If asked one day to describe you using only one word, which would be terribly difficult for him considering the boy rambles on quite a bit, Peter would say the first thing that comes to his mind most frequently when he sets those kind eyes of his on the girl he's forever in love with: beautiful. Not just an outwardly sort of beautiful, though, because that's shallow and Peter would never be shallow. Especially not with you. With you, his most carefully kept love, he ensured that he thought your mind was as beautiful as any physical feature you adorned, and that he loved every single part of you no matter what it was. The easiest way to put those thoughts was by saying that you were beautiful.
Which he said. Often. Without remorse, hesitation, embarrassment, he called you beautiful every chance he got, so you always knew what you were to him.
Peter sits on his bed with his laptop in front on the pillow next to him, staring at the screen in the dim yellow light of his room that makes his face look paler than it is when you see him in person. Half of his face is visible in the little window that he can see himself in, but you have your laptop propped on a bedside table so that you're entirely visible while you read to him over Skype, the quality a little blurred. The quality of the video matters little to him. As long as he can see and hear you whisper the words to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn at two in the morning, he's fine. You dread reading the book, but you need to for your honors English class, so you and Peter take turns reading every night. He's gazing at you in that moonstruck way of his, cartoon hearts practically flying about his head as he pays more attention to the way your lips move around certain words rather than the actual sentences coming from your mouth. One of his hands rests under his cheek, propping him up on his elbow so that you can get a better view of his brilliant smile that is worn just for you. "You're beautiful," he sighs happily, dreamy and in love and cutting off your sentence about the beauty of trees with swift effectiveness. You glance up for the pages, yellowed with age, and grin so widely he has to repeat the statement just to see that again. "You're so beautiful, just- just wow. Keep smiling. Please. Forever."
If he was there with you right now, sitting next to you on the bed at a respectable distance to make sure your parents knew he wasn't one of those boys but still holding your hand to keep the contact, you would've hit him with a pillow for making your cheeks glow the same shade as a freshly cut rose. You instead shook your head at him, shyly but jovially, thumbing the edges of the page. "As long as you're here, Pete, I'll be smiling."
It's probably the cheesiest thing he's ever heard and he loves it. He replays the sentence in his head over and over again after you fall asleep still on the phone with him. He doesn't end the call once he notices. He just types in the message section that he hopes you have sweet dreams (of him) and then turns on his side and goes to bed. He wakes up before you in the morning for school, and when you finally notice that you're still on the phone after your eyes open just as he's tying his shoe, he greets you with, "Beauty never rests, does it?"
He's never been a fan of public displays of affection. He's a naturally shy, reserved person, and he knows that kissing you in the hallways at school would gather a bit of unwanted attention. He'll do it if he's feeling bold enough that day, or if he can't particularly resist the wanting of it, but it's not often and you respect that endlessly. He is, however, a big lover of sliding notes over to you in the middle of class as inconspicuously as he can manage for a boy of his particular brand of clumsiness. You'll be sitting in English class, raptly listening to the lesson being taught when a purple post-it is stuck on your back. He always uses purple for you because it's your favorite. You reach behind you and Peter's written looking particularly beautiful today, y/n. what's your secret? on it and he adds a little smiley face at the end, followed by eight doodles of spiderwebs because he just can't resist. He watches you suppress a beam as you fold up the note carefully and tuck it into the back of your binder. You have a collection of these sorts of notes from him in a jewelry box at home. When he meets you at the door to walk to the next class together, you taking his hand and kiss his knuckles for a second.
The rest of the day is spent with Peter running his fingers over that spot on his hand repeatedly. It's a soothing gesture for him, relaxes him to no end. You do it as often as you can after that, almost as often as he says that you're beautiful, but not quite as much. You can't match him on that, even if you attempted it.
As mentioned before, though, it's not just your outward beauty that he lives for, loves more than anything else, adores with all his soul. He thinks your mind is the greatest thing to ever exist, other than you as a whole. He fell in love with your personality before he really stopped to ponder the perfection of your face, the way it should happen for everyone. Every time you speak, raise your hand to answer a question, participate in a debate in class, show off your skills during decathlon practice, he stares in awe until someone pushes him over and scolds him for being so distracted during an important meeting. He catches your eye when this happens, and shrugs sheepishly, because you both know what had him so distracted and it certainly wasn't the studying.
You showed him your journal once, where you jot down various ideas and snippets of stories and poetry and prose and song lyrics and all he can do is endlessly read through each page with careful consideration before he kisses you so quickly you don't have to time to know that it's going to happen. You open your mouth to ask what the hell that was for, but Peter always knows what you're going to say before it comes out, so he answers the unspoken question without needing you to ask it. "Your mind- your thoughts. They're beautiful, okay? You have a beautiful mind. You're so intelligent. I- I am with the smartest person in the universe. Hands down. Your mind is so beautiful, Y/N," he repeats, not letting you kiss him a second time. He wants more time to read what you've been writing all this time without showing him. He's planting roses in your cheeks again, and they bloom for him as usual.
You tell him that he's the sweetest boy you've ever known with a joy filled laugh and an engulfing hug as you sit on his bed and kiss him sweetly, intensely, forcefully. His hands hesitated between resting on your cheeks or on your hips, but he settled on pressing them to your face as he pulls you closer. He's backed up against his headboard, his fingers gliding through your hair and over your skin as you press a kiss over every inch of his face- his forehead, the tip of his nose, both his cheeks, his chin, the edge of his jaw, just by his ear, everywhere you can manage. They spill down his neck and you hear his breath hitch ever so slightly when you bite down for a few seconds too long. He's panting when you lean back, his mouth parted as he stares up at you in wonder, in awe. Same as always, but still so lovely to see that it makes your heart feel like it's flying. His hands come down from where they were entangled in your hair and go down your arms, taking your hands. "You're so beautiful." He says for the millionth time since you told him you adored him (not that you've been counting, not that you mind one bit.)
"You're not just saying that because you like making out with me, are you?" You quirk an eyebrow at him, a small smirk playing at your lips when his meets yours again. The softness of them pulls away for a second so Peter can show you that he's shaking his head.
"Never! Never would I say that just to make out with you." He squeezes your hands. "I mean it when I say it." It's his way of saying I love you without really saying those three words that he's still just a little nervous to say, even though he knows he loves you and that you love him. "You are truly beautiful. Inside and out, always." He'll never stop reminding you of it, as long as he's in your life. Which, incidentally, he hopes is forever. Or something along those lines.
