Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s dark and he’s not alone, that much Peter Hale is aware of. His mouth tastes of dirt and sweat. His head aches something awful, much like the headaches he used to get during his recovery from the Wild Hunt. It’s been a while though, roughly a year since his last one. But this one, this one is a reminder that he probably shouldn’t have followed Stiles into something that - frankly - wasn’t any of his business in the first place. This is what he gets for being helpful , a dry throat and mouth, and a bad taste on his tongue.

He’d merely been curious, intrigued by the discourse he’d walk in on between Stiles and Scott during a preliminary pack meeting they were holding at Derek’s loft. Peter hadn’t even meant to be there that day for it, simply stopping by to check in on Derek, as he did from time to time. The words ‘ bodies’ and ‘ exsanguination’ floated through the air and caught his attention, however, so he decided to stick around and hang out in the background to listen.

~~

“Bodies, Scott. Three of them in the last three weeks.” Stiles waggles three fingers around for emphasis. “That’s one a week, so-”

Scott sighs. “I just don’t think it’s supernatural. Both my mom and your dad said there were no wounds on the bodies. No bite marks, no claw marks.”

Stiles shakes his head in disbelief. Peter can practically smell the frustration wafting from him, even in the back of the room. “Yeah, no wounds. How the hell did they bleed out if there were no wounds on the bodies?” He sounds tired as if he’s been trying to explain this far longer than Peter’s been in the room.

“So what do you think it is then?” Scott asks, sounding just as bored of this conversation. He’s already made up his mind, that much Peter can tell simply by looking at the way Scott stands with both feet planted firmly on the ground, arms folded across his chest. 

Stiles is busy wringing his hands together, his feet dancing with uncertainty, a stark contrast to Scott. It takes him a moment to speak as he glances from Scott to Derek, letting loose a pent-up bit of breath. “Vampires.” He exhales.

~~

“Peter?”

Peter already knows the body next to him with the arm pressed against his own, is Stiles. He doesn’t have to see him to know. He can’t see at all as the void of darkness stretches out in front of him. 

“Peter?” Stiles calls again and thank goodness the kid has some sense not to start shouting and panicking as he whispers. Peter shushes him, tries to use all of his senses to figure out where they are. Blue eyes glow in the darkness as his heightened sight slides into place like a film over his face. He can see the room, not as clearly as he would have liked to, but he can make out most shapes nonetheless. 

It’s a room, for sure. There are four walls, concrete by the feel of them on his back and shoulders, a rough floor, and some stairs that lead off to a door that sits atop them. Peter can smell old grass, mold, and moss and sees blackened shapes of it scattered about the walls and piles on the floor. There’s a rusted metal smell too, underneath it all, but it’s coming from the old pipes that line the corner of the room, one that snakes down to a sink that sits far back against the opposite wall. 

There’s not much to it. 

Stiles is struggling next to him, starting to move too much and make too many noises. Peter flicks his gaze over to him, blue disappearing in the dark. His eyes have adjusted to the dark by now and he sees Stiles trying to wriggle out of the bindings on his hands. Peter feels his own wrapped tightly around his wrists and without a second thought, he snaps them apart, ripping the strip of leather that held them together. He can see Stiles still at the sound, eyes open wide as he sits in the dark, blind. If they weren’t in such dire straits, Peter might chuckle, but he crouches low to survey Stiles instead.

Watching Stiles try to navigate the dark by sound alone is quite amusing. Stiles strains an ear out before him, waits, and listens. He scrunches back when he realizes there’s something in front of him, presses his back up against the wall. “Peter?” He calls out again, this time a bit more loudly than the last. It’s quiet, but his voice bounces in the space around them.

“Will you -” Stiles jumps at his words, whips his head around as if he can somehow magically see. He’s looking too far left. “-shut up?” Peter quips back, watching as Stiles’ face fidgets into a frown and scowl.

“You could be a little more helpful.” Stiles hisses, returning to struggle against his bindings. Peter knows Stiles has no actual strength to rip at the leather but that doesn’t mean he's giving up any time soon. “Pete-mmph-“ 

It doesn’t take much for Peter to shove Stiles over, just a quick push to his shoulder and Stiles is landing face-first onto the concrete floor. This does make Peter chuckle, puffing hair from his nose as he stands up, leaving Stiles to try and turn himself so he can breathe. 

“How was that helpful?” He barks out from the floor. 

Peter shrugs, even though he knows Stiles can’t see the movement, and pads over to another wall. This one has a small window sitting high above where his hands can reach. He looks around for something to stand on. “Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you meant helpful to me.” He can hear Stiles grumbling as he finds enough force to pull himself back up, his heartbeat racing as he uses what core muscles he has to do so. 

There’s a stool across the room, so Peter strides across it, shoes grinding down on the spots of grass and moss on the floor as he grabs the stool and steps back towards the window. Peter steps up on it and wipes his hand across the window in one quick motion, disturbing a layer of dust caked on the glass panels. 

Moonlight shines through, illuminating the room in a dull wash of blue. It isn't much, but Peter’s certain they can both see now. Stiles stirs against the wall, still trying to get out of his bindings as he pushes himself to his knees. “Peter.” This time it isn't a question, Stiles isn't asking for help, he's demanding it. 

Peter rolls his eyes, ignoring him instead, looking out the window at the moon sitting high in the sky. It's not full, not even remotely close. Stiles stands and walks over to him, sliding his feet annoyingly loud on the dirty concrete floor. It makes Peter roll his eyes again before jumping down from the stool to help him. 

He grabs Stiles by the shoulders, smirking at the slightest of jumps the boy does when Peter’s fingers grip him and spin him around to face away. They may be somewhere potentially dangerous, but that doesn’t mean Peter can’t have a bit of fun. “Hold still.” The words sound tenderly spoken, but Stiles’ entire body tenses beneath Peter’s digits, as if he knows nothing from Peter could ever come across as tender.

Dragging his hands downward, letting his fingers linger along Stiles’ arms, along the tiny strip of skin showing between his jacket cuff and leather binding, Peter huffs a chuckle at the uptick of the heartbeat he can hear. Stiles doesn't say a word, doesn't make a move to flinch away. If only they weren't stuck in a dingy basement with their lives hanging in the balance. 

One swift slice with Peter’s claws and the leather bindings around Stiles’ wrists break and fall to the floor between them. It's only then that Stiles moves away, turning back around to face Peter. He's rubbing at his wrists, which Peter assumes are red and raw from all the struggling he'd been doing. 

“Where are we?” Stiles asks into the darkness of the room. Peter shrugs, but he's still not sure if Stiles can see the motion of his shoulders in the dim blue light. 

“Not sure.” Is Peter’s reply. He can see Stiles roll his eyes and shake his head, but it's true. The last thing Peter can remember clearly is sitting in Stiles’ jeep, pulling up to the abandoned house they'd managed to track the nest at. Everything after that is a blur.  

Suddenly struck with a thought, a sliver of memory, Peter looks about the room, sending out his senses like a wave over the entire space. He can't hear a third heartbeat or smell the familiar scent of Derek, but he can remember that Derek was with them, and had met up with them before they’d gone inside. He’s not here now though and Peter hopes that’s a good thing. 

Stiles moves towards the stool, pressing his hands along the wall to steady himself as he climbs atop it. He can't reach most of the window, the tips of his fingers barely grazing the edge of the wall it sat in, but he strains on his toes all the same just to get some height. When his efforts prove fruitless, Stiles sighs and slumps back down and off the stool altogether. 

His gaze shifts to look around the room and since Peter’s already done that, he just watches as Stiles takes in their surroundings. He stops looking when his eyes find the door at the top of the steps. “Did you try the door?” He asks and it takes all of Peter’s willpower not to answer too harshly. 

“By all means, go ahead and try.” Stiles rolls his eyes again but takes a few hesitant steps towards the door. “If you somehow alert anyone on the other side, I'll be over here.” Peter slinks back against the wall. “This way they won't see me and only attack you.” 

Stiles stops and turns towards him. “So we do nothing? That's your plan?” He smells so annoyed, it tickles a part of Peter that finds this just a tad too fun, all things considered. 

Peter shrugs, folding his arms across his chest. “There's not much we can do for now. There's only one way in and out and if you've forgotten, our captors tend to be more active around this time.”

“There’s the window.” Stiles moves back across the room, to the stool. He starts to climb it when Peter sighs and pulls him down by the scruff of his shirt. “Hey-”

“Even if we could get through that, we don't know where we are or how far away from civilization. We could be running blind.”

Peter can smell the frustration and anger coming from Stiles. It bursts into the air around them. He can practically taste it as it settles on his tongue. “I thought you were good at running away.” Stiles grits out between clenched teeth. He's so tense, it's starting to rub off on Peter. 

“Safety in numbers, get to know your enemy, etcetera, etcetera.” Peter rotates his wrist, twirls his hand in the air for emphasis. “Isn’t that what you would say, Stiles?” 

Stiles isn't listening though. Peter can see it in how he shuffles on his feet and rubs his hand along his shoulder and neck. Stiles is too busy looking about the room searching for something, to be paying much attention to what Peter is saying. He's on edge, fingers twitching along his leg, anxiety rippling off of Stiles in waves. 

It's starting to make Peter nervous, and he doesn't do well when he's nervous. “Go sit down, there's not much to be done right now.” 

Stiles looks at him, slowly turns his head in a way that should send shivers of fear down Peter’s spine. Instead, it sparks something equivalent to excitement. Stiles looks like he wants to say something, but he blinks a few times before planting himself against the wall they'd woken up from. He slides down on it, resting on the floor with his legs stretched out before him. 

Peter keeps to his spot on the wall by the window, leaning against it with his arms still firmly crossed over his chest. He watches Stiles for a moment longer before turning his attention towards the door. It's old metal, rusted over by time, but Peter doesn't have to be near it to know how heavy and loud it would be to try and pry it open. 

If it were the full moon, then maybe they'd have a chance, but it was a ways away and Peter secretly hoped that Derek and the rest would find them before then. 

~~

This is stupid. Stiles knows this idea is stupid, but he’s so angry right now that he’s not exactly thinking clearly. If he was, he’d have kicked Peter out of his jeep and onto his ass before starting it up, but alas, here Peter was, sitting next to him, looking off and out the window as if he were on just a boring old drive to the grocery store.

Not much time passed since his argument with Scott, but Stiles is already halfway down the road, driving as fast he can from Derek’s loft. He’d stormed out to try and make a point, hoping that Scott would understand why he had said what he said and why he was so angry at Scott’s response.

“We can’t just kill them,” Scotts says this as if the sentence has been carved into his brain, automatic and always at the ready. 

It grates on Stiles’ nerves. “Why not? -They’re- killing people!”

Scott huffs and it only makes Stiles want to punch him in the face even more. “Even if it is vampires, we don’t know if they’re just out of control; maybe the killings are accidents.” 

Stiles shakes his head and scoffs. “I - Scott, it doesn’t matter. Three people. Three people are dead and more bodies are going to pile up if we don’t do something.”

Peter makes a noise to Stiles’ right in the passenger seat, drawing him out of the recent memory of the fight, pulling him into frustration for having the creeperwolf so near in the jeep. “What.” It’s not a question. Stiles doesn’t really care that Peter seems bothered, but he needs a distraction from his thoughts.

“You know, while I agree that killing is always an option, I must say that this might be a bad idea.” Peter looks over to Stiles, staring for far longer than he should. “As a disclaimer, of course. Just so there’s a record that I’m not endorsing this little adventure, being the only sensible adult here.”

Stiles’ fingers flex on the steering wheel, the sound of the faux leather creaking underneath his hands. “I’m nineteen.” He answers back because he’s actually almost twenty, but he’s no longer a five-year-old who counts halves and three-quarters.

“My point exactly,” Peter replies on an exhale. 

“And since when do you care enough to let the world know you disapprove of murder?” 

Peter shrugs and shifts in the seat. He looks a little uncomfortable but Stiles couldn't care less. “I don’t care if the world knows or not, and kudos to you for deeming yourself so important that you refer to yourself as ‘the world’, but it matters that Derek knows this.”

Stiles looks at Peter from the corner of his eye. He lets the comment and the fact that Peter sounds so old saying ‘kudos’ go to talk about Derek instead.  

“You never used to care what Derek thinks of you.”

Peter shrugs again and sighs. “What can I say? He's family and I need at least one person in this town I can count on.”

Stiles snorts a laugh before he can stop himself. “I'm pretty sure that Derek doesn't feel the same way. You might be putting in too much effort.”

Peter looks at Stiles then, he can feel his eyes on him. He slides his gaze over to Peter, swallowing hard as nervousness spikes through him. It might have been wrong to laugh at Peter. He'd probably murder someone for a stick of gum if he wanted it badly enough. “Derek would kill me if anything happened to you, Stiles. Whether it was me or anyone else who laid a hand on you.” 

Peter slides himself over just a fraction of an inch but even that's too close for Stiles’ comfort. He turns his gaze back to the road, grips the steering wheel a little more tightly, and concentrates on the task at hand. 

Scott had wanted diplomacy but Stiles wants to end this once and for all. Three people are dead, with who knows how many more dropping in the future. One body is too many bodies, three is just horrific. 

“Tell me the plan again,” Peter speaks up, sitting a little closer than he was before. 

Stiles ignores this, for now. “We’re just scouting right now. There's still a good chunk of daylight left and if I'm right-”

“I think you're right,” Peter says this but his tone comes across more condescendingly. It's not any different than how Peter usually sounds, but there's something there beneath the surface that Stiles can't quite put his finger on. “Scott may not believe you, but I do.”

Having Peter be the sole person to have his back wasn't exactly all that comforting, but Stiles would take what he could get. He needed backup, especially of the supernatural sense. 

“Great,” Stiles grumbles. 

~~

The sound of the large metal door opening abruptly shakes Stiles awake from where he’s laying on the floor. He jolts upward, mind out of sorts as he tries to sift through the fog of uncertainty into consciousness. His heart is pounding about in his chest, drowning out most sounds, but he can see someone walking down the steps into the basement. 

The sun’s up, and there’s light shining in from the small window, brightening up the room a bit. 

Peter’s off on the wall he’d been standing against the night before. He must have sat down at some point to sleep or at least rest, but he’s moving to stand again, joining Stiles in watching the stranger enter the basement.

It’s a woman, young and small, carrying a tray of food. She doesn’t look at either of them as she makes her way over to a table on the far side of the room. Stiles stands, pushing himself by his hands, rotating his shoulders as he watches the woman rearrange items on the tray. His muscles ache and his throat feels dry, but Stiles tries his best not to sound too hostile when speaking.

“Exc-” He clears his throat, words sticking on his rough tongue. “Who are you?” The woman turns to head back to the stairs so Stiles takes one step towards her. The skittering sound of his shoes on the concrete floor startles her and she flinches, finally looking up and over at him. Her hair, which sits messily atop her head, covers a bit of her face in clumps of knots and frayed strands. “Please, you’re human, yes?” Stiles asks this, but he already knows. 

She doesn’t nod or shake her head. Instead, she turns again towards the stairs. Peter hasn’t said a word but Stiles can feel his eyes on the woman as well. When Stiles takes another step in her direction, she shocks both Peter and Stiles with suddenly whirling around, a small weapon at the ready. It’s a tiny crossbow, so tiny that she only needs one hand to hold it, one finger to operate it, and before either knows what’s going on, she releases the trigger and shoots Peter in the chest.

Peter goes down with a grunt and Stiles turns his attention on him and away from the woman, who's busy retreating upstairs. Stiles jumps at the sound of the metal door closing, but he’s too focused on Peter to care about it right now. “Holy shit!” He yells, running over to him, watching as the small wound in Peter’s chest starts to quickly blacken and spider off into his veins. He’s pressing his hands to it, covering his fingers in a darkened mess as Peter tries to shove him away, laying in a crumpled mess on the dirty floor.

