The kid snorted, rolled his eyes before shouldering roughly past him into the apartment. The smoky scent of anxiety had burned away a bit, replaced by the spark of amusement and some small measure of disenchantment, which was exactly what Peter had been hoping for. Hard to be so scared when you were laughing, and while a part of him relished the scent of fear, he found he didn't care for it on Stiles, not like this.

"Parlor, really?" he scoffed, slinging his battered bag off his shoulder just inside the door and glancing around.

"It is a classic," Peter pointed out, checking himself before he threw the deadbolt out of habit. No reason to cause the kid to panic, hemming him in that way. "You'd prefer something else?"

"Oh I don't know," he replied sarcastically. "Apartment? Home? Hell you're a lawyer, even 'step into my office' seems more appropriate."

Turning around to face him, he folded his arms across his chest, stretching the fabric of a green and white button-down over his shoulders.

"Den," he said quietly, and something a little dark curled in his tone, something a little bit accusatory. "Lair."

Now it was Peter's turn to roll his eyes.

"Please," he sniffed, stepping past Stiles and leading him out of the hallway, into the bright, airy, open design of the living room, the long dining table off to one side separating it from the kitchen beyond. "This is the twenty first century – we hardly live in caves anymore. Not when we can afford far better."

Behind him Stiles gave a long, appreciative whistle, his eyes roving over the skylights and the massive windows, the sun pouring in over the blonde hardwood.

"Damn," he breathed, shoving his hands into his pockets like he was afraid to touch anything. "Sure beats student housing, I'll give you that."

Peter chuckled.

"I should hope so," he replied, crossing to the peninsula curve of the countertop. "You can put your things anywhere."

He took the advice, toed off his shoes and tucked them against the wall of the entryway where they wouldn't be tripped over, put his bag carefully on one of the dining chairs.

"So, uh," he mumbled, fiddling with the sleeves of his shirt, rolled to his elbows. "How's this gonna work?"

"You can start by relaxing," he drawled sarcastically, taking two glasses down from the cabinet and going to the refrigerator door for ice. "You smell like you're about to pass out."

"So I'm nervous, sue me," he snapped, crossing his arms, and not for the first time Peter wondered exactly what it was he knew about wolves, the anxiety threading back into his scent.

"I'd actually like to spend a little time talking about that today, if you don't mind" he said after a distracted moment, pouring out orange juice and returning the carton to the fridge, a little sugar to bring the kid's color back.

"Finally."

The word was half sarcastic scoff, half relieved sigh. Confused, Peter frowned, turned to correct that tangled twist in communication and stopped cold when he saw Stiles fisting his hands in the hem of his shirt, pulling it up over his head and tossing it onto the dining room table before he could stop him. A cool little shiver rolled down his spine and he took an involuntary step back, unnerved by the sudden, drastic turn, the way Stiles had taken charge of the situation between them so quickly and so forcefully. Something at the back of his mind understood that, understood the kid's need to keep a little control for himself, but the rest of his brain was blaring a big, red mayday, even if for the moment Stiles was staring at anything but him.

"So yeah," he shrugged, clearly trying for nonchalance as his hands went to the button of his jeans, twisting when he fumbled the fly. "Hit me. I mean… god, don't hit me. Unless that is what you want, but that's gonna cost extra, and we need to talk about a safeword and…"

Growling with frustration, giving up on the button shaking fingers couldn't work, he threw up his hands and turned on Peter with a glare.

"Give me something dude," he demanded, posture, tone, everything betrayed by the way he smelled. A little defiant, a little intrigued, even a little aroused, but a whole big lot of nervous. "What?"

"Don't call me dude," Peter muttered, swallowing hard and forcing himself to shake off the jittery feeling he always got when someone hit on him a little too intently, the instinctual need to get himself into a corner where his back would be protected. Keeping his eyes down, he pushed the glass of juice across the counter toward the half-naked young man who stood glaring at him with irritation. "And for now what I want is for you to keep your clothes on, if you please."

