Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The only sounds in the diner’s front right now are of dull metal cutlery scraping against cheap plates and “Runaround Sue” straining notes on the tiny radio. 
Cherry is busy filling salt shakers, her wide frame taking up most of the space by the glass pie domes.

Other than that it’s quiet. So quiet that only one customer is reciting the laminated menu under hushed breath and a lonely order of eggs and hash is still shyly sizzling on the grill out back.

Instead of finishing her calculation, Maggie lets the pen drop from elbow height. It falls crookedly, making a soft “TA” echo against the scuffed laminate.
She shifts from one swollen foot to another, rolling her head from left to right until she hears a crack.
Maggie’s been on her feet for hours now, and this is her fourth day of double shifts. She can hardly take a break, though. After her daughter Talia moved back in post-divorce, with two children in tow no less, Maggie’s got no other choice. The extra three mouths won’t feed themselves.
 
Planting her palms flat against the formica countertop, a spot under the ring finger immediately takes her print.  It feels glutinous and gross to the touch, like putting your hand in porridge. The urge to wipe it on her apron is immediate.
Maggie grabs the tea towel from the top of her shoulder and removes the goop with three circular strokes. She reminds herself to reprimand Cherry for being so lazy.  

As she’s about to calculate tax, her focus returning to the calculator on her phone, what can only be a small tower of creamers tumbles down like a dairy Jenga. As soon as she hears it, Maggie sighs heavily.
Her huge cobalt eyes, accentuated by the purple shadows beneath, dart to the last booth. 
There’s no doubt who the culprit is. 

“Darryl, you empty out them dishes to make your Pisa tower again?!”

There’s a handful of locals eating today. None of the other patrons look up except for one heavily jowled face. Red hair dusted with grey brushes dangerously close to a vacant, pink-rimmed gaze.
“Maggie...  I’m bored. When my food comin’ out?” 
Darryl’s expression spells he might just die any minute unless he gets his breakfast STAT. Maggie shakes her tawny head in a gesture of reproof.  

It’s not exactly high season for tourism, especially in this sleepy town which is usually just a gas stop on the way towards prettier postcards, like Kennebunkport or Cape Elizabeth.
Still, Maggie doesn’t joke around. She may be “just” a waitress in a shitty diner in a dying seaside hamlet, but this is her job, dammit. She takes pride in it.

“Don’t you worry. Them eggs is comin’. Now kindly put back those creamers you took from the other tables.”
Darryl lets out an exhale that makes his cheeks jiggle. “But Maggie…” 

All it takes is a gum crack. Not even old man Schiller’s hacking smoker's cough from the end of the counter distracts her. 
“Don’t you ‘but Maggie’ me Darryl Easter! I’ll put the fear o’ God right back into ya!” 
By the time his walrus-like form makes it out of his seat, she’s done adding up the check for the couple in station 8. 

“That’s right. 4 in each,” she orders with a lift of her pointy chin. Not even a mountain lion observes someone this closely!
“Yes ma’am,” Darryl replies as he waddles from table to table, ruddy limbs hanging at his sides.

Maggie catches herself in the mirror for a second as she drags herself back to the check pad. She swallows back a fair amount of disappointment.

Maggie Sommers used to be beautiful. Looking at her up close you could just envision the wall of pictures her parents must have proudly displayed: Prom queen, Steeple County Maple Sugar Princess... and then almost a qualifier for the state pageant.
Then life happened. Justin Hollard was as convincing a debater as he was basketball captain. He argued his way into her heart and then shortly after that, both of them into the back seat of his Camaro. 
The couple was pregnant at 17. 
Shotgun wedding at 18. 
Divorced at 21. 
By then Maggie had two toddlers to feed and no education past her high school diploma. When her parents cut her off, she got a job at the diner. 
Cue to 27 years later. 

"I'm going on my break," Cherry declares with noted apathy. Her pursed mouth can almost taste her cigarette. 

Maggie ignores her and continues to spy on Darryl. He is slower in replacing the creamers than the company is in making them. He finally reaches the spot on the far end, more a table for two than a booth, which has a “RESERVED” sign positioned onto the well-scratched top. It’s handwritten in beautiful penmanship yet crookedly folded, almost as if the scribe delegated the plaiting to someone much less attentive to detail. 

