January Prompts 03

[inkandblade]

 

 

 

Derek looked at the denim jacket. It was all he’d be able to afford until his mom let him get a job after school, and he wasn’t allowed to do that until he was a junior at least.

 

Thrift shopping wasn’t something that wolves generally did, and he now understood why. He hadn’t realized just how strong the scent of that many stale second-hand items was going to be all in one place. He’d suffered through and found a jacket like the ones everyone was wearing at school, though. He was pretty proud of the buy, to be honest. He’d come in under budget, and with a brand name he recognized.

 

When he’d gotten home his first impulse had been to lay it out over the end of his bed, but it smelled of cigarettes and what he thought was probably beer. He’d figured the stink wouldn’t leech into the back of his wooden chair as much as it would his bedspread. He’d need to wash it before—

 

“Derek, what on earth is that smell?”

 

Before his Alpha mother got wind of it.

 

Damn.

 

She stuck her head around the corner of his room and Derek wanted to laugh at just how much she was wrinkling her nose, but he was probably doing it, too.

 

She looked at him, sniffed, looked at the jacket, sniffed, sneezed, and then — and Derek was a little shocked that he understood his mother’s thought processes this well — turned her face back to him as the meaning behind it dawned behind her eyes. She must have seen more of what happened after last week’s game than he’d reckoned.

 

“Oh, Derek. You don’t have to be like them, you know that, don’t you?

 

The seniors on the team had caught him making eyes at one of the omega-girls in the band. She was delicate and pale, and far, far too pretty to ever be interested in a whelp like him, and the older guys had made sure to make him understand that. They’d stood tall and puffed out their chests and showed him just what a real alpha should look like.

 

“I…” He wanted to tell her that he knew that he didn’t have to be like them, but he didn’t, not really. They were popular and handsome and all had gorgeous omegas or betas and being a bit like them couldn’t hurt, could it?

 

His mom stepped inside the door and sat next to him on his bed. “You are you, Der. You’re not them, and you don’t need to be them. You’re a Hale Wolf. In a year or two you’ll be stronger than most of them will ever hope to be. You’ll have more than your share of admirers, and they’ll be the ones wishing they were you.” She looked at the jacket again. “I presume you actually like it, or you wouldn’t be suffering through that odor.”

 

“It’s pretty cool.” He’d prefer a leather one, really, like his dad’s, or uncle Peter’s. But everyone liked denim, so… “Can I keep it?”

 

“As long as you wash thoroughly before you put it on again. You left a stink trail all through the house. For my sake, and the sake of everyone else, how about you go have a shower and I’ll put it and what you’re wearing in the machine right now?”

 

 

mirror (v): to mimic or imitate (something) accurately.

 

 

December January Prompts List/Series: AO3, Pillowfort, Dreamwidth