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Oscar did join the designated grid omegas group chat. After an evening of talking over a surprisingly nice dinner, Alex had convinced him to join with the help of Charles and Nico. He accepted with a grumble about being able to take care of himself, but he didn't actually have a valid excuse so he was swiftly added.
He didn’t forget about it, he actually very much thought about it for the next two weeks, but he quickly realised that it wasn’t all that often it was used for actually important stuff and was mostly used for talking about stuff alphas and betas might not understand, or in the case of Alex, sending shitty memes.
Eventually he felt comfortable enough to talk in the chat himself and it was nice. He felt like he had a group of people who understood him and wouldn’t judge the things he said, at least when they were related to being an omega.
As Charles' heat approached, he found out that Charles was unmated and usually he’d ask the rest to spend the following days with him. They’d done it for the past few years, and this year the invitation was extended to him as well. He was hesitant about it all and ghosted the group chat for two days after the question first came through, but after a lot of reassurance he agreed. He was still desperate for any sort of time spent with the others omegas and the opportunity to spend the post-heat period with one of them, would mean a lot. He knew how shit they were and he had an inexplicable care and comfort Charles afterwards.
Now he was trailing behind Alex as they walked up the stairs to Charles’ Monaco apartment. He’d been here a handful of times since the dinner at Seb’s, but it still felt weird.
Alex knocked on the door, and an atrocious looking Charles opened it. His hair was stuck to his forehead, not quite dry, and his shirt was soaked through. As soon as the apartment door opened, you could clearly smell the pheromones in the air and Oscar wrinkled his nose subconsciously.
It had the overripe undertone almost every unmated omega carried during their heat. There wasn’t really a biological reason for it, but it usually balanced out when people got mated. It would turn into something pleasantly sweet, far closer to their usual scent, and it was pretty much accepted that it was something that came along with heats being alleviated after being mated.
Either way, Charles’ scent was thick, sticky, and too sweet. He was practically dripping with sweat and you could see the clamminess in his hands without touching them. Oscar frowned and had to stop the whine clawing at his throat.
Alex was the one to step inside, and Oscar followed suit. He toed his shoes off and watched Alex go around the apartment, getting different things. He was already filling up a water bottle and thrusting it into Charles’ grip, “I know you’ve been drinking throughout your heat, but it still won’t have been enough. Drink.”
Charles’ mouth which had been open in protest snapped shut, and instead his lips closed around the straw as he scowled at Alex.
Oscar stood awkwardly in the hallway. He wasn’t entirely sure what to do, and whilst he was itching to do something, he didn’t know his way around the apartment nor what Charles wanted and needed. Alex came to his rescue, and pointed his finger at him. “You. Can you change the sheets in Charles’ bedroom, there should be spare in the cupboard, and try to get it as not stuffy as possible. Nico should be here soon, so he’ll get Charles showered and in a state to eat, and I’ll make some food, ok?”
“Ok,” Alex started fussing over Charles, manoeuvring him to the bathroom, so Oscar did as he was told and walked into the bedroom which was in fact, horrendously stuffy.
He had thought Charles’ scent was bad in the rest of the apartment, but the humidity of his bedroom made it hang in the air uncomfortably. He crossed the room and opened the window as far as it would go. It was fairly nice weather outside for the time of year. It was almost 18 degrees and the sun was shining through a crowd of clouds.
He set to work on changing the sheets, changing the entire duvet and pillow set as well whilst he was at it. They were both drenched, and he found another set in the cupboard. He threw everything in the washing machine and set it to the right cycle according to the instructions. He gathered all of the clothes that had been strewn across the floor and bed and put them in what he assumed to be a laundry basket, and made the bed with the new duvet and pillows.
When he came out of the room again, the shower was on and Alex was cooking something on the stove. “Is Nico here?”
“Yeah, got here when you were putting on the washing I think, went straight to get Charles showered down.”
