Archive of Our Own ^beta

Stiles is standing in their bathroom, watching as the blood washes down the drain. It changes the colour of the water to different shades of red the longer he stands under the water hitting his back. 

The water is too hot. It had been when Stiles stepped in, and he hadn't bothered to adjust it. 

Now his skin is pink where it wasn’t red, and the steam has filled the bathroom until the mirror is completely fogged over. He stands there, unmoving, as the blood spirales down the drain changing from dark crimson to watered-down pink the longer he stands beneath the spray.

His shoulders are hunched. His magic simmers low and quiet, satisfied after the night’s bloodbath, like a candle guttering after a storm. He doesn't know how long he’s been standing there. Time has stopped at some point between the burst of adrenaline and the aftermath.

The water hits the back of his neck and rolls down his spine. It feels like silence.

Then he hears the door creak open. There is no rush. No alarm. Just the soft whisper of bare feet against tile, the faint rustle of clothing as Peter steps in behind him. Stiles doesn’t move. Doesn’t look. He doesn’t have to.

A moment later, warm fingers touch his arm.

Peter says nothing.

He doesn’t ask what had happened, doesn’t press for answers, like he never does. He simply steps under the spray behind Stiles, letting the water soak him. His hands are steady as he reaches for the sponge, the soap. The unscented, the kind Stiles always uses when his nerves are frayed, and lathers it with practiced ease.

Stiles lets out a long, uneven breath and leans his weight back slightly, into Peter’s solid chest. Peter doesn’t flinch at the streaks of red, doesn't recoil from the bruises or the grime clinging stubbornly to Stiles’ skin. He simply lifts one of Stiles’ arms and begins to wash him.

His touch is careful. Not tender in the way of something fragile, but in the way of someone who knows. Knows what’s needed. Where to press, where to pause. Where to say nothing at all.

The sponge sweeps down Stiles’ arm, across his chest, over the curve of his back. Peter is methodical, slow. Like he isn’t just cleaning away blood and dirt, but washing away the weight Stiles can’t shake on his own.

“Hot,” Peter murmurs softly against the nape of his neck, his voice low and rough.

“Yeah,” Stiles’ voice cracks around the word.

Peter doesn’t lower the temperature. He only reaches out, rinses the soap from Stiles’ skin, then gently turns him by the shoulders to face him. Stiles finally looks up. His eyes are rimmed red, his jaw clenched, but his breath hitches at the sight of Peter. The younger is soaked, hair slicked back, his face calm and open in that rare way he offers only to Stiles.

Peter reaches up and touches his cheek. Brushes away something, blood maybe, or tears, or just the memory of something that has cut too deep. Stiles leans forward, resting his forehead against Peter’s collarbone. He stands there, letting Peter hold him under the stream, letting the heat and silence soften everything that has hardened inside him.

And Peter does what he always does when Stiles unravels. He stays.

No questions.

No demands.

Only presence. Only love, quiet and unspoken, in the cradle of his hands and the calm of his breath.

The water has long since gone lukewarm by the time they step out of the shower.

Peter doesn’t rush. He turns the water off and guides Stiles out with gentle hands, steady like a tide. The fog clings to the mirror, the room is thick with warmth, but the silence between them is heavier. It’s the kind that settles in the bones when words can’t reach deep enough to matter.

Stiles doesn’t resist when Peter wraps a towel around his shoulders, pressing it close. Another towel goes around his waist. Peter dries his own hair quickly, then returns to Stiles, whose eyes have gone a little unfocused again.

Peter doesn’t speak. He just guides him out of the bathroom, down the hall. Each step silent, the lights dim to a low golden glow. Their bedroom is warm, blankets pulled back, fresh clothes already waiting at the edge of the bed. Peter had set them out earlier, as if he’d known.

He always knows.

Stiles sits when Peter nudges him to. Lets him towel the water from his hair, his back, his arms. The towel slips sometimes, revealing bruises along his ribs, faint and ugly. Peter says nothing, his touch never faltering. He works lotion into Stiles’ skin next, fingertips ghosting over tender spots with reverent patience.

