Mischief Mondays Chapter 27: Stetopher - Sober, a teen wolf fanfic

Teen Wolf || Stetopher || Teen Wolf || Sober || Teen Wolf || Stetopher || Teen Wolf

Title: Sober – Mischief Mondays Series

Tags: m/m/m, polyamory, Erica Lives, Boyd Lives, Jackson Returns, Pack Alpha Peter, post-Nogitsune, alcoholism, hurt/comfort, fluff

Main Pairing: Chris/Peter/Stiles

Teen Wolf Characters: Mieczysław 'Stiles' Stilinski, Peter Hale, Chris Argent, Derek Hale, Erica Reyes, Vernon Boyd, Isaac Lahey, Jackson Whittemore, Lydia Martin, Cora Hale, Scott McCall, Allison Argent, Malia Tate, Kira Yukimura

Summary: The betas return from college and plan on moving into the Hale House. Before Stiles can do that, he needs to have a tough conversation with his pack about his best kept secret. Because he needs all alcohol out of the house if he wants to live there.

Sober

Mischief Mondays Series

Everyone was unpacking something somewhere around the house. It was loud, bustling with life. Laughter, arguments, things being dropped and breaking, cursing whenever furniture didn't cooperate. Stiles had a faint smile on his lip as he listened to the noise. How much he'd missed this. Well, not this in particular, since they had never all lived together. But the sound of his pack being happy and together. College had gone on forever, but it was finally over.

Everyone was back in Beacon Hills now and, especially after the years apart, the pack had decided to move together. While the betas had been away at college, Chris and Peter had rebuild the Hale House. Or rather, built a new Hale House, one that fit the needs of their pack, with bedrooms for them all, for exactly this occasion. Everyone moving in together, as one pack, the way the Hale Pack used to live, back before the fire. As a family.

Peter was a good Alpha, Chris was a good Alpha Mate. After Derek had been forced to give up the Alpha spark because the Darach had poisoned Cora, it took months to pick up the pieces and put them together again. Peter tracked down an Alpha to kill and then took over the Hale Pack. They were a work in progress all the way through graduation and when they finally had the real hang of working together, the freshly graduated teens went off to college. Now they were back.

"I'll pay for it!" Erica yelled loudly, following the sound of something breaking.

"Just stop dropping shit, Erica," Cora complained. "I liked that vase."

Stiles stood in the doorway of the kitchen and let his gaze wander even as his pack argued and bickered upstairs and nearby. There was a shelf with wine in the kitchen, because Boyd and Peter liked to cook with it, because Peter, Allison and Lydia liked to pair wine with dinner. Beer in the fridge, because Chris liked beer with dinner and with ballgames. An expensive bottle of sake that they had gotten from Noshiko. Vodka in the freezer, courtesy of Erica. And Chris and Peter's whiskey in the living room, in a tumbler with the Swarovski glasses.

They'd been back from college for varying lengths of time. Some of the betas had already moved into the house, others had returned home to their families to get settled in first before moving. Stiles stood with his arms crossed over his chest, gaze hardening as he took it all in.

"What are you just standing around for?" Jackson asked confused. "Get to work."

Jackson had returned to Beacon Hills after graduation too. The Hale Pack had been his first pack, Derek had taught him how to be a wolf over the summer and he had bonded with Isaac, Erica and Boyd. When Lydia had gone to England for college at the Cambridge University, she had reconnected with Jackson and they got back together. And now Jackson was back home.

"You haven't even unloaded the Jeep yet," Malia pointed out with a frown. "Why not? If it's too heavy, you should have just said so. Boyd! Come help me unload the Jeep!"

"There's something we need to talk about before I can do that."

Stiles pushed off the doorway when steps thundered up the stairs, down the stairs and down the hall. Within moments, he had the whole damn pack standing around. Peter and Chris exchanged a confused look before approaching Stiles. Sighing, Stiles went to the living room, knowing the wolves would follow him. He wanted to sit down for this conversation.

"Do you still have concerns because of your dad?" Kira asked with a concerned look.

"Can't be," Scott shook his head. "Ever since mom and him figured things out and moved in together, there's no reason for Stiles to stay. He'll be fine even without Stiles."

"I have a condition to moving into the pack house," Stiles spoke softly and sat down on the arm chair, facing the pack. "And it's fine if you don't want to do it. I don't mind living with dad and Melissa for a while before getting my own place. We'd still be pack."