Darryl gives it a quizzical glance as he drops some creamers into the condiments tray. He plucks them out of his fishing vest one by one.
“Hey, ugh... Maggie?”
One passing through might indeed wonder why on earth anyone would need to reserve a place in this establishment? (And under normal circumstances it would be a very valid question).
“Someone important comin’ Maggie?”
“It’s March 13th, Darryl.” 

The marked-up calendar hanging despondently from loose iron doesn’t lie, and neither does Darryl. 
“Oh shoot, that it is.”

-

The gurgle of water filling the glass makes Peter look up from his reverie. He smiles when he recognizes her. Except for a few stray silver hairs, and a decidedly exhausted expression painted on her face, Maggie Sommers looks pretty much the same as the day Peter met her. She gifts him a smile, and he warmly takes her hand.
"Maggie... "
It took years, but the woman's hardened outer shell eventually cracked. Now, Peter considers her a friend, and she has taken to him like she would a brother.  

“I’m sorry to say welcome back, Peter.”
Peter nods reluctantly, a knot sinking in his stomach. “I know, Maggie. It’s all right. Maybe this year, huh?”
“One can hope, handsome,” she wishes him. 

Peter Hale’s long fingers play with the cracked edge of the menu. Swiveling his gorgeous blue eyes upward once more, she notices that the pain still flickers there.
Oh sweetheart... 
The hand he was holding travels casually to the dip of his bicep, closing tightly over the roundness.
"You doing okay, hun?" 
Peter nods mutely. He's not, but it's okay. He's used to hiding it.

“Hey Peter, I’ve known you for a few years now. Can a gal be honest?” she asks.
“By all means.”

Looking around her, she notices that Cherry’s come back from break and is bringing Darryl his eggs. She takes advantage and slides into the fake leather chair opposite Peter. It makes a “whoomph” sound as it flattens under her weight.

When he smiles a toothy grin, head tilted in attention, she blushes slightly. She’s always found him handsome and heaven help her he just keeps getting better with age! Maybe it's because he reminds her a bit of Justin... the way he wears his hair parted in that old school way and the cool demeanor with which he carries himself. 
Yup. She would have fallen for someone like him in a heartbeat. 

“Now,” she starts. “I just don’t get how you didn’t get hitched yet. I reckon those fellers down in New York City can’t see a lick past their noses.”
A gurgle of laughter escapes him and his sky eyes suddenly find the menu interesting again. “I appreciate that, Maggie. I really do. And believe me, most of them don’t. But as you know all too well, only one man has my heart.”

Yes, she knows. It’s beyond her, the patience Peter has had and continues to show. “God bless you for havin’ so much faith, sweetheart. I really hope it happens this year.”
“Me too,” he blurts out almost too quickly. 

Jesus, if she only knew. If she only knew how much he needed it to happen.
“Now enough yackin’..." she announces as she slowly rises. "You must be hungry. What’ll I get ya? Do you wanna hear the specials or should I get ya just the usual?”

_

Maggie brings Peter’s order up, hanging it on the wheel before spinning it in the direction of the short-order cook.
Cherry sticks a pencil into the rat’s nest of dark hair piled high on her head. She leans seductively against the drinks station, trying unsuccessfully to get Peter’s attention.

“Who’s that hot guy?” 
There’s no need for Maggie to look. Cherry sure isn’t talking about Darryl. The newbie server can spot a good looking man in the pitch of midnight.

“That’s Peter Hale,” Maggie replies matter-of-factly. Leaning in, she makes sure she’s looking Cherry right into her big chocolate eyes. “And he don’t play for our team, if you catch my drift.”
Cherry’s enthusiasm deflates like a forgotten birthday balloon.

“Oh. He one of them New York fellers?”
For a minute Maggie doesn’t want to answer, and then she does because it’s obvious Cherry isn’t going to let it go.
“Yes. He comes here every year on this day.”
You can see the question mark forming on Cherry’s forehead. “Why only on this day?”

A suggestion of annoyance darkens Maggie’s baby blues.
“Do you ever mind your own business, Cher?”
If the pink Dubble Bubble bursting from between Cherry's lips is any sign, the answer to Maggie’s question is a hard NO.
"You know I can't get enough of this shit, Mags." 

