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A quick nudge. “Wakey, wakey, bub.”
Nothing.
“Ooookay, then.” Followed by a swift kick causing a lingering groan that rises and clumps like grave dirt.
He can hear Peter cursing as he enters the room, phone ping-pinging with texts. If they’re lucky, it’s an interesting job. Things always slow down around the end of the year, nothing but boring, run of the mill ‘murder my in-laws’ contracts. More likely though…
“Is that your sister?”
Peter hums, blood smearing across his phone’s screen as he swipes through the messages. “Yes. Apparently she has Hallmark movie holiday dreams will only be complete if we attend.”
“Gross. Tell them we’re going to Deadhorse.”
Peter snorts and reads another message, muttering unflattering things about his former alpha.
Stiles tunes him out, trying to focus. The magic is always hard to reach in places like this, all concrete and steel, nothing living or dead, nothing to draw on. Well, it might be a deal breaker for other necromancers, but hard is not impossible. Eventually he has enough to swell one last breath into dead lungs.
“Come on, buddy, give me a name. Who has the grimoire now?”
Peter steps up beside him, silencing his phone and staring down at the stirring corpse. He’s flexing his claws in the impatient way that tells Stiles no one else in the building has been left alive. If they weren’t on a time crunch, he’d consider all the raw material as an early Christmas present.
It’s a good thing the body is fresh, it’s always a bitch getting the long time dead ones to talk.
Stiles closes his fist, pulling at the strands of pale green mist forming around him, “Tell me.”
“De…”
A final, for real this time, dying gasp.
“Deaton.”
Ugh. Gross.
(The thing is this: Stiles is convinced just about everyone has soulmarks wrong. It’s not about two halves of one, or making someone perfectly happy, or even the connection that sings between you. It’s finding someone who mirrors all the ugly little cracks inside, jagged edges that cut.)
They drive to Beacon Hills instead of flying. Their last job wasn’t that far out, although they pad the trip by a day to avoid any suspicion as to why they’re technically on the wrong coast, rather than New York and Peter’s convenient cover as a luxury goods consultant. Stiles has no cover, the rare times they’re unable to avoid his family, Stiles glibly smiles and shrugs away any subtle (or not so) implications he’s a mooching sugar baby. Making his sister’s eye twitch as she vacillates between Strong Feelings™ about soulmates and her utter, visceral loathing of Stiles is one of the few joys whenever they meet. That and Derek and Boyd’s cat photos, aggressively shared whenever the mention of grandchildren comes up.
Oddly enough, no one ever asks Peter when he and Stiles will be having children. Which is ridiculous, they’re both gorgeous and would make magnificent babies.
Peter can’t help grinning as he follows Stiles’ directions to their suite for the night, a room in the boutique hotel they met at six years ago, each of them hired for the same hit. Forget the matching soulmarks they’d later discovered, he fell for Stiles instantly, standing in front of him like warm, dark honey, from the viscera trailing down his fingertips to the overwhelming scent of blood.
“Feeling nostalgic, darling?”
Stiles snorts. “Something like that, there’s actually another job here, conference in Reno and I figured I could make it all romantic. Woo my soulmate. Do you feel wooed?”
And, proving the universe right yet again, Peter does.
Peter’s selections for contracts they’ll pick up generally fall into three categories: retrieving antiquities, killing hunters, and extremely lucrative payouts. Stiles’ tend to be a bit more eclectic, a particular element or location or time of year might draw his attention to something Peter would never give a second look. They only have two firm exclusions, no kids and no working with the tobacco industry. They’re not complete monsters.
(The thing is this: Stiles knows Peter. Peter let Stiles know him in a way no one has, no one else ever will. He sees all of Peter with bright eyes and an eager, too sharp smile and wants more. Maybe as intensely as Peter wants, consuming and grasping like a void. And the only thing he can do is fill it up and up and up with more and more and more.)
The Reno job takes the edge off before they continue onto Beacon Hills. Peter drives while Stiles texts, one hand on the wheel and the other curling and tugging in Stiles’ hair. It’s getting longer again, the way Peter likes, though he knows Stiles will just get sick of it and shave everything off in a few weeks. He sighs as they cross into his sister’s territory, even if he didn’t feel the boundary, “Hale Territory” is printed neatly on the “Welcome to Beacon Hills” sign, under the population listing.
