Work Text:
Sheng Shaoyou had no problem with being pregnant.
That was what he had been telling himself for the past two weeks.
He had no problem with being pregnant.
He had a problem with Hua Yong following him around the house with a bowl of fruit as if Shaoyou might die if he went more than thirty minutes without putting a piece of apple in his mouth. He had a problem with his doctor, who had apparently decided that pregnancy was an excellent reason to forbid him coffee, alcohol, cigarettes, staying at the office past eight in the evening, and ignoring back pain for six hours straight. He had a problem with his suit, because the trousers that had fit him perfectly only a month ago were now too tight around the waist, and he had a very serious problem with the shop employee who, two days earlier, had stared at him in horror when Shaoyou threw up into a trash can outside the entrance before timidly asking Hua Yong whether his Omega needed help.
Shaoyou had looked at him in a way that made the boy turn pale.
Hua Yong had answered:
“My Alpha can take care of himself.”
And Shaoyou had been angry with him for the next half hour.
He didn’t know why.
That was the worst part.
He had no problem with being pregnant.
He had a problem with everything else.
+++
The first thing that truly frightened him was his scent.
He didn’t notice it immediately.
A person’s scent was something they grew accustomed to even faster than their own reflection. For twenty-seven years, Shaoyou had smelled exactly the same. His pheromones had remained unchanged for years. Orange blossom was his; it belonged solely and exclusively to Shaoyou, no matter how much Shen Wenlang had irritated him by releasing an entire perfume line with a remarkably similar fragrance. That scent, the scent of his pheromones, could not be replicated, and it belonged to Shaoyou alone.
Hua Yong said he was addicted to his pheromones.
Shaoyou told him that sounded idiotic.
So the first morning he woke up and smelled something softer on his pillow, he assumed it was Hua Yong.
He rolled onto his other side.
Pressed his face into the cooler part of the pillow.
The scent followed him.
Shaoyou opened his eyes.
For several seconds, he lay completely still.
Then he raised his own wrist to his nose.
And froze.
The orange blossom was still there…
But something had changed.
The intense, sharp edges of his pheromones were gone. Not entirely, but enough for Shaoyou to notice immediately. The scent had become warmer, strangely sweet underneath. Hua Yong had told him before that this might happen. The doctor had mentioned it too. Hormones, pregnancy, an Enigma’s mark, his body trying to sustain the developing child—all sorts of words Shaoyou had acknowledged and then filed away in the same corner of his mind where he kept the financial reports from Sheng Group subsidiaries he didn’t need to look at more than once a quarter.
It had been information.
Now it wasn’t information anymore.
Now it was what his skin smelled like.
Shaoyou got out of bed.
“Shaoyou?”
He didn’t answer.
He turned on the light in the bathroom.
Looked at himself in the mirror.
Nothing had changed.
Of course something had changed.
His stomach was already slightly rounded. Not enough for a stranger to immediately assume pregnancy, but enough for Shaoyou to see the difference. His waist looked different. His chest was a little fuller. Perhaps his face had softened slightly as well, although he couldn’t tell whether that was actually true or whether he was simply looking for changes now, and so his mind was finding them everywhere.
He straightened his shoulders.
Lifted his chin.
Alpha.
That was what an Alpha looked like.
He stared at himself.
Alpha.
He pressed his wrist to his nose.
His stomach clenched unpleasantly.
“Fuck.”
“Shaoyou?”
“Don’t come in.”
Silence fell on the other side of the door.
Hua Yong didn’t touch the handle.
That only made it worse.
If he came in, Shaoyou could get angry with him.
If he started arguing, Shaoyou could tell him to fuck off and then spend half an hour pretending Hua Yong was the problem.
But Hua Yong had already learned when not to come in.
Shaoyou hated it when that man became reasonable.
He opened the cabinet. Shen Wenlang’s fucking perfume, with its fucking orange-blossom scent, sat among the other gifts Shaoyou had never intended to use.
He took out the bottle.
Sprayed his neck.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Four.
“Shaoyou.”
“What?”
“I can smell it from here.”
He sprayed himself a fifth time.
“Good.”
+++
Hua Yong said nothing over breakfast.
That was irritating too.
Shaoyou sat across from him in a white shirt buttoned all the way to the throat, even though they weren’t going anywhere that day. He smelled so intensely of orange blossom that an ordinary Omega would probably have either fled the apartment or gotten dizzy.
Hua Yong ate his porridge.
Shaoyou watched him over the rim of his cup of decaffeinated coffee, which was yet another personal insult inflicted upon him by the universe.
“Say it.”
Hua Yong looked up.
“What?”
“Whatever you’re trying not to say.”
“I was thinking you should eat an egg.”
Shaoyou narrowed his eyes.
Hua Yong calmly put another spoonful of porridge into his mouth.
“I don’t smell like an Omega.”
The spoon stopped halfway to his mouth.
Shaoyou immediately felt an almost physical need to take the words back.
Not because they weren’t true.
Because he had said them out loud.
Hua Yong put down his spoon.
