Chapter Text
Stiles’ alarm goes off before the crack of dawn.
He sits up, bleary in the dark, and pushes a big possessive hand off his waist as he does so. On the edge of the bed, he shuts the alarm off and then rubs at his face for a second, exhausted, before slowly standing up and moving in the dark to the master bathroom.
After shutting the door behind himself with a quiet click, he turns the light on and immediately brushes his teeth. He avoids his own eyes in the mirror, doesn’t look at his bare chest or his face or his hair. He doesn’t want to see hickeys, or his hair out of place from being grabbed, or handprints on his hips. The purple bruising of ownership all over him.
He showers. He hangs up his towels and dresses in the dark, his husband’s snoring the only sound in the entire house. Downstairs, he goes directly to the basket full of clothes he had folded the night before and fishes out the pieces of the familiar uniform, laying them out flat on the ironing board and pressing them in silence. The clock ticks on the wall in the kitchen as he works, running the iron along the brown fabric until they’re immaculate and perfect.
The kitchen is spotless and smells like cleaning products instead of what they had eaten the night before, because he tends to linger in here at night scrubbing until his hands go raw just to put off having to get into bed for an hour or so, however long he can push it. Typically, Jordan will just come down and get him if it gets to be too late, but Stiles presses his luck every night, hoping Jordan will be tired or too angry or not in the right mood to sit around waiting for Stiles to come to bed.
He sets to work making two lunches, with sandwiches he neatly cuts down the center and lays into Ziploc containers, carrot sticks he cuts himself to uniform widths and lengths, and brownies he had made the day before just for something to fucking do. By the time he’s finished, the sun is coming up and he rubs at his eyes again – what he wouldn’t give for one day a week where he could just sleep as late as he wants to, no one to wait on, no one expecting him, no one wanting things from him.
After putting the lunches back into the fridge, he has to start making breakfast. He pulls the eggs and scrambles them with milk, begins heating up the pan for bacon, lines up pieces of bread for toast, mechanical and robotic as if he’s done it a million times already.
He has done it a million times already. He does this exact day over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, like he’s trapped in a time loop, stuck in a painting, recorded and filmed in a movie.
Sometimes it’s french toast or pancakes or waffles, sometimes he makes wraps for their lunches, sometimes he makes cupcakes, sometimes he gets up even earlier to squeeze in time for a run in the dawn, sometimes he sits on the porch drinking coffee – but these are only small, infinitesimal differences, that don’t add up to anything. It’s all the same, always the same, no matter what he does to try and make it any different.
He gets up in the dark and showers alone, goes to the basket with the laundry that he does every single god forsaken night, presses that idiotic uniform while fantasizing about burning it in the fireplace, makes the lunches, makes the breakfast, cleans it all up in the empty house once they’re both gone, and does his endless litany of chores and errands before cooking dinner and then scrubbing the kitchen clean to try and hide from that man the only way he can. Every. Single. Day.
Even on Saturday he’s expected to be up, showered, dressed, all before anyone else, because god forbid just one day a week there isn’t a hot meal sitting on the table the second his husband is awake.
He stands and stares at the bacon cooking in the pan as it sizzles, sizzles, grease pooling underneath it, crackling angry and hot. He wonders what would happen if he just stuck his hand right into the grease and got a serious burn, if he’d have to be taken to the hospital, if he’d get to take the day off on account of his injuries. That happened once, when Stiles tripped and smacked his head on the wooden floor below – he got to sit on the couch watching reality television all day instead of working, and they ordered pizza and Jordan was nice to him because he had a bandaged up head. That was a good day.
Stiles counts his good days. He can count them all on one hand.
As he’s pressing the grease out of the cooked bacon with a paper towel, Rachel comes into the kitchen in her school uniform, looking spectacularly irritated to have to be awake at all. Stiles straightens up and presses a forced smile onto his face, immediately grabbing a plate from the cupboard to begin assembling food on top of it for her.
She sits down at the table that’s already been adorned with fresh squeezed juice and glasses and napkins and forks, everything arranged just the same as it is every single day, and says, “you know, I’m nearly eighteen now. I think I can make my own plate of food, dad. You never let me.”
“Because that’s not how this household works,” it’s almost eerie how automatic of a response it is, how robotic the words come out of his mouth. Nearly ten straight years of having rules and structure and hierarchies drilled into his head has done that to him, apparently. He parrots the shit Jordan says like a well-trained pet.
Rachel bites into her bacon with a harsh crunch and glowers as she does so. “Oh, right. We live in 1956. My mistake.”
Stiles doesn’t respond to that. He busies himself with wiping a mess off the counter, sweeping crumbs into the palm of his hand and then dumping them into the garbage disposal just for something to do so he won’t have to say anything.
They had adopted Rachel only a few months after getting married – right around the time that Stiles would have graduated high school, if he were a normal kid. Stiles had been flabbergasted by the proposal when Jordan brought it up to him the first time, the idea of adopting a child for them to raise together. Truth be told, he would’ve thought that Jordan would be content with just having Stiles around to treat like a slave, or at least that Jordan was too psychotically jealous to ever allow Stiles a child to dote affection and attention on over himself. But, Jordan had brought it up and Stiles had leapt at the opportunity. She was nine years old at the time, and though she hadn’t presented yet, the nuns at the orphanage had seemed pretty convinced she’d grow into an alpha. She had big brown eyes just like Stiles and when they first met she had him lean down to her height so she could whisper in his ear that she had never seen someone as pretty as him in her whole life. Stiles knew he was meant to be her dad in some intrinsic part of him, maybe the dormant parts of his omega genealogy finally awakening, and he had begged Jordan to adopt her. He had agreed.
At the time, Stiles thought it was some bizarre act of kindness that Jordan was bestowing upon him, or maybe an olive branch, or just something nice, or even a genuine interest in raising a kid.
Now, Stiles knows better. He had given Stiles a child to raise because he knew that it would keep Stiles in line. He knew that Stiles would not want his daughter to see him getting slapped in the face or pushed around, so he kept his mouth shut and did what he was asked rather than arguing or fighting him. He knew that Stiles would never allow Rachel to see their relationship for what it really was, would never let Rachel know how abysmally unhappy he was, would bend over backwards to give her a normal, happy childhood, even if it meant suffering for himself. He fucking knew that.
Stiles doesn’t speak unless he’s spoken to. He does the chores and the laundry and does the grocery shopping and attends the PTA meetings and participates in the bake sales and he has sex with Jordan whenever he wants it because he has no choice. Stiles would rather die than tell Rachel he was forced to marry Jordan. He would rather eat glass than admit to her that the scar he has on his arm is from when Jordan pushed him into the sharp edge of the kitchen counter and it gauged his flesh clean open and Jordan just stood over him staring at him, as Stiles cried and bled all over the floor.
He has done his level best to hide things from her. From almost everyone. But she’s gotten older, and she’s not stupid, and Stiles can see in her eyes that she knows. Maybe not everything.
But she knows.
Right on time, Jordan materializes in the kitchen. He’s got his shiny clean and perfectly pressed uniform on, all thanks to Stiles, and the first thing he does is plant a kiss on Stiles’ cheek. Stiles keeps his eyes on the food, spooning eggs onto Jordan’s plate and not reacting at all. “Good morning,” he says.
Stiles parrots it back to him tonelessly.
“Hey, Rachel,” he says to her, moving to sit across from her at the table.
She swallows what she has in her mouth and grimaces at him. “Deputy,” she greets back, sarcasm dripping from every single orifice as she does so.
Stiles has always been dad to Rachel, even daddy when she was young enough to still call him that; but Jordan has always been just Jordan. Or, when she’s feeling particularly vehement towards him, deputy. Sarcastically, of course.
