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"You didn't heal," Stiles stated, which surprisingly startled Peter. "Woah, dude."
"Stiles, you do know that you almost don't make a noise when you move," Peter huffed and tried to sit straight. He winced, probably because of the wound on his ribs.
"Yeah, sure," Stiles huffed and came closer. "Let me bandage this up."
"That sounded amazingly ambiguous," Peter grinned and Stiles rolled his eyes. "The band-aid is..."
"Under the sink, yeah, I remember," Stiles waived his hand and went to the bathroom.
It didn't even register that he already knew everything about Peter's apartments. Even some of Stiles' things lied over here for a lot of reasons. Some clothes he just forgot here, some left and thought Peter would get rid of, but he just cleaned the blood and here it was.
"Ok, here we go," when Stiles came back Peter already took the shirt off. "Damn, this harpy cut you really deep, no wonder you didn't heal yet."
"Why do you even bother, Stiles?" Peter asked. "Don't you have anything better to do?" he didn't sound annoyed though, only resigned.
"Well, I have a pup waiting for me in the car, but he isn't going to piss himself while waiting for me," Stiles shrugged and sat on the floor next to Peter and fished an antiseptic from the first aid kit.
"Are you on babysitting duty today?" Peter huffed and winced as soon as Stiles began cleaning the wound up.
"I'm always on babysitting duty," Stiles shrugged and also winced, being perfectly aware how much it hurt.
"Am I also in your babysit list?" Peter's voice felt a bit detached, but Stiles didn't bother to interpret it.
"Well, you are, until you stop being so reckless. Actually, that's about everyone, but you especially. Do you have some kind of deathwish or whatever? I don't even need to search for ways to kill you, because if you are left alone unsupervised for even a second you probably would fall down on claws of some monster."
Stiles smiled a bit and took some time to bandage the wound. He felt Peter's eyes on his face but didn't look up, until he finished. He was actually waiting for something like 'I'm an adult werewolf, I can take care of myself', but Peter actually smiled almost genuinely and patted Stiles' neck.
"Thank you. Now, I guess, you need to take the pup home," Peter sat back and winced a little.
"Yeah, see ya and so on," though Stiles didn't leave right away. He took used medical stuff and threw it away in the bin, and then made sure he would lock the door.
Liam was asleep on the front seat. It was blissfully good, that he was asleep and didn't run somewhere wolfed out. Stiles also wanted to sleep, but he couldn't allow himself to right now, so he rubbed his face and opened the door, startling Liam.
"Wake up and shine my little star," Stiles said with an overly happy voice.
"Ugh, are you already done with your boyfriend?" Liam muttered, and that actually made Stiles pause and gape at Liam.
Probably his words caught up with his brain because he opened his eyes and looked at Stiles shocked.
"Why do you..." Stiles raised eyebrows and finally closed his mouth, trying to not think about it too hard. "How did the idea that I date Peter even visited your pretty head?"
"That's just, you always run to him as soon as something happens." Liam winced, probably not meaning to say it in such a harsh tone.
"He's a pack," Stiles shrugged and started the car, and drove away leaving Peter's apartment building behind. "You do know I'll do this for you as well, right?"
"Well, but nobody does something like that for Peter aside from you."
Stiles opened his mouth to say something, but his thought didn't want to cooperate. He frowned and shook his head, because no.
The only problem was, that the answer was yes. Nobody ever bothered with Peter, maybe aside from Liam, who also did it only because Stiles influenced him in some way. That actually was more telling about the pack and Peter's place in it, but also didn't really make sense. Peter did some twisted shit for all of them, and for whatever reason Stiles, who was always considered the one to hold a grudge acted nice in the end. And when Stiles asked this 'why' question the answer was weird.
"Oh my god," Stiles said out loud.
"Uh..." Liam raised his hands like he was trying to calm a wild animal. "I'm sorry I asked, that's just..."
"And I thought you were an oblivious one," Stiles said. "Oh my god," he continued over Liam's wounded 'hey'.
"Stiles, drop me here, I think I'll go home on my two..."
"We are almost here, and you are way past your curfew," Stiles said. "Oh my god."
"I'm sorry I caused you an existential crisis," Liam muttered when Stiles stopped in front of his house.
"And you should be. I won't fall asleep and tomorrow we have a test," Stiles said not even looking at Liam. He huffed, left the car, closed the door and went toward his home.
Stiles didn't move, because he actually debated if he was going home or to Peter. He groaned and hit his head on the wheel. Was he in love with Peter? Was he really? He had no idea because of so many reasons and conflicted emotions. He took a deep breath and decided to at least drive away. There are so many places to have an epiphany, and Liam's house wasn't the best of them.
In the end, Stiles found himself in front of Peter's apartment. This actually reminded him of all reddit stories he read about kids saying something ridiculously horror-movie-like and their parents not being capable to fall asleep afterward. Peter probably slept soundly and Stiles was about to wake him up, because he honestly didn't allow himself to have any kind of mental breakdown since Scott got bitten, and he really needed it.
One year ago Stiles would've called Scott and talked his ears off, but now it felt like a bad idea. The story between Scott and Peter wasn't really nice, and they so despised each other. Stiles made it back to Peter's apartment and stood in front of the door, not knocking yet.
