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You’d never understood why people liked the murderous characters in stories - they were unreasonably cruel and narrow minded in a way you couldn’t stand. It was ridiculous, who would want blood on their hands in the form of their lover killing in their name?
But, of course, it was different when Peter did it.
When he ripped out the hearts of beasts that haunted the preserve and stalked locals, and returned home to you, more wolf than man, covered in blood looking for help with his wounds. You were always gentle with him, after all he was serving his community - and more importantly to him, he was serving you - and keeping Beacon Hills safe, which nobody had asked or expected him to do. That was Scott’s job. Scott was also a teenager with a life to tend to, and so it fell to Peter instead.
Things, over time, shifted between you and Peter. You’d hardly known the man, though you’d freely admit that you had been attracted to him from the very beginning. You were older than the others, closer in age to Derek than the highschoolers, which meant closer in age to Peter. You were working in a local plant nursery, and Peter began to frequent it just to visit you, because not only was some small part of him aware that you had feelings for him, but he also had slowly growing feelings for you.
Not that Peter would admit that, but you could see it from a mile away. He liked you, significantly more than most people, and you basked in it. You were far too busy focusing on staying alive to worry about dating anyone though, in fact you mentioned that to him once offhandedly during one of your many chats, and Peter took that to heart - that was when he started handling threats.
The first time he scratched at your door, whining to be let in, you’d been petrified. You’d gone to the front door with a meat cleaver in hand, ready to dispatch whatever was there to hurt you, and instead found a large wolf. You knew, instinctively, that it was a member of the pack, but it wasn’t until electric blue eyes looked up at you that you knew it was Peter. Being able to turn into a full wolf was a Hale trait, but it wasn’t one you’d been aware Peter shared. Quickly, you’d set the blade aside and let him in, grabbing a cloth to wipe the blood away from his muzzle. When you’d returned to bed, Peter Wolf had hopped in beside you and kept you warm like an oversized stuffed animal.
That happened relatively frequently, and he’d always turn up at your door bloody, expecting to be cleaned by you and then he’d hop into your bed to sleep beside you. But then, when you woke, he’d be gone. He never visited you at work the day after it happened, and then if you attempted to bring it up he wouldn’t comment, steering the conversation elsewhere. You didn’t so much mind, really, that it was happening, you just wish he’d stay for breakfast or something. It’d be nice to be able to spend that extra time with him, to reassure yourself that he really was okay.
Not that you mentioned that, of course, it was his business what he did after waking up in a bed that wasn’t his own having just recovered from his wounds.
You continued with your life as normal, because what else could you do? Peter continued coming to your door, and it got to a point where you had to wonder what he was even fighting. Scott and the others never even caught a whiff of a threat, how quickly was Peter discovering these things, who was alerting him to their being there? How far was he travelling from home to prevent future threats?
It was a Thursday when you were making yourself some lunch that you got the call. You reached out and picked up your phone without even glancing at the contact name, you’d figure it out soon enough.
“Hey, what’s up?” You asked, buttering the bread for your toast.
“Have you seen Peter?” Came Derek’s voice, and that gave you pause. No. You hadn’t. When had you seen him last?
“No. Not for a few days at least.” You replied hesitantly, suddenly concerned by that. He was rarely gone for that long, even if it was just a glimpse of him at your workplace in passing.
“Has he called or texted?” Derek asked, sounding increasingly concerned himself.
“No. Which is..”
“A really bad sign.” Derek concluded, ending the call. Well that was fucking rude. You abandoned your pursuit of lunch and threw on the easiest outfit you could find, pulling on your jacket hurriedly before sprinting from your apartment. You hopped onto your bike, turned the key, and took off for the loft.
When you arrived, Derek was already climbing into his car. You’d caught him just in time.
“Where do you think you’re going without me?” You asked, parking your bike before swapping that for Derek’s car.
“I should’ve known you’d rush over.” He muttered, but wasted no time in starting the car and taking off.
“Where are we going?”
“Next town over to speak to one of Satomi’s betas, ask if anyone has seen him.”
Silver Lake was a nice town, just a little bigger than Beacon Hills, with a community college and plenty of green space, you can see why most of Satomi’s pack had settled closer to here than Beacon Hills. You drove up to a small cafe, and followed Derek inside to speak to a middle aged woman with a kind smile. She confirmed they’d seen Peter in Silver Lake in the past, but not since the month before, and so you returned to the car, and Derek started driving again, with no clear destination in mind.
“Derek-”
“We’re going to find him.” You returned to the prior silence. You hadn’t even realised the two were close enough for him to care this much. Yes, Peter was his uncle, but that hadn’t stopped Derek disliking him in the past.
