#alpha nico

[mikkomacko]

The Love Instinct*

Chapter 3

Alpha Nico x omega reader

Masterlist

Warnings: mild smut, masterbating, attempt at knotting lol

A/n: BUCKLE IN PUPS THIS ONE IS A LONG ONEEE

and I said fuck the slow burn

<<<<>>>>

Nico’s wolf is sick.

Not sick in the kind of way where he needs to see a doctor. He doesn’t feel sluggish, isn’t aching with fever and rattling with chills. His stomach doesn’t turn at the thought of food, his head doesn’t throb with congestion, and his ears don’t itch with infection.

He’s sick though. He has to be. There’s no other explanation for why his wolf is telling him to paw at his cock right now other than him being terribly messed up in the head.

Nico clenches his jaw, sinking further into the pillows he’s got stacked against his headboard, and forces his hands to stay splayed out across the keyboard of his laptop. The article he’s been reading for the past few minutes is still on the dimmed screen, but the words are starting to blur as his focus wanes to other things.

Other things like you.

It’s stupid, how desperate he is for this. How much he can physically feel the wolf in him stirring restlessly. He wants to shift, wants to be able to go outside and run around thick trees and soft grass, howl under the moon until you come prancing up to him, recognizing that it’s him.

He wants to be home in Switzerland, smell fresh air and mountain spring water and you. It’s the alpha in him, convinced that if he could get you there, to the place where wolf folklore seems to ring so true, where the mountain tops sing with heavenly presence, he’d be able to get to your wolf. To the omega that’s lost and trying to find her way out but can’t.

She’d find him, he’s certain of that. He’s an alpha, he’s built for this chase that you’re determined to send him on. It’s exhilarating, breathes air into his lungs and life into his body, and blood into his dick, if he’s being honest.

He’s been chasing his omega his whole life and never got tired, and he’s not going to now. Not with you so fucking close, and so fucking pretty, and so fucking sweet to him.

Batting your eyelashes at him, pouting your lips, standing in his kitchen all proper with your hands behind your back, and then having the fucking audacity to tell him please and thank you and that’s he’s a good alpha.

His wolf rumbles at the reminder, eyes rolling into the back of his head as his blood goes hot, and his pulse recenters to somewhere a little further south than it’s supposed to.

It’s the articles fault if he’s being honest, using all this scientific language and Latin names just to say that an omega with manners is an omega trying to impress. He remembers hearing that in school, that a lot of kids who are overly polite and accommodating as children usually present as omega. Deep in their instincts, they know they’re meant to be courted and spoiled into finding a mate, that an alpha who respects them will go above and beyond. An omega’s natural reaction is to give that respect back, to say things like please and thank you so the alpha knows they’re being seen as a suitable mate.

It’s a bare bone, stripped all the way down to their primal instincts kind of behavior, like when Nico goes into a rut and wants to mount any and everything in sight. He can’t believe you used it with him, and the more he’s thought about it, the more he’s realized you’ve always done it.

Since the day he met you, you’ve always thanked him for the most basic of things, and you’ve only ever done it to him. Nevermind the fact that there’s lots of other alphas in the locker room let alone in the organization, but you’re only proper and sweet with him.

Deep down you know who he is, who he’s supposed to be to you.

He’s the alpha that’s supposed to take care of you, supposed to kiss you silly for being so good to him, supposed to back you into his mattress and cover his body with yours, leaving no space for prying eyes. The only eyes you need on you are his.

Nico’s pathetic and weak and sick, shutting his laptop and slipping it off to the other side of the mattress. It takes a minute for his eyes to adjust to the darkness of his room, for the outlines of furniture and a half packed suitcase on the floor and the blackout curtain to come into focus. He dips his right hand under the sheets, hissing through his teeth when he cups his hardening cock through the fabric of his briefs.

The frame of his bedroom door comes into shape now, cracked just enough for a sliver of light to come in from the living room, and Nico thinks about getting up real quick and closing it. He probably should. It’s the proper thing to do now that he doesn’t live alone but the thought sits in his brain for a fraction of a second before his wolf shuts it down.

You’re not out there anymore. It’s too late into the night now, and even if you are- he doesn’t care. His wolf doesn’t care. He wants you to hear him, wants you to know, and he wants to see if you’re curious enough to come in here.

After all, that’s why he leaves the door cracked, isn’t it? He never did that until you moved in, worried you might need or want something from him, or even better, you might just need or want him.

Sick, he thinks, but he still squeezes his dick, breath catching in his throat at how good even that feels. Nico’s skin feels like it’s on fire, burning with questions and want he know won’t be fulfilled by this. He shouldn’t do it, not like this. It’s in appropriate and weird, even if he’s in his own room. The door is technically open and you could be right there-

“Fuck me,” he mutters through gritted teeth, growing even harder at the thought.

Nico’s always been good at self-control. When he fucks, it’s because he genuinly wants to, and it’s always with no strings attached. No omegas because they’re not his omega, and he doesn’t want one unless they’re his. Betas are good because they’re just betas. They don’t expect anything from alphas, don’t expect him to fall in love and want to court and mate. He doesn’t even knot them, and most of the time they don’t even care because they’re be fucked by a Swiss alpha in the National Hockey League.

He’s in control, always. Even during ruts, when he shouldn’t be in control. When he’s supposed to let himself give in and just mount, fuck, knot, and repeat, he doesn’t loosen up even then. That’s supposed to be for his omega, for his mate who will know how to take care of him when he’s out of his body like that. It’s not for whatever beta he’s gotten to agree to spend a couple nights with him.

Out of control is how he feels now. He’s unable to get a handle on his instincts, on his needs, and before Nico can turmoil with himself any further, he pulls his hand back and licks a fat, wet strip up his palm. Then he’s shoving his hand under the bands of his shorts and briefs, head tipping back into the pillows when he goes straight for the weeping head of his dick. There’s already enough wetness there that the slide is easy, too easy.

He’s frantic with it, desperate as he jerks himself off, and the drag of his foreskin shifting back and forth send shivers down his spine. Stupidly, he wonders if you’d like that, if you’re into alphas like that. It’s not traditional in North America, to be uncut, but he is and he’s your mate, right? You have to like it.

His wolf prickles scoldingly, peeking through the lust fogging his brain to remind him that you will. You’ll probably love it even, because you’re made for him.

“Shit,” he groans, cock kicking at the thought. He can’t stop after that. All he can think about is you, all he can see is you. You’re pretty eyes, big and dark and pleading when they look at him. The way your neck gets pink and shiny with sweat in the locker room, so carefully protected by a neck guard. He doesn’t wear one, but it riles him up that you do. It’s good that you to take caution over the spot that’s supposed to be his, that only he’ll ever touch and mark.

Mouth watering, his brain latches onto that thought, picturing the lump on the left side of your neck where your scent resides, even visible under the scent blockers you put on at the rink. Nico’s hips jerk up into his fist, slick and tight. He’s so fucking screwed if just that is enough to have him humping his hand like a dog, but he can’t be bothered about it right now.

Mindlessly, he rolls over and up onto all fours, elbow by his head and knees digging into the mattress. He stills his hand, tightening his grip just a fraction and then fucks into his fist like a wolf gone insane. The euphoria is blindingly good, has him hanging his head and clamping his teeth down into his pillow, and he imagines it’s your throat bitten between them instead. Imagines it’s you bent over in front of him, presenting so pretty in his bed, flawless and effortless the way you are on the ice.

He comes with a throaty growl, muffled into the fabric of his pillowcase, though he quickly spits it out when his stomach tugs uncomfortably, fingers catching on the base of his cock for nothing more than a second, but the painful throb lingers. Hurts behind his belly button and in his balls, a sharp, unsatisfied kind of pain. Dazed by his shitty orgasm, Nico realizes for the first time in his life he’s just a blew an empty knot, and it fucking hurt.

His fingers are sticky and wet, boxers too, and he needs to clean up, but he can’t move with that feelings still fizzing through his dick and stomach. He’s heard before that empty knots are painful, but he never imagined it’d feel like this, somehow both hollow and heavy.

Groaning, Nico sinks onto his belly, turning only enough to curl up on his side and press his free hand to the tender spot, easing the cramps with his fingers. He takes a couple deep breathes through his mouth, feeling like a fish out of water for a minute, until finally it starts to clear.

The pain turns a different kind though, not physical but just as bad. His chest rattles with sadness, ribs tightening like they’re going to suffocate and squeeze at his heart and lungs. Depleted, he feels depleted, and not in that good way that comes with being sore and exhausted after a game.

Unsatisfied, his wolf is unsatisfied. He could’ve guessed this would happen eventually, which is why he wasn’t even going to let himself knot but he was out of control with it, and now everything hurts.

Limbs shaking and heavy, Nico shoves himself up from bed and drags his feet to the bathroom attached to his room. He doesn’t bother turning on the lights as he cleans himself, tossing his tacky clothes into the hamper and pulling on just a pair of shorts. His muscles feel sore and tired, and it takes more effort than it should to pull a shirt on over his head, but he does it anyway.

And because he’s already messed up tonight, instead of crawling back in his bed that looks too empty and too cold now, he pokes his head out into the living room, shivering at the rush of bitter air that hits his cheeks.

The balcony door is cracked just a hint, but it’s enough to chill the entire apartment. He sighs, grumpy and annoyed thinking about the electric bill, and is about to stomp his way over to close the sliding door when he finally realizes why it’s open.

The blanket he usually has thrown over the corner of the couch - his corner of the couch -is now sprawled out over the armchair. More importantly though, it’s rising and falling with rhythmic breathes, and peaking out from over the armrest are two sock clad feet.

Carefully, Nico tiptoes around the chair until he’s standing over you, his body casting a shadow over your sleeping form. It’s almost impossible to decipher what’s you and what’s fabric with the way you’re curled up in a ball, buried under his blanket and the hoodie you’ve got pulled over your head, but he manages to find the top half of your face that’s still visible.

He has no idea how you’ve managed to make yourself small enough to sleep on the chair like that, and he has no idea why you’ve buried yourself under so many layers when you could just close the door, but it’s not important, because Nico’d whole body suddenly swells with warmth. Any lingering aches and pains from the misfortune of that stupid empty knot all ease, your presence acting like salve on a hidden wound.

Omega, his wolf coos, gentle and begging, like he’s trying to convince Nico. He probably is because Nico’s been doing his best to not jump the gun, to not be that same teenage alpha that was determined to out every omega within a ten mile radius. He’s already long past that though, isn’t he?

He’s already admitted to you that he’ll chase you. Under the stars and moon, ocean lapping by your feet, he gave the earnest promise that jumping through hoops for his omega would always be worth it. It was vague enough for you both to deny, but you, him, and the sky all know the truth. The moon always knows the truth, whether you it want it to or not.

“Yeah,” Nico chokes out in one pained breath, soothing his wolf. He can’t help but lean down then, hooking a finger on the edge of the blanket you’ve got pulled up to your nose, and gently pulling it down. Your hands are all curled up in it though, teeth clamped down on the fabric too, and he should be annoyed that you’re practically eating his very expensive Swiss blanket. He’s not though, he can’t be, so he just tucks you back in, letting his eyes soak in every little visible detail of your face.

You’ve never been particularly intimidating. Average size for a typical beta, all dark hair with honey eyes. Even on the ice, when you get that determined furrow between your eyebrows and your eyes narrow meanly, Nico’s never found you to be anything but you. From the moment he met you, that’s all he’s ever seen. A wolf trying her hardest to play the game she loves, just like him.

Here though, in the living room he now shares with you, and aware of the fact that you’re a lot taller and muscular than the average omega, you’re still not intimidating. In fact, all he can think is that you’re precious. With the barely-there curl of your eyelashes and the roundness of your cheekbones, the slope of your nose and pink Cupid’s bow, you might be the most precious thing Nico’s ever laid his eyes on.

Under his breath, Nico admits to himself and to his wolf, exactly what you are.

“Our omega.”

It feels so good to say out loud, to finally validate what he knows has been churning under his skin for weeks now, even if it’s just to himself. Like a thread has been cut, his whole body goes lax and tired.

He contemplates shutting the balcony door again because it’s fucking winter and it’s freezing and you look cold. He can’t though, afraid he’ll somehow disturb you, disturb this little moment of peace he’s stumbled upon. Instead he sprawls out across the couch on his front, shoving his hands beneath the throw pillow under his head. It is chilly, so he wiggles his bare toes between the couch cushion and arm rest, pressing into the fabric as much as possible.

Just before he drifts off, he faintly wishes he could smell you, that you’d come lay over here with him, curled up just like that but against his chest rather than the armrest, sweet and soft under his blanket.

The thought sends a pleasant rush of warmth through him, and Nico doesn’t feel the cold air from the cracked door the rest of the night. He doesn’t feel it in the morning either when he wakes up sleeping on his back, tucked under the blanket you’d stolen the night before, and even though the armchair is devoid of your presence, he smiles.

You closed the door and tucked him in. Like an omega would do for their mate.

<<>>

Nico’s wolf might actually be sick. He’s not sure with what, because once again he’s not congested or feverish or queasy. He’s also kept himself from fucking his own hand to the thought of you again, and now considers himself three days sober from whatever that was. A desperate cry for validation from his wolf probably, who is still hell bent on trying to make Nico mate you.

It’s been a painful realization. Since that game in Colorado, every day that goes by without him saying anything is worse than the last. He can tear through old textbooks and scroll on Reddit, can over analyze every interaction he’s had with you, but none of it gets any better.

He just feels like he’s going about everything all wrong.

Meeting his mate wasn’t supposed to be like this. He always thought he’d meet you somewhere casual, stumble upon your scent on a busy street in New York or maybe pass by your table at a cafe in Hoboken, and everything would click together. He’d smell you and know you were it for him, just as you would smell him and know he’s it for you.

He’d introduce himself to you, all charming alpha rumble when he touches his hand to yours in greeting, and you’d flush under his attention as you tell him your name. Y/n, a perfect name. He used to imagine what his omega would be named, had cycled through online lists of the most popular omega names when he was a teenage and try them out, see which one fit best on his tongue.

Now he knows. He knows it’s your name and he can’t even say it with the conviction it’s supposed to have.

The only remorse he gets is that to everyone in the locker room, you’re just kid, but to him, you’re always y/n.

He wonders if you noticed. A big part of him hopes you have, because if he has to continue on like this for any longer, he might just die. He’s an alpha, he’s built to endure, but this is almost too brutal even for him.

Nico can’t live with this unease, with the constant buzz that’s made itself at home under his skin. All he does is want and want, ache for more. He’s insatiable and irritated and fucking starving. Like actually starving, to the point that his stomach is audibly rumbling every ten minutes and it’s embarrassing.

Especially after the third time it happens, loud enough that the man at the end of the aisle is casting a look at him. Nico’s neck grows hot, and he shrinks back into the collar of his winter jacket. You giggle to yourself, white wisps of your breath puffing into the air, and you lightly touch the toe of your shoe to the trunk of a giant Douglas fir tree.

“We should get this one,” you decide, tucking your hands in your pockets like it’s a done deal. Nico glances at the tree, then looks down the rest of the row filled with other trees that look exactly the same.

“You sure?” He asks, because he has no idea what makes this tree so great compared to the other ten you’d poked at and made him smell and hold up for height reference.

Unyielding, you nod. “Yes. I like this one.”

So Nico hauls up the tree, dragging it across the muddy parking lot turned Christmas tree farm, with you walking by his side. An RV setup as a makeshift checkout counter waits at the entrance of the tree area, and a worker quickly rushes over to the take the tree from him after he’s scraped it along by the trunk for a few minutes.

“Beautiful tree,” the worker compliments, patting at the trunk of it like he’s selling Nico a car or something. “Think this was our last Douglas fir for this height. Someone’s got a good eye.”

Nico’s never bought himself a Christmas tree. He couldn’t even tell you what kind of tree this was, at least not until you steered him down the row of 9 footers and carefully mused about looking for a Douglas. He doesn’t know what makes it so great, but he catches the way you straighten with pride, a knowing tilt to your smile at that.

“Yeah for sure,” Nico agrees, then fishes into his front pocket for his wallet “how much?”

The worker hums. “You taking it home now or need delivery service? We sell tree stands too if you need one.”

Nico pauses, eyes his car in the parking lot and is trying to figure out if he could manage to tie your giant tree to his roof without scratching the paint or losing it somewhere on the highway. Probably not, especially since he doesn’t have any rope, just the twine they offer here.

Which really ruins his plans because he’s supposed to be able to do this for you.

“Delivery,” you pipe in, “and a tree stand too. Also if you could trim the bottom and add notches to the trunk that’d be sick.”

Dutifully, the worker nods, pulling a sharpie out of his flannel pocket to scribble on the little tag attached to the top of the tree.

“Delivery address?”

Nico recites the address and his phone number so they can notify him of a delivery time later today, a little stunted still by your knowledge on purchasing Christmas trees. The worker makes a note of all your requests and pulls aside a red tree stand to put with the tree, and then he’s giving Nico the total, and he’s digging for cash in his wallet at the same time you reach for the zipper of your purse.

Nico is quicker though, already has his wallet handy so he forks over the money, meeting your affronted glare with a smirk.

“Rookie treatment,” he offers as an excuse, “enjoy it while you can.”

The thing is, you’ll always get to enjoy it, enjoy this. With you, Nico will always do this because it’s what he’s supposed to do. You’re his omega, his future mate, and you picked this really tall and thoughtful tree to put in the apartment he shares with you. The least he could do is supply it.

This isn’t rookie treatment at all. It’s omega treatment, and he hopes somewhere deep down you know that. There’s obviously a part of you that’s reacting to him the same way he reacts to you, and maybe you don’t quite get what it is, but it should be there. You should feel it, should see this as what it is.

A starving, desperate wolf offering up whatever he can to his mate. Back home, he’d be carrying the tree for you, paying for it, strapping it into the car all by himself. And he’d haul it back home, get it all setup and perfect for you to start decorating.

That’s how courting has always worked there. The alpha shows that they’re capable and strong, that they can provide even the simplest things like transportation.

You foiled that for him though, and whether it was intentional or not, he doesn’t know. Courting in the states is probably different, so maybe you didn’t realize that’s what he was offering. Or maybe you don’t know, just like you don’t seem to know that you’re his omega.

It’s driving him crazy, if he’s being honest. He’ll survive it though, even if it hurts. He was built for this chase.