When Peter pulls the shirt over Stiles’ head, his hands linger briefly on his shoulders. Just a pause. A breath. A reminder.

I'm here.

Then comes the sweatpants. Simple rituals dressed in tenderness and love. Peter eases him into bed like he might break if touches too hard. Stiles lays on his side facing the window, the world outside dark and still. The blankets are tucked up over his chest before the mattress dips with Peter’s weight.

They don’t touch, not right away. Peter lays behind him, close but not crowding just a steady presence against his back. After a few minutes Stiles reaches behind him and finds Peter’s hand. He doesn’t say anything. Just curls their fingers together, squeezing once.

Peter squeezes back.

Stiles exhales a shuddering breath and lets the last of the weight melt out of his bones. There are no questions. No explanations. Whatever had happened, whatever ghosts still clings to his skin Peter wouldn’t make him speak them aloud. Not tonight.

He doesn’t need to.

Because Peter is still there.

Warm and alive.

With him.

---

The morning is quiet. The kind of stillness that feels suspended, like the world has paused just for them. Light spills through the curtains in narrow gold streaks, painting the bed in warmth and shadow. Outside the trees whisper in the breeze but inside everything is soft. Slow.

Peter is already awake.

He lays on his side, propped on one elbow, watching Stiles sleep.

The man is curled on his side, face half-buried in the pillow, breath deep and even in that fragile way sleep clings to people after a hard night. His lashes cast faint shadows on his cheeks. The bruises along his ribs have already started to fade. Werewolves heal faster with rest, but Stiles isn’t a wolf. He’s so much more, so much more powerful. 

And Peter knows Stiles could have healed himself if he wanted to. But the man wants to feel the pain, the ache on his body. Peter doesn’t understand it, never has and probably never will understand why Stiles would be in pain rather than heal himself and be done with it. Or maybe he does, and he fears it’s not about the physical pain, more of a continuum for the man’s mental pain.

Peter reaches out, brushing a loose strand of hair from Stiles’ forehead. His fingers linger.

He threads them slowly through the mess of damp sleep-ruffled hair. Lets them drag lightly over Stiles’ scalp, over the crown of his head in slow and soothing strokes. The way Stiles always melts. The way he never asks for but leans into without thinking in his sleep. Unguarded.

Stiles shifts slightly in his sleep, brow twitching but he doesn’t wake up. He just makes a soft sound in his throat, something between a sigh and a hum and nuzzles a little closer to Peter’s side.

Peter’s lips curve faintly. There are still shadows under Stiles’ eyes. There will probably be for a while. But the tightness has bled from his face, the tension in his jaw has slack. Safe. At peace. In their bed. In the home Stiles has carved out of time and impossible love, away from the Hale pack to keep Peter as his, away from danger, no matter how irrational.

Peter trails his fingers down letting his knuckles graze Stiles’ temple, then his jaw before tucking a hand beneath his own cheek. He doesn’t want to break the moment. Doesn’t want to wake him, not yet.

It’s rare to see Stiles like this. Sleeping. Guards down for once. Just Peter’s, and not the emissary of the Hale’s, not the shadow moving in the darkness. Peter just needs to look. To memorize this, the stillness, the proof that Stiles is here, alive, warm under the covers and not lost in blood or time or silence. That whatever haunts him, whatever happens in the dark hasn’t taken him away.

Peter watches him breathe.

“I’ve got you,” Peter whispers, soft enough not to stir the air.

Peter knows Stiles hasn’t always believed in peace. Hasn’t believed he could have it all after the first time, after when in his own timeline Peter had died and Stiles had come here. Stiles had been a constant presence in Peter’s life since his childhood, always taking care of him, protecting him, going beyond just as a pack member. 

And in a way Peter had always known. Ever since he was ten and Stiles just came into his life, he had known the man would be his home, his life, his love. It had been this soul deep ache, longing for the man who always just appeared before him whenever he needed him. Always there, always present. 