“No.”
“But I smell different.”
“Yes.”
Shaoyou tightened his fingers around his cup.
“How?”
Hua Yong was silent for a moment.
That was another thing he had been doing more often lately. Thinking before answering. As though every word he directed at Shaoyou was something fragile that he first had to turn over in his hands and inspect from every angle.
Shaoyou hated it.
Shaoyou desperately needed it.
“Like you,” Hua Yong finally answered, an innocent smile on his lips.
“Don’t fuck with me.”
“You asked.”
“I smelled like me before.”
“You still do.”
“Hua Yong.”
“Shaoyou.” Hua Yong rested his forearms on the table. “I can still smell your pheromones. You’re still an Alpha. You’re still an S-class Alpha who, for some reason, seems to think he needs to establish dominance over his own breakfast.”
Shaoyou looked at the egg.
“I’m not hungry.”
“I know.”
“Then stop telling me to eat.”
“All right.”
“And stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
Shaoyou didn’t answer.
He couldn’t.
Because Hua Yong was looking at him exactly the same way he always had.
And somehow, that irritated him even more.
Fucking hormones.
+++
The first time someone called him an Omega was during his twenty-first week.
It wasn’t anyone important.
That was what made it so absurd.
Shaoyou had survived things far worse than a receptionist at a private clinic making a mistake.
The woman was young. New. Apparently, she had never seen him before, and his name on the form meant little to her. She had probably assumed that sharing a name with the president of ShengFang Group was merely a coincidence. Shaoyou was wearing a looser coat because his usual clothes were beginning to reveal his stomach more and more clearly, and he hadn’t used perfume that day.
He was tired.
Hua Yong stood beside him.
“Please have a seat. The doctor will see your Omega in a few minutes.”
Silence.
Shaoyou felt something inside him die.
The receptionist was still looking at Hua Yong.
Of course.
An Enigma smelled dominant.
Shaoyou smelled…
Shaoyou didn’t want to think about what he smelled like.
“That’s not my Omega,” Hua Yong said.
The woman looked at Shaoyou.
Then at his stomach.
Then back at Hua Yong.
“Oh.”
One second.
That was enough.
Shaoyou knew that kind of look.
Surprise. Confusion. An attempt to fit what she was seeing into categories she understood.
A pregnant person.
A person who looked like his partner refusing to acknowledge responsibility.
Shaoyou felt his breakfast turn in his stomach.
“I’m an Alpha,” he said firmly.
He was an Alpha.
He had to remember that. No matter what happened, he had to remember that he was an Alpha.
The receptionist went pale.
“Of course, Mr. Sheng. I’m sorry, I just…”
“Shaoyou,” Hua Yong said, touching his back.
Shaoyou jerked away as though he had been burned.
He didn’t look at him.
“Don’t touch me.”
Hua Yong immediately lowered his hand.
Shaoyou hated him for the next five minutes.
Then he hated himself even more.
+++
“I’m pregnant.”
Sheng Fang stopped pouring tea.
Shaoyou sat across the table from him.
Hua Yong sat beside him.
That last part had been a mistake. Shaoyou knew that now, because Hua Yong’s presence made the whole situation look even more like some kind of official family announcement, when Shaoyou had simply wanted to tell his father the truth before his stomach became large enough for Sheng Fang to notice on his own.
His father looked at him.
Then at Hua Yong.
Then back at him.
“You are?” the older Alpha asked with mild confusion, as though he expected Shaoyou to correct himself, to admit that he had simply meant to say it in the plural, as though pregnancy were somehow something he and Hua Yong were doing together.
Shaoyou closed his eyes.
This was unbelievably irritating.
“No. Not Hua Yong. I’m pregnant.”
Sheng Fang looked at Hua Yong’s stomach.
Hua Yong cleared his throat.
“Shaoyou is pregnant.”
“I understood what he said.”
Clearly, he had not.
Sheng Fang sat down.
“But you’re an Alpha.”
Shaoyou felt every muscle in his body tense at once.
“Yes.”
“So how—”
“Don’t ask,” Shaoyou cut him off quickly.
“I wasn’t going to ask for details,” the older Alpha protested, although his expression didn’t look embarrassed in the slightest. He looked far too interested in the fact for Shaoyou not to feel deeply, profoundly uncomfortable. As though his pregnancy might become a research subject, something his father wanted to investigate and publicize as ShengFang Pharmaceuticals’ newest achievement.
“You looked like you were going to.”
“I’m trying to understand.”
“You don’t need to.”
Sheng Fang frowned.
Shaoyou knew that expression. He had seen it thousands of times during his childhood. His father made that face when the accounts didn’t add up, when someone said something absurd during a meeting, or when fifteen-year-old Shaoyou informed him that he intended to move out.
“Did the doctor say it’s safe?”
The question was so different from what Shaoyou had expected that, for a moment, he didn’t answer.
“What?” Shaoyou asked, confused.
“Is it safe for you?” Sheng Fang repeated.
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“And the baby?”
“Also safe.”
