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Three hours after Peter tells Stiles that he’ll get her out of police custody, they sit down at Barbary Diner (the only 24-hour place in town besides the convenient store on 2nd). Peter watches Stiles eye the waitress (“Marge,” reads her shiny bronze name tag) as she plunks two full mugs of coffee onto their table. He doesn’t speak when she dumps three spoonfuls of sugar into her coffee, and then pours in half of the small pitcher of cream. But his eyebrows rise when Stiles adds to his coffee a dash of sugar and the remaining cream.
She freezes with her fingers on his mug, as though she was about to push the warm ceramic into his hand, and glances up at him, her eyes guarded. Her heart skitters into a frantic beat, and they stare at each other over the steam of four hour-old brew.
“Sorry,” she says, removing her hand from his mug. “I didn’t mean to… I should have let you do that yourself.”
“There’s no need to apologize,” he replies, and offers an easy smile. “I happen to like my evening coffee heavy on the cream with a hint of sugar.”
This isn’t something he often admits. Talia buys him large Americanos, and the occasional black coffee. It’s when he’s alone in his apartment, in the late evenings and very early mornings that Peter will empty the half-and-half into his extra-large mug, and stir in some European vanilla sugar.
Stiles nods, as though accepting the fact that she made a very lucky guess, and seems to fight the frown that pinches her face.
“Where are you from?” Peter can’t help but ask. He wasn’t going to pry, he knows he shouldn’t—not if he wants Stiles to tell him anything. But he just needs to know. He is compelled to know more about this woman.
She doesn’t speak. He would think that she hadn’t heard his question except her heartbeat is accelerating, and she’s swallowed twice in the last seven seconds.
“I uh…” she says, and then jumps to her feet. “I’m sorry, I can’t… this… I thought that I could, but it’s all. I wasn’t gonna even see… Yeah, sorry,” she pants. “I’m gonna,” Stiles says, and jerks her thumb towards the entrance.
She takes three quick steps away from the table and then freezes. It’s like she’s a puppet and all her strings suddenly cut. Even the nervous tick of her heart settles. She turns to him, and her face reads consideration, but her scent screams anguish and resignation.
“I, uh,” Stiles swallows again.
She takes a couple of panting breaths, blinking away tears, and just looks at him. It’s the gaze of an old friend—someone who has known him for years, who knows his faults and idiosyncrasies and secrets. It’s the look of shared history and sympathy, like she is familiar with the lines by his eyes and the way his lips curl into a smirk at the lightest provocation. People who have known him his entire life don’t look at him the way that this woman does now.
Peter forces himself not to shift uncomfortably. He has the distinct impression that Stiles is seeing more of him than he is typically comfortable with allowing people to glimpse. But damn if he will ever show that she’s freaking him out.
Stiles grits her teeth, offering him a frown that turns quickly into a cringe, and she sidles back to her seat.
“Rock and a hard place,” she says, glancing up at the confused shake of Peter’s head. She flashes him an easy smile (though she still absolutely reeks of pain and grief) and gives him one wet chuckle (and oh, he can’t imagine what music her full laugh must be).
“It’s like you know that you don’t have it in you—the strength or whatever, to do something, and so you decide not to do that something. Or you decide to do something else, but then you realize that this other option is ten times worse and not something that you’re at all okay with, and if you didn’t have the strength to handle the first thing, then you sure as hell don’t have it for the alternative. So you just…”
Peter waits for her to finish her thought, but she lapses into silence and Marge returns to take their orders before he can prompt her for more. They both ask for cheeseburgers with fries, and Stiles frowns briefly when Peter tells the waitress to hold the onion.
“How long have you been in town?” he asks when she makes no move to speak.
“A couple of weeks,” Stiles says without looking at him. “I’ve been… you don’t like onions?”
Peter hesitates at the abrupt change in topic.
“Never mind,” she says, and her hands flap at him, as though her flailings will erase her previous question. All it does is draw his gaze to her long fingers, utterly captivated as her hands curl again around her coffee cup. Her tendons ripple when she clenches her hands, and Peter just aches to see them wrapped arou—
He tears his eyes from her, and takes a deep breath. These are thoughts that he knows he shouldn’t be entertaining (not now, and maybe not ever.) His sister claims that while he may possess supreme control, that doesn’t extend to the inner workings of his mind. After all, she is incapable of imaging the innovative and terrifying solutions he often provides her. She believes that to be a result of chaotic thoughts. Talia thinks that if one had a choice, they wouldn’t choose to think in such twisted (her words) ways. Peter has never felt compelled to tell her that his control over his mind is just as good as that over his body. He simply differs from her in choice and preference. He exerts that control now.
Stiles is looking at him when he glances at her once again.
“I do like onion,” he says, and her eyes widen. “However, this establishment has the unfortunate propensity to use frozen green onions, and I can always taste the freezer burn. I have selective… tastes.”
She smiles briefly at him, like this simple explanation has settled all of her concerns for the moment. How a discussion about onions could accomplish that leaves Peter almost flummoxed. Which is unsettling. Because Peter doesn’t do flummoxed.
