SIAND - PDF - the entire garden.pdf

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/3533822. Rating: Archive Warning: Category: Fandom: Relationship: Character: Additional Tags: Series: Stats:

Explicit No Archive Warnings Apply M/M Teen Wolf (TV) Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski Derek Hale, Stiles Stilinski Mating, Claiming Bites, Marriage!, Mpreg, Knotting, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics Part 5 of Thorns Published: 2015-03-13 Words: 19034

the entire garden. by standinginanicedress Summary

Derek blinks at him, cocks his head to the side, and grins again. “Is it not obvious?” “Um!” Stiles lets out a guffaw. “Obvious that you've gone off your rocker? Yeah, that's shockingly obvious to me, Derek. Honestly, the fact that you – that you would even think to do something as fucking nuts as this is unbelievable, and I would really like to know why you thought this would be-” Stiles breaks off in a choke. Just stops mid sentence, mid fucking word. Because Derek drops down onto one knee and takes Stiles' hand in both of his. He smiles up at his omega, tilts his head to the side, and says, “is this obvious enough?”

Notes

*wiping the tears out of my eyes* first of all, how is this nearly DOUBLE the length of any of the other parts in this series? Second of all, I had absolutely no plans of doing mpreg to finish this off. In fact, I at more than one point in time violently denied that I would be ending this with mpreg, because I had never done it before and I thought that it was more underground? Like, that it was a

very specific interest that specific people had. Then I started getting the comments about it and a couple of my friends were like "wtf why are you not ending with mpreg..." so I was like !? okay damn I'm doing mpreg? I guess? since the people demand it!? And last of all, thanks to everyone who's commented, kudo'd, and bookmarked this series and all of its works! I've really loved writing this series and I'm genuinely sad to have to let it go - I honestly feel like I'll be getting ideas for scenes for these two for a while to come now :( but of course it had to end sometime haha. Thank you, really. (and of course, the perfunctory 'this is a work in a series' reminder - you CAN read this stand alone, but I think you'll be much, much more satisfied by it if you've read the first four parts.) oh and one last thing - it's mostly context clues in the story, but in case you don't wanna hem and haw over figuring this out, Stiles and Derek have been together for three entire years by the end of the story.

See the end of the work for more notes

Derek buys the rings in the spring time – spur of the moment. He had just been picking up some book in the mall that Stiles wanted to read, and was planning on getting out of the god forsaken place as soon as possible. He fucking hates the mall. He hates how many people there are, how many teenagers there are, how many children there are, and he finds himself grumbling at every single store like an entire store dedicated to Disney? Just fucking go to Disney World, then, you lazy piece of shit? So that's what he's doing. He has a bag from the bookstore with Stiles' book dangling from his hand, frowning and sighing as he makes his way towards the exits. He can see the bright sunshine and blue skies of the outside world, a world far, far away from the screaming and people on cell phones and the smell of fried dough from the Cinnabon kiosk, can see freedom and quiet... When his eyes catch sight of the jewelry store. The one that he literally has never even thought about – has passed by a zillion times in his life and never even looked inside. Now, he's looking. He's looking at the bored girl behind the glass counters tapping her index finger with a frown, and at the long lines of glittering necklaces and diamonds and...rings. Here's the thing. He's given thought to he and Stiles' official mating a few times – possibly quite a few times, as a matter of fact. He's thought about Stiles being made part of the Hale pack, of Stiles walking around wearing a ring to let everyone know exactly who he belongs to and which pack he's a part of. But he always thought it would be best to wait until at least Derek was done with school, until he was the leader of the Hale pack officially and was making all his own money, until he and Stiles were, you know...ready. He's never even thought to mention it to Stiles, or even really talk about it, because in his mind, it's just understood. He's positive that Stiles knows that after Derek graduates and gets inducted as The Alpha, Derek's going to ask him to be his pack's omega. The future father of his children, his right hand in all his decisions, his confidant, his bedmate, his, you know. Everything. As they are now, they're only three quarters of what they could be. Maybe the whole mating thing is just a piece of paper, a ring, and ceremonial hogwash for his mother to cry about. But it's undeniable that until the knot is officially tied, the papers signed, the rings slid onto their fingers, they're just glorified boyfriends, and Stiles just happens to have the triskele tattooed on his body and just happens to have claiming bites all over his neck. But, he's not asking Stiles until he has his life all together and sorted out. Yet, he walks into the jewelry store anyway. The human girl immediately perks up, takes one look at him, and says, “mating rings, today, Alpha Hale?”

Because the entire fucking town knows that Derek and Stiles are together, knows that Derek and Stiles aren't official, and have probably all been waiting for this exact moment like a bunch of bored housewives watching a reality television show. Derek nods, and she bustles into action, leading him down to the left side of the glass cases and pointing her fingers down to where rows and rows of rings are sitting there waiting for him. She gestures to one row and goes on and on about rose gold and uncut diamond and then to another row and starts in with prices in the hundreds – Derek cuts her off. “Let me see your most expensive ones.” She smiles at him – probably imagining her commission skyrocketing. “Can I make a specific suggestion?” Derek nods; because he has no fucking clue where to begin. He'll take any nudge in any direction he can get. She bends down and unlocks the back of the glass case, sticking her hand into the back row and fishing out a line of rings before coming back up to place them in front of where Derek is standing. It's an entire set of more plain, simple looking bands, with no protruding diamonds or over the top shine, all of them colored darkly. She starts talking about how the things are literally made out of meteorite and Derek stops her - “like – meteorite? As in outer space?” With a blink, she nods. “Yes, Alpha Hale.” He can imagine, if Stiles were here, he'd go whoa, awesome! He'd reach his long fingers out and grab at them, holding them up to the light to inspect them, puffing his lips out and squinting his eyes. Derek himself has never heard of a ring made out of space gunk, and it honestly sounds like some weird made up science-fiction garbage, but judging by the price on them, he'd say she's probably not making it up. These are the ones. Without a doubt, these are the fucking ones. Imagining Stiles' face when Derek tells him he literally bought him a space ring is all the inspiration he needs to be sure. Now, he just has to choose a specific one out of the lineup in front of him. The girl behind the counter points to one with a manicured finger, raises her eyebrows, and says, “if I may suggest?” Derek buys two space gunk rings and convinces himself he's just getting an errand out of the way – he's not actually going to ask Stiles yet. He can't. They're not ready yet. It's way too soon. He'll put them in a shoebox in the very, very back of the top shelf of their closet, which Stiles can't reach, and wait until he's out of school and ready. ---Stiles hates his fucking job.

He hates that his boss is a creepy old guy who sniffs at him all the time, even though he's said ten thousand times that he has a mate and even if he didn't he wouldn't want to go anywhere near his crusty old ass (well – he doesn't say that last part), he hates that all the customers talk down to him, he hates that he gets yelled at by people on the way he chooses to bag (the right way), he hates his ugly vest and his dumb name tag. Every time he pulls into the parking lot before his shift he sits in his car for ten minutes, glaring dead ahead, living out a quitting fantasy inside of his own head. It would be after his boss tries to come onto him. That's when it would fucking be. He'd call Derek and do the one thing he's always known he could do but has never actually done because, in his opinion, it's a bit much...he'd go running to his alpha and say someone's being mean to me, Derek. Derek would fucking show up in his Camaro and literally beat the shit out of a sixty year old beta werewolf, while in the background Stiles would be yelling and, by the way, I fucking quit you stingy old asshole! It would be great. Derek wouldn't even get get in trouble – Stiles would just say the fucker was trying to challenge Derek's alpha authority by even entertaining the thought of getting near the alpha's claim, and the Sheriff would just sigh deeply and let Derek off without another word. Oh, it would be fucking delicious. It would be delightful. The problem is that Stiles has too much pride to ever go running to Derek like a scared little baby. He has too much damn pride to cry on Derek's shoulder like a whiny baby, too much pride to let Derek deal with his problems for him. So he suffers. He bags groceries and gets yelled at and hit on. But, he's still in his online classes, already done with the first semester and halfway through the second, and he's already decided that he wants to do event planning with his business degree. He can do that – he doesn't need to be hired by some hotshot alpha boss who'll take one look at his omega ass and laugh. He'll plan people's birthday parties and weddings and anniversaries and on and on; plus, as an omega who was trained how to make things look pretty and professional, everyone will be dying to hire him. This is all temporary. This Hell is just the stepping stone. And he refuses to quit. Derek always says you don't have to work you know...but Stiles fucking refuses to just mooch off of Derek and the Hale pack. He buys his own gas and his own textbooks and his own clothes, dammit. When he gets home after a particularly shit day, he typically beelines it for the fridge where the ice cream is waiting, and gorges himself while ranting and raving to Derek about how rude everyone is all the time. Today, though, he walks in and Derek is standing at the kitchen table pulling burritos out of a bag with the logo of Stiles' favorite restaurant. “Oh, fuck yeah,” Stiles groans when he catches the scent of the food, “you read my fucking mind.”

Derek turns around, smiles at him, and holds a wrapped up burrito out to the omega. “Your favorite.” “You're my favorite,” Stiles counters as he takes the burrito, ripping his vest off with a huff to drop it onto the back of his chair before sitting down. “My absolute favorite. You're getting such a blowjob tonight.” As Stiles is unwrapping the burrito, barely holding back a moan when the steam from the food rises up into his face, Derek holds a red rose out in his direction. For a couple seconds, Stiles stares at it, before his face splits into a grin. “Aww,” he says, taking the rose in between his fingers with a laugh, “memories.” “Good ones, I hope.” “The only good memories from high school are from after you and I got together,” Stiles confesses, sniffing at the rose for a second before dropping it down into his lap to focus on his burrito. “When all the bullying and teasing stopped because I was with the biggest bad boy in school.” “I wasn't a bad boy, Stiles.” “You made fake ID's and got arrested, alpha.” Stiles licks some stray sourcream off of his finger tips. “You were bad. Everyone knew it – you should've heard the way people used to fawn over you.” Derek sighs and gets a burrito of his own. “I was such a stupid idiot. I don't know why anyone even liked me back then – I was so pretentious with those leather jackets.” “Well, I liked you a lot,” Stiles says around a mouthful of food, “I sucked your dick a lot, if you remember that.” “That's two times in five minutes you've mentioned your lips being on my dick,” Derek raises his eyebrows, sniffs at the air for a second, and then bites into his food. “You're turned on.” “Yeah,” Stiles agrees, no point in denying it, since Derek can smell it all over him. “Burritos and roses – goes straight to my penis every time.” The next night, Stiles comes home from work before his two days off and is about to launch into a thirty minute rant on how people are fucking idiots that can't read the signs hanging from the ceiling that say exactly what's in each god damn aisle; he finds Derek waiting for him with a vat of Talia's macaroni and cheese – otherwise known as Stiles' literal favorite food on the face of the fucking planet. She uses, like, six kinds of cheeses, including chunks of blue cheese, and it is literally lifechanging. It is heaven sent. “Oh, my God,” he says, watching Derek pull it out of the oven, bubbly and hot and cheesy, and nearly has an orgasm. “You are on your A game lately, alpha.”

