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Sometimes MC felt like she had spent her whole life pretending to be something she's not, something smaller and quieter and more palatable to others. She loved her grandma, she really did against all odds - the woman had sacrificed a lot to break her out of the lab and raise her, no matter the circumstances that got them to that point in the first place - but when it came to MC being an omega, Josephine was impossible to please. She'd never let her nest or give in to any 'omegan' instincts as a teen, especially with Caleb up in her personal space all the time as he was, and had her put on suppressants before she'd even had her first heat to 'prevent him from suffering through his ruts any more than necessary.'
Her whole childhood, she had had to give up her own nature and bodily autonomy to ease her ‘brother’s’ so-called struggle - because it was so hard for him to not violate her boundaries when she simply existed in the same space as him. She had felt so bitter and resentful about it in her early teens, but eventually she came to accept the truths of the world, and her place in it - that her very nature was tempting, forbidden and wrong, and if an alpha ever did something bad, then surely she must have messed up somewhere to make it happen.
Having Sylus in her life was different, to say the least.
The man seemed to pride himself on his ability to give her choices and make sure she had the space to make them. Only a few weeks after that fateful first meeting, he had casually thrown out a suggestion that she not take her suppressants on days they spent together, or at least not use her scent patches while at the base if she didn't want to - which, what? No thank you, she would be keeping her scent locked tight so as not to rock the boat any further than she already was simply by existing in an alpha's life and staying in his home.
The first time he had offered her to spend the night, she had completely spiralled, freezing up instantly and reviewing their interactions all day to try and see where she could have messed up to give him the impression that she wanted that. She had followed him mutely on his tour of the base's living quarters, only calming down when he showed her to a spare room she could use, complete with an attached en suite and a lock on the door from inside, taking care to not cross the threshold after her while he gestured to the different amenities.
She had stayed over many times since then, but was always careful to lock the door at night, avoiding making eye contact after the twins turned in to bed and making sure that she was extra agreeable and what Josephine would have called 'submissive' in the hopes that she wouldn't spark Sylus' instincts to 'put her in her place.'
As time passed though, she slowly started to relax more, as she found that his behaviour towards her never changed, never became overly friendly or hostile or possessive, as she realised that he didn't know she locked her door because he had never once tried to open it. She brushed past him on her way to the kitchen for breakfast, still half asleep and messy haired, scent patch fallen off during the night and clearly stinking up the hallway, and found that he didn't so much as twitch a nostril in response - some small knot of fear tension had left her that day.
One night, after a long stakeout, she had fallen asleep in the passenger seat of his car and woke to find him gently carrying her back to what was now 'her' room, when she sleepily brought it up.
"How are you able to control yourself this much? If you can’t hold back from… from taking me at some point it’s ok, I know it must really hurt, even though you’re so strong… ‘s my fault anyways, stinking up your house like this…. You’re a good man, S‘lus…. 'm sorry," she had mumbled, before promptly falling asleep again with her fingers gripping the sleeve of his shirt tight.
Needless to say, Sylus was left horrified by what she had uttered.
Was this truly what she thought of him? Was this how she thought the world worked, that all alphas were entirely incapable of controlling their urges?
How could she be willing to forgive him for… that?
He stood there for a long time deep in thought, realising that she didn't do any of the 'normal' omega things he would have expected: that her room at home was cold and scentless and that she never reached for the soft blankets on the couch even when he offered them to her.
He left her there, fast asleep, to grab the softest blanket from his bed, one with the scent of him deeply ingrained into the threads from years of use, and returned to wrap her up in it. Watching her sleeping face smooth out as the scent hit her, rubbing her cheek into the fabric ever so slightly and oozing contentment, Sylus vowed then and there that he couldn’t allow her to feel uncomfortable with her nature under his roof - if she wanted to nest, which he strongly suspected she did, then he would make this a space she felt safe enough to do so in.
His home would be somewhere she never had to push aside her instincts or desires.
He started out with the easiest steps - winning her plushies at the arcade, insisting that she keep them in her room "so Mephisto didn't get jealous". He would 'accidentally' leave his jackets and sweaters in the shared areas of the base, and as time passed and she never brought it up, he 'forgot' several in her room after stopping by for a chat.
He bought a frankly ridiculous number of blankets and throw pillows in the most luxurious materials that money could buy, stashing them in a cabinet in the armoury until they smelt like the base (and not the store he bought them from), when he began to subtly place them one-by-one in the living quarters.
Just like the cat he he liked to call her, she was skittish at first, tensing up when she noticed a new textile addition to a room and pretending it didn't exist - but when she thought he wasn't around, she started to inch closer towards the comfort that the soft fabrics offered.
At first, it was just a still-folded blanket placed over over her lap on the armchair, or a cushion innocently wedged between her leg and the armrest of the couch.
Slowly it turned into faux-casually draped fabrics that just so happened to fall over the back of the couch she’d curled up in.
It continued over the next few weeks until he started finding her dozing off, eyes half-lidded with her cheek pressed to whatever soft surface is nearest - as time passed, she startled and flinched less often when she discovered him watching her fondly (not that her face stopped flooding with heat whenever it happened).
Everything came to a head one evening, as Sylus turned the corner to her room and found a distressing sight before him.
She was curled up on the floor of her room next to a stripped bed, surrounded by piles upon piles of fabric - he recognised blankets, pillows, bedsheets, and clothes, but he was pretty sure that he spied several of his sweaters peeking out, and at least one t-shirt that belonged to either Luke or Kieran. Her hands were twitching towards the piles, reaching out before snapping back to her chest repeatedly, forming an odd flapping motion the longer he watched. He could smell the tears in the air, and it jolted him out of his stupor enough to shift his weight, directly onto the squeaky floorboard in her doorway. Her head shot around at the sound, gasping quietly and immediately burying her face in her hands and hunching over - as though she thought if she made herself look small enough, she might actually disappear.
