SIAND - PDF - What Stays and What Fades Away (you cant choos.pdf

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/3797563. Rating: Archive Warning: Category: Fandom: Relationship: Character: Additional Tags:

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Explicit Graphic Depictions Of Violence M/M Teen Wolf (TV) Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski Kira Yukimura, Allison Argent, Laura Hale, Scott McCall, Isaac Lahey, Peter Hale, Vernon Boyd Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Stiles is a bartender, derek owns the bar, threats of rape, Past Mpreg, Knotting, full trigger warnings in notes, Angst, Sexual Harassment, original character death Published: 2015-04-22 Words: 39114

What Stays and What Fades Away (you can't choose) by standinginanicedress Summary

The rules. Stiles knows them well. Has them drilled into his head, repeats them to alphas and betas that conveniently are too drunk to remember them on their own, hears Peter shout them out whenever a rule gets broken, reminding the entire bar that they exist and are (generally) enforced. Number one – no eye contact. Number two – no fucking eye contact. Number three – keep away from the red line. Number four – no touching. Number five – if we don't like it, don't do it.

Notes

As usual I am literally the worst at tagging so I'd strongly suggest reading this note for trigger warnings and some full explanations of what the tags are all about!! For the threats of rape / sexual harassment tags - it's mostly classic mistreatment of omegas, and the bar that Stiles works at is sort of the omega werewolf equivalent of a strip club; so any and all

harassment and dehumanization that one would find in a really seedy strip club will pretty much be found in this fic and I feel like I can't stress that enough or put it any more plainly; but a lot of the language used in this fic could be really triggering, so just be aware of that! The original character death tag relates to the past mpreg tag; to put it explicitly (and maybe this is a spoiler but honestly no one would benefit from this being randomly dumped on them) this fic deals a lot with the fact that before the story begins, Stiles' child died. Onto a lighter subject!!! This fic literally would've just sat in my docs folder at 8k wasting away never to see the light of day if it weren't for my pal stilescrying shoving me in the right direction to get this thing done so A+ to her for bringing one of my abandoned plot bunnies back from the dead!!

See the end of the work for more notes

There's this bar. All the way on the outskirts of town, where the houses and streets thin out into big bushy green pine forests and pinecones, there's this fucking bar. All set in the shadows with minimal lights outside except a huge neon red sign flashing SILVER SHADOW at anyone who happens to be driving down the shitty dirt road it's located on, only a half a mile outside of the preserve, looming tall and brick; and Stiles gets that it's supposed to be all mysterious and sexy and whatnot, but he just kind of thinks it's...stupid looking. They chose a stupid location, a stupid name, a stupid interior design (blood red walls with shimmering silver accents all over the place – like this is a bar someone might find in Twilight, for god's sake), stupid meathead patrons, and just stupid. The stupidest part of it all is that the only wolves they'll hire to work behind the bar (and, literally, it says this in huge red letters on the application) are omegas. Omegas that expertly flip full bottles of alcohol around in the air, catching them behind their backs, accept free shot after free shot from drunken alphas and betas, wink and smile and nod their heads and take the inappropriate flirting and phone numbers with big smiles, all while making tips up the fucking ass. It's probably the most popular werewolf bar in Beacon Hills for this exact reason – because omegas can hardly get a job anywhere else, seeing as how they're huge liabilities to the service industry at large, so pretty much a good sixty percent of the omegas within a fifty mile radius – few as they are - work at Silver Shadow. And Stiles...is an omega. An omega that has been dutifully avoiding Silver Shadow and every thing it stands for to shelve books at the library in his nerdy glasses. He only got the job because it was an after hours type of a thing; he showed up after the place was closed, when any and all leering betas and alphas were cleared out, except for a human security guard who would've been absolutely zero help in the event of a real...event. It was a fine job. He made only six dollars an hour (the going rate for omegas – compared to literally everyone else's fair hourly of nine), and spent a solid seven months on a fucked up sleeping schedule with hardly any time to do anything else but read and eat and sleep at two o'clock in the afternoon – but it was fine. It was better than working at Silver Shadow. That's what he convinced himself of, at least. Until he got fucking fired for allegedly seducing one of his alpha co-workers into a completely against-the-rules workplace relationship. Which didn't fucking happen, by the way; what happened was he made out with the kid behind one of the shelves after picking up his check and – okay. It sort of happened. Maybe he's hyperaware of the fact that while alphas have the strength, stamina, and supersenses

and use them as power and privilege over him and all other omegas in literally every other situation, Stiles has the irresistible factor. He knows he's appealing to pretty much any alpha that catches his scent. Maybe he capitalizes on it. Maybe he likes to make out and have sex sometimes. So fucking sue him. His boss didn't sue him – she just fired him and had security escort him out like he was some kind of criminal, in one of the most humiliating moments of his life. And the alpha that he had been hooking up with offered absolutely no help whatsoever. He didn't say well, you know, I was there too or we were both consensually making out – nope. He made the entire thing seem like Stiles was a wanton sex freak who leaped on him and, well, it was an omega so it's not like the alpha had a choice, right? It was absolute horseshit. Even if he didn't get the reputation for being a sex freak that seduces alphas into compromising positions to destroy their careers, he was still an omega – the job offers just weren't coming. Not from Dairy Queen, or the diner down the street from his house, and not even as a janitor. Nobody fucking wanted him, and he had to get a job. He had to get a job. There was only one option, and he knew exactly what it was. It kept him awake at night, staring at the ceiling, as his bank account drew closer and closer to zero, (well...sixteen cents, to be more accurate), the neon red lights of the sign out in the forest flashing and blinking at him in his dreams. The only. Fucking. Option. Applying at Silver Shadow was in and of itself an experience. He walked in, got leered at by the few straggling alphas who would actually be at a bar at one o'clock in the afternoon, sat down at the bar expecting to fill out an application – only to have the owner, a sharp-eyed beta named Laura, take one look at him and say, “can you start tonight?” He had nodded, a little sadly, and showed back up at nine PM when the music was at full volume, the entire parking lot jam-packed. Laura had been pretty specific that he was under no circumstances, no matter what, never, to walk through the floor of the bar. To not use the front door, ever. It was a bit of a horrifying thing to be told; because it was pretty loud and clear a warning based on previous experiences of things that have happened to omegas in the past at the place. Stiles tried not to think about any of it as he parked his Jeep in the back beside what he assumed to be Laura's expensive Beamer. At the back door, there stood a huge alpha with dark skin who looked him up and down, and then raised his eyebrows. “You the new one?” “Yeah,” Stiles had said. Fucking unfortunately, he was Silver Shadow's newest bar-whore – and was dressed for the fucking part. V-neck black shirt, tight black skinny jeans, hair tousled deliberately to look like post-coital bed head.

Like he said. He capitalizes, and knows how to do it. The second he stepped inside, a dark haired girl with friendly dark eyes grabbed at his arms, grinned a dimpled-face smile at him, and said, “oh my God! You must be Stiles. Come here, I know it can be a little daunting at first,” she started leading him by his hand through the kitchen, where meanfaced humans were flipping burgers on a grill, past the bathrooms, all the way to a weary looking black door, “but everyone is so nice. Well, the people that work here are so nice. Everyone else is – well. You know.” Stiles did know. Stiles knew exactly what she meant. Into the mysterious black-doored room they went, and it looked like the breakroom back at the library. Strangely normal, and comforting, considering the sound of the bass was still blaring through the walls, rattling a few coffee mugs sitting on the table. “My name is Kira,” she said, handing him a small white cup of water inexplicably. He accepted it, drank it down without giving it much thought – not water. Not water at all. Vodka. He coughed, sputtering around the surprise alcohol, and Kira just kept on talking. “I'm training you tonight. You said you had bartending experience, right?” He worked behind the bar at an Applebee's in another town for a couple of months his senior year of high school because he pretended that he was human on the application, making fruity little drinks for humans who had no idea he was an omega. Those were human drinks, though – vodka-sprites and watered down Long Island iced teas for twenty-one year old college girls at seven o'clock at night. “Um -” “So I don't need to tell you how to make a Wolf's Spray, right?” “Um...” “Great!” She smiled at him again, handed him another tiny little white cup. This time, Stiles eyed it conspicuously, dropping his mouth to mutter out another um, but Kira just pushed it closer to his hand with a bit of a press. “Drink it!” “Is it...” he took the cup into his fingers and frowned, “...a good idea for me to be drunk on my first night?” She cocked her head to the side, and smoothed a hand through her hair. For the first time, Stiles took note of what she was wearing – all black, like the uniform requires, but with a tight croptop and even tighter jeans, glittery silver eye-shadow and sleek hair with the bangs clipped carefully and neatly back with two bobby-pins. “Stiles. You know what this job is.”

He blinked at her, and then glanced back down at the cup. “Do you want to be completely and totally sober? I'm not!” Stiles sighed through his nose. She had a point – gobbling down wolf's vodka in the back room might just be the only way he'll be able to physically do this job without succumbing to intense feelings of worthlessness of dehumanization; for fuck's sake, everyone knows that working as an omega at Silver Shadow is pretty much exactly like working at a strip club for a human woman. It's demoralizing, and a lot of people sort of...you know. Lose their fucking minds somewhere along the way, spend all their money on hallucinogenic wolfsbane, live out of hotel rooms and sleep with a new alpha every night. Kira didn't look like she's been doing any hard drugs recently. She did, however, look like she got drunk in the backroom a lot. Stiles took the shot. “We are so lucky we have you, now,” she took the cup out of his hands and tossed it into a small waste basket, “it's only me and Allison, now. No males, oh my God, it's been – it's been a fucking nightmare!” Stiles noticed a tendency for Kira to say every thing, literally everything, with a flirty head tilt and a smile, no matter what's coming out of her mouth. “How long have you been working here?” Stiles asked her. “About seven months!” That explained that. “So, Laura said she wants you behind the bar tonight, which, normally we don't do that for new employees, but she said you have a natural thing about you-” Laura herself appeared, as if summoned by Kira's words, sticking her head in through the black door to the break room, running her cool, decisive eyes up and down Stiles' frame. “Stiles,” she greeted him, before sliding all the way into the room, wearing a pair of jeans and a plain red tshirt. She smiled at him, gently, cautiously, like she didn't want to be too forward with him. “You're going to do great tonight. I can tell.” Stiles had no fucking clue what the natural thing could possibly be for a job that requires him to flip bottles in the air while simultaneously flirting with handsy alphas, but Laura was looking at him like she could see straight through him. “I'm going to put this bluntly – an omega looking the way you do,” she gestures to him, up and down, with a single finger, “would get eaten alive out there.” Not like Stiles hadn't been told the same thing a zillion times in his life. Something about him – maybe the lanky limbs, moles dotted across his face, square dorky glasses, erratic brown hair – all combined with the scent of omega has always made him alpha bait. Walking, talking alpha bait. Or, alpha food, depending on how you look at it.

“But you're not gonna let that happen,” she smiled at him again, this time, a bit less kindly; more of a smirk, sure of herself, “are you?” Stiles swallowed. “Um – probably not. I should take these off...” he reached up onto his face to rip the glasses off, before going out there and facing god knows how many dozens of drunken alphas; something told him the glasses wouldn't help his case at all. “Leave them on.” Laura stopped his fingers and scrutinized him. “It's your thing.” Before Stiles had the chance to ask him what the literal fuck she meant by that, Kira grabbed him by his hand again and kicked the door to the break room open; the music got louder, the yelling and shouting from the bar got louder, the smell of liquor thickened in his nostrils as he was dragged down a narrow hallway with blood red walls towards a door with a small round window. The door to the front of Silver Shadow. Even without the supersenses that betas and alphas have, he could just smell the fucking arousal and drunken buffoonery leaking through the crack underneath the door. Kira turned back to him about ten feet away from the door, and, without stopping, asked him, “are you ready?” Stiles thought this was a considerably low level of training, a low level of preparation at all, for the kind of job he was about to be doing – but he didn't have time to honestly say not at fucking all, because Kira was kicking the door open, tugging him out into the masses. The bar at Silver Shadow is boxed in. The only way to get behind the bar without physically leaping over it is to come in through that back door with the round window, leading into the winding, twisting hallways that really only lead to the break room (where Allison challenges him to arm wrestle; where he loses to Allison nearly every single night), the kitchen (where they shovel hot wings into their mouths whenever Laura isn't looking), and Laura's shitty little office (where she sits and drinks Wolf's Brew for the entire night, alcohol tolerance so high she can put it back for hours on end without even swaying on her feet until around three am.) That being said – of course, alpha werewolves can leap over a fucking bar if they felt so inclined. And, drunken, sexually aroused alphas do often get a hankering to leap over things and grab at Stiles' fucking neck to choke him out like, erotically or whatever, so typically either Boyd or Peter stands menacingly right in the middle of the omegas' work station, glaring with their arms crossed, fucking daring some motherfucker to just try it. As one could possibly imagine, very, very few alphas get drunk enough to run the risk of getting shot in the stomach by those wolf-tasers that Boyd and Peter keep tucked against their hips at all times.

During the first couple of weeks, Stiles broke about thirty bottles worth of expensive liquor while trying to learn how to flip them around like Allison and Kira could do so effortlessly. Laura never even mentioned taking the cost of the liquor out of his paycheck – which she absolutely could have and probably should have – she just shrugged her shoulders and said try again every single time. Until the first time he managed to spin two bottles, one in each hand, effortlessly around until they were pouring into a glass for a clean, perfectly measured out sourwolf (the Silver Shadow's signature drink) – then, Laura bought him a round of shots and got him so drunk he wound up leaning over and puking into the trashcan behind the bar two hours into his shift. And then went right back to it without even so much as blinking. After about two months, he manages to get the bottle spinning down to a science, just like the girls kept telling him he would when he first started. Holding his alcohol, he's getting better at. Drunkenly pouring drinks, he's more or less an expert at. Dealing with some of the fucking clientele, however... Stiles doesn't think he'll ever, ever be able to get used to the way some of them act. The second he walks out to start his shift, every single fucking night, a round of howling starts up on the floor, overpowering the sound of the music, sending fucking chills up and down Stiles' back no matter how many times he's had to hear it since he started. It's bone rattling, the sound of that many alphas and betas howling in his direction, enough to make him want to turn tail and run back to hide under Laura's desk. The first person he chooses to serve every night is usually the least threatening of the bunch – typically a younger beta; but, even then, once Stiles is leaning down towards them close enough to get their drink order, their nostrils flare, eyes going wide, as if they're surprised that he smells that fucking good. There are always a few seconds of awkward silence with the decent ones, like they're trying to compose themselves and not turn into a fucking animal just because of whatever it is that Stiles gives off inadvertently. The aggressive ones, however - the alphas, the pack-leaders, the big strong tough guys that glow their red eyes at him and run their eyes up and down his body, take great big inhales of his scent with no attempts at subtlety – they don't hesitate. They spit their drink orders out at him, trying to make direct eye contact with him, even though they all know he's not supposed to do that. Written in lipstick in Laura's swirly handwriting on the bathroom mirror is NO EYE CONTACT. On the mirror behind the wall of liquor bottles, NO EYE CONTACT. On the front fucking door of the bar, on a sign taped to the jukebox, in huge neon blue letters above Stiles' head, NO. FUCKING. EYE. CONTACT. Eye contact means alphas can tell him what to do, boss him around, use their alpha powers on him. It's not okay - it obviously isn't okay. Yet, they still try it. Stiles guesses it's like a game to them, to try and get him to break the rules,

with them, to get him to be bad just for them. It's fucking nasty, and Stiles grits his teeth and glares directly down at the hardwood of the bar with every thing he has, repeating for the zillionth time, “what fucking drink do you want?” while they keep dodging the question. Every now and then, one of them will try to actually grab him. They only get so far, and Stiles has gotten pretty good at dodging out of the way or spraying soda water on them, but it's still rattling to have a huge fucking hand reach out to try and do god-knows-what to him. Peter or Boyd will flash their taser, growl under their breaths, and whoever's on the other end of the bar will raise their hands up in surrender and say something like, “excuse the fuck outta me,” like it's not their fault they're trying to grab Stiles. And, of course, a lot of them prefer to get mouthy more than they like to get handsy – yelling out lascivious things in his general direction, asking him out, trying to shout their phone numbers at him. And Stiles has to smirk and raise his eyebrows, like he's daring them to make a move, while in his head he's really thinking about how much he'd really like to just puke all over them; and, also, steal their fucking wallet. But, don't get Stiles wrong. For as much as there are some things about the job that suck, it's actually...fun. It's fun to twirl the bottles and it's fun to make drinks, it's fun to work with Kira and Allison, and a good eighty percent of the people who come legitimately just come to be decent, have fun, and look at the pretty omegas for a couple of hours. They make good conversation with him, tip him hundred dollar bills, and tell Laura how cute and nice he is. It's all in good fun. “I want to buy you a shot,” a tall, buff alpha is saying to him now, leaning as far over the counter as he thinks he can get away with before he gets tased. He's sniffing at Stiles as the omega pours sprite into a glass for him, and Stiles just stands there and nods. “What kind, alpha?” “What kind do you like,” he must glance at Stiles' nametag, the one with the penis sticker and the heart-dotted I, because he follows it up with, “Stiles?” Stiles hmm's, sliding the drink across the restrictive red line on the bar, five inches away from where his hand is, careful not to get too close to him. “I'll like whatever you get for me.” The alpha laughs, breathy and drunk, and tries reaching his hand forward to where Stiles' fingers are resting. Clear over the red line, in complete violation of the fucking rules. Stiles jerks back with a fake-laugh as he wipes the sticky soda off of his fingers onto his black shirt, raising his eyebrows. “Don't do that, alpha.” There's a beat of silence, and Stiles opens his mouth to say you want that shot, or not when the alpha speaks again. “Don't tell me what the fuck to do omega.” Stiles glances at Peter in the corner of his eye, as if double checking to make sure he's there. “Do you want that fucking shot, or what?” He pushes his glasses up higher on his nose and stares

directly at the alpha's lips, to find them curved down into a tight, terse frown. Not a good sign. “I don't think anyone ever taught you how to respect your alphas,” that hand inches closer to Stiles, and again he has to jerk backwards, a full foot away from the edge of the bar, “maybe I'll have to do that myself.” “That's five dollars,” he snaps, hardening his voice as much as he can. Down on the other end of the bar, Allison appears to be preoccupied by a friendly looking beta, paying absolutely no mind to Stiles down on his end. Peter is eating cherries one by one, oblivious, and Stiles swallows. “Yeah?” he leans down even closer to Stiles, and Peter finally glances in their direction. “How much for you?” Stiles drops his jaw, genuinely shocked out of his mind, considers calling Peter's name – but he doesn't have to. A broad shouldered alpha smacks the asshole on the back as he settles himself into the seat beside him, and says, “I'm pretty sure you're in the wrong place, asshole.” Stiles glances in the other alpha's direction, notices a v-neck and a leather jacket and tan skin. “Maybe you should fuck off.” “I'm not going to let this little bitch tell me what the fuck to-” Before he has the chance to finish, he gets his head slammed forehead first down onto the counter of the bar; startling Stiles into a squeak, and a couple of betas a few chairs down into a jump. Peter watches with vague interest, smirking to himself, but makes absolutely no moves to step in, which is odd. Usually he lunges at any and all opportunities to get into a fight with someone. “Fuck!” The asshole-alpha snarls, rubbing at his forehead as he comes back up. “Get the hell out of here,” leather jacket thrusts his thumb behind him towards the front door, over the heads of the dancing crowd. Stiles was expecting a fight. He was expecting an alpha pissing match, punches thrown, snarls, red eyes, the whole nine yards; he thought he'd be spending his night sweeping up broken glass. Instead, unbelievably, the asshole-alpha grumbles under his breath, slaps a five dollar bill onto the bar, and wanders off into the crowd, back to whatever hole he crawled out of in the first place. The omega blinks after him, bewildered. It takes him a few seconds to remember that he's here to do a job, to push his glasses up on his face and push the five into the tip-pocket of his tie-on. “Thanks for that,” he says under his breath to leather jacket, knowing he'll be able to hear it either way. “Can I get you anything?” “Water.” Stiles snorts, looking up to stare at the alpha's jawline. And it's..a nice jawline. A very, very nice

fucking jawline. “You come into this place to beat on other alphas and drink water?” Leather jacket's lips curl into an amused grin. “You're new here.” Stiles nods as he pulls out a glass, drops it down onto the bar. “More or less. Two months since I started – haven't ever seen you before.” And Stiles does see a lot of the same people again and again; there are only so many alpha and beta werewolves within a hundred miles, after all. But leather jacket is a brand new face to him – or, a brand new voice and a brand new jawline. He pushes a glass of iced water to the alpha, who grabs it with tan, thick fingers. “Don't come around much.” “Well, maybe you should start, alpha,” Stiles turns the charm on, winks in his general direction, “beat off the assholes for me.” Leather jacket smirks. “Maybe.” So, working at Silver Shadow really isn't that bad. Yes the clientele are fucking horrible and yes Stiles is drinking far more than is probably healthy (seriously, college frats don't go through as much alcohol as Stiles and Kira and Allison go through on a single fucking night), but it's...tolerable. And, besides. Working at Silver Shadow isn't the worst thing he's ever done. Not by a long shot. Stiles can survive the looks his friends give him, can survive the way that his father sometimes can't look him directly in the eyes out of shame, because he's already been through that before. He's already been through people not knowing what to say to him. Already been through awkward, stilted conversations, already had strangers in the supermarket doubletake him upon recognizing him as that omega, as the fuck-up, as the one who couldn't handle it. And – it's been years. It's been three years, three long, long years, but the few people who know and remember what happened still stop and stare at him, rake their eyes up and down his body like they're trying to figure out what it was about him that's so fucked up that he – that any omega ever could... Stiles has heard variations of you know it wasn't your fault, Stiles. You know that what happened was an accident, it could've happened to anyone, you're not the first one it's happened to I'm sure, these things just happen, no one can be blamed, no one's at fault here about a zillion times from friends and family and strangers alike. To the point where it doesn't even sound real to him anymore, that it stopped sounding real a very long time ago, and all he can think when he hears shit like that now is you're wrong. All he can feel is a hollowness in his chest. When Stiles was seventeen he met an alpha and was pretty thoroughly convinced that this was the one. It felt exactly like how everyone always told him it would feel like – all starry-eyed and love-struck and a sense of certainty. Like, there couldn't possibly be anyone else, right? There

could never in a million years be someone cooler than this guy, someone smarter than this guy, someone who Stiles could care about more than this guy. The stars had aligned, right? Everything was great, right? Sure, Scott warned him time and time again that the guy was bad news, and his father always stared cleaning his gun whenever Stiles had him over to send out threat signals as loud as an ambulance flashing down the road, and sure he had a reputation with other omegas before he had ever even met Stiles, but – Stiles was sure. Fuck, he was sure. He turned up pregnant, and he was happy. Only seventeen and pregnant, but he didn't care, at first, because this was everything he was supposed to want as an omega. The whole thing, right? Alpha-mate, and a kid and...the whole fairytale. But then alpha-mate took himself out of the equation. Left Stiles alone to deal with it himself, threw hundred dollar bills in the omega's face with the suggestion of get rid of that fucking thing. Stiles still remembers the way his face felt, numb and frozen in shock, money on the ground around his feet, as he watched his sure thing disappear out of his driveway, never to be seen or heard from again. This was not the fucking omega fairytale. This was Stiles at seventeen years old, pregnant and alone and scared. This was a fucking Lifetime movie. And while Stiles had been happy at first, back when he thought that his life was going to get started and he'd be happy and move out of his house and do something instead of being ogled and harassed by alphas left and right, now he was just scared. Because he didn't know what to do. His father had been disappointed, threatened to go out and find ex-alpha to blow his brains out of his head, and Scott had pretty much said the same thing only his weapon of choice was Stiles' baseball bat - but neither of them, no matter how hard they tried, could really offer up any support. So when the god damn thing came out, when his stomach was sliced open and he had an actual living thing to take care of on his own, he was sure he couldn't handle it. As much as he loved his daughter (and oh my god, did he ever fucking love that baby), he just...knew. He knew it at two am when he'd crawl out of bed to the sound of crying to warm up a bottle in the microwave, and he knew it when she would wrap her tiny hand around his fingers, and he knew it when she would stare up at him with huge brown eyes like she was trying to say something she wasn't cognitively prepared for yet. He just knew. Call it intuition. Babies get sick. And they're so little and helpless and fragile that even the tiniest virus can end in the worst possible outcome. So Stiles spent four months of his life with his days revolving around a thing that he literally created and that literally came out of him to just wake up one morning and His fingers brushed over her face. And she was cold.