After Stiles is seated with a plate of food in front of him, right as he's about to dig in and have a religious experience, possibly come in his pants, Derek holds two red roses out to him with a smirk. Stiles smirks right back at him, dropping his fork back onto the plate. “You know, we're already together, Derek.” He takes the roses out of Derek's hand, sniffs at them again. “You don't have to court me anymore.” Derek shrugs. “You like roses.” “Mmm,” Stiles agrees, dropping the roses in his lap just like the night before. “Because they remind me of you.” “And you like me. Right?” “Nope. I hate your guts. I'm only in this for the macaroni and cheese.” He takes his first bite, and groans a long, drawn out, fuckkk yeahhhh. It's Stiles' day off the next day – typically, on his first day off, he goes over to Scott and Allison's house to pal around with his two best friends. Because, Scott and Allison live together, now. Allison has a flashy diamond ring on her finger and has told Stiles that his first practice at planning a real event can be her and Scott's mating ceremony. Stiles beams proudly at them sometimes, telling everyone who'll listen my alpha got them together! Derek doesn't care much for the anecdote – he doesn't care much for Scott at all, still – but he at least tolerates the other alpha, now, after a lot of dirty looks and silent treatments from Stiles on the way Derek would treat his best friend. So he spends the first half of the day eating cheetos and gossiping with his friends, looking at table arrangements in magazines with Allison, before heading over to his dad's house. The Sheriff gives him the usual once over, as if checking to make sure Derek hasn't been mauling him or something (because his father will never, never ever, get over the fact that he arrested Derek one fucking time for destruction of public property when the kid was seventeen years old, and still looks at him like some criminal), before starting in on the usual litany of questions. Are you doing good in school, is Derek doing good in school, is he treating you well son, would you tell me if he weren't, and Stiles rolls his eyes and gives the usual set of answers straight back at him. It's not really that the Sheriff honestly believes that Derek would lay a single finger on Stiles to hurt him, or that he honestly thinks Derek is two steps away from snapping and going on a crime spree. It has a lot more to do with the fact that Stiles is still an omega, and Derek is still an alpha, and there are certain...stereotypes that go along with that. Like that Derek is constantly using his alpha influence over Stiles to get him to do whatever the alpha wants him to, that Derek is ruthless and merciless when it comes to getting his way, that Stiles is so weak and kitten-y that of course the alpha is taking advantage of him, but what's anyone going to do? Alphas get their way, and omegas fall in line behind them. Except, that's not Derek. It's not Derek at all. Derek has never, never once, used his alpha

influence over Stiles just to get his way. He's done it two times – and one was to tell Stiles that he wasn't allowed to drive to the grocery store in the middle of a thunderstorm because he's a terrible storm driver and definitely would've crashed, and the other was when Stiles was idiotically blowdrying his hair out over a running sink. Derek has never, ever hurt him, and definitely never fucking will. It's just not in the cards. But, his father is right to be wary. He gets it. He's used to it. It's not until the sun is setting that he's heading back home to the apartment. He sees Derek's car parked in the lot, which doesn't surprise him, given the time – he thinks about cooking steak for dinner and doing the laundry as he climbs up the stairs, how one of these days he needs to climb up on top of the furniture and swipe the cobwebs out of the corners of the living room because they're starting to gross him out. He sticks his key in the lock, pushes open the door, and freezes in place. It's dark in the apartment – not dark dark, but...dim. The overhead lights aren't on in the living room, but there's a yellow glow cast over every thing, that Stiles instantly recognizes as string lights. Which is funny, because he was more or less positive that Derek had thrown out the string lights he used on Valentine's Day after they first got together – if he did, he went out and bought more. A lot more. And it's not just the fucking string lights, either. Everywhere, literally everywhere, on the coffee table, sitting on the desk, bunches of them sitting in vases all over the fucking floor, are red roses. There must be two thousand of them – and that's just a spitball guess. Two thousand individual roses. There's a single file aisle, just wide enough for Stiles to walk through, in between the bunches of roses and the vases and the petals and thorns; and at the end of it is, of course, Derek Hale. He's just standing there, like this is totally normal. The smell of the roses is so overpowering, almost stifling – his alpha senses much be having a hellish nightmare of a time, he must be fucking suffocating, but he just stands there stoically, staring at Stiles expectantly. “Well,” Stiles begins in a raspy, quiet voice, as he shuts the apartment door behind him, “that went from zero to a hundred real fucking quick.” From two roses, to two thousand. Jesus. Fucking. Christ. “I couldn't wait,” Derek says simply, shrugging. “Yeah,” Stiles agrees, starting to walk down the rose petal aisle to where his alpha is waiting for him. “I imagine it would've taken a couple years to get up to this number, going day by day. I mean, two thousand roses -” “Five.” Stiles finally reaches the end of the aisle, spilling out into a small circular opening with Derek,

and he sees that the roses extend into their bathroom, to the kitchen, to the bathroom... “what?” “Five thousand roses.” “Oh.” He feels like he might be going into shock, looking at all the red and the string lights and the – the smell...Roses cost about, give or take, twenty-five dollars per the dozen. Four dozen roses is an even hundred dollars, then – and that's only forty eight roses. If this is, honest to God, and Stiles is about to try and call Derek's fucking bluff, five thousand roses, then that's...that's... It's gotta be ten thousand dollars. And that's lowballing it, he thinks. “Derek...” he begins, scanning his eyes over the rows and rows and piles and bunches of roses at their feet, “...are you fucking insane?” Derek grins, his full set of bright white teeth on display, and shrugs. “When I was courting you, I only got to five roses. Right?” “You – um?” Yeah – he remembers that pretty vividly. He remembers figuring out that Derek was giving him one more rose a day, and he only made it to the fifth day of Stiles' heat. Of course he remembers that. It's not the kind of small detail Derek usually remembers. So color Stiles surprised. Color Stiles surprised, baffled, shocked, and – kinda mad? “You know – I'd have settled for just another five...” “Five roses is nothing, Stiles,” he rolls his eyes and smirks. “Five roses is also not a bizarrely absurd waste of money, but-” he breaks off. Doesn't even know where to god damn begin with this. Because Derek spent ten thousand fucking dollars just to be romantic? “What the hell is this about?” He demands, looking up into Derek's eyes – he finds only amusement, maybe tinged a bit with excitement. Derek blinks at him, cocks his head to the side, and grins again. “Is it not obvious?” “Um!” Stiles lets out a guffaw. “Obvious that you've gone off your rocker? Yeah, that's shockingly obvious to me, Derek. Honestly, the fact that you – that you would even think to do something as fucking nuts as this is unbelievable, and I would really like to know why you thought this would be-” Stiles breaks off in a choke. Just stops mid sentence, mid fucking word. Because Derek drops down onto one knee and takes Stiles' hand in both of his. He smiles up at his omega, tilts his head to the side, and says, “is this obvious enough?” Stiles brain starts doing that thing it does where something crazy is happening. He swears he can hear gears turning, wires fizzling and short circuiting, his entire head going up in flames because – because – hold on. Hold the fuck on.

This wasn't supposed to happen? Even though they never actually talked about it, Stiles isn't a fucking idiot. He knew that his alpha wasn't just stringing him along, of fucking course not; he just figured, it would be...not now? Later? He sometimes fantasized, of course. Like, that Derek would take him out to a nice dinner and ask him in front of the whole place and then he'd get to show whatever ring Derek got for him off to everyone and everyone would see that he has the best alpha. Or, there would be fireworks, or they'd be on a yacht somewhere off of an island – just ludicrous stuff like that. Fantasy stuff. But it was never concrete, right? Like...it was just... He must be standing there looking like he's about to self destruct, in a complete and total state of fucking paralytic shock, because Derek shakes his hand a little, says, “baby? You in there?” “I'm -” he's not sure. Is he in there? Is this a dream? “I have something to ask you.” “Oh -” “First, I – I wrote something.” “Oh my -” Derek produces a folded up piece of paper out of his jean pocket, which is when Stiles notices that he's wearing Stiles' favorite shirt of his (green – it's a look on him) and also when he notices that Derek fucking wrote something? Stiles has received many a card from Derek Hale since they got together. Birthday cards, anniversary cards, Valentine's Day cards – Stiles has them all in a shoebox on his side of the closet, he could literally pull them out right now as proof that Derek doesn't fucking write things. In his mind, he can recall literally almost all of Derek's card messages. Things like, and he's not kidding, I'm shit at this – I love you, whatever and I like you in red and I want to put a baby in you someday – it's...laughable, at best. Stiles never laughs in his face when he reads them; he goes awww, alpha! and waits until he's alone to just burst out. I want to put a fucking baby in you? Oh, man, it's a classic. Derek unfolds the piece of paper with one hand, keeping the other on Stiles', and clears his throat. Stiles thinks he's going to cry. “Stiles, I want you to know, um – if I weren't with you, then I'd be with no one. Um...I'd just be, like, alone.” He folds the paper back up and looks up at Stiles. Oh. So that's what Derek meant when he said he wrote something – a single sentence. And the thing is, Stiles knows beyond any shadow of a doubt that he sat for probably hours, writing and writing, crumpling up the paper and shucking them into the trash bin, frustrated and annoyed, trying his hardest to write something meaningful. And what he said; it's not bad. It's not bad at all. It's simple and short, and he means it. A little awkward on the delivery (probably because he practiced too much and spazzed), but Stiles grins and squeezes Derek's hand in his. “Me, too,” he agrees in a quiet voice.

Derek drops the paper on the ground, and reaches into his back pocket. Stiles' heart starts beating faster, because he knows what he's about to pull out of his pocket. He knows. It's, like, a dark silver. The ring. Stiles doesn't know nearly enough about metals and whatnot to be able to tell what exactly it is; dark silver is a good enough description for him. With a bit of a design in the center in a stripe, and some small gems embedded into one side of it. Rubies, he thinks, judging by the color. “Stiles,” Derek begins again, and now, he sounds nervous. “I wanted to ask – would you do me the...honor,” and just from the way he says it, he knows he called his fucking mother or sister to ask for tips on how to do this, “...of being my mate?” Stiles has already been Derek's mate, all this time. Maybe not in the strictest sense of the word, with a ceremony or a beautiful ring, but his neck is literally covered in scars from Derek's teeth. What Derek means is – will Stiles bind himself to the alpha legally and have his children. Stiles has thought long and hard about this. Well before Derek ever bought five thousand roses, well before he and Derek ever moved in together, even, Stiles was thinking about this. Beyond just the fantasies of how Derek would do it, he's sat and considered. The chances of him finding an alpha better than Derek are slim. The chances of him finding an alpha that he loves more is pretty much at a minimal zero. The chances of him wanting to have anyone else's children aside from Derek's, the chances of him wanting to be in any other pack aside from the Hale pack... “Yes, alpha,” he says, nodding frantically up and down, “yes, yes, I – yes.” Derek slides the ring onto Stiles' ring ringer, and chooses the most bizarre fucking thing in the face of the planet to say as Stiles holds his hand up to his face to inspect the ring closer. “It's a space ring.” “What?” “Um – it's made out of space stuff. Meteorite.” “Oh my God,” Stiles holds the ring even closer to his face, scrutinizes it, while in the background Derek finally stands back up to his full height. “Whoa! Awesome!” Derek laughs, a full belly thing, like he's never been so happy in his entire life; and Stiles knows the feeling. He just keeps staring at the ring on his finger, occasionally flicking over to look at Derek, before immediately examining the ring again. A space ring. How well does Derek know Stiles? Like, really. “This was once in space!” “Yeah,” Derek agrees, laughing again. “Aliens have probably seen this.” “Well, I don't know about that, but-”

