[He is placing a shopping bag on his kitchen counter when he turns, eyebrows raised a very unironic sort of way. He gives the kitchen and the adjoining living room a sweeping glance, and then shrugs as he starts to empty the bag out. ] I wasn't planning on sticking around for too long.
[Things, as Peter will know, sometimes have a way of not going according to plan.
He has been wondering, lately, about whether he'll go back to Europe. He might, if only to also bring Isaac back. He might not, too. The duality of the Beacon Hills experience is sometimes stifling. It's hard to be anything but both fond of the people and absolutely miserable while inhabiting the space. Besides all that, Chris can't remember the last time anywhere felt like home, however fake-deep that concept is. He's just tired of moving around, for now. The energy has been sucked out of him. He keeps giving his soul to this place, and every time he leaves, it drags him back.
(The metal is still there, though slightly cleaner with the tap having been run on and off.) ] I haven't really made my mind up about staying.
Hm, I've been thinking that way myself. But there's always something.
[ Can't leave the family behind. Can't leave Derek behind, however sick they both are of Peter having to play babysitter and how bad he is at it anyway. Sure, he saves Derek's life. Arguably more often than he ruins it. Is that kind of thing really quantifiable? Wouldn't he possibly be doing them all a favor if he did leave, go elsewhere to university, take the burden of his personality problems off of Talia's hands?
He doesn't know how different things would be if he had.
His unknowing echo of Chris' experience is as offhand as most things he says, though he spends a few moments too long examining the bit of metal, turning it over in his fingers until he stirs back to attention and pockets it. ]
Where would you go? If. [ Peter gestures. ] All this were settled to your satisfaction.
[It's surprisingly easy to talk about, actually. Maybe it's the intangibility of this Peter's existence. Like maybe it's okay to be slightly more honest, knowing he could revert in the blink of an eye. He's freed some bags of vegetables, which he starts moving to the fridge. ] I don't know. I left Isaac there, against my better judgement.
[They'd get along, he realises. This Peter and Isaac. He thinks Isaac probably got along with the other Peter too. Similar personalities, just with different directional pulls. Different loyalties. He's surprised that Peter's thought about leaving, though, and he feels bad, again, about knowing what the future holds for him. That he knows that Peter will never really leave. ] Where would you go? I can't remember if you ever went to college. I know Derek didn't.
[ France and Isaac are new-except-not-new pieces of information that Peter spends a moment thinking about, without too much emotional investment. Separation, and someone else whom Chris perhaps considers family. The impulse is there (it doesn't ever actually leave) to make sure things don't go a certain way. He shrugs it off, though. There's no telling how long he'll be around, and it doesn't make any sense anyway.
He's out of sight while finding a place in the pantry for potatoes and onions, and his voice, floating back from around the door, has that same easy lack of real emotion. Talking about hypothetical things, to a person whose safety lies in their inevitable irrelevance, same as Chris. ]
I managed it. Don't really have a place in mind, though. I thought it might be nice to wander with someone, but. That hasn't worked out.
[ There is zero hint that he means Malia's mother and it's kind of questionable when they met anyway, and yet — it probably is her that he means. That hypothetical other universe where Peter and Corinne roadtrip it up is probably no better than this one, considering the potential chaos involved. Bad things would simply happen elsewhere.
Perpetrated by this fresh-faced, chipper young man who emerges from the pantry to check on what else needs to be put away? What a world. ]
At least in France it'd be like, illegal for you to live like this.
[Chris does give him a look when Peter says that hasn't worked out. He doesn't put any pieces together in any special way, more than he thinks about how that must just happen to Peter every time he tries, otherwise Malia wouldn't be here. He's trying not to think of Malia, though. He imagines having Peter as a dad is hard enough without him being somewhere between 21 and 35, with that face. To the other thing, he rolls his eyes. ]
In France the diet is wine and cheese. Corn is healthy. [Not that he lived off wine and cheese, but it'd be easy to assume he did, having to live with Isaac as his ward. ] Can you finish putting that stuff away and quit nagging me about my adult choices.
[It's not even that it's particularly annoying. What is annoying is that he's realising that he might have been missing this. The back and forth; the vague interest in his well-being, and god help him, he's not going to dwell on it during what is absolutely a temporary situation. Not sober, anyway. ] You want to nag someone about their life choices? Call your nephew.
