I write fanfiction, including Green Dreams (FFVII), Home With the Fairies (LotR), Cumpounding Debt (Squid Game), Prime Directive (Batman), Crossing Burnt Bridges (Naruto), Doctor's Orders (The Pitt) and a lot of others you can find on Ao3 (I_Mushi). (she/her). Come read my fics at Ao3 (18+ NSFW mostly)!
You can find almost all of my stories on Ao3 -> Archive Of Our Own
Yes I have a profile on Fanfiction.net, but nothing R or above is there. Do you want to know what year I joined? It's on my profile, just to keep me humble. -> Fanfiction.net
In alphabetical order by fandom:
Animal Kingdom (Ao3 & Tumblr)
Ao3 Link for the ABO stories
Meet Cute: Alpha!Pope/Omega!Reader
Pre-rut: Alpha!Pope/Omega!Reader, just a blurb right before he falls into rut
Taking Care of Lena: Alpha!Pope/Omega!Reader
Soulmate Strings: Pope Cody/You, soulmate strings AU
The Avengers (Ao3 & Tumblr)
Upon a Hill, Across a Blue Lake: Alpha!Steve/Omega!Darcy/Alpha!Bucky, complete
That Fine Ass: Steve/Darcy, crack oneshot
My Name On Your Skin: Steve/Darcy/Bucky, soulmark AU oneshot
Flying with Steve Rogers: Steve/Reader, oneshot, on Ao3 & Tumblr
Daddy Fantasies: Steve/Reader, oneshot, on Ao3 & Tumblr
Batman (only on Ao3)
Prime Directive: Alpha!Batman/Omega!OFC, A/B/O, ongoing
Doctor Who (Ao3 & FF.net)
With a Hop and a Skip: incomplete, Doctor Who/OFC
Final Fantasy VII (Ao3 & FF.net)
Green Dreams: Sephiroth/Cloud, incomplete, time travel AU
Green Dreams Drabble Collection: Green Dream related oneshots
Cloud Meeting the Mobile Unit: oneshot
Lord of the Rings (Ao3 & FF.net)
Home With the Fairies: complete, 10th walker, Girl Falls Into Middle Earth
Home With the Fairies Drabbles: technically ongoing, not updated in a long time
Misunderstood Beauty: oneshot, gen
Mercy Thompson Series (only on Ao3)
Izzy: oneshot
Meddling Kids: Adam/Mercy, oneshot
Broken AC: Adam/Mercy, oneshot
Naruto (only on Ao3)
Crossing Burnt Bridges: Alpha!Itachi/Omega!OFC, time travel from non-ABO Naruto universe, ongoing
The Pitt (Ao3 & Tumblr)
Omega Oligoestrous: Alpha!Jack/Omega!Reader on Ao3 & Tumblr, oneshot
A/B/O Jack Abbot in Rut (only on Tumblr)
Strings That Bind: Jack/You/Robby, soulmate string AU, on Ao3 & chapters 1 & 2 on Tumblr
Wolf & Shark & Hart: Brendon Park/OFC, on Ao3 & Tumblr
Strings That Guide: Brendon Park/OFC, soulmate string AU, on Ao3 & Tumblr
Doctor’s Orders: Alpha!Brendon Park/Omega!reader, on Ao3 and chapters 1 , 2, 3, 4, & 5 on Tumblr
Just a Name: Jack Abbot/You, soulmate-identifying marks, on Ao3 & Tumblr
We are back!! This is my first time using images in a story and first time making fake text messages!
It is not chronological on Ao3 but you can read it here: Archive of Our Own!
Here are links in chronological order on Tumblr:
The Meeting
Day 2
First Day Back
Competition
Blizzard
Summary: Rut: A hormonally driven alpha response marked by heightened mating instincts, territoriality, and possessive behaviors, often triggered by stress or perceived threats. Like when a clueless doctor tries to court Brendon Park's Omega.
By your third shift back at work things had reached a rough stability. The nurses, Trinity, and sometimes Cassie and Frank, would sneak in questions about your Alpha in between patients if they could. You were also learning to quickly, sometimes even sharply, redirect patients who made comments or asked about your dynamic. It wasn’t perfect, but you were finally starting to feel comfortable back in the ED.
Which meant, of course, that the boat started rocking.
“Hey, this is the ED calling for an ICU consult.” You gave your name and the patient’s information, and then the med student you’d been talking to handed the phone off to someone else.
“Hey, it’s Jason.”
“Hi Jason!” you chirped, silently fist-pumping. If anyone was going to get this father of three who had a nasty infection into the ICU, it would be him. “Got a good one for you.”
“I don’t know, we’re a bit tight on beds up here,” he teased, and you gave a thumbs up to the worried spouse of your patient who was watching you through the glass doors.
“But you’ve got one saved for me, right?”
“Of course. Give me the rundown.”
Dr. Jason Nguyen was an ICU fellow and your go-to when you wanted someone sent to the ICU from the ED and they were giving you a hard time about it. You tried not to abuse the connection, but it wasn’t like you were bribing him. Admittedly, the first time you’d gotten the fellow directly on the phone had been at the end of a long, bad shift, and you may have used an Omega subvocal on him to encourage him to give in, but that was neither here nor there. He’d never said a word about it, and he’d been accommodating ever since.
“I’ll come on down in ten and see the patient. Sound good?”
“Three car pileup and a ladder fall!” Dana called. “All hands on deck!”
“Just heard we’ve got a big crowd coming in, so if you don’t see me you still good to take him?” You nodded at Dana who was looking at you expectedly.
“Yeah, sure. No problem.”
“You’re the best, thanks!” You hung up, popped your head into the room to tell the family the ICU doc was coming down for the transfer, and hustled over to the ambulance bay to help accept the next wave.
You were in Trauma 2 when Dr. Nguyen came down, his dark hair lightly stylized and his white coat sharp. Jason hid his disappointment when Princess confirmed you were caught up with the multiple traumas, and he talked to the patient’s family, did the exam, and signed off on the transfer up to the ICU. As he was making the last notes in the chart on one of the rolling computers, he overheard Princess talking to the family as she added a medication to the IV line.
“Yes, she’s a fourth year resident, so she graduates this year,” she was saying. Jason couldn’t make out what the family member said, but the nurse went on. “Omega residents are uncommon in the ED, sure. We’ve had a few specializing in pediatrics.”
Omega residents? Jason paid more attention as the family said you’d been wonderfully kind and helpful, which didn’t surprise him. He knew you were a good doctor who made patients and their families comfortable, even in hectic, difficult circumstances, which was one small reason why he was happy to take your consults. The other reason was that he’d suspected exactly what the nurse was confirming. Maybe this was his sign to take a chance on you.
A few months ago he’d gotten a consult from you on a Friday and had very nearly asked you out. You’d looked stressed and exhausted and your hair had been mussed up and one of your scent patches peeling, and he thought he’d caught the hint of Omega from you as you retied the bun, the same niggling feeling he’d gotten the first time he’d met you. He’d casually asked your weekend plans, and you’d denied any.
“Nothing with friends or a partner?” he’d said, deliberately asking when he was looking at the central line you’d put in so he could pretend at being casual.
“My friends are mostly here, and if I’m off they’re on, and no partner. Just me and bad TV tomorrow. Thanks for your help, Dr. Nguyen.”
“Seriously, it’s Jason.”
“Jason.”
He’d thought for sure that had been the start of something, but then his research had picked up and one of the residents in the ICU went on maternity leave, and by the time he had free time again it had been months since that conversation. Now that his research was submitted and they were fully staffed, maybe he could pursue that space in your life where a partner could be.
“All good?” Princess asked as she left the room.
“Yeah, just call for a transporter. Any chance I can grab her to let her know?” He gestured over at Trauma 2.
Princess looked over at the chaos happening across the hub and shook her head. “Not sure she’s free right now. I’ll let her know though.”
“Thanks.” Princess didn’t miss the edge of disappointment in his glance, and her eyes flicked rapidly between Dr. Nguyen, a respected Alpha in the hospital, and yourself, before landing on Perlah with a knowing look. “I’ll let her know you missed her.”
“Thank you.”
As soon as he was gone Princess was beelining for Perlah, a spark in her eyes.
#
The first sign something was up was the sandwich platter in the break room the next day. The receipt was trapped under the tray though, so no one saw the message with your name on it. You nabbed half of an Italian in between patients and didn’t have time to even wonder which patient’s family had been generous enough to bring it.
More food appeared a few days later, a generous spread that had everyone in the ER grabbing some. It beat the pizza party admin had thrown for Doctor Appreciation Day, so no one was complaining.
The protein bar taped to your locker a few shifts later had been startling, and you’d meant to ask Brendon about it, but by the time you’d gotten off shift you’d forgotten.
“Hey, I put your salad in the fridge,” Dennis said, catching you coming out of a patient room two days later. “It’d been sitting on the table out there for a while.”
“Salad?”
“It had your name on it.” He shrugged at your bewildered look. You went to check it out the next time you could get into the break room, and indeed there was an apple walnut salad from a fancy salad place a few blocks from the hospital with your name on the order slip. You were looking at it, confused, because Brendon had made enough lemon chicken with roasted vegetables last night for both of your lunches today, so where did the salad come from?
“Love letter from your Alpha?” Trinity asked, making you jump when she appeared over your shoulder.
“What?”
“Bringing you food. Come on, I thought that was why we got that Thai food last week. I was in the waiting room when it came in, and the guy said it was under your name.”
Trinity’s brow went up at your surprised expression. That had definitely not been Brendon.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Your Alpha isn’t buying you food and delivering it here? I was about ready to change my bet to chef.”
“No, I have no idea where this is coming from.”
Trinity gave you a disbelieving look. “Come on, food giving is basic Alpha courtship 101.”
“I know that,” you said, irritated. If this was Brendon why didn’t he say something? “But I’m mated, I don’t need to be courted. And he made me lunch.” You pulled out the actual lunch he’d made you.
Trinity’s eyes gleamed when she saw that. “So is he a chef? Like professional, owns-a-restaurant chef?”
You rolled your eyes. “No. But I’ll ask him if he knows what’s up with this.”
Except you didn’t have time, because Robby was knocking on the doorjamb. “Hey, got four people down, carbon monoxide. ETA 2 minutes. Saddle up.”
Later, when things had calmed a bit and the last patient was sitting in the hyperbaric clamber, you got a chat ping on your computer as you were charting:
It was good to know he was up there in case something did come in, but you only had a few hours left on your shift. Still, you added his number to your phone because hey, that would be useful. Then he kept going:
Your fingers paused on the keys. That was a little more than the typical, professional kinds of chat messages you might send to a colleague on another floor. Your texts with Brendon didn’t even look like that.
That reminded you…
The three dots came and went twice before he answered.
You thought about the Thai that had come in last week that Trinity had mentioned. Had that really been for you? Everyone in the ER knew you were mated, so who, other than your mate, would be buying you food? Maybe Trin had heard wrong?
You hesitated, considering telling Brendon, and then shook your head and put away your phone. This couldn’t actually be for you. Brendon’s bite was huge; you’d already had to endure Robby calling it a shark bite in front of several different people. You were 95% sure Abbot had understood the double-meaning immediately. No Alpha you knew would be aggressive enough—or stupid enough—to go after a mated Omega.
#
Yolanda Garcia was a busy woman. Completing her fellowship in trauma surgery at PTMC was a big deal. She had to do a lot, see a lot, and be a lot to get and keep this fellowship. The personalities she worked with sure as hell didn’t make it any easier, but this was gonna set her up for a good career so long as she did her job well and stayed professional.
Which was why, when PTMC’s top orthopedic surgeon went on an unexpected leave, she listened but did not gossip. What Dr. Brendon Park did in his own time was his business, and she’d rather cross his path only for the requisite number of orthopedic surgeries she needed to complete. He was a good teacher and probably one of the best orthopedic surgeons in the region, but he was an exacting and demanding one who would humiliate anyone who was trying to reach his high standards and fell short.
Thank god she wasn’t gunning for orthopedic trauma. Sokowski could keep that masochistic tendency for himself.
She didn’t wonder much about Dr. Park’s mating status after the first few weeks when the talk died down. No one has dared to ask him any details about the long leave, and the department only found out it was a mating leave because Godsfavour, the OR charge nurse who ran all the ortho surgeries, congratulated him directly. Maybe he seemed a bit more relaxed, but it hadn’t softened his bite one bit, and if he had a ring, he wasn’t wearing it where she could see. If anyone thought having an Omega would make him less of an asshole in the OR, they’d been wrong.
Yolanda hadn’t held out much hope on that front from the get-go, and she wasn’t holding much hope out for this patient either. She was, right now, trying to talk this terrified idiot into signing a release to repair his 6 centimeter aortic aneurysm before it ruptured and he died in front of her. If she had to do CPR on him after he refused to do surgery then she would curse him with every compression.
“You said I could die? In surgery? Can I talk to my mate a little more?”
“You will also die without surgery,” she reminded him. “But yes, I’ll come back in 5.”
She stepped out of the room to take a breather and check her phone. The R1s and R2s hadn’t messaged her, which was good. She glanced around the ED and the board in the security dispatch room caught her eye. She walked over, raising a brow at the guard who gave her a look as though to ask, “you want in?”
It was bets on a resident’s mate: all Alphas, all different jobs and medical specialities. She knew who the initials belonged to immediately. Interesting that an ED resident was suddenly mated around the same time as an Alpha orthopedic surgeon.
Yolanda filed that away and went back into the patient room, finally extracting that signature and putting in the request for the OR. Maybe she’d tell you in person that this one was coming up to her service.
She managed to catch you just before you went into a patient room, the mating bite on your throat glaringly obvious. It wasn’t a clean bite but multiple sets on top of each other, all the same teeth, like someone affirming their claim multiple times. Some Alphas were a one-and-done kind of biter, others had reputations that would suggest otherwise. Yolanda would bet good money there were more bites she couldn’t see.
“Hey, we’re sending up room 6 to the OR now. Shamsi’s gonna take it.”
“Excellent,” you said brightly. “Thanks for coming down quick.”
“Sure.” The edge of your scent patch on your neck was peeling, and Yolanda leaned forward a bit as you turned to enter the patient room, loose hairs from your bun fluttering. Because she was paying attention, she caught the whiff of cedar and metal, faint but there. She’d know that scent anywhere: Park’s office didn’t have descenters, and he reviewed cases there with all the doctors under him. It was the kind of no-nonsense, stand-up-and-shut-up scent her body recognized immediately.
“Hey, you’re ready to go home!” she heard you say, always cheerful for the patients, as Yolanda turned to head back to the hub, chewing on what she’d just learned. Trinity sidled up to her as she reached the center isle.
“Hey, we on for tonight?” the second year asked casually, staring up at the board.
“You got ramen?”
“Yup.” She popped the p.
“I’m down. I’ll text you after work.”
“By the way, you want in?” Trinity cocked her head with a big smile on her face.
“In on what?” Yolanda’s phone buzzed in her pocket and she pulled it out, biting back at sigh at the most annoying resident messaging her in a panic.
“I saw you eyeballing the board and bump into our Omega resident. The pot is $825 now.”
Yolanda considered a thousand things in that moment: the new AirPods she wanted, a very nice night out with the girls, the cred she’d get with the ER and surgical teams for knowing Park’s mate before anyone else, and also the absolute fire that would rain if he found out she was the one to out them.
“No thanks. I’m not getting in the middle of that.”
Santos narrowed her eyes. “You know something?”
“I know I’m not stupid.”
Trinity was learning not to take barbs like that so seriously from Yolanda, so she put her hands up and backed off. The surgical fellow went back upstairs with a shake of her head.
#
Yolanda had only given you and Park’s relationship the minimum thought after that day. If there was a surgery consult and you were calling for it, she went down immediately. She hadn’t gotten the chance to see you and Park in the same room together, but she was only more sure, after a few more run-ins with you, that her guess was right.
It quickly became apparent, though, that she might be one of only a few people in the hospital that knew. She was in the ICU following up on a patient who had gotten out of surgery a few hours ago, putting in orders near the entrance to the patient’s room, when she heard the critical care fellow in the next room over talking to one of his residents.
“No change today. Update the family and let them know we need to meet with them soon.”
“If they can come in today would that be best?”
Dr. Nguyen shook his head as he walked out. “No need to scare them like that. Let’s do sometime this week.” He checked his watch, and it was the resident’s flirtatious, “Got plans?” That really caught Yolanda’s ear.
Nguyen was a good looking guy, not that Yolanda was into that, but she didn’t know the ICU residents were getting it on the way the internal medicine ones were. As least she was smart enough to keep it casual and outside her specialty.
“I’m actually courting an Omega. I sent her flowers. They should be down in the ED about now.”
Yolanda held her breath, staring with wide eyes at the wall as she listened to the resident congratulate him and ask who it was and him shyly demurring. The surgeon was very glad the patient she was checking on was asleep. This could not be a coincidence. How many Omegas were in the ED? Three that she knew of? How many were unmated? None. How many would have interacted with an ICU fellow? Just one.
Did Park know? What were you doing? Was there someone else in the ED Nguyen could be referencing?
#
It all came to a head four weeks after you’d returned, freshly mated and outed as an Omega, and you thought things were finally getting back to normal. That is, until the flowers this afternoon had shown up. A full bouquet of red roses, which had the nurses ooing and ahhing over the romantic gesture from, presumably, your Alpha, and you baffled, staring at a card with unfamiliar handwriting signed “J”.
There was no way in hell you were misreading a B as a J.
That had started a new round of speculation from the staff, and you had shot a text up to Brendon.
He didn’t respond, and the second you got on to a computer you checked the surgical boards, seeing his name on a spinal surgery that had been going for several hours already. You sucked in a breath and set the matter of the mystery flowers aside. He’d text you when he got out, and until then you’d just keep going like usual.
#
Robby clocked the watchful eye of Yolanda Garcia on you as the three of you worked two delicate, simultaneous surgeries on a patient in Trauma 1. She was handling the femoral artery complication while you were focused on the throat, Robby handing you what you needed for the procedure. He’d taught you this one himself and was proud to see how confidently you did it. You met his eyes as the blood pressure started to come up, relief in them, and his own crinkled up. He was very excited to offer you an attending position here in a few short weeks, once HR had gotten all the paperwork done.
“Excellent. ICU for this one, yeah? Or does he still need the OR?” Robby turned to Garcia, who was staring at you for a second too long. All of you were in surgical gowns and masks, and he pulled his off as you helped Jesse clear the bloodied drapes off the patient so he could be prepped for transport.
“He’ll probably need a second round in the OR later, but ICU for now.”
Robby nodded. “Call the consult,” he said to you, “then we’ll see if we can clear a few more beds before night shift comes on.” He turned, surprised to see Dr. Nguyen, one of the ICU fellows, already standing outside the trauma bay. The critical care doctor pushed the doors open and walked in, white coat out of place in the busy ER, and Robby noticed immediately how his gaze was fixed on you.
“Hey, heard this might be a consult for me, and I was coming down here anyway,” he said, voice just a hair too warm. Robby’s eyes shot over to Garcia, whose gaze flicked up to his too then over to you. You were still in the surgical gown and mask, red streaked down the front of it, the bloodied drapes in your hand.
“Oh, that’s convenient,” you said, clearly surprised but taking it in stride. “Need the rundown or—“
“Your med student presented it. You want me to put in the orders for transfer to the ICU?”
You stiffened. “Uh, sure,” you agreed, sounding confused. Usually that was the duty of whoever had requested the consult.
“Happy to, for you.”
Robby sorely regretted taking off his mask because he couldn’t hide his incredulous expression that was morphing into a laugh. There were auto-descenters in the trauma bays, but all of you could just barely catch the flare in Nguyen’s scent, the way his shoulders raised a bit to posture just the slightest in front of the other two Alphas in the room. It was an instinctive “this one’s mine” gesture to other Alpha’s.
Your gaze flicked to Robby’s, silently asking is this happening?
Garcia was looking between the two of you too, wordless, and Robby realized he needed to be the attending and step in here.
He coughed, pulling off his surgical gloves. “Right. Well, as long as the orders get in.” He turned to you, pointedly looking at your neck where your mating mark was hidden by the PPE. “Need help with the gown?”