"You're being very… enigmatic," Lydia raised her eyebrows. "What is it?"

"I need all alcohol gone from the house, if I live here."

There was silence for a long moment, while the pack settled in and exchanged glances. Most didn't seem to know what to say. Stiles was fine with that. He wanted this conversation to be over.

"I get not drinking," Isaac spoke slowly. "I don't really drink either. But that seems…"

"Just because you don't like it doesn't mean you get to impose it on others," Jackson said bluntly.

Stiles noted the way their Alphas didn't speak but stared so intensely at him. The majority of the pack seemed confused and reluctant. Stiles knew how he sounded. Like one of these pushy vegans who tried to force their diet on others. He could just leave it at that, right? He didn't have to… No, he had to. They were his pack, he had to be honest with them if he wanted to live with them.

"It's not because I don't like it. It's because I like it too much," Stiles whispered softly, staring down at the floor between his feet. "I'm an alcoholic. And I don't know if I can keep my sobriety with… with this much temptation all over. That's not your problem, it's mine. So if it's important to you to have your after work drink, the wine for dinner, or to celebrate together by getting drunk at home, I can respect that. And I can live somewhere else. No hard feelings."

"What do you mean you're an alcoholic?" Chris asked, concern written all over his face. "When… You never said… What happened at college, Stiles? You know you could have talked to us."

Stiles ran a shaking hand through his hair. "Didn't happen at college. Ironically, it was pretty damn easy to keep my sobriety at college."

"How," Allison asked surprised. "I mean, I remember, or don't remember, enough college parties."

"Didn't go to those," Stiles lifted a hand, waving it around a little. "Didn't make any friends who liked hanging out at bars, only the kind that hung out at libraries and coffee shops. Didn't join a fraternity. Went back home every single weekend so there was never a temptation to go out with any of my college friends to party and drink."

"When did you… start drinking?" Peter cut in, voice sharp but not with judgment, sharp with worry.

Now came the hard part. The not fun part. The part he wanted to skip. He licked his lips.

"After my mom died, my dad started drinking, I know you know that," Stiles whispered, unable to look at any of them as he spoke. "I was eight years old and a curious kid. Dad wasn't going to explain alcoholism to me – not that he was at a place where he would have admitted that was what he was dealing with back then. He just told me that it was 'medicine for adults', not for me."

Stiles paused, his hand shaking as he rubbed his mouth and chin for a moment. "Naturally, that didn't work on me. I wasn't stupid even back then, I figured out that dad was drinking because of mom's death. And mom's death had hurt me too. So after dad was passed out on the couch and when I couldn't sleep because I had nightmares about mom in the hospital room, I thought, well, the medicine helps him sleep. Maybe it'll help me sleep too."

Lydia made a horrified noise and there was some murmuring. Stiles was wringing his hands, his elbows on his knees and his feet tapping nervously. He hated remembering all of this.

"I was nine years old when I got admitted to the hospital with severe alcohol poisoning," Stiles took a shaky breath. "I mean, I didn't know what alcohol was, I didn't know what was happening. I just figured, more 'medicine' would help more. So I drank more. I didn't know the risks. I was nine."

Stiles rubbed his face with both hands. "I was in a coma for three days. They took me away from my dad when I woke up again. I lived with my uncle and aunt in Texas for a year, while dad got sober. Nearly losing me put the fear of god in him and sobered him up."

"Stiles…" Chris trailed off, not knowing what to say to that.

"That's why we met in second grade, Scotty," Stiles looked up at Scott now. "I was held back a year for obvious reasons and started in your grade when I returned to Beacon Hills."

"You never…" Scott looked like a kicked puppy. "You never said anything."

Stiles snorted softly. "Back then? All I wanted was to forget that. And later, I kinda… I thought I'd moved on from that. It was… It had happened, it was over. Dad was sober, I was still alive, all was good. And then you and I got drunk in the woods, after… When… You know, when all of this had first started, after the bite, with everything going on, when I was still hopelessly pining for Lydia. Everything was too much and my solution was for 'us' to get drunk in the woods."

Stiles pressed his lips together tensely, trying to focus on Scott alone, because he knew Scott the best and didn't know what the others may look like. "I drank the bottle alone and got blackout drunk. That was… That was the night I realized that I might not have moved on. That it wasn't just something I did as a kid not knowing what I was doing. I chose to drink to get through my problems and I drank too much. I started going to AA meetings after that."

