#steter drabble

It may be a lie; Stiles would never be able to tell. Maybe he should have taken the chance to become a werewolf; then no one could lie to him. He could also probably heal a lot quicker too. He coughs and sputters, unapologetically spitting over the side of the seat to clear his throat. “It’s just a - a nickname.” He winces.

“So tell me your real name,” Peter says as he makes a left turn. His fingers are all but numb now with the way his arm is angled back, but he can still feel Stiles gripping his hand, and that’s all that matters. If he hadn’t been so lazy, so uncaring of the threat, he could have prevented this. He could have made sure Stiles was indeed safe, but Peter had been playing the part of an asshole for so long, it was easy to slip into. Easy to get close to Stiles that way. Stiles’ hand starts to fall away, so Peter chases it, takes his eyes off the road for a second to glance back at him over his shoulder. “Hey, hey Stiles. Tell me your real name, come on.”

Stiles coughs again, but he squeezes Peter’s hand, watches beneath heavy lashes as Peter risks their lives for one second before resuming his gaze back on the road. He takes a deep breath because it’s getting harder to stay afloat. “Mieczyslaw.” He manages in one go, a bit proud of himself for saying it so loudly and clearly. He’d had trouble with it in his youth, hence the birth of his nickname, but Peter wanted to know it, and Stiles wanted to tell him.

Peter scoffs, ending on a breathy chuckle. “What a mouthful.”

“Hey now-” Stiles coughs and leans over to spit again. His throat feels heavy, full of the blood that keeps rising from somewhere inside. One of the bullets moves in its wound, and Stiles’ breath hitches again. Peter absentmindedly shakes his hand, drawing Stiles’ attention back to him. “No flirting on my - my deathbed.” His voice is raspy, and it’s starting to hurt, talking. If he weren’t dying, Stiles would be laughing at that notion.

He can feel Peter’s hand tighten around his, and before he can resist the urge, Stiles moves his hand until their fingers lace together. It’s awkward, the angle, but the tips tangle in each other, and it feels nice. It’s not something Stiles would have thought of Peter being: nice. None of this is how he thought Peter would react should he ever wind up dying in front of him.

Stiles always imagined a bit of snark, maybe even some of Peter being purposely unhelpful, not this panicked mess who's trying so hard to keep Stiles awake as he traverses the roads. Maybe he’s trying to find a spot to bury him without the others knowing, flying out of town like a bat out of hell to someplace he’ll never be found.

Lights flashing, blue and white and red, from the windows answer him quickly enough to know Peter’s brought him to the hospital. The car comes to a rough stop, jolting Stiles a bit. He groans and sputters over the side of the seat once more. Peter turns around to look at him, and Stiles wants to look at him too, but he can’t keep his eyes open for long. He thinks he hears Peter talking, but all Stiles can hear now is the blood rushing in his ears.

If he has to die, jumping in front of Peter to save his life is a nice way to go. He may not be strong or wield a lot of power. He may rely on a weapon instead of sheer force, and he may be human, but for once, Stiles can call himself a hero. If he hadn’t gotten in the way, Peter’s backside would have been covered in these wolfsbane bullets, and the hunters would have come for his head. It’s okay, he thinks, as Peter lets his hand go, feeling it fall to the side without the strength to keep it up.

It feels like forever, the trek around the car, until Peter can pull Stiles from the backseat, until he can carry him inside. People are milling about, a few running down the hallway, but no one’s looking at him, and that’s a shame because Peter’s got something precious in his arms, and Stiles deserves to be looked at by everyone. “Hey!” He calls out. “Somebody help me!” And wouldn’t it be fortuitous that Melissa McCall is working tonight, running around her nurse’s station to heed the call of help?

She stops just short of Peter, wary, as she should be. He feels like he’s one wrong step to losing control, holding everything in while he holds Stiles against his chest. She notices the boy in his arms and reacts almost instantly. “What happened?” She asks, not bothering to chase it with what did you do.

“He’s been shot,” It's all Peter can say as Stiles starts to feel cold in his arms. “Hey - hey Stiles-” He mumbles into soft brown hair, lips ghosting over Stiles’ forehead. It’s enough to stir Stiles into awareness, even if he can’t open his eyes. As ever-present as Scott never is, Melissa seems to notice and hesitantly takes Peter by the elbow to steer him down the hall.

