2300 words, warning: some torture involved, but happy endings!
*
Being a demon, he's seen some of the pretty nasty things that humans -- and other beasties -- are willing to do for love. Things that, were he still alive (and human), would make him hesitate to be in a relationship with anyone lest his partner start getting some funny ideas. That said--
"This seems a little desperate for a kid your age," he says.
Stiles shifts under his skin, but no matter how much the kid moves, the reflection in the mirror doesn't change. Stiles has lost total control. He's got the wheel now.
"Well, never let it be said I don't have my charity cases now and then," he says. "I don't care how big and bad you think your boyfriend is, I bet you've never met anyone as big and bad as me!"
*
Five hours and one terribly contrived conversation later, he's tied to a chair and reconsidering his stance on Stiles' boyfriend.
Poor guy doesn't even have holy water.
"You really don't have to go to all this trouble," he says.
Peter holds up a knife, lets it reflect in the light because he's dramatic. "It's no trouble," he says. "I have plenty of time. As long as it takes to get you out of Stiles."
"Yeah, I got that--"
He sucks in a sharp breath as Peter shoves the knife into his gut -- Stiles' gut. Alright, not putting on a huge show -- okay. He can deal. Sure, he's technically immortal and not really corporeal but possessing a body means possessing a body. Owning all the nerves means feeling everything, even if he'd rather not, even if he'd survive it regardless.
Peter pulls back the blade. He watches placidly as the blood pours out of the wound, but is soon frowning as the wound stitches right back up.
"I meant," he starts again, "that your hard work isn't going to do much good if you're just thinking of carving me out." He shrugs. The ropes pull tight against his arms. "I'm a bit more special than that."
"You can heal," Peter says -- so astute. His hand touches the fresh skin of his abdomen. "I guess we're going to be here for a while."
He sighs, rolling his eyes -- rolling his whole head for that matter -- to the side as he settles into the ropes holding him to the chair. Stiles is a restless spirit behind his eyes, pressing curiously at the front of his skull like he's trying to watch.
"For a guy that seems really bent on getting Stiles back, you sure are willing to do a lot of damage to his body," he points out. "I'm beginning to think Stiles' impression of you isn't as dark as it could be."
"I'm hardly doing any damage at all," Peter replies as he slowly digs the knife into his gut again. "You'll just heal him again and again until you can't take the pain anymore. I think eventually, you'll rather leave him than experience more than you have to."
He laughs at Peter thinly through the pain, grinning -- or grimacing -- as he watches Peter twist the narrow knife. It's a long knife. It feels deep. He's pretty sure that ugly shift is his guts moving around the blade.
Seriously sick. It makes his stomach roll. His insides feel like mush.
"Stiles and I, we made a deal. M'not leaving till he gets what he wants. In the meantime, I get to have tons of fun playing with you," he hisses. "So go ahead, make my day, hot shot. If you figure out something that makes me scream, I'll let Stiles out just enough to feel everything you're doing to his fragile little body."
Peter looks so doubtful that it kind of stings. That's what you get with the ignorant, he supposes.
Oh, well. At least he never promised Stiles this would be a pleasant experience!
Stiles, when he comes forward, finds his lungs first, then his skin, then his nerves, spreading out from the center until he's all the way to his fingertips. Stiles clenches up at once at the pain -- fingers curling, arms straining against the ropes, teeth gritting together. He gasps and struggles but of course that just makes him feel the knife in his gut more keenly, and he looks down in horror at Peter's hand, still wrapped around the handle.
Peter is holding his face immediately, pulling his gaze away from the knife. "Stiles, look at me," he says. "Are you okay? Are you with me?"
Stiles whines, jerking so hard that the chair jolts. "Hurts," he cries.
"Shh, shh, I know," Peter says and cradles the back of Stiles' neck with one hand, leeching away the pain while the other hand finds the knife and tosses it away. Stiles moans pitifully and bleeds -- he bleeds all over. "I'm working on it."
Stiles sniffles. "Peter..."
Peter's hand is against his stomach, covering a wound that pushes blood sluggishly between Peter's fingers.
"You're not dying," Peter says firmly. "Just let me handle everything. You'll be fine."
Peter kisses Stiles then, mouth soft.
He almost feels bad about yanking Stiles away from the driver seat at that precise moment, shoving the kid deeper while he spreads out into his limbs. He heals the stab wound as he settles in. It wouldn't do to bleed out now -- not when Peter's mouth is right there, feeling very good against his. He kind of can't help wiggling his fingers and toes in pleasure.
"Mmm, now that's what I call a persuasive argument," he says when Peter jerks back. When he licks his lips, he can taste Peter's sweat at the corner of his mouth. "Stiles cries so sweet, doesn't he? Is that what you like best about him? All those times the two of you fucked and he cried because it was so damn good? Unf, bet you felt more alive in those moments than during all those murders."
Peter's lips peel back from his teeth.
Delighted, he goes on: "You're such a manipulative little fuck of a man. When you saw that Stiles was ripe for the picking, how long did you wait before making your move? You spun all sorts of pretty lies for him to feed on, too. I've got them all up here to sort through."
He tosses his head back a bit, baring Stiles' throat. There's still a mark there from a few nights ago, where Peter had bitten high at the rabbit fast beat of Stiles' pulse. It's harsher than the dozens of bruises that Peter has put on Stiles in the last few hours, but he'd gotten rid of them. This one, though -- it has some sentimental value.
"Which one's my favorite out of all of them?" he muses, feigning thoughtfulness. "Oh yes--"
He leans forward in the ropes, gets barely more than a couple inches closer to Peter's face.
"You said the words so sweetly too," he purrs. "You're mine."
