Chapter Text
Jake Muller had never given a damn about his second gender.
He was too busy trying to take care of his mom and make money, then grappling with the loss of her while still trying to keep his own head afloat. Add being in multiple active warzones from his early teens to early twenties and you’ve got yourself a grocery list of reasons as to why he didn’t give a damn about whatever the hell happened between his legs.
Though some would argue that the biggest reason was because he didn’t know. He’d never presented.
The usual age for presenting was around that same time as hitting puberty. He’d been in units with other kids–yes, kids. He had come to really realize how fucked up it was–who were told to wrap their scarves tightly around their necks and were handed some sort of scavanged pill. He later learned about heat suppressors and scent dampeners when he worked up the nerve to finally ask. The other kid was about fourteen, a year older than Jake at the time, and wore a tattered grey scarf around his neck.
“We take ‘em to keep us safe,” He had explained as he stashed the rest of his scavenged pills into his inner jacket pocket. “There’s a lot of fucked up people out here who would do a lot of fucked up things to freshly presented omegas.”
Jake hated the mental images that came to him and he hated that the kid was right about everything his mind could conjure. He hadn’t been able to give it much more thought after that because the next thing he knew they were under heavy fire. That was the last time he had seen that kid. He never found out whether or not that grey-scarfed kid made it out alive.
The soft sound of the front door being opened brought him back to the current time. He reached over and turned the knob on the old stereo he kept in his and Sherry’s shared studio space to lower his music.
“Welcome home, babe!” He called out. Though his eyes stayed on the canvas he had been previously working on. Details of whatever the scene was supposed to be had escaped him already, so he put down the charcoal stick in his hand and stood up to make his way over to meet Sherry. Down the hall, around the corner, and through the freshly painted threshold was their kitchen, dining room, and living room in an open floor concept.
Sherry was in the living room, having kicked off her heels and was working on shrugging off her light jacket. Jake let out a wolf whistle, which made the older woman’s eyes dart towards him.
“Well don’t let me stop you.” He teased, putting his hands up in mock surrender.
Sherry playfully rolled her eyes and hung up her jacket. Her scent began to fill the air around them, and Jake found no shame in how quickly he crossed the space between them to bury his nose in her neck. Pale jasmine, white cedar, and the captured smell of a snowy day washed over him. He knew that if he buried his nose a little further into her scent gland that the undertones of sterile hospital antiseptic would arise–a side effect of the G-virus in her body.
He felt her hand reach out and settle in his hair. Yeah, that was a thing for him now. Honest to god he had forgotten to cut it for some time, and by the time he realized how long it was, Sherry was practically begging him to not get rid of it. She had pleaded that it “felt soft” and “looked really good on him”, but that wasn’t enough to cut it. He pretty much had the razor to his head before she had said something like, “It really does look good though…it makes it look like you’re finally comfortable here..” Then that was that.
“Hello to you too,” Sherry smiled and placed a kiss on his temple. “How was your day?”
“Same old, same old,” Jake said, standing up straighter and resting his chin on top of her head. “Cleaned nothing. Stayed in the studio most of the day. Fucked off into the woods for a bit to get from fresh air–” He suddenly leaned a good bulk of his weight against her, causing her to yelp and swat at him. Ever since they made their “relationship” something real and Sherry moved him to the States and in with her, he’d been paranoid to go outside on the account of someone recognizing him and sending him to a maximum security prison. Plus going outside also meant talking to people, and Jake didn’t like people. But apparently staying in the house for three months straight wasn’t okay for his mental health, according to Sherry, so she’d hound him about going on a twenty minute walk at least once a day. Now he brought it up every time he stepped out of the house.
“Get off of me!” Sherry giggled and pushed against his shoulder. “I’m going to change.”
