Chapter Text
Aaron’s been hiding parts of himself since he was four years old. He would lock them all away with old, golden latches and shove them deep inside himself. Until it was hidden away between his organs and the space between his ribs, then it would grind away to dust, never to be taken away from him again. It wouldn’t escape the desperate clutches of his hands, it wouldn’t present itself for anyone to take away, not on his watch.
His curiosity was the first thing to go. His questions provoked his mother, made her yell and curl her hands into fists. So, he stuffed his curiosity into the palm of his hand and grinded it into a pulp with his knuckles, until it could hide in his blood stream and not as a glint in his eye or in the form of a question on the tip of his tongue.
The second thing to go was his caring nature. He had always had the instinct to care for things, to help, to fix, and to solve problems that needed to be solved. That all ended when he brought a wilted little flower back with him from school, a daisy if memory serves him right (and it often does when encountering experiences he would rather forget). He planted it into the soil and watered it everyday for a week until his mom got tired of him wasting water and squashed it, squashing his hopes that the flower would bloom again in the process.
His hope wasn’t for the flower, not really. But hoping for himself never got him far, so if projecting onto a wilted flower helped him cope instead of drugs, who could judge him?
In the end, the bruises weren’t worth caring for anything else, not if his mother could squash it so easily. It didn’t stop the thoughts, or the guilt, but that’s neither here nor there.
The third and most important thing to go was his designation. Now, he’s not the stereotypical asshole most people think he is. He doesn’t think that omegas are weak while alphas are strong, he does not value one person’s opinion more than the other, never has and never will. Besides, it would be counterproductive to think that omegas weren’t strong, seeing as he is one.
Aaron presented as an omega with a heat at fourteen to prompt shrieking and withering glares from his mother. She didn’t want Aaron before, but at least there was a chance that he could be well-respected, listened to as a male alpha.
But he was a male omega, and he could not change that.
When he had first presented, he had come downstairs to her slim form completely frozen at the table, spoon from her bowl of stale, chewy cereal and not-quite expired milk still gracing the air. Her pupils were blown wide, and her fingers trembled slightly. He has come to understand that shaky appendages are a symptom of withdrawal, and he would know considering he’s seen the symptoms in himself more times than he could count.
She had taken another whiff of his scent and scowled at him so hard he had instinctively taken a step back before she grabbed his shoulder with a hard yank to throw him into the first floor bathroom.
All he had wanted was some comfort, some reassurance that he was ok, the world had been warped and scary and his skin had felt like it was burning and icy all at once and he just wanted to be safe. He just wanted to snuggle up with his mother and be safe.
He should have known that was not how that was going to go, instead of spending his first heat in someone’s arms, he spent it in a cold, ceramic tub, chills wracking his body and flames flickering onto his paper-thin skin. He remembers the dull ache, the rejection settling low in his stomach, the tears.
The only reason he didn’t die is because he made sure to remember to drink the tap water from the bathroom faucet, and if nothing else, spite and willpower are excellent motivators for survival.
After that, he stole his mothers drug money to buy illegal suppressants, the kind that resets your scent to neutral, gets rid of most of your heats, and keeps your instincts a dull murmur in the back of your mind. He didn’t know what else to do, if being an omega was so shameful he had to hide in the bathroom during his heats…
The pills…they were his only option. His mother had stuck to teaching him the lesson that omega’s, especially male ones, were disgraced too many times to count, so he needed to hide the important parts of himself if he wanted a chance in the world. Great, perfect plan, right?
But mom, how will I find someone who loves me if they never really know every part of me, won’t they just love a front? Someone who isn’t really me?
Get it through your thick skull, Aaron. Nobody loves Minyards, especially omegas.
The suppressants dull his senses, his emotions, and they keep the heats in check.
He only has a heat once a year, and that once a year he spends it shaky and sick in a dingy motel, guard always up and body poised and ready to get up and hurt someone any time he hears so much as a squeak at the door.
He needs this though. Because it could be so much worse if not.