The older server draws the side of her mouth in thoughtfully. “He made a promise to the love of his life. He’d be here every time, on the day, waitin’. If the man wanted him, loved him back… they’d meet over at the cove on the anniversary of when they first met out in California. I guess Peter had brought him there once and they fell in love with the place.”

Cherry tears up, resting her open hand on her heart. “Oh my god that is the most romantic thing ever! But wait, what about the other guy?”
Maggie bobs over to the order wheel. “It's a long story and not one for me to tell. Let's just say Peter realized he’d love him at first sight. The man's name is Stiles.”
Cherry leans in, reveling in this as if it were a soap opera. “And he hasn’t showed?” 

Betraying nothing, Maggie turns around and looks briefly towards Peter with two huge, watery eyes.
“To this day, no. It’s been seven years. But every year he comes anyway. Every year Peter hopes it’ll be the good year.” 

Chapter Text

The sky is a pit of bale and dread. The more it darkens, the more it feels like rain- the air is pregnant with the scent.
Peter waits, a place made for him and Stiles at the small table by the window, and just like him, the heavens above seem to tremble.

He doesn’t need a clock. The shadows from the candles lengthen until they touch his hands, spread up his arms and encase him. He watches them crawl up his limbs like ivy.
As the evening wears on, Peter’s heart sinks.

He can’t wait another year. He will, but he knows this one will break him. If ever Stiles were to come back, that’s exactly how he’d find him: the shell of a man who once loved with a torturous fury that not even the elements could muster.

Peter is like the sea he can hear battering against the crags outside. It runs red where the sunset had reached it. Red in the changing sunset- red like the embers burning in Peter’s thrumming heart.

He was down there earlier, on the beach. A mass of dank mist seemed to close on all things like a grey pall. He prayed this wasn’t an omen of how the evening is going to end.

Peter has waited 7 years. Seven orbits.
Beacon Hills… those days. The guys. It all seems so far away now.

This has been his penance- the forced distance. The anticipation. Wondering if Stiles will tarry or simply never show up at all.
He doesn’t resent them for their happiness. He had it once, long ago. And then he did something unspeakable. Something he wouldn’t forgive of someone else, so he didn’t expect to be forgiven himself.
It was an accident, and he tried to tell them that, but he had done so many terrible things before that, deliberately cruel and vicious, that they didn’t believe him.
And so he had lost all of them. But worst of all was that he lost Stiles, the man who had truly seen how he’d changed. He was convinced Stiles had seen who he really was and wanted to be: 
a better man.
Grief obscures these things, though. Peter knew that then and he knows it now. It just hurt to be cast aside like that.
On second thought, maybe he resents their happiness, just a little.

_

Another hour has passed. He can tell by the dropping temperature outside and the candles standing 3 inches shorter than before.
Peter’s guilt building in his chest, like a swirling chasm it swallows his voice and sucks away his breath.
He curls his hidden hand into a fist; the nails biting into the soft flesh of his palm. The sear gives him a moment of release from the crushing sense of abandonment, and he shakes his head.
“He’s not coming,’ he says to no one. 
Pursing his mouth he studies the gaping doorway with a strength of spirit he doesn’t realize he possesses in that moment, and yet… if he could see himself he’d notice just how much his fierceness shines brightly in his moist sea eyes.

I’ll be okay, he thinks to himself, and as soon as he does so Peter knows it is a lie.
The ache is there all year round, and it never goes away. Sometimes it's tolerable, put away in a box in the corner of his mind. Other times with some help – sometimes alcohol, sometimes sex, usually lots of both – he's able to almost, almost, pretend it isn’t there.

No one in his circle is the wiser, not that he has many friends. So on the bad days, the ones where the intensity of missing Stiles rages through him, leaving him incapable of getting out of bed, all he can do is dwell in his misery, a prisoner to his feelings. As he rips apart pillows with his bare hands and swallows back bile chased with vodka, he wonders when all this will end. 
When he’s tired enough to fall asleep again, hoping to wake up in a different mood, it’s usually night to cloak him once more and remind him he's in bed alone. 