Sometimes late at night he traces over the scar tissue on his stomach left over from the operation, feels the grooves and dips in the puckered red and white line, and thinks about getting that scar taken care of. Get a cream, get rid of it, forget any of it ever happened, move on, finally, after all these horrible, horrible years. But he doesn't. And maybe that's symbolism for how he's not ready yet or that he still wakes up to phantom crying in the middle of the night or that he still remembers how horrible it was to see how pale her skin was that morning, how frail she looked, how cold her skin was... Or maybe he keeps that scar there because he feels like he deserves it, somehow. Omegas don't fucking kill their babies. Omegas are born to spawn children, omegas are meant to be able to fucking handle it, and Stiles couldn't, and Stiles failed, and people look at him like there's a defect in his brain. No matter how many times they all tell him what a tragedy it was, fix him with sad looks like he's something to be pitied, he knows what they all fucking think of him. He's the omega that's not good for much else but a fuck; just a pretty face and nice skin to mess around with, scent-mark, grope, leer at, but not good enough to mate. He'll kill an alpha's offspring as easy as snapping a twig. So, no. Working at Silver Shadow isn't the worst thing he's ever done. ---Leather jacket doesn't come around for another week or so – Stiles had completely forgotten about him, had gone back to fending off jerks and fuckboys alike all on his lonesome; until the alpha himself sat on Stiles' side of the bar again and tapped two fingers on the glazed wood. Stiles glanced in his direction and smiled, finishing off pouring a drink for another alpha and sliding it off with a wink. Peter looks at leather jacket for a second, and leather jacket looks right back at him, almost in a dare – and Peter looks away, before drifting off and disappearing behind the back door. Huh. Well, that was fucking weird. “Don't tell me you want another water.” “What if I do?” The omega raises his eyebrows, wiping his wet hands off on his shirt. “Then I'll get you a fucking water – but I'll make fun of you for it.” “Oh, really?” “Yup,” he pulls a chilled glass out from under the bar and squirts it full of water with a handful of ice. “It's in my job description, actually – make fun of the nerds that order water at the bar.” Leather jacket accepts his water with a smirk. “Nerds, huh?” Stiles actually laughs; not just one of the fake ones he doles out to alphas left and right on any

given work night of his life, but a real one. “When was the last time you were called a nerd?” Because alpha werewolves who walk around at his size, wearing leather jackets and carrying fancy car keys, probably don't get teased like this very often. Stiles wonders if he's treading in dangerous waters, taunting the beast into an attack, but leather jacket just sips his water and stares at Stiles with a light smile on his lips. “Fifth grade, probably.” Stiles is about to open his mouth to make a crack about how only fifth graders would order water at Silver Shadow, and maybe he should go audition for an episode of Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader, when a surly voice from the other end of the bar shouts, “I want the fucking twink to serve me.” The omega huffs out a sigh, rubbing his hand across his forehead. There's only one person that could be referring to. He makes eye contact with Kira, who flashes him an apologetic shrug, and in front of her sits a very pissed off beta who's apparently drunk enough that he has no control over whether or not his eyes glow and his canines drop. Stiles' least favorite kind of customer; the kind that can't fucking control themselves. And Stiles knows better – he knows that its not that they can't. It's that werewolf society at large panders to the idea that alphas and betas are just so strong and so amazing that they have no control over themselves whatsoever, at a certain point. “Well,” he starts, adjusting his glasses, “your resident fucking twink has a job to do. Let me know if you need anything else, alpha.” From the brief glance that Stiles gives up to his face, he can see that where there was a playful smile only seconds before is now a very angry looking frown – set jaw, clenched teeth and all. Down the bar Stiles goes, until he's leaning his elbow right in front of the shifted beta with a fake smile plastered across his face. “What can I get you?” There's a few solid seconds where all Stiles can hear is the guy smelling him – which he's more or less used to. He's learned to just train his eyes up to the ceiling and focus intently on the song that's playing, to bop his head along like it doesn't bother him at all. “Whatever you want to give me,” is the response, in a husky, seductive purr. Stiles wants to puke all over the ground; he wants to whip backwards and say fuck off or punch this guy in the face. Instead, he has to smile, and nod. “How about a sourwolf? It's our specialty.” “Yeah?” The beta leans in closer to him, sniffs deeper. “What's your specialty?” As far as flirting goes, and Stiles has experienced a lot of inappropriate flirting in his lifetime, this one ranks in at a two out of ten. His putrid alcohol breath keeps fanning across Stiles' face, his skin looks sweaty and clammy and gross, he's slurring so much Stiles can barely fucking understand him, and it's so cheesy. Stiles sighs through his nose. “Making drinks.”

The beta laughs. “I know you know that's not what I meant.” “Order a drink, or I'm going on to the-” The guy grabs onto Stiles' v-neck and pulls hard enough that Stiles' hips slam against the edge of the bartop with a squeak of surprise, hands flailing for purchase uselessly. He calls out a weak Peter – but he's not standing where he should be. He's not anywhere where Stiles can see him, and the only person who's deigning to help him is a weak-armed Kira that can do nothing but try and pull Stiles away while hissing let him the fuck go let him go to absolutely no avail. “I didn't come here to be smart mouthed by some little omega.” Stiles grabs at the beta's wrist and starts trying to pry it off of him; but, of course. Stiles has about as much natural strength as a human. He doesn't exist to fight off drunken betas at bars, for fuck's sake, and where the fuck is Peter, because this guy is looking like he's about to drag Stiles over the edge of the bar onto the floor; which Laura has stressed time and time again would be the absolute worst thing that could happen, and a half dozen horror stories of things that have happened to omegas in mobs of alphas and betas flash through Stiles' mind, like his own fucking life flashing before his eyes, before ...once again, leather jacket comes to Stiles' rescue. This time, he pushes Stiles out of the beta's grip as easily as pushing a pillow – sending Stiles flopping back behind the bar with a surprised grunt as he stumbles into Kira, who puts her arm around his shoulders protectively. Stiles gets his first real look at the entirety of leather jacket's face from a side angle, instead of just his mouth. He has green eyes, Stiles notices, with carefully styled jet-black hair and fucking incredible cheekbones – and Stiles has thought I would mate with that alpha, no questions asked before probably a hundred times since hitting puberty, but usually...not at such inappropriate times, like this one, right now. But excuse the fuck out of him – leather jacket is fucking hot. He bunches the beta's jacket up in his hands and snarls.“I'm pretty sure we've made it crystal fuckin' clear that you don't touch the omegas.” We've? Who the fuck we? “Rule number four, asshole.” “But he -” Leather jacket glows his red eyes and growls under his breath; effectively freezing the beta's efforts to squirm out of the alpha's grip. “Shut the fuck up, and get the fuck out.” Apparently, he doesn't need to be told twice. As soon as leather jacket lets him go, the beta scrambles off of the bar stool, stumbling off into the crowd, presumably running to the exit with his tail between his legs.

The alpha sighs out a breath and looks at where Kira and Stiles are standing behind the bar, latched onto each other with probably comically huge eyes and dropped jaws, terrified. No matter how many times something like this happens...they just don't fucking get used to to it. How does someone just get used to being treated that way? To the idea that not a single other alpha or beta, out of the sixty or so milling around the bar right now, tried to help them? That some of them were probably just standing there, watching, hoping Stiles would get pulled over the bar, hoping they would get a chance to get their hands on him? Before either of them can protest, leather jacket literally climbs up over the bar, drops himself down two feet away from the omegas, and pushes open the door to the back. Stiles drops his jaw, again, and looks at Kira like an alpha just fucking leaped over the top of the bar and is going into the back and we're not going to try and stop him!? - but she just unfurls her arm from Stiles' shoulders and shoves him gently after him. “He probably wants you to file an incidence report to '86 that guy.” Confused, Stiles looks between Kira and the alpha waiting in the open doorway to the back raising his eyebrows at Stiles, opening and closing his mouth in surprise. “He – who is -” He smiles, slightly, barely, and says, “I'm Derek Hale. C'mon.” He pushes the door open wider, for Stiles to step through; and it isn't like he has much of a choice in the matter, he realizes. Derek Hale means Laura Hale's fucking brother or cousin or whatever, which means he probably owns a stock in the bar, which means he probably has control over what Stiles does with his time and where he goes while at work. Which would explain the whole life-saving thing. Twice, now. “Okay...” he slides past Derek Hale, cautiously and unsure of himself, through the back door into the darkness of the hallway, where the music fades out into a dull thrum as soon as the door slams shut. Derek puts his hand on Stiles' shoulder gently, guiding him forwards towards where the door to Laura's office is. It's big, and warm, and Stiles has to actively stop himself from leaning into the touch. “You know,” He begins as a distraction, clearing his throat, “if I knew you were – um...you...I never would have teased you about the water.” Beside him, Derek snorts a laugh, but doesn't say anything. He just rubs his fingers deeper into Stiles' back in an obvious attempt to get the beta's scent off of him and replace it with his own, which might seem sexy to an outside party – but, more likely than not, he's only doing it because the beta smelled bad and he doesn't want to smell it anymore. When they step into Laura's office, when Laura sees Stiles' shaking hands and probably frozen face of shock, she immediately stops every thing she's doing and frowns. “What happened?” Derek leads Stiles forward with both hands on his shoulders, depositing him into the worn out

leather chair in front of Laura's desk. “Some asshole tried to pull him over.” Laura sighs. She leans over her desk and rubs at her face for a few seconds, muttering something under her breath that Stiles can't catch. “Are you okay, Stiles?” “Um – not hurt or anything.” She raises her eyes and smiles faintly at him, before flicking her eyes over to where Derek is leaning up against the wall, a few feet away from where Stiles is sitting. “Did you recognize him?” Derek nods, and spits out a name that Stiles doesn't know; Laura pulls out a sheet of paper, an incident form like Kira had said, and slides it across the desk for Stiles to fill out. “Put him on the list. Tell Boyd and Peter.” Stiles clicks the pen Laura hands him and starts filling the form out methodically, while the silence drags on in the room between Derek and Laura. From the corner of his eye, he sees Laura sniff at him, and then raise her eyes to look at Derek with her eyebrows raised – but neither of them say anything. After a while of this, Stiles looks up and glances at Derek; looks him directly in the eyes for the first time since they met, and then looks back down at his lips. “How come I've never seen you here before, if you, like, own this place or whatever?” “I just own it now, but I used to work security.” A beat. “I guess maybe I should start again.” “Like I've been saying for the past few months,” Laura narrows her eyes at him as Stiles pushes the finished form over the desk towards her. “You know that people get a little -” she gives Stiles an apologetic look, before swallowing and plowing forward, “...nuts about male omegas.” That's not a secret. Female omegas are essentially just female humans with glowing eyes and sharp teeth, which is appealing for obvious reasons to anyone who's attracted to females. Male omegas kind of get the short end of the stick. Being the only males between werewolves and humans who can fucking reproduce...his smell is thicker, more enticing to wolves; he smells like mate, to put it pretty lightly. He has softer features, lankier, skinnier limbs, and in general is a giant target walking around for alphas to want to jump on top of – even the ones who know what happened all those years ago with his kid want to mount him. It's sort of a given. Stiles sets his jaw, raises his eyes to the ceiling. He doesn't like being reminded. “Can I go back to work, now, or...” There's a pause in the room, where he knows Derek and Laura are exchanging terse looks with one another. “Why do you think I opened this bar, Stiles?”

“Because it's a fucking goldmine?” Laura frowns. “My family and I already had more money than I knew what to do with before this place ever came around, Stiles. It's not about the money.” But the money is good, no matter what she says. Stiles makes five hundred dollars a night in tips; he can only imagine how much the bar and restaurant as a whole makes in an hour. “You and I both know there's only one other option for omegas out there aside from this place. Maybe it's not great here, but it's – it's better than that.” Better than becoming a hundred dollar an hour hooker that lurks on the street corners outside the preserve with sunken eyes and track marks up and down his arms. That's what typically happens to omegas that reach a certain age, right around Stiles' age, actually, that still haven't been mated off to an alpha. Stiles had considered it, before. After everything happened, after the ten thousandth time someone said oh, Stiles, I'm so, so sorry...he considered it. Very nearly packed a bag to run away and get the hell away from anyone who'd ever look at him with pity again, just go find the skeezy alphas who wouldn't look at him like anything more or less than cheap. Almost. “We don't run this bar because we like marketing omegas to horny alphas, Stiles,” Laura says this very emphatically, leaning back in her chair and winding her fingers together. “Just wanted to make that clear.” Stiles swallows, staring at Laura, and then glancing sidelong at where Derek is leaning back up against the wall, staring at Stiles with his arms crossed over his chest. He had kind of always assumed that whoever ran Silver Shadow, before he ever met Laura, was a creepy, nasty dude with two teeth and a bald head, pawing at the omegas and twirling his mustache around in his fingers. Because, no matter how cleaned up the place might be, no matter how tight security is, at the end of the day, Silver Shadow is a nasty place. There's no helping it. But, the fact of the matter is, omegas are marketed no matter where they go. Silver Shadow just gives them an opportunity to fucking get something out of it, for once. That's what Laura's point is. She just doesn't want Stiles thinking that she's as gross as her job is; and Stiles genuinely doesn't. “And we don't fucking like wolves that put their hands on omegas without permission,” Derek steps away from the wall, leans over Stiles, and taps his index finger on the filled out incident report. “Anyone even so much as looks at you wrong, you come to me. Got it?” Stiles wants to mention that pretty much every single customer looks at him wrong. That if Derek were to come running in his leather jacket to beat up every single beta or alpha that gave him lascivious, intent-filled looks, he wouldn't have any customers left. All the same. Derek sounds like he fucking means it. Sounds like there's no greater pleasure on earth for Derek Hale than beating up other wolves that try and treat omegas like garbage – and Stiles kind of gets a kick out of that idea. So, instead of arguing, he just clears his throat, nods,

pushes the report closer to Laura. The next night, instead of Peter standing there in between Allison and Stiles as they work the bar, it's Derek. When Peter works, he just stands there. In a v-neck, wolf-taser resting on his hip, munching on limes and cherries and convincing Stiles to make shirley temples for him to sip at while he scans his eyes over the crowd with a vaguely bored expression. The only time he ever perks up is when someone drops their hand over the red line – his eyes hyper-focus, his lips perk up, and he waits. Standing there with a smirk, hoping beyond hope that someone will make a move on one of the omegas so he has an excuse to beat someone up. Peter's an okay guy. But, he's got that stereotypical alpha-thing going where his main objective in life is to fight to the death. So, yeah, he's saved Stiles' life and dignity more times than Stiles could easily count on both hands (and toes), but it's not all just been in the name of saving the omegas. It's 50% being a decent guy, 50% loving the thrill of the fight. Stiles doesn't blame him. Derek, on the other hand. Oho, Derek. There's nothing, absolutely fucking nothing casual about the way Derek stands behind the bar. For starters, just the sheer fact that he exists at all is vaguely intimidating. The dark black shirt, the dark black pants, black shoes, black hair; all of it together just screams predator to anyone who looks at him, including other alphas. They all approach warily, now, flicking their eyes between Stiles and Derek, wondering if it's even okay to talk to the omega. Derek keeps his arms crossed over his chest, and doesn't just lazily watch the crowd like Peter or Boyd would. He stares them all down with a look so intense it could melt candles down into wax soup, jaw set tight. The second someone approaches Stiles or Allison, no matter how benign they look, his eyes flash and he just...stares. The second even the tip of a fingernail reaches across the red line, Derek slams his fist down on the bar, rattling glasses and bottles and making Stiles jump and shriek, and yells, “back up.” The second someone leans over too far, Derek palms their forehead and shoves them back roughly. The second an alpha looks Stiles up and down, calls him a fucking twink or a fucking slut or a fucking anything with negative connotation, even though Stiles has learned to more or less just brush it off, Derek sets his eyes on them and stares them down. Menacingly. All it takes is one, long, hard stare from Derek Hale, and all betas and alphas just shrink back into their seats, eyes lowered, quietly ordering their drinks like they're supposed to. It's so fucking scary. Even Stiles, who knows that Derek is a pretty nice guy when he's not on duty and knows that Derek is on his side, sometimes side-steps away from him, averting his eyes the way prey always do when encountering a predator. “I thought you said you weren't doing security anymore,” Stiles says to him as the night is

winding down, after the fortieth time in a single night Derek's gotten physical with another alpha. He smirks at the omega, the only time for the entire night that he's had anything but a harsh glare on his face, and says, “changed my mind.” He bites his tongue for a second, watching as the few straggling patrons left in the bar eye Derek warily, flicking their gazes between Allison, Stiles, and Derek, back and forth and back and forth, like they're trying to decide if approaching the bar is even fucking worth it with Derek standing there. The wolf-taser, while normally perched in sight on hips, is just dangling from Derek's tan fingers. Ready to go at a moment's notice. “Um,” Stiles starts, wiping his wet, sticky hands off on his already damp jeans. “You're kind of freaking people out.” Derek laughs. It's a real hefty one, too, jolly like Santa Claus, all white teeth and stretched out lips, but he doesn't say anything. Just shakes his head and runs his eyes over the small crowd, watches as a beta makes her way to Allison to order a martini. “Don't you ever worry about losing customers by being too strict?” “Any customer who doesn't follow the rules doesn't belong in here.” The rules. Stiles knows them well. Has them drilled into his head, repeats them to alphas and betas that conveniently are too drunk to remember them on their own, hears Peter shout them out whenever a rule gets broken, reminding the entire bar that they exist and are (generally) enforced. Number one – no eye contact. Number two – no fucking eye contact. Number three – keep away from the red line. Number four – no touching. Number five – if we don't like it, don't do it. Derek is pretty liberal with rule number five. He pretty much doesn't like anything that isn't a drink order and a friendly, polite hello. Peter and Boyd are so much more lax with that kind of shit, because, again, trying to wrangle an entire crowd of people into submission really isn't fucking easy. So, they'd usually let things slide. Boyd wouldn't immediately freak out about a couple fingers ghosting over the red line, and if a beta tried to lock eyes with Stiles, usually they just let him handle it himself. Derek, on the other hand, apparently relishes the rules, and even more enjoys enforcing them. For what purpose, Stiles isn't entirely sure; all he knows is that the dude is fucking scary, and not to be fucked with, and he's barely been harassed all night long just from him standing there glaring. It's not really bad on Stiles' end. But, you know... “...loosening up might not be a bad idea?”

