Fic: The Geometry of Your Belief, Teen Wolf, Chris Argent / Peter Hale
Title: The Geometry of Your Belief
Author: Claire
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Pairing(s): Chris Argent / Peter Hale
Rating: R
Word Count: 6,012
Summary: "People will remember the name Christopher Argent," your mother says.
Additional Notes: Beta'ed by Temaris
The Geometry of Your Belief
You're too young to remember the first time your mother tells you what your family do. Too young to remember her holding you in her arms and murmuring about how there are bad things in the world and how the Argents are one of the families that protect everyone else from them. Too young to remember how she tells you you'll be raised as a soldier, following in the footsteps of the your grandfather, of the man you were named after. "People will remember the name Christopher Argent," she says, but you're still too young to understand.
You're eight when you find out exactly how dangerous it is keeping the world safe from monsters. Eight when you hear the commotion downstairs and sneak out of your bedroom to see what's going on, tiptoeing down the stairs and looking in through the open door of the family room.
Your cousin is on the couch and it takes a second for you to realise that the red covering his chest and stomach isn't the colour of his t-shirt. Your mother is snapping out orders as your uncle rips open his only son's shirt. You can see the edges of Sam's skin, jagged, like it's been clawed open.
You don't realise you've taken a step closer, don't realise you've made a noise, until your mother looks up, blood on her hands from where she's holding Sam's stomach together. She tells you to go back to bed, says you shouldn't be here, that this isn't something you should see. She tells one of the others there to take you back up your room.
You hear your aunt's cry as you're half way up the stairs, and a week later, you wear your best shirt to the funeral.
You're ten when you become a brother. Ten when your mother brings you a sister home from the hospital, tiny and vulnerable, but with a scream on her you can hear through the entire house.
Hold her carefully, you're told, as your mother places Katie in your arms. She sits next to you on the sofa, reaching out to stroke the wisps of hair on the baby's head.
"It's a very important job you've got now, Chris," she tells you. "Being a big brother."
You have to look after her when she's little, she says, and when you're both old enough, you'll look after each other. You'll be there for each other, your mother tells you, no matter what.
You're twelve when you meet Victoria Campbell, both of you accompanying your parents to a hunter conclave. There are words between your father and hers, harsh and low, and you can't quite make them out. Gerard tells you not to go near them, that the Campbells aren't the kind of people he wants you around.
She finds you later that night, when the adults are hidden away in a room somewhere, talking about things they think you shouldn't hear. "My father said I shouldn't speak to you," she says.
"Mine, too."
She grins at your reply. "But my mother says that a woman should make her own decisions in life." She sticks out her hand. "Victoria Campbell."
You take her hand in yours. "Chris Argent."
It's the start of a beautiful friendship.
You're sixteen the first time you meet Peter Hale. You know who he is the minute you lay eyes on him. There are dossiers on the entire Hale family back at the house, and you knew that the alpha's younger brother would be attending the school even before you set foot in Beacon Hills High. What you didn't know was how blue his eyes are, hadn't realised how intense they are when he looks straight at you.
The sneer on his lips tells you he knows what you are, if not who you are, but you're prepared for that. The scent of aconite and gun oil is too ingrained on your skin to wash off easily, and, besides, the Hale pack know you're in town. Gerard took great satisfaction in informing Talia Hale of just that, the day after you arrived in Beacon Hills.
He stalks over to you, and the way he's clenching his fist is the only thing you need to see to know that he's fighting to keep his claws from coming out.
"Hunter." His voice is low, careful; too quiet to carry beyond the two of you.
"Wolf." Because you want him to understand that you know exactly who he is, exactly what he is.
"Why are you here?" He glances behind you, like he's expecting more hunters, like you'd be stupid enough to take him down in the middle of the hall with a hundred other students around you.
He doesn't believe you when you tell him you're there as a student, not until Mrs Reid comes out of the registration office and asks if you need help in getting to your first class.
He eyes you for long moments, until one of his friends yells his name, yells that they're going to be late for class.
He doesn't respond, doesn't look at them, and you think for a brief moment that he's going to try something. You wonder if you've got time to grab the dagger out of your bag, and how much explaining your parents would have to do it you stabbed a fellow student outside of the lockers.
And then his body relaxes slightly, even if the sneer doesn't leave his face. "The school is neutral ground," he says.
"Agreed." You're going to have enough to cope with trying to pass algebra, without constantly keeping an eye out for a werewolf at your back.
He finally turns and walks away, and you watch the change with each step, watch him change from a predator in human form to a normal teenage boy, laughing and joking with his friends. You watch him until he turns into a classroom, your heart sinking slightly when you realise you're heading towards the same one.
You're seventeen the first time you wrap your fingers around yourself to thoughts of Peter. Seventeen when you think about Peter on his knees, looking up at you as he opens his lips and takes you in his mouth.
You've fallen into a pattern that you're hesitant to call a friendship, weeks of steadily and carefully ignoring each other shattered when the history teacher pairs you together for an assignment.
You can't take Peter to your house, have no idea what Gerard would do if you walked in with him behind you (even if you do know, even if you know exactly how Gerard's eyes would light up), and you certainly don't want to walk into the Hales' den. You're not prepared to spend the time memorising the layout of the house, and exactly how many people are in the pack, like you know your parents would expect you to, not when this assignment is worth 60% of your history grade.
And since he can't go to yours and you can't go to his, you end up in the library. It starts off as purely work, starts off as an hour a day spent over textbooks and research and working out exactly how you're going to put together the assignment you've been given. It starts as purely work, but it doesn't stay that way. Not when Peter can't stop with his commentary about the school, about the teachers, about the other students, not when you find yourself smiling at the comments and offering your own in return.
And it's after one of those nights at the library that it happens. After you've spent two hours watching as Peter absently sucked on the end of the pen he was using, after you've watched him rub it along his lips as he thought.
You're half-hard by the time you both leave, and you're pretty sure the look Peter gives you means he can smell it. It's an uncomfortable journey home, and you're relieved when you finally pull into the drive, finally stumble into the house and up the stairs, only barely acknowledging your mom's call that dinner will be on the table in an hour.
Your hand is in your jeans before the bedroom door is fully closed, tugging your cock out and jerking it roughly. You can almost see Peter in front of you, almost see him leaning forward and opening his lips before sucking you. You know wolves run to a higher temperature than normal, and the thought of that around your cock, the thought of hot and wet and Peter, has you coming over your fingers, your orgasm rushing over you in a white hot pulse.
