Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/2800646.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Teen_Wolf_(TV)
  Relationship:
      Chris_Argent/Peter_Hale
  Character:
      Peter_Hale, Chris_Argent
  Additional Tags:
      High_School, Canon_compliant_through_Season_2, teenage_heartbreak, Happy
      Ending, POV_Peter_Hale, Underage_Sex, also_NOT_underage_sex, First_Time,
      major_time_skip, Petopher_Secret_Santa_2014
  Stats:
      Published: 2014-12-20 Chapters: 2/2 Words: 8865
****** All Your Promises ******
by TheVoiceofWrath_(meet_your_fate)
Summary
     He's fifteen when he first lays eyes on Chris Argent.
Notes
     I've played fast and loose with some timelines here. I considered
     having Chris pretending to be a high school student, but then I
     figured it was probably underage enough without adding like a real
     age gap. But I didn't say otherwise so, hey, if that's you thing? You
     go right ahead and read it that way. Peter is 16 before anything
     sexual happens. And wow, is it ever difficult writing a high school
     era fic taking place in like the early 90's. I had to keep myself
     from adding in so many modern day anachronisms. I probably missed
     some. My bad! The second chapter takes place sometime after Season 2
     of the show.
     And I'm so sorry, rainbowspirk. I know you asked for a High School
     AU, but this is what came out. It's not really AU at all. At least I
     managed to make Peter the weird new kid who loves sci-fi and
     cinnamon. I tried to include elements from the other prompts you
     gave, too. Maybe that's how this ended up not AU... But hopefully you
     like it okay! Happy holidays, darling ♥
     A quick note about the Peter in this fic: he is not the Peter from
     Visionary and beyond. He's the Peter from S1 and S2. Maybe you don't
     really differentiate between Peters, but I do, so I thought I'd
     clarify just in case.
See the end of the work for more notes
***** Chapter 1 *****
He's fifteen when he first lays eyes on Chris Argent. Oh, he knows the Argent
name. Of course he does. Every good little lycanthrope knows who the Argent
family is. But that doesn't keep him from being a little curious about Chris.
Why would the Argents even come Beacon Hills when they have to know this is
Hale territory?
Chris is a senior and new to the school, too, but he's instantly popular in a
way that Peter isn't. Peter blames it on the homeschooling. All young wolves
are homeschooled until they have a reasonable amount of control over
themselves. Being made to wait until sophomore year—by his dear sister slash
Alpha, of course—instead of joining the herd of students at the beginning of
freshman year has put Peter at a social disadvantage. Talia insists that it was
for his own good, that he didn't have a good enough grip on his anger last
year. Peter very much disagrees. He thinks she just wanted him to be wrong-
footed, to have to work harder to make friends.
Interesting, handsome seniors don't have that problem. Peter hasn’t made a
single friend by the time he heads for lunch. He hasn’t even made an
acquaintance, really, even though they had to do a horrible introduction game
in his English class where they were made to stand up and say their names and a
food they like that begins with the same letter. It was torture. He still feels
ashamed for having to say he likes potatoes in front of a whole classroom. One
would think that kind of mortification is the thing friendships are built on,
but nope. No one seems to have cared one bit that his name is Peter and he
likes potatoes.
At least he wasn’t like Cathy, who chose celery as her food instead of candy.
What a wasted opportunity. So, really, it could be worse. But he gets to the
cafeteria and finds that Chris Argent is already sitting at what must be the
‘cool kid’ table with the in crowd gathered around him like moths to a flame.
It’s really irksome. Not that Peter is jealous or anything like that. No, he
just thought he’d excel a little more quickly at this social hierarchy
business. It’s going to be a little harder work than he’d planned on, is all.
It’s fine.
So he sits at one of the tables on the outskirts of the cafeteria and reads
while he eats his lunch. He made the cinnamon streusel muffins himself and
happily packed two of them in his lunch bag. And his book, a Philip K. Dick
novel, is probably infinitely better company than can be found amongst the
other unpopular kids.
If his enhanced hearing picks up some people talking about him and how ‘weird’
he apparently is for reading and wearing a Star Wars shirt and eating food from
home instead of buying hot lunch, well. He’ll remember who said what and make
them pay for it some other time. He can wait years for revenge if he has to.
He’s not weird…
After lunch, Peter walks into his Algebra II class and immediately finds a seat
towards the back. He can already see this class will have a lot of
upperclassmen in it, the ones who are desperate for math credits to graduate,
and he doesn’t want them to see him sitting up at the front like some kind of
teacher’s pet. He’s already starting at a popularity deficit here—he’s not
going to take any more chances.
But somehow Chris Argent comes through the door, too. Peter wouldn’t have
thought an Argent would be worried about math credits. It’s always possible
that this particular one isn’t terribly intelligent, of course. What’s more of
a surprise is that Chris Argent comes and sits beside Peter instead of the
other upperclassmen. Could it be that Chris Argent genuinely has no idea who or
what Peter is? That he wasn’t forewarned about who the werewolves on campus
are? Well, that just seems sloppy.
“You must have pretty good eyesight, sitting all the way back here,” Chris
says, smiling in an picturesque and mildly insipid sort of way. Peter is
absolutely not charmed, not at all. No, now he’s certain that Chris is just
messing with him. Hunters toying with wolves. Hunters are apparently not very
clever, along with being sloppy.
“Something like that,” Peter says. Then class starts and Peter certainly
doesn’t keep glancing over at Chris’s fetching profile.
                                       ♦
Peter stops wearing his nerdy shirts. He still wears them at home, but
apparently being a ‘dweeb’ is affecting his social status at school. It doesn’t
seem to help much over the next few weeks, though, and the only people who pay
attention to him are a group of kids even less popular than he is. The only
exception is Chris who, despite being one of the cool kids, somehow gets it in
his head to come bother Peter at his locker at least once a day and pester him
about whatever book he’s reading or strike up random conversations like he
actually cares about Peter’s opinion.
