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Peter has his first inkling about the true nature of things when he is very young, long before he manages to connect what he feels to any kind of adult idea or desire. Despite the seeming unimportance of the incident, it lodges itself in his consciousness and stays there.
It is a moment in time, a thought entangled in an event from childhood, an insect trapped in amber. It is something he thinks back on later, a sense memory triggered now and again when he is older, wiser, and sadder.
He is eight years old, and his Uncle Simon is hurt.
This in and of itself is not exactly a shocking thing, and that's mostly down to who and what Simon is. Simon is a human living in a pack made up predominately of werewolves. He is one of several humans doing so... and, like all the human Hales, he knowingly takes risks in order to be with the wolves he loves.
Sometimes those risks manifest as physical injuries.
This was an accident. Not Peter's fault, although Peter saw it happen and in the aftermath continued to trail quietly and unobtrusively after everyone involved. Curious and observant, as always - even at that young age, quick and quiet and watchful. He wedges himself into the drama without really being a part of it, invisible as only a child in a large family can be.
Some day he will distinguish himself, take on a role in the pack both terrible and essential. He will be the Left Hand, even though he doesn't know it yet, and in taking up that mantle he will gain power and also lose much of what he now takes for granted.
For now, though, he is allowed to just be Peter, little Peter, guiltless.
The accident itself was nothing, an event so ordinary as to be almost laughable. Young wolves were roughhousing, and Simon got caught up in it while trying to move some other breakable thing out of the way of the chaos, trying to prevent one of the smaller kids from getting hurt.
Peter saw - Simon moved without thinking. He moved as a human, with a human's instincts and expectations. He'd thrown himself into the fray without considering that his nephews and nieces, children he held as babies, could break him in two as easily as breathing if they wanted.
An easy mistake to make. And a dangerous one.
The result is a long scratch, a jagged cut through the flesh brought on by unsheathed claws unleashed at the wrong time, digging into skin that couldn't heal so fast or so well as that belonging to a non-human.
Peter watches as his Aunt Sarah cradles her beloved Simon's arm in her hands. Her fangs are out, but as Peter looks on he sees her breathe deeply, forcing them back, curbing the shift. The immediate danger is over, and shifting into her werewolf form is more reflex than necessity.
It is interesting to him that she can't seem to help her reaction, and his curiosity grows as he sees her calm herself down and force her razor edges away.
He sees her make herself something else.
Sarah holds Simon's arm as Peter's mother cleans the cut. After some heated discussion Simon demands that they stitch him up here rather than at a hospital. Peter's mother grimaces but after a moment overrules Sarah's objections and gets to work, pulling out her medical thread and bandages.
While she works, Sarah draws Simon's pain away, thick black lines crawling up her hands, her arms.
Simon murmurs softly and Sarah murmurs back. Gentle words. Reassurances. Affirmations. Love.
Sarah wants to take away all the hurt, and she makes herself small and kind while she does so, a big beast protecting a tiny bird. Simon, too, wants to help, wants to make Sarah calm, soothe her cares away. He cares for her even though he is the one bleeding. She cares for him even though he is the one fragile and damaged.
Violence has no place here. It is not what is required.
Peter has a minor realization then. He feels a wave of desire he can't contextualize or explain. He just sees the gentleness and knows he likes it. Wants it. Senses the transformative power of intimacy and vulnerability.
Wants something soft he can be soft to in return.
To hold and be held.
Being a werewolf isn't easy. Much of the time it is hierarchy and competition, tooth and claw. There is love, loyalty, affection, but there are also moments of roughness that tear into your heart.
Peter loves his family, but it is a complicated kind of affection. His relationship with his sister Talia, even now in the haze of youth, is fraught with tension. She is not so much older than him, but she is also in line to be the next alpha, and no one, not even Peter, is ever allowed to forget it. It's fine. It's just the way it is.
But this... this is different.