You slump against the door, sinking down to the floor in an ungraceful heap. You wipe your fingers against your t-shirt, smearing the cooling come across the front of it before tugging it off and throwing it over to the pile of washing currently sitting in the corner of the room. Your head falls back against the door, and you know this is one of the worst things that could happen. You don't want to find Peter attractive. He's a wolf, one of the creatures you're trained to kill. But you can't get the sharp blue of his eyes out of your mind, can't ignore the way he bites at his lower lip, the way you want to chase his teeth with your tongue. You can't ignore it, but that doesn't mean you're not going to try, anyway.
You're eighteen when you and Peter first sleep together, when you first slide inside him and feel him, hot and perfect around you. He grips your arms as you push into him, sharp pinpricks where his claws dig into you. His mouth opens with shuddered-out gasps, and you can't stop yourself from pressing your lips to his, from swallowing the quiet moans coming from him.
"Chris--" Your name is a breath from his lips, a plea and a demand in one.
You drop your forehead to his, murmuring his name as you fuck him. He wraps a hand around himself, and it only takes a minute before he's arching up, clenching down around you as he spills himself between your bodies.
Peter pulls you over the edge with him, and you can't stop saying his name as you come inside him.
And you know what it means, that Peter let himself be marked up by you in this way, that he let himself be marked up by a hunter. You know what it means, and you hold it to you.
You're nineteen when you leave Beacon Hills, nineteen when you come home from being with Peter to see your parents already packing. You ask what's happening, because neither of them have said anything about moving, neither of them have mentioned pulling Katie out of school and uprooting her from yet another set of friends.
You ask, and there's silence for long moments before your mother looks up, before she meets your gaze. And you don't need any words to know that she knows, don't need anything beyond the disappointment in her eyes.
"Someone saw you, Chris; saw you with him." She doesn't say Peter's name, she doesn't need to.
Gerard is next to her, shaking his head. "I won't have it. No son of mine will be tempted into sin with a monster."
"He's not--" The denial is automatic. Because you might have agreed once, but not now, not now that you know Peter. Because monsters don't laugh at bad sci-fi movies, don't smile softly when they notice you looking at them. They don't lie in bed, half on top of you, with their hand in yours, and talk about what would happen if you both just left to start anew somewhere.
"Not what, Christopher?" Gerard spits. "Not a disgusting abomination who managed to turn your head?"
Your mother lays a hand on Gerard's arm. "We're leaving, Chris," she says, and her tone brooks no argument. "We were lucky it was one of our men that saw you."
Except, you don't feel lucky, don't feel anything but a cold, stark realisation that you're not going to be able to see Peter before you go, that's there's no way your parents will let you out of their sight. Which means you're not going to be able to tell him why you left, that it wasn't your choice. It means that Peter won't know that you never wanted to leave him.
You mother is still looking at you, and you think you see a flash of compassion in her eyes. "This is for the best, Chris. You'll understand that soon."
You realise as you pass the Beacon Hills boundary line that it's the first time she's ever lied to you.
You're twenty when your mother dies. Twenty when Gerard and the rest of the team your parents were out with come back without your mother leading them.
It was a rogue wolf, Gerard says, steadily cleaning the blood off his blade.
It came up behind us, he says, accepting the condolences of the people who come to your mother's funeral.
We killed it, of course, but we were too late, he says, shaking the priest's hand, after the service.
It'll be difficult, but I'm sure we'll cope, he says, one hand on the closed casket, and the other on Katie's shoulder.
Katie locks herself away in her room afterwards, and you want to go after her, to hold your baby sister in your arms and tell her that it'll be okay. But Gerard stops you, tells you that there are people he wants you to meet, people who came a long way for the funeral.
You can't help but think, as he introduces you to family after family, each of them with their daughters with them, that he doesn't look much like a grieving widower.
You're twenty-one when your father tells you that you need to marry. Twenty-one when he tells you it's your responsibility to breed a new generation of hunters. He has someone in mind, a young woman from a family he's chosen. You know how well respected the Argent name is, know that Gerard will have chosen someone malleable, someone he can manipulate. Katie's still too young to be matriarch of the family, and tradition will prevent Gerard from keeping that power once you have a wife. "The Smithsons will be here in four days," Gerard says. "You'll wed when they arrive."
You leave to meet up with Victoria two days later. She's in the same position as you are, her parents already taking in offers for her hand, compiling a list of suitable candidates that she's expected to choose from. But if you're going to do this, you'll both do it on your own terms. The rings on your fingers shine when you get back from Vegas, and the look in Gerard's eyes when you and Vic step forward, hands clasped, is absolutely worth the beating he gives you later that day under the guise of training.
You're twenty-two when you become a father, twenty-two when you and Victoria become responsible for another person. Allison is tiny as you cradle her in your arms for the first time. She's only a few minutes old and you already know that you would do anything to protect her.
You smile as you reach out to Victoria, your fingers tangling with hers. There's part of you that can't help but think of Peter, can't help but wonder if you would have had this with him. You'd thought about it, at night, when you'd held him in your arms. Thought about what it would be like to raise a child together, maybe adopting a cub who'd lost their own pack.
But that's not going to happen, and you wouldn't sacrifice what you have now.
"She's beautiful," you say quietly. "You're beautiful."
Victoria snorts. "I'm sweaty, red, and have been pushing that little madam out for the last eight hours. You have a weird sense of beautiful, Chris."
"You're beautiful," you say again, and this time Victoria just smiles.
You're thirty-one when you hear the news, thirty-one when the words Hale house and Fire and Not sure if there were any survivors reach you. Your entire body feels numb. It's been years since you let yourself think of Peter, years since you let yourself remember the way he bit his lower lip when you pushed into him, the way his eyes flashed amber when you mouthed at the skin across his inner wrist.
You never realised how much it would hurt, that sudden shock that Peter is gone, that you'll never get the chance to see him again, to say sorry. You wonder how his life was. Did he find someone else (even though he'd always said you were the only one he wanted)? Did he have children (swinging cubs high above his head as they shriek with laughter)?
You're on the phone for hours after you find out, calling contact after contact. You can hear the curiosity in each of their tones, even if not all of them voice it. You lie to those that do ask, deflecting their curiosity about why you care if any of the wolves survived the fire.
You hit dead end after dead end until finally, finally, you get the confirmation that three of the Hales survived, that Peter was one of them, that Peter's alive. It feels like a weight has been lifted off your chest, feels like you can actually breathe again.
And then it all comes crashing back down.
