Chapter Text
Prologue
- - New York - -
Derek
Stiles had told Derek to wait, so Derek waits.
He circles within the tight confines of Stiles’ studio apartment, trapped between two besieging forces of emotion, equally strong and diametrically opposed.
Every time he passes Stiles’ bed, a bubble of astounded joy swells up to fill his chest, almost overwhelming enough to make him laugh out loud. For years he told himself that yearning after Stiles was an impossible, foolish, misplaced dream, and if it weren’t for the confirmation of their mingled scents rising from the bed sheets, the whispered confessions of the night before would seem pure fantasy in the daylight. But by the time his orbit reaches the opposite wall of the apartment, a thick cloud of apprehension sucks the buoyancy from his lungs. In Derek’s experience, good things always come with a price, and the price of having Stiles might be losing his last link to the past.
Even if Peter is a shadow of his former self – a shadow with sharp edges and obscure motivations – the thought of losing him sluices past his elation to douse him in cold fear.
Smelling Peter on Stiles had initially torn long gouges through Derek’s carefully constructed battlements, assaulting his mind with fury and indignation and hideous, covetous, jealousy; that Peter would callously take what Derek had so long abstained from, that Stiles would degrade himself by sleeping with someone he didn’t respect. Rescuing Peter and Stiles from the forest kitsune had changed that.
Brought back out into the open air, Stiles had collapsed in Derek’s arms, and Derek had seen Peter resign himself to loss with an expression that would have fractured the granite hearts of statues. Peter wasn’t toying with Stiles; to the contrary, Peter – the real Peter – was still in there, glimpsed in the transient space between seconds, and it was Stiles who had brought him to the surface. Derek misses that version of Peter with the same ferocity he misses the family who had burned in the wake of his bad decisions, and to see him revived, even for a moment, had lanced a wound he had thought scarred shut.
The fear of losing Peter from his life is not a new one. His connection to the pack is tenuous at best, always one misstep away from excommunication, and as far as Derek can tell, Peter has actively sought this precarious position. If he runs now, it won't just be from New York, it will be from the pack, and if he wants to, Peter can easily make it so he's never found. Scott may prefer it if he chose to leave Beacon Hills altogether, but Peter’s absence would leave Derek cold and exposed in ways he shudders to contemplate.
Derek waits. He paces. He sits on the couch and tries not to shred the cushions. He paces. He opens the fridge to glower suspiciously at the contents. He paces some more.
Stiles had assured him he would find Peter; Derek tries not to dwell on how he might have already left the hotel, or how he might be too stubborn and proud to consider sharing a relationship with Stiles. He reminds himself that if anyone can persuade Peter to do anything, it’s Stiles, and he has to trust that Stiles will find the words to convince him to stay, because Derek doesn’t have them. Derek has never been able to persuade Peter to do anything, apart from on the rare occasion when Peter already wanted to do a thing, and was only trying to make Derek believe it was his idea.
The phone chimes on the nightstand, cutting off his train of thought, and he nearly tears the charger from the wall in his haste to reach it.
10:37 – ‘I’ve got him. Seems on board, bringing him back now.’
Derek drops onto the bed, a cloud of comforting smells billowing up around him, and tries to herd the remaining skittering cats of tension back into the bag.
Stiles
Holding his hand firmly, as though Peter may yet try to bolt again, Stiles leads him up through the apartment building. To his credit, Peter shows no sign of being poised to flee; his hand is warm and dry, gripping Stiles’ fingers in a secure clasp as he follows along a step behind, eyes roving the stairwell as if the bare bricks might hold hidden meanings.
Unlocking the door, Stiles immediately spies Derek hovering uncertainly by the sofa, and despite the text Stiles had sent to reassure him, there's a brief - but visible - slump of relief to his shoulders when he sees them both in the doorway.
“Found him,” Stiles announces brightly, unnecessarily, mainly to cover his own awkwardness. The idea of the three of them talking about sharing some kind of relationship sounded good in theory, but now that they’re all here together, the reality seems absurd. Insanely attractive, but absurd; how the hell does something like this even work?