Derek scans his eyes over Stiles, once, twice, from the long legs to the skinny shoulders, the nimble fingers, the huge eyes and freckled cheeks, and frowns. “Anyone ever loosen up on you, Stiles?” The question takes Stiles by surprise. Surprise enough that he blinks and rears his neck back a bit, startled into silence with his mouth hanging open. Because...no. No one has ever loosened up on Stiles. Not the alphas, not the betas, none of them – they've always, always treated him like his fucking stereotype. His male-omega, fragile skin and bone, fuck-puppet for them to lust after, for them to reach out and touch, claim as their own, leave bruises behind in the wake of their fingers, stereotype. Ever since he's hit puberty, that's just how it's been. And at Silver Shadow, all it really is amplified. People like to think well it's not really like that out there, but it is. Just not as obvious as it is at the bar. So, Stiles gets to have his stereotype forced on him night after night. And why the fuck exactly is Stiles going to stand up to Derek and say loosen up on them, man, as if they can't help it, when Derek and Laura are the first two wolves he's ever met who have ever really treated him with any limited amount of respect, aside from Scott, and they're the ones running the omega bar downtown. It doesn't make any sense. But Stiles knows, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that no matter what happens, Derek is never going to let anything truly fucking awful happen to Stiles while he works here. Maybe he is a hardass and maybe he does go a little too far and maybe he is losing customers, but Stiles deserves for at least five seconds to feel safe. “You know,” Derek leans down close to him, so he doesn't have to strain his voice yelling too much over the music, “if me being here is making you uncomfortable...” “No,” Stiles affirms, drinking in Derek's body heat and the alpha smell leaking off of him – typically he's not this close to an alpha he doesn't know unless they're trying to pull him over the bar, so it's not something he's used to. And it's true – that Stiles doesn't mind Derek being there, not at all. Scary, yes. But uncomfortable isn't the word Stiles would use to describe their situation. “I like you more than Peter.” Which is also true. Because, again, even though the guy is fine enough, he's more than a little annoying sometimes. And he eats all the fucking cherries so Stiles has to go pawing around in the fridge, just so Peter can eat another batch all on his own. Derek doesn't drink or eat anything when he's on duty, it seems; except for the occasional glass of water he asks of Stiles. At this, Derek grins, and gives a single nod. “All right, then.” The night goes on with very minimal casualties, all things considered. There's only a couple more moments where Derek has to use extreme force to get an alpha off of Allison or Stiles, and he does it so naturally – with just a flick of his huge arm or a twist of his fist – that it's almost easy to get used to watching him beat people up. Stiles thinks that Derek Hale is no stranger to

getting into physical fights, sort of like all alphas; the difference is that Derek Hale appears to also be no stranger to winning. Which is – hm. Attractive. In a really base, animalistic sense. Stiles kinda likes that sort of thing. Tough guys and all that. Doesn't everyone? But that's exactly the kind of thinking that wound him up in a huge, disgusting mess so many years ago. He pushes the thoughts to the back of his head and tries to focus on working. Towards the end of the night, when Derek is leaning his elbows down on the bar and glaring out at all the stragglers left behind this close to closing time, Scott shows up. When Stiles hears the door slam closed and looks up to find his best friend standing there in Silver Shadow like a fish out of water, he nearly has a heart attack. It's a really, really horrible moment. Stiles standing there in his stupid work clothes, covered in liquor and hallucinogenic wolfsbane, reeking of cigarette smoke, half-drunk, holding a bottle of wolf-vodka that he keeps drinking out of (much to Derek's chagrin), getting leered at by the few alphas left standing...and his best friend fucking shows up. Scott approaches the bar slowly once his eyes settle on Stiles. He weaves his way through the tired dancers still on the floor, the bass thumping underneath his feet, his eyes huge like flying saucers in his head, lips a grim line. “Oh, fuck,” Stiles mutters to himself, pressing his free palm to his forehead. Derek follows Stiles' eye line, frowns as soon as he spots the alpha coming closer. “That's not good.” He swigs at the wolf-vodka and ignores the burn. “Oh, lord.” “You want me to -” “Beat him up?” Stiles laughs, hysterically, drunkenly, and shakes his head. “He's my best friend. He's just -” ...not supposed to be here. Absolutely and positively not supposed to god damn be here, like Stiles told him as soon as he announced that he got the job. Telling his father was one thing. He knew that he absolutely fucking had to tell his father what he was up to, where he was getting wads of hundred dollar bills from, where the empty liquor bottles were coming from, because if he didn't his father would assume the absolute worst. Working at Silver Shadow is...second to the worst. But not the worst. Stiles told his father as much at the dinner table that night, while the man himself just pressed his palms to his face and slowly shook his head back and forth, muttering, “if your mother were here to see this...” If Stiles' mother were here to see Stiles working at the werewolf version of a strip club she would probably cry. Or laugh. Depending on the way Stiles would present the information. He used to think about what telling his mother that he killed his own fucking kid would be like; but there was never any punchline he could find in that story, and he has a hard time dealing with

things he can't make a joke out of, so he stopped imagining. So, yes, telling his father had been absolutely horrible and somewhat traumatizing. Running his work clothes through the wash and watching his father pull them out of the dryer with a sour expression on his face, coming home at four in the morning reeking to high Hell of alpha and liquor and smoke to find his father just waking up for work, eating dinner with the man in stony silence because neither of them wanted to address the elephant in the room...that had been one thing. Telling Scott, however... Stiles can deal with his father's slow acceptance rate. It's not that the Sheriff is judging him for his lifestyle choices, because he knows good and fucking well Stiles doesn't exactly have a lot of options, here, so he's just coming around to the idea. It's a hard thing to accept. But Scott. Oh, Scott. Like Stiles has said before, Scott is one of the very few alpha werewolves who he can tolerate on a day to day basis. Mostly because his mother raised him right and taught him that being an alpha doesn't mean being a power-hungry control freak with no sense of boundaries or what it means to be respectful to others. But that doesn't mean that there are some things about Scott that are, let's say, alpha-specific. When Stiles told Scott that he was working at Silver Shadow, his best friend nearly punched a hole through the dashboard of the Jeep. Which, all things considered, was a bit lighter than what Stiles had initially predicted his reaction would be. Stiles had expected him to try and tear the roof clean off, or to grab Stiles and shake him over and over again until they wound up crashed into a ditch somewhere while yelling about how stupid he was being. Well. He did wind up yelling about how stupid the decision to work at the bar was. “Stiles are you out of your mind? Do you know what that place is like, do you know what the people who go there are like? I'm not allowing this. You're not allowed to work there, I forbid it, put in your two weeks notice right now, on the phone, or I'm going to go there myself and beat the shit out of whoever the fuck runs that place!” Stiles thinks it would be somewhat hilarious to watch Derek Hale and Scott McCall get into an honest to God fight – mostly because he's pretty sure Derek would just sigh and roll his eyes before pushing his sleeves up to his elbows and saying, “let's just fucking get this over with,” before reducing Scott to a pile of ex-alpha on the floor. Also, on another level, not very hilarious at all. Bad. Very bad. It took Scott a solid three weeks to stop threatening to show up with wolfsbane guns to blow everyone in sight to smithereens, and even then, he still goes on and on about how he wants to get that place shut down, once and for all. His father has gone on similar spiels, so Stiles has

learned to tune it out and listen to the radio. “Your best friend?” Derek repeats the phrase incredulously, and Stiles is used to that reaction. Alphas and omegas don't make very good friends, for the most part. Before Stiles can get a word in, Scott is at the bar with a terse frown and a furrowed brow, plopping himself down onto the bar stool right in front of where Stiles is gaping at him. He flicks his eyes to Derek, grimaces with more disgust than Stiles has ever seen on the kid's face, and then focuses back on Stiles. “This place is a dump.” It's actually not that scummy looking. Tacky, yes, but nasty and moldy and rotting, like the rest of the bars in downtown Beacon Hills? Not quite. “Scott!” Stiles greets him with as much enthusiasm as he can muster, careful not to slur too much. “What are you doing here?” “I came to check the place out,” he says slowly, like he for a second seriously considered saying something else but thought better of it. “See if you were okay.” Again, Scott's eyes flick to where Derek is standing, and for some bizarre reason, Derek is staring right back at him. Allison is still at the other end of the bar, dealing with a few drunken customers with forced laughter, and Derek is usually pretty good at keeping his eye on both omegas working the bar at once, but it's as if for the moment his attention is solely focused on the Stiles and Scott show. The two alphas have a stare down for another few prolonged seconds, and then Stiles is laughing somewhat hysterically. “I'm okay!” Scott doesn't take his eyes off Derek, and Derek doesn't take his eyes off Scott. Stiles is just about to butt in and offer to buy Scott a drink with some of his tip money, deflect the situation before Scott makes good on his promise to beat the shit out of whoever owns Silver Shadow (Derek himself), and then Scott is opening his mouth and saying, to Derek, “you work here?” Derek's face remains impassive, blank, but Stiles notes that his jaw ticks almost imperceptibly before he speaks. “I own it.” Stiles starts saying something like and how about a martini!?, but Scott barrels over him with his commanding alpha voice. “You're the owner.” “Yes.” “You own this place.” Derek's jaw ticks again. “Yes.”

Scott leans back in his stool with a creak, and he lets out a laugh that's crossed somewhere between legitimate and sarcastic. “You look the type to own a place like this.” Subconsciously, Stiles clicks his eyes over to Derek, scans him up and down, and he knows what Scott means by that. Derek Hale is all hard-edges, rough, big and commanding and threatening – like all alphas supposedly should be. He looks like exactly the type of asshole who would run a place like this; a seedy, sexual, immoral place like this. “Scott,” Stiles starts as soon as he gets his wits about him again, turning his eyes back onto his best friend, “this is – um – Derek Hale?” He blinks at the name like he isn't impressed, lips set down in a firm frown. “Okay.” “He's really nice.” Derek stands there with his arms crossed over his chest, glaring with full force at where Scott is standing, looking about two steps away from reaching over the bar to try and slap Scott's face clean off. Scott looks at Stiles after another long stare-off, and raises his eyebrows, like, really? So, maybe he's not being really nice right now. And maybe he's never been nice in the most base definition of it, and maybe Stiles has seen the guy beat the shit out of more people than he could count on one hand in just the one night he's been on security since Stiles started, but... ...okay. So, Derek Hale is not really nice. But he's not exactly a piece of shit either? “He was just working security for the night,” Stiles continues on, trying to diffuse some of the awkwardness out of the situation, to absolutely no avail, it would seem. “Not just for the night,” Derek corrects him in an even tone, narrowing his eyes even more in Scott's direction. “I'm picking up a lot of shifts, actually.” “Hm,” Scott intones back to him, void of emotion. “I watch out for the omegas, you know?” Stiles thinks there's a weird vibe coming from Derek, right about now – anger is something he's very, very used to picking up on from alphas, but this feels a bit thicker than that. More heavy, solid, focused on a particular point instead of just hot and burning and everywhere. He swallows nervously, flicking his eyes in-between the two alphas, watching as both of their faces grow more and more agitated by the millisecond. “Make sure nobody fucks with them.” Scott laughs that same half-serious/half-sarcastic laugh from before, only this time a bit more loudly, with more conviction. “Right!” He shakes his head and leans over the bar, dropping his hands down so his fingers splay over the shiny wood. “I'm sure you, part-owner of Silver fucking Shadow, really give a shit about what people do or say to omegas, Derek Hale.” This is sarcasm that Stiles hasn't heard from Scott in about five years. If he's ever heard sarcasm of this fucking level come out of his mouth before, and Stiles isn't so sure that he has. It's

startling enough that Stiles can't do much except stand there with his mouth agape, constantly looking between Derek and Scott in the hopes that he'll be able to stop the first fist that goes flying out towards the other's face. Alpha testosterone, right? Luckily, no such punch comes. “You don't know what you're talking about,” Derek says evenly, and Stiles sees that his hands are balling into fists where they're tucked underneath each arm, like he's only barely managing to control himself from leaping over the bar to eat Scott alive (and holy shit, does Stiles ever think that Derek really could eat another alpha in one god damn bite.) “Stiles, why don't you go out back and have a talk with your friend.” Stiles, mystified, blinks. “But – my shift isn't -” “It's winding down,” Derek explains non-noncommittally, finally turning his eyes away from Scott to look at where Allison is busy with other actual customers on the other end of the bar. “Go home early.” Stiles knows that the one and only reason that Stiles is being sent home early has nothing to do with how slow the bar is getting this late at night, or how close to closing time it is. His job still requires him to wipe every thing down, put all the perishables into the fridge, restock the bar, sweep the floors; he's not even close to being done, all things considered. No. The reason Stiles is being sent home early is because Derek doesn't want to get into a petty fist fight with Scott McCall and is exerting every last ounce of self-control he has to get Stiles and Scott out of here before it becomes an event. Probably a wise decision on his end, but the thought of being sent away like some insolent puppy grates on Stiles' fucking nerves. He grits out a fine before gesturing at Scott towards the front door, and turning on his heel to slam through the door to the back of the bar where his car keys, wallet, and phone are all waiting for him in his little cubby next to Allison's. As soon as he steps out the back door, Scott pounces on him. “I want you to quit,” he says, and Stiles can only roll his eyes and huff out a breath that fogs out in the chill night air as he skirts past him towards where his Jeep is parked next to Laura's beamer. “I mean it, Stiles, that place is going to – and – and that guy is going to -” “Derek,” Stiles interrupts, crunching across the gravel while Scott trails behind him with stomping steps, “is not going to do anything to me, Scott.” Stiles cannot for the fucking life of him understand why Scott is acting this way, why he's being such a fucking asshole, why he pissed Derek off that much with his fucking shitty-ass attitude, and all he feels like doing right now is going home and crawling into bed to sleep his buzz off before he has to come back in for work in the evening. “Really?” Scott tries grabbing Stiles' shoulder gently, but not hard enough that Stiles can't shrug

his way out of it with a growl. “I guess you're oblivious enough to not see the way he looks at you!” That makes Stiles skid to a stop a full ten feet away from his Jeep, makes him whirl around to face Scott, to catch sight of a couple of betas standing out front smoking and staring at Stiles with wide, drunk eyes; like they're seeing a zoo animal that's been let out of its habitat, or something. “The way he looks at me?” “Yeah,” Scott says this like a slap in the face, and Stiles rears his neck back at the tone of it. “He looks at you the way they all look at you, Stiles.” Ah. And there it is. Stiles and Scott have been best friends for a very, very long time, and like Stiles has said, omegas and alphas don't make very good friends; it's a pretty rare thing to happen, although not impossible, as Stiles and Scott are proof of. But all the same. There's a reason that alphas and omegas typically don't get along outside the realm of mating and fucking – it's like most alphas don't see the point in talking to an omega they're not planning on making theirs forever, because what's the use in an omega that talks, right? What's the use in an omega as a friend if they don't want to be knotted? Stiles dealt with that sort of mentality all throughout high school. Getting shoved up against lockers, alphas trying to reach out and touch him during class time, shouting lascivious things at him as he walked down the hallway. And, as a result, Scott also dealt with it. But while Stiles met it all with a can of wolfsbane pepper spray, Scott took a much more – well...alpha approach to all those situations. If Stiles had a dime for every time Scott growled at any alpha for looking at Stiles for too long, or every time Scott scent-marked Stiles before letting him go anywhere by himself, or every time that Scott got into a physical fight to defend Stiles' honor, then Stiles would never have to work a single night at Silver Shadow again. He'd be set for life. The point is, Scott is used to protecting Stiles, is used to being in the room to attack if the need arises; but out here? Out in the fucking forest with drunken sex-starved alphas and betas trying to reach out and grab him and take him home with them? Scott doesn't have much jurisdiction out here. And Stiles gets the drive of alphas with omegas that are close to them to protect the omegas at all costs, he really does. So, he understands that it's probably not easy for his best friend to have to stand there and watch while some alpha he's never met before handles all the situations that Scott himself is used to handling. “Look,” and his voice is softer now, as he takes a step closer to his best friend and ignores the way the betas are still staring at him through a cloud of cigarette smoke. “Derek's not like that, okay?” “He was -”

“He's not, Scott. Trust me.” Scott purses his lips, and glares out into the forest, averting his eyes away from Stiles as he takes a series of steadying breaths, turning his eyes onto the betas with a low growl from the back of his throat. But he doesn't say anything else, mostly because he's trying to mull over the idea that Derek Hale, owner of the worst bar in Beacon Hills, could be anything but a colossal creep trying to get into Stiles' pants by any means necessary. Could be anything but exactly like the piece of shit alpha that impregnated him and then left him alone to kill their kid. Neither of them are mentioning that bit, but it's not like either of them have to, at this point. “They watch out for us, here, okay? The security is good, and I've never -” he swallows around a lump in his throat, thinking about how best to word this, “...nothing horrible has happened. Stop worrying about me so fucking much.” Scott fixes his eyes back on Stiles. “I can't help it.” A pause. “I don't like this.” “You've made that pretty clear for the past couple months, Scott.” “And I don't like that asshole Derek Hale.” In spite of himself, Stiles smiles and rolls his eyes. “He doesn't seem to like you very much, either.” Scott doesn't smile or laugh. He points his finger into Stiles' face, all authoritative and commanding, and says, “you tell me if he tries anything.” “It's funny you say that,” Stiles says back to him before turning around to walk the rest of the way to his Jeep. “Because Derek said the exact same thing about every other alpha.” ---Stiles has always had somewhat of a fucked up sleeping pattern for as long as he can remember – even when he was a little kid, it was near impossible to put him down for an entire night. He'd wake up at four am and go bounding into his parents' room, jumping up and down on the bed and demanding to play dinosaurs until one of them would scoop him up and deposit him back into his bed. He'd crawl back out of it every single time and play dinosaurs alone until his father woke up for work. When he turned into a teenager, it was more of a solitary thing all around. Up until three in the morning fucking around on his laptop, binge watching a television show until he couldn't keep his eyes open anymore, reading two books a night. He's just not a very good sleeper, never has been, and Stiles would like to think the whole bags under the eyes, reeking of coffee, ruffled clothing thing makes him all hot and mysterious and edgy, or whatever. But, really? It just makes him look like he doesn't get enough sleep and lives from coffee cup to

coffee cup. After – well. After. He started sleeping even less. He jolts awake some nights, positive that there's a tiny baby off the side of his bed, waiting for him, or positive that there's something he forgot to do, positive there's someone he forgot to take care of. Other times he stays up all night sitting on the edge of his bed, wringing his hands together and pretending like it's all right that he's all alone in his bedroom, there's nothing missing here, that every thing is fine. And the nightmares. Jesus Christ, the fucking nightmares. The worst thing about them is that it's not a repeat of the event itself; it's not being forced to relive it in his subconscious night after night, it's not him calling 911 while desperately trying to wake her up with his other hand. That, he thinks he could deal with. He goes to that place in his own mind while conscious all the time, and he could live with it in his dreams as well. Instead, it's vivid, hyper realistic experiences of her when she was really alive; of warm skin and tiny hands reaching out to touch his face, the songs his mother used to sing him eerily cantering on, everything all soft and perfect and fantasy-like. For all intents and purposes, they feel like dreams, while he's in them, everything he wants come back to him in a hazy pink cloud of euphoria. But, waking up. Waking up and flipping over and finding nothing there, no one waiting for him, tracing the scar on his stomach with his index finger because he deserves to live with it...that's a nightmare. Hell couldn't compare to that. Ever since he started working at the bar, the dreams have been slowing down. He used to get them every single night, back during that first year, but now, with the third year anniversary of her death coming up, they've disintegrated into once a week, at most. But since he's so exhausted as soon as comes home from work, he just falls into bed and wipes out near instantaneously, into a deep and dreamless sleep and it's actually exactly what the doctor fucking ordered. For the first time in a long time, he feels somewhat...okay. Not just barely holding on by a thread and not just getting up and living his life every day just so his father won't start worrying again, but actually okay. Which Stiles thinks is really fucking hilarious, actually, considering that he has the single worst job known to man, the most stressful fucking thing to wake up and go into. He's not sure what it's all about, but he's not complaining. If the bar is the distraction he's been waiting for ever since his entire world came crashing down around him, if the bar is the one thing that's keeping him from pawing through the debris night after night after fucking night, then he's not going to complain about it. Case in point, the bar has become somewhat of an escape for him. It's nice to think only about his own personal safety, remembering drink recipes, smiling falsely at everyone and enduring hours

of pointless and unnecessary flirting and name calling, wondering if he can convince the cooks in the back to fry up a batch of fries for Stiles and Allison; kind of almost like he's not really Stiles when he's working. Nobody except for his co-workers call him by name, and he and his coworkers rarely talk when they're out on the floor except to scream out requests for back-up or to pass them a bottle of whatever. So, he gets called bitch and slut and twink and omega and stupid – but not Stiles. For hours at a time, he forgets that he is Stiles. He's in exactly that state of mind tonight at the bar, with Derek standing five feet away from him drinking glass of water after glass of water and Kira at the other end of the bar screaming in laughter every twenty seconds. It's busy – and every night at the Silver Shadow is busy, to the point where Stiles doesn't even notice it anymore, but this is just...another fucking level entirely. Like, mob scene levels. The battle of Hogwarts, or something. Stiles is trying his hardest to hyper focus on making the drinks and talking to the people and collecting tips to shove into his pocket, deflecting inappropriate glances and taking two steps away on autopilot whenever someone tries to reach out and touch him; if he looks out into the crowd, he doesn't even want to know what he'd see out there. Some truly heinous, X-Rated shit, he's positive of it. One time, he looked up and saw his old History teacher from eleventh grade licking margarita salt off a twenty year old girl's bare chest. It's a scene that he still sees whenever he closes his fucking eyes, it was so god damn disturbing. In general, he tries not to look anywhere but at the customers that come up to the bar, because there've only been, like, maybe six instances of inappropriate sexual behavior right in front of his face on top of the bar since he started working here. Which, really, all things considered – not bad, especially since Derek or Peter just spray them down with soda water as soon as a penis or a vagina gets revealed for everyone to see, so no one ever gets very far up front. Right now, he's shoveling gushers into his mouth while pouring wolf's brew into a glass cup for a bored looking college kid who might actually be too young to be in here but it's not like he's required to card anyone, and Derek is punching some alpha in the face for trying to reach over the red line, and Kira keeps fucking laughing, and it's all very typical. Senseless, mindless. Of course, all good things must come to an end. One second Stiles is wiping some splatters of alcohol off the lenses of his glasses, and the next, he's blinking up to see Isaac Lahey smiling at him and shoving the other betas waiting for Stiles' attention out of his way. “Hey!” He shouts over the music, leaning down with his fingers resting right in front of the red line. “I didn't know you worked here!” Seeing as how Isaac and Stiles hardly ever said ten words to each other outside of the one group project they had together during high school, it's not surprising that Isaac would have no fucking clue what Stiles does with his life now. But, he was always nice enough and never gave Stiles

any trouble. “Yeah!” Stiles shouts back, leaning down himself and ignoring the shouts of other werewolves waving money in his face. “I haven't seen you out here before!” Isaac shrugs and averts his eyes for a second, scanning the crowd – Stiles dutifully avoids looking anywhere but directly at Isaac's face, so help him God he doesn't want to know – and then looks back to Stiles with a sheepish smile. “Not typically someplace I'd come to!” In high school, Isaac was that deep, brooding beta who wrote poetry for the school newspaper and spray painted political commentaries on the side of the school building. So, nah, Silver Shadow? Not his place. Isaac orders a drink, and Stiles sets out to make it as quickly as possible, because the other wolves waiting around his end of the bar are getting pretty fucking annoyed and stepping over the line between impatient and violent as each second ticks by. He thinks for the thousandth time that it wouldn't fucking kill Derek to do something else besides stand there menacingly and fight people – maybe he should make a damn drink every now and then to help the omegas out? Just a thought. Then again, Stiles has never seen Derek consume a single drop of alcohol, so there's a pretty good chance he literally has no idea how to even begin to bartend. While Stiles is dumping shot after shot into a glass for Isaac's expensive cocktail, the kid leans even further over the bar, and starts saying the single worst possible thing he could ever fucking say in this situation. Or any situation. Ever. “Hey, look...” his voice is quieter, and he's definitely over the red line, but Derek must've heard them talking and assumed he and Stiles are friends and that it's okay for him to get close like this. “...I never knew what to say back during senior year...” while Stiles was pretending to be human to get a job that would pay enough so he could work off his remaining hospital bills, while Stiles was balancing school and work and barely being able to get out of bed in the morning , “...but I just wanted to say, I'm really sorry about Annabelle.” Stiles' wrist locks down in place. He's pouring tequila into a glass, and the bottle just hangs there in the air. The liquid keeps pouring out, and Stiles can't look up at Isaac's face. Can't move. All he can think about is frantically trying to get a response out of her, Annabelle, wake up, please wake up, she's not fucking breathing “And I always thought Ethan was such a jackass for just skipping town like that.” The glass is overflowing, liquor and soda and ice spilling out around his work station, dripping down onto the ground and falling onto Stiles' pants and sneakers. It's really all he can do to not tighten his grip on the bottle to throw it as hard as possible into the nearest wall, just for something to fucking do that isn't standing here watching a puddle form, listen to the ringing in his ears, hearing ghosts of ambulance sirens and footsteps up his stairs, I'm sorry, we just- we got to her too late to do anything. A hand touches his shoulder, a voice in his ear, “is this guy bothering you?”

