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So I left my home and all I had
I used to be good but now I'm bad
–Near to the Wild Heart of Life, Japandroids
“I should have fucking known,” Stiles says when the door to the cabin opens and Peter is revealed.
Stiles is more or less covered in blood, most of which Peter is sure does not belong to Stiles. Part of him wants to ask questions, but most of him just wants to see how this is going to play out.
“You’re The Wolf?” Stiles asks full of disbelief.
Peter shrugs. “It’s been a long time, Stiles. How are you?"
Stiles gestures down at himself, “How do you think?”
“I was just trying to be polite. My apologies if that’s a foreign concept to you,” Peter says sweetly, crossing his arms across his chest. “So, what can I help you with?”
“They said you solve problems, and I got a problem,” Stiles explains.
“Where is it?” Peter asks instead of asking a million other more appropriate questions, ones that a saner person would probably be asking, but then again, a saner person wouldn’t have Peter’s job.
“The trunk,” Stiles says in a tone that suggests that the answer is obvious.
Peter cranes his neck around Stiles and looks out into the snow dusted driveway of his cabin. It’s not the Jeep, nor does it look like a rental car, since it’s on the older side and pretty beat up. There’s a 50/50 chance that it belongs to the person stuffed into the trunk. Or maybe Stiles stole it. Peter wouldn’t be surprised either way.
“Anything else I need to know?”
“I might need to lay low for a couple of days,” Stiles says avoiding Peter’s eyes, a small flush spreading across his cheeks.
“Alright,” Peter says after a minute. “Let me get some things.” And then he closes the door in Stiles’ face.
Peter has no idea what random fortune of chance could possibly have brought Stiles to his door nearly 5 years after he left Beacon Hills. Of all the people he had left behind, Stiles is the only one he often wondered about. But Peter is a patient man when he needs to be. He’s willing to wait and see what happens.
In the meantime, he has a job to do.
Peter grabs some supplies from his garage, pulls on some boots, and goes out to meet Stiles.
“Is there any chance anyone will come looking for this guy while we work? Do we have a time crunch?” Peter asks, handing Stiles a handful of large black garbage bags, and a bucket of cleaning supplies.
“We should have a few days before anyone notices anything,” Stiles says, as he opens the front door and starts shoving things into the garbage bag.
Peter isn’t exactly comforted by how casual that statement seems, but it’s better news than he expected. He can do a rush job, but it’s always better when he takes his time.
“Is there any blood in the car?” Peter asks, looking into the backseat of the car and assessing how much clean up will be needed.
“Just in the trunk, I think,” Stiles replies. “Do you need me to wipe it down for prints anyway?”
“Probably not, just get the rest of the junk,” Peter says, pointing to the clutter in the backseat of the car.
Peter sets to work laying out garbage bags on the ground behind the car, creating a makeshift tarp. When he’s done, he brushes off his hands on his jeans and moves back towards the front of the car.
“So, what’s it been three? Four years? You grew up quite well,” Peter says, leaning over the open window across the car from Stiles, and breaking the short lived silence.
“Are you flirting with me?” Stiles splutters, pausing in his search through the car to look up at Peter incredulously.
“Just making small talk. The last time I saw you you were stumbling around drunk, celebrating the fact you made it to your high school gradation alive. And now, here you are, all grown up and covered in blood,” Peter puts on a voice like he’s so proud of Stiles. “Tell me, where is the rest of your ragtag pack today?”
“None of your business,” Stiles grits out.
“Fine, fine,” Peter says easily. He walks around to the back of the car and lifts the lid from where it’s resting closed, but not latched.
“Oh, Stiles,” Peter calls. “Was there once a face on this guy?”
Stiles comes around the back of the car to stand next to Peter and shrugs. “I guess.”
Peter shoots him a look.
“Well it wasn’t a human face,” Stiles insists.
Peter hums in acknowledgement, and then goes about pulling the body of the thing out of the trunk. It lands with a wet thunk, face down on the garbage bags. Peter leans closer and pushes the body over so he can examine the face closer.
“Is this a––” Peter starts then stops himself, sniffing as he tries to get a scent other than the beginnings of decay. He tries again, “Is it a Wendigo?”
“I think so,” Stiles says, tying a garbage bag shut and tossing it aside. He rubs his hands against his jeans and then rubs them together, breathing into them.
