#yes 6

Talia’s butler bowed as he opened the front door with a subdued, “Your Highness, welcome.”

“Mr. Boyd,” Peter greeted as he stepped into the entryway. “How are your boys doing?”

“Very well, sir. Vernon is in his last year at USC. He’ll be graduating with honors.”

“How wonderful.”

“Her Majesty is a bit delayed and gives her apologies. She asked that you wait in the solarium, where she will be with you shortly.”

“Of course,” Peter agreed, biting the inside of his cheek to hold the false smile on his lips. His sister liked to make him wait, especially when she was angry with him.

The Beacon Hills Manor had always been too stern for Peter’s taste. The entryway opened to a dark-stained double staircase with wolves carved into the handrails, frozen mid-leap with their ivory teeth bared and garnets glinting in their eyes.

He walked between them, through a massive gallery lined with imposing portraits of long-dead relatives. They had frightened him as a child, the way they all seemed to gaze downward at him, their huge faces drawn into ferocious expressions that seemed judgmental at best, furious at worst.

At the end of the gallery, he passed through a set of over-sized wooden doors inlaid with copper triskelions. The solarium always felt humid, just short of stifling. Outside the glass walls, the summer garden sprawled outward in shocking beauty. Inside, orchids and vining plants hung from the ceiling and various tropical plants framed the delicate wicker furniture.

They had lived in this house only briefly, when Peter was ten years old, Talia already moved out and in graduate school. He had hated it here, hated the isolation of Beacon Hills and the loneliness of roaming the woods by himself, all of the cousins and his other friends back in San Francisco. Talia had liked the location for raising her family, though, set far back in the woods where her children could shift and run freely without fear of being harassed by the press.

Peter sat on the wicker couch, unbuttoning the top few buttons of his shirt as a maid hurried in with a glass of iced tea. Peter thanked her and pulled out his phone. He already had a text from Stiles.

How’s Beacon Thrills?

Stiles, by some coincidence, had grown up in Beacon Hills, but he hadn’t even been born yet when Peter lived here. Even then, it would have been unlikely for them to ever interact. Even werewolves not of royal lineage tended to live apart from human society. Peter had attended private schools and taken lessons with private tutors. Stiles had gone to the local public school.

Her Majesty is making me wait in the greenhouse. She’s literally letting me sweat it out.

He was so focused on tapping out his response that he didn’t hear his sister come in until she said, “And what’s that smile about?”

Peter realized, with some irritation, that he was smiling like an idiot at his phone. He schooled his expression into something prim as he looked up, slipping his phone into his pocket. “Why, the thought of your arrival, of course,” he replied.

“Resorting to flattery already?” Talia stood just inside the doorway, an eyebrow raised and her lips twisted into a smirk. She wore white linen pants and a deep purple blouse that matched her flats. Her eyes flashed red, and his shone blue in response. They stared each other down for a long moment before, at once, they both broke into soft laughter.

Rising from his seat, Peter crossed the room and hugged her around the middle, lifting her from her feet just briefly. He kissed her cheek as he set her down, and she returned the gesture. “It’s nice to see you, Talia.”

She pinched his cheek. “I wish we could do this when it’s not about you giving ulcers to an entire staff of publicity agents.”

Peter spun on his heel, walking back to the sitting area. “Oh, for God’s sake, I don’t know what everyone is so up in arms about. It can’t be such a terrible shock. I own a vineyard and an unholy amount of vests.” He dropped back onto the couch with an exhausted huff.

“It was always going to be a big deal, Peter,” Talia chided, following and sitting in the chair opposite him. “We’re the first generation that could even dream about going public with this. Besides, you know how the press likes to make a fuss.”

“Well, it will all settle down soon enough,” Peter insisted, waving a careless hand and picking up his iced tea. Another maid came in with a drink for Talia – raspberry lemonade, by the smell of it.

“You could have handled the interview a bit better.” She took a sip of her drink, glaring at him over the top of her glass.

It had been a standard catching-up-with-the-royals sort of thing. Peter had been prepared to talk about his business ventures, his house, his vineyard – hell, even his cat. Instead, they’d asked when he thought he would be ready to find a woman and settle down.

“What was I supposed to do? Lie and say I hadn’t found the right one? Apologize for dashing their hopes of more royal babies?” What he had said was, ‘Well, I’m gay, so I’m going to say ‘never’.’ The startled look on the interviewer’s face had been the highlight of his year so far.

“I suppose tact would have been too much to ask for,” Talia laughed softly. She shook her head, but she looked fond. “Anyway, it will blow over as long as you keep your head down and don’t go causing a scandal right after it. You know how the royal watchers get once they have their eyes on someone.”

Peter slouched back in his chair, swirling his glass idly in his hand. “And what sort of scandal do you suppose I would make?”

Talia stared at him for a long moment, lips pursed, and he recognized it as her ‘diplomacy face.’ Weighing her words before she spoke. Finally, she said, “I hear that human boy is still hanging around quite a lot.”

“Stiles?” Peter shrugged a lazy shoulder. “Sure. We’re friends.”

“Peter. Come on, you know how it’s going to look. He’s half your age.”

“He’s not half my age,” Peter argued. “He’s nineteen. That’s at least sixty percent of my age.”

“Thought about it that much, hmm?” she teased. When Peter didn’t have a reply beyond a glare, she pressed on. “He’s human. He’s inappropriately young. He’s not from any sort of notable background. If the press catch wind of him, they’ll have a field day.”