He honestly doesn’t think Chris is aware that Peter can hear the other popular
students talking, can hear them wondering why Chris is spending time with that
‘loser’. It’s absolutely infuriating to be called a loser, even to his back.
Maybe especiallyto his back. But worse yet is Chris answering their questions
with shrugs and ‘I don’t know’s. Would it hurt him to maybe talk Peter up a bit
to the popular kids? It makes him feel like some kind of secret project of
Chris’s, makes him wonder if Chris’s interest in him is the beginnings of some
sort of prank.
So Peter tries to avoid Chris sometimes. Chris is irritatingly good at tracking
him down, but he seems to stay away when Peter is surrounded by his less than
popular classmates. This is how Peter accidentally becomes king of the losers.
He’ll work with it, though. Better king of the losers than nothing at all,
right? So he eats lunch with Rebecca, the girl who likes horses to an unusual
degree, and Joey, who reeks like pot all the time, and Lindsey, who is very,
very serious about color guard. More outcasts come occasionally until their
lunch table is full.
It’s not the cool table like Peter wanted, but it’ll do for now. Everyone has
to start somewhere, right? And it’s better than eating alone.
But, one day, Chris comes over to his lunch table. This breaks Chris’s pattern
of behavior and Peter is thrown by it for a moment. That’s probably why he
doesn’t really have a response at first when Chris says, “Hey, Pete. You should
come to my cross country meet on Saturday.”
It takes Rebecca elbowing him in the ribs to make him clear his throat and
answer. “Saturday, you said? I may have other plans. We’ll see.”
Chris smiles that smile of his again, the one that absolutely isn’t charming,
and nods. “Okay. I’ll see you there maybe.”
Then he leaves and Lindsey sighs dreamily. “Getting asked out by Chris Argent.
I’m so jealous.”
“He didn’t ‘ask me out’,” Peter insists. He may or may not be blushing a little
bit, but he’ll deny it ‘til the day he dies. “And, honestly, his cross country
meet? Like he owns it or something? The nerve…”
                                       ♦
He ends up going. He shouldn’t, he knows that, but he goes. For some reason. He
blames the full moon, which is tomorrow. He doesn’t exactly make the most
rational decisions so near the full moon. He gets his older brother to drive
him so that he can avoid having to deal with Talia and promises he’ll find his
own way home.
It turns out that cross country is only exciting for the actual runners. He
just sits around, bored and waiting. Clearly, Chris asked him to attend the
cross country meet as a form of torture. But it’s worth it when Chris’s
particular race is finishing and Peter can pick out Chris heartbeat coming
around the corner first, steady and strong and even. Cleary that hunter
training is paying off.
After, Chris drinks a lot of water and then comes up to Peter. He stinks of
sweat, not that Peter really minds. He smiles again and says, “Thanks for
coming.”
Peter shrugs. Aloof is what he’s going for and he really hopes it’s working. He
wouldn’t want Chris to think he has some kind of effect on Peter. “It turns out
I didn’t have anything better to do after all.”
“Uh huh. What’d you think of the race?” Chris asks.
“I think that you shouldn’t be racing against normal high school students. It
doesn’t really seem fair,” Peter says. That’s the reason Peter got from Talia,
shaming him from going out for sports. That it wouldn’t be fair to the other
kids. He’s thinking more and more lately that he doesn’t really give a crap if
it’s fair, though.
Chris laughs and nods a little, not even going to bother denying it that he’s a
little more seasoned than the average teenager.
“Where’s your family?” Peter asks. “Shouldn’t they have come to see you run?”
“They’re busy getting ready for some stuff tomorrow.”
The full moon, no doubt. Peter wonders if there are Omegas outside the Hale
territory that the Argents have their eye on. It’s a chilly reminder that Chris
isn’t just in good shape; he and his family are trained killers, trained to
kill Peter and his kind. Suddenly he’s not enjoying himself even a little bit.
“I should get going…”
“I could give you a ride home,” Chris offers.
Peter says no, that he can manage it on his own. By the time he gets home,
Talia is waiting for him. She interrogates him about where he’s been. He
doesn’t lie—there’s nothing wrong about going to a school sporting event—but
they end up fighting anyway. They get into some ugly yelling matches because
Talia might be his Alpha, but she isn’t his mother. She’s only happy when he’s
doing exactly as she says, though, and it’s more than enough to enrage him.
Their relationship is volatile at best and openly hostile at worst.
Somewhere in the yelling, the fact that he was there to see Chris Argent comes
out and that only leads to Talia forbidding him from seeing Chris ever again.
It’s an order Peter has absolutely no intention of following. Also, it’s
impractical. How is he supposed to keep from seeing someone who goes to school
with him?
                                       ♦
Peter doesn’t get any cooler in the next few weeks, but he’s thinking about
going out for basketball come winter. He doesn’t really care all that much
about fairness and it seems like all of the star athletes are popular by
default.
Chris still pays an odd amount of attention to Peter, but Peter is beginning to
allow himself to enjoy it for some silly reason. He finds himself looking
forward to sitting by Chris in math and wondering when Chris will stop at
Peter’s locker throughout the day. Not that Peter would admit to enjoying it
out loud, of course. He wouldn’t dare.
Chris comes by Peter’s locker one day with a book. “I thought you might like
it,” he says. “I found it by accident when I took my little sister shopping.”
Peter instantly thinks it’s some kind of trick. He takes the book and looks at
it, smells it subtly. It doesn’t seem to have been poisoned with wolfsbane. And
it really does look interesting, some ancient collection of science fiction
short stories from the late seventies. So maybe he’s a little shy seeming, a
little pink in the face, when he says, “Thanks…”
“No problem,” Chris says with that smile of his before heading to class.