Sarah is purring, not from pleasure but as a way to console her mate. She is something gentle and soft, and she is holding Simon's arm so lovingly and carefully while Peter's mother tends to this fragile human flesh, the breakable thing that can't heal quickly and is somehow all the more precious for it.
Peter is perceptive enough to know that Simon has done this. Simon has made Peter's tough werewolf aunt, this fearsome creature, into something new. Something so focused on protecting him with all his weaknesses and vulnerabilities. All that strength has turned protective, all that violence has turned to love.
There are several human members of the Hale family, and while intellectually Peter has always recognized the difference between humans and werewolves, he sees them suddenly in a new light.
Peter's teenage cousins, the ones responsible for the mishap, are given a stern talking-to later. The Alpha does it, Peter's rapidly aging grandfather, with Aunt Sarah glowering over his shoulder at the cousins.
What the Alpha says is something all young wolves are taught.
Humans are important. They are part of our family, part of our pack. They may not be wolves, but their contributions are not less for that. You need to be careful with them.
Only monsters hurt those weaker than them without reason, and we are not monsters.
Peter listens, but the words are just confirmations of something already lodged in his heart, and he clearly hears the things not said. The truth about these precious treasures and what they do to those who love them.
And he thinks his grandfather may be wrong in accidentally categorizing humans as the weaker ones.
Six years after the conflagration which takes everything away from him, Peter wakes up from his coma.
When Peter wakes up, he's insane.
He knows this, is aware of it on some fundamental level. He feels the alien madness like tangled weeds wrapping themselves around his bones and brain, part of him and also not.
That slight awareness is something at least. It's doesn't exactly help curb the horrible itch of insanity, but maybe it does feel a bit like progress.
He can't move for a long time. That makes it all worse. He is in a white room, covered in white, surrounded by white walls and white lights, and he thinks this may be death or hell. Who knew that hell is a hospital room?
It isn't hell, though.
It's something else. Worse. It feels like it, anyway, and the loneliness pushes Peter further towards some cliff's edge, some abyss.
His family, his whole family, is gone from him. His very bones ache with the loss, radiating through his skin. Broken pack bonds within him shred his insides like razor wire, pushing him so far past mere that grief he can't even see it anymore.
Nurses come and go and the perfunctory touches are terrible because there is no softness or gentleness there, and then they are made even worse by the fact that even these brief comforts are snatched away again.
He is more animal now than anything, and feral with loss, and he can't even make his mouth move enough to cry out for help.
In the night, in the dark... there, and only there, is some slight peace. The lights in his room dim a little.
And then there is the moon.
The moon, the moon. Her light is clear and cool and... healing.
Healing him, but not fast enough to stop the horror within.
The first time the moon calls him, he wakes up in the woods.
Something in him screams out when he slashes Laura in half, when that frayed, twisted bond breaks... but he can't stop it from happening.
Laura is everything, she is Alpha and Power and Abandonment, and he is lashing out at her with such extreme and sudden violence before he can even begin to grasp the terrible permanence of what he is doing.
He kills her. He kills his niece, his sister's child. The Alpha spark rushes into him like a terrible, soul-destroying wave. Barely conscious and utterly mad, he then crawls back to the hospital and slips away again into the white fog of his mind.
He doesn't think he slips away because he's hurting and healing.
No, this is grief. And guilt. Perhaps an awareness that a boundary has been crossed, that he has done something now that will taint his soul forever.
The walls slip and waver at the corners of his vision, and people who he knows are long dead are suddenly standing there with judgment in their eyes. Pack bonds are torn, bleeding. He feels like he is walking around with his insides hanging out.
The moon calls to him.
The moon and, perhaps, something else.
He finds himself in the woods again. This time he doesn't want to be here. Not when Laura, Laura, Laura is still there, waiting to be found.
