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Stiles meant to read a book on his way across the country, but he kept looking out the window instead. Sometimes there were clouds, massive mountains of them, sometimes he could see the country beneath him, a vast patchwork of browns and greens, with smudges of gray that he thought might be towns or cities.
On the plane he felt the loneliness of a crowded room where you didn’t know anyone. He made eye contact with the person sitting next to him and then shifted nervously. In a few hours he’d be at his new home where he’d committed to living for the rest of his life and meeting his future bondmate. Someone he’d be spending his whole life with.
He wasn’t nervous about that at all.
Peter Hale met Stiles at the airport. Stiles had met him before– he’d been the one to accompany Talia to the emissary job fair. (That had been a fun time; all the packs wanting to court Stiles. Finally he’d known what it was like to be Lydia Martin. Gotten a lot of awesome swag out of it too.)
“Stiles!” Peter greeted, arms out. Stiles happily accepted a hug, enjoying Peter’s warmth, spicy scent and the way his muscles shifted under Stiles’ hands. He'd forgotten how handsome the Left Hand was– how bright his blue eyes were, his fit body and thick neck, made hotter by the way he smirked like he knew a secret no one else was in on.
He pulled away reluctantly, wishing he could hold on tighter. Werewolf hugs were the best, warm and strong, always with a soothing hand petting you somewhere. How had he gone the first half of his life without them? After the job fair he’d felt bereft, found himself cuddling against Scott and his mom more than usual. Even his dad sometimes, for all that his dad wasn’t a tactile person.
“Which luggage is yours?” Peter asked, and Stiles snapped to the present. He pointed out the Captain America ribbons he’d tied to his bags and Peter helped him grab his luggage from the conveyor belt and insisted on carrying it to his car.
They made small talk on the way to Beacon Hills. How was the flight, how’s business, how’s the family, how’s the weather been? They finally got past all the ‘how’s’ to a rousing discussion about Science Fiction books/tv/movie, but as they got closer to the pack lands Stiles found himself losing the thread of the conversation.
“Nervous?” Peter asked, when Stiles drifted off in the middle of a sentence.
Stiles gulped and nodded.
“Don’t worry,” Peter said. “Derek’s a smart boy. He’s going to love you.”
“How are those things connected?”
“Only an idiot wouldn’t like you,” Peter told him, confidently.
Stiles looked at him skeptically. “Plenty of people have disliked me,” he said.
Peter shrugged. “The world is full of stupid people.”
“I’m too much,” Stiles said, remembering his first boyfriend throwing that in his face. “I’m a spastic ADHD bundle of nerves who chatters ceaselessly and forgets to take other people’s emotions into account.”
“First of all,” Peter said, “spastic is an abelist slur.”
“Oh,” Stiles said. “Sorry.”
“I’ve found you to be a very enjoyable conversationalist,” Peter told him. “Sounds to me like you’re just repeating things told to you by stupid people.”
Stiles snorted. “That’s a disprovable hypothesis. Also, isn’t ‘stupid’ also an ableist slur?”
“Hmmm,” Peter said. “Guess I should use the word ‘asshole’ instead. Is that bigoted in some ways?”
“Perhaps unkind to actual assholes?” Stiles suggested and Peter laughed.
“No, seriously,” he continued. “I’ve had a number of pleasant encounters with actual assholes, and I’m very fond of my own.”
Peter was still laughing. Stiles had to smile at it.
“It’s been very good to me,” Stiles continued. “No hemorrhoids, no leakage, and, well it’s probably inappropriate to discuss how well it’s done at sex with my future Uncle-in-law.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Peter said. “It’s important to have an asshole you can count on.”
Stiles laughed until he was wheezing, Peter laughing along with him for a while, then giving him amused looks when he got himself under control. When Stiles finally came up for air, they were at a drive thru.
“I thought you could probably use something to drink after that,” Peter told him, handing him an iced tea. Half sweet, exactly the way Stiles liked.
“Thanks,” he said, accepting it. “You know you don’t have to court me any longer?”
Peter rolled his eyes affectionately. “You’re my pack now,” he said. “You’re going to have to get used to people taking care of you. That’s what pack is.”
A feeling of warmth suffused Stiles. He’d been so caught up in being an emissary and learning magic and then finding the right pack and the upcoming bonding he’d forgotten about this part, about how he was becoming part of a family.
Stiles smiled at Peter again and sipped his iced tea.
The Hale house was more beautiful than the pictures Peter and Talia had shown him. Set among a miraculously surviving old growth forest, enormous oaks and maples shading a house that was more like a manor. Five stories tall, including the attics, wings engulfing a courtyard, high ceilings, beautifully polished wooden floors, and yet the place seemed modern, with large windows, a sprawling living room, and none of the stuffiness that Stiles associated with similar buildings he’d been to on the East coast.
Most of the pack was at school or at work, but as soon as the house came into view Stiles saw kids poking their heads out of the front door and the moment Peter cut the engine a whole pack of toddlers were swarming them, jumping on ‘Uncle Peter’ and peering at Stiles shyly with their fingers in their mouths.
“You like robots?” one of the kids asked Stiles as Peter shooed them aside so he could grab the luggage from the trunk.
“Yeah,” Stiles said. “Robots are pretty cool.”
“I got four,” the same kid said. He was wearing a Big Bird shirt and his face, hands, and shirt were liberally smeared with something brown.
“No you don’t,” the girl beside him said.
“Yeah I do!”
“You only have free!” the girl argued.
“Sasha, Eric,” Peter scolded gently. “Did you come out here to say hello to Stiles?”
“Oh yeah,” the girl (Sasha?) said. “Hi, ‘tiles. I’m Sasha.”
The other kids introduced them in a flurry that included other facts: ‘I’m four’, ‘I’m… I’m… I’m gonna go swimming’, ‘my mom’s on a trip!’ and Stiles looked at the crowd a little bewildered, afraid he wouldn’t be able to keep them straight.
“Don’t worry,” Peter told him, leading him to the house. “They’re a lot.”
Most of the kids were corralled by adults when they got inside, but Sasha somehow escaped and followed them to Stiles’ suite of rooms on the second floor.
“Bedroom, study, living room, bathroom,” Peter showed him. “Your workroom is right below this. Our previous emissary preferred that because it opened directly on the herb garden, but we can change it if you don’t like it.”
Stiles turned around, looking at the beautifully decorated rooms, having trouble believing they were all his, even though it had been part of the contract he’d signed.
“Sasha,” Peter scolded, when the little girl reached to grab something from the desk. Sasha grinned guiltily and held her hands behind her back.
“No,” Stiles said. “This is great.”
“Remember to ask for anything you need,” Peter said. “All basic amenities are covered in your contract. And the pack likes to provide for its members.”
Stiles laughed a little. “I think what you consider ‘basic amenities’ and what I do are a little different.”
“Jane– you’ll meet her later, is the one who puts in bulk orders and manages the accounts,” Peter said. “I’ll have her sit down with you and talk about what you might need. But be ready for someone in the pack to just buy you things if they think you’ll need them.”
“Oh,” Stiles said. “There’s going to be a lot of busybodies interfering in my life from now on, huh?”
Peter smirked. “That’s what pack is. Now, would you like a chance to rest after your flight, or would you like a tour of the house? Sasha, don’t touch that with your sticky little paws.”
“My paws aren’t sticky,” Sasha lied. She giggled and put one of them in her mouth.
“Can you give me like fifteen minutes?” Stiles asked. “I’m way too amped up to rest.”
“Of course,” Peter said and picked up Sasha, slinging her over his shoulder while she giggled. “Are you hungry? We could eat before or after the tour.”
Stiles’ stomach gurgled. “Before please,” he said.
Sasha giggled. “Your tummy’s hungry! My tummy’s hungry too! For cookies!”
Peter patted her butt. “Something tells me you already had some.”
“I only had only cookies!” She held up three fingers.
“I’ll be back in fifteen,” Peter promised.
Stiles sat down on the bed and sighed, then fell back on the mattress. Fuck, that was comfortable. He took off his shoes and put them on the shoe rack by the door, then went to shower off the plane smell and to change his clothes.
He was distracted by the enormous clawfoot tub, the beautiful blue glazed tiles of the bathroom, the thickness of the towels, the sheer luxury of everything. Stiles hadn’t been exactly poor growing up. With his dad working for the sheriff’s office and his mom as a magic teacher, they’d been solidly middle class. But this was another level entirely. The Hale pack was one of the oldest and most well established packs on the West Coast, having claimed land (appropriated? Stolen) right after the Mexican-American war, and practiced sustainable forestry before it was really a thing. They owned half the town of Beacon Hills, which under their protection had become a thriving community that catered to the supernatural, and their Nematon was the most powerful on the continent. (And Stiles’ new responsibility– no pressure though.)
So he was basically marrying into werewolf royalty. All during the courting process he’d felt like the pauper pretending to be the prince. He kept wanting to ask ‘are you sure you want me?’.
A knock at the door interrupted his musing and he finished drying his hair and pulled on a shirt– a nice button down he hoped would make him feel more like he belonged in this lavish place– and opened the door.
Peter was standing there with a smile and a child on each hip. Sasha, her hands and shirt cleaned, and another toddler Stiles hadn’t met yet.
“This is Hugo,” Peter said, at Stiles’ glance.
“Hi, Hugo, I’m Stiles,” Stiles said.
Hugo waved his little hand.
“I’m going to need one hand free, so one of you has to walk,” Peter said.
“No!” Sasha sulked.
“Thank you for volunteering,” Peter said, putting her gently on the ground.
She immediately ran to Stiles. “‘tiles, you carry me?”
Obediently, Stiles boosted her up. “Oof,” he said. “You’re heavy.” She giggled. “I’m serious. You weigh like a thousand pounds.”
“No!” she cried, although Stiles was pretty sure she had no idea what a thousand pounds was.
Peter smiled fondly at them and then led him down a stairwell to the kitchen.
The kitchen was wonderfully large, outfitted with an enormous eight range stove, three ovens and two refrigerators, multiple butcher block counters and sinks.
There were sandwich fixings laid out on one of the counters and Stiles met a few more pack members while he and Peter fixed sandwiches and made up plates. Then Stiles followed Peter outside to the porch, overlooking a courtyard. Enclosed on three sides, with a low fence on the fourth, it was clear it served as a continuation of the house, with a playground, a flagged area with a large grill and a lawn, with a border of ornamental plants at which bees were buzzing.
There were a few children playing on the playground and Sasha and Hugo, sensing that they weren’t going to be given any food, decided to run off and join them.
“The house burned down ten years ago,” Peter explained, as they ate.
