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Noel Gruber has seen things he thought only his imagination could conjure. The world he lived in was oppressive, ceaselessly exhausting, and full of people only Satan could have created. Noel was fine with these facts of life, as long as he could sit in his little bubble and imagine a world in which he could be whoever he wanted.
As a Beta, he is expected to be calm, collected, and never give into base instincts. He hates the idea that betas can’t want to exist wildly. Noel’s dreams of being an omega were seen as uncivilized, a pipe dream that could never be. He spent so many nights letting his imagination run wild.
Monique was just the beginning, a persona that had everything he could never have. An omega, used and abused, a fiery character that bit back. She was a prisoner to her lust, to the heats that consumed her passionate heart.
Noel was none of these things. A gay beta was all he would ever be. But oh how he dreams of a world where he is an omega, desired by rough and strong alphas that could easily manhandle him.
His mother was protective, telling him to tone himself down, to behave like a beta. She wanted him to see just how oppressive it was to be an omega. What she did instead, was push him farther away from her. Their relationship strained, Noel threw himself into writing out his fantasies, instead of playing them out like he once had.
Noel’s dreams of being an omega would never come true, and the scene that lay before him, made his envy for omegas grow.
Ocean looks at him like he’s just caught her with her hand in the cookie jar. Fear and shame flashing over her features as she pulls away from Penny Lamb, the only alpha girl currently housed at St. Cassian's.
Ocean lets out a single “oh no” before she looks at Penny, then to Noel, and bolts out of the storage closet. Neither of them have a chance to say anything. Ocean is faster than one would expect.
Penny steps forward, then stops herself, thinking better than to chase after Ocean.
Noel stumbles back, needing a moment to understand what he just witnessed. He could not believe he had just caught Ocean, the biggest prude he has ever known, being scented and humped in a closet.
Though, the irony of her being in the closet does make for a good joke.
“You can’t tell anyone!” Penny grabs Noel by his shoulders, eyes frantic, her scent so strong even his beta senses were getting overwhelmed. Her fingers curl into his skin, and she begins to breathe harder, sucking in short breaths that don't seem to calm her down one bit.
Noel has never seen someone so scared, he ignores the pain and shakes his head. “Let me go– I won’t say a thing.” He would never out someone, even if that someone was the most annoying girl he has ever known.
A single thought, a question, plays in his head. What was a beta like Ocean doing with Penny Lamb?
The answer hits him as he looks into Penny’s eyes. He can smell Ocean on her, Betas didn’t have scents strong enough to be smelled by other betas. Ocean… Ocean wasn’t a beta at all.
Penny lets go, stepping back, taking a slow deep breath. “You won’t?” She sounds so surprised, like she’s used to people going against her wishes.
Noel reminds himself that female alphas are treated the worst out of everyone. He cannot imagine the hell Penny has endured, and he’s too afraid to ever ask.
“I won’t… It’s not my place,” His head spins, Ocean has been hiding that she is an omega? How had he never noticed, how had no one noticed?
Penny steps away, she takes another deep breath. “Oh god, what have I done?” She looks at Noel one last time before sprinting out of the choir room. He doesn’t see why she would stay, clearly there were things she had to deal with too.
He sits down, brain working overtime to wrap around the fact Ocean was a liar. His face grew flushed, eyebrows knitting together as he took in the information laid out before him.
Ocean was an omega, and she had lied to everyone. Lied to him, knowing that he wanted to be an omega. He didn’t understand why she would do such a thing, she had kept up quite the front, too. How she had managed to appear as a beta for so long was a mystery. Noel knew her parents would have never approved of suppressants, and even then, those didn’t stop omegas from having strong scents.
Noel shakes off his shock, the jealousy he felt only growing stronger the longer he thought about it. He was at a loss for words, pulled into a mess he had no business being a part of.
“Out of everyone, why couldn’t it have been me?” He whispers to himself, anger curling in his gut. He should have been the one to be an omega, Ocean didn’t deserve to be one, not if she was so ashamed she hid it from everyone.
He needs to confront her, but he saw how frantic she was. The signs of her heat beginning meant he would be asking for a death sentence if he approached her with anything but kindness.
He wasn’t a monster, cornering an omega in heat was like cornering a small prey animal. Omega’s were unpredictable in such a state, he rather not end up attacked.
Noel waits, and waits. Several days pass by before Ocean is out of her heat. In that time he observes her, watching her avoid Penny like the plague. Ocean seems to have stopped hiding behind the beta title, openly suffering through her heat while everyone looked on with confusion, and fear.
He gets a text from Constance over the weekend: “Please tell me you didn’t say anything about what happened?”
He is mostly shocked that Constance would think he had it in him to out someone. He understood her fear, Ocean is her best friend, and she was fiercely protective of all her friends.
He hasn’t gotten the chance to talk to anyone about what he saw. Noel focused on the fact it should have been him who turned out to be an omega. He finds himself tossing and turning in his sleep, dreams of being an omega becoming more frequent.
Ocean was lucky, she got to live his dream.
The only question he has was why she was avoiding her alpha? Clearly she and Penny were a match, he could see it whenever they glanced at each other. Penny kept following after Ocean, distant, a shadow behind her.
She reminds Noel of a lovesick puppy, kicked and discarded, fearful of making the wrong move. It was pitiful, and Noel was getting tired of sitting behind the two of them during their one shared class. He couldn’t keep listening to Penny’s leg shake behind him, and watch Ocean nervously glance around like she might bolt out of her seat at any moment.
He could not keep observing the most dangerous part of high school: An alpha and omega refusing their instincts.
On Monday, Noel waits until Ocean is the only one left in the choir room. She appears to be normal again—calling anything about Ocean normal was a stretch, but she wasn’t bursting at the seams with a frantic look in her eyes anymore.