If this bothers him, Jordan never mentions it. He bears it like some light teasing between father and daughter even if he might know she’s not really joking around with him – but then, what does he expect? Stiles is the one who raised her, went to all her plays, taught her to drive, helped her with her homework, went to pick out her homecoming and prom dresses with her. Stiles poured his entire life into that kid, and Jordan was just never around.
And when he was around, he was talking down to Stiles for missing a spot with the vacuum in the living room. He doesn’t exactly get a father of the year award.
Stiles puts Jordan’s food in front of him after he sits and Jordan does not say thank you. He barely even looks at Stiles as he does so, aside from the cursory glance he has given Stiles every single second of every day since they met.
A greedy, up and down look. Stiles gets this look everywhere he goes, but he hates to be looked at that way by Jordan most of all.
“How’s school these days? Getting A’s?”
Stiles quickly makes his own plate now that everyone is seated and eating, a half a piece of toast, one slice of bacon, barely any eggs, and sits between the two of them. He lays his napkin on his lap and stares at his food, eating mechanically.
“Mostly.”
“Mostly?” Jordan repeats, raising his eyebrows. “You know, your dad was a perfect student when he was in school,” he’s referring to Stiles when he says this, gesturing to him with a flick of his wrist, “he never got anything lower than an 87 on a test. Did you know that?”
Rachel snorts. “Right, until you pulled him out of school and wouldn’t even let him get his GED.”
Stiles puts his fork down and says, “Rachel, hey,” nervously flicking his eyes to Jordan as if to say, ‘I did not tell her to say that.’ Honestly, Stiles has never said anything disparaging about Jordan in Rachel’s ear shot, let alone anything about his position as an omega. She has started to come home from school with all kinds of biting remarks for Jordan, not to mention what she reads on the internet anymore. Stiles avoids omega rights and omega talk in general in this house at all costs, because it has never gotten him anywhere in the past, and it certainly hasn’t made a difference in how he’s treated.
“No, it’s fine,” Jordan says, shrugging. “You and your dad are very different, that’s all. He has a different role in life than you do.”
Stiles eats his food quietly, more than used to being spoken about not only like he isn’t even in the room, but also like he’s somehow less than human. But Rachel grits her teeth, leaning back in her chair with her arms folded over her chest and a frown deep on her face.
“He didn’t need any more school. He was smart enough as it was, and he doesn’t need all that stuff in his head,” he looks at Stiles, a smile tugging up the corners of her lips, “right, baby?”
Stiles never wanted to raise a kid who wouldn’t know how to respect omegas, never wanted to raise an alpha who would sincerely believe things like that – but he has no choice. He nods, keeping his eyes on his food.
Rachel taps her fingers on her opposite arm where it’s crossed, looking between the two of them like she’s trying to decide if she’s going to stand up and flip the breakfast table over or not. Instead, she says, “I’m sure dad always dreamed of bowing and scraping for a cop.”
“She’s kidding,” Stiles laughs to really sell it, and Jordan smiles. It’s not a funny smile. It’s this all knowing, sarcastic little smile that’s not very nice at all; Stiles is familiar with it. He stands abruptly as a distraction, both pairs of eyes looking to him as he moves to the fridge and practically rips it open, grabbing at Rachel’s bagged lunch. “You’re going to be late for school if you don’t go now,” he says hastily, gesturing for her to stand.
She does, slowly, with a big sigh. She knows she’s been sent away so that they can all avoid a big fight, and she seems resigned to it, taking her lunch in one hand and picking up her backpack from the ground with the other.
“Bye, dad. Thanks for breakfast.” She gives Jordan a glare, placing her hand to her forehead in a mock salute. “Deputy.”
At her retreating back, Stiles calls, “have a good day,” and then she’s out the door, gone, crisis averted.
But now, Stiles is alone in the house with his husband. More than cleaning up his messes, more than cooking his food, more than doing every single thing he asks, Stiles hates being alone with Jordan. Nothing good usually ever comes from it.
He doesn’t even look at Jordan. He immediately begins clearing the dishes from the table, plates and silverware clinking together as he does so, moving them all into the sink and starting the water so it’ll get hot.
“You know, every day that girl wakes up to a home cooked meal with her clothes washed for her and her bed made and her bathroom cleaned. You’d think she resented you for it.”
Stiles scrubs at the egg pan, soap bubbles flying up around him as he does so. “She’s a kid.”
“You think other kids get to have all this?” He gestures around sort of vaguely, but Stiles knows exactly what he’s referring to. “She doesn’t realize how lucky she is, living in a house where traditional values are important.”
Stiles scrubs harder, nearly taking off the non-stick varnish as he does. Scrub, scrub, scrub, scrub…
“I guess she is at that age, though. I seem to remember you spouting off similar nonsense when you were seventeen.”
On the tip of his tongue, Stiles has words. They say, oh yes, me at seventeen, a kid, an underaged kid, when you used to stare at me and went after me so intensely that my father had no choice but to set you up with me and you got me pulled out of school and had me in etiquette classes instead. They curl up in his mouth and die on the way down his throat as he swallows.
He doesn’t say things like that anymore. He has learned his lesson, time and time again. He decides to change the subject.
“What should I make for dinner?”
Jordan stands up, leaving his empty plate and empty orange juice glass sitting there for Stiles to collect. It would be easy, a small gesture, for him to at least carry his dirty dishes over to the sink for Stiles to wash, but he doesn’t. Stiles combs the house every day and finds half finished beer bottles from the night before, empty water glasses in the bathroom, a finished bag of chips left sitting on the coffee table – why would he clean up after himself, anyway? He has a maid.
“Steak sounds good.”
“Steak,” Stiles repeats. “Fine.”
He had been so intently focused on the dishes he hadn’t noticed or heard Jordan coming up behind him, not until his big arms snake around Stiles’ waist, pulling him flush up against his much stronger, bigger body. Stiles always thought he felt so much smaller and weaker than Jordan because he was seventeen when they met, and Jordan was twenty-six years old. It turns out, Stiles always feels smaller and weaker than him, even now that he’s the same age Jordan was when all this first started.
Stiles goes still and allows the touching with no response. Jordan presses his nose to Stiles’ neck and inhales, so it tickles and makes Stiles shiver.
The first time Jordan ever did this to him, Stiles tried to elbow him in the gut to get away. That had only ended in tears for Stiles, so now he simply stands, still as a statue, as Jordan kisses his neck.
“You know, you’ve only gotten prettier with age,” he purrs, and Stiles blinks at the dishes in the sink. The soapy water, the plate sitting deep down at the bottom, hazy underneath all the water. He hyper focuses on it. “You want to mess around before I have to go?”
“No,” Stiles says, almost too quickly. He clears his throat and speaks again, to correct himself, “I have a lot of work to do. I – I need to go to the store. I have to get the laundry put away. And I’m tired. Please no.”
Jordan sighs, but he acquiesces. His arms unfurl from Stiles’ body, but he presses one more wet kiss to Stiles’ neck, maybe in ownership. “Tonight, then.”
“Sure,” he agrees, and immediately he’s back to it, picking the sponge up with shaking fingers.
Stiles was always taught that it was alphas who had a bad sexual appetite, constantly wanting it, constantly doing anything to get it, even coercive tactics to get what they wanted. Honestly, Jordan is just as bad, if not worse. It seems like Stiles is constantly having sex with him, and it’s never enough, no matter how many times they do it.
“I’ll be home around six. Don’t get up to anything while I’m gone.”