So, his records say he’s a beta, and he keeps it that way. Nobody knows, and nobody has to know. Not his twin brother, not his boyfriend, or his cousin. That's just the way it has to be, it’s the only thing he’s ever known.
So what if he’s a little jealous of the way the team acts with Neil. Of the way they scent him, and take care of him, of the way they protect them.
They wouldn’t do that for you, he reminds himself, because the idea can be very tempting when he just wants to be held but there’s nobody to hold him.
Kevin’s your boyfriend, he would hold you if you just fucking asked for it.
It’s such an embarrassing thought, even if Neil was always curled up on the couch with a team member when he needed it, he didn’t even have to ask, his scent changing was apparently enough (judging by the way Dan’s nose had wrinkled once before she sprinted to find Neil, he wouldn’t know how the scent changes. He can’t smell them). He longs for it, for everyone to care which is fucking wild since he’s never wanted to be part of the Foxes in the first place, first he longs to be normal, then he longs for the traumatized to care.
While they have become more like a pack now, the bonds are weak on his end because of the suppressants. He's there but he isn’t there because he can’t form the bonds he needs for them to care about him the way he needs it.
It’s fine. Everything's fine. He doesn’t need them, not anymore then he did when he was struggling and Kevin was the only one who saved him.
Kevin, his Kevin, with his decadent emerald eyes and strong, safe arms that swept him up in them when he needed him to, when he asked for it so long ago.
A real weak point on his part.
He’ll make it out like he always does somehow, he’ll stay on the outskirts because that’s what everyone expects and he doesn't need special treatment because he’s a beta.
No, not a beta, an omega.
The suppressants should be suppressing these feelings, it shouldn’t be him wanting everything, it should be the part of him he locked away at the tender age of four. He shouldn’t be feeling these things just because he’s Aaron.
What is the point of being on suppressants if everything isn’t suppressed, he deals with the horrific side effects and weak pack bonds but why?
Because it’s shameful.
The team doesn’t seem ashamed of Neil. They seem pretty taken with him actually.
Maybe you're just the broken one, the broken omega. Neil is perfect to the pack and you are broken.
He pauses. I’m…the defective one?
The voice in his head laughs cruelly, In all of your perfect plans you never accounted for you just being broken? It’s not that singular part of you, it’s just you. Even if you showed them you were an omega, they would never keep you.
Well…what do I do now? He chews on his lip thoughtfully. If it doesn’t matter what I am, could I get off my suppressants? Or at least find another prescription of pills that don’t make me feel terrible?
Yes.
He needs to get off these pills, he can pick up a different prescription from the dealer he keeps in his back pocket for emergencies, or for times like this. But he can’t continue living when the side effects of the pills wreck his body while he goes off to ravage his own mind in response to the pain.
I don't need to tell anyone, he rationalizes, I just need to get off of this prescription and exchange it for another one. I just can’t deal with the side effects anymore.
And god, the side effects are horrific.
In his perfect plan, he never accounted for them getting this bad, never accounted for puking between halves during Exy games and not being able to get out of bed because the floor felt too scratchy on his feet. He never accounted for the concerned eyes of his boyfriend trailing him, nor for the cock of his twin brother’s eyebrow, and certainly not for the thin line of Nicky’s lips whenever he sprouted off that he was fine.
Just like Neil, the team had joked. We had one, now we have two!
They weren’t joking whenever he ran off of court to puke during scrimmages. In fact, they yelled and screamed for him to get back on, never bothering to ask why he had run off in the first place.
He never accounted for getting physically weaker either, and he kind of wants to hit himself for it because obviously he couldn’t suppress everything for seven years and not have any problems, he just didn’t think they would pop up this soon .
He knows Kevin’s noticed, especially on the court, he’s slower and way less agile. But his boyfriend refuses to yell at him too much or to “get his butt moving” (Coaches words), he knows somethings wrong, but he doesn’t know what and he knows that everytime he finds Aaron, sweaty and sick and begging him not to tell anyone, breaks him just a little more each time.
It hurts him, the way Kevin so gently lays a hand in his hair, the way he pets and calms him between his own hiccupy breaths.
