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Stiles slumped over the counter and blew a strand of hair out of his face. Ugh, he thought.

It was Tuesday. He hated Tuesdays. They were always so unbelievably slow. He’d be optimistic on Tuesday morning. He’d pack books to read, make a list of tasks to do, but invariably by the time 3pm rolled around he’d be bored, bored, bored.

He hated Tuesdays, hated afternoons, hated the drab little magic shop that was the only job he could get within any kind of reasonable distance from his dad.

He slumped on the counter even more, not even picking himself up when he heard the little bell on the shop door tinkle. Maybe they’d think he was dead and go away.

“My, my, my,” the patron said, instead, in the most patronizing voice Stiles had ever heard. (Get it? Patron– patronizing? Fuck, Stiles needed a new job as soon as possible). “The customer service experience here just keeps getting better.”

Stiles rolled a little so he could look up into the customer’s face. “What do you want?” he demanded.

Peter Hale, thirty-something creeper, black sheep of the Hale pack and, Stiles suspected, probably involved in some kind of illegal activities, especially considering the things he bought, reached over and tugged one of Stiles’ hoodie strings. “Bored?” he asked.

Stiles sighed and stood up. “I graduated summa cum laude,” he complained. “From West Shores, the most prominent magic school on the West coast.”

“Heard of it,” Peter said. He flicked some of the dangling prisms that hung near the register.

“Now I’m working for $12.50 an hour,” Stiles continued. “Yesterday I had to do a palm reading.”

“That’s too bad,” Peter said, entirely unsympathetically. “I don’t know why you’re telling me this.”

Stiles bit his lower lip and looked up at Peter through his eyelashes. “I heard the Hale Pack is looking for a new emissary,” he said.

“They received your application,” Peter replied.

“And?” Stiles asked, bouncing a little on the balls of his feet.

“Stiles,” Peter said, voice soft and silky now. “Darling, diplomacy is not your forte.”

“I could be diplomatic,” Stiles argued.

Peter snorted. “You’d hate it, trust me,” he said. “I know because I hate it.”

“So I should be like you then?” Stiles demanded.

Peter cocked his head to one side. “That’s an idea,” he said, slowly. “I’ve considered hiring a mage. And you did concentrate on offensive magic and wards. That would be quite useful. You also studied a fair amount of tracking magic, didn’t you?”

“Dude,” Stiles said. “Did you memorize my transcripts? That’s pretty creepy.”

Peter shrugged. “I can be creepier,” he offered. He looked over at the amulets and spelled candles. “You did these, didn’t you?”

Stiles nodded.

“I thought so,” Peter said. “Much better work than Glinda ever did.” He nodded. “Yes, it could work.”

Stiles stared at him. “I’m not… I didn’t actually want you to hire me,” he said.

“But you hate working here,” Peter observed.

“Yeah,” Stiles said.

“And you’d like a chance to use more of what you’d studied. And I’d pay you more.”

“But you’re, like, the worst,” Stiles argued.

Peter shrugged. “Better the devil you know,” he said. “You know, over 50% of people cite their bosses as the reason they quit their jobs.”

“So you’re saying that you might be an asshole, but any other employer I get is equally likely to be an asshole?” Stiles asked. “That’s kind of a terrible argument, you know?”

Peter looked unconcerned about this, just pulled a business card out of his billfold and dropped it on the table, then strode out.

“Hey!” Stiles called after him. “Didn’t you come in here to buy something?”

“I did,” Peter said, “and found something even better.” He winked.

“Fuck, he’s creepy,” Stiles muttered to himself. He picked up the card. It was made of a thick, matte black card, printed with black metallic letters, so you had to angle it into the light to read it. “Terrible design”, he muttered, rubbing a thumb over the raised triskelion that the words were printed over, making them even harder to read. “Hale and Associates,” the card read, a phone number and email address printed beneath them. “Supernatural solutions.”

Stiles was pretty sure that was code for ‘hit man’.

…

So the thing about Peter Hale was that he was notorious. The Hales had, in general, a pretty sparkling reputation. First family of the county, guardians of the land, leaders of the regional pack conference, highly invested in the community, the first people you called when you were fundraising, fingers in all the little pies, blah, blah, blah. Basically Beacon Hills royalty.

But Peter Hale… if even half of the rumors were true (and they couldn’t all be true unless he had access to some serious time magic), well, let’s just say he’s the kind of person parents warn their children about. Someone who’s been tangentially related to too many criminal cases for it to have been coincidental, in Stiles’ father’s opinion. A playboy, a heart-breaker, someone who you just know will get you in serious trouble. Hot as burning, and hell, it wouldn’t be a bad way to go.

Someone only a fool would trust. Or get into business with.

…

Somehow, Tuesday afternoon managed to end and Stiles locked up the shop and headed down the street towards the station where he was due to have dinner with his dad. Ran into half-a-dozen people he knew, of course. Stiles was a friendly guy and he’d lived in Beacon Hills most of his life. Asked Mrs. Anderson about her new puppy and Tania Ellis how her new fitness program was going and Everest Mason how his vacation up in the Olympic Peninsula had been.

Fuck Peter Hale– how dare he say Stiles wasn’t good at diplomacy?

The thought almost made him stop in the middle of the street and he had to quickly move aside and apologize to a passing pedestrian for almost walking into her.

Was Peter Hale the reason he hadn’t even gotten an interview with the Hale Pack?

Had he told his sister not to bother him or even made sure she didn’t see his application? It didn’t really make sense otherwise– Talia Hale had supported his father’s run for Sheriff, after all, and they often worked together on supernatural issues in the town. She’d been friendly with his mom, had even made an appearance at her funeral. Surely she would have owed him a courtesy interview at least– let him down in person.

Once the thought occurred to him he couldn’t unthink it. He thought of Peter Hale waltzing into the store, harassing him for a few minutes, suddenly having the bright idea that he might hire Stiles. That had been his plan all along! Keep him from getting hired anywhere decent so he’d have no other options but to go work for Hale and Associates doing God-knows-what.

He pulled out his phone and texted his dad. Sorry, something came up, I’m going to have to miss dinner, and turned back towards where he had parked his car, nearly colliding with the same pedestrian.

…

Peter Hale opened the door to his condo with a scowl. “Stiles,” he said. He stepped aside for Stiles to barge in. “I thought it would take you at least another week of working in that shabby shop to come and see me.”

Stiles whirled on him. “Your manipulative little plan didn’t work!” he exclaimed.

“Oh?” Peter asked. “Mind taking off your shoes? I prefer not to track dirt all over the place.”

Stiles kicked off his shoes with enough force to send one flying into the wall of the little entry-way, leaving a black scuff mark on the wall that Stiles was determined not to feel bad about.

Peter raised his eyebrows, then swept down the hall. “Do you want a beverage? Water? Sparkling water? Beer? You are old enough to drink, aren’t you?”

“You tell me,” Stiles said, miffed that Peter wasn’t disconcerted at all by his anger. “You’re the one who memorized my application– after stealing it.”

“Darling boy,” Peter said, taking two bottles of excruciatingly fancy water out of the fridge, “I have stolen many things in my life, but your application wasn’t among them.”

He held out one of the bottles– glass, Stiles noted– to Stiles and when he didn’t take it, put it down with a clank on the poured concrete counter. “You seem to be laboring under a misapprehension. I did not steal your application from Talia. She rejected it. You are simply not suited to the position.”

“I am perfect for the position,” Stiles argued.

Peter looked at him skeptically. “What is this?” he asked, waving a hand in Stiles' direction.

Stiles looked down at himself. “What is what?”

“You barging in here, demanding whatever it is that you’re demanding. You think that people who are good candidates for emissary do that? You got all in a strop based on a poor understanding of the situation and barged into my private territory looking to have it out with someone easily four times stronger than you and with far more power.”

“I am a fully trained mage!” Stiles exclaimed.

“Political power, darling,” Peter said. “This isn’t a move a good emissary would have made. Something like this could put your whole pack at risk. That is why you’re not suited.”

“Why didn’t Talia tell me that herself?” Stiles demanded.

“Because the search isn’t over yet, so they haven’t begun issuing formal rejections,” Peter said. “But if you want me to get my sister on the phone right now so you can ask her…”

Stiles felt all his energy leave him. Fuck, Peter was telling the truth and he had just made a major fool of himself.

“Oh, don’t do that whole kicked puppy face,” Peter said. “I told you– you’d hate being an emissary. Having to watch what you say all the time and being responsible for all the mindless protocol… honestly, you’re better off.”

“Except I work in fucking Glinda’s fucking Emporium,” Stiles said. He grabbed the bottle of water from the counter, spun the top off and took a swig. It didn’t taste any different from ordinary water, he was satisfied to note.

“Look,” he added with a wince. “I’m sorry I accused you of…”

“Abusing my sister’s trust in me for my own personal gain? Preventing you from getting a job so I could take advantage of you? Don’t fret, dear boy,” he added, with a smirk. “I only wish I’d thought of it. What a lovely devious mind you have.”

Stiles blushed at the ‘dear boy’ and the… compliment?... and took another swig of his fancy water.

“Would you like something to eat? I’m afraid you interrupted me just as I was about to make some dinner.”

“Yeah,” Stiles said. “Sure. Thanks. Sorry.”

Peter smiled benevolently. “And perhaps I could tell you more about my business? And what your role in it would be?”

Great– a sales pitch. But Stiles had been pretty damn rude. The least he could do was to let Peter give him more details. And he was vaguely interested in what ‘Supernatural Solutions’ actually meant.

Peter began filling a large pot of water. “Any allergies? Dietary restrictions?”

“None,” Stiles said. “Except that I hate anchovies.”

Peter nodded. “I think we can work around that,” he teased. He set the water on the stove then went to rummage in the fridge, coming out with a handful of vegetables. “Sauteed vegetables with aio e oio work for you?”

“Garlic and oil?” Stiles guessed. “Sounds great.”

Peter smiled at him and began chopping. “Basically we’re private investigators,” he said, neatly slicing the summer squash and heaping it into a bowl. “I have a PI license. People come to me with anything from searching for a rare book to hunting down a feral omega.”

“What are the cases you take like?” Stiles asked. “What are you working on right now?”

Peter shook his head. “I can’t tell you without an NDA.”

“Not specifics,” Stiles said. “But generally.”

Peter sloughed the skin from a bulb of garlic, then pried off a few cloves, deftly smashing them under the flat of his knife. “Recently I tracked down a child who had been kidnapped by one of her parents,” he said, turning the knife and mincing the garlic with ease. “Her mother’s pack had signed a contract with her father’s pack that she would belong to them, but her mother couldn’t handle it, so she took the kid and ran.”

“Wow,” Stiles said. “What did you do?”

“I discovered the location of the mother and turned the information over to the pack council for them to deal with,” Peter said.

Stiles nodded. “You often work for the pack council?”

“When they’re too good to get their hands dirty,” Peter said. “The good old days of pack wars and vengeance are over. Now emissaries have to be diplomats and everything gets resolved around a council table, or so they’d like you to think. They’re declawing themselves.”

Stiles stared at him. “You wish there were still pack wars?” he asked.

Peter sighed. “No. I think the current system is better, most of the time. They’ve gotten the hunters in check, they have a rehabilitation program for omegas, no one is going on revenge rampages anymore.”

“And you’re there for the times when it isn’t?” Stiles guessed.

“As long as I’m getting paid,” Peter said. “I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty.”

Stiles snorted. “So that’s why you’re trying to recruit a mage with a concentration in offensive magic,” he said.

“Magic is helpful. I can do more than the average person. Certainly more than the average ‘wolf. But there are a lot of things I can’t do that having a mage on my side would help with. And yes, there are times when having some offensive spells wouldn’t go awry.” He slipped the garlic and a stream of olive oil into a pan.

Stiles nodded, sipped on his water again. “So the work would be inconsistent,” he said. “Who are your ‘associates’?”

“Contractors,” Peter said easily. He grabbed another pan and poured olive oil into it, tossed in another few cloves of garlic and a few shakes of hot pepper flakes. “And the work is inconsistent, yes, but I receive more requests than I can fill, so perhaps it’s more accurate to call it ‘variable’. Flexible. Not boring. And it doesn’t consume my life. I can take time off whenever I like. Pursue my interests.”

