Archive of Our Own

Now, their relationship wasn't what he'd secretly hoped and dreamed of when he was a kid after his mom gave him the "Omega Talk". His parents were both Betas, but they'd done their best to prepare him for what was to come. Traditionally, Alpha couples or triads should have started offering him courting gifts when he came of age, should have been lining up down the block for a chance to show off their nests. Another Omega in his class, Kristine, had started getting offers the day she turned eighteen, and his dad had been called out a couple of times to settle disputes between Alpha nests. She took her time choosing but was seriously courting an Alpha couple by the time they graduated. A couple other Omegas he knew had gone through similar experiences. Seeing what it was going to be like, he'd been excited for the chance. He'd dreamed of cozy nests and children, Alphas that wanted to dote on him and show him off. He'd dreamed that Lydia Martin would realize that he was honestly a perfect complement to her intellect, would tell Alpha Jackass Whittemore, rich werewolf douche extraordinaire, to take a hike, find another pretty Alpha or two to make up her nest, and make an offer.

Instead, zilch. Nada. Nothing.

Well, it took time, right? Not everyone knew when his birthday was. So he registered at the Omega Clinic for the matching service they offered and sent in updated scent samples four times a year; an update would go out to Alphas with proper nests to let them know there was an available Omega.

Still, nothing.

He gave it more time, still pair-bonded with Scott so he didn't have to go through heats alone. Scott was amicable about it all. Truthfully, he wasn't likely to get many offers from other Alphas to form a nest; being asthmatic wasn't the worst thing an Alpha could be, but it certainly lowered his prospects. And unless Scott wanted to petition for the Bite from the local werewolf pack, his prospects weren't going to increase. Alpha instincts were hardwired to seek out the strongest and healthiest of fellow Alphas to form a nest; a throwback instinct to ensure they could protect the Omega they would bring back to the nest.

But eventually, after no prospects for either of them, they both just stopped worrying about it and stayed together. Helping with his heats evolved into "well I guess we're together now", which then evolved into "well we might as well stay together now," which then evolved into "well I guess we should move across the country together now." It just happened, but it was so easy, so they just kept on being together. Feelings happened, and Stiles started to think that maybe the reason he hadn't had any offers was because he already had the Alpha for him all along. And when Stiles got a job-offer in New York right after school, Scott went with him. 

It was all very domestic. Stiles worked IT, and Scott was a vet tech, and they shared a tiny one-bedroom apartment. They had date-nights. They talked about having kids. They talked about maybe getting married. They never talked about the fact they were only pair-bonded; it was a non-issue, because they were together regardless. They didn't really need another Alpha to close the bond officially. They had each other, and that's what mattered.

And yeah, people warned him. Statistically speaking, Stiles was unlikely to ever conceive naturally; Omegas had higher chances of pregnancy in a nest, with a closed bond, not a pair-bond. But having kids wasn't the be-all end-all for him and Scott, though it would have been nice. Stiles wasn't a super-traditional Omega by any means, but in the back of his mind he'd always wanted one or two little ankle-biters to pass on his famous Stilinski sarcasm to.

And Omegas stayed in pair-bonds with Alphas all the time these days! No one except really hard-core traditionalists preached about Omegas "doing their duty by their nest" anymore. It wasn't a big deal, really.

He and Scott were fine. 

They were FINE.

Then Isaac happened.

Isaac Lahey, with his angelic curls and sweet face, was a beta-werewolf from upstate New York, an Alpha by designation, and he bumped into Scott on the train. Scott invited him to hang out, being the big happy dope that he was, and suddenly Stiles and Scott became Stiles, Scott, and Isaac.

But Isaac... well, he wasn't exactly subtle about the fact he did not like Stiles or his scent.

Stiles tried to get along with him because this was Scott's new friend, and he made every effort to be inviting. But Isaac either stonewalled his efforts or flat-out ignored him. His nose- so much more sensitive as a werewolf- wrinkled up every time he came by and Stiles opened the door. He was nice if Scott was there, but he never hesitated to roll his eyes and make snippy comments to Stiles as soon as Scott's back was turned. Usually to call him out on being a spaz and to say he smelled gross.

Whatever, he'd dealt with worse comments from Jackson back in high school.

It didn't keep him from the constant anxiety that he wasn't washing well enough or that he forgot to put on deodorant. He'd been told since he presented that he didn't have the "sweet springtime scent" of a proper Omega. Probably the kindest comment he'd ever had from an Alpha was that his scent was very "strong." 

He did have a kind of heart-to-heart with Scott. Wherein Scott admitted that he really liked Isaac and thought he might like to form a nest with the werewolf.

Stiles complained that he wasn't sure if Isaac was right for them and Scott just smiled that dopey smile and said, "Don't worry about it Stiles! I'm sure we'll work it out!"

And they did try, okay? Well, Stiles tried. Scott seemed oblivious to the stress it was putting on Stiles, and that Isaac was being increasingly belligerent to Stiles and sweet to Scott.

It came to a head, finally, when Stiles decided to confront Scott about it all.

Or rather, Scott convinced Stiles to let Isaac join them for his next heat.

It's just... Scott brought out the puppy-dog eyes, lethal to Stiles' sensibilities. Stiles had been determined to put his foot down and ask Scott to stop bringing Isaac around as much, to point out that Isaac didn't even like Stiles, and somehow... Somehow Stiles agreed to Isaac joining them for his heat.

It was an unmitigated disaster.

Stiles had already been waiting hours for Scott to get home, and his heat was in full-swing when he heard the apartment door open. He whimpered from his poorly-constructed blanket nest; Scott was supposed to have started on the nest the night before for Stiles' pre-heat comfort, but he hadn't. It wasn't the first time he'd forgotten. But it was kind of an old-fashioned thing and it wasn't really the most important aspect of a shared heat, so Stiles usually let it slide.

Scott was smiling as he came in, completely oblivious to Stiles' distress, and he started stripping. 

Isaac's face when he entered the room was... well, to say Stiles felt humiliated was just the tip of the iceberg. Isaac's entire face screwed up and he backtracked out of the room so fast Stiles swore he could see an Isaac-shaped dust cloud left behind. Gagging noises followed him, and then, "Jesus Christ he smells like hot garbage!" came soon after.

Scott ran after him, leaving Stiles alone the bed, his heat starting to kick into full gear and his heart starting to ache.

Scott didn't come back for almost four hours, and Stiles was sobbing on the bed because the heat fucking hurt. When he did come back, what followed was some of the worst heatsex he'd ever had with Scott. It barely settled him or his heat, and at the end of the two days, he locked himself into the bathroom to cry while Scott went off to find Isaac again.

So really, in the end, he may have been surprised by how long they lasted, but he wasn't at all surprised they ended. It just took much longer than anticipated.

He finds himself standing outside the little mom-and-pop Italian place within walking distance of his and Scott's apartment, staring in the window at the little two-person table they always shared during date-nights. Scott is sitting on his usual side. Isaac is sitting on Stiles' usual side. They are intimately close, smiling at each other, holding each others hand.

When they go in for a kiss, Stiles walks away and heads back to the apartment.

Scott doesn't come home that night, is gone til late the next morning. Stiles has already packed up all of his belongings into his Jeep, applied to do his job remotely, and called his dad to ask if it's okay for him to move back home to Beacon Hills.

When he walks in the door and sees that the apartment is half-empty, Scott doesn't argue, just says he's sorry and wishes Stiles the best.

Altogether, it's very anticlimactic.

***

Beacon Hills is incredibly different and yet exactly the same as when he left.

He's only lived in New York for a couple of years, and he's been back for the holidays since moving, but it feels different.

His dad comes out onto the front porch as he pulls into the driveway, and as soon as Stiles has the Jeep in park, he's out of it like a shot and running for his dad's outstretched arms.

The calm scent of betafatherhome is like an immediate balm to him. His nose isn't as strong as an Alpha's or a werewolf's, but not being far removed from his last heat, he can pick up a lot more than usual. He wallows in it a bit longer than he normally would before letting his dad go.

"C'mon, kiddo. Let's get your stuff in the house."

And that's that.

***

He's been back home for around eight months now, and Stiles feels absolutely wrung out. 

His whole body is sore, his head aches constantly, and he can't ever get warm enough even in the middle of summer. He's taken to wearing a bunch of layered shirts with one of his dad's old police department hoodies, plus some sweatpants, making him look like some kind of sad hobo. His periods have been out of whack and the last one had been hell to go through. And he feels like he's been completely hungover for the last week or so.

Oh and he hasn't had a single heat since. Which is concerning because since his early heats leveled out, they've been like clockwork, every three months. By now he should have had at least two heats.

Logically, he knows a lot of the physical symptoms are probably because his last heat was so miserable and unsatisfying. Omegan biology is a tricky thing; they can absolutely go without a partner for heat and wait it out, or appease it with toys, but if there's an Alpha present the pheromones they release need to be just right or the heat won't break, with or without sex. And when an Omega has a long-term partner, their body expects that partner to be present. But at most he should have been feeling like crap for a couple of days, maybe his heat would have been a few days or even a few weeks late, and then he'd be back to normal. He has an appointment at the Omega clinic in the afternoon to get to the bottom of things.

But first, he's gotta take the Jeep in to get it looked over. It's been making a weird clunking noise that he doesn't think ducktape is going to fix. It's super-annoying, but he's just glad it wasn't making this noise on his cross-country jaunt when he was moving back to Beacon Hills. Even as he thinks about it, another clunk thumps out and make it hard to shift as he heads down Jefferson to Hale Auto Body.

He's never been there before; it opened after he moved to New York, but his dad says the department uses them almost exclusively now. When Stiles said he needed to get the Jeep looked at, his dad recommended it immediately.

Making a face at himself in the rear view mirror, he wills Roscoe to make it just a few... more... blooooooocks...

The Jeep just barely makes it into to parking lot before it gives a few mighty clunks and just dies.

"Ugh," he grumbles. "Skin of my teeth, I swear."

He has a feeling this is going to be very expensive.

***

Derek Hale is buried under the hood of a Honda Civic when he hears the horrendous clunking of an engine, pulling up into the parking lot, moments before it sputters and dies.

He doesn't think much about it, just continues pulling out the busted water pump and mentally going through the steps to replace it when the most... interesting scent wafts through the door to the office.

Parsing the scent takes him a moment because it's layered under the smells of medication, distress, and faded Alpha pheromones. Definitely an Omega's scent. It's rich and earthy, with a hint of ozone or petrichor. There's a spice to it that reminds him a bit of some of the magic-users he's met in his life. It's a smell that can be off-putting if you don't know what it is, and were he a bitten wolf he might not have given the scent a second thought.

But he's a born wolf, and has been using his nose to figure people out his entire life. And what might smell "bad" to a human or a bitten wolf smells objectively "good" to him. The very core of his werewolf nature is perked up with interest.

Setting down his tools, he grabs an oil rag to give his hands a cursory wipe-down before making his way to the office, following the scent.

He hasn't smelled anything this intriguing since high school, since Paige and... He cuts the thought off, not wanting to mentally go down that road. 

Cora is at the front desk taking down the details of a person that looks like they're dressed for an 8 AM class in the dead of winter in Chicago; lots of layers and some very faded black sweatpants. From the back, he sees brown hair and a long pale neck disappearing into an old gray BHPD hoodie. As he gets closer he can see a few moles that he has an inexplicable urge to taste.