Stiles nods. He accepts a kiss on the lips when it’s given, and then he listens to the usual sounds of Jordan leaving for work. The keys coming off the hook, the jacket sliding over his shoulders with a rustle, the door opening, then slamming closed. The car starting in the driveway, and then, the engine pulling out and away down the street.
Once it’s gone, he breathes out a sigh of relief and grips the edge of the sink, hard, squeezing his eyes shut.
Rachel turns eighteen in seven months. Then she goes to college with the money that Stiles had begged practically on his hands and knees for Jordan to set aside for her education – he had promised to be good, to do as he’s told, to not talk back, to be exactly who Jordan wants him to be, so long as his daughter can go to college.
Sometimes Stiles wonders if his fixation on Rachel getting an education has anything to do with how his was taken away from him. While Scott and all his friends were graduating and getting ready for college, Stiles was locked in Jordan’s house, barely allowed to leave it even to see his own father, forget about any of his friends.
Things are better than that, now. This is a small mercy but it’s one that Stiles clings to.
He can do it a little while longer, he tells himself. He can do it just a little bit longer. What’s another year? Just one more year. One more year and then Rachel is safe out of the house and Stiles will…he’ll just figure something out. He’ll figure something out.
xXx
Stiles pulls into his driveway, unbuckles his seatbelt, cuts the engine, and then he just sits there staring up at the house. Every time he comes back home, he dreads it more than the last time. He has a fleeting thought of starting the engine, cutting the wheel, and driving off into the sunset, never to be seen again, but he’d never make it that far. They’d track him and drag him back kicking and screaming and then all of his hard work would be undone and he’d be banished to the house, locked inside, never allowed to set foot outside again.
Stiles had been gifted this car around Rachel’s 13th birthday; it was kind of a reward of some sort, because Stiles had to claw his way to even being allowed to go grocery shopping without Jordan there. By the time he was allowed to drive himself somewhere, he’d had all the fight practically beaten out of him, was as docile and timid as a mouse thanks to the constant emotional abuse and manipulation and the occasional slap across the face.
The car to him was no reward. It was more of a death knell. The proof that he was as obedient and beaten down as Jordan always wanted him to be. It reminds him of his mother’s old Jeep that Jordan had sold for pennies to some high school kid right after they were married, so he resents it, and it makes him sad.
It’s no ticket to freedom. It’s a ball and chain even more than the wedding ring is.
He sighs. He presses his palms to his eyes and takes in deep breaths, one after the other, before finally opening the door and stepping outside onto the driveway. He pops open the hatch and glares in at the groceries, knowing he’ll have to make at least four trips to get it all inside, and accepting his fate. He does it anyway. There is never anyone home to help him with these menial tasks. Even if Jordan were home, he would just sit on the couch and demand a beer, would not lift a single finger to help his omega carry the heavy bags inside.
When it’s all in the kitchen, after the fourth trip as Stiles had predicted, he’s winded and exhausted. He has to lean up against the door frame for a second, panting. He’s been feeling so weak, lately, bonier than usual, and he finds even simple tasks difficult to complete, like mopping and sweeping. It tires him out. He’s beaten down.
All the same, he has no time to rest. He puts all the groceries away, folds up the reusable bags and puts them in their designated place on the hook on the back of the pantry door, and immediately starts baking the cake.
Whenever his father comes over for dinner, Stiles makes the exact same meal, because it is his father’s favorite meal. He makes lasagna, garlic bread, and a chocolate cake with vanilla frosting. It’s been that way for years. Stiles imagines that if the Sheriff ever came over for dinner and had a plate with pot roast or something else on it he would keel over dead from the shock.
He’s just that type of a guy. He likes things to stay the same. He likes his same meal and his same slice of cake and his same dinner time and his same son who did the right thing and got married before he was eighteen and let go of all that nonsense he grew up spouting about omega rights and getting a job and not being tied down to some jackass for all of his life.
The Sheriff thought Jordan was nice. He supported the entire thing. Nevermind the ten-year age gap. Nevermind the way Jordan chased after Stiles so hard it was almost stalking. Nevermind any of it. Stiles felt trapped. He still does.
He’s just frosting the cake when Rachel comes home from school. Stiles listens to her taking her shoes off at the door, thumping her backpack down on the ground, and then her footsteps coming down the hall. She knows exactly where to look for Stiles, because Stiles has no hobbies of his own. He never does anything else but cook, or clean, and that means he is almost always either on his hands and knees scrubbing something or in the kitchen.
She comes in and immediately observes the cake and knows who it’s for. “Grandpa is coming over?” She asks, dipping her finger into the bowl where the leftover frosting is sitting and stealing a big glob of it.
“He is,” Stiles says, keeping his eyes on the task at hand, smoothing out the frosting over and over until it’s perfect. “You’ll have to show him your report card. Straight A’s, again. He’ll be proud.”
She has another fingerful of frosting and doesn’t say anything for a moment. She watches Stiles frost the cake, the sweeping motions of the knife across the frosting over and over, and then she breathes in deep, and exhales. “You used to get straight A’s all the time, too, just like the deputy said this morning,” she starts, and Stiles lifts his eyes to meet hers. She looks serious, and pensive, the way she gets sometimes. She’s very thoughtful. She certainly didn’t get that from Jordan. “I bet grandpa was proud of that, too.”
“Sure, he was,” Stiles agrees, not understanding where this conversation is going. He opens up the cabinet in front of him and finds the rainbow sprinkles, pulling them down and popping the top, shaking them generously all over his work.
“Did he…always plan on just marrying you off?”
Stiles stops shaking the sprinkles, and he gives Rachel his full attention. He puts the sprinkles down on the counter, turns, and looks her in the face. He puts his hands on her shoulders. “Don’t say things like that,” he tells her.
She frowns, deep and hard. “But –“
“I didn’t get married off. Jordan and I fell in love.” It comes out of him robotically, and she hears the way his tone just isn’t sincere, because she knows him, has known him for most of her life, was raised by him and basically nobody else, and she knows how to read him. She is beginning to recognize a lie even when he tells one.
“You weren’t even as old as I am, now, and you’re telling me you wanted to get married?” She says this like it is absurd, because it is. “You don’t have to lie when there’s no one else around, dad.”
He works his jaw, and he meets her eyes.
She is taller than him, bigger than him, stronger than him, smarter than him, and more perceptive than him. She is older than he was, just like she said, and yet Stiles was married already by the time he was her age. There is something wrong with that. Even she knows that, in spite of the fact that this is what she grew up with. When she was a kid, she didn’t know just how young Stiles really was.
But he was a kid. He was a child raising a child. She’s finally started to realize that.
He says nothing. There is nothing right that he could say. He just takes his hands off her shoulders and goes back to attending to his cake, putting more sprinkles on a couple of bald spots, while she watches him and taps her foot, frustrated.
“This is not what you wanted from your life,” she barks at him, and Stiles shakes his head. “You wanted to just – just – cook and clean for all eternity? It doesn’t have to be this way. Maybe we should tell Grandpa how the deputy really treats you, and –“
“Oh, Rachel,” Stiles just has to laugh, he can’t help himself. “What do you mean how your father really treats me?”
“How he talks to you. How he treats you like his servant!”
She thinks that her grandfather is this great, amazing person who, if he knew that Jordan ever shouted at Stiles about the steak being overcooked or the towels not being warm for him when he gets out of the shower, would surely step in and see to it that Stiles were taken away from him. He does have the authority and the power to separate Jordan and Stiles, after all, as Stiles’ alpha.
While Jordan might be Stiles’ husband, he is only a beta. And the Sheriff always has the card in his back pocket, to use if he ever saw fit. He could take Stiles out of this situation so fast, and Rachel knows that, and she thinks that he would do it. If he knew that Jordan does, in fact, treat Stiles like a maid.