She still has an aura of anxiety around her, and Noel could see she was trying to fake it until she made it. She was back to ordering everyone around, and Noel finally had his chance to confront her.
He knows it isn’t smart to accuse anyone of being a liar, a hypocrite, especially an omega fresh out of heat. But he couldn’t let go of the thought that Ocean had hidden her status to make herself look better. Maybe, he supposes, she had lied to get better treatment, but it was extremely dangerous to hide what you are.
“Hello, Ocean.” Noel’s tone is sharp, he’s holding back his anger. He can’t let things go like everyone else, and had this been anyone else, there was a chance it wouldn’t matter. He grew up with Ocean, had somewhat of a rapport with her, bonded over their shared statuses.
“Oh! Noel…what do you want?” Ocean glances to the door, then her eyes fall onto Noel with a glare. She never looked at him with the same softness she gave Constance, even when he was a good friend to Constance as well.
Noel takes a deep breath in, he was overly offended by the way Ocean treated everyone, high and mighty while being the most dishonest person he knew now.
“You’re an omega?” He wants to hear her say it, admit that she lied to everyone. A part of him was aware how petty and jealous he was behaving.
Ocean backs away, back pressing into the chalkboard behind her. She sucks in a breath, in seconds, Noel watches as her eyes become watery.
“That’s none of your business!” Ocean’s eyes pool with tears. For a moment, Noel takes pity.
And then he remembers catching Ocean and Penny, “It’s my business when i catch you in a closet with the only female alpha in Uranium…” He crosses his arms, head tilting.
Ocean stiffens, her features go from upset to angry in a second.
“You didn’t see anything, alright? That never happened.”
“I wish I could forget. But, Penny has been walking around like some kicked puppy, and you keep pretending to be a beta!” Noel scoffs, crossing his arms. His heart pounds in his chest, Ocean’s scent growing strong enough for him to smell her.
Ocean tries leaving, and Noel can’t let that happen. He reaches out and grabs her arm. Her response is instant, Ocean gets right in his face, looking up at him with a dark glare.
“Let me go. I don’t have to deal with you and your melodramatics.”
“No, you lied to me, to everyone! You’ve been an omega this entire time!” Hurt, that’s what Noel was feeling. Ocean had once been a friend, only to become an awful person to be around once she started saying she was a beta.
Ocean stops struggling to get Noel’s hand off her arm, her shoulders shake, tears finally falling. “N- I didn’t know! Let me go, Noel.”
He doesn’t believe her, but she looks like she might tear him apart if he doesn’t release her soon. She looks so pathetic now, face red and eyes frantic.
“You think I’m going to believe that?”
“Yes, it’s true! I never had a heat before now…not until Penny joined the choir…” Noel’s grip loosens, giving Ocean the chance to move away from him. She doesn’t leave, instead she sits down in the nearest seat.
“I never went into heat, I thought because I had a regular puberty, I was just a beta…I didn’t know.” Ocean presses her hands into her eyes, sniffling as she tries explaining.
Noel takes in her broken voice, and the way she shakes while talking, he has never seen Ocean so upset. She continues talking before he can say anything.
“Then, Penny joined the choir, and her scent was the first alpha scent that didn’t repulse me…my body just, reacted. It’s so embarrassing,” She takes a deep breath, calming her shaky voice. “And then we got stuck in the closet, I… took advantage of the proximity, it wasn’t what I wanted, I couldn’t stop myself.”
Noel has done a lot of research about omegas, he knows that heats can be unpredictable. Omegas could get into dangerous situations if they haven’t experienced one before. If what Ocean was saying is true (and from the way she sounds, he was beginning to believe her) she had gotten extremely lucky that it was Penny that found her.
“You…” Noel sighs, all his jealousy melting away for the moment, Ocean was in crisis, and even though he was so upset she got to live his dream, she was still a person who needed comfort, “You really didn’t know?”
“Of course not! I would have never lied about being a beta, I really thought I was! I planned my whole life around it.” Ocean groans, she lets her head fall to the table, gripping her hair in frustration.
Noel thinks back to all the times Ocean said “as a beta” before saying a statement that had nothing to do with being a beta. All the comments she made about the omega girls in their classes that “need to get themselves under control” and how her whole identity had been around being better because she was a beta.
It was the classic beta superiority complex, and now the foundation her identity was crumbling. Noel had hated the way she treated everyone, and some sick part of him thought at least she was finally knocked down several pegs.
He still thought it should be him that ended up being a surprise omega. He has been to the doctors to get tested, his mother giving in and allowing him to get screened for possible omega hormones in his body. He was disappointed to find that he is just a beta, and any dream of becoming an omega was snuffed out at a young age.
“I should have been the one who got to be an omega.” Noel reveals, taking a long look at Ocean.
“I should have been a beta! I’m the last person who should ever be an omega, I embarrassed myself, and now Penny probably thinks I'm some crazy omega that can’t keep her hands to herself!” Ocean bursts into tears again.
Noel sighs, moving to sit in the seat next to Ocean. He wasn’t planning to comfort her, this was supposed to be a heated confrontation that ended with yelling and Ocean feeling like a hypocrite.
“Penny doesn’t think that…If anything, you two need to talk and figure out where to go from here.” He saw the way Penny looked at Ocean, she had the look most alphas got when their partner wasn’t accepting their affection.
He couldn’t understand why Penny was interested in Ocean of all people, but he wasn’t going to judge too harshly, the alpha was not well received and at least Ocean hadn’t gone around accusing Penny of being a creep like many of the omega girls did.
“I can’t talk to her…I don’t want a repeat of the closet, I don’t trust myself.”
Noel knows the conversation is over, Ocean would not listen to any advice he had to offer…He would just have to take matters into his own hands, and he knew someone who would gladly help.