Work Text:
Knock knock knock.
The sharp rap of your knuckles against the fancy wood door of Roxy's flat is loud - too loud, you think, for chilly 2 in the morning on a concrete landing, duffel bag slung over your shoulder and one of Dave's hands clenched tightly in yours. Too loud for your fast-paced, jumbled thoughts. You try and fail to resist the urge to glance behind you. The last five six seven times you did, it was the same concrete stairwell fading into inky blackness, the white porchlights of each apartment looking like will-o-wisps. This time there's a cat on the opposite landing, eyes two green discs.
Dave snuffles sleepily and leans into your side, rubbing the knuckle of his thumb against his eye under his shades. "You sure she's home?"
"Yeah." Your voice is gravelly, but you squeeze Dave's hand in reassurance. You had texted her before, let her know - but. But. You go to knock again, and -
There's a metallic clunk as the lock is turned, and a sliver of Roxy's face appears from inside the house, seeming to float in the darkness beyond. Her eyes are wide, and flick past you over your shoulder, looking around, before hurrying the both of you inside.
"Here, just set your bags on the couch," she whispers, and then draws the both of you into the kitchen, where she clicks on the light. Her eyes are underscored by smudgy dark circles, and her eyebrows are drawn up in worry, eyes flicking back and forth as she takes in your face, before folding you into a hug.
You breathe out hard against her shoulder and wrap your arms around her. There's so much keyed up energy inside of you, you feel like a drawn string, thrumming and vibrating and ready to snap. Your heart is still rabbit-pulse pounding, at the same furious tempo it was when you shook Dave awake, grabbed your packed things, slipped all the cash from the wallet on the counter into your hoodie pocket, walked to the nearest bus station, climbed the concrete stairs up to Roxy's apartment. It's probably unhealthy it's been going so fast for so long, you think faintly, as Roxy pulls away to give you that worried look again, corner of her mouth drawn in.
"Are you okay?" She asks, voice so, so quiet.
"I…" you want to give her an honest answer, so you think hard about it, taking stock of the various panic signals your body is sending you, and the headache beginning to bloom behind your eyes. "No. Maybe. It hasn't caught up to me yet." You put a palm on your chest, feel your pulse through three layers of fabric. "My heart's still pounding."
"Oh, Di." She takes off your shades and pulls you in for another hug, mashing her face against your collarbone like she's trying to reassure herself of your existence. "C'mon, I've got the couch all set up. Dave'll be in Rose's room."
She leads you down the darkened hall with a window at the end that leaves a golden square of streetlamp-light on the floor, her hand in yours, your hand in Dave's. Roses' room is neat in the way messy people frantically tidy up before someone comes over - nothing on the vacuumed floor, but desks and shelves and windowsills piled with this and that, all blurring into vague grayish shapes in the darkness. You let go of Dave's hand so he can go set his backpack on the bed. Rose is nowhere to be found. Probably already asleep.
"Bathroom's across the hall, and I'm just to the left." Roxy folds down the corner of the blankets. "Uhhm, blankets are in the closet at the end of the hall? And you're welcome to whatever's in the fridge."
"Thanks," Dave says, and Roxy gives him a fond smile, looking suddenly like herself again, and not the reincarnated ghost of a harried 50 year old.
"No prob, little man." She ruffles his hair, prompting a disgusted "ugh," and pulls him into a hug. "Good to see you guys. For real."
When she leaves the room you shrug your duffel off your shoulder and ruffle through it, feeling your way to the side pocket, and close your hand, still faintly shaking, around a small, smooth cylindrical object that rattles as you pull it out - an orange pill bottle, half full. You carefully set it on the bedside table as Dave takes off his shades and scrubs at his eyes.
"You should take one of these before you go to bed."
Dave eyes the bottle warily.
"It'll help," you say, quietly, noticing his drawn-in eyebrows. "Promise."
He unscrews the cap with a click and shakes one out onto his palm. "And I'll need to take one every night, now?"
You sit on the bed. Everything is starting to catch up to you, and your abdomen is one big solid weight. "You don't have to if you don't want to. Mine were… really painful, so. Helped me out a lot." You glance from your hands in your lap, look him in the eye to let him know you're serious. "Your choice though."