Peter tucks the book into his backpack to read later. He knows that Talia would
throw a fit if she found out where it came from and, honestly, that’s half the
appeal.
                                       ♦
When school lets out on an otherwise totally normal Tuesday, he hears Chris in
a heated conversation with someone on the phone kids use to call home sick. The
bustling of students heading home for the day makes it impossible for Peter to
pick out the other side of the call. Whatever is going on, Chris isn’t happy.
Peter is maybe paying a little too much attention because Chris hangs up and
turns around, eyes landing right on him.
He feels like he’s been caught red handed. How terribly indiscreet of him. Not
that he really did anything wrong, of course, but that doesn’t keep him from
startling a bit.
Chris comes over to him with that smile, though this time it maybe seems a
little less genuine, and says, “I was wondering if maybe you’d be interested in
helping me with math.”
That is not at all what Peter had been expecting. He quirks a curious brow. “I
wasn’t aware you were having a problem in math. You seem to do pretty well in
class.”
But Chris insists he’s falling behind and could really use the help. He pushes
for study sessions and/or tutoring twice a week in the library and Peter finds
himself agreeing for some reason.
Mother Moon help him if Talia finds out.
They don’t really get anything done in their first session. Peter keeps trying
to get them back on track, but Chris gets distracted and strikes up some
totally unrelated conversation. It’s really odd considering Chris is the one
who wanted to work on math. But Peter is easily pulled into debates about which
Star Trek captain is the best. He didn’t even know Chris liked sci-fi. Maybe
it’s far too hopeful or fanciful, but he wonders if Chris has been watching
episodes of The Next Generation on VHS in order to talk to Peter about it. That
would be kind of sweet, wouldn’t it?
The next session, Chris says he can’t focus in the library and suggests they
move to the little café downtown. This is how Peter ends up in Chris’s car.
It’s strange, being in a hunter’s car. He half expects to be able to smell
wolfsbane in the upholstery or maybe see weapons in the backseat. Thankfully,
he doesn’t. That might’ve put a bit of a dampener on their blossoming…
friendship? Whatever it is, anyway.
Peter picks out the largest snicker doodle in the case when they reach the
café. Chris looks at him curiously and he maybe gets a touch defensive. “I like
cinnamon, okay?”
Chris just laughs and insists on paying.
Peter still doesn’t think it’s a date. There was no actual asking out involved.
                                       ♦
His birthday comes without much fanfare from the pack. They’re busy, though,
with lots of things going on and with little children, too. He’s kind of used
to not getting a great deal of attention and he only lets himself be upset
about it very occasionally, usually late at night when he can’t sleep. He got a
birthday hug this morning from his nephew Derek, though, and it was so sweet
and earnest that he thinks this isn’t the worst birthday he’s ever had. Derek
will be four this coming Christmas and that means he’ll start to think hugging
boys is weird soon. That’ll be a sad day.
There’s an unusual cinnamon-like aroma in the hallway before first period. He
doesn’t pay it much mind until he opens his locker to reveal a plate of
homemade snickerdoodles.
Chris sidles up next to him. “Happy Birthday, Pete. Sweet sixteen, huh?”
The cookies don’t smell poisoned. Peter can’t even really find it in himself to
be angry that Chris somehow got into his locker, let alone called him ‘Pete’
again. He hates ‘Pete’… But he’s being absolutely genuine when he says,
“Thanks, Chris.”
“You’re welcome,” Chris says. He clears his throat and glances away for a
moment. “So, uh… Homecoming is coming up.”
“Yeah. What about it?” Peter asks.
Chris lets out an amused sort of scoff. “Well, I was kind of hoping you might
wanna go with me.”
Immediately, Peter begins to suspect foul play again. Maybe the cookies were a
ploy to lure him into a false sense of security. Why would a hunter ask a
werewolf to homecoming? Unless Chris is, somehow, being willfully ignorant
about what Peter is. It just doesn’t make sense. “You know that’d be social
suicide, right? You’re friends would never let you live down being seen with
me.”
“They’re not my friends; I don’t care what they think,” Chris insists. “I like
spending time with you.”
“This isn’t some kind of prank?” Peter asks, listening for deception. He hasn’t
heard any yet… but he has to be sure. If he’s the butt of some hideous joke,
he’ll never be able to climb the social ladder. Which is somehow more important
than being murdered by a hunter in the middle of a school dance.
Chris shakes his head. “There’s no prank. I made you cookies and I lied about
needing help in math to hang out with you. Seriously, Peter. Come to homecoming
with me.”
It doesn’t sound like deception—the part about not actually needing a math
tutor aside, of course—so Peter says yes. Maybe he’s a fool.
                                       ♦
He has to lie about his homecoming plans. Talia would forbid him from going if
she knew what was really going on and lying to one’s Alpha is always a
complicated process involving half truths and deflection. By the time he’s
done, though, Talia thinks he’s just meeting friends, Rebecca and Joey and
Lindsey and the rest, to platonically dance together and that he’s planning on
catching a ride home with one of them. Peter considers it a job well done.
Talia drops him off at the school with a curfew that he doesn’t intend to
adhere to. Judging by the look on Talia’s face, she doesn’t really expect it of
him anyway. It’s cute that she’s going through the motions anyway.
He heads inside and meets Chris, who’s lounging against the wall attractively
in a suit that’s a great deal nicer than most everyone else’s haphazard
formalwear. He might’ve known that the Argents are well off, but he hadn’t
considered that that would translate into actual tailored suits. Peter had
thought he looked pretty good himself when he left home; now he’s feeling
somehow underdressed. Is his tie crooked? Is his jacket too loose across the
shoulders?