“We can’t just drive aimlessly and hope we find him. We should check his apartment.”
“I don’t know where he lives.”
“I do.” He glanced at you, looking surprised, but then nodded with a grunt and turned to drive back to Beacon Hills. It was an hour long drive, and with only music to fill the gap between you, it felt much longer. Once you passed the sign indicating you were back in Beacon Hills, you began directing Derek to Peter’s apartment.
The door man recognised you, because of course the fancy asshole lived in an apartment complex with a door man. Derek just nodded, unsettled, and you led the way. You were allowed up to Peter’s apartment, and you found the door unlocked. For a second, you were flooded with anxiety, and Derek reached out to rest his hand on your shoulder. You took a few breaths, then let him go first, in case someone other than Peter was inside.
There was nobody. No threats, but no Peter either. And the entire place was a mess. Papers everywhere, furniture overturned, dirt from potted plants strewn across the carpet. Peter would be so upset to find his apartment like this.
“Someone took him.” Derek decided, and you nodded absently, already setting about starting to clean up.
“What are you doing?” Derek then asked. You didn’t look up, continuing to pick up rogue papers and stack them on the coffee table you’d returned to rights.
“We know nothing right now, charging back out of that door won’t help us. There is no reason I can’t help clean this place up while we think.” You said, firm, using the repetitive task to ground and calm yourself. Derek stared at you for a long while, but you ignored him, just continuing with your task. He hopped up onto the kitchen counter to think aloud, letting you ignore him or offer your own input as you cleaned.
Ultimately, you went back home that night, deciding to regroup tomorrow with the rest of the pack to see what they thought, get more eyes and brains on the problem. When you woke in the early hours of the morning, on the sofa because going to bed felt like accepting defeat, it was to the sound of scratching on your door. You shot up and opened it to find Peter there, not a wolf but a man, looking like death.
You reached out to help support his weight as best as you could, and heaved him to the sofa where you’d previously been sitting. You rushed to the bathroom to grab the first aid supplies you kept there specifically for Peter, then returned to check him over.
“Where have you been, wolf?” You asked, mostly to yourself, and brushed away some sweat beading on his forehead. He opened his mouth to speak but could only cough and wheeze, some black sludge escaping from the corner of his mouth. You knew what that meant, and scrambled for your phone, dialling Derek while you sifted through your kit for wolfsbane.
“Hello?” Apparently Derek had also managed some sleep, from the sound of his voice.
“Peter turned up at my place. He’s coughing up black sludge, so wolfsbane, but I don’t see any bullet or knife wounds, and Peter can’t speak to tell me what happened.” You said, and in the background you could hear the shuffling of Derek getting out of bed and dressed.
“I can be there in five.” He said, and ended the call.
You did what you could to help Peter be comfortable, wiping him down with a cold cloth to wipe away the dirt and sweat on his body, and removed his shirt so you could check his back for any sign of a wound there. Nothing. When Derek arrived, he was able to lift Peter to his feet so you could get a better view of his back, then you pulled off Peter’s shoes and trousers to leave him in his underwear, allowing you to check and wipe down his legs too.
“Nothing.”
“I can only guess that means he ate something or was injected, that’d be too small to find an entry point.”
“So what do we do?” You asked, wiping more sweat from Peter’s forehead, a third cloth in hand, the other two already tossed in with the rest of your dirty laundry.
“We’ll have to give him something to eat that will help.” Derek said, but he looked otherwise helpless. With no more information, you shoved the cloth into Derek’s hand and opened your phone to start googling.
You searched through your kitchen, consulting a forum on witchcraft, and pulled together a bay leaf for purification, bergamot for protection from illness, black pepper for protection and inner strength, carnation for balance, juniper berries for cleansing, and added it all to a mortar. You grinded it up before putting it into a mug, to which you added a chamomile tea bag for further purification, and brewed the tea. You could only pray that it would work. You returned to Peter’s side, letting him curl into you despite the sweat pouring from him, and gently guided the mug to his lips.
“I can’t promise it’ll help, or guarantee what it’ll do, but I’m hoping it will do.. Something.” You mumbled, an explanation for both Derek and Peter. You slowly tipped the mug, praising Peter softly for continuing to drink what you didn’t doubt was an awful tea. Once it was done, you set the mug aside, and Derek helped you escort Peter to the bathroom. Derek lifted him into the tub, where you set the shower to cool and let it run, helping to cool down his overheating body.
“What was it?”
