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Peter Hale is up to something.
Stiles is sure of it.
He knows that just because Peter is often up to something nefarious, doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s always up to something. But this time he’s convinced. There’s just too many things that seem off, and too many times when Stiles expects Peter to be somewhere and he’s not.
To be honest, he feels a little like Harry Potter a la Half Blood Prince, with tracking technology and spells instead of a questionably-useful map. Making Peter Draco in this analogy. Huh. Rich, traumatized but absolutely unwilling to acknowledge it, cares all too much about his hair and clothes - not a bad fit really. Lydia is a shoo-in for Hermione and comparing Scott to Ron isn’t entirely inaccurate. Stiles has always thought that Harry was kind of an ass, though - does that make him an ass?
Further study required, but…probably, yeah. That’s okay. He’s made his peace with kind of being an asshole. At least he’s smart about it.
Regardless, a somewhat-uncomfortable literature comparison isn’t going to deter Stiles from his task, which is to find out what the hell Peter is doing. Maybe it’s something innocent! But if not, Stiles needs to know. And if it is, Stiles still wants to know. He might be a powerful Spark now, but he’ll never forget the importance and power of information. It kept him alive for a long time before he started being able to do magic or fight, and he’s of the firm opinion that no knowledge is ever wasted.
Most people who say that probably aren’t referring to tracking all of their acquaintances' movements, but whatever. Most people lack imagination.
In his defense, Stiles rarely actually uses the systems he has set up to track everyone. A few times they’ve been helpful when a member of the pack was kidnapped, but otherwise, he just keeps a program running in the background. Danny helped him write the code, and a mage up in Seattle who was really interested in combining technology and magic gave him some pointers on integrating his spellwork. Stiles gets an alert when there might be something going wrong with the system or when there’s something that needs a closer look.
Peter Hale, murder wolf extraordinaire, regularly going to a new location drastically distinct from his usual behaviors definitely qualifies.
Peter actually doesn’t have a lot of set routines - Stiles supposes that comes from all the murdering. He was his pack’s Left Hand, and so Stiles knew that he had been making the pack’s problems disappear for years before the fire. That makes it even more odd that his visits to somewhere new are fairly regular. About once a week, generally in the late mornings, most frequently on Tuesdays.
Stiles didn’t have any trouble figuring out what building Peter was going to, or who was in there. He had a full list of tenants, both those with public listings and not. But the building had a surprisingly low number of interior security cameras that he could get into. So, good old fashioned detective work it was.
He’s sitting in his jeep across the street at a small shopping center parking lot. The jeep is warded and cloaked to the nines, so Peter isn’t going to see him. Honestly, at this point he’s pretty sure that someone could literally run face first into the jeep and not notice it. He’s gotten really good at cloaking spells.
Stiles raises his binoculars. Yep, there’s Peter. Taking the elevator to the third floor, which Stiles already knew from the lobby cameras. He trains his binoculars on the window that gives a glimpse of the elevator doors and watches as Peter exits the elevator and turns left. Goes down the hall, takes the third door. Stiles grabs his phone and pulls up the list of the building’s tenants. The second door was just another entrance to the first suite on that floor, so the third door -
Suite 310: Dr. Joan Adler, Ph.D, LCSW, CTP.
Peter Hale is going to therapy.
—
Precisely fifty five minutes later, Peter steps out the front door, and seems shocked to see Stiles and Roscoe there. Peter doesn’t have much of a shocked face, but when he’s really surprised, his steps automatically slow and his face goes blank in a pleasant, bland way. Stiles thinks that they’re both strategies to give him a little more time to think and figure out how he’s going to respond to whatever has surprised him.
“Hi Peter!” Stiles chirps. He shoos an unresisting Peter into the jeep with alacrity. He knows perfectly well that that would never have worked if Peter wasn’t surprised by his presence and trying to regroup. Still, work it did, and Peter even buckled automatically from pure muscle memory. He pulls out of the parking lot and heads towards the highway.
“Hello, Stiles. Where are we going?” Peter asks with barely-concealed irritation. It’s probably only Peter’s surprising level of tolerance for Stiles’s terrible impulse control that has gotten him this far.
Stiles gives him a sideways glance. “You’re doing it wrong,”
Peter bristles. “What exactly is it you think I’m doing wrong?”
Stiles grins. “Therapy,”
Peter doesn’t insult Stiles’s intelligence by trying to deny it, but his tone is pure acid. “And how, pray tell, am I doing therapy wrong?”
Stiles shakes his head in mock disappointment. “I’m a therapy veteran, you know? Having your mom die as a kid definitely sets you on the therapy for life path, and getting possessed just kinda reinforced it.”
Peter is actually silent for a moment. “No, I didn’t know. I suppose I hadn’t thought about it.”
Stiles shrugs. “No reason for you to,” he says, pulling the jeep into the exit lane to get off the highway. “Anyway, if there’s one thing I learned, it’s that you’re missing a crucial part of the process.”
Stiles is amazed that Peter hasn’t tried to actually throw himself out of the car by now, he looks so irritated.
“And that would be what?” he asks, teeth gritted.
Stiles pulls into the gravel parking lot of an unassuming little restaurant that he knows well. He parks and then turns to Peter with a genuine smile.
“Post-therapy milkshakes. Required every week, without fail, rain or shine. See, the actual therapy part is just the first part of therapy. The second part is the milkshake.”
Peter gapes at him for a second. “You’re making me go with you for milkshakes?”
Stiles tilts his head, thinking. “And curly fries for me, but I assume you don’t want any of my ‘greasy abominations.’” He adds in air quotes for effect.
Peter still looks irritated and annoyed, but he can’t fool Stiles. His eyes warm and get those little crinkles at the corners that mean he’d be smiling if he was a normal person. And most telling of all, he does get out of the car, go inside, and have a milkshake with Stiles as they talk shit at each other and mock other people and just generally talk about everything except all the hell they’ve been through.
Stiles is right that Peter doesn’t have any curly fries that time.
But he does have some next week.