The sign marking the territory outside of Deadhorse is a little more rustic, a lot more horror movie prop. It keeps out visitors, which makes Peter happy, and makes Stiles’ parents laugh, which makes Stiles happy. With any luck they’ll be there within the week.
Stiles shivers as Peter’s hand slips down to the back of his neck, massaging out a kink then laying his palm flat against the soulmark. He never gets tired of looking at them, almost perfect anatomical hearts with veins reaching upward like the branches of a tree. His mark sprawls across his left pectoral, over his actual heart. Stiles could carve it from his chest, if he wanted to, and he’d have to go through the mark to do it. Peter shifts his hips and spreads just a little in the driver’s seat.
Stiles’ eyes flick over his lap, “What’s got you excited?”
He drops his phone and tap-taps fingers up Peter’s thigh.
“You could kill me, if the urge was right.”
Taps turn into a drag of nails down the seam of his jeans.
“As if I’d ever let you leave me.”
Much, much too soon they’re pulling up to his sister’s house.
“Please hold that thought, sweetheart, I have a feeling we’ll desperately need it after this dinner.”
He watches as Stiles’ lips widen into his most annoying grin and grabs the bag of vanillekipferl they picked up at the bakery in Reno, breaking Talia’s homemade potluck rules. He sees his nephew and his soulmate pull in beside them, each stone-faced in their matching festive cat sweaters, holding a bakery box with a yule log in it.
Stiles’ smile somehow manages to get even wider, “Derek, Boyd! Wow, sweet sweater game. It looks like Alicia wins Christmas again. How’s she doing? Demeter still going strong?”
Derek’s mouth twitches and Boyd nods, pleased. It’s as effusive as they get, the bond between them so strong words are barely needed any more. Stiles nudges Boyd with a pointy elbow and Peter pats Derek’s shoulder as he walks by. They save their words for Alicia, and that’s fine with him. Stiles relays regular updates from their group chat: Alicia’s foray into fencing lessons, Derek and Boyd’s adventures with sourdough starter. They have a peaceful little territory outside of Sacramento, a pack of three wolves and assorted cats they foster. One of which may have the glowing green eyes of necromantic resurrection.
Boyd raises an eyebrow at the elbow, looks up toward the house. Stiles just shrugs.
“Yeah, well, maybe we thought it’d be nice to spend a holiday with you guys.”
Boyd’s other eyebrow joins the first and Stiles rolls his eyes.
“Fine, maybe there’s a job involved.”
Derek and Boyd share a quick glance and continue to the house, at least someone dying at the table would give them an excuse to leave.
The front door opens before they can reach it, Laura’s youngest tearing by them in nothing but a pair of fuzzy, striped socks. Boyd lifts the yule log while Derek grabs the giggling toddler, plopping them back down in the foyer. Laura waves distractedly, frowning at Stiles and Peter before turning to deal with the children attempting to turn one of the living room sofas into a fort. On the other sofa, Laura’s husband and two distant cousins sit watching a hockey game.
The volume gets turned up as one of the cousins absently shushes at the sofa-turned-fort, and they leave Laura to exasperatedly scold her husband while Derek and Boyd slink by into the kitchen.
Peter feels a pulse in the bond, the electric equivalent of a cringe from Stiles.
Dinner is a nightmare. Like, Stiles is in awe of the level of passive aggression Derek and Boyd can cram into silently sharing photos of cats and artisanal sourdough whenever they’re asked about “growing their pack,” but other than that, an actual waking nightmare. Talia waxes poetic about the magic of soul connections, sending significant glances at Stiles and Peter when she goes on about the calming influence and settling down. Laura’s oldest is teenage angst personified, while the two youngest started screaming ten minutes ago and show no signs of stopping (Stiles can’t even blame them, really). Stiles pretends he’s touring a zoo, in the drunk uncle and extended family exhibits. One of the cousins may actually be a flat earther.