Stop making it so easy, then. And I'm willing to bet Derek still doesn't eat vegetables.
[ Yes, yes, they're werewolves, and they are legally required to mainline protein in order to maintain their ridiculous abs... Peter, at this stage of his life, is not doing that. The abs correlate with trauma, probably, and even relatively untraumatized, he's strong enough, which Chris found out for himself earlier. Current main occupation is judging the hell out of people's lives, which he is engaging in even as he continues talking and putting food away. Also, rearranging some of Chris' kitchen, sorry not sorry. Just locating things like pans and cutlery. ]
Or did you mean some other decision? Did he go blond?
[ Easy option that he purposefully leaves out: dating someone questionable? Let's not go there. ]
[How much of his stress would not exist if Derek had gone blond instead of dealing with his grief and anger the way he had? So many! You cannot change the past, though, no matter how much Chris wishes. Experiences make you who you are, etc, and the Derek he knows now is ... A friend? A good friend, he thinks. Good enough that Chris has him saved on his phone as Derek and not some generic name like Werewolf 3. ]
Derek is -- He's always, you know. Frowning, even when he's in a good mood. Was he always like that?
[He knows the answer. It just seems like, well. Conversation. ]
[ Going blond instead of drowning in anger-sadness hasn't occurred to Peter as an option, so he's having some trouble parsing Chris' apparent preference for Derek to be blond. This necessitates that he pause in rooting around in a cabinet to give Chris a judgmental-bewildered look that maligns his ... random aesthetic preferences? Ah, a reasonably sized skillet. This will do for the steaks, unless Chris is hiding a grill somewhere. ]
He can be stubborn, once he's decided something is the right thing to do. Or the right way to be.
[ Finished with his rummaging and rearranging, Peter wanders back over towards the couch and flops his entire body onto all of it, one hand lifting automatically to settle over his mostly healed wound and poke around gently with his fingers. ]
I think it's more about trying to move on. Find a greater purpose.
[There is no grill, but to Peter's bewildered expression he offers: one eyebrow raise, which is more or less a are you telling me Derek has not always been bad at life choices. It's hard to believe; Chris is related to one of them.] He might be different, from what you'd remember. Hairier.
[Chris must be different, too, though, and Peter's handling it fairly well. It might easier, though, if you've only known the person through word of mouth.
He finishes what he's doing, which is. Not much, except trying to keep his hands busy, and folding the bag, he turns to lean back against the table. His eyes are drawn to where Peter pokes at his healing wound; instinctual curiosity that's stayed with him since Allison got her first scraped knee, probably. He nods to it.] How is it? Healing?
[ While Chris is arguably right about Derek, the person who would make that argument, Peter, is incredibly biased, and the wrong person to ask. The truth is, this Peter seems remarkably cavalier about Derek's current life, almost disinterested despite his inquiry, and now he's turning over unknown things in his head as he lounges, seemingly untroubled by any of it. ]
It's all right, I guess.
[ The same old werewolf nonchalance about major gut wounds. Classic Beacon Hills. Peter squirms around on the couch to pull the t-shirt up, and cranes his head to look down at his stomach. Nothing much has changed since the morning, the skin there pink and raw-looking around the puncture. He lies back, just leaving the shirt as is, his fingers splayed over it as if he could assess the progress moment by moment. ]
So we're not on great terms, I'd imagine. Derek and I.
[Werewolf healing really is fickle, he's learned. Scott heals fast, more often than not. Derek, too. His eyes staying on the wound a second longer than is maybe necessary isn't a sign that he's especially worried, even if he is, a little, that he might have missed something. That he might get up in a second, for example, and turn around to find Peter passed out on the couch or something else equally as mortifying.
His jaw clenches, and when he finally looks back up, it's followed by a shrug. ] I'd say you were pretty amicable, these days.
[Not a lie. You can love someone and be unable to stand them. Chris knows.] He holds a grudge, but he's pragmatic and sentimental, even if he'd deny it. [Not that he's doing self-reflection here, but it's probably why he and Derek get on so well, these days. Chris is nothing if not extremely sentimental and quite pragmatic.] He'll probably think you're annoying. Try not to take it personally, he thinks everyone is annoying.