"It's been ten years since then," Derek pointed out softly. "And you're still… struggling with it?"

"Just because I started going to AA meetings didn't magically fix things," Stiles looked at the former Alpha with both eyebrows raised. "A couple months later, I got possessed by a demon that was driving me out of my mind and to top it all off made me think I would be dying of the same thing as my mom. The reminder of my mom's death was a big trigger for me and I started drinking again. I covered it up. It was easy enough, you were all so distracted and distraught."

"Stiles, I wish…" Allison frowned at him, all worried and soft. "I wish you would have opened up to us and let us help you. We… We didn't exactly help, did we? We just put our worries onto you."

"You didn't mean to," Stiles shrugged. "But yeah. I was terrified of putting you all through the very thing I had gone through when my mom died. And… And after the possession, it was… I've been struggling with it ever since. You guys were such hovering presences after the possession, I didn't have half a second to drink, so in a way, you guys helped keep me sober after. When I left for college, I was pretty… confident in my sobriety and like I said, college was easy."

"College was easy. But you don't think this will," Boyd concluded.

"College was away from Beacon Hills," Stiles offered a twisted smile. "I love being back with you guys, but this whole town is haunted with the ghosts of trauma past and coming back here… everything just slammed back into me. The first time I went back to the station to say my hellos, all the new faces, replacements for people I had known all my life who had died because of something that had attacked our pack. All the death, all the pain, all the trauma, it felt like being sucked into it again. It feels… It feels like I'm drowning in it again."

Stiles sneered, hands shaking again, so he clawed his fingers into his jeans. "The basement, the sacrifices, the possession, the assassins, it's all… It's all too much and every time I was over and every time I see the bottles, I see the whiskey in the living room, the vodka in the freezer, the beer in the fridge, the wine in the kitchen and I just want to drink."

Taking a sharp breath, Stiles straightened up. "So I can't live here. With the alcohol. I can live somewhere else, because I don't want you guys to feel obligated to change how you live for my sake. But I also felt like I should… I should tell you that, before…"

"Batman," Erica launched herself at him and hugged him tightly. "You know we want you here, right? And anyone who thinks it's more important to them to have alcohol in the house than having you in the house is having an alcohol problem themselves."

"Wisdom of the youth," Peter murmured amused. "But yes, darling. Erica is right. This is supposed to be your home, everyone's home, that includes you."

"Yeah, we can drink at like the bar or club or something," Scott agreed.

Stiles offered a watery smile as he found himself at the bottom of a puppy pile, with the whole pack piling on top of him, trying to hug and scent-mark and comfort him. He hiccuped out a sob and he was grateful that none of them commented on it, just hugged him tighter.

/break\

Chris hadn't even realized how much of his 'stress relief' had been whiskey and beer until they got rid of the alcohol. It was so normalized and socially accepted, the drink after a hard day of work. It was a bit of an adjustment, but there were few things Chris wouldn't do for Stiles.

Years. Him and Peter had been together for years and had wanted Stiles for as long. They wanted to wait until he turned eighteen, but then he was so bright-eyed and eager for college and they knew that starting to date him long-distance would only distract him from his studies or worse yet, influence his decision on where to go for college. They had already waited, they could wait longer.

Now was the perfect time. Stiles was back in Beacon Hills, freshly graduated and living in the Hale House with Chris, Peter and the rest of the pack. He was not just barely legal, he had gotten to make some life experience. The time had finally come for Peter and Chris to court Stiles.

"You're up late," Chris noted softly as he walked into the library.

Stiles was sitting bent over the table, leg bouncing as he read through three books at once. Peter and Chris were still waiting for the right time to bring it up with Stiles. When Stiles had shared his sobriety with them, it had shaken both Chris and Peter. They needed some time to digest it.

Stiles turned to look at him and there was a long pause. "I can't sleep. I've been having nightmares about the Nogitsune again since I got back. Every time I look at Scott or Allison, I… The guilt's still there. It's not rational and I know I didn't do any of it, but the Nogitsune made me watch it and experience it all. And I… It feels much more fresh again, being back here."

Chris nodded slowly, grateful that Stiles had shared this. But it also made him question the past, because Stiles used to just dismiss all-night research binges with a quick 'the ADHD compels me'. It certainly did, but now Chris was questioning how often Stiles had been kept awake by his trauma.

"Tell me what I can do to help," Chris requested in a gentle voice.

