Chapter Text
“Good news, everyone!” Stiles Stilinski exclaimed, crashing through the heavy black wooden door at his usual sometime-after-ten-ish.
His boss and only occupant of the room, Derek Hale, barely raised his eyes from his laptop.
“That deli down the street from me closed! The one where the owner harassed me? I went by today; the lights were off and there was a big sign in the window saying it was for lease. Feel free to congratulate me, because obviously my one-star review paid off big time.”
“Fine work,” Derek said drily, switching his laptop display to his large set of monitors and turning away behind his huge dark cherry desk. “Since you’re undoubtedly aware that ninety percent of all new restaurants close within their first year, I’m sure you’re proud that you were a stronger influence than the current market trends.”
“Okay, well, that still leaves ten percent that make it, right? I can guarantee that ten percent probably aren’t actively harassing their customers.”
Derek allowed him a tip of his head in acknowledgement, but Stiles was getting himself worked up again.
“And especially male Omegas. Like, wow, you’ve literally just discovered the lowest hanging fruit, big man. You were definitely way ahead of every conservative bigot who can get his hands around the shaft of a microphone and – hell – an entire culture of toxic masculinity that makes us into walking jokes! You really broke through on finding a brand-new group of people to shit on! It was all brand-new information that I’m a pussy-ass twink, like, brand new!”
Derek had turned back to him and stood during his wildly gesticulating rant, circling around the desk to stand in front of him. “Stiles, his opinions are only a reflection on himself, not on you.”
Stiles made a dismissive groan.
“Uneducated Alphas can sometimes engage in cruel behaviors that they think make them appear powerful or strong, without even realizing that all they’re actually doing is actively weakening the healthy pack dynamics that could give them real strength.”
Ugh, this again. “Welp. I’m pretty sure the only education he needs is a baseball bat.”
“And it would be a well-deserved lesson,” Derek agreed. “But not the one that would make a difference. Just know that his opinion isn’t the majority’s, and one that only circulates in very small echo chambers that are only full of people who are too weak to lead on their own merit and think that putting down others is the way for them to raise themselves up. When he sensed that you were a strong, powerful, confident Omega, it made him angry because he is not those things. You are an incredible Omega, Stiles. You’re an incredible person. Don’t let him drag you down by giving him a second thought.”
Stiles chewed his lip as he examined his trainers for a moment, his face burning. That was basically the paradigm of their relationship. Long, harmonious periods of cool, calm, effective partnership, with a sudden, intense werewolf-life-lesson that validated Stiles’ sense of self-worth.
“Did you beat him up? Is that actually why he closed?”
“Don’t be crude. I bought the building, forced him to remove his advertising signage, raised the rent, and he went bankrupt,” he volleyed back deadpan, returning to the other side of his desk, mission complete. “It’s a deli; it happens all the time.”
Stiles smiled thinly at the attempt of a joke and returned to his office, which was really a large nook outside of Derek’s door. It was clear he’d been dismissed.
They worked in an area of the suite away from the rest of the humans on the team. Stiles interacted the most with the rest of the office staff out of the other people in his pod, but he’d heard within his first week that his area was called The Hall by the rest of the office.
He’d practically cringed inside out when he’d been told that. Of all the opportunities for puns with a whole hallway full of supernatural people? Just, “The Hall”? He may as well look at the cameras and practice his Jim Face. Such a waste.
Lydia had explained it succinctly on his first day. Clients either went one way or the other with Derek. Either clients just wanted a consultant and they worked with whatever team they were assigned, or they intentionally sought him out. Sometimes because they were supernatural themselves or had supernatural staff of their own, or because they wanted the prestige of working with a full-shift Alpha. Especially one as pedigreed as Alpha Hale, she’d added with a smug sort of triumph.
They were down to their core team of Derek and four Betas, but they’d previously employed a kitsunes and Steinadlers and others – “Not diversity hires,” Lydia had added emphatically – and he’d just missed a werebear, or Jägerbar if he were being proper, that had worked there as Derek’s equal for five years before he had emigrated to Europe and started his own consulting firm. No hard feelings, they wished him well, Derek still worked with him on occasion. But they would be hiring again in the spring.
Lydia Martin had been one of the company’s co-founders, along with her first husband who she’d married straight out of grad school. While she had never had any interest or experience in human resources or strategic consulting, she said that her ex-husband’s passion was infectious, and she jumped in with him. Stiles inferred that she was as brilliant at running a company as she was at literally everything else in her life.
She had explained that Derek’s role specialized in the resource management and allocations in mergers and acquisitions, but his experiences leant him to multiple scenarios they consulted on. Projects as small as helping companies clarify their vision or mission statements, or as significant as being a sitting company board member.
