In Your Arms I'm Home

Three days until Christmas.

Stiles sighs and pushes himself to sit at the edge of his bed. He’s tired, emotionally and physically wrung out after the grueling semester. Double majoring doesn’t seem as effortless with his thesis looming in the near future as it did when he started, fresh-faced and eager to be out of Beacon Hills with his life mostly intact. Now, though? The closer his graduation gets, the more he dreads it.

It used to be easy, waiting for his life to finally start after the four years of near-constant terror of fighting monsters and deranged geriatrics. He remembers how he almost vibrated out of his skin on the day his dad hugged him goodbye and made him swear he’d call as soon as he arrived. He remembers how exciting and new everything had been and how he barely believed he was there, alive and attending college like a normal boy.

Thinking about his dad makes something burn under Stiles’s lids and he hangs his head, squeezing his eyes shut. He’d give a lot for a chance to hug his dad right now, hell, he’d give a lot to be able to yell at him about drinking too much coffee and eating regular bacon!

But he can’t.

His dad died three weeks after Stiles started college. An aneurysm burst in his brain during Stiles’s Orientation 101 class, ending his life before Stiles even saw the seven missed calls from the hospital. It was a congenital condition, Melissa explained him later, nothing he could’ve done.

Stiles blames himself anyway.

His phone lights up with a text and Stiles knows who it’s from even without looking. He’s been getting texts from the pack for a couple of weeks now, asking if he’s coming home for Christmas. 

”What home?” Stiles muttered under his breath after the first one. 

There’s an empty house waiting for him, filled with dusty memories and bitter regrets, covered with layers and layers of missed opportunities and sheets gone grey with age. He’s been over several times out of guilt-flavored duty but he never stays long.

It’s not the same with his dad gone.

It’s Melissa’s text that finally breaks him.

>>Please, Stiles, just come visit for a day or two. If nothing else, do it to humor a woman who loves you like her own child. I know it hurts but believe me, it hurts us too, knowing you’re alone. 

>>Nothing can bring him back but we can remember him together.

Stiles closes his eyes for a moment before answering, Okay.

Perhaps he can do it.

Perhaps this time it won't hurt so much.

Beacon Hills is exactly the same as before but it feels alien. As he drives his Jeep through the town, Stiles watches the buildings that look more like empty shells than real houses despite the festive decorations. He wonders if movie sets feel like this.

He doesn’t bother going to his old home but drives straight to the McCall house and takes a moment in the car before getting out. When he finally grabs his bag and gets out, Melissa is waiting for him at the door. She gives him a hug and a kiss on the cheek and he just breathes her in for a moment.

”I made the cake you love,” she says. There are tears in her eyes but her smile is bright.

”Thanks,” he says. They both know what he means.

”We better get inside. If we stay out for longer, Scott’s going to come to look for us.”

”Yeah,” Stiles says tightly. ”Okay.”

He and Scott started drifting apart well before Stiles’s dad passed away but it had been the final nail in the coffin for their easy friendship. Stiles had been heartbroken and Scott, bless his simple soul, had tried to console him by reminding Stiles of how he manages just fine without his dad. They’d gotten into a screaming match where Stiles had yelled that losing a dad he loved wasn’t the same as Scott’s abusive father walking out on them when Scott was six, and Scott had gotten all puppy-eyed and hurt. 

They hadn’t talked much after that.

The delicious scent of Christmas food hits Stiles’s nose as soon as he opens the door and he has to stop to take a deep breath. He opens his eyes to see Chris give him a small smile.

”Smells good, right?” Chris says, steps closer, and clasps Stiles’s shoulder. ”Good to see you, Stiles. We’ve missed you.”

”Really,” he says slowly. ”Sounds fake, considering—”

”Don’t,” Chris interrupts quietly. ”There’s a lot of bad memories I don’t want to think about. Right now, I’m just glad to see you. We all are.”

Stiles nods. ”Okay. In that case, it’s good to see you, too.”

Chris gives him a hug and pats his back and for a moment, it feels almost like hugging his dad again. 

”I’ll take your bag upstairs,” Chris says and leaves Stiles with Scott.

There’s a moment of awkward silence, then Scott says, ”There’s a pack meeting tonight at the House. Everyone will be there. You wanna come?”

He really doesn’t. ”Yeah, I guess,” he says anyway.

Scott nods a couple of times. ”Okay. Yeah, okay. Good.” He falls silent and then says, ”Merry Christmas?”

It sounds like a question. Stiles gives him a smile that never reaches his eyes. ”Merry Christmas.”

Meeting the pack is… familiar. Derek has mellowed out after getting together with Braeden and rebuilding the Hale house has helped him to put down his roots and live instead of just existing. The old gang seems to have their issues smoothed out;  Lydia sits on the giant love seat leaning on Jordan’s chest and with her legs on Jackson’s lap, Danny stands in the corner with his boyfriend and Isaac, explaining something with wide gestures. Cora is holding court with the new betas Stiles had barely started to know before he left for college. They all have grown up and seem to be at ease in their own skins. 