Stiles jerks back away from Derek's hand like it's on fire, and when he blinks back into what constitutes as reality, he doesn't see it like this huge distraction he's been cultivating for the past few months. He doesn't see it like an escape, anymore. It's too hot in here. That's the first thing he thinks as he swallows thickly and tries to get his hands to stop shaking. It's too hot and too loud and Derek is standing way too close to him and starting to talk again, and Isaac is saying something like I shouldn't have said anything, and Stiles drops the bottle of tequila with a crash down onto the floor. It shatters and some of the glass cuts through his tight jeans, slicing across his skin, and he blinks again and again, backing away from the bar like he's suddenly terrified of it. “Stiles?” Derek, again, holding his hand out in his direction, face illuminated eerily by the neon lights blaring all around their heads, voice barely audible above the music and the screaming and the people. “Are you -” “Fifteen,” he grits out in a rasp, knowing Derek will hear it no matter how quietly he talks. He takes another several steps backwards and can't look at where Isaac was sitting only seconds – minutes? - earlier. Doesn't even know if he's still there anymore, doesn't want to know, doesn't want to have to sit there and hear her name tumble out of his lips so fucking casually, like smalltalk, like it was nothing, like it wasn't like taking a fucking bullet. “I'm taking my – fifteen.” “Stiles!” Kira screams, fixing him with that fake smile of hers from down on the other end of the bar. “You can't just leave me here to -” Stiles is already out the back door, stumbling through the hallways in somewhat of a haze, his fingers still shaking so badly he has to intertwine them together to try and get them to stop. He knows that Kira had a point, back there. This is the busiest it's been at the bar in weeks. She can't handle that crowd all on her own and things are going to get out of control real fucking fast with only one bartender, only one omega, but Stiles just...can't. He pilfers a cigarette out of Kira's cubby, knowing she won't mind, and drags himself beside the dumpsters outside. It's cold out here, and as he lights up he shivers and thinks that it feels good. Not hot, like in there, or suffocating, and there's no one out here except for him. He can still hear the bass and the yelling, but it's muted; almost trance-like in distance, soothing, somehow. It's been a long time since someone's come up to him and started talking like that. It's been nearly eleven months since the last time he's had to hear her name spoken out loud, since the last time someone with well-meaning intentions gave him a pitying look and said some variation of sorry. Even though he's survived that shit a hundred times before, it never gets any easier. He's survived it, the way he's survived everything else, but it doesn't make him feel accomplished or like he's strong for having been through it. Surviving and living, Stiles has learned, are two radically different things.

He's sucking on the filter by the time the back door bangs open, and he doesn't have to turn around to know exactly who's stomping towards him on heavy footfalls. “Hey,” Derek rounds himself in front of Stiles, and his jaw is set tight, eyes tired looking. “Who the fuck was that?” Stiles drops the butt of his cigarette on the ground, stomps it out with his foot. “High school friend.” “High school friend?” Derek repeats the phrase the way someone might repeat you saw a two headed dragon on the highway? “It seemed real fuckin' friendly to me, the way you had a panic attack just from talking to him.” He takes his glasses off and dangles them in his fingers, before rubbing at his eyes with the heel of his free palm, breathes in and out shallowly. “It wasn't -” “Do you want me to '86 him?” A hand is grabbing at his wrist to pull it away from his eyes, to start dragging him back towards to the bar. “Let's go fill out a -” “It wasn't like that, Derek,” Stiles rips his wrist free and staggers back, away, feeling that nagging hint of hysteria bubbling up again in his chest. “You don't have to fucking white-knight me every time someone even talks to me, you know.” “What the fuck are you talking about? Clearly, he upset you, so let's -” “I upset myself,” Stiles mutters it mostly under his breath, to himself, but like Derek catches everything, he catches it and blinks in confusion. “It's not his fault.” Derek looks about ready to throw his hands up in frustration, drag Stiles back into the bar by force, and shove him into a chair in Laura's office to fill out an incident report himself while Stiles sits there staring at his nail beds and glowering. An alpha would do that, he thinks. An alpha would make an omega do anything that he wants, an alpha would get his way no matter how much Stiles cried about it in the long run. Instead, the alpha in front of him huffs out a sigh, and drags his hand down his face. “What was that about, Stiles?” There's a crash from inside the bar, something that sounds distinctly like one of the stools smashing over someone's head, and Derek's eyes flick to the building – like he's listening to make sure that's being taken care of. “Nothing,” Stiles says back, pushing his glasses back up onto his face so he can see Derek's full form instead of a blur. “Long night, is all. Gets hot in there, I just need some -” “Hey,” Derek looks back at Stiles and steps forward, eyes burning brightly in the dim parking lot lights. “I need to know this stuff. My job is to look out for you, and I can't do that if you're not being completely honest with me.”

The omega sets his jaw and looks away. A lump is forming in his throat, a dangerous one that he recognizes good and well, and no matter how hard he tries to swallow it down, the bile rises. He knows that Derek has a point. The alpha's job consists mostly of fending off people that try to touch the omegas, but the other half of it is fending off people that upset the omegas. He gets that. Omegas that have mental breakdowns and smash tequila bottles and stress-smoke out back to fend off a legitimate panic attack while leaving everyone else to pick up his slack are not exactly what Silver Shadow needs. Derek has no idea what he's stepping into, either way. He probably thinks Isaac is an exboyfriend. All the same, he's standing there waiting for Stiles to say something, and the silence is dragging on, and all Stiles wants to do is get the hell out of this conversation and out of this fucking night so he can go home and have a nightmare and – just stop. “Maybe you remember reading about it in the paper,” Stiles spits out bitterly, averting his eyes and crossing his arms over his chest. “Only so many male omegas in Beacon Hills, I'm surprised you haven't put it together yet.” Everyone knows the story – infant fatalities are rare in general, and even more rare when it comes to omegas in a werewolf town. People heard about it, all right? The problem is, not everyone knew for sure who it was. Derek furrows his brow, like he's thinking, and Stiles knows he's putting two and two together. He heard that entire conversation, heard the names Ethan and Annabelle, heard I'm really sorry about – and for skipping town like that – how Stiles is one of only five male omegas still kicking around BH, and Stiles can see the exact moment realization dawns across his face. Because it just falls slack. Normally his jaw is tight and his eyebrows are expressive and he looks somewhat annoyed at everything at all times; now, it's blank. Controlling his reaction, Stiles assumes. Because Stiles is that omega. First omega-born infant death in nearly a hundred years, and Stiles is that fucking omega that apparently doesn't have the gene in him that helps make the cubs stronger, less susceptible to things like sudden infant death syndrome, isn't mate material, is stuck working at Silver Shadow for as long as he's still pretty and nice to look at, and then – and then... Stiles doesn't expect sympathy from Derek Hale. It would amaze him, it really would, to hear Derek's strong, firm mouth say anything along the lines of oh, Stiles, I'm so sorry to hear that, or to have a hand reach out and pat him on the back gently, or to receive a hug from the alpha. It just doesn't compute in his mind. Derek only takes a few seconds of silence to process, and then he's clearing his throat. “You go into the break room and sit there until you're ready to come back out on the floor.” “I'm ready now,” Stiles says back, already turning on his heel to vanish back inside the darkness

of the halls. “Omega,” Derek grabs onto Stiles' arm, holds him firmly in place. Stiles winds up staring directly into Derek's green eyes, and finds that having Derek Hale stare him down like this with his normal eyes is about a thousand times more commanding than any other alpha with their red eyes. “Take another fifteen, please.” If Derek wanted, he could alpha-voice Stiles into doing whatever he wants. No please needed. The fact that he doesn't, that he more or less asks, the way a regular boss would... Stiles pulls his arm free of Derek's grip and looks away from his eyes. There's something fundamentally different about the way Derek is treating him compared to the way others have treated him upon finding out the truth about him. Other people either pity him to death, or give him nasty looks like there's something the matter with him. Derek is, out of nowhere, looking at him like he's about to shatter in about a million different pieces, like something fragile and soft and – maybe it should be insulting. But it's just the way the look reads to Stiles, the way Derek hasn't offered a single false condolence because none of it fucking means anything anyway, the way he's not yelling or talking softly but just talking to him. Like Stiles isn't a fuck-up or a pity-case or something to be mocked. But like he's an omega that something fucking horrible happened to, and like he deserves fifteen minutes to sit in the break room before going back out onto the floor to get pawed at by more alphas and betas. Stiles nods his head, once, and lets Derek put his hand on the small of Stiles' back to lead him back inside. Seeing Derek back at work the next night is awkward; and maybe just because Stiles kept expecting it to be awkward. When he comes in to drop his personal affects in his cubby in the break room like he does every night, Derek is leaning back against one of the counters nursing what looks like a mug of coffee. His eyes follow Stiles as he drops all his things into his box, as he takes his hoodie off and hangs it up on one of the hooks next to Allison's rhinestone jacket, as he paws around in the cabinet for the chocolate covered raisins he left here a couple nights earlier. The silence drags on, and Stiles knows that Derek probably thrives on silence, can withstand it for hours at a time, doesn't get the pinch of um, so, this is...awkward like Stiles does. He keeps waiting for Derek to clear his throat and go so last night...or so are you feeling okay...or are you sure you want to come in... But Derek just stands there sipping at his mug, watching Stiles. The omega finds his raisins and leans up against his own half of the counter, popping them one

by one into his mouth, glancing at the clock to see he still has twenty minutes until his shift starts. After another two minutes, Stiles can't take it anymore. “What are you drinking?” He asks, his voice sounding way too high pitched and awkward in his own ears. Derek swallows. “Chai tea.” “Oh,” Stiles can't keep the surprise out of his voice, can't help smirking to himself at the thought of Derek finding the coconut-chai tea that Kira brings in, deciding yes, this, for my big strong alpha palette. “Not vodka straight?” The alpha scrunches his face up playfully and smiles back at Stiles. “I don't like to drink much.” “Water and chai tea,” Stiles says. “The girls already make fun of me enough as it is,” he finishes off the last of his tea and drops the mug down into the sink right next to him, before crossing his arms over his chest and fixing Stiles with another smile. “I don't need it from you.” “Maybe you should make it a little less easy to make fun of you, then,” Stiles supplies around a mouthful of raisin and chocolate, “an alpha that doesn't like to drink running a bar? C'mon.” Derek smiles wider and shrugs, sweeping his eyes up and down Stiles before settling on the omega's face. “Alcohol's not the reason I agreed to help Laura with this place.” Stiles deposits his raisins down on the counter and wipes the back of his hand across his mouth to get any remaining chocolate residue off his face. “Oh really?” “Yup.” “Then enlighten me,” Stiles waves his hand in the air, angling his body more in Derek's direction to better give him a mocking look. “What was the reason you agreed to buying the Silver Shadow?” For a couple seconds it's quiet, and Stiles gets scared that he's overstepped his boundaries – that he's tried too hard to deflect the conversation away from him and his own personal issues, and has gone too far down the personal road for Derek and that he's about to get yelled at for it. But, Derek just shrugs again. “The world is a very shitty place, Stiles. All those wolves out there,” he gestures to the wall across from them, where on the other side waits a hallway, and at the end of the hallway waits the bar itself, “are shitty people who wouldn't hesitate to go out and find some omega to brutalize on their own time.” That's a fucking blunt way to put it, Stiles thinks, as he swallows thickly and tries to maintain eye contact with the alpha without looking away, without letting it show that he's uncomfortable with

the reminder of the fact that what goes on inside this bar is kid stuff compared to what else is going on on the streets. Derek can probably smell it either way. “Maybe I wanted to try and change things.” Change things. “What do you mean by that?” “I mean,” he pushes away from the counter and drops his arms down to his sides as he takes two steps closer to where Stiles is standing, keeping his eyes firmly planted on the omega's face and not looking anywhere else, “...I'd rather have you in here where I make the fucking rules, than out there where there's no one to look out for you.” A pause, where Stiles can hear his heart beating so loudly in his chest he's sure that it sounds like a drumline to Derek, where Stiles can smell the alpha-power leaking off of him in waves strong enough to nearly knock him over. “Other omegas, as well.” The last part is said like an afterthought, like he means it, but like he doesn't mean it near as much as he meant the rest of it. Stiles flicks his eyes down to Derek's jaw, unnerved by the eye contact. “That's very chivalrous of you.” Bizarrely, Derek chuffs out a laugh and rolls his eyes. “There's nothing chivalrous about being a half-way decent person, Stiles.” With that, the alpha steps away from Stiles, and walks out of the breakroom without another word. Stiles stares after him with his jaw slightly unhinged, blinking rapidly and adjusting his glasses on his face again and again. He didn't say a word about what happened last night, when anyone else would've pounced on him for details, the story, what happened, when anyone else would've at least given him some sad-sack look like they were expecting him to burst into tears at any second. Stiles doesn't think he'd have been able to handle it, if he had done anything like that. All the same, even though nothing really happened, Stiles feels shaken up and wide-eyed; probably the after effects of having an alpha stand that close to him, breathe his breath right into Stiles' face, and – Stiles wishes that he had touched him. Maybe that's some weird, primal, animal thing from hearing an alpha speak so candidly about protecting omegas, or having him so close, close enough to touch – but the thought doesn't stick much. He recognizes the feeling plain as day, remembers it pretty well from high school, from before, when everything was tolerable and bearable and not a waking nightmare every second of his fucking life. That shaky, alpha-residue feeling. Desire, and want, and desperation, and mate.

The problem is, Stiles doesn't have the luxury of feeling that way. Not anymore. Not after all the shit he's done. ---Probably the worst thing about working at Silver Shadow isn't even actually being at the bar itself. Like Stiles has said before, the bar really isn't that bad – it's like, yeah. He gets harassed a lot. People try and hit on him and grab him over the bar, and that's really, really shitty and not a fun time whatsoever. But at least the bar is a controlled environment, like what Derek is always chirping about. At the bar, Derek or Peter or Boyd is standing right there in the event of an – event. Stiles doesn't even really genuinely worry about the things that alphas and betas say or do to him at the bar, because none of them ever really get that far. It's not something that Stiles thinks about anymore; tolerates it, lives it, gets through it, and someone else is there to take care of it every single time no matter what. So, again; being at the bar? Not so bad, all things considered. The worst part about working at Silver Shadow actually comes when he's not even fucking at the bar. It's when he's standing at the gas pump watching the numbers fly by, and some alpha on the other side yells out, hey aren't you... Stiles flicks his eyes up and doesn't recognize the guy – which isn't saying much. But the guy clearly recognizes him, if the way he starts rounding the pump with a leer on his face is anything to go by. For a few moments, Stiles is absolutely terrified of what's about to come out of this alpha's mouth, doesn't know if he'd be able to handle it if he started calling Stiles baby-killer like they used to when everything first happened, when strangers would come up to him and spit in his face without even having any idea of what he was going through. Instead, the alpha says, “you work at the slut-bar, right?” It's insulting, but all the same Stiles breathes out a sigh of relief. The slut-bar. Stiles hasn't heard that terminology in a long time, not since he actually started working there; but he used to hear it constantly in high school and maybe even before that. Hey, we should try sneaking into the slut-bar to see some omegas overheard during lunch period, or even when Stiles was just out in public, scanning the shelves at wal-mart for the shampoo he usually uses. It's mostly a phrase and term that the most crass, horrible alphas and betas use to describe Silver Shadow, and it doesn't even phase Stiles to hear it anymore. What else could a bar that exclusively hires omegas be called in slang, after all? Stiles pushes his glasses up on his nose and huffs. “Yup. Slut-bar employee, that's me.” The alpha laughs, long and loud, coming all the way around the pump until he's standing five feet away from the Jeep, ten feet away from Stiles himself. “I knew I recognized that scent.” Ugh, Stiles thinks to himself in disgust, willing the gas to pump faster so he can get the hell out

of here and far, far away from this piece of shit. “You look a little different in sunlight,” he continues, and Stiles blinks up to squint into the blue sky, before looking back over at the screen in front of him. “Almost like lighting affects a person's features,” he says back in a sarcastic drawl, crossing his arms over his chest defensively. “Hey,” and then the guy is running two fingers along the side of Stiles' car as he moves slowly closer to where the omega is standing, and Stiles can't help but stare and watch, wide-eyed, as he does so. To him, it means literally nothing. It's probably done more casually, without thinking about the real ramifications of what he's doing; but to Stiles, and to literally everyone else, it feel predatory. The preemptive strike. Dragging his scent all across something that belongs to Stiles, and not to him, like he's already laying his claim and all Stiles can do is stand there and stare. “...you're not mated, right?” It's a useless question and both of them know it. Mated omegas aren't even allowed to work at Silver Shadow, would never get hired, because what would be the point? They'd reek of another alpha, be claimed already, not smell as enticing or be even nearly as interesting. And even so, even if he honestly didn't know that, he can smell all over the omega that he's never been claimed before. There's no bite on his neck, no marks anywhere on his person. It's a suggestive question, and nothing more. Stiles flicks his eyes away from the fingers on his car and adjusts the keys in his hands so the can of wolfs-mace is resting in between his fingers, ready to go should the need arise. “You know I'm not,” Stiles says back, evenly. Trying to keep his voice level and not at all shaky, or scared. Scared is bad. Scared omegas send off some kind of firing signal inside of alpha's brains. Or, at least, the shitty alphas. “Right,” the alpha laughs again, takes another step closer. “Just making sure I'm not stepping on any toes.” Because the most important thing about Stiles, the only thing that could possibly stop this guy from coming onto him like this, would be if there were any toes to step on, right? “So?” Stiles blinks up at his face, attractive and chiseled with blue eyes, just in time to see him smirk and raise his eyebrows. “You want to have some fun?” Stiles glares at him through his glasses, gripping onto the can of mace even tighter. “No, thanks.” Another laugh, this one louder. He's close enough now that it would be so fucking easy for him to just reach out and touch Stiles, if he felt like it – and from the way he's looking at the omega, and from the things he's saying, Stiles thinks it's a pretty safe guess that the guy definitely wants to

touch him. “No?” “No,” the gas stops flowing, and Stiles leans down to pull the nozzle out of his car, rolling his eyes. “Thank you.” “You're not fooling me,” he says as Stiles screws the cap back on the gas can, slams the latch shut. “Look, I get it. You think omegas are supposed to be modest and virginal.” Stiles tries to walk around his car to get to the driver's seat, but the alpha throws his arm out, hard. It slams against the side of his Jeep so hard Stiles jumps, and he expects to see an indent where his fingers are. “But that's not you, right?” Stiles grits his teeth, slides his index finger on the trigger for the mace and dangles it in his hand. Waiting. “Excuse me,” he says. “You're in my way.” The alpha grins, his full set of teeth out on display; predatory, intent, malicious. “Get in my car,” he says it so easily, cheerily almost, like Stiles hasn't already refused him six times in their short conversation with his words and actions and body language. “Come on, omega. I'm asking nicely.” Stiles feels like vomiting all over him, or punching him as hard as physically possible in the face, but neither of those options would end very well. Instead, he stands there and listens to the wind blowing, the sound of another car pulling up at another pump, and waits. Luckily, he doesn't have to wait much longer. Right as a car door is slamming shut, the alpha lifts his free hand up and grabs Stiles' chin, starts saying something like, “a pretty omega like you should-” but doesn't get the chance to finish it. Stiles raises his hand and sprays the wolfs-mace directly into the fucker's eyes, and the reaction is, as always, instantaneous. The hand drops off of his face and Stiles staggers backwards, watching as the alpha starts desperately trying to rub the wolfsbane out of his eyes, while starting in on a litany of you little bitch, fuck, you fucking slut, jesus christ – and Stiles just stands there, lips in a grim line, holding the can out in front of him so he's ready for a second attack, should it come. Five seconds later, and the alpha is raising his bloodshot eyes, blinking rapidly as the healing process starts up, and growls, low. Stiles shakes the can in the best threat he knows to fend off an alpha like this – it's not much, and he knows it. If he really decides to attack again, then Stiles is sort of...fucked. “Hey,” and Stiles has never been so fucking happy in his life to hear that voice, to see the familiar leather jacket coming into his line of sight from the other side of the pumps. And oh, what an expression Derek has on his fucking face as he takes in the sight of Stiles, wide-eyed and defending himself with little more than a can of mace, the alpha looking like he's about to pounce on top of Stiles and throw him into the trunk of his shitty car.

