Chapter Text
“What’s the organization scheme here? Do you know where we should be looking?”
The cellar is a cramped space, with a low celling and packed dirt floors, and there are loose crates and bins around a central worktable. There are some shelves against the far wall, but Peter pulled most everything off of them when he noticed the dry-rot.
“Hopefully, but there are some books that shouldn’t leave here – we’ll have to go through the crates and check before we take anything up.”
Peter thought that statement would pique Stiles’ interest, but he doesn’t question it – something else must have caught his attention.
“Stiles?”
Peter turns, gently, trying not to kick up too much dust, and his breath catches.
Stiles had gone for the newest looking box of the bunch, a heavy metal fire safe Peter had had a terrible time carrying down the stairs a few years ago, and he had magic’d open the lock. The safe isn’t full, only a half-dozen slim scrapbooks and a few envelopes of loose photos, but it’s quite possibly the second most important thing, after Stiles himself, in the whole cellar to Peter.
“When did you bring these down here?”
“These are the originals. The books at the loft are just copies.”
Peter moves to Stiles’ side, just a few steps in the tight space, and plucks the scrapbook from his hands. It’s one of the older ones, made up of the few photos that survived the fire, that weren’t backed up online. These are photos from his childhood, and he doesn’t want to look at them now.
He shuts the book gently, only to see Stiles sliding another one out of the safe.
“Stiles, put them back. We don’t have time for this.”
“I know, I know, I just – I didn’t realize how scared you must be. Of losing everything, again, even your memories. Is that why you don’t frame any of them? Because you could lose them?”
Peter doesn’t know what to say to that, doesn’t want to Stiles to know how quickly he managed to flay him open, right down to his heart, but he knows the silence is telling in and of itself.
“I’m sorry. For killing you, that way. No excuses – no ‘buts’ here – I knew what happened to you, your family, and what I did was inexcusable. I should have done it some other way.”
His voice is dark and low, and he’s staring down at a photograph three-quarters charred, with just a hint of hair and wall and a window left, an unidentifiable scene that Peter couldn’t throw out.
“You did what needed to be done.”
“No! You didn’t deserve – “
“A monster born of fire, cleansed by fire, returned to sanity the same way I left it. You saved my life, Stiles. Let’s not talk about it, anymore. We have a job to do.”
They take the books back to Peter’s loft, but don’t spend the night digging through the dusty volumes – Stiles found what they needed just by flipping through the pages in the car. Stiles wants to go home, to shower and sleep and do a little research on the idea burning in the back of his mind, but doesn’t want to leave Peter alone either.
“So I need to go home – just for an hour or two – but can I come back? In a bit? Or are you –“
Peter looks at him, distinctly unimpressed, and waves one slow hand around the loft.
“Stiles, not to be crude, but I’d say that when there isn’t a surface in the house we haven’t fucked on and you’re wearing more of my marks than hours in the day, you are free to come and go as you like.”
“That’s fair. So I’ll be back – can I have the table? I have an idea, I need some research space.”
“Anything I can help with?”
Stiles realizes Peter won’t let him do what he wants to do if he gets even a glimpse of it before it’s ready – he doesn’t like anything to do with fire, or magical experimentation, or both at the same time, so Stiles’ idea is really shaping up into something unacceptable.
“Ah – actually – no. You ok on your own tonight? This – I want it to be a surprise, actually. And my dad, haven’t spent a lot of time with him this week – “
Peter has to cut him off, mid ramble, so they don’t stand there all night in a one sided debate about whether or not Peter can spend one night alone.
“Stiles, go home. Have dinner with your father, spend some time with him, sleep in your own bed. Don’t come back until tomorrow morning, and cast the spell then.”
Stiles scent curdles with something akin to guilt, like the bitter tinge of cranberries on cream, and Peter wonders when he lost his silver tongue.
“Come back tomorrow morning, please, and I’ll make you breakfast before any spell work, and we can spend the rest of the day in bed. I am kicking you out for one night because there is something I need to do, for you, and it’s better as a surprise too.”
That, and a smattering of kisses, gets Stiles out into the warm night and down the apartment stairs.