Slipping his hand free, Peter moves further into the studio apartment, stalking one boundary of the open-plan room, hunting for little secrets to coax from the furniture. As Peter probes along the assorted miscellanea of the desk, Derek steps in to scent mark Stiles under the jaw, and he attempts to nuzzle back in a clumsy effort to mimic werewolf social graces; it’s going to take some getting used to.
Peter, fingers trailing along the spines of books and brushing, avoids the bed and stops by the windows to examine the neighbouring rooftops, before rotating to lean back against the glass panes with crossed arms, catching Stiles’ eye with a closed-off expression. A tense silence fills the room, and Stiles interrupts it with strained laughter, crossing to the couch. "Come on you two, sit. We better talk about this."
Dropping onto the centre of the sofa, Stiles pats the cushions on either side of him with enthusiastic bravado. He’s nervous, but doesn’t reach for the void to hide it. This has to be transparent and open, and he doesn’t want either of the wolves to think he’s treating it lightly.
Peter gracefully complies, Derek hesitating a moment longer before approaching, bringing his scowl with him for good measure. When Peter notices his expression, he laughs, which has Derek pausing again, but there’s no malice in the laugh, only mild reproach. “Stiles tells me this was your idea; regretting it already?”
Derek presses his lips together and looks away, but comes the rest of the way to hover next to the sofa. “No. But I didn’t think… we’d have to actually…”
“Talk about it?”
“Yeah." He looks confused, "No. I mean, I knew we’d have to, but, the three of us?" Derek looks like he's failing to properly swallow a mouthful of food. "I didn’t think we’d have to talk about it, the three of us.”
“It'll be easier for Stiles this way,” Peter asserts softly, and this has Derek relenting, squashing in next to Stiles, so that Stiles is boxed in by two walls of heated muscle.
We like this, the Nogitsune chimes in, referring specifically to the sensation of being pressed up between both wolves.
'This isn't really the time,' Stiles scolds it.
If not now, then when? Isn't that why we're all here?
'You're not meant to have your own desires anymore.'
That's correct, Ssstiles, they're your desires.
Stiles is already pushing the boat out on greedy, he's not about to start suggesting highly inappropriate threesomes when this is clearly already a very delicate situation. 'I'm not asking your advice on this one,' Stiles shuts the fox remnant down, though he does wish he had some advice from somewhere more reliable. As it is, he hasn't had a moment to sneak away and do even a cursory google search.
“Should I start?” Stiles asks, feeling out of his depth and taking their hands.
Derek squeezes back firmly, Peter looking down at Stiles’ fingers with some surprise, then rubbing over his knuckles with a thumb, “If you like.”
Stiles opens his mouth to speak, but apparently his brain to mouth filter is completely clogged, because nothing comes out. He’s heard of open relationships and polyamory, but has little enough experience with conventional relationships, much less something complicated like this. The clock seems very loud as it counts the seconds of his hopeless floundering.
“Let me then,” Peter interjects gently.
“Oh thank god.”
Peter lifts his chin and looks passed Stiles. “Firstly; thank you, Derek, for being open-minded enough to suggest this. Especially given that, if my suspicions are correct, you aren’t all that familiar with this part of our heritage.”
Derek’s eyebrows lift in surprise that Peter is thanking him, then lower again in confusion.
“As I thought,” Peter carries on, “Well, polyamory is not uncommon in werewolf culture, though not often discussed unless you happen to know a triad, or vee, or other. I-” He pauses, then licks his lips and casts his eyes to the side. Stiles looks at him questioningly, and Peter meets his gaze with a tight smile before returning his eyes to Derek. “Do you remember your great aunt Flora?”
Derek shakes his head to signify ‘not really’ rather than ‘not at all’.
“She was twice widowed by the time you were born, but she was wed to both husbands at the same time. By werewolf law, at least.”
“Oh.” Derek scratches his stubble, glancing to Stiles and back again.
“Yes; they were killed by hunters, rather brutally, so it was a sensitive topic and rarely discussed. Anyway, what I’m trying to say, is that there are some pre-existing guidelines for this sort of thing, and many different approaches. We can pick and choose what works for us, and we should continue to monitor and discuss as we go along, but I think it’s just common sense to start with what we do and don’t feel comfortable with, and make up some rules we can all agree to follow.”
