Chapter Text
It appeared when he was three. Not that he remembers it. As far as he knows, there's always been a 'Peter' on the inside of his left wrist and a 'Hale' on the inside of his right.
He doesn't remember when the name appeared, but he remembers when he learned not to talk about it.
Whenever he would bring it up, when he would ask Mom to read it for him, to tell him what the letters said, she would smile and oblige. When he got a bit older, could read the name on his own and was beginning to understand what it meant, she didn't smile so much.
He would talk about him, his Peter, his soulmate, his love, and Mom and Dad would share a look. Purse their lips and glance at each other sideways. That was a bad look. That was the we're-going-to-start-lying-to-you-now look. He learned quickly not to bring up his Name anymore.
When he was seven, he met a Hale. A woman named Talia. He doesn't remember the interaction very well, but he remembers that she was pretty. He remembers her hair, thick and black and curly. He remembers that he had wanted to touch it.
He also remembers a man. Looking at the man had given him a funny feeling in his tummy. Like when he's not looking and forgets that there's one more step. But he hadn't been falling.
Miss Talia had said that he was her brother, but he didn't look like her brother. His hair was too light and his eyes were too blue.
He didn't say anything about it, though. That would've been rude.
He was ten when he'd gotten his first letter. The first letter written by Peter Hale.
It had been short. He'd asked a few questions and left it at that. It hadn't seemed odd. After all, this was the age of text messages; correspondences are supposed to be short.
He still has them, the letters. He hasn't gone back to the beginning in years. Not since he hit, what was it, twelve? Thirteen?
The letters aren't just short, they're curt. Perfunctory. Obviously written with the goal of distracting a child. Or someone of lesser intelligence. The first one isn't all that different from the letter he got last week. All business.
Hi Stiles, how have you been? How is your family? How are your friends? How are your studies? I'm well. Talk to you next month.
Peter doesn't care. The tone of his letters hasn't changed in the last seven years and he just doesn't care. He has 87 letters and they all say the same thing, in the same way. I'm fine, how are you. That's nice. Talk again soon.
It does matter, though. Having a Name on your wrists doesn't mean you'll end up married to the owner of that name. Doesn't mean your relationship has to be romantic. Doesn't even guarantee that that person will like you.
He's obviously in the latter category; he just didn't know that until right now.
All of this letter reading is making his eyes sting. All of this closet shelf dust is making his eyes water.
But that doesn't matter. He puts the latest letter into his designated letter box and puts the box back in his closet.
He puts away his nice fountain pen and his thick eggshell coloured letter paper and tucks his chair into the desk. All things he's gotten over the years to make the letters more special. More special than they really were, he realizes.
He'd thought they were special. They'd meant something to him. But after rereading them, he's not so sure they meant anything to Peter.
He curls up in his bed, with his back to the door and stuffs his face into his pillow. Not to cry. No, that would be childish. And stupid. And... Whatever else. He puts on some music and falls asleep.
He thinks about the letter the next day. Normally he'd begin his response the day he reads Peter's letter. Spend the next few days formulating a proper reply and send it off within the week.
But it doesn't matter. Because Peter doesn't care.
Scott knows that something is up. He asks, sure, but when Stiles tells him, very politely, to mind his own fucking business, he does. Stiles would’ve poked and prodded and whined and cajoled until Scott spilled his guts, firm in the belief that sharing your problems is the first step to overcoming them. For Scott. Or Dad. Or anyone else who isn’t him.
He thinks of the letters. He doesn’t want to, but he can’t not. He’s spent nearly half his life dedicated to those letters. So excited to get them, to write his own, dedicating time and space and money to responding to them. But now. Now he sees what they were.
His soulmate doesn’t love him. Doesn’t like him. Doesn’t care at all. He’d expected to go back and find something impersonal. A few sentences to a ten year old. Asking about trading cards or action figures or something. That’s fine, Peter had been older than he is now, when Stiles was born. Out of high school, out of college. He was a full adult when Stiles was still in utero.
That thought hits him in the gut; makes his insides crawl. He’s a child. He goes to school and has a curfew. He doesn’t even have a part time job. Sure, he pays bills, but he uses his Dad’s money to do it. And, yes, he tends house, cooks and cleans, but he has to do that when he’s done with his homework. After he gets home from school.
What could he possibly have in common with someone in his early thirties? He barely has anything in common with people his own age. Even Scott has to be bribed into doing Stiles’ thing, sometimes.
Scott has been saving up for what he refers to as a motorcycle but is actually a dirt bike. Part of saving up is getting a ride home or to work from your friend who already has a car. They’re almost at the clinic when Stiles finally breaks.
