When Peter came home with Emily, he expected the whole pack to ambush the little girl but it was only her mother, asking her if she had fun.

The rest of the pack was lingering around, though. The house was suspiciously full for this time of the day.

Emily followed her mother deeper into the house, already babbling a mile a minute. Chris Argent came up, which gained him a worried look from Deborah, but Peter shook his head, this was nothing to discuss in front of the kid.

Emily kept talking. That Stiles wasn't a mermaid and not a snowman either even if he'd said that he was. That she hadn't seen Derek but that he didn't look like Ursula, at least according to Stiles but she wasn't sure how much she trusted him on this. It got her a laugh from Deborah and Peter used the chance to slip away, he had some research to do.

He kept the door of the library ajar so that he could still hear the voices from downstairs. Mainly it was Emily's high voice but there were others as well. Too low for Peter to make out words but enough for him to know that Emily was still talking in detail about her encounter with Stiles. He probably should have stayed to intervene if or rather when she got something wrong about Stiles but he'd seen Stiles with the girl, she shouldn't have anything negative to say about him. Shouldn't.

Peter forced himself to ignore the voices and went in search for his books about European folklore. He was pretty sure that he had something specifically about German creatures somewhere but with his long research sessions lately, not every book was where it was supposed to be. Quite a lot were just randomly stacked on two tables. Peter cursed his past self for being lazy, back then he'd reasoned that he might need this or that book again but now that he needed some of the books again, he had no idea where to find them in these stacks.

While he was looking through the books, and he did not put the ones he didn't need right now back on the shelf, his mind was circling back to Chris Argent.

Derek must have spooked him pretty good. Chris had tried to shoot Derek but Peter doubted that a few bullets to the chest were enough to stop Derek. Peter got a sick satisfaction out of the thought that Chris had been almost drowned in his own home. Peter knew that feeling, it wasn't pretty.

However, the rest Chris had said was more interesting. Peter believed him that he was not one of the kidnappers but if he was just supplying the other hunters with weapons and ammunition or if he was working on another scheme against the pack, Peter did not know.

"Not in time," Peter mumbled the words that hunter had said to Stiles before Derek had drowned him. "Not in time for what?"

There was something else going on, that much was obvious but Peter had no idea what the hunters were planning. Which was unnerving.

However, he had people out there, keeping an eye on the Argents and looking for that other hunter, so when Peter found some promising books, he settled down to read up on German water spirits.

"Peter?" Talia poked her head in.

"Is it time for dinner already?" He might have gotten lost in his research for a while.

"In a minute." Talia came in and closed the door. "Emily says something about a bad man?"

"Chris Argent." Peter pushed his notes away. "Looks like Derek paid him a visit."

He relayed their encounter with the hunter to her.

"So Stiles and Derek are on his radar now." She put her thumb between her lips, thinking.

"Pretty much." Peter leaned back in his chair. "But I wouldn't worry about that too much. Derek can take care of himself and he's very protective of Stiles."

"Makes you wish he would take care of those hunters instead of just scaring them," Talia mused.

"There's no difference between them and us in his mind," Peter reminded her. "He could have taken care of me as well when I got too nosy but he chose to just make a point."

"You think those hunters will listen?" Talia was still nibbling at her thumb, clearly thinking about all the possibilities.

"We'll see. First dinner with Stiles." Which was in two days. Stiles' heart had started racing at the reminder of that.

"You say it as if it's some kind of battle." She let go of her thumb, an amused smile playing on her lips.

"To him, it is." Stiles hadn't outright said it but coming to their house, into their den, to him it was as if he was going behind enemy lines. "This is our side of the town."

Peter stayed for dinner but he left shortly after. When he slipped out of the house with a book and a container with some leftovers for Stiles under his arm, Stiles was still the topic of the table but it was all in good nature. Pamela was cooing over the fact that Stiles would read to Emily.

Stiles wasn't back up when he arrived at the cabin so Peter put the food in the fridge and dragged a chair outside. This time he wasn't waiting for a kidnapped Stiles to resurface so he got comfortable with his book.

Like he'd suspected, the name didn't help him much with Derek. It narrowed it down quite a bit but almost every country in northern Europe had its version of a Nöck. Even if he kept it to Germany alone, there were huge differences in the regional tales. And so far he'd found nothing that would prevent Derek from going wherever he wanted. Nothing on killing him either. Most versions of this creature agreed that it was better left alone. Some could be bargained with or were even willing to help for the right offer. They were not malicious per se but one better kept out of their lake or river. Despite all the differences that was something every tale about these creatures agreed on, stay away from their bodies of water.

When Stiles finally emerged from the lake, Peter put the book aside and just watched him coming out of the water. Stiles undressed and toweled off in front of him without a shred of shame but without hinting at anything sexual either. He just got dressed while he kept the easy banter going. Even when he asked if Peter had found a way to kill Derek yet, Peter knew that it was all in good nature.

