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They destroy the Alpha pack within the month. It’s bloody and violent and somehow in the course of events, one of the alphas, a kid barely Allison’s age, ends up betraying Deucalion and in bed with Danny and then, by extension, a part of Scott’s rag tag pack.
Chris is still confused by that turn of events, still weighing whether or not he should arrange for Ethan to have an accident, but since the only person he could trust to aid in that task would be Peter, and he and Peter are still avoiding each other while explicitly not avoiding one another, he’s almost given up on the idea.
Ex-Alpha or not, the kid is still just a kid, and Chris understands what children do to survive.
It’s Peter’s intel that turns the tide. Chris would like to pretend otherwise, but once they have the location of the Alphas base of operations, it’s only a matter of Chris putting together a plan and carrying it out. Two more unmarked graves join Kali’s body on the old Hale grounds. (It should have been three, but where Ethan goes, so goes Aiden, and that’s a whole different complication Chris is going to have to handle.)
So they’ve survived the war, and Derek has gone back to sneering at Scott’s pack from their separate corners, and still no one has managed to figure out that Isaac and Stiles are fucking.
Chris contemplates all these things as he sits in the empty study of his empty house and slowly nurses a tumbler of scotch, neat. The full moon rises high in the sky, and even though it is a clear night, Chris does not flinch when all at once the electricity in the house goes out and the room is plunged into darkness.
He takes another sip, swirls the liquid in gentle waves, and drinks again. A pistol sits on the side table to his right, safety off. Another minute passes, maybe two, and he feels the second Peter enters the room, the second the energy of the room changes, becomes heavier, darker, crackling with far more energy than weak electric lights ever gave it. He drops a hand to the pistol but otherwise stays still.
“Peter.”
Peter glides in, a dark shape that slowly resolves in the moonlight through the window and Chris’ adjusting eyesight. He makes a stop to pour himself a matching glass of scotch and then seats himself in the armchair directly across from Chris.
“Christopher.”
“I wondered if you would actually show.”
“Hmm. Did you really?”
Chris’ lips twist into a brief, humorless smile. “No.”
“Hence the gun, I assume.”
Chris shrugs, as if his heart rate hadn’t picked up the second Peter had appeared, as if his breath hadn’t dropped harsher in his chest, as if the memory of Peter gasping out his orgasm against his neck wasn’t clouding his vision. “I always have a gun.”
Peter sips slowly, contemplatively, his eyes never leaving Chris’ face. “I won your little war for you. You should be grateful.”
“You saved your own skin, you mean.”
“Our interests briefly aligned. You wanted your child alive. She’s alive. I don’t see the point in splitting hairs.”
The tension is almost unbearable. Right at the edge that has the hair on the back of his neck rising and saliva filling his mouth and his fingers twitching to close around Peter’s neck. The silent conversation of Peter’s flaring nostrils and the tap of his fingers against his glass and the flex of his throat as he swallows is pulling far more attention than the verbal overlay.
“Does she know?”
Know what? That Chris used to fuck Peter on a regular basis? That Chris had kept Peter hidden for days last month? That Peter had sold them all to the alphas for his own skin? That they had once lov—
“No,” he answers, to everything.
“I never counted you as a coward. Liar, of course, but coward—”
“Why are you here?” He knows, of course. He’d accepted this inevitability as the days had ticked down to the full moon, as they’d bathed themselves in blood to end this war, as he’d watched Peter tap tables and tug at the hair at his nap and seemingly forget he had spent months covering those ticks. He knows, but he wants the satisfaction of Peter’s verbal capitulation.
“I’m considering killing Derek,” Peter said bluntly.
Not surprising, but also not enough. He stares steadily at Peter but says nothing.
“I’d decided it would be poor strategy at this point. As poor a strategy as your consideration of executing that mangy stray Danny has picked up.”
Chris is not surprised Peter knows the direction of his thoughts on that. They were de facto co-leaders for a reason.
“So why are you still considering it?”
Peter glances out the window at the full moon for a long moment before looking back at Chris with a raised brow.
Not enough.
“Peter. Why are you here?”
“It seems a bit ridiculous to keep fighting it on my own, since you know. I can expend that energy elsewhere. You’re a tool, Christopher. Let’s keep that in mind, shall we?”
A soldier does what he must. Chris had told himself that same lie too. But he’s had a month now to distinguish lies and truths and necessities. Peter probably doesn’t have that capacity.
Chris finishes his scotch and sets the tumbler down with finality.
“What do you need?”
“That easy, then? I expected a bit…more.”
“Didn’t you hear the Argents have a new Code?” It’s spilling over now, the tension, the pull, the want. Chris wonders how Peter can even breathe, with how he keeps pulling in deep draughts through his nose, constantly scenting. It’s strong enough Chris can almost taste it.
Peter snorts, and finishes his own tumbler. “You’re protecting them from me then?”
“We both know I’m the only one who can.”
“Liar.”
Chris knows which part of that Peter recognizes as a falsehood, but it doesn’t negate the truth that he really is the only one who can lock the cage.
He doesn’t answer Peter’s charge, though, just asks, “Which way, Petie?” That’s a low blow, but his patience is done.
Peter licks his lips and smiles, strange in its almost sweetness.“Well, it’s either fuck or fight, Christopher. It always is.”
“You know which one I prefer.”
“I don’t care what you prefer.”
Neither does Chris, frankly. Right now he only cares about what they need. Sighing he leaves the gun on the side table and stands.
“Peter, come here.”
Peter’s smiles twists to a smirk and then disappears altogether. He rises to his feet and walks across the room to Chris. He doesn’t hurry but he doesn’t delay, either, and it’s only then that Chris realizes he’s barefoot and leaving bloody footprints in the carpet.
He shakes his head as Peter finally stops, close enough that Chris can feel his breath against his lips. “You shouldn’t have fought so hard.”
Peter only stares back, barely breathing and irises electric blue, and Chris drops the chastisement. For now. He puts a hand on Peter’s shoulder and pushes down.
“Kneel.”
Peter kneels.