Most of the time, though, the agony lands somewhere in between, and dampens any glimpse of happiness he might have.

_

Midnight nears.
Peter folds and unfolds his hands on the table top, watching each new pattern he makes with them and thinking of Stiles’ hands, folded in his own, running through his hair, caressing his cheek.
If he inhales deeply enough, he can almost catch a hint of Stiles’ cologne wafting through the air. 

“Hello Peter.”

He’s not imagining the scent. Because when he looks up and stops breathing, filling the gap of the open door is Stiles Stilinski.

Peter would recognize that fragrance from a mile away and if only he could fill his lungs with air and articulate a coherent thought, he’d tell Stiles as much.

This isn’t a romcom- neither runs to the other with open arms while the rain pours down on them- though judging by Stiles’ damp hair it has begun to drizzle outside.
Peter presses a thumb into the fleshy part of his other hand and Stiles bends to lean against the frame.

Jesus Christ, he’s stunning Peter thinks. He’s changed- and yet he hasn’t. Peter’s eyes rove over him briefly, enough to understand Stiles is thicker now- fills out his flaming red sweater as if it were painted on. Not to mention the jeans. His hair is longer, falling past his brow. 

The one thing that never changes, though, are your eyes. That same golden gaze stays transfixed on the wolf, and Peter’s heart pounds out a rhythm in his chest that can only be compared to the drums of battle.
And isn’t this a battle? Hasn’t Peter been fighting this war for 7 long years?
But who’s won, he wonders. Is he the victor?

Time will tell. The first line has been taken- Stiles finally showed.  

No matter what happens now, from tonight, nothing will be the same and Peter suddenly wishes it was two minutes ago when his fate seemed sad but inevitable. This unknowing- this is far worse. He notices the tears pooling in Stiles' eyes and he falters. What does this mean?!

Stiles’ approaching footsteps reverberate through his bones, rattling his ribcage. As the man advances, the intense gaze burns through Peter’s skin like sun to paper and sear into every nerve in his body.
He’s on fire and yet also so numb, burning but frozen in place. 

The shadow falls across the table and Stiles takes a seat directly opposite.
What was quiet falls silent. Or has the ringing in Peter’s ears drowned out every sound that isn’t the mad rush of blood pumping through his veins?

He can’t tell which way is up and which is down, and the world feels like it’s turning inside out. Peter's stomach is twisting.

Relief and more crushing anxiety roll through him like the storm clouds also gathering outside. He didn’t send someone else to relay a message. Stiles wanted – needed? – to do this face-to-face.
Peter can’t work out if that's good or bad.

“You look great, Peter.” Stiles smiles faintly. 

The knot in Peter’s chest loosens, just a little, and he draws in a deep breath. He can smell the scent of him so clearly now; clean laundry, coffee and a trace of mint mojito gum. And
Tom Ford Noir Extreme.
They sit in silence for another long minute before Peter can bring himself to smile. In that minute, he makes a thousand deals with every deity that he does not even believe in.

The luminous umber eyes reflect the candlelight. Stiles peers out from beneath heavily lashed lids.
Peter forces himself to hold that penetrating gaze, the sky meeting the seam of the earth. A part of him desperately wants to know why he came now- a darker, hidden side is afraid of what sinister things he might discover in that gaze.

In the sixty seconds that pass, which seem an eternity, the longest of Peter’s entire life, it all comes back. The fear, the pain,- the anguish and regret and longing. It's all a flood of emotions flitting through those beautiful eyes, and each a stab in the heart.

He wonders what flashes in his; what does Stiles see? Is the filter contrition? Does he read grief, he wonders.
Because that’s all I need him to see, that I am so fucking sorry.

He can feel one of the sneakered legs bouncing beneath the table, can see the interlocked fingers twitch and it is so overwhelmingly, so authentically and so achingly beautifully Stiles it makes him choke up.

Peter drags the courage to the surface. He's the first to speak.
Each word falls loud, echoes in the room like a candlestick falling onto church marble.

“You came.”
The man nods.
Peter’s chest rises and falls and he plummets into the speech he has painstakingly perfected over the last seven years.
“Stiles… I never meant to hurt anybody, not then, not since you had come into my life. You changed me, Stiles. Only you. Not even discovering Malia was my daughter mattered because the second you began showing me acceptance is when I fell irrevocably in love with you.”