He keeps staring at the little white pill in his palm, so you kick his thigh. "This isn't the end of the world. Natural bodily functions and all that."
"Yeah." His fingers close around it, and then he looks back at you, and you can see the corners of his mouth tighten and blinks twice hard like he's trying not to burst into tears, and when he speaks his voice is tight. "Thanks."
"Love you." He comes to sit on the bed by your side, and wraps his arms around you. You lay your head on top of his, hand flat on his back over his heartbeat, feeling him try to control his shuddering breath. You're not… good, at the physical affection thing, and you're trying desperately to fight the tenseness in your back and shoulders - you don't want to push him away, don't want to make him think you hate this, 'cause you don't - and you breathe deep through your nose and steadfastly Don't Think about the tightness in your chest.
"Love you too," he whispers into your shirt.
One last pat on the back and you leave him sitting on the bed to go brush your teeth. You count 1 to 120 in your head, move the brush in meticulously small circles against your gums, bare your teeth at your pale, haggard reflection in the mirror, and you are definitely, definitely not thinking about anything else. Nope. Not thinking. You walk out into Roxy's spacious living room with slats of yellow light poking through the blinds and you're still not. You lie on top of the covers on the couch, shades folded on the coffee table, still in your jeans and t-shirt, staring fixedly at the dark ceiling. There's the buzz of cars passing outside, the gentle whirring of the tv, oven, microwave, overhead fan, a dozen prinpricks of light at the edge of your vision from the dvd player and xbox and playstaion and wii and a notification on your phone. You fold your hands on your chest and try to breathe in deep. It's like there are hands on your throat, around your lungs. In, in, in, and it all comes out as a wheeze. The dark ceiling stares back at you. You're still not thinking. Absolutely not thinking about what you've done, what the consequences will be, how to find an apartment and a job right out of high school, what you'll do if he comes kno - right. Not thinking. You're fighting against the anxious ticking of your own brain and your whole body is tense with it, thrumming, thrumming, thrumming.
Yeah, you can't do this.
You turn and slide off the couch. Even just the fifteen minutes you've been lying down has made your head heavy, and your rest your cheek in one hand as you open your phone. Two activity notifications from Tumblr:
@gardengundam liked your post: redesign of t…
@gardengundam reblogged your post: redesig…
You swipe it off the screen and stand.
You can sense Dave's comfort-family-metallic scent down the hallway, and you keep one hand on the walls as you make your way over, grounding yourself with the rough plaster-paint texture. There's a small window at the end of the hall, letting in white-yellow light from the street below. It highlights the profile of a small bundled figure, crouched by Dave's door with its head on its knees.
Rose.
She looks up as you approach with a sharp intake of breath, eyes dark as ink in the low light. Roxy's little sister, smelling of smoke, salt, and family. You slide down the wall opposite her and stretch out your knobby legs. You could touch the opposite wall with your toes, if you pointed them.
She sets her chin back on her arms, folded across her knees, and stares for a moment, biting at the inside of her cheek to make her mouth a starburst. Her trademark lipstick, dark and thick, has been scrubbed off, but has left behind a grayish tint that makes her look a little bit like a dead thing.
"You're an omega, yes?" Her gaze doesn't waver. Light from the window highlights the edge of her hair, the plane of her cheek, a corner of one amethyst eye. Gilded, almost.
"Yeup." You pop the p, matching her stoic gaze.
She finally looks away. "I thought so. Suspected, I mean. You never really smelled like one but I suppose that was on purpose. Here I thought I was such a clever sleuth and yet -" she rubs her face with her hands, twice, hard. "I never really. Expected. Thought about it. What it would be like." She nods towards the door.
"I didn't expect it either," you say quietly, and that's a fucking lie. Dave's looks are textbook - short, chubby, wide hips, full lips, long eyelashes. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen, and he'd been living a life of catcalls and leers far before he'd presented. And you knew. Every time you'd knocked someone out with your fists, every time he'd called you crying to walk him home from the bus stop, every time he'd roll up his sleeve to show you bruises in the shape of handprints, you knew. You'd just… wished it would be different, harder than you've ever wished for anything in your life. As if you could make something true just by the sheer force of your hope.
