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The fire pit crackled, casting a flickering golden glow across the back porch of the Hale house. Peter sat back in the old wooden chair with a glass of whiskey resting loosely in his hand. He wore his usual smug expression, but it was softened by the telltale signs of contentment: slightly parted lips, a long exhale through his nose, and the subtle way his foot nudged at the leg of a second chair.
Derek dropped into that second seat, his own drink in hand—neat, just like his uncle’s—and glanced out across the yard where, in the distance, faint laughter could be heard. Isabelle and Stiles were somewhere beyond the house, arguing over fireflies or lyrics or how many marshmallows count as “too many.” It was always something ridiculous. And it always ended with one of them shrieking with laughter.
Peter tilted his head toward the sound and let a smile play at the corners of his mouth.
Derek noticed. “You’ve changed.”
Peter quirked an eyebrow. “Not this again.”
“You’re smiling.”
“I’m smirking, Derek. Very different.”
“No, it’s… a you’re-happy smile.” Derek looked down at his glass. “Just not sure I'll ever get use to it.”
Peter took a long sip, letting the silence stretch comfortably between them before answering. “She was worth the pursuit.”
Derek scoffed lightly. “Four and a half years just to convince her to go on a date. She made you work for it.”
“And yet I never stopped chasing her,” Peter replied, eyes distant now, caught in a memory. “She’s the only person who’s ever made me want to be more than I am… without trying to change me.”
“You really think you’re soulmates?”
Peter’s head turned slowly, sharply. “I know we are.”
The intensity in his voice silenced Derek for a moment. There was no dramatic flourish to the words, no romantic embellishment—just certainty. The same way he might state a mathematical fact or a moon phase.
“Her soul feels like an echo of mine,” Peter continued, voice quieter. “Equal parts wild and disciplined. Chaos and control. She calls me out on my shit, Derek. And I listen. Not because she demands it… but because my soul wants to listen. That’s how I know.”
Derek was quiet, thoughtful. He stared into his glass.
Peter tilted his head toward him. “And you?”
Derek hesitated for a long moment. Then: “It’s weird… with Stiles. I didn’t pursue him the way you did with Isabelle. He just… kept showing up. Annoying. Loud. Smarter than he pretends to be. I pushed him away so many times. I told him no. He kept coming back.”
“That’s the Stilinski stubbornness,” Peter said, half amused.
Derek chuckled under his breath. “Yeah. And then one day I realized he was always there. Every battle. Every broken bone. Every mistake. He’s chaos in human form, but… he’s also home.”
Peter nodded slowly. “So, you do believe it. Soulmates.”
“I didn’t,” Derek admitted. “Not until I met Stiles. Not until I saw how it worked with you and Isabelle. The way she looks at you, like she sees every terrible thing you’ve ever done and still chooses you. Stiles does that for me, too.”
Peter smirked. “Maybe it runs in the family. Stilinskis seem to have a thing for damaged Hales.”
“And Hales seem to have a thing for difficult, brilliant disasters,” Derek countered.
They both chuckled at that—low, real, and shared.
For a while, they sat in silence again. The fire crackled. The stars blinked overhead. And in the distance, a new round of laughter echoed toward them—Isabelle’s musical and warm, Stiles’ sharp and unrestrained.
Peter turned to Derek, expression unusually soft.
“I never thought I’d find something like this,” he said. “Not with everything I’ve done. But she’s my redemption. My anchor. My madness and my mercy.”
Derek stared into the fire, then whispered, “Yeah. I get that.”
Peter leaned back in his chair, fingers drumming against the glass. “You know when I first saw Isabelle with that ridiculous wolf notebook, sitting under that tree outside the station… I thought, ‘She’ll never fall for me.’ And she didn’t. Not right away. She made me earn it, goddamn did she make me earn it. But I kept showing up.”
Derek smiled. “That sounds familiar.”
Peter’s smirk returned. “You and I—same coin, different sides.”
“Maybe,” Derek said, swirling his whiskey. “But we both got lucky.”
Peter raised his glass in a quiet toast. “To Stilinskis.”
Derek tapped his against it. “And to soulmates.”
From the woods, Isabelle’s voice suddenly rang out: “Peter! Stiles just bet me you won’t catch a firefly with your bare hands! Prove him wrong, Alpha!”
Peter let out a deep sigh, already standing. “Every fucking time…”
Derek just grinned. “Go. Your soulmate’s calling.”