“Stiles, s-stop it.” Peter groans, trying to peer at himself. The pain looks unimaginable and sends Stiles directly into caregiver mode, no matter if it's Peter Hale. He smacks Peter’s hands away to get a better look at the wound. The entry hole is small, plugged up with what looks like a tiny arrow. The shaft is much smaller than a normal one and from what Stiles can see, the tip seems to be blunt and not tipped in three points like an arrowhead. 

“Hold still.” 

Peter reaches up and grasps Stiles’ shoulder, trying to shove him away and failing. All his strength seems to have ebbed away and been replaced with pain. Stiles can only guess it's wolfsbane coursing through his system. He smacks Peter’s hands away again and wraps his hand around the shaft of the bolt. Without warning, he pulls it out of Peter’s chest in one tug. 

Peter hisses and falls completely over on the floor, folding in on himself as the poison moves through his blood. Stiles tosses the bolt away, his hands covered in blackened blood that he tries to wipe them off on his jeans. He’s got a watchful eye on Peter as Peter tries his best to deal with the pain. There’s not much Stiles can do but he leans down to help anyway, grabbing Peter by the shoulders and hauling him up to sit against the wall. “Are you healing?”

Shooting Stiles a look that could kill, Peter hisses again as he shifts along the wall. “Slowly.” He bites out between clenched teeth. “Maybe next time, don’t-“ Another hiss, another grimace. “-don’t talk to the help.” 

Stiles' brows rise on his forehead. “The help?”

“That girl, she’s their daytime liaison. She helps them, not us.” He doesn’t seem in as much pain but it’s only been minutes and Stiles is unsure what strain of wolfsbane this is. He gets up to retrieve the bolt, bringing it over to Peter. 

“Do you know what kind it is?” He asks, kneeling again. 

Peter nods, takes a few deep breaths. “Just good old, normal wolfsbane. I'll be down for a bit, but I think that’s what they wanted to do. Incapacite me.”

Stiles scowls, twisting the bolt in his fingers before getting back up to cross the room. He places it down on the table, next to the tray of food the woman brought. There isn’t much, just two bowls of what appears to be oatmeal, a few green apples, and bottles of water. Just enough to sustain hunger. 

Stiles’ hands curl, blunt nails digging into his palms. He’s so angry. If he had just listened to Scott, waited until they knew more, he wouldn’t have ended up in this basement, taking care of an ill Peter, scared out of his mind, thinking of all the things that could happen, of all the things that could go wrong. At the same time, however, they never would have known that the vampires had a human helping them, even though Stiles should have. It was too, stupidly obvious, now that he had time to actually think about it.

Everyone needs a Renfield. 

Stiles doesn’t eat the food, but he does look over his shoulder at Peter in a silent query of raised eyebrows. Peter shakes his head and both decline to eat anything. Instead, Stiles returns to his wall, slides down it, and sits with his knees up, arms draped over them. He rests his head down on them and the day passes by agonizingly slow in fleeting moments of painful awareness and mind-numbing unconsciousness.

~~

Peter grunts, waking Stiles from the light slumber he’d slipped into. He groans, bones aching from not having moved for several hours. It’s night again, the moon high in the sky, illuminating the room once more in a blue hue. He peaks over to see Peter trying to stand in the now darkened room, and he almost - almost - gets up to help. 

“Someone’s coming.” 

Stiles whips his head around to the door as the metal creaks and groans. Stiles stands as it opens, starts moving back towards the wall Peter’s leaning against. Three figures take their time coming down the steps, each foot padding lightly on the concrete. 

They’re tall, each of them, but there’s still a considerable height difference among them. One woman and two men, who tower over her on each shoulder. They all look similar, varying grey tones of skin color, eyes as red as blood, long elegant claws protruding from their fingertips. 

The woman steps forward, an unnaturally wide grin splitting across her face. The fangs in her mouth are numerous, shining, and sharp. Too many to count. “Come with us, little one.” Her voice is soft, melodic, but tinged with a sour note Stiles can feel in the shiver traveling down his spine as she points her gaze solely on him. 

He doesn’t respond, neither does Peter, so the two men come out from behind her, stalking forward with grins of their own. Stiles presses himself further against the wall. Peter, surprisingly, puts a bit of himself over half of Stiles as if to shield him, but the vampires don’t care. 

One reaches out and grasps Peter by his shirt and yanks him to the ground without much force. Peter tumbles anyway, groaning with freshly added pain as he collides with the concrete. It leaves Stiles open and the other lackey comes for him.

Stiles pushes at his hands, but the vampire gets a grip on him, starts dragging him across the room. It doesn’t matter that Stiles is kicking and hitting him, or yelling, “Get off me!” He’s being manhandled towards the door, the woman giggling as she bounces along behind them up the steps. He tries to twist in their grasp, tries to get an eye on Peter but all three overcrowd his line of sight and before Stiles can try and do much else, the metal door closes behind them. With a loud bang, it seals Peter alone in the basement with Stiles on the other side.

Chapter Text

It’s some time before Peter can roll over and push himself up off the floor. His wounds have healed on the surface by now but he still feels a little less then one hundred percent. They took Stiles away right before his eyes. He could hear him yelling from the other side of the door, but Peter couldn’t do much, not while he’d still been weak from the wolfsbane. Eventually, he couldn’t hear Stiles anymore, his voice tapering off the further he got from the door. 

Peter sighs and walks over to the table where the tray from this morning was set. The food is cold and clotted, but the water bottles are still there. He takes one and downs it in a few gulps. 

There’s no telling what they’re doing to Stiles, or how long until he’s back. Peter floats with the idea that Stiles may never come back. They could be feeding off of him and tossing him away, leaving Peter alone in the basement, in the dark. He’s never been much of a pack animal at heart, always looking out for himself, but being alone in enemy territory was actually a tad bit frightening. 

The night passes on, the moon moving slowly outside of the window. The shadows it casts inside move along with it, covering more of one side and less of another as time flows. Peter sits against the wall he’s designated for himself - the one that faces the door - elbows resting on bent knees, a bottle of water dangling from loose fingers between them. There’s still so much more he doesn’t know but wants to know, because hey, knowledge is power. Peter could use a bit of power right now. 

~~

“Shit.”

“Quiet.” 

“Would you move, I just fell over into a bush.”

Peter sighs and rolls his eyes, shifting in his crouched position to give Stiles more room from their secret spying spot. The house they’re surveying looks to be abandoned, the wood rotting, the paneling bubbling and peeling off in large patches. It’s a cabin, surrounded by bushes and brush none of which have been properly attended to in quite some time. 

It’s far enough into the woods that if anyone screamed, not even those on the main road could hear them.

The sun is starting to set and there’s not much time left for the two of them to scan the area. “Maybe we should come back another day,” Peter suggests, but Stiles sighs and shakes his head.

“No, we’re already here, let’s not waste it.” Stiles stands, carefully trying to avoid getting caught on any sticks or rogue roots as he makes his way farther towards the house. Peter takes a second to look around, to smell the air around them. There’s nothing but the scent of the woods, that and Stiles’ body wash masking sweat and anxiety. 

Just then, Peter catches another scent, one familiar and annoyingly so. He whips around to see Derek stalking his way over to him. Raising a curious brow, Peter stands, making sure to keep an ear out for Stiles’ steps, which are slowly getting farther and farther away. “And what may I ask, are you doing here?” 

Derek grunts, coming to a stop a few feet away. “I was leaving the loft earlier and I caught Stiles’ scent going in the opposite direction of the others. And yours. What are you doing?” His gaze flicks around him, behind Peter, until it lands on Stiles’ retreating back. His nostrils flare as his eyes find the cabin Stiles is heading towards.

“Relax, nephew. We aren’t meeting at a cabin for some crazy, secret sex rendezvous.” Peter smirks, even when Derek scowls in his direction. “Stiles suggested we steak out the vampire nest.” He can’t help but chuckle at his own corny joke. Even when Derek rolls his eyes at the absurdity of it, Peter still finds himself funny. 

Stiles has managed to reach the cabin by now, searching for a way to peek inside. Derek seems torn between talking to Peter and watching out for the human. “And you felt the need to tag along, why?”

Peter shrugs. “Because it’s the smart thing to do? I mean, I’d rather just wait until nightfall to track them, tear them limb from limb but,” He sighs. “Trying to turn over a new leaf, I guess.”

Derek eyes him warily, squinting and scowling, eyebrows the broodiest Peter’s ever seen. He doesn’t believe him, but Peter doesn’t need him to. 

There’s a sound of a twig snapping behind Peter and both he and Derek turn around to see Stiles peering in between slats of wood on a window. He looks back over his shoulder, a bit of surprise passing over his face at the sight of Derek. It passes, however, when he waves the two of them over and points at the window. 

Derek sighs and Peter rolls his eyes, but they both head over towards the cabin anyway. 

~~

The hallway outside the basement is long and Stiles stumbles through it as he’s practically dragged along the hard floor. He tries to catch sight of his surroundings but they’re moving too fast for him to focus and before he can open his mouth to protest again, they’re pushing through another door. This door is also metal but it’s not nearly as rusted as the other one. It’s still just as loud as it squeaks open and when it bangs shut behind them it startles Stiles. 

There’s laughter around him, chuckling wafting through a crowd. Stiles immediately starts to count heads and has difficulty swallowing once he realizes how many there are. 

He’d merely tracked four vampires to the cabin with Peter, but here in this room stood about twelve. The room was big enough to accommodate them all and still left enough space if any more guests were to arrive. Stiles hopes there won’t be. 

The two lackeys dump him in the middle of the room, throwing him to his knees on the floor. He hits it hard but manages only a grunt at the impact. Down here, he can feel all of them towering over him, looming like thick darkness threatening to block out all light. This is what they are, Stiles thinks. Threatening darkness. 

Stiles tries to speak but his voice comes out too high, too squeaky as he begins to shake. He clears his throat and tries again. “What do you want?” 

The crowd around him sneers and smirks but it parts as one particularly tall man walks between them. Stiles notes the level of respect the others are showing him, some bowing their heads, others shrinking back within themselves. This man must be the head honcho, numero uno vampire master, and he’s reaching out a hand towards Stiles. 

Stiles eyes the hand warily, notes that the other’s claws aren’t out, that his hand looks like any normal hand, except for the extreme pale grey tone all of them seem to acquire. His fingers are long, elegant, and reach out to him in a welcoming gesture. Stiles doesn’t want to take his hand, but he’s afraid to find out what would happen if he doesn't, so he reaches up and places his own in its grasp. 

Stiles is still shaking when he stands, eyes still flitting about to pick up on everything in the room. He’s not even sure if he’ll make it out alive, but if he does, at least he’ll have some information to give Peter. 

The man comes close, still holding on to Stiles’ hand. “I want you to strip.” The words are spoken with a deep timber, vibrating on the air around them, and it takes a second for Stiles to process what’s even been said. His heart skips a beat once he realizes, uneven and out of place as he slinks his hand out from the man’s grip. 

The chuckles around him seem to multiply. “What? No way-“ Hands on either side of Stiles come up to grab at him as he tries to back away, but the vampire in front of him stills them with a hand, held flat in the air. 

“Let me propose something, little one.” His voice is soft, honey-sweet but his words are wrapped up in a malicious grin. “Either you strip now, or we do it for you and you remain nude for the duration of your stay.” His eyes, as red as all the others, gaze along his face, down his body, roaming over the patches of dried, black blood stained into the fabric. “Of course, you might want to anyway, what with that filthy stench clinging to you.” 

The vampire sneers at him and steps closer, catching Stiles’ eyes with his own. Stiles can’t stop the shaking from worsening, and when the vampire steps even closer, he struggles with removing his shirt. It slides over his shoulders and head, and for a moment, Stiles can’t seem to let it go. The female vampire from earlier rushes forward to yank out of his hand anyway, almost pulling him along with it. 

“Elizabeth, be gentle.” The man in front of him says, but his eyes are already mapping out the freckles on Stiles' chest and shoulders, belying the polite gesture he tries to impose on the others. He’s already looking at Stiles as his next meal. “The pants please.”

Stiles shuts his eyes for a moment, struggling with a need to fight against the vampire. Fighting would be dumb to do, especially in a room full of them and no exit in sight. He can feel a knot form in his stomach as he unbuttons his pants, a hot wash of shame flooding his body as he pushes them down and around his ankles. It flushes pink in spots Stiles never wanted anyone to see, but here he was, on display for others, exposed. 

The vampire sighs and it startles Stiles into opening his own. “If I ask to again - well…I won’t really be asking.” There’s a snarl there, hanging off the end of his words. Stiles knows what he means, hoping upon hope that he wouldn’t have to remove his last bit of clothing. He can feel tears spring to his eyes, looking out with blurred vision at the vampires around him. A few salt-tinged drops break and fall down his face as Stiles slips his boxer briefs down his thighs, settling them with his bunched-up pants still sitting around his ankles. 

Immediately Stiles brings his hands in front to cover himself, to protect his most vulnerable parts from their wandering eyes. The room is colder now, without the extra layers of clothing, but Stiles isn’t shaking from the drop in temperature. Fear envelopes him much like how the crowd of vampires does. The embarrassment is stifling.

The man in front of him doesn’t comment on Stiles’ hands, or their placement on his body. He simply makes a sound of approval and takes careful, slow steps around him. Each step is loud and overwhelming and Stiles has to shut his eyes again as he listens to them. They circle him twice, and then the vampire is standing in front of him again. When he speaks, his words are light, even spoken a bit jovially for the situation. “Take him back.”  

Stiles opens his eyes to see the two male vampires from before gathering up his shirt and coming close. Stiles wastes no time in pulling up his pants and tugging on his shirt as they toss it at him. He barely has it over his head before they start dragging and shoving him out of the room. He can hear the ones behind him start talking in whispered, hushed tones, but the door he’s being pushed through shuts behind him and cuts off all sound inside. 

He takes the time to look at the hallway as they make their way back to the basement. It’s just as old as the metal doors but made of nothing so dramatic as stone or concrete, just plastered walls with holes scattered about. It feels like an old house but it’s not the cabin in the woods, that much Stiles is sure. There are a few lights dangling from the ceiling, exposed bulbs with no coverings, but it’s not much, leaving the light dim enough to just barely see anything. 

It doesn’t take long before they reach the basement and when they do, one vampire stands behind Stiles while the other opens the door. They make no move to touch him, but Stiles quickly pushes past them once the door is open. The door shuts loudly behind him and Stiles is already heading down the steps. 

Peter’s off standing by the window, leaning against the wall. He doesn’t seem to look like he’s in much pain anymore. “What happened?” His question is fluid, not unbroken with panic or worry, almost spoken as a passerby would mutter ‘good morning’. 

Stiles is still unsure himself, but he shakes his head and tries to forget. “Nothing.” He mumbles, but his face still feels hot and his heart is pounding too fast within his chest. He sees Peter take note of it, a tiny twitch to a curious eyebrow, but Peter doesn’t say much of anything else about it. 

“I found another room.” The words startle Stiles and he looks around, trying to see in the dark room and failing. Peter pushes himself off the wall and reaches out to grasp Stiles’ shoulder, only stopping himself when Stiles twists away from him and his hand. Peter seems to make a note of this too, removing his hand from the vicinity of Stiles and nodding instead, towards a corner of the room.  

Stiles follows the few steps behind, watching as Peter pulls apart some ivy covering a wooden door. He never would have guessed it was there unless Peter showed him. It was so well hidden. “What is it?” He asks, expecting something dramatic. 

