Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The zombie apocalypse forces Stiles to learn how to cook.

Look, it’s not what he was planning on, but zombies, okay? They start popping out of the ground one night and by the end of the week there’s a nationwide firearms shortage, local police are distributing flyers on how to distinguish zombies from drunks and concussed people, and morticians and coroners have shot up to the top of the most-dangerous jobs list. One morgue’s even in talks with the History Channel for a TV show.

Yeah. So civilization freaks out for about twenty-four hours and the video posted to social media is gruesome as hell (and so are the comments sections, God, who cares whether Romero’s or Matheson’s or Brooks’ canon got fucked over worse) and there’s a significant increase in conspiracy nutjobs and PTSD victims, but otherwise people create a new normal pretty quickly. You sign up for the mandatory patrols, you learn how to aim for the head, and you keep your fucking cell phone on.

Also, you get used to living on army rations, even out in California, because it turns out there are a lot of unidentified graveyards around, and zombies can move around on less intact parts than you’d think. Undocumented immigrants will put up with a lot, but they won’t put up with getting mauled in the fields, while for the stuff that can be picked mechanically, the FDA is having a hell of a time figuring out what’s the maximum allowable ppms for accidentally mashed-in zombie. And while a surprising amount of processed food is sitting around in warehouses, the U.S. population goes through that in no time. The army takes over enough food factories and farms to make sure America won’t starve, but nobody’s going to be eating great for a couple years.

“Well, food is food,” Stiles’ dad says. “Not like we were eating fancy before, can’t be that bad.”

Famous last words. Stiles nibbles a little and then looks at the big box of MREs they’ve got, courtesy of his father’s new assignment as roving patrol leader, and thinks that he can deal with scraping zombie guts off his car’s bumper, he can deal with taking a lacrosse stick to his favorite grade school teacher (poor Mrs. Hunt picked a bad week to succumb to lupus), but he cannot live on this shit for a whole three-month rotation.

But he’s a good citizen, too—well, he at least recognizes that murder is kind of harder to get away with now, what with having to completely destroy the damn body—so he’s not going to pillage and threaten and steal. That shit just keeps his dad out later with the patrols, and Stiles is not for that.

So Stiles hits the Internet. He’s thinking there have to be black market sellers but what he ends up stumbling across is a whole bunch of fire sales by grocery stores for stuff they can’t sell without fresh produce. Guacamole mix packets, just add avocados. Margarita mixes, just add fresh juice. Pancake mix, add fresh milk and eggs. And it’s really cheap, and nearby, and when he finishes unloading it all at the semi truck the state’s given him and his dad to live out of, his dad just looks at him for a couple minutes.

“Trust in the Internet, Dad,” Stiles says, sitting down on their box of MREs. He boots up his laptop (military-grade bandwidth is spiffy), and starts searching for recipes.

“Got a report of some zombies, going to be out late,” his dad finally says. “Don’t wait for me for dinner. You remember where your extra ammo is?”

Stiles waves a hand. “Right there, next to my lacrosse stick of doom, the kitchen knives and the CB radio. And the C4. Hey, if you end up coming back early and you see a white pick-up, don’t freak out, okay? I got a line on this dude with some surplus lab equipment he wants to sell me. For cooking.”

“Right.” His father pauses, then ruffles Stiles’ hair. “See you tonight, son.”

“Bye,” Stiles says, deep into the weeds of Youtube.

* * *

When his father comes back that night, Stiles hands him a steaming bowl and then flops down on their memory foam pads. “Wow,” he mutters. He raises his hands and looks at the grease and oil and nicks all over them. “Wow, that was a pain.”

“Wow,” his dad mutters. His tone is a little weird so Stiles looks up, and his dad is just sitting there and holding the bowl with both hands, staring into its contents. “Wow. Sti—”

“For the record, I did not kill, steal, or lie to anybody to get any of the ingredients that went into that. Sixty percent of it was from the MRE, even,” Stiles says. “Actually, you know, I think I overpaid that guy for the induction burner. I bet I could’ve just bought the top plate and made the rest of it from parts.”

It’s quiet for a moment. His dad is still staring at the bowl, though he’s stirred enough to lift his spoon and poke at it. He scoops up something, holds it up to his eye for a closer look, and then pops it into his mouth. Makes an approving little nod and then hungrily spoons up more.

“Is this beef jerky in here?” his dad says.

“Yep,” Stiles says.

His dad lifts the bowl to his mouth and takes a big slurp, then moans in a way that Stiles…honestly has never heard him make before. And hey, they’re tight, but for a second Stiles wonders if he should maybe step out and give his dad some private time.

“Doesn’t taste like it at all,” his dad mumbles around his spoon. “Stiles, did you teach yourself to cook while I was out?”

“Yep,” Stiles says. He rolls over and starts pointing at things around the room. “Also, I rewired us for the induction burner because I needed the hot plates to build the cold smoker out of that fridge, and that deep-fryer over there, and I made a pressure cooker from our old pot and don’t touch that one, it’s supposed to be a sous-vide bath but I’m still working out the vacuum-sealer.”

It takes till the pressure cooker, but his dad does look up and around at what Stiles is showing him. He blinks a few times, looks back at the bowl, and then blinks again. He puts his spoon in his bowl and rubs the side of his face. “So…you’re gonna cook now.”

“I guess, I mean, it’s not like I have homework to do, and there was no way I was going to make it on plain MREs, what the hell does that stand for, anyway? Muscle reducing evil? Anyway, it’s actually not that hard.” Stiles catches himself before his arm sags down on his pad, then gives up and just drops it. The pad has a cover, he can wash in the morning or something. “It’s really just having the right equipment and knowing important ratios and having precise temperature control. Different chemistry problem.”

He’s half-asleep before he finishes, but he starts when he hears footsteps coming near him. Turns out it’s just his dad, who stoops over him and pulls up the blanket, and leaves his hand on Stiles’ shoulder for a second.

“It was really good,” his dad says softly.

“You think that’s good, wait till I test out the cake mixes,” Stiles mutters, drifting off.

* * *

The next day, Stiles packs his father a lunch, because a guy who’s willing to live out of a storage container and help lead patrols all over the countryside rooting out zombies deserves better than mass-produced freeze-dried stuff. He maybe overdoes the portion size, but hey, he’s got a lot of recipes to test out.

His dad shares the leftovers and immediately becomes the most popular patrol leader around. And his team members start dropping by with things like an extra generator, wood chips for the smoker, and best of all, canned food. Stiles can do interesting things with spice packets, but at the end of the day, he’s limited by his base material, and having actual never-dehydrated food to work with massively expands the number of possible menus.

So he maybe starts running a barter business out of the back of he and his dad’s semi while they drive around the countryside. People bring him supplies, he sends them away with delicious cooked meals. At first he also tries to explain to them how they can do it, too, and he does end up making friends with a couple engineers who are immensely helpful in knocking together a propane grill, but most people just want to stuff their faces. And well, honestly, it really isn’t like Stiles is doing much else. So sure, he’ll be the unofficial canteen guy.

Then they get orders to head north to a town called Beacon Hills. So they unhook their utilities and drive over and repark in a high school athletic field (have to snake out the pipes and extension cords, but it’s more defensible than an RV park), and Stiles sets up his kitchen again and on the second day they’re in town, this guy shows up outside the semi with a bunch of dead ducks, a bag of dried beans, and a sour look on his face.

“I heard you cook,” he says, looking doubtfully at Stiles. He’s Stiles’ dad’s generation, sandy blond hair, grey eyes, very expensive rifle over his shoulder. Obviously not state patrol, but he must have connections if they let him into camp.

Stiles is in the middle of chopping up a can of marinated artichokes. “No kidding,” Stiles says, mostly ignoring the guy, because the chemistry aspect is easy to master but sharp edges are a totally different issue. He didn’t exactly chop shit on a regular basis before this and he doesn’t want to cut off a finger. “Gossipmongers.”

The guy just stands there. His ducks are dripping blood all over the place.

“Dude, what?” Stiles finally says. When the guy’s eyes narrow, he jerks his chin at the blood. “Cross-contamination much? Also, if you want food, I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t mark up my dad and my truck like zombie bait.”

“Oh,” the guy says, looking down. He grimaces and looks around, and then goes away. Comes back a couple minutes later with the ducks in a plastic bag. “Look, what’s the…how much? I need two meals.”

“Like now?” Stiles looks at the ducks. They’re defeathered and don’t have guts, but they still have heads and legs on. Not that he’s creeped out, but…he’s gonna need a couple minutes on his laptop just to figure out how to deal with that. “Because um, I don’t know how you like your birds but I can’t just snap my fingers and they’re done. I—”

“I’ll come back for them.” The guy thumps down the beans and the ducks on the end of Stiles’ prep table, which is space Stiles kind of needs for his mixing bowl. He looks irritated and weirdly reluctant, like maybe somebody is holding a sniper sight on him, and then he sighs and runs his hand over his head. “Just, look, do you have anything to go right now? My daughter’s—anyway.”

Stiles wants to call him an asshole, but, well, beans. Fresh meat. Neither of which he has any idea what to do with, but oh, my God, non-jerky meat. He will figure out what to do with it.

So he sends the guy away with some beef jerky stew and ramen noodles (to be added at home, to avoid sogginess), and goes to town on the ducks and the beans. It takes him all the way till his dad comes back late that night, and yeah, at first his dad thinks he’s been attacked because of all the blood around, but he has duck breasts in the smoker and duck and bean stew up next. And whatever, the patrol helps them clean up.

“Must’ve been Chris Argent,” his dad says, once he’s done yelling at Stiles to not overwork himself. He eyes the remaining duck bits that Stiles is tossing into a pot. “On the one hand, I’m pretty sure those were out of season. On the other, it smells good.”

“It’s going to be amazing. And hey, it’s not like I saw bullet holes or anything, for all we know he ran into them with his car and didn’t want to waste food,” Stiles says.

His dad makes a face. “He’s one of the local leaders. Shot three zombies through their eye sockets from his car, just before they were going to come up behind Smith while we were stopped for lunch. Car looked clean to me, by the way.”

Stiles nods absently. “Oh, wondered why Gary wasn’t around. He traumatized or something?”

“Yeah, you could say that. He’s got bullet creases on his arm,” his dad mutters. He sniffs the air some more. “That does smell good.”

“Hey, let it do its thing,” Stiles says, slapping his dad’s hand away. He puts a lid on the pot and then turns around and looks at his dad. “So why you’d let him into camp, if he’s so annoying?”

His dad sighs. “Well, he’s also got a line on a bunch of zombies piled up in an old quarry near here, and apparently doesn’t want to waste his ammo stash on taking them all out himself. Sensible behavior, I’d like to encourage it.”

“Okay,” Stiles says, shrugging. “Well, I’ll give you an extra container tomorrow so he doesn’t have to come here.”

* * *

The next day, Stiles is pondering what to do with the rest of the beans when this other guy shows up. He’s younger than either Stiles’ dad or the first guy, and Stiles has plenty of warning because the guy charms his way through the medical staff (both sexes) first and shows up with half of them a couple minutes before Stiles’ coffee break snacks are ready. Dark hair, blue eyes, a way of insinuating himself into your personal space that makes you check whether you’re still wearing clothes, and carrying a couple glass bottles filled with milk.

“Unpasteurized, I’m afraid, but I assure you, I washed my hands before and after I milked the cow,” the guy says, smiling. “I’m Peter Hale, and you must be Stiles.”

“Oh, um, yeah, sure,” Stiles says, because he’s busy pouring out some of the milk into a measuring spoon and tasting it. He’d never been much of a milk guy before, except for those certain foods that you just gotta have with milk (milkshakes, Oreos, that stuff), but this whole zombie revival thing’s got him appreciating a lot of things he didn’t notice before, and milk is one of them.

It’s just, real milk. Once Stiles is sure it’s actually dairy and not some almond or soy stuff, which people have tried to pass off on him before, he claws the bottles away from the med staff and stuffs them into the minifridge before they can waste them on coffee. Yeah, sure, respect for the doctors and nurses, but seriously. Better things to do with it.

They give him shit but they shut up quick when Stiles brings out the fudge he made after somebody dug up condensed milk cans. The doctors and nurses gobble it up and then start drifting back to their trailers, while Stiles sighs at the dirty pan they always leave him. Then he’s going to go back to his prep, except that Peter Hale is still standing in front of him.

“So…I’m not really sure how you got into one of the dairies, but you should know that that shit is rationed and the patrol is supposed to enforce rationing laws as well as shoot zombies,” Stiles says, picking up a couple beans. He could maybe do casserole, except that’s a lot of beans and they’re packed in pretty tight, and the duck and bean soup’s already going to light up the evening with flatulence.

“I didn’t break into a dairy,” Peter says. “I told you, I milked a cow.”

Stiles looks him up and down. Guy is dressed like a magazine model, and not one of those rustic lifestyle catalogs. “You…own a dairy?”

Peter laughs like Stiles has just suggested something patently absurd, but Stiles is just so cute he can get away with it. “No, Stiles, I don’t.”

“So the milk’s illegal.” Stiles tosses the beans back into their Tupperware and then digs around till he finds an empty container. He ladles in some of the duck and bean casserole and pushes it across the table to Peter, and then picks up his phone and starts flipping through his cooking apps.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Peter says, not touching his container. He leans over the table so that Stiles can feel his breath. “At any rate, if it was, you’d be an accessory to the crime, wouldn’t you?”

He still sounds like Stiles is some adorable little idiot, and now he’s knocking into Stiles’ carefully-arranged mise en place, including the basil Stiles was lucky enough to find growing rampant in the garden of an abandoned house they’d passed on the way up. Stiles reaches out without looking up and plants his hand in the middle of Peter’s chest, and pushes him back. Then he picks up the container of stew and jabs it into Peter before the man can move forward again.

“It’s called requisitioning,” Stiles says. “Come back tomorrow, I’ll have…um…something for the milk.”

Most of the recipes the app’s giving him are variations on stews or casseroles. Or things that are still daydreams, like veggie burgers. You’d think with the number of DIYers and hippies in the state, you could still get fresh eggs, but while zombies only seem to eat human flesh, they’ll go after anything sufficiently noisy, and chickens don’t have the sense to shut the hell up in the face of death.