"Why are you smiling?" Stiles gave him a suspicious look when his head popped out of the shirt he was now pulling down his body. His still wet hair was standing in every direction, giving him an adorable look.

"I like this," Peter answered and stepped closer to steal a kiss. They both were wary creatures, suspicious by nature, but around each other, they let their guard down without even thinking about it.

"You're weird."

"I brought food." Peter gave him another quick peck on the cheek before he went to get the leftovers. Since Stiles didn't have a microwave, he reheated it on the stove which had the double effect that the fire heated up the cabin as well.

After Stiles had his dinner, they got comfortable on the bed where they discussed the hunter situation and Derek's nature, Peter had questions and he had a better chance of getting answers from Stiles than out of old books.

Initially, they had wanted to watch a movie and were only talking to kill the time until they had settled on which one to watch but after almost three hours they didn't even pretend any longer and just sat with their backs against the wall, their legs stretched out, and with enough distance between them that Peter didn't get hit by Stiles' wild gestures while he was making his points.

Peter spent the night but he had to leave early the next morning. Somebody had spotted that other hunter. And he had to pick up Laura from the airport.

"I can come by later," Peter offered but Stiles declined. He would have dinner with John tonight and he wanted to go under for a while before that.

"Pretty sure I'm going to go under again when I come back from John and I will only come up when it's time for dinner with your folks," Stiles said with a dark shadow on his face.

"You don't have to come over." Peter reached for him and when he put his hand on Stiles' shoulder, he felt the tension under his fingers. "We're not going to force you. You know that, right?"

"It will only get worse the longer I put it off, sooner or later I'll have to meet your pack." Stiles let out a breath. "It's just … with Derek time doesn't matter. If I'm topside I will angst over this way too much. I know it's going to be fine but …" He made a helpless gesture.

"Don't worry," Peter assured him. "Want me to pick you up?"

Turned out that Stiles rather took his jeep. That way he would be able to leave whenever he wanted.

"See you tomorrow, then." They kissed goodbye and then Peter hurried to get back to his car. If he wanted to stop by the hardware store where the hunter had been sighted before he had to drive to the airport, he needed to hurry. The hunter had been there late last night and Peter had only gotten word about it this morning so there was no catching him in the act but his contact had promised him camera footage and he'd paid with a credit card so with any luck Peter would not only get a list of his purchases but a name as well.

The name on the credit card, Samuel Plant, was most likely fake but Peter took it along with the license plate the employee had jotted down for him. The video footage confirmed that it had been the man he was looking for. Peter was feeling that he was finally getting somewhere with this but when he went over the man's purchases dread settled in his guts.

Among various tools and wooden beams, the hunter had purchased quite some chemicals.

"What would one do with these?" Peter asked the employee.

"These two make good fertilizer." He pointed at them on the list. "The others are used as pesticides. I told him to be careful with those. Mixed wrong they become inflammable and can even self-ignite."

Peter did not like the sound of that. Not at all.

He left the hardware store with an uneasy feeling but now he had to pick up Laura from the airport.

"I'm gone for a few weeks and you score yourself a boyfriend?" Laura hugged him tightly.

"Hello to you too." Peter huffed but hugged her back. It always felt wrong when a pack member was away for too long. Peter closed his eyes and just took in her scent for a second but they were still in the middle of the airport with the crowd moving around them and Laura was smelling of too many people not pack. That would change over the evening but right now she just smelled wrong. Peter growled low in his throat to which she just laughed.

"You have to tell me everything."

"Who says I'm going to tell you anything?" Peter raised an eyebrow at her. One arm still around her shoulders, he grabbed her suitcase and together they walked out to where he'd parked the car.

In the solitude of the car, Laura felt comfortable enough to ask the real questions. About Stiles and Derek. For having been away for weeks she was suspiciously well informed.

Back at the house, Laura got swept away by the pack and the rest of the day she was the center of attention. Everybody wanted to reconnect with her, touching her, and making her smell like pack again. And of course, they wanted to hear everything about college. Cora was hanging on her lips but the other teenagers were more than interested as well. They wanted to hear about the people Laura had met, the parties she had been to while the adults were more interested in her studies. Especially Talia wanted to hear that college life was not all about partying.

On the other hand, Laura wanted to know about everything she'd missed over the last few weeks. Naturally, Stiles was the main topic. With him coming over for dinner tomorrow to get properly introduced into the pack, everybody was talking about him anyway. Not just because he was Peter's partner, which was still a strange concept for most of the pack, but because of his backstory as well.

Peter didn't even get a chance to talk to Talia in private but he did make extra sure that they were safe before he turned in that night.