Derek chuffs incredulously, and the blues of Peter’s eyes switch from summer skies to arctic floes.
“Yes, Derek, I do know how to follow rules, I just haven’t often had the incentive to do so. But this is my happiness, and Stiles’ happiness, and – gods above – your happiness, and to everyone’s great astonishment, not least of all my own, I do happen to care about all of the above.”
Stiles watches Derek glower at Peter, and so stands witness as the expression melts into something fond and almost hopeful. “I knew you were still in there.”
A tremor runs through Peter’s hand as he tenses, like he’s fighting to stay in his skin. Stiles squeezes his hand again, and Peter breathes out slowly but doesn’t lose the play of conflict around his eyes. “You can’t- I’m not- I’m not that man any more. You know that.”
“Maybe not,” Derek’s hope has turned shifty, though he doesn’t back down. “But he’s still part of you. And anyway,” he adds quickly, “this isn’t about who we were, it’s about who we’re going to be, isn’t it? And you saying you care about my happiness - for the first time in a long time, it doesn’t sound like part of a game.”
Peter looks back, eyes still warring with his loathing for vulnerability as he quietly confirms, “It’s not a game.”
Derek nods and ducks their gazes, as though that alone could hide the smile spreading on his face. It lights his face as it unfurls, bringing an answering grin to Stiles. Peter's smile is slower to form, more wry when it does, and accompanied by a role of the eyes, but he relaxes next to Stiles, and Stiles bumps against him in reward.
For the first time, the attractive but abstract notion of being with these two wolves doesn’t seem half so far-fetched. Maybe, just maybe, they can make this work.
Chapter 1
- - Beacon Hills - -
Derek
Three days of sitting in a car have left Derek’s muscles aching, but his wolf remains lazily content, so when Peter pulls up outside the Sheriff’s house, Derek stays seated and watches the Stilinski reunion through the windscreen. Peter appears no more inclined to break the cover of the car, and they sit in armoured concealment as father and son crash into a fierce hug in the middle of the front garden.
“Touching,” Peter remarks dryly, and it soothes Derek to know that his uncle is equally discomforted by the display of emotion. If nothing else, over the last few years, Derek and Peter have developed an unspoken agreement to preserve their brittle equilibrium by not mentioning the past or attempting any form of sentiment.
A moment later, Peter upends that silent accord by saying, “I remember when you used to hug like that.”
Clearly, it's Derek’s fault for what he said back in New York, 'I knew you were still in there.' What had possessed him to say that? If he had thought about it, for even a second, he would have known Peter would hate it, but hope had sprung forth before he could snap his mouth shut on it. Derek, always slower than Pandora.
He had reneged on their silent agreement, and now Peter is bringing up the past. He scrabbles for a way to answer without falling into a trap.
“I never ran towards someone with my arms out like a Disney princess, if that’s what you mean.”
“You do the Sheriff a disservice. I thought he looked every bit the gallant knight.”
Derek snorts.
“Oh, sweet Jesus,” Peter enunciates each word slowly. “That’s Stiles blurting it all out now. If we postpone this much longer, we’ll be accused of ‘lurking’.” He peels himself out of his seat, and Derek, relieved that no caustic comment had followed the reference to their old lives, decants himself from the car in turn.
“…and well, we’re just gonna see what happens, I guess. But yeah, basically, I’m seeing both of them, because, hey, it’s the twenty-first century and, you know, apparently there’s precedent for this sort of thing.”
“Well,” the Sheriff says numbly, eyes partially glazed as he takes in the news, “every blessing has a thundercloud lining.”
“It’s nice to see you too, John,” Peter drawls, without enthusiasm.
“Uh-huh,” Stiles’ father responds crisply, switching his attention to Derek, who lifts his chin and tries not to look too defensive, suspecting any attempt at a smile would only incriminate him further.
“And how, exactly, did you track down my son in the first place?”
Derek manages to remain impassive and his eyes don’t even flicker towards Peter. Besides, Peter might have done the technical breaking of the law, but it had all been Derek’s instigation. Or, well, the Nemeton’s - but somehow, Derek suspects blaming a tree won’t do him any favours with the Sheriff.
