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“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!” Stiles’ litany stuttered to a halt as he stumbled his way over a fallen log. He continued to push forward anyway, eventually making it back to his feet without losing his ever-present bat. “Why do they always have to go for the squishy human? Why do enemies always find their brain only when it most endangers me?”
The sound of someone crashing through the forest behind him had Stiles glancing over his shoulder.
“Why,” his words were starting to be interspersed with heavier breathing, “can’t they pick on someone their own size?”
“Scott did call them bullies, sweetheart.” Peter smiled and caught the flailing teen’s arm, keeping him from over-balancing as he pulled him forward. “The boy was bound to be right about something. ‘A broken clock’ and all that.”
“D-Don’t-” Even though he’d matched the younger man’s pace, Stiles seemed to be too out of sorts to respond immediately. He took a few breaths before trying again. “It’s like you’re trying to give me a heart attack! Wait, are you backsliding into old habits again, murder wolf? I thought we were past this!”
Seemingly just realizing that Peter hadn’t let go or possibly not wanting to be so close to someone with ‘murderous’ tendencies, Stiles’ free hand (the one not holding the bat, thankfully) came up to start slapping at the one Peter still had wrapped around his elbow.
“It’s cute that you all think that murder is something one can grow out of, darling.” Peter sidestepped, pulling Stiles along with him and out of the way of a tree stump he’d been unknowingly headed for. This had the added benefit of preventing further slaps as his companion nearly lost his balance again in the process.
“Well, after the whole ‘back-from-the-dead’ thing you did, it seems normal to expect the impossible.” Stiles successfully navigated some tricky root systems before looking over at him. “Maybe you shouldn’t have set the bar so high there, dude.”
Peter quirked a brow at him, then rolled his eyes as Stiles’ inattention had the younger man stumbling over nothing again.
“And I expected you to be better at running after your time on the track team, so it looks like we’re all disappointed now. Is college life making you soft?” Running an eye over his indignant companion, Peter had to admit (to himself, at least) that the younger man didn’t look soft. He wasn’t as solid as a were, but he was certainly lean. (Perhaps too much so. How much food did the boy eat? Peter was sure the answer would be ‘not enough’.)
He was distracted from his mental tangent when Stiles groaned.
“What is with all this terrible timing, huh? What did I do in a past life?” Arm twisting in Peter’s grip, Stiles gestured towards the sky with his eyes focused on the branches above them. “I mean, I know what he did and I haven’t exactly been a saint this time, but come on!”
A snapping noise from behind them reminded Peter that they weren’t just running for their health (though the case could be argued) and he pulled them both sharply to the right to try and lose those pursuing them.
“Let’s save the mental breakdown for after we’ve gotten you to safety, hm?”
“Too late for that,” came a voice from the dark.
“Motherfu-” was as far as Stiles got before Peter was yanking him out of the way of an arrow. “You’re not allowed to have arrows!”
Pushing them into a crouch to dodge the second projectile from the woman Scott had been trying to talk into leaving not half an hour earlier, Peter finally released Stiles’ elbow to turn and launch himself at their attacker.
The arrow she had nocked went wide as he slid under her guard and tried to pull the bow away from her. He thought it’d be an easy test of strength and that he’d get it without too much fuss, but she was able to hold on long enough that the wolfsbane coating forced him to release the weapon. Too bad for her she needed both hands to do so, leaving her quiver unprotected. A quick slice from his claws ensured that when he broke away from her, he was able to toss the similarly treated quiver into the surrounding shrubbery.
Peter kept himself between the woman and Stiles, shifting his face to snarl at her and the hunting knife she drew. They stood for a moment, his low growl and the scuff of Stiles’ sneakers shifting against the detritus the only sounds as he waited to see what she’d do. (Waited for those idiots to catch up with them, to provide backup or at least cover his escape with Stiles.)
“I thought only Hunters used arrows,” Stiles continued after a beat as if he was never interrupted.
His eyes locked on their opponent, Peter refused to roll his eyes as Stiles’ inability to stay quiet for long. He pushed aside his amusement at the younger man’s go-to distraction technique in favor of worry anger, furious that this interloper had threatened what was his invaded his territory. Scott may have claimed Beacon Hills, but the preserve still belonged to the Hale’s.
“There is no law that says we cannot hunt.” Peter was reminded that Stiles’ tactics had their many uses as another intruder spoke up from behind them both.
Stiles swore even as Peter threw himself back, catching the younger man as he did and repositioning them to be able to see both ‘hunters’ at the same time. It was difficult to do. The man, who Peter easily identified as the woman’s partner, obviously had more skill or simply more of those silencing amulets than the woman and had been able to get nearly directly behind them.
Actually, considering he wasted his stealth with a comment Peter was attributing it all to the charms. He’d have to inspect them later and look up their creator, they did some good work. At best he’d have a new supplier and at worst he’d wipe a possibly troublesome enemy out before they became a problem.