“I read about that,” Stiles said. “It must have been terrible.”
“It was,” Peter agreed. “But it also gave us the chance to redesign. The original house was built piecemeal, with additions being added on as they were needed. When we rebuilt, we did so more deliberately. The upper two stories are divided into apartments for families and unattached adults. Besides your quarters– the emissary’s quarters– the second floor is mostly reserved for young adults, including new pack members. Don’t worry– the soundproofing is as good as we could possibly make it.
“We have a study room and a game room for the young adults so they can do their young adult things without feeling like they’re always being spied on. They used to use one of the cottages, but it was destroyed in an… uh… accident.” He looked a little shifty, like he might have been one of the young adults involved. “So when we rebuilt the house we figured it would be better to keep a bit of a closer eye on them.”
“Don’t want the younger generation copying you?” Stiles asked.
Peter smirked and took a bite of his sandwich.
A few pack members came up to them while they were eating, all excited to meet the new emissary, and Peter introduced each of them with a few facts about them; usually regarding what they did and what they were good at. Stiles smiled and ask questions, certain he’d forget everyone’s name as soon as they were out of sight.
Peter laughed at the look on his face when he admitted he wasn’t very good at names. “You’ll learn soon enough,” he said. “After all, you’re living here now.”
It still seemed like a bizarre fantasy, the idea that this was his new home; this beautiful place, these generous people, so excited to welcome him.
They went into the kitchen and rinsed their plates and put them in the dishwasher, as Peter explained about how chores were distributed and what foods he could make use of between meals. “You’ll be added to the chore chart,” he said, gesturing to a large whiteboard covered with tasks and names, “but it will be understood that in emergency situations that will come first. If there’s a non-emergency reason you can’t do something then you’re responsible for trading with someone. If there are chores you prefer or chores you hate– or if you’re terrible at cooking, for example– let Jane know and she’ll try to take that into account.
The tour continued from the kitchen, through the nursery, which was currently only occupied by babies and a few adults, into the foyer and up the grand staircase that split in the middle and went up each side, like what you’d see in a murder mystery.
Peter opened a large door off the hallway to reveal a large room with a large table, a few individual desks with computers set up on them, and shelves of books. “This is the young adult study– a quieter space for them to do their work or relax.” He gestured to a corner full of art supplies. “Or do their hobbies.” They continued down the hall to a larger room outfitted with couches, a pingpong table, even arcade games. “This is the young adult rec room. We’ve got all the major video game systems and–” Peter shrugged– “they tell me the most popular games. I don’t really game much, so I’m pretty ignorant.”
He led the way down the stairs back into the foyer. “There are three sets of stairs– these, and a stairwell at the end of each hallway. The main floor is mostly public, except for a few private offices at the end of the west wing.” He led from the foyer into an empty living room, filled with well-loved furniture. All of the furniture Stiles had seen so far was sturdy and built to last, clearly taking enthusiastic young werewolves into account. The room was lined with windows on the side facing the forest and french doors on the side facing the courtyard, many of which were open. On one side of the room was a large flatscreen.
“We have movie nights here, and it’s where a lot of the adults relax.”
Beyond that was a hallway, running along the outside wall. Peter opened a door off the hallway, revealing a large library, two stories, with a gallery halfway up. Three walls were completely covered books, with the fourth lined with windows to the courtyard, outfitted with comfortable looking window seats. The center of the room was similar to the young adult study room with a mix of long tables, independent desks and arm chairs and couches.
A young woman was studying at one of the tables. “This is Talia’s daughter Cora– Cora, Stiles, our new emissary.”
“And my new brother-in-law,” Cora said, with a grin, coming around the table to give Stiles a hug. “It’s nice to meet you. Mom and Uncle Peter were raving about you.”
Stiles looked back at Peter, who loved smug. “You have to admit you’re very impressive.”
Stiles shook his head. “I’m going to get full of myself soon if you don’t stop complimenting me.”
Cora looked between the two of them. “Enjoy it while it lasts. Uncle Peter will find something negative to say about you soon enough.” She cast a critical eye on Stiles’ clothes. “Probably about your clothes.”
“No,” Peter said. “I’d just planned on sneaking better fitting clothes into his closet.”
“What’s wrong with my clothes?” Stiles protested.
“You bought them at thrift stores,” Cora said, right when Peter commented that they didn’t fit Stiles properly.
“Uncle Peter is a fashion snob,” Cora confided in Stiles. “Feel free to ignore him.”
“Thanks for that, darling niece,” Peter said, then turned back to his tour-guide voice. “The library is a designated quiet space, none of the younger children allowed in without supervision. There are smaller libraries in the nursery and the young adult study room.”
Stiles walked in a little further, turning to look at the walls of books. Moveable ladders were hung on rails to make the books accessible, and more armchairs and desks were hidden in niches behind rows of bookshelves. “There are so many books,” he said.
Peter nodded. “We were lucky– our original library was heavily warded against fire, so most of the books survived. Derek is the librarian—”
“I read that in the file,” Stiles said. “It was one of the things that attracted me to him. His digitization project is amazing.”
Peter smiled. “He was actually a bit of a technophobe,” he explained. “Planned on majoring in Forestry and joining our pack members who manage the forest and the preserve. But when the fire happened, some of his favorite books were destroyed and he threw himself into learning about book preservation and digitization and ended up getting his masters in library sciences and information technology. We’re very proud of him.”
“Not gonna lie,” Stiles said, “when I found out he’s the one who started SDP I fanboyed a little. I swear I would have never graduated without it.”
“Derek’s offices are in there–” Peter gestured to a door set among the bookshelves. “There’s also a small bindery where he repairs some of our more precious books. Above it is the room where we keep our more delicate volumes– I’d show you, but kids aren’t allowed in.”
Sasha made a farting noise.
“Honestly I’m having a hard time not just running over to the bookshelves and browsing,” Stiles admitted.
“Why don’t we continue the tour and you can do that after lunch?” Peter suggested. Stiles grinned at him and they continued on.
Past the library there were offices; Talia’s, Peter’s, a few others, then a beautiful sunroom full of tropical plants. From there they headed into the courtyard.
Around the courtyard was a deep porch, covered in porch furniture; comfy looking chairs and couches, even a few hammocks. A pair of people were sitting and watching the children and talking quietly, one of them holding a sleeping child.
“It’s so peaceful here,” Stiles said. One of the children screamed with joy and Stiles laughed. “Okay, maybe peaceful’s the wrong word. Welcoming. Comfortable.”
“I’m glad you feel that way,” Peter replied. He rested a hand on Stiles’ shoulder. “We worked really hard on making our home as comfortable and functional as possible. This is your home now too.”
On impulse, Stiles hugged him, enjoying it just as much as the first time. More maybe. How did he manage to smell so good? He might have held on for a little too long; he let go, embarrassed.
Peter smiled at him and rested a hand on his shoulder, indicating, maybe that he was happy to be hugged.
“Someone will show you the grounds later,” Peter said. “I don’t want you to get too overwhelmed.”
“Too late for that,” Stiles joked. “This place is really amazing.”
Peter smiled. “I’m glad you think so. We’ve put our lives into it.”
Their last stop was the emissary’s workshop, a large room at the end of the East Wing, directly beneath Stiles’ rooms, with a door opening out, as Peter had said, into the garden that was planted along the side of the wing, the section outside of the workshop devoted to herbs, the rest to vegetables.
The workshop was large enough to contain an area for drying herbs and for making potions, another with a desk and large bookshelf crammed with books, another devoted to the creation of amulets and warding stones. Despite the dust the lined the surfaces of the room– the previous emissary, Alan, had died suddenly of a heart attack– and the musty, disused smell, the place was wonderful. All it needed, Stiles reflected, was a stuffed alligator hanging from the rafters to be perfect.
“We didn’t want to clean up in here,” Peter explained. “Alan always warned us not to come in and touch things just in case there were any dangerous objects sitting out. Since we can’t detect magic, it seemed prudent to leave it the way it was. I apologize for the mess.”
“No,” Stiles said. “I think you did the right thing.”
“Great,” Peter said. “You poke around. Start making a list of things you might need. I showed you the cupboard where the cleaning supplies are– use anything you need, just make sure to keep it locked so the pups can’t break in.”
“Of course,” Stiles said, making a mental note and hoping he’d be able to keep it. His ADHD had improved a lot since he’d started meditating and using his magic, but things still slipped his memory sometimes, especially when he was overwhelmed with new information. Maybe he could install a lock that would always lock when the door was closed and make sure Peter had an extra key for when he invariably lost it.
“And of course, there is no rush,” Peter added. “The time until your bonding should be used to acclimate and explore. Rest, when you need to, get to know the pack and grounds, poke around the library, spend time talking to people. Most of the time, you’re going to need to figure out what needs doing, unless Talia or I or Nancy– the healer– come to you with specific requests. At some point we’d love to have the wards redone, and you’re going to need to spend time bonding with the Nemeton and getting to know the other supernatural creatures in the area, but those are things that can wait until after the bonding.
Stiles nodded, looking around at the workshop. The previous emissary seemed to have been a fairly neat person. There were a few objects laid on the workbench, but otherwise the place was pretty well organized. It seemed like a good idea to clean a little and then poke around.
“Thanks,” he told Peter.
“And if you need anything, just ask anyone,” Peter told him.
“Of course,” Stiles said, feeling a little awkward.
Peter smiled at him and left the workroom.
Stiles spent an hour or two dusting and sweeping and then began exploring the supplies, noting down what ingredients needed to be refilled or replaced, flipping through the books, investigating all the little nooks and generally thrilling about having his own workshop. His own pack!
He was so absorbed he lost track of time, and it must have been hours later when there was a knock on the door. He opened it to find a tall, beautiful man. Chiseled jaw, wide, muscled shoulders, dark hair done up in a pompadour, gorgeous hazel eyes. When Peter and Talia had shown Stiles a picture of Derek he’d thought for a minute that it had been cut out of a magazine and this was all an elaborate joke. Incredibly, Derek was even hotter in person. Stiles had told himself he wouldn’t swoon when he met him and it was the hardest promise he’d ever kept.
He grinned instead. “H! Derek, right? Or are there a lot of people in your pack who look like supermodels?” Fuck, he hadn’t meant to say that.
Derek blushed behind his neat layer of stubble and bushy eyebrows.
“Yeah,” he said. “I mean I’m Derek. And you’re Stiles.”
And he was cute. Oh man, Stiles really was gonna wake up and discover this had all been a fantastic dream, wasn’t he? It was impossible to believe he’d ever get this lucky.”
“Yeah,” Stiles agreed. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Derek gave him a shy smile.