He grasps a hand onto his sweaty hair now, pulling hard in an attempt to ground himself, trying to mimic Kevin’s gentle touch. A swell of nausea erupts from the sea of his stomach, and he whimpers quietly, squeezing his eyes shut. Heavy banging can be heard on the bathroom stall door, but he isn’t coherent enough to get there in time. He doesn’t know what set him off, they were just playing a scrimmage game, almost nothing like the real thing, when he started feeling so fucking bad and the stadium lights had blinded him and-
The wave of nausea crescendos and topples over him, it all comes up and the knocking pauses.
“Aaron!” Nicky yells through the door, Aaron just grunts as he puts his flushed forehead down onto the cold ceramic of the toilet, it would be gross had there not been a fire under his skin, painting his cheeks a rosy red that the team would have probably had a field day with had they been here to see it.
Small mercies.
“Aaron. Open.” Andrew orders, punctuated with a loud bang. He flinches.
“No!” Aaron gasps out before heaving again.
Grumbling can be heard from outside and then a louder bang rings out.
“Andrew. Stop that. I don’t want him to- ” Kevin. He sobs, cutting off the rest of his boyfriend's words.
“Make way!” The order sweeps the others away from the door. Abby. He stifles another sob.
“Aaron. I need you to open the door for me, ok sweetheart?” He bites his lip, his legs feel tingly, how long had he been here? Nevermind, he has a mission, get to the goddamn door before he dies of dehydration or something.
The puking won’t kill him, but if he doesn’t think of the possibility he might never move. He hauls himself up on shaky legs and stumbles towards the stall door, leaning on it heavily before he straightens.
He unlatches the lock and Andrew pushes his way in, taking one long look at his shivering, flushed form. He stops Kevin’s movements to go to him with his racquet.
“We’re leaving. Nicky, get him to the car.” Nicky bites his lip but waits for Abby’s directions instead.
Kevin’s protests are lost to the frigid wind sweeping through the locker room, in their haste, had they not closed any of the doors? They would have had to have left several open to achieve the glacial air pooling in.
“I need to get him to my clinic, at least for a checkup. I’ve never seen him like this before.” Abby says.
He eyes the closed door, maybe it’s just him.
“I’ll get him there. Now Nicholas.” Andrew says while Neil peaks in through the crack, turning his curious gaze towards him. Aaron tamps down the instinctive feeling of safety he feels when he looks at the other omega. In a room full of alphas and a single beta, an omega can go a long way.
Even if the omega is a pain in the ass known as Neil Josten. He can’t smell him very well at all, the suppressants dull his brain receptors too much for that, but the faint smell of smoke, strawberries, and fucking safety never fails to calm his trembling hands.
He hates it. Hates that Neil Josten is the thing to bring him comfort after everything that happened, knew that Neil didn’t know he was an omega, and wouldn’t feel the same even if he did.
Neil Josten may be a good liar, but Aaron’s a fucking connoisseur, the thing about liars is that they have something to protect, something that lingers on their mind like a rusty door and something that cuts through each of their panicked breaths like a knife.
Aaron’s secrets never go to the forefront of his mind, being buried so far down that he doesn't even know where they exist now.
The quietest, most peaceful nights are the ones where he lets them form back into a coherent thought to pester him once more. It’s the nights where Aaron Minyard feels whole.
He’s taken out of his thoughts by gentle hands under his knees and under his back. He tries to keep quiet as it’s happening, chastising himself for getting caught.
“It’ll be ok, mon amour. Just breathe.” Kevin’s calming voice soaks through the fog and he’s breathing before he has the willpower to rebel.
He vaguely sees himself being set into Andrew’s beloved maserati by Nicky, but he feels removed from his body, like a ghost.
They arrive and Abby is already with them, medical bag in hand.
“He has a fever.” Abby’s cool hand goes to his forehead and he groans, trying to get closer to the touch. “Get him in my bed. Will you take this, Aaron?” She hands him a medicine cup and he makes a face as he does as asked.
He blinks and he sees the sky.