And it all had snapped into place when the Nemeton had touched Peter and shown him the past- the future that never was because of Stiles. The tree had shown him Stiles, happy and carefree. Married and mated to Peter, but older. Peter had understood the haunted looks Stiles would give him when he thought Peter wasn’t looking, the constant need to keep moving, to not think about what could be but Stiles never allowed himself. 

And Peter understood, because Stiles is not a selfish person- or maybe he is the most selfish person there is, to keep suffering just to keep Peter away. Never once did the man try to reach for Peter, always playing the part of a trusted friend, when in reality Stiles was dying inside. The man was dying for a connection to someone, for someone to understand him in ways his Peter had. 

Peter has done his best since then, when Stiles finally allowed himself this, allowed himself to have Peter. Peter doesn’t know the depths of the old Peter, how far the man would go for Stiles, but something tells him that he would have killed for Stiles. And Peter knows it- he knows that he will also kill for Stiles if the man asks for it. 

The love he feels for the spark is burning, it’s burning under his skin whenever Stiles touches him. Whenever Stiles looks at him, whispers in his ear, Peter cannot look away. Now that he has tasted the man, he cannot keep away. It’s been years, and Peter cannot stay away, always wanting more. He knows their relationship isn’t as flaming, having started more stable. But god, Peter can understand Stiles wanting to come back in time if the feeling was anything like what he feels now. 

Because that’s what love does. 

Peter has never wanted to be consumed more.

He looks at Stiles now, still sleeping, lips parted slightly, face softened with trust  and the love he feels is almost violent in its purity.

“I will be everything he was,” Peter whispers into the quiet, “And more. I will be anything you need me to be for as long as you will have me.”

Peter’s hand stilled in Stiles’ hair, fingers curling in the strands like they are the only thing tethering him to reality.

Peter can still see it, and it haunts him more than he would ever admit

The Nemeton had pressed the vision into his bones like heat into metal. Stiles with laugh lines carved into his face by the weight of years that hadn’t passed yet. The worn edge of his voice when he said Peter’s name like it was a prayer. Not this Peter, but a version long dead. A version Stiles had buried with blood under his nails and a scream in his throat.

A future where he and Stiles had everything. Where they had built a life, from scraps, and from hard-earned love. A house with windchimes on the porch. Quiet mornings with coffee and silence and the steady trust of years together. But more than that Stiles had been happy there. Still tired, still guarded, but whole. He smiled like the weight on his chest had lifted, like he had someone to carry it with him.

Peter had seen the ring on his finger. Had seen the mark of a mate bond thrumming against Stiles’ pulse like a second heartbeat, like Peter had reached into the man’s soul and carved his name there.

And then it had all vanished.

And ever since Peter has tried to live up to that man how has Stiles’ heart. He knows he is the man who has Stiles’ heart, but at the same time, he isn’t. In the sick sense, he's not the same man Stiles fell in love with. And he wishes nothing more than to be enough for Stiles. To be enough that one day, it would be him. Wearing a ring with Stiles, the silver scar on his neck of a mating bite bonding them together on soul level, like it once was. 

But for now, Stiles is real. Solid beneath the sheets, curled close in the circle of Peter’s body. His warmth is seeping into Peter’s skin, not just memory, not just grief in disguise.

Stiles has stayed. That had been the real miracle and not the magic, not the way time had been twisted back on itself like a thread pulled too tight, but the fact that Stiles had chosen this. Chosen him, again.

Peter brushes his fingers through that wild, damp hair again, combing it back gently. Stiles sighs in his sleep, some small part of him responding, soft and instinctive. Remembering his touch.

This has taken time. So much damn time. Stiles has fought it. Fought him. Peter has seen it in the way his eyes would linger, then snap away. In the way he reaches out only when he thinks Peter isn’t looking. In the quiet, bitter things he would say to himself when he thought no one else could hear.

But now he is here. Asleep in Peter’s arms. No longer a ghost keeping Peter company in the hollows of old regrets. No longer just a memory that warmed the cold edges of Peter’s heart.

Peter is his .

Finally.