She yells for a gurney, a few doctors, and a nurse because Stiles needs to be taken to the OR now. Now or it's too late. Stiles sighs and sags against Peter, and it’s now. Now or it’s too late. Peter doesn’t want to let him go, but they pull him away and strap him to a bed, and suddenly Peter feels weightless. He grips the backside to a chair, afraid he’ll float away if he doesn’t, and Stiles is wheeled on down the hallway to a place Peter can’t go.

Derek and Scott, and the rest of the pack show up, bursting through doors like valiant heroes here to save the day. But the day is down in surgery, waiting to be saved by doctors and medical equipment. Derek snarls and growls and grabs Peter by the scruff of his shirt. The wall is solid against his back where Derek shoves him, but Peter isn’t in the mood. Not with Stiles down the hall, not with his car reeking of death and decay, not with the state of losing all control on the line.

Scott pulls Derek off of him if only to replace himself a moment later. He doesn’t touch Peter, though, rightfully so, and it gives Peter a chance to catch his breath. “What happened? What did you do?” It’s not at all soft, dipped in venom and spat out before him in a pile of accusations that should make Peter question himself, but he doesn’t. The only thing Peter blames himself for is not pushing Stiles out of the way in time.

That boy had been quick, reflexes even wolves could be jealous of. Peter hadn’t heard a thing, too focused on Stiles and the way he flipped through pages of a book, at the speed with which his knee bounced, at the curve of his spine as he hunched over the table trying to concentrate on anything that wasn’t the ‘pack in peril.’ It was with his usual gracelessness that Stiles managed to kick the chair out from under himself and bolt to the backside of the couch Peter was laid out on, just in the nick of time.

Why Stiles had felt the need to protect Peter was a mystery in and of itself.

Peter tries to collect himself. There are too many eyes on him when he doesn’t want them, so he pushes past Scott and Derek and the rest of them to sit in a chair along the wall. “They knew; the hunters knew where you’d be. They set traps to set up a bigger trap.” But for what? It’s exactly what Derek asks a second later, but Peter has no clue. It’s not as if the hunters would have known that he and Stiles were stashed at the loft. And now - “they’re dead, so I guess we’ll never know.”

Derek’s shoulders drop in defeat, and Scott deflates next to him a moment later. Peter’s pretty sure they’ve seen the bodies littering the floor of the loft. The rest of the pack scatters among the hallway, but it’s all too unimportant for Peter to pinpoint who stands where. “We left the ones in the woods alive. We can track them down-” Scott starts up again, ready to fight, but Derek just looks tired.

Peter’s had enough of it and gets up to leave, but when he looks down at his blood-soaked clothes, he hesitates to go. He isn’t sure which is Stiles’ and which is the blood of the hunters. It all makes him sick, the stench of copper overwhelming, but he bites down the urge to rip his shirt off and sits back down. Scott rambles on, and Peter wants to start a scene, but eventually, Scott tires himself out, and everyone finds a corner to get lost in.

It’s only ten minutes later that the Sheriff comes bursting around the corner, yelling, and yearning to see Stiles, to find out what happened. Derek answers for Peter, and Scott tries his best to calm him down with facts. Which are: Stiles has been shot twice with wolfsbane bullets. He's in surgery, and Melissa keeps them up to date with the procedure. He’s doing well so far.

It takes an hour for any other news to come to them, and by now, the Sheriff is bouncing between rage and denial and grief, which Peter thinks is ridiculous to do, before they know anything else, before they’re given a reason to mourn Stiles.

“Noah?” Melissa’s voice is small, too small to be good news. Peter tracks the muscles in her face, tries to catch the sign of a frown or a chin quiver, but she remains stoic up until the point where she can’t hold in a smile that’s been slowly cresting at the corner of her mouth. “He’s okay, he’s sleeping now, he’ll be just fine.” The collective sigh rings out throughout the hallway, but Peter merely hangs his head in his hands.