Then a recipe for some Asian biscuit-y thing pops up and Stiles gets excited, only to realize that he’s not sure he has the right kind of beans. He peeks at the beans, then starts looking that up, and then realizes that Peter is still there.

“Jesus, what?” Stiles snaps. “I’m busy here.”

Peter looks vaguely taken aback. He also looks like he’s not really sure what to do with that. “With what?”

“Uh, cooking? Hence the stuff?” Stiles says, waving his free hand around. “Look, if you don’t have anything else, can you please get out of my way? I have to start dinner now.”

To drive the point home, and also because the app interface is not really working well with identifying beans (when civilization rights itself again, Stiles is going to point out that being able to snap a photo, upload it and get instant ID on a food item is just as awesome, and way more helpful with survival, than an app that identifies song snippets), Stiles hops back into the trailer and gets out his laptop. He finally identifies the beans as pintos, which yeah, not going to work with dessert, and is getting back out when he notices that Peter is no longer there.

Stiles sighs in relief and then gives up and makes a bean casserole. He’ll pack it for the patrol lunch and just remind his dad to break for the meal somewhere breezy.

“Sure, should be easy. That quarry picks up plenty of wind,” his dad says, shoveling stew into his mouth. “He didn’t bother you, did he?”

“Who? Oh, the Hale guy? Why, is he rifle-happy too?” Stiles says. He’s already finished his food and is onto happier things, like box mix cupcakes with pudding centers. “Awful lot of crack shots in this area. Is there a survivalist camp nearby or something?”

His dad shakes his head. Doesn’t seem particularly concerned, either. “No, there’s just the big preserve, remember? Lot of hunting folks. I guess we can use all the help we can get, but some of them are a little weird. Anyway, be careful, and don’t be afraid to run somebody out of camp. You’re not responsible for feeding all of them, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.” Stiles frowns at his phone. “You think we could dig up vinegar anywhere? I could make cheese.”

“Really?” his dad says. When Stiles looks up, he tucks his chin down and tries to look a little less excited. “Well, I’ll ask around tomorrow.”

* * *

About an hour after lunch, Chris Argent walks into camp and hands Stiles a huge jug of white wine vinegar. About two gallons’ worth, according to the label.

“Holy crap, what are you doing, squatting in a cafeteria?” Stiles says.

Which would also explain Chris’ face, come to think of it, if vinegar is all he’s got around. He doesn’t answer, just digs into a duffel bag he’s got with him and then produces a plastic bag of…something. And a little plastic tub, like deli counters would use, of…something.

“It’s rabbit,” he says.

Stiles looks in the bag. The bag has body parts. He looks in the tub, and the tub has blood. “Uh. Okay. Well, at least this isn’t illegal,” Stiles mutters. Even with zombies around, rabbits manage to breed like…well, yeah, anyway, they’re one of the few animals not on the forbidden list. “Th—oh! Right, hang on.”

They’re running low on Tupperware—everybody’s got it, it’s easy to find and trade for, but the patrol guys keep losing them—so Stiles has to hunt around in his box of empty jars till he finds one big enough to hold two portions. He pours what’s left of the duck and bean stew into it, screws on the lid, and puts it in front of Chris. Then he goes back to wondering why he’s got a tub of rabbit blood.

“You can use it in sausage or soup,” Chris says.

Stiles pokes at the tub. “Seriously? How? We’re not being invaded by Bunnicula here.”

Chris doesn’t immediately answer. When Stiles looks up, the guy has the jar of stew half-stuffed into his duffel and is staring at it like he doesn’t quite know why he’s doing that. He shakes himself, shoves the jar the rest of the way in and then notices Stiles. His shoulders stiffen and he actually takes a half-step back, like he’s just going to cut and run. And then he sighs.

“I don’t…know,” he says. He reaches up and tugs at the duffel strap where it goes over his shoulder. “I don’t—really cook. I just know you can do it. I’ve had it both ways, it’s pretty good.”

“Oh. Okay. Well, I guess this is why the backbone server and router sites get top military protection,” Stiles says. When Chris looks blank, Stiles sighs. “I’ll look it up online. Anyway, come back tomorrow, blah blah blah, new food.”

“Okay,” Chris says. He takes another half-step back, then stops and watches Stiles start sorting through the rabbit parts. “The stew was good. Both of them.”

“Great, glad you think so,” Stiles says. The rabbits don’t have their heads, but they still have their feet. They have little nail-claw things and Stiles isn’t really sure why he was expecting rabbits to not have those, but he’s kind of fascinated with them.

Chris coughs awkwardly. “Did you need anything else?”

Stiles looks up. “What, do you guys have some giant warehouse you’re all hiding from people? Because dude, I can ignore a couple ducks and some random bottles of milk, I mean, hell, maybe he just found a cow out there, but I have to call bullshit on anything else. We’re all having a shitty fucking time, thanks, and it’s hoarders that are making it—”

“We’re not hoarding,” Chris snaps. “Well, not any more than what’s reasonable. You can’t blame people for having a little forethought, can you?”

“I can blame you for lording it up while we’re all out here helping you clean out your backyard on doctored MREs and freeze-dried coffee,” Stiles snaps back. “I came up with fifteen different recipes for reconstituted beef jerky and they taste pretty fucking awesome, but I didn’t do it ‘cause it’s my favorite food, asshole. And Jesus, you know, even that, we share that with you.”

Then Stiles turns around and stomps back into the trailer before he does something stupid. He goes and messes around in the smoker for a couple minutes, pulls out those duck breasts, and when he thinks he can talk without throwing a cleaver, he goes back out. Of course, Chris isn’t there.

“Well, he was there when I asked if anyone had seen any vinegar lately,” his dad says later that night. He makes approving sounds over the roasted rabbit; they don’t have enough to do that for everyone, but Stiles is totally hypocritical enough to save the occasional perk for his dad (anyway, the pasties he’s making with the rest of the meat should be good enough to keep people from complaining). “Honestly, you’re probably being a little rough on him. He and his daughter are one of the families living in the police station and I don’t see where he could be hiding a giant stash.”

Stiles looks up from where he’s researching different kinds of plastic in hopes that something they can dig up is usable for sausage casings, because yeah, he doubts they’re going to stumble over hog intestines any time soon. “Didn’t you say he went all crazy man in the woods the other day?”

“Yeah, but then I found out that he and the Hales have been spearheading the local patrols before we came up, and now I think I can see why he might have a short temper.” His dad drums his fingers on the table, then takes a deep breath. “Stiles, just so you know, we’re planning an assault on that quarry. Should be pretty straightforward, Chris and the Hales did a good job of blocking up all the entry routes, but it’s probably going to keep me out all night.”

“And…I still can’t come,” Stiles adds, before his dad can. He slouches in his chair and kicks at the floor.

“It’s not just because I have to follow the rules,” his dad says.

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Stiles stares at his laptop, then sighs and reaches out to close it so he can see across the table. His dad looks tired and worried and, when he realizes Stiles really isn’t going to put up a fight, so relieved that Stiles almost winces. He really does try not to put any more on the man than he can help. He does. “Just don’t get shot by a friendly, okay? It’s not just that I want to kill zombies, you know. I hate not knowing what you’re doing.”

“Yeah, I know.” His dad looks pained but weirdly happy. He pauses, then gets up and goes by the table like he’s going to squeeze past Stiles to their drippy little tap with the hanging bucket for a sink, but he pauses right at Stiles. Wraps his arm around Stiles’ shoulders and pulls tight, then goes for the sink. “I’ll call you when we’re done, I promise. And we’ll at least get a break after that. I don’t know about going into town, but I should be able to get a couple hours out to drive us out, at least get out of camp.”

Stiles snorts. “Thanks, Dad, but I’m not gonna bet on your time off. No biggie, okay, I think I’d better spend time stocking up anyway. You know, the smoked duck breast actually came out really nice, if we keep getting meat like this, we should totally smoke a shitload for when we’re back to beef jerky. Or fish. Smoked fish would be great.”

Now his father’s eyeing him like when he found Stiles sneaking onto one of the patrol jeeps with his modified lacrosse stick.

“No, Dad, I know better than to run into the woods by myself, with some stupid string on a stick, trying to do something I have no idea how to do,” Stiles says, rolling his eyes. “I’m just saying, okay? Fish would be nice.”

* * *

Stiles looks at the armful of fish Peter has just delivered, then at Peter. Then at the fish. “Um,” he says. “Uh. Don’t take them away, just…I’m gonna be right back.”

He’s not calling his dad. He knows better than that, even though he is downright dying to grab somebody and babble uncontrollably about wish fulfillment and unwitting messengers and whether or not his dad actually is seeing the goddamn cause and effect here. He’s dying, but his dad is way out of range unless Stiles uses the CB radio and that’s just for emergencies. Also, if he calls his dad and distracts him in the middle of a mission and his dad gets hurt, he’s never going to forgive himself.

What he’s doing is he’s digging around in his boxes for the boning knife, which, hah, he’d taken out of his set because he never actually expected to be dealing with actual meat. He’s also trying to search one-handed for a how-to video on gutting and cleaning fish, and not trip or hit anything because honestly, semi trailer, not as big as it looks when you’re living in it.

Stiles stumbles back out a few minutes later, breathing hard, boning knife in hand, to find Peter spreading a garbage bag over his prep table. “Hey!”

“Yes?” Peter says. He’s still sort of irritating, but he’s at least toned down the presumptuous attitude. Now he just sounds like he doesn’t understand why what he’s doing isn’t obvious, instead of sounding like he’d like to pinch Stiles’ cheeks for not getting it. “Did you want to redecorate with fish scales?”

“Well, I guess it’d jazz things up a little,” Stiles says, looking at all the drab army-issue stuff around.

Peter blinks. Visibly recalibrates himself, and then smiles like he genuinely thinks Stiles is funny. Of course, then he ruins it by picking up a fish and wiggling it at Stiles and flipping the arch of his eyebrows to smug. “I’m going to guess you don’t know how to scale and clean this.”

“And I’m going to guess you’re going to show me, because for whatever reason, they left you out of the fun zombie kill times and you need your entertainment,” Stiles sighs. He would like to punch the guy in the face, but he also wants to get these fish done before they start to smell—they look great now, but it’s summer and the temperature’s rising every second. “Okay. Go ahead, I’ll try and turn up the slapstick.”

Peter gives him that look again, like Stiles is throwing his worldview out of whack. The guy is totally going to make some snippy comment, but something makes him change his mind. He puts down the fish, has some communing moment with its glassy eyes, and then shrugs and starts showing Stiles how to scrape off the scales.

It’s…easier than expected, for once, but it’s also painfully slow work, and the damn scales fly everywhere and especially into Stiles’ face. He keeps having to stop to wipe them off, till finally he just resigns himself to looking like the Swamp Thing for a while, and just scrapes fish.

“It’s bad practice to commit all your forces to an attack,” Peter says, apropos of nothing. He’s got all of his fish done and is picking scales out of his hair; he’s somehow avoided getting any on his clothes but Stiles is secretly pleased to see that the magic repelling field hasn’t kept him totally clean. “Why I’m not at the quarry.”

Stiles stops to shake his knife clean. “Uh, they’re zombies? I mean, unless they’ve mutated, in which case learning what to do with a fish is completely not the priority here, I don’t think they have tactics.”

“True, but do you want to assume there aren’t any other zombies lurking around? If we were able to survey the entire countryside in one go, we wouldn’t have roving patrols.” Peter flicks off a last scale and then stoops over Stiles’ knife block. He fingers a couple before setting on one.

“We’ve got electrified wire, and everybody that’s left knows how to shoot a gun,” Stiles says. He still has one fish left and he goes at it harder than he should, considering Peter is an asshole and Stiles normally doesn’t give assholes the time of day, let alone be worried that he’s dragging behind them. “Also, woohoo, a zombie mob pops up out of nowhere, we’ve got a whole extra guy. Who doesn’t even have his own gun from what I can tell. What the hell, you aren’t one of those adrenaline junkies who likes to go hand to hand, are you? Because let me tell you, not all of them are so rotted you can just twist off the head, and while we might’ve lucked out in bites not turning you, there’s still a lot of nasty bacteria in those mouths.”

Peter’s eyes narrow. Then they drop to the fish, which is, in fact, denting under the pressure of Stiles’ knife. Stiles flushes, then forces himself to slow down and do it right. No point in spoiling food just because the guy is a preening jerk.

“No, Stiles, I have a healthy respect for the zombies,” Peter says in a very slow, measured tone, like he’s talking to the elderly. “Considering that my family has been holding the line here while the government got its act together, I think I understand very well what they’re capable of. Probably better than these patrols.”

“Oh, yeah, okay. So you’re just here because you don’t want to be shooting ‘em up at the quarry,” Stiles says. Because while he personally agrees that the government took a little long to realize that social media had blown everything way public, he’s not about to stand here and listen to his dad and his dad’s team be pissed all over.

Peter inhales sharply. He’s…got a knife, and sure, he actually seems to be a tad shorter than Stiles but he’s definitely packing more muscle, and for a moment he looks pretty pissed off and Stiles is thinking maybe he should have gotten more than a table between them. But then Peter just smiles tightly at him.

“You are very blunt,” he says.

“I’m living in a goddamn semi truck trailer and spending my days trying to figure out how to make reconstituted everything remotely edible,” Stiles mutters, finally finishing his fish. “Doesn’t leave a lot of room for nice. Look, you going to show me what to do with this thing or what?”

Peter cocks his head and purses his lips. He glances at the fish, then shrugs carelessly and pulls one over. Then he shows Stiles how to gut it, take off the head without losing a chunk of fillet, and then how to take off the fillets. And does it two more times. Credit to him, the flat inflection of his voice doesn’t change, even though Stiles is mangling his way through the fish.

Well, Stiles has read around enough to know that he can turn the mauled bits into stock or sandwich spread. And honestly, as much as he resents (and okay, admires) how pretty Peter’s fillets are, he knows he isn’t going to care when he’s eating them.