Stiles sighed for work that wasn’t boring. “Is that what I would be? A contractor?” he asked.

“Perhaps it would be best,” Peter said. “For the first few cases. Give us both the chance to decide if you fit. But in the long run, ideally, you would be employed full time.”

“My pay would be commensurate with my education,” Stiles said. “There would be benefits. Medical care. Paid time off.”

Peter looked at him with raised eyebrows. “There would be a negotiation, yes,” he said.

Stiles bit his lip. “I don’t want to quit my job at Glenda’s if I’m not trading it for something more permanent,” he said.

Peter dumped the pasta in the water. “You’re off Sunday and Monday?” he asked.

Stiles nodded.

“Come around Sunday morning,” Peter said, “and I’ll find you something to do.” It only mostly sounded like he was propositioning him.

The next four days were, well, not as bad as Tuesday. There were more customers and the blanks for the charms and amulets came in, so he was able to spend some of his time charming them in the horribly cramped room at the back of the shop. Plus Wednesday was board night at Scott and Allison’s and Lydia was there, home from her high flying job in New York for a few weeks, wearing designer clothes Stiles couldn’t identify because of how much he didn’t care.

It was nice to see her, or would have been if she hadn’t spent the entire evening trying to convince him to come to New York, describing in detail about how the magical consultancies would be fighting over him, how he could stay in her apartment (“it’s not much, just a floor in a charming brownstone in the village”) and she’d take him around to all the hottest clubs, etc, etc, etc.

Tempting, so tempting. Maybe someday.

Thursday he had dinner with the old man, trying to recreate the pasta dish Peter had made, though he thought it probably called for super fresh farmer’s market vegetables or something. (He overcooked the garlic a little, but it didn’t come out too bad.)

Friday he went out clubbing with Lydia and some of the old gang. Dressed in booty shorts and a tight shirt and reveled in the feeling of eyes following him across the club. Made out for a while with a nice boy named Andrew, but decided not to go home with him after all.

Saturday was the busiest day at Glenda’s, all the preteen wanna be magic-users coming into the store to ooh and ahh over the ritual tools and basic spell books, smelling the herbs and fingering the rune stones and generally causing a mess while their harried parents bought replacement household charms to keep food fresh longer and to keep ants away and ask him questions ranging from the stupid (how do you tell catnip from bee balm) to the tricky (how can I keep the pixie that move into my garden from teasing my cat?)

Saturday nights he was always tired, slumping in front of the tv with takeout, watching something he’d seen so many times he didn’t even really have to pay attention until he felt tired enough that he might sleep, if given the chance.

…

Sundays he usually slept in, so it was more of a pain to drag himself from bed than usual, wolfing down the cold kung pao chicken from the night before, trying to figure out if this were the kind of first day at work where he should dress nice or the kind where he didn’t bother, and ending up in the latter only because he figured it would be worse to arrive late than to arrive looking like a slob.

…

Hale and Associates was run out of an office on the third floor above the shoe store off Main Street, the one that sold the kind of leather shoes only worn by very old men. Stiles walked back and forth for a minute, confused before he noticed the small door, sandwiched between the shoe store and the insurance firm. A tiny placard on the door read “Meyers and Gwen, 2nd floor, Hale and Associates, 3rd floor.”

This is not ADA compliant, he thought as he ran up the flights, too fast in his nervousness, arriving at the door at the third floor landing a little sweaty and a little out of breath. Before he had a chance to recover the door swung open and Peter Hale was standing there, all welcoming smiles.

“Stiles! Do come in.” He was ushered into a large office, as fancy-pants as he had expected, a lovely view of downtown outside the plate-glass windows, pushed down onto a comfortable couch and handed a mug of coffee.

Peter went over to the expansive wood desk. “I just have a thing or two to finish up, dear boy,” he said, as if it wasn’t eight in the morning and he’d been working for hours. “Relax– you look like you could do with a breather.”

Fuck you, Stiles thought, but the couch was very comfortable and the coffee smelled really good and he actually did appreciate the chance to look around for a few minutes, at the bookshelves of books and little artifacts that looked light trinkets unless you had the experience to realize that, no, that was a ward-stone from 13th century Germany, that was a yao-pei from the Ming dynasty, sitting there as casual as you please.

Peter shuffled a few papers, typed a few things into his computer, until Stiles was done with his coffee and itching to get up and look a little more closely at the Mbambi mask which looked pre-colonial.

“Let me give you a tour,” Peter finally said, standing, and Stiles stood up with the empty cup uncertainly held in his hand.

Peter led him through a door to the side and behind the desk, and into a small hallway. “Bathroom,” he said, tapping one of the doors. “Not open to customers.” He swung it open. “First aid kit below the sink, don’t use my pomade.”

“I don’t use pomade,” Stiles said.

Peter turned to cast a judgemental eye on Stiles’ hair, then turned away without commenting. “Kitchen. No fish, no asparagus.”

“What’s wrong with asparagus?” Stiles asked, putting his cup down on the counter.

“I hate the smell. This is the library.” He opened another room, this one large, with more of those plate glass windows, shelves and shelves of books and a large worktable in the center. “You can look at whatever you like, but don’t borrow any without asking. I trust you to use common sense and handle with care.”

“Of course,” Stiles said.

“And this is the spellroom.” He opened another door to reveal a room of the same proportions, but this one outfitted for casting– a basic ritual circle inscribed in the floor on one side, a workbench on the other, fitted with hobs and glassware for distilling and titrating. An ingredient cupboard full of tiny drawers, shelves of candles and scrying bowls, bells and mirrors.

“Wow,” Stiles said, stepping further into the room.

“Like I said, I’ve been doing all the necessary magic myself,” Peter said. “But the truth is I’m no good at tracking spells.” He pointed to a plastic baggie lying on the table. “Those hairs belong to someone we’re trying to track down,” he said. “Can you find them?”

Stiles walked over to the baggie and lifted up, inspecting the hairs inside to see if any had the follicles still attached, or better yet a few drops of blood. “Are they human?” he asked, moving the hair around through the bag with his thumb so he could see the ends better.

“Probably not, but we’re not sure.” Peter leaned against the door jamb. “A teenage kid who was acting pretty strange. Parents think he might have turned into something. Claw marks on his dresser and desk, looking like they might be accidental.”

“Did you inspect the room?”

Peter shrugged. “An odd scent but so many people had been in and out first– the parents had called the police first– that it was hard to get a read on it. His clothes smelled normal, but if he’d just turned then run away…”

Stiles nodded. “So first I’m going to have to test the hair for species– tracking spells vary between species.”

Peter nodded, like he already knew.

Stiles went around the room, pulling out ingredients, testing the edge of the blade of an athame, measuring things into a copper bowl, then dropping a hair in and watching as the herbs smoldered.

He raised a hand and the smoke swirled for a moment, then dissipated.

“Hm,” he said. “Nothing common.”

He put the bowl to the side and took out a mirror, lying it flat on the table before pouring a few oils onto it, sprinkling herbs on top of that, then dropped another hair onto the mixture. Between the streaks of oil he got a glimpse of black chitinous exoskeleton, membranes connecting hard plates.

He whistled. “Something insect-like,” he said. “Arthropodal.”

Peter nodded and left the room for a moment, coming back with volume four of an enormous bestiary. He opened it carefully and flipped through the pages until he came to a table.

Supernatural being with arthropod-like characteristics

“Any other descriptors?” Peter asked, scanning the list.

“The integument I saw was black,” Stiles said. “I don’t know if that narrows it down much. Well, he’s probably not part-lobster.”

Peter grabbed a notepad and began jotting species’ names down. All of the supernaturals that were inherited, recessive, and expressed suddenly during adolescence, Stiles realized, with approval– that narrowed it down to seven.

“He could have been bitten, but it’s not that likely,” he mentioned.

“That’s what I was thinking,” Peter said. “The tracking spell?”

“Oh, right,” Stiles said. “Um, I don’t know any for arthropod-types…”

Peter gave him an unimpressed look.

“Oh, yeah,” Stiles said. “The library.”

He went into the other room, Peter following him. “The magic books are to the north of the windows,” Peter said. “Shelved according to Mawere, of course.”

“Of course,” Stiles said, drawing closer to the shelves. It wasn’t anything like the library at West Shores, of course, but it was still more impressive than anything he’d seen since he left there. His hands itched to get on some of the titles he saw. “How did you get all these books?” he asked, spotting a book he knew had been out of print since the seventeen hundreds.

“The bulk of them belong to my pack,” Peter admitted. “After the arson attempt by the Argents, Talia agreed that it was better to keep them somewhere more secure. Also useful because it keeps the more dangerous spell books out of the hands of inexperienced children.”

Stiles fully supported that, especially because he had spotted a few books on summoning demons.

He located the books on scrying spells and took five he thought might be pertinent off the shelf.

“Not Gupte’s Farsight?” Peter asked, nodding back to where it was now leaning, abandoned by its neighbors.

“Gupte is probably the most useful book on scrying spells,” Stiles agreed, “I have a copy. That’s how I know it’s not going to have the answers we need.”

He put the books down on the table and opened the first, noticing that Peter was still perusing the bestiary, making notes, Stiles assumed, about the possible creatures the teenager might be.

It was hard not to get diverted by interesting sections in the book. (Looking from a Distance, by Kainu'u Alapa had an entire section on scrying for scientific research, including microscopic scrying and still-theoretical sub-atomic scrying.) But this wasn’t an afternoon of researching for a paper, where he could afford to spend half-an-hour reading about ways mages had used scrying to make new biological discoveries– this was, more-or-less, a job interview. And though Stiles still wasn’t convinced he wanted the job– although the library and workroom had gone a long way to convince him he did– he had to keep focused.

A few hours in, Peter interrupted him. “Lunch?”

Stiles looked up at him blankly before he shook his head, blinking, then looked at his watch. Noon.

“Uh, you offering?” Stiles asked. “I didn’t bring anything.”

Peter smiled, clearly amused. “I’m offering,” he said. “I was going to order a sandwich from Tania’s Deli.”

Stiles’ stomach growled. “Yeah, uh, can you get me a reuben?”

Peter nodded and made his way out of the library, calling back that he’d let him know when the food arrived.

By the time the sandwiches arrived, Stiles had a plan. He explained it to Peter over lunch, in the little kitchen.

“I couldn’t find a tracking spell for arthropod-like creatures,” he said, “but I did find a spell for attracting them– a modified ritual to call on the God Ananzi.”

“I suppose it would be easier to attract him than to go find him,” Peter mused.

“Yes,” Stiles said. “Except we don’t know what else it would attract– and we certainly don’t want to actually call on Ananzi.”

“Oh,” Peter said. “No, we certainly don’t. A trickster god is the last thing I need in my life.”

“But if we use Tuiaa’s Reversal…” Stiles began.

“We can change it from a spell attracting him to us into a spell attracting us to him,” Peter completed. “That’s rather brilliant.”

Stiles felt himself blush. “We can link it to a map spell to pinpoint his exact location,” he added.

Peter beamed at him. “Brilliant,” he said. “I knew you would be.”

Stiles tried not to preen under the praise. He finished his sandwich and washed his hands carefully.

“I need to do the equations for the reversal and combination,” he said. “And then I’ll be ready to cast.”

…

It took about an hour to figure everything out and to set everything up in the beautiful ritual circle inlaid in the spellroom. Finally, he was ready to light the candles. He glanced at Peter, who was watching him closely, his head tilted to one side in interest, not distrust or suspicion, Stiles thought, and then he carefully focused.

He lit the candles with a gesture, then went through the spell, reciting the words clearly as he sprinkled the herbs, then the oils, then a few strands of the hair, over the laminated map of Beacon Hills Peter had found for him. With another gesture the candles guttered out, and then Stiles felt the magic swell and he knew his spell had worked. A tiny light flickered to life on the map.

Peter stepped forward and then gave him a questioning glance.

“It’s safe to come in,” Stiles assured him.

Peter nodded and stepped over the barrier into the circle, then looked down at the map. He pulled out his cell phone, jabbed at it a few times, then held it to his ear.