Peter can see the slight blueish tinge to Stiles’ skin, and it occurs to him that Stiles must be freezing in nothing more than a blood soaked hoodie and jeans. Instead of offering him something warmer to wear in the 30° weather, Peter decides to just make quick work of the body. After all, why bother wasting a clean pair of clothes to such dirty work?
“Well, let’s get to it then,” Peter says, extending his claws and tearing through the left leg at the ankle, then knee, and finally the thigh.
Stiles stares, momentarily frozen, watching Peter’s claws easily cut through flesh and bone. But when Peter looks up at him, wiping a bit of blood splatter off his face, Stiles snaps to, and starts gathering the body parts into different garbage bags.
“Your claws are a lot more efficient than a saw,” Stiles says conversationally. “I should have come to you ages ago.”
“Been dismembering a lot of bodies, have we?” Peter asks, beginning to slice through the other leg.
“Here and there,” Stiles says vaguely.
“Interesting. And do these bodies tend to lean more towards the human side, or, ah, shall we say, creature?” Peter asks.
Stiles busies himself by pulling a stump of thigh out of the torn jeans, and then fishing around in the pockets. He pulls out the wallet with a triumphant noise and and flips through it, pocketing the ID before tossing the rest into the bag.
“Mostly creatures,” Stiles answers finally, and it’s so casual that they could be talking about the weather, or a coffee order.
Peter is tempted to ask him to elaborate, but he loves having a mystery to unravel, and while Stiles has always been something of an enigma to him, this recent development is just too good to breeze by. No, Peter wants to savor whatever this is.
“So, any chance you want to tell me how you ended up with a dead Wendigo?” Peter asks.
Stiles eyes Peter carefully. “You know, I came here because I figured you, or well, whoever they sent me to, wouldn’t ask any questions.”
Peter is currently elbow deep in Wendigo blood, holding one of the arms out to Stiles to bag, so he just rolls his eyes. “You thought I wouldn’t ask any questions after you made me an accessory?” Peter says with a laugh. “Look, obviously I don’t have the strongest moral compass,” he continues, slicing into the other arm for emphasis, “but I do like to know what I’m getting myself into.”
Stiles sighs. “Ok, here’s the Cliffs Notes version: this guy ran through Beacon Hills a few months ago, ate some kids camping on the edge of the Preserve, you know, like they do, and I’ve been tracking him since then. I finally caught up with him outside Placerville, which is part of the reason I ended up here.”
Peter makes a final slash through the neck and separates what’s left of the head from the body.
“I would have thought you had gotten some kind of job, what with that fancy degree you were setting out to get. Wouldn’t someone notice if you were, oh say, tracking a Wendigo for a few months?”
“That’s kind of a funny story––” Stiles starts but Peter straightens up as if he’s just realized what he’s asked, and what that implies. He levels Stiles with a look.
“Stiles. Are you a hunter?”
“I don’t know that “hunter” quite covers it,” Stiles says defensively.
“Stiles.”
“Yes, fine. For lack of better word, I’m a hunter,” he snaps, tossing the final bag full of dismembered Wendigo onto the pile.
Peter narrows his eyes. He doesn’t extend his claws, but he’s suddenly irrationally angry at this whole situation.
“What is this?” Peter asks, suspicious. “Are you here to check up on me? To make sure I’m still sane and not murdering tourists and ski bunnies?”
Stiles snorts. “What? No. I don’t give a shit who you murder. I just needed to get rid of this body fast, and The Wolf came highly recommended. I didn’t know it was going to be you.”
Peter snarls his lip slightly, but Stiles’ heart was steady. Eventually Stiles just sighs and lets his shoulders drop.
“Ugh, can we continue this conversation later? I am freezing and covered in blood, and literally all I want to do is get rid of all of this,” Stiles gestures to the car and the bags of remains.
Peter and Stiles stare at each other a moment longer before Peter gives. “Fine, get all the bags in the trunk.”
Stiles starts shoving bags back into the car, “I don’t suppose you have a plan?”
“I don’t suppose you have a change of clothes?” he parrots back at Stiles.
“What do you think?”
Stiles is all sarcasm and snark, and Peter suddenly realizes how much he missed this.
“I think you’re not going into my home like that,” Peter says sharply.
“Thing bring me something to change into,” Stiles snaps as he slams the trunk closed.