Dinner was held at long tables in the dining room, with all the french doors open to the courtyard. There wasn’t much regard for pack hierarchy; people seemed to sit where they wanted, the younger pack members having a rousing conversation, the older ones seated at the other end of the room, some helping out the little kids, some having what looked to be serious conversations.
Derek led him over to where the younger back were gathered, and they all looked at Stiles with excitement.
“Stiles, I’d like to introduce you to some of my packmates,” Derek said and then proceeded to throw the names of fifteen people at him.
Maybe they’d let him take pictures and make notecards.
“Hi, everyone,” Stiles said. “I’m your new emissary.”
“And Derek’s new mate,” one of the girls– Erica?– said, with a giggle.
Stiles glanced at Derek and blushed. “Yeah,” he said, scratching the back of his neck.
“Not for a few weeks,” Derek added.
“You’re so young to be an emissary,” one of the boys commented.
“You just think that because Alan was so old,” Derek defended. “He’s a perfectly normal age for an emissary starting out.”
Stiles was charmed that Derek was defending him. “Actually, I am a little young,” he admitted. “I skipped a few grades and got through my apprenticeship faster than normal.”
“He was the most sought-after new emissary at the fair,” Derek bragged. OMG, Stiles thought, he’s bragging about me. He did his best not to stare at Derek with stars in his eyes.
He stayed awake too late that night, sitting around a bonfire outside with the younger pack members, laughing and talking with them. Derek sat quietly beside him, only adding something every now and then. Stiles remembered Peter telling him that Derek was quiet and shy. He wondered if Derek would talk more when it was just them alone.
Traditionally, this was a kind of courtship– rules for how it worked had been laid down long ago, back when people were more concerned about virginity. All of their interactions were supposed to be chaperoned. Stiles wondered if the Hale Pack would keep to that– they seemed less traditional. He’d like to get to know Derek as much as possible before the bonding, both because he was still a little nervous about the idea of bonding to a stranger, and because there’d be a higher chance of the bonding taking if he genuinely cared about his bondmate.
He thought he could; besides being hot like burning, and having started an incredible digitization project, Derek seemed gentle and intelligent and kind. It was clear his pack members had a lot of respect for him; they teased him, but affectionately. Stiles got the feeling he’d be in for a lot of shovel talks in the next few days.
He fell into his new bed– and Mother Moon, was it the height of luxury. The sheets were cool and soft and smooth, the bed cozy but supportive. He stretched out and sighed, enormously pleased with himself. And he had a right to be.
The next few days he spent settling in, meeting with Talia, Jane, and the pack council, discussing what work they thought needed to be done, what materials he might want to purchase. Peter took him to inspect the wards, first the household wards, then the ones on the border of the territory, riding a four-wheeler as far as possible then hiking the rest of the way, stopping to show him the sights of the Preserve; the waterfall, the ridge where you could see most of the territory, the set of caves the children liked to play in sometimes.
On the new moon, the pack council took him to the Nematon, dressed in the traditional emissary robes, a crown of oak leaves on his head. He performed the ritual with the elders at his back, slicing the skin over his heart to lend it his blood, crying onto the roots to water it with his tears. After he was bonded, they’d come back out here and have sex at the root of the tree, feed it once more with his seed, but even without that he felt the connection to the tree form, the feeling of something ancient and deep growing through him.
The Nemeton had been a massive tree when the Hale ancestors arrived in the land, already tapping into the ley lines, but beginning to rot on the inside because the colonization had killed off its tribe. The first emissary of the pack had seen that and figured out how to use druid rituals to connect with it and to heal the wounds created by the loss. Stiles still felt it, the memory of that loss preserved in the wood. He laid a hand on the bark and shared its sorrow.
He spent time with Derek in the library, where Derek showed him his set up for scanning and digitizing books and the small, well vented, workshop where he did repairs. It was surprising how nimble he was with his large hands, confidently cutting the leather he was using, sewing and gluing and using gold leaf to press the title and author into the spine of the new cover, neat and meticulous in a way Stiles could only ever manage to be when tracing out a rune or brewing a potion.
Derek was almost as quiet alone as he was in a group, and Stiles was self-conscious about how much he chattered, even when Derek seemed interested in what he was talking about. When Stiles asked questions, he gave them a lot of thought before answering seriously and completely. Stiles had to bite his tongue to keep himself from impatiently trying to finish Derek’s thoughts or fill up the silences he left.
So Derek wasn’t good at banter. That was fine. Stiles didn’t need a mate to banter with. He had a whole pack to banter with! Cora, Derek’s sister, and some of the younger pack members were great at it. And Peter, of course. Peter could see to all Stiles’ banter needs and then some. He could talk to the wolf for hours about magic and protection and, oh, complete nonsense. Peter was a closet nerd, secretly hoarding a love for (and collection of) Discworld novels and Deadpool comics. He didn’t need the whole package in his mate; he was hot and kind and caring– shouldn’t that be enough? That’s why you needed friends and family in addition to your partner. It took a village, right?
Mom, Dad, and Scott flew in a week before the ceremony, while Stiles was still settling in and getting to know the place, cataloging the wards and seeing how the pack used the land, what they might need from him in the the months and years to come.
He got up before the sunrise and grabbed a breakfast wrap some kind soul had prepared for him, filling up his travel mug from the coffee maker, then headed out to where the cars were parked to find Peter checking over one of the pack’s SUVs.
“So are you like the pack chauffeur as well?” Stiles asked, handing Peter his own breakfast wrap and staring out at the false dawn shining over the mountains in the distance. He crawled in the passenger seat when Peter was done, buckling himself in, hands tight around the travel mug and yawning.
It was much earlier than he’d usually get up, and he’d basically just crawled out of bed into the first clean clothes he’d found. Peter, in contrast, looked bright-eyed and bushy tailed, his usual v-necked henley and skinny jeans clean and neat. Stiles wondered if he ironed him. He seemed like the type who might. Stiles probably still had bed-head. He hadn’t looked in the mirror.
Peter huffed a laugh, eyes fixed on the long driveway that curved away from the pack house.
“I try to be,” he said, turning the car onto the road. “That way I can assess strangers before they show up on pack lands or get a sense for how my packmates are doing when they’re coming home.”
“That actually makes sense.”
“Plus, sometimes it’s nice to get away from the pack for a little while,” Peter admitted. “I love them, but they are a lot.”
“Yeah,” Stiles agreed. “I didn’t even realize until you took me to look at the boundary wards and wow. It’s just always something going on? It’s kind of wonderful– you’re never lonely, are you? But at the same time, you need space.”
Peter smiled. “Yes– I have to keep reminding myself how lucky I am when I’m trying not to strange my siblings or niblings or cousins or the hundreds of other pack members who constantly need things from me.”
“But you’ve got a soundproof room with a lock on it,” Stiles pointed out.
“Cora taught herself how to pick it and then took it upon herself to teach the other kids,” Peter explained.
Stiles laughed. “I could ward it for you, if you’d like.”
“That would actually be fantastic,” Peter said. “Could you make it so only one of the pack leaders could get through? That’s why I never bought a better lock– I do want them to be able to reach me if there’s an emergency. After the fire… well, I worry about having locks on the doors. We’ve got keys that work on all the locks, just in case, so changing one out would be a problem”
Stiles nodded. “Yeah, I can do that, easy.”
They drove in silence for a few more minutes, until Stiles had finished his coffee. He put the mug into the cup holder and sat back in the seat, looking out the windows at the green forest they were passing. “What’s winter like?” he asked. “It’s not like winter in Boston, I know that.”
Peter laughed. “No. The forest is still mostly deciduous trees, so they get bare in the winter and it gets relatively cold, but nothing like that.” He shivered. “I spent four years in Massachusetts– never again.”
“Where in Mass?” Stiles asked.
“Amherst– I went to Hampshire college.”
“That really hippie school? I didn’t think you were the type.”
“I followed a boy there,” Peter admitted.
“Oh my god.”
“Yes. I was a dumb eighteen year old and I had this enormous crush on the valedictorian of my class, and when he said he was going to Hampshire I decided I would go there too. It actually turned out to be a good choice– it’s a great school, and Amherst would be a great place to live if it wasn’t for the winter.”
“And did you ever hook up?” Stiles asked.
“We hooked up,” Peter said, “but nothing more than that. Once I got to college I realized I wasn’t interested in settling down.”
“Is that code for you being a slut?”
“Perhaps, a bit of one,” Peter agreed easily.
“What did you study?”
“Philosophy.”
“You must have been such a hipster.”
Peter smiled. “A little bit. It’s hard for werewolves to be hipsters.”
“Why?” Stiles asked.
“Thrift stores smell really bad.”
Stiles laughed. “I don’t think that thrift store clothes are obligatory.”
“I was sufficiently superior to claim hipster-dom, I think.”
“I have no doubt.”
Peter reached over and knocked him, gently, on the side of the head.
“Hey!” Stiles yelped, laughing. “I just meant that all college kids are pretty full of themselves. I was a little shit myself.”
“That’s changed?”
Stiles huffed a laugh. “Not really. But I’ve been on my best behavior so far, if you can believe it.”
“You can’t live the rest of your life like that. I’d rather– we’d all rather– if you felt like you could be yourself.”
“I don’t want to scare Derek away before we’re bonded,” Stiles admitted. “He’s so quiet and I’m so… I’m so much sometimes.” He yawned. “I wouldn’t be telling you this if I wasn’t half asleep. You’re really taking advantage of me here.”
“Another reason I do these drives,” Peter told him.
“That’s evil.”
Peter shrugged. “Never said I wasn’t.”
Stiles eyed Peter. He’d always been a little morally gray himself. It had gotten him into a number of arguments with Scott, who saw things rigidly in black and white. He wondered what other ‘evil’ things Peter did.
“Do you want to know everyone’s secrets because you’re curious, so you have something to hold over them, or to protect your pack?”
Peter shrugged. “I’m a multitasker.”
They were silent for a few more minutes. The road they were on climbed up one of the hills and the trees opened up to a beautiful view of the distant mountains, silhouetted against the dawn. Stiles sighed at how beautiful it was. He could feel Peter glancing at him as he stared out the window at the view.
“Why did you go to Amherst for college?” he asked, when they were back among the trees. “I thought most wolves did online school or went somewhere close by.”
“It was a few decades ago, so online school wasn’t really an option,” Peter replied, sounding amused. “And when I was a teenager I wanted to get as far away from my family as I could. I always encourage the pack kids to go away to school. Get some perspective.”
Stiles nodded.
“Why did you go to Ipswich? Didn’t you want to try some place new?”