“He’s in the preserve,” he said, without greeting the person on the other end of the line, then read them a string of coordinates. “I’m pretty sure he’s a chilopatine– a centipede-like humanoid creature. Watch out for poisonous feet and sharp fangs. Weak points are the membranes between chitinous plates. He should be human enough that standard tranqs will knock him out.” Pause. “Yeah, okay. Try not to get anyone hurt this time.” He turned back to Stiles, who was gaping at him.

“I thought this was just an exercise!” Stiles exclaimed. “I thought you were just testing me! What if I couldn’t do it?”

Peter raised an eyebrow. “If you couldn’t, no one could.” He raised a hand. “Relax. The pack was tracking him. Everyone was going to be okay. You just gave them an extra edge.”

Stiles slumped a little and Peter gave him a sympathetic look and led him back into the office in the front and gestured for him to slump down on the couch, then reappeared a minute later with a glass of lemonade. “Have you ever done magic before that wasn’t to pass a test?” Peter asked.

“The wards on my dad’s place,” Stiles said. “The amulets at Glenda’s.”

“The stakes are going to be different here,” Peter said. “You’re going to be doing magic that might, at times, save someone’s life. Maybe even your own. Or cost someone’s life.”

“I know that,” Stiles said.

“Sure you know,” Peter allowed. “But have you internalized it?”

Stiles looked away. A moment later, Peter moved away, going over his desk and rummaging around.

“I was planning on having you look at the wards,” Peter said, when he came back, sitting in the armchair across from the couch. He put a manila folder down on the coffee table. “My offer,” he said. “And your payment for today.”

“I haven’t decided I’m going to work with you yet,” Stiles pointed out.

Peter gave him a knowing look, then pushed the folder towards him with one finger. “Feel free to have your dad look over it, or anyone else you trust,” he said, “and call me with any questions you have. I wouldn’t be surprised if you had some, considering the nature of the work. And, if you’d prefer more time to consider, come around next Monday and I’ll see if I can find something else for you to do.”

It was a clear dismissal. With a nod, Stiles took the envelope and got up and went to retrieve his backpack from the coat closet, where Peter had suggested he leave it. He made it to the door before turning.

“Will you let me know how the kid is doing?” he asked. “The chilopatine?”

Peter’s face seemed to relax slightly, and he nodded. “As soon as I hear word, I’ll pass it on.”

Stiles nodded and left.

…

Something they never told you about magic, when they were glorifying magic-users praising this druid for saving a town from a flood or that magician for winning ‘America’s Next Top Magic-user,’ was the odd way it felt after you’d used it– the drain on your system. Kind of like coming down from a sugar high (or, Stiles assumed, a harder drug, though he’d never tried any) combined with an anxious itch that was had to get rid of. He came home from Peter’s feeling restless and listless and drained. Normally– at college– he’d dealt with it by running or going to the gym, but the weather was nasty and he hadn’t been able to afford a gym membership.

He picked up a book but put it down after twenty minutes, turned on the TV only to idly flicker through the channels. Finally he got up and went into the kitchen, poking around at the ingredients, unable to decide what to make. He didn’t realize he was waiting for the call from Peter until his phone rang and Peter was on the line, telling him that the kid was okay, that he’d been captured with minimal injuries and was on his way to the pack facility where newly turned or feral creatures were trained or rehabilitated.

“Without you it probably wouldn’t have been so easy,” Peter added. “In this weather they were having trouble picking up the scent. You made a difference.”

When Stiles got off the phone those words were still ringing in his ear. He’d decided to study magic all those years ago not just because he was skilled at it or because his mother had been a witch as it was a way to better connect with her, but because he’d wanted to be more like his dad too. He’d wanted to protect people and help people.

He’d kinda lost sight of that in the stress of studying, in moving from test to test, from requirement to requirement.

He walked over to the kitchen window, where the sun was beginning to break through the cloudy sky. Maybe he could actually make a difference. And, fuck, it might be Peter Hale who was going to help him do it.

…

The week was boring. Full of boringness. Glinda’s shop was boring and going home was boring and game night was boring and dinner with Dad was boring (sorry, Dad). Same old, same old, same old. Nothing could interest him, not trying out Scott’s new PS5, not the mysterious case of lawnmower thieves on Pine Street, not even finally getting a book he’d been on the waitlist for like half a year for at the library. He opened it, read a few paragraphs, put it down.

Stiles might have been a lot of things, but he wasn’t an idiot. He opened the papers Peter had given him (the check for Sunday was a lot more than they’d agreed to) and scanned the documents carefully, putting post-it notes places where he had questions. He scanned them in (at the police station, of course), and sent them to Lydia for review.

She called him up as soon as she got the email.

“I just got your email,” she said, without preamble. Studying mathematics had really done a number on her social graces. “What the hell are you thinking?”

“Well, I thought, you’d be kind enough to read it over. Another pair of eyes? Catch something I didn’t miss?”

“You’re going into business with Peter Hale?” Lydia demanded.

“I’m considering it,” Stiles corrected. “You know, keeping my options open.”

“Peter Hale?” Lydia demanded. “He’s a murderer.”

“Do you have proof?” Stiles asked.

“His blue eyes!” Lydia exclaimed. Her voice went quieter. “They say he took out a whole pack of were-coyotes just because one of them rejected him.”

“Citation needed,” Stiles said, dryly. “Look, I’ve heard the rumors about them too, but that’s all they are. He’s never been charged with something more serious than vandalism and trespassing.”

“Never been charged,” Lydia said. “I fully support ‘innocent when proven guilty’ as foundational when it comes to the criminal justice system and imprisonment, but it’s stupid to apply that to employers! Not only because you don’t know what he’ll do to you, but you don’t know what he’ll have you do! Are you going to be happy being an accessory to murder?”

“Murder?” Stiles repeated. “That seems a little extreme, doesn’t it?”

“Not when it comes to Peter Hale!” Lydia exclaimed. “Rumors say he’s the Left Hand of the Hale Pack.”

“Packs don’t have Left Hands any more,” Stiles said. “They have diplomacy and councils and access to law enforcement.”

“You really think that stops them?” Lydia’s voice grew quieter. “You really think werewolves and other creatures came out of hiding and let go of thousands of years of traditions just like that? You really think the hunters all dropped their guns and shrugged and said ‘oh, well, I guess it’s time for us to get some legal jobs’?”

“Plenty of hunters joined law enforcement,” Stiles said.

“And I’ll bet that made the werewolves feel really safe,” Lydia returned. “The Hale pack is one of the largest, most prominent packs on the West coast. Talia Hale has been involved in a lot of controversial legislation. There are rumors that creatures are held captive or tortured in the rehabilitation facilities she backed.”

“That’s not true!” Stiles exclaimed. “My dad inspects the one here.”

“Stiles,” Lydia gave a deep sigh. “It doesn’t matter what is true. What I’m saying is that the Hale pack has enemies and Peter Hale, not law enforcement, is the person who is going to be dealing with them. And if you’re working for him you’re going to get dragged along.”

“I’ll add a stipulation to my contract that I won’t be involved in illegal activities,” Stiles said.

Lydia laughed. “Okay, honey. Well, you let me know how that goes.”

…

She was right. That was the thing– Stiles knew she was. That’s why he’d been hesitant about accepting Peter’s offer in the first place. All of the rumors of him couldn’t possibly be true, but he was willing to bet that some of them were.

But… that library. That spellroom. The feeling of doing something. He was chomping at the bit, waiting excitedly for Monday to roll around. Even if he was just going to be reinforcing the wards. Even if all Peter had for him to do was sit around and read books.

And then, Saturday night, Peter called him and told him he’d be away on a case on Monday. Stiles ended the call and felt deflated.

He sighed and took out the contract again. Nothing had changed. He put it away. On Tuesday he gave Glinda his notice.

…

Lydia, who was still in town, came to him to what she called ‘contract negotiations’. She wore her most intimidatingly professional outfit. (Apparently mathematics grad students generally just wore jeans and t-shirts and that infuriated her).

“This is your lawyer?” Peter asked, clearly amused.

“No,” Stiles said. “My mathematician.”

Peter’s grin increased.

“Your offer should be double what it is,” Lydia said, slapping the contract down on the table. It had more red lines on it than Stiles’ old chemistry lab reports. “The average income of a trained emissary…”

“Stiles isn’t an emissary,” Peter interrupted.

“No, he’s better,” Lydia said. “Emissaries are rule-bound and tied to protocol. Stiles is flexible, adaptable, and can think on his feet.”

“That’s redundant.”

Lydia rolled her eyes. “Double the proposed salary,” she demanded, poking the contract with one long sharp nail.

“I’ll increase it by one-third,” Peter said.

“One-half,” Lydia countered.

“One-third,” Peter said again.

“One-third, plus bonuses for successful completion of cases,” Lydia said. “And danger pay.”

“Danger pay?” Peter snorted. “Fine, one-half.”

Lydia inspected her fingernails. “If Stiles does get injured on the job you’ll cover one hundred percent of the insurance co-pay, any additional expenses to get him the best possible treatment, and the time off needed for full recovery.”

“Best possible treatment is subjective.”

“Best treatment recommended by his doctors,” Lydia clarified.

“Agreed,” Peter said, and made a note on his version of the contract.

Lydia nodded, satisfied. “Now let’s go through this thing line by line.”

…

Lydia clacked out of the meeting full of pride and self importance– Stiles began to slump after her but Peter caught his arm.

“Good job,” Peter said, nodding at Lydia’s retreating form. “I’m impressed.”

Stiles blinked at him.

“You start tomorrow,” Peter said.

“I have five days left at Glinda’s.”

Peter shook his head. “I talked to her. You start tomorrow.”

Stiles opened his mouth, then shut it, then nodded.

…

Stiles was surprised when Peter opened the previously unopened door to show him another office. There was a desk set up, a table, several white boards and more bookshelves.

“Your desk,” Peter said, gesturing.

“Oh,” Stiles said. “I thought I’d just be working from the spellroom.”

“It wouldn’t be terribly safe,” Peter explained. “Your first job is to get to know where everything is.”

Stiles looked around at the room.

“In the spellroom,” Peter clarified with a sigh. “So you can find ingredients and tools quickly. While you’re at it, make a list of the ingredients and tools you think we’ll need to add. Then I’d like you to put together a mobile kit for when we have to go somewhere.”

Stiles nodded.

“I’d also like you to get familiar with the books in the library,” Peter continued. “Again, note down any you think we should have– keep in mind that my budget is not unlimited.”

Stiles fished a notebook out of his bag and wrote that all down.

“That’s it,” Peter said. “That should keep you occupied for a while. I’ll let you know when there’s a case.” He paused. “Prioritize the mobile kit. Give me a list of the things you’ll need for that by the end of the day.”

“Yes, sir,” Stiles said.

The corner of Peter’s lips twitched. “You can call me Peter,” he said. “This isn’t the military.”

…

When Peter had left him alone, Stiles looked around with a satisfied air. He could get a plant. He should get some posters. Would Peter be annoyed or amused if he chose something with terrible taste? Maybe one of those ‘Witchforce’ posters where the witches were half-naked.

He sat down and smiled when the chair moved beneath him. He made it bob back and forth for a moment, then spun it around in a circle, then took a picture and sent it to Scott. Finally, he sighed and grabbed his laptop from his bag and put it down on his desk and began looking up ‘mobile kits for offensive mages’. No use reinventing the wheel.

His first week of work was a lot of fun. Making lists of his dream equipment and books, investigating all the little cubbyholes in the workshop and browsing through the books on the shelves, and packing his fancy new travel case.

He didn’t see Peter much. When he was in the office he bought lunch for them (that is, he gave money for Stiles to buy lunch for them), and they talked about this or that. Peter had a lot of opinions on a lot of things ranging from Stiles’ wardrobe to Stiles’ taste in music, but they had similar taste in books and movies (Peter was secretly a giant nerd). Stiles reorganized the supplies and ordered more, made a wish list of his most longed-for books, cleaned out the older herbs to make space for the newer ones and familiarized himself with everything the thought he’d need to know.

The second week he began on the wards. Building them was a lot different from the ones on his dad’s house; there was considerably more traffic in the area, there were the other businesses in the building to consider, the wards had to account for frequent magic usage, and Peter wanted separate wards in the spaces where visitors were allowed.