It’s a surprise to everyone when another nurse comes out and asks for Peter. It’s worthy of looking her in the eye as he stands and walks over to her. “I’m sorry, he’s asking for a Peter?” Peter doesn’t dare look behind him as all eyes are once again on him. This isn’t quite the attention he’s always seeking. It feels too much like daggers to the back. He nods at the nurse and follows behind her without a word.

No one's meant to see the healing process. Not even when wolves knit themselves back together like magic lives in their veins. That’s why people lock their sick and wounded behind doors with no windows, in rooms with curtains to hide them away from the rest of the world. Peter remembers his hospital room had a window in it, but it hardly mattered when he was trapped inside of his own head.

The room Stiles is in is small, big enough to house the bed and the machinery, and a small chair off in the corner. Screens blip and beep somewhere Peter isn’t paying attention to. Not when Stiles is awake, not when he’s fluttering those long lashes and struggling to look at Peter entering the room.

It takes everything inside Peter not to rush to him like some sappy romance novel main character. Peter isn’t the main character right now, and he can admit that. Stiles is and always has been. “You look like crud.” Stiles wheezes, chased only by a whistling inhale from the tube that lays across his upper lip. The machine next to him blips too quickly for a second before it settles, but Peter doesn’t need to hear it to hear the uptick in Stiles’ heartbeat.

Peter takes a few steps towards him but then diverts his path to the chair in the corner of the room. He pulls it over to sit it next to the bed so he can be close. “I had to drag this self-sacrificing kid to the hospital because he thought he could stop bullets with his body.” Peter groans, easing himself into the chair as if he’s the one who's been wounded. In actuality, Peter’s exhausted. All of his muscles that had been taut with worry and fear relax in one colossal swoop, and suddenly, he feels like a nap is coming on.

“I mean - I did,” Stiles chuckles and then winces, and Peter shoots up in his seat. “I’m okay,” Stiles whines, shifting a bit on the bed. He’s bandaged quite a bit underneath the hospital sheets. The monitor next to him blips a few times out of sync.

Peter huffs a sigh and reaches out to take Stiles’ arm without a second thought, but when Stiles lets him curl his fingers around his wrist, realization dawns on Peter that he hadn’t asked first. He hadn’t asked back in the car, but that was a different situation. Stiles had been dying, but here he lay, not dying and suddenly touching Stiles now felt like a completely different thing.

Stiles doesn’t move, doesn’t pull back. He lets Peter pull the pain from him without saying anything, following the trail of black lines from his fingers as they travel upwards on his arm. His gaze lands on Peter’s, and then neither can look away. The machine blips out of sync again and ruins the moment. Stiles’ face flushes pink, and Peter lets slip a smile.

It’s a genuine one, not curled upwards at the corners in a smirk or pulled taut in a teasingly fake, I’m-better-than-you grin. Peter looks tired as if he has some healing of his own to do. Stiles feels marginally better, enough to shift again on the bed. Peter pulls his hand away, looking perplexed at the way Stiles scoots to the far side of the bed. There’s an empty space between them begging to be filled, and just as most of their conversations don’t go, Peter wordlessly climbs in next to him.

The silence is an odd way to communicate when it’s almost normal to snark and sneer and chide one another. Peter misses Stiles’ anger, but their quiet is also good. Stiles curls against him like he’s never done before, as if he were meant to fit against Peter’s chest, but Peter turns on his side as well and faces him. Now they both seem to fit.

Stiles reaches upward towards Peter’s face, places a hand there as if he’s always been allowed. The IV tube sits against Peter’s neck, cool and heavy as it helps pump fluids into Stiles’ broken body. Stiles’ hand feels hot on his cheek, but the tips of his fingers feel cold where they run through Peter’s hair. “You saved my life,” Stiles mumbles, warm breath puffing against Peter’s face as he speaks.

Peter can feel the thank you coming in the way Stiles’ throat works when he’s dying to say something but can’t. Of course, it’s hard for him. It’s hard for a lot of people to talk to Peter. He’s burned so many bridges in his life, too many to keep count, and it’s hard to stand on the ashes and demand gratitude when all they receive from Peter is a pale comparison of truth.