Sheng Fang nodded.
He poured the tea.
His hand trembled slightly.
Shaoyou watched it.
“Good,” Sheng Fang finally said.
“Good?”
“If both of you are safe…” He cleared his throat. “I’m glad I’ll finally have a grandchild.”
“That’s it?”
Sheng Fang looked at him with genuine surprise.
“What else am I supposed to say?”
Shaoyou opened his mouth.
He didn’t know.
He had expected so many possible reactions that Sheng Fang’s calm acceptance of the facts felt completely unnatural. He had expected so many things his father might say.
That it was strange.
That an Alpha shouldn’t.
What would people say?
That Sheng Shaoyou, his only legitimate son, heir to the family name, president of ShengFang Group, the man who had been taught since childhood that he should stand straight, be strong, dominate, never let anyone see weakness…
“I’m still an Alpha,” Shaoyou said after a moment.
Hua Yong shifted beside him.
Sheng Fang looked at his son.
“I know.”
Shaoyou swallowed.
“People sometimes…”
He stopped.
He hadn’t meant to say this.
Not to his father.
Not with Hua Yong sitting there.
He wasn’t going to say it.
Ever.
If he said it, it might become true.
Sheng Fang put down his cup.
“People sometimes what?”
“Nothing.”
“Shaoyou.”
“They get it wrong.”
His father waited.
Shaoyou looked away.
“They think I’m an Omega.”
Sheng Fang made a face as though he had just heard something exceptionally stupid.
“But you’re not.”
Shaoyou almost laughed.
He didn’t.
Something tightened around his throat so hard that for a moment, he couldn’t breathe.
“No.”
“Then they’re idiots.”
Hua Yong snorted.
Shaoyou kicked him under the table.
It felt strangely… light.
Pleasant.
Something he hadn’t expected to feel, especially not because of Sheng Fang.
Well…
Shaoyou’s life had turned out to be surprising on so many different levels that this one small surprise really didn’t change his situation all that much.
+++
Two days later, Shaoyou walked into the office smelling so intensely of orange blossom that his secretary sneezed.
Hua Yong, walking behind him, stopped.
Looked at him.
Shaoyou looked back at Hua Yong.
“Not a word.”
Hua Yong raised his hands.
“I didn’t say anything.”
Shaoyou adjusted his jacket.
His stomach was impossible to hide now. The suit had been tailored specifically for him, so he didn’t look bad.
Just different.
Still broad shoulders.
Still a straight back.
Still the watch he had worn ever since Hua Yong gave it to him.
Still his face.
His body.
Even if sometimes it felt foreign.
Even if sometimes he hated it.
Even if today he needed an absurd amount of perfume just to look at his own reflection in the metallic wall of the elevator without feeling that unpleasant little twitch beneath his ribs.
Hua Yong stepped beside him.
Their reflections stood next to each other.
Shaoyou looked at his own.
For a moment, he stared at his stomach.
Then higher.
At his face.
“I still smell different,” he said.
“Yes.”
“It might not go back to the way it was.”
“I know.”
Shaoyou frowned.
“So people might keep getting it wrong.”
Hua Yong looked at his reflection.
“Then you’ll correct them.”
“Every time?”
“Every time.”
The elevator doors opened.
Shaoyou didn’t move immediately.
“And if I get tired of it?”
“I’ll correct them.”
Shaoyou looked at him.
“And if you’re not there?”
Hua Yong considered that.
“Your father will insult them.”
Shaoyou snorted.
“Probably.”
He stepped out of the elevator.
Hua Yong followed him.
After a few steps, Shaoyou stopped and turned around.
“And stop following me.”
“We’re going to the same place.”
“It looks like you’re following me.”
“You’re pregnant. I’m walking slower.”
“Hua Yong.”
“All right, all right.”
Shaoyou continued walking.
His stomach felt heavy beneath his jacket. His chest still hurt. The perfume was definitely far too strong, and beneath it he could still detect that new, sweeter note in his own pheromones, the one he hadn’t yet learned to like.
Maybe he never would.
That was all right too.
He didn’t have to love everything his body did.
He didn’t have to think pregnancy was a miracle.
He didn’t have to enjoy the changes.
He didn’t have to find some new version of himself in them.
He was Sheng Shaoyou.
He was an Alpha.
He was pregnant.
Those three things could exist at the same time, even if the world was apparently too narrow-minded to fit all three into a single head.
And if someone called him an Omega again, Shaoyou would simply correct them.
If they did it a second time, he would correct them less politely.
And if they did it a third…
Well.
Shaoyou was still an Alpha.
No one had ever said he had to be nice to everyone. All those guides about avoiding angry Alphas who were losing control of themselves hadn’t been written for no reason. Shaoyou could simply… well, use the situation and society’s limited understanding to his advantage.
If he happened to rearrange someone’s face after they mistook him for an Omega…
Well.
At worst, he would send an apology fruit basket to the hospital.
No one could really blame him for that.
What Alpha wouldn’t get angry if someone mistook him for an Omega, right?