He can't help it, though. There is the moon and the growing madness, and he is powerful with the Alpha spark but also powerless to stop the instinctual drive to build a pack. He is so broken and powerful and alone and he needs to find someone, someone, someone to help him.
He's alone and he shouldn't be. He can't be. He isn't meant to be alone. He is dragged into the woods and into his monstrous and twisted wolf form because there isn't anywhere else to go.
But now there is something else in the woods as well.
Someone else.
Yes, someone else. Someone lost, like Peter is lost... Peter is lost, and his vision is blurred and dark, but then he wakes up. Properly, this time. He is in the woods and before he can lash out again, violent and crazed, he wakes up.
He is Peter again, in that that moment, for the first time in years.
And when he wakes up, he sees him.
It is a boy, not quite a child and not yet a man. Pale like moonlight, radiating a laughing kind of joy, exuding a scent that smells so much like the home Peter thought he had lost forever.
Human and beautiful and wild and perfect.
His little mate.
Peter chases him through the woods, but he misses his chance to bite him. He lands on the friend standing next to him instead and snaps up a beta instead of a lover, partner, bonded.
It's for the best, perhaps. When he gets back to the hospital, before he sinks back into the fog, Peter thinks that his mate, whoever he is, would prefer to be asked before receiving any sort of bite.
The world is blood, and he is biting the girl, hurting her. It is a bad thing, a necessary but a bad thing, and he knows it, and he does it anyway. He waffles so much between rationality and the creeping inky blackness of his mind these days that it hardly seems to matter anymore.
She is screaming, and then someone else is screaming...
And then his mate is there, and it all stops suddenly. Stiles, the clever one, the brave one who taunted him before, the unspoken promise dancing on the edge of all of Peter's darkest dreams.
He is magnificent here, too, in the flesh, kneeling and begging and fighting through the miasma of fear to glare Peter down. Peter hovers over his fallen prey, half-way to feral, but bright whiskey-brown eyes bring him back to himself.
Stiles is on his knees and so is Peter, and even now Peter can feel the gravitational pull between them. It is like they are dancing and they aren't even touching, and it is a fascinating experience.
Stiles shakes and begs and crawls, reaches out and then pulls back. Peter draws back on his haunches, curls his fingers in a taunting gesture, tilts his head and sways and watches carefully as his fragile little human dances beautifully to the tune Peter plays for him.
Throughout it all, Peter keeps his actual physical touches as gentle as possible.
Even with the blood of the banshee still on his teeth, thin rivulets running down his chin dark red under the florescent lights of the football field. Even with his claws out, his fangs itching.
Even while dangerous and deadly and insane, Peter remembers something important from long ago, and a feeling he had when he saw a wounded bird cradled with affection and care, held gently between the teeth of a wolf.
He needs information, and a small part of him would perhaps like to pretend that this is all it is - more manipulation, a step closer to his goal. But Peter is no fool, and he's not in the habit of lying to himself any more than necessary.
The irony is obvious, but still... Peter extends one sharp claw, tucks it under Stiles's chin, uses it to guide him up to his feet. He could slash the boy's throat in an instant if he wanted. No one would know. No one would care. No one could stop him now.
He doesn't kill him, of course. He doesn't want to.
It's not even about Derek and Kate and revenge. He needs Stiles to be whole, and unhurt, and as beautiful as he is right now... right now, standing here in his rumbled formal wear, his eyes bright with unshed tears, his mouth a red slash against his pale flesh, his brilliant mind racing and leaping over all obstacles.
His heart beating loud and fast.
Peter's voice and words are sharp and cruel, but his claws and teeth are not.
If there was any doubt in his mind that he is insane, it's washed away when, bubbling with frustration, he slams Stiles's head down on the trunk of his car. Not as hard as he could have, not enough to kill or permanently hurt... but still.
He swore. He swore to no one, to himself, but...
His grandfather had said: Only monsters hurt those weaker than them without reason, and we are not monsters.
