#beta!derek

Weave Soft Spells Over My Sight by AgnesBlue

Derek had blossomed steadily over the past year, growing into his ears and turning even more handsome, if that were possible. But instead of going out and melting the panties off the girls, suddenly he was coming to Stiles all bashed in, demanding that he patch him up like Stiles was some freelance nurse. It was a familiar pattern by now.

AU in which Stiles has been living with the Hales for a few years as their assistant and friend. He needs to deal with Derek, who keeps coming to Stiles with bruises and cuts to be treated, while trying to figure out what the elderly alpha of the Hale pack is up to.

re-connect by pineneedlepants

It takes Stiles six months to track Derek down into a wooden cabin in the middle of nowhere. He doesn't plan on bumping into Scott while he's trying to coax Derek into coming back to Beacon Hills with him, but his brother seems to have a knack in always appearing in the most convenient of times, when all the hard stuff has already been done.

Stiles thinks that, after all these years of Scott being on the road with Chris Argent, saving just-turned kids from other hunters, Scott should have had matured a lot since they've last seen each other. After a painfully slow trek through a blizzard and stumbling into Derek's cozy little den, Stiles realizes that maybe he's been holding a little too much hope over his brother's growth.

At least Derek is amendable to hearing Stiles' request. Even if Stiles does so while smothering Scott with a pillow to keep his scathing comments to himself.

Puppy Love by Jerakeen

"You stole half the dogs in town," his dad says, hands on his hips. "I should arrest you."

"They're in protective custody," Stiles corrects him. He's trying to sound serious, but it's almost impossible when you have a Pomeranian eating your hair.

running with the wind by thepsychicclam

Derek's been running and hopes he can find sanctuary in the Stilinski Pack's territory. The Alpha isn't the strong sheriff he thought he was, but a sarcastic awkward teenager that Derek finds he kinda hates.

Abominable by Revenant

Derek poured his coffee and made his way over to Stiles’ side. They chatted quietly like they did every morning, but their conversation died away as Stiles went to work, his dark eyes focused on his work—Derek knew that as soon as Stiles started work, there was no stopping him.

“Why don’t you at least get dressed first,” Derek whispered. He rose from his seat and stepped over to Stiles’ side. He pressed tender kisses to the nape of his neck, trailing them up to his jaw and gently gnawing on Stiles’ earlobe until the teen let out a soft moan. “Why don’t we go have a nice warm shower?”

Stiles flinched in his hold, leaning forward and pulling away from Derek as he said, “I’ll have one later. You go ahead.”

Derek let out a heavy sigh. He pressed a kiss to the top of Stiles’ head before walking away. He clambered upstairs and picked up his phone. He scrolled through his contacts until he found the name he was looking for.

She answered on the third ring. “Hello?”

Derek didn’t bother with the pleasantries, he got straight to the point: “How do you know when a relationship’s dead?”

“What’s going on?” Lydia sked, her voice full of worry. “Has something happened between you and Stiles?”

“I don’t know,” Derek admitted. “He’s kind of… pulling away from me. Morning cuddles, kisses, sexual advances, everything. He just keeps pulling away.”

“Maybe he’s not feeling well and doesn’t want to get you sick?” Lydia offered.

“I’m a werewolf, Lydia, I don’t get sick.”

“Maybe he’s just stressed out with work,” Lydia said. “You know how he can get sometimes. Maybe he wants to get that over and done with so then he can give you all of his attention, not just some of it.”

“Maybe,” Derek muttered.

“Der, sweetheart, don’t let it get you down,” Lydia said softly. “I might not know why he’s acting weird, but if there’s one thing I do know it’s that Stiles loves you more than the air he breathes. Just give him a little time to work through whatever it is that has him emotionally constipated.”

Derek couldn’t help but smile at the last remark.

“If he keeps it up then give me another call and I’ll slap some sense into him, okay?”

Derek chuckled. “I don’t think that’ll be necessary, but thank you.”

“Keep your chin up, sweetheart.”

“Thanks, Lydia,” Derek replied before hanging up.

