Chapter Text
XIX
Peter could say that her confession didn’t change him in anyway, he could say he was just humoring her because she was playing the ‘I’ve been assaulted so don’t argue with me’ card. She wasn’t sure if he was being successful in lying to himself because he sure as hell wasn’t fooling her, his possessive nature stronger than ever. If she thought he was suddenly around before, she was convinced he LoJacked her person and her vehicle. He was like Batman - the dark and broody versions looking for his own vigilante justice, not versions that little kids aspired to be.
Sometimes it was smaller things that no one else noticed, like the time he showed up at her apartment and found her standing on her counters as she cleaned the top of the upper cabinets. Of course he insisted she was nearly about to break her neck and so when he hauled her down by the hem of her shirt it was for her own safety. Her version of what happened was quite different, she’d been just fine and was nearly finished with one of her most hated cleaning chores when he showed up and startled her. Yeah she wobbled a bit on her feet but she righted herself, right before he pulled her down into his arms and growled at her for a while.
It wasn’t hard to mark that as a new level of possessive and protective, prior to that point he usually liked to stand back and enjoy the view. He had long since allowed her to come to real harm but he did enjoy watching her stumble around, but that was before her assault and before her confession.
She was starting to get so used to his suddenly appearing that when she felt a warm presence behind her at the grocery store she hadn’t even looked up, just angling towards him as she continued to read the label on the back of a package.
“What do you think of this recipe? It kind of sounds good, don’t you think?”
It all came together at once for her, the fact that he didn’t immediately put his hands on her or that he didn’t quite smell the same along with the feeling of him caging her in. When she looked up at the man much too tall to be Peter, she found herself trying to back away only to drop the box she’d been holding and bumping into the metal rack. Her actions sent several boxes falling from the shelves and the man grinned a little more, he wasn’t unattractive but he definitely wasn’t welcomed into her space.
She opened her mouth to yell or anything that resembled protest when the man was yanked entirely out of her space and his back was thrust hard into the shelves on the opposite side of the aisle. Peter lifted him off the ground with a hand around his throat and a fist gripping the man’s jacket, she imagined it was his attempt not to sink his claws into human flesh in public.
“Are you alright?” Peter’s words were a little slurred and practically vibrating, even without looking she knew his teeth would be trying to drop in preparation of ripping the man’s throat out.
“No I'm not fucking alright, get your goddamn hands off me.” His futile attempts to get Peter off of him were almost laughable.
“He’s talking to me, dimwit.” Stiles sighed and shook off the nerves that had been building. “Yes, I’m fine. Peter. Let him go.”
She picked up a few of the fallen boxes when she realized a couple of people were starting to stare at the far end of the aisle, sighing she shoved the boxes onto the messy shelf and walked over to Peter.
She gripped the cuff of his shirt and squeezed his size, lowering her voice even though there wasn’t anyway to avoid the ass who boxed her in from hearing her. “Please, let him go. I’ll let you cook me dinner and you can make sure I’m fine.”
The look on the man’s face was very clear that he thought Stiles was making terrible life choices if she was going to let this man into her home, but like he had any room for judgement.
“Don’t touch women you don’t know, fucker.”
He said something low enough for Peter to hear but still scurried off quickly, leaving the mess behind.
“What did he say?” Stiles eyed Peter as he quietly read the recipe she had thought she was showing him earlier, several discarded boxes in one hand.
“Nothing that was true or worth repeating. So you want this tonight?”
The next occasion was the start of raised brows among the pack, though it would take a much bigger event before they said anything.
“I’m telling you, that was no ordinary bat. That was a fucking vampire bat, I know it.” Scott and Isaac were in a fully animated conversation, complete with waving arms and excited eyes.
The two of them were drawn into the kitchen from the yard by their noses, items from the grill and the oven laid out on the counters in the kitchen. It was a common occurrence, picking up the plates at one end and working their way around to keep the kitchen flowing and get hot food on everyone’s plates. Generally it was a good practice, especially when a pack was mainly made up of supernatural creatures that could pick up on scents and sounds with quick reflexes.
Stiles however, was not supernatural and she didn’t have reflexes as quick as theirs. The noise of the house could sometimes get overwhelming for her, especially when she was trying hard to focus on one task. Her contribution to the dinner was a special pineapple and cream cake that was a recipe from her mom’s cookbook. She needed to take the cake out while everyone was eating so that it could cool before she could add the rest of the ingredients, the timer going off after most of the pack had moved past the oven.