Their scent is easier to parse the closer he gets. Male Omega. The stench of distress is much more layered; leftover heat hormones, sadness, hurt. Did he have a bad heat? That might explain the hint of Alpha pheromones he can still detect.

Peter could probably do a better job analyzing the scents.

"I'll have Derek take a look at it in a few minutes, but I don't think we'll be able to get it fixed by this afternoon," Cora is saying as he walks up.

"Yeah, I figured," the young man replies. "And I'm pretty sure it gave up the ghost as I pulled onto the lot." His voice is a little deeper than Derek would have expected, but it's... it's nice.

"What's wrong with your car?" Derek asks once he's directly behind the other man. He lets out the tiniest huff of laughter when he jumps and spins, but his humor dies a quick death when he sees the man's face.

Bright amber eyes- almost beta-wolf gold in the light-, more of those tempting moles, and a cute upturned nose set over very kissable lips. His dark brown hair is kind of wild from this angle, like he spends a lot of time running his hands through it, or like he just rolled out of bed.

He's so damn pretty.

But he also looks and smells incredibly tired. He has dark circles under his eyes, made darker by how pale his skin is, and he's hunched up under his oversized hoodie. Derek has to hold back a small whine and the urge to wrap the other man up in a dozen blankets and curl himself around him. The distressed scent kicks up a notch.

Derek realized he might be doing his Murder Face- thanks Cora- so he takes a tiny step back and lowers his shoulders to try and soften his stance.

"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you," he offers, keeping his voice soft and even. "What's wrong with your car?"

"Ummm, it's my Jeep. It's been making an awful clunking noise since last Tuesday. Makes it hard to shift." He waves a hand at the open door and Derek looks out to the lot were a robin's egg blue Jeep sits, looking like it's definitely seen better days. He feels like he's seen that Jeep before, but he can't place where. "It died as I pulled on the lot."

"Let's go take a look," Derek says. He keeps his distance, trying not to loom, and let's the other man lead the way to the Jeep. "I'm Derek."

"Stiles."

The name throws him for a bit. 'Stiles' is... different. "Nickname?"

"My real name is a Polish monstrosity that I can barely pronounce, so yeah, nickname." Stiles' tone is mildly defensive; Derek wonders if he's gotten crap for his name in the past, so he drops it. 

Stiles reaches the Jeep first and opens the door so he can pop the hood. A breeze blows through and brings with it years of built-up scents. Stiles must have owned the Jeep for years, because the heavy layers of smell speak of him sitting in the seat every day. There's also the more recent scents of heat and misery and faded Alpha pheromones.

Then the hood is popped and Derek gets a look at something that defies all possible logic.

"What."

"Was that a question, dude? Normally questions end with question-mark-type sounds."

Derek takes in the engine- holy shit, that is a lot of duct tape- and then turns to the Omega.

"How did you even manage to drive this thing here?"

"The normal way you drive a car?" Derek can tell he's not lying but he still can't believe it.

"The engine is ninety percent duct tape."

"About five percent zip-ties and super glue in there, too."

"Look, there is no possible way you could have been able to drive this Jeep anywhere today."

Stiles flails. "And yet! Here I stand, having driven it!"

Derek points at the engine. "You don't have a battery."

"I don't have a bat-" Stiles starts to snark, but he cuts himself off as he looks where Derek is pointing.

Where the battery should sit is a conspicuously empty slot.

"I don't have a battery," he says, dumbfounded.

They both stare at the engine now, lost in a companionable silence of not knowing what the hell they should so about something so ridiculous.

"This is going to be so fucking expensive, isn't it," Stiles finally offers, dry and disappointed. Misery colors his scent and Derek... Derek has never really been good with comforting people. So he goes with the truth.

"Probably." He doesn't say that it would also probably be better if he just bought a whole new vehicle. Some instinct tells him Stiles is attached to the hunk of junk, and he's learned over the years that upsetting an Omega whose scent is so captivating to you is not  a good idea.

"Ugh... Can you... Can you like, quote me a price or something? I need to compare it and see if it's even gonna be worth it or if... if I need to just scrap ol' Roscoe here."

Derek nods. "I'll need a couple of days. I'll see if I can price some good refurbished parts to save costs, and I'll try to get you something written up soon."

Stiles just nods. "Think you'll be able to find pricing for an invisible battery? I hear those are rare these days." The comment is dry as a dessert with just a hint of hysteria, and Derek huffs out a small laugh.

"Might have to call in a few favors for that one."

"Oh man, favors, that's gonna be extra expensive, isn't it?"

"I'll try not to pad the bill too much."

They both break off into quiet chuckles.

Stiles eventually shuts the hood and they make their way back to the office.

"I've got a loaner car in the back. It's nothing fancy, but it can get you from point A to point B while we figure out your Jeep." Derek doesn't mention that they usually only offer the loaner to customers who are actually having work done and not someone just getting a quote for repairs that are probably never going to happen.

But Cora overhears him and gives him a look that makes the tips of his ears heat up. He gives a curt shake of his head to her and she smirks. She really needs to stop hanging out with Peter.

"Dude, that would be amazing. I don't want to have to bug my dad to cart me around." There's just a hint of pleasedgratefulhappy that sparks in Stiles' scent and he can't help taking a huge lungful of it before it fades back into the tiredannoyedstressed that Derek wishes he could erase.

If he were suave like Peter or confident and self-assured like Chris, maybe he would take a chance and try keeping up a conversation with Stiles, would be brave enough to ask for his number. But it's not his place in the nest to consider approaching an Omega; for all that they like to bend the accepted rules of behavior for an Alpha nest, there are some instincts he just can't go against, as much as he would like.

But as it is, he is neither suave nor self-assured enough to do more than nod back and hand him off to Cora to get the details, suddenly feeling absolutely overwhelmed with the need to reach out and pull Stiles into his arms, which he is certain would only end poorly. 

He escapes back to the bay where the Honda Civic sits and tries to pretend he's not listening in on Stiles giving Cora all his details, tries extra hard not to memorize the phone number he rattles out to her, and tries extra especially hard not to go back into the office and then follow Stiles out the door to the loaner car to make sure he's comfortable and that it suits his needs and...

"You look like someone's taken away your favorite bunny carcass."

He jumps, actually jumps, when Cora comes up behind him where he stands at the open bay door, watching Stiles drive away.

"I wasn't staring at him," he says quickly, because his brain has gone offline.

"I mean, I didn't say you were," she says while smirking in that infuriating way she learned from Peter, "but now that you've admitted it, I'm not letting it go."

He feels his ears heating up and he growls as he stomps his way back to the Civic.

He ignores Cora under the pretense of continuing his work on the water pump.

She allows it for a few moments. 

Then, "I went to school with him."

He pretends not to listen.

"He was kind of a spaz, too smart for his own good. Kind of an asshole sometimes, too."

He tries really hard not to listen.

"Always hung out with some loser named McCall. I think maybe they pair-bonded."

He couldn't contain his growl at the thought of an Alpha not in his nest even thinking of-

Derek bites back the sound, though, when he catches the smug look on Cora's face.

"I can't wait to tell Peter," she says.

He groans. "It's nothing, Cora. He's not interested."

"But you want him to be!"

"Peter and Chris probably wouldn't like him." Actually they probable would, but he's not going to tell her that.

"Oh, I don't know about that. Peter loves a challenge and Chris likes them pretty." Cora bumps her shoulder against his and leans into the car with him. "You could do way worse than Stilinski."

Derek sighs, looks at his little sister, and bumps her shoulder back.

***

As Stiles pulls into the parking lot of the Omega clinic, he can't get the Alpha mechanic... Derek... out of his head.

The demise of Roscoe- and the mysterious lack of a battery- should have been front-and-center to his brain, but all he could think about was gorgeous green eyes and a scruffy face and the very calming smell of an Alpha who was much too pretty to be anywhere on Stiles' radar. Tall, dark, and handsome, almost intimidatingly attractive. Definitely someone Stiles would have been obsessed with in high school. And while he'd definitely smelled mostly like engine grease, his underlying scent had been very... nice. 

Way better than nice, honestly.

He was in no way ready to even think about another Alpha, but, ugh, he'd wanted so badly to tilt his neck and see what Derek's reaction would have been.

Which is stupid, because he knows there's no way the Alpha would be interested.

For one, Derek is a Hale, a werewolf, and he's never had good luck with werewolves liking his scent.

For two, he's pretty certain that Derek is in a nest; there was a certain calm assurance about him that said he had at least one other Alpha with him that balance him out, something that young un-nested Alphas (Scott) lacked. And even if for some reason Derek could get past Stiles' scent, there was no possible way anyone else in his nest would.

Stiles was not an Omega that more than one Alpha could tolerate, after all.

And really, the Hales were like way out of his league, and anyone in a nest with a Hale was, by default, also out of his league.

Mood soured, he walks into the clinic.

An hour later, he's even more exhausted than when we walked in.

"Your symptoms are classic for a broken bond," Dr. Fonner says, tapping through the notes she's made on her tablet. She is an older Omega, with blond hair going grey and warm brown eyes. Since he walked in, she's been nothing but kind and professional. "Even though it was only a pair-bond, the length of time you spent with your single Alpha was enough that your hormones were tricked into thinking it was permanent." She gives him a sympathetic look. "Coupled with your last heat being... less than ideal, I'm afraid things are going to get worse before they get better."

Stiles swallows hard. "Define 'worse'."

"You've got the symptoms for an upcoming heat, which is going to restart your cycle. You might even have one or two mini-heats after it as your hormones try to level out. And your heat-symptoms might be, quite honestly, excruciating."

He groans. "So, basically hell?"

She nods. "Basically." 

"So what can I do?"

She starts writing on his chart. "I'm going to recommend a couple of things and we'll start with whichever your most comfortable with, but I will give you my honest opinion of each."

"Give it to me straight, Doc."

Dr. Fonner smiles. "First off, there's always a prescription for Synthetic Alpha Pheromone Therapy. Concentrated in pill-form, and you take regular doses leading up to your heat."

"I'm sensing this isn't your top choice for me."

"Not really. It's a common practice, but the side effects, quite honestly, suck. Lots of nausea, headaches, heavy periods, and it can take a while to find the right combination of Pheromones that are going to work for you. Since your next heat isn't too far off, we might not have enough time to find the right combo for you."

"Gotchya."

"Next up, we have the option of suppressants; one shot and we'd basically completely knock out your cycle for a year, give you a blank slate for your hormones to rework themselves. I saw in your medical history you've never been on them?"

Stiles shakes his head. "I didn't really see the need to? I was pair-bonded so it didn't seem necessary."

She nods. "That happens. The biggest problem with the suppressants is that going back onto your cycle is basically what you're already going through now; it essentially just puts it off til a later date. It does give you time to plan, but your first heat will most likely be hard. Unless you join a nest by that point, which can lessen the effects considerably. "

He shrugs. "I'm not really looking for Alphas right now, so I don't see that helping."

"Which brings me to your third option, which I don't think you'll like based on that comment and your history."

"I'm guessing it involves Alphas."