Stiles shrugged, picking at a patch on his jeans. “Tuition was free, since my mom worked there, and I could live at home, since that was cheaper.”
“But you wanted to be an emissary– you probably knew that your future pack would pay off any loans you had.”
Stiles nodded. “But what if something happened? What if I hated it for some reason? Or I wasn’t able to find a pack to take me on, or I wanted to work with a pack that couldn’t afford it? It just seemed more sensible to get the free education.”
“That’s unusually foresighted for an eighteen year old boy.”
“Mom had a pretty serious medical condition when I was a kid, and our insurance only went so far, so for a long time we had money problems. I just got used to worrying about it.”
“Well, that’s not necessarily a bad thing– not the worrying, but the considering. Some of our kids are a little too comfortable with how much money we have. Or they think that since the pack is happy to support some of the members, like the ones who take care of the children, the house, and the land, or people like Derek, who are doing a project that benefits all of us, we’ll support them laying around.” He sounded irritated, like this was an argument he’d had recently.
“What do you do?” Stiles asked.
“What I’d like to do is kick them out,” Peter said. “But I’m not the most tender-hearted pack member. We cut off their allowance and give them the worst jobs until they get a clue.”
“Do they?”
“Not quickly enough,” Peter complained. “You’ll find out for yourself soon enough.”
“Why?”
“When your bonding is complete you’ll be a member of the Pack Council and be able to enjoy our two hour long meetings arguing what to do with the layabouts.”
“Oh joy,” Stiles said. “I’ve always wanted to be on a council. Can we sit in the back and make snarky comments?”
“I wish. It’s at a round table.”
“Does Talia fancy herself King Arthur?”
“Talia is a very fair and progressive alpha who barely ever resorts to growling to get her own way.”
Stiles laughed. “I’m pretty sure we shouldn’t be laughing at the alpha,” he said.
“She’s my sister– I can mock her if I like.”
“Sibling immunity? Is that a thing?”
“Someone has to keep her grounded. That’s how alphas go wrong, you know.”
“Not having someone question them? I’m pretty sure that’s how all megalomaniacs go wrong. That’s what happened to George Lucas, after all.”
“You’re referring to the prequels?”
“No one could tell him ‘no, George, you shouldn’t make a CGI character with a racist accent’. Or ‘no, George, the Trade Federation shouldn’t be a racist caricature.”
“Or ‘no, George, don’t cast a nine year old in a part originally written for a twelve year old.’”
“Exactly!” Stiles exclaimed. “You get it.”
“The prequels were a travesty?”
“Well, obviously. What else does the council do?”
“What you’d think. Mostly budgets. Sometimes we discuss how well certain pack members are doing. People applying to join the pack.”
“Do you take a lot of people?”
“We like to keep our population steady. There are always a few kids who leave the pack to join another. And we’ve had to kick people out. It’s always for something serious, and usually repeated. Stealing, harming or endangering other pack members, that kind of thing.”
“So when a kid leaves or someone is kicked out–”
“Or someone dies.”
“– or someone dies, then you have an opening?”
“It’s not like we suddenly start looking to replace them. More like if someone applies to join we’d be more open to their application. But all those things happen really rarely. Mostly it’s arguing about stupid things– whether we should cut down a certain tree or if the young adults should be allowed to live in one of the cottages. Whether we should make a big purchase. The young adults keep pushing for a swimming pool.”
“Why not?” Stiles asked.
“Several reasons,” Peter said. “We’d have to clear land for it, and I’m always against disturbing the forest unnecessarily. And we’d have to bring in outside help, which I’m against from a security standpoint. But the biggest reason is that swimming pools are a danger to young children. Almost 90% of children who drown drown in home pools– an average of 300 a year. We already have the pond for swimming in, but that’s too far for the young children to walk to on their own. So it seems to me like we’d be paying just for the convenience while endangering the cubs.”
“Huh,” Stiles said. “That seems reasonable.”
“Plus, I think it will be a smelly eyesore.”
Stiles laughed. “There it is.”
“The water would have to be chlorinated, which smells horrible, and it would be a hideous concrete structure.” He shook his head, sniffing in disdain. “The pond should be enough for anyone. If they don’t like it they can go to the city pool.”
“I bet that smells worse,” Stiles commented.
“It’s eye watering. I can smell the different people who peed in the water.”
“Ugh.”
“I hope your school wasn’t one of those who made you pass a swimming test to graduate.”
“Thank the Moon, no. I would have flunked out.”
“You know fish probably pee in the pond,” Stiles said, slyly.
“I don’t mind that. That’s a natural part of the ecosystem. Bears shit in the woods– so do wolves. It decomposes and provides nutrients for the forest.”
“So it’s excretions that are out of place you have a problem with? Wait, are you saying that you and the other wolves…”
Peter glances at him with his eyebrows raised. “You think that someone, on a perimeter run in full wolf, is going to wander off to find the nearest bathroom? And don’t tell me you never pee in the woods.”
“You know I do– I did it the other day.”
“Well I wasn’t exactly watching.”
Stiles suddenly had a vision of Peter spying on him as he pulled his dick out and couldn’t help blushing. Think of something else, think of something else. Fuck, he could probably smell it too. Stupid wolves.
“What other stupid things have people wanted to build?” he asked, trying to divert the conversation and himself. I am not going to develop a crush on my future uncle-in-law, he promised himself. I am not.
They spent the rest of the trip talking about nonsense ideas people had put forward, from a dovecote to a brewery to a replica of the USS Enterprise.
(“That would have been awesome,” Stiles said.
“Until we had to build a replica of Millenium Falcon to keep the balance in the force,” Peter replied. “And then where would it have gone from there? Battlestar Galactica?”
“Nostromo?”
“Serenity?”
“Excalibur?”
“Bebop?”
“Wait, you’ve seen Cowboy Bebop?”
“Of course.”)
Until suddenly they were at the airport. Stiles looked around, surprised that an hour had just passed like that. It definitely seemed like a shorter trip than the way from the airport to Beacon Hills had been.
They kept up their conversation as Peter parked, then on their way into the small terminal, arriving only a few minutes before the passengers began disembarking and filtering into the baggage area. They were in the middle of a rousing discussion about Discovery (did the death of Paul Stamets count as ‘burying your gays’?) when Stiles caught sight of his parents entering the baggage area, followed closely by Scott.
“Mom! Dad! Scott!” he yelled excitedly, even though it had only been a few weeks. His parents made their way to him quickly, his mom wrapping him in a tight hug, dad patting him on the shoulder a little awkwardly, and him and Scott doing their best friend handshake.
“Uh,” he said, scratching his hair after they’d finished the handshake with the traditional hip check. “It might be time to retire that one, bud.” He glanced at Peter, who looked amused.
“Oh!” his mom exclaimed. “You must be Derek!” she hugged Peter tightly. “Stiles has told us so much about you.”
“Mostly about how hot you are,” Scott grumbled.
“Ah, no, mom!” Stiles yelped. “That’s not Derek! That’s Peter– his uncle.”
“Whoops,” his mom said, not looking embarrassed at all. She patted Peter’s cheek. “Are you sure? He’s very hot.”
“Oh my god mom,” Stiles groaned.
“I’m Peter Hale. Left Hand of the Hale Pack. It is my pleasure to greet our emissary’s family and to invite you to our pack lands.”
“Nice to meet you, Peter,” Stiles’ mom said, with a wink. “I’m Claudia Stilinski, and this is my husband John.”
Stiles’ dad began to extend his hand for a handshake and then seemed to remember wolves didn’t shake hands and pulled it back, looking embarrassed.
“Hi!” Scott chirped. “I’m Scott McCall, beta of the Greater Gloucester pack. Thank you for welcoming us to your lands.”
The baggage carousel came to life and the conveyor belt began spitting out luggage onto it and Scott and Stiles’ parents made their way over to grab their suitcases.
“Sorry about that,” Stiles exclaimed.
“Not at all,” Peter said. Stiles got the impression he was going to tease Stiles about this for years to come. “Why do you have an unpronounceable Polish name and your parents have normal English names?”
“They secretly hate me,” Stiles muttered. “And it’s perfectly pronounceable in Polish.”
Scott was somehow having difficulty with Stiles’ mom’s distinctive sunflower-covered suitcase despite his werewolf strength.
“We should go help,” Stiles said hurrying over to him before he could tear the handle off.
The ride home was a mix of Stiles’ parents asking Peter for more information about the area of California they were in and Stiles’ parents telling embarrassing stories about Stiles. His mom sat beside Peter because of chivalry or something, his dad in the middle and he and Scott in the back.
“So what’s Derek like?” Scott asked in a whisper. Stiles still wasn’t sure how his best friend had managed to spend ten years as a werewolf without learning that every other werewolf had senses just as sharp. “Is he hotter than Peter? Cause you know I’m 100% straight, but I can appreciate things like that aesthetically.”
“Can we please talk about this later?” Stiles groaned. There wasn’t an answer to that question he wanted to give in Peter’s presence.
“Why did he come to get us instead of Derek? Derek can drive, right?”
“Of course he can drive,” Stiles said. He assumed Derek could drive, anyway. Derek didn’t like to go to town much, so he’d never had the chance to see him, but he was an adult. He probably could. “Peter likes coming to get new people so he can check them out. That’s what Left Hands do.”
“Wow,” Scott said. “You know Peter Hale is notorious. There are all sorts of rumors about him. I heard that…” Stiles clapped a hand over Scott’s mouth.
“You do realize he can hear you?” Stiles asked.
Scott’s eyes widened.
“And he’s my packmate, so I’d appreciate it if you don’t spread malicious rumors.” Scott looked confused. “Those are rumors meant to hurt people,” Stiles clarified.
Scott nodded and then licked Stiles’ hand. “Ewww!” he exclaimed, rubbing his hand on his shorts.
“Sorry!” Scott said and mimed zipping his lips.
“Boys, what are you doing back there?” Stiles’ mom called, looking over the back of her chair at them. “I swear, he’s twenty six, a full fledged emissary and he still acts like a child.”
“Oh my god, mom,” Stiles complained, knowing it would only hurt his case but unable to stop himself. “Please don’t say things like that in front of Derek.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Claudia said, breezily. “I brought along your baby photos.”
“What?!” Stiles heard himself screech. “Stop the car, Peter! Turn around! They’re going right back to the airport.”
Peter laughed. “Don’t worry, I think we can scrounge up some of Derek’s for you to look at. I remember a particularly good one of him crying because his model airplane couldn’t actually fly.”
“I brought one from Stiles in eighth grade,” Claudia confided. “He insisted on wearing polka-dotted suspenders to picture day.”