The other alpha eyeballs Derek for a second; and Derek just walks over to Stiles' end of the altercation, putting his fingers gently on the omega's shoulders and fixing the other with a look of such pure hatred, disdain, and disgust that Stiles thinks it could melt paint off a wall. “I'm pretty sure he doesn't want you touching him again.” Stiles can't help it; he leans into Derek's fingers, into Derek's side, drops the can of mace down to his side and glares. Like, yeah, that's right, what are you gonna do now? There are only a couple more seconds of silence, before the alpha straightens back up to his full height and sweeps his eyes up and down Stiles, one last time. “You know, you should really keep a leash on that thing,” he says this to Derek as he moves to step over the concrete divide back to where his car is parked and waiting for him. “Keep a closer eye on what belongs to you.” Stiles' blood turns hot. “I don't fucking belong to anyone, you god damn -” The alpha pops open his car door and smirks at Stiles, his eyes still slightly red around the edges from the wolfsbane. “Maybe I'll see you at work, omega.” With that, he climbs into his car, and slams the door behind him. The car starts up, and Stiles feels like running over there and punching his hand clean through the windshield. Derek drops his fingers off of Stiles and, abruptly, reaches down to grab the can of mace out of his fingers. He holds it in the palm of his hand as the other alpha's car is vanishing out of the parking lot, and frowns at it. “This is nothing,” he says in an exasperated tone of voice. “You know you can get a stronger grade than this. You should.” Petulant, still shaky, Stiles rips the can out of Derek's hand and shoves his keys into his pocket. “It's expensive, Derek. We don't all own stock in the most popular bar in Beacon Hills, you know.” Derek appraises him for a second – takes stock of the way Stiles isn't making direct eye contact, the way he keeps running his fingers through the mop on top of his head, keeps adjusting his glasses. “We have extra tasers at the bar. You should take one.” He blinks off into the fading sunlight, before looking back at Stiles with another frown. “That guy's come in before, right?” The omega nods back at him, still carding his fingers through his hair again and again. “He said so. Um. Can you...” he clears his throat, averts his eyes. “...put him on some sort of blacklist?” It's embarrassing for him to admit that the alpha legitimately frightened him, that his final words of maybe I'll see you at work freaked him out even more than the part where he wrapped his strong fingers around his face. The thought of ever being forced to see that guy again makes bile rise in his throat, but he doesn't want Derek to know that he's all scared and afraid of a stupid alpha. “If he comes in, I'll rip his fucking throat out.” Stiles believes it, too. “Do me a favor, would you?” He blinks into the sun again like he's mulling something over, or second-guessing himself, and then sighs through his nose before turning back to sweep his eyes up and down Stiles' face.

“Feel free to say no.” Stiles nods. “Sure. What is it?” With another huffing sigh, Derek lifts his hand, holds it in Stiles' general direction, maybe six inches away from the column of his throat, and raises his eyebrows at the omega. Stiles doesn't need it spelled out for him, what Derek wants to do, here; though it is weird that he referred to it as Stiles doing him a favor, and not the other way around. Derek wants to scent-mark Stiles. He doesn't just want to put his hand on Stiles' back or run his fingers down his arm, like he's done a few times now, doesn't just want a bit of a lingering trace of his scent sitting there on his skin. He wants the message. The do not touch sign hanging around Stiles' neck. It's a pretty big thing to ask, actually, considering the last person aside from his best friend who scent-marked him was the last person he seriously thought he was going to mate with. “We're not allowed,” is the first thing that comes tumbling out of Stiles' mouth, mostly on autopilot. They're not allowed to scent-mark the omegas at Silver Shadow, because, again; kind of defeats the entire point. “This isn't the bar,” Derek says, keeping his fingers hovering near Stiles' skin. “You don't work tonight or tomorrow.” A pause. “Do you not want me to?” Stiles drops his hand out of his hair and knows exactly what he wants. He wants Derek to scent-mark him, claim him, fuck him, keep him forever, and vice-versa. He wants the entire thing with Derek, the omega-fantasy that he almost had once; the one that was ripped out of his fingers, the same exact thing that got him ruined in the first place. Most perversely of all, is that he wants to have kids with him. And he knows, he knows that that's the omega in him talking, just the instinct, that he can't necessarily help it; in a way, he sort of wants to have every alpha's kids, or at least the ones he finds appealing and attractive and nice. It's just a natural thing for him; he can't help it. But he has to help it. It's wrong for him to want something like that. It's not right. He's not right. Even with all that, he's still an omega, and he still wants it, deep down. That's what has him nodding his head up and down, lifting his chin in the air to give Derek better access to his neck. Without hesitation, Derek springs his fingers forward and wraps his entire hand around Stiles' neck – gently, at first, sort of like how Scott does it, and then harder, like it should be. Stiles jerks back the way he always does, because, truth be told (though he and Scott never mention this because bros, right?) the whole scent-marking thing is actually pretty fundamentally...sexual. Not just perceived sexual, either. But, like, literally. Derek's touch goes straight down to his crotch, and he knows that it's the same for Derek, if the way his jaw clenches and his fingers

tighten is anything to go by. Stiles sort of almost can't believe they're doing this out here in broad daylight, as people are driving past on the busy road behind him, but then again. Most of them probably don't think anything of it. Just another alpha scent-marking his omega. Typical, really. Once Derek is satisfied with the neck area, he puts both hands on Stiles' hips and drags his fingers up the sides of his torso, slowly, methodically; it should feel more clinical and professional than anything else. But Stiles, unfortunately, catches his breath in his throat and has to bite his lip to keep from letting some nasty sound slip out of his mouth before he can catch it. Derek, for his part, keeps his eyes firmly set on the task at hand, jaw clenched tight, fingers pushing deep into Stiles' skin. When the tips of his fingers ghost over the scar on his stomach through the fabric of his t-shirt, Stiles can feel him hesitate. Just for a millisecond, just the tiniest freeze in movement, but Stiles notices it as clear as day. It's an ice cold reminder of what he is, what this is, and who Derek is. How none of this is what he wants it to be. How he has literally ruined every single thing he's ever been given, time and time again, and Derek won't want him like that. Derek knows the truth about Stiles, that he's really nothing more than something nice to look at. He's not worth it. Not at all. Finally, the alpha pulls his hands off of Stiles with a few sniffs at him. He must decide that he's satisfied with his work, because he nods his head and takes a step back. “Thanks.” Stiles nods his head right back at him and clears his throat. “Er – yeah. Yeah, totally.” There's a beat of silence, where Derek stares at the profile of Stiles' face while Stiles stares pointedly away, somewhat ashamed. Too many thoughts coming at him at once, like how he's helplessly turned on by what just happened, how he's sick and twisted for getting turned on, messed up for wanting Derek to want him like that, and his mind whirrs so quickly he wouldn't be surprised if Derek can hear the sounds of gears turning. “You know I worry about you,” his voice is quieter than Stiles has ever heard it before. Soft, really. When soft is not something that Stiles would ever think to attribute to the alpha in front of him, not at all. “You know – the thought of you getting hurt makes me...” he trails off, sets his jaw so tightly it looks like it hurts, but Stiles gets the point. Bravely, he raises his chin and stares Derek in the face. “Is it the same for the girls?” Derek stares back at him and scans his eyes over Stiles' face as though he's searching for something, there, some kind of confirmation or affirmative action. “I care about the girls,” he admits, slowly, “like I care about my sisters.” “But it's not the same for me.” Stiles says this on a chance, on a hope, watching as the wind sweeps Derek's hair slightly more to the left. “Is it?”

The alpha leans down and sniffs at Stiles once more, as if for good measure, a last taste. “If anyone ever hurts you again,” his voice is rough, like gravel, too close to Stiles' ear, it makes him shiver, “...you come to me, and I'll handle it.” Two nights later, when Stiles is coming in for work, Derek's scent has long been washed off of him. He just smells like his own body wash and shampoo and deodorant, his own omega scent mixed in there as well. Though, in the name of full disclosure, it's possible that Stiles has refused to wash the shirt that he was wearing that Derek ran his hands all over...possibly. Maybe. He also possibly keeps it inside of his pillow case to sniff at sporadically throughout the night. Derek smells like cinnamon, mostly. There's the heady scent of alpha, and sweat, and power, of course – but that particular scent that's just Derek? The closest thing Stiles can think to attribute it to is cinnamon. Spicy, and warm, and sweet at the same time if used properly. Cookies and french toast on a rainy day. It's such a dreamy, love-struck thing for Stiles to think, such a nasty little omega fucking brain he has; he might as well be sitting in a high school classroom somewhere doodling Derek and Stiles 4eva!! all over his math notes. But, again, he can't help it. When he comes into the break room, Allison is sitting at the table eating a salad, crunching on a crouton and swiping down her phone. When she looks up and sees him, she smiles, following him with her eyes as he goes through the motions like he always does. Right as he's clocking in, she says, “so your friend Scott...” Stiles nods his head. “What about him?” Allison grins to herself, all dreamy, and shrugs. “Well – me and Kira have a conundrum.” “A conundrum.” “Yeah. Like, an issue.” “An issue. With my best friend?” He narrows his eyes. “When have the two of you even met him, anyway?” “Well,” she tucks her bangs behind her ear and grins again. “He came in last night because he thought you'd be working -” because the oaf never has the foresight to fucking call and ask, “...but then he stayed and talked to us and – well...” Stiles waits, hands on his hips. He waits for and he was really annoying and we don't want him coming back in again or he looked up puns.com on his phone and sat there making bar jokes at us all night long; Scott has notoriously been bad with girls. In high school, the only girl he ever managed to even sort of nab was his date to prom, who he was almost positive was going

to be the one. Stiles wasn't worth much during Junior prom season, didn't even go – he was pregnant and gross, after all – so mostly he just sat around eating chocolate and listening to Scott wax poetic about this girl's green eyes. Then they went to prom. And he made awful jokes and danced spazzily and she scrunched her nose up at him and danced with one of the better lacrosse players all night instead of him. It was...dark, to say the least. So, the absolute last thing Stiles expects to come tumbling out of Allison's mouth is, “...the thing is, I really like him, but Kira doesn't like the thought of an alpha sniffing around, so -” “Wait,” Stiles holds his hands up, drops his jaw, and shakes his head. “What?” “I really like him?” She repeats, carefully, confused by Stiles' reaction. As wingman, Stiles' response should be oh, yeah, he's great! Best guy ever! Can I set you guys up, like, in an hour? Dinner and a movie? On me! Instead, he stands there gaping at Allison like a fish, unsure of how to even begin to approach this situation, since it is unprecedented. “He makes me laugh,” she continues on, smiling down into her salad like a schoolgirl with a crush, and Stiles is about to walk over and high five her or try and body slam her – maybe bust out the karaoke machine and start up a rendition of Don't Stop Believin' because holy shit. Scott might actually be making it with an unbelievably pretty omega girl? “And I just wanted to ask you – I mean...he's your best friend, right? So he's not, like...” she waves her hand in the air, and Stiles gets what she means. So he's not a complete and total nasty skeezeball alpha jerk-off. “Oh, no way,” Stiles says quickly, shaking his head fervently. “That's not Scott, at all.” Allison beams so brightly Stiles feels like he's staring into the sun. “I knew it!” “Yeah!” Stiles says back, giving her a thumbs up for lack of anything else to do – the wingman thing is still brand new to him so he's not sure of the protocol here. For the rest of the night, he feels bizarrely elated. Every time he flicks his eyes over and sees Allison smirking down at her phone in between taking drink orders, he gets this burst of pride in his chest, like yeah! My best friend! As a result, he spends most of the night standing there with a dopey grin on his face, even as asshole alphas harass him and yell at him and so on and so forth – it's like, nothing can really harsh his damn mellow. And he hasn't felt this good in a long damn time. There hasn't been much to feel good about. Just time passing, he always thought. Time passes, and things change, life moves, and eventually things stop feeling like a knife in the gut and start feeling more like a needle in the back of the neck. There, and constant, but not as bad as it used to be.

But, for the moment, Stiles feels like the needle isn't even there at all. Derek notices this, as well, if the way he keeps shooting Stiles weird looks is anything to go by. Stiles sort of wants to tell him to mind his own beeswax, keep drinking his nerdy water and focus on making sure Stiles doesn't get eaten alive out here, and, like, it's not that weird that Stiles is actually and legitimately happy for once, is it? Well. Maybe it is. Maybe it is bizarrely out of character. At around one am, the bar is slower than it's been since Stiles first started working – they've still got another hour until closing time, and Stiles is so fucking bored and wired out of his skull simultaneously that he keeps reorganizing the liquor shelves. This bottle there, that bottle there, color coding it, and then deciding to go by liquor type instead, then by brand; while Allison just sits on the other end of the bar, giggling at her phone every ten seconds. After twenty minutes of this bottles-clinking and Allison-giggling orchestra, Peter (who's standing in for security because Derek vanished some two hours ago to take care of something) grabs Stiles by the scruff of his neck and tells him to take the rest of the night off before he winds up driving Peter to homicide with his chattering and clinking. What a fucking night Stiles thinks to himself as he comes down the dark hallways, and as he waves a goodbye to Laura in her office. This night is coming up all Stiles. Hooking my best friend up? Check. Leaving work early? Check. Finding Derek Hale bleeding all over the place in the break room, panting like he's just gotten out of a fight? Check. “Oh, my God,” Stiles starts from the doorway as soon as he sees Derek huddled back against the wall on the ground, blood dripping down from his temple, claw marks down his face, across his chest like someone was trying to tear his internal organs out. He can't do much else besides stand there and stare for a couple of seconds, heart pounding in his ears out of shock and horror at what's in front of him. “I'm okay,” Derek says in a gravelly voice that sounds so very not fucking okay, “I'm healing.” “What -” Stiles takes a step into the room. Looking down at his feet, he can see a trail of blood, drip-drops of dark red leading from the door to the outside all the way to where the Derek pile is currently taking up residence. “...happened?” Derek swipes some blood out of his eyelashes, drags a finger-trail of it down the side of his face from the claw marks, very slowly starting to seal and look not-as-horrible. “Got in a fight.” Stiles has seen Derek get into many, many fights. He's seen the dude literally beat a werewolf almost to the point of actual death (which, as everyone knows, for wolves is kind of a hard egg to crack). And Derek has never, never once, looked this bad, or this worse for wear. Stiles has hardly ever seen the guy get a scratch, much less a dozen of them, dripping all over the god damn

linoleum. “Um – I assume you didn't win?” Derek hacks out a strangled sound that he thinks is supposed to be a laugh, spits out a bloody wad onto the ground as Stiles takes another step closer. “I won.” “Christ,” the omega crouches down about a foot away from Derek's shoulder, takes a close-up stock of the injuries. His fancy green shirt is completely ruined, never coming back from the dead, but the rest of him is healing just fine, normal and all, it would seem. “Who was it?” Stiles watches as the claws across Derek's face fade into little more than paper cuts, as some color returns to his cheeks. “Guy from the other day.” “The alpha from the gas station?” Derek nods up and down, lifts up his shirt to take stock of what's going on with those injuries. Stiles tries not to think about the fact that he's seeing Derek's bare chest for the first time; and he supposes it's pretty easy to completely remove the sexiness factor from the equation considering the bare chest in question is mangled and bloody and dirty at the moment. “That guy beat you so bad?” Sure, the dude was huge, but Derek has taken on bigger without this much of a fall-out. “Him,” Derek says with a shrug, poking at the open gashes on his stomach and chest. “Plus his entire pack.” Stiles freezes. He scans his eyes up and down Derek's face, looking for some trace of a joke or a lie, but the alpha's features remain almost bored, impassive; watching his own wounds seal themselves up like it's as interesting as watching paint dry. “You -” Stiles blinks his eyes, shakes his head. “How many.” “Three. Four including him.” Like it's the grocery list or a comment about the weather, he says this. “You took on an entire pack of wolves by yourself.” Derek must hear something in the omega's tone, because he finally stops watching himself heal and looks up into Stiles' face, like he's searching it for an emotion or a tell. “Yes.” “Why -” Stiles can only shake his head again, looking Derek up and down and reaching a hand out to touch his bicep, as if making sure that this is real and all really happening right in front of his face. “Why would you do that?” Something so fucking stupid? Suicidal, almost! Again, Derek is blasé as he says, “I told you I'd handle it.” Suddenly, Stiles wants to slap Derek across the face. He wishes that there were still claw marks on his beautiful, stupid face so that the slap would actually hurt him, or at least feel like something more than a fly smacking him in the cheek. Stiles wants to grab his face and look him in the eyes and go are you fucking insane!? Instead, he settles for straightening back up to his full height, grabbing a wash cloth off the pile

on the counter, and turning on the warm water at the sink. Then he yells “are you fucking insane!?” It's quiet on the ground for a second, probably as Derek tries to assess what the hell is going on here, and then the alpha clears his throat. “What's the -” “An entire pack? By yourself?” Stiles squeezes the cloth of residual water and folds it into a manageable square before rearing back around to glare in the alpha's direction, hands wet and dripping onto the floor. “And all that just because the alpha touched my face at the gas station.” He strides over to where Derek is sitting and squats back down again, swabs the cloth down the alpha's healed cheeks to mop the blood off of his face with a tight frown, refusing to look him in the eyes. “Don't belittle what happened, Stiles,” Derek's voice is low, threatening. “He didn't just touch your face. If I hadn't shown up he'd have -” “But you did show up,” Stiles interrupts as he scrapes the cloth along Derek's neck, “and he didn't. So I don't fucking understand why you'd be so god damn idiotic as to, like, start a pack war just for some stupid omega?” He grumbles something else under his breath, something like fucking insane, cannot believe, absolutely bonkers, and paws around at Derek's chest to make sure the wounds are healed enough for him to clean the blood off his skin. “Some stupid omega?” Derek sits up, healed almost completely, so he can move without any pain, and shoves Stiles' hands away from his chest angrily. “I told you I look after the omegas, Stiles. I thought I made myself clear when we spoke yesterday!” “There is a huge difference,” Stiles throws the bloody cloth across the room; it lands in the dirty rag pile with a wet plop. “...between looking after omegas, and – and – what you did! An entire pack by yourself, Derek?” “I'd do it again,” his voice is hard as glass, sharp and cracking and jagged, as he pulls himself up off the ground and into a standing position. Stiles glares up at him for a couple of seconds, gritting his teeth, before rising up himself. They're almost the same height, almost, with Derek maybe only two inches taller, but with shoulders broader, muscles larger, body in general wider. “I don't care who or what it is – if anyone threatens you -” “Oh my God,” Stiles rolls his eyes, throws his hands up in the air, before slapping them over his face in exasperation. Sometimes, yes, the whole alpha I'll beat you up thing is really attractive to Stiles. Tough guys, right? Oooh, look, he can bench press x amount of weight, oooh look, he's so buff and strong and sexy, and on and on and on. Other times, it's just fucking stupid and boneheaded – for example, this right now - as if all alphas walk around thinking with their fists,

wondering who they'll be able to beat the shit out of next, especially when it comes to omegas. “What's so wrong with me wanting to protect you, Stiles?” “Because!” He pulls his hands off his face, glares up into Derek's eyes while taking a step forward to yell directly into his face. “I'm not that worth that kind of a fucking risk, Derek.” The alpha blinks, taken aback genuinely – a mask of shock written all over his face for several long seconds. As though he honestly could not believe the words that just came out of Stiles' mouth – like suddenly, he was the one who wanted to be slapping Stiles in the face, instead of the other way around. Just as quickly as the expression came, it went; hardening like cooled chocolate back into that mask of anger, determination. “Hey,” he grabs Stiles' chin with firm fingers, forcing his face up to stare up into Derek's wide green eyes. “You're worth that, and more, Stiles. Why would you even say something like that?” Everyone knows why Stiles would say something like that, because everyone knows that it's true. As an omega, Stiles is worth absolutely nothing, nothing more than a warm mouth and nice eyes. He's not worth the fighting and the testosterone and the grand displays of strength or any gestures. None of the things that alphas do for their omega mates; it's just...how it is. Nobody wants an omega that can't do what they were literally born to do. Stiles doesn't say any of this out loud. He just stares directly into Derek's eyes, his lips a grim line, transmitting everything through is silence, loud and clear. And Derek receives the unspoken message. “That's bullshit,” the alpha grits through his teeth, grabbing Stiles by the shoulders hard enough that Stiles can't squirm away. “That is bullshit, Stiles. I don't give a fuck about what happened when you were a teenager, you don't deserve to be treated like that, no one does!” Stiles isn't stupid. He's hung around with enough alphas, before and after the event, to know how they all fucking think. So he's pretty sure that he gets what's going on, here; has probably understood it from the first time he and Derek met that night when Stiles poked fun at him for drinking water at the bar. This isn't some harlequin romance, this isn't some grand proclamation of serious, real feelings, because it couldn't be. It's just this - Derek wants to have sex with Stiles. Which, okay – an alpha wanting to have sex with an omega isn't exactly rocket science. It's more or less predetermined. But beyond the normal alpha-omega bit, it seems to Stiles like Derek also genuinely cares about Stiles, and gives a shit what happens to him, and would be willing to put himself in harm's way if it meant protecting Stiles' well-being. Which, while often times idiotic and fucking nuts, is really, really nice. Exactly the kind of thing that makes his omega hormones go surging. Protection and safety and

