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When Peter opened his door on a late Saturday evening, the last person he expected to see on the other side was Stiles. That he was standing there anyway, looking like death warmed over, was an unpleasant surprise.
Normally, he would have been able to identify Stiles a good while before he even had the chance to knock. But today… Today everything about him was off: his scent was sour, his heartbeat irregular, his breathing shallow, his skin clammy and much paler than usual…
If Peter hadn’t seen Stiles being perfectly fine only a handful of hours ago, he’d think he was seriously ill.
“What happened?” he asked while pulling the now shaking and dangerously tilting human inside, his worry making him sound harsher than intended.
Stiles seemed miles away with his thoughts, and when he finally noticed Peter was waiting for an answer, he blinked slowly and slurred, “Don’t know. Don’t feel so well.”
Yeah, Peter could see that.
It would be best to get Stiles seated, so Peter steered him towards the couch with a firm grip on his arm to keep him from falling over on the way.
“What happened?” he repeated and sat down on the coffee table facing Stiles once he had flopped between two throw pillows, looking lost.
“I… uh… I think… I fell asleep. Up at the Lookout Point. Then… something startled me awake and… I ran?”
“Is that a question?”
“... no?”
“Stiles! Focus! Allow me to be a little skeptical about your story. Because you basically just told me you ran several miles through the preserve. In the dark. Like this? Why didn’t you call for help?”
“Huh? I… how? Who would have been able to hear it? Even werewolves can’t hear that well… can they?”
“There’s such a thing as a cellphone.”
“Cellphone? Uhhh… What?”
“Stiles? Try to think back, even if it’s hard. When is the last time you remember seeing your phone?”
“Dunno… Earlier. Took a couple of photos. Out there…”
“Do you see why I have trouble believing your story?”
“No? ...why?”
“Because it’s dark outside. Has been for over two hours. No human I know would have been able to get out of the woods without some extra light. Not even you. So let’s try this again. Think carefully! What happened?”
Stiles rubbed his hands over his face with a groan that almost sounded like a growl.
A growl? Stiles? Over the years, he’d taken on quite a few lupine mannerisms, but growling had never been his forte, though not for lack of trying. This, though, could certainly be counted.
It made dread pool in Peter’s stomach. Because now that he thought about it, the subconscious growling was not the first hint. And taken together…
“Stiles. Did you come across an alpha in the preserve?”
The question seemed to startle Stiles out of another fugue state.
“What?” he squeaked, his heart suddenly galloping, the scent of panic starting to burn Peter’s nose.
Not waiting for Stiles to become aware enough to comprehend the situation, Peter pulled off his rumpled jacket to reveal a dark shirt with a ripped collar.
“Hey! That’s mine!”
“Good for you. But I’m trying to look for a bite wound, so keep still for a bit, yes?”
Surprise kept him frozen long enough for Peter to get him out of his shirt…
“Ow!”
Stiles’ pained hiss didn’t come unexpected, but the sight that greeted Peter once he lowered his arms was still hard to process. There, across his left shoulder joint, was a circle of already healing tooth marks. And now that they were uncovered, the smell of dried blood finally hit Peter’s nose. How had he been able to miss it before?
Something on Peter’s face made Stiles pale even more.
“How bad is it?” he asked faintly.
“Good news is, you’ll live.”
“Oh my god… I… don’t remember an alpha.”
“What do you remember?” Peter started to feel like a broken record, but Stiles was finally alert enough that they would hopefully get somewhere now.
“Sunset.”
“What?”
“That’s why I was up there. The last weeks were stressful, and I wanted some time to myself and watch the sunset.”
“Then what?”
“I fell asleep.”
“And something startled you awake.”
“How do you know?”
“You said so, earlier.”
“Oh… Uh… Yeah. So. I think there was a noise. And because it was already dark, I got up to go home… At some point, I fell.”
“At some point,” Peter repeated skeptically. “And how did that happen?”
“Something might have pushed me.”
“Might…”
“Are you a parrot?”
Oh, look, the sass was back! Peter didn’t quite want to admit it, but he was relieved. Still, he rolled his eyes at Stiles and prompted him to keep going.
“I… think I didn’t get very far before something barreled into my back. And then… my fight instinct won.”
“How so?”
Stiles blushed. “I may have wildly flailed around. Must have dropped my phone around that time. So I have no idea what hit me.”
“Did you hit anything?”
“Maybe? Can’t say for sure. Might just have run into one of the benches. Sent a couple of rocks flying over the edge.”
Peter’s breath hitched. “You were near the edge? In the dark?”
If Stiles had fallen, no werewolf bite would have saved him. The thought made him lightheaded and weak-kneed. Good thing that he was sitting and in no danger of being obvious about it. Good thing, too, that he had Stiles in front of him right now and could see he was alive. Not well—not yet—but steadily improving. It helped a lot.
Stiles’ head was tilting, though, his eyes fixed on Peter’s chest.