She had a point; Stiles tended to get ‘emotionally constipated’ over a lot of things. But that didn’t stop Derek from feeling isolated and touch starved.

Derek let out a heavy sigh and stripped off his shirt, tossing it into the laundry basket by the door before trudging into the bathroom for his shower.

  “Derek?” Stiles called from downstairs.

“Yeah?”

“Can you come here a minute please?”

Derek made his way downstairs, eyeing Stiles suspiciously.

It had been five days now and this was the first time Stiles had addressed him.

“Is something up?” Derek asked, his brow quirked.

Stiles drew in a deep breath and Derek could hear his heartbeat pounding against his ribs. His lips quivered for a moment before he finally said, “I’m sorry for how I’ve been acting the past couple of days. It was rude and… I’m sorry. But I promise, the torture went both ways, I just really wanted this to be a surprise.”

“Wanted what to be a surprise?” Derek asked.

He raised his brow higher in surprise as Stiles reached for the hem of his shirt and tugged it over his head.

He stood—shirtless—before Derek, his chest rising and falling with anxious breaths as his chocolate brown eyes sparkled.

Derek’s eyes fell to his chest, the pale patch of skin that sat over his racing heart. On his skin was a swirl of black ink: three spirals radiating out into a triskelion.

“What do you think?” Stiles asked timidly.

Derek was lost for words. He let a short breath fall past his lips as he stepped over to Stiles’ side, cupping his cheeks and crushing their mouths together.

He pulled back slightly and trailed the kisses down along Stiles’ jaw, across his neck and down his chest, lingering on every tender kiss while his hands travelled up Stiles’ side and explored every inch of skin.

He felt Stiles’ chest rise and fall with baited breaths, stilling as Derek’s lips brushed over the tattoo.

His eyes flicked up to meet Stiles’, the beta blue glow overwhelming his senses as he whispered, “Mine.”

Consciousness hits Stiles like a sledgehammer. He gasps, the ragged tearing sound of his own inhalation nearly deafening him as he rolls onto his stomach. He swallows down the taste of bile and curls into the fetal position, trying valiantly not to throw up. The cool air stings his throat as he takes in desperate, greedy breaths, struggling to rein in the trembling of his limbs. Every nerve in his body is screaming, hypersensitive to the point of physical pain. He whimpers at the taste of his own tongue, reels at the sensation of his blood pounding through his veins. Never has he been so aware of his own heartbeat.

The smell of rich wet soil fills Stiles’ nose as he attempts to blink the phosphenes out of his eyes, and it takes him a long, terrifying moment to reassure himself that he hasn’t gone blind; the sky overhead is dark. It’s the middle of the night here, wherever here is, and because his entire life has been one example of Murphy’s Law after another, rain is pouring out of the pitch-black sky in unending sheets, plastering his hair to his face and soaking through the layers of his clothes.

Slowly, and with the help of a nearby sapling, Stiles levers himself first onto his knees, and then fully, if awkwardly, upright. He battles back another wave of nausea as he performs a cursory check for bodily damage.

All things considered, he’s managed to come out okay. The knife wound on his forearm is still bleeding sluggishly, so he tears a strip off of the hem of his t-shirt and binds it sloppily around the incision. He tries to ignore the way his fingers fumble and shake. The back of his head is throbbing where one of his would-be kidnappers had walloped him, and he hisses in pain as he tentatively pokes at the lump. In his torso there’s the sharp, persistent burn of a broken rib, probably sustained as the result of the fall from his second story bedroom window, but his legs are miraculously free of any injury other than what feels like a bone-deep bruise. He hopes that the relative easiness of his breathing means that the rib hasn’t punctured anything important.

The rancid cherry on top of the shit cake that has so far been his day reveals itself when, in an attempt to get his bearings, he holds out a hand and murmurs a conjuring of light. Where there should have been a globe of steady warm illumination, only a weak hiccupping glow flickers in and out of the air above his dirty palm. Stiles lets his eyes fall shut in dismay.  His reserves must be almost completely dry. He can barely feel his magic, a guttering flame in his mind’s eye– even the booster runes tattooed along the dip of his navel are kicked. A shudder trips up his spine, and he wraps his arms tightly around himself to ward it off, chilled by more than the rain and the coolness of the night air.