“What would you do if you found out that Katrina doesn’t love you? Doesn’t care at all. Is just humouring you until you grow up and realize that you’re completely incompatible.”
He focuses more intently on the lights than he needs to, just so he doesn’t have to make eye contact with Scott. “Is that what’s wrong? Did you get a Dear Stiles letter?” He asks, all sympathy.
“No.” He says. “Peter’s still pretending. He’s still-” He takes a deep breath and pulls up into the clinic parking lot. Scott makes no move to leave. “I read through his old letters. He still talks to me like I’m just some kid. Like I’m-” He shakes his head. Whatever Peter’s issue, it’s probably not about Stiles, personally.
“He’s 32. He’s probably married with a couple of kids. He has a job and a house and a life.” He knocks his head back against the headrest a few times. “Sometimes the universe is wrong,” he says quietly.
“Well, you can-”
Stiles cuts him off with a hand on his shoulder, a smile, and a “you don’t want to be late. Doc Deaton’ll come drag you in if you’re late again.”
“Yeah,” Scott returns Stiles’ smile with one of his own, more genuine smiles. He gets out, turning in the door to say, “my Mom’s picking me up, so you don’t have to worry about that.”
“I’m worried about your attendance record. Get out of my car,” he leans over and pulls the door closed. Scott flips him off, then waves and heads for the clinic.
He lets his smile drop.
Dad’s there, when he gets home. He’s brought his work home, papers and manila folders strewn out all over the table. Stiles picks up the empty cup of coffee on his way by. “I was drinking that,” he calls. Stiles tips the cup, showing how much coffee there isn’t in it. “Oh.”
“You eat, yet?”
He hears paper shuffling behind him as he pulls down bowls and glasses. “Yeah, I had a steak and a cheeseburger on the way home,” Dad says lightly.
“I guess you don’t need any of this, then,” he responds, equally lightly. He throws together some quick garlic bread as he spoons up some of the stew that he put into the slow cooker before he’d gone to school. They always eat early when Dad works the early morning shift.
They set the table just as the garlic bread finishes. Dad’s cleared away his work and the table is oddly empty. But, it’s been oddly empty since Mom died.
“So, you get your letter, yet?”
His heart clenches. It hurts. It’s salt in the wound. Dad knew. He had to. Peter didn’t just pluck their address out of thin air. He talked to Mom and Dad. Maybe still does.
“I did. Yesterday.” He tries to make it sound normal. Tries to make it sound like he isn’t screaming on the inside.
Dad smiles. Apparently Stiles is convincing enough. “What’s he up to?”
“Uh. Ms. Boots had her babies.” Ms. Boots. Because Peter is so determined not to let Stiles in that he’d rather talk about his neighbour’s cat. That hadn’t even occurred to him. He wants to cry. Wants to curl up in bed or in the shower and just leak. He smiles. Dad smiles back.
“Is he gunna adopt one?”
“Dunno. He has six weeks to decide,” Stiles says. “I guess we’ll find out.”
He goes up to his room as soon as he can. He hadn’t thought of Dad. When he’d been considering Peter and his lack of interest, he hadn’t even thought about his parents.
They had to have talked. So Dad knows, then. He has to. He has to know that Peter doesn’t care; that he isn’t interested.
How much do they talk? How much does he know? Does Dad know that Peter isn’t interested, or does he know that Peter’s married, or dating, or a fucking monk, or what. Do they chat or have they not spoken since Peter started writing him? Sometime before?
He shuts his bedroom door and falls against it, sliding down and resting his forehead on his knees. He’s not having a panic attack. He’s having something, but it’s not panic. Can you have a sad attack? A distraught attack? A bout of melancholia? That sounds like something he would need a billowy pirate shirt for. It’s probably something else.
He takes deep breaths and presses his palms into his eye sockets. The itch passes after a minute, but the emotion doesn’t.
Dad knew. He fucking knew. He had to. His soulmate doesn’t care about him in the least and his Dad, both his parents, knew about it. Maybe they even set it up. Write poor little Stiles a few letters and hope he finds someone else to love. Someone else to care about him.
He’s not sure it wouldn’t have been kinder to just tell him when he was a kid. He’d have had years to get over it. He’d have been fine. Why drag it out except for the protestations of the parents who would’ve had to deal with the fallout.
The skin under his Name is soft, delicate. He can feel the tendons underneath, when he presses his thumb into it. His thumb nail leaves a crescent behind, white at first, then red, when the blood comes back.