“Nooo!” Stiles cried and bumped his head against the glass of the window he was sitting next to.
“If you’re trying to break free, I have to warn you that those windows are made from bulletproof glass,” Peter called back to him.
“Just trying to give myself brain damage so I won’t die from mortification when my mom shows those pictures to the entire pack.”
“Oh, carry on then.”
Scott slung an arm around Stiles’ shoulders. “Come on, it’s not that bad.”
“No?” Stiles asked, raising an eyebrow. “How’s it going with that new girl you like? The kitsune?”
“Kira?” Scott asked.
“Hey mom, you got any baby photos of Scott?” Stiles called. “I need to send them to someone!”
This time it was Scott clamping his hand on Stiles’ mouth, while Stiles cackled madly.
Stiles managed to distract his dad from any sort of shovel talk by suggesting he and Peter discuss the pack’s defenses. As expected the two men quickly got in the weeds, eventually heading off to Peter’s office so he could show Stiles’ dad schematics of the house and escape tunnel network.
Unfortunately, there was no distracting his mom from being as embarrassing as possible, first by raving about the furnishings of the house, then by talking to the babies in baby talk and making funny faces at them. She followed this with telling the adults standing around funny stories about Stiles when he had been a baby.
Derek came in around the middle of this and completely misunderstood Stiles’ wild gestures for him to go away, only looking at him quizzically, before stepping forward with a polite smile on his face. When he introduced himself Stiles’ mom caught him in a surprise hug, kissing his cheek and telling him how ‘wow, I thought Stiles was exaggerating but you really are more handsome than George Clooney!’
(Stiles: “I didn’t say that, mom!”)
She then wrapped her hand around Derek’s elbow and demanded he show her around, which he did, looking kind of stunned.
Meanwhile, Scott was charming the young pack members with his crooked smile and his genuine enthusiasm and quickly they were inviting him to go on a run with them to ‘tour all the best smelling places on pack lands’.
Then next thing Stiles knew he was all alone. “Huh,” he said, considering going back to his workroom and working on his ward designs, but then a toddler was dumped in his arms and he decided to go outside to play with the kids instead.
He didn’t see his family again until dinner, which was more formal than it had been before. The arrival of the family marked the beginning of the celebrations leading up to the bonding ceremony, all of which involved intricate traditions. The bonding of an emissary, which would in this case also serve as Stiles’ formal investiture as an emissary, was often considered to be the most significant ceremony held by a pack, besides the very rare ones, such as the genesis of an alpha spark.
Luckily, the Hale pack was as untraditional as a large pack could be and the pack council had determined that many of the rituals that constituted the ceremony, such as the ceremonial bathing and dressing, the presentation of the emissary’s mates parents, and the all-night vigil could be modified or done away with.
Still there would be a lot of formalities to get through. The formal dinner that evening, a walking of the Hale Pack boundaries (this had been thankful reduced to only a few sections of the boundaries), and several other tedious-sounding events.
Most importantly, probably, would be the reception of visitors– members of surrounding packs and representatives of the Western Alliance, allies and friends of the Hale Pack, Derek and Stiles’ personal friends. They were set to arrive night before the bonding and stay through the bonding ceremony and (gulp) the, uh, physical component.
Nancy, the pack healer and midwife, had called him into the little room that served as the infirmary, and asked him how much he knew about anal sex and knotting and if he’d had experience with it, or did he need some instruction, perhaps some instruments to practice with?
He had basically run out of there screaming, smacking right into Peter, who looked at Stiles’ red face, glanced at the infirmary door and smirked.
That night, for the first time since Stiles had been there, the pack hierarchy was enforced at the tables. Stiles’ parents sat next to Talia as honored guests and Derek sat next to Stiles as his soon-to-be mate. Even though they were less traditional, the head of the table still had a formal air, with everyone speaking politely, mostly asking Stiles’ parents polite questions about their flight and their occupations. Derek didn’t speak at all, his attention seemingly entirely fixed on his dinner, even when his plate was empty.
Stiles couldn’t help glancing at the table where the young pack members sat, clearly trying to keep from laughing loudly while Scott regaled them with a story, probably about Stiles doing something stupid.
Stiles sighed and someone nudged his foot. He looked up and saw Peter smirking at him. The asshole probably heard every word of whatever cringe story Scott was telling.
There was a bonfire after dinner, and the wolves had broken out the wolfsbane laced beer and wine after the kids had been put to bed (with much sleeping protesting). Stiles’ parents had been in their element, his mom finding other parents to reminisce with, dad getting very excited about a discussion of fly fishing with some of the older pack members, who promised to take him to their favorite fishing spot the next day. Scott was off with his new friend Issac, raving about some game they both played.
Stiles was unreasonably tired, wondering if anyone would be upset if he snuck off to bed.
“Your mom is great,” Peter said, sitting down next to Stiles and offering him a drink. The non-wolfsbane sort, meant for the humans.
“Nah, I’ll fall asleep if I have any more.” He yawned. “My mom is pretty great. She only does things to embarrass me because she thinks it’s funny that I’m embarrassed.”
Peter nodded. “I used to do that to Derek and Laura,” he said, fondly. “Still works on the younger kids.”
“It’s horrible that I know what she’s doing but it still works.” He shook his head. “You can imagine what it was like when I was actually a teenager. I thought I’d die of mortification.”
“And yet you went to college where she taught.”
“Oh, that was the worst,” Stiles said. “But also kind of the best too.” He smiled at his mom fondly. She was gesticulating wildly, almost knocking someone’s drink over.
“I was surprised when you accepted our offer,” Peter told him. “I thought for sure you’d accept a pack closer to home.”
Stiles smiled sadly. “I thought I would too,” he said. “But I just liked you guys more than anyone else I met. I felt like it was right, you know? Like it fit. Maybe it was the Nematon.”
“Maybe it was the picture of Derek,” Peter teased. “Where is your soon-to-be-mate?”
“I think he went inside. All this socializing is a little much for him, I guess. It’s a bit too much for me and I’m much more extraverted.”
“Derek’s favorite activities are ones that don’t involve talking to people,” Peter agreed. “I always thought he’d become one of those park rangers that live in a shack on the top of a mountain and just walk around fixing things.”
“Wow,” Stiles said. “That would be kind of perfect for him.”
“And then he started SDP and now he goes and gives presentations and networks and I’m honestly very impressed. It’s one thing to do those things when you’re good at talking to people– it's another thing when it doesn’t come naturally.”
“You’re really proud of him, aren’t you?”
Peter smiled. “We all are. We were pretty worried about him when he was a kid– he was so quiet and withdrawn. It’s been great to see him get passionate about something and really bloom.”
Peter was staring at the fire as he spoke, his flame illuminated by the flickering light, and Stiles was struck by how much Peter loved his family. That included Stiles now too, Stiles realized, with a flush of warmth.
The week passed too slowly and too quickly. There were so many things to do, from making the oils that would be used in the ceremony to helping with the preparations for when the outside guests would come.
There was a field a little ways from the house which had to be cleared and set up with tents for guests who would be staying the night, food to make ahead of time, flower garlands to weave– or however you make flower garlands– constant errands to be made, blessings of the lands, the place where the ceremony would be conducted, and Stiles’ room where they’d spend their first night.
Of course Stiles’ mom and dad and Scott quickly volunteered themselves to help out and soon were running off their feet just as much as everyone else, Scott mostly helping watch the kids so their normal minders could do other things (Scott was unsurprisingly amazing with children), dad helping with setting things up, mom with arranging things and doing little bits of magic here and there to help them along.
Stiles found himself working alongside Peter more often than not, building wards that could accommodate the extra guests, setting up spells that would activate if any fighting broke out between guests or if there were any ill intentions, and generally making everything as safe and secure as they could when the number of guests was expected to out number the number of pack members. (Which was really stressing Peter out).
But the greeting of the visitors went surprisingly well. Stiles and Derek dressed in a slightly less formal version of their traditional robes, standing at the edge of a field, politely greeting person after person they’d never heard of (and some that they had, like some of the alphas of the larger packs; Deucalion, Kali, Ennis, Victoria, the head of the Argent Family, Julia Baccarini, one of the Druid leaders of the region).
Best were when Stiles got to greet his friends; Lydia, Heather, and Danny, who had all flown out for the event, and who hugged him and gave Derek appraising looks that made Stiles’ future bondmate turn pink.
After something like two thousand hours, the line was finally done, and Derek and Stiles got to go get food from the amazing smelling barbecue (Southern style, presided over by a few packmates who’d moved to Beacon Hills from Texas). Theoretically, anyway; the two were stopped every few feet by guests who wanted to talk at them some more. Finally, Peter came and rescued them, grinning toothily at the middle aged couple who’d stopped them to hint that they’d love to be able to hunt for mushrooms on the Hale Pack lands or something, with the excuse that he needed to borrow ‘the happy couple’ for pack business.
“Peter, my hero,” Stiles exclaimed, as the older wolf led Stiles and Derek through the crowd, dismissing anyone who wanted to talk to them with a similar excuse.
“I could see Derek’s will to live slowly fading,” Peter said. “Along with your ability to be polite to people.” He sat them down at a table surrounded by Hale pack members and instructed them to keep Derek and Stiles safe, then left to come back a few minutes later with plates piled high with food.
“Thank the moon,” Stiles sighed, grabbing for a rib and beginning to bite the meat off of it, not caring that sauce was getting smeared all over his face.
“Stop, you heathen!” Peter exclaimed, and when Stiles looked up at him, Peter tucked a large cloth, possibly a tablecloth, into the neck of Stiles’ robes, spreading it out over his lap. Stiles felt himself redden at the feeling of Peter’s fingers brushing his collarbones and neck, but grinned up at him and thanked him through a mouthful of food.
“And I was the one raised by wolves,” Peter commented, setting his own plate down beside Stiles.
The barbecue was amazing, and one of the pack members helpfully went to get Stiles seconds when his plate was empty. “Enjoy it while it lasts,” she said. “After this week you’ll just be a regular pack member.”
They had to do a round of being polite after their food was done, but then some other pack members snuck them away to the young adult lounge where Stiles and Derek found their friends waiting for them with a bunch of the kids from the pack.
“You didn’t get a bachelor party,” one of Derek’s friends said, “so we brought the bachelor party to you.”
Erica turned off the lights and they discovered that LED lights had been strung up on the walls, a disco ball hung from the ceiling. Someone turned on pounding music, while someone else pulled out a few bowls of punch– one for humans and one for weres.
“Yes!” Stiles cried. “Dance party.” He grabbed the cup of punch someone handed him and joined the others dancing in the middle of the room. “This is awesome!”