Dr. Fonner nods and pulls a small brochure from her pocket. "The easiest and most effective way to ease your symptoms would be to register for emergency heat-assistance. We have quite a few Alphas in our registry that are on-call to help Omegas that don't have a pair-bond or a mate-bond. Intercourse is entirely optional; most of the Alphas are just there to offer their pheromones and comfort. A good medically prescribed cuddle." She hands him the brochure. "It would be the least painful way for you to reset your cycle."

Stiles swallows down bile at the thought. "Alphas don't really like how I smell, so I don't see how this would really help." He picks at a snag on the cuff of his sweatshirt. "I registered for the clinic when I turned 18 and never got a match."

"Yes, I saw in your history that you registered for the matching service, not for heat-assistance." She indicates the brochure he's holding in limp fingers. "It's similar, but relies less on scent-compatibility on the part of the Alpha. The Alphas on-call know that when they offer heat-assistance, it's not necessarily with the intention of finding their Omega."

Oh... well.

Dr. Fonner gives him a kind smile. "You have a little bit of time to think about it, but I wouldn't take more than a couple of days. By your symptoms, and having just come off your period, which you said was earlier than expected, I'd say you're due for another heat in about a week, no more than two."

He peeks through the brochure a bit. "And... you're really recommending the heat-assistance?"

"I do believe it would be your best option, yes, but it is entirely up to you."

"How do you find an Alpha to help me out?"

She smiles. "We'll actually leave that up to you. We take scent-samples from the Alphas, have you go through them, and whichever scents smell best to you, we'll check with those Alphas and see who is available."

"But... it's usually the Alphas that are all about scent?" As an Omega, his sense of smell is much better than a Beta's, but nowhere near the sniffing power of an Alpha.

"For mating, yes. For emergency heat-assistance, it's all about what is going to make you most comfortable and help ease you through your symptoms."

"How does it go after I find a scent I like?"

She swipes through her tablet a couple of times, and then hands it to him. There's a picture of a room with a huge bed in it; it looks warm and inviting, like a den. "We check the Alpha's availability and see if they can keep their schedules open or if they can come in immediately. Sometimes an Omega's heat can get triggered when they find a scent they like. If it holds off, you would call us when you feel like your heat is about a day away. We have secure rooms here for you to shut yourself into, and trained staff to check in on you periodically. When you call, we call in the Alpha or Alphas to come make the room ready, build a nest, and get their pheromones layered in the room. It usually only takes them a few hours. Then we have you come in and the Alpha or Alphas help you through your heat." He hands the tablet back.

"Intercourse optional?" He... doesn't really feel like that's something he can do right now.

"Entirely optional. Most Omegas that go on emergency heat-assistance don't have sex with the Alphas helping them. If it's something all parties are comfortable with, then yes, it is on the table. But you can state ahead of time that it is something you do or do not want. The Alphas that we have on call are all pre-screened and know it's your comfort that is important."

"So it really is a 'medically prescribed cuddle'," he says.

She smiles back. "Yep. And if it works out well, we can also keep them on call if you have the mini-heats like I suspect you might."

He scrubs his hands over his face, not knowing what to think. He was too close to his heat for the Pheromone Therapy to work properly, the Suppressants were probably just going to delay the inevitable awfulness of a bad heat, and he wasn't sure if he was ready to rely on any Alphas to help him out.

"I need some time. I don't really know what I want to do."

Dr. Fonner gives him a sympathetic smile. "I'll give you a couple of days to think it over, then I'll call you to see what you've decided."

"Thanks, Dr. Fonner," he mumbles out.

Checking out is relatively swift, and he has Dr. Fonner's card in his pocket if he makes a decision before she calls.

Despite what he told her, he already knows what he's going to do. He just... needs to overthink it for a while.

***

Peter is in the kitchen putting the finishing touches on the roast, and he hears Derek coming in from the garage. His nest-mate passes by the kitchen, calling out a tired grunt of a greeting, when Peter gets a whiff of the most alluring scent. It's faint, but his sense of smell has always been far above the average wolf's.

This must be what Cora texted me about, he thinks as he sets the roast back into the oven to keep warm, and he stalks his way towards Derek.

Derek looks like he's ready to head up the stairs, but Peter snags him around the waist and pulls him back against his chest so he can bury his face against Derek's shoulder and inhale deeply.

It's faint, but the unmistakable scent of Omega is there. It's rich and earthy, strong, with a spice of magic. He also detects a strong note of distress. 

"Cora said something interesting happened to you today, but she didn't elaborate," he grumbles, taking another deep breath to see if he could parse anything else about the mystery Omega. "You met someone!"

Derek sighs and pushes Peter's face away from him, though he doesn't try to escape Peter's hold. "I didn't... there was an Omega that came into the shop today. Needs me to work on his Jeep, that's all."

Peter goes in for one more deep breath but is thwarted by Derek's palm pushing his head away again. It turns into a quick scuffle in the hallway.

One that only pauses when Chris comes halfway down the stairs to see what the two wolves are about.

"Problem, boys?"

Peter and Derek both freeze and look up at their nest-mate; Peter has Derek pinned to the floor on his stomach, and Derek has Peter's wrist clamped between his teeth, though he hasn't broken any skin yet.

"Derek met an Omega and won't share his scent!" Peter whines out like the little shit he's always accused of being, but he's grinning as he says it.

Chris cocks an eyebrow at them and descends the remaining steps. Being the senior Alpha of their nest, Peter and Derek should traditionally defer to him, and probably show him some kind of respect by stopping their scuffle.

But they've never really held hard and fast to the traditional rules of an Alpha nest. 

Which is why, when Chris is within grabbing distance, Peter yanks him down into their pile and all but forces him to smell Derek.

Chris growls a bit, rolling his eyes, but he complies to the unspoken order, taking a deep breath.

Then he pauses. Takes another deep breath. And another. And another until he's all but burying his face into Derek's neck, much like Peter had done.

"Oh," he says, talkative as ever. Peter smirks. 

When Chris finally raises his head from Derek's neck, he looks fairly drunk, which is just how Peter feels as he goes in for another lungful. Derek has resigned himself to the actions of his two nest-mates and allows it with the bare minimum of grumbling.

"Who is he? Cora didn't give me any details," Peter mutters, nuzzling at Derek's shoulder.

"His name is Stiles-"

"Stilinski? The Sheriff's son?" Chris pauses in his sniffing. "That could be interesting. I'm pretty sure he arrested you several times, Peter." He's eyeing Peter as he says it, and Peter doesn't even have the good grace to be even a little bit embarrassed.

"Yeah, when I was a teenager, and he was far from being the Sheriff then." Peter rolls his eyes. He'd been all of seventeen and drunk off some 'Bane Rum when he decided to go streaking downtown. In the middle of the afternoon. On a weekday. When he should have been in school. And he may have done it a couple of times. "I'm sure he'll realize that I have matured and settled down. Besides, how did you even know his last name?"

Chris snorts inelegantly and nuzzles at Derek's neck again. "I have a contract with the department and Noah and I talk sometimes. He's mentioned Stiles a time or twenty."

"I didn't even really talk to him," Derek mutters. "He didn't seem like he was feeling well and I didn't want to bother him."

"Code for you being too shy to get his number." Derek elbows Peter in the side and the scuffle starts anew.

Well, at least until Chris scruffs both of them with hands in their hair.

Eventually, they make their way to the kitchen; Peter pulls the roast back out of the oven and they go about eating dinner.

"He really did seem like he wasn't feeling well," Derek mumbles into his plate. He'd given them a basic outline of his interaction with Stiles while they ate. "And it wasn't my place to initiate anything." He glances at Chris.

Chris just rolls his eyes. "You know I don't care about proper nesting etiquette. I wouldn't have minded, sweetheart." He leans over and noses against Derek's temple. "Besides, I trust your judgement." Derek's ears go red, but he looks pleased.

Peter just watches both of them fondly. Derek still had a few lingering hangups about proper etiquette. Which was silly since their nest had not started properly at all. 

But he can understand Derek's hesitation. Chris, as the Senior Alpha, technically should be the one making the initial overtures to an Omega, not Derek. He'd grown up under the same harsh upbringing of what was expected of an Alpha; those were hard lessons to overcome, especially for a werewolf who had a whole separate set of rules in addition to the expectations of society. And it was hard to get Derek to admit when he wanted something after what happened to him in high school.

"I could smell lingering distress in the scent," Peter says, to steer the subject back. Chris looks concerned at that. Even as an Alpha, as a human, his sense of smell wasn't quite as good as a Wolf's, and no where near as sharp as Peter's.

Derek nods. "He looked really tired, and upset about his Jeep. I still don't know how he drove it." Derek sits back. "It didn't have a battery in it!"

Peter muses over that. "There was a bit of magic to the scent, too. He could be a warlock?"

"He was just as surprised as I was."

Chris shakes his head. "Not a warlock then; he'd have been aware if his Jeep was running on magic."

"Well, he knew about the ducktape and prayers that keeps that Jeep together," Derek snarks. "Even with a battery, I don't think that deathtrap should be able to run."

"Could be a Spark. They're capable of incredible feats of accidental magic," Peter says. And oh, wasn't that a delicious idea; an Omega Spark, possibly un-mated, and smelling so, so interesting. "When did you say he was coming to get his Jeep back?"

Derek sighs. "Peter, no."

Peter, yes. "Oh come now, Derek, I'm just curious."

Chris lets out a chuckle. "A curious Peter is a dangerous Peter. Don't do anything stupid."

"I would never, darling!" He fakes an affronted air, one that just makes Chris laugh a bit more and makes Derek scowl harder.

***

Stiles calls Dr. Fonner before the two days are up and says yes to registering for the heat-assistance. It's not ideal, but he's not fond of the potential side-effects of his other options.

She has him go into the clinic to start going through Alpha scent samples and things are... not going well.

"I've been through a hundred of these and none of them smell right," he complains as she takes away yet another stack of containers carrying samples. He's been at it all morning and he is absolutely sick of the Alpha stench that's been clogging his nose.

Dr. Fonner has the grace not to look even the slightest bit annoyed even if he's sure she's just as frustrated as him. "Just keep in mind that it's not always about what smells 'right' when it comes to heat-assistance. Remember we're not looking for a mate-match; just someone that smells like they could be comfortable."

But see, that's not something Stiles wants to think about. "Comfort" always used to mean Scott, because Scott was there and it was so easy to go along with. And comfort got him nothing but heartbreak in the end.

He doesn't want comfort. He just wants his discomfort to end.

He sighs and buries his face in his arms, slumped over the table they're sitting at.

She must take pity on him, because Dr. Fonner suggests they reschedule for the next day. 

"It'll give you a chance to clear your nose and re-approach." She pats him on the shoulder as she walks him out. "Though, if I may make a suggestion?"

He shrugs. "Sure."

"You might think about registering you for the matching service as well. Maybe we'll get lucky and an Alpha outside of the heat-assistance program will like your scent."

He thinks about it for a moment. "I'm not really ready for matching and courting right now. So I'll pass on that."

She nods. "Fair enough. I just wanting to throw it out there as another option."

"What happens if I don't find an Alpha through heat-assistance?"

"I hope it doesn't come to that, but best case scenario, we still book you in a private room and you ride it out here at the clinic with medical staff on hand to monitor you."