Light blossoms in the distance, cascading through the backdrop of trees with the accompanying hiss of tires on pavement. Stiles flinches away instinctively, fear and pain constricting his lungs before he forces himself to take slow, intentional breaths. If all has gone the way he’d planned, logical certainty dictates that wherever he is, he’s far away from the people who had come for him in his crappy little apartment in Greenpoint.

The incantation had been over six months in the making, after a truly disconcerting bit of fortune telling courtesy of an oracle in Astoria. The prediction had been given as part payment for a tidy bit of warding he’d done along the storefront of the seer’s newly opened bakery.

Stiles had sat at one of the rickety tables near the big picture window, surreptitiously brushing flaky crumbs of phyllo dough off his chest. The oracle, a Greek woman of indiscernible age who had introduced herself as Pythia, had sat across from him and stared out into the middle distance, dark eyes turning vacant and distant. Slowly, and to his alarm, her irises had begun to shrink, first to the size of her pupils, and then to the size of pins. Soon, all that had been left was the unblemished white of the sclera.

“You are wanted,” she had said, the words hissing out of her like they were travelling a very far distance. “But it is not you that they want. They know what lies sleeping in your depths. They are the invaders, the desecrators. They will come for you, and you will unravel.”

Until that moment, Stiles had scoffed at most assertions of fortune-telling, finding little to no evidence to substantiate those claims. Despite this, there had been something about the look on the oracle’s face that had shaken him. She had patted his hand, pitying, perhaps, or regretful, but still completely resigned to the outcome of her prediction.

“Sorry,” she had said. “You are a sweet boy, and I knew your mother. If I could, I would have given you a better fortune. A long, happy life. Adventure, family, romance with a dark-haired stranger. At least now you have a bit of time, to prepare.”

And prepare he had. If there is one thing Stiles is good at, it’s having a plan. He’d thrown himself into research, and after six months of wading through magical theory, he’d developed a prototype. A little bit of blood coupled with the right words and his own special brand of intent, and Stiles would be transported instantly to the place where he would be safest. It had been a completely unorthodox marriage of blood magic and highly theoretical teleportation metaphysics, and once Stiles figures out where he is and has a moment to repress the soul-shattering horror of the void he'd traveled through to get here, he’s going to find the time to be very impressed with himself.

The distant car passes without incident, and Stiles lets out a tense breath. Standing in the dark getting soaked is not helping his current situation, no matter how attached he’s gotten to the tree he’s been using as a crutch. He needs to find civilization, needs to try to get word back to Lydia so that she knows he isn’t dead, needs to find a place with a hot shower. With a grunt, he gives the trunk of the sapling an affectionate pat, and then begins the slow and painful trek towards the road.

2.

Derek wonders sourly if there’s anyone out there having a worse night than he is. Rain floods out of the sky in biblical quantities, making it nearly impossible to see– the Camaro’s wipers are doing their best, but it’s a losing battle. The storm had already been in full swing by the time he had beat a hasty retreat from his now very ex-girlfriend’s apartment in Redding, and the deluge seems to have no intention of letting up anytime soon. If the visibility gets any worse, he’ll have to pull over and wait for the storm to pass. Derek squints out into the night and tries not to draw any parallels between the weather and the current state of his love life.

His phone begins to buzz in the passenger seat, and for one tempting moment Derek considers letting himself believe that he can’t hear it over the pounding of the rain. He glances over and sees the smiling face of his beloved older sister on the incoming call screen, and bites back a groan. If he doesn't pick up, Laura will just keep calling, and Derek knows from experience that if she still can't get ahold of him, she'll just show up at his house. Better to answer now and get it out of the way.  Derek slides his thumb along the answer bar and transfers the call to the Camaro’s Bluetooth function, letting the phone drop onto his lap as he navigates a tricky curve in the road.