Peter leans down, brushing a kiss to the curve of Stiles’ shoulder, where the shirt has slipped slightly. He rests his forehead there for a moment, letting himself breathe him in. Not asking for anything. Not demanding more.

Just grateful. Grateful that Stiles has stopped running. Has stopped fighting him. Grateful that, after all the years, all the wounds and walls, he had finally accepted the truth. Stiles didn’t have to chase after echoes anymore.

He could have Peter. And Peter, patient, unyielding, devoted will always be here, waiting.

Waiting through silence. Through distance. Through the slow unfurling of trauma that neither of them has the words to name. He will wait while Stiles stumbles through grief masked as fury, and guilt masked as laughter, and loneliness that turns into barbed jokes and long nights spent in the glow of ancient books and reckless spells.

Because Peter understands that the ghosts of Stiles' previous life still haunts him. Still keeps him awake some nights. Peter has learned the days when it will get too much for Stiles to bear, the death anniversary. Every year, the same day. Stiles is distant, barely speaking to him and Peter knows.

Peter doesn’t ask for much on those days. He doesn’t touch unless Stiles reaches for him first. He doesn’t crowd, doesn’t fill the silence with words that would only unravel them both. He simply waits like he always has.

Because he knows this isn’t about him. Not this version of him, anyway.

It’s about the loss.

The other Peter. The one Stiles had built a life with. The one who had made Stiles smile like it hurt, and cry like it meant something. The one who had died, leaving Stiles gutted and furious and too full of love with nowhere to put it.

That ghost still lives in the corners of their house. In the way Stiles sometimes catches himself before calling Peter by a nickname he hasn’t earned. In the way he clutches his mug a little too tightly some mornings, staring out the window like he’s looking back through time.

Peter lets it happen. He lets him mourn. Because grief doesn’t disappear just because you've been given a second chance. It lives in the body, it lingers especially for someone like Stiles, someone who remembers everything.

Every year, on that day Stiles slips into himself like armor. He goes quiet. His smile doesn’t reach his eyes. He picks at his food, stares at the wall for minutes at a time, vanishes into the woods without a word and comes back bloody.

Peter never stops him. He can’t take that pain away. But he can be there when Stiles returns. With dry clothes. With tea. With a silent hand on the couch, palm up, waiting.

Sometimes Stiles takes it. Sometimes he doesn’t. But Peter never moves it. Because he’s still here. Alive. Breathing. Warm.

He knows with a terrifying and consuming certainty that if their positions had been reversed, if he had been the one to lose Stiles, he wouldn’t have survived it. Wouldn't have had the strength to rip through time and live again with the ghost of what he lost hanging over his every step.

But Stiles did. Stiles had loved him enough to come back and carry that grief on his own shoulders. And Peter will honor that every damn day. He will hold the space for both of them for who they are now, and for what Stiles lost then.

Because love doesn’t erase the past. It holds it. It carries it forward.

And Peter? Peter has strong hands. Now, those hands build this. A life, a quiet one. Built slow and sure. A hand to hold when Stiles is ready. A body to curl into when the nightmares loosen their grip.

A voice that doesn’t demand answers but offers steadiness, again and again, like a heartbeat under everything else. Because Stiles is not alone anymore. Not with Peter. Not on the death anniversary. Not in the long, quiet ache of being loved again after loss. Peter will wait through all of it, the silence, the distance, the haunted stares because he came back. And Peter is nothing if not devoted.

And one day, maybe not this year, maybe not the next, Stiles will come back from that dark place and not flinch at Peter’s touch. He’ll curl into him first. 

And Peter will be here, waiting.

Just then Stiles wakes up heavy. Not the kind of exhaustion that sleep can fix, but the lingering ache of emotion left too long unspoken. It curls behind his ribs like smoke, weighing down every breath. His body feels tight, like it’s still bracing for something. A ghost, a memory, the echo of a scream that never made it past his throat.

The anniversary always does that.

Even after all this time, after he’s here again, after he’s finally allowed himself this life, this Peter. The date still carves him out like a hollow thing. Still makes him ache for the version of Peter he lost, and the version he’s still trying to let himself have.