You got Robby’s point immediately and went to yank it off by the collar the way it was designed, only to struggle. “Ugh, my size ones always do this.”
By the time Garcia had helped you undo the knots from behind, Dr. Nguyen had left to put the orders in and Robby was laughing to himself as you stuffed the gown and gloves into the trash. Who said Gray’s Anatomy had to be the only hospital with drama?
“What the hell was that?” Garcia asked, and Robby started to laugh harder.
“Jesus, I thought the food deliveries were weird. And now those flowers—“
You threw your hands up in the air. “That’s who “J” is.”
“Does he know about him?” Garcia asked, gesturing subtly at Jason outside the bay. Robby shook his head. He had no idea what Park knew or didn’t know, but he did know that Dr. Nguyen was going to lose badly if he was trying to woo Park’s mate.
“Shit, I need to talk to him,” you said, still shell shocked.
“I hope you mean talk to your mate,” Garcia corrected. “And then you’ll let him talk to Dr. Nguyen.”
“ ‘Talk’,” Robby snorted, putting the word into air quotes.
“Wait, how do you know who my mate is?” you asked, turning on Garcia.
“I’m not an idiot. Everyone upstairs knows he just mated, so I put two-and-two together.” You opened your mouth and she cut you off. “Don’t worry, keep your secrets. I’m not getting on his bad side.”
You shut your mouth, and Robby rubbed his beard, still laughing a little. “Maybe keeping it a secret is a bad idea.”
“Not my fault Jason’s blind,” you muttered. Your mating mark was very visible. You could probably come up with something patient-related to tell him right now and be extra obvious about the mark, but then your phone started vibrating in your back pocket. You pulled it out and suddenly remembered what you’d texted Brendon two hours ago. “Speak of the devil.”
“No time like the present,” Robby announced. He waved you off and you nodded and put the phone to your ear.
“Hey, give me a second to step away.” You hustled out of Trauma 1 and around the corner to the lockers, which were deserted for the moment.
“Do I need to come down?” Your Alpha sounded patient, but there was an edge there.
“No, no, I can handle it. I figured it out.”
“Handle what?”
“A, uh, bouquet came in for me. A follow up to that salad.” And the Thai food. And probably some other food deliveries, but you left that part out.
A subvocal growl that was more instinct than words crackled through the phone, and you knew Brendon was pissed. You tried to ignore the inappropriate flutter in your stomach and involuntary clenching of your core with arousal. “Who the fuck sent that?”
“Bren—“
“Who, Omega?” That rough tone was not one to argue with, but you did not want Brendon storming down here to exert his dominance. You were finally getting over being the Omega resident; you didn’t want to be known as the Brendon Park’s mate too.
“He just hasn’t see the bite. He’s not often in the ER, and when I just saw him now I was in a surgical gown,” you tried to explain quickly, but the dark, rumbling undercurrent of subvocals was making your chest tight. The urge to nuzzle into the noise coming from your mate’s chest and harmonize your purr with his pitch to soothe him was powerful.
“Doesn’t matter. Who—“ There was the sound of running feet in the background and the warning vibration in his chest got suddenly louder. You slapped a hand over your mouth to muffle the whine that escaped, realizing he’d pressed the phone to his chest to hear whatever was being said to him. “I gotta go. This isn’t over.” Then he hung up.
You steadied yourself with a few breaths until your knees weren’t shaking anymore and the urge to purr had subsided. Brendon wasn’t mad at you; he was mad at Jason, who was acting out of ignorance (you hoped). A secret admirer-style courtship might sound nice in the movies, but in real life it was much more problematic. Your instinct to reassure your mate would have to wait for the end of your shift.
With one more breath you put your phone in your back pocket and headed back to the ED, looking for Jason. You did two scans as you walked the whole ER, but it was quickly apparent he’d left already. You spotted Jesse and jogged over to him.
“Hey, is Mr. Patel still waiting on transport?”
“They just left with him.”
You bit your lip and nodded. “Right, okay, thanks.” Shit, you’d have to message Jason or find some other excuse to approach him today. If you waited too long though, Brendon would do it for you, and while it would be a relief to have the betting pool gone, you’d didn’t want to explode it like this.
#
The opportunity to talk to Jason never came. Part of you hoped the ICU fellow would come back down to the ED and it could happen as naturally as that, but he didn’t. As your shift neared the end you texted Brendon: meet you in the garage?
He didn’t text back immediately, likely caught in whatever emergency had pulled him off the phone. You were still carpooling to work since you were waiting for the new car to be delivered. Brendon had insisted on the highest level trim and extra safety features, which had made it a special order. You had so thoroughly lost the argument about getting a cheap Honda that you’d ended up even picking out the color, since it was going to be a 6 week wait either way.
You felt a little bad that you were relieved there was no text back from him as you said your goodbyes to the rest of day shift and hit the locker room to change out of your scrubs. At least if he was running late then he wasn’t coming down to the ED to hunt down your secret admirer.
You changed out of your scrubs for leggings, boots, a sweater, and your scarf and coat since it was still below freezing at night. As you stepped out of the sliding doors into the parking garage, you pulled the car keys out of your bag. If one of you were delayed at work the other would drive home in the BMW, and Brendon would either pick you up or he’d order a rideshare home.
“Hey! I was hoping to catch you.” Your shoulders tensed as you heard Jason call out behind you. “Sorry I had to head back upstairs before we could talk more. Are you heading home?”
“Yeah.” At least now you could clear the air without— Nope, you realized you were wearing a scarf and jacket as you turned to him, the mating mark hidden. This was still salvageable. You just needed to tell him you had an Alpha. “My Al—“
“Would you like to get dinner?”
You froze. He came to a stop from his light jog in front of you, his nice ski jacket half-zipped up and hair just starting to lose its gel. He was just a bit too close to be casual, a smile on his handsome face and his cheeks tinted pink, like he was nervous. “Sorry, didn’t mean to blurt that out. I just… when I found out you were an Omega I thought… And well, the flowers today were from me. And all the food this last month. If that wasn’t obvious.” He rubbed the back of his neck in a bashful gesture, eyes flashing down to the ground for a moment, a quintessential, non-threatening Alpha display.
A diesel engine came to a stop and idled next to the two of you before you could answer that. You glanced over, recognizing the BMW immediately. Biting your lip, you grabbed the strap of your bag in one hand, taking two big steps closer to Brendon’s car and out of reach from the other Alpha.
“Sorry Jason, I—“
“She’s taken.” Brendon had gotten out of the car and was rounding the front, his gaze pinning the ICU fellow in place. “You the one trying to court my Omega?”
“Brendon—“ He moved to stand between you and him, his big hand holding your arm like he was preparing to yank you out of harm’s way. Your fingers twitched to grab Brendon’s hand and an anxious whine was held tight behind your closed throat, freezing in place and instinct holding you back from making any noise. This was a test of dominance, and the two Alphas were staring at each other, refusing to break eye contact. You knew better than to interfere. Your heart raced and you took shallow breaths, the only noise in your ears was the low, warning vibration in your Alpha’s chest. Brendon had every right, technically, to get physical with Jason.
“I didn’t know,” Jason finally said, lowering his gaze.
“Ask, dipshit. Don’t court an Omega just because you want to.” Jason’s chin tucked down, deferential, and the tension broke as Brendon’s rumbling growl finally stopped. It was like all the sound came back on, the engine and the other cars and footsteps in the garage suddenly returning. You sucked in a ragged breath, eyes flashing between Jason’s low shoulders and Brendon’s hulking presence, his scent ridiculously potent right now. Brendon turned to you, giving Jason his back. It was dismissal, like the other Alpha wasn’t worth being called a rival. “Ready?”
Your pupils had gone wide, and you could see it the second your scent hit him. If Brendon had punched Jason or forced him to his knees to submit, that wouldn’t have turned you on nearly as much as your Alpha demanding basic respect for you.
Brendon used his body to practically walk you backwards to the car, keeping himself between you and Jason. He opened the passenger-side door and braced a hand on the roof.
“Get in the car,” he said in a rough, low bark, and you pulled yourself into the seat as he stepped back with visible effort, shutting the door. He didn’t look at Jason again.
Brendon’s hand stayed on your thigh the entire drive home as you finally shook from your daze enough to explain what you thought must have happened. He had a few choice words for Jason’s presumption and overstepping, but you could tell he was holding himself back.
The moment he was parked he was throwing open the driver’s side door. “Upstairs, Omega,” he growled, and you scrambled out of the car, almost forgetting your bag. Your panties were soaked and your skin was practically vibrating as he stuck close to you in the elevator, pressing his nose into your hair. You held his thick waist, a low purr impossible to hold back, feeling his hard cock against your hip. You rubbed against it a little and he growled, scent blooming even stronger.
The second the elevator doors opened he was crowding you out. You barely managed to unlock the apartment door and open it before the sound of your bags hitting the floor was eclipsed by the thunk of your back against the coat closet door.
Brendon’s hand in your hair protected your head as he kissed you hard, licking his way into your mouth, swallowing your moan. You could barely get more than a breath in as his mouth devoured you while his hands practically ripped your leggings down, one boot flying off. You didn’t even hear the clink of his belt before his cock was pressing against your core, and you cried out as he sunk in, no prep, no warning, just his rock hard length bullying into you. You panted into his throat as you tried desperately to accommodate, the burn of the stretch so good. Thank god you were soaking wet.
“Bren— Alpha—”
“Mine,” he growled, pulling back to the tip and then slamming in so hard the door rattled and you cried out again. “You’re mine, Omega, not some ICU idiot’s.”
“Yours!” you yelped, rocking into his thrusts, his cedar and metal scent so powerful you could smell nothing else, and his cock rubbing at all the right places inside you. You clawed at his shoulders, wanting to get to more skin but thwarted by the layers Brendon was still wearing. He hadn’t even taken his coat off, but he did get a hand under your scarf to rip that off, burying his face into your mating mark. Your nails dug into his scalp and you panted with each surge as he rutted into your cunt, continuing to growl curses and threats to the other Alpha and promises to you.
“Fuck. I’m going to mark you so much no fucking patch will cover it up. Understand me, Omega?” He punctuated that with a roll of his hips and a grunt as your heels dug into his back.
“Yes, uh, yes, Alpha, oh, more—” He shifted positions and the next thrust had your mouth hanging open and a long moan escaping you. Your legs were starting to shake already, and his knot was catching at the rim. “Brendon— please—”
“Cum for me. Cum on your Alpha’s cock, Omega,” he growled, and your eyes rolled back, pussy contracting around him as you climaxed hard. You didn’t even feel him bite down on the mating mark, whited out in pleasure. Your thighs shook when you finally came back to yourself, the steely length of him still firmly inside you, but not with his knot. A little whine escaped you as your hips jerked naturally, cunt soaking his knot and rubbing against the shape of it, trying to get him to lock inside you.
“Alpha,” you whimpered.
The subvocal rumble in his chest silenced you. He wasn’t done. He was far from done.
Using his hips he kept you pinned to the door as he kicked off his boots and pulled off your other shoe. His skin was almost feverishly hot as you helped him take off the jacket and shirt, mouth latching immediately on to his collarbone as the skin appeared. Then he was carrying you to the nest, cock still inside you, but the second he laid you down he pulled out.
“Alpha!”
He took his cock in his hand, flushed and angry, and collared your throat with the other, hand so big he could silence you with just the touch. His blue eyes were practically black the pupils were so dilated, and he was breathing hard as he jerked his cock in his fist, staring at his hand on your throat, two fingers on the bumpy scar of your bite, your breasts heaving as you watched him. He came with clenched jaw all over your chest and belly, deliberately working his cock until he was aimed as your reddened pussy, his seed spilling over your mound. There was so much and it was warm and sticky on your skin, a primal claiming that had your trembling beneath him.
Only when he was done did he let go of your throat to smooth your hair back, his other hand immediately rubbing his cum into your belly as he admired the absolute mess he’d made of you.
“Alpha, I’m yours, only yours,” you moaned, arching as his palm covered in his seed cupped your breast, massaging it into the skin. You felt almost delirious with pleasure as the powerful scent of him sunk into your pores and your nest. You were so wet you were dripping, and you desperately wanted his knot. He hadn’t softened since he hadn’t locked inside you, and you reached down to your folds and rubbed his cum into the soft skin and your clit, licking your lips at the way his head snapped down to watch. You felt deliriously powerful as you spread your lips and let rivulets of his spend run alongside your hole. “Brendon, please.”
That seemed to snap him out of a daze of just watching you. His bark was like a whip-crack: “Present.”
You flipped on to your belly and got on to your hands and knees in seconds. Then he was fisting your hair from behind, forcing your back into a bigger arch as he fit the swollen head of his cock to your leaking pussy. “You are not going to talk to him again, Omega. Not unless you’re dripping my fucking seed and I’m right there with you.”
“Yes, Alpha. Yesss—”
You’d have agreed to anything right then as he slid his cock into you, pushing out all the needy emptiness and replacing it with the incredible stretch and heat of him. “He couldn’t give it to you like this, baby, wouldn’t fuck every thought of that pretty head. You don’t just need roses, Omega, you need an Alpha who will take care of you. Fuck you right.”
“Only you, Brendon. Don’t want roses—just—just— oh my god—” He was starting to really thrust now, and each slam of his hips into you was lighting up sparks in your entire spine, the wet squelch of your pussy obscene. The heavy weight of his knot had you begging for it, babbling mindless praise. “Just want you Alpha, fuck me please, give me your knot. I want him to know, to know he had no chance, oh gods, not a single one—”
“Good girl, made for me,” he grunted, thrusts getting faster, pushing your head down into the nest to really angle inside you to hit the spot that made you cry out with each surge of his hips. You were so close you could taste it, the heady smell of his cum mixing with your sweat on your skin, rising up like a haze of pure arousal. He slowed to grind his knot against your hole and you keened, begging and scrambling at the bedding for it.
“Alpha please, please, give it to me. I need it, I— oh, oh my god Brendon yes, thank you—”
The knot locking inside you reduced you to wordless moaning, hips rolling constantly as you ground into it, eyes fluttering shut as his huge hand held the back of your neck down, forcing you to submit under him while one thick finger finally circled your clit. The orgasm barreled into you like a tsunami, stealing your breath and making your whole body shake and flutter around him as he spurted inside you. It stretched on and on as you mindless humped his fingers over your clit, the next orgasm tumbling out of the previous as he sucked hard on your mating mark, folding over you to grind in harder.
At some point he pulled out before his knot was fully soft and dragged his leaking, heavy cock all over your back, painting you in more cum. You rolled on to your back after he’d rubbed it in, shifting down until you could mouth at the head of his heavy, leaking dick as Brendon growled at the sight of his thick cum on the mating bite. “Fuck, Omega,” he panted, letting you drunkenly lave kisses all over his knot and shaft before the whine in your chest and the frantic movement of your fingers over your clit caught his eye and he yanked your hand away. He bodily shifted you on the mattress, replacing your fingers with the tip of his cock, tapping over the sensitive bud of your clit until you were whining with every too-light touch, and then he lightly spanked your pussy. You yelped, convulsing at the sharp shot of pleasure, slick pooling under you as you stared up, wide-eyed at your grinning Alpha. With sharp taps he spanked over your bright red, swollen clit until you were crying out with each gentle hit, finally peaking on a new high, wailing his name as your slick splattered everywhere. He rammed his hard cock back inside your fluttering cunt, locking you on to his knot again, and setting off another orgasm as he came.
You had no idea how long you two were at it, but at some point the overwhelming instincts subsided and you came back to yourself. You were laying in the nest with Brendon half on top of you, his cock against your leg, your aching pussy leaking a mixture of you and him, and your body covered in his cum, while his rough fingers mindlessly rubbed his spend into the skin of your chest.
“You okay?” you murmured, voice hoarse. You were pleasantly achy and very sticky, the overwhelming smell of both of you had saturated the nest.
His sharp gaze met yours, and he turned his cheek into your hand when you reached for him. His jaw had softened from the hard clench since he’d gotten out of the car to confront Jason, and his curls had come loose from the gel and your fingers.
“I’m fine, though I would not shower any time soon.”
You nodded, turning your head to nuzzle his shoulder. You’d read about this sort of thing happening. Alphas could be thrown into rut by an Omega’s heat or other situations, including a confrontation with another Alpha. They didn’t last days like a heat, but they left instincts riding high for some time. For Brendon, keeping his scent on you in the most base way possible would help to reset his instincts.
Your stomach rumbled, and he pressed a quick kiss to the corner of your mouth and sat up. You groaned a bit, losing the heat of him, but accepted the pillow his head had been on in his place. “I’ll make food. Don’t move.”
“Yes, Alpha.”
#
You called out sick at 4am the next day. You would have given Robby more warning, but you’d thought after that marathon of marking sex you’d had, your mating bite being rebitten again, being fed finger-foods by Brendon in the nest, and then sleeping with his cock inside of you, that his instincts would be settled.
Instead, when you got up to go to the bathroom at 3:30am, Brendon followed you.
You were just about to sit on the toilet when the door opened again and you startled. “Brendon?”
“Go ahead.” He adorably rubbed one eye, clearly not much more awake than you.
“There’s another bathroom,” you said, shifting your weight a bit. You really had to go. Cockwarming him all night had put pressure on your bladder. It didn’t help that he’d also made sure you were very hydrated after rutting you into the mattress.
He blinked slowly, then turned a much more alert gaze on you. Anyone who had been on call as often as he had over the years could snap to awareness very fast. “I’m not letting you out of my sight, Omega.”
“You made dinner without me.”
He made a low, muttering noise in his throat. “You were in the nest then and I barricaded the door.”
“You barricaded the door?” You didn’t know he’d done that. Shit, Jason’s attention had really set something off. Now you were even more impressed he hadn’t punched the other doctor.
“I’ve barely had you a month, baby. I’m not letting some other Alpha push up on my girl.” Your heart melted, and then Brendon was stepping close to you, both of you still naked, his chest rumbling. He cupped the back of your neck in what you now knew was his favorite hold. “Now pee before you get a UTI.”
You almost fell on to the toilet, knees giving out at the order. He leaned down over you, kissing your mouth gently as you trembled. “I don’t think I can,” you whispered. This was too weird, and your pussy felt all tight and squirmy in a way that was bordering far too close to arousal mixed with a bad need to go. There were many ways to scent mark a partner: rubbing cheek glands or wrist glands on parts of the body, swapping clothes, sex, and cum-marking. And also, if you wanted to get real primitive, piss-marking. In combination with hormones, excess chemo-signaling proteins that made a person’s scent were excreted through urine. On a mate who already shared some of the circulating hormone, urine on their skin was a potent scent mark.
“Relax,” he murmured, kissing your cheek and then dragging his lips slowly to your ear, teeth tugging on the lobe as his big hand on the back of your neck kneaded your skull. Your head tilted back automatically, and the rumbling, approving subvocal made your mouth drop open at the same moment that something else relaxed.
The sound of you peeing in the toilet made you jump, but Brendon was holding you steady, and he kept kissing along your throat and jaw as your cheeks absolutely burned. You couldn’t have stopped if you tried, and your knees were bouncing as you peed and your Alpha was right there. It seemed to go on forever, your eyes shut tight as the smell of urine and Brendon’s powerful cedar and metal scent made you dizzy, until the stream finally stopped. Then Brendon was kissing you gently, his firm lips on yours as your legs continued to shake with embarrassment and arousal. The noise from his chest was all pleasure and pride, which was the only reason you could even stand to kiss him back.
You did not let him clean you up even though for a half a second it looked like he might try. Instead he backed off without a word, and you wiped yourself and stood up on shaky legs, washing your hands in the sink as he cupped your hip and nosed into your hair. “See? Not so bad, baby.”
You didn’t know what to say. Your cunt felt empty and swollen and tingling, and you could feel his hardness behind you. For a moment you wanted to ask if you could go back to the nest so he could do his business, but the quiet, curious part of you that was holding low-grade arousal in your core held your tongue. Once before he’d offered to let you hold his member as he went, and in the dark of night, instincts still simmering below the surface, not an ounce of shame in your Alpha, you licked your lips and tried to find the words.