“Laura, I’m driving–,” he begins, and then winces when her voice fills the car’s interior, shrill with righteous indignation.

“Derek Edmund Hale, how could you!”

And this is why you should never date your sister’s friends.

“Look, Laura, I–”

“Jennifer is a wonderful person! You two were perfect together!”

“Lau–”

“She’s smart, beautiful, and very career oriented! What more could you possibly ask for?”

“Maybe you should date her,” Derek mutters, and then before Laura can finish drawing in an outraged breath he adds, “personally, I prefer it when the person I’m seeing isn’t also hooking up with their ex.”

For one blessed moment, silence reigns aside from the pounding of the rain. Then, with a remarkable show of adaptability, Laura snarls,

“That fucking bitch.”

“Language,” Derek says absently. “You have tiny ears in your house.”

“The kids are asleep,” Laura huffs dismissively. “I could parade through the living room with a marching band and they wouldn’t notice. Stop trying distract me.”

“I’m not,” he lies. “But, Laura, it’s fine.”

“I disagree,” Laura growls. “I think I should rip out her spleen and feed it to her. How could she?”

She’s your sister, he reminds himself. She’s your last remaining family member in the world and you love each other, and that means not throttling her when she’s being overbearing and self-righteous.

“Laura,” he says calmly, “I promise you that it isn’t that big of a deal. I’m not even that upset. Ultimately, Jennifer and I didn’t like each other very much. It was going to end either way. I think we only kept up the charade because we were both afraid of disappointing you.”

There’s a stiff pause on the other end of the line, and Derek viciously stomps down on a pang of guilt. Laura has been butting her head into his love life since he’s been old enough to understand why certain people made his face get all red. She means well– Laura is truly incapable of meaning otherwise– but over the years her machinations have led to disastrous and mortifying results for Derek. He’s hoping that this time, she’ll take the hint.

“She still deserves to rot in hell,” Laura mutters finally, but it sounds like the wind has definitely been taken out of her sails.

“Look, can we talk about this tomorrow?” Derek squints, trying to make out a blob of color that his lights have just picked up in the distance. The implacable rain is making it incredibly difficult to discern what the shape could be. A person walking along the side of the road, maybe? He hasn’t passed any broken-down cars, and the last rest stop was about fourteen miles back, so it seems bizarre for there to be someone wandering around out here. He hesitates, and then eases his foot onto the break. “I have to go, there’s someone on the road.”

“What?” Laura’s voice goes Alpha sharp with alarm. “Have they been hit?”

“I don’t think so,” he says slowly. He can see clearer now that he’s slowed down some. It’s a guy, he thinks, walking just off the shoulder of the road, hunched down into himself to keep the rain out of his eyes. “I think he’s lost. I’m going to see if he needs help. Call you in the morning.”

“Derek, wait,” Laura begins, but Derek has already ended the call.

He pulls up alongside the walking person, schooling his features into what he hopes is a friendly expression before rolling down the passenger’s side window.

“Hey, there,” he calls, leaning across the gearshift to get a closer look at the drenched figure. “You okay? Need a ride?”

The guy’s shoulders tense at Derek’s words, and he turns to face the car slowly, like he’s afraid of what he might see. It’s dark as hell out there, but in the reflected glow of his headlights Derek can make out a white angular face under a sopping mop of dark hair. Young, but maybe not as young as he looks– there’s a hint of a tattoo on the sliver of pale throat poking out from the guy’s hoodie.

“You some kind of crazy murderer, or what?” the kid asks. He shuffles closer to the car, mouth twisting into an unimpressed grimace.

“What?”

Derek blinks at him, thrown by the bluntness of the question. The kid huffs and makes an odd gesture with his hands, leaning in to meet Derek’s gaze with a hard stare. His eyes, a tawny brown that might have been warm under different circumstances, are huge in his pale face, rain water dripping from his long lashes and off the upturned slope of his nose. A few drops hit the leather interior of the passenger door with an audible splat. He looks too young to be out in the middle of nowhere by himself, and painfully exhausted, so when he finally speaks, Derek is startled by the intensity in his voice.