He had a first draft done by Tuesday afternoon and was just about to render them on his computer when Peter popped his head in Stiles’ office. “Got a case,” he said, and Stiles followed him into the front room.

“Nothing serious,” Peter said, gesturing for Stiles to sit beside him at the big desk so he could see his computer monitor. “Just a standard bounty for the council. Eric Jordan here,” he pointed to an ordinary-looking middle aged white man on the screen, “allegedly turned several humans against their will and demanded they turn over all their assets to him, but before the council could act he skipped town. He’s got something blocking him from standard tracking spells. Normally I’d do some investigating– he won’t be that hard to find– but since you’re around, wanna see if you can find him?”

“You got hair?” Stiles asked.

“They’re sending it in the courier. Can you use the image?”

“Depends on the quality of whatever he’s using as a block. If you print it I’ll give it a try.” Peter grabbed a photo-quality print from the printer tray and handed it to Stiles, then followed him back to the workroom.

He pulled out a few ingredients, the glass scrying bowl he’d just finished purifying, placing the picture inside of it and casting ‘above, below’ on it. He hummed at the purple flames, then cast the spiraling spell, followed quickly by Grant’s ruler. Peter cocked his head, curious.

“I’m not trying to find him right now but assess what he has that’s blocking him from scrying spells,” Stiles explained, throwing the results of the ruler onto a piece of paper and examining the results. “See how variable this is? I thought he probably had an amulet or something, but it seems like he’s with a magic user who’s maintaining a shield.”

“Can they tell you’ve been scrying on him?”

Stiles shrugged. “They can tell there’s a spell, but no details– and clearly they expected someone to look.”

Peter nodded. “Ideas for what to do next?”

“It depends on how much we want to give away,” Stiles said. “I can do a few more spells, learn more about the magic user, but they’ll learn about me in return. Assuming this magic user is going to make it harder to to catch him, do you think it’s better for them to be ignorant of us?”

Peter hummed, then turned to look out of the windows. They looked out onto uninspiring views of the alley behind the building. “The presence of the magic user could mean the case is more complex than was presented to me,” he said. “I’m going to chat with my contact at the council– consider what you’d need for determining as much information as possible via scrying, and what spells you’d need if we did this the old fashioned way.” He strutted out of the room.

Information via scrying, Stiles thought and plopped himself down in one of the chairs at the corner of the room. The alley was as boring as usual, although there were a few pigeons harassing each other on the opposite rooftop. It was an interesting idea; using how another magic user blocked scrying spells to learn more about them. He could brute force it– just use stronger and stronger scrying spells until he broke through. Or he could… he pulled his phone out of his pocket and opened his notebook app, jotting down ideas as they came to him.

Minutes, or probably hours, later, Peter came back with the tantalizing smell of Thai takeout. They ate it in the kitchen and talked, Peter grumbling that the council claimed it had no more information, Stiles discussing what he’d considered.

“Old fashioned spy work it is,” Peter concluded, packing up the leftovers. “You can go back to your ward-work, but have your kit ready.”

Stiles nodded and went back to his ward draft.

…

It took two days for Peter– and whoever Peter had contracted to get a bead– on the Jordan, who had apparently taken a runner to Mexico. Peter grinned at this, all his teeth on display. “Nothing the brujas hate more than gringos bringing their shit into their territory,” he said. “You speak Spanish?”

“Poorly,” Stiles admitted. “I was an idiot and took French instead.”

Peter nodded. “I can work as a translator were necessary. Pack for a week– though hopefully it won’t take more than three days. I’ll set up a meeting for us with the council in the city we’re headed for– I’ve already got an international certification to practice, thanks to our council. You’ll need a list of spells you might use and ingredients you’re bringing.”

“I already have the second in my kit,” Stiles said.

Peter nodded. “Good. Can you be ready to leave in three hours?”

“Yeah, I just gotta pack and tell my dad.”

…

They caught a plane from the Bay Area to Tijuana, then traveled by car to the city Peter had traced Jordan to.. The brujas council there easily agreed on Stiles and Peter’s intervention, though they assigned a bruja apprentice to shadow them, a cheery girl named Marisol, who told them all about the city they were driving through, pointing out the best places to eat and telling stories about her and her cousins running rampant through the city.

“According to my associate, Jordan has a room reserved in the hotel up here.”

Marisol snorted. “Typical gringo– that’s the worst hotel at the worst price.”

“Any connection to the supernatural?” Peter asked.

“I don’t think so,” Marisol said. “Most supernatural people I know have better taste.”

Stiles cast a simple observation charm on the hotel. “No wards,” he reported. “What’s the plan?”

“Cast some stealth charms on yourself and come with me,” Peter told him. “I’ll go in, pretend I’m on my own. You can block whatever magics the mage has prepared.”

Stiles frowned at him. “That’s a terrible plan. We’re just going to go in blind?”

“And what about me?” Marisol demanded.

“You’re supposed to be here to observe only,” Peter reminded her. “You have a better plan?” he asked Stiles.

“This close I can do some scrying undetected,” Stiles said. “We rent a room there–”

“Ewww, this place is so bad,” Marisol complained. “We can get a room at the place with the nice pool instead.”

Peter looked at her and she sat back, arms crossed in front of her, pouting.

“That sounds reasonable,” he told Stiles.

“Great!” Stiles exclaimed, and pulled out a fake mustache and held it out to Peter.

“What?” Peter asked, frowning down at it.

“You’re pretty well known,” Stiles said. “I figured a little disguise wouldn’t hurt. Look, I put a spell on it so when you press it up against your face it will become your own hair.”

Peter stared down at the fake mustache. “That’s actually a little horrifying,” he said.

Stiles frowned and cocked his head. “You think?”

“I’ll just wear sunglasses,” Peter said, pulling out a pair of designer glasses and putting them on his face.

“You look like a tourist,” Marisol commented. “You have a baseball hat? Can pretend to be a celebrity.”

Stiles laughed at Peter, who scowled. “Fine,” he said and grabbed at the mustache.

Stiles yanked it away. “It has to be placed properly,” he said. He carefully took off the back and held it up to Peter’s face, squinting one eye and moving it back and forth a little before pressing it against his skin.

“You look like Zorro!” Marisol squeaked, laughing.

“Antonio Banderas is a very handsome man,” Stiles defended, but couldn’t help laughing too.

“Ugh,” Peter said. He wrinkled his upper lip. “Ugh,” he repeated. He looked at himself in the rearview mirror. “It’s not even an attractive mustache. You couldn’t do a little beard to balance it out at least?”

Stiles reached into his bag and pulled out a beard and Peter allowed him to paste it onto his face a little more willingly.

“Now you look like a villain,” Marisol said.

Peter rolled his eyes and got out of the car. “I’m going to get back at you for this,” he threatened Stiles, who had to look away so he wouldn’t start laughing.

…

At Stiles’ suggestion, and to Marisol’s disgust, they pretended to be a family of American tourists, Stiles and Marisol pretending to be so interested in their phones they didn’t even look at the clerk who was checking them in, Marisol’s hood pulled over her face to further hide her identity.

She giggled as they carried their luggage down the hallway to their room. Peter had insisted on being on the third floor (where Jordan’s room was) for ‘luck’ and further badgered the poor clerk until she just told him all the rooms she had available and let her pick.

Once in the room, Stiles went about setting wards, while Marisol watched curiously and asked insightful questions and Peter scowled and poked at his phone. Then Stiles cast the scrying charm and pushed his attention to the room in question.

“Two people’s luggage, one bed,” he said. “Looks like they’re lovers. Hmmm… standard magic kit, Boro’s Range books one through five.”

“For real?” Marisol demanded, with a snort. “He is a child? Such easy books.”

“She, I think,” Stiles muttered. “Unless they’re gender non-conforming or non-binary, which, no judgment. Lots of makeup, though. Oh dear, oh dear.”

“What is it?” Peter demanded, impatiently.

“She’s a hack,” Stiles said. “She’s been buying products from Vieria– everyone knows they’re a sham. They sell to wanna-be witches.”

“But she had the power to block your scrying spell.”

“She probably has a wisp or two of magic,” Stiles said. He released the spell and stood up and stretched. “I’m gonna go put a trace across the door so we know if someone opens it, then maybe a nap?”

Peter made a dissatisfied noise and went back to his phone. Marisol had pulled hers out as well and was playing something noisy, oblivious to Peter’s annoyed glances.

“What phone games have you got?” Stiles asked, sitting down beside her. She started chattering away and they both ignored Peter when he groaned loudly and pulled out a pair of headphones.

…

He woke up blearily a while later, head awkwardly resting on Peter’s thigh, the only light in the room Marisol perched on the other bed, bent over her phone and the lights of the city streaming through the windows.

“What time is it?” he asked, voice rough with sleep.

“Nine,” Marisol said, not looking up.

Stiles concentrated on feeling the wards he was connected to, like a spider connected to a web of threads. Still fuzzy with sleep, he separated out the ones for the room he’d booby-trapped. Still undisturbed.

Marisol glanced at him and he shook his head.

“We should get some food.” Stiles looked over at Peter sprawled out beside him, face loose and innocent-looking in sleep.

Marisol nodded, tapping on her phone. “Chinese?” she suggested.

“Seriously?” Stiles asked. “I’m in Mexico– I want to get Mexican.”

Marisol made a face, but agreed and a few minutes later they’d ordered a few dishes to be delivered to their hotel room.

Peter woke up when the food got there, shoving off his headphone and grabbing one of Stiles’ containers.

“They haven’t come back to the room yet,” Stiles told him. “Maybe they’re out enjoying the nightlife.”

Marisol made a face. “There’s no nightlife to enjoy,” she said. “This town is so boring.”

“So why did the alpha move here?” Stiles mused.

“Obviously not for the night life,” Peter said. “Why does anyone move anywhere?”

“I assumed he was running away from the authorities. But that doesn’t make any sense, does it? We had no trouble tracking him down.”

Marisol shook her head. “This town’s got nothing going for it. Nothing special.”

“Sounds like Beacon Hills.”

Peter finished the container he was eating and tossed it in the trash. “I moved back to Beacon Hills because my family was there,” he said, slowly. “So did Stiles.”

“Jordan didn’t have any connections to Mexico, though. His family was from Wisconsin or something.”

“But his lover!” Marisol exclaimed. “Maybe she’s from here?” She frowned. “But if she was, she’d be staying with her family, not in this crappy hotel.”

“Unless her family doesn’t have enough space for them,” Peter suggested.

“Or they don’t approve of her lover,” Stiles added.

“Or it’s not her family,” Marisol suggested. “Someone else they’re tracking down?”

Stiles looked at Peter. “He’s still an alpha. Maybe he wants to run his whole thing again?”

“People here aren’t exactly affluent,” Peter pointed out. “He was focused after wealthy people before.”

“Well,” Stiles said. “Should we keep waiting or try to track them down?”

“It’s almost ten?” Peter checked. “Let’s give it the evening. They should come back at some point, right? And the wards will wake you up?”

Stiles nodded.

Peter went into the bathroom to wash up.

“Is detective work always this boring?” Marisol asked.

“This is only like my second case,” Stiles admitted.

…

Without discussing it, they decided that Marisol, being a teenage girl, should get the bed to herself, and Stiles crawled in beside Peter. It wasn’t really that unusual; werewolves tended to be group-sleepers and Stiles had enough werewolf friends he was used to waking up to find someone had crawled into bed with him. Sure, most of them weren’t Stiles’ stupidly attractive boss. He was surprised to discover that, despite Peter’s rather infamous reputation, something about the man made Stiles feel safe enough to curl up against him and easily fall asleep.

…

Stiles woke up a few hours later to the mental equivalent of an alarm sounding and he rolled out of bed, tangling up in the sheets and falling to the floor with a ‘thud’.

“What’s happening?” Peter said, sitting up in the bed and blinking.

“My wards,” Stiles said. He concentrated on the sensation. “They just crossed them– they’re in their hotel room.”

“Just the two of them?” Peter checked.

Stiles nodded and rummaged around for his sneakers while Peter pulled on a shirt and a pair of jeans.