Peter knows the truth that wasn't spoken out loud that day.
Humans are important. Humans are dangerous. Humans change us.
Like Simon changed Sarah.
And yet, despite this, in an act he regrets almost instantly, Peter slams Stiles down. His gentleness vanishes as his patience fractures. He bullies his little mate, hurts him, and even as he does so he feels how stupid and pathetic it is, how uncouth to use this strength in this way, against the one person in all the world he wants to engage with as an equal.
Against the soft animal part of himself, a tender feeling in his heart manifesting in this sweet, beautiful boy who is struggling so futilely in Peter's grip.
Peter can't help it, though... can't stop the explosion when it happens. Violence within him is in a constant, uncontrollable flux. He feels the pressure.
He needs to kill. To avenge his family, but also to protect.
To protect Stiles.
Yes, Peter needs to kill to protect Stiles... but Stiles doesn't see it that way. Can't see it. How could he? Peter won't explain, won't give voice to the secret about mates and how important Stiles is... not now, when everything is so tenuous.
Maybe later. Later he can bring Stiles an Argent heart, still warm, and lay it at his feet as a courting gift. Proof that Peter will only use his power against their enemies, and to keep his mate and pack safe.
A freshly hunted heart first, as is traditional. Then flowers, food, clothing. Bits and pieces, building a den made for two. And then he will scent Stiles, cuddle and coddle Stiles, lick every inch of him, lay him open, ride him raw.
He will claim him completely, until there is no crevice even inside Stiles's own body that is hidden from him.
In time perhaps Peter could stop being a wild thing and start being a soft thing again.
And he will never be alone again.
His boy is strong for a human. He is strong, full stop. He would be a magnificent wolf. And yet, there is something lovely and devastating in his humanity as well. Peter's eyes rove over the delicate skin, the sweet mouth, before holding that sharp, searching gaze with his own eyes.
Peter's gums itch, and he longs to tenderly clamp his sharp teeth around that long throat, and not bite down... no, not bite down... just hold it there, hold him there, soft little thing between his teeth, submissive. Willing and warm and trusting. Peter longs for the sweet denial of tasting flesh and not biting down.
Peter could dish it out, and Stiles would take it. He would bruise so beautifully. Stiles smells luscious in his confusion and his uncertainty, but underneath Peter can still see that iron spine. Brave and foolish little human.
And it's all so fragile.
Peter is frightened. That's why he hurts Stiles, slams him down againtst the trunk of the car. He is scared to death of what will happen if he fails now, if he falters before the final act is done and all the threats to his safety and happiness are taken care of.
The ones who killed his family are still out there. If left unchecked, what will the hunters do to those last few precious people in Peter's life? Will Stiles's soft skin bruise and tear and bleed under the iron fist of a hunter?
And here, at last, is the day that was never going to come, the thing that would never happen.
Peter Hale is afraid.
There is much to do and he is running out of time. As sweet as time spent with his mate is, Peter can't linger in this parking garage any longer. He is about to leave, but then he pauses.
He thinks, perhaps... perhaps it should be Stiles's choice.
Peter offers his vulnerable human mate the bite, and he does it standing a few feet away from him. He leaves space between them when all he wants to do is get closer.
The distance and the offer are an apology for before, for using his strength in such an unforgivable act of coercion instead of appealing to Stiles's heart and mind as he ought to have done.
It is also a sign of gentle respect, almost courtly in its formality. He stands at a slight distance, gives his mate space to breathe. When he picks up Stiles's hand, cupping the slender wrist, he just barely resists the urge to place a gentle kiss on that pale skin.
Stiles allows the touch, and his arm is raised without resistance on his part. He goes willingly, despite the fluttering and pounding of his heartbeat, and Peter warms at the display of unwitting but willing obedience. Stiles has no idea how lovely and submissive he looks, his mouth parting open slightly, his pupils dilating.