But Chris comes right over to him with that smile Peter is really starting to
grow fond of and says, “Hey. You look good. I wish I could’ve picked you up,
though, maybe taken you out to dinner. You get all dressed up and you should
hit the town at least a little bit.”
Peter would’ve liked that. He would’ve liked that a whole lot. “Well,” he says
with his own charming smile. He knows it’s charming because he practices it in
the mirror. “Maybe you can take me home after the dance…”
He knows it’s not an even trade with going on something like an actual date,
one with an actual meal involved, but he’s maybe implying he’d be open to
things if Chris is also interested in those things. The kinds of things that
can be done in a parked car somewhere between here and home.
“I’d like that,” Chris says. He leads Peter out onto the gym floor. Boys
dancing together isn’t terribly common at these things, Peter doesn’t think
anyway as he’s never been to a school dance, but Chris either doesn’t care or
thinks he’s popular enough that it doesn’t matter and Peter is along for the
ride.
He enjoys it. He thinks Chris does, too, and he lets himself be led during the
slow dances without a lot fuss. It isn’t exactly a hardship to have Chris’s
arms around him, after all. He likes the way Chris smells up close, likes the
way the perspiration from dancing mixes with Chris’s cologne. He can’t help but
wonder if Chris was careful not to put too much on for the sake of sensitive
werewolf noses.
Chris kisses him out in the middle of the dance floor and he steadfastly
refuses to swoon over it. Though it is really nice. It’s a good first kiss…
He asks Chris to get him punch twice and it tickles him to no end that Chris
actually goes and gets him some. Peter is practically preening over having a
handsome senior apparently at his beck and call. It’s good for his ego, which
has suffered greatly during this trial of unpopularity.
When they leave a little before homecoming is due to end and go to Chris’s car,
Chris opens the passenger door for him and they both laugh over the absurdity
of the gesture, though Chris’s laugh is a little more wry. Like Chris knows
he’s being ridiculous, but isn’t letting that stop him. But Peter enjoyed
getting Chris to fetch him drinks and so he’s not going to turn down
gentlemanly qualities now. He gets in the car and pretends he doesn’t feel
nervous as they drive the wrong way to get to Peter’s home. It’s not until they
reach the overlook—Beacon Hills’s own make out point or lover’s lane or
whatever—that it really sinks in that they’re going parking. Peter is a virgin.
Not that he cares about the social construct of virginity in general, but this
is still his first time. He’s a little nervous, though he refuses to let on,
and maybe his face is a little flushed from those nerves as well as a little
shyness and self consciousness.
But he’s not afraid. He thinks he can probably trust Chris with this, since
Chris could’ve killed him a hundred times by now and hasn’t. And Chris smells
very good. Very, very good. So Peter unbuckles his seatbelt and shifts around
to face Chris better. “Well?”
Chris seems a little hesitant. His hands are still on the steering wheel even,
clutching at it aimlessly. “We don’t have to,” he says.
“Do you not want to?” Peter asks, frowning a little bit. He’s not going to
push. He just thought that Chris would want to and he wants to himself. But, if
it turns out that Chris doesn’t, well. Peter will only feel a little foolish
for a few days. It wouldn’t be the end of the world.
“No, I do. I do want to,” Chris insists. He’s looking pensively out at the
town. It really is kind of a nice view at night with all the lights, only Peter
had hoped Chris would be looking at him instead of the crummy town. “I just
want you to know that we don’t have to. It’s okay if we don’t.”
Peter huffs. “You’re sending some weird signals, Christopher.”
“Sorry,” Chris says with a sheepish little smile.
“No, it’s okay,” Peter chuckles. “I’d rather we have this all straightened out
before proceeding. I want to. And you want to, too, right?”
Chris nods. “Right.”
“Good. So, we’re clear about that. Can we get into the backseat now?” Peter
asks.
Chris hesitates for some reason, maybe still not quite certain or maybe feeling
bad for taking advantage of someone two years younger than him—which is
absolute nonsense that Peter would argue with if Chris said it out loud. But
then Chris opens his door and Peter does, too. They get settled in the backseat
and just kiss for a while, until Peter’s mouth is tingling and swollen from it.
He tries not to bite too much, not to nip at Chris’s lips, because he thinks
that might be more of a werewolf thing in general and maybe Chris won’t like
it. But then it’s hard to think at all because Chris is kissing—and biting,
these wonderful, sharp little nips—his way down Peter’s neck. He loses track of
where his jacket and tie have gone. But at least Chris can’t mind terribly much
that he’s doing this with a werewolf, with the way he keeps sucking a mark over
Peter’s jugular and pulling back just enough to watch it fade away in the dim
light. At least now he knows for sure that Chris is aware of Peter’s species
and not somehow completely oblivious to it.
Maybe he should care that Chris might have some kind of a fetish. But it’s
working in his favor right now, so whatever. He should also probably mind the
way he’s baring his neck so easily, so completely, to Chris. He chooses not to
care about that, either.
He starts shoving Chris’s clothes off, too, and then he gets his turn at
Chris’s neck. It’s hard to keep from dropping his fangs and leaving a mark that
will stay on Chris’s skin. Control is something he works hard for, though, and
he’s not going to lose it right now. Instead, he just kisses and tries to make
his noises more like groans and less like growls.
Ending up in Chris’s lap isn’t exactly what he had in mind. Though straddling
Chris’s thighs is lovely, he’s pretty sure he was supposed to end up on his
back. He must look kind of confused because Chris says, “Like this. We can get
to the rest of it some other time, okay?”
Peter would argue, but then Chris is pulling his hips down and rocking up
against him and the sound he makes is really a yowl more than anything else. So
he ends up grinding against Chris shamelessly until Chris unzips their
collective dress pants and works around their underwear to get both of their
dicks in his hand. His hand is rougher than Peter’s, who doesn’t build up
calluses by nature of having been born a werewolf. Especially not the way a
hunter who trains with weapons does. Peter has to squeeze his eyes shut to keep
Chris from seeing their shining gold, from seeing him losing his control a
little bit.
