Do you want to know how I sound when I come?

Stiles wanted to bang his head against the steering wheel. Why had he said that? Was he out of his mind? Okay, Peter had said similar things back at the coffee shop but that was not the point. The point was that Stiles shouldn't encourage him, he should just stay on his side of the town and forget about the stupid werewolf.

Stiles drove over to the station, he wanted his bag back. And then he wanted to retreat to his cabin and bury himself in some books. And for sure he did not want to think about a certain werewolf any longer. Stiles stormed into the station, his mind still on that stupid thing he'd said which he totally shouldn't have said but he had said anyway.

"Hi, Nancy," Stiles greeted her when he was rushing past the front desk. He opened the door to the sheriff's office with a bit too much force, the knob slipped out of his, and the door banged against the wall. From his place behind the desk, John looked up at him, not in the slightest surprised.

"Peter was here?" Stiles asked but by then he'd spotted his bag, sitting in a corner. "At least he wasn't lying."

Stiles closed the door more carefully and then he slumped down in one of the chairs in front of the desk to check if everything was still where it belonged.

"He went through my stuff," Stiles told John. Even if Peter hadn't admitted it, he could tell. His papers were not in the right order and for sure he would have never packed them in such a neat way.

"At least he didn't eat my Twizzlers." Stiles fished one out and stuffed it in his mouth. He grinned broadly at John with the candy handing out of his mouth.

"So he knows that you've been looking into the Hales?" John asked and put whatever he'd been working on aside.

"He went through most of my research on them." Stiles shrugged "But he didn't seem worried."

At that, John perked up. "You've seen him? When?"

"Just now, went out to the Hale house, looking for him." Stiles rolled the candy from one side of his mouth to the other.

"You went where? Are you insane?" John raised his voice but lowered it again with a worried glance at the door. "You've been avoiding the Hales for how long? Why did you have to go there now? Peter's dangerous. The whole pack is dangerous."

"What are they going to do?" Stiles became serious. "Kill me? Lock me up?"

"Don't piss them off," John warned him. "What if they come after Derek?"

"They're werewolves, not hunters," Stiles reminded him. "Besides, Peter still has no idea what he is. Even if he knew, coming after Derek would be the stupidest thing he could do. And he knows that. No, at the moment he's only interested in me."

"Yeah." John leaned back in his chair. "I noticed that."

"Why? Did he say something? What did he say?" Stiles almost choked on the rest of the Twizzler but he was sitting on the edge of his seat now.

"You're acting like a teenager with a crush, you know that?" John threw him an amused glance.

"I am a teenager, everybody here in the station will confirm that."

"You're not denying the crush part," John pointed out and reached for his work again. "Would you excuse me? I still have work to do."

"You didn't answer my question. Why is nobody answering my questions?" Stiles threw up his hands in frustration.

"Maybe you should ask him directly," John suggested, eyes already on his work, the conversation was over.

"He's the one who's not answering my questions in the first place," Stiles muttered but he did grab his bag and stormed out of the office.

By the time Stiles reached his cabin, he had cooled off. He kicked off his shoes and stretched out on his bed. He had wanted to dig into his books but he wasn't in the mood for that any longer. For a moment, he was just staring at the ceiling but then he rolled to his side and reached for his bag. Maybe some mindless Candy Crush would help him clear his mind.

However, when his phone came to life he found his contacts still open.

"That bastard."

Peter had added himself to his contacts and he'd sent himself a message so he did have Stiles' number now as well.

What makes you think that I want to have you in my contacts? Stiles wrote.

Nobody is forcing you to use it, came the prompt answer. You can delete it if you want

I'm going to do that, Stiles threatened.

That's your decision

Stiles was holding his phone in his hand for a long minute and did not delete Peter's number.

It might come in handy at some point he told himself. Besides, Peter was right, just because it was there didn't mean that he had to use it. He had the number of that pizza place in there, the one with the awful pizzas that always came burned on the top and raw on the bottom, he hadn't used that one in years. It had just quietly been sitting in his contact since forever. On a whim, Stiles deleted it now. He couldn't even remember why he'd saved it in the first place, the pizza there was just awful.

Do you still want to hear the answer? Peter wrote.

What answer? Stiles played dumb as if he'd already forgotten about that throwaway remark.

The answer is yes

Stiles stared at the screen until it went dark. That was not the answer he'd expected. They had been circling each other, yes, and there had been a palpable sexual tension hanging over them but they were not supposed to act on it. Peter was not supposed to say things like that. They joked around but they never admitted things like that.

If you send me a dick pic I will delete you, Stiles wrote because he didn't know what to say to the other thing.

Please, what are you thinking of me?

Only the worst

Peter sent him a crying emoji.

Stiles couldn't handle this. He threw the phone away but ten seconds later he had it back in his hand.