“Bear you any ill will unto me?”

Ah. So, the kid is a lunatic. Derek should have known better. What kind of person goes for a walk in the pouring rain at midnight? Still, he’s a little offended. He opens his mouth to tell the kid so, and is therefore completely flummoxed when what he says is,

“I bear you no ill will.”

They stare at each other a little more, rain now fully soaking through the remaining dry patches of the kid’s hoodie. And why are there dry patches? It’s been pouring for hours, and there isn’t anything but woods along this stretch of road. Derek wonders if the kid has been in some kind of accident. The very tip of his pink tongue rests against the bow of his upper lip as he inhales, like he’s tasting the truth of Derek’s words.

“Okay,” he says, finally. “Cool. No hospitals.”

And before Derek can ask him what he means, the kid’s eyes roll back into his head and he crumples like a discarded toy onto the pavement.

Laura beamed at him. The routine blood test, the one that everyone took on their sixteenth birthday, would confirm whether or not his sister was Alpha or Omega, but people usually had some sort of idea of their orientation anyway. “Alpha, I think,” she said, like that was some massive surprise. Nearly all the Hales were Alpha; only Derek’s father and his uncle Peter were the rarer, prized Omegas.

Derek pushed out his bottom lip. “It sucks that I have to wait another two years to find out,” he pouted.

“Aw, poor little Der-Bear,” Laura giggled, ducking away as he swatted her shoulder. “Don’t worry, Der, at least you find out before Cora.”

*

PART ONE – NINE YEARS LATER

It was Laura’s wedding day, and Derek was supposed to be happy for her. He was happy for her. Of course he was happy for her. She’d found her soulmate, her other half, the Omega that was meant for her like he’d been designed exactly to fit her, and after five years together, they were finally getting married.

He was happy for her. Like, at least 90%, to borrow a Friends quote. Maybe 85%, at a push.

It was just… watching Laura and Keith together… kind of sucked. In a big way. They fit so, so well together; that was the whole point. Keith was the perfect match for Laura. Apparently, when she’d met him, it was like the whole world exploded with fireworks. He was her Omega, and no matter what happened, they could never be anything less than perfect together.

That was the blessing of being Alpha and Omega. You could find your perfect match; you could use those heightened senses to discover your soulmate.

And that was the curse of being Beta. That you couldn’t.

Derek still flinched when he remembered his sixteenth birthday. He’d been so excited, so enthusiastic to find out what he would Present as. Unlike Laura, he’d had no real sense one way or the other. One the one hand, he’d always been shy, less dominant than his two sisters, so he thought he might be Omega – but on the other, he was, in Laura’s words ‘annoyingly headstrong’, so he could just as easily be Alpha.

He wanted that moment that Laura had described to him. He wanted to feel the world coming alive around him, to be able to sense the presence of his soulmate, to have heightened senses and raunchy exciting heats like everyone else. He’d seen it happen all around him; he wanted to feel it.

He’d waited, breath held in anticipation, for the results of the test. And they’d come, unmistakeable.

He wasn’t Alpha or Omega. He was a Beta.

Betas were incredibly rare; it was akin to being born with some sort of physical defect. A freak occurrence of biology. All the special extra senses that everyone else had were missing in him. He would never get to experience any of it.

He was just… ordinary.

He would never have a wedding like this.

“Hey, dude, watch out, massive tray of glasses coming through,” sang out a voice behind him, and Derek turned to see that yes, there was the most enormous tray covered in very precious-looking glassware being wielded by a skinny waiter wearing thick-rimmed glasses and a big smile. He jumped hastily out of the way, and the waiter put the tray down on the table behind him.

“Thank fuck,” the waiter said in relief. “Sorry, man.”

Derek lifted one shoulder and lowered it again awkwardly. “No problem.”

The waiter squinted at him. “Are you in the wedding party?”

“Bride’s brother,” Derek said.

“Cool,” the waiter said. He looked around the large reception room; there was a collection of waiters and waitresses laying the tables, putting out silverware and napkins and carrying in enormous table displays of peonies and lilies. “Looks like it’s going to be a good day.”