He laughed when he saw Lydia twirling Cora around and Erica and Boyd grinding and Scott getting more handsy with Issac than his protestations of being straight would have led Stiles to think. He downed his cup of punch and accepted another, laughing when ‘Hungry Like a Wolf’ came on. He danced with Heather and cheered when two of Derek’s friends did a swing routine, and tried to pretend he didn’t keep looking for Peter.
Finally, tired and sweaty, he collapsed onto a couch beside Derek. “Not really your thing, huh?” he asked.
Derek shook his head, picking at the label on the beer he was drinking.
“That’s chill,” Stiles said.
“You like it?” Derek asked.
“Yeah,” Stiles said. “Not every week like when I was in college, but every once in a while it’s fun.”
Derek stared at his beer.
“You pick people up a lot?” Derek asked. “When you were dancing?”
Stiles looked at him, confused. “A few times, I guess. It wasn’t really my scene, you know.”
“I never did,” Derek said. “I never wanted to.” Stiles thought that Derek might be a little drunk.
Stiles shrugged. “Different strokes.”
“What if we don’t…” Derek swallowed. “Fit together?”
Stiles turned so he was facing Derek, his leg bent, his calf against Derek’s thigh. “We’ll work it out,” he said.
“But you’ll be stuck with me,” Derek said. “Forever.”
“Yeah,” Stiles replied, with a big grin. “You’re pretty great.”
Derek looked up him, hazel eyes big and pleading, but Stiles couldn’t figure out for what. Stiles might be a little drunk too.
Derek took Stiles hand and laced their fingers together. His hand was cold and wet from the condensation on the beer. Stiles stared down at their joined fingers and thought ‘tomorrow we’ll be bonded together forever’ and had trouble believing it was real.
He spent a sleepless night before the day of the ceremony, too excited and anxious and thinking too much to sleep. Finally, in the early hours, he thought he might try to relax himself by knocking one out, but his thoughts kept slipping to Peter instead of Derek, and even his favorite fantasies failed him. Finally he gave up on just pumping his cock and pulled out one of the vibrators he’d brought from home, figuring he might as well prep himself for the ceremony while he was at it, glad his room was soundproofed when he pressed the toy against his prostate and came trying to push away thoughts of Peter’s long fingers and thick neck.
He laid there when he was done and tried to figure out if he was making a big mistake, and if he was how he could manage to not make it. It was too late; the ceremony was at dawn. He couldn’t break it off if he didn’t even know what he really wanted. To reject Derek and the pack and the future he’d chosen just because of something that might be just a crush.
No– it was just pre-dawn fretting, just wedding jitters. They’d go through the bonding as planned and everything would be fine.
His mom and dad came into his room a little while later, when it was still dark out, morning birds singing in the pre-dawn. His mom carried in breakfast and his dad had coffees for all of them and they sat together on his bed while he ate and made each other tear up with memories from his childhood.
When he was done, his mom put the tray aside and took out a small wooden box. “Your babcia gave this to me when I got my first job working as a witch,” she said, opening the box and showing him a little pendant on a gold chain, the pendant depicting peacocks and flowers painted in bright colors, with tiny crystals in the eyes of the birds. “She brought it from the old land,” Stiles’ mother continued, “and told me that this way I could always have a piece of home with me. Now you’ll always have a piece of home with you.”
Stiles clutched the necklace tight in one hand and hugged his mother hard, pressing his face into her shoulder so no one would see him cry.
After that there was the ritual bathing; his mother and father washing him in the water made fragrant by the oils he’d prepared, giving him their blessings for his bonding, his mother tracing runes onto his skin with the oiled water, his father gently washing his hair, combing his fingers through Stiles’ wet locks, one hand keeping the water from trickling into Stiles’ eyes.
“I used to do this for you as a baby,” Stiles’ dad said, his voice choking up a little.
They dried him off and Lydia, Heather, Danny, and Scott came in to help with dressing him in the traditional robes, embroidered with runes for happiness and contentment and love, passed down from pack emissary to pack emissary, pulling layer after layer over his head, smoothing it down, tying the cloth ties.
When he was dressed and ready, flower crown pinned in his hair, his mother clasped the chain around his neck, gold shining brightly and stones sparkling. She kissed him on the cheek and everyone hugged him once more, Lydia chastising everyone to be careful of crumpling the robes and Heather readjusting the flower crown.
They emerged from the house just as the sun was rising over the forest, to soft music that came from somewhere out of sight, the guests assembled in the garden past the courtyard, children yawning in their parents’ arms, the pack council standing in a semi-circle around Derek, who stood and waited for him, face blank and pale.
Stiles smiled and pushed town his twinge of uncertainty, the thought that he and Derek had nothing in common, that the time they spent together would be silent. Instead he let his gaze move over the Hale Pack, all his new family, all smiling at him, welcoming him in. It will be fine, he told himself. It will be fine. You get along great with Derek and there are plenty of other people to talk to.
He swallowed and let his mom and dad lead him to Derek, Lydia, Heather, Danny, and Scott following behind.
He reached Derek and took his hands, smiling up at him as best as he could. Derek wasn’t smiling back– he stared at Stiles, wide-eyed and terrified-looking. Nerves, Stiles assumed.
Naseefa, the emissary of one of the neighboring packs led the ceremony, since Stiles couldn’t do it himself. It passed in a blur; the anointing of oils, the vows, the call and response of the pack. Stiles looked at Derek’s hazel eyes, then down at their joined hands, felt the grass underneath his bare feet, tried to remember to say and do everything he was supposed to say and do, and then Naseefa finished the spell and Stiles felt the catharsis of his emotions being released, pouring into another person just as a rush of warmth from them poured through him, loving and happy, but also jealous and disappointed.
He blinked. Derek shifted, glanced at him, then at Naseefa. Everyone looked expectantly at them.
A minute passed.
“I’m sorry,” Derek whispered. “I don’t think it worked.”
Confusion, relief.
“What do you mean?” Stiles asked. “I can feel the bond.”
Derek looked at him, at Naseefa, at his mother. He shifted his feet. He licked his lips. “I don’t feel anything?”
What was happening? Had he done it wrong somehow? The oils– maybe the oils were wrong. But why could he feel it?
Confusion, shock, wonder, worry.
Naseefa cast a spell. “There’s a bond,” she said.
Disappointment.
“But it’s not between the two of you,” Naseefa continued, frowning.
The bottom fell out of Stiles’ stomach and he couldn’t help looking away from Naseefa, to the person standing right behind her. Peter.
Their eyes met and a shock went through him and he knew.
The bond had formed not with Derek, but with Peter. His mind reeled. He dropped Derek’s hands.
Relief, hope, joy.
“What’s happening?” someone whispered.
“I’m… I’m sorry,” Stiles stuttered.
Everyone was looking around now, confused.
“What happened?” Talia asked.
“The bond formed,” Naseefa repeated, “but it’s not between Stiles and Derek.”
Joy, anxiety, love.
“How?” Talia demanded.
“If one or both of the participants didn’t want the bond, or wanted to bond with someone else more,” Naseefa began.
Derek’s pale face went paler. “It’s my fault,” he whispered.
His mother’s eyes looked at him sharply. “What?”
“I didn’t want it– I’m sorry, Stiles, I really wanted to want it, I really did. You’re amazing– it’s not you–”
“No,” Stiles said, interrupting him. “It’s my fault. I wanted someone else more. I mean you’re amazing, obviously, but…” he looked helplessly at Peter, who stepped forward and grabbed Stiles’ hand.
All the emotions Stiles had been feeling rushed through him and he looked helplessly into Peter’s eyes, overwhelmed by them.
“It’s okay,” Peter said, told him, told everyone. “Our emissary is bonded to a member of our pack, and it wasn’t who we planned, but it will work just as well.”
Talia pursed her lips. The crowd was loud with whispers. Peter’s hand was warm against Stiles’ skin. The rush of emotions: happiness, relief, warmth, exaltation pressed into him.
Finally, she sighed. “Okay,” she said. She gestured for Peter to take Derek’s place.
“What the hell?” Stiles’ dad muttered.
“I guess we were right after all!” his mom whispered back to him.
Stiles was now holding hands with Peter the way he’d been with Derek, but all of his uncertainty was gone. It had felt right to accept the Hale Pack’s offer and it felt right now. All of his anxiety had fallen away. He smiled and Peter smiled back, wide and genuine and happy.
And Naseedfa was speaking, then they were repeating words Stiles didn’t hear, then the ceremony was done and they were turning to Talia first for her blessing.
“When all the blessings are done we are going to talk about this,” she hissed to Peter before smiling at Stiles. “Welcome to the pack, beloved emissary. Even if it was not in the way that was intended, we are still blessed to have you.”
“Thank you, Alpha,” Stiles accepted and they moved on, first to the rest of the council, then to the rest of the pack, each of them giving their blessings and welcomes in manners that ranged from bemused to amused to confused to delighted to annoyed.
Love, love, love. Pride. Wonder. Love, love, love.
Talia whisked them away once the blessings were over, sitting them down in the council room with a stern ‘explain’ to Stiles.
Annoyance, impatience.
He glanced at Peter, then back at her. “Um, so the bonding only works right if the two people really want it,” he said. “And usually that’s the case. But, uh, I guess Derek didn’t?”
Impatience, irritation, wonder.
“I think I’m asexual,” Derek admitted, red faced. “I thought I could do it! I thought it would be enough. Stiles is very attractive and he’s kind and funny and clever and if I were attracted to anyone it would be him, but I don’t think… I’m sorry, Stiles! I should have said something earlier. If it wasn’t for Peter you would have been trapped with me.”
Confusion, amazement, relief.
Everyone looked a little stunned– it was the most words Stiles had ever heard from Derek at one time.
Stiles smiled at him and put a hand on his arm. “I don’t think anyone would mind being trapped with you,” he said. “And if you really felt like you couldn’t do it, and it wasn’t for Peter there would just not have been a bond. It would have been embarrassing, but we would have figured something out.”
He moved closer to Derek so he could hug him. ““I’m glad to have you as a pack member and as a friend,” he said.
Wonder, affection.
Derek smiled faintly at him. “You’re not mad?” he asked.
Stiles looked at Peter pointedly and then back at him. “I like you a lot and you’re impossibly hot, but I’m pretty sure Peter’s my soulmate.”
Joy, pride, delight.
Derek laughed weakly. “I’m happy for you,” he said, and he sounded like he meant it.
Talia was watching them, frowning. “There’s no way Peter could have messed this up on purpose?”
Annoyance, amusement.
Peter gasped, pretending to be affronted.