Stiles’ job, however, was really just a lot of continual, glorified scavenger hunting for information. But he loved it.
He also loved that flowers that always came like clockwork, the deliveries somehow aligned perfectly with the first days of Stiles’ heat cycle. Though his suppressants removed the embarrassing messiness, he still had to suffer through flu-like symptoms that just left him generally miserable. The flowers somehow helped brighten up the space, and although he still felt irritable and snappish, they helped a little. Heating pads helped more – he had four of them stashed in his desk. But the flowers were still nice.
Derek had never said where they’d come from, but based on how regularly they appeared, it must have been a long-standing delivery. At first, Stiles thought they came with the office, but he’d investigated the offices in the other hallways already and nobody else received regularly scheduled flowers in their spaces. Derek had never given them even a glance on his comings and goings, so he didn’t imagine they were from a romantic partner. His best guess was that they were from a grateful client who just made a standing order, like a flower club subscription. Those probably existed.
Stiles had asked directly, once, but Derek had only stared at him for a long moment and instead proceeded to ask him about a missing analytics report that, granted, he had actually forgotten was needed that day, but the subject died with that.
**
For more than half of his workdays, he would bring his laptop with him and sit in the stylish wingback chair in the corner, typing away quietly while Derek worked, or reading him interesting - and even occasionally pertinent - articles or reports. Occasionally, he just watched Derek’s screens while he worked, smoothly transitioning between proposal writing, emails, Slack, analytics, and their internal CRM as easy as breathing.
When he’d started, he’d been side-by-side in the nook with his predecessor, Joseph, but when the end of Joseph’s two weeks was up, Stiles had installed himself on the opposite side of Derek’s desk since he had questions about everything every two minutes. That had somehow felt indescribably awkward for no real apparent reason and wasn’t working for other of them, so they had tried the side of the desk, but Stiles was too in the way when Derek had to leave. After forcibly wheeling Stiles out of the way for the umpteenth time and interrupting Stiles’ work yet again, Derek had disappeared into the other side of the office building, clearly on a hunt.
He had come back with a maroon upholstered chair, removed a filing cabinet like it was the weight of a shoebox, and shoved the chair in its place. He had looked silently at Stiles with triumphant eyebrows and Stiles pretended his quivering heart hadn’t done a belly flop into the butterflies in his stomach, so he just shrugged. “That’ll do, I guess.”
Derek had grinned, and it was the first time Stiles realized how easily he smiled, like it had just been waiting to break through, closer to the surface than he’d ever imagined. His face looked better smiling than it did scowling, and Stiles was determined to make it happen as much as possible.
But, a harmonious and effective business partnership was not built on the ability to make his boss smile, so Stiles forced himself to settle for striving to make Derek marginally proud instead… which was a much more totally normal thing to expect from a grown-up job and much less problematic.
**
Derek looked up to the door before it swung open without warning. Lydia Martin walked in on needle-pointed blood red heels, the waves of her strawberry blond hair shaped around her head like a crown. She was wearing a pair of tailored navy pants with shiny buttons that went up to her ribcage and a silky white blouse that made her look like royalty.
Liam, her assistant, trailed after her. He was more of an actual assistant to Lydia than Stiles was to Derek; Liam also had the job of watching over an incredibly powerful Banshee that would occasionally enter a fugue state and wander off on some necessary, last-minute spiritual errand. His job ranged from getting her coffee, picking up her dry cleaning, or organizing a personal security detail when Lydia wasn’t at her condo when he went to pick her up in the morning. He was young but appeared competent and intent to prove himself. Thirsty, was always the word that came to Stiles’ mind. Which he felt was kind of like the word moist, and always kinda skeeved him out.
Lydia stopped short. “Derek, why did you put your Omega in the corner?”
“He helps me think.”
She glanced doubtfully at Stiles, her perfectly painted mouth twisting disapprovingly.
Derek closed his laptop, moving it aside to give Lydia his full attention.
“I feel like we should talk about this,” she said with a heavy sigh. “But honestly, I’m just too angry with you right now.”
Liam stepped past her shoulder, sliding a stack of papers on the desk.
“You will, of course, notice the lack of red pen. I cannot believe you actually gave me a final recommendation that required no red pen. This is unacceptable.”
Derek gave an amused noise, approximate to a laugh. “It looks like you’ve finally gotten through to me.”
“I never thought I’d live to see the day. It was flawless, beginning to end. Ship it to the Project Lead.”
“I’m going to give it to Reyes and Boyd to deliver.”
