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These days, Stiles is nothing but fractured pieces of someone who he used to be. He doesn’t think he’s broken— it’s more like he was put back together wrong. Things that were a part of him don’t fit into the puzzle anymore. There’s no space. Or maybe he just can’t see the space because of all the blood on his hands.
It’s not like he doesn’t act like himself. He smiles occasionally, babbles when he needs to. It’s disarming. Who would ever think that a scrawny, awkward kid like him could kill? Pretending is safe, and Stiles is exceptional at it.
He has to ignore the way he can still hear a long dead fox spirit crooning in his ear at his manipulations. Because that’s all it is: an act. Smile at this person; talk too much at that one. It gets him places quick because people tend to trust kids that look and act like him. It’s frightening to know that strangers would let their guards down so quickly—he could be anyone and yet they pick him up, give him a ride, and don’t even question why a seventeen year old boy is on the run.
He imagines it might be the name. So foreign that it tangles on the tongue, and he sneaks in little Polish words sometimes—things he remembers his mother teaching him—and they all just assume he’s some foreigner backpacking across the country.
Stiles never stops moving. He supposes that’s a part of himself that will never change. Hiding takes work, hard work, and he doesn’t stay in one place too long or someone might find him. And what’s the point of running away if someone finds you?
It’s difficult, though. Have to use cash, no ID of any kind, change his appearance just enough. Masking his scent with wolfsbane. He’s been walking around with a ring of it around his throat like a noose, hair buzzed short, and thick framed glasses over his eyes. He bathes where he can—gas stations, rest stops, one time a river—and lives off whatever he can buy at the occasional store or vending machine. When he sleeps, it’s on car rides with strangers he’s managed to hitch a ride with because after all he’s been through, human dangers don’t frighten him anymore.
He thinks he might deserve whatever happens to him. Nothing ever does.
It takes him six months to finally settle. Picks somewhere in the middle of nowhere, Virginia and hocks his iPod at a local Pawn Shop in order to get enough money for a pay-per-minute phone and about a week at a rundown motel at the edge of town.
Another two pass and he has a job bussing tables and cleaning up at a bar where the owner pays him a shitty wage at the end of each night in all cash. Stiles takes what he can get and lives out of the motel. It isn’t the best arrangement, but then again Stiles doesn’t want the best. He wants an arrangement that will work, and this one does.
It isn’t until another three roll by and Stiles had been gone almost a year, Allison had been dead almost a year, that Peter shows up in his bar. Stiles doesn’t bolt or sneak out the back like he thinks he should. Peter just nods and takes a seat on one of the stools.
The owner, Matt, has him tending on slow nights even though every night is a slow night, and Stiles leans against the counter looking tired. “How did you find me?”
Peter inhales deeply and smiles like the Big Bad Wolf that he is. “I’m very good with people.”
“Bullshit.”
“I have my ways, Stiles.” Peter confides softly. “And you have yours.”
Stiles studies him for a long, quiet moment. “You’re not here to take me back.”
“Not unless that’s where you want to be.” Peter replies. “Can I get something to drink?”
“We don’t carry your brand of bourbon, Peter.”
“How do you know what brands I drink?” Peter grins, all teeth, looking decidedly hungry.
“I learned—Well, the nogitsune learned.” Stiles says, pulling out a glass with ice cubes in it, frosty and cold to the touch, before pouring out two fingers of whiskey. “I know everything it learned. That should be close to what you’re looking for.”
“What I’ve been looking for is you.” Peter says.
“Why? Did someone send you?”
“No. Not really.” Peter mutters, the lip of the glass pressed to his, humming at the burn of alcohol on his tongue. “This isn’t half bad.”
“Not really?” Stiles presses.
“I volunteered for the job and yet I still wasn’t picked.” Peter replies, setting the tumbler down on the countertop; Stiles’ eyes stay locked on Peter’s face. “A shame, really. Considering I’m the one that’s found you.”
“But can you take me?” Stiles challenges.
Peter gives him a dry look.
Another customer shows up. Stiles moves away to take care of him. Some broken country tune plays over dusty speakers; it’s about heartbreak and lost lovers.