"And worst case scenario?"

"We might have to knock you out and keep you under until the heat has passed. We would most likely have to hospitalize you if that's the case."

He actually appreciates that Dr. Fonner is honest with him, but he blanches at the idea. He hates hospitals.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Stiles."

"Thanks, Doc."

He piles into the loaner car and tries not to take a deep breath, still unconsciously hoping that maybe he'll catch a whiff of Derek Hale leftover in the car.

(He fails, miserably, greedily sucking in the lingering traces of the very attractive Alpha.)

Speaking of which, there's a missed call from the garage. He'd noticed it while he was sniffing random Alpha samples, but he'd been trying as hard as possible to get through all the samples as quickly as he could. There's a voicemail.

"Hey Stiles, it's Cora from the garage. Derek has an estimate for repairs written up if you want to come by today and talk it over with him."

He tries not to be disappointed that it's Cora.

Just as much as he tries not to get excited over the prospect of seeing the Alpha again.

He's not very successful at either endeavor.

***

To say that Peter is impatient would be an understatement. He has never in his life been content to just let things happen; he is more interested in going out and making things happen. He wanted to be in control of his own fate rather than letting fate run its course.

He'd been the one to woo Christopher, after all. He wasn't about to just wait for the older Alpha to make the first move.

With that said, he may have spent his entire day at the garage, pretending to get caught up on book-keeping when in reality he was waiting for Stiles to get there. The Omega had called back and said he would be by sometime in the afternoon. 

Well, he also spent some time bothering Derek; picking at his nest-mate was one of his favorite past-times, and he never passed up a chance to do it.

He may have also taken a few moments to sniff around the death-trap that was Stiles' Jeep. Honestly it would be a better idea to completely scrap the thing. He'd gleaned more clues about the Omega from the layered scents inside it, but he really wanted a chance to scent him in person.

"Why are you even here?" Derek grumbles after they've devoured the pho Cora had brought back for lunch.

"I own this place, Derek. I have an interest in making sure the business runs smoothly."

Cora scoffs. "You just want to ogle Stiles when he comes in."

He grins, unrepentant, about to make a witty retort when the scent hits him.

And oh. Oh my.

It is absolutely divine first-hand.

Derek and Peter are oddly in-tune as they turn to the door, just as Stiles Stilinski makes his way into it. Cora snorts at them both, muttering about how predictable they are, but they ignore her.

Stiles is stunning.

Long limbs and amber-colored eyes. He's tall, possibly of a height with Peter, and the beauty marks he can see are driving Peter nuts with the urge to find out if he's hiding anymore under the unfortunate layers he's wearing. And his neck, long and pale and just waiting for a bonding mark.

His scent is so much stronger in person, and Peter gets why Derek had been reluctant to bother the Omega. 

The young man has faded Alpha pheromones on him. Very recently faded. Two Alphas, one scent stronger than the other. A broken pair-bond or a failed attempt at a mate-bond? There's also a medicinal smell covering him; he's been at a clinic recently, maybe the Omega clinic. Not far from a heat. And the distress is strong today.

Peter very desperately wants to bundle Stiles up in their nest and cuddle him until he feels better. He wants to call Chris to get his ass to the garage to meet him, and he's not even spoken a word.

He just knows, by instinct, that this boy is for them.

"You must be, Stiles," he purrs out, unable to keep himself from moving towards him.

"Umm, yes?" He looks like a deer in headlights for a moment, and Peter just really wants to bury his face against that luscious neck, see what it would take to erase the stench of the other Alpha. He wants to replace it with the scent of Peter and Derek and Chris, get him so thoroughly saturated in the claim of their nest that there was no doubt who he was with. He wants that distressed smell to fade, to only smell of mate and magic and -

He's getting ahead of himself.

"I'm Peter, I own Hale Auto Body. Derek and I have been going over what it will take to fix your Jeep." Well, really they'd talked about how to convince Stiles to scrap the Jeep because the cost of it was going to be way higher than it was worth.

Derek grumbles something behind him and Cora snorts.

"I'm already guessing it's going to be somewhere between 'why bother' and 'get a sugar-daddy'," Stiles says, offering a small grin that fades too quickly.

I'll be your sugar-daddy Peter thinks to himself, but reigns in the urge to make the offer out loud. Barely. "Well, it's certainly going to cost a pretty penny, but it is doable. And we do offer payment plans."

They don't offer payment plans, actually. In the background he can hear Cora mumbling that he's just as bad as Derek, but he ignores her.

"Oh, um, that'd be great?" Stiles perks up a bit at the offer and Peter practically preens. He leads Stiles over to the counter, resisting the urge to put his hand on the small of his back to guide him, and picks up the clip board with all the repairs necessary to get the Jeep running.

The total is way lower than it should be, not that Stiles seems to know any better, but even then he can tell he has his reservations.

"I still don't know if it's even worth fixing," he mutters, running his hand through his hair, a nervous gesture he's repeated a dozen times when going over everything. 

"I take it you have a lot of sentimental value placed on it?"

He nods. "It was my mom's before she died. It sat in the garage for years until I turned 16 and got it running. It was already kind of a junker then." 

A junker, but a sentimental junker.

"Then I think it's worth fixing," Peter says softly. He's determined to do this for Stiles, his instincts going haywire to make him happy.

Stiles gives him another small smile, and Peter finds he wants to hoard them like a dragon hoards gold. The quick flash of pleasedhappysuprised in his scent is also something he covets; he would give anything to bury himself in that scent constantly.

"Okay then. How do we get this going?"

Intensely pleased, Peter draws up the paperwork. He has Stiles sign a few things and pay a criminally small deposit, gets his contact info again, and then assures Stiles they'll have it done soon.

"We have a pretty easy schedule right now, so it shouldn't be more than a week," he promises, putting on what he knows is his most charming smile. "If that changes, we'll let you know."

"Thank you so much for this," Stiles says softly as he's leaving. He smells so happy and please, Peter has to work hard to keep his breaths low and even instead of taking deep, heady lungfuls of air to absorb as much scent as possible.

"My pleasure," Peter says back, seeing him off into the loaner car, practically getting drunk off the Omega's scent, finally free to take a few last obvious lungfuls as he leaves.

"Uncle Peter, Derek is pouting," Cora says in a sing-song voice.

"I'm not pouting!" he yells from the bay, where he'd gone to sulk once Peter swooped in to snatch Stiles' attention.

"Derek, you'll have to learn to share. You had him all to yourself the other day!" Peter says silkily.

He hears something metal hit the ground and grins.

Cora is poking through the paperwork. "This isn't the estimate the Derek wrote up."

Derek pokes his head through the office door. "What?!"

"Now, now, Derek, don't throw a fit. I was just making sure we offered him our best quality."

"He was worried about how much it was going to cost Peter. I tried to write up something I thought would be affordable!"

"He didn't charge for labor and he's sold all the parts at cost," Cora said, snitch that she is. Not that Peter is in any way ashamed.

"Peter, that's not how you run a business," Derek grumbles, though Peter can tell he's not actually that upset. Derek has way different grumbles for when he's truly angry; Peter has known him his whole life and been in a nest with him long enough he can easily catalog different Derek-sounds. 

"I own this business, I can run it how I want," he says snootily. "And if anything else crops up, I'll pay the difference."

"We're not even courting him and you're already throwing courting gifts at him," Derek mutters, walking back to the bay where the clunker of a Jeep sits. Peter just grins, knowing that Derek is going to start working on it immediately.

"We're not even courting him yet, Derek!" he calls back, pulling out his phone so he can call Chris and gloat.

"You're both terrible," Cora says, but she's grinning at them. "Just terrible."

Peter can't deny it.

***

Stiles is feeling... pretty good.

He's still riding the high of realizing that Roscoe isn't going to the scrap heap in the sky, and that it isn't actually going to cost him near as much as he thought it was going to. 

Which... huh, that's actually kind of surprising. The list of parts they had listed for the Jeep had been fairly long, but the total was way lower than it seemed it should be.

He has a copy of the estimate in his wallet. He'll research it when he gets home, before he starts his evening shift. Working remotely has actually been the one godsend to all this. He doesn't have to try looking like he's keeping things together and he gets to work in his pajamas. Win-win. He can be depressed and productive all at once.

Though, he probably won't argue the cost. It's a silver-lining. He is still paying rent on the apartment in New York; no way would Scott be able to afford it on his own, and Stiles' name was still on the lease, and the landlord had been an ass about not letting him break it. An unexpected bill like this would have really put a dent in his bank account. He made a decent wage, but paying for his apartment plus student loans stretched things thin. He'd talked to Scott about finding a roommate to take over his share, but so far he hadn't had any luck finding one. Thankfully Stiles only has two months left to pay before the lease is finally up. Besides, he's getting ready to take a heat-leave and he has no idea how long it's going to last; the doctor had warned him it could be anywhere from three days to a week, and while his job offers paid heat-leave up to five times a year, it only covers three days per heat.

Also, the scent of the two Alphas is still stuck in his nose, and it's distracting. Peter's scent is especially strong, since he'd commanded most of Stiles' attention.

Not that Stiles minded. Peter had been criminally attractive, just like Derek. Of course, he was a Hale, too. And from the way he acted around Derek, Peter must have been in the same nest as Derek. He was trying to think of what he knew of the Hales. He was pretty sure Peter might be Derek's uncle? He remembers Cora from school, and she'd mentioned "Uncle Peter" a time or two.

Which, if they had been human, might have been frowned upon. But Stiles was about ninety percent certain they were both wolves. While humans and werewolves had a lot the same core rules for Alpha nests, werewolves were on a different level with a few different values. One of which was that it wasn't uncommon for wolves to form a nest with blood relatives. So he isn't put off by it.

Not that he cares, mind. He's not interested in their nest dynamics at all.

He swings by the grocery store on his way home. He needs to stock up on ibuprofen and pick up something for dinner. His dad had started on days at the station and they were going to eat together before his evening shift, so he wanted to make sure they had some healthy options to pick from.

It's not a way to distract himself from the thought of unfairly attractive werewolves.

Nope.

***

Chris has always like to consider himself pretty level-headed. He was calculated and rational. He thought before he spoke or acted. 

He had always prided himself on his control.

Of course, then he met Peter, who chose to woo him against tradition. It caused a bit of a scandal; Chris should have been the one to ask first, being older. But Peter was impetuous and not at all ashamed about what he wanted, and he wanted Chris.

And Chris wanted him back. The other Alpha sparked something in Chris that had been sorely lacking in his previous marriage.

His freshly signed divorce papers had only added to the scandal. His marriage to Victoria, a Beta, had lasted long enough for them to have one daughter before they finally called it quits. But the rumor mill was dead set that he had been cheating on her with Peter even though he hadn't even met the wolf until after the divorce.

Victoria had laughed about it when she found out. She was the one to initiate the divorce, after all, and only because she was the one having the affair.

Chris really wasn't upset about it. There was affection between them, sure, but no love lost. Their marriage had been an arrangement between their families and nothing more.

But Peter, Peter was so much more.

He was bossy, a bit snobby, and so very particular about things Chris would never consider important. He was challenging, and so damn gorgeous.

And he was a werewolf.