The sight clawed at Sylus' heart, his instincts screaming at him to comfort his the omega crying in his den. He took a few steps forward, crouching down to her level.
"Hey, sweetie, what's wrong? What happened?"
She only shook her head, fingers twitching where they were gripping her hair at the root.
"Darling, what's going on? What's got you so upset? Were the blankets not behaving?"
Her shoulder jerked at his attempt to lure her out with a joke - not as successful as he was hoping, which meant that this wasn't just a small outburst.
"Hey, it's ok, I'm sorry for joking - I know you're upset, and I'm assuming that the carnage around us is related. How can I fix it, sweetheart? I'll do whatever you need, just tell me, I promise."
She let out a keen from somewhere deep in her chest, rocking herself back and forth on the ground as her breathing picked up.
"You can't- you can't fix it, it's all wrong, I can't even- it's all my fault, I shouldn't have tried to-" she started to mutter under her breath, cutting herself off each time she took another rattling gasp as she began to properly hyperventilate.
Sylus reached out then, hovering a hand over her arm within her eyeline, gently shushing her to ask, "Sweetie, don't worry about that now, just- can I hold you? You need to breathe, just match how I'm doing it, see? Here, put your hand on my chest, feel how I'm breathing in? Follow along with me, here we go…"
"In, two, three, four… good, hold it, now breathe out, two, three, four… there we go, good girl, that's better, now again…"
He pulled her into his embrace as she breathed along with him, running his palms firmly up and down her arms (taking care to give her scent glands a wide berth - he wouldn't want to panic her any more) and murmuring praise and encouragement to her as she slowly calmed down.
"Now, what happened? What's all wrong, what were you trying to do?"
Her breathing threatened to waver again as she inhaled, tucking her face into Sylus' shoulder as she spoke in the smallest voice he had ever heard from her.
"… was trying to make a nest but I can't, I've never- I'm an omega, I should be able to but I can't and I think maybe I'm just broken… "
Oh. Oh.
His poor darling kitten, thinking so lowly of herself - how long had she felt this way? How long was this breakdown brewing for?
Somewhere in the back of this mind he had known that this was bound to happen at some point but he wished it didn't have to be today.
Sylus pulled back from the embrace slightly, lifting one hand from where it was resting on her shoulder to grip her chin between his thumb and forefinger, tugging gently until she looked up at him.
"You're not broken, love. You've just been ignoring your body for so long, and now she's all confused because she's forgotten what to do - but that's not your fault, you hear me? You're perfect, sweetheart, and finding this hard is to be expected when you've spent such a long time trying to change your nature."
"…what?" MC was confused, breaking eye contact to flit her gaze sideways, brows scrunching as she tried to put together what Sylus was referring to here.
"I know you've not been able to be comfortable as an omega before, not had your designation respected like it should have been - I don't know when or why, and I won't ask if you don't want me to, but you don't need to do that here - you're safe here, Omega, and you can nest if you want to. Would it be better if I helped? I've not built a nest before, but I know the basics, and maybe it'll be easier to see it from afar and direct me? Or not - I won't touch anything unless you tell me to. I'm here for whatever you need, darling, just let me know."
They were both silent for a long moment, MC letting everything sink in and Sylus giving her space to process and decide what she wanted to do from here.
She wrapped her fingers into his shirt as she thought, chewing on her lip, before raising her tear-stained face to meet his again and nodding.
"…Help me?"
"Ok kitten, what's the first step? Are we making this on the bed or on the floor? Or do you want to move to the living room and use the couch?"
The threat of having an alpha in her bed gripped her, but having Sylus' warmth bleeding into her from arms that were still wrapped around her and being surrounded by his scent did wonders to help assuage her panic.
"… bed please."
Together, they picked up pillows and bedsheets one by one, forming a ring of padding around the perimeter of her bed, reinforced and secured with sheets, before moving on to adding more fabric to the walls of the nest, each placed in a particular position that she directed him to do.
She led him by the hand to the centre of the circle, pushing gently at his shoulders until he sat down cross-legged, before crawling into his lap, shoving her nose into his neck to take a deep whiff of his scent at the source, and then promptly readjusting her weight on him to continue making adjustments to the nest, paying him no further mind at all.
Everything about Sylus' scent screamed 'proud alpha' as he watched her tuck the ends of each blanket into where it belonged, readjusting pillows and a pair of his sweatpants(?) with such focus that he would have thought it was a matter of life or death. As had she stopped giving him instructions, he instead made himself useful by whispering a litany of praise and encouragement into her ears, reiterating the same truths over and over again.
"You're doing so well, sweetheart, I'm so proud of you today."
"Thank you for letting me in, I'm so honoured to help you."
"Making such a beautiful nest, Omega, such a good girl for me."
With each statement he murmured, a bit of the tension in her shoulder released, until she was no more than putty in his arms, releasing small, self-satisfied hums and chirps under her breath that Sylus had never heard from her before - sounds that he knew omegas only made when they felt truly safe and content. In response, he started up a quiet rumble deep in his chest, and released the remaining part of his scent, flooding the room with 'happy mate' pheromones.
They still had a lot to talk about later - about what being an omega actually meant both biologically and psychologically, and the socially accepted norms for both alpha and omega behaviour. They still had to unpick MC's ingrained beliefs about alpha's autonomy over their urges, and the victim-blaming mentality someone must have taught her. Most importantly, they needed to discuss what this development meant for their relationship - in his heart, Sylus had known that she was his mate for a long time, but in light of today he knew needed to be 100% transparent with her about his intentions and feelings.
But all that would have to wait for later, for a time when he didn't have a lap full of content omega in the first nest they ever built together.