[ He could see it both ways — that only someone outside the family would consider the relationship Chris describes as "amicable," compared to how they once were, or how they were once supposed to be. Simultaneously, however, he knows he did a lot deliberate work to ruin that exact thing, regardless of whatever that thing really was, and that's before getting into whatever has happened in the unknown interim of the past few years. So "amicable" is about as accurate as any other word. ]
Oh, no, I've spent Derek's entire life annoying him. That's business as usual.
[ Not that anything about this situation fits that particular bill. Peter's voice implies he has no worries about it. Just the indifference/avoidance, the gentle scratch of his fingernails over his injury, the vagueness of his thoughtful expression. ]
So you really feel you have to keep an eye on me? Aren't I keeping you from... stuff?
[Stuff. He could be out of the house, he supposes. It's early, still. Too early for patrolling, or intelligence gathering, which he could also be doing later. Sure, there's other stuff too, but Chris has made his life a minefield of awkward self-sabotage, so calling Melissa and going out on a date is like, something he needs exactly fourteen days to work up the courage to do. Unless he gets shot and ends up seeing her in the hospital --
Anyway: ] I can do stuff any other night. Besides you getting into more trouble, I'll feel a lot better if that heals all the way and I know there's no extra side effects about to rear their head.
[Like, if Peter starts getting even younger? Starts speaking in Latin, head spinning? Continued memory loss? Chris is not a doctor, but those seem like logical causes of concern. ] Sorry if you were hoping to have my house to yourself or sneak away while I was patrolling.
[ He sighs loudly as he gives an exaggerated stretch, not particularly cat-like other than the sheer attitude, and lets his arms cross behind his head. The sigh is one of only mild exasperation, more like he's humoring Chris, and like any impatience is pretended for the fun of it. ]
And if Derek takes his sweet time getting here? If this... Scott and the others, they need your help?
[ Did Chris actually say Scott's name? Peter could have gotten it from the other werewolves who were allegedly around and told him where to go. ]
[Ha ha ha ha. Maybe he did say Scott's name; he hears it so often that it doesn't particularly weird that Peter would know it. Maybe Derek said it on the phone, and Peter just overheard. Chris is thinking, sort of wearily, about how Malia might be with Scot, and how she might just.
Well. In a long day of feeling sort of sorry for Peter, he would just feel even more sorry for him, in that instance. ] You're about to find out that the life of a solitary hunter is incredibly boring, Peter. You might even be relieved if he looks at you with his big puppy dog eyes and you end up part of his ragtag group of think later teens.
[Mentally, he's rounding back onto what he might usually do, in this odd circumstance and his normal circumstances, and thinks, sort of blandly, that maybe he could go for a run before he settles into anything too sit-down heavy like, googling time travel??? and looking at his cover business's profit margins.] What exactly did you used to do, when you were [a sort of vague hand wave towards Peter's whole everything,] This age? I'm not cruel enough to keep you cooped up, staring out the window. Yet.
[ Chris may not be able to see it from where he is, how Peter mouths the phrase puppy dog eyes to himself and rolls his own, presumably not puppy-like ones. The second coming of Talia, male version. Drawing people to him and building up a pack through some innate, empathetic instinct, which he'd gone through so much trouble to mar and deform in Derek — not that he has ever explicitly acknowledged that to himself, or in those terms. Most likely, the actual werewolf who won Chris over, after Hale-adjacent guilt did the groundwork. No, he doesn't want to meet Scott, maybe a little less than he doesn't want to see the adult Derek. He doesn't usually return to the scene of the crime.
How much of that gets through, who knows; probably nothing, as he's still just lounging and appearing generally louche, as is Peter Hale's prerogative. Some slight dissatisfaction, maybe, but he just converts it into being a pest, which is all that most people ever see. ]
Yeah, I'm clearly here to enliven your incredibly boring life. And I'll tell you what isn't among my current hobbies: hanging out with teenagers.
[ Unlike the adult Peter, hyuk hyuk. Of course, this Peter may only be some ambiguous amount older (five? Less than ten, surely?) but the difference is oh so important at this age. Not that he's totally unaware of this; he puts on a sardonic-sincere sweet tone for the next bit. ]
Believe it or not, Chris, you're really more my speed.
