fuck me properly," Stiles snarls over his shoulder. Every inch of his body feels like it's sizzling with electricity, and there goes Peter's cock sliding over his entrance again, aggravating it that much more. "I'm going to castrate you. Here and now."
"Pushy," Peter murmurs, but there's something dark in his eyes like he's happy to comply.
He slides in without preamble after that, just one thrust home that his Stiles' jaw dropping open and a white heat exploding behind his eyelids like a swift kick to the gut. He hears Peter's moan of relief, like a man finding water in the desert, and Stiles can relate. A palm lands on Stiles' back, firm and questioning, wordlessly asking the still okay? that Peter's mouth never does. Stiles nods imperceptibly against the pillow and that's all it takes for Peter to slide out and push back in.
And god, the drag of Peter's thick cock inside of him is worse than heroin. It's an addiction Stiles can't sweat out, only craves that much more, and then Peter lets go of Stiles' bound hands to grip onto his hipbones, keeping him in place as he thrusts in again, and Stiles feels a part of himself he'll never get back again fly off to heaven. Or pledge allegiance to Peter's dick, alongside his brain cells.
"Amazing," Peter is murmuring, fingertip rubbing over Stiles' hole where he's stretched around Peter, and Stiles nods along uselessly. Yes, yes, yes to anything as long as this continues. As long as this moment stays important in his life, right up there with opening that trampoline on his seventh birthday, as long as he remembers how exhilarating it felt, everything will be fine.
"I know," Stiles breathes back. He doesn't know if Peter's talking about his ass or the sex or even just the fact that life has lead them both to this moment, but Stiles agrees that it's amazing. He has to get that out there, and his litany of groans emphasizes his sentiments perfectly.
Peter's cock nudges his prostate and there it is, just like sliding into third base. Safe, a commentator is probably yelling somewhere, but Peter is running all the way to fourth with Stiles yelling at him in the stands to go for it. As if Peter would ever do safe.
"Right there," Peter is saying, not even asking, because he knows Stiles' body better than Stiles does, knows his reactions to hair pulling and shoulder biting and how his legs quiver when he finds his prostate. It's such an intimate detail, different than any of the things that his father or Scott knows about him, and that should probably scare him. This man knows secrets about him, secrets that Stiles trusts him to keep, and he hopes to god that isn't the definition of love. He's screwed otherwise.
Peter changes his angle then, just a small tilt of his hips, and now he's sliding into Stiles like he belongs there, like he was built to wring broken sighs from Stiles' throat. His knowledge of Stiles' body is startling and frightening and thrilling all at once, like watching a plane crash from a distance. Maybe he is the plane crash.
Every thrust pushes Stiles' cock against the linens, back and forward, rutting against him and urging him that much closer. Stiles turns his head, his eyes hardly focusing on anything near him, and then Peter's hips snap forward again like Stiles is home plate.
"Can I—" Stiles moans, his voice frayed. "Let me."
"Yes, Stiles," Peter tells him, and there's the broad hand on his back again, the unspoken go ahead. His fingernails scrape Stiles' skin. "Come. Come for me, do it."
He does, probably hard enough to knock out a streetlamp, and then Peter's pulling out and coming on his backside, Stiles riding through all of it in a haze of boneless pleasure. He doesn't remember the last time he came like this, normally just a few moments of white behind his eyes in the shower and then it's all washed away, and then Peter's letting go of his wrists and sliding up to tuck him into his chest. He's sweaty and sticky and only half conscious of the world around him, but he doesn't bother to pull away from the overwhelming warmth that is Peter's torso. He's going to be so sore tomorrow, starting with his ass, and this is what happens when he swears off gay sex for months on end. He exhales, his lungs pushing out a breath that feels like one hundred worries all at once leaving his body, and then Peter's petting his hair and reaching around his hips to feel his swollen hole. Stiles jumps.
"Ah, so you're still alive," Peter says. Stiles bites him half-heartedly on the chest and pushes the sweat off his forehead, feeling thoroughly sated and limbless and slightly mummified.
"Barely," Stiles mumbles, dragging his nose up from Peter's chest to breathe in fresh air. It all feels like a second skin, he and Peter, rolled haphazardly around each other, and it probably shouldn't. It shouldn't be so nice.