It wouldn’t happen like that. And Rachel would realize all at once that her grandpa is a traditionalist just like Jordan is. That her grandpa used to take Stiles’ books away, take his phone, would shout at him about getting all those ideas out of his head. It would just absolutely crush her if she knew that the Sheriff is just like Jordan, to a point.
But the Sheriff never once in his entire life hit Stiles. Not once.
Jordan cannot say the same. And maybe if the Sheriff knew that, he would do something, even if the laws don’t. Legally, Jordan is well within his rights to slap Stiles, can beat him with his belt, as long as it’s done under the guise of “discipline.” The only person who could really help Stiles is the Sheriff.
But he won’t. Stiles would die before he let his daughter know that her father beats him.
“Your father does not treat me like his servant,” Stiles says, and his cake is finished, so he puts the sprinkles away where he got them and shakes his head. “In this house, we just do things a certain way. Okay?”
She stares at him. She has a lot she wants to say.
She settles for turning and whipping her long hair, storming out of the kitchen without another word. At her retreating back Stiles calls, “please don’t say anything to your grandfather tonight,” but she doesn’t answer him. Just stomps up the stairs and runs off to her bedroom to sulk until she’s called for dinner. Stiles purses his lips and he tries to shake it off, turning back to put the cover on the cake gently and set it aside before starting work on the lasagna – but he’s rattled by the conversation.
He's rattled by the idea that Rachel thinks Jordan treats him like a maid. Jordan does, without question, but it bothers him how comfortable he is, talking to Stiles like that in front of her. What kind of things she’s learned and picked up on from watching how they interact.
When he was a kid, he wanted to be so much different than this. He wanted to go to college. He was going to fight tooth and nail to get there, even though most schools wouldn’t take him, and those that would, would only give him an honorary degree, and he’d have to get his father’s permission to go, and it was likely he would never grant it. It didn’t matter. Stiles had ambition. He wanted to write books about being an omega and how things had to change, he wanted to be smart, and travel the world, and see other omegas in other countries and how they live, some of them so free and empowered Stiles could barely even fathom it as a kid.
Then, Jordan happened to him. It all disappeared. He got married before he was eighteen because he had no way out and no one to help him and his alpha made him do it, because the Sheriff thought Jordan was nice, and would be kind to him, and treat him with respect, if a little more traditional than Stiles would have liked. Cooking and cleaning for a beta isn’t the worst fate that could befall and omega, his dad would always say. It could be worse. There are alphas out there who would chain Stiles up in their basements and make him have heats every month and just rape him for all eternity.
Stiles has no idea how to tell his dad that he does get raped, here, too. He’s been getting raped multiple times a week for ten years. And he has no one to tell.
Jordan and the Sheriff arrive at the same time, both off the same shift, and Stiles already has the table set, the candles lit, and the lasagna out of the oven, resting on a cooling rack. The very first thing the Sheriff does when he enters the house is come directly for the kitchen, following his nose, and he walks in looking just the same as always.
In spite of everything, Stiles is happy to see him. He looks forward to these dinners every month. He loves his dad, and his dad loves him, and Stiles forgave him long ago for putting him in this situation because he didn’t know any better, and it’s just no use, carrying that dead horse around. It’s no good. Stiles just accepted his dad for his views and who he is, years ago, because it was too exhausting to imagine living with the anger.
When Jordan and Stiles first got married, and Jordan started locking him up in the bedroom and forcing him to do all his bidding, Stiles barely got to see his father for a year. It was the worst year of his life. Jordan went from being kind and gentle to being controlling and manipulative overnight, after the wedding. And the Sheriff thought it was all just the honeymoon phase.
Meanwhile, Stiles was crying himself to sleep every night and getting chemical burns on his hands from cleaning so much.
Now, he comes over once a month for dinner. Stiles counts it as a blessing. He’s lucky. He could be chained up in a basement, you know.
“There’s the prettiest omega in the world,” he greets with his arms open, coming over for a big hug, that Stiles greedily accepts, nearly gets tears in his eyes from the smell of home, father, alpha, safety, a feeling he rarely if ever gets to have. “Jesus, Stiles, you’re thin,” he comments, pulling away and observing him. “Why are you thin? Jordan? Why is he thin?”
Jordan, on the other hand, does not relish these dinners.
It is an opportunity for the Sheriff to nitpick him and become a helicopter, hovering over Jordan’s every single move. The Sheriff might be a traditionalist just like Jordan, but he is not, by any stretch of Stiles’ imagination, abusive. The worst he ever did to Stiles was raise his voice. Before getting with Jordan, Stiles had never even received a spanking in his life, let alone been slapped or pushed around or manhandled.
The Sheriff does not believe in violence against omegas. He also isn’t a huge fan of omegas being mistreated in general, arranged marriages aside – he casts judgment on Jordan’s every single move around his son and granddaughter.
Stiles shakes his head, as Jordan comes into the kitchen with a frown on his face, agitation in his brow, and quickly waves this comment off. “I’m not. I’m just skinny, I’ve always been skinny.”
The Sheriff is skeptical. He looks Stiles up and down again and says, “thank god it’s lasagna night. You could use it.”
Stiles shrugs it off. “Beer?” He offers, which the Sheriff immediately agrees to, and then he slides his eyes to Jordan. “Would you like one, as well?”
“Yes,” he says back, clipped. Stiles ignores it, leaning into the fridge and getting two out, popping their tops off, and handing them to each of the men. “Stiles is just not a big eater. You know. He doesn’t really like eating.”
The Sheriff makes a face. “Doesn’t like eating,” he scoffs and repeats it like it’s a ridiculous accusation. “Who doesn’t like eating?”
“I’m so busy in a day,” Stiles waves this off.
“Wait until Rachel is out of the house. Then you’ll have plenty of time.”
Stiles turns away, focusing on his lasagna for a moment, because he does not want to think about when Rachel is out of the house. It is his goal in life for his daughter to go off and go to college and get out of this fucking hell hole of a house, but at the same time, he absolutely dreads it. When Rachel is gone, it’ll be just Stiles and Jordan again, and Stiles barely survived it the last time that was his life.
It was so lonely, and miserable, and boring, and monotonous, and Jordan would control his every single move, down to the breaths he took, the moves he made, it drove him half insane. He can’t live that way again, but he knows he might have to.
He has the passing thought, opening up the cutlery drawer and seeing all the shiny knives laid out for him, that he might kill himself when it comes time. And it settles there inside of his head, and it doesn’t sound so bad, and it alarms him. He hasn’t had a thought like that in a long time, and he tries to just forget about it, pulling a serving knife out and closing the drawer quietly.
Rachel comes down and gets greeted like the Princess of Wales by her grandfather, and Stiles watches them embrace and how Rachel smiles and he remembers when she was just a little kid, meeting him for the first time. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do when she’s out of the house, and he has nothing left to live for, he genuinely doesn’t, but at least she’ll have her grandfather, if it all comes down to it.
They all sit down and start talking, while Stiles builds the plates, and serves them all one by one, like he was trained to do as a kid. The second he is sitting down with a hot plate of food in front of him, putting his napkin across his lap, Jordan shakes his empty beer bottle at him. “Get me another one, will you, baby?” He asks, and then doesn’t wait for a response, because of course, Stiles will do that.
He takes his napkin off his lap and puts his fork down, standing without a word, taking the bottle out of his hand and going for the kitchen. As he moves, he catches Rachel watching him. Looking between Stiles, and the Sheriff, over and over, like she’s going to say something.
