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Derek took one look at the ID and rolled his eyes so hard it hurt. He looked up at the guy –kid– who had handed it to him. He grinned at Derek, amusement lighting his eyes. Confidence settled into the way he tilted his chin, showing off a smooth length of neck, and jutted one side of his narrow hips. Derek snapped his gaze up from those hips to the kid’s card. John Smith. Really? He must be drunk already, then, Derek thought, to think that an attempt this weak would get him past Derek at the door to Beacon Hill’s best nightclub.
Derek took another look at the card and put his whole head into the eyeroll this time. “Did you actually cut out a picture and paste it on here?” he asked, picking at the lamination with a fingernail.
“What?” the kid squawked. “No!”
He totally had. “How old are you? Sixteen?” Derek asked, narrowing his eyes at him.
“Sixteen?” He had the gall to look offended, with his obviously fake license in Derek’s hand.
“Get out,” Derek ordered. The kid flailed, but with one last look at unimpressed raise of Derek’s eyebrows (and a lingering up-down that made Derek blush), the kid got.
Derek rolled his shoulders, huffing out a breath that fogged up the air in front of him. The line was filled with shivering patrons desperate enough to get into Cora’s that they were willing to brave the freezing temperatures with bare legs and thin shirts. Derek was about to tell Boyd to draw up the most hypothermic looking of the bunch to let in when he saw a familiar face peer out of the crowd at him. He quickly dodged back in line, but Derek was already striding toward him.
“Hey, hey! I’m of age!” the kid protested when Derek pulled him out of line. He flailed in Derek’s grip. “Check my ID!”
“Is it as bad as your fake last time?” Derek asked as he transported him towards the parking lot.
The guy smiled up at him, and Derek blinked. “You remember me,” he said, pleased. “That was weeks ago!”
Yes, okay, so Derek remembered him. It wasn’t like Derek thought about him all the time, or had managed to remember the exact placement of the moles that swept along his jawline. It wasn’t like that long stretch of neck and the bruises he could suck onto it featured in (most of) his fantasies. He didn’t think about the movement of those hips, or how they’d feel in his hands, under his – no, he didn’t. He didn’t because this kid’s ID might have said 21, but it had been the worst forgery Derek had seen in the months he’d been helping out at his sister’s new club and Derek wasn’t that kind of guy who did underage.
“I’m not a kid,” he said, twisting a little in Derek’s grip, “honest. Just look –”
“John, or whoever you actually are,” Derek started. The kid winced at the name. “I remembered you because you tried to get into my sister’s club with a fake. Her club that could easily lose its license if underaged kids are caught drinking inside. Understand? Now go home.” Derek didn’t watch his ass as he walked into the parking lot, pulling a cellphone from those tight pockets … Seriously, Hale?!
“Don’t let me see you here again!” he called for good measure.
“The streetname is Wolfsbane,” Cora said, downing a second shot. “According to the cops, it’s the newest phase in the club scene, and its put fifteen people in the hospital; seven of them after a night clubbing here.” She filled the shot again, generously.
“Fuck,” Derek said.
“Fuck indeed,” Cora replied, raising her shotglass in a bitter toast and tipping back to swallow it in one go.
“They can’t think you’ve got a part in this,” he argued.
Cora shrugged. “Does it matter?” she asked. “It’s happening, people are getting hurt, and we’re not stopping it. More than half of the people overdosing got that shit here.” Her face scrunched and she bit her lip hard, determined not to cry. “If we can’t find the dealer,” she said after a minute, her voice wavering, “they’re going to shut us down.” She looked up at him, smiled bitterly, and poured another shot.
Derek winced as he walked from Cora’s office, the thumping bass instantly reverberating through his ribcage, the music aggravating his tension headache. He was nearly vibrating with frustration, which was not the way to start a shift at the doors – nothing was more likely to cause a situation that the bouncers already being on edge. Instead, Derek planned to let Boyd know to call him if he was needed, and then sit in his car in the parking lot and calm down. He scanned the dancefloor quickly on his way out and froze. He was not in the mood for this, not tonight. He stalked down, dancers moving out of his way until he reached John, dancing with his back against another guy, the guy’s hands low and curled on his hips. Derek could guess his expression; the dancing partner took one look at his face and disappeared into the crowded dance floor, leaving John stumbling. He looked around the dancefloor, mouth open in surprise before he caught sight of Derek and his mouth snapped shut.
“Listen –” he started, but Derek simply grabbed him by the shoulder and tugged him forward. John stumbled forward, grabbing Derek’s wrist to steady himself.