sure things. And – so what if Derek doesn't want to mate with Stiles? So what if no alpha ever wants to lock him down for themselves and give him the claiming bite? So what? Ever since Annabelle passed away, ever since the whispers and rumors started about how he's a failure in every sense of the word, a danger, he's accepted that he was never going to have what he, as an omega, was born to want. It wasn't in the cards for him. He was meant to walk alone, and entertaining any other thoughts would be childish and naive of him. But that doesn't mean he can't have sex. He's done it before. He's had sex with a grand total of four other betas and alphas ever since all that happened, and maybe it was hard to just breeze out the door in the morning and never think about them again; omegas and alphas having sex forms a bond, ties, and walking away from it without mating or sticking around requires a lot of strength and focus. Cutting off ties hurts. But - he's done it before, and he can do it again. Losing ties? Not the worst thing he's ever lost. And if Derek is willing to go so far as to nearly put himself on death's door just to get inside of Stiles' pants, just to do the theoretical eye-brow wiggling like so you want to or what?...then fuck it, right? Why the Hell not? The tension is already high enough in the room to begin with. There's already so much pent up energy swirling around in-between their bodies, so many words have been spoken, yelled at each other, and Derek is clearly still wound up from the fight instead of dog-tired like he should be. Their bodies are close enough, and Derek's hands are on him, and he's just standing there staring down at Stiles with a look of complete and total intensity, heated, burning, and it's easy. It's easy for Stiles to surge forward without thinking much about it, to smack his lips into Derek's, wrap his arms around the alpha's neck, pull him down closer to deepen the kiss. Derek's response is almost comical, really, the way he wraps his arms around Stiles like he's been fucking waiting for it, like he's been thinking about it. But not just thinking about it in terms of it'd be great to make out with that omega Stiles!, but like he's imagined it in vivid detail before. Stiles wonders if in Derek's imagination, he was still partially covered in blood and fresh from a near fight to the fucking death, in the break room of the Silver Shadow where Laura down the hall can hear everything if she's listening for it. Most likely not, Stiles thinks. All the same, things go from zero to one hundred in under three seconds. One moment it's Stiles and Derek in a mass of limbs, sucking each other's god damn faces off like their lives depend on it, Derek almost knocking his glasses off his face, running their hands up and down each other's chests and arms and faces and necks. The next, Derek is hauling Stiles' body upwards as easily as if Stiles were a tiny little puppy he's picking up, holding him steadily from underneath his thighs and walking off in some direction that Stiles can't be sure of because

their faces are still pressed together. Derek tastes just like he smells on the shirt that Stiles has stuffed in his pillow. He tastes like comfort. Something like home. Stiles tries not to think about how safe it feels, here, and instead focuses on how hard he is and how much he just really needs to have sex. Right? And that's all this is. Just sex. Nothing extra, no strings, no so now what... Just. Sex. And then Stiles is being dumped onto the kitchen chair that Allison had been eating salad in only hours earlier, and his pants and boxers are sliding off his thighs and all the way down his legs, getting stuck around Stiles' sneakers. “Why are these so god damn tight,” Derek growls, ripping at them like he's seriously considering tearing them apart just so he can spread Stiles' legs open more easily. “Oh, my God,” Stiles rolls his eyes from above Derek's head, “you sounded like a grandpa just now. Oh you whippersnappers, with your tight pants and your Justin Beavers and Taylor Slows!” Derek finally manages to tear the pants over Stiles' shoes and tosses them to the side somewhere, and he doesn't laugh at Stiles' joke. Doesn't even crack a smile, honestly – probably because he's so hyper-focused on Stiles' half-heard dick that it's really hard to consider comedy in such a position. And he really doesn't waste any time. He clicks his eyes up to Stiles, points to his dick, and says, “can I?” It's probably the weirdest thing that's ever happened to Stiles in a sexual situation. An alpha pointing at Stiles' dick, and not his own, and asking if he can suck the omega off and not the other way around? Just fucking bizarre. It's bizarre enough that Stiles laughs somewhat maniacally, not at all sexy or enticing, nodding up and down with an enthusiasm unparalleled. Derek leans forward and – and then...and then the licking starts. One long stripe up the underside, that vein, all the way to the very tip, and Stiles jerks so hard he nearly knees Derek directly in the side of his face. “Holy God,” Stiles near yells out before he can even think about being quiet, grabbing a fistful of Derek's hair and whining as the alpha sucks gently at the tip; nothing more, nothing less. Just the tip. Half-hard is long out the window, at this point – Stiles is fully up and ready to go, more than willing to be throat deep inside of Derek's mouth, but he doesn't appear to be very interested in the actual blow part of the blowjob. He wraps his hands around the legs of the chair, tugs it with a screeeechh against the linoleum floor until his face is as deep inside of Stiles' crotch as is physically possible, and still – it's just

the god damn licking and light sucking and sniffing. Not really like Derek has any intentions of getting Stiles off this way, but just like he really wanted a taste, first. Stiles imagines that he tastes like sweat and crotch and pre-cum and skin, nothing that he would think to write home about, but Derek appears to be enjoying himself just fine down there, lapping and sucking every last bit of taste that Stiles has to offer, for the moment. Stiles, embarrassingly, thinks he's actually about to come – is about to say as much, when Derek finally pulls up and wipes the back of his hand across his wet mouth, leaning back to stare up at Stiles with dark, hooded eyes. There's a moment where they're just staring at each other. Stiles panting and leaking pre-cum over his stomach, Derek scanning his eyes over Stiles' face again and again the way he always does; looking for something. Maybe some objection, or discomfort. Finding none, he pulls himself up to his feet in one fluid motion and grabs Stiles by his hips. The omega meeps at the handling, a reminder of just how much stronger and bigger than him Derek really is, and then he's being draped face down over the kitchen table. Where people have eaten before, and will probably eat again without having any clue of what went on here with him and Derek. “This is -” Stiles swallows, laying his palms flat beside his head and turning so his cheek rests against the cool wood; his glasses skew slightly as the pressure. “...dirty.” Derek hmm's in agreement, poking his index finger just barely at Stiles' entrance, prodding lightly with a sigh through his nose. “Yeah,” Stiles says in a gravelly voice, not wild about how cold the table is against his erection. “You're gonna have to fix me up first.” “Not a problem,” Derek says, sounding like he means it. Some clothing rustling, the distinct sound of a bottle being unscrewed, a nasty sounding squirt, and the index finger returns; this time, dripping in what can only be lube. “You just -” the finger slides in, and Stiles sighs in content, “...walk around with that in your pocket?” Derek works the finger around, quickly, and chuffs something of a laugh. “Better safe than sorry.” True; Stiles will take Derek bizarrely walking around with a tube of lube in his back pocket to conveniently whip out during surprise kitchen-table sex over the discomfort of a huge dick sliding up his dry sandpaper ass unlubed any fucking day. Two fingers, and Stiles stares sidelong at the picture that Laura hung up as a joke, with the cartoon orange tabby cat holding onto a tree branch for dear life, hang in there! written in swirly green script underneath – he thinks I'm never going to be able to look at that stupid fucking

picture without remembering that Derek Hale fingered me in this exact room. Also, probably will never be able to look Laura in the eyes again, because Stiles just knows she can hear this. Derek doesn't appear to care. The fingers pull out once Derek dubs him as ready, and Stiles pants low while listening to Derek slide a condom over himself with the familiar snap of latex. “Okay?” He asks, gliding a hand up and down Stiles' shirt-clad back a couple of times. “Yeah,” Stiles says back in a pant, subconsciously pushing his body back towards Derek's. It's really not fair that the first time Stiles gets any sense of how big Derek's dick is is when he's got his fingers digging into the omega's hip and the tip of it is pushing against Stiles' ass; from what Stiles can tell it's...big. Not, like, porn movie oh my God, I can't believe it big, but big enough that Stiles can fucking tell that Derek's not packing lightly down there. He wishes he had an opportunity to size it up for himself with his eyes, but feeling how deep inside of him Derek gets, how much of him he can fill before bottoming out, is a close second. “Fuck,” Derek hisses, and his hips jerk in a sort of aborted movement that tells Stiles that he didn't really mean to move at all, was trying to give the omega a chance to adjust to having a foreign object intrude on his insides. Stiles is used to that reaction. Alpha/alpha sex is probably pretty great, not that Stiles would know, and alpha/beta sex is probably only as great as the people participating in it, but alpha/omega sex... It's just something else. It's meant to be. Alphas literally can't handle omegas, Stiles has always thought; and on his end he views it as some sort of prideful thing. Because it's as if alphas think they're all so strong and in control all the time and can handle any situation, but the second they slide inside an omega... Derek's hips spasm again and he lets out a truly pitiful sounding groan, adjusting his hands on Stiles' hips. “Sorry,” he hisses in between pants, curses under his breath when he can't help but thrust forwards hard enough that the table screeches forwards and Stiles' hips slam into the edge of it. “God dammit. I'm sorry, I'm sorry I'll -” “Derek,” Stiles rolls his eyes and lifts his cheek off the table to turn his head over his shoulder and smirk at the alpha, adjusting his glasses. “Just fuck me.” The alpha swallows, clears his throat, lifts one hand off of one of Stiles' hips and runs it down his face. After another second, Stiles watches Derek's face go from wide-open and completely ruined to determined. He grips Stiles more tightly underneath his fingers, adjusts himself, and slides in and out – slowly, carefully, nothing at all like the desperate heathenish thrusting from a moment earlier.

It's so purposeful and steady. Stiles knows damn well that Derek is literally putting every single ounce of his willpower into not splitting Stiles open on his dick and fucking the omega's brains out, trying really really hard to take it nice and easy, all soft and gentle – and Stiles really fucking doesn't get why. It's not a surprise to Stiles when, again, Derek loses control for a second and slams hard enough into Stiles that he sees stars for a second, smacks his forehead down onto the table and moans. “Oh my God,” Derek's stuttering against him, half of him holding back and the other half absolutely going to town, and Stiles huffs and looks over his shoulder again. “Derek, seriously. Just fuck me the way you want to.” There's some prolonged eye contact, and Derek's got that wide-eyed vulnerable expression on his face again like he cannot believe this fucking happening or isn't sure what to do – Stiles just stares back at him, raising his eyebrows. “Come on.” That's the final nail in the coffin. Before the words are even completely out of his mouth, Derek pounds into Stiles deep enough and hard enough that Stiles only barely manages to muffle a scream over the sound of the table sliding across the linoleum again. “Fuck,” Stiles hisses when his hips slam into the edge of the table for the third time; and it's not because of the hurt. The part where that's supposed to hurt is lost, muted, dulled out by the feeling of Derek inside of him, and even though it happens again, and again, and the table keeps scraping across the floor and Stiles' hips are definitely going to fucking bruise all purple and yellow, Stiles doesn't give a fuck. Alpha sex is good. Derek sex is good. Apparently fed up with the fucking table, Derek starts cursing like an actual sailor; he drops his hands off of Stiles' hips and instead wraps them around the edge of the table to push. It goes sliding all the way across the floor under Derek's shoving until it slams into the fridge and Stiles' body rattles with it, his feet just dragging along the floor for the ride before coming to a rest. As soon as the leverage is right, and as soon as Stiles isn't being shoved inches away from Derek's dick every time he thrusts too hard, things pretty much disintegrate into a nasty werewolf sex mess. It's all hard fucking and Derek grabbing onto a fistful of Stiles' hair to pull him up and snarl things like how's that feel does it feel good do you like that directly into his ear while Stiles nods up and down over and over again, because yes. Holy fucking Hell yes does he ever like that. Derek lifts Stiles' hips up off the edge of the table after a minute, probably just to give himself a better angle Stiles thinks at first, but then the alpha is, bizarrely, laughing under his breath. In the middle of the hardest, most nasty fucking of all time in a kitchen, Derek Hale starts laughing.

He leans forward and presses his mouth beside Stiles' ear again, only there's no dirty words or snarling or sex bites this time. He pants shallowly, and says, “sorry. Your hips.” Stiles makes a noise like nghhh that's supposed to be it's okay – it gets lost somewhere along the way, because apparently, right then, even with the distraction of Derek talking to him, Stiles comes all over the floor and table. He drops his forehead down onto the wood and pants. Jesus Christ. Fucking hell. Stiles has had his fair share of alpha sex before, of course, and it's always been, you know. Nice. Really, really nice. Quality stuff, with orgasms and bruises and the whole thing. But this, he thinks, listening to Derek growl under his breath about I'm going to come, this has just been another fucking level. There's the whole aspect of how really dirty and fucking careless and naughty the bit about backroom fucking at their job while their shared boss is probably shot gunning bottle after bottle of wolf's brew just to drown out the sound of it, and then there's the whole aspect of it being...Derek. Who's super, super hot and big and a total omega wet dream come to life, of course. All strong and tough, and even as this is happening the guy is wearing a blood stained, ripped open shirt. It's a fucking fantasy. And there's the whole aspect of...that feeling pooling up in Stiles' chest, something like warmth or closeness or comfort. Safe. Home. Stiles tamps it down, stomps it out like the last flickering embers of a flame that should've gone out years ago, embarrassed of himself that he would ever think that that's anywhere close to what's going on here. This was a fuck. Plain and simple. There's no part two and there's no page to turn, nothing to come after this except possibly awkward work relations from here on out. Derek's thrusts start feeling erratic in a really familiar way, something that Stiles recognizes almost instantaneously as - “god dammit,” the alpha growls under his breath, “I'm fucking – I can't – fuck Stiles, I'm -” he goes stumbling backwards, pulling out of Stiles with a nasty, lubed up squelch, fisting his dick in his hand and shuddering. Stiles flips himself over on the table now that he can, soft dick dangling between his thighs, holding himself up on the palms of his hands, and watches as Derek starts knotting his own fucking hand. With alpha/omega sex, it's pretty hard to control. Not that Stiles has ever seen an alpha actually try to control the knot or give a shit about whether the omega wants to see something like that either way, but from the way Derek's entire body is shaking, stuttering, the fact that he's hunched over the sink and thrusting into his own hand, flicking nervous glances over at Stiles like he's ashamed...Stiles thinks that Derek had absolutely no intentions of letting his knot come out tonight. Normally, whenever the knot would come, alphas would either stay plugged inside Stiles and

tell him he had to take it, or try and shove it down Stiles' throat. This is a pretty nice reprieve from all that; except he doesn't think he'd half mind having Derek's knot in his mouth, honestly. Stiles watches as Derek's come streams into the sink in wave after wave, almost mesmerized by it for a few seconds, and Derek makes eye contact with him. “Sorry,” he says, voice cutting off towards the end around a sharp moan, “I'm sorry. I wasn't going to – I didn't mean -” “Don't be embarrassed,” Stiles tells him earnestly, smiling as he pulls himself off the table and walks over to where his pants and underwear are sitting. Derek's still got his pants on, just unbuttoned and unzipped, sliding halfway down his hips. “I don't mind, you know.” Derek comes again, throwing his head back and whining, gripping onto one of the cabinets above his head for support. “And – sorry about your hips again.” “Say sorry one more time,” Stiles rolls his eyes and forces his skinny jeans over his milky thighs, jumping up and down to get them all the way up onto his hips before buttoning them. “Just shh, Derek, knot the fucking sink and calm down and stop being weird.” And it is weird. Do you have any idea the number of times Stiles has heard an alpha werewolf apologize to him? Even for something that he actually deserved an apology for? A grand total of zero. And Stiles doesn't deserve an apology for fucking amazing sex – so color him confused and surprised at Derek's choice of pillow talk. After another couple minutes, with Stiles leaning back against the counter and Derek jerking himself through his own knot while staring at Stiles' face and body like he seriously, seriously wishes that the sink was not the one taking all his come right now, Derek finally starts softening up as his body realizes that it's not inside of a mate, right now, and can calm the hell down with the whole coming bit. If Derek had knotted Stiles, for real, they'd be trapped together for a solid hour in the back room. Allison would come back and find them and probably scrunch her nose up and roll her eyes before collecting her things and getting the hell out of here. Plus, Stiles would probably get pregnant. And that's – just not. Okay. Ever again. When Derek pulls his pants back up over his hips, stuffing his spent dick inside his underwear and sighing under his breath, he turns the sink on to wash the come down the sink and Stiles laughs. He leans over, arms crossed over his chest, and watches it; thinks how fucking silly it all really is. “What?” Derek asks, a smile playing on his own lips. Stiles flicks his eyes up to meet the alpha's, ignores the surfacing surge of affection, and says, “I hope she doesn't get pregnant, Derek.” “Oh, shut up,” he rolls his eyes but laughs himself, watching the last bit of come swirl down the drain. “Not funny.” The tips of his ears are, actually, turning pinkish, his cheeks starting to color with it as well, and Stiles can't help another laugh.

“You're so embarrassed,” Stiles accuses, pointing his index finger in Derek's face. “You know that's a natural bodily reaction, right?” Derek huffs. “Not for me.” “Oh, what,” he leans closer to Derek, tilting his head to the side and raising his eyebrows, “you're normally so in control? Never knotted accidentally before?” The alpha stares back at Stiles coolly, evenly, before he says, “no, actually. I haven't.” Something about that statement feels heavy. Full of implications, and unspoken words, and something that Stiles is just supposed to understand, but that he just – doesn't. He stares into the alpha's face, calculating, and finds nothing except open vulnerability, there. No hard mask, no serious demeanor. Just...Derek. And there's some quality about it that makes Stiles feel just as open as that, makes him smile nervously back at the alpha, holding onto eye contact for as long as possible. Derek steps forwards, until their hips are touching again, and kisses Stiles on the mouth. Just a peck, really, but it feels louder and more important than the making out they did before all the sex; more important than the sex itself. When he pulls back, he reaches forwards to put his finger on Stiles' neck, and the omega rears back with a laugh. “Can't do that, alpha! I've got a job to do, remember?” And, again, the customers don't take too kindly to a scent-marked omega serving them drinks. Derek's eyebrows furrow, and he cocks his head to the side like a confused dog. “But I thought -” Whatever he was about to say gets swept away, forgotten, because just then, the worst possible thing that could have ever happened, happens. Well. There are way worse things than looking up and seeing Scott McCall barging into the break room with glowing red eyes and his claws out, but Stiles is having a hard time coming up with them right now. Picture the scene – Stiles' come is, first of all, still all over the table and floor and he really needs to clean that up and disinfect the table and wipe every thing down. Second of all, they've clearly had sex. There's not a single doubt, no way to talk himself out of it. Stiles' hair is all sex tousled from Derek grabbing onto it, and Derek's hair is all ungelled and skewed slightly more to one side than normal from the blowjob, Stiles' pants are way too low on his hips, Derek's come is still swirling around in the drain... It's just a mess. Couple that with the fact that the smell of sex whirling around in this room right now must be so strong it's vomit-inducing for Scott, and the fact that Derek has Stiles boxed in against the counter, hips pressing against his inner thighs – this doesn't look good. Scott's eyes are huge. Like he's about ten seconds from picking up a chair and beating Derek over the head

with it. Stiles shouts, “it was consensual!” His best friend growls, low, under his breath, takes stock of Derek. Derek himself doesn't back away from Stiles, doesn't take his hands off of the omega's thighs, doesn't move at all. He just blinks, unimpressed, in Scott's direction, all bored and unperturbed. “What are you – doing here?” Stiles demands, swatting at Derek's hands on him until the alpha reluctantly unfurls himself with a grumble. “Allison invited me,” Scott snarls, and his eyes are still red. He flicks down to where Stiles' come is, and Stiles can't help it; he blushes. It's embarrassing, all right? He's kicking himself for not cleaning that up before letting Derek get all romantic on him. “Allison?” This apparently piques Derek's interests, if the way he swings his body away from Stiles' to face Scott is any indication. “What are you talking about?” Scott raises his chin in the air and says, “Allison. Invited me. I'm driving her home.” Derek looks just about ready to start glowing and snarling himself, so Stiles punches him in the back of the neck and says, “God! You know what? I'm going home.” He flops down off the counter, landing on his sneakers with a bit of a squeak. “And Scott! You're leaving!” “You're going home?” Derek whirls around and demands this of Stiles, interrupting Scott's protests. “Yeah,” Stiles says slowly, furrowing his brow at the alpha with a smile on his face. “Where I live?” The alpha looks about as confused as a contestant on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? He's got this look on his face like he can't decide if he's hallucinating or not, wondering if he should maybe use his lifeline to call Laura and get an explanation as for why Stiles would seriously want to go home right now. He opens his mouth to say something, scrunches his face together in something crossed between shock and confusion, and then shakes his head. “But -” “It's almost closing time anyway,” Stiles says to the alpha, patting him on the shoulder with a small smile. “See you tomorrow?” “Yeah,” Derek says quickly, too quickly, almost desperately. “Okay. Tomorrow.” Stiles smiles at him again, pats his shoulder a couple more times while Derek stares at the hand like it's sprouting tentacles, and then starts walking away, towards where Scott is standing in the doorway waiting for him.