What he’s not built for is the way his stomach rumbles yet again as you both head towards the parking lot, written receipt in Nico’s hand. It hasn’t been that long since practice this morning, or the large meal he shoveled down at the rink afterwards, or the snack he’d had at the apartment while he was waiting for you to finish getting ready.

Despite his best efforts to be the patient, steady wolf he usually is, Nico can’t help but huff and grumble, his indignation more geared towards the world than his bottomless pit of a stomach.

At the car, you pause before rounding to your side, hands laced behind your back and head tilted softly, and it makes his breath catch, hand frozen on his door handle.

“Thank you Nico,” you say, all quiet and polite and perfect. It makes his legs grow weak, like they’re going to tremble and break, send him to his knees in front of you.

“Course,” he replies, breathless “you’re welcome y/n.” For a moment, he swears your eyes grow rounder and sweeter, alluring in that way only an omega’s can, but then you blink, turning on your heel and leaving him standing there, still trying to catch his breath.

Dumbly, he climbs into the car after you, hands feeling the slightest bit fuzzy as he clicks his seatbelt. With a practiced ease, you turn on your seat warmer and adjust the heater, swipe the display screen to the view that shows the traffic map and his playlist at the same time, and then you slump back into your seat, content and warm.

Nico hopes you never get a car of your own. Selfishly, he hopes you’re always the one sat in his passenger seat, adjusting everything like it’s yours.

Loud and insistent, his stomach painfully rumbles again and he winces, blushing up to his ears. Amused, you glance over at him, lips curled into a smile that’s both sweet and teasing.

“Let’s go get something to eat, please?” You ask, like it’s not him that’s been annoyingly hungry all day. He swears he can see that glint again, the one he can only describe as wolfish, but it’s gone in an instant.

It’s all he thinks about though. That look, the way you talk to him, the way you hold yourself when it’s just the two of you. Without all the NHL noise, it’s like you know.

Nico stops at a diner a few minutes away from apartment, and the two of you get sat in a corner booth by the front windows. It’s a huge table, probably meant for a party of six, but you slide right up against the glass, back to the door, and Nico mirrors you, even if he hates the feeling of being crowded.

A waitress comes over to take your drink order, and Nico doesn’t know why he does it because he doesn’t like root beer at all, but when you order a diet one with no ice, he finds himself smiling at the waitress and saying, “same for me, thanks.”

Over the plastic covered menu splayed out across the table, you blink at Nico, more curious than surprised. He likes when you look at him like that, when you’re trying to figure him out. The longer you do it, maybe the quicker you’ll realize who exactly you’re looking at.

“What are you gonna get to eat?” He asks, conversationally and lays down his own menu. Your gaze doesn’t stray from his.

“Cheeseburger, extra pickles, no mustard, and large fries. With extra seasoning.”

“What kind of cheese?”

“American, duh.”

He laughs. “How do you like your burgers?”

“Medium. The pink freaks me out.”

Nico mentally files the order away for later convenience, wolf happy to have something else useful for courting purposes. You tilt your head at him again, soft and questioning. It’s a stark contrast to the biting bluntness of your next words.

“What are you going to eat? A horse?”

In all his years in America, Nico has never fully understand that saying. He sort of gets it, after a guy in Halifax explained it to him. You’re so hungry you could eat a big animal, like a horse. Except they don’t eat horses in America and there’s much bigger animals anyway, so he’s never liked it.

Still, he laughs, chest alighting with warmth when your curious pout turns into a pleased grin. Your body, which had been curled up towards the windows, straightens out a bit.

“Tuna panini,” he corrects “no onion, extra mayo.”

You raise an eyebrow, “Cheese?”

“Swiss,” he smirks.

“Of course,” you shrug, “fries or onion rings?”

He’s already puffed with pride when he responds, “fries, extra seasoning.” Just as he’d hoped, your whole expression lights up. He knew you’d like that, him ordering the same as you. Before you, Nico didn’t realize how much condiments and seasoning a person could customize. You’re so particular about your food though, in a way he’s never seen before, but he’s determined to figure it out.

Two fizzy glasses of root beer are brought over, and the same waitress as before asks if you’re ready to order. Jumping for a chance to do something for you, Nico nods.

“Yeah, she’ll have a cheeseburger, medium, with American and extra pickles and no mustard. Large fries on the side too please with extra seasoning.”

He patiently waits for the waitress to finish scribbling before reciting his order, except he adds pickles to the side of his sandwich, and then dutifully smiles at the waitress when her eye twitches in annoyance at his addition of extra seasoned fries.

“I’ll be back with your food,” she says, collecting the menus and tucking them under her arm. Nico watches her go, waits until she sticks the slip with their order through to the kitchen, and then he looks back to you.

It’s there again, that look. The wolfish one, more quiet and subdued than it should be for a beta. In fact, betas don’t ever get that look, not really. They’re the closest thing to human, neutral and still, grounding between alpha and omega. You shouldn’t be looking at him like that, and yet you are. You’re blatant about it too, unyielding and uncaring in this stupidly giant booth, and Nico thinks you must not even realize you’re doing it.

Then again, you don’t look at him like that when anyone else is around, so maybe you do. That’s a whole new can of sardines though because if you’re doing it on purpose, then you know must know what truly behinds that lump on the side of your neck and the letter b that gets scribbled on all the rosters.

It’s a frustrating and confusing thought. He wants to ask, wants to call you omega and see what you do, but he can’t. If you do know, there’s a reason you haven’t outright told him, and if you don’t know, he can’t be the one to tell you. Not like that, just blurting it out in the middle of the diner over extra seasoned fries.

This is delicate- you’re delicate, and Nico can’t risk scaring you away. He’s waited so long for this.

“Well,” Nico croaks, still stuck under your gaze “work your magic.”

He slides his root beer towards you, waiting with bated breath as you blink once and then twice, seeming to find yourself again. To his dismay, the roundness of your eyes fades, morphing back into something more human, more beta like.

“You don’t even like root beer,” you tell him, but you’re reaching for the salt shaker at the end of the table, bottom lip caught between your teeth as you pour a very calculated amount into each glass. Nico’s seen you do this a million times, and he’s ignored how it makes him want to turn up his nose each time, because you like it.

“Figured I’d give it another try.” He shrugs, even though he’s actually never had root beer before.

He’s surely never tried it like this before either, but he might as well now. He wants you to see he’s open-minded and attentive, that just like the ice cubes he bought you at the bar (for ten fucking dollars, insanely enough), he notices the little things you like. Even more, he’ll indulge them for you, if that’s what you want.

So he schools his hesitant face into one he hopes is more nonchalant. Then you slide him back his glass, the straw of yours already tucked between your lips. You take a drink, blinking expectantly at him.

Nico eyes the drink carefully and doesn’t note anything of suspicion. It smells overly sweet with a hint of salt, familiar to a scent he’s not sure he’s supposed to be able to smell, then thinks it’s fitting that you’d love this. Sweet and salty, like you.

The root beer is syrupy and sugary on his tongue, almost overly so and he’d wish there were more carbonation, if it weren’t for the salt that takes over next. It dulls out the sweetness, settles nicely on his taste buds and he takes another explorative sip.

You’re gnawing on the tip of your straw when Nico looks over, smacking his lips thoughtfully.

“It’s yummy,” he finally says, and your eyes shine with amusement for some reason. He doesn’t dwell on it, just grins back at you. “What?”

“It is yummy,” you agree, dropping his gaze when you quietly add “I was never allowed to drink it like this, at home.”

Carefully, he goes “why not?”

You’re fingering at something on the table, bright pink nails scratching at the surface. “My dad said it wasn’t good for me, all that salt and stuff. And it’s kinda weird I guess.”

There it is, that word again. He saw the way you reacted to Luke calling you weird in Florida. It’s like it shut you down, sucked the energy out of you. It’s what sent you running from the bar that night. Nico wonders if it’s your father fault. If Luke saying it rubbed you wrong because it’s already a sore spot, one put there by the alpha parent that doesn’t seem to know how to talk to you respectfully.

Nico doesn’t want to go against your father. You two seem close from the stories he’s heard of you growing up, and if he wants to be your mate the last thing he should be doing is causing tension.

“Maybe," he shrugs, "but there's nothing wrong with weird, or odd, or whatever. Different is good sometimes."

You're gaze flicks up to him, almost scrutinizing but not quite. He wishes that whatever is wrong with your scent would clear up so that he could smell you, could figure out what that look means.

No such luck.

"Why?"

He pauses, lips pursing cautiously. Nico has always been different, or he at least wanted different. He didn't want to stay in Switzerland, in his tiny home village, and he didn't want to mate with a beta and have alpha pups. That's the Swiss dream for most, but not for him. He's always wanted this. Hockey in America, travelling for work and for fun, summers where he can do as he pleases, winters competing on the ice. Most importantly, he wanted his omega, his moon-made mate, his special wolf.

One that would maybe one day go back to Switzerland with him, live in the city with him, have pups. Pups that could potentially be omega too, even if Switzerland hasn't had any Swiss born omegas in over a hundred years. It'd be different, but it's what he's always wanted.

Nico rubs his knuckles along his jaw, thoughtfully.

"I think when things are different, they're surprising and fun. It makes pairings you'd never have thought of otherwise, maybe. Like salt and root beer, I'd never have seen that coming until you, but yeah, it's good. Perfect really."

You're not looking at him anymore. Chewing on the edge of the straw, you stare at his beading glass of salty soda, eyebrows pinched together in deep thought. He wants to reach over and trace his thumb through the wrinkle between your eyebrows, wants to feel it in his chest what you're thinking.

He wants you.

Nico opens his mouth to say something dangerous, but the chance falls away. Two plates of food are delivered, heaping with extra seasoned fries, and you're giving the waitress a polite smile before carefully nibbling at a fry.

He can't say anything now, so he offers you his pickles instead, nodding encouragingly when you hesitate but eventually fish them off his plate.

"Thank you Nico," you murmur, smile more intentional than the one you gave the waitress. No, not intentional, but meaningful, weighted, and Nico knows that this is enough for now.

<<>>

Subtly has never been his strong suit. He's been told that since he was a pre-teen. Mostly by his sister, and sometimes his mom, and then his brother and father too, and maybe some kids at school. He's never cared to learn the skill, isn't even sure if one can learn that.

To him, it doesn't matter. He likes intention. Nico always wants people to know his intentions. He remembers the omega health class he took when he was 15, one of only six students in the elective and the only alpha at that, where he was taught about intention and honesty. Of course he already knew those things, but this was deeper.

Omegas and alphas live in a world of heightened emotions. Those emotions are different, but are similarly sensitive, and there's different ways to ease them. For omegas, their wolves are eased by honesty and transparentness. In a world where their wolf is quick to scare or panic, knowing intentions and truth can ease them.

It's something Nico's practiced ever since, even if Nina has told him too many times that he didn't need to. He was born with it, apparently.

She's probably right too, because Nico doesn't bother to be easy or careful about it when he corners Luke outside the weight room after practice.

“I need to ask you something,” Nico starts, and Luke pauses, towel still swiping at his damp neck. Under a mess of frizzy curls, he peers up at Nico.

“Me?” He asks, “are you sure?”

Nico steps closer, pressing into Luke’s personal space.

“Yes you,” he says, “it’s about y/n.”

“Oh,” Luke eases, shoulders dropping and he quickly finishes toweling the sweat off his neck, “what about her? Is she being weird?”

He winces, already picturing how you’d react to hearing that. You don’t like to be called different, even if Nico’s done his best to convince you otherwise.

“No, she’s-“ Nico pauses, unsure of what to say exactly. You are weird. You’re so wonderfully weird it makes his whole body grow hot and achey.

Luke’s eyebrow raise expectantly and Nico huffs out a sigh, gathering his thoughts and starting again. This time he decides to just go for direct.

“What’s her family like?”

The younger alpha is so clearly taken aback by the question, not just by the way his eyes widen but by the shift in his scent, strong and pungent after being under a scent blocker all morning.

“Oh,” Luke says, “I really only know her dad. Her mom wasn’t around very much for hockey tournaments.”

“What? Why?”

He shrugs, “Don’t know. She’d come to the big ones in Toronto and stuff but always sat in like a box or whatever. Y/n always said she just doesn’t like crowds.”

It’s not what Nico was expecting to hear, but he doesn’t fault your mother either. He knows what hockey in Canada is like and he can’t imagine how overwhelming it would be for a youth tournament.

Luke keeps going.

“The team always said she was stuck up like didn’t want to be around the hockey mom’s because she was this big figure skater and now she’s a hockey wife. I met her once though and she was chill,” he hums thoughtfully, “quiet like y/n, a little awkward.”

Nico can’t help but smile warmly, “Must be where she gets it from huh?”

“Oh just you wait and see,” Luke chuckles, almost evilly. He wants to ask for more, wants to keep digging because the more he knows about your parents, the more sense you’ll start to make. If Nico can put together the kind of pack you were raised in, he’ll know what kind of pack and kind of alpha you’re looking for

Luke is still rambling though, eager to offer information on your parents. He’s a young alpha, still finding his footing, and Nico’s found that whenever he asks Luke for advice or help with something, he’s always eager to jump in.

“Her dad is pretty normal which is funny since her and her mom aren’t. Well, he’s normal for a hockey dad, but fuck man, he used to rip her apart back in the tournaments when we were kids.”

Luke is shaking his head and his scent has brightened with amusement, and Nico for the life him can’t figure out how Luke thinks that of all things is funny.

“Jack always said he was tough on them. He would give a coach talk before and after games even though he wasn’t actually their coach. But his talks with her? Brutal. You’d think she was starting winger in game 7 or something. And like I would’ve cried for sure if my dad yelled at me like that, but she never did. It was wild, she’d just sit there and take it and then not mess up again.”

He’s still chuckling fondly, reminiscing on the old locker room memories but the more Nico imagines it, the more depressing that information is.

He’s heard about his fair share of hockey dads. He’s even encountered them. Your father’s behavior isn’t anything out of the ordinary for a hockey dad, but it doesn’t sit right with him. Picturing you in some stall that’s too big for a kid your age, pink tape on your small stick and a cage over your face as this man- this alpha- yells at you so terribly it would’ve made a young alpha like Luke cry?

Nico can’t stomach it.

He’s interrupting Luke before he can even think better of it.

“What? No one told him anything? Asked him to calm down?”

He knows he’s growling a bit, knows his scent has gone sour with anger, and he knows he’d have no rational way of explaining why to Luke, and yet he doesn’t try to stop it. He wouldn’t be able to if he tried.

“I-no, she- they were fine dude!” Luke rushes out, confused “Are you okay man?” He then leans in, just the slightest bit closer and lowers his voice when he asks, “are you going into a rut?”

As if he’d just been burned, Nico steps back, holding his palm out to Luke to keep distance between them.

“No! No I’m not going into a rut,” he insists, because he knows his schedule. It’s December and he’s not set to have one until early February. It doesn’t matter that he’s been irritable the past couple of days or that he’s, as you would say, eating a horse everyday, or that his muscles hurt a bit.

He’s sick, his wolf is sick with…something, and it’s making him act a little out of the ordinary. The insinuation that he’s going into a rut just because he feels a little sympathetic to you being yelled at is actually more insulting than if Luke had puffed his chest out at Nico and crowded into his space.

“Sorry!” Luke practically yelps, backing away from Nico. With the added space between them now, he can take a few deep breathes and smell the crisp cold air that’s always in the tunnels, smell the lingering sourness of sweat and god know’s what else. It’s familiar and calming.

“I’m just confused, I guess,” Nico finally murmurs, wind taken out of his sails “m’trying to figure her parents out before I meet them.”

“Why don’t you just ask her?” Luke carefully offers, “She’s mean enough that she’ll tell you to fuck off if she really doesn’t want you to know.”

Nico shakes his head, temper flaring again. You don’t like being called weird and he doesn’t think you like being called mean either. He saw the way you bit at Jack when he said it. Not physically bit of course, but you snapped back at him with a sharp tongue.

“Yeah, maybe,” Nico sighs, running his fingers through his hair. It’s still damp and sweaty, desperately in need of a shampooing. “I just don’t like the way it makes her smell when she gets like that.”

Which must have been the wrong thing to say because Luke snorts, like Nico just gave him the lamest attempt at a joke.

“Okay Nico,” he mocks, but when he meets Nico gaze, everything in him freezes. “Wait you’re serious?”

“Yes I’m serious.”

Luke licks his lips, shaking his head in disbelief as he looks Nico up and down. It’s like he’s looking for something physically wrong with him, and the scrutinizing gaze has his wolf rumbling in intimidation.

“Dude,” Luke huffs, “there’s got to be something up with your wolf because she doesn’t smell like anything.”

He rolls his eyes, “Most of the time maybe but-“

“No, all of the time,” Luke insists, “she has never smelled like anything except for like, clean air maybe.”

Nico frowns, his wolf already mentally listing off all those brief moments where he knows he could smell you. A perfect balance of sweet and sour, mixed with something warm and comforting, because you’re his mate. He knows what his mate smells like even if Luke says otherwise.

Luke is still a young alpha though, still learning. Maybe he hasn’t developed a nose like Nico’s, one that’s been learning and growing sharper since he presented at 14, two years ahead of most. Nico has always had a leg up in that aspect.

“Sure, to you,” he finally concedes, failing to not sound a little ticked off still “you’ll get it one day.”

Luke scoffs, offended. “Get what?”

“Your alpha nose,” he explains “She’s hard to smell sometimes, but it’s definitely there.”

For some reason, Luke takes offense to that, his scent souring, and he shoulders Nico out of the way, calling over his shoulder, “Go to the team doc Nico, I mean it. Your wolf is broken or something.”

He stalks off down the hall, taking his irritating scent with him, and Nico growls threateningly. His wolf isn’t broken. His wolf is fine, he’s just a little on edge. He’s all wound up because he wants you, and you seem dead set on making this impossible for him to navigate.

He hates it. He also loves it. Luke can fuck right off with his attitude.

<<<<>>>>

Every year around the holidays, the Devils do a charity visit to local hospitals. Nico has never really paid attention to which one he gets sent to or which players are put in his little group. He just goes wherever he’s asked to go.

This year is different, because he requested to be sent with you.

He’s still figuring out how to court you, how that would look in America. According to his wolfepedia, the top sign of courting is physical touch, which is a no-go for you and Nico because you look like you’ll just about jump out of your fur if anyone initiated physical contact with you off the ice.

He witness Jack tussle your hair once, just once, because you slapped his hand away so hard Jack claimed his wrist was sprained for about a week.