He waited patiently as you dried your hands and then ran out of things to do with them, just holding the edge of the countertop. Brendon remained behind you, a hulking presence in the dark, only the faint city lights from the window giving you shadows to see by.
You closed your eyes and leaned back into him, and his hand on your hip slid to the front, holding you to him. His erection was heavy behind you but not throbbing, just present. At the right angle you could still see the glimmer of his cum on your breasts in the low light, the tacky spend stuck to you. His cock was probably still coated in your juices too, and you felt something contract inside you at the thought.
“Can I…” You hesitated, and Brendon remained still, just breathing softly behind you. “Can I hold it?”
He let out a heavy exhale, a small shiver running through him, and you could feel his smile as he kissed your shoulder. “Of course, Omega.”
Your cheeks were absolutely on fire as you walked together back to the toilet, Brendon flipping the seat up. You turned to him, fingers sliding over his hips to brush his half-hard dick. When you chanced a glance up at him he was staring down at you with an amused look. “If you’re looking at me then who’s aiming?”
You swallowed and let him reposition you next to him, your stomach to his hip, at an angle so you could hold his cock and see what was happening. You pressed your forehead to his side, all tangled up in mortification and arousal. This was not at all a kink you thought you had, but you’d learned a lot about yourself since being with Brendon, and it helped that he clearly had no shame about it.
“Will you be able to…”
“Easier for me than a Beta male,” he grunted, turning his nose into your hair and inhaling. You felt his dick soften a little, and you turned just in time to catch the beginning of the stream. A little ran over your fingers as you tried to adjust, the warmth ticklish, and the instinctive disgust you expected never came. Maybe that was because the scent of him and urine was a potent mix to your hindbrain. A husky little groan slipped past Brendon’s lips as the stream got stronger and you watched, mesmerized. You knew on an anatomical level how this worked: Alpha male vas deferens didn’t intersect with the urethra like they did in Beta and Omega males because evolutionarily being able to be erect and scent-mark with urine made sense. But your brain was stuck somewhere between the smell, the claiming act that was urinating on someone even if technically that wasn’t what was happening, the weight of his cock in your hand, the trust as you both explored this primitive kink, and the utter mortifying arousal that was making a whine rise in your throat as the stream eventually slowed.
Brendon’s grip on your back tightened as he finished, and you were lurching into a kiss with him without letting go of his dick without a second thought. He mumbled something but you didn’t catch it, moaning into his mouth and rubbing your wet pussy against his thigh as his erection firmed in your hand. Thoughts of handwashing and hygiene were gone as he lifted you on to the bathroom counter and stepped between your spread legs. He ran two fingers through your wetness and coated his dick with you helping to slick him up, and then you tossed your head back as he entered you, the heat of him welcome even after the marathon of sex you’d had the night before.
“Oh fuck, Alpha,” you moaned, and he grunted, bottoming out.
“Shit you’re perfect, baby,” he crooned, pulling your hips forward to the edge of the counter so he could find the angle that made you cry out and started a vigorous rhythm. “Never wanted to piss-mark someone before you. One day I’m going to fuck you in the shower after I’ve covered you in my scent in every goddamn way. No one in that ER will have any doubt who you belong to.”
Your pussy contracted, already so close to climax as he said the thing you’d been afraid to imagine. You were still marked up by his cum and your head cracked against the mirror as you moaned, brain stuttering on the image of you and him in the shower. “Oh my god, Alpha, yes!”
Brendon’s hand snapped up to protect the back of your head as his hips slammed into yours. His thumb circled your clit, and you surged up to kiss at his throat, licking and nipping, and Brendon hissed.
“One day I’m gonna make this pussy squirt and it’s not just gonna be slick, Omega,” he promised, grinding his dick hard into you. You shuddered, and he sucked hard on your mating bite, sending you careening over the edge as he strummed your clit. You cried out in bliss, and Brendon pumped you full of cum, rutting into your cunt until he finally slowed and his cock softened, both of you left panting. He eventually settled you more comfortably on the counter but didn’t fully pull out, thumb stroking your cheek tenderly.
For a little while you both sat in this vulnerable moment, playing over the new thing you’d discovered and his admission before that. This relationship was new, and even though Brendon seemed so confident in it, Jason’s misstep had revealed cracks. This rut was evidence his Alpha needed time and reassurance.
You gently kissed his lips, soft and loving, and he kissed you back for long minutes, tender and slow.
“Need to pee again?” he finally asked, and you snorted and kissed the crinkly smile off his face before resting your forehead on his shoulder. You were suddenly exhausted.
“I don’t know how I’m going to work tomorrow. Today. Whatever.”
“You’re not,” Brendon said easily, like it had already been decided. “You think letting my Alpha think I’ve marked you with piss is gonna calm this rut down, sweetheart?”
You had to laugh because of course it wouldn’t. You had a feeling even mentioning cleaning up in the shower might earn you a few spanks on the ass and another round, and you needed a few more hours of sleep before that.
“I’ll text Robby. He’ll know what’s up, but the rest of the ER might think those flowers got my Alpha somewhere.”
As soon as you said it you regretted it. Forget mentioning a shower, any mention of a competing Alpha set Brendon off way faster.
“The whole damn ER is gonna know you’re taken alright,” he growled, pulling out and picking you up, tossing you over his shoulder. “I don’t need flowers to make it clear what’s mine.” You squealed as he spanked your ass while it was in the air, yelping at the second blow as he carried you back to the nest. “You’re lucky I’m off tomorrow, Omega.”
We are back!! This is my first time using images in a story and first time making fake text messages!
It is not chronological on Ao3 but you can read it here: Archive of Our Own!
Here are links in chronological order on Tumblr:
The Meeting
Day 2
First Day Back
Competition
Blizzard
Summary: Rut: A hormonally driven alpha response marked by heightened mating instincts, territoriality, and possessive behaviors, often triggered by stress or perceived threats. Like when a clueless doctor tries to court Brendon Park's Omega.
By your third shift back at work things had reached a rough stability. The nurses, Trinity, and sometimes Cassie and Frank, would sneak in questions about your Alpha in between patients if they could. You were also learning to quickly, sometimes even sharply, redirect patients who made comments or asked about your dynamic. It wasn’t perfect, but you were finally starting to feel comfortable back in the ED.
Which meant, of course, that the boat started rocking.
“Hey, this is the ED calling for an ICU consult.” You gave your name and the patient’s information, and then the med student you’d been talking to handed the phone off to someone else.
“Hey, it’s Jason.”
“Hi Jason!” you chirped, silently fist-pumping. If anyone was going to get this father of three who had a nasty infection into the ICU, it would be him. “Got a good one for you.”
“I don’t know, we’re a bit tight on beds up here,” he teased, and you gave a thumbs up to the worried spouse of your patient who was watching you through the glass doors.
“But you’ve got one saved for me, right?”
“Of course. Give me the rundown.”
Dr. Jason Nguyen was an ICU fellow and your go-to when you wanted someone sent to the ICU from the ED and they were giving you a hard time about it. You tried not to abuse the connection, but it wasn’t like you were bribing him. Admittedly, the first time you’d gotten the fellow directly on the phone had been at the end of a long, bad shift, and you may have used an Omega subvocal on him to encourage him to give in, but that was neither here nor there. He’d never said a word about it, and he’d been accommodating ever since.
“I’ll come on down in ten and see the patient. Sound good?”
“Three car pileup and a ladder fall!” Dana called. “All hands on deck!”
“Just heard we’ve got a big crowd coming in, so if you don’t see me you still good to take him?” You nodded at Dana who was looking at you expectedly.
“Yeah, sure. No problem.”
“You’re the best, thanks!” You hung up, popped your head into the room to tell the family the ICU doc was coming down for the transfer, and hustled over to the ambulance bay to help accept the next wave.
You were in Trauma 2 when Dr. Nguyen came down, his dark hair lightly stylized and his white coat sharp. Jason hid his disappointment when Princess confirmed you were caught up with the multiple traumas, and he talked to the patient’s family, did the exam, and signed off on the transfer up to the ICU. As he was making the last notes in the chart on one of the rolling computers, he overheard Princess talking to the family as she added a medication to the IV line.
“Yes, she’s a fourth year resident, so she graduates this year,” she was saying. Jason couldn’t make out what the family member said, but the nurse went on. “Omega residents are uncommon in the ED, sure. We’ve had a few specializing in pediatrics.”
Omega residents? Jason paid more attention as the family said you’d been wonderfully kind and helpful, which didn’t surprise him. He knew you were a good doctor who made patients and their families comfortable, even in hectic, difficult circumstances, which was one small reason why he was happy to take your consults. The other reason was that he’d suspected exactly what the nurse was confirming. Maybe this was his sign to take a chance on you.
A few months ago he’d gotten a consult from you on a Friday and had very nearly asked you out. You’d looked stressed and exhausted and your hair had been mussed up and one of your scent patches peeling, and he thought he’d caught the hint of Omega from you as you retied the bun, the same niggling feeling he’d gotten the first time he’d met you. He’d casually asked your weekend plans, and you’d denied any.
“Nothing with friends or a partner?” he’d said, deliberately asking when he was looking at the central line you’d put in so he could pretend at being casual.
“My friends are mostly here, and if I’m off they’re on, and no partner. Just me and bad TV tomorrow. Thanks for your help, Dr. Nguyen.”
“Seriously, it’s Jason.”
“Jason.”
He’d thought for sure that had been the start of something, but then his research had picked up and one of the residents in the ICU went on maternity leave, and by the time he had free time again it had been months since that conversation. Now that his research was submitted and they were fully staffed, maybe he could pursue that space in your life where a partner could be.
“All good?” Princess asked as she left the room.
“Yeah, just call for a transporter. Any chance I can grab her to let her know?” He gestured over at Trauma 2.
Princess looked over at the chaos happening across the hub and shook her head. “Not sure she’s free right now. I’ll let her know though.”
“Thanks.” Princess didn’t miss the edge of disappointment in his glance, and her eyes flicked rapidly between Dr. Nguyen, a respected Alpha in the hospital, and yourself, before landing on Perlah with a knowing look. “I’ll let her know you missed her.”
“Thank you.”
As soon as he was gone Princess was beelining for Perlah, a spark in her eyes.
#
The first sign something was up was the sandwich platter in the break room the next day. The receipt was trapped under the tray though, so no one saw the message with your name on it. You nabbed half of an Italian in between patients and didn’t have time to even wonder which patient’s family had been generous enough to bring it.
More food appeared a few days later, a generous spread that had everyone in the ER grabbing some. It beat the pizza party admin had thrown for Doctor Appreciation Day, so no one was complaining.
The protein bar taped to your locker a few shifts later had been startling, and you’d meant to ask Brendon about it, but by the time you’d gotten off shift you’d forgotten.
“Hey, I put your salad in the fridge,” Dennis said, catching you coming out of a patient room two days later. “It’d been sitting on the table out there for a while.”
“Salad?”
“It had your name on it.” He shrugged at your bewildered look. You went to check it out the next time you could get into the break room, and indeed there was an apple walnut salad from a fancy salad place a few blocks from the hospital with your name on the order slip. You were looking at it, confused, because Brendon had made enough lemon chicken with roasted vegetables last night for both of your lunches today, so where did the salad come from?
“Love letter from your Alpha?” Trinity asked, making you jump when she appeared over your shoulder.
“What?”
“Bringing you food. Come on, I thought that was why we got that Thai food last week. I was in the waiting room when it came in, and the guy said it was under your name.”
Trinity’s brow went up at your surprised expression. That had definitely not been Brendon.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Your Alpha isn’t buying you food and delivering it here? I was about ready to change my bet to chef.”
“No, I have no idea where this is coming from.”
Trinity gave you a disbelieving look. “Come on, food giving is basic Alpha courtship 101.”
“I know that,” you said, irritated. If this was Brendon why didn’t he say something? “But I’m mated, I don’t need to be courted. And he made me lunch.” You pulled out the actual lunch he’d made you.
Trinity’s eyes gleamed when she saw that. “So is he a chef? Like professional, owns-a-restaurant chef?”
You rolled your eyes. “No. But I’ll ask him if he knows what’s up with this.”
Except you didn’t have time, because Robby was knocking on the doorjamb. “Hey, got four people down, carbon monoxide. ETA 2 minutes. Saddle up.”
Later, when things had calmed a bit and the last patient was sitting in the hyperbaric clamber, you got a chat ping on your computer as you were charting:
It was good to know he was up there in case something did come in, but you only had a few hours left on your shift. Still, you added his number to your phone because hey, that would be useful. Then he kept going:
Your fingers paused on the keys. That was a little more than the typical, professional kinds of chat messages you might send to a colleague on another floor. Your texts with Brendon didn’t even look like that.
That reminded you…
The three dots came and went twice before he answered.
You thought about the Thai that had come in last week that Trinity had mentioned. Had that really been for you? Everyone in the ER knew you were mated, so who, other than your mate, would be buying you food? Maybe Trin had heard wrong?
You hesitated, considering telling Brendon, and then shook your head and put away your phone. This couldn’t actually be for you. Brendon’s bite was huge; you’d already had to endure Robby calling it a shark bite in front of several different people. You were 95% sure Abbot had understood the double-meaning immediately. No Alpha you knew would be aggressive enough—or stupid enough—to go after a mated Omega.
#
Yolanda Garcia was a busy woman. Completing her fellowship in trauma surgery at PTMC was a big deal. She had to do a lot, see a lot, and be a lot to get and keep this fellowship. The personalities she worked with sure as hell didn’t make it any easier, but this was gonna set her up for a good career so long as she did her job well and stayed professional.
Which was why, when PTMC’s top orthopedic surgeon went on an unexpected leave, she listened but did not gossip. What Dr. Brendon Park did in his own time was his business, and she’d rather cross his path only for the requisite number of orthopedic surgeries she needed to complete. He was a good teacher and probably one of the best orthopedic surgeons in the region, but he was an exacting and demanding one who would humiliate anyone who was trying to reach his high standards and fell short.
Thank god she wasn’t gunning for orthopedic trauma. Sokowski could keep that masochistic tendency for himself.
She didn’t wonder much about Dr. Park’s mating status after the first few weeks when the talk died down. No one has dared to ask him any details about the long leave, and the department only found out it was a mating leave because Godsfavour, the OR charge nurse who ran all the ortho surgeries, congratulated him directly. Maybe he seemed a bit more relaxed, but it hadn’t softened his bite one bit, and if he had a ring, he wasn’t wearing it where she could see. If anyone thought having an Omega would make him less of an asshole in the OR, they’d been wrong.
Yolanda hadn’t held out much hope on that front from the get-go, and she wasn’t holding much hope out for this patient either. She was, right now, trying to talk this terrified idiot into signing a release to repair his 6 centimeter aortic aneurysm before it ruptured and he died in front of her. If she had to do CPR on him after he refused to do surgery then she would curse him with every compression.
“You said I could die? In surgery? Can I talk to my mate a little more?”
“You will also die without surgery,” she reminded him. “But yes, I’ll come back in 5.”
She stepped out of the room to take a breather and check her phone. The R1s and R2s hadn’t messaged her, which was good. She glanced around the ED and the board in the security dispatch room caught her eye. She walked over, raising a brow at the guard who gave her a look as though to ask, “you want in?”
It was bets on a resident’s mate: all Alphas, all different jobs and medical specialities. She knew who the initials belonged to immediately. Interesting that an ED resident was suddenly mated around the same time as an Alpha orthopedic surgeon.
Yolanda filed that away and went back into the patient room, finally extracting that signature and putting in the request for the OR. Maybe she’d tell you in person that this one was coming up to her service.
She managed to catch you just before you went into a patient room, the mating bite on your throat glaringly obvious. It wasn’t a clean bite but multiple sets on top of each other, all the same teeth, like someone affirming their claim multiple times. Some Alphas were a one-and-done kind of biter, others had reputations that would suggest otherwise. Yolanda would bet good money there were more bites she couldn’t see.
“Hey, we’re sending up room 6 to the OR now. Shamsi’s gonna take it.”
“Excellent,” you said brightly. “Thanks for coming down quick.”
“Sure.” The edge of your scent patch on your neck was peeling, and Yolanda leaned forward a bit as you turned to enter the patient room, loose hairs from your bun fluttering. Because she was paying attention, she caught the whiff of cedar and metal, faint but there. She’d know that scent anywhere: Park’s office didn’t have descenters, and he reviewed cases there with all the doctors under him. It was the kind of no-nonsense, stand-up-and-shut-up scent her body recognized immediately.
“Hey, you’re ready to go home!” she heard you say, always cheerful for the patients, as Yolanda turned to head back to the hub, chewing on what she’d just learned. Trinity sidled up to her as she reached the center isle.
“Hey, we on for tonight?” the second year asked casually, staring up at the board.
“You got ramen?”
“Yup.” She popped the p.
“I’m down. I’ll text you after work.”
“By the way, you want in?” Trinity cocked her head with a big smile on her face.
“In on what?” Yolanda’s phone buzzed in her pocket and she pulled it out, biting back at sigh at the most annoying resident messaging her in a panic.
“I saw you eyeballing the board and bump into our Omega resident. The pot is $825 now.”
Yolanda considered a thousand things in that moment: the new AirPods she wanted, a very nice night out with the girls, the cred she’d get with the ER and surgical teams for knowing Park’s mate before anyone else, and also the absolute fire that would rain if he found out she was the one to out them.
“No thanks. I’m not getting in the middle of that.”
Santos narrowed her eyes. “You know something?”
“I know I’m not stupid.”
Trinity was learning not to take barbs like that so seriously from Yolanda, so she put her hands up and backed off. The surgical fellow went back upstairs with a shake of her head.
#
Yolanda had only given you and Park’s relationship the minimum thought after that day. If there was a surgery consult and you were calling for it, she went down immediately. She hadn’t gotten the chance to see you and Park in the same room together, but she was only more sure, after a few more run-ins with you, that her guess was right.
It quickly became apparent, though, that she might be one of only a few people in the hospital that knew. She was in the ICU following up on a patient who had gotten out of surgery a few hours ago, putting in orders near the entrance to the patient’s room, when she heard the critical care fellow in the next room over talking to one of his residents.
“No change today. Update the family and let them know we need to meet with them soon.”
“If they can come in today would that be best?”
Dr. Nguyen shook his head as he walked out. “No need to scare them like that. Let’s do sometime this week.” He checked his watch, and it was the resident’s flirtatious, “Got plans?” That really caught Yolanda’s ear.
Nguyen was a good looking guy, not that Yolanda was into that, but she didn’t know the ICU residents were getting it on the way the internal medicine ones were. As least she was smart enough to keep it casual and outside her specialty.
“I’m actually courting an Omega. I sent her flowers. They should be down in the ED about now.”
Yolanda held her breath, staring with wide eyes at the wall as she listened to the resident congratulate him and ask who it was and him shyly demurring. The surgeon was very glad the patient she was checking on was asleep. This could not be a coincidence. How many Omegas were in the ED? Three that she knew of? How many were unmated? None. How many would have interacted with an ICU fellow? Just one.
Did Park know? What were you doing? Was there someone else in the ED Nguyen could be referencing?
#
It all came to a head four weeks after you’d returned, freshly mated and outed as an Omega, and you thought things were finally getting back to normal. That is, until the flowers this afternoon had shown up. A full bouquet of red roses, which had the nurses ooing and ahhing over the romantic gesture from, presumably, your Alpha, and you baffled, staring at a card with unfamiliar handwriting signed “J”.
There was no way in hell you were misreading a B as a J.
That had started a new round of speculation from the staff, and you had shot a text up to Brendon.
He didn’t respond, and the second you got on to a computer you checked the surgical boards, seeing his name on a spinal surgery that had been going for several hours already. You sucked in a breath and set the matter of the mystery flowers aside. He’d text you when he got out, and until then you’d just keep going like usual.
#
Robby clocked the watchful eye of Yolanda Garcia on you as the three of you worked two delicate, simultaneous surgeries on a patient in Trauma 1. She was handling the femoral artery complication while you were focused on the throat, Robby handing you what you needed for the procedure. He’d taught you this one himself and was proud to see how confidently you did it. You met his eyes as the blood pressure started to come up, relief in them, and his own crinkled up. He was very excited to offer you an attending position here in a few short weeks, once HR had gotten all the paperwork done.