Peter rolled his eyes. “It’s innocent, honestly. He’s an interesting person that I enjoy spending time with. There’s nothing romantic about it.”

Talia looked skeptical. “So, what, you’ve taken him under your wing? Brought home a stray?”

“The opposite is closer to the truth, honestly,” Peter admitted.

It had been his first night sneaking out to a gay club. Thirty-two years old – and how sad was that? Peter had always been too wary of being recognized or mobbed by paparazzi.

It was mostly a human club, which lowered his chances of being recognized somewhat, but plenty of humans followed and fawned over werewolf royalty. Werewolves in Europe at least got to split attention with the human royal families. Here in the states, the Hales received the full and brutal fixation of the royal watchers.

Peter put on heavy eye makeup and wore his hair loose and curly, instead of gelled back, as he usually wore it. Checking himself in the mirror before going out, Peter had hardly recognized himself.

When he got to the club, he felt a little lost at first. He got himself a wolfsbane drink and nursed it, eyeing the dance floor uncertainly.

“You look like you’re new!” a voice yelled over the noise. Peter stifled a wince. He could have heard just fine at normal speaking volume. When Peter turned, there he was: loose-limbed and joyful in nothing but a pair of skinny jeans and sneakers. Bits of glitter stuck to his abdomen.

Peter leaned closer to him. “You look like you’re new,” he shot back. “There’s no way you’re old enough to be in here.”

The boy laughed and sidled up close, chest-to-chest. Against Peter’s ear, he said, “I’m Stiles.”

They spent a couple of hours dancing and drinking, both of them getting looser as the night went on, touching and laughing more freely. On the dance floor, Peter got a thigh between Stiles’s legs. Stiles ground onto it, wound his arms around Peter’s neck, and kissed him.

They were making out when the fire alarm sounded. Peter doubled over at the noise, hands clasped over his ears. The lights came up, and the sprinklers overhead went off almost immediately, dousing the crowd and dredging up a new wave of noise as people shrieked and pushed for the exits.

When Peter looked up, Stiles was standing next to him, a hand on Peter’s shoulder, surveying the chaos with a frown. His hair was already drenched, slicked down to his forehead. He looked at Peter, swore, then bent down to speak softly in his ear. “We have to get you out of here. Someone’s gonna recognize you.”

The next thing Peter knew, they were on the back patio, scaling the fence to jump into the adjacent alleyway. The winter had started to loosen its grasp lately, but this late at night, drenched to the bone, Peter felt the chill coming on fast. He couldn’t imagine how bad it would be for a human. Stiles grabbed his hand and headed off down the alley at a jog.

“Where are we going?” Peter asked, the first in a long list of questions whizzing through his head. Had Stiles known who he was all along? Why hadn’t he said anything? Was he going to tell anyone?

“My place,” Stiles said. “It’s just a block and a half, and my roommates are out of town. Don’t worry.”

Peter should have been worried. He should have been terrified and calling security staff to come and retrieve him.

Instead, he followed Stiles home to a shitty, tiny three-bedroom apartment. They dried off and made hot chocolate and microwave taquitos. They stayed up all night, just talking. They talked about everything. Their lives, their histories, their friends and families, their fears.

There was a moment that night.

Stiles had been lying on the floor with his feet on the couch, his head pillowed on Peter’s calf. A mosaic glass lamp, hung in the corner of the room, cast shadows of blue and gold over his face. Peter had told Stiles his many reasons for keeping his sexuality out of the press, and Stiles listened quietly until he had poured out his every thought on the matter.

Stiles folded his hands on his stomach and stared up at the ceiling. “You know, the way I think about it, it’s all about power. You’re supposed to sit there and wait for someone to make a judgment on you. Will they accept you or won’t they? That’s the set-up. You bare your soul and wait for them to judge it.”

“So then should you just not do it? Keep things to yourself?” Peter asked.

“Nah, you take the power back. Decide what is and isn’t an acceptable response to you coming out, and you judge them right back. Anyone that isn’t a fucking delight when you come out? Kick ‘em to the curb.” He kicked the back of the couch with a smug little expression.

Stroking his fingers through Stiles’s hair, Peter wished he could have half the brassy courage this boy had. “Is that what you did?” he asked.

Stiles laughed, and the sound bubbled through the room like energy. “No, I cried like a baby. But it’s what I’d do if I could do it again.” He sighed and looked up at Peter, eyes tired but creased with a smile at the corners. “If you decide to come out, promise you won’t give them the power, okay?”

Peter stared down at his face, at his earnest concern for a werewolf royal, of all people. For someone he didn’t even know. For a terrifying moment, he thought, I could fall in love with him. Then he shook the thought off, set it aside.

He had never had a best friend before. The werewolf nobility Peter had spent his whole life surrounded by were shameless ladder climbers, social strategists and politicians. Stiles had a best friend growing up, Scott, but they had started to grow apart since Scott went out of state for college. Over the course of a few months, he and Stiles become nearly inseparable.

Maybe it should have been weird, what with the age gap and their radically different backgrounds. Peter had grown up in multi-million dollar mansions, waited on by service staff and trailed by body guards. Stiles had grown up in an understaffed sheriff’s department, doing his math homework in vacant interrogation rooms because his dad couldn’t afford a babysitter as often as he needed one.

But Stiles was funny and sharp as a whip, earnest and passionate. He never once treated Peter like royalty. He pushed him out of his comfort zone and called him on his bullshit, and Peter adored him for it.