He gets up. He’s angry. Angry and sad and he wants to fight. Wants to swing at something and watch it hurt. Hurt as much as he does. He yanks open his closet door and pulls out the only hand length shirt he has. The only shirt that’ll cover his Name.
Most people don’t want to cover their Names. Most clothing manufacturers don’t make hand length sleeves. There are white cuffs for people who’s Names have faded after their soul mate’s death. A sign of mourning, not to be taken lightly. Some people wear them until they move on, some, like Mr. Daugherty across the street, wear them even twenty years later.
He’ll have to settle for over-long sleeves.
It takes him longer than it should to finish his homework. He keeps getting distracted by his fucking sleeves. He’d put on the damn shirt so he wouldn’t get distracted by his Name, but instead, he’s getting distracted by not being able to see his Name. By the fabric rubbing against his wrist in a way that he’s not used to.
What’s the point, though, really? He’s been rejected. He’s not wanted. His soulmate is never going to care for him the way he wants.
He knows that it’s just rumours and hoaxes; just facebook drivel. The ‘studies’ that say those without soulmates or those who’ve been rejected die younger than those who maintain their soul bonds. But. But, the way he feels now? He can believe them. He can understand why Romeo drank a bottle of poison, even if that was fiction.
The weeks that follow are too slow and too fast at the same time. The time drags, but before he knows it, there’s another letter in his mailbox.
He almost doesn’t open it. Almost leaves it in the box. Dad will see it, though. Will know that something’s wrong. As angry as he is about the whole thing, he can’t really blame is parents for wanting to spare him the pain of that particular heartbreak.
The letter stays on his desk for two days before he finally opens it.
Stiles,
I hope this letter finds you well. I didn’t receive your last letter. Did you write?
I’ve adopted one of the kittens from next door. Her name is Tabasco (I didn’t name her), though I call her dumbass more than her actual name. Maybe I should just change it . She likes to jump up high and knock over decorations. I’ve been woken up in the middle of the night by the sounds of glass shattering. More than once.
I’m not sure what else to add. Work is going well. A friend was in a car accident, but he’s fine now. I went to a party last week where someone got so high he thought he could fly. I pulled him in from the 12 th story window before he jumped. I haven’t followed up with him, so I’m not sure if he tried again.
Yours, Peter
He scoffs, when he reads it. Most of it is about his new cat. What kind of letter is that? It goes back into the envelope and into the letter box in his closet. He wont be responding. Peter’ll get the hint. Just like Stiles did. Took him long enough, but in his defence, he was ten when the letters started. He was mostly just excited to have a pen pal.
He wonders if he’s too old to join one of those prisoner pen pal programs. Are those even still a thing? Maybe he’ll look into that.
His phone rings. Unusual, but not unheard of. It’s Scott. “Hey,” he says into the receiver.
“Stiles! I found her! Katrina, I found her. She just brought her new puppy into the clinic for shots. Stiles, I found her. She’s so pretty-”
“Scott!” he has to be loud, to be heard over Scott’s rambling. “Breathe, dude. Are you still working?”
“Uh. No. Dr. Deaton gave me the rest of the day. She’s taller than I am and her hair is so red-”
He laughs. “Why are you talking to me? Shouldn’t you be getting to know your soulmate?”
“What? She went to the bathroom. We went to the coffee place down the street, but she’s in the bathroom. I had to call and tell you-”
“Dude,” he tries to make it as soothing as he can, “dude. Take a breath. Hang up the phone. Take a sip of whatever you have in front of you, then, when she gets back, tell her that her hair is pretty. But, don’t be creepy about it; don’t tell her that you want to pet it or something.”
Scott laughs, “Yeah, you’re right. Ok. This is just. I mean- Here she comes,” he whispers, “gotta go.”
“Don’t be creepy!” he yells, but he hears dial tone. Hopefully Scott managed to process that bit.
The joy he’d felt for Scott sours in his gut. He has a soulmate, too. Knows who he is. They don’t talk. Not like Scott and Katrina will. He just rambles and every now and then, Peter tells him about his neighbour’s cat.
His stomach sinks. That’s how he talks to his Father. He rambles about what interests him and, if he feels like it, Dad responds with something tangentially related or just laughs and says OK.
He’d thought the first Realization was bad. The he-doesn’t-really-care realization, but this. This is so much worse. The he-sees-you-like-a-son realization. The he-treats-you-the-way-your-Dad-does realization. The you’ll-always-be-a-kid-to-him realization. He’s not sure which is the most accurate, but does it really matter? Does it matter why his soulmate doesn’t want him?