“You’re going to go take down a werewolf and a witch wearing snoopy pajamas?” Peter asked as Stiles grabbed his kit.

Stiles looked down at himself and blushed, then cast an illusion spell transforming his pajamas into ordinary street clothes. He smirked at Peter, who rolled his eyes.

“Wait!” Marisol cried, pulling on her shoes.

“You should wait here,” Peter told her.

She crossed her arms. “I’m not going to miss the action. Anyway, I’m supposed to be observing you.”

“Can you cast a shield spell?” Stiles asked.

Marisol easily hardened the air in front of her. Stiles threw a small lightning bolt at it, then nodded. “Keep your shield up, he told her and she nodded, then they both looked at Peter, who sighed.

“Fine,” he said, and led the way down the hall towards the alpha’s room. Peter rapped on it. “Alpha Jordan? This is Peter Hale. I’ve been sent by the Supernatural Council to take you in.”

No response.

Stiles felt the build up of power in the next room and snorted. “She’s trying to make a portal spell.” His eyes widened. “She’s gonna fuck up and splinch them.”

“Splinch?” Peter repeated, amused.

“Shut up– it’s a handy word.”

Stiles sent in a dart of power meant to nullify the spell and nodded when he felt it wink out.

“What was that?” Marisol demanded.

“I’ll show you later,” Stiles assured her, then used a small cantrip to unlock the door. “Okay, you’re up,” he told Peter and Peter shoved the door open. The alpha and witch were half-naked, panting and flushed. They must have started getting all hot and heavy the moment they’d gotten back to the room..

“Hale,” Jordan growled. “I should have known.”

“Yes,” Peter agreed. “I said my name just now.”

The alpha raised his claws and bared his teeth and Peter shot him with a wolfsbane bullet.

“You killed him!” the witch shrieked.

“Nah,” Peter said. “Just disabled him. My mage here will treat him when you’re both secured.”

“Maria Guadaloupe!” Marisol exclaimed, peering into the room. She started speaking to the witch in such rapid and localized Spanish Stiles didn’t have a chance of following, Maria Guadaloupe managing to get a word in here and there, both of their voices raising as their argument got more heated until finally Marisol zapped the other witch with a spell.

“What was that?” Stiles asked.

“Silencing spell,” Marisol said, smugly.

“I meant the argument.”

“Oh,” Marisol clicked her tongue. “This is my… I don’t know how you say it in English. Cousin, but not directly?”

“Distant cousin?”

“Sure. Her boyfriend broke up with her because she was terrible and then she tried to curse him and got kicked out of the coven.”

“So what’s she doing here then?”

“She’s such a stupid bitch,” Marisol said, shaking her head. “Came back here with this asshole just to try to make Carlos jealous.”

“That is pretty dumb,” Stiles agreed.

Maria Guadaloupe looked even more pissed off at that.

Peter sighed, dramatically. “You’ll find that, sadly, most people who commit crimes are stupid.”

“Sadly?” Marisol asked.

“Surely it’s that the people who get caught are stupid,” Stiles suggested.

Peter shrugged. “Six in one hand.” He took out his phone to call the council.

“That’s not equivalent at all.” Stiles argued, checking to be sure Maria Guadaloupe was securely tied up with magic.

…

Marisol went back to the hotel room to sleep, the lucky witch, while Peter introduced Stiles to the ‘most important and yet worst part of the business’; paperwork and bureaucracy.

“If I ever go full villain it will be red tape that does it,” Peter said, melodramatically, after several hours of five-way conversations between the Mexican and American governments and Mexican and American supernatural councils.

“Full villain?” Stiles repeated, skeptically. “I’m not sure why I have to be here for this,” he added.

“Misery shared is misery halved,” Peter told him cheerfully.

“I don’t think that’s true at all.”

Peter shrugged. “I’m the boss,” he reminded Stiles.

“Yeah, you’re paying for this.”

Peter grinned at him. “Worth every penny.”

“I’m literally sitting here playing Angry Birds,” Stiles pointed out, waving his phone. “How is that a good use of your money?”

“Angry Birds is still a thing?” Peter asked, then shook his head. “Because if it was just me I would be almost tearing my hair out right now. But since you’re here I get to make sarcastic quips while you almost tear your hair out.”

“Maybe this will be my villain origin story,” Stiles muttered.

Peter reached over and ruffled his hair.

“Try that again and I’ll turn your hand into a frog.”

“Just my hand?”

Stiles bared his teeth. “You think it would be fun having a frog for a hand?”

Peter stepped back and held up his hands, then picked up his phone and answered it. “We’ve got to fill out form 15-A-B,” he said, after a minute.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Stiles muttered. “They told us to fill out form 16-C!” He grabbed his laptop and started typing.

…

They finally got back to Beacon Hills a few days later, having had to escort both Eric Jordan and Maria Guadaloupe to the American Supernatural Council, after which Peter glad-handed everyone in sight, the smarmy asshole, brown-nosing the entire council, telling everyone how glad he was to see them, promising they’d catch up, then introducing Stiles like an afterthought. Stiles did his best used-car-salesman impression, smiling and shaking hands and pretending like he recognized people’s names.

“What was that?” he asked the next day, on the flight home.

“What was what?” Peter asked, tearing his attention away from his cell phone.

“Introducing me to all those people, pretending like they were all your best friends.”

“That is business,” Peter said. “Those people are responsible for hiring contractors. Now, when they need, say, a mage who graduated with honors from a top magical university with a concentration in offensive magic and warding who works for a reputable PI firm they’ll know who to go to.”

“Huh,” Stiles said.

Peter stretched out and sighed. He’d bought them first-class tickets because he was bougie as fuck. It was as posh as Stiles had expected, though he was a little disappointed they didn’t get those sleeping pods he’d seen on Tik Tok. But then the flight was only a few hours.

“Do you really need more business?” Stiles asked. “Weren’t you telling me you were turning down offers?”

Peter shrugged. “Always better to have too much than not enough. And yes– I’m building a firm with a reputation. Any jobs I don’t think are going to fit into that I’ll turn down. It’s a slippery slope.” He signaled at one of the flight attendants to bring him more wine.

“A slippery slope to what?” Stiles asked.

Peter sighed. “The bane of PI work. What happens when you reach rock bottom.”

“Which is?” Stiles prodded.

Peter shivered delicately. “Stalking spouses to see if they’re cheating.”

Stiles eyed him. Peter took a sip of his refreshed wine and swirled it around in his mouth like he thought he was at a fucking wine tasting or something. The asshole couldn’t even get drunk.

“I’d have thought stalking would be right up your territory.”

Peter raised an eyebrow elegantly. “I wouldn’t say stalking is below me, per say. What is a private investigator but a very professional-level stalker, after all? But cheating cases are so dull and the men involved are always so ugly it makes me so depressed to have to photograph them. And who really cares anyway?”

“If your spouse is cheating on you?” Stiles asked. “I’d think a lot of people.”

“That’s because they fixate on the wrong thing.” Peter gestured with his cup. Miraculously, none of it spilled.

“And what is the right thing then?” Stiles asked.

“Trust,” Peter said. “If you’ve lost your spouse’s trust– or vice versa– you’ve already lost your relationship.”

“Huh,” Stiles said. “But don’t people want to find out if their spouse is cheating to find out if they deserve their trust?”

Peter shook his head. “The person hiring the PI is also violating their spouse’s trust. At that point they’re both culpable. Or at least the suspicious bastard hiring external help is culpable. The spouse could be innocent. Who knows?”

“Okay,” Stiles said. “But what about, like, if you have to prove your spouse is cheating to get out of a marriage?”

“What is this?” Peter asked, “the eighties? No fault divorces, Stiles.”

“Huh,” Stiles said again. “Aren’t you a little biased though? Because you’re a werewolf?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“I thought werewolves never cheated.”

Peter snorted, thankfully after he’d swallowed. “Who sold you that load of shit?” he asked. “Was it a werewolf trying to get in your pants?”

“Everyone says it.”

Peter rolled his eyes. “Everyone says a lot of shit. Werewolves are as just as good at being cheating assholes as everyone else. Sure, it takes a little more effort, because you have to ignore your instincts, but what is modern living but a constant denial of instincts?”

“So that whole ‘werewolves mate for life’ stuff?”

“Utter nonsense. The whole ‘mate’ thing is nonsense. Magical bonds tying people together? No.”

“That must be a crushing blow to the werewolf romance novel industry.”

“Mind you, a lot of people believe it,” Peter continued. “I know werewolves who’ve bought into the whole thing hook and sinker. Delusional fools.”

Stiles popped open his bag of complimentary chips. “You’re not a very romantic person, huh?” he asked.

“That depends on your definition of romance,” Peter argued. “I don’t think the whole ‘true mates’ thing is particularly romantic. What’s so wonderful about being stuck with someone you didn’t choose? In my mind, it’s much more romantic to choose your partner every day– to know that they want to be with you because they think you’re special, not because it’s been ordained by some distant cosmic power or whatever.”

“Huh,” Stiles said. “Okay, I can kind of see that.”

“Also, what if they’re an idiot? You want to be stuck with some dumbass for the rest of your life?

Stiles sighed. “And there it is.”

…

He was glad to see Beacon Hills and to sleep in his own bed that night, then it was back to developing wards, first for Peter, then for the Hale Pack, since their chosen emissary wasn’t quite as skilled at wards as Stiles was. He felt a little bitter about that, but he was beginning to think Peter had been right; Stiles could do diplomacy, he just didn’t really want to.

There were a few small jobs for them in the next few weeks– an unidentified something testing the wards of the Monterey Bay pack, down at the bottom of the harbor, a cursed artifact that allegedly was Inca (but had actually been made in th 1940s), a missing selkie child who turned out had been injured in a boat accident and brought to an aquarium to be rehabilitated, having been mistaken for a seal.

It was interesting and engrossing and Stiles worked overtime pretty often, his eyes often aching from looking through books, sneezing in the way he did when he’d used a little too much magic, but he got out of bed already excited about what he was going to do that day and went to sleep feeling satisfied in a way he’d never really felt before.

…

Peter took Stiles out to lunch one hot summer day. Stiles groused about having to leave the office the whole way until he saw the restaurant Peter was taking him to; one of the more upscale ones in Beacon Hills. Too fancy for the likes of Stiles, really.

Stiles followed Peter inside feeling entirely out of place in the raggedy jeans and old t-shirt he was wearing. Neither Peter nor the host seemed to notice though; she just nodded when Peter told her his name and led them to a small table by the window.

“What is all this?” Stiles demanded, when she left them with the shortest menus Stiles had ever seen.

“This is a restaurant,” Peter told him, deadpan.

“Ugh,” Stiles groaned. “Thanks, dad. I meant ‘why is this?’ as you well know.”

“Our two month anniversary,” Peter told him with a sappy smile just as the waiter approached their table. She gave them a look that Stiles interpreted as being half ‘awww’/ half judgy about their age difference.

Peter ordered some expensive-sounding wine and appetizers without consulting Stiles. Which was fine. There were only like two appetizers on the menu anyway. And Peter was paying.

“We’re not actually in a relationship,” Stiles said, a little snappishly, and then almost dropped his water when he realized that he was annoyed because he might actually want to be in a relationship with Peter and didn’t that take the fucking cake.

“Our working relationship?” Peter corrected, slyly. “Your trial period? Ring any bells?”

“Oh,” Stiles said and felt himself blushing.

“Oh,” Peter echoed with a smirk. “So what do you think? Want to keep being the ‘associate’ in ‘Hale and Associates’?”

Stiles blinked at him. “You know ‘associates’ is plural, right? I’m still only one person. You’ve got one more associate to go.”

Peter shrugged. “The office isn’t big enough,” he complained. “And it would be so much trouble to move. You’ll just have to pretend to be two people.”

The waiter came back with their wine and Peter did a whole sniffing and swirling the glass thing that made Stiles roll his eyes, but a moment later the appetizers arrived and he shoved a piece of bruschetta into his mouth and moaned, to Peter’s amusement.

The rest of the lunch went more or less like that; exchanges of witty remarks and discussions of obscure topics and mildly insulting banter, Peter smirking whenever Stiles got a little too lewd while appreciating the food. It was pretty incredible, which Stiles supposed made up for the scanty menu.