Well. You never really were a hope kind of guy.
And now, on the other side of the door, with a clear orange bottle half-full of pills sitting on the bedside table, Dave is going through his first heat, and you feel like you've failed him.
"What is it… like?" Rose's soft voice calls your attention to her again. "Being an Omega. Because…" She lays her head sideways, staring off into a dark corner somewhere beyond your head. "I never really believed what they said in school. You know they always tell you that Alphas are supposed to be the, erm. Leaders. Emotional guideposts and the like. Always watching out for the pack. Protective. Possessive." Her eyebrows draw in, and she still doesn't look at you. "Did you know I presented quite early? I got it in my head that I wanted to hide it from everyone. I wore perfume and tried to act as… un Alpha as possible. Writing poetry, and."
She closes her eyes. "I remember feeling so… distant from everyone. I knew I loved my friends but it felt like an object I could hold in my hand. I told myself I wouldn't really care if anything happened to them. I didn't… didn't want to be held down by a 'pack bond,' or. Something silly. Like that."
And now her head in buried in her folded arms. "Who is more foolish, now? The past me who tried her damndest to defy every Alpha stereotype? Or the present me, keeping vigil at my packmate's door as he sleeps?" She sniffles. "I feel so… so dumb. I'm such an idiot."
Your fingers drum against your thigh and think. You want to give her a serious response, watching her try and pull into herself, like she's making a black hole with her body.
"I feel like a stranger in my own body sometimes," you try out, voice still raspy, like you haven't used it in a thousand years, though you were talking with Dave just earlier. "I'm not exactly the omega ideal here, am I." That gets a short laugh from her.
"I just." You thump your head against the wall behind you, and now it's your turn to stare into the darkness in a corner somewhere above her head. "Every time I do or feel or say something that follows the stereotype, it feels a little bit like giving up on myself."
"Yeah."
"Sometimes I feel so fucking needy it's like nobody in the world can be enough."
Ah. That's. Something you've never told anyone before. Feels weird, like maybe you'll regret it in the future. For now, though. For now it doesn't feel real, sitting in a dark hallway picking at the hole in one knee of your skinny jeans, thoughts starting to whirl in anticipation of Rose's answer.
Rose rubs at her nose. "You know, I feel the exact opposite? Like the force of, of my emotion will just tear through people. Like paper. Everyone else feels so fragile."
Okay, okay. You bump her thigh with her foot and crook the corner of your mouth up. It's barely a smile, but it's there. "Dave can take it. And I'm sure - John and Jade can handle it, too."
Rose mirrors your half smile and lays her head back on her arms. "What can I do to make it less… worse?"
"He'll want food more than anything." You think back to your first heat before suppressants, digging through hazy, tamped-down memories. "That and…" You swallow, hard, suddenly feeling like there's a collar around your throat, heavy against your painful pulse. "Anything scented by an Alpha." You nod toward the door. "Put your scent on that, too. It'll help him feel safe. Get John and Jade to do the same."
She nods tightly, eyebrows drawn low, and reaches up to swipe the inside of her wrist against the panel of wood by the doorknob. The way she just sort of crouches awkwardly there, looking so lost and obviously worried, would be endearing, but you just roll your eyes. She is only fifteen, after all.
"You know you don't have to stay there all night."
She side-eyes you, then looks back at the door, then back at you, then sits back down with a decided thump. "I want to."
"Your choice." You get your feet under you and stand. "I, like the rational, levelheaded adult I am -" a snort from her - "am going to go the fuck to bed. 'Night."
"Good night," she replies softly, dark eyes not meeting yours.
You allow yourself a moment of fantasy. A what-if. What if you had met Jane and Jake and Roxy earlier. What if you had left earlier. What would it have felt like to have your pack there, for your first heat?
When you get back to the couch, you shimmy your laptop out of your duffel and perch cross-legged on the middle cushion. There's no way you're going to be able to sleep. Your heart has calmed down, and your hands are no longer shaking, but that same taught energy is still there, deep in your stomach and spine. Instead, you're going to do what you do best. You're going to plan.
New bank account, credit card, health insurance, an application to a construction company. You're going to make this work if it kills you.
(Spoilers: it doesn't.)