When he comes, it’s with his nose buried against the juncture of Chris’s neck
and jaw and his hand perhaps gouging some claw marks into the seat. It’s good
and Chris follows a few moments after, his groan a delicious, broken thing that
Peter will remember for the rest of his life.
He’s already looking forward to that next time Chris promised.
After a bit of a cleanup with tissues from Chris’s glove compartment, and after
making themselves presentable or at least not too terribly disheveled, Chris
drives him home. Peter has Chris stop at the end of the long driveway and looks
over at him kind of bashfully. “You could come in maybe. If you wanted to.
There are secret tunnels…”
It could be Peter’s imagination. He isn’t sure. But he thinks that Chris looks
a little pained over his offer for some reason. “Not this time. Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Peter says, not wanting Chris to feel bad over it or whatever. He
leans over to kiss Chris one more time. If Chris is a little intense about it,
well. Peter’s not going to complain. He likes the way it feels—like Chris is
dying for just a little more of him. He pulls back and smiles at Chris, a
genuine and tender sort of thing. He had a really nice time tonight. “I’ll see
you Monday…”
“Goodnight, Peter,” Chris says.
                                       ♦
Peter doesn’t see Chris at school on Monday. He’d been expecting Chris to come
up to him at his locker first thing, to kiss him and maybe try to hold his
hand, but that doesn’t happen. He doesn’t see Chris in the cafeteria or in
Algebra or at the library after school.
He somehow holds out hope until Wednesday that maybe Chris is sick or
something, but then he hears some students talking about how Chris Argent up
and moved, about how weird and sudden it was. But it’s not until he goes to the
house the Argent family had been staying in and finds it empty that it actually
sinks in.
Chris is gone and he’s never coming back. He left. He left Peter.
He lets himself be sad and angry for a few hours. Talia even elects not to ask
questions when he comes home reeking of teenage heartbreak, just holds him and
pets at his hair and tells him she’s sorry he’s hurting. He knows he’s in bad
shape when Talia is gentle with him. She loves him in her own way, of course.
Gentleness just isn’t usually part of it.
He’s locked it all away deep inside of him by the beginning of school the next
morning, all the hurt if not all the anger, with determination born from vowing
to never be so foolish again. This is a lesson learned. Of course no hunter
could ever care about a werewolf. He’s more experienced now and wiser and he’s
grateful to Chris for making him overcome such childish weaknesses. He hopes
Chris got whatever he was after, going to all that effort to seduce him. It
can’t have been a fun assignment.
Come the winter sports season, Peter joins the basketball team. He’s popular
almost instantaneously.
Kate Argent burns down the house twelve years later with Peter and the Hale
pack trapped inside of it.
***** Chapter 2 *****
“I expected you sooner,” Chris says when he enters his apartment one evening
and finds Peter sitting in one of the armchairs. Posed just so, of course;
Peter is prone to perfectionism.
He shrugs one shoulder. He’s going for cold and aloof because he’s trying to
keep from saying anything foolish here. He’s waited a long time for this. Years
and years. “I’m afraid I was terribly busy. You know, catatonia followed by
murder followed by being murdered. Resurrection takes a lot out of a person.”
That, plus he thinks it would’ve been terribly tacky to come here when Victoria
Argent’s body had barely even cooled. A person should be allowed a mourning
period.
“I imagine so,” Chris says. He sits down on the couch across from Peter. “I
guess I should thank you for waiting until Allison is staying over at Lydia’s.”
Peter shakes his head. “Don’t thank me for anything, Christopher. I’m not here
to be kind.”
Chris just sighs. Yes, he must’ve known this was coming. He must’ve been
expecting it the moment Peter made it known that he recovered from his
injuries, from the fire.
“Was it worth it?” Peter asks. The confused little frown Chris responds with is
annoying and not cute at all. Chris looks different than he used to. He’s only
grown handsomer, really, but there’s no tenderness in his face anymore. Not for
Peter, anyway. “Was the whole charade of seducing me worth it for whatever
intel you got? I imagine it was the tunnels. That’s how Kate lit the fire,
isn’t it? And I’m the idiot who told an Argent about them.”
“No, Peter, it wasn’t like that.”
Peter doesn’t believe it for even a second. “Then how exactly was it? She
obviously did to Derek what you did to me.”
“Yes, but I didn’t have anything to do with it,” Chris says. He runs a hand
over his stubbled jaw and sighs some more. Chris is, apparently, a tired old
man. There’s gray in Chris’s hair and beard scruff. Peter refuses to think it’s
attractive. “I called it off that night. I got home and I told Gerard I
wouldn’t do it anymore. We left town immediately. He was furious, of course,
and I’m sure that’s when he started sinking his hooks into Kate. She didn’t
used to be like that. But she followed through on the plan I’d put a stop to
before.”
“Such a good Samaritan, deciding not to burn my family alive when you had the
chance. Why didn’t you stop her then?” Peter demands.
Chris looks away towards the moonlit window and shakes his head. “I wasn’t
around. Gerard had me working some case on the east coast. I knew as soon as I
heard about the fire that he’d just wanted me out of the way. Because he
thought I was weak…”
“No, you’re not weak. You performed admirably. You managed to get a werewolf at
their most vulnerable and all you had to do was make them cookies and ask them
to a dance and pretend they were interesting, even though they were totally
aware of what you are and should’ve known better. That’s a real talent,” Peter
says.
Chris finally glares at him. Yes, the anger is what Peter wants. He hasn’t
decided if he’ll kill Chris tonight yet or not, but it’s a distinct
possibility. “Stop it, Peter. It wasn’t like that at all.”