He’s sorely disappointed when Peter opens it and flicks on a light switch on the inside wall. “It’s a bathroom.” It’s small, four walls much the same as the basement, the floor covered in moss and grass and weeds growing up from the cracks. There’s not much in it except a sink with a chipped corner and a toilet that looks questionably dirty, but it’s something. Stiles was starting to worry they’d have to establish a pee corner, or worse-

Peter flicks the light off and shuts the door and both trudge back to their respective walls. Stiles slides down against his, letting his arms drape across his bent knees. He catches Peter’s eyes before his gaze flicks up to the window, to the moon. The light is growing on it, which, luckily for them, means that the full moon will be coming. 

~~

Morning comes and with it, the human woman from before. She quietly comes down the steps, tray in hand, and silently walks towards the table to set it down. As she unloads the contents, she places the old ones back on the tray. All the while, she seems uncaring that Peter is staring at her from where he’s leaning against his wall. Stiles is asleep against his own, but Peter hasn’t even really gone to sleep yet. 

He’d been up all night, running scenarios through his head. One consisted of teaming up with Stiles to overwhelm her, chance getting shot again but hoping they could get to her fast enough that she wouldn’t have time to pull her tiny weapon. Peter hates that tiny weapon.

Instead of acting on any of the ideas, he instead just watches her as she hunches over the table. He can hear her tsk away at the uneaten food, but she gathers up everything and takes the tray towards the door without complaint. She’s a plain-looking woman, wearing a plain dress, and she’s covered in a layer of dirt from head to toe. One of Peter’s scenarios was to let Stiles appeal to her again, while he hid inside of the safety of the bathroom he’d found the night before while pacing the basement, but that was a loose idea and was mainly an afterthought as a last resort. 

The woman leaves and when the door bangs shut, Stiles stirs. Peter watches him wake up and realize that he’s still here, still trapped in this room. His gaze snakes over to Peter and he wonders if Stiles is thinking it’s all for the worst because Peter’s still there too. Peter doesn’t care. Last night, he cared. He cared so much, he let himself get lost for a moment on what they could possibly be doing to Stiles upstairs, but then the moment passed as quickly as it came and Peter didn’t care all that much anymore.

Stiles yawns, cracks his neck, and pushes himself up to stand and lean against his wall. “You look like shit.” He comments, glancing at Peter, and yeah, maybe he wasn’t looking his best right now, but well, rude. When Peter rolls his eyes, Stiles huffs a chuckle and makes his way across the room. He stops before the table of fresh food, pauses for a moment, and then continues on towards the bathroom. 

The resilience with this kid is astounding. One of the few reasons Peter likes him so much. He’s admitted on several occasions that even if Stiles could be a dumbass, he was still pretty smart. It always makes him wonder if he should have bitten him instead. 

The door shuts behind Stiles as Peter pushes himself off the wall. He walks to the table, taking note that the food left was the same as the day before. He picks up a red apple, turns it around in his hand. He can’t smell anything other than the apple, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been tampered with. He puts the apple back and grabs a bottle of water. 

Stiles joins him a minute later, looking a bit more refreshed from the night before. His hair is a mess atop his head and his clothes are dirty, but Peter’s pretty sure he looks the same as always. “We should eat,” Peter suggests, nodding towards the food on the tray. Stiles looks it over, picks up the apple Peter had just held, and promptly takes a bite of it. 

Peter watches and waits and when Stiles doesn’t keel over on the second bite, he picks up the other apple and takes a bite of his own. The oatmeal smells like cinnamon and when Peter picks up the bowl, it’s warm in his hands. He could probably wait for Stiles to take a bite of his oatmeal too, but that bite of apple has hit the spot and Peter is too hungry to care. 

Stiles moves to pick up the stool, bringing it back to use as a chair so he can eat at the table. Both are silent as they devour what’s in front of them, but they’re careful to sip the water because that’s all they’ll get until tomorrow morning. 

“What happened last night?” Peter asks when they’ve finished up the last of the food, curiosity winning out. Stiles swallows down his last bite and sighs. 

“I don’t really know. They took me to a room and -“ It seems hard for him to finish the sentence and Peter feels a sudden flare of embarrassment emanate from Stiles. He can hear his heart stuttering away as he tries to breathe slow, calm breaths. Peter can feel something flare within himself, but he ignores it for now. “There are about twelve or so vampires and a head vampire guy. He uhm-“ 

Again, Stiles is reluctant to speak. His knees begin to bounce beneath the table as he wrings his hands together in his lap. He’s looking down at the empty bowl, avoiding looking up and at Peter. “And uhm, he made me take my clothes off.” 

Something else shoots through Peter, a white-hot flame that sets himself to think that Stiles has been violated, therefore the pack has been violated. He tries to brush it off because he doesn’t belong to the pack. He’s merely an outsider who helps occasionally, an extra hand if it’s a Tuesday or when and if he feels like it. 

Stiles isn’t his pack, but the offense is still there. 

He doesn’t know what to say, unsure if Stiles will continue or not, so Peter waits, precious daylight hours ticking away with each second of silence that passes. 

“He just walked in a circle around me and then told them to take me back.” 

Somewhere inside, Peter breathes a sigh of relief, taut shoulders, that he doesn’t remember tensing, easing downward at Stiles’ words. “That’s all?” He doesn’t mean to sound so insensitive, but Stiles’ head shoots up, amber eyes filled with unshed tears threatening to fall, his glaring gaze almost too much to handle looking at. Peter thinks of apologizing, but it wouldn’t accomplish anything, so he simply doesn’t. 

“Yes.” It's curt, Stiles’ response, and just like that, the conversation over breakfast is suddenly over.

~~

If Stiles could guess, he would assume it’s been about an hour since sundown, since the sky outside darkened enough to mute the basement in its familiar wash of blue. He wouldn’t honestly know, not having a watch or his phone. Time is starting to blur together in agonizing torture close to that of solitary confinement. Sure, Peter’s here, but still, Stiles has never felt more alone. He tries not to think of the night before, what it means, or what it will mean, but it's hard to think of anything else with nothing else to do in the basement.

He could try and drive Peter up a wall, just for something to do, but it’s too much effort and Stiles is tired. He’s done nothing but sleep, but he’s just as exhausted as if he’d been up on a research binge for days. In reality, Stiles knows it's a lack of Adderall in his system. He hasn’t needed to depend on copious amounts of it in years, not as much as he did when he was still in school, but he’s managed to stay on the directed dosage and function just fine. Except for right now.

Stiles’ head lolls to the side where he’s planted himself on the floor. He was getting tired of sleeping while sitting up against the wall and waking up with muscle aches. The concrete is hard and cold, but his back thanks him for its solidity as it pops in all the right places. Peter, thankfully, hasn’t said much all day, but he has begun pacing underneath the window. It's annoying, the constant shuffle of his shoes on the floor, and the smell of broken grass and moss that upends with each grating step is enough to make Stiles sick.

He’s about to say something when Peter stills. Stiles lifts his head to find Peter staring up and over him, past him towards the direction of the door. He’s pushing himself up before the door opens, already moving to back away as far as he can, but before he can reach the far wall, the human woman takes a step down, brandishing her small weapon.

It’s Stiles’ instinct to want to jump in front of it, to protect Peter, but before he can do so, she fires off the tiny crossbow and the bolt goes flying right into Peter’s shoulder. He’s down before Stiles can reach him, grunting as Stiles tries to remove the bolt. His fingers barely brush the shaft when suddenly he’s being pulled back by hungry, desperate hands.

“No! Peter!” Stiles yells as the same men from before drag him backward, unbothered by Stiles feet and fists flying about. He can’t go back, he can’t leave Peter while he’s weak. “Get off!” He whirls around as hands grasp his shirt and tug him up the stairs and through the doorway. The metal door shuts behind him but Stiles isn’t giving up. 

He continues to struggle against them, even as they move him easily down the hallway. They must be strong if Stiles’ flailing limbs aren’t enough to slow them down. He’s tripping over his own feet, but they reach the other room quick enough anyway.

Again, Stiles is shoved inside where he stumbles into the center of the room. All twelve vampires are present, some chatting away in corners, others watching him, but the one he’s worried about the most is staring at him only a few feet away. He tries to stand straight and tall but he can’t help his fingers twitching down his sides, nor quell the quickening pace of his heart as panic sets in. 

The vampire woman from the night before, giggles and leans close to the master vampire. Stiles remembers her name is Elizabeth. “Roman, it’s all ready for you.” Stiles is unsure what she means by it but now he knows the name of the guy at least. 

Roman smiles, nods, and raises a hand to wave Elizabeth away. “Thank you. Now, where were we Stiles?” His grin widens, but there are no fangs barred. Even though Stiles hates that he knows his name, he feels a bit better at the lack of sharp teeth. 

“I - I don’t know -” He stammers, stumbling over his words in confusion. Unsure of what Roman is talking about, Stiles looks around the room, catching something silver glinting in the light for a split second as two vampires move in and out of view. 

Roman comes close, too close for comfort and Stiles begins to shake, his gaze slipping down to his feet. None of the vampires here are decked out in stereotypical garb, all of their clothes modern and unique to each person. They must integrate into society at night, Stiles thinks. Roman is wearing a simple t-shirt, jeans a bit too skinny, and black high-top boots. He might be wearing jewelry too, but Stiles can’t remember, not right now as Roman tsks in disapproval while looming above him.

“Clothes, please.”

Just two words but they overwhelm Stiles as if he’s echoed a litany of them. He sucks in a breath and shifts to remove his shirt. It slips off a bit easier than it did the night before, but his hands falter on the edges of his pants. Stiles hesitates but when Roman lifts a hand towards him, Stiles relents and unzips them, pushing them down to his ankles. Maybe he’ll only look and leave Stiles alone again. Maybe he’ll let him keep his boxer briefs on.

Roman circles Stiles and when he thinks he’s in the clear, still trying to provide his front with some modesty, Roman sighs from behind him. It happens too fast for Stiles to try and move away. Roman reaches down and with both hands, rips the fabric clinging to him. Stiles gasps, a tiny yelp escaping in surprise as Roman rips the boxer briefs off completely. He tries to keep himself covered, even while nude, even when Roman presses up against his backside and grips him by the shoulders. “So disappointing.” He sighs again.

It’s surprising how warm Roman’s breath is on Stiles' bare shoulder, a stark contrast to how cold his hands are. Stiles shudders from it, nausea pooling in his stomach as fingers dig into the flesh of his arms. Roman shoves him, sending him to the floor. Stiles lands hard, bringing his hands up to catch himself at the last second. Pain floods his wrists but there’s no time to dwell on it as multiple hands grab his arms and drag him further into the room.

Stiles struggles while trying to catch his feet on the ground. He keeps stumbling over himself but then they stop and force him to his knees. Before him is a large metal tub filled with water. A memory flashes in Stiles’ mind, of a sacrifice made a long time ago in something similar to this. He wonders if another sacrifice is to be made and suddenly, being naked isn’t Stiles’ top thing to worry about. “What are-” But no one answers him. The hands gripping his arms pull him up and without a second to spare, one comes up to push down on his head, submerging the top half of him underwater. 

Chapter Text

Water fills his mouth and nose, cold and harsh, rushing through his throat too fast for Stiles to try and not breathe it in. He struggles to push himself out, but the hand on his head keeps him firmly submerged in the water. His arms flail wildly about, smacking into solid things, unable to grip on to anything. It’s when he feels like his lungs might burst that the hand on his head slides down to grasp his neck and pull him up and out.

Stiles coughs and sputters, yelling and gulping down as much air as he can get. Water pours from his mouth back into the tub, down along his neck and chest. He manages to suck in a few hopeful breaths when he’s shoved back under again. His entire body feels like it’s on fire as he struggles to get out, to breathe, to not choke. 

This time isn’t as long as the first, or so it feels like. Stiles could have passed out because he’s suddenly on the floor, and he doesn’t remember coming up for air. It hurts to breathe, to move, to simply exist, but he scrambles back away from the bodies crowding around him, water pooling and dripping from him onto the concrete.

Stiles tries to speak, to yell, but all he can manage is a choked sob and more coughing as water spills from his mouth and nose. Hands are on him again, hauling him upright. He struggles to plant his feet securely on the floor as he hangs between two vampires. Roman comes up to him, shirt and pants neatly folded in his hands. He holds them out to Stiles, that stupid grin still plastered on his face. 

Stiles wants to punch it off, wants to mangle Roman’s face until it’s unrecognizable, but at this very moment, he’d rather have his clothes. He sways on his feet as he’s released, taking the clothes from Roman. With shaking hands, Stiles slowly slips his shirt and pants back on. He avoids looking at anyone, but it doesn’t matter because all eyes are on him anyway.

There’s nothing but quiet then. Not quite a total silence, however, for others are still off in the corners whispering, and someone’s come to collect the metal tub, rolling it away on squeaking wheels. Stiles keeps his eyes on his feet and wonders when one of them had taken off his shoes. Probably when he was fighting for his life, but he’s barefoot now, and the floor is cold against his skin. 

Roman reaches out a hand, and Stiles is too scared to move away from it, too frightened to find out what would happen if he did. His clothes cling to him, soaking up the water that’s drenched him as he shivers from the cold. Long fingers touch his face, blunt nails running along his jaw as they tilt his chin up. They scratch him lightly enough that goosebumps follow in their wake. 

Roman merely smiles at him as hands come up to grasp his arms again. They’re gentle this time, though. The fingers don’t dig into his flesh hard enough to bruise. Instead, they merely hold him in place before directing him away and out of the room. 

~~

Peter doesn’t bother pushing himself up from the floor this time. His shoulder is still bursting with pain even though he removed the bolt some time ago. This wolfsbane may be the least lethal of all the rest, but his body still needs a hefty amount of time to heal. He feels useless like this, his back pressed against the wall, his legs splayed out in front of him without caring for presentation. His clothes seem perpetually stained in his blood, and he can’t even move his right arm without risking more pain.

Stiles has only been gone for a little while, but it feels a lot longer as Peter sits and watches the shadows move around the room. He’s getting tired of being held up in this concrete prison and desperately wants outside. It’s not often that Peter listens to his wolf’s instincts. It usually lays dormant within him until he needs it, until he needs that extra oomph of control for a fight or a murder. But he can feel it now, clawing at him from the inside, scraping its claws inside his chest as it attempts to break free from the confines of his humanity.

Peter usually spends his days and nights alone. He likes solidarity. He likes doing things when and if he wants, but his choices have been made for him now, and he can’t take it. He can’t take that the control has been taken from him. It reminds him too much of his time in Eichen, of his coma after the fire. 

It isn’t long before Stiles returns, but Peter wakes from the slight doze he’s slipped into when he does. He’d been fighting not to fall asleep, to be aware, but his body was heavy while it recovered, and there wasn’t much else to do but sleep.

The metal door bangs shut, startling him a little. He hadn’t known Stiles was back in the basement until then. Even half-awake, he can smell the embarrassment and fear vibrate from the other as it coats him like a second skin. He wants to say something, but before he can even get the words out, Stiles is heading towards the bathroom and slamming the door behind him. 

Peter simply nods his head forward and passes out. 

It’s morning when he wakes, the sun brightening up the basement. The pain in his arm is nothing more than a dull throb, just there to remind him of the injury as he rotates his shoulder. Peter takes a moment to scan the room, noticing all too quickly that Stiles is nowhere to be found. He stands, working out the kinks and knots in his muscles as he treks to the bathroom, catching the sound of an even heartbeat and soft breathing coming from the other side of the door.

He raps lightly on it and waits a moment, hearing Stiles shift and shuffle against it before it opens. Stiles looks tired, heavy bags under his eyes as if he hasn’t slept at all. It’s hard to believe that either of them would get a good night’s rest in this dump, so it’s understandable when Stiles shoves past Peter without so much as a grunt. He’s not even sure if he should ask what happened the night before, but curiosity tugs at him, the need for any information.