He drank too much wine, considering it was lunch on a working day and moaned his way through a slice of chocolate gateau– how was gateau different from cake besides sounding fancier? Peter paid the bill, then escorted him out onto the street.

He smiled at Stiles when he wobbled a little. “It’s a little unprofessional to be tipsy while you’re working,” Peter commented, one warm hend resting in the small of Stiles’ back, leading them back to the office.

“It’s your fault,” Stiles grumbled at him. “You bought the wine.”

“Come on,” Peter said, opening the door that led up to the office. “You can take a nap.”

“You’re not going to fire me for this, are you?” Stiles asked, following him up the stairs.

“I’ll let it go this once,” Peter assured him, voice full of amusement.

“Shut up,” Stiles muttered, unlocking the office door and smiling at the friendly greeting of the wards. He toed his shoes off and flopped down onto the couch.

Peter shook his head and draped a blanket over him then disappeared and came back a moment later with a cup of water, standing over Stiles and making him drink the whole thing. “We’ll go over your contract when you wake up,” he told him, stepping back.

“Don’t think you can take advantage of me,” Stiles mumbled, letting his eyes fall closed.

“I’d never,” Peter swore.

“Liar,” Stiles said and rolled to his side and fell asleep.

…

It was a really bad idea to develop a crush on your boss, Stiles realized when he woke up. He felt around for the glass of water Peter had refilled and left there and drank it without opening his eyes, then sat up and blinked, trying to shake the fuzziness out of his head.

“I’ve never seen anyone successfully drink from a glass while lying down before,” Peter commented. He was sitting at his desk watching Stiles because of course he was.

“I’ve got mad skills.” Stiles rubbed at his eyes, then looked at Peter, who was as composed as ever, leaning back in his chair, suit jacket thrown over the back of the chair, the top buttons of his button-down undone further than was really business appropriate.

“Holding your liquor isn’t one of them.”

“Fuck you,” Stiles said. “What would you know about it?”

“I’ve done my fair share of intoxicants.”

“Of course you have.” Stiles looked up to glare at him.

Peter shrugged. “I hope you’re feeling more yourself now, anyway. I’ve got your contract here.” He slid it across the desk and Stiles stood up to sit across from him, flipping through the contract.

“No changes from the one we initially negotiated?” Stiles asked.

“No changes,” Peter assured him.

Stiles eyed him, then scanned the contract.

“Except where I’ve added that you will owe me your first born.”

“What would you do with a child?”

“I could have paternal instincts,” Peter protested.

“Uh, huh,” Stiles said. “You’re more of the uncle who encourages his niblings to get into trouble.”

Peter snorted. “They hardly needed any help. You’ve met Derek, haven’t you? He never met a red flag he didn’t run straight for. Cora’s the only one I really have any hope for. I’ve been trying to get her to join me.”

“In the Dark Side? If Cora joined it would be ‘Hales and Associate’. And you’d still have to get a bigger office.”

Peter pressed his lips together like he was trying not to laugh and sat back while Stiles continued to scan the document. It was pro forma; he didn’t actually think Peter would have slipped a new clause or addendum into the contract they’d hammered out. It was a little alarming to realize he trusted Peter.

He glanced up from the contract. Peter was playing with his phone now, flicking his thumb across the screen with a look of mild dislike. Stiles wondered what he was looking at; texts from his sister, maybe, or emails from some dumb would-be client. He could ask and Peter would probably show him. Might joke with him about whatever it was.

Maybe it was Grindr or Tinder or something and Peter kept swiping left. Or right. Whatever it was that was rejecting someone. Because Peter would never accept so many people in a row. He was probably really picky about the people he slept with. He was picky about what he ate and wore, so it made sense he’d be picky about who he stuck his dick into (or the reverse).

As for actually dating someone, Stiles had to imagine Peter’s standard were astronomically high. He bet Peter would have some choice things to say about Stiles’ own ex-boyfriends.

Did he even date? Stiles remembered him complaining about his sister getting on his back about not having someone to bring to some family event or another. Complaining that she seemed to think he could just pick someone up and bring them around to sic a whole werewolf pack on them.

Peter seemed to notice Stiles’ scrutiny. He looked up and raised his eyebrows. “Done already?”

Stiles swallowed and blushed and looked back down at the contract. “Everything seems correct,” he said, flipping to the last page.

Peter smiled slyly. “Sure? Didn’t spot the part where you promise your hand in marriage?”

Stiles felt his blush growing deeper. “I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t be legally binding.”

“It would be on pack land,” Peter commented, pulling a fancy ballpoint pen and handing it over to Stiles.

“Really?” Stiles asked, curious.

Peter shrugged. “Depends on the pack. Arranged marriages are still much more common in supernatural culture than in baseline.”

“Huh,” Stiles commented. “Is that something your sister would ever try to do? You said she was complaining about you not bringing guests to events.”

Peter huffed a laugh. “She could try.”

“And?”

“I’d point out that Derek is a much better candidate for something like that than I am– and that it’s Derek who needs to be rescued from terrible life choices, not me.”

“Poor Derek.” Stiles took the ball point pen and scrawled his signature on the line, then turned the paper to Peter. “But I’m honestly surprised to hear you haven’t made any terrible life choices.”

“Oh,” Peter said, inking his much neater signature beneath Stiles’. “I’ve made some bad choices in my time. But I’m not currently at risk.” He looked up at Stiles and raised his eyebrows suggestively. “Unless you’re interested…?”

Stiles felt his heart lurch and swallowed quickly. “Hitting on your employees is a terrible life choice,” he said instead of what had first come to mind (‘Yes! Yes! I’m 100% interested.’)

Peter laughed and slid Stiles’ copy of the contract over to him, filing the other away. “Employee,” he corrected.

“Huh?” Stiles looked up.

“I was hitting on my employee. As you keep reminding me, I only have the one.”

“Oh, right,” Stiles said. He found himself fidgeting with his cuffs and stood up. “Guess I might go find something useful to do, since I’m officially a full-time employee now.”

“And you slept half the afternoon?” Peter added, leaning back in his chair with his hands on the back of his neck.

“We already established that that was your fault,” Stiles shot back as he left the room.

Get a fucking hold of yourself Stilinski, Stiles muttered to himself as he stepped into the workshop and fumbled for the notebook in which he’d been writing down the results of a spell modification he’d been working on. Peter had just been teasing. Right?

…

“I think I have a crush on Peter,” Stiles told Lydia despite his better judgment. She looked up from her grading.

“I’m shocked,” she deadpanned. “Truly astonished. Didn’t see that one coming.”

Stiles blinked at her in surprise. “Really?”

Lydia made several decisive slashes with her red pen. “He’s only exactly your type. Remember that crush you had on Alison’s father?”

Stiles groaned. “Peter is nothing like Mr. Argent.”

“He’s a lot like Mr. Argent. Hot, wealthy, stacked, older, wears leather, bit of a bad boy, clearly a terrible idea.”

“Is it really so terrible?” Stiles asked.

Lydia put an ‘X’ through the entire page. “It would be a terrible idea if he wasn’t your boss.”

“But it’s an amazing idea because he’s my boss, right?”

“Amazingly dreadful.”

“But what if it wasn’t dreadful?”

“It would be any number of synonyms for terrible I don’t feel like listing.”

“Ugh,” Stiles said.

“As you know perfectly well.”

“Lyds,” Stiles complained. “He’s so sarcastic. He’s so intelligent. We never run out of things to talk about. Ugh, he’s got the neck of a bull, like it’s just so thick and ugh.”

“Worst idea ever,” Lydia said with the tone of someone who knew they weren’t being listened to. She scribbled a big fat ‘0’ on the top of the test and turned to the next one.

…

There were a few more minor cases after that and now that he had recognized it, Stiles’ crush was getting harder and harder to ignore. Peter didn’t help– Stiles wasn’t sure if he’d ramped the flirting or if Stiles had just been better at laughing it away before. Now when Peter said something suggestive or gave him a sultry look, or stretched in that faux-innocent way that showed off his washboard abs, Stiles had to use all his tricks to keep his heart from jumping in response. He hid out in the workroom more and more, putting his frantic energy to good use refining spells and researching new ones, creating charms that would be useful to him and Peter in the field until he’d gotten them so refined that Peter began to muse about starting up a side-business selling them to his contacts.

He couldn’t avoid Peter when they were out on a case though, and a few weeks after his revelation Peter came bursting into his office with a job; seeking out and dealing with a mysterious presence in their pack lands– all the way out in Pennsylvania.

“Don’t they have more local people?” Stiles grumbled as he packed his supplies.

“Yes, but they wanted the best,” Peter told him. “And the alpha’s a relative of mine.”

“Figures,” Stiles muttered, closing the buckles on his to-go case.

“Flight’s in two hours from the city airport,” Peter said. “I emailed you the flight information. Go and pack and don’t forget snacks this time; I don’t want to deal with you when you’re hangry. I’ll pick you up at your house.”

Hangry for you, Stiles fortunately didn’t say. He swallowed and nodded and ignored Peter’s raised eyebrow and curious look.

…

There was just enough time to stop by the grocery store for snacks, and say goodbye to his dad at the Sheriff’s station, and throw clothes into his bag– fortunately it was still late summer and Stiles’ phone told him the weather in Pennsylvania wouldn’t be too different from Beacon Hills– before Peter arrived, eyeballing the shabby decor of Stiles’ childhood home but wisely not saying anything, just taking Stiles’ duffle from him and escorting him to the car.

Of course as soon as they’d sat down in the waiting area of the tiny airport Peter had his grubby paws in Stiles’ bag of snacks, complaining that they weren’t organic or expensive chocolate or something.

“What do I even pay you for?” he whined, frowning at a Reese’s.

Stiles grabbed it and unwrapped it and stuffed it in his mouth, grinning with his cheeks stuffed full of peanut butter chocolate goodness.

Peter rolled his eyes, unable to hide his smile. He poked Stiles’ puffed out cheek. “Brat,” he said, affectionately.

Stiles kept his heartbeat steady and focused on trying to chew the wad of candy in his mouth without drooling.

…

They transferred to a larger jet in Seattle, first class again. The pack was paying for it, Peter explained, so why wouldn’t they take full advantage? Stiles stretched out his legs and decided not to complain. Most of the flight was spent reviewing the evidence the pack had provided. It was a smaller pack, too small to have a full-time emissary. Instead they hired a ward service to come out and handle their wards a few times a year, and the pack right-hand did all the negotiations, not that there were much. Pennsylvania was large and land wasn’t much in demand, so it boiled down to weres crossing the territory, children going off to college, that kind of thing.

And they’d never had a supernatural problem before, apparently. Stiles considered what life might be like living in a place that wasn’t a hell-mouth, then decided it must be pretty boring.

The first sign that something was odd had been some iridescent scales found on part of the pack’s territory (like fingernails only much prettier, the right-hand had told Peter). Then there were dead animals found near where the scales had been. Unusual because the scavenger population usually took care of anything pretty quickly. Especially when it had gone from mice to small deer. Then the trees began dying, all around a small pond that was near the other incidences.

“Huh,” Stiles said, when he’d reviewed everything.

“Thoughts?”

“I was thinking basilisk until the dead trees,” Stiles said. “They’ve got a lot of caves in Pennsylvania, right? But a basilisk wouldn’t kill trees.”

“That’s what I was thinking too,” Peter agreed. “It could be two things.”

“Occam’s Razor,” Stiles began.

“Yes, yes,” Peter muttered.

Stiles stretched, then fished around in his bag for his laptop. “I’ll do the scrying spells when we get there, but we can search the bestiary now.” He clicked around on his computer until the shiny web interface was pulled up. Peter had splurged on the deluxe package with the advanced search function and Stiles quickly made use of it– ‘scales, dead animals, dead trees’– and got four hits, none of which seemed likely. He muttered to himself, removing one search term, then the other, squinting over the results.

“I’ve already gone through all that,” Peter told him as he clicked through the pages. “Just wait until you can cast your spells.”

Stiles clicked on a few more links defiantly, then closed the browser, reluctantly admitting (to himself) that Peter was right. Ugh.

“Or you could cast the spells from the bathroom,” Peter suggested, with a leer. “Join the mile-high club.”

