st_hotflashes | Be Careful What You Ask For (Closed to Peter)

Be Careful What You Ask For (Closed to Peter)

Liz walked numbly through the Inn after having spoken with Emma. It was as if her body were on autopilot as her mind couldn't really focus or process anything directly. What it all meant, how she felt, if she was around to see it happen - these questions were like vague fog in her mind that she couldn't quite grasp.

She thought, ever so briefly, that she might find herself in front of Kitty or Piotr's door, but it was Peter's door she came to a stop at. Liz swayed a little as she stood there, staring blankly at the door. She did that for a good five minutes before she was able to will herself to lift her hand and knock. It was a quiet two rap knock.

When the door opened, when she lay eyes on Peter, the numbness seemed to ebb a little. She stared at him silently, then slowly her face began to twist and contort as anguish spread through her features. She didn't move an inch except for her face. Everything suddenly felt intense and Liz stood there, stiff, and started to cry unabashedly. Cried with every fiber of her being.

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Peter dampens his lips.

"It's not weird," he says. "I'm worried, yeah, because I don't know what to do and you're upset, but it's not weird."

A beat, and then:

"Are you worried it's weird?"

"A little, yeah." At least, the one thing Liz was thankful for, was that she and Peter seemed to be able to talk about things. At least most of the time.

"I mean... I'm dating you. I love you. And here I am crying about someone else who did something back home that I guess isn't really my business anymore." She wanted to shift and look at Peter's face, but she almost was afraid to do so. "I mean... if we're not together anymore, it shouldn't matter to me what Max does, right?"

"If I found out something had happened with Ned or May or MJ or other-Liz, I'd probably be upset too," he says. It might not be exactly the same because he really wasn't dating other-Liz, and he was pretty sure other-Liz probably never wanted to see him again, but...

... it's the closest comparison he has.

She thought about that for a moment. She wondered if she'd feel a little jealous if he had a similar reaction if it was about Other-Liz. Maybe that made her hypocritical.

She lifted her head and looked at him quietly for a moment. Liz searched his eyes. "What would you do, if you were me?"

"I don't know," Peter says. It was weird for him to think of himself as a girl. Not that girls and guys were all that different, but as a cis guy, the idea of pregnancy was a foreign concept.

"I guess it'd depend on if I were really over him."

She stared at him some more, considering his words. She had said she was over Max to him before, but maybe how she felt. Maybe she wasn't. Or maybe she hadn't really let herself give up on him yet.

Liz lightly rested her chin on Peter, looking at him quietly. "I guess... I guess for the longest time, until I showed up here... I always thought Max would be the one I'd lose my virginity with. That we'd lose it together, you know?"

"Yeah," Peter says simply, because he's not sure how else to respond to it. On some level, it makes him uncomfortable, but he's not sure if it's because she thought she'd lose her virginity to Max or that virginity really didn't seem like that big of a deal to him or that he never felt that way about someone else or that it was becoming increasingly difficult for him to entirely believe that Liz was over him when she was telling him stuff like this.

His response, or his lack-there-of made Liz tense a little under his arms. Her eyes went back to search his as she pressed her lips together thoughtfully.

"Peter." His name quiet on her tired voice. She shifted on the bed so she was up higher, her head closer to his own now, leaning on one of the arms so she was propped up.

"Do you want to have sex with me?" It didn't sound like a request, but an actual question of intent.

Peter takes a breath.

"I mean, yeah. Someday. When we're both ready."

She looked down away from his eyes for a moment, staring at Peter's chin not because it's where she wanted to stare, but because it was a point to focus on.

Another pause passed over them. "I feel like. Like things are going to change. Like this is going to push you away and things will be weird and distant."

Maybe it was due to how she felt about the whole situation, but Liz didn't really make that connection. She just felt really insecure and somehow abandoned.

Peter shifts his face so he can get a better look at Liz's.

"What if I promise you it won't?"

She forced her gaze back to Peter's eyes and she worried her bottom lip thoughtfully. "Would you just be saying that or, um. Would you really mean it?"

"I wouldn't make a promise I didn't intend to keep," Peter says, extending a pinky finger.

She bit her bottom lip and he pulled a small smile at the corner of her lips. Liz reached over and pinky-swore with him.

The more she looked at him while smiling, the warmer and wider her smile seemed to get. Then Liz went in for a hug. A big, tight thank you of a hug.

Peter lets a soft oof as Liz pulled him in, but he didn't mind it. He wrapped his arms around her, too, and squeezed her tight.

He has to bite back the You okay? he wants to ask before finally settling on a "Are you doing better?"

She lifted her head again to look at him. "... It's hard to stay upset when I'm around you. You're, um. You're good at cheering me up." The smile seemed to linger in her eyes.

Peter feels a sudden sense of pride at this. It seems silly for him to be proud of being able to cheer his girlfriend up, but this knowledge doesn't stop him from feeling that way, anyway.

"I'm glad," he says. "But I still want you to spend the night."

Liz felt her heart flip flop which was odd since it wasn't the first time he asked and it definitely wasn't first time they spent over night. It was, however, the first night they would be spending the night in Peter's room. Somehow that felt different.

She shifted on the bed and kissed him. This time it was slower and less frantic, though maybe with a touch of need. Max's betrayal wasn't going to be forgotten easily. At least she wouldn't have to be reminded of him every day.

She pulled back a little and looked at him. "That was just for you." Not some weird payback thing she might have wanted moments ago.

Peter smiles at her. He was sure that he would be able to commit to not making things weird before he made that promise. But now he was sure that things would be okay. As long as they were okay with Liz.

"You want me to put a sock on the door?" he asks. "That's our Do Not Disturb signal. Me and Alec's I mean."

And before Liz gets the wrong idea:

"It's just for privacy. So he doesn't interrupt us when we're talking."

He doesn't want her thinking that he's ready to do anything with her yet, because even though she says she's fine, he's not entirely convinced she is. And he doesn't want to fool around with her until he's positive.

She flushed for a moment when he mentioned he sock, but seemed to relax a little when he clarified. "Um. Yeah, sure." She eyed the door to Alec's room, then back to Peter. "Will,um will he be okay?"

Alec seemed rough around the edges but Like knew from experience that didn't tell you much about a person. Not really.

"Yeah, Alec has people he can stay with," he says. Or at least that was the impression he got from their discussion. "When he gets a girlfriend, I might have to crash over at your place sometimes since I think he'll have someone over more then."

Peter pushes himself out of bed and then rummages through the bottom drawer where he keeps his underwear and socks and fishes out a single blue sock. He opens the door just long enough to slip the sock over the doorknob and shut it down behind him.

She wondered as she watched Peter putting the sock on the door if people were going to think they had sex. She wondered if Kitty was going to say something to them.

Liz sat up, cross-legged on the bed as he fixed the blue sock on the door.

"Does he like someone?" Peter made it sound like he had someone lined up to be a girlfriend already.

"I don't think so," Peter says, returning back to the bed. "But I don't think he'd tell me if he did anyway."

Alec could be pretty private about those things for some reason.

Peter settles down cross-legged on the bed across from Liz.

"But, you guys are friends, right?" Maybe it was different for guys than girls, but she and Maria talked all the time. Even Alex listened to 'girl talk' once in a while.

"Yeah, but Alec's a pretty private guy. I have to ask him about a million questions before he gives me an answer."

Maybe not quite a million, but sometimes it felt like it.

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