[ Like the earlier sugar daddy joke, Peter is audibly smiling, and since Chris has proven pretty immune to suggestiveness, he doesn't bother making too much of it, or at least, not any more than him saying that while lazily stretched out on the couch with his shirt pushed a bit up already is. ]
[It's not that Chris is blind, or even remotely naive, it's just that. If Peter sounds suggestive, or looks suggestive, he sort of has to filter it out as nonsensical. Which he does , in this instance, where it seems a little more suggestive than anything earlier. There is the briefest furrow of his brow, a moment where he thinks about saying something like I find that very hard to believe, and then remembers that Peter is nothing if not nosy.
Instead, his jaw works for a moment, feeling a little scrutinised himself. ] I had no idea you were so interested in cleaning guns and reading dusty old books, Peter.
[Well. He sort of knew about that last one. ] I'm being serious, though. What did you do, when you weren't getting Derek into trouble?
[ Peter has no doubt that Chris is filtering and ignoring it. That while he and the older version of himself likely do not have a congenial relationship, judging by certain ways Chris has reacted to him, to the confusion that sometimes boils off of Chris in nearly visible form, this behavior, or some type of it, isn't entirely unexpected. Which makes sense: he doesn't think he'll be completely different as an older adult (the vault proves it). Some things are too ingrained, though they may take new forms with time.
He cranes his head off the armrest of the couch to look at Chris from a lopsided angle, so if Chris was feeling a little scrutinised before, he can feel a lot more of it now, as seemingly playful as it is. ]
Getting Derek into trouble? More like getting him out of it. How do you think I started that arrow collection?
[ It probably won't be lost on Chris either that Peter just. Isn't answering. Not really. Almost as if the younger one somehow knows that the older one still maintains so much secrecy, not only in the present but about the past as well. ]
And don't think you can pretend that's all you do. You're tired of this life, sure, but you're also bored of it. Or you were before I showed up. Now you're having steak for dinner, and an engaging mystery for dessert.
[ Peter grins, confident in his assessment although the 'bored' part is absolutely projection on his part. And yes, he did sort of frame things so that he's the engaging mystery, though he didn't use a suggestive tone when additionally saying the mystery was dessert. That's just cheesy. ]
[He's quiet, after the fact. For a moment, or three, eyes feeling heavy with a different kind of exhaustion as Peter speaks. He hasn't had someone verbalise having his number down so well in a while. Being confronted with it outside of his own inner back and forth isn't new, of course; it's just new coming from someone who, ordinarily, he sees maybe once or twice a month.
The moments pass, though, and Chris is good at getting on with it, no matter how tired he is. ] It's hard to be bored, [he says instead of anything else, and tries, at least, to smile wryly,] in Beacon Hills.
[He misses, sometimes, when he was a sort of aloof and slightly frightening figure hovering behind Allison and pointing his gun at Scott. Maybe that Chris that would less patient with Peter, and less likely to say:] Especially when there's mystery desserts on the horizon. [How many times can Chris wilfully ignore a suggestive sentence? Well, if history is anything to go by --
He leans forward, palms rubbing onto his thighs. ] I haven't really used the kitchen, you know, properly. So you're going to be on your own, there.
[ So many of his internal reactions ride a smudgy line between things that he rarely tries to classify them to himself anymore. Just stuck perpetually in the middle of the most garbage Venn diagram ever, where he can't even name the attraction he feels to both the low mood Chris unwillingly shows, and the way he grudgingly levers himself out of it. It's not really compassion. It's not quite predatory. It is opportunistic, but he can't define the opportunity. Only that he can sense that he could get in there if he keeps at it, even if he doesn't know what he would do if he did.
None of which he tries particularly to hide in his expression, and it's probably business as usual if Chris looks up from moving past his exhaustion to find Peter sitting up now and staring at him intently. But he doesn't load any more suggestiveness into his verbal t-shirt gun. Chris might get the distinct impression that his oddly soothing tone is a form of mockery in itself, like an exercise of mercy. No more insightful (lucky shot?) comments for now. The reward for slinking away from the truth is that Peter pretends (poorly) not to see him. ]
What a shock.
[ Because surely the reason Chris only had corn in the house was that he cooked everything else already, right? ]
Still hours to go before you inexplicably trust me to cook your steak. What about til then, old man? You want to check anything out? The preserve? Or just lie low?