Before he can say anything, however, the metal door squeaks open, and both of them turn to see the scraggly woman descend the stairs with a fresh tray of food. She doesn’t seem bothered by them, just like always, moving silently around them to the table to collect the old dishes and set out the new ones. Peter feels a flare of anger spike from Stiles at the sight of her, so he moves to stand closer to him. 

Stiles is getting angrier by the second, fists clenching down by his sides, teeth gnawing on his bottom lip. Only when she moves to leave does Peter reach out to grab one of Stiles’ arms, to stop him from doing something stupid. He can feel Stiles tense beneath his fingers, but Peter keeps his grip locked down, a silent warning he hopes Stiles will head. 

He watches Stiles follow the woman as she leaves, and when the door bangs shut, Stiles rounds on Peter, all of the anger suddenly directed at him. It feels like another bolt to the shoulder, the gaze with which Stiles pierces him with. Stiles jerks his arm out from Peter’s grasp, but he doesn’t stray far. Even though Peter can tell that Stiles is furious with him, he’s surprised to catch a flicker in his heartbeat as he steps closer.

Quietly and without saying anything, Stiles lifts his hand into the air, swirling a finger around and then pointing at his own ear. Then he brings the finger to his mouth and holds it over tightly closed lips. 

They can hear us. 

Peter stares at him for a moment. He understands the message, but his face must be doing something to convey confusion because then Stiles is rolling his eyes and sighing in frustration, stepping forward into Peter’s personal space. It’s odd to see Stiles so up close - and well - personal. He’s used to seeing Stiles this way with the pack, with Derek, but no one ever gets this close to Peter. No one bothers even to try. And that’s okay; Peter doesn’t need them to be in the range of striking distance.

Stiles is leaning close because he has no other choice, close enough that when he speaks, Peter can feel his warm breath puffing against his ear. “They knew my name.” His voice is low, riding on a hum, but it’s quiet enough that he thinks their captors won’t hear him. Maybe they can’t at this level. 

Werewolves, sure, but Peter doesn’t know enough about vampires to gauge what skills they have. Peter had said Stiles’ name their first day here; it could only mean they’d been listening in since then. 

Stiles takes a second to linger, and Peter wonders if he’ll say anything else. The anger in him seems to have dissipated, but it’s replaced with frustration, and Peter can’t help the sudden tug he feels in his stomach as it flips. He turns to face him, but Stiles is already walking away towards his designated wall. He slumps against it and slides down to the floor, sighing as he runs a hand through his unkempt hair. 

Both of them look unruly, their hair a mess, clothes stained in black blood and dirt. There’s a light layer of grime sticking to their skin, less so on Stiles, however. He’d come in the night before drenched to the bone in what Peter assumed was water. It smelled stale, like stagnant water from a tap or hose. 

The oatmeal, same as always, sits on the table, warm and smelling of cinnamon. The apples are green this time, instead of red, and smell too sweet on the side of sour. Peter goes to grab both apples and brings one over to Stiles, holding it out for him. “Eat.” He demands amidst the silent glaring protest of Stiles’ brown eyes. 

“I’m not hungry.” Stiles shakes his head, declining even after his stomach makes a noise so loud, Peter would not have needed super-wolf-hearing to notice. He tries again to thrust the apple in Stiles’ face, but Stiles calmly smacks his hand away.

“Liar.” It’s the second time in a few hours that Peter’s spoken. His voice is rough from disuse, rumbling deep within his chest.

Stiles looks up at him, that long neck stretching outward as he swallows, and slowly takes the apple from Peter. Long fingers brush up against his own only for a second before they wrap around the fruit. He thinks he’s won the battle, but Stiles merely sets the apple down on the ground next to him and looks away, drawing his knees up to rest his arms on top. He buries his face and hides away. 

That night they come for Stiles again. The door creaks open, and instantly Peter is on his feet. He doesn’t want to hide, he wants to fight, but he also doesn’t want another wolfsbane bolt injuring him again. Stiles stands as two vampires descend the stairs. The human woman peeks out from behind the door, but Stiles moves between Peter and them. 

“No, don’t. I’ll come. Don’t shoot him.” His voice sounds flat, all the fight and resistance from the previous times knocked out of him. Peter hates to hear it, hates to see Stiles deflate, but he’s ultimately grateful when they approve and take Stiles up the stairs and out of the room without so much as a second glance his way.  

The basement seems quieter now, even if Stiles barely speaks anymore. It’s as if his presence alone is loud enough to fill a room. While he often found Stiles trying, annoying, and utterly ridiculous at times, Peter had to admit that he admired the tenacity and enthusiasm the kid had when facing problems. It didn’t hurt to find entertainment in his sarcasm and cheesy jokes too. 

~~

Stiles is cold and wet and utterly confused when he’s brought back down to the basement. He’s not sure how long he’s been upstairs. After the second dunking, he’d lost count of how many times they drowned him. It was always to a point where Stiles’ throat would burn, that his head would ache, and his arms and legs felt too heavy to move. Then they’d revive him and start all over.

He can’t stand on his own, so they send the lackeys to drag him back, bare feet sliding on the floor as they go. He’d lost his shoes for good this time, but at least he was able to keep his shirt and pants. 

Roman didn’t even have to say anything this time before Stiles stripped his clothes. It was a shock to know they were going to drown him anyway, despite his submission. Stiles thought it had been a punishment before, but this felt more like amusement than anything else. 

When the door to the basement opens, Stiles is all but shoved inside. He’s unable to traverse the stairs on his own, so when he falls forward, he expects to collide face-first onto the concrete floor. Hands come up to brace him, though. Warm, large hands that belong to Peter. Stiles wasn’t even aware that Peter was near the door. He might not have been, but Stiles is thankful for the catch all the same. 

The feeling fades, however, when Stiles realizes that it’s indeed Peter holding him up. He wants to shove the other away, but Peter picks him up like he weighs nothing at all and carries him over to his wall. “Let mm-me go,” Stiles mumbles around a shiver, but he makes no move to actually struggle. 

“Don’t be stupid. You can’t walk, and you’re freezing.” And he is. He’s soaked to the bone, water dripping from his hair, like tiny icicles on his skin. His clothes are damp but thankfully provide some shelter to the chill in the room. It isn’t until Peter slides down along the wall and situates Stiles to lay back against his broad chest, between his legs, arms wrapped around his upper body, that he feels any warmth at all. 

He wants to complain, to push Peter away, but Stiles is tired, and Peter’s heat blazes too well around him. Peter doesn’t ask any questions or say a word until Stiles stops shivering long enough to form a complete sentence without his teeth clattering away. 

Peter shifts behind Stiles, leans close enough to whisper in his ear. “What happened?” He asks, his voice soft and light. His breath whisps along Stiles’ neck, and he fails at repressing a shiver from that alone. He can chalk it up to still being cold, but he knows Peter can smell a distinct change in the air. 

Peter envelopes him in his warmth, radiating heat like a goddamn blanket. The small amount of negative space created between Peter’s lips and Stiles’ ear feels like a weighted pressure pushing down against him. Stiles can suddenly feel too much all at once. It all amounts to pins and needles on the tips of his toes and fingers. And a sensation pooling in the pit of his stomach. 

This isn’t the time, he tells himself. Not under these circumstances, not with this person, but his body betrays him as Stiles leans further into Peter, his head falling back to rest against the crook of Peter’s neck. He tilts his head up and whispers. “When the full moon comes, you run.” 

He can feel Peter’s body tense around him, can feel the stutter in his heartbeat where his back presses against Peter’s chest. Stiles lowers his head, stretching it to the side to give Peter a chance to talk directly into his ear. “It’s days away,” Peter replies, lips ghosting over Stiles’ ear. He shuts his eyes on an exhale and tries not to let his incapacitated state cloud his judgment. 

It’s suddenly too hot, but before Stiles can decide on whether to move away or not, Peter brings a hand up to rest on Stiles’ forehead, tugging his head back to lay on his shoulder. “Sleep, Stiles.” He mumbles into wet hair. There’s a deep rumble from his chest that vibrates against Stiles. It manages to help him relax and shut his eyes as he drifts off to sleep.

~~

Stiles barely manages to eat the next day. He doesn’t even attempt to drink the bottled water. Peter tries to talk him into at least taking sips of it, but Stiles just rolls over on his spot on the floor, back facing outward as he shuffles closer and closer to the wall. It’s later in the evening when Peter finally gets Stiles to agree to take a bite of an apple, but after Stiles chews on it for a minute or so and swallows it, he promptly leans over and vomits it back up.

Peter noticed it the night before when he’d felt Stiles’ forehead. He’d started out freezing, but the heat Peter felt under his palm was not a healing warmth. Stiles had a fever, and he was rapidly burning up with each hour that passed. 

When the door at the top of the stairs opened up, Peter hesitated at his spot on the floor next to Stiles, unsure if he should move away or cover Stiles up. The two male vampires were joined by the female one this time, and she was in a foul mood. She stalked over to Peter and Stiles, not caring one bit that Peter could have the advantage of slitting her throat just by proximity alone, and swiftly kicked Stiles in the side to make him turn over.

“Hey!” Peter yelled, throwing an arm out between the two. He surprises himself a bit at the loudness of his voice. He’d spent most of the day whispering to Stiles and sometimes to himself when Stiles was unresponsive. The vampire grunts at him, glares at him, dares him to make a move.

“Give me a reason, wolf. Any chance, and I’ll rip your throat out.”

Peter wants to take her up on that offer, a turn to fight and finally see some bloodshed that isn’t his, but he knows that if he tries and fails, it would leave Stiles all alone. He doesn’t make a move, merely sitting back and watching as she grabs Stiles by the scruff of his shirt and yanks him up. 

Stiles is still unsteady on his feet, fever-drunk and disoriented as he’s pushed and pulled towards the stairs. Peter wants to do something, but he can do nothing, so he doesn’t bother trying. There’s no point when there’s nothing left to do but wait.

~~

“Tonight is your lucky night, Stiles.” 

Roman’s voice is grating on Stiles’ nerves. He hates how smug he sounds, how full of himself he is. He wants to choke it from the vampire, but he can barely hold himself up, let alone commit acts of violence. “Do you know why?”

Everything is far too warm for Stiles’ liking. His face is hot, sweat beading on his forehead. His hands feel clammy, and his arms and legs are too heavy to move. He’s been dumped on the floor at Roman’s feet and only manages to sit up on folded knees. Stiles shrugs because he doesn’t really care why he’s so damn lucky. 

Roman crouches down to Stiles’ level. There are a few concerned whispers from the rest of the crowd as he reaches out to run his fingers along Stiles’ jaw. His claws are out, but Roman is gentle with them on Stiles’ skin. He shivers from the cold sensation of those fingers, fevered heat blazing away underneath. 

“The others would like to continue playing with you, but I have a soft spot for ill creatures.” Stiles shuts his eyes, relief flooding him at the sound of having a night off from the water and the tub. His heart drops, however, at Roman’s following words. “Come with me, Stiles. I’ll take care of you tonight.” He wants to go back to the basement, to just roll over and sleep, but Roman is already grabbing him by his sleeve and heaving him upward.

Stiles stumbles, but Roman grips his arm and tugs him out of the room, leading him down the hallway in the opposite direction of the basement. He thinks for a minute, of struggling out of his grip, of trying to put some distance between them - it’s only them in the hallway now - but Stiles is pretty sure that if Roman were to let go of his arm, he’d promptly collapse where he stands. 

The hallway spins around him, dim light from the few bulbs barely providing enough to see anything. It’s disorienting when Roman tugs him this way and that the further on down the hallway they go, but they eventually stop at another door and enter another room.

Everything is old and worn, unused for some time, but Stiles can tell he’s in a communal shower room. It’s larger, bigger than the basement and the other room combined. There’s tile on the floor and along the walls, stained green and brown from moss and dirt that’s invaded here as well. The light is dim here too, but Stiles can see there are a few windows high up on a far wall, the moonlight ghosting inside to provide just enough visibility. A few shower stalls are lined to Stiles’ left and broken wooden benches to his right. Maybe even a locker room of some sort. 

Before he can look around at much else, Roman pulls him to a stall and lets his arm go. “The stench of dog doesn’t really suit you.” His voice doesn't carry the same grating tone of arrogance it held among all the presence of all the others. There was an urgency in it now as if the smell of Peter was actually causing some hostility. 

When Roman reaches for his shirt, Stiles smacks his hand away. When Roman tsks and reaches for him again, Stiles shoves at him, effectively pushing himself back further into the stall. His back hits the tiled wall, a mumbled oomph punching from his lungs. His head is pounding against the sides of his skull, but before he can do anything else, Roman rushes him, ripping through his shirt with well-sharpened claws that break past the fabric and slash right across his chest. 

Stiles cries out, but Roman grabs him by the neck and shoves his face into the wall. “I could snap it and be done with you, little one. It would be so easy.” His breath smells horrible and hot against Stiles’ face, fingers curling into his neck like a promise. 

“Just do it.” He lets out a choked laugh, a shaky hand coming up to press into the blood that’s cresting from the wounds on his chest. Stiles lets out another chuckle when nothing but silence brews between them, twisting his head as much as he can to look at Roman. Blood red eyes stare back at him. 

“And leave your mangy mutt all alone?” Roman coos, mockingly, his grip on Stiles’ neck tightening. 

Stiles shrugs, straining to speak. “I don’t think you understand how much I don’t care what happens to him.” 

Roman huffs a chuckle of his own and releases Stiles’ throat with a pointed shove. He doesn’t bother to say anything as he reaches across Stiles and turns the shower knob. 

Chapter Text

Coldwater sprays against both of them, but only Stiles reacts to it, jumping and moving as far away from it as he can get. He can’t get too far and it’s too cold; feels like ice stabbing at him. Roman grabs Stiles by the shoulders and pushes him back underneath the water, uncaring as Stiles sputters, shakes, and demands to be let go. 

It only takes a minute before Roman is twisting Stiles around to face away from him; Only a minute before Roman presses himself up against Stiles’ back to completely rip his shirt off and toss the wet fabric to the floor. 

Quick and agile hands slink up Stiles' chest, pulling him back far enough for the shower to hit him directly on the freshly made claw wounds. He’s numb to the feeling of Roman’s fingers where the water hits him, but Stiles can feel them as they skirt lower, as cold fingers dip into the sides of his hips. It feels like needles here too, but as time ticks on, the water becomes bearable, and the fevered heat underneath his skin where Roman touches him starts to fade away. 

Hot breath ghosts out against his shoulder as lips ghost over his skin. Stiles shivers, but he can’t tell if it's from the fever, the cold water, or the way Roman’s mouth feels soft pressed against his neck. There are too many sensations pulling at him, too many things to try and focus on, that Stiles ends up not being able to concentrate on anything at all. His mind wanders because he can’t tether it to the present, not while Roman presses up against his back, nor when pointed teeth scrape lightly against the sensitive part where his neck and shoulder meet. 

The water starts to warm. Not by much, but enough that it's not as painful as it was. Stiles can’t feel much pain anymore anyway, just a dull throb of pressure at the back of his head. A hand comes up to grasp the hair there, tugging his head to the side to expose more of his neck. Roman runs his tongue and teeth along the skin against a pulse point. Stiles is only somewhat aware of what’s going to happen next and he’s surprised it hadn’t happened before now. 

Roman groans against his throat, tightens his grip on Stiles’ hip, and in one swift motion, he snaps his teeth down onto soft flesh. Stiles cries out as he jerks forward, hands flying outward to brace himself on the shower stall walls. Roman’s fingers on his hip curl into him, sharp nails piercing him. White-hot pain floods him there, but he can’t feel much of anything where Roman’s teeth are concerned. Beyond the initial pinch of flesh giving way, all he feels now is a tugging pressure on his neck. 

