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Peter jerks upright with a roar, sliding smoothly into his beta shift and flipping over to pin the presence next to him in bed. Growls are still rumbling in his chest when the haze of flames clears from his vision and the scent of smoke fades from his nose and reality comes into focus around him.
Stiles is laying very still under his hands. For one horrible instant Peter thinks he’s too still, but no, his claws are buried in the bedding, not in Stiles himself. “Fuck!” Peter lurches away from Stiles, forcing his beta shift to subside despite the adrenaline still making his hands twitch.
“Everything’s fine, Peter,” Stiles says, sitting up as soon as Peter has let go of him.
“I could have killed you,” Peter grates out, cradling his head in his hands. God, he should never have let Stiles into his bed at all, nevermind overnight.
“Peter,” Stiles says. Peter doesn’t move. “Peter. Peter. Peter.” Each repetition of his name comes with a poke.
“What?” Peter snaps, finally meeting Stiles’s eyes.
“You’re not going to hurt me,” Stiles says. “You knew it was me.”
Peter shakes his head. “I tore up the bedding.”
“Yeah, the bedding,” Stiles repeats. “Maybe you were attacking on instinct, but your instinct also recognized that I’m not a threat.”
“Are you willing to bet your life on that?” Peter asks roughly.
Stiles shuffles across the space Peter has put between them. “Bet my life on you? Yeah, I sure as hell will.”
Peter sags, then turns and leans into Stiles, burying his nose in the curve of Stiles’s throat. “Reckless idiot,” he mutters.
Laughing, Stiles puts an arm around Peter and strokes his hair. “From you, that’s a term of endearment,” he teases.
Peter growls half-heartedly.
“That tickles.”
Reckless, wonderful idiot.