Blood Runs Cold

Chapter Twenty

"Chinese or Indian?" Peter asked as he opened a drawer filled with takeout menus. That sort of drawer seemed so out of place in his kitchen that was filled with expensive cooking tools. Stiles was pretty certain the set of knives on his counter were worth more than his Jeep.

Okay, it wasn't hard to be worth more than his Jeep, but still.

The idea of Peter ordering general tso chicken and crab rangoons, tipping a delivery man, finishing all that with no murder or schemes, it was all bizarre to him. It was just so... mundane. So far removed from the plans of vengeance and assistance they only benefitted himself which had been the Peter Stiles had known for three years. Yet another item that he had to toss into the 'Yes, Peter Hale is an actual person' box. The surprise must have been clear on his face, because Peter spoke up.

"Even I don't feel like cooking every day, Stiles," he said with a twinge of dry amusement in his voice. He flipped through some of the pamphlets and hummed low under his breath. "I want red braised pork belly, we're ordering Chinese," he declared and Stiles felt his eye twitch ever so slightly.

"Thank you for providing me the options that you chose from, Peter," he said, having to fight to keep his eyes from rolling. "Can I pick what I want from the menu or are you planning on deciding for me?"

"How touchy," Peter said with raised brows as he handed Stiles the menu. "Decide for yourself and then let me know when you'd like to have an actual conversation without snapping over everything. I know there's more going on than just nightmares, Stiles."

The look Peter gave him made Stiles force himself to hold back a shudder. It was filled with too much knowledge, like he had already figured out what exactly was making Stiles so uncomfortable.

To be honest, he probably already had. Stiles had never exactly been the best at subtly or hiding information. Actually, those were probably the things he was the worst at.

"I want the sweet and sour chicken dinner," Stiles said, intentionally refusing to address Peter's comment. Even if he wasn't the best at hiding information, he still wanted to avoid touching on the topic of Peter's potential humanity and everything that entailed, with Peter, for as long as possible.

Peter made a vague noise that Stiles took as disapproval over his choice of food, but fuck that, sweet and sour chicken was delicious. If Peter wanted him to order something that didn't come with fried rice and an egg roll he should have said something. And hell, if Peter wanted to argue with him over his food, Stiles would sure as hell take that over an actual discussion about things.

But the vaguely disappointed noise was the only way Peter voiced his displeasure before he called and placed the order. He did ignore Stiles' additional request of some crab rangoons, but hey, he still ordered the combo.

Stiles let out a sigh as he flopped down on one of Peter's leather recliners and checked his phone. His notifications were mostly filled with his friends making sure he wasn't being murdered... well, mostly that's what his notifications were filled with. There were some outliers, like Isaac asking what it was like to be a sugar baby to the head of the werewolf mafia and Lydia and Scott telling him that it wasn't really a bad idea to talk with Peter and to make the most of the weekend.

Traitors, all of them were traitors.

"Burning alive truly is an awful experience, isn't it?" Peter set his cell down on a side table and sat on the couch facing opposite of Stiles. His eyes were narrowed in a searching interest as he inspected Stiles. "It's worse for werewolves, did you know that? It's like being electrocuted, our cells go into overdrive trying to heal but they can't keep up with the damage."