That could just be a Jack and you thing though.

Either way, his only safe bet has been to just spend time with you. Where you go, he goes, at all reasonable times, so whatever hospital you’ve been assigned to today, is also his hospital.

He didn’t think it’d be a big deal or anything special, but he woke up this morning to an email thread from the organization addressed to both you and Timo with very specific instructions and details on when to arrive, how to prepare before, and an extra bold reminder for the alphas to blocker up.

It’s common decency for any wolf to blocker up before entering a hospital, for their own safety and the safety of the patients, but the emphasis on the alphas made him worry a little. The unfamiliar address attached to the email didn’t help.

His request to spend the day with you had been honored though, so he got dressed, made a note to do laundry when he got home because his sock drawer is noticeably bare, went light on the aftershave and cologne, and put a blocker in the front pocket of his jeans to apply later. He always hates wearing them, hates the feeling of being trapped in his own skin so much, so he’ll wait until the last possible second to put it on.

You and Timo must feel the same way, because you’re not wearing one when you come out of your room, ready for the day, and neither is Timo when you both meet him in the parking garage to head out.

Timo has offered to drive, and Nico doesn’t have a good argument as to why he should drive, so he pulls open the door to the backseat for you. Smiling stiffly, you slide past him with a quiet “thank you, Nico.”

His stomach does a flip, muscles tightening in a familiar ache, and for a second he’s back in his bed on all fours, hand around his dick as his knot pops and fades to the memory of your voice.

Thank you, Nico.

Alpha, one day you’ll be calling him alpha instead of Nico. The thought gets him so hot, his hands are tingling when he pulls open the passenger door and climbs in. Timo is on him in an instant, eyebrows raised and he looks Nico up and down.

He should’ve put a blocker on before getting in the car.

“You feeling okay, Neeky?” Timo asks, backing out of his parking spot. He gives Nico another look. “You smell…off.”

Nico’s face flushes, this time more from embarrassment than arousal, but there’s nothing he can do now. Timo undoubtedly smelled both from him, and he can’t argue with pheromones. Wolves are honest and they’ll always reveal the truth. They’ll always reveal themselves.

With that in mind, Nico peeks over his shoulder, finds you buckled into the middle seat. You’re sitting oddly rigid, uncomfortable for some reason and he hates that. He wish he could smell what’s wrong, what’s making you feel like that.

Your wolf is yet to reveal herself to him though, but Nico’s certain she eventually will.

“Do I smell off?” He asks you, conversationally. Much to his amusement, you yank on your seatbelt to loosen it, leaning into the front and sniffing at the air with a furrow between your eyebrows.

After a minute, you sit back.

“You smell like cologne,” you finally say, to his utter disappointment. You can’t smell him-you don’t smell him and he doesn’t know why. He has no idea what’s wrong with your wolf that you can’t smell, and if you can’t smell him, you won’t know who he is. You’ll never recognize his scent as something that belongs to you.

“It’s nice,” you add quietly, when he doesn’t respond “light and flowery. My dad always wears a tobacco one and it’s just okay.”

Nico’s breath catches in his chest, fingers digging into the arm rest on the door. He tries not to react, licking at his lips and staring out the windshield, but either his body language has given it away or Timo has caught the slip up too, because he looks Nico up and down again.

“Tobacco huh?” Nico chokes out, “yeah those colognes are never good.”

It’s true, he doesn’t like the tobacco smelling one. He likes the pine fresh ones, the ones that smell like the trees and mountains back home. He’s always thought it compliments his natural scent really well. He’s always been told he smells like dewy plants and warm fondue, the scents familiar and common to his hometown.

What he doesn’t wear is tobacco because it’s too heavy. He also doesn’t wear anything that smells like flowers. Flowers are too perfumed and not a smell he thinks would be associated with an alpha. He wants to smell like the alpha he is, he wants his mate to know exactly who he is once they smell him.

But you’re his mate, and you don’t know who he is and you don’t know what he smells like, because for some reason to you, he smells of flowers. It’s not what Nico wanted to hear, but it’s not nothing either.

In fact, it’s something he detrimentally needed to hear if the way his wolf starts yipping in his mind is any indication. This was one of the first things Nico ever read when he was looking into omegas and mates as a teenager.

When most mates meet, they’ll know by scent. The thing about mates though, is that they’re not certain at first. A wolf can be attracted to a lot of different scents, can meet another wolf in the morning and think “hey that’s gotta be my mate” but then stumble upon another scent that same day and think “wait no, maybe that’s my mate”.

At the end of the day, smell is important, but it doesn’t cement anything. Wolves still have to work and build the bond, still have to feel out their chemistry and dynamics to get to the point of mating.

There’s always an exception to the scent rule though, something different and unique, and of course, something Nico’s always prayed to the Moon Goddess for, because if she’s going to be carefully crafting his omega for him, obviously that omega is going to be the exception.

A true mate. Built within mates, but more complicated. They’re something of the past, considered traditional and dated. True mates were always said to be between alphas and omegas only, that they were the true pairing created by the Moon Goddess. Legend said scent was what would give way to true mates. Unlike other wolves, they’d recognize each other by smell, would barely register the scent before the bond would snap into place. No explanation of what that felt like, how to know it’s happened. All the stories say he’ll just know.

There’s rumor too, that true mates have different smells to each other. That once that bond has started to form, they’ll be able to identify their mate by an added element, something no other wolf can smell.

Nico thinks about you, how you smell like chocolate and oranges and sea salt. He thinks about how no one else can smell it, how Luke laughed him off when he said it. Now this, you smelling flowers on him when no one else ever has.

He would know though, wouldn’t he? He’d feel that bond in his chest, the weighted difference of another wolf existing within him, right above his heart. Worriedly, Nico reaches up and rubs at the spot, like he’s trying to feel with fingers if he’s different.

Nico’s always hoped for a true mate, and you’ve got to be it, but it doesn’t make sense.

It doesn’t make sense that to everyone around you, you’re a beta with flying colors, but to him, you’re not. There’s no way he’s imagined it all, the way your gaze opens up and your cheeks shift so openly with expression when you’re with him. He knows he definitely didn’t imagine the way you smell, not with the way it lingers on the couch in the morning after you’ve slept out there or the way he can still smell it on his blanket.

That’s real. You’re real. Even if nothing makes sense. He could make it make sense. All he’d have to do is talk to you, tell you all these things he noticed and what they mean, ask you why nothing about you seems to add up correctly.

Now isn’t the time though, not with Timo here and not with your parents visiting looming over his head. Nico’s not sure when the right time ever will be, but hopefully this weekend will tell him.

He has a feeling meeting your family will tell him everything. He just needs to be patient and keep a lid on his wolf right now.

Timo shifts, clearing his throat the break the awkward tension, and then presses on the maps screen to enlarge their route.

“I’ve never been to this hospital before,” he comments, and Nico glances at the name of it. The Nancy Ramon Biomarker Treatment Center. It’s a subdivision building of the main hospital, located just a few blocks over from the memorial hospital Nico has visited before, but he had no idea about this specific branch.

“I’ve been to the bigger one,” he responds, “a few years ago, but I had no idea about this one. I don’t think we’ve ever visited it.”

The car is quiet for a beat. Then, spoken softly and like you maybe didn’t even want to say it, you add, “I’ve been. It’s a dynamic center.”

Nico frowns, asking “When did you go there?”

At the same time, Timo questions, “what does that mean?”

He doesn’t unbuckle like he wants to, but Nico turns in his seat until he can see you. Purposely, you stare out the window to your left, not avoiding the question, but the significance of it.

“I went to visit around dev camp after I signed. It’s a rehab center basically, for wolves with dynamic issues.”

Rehabilitating wolves with dynamic issues. Nico doesn’t know entirely what that means or encompasses, but he knows the gist. There’s a big rehab center like that in Zurich. It’s meant for latent wolves, wolves that no longer feel a connection or bond with their wolf. They’re pretty much just human by the time they get to Zurich, learning to deal with missing that part of them. Some contribute to studies and new medicines, clinical trials where doctors hope to restore the wolf.

He’s never heard of a success.

Probably thinking of the same center in Zurich, Timo asks, “like for latent wolves?”

Your eyebrows furrow in though, mouth quirking to the side as you think.

“I don’t know,” you shrug, “some centers probably, I guess. Most of the US ones like this deal with health issues specific to a dynamic.”

“Is that why our blockers are so important?” Nico prods, now knowing you’re familiar with this place. His wolf beats around in his chest, anxious and demanding to know why, to know what made you pick this place of all hospitals to visit.

You nod, wringing your fingers together as you finally look at him. There’s something different in your gaze, hesitant maybe. Nico is unsure of what to do with it. He tries to look reassuring.

“Yeah, especially you guys since you’re alphas. Your scent is stronger and some of the wolves can react badly to it. Most of them are omegas dealing with trauma issues, so your scent…”

Nico lets out a noise of realization. Thats why it was different, the email and visit procedures. Him and Timo are two open flames walking into a pile of kindling.

“You don’t have to wear one then?” Timo questions, glancing at you in the review mirror “Because you’re a beta?”

Nico catches the way your throat shifts when you swallow, catches the way your gaze steels into indifference, every emotion now closed. Still, you’re looking right at him when you say, “It’s safer to wear one either way so I will, but yes they won’t react to me as much because I’m a beta.”

It’s a jab in the gut, if he’s being honest. You staring him dead in the eye and saying you’re a beta, because he knows it’s not true. Maybe at one point it was, back when you first presented, but it’s not now and you both know it.

“That’s funny,” Timo says thoughtfully, “that they sent two alphas to this hospital instead of a bunch of betas, no?”

You drop Nico’s gaze, now focused on the map in the front of the car again. You don’t respond, and Nico thinks that funnier than the trio in the car.

“Yeah,” he agrees anyway “but it’s good that they’re finally letting us visit this one. I bet a lot of other wolves don’t know about it either.”

“Kid,” Timo addresses you “how’d you know about this place?”

Dynamic issues. Health concerns caused by dynamic trauma. Nico has a strong and terrible idea of why you might be familiar with this place. He thinks of you back in Denver, how terribly you smelled in the hotel lobby. Rotten and decaying almost, the kind of stench that comes with illness.

His heart hammers in his chest.

“There one in Denver,” you answer, vague “I would visit a lot with my parents.”

Nico thinks he might throw up all over Timo’s very nice BMW. He shouldn’t project this idea onto you, shouldn’t be theorizing about your dynamic or health, but he’s always been this way. He’s always thought a little too much about his future omega, and now he thinks a little too much about you.

He can’t wipe it from his head now that it’s there though. It would explain everything, your smell issues, the mystery surrounding your dynamics, why you haven’t felt the connection to him and vice versa.

It’s not Nico’s wolf that’s sick, it’s yours.

<<<<>>>>

Nico’s research takes him to some scary places. He should be more careful about the links he clicks on, probably. Who knows what kind of virus he’s going to get on his laptop from this, but no one in the comments of the original Reddit post were complaining about viruses or stolen identities, so maybe he’s fine.

At least bank and social security wise. He’s definitely not fine with the circumstances placed in front of him. He didn’t learn much about the conditions of the wolves at the hospital. There were multiple floor, each one being a different treatment for a different dynamic. He heard about a floor for alphas, heavily restricted because they had a lot of patients dealing with aggression issues brought on by dynamic illnesses. Another floor for betas boarding on latency, being treating and going through mental health clinics to restore their wolves. The top floor, another heavily restricted area but for omegas this time.

It’s their largest treatment area, the hospital rep had said, giving you a knowing look. You’d smiled politely and then stared blankly ahead as the tour continued. He has a feeling you didn’t need that tour at all. You seemed familiar with everything happening there, and Nico wondered how similar that rehab center is to the one in Denver.

The omega treatment center is what the hospital is known for, and the rep heavily stressed how important it is not just to New Jersey, but the entire East Coast. Their doctors are equipped to treat and research numerous different illnesses for omegas.

“They’re a little more vulnerable,” the rep had said with a sad smile, “not because of the dynamic, but because they’re the most understudied.”

Nico, still panicked over you, didn’t stop himself from asking, “Understudied? Like their dynamic is?” He couldn’t believe that. Switzerland had every resource on omegas readily available. He would know, he read it all. Anyone could get their paws on omega research and history in his country, it was just a matter of who would.

“Their health,” the rep explained, “most medical research is not only based on alphas but on males. And statistically, majority of omegas are female. For a lot of wolves here, their gender and dynamic is understudied. Finding treatments for conditions we don’t fully understand is difficult, and one goes untreated, it can create more issues.”

It made Nico ache all over, and suddenly he didn’t want to be there anymore. He wanted to go home and lay on the couch with you, watch some random movie he’s never seen before but you love, and pretend this place didn’t exist. He wanted to run and hide from the horrible truth. Just above him were hundred of omega, all sick and suffering for unfair reasons.

Even Timo looked wounded at idea, pouty and wide eyed. He probably mirrored Nico’s expression because the rep had looked at both of them and laughed comfortingly.

“We see improvements everyday and with more support, research will shift. It’s why we’re so grateful the Devils sent some of you out here today! We get to raise some awareness about the center and make some patients day!”

Nico found himself looking to you, studying you closely for any signs of an illness, any signs that you might be dying. He found nothing, just that same blank stare, and he slowed his steps to walk a little closer to you.

He didn’t get a chance to find out more about the omegas. The rep led them to a different area, one meant for pups between the ages of 8-14 that were being treated for delayed dynamic traits. A lot of them were showing signs of having no wolf at all, but couldn’t be treated for latency until they were presenting age.

It was a safe area for visitors, especially two alphas to hang out for the day. Even though he wanted to go see the omegas, to learn more, he knew that was the best option.

Nico sits on the couch now, laptop open and display dimmed as he scrolls through link after link of information on omega based illnesses. The tv is still on where Colorado is playing Minnesota at home, their last game in Denver before a big road trip. Your parents are flying soon, arriving early enough to catch the match against Florida at the Rock the night before your father will rejoin the team across the river to play the Rangers.

You’d put on the game, but fell asleep at some point in the second period, curled up on the recliner with his blanket over you. Since that first night, there’s been many where you fall asleep out here with it, and Nico passes out on the couch just to wake up with you gone and the blanket over him.

It’s never talked about, though he supposes there’s a lot you two don’t talk about. After today, Nico’s not sure he can keep these things to himself anymore. He’s got to find a way to ask you about what’s going on, because if you have any of these things he’s reading about and he could help fix it, he needs to do it right now.

The rep today was right, there’s a lot of omega based dynamic illnesses. They range from simple things like diseases that affect their smell or scent, easily treatable with medication, but still not great. There’s worse ones too though, terrible sicknesses that leave them as shells of themselves, with no known cures and just manageable. So many omegas that will live in pain and discomfort simply because the world hasn’t deemed them important enough to research.

There’s ten million studies on why an alphas knot may be off center, yet nothing on why omegas deal the most with scent issues, with reproductive issues, with bonding issues.

Absolutely nothing on why most latent wolves in the world were omega to begin with. The world is actively driving out omegas and not a word is being spoken about it.

Nico can’t imagine getting sick and turning to doctors and research just to find out no one knows. That no one cares enough about him to bother researching. That he’d be left alone with the impeding doom of latency and no way to stop it.

It’s a terrifying thought. It’s even more terrifying when he looks over at you and thinks of you going through that. Have you been getting up every morning, ignoring the wolf inside of you that’s slowly fading away in favor of lacing up your skates? Does the organization know? Does anyone?

His wolf rumbles sadly, pleading with Nico to get up and go to you, to make this all better. He’s an alpha, it’s what he’s supposed to do. He’s supposed to support and lift you up when you need him, but because of this weird standstill you’re both at, he can’t.

On the tv, Colorado scores to double their lead of the Wild and you stir in your sleep, humming out the softest little sigh he’s ever heard. Nico closes everything on his laptop, unable to look at it any longer, and stretches out on the couch.

He can’t do this much longer, not in this way. He’s still up for the chase and he’ll do whatever it takes for you to let him have you, but he can’t keep it up like this. Toeing the line like this is dangerous, and he doesn’t want to keep playing this game with you unless he knows it’s safe.

Tonight, Nico will sleep on the couch and you’ll sleep on the chair, and he’ll wake up tucked in by you just like he has been almost every night lately. Come tomorrow though, he’ll make it known exactly what’s happening here.

<<<<>>>>

“Dude,” Luke whines as soon as he’s sees Nico has taken the aisle seat next to you, dropping his bag to plane floor in defeat “I told Jack we didn’t have time to stop for snacks!”

Grumbling, Luke shoves his way into the row of seats in front of you, glaring at Nico over the top of them. He’s too tall to be doing it comfortably, neck cricked down awkwardly due to the bottom of the overhead compartments. Smugly, Nico grins and takes a swig of his Gatorade.

“Hi Lukey,” you chirp, and he softens enough to greet you before turning his glare back to Nico.

“Little tip,” Nico says, dipping into his carry on for the plastic bag of store bought items he stuffed in there “always go the night before a roadie.”

Tauntingly, Nico wiggles the bag of treats in Luke’s face before setting them in his lap. The flight crew is shutting the doors, preparing them all for takeoff so Nico stuffs his carryon back under the seat. Luke, oblivious to the procedures happening around him, leans further over the seat backs.

“What did you bring?” He asks, licking his lips and Nico lays a large palm over the bag, protectively bearing his teeth.

“Not for you.”

Luke shifts back, a little wounded, but his gaze quickly narrows into a taunting look.

“Did you ever go to the doctor like I told you?”

Shit, Nico mentally curses, wincing when you immediately turn to look at him. Your gaze hardens, scrutinizing as your eyes sweep over every inch of his body they can see.

“What’s wrong with you? Are you injured?” You demand, and you’d be a lot more intimidating maybe if you hadn’t already traded out your sneakers for your favorite pair of clunky red crocs and your leather jacket for a fluffy pink poncho.

“No, I’m-“

Impatient, you interrupt him. “You couldn’t have gotten sick at the hospital because that stuff is not contagious, I think.”

Nico shakes his head, “I’m fine! I got mad at Luke for something and now he thinks something is wrong with me.”

Still hanging over the seats, Luke scoffs with indignation. Before he can say anything, a sharp whistle cuts through the plane, and someone from the front yells, “sit down Luke!”

With a huff, Luke collapses into his seat and you giggle almost evilly before pressing your knee into his back. A hand squeezes between the seats, half-heartedly swatting at you.

