When Talia pushed the gurney into the water, Stiles didn't go with Peter. He didn't want to watch him drown. There was no way to help him through that and watching it would only give him nightmares for weeks. So Stiles stood at the shore with Talia and Anthony and watched the gurney slowly sinking into the water. The waterline hadn't quite reached Peter when it came to a halt.
Derek was standing there, a hand on Peter's shoulder but he was looking at Talia.
"Talia Hale, alpha of the Hale pack." He spoke in the same formal manner as Talia. "I accept your sacrifice. The debt of your ancestor is paid."
With that, he picked up Peter's still form and turned around to walk out into the lake with him.
"Don't." Talia reached for them and made a step forward but Stiles held her back. There was no point in her dying as well today.
"It's okay," Stiles assured her while Derek just kept walking. The water was about to close over Peter's head. It would be over soon.
Stiles felt the tension in Talia's body but she didn't try to shake him off to go after her brother. She just watched in silence until Derek's head disappeared in the water. There weren't even bubbles, just an undisturbed surface.
"You sure that was the right move?" Anthony asked, eyes still on the spot where Derek had disappeared with Peter.
"A bit late for that question, isn't it?" Stiles turned on his heel and marched over to his cabin. He did not want to think about what was happening under the surface right now. Peter was most likely fighting for his life. Drowning was not a peaceful death, Hollywood was lying there. Stiles just hoped that it would be over soon.
"I'm going under as well in a minute," Stiles told them. "I want to check on him."
"When will he come back up?" Talia was following him but she kept her eyes on the water as if she expected Peter to emerge any second now.
"Not today." Stiles shook his head. "After an injury like that, I've been under for days."
They entered the cabin and Stiles took a moment to have a look around. This was his but he didn't mind sharing. Peter would need a place to keep his clothes and things like his phone. At least for now. They had time to come up with a long-term solution.
"I can lend him some clothes but it would be a good idea to bring over some stuff he might need," Stiles said. Mainly he wanted to distract Talia, give her something to do, but it would be nice if Peter had his own stuff here when he came back up.
"And my car is kind of still at the hospital," he remembered. "Can I bother you with bringing it here?"
Talia didn't want to leave. She wanted to stay until Peter came topside but in the end, Stiles convinced her to go home and get some rest. In the morning she would bring over some things for Peter, all his belongings had been destroyed in the fire but she would find some basics for him. And they would bring over Stiles' car.
"Did I make a mistake?" Talia asked. "I let this … this creature take him … drown him … what if …" Her voice broke.
Stiles stepped in front of her, forcing her to look at him.
"This creature has saved Boyd and Erica," he reminded her. "He saved Peter and Emily and believe me, he wanted to kill Peter. Not take him, drown him. You have no idea how strong that urge was but Derek fought it. He did not kill Peter that day." Stiles paused to let his words sink in. "Today is different. This is not Derek giving in to his nature, this is Derek using his nature to save Peter. Is his life going to change drastically? Yes. But he's going to have a life." Hesitantly Stiles reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. "I'll make sure that he calls you first thing when he comes back up. I'm going to make him call you buck-naked, won't even let him put on clothes first."
That got him a smile from Talia. Then she visibly collected herself and straightened up.
"I have to take care of a few things," she said, clearing her throat. "But I want to hear from him soon."
A few minutes later Stiles watched while she and Anthony walked up the path with the empty gurney between them. Once they were out of sight, Stiles stripped down to his boxers and dove into the lake.
Peter hadn't come to yet.
"Was it bad?" Stiles dared to ask. Peter was at the bottom of the lake, just a lifeless body but that would change in a minute.
"He fought," Derek said, his voice an echo in Stiles' head. He was just a presence floating around him and for a second Stiles was tempted to sink into him. But Peter needed him.
"Let me break it to him," Stiles suggested. "He might take it better from me."
Derek agreed easily and backed off for now. They had all the time in the world to get to know each other.
Peter woke up kicking. Stiles remembered when he'd been in his place, when his brain still insisted that he needed to breathe and that he would die if he stayed underwater. So he tried his best to calm Peter down and eventually he listened.
He took it better than expected. For sure better than Stiles back then but Peter had the advantage that he knew Stiles and Derek, he wasn't completely blindsided by this.
Stiles brought him up to date with what was going on on the surface, that his house was gone but that there had been no casualties. Except for Peter, of course. Peter wanted to see for himself but Stiles convinced him to give himself a little more time to heal.
When Derek approached them, Stiles backed off but he stayed close enough to see how Peter would react to the Nöck. In the end, Peter sank into Derek.
Stiles left the lake to give them some privacy but he couldn't help the broad grin on his face when he retreated to his cabin.
Without his car he was kind of stranded here, not that he wanted to leave before Peter was topside again, so Stiles got comfortable on the bed and got his phone out. He texted John to inform him about Peter and to ask about the investigation. At the moment Derek was busy with Peter but he would come back to the hunters eventually. Derek was no-one to forget easily. If John didn't bring the hunters to justice, Derek would.