“Intergalactic!” He finally drops his hand and looks at Derek's down at his side. “Do you have one, too?” Derek nods. “In the bedroom.” “Ooohh,” Stiles says, nodding knowingly, grinning from ear to ear. “I see what you're trying to say.” Derek blinks at him, opens his mouth and makes a noise of confusion. “You're trying to get in my pants.” The alpha shakes his head, starts saying something like, “no, it's really in the bedroom...” but Stiles cuts him off by smacking his face into Derek's. He licks into his alpha's mouth, wraps his arms around the man's neck, and then leaps up into his arms, knowing Derek has fast enough reflexes to catch him before he goes down onto the ground. Derek grabs Stiles' long legs and wraps them around his waist as the kiss gets deeper, more frantic, and Stiles only pulls back to hiss out, “bed,” in a scratchy voice. Derek does as he's told, walking backwards with Stiles in his arms literally dry humping against his stomach, licking up the sides of his face, like a wild animal. Derek makes some weird noise in the back of his throat that sounds all too hot and desperate, and as soon as they're in the bedroom, Stiles is wriggling his way out of Derek's arms to land down on the ground. He accidentally kicks over a vase of roses in the process – but he doesn't care. As soon as he's on the ground, he trips over a rose stem, stumbles forwards, and pushes Derek down onto the end of their bed. Without having to be told, Derek reaches down and undoes his pants while Stiles pulls his shirt up and off, over his head to be thrown with a shuffling noise into the mountains of roses all around them. His pants and boxers are the next to go, all in one deft movement. Derek slides his pants and briefs down, and Stiles helps him pull them off over his feet; then he's on his knees as Derek takes the green shirt off, pushing his alpha's thighs apart, staring up into his eyes as soon as he can. “How do you want this?” He asks breathily, purposefully throwing his breath so it scorches over Derek's dick. “How do you want me? You're the boss.” Derek leans down and puts his hand on the side of Stiles' face, strokes against his cheek for a couple of seconds, before running his index finger along his parted lips. His middle finger comes along to join the party, and then both of them slide in-between to rest against Stiles' teeth, and he says, “suck them.” Obediently, Stiles pulls the fingers into his mouth and swipes his tongue along the skin, sucking so hard that they get pulled all the way back towards his throat. Derek opens them up inside his mouth and Stiles licks his tongue up to slide in between them, accompanied by some unbelievably filthy sounds, like spit moving around in between the digits, like his tongue working as hard as it can, like a soft choking when Derek's middle finger nudges against the back

of his throat. Derek watches this with dark eyes, and doesn't tell Stiles to stop for a long time. It feels like a long time to Stiles, at least, because he'd much rather be working on his alpha's dick, but – if it's getting Derek off to watch Stiles do something as completely useless as suck on his fingers, so be it. Finally, Derek pulls his fingers away, and holds them back, dripping with Stiles' saliva. For a long few seconds, they just stare at each other. Derek scans over Stiles' face again and again, and Stiles does the same to Derek. Like they're acknowledging that things are going to be different from here on out. Stiles can still taste Derek all over his tongue, and he swallows, desperate to taste his come in his mouth, to feel the alpha inside of him, to get fucked – and Derek just sits there. Staring. “Do you want to put your mouth on my dick?” Derek asks, voice strained. Stiles nods, up and down. “Yes, please.” It's quiet for another couple of seconds, before Derek puts his hand out and runs his fingers through Stiles' hair – the same fingers covered in Stiles' spit are inside of his hair, now. “What if I say you can't do that?” His fingers turn rough as he grips the hairs tightly, thrusting Stiles' head to the side, to expose the long expanse of his pale neck. The omega swallows, and says, “then I won't do it.” “What if I ask you to fuck yourself on your own fingers?” “I'd do it, alpha.” He keeps Stiles pinned, like that, with his hand in the omega's hair. “Would you do anything I asked you to?” Stiles nods as much as he can in this position. “Anything for you.” With one final tug on his hair, Derek brings Stiles' head close to his dick, until Stiles could flick his tongue out and lick it, if he wanted – but Derek hasn't told him to do that yet. So he waits. “Open your mouth,” Derek says, and Stiles does. He slides the tip of himself into Stiles' mouth. “Don't suck. Don't move.” He nudges himself further inside of Stiles' wide open mouth, until he reaches the back of his throat, and Stiles gags just slightly; he's gotten a pretty good hold on his gag reflex after having been with Derek for so long, but still. Having a dick touch his throat is still pretty intense, ever after all this time. Once Derek deems himself as far in as he can go, he gently pushes Stiles' face downwards, until his cheek is resting up against Derek's thigh, his eyes blinking up at his alpha. Stiles breathes. His hot breath ruffles the course hairs of Derek's crotch, and his drool drips down over Derek's thigh, and when he swallows around the dick to try and clear some of the spit collecting in his mouth, Derek shudders. “Stay just like that,” Derek says softly, running his

fingers through Stiles' hair again, gentler this time. “Good, good. Just wait. Wait for me.” It's not the first time that Derek has had Stiles just sit on his knees, warming his cock with his breath and spit without being allowed to suck on it. On some level, this is a power trip for Derek. He does things like this in the bedroom all the time; he ties Stiles' hands behind his back or to the headboard of the bed and uses Stiles whatever way he feels like, or he asks Stiles to stroke himself right in front of his alpha and makes him stop right before he comes and gives him some menial task to do (butt naked with a raging hard on – last time it was folding the laundry), or he just pins Stiles down and fucks him hard enough to give him bruises between his thighs. Stiles likes it, honestly. Derek can be so passive about most things that alphas are supposed to be really into. Like, how Derek doesn't care that Stiles drives himself around while other alphas would literally freak out about that, or how Derek doesn't care that Stiles has a job and makes his own money while other alphas would sooner chain their omegas up in the basement before letting them have that much freedom, and Derek doesn't care whether or not Stiles does what he's supposed to as the omega. If Stiles doesn't feel like cooking, then Derek gets out the takeout menus. If Stiles is tired and doesn't want to have sex, then Derek says okay, and goes to sleep. Not that Stiles wants Derek to control his life and treat him like his personal slave. Not like that at all – but...he's still an omega. As independent as he is, and as in control of his own life as he likes to be, there's still that part of him that wants to be bossed around and told what to do. It just so happens to be a dirty, perverted part of him and involves Derek's dick most of the time. Around the time Stiles' mouth starts aching from being open like this, Derek starts chatting. “I love you,” he says, fingers still in his omega's hair. Stiles raises his eyes to gaze at Derek, puts as much affection into his eyes as he can. “You've made me so happy today, Stiles – I can't wait to make you mine in front of everyone.” At the ceremony, he's referring to; which, really, is a lot like a human wedding. It used to be all carnal and ritualistic, where the alpha would literally mount and knot the omega or beta right there in front of everyone, but...luckily it's not that way anymore. Stiles and Derek will wear nice suits and invite everyone, and there'll be a buffet and cake, and there'll be a moment where Derek and Stiles are standing in front of everyone, and Derek will lean down and bite into Stiles' neck, to claim him in front of the entire congregation. Stiles will be inducted to the Hale pack by way of a blood pact between himself and the alpha (where Derek slices his finger open and dribbles his blood into the omega's open wounds from the bite) and it'll be – nice. Stiles is excited. “...and I'm going to take you home after,” Derek continues, stroking his fingers down Stiles' cheek and scratching behind his ear, “and I'm going to do anything I want to you. Because you'll be mine.” Stiles blinks twice, and his tongue bumps up against the dick in his mouth, eliciting an intake of breath from Derek. “And you know I'd do anything for you, Stiles. Anything you want, anything you say, anything you

ever ask of me. I'd do it.” Of course Stiles knows that. Derek has proven himself to be perfectly adept at doing exactly what an alpha's supposed to, in that regard – and beyond that. “You have so much,” he shivers when Stiles swallows again, “power over me. Do you even realize? You – you – fuck,” for a few seconds, Stiles thinks the alpha is about to come – but if he were, he managed to hold himself back, because he calms down with a series of deep breaths. He drags his fingers slowly along Stiles' scalp, fists his hand into the hair again, and pulls Stiles up off of his dick. As soon as Stiles' mouth is free, he works his jaw to wipe out some of the soreness, breathing clearly through his throat for the first time in – ten minutes? “Okay?” Derek asks, watching with careful eyes as Stiles rubs at his jaw. “Yeah,” Stiles says back, “can I suck it now?” “No,” Derek says back with a smile, and Stiles huffs in annoyance. The alpha pats his lap, before leaning forward and pulling Stiles up into a standing position by his underarms and tugging him forwards until his knees are on either side of Derek's thighs. “Hmmm,” Stiles says, smiling before he leans down to peck Derek on the lips, “I like where this is going.” Without saying anything back, Derek wraps his fingers around Stiles' dick and strokes, once. Stiles' breath catches, and the alpha grabs Stiles' hand – the one with the brand new ring on it – and brings it to his own length, still wet from being inside Stiles' mouth. “Move at the same pace as me,” Derek instructs with a smack of his lips against Stiles' neck. “Don't come until I do.” Derek drags his fingers up and down Stiles, and Stiles tries his hardest to go at the exact same pace as Derek does, at the exact same time, with the same amount of pressure – Derek has played the don't come until I do game with Stiles before and... ...Stiles has lost it every single time. And Derek has laughed every single time, shaking his head and saying, “I'm too good.” Stiles is a bit of a sore loser. This time, he thinks, he'll win. He gives Derek steady, even strokes, just like Derek is giving to him, and moans into his alpha's neck – he regulates his breathing, in, out, in, out, and he can fucking do this. He'll beat Derek for the first time and it'll be awesome and he'll gloat about it for weeks to come. Derek starts fisting along Stiles' dick, fast, hard, like he's trying to force an orgasm out of Stiles (and he probably is) and Stiles does the same thing right back to Derek, rewarded with some low grunts and heavy panting right in his ear. “You're going to come,” Stiles taunts in his ear around a moan, and Derek tenses up. “I am not,” he hisses back.

“I'm going to make you come,” he licks the side of Derek's face. “Not before I make you come,” and he might be right about that. Stiles can feel himself literally seconds away from spilling all over the place, and he tries his absolute hardest to hold it off because he's not in the mood for licking it all up this time while Derek makes his victory speech about I'm the alpha-male I'm the leader of men I beat you fair and square. It's infuriating. Out of all the borderline submissive things Derek puts Stiles through, licking up his own come while Derek taunts him like a little girl on a kickball field has got to be the most humiliating of them all. But not. This. Time. This is his chance; there is nothing, literally nothing on earth, that Stiles would like more than to watch Derek licking his come off of the sheets and Stiles' legs and chest while Stiles says I won, I won, I won, I won! His mistake was lingering too long on the thought. Thinking about Derek doing that, thinking about watching him have to eat his own come, is just hot enough, just fucking titillating enough, that he can't help himself. He comes with a drawn out moan, hand stilling on Derek as he shakes through his orgasm – and then deflates. He drops his forehead down onto Derek's shoulder, panting, hand still on his alpha's dick. A loser. Derek is quiet for all of five seconds. “You know the drill, second place,” he huffs into Stiles' ear. “On your knees.” “This is un-fucking-fair,” Stiles breathes, shaking his head. “You lost! Fair and square!” “Because you get to set the pace! If I got to set the pace -” “Don't try and make excuses, baby.” “I'm not. You're a cheater, and you know you are.” “Stiles. Get on your knees. Or I'll make you take out the trash too.” Stiles' least favorite house chore is taking out the trash. He hates it so fucking much – he hates having to get near the trash at all, he hates tying the stupid bag up, and he hates going down the stairs with a stinky bag of trash, hates walking down the alley to the dumpster where he inevitably will be hissed at by the rabid raccoons that live down there. Derek is a champ and takes the task on himself, every time Stiles asks. Sometimes, Stiles doesn't even have to ask. Too much is at stake. “How is it possible that you win every time,” Stiles grumbles as he climbs down off the bed and takes stock of the mess he's made. There's come on the floor, on Derek's chest and knees, and just a bit on the bed in-between Derek's legs. He huffs before sliding down to the ground, lapping at the carpet.