Stiles goes in, recycles the empty bottle, gets a new one from the fridge, opens it, and comes back into the dining room. He places the beer down on the coaster, doesn’t get a thank you or even an acknowledgement, and sits back down. Rachel stares. She looks at her grandfather like he’s going to comment on this, but he doesn’t. He’s busy talking about some case at work. Stiles puts his napkin over his lap again and goes for his fork, cutting into his lasagna square, and then Jordan is interrupting him again.
“Will you get me the hot sauce from the fridge?”
Stiles puts his fork down, takes his napkin off his lap, and gets up, again. He knows he’s being punished. It’s how Jordan operates. If he can’t slap Stiles or yell at him about what an ungrateful whore he is, then he’s going to demean and belittle Stiles by making him his slave and forbidding him to eat, through whatever means he can. Who knows what this is in retaliation for? For the comment his dad made about him being thin? For Rachel’s mouthy attitude? For not kissing him when he came home? It doesn’t matter. Stiles takes the beating like a good dog, goes into the kitchen and gets the hot sauce, and comes back.
He presents it, and Jordan looks right at the bottle, looks up at him, and smiles. “I wanted the green one,” he corrects, and Stiles is so used to this he can’t even bother getting angry. He just nods, silent, obedient, and goes into the kitchen and retrieves the green hot sauce, bringing that out, setting it down.
Finally, he sits, where his food is starting to get cold, everyone else’s plates already half empty, and he starts eating. His appetite is smaller than it was to begin with, now. He stares at his food and chews mechanically. He is afraid that after dinner is over and the Sheriff goes home, Jordan will hit him. It’s hard to concentrate on anything else.
“…great time to get somebody new at the station, anyway,” the Sheriff is saying, as Stiles listens with one ear and plays with his food more than he eats it. “We’ve had the same crew for so long it’ll be nice to have a new face, around. Shake things up a little bit.”
“Where is he coming from, again?” Jordan asks.
“New York.”
“Yikes. I’m sure he’ll be coming in with that big city bullshit attitude,” his eyes slide to Stiles, who is pretending he’s not even here at all, currently, floating away in his own head to his private place. “I hate those city people, don’t you, baby?”
Stiles nods, mute. When Jordan stares at him in expectance for a response, Stiles sits up straighter and he says, “yes, I hate them.”
“Well, he’s got a great resume,” the Sheriff says, oblivious as ever. “His work with omegas is really unparalleled. We need someone like that in this town.”
“Oh, he specializes in omega victims?” Rachel asks, suddenly interested.
“Yes. We’re bringing him in just for that,” the Sheriff agrees, and Jordan is stiff and silent at the head of the table, his brow furrowed, and his lips pursed. Of course someone coming in to look after the welfare of omegas would piss him off. Nevermind the fact that he’s come up with a dozen different terrible ways to hurt Stiles emotionally and physically, none of which break even a single law. “He’s an alpha, too.”
That, above all else, is what gets Jordan’s attention. He drops his fork and everything, looking at the Sheriff like he just grew ten fucking heads. “What?” He looks at Stiles, who is silent, just trying to eat enough of his food to not get called out for not eating at all. “You’re letting – you’re going to let an alpha work with omegas?”
“He has amazing recommendations,” the Sheriff insists, like it’s a non-issue, even though, to Jordan, it’s every issue. It’s every possible issue imaginable.
Jordan is, above all else, above abusive, above cruel, above neglectful, above thoughtless …a deeply pathetic, insecure little person. It’s why he beats Stiles. It’s why he wanted Stiles to begin with. Stiles is one of the prettiest omegas, and he always has been, it is not just something people say. It’s true. And Jordan wanted him even though his beta cock could never possibly satisfy any omega, least of all Stiles, because he wanted to put one over on alphas at large.
He wanted something only alphas generally get to have. It makes him feel like more of a man. It makes him feel like maybe he is an alpha, as much as he despises them; it’s really about wanting to be one.
Jealously, plain and simple. The sheer idea of an alpha coming into his work space has his eyes twitching.
“I trust him wholeheartedly, and trust me, when you meet him, you’ll feel the exact same way,” the Sheriff assures him, but it really doesn’t land. It lands for Rachel, who is sitting over there looking quietly pleased and self-satisfied, perhaps thinking that with the arrival of this new alpha who allegedly specializes in omega victims, Jordan will finally get what’s coming to him.
But Jordan is mad. He’s really mad. And Stiles doesn’t realize it, not in this moment, but this is when everything started to get worse, and change, and shift. This is the moment his life started completely changing, all of his hard work to be better and to avoid being hurt anymore going down the drain, through no fault of his own, or anyone else’s, but Jordan’s alone.
xXx
Stiles’ favorite time of the week used to be weekday afternoons. Jordan isn’t home, most of the time, which is always a plus – and when Rachel was growing up, that meant doing homework together or playing together or even just sitting to watch television together, something Stiles is rarely if ever permitted to do.
Since Rachel has been getting older, she’s not usually around nearly as much as she used to be - she’s got friends, briefly had a boyfriend that she grew bored of, and she’s got a car that she drives to Target and the movies and the mall or wherever she feels like going. She’s got her own life, totally separate from Stiles, which hurts him, because she is all he really has, and now she’s growing up, and every single day, it’s like he gets less and less of her.
These days, even when she is home, she’s usually locked up in her bedroom on the phone or doing her homework in peace, rarely coming out. Stiles always reminds himself that when he was a teenager, he didn’t spend every waking second with his dad, either, and it’s just how teenagers behave, and it isn’t personal.
It still hurts his feelings from time to time, no matter what he tells himself about it. But then, that’s mostly his fault, because Rachel was the only person aside from his husband he was ever really allowed to interact with. Now that she’s too busy anymore, he finds himself listless and alone more often than not. It reminds him of those first few months of being married, when Jordan would lock him in the house and forbid him from talking to anyone else, for weeks at a time.
On this weekday afternoon, Rachel is home. Stiles climbs up the stairs after finishing the laundry, basket in hand, and as he approaches Rachel’s bedroom door, he hears voices on the other side.
Gently, he raps on the door with his knuckles.
“Yeah?”
“It’s me,” he says, before pushing the door open to reveal Rachel lying on her bed, belly down, filing her nails. She’s got a friend with her, still in her school uniform, sat at Rachel’s desk with a laptop open in front of her. “I didn’t know you had a friend over.”
“School project,” Rachel explains with a shrug. “Liz, my dad, my dad, Liz.”
Liz, for her part, looks bamboozled to see Stiles standing there. She looks Stiles up and down as though checking to make sure he’s an actual person and not just a fantasy come to life, speechless, mouth opening and closing. Rachel ignores her, rolling her eyes. She’s used to that reaction by now.
“You don’t have to put it all away, dad,” Rachel chides when Stiles moves to her drawers to start neatly putting the folded clothes away for her. “Just leave it and I’ll take care of it.”
She’s been saying similar things all the time, as of late. You don’t have to do that, I can finish it, just go sit down and rest and I’ll deal with it. Stiles knows she only means well, but if he doesn’t at least have his chores to do, then he has absolutely nothing to fill his days. A bottomless empty pit, and that scares the shit out of him almost even more than Jordan does.
“I’ll be quick,” he says, gently placing her t-shirts into their designated drawer before shutting it. “What’s your project on, girls?”
“The French Revolution,” Rachel answers. Liz is still struck silent, watching Stiles’ every move intently, eyes bugging out of her head.
“I loved that. History was a favorite of mine.”
Rachel gives him a look, pausing in her ferocious nail filing. “Before Deputy Fucknuts forced you to drop out.”
Stiles pauses. He hesitates, considering dropping the basket then and there and having a conversation with her about how she really should not say things like that, shouldn’t disparage her father, especially not in his ear shot. He should tell her that he buys everything for her and she’s got a roof over her head because of him, and she should be nicer to him.
