Skin Deep (Are the Secrets I Keep)

CHAPTER 3

Stiles gets two months of relative peace, and he's curled up in a corner of Raven's Desk with a coffee and a few of his mother's books when his danger sixth sense whacks him over the head.

His eyes dart up two seconds before a familiar figure rounds the nearest bookshelf, a book in one hand and what smells like some kind of tea in the other.

"Hello, Stiles," Peter greets him, all suave charm and insufferable smirk as he saunters up like they've just bumped into each other entirely by accident and not because Peter somehow tracked him here. "Fancy meeting you here. This place doesn't see a lot of teenagers come and go."

Stiles says nothing and just stares. Peter stands in front of him and waits, like he's expecting the same repartee they exchanged back in that parking lot that night, but Stiles made a decision to cut every one of these land-walkers out of his life – (he's tired of being left behind) – and Peter's no exception so he isn't about to make it easy for the werewolf. Besides, Stiles only snarks with his enemies when he's stressed; it's apparently a defense mechanism because he did it to Gerard and Derek too, although Gerard had no patience for it, really just wanted to monologue and then get down to the torture, that one, and Derek – unlike his uncle – couldn't really keep up and mostly just smacked Stiles around a lot to get him to shut up.

Not that it worked. Hah. And now Derek won't have to deal with him ever again, but Stiles likes to think of it as the other way around – now he won't have to deal with Derek ever again. So double hah.

Peter huffs after the silence stretches over ten seconds. He keeps approaching though, and he even makes to sit down on the built-in sofa Stiles is occupying, but he drifts to an almost immediate halt again when Stiles automatically tenses up. He did this too back when Peter was manhandling him around, although the then-Alpha was so far gone half the time that Stiles is pretty sure he simply put it down to Stiles' discomfort with the whole situation in general and not anything in particular.

He doesn't like it when people get too close to his right side. His burnt side. Closest to his pelt.

For another moment, Peter cocks his head and scrutinizes him with sharp blue eyes that make Stiles want to bite him. Then the man makes a show of stepping back and retreating to an armchair a few feet away instead.

Stiles glowers at him. Peter smirks back, crosses his legs, and... settles down to read.

...This fucker.

Unfortunately, Stiles does not have the authority to kick people out of this place, and he likes Raven's Desk too much to leave himself, not to mention he was here first anyway. It's a shop that sells books but you can bring in your own reading material, and the interior is well-stocked with beanbags and chairs and neat little nooks like the one Stiles prefers for its customers to read in, along with a side business for selling drinks and food. It's relatively small but cozy, air-conditioned to keep the Californian summer heat out, loud noise isn't tolerated, and there's no wifi so kids usually go to the library or the Barnes & Noble two blocks over. But Stiles likes it for exactly that reason – nobody bothers him here, and it's quiet enough for him to focus.

Now though...

He glares at Peter for a few minutes longer, lamenting the fact that selkies do not in fact have psychic powers. Overall, his kind is actually pretty useless on land. Excellent fighters underwater because they may look like seals but they're not just seals. On land though, they're not even all that coordinated while walking. About the only things they retain across the transformation is a big appetite and an excellent aptitude for swimming even with naked limbs instead of flippers and a tail.

But Peter doesn't seem at all affected, and Stiles reluctantly goes back to his own reading. He supposes so long as the man doesn't try to talk to him, it's okay if he stays.

Thirty minutes later, it's become apparent that it isn't okay at all. Stiles can't relax with the guy right there, worse than a complete stranger because at least complete random strangers on the street – or in the shop in this case – barely give Stiles a second glance if they even give him a first one. Peter doesn't look at him at all but he's still very present, and Stiles knows him, and the last time they interacted, he got hauled around and slammed into a car and coerced into giving up Scott's phone's GPS coordinates. So alright, Stiles wouldn't have given up that last one even on pain of death if he didn't already know Scott lost his cellphone, so there was very little coercion truly involved, whether Peter knew that or not, but the rest of it – Stiles hates being touched. Most people don't know what he is of course, but even if they did, like his dad, they wouldn't really understand. They'd see the burnt pelt, but they'd also see Stiles' utterly unblemished human skin, and logically, they'd know that damaged pelt equals damaged Stiles, but because the scars aren't physically carved into him when he's on two legs, they just can't seem to make that connection on a deeper level, or they'd forget, or they'd think it only hurts if he's wearing his burnt skin. They'd never comprehend the fact that Stiles still feels it no matter what he looks like, that he feels it every minute he's awake, that the scars are there, even if they can't be seen and they don't hurt all the time anymore.

He knows his father's never understood just how badly Claudia hurt him, maybe because he didn't want to understand, but also because at the end of the day, even if he married a selkie, John Stilinski is still human.

Half an hour ticks by, and finally, with a frustrated sigh of disgust, Stiles clambers to his feet, packs up his things, grabs his coffee, and heads for the door.

He ignores the expressionless look Peter levels on him as he stalks away.

Wonderful. Now he'll have to find somewhere else to hole up when he doesn't want to be stuck in his dad's house.