“Um, thanks,” he says. He glances up at Peter, just because it’s better to get it over with than feel the smug, and then is surprised when Peter, well, also looks surprised. Stiles covers it up by wiping off his hands and grabbing for some cupcakes. “So, here, and wait a second…where did I…”

It takes him a moment to remember that he put the leftover casserole back in the fridge. He grabs the fish and takes it back while he’s at it, then returns with a helping of rabbit and bean casserole for Peter, only to find the guy…

“Are you sniffing my cupcakes?” Stiles says, staring. “Dude, you brought the milk, if it was off—”

“It was fine,” Peter says dismissively. Then he pauses. He looks at Stiles and he looks kind of frustrated and maybe a little annoyed with himself, and also like his face isn’t used to either. “You made these? Out of the milk?”

Stiles just keeps staring at him. Because where else, seriously.

“Well, thank you, Stiles, they—smell delicious,” Peter says, a faint smile playing over his lips. He takes the casserole as well, cracks open the lid and sniffs theatrically. “And so does this.”

“Great. So, I was gonna smoke most of the fish, which is going to take a few days, but I’ll…have something else tomorrow,” Stiles says.

Peter nods. “Anything in particular you’re looking for?”

Stiles opens his mouth, then closes it. Then starts rolling up the garbage bag with all the fish scrapes and scales on the inside. “Okay, you know what, if you’re being dickwads and hiding food, you know you’re dickwads and you clearly don’t care, and that sort of personality always gets it in the end. I refuse to believe otherwise, if we can have zombies we can absolutely have karma.”

“What are you talking about?” Peter says.

“Nothing,” Stiles says. “Whatever. Anyway, if you’re in a sharing mood, I’m also not going to turn it down, so…eggs, butter, breadcrumbs, some kind of pork fat? You know, if you just happen to have any of that.”

Peter looks like he badly, badly wants to say something, but he just takes the food under his arm and walks off. He doesn’t leave camp immediately; the med staff who come in for coffee break a few hours later let drop that he’s still around, for some reason. But he stays away from Stiles and Stiles has a lot of work to do, anyway, and out of sight, out of mind.

* * *

Sadly, Stiles can’t cook all night. Well, he can, but then he’d have no food left and they’d eat like kings for three days, tops, before being stuck with MREs till the next supply drop. He goes for a walk around the camp, talks to some of the nurses, hangs with the support staff and swaps ideas about getting more power out of the generators. Tries to not let it show that he is coming up with a zillion ideas for how the quarry thing is going wrong.

He’s on disaster scenario eleventy-million when he goes back to his trailer and somebody lurches out of the dark and he nearly whacks off their head with his lacrosse stick before figuring out it’s Chris.

“What the hell is that?” Chris says, looking at the stick of doom. “Is that—did you mount a machete on that?”

Stiles—really doesn’t want to. He puts down the stick, then pushes past Chris to get the back of the trailer open. Checks his phone, nothing, checks the smoker, nothing to do there. Turns around and Chris is loitering around watching him.

“Well, great, one whole more rifle,” Stiles mutters. He rocks on his feet for a couple seconds, then bangs around till he finds the last of the milk and a couple cupcakes. He comes back out and sits down on the edge of the open trailer back, and shoves a cupcake at Chris. Then starts to eat his. “What the hell are you and Peter doing, trading shifts?”

Chris winces.

Stiles looks at him. He’s about to ask what the hell when Chris’ rifle butt knocks against something, which turns out to be a cooler. Stiles opens and closes his mouth, then stuffs the rest of his cupcake into his mouth, swigs down the milk, and climbs out of the trailer to check out the cooler.

Eggs, a packet of bacon (still so frozen the other ice packs are kind of unnecessary), a bottle of cream. No breadcrumbs, but hey, Stiles isn’t going to nitpick. Not when he’s not even sure what the hell he’s picking at, here.

“Quarry’s going well,” Chris abruptly says. “I had to leave a couple hours ago, but it looks like they’ll wrap on time.”

“Okay.” Stiles leans on his hand on the cooler and tries to string a couple thoughts together, and honestly, can’t do it. He shakes his head, then just scoops the stuff out of the cooler and carries it back into the trailer.

Bacon and eggs go in the fridge. The cream, he jiggles it for a little bit and then remembers this one field trip way back in grade school. He searches around till he finds a big plastic thermos, pours in the cream, and then takes it out so he can kick the thermos around on the ground.

“The bacon’s from last year, dug it out of the deep freezer,” Chris says. Still sounds a little constipated. “Eggs, somebody was keeping chickens and they broke out, and sometimes you run across nests in the preserve. Cream’s scraped up from what’s left in the fridge—we did have a cow, found it in an abandoned farm, but her calf died when we were bringing them back and she dried up.”

“Huh.” Stiles makes a note to check over the bacon more carefully once it’s thawed out. He rolls the thermos around under his foot.

“So we’re not holding anything back,” Chris adds. He seems to think he’s home free, or at least has said enough to earn himself a seat, because he unslings his rifle and sets it carefully down on the trailer floor. “Still on the same rations as everybody else. A glass of milk’s great, but honestly, nothing makes MREs go down any better. Well, till we started eating your stuff.”

The thermos is already starting to look battered, but when Stiles peeks inside, he’s still got liquid. He doesn’t remember how long they shook the little jars in grade school, but it does occur to him that those jars had gotten bounced around between something like twenty hyperactive kids. Also, that he has machinery.

“So what happened to the cow?” he asks, pulling out his phone. He puts the thermos aside and starts looking up butter churn designs.

“The cow?” Then Chris turns his cursing into a sudden, totally stage-y cough. He presses his hand over his mouth for a second, rubs it around, and then eases back to standing. “Oh. Died too. Not sure what of, and we’re not so badly off we want to risk eating the meat.”

Maybe if Stiles hacked the food processor. He’s going to need new blades, the ones he’s got aren’t wide enough and don’t sit at the right angles to whip anything, which means he’s going to have to beg the truck mechanics for a soldiering iron. “Sure, whatever. Guess I’d better toss that,” he says, nodding at Chris’ untouched cupcake. “If the meat’s bad, who knows about the milk?”

“The milk’s fine,” Chris says sharply. He pauses, then sighs and rubs his face again. “Okay, yeah, the—some of us ate the cow and the calf. But we needed it. We’ve got two hundred something acres of woods to keep an eye on.”

“Look, whatever, you’re gonna do whatever the hell you feel like, obviously.” Stiles zooms in on a churn mechanism, trying to figure out the degree of up-down motion. He’s not going to get that out of the food processor, unless he just completely replaces the mechanism, and if he’s going to do that, he might as well see if he can get a stand mixer.

Which he’d need for the sausages if he can ever figure out casings; he’s been resisting mixers since yeah, the trailer’s only got so much space and Stiles is trying not to get any new gadgets unless he knows he’s going to use them regularly. And the likelihood of them rotating into another spot that’s got a strange abundance of raw, fresh ingredients is, well, low.

“We’re not taking it from anyone who needs it more,” Chris says. “And anything we have, if you can use it, we’ll be happy to bring it out.”

Stiles looks at this guy, then hauls himself up to perch on the edge of the trailer. Then he flops backward, holding his phone over his head as he scrolls through more churn designs. “You should really be telling this to my dad, okay?” he says. “He’s the one in charge. And if you think you’re gonna get to him through me, let me just say—”

“We’re talking to you because you’re the one who can cook,” Chris snaps.

“Okay, come on, that is just flat-out silly. Sure, I could write a whole cookbook on beef jerky now, but I’m not the only one—”

“You’re the one who can cook with all this—this random stuff that we’re left with,” Chris says. He sounds a little calmer, but no less intense. If Peter was avoiding the whole zombie-killing job, then the rest of them probably threw Chris out for being too into it. “We’ve been eating straight out of cans and jars for weeks and it’s the same stuff over and over again. My daughter’s been losing weight, she’s so sick of it, and I’m pretty close to throwing up on sight myself. All right? So if we can—”

“Uh, excuse me, I’ve been here less than a week and I’ve seen ducks, rabbits, fish, and now you said you got fresh beef at one point?” Stiles says. He puts his phone down and glances over at the CB radio again. Then he grits his teeth and turns his head away, and glares at the ceiling instead. “You know, contrary to what you might think, I’m not actually having a lot of fun poking holes in your story. I mean, I normally would, but you’re just really, really goddamn bad at this.”

That shuts Chris up, though Stiles can still hear the guy breathing, all hard and fast and irritated, like some jackass slasher killer. Stiles doesn’t want to hear it so he rolls over and walks around the trailer, grabbing up tools and stray pieces of equipment, making sure he’s really loud about it. It worked the last couple times.

Sadly, it does not work this time. Chris is still at the end of the trailer when Stiles gets back, and that’s the end that has room for Stiles to work. Stiles debates whether he should just take it all over to the med trailer, but just for a second. That’s not really fair on them either, since one, Chris will probably follow, and two, they need to save their generators for if anybody comes back needing the operating table.

So he sits down and starts laying out parts, and Chris clears his throat. “All the big game’s moved up to the mountains,” Chris says. “They don’t like zom—”

“And what, you can’t gorge on birds and fish?” Stiles says, exasperated. “Come on, I know how many people are in town, so maybe everybody gets a chicken nugget, but still, you could do it. Unless you’re secretly all obligate carnivores or something.”

Chris stops himself from saying something. He pivots around and stares out into the night, one hand sneaking back to lay over his rifle. His breathing is at least a little quieter, so Stiles can actually concentrate and figure out that he’s maybe got the parts for a churn mechanism he can just lower into whatever big jar he’s got around, which would save on space.

But it’s going to take longer to put together than just a couple hours, and Stiles has the thermos of cream right now. He reaches out for it and just happens to catch Chris halfway through eating the cupcake.

“This is good,” Chris mutters. He wipes off his mouth and looks at what’s left. “Did you have another one?”

“Yeah, but it’s the absolute last one, and I used up all the milk.” Stiles gets it and boxes it up for him, then holds out the box.

Chris takes the box and pauses. “Thanks,” he says, for once not turning it all the way up to eleven. He pulls the box towards him and fiddles with it a little. “Allison wasn’t real happy I was making her stay home, maybe this’ll get her to open the door. She’s my daughter.”

“She must be really nice,” Stiles says, not thinking. When Chris inevitably shoots him a hard look, he rolls his eyes and goes back to shaking the thermos. “God, I’m not gonna follow you home and ask her out. I’m just saying, as a kid who’s also stuck back here, I think I’d hold out for more than a cupcake.”

“Just because the zombies are all stuck in the quarry, doesn’t mean that things can’t go wrong,” Chris says after a second. “The quarry’s old, some of the edges aren’t that stable. And there’s…if you don’t know the woods around here, you shouldn’t go out by yourself. There are some other…places that are tricky.”

Stiles snorts. “You know, any time you want to stop talking in vague and mysterious language. Honestly, you’re starting to make me feel like I’m the precious little baby in one of those suspense films. Can’t let her see anything terrible, oh, no, it might ruin her virtue.”

Chris looks away again. He glances over the parts Stiles has scattered around—Stiles’ dad being out all night at least means Stiles can make any mess he wants—and then picks up and puts down a toothed gear.

“You need anything like this?” he says, holding up a spring.

“I’m gonna make a butter churn,” Stiles says, panting a little, because lacrosse and then zombie spiking did not, unfortunately, give him the muscles for hand-shaken butter. Should’ve gone with that bartending class, he thinks. “You see anything like that around?”

“I’ll look.” Then Chris frowns. He lifts his head, listening to this thin, ululating sound.

It’s a lot like a wolf or a coyote howl, not that Stiles is a biologist or anything, but it sounds pretty far off. Could even be in the mountains; the valleys around here funnel noise in weird ways and his dad had had to do a whole training session on that, so people weren’t running around thinking zombies were moaning over there and shooting into houses without checking.

Anyway, since it’s not a zombie moan, Stiles isn’t really that interested. His arms are, however, burning, so he takes a break. The cream inside the thermos looks a little bit thicker.

“Look, just…don’t wander off, okay?” Chris says. He picks up his rifle and slings it over his shoulder, and then starts off.

Stiles is going to let him go, except…well, the guy had brought food, even if the sources are still dodgy. “Hey, wait,” he says. He goes back and gets Chris the last of the rabbit pasties, and a couple of the fish filling ones he’s experimenting with. “Here. The bag with the yellow sticker is fish, though tell Peter I’m not sure the fish were fatty enough for it, and I think the filling might’ve dried out.”

Chris looks surprised and a little pleased right up till Stiles mentions Peter, and then he gets a…an expression that he promptly tries to hide. “Okay.”

“Don’t tell me you guys aren’t talking to each other,” Stiles says.

“I…yeah,” Chris mutters. He tilts the bag to look down at the pasties, then grimaces and turns away. “Okay, I’ll mention it—Stiles?”

Stiles looks up from the thermos. “What?”

“Thanks.” Chris pauses stiffly, then shakes his head like he’s disappointed in himself. He walks off into the dark, to do his one-man army thing or whatever, and Stiles goes back to trying to make butter.

* * *

“Definitely hiding something,” Stiles says to his dad as they nibble on cheese omelets late the next morning. Not as tasty as Stiles was hoping for, but the cheese had come out kind of vinegary, no matter how much Stiles rinsed it, and he hadn’t wanted to just throw it out. “Anyway, I take it from the lack of screaming from the med trailer that the quarry went okay?”

His dad looks thoughtful. “Yeah. Yeah, but you’re right, something’s up. These people—they’re just a little off. Especially those Hales—I don’t know what the hell is going on, but they keep steering me away from their old property out in the preserve. I haven’t pushed it so far, but we’re running out of other ground to cover. And they’re just odd.”

Stiles blinks. “I meant Chris Argent, actually. Granted, I’ve only met one Hale so far, but Peter mostly seems to smarm around and like embarrassing me.”

“Peter?” his dad says, blinking back. “You know, I could have sworn I saw him rip a zombie in two with his bare hands last night. When we got over, he had a machete, but…still, that’s a hell of a swing.”

“Wait, what, last night? He was over there?” Something’s wrong about that. Stiles leans back and thinks it over, and then pulls over his laptop. Google Maps isn’t as up to date as it was pre-zombie, but it’s probably accurate enough to be right in saying that the only way to get to the quarry and back in that time frame would be by car.

Except Google Maps says there aren’t any roads out there, and Stiles knows that’s true because he helped Dad pack the jeeps for off-roading. Although okay, not that much of a stretch for Peter to have a dirt bike or something like that—except that it just doesn’t jib with the guy. Stiles might not know him well, but he’d still bet on Peter turning up his nose at anything but a luxury car.