Stiles laughs with forced joviality and elbows his father lightly in the gut. “Dad, come on – Yay, big reunion – remember? Let’s not get all hung up on little details, and focus on the much bigger detail of: It’s been six years since we last saw each other. You got any beer?”
Deflating slightly, John winces and rubs the back of his neck apologetically, “I had to stop drinking.”
All the nervous energy saps out of Stiles, all of the joy too, and he stands looking at his father with the kind of stunned horror one might wear if they accidentally stabbed someone.
“Oh, come here,” John slings an arm around Stiles’ shoulder and leads him towards the front door. “I’ve got ginger ale and Dr. Pepper, and one of the Hales can go get some booze if you want it; just ‘cause I’m teetotal doesn’t mean everyone else has to be.” He pauses and looks back at Derek and Peter, “You’re staying for dinner, aren’t you?”
“Yes sir,” Derek rushes to confirm, grimacing immediately; his wolf is showing its belly and eager to please, but the prospect of dinner with Stiles' father brings a tornado of anxiety with it. He can feel the side eye Peter sends him without looking for it.
“Right then.” The Sheriff continues to walk his son back to the house.
The two wolves stand in silence next to each other for a long moment. It’s six in the evening, and the light cast from low in the sky sends long shadows across the front lawn. The street around them is quiet apart from the cicadas and the muted babel of people going about their evenings behind closed doors. A single car passes the road behind them, the noise receding and Dopplering into the distance.
“Well, I think I’ll go buy some wine,” Peter announces, and pivots back to the car.
Derek’s already turning to join him, “I’ll come with you.”
Neither calls the other on their cowardice.
Stiles has perked up again by the time he opens the door for them, or is doing a good job of pretending - it's harder to tell now that he can block his scent.
The Sheriff is in the kitchen with his shirt sleeves rolled up, dunking chicken strips in a sweet-smelling marinade, marginally friendlier towards the wolves, though heavy doses of cynicism linger on the air. Derek suspects Stiles has painted a glowing account of how they rescued him from the big bad forest kitsune.
Derek tries to find a part of the kitchen that he can blend into, but his dark grey Henley against the pale walls and appliances make this a challenge. Nudging past him, Peter places the paper bag on the counter and pulls down its sides to expose the contents: two dark wine bottles and two clear bottles of rosy liquid with colourful labels.
Presenting the Sheriff with one of the bottles of sparkling elderflower and rhubarb, Peter turns before the man can respond and begins to open cupboard doors, finding the glasses on the second try. He’s rummaging through drawers by the time the Sheriff decides on his reaction, which is to ignore Peter’s antics and focus on the gift. Derek supposes, with a child like Stiles, it’s no wonder he knows how to pick his battles.
“What’s this?”
“An alternative to ginger beer and Dr. Pepper, should you want it,” Peter answers, straightening with a corkscrew held triumphantly in hand. “It’s nice to have something out of the ordinary when celebrating.”
Both Stilinskis look at Peter with some surprise, though their respective expressions are accompanied by different adjacent emotions. Peter, who has spent years withstanding suspicion and doubt, avoids Stiles’ beaming approval more than the Sheriff’s dubious scrutiny. He sends them both a winning smile, and sets about uncorking the wine.
Sometimes, Derek covets the way Peter can appear so at ease. Even if it’s an act, even if Derek knows it’s hard for him too, Peter can fake it with the best of them, and Derek wishes he could bluff with the same skill. He doesn’t often envy Peter, but he doesn’t want to want to admire him, so he’ll stick with envy for now.
Watching Stiles light up around his father is about the only thing that keeps Derek sitting at the table through dinner. The food is good, but his appetite is primed to flee with the rest of him, and he’s sullenly furious with himself for not being able to join in the way a normal person would.
The Sheriff’s bullshit detector has always been top-notch, barring a rather significant blind spot when it comes to his son, and yet somehow, he’s swallowing the completely inane chatter coming out of Peter’s mouth. It’s not that his words aren’t clever, because Peter’s always been good at telling stories, but it’s a performance all the same, and it bothers Derek.