“Dude, what’s up with your heartbeat?”
Something that Stiles wasn’t supposed to know. Damnit! His senses were sharpening remarkably fast.
“Unimportant. Back to your story.”
“Bullshit!”
Whoa! That was not the eye color Peter would have expected Stiles to have.
“Are you sure you only kicked rocks over the edge?”
“What?”
“Or did something else happen in the preserve?”
“Like what?”
“Like you downing your attacker.”
“I don’t think so…”
“Any idea why your eyes glow red, then?”
“They don’t!”
Peter only raised his eyebrow at Stiles, challenging his denial. He had no reason to lie to him, did he?
“But…” Stiles looked utterly lost again. “Shouldn’t I have noticed if I managed to take out an alpha?”
Good question. It sounded unlikely that he didn’t. Then again… If anyone managed to do it accidentally, then Peter’s money totally was on Stiles.
“And why would the alpha spark transfer to me before I even turned? That’s a recipe for disaster.”
“Whoever it was must not have had a pack.”
“A rogue, then?”
“It fits with the random attack. And with us not knowing they were here in the first place, doesn’t it?”
“Now you know who the rogue alpha in the territory is.”
“You’re no rogue alpha.”
“Aren’t I? Freshly turned, no betas… There’s only one way this can end, can it?”
“Not necessarily no betas.”
“What? Are you offering?” Stiles scoffed as if he’d just heard the least likely thing ever. Peter was almost offended.
“No need to sound so disbelieving.”
“Okay, let’s say you mean it. You’d still be only one beta.”
“Hmmm, how do you feel about collecting a couple more Hales?”
“As if they’d want me as their alpha…”
“You’d be surprised.”
~
Three months later, Peter had been proven right, which he loved to remind Stiles of occasionally. Although—to be honest—his pitch had worked even better than he had expected.
He’d known that Derek and Malia were a safe bet. But then, last month, Cora had called. And now she was here. On a trial basis, as she kept saying, but Peter knew better. The pack bonds between the five of them were too strong already for her to just leave again. If she did… Well, then she’d definitely come back. It felt good to have this kind of bone-deep certainty again. He hadn’t felt that since before the fire.
In another seven months, Lydia would join them, too. She’d screamed for Stiles when he was turned, despite having been at the other end of the country. When Peter had learned that, it had almost brought him to his knees again because it told him once more just how close Stiles had come to dying that night. Too close, Lydia thought, and had decided she’d have to keep an eye on him in person once she was done with her PhD.
Peter didn’t mind. Five people looking after their alpha were better than four, after all. And if their shared worry was what finally laid the last of the animosity between her and Peter to rest, then he’d never dream of complaining.
Approaching footsteps and a familiar heartbeat interrupted his musings.
“There you are! I’ve been looking for you.”
“Here I am,” Peter agreed and smiled at Stiles.
“What are you doing here of all places?”
“Reminiscing.”
“Sounds complicated.”
“How so?”
“I mean… I obviously can’t speak for you, but this place isn’t all about happy memories. Not for me, at least.”
“Do they need to be happy? Sure, what happened here wasn’t pretty. But it got us this,” Peter said, gesturing between them. “I’d never want to give up our pack.”
“Yeah, me neither.”
Stiles sat down next to Peter with as little grace as he’d had as a human. Considering all the recent changes, it was reassuring that some things remained the same. Although it meant that Peter couldn’t be sure if it was by accident or by design that Stiles ended up sitting so close to him that their shoulders were pressed together. He relishes the contact anyway.
He was paying such close attention to his alpha that he noticed the exact moment Stiles’ eyes fell onto the new gap at the cliff edge. Stiles hadn’t been up here since that night, so today was the first time he saw how much rubble must have gone down with the rogue alpha.
“Oh, wow,” he breathed. “That was definitely a close call. I hadn’t realized before. For me to get him hard enough to send him over, I must have stood really close—”
“Shhh! Don’t let your thoughts go down that path. I panicked enough for the both of us when I came up here the morning after. The important thing is that you didn’t fall.”
Stiles snorted. “More luck than skill.”
“Maybe. But the result is the same.”
And Peter was thankful for that every day. Because he’d found Stiles’ phone with a cracked screen a mere foot away from the drop, and later the alpha right below the gap among fallen rocks and broken tree branches. At that moment, he’d sworn only to think of the positive outcome of the whole ordeal going forward. He’d done a pretty good job of it, if he said so himself. He was sure he’d be able to convince Stiles to do the same.
“We should probably work on improving your coordination anyway, just in case,” he couldn’t help but tease, however. It earned him an elbow to his side.
“And while we’re at it, maybe we’ll also work on your sense of tact.”
“I think that’s a lost cause, but feel free to try.”
Stiles laughed at that—briefly but highly amused. It assured Peter that they’d be all right. He allowed himself to look forward to their future—because he’d been right, years ago when he’d offered him the Bite: Stiles made a fantastic wolf.