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“It didn’t mean anything.”
“What?” Peter freezes. His face falls. It takes a moment too long for him to catch himself. When he finally does, Chris has already seen everything, and it almost makes him take the words back. But he can’t.
“This … Us.” He makes a vague gesture. “It didn’t mean anything.”
“I don’t understand,” Peter says slowly. It sounds almost careful.
“It is simple. What we have been doing, it is over. I am ending it here and today,” Chris says and starts to feel sick when he hears how his own voice sounds. So sharp and offhand. Is this really him?
“You don’t mean anything to me,” he adds, because it has to be clear. Has to cut deep. “It was just … a pleasant time killer.”
He tears his gaze from Peter’s eyes and looks at the trees behind the wolf instead. He can’t stand the dawning hurt in Peter’s eyes when the confusion fades.
Chris wonders if Peter is listening to his heartbeat. Did he notice a stutter? Or is he too busy processing what he has just heard? Chris hopes so.
When Peter finally says something, his voice is forcefully calm. “Is this about your father? You know you don’t have to follow him. He is manipulating you, Chris. Just … Let us help. Let me help. Talia …”
A pang of anger. Good. He needs it. Chris clenches his hands into tight fists. Adds a hint of pain to the anger. A perfect combination for what he’s doing. For shattering their relationship. “This is not about my father,” he bursts, ignoring the spiteful voice in his head that sings yes it is, “it is about me. Me and my life. My future. I don’t know what you think we were doing and how long it would be going on. We were just fucking. Nothing more nothing less. I can’t stay here and play mate with a werewolf. This was nice while it lasted, but things change. I have responsibilities.”
Peter looks like he has just been slapped. For the first time, there are no words in return. There is no smirk or chuckle or wink. Peter looks just … lost. Frozen in place. His eyes are distant, as if he is remembering something.
The forest is silent around them too. As if it is just as shocked as Peter is.
Chris clears his throat. The silence is too loud. He lowers his eyes because he can’t look at Peter anymore. He swallows the I’m sorry down. Instead, he says, “Goodbye, Peter,” and turns to leave.
The silence follows him. Chris almost wishes Peter would do something. Wishes he would yell insults after Chris. Because he deserves it. And if Peter lunged at him right now, with claws and fangs out, Chris might just go down. Because this … This feeling in his chest, making it hard to breathe - this is how he never wanted to feel.
But nothing happens. He leaves and gets in his car without ever looking back. So he doesn’t know if Peter’s eyes followed him the whole time, or if the wolf has long disappeared in the forest.
He starts the car.
Chris didn’t want to return to Beacon Hills.
He didn’t want to return to ghosts from the past. But it was difficult to resist the pull. Or the many phone calls asking him to come back and help.
The town is pretty much the same. It looks like yesterday.
Allison likes it. Chris can tell. Vic … Not so much. Her eyes are stone and her smile too sharp to be a happy one, when Allison sees the house, her room and cheers. Chris knows what she is thinking. She knows everything. Over the years, they became closer. Not lovers, never lovers, but partners. Even friends. It was more than Chris had hoped for. And he knows she reads him like a book.
This is the place Chris fell in love first. The ache in his chest has never completely faded. He still remembers the moment he tore apart what he had with Peter. Still remembers the disgusting words on his tongue, the hurt in Peter’s eyes.
Sometimes, Chris wished he could tell Peter why he did it. Wishes he could explain.
He would have told Peter that Gerard found out because his little sister Kate saw them kissing and told her father, because she was his everything and wanted to make him proud just like Chris had wanted for so long. He would have told Peter about the beating and the threats. He could have told Peter everything and they could have worked something out.
But Peter was so bad at letting things go … He would have followed Chris down as far as possible.
That evening, when his face pulsed and ached, when his father laid out the future in front of him, piece by piece; Chris knew he had to end it. He had to protect Peter and his family. He knows his father. And he didn’t want to admit it back then, still doesn’t like to admit it, but his father, with his hate and stony fierceness that always borders on madness, scares him. That fear has controlled his life. It made him act like an asshole and he certainly isn't proud of it now, years later. The shame is still sharp.
But ... It was so much easier to let Peter and Beacon Hills go and start to live the future Gerard had been planning for him all along, than staying and living in fear.
Chris thinks all that and more while putting boxes into the new house. Something pulls painfully at his heart. This town was his home once before. But can he feel home again? Everything Chris once had here is literally ash by now.
When he heard about the fire, he first didn’t want to believe it. A dream, he thought while pressing the cold weight of the phone against his ear in the middle of the night. Just a nightmare.
It wasn’t.
It was all over the news the next day. A fire consuming the house in the woods, only one survivor and two family members not in the house.
One survivor. It was Peter. When Chris got the confirmation, he almost passed out. Peter was alive, but barely. Holding on in a hospital, severely burned and comatose. All alone. No one visited him. No hunter touched him. He was like a ghost.
Maybe, Chris thinks while putting Ally’s stuffed toys on her bed, maybe that was what actually made him come back after all.
“Are you going to visit him?” Vic asks him quietly, when they have their first dinner in the new home and Ally is distracted by the television.
Chris shrugs. “I don’t know.” I don’t know if I can.
Vic’s intense gaze burns through him. “I think you should,” she says. Curtly and firmly, like he is used to.
So he does.
The nurse he asks for Peter is beyond surprised. Chris can see it in the way her smile falls slightly and her brows arch. “Are you family?” She asks with a little frown.
“No. I’m …” He hesitates.
Yes, Chris, what are you? Are you going to say an old friend? Or the truth? The bastard who broke his heart and left him behind?
In the end, he just says, “I knew him.”
The nurse’s lips rise again. “Alright. I’m just a little surprised. He didn’t have any visitors for a year now.”
Chris’ stomach clenches. He nods and follows the nurse to a room. It is too white and too empty, considering it is a room for a coma patient. When Chris sees Peter, he feels his legs going weak. They almost buckle underneath him. Peter looks … different. He’s older, yes, so is Chris, but … he looks different in a way that has nothing to do with age. His hair is longer than Chris has ever seen and his face is partly covered in scar tissue.
For a long moment, Chris feels like running away. But he tells himself to stay sternly. He is not going to leave Peter again. He forces his legs to carry him towards the bed. Towards the man that was the teenager he fell in love with.
When he sits on the lonely chair beside the bed, Chris has to swallow around a tight lump in his throat before he is able to talk. “Hey, Peter,” he says, his voice breaking on the last syllable. “I’m back.” Too late. Way too late.
He reaches out and takes Peter’s limp hand into his, squeezing it softly. He keeps his eyes on Peter’s still face, wishing he could see his beautiful blue eyes. Hopes he will see them once again. He is not brave enough to hope they could have something again, after what he did. After what he said. He doesn't want forgiveness. But … He wants Peter to know that he wishes he hadn’t said them.
“I lied back then,” Chris says quietly, hoping that Peter might hear him. “I lied when I said it didn’t mean anything.”
He takes a deep breath that is loud in the silent room. He leans forward and places a kiss on Peter’s forehead, whispering, “It meant everything.”