Stiles shines when his father laughs though, and it’s Peter making the Sheriff laugh, bringing that light into Stiles' eyes. In contrast, Derek brings concern to Stiles’ eyes when he looks over, mouth slipping towards a frown. He’s never sure what to do in these situations, so he forces some of the tension from his shoulders and tries to finish his plate with more enthusiasm.
The plan was always for Stiles to stay the night, but when the meal is over, the Sheriff shifts on his seat, face a little pained, and extends the invitation to the two wolves. “You’ve all had a long drive, I know. We’ve got a guest room and a sofa bed, so if you want to stay here, you’re welcome.”
Derek speaks up for the first time in an hour, panic compelling his tongue where nothing else had. “Can’t. But thanks.” All gazes turn on him expectantly, waiting for a polite explanation. “I’ve got to go back to the house. Report in, renew the pack bonds.”
The Sheriff regards Derek with cagey amusement, “Important werewolf business, huh?” It’s possible the Sheriff is teasing him; it’s also possible that he’s torturing him. Derek thinks it might be a bit of both.
Peter raises a tolerant eyebrow in Derek’s direction before deciding to support his justification. “Derek is one of Scott’s lieutenants, he does have certain responsibilities. I, on the other hand, have a more oblique orbit around the pack, and would be delighted to stay in the spare room.”
“What, has Scott become like a mafia don?” Stiles' scepticism doesn’t seem rooted in a thwarted desire to see him stay, so Derek just shrugs out his answer, and Peter steps in again.
“The pack is bigger these days, and a little structure and tradition go a long way to keeping everyone peaceable.” He turns and catches Derek’s eye, “I’ll drop you off, unless you’d rather run home?” Derek shakes his head and Peter looks back at Stiles’ father. “In that case, I suggest we go now, and hope it’s not perceived as a blatant attempt to get out of doing the dishes.”
That gets another dry crack of a laugh out of the Sheriff and he waves them off from the table.
The night air is clear and fresh, and Derek briefly regrets not taking the opportunity to run home. His muscles could do with the stretching, but he does need to catch Scott before he turns in for the night. They’re halfway to the pack house when Derek regrets his decision a second time.
He’s not exactly sure how, because Peter doesn’t smell any different and his heart-rate stays the same, but the silence in the car goes from neutral to uncomfortable while they wait before a stop sign, bathed in red, waiting for the amber to release them.
After a few seconds of this, Peter turns to look at him, “I suppose we should-”
And Derek knows, just knows, that he doesn’t want to hear this. It rises up in him like a wall – it’s a familiar wall, and he’s never sure if he’s putting it there, or if it’s imposing itself. “Nope.”
“‘No’ what?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“But we should, don’t you think?” The light turns green but Peter doesn’t drive. Unfortunately, no one’s behind them to provide added impetus.
“We already talked about it with Stiles,” Derek grits.
“Yes, we’ve only talked about it with Stiles. And this is a bit of a departure from our normal-”
“Talking about it is just going to make it weird.”
“Derek, we have to be able to talk about this, or it’s never going to work.” Derek just stares at him, trying to will him into yielding. Peter responds with a withering eye-roll, “And don’t give me your unblinking schoolmarm gaze, you know I can wait you out.”
For once, Peter is trying to be open with him, just like Derek's been wanting, but now that it's happening, he's a cornered animal wanting to flee. “Look, fine,” he snaps back, “if you want to talk about the fact that we’re both seeing Stiles, we can, but some other time. Right now I’m tired, and I have nothing new to say about it.”
Peter clenches his jaw and sharply puts the car into drive, speeding away just as the light cycles back to amber. He steeps in his irritation for a few minutes, and Derek basks in the fresh silence, savouring it because he knows it won’t last.
“Are you planning to forewarn the pack about our arrangement?” Peter finally demands snippily, “or would you prefer to listen to Stiles stutter through it again?”
Derek rips out his phone and taps furiously.
‘Home in 5. Btw, I’m dating Stiles. And so is Peter. Don't ask.’
“There. Happy?” Derek holds up his phone.