He put most of his weight back on his own feet and loosened his arms from her waist to let her break away. Trailing after her as she made her way to the bedroom, Jake sat down on the bed while Sherry moved about pulling out her comfy clothes. With each layer of regular clothing that she pulled off, another wave of pale jasmine, white cedar, and snow filled the air. Jake let himself breathe it in and fell back onto their shared bed comforter with a sigh.
Sherry turned around and raised an eyebrow. “Oh, am I boring you?”
Before he could answer with his own sarcastic quip, his vision flooded white when her button-down shirt landed on his face and all he heard were Sherry’s mischievous giggles as she ran off into the attached bathroom. His nose flooded with her scent and he could have sworn he was getting drunk off it. Turning himself over onto his stomach, Jake bunched the shirt up between his crossed arms and let his head rest against his forearm; breathing in his partner’s scent as he waited for her to come back. ‘Partner…’ He thought. Sherry hadn’t brought it up, but he could tell she wanted them to label it something more permanent. Something real. At first, he had assumed she meant marriage–which he was more than one hundred percent down for–but it soon became clear to him what she had truly meant when he had caught her staring at the unopened scent glands on his neck.
She wanted to make him her mate. Officially.
Which wouldn’t have bothered Jake, but the idea of mating before knowing what the hell his second gender was had started to creep into his mind and sow the seeds of anxiety. He’d heard horror stories back home about Alphas mating other Alphas and their whole dynamic not working out; even turning violent in some cases. Not to say same second gender mated pairs couldn’t work! But the ones that didn’t were enough to scare most people, at least back in Edonia. However, this was thought with the assumption that Jake himself was also an Alpha like Sherry. Of course it wasn’t confirmed because he had never presented, but given his attitude and body build, he’d say it was a decently educated guess. Though Sherry didn’t exactly fit the profile for the typical Alpha either; she was short, her body soft around the edges, and her scent was light and didn’t choke. He rubbed his cheek against the soft fabric of her shirt and mused on the subject as the sound of the shower turning on faded into the background.
Warm water washed over Sherry in an attempt to calm her racing thoughts. It worked a bit; tension melted from her shoulders in pace with the shampoo suds from her hair. Her lungs filled with the lavender scent of her body wash.
Her mind had been focused on Jake since this morning and even more so after she had met up with Claire earlier to grab lunch together. The blonde had been consumed with the thought of her partner’s second gender. They’d been living together for about a year and a half now, and Sherry had learned rather quickly that Jake wasn’t on suppressants–like she had originally thought–but that he quite literally hadn’t presented yet. In retrospect, it wasn’t that surprising. Late Bloomers weren’t uncommon at all. Her partner wasn’t sick, he wasn’t stressed in his new environment, he wasn’t stressed around her, so everything was fine. Until now.
The thought of officially mating had been playing its way across the stage of Sherry’s already hectic mind. Maybe it was just an Alpha’s instinct, but she had caught herself gazing at the unmarked plot of skin between Jake’s neck and shoulder much more often than not. Lately she wanted nothing more than to pounce on the Edonian man and sink her teeth into his unclaimed flesh whenever she came home from work and found him in the kitchen making dinner. To lay him out over the granite countertop that he loved so damn much and bite at his exposed skin until he was–
Sherry slapped herself across the face.
‘Not now, Sherry!’ She scolded herself inwardly, furiously scrubbing the rest of her shampoo out of her hair. Stepping out of the shower, she stood before the double-bowled sink and wiped the fog from the mirror hanging above it. Her soft features stared back at her. She knew she didn’t exactly fit the profile for an Alpha: she was on the shorter side, slim build, soft around the edges of her face, cute. Personally, Sherry had never had a problem with the way she looked and how it correlated with her second gender. Her parents were too damn busy not giving a shit about her that they didn’t have time to make her feel any sort of way about it. It wasn’t until after Claire and Leon rescued her, helping her get settled into a somewhat better life, that she really began to notice the differences between herself and other Alphas around her. Even then, her own looks brought back the topic of conversation she had with Claire just a few hours ago…
“He could be an Omega,” Claire had suggested over the rim of her mug.