Coma. Burns. Not healing. The words fly at you and it takes you a while to understand, takes you a while to actually believe that the others just left Peter behind. That they put him in a hospital and just left him there, vulnerable and alone, with his pack gone and abandoned by whichever of Talia's children took on the alpha mantle. (Laura, it's going to be Laura. All of the records your parents had on the Hales indicated as much, and from what you remember of Peter telling you about Derek, you don't think the boy has it in him to be an alpha.)
You suddenly feel like you should be there, like you should get in your truck and drive to Beacon Hills. Suddenly feel like the boy you fell in love with so many years ago has a right to be protected, and you want to be the one to do so.
Victoria takes one look at you and you can tell by the look on her face that she knows what you're thinking. You've never hidden the fact that you were with Peter from her. You didn't have to; she was there through all of it. She was there for you when you needed someone to talk to, when you realised you were in love with a wolf. She was there for you every time you snuck out to ring her from the payphone at the end of the street, not wanting to use the house phone. And she was there for you when your parents dragged you out of Beacon Hills, the comment that it would be best for Peter and his pack if you didn't try to go back still on your mother's lips.
(The first time you managed to sneak out from your parents' watchful eyes, you called Victoria. Even though your fingers hovered over the numbers that would have dialled the Hales, even though the only thing you wanted to do was speak to Peter, you rang Vic. Because your mother's threat rang loud in your head, and you couldn't risk Peter, you couldn't. When you told her what happened, she offered to steal her dad's car, to come and get you, even though she was a two day drive away. And you'd wanted to take her up on it, to let her come and collect you and just drive until you couldn't drive any further, but you didn't. Instead, you walked for hours after you ended the call, after Vic had extracted a promise from you to call her again the next day. Your parents demanded to know where you'd been when you got back, demanded to know if you'd snuck off to ring Peter. You'd looked them in the eyes when you'd told them no, and not cared about what they saw there.)
Victoria had never approved of the two of you, made no secret of that fact. But she was there for you, anyway. ("Because I'm your friend, Chris. And no matter how big a mistake I think you're making, that's what friends do, you dumbass.")
She supported you then, and she supports you now. You know that's why she sends out the message to all other hunters that Peter Hale is not to be touched, why she uses the influence behind the Argent name to protect the wolf her husband still loves. The people she speaks to don't ask for a reason, and Victoria doesn't give them one, and you know that the thought running through everyone's head is that the Argents used to live in Beacon Hills, that it's personal, that you want to take Peter out yourself. But you don't care what they believe. All you care about is that they'll leave Peter alone, that they won't risk Victoria's wrath in going against her wishes.
She rests her hand on your shoulder, squeezing lightly once it's done, and you never speak of it again.
(Every six months there's an envelope left on your desk, the scent of Vic's perfume lightly clinging to it, and every six months the status is the same: No Change. You throw yourself into whichever hunt you can find in the days after each update, because you know it's the only way to stop yourself from driving to Beacon Hills and seeing for yourself. The dreams get worse around that time. Dreams of smoke and flame and Peter screaming. Victoria wakes you up, with a hand on your arm, keeping it there as you turn over and close your eyes, the warmth coming from her the only thing that allows you to get back to sleep.)
You're thirty-nine when you next come back to Beacon Hills, thirty-nine when you drive down the streets you thought you'd never see again. Victoria and Allison aren't with you; they're still packing up the last of the house. It's another couple of days before you can move into your new place, another couple of days before you pick up the keys from the realtor, and Vic and Allison are due to arrive the day after that.
You decide to check into a motel in the interim, and it's not until you're pulling into the parking lot that you realise you've driven to the one you and Peter used to come to. The desk clerk who checks you in is reaching out for a key when you find yourself asking if you can have room 23. He looks at you strangely for the request, but doesn't say anything as he switches out the room key in his hand for the one you've asked for.
You don't know what you're expecting to find when you walk into the room. The carpet looks relatively new, and the room has been repainted from the green you remember to a gentler light blue. The furniture's all changed, and it's certainly not the same bed you first laid Peter out on.
You put your bag next to the dresser before sitting on the bed, lying back on it and closing your eyes. The room is silent apart from your breathing, and you can almost hear the voices from so long ago. Can almost hear Peter's laughter as you both tumbled onto the bed, can almost hear the rustle of fabric as you pulled his t-shirt off over his head and dropped it to the floor.
You can feel yourself getting hard behind your jeans, and you reach down, snapping open the button, your hand sliding in to free your cock.
You're lost in the memory now. Lost in the way you kissed Peter, nipping at his lower lip with your teeth, watching as it reddened for brief moments before his healing kicked in. Lost in the way he nodded at you when you murmured in his ear, when you told him how you wanted to be inside him.
You wrap your fingers around yourself, jacking your length slowly, brushing your thumb over your cockhead to slick the way with the precome gathering there. Peter's first time was in this room. The first time he let himself be opened on someone's fingers, the first time he felt someone press inside him.
You can remember the way his eyes widened, amber bleeding into the blue as you ran a lube-slick finger over his hole, rubbing gently before dipping inside. Remember how he arched as you stretched him out, one hand at his ass, and the other wrapped around his cock.
You tighten the grip around yourself as the memory moves on. Tighten your grip as you remember settling between Peter's legs, remember pressing your cock to his ass. Remember feeling him open around you as you slipped inside, nothing between you and him but a layer of lubricant because I want to feel you, Chris, I want to wear your mark. You'd leaned down to kiss him, asked him to stay on his back, because you'd wanted to see his face, wanted to watch him as he was fucked for the first time. Your lips had pressed against his as you'd swallowed the moan that came from him as you'd slid in to the root, your cock fully inside him.
He'd felt so good, felt so perfect around you, and you can almost imagine you're in him now. You stroke yourself faster, grip tight around you as you jerk yourself.
You can hear the moans as if Peter were right beside you now. Hear the breathy way he murmured your name as you told him to make himself come while you were inside him.
You're jacking yourself harder now, jacking your cock to the memory of Peter stroking himself until he came, clenching around you tightly. Jacking to the memory of tight and hot and perfect, to the way Peter's ass rippled around you as he spurted between your bodies. To the way you followed him over the edge, emptying yourself inside him and knowing that his entire pack would be able to smell you on him, in him.
You twist your wrist in just the way you need, knowing your body better now than you did back then, knowing exactly what it is you need.
And for the first time in years, the name on your lips when you come isn't your wife's.