“Excellent. ICU for this one, yeah? Or does he still need the OR?” Robby turned to Garcia, who was staring at you for a second too long. All of you were in surgical gowns and masks, and he pulled his off as you helped Jesse clear the bloodied drapes off the patient so he could be prepped for transport.
“He’ll probably need a second round in the OR later, but ICU for now.”
Robby nodded. “Call the consult,” he said to you, “then we’ll see if we can clear a few more beds before night shift comes on.” He turned, surprised to see Dr. Nguyen, one of the ICU fellows, already standing outside the trauma bay. The critical care doctor pushed the doors open and walked in, white coat out of place in the busy ER, and Robby noticed immediately how his gaze was fixed on you.
“Hey, heard this might be a consult for me, and I was coming down here anyway,” he said, voice just a hair too warm. Robby’s eyes shot over to Garcia, whose gaze flicked up to his too then over to you. You were still in the surgical gown and mask, red streaked down the front of it, the bloodied drapes in your hand.
“Oh, that’s convenient,” you said, clearly surprised but taking it in stride. “Need the rundown or—“
“Your med student presented it. You want me to put in the orders for transfer to the ICU?”
You stiffened. “Uh, sure,” you agreed, sounding confused. Usually that was the duty of whoever had requested the consult.
“Happy to, for you.”
Robby sorely regretted taking off his mask because he couldn’t hide his incredulous expression that was morphing into a laugh. There were auto-descenters in the trauma bays, but all of you could just barely catch the flare in Nguyen’s scent, the way his shoulders raised a bit to posture just the slightest in front of the other two Alphas in the room. It was an instinctive “this one’s mine” gesture to other Alpha’s.
Your gaze flicked to Robby’s, silently asking is this happening?
Garcia was looking between the two of you too, wordless, and Robby realized he needed to be the attending and step in here.
He coughed, pulling off his surgical gloves. “Right. Well, as long as the orders get in.” He turned to you, pointedly looking at your neck where your mating mark was hidden by the PPE. “Need help with the gown?”
You got Robby’s point immediately and went to yank it off by the collar the way it was designed, only to struggle. “Ugh, my size ones always do this.”
By the time Garcia had helped you undo the knots from behind, Dr. Nguyen had left to put the orders in and Robby was laughing to himself as you stuffed the gown and gloves into the trash. Who said Gray’s Anatomy had to be the only hospital with drama?
“What the hell was that?” Garcia asked, and Robby started to laugh harder.
“Jesus, I thought the food deliveries were weird. And now those flowers—“
You threw your hands up in the air. “That’s who “J” is.”
“Does he know about him?” Garcia asked, gesturing subtly at Jason outside the bay. Robby shook his head. He had no idea what Park knew or didn’t know, but he did know that Dr. Nguyen was going to lose badly if he was trying to woo Park’s mate.
“Shit, I need to talk to him,” you said, still shell shocked.
“I hope you mean talk to your mate,” Garcia corrected. “And then you’ll let him talk to Dr. Nguyen.”
“ ‘Talk’,” Robby snorted, putting the word into air quotes.
“Wait, how do you know who my mate is?” you asked, turning on Garcia.
“I’m not an idiot. Everyone upstairs knows he just mated, so I put two-and-two together.” You opened your mouth and she cut you off. “Don’t worry, keep your secrets. I’m not getting on his bad side.”
You shut your mouth, and Robby rubbed his beard, still laughing a little. “Maybe keeping it a secret is a bad idea.”
“Not my fault Jason’s blind,” you muttered. Your mating mark was very visible. You could probably come up with something patient-related to tell him right now and be extra obvious about the mark, but then your phone started vibrating in your back pocket. You pulled it out and suddenly remembered what you’d texted Brendon two hours ago. “Speak of the devil.”
“No time like the present,” Robby announced. He waved you off and you nodded and put the phone to your ear.
“Hey, give me a second to step away.” You hustled out of Trauma 1 and around the corner to the lockers, which were deserted for the moment.
“Do I need to come down?” Your Alpha sounded patient, but there was an edge there.
“No, no, I can handle it. I figured it out.”
“Handle what?”
“A, uh, bouquet came in for me. A follow up to that salad.” And the Thai food. And probably some other food deliveries, but you left that part out.
A subvocal growl that was more instinct than words crackled through the phone, and you knew Brendon was pissed. You tried to ignore the inappropriate flutter in your stomach and involuntary clenching of your core with arousal. “Who the fuck sent that?”
“Bren—“
“Who, Omega?” That rough tone was not one to argue with, but you did not want Brendon storming down here to exert his dominance. You were finally getting over being the Omega resident; you didn’t want to be known as the Brendon Park’s mate too.
“He just hasn’t see the bite. He’s not often in the ER, and when I just saw him now I was in a surgical gown,” you tried to explain quickly, but the dark, rumbling undercurrent of subvocals was making your chest tight. The urge to nuzzle into the noise coming from your mate’s chest and harmonize your purr with his pitch to soothe him was powerful.
“Doesn’t matter. Who—“ There was the sound of running feet in the background and the warning vibration in his chest got suddenly louder. You slapped a hand over your mouth to muffle the whine that escaped, realizing he’d pressed the phone to his chest to hear whatever was being said to him. “I gotta go. This isn’t over.” Then he hung up.
You steadied yourself with a few breaths until your knees weren’t shaking anymore and the urge to purr had subsided. Brendon wasn’t mad at you; he was mad at Jason, who was acting out of ignorance (you hoped). A secret admirer-style courtship might sound nice in the movies, but in real life it was much more problematic. Your instinct to reassure your mate would have to wait for the end of your shift.
With one more breath you put your phone in your back pocket and headed back to the ED, looking for Jason. You did two scans as you walked the whole ER, but it was quickly apparent he’d left already. You spotted Jesse and jogged over to him.
“Hey, is Mr. Patel still waiting on transport?”
“They just left with him.”
You bit your lip and nodded. “Right, okay, thanks.” Shit, you’d have to message Jason or find some other excuse to approach him today. If you waited too long though, Brendon would do it for you, and while it would be a relief to have the betting pool gone, you’d didn’t want to explode it like this.
#
The opportunity to talk to Jason never came. Part of you hoped the ICU fellow would come back down to the ED and it could happen as naturally as that, but he didn’t. As your shift neared the end you texted Brendon: meet you in the garage?
He didn’t text back immediately, likely caught in whatever emergency had pulled him off the phone. You were still carpooling to work since you were waiting for the new car to be delivered. Brendon had insisted on the highest level trim and extra safety features, which had made it a special order. You had so thoroughly lost the argument about getting a cheap Honda that you’d ended up even picking out the color, since it was going to be a 6 week wait either way.
You felt a little bad that you were relieved there was no text back from him as you said your goodbyes to the rest of day shift and hit the locker room to change out of your scrubs. At least if he was running late then he wasn’t coming down to the ED to hunt down your secret admirer.
You changed out of your scrubs for leggings, boots, a sweater, and your scarf and coat since it was still below freezing at night. As you stepped out of the sliding doors into the parking garage, you pulled the car keys out of your bag. If one of you were delayed at work the other would drive home in the BMW, and Brendon would either pick you up or he’d order a rideshare home.
“Hey! I was hoping to catch you.” Your shoulders tensed as you heard Jason call out behind you. “Sorry I had to head back upstairs before we could talk more. Are you heading home?”
“Yeah.” At least now you could clear the air without— Nope, you realized you were wearing a scarf and jacket as you turned to him, the mating mark hidden. This was still salvageable. You just needed to tell him you had an Alpha. “My Al—“
“Would you like to get dinner?”
You froze. He came to a stop from his light jog in front of you, his nice ski jacket half-zipped up and hair just starting to lose its gel. He was just a bit too close to be casual, a smile on his handsome face and his cheeks tinted pink, like he was nervous. “Sorry, didn’t mean to blurt that out. I just… when I found out you were an Omega I thought… And well, the flowers today were from me. And all the food this last month. If that wasn’t obvious.” He rubbed the back of his neck in a bashful gesture, eyes flashing down to the ground for a moment, a quintessential, non-threatening Alpha display.
A diesel engine came to a stop and idled next to the two of you before you could answer that. You glanced over, recognizing the BMW immediately. Biting your lip, you grabbed the strap of your bag in one hand, taking two big steps closer to Brendon’s car and out of reach from the other Alpha.
“Sorry Jason, I—“
“She’s taken.” Brendon had gotten out of the car and was rounding the front, his gaze pinning the ICU fellow in place. “You the one trying to court my Omega?”
“Brendon—“ He moved to stand between you and him, his big hand holding your arm like he was preparing to yank you out of harm’s way. Your fingers twitched to grab Brendon’s hand and an anxious whine was held tight behind your closed throat, freezing in place and instinct holding you back from making any noise. This was a test of dominance, and the two Alphas were staring at each other, refusing to break eye contact. You knew better than to interfere. Your heart raced and you took shallow breaths, the only noise in your ears was the low, warning vibration in your Alpha’s chest. Brendon had every right, technically, to get physical with Jason.
“I didn’t know,” Jason finally said, lowering his gaze.
“Ask, dipshit. Don’t court an Omega just because you want to.” Jason’s chin tucked down, deferential, and the tension broke as Brendon’s rumbling growl finally stopped. It was like all the sound came back on, the engine and the other cars and footsteps in the garage suddenly returning. You sucked in a ragged breath, eyes flashing between Jason’s low shoulders and Brendon’s hulking presence, his scent ridiculously potent right now. Brendon turned to you, giving Jason his back. It was dismissal, like the other Alpha wasn’t worth being called a rival. “Ready?”
Your pupils had gone wide, and you could see it the second your scent hit him. If Brendon had punched Jason or forced him to his knees to submit, that wouldn’t have turned you on nearly as much as your Alpha demanding basic respect for you.
Brendon used his body to practically walk you backwards to the car, keeping himself between you and Jason. He opened the passenger-side door and braced a hand on the roof.
“Get in the car,” he said in a rough, low bark, and you pulled yourself into the seat as he stepped back with visible effort, shutting the door. He didn’t look at Jason again.
Brendon’s hand stayed on your thigh the entire drive home as you finally shook from your daze enough to explain what you thought must have happened. He had a few choice words for Jason’s presumption and overstepping, but you could tell he was holding himself back.
The moment he was parked he was throwing open the driver’s side door. “Upstairs, Omega,” he growled, and you scrambled out of the car, almost forgetting your bag. Your panties were soaked and your skin was practically vibrating as he stuck close to you in the elevator, pressing his nose into your hair. You held his thick waist, a low purr impossible to hold back, feeling his hard cock against your hip. You rubbed against it a little and he growled, scent blooming even stronger.
The second the elevator doors opened he was crowding you out. You barely managed to unlock the apartment door and open it before the sound of your bags hitting the floor was eclipsed by the thunk of your back against the coat closet door.
Brendon’s hand in your hair protected your head as he kissed you hard, licking his way into your mouth, swallowing your moan. You could barely get more than a breath in as his mouth devoured you while his hands practically ripped your leggings down, one boot flying off. You didn’t even hear the clink of his belt before his cock was pressing against your core, and you cried out as he sunk in, no prep, no warning, just his rock hard length bullying into you. You panted into his throat as you tried desperately to accommodate, the burn of the stretch so good. Thank god you were soaking wet.
“Bren— Alpha—”
“Mine,” he growled, pulling back to the tip and then slamming in so hard the door rattled and you cried out again. “You’re mine, Omega, not some ICU idiot’s.”
“Yours!” you yelped, rocking into his thrusts, his cedar and metal scent so powerful you could smell nothing else, and his cock rubbing at all the right places inside you. You clawed at his shoulders, wanting to get to more skin but thwarted by the layers Brendon was still wearing. He hadn’t even taken his coat off, but he did get a hand under your scarf to rip that off, burying his face into your mating mark. Your nails dug into his scalp and you panted with each surge as he rutted into your cunt, continuing to growl curses and threats to the other Alpha and promises to you.
“Fuck. I’m going to mark you so much no fucking patch will cover it up. Understand me, Omega?” He punctuated that with a roll of his hips and a grunt as your heels dug into his back.
“Yes, uh, yes, Alpha, oh, more—” He shifted positions and the next thrust had your mouth hanging open and a long moan escaping you. Your legs were starting to shake already, and his knot was catching at the rim. “Brendon— please—”
“Cum for me. Cum on your Alpha’s cock, Omega,” he growled, and your eyes rolled back, pussy contracting around him as you climaxed hard. You didn’t even feel him bite down on the mating mark, whited out in pleasure. Your thighs shook when you finally came back to yourself, the steely length of him still firmly inside you, but not with his knot. A little whine escaped you as your hips jerked naturally, cunt soaking his knot and rubbing against the shape of it, trying to get him to lock inside you.
“Alpha,” you whimpered.
The subvocal rumble in his chest silenced you. He wasn’t done. He was far from done.
Using his hips he kept you pinned to the door as he kicked off his boots and pulled off your other shoe. His skin was almost feverishly hot as you helped him take off the jacket and shirt, mouth latching immediately on to his collarbone as the skin appeared. Then he was carrying you to the nest, cock still inside you, but the second he laid you down he pulled out.
“Alpha!”
He took his cock in his hand, flushed and angry, and collared your throat with the other, hand so big he could silence you with just the touch. His blue eyes were practically black the pupils were so dilated, and he was breathing hard as he jerked his cock in his fist, staring at his hand on your throat, two fingers on the bumpy scar of your bite, your breasts heaving as you watched him. He came with clenched jaw all over your chest and belly, deliberately working his cock until he was aimed as your reddened pussy, his seed spilling over your mound. There was so much and it was warm and sticky on your skin, a primal claiming that had your trembling beneath him.
Only when he was done did he let go of your throat to smooth your hair back, his other hand immediately rubbing his cum into your belly as he admired the absolute mess he’d made of you.
“Alpha, I’m yours, only yours,” you moaned, arching as his palm covered in his seed cupped your breast, massaging it into the skin. You felt almost delirious with pleasure as the powerful scent of him sunk into your pores and your nest. You were so wet you were dripping, and you desperately wanted his knot. He hadn’t softened since he hadn’t locked inside you, and you reached down to your folds and rubbed his cum into the soft skin and your clit, licking your lips at the way his head snapped down to watch. You felt deliriously powerful as you spread your lips and let rivulets of his spend run alongside your hole. “Brendon, please.”
That seemed to snap him out of a daze of just watching you. His bark was like a whip-crack: “Present.”
You flipped on to your belly and got on to your hands and knees in seconds. Then he was fisting your hair from behind, forcing your back into a bigger arch as he fit the swollen head of his cock to your leaking pussy. “You are not going to talk to him again, Omega. Not unless you’re dripping my fucking seed and I’m right there with you.”
“Yes, Alpha. Yesss—”
You’d have agreed to anything right then as he slid his cock into you, pushing out all the needy emptiness and replacing it with the incredible stretch and heat of him. “He couldn’t give it to you like this, baby, wouldn’t fuck every thought of that pretty head. You don’t just need roses, Omega, you need an Alpha who will take care of you. Fuck you right.”
“Only you, Brendon. Don’t want roses—just—just— oh my god—” He was starting to really thrust now, and each slam of his hips into you was lighting up sparks in your entire spine, the wet squelch of your pussy obscene. The heavy weight of his knot had you begging for it, babbling mindless praise. “Just want you Alpha, fuck me please, give me your knot. I want him to know, to know he had no chance, oh gods, not a single one—”
“Good girl, made for me,” he grunted, thrusts getting faster, pushing your head down into the nest to really angle inside you to hit the spot that made you cry out with each surge of his hips. You were so close you could taste it, the heady smell of his cum mixing with your sweat on your skin, rising up like a haze of pure arousal. He slowed to grind his knot against your hole and you keened, begging and scrambling at the bedding for it.
“Alpha please, please, give it to me. I need it, I— oh, oh my god Brendon yes, thank you—”
The knot locking inside you reduced you to wordless moaning, hips rolling constantly as you ground into it, eyes fluttering shut as his huge hand held the back of your neck down, forcing you to submit under him while one thick finger finally circled your clit. The orgasm barreled into you like a tsunami, stealing your breath and making your whole body shake and flutter around him as he spurted inside you. It stretched on and on as you mindless humped his fingers over your clit, the next orgasm tumbling out of the previous as he sucked hard on your mating mark, folding over you to grind in harder.
At some point he pulled out before his knot was fully soft and dragged his leaking, heavy cock all over your back, painting you in more cum. You rolled on to your back after he’d rubbed it in, shifting down until you could mouth at the head of his heavy, leaking dick as Brendon growled at the sight of his thick cum on the mating bite. “Fuck, Omega,” he panted, letting you drunkenly lave kisses all over his knot and shaft before the whine in your chest and the frantic movement of your fingers over your clit caught his eye and he yanked your hand away. He bodily shifted you on the mattress, replacing your fingers with the tip of his cock, tapping over the sensitive bud of your clit until you were whining with every too-light touch, and then he lightly spanked your pussy. You yelped, convulsing at the sharp shot of pleasure, slick pooling under you as you stared up, wide-eyed at your grinning Alpha. With sharp taps he spanked over your bright red, swollen clit until you were crying out with each gentle hit, finally peaking on a new high, wailing his name as your slick splattered everywhere. He rammed his hard cock back inside your fluttering cunt, locking you on to his knot again, and setting off another orgasm as he came.
You had no idea how long you two were at it, but at some point the overwhelming instincts subsided and you came back to yourself. You were laying in the nest with Brendon half on top of you, his cock against your leg, your aching pussy leaking a mixture of you and him, and your body covered in his cum, while his rough fingers mindlessly rubbed his spend into the skin of your chest.
“You okay?” you murmured, voice hoarse. You were pleasantly achy and very sticky, the overwhelming smell of both of you had saturated the nest.
His sharp gaze met yours, and he turned his cheek into your hand when you reached for him. His jaw had softened from the hard clench since he’d gotten out of the car to confront Jason, and his curls had come loose from the gel and your fingers.
“I’m fine, though I would not shower any time soon.”
You nodded, turning your head to nuzzle his shoulder. You’d read about this sort of thing happening. Alphas could be thrown into rut by an Omega’s heat or other situations, including a confrontation with another Alpha. They didn’t last days like a heat, but they left instincts riding high for some time. For Brendon, keeping his scent on you in the most base way possible would help to reset his instincts.
Your stomach rumbled, and he pressed a quick kiss to the corner of your mouth and sat up. You groaned a bit, losing the heat of him, but accepted the pillow his head had been on in his place. “I’ll make food. Don’t move.”
“Yes, Alpha.”
#
You called out sick at 4am the next day. You would have given Robby more warning, but you’d thought after that marathon of marking sex you’d had, your mating bite being rebitten again, being fed finger-foods by Brendon in the nest, and then sleeping with his cock inside of you, that his instincts would be settled.
Instead, when you got up to go to the bathroom at 3:30am, Brendon followed you.
You were just about to sit on the toilet when the door opened again and you startled. “Brendon?”
“Go ahead.” He adorably rubbed one eye, clearly not much more awake than you.
“There’s another bathroom,” you said, shifting your weight a bit. You really had to go. Cockwarming him all night had put pressure on your bladder. It didn’t help that he’d also made sure you were very hydrated after rutting you into the mattress.
He blinked slowly, then turned a much more alert gaze on you. Anyone who had been on call as often as he had over the years could snap to awareness very fast. “I’m not letting you out of my sight, Omega.”
“You made dinner without me.”
He made a low, muttering noise in his throat. “You were in the nest then and I barricaded the door.”
“You barricaded the door?” You didn’t know he’d done that. Shit, Jason’s attention had really set something off. Now you were even more impressed he hadn’t punched the other doctor.
“I’ve barely had you a month, baby. I’m not letting some other Alpha push up on my girl.” Your heart melted, and then Brendon was stepping close to you, both of you still naked, his chest rumbling. He cupped the back of your neck in what you now knew was his favorite hold. “Now pee before you get a UTI.”