But this morning is different. Because Peter is there. He’s always there, has never left, not since Stiles let the dam break and finally admitted, in a voice barely more than a whisper, “I miss you.”

And Peter hadn’t asked for clarification. He didn’t need it. He had just pulled Stiles close and stayed.

And now, in the gray hush of morning, Peter is lying beside him, still, quiet and awake. Stiles can feel it in the shift of breath, in the slight tension in the mattress. A part of him used to dread this moment. The after. When he’d have to look Peter in the face and pretend everything didn’t hurt as much as it did.

But not today. Not anymore.

Stiles exhales slowly, then shifts. Peter doesn’t move, doesn’t startle or speak or ask if he’s okay. He just waits, the way he always does, like he has all the time in the world. And this time  Stiles takes it. He reaches for Peter, presses his forehead to the man’s chest like it’s the most natural thing in the world, like he deserves this comfort. His hand curls into the soft cotton of Peter’s shirt holding on.

Peter breathes in, deep and steady, and lets his hand drift up to the back of Stiles’ neck, warm and grounding. It feels like a promise. Not a demand. Not a plea. Just here. Just this.

Stiles lets himself relax, piece by piece. The armor of guilt, of grief, of all the years spent keeping this love just out of reach, it slides off his shoulders like a shed skin. Peter’s hand stays, steady against the nape of his neck, thumb brushing over his hair in slow, mindless strokes.

For the first time since he came back, since he changed the fabric of the world for one more chance at love, Stiles lets himself have it.

No apology. No explanation. Just the simple truth of two bodies tangled in the aftermath of pain, surviving anyway.

“I dreamed about him,” Stiles murmurs, voice low and rough with sleep.

Peter hums, quiet. No jealousy. No sharpness. Just a soft sound of understanding.

“He loved me so much,” Stiles swallows. 

“I do too,” Peter’s fingers tighten, just slightly and then relax. 

It’s not a question. Not a consolation. Just a fact. Stiles closes his eyes and lets the warmth of it settle deep inside his chest. He doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t pull away.

He leans in. And Peter, patient, steady Peter, holds him. Because that’s all Stiles ever wanted. All he ever needed. And finally, finally, he lets himself believe it’s okay to have it. To keep it.

The silence between them hums with something more than comfort now. It’s full, not awkward, not uncertain but full. Like the air is thicker, warmer. Like the space between Peter’s ribs has finally opened enough for Stiles to step inside.

Stiles shifts again, not to pull away, but to press closer. It’s the first time he does it without flinching from what it means. His palm slides beneath Peter’s shirt, warm fingers splaying across the man’s chest. The skin there is smooth, solid and real, and Stiles breathes like it’s the first thing grounding him all morning.

Peter doesn’t speak. He doesn’t need to. He lets his own hand settle in Stiles’ hair again, curling gently into the strands, his touch reverent. He strokes slowly, not to soothe, but to worship. Because this is what he’s been waiting for.

Not sex. Not declarations. But this, the quiet surrender, the moment Stiles finally stops looking at him like he’s a fragile dream that might disappear. Peter had seen the fear in Stiles’ eyes every time things got too good. The hesitation when their hands brushed in passing. The way Stiles never kissed him first. How his breath would catch like he was waiting for it all to fall apart.

But now here, in the hush of morning grief, Stiles touches him like he’s finally stopped comparing. Like he has finally chosen Peter for who he is not who he was, not who he could be, but for the man lying beside him now, quiet and waiting.

“I know you’re not him ,” Stiles whispers.

Peter doesn’t answer. Just keeps carding his fingers through that thick, wild hair gentle and unhurried.

“I loved him ,” Stiles adds, soft and aching, like a truth long buried.

“I know,” Peter nods, lips brushing the crown of Stiles’ head. 

“I don’t think I’ll ever stop missing him .”

“You shouldn’t,” Peter says, “He loved you. And you loved him. That matters.”

Stiles closes his eyes. Because it does matter but it doesn’t have to define him anymore. It doesn’t have to keep him from this. From the man who held him through every retreat, who never once made him feel guilty for grieving.