You're thirty-nine when you find out your own sister is responsible for murdering Peter's pack, thirty-nine when you find out she started the entire chain of events that led to here. The shell of the Hale house is dark around you, and you find yourself just watching as Kate's blood seeps into the floorboards, find yourself unable to bring yourself to walk over to her. You remember holding her in your arms when she was first born, remember promising to your mother that you'd look after her. Part of you is asking where it all went wrong, but the rest of you knows that Kate always was her father's daughter, always took after Gerard, much more than she ever did after your mother.
You tell the children to go home, that you'll deal with this. Derek Hale looks at you, eyes flashing red, and you hope that your initial thoughts about him were wrong, that the boy can handle the alpha power now coursing through him. It looks like he's about to object, looks like he's about to demand that he stays, and then his eyes flicker to the body at his feet, and he nods, turning and vanishing through the preserve.
None of the others question you being the one to stay behind and handle the bodies. You know they think you want to give Kate some dignity in death that you can't bring yourself to believe she deserves, think that you want to make sure the rogue alpha that's been haunting their lives, your life, for the past few months is dealt with correctly.
You deal with Kate first, make sure there's nothing around her that can indicate exactly what happened here. You'll dial in the anonymous tip to the Sheriff's department after you've handled Peter.
Peter. You scrub a hand over your eyes because back when you were young and the both of you thought you could take on the world, this was never an option, Peter dead and your own sister the one ultimately responsible for it.
Only, it's not Peter out there, not really. That creature was nothing but claw and fur and vengeance, all hatred and fear wrapped up in six years of being alone in his own mind.
It's not Peter, you repeat to yourself. It's not.
The mantra of NotPeterNotPeterNotPeter runs through your head as you get a blade from your truck, one long enough to slice through bone and sinew. Because this is how it is, this is how all wolves are handled. Only, you can't do it. Because even though you're telling yourself that it's not Peter, it is.
You kneel next to the body, your fingers reaching out to trace across Peter's cheek. You can still see the boy you knew in the ruined face, still see him laughing as he leans in to kiss you. Peter's skin is blistered and scorched, and there's blood on your fingers as they move over his face. Your hand brushes over his eyes, staring lifelessly at you, and you carefully close them, locking away the memory of a blue you can't bear to see any more.
It's easy to prise up some of the rotten floorboards of the Hale house, easy to slide Peter's body into the hole you make beneath them. You cup his cheek before you put the boards back, ignoring the feeling of burnt, tacky skin under your fingers.
Your apology is whispered, and it's nowhere near enough. You only hope that bringing Peter back to his home, leaving him with the ghosts and memories of his pack surrounding him, gives him the peace in death he was missing for the last years of his life.
You're thirty-nine when you bury your sister, and you feel like a fraud in front of the cameras, in front of the vultures that have come to gawk at the spectacle in front of them. The words of the service wash over you, words that are far more considerate of Kate than they should be.
You watch as the coffin is lowered, and wonder why Kate gets this and the only thing Peter gets is an unmarked hole under the burnt out shell of his home. Allison is crying softly beside you, but you don't have any tears, not for Kate, not any more.
You can still hear the voices from those the police are keeping back, and part of you wants to tell the Sheriff to let them come closer, let them get their fill. Let them swarm and accuse and condemn. Because Kate is her father's child, but what does that make you? Kate may have been the match, but you were the gasoline surrounding Peter. It may have taken twenty years, but your mother was right, you were Peter Hale's ruin.
And when Victoria's fingers brush your cheeks, they come away wet.
You're forty when you lose Victoria and Peter comes back into your life. Forty when your world is turned upside down. Vic's been by your side for so long that it's nearly impossible to imagine life without her there. And every time you think that, you can hear the snort next to you, hear Victoria's voice telling you to pull yourself together, to be strong for Allison.
You don't see Peter, but Allison tells you that he's back. And you can hear it in her voice, the question as to why you didn't deal with Peter Hale's body the way she's learned that hunters always deal with wolves. But you can't tell her, can't think about it. Can't think about anything but how to get through the next few days, weeks, months.
It's sunny, the day of Victoria's funeral. The kind of day that should be filled with laughter and joy, instead of this sombre procession of you and Allison. Scott and his mother are both there with you, and you know it's because Scott wants to support Allison. Because you know what Vic did, know that she let her fear and concern as a mother overwhelm her logic as a hunter.
Because you also know that Scott won't hurt Allison, know that the look in his eyes when he sees your daughter is the same look Peter used to wear when he thought you weren't looking at him.
It's partway through the ceremony that you see Peter, see him standing next to the nearby trees, too far away to interrupt, but close enough for wolf hearing to pick up on the words being spoken. He nods at you when he sees you looking, not trying to hide his presence. And you take strength from him being there.
You squeeze Allison's hand tightly as Vic's coffin is lowered into the ground, and the next time you look, Peter is gone.
You're forty-two when you and Peter finally stop this dance that you've fallen into, this game of gazes held too long and touches that go past propriety. Forty-two when you reach out and he reaches back, and from there it's only a matter of time before there's skin against skin and words murmured against lips. It's been years since you last slid inside his body, and it feels a little like coming home.
Peter's writhing under you, demanding you go harder, faster. His claws are pinpricks in your skin as he grips your arms, his cock trapped between the two of you as you fuck him.
There's blue bleeding into his eyes, too bright and too sharp, and you know he's getting close. You angle your hips down slightly, and it takes you one thrust, two, before you hit the spot you're aiming for and have Peter howling.
He bites his lower lip as he comes, his cock untouched. His fangs pierce skin, and he bleeds sluggishly for only a second before his healing kicks in. The spread of wet warmth between you and the feeling of his body clamping down on your cock means you're only a few seconds behind him. You thrust sharply, holding yourself deep inside him as you come, spilling into him, marking him up in a way you'd never thought you'd feel again.
A minute passes, the air silent except for the sound of breathing slowly returning to normal. You pull out of him slowly, a dribble of white following your cock as it slips out, trailing down over his skin. You drop to the bed next to him, and neither of you speak as you pull Peter into your arms, wrap yourself around him, and let the moon shining outside carry you into sleep.
You're forty-two when you're lying in a bed and watching Peter Hale asleep beside you. Forty-two when you reach out and run fingers lightly through his hair. He moves into the touch, murmuring softly.
"'S too early, Christopher, go back to sleep."
You lean down and kiss him, and he's only half-awake, all sleep-warm and pliant, but he returns the kiss anyway, his lips opening to yours.