“Because I'm the alpha-male,” Stiles nearly groans in annoyance, “you can't crack me. I was literally created to make omegas come.” Stiles straightens his back up and starts in on the mess over Derek's legs as the alpha starts scratching at his hair again. “The day I lose the game is the day pigs fly.” Then, so help him God, pigs will be fucking flying one of these days, Stiles thinks as he flushes in anger while scraping his tongue along Derek's skin. This is just – uncouth. His own come in his mouth; and it's bad enough that he has to do that, but from the floor? From the floor? The fact that he's starting to twitch down there all over again, that he's slightly aroused at all the licking he's doing...not related. Not fucking related at all. This is garbage and he's mad, not turned on. He drags his tongue in-between Derek's legs to get the last of it, before looking up at where Derek is sitting over him. “Am I sucking you off now?” “Is that how you ask?" Stiles glowers and flushes bright red - Derek always goes on intense power trips after he wins the fucking game. "Can I please suck you off, alpha?" With his hand still tangled in Stiles' hair, Derek nods; Stiles breathes out a sigh of relief, fucking finally, and leans forward to pull Derek into his mouth. After all the time they've spent together, sucking Derek's dick is more therapeutic and calming than it is a real sex act. It's kind of like sewing, or knitting - just something to do to help him clear his head and calm down, a craft, or an art that takes all of his attention and helps him focus. It's, frankly, his favorite thing to do - and Derek fucking knows it. Which is why he's so god damn picky about when and where Stiles gets the "privilege" of doing so; why he does things like put it in his mouth just to let it sit there while Stiles aches to suck on it. He loves the way Derek runs his fingers through his hair, loves the sounds Derek makes, loves that Stiles is the one dragging those noises out of him, loves the entire thing altogether. Derek lifts one of his legs and drapes it over Stiles' shoulder, heel of his foot pressed against the omega's back like he's holding him in place - a territorial, animalistic type of thing to do, Stiles thinks, like they're out in the wild and Derek is trying to keep anything else from getting near what's his. Stiles keeps on sucking straight through it, and there's only so much time left until Derek is going to come down his throat; he can feel it in every nerve of Derek's body, how close he is. "You don't get tired of this, do you?" Derek asks him in a pant, tightening his grip on Stiles' hair. Stiles shakes his head back and forth - he doesn't. Even when they're both super old and gross looking, Stiles will probably (maybe) want to suck Derek's dick. That's an actual possibility, now. Stiles and Derek getting old and wrinkly, together. That's really going to happen.

What a weird thought, Stiles thinks as Derek comes, as he swallows it and wipes the back of his hand across his mouth. Forever is a weird thing - something to be chased around like smoke. But Stiles thinks, just maybe, that he's caught it. ---The ceremony goes well. Perfectly, even. Derek and Stiles choose to wear black suits with red accents – because, roses, right? Keeping on theme, the tables are decorated with bouquets of roses, the chuppah they stand underneath as Derek claims him and marks him as a member of the Hale pack is decorated in string lights with red tulle wrapped around the legs, rose tops strung together with invisible twine hanging over their heads in strings. Talia cries, as does Laura – the Sheriff stoically does not cry, even though he has tears in his eyes, he says he doesn't count if they don't actually run down his face. And then there's the after party, with the food, and the cake, and Stiles trying to force Derek to dance, much to the alpha's chagrin. So, as a result, Stiles spends most of the night with Scott and Allison, tearing the dance floor the fuck up (or embarrassingly trying to) – because maybe he's had a few too many glasses of Wolf's Brew and is way too drunk to have any sort of clue that aggressively trying to twerk to a Taylor Swift song (and not even one of the pop ones for fuck's sake) while a pack of tiny children watch in horror isn't exactly a good idea. So, they were happily mated. They skipped off into the sunset. Well. Derek carried a drunk Stiles' out of the reception hall while Stiles screamed and I'm going to have sex now! at horrified party guests. But, same difference. For their “honeymoon”, Derek took Stiles to Las Vegas on the Hale's private jet – and Las Vegas, as it turns out, is a lot more than just gambling and drinking. Even though they're werewolves and not humans, so the whole under 21 rule doesn't apply to them, they still spend more time while they're there going to concerts and magic shows than they do at the clubs or casinos. Also, more time in their hotel room. Much, much more time in their hotel room. It's funny, because they usually only have that much sex when Stiles is in heat, but they were an entire week early, and apparently didn't give a fuck. And oh, boy. It only gets funnier from that point on. It becomes a real laugh riot a month later, when... ...Stiles misses his heat. It just doesn't fucking come. The first day, he thinks maybe it's just coming late, because he and Derek have sex so much that it's, like, a non-issue and he's all sated so his body is like you're good to go, buddy. He scrunches his lips up at his planner, where heat week :) :) is written in a red pen on the day's date in a list along with clean the sheets and Derek's late night. Derek comes home tired, probably having forgotten about the heat himself, and goes straight to bed while Stiles stays up a little later eating ice cream and watching Lifetime movies.

The second day, he freaks out. Absolutely goes batshit when he wakes up in the morning to an empty bed with Derek already gone to school, and his heat just isn't there. It's never been more than a few hours late before. There's no such thing as being two entire fucking days late for a heat, it just doesn't happen. Unless. Unless. Fucking. Unless. “Oh, no,” he says, running his hands through his bed hair again and again. “Oh no. No. No? No, no, no.” It can't be. It fucking can't be. There's no way, there's no way, there's no way. He stands stock still in the middle of he and Derek's bedroom, hand in his hair, wide-eyed, staring down at the floor, in what he would say could be classified as an actual state of shock. He finally flicks his eyes up to stare at something aside from the carpet, and winds up glaring at himself in the mirror for a second. He thinks – do not look at your stomach. Because if he looks at his stomach, if he inspects it, it'll be like all the movies. It'll mean that he actually suspects, perhaps even knows, that he's – that he's fucking... He picks his shirt up and stands to the side, glaring. It looks the same as always; there's no protruding belly, or, like, some weird alien foot jabbing against his skin trying to free itself. He thinks for a second about vomiting; he seriously considers just getting down on his hands and knees on the ground and fucking vomiting all over the floor out of shock and also because he probably will start vomiting every morning, oh my God, because he's The thing is. He really hadn't given this much thought. Like, ever. The very bare minimum couple of times that he really thought about, um, this, it was always years into the fucking future. He always had a beard in these visions, and he was making a hundred thousand dollars a year in some high rise office building in a big city and his life was completely and totally together and everything was great and, you know. A fairytale essentially. Right now, there's a pile of Stiles' school textbooks from his online classes piled up on the desk in the corner because he's still in school. Derek isn't here to join in on this panic attack because he, also, is still in school. Their cabinets are filled with pop-tarts and potato chips and their fridge has fucking toaster strudels and banana popsicles, Derek still drives that idiotic Camaro with next to zero room in the backseat, Stiles still drives the death trap Jeep – they're still kids. They are literally still kids and this was in no way, shape or form in the fucking game plan? This was not – this was not how Stiles wanted his fucking life to go. Pregnant. He's not even twenty. His father is going to pitch an absolute fucking fit. And Derek...

Holy...shit...Derek. Derek's not going to be happy about this. Derek doesn't even like kids; Derek one time growled at a five year old for asking him to play tag. Derek is probably going to be mad, he's probably going to say that Stiles should give the thing up when it gets sliced out of his stomach, and oh, my God, he's going to be cut open put under the fucking knife to get a living, breathing, thing out of him, and what if he's the single worst parent, ever? What if he's like one of those parents that forgets they brought their kid to the mall and leaves them alone in the car with the windows up for five hours while he shops for expensive loafers? What if he messes his kid up psychologically because there are so many ways to fuck with the development of a little kid, of a fucking baby, what if he can't handle the responsibilities, what if he just straight up forgets to feed the thing or – or if he drops it? What if he's not meant to be a parent? He's not exactly the most mature, responsible person in the world?! Maybe Derek is, but he's... And this is an unfair thing to think, and Stiles knows it, but he thinks it anyways, because he's panicking. That Derek is not exactly the most gentle, nurturing, parental person on the face of the planet. He's rough around the edges, and kind of a fucking dickbag, and he gets his jollies out of beating the shit out of people. Can anyone really imagine him as a father? Stiles can't. But it's not like he can imagine himself as a father either. He can't imagine any of it. This wasn't supposed to happen. He's a victim of an unplanned fucking fertilization. He's been fertilized. Because Derek is a fucking dumbass and so is Stiles and they thought they could get away with knotting unprotected during Stiles' heat and that Stiles would never get pregnant. He spends the morning sitting at the kitchen table staring blankly down into a mug of coffee that he hasn't taken a single sip of, thinking, are you not supposed to drink coffee when you're...what else can't I eat or drink can I not drink Wolf's Brew anymore now at Hale parties and oh my God telling the Hale pack that I'm having Derek's fucking alpha baby and telling Scott and telling my dad and I'm going to kill this fucking kid before it even has the chance because I'm not fit for this I'm only nineteen I'm just a baby myself. Bizarrely, he starts laughing. Like the way people in mental institutions laugh at absolutely nothing in the middle of nowhere – because he thinks about that episode of Spongebob where Spongebob tries to act like an adult, but he can't crack it. Because he still wants to be a kid and eat grandma's cookies. That's the feeling, Stiles thinks, still laughing. That is exactly the feeling. He is relating to a fictional sea sponge. Terror begins setting in. Before, it was muted, dull, shaky; like it still hadn't completely occurred to him exactly what's happening to him. Now, though. Now. He starts freaking. The. Fuck. Out. Derek is due to be home in only a matter of hours and maybe he hasn't noticed yet, maybe he hasn't fucking remembered that Stiles is supposed to be in heat, maybe he hasn't been able to

smell anything off just yet because it's too soon for there to be much of a difference – but he sure as fuck will be able to tell something's off when he comes home and smells the entire apartment reeking of abject horror and anxiety. He calls Dr. Deaton, who he's been going to since he was a baby; and at first, Deaton says something like well I can fit you in next week...and then Stiles says this is a fucking emergency and Deaton says should I be calling 911 and Stiles says maybe Nanny 911 and Deaton goes quiet for a second before saying ...can you be here in an hour? Stiles showers while staring at the tiles, pointedly not fucking looking down at himself for fear that he'll spend half an hour poking at his naked stomach trying to find any differences or...bulges. He gets dressed and gets into his Jeep and doesn't look at himself, not even in the rearview mirror. He's freaked out that if he looks into his own eyes he'll see something different, now, like everything about himself is somehow irrevocably changed. Maybe he's freaking out a little too much. But he feels like has the right to. In the waiting room at Deaton's he feels like everyone is staring at him. He twirls his ring around and around on his finger, jiggles his leg up and down, and jumps when the beta next to him tries to strike up a conversation about how stuffy waiting rooms are. Everyone can tell. Everyone can fucking tell he's a stupid fucking nineteen year old idiot who got himself knocked up like some country bumpkin who couldn't keep his god damn legs closed. The friendly human girl sitting at the receptionist’s desk who calls his name in a chipper voice definitely fucking knows, and the guy he makes eye contact with in the hallway as he makes his way down to Deaton's office definitely fucking knows, and the six year old girl with a lollipop and a bandaid on her arm definitely fucking knows. When he walks into Deaton's office, the man takes one look up at him, up and down, and says, “you wanted to be sure?” Like he doesn't even need to be told specifically what's going on, here. The Nanny 911 crack on the phone probably gave it away. “Um – yeah. I missed my...heat.” He scribbles something on a clipboard. “And you had unprotected sex?” Stiles nods, blushing. “With – um, you know.” Deaton blinks at him, cocking his head to the side, pen pausing in his hand. “You were bred?” Stiles fucking hates that term, so much. It sounds like he's just some bitch in heat, desperate to have some alpha come in and fill him up with seed so he'll wind up with a litter of puppies in his stomach or something. “Knotted,” he says in a small voice, averting eye contact. This is so...fucking humiliating...the fact that he can't even look the doctor in the fucking eyes while talking about intercourse is proof enough that he's not mature enough to handle this shit.