He blinks and he sees the cold ceiling.
He blinks and darkness greets him like an old friend.
——
When he comes to, Abby is next to him. And she doesn’t look happy. He instinctively shrinks back before frowning at himself and going back to his original position.
“First off, how are you feeling?” He gives himself a mental checkup, and decides that nothing needs to be dealt with immediately.
“It’s ok. I’m ok, Abby.” Abby smiles and squeezes his hand gently. Then her face morphs into the famous disappointed one it always does before she starts to lecture somebody.
“Do you have something to tell me?” She starts off to the sound of his confused hum.
“No..?” He trails off, looking at her uncertainly. “Maybe?”
“You and I both know what you had wasn’t from an illness. Those weren’t sickness-like symptoms, especially because you're a beta…” she trails off, thinking hard.
Shitshitshitshit don't find out please don’t find out.
You need to get off the pills anyway.
“Aaron…did you relapse?” His head snaps up.
“No! No, no, absolutely not.”
Omegas are shameful.
“You can tell me Aaron, but we need to fix it before it’s too late-“ his eyes go wide and his breathing catches.
No, the team isn’t ashamed of Neil.
“I mean, you can’t keep living like this. God, you were so sick -“
They would be ashamed of you.
Then does it even matter? If they are going to kick me out anyways, I might as well not be in any more pain.
You should know better than this.
Does he…tell Abby? Every single part of him revolts at the thought. Every single part of him rebels at the thought that somebody else could-no, at the thought that someone could lock him away while his skin was on fire once again. The plan was to get off the pills secretly, to throw them away and lock himself in the bathroom once again while he sweats it out.
Then he thinks of how sweaty and sick he was in the bathroom Andrew put him in, of how when he wasn’t hot because of the sickness, he was cold because of his poor circulation (thank you, addiction). He thinks of how the numbness would circle around his chest like a dog chasing a bone, and how hot tears splashed across his tucked-close knees.
He’s hated Andrew for years for doing that to him, is he really going to do the same to himself?
That’s different, you know you are worth nothing now.
Yes, but can’t he still have nice things before he goes? He has to go eventually, everyone does, but even if he’s worth nothing, doesn’t he owe himself this small compassion? This small leniency after everything?
It’ll break Kevin, for whatever reason he loves you and it would hurt him to see you upset.
His highness always gets what he wants, so he’ll do it for Kevin. Because that’s what Kevin would want.
But what do you want?
He wanted to be safe, comforted, cared for.
If you unlock those parts of yourself…
They wouldn’t hurt me. We’re family. We’re a pack.
And it’s true. They wouldn’t, even though he is a broken shell of a person, they had been getting closer after everything, dissolving into laughter and family and trust and love.
They still fight and bet and have cutting edges, but they also have rounding ones and they fight for instead of against each other. Maybe his bonds are weak, but they are still a pack.
He wants to be held during a heat, wants to be comforted and safe.
Maybe he can tell one person first, one person and see how it goes.
“I’ve been lying to you.” Aaron forces out before he could think better of it, he fiddles with his hands scrunches up the thin blanket straddling his lap into a loose fist.
“About what, Aaron?” Abby looks at him intensely and he knows he’s like a puzzle waiting to be solved for her at this moment.
And she’ll finally get her missing piece.
“My designation.” Abby startles and leans back, eyes wide.
“Your designation? Sweetheart…how? Nevermind…what’s your designation?” She switches over to her doctor's voice and Aaron is glad, if she had kept being gentle he would have shattered.
“I’ve been taking suppressants because I…” he trails off and searches the nurses expression for any emotion, any comfort before he drops a fucking bomb on her. Her brows are furrowed, but it’s clear she isn’t angry, just concerned and clinical. He takes a deep breath and spits it out,
“Because I’m an omega.” Abby’s eyes go wide and he can see her desperately grasping onto her professional composure that she has worked so hard to maintain over her nursing career. He must have really rattled her though, because he has never seen her quite like this, not even when seeing the scars embedded into his skin (courtesy of his wonderful mother) or hearing about what happened to Neil in Baltimore.