The noises Roman’s mouth makes are close to that of an animal feasting. They’re wet and fervent between hungry groans as a heavy tongue laps at the wound. The sounds make Stiles feel queasy, but he can’t do much as Roman holds him firmly in place. As his nails dig deeper into his side. Stiles bites his lip to try and stifle a groan of his own, but it pushes past his lips anyway, and Roman stills a moment later upon hearing it. He pries his lips from Stiles’ neck and slowly pulls his nails from Stiles’ flesh, chuckling when Stiles whimpers into the water.

Both of Roman’s hands slip down to the hem of Stiles’ pants, thumbs hooking into the belt loops and tugging. Stiles brings his hands up to grip his wrists, but his attempts to stop Roman are clumsy at best. He can’t even manage an ounce of strength to pull him away as his pants fall down his legs, as Roman’s hands begin to rub lower along the sensitive skin. “It’s okay, little one.” Roman whispers in his ear. And for a moment, Stiles thinks that it could be. He can’t put together a cognitive thought, not when there’s too much pressure, too much heat clouding around him. The way Roman’s hands wander his body is suddenly too much; feels too good under the mask of fever. 

Long fingers press upon Stiles’ flaccid cock, and he can feel it twitch beneath them, responding to the touch and feel of foreign hands on his body. He doesn’t want to, but his head falls back on Roman’s shoulder as he leans back against him. The past few nights have been filled with nothing but fear and pain, but right now, Stiles feels good, drunk on a high of blood loss and confusion. He’s still bleeding from the puncture wounds in his neck and on his hip. He can feel them oozing sticky warmth as Roman tongues at the flesh he can reach with his mouth, and it feels good. 

Stiles groans again, feeling himself begin to swell within Roman’s hand. It’s not long until he’s fully hard, long fingers wrapping around his length. He ruts into them only to recoil seconds later, but there’s nowhere for him to go, not while the vampire’s entire body wraps him up. His hands are still around Roman’s wrists, holding on as limp, useless things, but he grips them nonetheless, fingers digging into cold flesh as one hand strokes him and the other reaches up his chest to trace the claw wounds. 

Stiles hisses when one of Roman’s fingers breach the torn flesh, bucking his hips involuntarily backward where he can feel a bulge pressing up against his ass. He swallows down another groan and tries to stay aware, tries to remember who’s touching him. “Fuck.” Stiles breathes. 

And yeah, fuck it, because it’s impossible and he can’t take it anymore. Stiles chases it because he needs it, rolling his hips forward into Roman’s hand, rocking back against the solid form behind him. Roman chuckles against his skin and thumbs against the slit on Stiles’ cock as he holds the weight of him in his hand. Stiles whimpers, and suddenly Roman’s other hand is snaking down to cradle his balls and sinking his teeth into another spot on Stiles’ neck. 

The pain is almost enough to send Stiles over the edge, but the sounds, the fucking sounds Roman makes as he devours Stiles all over again, are no longer repulsive but rather make Stiles’ toes curl and his fingertips go numb. Before he can stop what was barely started, Stiles’ vision burns bright behind his eyelids as he shuts them tight, his orgasm bursting from him in sobs and strands of white over Roman’s knuckles. 

The water is quick to wash away the evidence, but Roman’s hands stay where they are, continue to touch Stiles until he comes down. Roman laps at the blood and the freshly made puncture wounds and groans in approval against Stiles’ neck. He curls himself around Stiles, but Stiles is already trying to move away, to roll Roman off of him. 

Roman lets him, leaves Stiles to his space. Stiles can practically feel the smirk on Roman’s face, and he doesn’t even have to face him to just know he’s admiring his handiwork . It takes a minute for Stiles to move, to use the water to wash away any trace of what just occurred. He quietly pulls his pants back up, fighting with the friction of the water, before turning the shower off completely. 

Stiles slowly turns around, not wanting to meet Roman’s eyes but doing so anyway. His head doesn’t feel as hot, but his face and eyes burn with budding tears. “I don’t understand-” His voice breaks, and Roman tilts his head to the side, all fervor of a vampire scorned gone, as he looks at Stiles like the innocent human he is. He swallows the lump rising in his throat. “I don’t understand why you’re doing any of this. Why not just kill us?” He’s starting to shake now, hands coming up to wipe at his face, to clear the water and the hair that hangs on his forehead. “What is the fucking point!” 

Stiles’ voice echoes along the walls of the room, and he takes a second to note just how big it could be from that alone. Roman steps forward and wraps an arm around Stiles’ bare shoulders, pulling him out of the shower stall and then eventually out of the room altogether. They walk the hallway a bit until they come to the door of the basement. The same two vampire lackeys who’ve been handling Stiles are suddenly behind them, and as the door swings open in front of him, they push past him into the room. “For fun,” Roman finally answers him. 

There’s no time to say anything, to warn Peter. There’s not even enough time for Peter to fully wake up and be aware of what’s coming because as the vampires storm the room, they have Peter in their grip and are picking him up and throwing him to the ground in one swift motion. Stiles stills where he stands next to Roman at the door, unable to move. He’s taking too long to comprehend what’s happening until Peter makes a sickening gurgling sound as a fist comes flying at his face. His nose cracks loudly as it breaks beneath the vampire’s swing, and the gasp he makes when it reels back to deliver another, is wet and broken. 

“Stop.” Stiles gasps out, moving towards the stairs. Roman grips him by the back of his neck and holds him in place, making him watch as the vampires beat Peter. It’s just like the last time, except Peter had been weakened by wolfsbane then. He’s caught unawares this time, but in a matter of seconds, Peter is up and fighting back. 

Blue eyes break through the scuffle, and Peter roars something fierce as he pummels one of the vampires to the ground. The other snakes an arm around his neck and pulls him backward, but he uses the momentum to shove his attacker against the wall and off of him. Peter surveys the room, swiveling his head to pinpoint the locations of the vampires until his gaze lands on Stiles and Roman at the door. He lets loose another roar, and Stiles has to bring his hands up to his ears because it’s so loud. 

The two vampires pull themselves up off the floor and, without a word, trudge back up the stairs and out of the room. They don’t look as if they’ve lost the fight but instead win the intent behind it. Roman grips Stiles’ neck a little too hard before he pushes Stiles down the stairs. His feet fumble beneath him, and Stiles lands on the concrete floor on top of his arm. It punches a gust of air from his lungs as his head bounces forward enough to soundly crack his neck. The silence that rings out afterward is too loud, but when the door bangs shut as Roman takes his leave, Stiles still jumps in surprise. 

It’s still dark outside, which means it’s dark inside, and Stiles struggles to see anything until his eyes adjust. For now, all he can see is blue eyes staring back at him in the dark, can hear the heavy breathing that accompanies them. They stalk closer as Stiles painfully shifts around to roll over on his back. He’s sore everywhere, but his fever is thankfully gone. “Peter.” He chokes out, watching as Peter eventually comes close enough that Stiles can make him out. 

Blue eyes snuff out just as Peter gets to him. “I’m sorry,” Stiles whispers because he’s just too tired to speak up. “That was my fault.”

Peter reaches out and brushes a hand along Stiles’ arm. “I figured as much.” His voice is rough and wet, but it remains the same, full of air and wispy esteem amidst the blood running down his lips. Stiles can feel the pain leaving him as black lines slither up Peter’s hand and arm. 

~~

Peter sighs as he retreats to the table, grabs his bottle of water, which he’d left half-drunk before falling asleep, and uses some of it to wash the blood from his face. He fixes his nose with his fingers, hissing quietly at the renewed pain of breaking and refitting it to heal correctly. He can already feel the pain ebbing away as he lifts his shirt to dry his face. 

Stiles’ breathing has slowed, huffing out in soft puffs of air between barely parted lips. Peter sits on the stool that’s been left forgotten by the table and watches as Stiles sleeps. To say he’d been startled awake was an understatement. He’d merely nodded off without realizing it. Peter has never been one for sudden wake-up calls, not unless he’s asked for them. 

He hasn’t asked for a lot of things, like being roped in with this kidnapping business. The house they tracked the vampires to seemed so unguarded, so reckless as a choice of hideout that only now, in hindsight, felt too easy. They should have been smarter than this. Peter should have been smarter than this, but the look in Stiles’ eyes when he set his mind to something, cut to Peter’s core every time. The kid had a drive no one else in the pack even came close to. 

Scott would like to think he did, being the Alpha, but he never understood his full potential, never took the bull by the horns. Stiles understood. He’d always understood. It was years later when Peter found out through the grapevine of teenagers that Stiles had murdered one of those chimera kids who’d been intent to terrorize the town, about the stupid little fight he and Scott had gotten into while Peter toiled away in Eichen. 

Peter wonders if Stiles had ever thought to come to him, but Stiles wouldn’t have. He’d have stayed away purely because Peter wouldn’t have made him feel bad for it. So much potential is wrapped up in the mindset of forced humanity. What Peter could do with a mind like Stiles’. 

~~

Waking up is hard, especially now that all the pain has returned. Stiles shuffles on his spot on the floor, groaning as he flips over onto his side. He’s cold and still wet from the night before, his pants damp and hugging into every crevice. Dirt and grass from the floor stick to him, to his hair, as he pulls himself up. Everything from his chest to his neck to his side, is sore, but he manages to slide himself back to lean against the wall for support. 

There are bloodstains on the concrete where Stiles had been laying, mixing with the grass and moss. Some of it’s old, but most of it is still bright, shining, and new. Stiles checks himself and sees that his hip is still bleeding. The claw marks on his chest have scabbed over, and the puncture marks on his neck are tiny, the blood merely smearing along his skin. If he doesn’t find a way to clean them soon, they’ll get infected. 

The door to the basement opens, and right on time, the woman who brings the food enters, walking down the steps with her tray in hand. She pads towards the table, and Stiles tracks her movement as he stands. Peter’s off to his right, awake and watching as Stiles walks over to the table as well. The woman gently removes the new food off of the tray, replacing them with the old food that had been left untouched. 

Stiles comes to stand next to her, looking down at the placement of the bowls and the silver spoons, where the apples lay, and where the water bottles stand. He catches her out of the corner of his eye as she fixes the dishes to balance on the tray. He looks back at the spoon, shining a bit in the light of the room. The woman seems unbothered like always, and Stiles doesn’t think, only moves. He grabs at the spoon and, in one quick motion, drives the butt end of it into her neck. 

The tray and the dishes clatter to the floor as she cries out. Her screams sound horrible as she backs away, the spoon embedded too far in to pull out safely. She panics, a hand flying up to do just that as her other one digs around in her pockets. She manages to pull her tiny weapon out, but Stiles knocks it from her to the floor before she can use it.

There’s so much adrenaline running through him that he doesn’t stop to think, to wonder what the implications of his actions might bring down upon their heads. He only knows to surge forward and tackle the woman to the ground, to sit on her stomach and wrap his hands around her throat. 

The spoon wiggles itself free as she thrashes about, as Stiles’ hands try to maneuver around it, but it’s long forgotten when blood begins to pool and smear along her throat. Stiles’ fingers are already slick and sticky with it, but he holds on tight and squeezes. The woman can’t make a sound as she scrambles to scratch and claw her way up Stiles’ arms. She tries to push Stiles’ face away, attempts to gain some leverage, but Stiles shakes his head and tightens his grip. 

Her throat is already so small but grasped between Stiles’ long fingers, it seems so much smaller. Her eyes are wide, and her lips are turning blue, but Stiles doesn’t let up. He allows the anger to flow through him, the fear and hatred filling him up until he’s no longer himself, just a husk of rage and frustration. 

It only takes a few minutes for the woman’s body to convulse under Stiles’ weight. Only a minute more for her to stop moving entirely. It takes Stiles a little longer to realize that, though, but when he does, the knowledge of what he’d done slams against him like a tidal wave. 

He’s scrambling off of her within seconds, hands shaking, heat and shame washing over him with each quickening pace of his heart. It jack-rabbits itself within his chest, and he doesn’t know where to go or what to do, and the room is spinning, and his stomach is reeling and-

“Stiles.” Peter’s voice cuts through it all like a knife, like a lifeline cast out to sea. It’s calm and quiet but stern, and it momentarily snaps Stiles from his spiraling. Hands come up to grip Stiles by the shoulders, but they mean no harm, only to help. Peter moves Stiles away to lean against the table, away from the body lying motionless on the floor. 

The body of a person Stiles just murdered. 

“Oh my god.” He gasps out, eyes darting from Peter to the woman. “Is she - Did I-?” He can’t seem to ask properly, the words stuck in his throat, but Peter nods all the same. Stiles dives out of Peter’s hands, intent on slamming to the floor to look for a pulse, a sign of life, something, but Peter catches him by the wrist and keeps him against the table. “No! She’s not - I didn’t - I didn’t mean to - Peter - I-” Stiles begins to babble, hands wrenching themselves from Peter’s to flail about, to accentuate what he can’t seem to articulate. 

Peter’s calm, too calm, as he brings his hands up to grip Stiles’ shoulders. He hates the way Peter’s fingers feel against his skin, but Stiles can’t breathe, let alone form words or proper emotion. All he feels is panic and the sudden urge to vomit. He promptly leans away to do so, but nothing comes up, nothing but bile and stomach acid. He hadn’t eaten the day before, so he dry-heaves until the muscles in his stomach stop contracting. Peter’s still standing there, ready to haul Stiles back up once he’s done. 

“Breathe, Stiles.” His voice isn’t urgent nor stern. It’s factual. Breathe. Stiles has to breathe, but it’s hard when the room begins to spin, and his vision starts to slowly fade at the edges. It’s been a long time since his last panic attack. Maybe he was due for one. His throat burns, his chest hurts, and he’s pretty sure he’s about to pass out, but Peter acts quickly enough, brings a hand up to slap him in the face. It isn’t hard. Peter hadn’t reeled back to deliver an attack; he’d merely snapped his wrist and gave one good sharp smack to the side of Stiles’ face, just enough to shock him back into attentiveness. 

Stiles’ breathing slows, his vision doesn’t wane, but he still can’t focus on a single thing, his eyes jumping from the body to Peter, to the door. To his hands, which are still shaking much like the rest of him is. “Peter - I-” But he still can’t speak.

Peter looks at him like he’s studying him as if he’s waiting to uncover more of a part of Stiles he hasn’t exactly seen before. “It's okay.” His voice is still low, quiet, and soft, as if Peter is trying not to spook a wild animal, but it's the words that set Stiles off, not the tone. His gaze shifts to Peter then, all fury, all sickening rage suddenly directed at him behind unshed tears. There’s no point to it, Stiles is just angry, and Peter happens to be the closest person to him.

Stiles smacks Peter’s hands away from him, shoves past him. There’s not really anywhere else he can go, but he can’t share the same space with him anymore. “It’s not okay. None of this is okay!” Stiles is pretty sure he’s crying now. A hand grips his wrist, and Stiles shakes him off. “Get away from-” Stiles can’t speak, can’t breathe, as he’s slammed up against a nearby wall. All the air punches from him as he’s spun around.

Peter brackets him with arms on either side of his head. He’s all teeth and wild, blue eyes burning as he lets loose a roar to rival the one from the night before. Stiles’ ears ring from the sound, but he can’t move, can’t do much more than shake as anxiety coils around inside of him. 

“Six days.” All pretense of calm and prestige has left Peter’s voice. Like a switch has gone off, he sounds haggard and worn, bordering on becoming unhinged. “ Six days we’ve been stuck here, and while you’ve been gallivanting throughout the building, I’ve been confined to this single room.” If he had fur, it’d be bristling, but Peter hasn’t shifted, not yet. Stiles can see that he wants to. He almost wants to see if he will. 