“Well, I mean, if you ignore all state laws about murder, I guess you aren’t -”
Once again, Peter was forced to push Stiles out of the way of an arrow, cutting off what was sure to be that delightfully hypocritical lecture of his. Snarling at the man who’d just fired it, Peter missed when the woman threw her knife.
Unfortunately, Stiles didn’t.
Peter rocked forward, ducking under another arrow a bit as he moved with the push only to snarl as he felt Stiles give a full body flinch. Another arrow whizzed past Peter’s head as he swayed around it in his rush to eviscerate the man. It was over even faster than he expected. The man was practically a novice compared to his partner.
The arrow that hit him as he turned around proved his suspicions of who was more skilled of the two. He could already feel the poison spreading in his arm, but she was advancing on them, the other arrow already drawn.
A small part of him wondered if she caught them or if they’d been hidden somewhere else on her body. Would there be more?
A larger part was roaring at her proximity to Stiles (Stiles who had a gut wound, Stiles who was still trying to get to his knees to face her with a knife in his stomach, Stiles who was probably already dying- no, focus), telling him to tear her apart, to make her suffer, to Protect the Pack.
Her eyes narrowed and Peter braced himself for another dodge, looking for an opening.
A lunge from Stiles surprised them both.
The woman’s bow swung around to try and stop her unexpected attacker even as Peter took the opportunity to leap. The movement had her flinching to cover herself from the greater threat.
In the end, her indecision cost the woman her life.
Arrow twanging uselessly into the forest, the archer crumpled to the ground. Skidding just to one side of her, Peter paused only long enough to confirm that the knife to the chest (perfectly placed between the ribs of a moving attacker) had killed her before stepping over the body, hands already reaching for Stiles.
“Stop moving, you’re just making it worse.” Peter’s voice was tight with anger, with worry, with hopelessness. Carefully, (so, so carefully) he turned Stiles onto his back, keeping a good grip on his shoulders to that the younger man wasn’t lying in a muddy pool of his own blood.
“You’re one to talk.” Brushing his fingers just under the gash on Peter’s arm, Stiles looked almost ghostly pale.
“Says the man bleeding out in the middle of a forest.” Already trying to calculate how far they were from the cars, Peter missed the sarcastic tone he was going for. In fact, he sounded a bit panicked even to his own ears.
A bloody hand came up to pat his cheek consolingly.
“I’m not dead yet.” Stiles lips twitched into a smile. “I may not be able to come back from the dead, but I’d like to think I still have a couple of tricks up my sleeve.”
“Tricks to save you from a gut wound? What exactly has that college been teaching you, darling?” Stamping down a glimmer of hope that stubbornly refused to die, Peter wondered where the cavalry was exactly as Stiles’ hand dropped from his face.
He’d thought Stiles’ strength was failing him already, human stamina was hard to understand as a born werewolf, but a moment after dropping out of sight Stiles had brought his hand back into view holding
“Flowers?” Peter hadn’t seen any flowers when they’d first arrived. They had to have been within reach which means they should have been at least splattered, but the only blood on them seemed to have been smeared from the hand Stiles used to pick them blindly with. “Did you learn stage magic?”
But these flowers weren’t fake. Their petals were too fine and delicate to have been hidden up a sleeve and the fragrance of them was starting to overpower the scent of blood.
“I’ve learned a lot about me and life and what I want out of life, but this wasn’t one of those things.” If Stiles’ breath sounded heavy before, it was downright labored now. Holding the handful of blossoms higher, he asked, “Do you trust me.”
With his life.
“As much as I do anyone,” was all Peter’s pride would allow.
“Then, bon appetit.” Stiles ignored the incredulous look Peter was giving him, instead drowsily waiting. The moment Peter went to ask if he’d heard Stiles correctly, he found one of the blossoms in his mouth. Not giving Peter any further chance to protest, Stiles shoved the rest of them (were they glowing or was it just the moonlight?) in his own and began chewing, making a disgusted face as he did.
When Peter went to remove the flower, Stiles pressed a bloody finger to his lips. Swallowing his own mouthful with at least a little difficulty, the younger man then looked at him expectantly. Resigned to eating a hopefully edible flower, Peter chewed the surprisingly sour blossom. Stiles gave him a smile when he finally managed to choke it down.
“And now, the fun part.” Leaning forward, Stiles reached up and took Peter’s face between his hands, effectively silencing his protests at the younger man’s movement.
Almost breathless due to any number of the emotions that were fighting to be expressed, Peter watched as Stiles closed his eyes. A beat passed, then two, and then it was hard to tell because Peter’s heart rate spiked as Stiles leaned forward and pressed their lips together.