He can’t stomach it, though. He just sighs through his nose and he says, “yes. Before that.”
Rachel frowns. “It’s not fair,” she tells him very sincerely, all of this going clean over her friend’s head. “I guess he’s going bananas over that alpha starting at the station.”
“You have no idea,” he mutters after closing the last drawer. Jordan has been wound up tighter than a top the past few days since that alpha started up work at the station. Stiles doesn’t even know what his name is, because Jordan refuses to talk about it beyond being completely indignant over the fact that the Sheriff hired him at all. He keeps going on and on about, how dare he bring an alpha in that’s going to deal with omegas? Like there’s anything this alpha could do to any omega victim that’s worse than what Jordan has been doing to Stiles for years.
As he leaves, in the middle of shutting the door, Liz finally finds her voice. She says, “that’s your dad? He’s so –“
“Don’t be gross,” Rachel snaps at her instantly. Stiles clicks the door closed but he can still hear Liz’s muffled voice saying, “but he’s so hot,” from the other side of the wall, and he rolls his eyes.
Being good looking has long been the only thing Stiles has ever had going for him. He has no skills other than home care, he has no education, no job, no nothing. Just a pretty face. Which is exactly how Jordan likes it to be.
In the living room there are so many pictures of them as a family you’d be convinced they were just a normal, happy, healthy little unit, like any other house on the block. There’s a family picture from last year hanging over the fireplace, a line of pictures of Stiles and Rachel on a shelf by the couch, dozens of them adorning the walls in the hallway. Jordan has always liked to show off how attractive Stiles is, and there’s no better way to do it than by constantly taking his picture and showing it off. He has ones in his wallet, too, that Stiles is certain he takes out and wields any time he’s spoken to someone who hasn’t seen him, before.
Stiles has no idea if Jordan knows how objectified and belittled this makes Stiles feel. If he thinks it’s a compliment. If he thinks it makes Stiles feel good. If that’s all he thinks Stiles is good for.
When Jordan comes home from work that night, he’s irritable, immediately. Stiles goes to greet him at the door because he’s always on his best behavior whenever he knows that Jordan is having a “hard time at work” or is in general just in a foul mood, and Jordan grips him hard and hugs him, tight up against his chest, rocking him back and forth right there in the foyer. Stiles isn’t surprised; sometimes, when Jordan gets worked up, all he wants to do is remind himself that he has an omega, he has a very pretty omega at that, and this omega is essentially his pet that can do whatever he tells it to do, will bend over backwards to do his bidding because Stiles is meek and petrified of him.
Stiles accepts the hug and just folds into it. He hugs back not because he wants to, but because if he doesn’t, Jordan will demand to know why, what’s wrong with you, you’re so ungrateful, on and on.
“Christ, am I glad to see you,” Jordan says into Stiles’ hair, kissing the top of his head and then pulling back to look him in the eye. He puts both of his hands on Stiles’ face and cradles it, like his precious thing, and he smiles. Stiles smiles back to be polite. “You make my day so much better.”
With his smile tight and forced, Stiles says, “I made cookies.”
“That’s exactly what I needed you to say,” he sighs, leaning down and kissing Stiles on the mouth, shoving his tongue down Stiles’ throat while he’s at it. Stiles accepts, kisses back, his body tense. “I’m having the shittiest fucking time at work,” he puts his hand on the small of Stiles’ back and guides him forward, towards the kitchen, where the cookies are waiting for him on a plate in the middle of the table, dinner already in the oven and cooking away with twenty minutes left on the timer.
Jordan sits down at the table, and Stiles follows suit, watching him reach for a cookie and shove it into his mouth unceremoniously. He chews with his mouth open. Stiles can’t fucking stand that, so he looks away, at his hands, on top of the table.
“You know, it’s almost reprehensible of your father to bring in an alpha to be dealing with the omegas. If he had any sense, he’d have put me on that,” he waves his uneaten cookie half around in the air as he speaks.
That is the most laughable god damn thing he’s ever said, but Stiles nods, like he’s so right, that’s so true, on and on.
“I’m the one who’s married to his omega son, you’d think that would mean something to him.”
“Yes, you’re right. That was stupid of him,” Stiles agrees, tone dulcet.
“I keep asking myself, what the hell I ever did wrong for him to not give this job to me. I’m the most obvious candidate. Doesn’t he give a fuck about making sure I’m getting paid enough to provide for his son and granddaughter?”
This is a useless argument to make. Jordan has money. His family has lots of money. He is very wealthy, which is why in spite of the fact that most cops are relatively broke, he and Stiles live in a certifiable mini mansion with a three-car garage, why Stiles has the nicest clothes and an expensive watch and why Rachel goes to that fancy private school. Money isn’t the issue, his salary isn’t an issue, the fact that Jordan is married to Stiles isn’t the issue.
The issue is that the Sheriff gave that job to an alpha. That’s it. Jordan didn’t want the job, before, he didn’t care about the job, he didn’t rally for the job. He only cares because an alpha got something he felt entitled to, for whatever reason that he may feel entitled to it.
Jordan has felt entitled to a lot of things in his life. For no reason. He was born to traditionalist alpha parents who hated that they had a beta son so they raised him to think like an alpha. He was born to massive amounts of money and into society where he went to country clubs and expensive schools and had the best of everything, his entire life. He only became a cop because it was a way to control people, and things, and especially a way to control omegas. It’s about enforcing old school bullshit on the world around him – but frankly, Jordan’s dad makes Jordan seem like a progressive. If Jordan’s dad had his way, Stiles wouldn’t be able to drive or read or talk to anyone without being spoken to first.
Stiles has also gotten the impression, many times over, that Jordan’s dad would give just about anything to fuck Stiles. Stiles avoids him like the plague when they come over for Christmas, tries to keep to himself, but he’s watched like a hawk the entire time. Once, he cornered Stiles in the pantry when Stiles went to get some more crackers for the cheese plate, and he put his hands on Stiles’ waist and breathed his whiskey breath all over him and asked him if he had ever in his life had a real alpha cock before.
Luckily, Rachel happened to be coming right down the hallway at that moment, and he backed off, and Stiles managed to get away before things got any worse than that, but he was traumatized and shaken up by it. In his daily life, he rarely if ever interacts with alphas, let alone finds himself backed into corners by massive, drunk ones who fathered the man he’s married to.
He never told Jordan about it. Jordan would probably accuse Stiles of lying, or trying to seduce his father himself, and that would be a whole can of worms Stiles would rather not get into.
All that said, Jordan comes from trash, and is trash, and he doesn’t really deserve anything he thinks that he does. Stiles keeps that to himself, as well.
“My father can be a very hard person to understand,” Stiles says, toneless.
Jordan nods in agreement. “I’d suggest maybe you should talk to him, but, we both know he won’t listen,” he laughs, like it’s funny, though it isn’t. The fact that Stiles’ opinions and thoughts and feelings mean next to nothing to everybody in his life aside from perhaps Rachel is demoralizing, but he smiles, and shrugs, oh well. Who cares? Stiles is stupid, anyway.
Maybe he really is stupid anymore. He hasn’t been allowed to read a book in years. He can’t turn on the television without Jordan standing over his shoulder monitoring what he watches. His phone only has the capability of calling Rachel, Jordan, or the Sheriff, no one else on earth, and he can’t use the internet on it, or play any games. He’s completely cut off from information, the outside world, the news, anything, everything.
He is stupid. It’s how Jordan likes him.