“A camomile with some protective and cleansing herbs. I can only.. Hope against hope that it does something, I guess.” You leaned against the wall outside the bathroom, Derek on the other side of the door, looking at you.
“Who do you think took him?” He asked, and you shrugged.
“No idea. What about you?”
“Me neither. I kinda thought you might know better, he spends more time with you than anyone else. I.. didn’t even realise he was helping protect us.” Derek admitted sheepishly, and for a moment he looked much younger than his years. You reached out and pulled him into a hug.
“You’re here now.” You whispered to him, and he just nodded, enjoying the comfort for a moment.
The two of you jerked apart at the sound of Peter retching, and a splat. When you returned to the room, he was ejecting black gunk, but you had to hope that was a good thing.
“That means he’s healing, right?” You asked, looking away out of fear that you’d end up being sick as well. Derek knelt at his uncle’s side, taking his pain to aid in the healing process while you set about finding fresh clothes for Peter to wear once he was done, and warmed a towel for comfort when he emerged.
When the sound stopped, you returned to the bathroom, fresh clothes in hand, which you set atop the toilet lid. Derek was rubbing Peter’s back, looking less concerned than before, and Peter seemed to have more colour in his skin.
“Did that help?”
“That tea was awful.” Peter grunted, coughing and grimacing, but he could speak and that was markedly better than before. You laughed softly and knelt beside the tub as well, opposite Derek, a hand wrapping around Peter’s ankle as a comfort.
“What happened?” Derek asked.
“Hunters.” Was Peter’s simple response, and you nodded. You’d suspected at least that much.
“You can tell us more tomorrow, wolf. Come on, let’s get you dry and in bed.” Derek helped Peter up, though now it was less work than it had been before. Peter managed to dry and dress himself, then Derek helped him through to your bedroom. It showed just how exhausted Peter was when he didn’t so much as argue about the use of your bed. He was put to bed, and you closed the door behind you, allowing him to rest.
You walked Derek to the door, thanking him and wishing him a good rest of his night. When your phone pinged, you startled, and with a hand rested over your heart you checked it to find a message from.. Yourself. Peter had gotten his hands on your computer. You went to check on him, wondering what on earth he was doing, and you found a wolf in your bed. The message ‘safer’ now made more sense. You couldn’t help laughing, and you reached out to gently pet him.
“Get some sleep, wolf. You clearly need it.” You went to stand, leaving him alone again, when the full weight of him was pressed into your lap, preventing you from standing. You looked at him with a raised brow, but you couldn’t deny him anything when he was so cute, and so you climbed into the bed with him, with a kiss pressed to his fluffy forehead. You definitely had some things to talk about.
When you woke in the morning and Peter wasn’t beside you, you were disappointed but you weren’t surprised. You headed to the bathroom and quickly sprayed the tub with disinfectant and rinsed it, then got in to take a shower. You towelled yourself dry and changed into some shorts and a tank top, then headed into the kitchen to make yourself a drink. That was where you found Peter. Two cups on the kitchen counter and two plates of breakfast, the wolf himself absently tapping his fingers on the surface, a nervous twitch.
“Jesus Peter- warn a guy. I didn’t realise you were still here.” You said, recalling how you’d sung in the shower and almost walked into the kitchen naked.
“I didn’t want to wake you, and I was too absorbed in what I was doing to hear the shower.” Peter replied, sheepish, gently pushing one of the plates to indicate that it was for you.
“That’s not like you,” you observed, closing the distance between you and the food, happy to have some food to start your day, “you doing okay?”
“I’m all healed, thanks to you.” He replied, and you simply looked at him with a hard gaze and raised brow.
“Not what I meant.” The two of you ate in silence for a while, allowing Peter to gather his thoughts before he spoke.
“I’ve been quite absorbed in my thoughts all morning. I.. don’t entirely remember making my way here. I did so entirely on instinct, knowing I could trust you even while so vulnerable.” Peter said, softer than usual.
“You can. I’ll always help you, Peter.”
“Yes, I know,” there was another pause, where you could tell Peter was thinking deeply about what he’d say next, “but this means something different to you than it does to me. To you, you’re a reliable friend, to me.. My wolf acknowledges you as trustworthy and.. It hasn’t done that since the fire. Everyone is an enemy, except you.” Though you were glad he’d told you, you knew that meant more than he was willing to tell you.
“How about, you kiss me now, and you can explain what that really means later?” You offered casually, glancing up at him from your food. You were nervous, but when you saw his eyes flash his wolfy blue, you knew you’d made a good choice.
“That’s a dangerous offer.” Peter said, words slightly slurred around the fangs now crowding his mouth.
“I’m okay with that.”