“Chris Argent? What about Chris?” his dad is asking. “Is this about the food?”

“Uh…well, sort of. You know, I actually think I believe him that they’re not stockpiling anything illegal, but he’s still lying about something,” Stiles says. “I don’t know, Dad, they seem to have this thing about meat. And he got kind of weird when I mentioned Peter.”

His dad snorts. “Well, they’re dating.”

Stiles chokes on his omelet.

“Easy, kid,” his dad says. He reaches over and gives Stiles a couple thumps on the back. “Okay. Maybe that’s a little strong. They don’t really seem to get along, but Chris’ daughter and Peter’s niece were both teasing them about it the other day. Something about swapping bullets, I didn’t really want to hear more so I walked off.”

“Okay.” Stiles crawls back up off his chair and leans over his plate. He pokes at the couple bits of omelet he has left, then shakes his head. “Okay, then. So we have hate-sex carnivores with amazing sourcing powers and some pent-up aggression.”

“Stiles.” His dad looks a lot less amused, and a lot more wary. “Stiles, they might be irritating but they’re clearly leaders of the community here, and so far they’ve been very—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, don’t accuse without three kinds of proof, keep down people’s rocketing libertarian urges, blah blah. Got it, Dad,” Stiles says. “I won’t go off on them, I swear.”

* * *

Because why bother when they come to him, with an antique ice cream churn, no less. The paddles and the churning mechanism are rusted beyond saving, but Stiles really just needs the paddles to use as a pattern anyway.

“I hear you were questioning our diet,” Peter says, watching him dismantle the churn.

“Wasn’t really questioning it. Just, you know that a diet of constant meat leads to diarrhea and gout and other problems, right? We’re only a couple months into the apocalypse, it’s a little early to be breaking out the Dark Age flashbacks.” Stiles finally extracts the paddles. He puts them in the box with the rest of the half-assembled new mechanism, then runs a hand around the inside of the barrel. Kind of dusty.

He rinses it out and wipes it off, then lugs it into the trailer to fill it up with fish head chowder (one of the other patrol guys had rooted potatoes out of an abandoned garden on the way to the quarry). Then he lugs it back to Peter, looks pointedly at the man, and stands out of the way.

Peter unscrews the barrel lid and dips in his finger for a taste. He makes a small but definitely approving noise, screws the lid back on, and then puts his hand over it and looks up at Stiles. “This is really a lot,” he says. “I didn’t bring any food.”

“Yeah, I noticed, did the magic basement run out?” Stiles says.

“You know, if Argent couldn’t convince you, I’m not going to bother,” Peter sighs, which is probably the smartest thing either of them have done. He picks up the barrel and pulls it off the trailer and sets it down on the ground by his feet, and then straightens up and he’s not even remotely breathing hard.

So Stiles is not exactly a bodybuilder, but that much soup should’ve at least gotten a couple grunts. He wonders if they’ve been abusing the pharmacy stocks, too—for some reason, some idiots think it’s a great time to experiment with steroids when all medical treatment is strictly triaged—but Peter looks pretty healthy. Clear normal-colored skin, no fresh stretch marks on his major muscle groups (arms, at least), has pecs and not man breasts, and—he’s smirking at Stiles.

“I’d think it’s obvious I’m not hiding a weapon in this,” he says, pinching up the front of his tee. “But if it would make you feel more secure…”

And he starts to pull his shirt over his head. Stiles yelps and jumps back and then jumps forward and grabs Peter’s arm to stop him. “What, no! No, no, I’m not—oh, my God, I’m not flirting with you, you asshole. Keep your goddamn clothes on before I call the guard, okay? Public indecency’s still a crime.”

“True, but between arresting me and stuffing their faces, I’m not so sure that they’d be so self-sacrificing,” Peter says. He lets go of his shirt, then takes advantage of Stiles’ momentary relief to snag Stiles’ sleeve. He leans in and peers into Stiles’ face, and the weirdest thing is, he doesn’t seem to be doing it just for a rise. Sure, he smirks again when Stiles stiffens, but he’s also listening. “Why aren’t you there? Granted, the food we made isn’t nearly as good as yours, but you have to be tired of doing all the cooking.”

Stiles jerks his sleeve out of Peter’s grip. He absently rubs the spot on his hip, then shrugs and sits down, hanging his legs out of the trailer. “I went to the party, tried out the food. It’s okay, though I can see what Chris meant about eating straight from the jar,” he says. He looks at Peter. “By the way, smart move, making it all pickled and canned and dried-goods stuff. That’s totally going to make us forget that you’ve got lines on meat and dairy and eggs.”

Peter looks steadily back at him, not blinking for so long that Stiles’ eyes start to water in sympathy. Then he turns and settles himself against the trailer. “We were saving most of what’s there for the holidays, but your father tells me that if his supervisors approve the quarry as a round-up point, we’ll get enough soldiers to have a greenhouse or two.”

“Yeah, he mentioned.” And he was pretty excited about it, too, since that might mean a permanent posting (Dad’s still technically ex-military, but nobody seems to think removing the ‘ex’ will be difficult) and an actual room in an actual building. Stiles has more mixed feelings on it, namely, that for all the benefits staying in one place would bring, at least on a mobile team he gets to drive around some. He’s going to be even more stuck if they stay. “Okay, fine, we’ll change the subject. I don’t want to party ‘cause I’m an antisocial little shit who would rather figure out optimal fish-smoking times.”

“Between you and me, the town is a little uncertain about whether we should take the proposal. Well, provided we even have a choice,” Peter says. He nods at Stiles, then pulls out a wrapped something from his pocket—some kind of dried meat stick, knobby and uneven so it’s clearly homemade. “Your father seems reasonable enough. But we were managing things before, and it might be disruptive if the military moves in.”

Then he takes a bite from the stick. He doesn’t seem too thrilled with the taste, giving it a perfunctory chew before swallowing; Stiles adds apparent disregard of intestinal issues to his list of oddities.

“You mean, they might take a closer look at some of the stuff we can’t afford to pay attention to, because we’re just a volunteer militia?” Stiles says. “And we’re chatting about this because you figure nobody’s going to listen to the teenage cook? Wow, you know, I’m not sure whether I find this more insulting than Chris thinking he could get me to work on my dad.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, he isn’t remotely that subtle,” Peter says. He…well, he’s not overtly slobbering or anything, but the way he eats the meat stick keeps making Stiles think of the word ‘gobble.’ And he really doesn’t seem to like the taste, just seems to be really hungry. “He just thinks that every teenager is going to wander out in the woods in the middle of the night with no weapons, no orientation equipment, and no communication methods besides screaming. Granted, his daughter did have a bit of an idiot moment, but she’s developed some brains since.”

Stiles had gone to the victory party so early that he’d only met the townspeople who’d been setting up, and he’d been very careful to not introduce himself. He’d also not gotten anybody’s names, though now he’s kind of wondering whether it’d be worth sneaking around till he figures out which one is Allison. “That completely sounds like a situation where you wouldn’t want a military post,” he says.

“I never would’ve taken you—” Peter tenses and gets distracted for a second “—for a right-winger, Stiles.”

“Hey, you don’t have to be a hate-spewing, Bible-thumping windbag to acknowledge that locking people away for their own good sometimes is not a bad idea,” Stiles says. He watches Peter. The guy definitely is better than Chris, but he still has little tells, like cocking his head. “Hear something?”

Peter looks sharply at Stiles. “Did you?”

“Nope,” Stiles says. He’s grinning, because Peter basically just gave the farm away right there.

And he knows it, too. He’s irritated and for a second Stiles thinks the guy is going to storm off, but then Peter takes a deep breath. He glances at Stiles and that might even be a gleam of respect in his eye. Then he pulls out his phone, texts somebody, puts his phone away and leans down to pat the barrel of fish chowder.

“I’ll have to come back for this,” he says.

Stiles starts, then jumps off the trailer. “Hey, hey, I can’t fit this in the fridge, and now you’re going to make me dump it back in the pot? What’s the rush, a fresh zombie surge?”

Peter smiles and it’s strangely menacing. Not that Stiles hasn’t gotten the cheerful psycho routine before, but there’s just something really, really off about Peter’s face for a second. It’s like he grows an extra eye or his jaw dislocates or something like that, except of course none of that happens.

“I can’t say,” he says.

“Well, then fuck you, I’m giving away your chowder,” Stiles says. He pulls himself back into the trailer. “Don’t look like that, you’ll get something else, because you might be a dick but even dicks don’t deserve MREs. It just isn’t going to be as good as the chowder. Neither of you brought me any new meat so all I’ve got to work with tomorrow are lentils.”

“Stiles,” Peter starts. Then his phone interrupts. He slaps his pocket like he doesn’t want to answer it, then sighs and pulls it out. Whatever he sees makes his lips tighten. He begins to reply, then just shoves his phone back into the pocket with an honest to God snarl. Then he cocks his head again, listening to something, and Stiles almost thinks he hears it too. He’s distracted when he finally talks again. “All right, Stiles, I’ll take the chowder. If you’re not going to the party, you’ll be here later?”

“Oh, no, I was totally going to crash the underground kegger down the street. You know, that’s the new rage, get drunk and lie around moaning, and the first one who draws a zombie gets crowned king of the suicidal douchebags,” Stiles says, watching Peter pick up the barrel. Again, it’s like the damn thing is made of paper and filled with lighter-than-air gas. “If this is the speech about how this area is tricky and I shouldn’t go out without local guides, your unsubtle rifle-toting boyfriend already covered it.”

Peter is half-turned away, but he wheels back and stares at Stiles. He seems to genuinely have no idea how to respond to that, except that he clearly finds it disturbingly wrong. He opens his mouth, raises his free hand, and then just resorts to jabbing his finger at Stiles.

“Don’t go out, you’ll get killed,” he says. He pauses mid-turn and looks at Stiles. “And don’t let your father go out either. When I come back I’ll talk to him about the patrols.”

“Wait, what the—what the hell is that supposed to mean?” Stiles says, jumping off the trailer edge. Except just then a coyote or whatever howls and he starts mid-jump, and his foot gets caught or something. But anyway, he trips and barely grabs the bumper before his face smashes the ground.

And, of course, when he looks up, Peter isn’t there. That asshole.

* * *

“Stiles, has Peter or Chris said anything odd to you?” his dad asks, before Stiles can even start. Then he looks up from the map in his hand. He snorts, climbs into the trailer, and then hands Stiles a plate from the victory party.

“What, like, don’t go out tonight, you’ll die, let us do something and then we’ll get back to you?” Stiles takes the plate, glances over it, and then wraps it up and sticks it in the fridge. Then he goes back to his laptop.

His dad shuffles around the table a little, then pulls out a chair and sits down. “Well, for me, it was more along the lines of, why don’t you enjoy your day off, you did just kill a whole bunch of zombies, let’s take up the matter of follow-up sweeps later.”

“Huh. Okay, well, you’re here, so I’m guessing we’re not going to see what they’re doing?” Stiles says.

“I’m not big on it, but I don’t think everyone in town is in on whatever it is, and I don’t think we should panic people. They don’t seem scared, just real nervous,” his dad mutters. He has his gun cleaning tools out and he starts breaking down his shotgun. “Party just wrapped up. So, what do you think they’re doing?”

Stiles shuts his laptop and stares at his dad till the man looks up.

“I know you have ideas, Stiles,” his dad says irritably. “And honestly, at this point I’m willing to buy an awful lot. I swear to God, they’ve been leading us around by the nose since we got here.”

“You sure you don’t want to just see what they’re doing?” Stiles says.

His dad shakes his head, then snaps open the shotgun barrel and starts scrubbing out the inside. “Well, whatever it is, I’m pretty sure they’re not trying to get us killed, and I’m not about to waste all that hard work calling a night patrol when I have no idea what I’m going after. And anyway, Stiles, you’re—”

“Not going, yeah, yeah, fine, I’m just going to turn into the trailer hermit.” Stiles pops his laptop back open. “Okay. So I’ve got a couple theories. First one is that they’re just hiding some zombies they don’t want killed.”

“What, because of the meat?” his dad says. “Can’t be it, they were that kind of nuts, they’d be murdering us one by one and feeding us to them.”

Stiles raises his hand. “Unless they’ve figured out a way to get the zombies to eat animal meat, which is theory two.”

His dad considers that for a moment, then pulls the brush out of one barrel and sticks it into the other. “Then they’d have to be keeping the things in the woods, because I’ve been through all the buildings in town. And Laura finally took us through their old house the other day—she was a little rushed about it but I think I would’ve heard a zombie.”

“Well, what about the woods, then?” Stiles asks.

“I…well, no, but I don’t think it feels right.” His dad shrugs like that’s nothing, but the guy’s got a pretty solid gut instinct that’s saved more people than Stiles can count. “I’ve seen them all killing zombies and they’re…professional about it. Gotta say, that’s a little odd, too. It sounds like Chris at least did a lot of hunting before it all started, but it’s still unusual in a civilian. Anyway, they just don’t seem that sentimental.”

Actually, Chris is, at least about his daughter, but the rest of the time he’s pretty hardass so Stiles has to agree with his dad. “Then there’s theory three. I still think they’ve found some new kind of zombie and they’re hiding it from us, but it’s not because they don’t want us to kill it.”

“Why else would you hide it?” his dad says.

“Because they don’t think we’re good enough? Because they’re conspiracy theorists who think the government’s secretly rounding up zombie specimens to try and weaponize them? Because the zombies are somewhere they don’t want us to go, like, I don’t know, an underground mad scientist lab that will mutate us all?” Stiles flips his hand at his father. “Not enough info. Need more data points.”

“Huh. Okay.” Then his dad narrows his eyes at Stiles. “Which does not—”

“God, Dad, I promised!” Stiles snaps. “And I haven’t, have I? I just sit around here all day.”

And then he slaps his laptop shut and gets up and stalks…well, he can’t go out, curfew, and he’s being good. So he goes to the smoker and starts checking on the fish hanging in there. Some of them are ready to come out; he flakes off a bit and tastes it, and yeah, a little less salt, a little sugar in the cure makes a big difference.

He hears his dad come up behind him but doesn’t turn around. The fish get wrapped and put away in the freezer, except for one that he starts crumbling up to go into the soup simmering away on the hot plate.