They eat dinner, and Rachel emerges from her room and is in a decent enough mood, no cutting barbs for Jordan, no underhanded comments about anything for once, and it goes fine. The whole night is fine. Stiles does the dishes while Jordan drinks beer on the couch and watches ESPN highlights, then Stiles cleans the kitchen, mops the floor, goes upstairs and sucks Jordan off dutifully, and it’s fine. Another day. He thought Jordan was letting it go. Just accepting that he can’t have his way in everything, forgetting about it, maybe becoming friendly with the new alpha at work because he has no choice but to move on.
Stiles forgot – Jordan is the most unreasonable, spoiled, megalomaniacal person on earth. He’s reminded of that when, as he’s making the bed upstairs after breakfast, when Rachel is long gone, Jordan comes storming into the bedroom wielding his uniform pants and shirt, startling Stiles. Jordan shouts, “you useless fucking whore,” at him, and Stiles jumps and moves back towards the wall on instinct as Jordan advances on him. “Can’t you fucking do anything right?”
“I – I –“ Stiles stammers, terrified as he pushes himself into the far corner of the bedroom, nowhere to hide, nowhere to go, as Jordan comes closer, and closer to him, face a mask of rage, and Stiles can’t compute much, but he notes that the uniform in his hands has bleach stains on it.
That’s the last detail he manages to take in before Jordan hits him, straight across the face, with the back of his hand. Stiles’ whole body goes with the force of it, so he hits his head on the wall and gets disoriented, his head pounding immediately as he collapses to the ground on his hands and knees. There’s ringing in his ears, and his lip is split, blood coming off on his hand when he reaches up to feel where he was struck.
Stiles looks up at Jordan, standing over him, raging.
“You can’t even fucking do laundry?” He booms, and Stiles is baffled, and scared. He stares at the ruined uniform, patches of bleach stains all over it, and it looks like it maybe even got shrunk, and he’s confused. He didn’t even run that load of laundry, yesterday. He got it set up, yes, but he didn’t actually do it, and even if he had, he hasn’t made a mistake like that since he was eighteen years old and had to learn the hard way the consequences of not doing it right. He never would’ve used bleach. He never would’ve run the wrong cycle and shrunk them.
Then, he remembers Rachel, how she keeps offering to help him, and he realizes, she did try to help him. She ran the laundry. She ruined Jordan’s uniform by trying to help her dad not have to work like a fucking slave, even just running a single load of laundry, to try and make a difference.
“Please,” Stiles lifts his hands up over his head to try and protect himself from further beatings, but Jordan grabs him by his hands and drags him across the floor bodily, so Jordan can stand over him. Both of his feet bracket Stiles’ body in, and Stiles is trapped, bleeding and crying and petrified, underneath him, as Jordan tosses the ruined uniform aside and grabs Stiles by the hair, tight, burying his face into the carpet.
Stiles flails wildly, sobbing into the floor.
“Remember when you thought you were so smart? Huh? You wanted to go to college, didn’t you? When you can’t even run a god damn load of laundry, you useless, stupid fucking –“
“It was an accident,” Stiles cries, panting, short of breath. “I have – please - I have another one ready – please, please, let me get it…”
“You better fucking have another one,” he booms, and Stiles cowers into the ground more. Jordan releases him, and Stiles hastily scrambles to get up onto his feet. As he does so, Jordan picks up his belt from the bed, where he had tossed it aside, and he wields it. Stiles can’t move fast enough, trips over his own feet in his desperation to get away, can’t see through his tears, and Jordan whips him with it, across his back.
Stiles sobs, struggles to get up, but finally manages it, running for his fucking life into the closet. His shaking hands go to the folded laundry he had set here only just yesterday, and he finds the uniform, the pants, the shirt, crying his eyes out as he pulls down the ironing board, and he says, “just, just, a second, just a second, Jordan, just a second,” wiping at his blood and tears with the length of his arm.
It has been a very long time since Jordan has been this aggressive with him. Stiles is obedient to a fault. He never makes mistakes. He rarely if ever gives Jordan a reason to even raise his voice to Stiles, and now that it’s happening again, Stiles is scared for his life. He forgot how bad it can be.
He turns the iron on and frantically lays the pants out, can’t move fast enough, his fingers fumbling. Jordan is standing in the doorway, the belt dangling from his hand, watching. Stiles is terrified of burning the pants, ruining it somehow, even though he does this every day, but he’s just so scattered and upset, and afraid.
“What’s the matter with you?” Jordan shouts at him, and Stiles shakes his head.
“I don’t know, I messed up, I messed up…” the pants are done, and he goes onto the shirt, carefully, just as careful as he can.
“Don’t you know how to do fucking anything?”
“It’s almost done,” Stiles sniffles, and he holds the shirt up to confirm it’s smooth and pristine, like Jordan needs it to be, and he takes both that and the shirt in each hand. He slowly turns and comes back to Jordan, keeping his eyes lowered, holding them out for him to take. “I’m sorry, it was a mistake. I’m sorry.”
Jordan rips the clothing out of Stiles’ hands, so Stiles flinches. But Jordan doesn’t hit him, either with his hand or the belt. He goes into the bedroom and Stiles stands in the closet and watches him, getting into his pants, doing his belt up, shaking his head like he’s so god damn mad he can’t even think of anything else to say.
But, he thinks of something, and he starts shouting at Stiles, again. “You know how pathetic it is to have an omega who can’t even do the laundry? Huh? How many thousands of dollars did I pay for homemaking school for you?”
“I’m sorry,” Stiles repeats. He doesn’t know what else to do.
“You should be ashamed of yourself! I’m the one who has an actual job, Stiles, all you do is sit around at home, and all I ask is for you to take care of the fucking house. That’s all. That’s it! You can’t even do that!”
Stiles wipes at his eyes. It’s a ridiculous accusation, to accuse Stiles of just sitting around at home lying around on the couch eating chocolate and wiling his days away – Stiles is worked to the fucking bone. He does everything. He does the grocery shopping, he scrubs the floors and surfaces and baseboards, he vacuums, he keeps everything neat, he does the laundry, cleans the bathrooms, he raised Rachel all by himself, he cooks breakfast, prepares lunches, makes dinner, he doesn’t have one single solitary second to himself in his life, but he can’t argue it. He just cries and stands there.
Jordan tucks his shirt into his pants, and goes for his utility belt, slung over the armchair in the corner of the room. As he’s putting it on, he says, “you are the most ungrateful, spoiled omega on earth. Look what you did, it’s ruined, Stiles!”
Stiles looks at the ruined uniform left strewn out on the half-made bed. It really is ruined. Stiles wonders what else got ruined in that load of laundry, what else he will have to bow and scrape to make up for.
After securing his belt in place, he goes to storm out of the room, and Stiles has no choice but to follow. Even though he wants to run into the bathroom and hide and curl up on the floor, he follows Jordan down the stairs, step by step, miserable every step of the way. As Jordan is at the front door getting his shoes on and tied, Stiles goes for the kitchen as fast as he can, for the fridge, where Jordan’s lunch is sitting on one of the shelves.
He brings it out, keeps his eyes on the floor as he hands it off. Jordan rips it out of his hands and he barks, “did you fuck this up, too?”
Stiles shakes his head, no.
“I want this place spotless when I get back, do you understand me? Huh? Can you manage that? Are you too god damned stupid to make dinner now, too?”
“No, I’ll – I’ll do it right,” he stammers, and Jordan just gives him one last withering glare before going out the front door, slamming it so hard behind him Stiles flinches.
Once he’s gone, Stiles put his hands over his face, bursting into hysterical tears. He sinks down to the floor and sobs, big, hard ones, that wrack his entire body. He hasn’t been scared like that for a very long time, hasn’t been beaten like that, menaced, shouted at, not in forever. He cries and cries, so hard it hurts his face where Jordan beat him. He has carpet burn on his arms, a welt forming on his back where Jordan whipped him, and his lip is split and still bleeding.