(Chris wasn't welcome to Argent family Christmas anymore. He hadn't expected anything less from the rest of his Hunter family, nor was he particularly upset about it. At first, things were strained on the part of the Hale family, what with the history between the Hales and the Argents, but they were at least cordial. The tension loosened a little bit at a time until it finally got to the point where Talia herself hugged him when he came 'round to pack dinners.)

Then Peter brought Derek to their nest. Derek was painfully shy and needed a bit of a tender hand. Peter was a bulldozer, so Chris kept himself soft around Derek, especially so when he knew why Derek was so hesitant. Chris wanted to wrap him up tight and hold him close.

And god, he felt like he was way too old to be forming a nest. Most Alphas started forming their nests in their early twenties. He was in his early forties when Peter started wooing him. Peter was a bit younger than him, in his mid-thirties. And Derek, gorgeous Derek, was sitting pretty in his twenties.

It was so easy to fall in love with both of them, though. Terribly easy.

And secretly, he was as delighted by the scandal as Peter was.

They bought a house together, officially registered themselves as an Alpha nest, and lived happily.

The three of them weren't overly concerned with searching for an Omega. They'd been together now for nearly seven years and they weren't in a hurry. Chris had registered their nest at the Alpha clinic, but he hadn't sent in a fresh scent sample in a while. 

Besides, if Peter has his way, they probably won't need to.

He smiles to himself fondly, thinking of how excited Peter was over the stray bit of Omega scent left over on Derek, and how he'd got that look about him. The conniving look. It was probably one of his favorite looks on Peter. (Every look was his favorite look on Peter, but he wasn't about to tell Peter that. He had to keep him from getting a bigger ego somehow.)

Not like he could blame his nest-mate. The scent had been so, so good. Even to Chris's less advanced nose. Being in a nest with two werewolves had truly expanded his appreciation for scent. And he certainly had an appreciation for Stiles Stilinski's scent, faint as it was. He'd been just as drawn into it as Peter and Derek were.

In the three years he'd been contracted with the Sheriff's Department, he'd never caught a whiff of the smell from Noah. Which is probably a good thing; getting scent-drunk in front of the Sheriff would have been more than just a bit embarrassing.

He's in the produce aisle of the Safeway, contemplating some tomatoes. If Peter were there he would nag him about going to Whole Foods instead, or wait for the Farmer's Market on Saturday, but Chris really likes to see the twitch in Peter's right eye when he brings home "inferior produce."

He loves the wolf, really, but he also likes to pick at him. Besides, Peter had just got off the phone with him, crowing about having met Stiles and how gorgeous he was. On anyone else, it would almost sound like a teenager with a crush, but with Peter it just sounds like smugness.

Besides, when he is sniffing at the tomatoes and catches the tantalizing scent of the Omega that has sent his nest-mates into a frenzy, in the back of his mind he can't help but plan to rub it in Peter's face that Whole Foods and the Farmer's Market didn't have one Stiles Stilinski.

Who is pushing a cart past him, oblivious because he has no idea who Chris is, or that he is nest-mates with the two wolves sniffing around him.

He smells so much better first-hand. This close, Chris can pick up the hints of distress, but altogether his scent is heavy and alluring and he wants to let out an Alpha purr.

He doesn't quite have a lockdown on parsing emotions through scent, not like Derek and especially not like Peter, but there is a lot written in Stiles' scent.

Now remember, Chris has always been very controlled.

Which is why even he can't explain his actions.

He's just controlled enough to keep himself from immediately pouncing on Stiles. 

But he's not controlled enough to keep himself from guiding his cart around one of the open coolers and "accidentally" hitting Stiles' cart with his.

Peter would probably be proud. Conniving bastard is rubbing off on him.

"Shit! Sorry!" he says. "Wasn't watching where I was going."

"Hey, no problem, dude." Stiles gives him a small, barely-there quirk of his lips, and Chris absolutely understands why Peter had gone on about wanting to smother the boy in affection, and why Derek had been so hesitant to make any interest known. The boy is gorgeous, but there is so much stress in his lithe frame. 

His wolves are right, and he is already just as invested as they are.

But he has to be subtle about this. He doesn't want to overwhelm the boy.

So he gives him a smile and meanders away, picking up things here and there to inspect, putting a few in his cart, hyper-aware of Stiles only a few paces away. When Stiles moves away from produce onto an aisle with canned goods, Chris moves to the next aisle over.

They meet at the end, and once again Chris turns his cart towards Stiles', though this time he pulls back before they collide.

Stiles gives him a sheepish look, and Chris nods back, a small smile in place. 

He passes him, gives it some time, and then repeats the process a few aisles over.

This time, Stiles stops before they collide, and smirks at him, just a little bit. "Do you have a license to drive that thing?"

"It may have been revoked," he drawls back, earning the smallest huff of a laugh.

A couple aisles over, Stiles swerves his cart around him dramatically as they both turn into the same aisle, going the same direction. "Well hello there, stranger." His tone is dry as a desert, but he's smiling. 

"I'm Chris," he replies. "Chris Argent. Now we're not strangers." He grabs a random item off the shelf to keep up with the pretense of shopping. He has no idea what he just tossed into his cart.

To his delight, Stiles actually laughs. 

"I'm Stiles. Stiles Stilinski. And I don't know, I've been told I'm pretty strange." They continue walking side-by-side.

Chris chuckles, can't help but give him a slow once over, top to bottom and back again, not even trying to be subtle about it. "You look pretty normal to me."

Stiles' face has gone red with a blush, and he runs a hand through his hair. Chris can tell from the state of his hair that it's a nervous gesture he repeats often, and he'd really like to replace Stiles' hand with his own, muss the strands up doing something a whole lot more fun.

"I'll ruin the illusion before too long." Stiles says it with a smile, but there's just the tiniest hint of bitterness to his words.

"I'd love the chance to find out for myself," Chris replies.

Stiles trips over his own feet and accidentally steers into one of the shelves. Chris makes a saving grab for the Omega's arm before he goes completely ass-over-teakettle and manages to keep him mostly upright by pulling him closer.

Peter might have tried to go in for a deep sniff, but Chris holds back. Besides, he can already tell that Stiles is going into a bit of a panic, and he absolutely does not want to upset him. So as soon as he knows Stiles is steady on his feet again, he lets go and takes a step away.

"Alright there?" he asks softly.

"Uh, yeah, yeah, I'm fine." Stiles looks like he was about to say more but he just opens and closes his mouth a couple of times. Then he grabs his cart and starts power-walking away. "Itwasnicetomeetyougottago!"

Ah, well, that wasn't the reaction he was going for, but Chris knows when to back down. "Nice meeting you too, Stiles."

If he's lucky, the boy will find the business card he tucked into his hoodie-pocket.

***

Stiles and his dad are eating dinner later when his dad clears his throat.

"Did something happen today, son?"

He snaps his head up from staring at his plate and looks across the table at his dad. "What? No? What? Why would you think something happened?"

Noah just gives him a look. "You didn't yell at me about the salt shaker or the fact that I put a ton of cheese on my salad. You didn't even complain once when I said I was grilling steaks."

Stiles has been yelling at his dad for years about his diet. Even when he lived in New York he policed him about it, even going so far as calling his deputies to make sure they kept on him about it. 

But he'd been in such a weird zone when he got home from the grocery store he hadn't even put up any kind of token protest about what his dad was making for their meal.

"So what's wrong?"

So much. So much was wrong. 

He was pretty sure the handsome silver-fox of an Alpha, Chris, had been flirting with him.

And, guh, the guy had smelled amazing.

Stiles didn't know how to deal with an Alpha flirting with him. Not when he had rolled into the store looking like a hobo on his last leg and shouldn't have been any kind of attractive to anyone. Let alone someone as hot as Chris.

And now that he's thinking about it, he thinks Peter Hale might have been kind of, sort of checking him out when he was at the garage? He's not a hundred percent certain, but the wolf had been staring at him very intently. And Derek had been staring just as intently from across the garage.

There was no way. No way.

There was absolutely no way Stiles would catch the interest of three super-hot alphas when he was a walking dumpster fire!

But it would be just his luck that when he has sworn off Alphas, when he's definitely not ready to dive into something with anyone new, the universe would see fit to litter his path with the most gorgeous, least obtainable ones.

But he doesn't know how to tell his dad all this. His dad is the best, and would absolutely listen to him if he decided to vent about it, but Stiles just doesn't know how to talk to him about this particular thing right now.

Maybe it's just the pre-heat hormones, but he really just wants to cry now.

But Stiles is a Stilinski, and suppressing your emotions and letting them build up for a bigger explosion later is a time-honored Stilinski tradition!

"I'm just... really tired, I guess." He cops out and tries to focus back on his plate.

Unfortunately his dad is a cop, a really good one, and well-versed in Stiles' bullshit.

"Yeah, I'm not buying that." The elder Stilinski pushes his plate to the side. "Did something happen at the clinic? I know you said you had to go back tomorrow."

"No, nothing at the clinic."

"But something happened somewhere else."

Stiles groans. "Please stop being a good cop, Dad."

Noah just grins faintly. "Can't help it, son. I'm worried for you."

Thwarted from burying his issues deeper, Stiles haltingly tells his dad about his day. 

"And I think he was flirting with me," he finishes a bit later. "I dunno, I was probably imagining it."

"Chris Argent, you said?" His dad is trying to look disinterested, but Stiles can read him like a book. "And the Hales?"

"Yeah?"

Noah grabs his beer and takes a contemplative sip. "Chris contracts with the department for ammo and arms. He's a good sort. And he's in a nest with Peter and Derek Hale."

Stiles chokes on the bite of salad he'd been trying to swallow down.

Because really?

Fucking really?!

His dad is grinning. "I'm pretty sure you might have a nest come a-courting."

"No. No. Nope. No way. Nope." He jerks out of his seat and quickly gathers his plate. He's suddenly not very hungry. 

He's scraping his leftovers into a Tupperware container- he'll munch on it later while he's working- when the heavy weight of his dad's hand lands on his shoulder.

"You can always say no if they do make an offer, you know," Noah says firmly.

He deflates a bit under the reassurance in his dad's voice. "Yeah, I know, Pops."

"But it's absolutely okay if you want to say yes."

Stiles lets out a full-body sigh and shrugs out of his dad's grip. "I don't think I'm ready to say yes to anything right now." He tucks the Tupperware into the fridge and grabs a Gatorade to take up to his room with him.

"So if they come calling, you tell them that. Any Alpha worth their salt will accept it." Noah follows him to the foot of the stairs. "And if they don't, nobody will find the bodies."

Warmth spreads through Stiles. His dad really is the best. "Thanks, Dad."

They bid each other good night and Stiles treks up to his room to start getting ready for his evening shift.

***

The next day, Stiles is ready to just give up.

After his shift ended at four in the morning, he'd slept fitfully. He'd felt a bit feverish before he went to bed, but by the time he wakes up a few hours later he's sweated through the t-shirt and boxers he slept in. He takes a cold shower to blast himself awake, pulls on the hoodie that has become his uniform, and locates a clean pair of sweats.

He's pretty sure he's now deep in pre-heat. Most likely it'll be in full-swing by the next morning. 

And he hasn't picked an Alpha to help him.