You're forty-two, and there's a wolf in your bed again. You're forty-two, and there's nowhere else you'd rather be.
Author: Claire
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Pairing(s): Chris Argent / Peter Hale
Rating: R
Word Count: 6,012
Summary: "People will remember the name Christopher Argent," your mother says.
Additional Notes: Beta'ed by Temaris
The Geometry of Your Belief
You're too young to remember the first time your mother tells you what your family do. Too young to remember her holding you in her arms and murmuring about how there are bad things in the world and how the Argents are one of the families that protect everyone else from them. Too young to remember how she tells you you'll be raised as a soldier, following in the footsteps of the your grandfather, of the man you were named after. "People will remember the name Christopher Argent," she says, but you're still too young to understand.
You're eight when you find out exactly how dangerous it is keeping the world safe from monsters. Eight when you hear the commotion downstairs and sneak out of your bedroom to see what's going on, tiptoeing down the stairs and looking in through the open door of the family room.
Your cousin is on the couch and it takes a second for you to realise that the red covering his chest and stomach isn't the colour of his t-shirt. Your mother is snapping out orders as your uncle rips open his only son's shirt. You can see the edges of Sam's skin, jagged, like it's been clawed open.
You don't realise you've taken a step closer, don't realise you've made a noise, until your mother looks up, blood on her hands from where she's holding Sam's stomach together. She tells you to go back to bed, says you shouldn't be here, that this isn't something you should see. She tells one of the others there to take you back up your room.
You hear your aunt's cry as you're half way up the stairs, and a week later, you wear your best shirt to the funeral.
You're ten when you become a brother. Ten when your mother brings you a sister home from the hospital, tiny and vulnerable, but with a scream on her you can hear through the entire house.
Hold her carefully, you're told, as your mother places Katie in your arms. She sits next to you on the sofa, reaching out to stroke the wisps of hair on the baby's head.
"It's a very important job you've got now, Chris," she tells you. "Being a big brother."
You have to look after her when she's little, she says, and when you're both old enough, you'll look after each other. You'll be there for each other, your mother tells you, no matter what.
You're twelve when you meet Victoria Campbell, both of you accompanying your parents to a hunter conclave. There are words between your father and hers, harsh and low, and you can't quite make them out. Gerard tells you not to go near them, that the Campbells aren't the kind of people he wants you around.
She finds you later that night, when the adults are hidden away in a room somewhere, talking about things they think you shouldn't hear. "My father said I shouldn't speak to you," she says.
"Mine, too."
She grins at your reply. "But my mother says that a woman should make her own decisions in life." She sticks out her hand. "Victoria Campbell."
You take her hand in yours. "Chris Argent."
It's the start of a beautiful friendship.
You're sixteen the first time you meet Peter Hale. You know who he is the minute you lay eyes on him. There are dossiers on the entire Hale family back at the house, and you knew that the alpha's younger brother would be attending the school even before you set foot in Beacon Hills High. What you didn't know was how blue his eyes are, hadn't realised how intense they are when he looks straight at you.
The sneer on his lips tells you he knows what you are, if not who you are, but you're prepared for that. The scent of aconite and gun oil is too ingrained on your skin to wash off easily, and, besides, the Hale pack know you're in town. Gerard took great satisfaction in informing Talia Hale of just that, the day after you arrived in Beacon Hills.
He stalks over to you, and the way he's clenching his fist is the only thing you need to see to know that he's fighting to keep his claws from coming out.
"Hunter." His voice is low, careful; too quiet to carry beyond the two of you.
"Wolf." Because you want him to understand that you know exactly who he is, exactly what he is.
"Why are you here?" He glances behind you, like he's expecting more hunters, like you'd be stupid enough to take him down in the middle of the hall with a hundred other students around you.
He doesn't believe you when you tell him you're there as a student, not until Mrs Reid comes out of the registration office and asks if you need help in getting to your first class.
He eyes you for long moments, until one of his friends yells his name, yells that they're going to be late for class.
He doesn't respond, doesn't look at them, and you think for a brief moment that he's going to try something. You wonder if you've got time to grab the dagger out of your bag, and how much explaining your parents would have to do it you stabbed a fellow student outside of the lockers.
And then his body relaxes slightly, even if the sneer doesn't leave his face. "The school is neutral ground," he says.
"Agreed." You're going to have enough to cope with trying to pass algebra, without constantly keeping an eye out for a werewolf at your back.
He finally turns and walks away, and you watch the change with each step, watch him change from a predator in human form to a normal teenage boy, laughing and joking with his friends. You watch him until he turns into a classroom, your heart sinking slightly when you realise you're heading towards the same one.
You're seventeen the first time you wrap your fingers around yourself to thoughts of Peter. Seventeen when you think about Peter on his knees, looking up at you as he opens his lips and takes you in his mouth.
You've fallen into a pattern that you're hesitant to call a friendship, weeks of steadily and carefully ignoring each other shattered when the history teacher pairs you together for an assignment.
You can't take Peter to your house, have no idea what Gerard would do if you walked in with him behind you (even if you do know, even if you know exactly how Gerard's eyes would light up), and you certainly don't want to walk into the Hales' den. You're not prepared to spend the time memorising the layout of the house, and exactly how many people are in the pack, like you know your parents would expect you to, not when this assignment is worth 60% of your history grade.
And since he can't go to yours and you can't go to his, you end up in the library. It starts off as purely work, starts off as an hour a day spent over textbooks and research and working out exactly how you're going to put together the assignment you've been given. It starts as purely work, but it doesn't stay that way. Not when Peter can't stop with his commentary about the school, about the teachers, about the other students, not when you find yourself smiling at the comments and offering your own in return.
And it's after one of those nights at the library that it happens. After you've spent two hours watching as Peter absently sucked on the end of the pen he was using, after you've watched him rub it along his lips as he thought.
You're half-hard by the time you both leave, and you're pretty sure the look Peter gives you means he can smell it. It's an uncomfortable journey home, and you're relieved when you finally pull into the drive, finally stumble into the house and up the stairs, only barely acknowledging your mom's call that dinner will be on the table in an hour.
Your hand is in your jeans before the bedroom door is fully closed, tugging your cock out and jerking it roughly. You can almost see Peter in front of you, almost see him leaning forward and opening his lips before sucking you. You know wolves run to a higher temperature than normal, and the thought of that around your cock, the thought of hot and wet and Peter, has you coming over your fingers, your orgasm rushing over you in a white hot pulse.