Stiles fiddled with his phone for a long minute but then he wrote another message. Talia deserved to know that Peter had gained consciousness and was now with Derek.
I still want to hear it from him, came Talia's answer but Stiles could feel the relief behind those words.
All they could do now was to wait. Stiles got his laptop out to kill some time and to keep his mind from wandering back to Peter. The urge to dive into the lake to check on him was strong but Peter was with Derek for the first time and Stiles didn't want to interrupt that experience.
He must have fallen asleep because when Stiles blinked his eyes open, the morning sun was illuminating the cabin. Stiles rolled to his back with a groan, he'd slept in a weird angle and he was pretty sure that he had imprints from the keyboard on his face.
Peter wasn't there but Stiles didn't expect him to come up before noon, as the earliest. It was quite possible that he wouldn't come up until next week, time was a tricky thing when one was with Derek.
Before he got up to face the day, Stiles checked his phone. He was reading a message from John, they had some promising leads but no arrests yet, when he heard somebody outside.
Thinking that it was somebody from the pack, most likely Talia herself, who was here to bring the stuff for Peter, Stiles opened the door.
"Stiles?" Parrish blinked at him in surprise.
"What are you doing here?" They both said at the same time and then they were both waiting for the other one to answer the question.
I live here, would have been Stiles' answer but he couldn't say that. So he waited for the deputy to speak first.
Parrish tried to peek past Stiles and even if Stiles did his best to use the door as a shield he was pretty sure that Parrish had a good view into the cabin. Not at the kitchen part but where his bed was. An unmade heap of blankets with his laptop and phone on top.
"Did you sleep here?" Parrish asked. "Stiles, what's going on?"
Stiles bit his lip, unsure what to do, but in the end, he opened the door and offered the deputy a coffee. He didn't know what he was going to tell him but he had to give him something.
"Shouldn't you be patrolling the road to keep people from coming out to the lake?" Stiles asked and busied his hands with getting a fire going. He felt Parrish's eyes on his back but he did his best to ignore him.
"At the moment the sheriff has us checking on the Hale family," Parrish answered. "He doesn't want another attack on them."
Stiles hmmed to that and put the kettle on the stove. The water needed time to boil which meant that he'd run out of excuses to face Parrish. With a sigh, Stiles turned around.
"Stiles." Parrish did his best to sound understanding and caring but Stiles knew that it was at least partly a tactic to get him to talk. "Talk to me. Why did you sleep here? If you're not safe with your uncle …"
"Would you just stop?" Stiles shut him up. He didn't care what Parrish might think about him but even suggesting that John …
"You're trying to solve a puzzle, I get that, but you're missing like ninety percent of the pieces." Stiles let out his frustration in a sigh, why couldn't Parrish just back off?
"Give me more pieces, then." Parrish fixed him with a hard gaze. He was on a mission and there was no way to make him back off, Stiles realized. He was like Buttons who was just determined to sink his teeth into Stiles' ankle. And if Parrish looked at Stiles too closely, he could cause some serious problems, especially for John.
Behind him, the kettle whistled with the boiling water and Stiles turned around to make them coffee. Too bad he didn't have alcohol in his cabin, he would have loved to spice his coffee for this conversation.
"What do you know?" He asked, knowing that Parrish would pick up on his defeat.
"I don't know shit." Now it was Parrish who let out a sigh of frustration. "Nothing fits. It's like you said, I'm missing quite a few pieces." He took a breath. "This place for example. Boyd and Erica showed up here after they had been kidnapped, and you still owe me an explanation where you've been at that time, but to get here they must have crossed several roads and passed at least four houses. Why didn't they call for help earlier?" He waited for Stiles to answer the question.
Stiles just handed him his cup of coffee and sat down at the table.
"Then the fire." Parrish accepted the coffee. "Peter and Emily were still in the house and you ran in after them, that's a fact, we have witnesses. But then all three of you are suddenly here, on the other side of the town. And what's with this Derek guy? He's a ghost, I can't find anything on him, it's as if he doesn't exist. He was out here with you when I arrested him. The day of the fire he was at the Hale house and later here again. Who is he? What's his role in this?"
Stiles sipped his coffee and listened to his rambling. Sounded as if Parrish had been mulling over this for a while now.
"And you." Parrish looked directly at him. "You keep popping up at crime scenes. What's your role in this?"
Stiles rolled the cup between his palms.
"You remind me of John, you know that?" Stiles said with a fond smile on his lips. "He couldn't let it go either."
"Stiles, talk to me."
Stiles stalled for a moment longer by taking another sip of his coffee. How was he supposed to explain this?
To give him some time, Parrish took his first sip as well. His face did an interesting thing when the coffee hit his taste-buds, nobody was used to the old-fashioned way of making coffee, but he almost spat it out when suddenly the door opened.
"Didn't know we have a guest," Peter said. He was standing in the door stark naked, dripping wet, and without a shred of shame.