“Stiles,” his dad says. “Stiles, look, I’m sorry. You have been really—you’ve earned more respect than that. You’ve really done a lot here, you know. It’s not just cooking. You’re keeping the whole camp’s morale up, and you’re half the reason things have been going so well with the town.”

“Weirdness aside, huh,” Stiles mutters. Because he gets mad at his dad, sure, but like he can help himself when the guy is talking about—about respect, seriously? He’s just been really goddamn bored, and if he and his dad are going to spend the summer driving around after zombies, he didn’t want them to eat shitty food.

He sighs and flicks the last of the fish into the pot, then turns around. His dad smiles at him and claps a hand to his shoulder, then snorts and just yanks Stiles into a hug.

“The food is fantastic, son,” his dad says. “Seriously. You’ve really made a niche for yourself.”

“I’m just messing around.” Though Stiles hugs his dad back. “Hey, that’s not why you’re thinking of holing up here, are you?”

“Huh? Oh, heard about that, did you.” His dad makes a face. “Yeah, well, it’s probably just talk. And even if it isn’t…well, would you want to stay?”

Stiles pulls back and looks his dad in the eye. Usually he can read the guy just fine, but at the moment all he’s seeing is that his dad is listening closely and that’s not helpful. “I don’t know,” he finally says. “I mean, if I gotta stay indoors all the time, at least when we’re on the road…”

“Well, you could go into town. We’ve been here long enough, I’ve gotten to know the people some, I think it’s safe so long as you go with one of the patrols and don’t show off,” his dad says. “And you could see for yourself whether they’re stockpiling.”

He isn’t making fun of Stiles. Not entirely. But he still doesn’t believe that the food has much to do with the weird behavior. And to be honest, Stiles is starting to disbelieve it, too. It’s still weird that they have so much good stuff around, but they wouldn’t be so excited about what Stiles is doing if they were having secret grill-outs. Not to mention that if he goes into town, he’s probably going to run into Peter and/or Chris. They’re annoying as hell, but his dad’s right, they don’t seem to be interested in making trouble, and Stiles doesn’t really want to start shit with them. There are enough other nasty things and assholes to kill in the world.

But his dad is looking at him, all hopeful, and Stiles knows he’s just as frustrated as Stiles that he can’t do more. “I’ll think about it,” Stiles says. He shrugs off his dad’s look and steps away to turn the heat down on the soup. “Honestly, the stockpiling thing, if they are, they are. We’re gonna have to rotate out for a little bit before they figure out whether this place gets a permanent post, right? I should probably start breaking stuff down.”

“You know you can save that for the day of, and we’ve still got a week of sweeps before we get new orders,” his dad says, but it’s half-hearted. “Okay, well, let me know if you change your mind. I’ll probably be going in tomorrow, just to try and see if I can talk some reason into the leaders before I have to pass this thing up to the higher-ups.”

“Oh, reminds me, Peter said he was going to find you on that,” Stiles says, adding more broth to the soup.

His dad pauses, then nods slowly. “Well, all right, then, I guess that makes it easier. I’m still going to head into town, so let him know if you see him first.”

“Doubt it, but okay,” Stiles says.

* * *

The next day, Stiles is expecting a lot more sitting around on his ass and fretting about what everybody is doing, so he bakes.

Well, kind of. He’s still working on the butter (churns are deceptively difficult machines to put together) but he’s got eggs and sugar, and a shit-ton of boxed mixes, but he doesn’t have an oven and he blew some circuitry in the microwave last week and hasn’t gotten around to fixing it. So he does a water bath and it actually works, and he’s still pretty pleased with himself when he carries the tray out of the trailer and then damn near drops it.

“Jesus Christ!” Stiles snaps. He juggles the tray a little, then just sits the hell down so he can use his whole lap to steady it.

Peter peers at the tray, delight slowly replacing disbelief on his face. “Are those soufflés?”

“They’re just gonna be cakes with weird dents in them if you don’t stop breathing on them,” Stiles gasps. He stares from Peter to Chris, who at least has the decency to be pretending to look behind Stiles, and then twists around and puts the tray down behind him. Then he turns back and glowers at them, spreading his arms so the soufflés are completely blocked. “So, just in case it’s useful, my father is in town because he wanted to discuss something with you. Because I told him you were looking for him.”

Chris shoots Peter a pointed look and Peter doesn’t acknowledge it at all. “Ah, well, thank you for passing that on,” Peter says. He’s still sniffing—literally, sniffing—for the soufflés. “Unfortunately, since we were out all night, I haven’t had time to check on my messages.”

“Did he say when he’d be back?” Chris asks, smartly giving up on guilting Peter.

Stiles shrugs.

“Damn it,” Chris says under his breath. He glances around, then takes the duffel off his shoulder. It’s hanging like there’s something heavy and bulky in it and he breathes in sharply, bending down to set it on the ground. Then he puts his hand to his shoulder as he unzips the bag. “So, I guess you’ll want to complain about where we stole this, too, but if you want it anyway…”

He digs out a thick plastic bag with some kind of red meat in it. Elbows Peter back and puts it on the trailer bed next to Stiles, then stands back, rubbing at his shoulder again. The meat is cut up like beef but it’s a much darker color, more like burgundy than red. It also clearly comes from something a lot bigger than a duck or a rabbit.

“You found another cow?” Stiles says, poking it.

“More like a bear,” Peter says. He’s finally stopped playing for the desserts and has gone all serious, so between him and Chris, Stiles feels like he’s being x-rayed.

Stiles looks at the bag. He’s guessing ten pounds or around that. “Okay. And the other couple hundred pounds…ugh, you know what, I don’t care. Feed it to your mutant zombie or whatever, I’m tired of this stupid guessing game.”

And he really, honestly is, except…they both go still. Then Chris swears under his breath again. He’s going to say something when Peter grabs his shoulder, the one he’d been messing with. Chris winces, then shakes Peter off, hard enough to make Peter hop a little, and Peter hisses and definitely favors his right leg.

“It’s seriously a mutant zombie?” Stiles says. He stares at them for another second, then goes for the CB radio.

Except he’s not really sure how they do it, but suddenly Peter and Chris are up in the trailer with him, and while they aren’t touching them, they’re sandwiching him and they stay that way, no matter how he moves.

“No, wait, wait, it’s more compli—you can’t just call them in, they’ll just go straight for it,” Chris says. He backs into a chair and grimaces, then pushes Stiles back with his forearm. “Look, just—”

“We ate the rest of the bear,” Peter snaps. “We need the meat. We can get along for a while without raw protein, but we get weaker. The dried stuff isn’t good enough either, something about the lack of blood, I’m guessing.”

Stiles tries for the radio again, and then, when Peter lunges at him, he pulls up short. Then he steps backward and out of the trailer.

He’s halfway to running and screaming bloody murder when there’s a thump and a wet snap. He does go another step, but nobody’s…well, grabbing him, and really, if they were going to keep him quiet, they could’ve just snapped his neck. And yeah, okay, Stiles is totally going to turn around into a bullet or something one day.

But today, there’s no bullet. There’s just Peter collapsed on the ground, cursing and holding his leg, which is kinked where it really shouldn’t be, and Chris crouching down on the trailer bed over him, grabbing his hair and looking deeply frustrated. “Don’t get a doctor,” Chris says, glancing at Stiles. Then he looks back at Peter. “I told you to splint that. It was going to break all the way sooner or later.”

“Well, forgive me if I thought not looking like a massacre survivor and tipping off people took higher priority,” Peter mutters. He ignores Chris’ flinch and reaches up without looking; whatever he’s needling at, it’s old, and old enough that Chris looks like shrugging it off is reflex.

Chris grabs Peter’s hand, and then they do this weird thing where Chris sort of swings Peter against the trailer and Peter stands up at the same time, and Peter’s leg bone lets out another gross moist cracking noise. Then Peter is leaning on the bumper with a straight leg. He drums his fingers against it three times, then gingerly attempts to put his weight on his leg and he does not fall over screaming.

“Okay.” Stiles doesn’t come any closer. “Okay, a couple things. One, you are so lucky everybody is sick and tired of me keeping them up banging on shit, so we’re way over in the corner. Two, I know my cooking’s pretty good, but you don’t have to maim yourself to get stuff for me, that’s the whole point of me figuring out how to work with unfresh ingredients. Three…so you’re carnivorous supersoldiers?”

Peter laughs. He tests his leg again, then carefully straightens up. The leg is definitely taking his weight, and he obviously felt pain before so it’s not like he just has a high pain threshold.

“We’re not that, but…look, it’s a really long story and I think what’s more important right now is that there is this…there’s this zombie in the preserve,” Chris says, sighing. “It’s not normal. It’s stronger than a regular zombie, it seems to do fine on animal meat, and also headshots don’t seem to work on it. We’ve been trying to take it out for a month—we were at it last night, but it got away.”

“Well, why wouldn’t you say something sooner?” Stiles takes a step towards them, but stops when Chris promptly slides sideways, getting between him and the radio again. “I mean, seriously, small-town pride is great and all, but—”

“It’s not an issue of pride. If we were still standing that, I’d…” Peter glances at Chris, then shakes his head “…we didn’t because there’s no point in sending people who don’t know what they’re doing after it. That will just make things worse.”

“And now we’re back to the cryptic bullshit,” Stiles says, throwing up his hands. “Okay, you know what? I’ve totally had it with you two. I don’t know what the hell is going on, but I don’t appreciate being used as your little—little—God, I don’t even know. It’s just, you cannot fucking come here and throw your food gifts and your random clues at me and then act like I’m going to—you know what, I don’t know that either! What the hell. What the hell are you doing?”

Neither of them have the remotest right to look as flummoxed as they do, but they do it anyway. Chris gestures limply a few times, then puts his hand over his face, while Peter just stares blankly at Stiles.

“Don’t look like that!” Stiles snaps. “I mean, God, do you even realize how weird you are? You brought me goddamn bear meat when you’re in the middle of tracking down some uber zombie? Why would you do that?”

“The bear was there,” Peter says, still blank. He does seem to recognize that Stiles isn’t getting it, even if he can’t seem to understand why, and he waves his hand at the bag of meat. “We thought it was—the zombie, but it wasn’t, but it was dead by then and well, why waste it? Besides, we haven’t brought you any for a few days.”

Chris is slightly further along, and at least is acting disappointed with himself. He sinks down into a crouch again, running both hands over his head and muttering under his breath. “Goddamn it,” he says. “Goddamn it, I can’t believe—damn it, Peter, you said it shouldn’t kick in anymore. There are enough of us.”

“What shouldn’t kick in?” Peter says, irritated. “Look, Argent, for someone who’s studied—as much as you have, I seem to be teaching you an awful lot about—”

“And leave me out of your couples fight, too,” Stiles snaps.

Both Peter and Chris look up at him. Peter opens his mouth, pauses, and then hums thoughtfully. “Well, I suppose I can see where that comes from,” he says.

“We’re not a cou—it’s complic—oh, look, we need to talk to your father first because if this zombie manages to bite or scratch you—” Chris starts.

“—it turns you into a zombie?” Stiles yelps.

“No,” Peter and Chris both hiss. Then Chris sighs and turns around. He looks here and there and then picks up the radio.

“How do you raise your dad?” he asks Stiles.

Stiles stares at him.

“I know I was keeping you from it, but I don’t—we really need to talk to him, not you,” Chris says, sighing again. He flips the radio on. “I’m sorry, okay, I know we’re behaving oddly. But this is important. The thing’s on the move.”

“Well, you could’ve led with that.” A little, perverse, highly self-destructive part of Stiles wants to stonewall Chris. But the majority of him realizes that however much he’s being jerked around, if they are telling the truth about this new kind of zombie, he’d better get his dad back pronto.

So he tells Chris what frequency and code word to use, and then, when his dad comes on pissed off and worried about somebody not Stiles hailing him, he even climbs back up and talks his father down. Explains very nicely that Chris and Peter are waiting for him, and then lets them tell his dad why while he runs over to the communications trailer and lets them know they’d better call back everybody, and goes back to his trailer and ends the call.

And then he kicks Peter and Chris out. Peter tries to say something about clearing things up later and Stiles shuts the trailer door in his face. Then he picks up his soufflés (which have fallen, because jerkass liars who blow hot air aren’t good for them) and the bag of bear meat. He sticks the bear meat in the fridge and then eats a deflated soufflé.

Well, it’s not bad, Stiles thinks. Then he sighs and puts down his spoon, and pulls over his laptop.

* * *

“Okay, so we have a kind of zombie that won’t die unless you cut the head off, except we can’t get close enough, because if it bites or scratches you, you get infected with some unidentifiable but definitely untreatable disease,” Stiles’ dad says.

Chris and Peter both nod; Chris is more believable because he just looks fed up with all this shit, while Peter is still trying to catch Stiles’ eye.

“So why can’t we just shoot it enough times to make it go down, and then go up and cut off its head?” his dad asks.

“Because we tried that and it didn’t work,” Chris says.

Stiles’ dad frowns and waits…and waits. Finally he sighs and pulls himself forward so he can lean over their table. “And why didn’t it work?”

“Because it’s unusually durable,” Peter says, giving up on Stiles. He looks Stiles’ father in the eye and his expression is a well-balanced mix of concern, nervousness, and bewilderment. “Believe me, we’ve tried all the firearms we’ve got.”

“Well, okay.” Stiles’ dad waits half as long this time, then turns around. “Son, you didn’t take apart the—”

“No, fifty-cal’s still in one piece,” Stiles says. He spoons up some of the hot chocolate (bulked out with a little cream that still isn’t turning into butter), tastes it, and then gives the pot a few more stirs while he gropes for the cocoa powder with his other hand. “Also, we can totally get a howitzer or maybe even a tank, though that’d take a couple—”

“What? Are you crazy?” Chris says, jerking up. “That’d destroy the whole preserve!”

Stiles’ dad starts to reply, then just sighs and shakes his head. He puts his elbows up on the table and rests his chin against his hands, and looks at Chris.

Peter raises his brows. “Yes?”

“Do you actually know much about field artillery?” Stiles’ dad says.

“Here’s a clue: blast radius of what we’re talking about is bigger than a human body but definitely smaller than a couple hundred acres,” Stiles says. The hot chocolate’s ready so he pours out a mug for himself and his dad, then pointedly bangs the pot back onto the stove.