Peter looks between the phone and the road in a quick succession of disbelieving jerks of his head. “What, did you just-? Oh for the love of-”
“It’s none of their business,” Derek states.
Rolling his eyes again, Peter pretends to relax against the side window, sliding into a posture of imperious nonchalance, snide amusement on his lips. With a pang, quickly supressed, Derek realises he’s just pushed Peter into one of his defensive personas. He doesn't want snooty Peter, he wants the real Peter; he just doesn't want the real Peter to ask him difficult questions.
The ensuing silence is difficult to enjoy, especially when his phone explodes with a barrage of messages, leading him to quickly regret his hasty decision to send the message to the pack group chat. He'll placate his alpha in person, intimidate his fellow betas into silence, get a good night sleep, and maybe tomorrow Peter will have lost interest in this supposedly necessary conversation. He turns the phone off without checking the messages and glowers out the window for the rest of the drive.
Stiles
Stiles helps his dad clean up after dinner. It's a little harder between the two of them, now that the wolves have gone. They talk in fits and starts, both too eager to please, awkward with all the lost time, all the things they can't say. He has a moment to himself when his dad is taking the trash out, and he’s rinsing out a wine bottle when the as-yet-unprocessed information slams through his cortices again.
His father had become an alcoholic. He had given up alcohol, ‘about two years ago,’ but it had only been 'bad' - whatever that meant - for 'about six months'. Fuck. Stiles is the shittiest son on the planet.
You can’t blame yourself, Ssstiles, we derailed your life, you did what you needed to keep them all safe.
The Nogitsune - or what’s left of it - is on Stiles' side now, his very own bandage-wrapped cheerleader, but it’s been less than a week since he tamed it, and right now, standing in his old kitchen, the mere whisper of its voice makes him feel taunted and jeered at.
Wisely, the void fox leaves him to simmer in his self-recrimination for now, and Stiles goes back to picturing his dad at AA meetings.
Did he have to do the whole, ‘Hi, my name is John, and I’m an alcoholic,’ thing? Was it like the movies? Styrofoam coffee cups and adhesive name tags? A circle of hard plastic chairs and stilted confessions?
His dad had been struggling, really struggling, and Stiles hadn’t known.
His dad could have reached him, had been told he could – for emergencies – and he hadn’t. Hadn’t thought it was an emergency? Hadn’t wanted Stiles to know? Hadn't known if he would have come?
And if he had told Stiles… would he have come? No. He would have stayed away. He would have felt awful, and he would have stayed away anyway.
Stiles wants to claw his face off as he remembers the time he fed his father alcohol to get insights on the Hale fire murders - fuck, Peter’s murders. And here he is, after six years of bupkis, breezy as you like, all cosy with that same killer and his accessory-after-the-fact nephew, learning his father spent four years slowly sliding into the bottle after he left.
“Stop it, kid,” his dad says, coming back in and catching him navel gazing. “I don’t know what you’re ruminating on, but you frown like that too much, you’re gonna get wrinkles just like your old man.”
Offering a lop-sided smile, Stiles scoffs, “I’m only twenty-three, Dad, I’ve got another few years of scowling before my face starts to set.”
“You should practice getting smile lines instead,” he shoulder checks him to get access to the sink, “you’ve got reason to now. Don’t you?”
He knocks up the pressure on the tap and washes his hands. Stiles waits for the susurrus roar to shut off before agreeing, “Yeah, absolutely.”
His dad looks at him with the straight, no-nonsense stare, so familiar that it breaks his heart.
“Dad, I’m… I’m sorry.”
“Aw, hell.” He’s pulled into a rough hug, and it doesn’t matter that his dad’s hands are cold and wet, because his arms are strong and warm, and his smell makes Stiles feel about four years old again. He’s crying like it he’s four again too, with great wracking sobs, but it’s the kind of pain you get when a limb is flaring back to life with volatile sensation, regaining feeling after a great period of numbness.
Stiles goes to open the door when the bell rings, and Peter studies him for a few long minutes, nostrils twitching slightly as he pulls in the smell of him. “An emotional evening,” he murmurs, and offers Stiles his hand. “Come take a moment with me, sweetheart.”