Stiles stares at him for several moments more, and then her shoulders relax and Peter scents acceptance and excitement amid her grief. Her gaze is heavy with assessment, as though she is attempting to compare the form of his face and body to some mental template known only to her. Whatever her qualifications, he seems to pass muster, because she offers a pleased grin and settles farther back into the bench.
“I work at Beacon Hills Art Gallery,” she says. Her tone is conversational and deeply, genuinely, friendly. “It’s really not what I thought I’d be doing, but a girl’s gotta work, and I can use the community studio space whenever I want, so it’s more than okay.”
“You’re an artist?” He wouldn’t have guessed that. Maybe it makes sense though, from the curling edges of her tattoo and keen gaze, he can fit such a profession in with his existing impression of her.
Stiles shrugs. “I guess? I don’t know. My mom was an artist—an art teacher, and I was really good when I was young, but after she died I didn’t really do much.” She stops and laughs—it’s more of a derisive snort. “I didn’t do any art for more than a decade, and then I ended up staying with my grandmother not too long ago, and she sort of brought me back into it.”
“What is your medium of preference?”
She shrugs again. “It varies. Is it weird if I say plant-based pigments? I mean, I do oil and watercolor and paints stuff. But charcoal is better—like the real stuff, not the compressed sticks you buy at the supply store, but charred branches from a fire pit. Yeah,” she pauses. “That sounds really weird.”
Peter chuckles. “Weird or fascinating. Simply a matter of semantics.”
Stiles smiles. It’s wide and shy. “Everything’s a matter of semantics, Peter,” she says, and her voice holds a note of sadness again.
He is about to reply, but Marge slides two large plates of cheeseburgers onto their table, and it doesn’t feel like the right time to banter.
He regrets the food as soon as Stiles begins to eat. He shouldn't look, but he can’t tear his gaze away.
She licks her lips after each bite, tongue catching stray drops of mayonnaise and grease. She suckles the french fries, divesting them of ketchup before pulling them into her mouth with her tongue, and he watches the potatoes disappear between her teeth.
Stiles catches his eye once, and he realizes that he has taken barely more than one bite, and so he grins easily, and holds her gaze as he sinks his (only slightly lengthened) teeth into the meat. She follows his jaw as he chews, and then sighs, and looks away.
They finish their meals in mostly silence, and Peter finds her constantly returning gaze a surprising comfort.
As they wait for the check, he tells her of his work, and his family. He talks freely about life in Beacon Hills, about his interest in history, and about the ridiculous case with the poodle that Talia fobbed off on him. Stiles laughs easily at that, and he grins, drinking in those muted tones of joy. How is it that her laugh is already like a drug to him?
If Peter were any less confident, he would question his sanity, his health. He might think himself under a curse. But Peter Hale is a man who listens to his wolf, and though only Talia and Madeline know this— he also listens to his heart. And both are telling him that Stiles may just be the most important person he has ever met. And he will do his best not to fuck this up.
“May I offer you a ride?” he asks after settling the bill and allowing Stiles to accidentally (and perfectly) doctor his third cup of coffee. “It’s getting rather late.”
She stills. “Late? What time is it?”
“After ten.”
“Dammit! I knew I should have gotten a watch.” Stiles is on her feet and halfway to the door before Peter catches up to her.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m late,” she hisses, not sparing him a glance. “I should have been there over an hour ago!”
“Where?” Peter asks. “I can drive you. I don’t mind.”
That makes her stop. She looks at him, face and scent heavy with consideration. It masks the fear and anxiety.
“You can’t… don’t… I don’t want anyone to know, okay?”
He raises his palms. “I won’t tell a soul. I promise.”
“Okay,” she nods, biting on her lower lip. “Just don’t ask me any questions, please?”
“Of course,” he says, and motions towards his car.
Stiles follows behind. “The hospital,” she says, once they are both seated and doors closed.
“Are you…” Peter frowns. “Apologies, no questions.”
“It’s not for me,” she says with a sigh. “I just have someone to visit.”
“And it’s urgent…”
“Time is a precious thing, Peter,” she says, and she sounds so sad that he doesn’t say anything else.
He knows that visiting hours end at eight in pediatrics and general care, and nine for the psych and long-term care wards. He knows better than to ask her who she is visiting.
They arrive, but Stiles doesn’t immediately exit the car. Instead, she turns toward him, a furl in her chin and eyes pinched. She opens her mouth and closes it. Then she reaches out and places her hand on his, warm and so gently.
“Thank you,” she says, and Peter thinks that this just might be the most sincere expression of gratitude that he has ever had the pleasure of receiving in his entire life. “Sometimes life gives you lemons,” she says, her lips forming a smirk. “And sometimes it gives you the best limoncello from the Amalfi Coast.” She grins.
Limoncello--he adores limoncello.
“Thank you for being so… sweet."
Stiles is out of the car before Peter has a chance to respond.
He wants to do more than that. He wants to fold her into his arms, to carry her through this storm, and the next. He wants… He just wants, and accepting that is the only thing that allows him to turn his car back to the road, and do what he does best: strategize on how to gain his heart’s desire.