Chris flinches, but doesn’t look over; Peter does look over and his lips tighten, but he doesn’t flinch. He does finally look tired, and when he straightens up, his hand slips down to his leg.

“The zombie is…also unusually mobile,” Peter finally offers. He seems genuinely wary about their reaction. “The body is completely intact, it’s not hampered by any missing limbs.”

“So? Still shouldn’t be able to outrun a good gunner,” Stiles’ dad says.

“It doesn’t have the rigor mortis issue, not really,” Chris says. He’s just as reluctant—maybe even a little more, with how he’s shifting so he has a clear line for bolting out of the trailer once he tips over his chair. “It—it kind of heals itself, all right? It’s still dead, muscles are stiff, but they aren’t degenerating all the time like regular zombies. So it can really move. I guarantee you try and take in artillery, even a fifty-caliber gun, you’re just going to end up shooting your own men.”

Peter raises his hand before Stiles’ dad can say anything. “And it has the coordination to climb, so no, we cannot pin it down in the quarry.”

“Well, how the hell are you all still alive if this thing’s that fast and that strong?” Stiles’ dad says, disbelieving. “It should’ve rampaged through this place—hell, we should’ve heard of it long before this. I should call into command, let them know we need air—”

“You can’t call the military!” Chris snaps, jolting halfway out of his seat. He’s wide-eyed and snarling, like really snarling, lips pulled way back from his teeth.

Stiles’ dad goes for his gun, but Peter grabs Chris by the arm and shoves him back into his seat. And just like with the barrel of chowder, Peter doesn’t seem to actually work at it. He does, however, put visible effort into his apologetic smile.

“Mr. Stilinski,” Peter says. “I’m sorry, we’re a little—it’s just that our land is all we have left. We’re all stuck living in temporary shelters for now, but we’re still hoping that we can move back when this is all over. And that we’ll have something to move back to that’s not a…a…”

“Burnt-out wasteland?” Stiles says.

Peter smiles a little less apologetically. “Yes, quite. Stiles, would it be much trouble if I could get a glass of water?”

“Okay, look, I get it. I do. But if this thing is really as dangerous as it sounds, putting it down might be a little more important. Plants grow back,” Stiles’ dad says. He lifts both hands, slightly slower than normal, and sets them on the table. “Still, I’d like to work with you, all right? So give me a reason why we don’t have to call in an air strike.”

“Because it doesn’t go very—it’s got its territory and it doesn’t go out of it that often. We can’t manage to kill it but we can chase it back, and once it’s there, it’ll stay put,” Chris says. He twists his arm free of Peter, then puts his other hand up and feels carefully at his shoulder, fighting back a grimace.

Which means he misses the spark in Stiles’ dad’s eyes, and the warning glance Peter shoots him. “Territory,” Stiles’ dad repeats. “Right. You sure this thing’s actually a zombie?”

“It came back from the dead, trust me,” Peter says. “I personally saw the…ah, living individual’s end. And resurrection.”

“Well, I’m not arguing with that. I’m just saying, it sounds an awful lot like it’s got a working brain.” Stiles’ dad leans back in his chair and, while he isn’t the kind of guy who’d look smug about somebody’s misfortunes, he does look like he expects a good explanation from Peter.

“He doesn’t think, all right? We tested that,” Chris snaps. He jerks back in his chair, roughly enough that Peter starts to reach for him again, and then slaps away Peter’s hand. Then he runs his hand back through his hair, looking away. “It used to be my goddamn father, so I think I would know if there’s any of him left in there.”

Peter goes very still, his eyes on Chris, and he’s not looking at the guy with sympathy. Stiles doesn’t think his dad sees it, because deep down his dad is kind of a soft touch and right now he’s looking more than a little embarrassed at jabbing Chris there, even though he couldn’t have known, but Stiles does. And then Peter catches him at it and Stiles snorts and doesn’t even try to pretend he wasn’t watching. He holds up the empty cup, then the water pitcher, and then dramatically pours water into the cup.

A flicker of amusement goes over Peter’s face. Then he rolls back his shoulders and looks at Stiles’ dad. “I use the word ‘territory’ very loosely,” he says soberly. “I only mean that the zombie seems to have a certain area, which is in the preserve, that it instinctively returns to. It’s not any higher thinking than an animal recognizing a familiar smell.”

“All right, fine, let’s just take it as a given that this thing is going to stay where you say it will,” Stiles’ dad says after a moment. “But I’m still having a problem seeing what exactly you think we’re going to do. You don’t want me to bring in bigger guns than you’ve got, and you keep saying that we can’t just mass up against it because—actually, let’s go back to this thing’s bite. We already know zombie bites can make people sick.”

“Not like this,” Chris says sharply.

“Well, I understand if it’s bad, but it’s been a little bit now and the medical guys have seen a lot of different infections. And they don’t have cures for all of them, and I can tell you that every single person in this camp knows that and understands and has accepted that risk.” Stiles’ dad hesitates, then doesn’t look over at Stiles. “So I don’t understand what could be so different when this thing bites you. What’s worse than dying?”

“Is it a zombie vampire?” Stiles says suddenly.

“What? No,” Chris says, blinking hard. He doesn’t look like Stiles is talking crazy, just like that’s not right.

Stiles’ dad does look over at him now, also not like Stiles is talking crazy, but like he’d just rather not go that way, please. Which does tug at Stiles, but fortunately, his guilt complex is severely underdeveloped and it’s easy to ignore.

“Does it have anything to do with the howling?” Stiles says.

Peter takes a second too long to look surprised. “The what?”

Stiles snaps his fingers. “Zombie werewolf! Right? Right?”

Chris actually opens and closes his mouth. As in, his jaw goes very slowly all the way down, then comes all the way up.

“And if it bites you, you turn into a zombie werewolf?” Stiles says. “Okay, no, you just turn into a regular werewolf? That’s the big deal?”

“Stiles,” his dad finally says. “You know, it actually is.”

“What, turning into a werewolf?” Then Stiles points the mug at Peter. “Wait, then that makes you—”

“A werewolf. Yes.” Peter had frozen up again, just his eyes darting back and forth between Stiles and his dad, but now he settles back into an effortlessly rueful expression. He even shrugs helplessly. “Which is not something we would like—”

“Oh, yeah, of course, army doesn’t need to know everything,” Stiles says. Then he goes forward and shoves the mug of water at Peter, who actually seems a little shocked to get it. He stands back and grabs his mug of hot chocolate, drains it, and then turns around. His eyes cross the stove and he sees the pot with the remaining hot chocolate, gives in, and just makes up a mug each for Peter and Chris. “Okay, so that explains the healing and the raw meat stuff, right, it’s some malnutrition thing—”

Chris shifts around and leans away from his mug like it’s going to explode on him or something, but as Stiles keeps moving around him to grab things, he sort of relaxes. It’s the kind of relaxed where you think bad shit is going to happen but you’re paralyzed with the need to know what kind of bad shit it is, but it unclamps his jaw enough for him to try the hot chocolate. “If we don’t get enough, it—yeah, it’s not great. And the zombie needs it too. It’s been chewing up all the game. Look, the reason why we came was—”

Stiles starts up again, interrupting his dad. “Wait, but if it’s a zombie werewolf and the bite just makes werewolves, not zombies, then wouldn’t it have had to be a werewolf to start with? Which means werewolves existed before zombies, which means—”

“Well, this one wasn’t a werewolf at first, but generally, yes, you’re right,” Peter says. He’d gone for the hot chocolate right off, and looks like it’s almost making up for this whole conversation.

“—oh, my God, we have zombie werewolves crawling out of the ground!” Stiles says.

Chris gets a very pinched kind of look on his face. “We actually don’t, we handled most of them. It’s just this one.”

Stiles ignores him because Stiles is looking up something on his laptop.

Stiles’ dad makes a small, embarrassed noise. “Sorry about that. He gets…anyway, Chris, you were saying you actually do have a plan here, and you haven’t been dancing around this for no reason?”

“You’re…being very calm about this,” Chris says. “In my experience, most people don’t take it so well.”

“And he does speak from experience,” Peter mutters. Then he ignores Chris’ glare and makes little happy noises into his hot chocolate. When he catches Stiles’ eye, he smiles and then raises his mug a little.

Stiles’ dad coughs and then stares till Peter at least makes a stab at looking ashamed of himself. “You’re lucky we have zombies to deal with first. And speaking of, in a world where you’ve got those, werewolves don’t seem like that much of a stretch,” he says dryly. “We’re here for the zombies, so I don’t really see why we need to bother anybody else without good reason. So can we get to how we’re killing this thing?”

There’s a little pause. Then Chris lets out a heavy sigh. “Well, we were thinking we’d borrow some explosives from you. There are these tunnels out in the preserve that it goes into, so if we collapse one on it, it should stay down long enough to get the head cut off. The thing is, we have to—”

“Full moon!” Stiles shoves his laptop in front of his father. “Full moon, tonight.”

“Werewolves get more aggressive,” Peter explains. “Also, they range farther out. This one’s made it to the middle of town a few times, and this camp is a lot closer than that. You’re going to want to keep most of your people back for defense.”

“So we’re clear, we—” Chris gestures to himself and Peter “—can keep ourselves under control. But we…we’d be stronger if we were in our other forms.”

“Which you’re not very keen on showing to outsiders,” Stiles’ dad says. “Okay. Noted. I appreciate the concern, but there’s no way I can just give you the explosives and let you go off on your own.”

Chris and Peter look at each other, and there’s definitely a little bit of an I-told-you-so tilt to Chris’ head. Peter’s eyes flick sideways in just the start of an eye-roll. Then Peter shrugs, and they both turn back to Stiles’ dad.

“What did you have in mind?” Peter says, putting down his hot chocolate.

* * *

Stiles is just pouring the batter into old propane tanks when somebody clears their throat. “Two seconds,” he says. He lifts up the mixing bowl, shakes a last drop down, and then carefully sets the bowl to the side. Checks the tank rim for dribble, caps it, and then strips off his gloves and turns around. “Yeah?”

“Are you Stiles?” says a girl. She’s tall and dark-haired, and pretty in a very girl-next-door kind of way, and she’s standing with a scowling, tall, dark-haired guy who has Lon Chaney version written all over his eyebrows. “I’m Allison. I think you know my—”

“Dad, yeah, we’ve met,” Stiles says. He counts the number of empty tanks, makes a face, and then pulls the gloves back on and grabs the bowl. “So let me guess, you’re somehow related to Peter?”

“I’m his nephew, Derek,” the guy says.

“Um, sorry,” Allison says, after a few seconds of silence go by. “Are we bothering you?”

“Well, a little, yeah,” Stiles says. He steps around them and ducks back into the prep tent. It’s empty now, so the others must’ve finished and gone off to fill out the perimeter watch. “Also, shouldn’t you be out in the preserve with my dad?”

Derek pokes his head in and then snorts so loudly that Stiles jumps and grabs for the nearest thing to hand, thinking it’s a gunshot (luckily for him, it’s the hose attachment to the tap and not the bottle of concentrated lye next to it). Then he edges into the tent, sneezing and rubbing at his eyes and nose. “What the hell are you doing in here?” he mutters.

“Baking,” Stiles says. He rinses the bowl off in the sink, then sets it aside when he notices some corrosion on the bottom. His gloves are looking pretty beat, too, so he turns around to get a new pair and catches Allison coming in, eyes watering, face screwed up in determination. “Okay, seriously, I’m starting to realize you’re all profoundly strange on top of the werewolf gig, but what’s with hanging around with me all the time?”

“Peter wanted us to watch you,” Derek says, like this should somehow be obvious.

Well, to a certain extent, it had been on Stiles’ mind. He is a little disappointed to see that they’re going with this scenario, seeing that they’d been smart enough to give up the lying. “Okay, well, just so you know, both my Dad and I are supposed to report into command tomorrow. Also, we didn’t tell anybody what you are, but we did tell them there’s a strange kind of zombie wandering around so definitely, definitely investigate any weirdness or random disappearances.”

Derek looks confused. He starts to say something, pauses, and then busts out scowl mark two, the slightly oversized teeth version. “He wanted us to watch you to make sure you’d be okay,” he snaps, like this should be even more obvious. “We’re not going to kill you.”

“You’re pack,” Allison says.

Stiles blinks. And then blinks again.

Allison raises her hand, then grabs her nose with both hands and whips her head down into a sneeze. She straightens back up, still sniffling, and then mumbles a thank-you when Stilies hands her a paper towel. Gives her nose a quick scrub and then grabs his arm. “Wait, wait, you didn’t—they didn’t—”

“But they keep bringing you stuff,” Derek says, again, looking like the world should just make sense, damn it, and like it’s everyone else who is getting in the way. “Like meat. There’s—we barely have enough to go around, we aren’t sharing with anyone else—”

“Well, actually, I think Dad was bringing you the ducks to just bribe you for food for me the first time,” Allison says. She suddenly smiles and actually jumps a little in happiness, and it totally works on her. “Oh! Thank you so much, by the way. Honestly, the diet’s been the hardest part to adjusting for me, I don’t know why, I’m not that squeamish. But I wasn’t really keeping the meat down. And the other stuff we had just disgusting, so I’d pick at it, and then get really hungry and go eat a ton of deer, and then I’d get sick again. Dad was worried I was going to starve, but he heard about you and your food’s been amazing. I feel so much better now, thank you!”

And then she hugs Stiles. He’s had a lot of people tell him in a lot of different ways how great his food is, but he has to admit, this is the first time anybody’s ever tried to injure him. His ribs are way close to giving way, but Allison is practically oozing rays of gratitude and honestly, they’re kind of melting his sarcastic little heart.

“And the milk and eggs and stuff. I mean, Peter actually chased a cow down,” Derek says, still looking confused. “That was weird, since you’re not pregnant, or a female, but—”

“He does cook really well,” Allison says, finally releasing Stiles. When he winces and touches his ribs, she looks a little guilty and gives him a light pat on the shoulder. “Crap, sorry, forget about the strength sometimes, too. Anyway, Dad’s been having some trouble with some of his new instincts, and cooking is kind of a thing for him. He always says my mom won him over with her cooking.”