None of it makes Stiles feel at home.

And then there’s Peter. He lingers, staying just there at the outskirt of Stiles’s peripheral vision and every time he turns, Peter is watching him. He looks the same but there’s something softer about him: his stare no longer makes Stiles blood sing with flight-or-fuck instinct, but he feels bared to the bone instead and has no idea of what to think about that.

He leaves as soon as he deems polite, letting out a relieved breath when the door closes behind him. 

”You’re tired.”

Stiles looks up and sees Peter, leaning casually against the Jeep as if waiting for Stiles is a thing he does. He cocks his head as Stiles slowly approaches and somehow it feels like Peter’s carefully evaluating him. It’s not like Lydia’s quick and sharp calculating look but something more thorough.

”So?” Stiles asks quietly as he stops in front of Peter.

Peter doesn’t say anything, just takes a step forward and hugs him. It throws Stiles out of the loop because A, it’s Peter and B, it’s Peter, and Peter doesn’t do hugs. But it feels so good that he can’t help leaning in and take just a bit of comfort before pushing back. 

Except that Peter doesn’t let him go. Instead, he holds him just a bit tighter.

”Um,” Stiles mumbles against his neck.

”Just let me hug you, Stiles,” Peter says softly.

He doesn’t know what to say, just stands awkwardly with his hands hanging by his sides. Peter doesn’t care—he cradles Stiles in his arms and his body heat seeps through the clothes like liquid sunlight, almost burning and so, so good. He lets out a soft noise, like a question that doesn’t quite dare let itself be known, but Peter hears it, of course he does, and answers in an almost subvocal rumble.

Stiles lets out a shuddering gust of air and before he realizes, he’s gripping Peter’s jacket so hard his knuckles turn white and the expensive material wrinkles and tears a bit. He falls into Peter, lets his knees go weak because he knows Peter can hold him. 

He doesn’t remember the last time he’s been held like this. He doesn’t remember the last time he’s been held at all, because lingering nightmares and severe PTSD don’t good bedfellows make and Stiles would rather sleep curled up alone than face the pitying glances.

But now he knows he doesn’t have to hide. Not from Peter.

Trusting Peter, Stiles lets his mind go blank and melts.

Later, when they’re lying down face to face on Peter’s giant bed in his apartment on the other side of the town, Stiles frowns.

”How did you know?”

”Know what?”

He makes a face. ”Don’t try that, you know exactly what I mean. Did you, like, smell it on me?”

”I have eyes,” Peter says. ”And I know how you feel.”

Stiles averts his eyes. After a moment he starts, ”I’m not—”

”I’m not asking for anything you can’t give,” Peter interrupts. He brushes his fingers along Stiles’s chin and cups his face. ”It’s been a long couple of years for you, sweetheart. Let me take care of you for a change, okay?”

A small shiver runs down Stiles’s spine at the pet name but if Peter notices, he doesn’t show it.

Stiles swallows and gives him a small nod, just the slightest movement of his head. ”Okay,” he whispers. ”Okay.”

Peter doesn’t say anything, just gathers him in his arms and holds him. And even though they’re lying on top of the covers with their clothes on, it’s the most intimate thing Stiles has done in years. He closes his eyes, presses his nose against Peter’s collarbone, and falls asleep.

He doesn’t have nightmares that night.

The rest of his stay goes by almost without him noticing. When he realizes he’s almost having fun even though his dad is dead, Stiles has a panic attack. It takes Peter to calm him down and afterward, Stiles is too drained to pretend he doesn’t see Lydia’s raised brow. He just presses closer to Peter’s side and closes his eyes, concentrating on the steady beat of Peter’s heart under his ear.

Before she leaves, Lydia presses a kiss on his cheek and murmurs, ”Good for you.” 

Stiles isn’t sure when she started to see Peter as a person instead of a monster, but he really doesn’t care.

He knows what Peter is and that’s enough.

Peter sees him off when he heads back. It makes something hot and tight squeeze in his chest, an ambiguous feeling that doesn’t seem to know how to turn out. 

”Of course I’ll visit,” Peter says like it’s the most obvious thing for him to do.

He doesn’t know what his face does but Peter’s eyes go warm and when he cups Stiles’s face, his hands shake ever so slightly.

”Sweetheart, you mean the world to me,” Peter whispers and the feeling in Stiles’s chest expands in a rush, leaving him tingling and warm all over.

As Beacon Hills slowly gets smaller and smaller on his rearview mirror, Stiles bites his lip. His trip home didn’t go even slightly the way he thought. Had someone asked him a month ago he’d find his missing piece in a reformed, sarcastic asshole that had tried to kill him several times, he would’ve laughed himself weak and then punched them in the nose.

But now?

There’s something about Peter that makes him feel at ease. His presence is steady and comforting and being near him makes Stiles want to curl up in his lap and sleep. 

Yeah… Peter Hale is something Stiles never thought he’d want but something he needs with an ache that makes his breath catch.

So.

Perhaps he has something to come home to, after all.