He gives himself five minutes of feeling sorry for himself, weeping on the foyer floor, asking himself how he can possibly do this for another day, let alone another year. He just can’t. It’s too horrible. He can’t.
He does. He gets up off the floor. He goes into the hall bathroom and looks at himself in the mirror, and the bruising is bad. Jordan might not be an alpha, but Stiles is still an omega, half his size, and getting hit like that messes him up pretty bad. He ignores that for now and just dampens a towel with lukewarm water, pressing it to his face to reduce the swelling, breathing in and out, in and out. He’s still shaking when he goes to the laundry room and assesses the damage. Luckily, it’s not that bad – some of Stiles’ shirts are ruined, a couple pairs of pants, but it was a small load. He throws the ruined clothes away, gets the space organized, cleaned up, and then he goes to the living room, where he vacuums, dusts every surface, wipes off every picture frame, working as fast as he can make himself. He scrubs the kitchen floor so hard it shines, wipes down all the counters, cleans out the fridge, takes the trash out to the curb and keeps his head down so no one can really see him.
Up in the bedroom, where it all happened, he mindlessly goes through the motions of making the bed again, constantly looking up to see if Jordan will come back in and finish what he started. He throws away the old uniform, can’t even hardly look at it. He cleans everything. All of it. Top to bottom. He doesn’t leave any corner untouched, because when Jordan gets like this, even a speck of dust on a picture frame is cause for a beating. Stiles just can’t take another one. Not like that.
He gets dinner prepped, meticulously and painstakingly making Jordan’s favorite meal, even though he does not deserve it. It’s a pot roast and a perfect baked potato and brussels sprouts, and if the roast isn’t cooked just right, or if the potato hasn’t been in for long enough and isn’t just the right consistency that Jordan likes it, it’s the end of the world. Stiles can’t afford that.
An hour before Rachel is supposed to come home from school, Stiles changes his clothes, so he looks neat and put together. He goes into the en-suite and dabs makeup on his face, covering up his bruising, though there isn’t a lot he can do about the fat lip. He’ll just keep his back turned, and maybe she won’t notice it. He looks at himself in the mirror when he’s done.
His eyes are wide, big and brown, afraid. His skin is flawless thanks to the makeup, and the fat lip really isn’t that bad, only if you look closely. His clothes are loose, but neat, and he looks fine. He looks just fine.
Inside, he feels like he’s just forcing his dead corpse around, exhausted, beaten, afraid, broken, but outside, no one can tell. Maybe it’s one of the benefits of being particularly pretty. As far as Stiles is concerned, it’s one of the only benefits there are, really.
As expected, Rachel comes home, gives Stiles a perfunctory greeting, and goes right upstairs, none the wiser. Stiles breathes a sigh of relief and diligently prepares the dinner, sticking the pot roast in at just the right time and monitoring that and the potatoes like his newborn children. He does not leave the kitchen. He sits and stares at the meat as it cooks in the oven, checks on it every fifteen minutes to make sure it’s not getting overdone, bites his nails down to nothing as he watches the clock, counting down the seconds until Jordan will be home.
He has timed it. He needs this ready to go for when he’s in the door. Anything else is unacceptable. He obsesses. He checks the temperature over and over. He pokes at the potatoes.
By the grace of god, by the time the front door is opening, Stiles has just set the pot roast out on the counter to rest, and he tenses up at the sound of Jordan’s footsteps coming for him. He keeps his head lowered and just focuses on poking at the meat to make sure it’s perfect, as Jordan comes into the kitchen.
“Baby,” he greets, and Stiles knows that tone. He’s heard it hundreds of times, ever since he was seventeen years old. It’s the tone he uses after beating the living hell out of Stiles and feeling remorse over it, trying to win Stiles back, and when Stiles turns to look at him, he is not surprised to see Jordan wielding a bouquet of flowers. “I got you something,” he says, coming further into the room and closer to Stiles.
Stiles has no god damn choice. He smiles, like he’s pleased. It’s a bouquet of white roses, like a peace offering or something, and he takes them into his arms and, even though it hurts his split lip to do it, he smiles more. “Wow. Thank you.”
He only ever gets flowers on his birthday, Valentine’s Day, or a day when Jordan hits him. It’s not exactly a thrill, you can imagine.
Jordan reaches out to touch Stiles’ face, and on instinct, Stiles flinches a little, before he forces himself to not move a muscle. He puts his hand right on Stiles’ cheek, where there is bruising underneath his makeup, and he stares at him.
To his credit, he does usually seem genuinely apologetic after hitting Stiles. Never enough to change, never enough to stop, never enough to go to anger management or therapy or whatever he needs – but it does cause him guilt. At least he’s not a total sociopath.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you, baby,” he murmurs this quietly, coming in closer to Stiles so their bodies are touching, and Stiles holds the flowers and looks down at his feet. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say. He is afraid of saying the wrong thing. “I’m having a hard time at work. It’d just be nice if things can go well at home. That’s all.”
“You’re right,” Stiles says. He turns away and he reaches for a vase, but he can’t reach it where it is on the top shelf, and Jordan helps him. He reaches over Stiles’ head and gets it down for him, and Stiles thanks him with his eyes on the floor. “I made a mistake. It won’t happen again.”
“I won’t hurt you again, I promise,” he swears, touching Stiles’ hips as Stiles busies himself with filling the vase with water and cutting the ends off of his roses.
He has promised the same thing a dozen times, before. It’s just words. Stiles wishes they were true and that it would stop and that Jordan would be nicer, and sometimes Stiles even wishes that he would just die. End it all. The cleaning, the cooking, the sex, the yelling, the hitting, all of it.
He feels tired and sad and broken. He nods his head and puts the roses in the vase, dutifully setting them up on top of the table that’s already set for dinner. They don’t talk about it any more than that – what else is there to say? It’s always the same.
Rachel comes down when it’s time for dinner, and as Stiles sets her full plate of food down for her, she notices the roses there in the middle of the table. “Those are nice,” she says, suspicion in her tone. “What’s the occasion?”
“No occasion,” Jordan shrugs, already eating his own food and smirking. “I don’t need a reason to spoil your dad, do I?”
Stiles makes his plate. He thinks about using the steak knife in his hand to slit his own wrists, right then and there. Instead, he walks to the table and sits, with his eyes down, and just tries to get through this night.
Rachel observes the roses, then Stiles, then Jordan, individually scanning the situation, apparently trying to read it. It may be impossible to read, because Stiles is keeping his face studiously blank, and Jordan is sitting there smirking like a hyena, and there’s nothing for her to find, or see.
Sometimes, Stiles wonders if she could even imagine or fathom the idea of Jordan hitting Stiles. Truth be told, he thinks that it’s so abhorrent a thought that her mind won’t even go there, even with the evidence right in front of her. Stiles is grateful for that.
She is still a kid. She’s not supposed to think about things like that.
“They’re beautiful,” Stiles says. “I love them. Thank you.”
Later that night, after Stiles has done all the dishes and scrubbed the kitchen until it shines again, he stares at the headboard of their bed and just thinks about his roses. Jordan grips his hips and pushes inside, and Stiles checks out, on his hands and knees, and imagines himself sitting at the table with his roses, alone, in an alternate universe, where none of this happened to him, where Rachel got adopted by a family that has no abuse, where Jordan never got hired as a deputy, where Stiles is left alone. No one makes him clean. No one makes him cook. No one hits him. No one violates him.
Then in the morning, he gets up, and does it all over again.