“Can we just skip to the part where I had no idea about werewolves till three hours ago and thus am categorically incapable of informed consent, denial, or even just asking what the fuck?” Stiles says. He brushes himself off, looks around the tent, and then sighs. “Actually, forget that. This is weird, but whatever, we have bigger issues. I am in the middle of a fucking militia camp, we have range weapons, while my dad is out chasing around the UZW—”

Allison and Derek both make ‘wha?’ faces, Derek with an extra annoyed head tilt.

“Uber Zombie Werewolf, okay, keep up. Anyway, I’m fine here, so take your werewolf-y asses out there and back up my dad,” Stiles snaps. He yanks a fresh mixing bowl off the counter, pulls out new gloves, and then starts pulling down bottles and powders. “I mean, seriously, for fuck’s sake, what idiot thinks I’d rather have a personal bodyguard than my dad in one piece?”

“Um, well, I think your dad should be fine,” Allison says. “He’s out with my dad and Peter and Laura, and they’re the strongest.”

“Yeah, well, forgive me if I don’t believe you.” Stiles measures and sifts and pours, pointedly banging things down when either Derek or Allison get too close. He grabs a stirring rod and starts in on mixing, then gets hold of himself enough to remember he needs to do this in the sink. So he nudges on the tap, adjusts it till the water’s flowing enough to make a little puddle around the base of the bowl, keeping it cool, and then keeps stirring.

Derek sighs. “And why don’t you believe us?”

“Well, because your uncle and your dad showed up looking kind of beaten-up today, and also, because they showed up because they needed help killing this thing, and needed it so bad they broke your little omerta code of silence?” Stiles says. He pauses to check the batter’s color, then reaches for a bottle and jiggles a few more shots into the batter. Then he folds it in very delicately; no point in ruining a batch just because stupid werewolves.

“I know,” Allison says, sounding frustrated herself. “I know, that liar, he said he hadn’t gotten…anyway, they should be fine. They just said that Gerard wasn’t at the tunnel and they can lay the charges.”

Stiles frowns. Then he looks up and over at her.

Derek flaps his hand outside, just as a distant howl sounds. “Wolf talk,” he says.

“Cute,” Stiles says, absolutely not impressed. He glances down at the bowl, then lifts it out of the sink and starts to carry it outside. “But also, not answering my question.”

“They aren’t going to take him on, they just need to lead him around, and they’re all still faster than him,” Derek says. “Yeah, they’re a little hurt, but that’s just because he’s an alpha and for some reason it doesn’t matter that he’s also a zombie.”

“Different kinds of werewolves, alphas are stronger, if they hurt you, you don’t heal as fast as if anybody else hurts you,” Allison immediately rattles off. She follows Stiles outside and then frowns as he starts filling up one more propane tank. “What are you doing? I thought you cooked.”

Stiles caps the tank and goes back into the tent. “I do. I am. I’m baking.”

With a dragging sigh, Derek, who’d reluctantly followed them out, about-faces just in time to breathe down Stiles’ neck as Stiles rinses out the bowl. “So look, the point is, they’ll be fine, we just need to stay here so they can concentrate on what they’re doing.”

“Yeah. Sure. Whatever.” Stiles puts the bowl aside and then casts around till he finds the Tupperware of cupcakes. He grabs that, his backpack, and his lacrosse stick of doom, and then he goes back out of the tent, where Allison had smartly decided to wait. “Hey, so if this is a full moon, and the reason you guys came to us was you were worried UZW would wander all the way to the camp, and UZW’s not in the preserve right now…so where is it?”

“They didn’t say it wasn’t in the preserve,” Allison says. “They just said it wasn’t in the tunnel.”

Stiles puts the cupcakes into his backpack and then pulls out his phone. He texts the guard leader to let him know the propane tanks are ready. She texts him back that somebody will be over in two minutes and to sit tight till they get there. “So they don’t know where it is?”

Derek purses his lips. “Which is why we need to stay put. In the armed camp. Like you said.”

“Hey, I said that was why I didn’t need you around, not that I needed to stay put. Besides, I didn’t know what was going on, and if there was some weird implied invite whatever going on, well, I gave you back most of your food, just in tastier form,” Stiles says. He puts his phone away and shifts his lacrosse stick so he can unstrap the machete from the end. “So you could say I rejected the offer, right, and then you two are home free.”

“I don’t think it works like that,” Allison says uncertainly. She looks at Derek. “Does it?”

He shrugs. “It’s not actually a custom. It’s just we don’t have a lot of meat, we all agreed it was pack-only, but they kept taking it over here. And brought back good food, but they could’ve just given you canned stuff.”

“Well, then why are you even listening to Peter in the first place?” Stiles says.

Derek pauses, then makes a face. “Honestly, I wonder that a lot.”

“Okay, great, then we’re good, right? Awesome, bye.” Just then the guy from the guard comes in. He and Stiles exchange a brief hello and Stiles points out the marks that distinguish the empty tanks from the full ones, and then it’s a fist-bump and Stiles is on his way.

For about two steps, and then he’s got a werewolf entourage. And while he’d normally be rocking the hell out of that (Allison isn’t exactly his type, but he’s not going to pretend she and Derek aren’t very easy on the eyes), or at least quizzing them up and down about werewolf myth versus reality, right now he’s got to get going, and they are like lead weights on his balloon string, for all that they aren’t actually touching him. Derek just has this way of inserting himself into Stiles’ personal space—yeah, family resemblance there—that makes Stiles instinctively backtrack, while Allison keeps trying to ask him where they’re going.

“Okay, look, even if you’re not pack, Peter asked us to keep you clear,” Derek finally snaps. “He doesn’t do that.”

“And Dad really feels like he owes you for the food and me, I think,” Allison adds. “He doesn’t want you or your dad to get messed up just because of us.”

“Well, I’m very flattered and all, but Peter’s going to have to deal with his squishy little feelings on his own, and Chris can pay me back in more ducks.” Stiles gets to where they keep the jeeps and tosses his backpack into the nearest one.

Derek promptly pulls the backpack out. He snorts when Stiles glares at him. “Are you seriously going to drive out there? With a machete, a metal stick and some cupcakes? What are you going to do, offer him dessert?”

Stiles would answer him, except just then Allison’s eyes start glowing in the dark. They’re also wide and shocked, and he’s pretty sure those things poking from under her lip are fangs.

Derek’s head snaps around. He sniffs twice, then snarls and does a standing jump from the ground onto the top of the jeep, and then bounds over the electrified fence. At least he drops Stiles’ backpack; Stiles grabs it, stuffs it back into the jeep, and then turns to Allison.

Allison…looks significantly hairier and clawed, and has her head back in a deafening howl. Then she leaps up and follows Derek.

“Okay, well, great job sticking with me,” Stiles says. He hits the jeep radio and lets the guard leader know they’ve got a bogey, climbs in himself, and starts up the engine.

* * *

It takes about twenty seconds to find the UZW. The thing is this big, hulking, man-beast with really gross white skin that sort of glows in the dark, courtesy of a thin film of fungus all over it, and with a very odd, very noisy sort of lurching lunge way of moving about, much faster than any zombie they’ve seen before. It’s shambling around the back of the high school, beating at the boarded-up windows and doors, while Derek and Allison snarl and dart at it.

They’re trying to force it back around the school, though instead of driving towards the camp’s lights, they keep herding it towards the treeline. Stiles is all for keeping secrets, but come on, they’ve kind of blown that shit with the jumping the fence and howling routines. So as soon as he’s got an angle on the UZW, he floors the accelerator and slams the jeep into it.

The thing is bulky, but its hind legs are actually very long and sort of spindly, and anyway, upshot is the UZW flips over the top of the jeep instead of sticking to the front like Stiles was planning on. Stiles curses and starts to spin the jeep around, only to have a clawed, furry arm smash through the passenger side window.

He yelps and yanks the wheel the other way, trying to throw off the thing, but it hangs on and gets its other arm in. Blood is splattering everyw—blood. Stiles swears, whips the car around again and scans the area frantically for the UZW while Derek pulls himself the rest of the way in. “You asshole!” Stiles yells at him. “Would it kill you to let me know, live one coming in?”

“What are you doing?” Derek snarls. “Get back to—”

“Drive!” Allison screams from somewhere.

Stiles hits the accelerator just as something jumps onto the back of the jeep. It’s heavy enough to tilt the front wheels off the ground. Then the ceiling dents in, outlines of five claws almost punching through.

Derek at least has the sense to not yell when he could be barreling out the rear window and knocking off the UZW. It smacks him away and then Stiles reverses the jeep into it, driving all the way till he’s got it pinned between the bumper and the school’s loading dock. He grabs his backpack, lacrosse stick and machete and scrambles out of the jeep, just as the UZW swipes it out of the way.

The UZW rises up on its hind legs and looks at him. Well, no, it doesn’t—somebody in the camp swings the floodlights their way, and in the sudden white wash, Stiles can see the flatness of the thing’s eyes. Nothing registering. Its nostrils are flaring but its chest isn’t moving, it’s not breathing. Just going through the motions of sniffing.

It’s disgusting and eerie and strangely fascinating. Stiles stares at it for a moment.

“Stiles!”

That’s his dad. Stiles whips around, only to be knocked off his feet as some—furry—guy skids in front of him. He nearly chops at the werewolf with the machete, and only doesn’t because another furry guy grabs his wrist and yanks it down, and he recognizes the second one’s scowl.

“Oh, hey, here,” Stiles says. He pushes the machete into Derek’s hand and then drops down to dig into his backpack. The first werewolf glances back, sniffing, and Stiles slaps Peter on the shoulder. “Excuse me, if you’re going to be a fucking dick, at least watch the UZW while I’m doing this.”

“Stiles!” His dad comes up behind them. He’s not as out of breath as you’d think, considering he was several miles off just a few minutes ago, though his clothes are a mess. “Got carried,” he mutters, seeing Stiles’ look. “You finish up?”

“Yep, they should be—” Stiles looks back at the camp and sees little figures hurrying around in pairs, each with a propane tank swinging between them “—so, tunnel’s not going to work?”

Stiles’ dad is staring at the UZW. “Well, it is wired, but the zombie doesn’t seem that interested in going back there, does it.”

“It’s—it’s my grandfather,” Allison says, panting. She comes up behind them and Peter goes forward, joining two other werewolves in circling the UZW. “He—he used to be—principal—just for two months but—”

“That territory thing?” Stiles’ dad says. He absently tugs at his clothes. “Huh. Well, this is going to be a bigger mess than the factory downtown, but I guess we can make it work.”

“Factory?” Derek says.

Stiles comes up with the cupcakes. He hands one to his dad and starts eating one himself. “Plan B, in case the thing didn’t want to stay in the woods,” he mumbles. “Was just driving over.”

Now Stiles’ dad is looking back towards camp. A couple people shout questions at him and he gestures to different school exits, but he also takes the time to consider the wrecked jeep. “With the others like I told you, right?” he says dryly.

“God, Dad, I was going to wait, it’s just the UZW showed up first,” Stiles says, exasperated. He finishes off his cupcake and then picks up his lacrosse stick. “Okay, can we get people clear?”

Peter drops back. He also de-wolfs, which is strangely graceful considering it’s massively violating the law of conservation of mass. “What are you doing?” he says. He looks at the people with the tanks. “What are those?”

“Explosives,” Stiles says. When Derek and Allison stare at him, he shrugs. “It is baking, okay? You have ratios and rest time and—”

He burps. He tries to catch it with his hand, but he can feel a little wisp of smoke leak out. Peter’s nostrils flare and his fangs drop down again, while Derek goes stiff and Allison takes a little leap back, eyes wide.

“That’s normal,” Stiles’ dad says. He puts one hand on his gun and uses the other hand to wipe off a few crumbs from his mouth, which he then licks quickly up. “Have one of your people hole the gym door so it can get in, then get out of the way.”

“Also, don’t judge, werewolf,” Stiles says.

“Of course not,” Peter says, but he’s oddly tense. He glances at Derek, who just turns away and lopes over to join a female werewolf blocking the UZW’s right, then lets out this curt, sharp bark.

The werewolf Stiles is guessing is Chris dodges a lunge from the UZW, then punches it in the nose. Then he rolls back. He gets nailed on the leg—Allison gasps and then snarls angrily—but it pulls the UZW out of the way long enough for Derek and what has to be Laura to jump up to the loading dock, dart to the end, and smash through the boards on the gym door.

“I was wondering why you people would block off one of the biggest buildings in town,” Stiles’ dad says casually. “Seemed like a waste of space.”

Peter shrugs just as casually. “Broken gas line.”

“That you could’ve turned off,” Stiles’ dad says. He looks irritably at Peter, then puts his hand on Stiles’ shoulder. “Could’ve mentioned it likes the place, too.”

“Just on full moons,” Peter says. He looks at Stiles, then at Stiles’ dad. “We honestly did not think you would be here this long. Or that, well, you wouldn’t make an issue about werewolves.”

“And if we did, sure, let it maul us, and whoever didn’t die would wolf up and be in the same boat. You know, that, I actually do get,” Stiles says. “But siccing babysitters on me just because you want a cook in your pack? I would introduce you to this great invention called online cooking tutorials, but I got a barbecue to run.”

Then he stomps off before Peter can say anything. His dad seems to want to ask, but the UZW turns around just then and does that creepy not-stare in their direction. Chris starts to shout a warning and Stiles’ dad cuts loose with a long blast of fire that nails the UZW right in the chest.

The werewolves promptly freeze in place, including Laura and Derek, who were nowhere near the fire but who now are directly in the line of the UZW’s jerking stumble. Stiles swears and runs up to the loading dock, and then whacks the two werewolves with his lacrosse stick to get them moving. He hears his dad yell and he turns around, then gets the stick up to his mouth just as the UZW comes at him.

Stiles blows through the stick. When it’s that focused, the fire melts the flesh off the UZW’s face and it staggers back, falling against the brick wall. It’s—it’s been silent this whole time and it’s still silent. No breathing, no voice, and man, is it unsettling. It’s like watching something in a dream, except then it’s so close you can feel your hair singing and you realize it’s real.

Not that Stiles gets that distracted. He lunges across the concrete platform, right along the edge, till he’s on the other side of the UZW, and then he lets out a fiery breath that sends the UZW tumbling through the gym doors, crispy black shreds dropping off as it goes.