Silence fell, because Derek didn’t particularly feel like agreeing with that. It did look good – the flowers were elegant and beautiful, the tablecloths pristine, the cake – standing on its own table in the corner – absolutely stunning. He knew that once the ceremony actually started, he would be able to put down the morose jealousy that he was feeling and just concentrate on giving Laura the best day possible, but until then, he was giving himself license to be as grumpy as he wanted.

“I’m Stiles,” the waiter said. Derek turned in surprise; he hadn’t actually realised the guy was still there.

“What the hell is a Stiles?” he said before he could stop himself. The waiter – Stiles, apparently – snorted.

“Trust me, my real name is worse,” he said. He paused. “And you are…?”

“Oh,” Derek said awkwardly. “Derek. Derek Hale.”

“That was very James Bond of you,” Stiles observed. “Though if you were going to make it really authentic, you would have said, ‘Hale. Derek Hale’.” He chuckled lightly at his own joke; when Derek was a little late joining in, he said curiously: “No opinions on the Bond franchise?”

Derek shifted uncomfortably. “I liked Sean Connery,” he said, and then felt stupid for saying it. Social interaction had never come particularly easily to him.

Stiles, however, didn’t seem to have noticed his awkwardness. “Yeah, Connery’s the original,” he said easily. He grinned salaciously. “Daniel Craig, though…” He winked at Derek, which had the effect of completely flooring him.

It wasn’t like Derek had never had a relationship before. There’d been Paige, an Omega he’d dated on and off through high school, and Kate – but he wouldn’t think about Kate – and then a brief fling with Duke – an Alpha – at college. But it had never led to anything serious. How could it? They had their soulmates to find. Derek had no one. So now, faced with this lanky waiter that was, Derek was starting to realise, stupidly attractive, he found himself completely tongue-tied.

“Yeah, he was hot,” he managed to say, his voice wooden, and Stiles laughed like he’d said something hilarious. Which he hadn’t.

“Stiles!” a voice called from across the room; one of the waitresses, a pretty red-haired girl, was gesturing impatiently for him to get back to work.

“Coming!” he called. He looked at Derek. “Gotta go,” he said, and was it Derek’s imagination, or did he actually sound regretful about that? “Maybe I’ll see you later.”

“See you,” Derek said, too late, because Stiles was already gone.

*

FIRST INTERLUDE

Kate had always smiled at him at school, even when he and Paige were involved. She must have known he was Beta – everyone knew he was Beta – but she always acted like it didn’t matter. Like maybe she could like him anyway.

It was during one of his and Paige’s ‘off’ periods that she approached him. She was an Alpha, and it showed; she was confident, cocky really, marching around school tossing her beautiful blonde hair and smiling with those white, white teeth at him. She made excuses to touch him, stroked his chest, kissed his cheek. Touched his hair. For the first time since he’d found out his Presentation, he actually felt like someone could love him. Like he was worth something.

He lost his virginity to her in the back of Laura’s Camero, which thankfully was something she never found out about. She was pliant and soft in his arms, gasping his name, and afterwards they lay on the leather seats with their sweat sticking them together and their legs tangled up.

She told him he was special, that she cared about him.

And then she never spoke to him again.

He’d thought, at first, that it was some mistake. Perhaps she’d thought he was an Omega. Perhaps she’d mistaken him for her soulmate. Perhaps – his heart leapt at the idea – he really was her soulmate, but she wasn’t certain because of his Beta Presentation.

Then he heard her talking to her friend Julia behind the school. They were laughing as Kate recounted how she had slept with him. ‘Fun’, she called it. Just light-hearted fun. Something to pass the time. Julia snorted in amusement as Kate ruthlessly described how emotional he’d been afterwards, how she’d pretended that it meant something to her just to play with his poor inexperienced heart. Now, she said, she could cross ‘sleeping with a Beta’ off her bucket list.

He never knew if she meant him to hear or not. It didn’t matter. He just slipped away, trying to pretend that his heart wasn’t cracking into a thousand pieces, and he never, ever let himself get attached to anyone else ever again.