You almost fell on to the toilet, knees giving out at the order. He leaned down over you, kissing your mouth gently as you trembled. “I don’t think I can,” you whispered. This was too weird, and your pussy felt all tight and squirmy in a way that was bordering far too close to arousal mixed with a bad need to go. There were many ways to scent mark a partner: rubbing cheek glands or wrist glands on parts of the body, swapping clothes, sex, and cum-marking. And also, if you wanted to get real primitive, piss-marking. In combination with hormones, excess chemo-signaling proteins that made a person’s scent were excreted through urine. On a mate who already shared some of the circulating hormone, urine on their skin was a potent scent mark.
“Relax,” he murmured, kissing your cheek and then dragging his lips slowly to your ear, teeth tugging on the lobe as his big hand on the back of your neck kneaded your skull. Your head tilted back automatically, and the rumbling, approving subvocal made your mouth drop open at the same moment that something else relaxed.
The sound of you peeing in the toilet made you jump, but Brendon was holding you steady, and he kept kissing along your throat and jaw as your cheeks absolutely burned. You couldn’t have stopped if you tried, and your knees were bouncing as you peed and your Alpha was right there. It seemed to go on forever, your eyes shut tight as the smell of urine and Brendon’s powerful cedar and metal scent made you dizzy, until the stream finally stopped. Then Brendon was kissing you gently, his firm lips on yours as your legs continued to shake with embarrassment and arousal. The noise from his chest was all pleasure and pride, which was the only reason you could even stand to kiss him back.
You did not let him clean you up even though for a half a second it looked like he might try. Instead he backed off without a word, and you wiped yourself and stood up on shaky legs, washing your hands in the sink as he cupped your hip and nosed into your hair. “See? Not so bad, baby.”
You didn’t know what to say. Your cunt felt empty and swollen and tingling, and you could feel his hardness behind you. For a moment you wanted to ask if you could go back to the nest so he could do his business, but the quiet, curious part of you that was holding low-grade arousal in your core held your tongue. Once before he’d offered to let you hold his member as he went, and in the dark of night, instincts still simmering below the surface, not an ounce of shame in your Alpha, you licked your lips and tried to find the words.
He waited patiently as you dried your hands and then ran out of things to do with them, just holding the edge of the countertop. Brendon remained behind you, a hulking presence in the dark, only the faint city lights from the window giving you shadows to see by.
You closed your eyes and leaned back into him, and his hand on your hip slid to the front, holding you to him. His erection was heavy behind you but not throbbing, just present. At the right angle you could still see the glimmer of his cum on your breasts in the low light, the tacky spend stuck to you. His cock was probably still coated in your juices too, and you felt something contract inside you at the thought.
“Can I…” You hesitated, and Brendon remained still, just breathing softly behind you. “Can I hold it?”
He let out a heavy exhale, a small shiver running through him, and you could feel his smile as he kissed your shoulder. “Of course, Omega.”
Your cheeks were absolutely on fire as you walked together back to the toilet, Brendon flipping the seat up. You turned to him, fingers sliding over his hips to brush his half-hard dick. When you chanced a glance up at him he was staring down at you with an amused look. “If you’re looking at me then who’s aiming?”
You swallowed and let him reposition you next to him, your stomach to his hip, at an angle so you could hold his cock and see what was happening. You pressed your forehead to his side, all tangled up in mortification and arousal. This was not at all a kink you thought you had, but you’d learned a lot about yourself since being with Brendon, and it helped that he clearly had no shame about it.
“Will you be able to…”
“Easier for me than a Beta male,” he grunted, turning his nose into your hair and inhaling. You felt his dick soften a little, and you turned just in time to catch the beginning of the stream. A little ran over your fingers as you tried to adjust, the warmth ticklish, and the instinctive disgust you expected never came. Maybe that was because the scent of him and urine was a potent mix to your hindbrain. A husky little groan slipped past Brendon’s lips as the stream got stronger and you watched, mesmerized. You knew on an anatomical level how this worked: Alpha male vas deferens didn’t intersect with the urethra like they did in Beta and Omega males because evolutionarily being able to be erect and scent-mark with urine made sense. But your brain was stuck somewhere between the smell, the claiming act that was urinating on someone even if technically that wasn’t what was happening, the weight of his cock in your hand, the trust as you both explored this primitive kink, and the utter mortifying arousal that was making a whine rise in your throat as the stream eventually slowed.
Brendon’s grip on your back tightened as he finished, and you were lurching into a kiss with him without letting go of his dick without a second thought. He mumbled something but you didn’t catch it, moaning into his mouth and rubbing your wet pussy against his thigh as his erection firmed in your hand. Thoughts of handwashing and hygiene were gone as he lifted you on to the bathroom counter and stepped between your spread legs. He ran two fingers through your wetness and coated his dick with you helping to slick him up, and then you tossed your head back as he entered you, the heat of him welcome even after the marathon of sex you’d had the night before.
“Oh fuck, Alpha,” you moaned, and he grunted, bottoming out.
“Shit you’re perfect, baby,” he crooned, pulling your hips forward to the edge of the counter so he could find the angle that made you cry out and started a vigorous rhythm. “Never wanted to piss-mark someone before you. One day I’m going to fuck you in the shower after I’ve covered you in my scent in every goddamn way. No one in that ER will have any doubt who you belong to.”
Your pussy contracted, already so close to climax as he said the thing you’d been afraid to imagine. You were still marked up by his cum and your head cracked against the mirror as you moaned, brain stuttering on the image of you and him in the shower. “Oh my god, Alpha, yes!”
Brendon’s hand snapped up to protect the back of your head as his hips slammed into yours. His thumb circled your clit, and you surged up to kiss at his throat, licking and nipping, and Brendon hissed.
“One day I’m gonna make this pussy squirt and it’s not just gonna be slick, Omega,” he promised, grinding his dick hard into you. You shuddered, and he sucked hard on your mating bite, sending you careening over the edge as he strummed your clit. You cried out in bliss, and Brendon pumped you full of cum, rutting into your cunt until he finally slowed and his cock softened, both of you left panting. He eventually settled you more comfortably on the counter but didn’t fully pull out, thumb stroking your cheek tenderly.
For a little while you both sat in this vulnerable moment, playing over the new thing you’d discovered and his admission before that. This relationship was new, and even though Brendon seemed so confident in it, Jason’s misstep had revealed cracks. This rut was evidence his Alpha needed time and reassurance.
You gently kissed his lips, soft and loving, and he kissed you back for long minutes, tender and slow.
“Need to pee again?” he finally asked, and you snorted and kissed the crinkly smile off his face before resting your forehead on his shoulder. You were suddenly exhausted.
“I don’t know how I’m going to work tomorrow. Today. Whatever.”
“You’re not,” Brendon said easily, like it had already been decided. “You think letting my Alpha think I’ve marked you with piss is gonna calm this rut down, sweetheart?”
You had to laugh because of course it wouldn’t. You had a feeling even mentioning cleaning up in the shower might earn you a few spanks on the ass and another round, and you needed a few more hours of sleep before that.
“I’ll text Robby. He’ll know what’s up, but the rest of the ER might think those flowers got my Alpha somewhere.”
As soon as you said it you regretted it. Forget mentioning a shower, any mention of a competing Alpha set Brendon off way faster.
“The whole damn ER is gonna know you’re taken alright,” he growled, pulling out and picking you up, tossing you over his shoulder. “I don’t need flowers to make it clear what’s mine.” You squealed as he spanked your ass while it was in the air, yelping at the second blow as he carried you back to the nest. “You’re lucky I’m off tomorrow, Omega.”
there will never be anything as funny as the mutual disbelief between long form and short form fic writers about each other's style.
short form writers look at people writing 100k+ fics as though this is some sort of talent given as part of a fae bargain, that the commitment required shows some sort of ungodly mental fortitude.
meanwhile long form writers look at people writing 1000 word one shots like god I would cut off my left nipple to be able to say anything concisely. i would love to play with multiple ideas. free me from the shackles of this child I have birthed. i love them but I now must take them to t-ball and doctor's appointments and they're going to destroy everything I own.
Talking to allo people who haven’t really interrogated how society has told them to view sex feels like that bit in SpongeBob where Patrick keeps failing to put his hand on the lid
Sex is just a thing. No it’s just an activity. It doesn’t have to be… no listen it’s just an activity. An activity. It’s just a thing. A thing. No it’s not the same for everyone it’s just an activity. No it’s a value neutral activity. An activity. An activity.
I’ve been experiencing this lately with people trying to argue with me about my views on sex work.
“You can’t compare sex work to other types of work because having sex you’re not enthusiastic about is really traumatizing”
I’m sure for a lot of people that’s true but for me sex and masturbation occupy a similar emotional space to brushing my teeth or doing the dishes and I certainly don’t feel traumatized about it and I know for a fact that I’m not the only person who feels this way.
Also I think that someone physically and violently forcing me to brush my teeth might end up being traumatizing.
Sex is so taboo and mythologized that people have forgotten the mechanics of it.
Yeah sex might be sacred and important to you. To me it’s a chore I’ve gotta do sometimes. Like cooking. I love cooking and put great importance on it and who I do it with. A lot of people just cook to live though.
Yeah if to you sex has a lot of emotions caught up in it I’m not gonna tell you that you’re wrong for feeling that way. That’s normal. It’s not a universal experience though. And if you can’t accept that, then too bad. Other people’s personal realities don’t exist to confirm your personal worldview.
Younger people, one thing I want you to understand about Millenials is that, overall, our parents taught their daughters to aim for careers and employment, but they didn't teach their sons to keep house. This causes a whole lot of Situations.
I would like to personally blame "keep her" by pitlanepeach, for inspiring this ABO Brendon fic, and my fantastic beta for feeding the flames with a birthday wish for touch deprivation. Leucineinthesky, you are my writing North Star. Thank you for encouraging and enabling me. The mild piss kink in this fic would not exist if not for you.
Doctor's Orders: The Meeting
Read it on Ao3 but not in chronological order!
The Meeting
Day 2
First Day Back
Blizzard
Summary: You're an Omega ED resident at the Pitt and it's fine. You've got everything under control. Until Brendon Park, Alpha orthopedic surgeon, shows up.
Tags/Notes: Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamics, PIV, heat sex, biting, degradation, very mild mention of piss kink, possessive behavior, touch starved
Word Count: 8,779
You pride yourself on being the lowest maintenance resident Robby has. It seems like every week is a new drama from someone else, whether it’s Cassie’s family issues rearing up or the tension between Frank, Robby, and Trinity spiking. Sometimes it’s Whitaker putting his foot in his mouth or biting off more than he can chew (often at the same time), or Mel’s indomitable cheer cracking with an upheaval in her home life or the dragging legal battle. When it’s not a resident it’s Robby himself having a bad day or being hounded by Gloria about metrics or reviews. But you come in to work every day with a tired smile, do your job as best you can, try to squeeze in a meal and a refill of your water bottle at some point, and go home.
A therapist would have a lot of thoughts about how your Omega is making yourself as small and easygoing as possible, but that would require talking to a therapist. You know objectively you’d counsel any other Omega in your position to extend their social network, find a den-mate or partner, or sign up for Medical Alpha services. But as the saying goes, doctors are the worst patients.
Today you’re especially trying to stay out of Robby and everyone else’s way. This is supposed to be day one of your heat, but you’d skipped your placebo patches, even though the skin over the glands is getting itchy from the adhesive. You only suffer every third heat, which is the maximum recommended. Even without the full power of the heat hormones pulsing through you, all your emotions are still delicate, and your skin is extra sensitive, craving touch more than usual. You usually manage that with a lot of hugs from the pediatric patients and the occasional fling, but that doesn’t help with the emotional dysregulation that comes with your cycle. If Robby were to get short with you, or Trinity got pushy, you know the delicate balance holding you together would crack.
That’s not allowed. You can’t cry, or whine, or subvocalize here at work. Half the staff don’t even know you’re an Omega and you prefer it that way. Omega independence was hard won only in the last forty years, and a lot of people still don’t think you have a place here. As an Omega doctor not doing pediatrics or OBGYN it’s been an uphill battle, and you don’t want to be shunted to the pediatric ER or given every Omega patient that comes through the door. Robby knows of course, but you don’t advertise it. You just prove your worth every day by playing the same game as everyone else without a handicap.
Plus, Robby does not have the emotional bandwidth to soothe you if you broke down, and you’d die if he tried because he’s your boss and you’re not attracted to him in that way. The only other Alphas you’d even remotely trust are no better. Dana? Trinity? Frank is married, and night shift wouldn’t be here for hours yet, and they’re a different sort of trouble. No, you can’t be an Omega at work on a day like this. You have to just be a doctor, and a damn good one.
So you take all the fast-track cases to keep away from your Alpha coworkers, pretending it’s to move things along so Gloria doesn’t come swooping down on Robby. That’s what you tell him when you volunteer to work triage for the shift, and he just looks grateful to leave that in someone else’s hands so he can focus on the slow-rolling disasters that are the other residents and sometimes a med student or two.
It’s pathetic that you feel good when he bobs his head a few times, and waves you off with a: “Great, fast track is all you. You know what to send this way.” It’s even more pathetic that you wish he’d squeezed your shoulder when he sent you off, and you shove that longing down.
It’s a long twelve hours. It’s the high flu season and that’s 80% of fast-track, with a few minor headaches and scrapes and bruises thrown in. You’re masked up and working in a flow between patients, taking history and doing exams while the nurse runs the flu test or the IV bag and takes vitals on the next patient, then moving to discharge the ones who have resulted or closing up that laceration before starting all over again on the fresh walk-in, working in tandem with your nurses and stacking up the patient count.
The constant flow is working. It’s keeping your brain occupied and your hands busy. As an R4 now, you’ve perfected the way you work PTMC’s ED. In this state the heat feels remote, manageable. You find yourself holding patients’ shoulders as you listen to their lungs and taking an extra second to palpate their lymph nodes, anything for the touch of another person even if it’s through gloves. You’re annoyed with yourself, but it’s better than a full blown breakdown, so you grit your teeth and bite your tongue when the exam is on an Alpha. By the end of the day your notes are far from done though, and you jump a foot in the air when Shen appears in the hallway outside the fast-track pods, sucking on a ridiculously large coffee.
“Hey. Handoff.”
“Right, hold on, let me just put this order in.” You put the order in at the nearest computer while Shen takes an absurdly long draw on his drink. The sound is irritating as hell, and you almost lift your hand to cover your ear before you catch yourself and pretend to scratch your throat. Your finger catches on the edge of one of your patches and you quickly stop, hurriedly clicking boxes and hitting send to the nurses. You’re rigorous about reapplying the makeup to hide the edges that are just visible over the stylized scrubs with the higher collar that you wear. You pull up the patient list and turn to Shen, taking in a deep breath before you start to go over it.
Like everywhere in the hospital, scent is deadened deliberately with auto-sprayers, descenting lotions, and other technology. Betas will occasionally wear scent patches but don’t really need to, and most Alphas will wear one or two just to lessen the strength of their scents. Omegas will often wear multiple patches though, unless they’re claimed. Fortunately for you, the hormone patches you use look like a scent patch, should anyone question why you have one on either side of your neck. They don’t know you’ve got a total of six on you at all times: a mixture of hormone and scent-reducing ones.
Shen is a beta, but even his presence behind you reading through the list is making your skin ache, and you have to consciously not lean back into him. When he reaches over your shoulder to point to a patient’s lab, you squeeze the computer mouse so hard your knuckles are white, biting back any noise that might escape your lips. It’s an agonizing ten minutes before he finally walks away to see the next patient and you can breathe again. Your heart is pounding, and you hate the thick disappointment that chokes your throat for a second as the cool, circulating air irritates your needy skin.
After a few deep breaths you look back at the computer to check the number of unfinished notes: 35. That’s the only issue with working fast track. It’s fast, and by definition you are constantly moving and there’s no time to do more than jot down a few sentences about the chief complaint. These could wait for another day, but you’ve got one more shift tomorrow and then two blessed days in a row off that you’ve deliberately coordinated knowing the timing of your heat signs. There’s no way you’re gonna log in from home or remember a single thing about these people in a few hours.
You tap out of the computer and wave to Robby as he heads out. He lifts a hand and turns away. Abbot is already debriefing with Whitaker, so you head to elevator 2, avoiding the main hub, and take it directly to the fourth floor.
This is a secret you haven’t told anyone else in the ED: there’s a much quieter charting room than the first floor ones the others use if they don’t want to be interrupted constantly. It’s on the fourth floor, where the ORs and surgical teams work. After 5pm only emergency surgeries are going and the night shift residents have congregated in their preferred hangouts, and that leaves their smallest chart rooms open.
If they’re occupied, you know the code to the nursing chart room, and so long as you show up with snacks they’ll let it slide.
Fortunately the first chart room you check is empty, with five computers arranged along the walls and a trash can full of chip bags and cookie trays. You snag a computer and sit down, rolling your neck and suddenly feeling the weight of the day. How many patients must you have seen? 50? 60?
The itch on your neck comes back with a vengeance as your bones seem to get heavier in the chair, resisting your good-faith effort to finish your charts. Was this one of the cheap patches you’d bought once and regretted? You thought you’d cleaned out the box of them, but maybe one had snuck into the others. You reached up to scratch and your nail caught under it, and for a moment you considered ripping it off. No one was in the room, and you only had to get down the elevator to the parking garage to get into your beater of a car.
No, don’t give in, you thought to yourself, pulling your hand away and deliberately putting it on the mouse to click to the login screen. You smell stronger than ever even if you’re not going into a real heat, you remind yourself, and you’ll be here at least an hour with these charts. As usual the fleeting thought of how to meet the right Alpha if they can’t scent you crosses your mind, but you turn away from that and start navigating to the first person on the list of open charts. It’s not like you have time for dating, and the last time you’d tried had gone horribly. That’s just the heat brain talking.
#
It’s nearing 9pm by the time Park is cleaning up after surgery. Motorcyclists practically pay his rent, that’s how often he’s fixing their broken bones. This one was a double femur fracture complicated by an obese male with a history of open heart surgery who still actively smoked. Anesthesia had fun with that one.
He’s tired, but this post-op note won’t write itself, no matter how much AI they try to throw into the EMR, so Park finds himself walking down the hallway outside the main ORs, running the blood loss numbers in his head, only to freeze outside one of the side halls.
There’s a scent in the air. Something soft, warm, a fragrance that immediately halts all other thoughts. He’s scented plenty of Omegas in his life, but none like this. None that make him want to squeeze, grip, tuck, and hold. He’s moving before he’s really considered it, halfway down the side hall that leads to a few admin offices and one of the janitor areas. There’s a small charting room he’d nearly forgotten about tucked down here, the door left open. The scent grows stronger, but not strong enough, not enough for a good inhale, a good way to tease out the parts on his tongue. Park pushes open the door, hoping someone’s in there but already knowing before he crosses the threshold that it’s empty.
It’s too faint; a leftover, fading scent. The Omega sat at the second computer, he can tell immediately. The seat’s no longer warm, but with a bit of hunting, Park finds the real source he’s still smelling: a hormone patch. Waded up into a tiny ball and tossed in the trash.
He’s handled grosser things than a used patch, so it’s nothing to him to rip it from the basket and lift it up to his nose. It’s obviously muting her scent, but what he can get makes him hungry, makes his canines ache for a second. Park has never cared much either way for his nickname; if it makes idiots steer clear of him, all the better. As he pockets the patch though, he appreciates the irony of a shark’s innate sense for blood in the water. Now he can find her: his Omega.
#
You’ve got a full on rash on the throat gland by the time you get home. That patch had been one of the cheap ones, so no wonder it was irritating you. Thankfully no one you’d known had seen you leave 90 minutes later sans the patch, 35 charts done and your eyes burning from the dry hospital air. Your old car took a painful ten full seconds to turn over, and then you rushed home, into a shower, and finally into your nest.