“And this was during your last heat. Correct?” “Yeah.” Deaton smiles at him as he writes something else down, and he knows exactly what smile that is. It's the smile of you took an entire gallon come up your ass during your breeding period and you're seriously here asking me if you're really pregnant, Stiles? It's not his god damn fault, though, because Derek god damn said“Okay. Want me to take a look?” It's the last thing Stiles wants, actually. But he doesn't have a choice. It's very important to be sure, he knows that, it's incredibly important that before he says a single word to Derek about this that he knows beyond any shadow of a doubt. With a sigh, he nods. After the examination, which consisted of a lot of cold things touching his skin and Deaton going hmm...every couple of seconds, the doctor smiled at him, put a gloved hand on his shoulder and said, “congratulations, Stiles.” Stiles felt like fucking vomiting all over the floor. Instead, he hobbled his way out of Deaton's office and climbed into his Jeep, sat there with his hands on the steering wheel staring dead ahead as people walked around in the parking lot, as cars drove past on the busy street, as the entire world kept going on as usual while he felt like it should just stop so he could try and catch up. So he could have a second to fucking breathe, here – he and Derek just got mated officially. He just got inducted into the Hale pack. Now, he's fucking pregnant. With an alpha's baby. All because Derek said His phone starts buzzing in his pocket. He knows without even having to look that it's Derek calling to ask him where he is, because Stiles didn't leave a note, and he always leaves a note on the fridge or on the kitchen table if he's going to be gone when Derek gets home. Always. This time, he didn't, because he couldn't think of anything to write. The phone buzzes, and buzzes, and buzzes, and Stiles doesn't even take his hands off the wheel. Truth be told, he's scared to talk to Derek. And it's not because he thinks Derek is going to freak out and demand that he take care of it or something, it's because he...doesn't know what to say. Once the buzzing dies down, he sits up in his seat, glares dead ahead, and tries to practice. “Derek,” he says out loud as a woman with sunglasses on walks past his car in the parking lot, “I'm...” His mouth hangs open, scratching in the back of his throat, and the word won't come out. “I'm – Derek. I am pr-....Okay, so, you remember that time? Okay – it was like a month ago. And you fucking said...no. Okay. Derek. I am having your...” he clears his throat, shifts in his seat. “I

am going to be giving...you knocked me up you piece of shit, I am going to jab you in the fucking eye with a barbecue fork.” His phone starts buzzing again. He glowers and shakes his head. This is all Derek's fault; he sees that now. Who was the one who said babe, you should totally take my knot even though neither of us are ready for the consequences of such an action? Who was the god damn one who said you'd look so good on my knot, Stiles, I want you so bad and who! Fucking who! Was the one! Who was the one who insisted that they didn't need protection because His phone pings with a new text. This is harassment, he thinks, even though Derek is most definitely freaking out because, again, Stiles never just vanishes mid-day without at least leaving a god damn note or a voicemail on Derek's phone. Not even when they're fighting. Maybe they should be fighting right about now, because Stiles is suddenly overcome with a rage unparalleled. He is, out of literal fucking nowhere, so mad he punches his fist into his steering wheel with a hooonkkk! A pack of teenage girls walking into the ice cream shoppe across the street jump and give him a dirty look. Because this is Derek's fault. He will keep maintaining that over and over again. Derek's. Damn. Fault. He doesn't answer or even look at the texts that keep pinging. He doesn't try to call Derek back. He just puts the Jeep in drive and heads back to the apartment; for what he knows is sure to be the most fun conversation that he and Derek will ever have. When he sweeps into the apartment, slamming the door closed behind him, he doesn't even bother taking off his shoes to dump them in the closet like he normally does, and he doesn't even bother to hang his keys up on the hook. He just waltzes inside and beelines it for where Derek is standing in the living room, for where Derek is already walking in his direction as well with his eyebrows knit together in worried annoyance. “Where have you been?” He asks, sweeping his eyes up and down Stiles' body like he's searching for any injuries. “I've been calling. Did you leave your phone somewhere?” Stiles puts his hands on his hips, stops ten feet away from where Derek is standing, and glares. Derek eyeballs him some more, and then sniffs the air suspiciously. “Were you – were you just at the doctor's? You smell like...” he sniffs some more. “Are you sick?” Apparently the only thing Stiles needed in order to get the confidence to tell Derek the truth was a healthy dose of unmitigated rage, because he raises his chin in the air, and says, the way he's said fuck you in the past, “I'm pregnant.” The alpha deflates. Where, only seconds earlier, he had been wound up, angry, getting ready to have an argument about Stiles not answering his phone and Stiles not leaving a note and where were you, now every single part of Derek just...goes fucking limp. Like Stiles just leaned

forward and stuck a pin in him. “...you're.” “Pregnant. Fucking. Pregnant. Derek.” Silence. Derek stands there like a rag doll, mouth open, and his eyes shoot down to Stiles' stomach and stay there. “...sure?” It's not even a full sentence, but Stiles understands what he means all the same. “I just got back from Deaton's.” Derek raises his eyes from Stiles' stomach, up to his face. Stiles can only imagine what his face looks like right now; probably either really pissed off or really terrified looking. Maybe some bizarre mix of the two. “Oh. Oh...oh, baby, I'm-” Derek comes forward, takes two steps, and Stiles leaps backwards so hard it's like Derek's hands are dripping molten lava. Confused, Derek scrunches his eyebrows together. “Don't – don't. Don't.” “But-” “No! Derek! I'm fucking pregnant! At nineteen god damn years old, I am – fucking -” he growls, fists at his hair, and then points an accusing finger in his alpha's direction. “Because you said. You fucking said! Babe, you can't get pregnant in the pool. Remember that? Derek?” Derek looks confused, surprised, shocked, somewhat petrified, all mashed into one delicious fucking facial expression, and all it does is make Stiles angrier – before he knows it angry tears are springing up into his eyes, unwelcome. “Are we – are we arguing?” Stiles laughs and cries at the same time, and it's gotta be the most disgusting noise he's ever made in his entire life. “You said I couldn't get pregnant, Derek! This is all! Your! Fault!" Stiles' last heat, an entire month earlier, they were in the pool out back of the Hale house, because the rest of the family had decided to take a beach vacation to the Summer house down on the oceanside; Stiles and Derek had declined their invitation because Stiles was going to be in heat and they were "newlyweds" and basically just wanted to fuck each other senseless in the Hale mansion with no one to disturb them (because there are just so many options in the mansion. In the apartment, it's just the bed, or the couch, or the shower. In the fucking mansion, the possibilities are endless. So long as they open up the windows afterwards and spray febreze everywhere, no one will ever know that Derek fucked Stiles over the kitchen table while Stiles ate a pop-tart.) They spent an entire weekend eating takeout on the floor of the living room, watching an America's Next Top Model marathon, and having sex in every single place they thought they could get away with. Derek might never admit it out loud, but Stiles has figured out that something about the idea that one day they'll be at the annual Christmas party or over for dinner with his parents, and he'll look over and see the living room couch and think to himself yeah – I

bent Stiles over the arm of that couch and fingered him until he begged me to fuck him once – and it'll be all alpha territorial and sexy in his fucked up little mind. Stiles definitely didn't mind. They did it literally fucking everywhere. The living room, the kitchen, the dining room, out on the back porch, in Derek's old bedroom, in the middle of the hallway; it was probably the most debauchery they'd ever partaken in, which is really saying something. They were just, you know – happy, and into each other. They were mated officially and there was all this afterglow going on and no one to bother them, no responsibilities, just them. And, also. The pool. They were just making out in the god damn pool, completely naked (there were not many clothes worn at all during those two days), and then Derek pulled back and said “I want to knot you.” It wasn't the first time. Though it was the first time during Stiles' heat that the suggestion had come up. Stiles tilted his head to the side and narrowed his eyes, a smile playing on his lips. “Do you have the condom?” And Stiles called it the condom and not just a condom because when it comes to knotting, of course there has to be a special thing to keep the come from impregnating an omega. Normal sex, without a knot, cannot impregnate omegas (especially not male omegas - it takes a lot of fucking come to impregnate a male omega - hence, knot) - which is why Derek and Stiles hardly ever use condoms, because Derek typically contorls his knot to avoid pregnancy. The entire purpose of knotting is, of course, to breed an omega so they'll become full with child or whatever, but then, the entire purpose of sex at all is to get someone pregnant. The pleasure part is just an afterthought, mostly. A lot of people think knotting with the condom is some sort of abomination and a crime and blah blah blah, but Stiles has it on good suspicion the only reason any alphas have a problem with it is because it means that omegas actually might get a say in whether or not they get pregnant? Which would bother some alphas for obvious reasons. The point is, the condom is a specially designed, huge, bizarrely shaped, thick thing that probably makes the sex a little less great for Derek. When Stiles asked as much, after the first couple of times they used it, Derek just shrugged and said, “better than not knotting at all.” So, not all bad. And on Stiles' end, since the thing is so thick, it's...not bad for him, either. Derek smirked down at him, pushed him up against the wall of the pool, and shook his head. “I don't – but it's okay. You can't get pregnant in the pool.” “What?” Stiles asked, incredulous. “Yeah. It's scientific fact. Something about the chlorine in the water – I don't know, but I read about it.” Stiles was in heat. So he wasn't in his highest stage of critical thinking; if he had been, he probably would've said you are a complete fucking idiot that is in no way shape or form true,