*

PART TWO – NOW

Derek was drunk. Drunk was nice. Drunk was comfortable. He could dance when he was drunk, and his limbs actually moved with some fluidity rather than looking as though he was being manoeuvred by a particularly unskilled puppeteer. He could talk to people when he was drunk.

Right now, he was talking to Stiles.

“No, no, no,” he said, probably too loudly, but he didn’t care. “It’s… what’s the word? Edgier! DC is edgier than Marvel. Everyone knows that.”

Stiles, although not drunk, was just as involved in the conversation. “Which one has the enormous movie franchise behind them? Which one has, like, eight TV shows and a billion movies?”

“DC has loads of stuff too!” Derek exclaimed, his hands waving around in the air. A little bit of wine slopped over the edge of his glass. “Arrow, and Supergirl, and Legends of Tomorrow…”

“None of which even compare to Jessica Jones,” Stiles argued. “And none of which have Chris fucking Evans, man, come on!”

“Ew, you have the hots for Evans?” Derek said in disgust. “If you’re going to pick someone, at least go for, like, Bucky Barnes.”

“Yeah, you like him?” Stiles said in amusement. He’d said he was on break, but they’d been talking for at least an hour and a half, so Derek was suspicious.

He nodded woozily. “Yeah, he’s all, like, cute,” he said. “He’s got cute eyes and a cute smile.” He paused, considering. “Like you!”

Stiles grinned at him. “Like me?”

Derek nodded firmly. “Yup.”

“Derek,” Stiles said, and then hesitated, biting his lower lip. He looked especially pretty when he was doing that. “Do you want to… I mean, would you like to go out? With me? Like, not here?”

And just like that, Derek felt like all the effects of the alcohol had been removed, like someone dropping a sledgehammer onto his chest. Carefully, he put his wine glass down.

It had been so nice to forget, just for a while.

“I can’t,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

“Shit,” Stiles said. “Did I totally misread this? I’m so sorry, dude. Are you straight? Are you with someone? Man, I’m a douchebag—”

“I’m not straight and I’m not with anyone,” Derek interrupted, because he had to put Stiles out of his misery. “It’s just… you’ve probably figured out that I’m Beta, and I – I’ve had enough of it.”

Stiles was looking closely at him. “Enough of what?”

“Of being the in-between guy,” Derek said honestly. “One day you’ll meet your soulmate, and that’s great, but I don’t want to be the guy that gets his heart broken when that happens.”

“Derek—” Stiles began, and then stopped. He took a breath. “Don’t you think the whole soulmate thing is a bit… antiquated?”

Derek blinked at him. “What?”

“I mean, I know it happens,” Stiles said hurriedly. “And I’m not, like, dissing anyone that finds someone that way. I mean, look at your sister. But don’t you ever think that, like… I mean, I don’t want to be with someone because some freaky otherworldly sense tells me I should be. I want to be with someone because that’s what I want.”

Now Derek was starting to feel annoyed. “It’s easy to say that when you actually get to choose,” he said angrily. “I don’t have that option. No one will ever want to be with me when their actual soulmate is out there somewhere. I’m a freak.”

“You’re not a freak,” Stiles said. “Just like I’m not a freak.”

“Of course you’re not a freak,” Derek said bitterly. “You’re normal. Fuck this, Stiles. I have to go.”

*

SECOND INTERLUDE

He could still remember the only other Beta he had ever met.

He’d been out having lunch with Laura, and she’d suddenly squeezed his arm and gestured frantically to the retreating back of the waitress who had just served them.

“She smells like you,” she’d hissed excitedly. “Derek, she’s Beta!”

He knew why she was so eager. His only chance of happiness would be with another Beta, with someone else like him. She was desperate for him to approach the waitress, to introduce himself, to fall in love the old-fashioned way.

He didn’t. It just felt too… pathetic. Settling for some girl that he didn’t even find particularly attractive, just because of her Presentation.

He never saw her again. And he never met another Beta.