He bites his lip and exchanges an eye roll with Cora, the sole semi-sane resident of the Beacon Hills Hale pack as another cousin chimes in about chemtrails. Christ, what year is this?
“So, Stiles,” Talia lifts her wine glass and sips elegantly.
“What have you been up to lately? Anything new on the employment front? Or, I suppose, unemployment might be more accurate.”
Stiles waits until she’s halfway through another mouthful of wine to simper back: “Oh, Daddy says I work hard enough at home.”
Talia isn’t the only one that chokes, and he savours the moment, until they’re interrupted by the doorbell.
“Alan! I’m so glad you could make it!”
The pantry Stiles drags Peter into isn’t their usual choice for a rendezvous, but Peter isn’t feeling especially particular at the moment. He’s just pulled Stiles’ hips in tight when he gets a palm smushed to his face.
“No, shit, babe, this is not a quickie, this dark, closet-adjacent space is a working session, okay? Like. Did you notice anything about Deaton.”
Peter blinks. Then blinks again because, no, he did not notice anything about Alan Deaton other than the man’s persistent blandness.
“Really?” Stiles waves the word away with his hand, “Whatever. That dude in the other room? Dead. Super fucking dead. Big ol’ zombie Deaton drinking the festive nog and eating our vanillekipferl. Which, by the way, I guarantee he’s not even enjoying because unlike when I bring someone back, whoever brought him back is a total hack and I’m surprised no one’s noticed the smell.”
“Huh.”
No one has ever accused Peter of lacking focus, but that’s not to say he can’t multitask, and really none of that information precludes a dark, closet-adjacent space quickie.
Stiles and Peter take their leave from the gathering with mussed hair and clothing, wearing matching smirks of satisfaction as Talia’s disgust sees them out the door.
The drive to Deaton’s office is a short one, and quiet as Stiles reviews their initial contract details. The grimoire wouldn’t kill Deaton, might serve as an anchor. Technically not their problem, but liberating it will likely cause the whole array to collapse. He bursts out laughing at the thought of Deaton face down in the stuffing when they cut his metaphorical strings and the joy echoing down the bond has a genuine smile spreading across Peter’s face as he pulls into the parking lot.
Watching Peter at work is one of Stiles’ favourite things. Every movement is so controlled, every claw extended, the width of his shoulders, and thighs flexing, he’s so stupid lucky.
The hidden room in the back of the office is really something else. It’s clear even to Peter that the man was in over his head with some kind of ritual tied to ley lines. The grimoire sits at one point of five with a crudely drawn tree on a broken stone slab in the middle. The branches remind him of the veins in his soulmark. The whole thing is unsettling.
“Don’t touch that.”
Stiles’ eyes glow softly as Peter snatches his hand back, he hadn’t even realized he’d been reaching out to the stone. He steps back to Stiles and lays a clawed hand on his abdomen, leaning in close to ground himself, smelling Stiles’ hair.
Pressure builds around them as Stiles starts to sweat. The rot in the air is clearly apparent now, where it was hidden before, whatever spell there has broken. When Stiles sags, Peter catches his weight. Once he’s steady, they wrap the grimoire in silk and bundle into a lead trunk in the back of the car.
“If we hit the road now, we can be in Deadhorse for New Year’s.”
Peter hums, “Wonderful, your parents love me.”
Stiles snorts and leans over to kiss his jaw.
“Mom literally threatened you with a baseball bat at Thanksgiving.”
“Yes, dear, but that was just the moonshine talking. Who raises zombies that can get inebriated?”
Stiles huffs as he reads a text, tapping out a reply.
“A necromancer with skill who wants their parents to still be able to have a good time. Ugh, that came out wrong. I don’t actually want to know about any good times they have, zombies or not.”
He laughs harder at the next text and Peter glances over to see what’s so amusing. He barks out a laugh of his own at the picture on the screen: taken from a low angle, Deaton, slumped over on the table in the pumpkin pie.
“There goes our invite to next year’s Christmas.”
(The thing is this: Stiles isn’t good at letting go, and Peter holds onto everything he has with sharpened tooth and claw.)