“Are you sure they’re ready for that?”
“No. But I don’t give them the chance, how will I ever know?”
A ghost of a smile flitted across her face, only just barely. “I’ll be expecting an action plan included in the sunset doc.”
“I would never imagine doing anything else. Have you eaten, or would you like to get lunch?”
“Liam.”
There was a furious tapping from behind her. “She’s booked today, but available Thursday for pitas. I’ll send the calendar invite.”
“Pitas. Thursday. How charmingly specific. I’ll look forward to it.”
Her eyes zeroed in on Stiles, who had been staying very purposefully still in the corner. He had been testing his theory that if he didn’t move, she wouldn’t see him, like a velociraptor.
“Be careful.”
Stiles didn’t know if she was talking to him or Derek, or even as HR or as a Banshee, so he just tried to activate his latent camouflage powers and blend in with the upholstery. Maybe he had been bitten by a radioactive chameleon recently without realizing? He wasn’t sure if it worked or not because Lydia just turned and stalked through his office with smart clicks of her heels, Liam padding silently after her.
“Want me to order you lunch, boss?”
“Anything but pitas.”
**
Lydia Martin was no less terrifying or beautiful after knowing her for as many months as Stiles had worked there. She had been the one to interview him for his job; his roommate, Scott McCall, had heard it from his gross moocher friend, Isaac Lahey, that their research assistant had found another position and given his notice, and did he know anyone? Stiles, after graduation, had found what could only loosely be called gainful employment as an overworked whipping boy at a marketing analytics firm, but he’d been dying on the low wages and long hours, and immediately threw his hat in the ring. He’d gotten a call the next day and called out sick to go to an interview the day following.
He was shown in by an amiable receptionist without having to wait, despite being ten minutes early. Lydia had been sitting in the small conference room, straight from the glossy pages of a fashion magazine. Derek sat on the other end of the table, wearing a gorgeous gray suit that had been tailored within millimeters of his body and moved with him as he stood to shake his hand in ways that should have been illegal. He sat down his legs open just enough to still be considered a gentleman, the image of cool, calm composure that Stiles could never even imagine himself remotely emulating and Stiles almost hated him for it. There was a heaviness to his brow that was balanced by a narrow, regal looking nose and a finely sculpted jaw.
His face was the perfect mask of false openness, like he’d crafted a face people would feel encouraged to talk to, to open up to, to seek his approval. Stiles realized he could see right through it. As they met each other’s gaze, something changed subtly in the lines around his mouth and Stiles knew Derek had seen something in his face as well.
Stiles darted his eyes away and resolved not to look directly at him again – and managed to last until just about three and a half seconds into the interview, when he suddenly snapped his head back up. “You’re Derek Hale!”
Lydia and Derek exchanged lightening quick, amused glances. She smirked. “Yes, we just covered that.”
“No, I mean… I’m from Beacon Hills…”
“Yes, we’re quite aware,” she said brusquely. “But I don’t imagine that will have much bearing on your qualifications.”
“Um. Yeah. No. Yeah. Sorry. Seeing someone from home just took me by surprise,” he clarified uselessly, attempting to settle and compose himself. Derek had remained silent and impassive through the exchange. Later, Stiles would be kicking himself, because he’d been in the same room with two people from Beacon Hills, and he’d just made himself look like a fucking walnut.
“Tell me about a time when you worked with anyone of a supernatural nature, and any challenges that posed to you,” Lydia said, drawing his attention back to the fact he was still in a job interview.
Stiles did his best to get himself back on track, but she had been ruthless. Stiles didn’t know if he loved her or hated her. At the end, he was ready to pack up what little tatters of his pride Lydia had left him and call it a wash when Derek stood and buttoned his jacket with a practiced ease that Stiles both admired and envied. Stiles scrambled abruptly to his feet like he’d been given a command. “When can you start?”
Lydia only gazed quietly from her seat at her coworker, bemused, and tapped the end of her pen on her mouth. Derek had pointedly ignored her.
“Tomorrow, in theory.” Stiles had seen his previous coworkers give notice, to be fired immediately. And it’s not like he had his own desk to be allowed to bring anything from home. He might have left half a jar of peanut butter he’d been eating with a spoon for lunches on a counter somewhere. “But I don’t have a car, so I guess I would need to figure out what the bus routes here are…”
“Unlock your phone for me.”
Perplexed, Stiles unlocked it and handed it over. He belatedly realized he’d essentially handed a stranger his entire life and he should have offered at least some token protest, but Derek seemed to be on a mission. He pulled out a wafer-thin wallet from his back pocket and glanced briefly at a matte black card before replacing it.