You slump against the door, sinking down to the floor in an ungraceful heap. You wipe your fingers against your t-shirt, smearing the cooling come across the front of it before tugging it off and throwing it over to the pile of washing currently sitting in the corner of the room. Your head falls back against the door, and you know this is one of the worst things that could happen. You don't want to find Peter attractive. He's a wolf, one of the creatures you're trained to kill. But you can't get the sharp blue of his eyes out of your mind, can't ignore the way he bites at his lower lip, the way you want to chase his teeth with your tongue. You can't ignore it, but that doesn't mean you're not going to try, anyway.
You're eighteen when you and Peter first sleep together, when you first slide inside him and feel him, hot and perfect around you. He grips your arms as you push into him, sharp pinpricks where his claws dig into you. His mouth opens with shuddered-out gasps, and you can't stop yourself from pressing your lips to his, from swallowing the quiet moans coming from him.
"Chris--" Your name is a breath from his lips, a plea and a demand in one.
You drop your forehead to his, murmuring his name as you fuck him. He wraps a hand around himself, and it only takes a minute before he's arching up, clenching down around you as he spills himself between your bodies.
Peter pulls you over the edge with him, and you can't stop saying his name as you come inside him.
And you know what it means, that Peter let himself be marked up by you in this way, that he let himself be marked up by a hunter. You know what it means, and you hold it to you.
You're nineteen when you leave Beacon Hills, nineteen when you come home from being with Peter to see your parents already packing. You ask what's happening, because neither of them have said anything about moving, neither of them have mentioned pulling Katie out of school and uprooting her from yet another set of friends.
You ask, and there's silence for long moments before your mother looks up, before she meets your gaze. And you don't need any words to know that she knows, don't need anything beyond the disappointment in her eyes.
"Someone saw you, Chris; saw you with him." She doesn't say Peter's name, she doesn't need to.
Gerard is next to her, shaking his head. "I won't have it. No son of mine will be tempted into sin with a monster."
"He's not--" The denial is automatic. Because you might have agreed once, but not now, not now that you know Peter. Because monsters don't laugh at bad sci-fi movies, don't smile softly when they notice you looking at them. They don't lie in bed, half on top of you, with their hand in yours, and talk about what would happen if you both just left to start anew somewhere.
"Not what, Christopher?" Gerard spits. "Not a disgusting abomination who managed to turn your head?"
Your mother lays a hand on Gerard's arm. "We're leaving, Chris," she says, and her tone brooks no argument. "We were lucky it was one of our men that saw you."
Except, you don't feel lucky, don't feel anything but a cold, stark realisation that you're not going to be able to see Peter before you go, that's there's no way your parents will let you out of their sight. Which means you're not going to be able to tell him why you left, that it wasn't your choice. It means that Peter won't know that you never wanted to leave him.
You mother is still looking at you, and you think you see a flash of compassion in her eyes. "This is for the best, Chris. You'll understand that soon."
You realise as you pass the Beacon Hills boundary line that it's the first time she's ever lied to you.
You're twenty when your mother dies. Twenty when Gerard and the rest of the team your parents were out with come back without your mother leading them.
It was a rogue wolf, Gerard says, steadily cleaning the blood off his blade.
It came up behind us, he says, accepting the condolences of the people who come to your mother's funeral.
We killed it, of course, but we were too late, he says, shaking the priest's hand, after the service.
It'll be difficult, but I'm sure we'll cope, he says, one hand on the closed casket, and the other on Katie's shoulder.
Katie locks herself away in her room afterwards, and you want to go after her, to hold your baby sister in your arms and tell her that it'll be okay. But Gerard stops you, tells you that there are people he wants you to meet, people who came a long way for the funeral.
You can't help but think, as he introduces you to family after family, each of them with their daughters with them, that he doesn't look much like a grieving widower.
You're twenty-one when your father tells you that you need to marry. Twenty-one when he tells you it's your responsibility to breed a new generation of hunters. He has someone in mind, a young woman from a family he's chosen. You know how well respected the Argent name is, know that Gerard will have chosen someone malleable, someone he can manipulate. Katie's still too young to be matriarch of the family, and tradition will prevent Gerard from keeping that power once you have a wife. "The Smithsons will be here in four days," Gerard says. "You'll wed when they arrive."
You leave to meet up with Victoria two days later. She's in the same position as you are, her parents already taking in offers for her hand, compiling a list of suitable candidates that she's expected to choose from. But if you're going to do this, you'll both do it on your own terms. The rings on your fingers shine when you get back from Vegas, and the look in Gerard's eyes when you and Vic step forward, hands clasped, is absolutely worth the beating he gives you later that day under the guise of training.
You're twenty-two when you become a father, twenty-two when you and Victoria become responsible for another person. Allison is tiny as you cradle her in your arms for the first time. She's only a few minutes old and you already know that you would do anything to protect her.
You smile as you reach out to Victoria, your fingers tangling with hers. There's part of you that can't help but think of Peter, can't help but wonder if you would have had this with him. You'd thought about it, at night, when you'd held him in your arms. Thought about what it would be like to raise a child together, maybe adopting a cub who'd lost their own pack.
But that's not going to happen, and you wouldn't sacrifice what you have now.
"She's beautiful," you say quietly. "You're beautiful."
Victoria snorts. "I'm sweaty, red, and have been pushing that little madam out for the last eight hours. You have a weird sense of beautiful, Chris."
"You're beautiful," you say again, and this time Victoria just smiles.
You're thirty-one when you hear the news, thirty-one when the words Hale house and Fire and Not sure if there were any survivors reach you. Your entire body feels numb. It's been years since you let yourself think of Peter, years since you let yourself remember the way he bit his lower lip when you pushed into him, the way his eyes flashed amber when you mouthed at the skin across his inner wrist.
You never realised how much it would hurt, that sudden shock that Peter is gone, that you'll never get the chance to see him again, to say sorry. You wonder how his life was. Did he find someone else (even though he'd always said you were the only one he wanted)? Did he have children (swinging cubs high above his head as they shriek with laughter)?
You're on the phone for hours after you find out, calling contact after contact. You can hear the curiosity in each of their tones, even if not all of them voice it. You lie to those that do ask, deflecting their curiosity about why you care if any of the wolves survived the fire.
You hit dead end after dead end until finally, finally, you get the confirmation that three of the Hales survived, that Peter was one of them, that Peter's alive. It feels like a weight has been lifted off your chest, feels like you can actually breathe again.
And then it all comes crashing back down.