The backpack on the back of his doorknob is full of homework. Full of assignments and reports and handouts. Full of textbooks and math and English and science. He knows that life, even his teenage life, is more than just a soul bond, but he’s having a really hard time convincing himself of that.
It’s been a month since The Realization and every day he’s had to fake smiles and feign interest and pretend to care. Is that what Peter’s been doing? Has he been forcing himself to do this? Is Stiles even talking to Peter? For all he knows, Peter hands off his letters and Stiles has been talking to his girlfriend. For all Stiles knows, she does dramatic readings in funny voices and they laugh about them. About him.
He knows that he’s catastrophizing. He remembers therapy, ok? That doesn’t mean it just stops. Having a name for the thing doesn’t mean that the thing just stops happening. He’s spiralling and he needs to stop it.
He pulls himself up to his computer and boots up Overwatch.
A few rounds. A few head shots. A few losses. And no wins. He’s about ready to take a baseball bat to his keyboard. It’s not the keyboard’s fault that he sucks today, but it would be easier to blame that than acknowledge why he’s sucking so much ass.
It’s because his best friend found his soulmate. A month after he’d realized that he’d been rejected by his own. That he’d been getting rejected for years. That his Dad, and maybe even his Mom, who’s been dead for six years, knew that this was happening and did nothing. Said nothing. Just let it happen. His Dad, the only family he has, the person closest to him in all the world knew that his soulmate didn’t want him and he just smiled like nothing was happening. Letting him go on and on like the stupid kid he is. Like the stupid kid Peter thinks he is. Knows he is.
Maybe he should just leave.
The thought is a surprise, but not really. Everyone he knows has been lying to him for his entire fucking life.
He loves Dad. And he knows that Dad loves him. But it hurts. It hurts so fucking much.
And he knows, he remembers what it was like to get that first letter and the ones that came later. He remembers Scott telling him to shut up about Peter. He hadn’t been in love, but he’d wanted to be. He’d assumed that he would be. His parents were soulmates and they were in love. Even when Mom had been sick, they’d still been in love. He’d wanted that. He’d anticipated that. He’d talked about it like it was a given. A foregone conclusion.
He doesn’t think he can handle Scott being in love. Not now. Not yet.
He was right. Scott is just as Scott as he always is. Just as oblivious to those around him. He tries, he wants to be a good person and do the right thing and blah blah, yaddah yaddah, whatever. He’s a fucking boy scout.
Stiles had told him, in a round about kind of way, that Peter had rejected him. Normal people would limit what they say, what they gush, about their own soulmates.
Stiles doesn’t hold his bond against him. He can’t blame him for that. Doesn’t even want to. No. He does blame Scott for ignoring his obvious discomfort. For not caring when Stiles asks him to tone it down a bit.
He’s Scott. Wide-eyed, naive, oblivious Scott. At one point, Stiles had had to actually say the words “my soulmate rejected me” to get him to shut up, but twenty minutes later, he was hearing all about Katrina’s perfume and how she just naturally smells like lavender. No she doesn’t, Scott, that’s not how skin works.
He cries more than he thinks he should. He doesn’t buy into the whole macho real-men-don’t-cry BS, but he does know for a fact that if Jackson ever caught him crying, he’d end up in a locker at the very least. He hides it. Goes to the bathroom, saves it for home, when he can, yawns really big to make his eyes water.
He hates all the crying and self pity. Hates feeling like the child everyone thinks he still is.
It’s been a rough day. Katrina was at the mall, when he showed up. Scott hadn’t said anything about inviting her, but there she was. And Stiles had been totally unprepared. He’s seen them together. They’re sweet. They’re what Hallmark movies are made of. But Stiles is raw and vulnerable and he was completely unprepared for the love-fest.
He gets home, so strung out from hiding away behind a wall of blasé that his hands are shaking. He manages to get into his house without dropping his keys, though it’s a close call, to find a letter on the table. A letter from Peter. A week early. With no fucking warning.
Dad wouldn’t judge him for crying. Well, he’d try not to. He’d be supportive, if visibly uncomfortable. It’s a really good thing Dad’s not here. If Dad were here, he’d have to tell him why he’s upset. He’s not ready for that conversation. Or any of the conversations that would follow.
He bursts into tears, dropping where he’s stood, in the middle of the kitchen. Crying over a pile of mail on the kitchen table. Crying over one letter in particular.
He leaves the letter on the table, unopened. He packs his bag and leaves before Dad gets home. He doesn’t leave a note. He doesn’t take his phone. He doesn’t say goodbye. He regrets it as soon as he’s stepped outside, but he doesn’t turn back