“How long have you been suppressing your instincts for, and what have you been using?” He fits his lip between his teeth. “Hey, stop that. I’m only trying to help, sweetheart. This is really important for your medical records and to help you…do whatever you want to do.” She finishes her explanation with a pointed look at him and he frowns.
“I’ve been suppressing them since I was 14…so seven years and the method isn’t exactly legal.” He winces at the clear outrage in Abby’s eyes, he tries to pull away from her sitting form, but he has nowhere to go.
Besides, she doesn’t let him, she extinguishes the flames in her eyes and reaches for his hand. Slowly, oh so slowly, she grabs on and squeezes his palm, rubbing when his frozen fingers, finally not burning, reach hers.
“Do you have the bottle?” He nods his head and pulls out his phone to a picture he took years ago. It’s in a locked folder and it requires two separate passwords to unlock it, he must say it has come in handy over the years. There is a whole bet between the Foxes on what’s in the folder anyways.
He never wanted anybody to know.
She looks over it before frowning so hard that he winces again.
“This…This isn’t healthy, Aaron. These side effects have been going on for seven years…”
“I know it isn’t healthy…” Aaron whispers, looking down at his lap. The snow color of the bed is a little beautiful, like a blank canvas, and he wants to snuggle into it, he wants comfort so bad it’s stupid, he’s starved for it and so so dependent on this stupid feeling-
“What have your symptoms been? Obviously we need to get you off of the pills. You did the right thing, telling me.”
“Um, nausea and vomiting, physical weakness, energy depletion and just low levels in general, hot spells, extreme sensory issues, and these-uh numb episodes.”
“Numb episodes?”
“Yes.” He whispers, pulling his legs up to his chest to hold his knees close to him. It’s his favorite position when having serious conversations, his knees act like a barrier to the outside world, keeping his heart beating and lungs expanding. “My chest…my chest would feel icy and cold and like nothing at all, it terrified me everytime.”
“So why did you keep it a secret?” Abby’s words are sharp and blunt but her tone holds a story of love and concern, so he shrugs, the telltale ache he always gets when he cries resounds in his throat. Her eyes droop a little.
“Oh Aaron. Can I hug you?” He nods, always so eager to be held, and she does not disappoint. She wraps her arms around him and pulls him close until his head is leaning on her shoulder. Fingers comb through his hair gently, and he shudders before pressing his nose into her neck. He inhales the very faint scent of sunflowers and antiseptic waiting there for him covetously.
He could have never imagined he could feel so safe around an alpha when he was younger, but then there was Andrew and Kevin, and now there is this.
“We’ll get you off of those pills right away. I have something to be a kind of catalyst to flush out your system and we’ll go from there, ok?” He nods.
“I have no classes tomorrow, just practice.”
“Ok, we’ll start right now. I don’t want you around everyone until we learn what symptoms this will bring. I’ll keep you here overnight but I have to notify David that you won’t be there tomorrow for medical reasons, ok?”
“Ok, just don’t be specific.”
“Of course, doctor-patient confidentiality and all.” She winks and Aaron laughs.
“I just need your phone.” Abby says, shrugging at his confused look. He shrugs back and hands it to her.
Abby gets up and goes to prepare something and when she comes back, she holds it up to the IV that he already has in.
“This process might be a little painful, but we are going to get through it as best as we can. You will probably need to vomit at some point, since we are flushing your body of the suppressants. There is a bucket right here,” she holds up a red plastic bucket before setting it down on the ground beside his head.“But don’t feel bad if you can’t make it. I’ll be with you the whole time, ok?” He nods and she smiles at him before guiding him to lay down.
Abby spills the bag into the line and before he knows it she has pulled up a chair and has one hand scratching through his hair gently. It reminds him of movie nights with the Foxes, of him laying on Kevin’s shoulder with Kevin’s hand cradling his head, Andrew’s eyes on them and Nicky’s shrieks of delight.
A zap of pain goes through him and he squeezes his eyes shut.
He’s in for a long night.