Stiles doesn’t demand gratitude. He never asks to be thanked, not so much since growing up and growing older. He takes the tasks handed to him and researches ancient texts as if he’s actually happy to bury his nose in old books. When told to stay behind, he’s still reluctant, but he’s aware of the risks and puts himself to good use outside the lines of danger, and when the pack returns home, he’s there for them like no one else. Not once has Peter heard him grumble for a thank you or whine for some form of acknowledgment for a job well done.

He argues, because he wouldn’t be Stiles without a little banter or wit being flung like a weapon at the pack, but with the others, it’s because Stiles worries for them. Stiles never worries for Peter, never feels the need to. Peter can take care of his own, but it’s second nature in Stiles to care for others, fling himself in front of danger to protect those who matter to him.

Peter is unsure when he became one of those few.

Stiles stares at him, the ghastly lights of the hospital room reflecting green off his pale skin. He looks sickly and weak and human, and Peter has to remember that Stiles is not some wild thing coming to disrupt the wolves. He’s human and delightfully so, wedging himself between their fur. He finds a home amongst their claws and fangs and blood, cloaking himself in the guise of some weakened fool, ready to trick those who find him and wrong the rest of them.

Stiles could have very well saved Peter’s life tonight, but Peter feels like he’s been doing so for far longer. He steels himself for honesty because tonight was too close, leaning forward to brush his lips against Stiles’ forehead. “Mine too,” He mumbles against Stiles’ skin. “But don’t get used to it.” He adds, and Stiles huffs a chuckle and burrows closer until both are warm enough to sleep.

It was his dad. There was no way Noah wouldn’t notice something different about Stiles. He was a cop, trained to be observant, and in the past Stiles might have been fine but Noah had really stepped up his parenting game in Stiles’ junior year. He was hardly an absent father these days, which seemed like a bad thing for the first (okay, fifth) time.

Point being that Stiles took his finals, packed his shit, and decided to drive the two and a half hours back to Beacon Hills on about zero hours of sleep. Because he was an adult and could do what he wanted, and he wanted to be home two days sooner than promised, before his dad could throw out whatever incriminating shit was in the fridge.

After nearly falling asleep twice in about eighty minutes, Stiles ceded, pulled into a rest stop, and decided on a nap before continuing on. He had been taught to drive by three separate police officers, and besides that wasn’t dumb enough to keep himself in a situation that would have him crashing into a pole.

Key word being keep himself in, because he sure as heck would put himself in it during some manic burst of energy.

So he wasn’t super sure about the moral of this story. Don’t pass out at a rest stop,  you’ll be kidnapped, stripped, and dumped in a forest?

More like: being a werewolf sucked ass.

The only footprints that he could see were his own, and his feet were bare but undamaged, coated in several layers of dirt.

Stiles groaned, standing and relishing the pop of his spine. Then he picked a direction.

Started walking.

It takes Stiles about half an hour to find his way out of the woods, and by that time he’s recognized it as the Beacon Hills preserve. Maybe it was a Stiles thing, or more likely it was a werewolf thing (because Stiles liked a brand new excuse to blame everything on as much as the next guy), but this was no half-assed form of sleepwalking. He had gone at least sixty miles.

It took another twenty minutes of jogging to make his way into town. His dad’s house would be another forty or so, and increased body temperature or not, he’s freezing.

He sees a light on and goes for it, because whatever happens can’t be worse than being caught half-naked and covered in dirt by the old lady next door who babysat him when he was little.

It’s a bakery, less than six months old since Stiles hasn’t been home in that long and it wasn’t here last time. His dad had probably mentioned it in passing, but Stiles can’t remember for the life of him.

Most importantly, when he pushes the door (completely bypassing the ‘Closed’ sign) it budges open, bell chiming over the entryway. A sharp-eyed man looks up from the counter, mouth already open to snap something, and his words fall away in the face of Stiles pathetic state.

“Look man, I know the sign says ‘No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service.’ but I just had the weirdest night and your shop is the only building with lights on this early and I’m really, really hoping you have some spare clothes behind the counter.”

Stiles stares the dark-haired baker down hopelessly, giving his best doe eyes, and says, “Help?”

It’s not something he’s used to asking for, but put in this situation there’s not much else to do.