When Stiles returns to him, the drink is gone and Peter is waiting patiently. Stiles pours him another with quiet precision. A hand snaps out and catches Stiles’ wrist, firm but not painful. Stiles looks up at Peter sharply, jaw flexing.
“Easy, boy. I won’t hurt you.”
“You’re damn right you won’t.” Stiles replies, voice low.
“Oh, I did miss that.” Peter smiles again, turning Stiles’ hand over in his. “So feisty.”
“Let me go, Peter.” Stiles snaps.
“No,” he breathes, thumb tracing over the quick thump-thump of Stiles’ pulse in the pale skin of his wrist. “When was the last time someone touched you, Stiles?”
“Get your hands off of me before I cut them off, Peter.”
Peter glances up at him, almost coy, and grins as he loosens his hold just enough to let Stiles jerk away. “A while then?”
“Get out of this bar before I decide to poison you.”
“Of course,” Peter stands, head bowing slightly. “Always lovely to see you, Stiles.”
He leaves without another word.
It isn’t until a week later that he’s there again. He sits quietly at the bar, and Stiles serves him mostly because his boss is mingling. They don’t speak the entire night. Not until Stiles stumbles out the back door at three A.M. and fumbles with a carton of cigarettes.
His nerves are wrecked. He keeps expecting his father to show up. With a cigarette balanced between his lips, he tries and fails to light the end of it.
Stiles is proud of himself for not jumping when Peter comes out of nowhere to light it for him. He takes a long drag, inhales deep, and feels the sweet buzz of it on his tongue and in his fingertips as the nicotine pumps through his blood. Peter smiles.
“Are you stalking me now?” Stiles asks, voice wavering slightly.
“Yes,” Peter says.
“Could you not?”
Peter cants his head, takes him in; Stiles fidgets and hates how quick cigarettes go. “Let’s get out of here, Stiles.”
“I’m not going back to Beacon Hills.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“What are you asking me then?”
“To come with me,” Peter says, eyes bright as he draws near. “To start living again. I know guilt, and I can help you.”
“Right, so you’ll be my Yoda, then?” Stiles remarks snidely. “Not interested. I like it here.”
“No you don’t.” Peter says. “But you’re very good at lying to yourself.”
“Leave, Peter.”
Peter holds up his hands, grinning again. “Think about it, Stiles.”
Much to Stiles’ chagrin, he actually does.
There’s a knock on Stiles’ motel door four days later. He doesn’t bother checking the peephole. Peter is standing there in a leather coat, looking ready to book it out of town. He raises an expectant brow.
“Why am I not surprised?” Stiles asks, leaning against the door jamb.
“Because you’re too smart to be surprised.” Peter replies.
Stiles hums and steps aside in silent invitation. Peter doesn’t hesitate.
“Nice place.”
“I can’t hear lies, but I know bullshit when I smell it.” Stiles mutters, closing the door with a soft click.
“Cute.”
“I know.”
“Have you thought about it?” Peter asks.
Stiles hesitates. Peter glances his way and watches as Stiles moves—fingers tracing over the table top as he rounds it over to a chair where he takes a slow seat. A moment later, Peter is seated across from him.
“It’s a tempting offer.” Stiles admits.
“Is it?” Peter’s grin turns predatory.
“Don’t get creepy,” Stiles mutters dryly.
“Are you going to come with me or not?”
Stiles holds his gaze, leaning in a bit. His elbows rest on the table and Peter watches idly. Stiles realizes faintly that’d he’d missed this. Missed not being the most dangerous person in the room.
“We don’t go back to Beacon Hills. We don’t get caught.”
“You have my word.”
“How good is your word to me?”
“It isn’t.” Peter says. “But it will be.”
“Planning on proving yourself to me, Peter?” Stiles asks glibly.
Peter chuckles. “Something like that.”
Stiles regards him, then nods. “Okay. Let me pack a bag.”
“I can buy you whatever else you need if you can’t fit it.” Peter tells him.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
It takes fifteen minutes. Stiles ends up slumped in the passenger seat staring out the window as stars pass them by. For a moment, he thinks he might be a little less fractured.