“Cut it out!”

You’re still snickering when you settle down in your seat, feet propped up and knees curled into your chest. The plane has started rolling now, heading down the tarmac, and you look at Nico expectantly.

With your eyes so bright like that, it’s hard for Nico to believe you’re sick. You look happy, full of life. Then again, he doesn’t know just how sick you are. Maybe it’s something small, like a cold you can’t get rid of.

“What’d ya bring?” You ask, innocently batting your eyes at him. Butterflies bat their wings in his stomach, fluttering at the soft expression on your face.

Nico pulls open the bag, digging through everything to show you all the snacks he got. You’re favorite cucumber Gatorade and a shaker of lime salt on the side, a bag of sour lime chips, pink bubble gum, salty pretzels, and a bag of pink Nerds in the little ball form you like.

“You only got what I like,” you frown, leaning into his space to peer into the bag, “what about your snacks?”

Confused to find that he really did only get your snacks, you slump back in your seat with a pinch between your eyebrows. Nico shrugs, looking down at your crocs because he thinks he might do something totally inappropriate like stick his face in your neck.

“Don’t need snacks,” he admits, a little shy “they’re just to keep you from getting hungry and grumpy.”

Nico never really eats on planes, at least not for these shorts flights. Even if he’s starving, stomach rumbling even, he gets so tired once he’s in the air that he usually just passes out. Waking him is a tough feat too. More than that though, he knows the easiest way to keep an omega happy is to feed them. He’s noticed how much you like to snack, how you’re always chewing or nibbling on something, even if it’s just ice cubes or the soft skin on the inside of your thumb.

It’s important that he keep his omega well fed.

“Oh,” you breathe, and then very softly touch the side of your head to his shoulder. It’s just a moment, almost like you thought about laying your head there and then decided against it, but Nico knows what it really is.

It’s an omega touch. Instinctive and reserved for mates or pups or sometimes pack mates. Omegas usually touch their forehead to their alphas, a sign of submission and respect. In the right context, a sign of love.

Before Nico can do more than blink, frozen and starstruck, you’re back in your space, digging around in your bag for your iPad probably.

“Thank you, Nico,” you say, putting the table tray down and placing your iPad there. Silently, he hands over the bag of snacks when you look at him.

“Course,” he croaks, unsure of what to do with his hands now. He should’ve brought a blanket to hide under, to snuggle into and pretend it’s you. The one on the couch is starting to smell like you, faint but there.

Nico could use that to show Luke too, to prove that he’s right and that you’re his mate. He doesn’t want to share that though, if he’s being honest. Right now, it’s the only physical reminder he has of your bond. That and the moments like this, just the two of you, where your wolf -whatever she may be- comes out in full force for him to see.

No, he doesn’t want to share that. He wants to savor it.

Nico sleeps the whole trip up to Montreal, AirPod in one ear to drown out the sounds of the plane, and the other listening to you chatter with Luke and reluctantly share your snacks through the slot between the side of the plane and the seat.

He’s well rested by the time the team gets to the hotel, walking slowly behind you as you lazily drag your luggage up to the 17th floor. Luke looks just as close to toppling over as you do, and even though Jack’s eyes are purple and swollen, he stops at the door to his room, gaze begging.

“Gonna hit the bars tonight, Schao?”

Nico hates to let anyone on the team down, and he doesn’t want to be seen as a buzzkill or like he’s not interested in bonding with the boys, but he doesn’t want to go out. Mostly because he knows you don’t want to and you’ll force yourself to go if he does, but you seem to like when he gives you an out.

“Maybe,” Nico shrugs, “we’ll see how I feel after dinner, yeah?”

He’s already walking away, following you and Luke again. As usual, Luke is in the room next to his brother, and the slow trailing steps you take gives Jack a chance to groan.

“Come on Nico,” he calls, taunting “you used to be fun ya know? Back when you shared a room with me? Before the kid turned you into a babysitter?”

Jack has always been a little shit, his mouth always just a little too big for his britches, so Nico shouldn’t be unsure or surprised by it this time. He is though, mostly because it makes him want to snap his teeth at Jack and tell him to watch it.

That feels like too much though, too obvious at least, so he laughs, shrugging noncommittal. In front of him, you’re flipping Jack off over your shoulder and that urge to defend you lessens. You can hold yourself against these guys. You always have.

Nico’s room comes up first and then yours close by, separated only by two hotel doors. It’s typical for rookies to have a roommate on the road, as Jack so grouchily mentioned. Nico was his rookie roommate, slept five feet away from him on the road every season.

When it came to you though, no one seemed to love the idea of sharing a room with you. Luke offered, of course he did, but when Nico talked to management about it, they felt that you needed someone older and more responsible to keep an eye on you.

Nico knew what that meant too. The league was going to be harder on you. They wanted to make sure you had the support of a veteran. No one wanted to make you uncomfortable either though, and Nico didn’t like the idea of you being put on a separate floor from the team to room with Amanda or one of the media girls or something.

Isolating you wouldn’t fix anything.

The consensus was that you’d be his roomie in a connecting room, close enough for him to be there if you need him but also to give you your own space.

At the time, Nico was just being a good captain.

Now, watching you disappear into the room next to his with a cheeky little “goodbye forever, Nico” he thinks he’d die if he weren’t in the room beside yours. Faintly, he wonders if his wolf knew something he didn’t and that’s why he fought so hard to be with you. Whatever it was, he’s grateful.

He gets his luggage laid out and suit for the game tomorrow hung up, and then he looks around his pristine room and sighs. Anyone who didn’t sleep on the plane is probably napping before dinner later, and even though he’s certain you are too, he still swallows his nerves and pulls open the connecting door to his room.

Trembling slightly, he wraps his knuckles on your door and listens. It’s silent for a beat, but then he can hear your footsteps on the carpet and the click of the lock, and he leans back just in time for you to open the door.

“Couldn’t stand the ten minutes of silence could ya?” You ask, using your foot to slide the trash can over, propping the door open on it.

Nico chuckles, rolls his eyes.

“I just wanted to make sure you’d be alright if I go out?”

You frown. “Go out with Jack?”

“No, just me. Now. M’not tired so I was gonna go for a walk, stretch my legs and stuff.”

Through narrowed eyes, you look him up and down. Nico hopes he looks good, that he looks big and strong and not like he just got off a plane.

“I’ll be fine,” you finally say, and then quietly add, “we could go out tonight too, if you want.”

It’s spoken with a reluctant scrunch to your nose, and it confirms what he already guessed. You don’t want to go out, but if he does you will. It’s been that way since Florida, when things started to shift. You do what he does, and he does whatever he thinks you’d actually want to do.

“Eh, we’ll see,” he replies, casual “either way we’ll do something fun, yeah?”

Your lips curl up into a smile, tampered down by the way you purse them but it does nothing to dull the happy look in your eyes. He doesn’t know if you like that he softly shut down the bar or if it’s the offer of hanging out with him. He hopes it’s the latter.

“Enjoy your walk,” you tell him, “don’t die or anything.”

“Okay,” he laughs and then steps back, waits to see if you close your door. You don’t though, leaving the trash to hold it open and disappearing into the connected bathroom. Giddy, Nico props his door open just the same, shrugging on his coat and grabbing his wallet.

You’re still in the bathroom, but he supposed there’s not much else to say again, so he heads out into the bitter cold of Montreal. Tucked into his beanie and puffy coat, Nico wonders the streets, enjoying the cold on his cheeks and the fog of his breath.

He’ll always be a summer guy, drawn to green mountain scrapes and flower-filled valleys, and he’ll always prefer the beach to anything else, but he also grew up playing hockey in the Alps and the cold will always make him think of home.

Unashamed, his thoughts turn to you. You’re from a mountain area. Not directly in the mountains like he is, but fairly close to them. He wonders if you like the cold or if you prefer the summer like he does. When you’re old and hockey is a thing of the past, would you retreat back to the mountains or would you want to go somewhere new, like he does?

Though you’re his mate, right? You probably want the same thing. Nico used to have this picture in his head of what his life would be like after hockey. A house by the beach, quiet and simple, big enough for him and his omega, and if his luck hasn’t run out by then, a pup or two, or maybe three.

He’d want it to be like his house growing up though, close quarters and dinner around a crowded table, hours upon hours outside, playing under the sun and running under the moon. Enough for everyone to be comfortable and feel the love, but not too much.

Humble, Nico would want a humble little life away from hockey.

Montreal moves around him, groups of friends heading out for Thursday night fun, couple hand in hand, dogs pitter-pattering on the salted sidewalks, jumping when traffic honks or engines sputter.

This is fun for now, the loud and fast life, hockey and traveling and exploring all these cities. It’s not his forever though, he’s certain of that. Picturing you, standing in the open doorway of your hotel room, careful to not cross into his but almost there, Nico thinks you’d feel the same way. You don’t like bars or loud and rowdy rooms, you like quiet and simple.

Nico steps out of the way for a particularly large group, a class trip of some kind judging by the number of backpacks and lanyards, almost pressing into the glass of a shop. Glinting in the window is something gold and shiny, dangling from the branches of a display tree.

The group moves away but Nico stays, reading over the letters painted on the glass in thick white and red colors.

La saison des Habs commence ici!

Habs season starts here, all centered around the big light up tree in the window. Hanging daintily from the branches are more gold necklaces, some with numbers, others with the Candiens logo. On the top branches are even player names, bedazzled or just in pretty cursive lettering.

The wags probably shop here, Nico realizes. He’s only a few miles from the arena, and the place looks like it’s designed to drawn in the mates of Habs players. How nice it must be, for them to simply walk down the street and find their mates name through the window, brandish is around their necks like it’s nothing.

Easy as can be.

Nico’s staring at the number 13 hanging from a branch and tries to imagine it around your neck. It’d look nice there, nestled between your collarbones, but something about that seems as serious as if you were walking around with his teeth mark on your neck.

Although, if the chain were long enough and the number small, it’d be easy to hide. It could tuck into sweaters and shirts easily, be hidden for just you to see. If Nico were any bolder, if he were one of those obnoxious North American alphas that he sees around the league so often, maybe he’d do it. Take it back to you and ask you to wear it, to claim him in with no other thought.

He’s hardly courted you though. A few measly tasks he’s accomplished for you and some snacks aren’t enough. He needs a grand gesture, something that will let you know his intention, but not grand enough that he sends you running back to the mountains of Colorado.

Still stewing it over in his head, Nico enters the shop, offering a polite smile when someone calls out a hello from the back. There’s a little necklace bar setup in the front, rows of different chains hanging and containers of neatly organized charms.

Nico is still staring at them when a woman approaches him.

“Can I help you pick anything out?”

He startles, peering over his shoulder at her. The woman can’t be any older than him, but that maybe the pristine white dye in her hair, trimmed to perfection at her chin. It’s sleek and mature looking, elegant even, with the way it seems to frame around the bite mark on her neck.

“Oh I’m just kind of looking,” Nico shrugs, pulling his hand out of his coat pocket to pick at a chain hanging. He holds it out to the woman, the warm light of the store catching on the rose colored tint.

“Is this pink?” He asks, “and a little longer than the ones on the tree?”

An amused smile pulls at her red lips. “It’s rose gold, which yes is pink. That chain is about as long as the ones on the tree, but we’ve got some longer ones hanging on the right there.”

Stepping around Nico, she shows him the selection of longer chains, from silver to gold to rose gold. He’s drawn to that one, can see the pink tape on the knob of your hockey stick and the giant pink tumbler you drink water out of.

“This is nice,” he decides, holding it carefully in his hand. The woman, looking far more entertained than she probably should be, nods towards the charms.

“Are thinking of adding anything?” She questions, “we’ve got numbers and hockey charms up here, but there’s also gems and others cute things at the bracelet bar in the back.”

He eyes the gold 13 charm, wishing it’d be easy for him to just choose that one. If you were any other wolf, it might be, but you’re not.

You’re his omega. You’re the special, moon made wolf meant just for him. He never wanted or needed easy, he needed unique and passionate and his. Wearing his number, that’d be typical and expected, both of which you are not.

Warmly, Nico thinks about how great it is that he gets to see you everyday. Sure all the other wolves live with their mates, and they get to actually share a bed and snuggle rather than crashes on separate couches in the living room, but he gets something they don’t.

He gets to travel all over North America with you, gets a front row seat to watching you play hockey on the team he’s in charge of, gets to do almost everything with you, and even then, you’re so effortlessly you. You’re confident and independent in a way he never could be, a way that’s unique to omegas.

“I think I’ll just do this,” he decides, picking out a dainty #33 charm. One day you’ll wear the greatest claiming mark a wolf could have, just like he will, and that mark will be forever, permanently embedded in your scent gland. Today, he’ll give you your number, a reminder of the strong and capable wolf you already are, that way his bite mark can never take away from that.

“Perfect,” the lady comments, “let me get that put together for you and all taken care of.”

He follows her to the counter, hands back in his pockets and watches as she carefully attaches the charm to a little metal hoop and then to the necklaces. Just as delicate as he held them, she then tucks the necklace into a little box with a black velvet cushion in it, and then wraps it in tissue paper and puts it in a small paper bag.

Nico’s knees feel like they’re shaking with tremors when he pulls out his phone to pay, and it worsens when she hands the bag over with a knowing grin and says, “you’re mate is going to love it.”

It’s the first time Nico’s ever heard those words and known exactly who they apply to. He hears them and can attach the clear picture of your face to it, not imagine some faceless figure in the distant future.

He wants to howl and yip, wants to shift so he can sprint through the streets of Montreal and holler for every wolf to hear that he’s got his mate. He wants to call his brother too and tell him, but none of these things are an option right now, so instead he blushes and mumbles back a “yeah, thanks.”

Outside, the air is colder on his flush face than it was before, and he pauses to take a few calming breathes. It gets his knees to stop shaking, but does nothing to quell the alpha wolf inside of him that’s beating around happily.

“I know bud,” Nico mumbles to himself, fishing out the tissue paper wrapped box “relax, we’ve got her.”

His wolf eases, not enough to rid of him of the bubbles of excitement in his gut, but he can walk normally now, folding up the paper bag and shoving it in a recycling bin. Then he tucks the box into his coat pocket for safe keeping until he can gift it to you.

His first ever courting gift for his omega.

<<<<>>>>

Hours later, Nico’s sprawled out on his bed watch some ridiculous show on the hotel guide, hand splayed out over his full stomach and trying to keep his mind on anything but the necklace hidden in his shaving bag.

Through the open doorway he can hear your tv faintly playing music and the distant bustle of the city outside the windows. He’d come back earlier to you sleeping in a ball under rumpled blankets, window cracked, and air freezing. That same window is still open, and he stares at the wall separating you two, wondering what you’re doing.

Are you watching a musical? You like those movies. Are you lying in your bed just like he is, full after the catered dinner in one of the conference rooms downstairs? You’d served a really big bowl of some kind of soup and loaded up on bread too.

The sound of your door opening and heavily closing cuts through his thoughts, and Nico pouts.

He’s thinking about getting up, walking to his closet or the bathroom just to get a peek into your room when his phone buzzes on top of the blankets. Hastily, Nico grabs it, frowning just the slightest bit when it’s a message from Jack and not you.

Bar time Schao?! 🍻🍾🎊

Gnawing on his bottom lip, Nico is running through different excuses he could use to get out of it and coming up with nothing when a tiny knock comes from the open doorway.

You’re standing there, hands behind your back and drowning in that big pink Snuggie you wore on the plane, nibbling on the side of your thumb.

“What’s up?” He asks, thinking you’ve got the text from Jack too and are trying to figure out what Nico’s plan is. Instead you reveal your hands to him, holding up too big plastic bags filled with who knows what.

“Want to do something fun?” You ask, smile tight and nervous. Which is how Nico finds himself in your hotel bathroom, pink Snuggie abandoned in favor of a large black t-shirt and a counter full of things he’s never touched before.

A blue mixing bowl, powdered bleach and developer, different containers of crimson red dye, a box of pink latex gloves, and a scattering of hair tools.

Nico stretches the gloves over his hands, flexing his fingers at the too-tight fit. Meticulously, you dump the bleach and developer into the mixing bowl, stirring it around with a thin black brush.

“Ugh,” he groans, nose twitching “that smell hurts.”

You pause your mixing and lean in close to the bowl of bleach, sniffing tentatively, and his heart does a pitiful leap at the sight of your scrunched up nose.

“Hm,” you hum, posture straightening. You go back to mixing, mouth pursed to the side and eyebrows furrowed. Nico stares at you through the mirror, waiting for your wolf to have a reaction similar to his but nothing happens.

“It doesn’t make you want to sneeze?” He asks, keeping his tone light and even. You’ve always kept quiet when the locker room talks about scents and smells, and Nico just assumed it was you being shy. Now he wonders if it’s something else, something related to the sickness you may have.

Briefly, you meet his gaze in the mirror but quickly drop it.

“No,” you mumble, “my nose doesn’t work very well.”

Nico can feel his wolf shrink back at that, but he has enough self control to not react, even though it makes him want to press his body close to yours and touch his nose to your cheek.

“Really? Must be nice in the locker room.”

You snort at his lame joke, eyes locked on where you’re still stirring up the bleach even though it looks well mixed.

“What’s something you can smell?” He asks, thinking back to you smelling him in the car with Timo. “Or something that smells good to you?”

“I don’t know,” you shrug, placing the bowl down on the counter “I just don’t like the smell of tobacco, but I like the smell of flowers.”

Right, your father’s cologne. You mentioned not liking the smell of it, too abrasive maybe. He already expected that you can’t smell properly, Ty now he knows for sure that whatever dynamic issues you’re having with your wolf has messed up your senses.

Like the omegas at the treatment center.

“Flowers,” he repeats, watching you work on parting and clipping up your hair, tongue poking into your cheek “any specific kind?”

“Yeah,” you say, dropping your arms and admiring the pieces of hair you’ve pulled out “watch your nose, Hisch. This bleach has to sit for like five hours.”

The terrified look he gives you is for naught, because it turns out the bleach only has to sit for about 30 minutes in the foil in your hair. You spend the waiting period showing him all the different red dyes you’d bought and had delivered to the hotel lobby, handing him each one after reading the name out loud and holding the color up to the light.

Cradling a bunch in his arms, he looks at the two thick pieces of foil hanging over your shoulders and tries to picture the color there.

“What made you pick red?” He asks, though he has a good idea already “don’t you like pink?”