but as it was. They were both in heat-mind, and heat-mind wanted Derek's bare knot up inside his ass ASAP no questions asked. So, yeah, okay? They had sex in the fucking pool, unprotected knotting breeding sex, and Stiles got pregnant. And here they fucking are today, two complete idiots faced with the consequences of their dumbass actions. Derek sputters for a second, still looking like a confused, scared puppy. “Because – because the fucking chlorine? It, you know...” he waves his hand in the air, “...cancels out the sperm or whatever?” “Okay – but – you fucking dingbat – if the sperm is already inside of me-” “I don't remember you being a fucking scientist at the time, Stiles!” “I remember being in heat at the time, Derek!” Derek sputters some more, drops his mouth in disbelief, and then spreads his arms out with his palms up, in a baffled, shocked type of motion. “Why are we arguing?” “Because I'm not going to be good at it!” Stiles shouts back, and Derek snaps his jaw shut, surprised. “You did this to me, and I'm not going to be a good parent, and I'm going to mess everything up because I'm stupid and too young and I don't know what to do, I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know if I'm even-” Derek grabs him. He grabs him and pulls him up against his chest and Stiles just starts to sob, like, really – he's fucking weeping hysterically, getting tears and snot all over Derek's shirt, curling his fingers into the fabric. “That's not true.” “It is,” and it comes out sounding like some whiny six year old throwing a tantrum, but Stiles doesn't care at the moment. He's scared, and petrified, and he feels like he deserves a good long fucking baby cry. “No. It's not.” Derek's voice is firm, and he tightens his arms around the omega. “You're smart – you're a genius. You don't have to know right now, okay? You'll figure it out. We'll figure it out.” Stiles sniffles into Derek's neck, but he doesn't say anything. He doesn't know what he would say, right now, anyway. “You're not – doing this all alone. You've got me,” the alpha's fingers probe around Stiles' chin, lifting his tear-soaked face up to look up into Derek's. “And...I'm – I'm so happy, Stiles.” Stiles blinks at him, and then sniffles; he's a little bit shocked to hear that. He scrutinizes the alpha's face for a few seconds, trying to figure out if he's just saying that to make Stiles feel better or if he actually, genuinely means that. Because out of all the reactions that Stiles imagined Derek having (anger, sadness, anxiety, or a combination of all three) Stiles never actually considered the possibility that he might actually be...happy. “But...you don't like kids.” Derek smiles at him, a full grin, a he runs his fingers through his omega's hair affectionately. “I

don't like other people's kids, Stiles.” “But...” “Stiles. We're talking about the kid that I literally put inside of you. What did you think my reaction was going to be?” Stiles purses his lips and feels guilty. He feels really, really guilty that he ever thought for ten seconds Derek was going to take this badly. This is Derek – who, while he may be kind of an asshole and a bit cold sometimes, he also goes out of his way to try to be better for Stiles ever since they first got together in high school. He's done so much for Stiles, and he cares about Stiles and cares for Stiles and he's never been anything less than the best alpha he could possibly be; and Stiles doesn't know why he thought any differently. “So...you're happy? About the – um...” he can't bring himself to say the word baby yet. Because it's – it's still fresh and raw and weird. “Why do you even have to ask that?” Derek demands, crinkling his eyebrows together in mock annoyance. “I've never been so happy before in my life. I mean -” his eyes trail down his body again, and then back up to his face. “...it's amazing. You were stupid to think anything else.” Stiles smiles up at his alpha, and wipes the last few remaining tears out of his eyes. “You're one to talk. Chlorine cancels out sperm?” “I swear I read it somewhere,” Derek says, leaning down to sniff at Stiles' neck for a second. “It doesn't matter anyway. I love you.” “Are you going to love the chlorine child, as well?” “Chlorine child,” Derek rolls his eyes to the ceiling and presses his lips to Stiles' temple. “Chlorine Child Hale. Now that's a name.” ---The Sheriff nearly has a heart attack when Stiles tells him; he very nearly keels over and fucking dies in his arm chair, before he leaps up out of it and wraps Stiles up in a huge bear hug, crying about how happy he is to have a new addition to the family. Scott practically jumps through the roof and screams for ten minutes, bounding all around the room and grabbing at Stiles' stomach no matter how many times Stiles says I literally am not showing at all, Scott it's barely been over a month. As for the Hale pack...well. It turns out the chlorine cancels out sperm rumor was started by Laura. She told him this when they were still kids in high school, and it was a fucking joke that Derek witlessly believed because one of the most surprising things about the alpha is how gullible he can be, especially under the cruel, ruthless gaze of his twin sister. It's surprising because he's so...you know.

Serious and gruff and all stoic and stuff – people wouldn't expect him to be a bit of an airhead every now and again. Like when Stiles told him that marshmallows grow on trees. “Like cotton plants,” Stiles had said, seriously, with a shrug, barely even trying to cover up his lie – if Derek's not listening for it, then he won't catch it. “Oh,” Derek had said, squinting his eyes as if he were thinking about it, “I guess that makes sense.” It didn't, though. Stiles still hasn't told him he was fucking with him; he's just waiting for Derek to bring it up on a dinner date with Allison and Scott like I want to plant a marshmallow tree. When Derek tells Laura, she cackles so long and loud that Stiles expects her face to turn green before she flies off on her broomstick. “You fucking idiot! You absolute dingus! I cannot believe you're starting a family all because of something I made up in the tenth grade, oh my God,” she wipes the tears out of her eyes and lets out a long breath, shaking her head. “I don't regret it, though. I love babies.” Talia gets dramatic. Predictably, since this is her first grandchild, she weeps and asks again and again are you messing with me? So help me, God, Derek, if this is a prank, I will skin you alive. When they finally manage to convince her it's real, she wraps Stiles up into a warm hug, and starts saying things like the miracle and how beautiful the cycle of life is and on and on and on before dumping a garbage bag full of vitamins and supplements into Derek's arms, threatening him with castration if he doesn't remind Stiles to take them on the schedule she provides. One night, Stiles is reading a magazine while eating chocolates (something he thinks he can get away with now that he's with child) and Derek is studying flashcards; a comfortable silence, aside from Stiles' chewing and the swipe of Derek's cards of the crinkle of Stiles' magazines. Derek drops his cards in his lap at one point, sending them flying all over the sheets. Stiles glances over at him, chewing, wet chocolate all over his fingertips. “Wha?” He asks with a mouthful of caramel. Without answering him, Derek leans forwards and presses his ear against Stiles' stomach. “Um,” Stiles begins, and Derek shhh's him. Silence drags on; Stiles swallows his caramel and watches the one of Derek's eyes that he can see blink furiously as he stays pressed flat against Stiles' stomach. Then, “I can hear its heartbeat.” Stiles drops his magazine on the bedside table and leans forward, trying to hear for himself – he strains, tries to stay as quiet as possible, but he can't hear anything. Not a peep. “It's quiet,” Derek tells him in a near-whisper, pushing Stiles' white sleep shirt up to expose his

skin to the open air before pressing his ear back down again. “But I can hear it.” “I can't,” Stiles pouts; it's not fair that Derek gets super alpha hearing, gets the privilege of hearing the kid's heartbeat when he's not even the one who has to carry it around in his stomach for the next seven and a half months. Derek is silent for a long moment. Listening. Stiles is about to smack his head away in annoyance, citing something about unfair, when the alpha grabs his hand and flips it over, sliding his index finger to the pulse point on the omega's wrist. “Here. I'll show you.” Tap tap. He presses his finger against Stiles' pulse in a slow, steady beat. Tap tap. Tap tap. And that's his baby's heartbeat. For the first month and a half, it's been so – so fucking vague and abstract, the thought of there being something growing inside of him that he and Derek made together. But even though he can't hear the heartbeat first hand, even though he has to get it in hand-me-down form from Derek's index finger, it...starts feeling concrete. Maybe it's just the hormones talking, but he gets a surge of affection, and feels like crying. “Sounds healthy,” Stiles breathes out, reaching one hand down to stroke gently at Derek's hair. “It's – it sounds perfect.” “Yeah,” Derek agrees, grinning against Stiles' stomach. When Stiles actually starts showing – people start treating him differently. When he's in the grocery store and stretches up to try and reach the soup cans on the highest shelf, a guy only a couple of inches taller than him says no, no, let me and grabs him two tomato soups, dropping them into Stiles' basket with a smile. Or when the woman behind the counter at the donut shoppe lets him take as many free samples as he wants while asking him how far along he is, when literally everyone, humans included, start holding the door open for him and offering to carry his things for him, when Scott and Allison start bringing he and Derek dinner in ziplock containers so Stiles doesn't have to cook. It reminds him a lot of his days before he was with Derek, actually; except, instead of being creepy and gross and sexual, most people and wolves are just genuinely...nice. It's not half bad, Stiles thinks. He gets fired from his job, of course, because pregnant omegas are too much of a liability, and he doesn't even care that much. Fuck 'em, then. The bad part about being pregnant is that everyone sort of talks to him like he's six years old all over again. It's the most patronizing, annoying thing on the face of the planet to listen to Derek say six times a day okay, now you remembered your medicine right you didn't forget and you took it with food right and you've been following the schedule right or when Derek watches Stiles eat three chocolate eclairs and says what about your vegetables or when Derek fucking suggests that he start taking baths instead of showers because – because fucking why? Because Stiles might slip and fall and kill their unborn child? It's so – dramatic. “You put that fucking broccoli on my plate,” Stiles warns in a low voice, watching as Derek

freezes in the middle of scooping up a spoonful of boiled broccoli out of the pot, “and I will choke you with it.” Derek blinks at him. “You have to eat some-” “Choke. You. With. It.” Stiles thinks about the nasty consistency of the broccoli, how fucking mushy it is, and – he wants to puke. For whatever unknown reason, every time he tries to eat vegetables, the baby...fucking despises it. Hates it. Refuses it. It's the worst. It's a good thing he's taking his vitamins because otherwise he'd never get any of the, like, essential nutrients or whatever the hell is in vegetables that make them “good for you.” “Okay,” Derek says slowly, and Stiles recognizes it instantly as Derek's Stiles is pregnant and crazy and hormonal voice and it...makes Stiles crazy and hormonal. He glowers at the alpha, like, say one more fucking word... Derek does. Because apparently he no longer values his penis and has no fears of Stiles chopping it off. “...what if I put some...cheese on it-” Stiles stands from his chair with a wince – his ankles fucking hurt these days – and rips the plate out of Derek's hands before even a leaf of a broccoli tree can touch his mashed potatoes or chicken. All this food was brought over by Talia; there was an inordinate amount of vegetables as a result, and Stiles just knows he's going to have to have this battle with Derek every single night at dinner time. “I'm not eating the broccoli. You eat the damn broccoli. You fucking eat the broccoli, Derek – you eat the broccoli!” Even though he knows he's overreacting, can feel himself going into a pregnant-rage over something as ridiculous as broccoli...he can't fucking help himself. He slams his plate onto the table and huffs back down into his chair; when Derek takes his seat across from him, he has nearly half a plate's worth of broccoli. “I will eat the broccoli,” he says as he sits, “because it's good. And, good for me.” Stiles thinks about clawing his alpha's eyeballs out. He seriously imagines grabbing him by his hair, punching him directly in the eye again and again, slamming his head down onto the table forehead first, and stuffing the broccoli into his mouth while screaming you like that?! You fucking like that!? Instead, he takes a deep breath, and slices into his chicken. “I don't like being talked down to, Derek.” “I'm not talking down to you,” Derek rolls his eyes and huffs; this is a conversation they've been having often lately. “Whether you want to acknowledge it or not, you're in a fragile condition, Stiles. I'm not babying you or being condescending, I'm just doing what I'm supposed to do to make sure everything goes right.” Stiles hates it when Derek starts acting like he's the fucking authority – well. Technically he is

