Peter stares out into the empty living room, struggling with the idea that he's bitter. Wondering if he even has the right. Because even if he's not allowed, he is one bitter fucker right now.

Bitter and resentful.

Once again, he planned a whole pack night, complete with everyone's favorite junk food, their comfort watches piled high in their DVD cases next to the TV, and Monopoly. Peter loathes Monopoly. Granted, he hates all board games, but especially Monopoly. It takes so damn long and no one ever really wins.

But Isaac. Isaac loves Monopoly. And Isaac hasn't talked in three days. Not since he moved in with Peter and Derek. So, Peter dusted off the old box and set up all the pieces and no one fucking showed. Not even Isaac. And he doesn't even have that far to go to pretend to care. No, he's holed up in his room on the other side of the loft that they expanded just for him.

And now Peter is one resentful, bitter fucker.

But, if Stiles were here, he'd tell Peter he deserves this. That he put them through hell too. Not quite this bad, of course, but they need him to be their punching bag. And Stiles doesn't need to physically be in the room with Peter for him to know that to be the truth. So, that's exactly what he does for them most days. Because if anyone deserves peace, it's his nephew. His nephew and his pack. His pack of strays that looks more like a family than his own did, even at the end.

And sometimes it works, him being the punching bag. Sometimes they lash out. Sometimes they yell. Sometimes they even throw things. And he feels better because they're feeling anything. Because that's all that matters right now. And on all those other days, they're just zombies. And the ones where they feel anything, even the bad stuff, are becoming few and far between, and Peter is worried, so he dusts off old board games and buys junk food.

Because Derek is the worst and nothing Peter could do will fix what he's going through.

So he makes coffee and he gets Isaac off to school and he watches them. Because that's what Stiles would've wanted. And as long as they're all still attempting to appear human, he reasons, one day it'll be okay. They'll be able to function. Not Derek, probably, but after everyone else has moved on, and it's just the two of them again, they can figure out what happens next.

Even if it means being his nephew's punching bag forever.

But he knows as much as he wants it, he's not even doing that right. Because he's not Stiles, for fuck's sake. Yeah, he's trying to hold them together, but the peace they're relentlessly searching for can only be provided by the one who's missing. The one who's gone. The one who was torn away. The one who continuously and without question pieced everybody back together every single time anything threatened to tear them apart.

But Peter tries anyway.

He can be the punching bag, even if he does a piss-poor job, because something is better than nothing. They're all so good and kind. And before he was trapped in his own mind, he was good and kind too. And slowly, surely, that had started to come back to Peter when he spent any amount of time around Stiles. Because Stiles understood that horror and showed him the humanity that still resided deep within himself.

Stiles had been trapped once too, he'd point out. He'd been there. And he hadn't turned out like Peter. Just by existing, Stiles proved anything was possible. Not likely, because this was Peter after all, but possible. And that thought was intriguing, if nothing else.

And having Stiles around, shooting him knowing looks when the terror would set in at the remote likelihood that he was back there, trapped again, because of some small trigger, made Peter feel better against all the odds. It told Peter that someone else had lived through the same horrors he had and had survived too. Not just survived, but thrived. They had found their way back to themselves, and damnit, so could Peter. He just had to put his mind to it. Because Peter had seen that fear mirrored in Stiles' eyes. He had heard him ask Derek to count with him, remind him was real.

And fuck, Peter misses Stiles too. If only for the shared trauma.

But he knows Derek misses him the most. And he's endured enough. So, Peter would like it noted that this was too much. Far too far. Derek has been dealt the shittiest of shitty hands, some even at Peter's doing, and this was over the line. Because Stiles was the anchor. Derek's anchor. The pack's anchor.

And now he's gone.

But Derek hasn't kicked Peter out yet, so he figures he's been forgiven enough to stay as their punching bag. And Peter decides he's fine with that. Even if he is a bitter, resentful fuck.

Or he will be fine with that, because Stiles would tell him he deserves it. And maybe that he doesn't and not to take their shit. Especially from Derek. And they'd laugh until the smallest tears leaked out from the corner of their eyes because Stiles contradicting himself was their little inside joke.

But there's no more laughing. Not anymore. Stiles took the laughter and the sun and the moon. He took it all. And he's gone.

He's just... gone.