The door opened before Stiles came to conclusion, that he can just bother Malia. Better have a breakdown under adult's supervision and so on.
"I can hear your train of thoughts and it's too loud to let me sleep," Peter said, looking Stiles over. "What, the pup pissed in the car?"
"Worse," Stiles said and moved in the apartment because he felt like he needed to drink something and also to sit down.
"Did he die because you left him unsupervised? Do we need to get rid of the body?" Peter huffed and easily let Stiles in, closing the door behind.
Stiles drank the glass of water and poured one more than turned to Peter, who didn't wear any t-shirt and looked him dead in eyes. "Do I love you?" He didn't mean to ask it like that, but he didn't look away.
Peter raised eyebrows. "Do you?"
"I asked you first," Siles exclaimed, then took a deep breath and sat down on the kitchen chair, and stood up right after that. "No, ok, sorry, I shouldn't have come today, you are hurt, and like it's what, three AM, and now we are going to act as nothing happened, and I'll just..."
"Stiles, sit down and drink more water, dehydration is bad for you," Peter huffed and sat in front of Stiles.
"I'm just," Stiles waived his hands and sat down. "I'm aware that I have no idea about this, so."
"Wasn't you in love with Lydia and Malia?" Peter asked without any spite and Stiles shook his head.
"I don't think any actual feelings were involved. Like, it's not something that should be spoken this late and not when another person is wounded, so," Stiles moved to stand up again, and almost thrown the glass off the table, which awkward.
"And when should this be spoken about?" Peter asked with a small smile. "You look like you are on the brink of the panic attack, so it means that this should be spoken about now. Besides, kitchen talks are the best. What did Liam say that led you up this spiral anyway?"
"He asked if I was done with my boyfriend when I came back to the car," Stiles said. "Like, he generally thought we are dating or whatever, only because I was a decent human being toward you."
"Stiles, you aren't decent human being in any way, I doubt you ever were," Peter added. "It's not bad, but you don't strike me as a person, who would care about everyone. So if you care about someone, it means they are yours."
Stiles was actually glad Peter didn't allow him to keep going on with this thought, and he then grabbed onto new idea a new perspective.
"It's not that I don't care, it's just. Where is this difference between love, where you care about someone and where they are your romantical partner? Like, aside from this whole kissing and more stuff? Because, I don't think I have the experience to tell a difference, y'know? I admit, what I felt toward Lydia was posses..." Stiles choked on the word. The word possessiveness still hit way to close. "Obsession. I wouldn't say it was anything good or healthy or whatever. A few hookups I had were just that: hookups and one of them died even before we moved onto something, and another just lost her girlfriend, and I also doubt there were any kind of feelings at all. Then Malia came." It made Stiles pause because the whole Peter and Malia father and daughter drama was also the theme he wasn't comfortable touching. "I... I just grabbed onto her like she was my lifeline?" Stiles said, more like asking. "I probably projected a lot, and now it's all awkward, and I know it wasn't love, so..."
Peter patiently and attentively listened to him, which was reach and rare, then took Stiles' hands in his. "Breath," he said. Stiles actively stopped himself and took an exaggerated breath. "Ok, so you didn't have any first-hand experience to go from, and did you see any romantic love?"
Stiles frowned. "Like girlfriend and boyfriend dynamic?"
"This also. But maybe we should talk about your parents. Do you remember them being in love?"
Stiles freed his hands and drank a little. The truth was, he really didn't. He was really young when his mother was diagnosed, so he didn't remember her without the disease. Que, he had no idea how his parents were. He had never thought about it this way.
"TV couples don't really count, I guess," Stiles chuckled, though there was nothing funny.
"They don't. So, I assume, that meant you don't remember," Peter nodded. "And I doubt the Disney-style Scott's love life really made you feel anything."
Stiles chuckled, because that's exactly how he described Scott's relationships to Liam during one of pack meetings, and Peter surely was there to hear it. "They are way too sweet, though it's such a can of worm I doubt I'd want to explore."
"So your first question comes to 'I have no idea what love is to me', basically." Peter nodded like he understood everything. Stiles licked his lips. "As for me, I think the only thing that separate romantic and platonic love is the question: 'do I want to bang this person, or do I want to hug them'."
"And what if it's both?" Stiles again didn't filter his words, he was sleepy, that's it. Peter chuckled.
"Then it means it's romantic in a way, so if you are up with all that, it means you are in love the way normal people mean it."
"I loke how you phrase it," Stiles put the empty glass down. "And do you want to bang me?"
"Maybe later, when you at least slept and showered." Peter shrugged shit-eating grin on his lips.
"Asshole," Stiles muttered and rubbed his face. "How is the wound?"
"Better. It's healing." Peter took Stiles' hands again. "Just so you know, I do love you in all the possible ways," Peter brushed his fingers over the back of Stiles' hand. "And I will wait until you decide for yourself what kind of feelings you have toward me."
"Who are you and where Peter Hale is?" Stiles chuckled but didn't move to go away.
His head was still buzzing with thoughts, but now he felt some kind of calm. Well, that was awkward. He would worry about it later though.