In the brief space of hesitation Peter's fangs drop and desire propels him forward. Before he grasps the consummation, however, his prize is yanked unceremoniously from his grasp.
Peter offers Stiles the bite, but the boy turns him down. A part of him is disappointed and cannot help but snark out a slightly bitter comment about heartbeats and lies. The wolf inside of him rolls over uneasily at the thought of letting this one slip away, even for a moment. The pull is there and they both know it, even if Stiles does not understand enough yet to appreciate why.
Another part of Peter is glad. He is glad that, at least for now, Stiles will remain as he is - human and lovely.
And when, a few hours later, Stiles sets him on fire, Peter finds that he is very nearly happy about that as well.
It is, after all, fitting that he should die again, and at no other hand but his mate's.
When Peter comes back from the grave, from the dirt and the dark, Stiles is hurt.
He stinks of pain and loneliness and Argent. Peter skulks around in the shadows of some disgusting warehouse, looking on as Stiles, still reeling from Scott's most recent betrayal and the terrible confrontation between Derek and Gerard, stands alone by his monstrous Jeep and watches his friends walk away from him.
And he's hurt.
Even without addressing the stench of emotional shock and rejection, it is clear that Stiles is in intense physical pain as well. Peter can see the bruises, can feel agony radiating from his little mate, and he hates it.
Stiles bruises so beautifully, but the bruises he carries should be placed there by someone who loves him, who will give them to him in acts of passion, carefully and sweetly so that he doesn't even notice they are there until they bloom afterwards.
He is so fucking hurt, and it's wrong because he is Peter's and soft and vulnerable and human and beautiful and Peter's... and Peter promised himself, he swore. Nothing cruel was ever supposed to touch the one he loved. Not ever again... not after the fire.
Stiles is hurt. Someone hurt him. He is hurt and alone and it kills Peter.
He slides over to Stiles, emerging from the darkness like a hunter stalking prey. The boy barely notices at first, too focused on watching his friends leave him behind.
When he does turn around, he seems surprised but not shocked or overly alarmed. Peter has maybe always had a Rasputin-ish air about him, so perhaps his return isn't such an unbelievable thing. And Peter, as it turns out, isn't the worst Stiles has ever seen. Not now, anyway.
When Peter sniffs the air again, he can identify Gerard Argent's scent all over his mate's skin.
(Madness never really leaves. Chaos lingers at the edges of his vision, and Peter feels something vicious contort within him.)
Stiles doesn't give too much away. He responds to Peter's falsely-casual queries and mild ribbing without naming his attacker or committing to anything Peter obliquely offers. He is sharp and witty as always, but it is clear his heart isn't in it.
Fear is numbing him and exhaustion is visibly dragging him down.
Peter wants nothing more than to scoop him up and take him away from this... to anywhere but here. Somewhere warm and safe, a soft bed with clean sheets, a bathtub filled with soothing bubbles.
Standing close but not close enough, he reaches out to Stiles without thinking, desperate to touch him with tenderness and care and at the very least take the boy's pain way, watch it leave him in black crawling lines.
Like Sarah and Simon. Give me your hand, let me cradle it, cradle you, be soft for you, be gentle with you.
Stiles flinches away from Peter's touch. Peter's hand hovers between them for an instant, and then drops back to his side.
Peter understands, then, that what Sarah and Simon had... it's not for him. He is not allowed to have it. He is too broken himself to be that way with anyone else, and this is something that even Stiles, his bruised and hurting mate, understands.
He settles on letting Stiles go home without imposing upon him further, and burns off his frustration by hunting down and torturing a weak and dying Gerard Argent instead.
Peter gets it now.
It was just an inkling, a vague notion when he as young. In time it morphed into something more solid but tainted with fear. Madness nearly ruined it, and then in the aftermath, his fractured soul piecing itself back together, stitching the holes closed with threads of desire and ambition and care, it seemed an impossible thing forever out of reach.