Coma. Burns. Not healing. The words fly at you and it takes you a while to understand, takes you a while to actually believe that the others just left Peter behind. That they put him in a hospital and just left him there, vulnerable and alone, with his pack gone and abandoned by whichever of Talia's children took on the alpha mantle. (Laura, it's going to be Laura. All of the records your parents had on the Hales indicated as much, and from what you remember of Peter telling you about Derek, you don't think the boy has it in him to be an alpha.)
You suddenly feel like you should be there, like you should get in your truck and drive to Beacon Hills. Suddenly feel like the boy you fell in love with so many years ago has a right to be protected, and you want to be the one to do so.
Victoria takes one look at you and you can tell by the look on her face that she knows what you're thinking. You've never hidden the fact that you were with Peter from her. You didn't have to; she was there through all of it. She was there for you when you needed someone to talk to, when you realised you were in love with a wolf. She was there for you every time you snuck out to ring her from the payphone at the end of the street, not wanting to use the house phone. And she was there for you when your parents dragged you out of Beacon Hills, the comment that it would be best for Peter and his pack if you didn't try to go back still on your mother's lips.
(The first time you managed to sneak out from your parents' watchful eyes, you called Victoria. Even though your fingers hovered over the numbers that would have dialled the Hales, even though the only thing you wanted to do was speak to Peter, you rang Vic. Because your mother's threat rang loud in your head, and you couldn't risk Peter, you couldn't. When you told her what happened, she offered to steal her dad's car, to come and get you, even though she was a two day drive away. And you'd wanted to take her up on it, to let her come and collect you and just drive until you couldn't drive any further, but you didn't. Instead, you walked for hours after you ended the call, after Vic had extracted a promise from you to call her again the next day. Your parents demanded to know where you'd been when you got back, demanded to know if you'd snuck off to ring Peter. You'd looked them in the eyes when you'd told them no, and not cared about what they saw there.)
Victoria had never approved of the two of you, made no secret of that fact. But she was there for you, anyway. ("Because I'm your friend, Chris. And no matter how big a mistake I think you're making, that's what friends do, you dumbass.")
She supported you then, and she supports you now. You know that's why she sends out the message to all other hunters that Peter Hale is not to be touched, why she uses the influence behind the Argent name to protect the wolf her husband still loves. The people she speaks to don't ask for a reason, and Victoria doesn't give them one, and you know that the thought running through everyone's head is that the Argents used to live in Beacon Hills, that it's personal, that you want to take Peter out yourself. But you don't care what they believe. All you care about is that they'll leave Peter alone, that they won't risk Victoria's wrath in going against her wishes.
She rests her hand on your shoulder, squeezing lightly once it's done, and you never speak of it again.
(Every six months there's an envelope left on your desk, the scent of Vic's perfume lightly clinging to it, and every six months the status is the same: No Change. You throw yourself into whichever hunt you can find in the days after each update, because you know it's the only way to stop yourself from driving to Beacon Hills and seeing for yourself. The dreams get worse around that time. Dreams of smoke and flame and Peter screaming. Victoria wakes you up, with a hand on your arm, keeping it there as you turn over and close your eyes, the warmth coming from her the only thing that allows you to get back to sleep.)
You're thirty-nine when you next come back to Beacon Hills, thirty-nine when you drive down the streets you thought you'd never see again. Victoria and Allison aren't with you; they're still packing up the last of the house. It's another couple of days before you can move into your new place, another couple of days before you pick up the keys from the realtor, and Vic and Allison are due to arrive the day after that.
You decide to check into a motel in the interim, and it's not until you're pulling into the parking lot that you realise you've driven to the one you and Peter used to come to. The desk clerk who checks you in is reaching out for a key when you find yourself asking if you can have room 23. He looks at you strangely for the request, but doesn't say anything as he switches out the room key in his hand for the one you've asked for.
You don't know what you're expecting to find when you walk into the room. The carpet looks relatively new, and the room has been repainted from the green you remember to a gentler light blue. The furniture's all changed, and it's certainly not the same bed you first laid Peter out on.
You put your bag next to the dresser before sitting on the bed, lying back on it and closing your eyes. The room is silent apart from your breathing, and you can almost hear the voices from so long ago. Can almost hear Peter's laughter as you both tumbled onto the bed, can almost hear the rustle of fabric as you pulled his t-shirt off over his head and dropped it to the floor.
You can feel yourself getting hard behind your jeans, and you reach down, snapping open the button, your hand sliding in to free your cock.
You're lost in the memory now. Lost in the way you kissed Peter, nipping at his lower lip with your teeth, watching as it reddened for brief moments before his healing kicked in. Lost in the way he nodded at you when you murmured in his ear, when you told him how you wanted to be inside him.
You wrap your fingers around yourself, jacking your length slowly, brushing your thumb over your cockhead to slick the way with the precome gathering there. Peter's first time was in this room. The first time he let himself be opened on someone's fingers, the first time he felt someone press inside him.
You can remember the way his eyes widened, amber bleeding into the blue as you ran a lube-slick finger over his hole, rubbing gently before dipping inside. Remember how he arched as you stretched him out, one hand at his ass, and the other wrapped around his cock.
You tighten the grip around yourself as the memory moves on. Tighten your grip as you remember settling between Peter's legs, remember pressing your cock to his ass. Remember feeling him open around you as you slipped inside, nothing between you and him but a layer of lubricant because I want to feel you, Chris, I want to wear your mark. You'd leaned down to kiss him, asked him to stay on his back, because you'd wanted to see his face, wanted to watch him as he was fucked for the first time. Your lips had pressed against his as you'd swallowed the moan that came from him as you'd slid in to the root, your cock fully inside him.
He'd felt so good, felt so perfect around you, and you can almost imagine you're in him now. You stroke yourself faster, grip tight around you as you jerk yourself.
You can hear the moans as if Peter were right beside you now. Hear the breathy way he murmured your name as you told him to make himself come while you were inside him.
You're jacking yourself harder now, jacking your cock to the memory of Peter stroking himself until he came, clenching around you tightly. Jacking to the memory of tight and hot and perfect, to the way Peter's ass rippled around you as he spurted between your bodies. To the way you followed him over the edge, emptying yourself inside him and knowing that his entire pack would be able to smell you on him, in him.
You twist your wrist in just the way you need, knowing your body better now than you did back then, knowing exactly what it is you need.
And for the first time in years, the name on your lips when you come isn't your wife's.