Distressed and exhausted, he calls the clinic and asks for Dr. Fonner. After he explains that he thinks his heat is coming on, she sighs.

"I'd hoped you'd have a little more time to find a heat-partner. I've already got a room blocked off for you. Did any of the Alpha scents you went through yesterday seem even the slightest bit promising?"

"No." Later he'll hate himself for how... whiny he sounds. He's always hated how needy he gets right before a heat, but now it's so much worse and, ugh, he just doesn't want this right now! But it's true; none of the Alpha scents at the clinic had done anything for him.

They just hadn't smelled right. 

(Not the way Derek, Peter, and Chris smelled. But he doesn't want to think about them.)

"Stiles, it's going to be okay. We'll do everything we can to make this easier on you. Come to the clinic today. Pack a bag with lightweight clothes, maybe bring a few things that bring you comfort, like a pillow or a blanket. And if you can, try to eat something that's calorie heavy before you come. We'll have a small fridge in the room with simple foods, but you'll want something to give you an energy boost before it really starts. Do you have anyone that can bring you to the clinic? I really don't recommend you driving right now."

"I'll see if my dad can bring me."

"Good. I'll see you soon, Stiles."

His dad calls into work as soon as Stiles comes down and explains that he needs to get to the clinic that day and asks if his dad will drive him.

"Go pack a bag and I'll put together some breakfast for you," Noah says gently.

Packing a bag is much more difficult than it should be. The clothes are easy enough, but he struggles over taking his favorite pillow versus his favorite blanket. He kind of wants to cry over the choice, but in the end he just takes both to make it easier on himself. Dr. Fonner didn't say he could only have one comfort item. But then he struggles over if he should take anything to keep himself entertained, like a book, or maybe his Switch...

He's never spent a heat alone; Scott had been with him every time. 

Omegas go through heats alone all the time, but since he's never had to... He doesn't know what's going to happen.

Eventually he decides against taking anything besides his phone and charging cord. He'd never done much between bouts of sex before, besides napping or snacking; he just hopes this time won't be much different.

Aside from not having anyone there to tuck him into the sheets and offer him snacks. That was one thing Scott had mostly been pretty good at, if he didn't forget to stock their room with heat supplies. Even though Stiles usually gave him a couple weeks notice that, hey, his heat was going to start soon.

It doesn't do him any good to think on Scott and his failings, but he really wishes Scott was there.

It's super hard not to cry once he starts down that mental path, so he tries to cut himself off as best as he can.

Tucking his hand into the front pocket of his hoodie to make sure he has his phone and his wallet, he's surprised to feel something a little extra. He grasps whatever it is and tugs it out.

Huh. It's a business card.

And... it smells really good. There's a scent wafting up from it, previously muffled in the depth of a hoodie that probably hasn't been washed in two weeks or so.

Unable to help himself, he brings it up to his nose and inhales. 

It smells like Chris. It smells like home and mate and most importantly...

It smells like Alpha.

A whine breaks from his throat and he hits the floor as a blinding flame licks up his spine and makes his muscles go lax.

His heat is kicking in.

Shit.

***

Somehow, Stiles ends up at the clinic. He doesn't remember much about his dad finding him, or how he got him into the cruiser. Just that one minute, he's whining on the floor, and the next minute he's being checked into the clinic with Dr. Fonner.

He comes to while she's in the middle of giving him an entrance exam. He feels fuzzy and lightheaded, but for the most part he's able to make sense of the world around him.

"Hey, look who's back." Dr. Fonner is just unwrapping a blood-pressure cuff from his arm. "You had us worried there for a minute."

"M'heat kicked in," he says groggily.

She nods, making a notation on his chart. "About that... Stiles, your heat hit much sooner than even I anticipated. Have you had any interactions with an Alpha recently? One that may have triggered this?"

He thinks back to Derek, Chris, and Peter. He wants to lie, say no, he hasn't met anyone, but he's been lying to himself since he first got a whiff of Derek's scent in the garage. And lying won't serve any purpose beyond making him much more miserable.

"There's these three Alphas I ran into.. they're in a nest." He rummages through his hoodie pocket, relieved to find the card that set him off. The one that had Chris' scent all over it. "One of them gave me this and... I think it triggered my heat."

He doesn't want to give her the card, doesn't want her to get her scent on it, and Dr. Fonner seems to realize this. She eyes the name printed in neat type and raises an eyebrow. "Chris Argent... I recognize the name." She looks him in the eye. "Do you want me to call him and see if he would be willing to offer emergency heat assistance?"

He does. He absolutely does. 

But he blanches. "I don't even really know the guy, I just met him yesterday."

"And you wouldn't have met any of the candidates from the program before they came into assist you," she points out.

"It probably wouldn't be allowed anyway, would it?"

"Stiles, while most of the Alphas offering heat assistance are selected through the clinic, it's not always the case. Sometimes the Omega just knows someone they want to assist, but they want to do it through the clinic because they feel more secure that way. It's not uncommon."

Oh... well...

But seriously, there was no way Chris would be up for that. They just freaking met yesterday!

Still, desperate times and all that.

Besides, if she's offering to call Chris, then she can be the one to deal with the inevitable rejection.

So he gives his consent, Dr. Fonner writes down the number on the card, and they fly through the rest of the exam. 

Once they're finished, with Stiles' permission, his dad is informed of their plan; he gives Stiles a gentle hug and say's he'll go wait for the Alpha to show up. The doctor has a Beta orderly escort him to what is going to be his room for the next few days. He walks in, wary, and stares.

The pictures Dr. Fonner had shown him were accurate. The room is cozy, den-like. Not even a little bit sterile-looking like most hospital rooms are. Everything is warm and inviting, and the bed is huge.

Huge and empty.

And nothing smells right. There's no scent of home or Alpha or Scott, and the bed hasn't been made into a nest, and the bed is way too big for just him. Everything looks warm but it feels cold, and there's no Alpha to keep him warm.

Stiles doesn't realize he's started whining. He hits the floor, landing somewhere between the bed and the wall, clutching his bag to his chest. He buries his face against it to muffle the sounds. Heat is once again starting to build, and it's making his brain a bit fuzzy. He knows he needs to dig out his blanket and his pillow to at least get the scent of home in the room, just a little bit, but he just can't make himself do it.

He's not even turned on, not really. The only thing he's ever enjoyed about heats in the past was how good the sex could be, how easy he could come, the multiple orgasms, feeling wanted. Now, his dick isn't even hard and his cunt pulses but there's no pleasure to be had. He feels dry as a desert and but twice as hot.

Stiles folds himself against the wall and cries.

He loses track of time, doesn't know long he spends curled up on the floor, but he must eventually lose himself to heatfire. He's near delirious when he surfaces to a bottle of water being pressed to his lips.

"Oh, sweetheart..."

Alpha?


***

It's the easiest "yes" Chris has ever given.

He hangs up after assuring Dr. Fonner that yes, he and his nest-mates would be glad to offer heat assistance, and would get to the clinic as quick as they could, and that yes, he understood that sex was completely off the table. She had used some colorfully threatening medical jargon to assure him what would happen if he or his nest-mates did anything other than what Stiles had consented to.

He was suitably threatened. After all, it is his fault, his, Peter, and Derek's fault that Stiles had gone into heat early. His business card had apparently triggered him.

He calls Peter, who is conveniently at the garage with Derek, and tells them what is going on. Peter says he'll grab Derek and get them to the house to grab blankets and clothes; they need something heavy with their scent to make a nest.

By the time Chris makes it to the house from the office, only about twenty minutes have passed, but his nest-mates have beaten him there and already have Derek's Camaro completely stuffed full of what looks like every blanket and pillow from the house, including what might have been the laundry hamper from their bedroom. 

Chris should probably tell them that's a bit overkill. But really, he approves. 

After all, he's just as bad as they are.

"We've got a bag for you already, dear," Peter says. "We'll follow you to the clinic." Peter looks mostly calm, but Chris can smell the anticipation and nervousness. Derek looks like he's about to vibrate out of his own skin, his eyes flashing blue. He stays quiet.

"I need to get our-"

"-Alpha-nest registration forms, yes, I have them already." Peter waves an imperious hand at him. "Our boy is waiting, let's not dawdle!"

Smiling fondly, Chris gets back into his SUV and heads for the clinic, Peter and Derek following in the Camaro.

Anticipation lies heavy in his gut, and he's sure Peter and Derek are feeling the buzz as well. Soon they will get to see Stiles, hold him, comfort him, show him what kind of Alphas they are. It's not ideal; he'd really hoped to have at least properly courted the boy before sharing a heat with him, and had hoped that it would have been a normal heat.

But their boy is hurting, and they need to help him.

Once at the clinic, check-in is a blur. They all three get very expedited physicals, are made to sign what feels like a mountain of disclaimers and legal documents, and individually threatened by both Dr. Fonner and the Sheriff. Then Peter and Derek have to sign an extra set of waivers because they're wolves, and while Beacon Hills has always been very open and welcoming to its supernatural citizens, bureaucracy is awful no matter what. A few orderlies have gone to grab their mountain of nesting materials, wearing full-body sterilized suits so as not to get any scent on them.

Dr. Fonner eyes the blankets and laundry critically, but she seems pleased. "Well, at least your nest should be worthwhile." High praise indeed.

Then they are whisked away to what will be their den for the next few days.

Scent blockers are periodically sprayed in the hallway, so Chris can't smell anything outside the door, but he's sure Peter and Derek can because a pair of low growls fills the hallway.

But the moment the door opens and the scent of heat hits him, he can't hold back his own growl.

Their boy is hurting. The scent of distress is so heavily concentrated that what he scented the day before was absolutely mild in comparison. Sweat and musk, but very little scent of readiness to mate in any way, shape, or form.

They find him in the corner, between the bed and the wall, and the poor thing is completely out of it, whimpering and shuddering.

"Peter, Derek, start getting the nest ready," he commands easily. "And grab me a bottle of water out of the fridge." He beelines to Stiles and gingerly maneuvers himself between the bed and the wall, leveraging the boy into his lap.

Stiles is feverish and sweating, but instinct calls him to press his face against Chris's shoulder.

Derek is there with water, bottle already cracked open, and Chris thanks him softly. Then he presses the bottle gently to Stiles' lips and encourages the boy to drink.

"Oh, sweetheart," slips from his mouth as Stiles finally opens his eyes. His expression is dazed.

"The nest is ready, darling." Peter is crouched near him, arms at the ready to help lift Stiles up. Chris rubs his cheek against the top of Stiles' head in a quick scent-mark and then gratefully hands the boy up into Peter's eager hold. Chris isn't feeble by any means, but he's not sure he wants to test his back against lifting Stiles' near deadweight from a seated position on the floor.

"Derek, help Peter get those clothes off Stiles. We need to get him cooled down."

He goes to the small attached bathroom and finds a small basin under the sink, along with a stack of neatly folded towels and washcloths. He sets to filling the basin with cool water, and grabs some cloths.

When he gets back into the room, he's pleased by the sight that greets him. 

The bed has been properly nested, all of their blankets and clothes forming a riot of colors saturated with their collective scents. He sees the throw from the back of the couch- the one they pile under for Saturday night movie marathons- and the thick plush comforter from their bed, open and waiting to receive their Omega. A pillow and blanket he doesn't recognize, most likely Stiles', are front and center, ready to mix in with them.