*

PART THREE – NOW

Derek had never had a worse hangover in his entire fucking life. His head literally felt like it was being hammered by several thousand rocks; his throat was raw from throwing up multiple times in the night, and his whole body was shaky and exhausted.

“You’re a mess,” Cora told him, sounding extremely unimpressed, which was easy for her since she didn’t drink. She shook her head at him. “What even happened to you last night? I didn’t see you leave.”

“Felt sick,” Derek croaked, reaching out with a trembling hand for the glass of water by his bed. The glass was cool against his sweaty skin.

Cora laughed, very cruelly in Derek’s opinion. “I did see you talking to that cute waiter,” she said. “Want to tell me about him?”

“Not even slightly,” Derek said firmly. Cora grinned.

“Are you going to see him again?” she asked.

Derek struggled to sit up, sipping his water. “Of course not,” he said dismissively. “You know I can’t.”

She stared at him. “Why not?”

“I’m not dating anymore,” he told her. “I’m sick of waiting around for the people I date to find their soulmates. It’s too exhausting.”

It was Cora, so it wasn’t like he expected a lot of sympathy, but still it was a surprise when she said bluntly: “Well, that’s just pathetic.”

“What?” he said stupidly.

“It is!” she exclaimed. “He was cute, and he obviously liked you. Are you going to spend your whole life worrying about, like… biology… or are you going to just get out there and live it?”

Derek thought about it. “Fuck,” he said. “I’m an idiot.”

“Yeah,” Cora agreed fervently. “You really are.”

“Hey, Cor,” he said persuasively. “You think you could find the number for the catering company for me?”

*

THIRD INTERLUDE

“There are Alphas and Omegas who turn their backs on their soulmates and just fall in love,” Derek’s mother told him, which quite honestly sounded like exactly the kind of bullshit someone who would never have to worry about it would say. “Not everyone meets their soulmate. It is possible to find love, Derek.”

Derek didn’t believe a word of it. Paige had told him, regretfully, that she needed to focus on her studies now that they were all leaving for college; he knew that what she really meant was that she needed to focus on finding the person she was supposed to be with. “Lucky me,” he said to his mother. “I get to be someone’s consolation prize.”

“Derek,” Talia said firmly. “You are no one’s consolation prize.”

*

PART FOUR – NOW

There was an insistent knocking on Stiles’ front door, persisting even after several minutes of alternately ignoring and yelling at it. Finally, still grumbling under his breath, he swung out of bed and shuffled through the apartment to the hallway.

“What?” he snapped as he swung the door open. Only to stop talking abruptly, his mouth hanging open.

Standing in front of him was Derek, the incredibly cute Beta he’d spent all night talking at the wedding he’d worked, before he’d been firmly rejected on the basis of fucking biology.

“Hi,” Derek said awkwardly. Stiles had to stop himself from smiling; he found Derek’s social awkwardness ridiculously fucking endearing.

“Derek,” he said cautiously. “How… What are you doing here?”

Derek shifted nervously from one foot to another. “Your co-worker gave me your address,” he said. “Lydia. She also told me she’d kill me if I pulled another stunt like last night.”

“You should believe her,” Stiles told him.

“I do,” Derek assured him. There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Then Derek said: “I’ve been thinking about what you said.”

Stiles bit his lip. “Which part?”

“The part where you said you wanted to be with someone because it was what you wanted,” Derek said in a rush. “I thought… I’ve never had anyone want to be with me, Stiles.”

“I do,” Stiles said, which was probably way too much for, like, the second time they’d even met, but fuck it.

Derek didn’t seem to mind; he flashed a blindingly beautiful smile at Stiles. “Me too,” he said shyly. He ducked his head. “And I don’t… I don’t care if you’re Alpha, Omega, or anything in between. I just want to give this a shot.”

“Yeah?” Stiles said. Derek nodded. Stiles’ cynical mouth said: “I thought that meant you were a freak.”

“I’m not a freak,” Derek with certainty. He looked fucking… strong. And beautiful. Stiles grinned.

“So who are you?” he asked.

Derek gave him a crooked, lovely smile. He was blushing.