He lets Peter lead him along the porch to where pale light pools on the decking. Peter faces him towards the moon, then stands behind him and wraps his arms around his waist, tucking his chin over Stiles’ shoulder.
The luminous disc is waxing, Stiles knows. The full moon is a few days away still, but she’s gibbous, pregnant with light, serene with expectancy. It seems strange to him, on the occasions when he thinks about it, that something so tranquil can inspire so much fervour and ferocity in the werewolves.
Peter’s warm ear is pressed against Stiles’ cooler cheek. “It’s only sunlight, you know. I think about that sometimes, in the daytime, and wonder why it doesn’t affect me in the same way. I know some of the supernatural theory behind it, but I’m a man of science as much as a being of magic, and I wonder what it is about the process of bouncing off the Lunar surface that changes the light. Does it give the light something? Or take something away?”
Smiling at how closely aligned their thoughts had been, and at the morsel of insight Peter has given of himself, Stiles sighs and leans more of his weight back, getting squeezed tighter in return.
“'A being of magic',” Stiles muses.
“Both of us, now.”
Stiles makes a noise of agreement, eyes full of silver light, and says, “Your magic is the moon, and mine is the void, and here we are, looking at one through the other.”
“Mmm. The void-kissed moon; the lunar surface always exposed to the vacuum, as breathless as death, and just as haunting.”
A smile pulls at Stiles’ mouth, picturing fine grains of dust against the sharp silence of space, forever still as the heavens wheel by. “I don’t understand how ‘absence’ can have power, you know? It sounds contradictory.”
“Think of the concept of zero; integral to mathematics. It has a function, and therefore a power all its own. The power of nothing, which also holds the unique position of being the opposite of everything.”
“‘The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.’”
“Or, love and hate are the opposite of each other, and indifference is the opposite of them both.” Peter turns his head and kisses Stiles’ neck, mumbles against his skin, “But I only feel one for you.”
Stiles' breath stills, because the nuzzling doesn’t feel like indifference, and sure isn’t hate. He’s not going to push it though, this is a nice moment they’re having, and Peter’s allowed to take his time. Stiles still needs it too. He finds Peter’s fingers and traces along the fine shape of them, “Are you really sleeping in the spare room tonight?”
“Are we sure your father wouldn’t have my pelt if I crept into your room?”
Stiles groans irritably, “I’m not a kid anymore.”
“No, but you’ll always be his kid, and the last time he saw you, you were still seventeen. So, some time to adjust is only fair.”
“It’s sexy when you use your insight for good instead of evil.”
A sultry chuckle precedes another kiss to his neck, “Patience has always been an invaluable part of my repertoire,” he purrs, “but don’t worry, I’ll make it up to you.”
“Oh yeah? How?”
“Mmm, I can think of many ways, but if I describe any of them now, it will only leave you hot and frustrated,” warm breath curls down the collar of Stiles’ shirt as Peter noses forward, “and I’d hate to be the cause of your sleepless night.”
“Liar.”
“Fine, I love the idea of you squirming and restless and hungry for my touch, but it’s much more fun if I’m there to witness it; not stuck halfway down the hall, sleepless with my own desire. So, behave.” He emphasises this with a nip, which he soothes with a swipe of his tongue before drawing back and reluctantly releasing Stiles.
Stiles turns and kisses him, “You be sure'n make it up to me soon. I don’t have your ‘invaluable’ patience, you know.”
Peter smiles against his mouth, “I remember quite well.”
Being in this house makes Stiles feel like he’s seventeen again, and when he was seventeen, he was headstrong and stubborn and never listened to his poor old dad. He doesn’t want to listen to his dad now, he wants to go to the guest bedroom and at least have Peter next to him while he suffers through his insomnia.
He’s lying on his bed, in his old room - an untouched shrine to his teenage self - and with the blinds open, moonlight touches all the old posters and prints and books, and it’s a strange time warp that makes New York feel like a dream that never happened.
The spare room is right next to his, across from his dad’s room, and while sneaking out of the house was something he did frequently in days of yore, sneaking around inside the house was a harder task for an often clumsy boy. But he’s not that clumsy boy anymore, he’s not even in that clumsy body. He doesn’t even have ADHD anymore, although it had taken six years for him to fully, consciously acknowledge that.