Peter sits on the very edge of the bed, just outside the nest, with Stiles cradled in his arms. He's been stripped down to his underwear, and he has his face buried in Peter's neck, still whimpering and shuddering; his skin has a sheen of sweat on it.

Derek is adjusting the light in the room with the dimmer switch he found just inside the door. Soon the room is barely lit, just enough to see, but dark enough to look like a proper den.

Peter and Derek have also both stripped down to their boxer-briefs, adding their clothes to the base layer of the nest. Chris hands the basin to Derek.

"Start wiping him down, baby, while I catch up."

It's surprisingly easy for him to assume the role as Senior Alpha after all, he supposes. There are just some instincts that run deeper than expected. 

As soon as he has tucked his clothes into the base of the nest, he goes to help Derek in wiping Stiles down with the cool wet rags, getting every bit of skin he can reach. Any other time, he would have also taken the chance to look his fill, admire the expanse of pail, smooth skin, and attempt to count every mole and freckle, and bask in the presence of such a gorgeous creature. But right now, he just feels the need to care and pamper.

Derek and Peter are on the same wavelength as him. As a unit they work together, and soon enough they are ready to tuck themselves into the nest. 

Chris goes first, propping himself up on the mound of their pillows. and Peter easily hands Stiles into the nest, tucking him against Chris chest-to-chest. Peter follows after to Chris's left, and Derek scrambles in to Chris's right, pulling the blankets with him to tuck around all four of them. Peter and Derek squeeze themselves in close, heads on Chris's shoulders, an arm each wrapped around Stiles' back.

The smell is phenomenal. Chris breathes in deep, contentment settling in his bones as he takes in the combined scents of his nest-mates. The new addition of Stiles is so right, and quickly becoming addictive. At his sides, Peter and Derek are doing the same, breathing deep and savoring.

He was already making plans; after this was over, they were going to court Stiles properly. He was sure Peter was already ten steps ahead of him in that regard, so he'd have to make sure to get his two cents in. Honestly he'd probably let Peter take the lead on courting; he was a thousand times more romantic than either Chris or Derek. He'd certainly do his best to pull his weight during courting, though. And he was certain Derek had his own plans, but he and Peter were going to have to do their best to encourage him to act on them. 

But for now, they had to wait things out.


***

Stiles doesn't remember much of his heat. He doesn't remember ever having one so bad he couldn't recall most of it, but there you have it.

He remembers the heatfire, moving through his body. A wild pulse under his skin that makes it feel like he's going to come out of his skin. Sometimes flashes of cool water and drinking it to soothe his parched throat. Sometimes eating, but the food was bland and tasteless, like ash in his mouth.

But most of all, he remembers the smell of Alpha. It smells so good, like gunpowder, motor oil, and home. There's a wild smell, too, that he can't place. Whatever it is, he wants to burrow into it and never come out.

He doesn't know how long he's been under, but at some point he starts pulling himself to the surface again, starts getting his other senses back one-by one.

The first is touch. His skin feels relatively clean, but he's surrounded on all sides by skin. Skin that is not his. There's warmth where all those miles of skin are braced around him. There's coarse hair under his cheek. Chest hair? And there's arms over his back, warm breath against his neck, a heartbeat under his ear.

Hearing... he can hear the heartbeat, and a voice speaking, three voices speaking. All three voices are deep, soothing. Alpha voices.

Taste is... blegh. His mouth tastes like something died in it. He really wants to brush his teeth. He has fuzzy teeth-sweaters and that is gross. He's gross. He's not as clean as he thought. His skin is a bit itchy from sweating too much, and his hair needs a wash. He doesn't want to think about how bad he has to smell right then.

Finally he opens his eyes. Then closes them again because even as low as the light in the room is, it still feels like too much. Open, shut, open, shut, he blinks himself fully awake.

Damn. Dr. Fonner certainly pulled through. He wondered what she bribed Chris with to get him to agree to assist Stiles with his heat.

Oh, but it's not just Chris. Derek and Peter are there, too. 

There's no way that he is this lucky.

"Good morning, sweetheart."

Stiles looks up at Chris, who is smiling gently. "Um. Hi?" His voice is little more than a croak and he swallows hard to clear it.

One of the arms around his back moves, and a hand is trailing up and down his spine in a soothing caress. "Feeling better, darling?" That's Peter.

"Depends on your definition of 'better'," he gets out. His throat feels a bit like sandpaper, and his eyes feel crusty.

"Do you need anything?" Derek asks from his other side. 

"Um... water?" he asks, hopefully.

There's a shift and a small bottle of water, sweating with condensation, appears before him, already cracked open. Strong arms grip and leverage him up to make it easier to drink, and the bottle is pressed to his lips. He drinks greedily, the water doing wonders to soothe him. Before too long, it is empty. He is gently lowered as the empty bottle is discarded to the side of the bed.

Sighing, he relaxes back into the hold of his- the Alphas, and closes his eyes. The simple act of drinking had felt like a monumental amount of effort and he was exhausted again.

And maybe if he went back to sleep, he could avoid having to talk to the Alphas and just enjoy things before they inevitably decided they were done and left him. They've done what they came to do, have successfully helped him through his heat; beyond that they have no obligations. They could leave right now if they wanted. His after-heat comedown wasn't important, not really. Scott had rarely stayed for it, once they were done with sex and... and...

"Hey..." Derek says into his ear. "What's wrong?" A hand starts rubbing up and down his back.

He's crying again, shit, no no no no!

Another hand comes down on the back of his neck and the weight of two solid Alpha bodies is suddenly pressing him down onto Chris, like living, breathing weighted blankets.

Chris is making soothing noises, his hand firm on Stiles' neck. Derek and Peter are letting out deep, rumbling growls, the vibrations moving and settling into Stiles' bones. A haze forms over his vision and his breathing calms; he feels almost drunk...

"That's it, sweetheart," Chris says. "Just breathe in and out."

Peter speaks against his ear. "Doing so good, baby. So good."

"We've got you," Derek mumbles into his shoulder. 

They keep speaking to him. Small praises. Pet names. Sweet words of assurance. Their voices carry him down...

He drops into a doze.

He's not sure how long it lasts, but soon enough he comes up again.

"Back with us, baby?" Peter nuzzles his ear. All three Alphas tighten their hold, briefly, a gentle squeeze of a hug. Hands move across his back and neck, calmly petting and soothing.

He nods, enjoying the scratch of Chris's chest hair against his cheek. "Yeah. Sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry for, sweetheart." Chris's hand squeezes once on the back of his neck and settles again. "Do you want to talk about it?"

And god, he does. He really, really does.

But Chris and Peter and Derek don't know him, not really. They're just three nice Alphas that helped him through his heat. After this, they probably won't want anything to do with him...

He takes a deep breath and reigns himself in before he can spiral again. It was embarrassing enough to do it once, he doesn't intend to do it again with this particular audience.

"Baby..." Peter shifts and rubs his nose against Stiles' ear, scent-marking him. Stiles shivers at the intimate gesture. "We wouldn't ask if we didn't want to know."

And, well... with permission like that...

A whimper tears out of his throat, followed by a flood of words he can't control.

It all comes out. All of it. Every embarrassing bit of it. His and Scott's pair-bond, their relationship, Isaac, that last failed heat, the breakup, moving back home, not having his heats... Everything.

There's tears. And snot. It's gross and pathetic and whiny, and god he hates being whiny.

And when he is done, he buries his face against Chris's chest and tries to control his breathing. It's surprisingly easy to do with the three Alphas there to offer soothing touches and sounds.

They give him a few moments to simply breathe and absorb the comfort they offer.

"Oh baby... How long have you been holding that in?" Peter scent-marks him again. Derek does too, rubbing his bearded cheek against Stiles' shoulder. "Next time don't bottle it up so much before talking to us."

Next time?

"Peter," Chris hisses out in an admonishing voice.

"Peter, we agreed not to rush," Derek grumbles out.

"No, you both agreed not to rush. And I'm not rushing, this is the perfect opportunity to make our intentions known."

Derek and Chris both let out gusty signs of annoyance, but Chris looks a little... fond?

"Um, what intentions?" Stiles tilts his head back to get a better look at Peter.

The Alpha grins at him. "We want to make a formal offer to court you, baby."

Oh... um... well that's...

Holy shit.

His surprise must show on his face, because Peter's grin softens to something smaller and genuine. "You don't have to answer now. Or ever, if you're so inclined. We're just putting it out there for you."

He thinks on it for a moment, overthinks it really, when Peter's wording catches up with his brain. "So... you're not offering right now, just saying you want to in the future?"

Chris is the one to speak. "That's exactly what we're saying, sweetheart."

Peter opens his mouth but then shuts it when Chris pinches his side. He glares at the older Alpha without much heat then focuses back on Stiles. "We like you, Stiles. And yes, in the near future, we would like to make an offer."

Derek, always the quiet one apparently, nods against Stiles' shoulder. 

He takes a deep breath, inhaling the combined scents of the three gorgeous Alphas holding him, and thinks.

He's not ready for anything, yet. Not even close to ready.

But they said in the future and that's a fine distinction. And courting isn't set in stone when it starts. It's like super-charged dating. He doesn't have to commit to them. For all he knows, Derek might have chronic flatulence issues, Peter might have a collection of creepy porcelain dolls, and Chris might store his fingernail clippings in tiny jars for later use.

"I... I think I'd like that. In the future," he stresses softly.

Chris, Peter, and Derek tighten their hold on them, and Chris and Peter are smiling.

"In the future," they echo gently.

***

Six Months Later

Stiles is absolutely giddy with anticipation.

There's no other word for it. He's giddy.

Chris, Peter, and Derek are on their way over with a "surprise" for him. He knows exactly what it is because Chris is absolute shit at keeping secrets when he's drunk on good whiskey, and while Stiles would never take advantage of that by asking pointed questions, ever, he was definitely not above keeping Chris going when he accidentally lets something slip. Peter and Derek had been a bit miffed that he knew what they were planning, but it made it easier for them to do it in the long run, so they still went through with it.

The last six months have been nothing short of a dream.

Two months after his shared heat with the gorgeous triad, they'd formally offered to court him and he'd accepted. He'd felt ready, had actually been excited about the prospect of being courted.

Before the formal offer, they certainly hadn't been strangers to him. They'd gone on a few informal outings, mostly movies and a going out to lunch, things that aren't necessarily considered courting behavior. The Alphas kept themselves friendly and kept the flirtiness at a minimum; they were just getting to know Stiles a little bit, and letting Stiles get to know them a little bit in return.

But oh boy, when they started officially courting him, the dial got turned up to eleven.