And because it was out of reach, because it was impossible, because Peter is an ambitious but not a stupid man... he let it go. He told himself it was better this way, and he let it all go.
He let it go, and it came back to him. All on its own.
In the end, Stiles comes to him.
Stiles comes to him, at first, out of wary concern for what Peter might do if left unsupervised. His skepticism might be hurtful and insulting if it didn't put Peter in such close proximity with that magical, miracle someone who helped drag him away from madness. If it wasn't everything Peter wanted - the sass and intelligence and fierce protectiveness, opposing him in this instance but still so wonderful to witness.
After a while, becoming more and more satisfied that Peter's ambitions have been curbed a suitable amount, Stiles comes for knowledge, for Peter's vast collection of books and also the wealth of information that now only exists in his head. This, too, is acceptable to Peter, because it brings him not only closeness, but also insights into the boy's gorgeous brain.
They become researchers, partners-in-crime, even though their relationship rarely stretches past the walls of Peter or Derek's apartments.
When they do go out - always as part of a group, always battling some fresh threat - Peter is equal parts awestruck and aroused and infuriated by Stiles's ferocious courage... or, as some might say, his foolhardy lack of self-preservation.
If Peter unobtrusively throws himself between Stiles and danger during fights, if he quietly schemes up ways to prevent confrontations from happening at all, if he silently and unprompted pulls black lines of pain away from his injured mate in the quiet aftermath of battle... well, that is nobody's business but his.
Stiles certainly never comments. And... perhaps... perhaps he never notices. Will never see Peter the way Peter sees him.
And then Stiles comes to him, one night, simply because he can't sleep.
Stiles knocks on the door to Peter's apartment and Peter answers, like a fool. He makes Stiles tea, snarks and covers his feelings with razor wit, and when the boy with the whiskey eyes falls asleep on his couch mid-conversation he doesn't do anything but cover him with a blanket.
To save awkwardness Peter makes sure he is gone before Stiles wakes up, and spends almost the entire the day avoiding his own home.
When he comes back to his apartment Stiles has made him thank-you brownies with little mini Reese's peanut butter cups baked into each one.
In spite of everything, in spite of his knowledge and experience, Peter is in the middle before he knew he'd begun. When Stiles comes to him again, everything has changed.
It is a fearful thing.
Some small part of Peter Hale, the part that burned twice, the part that clawed its way out of the grave, resents it all horribly. This part wants to tear everything and everyone to pieces, destroy the whole world if only because then there would be nothing left to feel.
There would be nothing left to hurt him.
And yet, against all the odds, Peter manages to keep that part of him more or less under control. Some of that is because he has a a good reason to.
He has an anchor, now.
And so, he fights for and feeds and fucks the pale boy with the whiskey eyes and sharp mind, watches the bruises he gives him bloom and fade, watches him throw himself into danger again and again, stands and guards his back and his front and takes his pain when he is hurt and cradles him close when he is soft and fragile.
Peter knows he is a fool. It is a foolish thing to love anything, anyone. Everything is temporary.
And yet...
It is a holy thing, too. Peter feels it deeply.
He feels it in his blood, watching Stiles fight, and when they are running through the dark together and protecting each other from lesser monsters. He feels it in their kitchen when they are both sticky with flour and sugar, baking warm, sweet things to feed each other. He feels it in the sex, with Stiles bare and straining and panting, hearing the soft animal moans escaping from his lush mouth.
This is holy, a sacred mystery, and Peter is made something more for being a fool in love.
‘Tis a fearful thing
to love what death can touch.
A fearful thing
To love, to hope, to dream, to be--
to be,
And oh, to lose.
A thing for fools, this,
And a holy thing,
a holy thing
to love.
For your life has lived in me,
your laugh once lifted me,
your word was gift to me.
To remember this brings painful joy.
‘Tis a human thing, love,
a holy thing, to love
what death has touched.
- Judah Halevi