[He is almost careless in his answer; almost says the preserve, like the burned out husk of the Hale House doesn't exist along its path, surrounded by trees and shallow emptied graves. He catches himself only because he thinks about it, the rot slightly worse than it had been two years ago when Peter clawed Kate's throat almost out.
But then again, how long can he dance around the reality of Peter's future, here? It's just not practical.]
We can head to the preserve, if you feel up to it. I could make a call, find out where the other you spends his off time these days. They might not know, but, if you wanted to nose around your stuff ... [If anyone would know where Peter's new place is, would be Malia.] My routine's out the window, here. Might be something at the old Hale place, but it's not -- as a warning, you probably won't like it.
[ Rude as fuck, Chris, although Peter seems highly amused by the proposal. Perhaps also by the warning, which he seems set on pretending is unnecessary. Like he wouldn't be upset to see it. Maybe he wouldn't find it as devastating as it should be, but mostly, he just wouldn't want to show that kind of emotion in front of Chris. Why he feels that way is both a complicated thing, and an easy to grasp one; if their positions were reversed, he's sure Chris would be the same. ]
Let's do that, then. No need for me to go poking around anywhere else.
[ Fitting with that line of reasoning, his tone maintains its levity in agreeing to avoid the house in the preserve. Only the fact he doesn't even refer to it with any specificity suggests there's any darker emotion beneath it. ]
[The image of Peter's place that Chris has in his mind is made of the various hoarding places he keeps. Artefacts, expensive trinkets and furniture; all things Peter likes, but are probably disposable when it really comes down to the crux of it.
So, really, it's a funny possibility that Peter could have more arrow traps there. It just seems a tedious addition for a place that is mostly on known by maybe three people, tops. Speaking of which:] If anyone can break in, [he says, looking down at his phone. Malia is saved in the same formal manner as everyone else, minus a last name. He's been assuming that it's a complicated thing, the surname. ] - It'll be you.
[Malia is a fast replyer, but the messages are a series of questions, keysmash and question marks. He makes various exasperated faces before the address is finally sent, and with his brows furrowed, he looks at Peter like he has reached some kind of understanding. (It's that Malia is just as unable to shut up as her dad.)] I'm ready when you are.
[ Nothing in his tone of voice suggests he minds it, though he does mind Chris preoccupying himself with his phone, even if it's not for very long. Peter gets himself up off the couch, watching the expressions, and has wandered a bit closer by the time Chris looks up, if not so close that he would be able to try to look at the phone. He wouldn't dream of indicating nosy interest at this point, as if those messages were worth acknowledging as a source of distraction. ]
Waiting on you, Mr. Popular. [ He detours to grab a bottle of water out of the fridge and glances over at Chris with an inquisitive wiggle of it — does he want one? ] Lunch after?
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[Things, as Peter will know, sometimes have a way of not going according to plan.
He has been wondering, lately, about whether he'll go back to Europe. He might, if only to also bring Isaac back. He might not, too. The duality of the Beacon Hills experience is sometimes stifling. It's hard to be anything but both fond of the people and absolutely miserable while inhabiting the space. Besides all that, Chris can't remember the last time anywhere felt like home, however fake-deep that concept is. He's just tired of moving around, for now. The energy has been sucked out of him. He keeps giving his soul to this place, and every time he leaves, it drags him back.
(The metal is still there, though slightly cleaner with the tap having been run on and off.) ] I haven't really made my mind up about staying.
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[ Can't leave the family behind. Can't leave Derek behind, however sick they both are of Peter having to play babysitter and how bad he is at it anyway. Sure, he saves Derek's life. Arguably more often than he ruins it. Is that kind of thing really quantifiable? Wouldn't he possibly be doing them all a favor if he did leave, go elsewhere to university, take the burden of his personality problems off of Talia's hands?
He doesn't know how different things would be if he had.
His unknowing echo of Chris' experience is as offhand as most things he says, though he spends a few moments too long examining the bit of metal, turning it over in his fingers until he stirs back to attention and pockets it. ]
Where would you go? If. [ Peter gestures. ] All this were settled to your satisfaction.