The two women sat together in a cute little 1980s themed diner. Sherry loved the place for the fries and milkshakes, and Claire liked that they didn’t burn their brewed coffee.
Sherry froze, fries-in-hand and mid-way to her mouth.
Claire couldn’t help but laugh at the sight, nearly coughing on her black coffee as she carefully set the mug down as not to spill its contents in her fit of giggles.
“I so wish I had a camera right now. You should see your face!”
The blonde didn’t reply, let alone really move. A million thoughts were racing through her head.
Claire pulled herself together a bit and cleared her throat. “Hey, Sherry-Berry, I’m sorry for laughing, really. But I am serious with what I said about Jake possibly being an Omega. It makes sense,” She shrugged, “Hell, even Leon admitted that he hadn’t properly presented until he was almost 25! Between a stressful household life, Raccoon City, and the military right after– Omegas won’t present in super stressful environments for their own safety, and with what you’ve told me about how Jake grew up; it checks off all the boxes.”
“Oh my god,” Dropping her fries, Sherry put her head in her hands. “How the hell did I not think about that?”
Claire smiled, then reached across the table and patted Sherry’s head– the blonde’s adult age be damned. “Don’t freak out about it, alright? A lot of people don’t realize that type of stuff because they’re rarely ever put into such fucked up situations. Just give it time. Jake seems more than comfortable with you and in your guys’ home. I bet you he’ll be presenting by the end of the year, at the latest.”
Drying herself off and then wrapping her hair up in her towel, Sherry took a deep breath; letting the scent of herself and lavender fill her lungs and calm her nerves. Breathing out, she took one more moment to get her thoughts in order. She didn’t expect Jake to freak out at her over the suggestion of him being an Omega, but it was still an unnerving thing to bring up to someone who didn’t even have a clue on what they were. If she remembered correctly, Albert Wesker had been an Alpha that most people had mistaken for a Beta during his time in S.T.A.R.S because of his stone cold demeanor. From what Jake had told her; his mother had been a Beta who had a sweet, subtle scent and mild attitude. She smelled faintly of apples before her sickness made her scent turn rotten. Compressing all of that into some sort of mental equation; yeah, Jake being any one of the three was still up in the air.
Sherry stood in the bathroom until the section of the mirror she had wiped off clouded up again with the lingering shower steam. ‘Fuck it,’ She thought, ‘It won’t do me any good just standing here and overthinking it.’ Pulling the towel from her head and leaving it in the bathroom hamper, she opened the door and stepped back into their shared bedroom.
She could have died at the sight before her.
On top of their bed; their comforter had been twisted up and pushed around, their pillows were thrown about in a form of organized chaos, and the extra throw blankets they kept in a chest at the foot of the bed had been pulled out and added to the cluster. In the middle of it all was Jake. The ginger was laying on his side, a fuzzy throw blanket halfheartedly covering him, while his face was hidden by the soft white material of her shirt that she had playfully thrown over his face a little bit ago. He didn’t react to her blazingly re-entering their room, and upon a closer look, Sherry could see the slow rise and fall of his chest with deep, sleeping breaths.
A nest… Jake had made a fucking nest. Then fell asleep in it with her scent.
It was now that Sherry understood Claire’s previous wish of having a camera.
“Oh my god…” She gasped, “Oh my god…oh my god oh my god–!”
Sherry silently scrambled in place. What was she supposed to do? Honestly, she wanted nothing more than to crawl into the newly made nest with her mate- partner- boyfriend- JAKE- and wrap herself around him. To bury her nose in his scent gland and nuzzle him until she discovered what secrets his mystery scent held, then pin him down and scent him herself. Because a nest meant refuge, a nest meant comfort, a nest meant she was a good Alpha and that her partner felt safe around her. A nest meant–
Sherry came to a hard stop in her fawning as the realization hit her like cold spring water.
A nest meant Jake was an Omega.