Nico motions to the pink toothbrush on the far end of the counter as well as the pink bow patterned toiletry bag and the pink hair brush by the sink.

“Yeah, but red matches our jerseys.”

Smugly, Nico grins to himself. That’s exactly what he thought you were going to say, though the added of sentiment of our really stirs something pleasant inside of him. He likes having something to share with you.

“Okay,” he nods, sorting through all the colors until he comes up with one of the first boxes of dye you handed over “Valhalla flames, it’s Jersey red, no?”

You giggle, all cute and full of life, and take the color from him. Your fingers brush his, warm and tacky from being in the latex gloves. Shivers roll up his arm, all the way to his spine where it starts to tickle in his scent gland, and then all throughout his body.

“I got this one because of Thor.”

“The Viking god?”

You frown, “no the Avenger.”

Nico doesn’t know what that means, but he nods anyway and then dumps the remaining colors back into the Sally’s Beauty Supply bag they’d been delivered in. He hopes you’re returning all of these sometime tomorrow.

You task Nico with squirting out all the Valhalla dye into the now cleaned mixing bowl while you hunch over the sink to rinse out the bleach.

The music from your tv is still playing, a lot of upbeat, poppy stuff filling the silence and if he listens hard enough he can still hear Montreal living down below. He wonders what bar Jack and the others are at but he doesn’t care enough to really think about it.

“This is fun,” Nico murmurs, after you’ve blowed dried the strands of bleached blonde and are working in tandem to get the red on it. His pink gloves are sweaty and digging into his wrists, but he’s never dyed someone’s hair before. It’s an interesting texture, feels cool and slimy on his fingers as he massages it into your hair.

“Yeah,” you agree, carefully scooping up a glob of red and rubbing it into the bunch of hair on the other side of your head “thank you for not going to the bar tonight.”

Tongue poking out of his mouth in concentration, Nico hums in acknowledgement. Once he’s sure that particular spot is evenly saturated, he finally hears what you’ve said to him.

Polite, he thinks happily. You’re so polite to him.

“Course, honestly I’m glad to have a reason not to go out anymore,” he assures, “Jack’s always been a little more wild than me, and you know I had to watch out for him but…”

“But what?” You prod, turning to look at him with these big, curious eyes. Your face is so close to him, close enough that he can smell the nerds candies you must’ve eaten before this. He could lean forward, touch his forehead to yours like you did his shoulder on the plane.

The thought makes his shoulder throb, skin hot with the memory of it. He doesn’t care if it’s an omega thing to do, he’d do it if meant you’d understand.

“But I’ve got more…important things to do than make sure his drunk tail gets home,” he answers with earnest, spurred by the proximity.

He hears the way your breath pauses, honey eyes zeroing in on his mouth, and Nico is suddenly very glad he chose not the shave the past couple of days. His beard always makes him look rugged and tough, more like an alpha. It also hides the little pimple he had by his lip line.

Startlingly quick, you blink and resume shattering dye into your hair. Focused intently on your reflection in the mirror, you reply “Yeah, that’s what Luke is for now anyway.”

Nico doesn’t know what else to do but follow your lead, so he finishes up the last bit of your hair, holding it from touching the side of your neck as you wrap up your side. Then he carefully peels off his red stained gloves as you pin up his finished work, smiling with success at the fairly neat job.

“Good stuff,” Nico compliments, “I was expecting more red to be everywhere.”

He holds his hand up to you, biting as his bottom lip when you turn and give him a high five, palm just as clammy as his.

“Good stuff,” you agree, and then turn back to the mirror, and gently high five yourself through the glass with a quiet “good stuff, kid.”

It’s maddeningly cute. Nico knows omegas have a thing for being good and polite, that their wolves love compliments to an extent no other wolf does. He’s never seen an omega praise themself like that though, and it makes him want to sink his teeth into your skin.

You turn to him expectantly, motioning to the mirror, and Nico’s cheeks go hot with shy embarrassment as he high fives himself too.

“Er good stuff, Nico” he repeats, and you give him a nod of approval. He lets out a breath of relief, taking a second to look around the bathroom. It’s surprisingly neat and clean for an at-home salon project.

“What now?” He asks you, hands on his hip. Before you can answer your phone buzzes on the countertop, lighting up with a message, and you snatch it up to open it.

“It’s Luke,” you tell him, smirking “he asked what we’re doing that’s so much better than the bar.”

“What did you say?” Nico asks, but instead of typing anything back you step closer to him, holding your phone up. The screen is displaying your camera, the mirror reflections of you and Nico staring back.

“Smile,” you tell him, sticking your tongue out. Nico throws up his hand in a hang loose motion, tongue poking out of his mouth just the same, and you snap the photo.

“That wasn’t a smile,” you tease, already hitting send.

“It almost was,” he defends, “let me see.”

You show him the picture you just sent Luke, and he enlarges the little attachment to get a better look. He’s not smiling, not with his mouth at least but he can see it in his eyes. He looks happy, really happy. The kind of happy that his mother always says she only sees during good games or when he’s home for the summer.

Blushing, he can’t help but notice how good you look next to him. Matching black shirts, tongues out, foiled hair piled up on your head. It looks like you’re the perfect size to slot in right next to him.

“You didn’t smile either!” Nico accuses, pointing at your expression. You snatch your phone away, shoving it in the pockets of your sweatpants.

“You didn’t tell me to,” you reply, tilting your head at him like he should know better, like you’d do anything he’d ask you to.

Do you know the implications of what you’ve just said? He has a hard time telling sometimes. The things he wants you to say, the explanations and the feelings of what’s happening never come out, but then you say things like that, and it’s spoken so easily.

“No, I didn’t.” He replies, and follows you out of the bathroom. Your room is a direct mirror of his, tv mounted on the shared wall where YouTube is still playing pop music. Large windows overlook the city, the one closest to the bed cracked open. Your suitcase rests under the window, unzipped with clothes hanging out everywhere and your crocs resting on top. There’s nothing on the desk, making it drastically clean compared to the rumbled nature of the rest of the room.

The pink Snuggie you’d abandoned earlier is thrown on the unmade bed, and Nico almost laughs when he realizes your iPad is in the bed too, poking out from under the blankets like it’s been tucked in. Framing it our the hotel pillows and hoodies, forming a fluffy U-shape on the bed.

It’s messier than he’d prefer, but damn does your hotel room looked comfortable. Lived in and warm.

While he’s observing, you move over to close the window. Nico stands at the foot of the bed, contemplating sitting down on the edge of it, but then you’re pulling out the desk chair and snatching your Snuggie off the bed to throw it over the chair.

He takes the hint and sits down there instead, and then he watches you plop down in the center of your bed. Legs crossed and hands folded in your lap, you just look at him, and he just looks at you.

Your phone buzzes and you fish it out of your pocket.

“What did Luke say?” He asks, twisting the desk chair back and forth. Hotel furniture is never great, especially the desk chairs, but the pink thing you’ve added is soft and thick, comfortable when he slumps back into the chair.

Faintly, it smells like dark chocolate, and Nico’s wolf stirs in his chest. He bets your bed smells even stronger, that right in the spot your sat in he could really smell it, if you’d let him. Nico would bet good money that he’d never leave that spot again, so it’s probably for the best that he didn’t sit there.

“He said my dad is going to hate it.”

It shouldn’t rub Nico the wrong way, but it does. He does appreciate the fact that Luke knows so much about your father, or Jack either. He really doesn’t appreciate that Luke never spoke up about your father being tough on you in the locker room, even if it’s not fair for him to think that.

He knows the locker room culture. He even saw your father treat you rudely first hand and didn’t do anything. If it happened now, Nico would step in. He was caught off guard in Colorado, startled not only by your father’s actions but by the door that burst open, screaming at him that you’re an omega. Not just an omega, but possibly his.

Nico never got the opportunity to ask you about your father, but this seems like a good opening. What else are you going to do for the next twenty minutes of hair dying?

“Will he?” He asks, innocently. You lock your phone, tossing it to the mattress with a little shrug.

“Yes, but I will put it back before I go home for the summer.”

Nico doesn’t know what made you change your hair tonight, why you chose to do it before your father visits, especially if you knew he’d hate it enough for you to change it back. You seemed excited to do it though, and it upsets him to think that you’d let your father keep you from having the hair color you want.

“Even if you really like it?”

You make that face again, the one that makes him feel a little stupid or like he’s out of the loop. To be fair, he is out of the loop with your family.

“Um yes,” you reply “I have to follow all the rules when I live at home, so when he tells me this weekend to get rid of the red, I’ll get rid of it.”

“You have a lot of rules at home?”

Peering out the window, you purse your lips in thought. He wonders if you’re going over a mental list of all the rules or if you’re trying to conjure up just one. From what he’s seen, he’d guess it’s the former.

“Kind of,” you finally decide, “more just that everything is the same at home. Like the routine is the same. My parents don’t like to look different.”

He thinks of how adversed you are to being called weird or different, how offended and defensive you get when anyone implies that you’re unique at all.

Nico hums, empathetic, “that must be a lot of pressure.”

“Eh, I’m a Cup Pup.”

You have an odd way of talking sometimes, similar to the way you make that face of confusion when he asks a question that you think he should already know the answer to. He knows you’d hate to hear him say that, but it is odd.

You’re just too smart for him sometimes, and it comes across often. He doesn’t even think you mean to do it.

“A what?” He asks, scratching at the spot between his eyebrows that always wrinkles when he’s confused.

“A Stanley Cup pup,” you explain, a little quiet about it “that’s what the locker room always told me. It means I was only born because my dad won a cup.”

He gets why you’re quiet about it now. You’re embarrassed. Not only were you the kid showing up with your big, NHL alpha of dad in the locker room, but you were most likely the only girl in the room too. On top of that, you had everyone calling you a Cup Pup.

It made you stand out. It made you different.

“Oh,” Nico murmurs, and you start plucking at something on the hotel blanket, intent on focusing something else. He tries to think of something comforting to say.

“A lot of hockey players have fathers that won the Cup too.” He gently reminds, hoping it’ll make you feel less singled out.

Turns out he doesn’t fully understand the extent of a Cup Pup. They don’t have those in Switzerland. NHL players from there are far and few.

Still picking at the bedding, you say “Cup Pups are different though. Everyone knows we were born because of the Cup and we’re supposed to get one too. It’s like our legacy or whatever.”

Now that’s a lot of pressure, Nico winces. He can’t imagine growing up like that. Being an athlete is enough pressure in itself, and as he’s climbed the ranks throughout his life, he knows it’s gotten worse. He wears it well though, is capable of wearing the C and weathering it all.

But at least when he was a pup hockey was just hockey. There was no pressure to do anything great. He was just expected to be a good teammate and have fun.

You take his silence and decide to fill it.

“It’s part of the reason why routine is so important. I’m in the league now and I have a chance at a Cup, so the routine has been working right? Changing that now is fixing something that’s not broken.”

It’s kind of sad, even if it’s admirable. You’re dedicated to winning. He’s become well aware watching you play this season that winning is important to you, but working so hard to win that it comes at the cost of the fun in-between moments like this is sad.

Nico wants to win a Cup too, but more importantly he wants to play hockey. He wants to enjoy playing hockey.

“Maybe it’s making it better, not fixing it,” he offers, “you can’t fix something that’s not broken, right?”

You don’t say anything, but he can tell it makes you pause and think. It’s time for you to rinse out your hair after that, so Nico bids you goodnight and heads back to his room.

“I’ll see you and your fancy new hair at breakfast,” he grins in the doorway of his room, and you laugh.

“If you like it, we can dye yours tomorrow. Make it better, huh?”

That makes Nico bark out a disbelieving laugh. Of course you’d use his words against him in a completely different context. It’s hilarious, even if he’d never do it. He gives you a look saying so too, because you laugh again, toeing the trashcan out of the way and letting the door slowly shut.

“Goodnight, Nico.” You call, and he helplessly watches the door get closer and closer to shutting. Except you stop it at the last moment, propping it open just a sliver.

It’s a tiny opening, but still an opening. He props his door open the same, goes through his bedtime routine with the distant sounds of your shower water easing his mind, and when he climbs into bed with the lights out, the light of your room cuts a sliver of soft yellow into his.

The next morning he wakes up to a text containing the photo of you and him in the bathroom. Nico doesn’t hesitate to save and favorite it.

<<<<>>>>

“I can’t believe you spent a thirsty Thursday night in the hotel playing hair dresser,” Jack snarks to Nico, taping his socks. He’s half dressed for the game, more so than Nico is, who’s still sitting in his stall in his leggings and shorts, Devils hoodie on his shoulders.

Usually Jack gripes at him for waiting last minute to get his gear on, but after the big reveal of your Devils red hair and Luke passing around the photo of Nico helping you dye it, he’s got bigger things to be pressed about.

“Thirsty Thursday, huh?” Nico replies dryly, “you have five beers and then Ubered back with Luke?”

Jack fakes nonchalance, but Luke’s cackle across the locker room speaks volumes. On the other side of him, Timo snickers under his breath.

“Whatever,” Jack scoffs, tone a pitch higher “you’re the one that spent the whole night playing with hair when there was a bar full of betas waiting for ya, Schao.”

Timo laughs for real now, reaching over where Nico is putting new laces in his skates to jab his knuckles into the side of Jack’s thigh. It stings enough to make Jack yelp, rubbing furiously at the Charlie horse.

“What was that for?” Jack exclaims, glaring at Timo with red cheeks.

“You know Neeky has no interest in betas,” Timo taunts, “not until his rut comes around at least.”

Oblivious to the way Nico’s body is flushing with embarrassment, Timo elbows him. Nico has always been vocal about finding his omega to settle down with. The whole locker room has always known that if it’s not an omega tucked under his arm at bar, it’s a one time deal, and he’s never had an omega under his arm at a bar.

Well, he did in Florida for a bit, but the only one who seemed to realize that was him. To the boys, you’re just his rookie for the season. The newbie he’s took under his paw until you find your footing.

“Ugh,” Jack groans, “let’s not get started on that again.”

Nico and Jack have always fought about his omega. Jack is certain that Nico could settle down with any omega he comes across, that for him, they’d figure out how to become the kind of omega he needs. To Jack, that’s how omegas are. He never understands when Nico insists that it’s not about an omega, it’s about the omega.

It’s the omega he both wants and needs. It’s you.

“Don’t worry,” Nico sighs, patting Jack on the knee and getting up from his stall “we’re not.”

He puts his skate back with its pair, rooting around in his gear to make sure he’s got everything, but he knows exactly where his missing item is located. He’d had no idea what to do with it, so he left it tucked into his suit jacket pocket. After this, he knows exactly why he brought it with him.

Jack swats at Nico’s butt as he crosses the room to head into the changing area, mumbling something about him being a loser but Nico doesn’t bother lingering on it. He finds his suit hanging where he’d changed earlier, swiftly snatching the little box out of it, and ducking out of the room.

It takes him a moment of wondering the tunnels to find anyone from the equipment team, but when he does they’re quick to show him where your locker room is. He’s expecting it to be a few doors down from the visitors team, but he’s led passed that and passed the medical room too, and then catering as well, until he’s in a section of the tunnels he didn’t even realize the team was allowed into.

“Here ya go,” Matt, the one that washes and presses their jerseys, says motioning to the barest grey door Nico has ever seen. On it is a thin strip of white masking tape and in red sharpie NJ 33 is written. Not even your last name or locker room scribbled on there.

“This?” Nico asks, jabbing a thumb at the door “this is it?”

“Yup,” Matt nods, patting Nico on the shoulder and taking off back towards the main locker room. Alone in this tragically depressing looking hall, Nico stares at the door. He didn’t realize how far away they put you. At most, Nico always thought you were a couple rooms away, never too far.

It’s devastatingly sad if he’s being honest, to think of you all alone down here, separate from the rest of them. You’re not even close enough to hear them yelling in the room or to hear when someone from the rink shouts at them to start hitting the ice.

Do you have to keep track of that yourself? Leave a few minutes early and trek all the way to the big locker room to meet them for warmups? No wonder you usually spend intermissions in all your gear in the big room with them. He wouldn’t want to walk all the way down here on tired legs.

Nico’s hand feels heavier than normal when he quietly knocks on your door. Then he waits, and waits, and waits for another beat before trying again.

“Hey, it’s me…uh Nico,” he calls through the door, and not even a breath later is the door being pulled open. You step into the hall and shut the door behind you before he can even get a glance at your locker room.

“I thought I was late,” you tell him, breathless “sometimes they come down and knock to tell me you guys are heading out.”

It’s kind of funny to think of you scrambling around in there trying to get all your gear on. He has no idea how you were moving around in there in silence. He hadn’t even heard you clunking around in your skates.

Nico glances down, notices that all the bottom half of your gear is on except for your skates. Bright red Crocs greet him, decorated with your number in big rubber pieces and random hockey charms.

Amused, he meets your eye again.

“Hitting the ice in those things?” He jokes, but you don’t laugh or smile, eyebrows pinching as you glance down at your feet.

“No they’re not skates,” you say, giving him that funny look again. You’re so stinking cute he wants to put you in jar and shake you, and that doesn’t really make sense to him but it feels right.

“Okay,” he nods, then motions to your door “they’ve got you way down here.”

“Yes.”

He raises his eyebrows, imploring “Are you always this far away?”

You shrug, dropping your head to stare at your crocs when you respond, “Depends. Some rinks put me closer, some put me in concert dressing rooms, others wherever there’s space I guess.”

Still not looking at him, he asks, “What was this room?”

You look down the hall, not at him, but he can see your face now. It’s gotten splotchy on your cheeks and nose, and Nico’s heart weakly skips a beat when he realizes why.

You’re embarrassed.

“I don’t know,” you mumble, “probably just old storage. Most of them are.”

Without thinking, he reaches up to thumb at the braid falling over your shoulder, smiling softly at the bright streak of red through it. You always have your hair in a braid or two for games, twisted in ways his brain can’t comprehend. It looks even more impressive with the flash of color.

“Hey,” he urges, waiting for you to look at him. When you do, he smiles comfortingly “you tell me if any of them are not good, okay?”

“I mean, none of them are great” you reply, words barely audible. You might be scared of someone overhearing them and accusing you of being ungrateful or something.

Nico frowns, “none of them?”

You hum, contemplating, “Islanders is pretty nice. Toronto too, I guess. And Colorado puts me in the one for concerts so that’s sick. It’s big though.”