Peter, of course, was the most intense; he liked buying Stiles extravagant gifts and taking him to fancy restaurants with prices that would make Stiles' wallet weep. The most expensive things are the magic books Peter has been throwing his way; apparently Stiles was a Spark, and magic supplies were hideously overpriced. But being a Spark had explained how his Jeep had kept running despite the odds. Stiles' favorite part of being courted by Peter is when Peter cooks for them; he's a pretty talented chef and he always looked so damned pleased when Stiles moaned over the food he made. And he was absolutely the biggest little shit Stiles had ever met. Conniving, intelligent, and ruthless when he wanted to be, and stubborn enough to go after what he wanted. Finding out that Peter had been the one to woo Chris and Derek into his nest had not surprised Stiles even the tiniest bit.  But Peter also had a surprisingly sweet side that he only let out around Stiles, Chris, and Derek. He frequently checked in with Stiles to make sure his behavior was not too overwhelming, and he listened when Stiles asked him to tone down some of the gifts. Not the cooking though; Stiles would never turn down food Peter had made.

Chris, for all that he is technically the Senior Alpha of the triad, was content to let Peter take the reins, but he was by no means slacking. His courting gifts were quieter, more subtle, but with no less impact. A gutter on Stiles' house had busted during a freak rainstorm, and the next morning Chris was there, tools in hand, fixing it himself. Chris noticed when Stiles tripped over a bit of the sidewalk leading up to his front porch and he arranged to have the entire sidewalk repaired. He went into full-on provider mode, and Stiles is pretty sure he's been making secret repairs to his dad's house just to make sure Stiles doesn't have even the slightest thing to cause him discomfort. He's also quietly romantic, not the way Peter is, and he is a very good cuddler. 

Derek had been a tough nut to crack. He was so incredibly quiet, but Stiles had figured out after a bit that he was just incredibly shy. Finding out his past trauma involving an Omega named Paige and Chris's sister of all people had been surprising, and Derek was still working to teach himself that it was okay for him to want nice things. Underneath everything though, he had a dry sense of humor and an absolute slut for having his hair played with. They could spend hours on the couch together, Derek's head in Stiles' lap while Stiles jabbered on about whatever thing he was currently obsessed with, just listening and letting Stiles bury his fingers in thick dark hair. You would think he didn't hear a word Stiles said, but he was actually listening intently. One time Stiles had complained about not being able to find a copy of his favorite kids book, one his mom used to read him when he was little, and two days later Derek showed up at Stiles' house with a well-loved copy to present to him.

All three of the Alphas courted Stiles separately and together. Stiles was very rarely without one or all of them. Traditional courting rules would have stated that they be chaperoned at all times and have limited contact, but fuck that. His dad just rolled his eyes when Stiles asked if he was going to put his foot down about how much time he spent with the Alphas.

"As if I could keep you away from them once you made your decision," his dad had said.

Well, that was a very good point.

Stiles had also made the effort to look up an Omega therapist he could talk over some of his issues with. Dr. Fonner had been awesome and recommended one to him, and he had a standing bi-weekly appointment now. It had gone a long way to helping him realize how badly he wanted to be courted by the Alphas and that it was okay for him to move on from Scott, and that some of Scott's behaviors, while most likely not intentionally malicious, had not been okay. 

Three months after his last heat, he'd gone into heat again, his cycle apparently restarted. This time he'd had the guts to ask the Alphas if they would spend it with him instead of having someone else do it for him. They'd booked an appointment at the Omega clinic again, agreeing that after how rough his last heat was, it was probably best to have medical professionals nearby, just in case. 

They still didn't have sex for that heat. It was more cuddling and pampering, only Stiles was actually awake for most of it. And there was a lot of bonus kissing. So many kisses.

He hears a car pulling up in the driveway and snaps out of his daydreaming. He does not run for the door, shut up dad!

He jerks the front door open and freezes.

Because Scott is there.

Scott fucking McCall.

His ex-boyfriend is unfolding himself from a shitty little clunker of a car. He looks up as Stiles comes out the front door and waves.

"Stiles! Hey!" He smiles that affable Scott smile, like nothing has ever been wrong, like it hasn't been fourteen months since he broke Stiles' heart, and starts up the sidewalk. "How have you been?"

There's something different about Scott, Stiles can tell; he's walking taller, moving more fluidly. He's cut his hair back now, and he looks a little more chiseled and defined, his shoulders broader.

Something moves under Stiles' skin, a sense that Scott is changed.

Oh...

He's a werewolf now. Stiles' Spark is reacting to it, the way it reacted to Derek, Peter, and Chris the first time he met them, when he didn't understand what it was. 

But instead of being appealing, it makes him feel... not repulsed, necessarily. Just... put off? 

Scott stops well before he gets to the front step, and he lifts his nose to the air in a very wolf-like manner, sniffing. Then his eyes flash yellow-gold and his lip curls just the tiniest bit in displeasure, though he looks more confused than angry.

"What are you doing here, Scott?" he asks before Scott can give voice to his confusion. He's probably smelling other Alphas and other wolves and Stiles really doesn't owe it to him to explain.

"Uh, well, I'm here visiting Mom and wanted to see how you were doing." He's glancing around, still confused by the scents.

"I'm fine. Tell your mom I said hi." He's always liked Mrs. McCall, a soft Omega woman who had given him a big hug when she'd spotted him in the supermarket a few weeks after his return. She'd apologized for Scott and told him not to be a stranger. "It's... nice to see you and all, but I've got company coming so-"

"Isaac and I broke up," Scott interjects, apropos of nothing. 

Um... "I'm sorry?" he offers. "That... sucks?"

"I wanted to see if you were busy this evening. Maybe we could catch up?" He looks so earnestly hopeful, with puppy-dog eyes and everything, but Stiles... feels nothing.

What does he need puppy-dog eyes for when he has his wolves and his hunter?

"It's just," Scott continues on before Stiles can give him an answer, "I've been thinking about you a lot. I miss you."

"That's nice and all, but I've got company coming," he says, trying to keep his voice firm. His therapist had been working with him on saying no. "I'm going to have to decline."

"Oh... well, maybe tomorrow?"

"No. I'm busy tomorrow." 

Scott looks frustrated and hurt, but Stiles refuses to fall for it. He'd never realized before how much Scott would manipulate him by playing up his hurt feelings, but now that he could see it for what it was, he felt immune. The worst part was that Stiles didn't think Scott was doing any of it consciously; he was just so used to getting his way.

"So tell your mom I said hi. My Alphas are coming to pick me up in a bit and I don't want to-"

"Alpha?" Immediately Scott's face switches from puppy-dog eyes to a glimmer of almost-not-quite-anger. "I didn't know you were seeing someone."

Because it's none of your business, Stiles thinks more than a bit sourly. "Well I am, several someones, and they'll be here any minute so if you could-"

"More than one?" The surprise in his voice pisses Stiles off more than the continued interruptions, and god, how had he never noticed how often Scott liked to speak over him before? 

"Yes," he grits out. "So if you could please-"

"It didn't take you long to move on," Scott growls out, his tone accusing.

And that... that is Stiles' limit.

"You moved on before we even broke up!" he shouts back, startling Scott. Stiles very rarely yelled at him before, even when he wanted to, so this must be startling, but Stiles did. Not. Fucking. Care. 

So he unloads. Shouting every obscenity he knows plus a few he makes up. Scott's eyes get wider and wider, and he actually takes a step back. He's pretty certain a few neighbors poke their heads out their front doors to see what the commotion is about.

Stiles is so busy letting loose his anger, he doesn't notice his Alphas pulling up in his Jeep.

Scott does. Because he loses his focus on Stiles and turns to growl at what he considers invading Alphas.

Peter is the first one out of the Jeep, and Stiles can see tension running in the line of his shoulders. But rather than growl back at Scott, he keeps his focus on Stiles. "Everything okay here, baby?"

"It's fucking peachy," Stiles snarls out, still glaring at Scott. "Scott was just leaving."

Scott flips back around, ready to protest, but then he's shoulder-checked by Derek as he makes his way to Stiles' side. Once there, he presses a soft, beardy kiss to the side of Stiles' neck.

It doesn't entirely diminish how pissed off he is, but Stiles can't help but melt against his Alpha's side.

"So this is Scott?" Chris says, coming up on the other side of Stiles' ex. Scott spins to watch him, growling under his breath. Chris just snorts and rolls his eyes, unimpressed, and moves to stand on Stiles' other side. He presses a kiss opposite of Derek, and Stiles melts a little further.

"Well you've certainly upgraded, baby," Peter says evenly. "We were going to ask you on a picnic. Want me to get rid of him first?" He has come to stand before Stiles and he presses a soft kiss on his forehead.

Scott sputters indignantly, but Stiles just smiles. "You would, wouldn't you."

"Gladly." 

"Not in public, and definitely not in front of the Sheriff's house," his dad calls from the door. "Scott, get lost before I find something to ticket you for on that deathtrap."

Scott finally must get the hint, because he lets out one final growl and gets into his rustbucket of a car and peels out of the driveway, though only after it takes two or three tries to start it up.

"Gonna call Parrish and tell him to watch out for his car," his dad mutters. "Pretty sure he doesn't have working brake lights." He eyes Stiles and his Alphas. "You four behave." With that, he goes back into the house.

Stiles lets out a harsh sigh and slumps against Peter's chest. Yelling at Scott had been exhausting.

"I could go slash his tires," Derek says softly, and Stiles barks out a laugh. 

"God I love you guys."

And, well... he didn't mean to say it like that, to just blurt it out.

But he meant it. He'd been feeling it since his last heat, but he'd wanted to be sure...

And when the result is three incredibly hot Alphas ganging up on him in a tangle of limbs masquerading as a hug and growling the words right back at him and then smothering him in a series of increasingly indecent kisses?

Well...

Widowed Mrs. Mathey next door was certainly getting a show.

Up until his dad poked his head back out the door and yelled at them to get a room, somewhere that was preferably not in his household, he didn't need to hear anything, for the love of God.

Laughing, the four of them stagger over to the Jeep, fully restored as a courting gift. When Stiles first had them repairing it, he'd just wanted to get it running. Now it was practically new, Chris, Peter, and Derek having insisted on it needing a complete overhaul. Stiles snatches the keys from Chris's outstretched hand and practically vaults into the drivers' seat. Peter claims the passenger seat and Chris and Derek clamor into the back.

How they did this in a few days was beyond Stiles' comprehension, but even the inside was restored. The seats were brand new, everything had been carefully detailed, and when he started it up, the engine practically purred.

"I am going to do so many dirty things to you," he mumbled.

"Is he talking to us or the Jeep?" Chris wonders, smirking.

"Shhhhhhhh, I'm bonding!" 

His Alphas just laugh, and, guh, that is the best sound. He is also going to do dirty things to them. Possibly in the Jeep. He needs to re-scent it, after all.

He turns a grin to them. "I am going to drive us out to the Preserve. I need to get Roscoe smelling right again." New plan in mind, he throws Roscoe into gear and peels off toward the Preserve. 

His Alphas must have an idea of what he's thinking, because he can smell their heightened pheromones suddenly pumping into the small space. Peter leers at him from the passenger seat.

"Don't you just smell delicious, baby. I wonder what you've got in store for us?"

He grins. "Hope you brought a blanket for the picnic."

"And a few extras besides," Chris says from the backseat.

Guh. He really loves these guys.

On the way to the Preserve, he notices a car on the side of the road. It's Scott, arguing with Parrish about the ticket being written.

He is going to laugh about that forever.

Later.

Right now, he's got three amazing Alphas all to himself, a half-formed plan of the dirty things he wants to do to them, and the high of knowing that they want and love him just as much as he does them.

And that's enough for him.