It’s not a nest to be proud of; in fact, it has all the hallmarks of a problematic nest: messy and threadbare, soaked in only your own scent, haphazardly built in the corner of your bedroom because the Omega-apartment was $500 more a month. The mattress is too thin and dips badly from how you’ve overused the same spot, so you can feel the floor through the foam sometimes. The old pillows are lumpy and have been folded over to fake thickness, and you’ve tried to drape the blankets but the only really good one is wearing thin and it shows. You keep meaning to buy a new one or a few more throw pillows, but the trip to the store just never happens, and buying online is out of the question. It’s just a waste of money if you don’t like the texture, firmness, and color in your lighting. There’s empty water bottles scattered nearby, a protein bar wrapper crumpled up in the corner, and a fork and plate from that slice of cake you’d indulged in after you took care of that child who drowned and didn’t make it last week. There’s a medical textbook on the edge of the mattress that has been irritating you for days because it’s hard and heavy and the absolute opposite of the soft, quiet vibe of a nest, but you haven’t had the energy to move it.
You’re just tired. You work 60-80 hours a week sometimes as a resident, so maintaining a high quality nest feels impossible, and it’s not like there’s anyone to impress. A nest is, first and foremost, about comfort. That’s why you’re curled into it in a hoodie and your underwear, your back to the room, pretending like you don’t see the four lightbulbs out in a row on your cheap string lights hung precariously above it. You feel vulnerable even with the door shut, because this room is too big for a nest and too bright despite the curtains over the windows. You’re getting teary and shaky even as you lay here, surrounded by your stale scent, in the safest place you can be, and you’re mad at yourself even though you know why. It’s the raging hormones and the long hours and your inability to practice basic self-care. You don’t even realize you’re scratching the rash from the patch until the smell of blood has you out of your nest.
You wash your hands and put a little Neosporin on the cut before dabbing on anti-itch cream. You wipe your eyes on your sleeve as you remember that the first step to feeling human is actually taking care of yourself. You don’t look at your reflection in the bathroom mirror, just pull together some leftovers and a glass of wine. You look at the dishes in the sink and decide that’s tomorrow’s problem. Sometimes it sucks to be a single Omega. The only person to coddle you is yourself, and, you think wearily to yourself, you’re not very good at it.
By the end of the night you’re on a second glass of wine and curled up in your nest with your phone, scrolling past all those beautiful nesting shop ads and influencers with their color-coordinated nesting rooms. You’ve only got six more months of residency, and then you’re free. You can take a job as an ED attending and work 3 12s and pay off your loans and actually have a real nesting room. That’s when you can start taking off the patches and looking for a mate.
#
You were home for less than 10 hours before you were back at PTMC the next day, accepting handoff from Ellis. She rattled off patients and names, and you were desperately trying not to scratch the fresh patch. It stung when you put it on over the cut, and when you’d put on hydrocortisone cream the patch wouldn’t stick, so you’d had to wipe it off and put it on raw. Now it was itching like crazy.
Robby didn’t let you volunteer for triage again, sending Donnie there with a new nursing student. Instead you worked the main ED, moving between rooms and steering clear of the newest round of med students. One of them was, as Trinity put it succinctly, a nepo-baby gunner. He had the kind of brash, overconfident Alpha energy you hated and would probably set you off today.
“Hey, um, your, uh…” Whitaker pulled you aside outside a patient room, pointing at your neck. He scratched the back of his own neck, where a similar patch was present.
You slapped a hand to it. The corner was peeling off already, probably because you’d been picking at it. “Thanks. I’m allergic to this one, I think.”
“Try spraying on Flonase?” He suggested. “I’ve done that before.”
You looked at him, really looked at him for a moment. Whitaker had some Omega energy, but you’d guessed he was a Beta. Was he…?
Nope, none of your business. You didn’t want to know anymore than you wanted him to know about your dynamic. “Thanks.”
The staff medicine cabinet didn’t have Flonase though, so after a fruitless search and throwing out a very expired bottle of Prilosec, you gave up and went to your locker, swapping out the patch for a new one and praying this one would last.
#
Park was back in the surgical suite at 5am the next morning, and by 10am he had determined that the Omega he’d scented last night was either not working today, or was not a member of the surgical floor.
By virtue of being an attending, he could check the dynamics of any of his residents, which he’d done. It wasn’t surprising that none of them were Omegas, since surgery was notoriously a cutthroat specialty of medicine. There were a few Omega nurses, but the ones on this floor were all mated. Which meant she had come from somewhere else. He’d have to keep an eye on that chart room, especially this evening.
At least he planned to, until a four car pileup pulled two of his residents down to the ED. Park wouldn’t normally have gone with them, but then he overheard Sokowski, an R3, explaining to the MS4 that they’d have to use elevator 2 since the main OR ones were occupied. That elevator was the closest one to the chart room, and it led directly to the ED.
Both residents straightened when Park’s arm caught the elevator door before it could shut.
The ED was its usual chaos. Park watched dispassionately as the resident and student assessed the three patients who had come in. One would definitely need surgery immediately, another could wait for the CT, and if Sokowski thought the last one required ortho, he’d rethink his last evaluation of him.
Park moved slowly between the three rooms, not saying a word, just watching the residents sweat as he assessed their technique and offered no commentary, passing by with a careful eye before moving to the next. Some of Robby’s residents shot anxious looks between themselves that Park paid no mind to. He wasn’t really focused on the patients or their doctors so much as he was the scents. The OR was always very controlled and sterile, to the point that he only wore a single patch on his hospital days since the descenters in the OR were constantly on. The ED was another matter: it smelled of blood, bile, sweat, the ragged edge of heats and ruts from the wing of rooms dedicated to those, and then the mixture of patient and provider scents in various states of scent coverage or none at all. It was a headache, but one he carefully sifted through, looking for that caramel and cream he’d caught last night.
As he reached Trauma Bay 1 on his second pass, he caught the faintest whiff: warm honey, summer breeze. He paused at the open door to the bay, eyes on the providers working, throat swallowing back saliva. She had to work down here or, if he was unlucky, she’d been responding to a recent consult.
Sokowski stepped back from the table and turned to Park, practically snapping to attention. He presented the patient and his argument for surgery, and Park gave him a single nod at the end. “Book an OR.” He looked at the med student, whose voice cracked halfway through presenting the second patient, but he at least agreed that the CT could go first. “Get Barrett for this one. You, scrub in.” He flicked his chin at the med student, who nodded immediately. Then Park turned and left, heading away from the elevators and toward the lockers, following that faint trace.
It was a little quieter here, which gave him a second to close his eyes and breathe. Yes, his Omega had been here. Her scent was strongest by the lockers. There was no open trash can here, but Park could imagine the scenario: halfway through a shift and swapping out her patch for a fresh one from her bag. If she had a locker here, then she worked in the ED. He knew where to look now.
#
Your last patient of the day was a no-brainer tib-fib fracture. Man vs ice and then met stairs. Man lost.
Brain fog was definitely settling in as the protein bar you’d had five hours ago wore off and the damn itch pulled your attention back to your neck. Even Robby had commented on the red spot, and you’d turned bright red and reminded him you had the next two days off, and he’d realized his misstep a moment later and embarrassedly coughed. Robby knew you were an Omega and was smart enough to guess you skipped heats regularly, but that was the extent of your sexual being you wanted him to think about.
You slapped a hand over the patch so you didn’t scratch it, puffing out a breath. You just needed to call for the consult and finish this note. You’d deliberately gone slower through the patients today so you wouldn’t have to linger at work finishing charts, and fortunately ortho was notoriously slow to come down if the limb wasn’t literally severed, so dealing with them would be night shift’s problem. Hopefully you could handoff to Shen again, since that would be quick and you wouldn’t have to deal with Ellis or Abbot’s Alpha scents. Your emotional resolve was frayed after another long shift, and all you wanted to do was go home, take a long shower (or as long as your hot water held out), make sure your vibrator was plugged in, and collapse into your nest.
#
Another consult to the ED got called close to the end of his shift, and Park scanned the OR board as he stood by the nurse’s station down the hall from the operating rooms, looking at who was available. Or rather, looking at how obvious it would be if he took this consult too.
“Tib-fib,” Sasha, one of the nurses, announced as she hung up the phone. “Want me to get someone?”
“I’ll go,” he grunted.
“Praise be,” she remarked, glancing at the board. “Sure I shouldn’t grab Andrew?”
“Quicker if I go.” He was already moving, so he didn’t hear whatever else she had to say.
He rode the same elevator down and took his time moving through the ED to room 1, taking the long route and cataloging scents as he went. He didn’t smell her, but he didn’t let that frustrate him. His Omega was here, and he’d find her.
The curtain was drawn on 1, and he pushed open the door and drew it aside, suddenly finding her scent curling in his nose. He looked sharply over at the male nurse he vaguely recognized, instinct telling him it wasn’t him.
“Oh, let me get the resident,” the tall, gray-haired nurse said, quickly setting down the IV supplies and leaving the room.
Park breathed in, her scent just barely enough to have him licking his lips. If it wasn’t the nurse then it was very likely the resident or possibly—hopefully not—a med student.
“I’m Dr. Park, orthopedic surgeon,” he introduced to the patient, and pulled aside the blanket to start the exam, anticipation coiling in his chest as he waited for her.
#
“Ortho’s here already?”
Jesse shrugged at the dismay in your voice. “Park the Shark no less.”
You groaned. So much for night shift having to deal with him. You’d been on a few cases that Dr. Park had done, but hadn’t exchanged words. He was the exact kind of Alpha presence you barely had the fortitude to manage right now. The universe hated you. “At least he’s quick.”
“Wait too long and he’ll leave without talking to you.”
“Shit.” You tapped out of the computer and speed-walked to bed 1, self-consciously rubbing the rash on your neck.
Dr. Park’s back was visible through the glass door as you approached. He was broad-shouldered and a head taller than you, a classic orthopedist with huge muscles and an ego and Alpha presence to match. You did not appreciate the swoop in your belly when you saw him. Hopefully he wasn’t like a real shark and able to smell blood, or he’d be able to tell if you had to bite your tongue to shut up your Omega instincts.
“Dr. Park,” you greeted, opening the door. Your nose was immediately flooded by a scent that had to be undiluted by a patch because it went straight to your hindbrain: clean, warmth like cedar, but an undercoat of almost metal, like steel. It was masculine but not heavy, a steadying scent without being overwhelming, but it coated your nose and throat, and an embarrassing slickness was suddenly in your underwear. Oh god were the femoral patches strong enough to cover that?
“Needs ORIF but can wait. Splint it, schedule with the clinic in two days, then we’ll book it.” His gloves snapped like gunshots in the room as he took them off, and you flinched, shaken out of a daze. The absolute authority in his voice was making your knees shake even though you hadn’t understood a single word he’d said. Had he done the exam before you came in, or had you just zoned out?
You opened your mouth to say something, to present the case or give context, anything, but then his eyes met yours and it felt like the room shrunk and darkened, and you barely had the presence of mind to snap your mouth shut on a whine.
“With me.” He opened the door and then his hand was on your lower back, guiding you out. Your whimper was audible, and you were sure he could feel the tremor in your body as he propelled you with firm pressure to the empty family room nearby. He shut the door, held your cheek and chin in one big hand, and with the other ripped off the irritating, itchy patch.
Park buried his nose in your throat and sucked in his first real breath of his Omega. You shuddered in his grasp and grabbed him like a lifeline. He’d seen the instant glassy-eyed stare when you’d walked in, and the sudden spike in your scent had not missed his sharp nose. It didn’t take a medical degree to see you were ready to fall apart right there into him, and fuck did that turn him on.
He licked over the angry rash left by the adhesive, soothing it with his tongue, and you let out a gasping whine, grabbing his shoulders as your knees buckled. He maneuvered to sit on one of the chairs, and you instinctively climbed into his lap, desperately seeking more touch, more of that firm, calm, steady hold and his scent.
You immediately buried your face in his neck, squirming closer with the faintest whimper that made his cock instantly hard. Fuck, he could smell that you were wet. This was escalating fast. His hand slid to your thigh automatically and you practically keened, nails digging into his shoulders and your teeth catching on the muscle of his neck. He growled, partly a warning and partly because your hips rolled over his cock unexpectedly.
“Sorry, sorry,” you hissed, feeling almost drugged at how good his strong touch was. Your hips tried to roll again and were held in an iron grip. The touch was so good and not enough, and you knew you were crossing so many lines. “I— I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—“
“You can bite me as much as you like at home, but I will carry you out if you don’t stand up now.”
You breathed in sharply at that, his scent deep in your nose now. You weren’t ready when he stood up and set you down. You wobbled like a colt, pressing yourself against his hard body, a warbling low moan slipping out, the subvocal whine underneath of don’t stop touching me escaping before you could swallow it back. A frantic part of you knew you’d lost all control, and, though it shouldn’t be possible for you to be in heat when you’d been consistently wearing the patches, it seemed like your body was definitely trying for this Alpha.
Park cupped your throat with the slightest squeeze, and you tensed, freezing. He stared down at you, assessing the desperate whimpers, the dilated pupils, the fresh slick with the grip on your neck, diagnosing you the way he had that fracture in Room 1.
“You’re touch deprived.”
Your eyes widened, taking only shallow breaths. Throat in the hand of a predator.
Park could feel your pulse fluttering against his palm and something was catching in his chest, some feral Alpha instinct to throw you over his shoulder and hide you away deep in his den where you’d never know or want another’s touch.
“You smell what I smell,” he spelled out slowly, thumb stroking over your trachea. “This doesn’t end any other way.” His low tone carried a deeper rumble, a subvocal from the chest that translated straight to your breast bone. You’re mine.
“Yes, Alpha.”
#
Room 1 and the family room were in an offshoot off the main hub, not far from the stairwell and a back hallway that the staff used to move laundry carts and kitchen trays. The quickest way back to the lockers would mean passing the main hub, and right now you reeked of your own Omega scent gone haywire—patches were not designed to filter the overload that was an Omega calling out to their Alpha—and Dr. Brendon Park.
He’d given you his fleece, which was so comically large you could wear it over your own fleece, and left you there with a cup of water and strict orders not to move while he sorted things out. You weren’t sure what exactly he was doing since most of your higher brain function that had been vanishing all day was gone, but you’d given him your locker code before curling up in the chair he’d been sitting in, desperate for the last traces of his scent. All you knew was, when he came back, he scooped you up and carried you out by the stairwell door, taking a circuitous route to the parking garage.
Ten minutes later you were sitting on buttery leather, surrounded by his scent, in a car that purred as it drove. He kept his hand on your thigh the whole time, and you stroked his thick forearm mindlessly. Fifteen minutes after that, the car was parked in a garage, and he walked you to an elevator and pressed his hand to your belly, pulling your back flush to his chest as the numbers ticked up.
“Slow your breathing or you’ll syncopize.”
You tried to match his steady breath, realizing you did feel lightheaded. It was like you couldn’t get enough of his scent, and your hands were clamped on his forearm, afraid he’d let go. “I don’t know what’s happening.”
“Your body is trying to go into heat but you’ve overdosed on the patches.”
Your shook your head. “No, no, half of these are just scent patches.”
His free hand slid over your throat, a breathless moan escaping your lips, and then he yanked the other one off your carotid gland, drawing a hiss from you. The inside had the ingredient label. He held it there in front of you until your gaze could focus on the small lettering: O-gesterone.
“The other ones—”
“How many are you wearing?”
The doors opened onto a floor with only a few doors, but you couldn’t really focus on the details. Park propelled you out of the elevator and to an apartment door, and in a few more steps you were inside. He backed you up against a wall, caging you in with his body, and your breathing started to finally slow as the large space shrunk to just you and him.
“How many?” he growled.
“6.” Your hands latched onto his waist, and you looked up at him. All the other Alphas you’d been with had smelled fine, some more attractive than others, but Park was on another scale. How had you missed it these past years at PTMC?
“We’ll start by throwing all of them out,” he rumbled, and then his mouth pressed to yours, licking inside decisively and swallowing your moan. Every pleasure sensor fired at once and you drank down his kisses like they were water. His hands got busy unzipping his fleece and shucking it off your arms, repeating the process with your own while his kiss bruised your lips. He tasted like nectar and spice, addictive, and you shoved your hands under his scrub top to grope at the deliciously firm muscle of his abdomen. The skin-to-skin made fresh slick slide down your legs.
Your mouths broke apart long enough for him to rip the black scrub top up over your head, his blunt fingers warm against your heated skin. He found the edge of your sports bra and pulled that up too, your breasts dropping free. You moaned as his hand cupped one breast and the other wrestled the bra off, throwing it over his shoulder like it offended him.
The sting of the next patch being ripped off made you feel almost high, and your hips jerked against him, biting your lip to stop yourself from crying out.
“I want to hear it, Omega,” he warned you, his hand cupping your other breast to reach for the other axillae gland you’d covered, right on the tender skin of the side of your breast.
This time you let out the cry as he tore off the patch, and the low noise in his chest was pure praise. “Good girl.”
One of your legs was hiked over his hip, and you leaned back against the wall to grind against the hardness, but he grabbed you by the waist and threw you over his shoulder instead. You let out a yelp as he carried you down a hall and dropped you on to a bed before hooking his hands in the waist band of your scrubs and pulled.
You were suddenly naked on his bed and bereft of his touch, and your skin felt cold and tight. Your breath came in raggedly until his hand landed on your calf, yanking you to the end of the bed and encouraging you to look your ankles behind his back. Then he drew off his own scrub top, revealing cut pecs and heavy muscle: a true Alpha’s build.
“Oh my god.” The words just slipped out. You could clearly see his gland swollen in his throat in response to the hormone signals you were throwing out, and the feel of his bare back against your calves was like fire in your veins. This wasn’t like any other fling you’d had before. There was a possessiveness in his touch as he stroked your leg up to your hip that you’d only seen the shadow of in other Alphas; this was what your Omega had always been looking for.
This time a small shriek echoed in the room as the right femoral patch was peeled off, the sensitive skin of your inner thigh exquisitely tender as her pulled it off slower, just the right tension to feel every hair come with it. Your breath came in gasps as his eyes remained locked on your dripping pussy. To think, you’d once begged an Alpha to spank you even just lightly and he’d spouted off about uncoupling societally ingrained subservience and pain in Omegas. Now you writhed on the bed as his thumbed open your pussy to watch your hole spasm around nothing.
“That’s four ogesterone patches,” he told you, tossing it away. “Is this going to be number five?”
“No, Alpha! I’m sorry, I must have lost track. I didn’t mean to use so many!”
“Yet you skipped your last heat.” His thumb pressed down on your labia, holding you open for him, as his other hand teased at the final patch.
You nodded, confirming what he had already guessed, your hands clenched in the bedspread, cunt glistening at his frank stare.
“And that means circulating ogesterone levels will remain…?” He waited like he was quizzing a medical student, and your brain scrambled to come up with the right answer, your pulse almost entirely in your clit. Then his thick finger penetrated you, cutting off all higher thought as you keened, hips bucking until he pressed you down with his hand.
“Answer me, Omega.”
“H-higher!”
A second finger joined the first, and you thrashed at the fullness, your core fluttering around him as he pumped them in a few times. He unerringly found that spot that made you moan and rubbed it until your chest was heaving. You felt almost overloaded on touch and yet it still wasn’t enough.
“Prolonged elevated ogesterone levels without concurrent alsterone can cause?” He sounded like he was reading questions off a CME quiz.
“H-heart attacks, pulmonary embolisms, strokes,” you stammered immediately, yelping when he ripped the final patch off. He grazed his thumb over your clit and you quivered, but then he went back to rubbing that unbearably sensitive spot inside you until you felt like you might combust or pee. As he saw your breaths grow shorter and quicker he pulled his fingers free and sucked them clean, enjoying the ragged little moan as you were denied. Then he casually flipped over the the patch that was smaller than a playing card.
He clicked his tongue against his teeth in a tutting sound that made your stomach contract with want. “What’s the most common effect of lowering ogesterone levels too quickly unopposed?” His hand went back to your pussy, grazing your clit, and you moaned loudly, but he wouldn’t give you more than the barest of touch even as your hips canted up. “I asked you a question.”
“A rebound heat!”
His eyes met yours deliberately before he dropped the patch on the floor and loosened the drawstring of his purple scrubs. You forgot to be ashamed at the sight of his cock: long, hard, darkened with blood, and the beginnings of a nearly fist-sized knot. A whimper and a higher, begging noise, slipped from your mouth.
“Alpha, please, oh, please—” You screamed as he thrust in fully, all at once. The stretch and depth was a shock but the opposite of painful. Your head went back as pleasure sensors lit up everywhere in your body, and the subvocal growl from his chest sent shivers up your spine.