Derek Hale, a member of the family he’d grown up hearing and reading about in Beacon Hills and even in college as a leading character in the “it can happen anywhere” cautionary story of supernatural intolerance, handed his phone back after a moment, open to his Uber app. New payment details had been saved. “Ten, starting tomorrow.”
“And bring two forms of identification,” Lydia added, gathering up the notebook she’d been doodling strings of indecipherable numbers and symbols.
“Wait, how much is the salary?”
Derek paused, as if he hadn’t considered that important at all. “How much do you want?”
“Um. Fifty thousand a year?”
“For full time? You can easily start at seventy with your qualifications.”
“Then I want eighty thousand a year,” Stiles declared boldly.
“That’s better. Lydia will review our benefits package tomorrow and finalize your employment contract. I’ll see you after your onboarding, Mr. Stilinski.”
Stiles stood an extended his hand, a wide grin on his face. “I’ll see you then, Alpha Hale.”
Once he’d gotten home and exploded all over the walls, Scott had given him endless shit for getting hired to work for an Alpha. It had been good natured teasing though, and Stiles had brushed it off easily.
He would never admit to Scott about that little wistful feeling he kept buried way deep down, though. Nothing would ever be done with that little wist, it was just something he lived with.
Especially because he didn’t want an Alpha. He needed an equal. He especially didn’t want to be a conquest just to allow someone with arrogant delusions of power to be his conqueror. He didn’t want the love story that was set to dark, dramatic music, with twists and turns and big reveals.
Nothing about Alpha and Omega love stories were subtle. They were tragic once they were broken down, to one party or another. Someone had to give all of themselves while someone else had to take it, with no regard for emotional safety. Or someone had to be broken and someone had to fix them. These all-or-nothing romantic relationship models Hollywood gave him probably wouldn’t be able to sustain themselves after the credits.
Stiles wanted his love to creep into the smallest parts of his life. He wanted tiny moments - a thousand love stories that were each so small that someone else would miss them if they blinked, all piling on top of each other until his heart was full of them.
His love story was when someone kept track of how his favorite drinks changed with the seasons, and didn’t make fun of him when he got choked up every time he thought about that one episode of Nightvale, and waited patiently while he greeted every single dog he saw in public, and noticed when movies he was excited about were out in theaters. The moments Stiles wanted were in being taken seriously, even about ridiculous things, or saying he’d tried his best even if he’d sucked, or researching how much a vacation would cost to somewhere Stiles said he wanted to visit, even if they couldn’t afford it.
But he also thought he wouldn’t mind separating love and sex, and therein lay Stiles’ real problem with working with an Alpha. His dick did not make good decisions.
**
Waiting at the counter for his regular coffee run order to be filled, he turned to see a familiar face he hadn’t seen in a few months approaching from one side.
Joseph was balancing three trays of coffees but looked totally at ease with it. Sometimes Stiles couldn’t even manage one. “Oh, hey, Stiles! How are you? Are you still with Hale?”
“Yeah, still holding on there. Are you still with that tech firm?”
“I love it there. I’ve started doing database engineering. But I’m surprised you’ve stayed this long, it must be a new record for assistants, right?”
“With Derek? Honestly, this is one of the best jobs I’ve ever had.”
Joseph scrunched his face skeptically.
“I mean, right, you just Google things all day, get paid for reading news, and get to look at a crazy hot Alpha in a suit and tie? Hell, I’d do those things for free.”
He still looked concerned with Stiles’ mental state. “I do miss the salary. But I guess he just wasn’t my type,” he finally said with a measure of diplomacy.
“No? Not down with a little choke-me-Daddy?”
Joseph finally grinned and allowed him a good-natured laugh. “I think it was a little more scared-for-my-life for me, but I’m glad you’re happy, Stiles. Text me sometime; we should get drinks before Thanksgiving. My housemates would love to meet you.”
He brightened at the idea of a new social connection. “Yeah! Yeah, man, that’s awesome! Thanks!”
Joseph continued along, and Stiles was about to duck into the coffee shop, when he wheeled around, a thought suddenly striking him. “Who sends the flowers?” he yelled at Joseph’s retreating back.
Joseph turned around. “What flowers?” he called back.
Stiles stood frozen for a moment, too frustrated that he had been denied the closure he had gleefully been anticipating to form a reaction, until Joseph finally smiled, offered a tip of his chin in farewell, and continued down the street until his dark jacket was lost among the other pedestrians. His synapses finally started firing again but was no closer to figuring out the Case of the Mystery Bouquets.