“Gallivanting?” Stiles barks back, pushing back against Peter’s chest, fingers curling into his shirt. Memories of the night before, fever-clouded moments in the shower stall, wrongful misdeeds cloaked in desperation, play in Stiles’ head on a loop. Every sound, every touch burns him from the inside out, and when Peter leans close, emitting a low, warning growl, Stiles can’t help but let loose one of his own. 

It’s more of a long grunt, but Peter seems to take offense all the same. He grabs at Stiles’ hair, tugs his head to the side, exposes the vulnerable part of his neck, and he bends even closer, hot breath puffing against the skin from behind enormous fangs that threaten to clamp shut on Stiles’ flesh. 

Stiles hisses and pushes at Peter, pulling on the fabric of his shirt hard enough to hear the seams begin to tear. “You smell like them.” Peter grunts against him, nosing at the marks Roman’s fangs had made. “You smell like them and then come back here and invade this space with it.” He drags his nose up along Stiles’ neck, and Stiles can’t help but gasp. 

It’s broken, chased by a whimper because Peter is too close and warm, and Stiles is so angry that it’s morphing on the wrong side of arousal. He shouldn’t want Peter to be closer, but his hands pull on Peter without a thought, tugging him closer until there’s no space left between them. 

There’s another low sound coming from Peter, from his chest. It vibrates against Stiles as he presses up against him, tongue snaking out between fangs to chase where his nose has been. It licks a long strip up to Stiles’ ear, over to his jaw, where Stiles can now feel blunt human teeth bite at him. Peter’s mouth inches closer, nips and tugs at the lightly stubbled skin until his mouth finds Stiles’ lips. 

Peter pulls back only by an inch, enough to look at Stiles’ face, to breathe hot breath into his space. Stiles looks at him behind heavy-lidded eyes. Peter’s eyes are his normal blue now, pupils blown wide, and Stiles wonders if his own look that way, if that’s why Peter is looking at him predatorily. Like he might eat him or mount him at any second. Stiles can feel the flush on his face, knows Peter can see it too. 

“Fuck you.” It’s all Stiles manages to get out before Peter slots his mouth over his own and licks his way between his lips.

Chapter Text

Peter isn’t gentle. Not in the slightest, not when he has a knee slotted between Stiles’ legs, and not when he can feel how hard Stiles is against his thigh. Especially not when he has Stiles’ tongue in his mouth or when Stiles is busy spilling moans and curse words from his lips in tandem with each other. Peter eats them all up, biting Stiles’ bottom lip and chuckling when Stiles grunts in disapproval.

Stiles has pale skin meant for bruising, and Peter wants to press as many of them into him as possible. His fingers slide and squeeze along Stiles’ shoulders, skipping down across his chest and stomach to grip at his hips. They find the wounds made from Roman, and without a second thought, Peter digs the tips of his fingers into them. 

Stiles hisses and reels back against the wall, shoving at Peter’s chest. “Dick.” He grits the word out between clenched teeth, and Peter can’t help but chuckle at that as well. He tugs on the hem of Stiles’ pants until Stiles understands enough to reach down and unbutton them. The sound of the zipper is obscenely loud in the quiet basement. 

He spins Stiles around and helps him out of them, tossing them to the floor. It’s hard not to admire Stiles’ backside. He’s dotted here with moles too. Too many to count like stars in the night sky, peppering an ivory body that Peter wants to sink his teeth and cock into. “Look at you,” Peter growls, reaching out to grab handfuls of Stiles’ ass. It pushes Stiles further against the wall, but Peter doesn’t care. He’s too busy pulling and spreading and feeling all the meaty parts of Stiles to care about his comfort. 

Stiles groans and pushes back against Peter’s hands. “It’s no wonder why Derek stares at you the way he does.” Peter can’t help but run his hands up and down Stiles’ back, across to his hips, dipping low to rub down between his legs. He wants to touch him everywhere. Stiles sucks in a breath and reaches back to grasp one of Peter’s arms, twisting his upper half just enough to be able to see him. 

“Don’t - don’t talk about Derek,” He gasps, watching Peter over his shoulder, letting slip a whimper as Peter runs a finger down between his cheeks. “Fuck - Peter-” Peter chuckles. 

“That’s the point.” He huffs out, leaning forward, pressing all of his body up against Stiles. He rolls his hips against him, groans in approval when Stiles ruts back against him. Peter wraps a hand up and around Stiles’ face, two fingers pushing their way past his lips. Stiles is smart. Smart enough to know that Peter wants that mouth of his to drool and suck, so he does, and it's all Peter can do not to just give in and take what he wants right this very second.

Stiles coats them well and one finger slides inside of Stiles’ hole easily enough. But Peter is impatient and quickly adds the second one, even amidst grunting protests from Stiles. He’s already taken too long to reach his ultimate goal, and maybe that’s the one nice thing he’ll allow, a fraction of slow where all Peter feels is rushing heat and building pressure. The wanting, the needing to be in Stiles, to make the boy smell like him inside and out. Peter’s been caged for far too many days and nights, and here before him stands a feast ready to be devoured.

Incoherent noises tumble from Stiles’ lips like a waterfall of disgustingly crude adoration and wouldn’t that be something, Peter thinks, to watch Stiles come undone just from his fingers alone?

“Do you think the others know how well you eat me up? Hm?” Peter leans close, licking along Stiles’ shoulder. Stiles shivers beneath him, around him. Peter bites down on the skin of Stiles’ neck, growls into the flesh as blunt teeth press hard enough to bruise. He wants to leave as many on Stiles as there are moles. “Have you let any of them touch you here?” Peter adds a third finger as he noses Stiles’ ear, and when Stiles sucks in a breath and tries to move his hips away, Peter bites him there and smiles when Stiles cries out in pain. “Have you let anyone touch you here?”

Stiles reaches back behind himself, gripping Peter’s wrist. He doesn’t try to pull his hand away, merely holds onto him like a lifeline. His other hand is wrapped around himself, working himself over as Peter fucks into him with his fingers. “No.” He manages to gasp out, shaking his head. “N-no one.”

Peter can’t help the sound of approval escape his lips. “Mm- good boy.” He’s waited long enough, no more being generous. The swell of his own arousal is begging to be freed from the confines of his pants, so Peter pulls his fingers out from Stiles and wraps an arm around his waist. 

Stiles is feather-light in his arms, and it takes no strength on Peter’s part to pull him up and away from the wall. He falls to his knees, taking Stiles down with him. He’s not nice when he lets Stiles go or when Stiles hits the concrete a little too hard. There’s a noise Stiles makes in the back of his throat as he rolls over onto his back, something between a whimper and a grunt. It almost sounds like a moan, and Peter desperately wants to hear more of that. 

Peter unbuttons his pants with one hand, shoving everything away just enough to pull himself free. He groans at the tiny release in pressure. With his other hand, he’s pushing one of Stiles’ legs up and out of the way. He looks like a beautiful mess beneath Peter, skin splotched pink and red among the dirt that coats him like a second layer. His eyes hide behind long lashes that can’t decide if they want to be opened or not, as if Stiles can’t stop himself from looking at Peter. 

Stile may have a mouth that loves to moan and groan curses, but he’s surprisingly quiet where actual talking is concerned. All brainy babble and quick-wit are gone, replaced with a reserved watchfulness. Stiles looks at Peter like he’s studying him, alert and focused and present. Peter wants to ruin that look, wants to ruin Stiles. He wants Stiles screaming his name and losing himself in the process.  

Peter generously licks his own hand and leans close, letting Stiles wind his arms around his neck. His fingers tug on the back of Peter’s hair as Peter coats his cock spit-slick. It’s not much but Peter isn’t looking for much at all. Only Stiles. “I’ll ruin you for anyone else.” He growls against Stiles’ lips, threatening, promising. 

Stiles nods his head, parts his lips, and gasps out a desperate, “ Please -” before Peter claims his mouth with his own, not wasting any more time.

~~

Stiles thought he knew pain in his life. There was probably worse pain he’s felt, some punch or kick or broken bone he’s forgetting, but he can’t remember any of it as Peter pushes his way inside. It feels like fire, stinging and burning all up his backside. Peter doesn’t stop until he’s flush against Stiles’ and even then, gives Stiles no room to breathe before he’s moving again. 

Stiles is unsure if he’s taken a breath at all since the intrusion but when Peter pulls back a bit, he finds the air and gasps at the end of a cry. Peter thrusts back inside and Stiles feels like he’s going to die. This must be what being impaled is like. His fingers tighten in Peter’s hair, almost to the point of ripping out handfuls should the pain worsen, but then it’s easing, gradually tapering off. Stiles peers down around Peter’s shoulder to see black lines slither up his hands where they’ve settled on Stiles’ hips. 

Stiles sighs as the last of the pain ebbs away. “Fuck, I love werewolves.” He laughs as Peter slides his tongue along his chin, tilting his head back to give him more room to work with.

Peter noses against Stiles’ jaw, biting and dragging his tongue along the stubble. It’s starting to burn there as well, but Stiles doesn’t mind. He didn’t mind when Peter shoved him against the wall, nor when he practically threw him to the ground. And his fucking fingers - Stiles can’t help but moan again as Peter pulls out and rocks back in. All he feels now is pressure, and when Peter thrusts just the right way and hits his prostate, “Ah! Yes - yeah, ” a bit of pleasure too. 

Peter’s body wraps around his own, and it’s so warm. Warm enough that Stiles is already a sweaty mess beneath him. He shakes against Peter, but he’s not entirely helpless. Peter’s busy sucking bruises on his neck, leaving his own open for Stiles’ mouth. Peter tastes salty and a little bit like the grass that grows from the cracks in the foundation around them. Stiles can taste the dirt that sits atop Peter’s skin, but it doesn’t deter him from what he wants to do. Peter’s growling against his neck, but Stiles is already sinking his teeth into the flesh he can reach. 

He can feel his own skin break as Peter bites into him, hard enough even with blunt, human teeth. Stiles doesn’t mind that pain either. He gasps and rolls his hips towards Peter because all he wants is more of that. More of this moment, as quick as it. He hasn’t mentioned what Roman said about having plans for them. Stiles feels like they're on the horizon of something terrible, but he can’t bring himself to tell Peter right now, not while his mind is filled with all the things he wants Peter to keep doing to him.

Stiles has no complaints where Peter is concerned. Not when Peter is rolling his hips, pushing deep enough that Stiles believes Peter’s cock has taken up permanent residence inside of him. He wouldn’t care so much if it did. Heat rushes through him like pinpricks along his skin, as if his body had been numb until now. As if the feeling is returning all at once with each snap of Peter’s hips. “Shit - Peter - fuck yes-” 

Peter growls against him again, practically vibrating against him. Stiles can feel it through his chest, up against where his cock is trapped between the two of them. He runs his hands down Peter’s sides, scraping and scratching his skin as hard as he can before landing on Peter’s ass. He digs his fingers in the flesh there too, gripping and pressing and, “Uhn - h-harder - Peter - fuck!” Peter complies, wrapping his arms up and under Stiles’ back, fingers digging into his shoulders as he holds him tight. More growls rumble through Peter as he gives Stiles what he wants, as he thrusts harder, faster until Stiles is nothing but a fucking sobbing wreck in his arms. 

Stiles’ orgasm hits him like a punch to the gut. It’s sudden, an explosion of white behind his eyes as his vision wanes, as it rolls over him like cresting waves, as he spills out between himself and Peter. There’s a noise bursting from the back of his throat, a desperate, scratchy sob as he comes. That seems to do it for Peter. Enough that his thrusting stutters and Peter stills, grunting and pressing into Stiles’ as if to split him open. Stiles wouldn’t mind, though, if Peter did. He’s wouldn’t care if Peter’s dick had the power to crack him in half. 

Peter lays on top of him a moment too long and suddenly, what was nice and warm is too hot and too heavy now. Stiles pushes at Peter’s shoulders. “Dude, get off.” He's not nice about it, but Peter doesn’t seem to care. He snorts a laugh against Stiles’ neck and pushes himself up and off of him, pulling up his pants and tucking himself back inside. 

It only occurs to Stiles moments later, as he sits up, the predicament he’s put himself in. From the corner of his eye, he can see Peter note the hint of embarrassment coming from Stiles, pushing through the post-sex haze. To his credit, Peter doesn’t say a word, and it makes it easier for Stiles to get up and hurriedly scoop a bottle of water from the table on his way to the bathroom.

~~

The woman looks just as dead laying neatly at the bottom of the stairs as she did sprawled out on the floor next to the table. There’s a lot less blood seeping out from the wound in her neck than there initially was, but she’s still dead, no matter where she lays. And Stiles can’t stop staring at her.

Peter nudges Stiles’ arm with his own as he slinks down the wall next to him. Both have had time to recover from the morning’s activities, and while Stiles didn’t want to be anywhere near Peter directly afterward, he didn’t mind the other’s presence as much now. Especially after he watched Peter prepare the woman’s body with an odd sense of gentleness. 

“You do know she’s the bad guy, right?” 

Stiles knows it, but - “It doesn’t make me feel any less worse.” He feels a knot forming in his stomach, weighted down with remorse and regret. “She was human.”

Peter leans his arms upon his bent knees. “That sounds like Scott.” Stiles shrugs, and Peter sighs. “Just because Scott can float through life without getting his hands dirty doesn’t mean he’s better at navigating  it.”

“He’s not trapped in a basement waiting to die, now is he?” Peter reaches up and tugs on a bit of Stiles’ hair, sparking a hiss, and an incredulous look shot his way. It works, though, and breaks Stiles’ line of sight of the body. “What the-”

“We haven’t lost yet. The full moon is almost here. Let’s just stick to the plan and wait it out. Who knows, maybe Derek and Scott have combined to form one well-working brain cell and actually manage to find us before then.”

Stiles wants to tell Peter about what Roman had said to him, even if he doesn’t entirely know what it is that he’s planning to do to or with them. But he can’t bring himself to say anything.

Peter studies Stiles, light blue, human eyes staring at him for a moment. Stiles is sure he’s picked up on the blip in his heartbeat. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Stiles looks away, back at the body. “It must be nice, to always know things about others.”

“Not really.” Peter’s voice is soft, drawing Stiles’ attention back to him. “It’s rather annoying, actually.”

Nodding, Stiles licks his lips, catches Peter’s gaze flick down to them and back up to his eyes. “Then why don’t we just pretend you can’t and leave it at that.” He looks away again, eyes now glued to the metal door.

Peter sighs next to him, but he fixes his gaze outward, probably towards the door as well. “Okay.”

~~

Night falls, but it's hours before anyone comes to collect Stiles. It causes him to pace the room in the space between Peter and the woman’s body. Peter doesn’t try to calm him down or make him sit. He sits where he’s been all day and watches him walk back and forth. Stiles is busy devouring his fourth nail when the door opens. It’s slow, menacing, and makes Stiles’ heart pound wildly about in his chest. It’s enough to make Peter stand and grab ahold of Stiles’ elbow to try and steady him.

Lackeys one and two come into the room, not even bothering to glance down at the woman’s body as they stand waiting at the top of the stairs. Peter moves to step in front of Stiles, but Stiles stops him with a shake of his head. It’s a slight movement, but he glances at Peter, waits for Peter to acknowledge it. Peter’s hand slowly falls away from him as he does.