“I hope the sex was good at least. I mean, I know I didn’t participate all that
much, but you’re the one who didn’t want to go further. I would’ve gladly let
you. You were my first, after all—”
“Stop it.”
Peter laughs, an empty, hollow sort of sound. “You can’t possibly expect me to
believe any of it was real, can you? It was all an act. Tell me otherwise, go
ahead.”
“It was an act at first, yes, but then it really wasn’t. I was terrified of
getting too close because then I’d have to… I didn’t want to kill the people
you loved. They hadn’t even done anything wrong,” Chris says.
“Your code? Really? That’s your defense right now? But your code doesn’t have
anything in it about seducing young wolves, does it?” Peter rolls his eyes
dramatically. No, he thinks ‘the code’ is bullshit. Hunters only follow it when
they want to. When the power to define the rules is in the hands of the people
meant to be following those rules, they’re never in the wrong.
“Peter, I did that because my father made me. Under other circumstances, things
could’ve been different. I wanted them to be different. I… I enjoyed our time
together. None of that was fake,” Chris says and he sounds so earnest that
Peter wants to hit him until he’s unconscious. It isn’t fair.
“Am I supposed to forgive you now?” Peter asks. “Am I supposed to just stop
being angry now that you’ve said I really was special to you after all?”
“Be angry all you want. I’m not asking for forgiveness,” Chris says, like a man
resigned to eternal damnation for a multitude of sins. Probably what he did to
Peter is only minor among them.
How dare Chris be resigned when Peter wants confrontation?
“I waited for you,” Peter says. It really isn’t what he intended to say at all
but, well, now it’s out here. Emotions are far too unpredictable for Peter’s
taste.
Chris just seems confused. “What do you mean, you waited for me?”
“When you left. I went to school and I waited for you for two days. I thought
maybe you were sick, that you’d feel better and return to school and ask me to
be your boyfriend properly. I didn’t hear about you leaving town until the
third day. You could’ve left me a note or something. Anything would’ve been
better than allowing myself to feel such misplaced hope even for a short amount
of time,” Peter says. “A note would’ve been fairer. But you knew you were
leaving before I got out of the car, didn’t you? That’s why you said
‘goodnight’ instead of ‘see you Monday’. You knew.”
Chris nods.
“I think you knew before we even got into the backseat of the car, what with
how you said we didn’t have to. You could’ve said no or made any number of
excuses. You didn’t, though. You let me get into the backseat with you knowing
you were going to be disappearing the next day. What, you figured a fuck was
the least you deserved for all your trouble?”
“I never said I was a saint,” Chris says, glancing away again like he’s
ashamed. “I wanted you. I liked you…”
“You wanted me,” Peter echoes. “Curious.”
That gets Chris looking at him again. “What is?”
“The tense of that doesn’t really ring true,” Peter says.
Now it’s Chris’s turn to roll his eyes. “Is that how this is gonna go down?
With you trying to break my heart now as some kind of revenge?”
Peter hums thoughtfully. “I honestly hadn’t even considered that tactic. The
idea that you might actually have some lingering feelings for me is ludicrous.”
Chris stops looking so resigned and prey-like and begins to look more like a
hunter on the prowl. Peter hates it because it means he must have given
something away and Chris is about to go on the offensive. Peter hates when
other people are on the offensive. “Is it? Tell me you don’t have lingering
feelings for me, Peter.”
Peter’s not sure where this is going anymore. Somehow, he lost control over
this conversation and he hates that, too. He considers saying no, but obviously
that would be a lie and Chris could somehow trap him in it… Well, honesty it is
then. Honesty, he thinks, can be an even better weapon than deception
sometimes. “Of course I do. No one ever really gets over that first heartbreak,
do they?”
He can see it hit Chris like a slap to the face. Ha.
Chris takes a moment to compose himself—to stop feeling like a monster who
breaks the hearts of poor, trusting teenage werewolves—and then says, “Well,
the way I see this, we have two options here.”
“Three,” Peter counters. “We have three options.”
“Oh? What’s the third option?” Chris asks.
“I could kill you now and be done with it.”
Chris actually has the gall to smile. It’s that same smile from before, from
when Chris was a senior and Peter was a sophomore. The one that he still
doesn’t want to admit is wonderful. “You could. But you won’t.”
Peter scoffs. “So confident of that, are you?”
Chris nods. “Absolutely. As I was saying, we have two options. The first is
that we just get over all of this so we can coexist in Beacon Hills without
unnecessary bloodshed.”
Somehow, Peter doubts that’s likely. He thinks he’ll always be prickly around
Chris, if not outright hostile. “And the second option?” he asks.
“We get over it so that we can try again, without the baggage and without the
outside forces pressuring us for results,” Chris says.
Peter hadn’t been expecting that in the least. “You want to ‘try again’?”
“Maybe not right away, if you’re not ready, but eventually. It would be nice. I
could bake you snickerdoodles,” Chris offers.
“Christopher, aren’t you forgetting that you’re only recently a widower? What
would the townsfolk say?” Peter asks. Really, he’s just trying to push buttons
to make Chris regret the suggestion. If Chris changes his mind now, there’s no
chance of him changing it later when Peter might have foolishly let himself be
vulnerable again.
“I don’t care what they say. She’d want me to be happy if I could, not
miserable forever,” Chris says.
“Happy with a werewolf, though?”
“Well,” Chris says, shrugging. “Nothing’s ever going to be perfect.”
“So romantic. But I’m afraid I’m determined to be angry forever. Sorry.
Besides, I’d be far too tempted to fuck you and then sneak out before dawn to
watch from a distance as you realize you’ve been taken advantage of.”
“That wouldn’t be even remotely surprising, so it loses most of its effect.