Like Stiles has said. He's done the whole casual sex thing with alphas, in spite of the fact that for an omega, there's nothing casual about mating sex at all. He's had to walk away before, a half dozen times, unfurl from the ropes and ties trying to convince him to stay, stay back, wrap his arms around the alpha and feel what it means to be safe, and protected, and cared for. It's a hard thing to say no to, and a hard instinct to ignore. With Derek, it feels a lot more like walking away from the last puddle of water left in the desert after only having a sip, like sticking only his toes into the pool on the hottest day of the year and then pulling himself back. It's painful to snap ties before they even have a chance to fully form, but... That's just what Stiles has to do. He pulls Scott out into the hallway with him without daring even half a glance back in Derek's direction, and sighs through his nose. “Are you okay?” Scott asks him, putting his big, alpha hands on his shoulders gently. Stiles tries not to think about how Derek had done the exact same thing only an hour or so earlier. “You look a little...” shaken up, torn open. “I'm fine,” Stiles says, shaking the hands off of him and taking a step back, towards where the backdoor is waiting, his Jeep sitting in the parking lot. “Just – you know. Alpha.” “Yeah,” Scott agrees, turning his eyes to the break room door, knowing that Derek is listening to every single word that's being said. “Do you...wanna talk about it?” Stiles thinks the absolute last thing he wants to do is talk about it. He doesn't want to talk about any of the alphas he's encountered, doesn't want to think about them, he doesn't want to talk period. He wants to go home and flop into his bed lonely bed in his big empty room and sleep like the fucking dead. So, he shakes his head, smiles falsely, and says, “have fun with Allison tonight.” Outside in the cool night air, right as he's creaking the driver's side door to his Jeep open, he hears a clumsy hey from behind him somewhere. He turns his head to see an alpha with a bottle of wolf's brew dangling from her fingers, her body silhouetted against the bright lights of the bar so Stiles can't see her face. She swigs at her beer, points a long finger at him. “Aren't you -” a pause. “...Stiles? Stilinski?” Stiles sets his jaw. There's only one reason that anyone, including random alphas outside of Silver Shadow, would recognize his face and know his name. What a cherry on top of this entire fucking night, Stiles thinks to himself as he gives a terse nod and throws himself up into his seat. She sips at her drink once again, and her eyes start to glow red against the dark of the night. “Not a lot of other work for baby-killers out there, huh?” Stiles slams the door closed, hard as he can, pretends like his fingers aren't shaking as he gets a

grip on the ignition key, as he starts the Jeep. Out of the corner of his eye he can see the alpha wandering back off to the front of the bar, her back turned, so he takes the opportunity to shove his face into his steering wheel and just breathe for a second with the hum of the Jeep's engine in the background, buzzing around his skin in a way that should be familiar and homey but is instead rattling and upsetting. It's not the first time he's been called baby-killer. Someone spray painted it on the side of his house once. He spent a Saturday with Scott scrubbing it off - trying to scrub it off. Then a Sunday painting over it. That was a week after everything happened; a week after his fucking daughter died in the middle of the night. Kids at school used to whisper it behind his back when they thought he wasn't listening, though most of the time none of them cared whether he heard it or not. As if any of them know what really happened. As if any of them have ever known that Stiles died that day and he never fucking came back the same as he had been before. It's a cruel reminder – and exactly what he needed to shake Derek's scent off of his skin and thicken his resolve to treat it like a one night stand, as nothing more and nothing less than carnal desire. Point blank. When he gets home, he does wind up flopping into his bed. Kicking his shoes off like he hates them, ripping his shirt off and throwing it across the room in a fit of anger, pulling his comforter up over his head and vanishing deep beneath the blankets into the pitch dark, where it all just smells like himself and no one and nothing else. Lone wolf, he thinks to himself somewhat bitterly. He doesn't try sniffing at his skin to see if he can smell some of Derek leftover on himself, knows better than that by now. It's just not worth it. ---He wakes up to the sound of his phone blaring music at him; early, way too fucking early. The sun is still bright and seeping in through the cracks in his blackout curtains, when normally, on nights after he's worked, he can sleep clean through to mid afternoon when the sun is out of his face. Grumbling, he throws his sheets around and paws for where he left his phone the night before, carding through the quilt before finding it wedged underneath his bottom pillow. He checks the screen, sees Derek Hale flashing at him, and his heart stutters. Everyone at Silver Shadow has exchanged numbers. Even if Derek didn't have Stiles' number already programmed into his phone in the first place, it's written down in Laura's office, in a binder somewhere – mostly for occasions where someone oversleeps or forgets to come in or they need a shift covered.

Seeing as how it's – Stiles checks – only eleven o'clock in the morning, he highly doubts any of those things are the case. So why Derek Hale would be calling him at all, let alone this fucking early, is really baffling him at the moment. He stares at his ringing phone, lips puckered, for a few more moments before he huffs out a breath and slides his thumb across the screen. “Hello?” He says, slowly, unsure. He half expects there to be a kidnapper on the other end. “Stiles,” it's Derek's voice, thank God, and he doesn't sound tired or like he's just woken up from sleep at all, while Stiles probably sounds like he's been dead for the past ten years and only just rose from the grave. “Where are you right now?” “Um,” Stiles looks around his bedroom. “Home? I don't have to work for another-” “Work?” Derek repeats the word the same way he repeated home last night; either like Stiles is a complete idiot for saying such a thing or that there is something seriously off with this entire universe. “Yes, Derek. Work. You know – the thing that you and I do together?” There's a pause on the other end of the phone, followed by a deep sigh, and then some grumbling and cursing that Stiles can't quite pick up on. He just sits in his bed, wrapped up in his sheets, and waits for Derek to get to the point, here. “You're going to work tonight.” It's phrased like a question, but is said more like a statement of fact. An incredulous, unbelievable statement of fact, but a statement of fact none the less. “Yeah...? Do you not know the schedule?” Another pause, this one longer – more swearing, more grumbling. “You want to keep going to work?” Stiles thinks this is suddenly the weirdest fucking conversation that he's ever had in the history of his life. It's almost as though he and Derek are having two radically different conversations, or there's a third person on Derek's other line that Stiles can't hear. Nothing Derek is saying makes any fucking sense. “Believe it or not, gas money is kind of something that I like having...” Pause. Stiles is just about to tell Derek that if he pauses one more fucking time to curse quietly to himself in his own bedroom or wherever he is then Stiles is just going to hang up on him, when he finally speaks again. “You know you reek of alpha-mate, right?” Stiles palms his face. Derek didn't necessarily strike him as the type to beat around the bush, but still; hearing him be so blasé about the fact that he got his brains fucked out by an alpha in the break room at work is moderately startling. “I have, like, body wash.” “Body wash.”

“Yeah,” Stiles props his knee up and rests his chin on top of it, glaring out into his empty bedroom and pretending his dresser is Derek's face. “Stiles,” Derek's voice is cautious, measured on the other end of the phone – like he wants to go alpha-nuts all over the omega but is holding it in so he doesn't go scaring the shit out of the villagers. “What are you talking about?” Stiles lifts his chin up, surprised, and shoots back, “what are you talking about?” A pause on the other end, and Stiles doesn't wait this time. “I'm talking about how I have a job to do and you trying to get me to not do it? Which is really fucking weird, considering the fact that you're my boss? And that body wash by the way is, like, fool proof. I've used it so many times after sex with alphas, that not even my dad can smell it on me, if I -” “Stiles,” Derek interrupts, and now it really sounds like he's trying hard not to go alpha. Stiles imagines him clawing through trees and snapping people's necks in the background on the other end, wherever he is. “Why do I get the sense that you've completely misunderstood everything I've said to you from the first day we met?” The omega scratches at his face, blinks steadily at himself in the mirror across the room. His eyes subconsciously trace over the scar on his bare stomach, before he looks away, ashamed. “Um...” “You know what? Fine,” the alpha spits out on the other line. “You want to come to work? Come into work. I'll see you tonight.” The line goes dead before Stiles even gets the chance to open his mouth to retort, and then Stiles takes the phone away from his ear and stares down at it – as call ended flicks into his face again and again. That was...hands down? One of the most uncomfortable, bizarre, confusing conversations he's ever had with another living person. Why Derek would not want Stiles to come into work is absolutely beyond him – that body wash genuinely does really work to get alpha-sex off of him, or it at least masks the scent well enough that most wolves can't tell or don't notice. If this is what it's going to be like with Derek after having sex with him, Stiles thinks in annoyance, then this is even worse than it just being awkward. He shows up for work, as promised. In spite of everything, his dumb ass shows up for work. It'll probably go on record as one of the stupidest decisions he's ever made, in the long run – which, considering his track record, is really saying something. When he walks into the break room, he finds Kira munching on a chicken wrap at the kitchen table, and he wonders (hopes) that Derek wiped that thing down before he left last night so that the hand that Kira has draped over the wooden top isn't getting covered in Stiles' spunk germs. He's about to call out a hey and ask for a bite, but the second she makes eye contact with him,

she abruptly stops chewing and stares, wide eyed, as though some type of ghoul has just wandered in from the wastes to haunt her. Stiles blinks at her, taken slightly aback, and then she says, “hey, Stiles,” in a slow, steady tone of voice, swallowing down the bite she has left in her mouth very deliberately. “...here to pick up the last of your stuff, or...?” He furrows his brow and smiles somewhat incredulously. “The last of my stuff?” Kira puts her wrap down on the paper it came in and wipes the back of her hand across her mouth, giving Stiles an equally incredulous look right back at him. “...I'm here for my shift?” He clarifies, sensing that he has to, walking over to the computer and jabbing his index finger on the screen before tapping in his employee ID. “Has everyone except for me forgotten how the schedule works?” He clocks in, rips the printed receipt out of the machine and throws it into the trash can waiting for him; but before he has the chance to whip around and ask Kira why she's so fucking amazed to see him standing in this room right now, Laura appears. She sticks her head into the break room, eyes on Stiles, and says, “Stiles.” Stiles nods his head at her, jazz hands a bit. “I'm here.” Her lips pucker. And then she pinches the bridge of her nose. And then she raises her eyes to the ceiling and mutters something that sounds a lot like fucking unbelievable Derek, typical under her breath. “Stiles,” she sets her eyes back on him, and she looks – annoyed. Probably more annoyed than he's seen her in a very long time. “In my office.” Oh, no. Stiles has been called into Laura's office exactly three times since he started working here. The first was that time that Derek had him fill out an incident report. The second was when Stiles got into a heated argument with Peter about how many cherries he eats, when Stiles called him a creepy motherfucker and Laura had to haul him in and remind him, with a steely gaze, that Peter is for all intents and purposes his boss. And the third time was when Stiles smashed a bottle of liquor over a customer's head and Laura chewed him out for twenty minutes. So, he doesn't have very fond memories of Laura's dank little office in the back, and he's never, not once, been called back there for something good. And from the way she's looking at him, stiffly walking ahead of him without a word as she leads him down the hallway towards her door, he thinks it's a pretty safe guess that he's in trouble for something. Into the office they go, and Stiles sits in the familiarly uncomfortable chair, while Laura plops down in her swivel chair and just...stares. It's a little unsettling, actually. She picks up a pen and begins to click it, slowly, while spinning

minutely around in her chair. Click, click, click, click, and she still doesn't say a single word. Stiles starts mapping out escape routes, flicking his eyes over to the nasty little window in the corner and thinks too small, the ceiling tiles that might lead up into an air vent, and then the door, shut tightly behind him. “It amazes me,” she begins, still clicking, “that you're sitting there right now.” The omega swallows, scratches at his cheek nervously. “Like...yay amazing?” Laura doesn't smile, so Stiles guesses not. “What are you doing here?” That is the third fucking person who's been incredulous about Stiles showing up for his god damn job, and it's the straw that breaks the camel's back. “I work here!” “Christ,” she pinches the bridge of her nose again, stares at Stiles from in between her fingers. “You're fired, Stiles.” Stiles' eyes nearly bulge out of his skull and his jaw drops wide open – he feels the need to sit there for a second, soak it all in, wait for Laura to say just kidding!, or for the hidden cameras to come out, or something. But, no. Laura just sits there clicking her pen, staring coolly back at Stiles with raised eyebrows. “What?” He demands, voice sounding terribly loud in the tiny confines of the space they're in. “I'm – what? What, what, what?” Laura blinks steadily at him, frowns, and says, “why is this a surprise to you?” “Fucking fired, my -” “It baffles me that you're so surprised by this?” “What the fuck is this about?” He leans forward, closer to Laura's desk, and tries to go through his mind to remember if he had done anything, even one thing, to even remotely deserve being fired; he comes up with nothing, absolutely nothing, and it only makes him madder. “Why would I be -” “Are you serious?” She scoffs, cocking her head to the side like a confused dog trying to figure out something complex. “Stiles, how many times have I said that mated omegas can't work here?” Stiles rears his head back and scrunches his face up. “Mated? Who the fuck -” “My brother!?” She holds her hands out dramatically, like it's so fucking obvious; like of course you fucking idiot, and Stiles can't do much else except slam into the back of his chair in shock, mouth completely agape. And he thought that conversation he had with Derek on the phone was weird.

“Mated?” He repeats the word slowly, and then again, more loudly, and then again, in something akin to a yell, and Laura nods her head up and down like yes!?, and Stiles thinks about leaping up out of his chair just for something to do that isn't sitting here like a fucking idiot, just to move and shake the shock out of his bones. “He told you that he and I are mated?” “Um!?” Laura gives him her twentieth incredulous look of the night. “He didn't have to tell me? I heard the entire thing, Stiles!” Maniacally, Stiles throws his head back hard enough that his glasses almost fly off his face and laughs – feeling shaky and shocked and like way too many crazy things have happened in a two day period for him to actually be able to emotionally handle. “We just had sex, Laura!” Laura, again, looks like she doesn't fucking get it. “It wasn't – we weren't – it was just sex!” From the look on Laura's face, Stiles can guess exactly what's going through her mind right about now; he's had this conversation with many a confused beta or alpha before, Scott included. But...omegas don't just have sex? Which, in a lot of ways, is true – they're not supposed to just have sex, and most of them honestly don't. Allison and Kira, for example, both have never had sex, are virgins still, saving themselves or whatever. Sex for omegas is always seen as this huge deal, a mating thing, because like Stiles has demonstrated time and time again, connections are formed for them the second they get close enough to another wolf. Connections that are pretty god damn hard to shake out of. But, Stiles thinks himself as something of a master at it, at this point. So, it's not unheard of, especially not since alphas are always trying to goad omegas into it anyway, but it can be a bit rare. Laura looks like she's never in her life ever heard something so ludicrous. “Just sex?” Stiles rolls his eyes, scrubs a hand over his forehead and shakes his head. “It was – nothing.” “Nothing.” The word comes out of Laura's mouth quietly, almost sullenly. Like she feels sorry for the word itself, or for Stiles, or just sorry in general. It makes Stiles feel like shit, suddenly. Like he's screwed up. Again. It's a feeling he's gotten pretty familiar with. She flicks her eyes to the doorway, sets her lips in a hard line, and juts her chin in the direction of the door without another word. Stiles takes that to mean that he might still be fired, just on the principle of the matter; he thinks that he'll come back tomorrow and have another conversation with Laura, possibly even one with Derek and smooth every thing out. Come to terms with the fact that he fucked up, again, shouldn't have been fucking his boss in the first place, shouldn't have – shouldn't have done a lot of things in the first place.

An uncomfortable feeling settles in his chest as he rises from his chair and clears his throat, smooths his shirt out and turns around to take himself out of Laura's office without saying anything else. It only gets worse when he closes the door behind him and spots Derek leaning back against the wall on the opposite end of the hallway, glaring at him. Looking like he just heard that entire conversation. Stiles decides that he's really, really not in the mood for this shit right about now, especially not since the pull is starting up again; sexual connections and omega desires and a burning hot sensation in the back of his head trying to shove him forward to wrap his arms around Derek's neck. It's part of the reason he only ever has sex with alphas he thinks he'll never see again. Oops. He turns to walk away with a tch noise, but Derek wraps his hand around Stiles' upper arm and tugs him back, just north of rough. “Derek,” Stiles starts as soon as he's in a position to lock eyes with the alpha; in the darkness of the hallway, they're more like dark pits in his face; a slant of light from underneath the door he just walked out casts across the alpha's mouth so he can see the grim frown, the tight set of his jaw. “...don't.” Derek leans forward and sniffs at Stiles, one long inhale, wet and gross sounding against Stiles' ear – Stiles tries to twist away in disgust. “I still smell me all over you,” Derek says, voice low. The sound of it sends shivers up and down his spine, reminds him of the night before when Derek was inside of him, when they were together, wants it again, and again, and Stiles pries himself free of Derek's hand and staggers back against the wall, smacking into it with a thump, breathing shallowly and trying to get control of himself. Seeing this makes Derek grit his teeth even more. Stiles' eyes have started adjusting to the darkness out here, and he can see the guy's face much more clearly, now – the familiar bone structure and nose and hair. “I want to know,” Derek begins, taking a step closer to where Stiles is huddled back against the wall, “why you're fucking playing me.” Stiles snorts out a laugh, shaking his head, averting his eyes and turning his head to glare down the hallway so he doesn't have to look into the dark holes of Derek's eyes. He glares as hard as he can down the hallway as his heart races, his hands clam up, he feels like making a run for it. Nothing like this has ever happened with one of his alpha conquests – they don't typically get attached like Stiles does. Normally, Stiles is the one freaking out in hallways and cornering people while they laugh in his face. Stiles doesn't like it that way, and he's not liking the reverse of it either. Especially since his laugh is more fake, forced, stilted, wet from the effort of not crying, than any of the others' have ever been. The bass starts thumping from the bar, alerting both of them that the doors are opening soon, that Kira and Allison are going to be out on the floor and the entire place is about to be full of alphas and betas. But neither of them react to it much.

Derek's index finger curls around the opposite side of Stiles' face to force it back around so he can stare those eyes right into his. “You owe me that much,” he reminds Stiles heavily. Stiles crosses his arms over his chest and angles his face away from Derek's hand, another sarcastic laugh coming out of his throat, this one more choked than the last. Because he knows that Derek is right. That phone conversation from this morning suddenly makes sense, the way Derek looked at him right when he was about to leave last night, does too. If Derek really gives that much of a shit, if Laura and Kira legitimately thought that Derek and Stiles were mates...then maybe Derek does need it fucking explained to him in detail why he shouldn't want anything to do with Stiles. “It's not -” he starts, chokes off again, can't look Derek in the eyes but feels Derek staring at him like two laser beams on his face. “...its' not you, okay? I'm not – playing anything. I thought it was obvious to you already.” “That what was obvious to me? Huh?” Stiles shakes his head. Digs the heels of his palms into his eyes, shoving his glasses into his skin so hard it almost hurts, and breathes out, again and again, doesn't want to speak anymore, never wants to have to see Derek again, wants this to be over and done with. “Stiles,” Derek says, softer now. He reaches his hand up to try and pull on Stiles' wrist gently, to pull his hands away from his face, most likely so he can stare those fucking green eyes into Stiles' again and Stiles – doesn't think he can handle that shit. Not tonight. “C'mon,” his voice is still a gentle coo, like he's trying to calm down an injured animal. “What's the matter?” Stiles snaps. He pulls his hands off of his own face and bumps Derek's hand away from him, and snarls, “stop that.” Derek blinks at him in the neon lights spilling out from under the door to the bar, alarmed. “Stop what?” “Being so – so fucking nice to me all the time. Just stop.” It's insane, absolutely insane to him, that obviously Stiles has done something wrong, that obviously Stiles has fucked something else up for the trillionth time in his life, and Derek is just going to stand there and murmur to him and gently grab his wrists like he's something soft, and innocent, something that needs to be coddled like this. “I don't deserve it.” Stiles doesn't look directly at him, keeps his eyes planted on the ground watching as the lights dance from underneath the door to the bar, but he knows that Derek is staring at him. He wants Derek to walk away, make this easier, break the ties himself so that Stiles doesn't have to saw them apart all on his own – knows he won't be able to do it if Derek's going to keep being like this. “Why are you always saying things like that?” Derek demands, voice still soft and careful. “What's really happening, here, Stiles? What are you thinking?”

Stiles stares own at the floor, and doesn't say anything, doesn't think that he can. So Derek opens his mouth, and says probably the worst possible thing that he could have said. And it's horrible because it's like he can laser his way straight through Stiles' head and see clean through him, read his thoughts; and it's horrible because... “...this isn't about Annabelle, is it?” Stiles reacts like a wild animal taunted. Hearing her name is just as much a catalyst as it's ever been, triggering him like a gun firing. He shoves as hard as he can against Derek's chest (which, granted, isn't very hard at all, and he suspects Derek only moves at all because Stiles wants him to), and doesn't think about it before he's slapping Derek clean across the face. Again, not very hard at all, and most likely hurts Stiles' hand about a thousand times more than it hurts Derek's face. The alpha hardly blinks, hardly even looks surprised, catches Stiles' wrist before a second hit can come like he's swatting a fly out of the air, and then barrels Stiles back against the wall as he snaps both wrists into one hand. He doesn't look angry, or annoyed, or anything. He just looks at Stiles evenly; when Stiles starts crying, his jaw tightens minutely and he sighs through his nose. “Don't you fucking -” “Stiles,” Derek interrupts before Stiles can start his tirade about how dare you and you don't fucking know anything, the speech he's wanted to give to everyone who's ever called him babykiller or given him a dirty look in the grocery store. “I don't know how many ways I can say that I don't care about that, do you hear me?” “You should,” Stiles counters in a tight voice, while giant globs of tears go sliding down his cheeks. With his free hand, Derek starts thumbing the tears off of Stiles' face, and Stiles feels like kicking him for it. “You don't want me, Derek, I'm fucking defective, do you hear me?” There's a crash from the bar, and they both ignore it, like they didn't hear it at all. “That's not true,” and he says it so easily – instantaneously, like he's thought about it, considered it, come to this conclusion weeks before this conversation. “Let go of me,” Stiles warns in a low voice, twisting his wrists around in Derek's grip until the alpha lets go of them as soon as he's asked. Once he's free, Stiles points his finger in his face and growls, “do you have any idea, any fucking clue – I -” he breaks off again, swipes angrily at his stupid fucking tears and wants to slap himself in the face for being this god damn weak. Derek stands there and listens, like he's been waiting for this, expecting it. “...you don't understand,” Stiles insists, refusing to look the alpha in the face. “I should've woken up, and I should've known something was wrong, but I just – slept right through it. That's not normal, for an omega, Derek.” It's not. It's not normal. If he was half the parent he was supposed to be as an omega, he would've heard her, and he would've woken up, and he could've...They said they got there too late, and maybe if he had woken up - then it wouldn't have been too late. Christ, the first time he'd slept through the night in weeks and...

“It was an accident,” Derek says this like it's a no-brainer, the obvious thing; his father has said as much, and Scott has said as much, and Stiles has always just nodded his head. Mostly just to keep them off his back, make them think he's doing better, not going to go back TO spend hours staring out his window without talking or moving. “I don't care what anyone says, Stiles, it wasn't your fault.” Stiles never believed it from his father or Scott or anyone else, never even considered it for a fraction of a second, because he always knew the truth. But when Derek says it...something different and strange, foreign, blossoms up in his chest. And it's not the guilt he's started to think of as an old friend, not that clawing feeling of misery at the thought of knowing that someone's lying to him just to make him feel better, not the need to deny it fervently up and down. Something else that Stiles isn't sure he has a word for anymore, something he hasn't felt in a very, very long time. “Hey,” Derek hooks a finger underneath Stiles' chin, lifts his face up and stares into his eyes with a green burn. “I want you, Stiles. Not just half of you, and not just the good parts – you, entirely. I need you to know that.” Stiles can't find any trace of a lie in Derek's face, and it terrifies him. That open honesty, just out there, for him to do with what he will – it scares the shit out of him. The thought that someone could think that about him after everything, after the past three years of his life have been filled with nothing but loneliness. After he had decided that there was no reason to bother with that anymore, because the dream he had just didn't exist anymore. It scares him. And Derek must be able to tell that he doesn’t know what to do, what to say, because he lets go of Stiles' chin and takes a step back. He stands back there for a second, appraising Stiles, again, like something soft and delicate, and then he shrugs. “I meant what I said,” he affirms simply over the music, and Stiles suddenly remembers that music is playing at all, where they are, how many people must've heard this conversation if they were trying to listen. “You can do what you want with the information – but don't go around thinking that I don't want you, Stiles, when I've never wanted anything more.” Last words, and then the alpha is walking away. Leaving Stiles standing in the hallway with tearstained, ruddy-red cheeks, feeling shaky and out of place and...lost. ---Scott and Allison are doing well; it's all heart-eyes and constant texting and three hour phone conversations, Scott picking her up in his shitty car and driving her out to nice restaurants and using his mom's credit card so Allison thinks he has some odd amount of money to spend on nice things. Which is nice, Stiles thinks, because Allison deserves a good alpha like Scott and Scott deserves a smart and loyal omega like Allison. They aren't mated yet, barely even kissed, actually, because Allison likes to take things slow and Scott is willing to wait – so she still works at the bar.