“Fine.”
“Good.”
Peter turns on his heel and marches back into his garage. Stiles stands alone in Peter’s driveway for a moment, looking down at the blood splatter on his clothes and in the dusting of snow on the ground.
“What the fuck,” he says to himself, exhaling fully for the first time since he arrived, and waits for Peter to come back.
***
Peter more or less shoves a pile of clothes into Stiles’ arms, and then guides him to the garage and points at another black garbage bag on the floor. “Dirty clothes in there, and then go up the stairs, through the kitchen. The bathroom is the second door on the right. Shower. Scrub everything.”
“This isn’t my first rodeo,” Stiles snarks, and Peter rolls his eyes.
“You came to me,” he reminds Stiles. “So, shower, change. Do not go anywhere in the house other than the bathroom and the kitchen. I will know.”
"Got it,” Stiles says.
“I’ll be back within an hour,” Peter says, and then heads back out to the car.
This is the easy part. Ditching body parts is one of his specialties, and Peter has had years to get to know the forest around Tahoe intimately. But today he has a car, and luckily for him, Peter knows a guy who will crush it on the spot, no questions asked.
When the car is crushed, Peter shifts into a wolf and runs back to his cabin. All in all, the job takes about 40 minutes.
The smell of his own shower gel and coffee greets him when he gets home. Stiles is perched awkwardly on a chair at his table, holding a fresh mug of coffee in his hands. He skin looks pink from a hard scrub, and his hair is still damp, but was obviously towel dried by the way it’s standing on end in every direction.
“I hope it’s ok I made coffee,” Stiles says, sounding more timid that he has since he darkened Peter’s doorstep.
Peter pours himself a cup. “Not a problem at all.”
Stiles has a funny look on his face as his watches Peter sip the coffee.
“What?” Peter asks.
“It’s nothing,” Stiles dismisses.
“What?” Peter demands again.
“It’s just. Oh my god, you are so old, ” Stiles says finally. He pulls at the front of the shirt Peter gave him and looks down at the design. “Lallapalooza ‘95?”
“It was my first concert. I was fourteen,” Peter shrugs.
“Oh my god,” Stiles repeats. “I was one.”
“Now that is disgusting,” Peter teases, pretending to choke on his coffee.
“Lallapalooza though,” Stiles says like the mere idea of the festival is offensive to him.
Peter rolls his eyes and walks out of the kitchen. Stiles follows him into the living room and throws himself onto the plush couch, angling his body slightly so he can face Peter next to him.
“It was amazing,” Peter insists. “Sonic Youth headlined.”
“Stop, you’re actually making it worse,” Stiles says, throwing his head back against cushions. He looks way more relaxed and at ease than Peter has ever seen him.
“I’ve heard the stuff you used play in the Jeep. You are hardly in a position to judge,” Peter points out.
“At least it doesn’t sound like a wall of noise,” Stiles mutters.
Peter doesn’t even think. His hand flies out and smacks Stiles lightly in the arm. Stiles squeaks and then laughs, rubbing the red spot blooming on his pale skin. Peter thinks that this interaction shouldn’t be so easy, not after all this time, and not knowing enough about Stiles to trust him. But the strange thing is that it is that easy.
They are both quiet for a moment, and Peter can tell that Stiles is doing that thing he used to do in high school where he would push down the impulse to say something, running it through a filter of some sort to determine if it was ok; a filter that Peter suspects might sound a bit like Scott McCall. But Peter had always found Stiles at his most enjoyable during their late nights of research when that brain/mouth filter seemed to be broken.
“Whatever you want to say, just say it,” Peter says and Stiles eyes snap up to his, widening in surprise.
Stiles pushes his hand through his hair and then scrubs his face. He momentarily looks tired, and younger, more like the boy Peter last saw than the man that was covered in blood an hour ago.
“It’s just, how do you even still have this shirt? Didn’t it… I mean, wouldn’t it have…?” Stiles trails off awkwardly.
“It was here,” Peter says, gesturing to the cabin they’re in. “The Hale Cabin was originally a vacation home, but after college I had moved in to study for the Bar. Most of my stuff was still here, actually. I was only at the house in Beacon Hills for my brother-in-law’s birthday. That’s why we were all there.”
“Oh,” Stiles says, and Peter appreciates the single syllable much more than an empty apology for something that happened so long ago.