Since you're determined to talk to me, entertain me, Stiles demanded. He needed some distraction. Since it was Peter he needed to get distracted from it might be a bad idea to ask him to distract him but now Stiles wanted to know how the werewolf would react.

Do you have something in mind?

Aside from dick pics?

Would you stop with the dick pics?

Stiles thought that this was it, Peter would not answer again because how else than with a dick pic could he possibly answer now?

To his surprise Peter changed topics completely and asked about one of the books Stiles had picked out the other day. If he'd started it and if so how he liked it.

Stiles hadn't started with that one but he told Peter about the book he was currently reading. And that he wanted to read the one Peter had recommended to him next. The one he dropped on his foot? Peter remembered that one and he was looking forward to hear what Stiles thought about it.

Stiles didn't know how it happened but he talked to Peter for way over an hour like that and dick pics didn't come up even once. Or even anything sexual. They were just talking about books. The ones they liked, the ones they didn't like, and which ones they had on their endless list of books they wanted to read eventually but never came around to read.

They had to stop when members of the Hale pack came home and they would start reading over Peter's shoulder because they did not have a sense of privacy as Peter put it.

It's your own fault, sitting in the living room like this, Stiles wrote.

He didn't even know if Peter was sitting in the living room but if he were, there were way too many ways to glance at his phone. The Hales' living room was huge and almost none of the couches and chairs had a wall in the back.

They ended their conversation with the promise to talk again soon.

Stiles put the phone aside and rolled to his back. He didn't know what to make out of this, out of Peter. The werewolf had not mentioned making amends again but Stiles just knew that it was still on his mind. Was he just a charity case to Peter? Was he trying to be friendly because he thought that Stiles was lonely? But that didn't explain the chat they just had.

With a huff, Stiles reached for his phone again and scrolled through their messages. They sounded genuine.

He was an overthinker by nature he knew that but he also knew that he wasn't good at this. Whatever this was they were doing. Was it flirting? Was Peter flirting with him? Was Stiles flirting with Peter? He didn't know.

It would be easier if this was just about sex. He knew how to do that. Sex was going to the right place, a simple question of yes or no and they were good to go. In desperate times he'd even made some money that way but it was something completely different with Peter.

Earlier, Peter had said that he wanted to know everything about Stiles and Stiles had to admit that it was the same for him. They had just talked about books for over an hour.

Stiles let out a groan, this wasn't going anywhere. And he was still not in the mood for reading. He wasn't in the mood for anything so he got up and stripped out of most of his clothes, no need to get them all wet, then he locked his cabin and dove into the lake.

Stiles let himself sink to the bottom. Here he didn't have to think. He just needed to be careful, he tended to lose track of time and he wanted to have dinner with John tomorrow. And maybe talk to Peter some more.

"Stiles?" Derek asked. Down here he didn't have a form, not really. Nothing down here had, not even Stiles. Stiles was just floating in the water with Derek's presence surrounding him. So Derek's voice was coming from everywhere but mostly it was in Stiles' mind.

"I'm fine," Stiles answered the same way. Derek was everywhere, he was a comforting blanket Stiles could wrap around himself. A very wet blanket but that didn't matter. With Derek Stiles didn't feel the cold. Here he didn't get tired or hungry or any of that. He didn't even need to breathe.

"Something is bothering you," Derek stated. After all these years he was good at reading Stiles.

"Peter." Stiles let out a sigh. "I just don't know what to do with him."

"You don't have to do anything," Derek reminded him and Stiles let himself sink deeper into his presence. It was tempting to just surrender to that and maybe wake up in a decade or two.

"I'm not going to miss dinner with John tomorrow," Stiles emphasized but his mind was drifting in the water.

"Do you want me to take care of the werewolf?" Derek asked quietly. He didn't like killing but sometimes he had no other choice. When people were coming to the lake, when they were staying for too long or swam out too far, then Derek didn't have a choice. It was his nature and he had to follow his instincts. Thanks to John, there hadn't been a drowning in years but the next poor soul going into the water was doomed. Derek wouldn't be able to hold back, not after years without drowning someone.

But what he was offering now had nothing to do with that. This was Derek offering to kill Peter Hale out of his own free will. Just because he wanted to help Stiles.

"No," Stiles said firmly. "I don't want you to take care of him." After a second he added: "I kind of like him."

Derek accepted it like he accepted everything surface related.

Stiles didn't have let himself sink into Derek this deep in quite a while and when he came up again, he had to hurry to be on time for dinner with John.

He hurried back to the cabin to get dressed but first, he checked his phone in case John had to cancel because he had to take over a shift or something like that. There was nothing from John but Stiles found two messages from Peter waiting for him. The first he'd sent this morning, a comment on the last book Stiles had mentioned in an obvious attempted to get the conversation going again and the second one just half an hour old, asking if he was ignoring him on purpose.