For the longest moment the man just stares into Stiles’ eyes, but then he takes a deep breath and the crease between his brows eases.

“Come with me,” he sighs, raising the counter so Stiles can follow him into the back of the shop. “Wouldn’t want the Sheriff’s son to be arrested for public indecency, would we?”

Stiles tries not to bristle, because there are several officers on duty (two of which he had dodged on his way) and the guy seems like he’s about to help him out. Besides, something about the man’s presence is settling, and his frazzled mind finally seems to be focusing for the first time in days.

Of course, it gets a little sketchy when that focus extends to him memorizing the scent of the guy’s shampoo and hearing his heartbeat like a loud, steady drum directly in his ear. Stiles is trying to wrangle in his super senses when a pair of sweatpants and a white tee are shoved into his arms. He turns to blink up at the man, who’s tugging his button up back on sans undershirt, and shifts awkwardly.

“Uh, thanks,” Stiles rasps, and swallows when he realizes how hoarse his voice sounds for the first time.

“Change in here,” the man says curtly, showing Stiles to the employee restroom. “We’ll talk when you’re done.”

Stiles nods, entering the bathroom with a heavy sense of trepidation. He’s going to have a hard time explaining this away, and he knows it. Still, he’s earned a reputation as ‘silvertongue’ at college, and not just because Loki was his favorite Marvel character and Stiles was good with his mouth.

He dresses slowly, bits of a plan coming together as he wipes the dirt from his feet with a damp paper towel and washes his hands. By the time he exits he looks somewhat presentable, mostly in that he’s no longer naked and doesn’t have dirt streaking his face, legs, and feet.

He hears movement towards the front of the shop, and spares a longing glance towards what he assumes in the back door, but before he can make a move the baker pops his head around the corner, eyes narrowed.

“I made tea,” he announces, and it sounds bizarrely threatening. “Come join me.”

Stiles flashes him a sheepish (and one-hundred-percent false) smile and follows him out to one of the tables. They sit.

“So, uh, thanks for the clothes—I’ll wash them and bring them back here tomorrow, if that’s cool?”

The man shrugs ambivalently, but his eyes are sharp and heavy as he regards Stiles. “That’s acceptable. Care to explain your nude jaunt through the night?”

“It’s morning,” Stiles quips back, mouth quicker than his brain, and winces preemptively, waving his hand through the air as though to dismiss his automatic snark. “No, ignore that, I’m rude and yeah, you kinda deserve an explanation here.”

Stiles sighs heavily, looking to the ceiling as if asking for some otherworldly assistance, before crossing his hands and looking back to Peter with faux seriousness. “No one in the history of ever should agree to a drunken carpool with frat boys.”

The guy’s eyebrows raise.

“Not, like, drunk driving carpool. This was more of a everyone-but-the-driver-is-wasted-after-finals-and-the-driver-can’t-turn-down-a-good-bet-to-save-his-life kind of situation. And, if you aren’t following, I was the driver.”

It's a simple enough part for Stiles to play. Stupid college student gets in over his head. Sheriff’s Kid - Bad Again? Cliches exist for a reason.

Stiles falls into his role flawlessly, blushing and wincing and laughing awkwardly at all the right points. He pulls experiences from his life to make the emotions more genuine, though some part of him still feels distant and amused by the whole situation. It’s probably the same part of Stiles that cackles at the misfortune of others and thinks morbid things at the least appropriate times.

So yes, Stiles is caught up in the lie, but he’s also monitoring the guy for a reaction. Nothing about his countenance seems to indicate disbelief so it’s a good bet this is working. Stiles was seven when he taught himself to be a good liar.

Becoming a werewolf just made him a great one. The ability to smell whether somebody was buying his shit or not was invaluable.

And really, who would admit to such a preposterous and embarrassing tale if it wasn’t true?

“—and now that you’ve got enough material to blackmail me for life, what even is your name?”

The guy, who had stared at him steadily through his rant, scent fluctuating between incredulity, amusement, and irritation, tapped neat nails on the table between them. “I’m ever-so hurt you don’t already know it, but very well. It’s Peter.”

Stiles cocked a brow.

“Hale.”