The man who looks at him like he is the sun.

“I think…” Stiles says, voice catching, “I think I’m starting to love you too.”

Peter stills. The moment stretches, thick with emotion, but he doesn’t push it. He doesn’t move, doesn’t speak.Instead, his thumb drags along Stiles’ temple, then down the edge of his jaw, cupping his face with infinite care.

“You don’t have to rush,” Peter murmurs, lips barely brushing skin.

“I’m not,” Stiles says, and when he leans up, he’s the one who kisses Peter first.

It’s soft. Slow. Just lips against lips, no desperation, no trying to recapture something lost. It’s present. It’s here. It’s Stiles saying yes with his whole body to this version of Peter, to this love, to the life he’s starting to believe he can build again.

Peter kisses him back like a man who’s known hunger and finally has been offered water. Not greedy, reverent. Grateful. Anchored in every breath. Stiles sighs into the kiss, hand still flat over Peter’s heart, and Peter covers it with his own, holding it there.

Not trapping it. Just grounding it. Because this is real now. And maybe the love Stiles had before burned hotter, faster, but this love? This one is made of steady devotion and years of waiting. Of two souls reaching for each other through time and time again.

And now that Stiles is finally reaching back, Peter will meet him every step of the way.

He already has.

It happens in the kitchen later that morning, as it always does where grief has less weight and routine has begun to stitch comfort into the bones of their days. Peter is standing barefoot at the stove, sleeves pushed up, cooking something simple. Eggs, toast, coffee. Nothing special, nothing ceremonial but that’s the point. It’s domestic in a way that Peter has only allowed himself to imagine on the rarest of nights.

Behind him, Stiles leans against the counter, nursing a mug of coffee Peter made exactly how he likes it, far too much sugar, a dash of cinnamon, and just enough milk to turn it the color of caramel.

He’s watching Peter, quiet and still but not guarded. There’s something looser in his shoulders, something softer in his gaze. Like he finally exhaled a breath he’s been holding since the day he arrived in this timeline. Since he dared to want something again.

Peter doesn’t comment on it. He just keeps moving slow and sure, like he’s not watching Stiles in the reflections of every polished surface.

“If you keep looking at me like that, I might start to believe you actually enjoy my cooking,” He plates the eggs with practiced ease, glancing over his shoulder. 

“I’m just surprised the eggs haven’t caught fire yet,” Stiles snorts, the sound rough with sleep but it’s real. 

“I’m wounded,” Peter arches a brow, lips twitching. 

“That’s my secret goal,” Stiles murmurs into his mug, “To destroy your ego one insult at a time.”

“A valiant effort, but doomed. My ego is indestructible,” Peter sets the plate in front of him with a dramatic sigh. 

Stiles opens his mouth to fire back but then something shifts. The words die before they reach his tongue, replaced by a breathy huff of a laugh. A real one. Not bitter or forced.

Light.

It catches Peter off guard. He turns to look, really look and Stiles is grinning into his coffee cup, shoulders shaking just a little. Not because something was particularly funny but because, for the first time in a long time, something felt good enough to laugh at. And God, Peter feels it like a flare in his chest. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t dare interrupt it but his eyes soften and he turns back to the stove with a smile pulling at his mouth, slow and helpless.

“You’re ridiculous,” Stiles sets his mug down.

“But you’re laughing,” Peter hums, pouring the last of the coffee. 

Stiles pauses. Then he nods almost to himself.

“Yeah,” Stiles says, “Yeah, I guess I am.”

He looks up at Peter, eyes meeting his across the kitchen, not with that haunted distance he usually carries on this day, but with something far more intimate. An unspoken thank you.

And Peter, always patient, always waiting just offers the smallest smile in return.

“You can laugh again, Stiles,” Peter says quietly, “You’re allowed.”

Stiles stares at him for a heartbeat. Then reaches out, not dramatic or rushed, just a hand brushing Peter’s where it rests on the counter, fingertips lingering.

They stare at each other for a moment, a silent moment. Just them. 

“I love you, ” Stiles whispers, and he means it.