“So, you asked me a question, now it’s my turn,” Peter says, changing the subject away from his family and back to Stiles; Safer territory, as far as he’s concerned. “You said you were a hunter for lack of a better word.”
“Right,” Stiles agrees slowly.
“Well, explain.”
Stiles fiddles with his coffee mug for a few moments before he begins. “You know how the Argents hunted werewolves?”
“Hunted? As in past tense?” Peter asks, raising his eyebrows in disbelief.
“Well, Chris is pretty much all there is left, and he’s been working with Scott for a few years now, so yeah. Unless there are some other crazed Argents hiding in the woodwork somewhere, they are pretty much out of the hunting business,” Stiles explains.
“So you thought you would carry on in his place?”
“No!” Stiles says quickly. “I mean, that wasn’t the plan at all. I left Beacon Hills, went to college, all that jazz. But, once you are aware of the supernatural, it tends to pop up all over the place. And, well, one night I was walking home from the bars, and I bumped into a fucking Vampire. Like, literally walked right into the guy.”
“Only you, Stiles,” Peter says with a light laugh. “So, what did you do?”
“Oh.” Stiles looks momentarily confused, as if the answer to that question is obvious. “I killed it.”
Peter can feel his mouth curl into a satisfied smile. “Just like that?” he asks.
“Well, killing it was the easy part,” Stiles continues, “it was figuring out what to do with the body that was the real problem. The City has way less places to ditch a body then one would expect.” Stiles pauses and nonchalantly takes a sip of coffee. “Anyway, after that, I seemed to just bump into more and more creatures, and there was sort of a hole in the hunting scene with the Argents gone, and hell, most of them weren't even werewolves, so I took care of them. And then I realized that most of them were either coming to or from Beacon Hills, and look, I love Scott like a brother, but we both know he’s not gonna take care of that particular problem. So, someone had to do it, and the less he knows about how his territory stays safe the better.”
Peter studies Stiles for a long moment before speaking, “You know I can tell when you are lying, right?”
Stiles narrows his eyes. “I’m not lying,” he insists. “That’s what happened.”
“Oh, Stiles, I believe your story completely, especially the part where Scott has no idea about what you’re getting up to. But your heart skipped over the part where you implied that you only do this because you have to,” Peter clarifies. “I think you like it. And if how you reacted to how I took apart that Wendigo is any indication, I think you like it a lot.”
Stiles seems to sit up straighter, and he gives Peter an appraising look, completely dropping any remaining vestiges of his goofball persona. And that––that’s what makes Peter trust him completely.
“Is that a problem?”
“Oh, sweetheart, it couldn’t be further from a problem.”
Peter is pleased to see a slight blush color Stiles’ cheeks at that comment, and in fact, now that he takes a moment to appreciate the view, there is something immensely pleasing about having Stiles here, shower fresh and wrapped in Peter’s clothes.
He moves a little bit closer to Stiles on the couch, “Anything to clean up McCall’s messes are just fine in my book, and you’ve certainly made friends along the way––Jimmie? Vince? One of them must have sent you here.”
“Jimmie.”
Peter hums his approval. “He’s not a bad guy. And I trust that if he sent you here, he must know you aren’t going to take me out.” He moves his hand to Stiles’ knee and leans forward slightly, dropping his voice. “You aren’t going to kill me, are you Stiles?”
Stiles blinks up at him before shaking his head. “No,” he breathes.
“Good,” Peter says, and presses his mouth to Stiles’.
There is a moment where Stiles seems to freeze against Peter, and then he’s setting his mug down on the coffee table, and wrapping his arms around Peter’s shoulders, pulling him deeper into the kiss. Peter growls and pulls Stiles into his lap, licking into his mouth, and running his hands up, and into Stiles’ wild hair, eager to press even more of his scent into the other man.
When they break apart a few minutes later, catching their breath, Peter moves to nose his way down Stiles’ long neck, before coming back up and resting their foreheads together.
“How long did you say you may need to lay low for?” Peter asks, a mischievous shimmer in his eye.
Stiles pretends to consider this question. “A day or two, maybe more.”
“Ah,” Peter says, nipping at Stiles’ earlobe. “If only we had a way to pass the time.”
Stiles smirks and presses Peter back against the couch. “I’m sure we can think of something.”