"If I…"

Stiles huffed a bitter, disbelieving laugh, a scornful little sound that made Peter's head snap up, made his eyes burn blue and his fangs prickle at his gums with indignation.

"Whatever man," he muttered, shaking his head. "Your money, your time."

And well, that was true wasn't it?

"Actually, hold that thought," he said quickly, causing Stiles to freeze in the act of reaching for his shirt. "I'll be right back."

He told himself it wasn't running.

That it wasn't just an excuse to get out of the room for a minute, to collect himself. Stiles had barely been in the door for fifteen minutes and he already had Peter feeling like he was on a rollercoaster, jerking him around until he was nauseas. He'd never felt this kind of whiplash before, certainly not with Greenburg. Maybe it was because he thought he might actually be able to like Stiles someday, or maybe it was because the kid was so contrary on his own, one minute confident and a little too interested for comfort, the next skittish and wary.

It made his head spin.

Ducking into his bedroom, he grabbed a t-shirt from the post of the headboard, the one he'd slept in the night before. Having Stiles wear it, blending their scents would help him settle, calm the wolf that was pacing inside of him. It would dull the throb of stranger that had pounded against the back of his skull ever since he'd let the young man inside, allowed him into Peter's safe place, his den.

Stiles hadn't been wrong when he'd called him on that.

"Here," he said gruffly, tossing the shirt at the back of the kid's head as he came back into the kitchen.

Stiles had finally taken a seat on one of the barstools, had emptied half the glass of orange juice in front of him, and he was either so lost in thought or so entranced by the curls he was drawing in the condensation there that he didn't manage to catch the projectile. Instead he yelped, the sound garbled as the fabric wrapped around the side of his face, and he flailed so violently that Peter's hands reached out automatically to grab him by the elbow, catch him before he went over and steady him on his seat.

"Crap, thanks," he mumbled, his cheeks pinking as he righted his balance and Peter let go. "Sorry."

Peter made a noncommittal sound at the back of his throat, rounded the counter and drained his own watered-down glass of OJ in one go. He watched Stiles over the rim as he did, watched as he shook the shirt out and lay it over his lap, traced the letters laminated on the front. The picture of a clumsy, gangly young man who hadn't quite grown out of his rangy, teenaged body and into his big-boy shoulders was beginning to solidify in Peter's mind, but there was still a hell of a lot there that didn't make sense to him just yet.

"So I get that this is a scent marking thing, and I'm cool with that," he said, pulling Peter out of his musings as he turned the shirt the right way up, bunching it to stick his arms inside. "But you didn't like, sweat in this or anything right?"

Peter snorted, a little bit surprised by the sudden levity but appreciative of it none the less.

"What, are you a germophobe?" he asked in a teasing tone.

"No, and the correct term is mysophobic, Mr. Lawyer Man," he sniffed, muffled before his head popped out of the collar of the shirt, his hair messy and sticking out in three different directions.

"You know, for someone attending Columbia," he said, carefully ignoring the fact that Stiles' father was also a Sheriff, "You certainly seem to have something against my degree."

"Nah," he shrugged with a grin, "But don't expect me not to tease you for your word-a-day-calendar vocabulary. Or alternatively your lack thereof."

"Leaving me a lot of leeway aren't you," he chuckled. "That hardly seems fair, Mr. Stilinski."

"Yeah, but I never promised to play fair did I?" he said sweetly. "So. The HellHounds?"

Peter's eyes flicked to the decal emblazoned across Stiles' chest - white, black, and silver on worn, navy cotton.

"I told you I liked hockey," he said by way of explanation, settling a little more comfortably against the edge of the counter. "That I played sometimes."

"Well yeah, but you made it seem like it was an every-odd-weekend, pick-up game kind of thing, not like, organized. With names and a mascot and shit. Also, please tell me…"

"I didn't pick the name," Peter reassured him flatly. "I'm not that much of a jackass, despite what my sister likes to think."

"Good, because seriously, that's a little on the nose," he accused. Peter laughed, actually laughed this time and Stiles shook his head. "Peter Hale, werewolf HellHound…" he scoffed. "Let me guess - you're team enforcer."