Stiles was back in the building with the tray of four coffees and Meredith’s bag of gluten-free muffins quickly, mind still puzzling how he could trace the flowers to the source. He’d start visiting shops in the area that delivered starting with the closest and expanding out, seeing if any similar bouquets were being displayed in windows, and then figure out a way to extract information. Pausing his machinations to deliver coffees, he found Derek with Isaac Lahey and Vernon Boyd – who preferred to go by his last name, just Boyd, like a diva – in their shared open office space, but Erica Reyes was absent.
Isaac was idly whistling the opening credits song to Firefly, which Stiles only recognized because he was currently re-binging it for the hundredth time because he had no life, scrolling through a long spreadsheet on one of his double screens. Derek was leaning on Boyd’s desk, both of them reading something Stiles couldn’t make out and making unhappy noises. He distributed the cups to each of them until he was left with the largest one.
“Small conference room. She’s done with her call – you can go in,” Isaac offered brightly, ever helpful only as long as his Alpha was around to see it.
“Miss Basic Bitch Pumpkin Spice,” Boyd said with a curl of his lip.
“Mr. I Drink It Black Even Though I Hate It Because I Wanna Look Tough,” Isaac volleyed back.
“I am lactose intolerant!”
Derek watched Stiles through the exchange, sipping his Long Black, his eyebrows particularly content. Stiles blushed at the attention while Boyd and Isaac lobbed teasing insults back and forth. Derek gave him a wink and Stiles turned and hurried out, heart pounding loud in his ears. God, he still wasn’t used to that wink, even though he did it all the time. And it wasn’t anything special just for him, he’d definitely seen him wink at Lydia plenty of times. Once at Isaac last week. But Stiles wasn’t counting.
He was totally fucking counting.
Erica was indeed in the small conference room. He peeked through the thin glass casement beside the door to see her back to him, conference headset on the table beside her. He knocked twice and pushed the door open.
She jumped up, spinning around with a growl. Her eyes flashed an intense, clear yellow, her fangs exposed as she crouched threateningly, hands splayed and claws out.
“Shit! Fuck!” Stiles exclaimed, staggering back. “What the balls, Erica?”
Erica’s eyes flickered past him, and Stiles spun to see Derek standing behind him, one hand holding his coffee and the other in his trouser pocket. He was gazing evenly at Erica, his jaw set and his eyebrows raised as if waiting for a response to a question.
Erica returned to her human form easily, lip still curled in a snarl.
Derek moved past Stiles and took the pumpkin spice coffee from the holder. He handed it to Erica, who glared at it for a moment before begrudgingly taking it. “Thanks, Stiles,” she ground out, eyes still on Derek.
Derek loomed over his Beta for a long moment, then leaned in and pressed his forehead against hers. She closed her eyes and sighed, but her forehead was still furrowed in anger. Derek leaned closer and rubbed his cheek down her neck, scent marking her. Stiles watched awkwardly, unsure if it was ruder to leave or stay.
When Derek straightened, he turned sharply on his heel and didn’t spare Erica another glance. He indicated with a nod for Stiles to precede him down the hall, back to his office. Stiles hightailed it as quickly as he could without appearing to be race-walking.
“What the hell was that?” he demanded in a whisper once they were in their connected office space.
“Erica has been having some trouble adjusting to some hierarchal changes in the pack,” he replied with an almost imperceptible shrug. “She’s a bit on edge. Where’s your coffee?”
“Oh. Um. I don’t like to manage more than a tray at a time. But I didn’t really want any.”
Derek nodded. “Do you have your next priorities clarified for the next few hours?”
“For the whole rest of the day, boss,” he confirmed proudly.
“Very good.”
Stiles would have preened under the simple praise in most circumstances, but he was still rattled from Erica’s outburst. Instead, he just smiled thinly and went back to his desk to turn the ringer back on his phone. No voicemails.
Derek had disappeared, as if escorting Stiles back to his desk had been his only necessary task. Stiles put on his earbuds and set to work.
An hour into his obscure OSHA procedural research, an orange paper cup was placed on his desk. He startled, yanking out his earbuds by habit as he looked up. Derek was retreating into his office, the smell of espresso still lingering on his jacket.
Hale was scrawled on the side of the cup. Stiles curled his hands around it and drew it close, turning the name towards himself and holding it as if it were precious, tiny treasure. Whatever it was, it smelled like chocolate and caramel. He took a long inhale through his nose and repeated to himself that this was a conscientious boss thing, not an Alpha thing. Definitely no way it could be an Alpha thing.
And even if it was, he wasn’t that kind of Omega, and Derek knew it.