The UZW abruptly pulls itself up just inside the doors and Stiles is readying for another blast, except that it comes out all sputtery and smoky. He coughs out some ash bits and makes a face. “Dad, I need another—”

“I got it.” His dad blows a fireball that sends the UZW toppling into one of the empty swimming pools, then climbs up onto the platform. He’s got Stiles’ machete.

Stiles hops down off the platform and almost drops the lacrosse stick in the grass. At the last moment, he sees it’s glowing red and a little melty (damn it, that scrapyard guy totally lied about the alloy) and tosses it onto the platform instead to cool. “So, yeah, don’t touch that, doesn’t burn me but it will you,” he says.

The werewolves are all huddled together in a bunch, just as quiet as the UZW. They’re all de-wolfed, too, except for their glowing eyes. Chris has Allison wrapped tightly in his arms and he keeps trying to turn her head into his shoulder, except she keeps shaking him off. Neither of them really look that well, but they have this grim expression like they think they have to watch.

Stiles is about to suggest otherwise when he hears a retching noise. Derek is on his hands and knees and throwing up, while his sister holds onto his shoulders. Peter is crouching next to them, one hand on Derek’s back. He’s staring at the gym door with a kind of glazed, fixed look in his eyes, nauseated and angry and also more than a little shell-shocked. When Stiles moves across his field of vision, he twitches violently and then blinks hard, like he’s waking up.

“Need to refuel,” Stiles says, grabbing another cupcake. “So, um, I don’t think… you need to watch, you know. We’re going to cut off his head and then blow up the gym to make sure, and also hide all of the evidence.”

Nobody says anything. They just keep looking at him, and finally Stiles just turns around and kind of jogs quickly into the gym, stuffing the cupcake into his mouth as he goes. His dad’s down on the bottom of the pool with the UZW, who might have super healing powers, but who can’t immediately regenerate its entire muscle mass.

But it is trying, and doing pretty good at it, which makes Stiles sigh. He clears his throat and his dad moves aside so he can give it a couple blasts, then goes back to finish chopping off the head.

“Everything good out there?” his dad asks.

“Um, I think,” Stiles says. He crisps the severed head for good measure, then gives his dad a hand out of the pool. “I guess werewolves don’t like fire?”

“Oh,” his dad says. He considers the machete in his hand, then gives Stiles an apologetic nod as he tosses it back into the pool. “Well, sorry to hear that. We ready to blow it?”

“Yep,” Stiles says.

* * *

It’s pretty straightforward clean-up work after that. Sure, they haven’t blown up a whole gym before, but his dad’s got a great team and Stiles’ cooking is the least of the reasons why they’re all fully invested in making the cover story work. Nobody even grumbles too much about having to shift camp in the middle of the night to over by the former YMCA.

Well, they’re going to be leaving town soon anyway. Whatever the werewolves’ deal is, Chris and Laura show up promptly the next day to discuss follow-up sweeps with Stiles’ dad, which should be easy. Orders on where to go next will probably show up in the next few days.

Stiles swaps an extra share of smoked fish with two of the guards for extended shower time, makes sure he doesn’t smell like brimstone anymore, and then goes back to what he does. So werewolves don’t like fire. Well, a lot of people don’t. It is a pretty nasty weapon, and it’s just unfortunate that most of the time, zombies don’t catch fire nearly as fast as all the stuff around them, so Stiles and his dad can’t pull it out more. And anyway, they’re leaving.

The butter churn finally works, so Stiles is sitting in front of the trailer shaping bars when Chris shows up. Sort of. The guy stands off a few yards, half-hidden behind a stack of crates, and then eases around it and scuffs his way over.

“I heard you two minutes ago,” Stiles mutters. “Also, um, we don’t breathe fire all the time. It’s not like if you surprise me, I’m gonna burn you.”

“I know, you’re a salamander,” Chris says. He smiles thinly when Stiles’ head jerks up. “My family studies that kind of thing. Well. Studied.”

Stiles blinks a few times. Puts his current stick of butter into the cooler at his feet, and then wipes his hands off. “Okay. Um, so what are you doing being a werewolf? Not that I know much about hunters, but I could’ve sworn you guys, you know, hunted?”

Chris grimaces. He inhales like he’s going to start, then pauses to look around. When he spots an empty crate, he flips it over and then sits on it. “Long story, but basically, we were hunting. The Hales, except my…sister and my father honestly just wanted to kill people, it wasn’t real hunting. I was trying to stop them with my wife and Allison, and we all ended up at the Hales’ house in the preserve. This was the night the zombies came up, and the Hales have a family cemetery in the backyard. Had.”

“And UZW is the only zombie werewolf left?” Stiles immediately says. “You’re sure?”

“Yes, Gerard was. We made damn sure of that,” Chris says. He frowns at Stiles. “You really don’t know anything about werewolves?”

“Dad might, me, I never met any before so I never thought about whether they were real.” Then Stiles rolls his eyes at Chris’ expression. “Just because I’m a mythical creature doesn’t mean I’m obsessed with them. There’s other cool stuff in the world, like pyrotechnics and explosives engineering. Anyway, what, you wolf up and suddenly you’re all cool with each other?”

“Well, no, but having to help each other kill your own family tends to make you get to know each other. And given who they were—Peter and I don’t agree on much, but he’s right in that in this case, it’s decent therapy,” Chris says. He’s not as sarcastic as he makes out, with that flash of blue in his eyes and the fists on his knees, but he does a pretty good drawl. “You should know, Kate and Gerard tried to burn some of the Hales alive, a couple years ago, and then again just before the zombies. Weren’t really that careful about who else was around, either—my wife died in the second fire.”

Stiles takes that in. He drums his fingers on the table, then pulls the butter over and carves off another chunk. Pats it into rough log shape, rolls it in wax paper and sticks it in the cooler. Cleans off his hands.

“Oh,” is what he finally comes up with.

“That’s why we might have reacted a little badly last night,” Chris says. Not soothingly or anything like that, just straightforward fact. He glances at the butter and then looks a little embarrassed. “Anyway, I wanted to…to let you know that, and that we’re all very appreciative of what you and your father have done. With Gerard, but also generally around here. The food—”

“Yeah, about that—”

“I’m sorry if that was a little weird.” Chris makes a face like he knows exactly how awkward that sounds. “I’m—Allison and I are still getting used to this. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. It’s just…she wasn’t doing well, and your food helped a lot, and on top of it, it’s probably the best I’ve eaten before or after the zombies, and—it’s been a rough couple months. It was just…very nice to have something good to eat at the end of the day, Stiles, and anyway, I wasn’t courting you or anything like that.”

Stiles nods slowly. “Okay. Well. Good to know.”

“It’d be…we are going to miss that if you and your dad move on,” Chris adds. “But I get it, you have to go where you’re needed. Just—you know, if you come back, I’d be happy to hunt whatever game y—anyone needs.”

“Okay, um, well, that’s…um, thanks. I’ll mention it to my dad,” Stiles says. “Um, so, Peter?”

Chris goes from awkward to utterly exasperated. He even flicks his eyes towards the sky. “Look, it might’ve been his dead sister who bit me, but I am not—we’re not seeing each other, and he’s going to come by later. You can ask him what’s his problem yourself,” he says, getting up.

“Oh. Oh, well, that’s not worrying at all,” Stiles says. “Hey, wait—”

When Chris stops, Stiles goes back into the trailer and gets him a container from the freezer. Chris sniffs as he takes the container from Stiles, then grins briefly. “Meatballs?” he says. “Is that actually tomato sauce?”

“Yeah, it’s the bear. I still can’t figure out sausage casings, sorry. None of the stuff I’ve got for artificial ones are food-grade, so I guess it’s real intestines or nothing,” Stiles says. “Shit. Not that that’s a suggestion.”

Chris shrugs. “Sure. Though if I do happen to come across some…”

“Well, wherever we’re going, we’re still staying in the county,” Stiles says after a second. Because okay, the closest they’re going to come to the right stuff is wild boar intestines and that is a heavily-restricted animal right now, but he is not immune to the lure of breakfast sausage. “Give me your phone, I’ll put in my personal number.”

* * *

“Stiles,” Peter says.

“What the hell,” Stiles says.

“Peter wants to volunteer for the patrol,” Stiles’ dad says. “Werewolves can smell and hear zombies up to a mile off.”

He looks at Stiles like he knows exactly how bad Stiles wants to flip this tray of shortbread in Peter’s smiling face, but he can’t just turn down resources like that. Stiles rolls his eyes because yeah, he knows, but come on, Dad, at least text a warning. Don’t just bring the smirking werewolf home for dinner.

“Well, the land around here completely cleared now, and Laura and Chris should be able to handle any stragglers with the rest of the pack,” Peter says. “I offer services that could be better used elsewhere, and as I’ve been told, it’s not fair to be selfish when there are zombies in the world.”

“You’re just trying to hang around till you can figure out some other way to get us to come back here,” Stiles says.

Peter takes something out of his duffel bag and hands it to Stiles. It’s in a box, not a plastic bag, and when Stiles cautiously opens the box, he doesn’t see blood. He sees a brownie.

Stiles breaks off a corner and nibbles it. Definitely box mix, no additions (except maybe it’s powdered egg instead of fresh), strictly following the instructions, sort of dry and a little burnt at the bottom. “Ugh,” he says. “No wonder you want a cook so bad.”

“I’m not just interested in the food,” Peter says. He glances at Stiles’ dad, who has moved to the back of the trailer to check something on his laptop, but who is pointedly still around. “I’m interested in the kind of mind that would see a worldwide zombie infestation and food shortage, and insist on living instead of just surviving.”

Somehow, in the middle of all that stuff, which is cheesy as hell but which still manages to be intense and true and heartfelt, Peter edges up so that he’s pressing against the far side of the brownie box. It’s not a big box, and Peter is, well, hot, and Stiles has a much harder time ignoring that when he’s not annoyed or cooking.

“Um, Dad?” Stiles says. “Thoughts here?”

“I already reminded him that I have a gun, military authorization, and the ability to breathe fire up to twenty yards,” Stiles’ dad says, tapping at his laptop. “Honestly, I thought about just shooting him and burning the body, but you’re a smart kid, Stiles, you can ID and shoot your own idiots without my getting in the way. Also, he’s going in the rearguard trailer.”

“Dad, I love you,” Stiles says. He drops the piece of brownie back in the box, then looks at Peter. “Speaking of. I do, you know, breathe fire. After eating certain combustible substances, and I actually really am not into burning living things, but I’ll do it when I have to.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less,” Peter says. He pauses, then reaches down and closes up the brownie box. “Having been on fire myself, I can’t pretend I’m comfortable around it. I would, however, like you to be comfortable around me. I can stop bringing you meat, since that seems to have left a bad impression—”

Stiles snorts. “Well, trying to co-opt people without their knowing does that.”

“—I didn’t co-opt you, I just wanted to make sure you were all right and that you had what you needed,” Peter says, exasperated. “Whatever my idiot nephew said, that alone doesn’t make you pack. But I do think that you’re a valuable individual and that it would be a terrible waste if you and your projects weren’t supported. If meat isn’t the way to go, very well, I’ll stop.”

“But it makes me somebody you’d really like as pack, doesn’t it?” Stiles mutters. He steps back and only then realizes they’d both been holding onto the box. It’s not like ass-grabbing but he still flushes up and then it gets worse when he sees Peter watching. Not like amused watching either, just…watching him, and God, his dad is right there.

Peter’s eyes flick that way and then he looks amused. “I think that conversation should wait until we’re not talking about torching people.”

“You’re pretty chill about your PTSD. You know, that’s usually a bad sign,” Stiles says, sticking the brownie box in the trash. Then he grabs some shortbread off the tray on the counter and hands it to Peter. “Okay, well, it’s great that you’re helping my dad. We could use it. And I do not condone illegal hunting, the last thing we need is to kill off all the animals while we’re at it, but okay, fine, you don’t have to stop bringing me meat. To each their own and if you’re going to be wolfing out looking for zombies, you might as well grab some squirrels while you’re at it.”

Peter smiles around the cookie. Then he actually eats some and his face transforms into this intently pleasurable expression. He takes out what’s left of the cookie, looks at it, and then delicately and very slowly nibbles away at it. “This is really very good, you know,” he mutters. “I’m shocked nobody’s tried to kidnap you for it.”

Stiles’ dad abruptly coughs. Peter looks up sharply and Stiles shifts uncomfortably. “Um, yeah, so…the whole burning living things when I have to thing,” Stiles says. “And the, um, antisocial thing.”

“Would be helpful if I had somebody to keep an eye out for that,” Stiles’ dad says. “I really hate having to keep Stiles cooped up in camp all the time.”

“I think I could do something about that,” Peter says slowly. “Well, with your permission.”

“If somebody tries to snatch me, you can totally rip the shit out of them,” Stiles says, rolling his eyes. “Although doesn’t that just make them a werewolf?”

Peter grins. It’s big and toothy and Stiles can’t help but like how unrepentantly nasty it is. “Oh, depends on how you do it. I’ve had a little practice, I think we can avoid that.”

“Okay, great, that’s not psycho at all.” Stiles picks out another shortbread cookie and hands it to Peter, and then shoves him back. Mostly ignores how Peter lets him do that, while at the same time doing the dead weight thing so Stiles really has to press his hands into Peter’s chest. “Now, be a good werewolf and don’t bring me shitty food again. Go kill zombies or steal a mattress or something. I gotta start cooking dinner.”

“Yes, Stiles,” Peter says, still smiling.

Once he’s out of the trailer, it’s quiet for a few minutes. Stiles gets dinner (mostly already cooked, though he’s got some assembly) heating on the stove, while his dad works on some reports. Then they both start setting the table; they’re so used to moving around the cramped area that they don’t need to talk for that.

“Are we coming back here?” Stiles finally asks, sitting down.

His dad glances at him, then looks down at the steaming food. “Might,” he says. “Post is going through here, and the town leaders asked for us. Team’s not opposed to it.”

They start eating.

“I think it could be okay, actually,” Stiles says. “Just, you know, zombie werewolves. That’s crazy, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” his dad says. Then he pauses. “Stiles, you don’t think Sasquatch are real, do you?”

They look at each other, mulling over the idea of a giant man-ape zombie.

“You know, I think I’ll bring Peter some more shortbread after dinner and ask him,” Stiles says. “And maybe bake a couple more cupcakes. Just in case.”