“That’s not what the mile-high club is,” Stiles couldn’t help saying.

“Oh, I know,” Peter said, knowingly and Stiles had to focus on the sounds of the passengers around them for a minute. That shouldn’t be hot– it really shouldn’t. It was objectively disgusting. Even in first class there was something vaguely revolting about the bathrooms. The smell, maybe.

Stiles shut his laptop screen and looked out the window.

“Tell me about the pack we’re going to visit,” he said, desperate to change the topic. Peter never missed the opportunity to educate Stiles about something and this was no exception. He went on at length about the Cole pack; the members (just a small family, really; Peter’s uncle and his husband and children and grandchildren). Their small business raising angora fairy rabbits for their fur, which was apparently very lucrative because of the fur’s ability to protect the wearer against telepathy or magical mental influences and the rarity of angora fairy rabbits. Talia had been given a scarf made out of it once and she kept it under lock and key.

Stiles listened on, fascinated. Telepathy was rare enough that it didn’t seem to warrant an incredibly expensive fabric, but magical mental influences were far more common; could it protect a beta against their alpha’s pull? Free a person from fae glamor?

“That’s the theory,” Peter said, when Stiles asked. “But I’ve never found anyone who’s tried. Mostly I think they sell it to paranoid rich people.”

He had more questions; did the fabric need to cover your head, did it have some kind of shelf life, was it itchy? But Peter didn’t know the answer to any of those either, frustratingly.

“My uncle is very cagey,” he said. “He’s refused to come anywhere near us since the fire, and from what I’ve heard has gotten more and more reclusive.”

“But he invited us out here?”

“He’s afraid whatever it is is killing the trees and animals is going to come after the rabbits,” Peter explained. “But don’t be surprised if they’re very suspicious and secretive the whole time.”

“This is going to be fun, isn’t it?” Stiles asked, sarcastically, and Peter shrugged. “Clients are usually the worst part of any job. Thank goodness there’s been a change to the council recently; there used to be some horrible old codgers on it.”

It wasn’t hard, after that, to prompt Peter into recounting some of his negative experiences with the council members (and the ‘pranks’ Peter had paid on them in return), and then he and Peter were exchanging stories about the various trouble they’d caused for people they’d had issue with, from the terrible partners Derek kept getting attached to to the students who’d tried to bully Stiles into dropping his advanced warding class.

They weren’t all light-hearted, but then Stiles’ form of justice had now and then crossed over into the realm of ‘vigilantism’, so it’s not like he could object. And Peter was clever and creative and fiercely loyal to his pack and friends and family and Stiles was having to think hard about airplane bathrooms again. What was it about them that made you feel like you were covered in a layer of grime? They were nothing like truck-stop bathrooms, and yet–

They landed in Pittsburgh in the early morning and got on a puddle-jumper that would take them as close as they could get to the Cole Pack territory, Stiles using one of his trackers to make sure their luggage accompanied them onto the tiny plane and then sleeping the whole way. The airport they arrived at was basically just a small hanger attached to a shack; they picked up Stiles’ case of magical supplies on the tarmac, then made their way out to the tiny car rental place, Peter complaining the whole way that they’d had to rent a normal SUV instead of something fancy and expensive.

It was three more hours of traveling after that, through the mountains of northern Pennsylvania, mostly endless forests, with a small farm here and there to break it up. They ate breakfast in a tiny diner, the cook and waitress eying Peter’s designer footwear suspiciously while Peter muttered under his breath about unhealthy fried food like he could even get clogged arteries, then got going again. Peter drove too fast on the unfamiliar roads, but somehow Stiles drifted off anyway and didn’t wake up until the car was pulling onto a gravel road.

It was the middle of the day by that point, but Stiles was exhausted. He yawned and shifted, his butt and back hurting from sitting for so long. He stared out the window at the thick forest they were driving through and caught sight of something running alongside them. A ‘wolf. No, two.

“They’ve been tracking us for the last ten miles,” Peter said, softly. Stiles glanced over at him; he looked more tired than Stiles had ever seen him, but that wasn’t saying much. Even when in the hotel in Mexico, when he’d woken up in the middle of the night he’d seemed more awake.

A minute later they pulled into a large yard in front of a house that reminded Stiles strongly of the Hale House. A long garage stretched along one side of it– essential when you lived somewhere it snowed as much as it must here, Stiles assumed– but Peter parked the rental along the side of the lot. The door opened as he parked, a few solemn-looking dark-haired people stepping out of the house.

They didn’t have the Hale eyebrows, Stiles noticed and had to tamp down his exhaustion-induced hysteria. They didn’t have the Hale good looks either. The tallest man had a crooked nose that looked like it had once been broken. The man standing beside him, scowling, must have been Peter’s uncle, then; a born wolf wouldn’t have an obviously broken nose like that. Along with the two older men there were two younger people, a man and a woman, the man holding a small child, and as Peter and Stiles approached them, two more– a teenager and a boy in his twenties– came barreling out of the woods, each dressed in the scanty way of a ‘wolf that’s just transformed and put on whatever clothes they could put their paws on.

“Uncle Burt,” Peter greeted with the little cross between a headnod and a bow it was courtesy to give alphas you were visiting. “It’s good to see you. My associate, Stiles.”

Burt sniffed and nodded. “Peter. You’ve grown up, I see.”

Peter smiled. “I am almost middle-aged,” he admitted. “Stiles, let me introduce my uncle, Burt Cole, and his husband Andrew.”

“Our children Melissa, Tim, and Nathan,” Andrew said, gesturing to the younger adults, then to the teenager and toddler, “and Tim’s daughters Alica and Anna. Thank you for coming.”

Peter nodded, all graciousness. “It’s our pleasure.”

“Oh!” Melissa exclaimed. “You’re human.”

“That I am,” Stiles agreed.

“You must be so tired from the flight. And you must want to wash the smell of the plane off,” Tim said. He looked at his fathers, but it was Nathan who spoke. “Mel and I cleared out the guest house.”

Tim looked like he wanted to object, but he nodded, and offered to carry Stiles’ bag for him. Stiles declined– he didn’t let anyone handle his magical supplies– and they followed Tim around the house.

“Sorry if the guest house is a little musty,” Tim told them as they walked around a large garden. “We don’t use it much. I’m sure Mel and Nat cleaned it out well though.”

Stiles glanced at Peter, remembering what he had said about his uncle being reclusive.

The tiny cottage was just inside the treeline, more of a shack than anything, with a 10-gallon bottle of water sitting on the counter instead of plumbing and a wood-fire stove. There was a large bed made up on one side of the shack and a few chests for storing clothes in, Stiles supposed. It was all extremely rustic. At least there seemed to be electricity.

“The outhouse is around back,” Tim explained, as if having an outhouse was completely ordinary, “and if you need more water, just come around to the big house. I’ll have Alice bring out some lunch for you.”

Stiles looked around after he left. “Did I doze off there or did he say something about the shower situation?”

Peter gestured to the water container. “He said something about a creek out back.”

“RIP your shoes,” Stiles said, not sympathetically. “At least it’s not too cold here.” He grabbed a towel from a pile left on the foot of the bed, and wandered around the cabin to where a small stream was bubbling through the woods.

It wasn’t exactly the first time he would be bathing in the woods, although usually it was just a quick wipe to get a little gore off of him after a run-in with something nasty. He stripped and stepped into the stream, greatful the bottom of it was covered in sand and not muck or sharp stones, and went to work washing the plane smell off of him, wincing at how cold the water was. He bathed as fast as he could, bending down to splash water on his chest and back, then grabbed the towel and started drying off only to see Peter coming around the shack fully nude, towel dangling from one hand.

Did this count as workplace harassment? Stiles thought wildly, covering his head with the towel to hide his expression even though he hadn’t washed his hair. It probably meant nothing to Peter; ‘wolves had a different relationship to nudity compared to most humans. Stiles had thought he was desensitized to it. He was very wrong.

But then maybe there was no way to be desensitized to Peter.

“Are you going to stand like that forever?” Peter asked, voice laced with amusement.

Stiles pulled the towel off his head and realized he was blocking Peter’s access to the stream. He stepped aside, wincing as his foot landed on a sharp stick. He’d made a critical error, he realized; he didn’t want to put his shoes back on, not with his feet still damp and dirty, but the path back to the shack looked like it was littered with sharp sticks and rocks.

Peter must have followed his train of thought because a moment later he found himself hoisted up and into a bridal carry. Stiles squealed, mortifyingly, as a whole lot of Peter’s naked skin came into contact with a whole lot of his.

“Wait,” he exclaimed. “My clothes.”

Peter deftly scooped up Stiles’ clothes and dropped them in his lap, then handed him his shoes, and carried him back to the shack like it was a perfectly normal workplace interaction. It was not a perfectly normal workplace interaction. Stiles could definitely feel Peter’s cock rubbing against his hip. As for his own, well, hopefully Peter wasn’t paying attention to the smells he was definitely giving off.

He dropped Stiles to his feet at the entrance to the shack and asked him if he needed anything else.

Stiles flailed a minute, dropping half his clothes and one shoe, said ‘no, thanks,’ in a choked off voice, then watched Peter stride away snickering.

“Are you okay?” someone asked, and Stiles turned wildly, almost slipping and falling on his dropped shirt, only to see the teenager standing there with a plate of sandwiches. Alice, he reminded himself.

“Nope,” he said, taking the plate. “Hunky dory.”

She looked at him skeptically and nodded, bemused. Only when she was out of sight did he realize he was still naked.

…

He was dressed when Peter came back in, eating a sandwich and thumbing around on his phone. Surprisingly the cabin had wifi even though it didn’t have running water or central heating.

Peter parked his naked ass down on the edge of the bed and grabbed at the plate of sandwiches, eating two in the way he had when he was assessing the quality of a restaurant. “They must hunt for food,” he commented, taking another bite and chewing it thoughtfully. “Homemade bread too. Not bad.”

Not bad from Peter was like four Michelin stars. He ate the rest of the sandwich, then scratched his bare chest thoughtfully. Stiles was trying very hard not to look at the small patch of curly black hair that grew in the hollow between his pecs.

“Are you feeling up to doing some work today, or are you too tired?” Peter asked.

“I’m good,” Stiles squeaked.

Peter looked at him, curious, then shrugged. “Okay. We should probably head into the woods. We’ll need to get one of the pack to show us where they saw the evidence.”

Stiles nodded, then glanced at Peter long enough to ascertain he was still naked. “Not going to dress?” he asked.

Peter shook his head. “Figured I’d go in in ‘wolf form. I’ll be better prepared if something happens and I’ll be able to smell more clearly.”

“Okay,” Stiles said. “Cool.” He stuffed the remainder of the sandwich into his mouth and got out his kit, setting up the charms that would detect the presence and traces of supernatural creatures. When he turned back, Peter was a wolf.

Stiles had never seen him fully shifted before. He was a little smaller than most of the other wolves Stiles had seen, sleeker, built more for speed than strength. Still, knowing Peter he was probably pretty vicious in a fight.

Two of Peter’s cousins were waiting at the gardens; Mel in wolf form and Nat was dressed for hiking. Mel and Peter approached each other the way they hadn’t when they were in human form, sniffing at each other’s necks, and scenting each other.

It made Stiles realize how odd it was that they’d all been so formal and stand-offish before. Even if Peter hadn’t seen his uncle in a long time and had never met his cousins and his uncle-in-law, they should have been hugging and scenting each other from the get-go. Instead, they’d stood at least a yard apart and Burt had put them in the cabin, at a distance from the pack house.

Stiles wondered if it was to keep their scents at bay or to keep something hidden. His mind ran through all the nefarious reasons a family might have to keep distant family at a distance and he shivered. Peter glanced at him, turning away from Mel, and rubbed his cheek on Stiles’ thigh. Stiles scratched Peter’s scalp, then looked at Nat.

“Dad wants me to show you where we found the things,” Nat said, shortly, and stumped off into the woods.

Stiles did his best to keep in shape, but he was no match for a werewolf, even in human form, and a few times Peter yipped at Nat to reprimand him for leaving Stiles in the dust.

“It’s better to walk slowly to look for evidence and to give the charms time to work,” Stiles reminded him.