Come here, Peter,” Chris says, holding a hand out towards him like he’s a
skittish cat. Peter narrows his eyes at it. “Pete…”
Peter huffs crankily. “Don’t call me that. I’ve always hated being called
that.”
And now Chris chuckles, like Peter isn’t a dangerous creature of the night at
all. “I dunno. You never told me that before. You must’ve loved me too much.”
Peter goes to slap Chris’s hand away, but Chris grabs him by the wrist. He
shouldn’t have doubted Chris’s reaction time. Chris hauls him out of the
armchair and onto his lap. Peter, while momentarily surprised, isn’t amused.
Not even a little bit. Chris holds Peter about the waist, as if Peter couldn’t
claw his face off from so near. “Let’s go out to dinner.”
“It’s after midnight,” Peter points out. He’s crossing his arms and trying his
best to look very displeased. Maybe it looks silly with him sitting in Chris’s
lap, but whatever.
“Then let’s go out to dinner tomorrow. You can spend the morning telling me
about awful science fiction things I don’t really understand and we’ll bake in
the afternoon.”
“And tonight?” Peter asks.
“And tonight,” Chris says. “You’ll come to bed with me. I seem to recall there
being talk of a ‘next time’…”
“No, you said we could do more ‘some other time’. That isn’t really an explicit
declaration of intent. Believe me, I agonized over every single word you said
that night,” Peter insists. He’s maybe sulking a little bit.
Chris moves his hands down to Peter’s hips, feeling them like he’s weighing the
differences from when Peter was a teenager. “Believe me, it was absolutely a
declaration. Of desire, if not exactly intent. And I always keep my promises.”
Peter doesn’t hear any lies. It’s nice to know that Chris really did want him
then, that he wanted more than a quickie in the backseat of a car with the boy
his father told him to seduce. Peter presses a hand to Chris’s chest and asks,
“Do you mean to extract promises from me?”
“I don’t think you have quite the same relationship with honesty as I do. I’ll
be glad enough if you just stay with me for as long as you want to. Though
maybe not specifically in this apartment—you creep Allison out,” Chris says
with far too much amusement.
Peter shrugs carelessly. “I imagine that’s a fairly normal consequence of being
a vengeful murderer who has risen from the grave. Hopefully I’ll grow on her.”
Chris looks happy, in a quiet and subtle sort of way, and that’s when Peter
realizes he more or less agreed to what Chris is asking for. Maybe that’s a
promises extracted from him anyway. Damn.
“Don’t act like you’ve won something here,” Peter says. He’s a little peeved.
He should’ve impaled Chris with kitchen utensils or something as soon as Chris
got home. “I’ve been angry with you for a lo—”
Chris kisses him. It’s different now. It’s not the age or the stubble or any of
that, though. It’s just different. Something about the years and the shared
history between them and the amount of experience they’ve had since the night
of the homecoming dance. Peter feels less unwisely optimistic and more aware of
what’s going on now. But it’s kind of the same, too, and Peter recalls the pair
of them dancing, the way it felt to be pressed close together and the way Chris
smelled. Chris still uses the same cologne. It’s still just as subtle and still
just as nice paired with the natural scent of Chris’s body.
But it’s different, also, in the way that Peter isn’t ashamed of what he is. He
wasn’t then, either. Not really. But he thought somehow seeing Peter as a
werewolf might send Chris running. He’s not worried about that anymore. He lets
his eyes glow—blue now instead of the gold from his youth, but Peter thinks the
blue suits him better anyway—and he lets his fangs grow long when Chris’s
tongue is in his mouth, lets his claws curl in Chris’s shirt.
He doubts he’ll be able to get away with clawing at Chris often and is
determined to take advantage of it when he can.
He catches Chris’s lip oh so gently between his fangs, pulls back enough to
look at Chris with blue, blue eyes and lets out a low snarl. Yes, let Chris
know he’s doing this with a monster. The sudden and heady scent of Chris’s lust
is a little unexpected. Maybe it shouldn’t have been, though. He remembers
Chris watching his hickeys heal in the moonlight, remembers thinking Chris
might have a werewolf fetish…
“Kinky,” Peter says after he lets Chris’s lip slide out from between his sharp
teeth. “Maybe we can break out your undoubtedly state of the art restraints
next time. I bet you’d look lovely all trussed up.”
Chris grunts. Peter thinks it’s a delightful sound. “Go ahead and try to tie me
up. We both know that would end with you in the restraints; you just like the
illusion of being difficult.”
Difficult? Alright, Peter’s self aware enough to admit, if only to himself,
that that’s at least a little bit true. Instead of answering, he rips Chris’s
shirt open in front and leans in lick along Chris’s collarbone. He lets his
fangs catch on skin and bone ever so softly and listens to the way Chris’s
heartbeat speeds up. He bets there’s still a part of Chris that thinks Peter
might rip his throat out. That doesn’t seem all that healthy, as far as
relationships go, be Peter thinks it’s perfect.
He does, at least, retract his fangs when he bites Chris at the place where his
shoulder meets his neck. He wants a mark that lasts, but maybe not forever as
scar tissue. Just until he gets to mark Chris all over again when the bruise
fades. Chris’s groan is intoxicating. As he licks along the indentations from
his teeth, Chris starts scrabbling at Peter’s clothes.
“I thought you were taking me to bed,” Peter says, sitting back and smirking a
little bit at seeing Chris like this. Flushed with lust and wanting. It’s good.
“What, you want me to carry you?” Chris asks. He looks like he’s torn between
rutting against Peter until he comes or just shoving him off onto the floor,
which would be hilarious and satisfying on a totally nonsexual level. “You’re
not exactly light and I’m getting on in years, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“Oh yes, you’re ancient, you poor delicate thing,” Peter chuckles as he stands
up and hauls Chris over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. A bridal carry
might’ve been more dignified, but Peter doesn’t care; this way, he gets to
grope Chris’s ass. It’s good to be a werewolf with inhuman strength. He takes
Chris to the master bedroom he found earlier while alone and snooping and drops
Chris onto the bed.