It wasn’t perfect. Stiles’ lips hit him a bit off center and their noses bumped a bit while they were trying to fix that. The smell of blood and other bodily fluids from the dead hunters were still lingering under the floral scents and the fingers that slipped from his face around to cradle the back of his head smeared blood as they went.
It wasn’t perfect, but Peter couldn’t complain. Wouldn’t complain.
Complaining was for after he ensured that this would happen again and again, after they’d learned one another until they could tease each other about this disastrous first try (after the threat of death was so unthinkable that it was laughable).
Careful of exacerbating Stiles injury any further, Peter held himself still even as he opened his mouth to the kiss. As it deepened, a growl rumbled in his chest and he could feel Stiles nearly grinning against his mouth before pressing closer, his blunt fingernails lightly scratching against Peter’s scalp.
God, he hoped this worked, whatever it was. To have just a taste before having it ripped away... Peter wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t go crazy again.
It was only when Stiles leaned in and pressed their chests together that Peter was able to summon the will power to pull away. Holding Stiles’ shoulders, he easily avoided the younger man’s attempts to continue. He leaned back just enough to see pale skin through the hole where the wound had been when Stiles slowly blinked his eyes open.
“Did it work?” The younger man sounded a bit slurred, though if it was from the bloodloss or the kiss Peter didn't know.
A blinking moment passed in stunned silence on Peter’s part before he realized that Stiles was referring to his injured arm. Tearing his eyes from the smooth flesh of Stiles’ stomach, Peter checked his arm.
There wasn’t even a scar. Peter wasn’t sure when the burn of wolfsbane had vanished, but it was clear the poison was no longer a threat.
“That’s some trick.” The words sounded faint, so he cleared his throat before asking, “Where did you learn it again?”
Inspection complete, Peter locked eyes with Stiles’ golden ones and any further questions died on his tongue. Those amber eyes were shining gold, making their horizontally slitted pupils stand out starkly against them.
Stiles smiled crookedly, only the slightest trace of hesitance showing in his features.
“I inherited it, actually.” He blinked a few more times and, as Peter watched, Stiles’ eyes returned to their humanoid shape between one blink and the next. “Using it on you wasn’t something I was taught, but at worst we would have just had to heal you the usual way.”
“I see.” Peter wasn’t sure how he felt about being a trial run, but his curiosity was winning out. He glanced down to Stiles’ reddened lips and felt that familiar desire building again, pressing it down with the ease of long practice was more difficult now that he knew how Stiles tasted. “And the kiss was part of that?”
“Uh, yeah.” The lie wasn’t very convincing even if Peter couldn’t detect it in the younger man’s heart beat. Stiles seemed to realize this and quickly capitulated. “I mean, sort of. It was a little bit a part of that.”
“‘A little’, hm? If that was a little, what was the rest, sweetheart?” Suspecting the answer, Peter didn’t even try to hide his smug satisfaction. Instead, he trailed his slightly bloody fingers across Stiles’ collarbone and up the freckled column of his throat, smirking as he traced the edges of the scowl he found there.
“Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up, asshole. It’s not like you started this or anything.”
Eyebrows raised in surprise, Peter tried to remember what he’d done to get that kind of reaction and how he could do it again. Nothing came to mind.
“I’m not sure what you mean, dear boy.”
That earned him a huff.
“You do it as easy as breathing and yet you don’t know what it is.” Stiles rolled his eyes. “Well, I’m not going to tell you. You’d probably just do it all the time and get me wrapped around your finger.”
“It’d only be fair.” It was as close to an admission as he’d get right now, sitting between two corpses and with the rest of the pack finally on their way judging by the distant crashing noises.
Judging by the dumbfounded expression, it was more than enough for Stiles. The crooked smile Peter wore at the sight was decidedly too fond, so he worked on changing it into his usual bloodthirsty smirk as he stood and offered Stiles a hand.
“We’ll be talking about this later.” Stiles warned as he accepted the help.
Peter used the grip to pull Stiles close once he’d scrambled to his feet.
“I’m looking forward to it, dear boy.” Smirk widening into a grin, Peter relished the way Stiles felt as the younger man’s breath caught in his throat.
Late and ill timed as ever, the rest of the weres in the pack crashed into the small clearing. Their snarling faces looked around for any threats before one by one they slipped out of their shifts at the sight of the two dead bodies.
Scott sighed and Peter braced himself for another lecture, only to be pleasantly surprised when the Alpha paused. Following his ‘leader’s gaze, Peter found the luminescent flowers that had sprouted under Stiles, their starlike shapes almost twinkling in the dim light.
“Where did these flowers come from?”
Peter glanced at Stiles only to find him already watching him. As their eyes met, Stiles gave a slow smile and a quick double wink, golden eye flashing between the two. Eyes flaring blue for a split second, Peter winked back.
What was a secret between friends?
“And why are you both covered in blood?”
What was a large secret between something more?