Big, too big for just you. It’s probably gets so lonely and isolated in locker rooms like that. Nico sighs, dropping his hand from wear he was thumbing at the little black rubber band holding your braid together.

“You’re playing out of rooms like this and still one of our best,” he compliments, “I know it doesn’t make it better that the league is allowing this, but it says a lot about you.”

Your eyes have gone soft on him, overly rounded to the point that they’re boarding on omega-like. It’s impressive that all it took is one compliment, if Nico’s being honest. The basics of beginning courting didn’t do him wrong. He fed you and told you something nice, and you’re already looking at him like that.

“It’s fine Nico,” you whisper, “I-I’m just here to play hockey, remember? I don’t care about the locker room.”

He doesn’t believe that for a second, otherwise you wouldn’t have gotten embarrassed by him being here. It bothers him that you’ll blow this off just because you think you don’t deserve more. That it doesn’t matter because you still get to play hockey like them.

“I care,” he insists, worked up now “I care about what hotel room they put you in, and I care about your pink tape you like, and I care about how the league treats you.”

Before he can lose his nerve, he’s pulling open the box that had been clutched in his fist. His hands are steady and sure when they hold it out to you, the fluorescent bulbs glinting off the pretty rose gold charm and chain.

“Oh,” you gasp, taking a step back from him as if he were holding a coiled up rattlesnake instead of a piece of jewelry. This time when you look at him, you look petrified.

“What, why are you giving me this?”

“Because I care,” he says, holding it further out to you, “I care about you.”

With trembling fingers, you take the box from his palm, holding it like it might burn you. Even so, you trace two delicate fingers over the charm, almost entranced.

To make sure you really understand what this gift is for, he adds “and so you’ll know that I’m here with you and I believe in you. I see you, all of you y/n, and there’s not a single part of the woman and wolf in front of me that I don’t want.”

You blink, shaking your head softly and when you look up at him now, he has no idea what you’re thinking. That blank beta stare peers back at him, and Nico can’t figure out if it’s on purpose or not. He has a feeling you’re trying to hide from him, and unfortunately for him, you do it well. Unfortunately for you, he doesn’t care.

Without word, you try to turn and leave but he catches your elbow with gentle fingers.

“I don’t expect anything from you,” he says, holding your gaze so you know he’s being truthful, “and I’m not going to force you into anything you don’t want. I just want you to know where I stand, whatever you decide.”

He lets you leave, then, waiting in the hall until you’ve disappeared back into your locker room. He’s not sure what reaction he was expecting out of you, but he’s not disappointed either. There was never a chance that’d you jump for joy and hug him and call him alpha, even if he’d love that. And even though you were silent, in that brief moment before your expressions shut down on him, you hadn’t looked at him in pity or with rejection.

You looked scared, and he can understand why. Just last night you told him you don’t want to be different or step out of your routine, and he’s don’t just that. He’s offered something that would definitely make you stand out.

And you didn’t say no.

Nico feels like he’s flying for the rest of the night, too high up to hear the chirping in the locker room while he gets his gear on and heads out for warmups. You hit the ice before him, skating with your head down when the Montreal fans start booing and hollering.

He goes about his routine, focuses on his stick handling and some shooting, meets Jesper in front of the bench to chat and drink some water, and then he gives out pucks against the boards. There’s nothing out of the usual, except now he can feel you watching him.

His skin prickles with it and his wolf swells with pride at the attention, even if you pointedly look away every time he tries to catch your eye. Still, he watches you when he can, trying to get a look at your neck to see if you’ve maybe put the necklace on.

It’s futile though, because you’re one of the few players in the league that wears a neck guard.

Subconsciously, Nico’s always appreciated that you wear one. He likes that there’s an extra layer between the world and your neck, even if he won’t wear one himself. A neck guard on top of a scent blocker sounds like hell.

On you, it’s heaven so he’s not even upset when there’s no possible way for him to look for that pink tinted chain.

The chain you’re determined to act like doesn’t exist for the whole game. You’re different with him, not overly so, but he still can’t meet your eye and somehow you manage to never be sat next to him on the bench.

Even with his wolf elsewhere, the game doesn’t get away from the Devils like it would most teams playing in Bell Centre. Montreal is up 1-0 midway through the second when you tie it, cleaning up a rebounding shot from Jesper with an easy goal into the top left corner. Nico hollers with the bench, leaning over the boards and banging his stick around obnoxiously loud, but when you come breezing down the handshake line, instead of sticking your tongue out at him like you usually do, you don’t even look at him.

Nico isn’t sure what to do with that, but he tries to be positive. Maybe you’re compartmentalizing right now. It probably wasn’t the best time for him to give you a courting gift and to admit that he wants to be your alpha right before a game, but he doesn’t regret it.

After the game, you’ll have time to think about it. You’ll have a whole plane ride home to think about it, and he’s not in the business of rushing you either.

He’s also not in the business of pretending it didn’t happen though, even if you are. The game is still tied late in the third when Mailloux gets a little testy with you, taking a 2 minute minor for cross checking you into the boards. It’s a hard enough hit that Nico winces on the bench, Mailloux’s stick finding the curve of your lower back and crumpling you into the boards.

You shake it off easily though, and Lindy leaves you out there for the power play to play to Nico’s left. It’s an embarrassing power play. The first full minute isn’t even spent in the offensive zone, mostly battling around center ice or fighting for possession back after the Habs get a couple shots on goal.

Timo manages to send the puck up the boards from behind the net, and Nico is waiting there for the pass when it all clicks. The Habs defenseman on you abandons ship in favor of trying to intercept Nico, and you drop back to the neutral zone just in time for Nico to touch up on the puck and send it to you.

He gets crunched into the glass, but it doesn’t matter because the pass connects and you’re already off towards Montembeault with Jack on your heels. There’s no drop pass needed though, because you get off a quick wrister that sneaks right under Montembeault’s glove and into the back of the net.

Jack is pressing you into the glass and the Habs fans are booing, but you’re smiling so wide Nico it makes his cheeks ache just to see. Timo is on you next and then Dougie, and Nico finally catches up enough to crash into the dogpile. You get your individual helmet taps from them all, but when it gets to his turn you’re skating towards the bench leaving him to follow.

He doesn’t know if you’re trying to piss him off if you’re still just scared, but he can’t imagine either of those excuses as to why are worth losing whatever he knows is between you two. You’re his mate, and potentially his true mate, and that’s everything.

So he grabs you by the helmet, shaking you enough that you have to slow down and it gives him a chance to get right up behind you. Leaning into your neck, Nico smirks and goes, “you’ve got the prettiest fucking wrister I’ve ever seen, ya know that?”

One second your helmet and red braid are all he sees, and then the next he’s staring down the line of waiting faces on the bench, because you’ve somehow caught an edge or something and are now sprawled out on the ice in front of him.

The crowd goes insane with it, jeering and hollering at you, and Nico swiftly reaches down to grab you under the arms and help you back up. Your legs aren’t working right or something though, because you’re wobbly and not moving, not until he nudges you to keep skating forward and Jack is yelling over his shoulder to “get a move on Bambi!”

The bench swats and chirps you through fist bumps, none of it actually heated and he can’t help but laugh too when Timo and Jonas are giggling like school girls at you.

Nico’s never seen that before, someone trip and fall in the handshake like that. He wasn’t even touching you either, so it’s not like he bumped you or anything.

Lining up for the face off, Nico looks over to you on his left. Just like before, standing outside your locker room, your cheeks and nose are splotchy red. Not the kind of flush you always have during a game, but the kind you get when you’re embarrassed. You’ve got that starry look in your eyes again, staring unblinking at the ice as you get setup. Maybe not embarrassed then, but something else.

Flustered, hopefully by him.

You glance at him though, finally catching his eye and he can’t help the slow smirk that takes over his face. He drops his eye into a wink, chuckling when you blink and roll your eyes at him, the faintest hint of a smile on your face.

Not ignoring him then.

The Devils win by one thanks to your goal and the fans boo when you’re named first star, and then you blush in the locker room again when Lindy gives you the game puck with the parting wisdom of “stay on your feet next time, kid.”

You head back to your locker room after that, ducking around balls of tape being thrown at you and Luke tugging on your braid, Jack nudging you into Timo and Timo nudging you back like a game of pinball.

Almost expectantly, you linger around him, long enough for Nico to grab the top of your head and give you a good shake. It makes you giggle too, all bubbly and wobbly on your skates when you finally leave.

The team packs up and changes, piles into the bus to head to the airport and he loses out on his seat next to you when Luke bullies him out of the way in front of the bus to run on. Nico doesn’t care too much, because the whole time he’s sat across the aisle with Jonas you’re on your phone.

He loses out on the plane ride home too, ends up in the same seating scenario, peering across the dark aisle to see you and Luke. You’ve got the overhead light on, leaning down to dig through your bag for something, and Nico is already half-asleep so for a moment he thinks he’s seeing things.

A flash of gold peeking out under your stupidly soft pink Snuggie, and he sits up straight at the same you do. He doesn’t see what you pulled out of your bag or what you place on Luke’s tray table, because you’re staring at him. You’re staring at him, soft and careful, and then your right hand comes up to your neck, and two delicate fingers are pulling a necklace out from under the pink fabric.

You adjust the charm, laying it carefully over your chest when he can see it. His gaze falls to it, long enough to confirm that it’s the rose gold #33, and then he peers back up at you. Certain and steady, you blink at him, and Nico bites his bottom lip to keep from howling.

You’re accepting his courting. You’re accepting that he’s your alpha.

<<<<>>>>

Nico’s not watching the movie.

You picked it from his watchlist on Netflix, a historical movie from World War II about the Nazi trials, and you’d even left the audio in German for him.

He should be watching it. It’s one he’s been dying to see and you’re reading English subtitles so he can watch it in his first language, and no one’s ever done that for him before, but he can’t stop looking at you.

You’re sat on the living room floor, legs spread out under the coffee table and back resting on the couch. From where he as, laid out on the couch just behind you, arm behind his head and phone laying on his stomach from when he was texting his mom, he can see the side of your face and make out the way your eyes shift over the subtitles at the bottom of the screen.

The red in your hair catches his attention though, the two thick strips behind each ear hanging down your back and over your shoulder. It came out really good for being done in a hotel bathroom and it suites you. Really well, actually. Makes you look brighter and bolder, two things of which he knows you already are.

A little piece hair curls up against the side of your neck, right over the lump of your scent gland, and Nico finds himself taking deep inhales, hoping he’ll catch a whiff of your scent. He doesn’t, but that doesn’t stop him from trying.

You’ve got the necklace on too, clasped around your neck and even though the charm is tucked into the grey DU hockey shirt you’re wearing, he knows it’s there. That knowledge buzzes through him like a good inhale of smelling salts, and he burn to reach over and touch you, to trace his thumb along the chain, to run his fingers through the red strip of hair.

He didn’t realize how much he liked playing with your hair until you let him, and he doesn’t even care that it was a dry, bleached mess when he did. It looks soft now, fluffy and light. It’d feel good between his fingers.

“Hey,” he murmurs, and your eyebrows raise, clearly listening even with your eyes locked on the screen “what time do your parents get in?”

“Early tomorrow morning,” you answer, “they like to fly red eye so they’ll get in at like 6 am probably.”

Nico hums, wishing you’d look at him. You don’t.

“Do we need to go get them? There’s room in the car.”

Still watching the movie, you shake your head.

“No they’ll be in a bad mood, and he rented a car anyway. They’ll go to their rental place and do whatever, and see us after the game for dinner.”

Odd itinerary. He knew your parents weren’t staying his. His never did, even when he had a spare bedroom, but he’d pick them up from the airport and help them get settled. They usually get a meal together before the game too.

He doesn’t understand why your parents are flying all the way out here to not see you as much as they possibly can.

“They’re not coming to see you first?

He must sound as wounded as he feels, because you turn to look at him, bringing your knee into your chest and giving him those big, honey eyes he likes so much.

“Traveling is…rough on my mom,” you start, hesitant “so it’s better to give her time to unwind before the game. S’why they didn’t come out for my first game and stuff. My dad had to work, obviously, but she won’t travel by herself either.”

Nico frowns, recalling that game. It was brutal for him to witness on your behalf, even if he has no right to feel like that. The team won, thankfully, but you’d been booed through your rookie lap after begging him to not make you take one. Of course he did make you, because he thought you deserved to have your moment. It never crossed his mind that you didn’t want it because you knew what was coming.

It was made worse when he interrupted your rookie lap and saw that Red Wings fans, and some Devils fans too, had taken over the far side glass to taunt you. He didn’t find out until after the game that no one was in the crowd for you. Your family wasn’t able to make it.

“Did that make you sad?” He asks, because now it’s his place to dig. He’s officially you’re courting alpha and even though you two haven’t talked about that, it’s his right to check in on your feelings.

Contemplating, you rest your chin on your knee, eyes shining with the lights on the Christmas tree when you look over at it to ponder. It’s devastating how beautiful you look just doing that.

“No,” you finally decide, and then almost guilty, you add “I’ve always done a lot of things on my own so it’s normal, routine, ya know? I mean, they’ve been sending me on my own to train in the offseason with MacKinnon since he was drafted.”

MacKinnon, Nico recalls, was drafted in like 2013, which would mean your parents were sending you off to train alone at around 12 years old. It’s a terrifying thought, especially for a young omega.

It’s at least a little comforting to know that MacKinnon, while crazy about hockey and training, is a good guy. Even if he didn’t know at the time that you were a growing omega, Nico’s sure he made sure you were taken care of.

“That’s…a lot,” Nico sighs, “was it lonely?”

Your lips curl up in amusement, “are you going to ask me about my feelings all the time, now?”

He raises an eyebrow, “does that bother you?”

“That’s another feelings question.”

Nico laughs, a full belly one that has his phone sliding off the slope of his ribs and into the couch cushions. He doesn’t bother fishing it out.

“Sorry,” he laughs, rubbing at his eyes “ya want to me ask a feelings question? Make it even?”

You study him for a moment.

“No, thanks.”

Despite himself, he snorts, wishing you would ask him a question or even talk to him a little more, but you don’t seem interested. You turn back to the tv, eyes sweeping over the scene, and Nico stretches his hand out until he can touch the top of your head, gently rubbing his fingers over your hair.

Your face scrunches in annoyance and he freezes, heart leaping into his throat. He waits for you to shake his touch off, to glare at him and tell him to keep his paws to himself, to-

“Wait I missed a bunch of lines,” you grumble, “will you go back, please?”

He lets out a breath of relief, grabbing the remote off the back of the couch and rewinding until you tell him stop. This time, when he tentatively settles his hand back on top of your head, you scoot the slightest bit closer, pressing into his touch for more scratches.

Nico doesn’t watch a single minute of the whole movie.

<<<<>>>>

Nico is a good alpha. He’d even say he’s a great alpha, compared to the cautionary tales that surround his dynamic. He grew up in the alpha capital of the world. He knows all about the reputation they have, and rightfully so.

They’ve always been top of the food chain, the status quo, what everyone strives to be. There’s a reason that the boys in the locker room who aren’t alphas don’t draw attention to their dynamics. They all want to be top dog, even if they weren’t built for it, even if they don’t understand it.

Which is the detrimental part. So many alphas will go through life not understanding their dynamic, not getting that the privilege they carry with them everyday was not won over or given, it was taken.

Years of abusing a power that was given to alphas with the intention of taking care of others has instead been used against them to put the alphas on top. The tales Nico loved as a pup always spoke of this, of the original moon villages in the Alps, created and built by omegas. They were the first wolves to walk the Earth, and when they had built a life and society greater than them, the moon goddess gave them alphas, a partner with enough control and level-headedness to aid them.

Alphas were never meant to run those societies, they were meant to provide for and protect the omegas who did.

That culture isn’t shared in many countries, especially the States. Nico’s heard and seen it first hand. The locker room talk that never actually stays in the locker room. It bleeds into chatter on the planes and buses, into snickers in the hotel hallways, and yapping at the bars. Even worse, it bleeds onto the ice, where the omegas trying not to paint a billboard of their dynamics play.

He wonders what it’s like for known omegas. Even more, he wonders what it’s like for you.

Nico hasn’t quite figured out what you know yet. It’s like there’s two wolves battling within you, an omega and a beta, and he doesn’t know if you’re aware of it. If you are, he doesn’t know the extent yet.

Maybe that’s your dynamic illness. It could possibly not be an illness at all and simple the fact that you’re dynamic has shifted to omega and you’re not aware of it. Your body and mind don’t know how to react to the change.

That would be good, Nico thinks, because he could help with that. He could help you navigate it and learn to take care of your omega wolf. God knows he’s studied up enough to be more than qualified for that.

The game is supposed to be the kick off of a great home stand. The Devils will play a whopping six in a row at home starting with tonight’s game against Florida, dinner with your parents, and then two nights off before Toronto is at the Rock, and so on.

The Devils always seem to be Panther kryptonite for some reason, so the whole team is buzzing with confidence for most of the game. You’re on fire too, opening your first shift on the ice with a big hit against Evan Rodrigues that sends him flat into the ice and the Devils fans to their feet.

When the team signed you, Nico had thought it was purely for your offensive game. He realized in your first game that even though you’re not a big body out there, you can lay hits harder than he probably can.

That hit starts something on the Panthers bench though, because every shift ends with a lame jab or shove at you, or some smart comment when the whistle blows. Nico is never on the ice with you to hear them, but he can tell from the way Jesper starts butting in that it’s not great.

Even worse, the more they bitch at you, the scarier you play. Nico’s reminded of your father telling you in Denver to wise up, to toughen up. Your father who is somewhere in the stands now, watching you lay these big hits, even though he couldn't be assed to see you before the game.

He hopes your father is pleased with himself.

It’s early in the third when everything takes a turn for the worst. The Devils finally get a power play after Reinhart trips up Jack, and they have a chance to break the stalemate of no goals that’s been going on all night.

Nico and Timo join you and Jack for the power play, and even before the puck is in play you and Tkachuk are shoving at each other outside the circle, to the point that you both get a wanting blast from the ref.

He tries to catch your eye so he can see for himself if this is just competitive tension or if something is really wrong, but you’re focused on the puck and Nico needs to take the draw, so he does.

30 seconds into the power play, Nico tries to get a deflection goal in from Timo’s shot, but Bobrovsky quickly covers it with his glove, and the whistle blows as you and Nico are shoving around for the lose puck.

Someone grabs him from behind, Tkachuk shoves you into the glass behind the net, and there’s a little jostling and shoving, but nothing crazy. Nico is stupidly skating back to the dot for the faceoff when the crowd gasps and whistles start blowing.