Stiles blinked, because Hale was not only a name he knew from childhood, but one that had popped up in his extensive research into his sudden lycanthropy.

And this guy couldn’t be serious.

“Oh? Any relation to Talia Hale?”

The man smirks. Stiles wonders if he can smell his building irritation at the thought that—

“Oh yes, Alpha Hale is my older sister.”

Good god.

“Did you seriously just sit there listening to my ode on the tribulations of being a dumb college kid for shits and giggles?”

Peter shrugs loosely. “I wanted to see if you could lie convincingly, and it seems you can.”

Stiles’ exhaustion and grumpiness began to peek through the need to protect his secret. He had to find his car, figure out what led to the sleepwalking and how to prevent it in the future, and determine whether or not he was going to be attacked for entering another pack's territory despite having grown up there.

He also had one million questions about the whole ‘how to werewolf’ issue, but he’d been doing fine on his own so far and Stiles hated asking for help. Especially from someone that practically reeked of smugness.

Stiles wrinkled his nose, huffed, and stood. “Thanks for the outfit, I’ll bring it back tomorrow morning.”

He turned to the door, and for a moment Peter let him live in the delusion that he could walk out without a word.

“You know, sweetheart, your life is going to be difficult if you can’t even tell a born were from your average human.”

Stiles stalled, glancing back. It was a good point. Stiles had been in the same high school as Cora Hale for four years and never even suspected. Clearly he wasn’t as observant as he liked to think.

“My life is already pretty difficult, darling. Are you just pointing out what’s evident, or offering a solution?”

Peter made a thoughtful humming sound, watching him expectantly, and Stiles scoffed. “Yeah, I thought not.”

Whatever this man wanted from him, Stiles wasn’t interested.

He was halfway out the door when Peter asked, “Would you like a ride?”

Stiles grit his teeth and tried to think logically. He couldn’t show up at his dads sans jeep, and he really didn’t fancy walking the sixty plus miles to find it.

“I had to do something,” Stiles said, his voice strained.

“You’re human, Stiles,” Scott snapped. “You can’t fight like we can.”

“You’re right, I can’t,” Stiles retorted. “But at least I did something! Guess what, Scott? All of us can’t be true alphas. Some of us have to make mistakes. Some of us have to get out hands a little bloody sometimes. Some of us are human!”

A look of pain passed over Scott’s face, fading for a moment as rage flooded his expression. He opened his mouth to say something when Peter stepped in between the two of them.

“Alright, let’s take this down a few notches,” he said calmly. “To be fair, Scott, Stiles did save our asses. He may be human, but he was the only one who stepped in and did something useful.” He turned to face Stiles. “That being said, you have to understand what it’s like for us to watch you throw yourself into danger.”

“I didn’t throw myself—”

“You hit an Alpha with a baseball bat,” Peter pointed out.

Stiles opened his mouth to argue.

“And you crashed your car,” Peter continued, interrupting him. “And you went running into a hollow that was caving in.”

The man raised a brow challengingly and Stiles’ argument fell short of his lips.

“I know you can hold your own in a fight,” Peter said calmly. “But that doesn’t make it any less worrying for us to see you in danger.”

Stiles felt anger settle in his chest. He didn’t need to be coddled. He didn’t need to be pitied or worried about. He could take care of himself—werewolf powers or not.

“I think you two need a little time to calm down,” Peter said, looking between the boys.

Without another word, Stiles buried his shaking hands in his pockets and stormed away. He stepped outside into the cool evening air, shutting his eyes and letting the drizzling rain fall against his face. The cold air stung his cheeks, the rich petrichor grounding him as he drew in measured breaths.

He blinked away the tears that pricked his eyes as the panic attack began to wane.

“Hey.”

The man’s voice was soft, cautious, but Stiles didn’t have to turn around to know Peter was standing behind him.

“What do you want?” Stiles asked, his voice drained.

“I want to know you’re alright,” Peter answered.

“I’m fine,” Stiles lied.

“My sister used to say that ‘fine’ was just a way of saying effed off, insecure, neurotic and exhausted.”

“I’m fine,” Stiles repeated.