“But we didn’t see the dead animals anywhere near here,” Nat protested.

“It could have been all the way out here without you noticing,” Stiles said, and finally Nat seemed to get the message and slowed down enough that Stiles could keep an eye on his charms while they hiked. Mel and Peter ranged a bit away from them, appearing and disappearing as they wound through the trees, Peter sniffing diligently, Mel trotting along beside him as if she took her assignment very seriously.

They hiked maybe an hour or so and Stiles was beginning to feel the return of his jetlag, temporarily scared away by the cold of the stream and the shock of having to deal with Peter’s nudity, when Peter stopped with a soft ‘yip’. He nosed at Stiles and Stiles followed him into the underbrush, feeling as his charms began to light up one by one.

All them, which shouldn’t have been possible.

Peter led him to a large boulder half-buried in the ground, covered in moss with a stunted tree trying to grow on top of it, and Stiles cast a few trace and tracking spells, once again shocked by the result; a bright flash of magic, like the spells had been overloaded.

He looked at Peter, who looked back up at him. “There must be a lot of magic residue here,” he told him. “None of this makes sense.” He pulled out his scrying bowl and rested it on the boulder, then began to cast a much more delicate spell, feeding in magic bit by bit until the water began to glow. “It’s a bit north of here,” he said, “but I still can’t figure out what it is.”

They made their way slowly north, Peter yapping at the other two when they got too far ahead, and found themselves on the edge of a patch of ground where all the vegetation– trees, moss, underbrush, everything– was dead.

“I didn’t see this before,” Nat whispered.

Peter nudged Stiles’ leg, then grabbed the fabric of his jeans in his teeth and very lightly began to tug back the way they’d come.

Stiles squinted up at the sun and then nodded. “It’s going to get dark soon and we’re both pretty tired,” he said. “We should go back and regroup.”

…

The way back was faster, with Stiles not having to keep an eye on his charms and wanting to move faster so he could go to bed that much sooner and soon they were in the clearing with the cabin in it. Someone had been there and left a tray with a loaf of homemade bread and two covered bowls and as soon as the other two ‘wolves left, Peter shifted back into human form, tugged on a pair of sweatpants, and fell upon the food. Stiles ate more slowly, punctuating his bites with yawns, until Peter was shaking his shoulder and telling him to go brush his teeth.

He did, awkwardly, in water from the little bubbler, then used the outhouse, praying he didn’t accidentally drop his phone in the hole, then climbed into pajamas and crawled into bed, too tired to be that conscious of Peter climbing into the other side of the bed.

…

He was woken in the middle of the night by a hand clamped over his mouth and struggled for a second before he realized it was Peter. “Shhh,” Peter breathed in his ear and let go. There were rustling and hushed voices coming in through the open window of the cabin.

Stiles looked at Peter, but it was too dark for him to see anything. Peter slipped out of bed, grabbing his shoes and pulling them on and Stiles followed him, walking as quietly as he could to the door and following Peter out into the dark wood. Peter made a gesture that Stiles didn’t understand and then pulled him up onto his back and started running through the forest, Stiles’ arms and legs tight around Peter’s stupidly muscular body, crouched low so his head wouldn't be taken off by any stray branches.

The forest was too silent; Stiles couldn’t hear anything from it. Not small animals bustling about as they were disturbed, not the rustling of leaves or the burble of the stream. There was only one thing he could think of that could cause this silence.

“Fae,” he whispered into Peter’s ear.

Peter nodded.

Stiles’ mind spun, trying to put all the pieces together. The signs the Coles had told them about, the magic that was too strong for his scrying spells. “We’ve been had,” he gasped.

Peter nodded again and slowed down. There was a light flickering through the trees in the distance, the murmur of voices.

“They’re trying to sell us to the fae, aren’t they?” Stiles asked.

“Just you,” Peter whispered back.

Stiles slid from his back and rummaged around in his bag by feel, finding a bag containing a number of objects. He pressed the hit of an iron knife into Peter’s hand, then hung a heavy iron pendant around his neck, taking up his own knife and a powder that was supposed to work on all supernatural creatures then, side by side, they approached the light.

There was a fairy ring; a circle of glowing mushrooms. On one side of the circle stood one of the fae; willowy with pale skin and black hair and too-large eyes. On other the side of the ring were arranged the Cole Pack, most of them looking horrified and ashamed. Not Burt though; he stood at the front, seeming pleased as punch when he turned to gesture to Peter and Stiles. Peter looked at Stiles, who didn’t see any point in pretending not to be there and stepped into the light.

“A bright spark indeed,” the fae said, appreciatively.

Stiles felt Peter’s hand wrap around his wrist.

“What is happening here, uncle?” Peter asked, looking at Burt, who seemed unconcerned.

“We needed something to trade the fae for the rabbits,” Burt told him. “And you brought us a spark.”

Stiles felt the growling before he heard it. “He is mine,” Peter practically barked, dropping Stiles’ hand so he could throw an arm around him.

“If they don’t take him they’ll take Tim’s children– your cousins. Family is family, nephew.”

Stiles looked up at the two children; the teenager huddled against her aunt’s side, the toddler held lightly in her father’s arms.

“You sold your own grandchildren?” Stiles demanded. “For rabbits?!”

The other Coles shifted nervously again.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Stiles exclaimed.

“You can’t take him,” Peter reiterated, this time to the fae. “The Cole Pack has no power over Stiles; they have no right to give him away.”

“He slept on their land,” the fae said, unconcerned by this. “That gives them the right.”

“He signed a contract with me,” Peter argued. “It forbids him from entering into contracts with other supernatural beings.”

The fae stilled, frowning. “Is this true?”

“I have a digital copy!” Stiles exclaimed, holding up his phone. “We can prove it.”

“How long is the contract for?” the fae asked, tilting their head.

“A year,” Stiles said.

The fae shrugged; an inhuman gesture that seemed to ripple all down their spine. “We can wait a year.”

“No,” Peter said, his arm around Stiles’ shoulders growing tighter. “He is mine!” this time he shifted into his beta form, snout lengthening and eyes shining blue.

“I am,” Stiles declared, wrapping an arm around Peter’s now hulking form. “We’re mates. True mates.”

“You don’t smell like mates,” Burt said, suspiciously.

“We’re taking things slow,” Stiles defended. “But it’s true.” He turned and stood up on his tiptoes, pressing his lips against Peter’s muzzle. The rough hair melted against his lips and suddenly Peter was kissing him with a human mouth, soft and wet and yielding.

Stiles’ other arm came up around Peter, burying in his hair, and he pulled Stiles in tight until their bodies were pressed together.

A throat clearing made them pull apart, Stiles wiping his mouth on his collar sheepishly. The fae was scowling now. “The spark is taken,” they declared. “You owe me your children.” The two girls cowered back.

“Wait,” Stiles said, stepping forward, Peter’s hand still heavy on his shoulder. “The deal was for the rabbits, right? You give them the rabbits and they give you their grandchildren or whatever?”

“Yes,” the fae allowed.

“Can they give the rabbits back?”

“They would have to return the rabbits with everything that has been made with their fur.”

“But we’ve sold most of it!” Tim protested.

“But how many rabbits did you give them?” Stiles pressed.

“Two,” the fae allowed.

“And how many rabbits are there now?”

The Cole Pack looked at each other. “Seven,” Mel offered, finally.

“That's a bargain isn’t it?” Stiles asked. “Five extra rabbits? They’re valuable, aren’t they?”

The fae frowned in thought. “They are.” They cocked their head. “They do reproduce more quickly in the human realm.”

“Then you take them?” Stiles asked. “To fulfill the bargain?”

“No!” Burt Cole exclaimed. “Those are my rabbits.”

“These are your grandchildren,” his husband responded, coldly, gesturing at the girls. The Cole Pack was shifting, the adults inserting themselves between Burt Cole and the two girls. “We can survive without the rabbits, but we’re not giving up the children.”

Burt Cole shifted, hulked out into his alpha form, but his pack stood firm against him and a moment later he shrank back down again. Stiles could almost see the Alpha spark flowing out of him into William, who stood straighter and turned and looked at the fae.

“We will give you seven rabbits and you’ll leave the children alone.”

“We have a deal then,” the fae said, seemingly unconcerned about the drama happening before them. “In an hour you shall return with the rabbits.”

“Let’s get out of here,” Peter whispered, “before they try to sacrifice you again.”

Stiles nodded and they turned back into the forest, Peter sweeping him up into his arms before they’d gone a few steps.

“I can run!” he protested, but Peter chuckled, warm and low.

“I finally got you where I want you; I’m not going to risk anyone else snapping you up.”

“Where you want me?” Stiles repeated, feeling like he was out of breath even though he wasn’t doing anything.

Peter paused long enough to kiss Stiles again, full and deep and promising more.

“Oh,” Stiles breathed, Peter pulled away and began running again.

They gathered up all their thigns and made it out to the rental car in no time flat, Peter speeding on the winding roads until they finally hit a spark of civilization. He pulled into the parking lot of the first hotel he saw.

“What are we doing here?” Stiles demanded. Peter turned and raked his eyes over Stiles’ body.

“Oh,” Stiles said.

“It’s not the quality I’d prefer,” Peter informed Stiles as he tumbled out of the car, grabbing for his bags, “but at least it’s not a motel.”

It might have not been the quality Peter preferred but at least it had running water, an indoor toilet, and a bed springy enough that Stiles bounced when Peter threw him onto it. He followed Stiles onto the bed, crouching over him. “It wouldn’t have convinced the fae,” he whispered. “If it wasn’t true.”

Stiles somehow found it in himself to laugh, short and breathless. “Oh, now you believe in true mates?” he asked.

“Not that,” Peter said, burying his nose in Stiles’ neck. “That you’re mine.” He nosed along the join of Stiles’ jaw. “And I’m yours.”

“Oh yeah?” Stiles asked. “What are you going to do about it?”

…

They did something about it, took a nap, and did something about it again. By the time they were done it was the afternoon and Stiles’ stomach was growling like a wolf and they went out into the tiny town and ate what Peter described as ‘the worst Italian food in all of existence’ and then went back to the hotel and did something about it some more.

It was over a day from when they’d booked the room that they finally got into the car and started driving; there weren’t any planes flying out of the podunk airport they’d flown into so they had to drive what seemed like halfway across Pennsylvania to Pittsburgh where they booked into a much nicer hotel and did it all over again.

By the time they arrived back in Beacon Hills Stiles was feeling blissfully sexed out. He kissed Peter goodbye at his door (giving the neighbors a show he probably shouldn’t have), and stumbled up the stairs to his room, already missing Peter’s warmth stretched out beside him in the bed.

…

“So you fucked your boss,” Lydia said, when he Skyped her the next morning.

Stiles narrowed his eyes at her. “How could you possibly know that?”

“I’ve seen your sex face before,” she said, unconcerned. “Also, there’s a massive hickey on your neck.”

“Yeah,” Stiles murmured, dreamily.

“Eww,” Lydia said. “What’s your plan now?”

Stiles shrugged. “Keep fucking him? Oooh, now we can have quickies during lunch.”

“Hope this doesn’t blow up in your face,” she sing-songed.

“If it does, I’m sure you’ll hold it over me for the rest of my life.”

…

He got to the office a little late, leered at Peter as he passed his desk and went into the backroom for coffee.

“Don’t think this means you can just come in whenever you want,” Peter told him, coming up behind him and wrapping his large hands around Stiles’ waist.

Stiles sipped at the coffee and closed his eyes in appreciation. Peter always bought the finest roasts. “What are you going to do?” he asked, turning so he could look up at Peter through his lashes (even though they were the same height). “Punish me?”

Peter grinned, his eyes flashing. “Maybe,” he whispered into Stiles’ ears, “want to hear how I’ll punish you?”

Stiles wiggled his butt against Peter’s groin. “Yeah.”

“I’ll make you deal with the clients,” he murmured in a husky tone. “And fill out all the paperwork.”

“Ugh!” Stiles exclaimed, pushing him away. He took a deep gulp of coffee and turned. “That is not playing fair.”

“Oh, if you expect me to play fair, darling, you’re going to have a bad time.”

Stiles smirked at him. “No,” he said. “I think I’m going to have a very good one.”