Peter snarls -- a sound so gutteral and rough that he seems more like a feral beast than a werewolf. Peter shoves him back against the chair, his meaty palm closing around his throat and squeezing.
"Stiles belongs to me now," he chokes out, grinning at the hot burn of Peter's blue eyes. "Play time's over."
"You can't have him," Peter says.
"Why not?" he asks, shuddering. "You don't need him. You can get anyone you like. Sweet talk them just like you did Stiles. It's not like you love him."
Peter's grip falters and then tightens.
He shakes with laughter, but can't get the sound out. His face is flushing red, feeling hot and then cold and then numb. His lungs hurt for air. His heart is pounding, pounding so hard that he can feel it, but he can't hear it in his head. Can't think--
Dying sucks all the time, he's pretty sure -- always with the human body struggling to survive, muscles locking up and dark dots crossing his vision. Asphyxiation has never been a favorite way to go, but he guesses --
Yeah, maybe things could have gone much worse.
*
Peter isn't trained in CPR. He's never needed to be, but he's seen it in passing at the hospital. The nurses straddling patients being wheeled into the ER would shove at their chests and breathe into their mouths for five minutes, ten sometimes. It had seemed crude at the time -- such a primitive way of getting the lungs to breathe and the heart to beat -- but he searches through his memories now for the details of the process.
Stiles lies still on the ground, and Peter cautiously folds his hands above his breast bone, shifting for a more stable stance on his knees and then hesitating.
He's never been scared of his own strength before. Forget breaking a couple ribs or cracking the breast bone. In the state he's in now, he'd probably crush Stiles' whole rib cage.
Breathing -- he can-- He can do breathing. He can tip Stiles' head back and pry open his mouth and force air down his throat until his chest visibly rises in the corner of his vision. That seems safe. It seems logical.
Stiles is pale and unnaturally quiet. His lips are cold, and they taste like sulfur and smoke -- the remnants of the demon, he thinks, from when it poured out of Stiles' throat like a column of dark cloud, faster than Peter could react.
Peter breathes into Stiles, aiming for calm. Aiming for controlled. He can't hear Stiles' heartbeat over his own. His fingers are shaking as they check for a pulse, and the sound he makes when he feels a thready beat is absolutely pathetic. Stiles would never let him live it down if he heard.
There's a wet, salty taste to Stiles' mouth in the next breath. "Please," he whispers.
He tries to be patient. It's always been so difficult to wait with Stiles -- always wanting him around. Needing him to be where he could see. Always carrying around these words in the back of his mind, at the bottom of his heart -- saying instead a handful of poor substitutes that mean nothing in comparison.
Mine, he'd said when he should've said other things that were less possessive and more of a surrender.
Too late for that now, he thinks and hopes he's lying to himself.
He leans down to breathe again, and Stiles is--
Stiles has his hand on Peter's chest. It's a weak touch, but Peter covers that hand at once to feel it shake under his palm.
"Hey," Stiles croaks. His cheeks are turning pink. His fingertips flood with warmth. "You look like shit."
"Says the idiot who apparently made a bad deal with a demon," Peter snaps back. He'd intended his words to have more heat, but he can hear the relief betrayed by his voice.
"Wasn't such a bad deal," Stiles insists softly.
"I thought you were smarter than these kinds of reckless ideas," Peter says. "What did you need so badly that you couldn't go about it the normal way?"
Stiles smiles, but it seems to take a lot of energy. "Sorry. I just had to know for sure."
"What was that?"
Stiles breathes deeply and Peter finds himself resting a hand on Stiles' chest to feel it rise and fall. His lashes are drooping, but his eyes are bright underneath. His hand flops over Peter's and gives it a quick squeeze.
"Don't worry about it," he tells Peter warmly. "I'm fine."
"I'll be the judge of that," Peter says and starts gathering Stiles into his arms. Stiles complains a bit at being manhandled, let alone being scooped up bridal style, but leans into Peter's shoulder regardless. "I'm taking you home."
Stiles's fingers hook in above the first button of his shirt. "Okay."
He remains quietly pliant on the way to the car and touches Peter's face as he's helped into the passenger seat and buckled in. There's a look in Stiles' eyes that's different than it's been in the last few days -- a look that makes Peter stop and lean in for a kiss.
There are words sticking in his throat, frightening in their dreadfulness. They make his kiss harder than it should be, and fear locks his breath in his lungs. He hasn't felt fear like this in... he doesn't know -- years, maybe, or maybe not. Maybe it's only been hours, from the moment he realized that Stiles was not himself.
Stiles sweeps his thumb across Peter's cheek, soothing him, kissing him in gentle passes of his mouth. Peter doesn't think Stiles has ever kissed him like this before. "It's okay," Stiles says.
Peter laughs abruptly and looks down between them, at the sticky red stain of blood across Stiles' jeans. "Nothing's okay," he says.
Stiles' lips touch his brow, and when Peter raises his head again, those lips graze the bridge of his nose, arch of his cheek.
"I love you," Peter says. "That's-- I didn't plan on this." The admission burns in his throat. He wishes he could've seen this coming.
"I know," Stiles says. "I didn't plan on it either."
"This is terrible," he says.
Stiles just nods and pulls him in. "The worst," he agrees before they're kissing again, before Peter is pressing so close that he has Stiles pinned against the seat.
He nips at Stiles' lip and -- god, his stomach turns at the sound of Stiles' whimper. Peter tears himself away again. "I changed my mind. I'm taking you to the hospital," he says firmly. "You might be hurt... somewhere."
Peter hates not knowing.
"I'm fine," Stiles says. "Keep kissing me."
"Stiles--"
"I love you too okay, now just--"
"Keep kissing you?"
"Yes," Stiles says, sighing happily when Peter closes the distance between them again.
*
I want people to tell their children
terrifying stories about the things we did
for love