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[It's surprisingly easy to talk about, actually. Maybe it's the intangibility of this Peter's existence. Like maybe it's okay to be slightly more honest, knowing he could revert in the blink of an eye. He's freed some bags of vegetables, which he starts moving to the fridge. ] I don't know. I left Isaac there, against my better judgement.
[They'd get along, he realises. This Peter and Isaac. He thinks Isaac probably got along with the other Peter too. Similar personalities, just with different directional pulls. Different loyalties. He's surprised that Peter's thought about leaving, though, and he feels bad, again, about knowing what the future holds for him. That he knows that Peter will never really leave. ] Where would you go? I can't remember if you ever went to college. I know Derek didn't.
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He's out of sight while finding a place in the pantry for potatoes and onions, and his voice, floating back from around the door, has that same easy lack of real emotion. Talking about hypothetical things, to a person whose safety lies in their inevitable irrelevance, same as Chris. ]
I managed it. Don't really have a place in mind, though. I thought it might be nice to wander with someone, but. That hasn't worked out.
[ There is zero hint that he means Malia's mother and it's kind of questionable when they met anyway, and yet — it probably is her that he means. That hypothetical other universe where Peter and Corinne roadtrip it up is probably no better than this one, considering the potential chaos involved. Bad things would simply happen elsewhere.
Perpetrated by this fresh-faced, chipper young man who emerges from the pantry to check on what else needs to be put away? What a world. ]
At least in France it'd be like, illegal for you to live like this.
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In France the diet is wine and cheese. Corn is healthy. [Not that he lived off wine and cheese, but it'd be easy to assume he did, having to live with Isaac as his ward. ] Can you finish putting that stuff away and quit nagging me about my adult choices.
[It's not even that it's particularly annoying. What is annoying is that he's realising that he might have been missing this. The back and forth; the vague interest in his well-being, and god help him, he's not going to dwell on it during what is absolutely a temporary situation. Not sober, anyway. ] You want to nag someone about their life choices? Call your nephew.
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[ Yes, yes, they're werewolves, and they are legally required to mainline protein in order to maintain their ridiculous abs... Peter, at this stage of his life, is not doing that. The abs correlate with trauma, probably, and even relatively untraumatized, he's strong enough, which Chris found out for himself earlier. Current main occupation is judging the hell out of people's lives, which he is engaging in even as he continues talking and putting food away. Also, rearranging some of Chris' kitchen, sorry not sorry. Just locating things like pans and cutlery. ]
Or did you mean some other decision? Did he go blond?
[ Easy option that he purposefully leaves out: dating someone questionable? Let's not go there. ]
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[How much of his stress would not exist if Derek had gone blond instead of dealing with his grief and anger the way he had? So many! You cannot change the past, though, no matter how much Chris wishes. Experiences make you who you are, etc, and the Derek he knows now is ... A friend? A good friend, he thinks. Good enough that Chris has him saved on his phone as Derek and not some generic name like Werewolf 3. ]
Derek is -- He's always, you know. Frowning, even when he's in a good mood. Was he always like that?
[He knows the answer. It just seems like, well. Conversation. ]
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He can be stubborn, once he's decided something is the right thing to do. Or the right way to be.
[ Finished with his rummaging and rearranging, Peter wanders back over towards the couch and flops his entire body onto all of it, one hand lifting automatically to settle over his mostly healed wound and poke around gently with his fingers. ]
So he's given up on Beacon Hills finally?
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[There is no grill, but to Peter's bewildered expression he offers: one eyebrow raise, which is more or less a are you telling me Derek has not always been bad at life choices. It's hard to believe; Chris is related to one of them.] He might be different, from what you'd remember. Hairier.
[Chris must be different, too, though, and Peter's handling it fairly well. It might easier, though, if you've only known the person through word of mouth.
He finishes what he's doing, which is. Not much, except trying to keep his hands busy, and folding the bag, he turns to lean back against the table. His eyes are drawn to where Peter pokes at his healing wound; instinctual curiosity that's stayed with him since Allison got her first scraped knee, probably. He nods to it.] How is it? Healing?
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It's all right, I guess.
[ The same old werewolf nonchalance about major gut wounds. Classic Beacon Hills. Peter squirms around on the couch to pull the t-shirt up, and cranes his head to look down at his stomach. Nothing much has changed since the morning, the skin there pink and raw-looking around the puncture. He lies back, just leaving the shirt as is, his fingers splayed over it as if he could assess the progress moment by moment. ]
So we're not on great terms, I'd imagine. Derek and I.