He heard Peter take a step closer, standing beside Stiles and reaching for his hand. His fingers gently brushed against the palm of Stiles’ hand, sending shivers down his spine.

“I know you hate people thinking you’re weak because you’re the only human in our pack,” Peter said quietly. “But you’re the strongest of all of us. You also mean a lot to all of us, and if we lost you, we’d fall to pieces.”

Stiles turned to look at the man, his heart skipping a beat as he met his gaze, finding something there that he thought he would never see; sincerity.

“You’re our anchor,” Peter whispered.

He’s hand slid into Stiles’, his warmth seeping into Stiles’ skin.

“You’re my anchor,” he admitted.

Stiles felt a warmth settle in his chest, a sweet smile lifting the corners of his lips.

“I sort of wanna see now,” Erica said, raising her eyebrows.

“I sort of want everyone to go back to freaking out about Derek and Boyd not being here yet.”

“Yeah, but you weren’t freaking out, you were writing porn,” Scott grumbled.

“I promised an update tonight,” Stiles shrugged. “It’s not my fault I’m at the erotica part. Well, I mean, it is, cause I wrote the outline, but still. When a man promises smut, he better deliver smut - literary smut, not actual sex - coercion is not cool, safe, sane, and consensual, you can totally say no at any point—” 

“How can you rant and type at the same time?”

“My fingers and mouth are both very talented,” Stiles said, mostly because he knew it would make Scott uncomfortable and the guy kind of deserved it for ousting him to the room. And being nosy to begin with. 

Stiles was supposed to be the nosy one in this relationship.

“But you’re a virgin, so no one can really back up those claims,” Isaac inputted, after a moment of drawn out silence.

Stiles shrugged, fingers still clattering away. Stiles’ own body could back them up, but he wasn’t about to bring this conversation into the self-pleasure lane. 

“Could you just stop?” Scott whined, after a minute or two. “This is just awkward, dude.”

Stiles fingers halted momentarily as he turned to look at Scott. He raised his eyebrows slowly. “Scott, are you saying you don’t want me to do something that makes me happy?” he asked.

Scott’s face twisted, like he knew this was a test. “You suck.” 

Stiles gave him a sharp smile, turning back to the laptop. “Mmmmm.” 

Erica laughs. Stiles hears her walk up to Scott and take a seat on the couch. “You got played, McCall.” 

“When Stiles gives a friend test, it’s in your best interest not to fail.”

“Funny that he does it over erotica and not all this life-or-death shit,” Isaac snipes.

Scott shrugs. “He’s going to keep the people he loves safe no matter what. And to stay one of the people he loves, I’d better not piss him off.”

“How positively manipulative, True Alpha,” Peter chimes in.

“All the dick waving,” Stiles mutters derisively, then thinks about what he just said and snickers. “Oh shit, that could actually work here…”

He ignores the looks he’s receiving and moves up in the story, quickly editing and adding a portion. “Aww man, perfect segue.”

“You know we can still hear you,” Peter sounded long-suffering.

“Which is why I’m not editing as I go, since I tend to read aloud when…”

Stiles trailed out as his fingers picked up speed. 

“I’d love for you to edit, Batman,” Erica chirped. “Sounds hot.”

“Shhhhh,” Stiles hushed, fingers continuing their fast-paced dance. “I just had a good thought…” 

Somebody said something else, but Stiles was totally zoned, disregarding everyone for the next few pages.

He rarely got like this, but when he did it couldn’t be ignored. When words flowed from his fingertips instead of him staring at a document, trying to force creativity - well, nothing was going to interrupt him in this, even his annoying pack.

He continued on, fingers moving as quickly as the words formed in his mind, only stopping after three words appeared that he hadn’t consciously thought at all.

Derek Boyd incoming

Stiles stared at the phrase, then quickly backspaced over it and looked to the door.

A moment later Scott stood, cocking his head. 

“I think I hear Derek’s car.” 

And a voice, right from behind Stiles, came.  “Well now, isn’t that interesting.” 

Stiles swallowed. Glanced back at Peter, who was staring down at him.

“Yeah. I write good porn.” 

Peter looked him dead in the eye for a long moment, then tilted his head back and laughed. 

—

Peter:

You write good porn after all.