“No,” Nassefa said. “Everything that happens in the bonding has to be true. This situation is very rare; the participants know going in that they have to be honest– and I suspect that was a case of uncertainty, not lying.”
“Peter was right,” another council member said. “Our emissary is bonded to our pack; Peter is as appropriate a choice as Derek. Everyone is happy now. Sure, this has been pretty embarrassing, but the best thing we can do is go out there and smile and pretend everything is fine, and celebrate the love these two have for each other.
Satisfaction, joy, anticipation, lust.
The others agreed, and so they went back outside and so the ceremony continued.
The next part was the most embarrassing, and the reason Stiles was most glad they were not in a traditional pack. Traditionally it would have happened right in the middle of the ceremony; the Hales had provided a tent. Still, he’d made his friends and family promise to go somewhere else.
Peter led him into the tent, then turned to him and hugged him, holding onto him tightly. “I’d made my peace with it,” he whispered to Stiles. “I told myself that I was glad to have you in my life as a nephew and emissary. I tried to be happy for you.”
Sorrow, relief, joy.
He pulled away so Stiles could look in his eyes– they were so very blue he thought he could drown in them. “But I am… there’s no words to express how much joy I feel now.”
“You don’t need words,” Stiles reminded him. “I can feel everything you feel. I kept telling myself that Derek would be enough. But you were the one I wanted.”
“Even though Derek is gorgeous?” Peter teased.
Triumph, relief.
“Derek is gorgeous and kind and intelligent and thoughtful and sweet,” Stiles agreed. “But you’re not so bad yourself.”
Peter laughed and pinched him and then leaned forward until their lips brushed. Soft and gentle at first, then deeper. Stiles felt like he had been starving all his life and just hadn’t realized it. His arms tightened around Peter’s neck and he pulled him closer. He couldn’t get close enough, couldn’t get enough of Peter’s lips and tongue and the way he stroked his back and sides.
Love, arousal, joy.
He forgot about the people outside who could hear him, forgot about Derek and the whole snafu. All there was was Peter and his warm skin and soft lips and the tight way his hands clenched at Stiles. He needed more of him and more.
His hands scrabbled at Peter’s shirt. Not dressed to participate in the ceremony, he was wearing a simple white cotton shirt. Stiles grabbed the collar and pulled, threads ripping, buttons flying off, Peter’s chest finally exposed to him, a tight expanse of tanned skin, rippling muscles and black chest hair, a trail leading down to his pants.
Stiles traced the tattoo inscribed over Peter’s heart, a black triskelion that was stark against his golden skin.
“I figured you’d be the kind of person who manscaped,” Stiles said, stroking down Peter’s chest, through the hair.
“You thought about it?” Peter asked, half-teasing, half-breathless.
Wonder, desire, arousal.
Stiles looked up on him, his hand lingering on Peter’s waistband. “How could I not? The way your muscles moved under your tight shirts? Always having your shirts unbuttoned one button too far?”
He slid a finger inside Peter’s waistband.
Exhilaration, need.
“Dirty boy,” Peter whispered, his own hands busy on Stiles’ ceremonial robes, finding the cloth ties and undoing them. “Thinking about the uncle of your intended like that.”
A shock of heat flared through Stiles, and Peter must have felt it because he smirked. “You like that, baby boy?” he whispered.
Satisfaction, lust.
“Not where people can hear us,” Stiles whispered back. “Please, Peter.”
Peter ran a gentling hand down Stiles’ side, then lifted off the outer robe, hanging it on the rack that had been put inside the tent for just that reason. Then Peter moved to the ties of the underrobe and removed that as well, handing the delicate family heirlooms and Stiles with the same gentleness.
Love, craving.
Finally, he was down to his boxers, standing in front of Peter almost naked and nervous.
Peter took his time looking at him, then smiled, possessive and sharp.
“Beautiful,” he said, stepping forward to wrap his arms around Stiles. “And all mine.”
Desire, greed, satisfaction.
Stiles put his hands on Peter’s bare chest. “Mine,” he said, and then he reached down to undo Peter’s fly and tug his pants down.
Peter laughed and helped, stepping out of each leg while Sitles knelt before him, tugging the pants off, then Stiles moved his face up to nuzzle Peter’s groin. The smell of Peter made Stiles dizzy. Peter was hard inside his boxer briefs, the fabric stained with precome.
Stiles couldn’t help mouthing at his cock– shit it was big– and Peter groaned, sliding his fingers into Stiles’ hair.
Stiles reached up and tugged Peter’s underwear off, then grabbed his cock and held it so he could lick the slickness off the tip, sliding the purple head into his mouth and sucking, tasting him.
Need, exhilaration, impatience.
Peter groaned again, then tugged at his hair, pulling him off. “I don’t want to come to soon, darling,” he said. “We’ve got a job to do here, after all.”
Stiles grinned and stood about to turn to the bed, but Peter grabbed him and kissed him again, hard, his teeth sharp against Stiles’ lips. “Next time,” he promised, “I can’t wait to see your pretty mouth wrapped around my cock, taking me down.”
He reached down and tugged off Stiles’ boxers, helping him step out of them, and then his hand explored Stiles’ length, thumb running over the frenulum and the tip, fingers weighing Stiles’ balls.
“Just as pretty as the rest of you,” Peter observed and laughed when Stiles smacked him in the shoulder.
Amusement, relief, joy.
Stiles pulled away and dropped down onto the bed, which had been sprinkled with rose petals (Cora’s idea of a joke, he suspected).
He arranged himself in a ‘draw me like one of your french girls’ pose and waggled his eyebrows at Peter, who laughed and crawled onto the bed, kissing as he went; the jut of his ankle bone, the side of his knee, the inside of his thigh, his belly, nipped at a nipple, the buried his face in Stiles’ neck and nuzzled mouthing at it until his goatee tickled Stiles and made him laugh and squirm.
Adoration, amusement, desire.
Peter then kissed him, slow and languid, while his hands explored Stiles’ body, as if he was trying to map everything about him; every bit of skin and curve of his body.
“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured between kisses. “So perfect. I love your skin and your little moles and–” he lightly stroked up Stiles’ side “– how sensitive you are. When there aren’t a few hundred people waiting on us to finish I’m going to spend hours kissing every inch of your skin until you’re panting and begging.”
Need, joy, love.
His fingers brushed the underside of Stiles’ cock, cupped his balls for a moment, then skid over his hole.
“But we have a job to do,” Stiles panted out breathlessly.
“We didn’t have a chance to talk about this before,” Peter said, finger still exploring. “How do you want to do this? I’m vers.”
Apprehension, expectation, hope.
Stiles wrapped his hand around Peter’s cock. “Then you won’t mind if I try this on for size?”
“Sure you can take it?” Peter teased. “It’s pretty big.”
“Proud of yourself?” Stiles teased back. “Don’t worry– Nancy gave me dilators.”
“Oh goddess,” Peter breathed, laughing a little. “She didn’t.”
Amusement, delight, need.
“No, but she offered. They were straight up dildos.”
Peter flopped on his back, laughing too hard to do anything else.
Stiles climbed on top of him. “Seriously, though,” he said. “Stick it in me.”
“Ridiculous boy,” Peter said, turning and fumbling over the edge of the bed– for the lube Stiles imagined.
He straightened up victorious, only to gasp when Stiles ground down, rubbing their cocks together.
Desire, impatience, affection.
“Seriously, darling,” Peter said. “I have to–” he gasped “– I have to last.”
He poured the lube into his hand and rubbed his fingers on it to warm it, then reached around behind Stiles to rub his fingers against his hole, looking surprised when one slid right in.
“I woke up a little early to prep myself,” Stiles said, smirking at Peter’s expression.
Wonder, need, adoration.
“Did you use the dilators?” Peter teased, moving easily from one finger to the next.
Stiles moaned and ground down against Peter’s fingers, fucking himself on them. Peter slid another in and Stiles gasped at the fullness, fucking down harder until Peter finally pulled his fingers out.
“Shhh,” he soothed, when Stiles whined. “I’ve got something bigger for you.”
Stiles gave him and unimpressed look, then rose up to his knees so Peter could line up his cock with Stiles’ hole. Stiles pressed down, moaning when the head of Peter’s cock popped in, then pressed down harder.
Satisfaction, desire, incandescence.
“Slowly, baby,” Peter murmured, rubbing at Stiles’ hips. “There’s no rush. Take your time. I know it’s big.”
“You’re pretty full of yourself, aren’t you?” Stiles commented, sliding down steadily until he’d almost taken all of Peter.
Peter laughed. “I think you’ll find,” he said, jerking his hips up so the last of his length slid inside. “That you’re the one full of me.”
Need, joy, incredulousness.
“Oh my god,” Stiles said, flatly, even while he began to rock himself on Peter’s dick, then he laughed and had to lean forward to kiss him, letting Peter’s hands on his hips control the rhythm. “You’re horrible.”
“You’re stuck with me for life now,” Peter reminded him, sounding incredibly pleased.
Stiles straightened up and took over the rhythm, shifting until Peter’s cock was rubbing against his prostate, and he began to speed up, unable to help the little cries he was making, Peter jerking up to meet his rhythm, the flood of his arousal and need and desire and affection swamping Stiles and adding to his own until he couldn’t feel or think of anything but need and ecstasy.
And then he felt something new; a lump beginning to grow at the base of Peter’s dick, stretching his hole as he plunged in and out, making Stiles more and more desperate, until suddenly Peter was locked inside him, his cock pressing hard and rubbing on his prostate as the pleasure grew and grew and grew and then suddenly Peter was pulling him back down onto his chest and Stiles felt like he was flying or exploding or on fire and only a sharp pain in the side of his neck kept him from combusting entirely.
He opened his eyes a few minutes later, to see Peter staring at him, blue eyes full of wonder. Stiles stretched and then blinked, realizing he could feel more than just his body. He could feel the whole forest; the trees soaking up the sunlight, the squirrels racing through the trees, the birds pecking through the leaf litter for food, the river that ran and cascaded over a series of waterfalls. He could feel the forest and the Nemeton, a bright beacon in the middle of the land, the tree reaching out and greeting him, a full member of the pack.
“Wow,” he said, enthralled,
Peter touched the side of Stiles’ face, lightly. “It must be incredible,” he murmured.
“It is,” Stiles said. “I never knew it would be so… vivid.”
He wiggled a little and was reminded of Peter’s knot, still locking them together. “Uh,” he said. “Is this going to happen every time?”
Peter laughed. “Not every time,” he assured him. “Only special occasions.”
Delight, love, desire.
“So if we were going to go again, right now…?”