He turns just in time to see you chasing down Tkachuk and tackling him from behind. Doubling-back, Nico joins the scrum with Luke and Timo, though no one else is really fighting.

The stands are loud, and the refs are still blowing their whistles, and Nico can’t really hear anything. He doesn’t know if that’s what shocks him into stunned stillness or if it’s the sight of you on top of Tkachuk, gloves off and fists swinging.

You’re both scraping at each other hard, but for the first time in his life, Nico can see the resemblance in you and your father. If the big hits were enough indication, your ability to land left hooks sure is. Tkachuk gets a few good blows in, but you’re steady on top of him and not easing up, to the point that the refs aren’t even making an attempt to separate you.

It all happens so quickly, but Nico’s wolf reacts before anyone else, and he’s dropping his stick and shaking off his gloves in favor of grabbing the back of your jersey. He pulls hard enough to get your attention, and when that does nothing, he grabs you under the arms and hauls you up much like he did in Montreal.

He has to bear hug you from behind to get you to stop hitting, and even then you fight his hold, strong and angry as you lean over and growl to Tkachuk, “bark at me again, I fucking dare you.”

Timo is trying to help pull you off now, and Tkachuk is sitting up, eye already bright red and no doubt going to bruise. He’s bleeding from his nose too, and his lip, his teeth smeared with it when he laughs at you.

That only enrages you more, and you push out of Nico’s hold long enough to lean over and spit on him. The crowd goes even wilder, and the other Panthers players are making a charge for you, but Nico’s got his grip locked again, and he quickly skates you away.

It helps that you seem satisfied with your fight now, no longer pressing against his hold.

“Get out of here, 33!” A ref yells, pointing toward the benches, and Nico doesn’t even have to nudge you to get you off the ice. He has no idea what even happened, what made you two go after each other so crazily, but the boys on the bench still holler for you as you’re led down the tunnel, and the fans roar as Tkachuk leaves the ice to get cleaned up.

The refs go to sort the penalties, and Nico stands around with Jack and Luke, completely lost on what’s happening. He knows for sure you’re out of the game, and probably a fighting minor too, but they’ll have to wait for the officials.

“Holy shit,” Luke says as Timo joins the huddle, shaking his head. He was the one that was closest to you, and Nico gives him a look.

“What the hell happened?” Nico asks, “What pissed her off like that?”

Timo lets out a slow breath, eyebrows pinched in confusion when he glances over at the Panthers bench.

“I- I don’t know, man. Ask her, I guess but we gotta kill off this penalty.”

Jack groans, tapping his stick on the ice. “We had a fucking power play too, what the fuck.”

Both Nico and Timo level him with a disapproving look, but it’s Timo that jumps in to tell him to chill out.

“If Tkachuk had said that to you,” he tells Jack, “you wouldn’t be in this game anymore either.”

Nico tries to think of what Tkachuk could’ve possibly said. It’s not easy for opponents to get under your skin, you’ve been a sport that’s against you for your whole life. Something did though, and if it would’ve pissed Jack off too, it’s probably something about betas.

He doesn’t get to dwell on the possibilities of beta related insults that might’ve been tossed your way, because you’ve been given a game misconduct and a four minute major, and the Devils now have to battle 4-on-4 for the next minute and a half, and then kill the penalty for two and half.

They don’t pull it off and Florida wins 1-0.

You’re already dressed in the locker room when the team files in, a bag of ice on your hand and an airpod in. No one really says anything to you, but most of the boys pat the top of your head as they pass by, him included. A silent way of saying it’s not your fault.

From the way you don't bother looking at any of them, Nico can tell you don't believe them. Post game is slow, and it sucks. You get requested for media, but the PR team declines and takes Timo instead. It seems they've all figured out that Timo heard what was said to you, and even though they ask him about the fight hoping for a good headline, all he says is, "I think the team could always use some more fighters."

Nico doesn't say it, but he's so grateful that Timo is a good alpha too.

The room clears out and Nico, no dressed and ready for dinner, finds you still sitting in your stall, now eating the melting ice out of the bag on your hand. You look up at him when he approaches, coat hanging over his arm, and hands in his pockets to keep him from reaching out and cradling your face.

Your poor face that's already got a bruise forming on your right cheekbone in the shape of Tkachuk's fist. What a little bitch, Nico thinks angrily, hitting the only woman on the team. He'll sure as hell pick fights, but it's telling that he never actually swings until it's you.

"You okay?" Nico asks, softly, and you crunch on a piece of ice, nodding. He nods to the door when you don't say anything else, and in silence you both make the trek to his car. You plug your phone into his CarPlay, pulling up the address for the restaurant.

"They're already there," you tell him, and it makes him rumble with sadness that they just left you at the rink. He wonders where else they've left you before, just how lonely it was for you growing up.

The restaurant is nearby, less than a ten minute drive, and while you've never been, Nico has a couple times with his family and the Hugheses.

"You'll like it," he says, because you seem nervous, chewing on the inner part of your thumb and bouncing your knee "really good steak."

Over the console, you look at him, eyes wide like you don't understand why you'd say that. Steak is your favorite on gamedays though, and he knows that because he's made far more if it this season than he ever has before, and when he does, there's never any leftovers. Even when some get put in a glass container in the fridge, he'll wake up the next morning to the container empty and washed on the drying mat.

You don't say anything to him until the car is in park and the engine is shut off, hand paused on the door as you turn to him.

"Thank you," you murmur, and his eyebrows knit in confusion "for not jumping into my fight."

Oh, he realizes, heartbreakingly. You thought he'd jump into the fight. Because he's the alpha courting you. He wishes he had, especially after Timo's reaction to whatever was said to you. It probably would've been warranted and Tkachuk probably deserved it, and Nico wants to protect you.

He'd been so shocked in the moment that it didn't come to mind. All he wanted to do was get you out of harms way, even if meant carrying you to the locker room himself.

"And thank you for...this," you add, gesturing to the three story brick building where the windows are spilling with soft light and the weekend dinner crowd.

"You don't have to thank me for this," he assures, reaching over to lay his hand on your bruised and busted one. His touch makes you flinch, and Nico eases up until his fingers barely ghost over your warm skin.

Guilty, you shake your head, "you won't be saying that after."

You open the car door then, pulling your little black leather purse onto your shoulder, and Nico follows suit. He gives your last name to the host, dropping his hand to your lower back as your led to the back part of the restaurant, into a sectioned off area where the chatter of hungry patrons tapers off.

The room is only big enough for four tablecloth covered tables, but only one of them is occupied with a couple seated to face the exit.

"Here you are," the host says, "enjoy your meal." He leaves with a parting bow, and Nico follows you up to the table.

"There she is!" A familiar voice bellows, just as loud and grating as it was in the tunnels of Ball Arena. "Little miss McGregor, huh?"

Your father rises from the table, towering over you in dark black suit. He's just like Nico remembers, big and hulking with greying hair and a square jaw that flexes with his laughter.

"Ew dad, McGregor's a rapist," you reply, and Nico can picture the disgusted scrunch of your nose "and he's Irish."

He coughs to cover up his laugh, because no one else has found that funny. Instead your father clasps his hand around yours in a strong handshake and lets go. No hug, no kiss on the cheek, no sentiment for his daughter at all.

Nico is starting to think these people aren't your parents at all until your mother stands up, only visible behind your height now that he's standing directly at your side.

She's a spitting image of you, so startling that it takes him aback, and he's hovering like an idiot with his mouth open. She's got the same long, dark hair as you and not a speck of grey or white in it, unlike your father. Her face bears more years on it, wrinkled around her mouth and eyes, but she's got the same round cheeks and sloped nose, and they crinkle just the same as yours do when she grins.

"Y/n," she greets, warmly, two hands cupping your face and then pinching at your cheekbones.

"Hi mom," you murmur, softer than he's ever heard you speak before. It sounds like you're approaching a spooked horse, careful and gentle in case she runs. She drops her hands from your face, and you turn towards him.

"This is Nico...Hischier. I play hockey with him."

He doesn't even have time to laugh at the odd introduction, because your father is clapping him on the shoulder, fingers digging into the muscle through his coat.

"Nico," he says gruffly, "nice to meet you off the ice."

"Yeah, you too." He responds, and your father wraps an arm around your mother's much smaller frame, drawing her into his side with a tenderness he can't believe could come from somehow who just squeezed his shoulder out of place.

"This is my wife and mate, Ximena." He introduces, sweeping her hair off her shoulder and softly knuckling at her chin. The same honey eyes that stare at him across the dinner table and locker room meet his, but there's something off about them. It's like he's not actually looking into real eyes, but doll ones maybe, and it makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

"Hi," your mother greets, timidly. She smiles at him, just and kind and warm as she did you, but her shoulders hunch up with shyness. Hesitant, Nico just waves awkwardly and smiles, a greeting on the tip of his tongue when he freezes.

Over the smell of food and lingering scents of past wolves, he can smell your parents now. The musky scent that could only belong to an alpha, mixed with tobacco cologne. Even stronger though, is a familiar scent, underlined with something heavy, but overpowered by the stench of something rotten. It's awful, the worst thing he's ever smelled before and he has to clench his jaw shut to keep from gagging or making a face.

That would be so rude, even if it's warranted.

At his stutter, your father gently cradles your mothers neck, and then he's thumbing over the healed bite mark on her neck, big thumb working in soothing circles. You're mother's eyes go a little glossy, her shoulders relaxing down, and her scent turns overly sweet. The kind of sweet that only belongs to one kind of wolf.

He looks over to you, finds you watching him with a careful and guilty expression, and he thinks of you thanking him in the car, looking just as apologetic. You tilt your head at him now, both knowing and encouraging, and he gets it now.

All those weeks ago in Denver, you showed up to the hotel smelling like that, and he'd offended you by saying you didn't smell great. It turns out that smell wasn't you at all, but a scent transfer from your mother.

He wanted to know for certain, and now he does, all because of your mother.

Your mother who is not only an omega, but a sick one.

<<<<>>>>

Nico's awkward greeting with your mother is saved by the rest of dinner. He manages to get his tongue to work normally, smiling and bowing his head in greeting as he charms, "It's wonderful to meet you. I see why y/n gets her good looks from!"

It's inappropriate for an alpha to touch a sick omega, so he doesn't try to shake her hand, but his compliment makes her giggle and blush, curling up into your father with a gentle, "We do have an awfully pretty pup."

It's such a sweet thing to say, and your father grins down at her like she's hung the moon for him, and it's such a far cry from what he expected of your family that he doesn't even know what to do with himself.

Flabbergasted, he's so flabbergasted that he doesn't think to take off his coat or sit down at the table until you do. Your father helps your mom into her seat, pushes the chair in for her and everything, and then takes his own.

He can’t stop thinking about what it means for your mother to be an omega. It makes his head spin.

Elbows on the table, he raises a thick greying eyebrow at you.

"A pretty pup that dyed her hair red?"

You flip open your menu, lips pursed to the side as you peruse it for a moment. The silence stretches on long enough that Nico is about to respond when you finally say, "it's Valhalla flames, actually."

"It's not staying," your father replies, "right?"

Across the table, your mother is looked between the two of you with a dreamy glint in her eyes. Nico has a feeling she's not particularly listening to the conversation, but rather admiring her mate and pup.

“No,” you chirp, and then smile mischievously “buzz cut is next, for sure.”

Your father rolls his eyes with the same annoyed expression you always get, but he’s smiling like he’s biting back a laugh and you giggle.

Nico is still confused by the scene happening around him. One minute he’s endeared by how sweet your parents are together, the way your mom coos over your father and how he softly touches at her neck to calm her when her scent starts to turn again. The next he’s confused, because your father is so gruff and hostile sounding when he talks to you, like everything you say is more and more frustrating than the last.

He’s grateful for the reprieve of the waiter showing up to take everyone’s order, using the distraction as a chance to check in with you. He can’t really say anything out loud, but he knows when you want to tell him something, you will. The same way you’d made sure he saw the necklace on the plane or how you watched him meet your mother.

You wanted him to know she was an omega without having to tell him, and the longer he sits at this table, he realizes you’re the cleverest little wolf he’s ever met. You’ve figure out all these ways to get around your strict father, to speak without speaking.

While your father is busy ordering for himself and your mother, Nico nods to your menu and whispers, “what do you want to eat? Steak?”

You shake your head just once, straightening up proudly when your father motions to you, and to Nico’s horror orders you a plate of grilled tilapia and rice with steamed vegetables. You shook your head at him though, like you knew exactly what your father was going to order for you and for him to leave it alone, so he does.

Well he mostly does, but after he orders his own spicy chicken sandwich, he politely requests, “and I can get extra pickles on the side? Like a lot?”

It earns him a funny pause from the waiter, but he scribbles it down and agrees anyway. He disappears out of the room though, and Nico is forced to join back in on the stiff conversation between the three of you. It’s not terrible, but he doesn’t understand why your parents haven’t asked about you, about how you like New Jersey or about your steadily bruising hand or anything.

All your father can say is that he’s a fan of Nico, which is a little crazy. Your father played with the Devils and won a cup with them, but he left his legacy in Colorado, so he wasn’t expecting to hear such high praise from him.

“I mean it,” he insists when Nico mutters his surprise, “I’ve been saying for years that the Swiss players are most under looked in the league, told y/n all about it the year you were drafted, huh kid?”

He never thought about you watching his draft before or the fact that you might’ve seen him play against Colorado even, sat in the family section with your mother. It’s crazy to think that this whole time you were so close, but so far away from him. He was looking for you in the streets of Hoboken, the coffee shops of manhattan, in all the big spots he thought the universe might be hiding you from him.

Turns out you were just a degree away, watching him take the stage for the biggest day of his life so far.

“You said alphas are the best,” you recite, swirling your straw around your glass of water that has far too many lemon slices floating in it. “And Switzerland only has alphas because they breed the best, and that the Avalanche need a Swiss alpha, and that I should watch Swiss hockey film if I know what’s good for me.”

Stunned, Nico stares at you. Annoyed, your father huffs. Oblivious, your mother watches you with moony eyes.

“And I did,” you continue, giving your father a bored look, “and now I’m in the league playing with three Swiss alphas so it worked.”

“Exactly!” Your father praises, then turns back to Nico “and I think you all play well. That power play unit is firing on all cylinders with you two and Meier, and if I was behind that bench, Mercer and her would be swapped on that top line, I’ll tell you that.”

Nico is certain he’d play well with you no matter the scenario, and he’s certain you’d play well wherever they put you. That’s just the kind of player that you are. There’s no need to worry about chemistry building, you just click in all the right spots.

“Yeah, we do play well together,” Nico agrees, smiling when you look at him with imploring eyes “I think she’d play well anywhere though. She can skate on any line for sure.”

“Ha,” your father snorts, “every line except the handshake line, huh? Tripping up in Bell Centre, kid?”

Color bleeds into your cheeks and you sink lower in your chair, mumbling shyly, “I got overwhelmed!”

Personally, Nico found it adorable. You’re the best skater he’s ever seen, even better than Jack, but all it took was a sweet compliment whispered in your ear to trip you up. It felt good to see you actually react to him and his courting attempts, made him proud of his wolf.

“You were cute,” your mom chimes in, a reminiscent air to her tone “it was like you were a pup again, skating and falling over the ice with your dad again.”

Nico tries to picture you as a little speck on the ice, a bundle of pads and pink hockey tape, chasing after all these great NHL players. It’s surprisingly easy to see, probably because you play like you were born on the ice.

He reaches over and little ruffles your hair, buzzing with the urge to get closer to you, to hold you and cherish you the way your father treats your mother. It feels good to do something, but he wants to do more. He wants to protect you, especially when your father ruins the moment with another scold.

“She’s not a pup anymore though,” he levels you with a warning look “and she’s out there alone now, so she needs to learn to stay on her feet.”

Angry, his wolf shifts restlessly and Nico knows if he’d let himself, he’d start growling at your father, challenging him. The last thing Nico needs to do right now though is drive a wedge in this already stilted relationship. Not when he’s barely begun courting you, and not while he’s trying to figure out your connection to him.

“Matthew,” your mother complains, bumping into his shoulder. She doesn’t defend you though, doesn’t tell him to ease up and let you stumble sometimes, and suddenly Nico is back in the tunnels of Ball Arena, watching him smack you, tell you you’re not enough.

“Excuse me,” he blurts out, because he needs to do something to make this better for you even if he can’t growl and bear his teeth over you yet “I’m gonna run to the restroom real quick.”

Your head snaps to him when he gets up from his chair, pleading and begging to not be left alone at that table. All he can do is give you a sorry look, mentally promising that he’ll be quick, before he’s dashing off as fast as possible without coming off rude.

He was lying about the restroom, but he’s not lying about being quick, so he swiftly tracks down your waiter, stopping him to request to open a separate bill.

“Of course, sir!” The waiter says cheerily, waving Nico over to the computer they enter orders in. “Would you like just your meal on that?”

“Oh no,” he declines, “I wanted to order a second plate to go?”

He gets a ticket in for a sirloin steak, medium with no mushroom sauce, and he changes the side of mashed potatoes to truffle fries, and the vegetable to a Caesar salad. Nico pays for it all then, shoving his card back in his wallet and pocketing that with the receipt.

“Can I pick it up at the front on our way out?” He asks, and the waiter promises to leave the bag up there under his name.

He’s still confused, still doesn’t understand why your father treats you so harshly when it’s obvious he’s knows how to care for an omega, and a fragile one at that, but it makes him feel better that he’s done something.

Alphas are supposed to feed their omegas well to keep them happy and healthy, and he’s going to do just that. God knows that fish platter isn’t going to do it.

When he gets back to the table the food has arrived, and he takes his seat next to you, splaying his napkin out over his lap and subtly adjusting his chair until he’s close enough that his knee brushes your leg.

“Just in time,” your father says, “y/n was about to snatch a pickle or two off your plate.”

Nico side eyes you. “Is that so?”

You don’t even try to lie, batting your eyes at him with a proud, “yes I was going to steal.”

He snorts, picking up the little container overflowing with pickle slices. “That’s good because they’re for you anyway.”

You perk up, biting at your bottom lip as he slips the pickles onto your plate. It’s another one of those times where he wishes he could smell you, let his wolf know that you’re happy and have been taken care of. He can see your tampered down smile and bright eyes, and while that’s enough for the human part of him, his wolf craves more.