Stiles hasn't been back to the bar in three days, not since the blow-up with Derek in the hallway where he pathetically cried and made a fool of himself and Derek had said – well. Had said all that. For the moment, Scott is sitting on Stiles' bed with his phone off so he's not tempted to check for texts from Allison, focusing his full attention on where Stiles is sitting at his desk across from him. Stiles has told Scott more or less the entire story, and now they're just sitting there and Stiles is trying to figure out what to do and needs the guidance of his best friend (who has, honestly, never been a very good guide, but it feels nice to vent every now and then and he's at least a good listener.) Stiles has said some variation of what do I do about six dozen times since everything happened with Derek, and Scott has just kept shrugging and saying what do you want to do? Today is no different. “Well, what do you want to do?” Stiles can't even get mad about it. Because, in reality, the decision is entirely up to him on what he does or doesn't decide to do. He can't ask Scott to tell him what to do, because then it's not really his decision is it? And he can't ask Derek to make the decision for him, first of all because it's not fair and second of all Stiles is entirely positive Derek would never force a decision on Stiles. That just reminds Stiles of why he ever liked Derek enough to fuck him in the first place, run the risk of starting up ties only to sever them, get that heartbroken feeling. Because Derek has done nothing, absolutely nothing, but protect him and look out for him and be as nice as an alpha werewolf has ever been to him. “To be honest,” Scott starts, “I don't like him.” “I've gathered that,” Stiles says dryly back, staring at his phone screen as it remains black and not ringing. “I could probably take him in a fight,” Scott flexes, examining his own muscles, and Stiles has to physically restrain himself from laughing out loud. Derek Hale once took an entire pack down with pretty minimal injury, and Scott McCall thinks that he can win in a fight against the guy. The thought is laughable, but he says nothing aside from an eye-roll and a huff. “And he owns a sleazy bar.” The sleazy bar being the entire reason Stiles has had a job these past four months, has been able to finally pay off the last of his hospital bills from Annabelle, the last of the debts accumulated from the funeral and the coffin he charged to a credit card because he couldn't bear to put her in anything but their most expensive accommodations – if it weren't for Silver Shadow's existence, he'd be...well. He doesn't want to think about what he'd be doing instead. “And he wears pretentious leather jackets all the time,” which Stiles actually thinks is kind of

sexy, “and he doesn't have the most amiable personality,” but Stiles kind of thinks that Derek can be funny when he's not too busy brooding or being all tough, “and he's a snobby rich dude whose trust fund from his parents in LA pays for, like, everything.” In Stiles' omega mind, that means security and safety and not having to worry about things as petty as money anymore. “But – you know – if you like him, then...” Stiles runs his thumb along the length of his mouth; considers the fact that he honestly cannot find one thing, not a single fucking thing, about Derek Hale that isn't at least kind of endearing or likable to him, that isn't by all counts mate material and the kind of thing his mother used to tell him to go for. “How serious was he about the whole – you know...” Scott waves his hand in the air and makes a face, “...mating thing? Like are we talking a relationship or are we talking – you know.” You know referring to the claiming bite and the official documents and the ceremony and – every thing. Every single fucking thing Stiles has always wanted and never got to have. Didn't think he deserved, anymore, honestly. A part of Stiles still seriously, seriously doubts that Derek would want any of that with Stiles, still kind of thinks that it's all a ruse just like Ethan was a fucking ruse; but he thinks about I want you Stiles – not just half of you and not just the good parts. It had scared him that day, to hear it. Terrified him, really; the kind of terror that Stiles has always had since having a dream come true placed in his hands only to have it ripped away from him in the most cruel, horrible way possible, the kind that Stiles has never been able to shake off no matter what he did. Thinking about it now, however – it makes him feel...special. Wanted (and not the gross kind of want, not the leering eyes and suggestive comments, but the real kind.) “I think -” Stiles starts, and then cuts off, pursing his lips. Scott stares at him expectantly, wideeyed and probably scared to hear the answer – he really hates Derek, Stiles realizes, and the thought amuses him to some extent. “...both?” Scott sighs, rolls his eyes. “If he's fucking with you, and if this turns out like last time...” because Stiles and Scott have had this conversation before – about another alpha, years ago, and that had ended...horribly. “...I'll chop his dick off with no hesitation.” “Good to know.”

Stiles pulls up outside of the address that Laura gave him as her and Derek's shared house, and squints up at it. He had kind of assumed, like, mansion somewhere out in the preserve, maybe even the house that he grew up in that Stiles has heard is a sprawling fucking manor of sorts. Instead, he's looking at a completely reasonable single-family home with two garage doors and a lot of windows to let the light in. He can't tell if there just isn't anybody home or if both cars are

parked in the garage, and thinks maybe he should've called Derek first to let him know he was going to be coming over; in fact, that seems like exactly what he should've done and he's feeling idiotic and stupid for just showing up. What if he walks in and there's Derek with, like, six omegas having an orgy? Or what if he walks in and Derek is, like, you shouldn't have come I've changed my mind you are a nasty gross omega and I want nothing to do with you. The thought is paralyzing. Stiles sits there in his Jeep with his hands gripping the steering wheel, freaking the absolute fuck out and not knowing whether or not he should drive away and keep his dignity intact, until out of the corner of his eye he sees the front door to the house open. Derek sticks his body halfway out the door, squints, and raises his hand in a half-shrug that says what are you doing? Right. Because Derek probably smelled Stiles a mile away, heard the Jeep bumbling along with its shitty engine from five miles away. Stiles blinks at him, shoves his glasses up higher on his nose, and realizes that this is the point of no return. The alpha gestures for him to come inside, and Stiles feels like throwing the Jeep into reverse and gunning it as fast as possible away from this situation, away from himself, really; but he realizes that it's about time he stopped wallowing in his shit and faced it head on. It's been three years. And yes, it's been the worst three years of his life from start to this exact moment right now, and losing a child has got to be the worst thing a human being (or werewolf) will ever have to be put through. But there does come a point when barely making it just doesn't fucking cut it anymore. So, he climbs out of the Jeep with a familiar creak and saunters his way up the driveway to Derek's front door, where the alpha is standing there waiting for him in a crisp white t-shirt and some dark black jeans, squinting into the sunset. When he reaches the porch steps, he pauses and shoves his hands into his jean pockets. “Um,” he begins eloquently, flicking his eyes all around the house and nodding his head. “This is a nice place.” Derek looks across the porch himself, at the small garden of tulips sprouting in the front yard, like he's suddenly forgotten what his house looks like and has to check for himself that Stiles is right. “Doesn't really look like you, though.” The alpha smirks. “It looks like Laura because she's the one who gives a shit about what the house looks like.” With that, he pulls the door open all the way and beckons at Stiles to come inside. Stiles hesitates for only a moment more, casting his eyes across the tulips one last time as if looking to them for some kind of guidance on this whole crazy fucking situation. Finding nothing

except for cheery yellow petals blowing in the wind, he sighs and jogs up the steps to where Derek is holding the door open for him. Inside, the house is neat. Carpeted staircase, homey looking living room with plush couches and huge pillows and blankets and a coffee table with some magazines and unopened mail strewn across it. Again, not really what Stiles pictured when he pictured where Derek Hale would live. He imagined, like, abandoned train car somewhere, or an industrial concrete looking joke of an apartment with nothing but a bed and a tiny fridge where he keeps his beef jerky. Stiles feels bizarrely out of place and ratty in his ripped jeans, holey t-shirt and flannel with a couple of mustard stains on it from this afternoon's hot dogs. Derek doesn't comment on it though. “So.” He begins instead, closing the front door behind him. “You came over.” Stiles scratches at his face. “Yeah...I came over.” If a person could fit a thousand words into just three, if there was some kind of language out there that could boil down four months of confusion and miscommunication and get everything out on the table, Stiles thinks he just might've found it. The two stand there for a second in the darkness of the foyer. Stiles feels like he doesn't have to elaborate what him being here means, doesn't have to explain every thing bullet point by bullet point to Derek – but apparently, Derek Hale is the type that likes everything out on the table where he can see it, so he asks, “to talk?” Stiles' hands feel all clammy and gross, and he's nervous like he's about to ask someone out to prom. “I – well. I've been thinking about what you said...” and then he doesn't know where to go from there. How is he supposed to have this conversation? When there are really a thousand different roads he could choose to go down; he could open up with how ridiculous it is that Derek would claim to want a mate who can't even properly care for his children, start ranting and raving about how a few pretty words don't change the fact that Stiles has been living with soul-crushing guilt for the past three years. Or he could open with how Derek should've been a lot more clear with what he was trying to do from the beginning, shouldn't have gone on like he just thought Stiles was with the program the entire time when in reality they were operating on two completely difference frequencies and Stiles had to have a fucking humiliating conversation with Laura Hale because of it. There's also the road of slapping him in the face again, which kind of makes his hand tingle in pain with the thought, so he doesn't linger on that too long. Really, there's so much sitting there in-between them, and choosing one thing seems phenomenally difficult to do – so Stiles decides to focus on what's probably at the forefront of Derek's mind in the first place. “You want me to, like, be your mate.” “Yes,” Derek says, without hesitation.

“That's really stupid,” Stiles decides. Derek must be able to tell, somehow, like he knows Stiles well enough for this, that the omega is on some level kidding, because he cracks a small smile and shrugs. “Everyone has their own tastes.” “I guess you're right,” Stiles nods his head and shrugs. “Your taste just so happens to be complete and total useless disaster so who am I to -” “How many times do we have to have this conversation?” Derek cuts him off and huffs. “Selfdeprecation isn't always charming, Stiles.” “I guess that's one of my very un-charming personality traits then. I've got a ton of them – I forget to brush my teeth some mornings,” he starts counting off on his fingers, “I use sarcasm as a defensive mechanism, I'm kind of a dick all things considered, I don't -” Derek grabs Stiles' shoulders, shakes him, once – not hard, but enough to cut him off in the middle of what he was saying. “Stiles. Like I said the other night. It's all of you or none of you – and I fucking get that. I don't understand why you're being so thick-headed about this.” The alpha scans his over over Stiles' face, a frown on his lips. “Why is it so hard for you to believe that I care about you?” Stiles swallows heavily, shakes his head. “Just not used to the concept, is all.” The alpha frowns even more deeply, if that were physically possible, and he sighs through his nose. Another couple of seconds pass where Derek just stands there, touching him, and Stiles sort of wishes it were something more substantial like a hug; but as always, Derek doesn't initiate anything. Eventually, he drops his hands off the omega's shoulders and replaces his angry face with something more determined, and sure. “It's a yes or no question, Stiles. You don't have to answer right away, but if you're going to string me along -” “I don't do that,” Stiles snaps, incensed at the accusation. “That's not what I was trying to do.” Derek holds his hands up in surrender. “Okay.” “I just thought -” this is so embarrassing, now, to say out loud, “-I thought you just wanted something casual?” Derek raises his eyebrows, crosses his arms over his chest. “...I see now that that's ridiculous,” Stiles concedes. “You don't really do much of anything casually.” “Not really, no.”

Right. If Derek's going to do something, he's really going to fucking do it. He's not just going to tell an alpha to fuck off and leave an omega alone; he's going to show up and beat the shit out of them and their entire pack just for the fuck of it. Just because he can. All or nothing. “Now that you know what I really think and want,” Derek continues, cocking his head to the side as he appraises Stiles in all his ratty glory. “...what do you think?” Stiles goes all clammy again. Talking about feelings has never entirely been his strongest suit, not after everything happened, at least, and words tend to get caught in his throat more often than they get spoken. The reality of the situation is, Stiles would be abso-fuckin-lutely insane to not want alpha Hale as his mate; like, lock him up in Eichen House nuts. He is fully aware of that fact. That's not the issue here, and Derek knows it. The fucking issue here has never been Derek, it's always been Stiles. Stiles holding back. Stiles trying to make everything into nothing so he can sleep better at night. Stiles not feeling like he deserves it. Stiles being afraid to jump. Stiles terrified that the floor's going to break apart underneath his feet all over again. “Can we -” he starts, runs his sweaty hands over his t-shirt. “...like...date?” Like Allison and Scott are doing – all slow, and steady, and precise so no one starts going out of control. Stiles knows that's probably best; he can turn tail and run if things start getting too sticky, and if Derek turns out to not be the grunge Prince Charming he appears to be. Or he could...stay. If Derek turns out to be exactly as incredible as he seems. The idea is laughable to Stiles, now, a fantasy. But there is that whisper in the back of his mind, saying, maybe... Derek grins at him, beams really, and nods his head. “I'd love to.” Stiles smiles back at him, feeling accomplished and adult and like he's finally making some progress on himself instead of just running away to hide like he's been doing. Derek's nice (in a way), and he's smart and strong and has always treated Stiles with respect even when he didn't have to. Stiles is hesitant, doesn't want to go spiraling back into something that he won't be able to handle a second time around, but he's not scared of Derek Hale. He just seems so – solid. Maybe Stiles isn't in love with him at the moment, and maybe he's not a hundred percent sure of anything, but he feels almost certain that this isn't going to end in burning flames and disaster and horror. Either they mate or they don't. Time will tell. Again, Derek doesn't initiate anything sexual with Stiles (most likely out of respect for the fact that everyone is constantly trying to initiate something and it's nice to not have to deal with that for once), so Stiles takes the reigns to lean up and peck Derek on the lips.

The alpha blinks when Stiles pulls away, as if he's surprised by Stiles' display of affection, and then gives the omega a tiny little smile; the slightest upward curving of his lips, as if something's funny. “What?” Stiles asks, smirking himself. Derek shrugs. “We've gone from having sex in the kitchen pecks on the lips.” Like moving backwards, Stiles thinks. Dating backwards (or, more accurately, mating backwards.) “Am I still fired from the bar?” Stiles asks. “Oh, yeah,” Derek puts his hand on Stiles' shoulder, squeezes once in a quick scent-mark, and then pulls away. “You're banned from Silver Shadow from here on out.” Derek makes good on his promise to not let Stiles come back in to work. He guesses that the alpha has every right to fire who he chooses, to hire a new omega to take Stiles' place – but isn't that, like, a conflict of interest, or something? Refusing to pimp your boyfriend out to bloodthirsty alphas and betas at the omega bar just because you're dating him? It's not like he could work at Silver Shadow either way, reeking to high heavens of Derek like he constantly fucking is. Either way, Stiles doesn't have a job anymore. He spends hours at the kitchen table poring over the newspaper, craigslist ads, even considers going back to pretending he's human to get a job at one of those chain restaurants on the other side of town making a decent hourly. The second his father catches wind of such nefarious and illegal activities being planned (with Derek's blessing, by the way – he's a complete and total bad influence, and the leather jackets aren't just a fashion statement after all), he puts his foot down and says Stiles has to earn money the good way like the rest of us. It's not like anyone would ever find out. He totally passes for human. It's the glasses; a lot of humans have the preconceived notion that werewolves can't have bad eyesight – when Stiles feels like glowing his eyes he has impeccable vision, but seeing as how he almost never feels like glowing... All the same, he decides it really is a bad idea and starts considering other options. Like what the odds are of him becoming a world famous author operating under a pseudonym like John Smith (how human is that?), making millions of dollars by sitting on his ass and making up stories. When he sits down at his laptop and only manages to write aliens with plants for hands after three hours of thinking, with Derek next to him with even worse suggestions like what if someone won the lottery, he decides that the odds are pretty much slim to none. Then there's the option of opening up one of those online stores and selling something homemade – Derek shuttles back and forth with him to the craft store as he finds new things to bungle. He tries his hand at wood carving and finds himself a colossal failure, getting wood shavings all over the carpet in Derek and Laura's living room with nothing to show for his efforts except a

piece of wood that's slightly smaller than it was when he started in on it. Then he tries sewing, stabs himself in the fingers enough times with the pin-prick needles that he gets fine droplets of blood all over the white shirt Derek loaned him once. Then there's the flower arranging, and the frame making, and the jewelry creating, and Derek pretty much just sits there and goes through all of it with minimal complaints. In fact, Stiles and Derek haven't gone on an actual date yet. Their entire relationship has been trying to figure out something for Stiles to make money off of that isn't selling locks of his hair to alphas to sniff at (or something even worse). It's been a solid month and a half of nothing but lots and lots of kissing and scent-marking, but not much else. There's been no dinner (unless you count eating burritos in a parked car on the side of the road while wondering if Stiles would be any good at foodtrucking), there's been no movies (except for when they watched an entire season of Top Chef together on Derek's couch with Stiles saying now I could do that), and there's been no sex (minus the scent-marking ritual every morning where sometimes Stiles and Derek jerk each other off – whatever.) It's still pretty much irrefutable that they are dating. Courting would actually be the official term for what's going on, in regards to the whole mating thing and werewolves and tradition, but that word always sounds so formal and serious to Stiles. And there's really not much formal or serious about what Stiles and Derek have going on. Job-hunting and trying to find Stiles' hidden talents with the occasional orgasm; it's like the least sexy thing Stiles could've ever imagined. And yet, it really sort of works for them. One night, Stiles is leaning back into his pillows, propped up and scanning over a wikipedia article about pottery, just about to open his mouth to say now I could do that, when Derek distracts him by sliding his index finger along the bit of Stiles' stomach that's revealed from his shirt riding up. At first he assumes it's just an accident, or a quick touch, but then Derek does it again. And again. Stiles blinks, and adjusts the laptop in his lap to get a better view of what's going on down there. He finds Derek's fingers skirting along the hem of his pajama pants, and hyper-focuses on that because yes, before he realizes that that's not exactly what he's going for with all this. His index finger keeps trailing along the edge of the scar, dancing along almost touching it, and then pulling back right before it meets the puckered skin there. Stiles frowns. “You can touch it, if you want,” and his voice sounds cold in his own ears. “It's just scar tissue.” The alpha hesitates for a second, continuing to ghost his fingers right along the edges of the mark. His eyebrows knit together and he flicks his eyes up to Stiles' face, analyzing it for a second, the way he always gets whenever Annabelle comes up in conversation – gauging Stiles' reaction, trying to decide if it's okay to keep going or if he should stop and pick a new topic. Stiles doesn't know what Derek finds in his face, this time, but he drags his finger along the full

length of the scar – all the way across, nearly hip to hip. It's been a very long time since someone aside from himself has touched that scar. Matter of fact, he's not so sure that anyone else ever has. The other alphas and betas he's had sex with since then have all avoided it like the plague, flipped him over on his stomach so that they wouldn't have to look at it, disgusted mutterings under their breath at catching sight of it. It's not a very pretty thing, Stiles admits. It's hideous, because he doesn't take care of it the way he was supposed to. If he used the salves and blams that Deaton makes, then he could've had the thing long gone years ago – but he keeps it, and suffers through the looks he gets whenever his shirt rides up too far or his jeans swing down too low and people see it. Scrunched up noses, wide-eyes, judging glares from across the room. Stiles is pretty used to it, by now. Derek, however, doesn't scrunch his nose up. He just looks at it, like he's examining a page in a picture book, tracing his finger over it again and again like he's trying to learn the shape of it, commit it to memory until he's got it down by heart. It's surprising enough to see that Stiles can't do much else aside from lay back in the pillows and gulp, audibly, unsure of where to go from here. Should he shove Derek's hand away? His fingers itch to do just that, to snap at him and say that's personal, but he can't find it in him to really mean it. It is personal, of course; but he can't think of a reason why anything personal should be kept from Derek's fingers anymore. “You haven't gotten rid of this,” Derek says, matter-of-factly, turning his eyes up to look directly into Stiles' face. “Why?” Why, Stiles thinks to himself. Why suffer the humiliation and the judgment, the leers and the tsks's, when it's such an easy problem to solve? Why does he spend nights, minutes, hours, laying on his back running his own fingers along the length of it? Why stare at himself in the mirror, why stare at the scar, why have it there at all? “It's all I have of hers,” Stiles says back in a tight voice, and even though it's not the same reason he's been giving himself for the past three years, not the thing he's been beating himself over the head with every night, it rings true. It used to be that he thought he kept it as a guilt trip for himself; remind him of how much he failed, how little he deserves, that he's not allowed to be happy, ever again. The scar was there as a ghost, a haunting reminder, a bad reminder. Now, he thinks, it's just a reminder. “I like it,” Derek says resolutely, running his fingers along it one last time before sliding up higher on the bed, shoulder to shoulder with Stiles in the cramped space. “It's beautiful.” Stiles isn't naive. He knows he not just going to wake up one day and forget about what happened, or that he's ever going to be okay with what happened. Three years believing yourself to be something that no one could ever want? Not an easy thing to bulldoze over with pretty

words and lots of kissing. Not an easy thing to get rid of at all. He can't just come out of it, like coming out of a stupor, decide he is deserving of having a mate like Derek, believe Derek every time he says things like I want you and it's beautiful, believe that he could do better a second time around. But he's on his way. It might take a long time, and it might be a year or more until Stiles feels like he's anywhere near even close to being who he was before all this; some nights in his dreams it's like he's out in the woods, looking for himself, trying to dig up the old, untainted, un-ruined Stiles, like Derek deserves to have. Things aren't perfect, and they might never be. But Stiles is on his way to better, with Derek's help – and that, for him, is enough.

End Notes

and to think this was just supposed to be a Coyote Ugly au when I started it, right?

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