Stiles listens. His expression betrays nothing.
Peter swallows hard, the wood beneath him giving a creak as he shifts in his chair.
“This isn’t an excuse, it’s just a fact. I didn’t mean for it to happen, but at the end of the day, her death is on my hands, and I take responsibility for that. It may be something you can never forgive. I understand that. All I can say is I’m sorry. I’m so very, very sorry. And…not a day has gone by that I haven’t thought about you. Not a day has gone by that I haven’t felt your absence. I still love you with everything I am.”

It’s then he falls silent, the breath bursting from between his lips. It takes much more effort to speak than usual. Stiles watches him, his head tilted, his thumb scratching at his palm. He is so quiet, and it unnerves Peter. He looks down at the table to avoid those vivid russet eyes.

After a long moment, too long, Stiles’ expression softens. Fresh moisture makes his eyes look like it just rained in the redwood forest.
Finally… mercifully… he retorts.
“I came every year, Peter.”

Peter's focus darts up, eyes saucered.

“You...?” He can’t choke out the rest even if he tried.

“Yeah. I couldn’t help it. I came every year, but I could never bring myself to come in. I sat in my car, where the dip hides the turn. I’d climb out of it and stand in the darkness like some sad scarecrow and I’d watch you. Your shadow moving around in the candlelight here." 

“But why… why didn’t you-“  CHRIST!!

Stiles cuts him off.  
“I needed you. I needed you so fucking much, but I couldn’t make myself come inside.”
Stiles’ voice cracks. Peter wants so badly to reach out and grab his hand, but he knows it’s too soon. He needs to give Stiles space.

“What changed? Why wait SEVEN fucking years?!”
His voice is barely above a whisper, the words a fractured, fragile thing, just like Peter… but they carry so much weight.
Stiles looks down, partly in shame, partly to hide the wounded look tarnishing the sparkle to his eyes.

“I nearly lost everything. My entire world was gone for a while, and all I could think about was you, and how if I never spoke to you again, how if I didn’t come and see for myself… well... you would never know that I love you. I never stopped loving you.”  

The sea caresses tide-smoothed pebbles as their stares lock.
“Stiles…”
“I loved you then, when you broke my heart. I’ve loved you every day since, even when that love nearly destroyed me, and everyone around me. I never stopped; I’m not able to stop, Peter. And most of all- I don’t want to.”

His name is a kiss blown from between Stiles’ lips. It sends shivers through him, and this time he doesn’t even try to stop himself reaching and grasping his hands between his own.
Stiles looks down at them, they twitch and he’s seeming to resist the urge to pull back, which makes Peter’s heart cinch.

“Stiles, I... I can never make up to any of you what I did, but I have spent every day wishing I could. I wished that I were dead instead, and I tried to my best to get there a couple of times.
But I couldn’t go through with it. I have spent every day waiting for you. Not just this day; every day in between was spent waiting for this, searching for the words to describe how I feel about you, but they were always inadequate.”

He squeezes Stiles’ knuckles and wills him to his emotions as they scorch through his veins like wildfire.

Peter tried to kill himself?!
“Jesus Christ, Peter!”

“Stiles,” Peter brushes his fingers gently. “There are no words that can express how much I love you, and how deeply sorry I am that I broke your trust. If it takes my whole life, I will do whatever it takes for you to forgive me.”

Silence crackles between them for several breaths. As the two men sit and study, hands and eyes glued, Stiles is the first to confess.
“There’s nothing to forgive, Peter. Someone as capable of love as you can also be saved. I like to think the same of me."

“What? W-what do you mean?”
Peter had scoured every text he could find about resurrecting the dead. He had attempted a thousand rites and rituals to undo the horrific mistake he had made, but none of them had worked.
“Is... Is she...?”

Stiles’s face jigsaws, he looks confused for a minute, before realisation dawns. “No, Peter… she’s gone. But it wasn’t your fault. Do you hear me? It wasn’t your fault.”

Peter’s face is a mask of suppressed hope. “I didn’t mean for it to happen...”