“I’d love to, darling, but we’ve got a few hundred people waiting on us,” Peter reminded him. He tugged a little and the deflated knot popped out.
“Fuck,” Stiles muttered and sat up, muscles twinging. He looked down at his naked mate. “We don’t have time for another round, do we?”
“Tonight,” Peter promised, with a chuckle.
Regret, anticipation, adoration.
There was a wash basin in the tent and a stack of clothes, which was not enough, considering they were about to go hang out with a bunch of werewolves who could smell exactly what they’d just done. (That was the point, Stiles guessed, but it still didn’t feel any less embarrassing.)
Peter carefully dabbed off the blood and bandaged the bite on Stiles’ neck, and they dressed in the clothes that had been laid out for them, Peter’s a little too big because they’d been meant for Derek.
He reeled Stiles in for another kiss and then pulled him with him out of the tent.
The rest of the day passed in a blur– Stiles had trouble thinking of anything except for Peter, his thoughts drifting off to him and causing him to lose track of what he was saying in the middle of conversations, gaze going unfocused while he remembered the events of the morning, until whoever he was talking to brought him back to the present, usually with some affectionate teasing, often by Peter himself, who was never very far away.
Werewolf bonding celebrations didn’t have a lot in common with human weddings; there wasn’t a wedding party or sit down dinner or throwing of the bouquet (there wasn’t a bouquet at all, only the flower crown which had gotten a little… squished). The food was a buffet, heavy on the meat, and the dessert was a selection of pastries– lemon bars, almond horns, cannolis, cupcakes. Derek and Stiles’ favorites.
There was dancing, but it was ad hoc, no first dances, the younger wolves taking over the speakers which had been playing light instrumental music and practicing their dance moves, the younger children spinning in circles or waggling their diapered butts, the older ones practicing moves they’d seen in movies or on TV.
Peter grabbed Stiles and pulled him over to where the children were dancing and for a few minutes Stiles let Peter twirl him around, laughing as the werewolf manhandled him to where he wanted him, but then the children were grabbing at their legs and they each picked one up and danced with them, making them giggle as they spun them and threw them into the air.
Later, Stiles found himself with his mom and dad, sitting in a secluded part of the garden, watching the Hales and their guests from a distance.
“So, that Peter,” dad began. “Guess you really like him, for the bonding ceremony to go sideways like that.”
“Yeah,” Stiles sighed, leaning on his mom’s side, her arm around him.
“He’s a fair bit older than you,” dad mentioned.
“Yeah,” Stiles agreed. “That’s why they didn’t suggest him in the first place.”
“He doesn’t take care of you, I’m gonna drive across the country and shoot him full of wolfsbane,” dad said, as casually as if he was discussing his weekend plans.
“Dad!” Stiles protested, as his mom started laughing.
“I found a guy who’s got a rare strain of wolfsbane too,” his dad mentioned. “They’ll never figure it out in time.”
“Oh my god,” Stiles muttered. “I can take care of myself.”
“I know you can,” his dad said. “But you’ll always be my kid to take care of.”
It grew dark and the guest started leaving or heading off to the field of tents, and Stiles found himself yawning and leaning against Peter, saying goodbye to all the guests.
He let Peter carry him up the stairs to his room and set him down on his bed and undress him, kissing him here and there while he stripped Stiles and then tucked him into bed.
“I’m so glad it’s you,” he murmured, when Peter crawled in beside him and wrapped his arms around him.
“Me too, sweetheart,” Peter said, kissing him gently. “Sleep.”
Stiles woke to a warm weight in his arms and buried his nose the warmth of someone’s neck before remembering who it was.
“Peter,” he said, softly.
Peter turned to face him. “Yes, sweet boy?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Stiles murmured, rubbing his nose against Peter’s. “I just remembered and was happy.”
Stiles felt a bright spark of joy come from Peter, who rolled on top of Stiles and shoved his nose into Stiles’ neck, while Stiles giggled.
They lay like that for a while, enjoying each other’s closeness and warmth, until Stiles felt his contentment slowly turning into arousal, felt Peter’s answering need.
“Darling boy,” Peter said. “No one can hear us now.”
He nipped at Stiles’ neck and Stiles squealed and laughed. “What are you planning on doing to me?” he gasped out.
“I’m going to hold you down until you’re begging for it,” Peter threatened.
“Oh,” Stiles gasped. “Yeah, okay.”
Peter threw the sheets off of them and paused when he saw the bruises on Stiles’ hips. He stroked one with a fingertip.
“It’s okay,’ Stiles said. “It doesn’t hurt. I don’t mind.”
“Good,” Peter growled. Pleased, possessive, hungry.
“You like it!” Stiles accused. “You liked marking me up!”
Peter grinned at him with a mouth full of teeth.
This time Peter held him down with one hand, teased his nipples and tickled his sides, slicked his fingers up and slowly pumped in to him until he was begging, the whole time murmuring to him how good he was doing, what a beautiful boy he was, how precious, how wonderful, how much Peter loved him.
Then he fucked him slow and deep, endlessly it seemed seemed, licking at the scar his mating bite had left on Stiles’ neck, until Stiles was drifting on pleasure and need, until Peter’s knot filled him and he just rocked it inside of Stiles until Stiles finally came, crying out and blacking out from the bliss of it.
He came to the feeling of Peter laughing beneath him, still stuck on his mate’s knot.
“What’s so funny?” he grumbled, trying to get comfortable with the lump still in his ass which was, wow, extremely sore.
“Look around,” Peter said, so Stiles turned his head to see that the room was filled with flowers.
“What the hell?” he exclaimed.
Peter rubbed at his back. “That was you, baby,” he said. “You came so hard you conjured up flowers.”
Stiles slumped back down onto Peter’s chest. “It’s all your fault,” he muttered. “You have to clean it up.”
Peter chuckled again.
“You said you loved me,” Stiles said, tracing circles on Peter’s bicep.
“Of course I do,” Peter replied. “You can feel it, can’t you? Just like I can feel that you love me too.”
“Yeah, but you can’t just come out and say it like that, during sex! It’s so cliche.”
“How was I supposed to do it?”
“A romantic evening, candles, flowers, gazing into each other’s eyes.”
“And that’s not cliche?”
Stiles blew a raspberry into Peter’s shoulder.
“Eww!” Peter exclaimed and licked him back in retribution.
Their licking fight was severely limited due to the knot still tying them together and soon they gave up, Stiles slumping onto Peter’s shoulder again.
“Derek was going to move into my rooms,” Stiles said.
“Well he’s not going to move into your rooms now,” Peter replied, hotly.
Stiles laughed and pinched him. “Are you going to move into your rooms, or am I going to move into yours?”
Peter hummed. “Mine are a little nicer,” he said. “I’ve got a balcony.”
“A balcony?!” Stiles gasped.
“Perks of being the person to design the house,” Peter told him, smugly.
“I’ll move into yours then,” Stiles decided.
Peter hummed, arms loose around Stiles.
Stiles nodded against Peter’s chest, then tried to get off his knot again, popping free with a small burst of pain. He rolled off the bed with a grunt and made his way to the bathroom. “That knot is a real pain in the ass,” he complained. “Ooof. Next time you’re taking it up the butt.”
“Happy too. Stiles turned to see him shrugging on a robe and frowned. “Just fetching some breakfast for you, baby,” he reassured him. “Why don’t you run the bath?”
“Breakfast in the bath. I could get used to this.”
“Anything for you, baby,” Peter said, coming over to kiss the top of Stiles’ head.
Eventually Stiles recognized that he had to leave their love nest. After they had breakfast, Stiles soaking in the tub while Peter fed him all his favorite foods, they showered together, got slick and soapy and couldn’t help giving each other handjobs. Stiles scrubbed, trying to get the scent of Peter off of him while Peter laughed at him.
Stiles realized why when he pulled on the shirt Peter had laid out for him and realized it was Peter’s. Stiles laughed and made a face at him, but pulled it on anyway, glad he did when he felt Peter’s contentment at how their smells mingled.
Peter pulled him in until their foreheads were touching. “Mine,” he rumbled. “My mate.”
He was expecting smirks and teasing from the young pack members when he emerged and maybe a little of leftover bewilderment from the older ones, but what he wasn’t expecting was for them to scent him, each and everyone one of them, to casually pull him into their arms and to nuzzle at his neck, as if that was completely normal behavior from people he’d only recently met.
And maybe it was, because he could feel how pleased it made Peter, that he was being recognized by the pack.
“It started raining just after you went inside,” Cora was telling Peter. They’d made their way into the kitchen because Stiles had decided he needed more coffee. “You should have seen the mad scramble to get everything in before it really came down.”
Stiles looked outside and realized it was still raining; it was a proper storm, and somehow he hadn’t even noticed, he’d been so wrapped up in Peter. Now that he knew it, though, he couldn’t help feeling the rain pattering against the leaves like they were a part of his skin. The water soaking into the ground, roots greedily sucking it up. He felt the river engorged with rainwater, the ponds overflowing their banks, worms wriggling out of their holes, birds flying down to snap them up, then shaking to get the water off of their black feathers. He felt turtles and muskrats swimming in the water, chasing fish and looking for food dredged up by the hard rain, foxes and fisher cats huddle down in their burrows, a bear with her cubs leaving large tracks in the mud.
And a shock as lightning flashed and split apart a tree, the small fire it started extinguished quickly by how wet the forest was.
“Stiles,” he became aware of Peter saying.
He opened his eyes and he was Stiles again, in the house again.
“Are you okay?”
Stiles turned to him and grinned. “I’m the emissary,” he said.
“Alan was like that when he first mated to Lars,” one of the pack elders said. “Mind always drifting off to be with the forest. Don’t let it worry you.”
Cora handed Stiles his coffee. “Your mom and dad headed to town for the morning,” she said. They’ll be back soon.
Stiles took the coffee and went to stand on the porch, Peter following him. The children were playing under the overhang, running toy cars along the wood of the porch, swinging in the hammocks, listening to one of the pack members read a story.
The rain slowed to a stop and light broke through the clouds, shining down on the distant forest. Stiles felt the creatures begin to emerge, the fox sniffing at the opening of the burrow and beginning to nudge at her cubs, the birds flying into the tops of the trees to call to each other, still shedding drops of water, the turtle finding a shaded nook to snooze for a while, the muskrats chewing on reeds to build their nests.
“Look,” Peter said and gestured at a rainbow splitting the sky over the forest. “Talk about cliche.”
Stiles looked at him and smiled and then kissed him lightly. “I love you,” he said.
“Ugh, not with coffee breath,” Peter complained, turning his head away teasingly.
“My mate,” Stiles whispered, and Peter shivered a little. “Mine.”