If the Nogitsune helped him, he could sneak into Peter’s bed, no problem, his dad would never know.
Except, that’s not true. His dad wouldn’t hear anything, wouldn’t smell, or see anything, but he’d know. He’d use his special Dad Senses, and just know Stiles had crept into Peter’s room. And maybe that would be fine. Or maybe it would be breaking the first request that his dad has made in six years. His dad's never been too conservative, but he's not exactly a bleeding-heart liberal either, and all he's asking is for Stiles to give him some time to adjust to his new relationship with ‘the Hales’.
But being in this room is hard. Feeling seventeen again is hard. Beacon Hills might not have been waiting for him in stasis, but his memories have, and those memories are painted all over the walls of this room. There’s one canvas in particular that he can’t stop staring at. A solid black circle with spreading filaments dominates the centre of a streaked blue background, as though it’s sucking all colour and light from the sky. He used to think it looked cool, like a black sun with dark coronal loops; now all he can see is a void.
We are sorry, Ssstiles.
Stiles doesn’t really know what to do with an apology from what’s left of the Nogitsune. He suspects an apology would always have felt empty, but having one from the creature he hollowed out only settles in him as another layer of dissatisfaction and guilt.
He should just get rid of it, put it out of its misery.
We are not miserable.
He thinks of 2001: A Space Odyssey, of HAL while the motherboards that make up its mind are pulled from its cortex. Growing slow and afraid and then childlike until finally, 'Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. I'm half crazy all for the love of you,' slower and slower, until there's nothing left.
'Stop, Dave. Will you stop Dave? Stop, Dave...' it had dispassionately begged, but wouldn't it have been more cruel if Dave had stopped? If he had only half destroyed that advanced intelligence.
Ssstop, kit, we do not want your guilt.
But what does the echo know? The perpetrator of all his crimes, the seditious hand that steered his limbs and played his friends like pieces across a board, now peppered with holes and absences, eroded away into a creature content of subservience. Will he live the rest of his life with the stripped back vestiges of its consciousness lingering behind his neurones? An albatross for his mind?
The Nogitsune's remnant slips away, and Stiles goes back to studying the walls of regret boxing him in his childhood home.
Derek
Derek dreams. He dreams of creeping darkness, of swelling, bloated capillaries and choked pores. He dreams of suffocating from within.
He fights free of the clinging nightmare, but it’s a slow struggle back to consciousness, sleep paralysis still gripping his limbs. Before he can open his eyes, his ears tune in to a slow repetitive intrusion - dripping, but not the clean plink of water, a more viscous blat, blat, blat.
His uncooperative body is curled on its side, facing out into the room, and he can tell the sound is coming from about six feet away. It’s not from the window, or the door; it’s inside the room, right in the centre.
With grinding determination, he forces his eyelids open, and through the veil of moonlight slicing through the curtain’s gap, he resolves a faint humanoid silhouette. Even with his wolf eyes, it takes him a moment to make out the face of his mother, dark gunk dribbling from her nostrils and down her chin. She opens her mouth, and out pours thick black tar, splattering to the floor in a cascade of slow liquid darkness.
His limbs finally accept his commands, and Derek almost knocks the lamp over in his scramble to turn it on.
The cheerful yellow light washes the vision clean away, chasing everything but tangible reality from the room. He sits up properly and draws in deep lungfuls of air, waiting for his heart rate to steady. The Nemeton dreams have never felt like that before; no dream has ever felt like that before.
He clicks the lamp off again, and there’s no figure beyond the moonlight, no ghost or vision, only his empty room.
As a born wolf, Derek has rarely experienced nausea, but he belatedly recognises the queasy protest in his belly and the tightening in the back of his throat. He sprints to the bathroom and heaves into the toilet. There’s a short rush of digestive juices and strings of saliva, but no black tar.
Sitting back on his heels, he wipes his mouth with the back of one shaking hand. Foreboding coalesces in his emptied stomach; unfamiliar weakness trembles in his joints. This, whatever ‘this’ is: he's going to need help.