Most of the pack. She hadn’t quite accounted for the two distracted members that came in just as she was bending over the opened door, her hands full with the piping hot glass container her mom used countless times growing up when Scott backed into her hip.
She dropped the glass cake tray onto the opened door of the oven along with the oven squares, her fingertips barely grazing the hot oven door before Peter was bodily lifting her off of the ground and pulling her away from the stove. He shoved the frozen boys out of the way before setting her on the counter and flicking on the water to a lukewarm temperature, black lines already snaking up his wrists.
“Oh my god, Stiles are you alright?” Scott was all sorts of kicked puppy along side Isaac as they touched her leg and her shoulder, the closest Peter would allow them to get to her.
She had to catch her breath for a minute, needing to catalog what just happened before she could really answer. “I think so?”
She looked at Peter’s frowning face, could easily see the barely contained rage over their clumsy actions. Knowing it would just seem like she was reaching for more of his pain sucking abilities, she turned her hand and gripped one of Peter’s until he looked over at her.
The boys were lost in their attempt to make things better, moving to check on her cake while Peter took care of her hands. Finally Peter rolled his eyes when she just kept staring at him, huffing when she squeezed his fingers again.
“Oh Stiles, I’m so sorry.”
“No way.” She looked away from Peter to see Scott standing by with her mom’s cracked cake pan, her own hand reaching out for the still hot pan until Peter stopped her.
“We can help you make a new one.” Of course Isaac didn’t know the significance of the cake pan, but Scott did and Peter was quick to figure it out.
“Sometimes you can’t fix what you break, Isaac. You two need to be much more careful.” Peter’s tone was sharp enough that anyone who hadn’t already come into the room to see what was happening, now joined.
“Peter, stop.” Stiles looked on mournfully as Scott set the broken halves down on the counter next to her, before he made sure the oven was off so they could check for any other broken pieces. “Making them feel like shit won’t help anything.”
“Might make them watch their surroundings better.” Peter carefully dried her hands as he kept checking her skin. “It looks like it won’t blister, how do you feel?”
“Fine.” She wished she’d had it in her to lie a little better but it was such an unexpected loss and she didn’t know how to just put that away.
She’d gotten so used to turning to Peter for comfort when things went wrong that she almost leaned into him right then and there, catching herself at the last minute. It made her even more upset that she wanted to so badly and that she knew it wouldn’t be welcome - by the pack or by Peter in front of the pack. Her emotions seemed to be a direct feedback loop into Peter’s, his attitude sour and short for the rest of the evening. While he wasn’t short with her, he did seem to do his damndest to avoid any kind of eye contact or direct conversation with her.
His behavior seemed to put the pack on high alert after that, she didn’t notice they had started keeping a tab until later. Anytime someone said or did anything that seemed remotely threatening to Stiles, Peter reacted strongly and the pack noticed. It wasn’t until Jackson made an outright threat that the pack wouldn’t stay silent any longer.
“You’re an absolute idiot, Jackson. Are you trying to kill us all?“ Stiles stood from where she’d been kneeling in the living room, the Bestiary open on the coffee table in front of her.
Jackson stood too, his hands balling into fists at his side as he prepared to argue his defense. “It will work, you’re just too stubborn to try anything that isn’t your idea.”
Stiles rolled her eyes and shook her head, turning her head to look towards the book as she gestured emphatically towards it. “It’s right here, in plain black and white. You graduated with the same diploma we all got, I know you can read. How can you look at this and think that your plan is anything but horrible?”
It was because she was looking at the book that she didn’t see him coming towards her. It was because they had argued thousands of times that no one saw him losing his temper quite like that. It was because the house was entirely full that night and Peter never had intervened when pack members got into it in the past, but that was before things had changed between him and Stiles.
When Jackson stepped forward and put his hand around Stiles’ throat, she was pretty sure even Jackson was surprised. His claws were out and the tips were barely indenting the skin, the threat of what damage the chemicals coating those claws could do to her human body had the same effect as if they pushed through. Stiles’ entire body froze, her eyes wide and her lips parted as she looked over at her packmate.
Slowly she held her hands up in surrender, knowing the wrong movement could have her dropping paralyzed like a stone or worse. The whole pack seemed frozen, unsure of what move to make next as they all participated in this stalemate. Everyone except Peter.
She met his gaze from behind Jackson and all she could do was stare at him in fear and in curiosity, she didn’t know what he would do. Like lightning he had his own hand around Jackson’s throat with claws pressing just as deeply into the boy’s skin and Peter’s other hand gripping his face with a claw pressing just under each eye socket.