Stiles takes a few steps, stopping just short of the woman. He looks down at her and notes how peaceful she looks, and wonders if she is, in fact, at peace. One of the vampires makes a small, impatient noise, and Stiles doesn’t waste more time. He steps over her and up the stairs, not bothering to glance back at Peter. Stiles isn’t sure he could leave if he did. This time feels final and maybe Peter feels it too, but Stiles won’t, he won’t-

The metal door shuts behind him, and the basement’s silence is replaced with the quiet of the dim hallway. The only noises are the soft sounds of Stiles’ bare feet padding along the floor as they make their way forward. When they reach the hauntingly familiar room, Stiles thinks this is it. He can feel it in the air. They'll kill him, or worse, make him wish they would. 

No one is saying anything when Stiles enters behind the two men. The others in the room surround him almost instantly, pressing in from all sides, just enough to close off the space. It makes the room feel smaller now. Roman moves between the crowd, standing before Stiles. Lackey one whispers something into his ear and Roman clicks his tongue in disapproval. Stiles doesn’t care. He’s scared, heart pounding away in his chest, but he’s okay with disappointing them. 

Roman seems to notice that something’s different this time. Stiles watches his gaze flicker over him from head to toe and back again. “We had our plans, little one. But it seems that we must make some minor changes to them.” The crowd around them seems to inch even closer, but Stiles won’t look away from Roman. He’s too afraid to. 

“What was her name?” 

The question seems to surprise them all, but Roman merely smiles. “Mary.” The vampire, Elizabeth, is standing to the right of Stiles. She makes a quiet noise, and Roman takes a moment to look at her fondly. “She was Elizabeth’s favorite, you know. Maybe I should give you to her to make up for what you did?” Elizabeth makes another noise, this one not so quiet, and it sends a chill down Stiles’ spine.

Goosebumps rise on his skin because he’s still shirtless, and his pants are still a little damp from the night before. It’s cold because no one is giving off any body heat except Stiles. He misses the warmth of Peter, and his heart breaks a little at the thought of never being able to feel it again. Or anyone else’s, for that matter. Not while hugging his father or during cuddles with the rest of the pack, or while researching as Derek leans just a bit too close behind him. 

“No,” Roman answers his own question. “I know what we should do with you.”

Chaos erupts around Stiles, too many noises popping off, too many bodies closing in on him, tackling him, pushing and pulling him. After the first pair of fangs breach his skin, Stiles’ mind momentarily shifts away from the here and now. But he’s slammed back to the present when the second, third, and hell, even fourth pair sink into him. They’re everywhere, and more are on him in a matter of seconds. Too many to count, too much pain to think of doing anything else except scream. 

Just as quickly as the onslaught happens, Stiles finds himself in a pile on the floor only a few minutes later. They’ve left him there, bloody and broken and lying in a shaking heap. There are too many holes in him, too many places where pain ignites no matter how much he tries to shift himself into a more comfortable position. Roman nudges him over onto his back with his foot, ignoring the groans as he plants himself on Stiles’ chest. “A neck for a neck, I say.”

Stiles has just enough energy to roll his eyes because damn them if they think he’ll go any other way than as himself. He wants to speak, say something, and leave something behind but Roman’s hands are around his neck seconds later, squeezing and cutting off his air. It’s not gradual or slow. It’s deliberate. Roman aims to choke the life out of Stiles without a second thought.

It only takes a minute for Stiles’ body to spasm. He tries to hold his breath for as long as possible, but eventually, it becomes too painful, and his chest burns with the need for oxygen. His mind is cloudy, bursting between the present and past, of memories he’s sure he won’t get to bring with him. Stiles panics and manages to bring a hand up to weakly claw at Roman’s hands. His attempts to stop him or to breathe are futile as Roman squeezes just a bit too hard. Stiles feels himself slipping as his vision wanes, the view of Roman’s face fading into black.

~~

Bursting into unconsciousness sucks. It’s sudden and painful and probably what being born feels like—ripped from a cozy state of blissful floating into just being. Stiles wakes with a start and a shake, gasping as air rushes back into his lungs. He rolls over and tries to focus on what’s happening around him. Roman is no longer sitting on him. He takes a minute to glance around the room, and notices that he’s all alone. 

It’s eerie, waking up alone when he’d been overcrowded for what felt like moments before. Maybe they thought he was dead and left him alone to do vampire-y things. Or the night had passed, and they had all gone to sleep, leaving his body for the following night’s entertainment. Either way, Stiles is grateful for the space to breathe and doesn’t waste time pushing himself up and off the floor. 

It takes him a few steps towards the door to notice that he’s not in as much pain as he was. He looks down at himself, at the bite marks littering his body, and presses a finger into one. He feels nothing there, just the pressure from his finger. The wounds are no longer bleeding, red streaks caked along his skin and mixing with the dirt that’s settled there. 

The door opens easily enough, and Stiles peers outside into the hallway. He can’t see anyone and takes off down it towards the basement, towards Peter. His heart races in his chest at the thought of not finding him there. Roman had done a good enough job of rendering Stiles unconscious pretty early into the night, and who knows if that left time for them to get to Peter. 

~~

Hands are on him, shaking him, tugging on his shirt and arm. It’s frantic, and Peter wakes up with a bit of panic rising inside of him at the sharp sudden awareness. Fangs drop and claws extend almost instantly. It’s when he sees Stiles, hears him yelling at him to “-get up, we have to go, now!” that Peter springs into action. He scrambles to his feet, lets Stiles pull him towards the door. 

“Stiles, wait - what’s going on?” Stiles stumbles over the woman as if she’s just a broken fixture in the room and not a dead body. Peter reaches down to help him up, but just as quickly as Stiles regains composure, he’s suddenly bent over and retching up a foul-smelling black substance. It pours over the concrete in an inky pool. Peter recognizes that smell almost instantly, but he’s not inclined to tell Stiles. Not right now. 

Stiles coughs and wipes at his mouth, smearing the sick over his arm and face. “I don’t know. I woke up, and they were gone.” And then they’re moving again, up the stairs and through the door. 

Peter whips a hand out and pushes on Stiles. “Get behind me.” He doesn’t stop to see the look Stiles is giving him because he doesn’t have time to explain why he needs Stiles to get behind him. Stiles still does as he’s told and lets Peter lead the way down the hall. It doesn’t take too long before they find a pair of double doors and burst through them. It leads to a much bigger space, a large open area with old, rusty, and broken workout equipment. Stiles had been right to guess they were being held in a gymnasium and an abandoned one by the looks of it. 

There’s no time to look around, and Peter isn’t exactly curious about the place anyway. He can see windows boarded and another set of double doors in front of them. Stiles stumbles behind him, but he manages to keep up as Peter pushes one of the doors open. Crisp night air hits them both as the door swings open. Peter looks about, but Stiles is the one to notice which way to run. “Over there!” He yells, his bare feet slapping against the asphalt as they run across what appears to be a parking lot. 

A few cars are sitting battered and broken off in a corner, but there’s an old truck that seems in relatively good shape. It has all four tires, at least. Peter opens the passenger side door and scrambles in, turning to make sure Stiles is right behind him. He takes a second to breathe, to calculate his next move as Stiles climbs in and shuts the door behind him.

There are no keys to be found, so Peter leans down to pry a part of the car off to get underneath the wires. He’s not even sure if the truck has any gas, but he’ll try to hotwire it anyway. The car rumbles to life, and the gas gauge reads halfway. Peter puts the truck in gear while Stiles vomits onto the floorboard in front of him. 

More black goo spills out over Stiles’ chin and chest. He’s practically covered in the stuff as he heaves the last bits out. “What’s happening to me?” Peter presses on the gas pedal and takes off out of the parking lot onto the main road. He’s unsure how to answer Stiles, so he simply doesn’t until Stiles clutches his stomach and doubles over, howling in pain. “Peter-”

“I don’t know.” It's the only answer he’ll give until he knows they’re safe. Not one vampire has come for them, and Peter isn’t even sure if he’d be able to sense them if they were. It was hard to pinpoint something that didn’t have blood flowing in their veins or a beating heart. “This feels like a trap. It’s too easy.” 

Stiles coughs, and Peter glances over to see him trying to wipe at his face. “I don’t care, just don’t sto- Peter!”

Peter has enough time to whip his head around to see a figure in the middle of the road, but there’s no time to stop, so he turns the wheel and swerves the truck. Tires squeal, and the truck flips a total of two times before it lands upside down in a ditch on the side of the road. Peter groans as he lays tangled up on the roof of the truck. He’d managed to hang on to the wheel, but as he looks over to check on Stiles, he doesn’t see him in the seat.

It’s only when he clambers out through the broken windshield that he sees where Stiles has landed. It’s not too far from the truck, but Stiles isn’t moving. The figure is gone, and the road is empty once again, but Peter doesn’t slow down. He rushes over to Stiles and shakes him, “Stiles!” smacking him in the face a few times until Stiles gasps for air and whimpers in pain. 

“I think my arm is broken.” Stiles groans, trying to lift his right arm and failing. It lays limp on the ground next to him, bent at an awkward angle from his shoulder. Peter helps him up and wraps an arm under and around Stiles’ good side. 

“Keep going.” 

“Where?” Stiles looks around and sighs at the sight of the overturned truck. “I can’t keep running.” His feet are cut up pretty badly, and Peter can see glass and gravel embedded in tiny slits as they too bleed the black goo. 

Peter takes another sweep around them and pulls Stiles on into the woods. It’s not the most brilliant idea; it’s just the only one they have. About a few feet in, Stiles stumbles over a few tree roots and loses his footing, so Peter picks him up, ignoring any of the weak protests Stiles is muttering and keeps going further on into the multitude of trees. 

Chapter Text

A fucking cabin in the woods. Of course, it had to be something as cliche as stumbling upon an abandoned cabin in the middle of the woods. Peter rolls his eyes and adjusts Stiles, who has now begun to droop against him, in his arms. There’s no one around, but Peter isn’t taking any chances. It’s either this or standing out in the middle of all these trees just waiting to be killed by a silent predator. 

The steps up to the porch landing creak underneath their feet. Peter winces with each step, worried that the sound will carry — if they haven’t already been found, but keeps going until he reaches the door. It takes a few times for him to shoulder it open, which Peter blames on having to hold Stiles up and do so simultaneously. Stiles can’t or won’t say anything in his defense, not while his head bounces listlessly against Peter’s chest with each thrust to the door.

Inside is just as rickety as the outside, with broken boards and crumbling furniture. There’s a lone nightstand that stands intact, but its edges are rough as if a wild animal has chewed on them. It looks wholly abandoned, with no trace of human or beast left behind for Peter to pick up on. He shuts the door behind them with his foot and carries Stiles over to the far corner, sliding down to sit between the two walls, making sure to be as gentle with Stiles as possible. Stiles’ head lulls slightly off his arm, so Peter readjusts to hold him up. 

The black stuff he’d been leaking has caked over on Stiles’ face, the edges of it already crusting against his skin. Stiles stares up at Peter, nestled between his arms and legs like a baby. Peter can see he hates this, the look he’s giving him glaringly bold but filled with exhaustion at the same time. “Rest, Stiles,” Peter murmurs, but Stiles doesn’t listen, keeps his eyes open while reaching up to twist his fingers in Peter’s shirt. 

Another bout of pain hits him, and his body contracts in Peter’s arms as he whimpers. There’s a soft growl pushing past Peter’s lips as he places a hand on Stiles’ chest, as he tries to take as much of it as he can before having to give up. He mumbles apologies into Stiles’ hair as he shuffles him closer and Stiles merely groans in reply. 

There’s only the span of a few frantic heartbeats before Stiles starts to shake in Peter’s arms violently. He’s no longer vomiting up the black goo as it's coming out in globbious chunks now, bubbling up from his throat and spilling over his mouth, down his face to stain the rest of his pale skin and parts of Peter underneath. Peter tightens his hold on Stiles, grips the back of his neck to help keep his head up so as not to choke, but it’s pointless in the end when Stiles starts to cough and sputter — while he tries to take a breath, and fails, struggling to hold on to Peter’s shirt with a stuttering grip.

Stiles’ eyes roll back up into his head, and Peter knows, has known from the moment Stiles startled him awake, every sense punctuated with the inevitable tale-tell signs of death. Stiles is dying in his arms, looking up at him for something Peter can’t give him. He can’t help him, not now, not here in the middle of nowhere. “It’s okay, Stiles - it’s okay.” Peter keeps mumbling assurances into his hair because he can’t bear to look at him anymore. 

Stiles’ body convulses a few more times, jerking against Peter before he finally stills and falls limp in his arms. Peter sucks in a breath and pulls back enough to look down at him, taking the time to listen for anything, for any sign of life. There’s no heartbeat, no flutter of those long lashes, no quirk of those blackened lips. Stiles’ broken arm has fallen off his side, the other lying awkwardly in his lap. If Peter weren’t holding up his head, it would probably roll backward, lifeless just like the rest of Stiles, but Peter can't bring himself to let go just yet. Not for a good long while.

~~

It’s not until daylight begins to peek through the cracks in the walls of the cabin that Peter finally moves from where he’s been sitting on the floor. At some point, he’d fallen asleep, still holding on to Stiles with some wishful thinking that he’d come back. If only Derek could see him now, covered in sick and dirt and grime, clinging to the body of someone that no one thought would be important to him. Stiles had always been important, and now he was gone.

Peter stands, taking Stiles with him to wander the tiny cabin. There’s a bathroom he comes across, big enough to house a large tub. Two of its legs are broken, so it slants forward a little. Peter places Stiles inside of it, folds his hands across his lap as if he’s preparing him for burial. 

It won’t come to that, not right now, at least. The sun has risen, and Peter is safe for the day. The vampires won’t go after them, giving Peter time to think about what needs to be done. First and foremost, he pads over to the sink where a small, dirty window sits above it. Even wiping at it still leaves Peter’s reflection a bit fuzzy, but he can see from the small patch he’s made that he doesn’t look good. 

His hair is sticking every which way, having lost its shape days ago. There’s scruff on his chin, a five o’clock shadow, and then-some crowding his jaw and cheeks and upper lip. Peter looks pale, but the dark circles around his eyes are new. Nothing a few good days rest wouldn’t fix, but Peter’s aware that might not happen for some time. He takes another look at Stiles lying in the bathtub, thinks to himself that Stiles merely looks like he’s sleeping, before he takes a glance down at himself and his clothes. They’re stained in the black stuff that had come from Stiles, smelling like death and decay, and maybe that’s what they’d done to Stiles, filled him with poison, and sent him on his way to watch him rot from the inside out somewhere on high. 

Peter had expected them to come after them all night, but the door to the cabin remained shut. 

He needed to call Derek, but first, he needed to find out where exactly they were. He’d been so disoriented and anxious to get out of that gymnasium that Peter hadn’t bothered to check road signs or mile markers. Sighing, he looks back over at Stiles. He leaves the room for a moment, checking the other rooms of the cabin, of which there was only one other than the bathroom. It’s a bedroom, or it used to be. The bed lays cracked in half, blankets and other fabrics lying in shredded ruin atop it. Along one of the walls sits a large window and a curtain that only has one hole in it.

Peter takes the curtain down carefully, bringing it back to the bathroom. He takes his time but efficiently wraps Stiles' entire body in it. He can’t exactly say why he felt the need to do this, just that it felt wrong to leave Stiles so open and vulnerable to the rest of the place, to nature. Once the wrapped fabric resembles the shape of a body, Peter takes a deep breath and heads outside.

The floor creaks the same as the night before, but Peter isn’t worried about the sound carrying right now. The sun has risen just enough that it covers a good portion of the cabin, the shadowed silhouette of the trees scattering everywhere Peter steps. He has no direction, only that of the way they’d come, so Peter walks back on the same path until he reaches the road.

The truck is gone, but remnants of the crash are still present, glass crunching under Peter’s shoes as he makes his way down the road. There’s a massive piece of front bumper he has to step around, surmising that someone had come to take the truck off the road at some point. If it had been a tow truck, there surely was a town from which it had come. Peter takes a look at the pieces of metal, at a trail of glass leading off in a distinct direction, and takes off the same way.