Chris looks ruffled and cranky, but mostly still very aroused. “In the morning,
I’m gonna trap you in bed in a circle of mountain ash.”
“Of course you are, darling,” Peter says. He starts removing his clothes before
Chris gets any ideas about ruining them and Chris strips down, too. That shirt
of Chris’s is still a goner, though, so Peter isn’t entirely sure why Chris
bothered to throw it at the hamper.
He lets Chris haul him onto the bed for the sake of his wounded masculinity.
Being naked with Chris, as opposed to merely getting just naked enough to make
it work, is an experience. Peter doesn’t even put up a fuss over being
maneuvered onto his back so long as he can feel at Chris’s skin with broad
strokes of his hands. For getting on in years, Chris is still plenty fit. There
are scars, from ‘hunting accidents’ no doubt, but Peter is fascinated by them.
He fights down the urge to rake his claws over Chris’s back, to leave scars of
his own like carving initials in a tree. He doesn’t think Chris would enjoy the
sentiment.
Chris is re-making the same hickey on Peter’s sternum again and again. It’s
endearing, really, or it would be if Peter wasn’t feeling impatient. “Marvel
over werewolf healing some other time.”
Chris bites at his nipple and, alright, he’s a little bit ashamed of the yip he
makes over that. He makes a face when Chris laughs at him. “Excuse me,
Christopher. Maybe we should reschedule this,” he says, shifting to push Chris
off of him and get out of bed.
But Chris holds onto him and shakes his head. He suddenly looks a great deal
more intense than he did a moment ago. “No. We’re not waiting anymore. You
wanna do this, right?”
Peter maybe feels a little nostalgic. Over two teens negotiating consent,
honestly. He doesn’t know when he got so emotional. “Right. And you want to,
too?”
“Right,” Chris says, his lips brushing against Peter’s for a moment before
they’re kissing again. Things get kind of blurry and desperate from there,
Chris’s body moving against his and his moving against Chris’s. There’s a
moment when he grabs Chris’s upper arms too hard and leaves little finger
shaped bruises. He’ll kiss them better later.
He’s been with other men since Chris, obviously. He’s been with women, too, and
all of it has been perfectly lovely. But there’s something about the way
Chris’s cock slides against his own that’s lovelier by far.
It’s also very nice that they have more stamina this time around. But by the
time Chris is getting the lubricant from the nightstand, even Peter’s panting a
little bit. “Optimistic, were you?”
“Not really. Honestly, I thought you’d at least beat me up for a while, if not
kill me,” Chris says with that terrible, wonderful smile that Peter hopes he’ll
get to see more of for a long, long time. “I was a littlehopeful, maybe…”
Peter, helplessly, finds Chris’s death wish endearing.
And then it’s fingers inside of him, Chris going irritatingly slowly as he
works Peter open one at a time until Peter is trembling and too strung out to
even feel ashamed, until Peter is mentally cursing Chris for not taking
advantage of werewolf healing and just getting on with it. “I swear to you,
Christopher, I will decorate my home with your insides if you don’t hurry up.”
“You can go as slow or fast as you want when it’s your turn, alright?” Chris
reasons. He presses a kiss to Peter’s quaking thigh and curls his fingers again
against Peter’s prostate.
It’s torture, is what it is.
“When it’s my turn, I’ll have you face down against the mattress,” Peter says,
only it’s half incoherent with moaning and stuttered breaths.
“I look forward to it…” Chris finally licks his way up—deviating at Peter’s
cock for a moment—until he’s looking down at Peter instead of up at him from
between his legs. Chris is looking at Peter like he’s a precious thing and
isn’t that odd? Peter can’t remember when he last felt precious to anyone.
Maybe it was with Chris all those years ago, on that last night of theirs.
But tonight is a do-over, a first instead of a last and certainly not some
combination of both. He’s not going to sneak out before dawn to make Chris
suffer what he suffered and they both know that. They’re already planning next
times.
“Shut up and fuck me,” Peter says with a smile. Really, he thinks that about
sums up their relationship. Chris laughs and settles between Peter’s legs,
hauls Peter’s ass up onto his thighs, and finally presses his dick into Peter.
It’s slow and desperate and wonderful, the rocking of Chris’s hips. It’s
infinitely better than Peter could’ve possibly imagined as a teenager. He wraps
his legs around Chris and moves with him and holds him and kisses him, breathes
the same air as him.
This doesn’t make the wait worth it, per se, but it maybe makes it more
bearable now. At least the wait had an excellent reward.
Peter might not even really need Chris’s hand on him, but he has it, Chris
sliding his hand between them and his callused fingers curling around Peter’s
cock. He comes with his nose pressed against the juncture of Chris’s jaw and
neck and Chris comes inside of him a few moments after.
With the sweat and semen cooling on their bodies, they curl up facing each
other in the middle of the bed. Peter is blinking sluggishly from satisfaction
and Chris is watching him.
“You’re not going to sneak off, are you?” Chris asks.
Peter lets out an amused hum because other, more complex noises like laughs or
scoffs aren’t really in his wheelhouse at the moment. “Of course not… You
actually want me to stay?”
Chris nods.
“And you’ll bake me snickerdoodles?” Peter asks. “Whenever I want?”
“Mhmm,” Chris says with another nod, his little smile all fond. It would be
irritating if Peter were in the mood to be irritated, in that affectionately
irritated sort of way that Chris somehow still inspires in him after all these
years.
“Promise?” He doesn’t mean the snickerdoodles, of course. He means about Chris
wanting him to stay. But he’s sure Chris knows that; Chris is too clever for
his own good.
“I promise…”
End Notes
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