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His jaw clenches, and when he finally looks back up, it's followed by a shrug. ] I'd say you were pretty amicable, these days.
[Not a lie. You can love someone and be unable to stand them. Chris knows.] He holds a grudge, but he's pragmatic and sentimental, even if he'd deny it. [Not that he's doing self-reflection here, but it's probably why he and Derek get on so well, these days. Chris is nothing if not extremely sentimental and quite pragmatic.] He'll probably think you're annoying. Try not to take it personally, he thinks everyone is annoying.
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Oh, no, I've spent Derek's entire life annoying him. That's business as usual.
[ Not that anything about this situation fits that particular bill. Peter's voice implies he has no worries about it. Just the indifference/avoidance, the gentle scratch of his fingernails over his injury, the vagueness of his thoughtful expression. ]
So you really feel you have to keep an eye on me? Aren't I keeping you from... stuff?
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Anyway: ] I can do stuff any other night. Besides you getting into more trouble, I'll feel a lot better if that heals all the way and I know there's no extra side effects about to rear their head.
[Like, if Peter starts getting even younger? Starts speaking in Latin, head spinning? Continued memory loss? Chris is not a doctor, but those seem like logical causes of concern. ] Sorry if you were hoping to have my house to yourself or sneak away while I was patrolling.
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And if Derek takes his sweet time getting here? If this... Scott and the others, they need your help?
[ Did Chris actually say Scott's name? Peter could have gotten it from the other werewolves who were allegedly around and told him where to go. ]
Guess you'll just have to take me with you, huh?
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[Ha ha ha ha. Maybe he did say Scott's name; he hears it so often that it doesn't particularly weird that Peter would know it. Maybe Derek said it on the phone, and Peter just overheard. Chris is thinking, sort of wearily, about how Malia might be with Scot, and how she might just.
Well. In a long day of feeling sort of sorry for Peter, he would just feel even more sorry for him, in that instance. ] You're about to find out that the life of a solitary hunter is incredibly boring, Peter. You might even be relieved if he looks at you with his big puppy dog eyes and you end up part of his ragtag group of think later teens.
[Mentally, he's rounding back onto what he might usually do, in this odd circumstance and his normal circumstances, and thinks, sort of blandly, that maybe he could go for a run before he settles into anything too sit-down heavy like, googling time travel??? and looking at his cover business's profit margins.] What exactly did you used to do, when you were [a sort of vague hand wave towards Peter's whole everything,] This age? I'm not cruel enough to keep you cooped up, staring out the window. Yet.
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How much of that gets through, who knows; probably nothing, as he's still just lounging and appearing generally louche, as is Peter Hale's prerogative. Some slight dissatisfaction, maybe, but he just converts it into being a pest, which is all that most people ever see. ]
Yeah, I'm clearly here to enliven your incredibly boring life. And I'll tell you what isn't among my current hobbies: hanging out with teenagers.
[ Unlike the adult Peter, hyuk hyuk. Of course, this Peter may only be some ambiguous amount older (five? Less than ten, surely?) but the difference is oh so important at this age. Not that he's totally unaware of this; he puts on a sardonic-sincere sweet tone for the next bit. ]
Believe it or not, Chris, you're really more my speed.
[ Like the earlier sugar daddy joke, Peter is audibly smiling, and since Chris has proven pretty immune to suggestiveness, he doesn't bother making too much of it, or at least, not any more than him saying that while lazily stretched out on the couch with his shirt pushed a bit up already is. ]
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Instead, his jaw works for a moment, feeling a little scrutinised himself. ] I had no idea you were so interested in cleaning guns and reading dusty old books, Peter.
[Well. He sort of knew about that last one. ] I'm being serious, though. What did you do, when you weren't getting Derek into trouble?
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He cranes his head off the armrest of the couch to look at Chris from a lopsided angle, so if Chris was feeling a little scrutinised before, he can feel a lot more of it now, as seemingly playful as it is. ]
Getting Derek into trouble? More like getting him out of it. How do you think I started that arrow collection?