the authority, being the alpha, and the pack leader, and all that jazz, but...Stiles hates it. That's all. “I love you,” Stiles says, in a voice that sounds a lot more like I fucking hate you, “but you're pissing me off.” Another time, Stiles comes home from Scott's house – sweaty from the walk up the stairs, tired from being on his feet for any longer than three minutes, annoyed because of the traffic – and Derek is fucking babyproofing. The day he has dreaded has finally god damn come. There's those fucking weird latches on the cabinets and the drawers, he's putting sleeves on all the god damn knives, and covering the wires around the television with weird plastic covers. Stiles stares at him for a second, annoyed beyond all belief, before he can't god damn stand it anymore. “I'm sweaty,” he huffs, rising from the couch with a grunt, “I'm gonna take a shower.” Derek raises his eyes from where he's snapping plastic covers on the cables for Stiles' ps4. “What if I draw you a bath?” “I don't want a bath,” Stiles insists with a roll of his eyes. “If I wanted a bath I could draw myself a bath.” He's not at the stage of waddling yet – but fucking hell, is he ever getting there. He feels huge. Like, blimp. His limbs are all sore, his nipples have started acting weird which Stiles doesn't even want to fucking consider, his ass inexplicably hurts, and his stomach. Is. Huge. He's asked Deaton about six times if he's sure that Stiles isn't having twins. He should not be this god damn enormous at six months. He shouldn't. And yet. It's probably because Derek is so god damn huge that he's going to have to birth out a baby who's, like, eleven pounds. It's a good thing he's getting sliced open, because otherwise... So, he doesn't waddle away from Derek; but he moves a little slower than usual. “I think you should have a bath, Stiles.” Stiles whirls back around to face his alpha, narrows his eyes, points a menacing finger in his direction. “I am taking. A shower. Like a normal adult person. Do you understand me?” The alpha just blinks at him as he rises from a crouch and starts walking in Stiles' direction, towards the bathroom door. “Would you like bubbles, or not?” There are a few things Derek is particularly good at. He's good at beating people up; which is great, because Stiles never worries about intruders getting the upper hand. He's good at sports, at crossword puzzles, at driving, he has a good memory, and he's good at picking movies to watch. However. How. Fucking. Ever. He is god-damn atrociously awful at calming Stiles down when Stiles starts getting crazy. He thinks the solution is to just pretend like Stiles is calm, to act as calm as he wishes Stiles would, to act like he has complete control over the situation. No matter how many times this fails, Derek continues to try this route.

“I'm not!” Stiles hisses, stomping his fat feet as he tries to cut Derek off on his way to the bathroom. “Don't you fucking go in there, Derek, I-” “I'll run the water,” Derek grabs Stiles' shoulders and starts steering him back towards the couch, like it's nothing to him – no matter how hard Stiles tries to dig his heels into the hardwood, Derek just skids the omega forwards on his socked feet. “You should sit down, baby.” “Don't -” Stiles twists out of Derek's grasp and stumbles away from him, growling his omega growl the entire time. “Stiles. Please. I don't want to have to worry about-” “Worry! Worry! When I've taken fucking eight gazillion showers in my lifetime!” Stiles points at the bathroom door with another growl. “A good million of them in that shower right there! And you never once worried about me then?” Derek looks like he has no idea where this conversation is going, looking at Stiles with wide eyes and parted lips. “But all of the sudden, I get fat with your dumb baby,” he would regret that word choice later, but at the moment, he means it – how fucking dumb is this baby, honestly, “and you give a shit? I swear. I swear. I swear! You love this baby more than me!” It's psycho. He knows it is. He really, truly understands that the statement you love this baby more than me is fucking insane. Derek's face agrees with this – he drops his jaw and starts making noises out of the back of his throat, squinting his eyes and shaking his head like...where do I even fucking begin.. But he doesn't take it back. He stands there and stares at Derek, waiting for whatever dumbass response he's going to try and come up with. When Derek is silent for another several seconds, dumbfounded, Stiles snorts and swaggers his way to the bathroom. “I'm showering.” He slams the door behind him, and spends his entire shower thinking about pouring Derek's body wash down the drain in a petty act of revenge. When he comes out, with wet hair and in his pajamas, Derek says, “do you want a foot massage?” And Stiles starts crying instantaneously. He feels like a god damn monster because Derek always does this – Derek always gets yelled at and cursed out by pregnant-angry Stiles, and then he'll fucking go want a piece of cake or want a foot massage like – as if Stiles deserves it after the way he treats his alpha. He plops down on the couch and weeps, while Derek rubs his back and says was it something I said...again and again, while Stiles just shakes his head and wipes the tears out of his eyes.

“I'm so – crazy and pregnant and crazy...” “No, it's just-” “And you're so nice to me and give me – every thing I need and I'm just – crazy and pregnant and crazy...” “Okay, it's fine, I'm not-” “I'm the worst. The worst!” “You're not the worst. You're – hormonal.” “Worst!” “Okay, just-” Derek rubs more soothing circles onto Stiles' back, and runs his fingers through the wet mop on top of his head a couple of times. “I love you.” Stiles nods around a few sniffles – he knows. “I'm not mad at you. Ever.” “Okay,” Stiles rasps out, wiping at his eyes. "I know and understand that you're just pregnant. Okay? You're not the worst. You're, um...the best?" Stiles snorts and shakes his head - Derek is such a fucking spazz. "You're carrying our baby, Stiles. I'm amazed by you. Really." Derek is always saying shit like that - like, as if Stiles wasn't born to be an incubator anyway. Like he's enduring some crazy pain trial for Derek's benefit, and it's actually...nice. To have his mate kind of understand that it's not easy. It is really not fucking easy being pregnant. No matter whether he was born for it or not, it's hard. It's fucking hard. It's hard waking up and seeing his stomach, it's hard having fucking sore nipples, it's hard knowing he's going to be sliced open at some point, it's god damn hard. Everyone else treats him like a huge baby himself, and maybe Derek does much of the same, but at least he acknowledges that it's not a miracle of childbirth; it's a damn Hell trial, Stiles swears. He starts wondering how this is going to eventually all be worth it. ---It's the Hale's Christmas Eve party, and Stiles is eight and a half months pregnant. The stress of the Holiday season combined with the stress of thinking about how in literally a matter of weeks there'll be another living thing that he'll have to keep alive somehow, combined with the stress of

being stressed in general at all times and sweaty and gross and huge and constantly hungry and borderline homicidal at some points – it's the perfect fucking storm. He spends hours at a time at his crafting table wrapping presents over and over and over again, until they're what he deems to be perfect (even though Derek claims that he sees absolutely no difference between the first attempt and the tenth attempt every single time – but what does he fucking know about gift wrapping, Stiles thinks), getting up every twenty minutes to take a piss, sometimes getting sidetracked by the refrigerator. By the end of it all, he has a sizable mountain of meticulously wrapped gifts, but the satisfaction only lasts for so long. When it comes time to pick what to wear to the party, he more or less has an emotional breakdown, even though he picked what he was going to wear literally days ago. He puts it on, stares at himself in the mirror, and says, “I hate this.” Derek is just finishing up buttoning his dress shirt, and he eyeballs Stiles for a second. “I think it looks good.” “I hate it,” Stiles says this firmly, ripping the maroon sweater up off of his head with a snarl. “I want to wear the blue.” He puts the blue on, and Derek puts his shoes on – and then Stiles says, “blue? Fucking blue? How is that even remotely on theme?” “Well-” “I hate it, I'm changing.” This goes on for half an hour, sweater after sweater, including one from before he was pregnant that he knew wouldn't fit but tried anyway (probably stretching it out and ruining it forever) and got emotional about how huge he is for the zillionth time since his sixth month, before Derek finally steps in and says “wear the red, the red looks good, I like the red.” Stiles wears the red and feels like a tomato for the entire night. After eating dinner and getting fawned over by the entire Hale pack, he sits on the couch with a plate of pie on his stomach. He fantasizes about taking a nap right here right now while in the background Laura starts up her annual drunken karaoke show, beginning with her rendition of Mariah Carey's All I Want For Christmas Is You and usually ending with Derek's voice suddenly in the microphone going shut the fuck up. Cora sits next to him and eyeballs his stomach with some level of terror and shock, because, again, it honest to God looks like he should be having twins his stomach is so fucking huge. He uses it to fold laundry, for Christ's sake. Cora leans over and starts forking at his half-eaten pie without asking. “You look great, Stiles.” “Yeah.” He's about had it with hearing that.

“You're – you know. Glowing.” “Like the moon, maybe.” Cora huffs out a laugh around a mouthful of pie. “Are you nervous? About getting your stomach cut open and spilling guts all over the place?” Stiles eyeballs her. Cora has got to be the most bizarre person in the Hale family – only she would ever think to fucking say something half as tactless as spilling guts all over the place to a pregnant person. “I can't wait, Cora.” “You know, mom wants us to all be there, but,” she takes another bite of Stiles' pie, “I don't want to watch the scene from Alien right in front of my face. No offense.” As if Stiles hasn't laid awake some nights thinking about the fucking scene from Alien. As if he hasn't sat there imagining Dr. Deaton slicing Stiles open while the entire Hale family watches with sick fascination. It's the stuff of nightmares – people can say whatever they want about the miracle of childbirth, but Stiles thinks that we can all agree that the actual birth part is no fucking miracle. It's fucked up. The room starts feeling very stuffy, overheating, and there's a sheen of sweat on the back of his neck; Laura's shrieking voice starts grating on his ears and everyone is talking too loudly and Derek is nowhere to be seen – though prior experiences would tell Stiles he's in the kitchen getting drunk with Scott and Allison. Which is exactly where he'd be, too, if it weren't for the fact that he's fucking pregnant and can't do half the things he wants to do and it's not fair, he's only twenty, and he should be getting drunk, dammit. He wants a fucking beer. He wants a beer! He takes his pie off his stomach and drops it down into Cora's lap. “I'm going outside for some air.” With a grunt, he pushes himself up off of the couch with both hands and hobbles his way to the front door. Outside in the cool air, he feels better. He sits down on the porch swing, which creaks under his weight, and lets out a long breath. He runs his hands up and down his stomach and frowns out into the darkness of the forest, thinking. Yeah. The thought of being sliced open freaks him out. The thought of being knocked out, completely defenseless, while a team of doctors hover over him with knives and scalpels and masked faces, scares the literal shit out of him, and is completely and totally an unpleasant thought. It's gory and disgusting and he doesn't want Derek to be within a hundred feet of the operating room, but the alpha has pretty much put his foot down on that matter altogether – he's going to be in that room, no matter what. But it's not what scares him the most. It's not what has him getting out of bed at three in the morning nearly every single night to sit at the kitchen table, listening to Derek's snoring, staring blankly down at his hands. It's not what has him driving off in the middle of the day to get away from Derek so he can cry alone in the McDonald's parking lot without Derek ever finding out.