“I know. But listen- it literally wasn’t your fault. There was this whole thing with druid mind control happening that we had no idea about until later. It wasn’t just an accident, Peter. You were being manipulated and it really wasn’t your fault.”

It takes Peter a minute to process that. All these years of torment and…He shakes his head. Things aren't lining up. 
“Then... why didn’t you ever come inside?”

Stiles has to look away. A low and unpleasant hum warms his blood. 
“Shame. I had said such terrible things to you back then. I... I was unsure you’d forgive me.”

He bends to Peter, whose mouth hangs open in surprise. “I tried to come after you almost as soon as you left for New York. I couldn’t bear living with what I’d said, and I had already considered the fact that maybe you were telling the truth. I nearly destroyed all of my friendships. Before we knew what happened, they couldn’t get past the fact that I wanted to find you, and to find you not to kill you. But to get you back.”

“Stiles, that would have been fair then,” Peter whispers. 
“No, regardless of what we guessed had happened how could I ever kill the man I was in love with? And then, when it was over, and they knew, I couldn’t find you anymore. Your last known turned up empty. Someone said they’d seen you pack up and leave- no forwarding address.”

Stiles’ throat thickens, he blinks back tears. Peter sucks in air, about to explain- tell him he’d rented a cabin in the woods and had literally gone off the grid…
“I looked everywhere I could think of. And then this day rolled around and I came here. I sat in my car and I tried to convince myself that you would forgive me for being so cruel and not coming after you straight away, but it was no good. And with every passing year, the guilt grew.”

Stiles watches as Peter digests all this. Knowing now that this all was a misunderstanding. That they could have been together for these last years and… he waits for him to snatch his hands away, tell him to fuck off from his life- walk away and never come back. He'd have every right to do so. 

The man’s heart thuds in his chest like it’s his last moments and he hopes Peter can hear it. That he can pick up on how fucking terrified he is of losing him.

It’s a while before Peter speaks again, but not because he’s upset. He looks straight into Stiles’s eyes and waits for the sentiment to come to life on his tongue.
“Stiles... You came looking for me?”

He can see him, collar turned up, fists stuffed into his pockets, roaming the streets of New York City on this mad quest. Shit! All this time wasted!

“Of course I did,” Stiles states matter-of-factly, as if there existed no other option.  “I wanted to know that you were ok, but when I found you here that first year, I just... froze. I’m sorry, Peter, I’m so fucking sorry. I don't know what came over me.”

Tears prickle at Stiles’ lids and Peter dies a little inside. What tortured, shattered creatures they both are.
He cups Stiles’ dimpled cheek and thumbs away the tear that brims over.

“Oh Stiles...my love. There’s nothing to forgive. I think maybe we’re done breaking each other, baby.”

_

The men sit, talking for a long time. The awkwardness slowly gives way to comfort and ease, the same that they had long ago.  Soon Stiles has Peter in stitches like he always did.
Peter fell in love with Stiles’ quick wit and humour. To see him now, his baby blues crinkled with laughter and his hands caught up in Stiles’, no one sane could correlate him to the sad-eyed man whom had sat forlornly in that very lighthouse every year awaiting his fate.

The air is chilly and Stiles shivers. Peter comes over, wraps a blanket around them both and slinks an arm through his.  This is the first time their bodies have touched in eight years.
Stiles leans into it – welcomes it- and Peter sighs like he's found his heaven. 

“I missed you, Peter,” Stiles says, his face buried in the other mans neck, his warm breath sending heat coiling through his core.

“Is it over with him?” Peter enquires timidly. He needs to ask. He'd heard...  “You don’t still…”

Stiles scoffs, wagging his head until his sandy hair curtains his view.
“It’s definitely over. It was over before it started, Peter. It was over the minute I laid eyes on you in Beacon and knew I'd never feel that way about someone except you.”

Peter lights up... tilts his face towards him, just a declaration hanging between them now. “Good. He was your first love. I intend to be your last.”
Stiles' heart lurches, and he whispers into the night. “You already are, Peter. You already are.”

He has hold of Stiles’ arms and Stiles’ fingers are pressed hard against his muscular chest. The heat between each sparks, and Peter can feel the intensity of their attraction sail over his skin.
Peter stares at Stiles’ plump lower lip, which he's nibbling on, staring back at Peter’s cupid bow.
Subtly, gently, Peter shifts their weight, so he is propping Stiles up against him, and lightly, he inches in.
"Kiss me, Peter. I beg you." 

