January Prompts 07

[inkandblade]

 

“It’s time to step up your game, and I have just the thing.”

 

Derek looked at Coach, then at the dish on the counter and hoped he didn’t appear too absurd in his reaction; he likely looked like some kind of demented cartoon-owl, blinking at the very ordinary looking chocolate cake-thing on the plate in front of him.

 

“Step up my…”

 

It didn’t look like a step-up, and if it was anyone else making the statement he’d feel the need to correct their use of the word ‘game’. It was Coach, however, so. Yeah.

 

Every morning for the past week on his way home — the change to night-shift had been an unexpected boon — Derek had been delivering the Coach’s (very attractive omega) “IT guy” a plate of something tasty and a decaf-coffee. Coach had insisted on Derek’s assistance last Monday, loudly, and Derek had decided that not taking advantage of the very obviously manufactured situation would be absurd. Especially if Coach was actually fae and took some kind of offense to have a gift of sorts refused.

 

Derek breathed in and looked at the plain, round, brown cake and wondered just how it was going to advance his situation in any way whatsoever. It wasn’t ask if he’d been doing much with the chance on his own. Despite being offered a daily chance to interact with the intriguing omega, Derek had yet to even learn the guy’s name.

 

On Tuesday the omega smiled at him for the first time and Derek had almost dropped the coffee he was delivering. On Thursday Derek had managed to tell the guy to have a great day without tripping over his tongue. Yesterday, when presented with an apparently new addition to the curried-pumpkin-pastry offerings Grind Goal now specialized in, the omega’s eyes had gone wide and his long fingers had wrapped around the pie-thing and he’d moaned as he chewed his first bite.

 

Derek had stood stock-still, trying not to breathe in the scent of the young man’s overwhelming contentment and fighting the feeling of fangs beginning to poke through his gums — the omega already had an underlying spice of fecundity and slick surrounding him, and a slight roundness to his face that belied the common belief that suppressants quelled every heat behavior. It was all that Derek could do to stop himself from howling in pride: he was providing heat-favors to an accepting and obviously fertile omega, and the primitive alpha Wolf in him wanted everyone to know.

 

The sensible modern deputy in him, out of uniform or not, had managed to push down the need.

 

Just.

 

Today, faced with what looked like the most bland cake on the planet, the peacock-half of Derek’s brain was, well, disappointed. It didn’t look like a step in the impressive direction.

 

When he looked at the cake again and then up at Coach and opened his mouth to ask...

 

“This is it, Hale. You’re gonna wow his little omega-socks off!”

 

Derek hadn’t yet spoken to his Alpha mother on the topic of Coach’s blood heritage, but as he picked up the boring-cake and coffee and felt his eyes shine red and his chest puff out, all apparently without him making the decision to show of his designation or physical prowess, he decided he’d make it the first question out of his mouth the next time he saw her.

 

The omega looked up and smiled at Derek’s approach, and sat up a little straighter when he saw the day’s offering. He pushed a button on his laptop then closed it, pushing it away to leave space for the plate and mug.

 

His voice was as rich as his scent.

 

“It’s a bit early in the day for something sweet, but I’ve got a bit of a craving this morning, and besides— ” he reached out and lifted the cake with both hands moments after Derek put it on the table, “— I would never say no to one of Coach’s surprise-bombs.”

 

Then he broke the cake in half and blinked gasped at the same time as Derek at what dropped onto the plate beneath it.

 

The courting-coin was embellished with the Hale mark, and shockingly shiny considering it had been baked inside a fudgy looking chocolate cake, especially if you considered the metal's probable age. It looked remarkably like the coin Derek knew his great, great, great grand-alpha had presented to her beau back when such things were still commonly done.

 

That disc was in his mother’s safe at home though, as far as he knew.

 

He wanted to turn it over and see if it had the familiar message on the back — When this you see, pray think of me — but even he knew that it wasn’t his place to pick it up.

 

Derek looked up and realized he should be saying something, and tried to remember the lines from every period-drama Cora and their father had made him suffer through as a teen.

 

“Would you do me the honor of,” he swallowed and hoped that the tiny curl in the omega’s lip was the start of a smile, not a reprimand, “accepting this as a, um.” Coach coughed behind him and it sounded remarkably like token . “As a token of my intention to court you?”

 

The omega squinted over Derek’s shoulder at Coach, and apparently decided to leave that conversation for another time. He shifted a little in the seat and put the pieces of cake back on the plate, but stopped short of actually picking up the disc.

 

His hand hovered as he spoke. “Would you do me the honor of your name before I accept?”

 

The curve to his lips was definitely a smile, and Derek let out a sharp breath.

 

“Alpha Derek Hale, though I’m most often called Deputy Hale these days. And you—”

 

“Deputy?”

 

“Yes?” There was a change in the omega's scent. It was sharper, more forceful, but it wasn't unpleasant.

 

Long fingers twitched and then slipped the token off the plate and held on tight as he stood. “My given name is a monstrosity that your tongue with thank me for not sharing. I get called Stiles, which comes from my father’s surname.” He reached out with the other hand and said, “Omega Stiles Stilinski.”

 

Derek shook the man’s hand, torn between the feeling of their skin against each other for the first time and considering that he was eventually going to have to admit to his sisters that he’d been pining after his boss’ son. 

 

bauble (n): a small, showy trinket, little trinket  (prompt fail, but word-count win)

 

 

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