“Mine. You’re not fucking leaving this bed until my teeth mark your throat instead of those patches.”
“Yes! Oh god, Alpha— Park—”
You weren’t going to last long. His length was pounding into your cunt, stretching and rubbing every nerve ending. The wet slap of each thrust splashed over your thighs and his legs, soaking the bed below you. Your whole body was singing in pleasure at finally getting everything it needed. Park’s neat hair was askew and his eyes were full of righteous claim, rumbling dark words as he squeezed your breast tight in one big hand, the other making sure your hips met his with every thrust.
“I’m going to knot this pussy again and again until you beg me to stop. The whole hospital will know who you belong to. Who this cunt belongs to. Who gets to fuck this tight little hole every night.” He hitched your hips up and the new angle had your breath running ragged, gasping for air in between moans.
“Yours, all yours, Alpha. Knot me, please,” you rasped.
“Say my name.”
“Park!” You sobbed, his knot catching at your entrance with every thrust now, the promise of that intense fullness, that surety, that claim and belonging making your chest squeeze so hard you couldn’t breathe until the force of each thrust punched the air out of you.
“My name, Omega.”
The drag of his cock against every nerve inside you made your legs shake, and when his thick finger grazed your clit you were gone, screaming his name with tears running down your cheeks. “Bren-Brendon!”
He snarled and with a strangled roar his knot slid home, locking in tight. He came hard, soaking your cunt in hot pulses that triggered sucking and squeezing contractions of your pussy, dragging out your orgasm to untold heights. You ground against each other as you chased the last of the pleasure for long moments, voice hoarse from crying out and tear tracks running down your cheeks, until eventually you collapsed.
Then Brendon was shifting, lowering his chest down to press to your breasts and settling his hips above yours, the pressure of his knot even more prominent this way. He took a fistful of your hair and turned your head to the side, sharp teeth dragging over your carotid, down your SCM, and catching on your swollen gland.
The low waves of pleasure that came from having his knot inside you spiked. Your knees locked around his hips, cunt contracting around him as he licked and sucked over the spot where the rash was, hypersensitive and exquisitely tender.
“Please,” you moaned softly. You weren’t really in your right mind, but the initial haze was over and you knew you’d be looking for his scent around every corner if you couldn’t keep him right now. Your arms encircled his back as best they could, nails digging into the thick muscle. “Brendon, please, make me yours.”
The breaking of the skin hurt, especially over an already sore area, but the utter satiety, the victory, the relief, of being owned by this Alpha swept all the pain away. You were moaning and sobbing as you undulated under him, grinding against his cock until he was spurting inside you again and you were whiting out in pure pleasure.
#
In the grey hours of early dawn you woke up in Brendon’s arms. Your body ached all over. Your pussy throbbed from the beating it had taken from his cock and knot, and your ass was lightly bruised when you’d admitted sometime around the third orgasm that you enjoyed being spanked. The side of your breast hurt too, where he’d bitten you a second time, and your throat gland…
You sleepily reached up to touch the ring of teeth marks, the skin swollen and sensitive. A lurch hit your stomach even as you pressed back to his chest, naturally seeking the comfort of his touch. The last twenty-four hours had been wild. You’d gone from drinking wine alone in your pathetic nest to shotgun-mating an attending orthopedic surgeon.
You suddenly had to pee. Badly. You tried to scramble out of his arms and his elbows locked. “Where are you going?” He managed to sound grumpy and sleepy all at once.
“Pee!”
He let go and you shut the door to the bathroom, doing your business and also trying not to hyperventilate on the toilet. How were you going to explain this to your coworkers? HR? Would he want you to quit medicine and stay at home? Would you have to review every case you both had ever been on together?
You stood up and flicked on the lights, squinting at the brightness until your eyes adjusted and you could see the fresh, angry, red wound of his teeth. Some crazy idea that he’d missed the gland died as you examined the clear bruising with the telltale signs of a broken gland. No, Park the Shark had done it right. You weren’t sure he ever did anything less.
If there was a lock on the bathroom door, it didn’t stand a chance against Brendon. He pushed it open and ignored your squawk, catching you round the waist as you stumbled back from the vanity and almost lost your footing.
“Stop freaking out. You’re about twelve hours too late for it.”
He let go of you and stepped over to the toilet, and you whirled around. He snorted, ignoring you, and you hated the twitch of your fingers as he peed, wanting somehow still to be touching him. You also hated the way your toes curled against the cold floor as you listened, and the treacherous quiver between your legs as he finished.
When he came to the vanity to wash his hands his lips brushed over your ear. “You can hold it next time if you want.”
A hot flush swirled through you at those words and you remained frozen for an extra second as you imagined it while he washed his hands. Your hands on his soft but thick shaft as he— You cleared your throat and pretended to ignore the flush that gave you. “I just… what happened just sunk in.”
He met your gaze in the mirror, your head barely reaching his shoulder. Across his throat and chest you could see the scratches, finger-shaped bruises, and hickies from where you’d clawed and sucked on him. You hadn’t left him unmarked either, and you itched with the urge to touch him again.
“We’ll take a few days off. Send HR an email. Move you in here.”
He didn’t seem bothered by the complete upheaval of your worlds.
“How are you taking this so in stride?” You didn’t mean to sound angry, but how could he be so calm? “You woke up yesterday like it was a totally normal day and now today—”
“—I have you. Were you going to wear scent patches for the rest of your life?” He turned to look at you, unimpressed. The only Omegas who wore scent patches for decades on end were the ones who refused any Alpha advances. Otherwise scents were meant to find compatible matches.
“No! I was going to stop when I became an attending. When I wouldn’t have to prove myself for a dozen committees and research mentors. But now…!” You choked a bit, curling your hands into fists and fighting back the tears. It had to be the hormones, even though whatever madness had taken you yesterday hadn’t yet returned completely.
“You’re overestimating the impact of your dynamic on your career,” he scoffed.
“How many Omega ER attendings do you know?” You fired back.
“I know that if you’ve gotten this far you’ve proven yourself a dozen times over,” he said flatly.
You burst into tears. “Fuck, I hate heat hormones. They make me such a mess.” You wiped at your face frantically, turning away and grabbing a towel so he didn’t have to see you like this.
“You need to nest. You’re still dysregulated from touch deprivation.” His heavy hand landed on your mid-back, migrating up to your neck, the gentle hold noticeably slowing your erratic heartbeat. You squeezed your eyes shut, your logical brain knowing perfectly well the double-whammy you’d done to yourself, combining touch deprivation with skipping heats.
You dried your eyes and discreetly tried to wipe your nose. He was right. You needed a nest, probably some food, and to let your Alpha hold you.
You dropped the towel on the floor, turned around, and stepped into his chest, pressing your cheek to the warm skin and exhaling shakily. Brendon’s big hand continued to cup the back of your head, and for a few minutes you both stood there quietly as your breathing slowed and the wave of horrible emotion ebbed.
“Thanks,” you whispered. You licked your lips, the salt of his skin giving you courage. As he’d said, it was too late to freak out. Mating was practically permanent, and you felt safe with Brendon, even if you didn’t know him very well. He’d just complimented you too, and you knew how rare that was from a surgeon like him. “I’m just freaking out because I…I switched residency programs halfway through and had to repeat a year.”
He didn’t stop stroking the top of your head, but the other hand came to your back, holding you to him.
“There’d been an incident with a rutting Alpha. I’d met him before at a bar a few months prior to him coming into the ED. We didn’t— it was just one date. But at the ED, he got upset when he saw me and it… escalated. Security was called and they had to sedate him.” Your fingers squeezed Brendon’s side. The pressure of his hand on your back was as grounding as the steady beat of his heart. You remembered the way that Alpha had grabbed you, forced you down into a subservient position, the acrid turn of his scent.
You cleared your throat. “I had to have meetings with a lot of people from the program: attendings, professors, directors. They were… awful sometimes. Implied it was my fault. That I wasn’t suitable to be a doctor in this field if I wasn’t at least mated.” A low rumble started in his chest, barely audible. You leaned back to look up at him. “I had some good people on my side. My direct attending was a good woman. She was the one who helped me switch to PTMC.”
Brendon kept his gaze fixed on yours for a long moment, assessing. “You aren’t proving them right.”
Your lips wobbled suddenly. That was… How did he…
“Look at me.” His hand on the back of your neck forced your eyes to focus back on his. “Your dynamic has jack shit to do with your capabilities.”
Your could feel yourself getting teary, and you hated that you were going to cry again. “Yes, sir.”
“There’s a nesting room in this apartment. Go make it yours.”
You were going to need so much therapy one day, but Brendon erased a few sessions with just those few words. Your throat felt tight all over again, and to avoid crying you reached up with your hand to coax him down for a kiss. He obliged, sucking on your bottom lip and tangling his tongue with yours until you were humming into his mouth.
“Food?” you asked, whimpering when he cupped your ass to kiss you again, deepening this one into something filthier.
“I’ll bring it to you, Omega.”
You kissed him again to keep down the words Love you Alpha, because that was definitely the heat brain talking. Right?
We are at 9k for the next chapter and the rough draft is finished. The first half is beta read, the second half is pure smut and still needs a reread and editing. I did not mean for it to run so long, but the possessive sex turned into scent-marking sex, turned into cumming all over her, which turned into.... piss kink. Yeah. That caught me a little off guard too. If that's not your thing it'll be very easy to skip as it's the last scene. If you're not sure it's your thing, reader wasn't sure either. If it IS your thing, hi, what random fanfic did you accidentally wander into with watersports and wander back out dazed, confused, and turned on?
The beta has it, so once she tells me I didn’t give him three arms during the sex scene and corrects my abysmal comma game we are a GO! I also have a good chunk of 3 other chapters started and ideas for at least one more. I don’t know where this train is going but we’re steaming along.
We are at 9k for the next chapter and the rough draft is finished. The first half is beta read, the second half is pure smut and still needs a reread and editing. I did not mean for it to run so long, but the possessive sex turned into scent-marking sex, turned into cumming all over her, which turned into.... piss kink. Yeah. That caught me a little off guard too. If that's not your thing it'll be very easy to skip as it's the last scene. If you're not sure it's your thing, reader wasn't sure either. If it IS your thing, hi, what random fanfic did you accidentally wander into with watersports and wander back out dazed, confused, and turned on?
Where have all the good men gone
And where are all the Gods?
Where's the streetwise Hercules to fight the rising odds?
Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed?
Late at night, I toss and I turn
And I dream of what I need
I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night
He's gotta be strong
And he's gotta be fast
And he's gotta be fresh from the fight
I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light
He's gotta be sure
And it's gotta be soon
And he's gotta be larger than life
Larger than life (ah, ah)
Somewhere after midnight
In my wildest fantasy
Somewhere just beyond my reach
There's someone reaching back for me
Racing on the thunder and rising with the heat
It's gonna take a Superman to sweep me off my feet (yeah)
@t4medicroe, as I messaged, it turns out I DID write a soulmate Pope Cody ficlet, and then I never got farther than this. The hyperfixation has passed, but still super happy to share it!
Summary: What if Pope Cody had a red string leading to his soulmate?
Tags/Notes: Soulmate AU, soulmate strings, oral sex
Word Count: 3,224
None of the Cody brothers have ever admitted if they have strings. Pope told Smurf he did once, not long after his appeared, but Julia said he was lying to sound cool, and Smurf always believed her over him.
He’s grateful for Julia’s jealous announcement when they were thirteen now. As he grew up, he realized the fact that he had a red string should be kept to himself. His soulmate would be his own, the one thing he could truly call his. Not like the things in the vent in his room, the house he lived in, or his job.
Not everyone had strings. No one knew if that meant only some people had soulmates, or only some people were lucky enough to have a literal guide wire to them. Pope had never known anyone who’d actually met their soulmate either, but he paid attention to the stories. As a young teen he’d daydreamed about it suddenly connecting to Cath, or some other beautiful woman on the beach, and the jealous and shocked looks of his brothers and mother when they found out. As the years went by though, Pope came to understand how unlikely it would ever be. Odds were already low he’d ever be physically close enough for the red string to lengthen, and Smurf barely let any of the family have anything without her say-so. She certainly wouldn’t abide Pope having his soulmate.
The small hope finally died after three years in prison, innumerable terrible things done in the name of family and self-protection, decades of being alone weighing on him, and finally Baz yelling in his face that no one would ever have his child. Pope didn’t believe he’d ever get his soulmate. He could get anything he wanted with a little effort, but he’d never get what he deserved, because he didn’t deserve one.
#
Red strings go one way until they don’t. That’s how Smurf had explained it when he was ten years old, and that was still how she explained it to Lena. Innocent, sweet Lena, who was too young to have strings yet but, because Baz didn’t keep track of her TV habits, was asking questions. Pope quietly leaned against the hallway wall to listen in the twilight of a spring evening at Smurf’s house.
“Soulmates are your perfect person. Made just for you,” Smurf cooed, making Lena giggle. “One person gets a red string pointing straight out of their heart when they’re old enough, and then they’re supposed to go follow where it leads. If the string gets longer, then they’re close. The first time they touch their soulmate—poof! The other red string appears. And then they’re connected for all time.”
“Forever?” Lena asked, childish awe in her voice.
“Forever,” Smurf confirmed. Pope felt something in his chest twinge, and he looked down at his red string, which disappeared six inches from his chest.
“Then why did Mommy leave? Can’t Daddy follow the string?”
Pope’s mind went blank. He didn’t want to remember.
“Most mommys and daddys don’t have strings, Lena-roo,” Smurf explained gently. “Your parents didn’t. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Oh.”
“Even with a string it’s no guarantee, baby,” Smurf continued, her cynicism turning her voice saccharine sweet. “Life changes people. You have to be real careful who you trust. Not every soulmate match is happy.”
Pope pushed thoughts of Cath aside, shoving it under the mental rug with everything else, gaze far away. He remembered Smurf saying something similar to him and Julia when they were young; that soulmates weren’t fairy tales. In reality not ever match made it. Pope didn’t really want to believe it. Smurf didn’t have strings. He did.
He glanced down at his short string again. Then again, maybe it was people like him that counted towards those matches that didn’t make it. What if everything that was wrong with him was wrong for his soulmate? What then?
#
A couple weeks later, while rinsing blood off his arms from the latest job in the motel shower, Pope tilted his head back to wash his hair, and when he looked down again the red string was long. So long it disappeared through the tile.
The hot water turned cold because he stood there for so long staring, unable to understand. His red string was always short, fading away into nothing. It didn’t stretch a foot away from his chest. It was never so solid in color that it looked like he could touch it.
His blunt fingers passed through the invisible string, and something lurched in his chest.
He wasn’t supposed to have this. He was not a good man. He was fucked in the head. Smurf and his family would eat his soulmate alive. He had a record. He’d hurt people. Any happiness he had was stealing it from someone else.
Pope’s fist clenched over his chest like his heart hurt, but did he even have one? If he never followed these strings would they fade? Or would the strings always be there, waiting for the final connection? Would his soulmate know somehow, even though she didn’t have them? What would you feel like? Look like? What did you do? Were you in a relationship? If he never found you would you find someone else? Someone less than perfect, like a soulmate should be? Were you as broken as him?
Pope covered his eyes with his hand and hunched over, flipping off the cold water and choking back a wounded animal noise. He wasn’t supposed to have this. This was dangerous. But he wanted it—so badly it felt like his heart might burst. His soulmate would be his. Made for him and he for them. The one person who would always choose him first. He could have a new family. A better one.
The image of Smurf and her razor sharp smile floated before him and Pope made a fist, standing up in the shower. The safest thing, the smartest thing he could do, would be to never meet his soulmate. Never invite the slightest attention to them or indicate he had strings, let alone that they had lengthened, so Smurf would never know. But that’s what Smurf would want. Him at her beck and call, always alone, tied to her and his brothers only. Even in her ignorance she would be getting what she wanted, and Pope had enough of that.
Mind made up he got dressed and ready to meet his soulmate.
#
You were surrounded by boxes in your new rental, which was a lot tighter of a space than you were hoping for and a bit further from the beach than the realtor had implied, but it was new and far away from everything else. This was a fresh start. You were determined to make the best of it.
Today and tomorrow were settling-in days so you could unpack boxes and clean, and then the day after you had an interview at the local ER for a nursing position. Hopefully you could start that job soon, because your savings were being drained every day that you weren’t working, and breaking your last lease and paying moving costs had eaten into them a lot. You were still gonna splurge on pizza tonight though. You’d been lugging up boxes for two hours, and now you were cleaning out the inside of the fridge because whatever cleaning service this landlord had used was not as thorough as you were.
The knock on your door was unexpected and sharp, just two raps. You almost banged your head on a shelf in the fridge out of surprise. Maybe it was a neighbor? Nervous, your gaze flicked to the box with all the security cameras you’d had at your last place. Maybe setting those up should have been your first move.
The peephole required you to stand on your toes, and on the other side was a man you didn’t recognize. The fisheye, slightly cloudy view made it hard to see anything beyond his face, which was handsome but unsmiling. Was this one of Cameron’s buddies? There was no way he’d already found you, but if he had… You reached for the chain on the door, only to realize the second part where it should hook to was missing. Someone had replaced the front door and not included the second half. The chain dangled, useless.
“Hello?” he called. You peeped back through, and the man was still standing there, head cocked slightly to the side. You frantically considered your options. You couldn’t live your life hiding, and odds were this was a neighbor who saw you moving in. Maybe he had a jello or a casserole or something his wife had made for you, or an invitation to dinner? Maybe it was the building super, come to check that everything was okay.
You took a deep breath and unlocked your door, cracking it open. “Hi?”
The man on the other side wasn’t particularly tall, but he had thick arms and broad shoulders. His short-sleeve shirt was buttoned up all the way to the top and he wore heavy boots. He didn’t smile when his gaze locked on you without blinking.
Pope had been planning out what to say as he drove the streets of Oceanside, following the twists and turns of the roads as the red string led him north along the shore. Forty minutes outside of his hometown, in a stretch of slightly rundown apartments, it started to arch up until he pulled into the parking lot and watched the string disappear into a second floor unit. He’d sat in his truck for a good twenty minutes, watching the string move back and forth slowly as his soulmate walked around their apartment, pumping himself up for this. Pope wasn’t charming like Baz, he couldn’t flirt like Craig, and the Deran hair-flip was beyond him. He felt nervous, a rare sensation for him, but the red string was a reassurance. This was his soulmate. They didn’t want charming Baz, flirty Craig, or surfer-hair Deran. They’d want him.
But when you opened the door all the words he’d planned out disappeared. You were beautiful: dressed in relaxed clothes, barefoot, hair in a messy bun, holding a spray bottle of vinegar in yellow rubber gloves. Your big eyes took him in, confused and pretty, and fuck Pope was gone. Soulmates weren’t fairytales his ass.
“Do you live next door?” you asked, struggling to break the stare of this man and completely failing. His hazel eyes were captivating, holding you in a way that was making your belly flip. You were not going to fall for a man with good looks within literal hours of moving. The last time you’d been nice to a good-looking man he’d become such an intense stalker you’d had to get a restraining order and flee northern California entirely.
“No.”
Your hand tightened on the vinegar bottle, and that’s when the man finally blinked and offered his hand. “Andrew. I’m from Oceanside.”
You automatically started to extend a rubber-gloved hand, then realizing you were still wearing it, shucked it off as you opened the door a little more. “Is that nearby? Or the other building?”
He reached forward to grab your hand. His was warm and dry and engulfed yours completely. He had a lot of callouses that were rough against your fingers and his forearms were huge with veins the nurse in you salivated over. A flurry of butterflies filled your stomach that you desperately tried to squelch. He was staring hard at you now, not answering your question, and just as you moved to take your hand back you saw something shimmering and forming in the air.
A red ribbon the width of one finger and paper thin melted out of nothing in a straight line from his chest to yours. Your gasp was audible and you squeezed his hand tight, dropping the vinegar spray bottle.
“Is that—? Are we—?” You stuttered, unable to stop staring at the ribbon that fell into place between you, like it had always been there. Invisible but real.