The caress of lips on his mouth sends currents of desire through Peter. Stiles whimpers, moving his tongue over Peter's with almost a punishing passion.

It’s fireworks when their mouths mesh fully, the crashing of two planets, the big bang recreated, and everything around them melts away.
Stiles’ tongue slides over the seam of Peter's mouth, coaxing it ever wider.
They breathe the same oxygen, passing it back and forth between their lungs. Peter’s hands map down Stiles’ body, reaching the waist of his jeans. He slides his thumb into the slight gap where Stiles’ hip bone pivots, caressing the soft skin there. 
It all comes back- the muscle memory- the savage harmony that was once their lovemaking. 

Small gasping sounds escape Stiles' smothered mouth- rumbling against Peter’s torso, and Peter tightens in his jeans.

They break. His mouth descends from Stiles’, down his jaw, to the sweet spot that he recalls existed right where his neck sloped into his shoulder. One nibble there and Stiles melts completely, his knees giving way as he clutches onto Peter for support.
"Jesus, Peter. Take me. Please take me." 

Peter is strong and pulls him near as they descend to the floor, the blanket smoothed out beneath them.
_

The men collapse breathless - chest to chest. They’re glistening in sweat and panting- giggling almost. Totally enraptured by each other, Stiles rests his chin on Peter's sternum, licking away the last of the come he'd previously stained him with. 

“I love you,’ Peter whispers, pressing his lips against Stiles’ forehead, smoothing away his bangs. "I'm still getting used to this longer hair, but it suits you." 
Stiles wiggles in close. In a lazy, sensuous movement he grinds into Peter's spent sex and settles between his legs. 
"I was actually planning on cutting it. And...I love you, too, Peter. More than I'll ever be able to express in words.”

He studies the wolf, amber eyes meeting sky blue. Pleading for something unspoken.
"You don't have to prove anything to me, Stiles." 

Stiles drops a light kiss on his chin. He thinks he can't love more than this, but he's going to try. 

“Peter, will you come home with me?’

The adoration... the pure bliss... it swells in Peter. “Stiles, you are my home. Wherever you are is where I want to be.”

_

Maggie had bustled over a while ago, carrying a couple of burgers and chips, and watched delighted as Peter scarfed down the lot, surprised he didn’t choke. The way those boys went through all the food, you’d think they hadn’t eaten since the day Stiles had left him.

She sits behind the counter now, her shift over half an hour ago, but she’d stayed on willingly to watch them, these two sweethearts finally together.
Her head rests against the wall. She stifles a yawn, and it doesn’t go unnoticed by Peter.

“Oh damn, Maggie, I’m sorry. We must be keeping you up!” Peter exclaims, and Stiles looks around sheepishly at the empty tables. “We’ll get going, ma’am!”

“You stop it with the ma’am, Stiles. You’re like family. And no rush boys, I’ll be ok. Stay as long as you need,” Maggie says. It doesn’t help her case that her sentence is punctuated by two yawns.

Peter slides out of the booth and walks over to where Maggie perches. He leans in and clasps her wrist. 
“Maggie, I need to thank you. If it wasn’t for you, this wouldn’t have been possible. I don’t know how to repay you for being my anchor these seven years.”

God bless him. “Don’t be silly, pumpkin, it was my pleasure.”
She lowers her voice a notch. 
“I’m so glad he finally showed, sweetheart. You’re a different man with him, Peter. I saw that as soon as you walked through the door. I can see why he was worth waiting for. Now go do something I very much would do if I were you, ya hear me?" She offers him a mischevious wink. 

Peter laughs, gives her a quick kiss on the cheek that makes her blush as soon as he pulls off.
He spares her the quip of “We already have, Mags. Twice.”

Instead, he beams at her and gives her forearm a shake. His nod indicates where Stiles is sitting.
“You keep that table reserved for us, ok? We’ll be back every year all the same.”

Her grin is priceless. She just might be their biggest fan.  “I’m counting on it, sweet pea. I'm counting on it.”

Chapter Text