For all Peter knew, he could be heading back in the direction of the gymnasium. Still, with the sun shining down overhead, it steadily reminds him that he’s safe for now, and before long, he passes by a mile marker and keeps the number in mind as he trudges on down the road. 

It doesn’t take long before a gas station comes into view, and even though Peter’s aware of the state his clothes are in, he enters it, shocking a few of the inhabitants. The clerk behind the desk nearly falls off of his stool. “Whoa, man, are you okay?” 

Peter smiles the best he can and stands a little straighter. Just because he looks like a mess doesn’t mean he has to act like one. “Just fine.” He says, taking a second to look around the establishment. It’s dingy and small, like any corner-side convenience store. He locates the map stand sitting next to a lottery machine and promptly pulls out what he needs. He can hear the clerk clear his throat, ready to tell him that he needs to buy the map first, but with one glance from Peter, the guy clams up. 

Peter uses the space at the register to lay the map out. “Could you kindly tell me where I am? And can I please use your phone? I seem to have lost mine.” He sounds polite, but Peter’s wavering on a thin line of impatience as the clerk takes his time retrieving the phone from its dock, handing it over while also pointing down the map for their current location. “We’re in Oregon.” It might have sounded like a question, but Peter wasn’t asking. 

He sighs, taking the phone and dialing Derek’s number. One of the few he’s memorized. It rings six times before it goes to voicemail, but Peter is too impatient to leave a message. He redials, flitting a look about the place at the clerk and the two other people scattered about it. They seem intent to ogle Peter unabashedly, but he doesn’t care, not when Derek answers after the second ring. 

“Who is th-”

“Derek.”

There’s a pause, a calculating silence before Derek speaks again. “Peter? Where are you? Are you hurt? Where’s Sti-”

“I’m in Oregon. Derek, listen to me.” Peter’s calm, or at least he sounds like he is. He’s pretty sure Derek can hear his heart beating rapidly through the phone. “About five or so hours out.” He slides a finger over a part of the map, locating the road he must have come from. Derek’s shuffling on the other end, which Peter assumes is him on the move, not wasting any time. 

“I’m on my way. Where’s Stiles?” Peter can’t stop the flutter in his heart or the drop in his stomach. He can’t tell him now; it’ll only make Derek panic. Peter relays the road and the mile marker and the path he’d taken to get to the cabin. 

“It’s far enough back to be hidden from the road.” Derek tries again to ask for Stiles, but all Peter can say is, “He’s back at the cabin. Get here before nightfall,” before he hangs up, cutting off any more questions Derek had. 

The clerk takes the phone back with some hesitancy. Peter’s aware of how strange all of this sounds, but he doesn’t bother explaining it away. He moves around from the counter to spot the items hanging on the small metal rods in front of it. There’s a fifty-cent razor that Peter grabs, but he realizes a little too late that he doesn’t have any money on him, his wallet having been taken. 

Luckily, to Peter’s left, there’s a take-a-penny-leave-a-penny bowl that just so happens to have three quarters inside. Peter grabs them and slides them across the counter towards the speechless clerk who has the right idea of just accepting them and allowing Peter on his way. 

It's one thing, one tiny thing Peter holds in his hand as he walks back the way he came. It’s important to him, this little thing, because he can erase time and evidence of the days gone by with it. It’s something he’s set his mind to, so when Peter reaches the cabin, he makes a beeline to the bathroom. Stiles is still there, wrapped up tight and quiet. 

Peter feels a twinge in his chest, but he ignores it, pushes it down with the lump in his throat, and finds something to clean the mirror with. There’s no water coming from the sink, and there’s no shaving cream, but Peter will make do. 

He’s a werewolf, after all, and each time the blade knicks him, he heals and moves on to the next patch of stubble. It takes him a lot longer to finish, having to stop halfway through to let a few cuts heal. He watches as the slits disappear in the mirror and takes one look back down at Stiles in the tub. Once he’s finished, Peter kneels by Stiles and unwraps a bit of the curtain, just enough so that his face is visible. 

Stiles is paler than usual, making sense since no more blood is pumping in his veins, in his heart. Peter can see the numerous bite marks made from the vampires along Stiles’ neck, too many to count correctly, too much that they outnumber the moles Peter can see. He can also see bruising around Stiles’ eyes and the shadows of his cheeks as they hollow and sit heavy on his face. 

He looks like Stiles but not at the same time, and it feels as if someone or something has reached inside of Peter to grab at his heart. It physically hurts, being this close to Stiles and still so far away. Peter reaches up to brush a few strands of hair from his face and then stands, going in search of water. 

It takes a bit of trekking from the cabin to find a stream running through the trees. He’d found a chipped cup in the remnants of the old place and brought it with him to scoop up any water he might find. It’s quiet out here, nothing but nature. Nothing but the sounds of the wind whistling and the leaves on the trees swaying. There’s a bird song to his left and the quiet sounds of the stream in front of him. It’s almost serene as if Peter’s taken a vacation and decided to rough it for a weekend. 

He may like his lovely apartment and his nice cars, but it’s a bit nostalgic being out in the middle of the woods. Memories of a childhood, of pack, sit with him, and while Peter is alone, he allows himself this moment of weakness to appreciate it before he’s scooping up some water and heading back to the cabin. 

Stiles is still there, waiting for him, so Peter makes quick work of shaving Stiles’ face. He wants Stiles to look a bit like his old self, like the visage of the man Peter admired so much. Stiles wouldn’t want to look like he’d been through hell, but while Peter can’t work miracles, he can at least do this. 

Peter’s extra careful gliding the blades over Stiles’ skin. The water helps a bit, but he tries not to mar anymore of him. He’s already littered with too many scars, and Stiles doesn’t need anymore. When he’s finished, Stiles looks more like himself, and while Peter takes a moment to stare, the silence coming from the boy is unnerving. 

Peter wraps Stiles back up in the curtain and leaves the bathroom, shutting the door behind him with a heavy sigh. Derek said he was on his way, and Peter had some time to wait. It was already somewhere around noon, that much he could tell from the position of the sun in the sky, and it was at all possible that Derek wouldn’t get here before nightfall. So Peter set about barricading the cabin, starting first with dragging a heavy piece of furniture in front of the door to the bathroom.

~~

Nightfall comes faster than Peter expects. He’s patrolling around the perimeter of the cabin, keeping an eye and ear, and every sense afforded him, open as he prepares for anything. Once the sun has finally disappeared beyond the horizon, the claws and fangs descend, and Peter’s on full alert. It’s no surprise to him when he hears a distant rumbling of a car engine somewhere close in the direction of the road. It’s only minutes until Derek and Scott show up, breaking through the treeline in a flurry of worry.

“Peter,” Derek calls out when he sees him. Scott comes up behind him, and both are looking around. They’re looking for Stiles, but Stiles is inside, rotting. Peter comes down the cabin steps, shifting back to blunt nails and human teeth, still looking a mess with his black-stained clothes and hair that just won’t stay the way he wants.

They both look at him, but Scott steps forward. “Where is he?” Peter can hear his heart beating frantically in his chest, can smell the fear. Scott’s voice may be loud, but it’s soft at the same time, eager to get a definitive answer. “Is he with you?”

Peter looks to Derek, who’s busy looking Peter over with a careful eye. He can see Derek’s eyes tracking all the spots of dark on his clothes, can see the way his eyes take their time finding his face, the way it dawns on Derek what Peter can’t bring himself to say. 

Scott looks between the both of them, always taking just a bit too long to come to the proper conclusion. “Peter.” It’s not a question, and he’s demanding an answer, even if the wobble in his voice is already doing so. “Where-” Peter’s gaze slides to Scott, and he’s aware that Scott is seeing a side to him no one ever gets to see, the one where he can’t control the way his jaw tenses as he swallows, or the way his eyes twitch as they try to hold in the tears that are threatening to fall. He won’t admit it if Scott ever tells anyone. 

It’s in the quiet that the anger settles in. Derek’s clenching his fists, but Scott is already bursting with it. He takes two steps before he’s in Peter’s space, hands up and ready to grab on to anything he can reach, when an ear-splitting shriek tears through the air, loud enough to stop Scott, to make all of them turn their heads in the direction of the cabin. A banging noise and something is crashing a few seconds later before an eerie silence falls over them. 

“What the hell-” Derek starts, but before he can get out the rest, one of the broken windows by the door smashes outward, and something quickly flies through the air, almost a blur, until it lands Scott squarely on his back, upending him and sending him sliding along the forest floor. 

Derek’s already shifted to his beta form, claws at the ready, a growl rumbling from inside, but Peter is standing still, shock washing over him in waves. He knows what —or who, that blur is, but Scott and Derek don’t, not until Stiles rears back and lets out another blood-curdling shriek right in Scott’s face. 

Scott’s not moving. Can’t or won’t, Peter isn’t sure, but neither is Derek, who’s picked up that it's Stiles by now and has shifted back. Stiles, who’s hunched over Scott, fingers twisting in the fabric of his shirt and jacket. Stiles, who’s draped in a curtain that’s been ripped in places large enough to leave his hands and feet and head free.

Stiles, who’s sporting red eyes, and what could only be a thousand sharp teeth, as he screams again.

“St-Stiles.” Scott breathes, not moving an inch as Stiles huffs above him, as a clawed hand comes up to push his face to the side. Scott lays there, neck barred, hands twitching down by his side. “Stiles-” He grunts as a nose bumps against his jaw, as Stiles inhales him there.

There’s a few seconds of silence, everyone unsure of what to do. Derek takes a step forward, but Stiles tenses above Scott when he does, so Peter grabs him by the wrist and shakes his head in warning. “Don-”

“Sssccaaahhtt?” Stiles’ voice isn’t the same. It’s harsh and pushes out from behind a groan as if he’s just waking up and can’t use his vocal cords just yet. Stiles leans back but doesn’t remove himself from atop Scott. Instead, he sits back on his haunches, hovering over Scott’s stomach. “Scott?” And there it is, the voice they all know too well peeking out from behind the gruff. He slides his hand away from Scott’s face, letting Scott lift his head to look at him.

Derek slips his arm out from Peter’s grasp, but he doesn’t go anywhere. He simply pulls Peter’s attention away from Stiles to himself. “Did you know? Peter, did you-”

Peter’s unsure if he did or not. Stiles had died in his arms, and he thought that was the end of it, that if Stiles were to turn, he’d be showing some other signs. But vampires were rare, and there wasn’t much written on them to know for sure how they became what they are. Maybe on some instinctive level, Peter knew he had to protect Stiles, wrapping him in the curtain, not as a way to bury the dead but to protect Stiles from the daylight, barricading the door not to protect him from any threat but to protect others from the threat he might become. 

Peter shrugs, “I-”

Stiles bolts upon his feet, craning his neck as if he hears something. Scott slowly gets to his feet, and Derek steps toward him. It takes a second for the rest of them to hear what Stiles is hearing, various clicking noises coming from around the trees, carried in the wind. Stiles lifts his head and makes a few of the clicking noises as well. They come from the back of his throat, his adam’s apple bobbing with each sound, replicating what Peter hears around them.

Off to their right, two figures come out from behind a tree. Peter recognizes them and shifts into his beta form before stopping himself. Derek doesn’t ask questions and joins him, claws and fangs dropping, eyes shining a bright blue as the two approach them. 

“While I am surprised that you are still with us, dog,” The man crows, fixing his gaze pointedly at Peter, “I am elated that there’s more of you to go around.” He grins, and Peter growls. Stiles looks between them as if he’s unsure who to trust, who to go to. The man crooks a finger, and Stiles takes a step toward him.

Scott reaches out and grabs Stiles’ wrist to stop him, but it only sets Stiles off again. He grabs at Scott’s jacket and shoves him up against a nearby tree. There’s a giggle coming from the woman as Stiles shoves Scott’s face aside again to gain access to his neck. Teeth glisten in the darkness as they graze the flesh afforded him, and Scott lets out a whimper. “Stiles…” He hasn’t shifted forms yet and Peter can only assume it’s to deescalate the situation, a sound move on Scott’s part.

“I’m sorry, Scotty.” Stiles groans, dragging his nose up along Scott’s jaw. “I’m just so hungry, and you smell so good.” The woman giggles again and dares to step into Stiles’ space. She circles him, lays a hand on his shoulder and Stiles quite visibly twitches underneath it.

She leans close but doesn’t bother to whisper. “Go on, little one. They’re nothing but food, can’t you hear it? His heart is beating so fast,” She trails a finger along Scott’s neck and smiles when Stiles shudders in her grip. “All that blood is pumping through him, begging to fill you-” Stiles whines, but before he can snap his teeth shut over Scott, he stops short.

Too fast for anyone to protest, Peter slices down his wrist with his claws, deep enough to draw blood, deep enough that it doesn’t heal right away. His arm is slick within seconds, and Stiles doesn’t hesitate to break away from the woman, shoving Scott to the ground as he whirls around and comes after Peter.

He only has a moment to react, catching Stiles by the waist, and bringing them both to their knees. There’s no stopping Stiles from latching onto Peter’s arm, from feeding off the blood that streaks it. Stiles’ claws hold Peter’s arm in a death grip, tips poking in and creating new spots of red to gush and mingle with the rest. Derek moves to intercept, but Peter holds up his free hand to stop him. “It’s fine,” He growls as Stiles hungrily feeds from him.

The woman sneers at them, but Scott’s up, shifted, eyes red, one clawed hand coming up to swipe at her or grab at her; Peter isn’t sure. He’s too focused on Stiles, too aware of how weak his knees feel on the forest floor. It’s enough to make him fall back, taking Stiles with him, who wastes no time in climbing into Peter’s lap. He hears Derek move away from him and sees Scott attack and miss as the woman dodges and regroups with the man. 

“What a shame that there’s still so few of you.” The man says around a snarl. Peter hears shuffling from all around, can see more figures coming out from behind the trees. It seems they brought their back-up as well. “We’ll have to share, it seems.” 

 “I’d rethink that if I were you.” Derek growls, and Peter’s arm feels like it's on fire. Derek’s growl intensifies, sounds like many and coming from every direction. Peter looks around to see glowing eyes in the shadows, too many count, but from where he sits, he can smell the pack surrounding them, outnumbering the vampires. 

Stiles bites into Peter’s arm, breaking skin that’s been healing. The only sounds he can hear are the slurps and gargles as Stiles feeds off of him, gripping Peter’s arm so tight he’s a bit worried it might snap under the pressure. “Stiles,” He soothes, bringing a hand up to run through Stiles’ hair. 

The woman snarls at them and clicks her tongue, but the man steers her away back into the shadows of the trees. “He belongs to us, dog. Remember that.” It’s a threat, one the pack will take seriously, but then the vampires are gone, and all that’s left is the sounds of Stiles feeding. 

Pain shoots up Peter’s arm as Stiles bites into him again. Derek moves closer to them, but Peter shakes his head. “It’s okay - just, Stiles….”He tries again to soothe him, and it seems to work this time. Stiles leans back in Peter’s lap, pulls off of his arm to suck in some air. His mouth and chin are soaked, Peter’s blood staining pale skin and the curtain he’s still wearing. 

There’s a second of recognition in Stiles’ eyes as his gaze slides up from Peter’s arm to his face. No one says anything, either still too stunned or on high alert. Peter can hear the rest of the pack circle around them. They give Peter and Stiles a wide berth, but Peter isn’t paying much attention to them. Stiles sighs, fangs and claws retracting, red eyes flickering back out into brown ones. “I’m sorry,” He mumbles and promptly leans over to retch it all back up before passing out in Peter’s lap.