Sterek One-Shots (tumblr edition)

Phoenix

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AO3 can also be found in tumblr ----> Unloyal_Olio

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.Present.

Each year the heats grow stronger. What is a soft trickle at sixteen becomes a steady stream at twenty and now that Stiles is fast upon twenty-five, each month brings a new flood. Stiles knows that he has less than five years before the tremors turn to seizures, where upon he shall fall into a delirium from which he will not surface.

It was not supposed to be so. It was to be easier than easy. Genim Percival Stilinski, Prince of Beacon, heir to the throne, and "blessed omega" is a match that any alpha would gladly accept. Winning his hand means wealth, children-social elevation. Yet Stiles has been through alpha after alpha. His heats have passed with the waxing and waning of moons and flashed with summer lightning storms. Yet it always happens: damp sheets and rough hands that spread and coax and enter and beg-and yet Stiles's body unerringly refuses to open.

No matter whether their rank be emperor or lowly lord, they always beg the same, "Accept me."

Stiles, out of his mind with sweat stinging his eyes and a cockhead plugged between his cheeks, hisses, "I want to." But the knot will not take-it never takes. Stiles says he doesn't know why... but that's only partially true.

The court physician is the only one who suspects. Lady Lydia has asked him on at least three occasions. The last time she asked, it was a year ago, when they were still muscle-sore and breathing heavily from Stiles's last spike. She whispered wetly in his ear, "It was him, wasn't it?"

When Stiles didn't answer, Lydia didn't press his silence, and the next day they left behind the intimacy of the heat and were naught but friends.

Because they never learned his true name.

"Call me Ash," the man said to the bare wall, "for ashes are all I have left."

It shouldn't matter anyway. It happened almost five years ago. Other omegas are widowed and they barely have to wait a year before they're receiving again. Stiles doesn't know why he...

Besides, Stiles wasn't even in heat when they had done it, when Ash had withdrawn with a gasp and a pained "no."

.Past.

Stiles has many, many faults. Namely, he's a failure of a prince. Everyone else likes to give him the benefit of the doubt. Instead, they all blame "that Lord Scott." (An omega would never. And from hot-blooded Spanish stock.) As a child, he and Scott climbed every haystack in the grounds. They raced ponies and pilfered apples from the kitchens to indulge the warhorses (Stiles nearly lost a finger once). Lady McCall required the salts after they took a trip in a rowboat around the castle moat (the calls of "Hygiene, Scott! Hygiene!" echoed up and down the castle corridors). Of course, it wasn't Scott. It was always Stiles concocting their latest scheme. Scott was simply kind enough to always play along.

Thus, when Stiles is twenty and arguing to assist Lydia's medical work in the borderlands, his father knows he doesn't have much of chance of convincing him otherwise.

"There's a war going on. I don't want you anywhere close."

"Beacon's neutrality is acknowledged by Hale and Argent."

"Each battle is more savage-I don't want my son put in the middle. Men lose their logic for bloodlust in such times. Stiles, it could hop our border far too easily."

"Exactly. Hate breeds hate. Our citizens already take sides-which is not what we want if peace is continue on this continent."

The King glowers. "I already heard this speech. It's why we set up the border clinics in the first place."