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Being human in a supernatural world was never simple. When everything was bigger, stronger, and faster than you, no matter how careful you were, no matter how much distance you kept, you got hurt sometimes. Didn’t help that he had to be even more careful about his pharmacy than his guns—only one of them was legal, and it wasn’t the prescription-strength ibuprofen.
On the other hand, only one of them would do anything about the gashes on his legs from where the feral omega had pinned him to a tree before Derek had bowled it over and knocked it out. Last he’d heard, Scott and Derek were still arguing about what to do with it, and his input wouldn’t be welcome in any case.
Instead, he wrapped the injuries as best he could and dragged himself home for some proper medical care. He was getting too old to keep doing this on his own, or maybe it was his penance for the fresh little plot of family graves he was likely to join sooner rather than later. Realizing he was spiraling, he stopped in the kitchen for a glass of something tart. He had sour cherry juice, it’d shock his brain into focusing on the here-and now.
So too, apparently, would having his space invaded when he was already high strung from a fight. He hadn’t even consciously processed the noise before he had dropped the rest of his juice and thrown a convenient kitchen knife in the direction of his living room.
He blinked, and the knife was stuck into the wall mere inches from the dusty television, and Peter Hale was leaning on the half-wall divider between living room and kitchen with a pair of raised eyebrows. “I shouldn’t be surprised that an Argent greets a guest with a knife.”
“Sorry, didn’t hear you come in.” Chris sighed. Fighting with Hales was never worth the effort, and if the fight hadn’t ruined this set of clothes then the juice definitely had. He had barely even gotten to drink any. If it held together through washing, maybe he could use it while he repaired the wall. There was no getting the deposit back on this place.
It was simple enough to turn his back to Peter in favor of some damp paper towels. It hid his wince when kneeling on the floor strained his injuries but not the hissed exhale that followed.
“I knew that wasn’t all juice,” Peter appeared next to him. “Not even my illustrious nephew noticed it when you got hurt, did he?”
“If you came all this way to mock me, please leave.” There, polite rationality. It was all he could manage. The juice needed to be cleaned before it dried into a sticky mess and brought in bugs. He could fix the juice.
“Now, why would I need to come all the way here just to do that?”
“Hale—”
“Get up, Argent. If you could be trusted to take care of yourself, I could be making sure the distinguished alpha doesn’t leave a threat at our necks, and then I wouldn’t have to be here. If you make more work for us at this point, I’ll be rather cross.”
“And I suppose I don’t want to see you at your worst again?”
“Oh, darling,” Peter smirked, leaning down and wrapping an arm around him, “You haven’t seen anything yet,” and pulled him up. “Now, let’s get you out of those clothes.”
“I can’t tell if that’s an innuendo or not,” Chris huffed, but went. He angled for his closet, but Peter wrinkled his nose and shoved him into the bathroom. At least it was the master bathroom; he’d set up the cabinet and tiny fridge with his medical supplies in there once upon a time so Allison wouldn’t get into the habit of hiding injuries from him. The thought drew a wry smile from him.
He’d stripped out of his shirt and pants by the time Peter had returned, sponging off as much gunk as he could with a wet washcloth. His skin was already tightening with the sugar and he didn’t want to make any mistakes with the stitches because he was stiff in unexpected ways.
“It’s that easy to get you out of your clothes?” Peter teased, dropping a fresh set of sweatpants and underwear on the sink.
“Are you just staying to make fun of me, or are you going to do something helpful?” Chris discarded the washcloth and picked up the set of sutures.
“I suppose I could be convinced to help, if there’s something in it for me.”
“And what do you want?” Chris held out his hand, but Peter danced back.
“Nothing too onerous. No, we’ll even go fairy tale on this one, just for fun. I’ll take away your pain, for a kiss.”
Chris opened his mouth, and shut it with a click. Peter was just looking to rile him up as always, If he engaged with nonsense it’d just be that much longer until he was able to fix himself up, and while it wasn’t a very serious injury he knew better than to let these things sit. Instead, he bantered back, “If I’m kissing you, I won’t be able to see where my hands need to go. Besides, it wouldn’t be a good kiss if I was distracted by that. If you want that, you can wait.”
“Hmm, but if I let you go, you might just go back to throwing wolfsbane at me,” he pouted.
Chris grimaced. He did sort of want to do just that, actually. Instead, he turned his attention back to his legs and began to set himself up. He took a breath and held it, exhaling as the sting of the disinfectant lit up his nerves.
And then the sting was gone, replaced by a hand digging circles into his neck. A knot began to release, which was soothing, but also distracting. He took another breath and disinfected the other claw mark before working quickly to sew himself up. His hand shook a little, but muscle memory kicked in and it didn’t take very long until he was bandaging the areas back up. A quick second pass with a fresh washcloth over the non-bandaged areas later, and he was done.
And then Peter took away his hand, and Chris grit his teeth as not only did his legs come up with the expected sharp ache, but also the usual aches and pains of being thrown around one too many times in the woods threatened to overwhelm him. “Peter,” he grit his teeth.
Peter didn’t put his hand back, instead reaching for the clean clothes he brought earlier. “And that’s your free trial. You’re all patched up now. I’ll even be so kind as to pull on your pants for you if you can’t, but if you want more you’re going to have to ask for it.”
“You’ve always been a menace,” Chris frowned, but didn’t fight it when Peter redressed him in just the sweatpants he’d brought. He also didn’t fight it when Peter led him back out to his bedroom at settled him on the bed, with the next best thing to an expectant look.
“If you mess up my stitches, I will hunt you down,” Chris said.
“I’d like to see you try.”
This was—well, he supposed they were both alone now, and hurting. What harm could it do to kiss the man? So he did, and moments later his pain began to drain away.