Everything is red. Red like rage, like pain, like the howls of his pack as they burned. Peter drenches the world in red, and he feels nothing but anger.
Then, “I’m not afraid of you!”
It’s not exactly true, but it’s also not exactly a lie. For the first time in months, Peter feels something else. Curious. Intrigued.
Then everything goes red again.
—
The boy is defiant. Still refusing to back down, just like the first time Peter met him. He’s terrified but he doesn’t cower.
As a reward, Peter offers him the best gift he can think of: the bite.
It’s hugely disappointing when the boy pulls his arm away at the last second.
“I don’t want to be like you,” the boy says.
It’s a lie, but Peter lets him go anyway. For the first time since he awoke, he wants something more than to be feared. He’ll wait for the boy to come to him.
—
”I know why you did it,” Stiles says. He’s curled up against a tree, clutching his bruised ribs. This time, he really isn’t afraid.
That knowledge soothes Peter, cools down the red enough for him to focus on pale skin and brown eyes.
“They killed your family,” Stiles says, “I would have done the same.”
That is also not a lie, and Peter leans in, tilting his head to the side as he inspects the boy. “You don’t hate me anymore,” he realizes out loud.
”Maybe not,” Stiles says, “But that doesn’t mean we’re on the same side.”
Fair enough, Peter thinks, slinking back through the trees before the rest of the pack catches up with them.
—
Being alive again is strange. Death did not become him, but he’s not so sure life does anymore either. He misses the red haze sometimes. Everything is so colorful, so vivid now. For the first time in his life, there are moments when he wishes his senses were as dull as a human’s. Six months in, and he still hasn’t gotten used to it.
He goes deep into the forest, the only place where he doesn’t feel assaulted by sensory overload. There, he finds the one intrusion he doesn’t mind. It’s his boy, curled over something in his hands in a grassy meadow.
Stiles’s lips move, and Peter can’t quite make out the words, something in Latin, he thinks.
Peter creeps closer and sees that a dead leaf in Stiles’s hand is slowly unfurling into green.
“Yes!” Stiles says, pumping his fist, and then nearly falls over when he realizes Peter is standing not ten feet in front of him.
“Clever boy,” Peter purrs.
”Yeah yeah,” Stiles says with an eye roll, but his cheeks blush rosy pink.
—
”Stay,” Stiles says, reaching out to snag Peter’s hand. He’s curled up on his bed, blanket pulled hastily over himself because Peter had commanded him to get some sleep.
This is what Peter had wanted back in that parking garage. To be wanted. To be chosen. It’s not all he wants, but it’s plenty for now, Peter decides as he lies down beside his boy.
Stiles curls against his body, and Peter puts an arm around him and holds him tight, planting a soft kiss in his hair as the boy falls asleep.
Yes, it’s quite enough for now.
—
”You want me, right?” Stiles asks. He sounds sure and steady, even though his heart is pounding in his chest.
“Yes,” Peter answers.
”In all the ways?”
”In all the ways.”
Stiles nods, a little smile curling up the corner of his lips. “Okay, you can have me,” he says.
The touch of his boy’s hands is nothing like the red that burned through Peter for so long. It feels like a cool breeze on a warm day, soothing and refreshing.
Their lips touch and part, touch and part. Everything is Stiles’s smile and Stiles’s sparkling eyes, and Stiles’s fingers in his hair. Gold, like the last light of evening, flooding everything in its soft glow.
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how to win my husband over (남편을 내 편으로 만드는 방법) fits simon/reader so much. the miscommunication, the misunderstanding. rugged duke of the north (😭) simon appearing to be brutish and angry, when he’s truly so deeply in love with you. that when he pushed you away—physically and figuratively—it was actually to protect you because he’s made a lot of enemies, and they’re hurting you to corner him.
that when he’s getting angry, it’s not because of you but for you—don’t you know? simon had his sister’s nanny, the only woman who ever loved her as a mother when their own couldn’t, exiled because he learned that she told you that he couldn’t possibly be truly in love with you.
(he is. in every life time, he is and will always be irrevocably in love with you.)
don’t you know? when simon thought you were taken by the monsters, he spent three sleepless days, and would spend even longer if it came down to it, searching the empire for you. he believed that you were alive even when others said you couldn’t possibly be, and ordered the duchy’s knights to never give up because his wife is missing damn it—
(please. please be safe. please come back. he has so much to say to you; has so much to do with you. you two have barely had a life together so please—)
god, simon loves you so much and it doesn’t matter that people are calling you a witch because all he needs is your love. all he needs is to protect you and to be with you, and he swears on his life that he will do everything to fight for you. simon is willing to, and does, go far to ensure people’s opinions of you change because you deserve a good life. you deserve to be happy and to be safe and simon will always, always fight for you to have that.
hhhhs m sobbing 🙂↕️
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