"It's like you know me," he purred sarcastically, batting his eyelashes with one hand over his heart, and it was Stiles' turn to laugh, and that seemed to totally turn the atmosphere between them, everything warmer and lighter and easier and Peter felt himself relax into it with a whuff of a sigh, a smile threatening the corner of his mouth.

Smart, witty, caustic, and he knew enough to be comfortable with Peter's more animalistic instincts. He hadn't realized how much calmer that would make him feel, how much more at ease he would be simply because he could let a little bit of his guard down, relax that one small part of himself.

"That was the plan for the afternoon, by the way," he said, rounding the counter to the dining table where the signed contract was stacked neatly next to a small stack of papers. "The whole point of this is to be comfortable with each other by the time the full moon rolls around. I'd like for us to get to know each other a little better in the meantime."

Stiles made a noise like an aborted, haughty sort of sniff, a click at the back of his throat that made Peter think he'd probably read his words as a poorly shaded metaphor. Pity and annoyance warred in his chest for all of a second before he caught Stiles rolling his eyes and then both feelings fled, and he reminded himself once again that he was paying for the privilege of not having to explain himself or justify what he wanted. Grabbing a second bar stool, he dragged it in close to the kid's side, close enough that their shoulders would brush as Peter wrote and he could reach out a hand to grip the nape of his neck if he chose to.

Despite appearing offended by Peter's choice of words, Stiles didn't move away, and actually seemed to settle slightly with the close contact.

"And of course you'd be the type to write up a kink list," he grumbled, eyeing the paperwork and the familiar contract with annoyance. "We can't just play twenty questions."

"Nothing doing," he retorted, pulling open the drawer underneath the lip of the counter and fishing a pen from the detritus floating around in there. "If you learn one thing in my profession it's that paperwork may suck, but it will save your ass one day. This may not be as much fun but it's important if this is going to work out between us."

"But I already went over your stupid contract," he pouted, sticking out his lower lip and turning on Peter with puppy eyes. "All work and no play makes Stiles a dull boy."

Peter snorted. After growing up in a pack full of spoiled werewolf cubs, he hardly felt a twinge, and really, what sort of lawyer would he be if he was so easily persuaded? He was damn well immune to all sorts of thing by now.

"Be a good boy now and we can play later," he said, and then he immediately felt his eye twitch, because that wasn't what he'd intended to say at all. Make no never-mind about the fact that Stiles' normal idea of play was likely a far cry from the same definition of the word in the given context – neither was likely to be even remotely similar to Peter's. If his mind had flashed to rough and tumble games of tag or vicious battles of hide and seek through the city, well he wasn't going to admit to it now.

Waiting until he felt it safe to breathe again, until any spike in Stiles' scent had faded along with his reaction to Peter's words, he took a deep breath through his mouth and flicked across a few pages, uncapped his pen and twirled it.

"I told you I mean for this to be long term," he said, placing his phone down between them and opening up his calendar app, one that also happened to plot the full moons. "Are there any dates or times that you know you can't be available right now?"

"Just exams and like, major holidays," he replied, getting his own phone from his pocket and consulting the screen. "Midterms in late October, and finals the first week of December. I fly back home for Thanksgiving break, and then usually I'm gone through winter break too."

"That shouldn't be a problem," he muttered, mostly to himself as he keyed in a few notes to take the dates Stiles had specified off the calendar. "Winter break though… hmm."

"Well, look, the full moon's not till the 31st. I could go home for Christmas and still fly back in time."

"You shouldn't skip Christmas with your family," he protested mildly, more because it was polite and socially expected for him to do so than because he actually cared.

"Yeah I'm not going to," he said smartly. "No matter how good the money is. But I mean, won't you be with family too? You said you had a sister."

"I do, and several more besides," he nodded. "But I left pack life years ago, and a simple home-for-the-holidays visit is never just that. I tend to keep my distance, do the Skype thing. We were never especially close, even as children."