You're thirty-nine when you find out your own sister is responsible for murdering Peter's pack, thirty-nine when you find out she started the entire chain of events that led to here. The shell of the Hale house is dark around you, and you find yourself just watching as Kate's blood seeps into the floorboards, find yourself unable to bring yourself to walk over to her. You remember holding her in your arms when she was first born, remember promising to your mother that you'd look after her. Part of you is asking where it all went wrong, but the rest of you knows that Kate always was her father's daughter, always took after Gerard, much more than she ever did after your mother.
You tell the children to go home, that you'll deal with this. Derek Hale looks at you, eyes flashing red, and you hope that your initial thoughts about him were wrong, that the boy can handle the alpha power now coursing through him. It looks like he's about to object, looks like he's about to demand that he stays, and then his eyes flicker to the body at his feet, and he nods, turning and vanishing through the preserve.
None of the others question you being the one to stay behind and handle the bodies. You know they think you want to give Kate some dignity in death that you can't bring yourself to believe she deserves, think that you want to make sure the rogue alpha that's been haunting their lives, your life, for the past few months is dealt with correctly.
You deal with Kate first, make sure there's nothing around her that can indicate exactly what happened here. You'll dial in the anonymous tip to the Sheriff's department after you've handled Peter.
Peter. You scrub a hand over your eyes because back when you were young and the both of you thought you could take on the world, this was never an option, Peter dead and your own sister the one ultimately responsible for it.
Only, it's not Peter out there, not really. That creature was nothing but claw and fur and vengeance, all hatred and fear wrapped up in six years of being alone in his own mind.
It's not Peter, you repeat to yourself. It's not.
The mantra of NotPeterNotPeterNotPeter runs through your head as you get a blade from your truck, one long enough to slice through bone and sinew. Because this is how it is, this is how all wolves are handled. Only, you can't do it. Because even though you're telling yourself that it's not Peter, it is.
You kneel next to the body, your fingers reaching out to trace across Peter's cheek. You can still see the boy you knew in the ruined face, still see him laughing as he leans in to kiss you. Peter's skin is blistered and scorched, and there's blood on your fingers as they move over his face. Your hand brushes over his eyes, staring lifelessly at you, and you carefully close them, locking away the memory of a blue you can't bear to see any more.
It's easy to prise up some of the rotten floorboards of the Hale house, easy to slide Peter's body into the hole you make beneath them. You cup his cheek before you put the boards back, ignoring the feeling of burnt, tacky skin under your fingers.
Your apology is whispered, and it's nowhere near enough. You only hope that bringing Peter back to his home, leaving him with the ghosts and memories of his pack surrounding him, gives him the peace in death he was missing for the last years of his life.
You're thirty-nine when you bury your sister, and you feel like a fraud in front of the cameras, in front of the vultures that have come to gawk at the spectacle in front of them. The words of the service wash over you, words that are far more considerate of Kate than they should be.
You watch as the coffin is lowered, and wonder why Kate gets this and the only thing Peter gets is an unmarked hole under the burnt out shell of his home. Allison is crying softly beside you, but you don't have any tears, not for Kate, not any more.
You can still hear the voices from those the police are keeping back, and part of you wants to tell the Sheriff to let them come closer, let them get their fill. Let them swarm and accuse and condemn. Because Kate is her father's child, but what does that make you? Kate may have been the match, but you were the gasoline surrounding Peter. It may have taken twenty years, but your mother was right, you were Peter Hale's ruin.
And when Victoria's fingers brush your cheeks, they come away wet.
You're forty when you lose Victoria and Peter comes back into your life. Forty when your world is turned upside down. Vic's been by your side for so long that it's nearly impossible to imagine life without her there. And every time you think that, you can hear the snort next to you, hear Victoria's voice telling you to pull yourself together, to be strong for Allison.
You don't see Peter, but Allison tells you that he's back. And you can hear it in her voice, the question as to why you didn't deal with Peter Hale's body the way she's learned that hunters always deal with wolves. But you can't tell her, can't think about it. Can't think about anything but how to get through the next few days, weeks, months.
It's sunny, the day of Victoria's funeral. The kind of day that should be filled with laughter and joy, instead of this sombre procession of you and Allison. Scott and his mother are both there with you, and you know it's because Scott wants to support Allison. Because you know what Vic did, know that she let her fear and concern as a mother overwhelm her logic as a hunter.
Because you also know that Scott won't hurt Allison, know that the look in his eyes when he sees your daughter is the same look Peter used to wear when he thought you weren't looking at him.
It's partway through the ceremony that you see Peter, see him standing next to the nearby trees, too far away to interrupt, but close enough for wolf hearing to pick up on the words being spoken. He nods at you when he sees you looking, not trying to hide his presence. And you take strength from him being there.
You squeeze Allison's hand tightly as Vic's coffin is lowered into the ground, and the next time you look, Peter is gone.
You're forty-two when you and Peter finally stop this dance that you've fallen into, this game of gazes held too long and touches that go past propriety. Forty-two when you reach out and he reaches back, and from there it's only a matter of time before there's skin against skin and words murmured against lips. It's been years since you last slid inside his body, and it feels a little like coming home.
Peter's writhing under you, demanding you go harder, faster. His claws are pinpricks in your skin as he grips your arms, his cock trapped between the two of you as you fuck him.
There's blue bleeding into his eyes, too bright and too sharp, and you know he's getting close. You angle your hips down slightly, and it takes you one thrust, two, before you hit the spot you're aiming for and have Peter howling.
He bites his lower lip as he comes, his cock untouched. His fangs pierce skin, and he bleeds sluggishly for only a second before his healing kicks in. The spread of wet warmth between you and the feeling of his body clamping down on your cock means you're only a few seconds behind him. You thrust sharply, holding yourself deep inside him as you come, spilling into him, marking him up in a way you'd never thought you'd feel again.
A minute passes, the air silent except for the sound of breathing slowly returning to normal. You pull out of him slowly, a dribble of white following your cock as it slips out, trailing down over his skin. You drop to the bed next to him, and neither of you speak as you pull Peter into your arms, wrap yourself around him, and let the moon shining outside carry you into sleep.
You're forty-two when you're lying in a bed and watching Peter Hale asleep beside you. Forty-two when you reach out and run fingers lightly through his hair. He moves into the touch, murmuring softly.
"'S too early, Christopher, go back to sleep."
You lean down and kiss him, and he's only half-awake, all sleep-warm and pliant, but he returns the kiss anyway, his lips opening to yours.
You're forty-two, and there's a wolf in your bed again. You're forty-two, and there's nowhere else you'd rather be.