“You can’t do this shit,” Derek said, over the music, leaning close to be heard by him. The kid’s eyes were wide, mouth open in surprise and Derek should have been too done to notice the way his pink lips parted, dammit. “Do you –”
The kid’s gaze had been flicking around this room, avoiding Derek’s, when it suddenly set upon something behind him. Derek felt his body still under his hands as his shoulders settled back and his back straightened. Despite himself, Derek twisted to look at what had caught the kid’s attention. Against the half-wall separating a lounge area from the rest of the club leaned a smirking blond, his chest thrust out, one arm draped along the polished wood of the barrier he leaned against. The lights flashed across him and the two girls in skin-tight jeans standing with him, but even so, Derek could see him pass a second baggie of purple powder and take their money with a smarmy grin.
“Fuck,” Derek snapped. “Stay here,” he ordered the kid over his shoulder as he stalked toward the group. This was the little shit putting all the work Cora had put into this place at risk, who had put seven people in the hospital and was grinning about it. The girls scurried out of his way when he grabbed the guy by the collar and pulled him off the wall. The dealer immediately went for a swing, which Derek dodged, pulling him around by the collar, and pushing him against the barrier. Something hit him across the side of the head and splintered, knocking him to the side. He blinked something out of his eyes as pain throbbed in his head. He hadn’t noticed that the dealer had a partner, obviously. He had hit him with a thankfully fragile barstool, and now brandished the fractured leg. The blond leapt the barrier and made a run towards the bathrooms. Patrons on the top level scurried out of his way, one girl shrieking audible over the thumping music as she was knocked to the ground in his rush to flee.
Derek stepped back to avoid another swing of the fractured leg brandished at him, but his attacker didn’t get a chance to hit him. John appeared from the side, grabbing his arm twisting back, to the side, forcing him to drop the weapon. Using his weight, John pushed him into the wall, winding him so he could grab hold of his other wrist, pulling them together behind his back.
He grabbed a pair of handcuffs from a belt concealed under his shirt and fastened them expertly.
“You OK?” he yelled over to Derek, who just stood and stared at him.
“What the fuck?” he asked, and the kid just laughed at him, the flashing lights colouring his grin as he pulled the dealer up.
“I know, right!” he shouted back. “I told you I wasn’t a kid!”
His badge ID – obviously not a fake – gave his name as Officer Stilinski. His partner was a tiny redhead Derek wouldn’t mess with, after seeing her take down the fleeing blond dealer with brutal efficiency. With both of the dealers, and the two girls they’d sold to, put away in cruisers waiting outside, Cora had thanked the officers profusely and sent them on their way. As they climbed inside, Stilinski looked over the car roof and caught Derek’s eye, smiling wryly.
The next week, Derek looked up from checking IDs to see them both standing there in line.
“We’re not here on business,” Officer Martin – 'Lydia, please' – said when Derek approached them. He pulled them, and their group of friends from line, ushering them all to the doors.
“You don’t have to wait in the cold,” he said over their good-natured protests on line-cutting. “The two of you saved Cora’s club.”
“We would have caught them sooner,” Lydia said primly, “had my partner not managed to get blocked at the door every single time.”
Derek blushed, but refused to acknowledge it. Shrugging, he said, “That ID was godawful.”
“I don’t know why we trusted Greenburg to make the fakes,” Stilinski replied innocently. The rest of the group groaned.
“You didn’t have to use a fake,” Lydia said, in the air of a long, annoying argument.
“How many chances for undercover work are there in Beacon Hills?” Stilinski retorted. “I wanted to do it right. Damn Greenburg.”
As they milled in the entrance, Stilinski sidled closer to Derek. “Told you I wasn’t sixteen,” he said.
“Shut up,” Derek shook his head.
Stilinski laughed, tilting his head back, giving Derek another good look at that long, biteable, of age neck. “So do my amazing heroics means you’ll start letting me in the club?” he asked, grinning cheekily.
Derek returned the smile. “If you’re here, as a returning hero, no less, I guess you’ll have to let me buy you a drink.”
“I’d like that,” he said, biting his lip. “I’m Stiles, by the way.”
“Stiles Stilinski?” Derek asked. “That has to be fake.”
“No –”
“Let me see your ID again.”
“Come on –” Stiles complained, still laughing, twisting away as Derek tried to catch the hand holding his ID.
“What’s your phone number? I’ve obviously got to call and confirm.”
“Oh, bouncer thinks he’s got game, huh?” Stiles let him grab his wrist and stepped closer. “Come in for that drink and the number’s yours.”
“Boyd, cover the door,” Derek called over his shoulder, leading a laughing Stiles inside.