Oscar nodded and hopped up onto the counter. Alex had various ingredients already laid out on the counter, including multiple cheeses, spinach and onion. There was also some sort of dough cut into squares. “Can I ask what you're making?”
Alex added the spinach and onions to a pan, “Um, without butchering it too much, barbajuan. Apparently Charles ate it growing up, it's like a thing here and in France I think, and I learnt to make it like, the fifth time? I think? We spent with him. Nico had ordered it from a restaurant but then Charles started crying over the fact that it wasn't homemade, so. Here we are, me playing housewife and cooking for Charles.”
Oscar snorted at the idea of Charles wailing about his food not being homemade. He didn’t doubt that it happened, not by any means. The days following a heat were usually an obsolete mess of hormones, your body trying to rectify itself after desperately trying to get mated for days on end, and almost every omega had a handful of embarrassing incidents from that period.
He himself had apparently had a meltdown when his clothes had been washed with a different detergent after one of his earlier heats. He couldn’t remember the incident himself, but Hattie took pleasure in reminding him at least once a year, usually more.
“Anyway, it’s like a pastry thing. Puff pastry, and you can have different fillings but a traditional one is spinach, ricotta, leek and onions. Charles and Nico both aren’t a fan of leek so we usually leave that out, but it’s still amazing. If you want to help, you can fold some of these with me. Just add some filling in the middle and then fold it over into a triangle.”
He stirred the spinach and onions, turning the heat off and reached into the fridge for a tub of ricotta. He dumped the contents into a bowl along with the spinach mixture and mixed it with a spoon. He added a small amount of lemon zest and some salt before taking a spoonful and filling a square of pastry. He demonstrated how to do it again, and Oscar made his own.
Soon enough, they had made their way through the entire roll of pastry and filling and he could also hear the shower turn off. Alex put the first batch into the oil and Oscar moved to hover in the hallway between the kitchen, bedroom, and living room. He felt slightly weird just watching the bathroom door, but he felt even weirder leaving Charles when he knew he could watch him. That did not help his case.
Charles did emerge from the bathroom though with Nico close behind. He was wearing a clearly old shirt and shorts which Oscar recognised as old Ferrari Sauber merch. He still looked miserable, but at least he looked healthier. Oscar retired to the kitchen knowing Charles was ok, and the man followed behind him. He stuck his head around the doorframe and wrinkled his nose at the smell of oil and pastry filling the kitchen. He started purring though, so Oscar took the nose wrinkle as a positive.
Charles didn’t strike up conversation with anyone but it didn’t feel tense. He sat down on one of the bar stools by the island and watched and Nico and Alex went back and forth about various topics. When Alex handed him a plate of cooled barbajuans, his face lit up and he immediately ate three in one go. Maybe a little concerning, but speaking from experience, he probably hadn’t eaten something proper in three days. It was good that he was eating something at least.
Once Alex was finished with the rest of them, they migrated to the living room where the couch was already pulled out into a bed and a heap of blankets of pillows were piled on top.
At the sight Charles’ eyebrows knitted together and he abandoned the barbajuan he was midway through eating in favour of putting together a nest. He rearranged the blankets and pillows into a round sort of set of walls and motioned the others to sit in it. He then proceeded to rearrange the people, something Alex and Nico were apparently used to, but Oscar was slightly taken aback at the action. He complied though after Charles’ gave an aggravated huff and then they were all in a very strategical cuddle pile.
In any other situation it wouldn’t have worked, but Nico reached for the TV remote and turned on a show from Disney+ and Oscar was surprisingly comfortable. He could feel Charles purr in his chest and as he buried his face in his hair, he joined in. Alex and Nico were quick to follow and eventually they were a big heap of in sync purrs. It probably looked strange from an outside perspective but it was too comfortable for Oscar to care.
At some point he fell asleep, and when he woke up again he found he hadn’t been the only one and the purring had morphed into snoring. He smiled gently at the sight and let himself scent Charles. It was something they did within their little group, and he fell asleep to the mixed scents of all four of them filtering through his senses.
He should’ve told them so much earlier.