[ It probably won't be lost on Chris either that Peter just. Isn't answering. Not really. Almost as if the younger one somehow knows that the older one still maintains so much secrecy, not only in the present but about the past as well. ]
And don't think you can pretend that's all you do. You're tired of this life, sure, but you're also bored of it. Or you were before I showed up. Now you're having steak for dinner, and an engaging mystery for dessert.
[ Peter grins, confident in his assessment although the 'bored' part is absolutely projection on his part. And yes, he did sort of frame things so that he's the engaging mystery, though he didn't use a suggestive tone when additionally saying the mystery was dessert. That's just cheesy. ]
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The moments pass, though, and Chris is good at getting on with it, no matter how tired he is. ] It's hard to be bored, [he says instead of anything else, and tries, at least, to smile wryly,] in Beacon Hills.
[He misses, sometimes, when he was a sort of aloof and slightly frightening figure hovering behind Allison and pointing his gun at Scott. Maybe that Chris that would less patient with Peter, and less likely to say:] Especially when there's mystery desserts on the horizon. [How many times can Chris wilfully ignore a suggestive sentence? Well, if history is anything to go by --
He leans forward, palms rubbing onto his thighs. ] I haven't really used the kitchen, you know, properly. So you're going to be on your own, there.
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None of which he tries particularly to hide in his expression, and it's probably business as usual if Chris looks up from moving past his exhaustion to find Peter sitting up now and staring at him intently. But he doesn't load any more suggestiveness into his verbal t-shirt gun. Chris might get the distinct impression that his oddly soothing tone is a form of mockery in itself, like an exercise of mercy. No more insightful (lucky shot?) comments for now. The reward for slinking away from the truth is that Peter pretends (poorly) not to see him. ]
What a shock.
[ Because surely the reason Chris only had corn in the house was that he cooked everything else already, right? ]
Still hours to go before you inexplicably trust me to cook your steak. What about til then, old man? You want to check anything out? The preserve? Or just lie low?
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But then again, how long can he dance around the reality of Peter's future, here? It's just not practical.]
We can head to the preserve, if you feel up to it. I could make a call, find out where the other you spends his off time these days. They might not know, but, if you wanted to nose around your stuff ... [If anyone would know where Peter's new place is, would be Malia.] My routine's out the window, here. Might be something at the old Hale place, but it's not -- as a warning, you probably won't like it.
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[ Rude as fuck, Chris, although Peter seems highly amused by the proposal. Perhaps also by the warning, which he seems set on pretending is unnecessary. Like he wouldn't be upset to see it. Maybe he wouldn't find it as devastating as it should be, but mostly, he just wouldn't want to show that kind of emotion in front of Chris. Why he feels that way is both a complicated thing, and an easy to grasp one; if their positions were reversed, he's sure Chris would be the same. ]
Let's do that, then. No need for me to go poking around anywhere else.
[ Fitting with that line of reasoning, his tone maintains its levity in agreeing to avoid the house in the preserve. Only the fact he doesn't even refer to it with any specificity suggests there's any darker emotion beneath it. ]
And hey! Maybe there'll be more arrow traps.
[ Haha! Fun!! ]
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So, really, it's a funny possibility that Peter could have more arrow traps there. It just seems a tedious addition for a place that is mostly on known by maybe three people, tops. Speaking of which:] If anyone can break in, [he says, looking down at his phone. Malia is saved in the same formal manner as everyone else, minus a last name. He's been assuming that it's a complicated thing, the surname. ] - It'll be you.
[Malia is a fast replyer, but the messages are a series of questions, keysmash and question marks. He makes various exasperated faces before the address is finally sent, and with his brows furrowed, he looks at Peter like he has reached some kind of understanding. (It's that Malia is just as unable to shut up as her dad.)] I'm ready when you are.
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[ Nothing in his tone of voice suggests he minds it, though he does mind Chris preoccupying himself with his phone, even if it's not for very long. Peter gets himself up off the couch, watching the expressions, and has wandered a bit closer by the time Chris looks up, if not so close that he would be able to try to look at the phone. He wouldn't dream of indicating nosy interest at this point, as if those messages were worth acknowledging as a source of distraction. ]
Waiting on you, Mr. Popular. [ He detours to grab a bottle of water out of the fridge and glances over at Chris with an inquisitive wiggle of it — does he want one? ] Lunch after?