“You see it?” Andrew asked, a thread of nerves in his voice, and you looked up, making eye contact again. He had beautiful hazel eyes, fine cheekbones, and a mouth you could tell wasn’t prone to smiles. He looked serious, anxious. Gods, you’d never thought— His face started to get blurry as your eyes welled up.
“A red string,” you choked out, and when you tugged on his hand he awkwardly folded into you. His cheek pressed to your head as you pressed yours to his chest, right where the string went in. He was solid and warm, and real. You swallowed back a sob, happiness and relief and bone-shaking awe overwhelming you. His arms circled around you and you could feel the tiny tremor that ran up and down his back. You swore there was a hum in the air, something electric and magnetic.
“Yeah, a red string,” he repeated hoarsely, voice full of wonder.
You bit your lip hard so you wouldn’t sob all over your soulmate just seconds after meeting him, eventually pushing back to really look at him. Andrew clearly worked out but came from some rough background, his shuttered expression and the edge to his body language said that, but there was hope there too. His grip on your waist was as gentle as if he were holding glass, and you didn’t feel afraid anymore. “Come in? I just moved here. How far do you live?”
“Oceanside. It’s south, 40 minutes or so.”
Andrew picked up the discarded yellow glove and vinegar bottle as you rambled about your hometown and followed you inside. He took in the boxes and the cleaning implements with an impassive face. “You need help?” he asked.
#
Soulmates really were everything you could possibly want.
You were probably jumping the gun but it felt that way. Andrew probably had OCD, but that was okay, because you loved a clean and organized house. Hell, you’d thought about branching out into home organization until your father had talked some sense into you about salaried jobs and benefits.
He was meticulous about cleaning out the fridge and then the kitchen cabinets as you opened boxes of lamps and bedding, and together you unpacked enough to get you through the next few days. He moved the couch effortlessly to where you pointed, and you swallowed dry watching his biceps work. When he opened the next box and saw the box of security cameras he just stared at you.
“I moved because this guy was stalking me,” you murmured softly, taking one of the cameras from his hand. “Those are from the last apartment. Just in case.”
“It’s a good idea,” Andrew said bluntly, gaze riveted on you until you blushed. “I’ll set them up. If he comes around, tell me. I’ll handle him.”
Your heart skipped several beats as Andrew started examining the space for the best angles.
As you worked he told you about his three brothers, niece, and nephew, briefly mentioning he worked in real estate, and if you wanted a better place he’d help you find one. Neither of you said it out loud, that maybe it would be a shared place, but when you asked about his home he mentioned something about a motel.
“What happened to your place?”
“Sold it,” he said shortly, stopping cold in the hallway, a drill for the camera in his hand.
“Without having a new one ready?” You asked softly.
Andrew stared at you, and you held his gaze for long seconds. His eyes were perfectly blank, empty. He was inside there, you knew it, but he wasn’t looking at you. “I was in prison.”
You put down the lamp you were holding and crossed to him, grabbing his big hand. “For what?” You murmured.
“Bank robbery.”
“Did you do it?”
“Yes.”
You blew out a breath and squeezed his hand in both of yours, and he didn’t blink, stare searching yours. When everyone said a soulmate would be perfect, they didn’t mean without flaws. They meant those flaws complimented you. Your jagged puzzle edges fit together. Of course you’d have an ex-con for a soulmate. An instant heart attack for your overbearing step-mother, and just the guy to deal with Cameron, your stalker.
“Thanks for telling me. I— I’ve never told anyone this, but I slashed my best friend’s ex’s tires. Only three of them. He was beating her, and you get a discount at the tire shop if you have to replace all four.”
Andrew’s mouth opened, and something flickered in his gaze.
“Thing is, he knew that too. So I recorded him slashing his own fourth tire and then sent that to the police. When he tried to file an insurance claim he got arrested for insurance fraud.”
For a beat no one breathed, and then Andrew dropped the drill and lifted his hand to your cheek, the fingers shaking.
“Fuck you’re perfect,” he mumbled, and then he was kissing you. It was all-consuming fire in your veins as he backed you hard to the hallway wall, crowding you in as he kissed you like you were his oxygen. You groped his shoulders and triceps as your tongues tangled, groaning at the firmness of him, the sheer muscle and strength. You were going to christen the bed of this apartment before you’d even put sheets on it.
“Andrew, fuck—”
“Can I?” He asked, mumbling against your throat, kissing his way down your body. “Can I taste?”
“Yes, yes!”
You sunk your fingers into his curls as he slid to his knees and yanked your shorts down, hungry mouth pressing to your panty-covered sex. He paused there, breathing you in, and then he tugged your underwear down and lifted one of your legs over his shoulder.
His mouth was hot and insistent, nose nudging your clit as he ate you out like it was his last meal. Your head thunked against the wall as you rocked against his face. You’d never been eaten out like this, you’d never had such thick fingers pulling your slit apart or heard such desperate moans as he sucked on your clit before his tongue was back inside you, slurping messily as your panting grew faster.
“Andrew, shit, I’m close, please, Andrew.”
He groaned deep in his chest, expression damn near worshipful, and one blunt finger pressed inside you as his lips tightened on your clit, and then his tongue was flicking so hard and fast you cried out, legs shaking.
“Oh my god, oh my god, Andrew fuck I’m, I—”
Your voice hitched as your orgasm slammed into you, hips desperately grinding into his mouth as he just kept sucking and licking at your clit, fingers pumping into you, until you almost collapsed and he had to catch you. You thought he’d lower you to the ground, but Andrew stood up, cupping your ass as you yelped, legs over both his shoulders now, and he walked you to the bedroom, slowly lowered you down on the unmade bed.
“Andrew, that was so good. Let me—”
“One more,” he muttered, eyes blazing bright as he looked up at you from between your legs, lips and chin glistening. “One more.”
Hi! Love your Pitt stories and your Pope Cody Stories! Would you do a soulmate story for pope? He deserves love!
Hi!!! I'm so glad you love my stories! I am not currently writing for Pope as I haven't been watching Animal Kingdom. If the fixation comes back I LOVE a good soulmate story, but Lou Ferrigno Jr's characters have rented out all the space in my head right now.
BUT
There is a Pope Cody ABO fic in the same world as my others that I never posted. So let me at least share that with you!
Same OFC as my prior two Pope Cody fics: Meet Cute and Pre Rut
Summary: The first time you meet Andrew's brothers is picking up Lena from their house.
Tags/Notes: Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamics, scenting, drug use (it's the Codys, what do you expect?), Lena is safe, I promise
Word Count: 2,127
#
The first time you meet Andrew’s brothers is without Andrew.
You get a phone call from some boy who sounds vaguely drunk, with a giggling girl in the background. There’s thumping music and it’s hard to make out their words, and at first you think they’ve got the wrong number, but then you hear Lena clearly say “Auntie? Can you come get me?” You are wide awake in an instant.
“Lena? Lena, are you okay? Where are you? Where’s Andrew?”
“Uncle Pope isn’t here,” she says, voice low. She’s too young to sound that cowed.
You know Andrew wouldn’t leave Lena with his family unless he had to, but he’d mentioned a family dinner and his mother insisting on Lena joining. After everything you’d heard about the rest of his family, you had no desire for an invitation. Something must have happened then for Andrew to have left without Lena. And why did it sound like there was a party in the background?
“Hey, this is J. Pope’s, uh, nephew,” the boy said into the phone. “We tried him but he’s not answering. Lena’s fine but if you wanna get her—”
“What’s the address?”
J gave it to you and you scrambled into flip-flops and grabbed your keys. “I thought this was a family dinner?”
“Yeah, but it’s Craig’s birthday,” J said, sounding sheepish. Craig was the party animal, you recalled from what Andrew had told you. “Pope was gonna take her home but, uh, a work thing came up.”
Andrew had mentioned being a real estate manager, did that mean he acted like a super? You’d never asked the details, but you could only guess a maintenance emergency or something would have been enough to pull him away.
“I’m on my way,” you told J, hanging up to plug in the address in your car.
#
It’s a nicer neighborhood in Oceanside, just twenty minutes from the condo you’re borrowing. There are multiple cars in the street, some parked haphazardly, and it’s immediately obvious which house is having the party. You’re appalled that Lena is here. At what looks like a frat house.
Your outdated Corolla doesn’t fit in, and you didn’t dress for a party. You’re still in your cut off jean shorts and tank from earlier, hair loose and makeup melting off by this hour. The call had pulled you out of the doze on the couch to a rerun of The Good Place.
Someone catcalls before you even make it up the driveway, and you’re very aware of being an unmated Omega in this setting. You thank the gods you’d had the foresight to grab one of Andrew’s leftover button ups before you left. His scent is a reminder that you’re taken; a warning to other Alphas. As you get closer to the house, there’s a couple making out on the other side of a car while two guys are admiring the speedboats. There are more people hanging off the front porch with red solo cups in hand, eyeballing you. You ignore everyone, beelining for the open gate to the pool, afraid to look anywhere else.
It’s chaos inside. You haven’t seen anything like it in years, not since early college. Alphas are jumping into the pool from the roof, people are doing literal lines of coke at the bar, the pool has three Omegas making out, drawing Alphas to hoot and holler, someone is doing knife tricks in the kitchen, and you see no sign of Lena.
“Heyyyy, you want a dr—” the guy behind the bar with the long, surfer-washed curls pauses as he takes you in. “Is that Pope’s shirt?”
You don’t know what any of his brothers look like, but you’re guessing this is one of them. “Yeah. I’m looking for Lena?”
“Shit, you’re the Omega he’s shacking up with.” The Alpha stumbles around the bar, eyes wandering boldly over your legs and back up, fixating on your throat. You want to yank the collar of Andrew’s shirt over the gland, but don’t want to draw any more attention to yourself. “Thanks for coming to my party.”
“I’m not here for the party, I’m here for Lena. Where is she?”
“Inside I think? I’m Craig, Pope’s bro—”
“Hey! You, uh, Pope’s girl?” Another younger Alpha calls, jogging over. His presence is gentler, not like Craig’s wild energy, but you can smell the alcohol on all of them.
“Are you J?”
“Yeah. Lena’s in her bedroom.”
“Her bedroom?” Lena has always stayed at her house, yours, or the babysitter’s these last few months. Was her grandmother trying to get custody? You left Craig behind as you followed J, who couldn’t be older than 20, into the house. You weave through groups doing shots, lines, and sharing vapes and cigarettes, trying to imagine how on Earth Andrew would look in all this and hoping Lena hasn’t seen any of it, until J opens a bedroom door.
It’s a little girl’s room like Lena’s own, with walls painted in pink and a fluffy comforter. Your first thought it that it’s not how Lena would have decorated it; she isn’t into pink at all. Another teenage girl is lounging on the bed scrolling her phone, her pupils as wide as pennies and her expression dopey. Lena is there in the corner at a tea party table with a doll, looking miserable.
“Lena!”
“Auntie!” She races over and throws her arms around your waist. You sink down to the floor, cradling her in your arms.
“I’m gonna take you home, okay?”
“Can I sleep with Big Bear?” Big Bear was a giant stuffed bear Andrew had won at a carnival on the boardwalk on one of your dates, and you’d given it to Lena. It was bigger than her, sitting in the corner of her room like a guardian when Andrew wasn’t home.
“Absolutely. Let’s get your shoes on.”
Lena darts up and for the doors, and you grab the back of her shirt. “Whoa, whoa. How about she gets your shoes, and then we sneak out?”
Her eyes go wide. “Sneak out?”
“Mm-hmm.” You shoot a pointed look at the high Beta girl who J had clearly left with Lena, as if she could possibly be the adult in the room.
“Go, Nicky,” J utters, that quiet Alpha dominance seeping into his voice, and she goes without a word.
“What happened?” You ask quietly as you usher Lena to fill a bag with whatever she wanted from this bedroom. You are going to personally make sure Andrew never lets her come back here again if this is the kind of stuff that goes on in this house.
“She was on her ATV-thing and a car backed into it.”
“What?!”
J shrugs uncomfortably. “I grabbed her before it hit her. She’s fine.”
“Lena, hun, put whatever you want in that bag. I’m gonna talk to your Uncle J for a minute.”
Lena looks at you and J with too-big eyes. She knows something is up, kids aren’t stupid, but she’s probably seen enough arguments in her lifetime. “Okay, Auntie.”
“Thanks, sweetie.”
You go into the hallway and the moment the door shuts behind you you turn on J. “What the fuck happened?”
“She’s fine—”
“You know that’s not true, J. Andrew told me a few things about your family, and right now you are guaranteeing Lena will have as messed up a childhood as you did. Who did Andrew leave her with?”
He rubs his hand in his hair, his scent tinged with agitation now. The smell of an angry Omega can make Alphas very uncomfortable and he was clearly feeling that. He hisses a breath out. “Pope was gonna drop her off with you, but Smurf needed him immediately, and Deran said we’d all watch her, but then Craig’s party got bigger, and she just…” He shrugs again. “Then the next thing I saw she was on her ATV thing in the driveway.”
You make a noise: it’s a sucked in whistling breath, somewhere between a whine of anguish and an angry cry, and J’s reaction is visceral. He flinches hard, and you see four drunk Alphas down the hall look over. You don’t care. You’re wearing Andrew’s shirt and you’re taking his child home.
“You’re lucky she didn’t get hurt. Andrew is gonna be so pissed, but he’d be on a rampage if she was hurt. And I wouldn’t stop him,” you warn.
J hangs his head. He knows he did wrong and he’s barely out of childhood himself, but it’s hard to feel sympathy right now. The high girl appears holding Lena’s shoes, and you grab them from her and go back inside the bedroom.
Lena is standing there with her little purple duffle and her jacket, looking nervously at you. You pick her up and tuck her into your neck so she can’t see anything else of the party, and carry her out. J clears the path, and instinctively Alphas and Omegas dodge out of the way of your angry scent and J’s agonized one.
You get to your Corolla parked on the street and you put Lena in the passenger side, even though you don’t have a proper car seat. J babbles something about another car with one but you can’t hear it over the roar of your ears.
“I’m calling Andrew. If you reach him before I do, tell him I have Lena and she’s safe.”
“I will.”
After buckling her in as well as you possibly can, you close the car door and turn to J one more time. “I know your family is blood to her and I’ve only known her a short time, but your pack is a dangerous. She’s a child. If I have any say I won’t let her come back here.”
J sucks on his teeth a moment then nods. “Then I’ll warn you that Smurf will fight back. You don’t want to be on her bad side.”
“I’m sure I already am.”
#
When you get home you lay with Lena on her bed, wedging her between you and Big Bear until she falls asleep. She frowns and rolls a lot in her sleep, and you pet her hair and murmur reassurances that she’s safe, there’s no one here but you, her, and her guardian bear, until her Uncle Andrew is back.
You tried Andrew several times on the way home and after Lena’s asleep, but they all go to voicemail. There’s no blame in your heart for him, you just hope he’s okay. Everyone trusts their pack first; it’s instinct. His pack is just crummy. He’s learning to separate himself from them, but it takes time, and J’s warning about his grandmother is still ringing in your ears. As the outsider you can see what a toxic atmosphere it is and the tug of war Andrew has with Smurf. You didn’t want to be in her crosshairs, but for Andrew and Lena…
There’s warmth in your chest when you think about how Lena called you. You’d made sure she had your phone number in her backpack and duffel just in case, and she’d remembered and told J who to call. You’d always wanted kids, and if they were half as sweet as Lena then you’d be set. Maybe they’d even have auburn curls…
#
When Andrew calls you back it’s 4am. You wake up to the buzzing of the phone on your nightstand and fumble to pick up.
Andrew is livid. He’s heard from J what happened and he’s rushing home to you. There are key words to make his drive safer: everyone is safe, Lena is right here with you, and you’re in his house. You roll out of Lena’s bed and go downstairs to make a cup of hot chocolate the way he likes, with the milk warmed on the stove.
You hear the key in the lock as you’re sprinkling marshmallows, another sign the universe is in favor of you two. Andrew comes into the kitchen, chest heaving, gaze on you.
“I’m okay. Lena’s upstairs asleep.”
He goes immediately and you let him, giving him time to see her, smell her, know on a cellular level she’s okay. When his footsteps come back down you have the mug ready for him and your own next to it.
Andrew doesn’t stop moving until you are wrapped in his arms, his nose burrowed in your throat, sucking in deep breaths. “I’m sorry,” he chokes, even as his hands grip your hips so hard they’ll be bruises. His scent is wild with anxiety and anger, protective rage and helpless energy. You catch a whiff of blood but don’t know the source.
“We’re okay, it’s fine. I’m here, Alpha, it’s okay. Lena is safe.”
She got the idea for the study while walking with her advisor at Stanford to discuss her thesis topic, and the paper she eventually published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology in 2014 is sharp enough that it should have ended the seated meeting on the day it came out.
She ran 4 experiments on 176 people. Same person tested twice. Once sitting, once walking. The creativity tasks were the standard ones psychologists have used for decades to measure how good a brain is at generating novel useful ideas.
81% of participants in the first experiment produced more creative ideas while walking than while sitting. In the second experiment, 88%. In the third, 100%. Every single person walked into a more creative version of themselves. On average, people generated 60% more novel useful ideas the moment their legs started moving.
The skeptical question is the obvious one. Maybe it was the fresh air. Maybe it was the scenery passing by. Maybe it was the change of environment doing the work, not the walking itself.
Oppezzo killed every one of those explanations with one experimental decision. She put people on a treadmill facing a blank wall. No scenery. No fresh air. No environmental change. Just legs moving in place while staring at white drywall. The 60% boost held.
Then she ran the experiment that closed the case completely. She took participants outside in two conditions. Half of them walked through a Stanford courtyard. The other half were pushed through the exact same courtyard in a wheelchair. Same outdoor stimulation. Same scenery passing at the same speed. The only difference was whether the legs were moving.
The walkers produced dramatically more novel high-quality ideas than the wheelchair group. The outdoors did almost nothing on its own. The walking did everything.
She also tested the opposite kind of thinking. Convergent thinking. The kind where there is one right answer and you have to narrow down to it. Word puzzles where 3 words share a hidden fourth word that connects them. The seated participants did slightly better on these. Walkers got slightly worse.
Walking is not a general intelligence enhancer. It does one specific thing. It opens up the divergent search inside your brain. The part that generates options. The part that produces unexpected connections. The part that takes a problem and finds five ways into it instead of one.
When you need to converge on the single right answer, sit down. When you need to find the answer in the first place, get up.
The mechanism is now well understood. Walking selectively activates what neuroscientists call the default mode network, the system inside your brain that runs when you are not consciously focused on anything. The DMN is where mind-wandering happens. Where memories cross-reference each other. Where ideas that have been sitting in separate folders inside your head finally bump into each other.
When you sit at a desk and force yourself to concentrate, you suppress the DMN. When you walk at a natural pace, the executive part of your brain gets just busy enough handling the walking that the DMN comes online and starts doing the work that focus was blocking.
The most useful finding in the entire paper is the one almost nobody quotes. The boost did not turn off the moment people stopped walking. Participants who walked first and then sat back down stayed elevated. Their next round of seated creativity work was still significantly better than people who had been sitting the whole time. The rest lingered for at least several minutes after the legs stopped moving.
You do not need to do creative work while walking. You need to walk before the creative work. The brain holds the state.
If I get some comments that people liked it! I just write what I want to read, so it's really nice when people share they liked it too. I especially love when folks come back to comment on an old story of mine to say they've reread it, or it meant something really special to them many years ago and they still think about it. That kind of enduring memory and affection for a story will never stop being amazing.
For my two oldest stories, Green Dreams and Home With the Fairies, I consider those crazy, beyond-my-wildest-dreams successes. I was gifted physical copies made by readers who I have become friends with--and I plan to be buried with those like a pharaoh in a tomb.
😅 What's a story or scene you've created that you're a smidge embarrassed exists?
There's a lot of stories I would be embarrassed if certain people read them (my mother), but I'm of the belief that if you come wandering into my fanfic shop you come looking for something I've specifically got. If you go back far enough though, my very first fanfic was a Naruto Sasuke/OFC story, and if there's any evidence that still existed on the internet I would be a bit embarrassed to read it. Then again, I was maybe 14 when I wrote it, and you gotta start somewhere.