What comes after the whole...getting sliced open thing. That's what scares him the absolute most. Sometimes he just sits on the edge of he and Derek's bed, glaring at the mountain of pastel colored blankets and stuffed animals and tiny little clothes and he wonders what he's supposed to...do with all of it. How many blankets does one fucking baby need? When he takes it home from the hospital what's he supposed to do with it? What if he can't get it to feed right and what if he can't handle it and what if he gets PPD and becomes one of those parents that shakes their baby out of frustration and kills it? He imagines that the kid gets born all perfect and immaculate and then he goes and fucks everything up. He imagines that Derek is going to be the best parent ever and he's going to be able to raise it the right way; that the alpha is going to finally wake up and realize that Stiles is a fuck up and leave in the middle of the night and take their kid with him. And he knows it's so irrational to think that way, he knows that he's just anxious and worried like any other parent would predictably be, but...it's hard to not think that way. He can't just think oh I'm being stupid and stop thinking about it, he just can't. It's scary. He's not ready. It's been nearly nine months, and he's just...not fucking ready. No matter how many books he reads or how many parenting documentaries he watches or all the mountains of anal research he has in color-coded binders labeled nutrition and brain development, he's not fucking ready. On January 8th they're cutting him open and he's going to have an actual tiny baby that he more or less has full responsibility over because Derek has to finish school and become the Hale pack's alpha and start doing his alpha duties while Stiles has to stay home and raise their kid. He has a kid. The thought is literally paralyzing. The front door opens up with a creak, and Stiles expects it to be Talia with another one of her longwinded speeches about how she's available any time Stiles needs her if you ever get overwhelmed I am one phone call away if you ever need help I am at your beck and call I'll come running don't hesitate to call me I mean it I expect calls Stiles; instead, Derek emerges out of the party, a glass of what looks like apple cider in his hand, and he closes the door behind him. “Are you tired?” Derek asks him – and he looks particularly handsome in the dim lights spilling out from the windows of his childhood house. Stiles looks like a red balloon. Stiles blinks and takes the apple cider when it's offered to him. “Yeah,” he says, and it's not a lie – he is fucking exhausted, like, all the god damn time. But it's not the whole truth. He doesn't like to talk to Derek about how freaked out he is all the time, because he's tried before. And Derek just says the same things over and over again. You're going to be amazing and I'm here to help, you know and I love you so much – and in Derek's mind, those are the right things to say. In anyone's mind, those are exactly the right things to day. But to Stiles, it just sounds like words. Just meaningless things that he's supposed to say. Like he doesn't really mean any of it. Derek sits down on the porch swing beside him, and Stiles gets a rushing creep of de ja vu up

his spine. The summer after Derek's senior year, before he was going off to college, before they had even moved in together, when Stiles was still in high school, they used to sit on this porch swing all the time. They'd play cards or bicker over the movies they'd seen or drink lemonade and have tickle fights – really infantile stuff, not really anything that Stiles would classify as any of his favorite memories with his alpha, but...at the moment, he latches onto the memories like a lifeline. It wasn't even that long ago, but it feels like a lifetime. It feels like centuries have gone by. It feels like Stiles should look over at Derek and see gray hairs and laugh lines, but instead he just sees the same angular cheekbones and smooth skin, the same dark hair styled meticulously on top of his head. After a few long seconds where they just stare at each other, they both open their mouths at the same time and they both start saying “do you remember...” They look at each other again, and then start laughing. “What were you going to say?” Derek asks him with another laugh. “What were you going to say?” Stiles shoots back. “Well,” Derek squints out into the night, and then lets out another burst of laughter, “remember that time you wanted to have sex on this thing?” Stiles laughs so long and loud it echoes off the trees in the forest, he almost tips over his cider. He does fucking remember that – the entire family was home, but they were down in the home entertainment theater in the soundproofed basement. Stiles and Derek left so they could makeout on this exact swing without being disturbed, and soon enough he was hard and trying to paw open Derek's jeans; much to the alpha's absolute horror and dismay. “My fucking parents are home!” he had whisper-shouted, as if they could hear him through the soundproofed walls. “They won't know,” Stiles whispered back, shoving his hand into the front of Derek's pants. “They will know,” Derek pulled Stiles' hand out and held onto his wrist. “They know things like that.” Derek was always paranoid that his parents were mindreaders, or something. Maybe that stems from the fact that he had to learn the hard way as he was growing up just how far a werewolf can hear if they train their ears well enough, from the fact that Derek used to jerk off in the forest (a truth he admitted to Stiles one night during pillow talk that Stiles cackled about and still does to this day whenever he thinks about Derek hiding behind a tree jerking himself off while a chipmunk watches), and he one time came home after just such a debauchery to find his father waiting for him with a book on your changing body.

Long story short, they did not have sex on the porchswing because of Derek's weird paranoia, but they did have sex in the front seat of Stiles' Jeep (though Derek kept glancing over his shoulder in the middle of it as if checking to make sure no one was coming.) “Do you remember that time you spilled fruit punch all over the pillow seat and almost cried out of fear of what your mother was going to do to you?” Stiles asks Derek now, wiggling his eyebrows. Derek pales at the memory for a couple of seconds, and then snickers. He and Derek were – what else? Making out. And Derek inexplicably thought it would be a good idea to be holding a glass of wolfsbane spiked fruit punch at the time, (the explanation probably centers around the spiked punch part, though), and one thing lead to another and... He spilled the stuff all over Stiles' jeans and the stark white pillow cushion. He immediately flew into a tipsy terror, picking Stiles up and depositing him to drip fruit punch all over the wooden porch before stupidly trying to wipe at the stain with his black t-shirt. Stiles watched for a few seconds, wide-eyed, before saying, “has no one ever told you to only scrub in one direction when it comes to lifting stains out of fabrics? You're spreading it, alpha.” Derek looked at him for a second, and then back to the stain, in what could only be described as pure, undiluted horror. If there's one thing Talia hated back then, and hates now, it's stains. But that being said, Derek was a full grown adult at the time, and accidents happen; so Stiles was a little baffled as to why he was acting like he was about to be, like, spanked with a belt or something. Even after Stiles got out the baking soda and worked at the stain himself with a sponge, there was still a light red stain in the fabric. Clearly visible against the white background, and Derek whined. “You're overreacting,” Stiles assured him, eyeballing the stain with a frown. “It was an accident, alpha.” “Let's blame it on Laura,” Derek suggested out of nowhere, rubbing his hands together in worry, “or – or Cora. Blame it on Cora. She spills stuff all the time, we could-” “You are twenty years old, and you're -” “We'll say we saw her. We'll say –“ he began to pace back and forth, and Stiles followed him with his eyes, mouth agape. “...we'll say we saw it all. Let's go up into her room and get one of her shirts and pour some on it so it looks like -” “Derek!” Stiles near shrieked, nervously laughing, unsure whether or not he was serious – he fucking couldn't be. “You're talking about framing your sister over a stain!” Derek looked at him and growled under his breath, not pausing in his pacing at all. “You don't understand. I'm a repeat offender. She'll – she'll take my credit card away.”

“Oh, my God...” Stiles is crazy about Derek. He really is. He's great. He's the best. But sometimes – sometimes...Stiles gets reminded that he's a silver spoon rich kid who can't live without his fancy car and his parents' credit card. It's not Derek's most attractive quality, not by a long shot. Long story short, they drove to Home Depot and spent forty-five minutes looking for the exact pillow for the porch swing, came home, replaced it, threw the stained one in the dump a town over, just so Derek wouldn't have to be without his fucking credit card for a week. Talia never, ever found out. To this fucking day, she has no idea that they replaced the porchswing pillow, no idea that they spent an entire afternoon replacing one of the beams on the staircase after Derek and Stiles were arguing so badly that Derek ripped off the beam in a fit of alpha rage, no idea that Derek once accidentally kicked his way through the window in the back of the kitchen. Stiles thinks these will all be stories they confess when they're in their thirties and drunk at a family party while their kid is watching the Holiday special on the television in the night room; the thought is...nice. The thought of reminiscing on their youthful indiscretions is really, really nice. The thought of having history and stories with Derek makes something affectionate bloom up in Stiles' chest. At the moment, Derek is leaning in to kiss Stiles on the lips, to run his fingers down Stiles' stomach like a caress. “Have you been thinking about names?” Stiles and Derek opted to not know the sex of the baby until it comes out of Stiles' stomach; something about hearing Dr. Deaton go it's a...was really important to Derek, and fuck knows that Stiles wouldn't be able to keep the secret, so he chose to live in secrecy as well. They spend a lot of time in bed before going to sleep poring over baby names books, but they have yet to come to any sort of middle ground. Derek likes classic names like John and Stiles likes edgier names like Booker – it's a pretty high point of tension between the two of them. “I'm not starting this conversation,” Stiles rolls his eyes and smirks, “you're too stubborn.” Derek smiles back at him, and then shrugs his shoulders. “I've been thinking about names.” “Oh God....” “And I was thinking – if it's a girl...” Stiles braces himself for Heather or Theresa or Britney, wincing. “...we could name her Claudia.” Stiles soaks that in for a second, in shock, staring at Derek as the alpha rubs his stomach and smiles doofily. It's...the most amazing thing he's ever heard in his life. It is the single most thoughtful, beautiful, amazing thing he's ever heard, definitely in the top ten best things Derek's ever said, and – not surprisingly, Stiles starts to cry.

Derek swipes his thumb across Stiles' cheek to swipe one of his tears away and huffs out a laugh. “Hey – I didn't mean to -” “No, I'm just – being emotional,” Stiles rasps out around his choked throat, “just let me cry. I'm all right, I'm just being dumb. I can't help it. I love that idea, like, a lot.” “Okay,” Derek smiles at him, keeping his hand on the side of his omega's face. “So then if it's a girl, Claudia.” Stiles thinks about being able to tell stories to a little girl named Claudia, who in his imagination has his mother's amber eyes and his mother's curly hair, with Derek's cheekbones and Derek's dark black hair, and he thinks he honestly can't handle this. All those times he would think I wish I could tell my mom about this, all those times he wished that his mother could meet Derek, could get to know him, and love him the way Stiles does – it's like, if he had a daughter named Claudia, he'd be getting a second chance to do exactly that. He hadn't given much of a care to whether the baby came out male or female, but suddenly, he's rapidly hoping and praying that it's a girl. “You know,” Stiles starts, still wiping idiotic tears out of his ears, “one day we'll have to tell them,” he pats his stomach, “about how we got together.” Derek grins at him, nodding his head. “And I'll say well,” Derek puts on a comical old man voice, and Stiles laughs, “...it all started with a rose.”

End Notes

so some points of reference - this is the engagement ring (and I know I never mentioned it, and you guys never got to hear it explained, but Derek's is pretty much that except without the rubies. And, another point of reference, the rings cost 2,000 dollars each.) this is what a hundred roses looks like. Because I know it's hard to conceptualize and you hear "holy shit FIVE? FUCKING? THOUSAND? IMPOSSIBLE." five thousand sounds like a lot, but actually seeing it is another matter, right?! And another note, I did the math better than Stiles did, and the cost of 5,000 roses would and could be closer to somewhere in the 12k - 15k range, depending on the quality of them. Also, where tf was Derek going to find 5k roses in Beacon Hills, California so he probably had to send out for some, like, airlifted in or something - the point is, Derek spent an absurd amount of money on the proposal and I need to join the Hale pack to get at that wallet and, one last note, the "marshmallow trees" thing is actually something that I myself literally believed for years because my sister told me. Something about the imagery of "you know, like cotton plants!" was just really believable to me? I was like right...right...cotton's a plant, and marshmallows are kind of like cotton - so why the hell not? Fucking hell lmao anyway - thank you for reading.

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