He could feel Stiles staring at him with something like sadness on his face now, and his scent burst with mellow citrus, stovetop lemon pudding that was just a little unhappy, a little somber.

"That… kinda sucks dude," he said carefully, like he wasn't sure he should, but Peter just shrugged it off.

"It's not as bad as it sounds. We still talk, still do see each other. It's not like either of us are secretly hurt by the distance. It just is what it is. But if you could make it back I'd appreciate the availability."

"Sure. I can always tell my dad I got a hot date for the New Year."

Peter hummed.

"Any medical problems?" he asked, aware that it was jarring and one hell of a non sequiter and ignoring Stiles' snort. "Allergies?"

"Don't you need like, a warrant or a subpoena or something first?" he asked, eyes dancing with amusement. "I mean, that's kinda personal. Do you need my soc number too?"

"No, but given that I'll be cooking soon and I'd rather not have to explain your asphyxiated body to the cops…"

"Ah," Stiles nodded. "Makes sense. Right. Um, no food allergies, but I am allergic to sulfa – it's a compound in a lot of medications. While we're there, I take Adderall for my ADHD, but no other medical problems. No diabetes or anything."

"What about asthma, anything like that."

"Nope. But again, not sure why you need to know."

"Because again, I'd rather not plan something like a walk through Central Park and have you collapsing because your very human body can't handle it."

"Once again, makes sense," he nodded, conceding the point and watching Peter make his notes. "But I'm good. I mean, I don't work out religiously or anything but I played lacrosse and I was on the track team. I still run."

"Good to know. Anything you don't like? Food, activities, situations…"

Stiles chuckled, shook his head and leaned back a little, folding his arms so that his fingers brushed against Peter's bicep where they were pressed together.

"You're weirdly considerate, you know that?" he said, and something about that tightened a knot in Peter's belly. "Just don't feed me any weird, raw, wolfy recipes and we should be good. Anything else, I'm assuming you mean like, work functions?"

"Yes, there may be one or two," Peter nodded, surprised at himself. He'd never taken Greenburg anywhere, instead going happily alone, but something in him wondered what it would be like to take Stiles along, to have someone to speak to that didn't bore him practically into his grave.

"I mean, I can do them," Stiles shrugged, but suddenly he looked uncomfortable again, face closing up as he edged away. "But I'm more the jeans and t-shirts type than tuxes and ties. And I mean, you've seen me. Graceful I am not."

"You're fine," he said easily, brushing off what was clearly a painful concern if the sudden sharpening of citrus in the boy's smell was anything to judge by. "And we can always buy you a suit. As long as you're comfortable of course."

"I mean…"

When he didn't continue Peter looked over and found him blushing.

"It's your call man," he said finally. "Just don't say I didn't warn you."

Peter shrugged, sure because of long experience that t would be best to ignore the fact that Stiles was feeling insecure and uncertain right now.

"It's a moot point for the moment anyway," he said, getting to his feet. "I recently picked up a case that's done an excellent job of clearing out my non-existent social calendar."

"Yeah, so what do you do anyways?" Stiles asked, prompting Peter to glance at him with raised eyebrows from where he'd begun to take pans down from the cabinets. "I mean, it doesn't sound like you have much of a pack. Do you know other werewolves in the city?"

"A few," he replied, dragging out a heavy, cast-iron skillet. "None that I particularly care to socialize with."

"So… what? I mean, you want me here for the full moon – how does that work? Shouldn't you be out running around with all your wolfy buddies being getting frisky?"

"I tend to stay indoors most months," he replied, slightly unsettled by the fact that suddenly, saying that out loud, confessing to it felt embarrassing, like it was a weakness instead of a show of strength that he could pull it off.

"This I gathered," Stiles said, "But… I mean, don't take this the wrong way, but… shouldn't you be feral?"

Peter froze, then turned on Stiles slowly with eyes that flared gold.

So it wasn't just wolves that the young man knew.

It was also hunters.

"No," he said slowly, a dangerous growl low in his throat. "But tell me Stiles. Where did you learn a thing like that?"