“Whatever happened to agreeing to disagree, Jackson? You don’t have to like Stiles’ plan, she doesn’t have to like yours. But the minute you put your hands on her, we have problems.” His voice was low, each word laced with promises that matched the threat of his claws.
“She called me an idiot.”
“We’ve all called you an idiot. Right now you’re a huge fucking idiot. You should know by now, you want to win a fight with Stiles: do the fucking research and prove her wrong. Now get your slimy lizard claws off her before I pluck your eye balls out, grill them and feed them to you.” Peter pressed his nose against Jackson’s temple before growling the last command. “If there’s the tiniest scratch on her skin, I’m going to do it anyway, so best be careful.”
There was a pregnant pause before Jackson slowly pulled his claws back, Stiles taking a quick step back as she rubbed the skin of her neck to make sure there wasn’t any residue left behind. As soon as she was free, Peter released the very angry kanima that whipped around on him.
“You really want to continue this? Fine, I could use a light workout. Outside.” Peter rolled his eyes and gestured to the front door.
The group looked at each other before looking at Stiles who was just shaking her head and kneeling back in front of the book again.
“Stiles, babe. Are you alright?” Erica moved closer, sitting on the edge of the couch closest to her friend.
Stiles frowned before nodding and shrugging. “Jackson’s an ass but that’s not new.”
Scott was looking out the window before looking back at the concerned group. “Should we go out there?”
Stiles shook her head before flipping the page. “No, they are so stubborn and dramatic. If no one is watching, they will burn out and give up. But if there is an audience then neither will let the other win, that would be humiliating.”
“Stiles, look at me.” Erica put her hand over the middle of the page Stiles had been reading and waited for her full attention. “That was some seriously extreme behavior and you’re acting like it’s another Thursday. Peter just threatened to gouge out Jackson’s eyes and feed them to him if he scratched you. That doesn’t bother you?”
“Jackson putting his paralyzer fingers on me didn’t bother you?” Stiles wasn’t sure what was supposed to be worse.
“Of course, like you said, Jackson is an ass. He never should have touched you. But Peter has been getting more and more possessive of you.” Derek came and sat next to Erica, giving Stiles the growing feeling that she was the center of an intervention especially when she looked up and saw Scott and Isaac sharing similar puppy faces.
“Peter can get real obsessive, I would know.” Lydia’s crossed arms were never a great sign, it usually meant they were in for a long haul argument. “He got that way when he turned me and Scott. Now he’s becoming obsessed with you”
Stiles nearly rolled her eyes but she knew that wouldn’t go over well, barely keeping herself calm when she wanted to lash out. “Look, I can appreciate the similarities. But Peter is just being a concerned friend, he’s still getting the hang of how that works.”
“Since when are you and Peter friends?” Scott looked at her like she’d grown a second head just like the creature drawn on the page in front of her.
She sighed and shrugged, when had they started being friends and not just fuck buddies? “I don’t know, a while now? It has been a gradual thing. I like being friends with him.”
“Is this because he saved you in the woods?” Erica looked like she was admitting to enjoying the sharp sounds of bagpipes on a daily basis rather than being friends with member of their pack.
Stiles slapped the book shut, her irritation more than a little evident now. “If one more person brings up him helping me through my assault like I called the devil himself, I will stop speaking to all of you. I don’t give a fuck what your backwards intentions are, it’s shitty.”
The silence in the room was damning enough but she hoped it really was the last time they brought it up.
“Peter is an intense guy, I get that. I’m under no illusions that Peter is some kind of hero, he says and does shady shit. I know that. Doesn’t mean he deserves to be alone. If that was true, why is he in our pack?”
There as more silence until a loud crash outside had everyone jumping up and running for the front door, everyone except Derek.
“Thanks Stiles.”
She looked up at him, frowning a little. “For what?”
“It’s hard for us - Cora and I - to see past the stuff he’s done, it’s hard to forgive him. But you’re right, he doesn’t deserve to be alone. So, for being his friend and standing up for him - thanks.”
The corner of Stiles’ mouth went up as she gave him a nod of acknowledgment.
“Just promise me, if it gets too much and you need help-“
“I’ll call you first, big guy.” It was an easy promise to make, since she genuinely didn’t think she’d ever need to use it.
It was about three weeks later when she was genuinely on her own and Peter’s choices caught up with her.
“Evening, love. Do you have a moment? I’d love to have a chat with the woman monopolizing all of my cohort’s time.”
While his all black almost formal attire caught her attention, it was the very large gun at his hip that kept her from making any move to leave.