Stiles snorted and shook his head, returning to his book. "Unless you wanna hug me all night to make me feel safe and in the now, or pour me a drink, just… leave me to my studies."

"Okay," Chris nodded and approached Stiles. "C'mere."

"Huh," Stiles blinked doe-eyed up at Chris as he was pulled up.

"Hugging you all night to make you feel safe is an option. I'm taking it. So c'mere."

He wrapped an arm around Stiles' waist and guided him toward the master bedroom. Stiles seemed to mostly let it happen because he was too startled to argue with him.

/break\

Peter was already in bed, reading a book, wearing nothing but sweatpants and waiting for his husband to get back from the kitchen. The wolf looked up curiously when two heartbeats entered.

"What did you bring me there, husband?" Peter asked teasingly. "And can I keep it?"

"Peter, your husband just kidnapped me out of the library, stop joking around and tell him to let go."

"You said that hugging you all night is an option. I'm taking that option. Peter will be happy to help," Chris declared and pushed Stiles toward the bed. "Peter, our boy needs comfort."

Happy to offer it indeed," Peter smiled brightly and put his book aside.

"Why?" Stiles looked wary as he was being manhandled into the bed.

Peter wrapped his arms around Stiles and pulled him close enough to bury his nose in Stiles' neck, enjoying the way Stiles felt against him, smelt and looked in their bed. Chris smiled and climbed into bed after Stiles, wrapping his arms around Stiles' waist.

"We want to be there for you, Stiles," Chris' voice was low and smooth. "What you told us… And what you said earlier to me, that you were seeking comfort to distract you from the need to drink. We want to comfort you, we want you to share with us when you feel bad, when you need help."

Stiles' breath hitched a little and he curled his fingers into Peter's shirt. "...Really?"

"Now that you're back from college, we would like to court you, take you out on dates," Peter took over, nosing Stiles' throat. "Will you allow us to court you, sweetheart?"

Stiles clung onto Peter a little tighter and turned to look at Chris surprised. "Even… after what I told you last week? I just… I have… so many issues and it's… You two have a well working marriage going on, you really don't need to get a traumatized mess involved who's struggling with his sobriety because he might walk through a park that makes him remember his dead mom."

"Darling, we all have issues," Peter pressed a kiss to Stiles' neck. "Look at me, my issues have a body count. Just because Christopher and I worked hard to get through our issues and heal together doesn't mean we never had them. You're still in the middle of it, dealing with it. Let us help you. We helped each other, we will help you. We want to help you. Because we want you, all of you. Issues, trauma, past and regrets as much as your witty mind, big heart and gorgeous body."

Stiles squeaked at that last part, cheeks dark red. "Oh. Uhm. Okay…?"

"Okay?" Chris chuckled amused. "So you're saying okay to dating us?"

"I'm saying that it's like two AM on a Tuesday and I did not expect this but I have wanted you guys for so—o long that yeah okay if you want me, I'll take it but right now, I just want to sleep."

Chris and Peter shared a look and a smile. Stiles rolled over to look at them and then daringly kissed them both on their cheeks before burying himself back into Peter's chest, embarrassed.

"Good night," Stiles mumbled, snuggling up to them both.

Peter couldn't help but smile brightly at his husband, pulling Chris into a deep kiss as soon as Stiles was peacefully asleep in Peter's arms. Finally, after all these years, the clever boy as his.

/break\

Stiles woke up unusually well-rested, wrapped up in the arms of his Alpha pair. Last night, he'd fled his bedroom when the shadows seemed too long and dark, pacing the kitchen and looking at the places where they used to keep their alcohol, before he hid out in the library. Now, he'd gotten a full night's sleep, feeling safe and grounded in the arms of his new boyfriends.

"Mornin', doll," Chris whispered into his ear, kissing him behind it.

"Morning," Stiles grinned a little, nuzzling his face into Peter's chest. "Thank you."

"For getting to sleep in bed with you?" Peter huffed out a laugh. "You are very welcome, please allow us to repeat this every day. What Christopher said is true, we want to be here for you."

Stiles couldn't help but smile. He'd been so nervous about telling them, but he should have known his pack would support him, even if he hadn't seen the two new boyfriends coming.

~*~ The End ~*~

Author's note: I have been thinking about this since that scene in the woods where 16 year old Stiles got utterly wasted on hard liquor over literal teen romance bullshit. Just, in the context of his dad's alcoholism that really had me go !? and I wanted to explore a devastating angle since then :D