"You're going to bruise," is the first thing Peter says after the silence settles, a mild observation from where he's slithered up to Stiles' side. A hand ghosts over Stiles' wrist, fingers trailing the red marks already crawling out to contrast with Stiles' pallid skin.
"Whose fault is that?" Stiles groans, a hand over his eyes. He lifts his wrist up to peek at between his fingers. "I look like I was arrested and fought my handcuffs. A lot."
"Ooh," Peter drawls, clearly intrigued by the idea of handcuffs. Then there's a pair of lips on his ear, dragging up the shell and pulling Stiles back to earth like a demanding tide in salty waters. "So should I send Scott a thank you card?"
Scott, right. That's all it takes for reality to settle back in like a voice yelling behind a curtain, disrupting the peace like a shrill whistle. Stiles peels his eyes open and twists away from the mouth on his ear.
"This doesn't change anything," he says, and if only his entire body could fold away from Peter. It refuses, drawn to the warmth of his bare torso. "I'm not angry, I'm just—" He sighs. He's tired, so tired of standing up for the good side. "We want different things doesn't even begin to cover it."
For a second, the moment feels precarious, like a teacup on the edge of a shelf or light staring right into dark, the air uncertain and raw with emotion. Stiles feels, very uncomfortably, just how naked he is, just how vulnerable he is, and he's about to squirm away to freedom when Peter's hand lands on his hip, softly this time.
"Stop," he says. It kills Stiles how he doesn't even need a vocabulary around Peter anymore, how easy it is to understand each other. "Stop thinking."
Fuck him for making it sound so simple, for him to make Stiles so two dimensional. "Fuck you," Stiles says. "Fuck how easy you try to make it, fuck you for messing this up so much. Fuck you for being exactly who you are when you know I need something else."
And that's not exactly fair, not when Peter is who he is and Stiles knew that from the start. He didn't sign up for the disillusionment package, as a matter of fact, he signed up for a package that didn't feature personalities at all. Stiles should've known better from the start.
Peter exhales, a heavy sound in the dim light. Stiles waits for the rebuttal, for the inevitable sarcastic dismissal of Stiles' histrionics, but instead there's an arm snaking around Stiles' waist, pulling him closer until their sticky bodies are pressed together. Oddly enough, it feels more intimate than anything else they've done today, and Stiles isn't even sure how to properly react until Peter's reaching for the discarded sheets to pull up to their chests.
"Just stop thinking," he says, quietly this time and just a little frustratingly, and Stiles doesn't have the energy to fight back.
Somehow he falls asleep, pillowed on Peter's sternum and his shoulders feeling lighter like an invisible burden he hadn't taken notice of has been removed, and it makes Stiles wonder if he's missing out on the message here. Maybe this is supposed to happen, maybe something higher in rank than him in the universe is watching these events unfold and saying finally, now don't screw it up.
It feels crazy even thinking it, but maybe it could work. Maybe it could all work, maybe it can be fixed. Stiles' fingers are warm where they're tangled with Peter's between them and his cheeks are sore from the burn of his stubble, and he still feels relieved. Something is probably psychologically wrong with him, but Stiles thinks normal is boring. Not being in a dysfunctional relationship with a man suffering from murderous impulses is boring.
I have not been myself lately, Stiles' brain is thinking, and it sounds like echoes of Scott's sad words mumbled in his ears as he slung his arm over his shoulder and lugged him home. He feels Peter's strong arm around his waist and modifies it to I am not myself these days without you here. He thinks about saying it out loud, but then—Peter might hear him.
"I don't like the person I am when you're not around," his mouth ends up saying out loud without permission from his brain. It's ridiculous, it sounds ridiculous as it leaves his brain, and he still feels like he has to say it out loud. He feels Peter's chest expand and press against his back as he inhales, and then exhales, even with sleep, but Peter says nothing, and Stiles finds himself suddenly wishing that Peter did hear him.
Tomorrow, Stiles thinks, and there's that crazy thought again—this might work with a bit of handiwork. Tomorrow he'll tell him.
Nine hours later when Stiles wakes up, Peter is gone.