Chapter Text
Jake Kazansky-Mitchell was eight years old when he first realised his parents weren’t like a lot of his friend’s parents.
He was over at Kasey Neilsen’s house for dinner. It was one of those unusual times when Nat wasn’t with him, but she’d woken up all hot and hurty that morning, so Poppa said she got to stay home today. Jake would have been jealous to miss a whole day off school, but it was Poppa saying it. Mama wasn’t home yet. He was much more willing to let them skive off under judicious enough application of puppy-eyes. If Poppa said she could stay home, it was probably serious. Nat had been so miserable she cried, and Nat never cried, she was the bravest person Jake knew after Mama and Poppa. And Bradley. Obviously. Bradley’s the best. Kasey was one of Bradley’s friends, so she’s older than Jake and automatically cool. Her mom had let him tag along when Bradley had explained about Nat and Poppa.
Bradley’s Mom was sick too, so Bradley was living with them ‘till she got out of hospital.
Mrs. Neilsen made really good Mac N’ Cheese. Not as good as Aunt Carole, obviously, but Jake knew it wasn’t good manners to say that. Jake was eight, he was a big boy, and big boys were old enough to be polite when they were invited over to someone’s house, so he just said ‘Thank You’ and let Mrs. Neilsen call him “such a sweet little man!” which he didn’t like so much. One look at Bradley said he didn’t like it much either, which actually made it okay.
Bradley and Kasey still had homework they needed to do. They had a project or something that they’d been working on before dinner, Jake had sat in the living room with them and gone through everything he needed to do already. But Bradley was in high school now, he has a lot more homework. They tromp back into the living room, where there’s still papers scattered all over the coffee table. And the floor.
“Oh, Jake honey” Mrs. Neilsen calls him back before he can follow. Bradley stops with him. Jake glows a little bit. “You don’t have to sit down here with the teenagers if you’re all done with your homework,” she grins at him conspiratorially, like she’s about to share a big adult secret, “You can always go upstairs and hang out in my nest until your dad comes.” She does that twinkly thing adults do when they offer to ‘let’ you do something they think is good for you, and that you should just say yes to ‘cos otherwise they’re just gonna make you do it anyway. But.
“Won’t Mr. Neilsen mind?” he doesn’t wanna intrude in a strange alpha’s space, even if his mate says it’s okay. Kasey’s mom laughs.
“Why should he mind, silly? We’re not going into his den!” Jake is confused. Don’t those go together? He looks up at Bradley, but he just shrugs, he doesn’t know either. Aunt Carole is a beta, so was Uncle Goose. “Come on,” Mrs. Neilsen grabs his hand, “I’ll show you!” she starts pulling him upstairs. They leave Bradley and Kasey in the living room, papers shuffling.
At the top if the stairs, dead centre of the hallway, there’s a room that stinks like alpha. Heavy scents of oak and leather making Jake wrinkle his nose so he doesn’t sneeze. Poppa’s office at home smells like alpha too, Mama doesn’t use it much, but it never gets this bad. There’s a room on the left that is probably Kasey’s room. Jake can’t distinguish her scent past the overwhelming alpha stink coming from her dad’s office. Mrs. Neilsen pulls him in the opposite direction, to a third room, at the end of the hall. It’s dark inside, blackout curtains hang heavy over the windows that cover the two exterior walls. The floor is lined with plush carpeting Jake can feel through his socks (Mrs. Neilsen is a shoes-off-in-the-hall kind of mom). In the centre of the room, there’s a floor-bed, made to be nested in, like the ones in the tv infomercials Mama likes to scoff at. Blankets and pillows extend from the bed in luxurious lava flows to every corner of the room. The whole room is Nest. The whole space smells like Mrs. Neilsen, her honeysuckle-and-lily omega scent is soaked into everything in here. She guides him into the middle of the bed, where her scent is strongest, and tucks him in.
“You just rest now, okay baby?” he’s not a baby. He’s eight! But the pull of the nest is strong, the soft-plush-sweet is pulling his eyelids closed anyway.
Mama’s nest never smells like this, so purely omega. Everywhere in their house smells like Poppa and Mama together. Even his and Nat’s room. It’s starting to smell more like them though, more like Nat-and-Jake and less like Poppa-and-Mama. Aunt Carole says it’s ‘cause of they’re growing up. She says Bradley was their age when his bedroom started smelling like only-Bradley. He likes Bradley’s scent. But he thinks it smells better when he or Mama have been around him all day. So it’s not just only-Bradley. That smells lonely. Mrs. Neilsen’s nest smells lonely. It’s all her scent. Everywhere. Nothing scents of Mr. Neilsen’s Oak-and-Leather. It doesn’t even smell like Kasey, whose all velvet-warm next to Bradley’s Jet-fuel-and-petrichor. Aunt Sarah taught him that word, when he was trying to describe Bradley’s rainy-but-in-a-nice-way scent to her over the phone.
He opens his eyes. The soft darkness of the nest-room is too much. It’s weird to be so surrounded by only one scent. It fills his nose. He feels like he can scent Mrs. Neilsen in the back of his brain. He creeps out into the hallway past the room that smells like aggression and dominance. There are sounds coming from downstairs. Clattering and splashing from the kitchen – Mrs. Neilsen cleaning the dishes. Voices from the living room, Bradley and Kasey. He reaches his toes down, step after step, softly past the kitchen to stand in the door of the living room. Bradley and Kasey are bent over the coffee table, papers and folders scattered around them. Bradley looks up when Jake crosses onto the carpet.
“You feeling okay Jakey?” Jake nods. “You wanna come sit with us?” he nods again. His feet pull him over to Bradley. One of Bradley’s arms comes up and pulls him into his lap. Jake settles over Bradley’s crossed legs.
Time blurs, Jake dozes in a contented haze. Everything around him smells like Bradley-and-Jake. Much better.
“What’s going on buddy? You’re digging in there pretty hard.” Jake nuzzles further into Bradley’s chest, pulling his arm tighter around him.
“Smelt weird up there. Nest was wrong. No alpha.”
“There weren’t any alpha smells in the nest?” Jake shakes his head. Bradley sighs, put upon, but doesn’t let him go. He doesn’t see the wide-eyed look Kasey gives them. Bradley doesn’t question it when she gets up to speak to her mom.
The sharp ring of the doorbell rouses him. He vaguely feels Bradley picking him up. It feels like flying. He scents Poppa before can feel his big strong arms around him. It rumbles in his chest when he ask Bradley to get their things, and Bradley’s scent fades away into the living room. Then outside, then the car, the house, his bedroom, his nest. Jake sleeps.
He wakes up in the middle of the night knowing for sure that something’s changed in the house. Everything is dark. He can hear Bradley snoring in his room next door. He creeps down the hall. There’s a light on in his parent’s den. Mama’s table lamp. He’s home. Jake runs around to his side of the nest, crawling over the half awake omega and settling on his chest. Mama laughs.
“Hi baby, I missed you too.” He presses a kiss to Jake’s hair.
“Is Nat better? Can I stay too?” Mama looks at Poppa who laughs, soft and rumbly.
“Should be all right.” Mama reaches over to turn off the light, then he tips Jake into the middle of the bed when he rolls over. Nat’s next to him. Already asleep cuddle up against Poppa. His eyelids are heavy. Mama shuffles them all closer together. There’s a soft wet ‘smack’ sound somewhere over his head. With the scent of his family surrounding him, Jake goes to sleep.