He needs more. He needs to feel you, to connect with the wolf that you keep so carefully tucked away, too busy trying to navigate your family and hockey, both places that aren’t very welcoming to you.

Nico is though, because he’s your alpha, and he’s relentlessly going to paw away at your wolf day by day until he can feel you living in that spot above his heart.

You pick at your fish for the rest of dinner, trying and failing to not make eyes at your father’s steak plate. You devour the pickle slices though, nudging your boot against his leg in silent thanks.

Nico wolf rumbles happily to him, and Nico promises him to just hang on until they get home. At home, when it’s just you and him, things will be the way they’re supposed to be.

<<<<>>>>

The car ride home is silent, as is the ride up from the parking garage, and when Nico lets you into the apartment you don’t even toe off your shoes before dragging your feet to your bedroom, closing the door behind you.

Nico’s chest aches with the distance, his wolf barking at him to just follow you, to help you get changed and comfortable, to take care of you.

“Relax,” he mutters to himself, taking a few deep breathes. He’s got your steak plate in a plastic bag still, so he goes to the kitchen and plates it all for you, cutting the meat into little pieces and then carefully arranging the salad in a separate bowl so the dressing doesn’t get on your steak.

Leaving it on the counter, Nico goes and changes into a pair of shorts and a t-shirt for bed, and when he comes back out, you’re still holed up in your room. He’s not worried about you not coming out since it’s become routine for the two of you to at least nap out here before going to bed for the night.

He brings your plate into the living room and sets it up on the coffee table, and then he fluffs the couch for you, lays out his nice blanket. By the time he’s done, your door opens, and you come out in your pink Snuggie and a pair of shorts, fluffy socks pulled up to your calves.

You practically fall into the couch, bringing your knees up to your chest and blinking up at him. Pouting, you mumble, “Are you mad?”

It’s the last thing he expected you to say, he doesn’t even know what to do with it. He sits next to you, carefully reaching over to wrap his fingers around your ankle.

“Is this a feelings question?” He jokes, and you crack him a sad smile.

“Yes. Does that bother you?”

“No I’m not mad,” he laughs, “and I’m not bothered either. I want you to ask me stuff.”

It’s hard for him to navigate your wolf without a scent, and not talking about things has made it even more difficult. Both him and his wolf are lost, scrambling around trying to find any answer he can get.

All he knows is that you’ve accepted his courtship, you’ve let him meet your family, and you’ve finally given him something to go off regarding your dynamics. Buried under all the weirdness that was tonight, is the fact that your mother is an omega.

Nico has good understanding of basic genetics. Two wolves can only produce another wolf of their same dynamics. You maybe be a beta on paper and a little in habit, but it’s scientifically impossible for you to actually be one.

Which means his wolf has been right about you being an omega. You know it too. That’s why you let Nico meet your mother, why you waited for him to realize it, and why you’re currently wearing his courting gift around your neck.

“Okay,” you agree, then pointedly ask “you can ask me stuff too, you know?”

There’s a lot of stuff to talk about and a lot of things he needs clarification on. A lot about your childhood, about how you presented, about how you got the letter B added to all your paperwork, and even about your mother. What she’s sick with and how she got it.

That conversation doesn’t seem to be good to have right now though, not with the bags under your eyes that you knuckle at with your busted up hand.

“Here,” he murmurs, reaching over and scooping up your plate “let’s start with this and then I’ll ask you something, yeah?”

You drop your knees, taking the plate from him and carefully setting it in your lap. He hands you a fork too, nodding encouraging when you stare at him, mouth parted in shock.

“Y-you got me a steak?”

“Yeah,” he smiles, “it’s your favorite and I usually always order for you so I did. Even if your father beat me to it.”

Your bottom lip twitches oddly and when you speak, your voice is thicker than usual.

“He didn’t get me a steak though.”

“No he didn’t,” Nico shakes his head, propping his elbow up on the back of the couch, “and I know you don’t like fish very much, and you had a tough game, so you need to eat something good.”

He nods encouragingly again, and you delicately stab at a chunk of steak, eagerly eating it. Nico waits, watches you eat with your scabbed hand and prepares for the fact that he thinks you might cry. Your voice sounded like it, and you’re sniffing thickly between bites, but after a few minutes of no tears, he gives into his big question of the night.

“Will you tell me what happened tonight? With your fight?”

You freeze, cheek still full with a bite of steak and finger in your fries, but you slowly finish chewing, your jaw working carefully before swallowing.

“You didn’t hear him?” You whisper, pushing your steak around your plate.

“No I didn’t. I just saw you tackle him pretty much.”

You sink further into the couch, shoulders hunching in on yourself. You look like your mother, hiding from him, and he hates it.

“He said really mean stuff,” you explain carefully, “about puppies and the team.”

Nico’s wolf beats in his chest to get out, fluttering angrily and desperate. He thought his wolf was tough to tamper down when he was 14, but he had no idea he’d act like this as soon as he got close to you.

Gritting his teeth, Nico urges, “what did he say exactly, y/n?”

Ashamed, you close your eyes. “He said that he’s allowed to touch the team puppy because that’s what I’m there for. And that-that I should be on a leash because that’s what good puppy pussy is.”

Nico should’ve jumped in the fight and now it makes sense why you thought he would. If he’d heard that, he would’ve. Dynamic chirps have always been a part of the game, as shitty as it is, but that doesn’t make them okay, especially like that.

You’d been outplaying Tkachuk all night, of course the only insult he could come up with is the insinuation that you’re not a good hockey player, you’re just the girl they put on the team for all the boys to pass around.

Puppy is thrown around on the ice a lot, mostly towards the guys that are betas, because god forbid they’d be compared to anything but an alpha. It’s pure rage bait, like most chirps, and it worked.

Except when Nico’s wolf rumbles angrily, slipping out before he can stop it and audibly rattling in his chest, you blink your eyes open to look at him. They’re dark and sad, so unlike the way they sparkled at him in Montreal. Nico would even say you look like your mother, gaze distant and lost to the conversation. Like she wasn’t mentally there at all.

“Oh,” you mumble, caught off guard, glancing down at his chest and the back up at him “uh hi Nico’s wolf?”

His wolf stops, his upset rumbles turning to something softer, and now that Nico’s let himself slip, given you a chance to interact with his wolf up front, there’s point in stopping it now.

Nervous, he watches your reaction as his wolf’s noises change, the way your eyes go sparkly and round again. Omega eyes, he thinks proudly, because that’s what he was waiting for. He wanted to see what wolf behavior would come out when his alpha calls to you.

“He’s saying hi,” Nico explains, and you shift closer to him, plate balanced precariously in your lap.

“He’s…loud,” you say, “I didn’t know, I mean, I’ve never been around an alpha like this before.”

Nico can’t help but smile, endeared by how sweet you are. He wonders which parent you learned it from, if you picked it up from just watching them because there’s no way they actually taught you to be this way. Not with how your father talks to you.

“Yeah, he’s mad,” Nico explains, frowning in apology when your expression grows worried “not, not like mad at you or anything, he’s upset with the game. That you were told that.”

“Oh,” you breathe, eyebrows pinching together. You’re staring at his chest where his wolf keeps softly rumbling, more looking for attention than anything else. You get this complicated look on your face, clearly biting something back.

He touches his fingers to the top of your head, massaging at your scalp.

“What is it?”

“Can I?” You ask, nodding towards him, and it takes him a moment to realize what you’re asking. His hearth jumps into his throat and he wordlessly nods, body feeling stiff as he takes your plate and returns it to the coffee table.

Carefully, you lean over into the junction where his shoulder meet his neck, knees curling back up into your chest until your just a warm ball of pink pressed against his front.

His wolf lets out one last rumble of content, and you press your cheek further into the sound, undoubtedly feeling it against your face.

It’s good, holding you. Natural even. He feels like himself again, bringing his arm around to hold you closer. He lays his head on top of yours, still massaging at your hair, and the two of you are silent for a moment, Nico still thinking over what happened tonight.

He recalls the fight, skating over to see you landing blows on Tkachuk’s face and shoulders. He’d been too caught up on the blood and the fight in general to notice it, but now that he thinks closely, you didn’t look very angry. It was different than the scrums he’s seen you before, when your nose flares and your cheeks and ears get red.

You were pale and startled, terrified even.

“That didn’t hurt your feelings,” he voices out loud, “what Tkachuk said didn’t make you mad, it scared you.”

“Yeah,” you mumble, tiredly.

“Why?”

“You know why Nico.”

He does know why. Puppy is a term only used for omegas. Coming from a mate, it’s sweet and respectful to be called puppy. Anyone else though, and it’s mocking. It’s entirely inappropriate, often used to dehumanize and infantilize omegas. The term is even used as an excuse even to keep omegas from higher roles in the world, that they can’t handle it because they’re still “puppies”.

Tkachuk meant to piss you off, but instead he scared you, because he doesn’t know, but his little insult implied far more than he thought it would, because you’re not a beta so the chirp was taunting, it was belittling.

He was insulting you as a player, a woman, and an omega, the latter of which he’s not supported to know about at all.

Nico does know though, and he thinks he’s the only one you’ve let see this. Luke and Jack, the two players you’re arguably closest with, have only seen your mom in passing, and neither of them mentioned her being an omega or her being ill.

You let Nico meet her tonight so he’d know everything about the wolf he’s courting.

Not just that your family is odd and not just that you’re an omega, but that you’re scared of it. You’re scared of being an omega, scared of not being taken seriously. Because right now, even as a beta, you’re not respected.

Not by your father, not by the Panthers, not even by the league, who can’t even give you a real fucking locker room.

“Why did you let me know?” He whispers, peering down at the too close view of the top of your head.

You’re falling asleep, body heavy and curled into his shoulder, breathing easier than you were earlier. He’s afraid you’ve already fallen asleep maybe, that you’re not going to answer him, but then you yawn, a quiet smacking sound and when you speak, the words are warm agains this collarbones.

“Because you see me, all of me.”

[yonemurishiroku]

tw: ABO Dynamics/ Omegaverse

.

.

.

Nico is an Alpha and his rut is four days of sunless winter and icy frost. Bitingly cold. Frigid.

He relies on suppressants to sleep through the period but the place is frozen over anyway. 

[mikkomacko]

The Love Instinct

Chapter 2

Alpha Nico x reader

Warnings: Self-deprecating words and thoughts, omega not being very nice to herself

A/n: SURPRISE!!

Masterlist

<<<<>>>>

Moving in with Nico wasn’t your best idea.

You’re dad had said so, had gotten on the phone when you said you’re Nico’s new unofficial sublease (unofficial in that he didn’t make you sign anything just added you on Venmo so you can send him rent money), and in his gruff coaching voice went “Think smart, kid. He’s an alpha.”

You knew what that meant. You’d watched Nico get drafted years ago, stood in front of the tv at the rink with your dad as they selected him first overall and your father had clapped you on the back, eyebrows raised with intention and said, “Now that is an alpha. Switzerland always breeds the best, I’ve been telling the team that for years.”

So not only is Nico an alpha, he’s the alpha. Not the biggest on the team but definitely one of the strongest. He’s got intuition, he’s got confidence, he’s gritty. And he’s one of the few guys that plays hard and tough, but never scummy. You never necessarily thought about what would make an alpha perfect but if you did, you’d say he’s a near perfect one.

Honestly though it’s a bit of a joke. Your dad idolizing Nico and the alphas in the league. Yeah, Nico is all those things but so are the other guys. So are you. Because in the league, when you really think about it, designation doesn’t matter - shouldn’t matter. Alpha, beta, omega, whatever shows up on the roster means nothing. You’re all here just the same. Your names all go on the score sheet just the same. It’s outdated and it’s stupid that such an emphasis is put on designation in sports. In general too but that’s a different fight.

You approach living with Nico the same way you approach hockey. Designation doesn’t matter. You control yourself and your life so why the ruckus? Your dad loves the ruckus of it all though. He’s been shoving alpha players down your throat since you were kid, highlights of the greatest alphas to ever play every night before bed, modeling your shot and your skating after the quickest ones, taking you to train with them even.

He loves alphas. You reminded him of that as you packed up your few bags in your hotel room and ordered an uber to Nico’s. “It’ll be good for me to be around another alpha. See how he lives ya know? How he approaches the game?”

That sealed it. Nico was a suitable roommate and you got away with setting up in his extra bedroom.

It was fine for the first few days. Until it wasn’t.

On top of everything that makes Nico a great alpha and a great captain, he’s just a great guy too. Everything about him is so great. He’s overly clean in a nice way. Spends every off Sunday scrubbing the kitchen sink with baking soda and dish soap, cleans the oven with that foam spray that’s so chemically it makes your eyes burn if you get too close, he wipes down every glass surface in the apartment with Windex and a microfiber cloth. The only thing he never does is vacuum.

“Just hate it,” he said when you asked him why. “It takes so long and for what? As soon as someone wears their shoes in here there’s dirt again.”

Your contribution to deep clean Sundays becomes vacuuming the whole apartment, not that you mind. It's an easy price to pay for living with him and you like the way the machine cackles when it picks up crumbs and dirt in the carpet. Nico's vacuum is nice too, not overly loud, hums in a sort of soothing way. You like it the same way you like to listen to the sounds of traffic and the city outside your window, and you think Nico might know too because he peeks his head into the living room after you finished, eyes all bright and wide when he asks, "Would it be weird if I asked you to do my room real quick too?"

Weird…is it weird? You don’t really know the expected rules of going in alpha’s rooms. The last one you lived with was your father and you haven’t stepped foot in the bedroom he shares with your mom since you presented. Is Nico asking if it’s weird because he knows you don’t want him in your room? Because you’ve never offered to let him even poke his head in there since you moved in?

You know what your father would say. It is weird, stay away from Nico’s personal space, from that alpha’s territory. But your father isn’t here. He’s miles away at a hotel in California you think for a game later tonight. And designation doesn’t matter, you control yourself, so really, what’s the harm?

“No, not weird,” you shrug, forcing yourself to be casual even though your muscles feel like they’ve gone stiff, your toes numb in your house slippers. Nico smiles and it crinkles by his eyes, features so soft and so warm for an alpha. You never thought an alpha could look like that.

“Thanks,” he says, pushing off where he was leaning against the back of the recliner. “When you’re done we’ll get something to eat, yeah?”

He’s already walking back towards the kitchen, and you’re standing still as a statue in the middle of the living room. Just feet away his open doorway stares back at you, inviting and beckoning in a way that’s called to you since the moment you moved in. You remember sitting on the couch that first night here, squished between Luke and Jack, and you couldn’t take your eyes off his open doorway.

Why would he leave it open? Isn’t he worried you’re just going to roam in there and find something you shouldn’t? That you’re going to invade his space? Unless he wanted you to go in. And you did, want to that is. You stared at that doorway that seemed to start glowing a soft yellow, buttery and warm, looking borderline like the gates of heaven, until Luke elbowed you and asked if you saw that touchdown that just happened on the tv. You hadn’t, but you nodded anyway and high-fived him.

Feeling almost giddy, you tip-toe to his room, pause in the doorway to take a deep breath and it’s a good thing you did, because it’s the last breath of fresh air you’ll ever get.

If you had known what going into Nico’s room would be like, you never would’ve agreed. For the sake of your sanity and your very young hockey career, you would’ve just let him think you’re lazy and ungrateful and you’ll never help clean the apartment.

Or maybe not, actually.

You don’t have the best nose, never have to be honest. Except for the week after you presented at 17, smells are almost non-existent to you. They’ll bleed in dull and watered down, even if they’re supposed to be extreme, like when one of the guys in the locker room is really pissed and worked up after a game. The smells never bother you much because there’s not really there. It’s like trying to smell a candle through a stuffy nose. Most of the time, there’s nothing there at all.

Nico’s room is a different story. Whatever he’s doing in there (just living you guess), it’s really working for him. As soon as you cross the threshold, it’s like something is reaching out and wrapping around your middle, urging you further in by some invisible rope tied around your body.

You’ve never been in an alphas room before and it makes your head spin. Nothing has ever smelled this strong or this good before. You don’t even know what he smells like exactly. Something warm and yeasty but fresh, tickling in the back of your brain in a way nothing ever has before. It’s familiar though, the presence of it wrapping around your ribs. You’ve felt it before but you can’t recall where.

Dizzy, you wonder if it’s been that smell the whole time that’s called you in here, that’s whispered from his always open doorway and begged you to come in. Maybe that’s why it’s so good, because it’s something you’ve denied yourself for all these weeks, and now that you have it, it’s overwhelming in the best way. It’s a dangerous path for you to be so happily heading down, indulging in something you’re not supposed to have, but there’s no one here to stop you.

It’s harmless, too. You can’t have an alpha, you know that. Especially an alpha like Nico, textbook and clean cut and so obviously meant to be who he is. You’re not like that at all, not even enough to allow yourself to have a bad alpha, but you can do this. You can let yourself come in here and enjoy the one scent you’ve ever been able to pick up on. Nico asked you to and he wouldn’t ask you to do something he doesn’t want.

You can’t help it, taking your time vacuuming around his bed and dresser, admiring how perfect and cozy his room is. It’s just like him. Big bed centered against the wall, a fluffy brown comforter and thick knitted blanket on top of it. He’s got four big pillows too, not quite as many as you like, but you think it’s nice that he sleeps with so many. Or maybe he tosses them onto the floor when he goes to bed, but you don’t like that thought. It’s harmless for you to imagine him sleeping amongst them, squished into his chest and smooshing against his cheek, so you allow the image to stay, pleased at how it hugs around your ribs even tighter.

You vacuum around the two perfectly placed nightstands on either side of the bed, dark oak like the wood of his dresser, twin lamps on each one. The right side of the bed has a charger draped by it though, and you realize that must be the side he sleeps on. Closest to the door, and something in your chest throbs.

Nico sleeps next to the door he always leaves open. You can figure out why it feels good to know, but it does. Maybe it’s because you can’t get close to people, not more than surface level, so you’ve never been privy about the little details of someone’s life like this. It’s exhilarating, to know something so personal about Nico.

Too soon, you’ve gone over his carpet twice, and you know it’s time to go. His room was already pretty clean before, and he knows that. There would be no excuse as to why you’ve done it twice, let alone why you might need to do it a third time. The thought of leaving makes your stomach hurt though, already nauseous at the thought of having to eat food after this.

You can’t have this though. So you force yourself to walk, bite on the inside of your cheek as you head towards the door, dragging the stupid vacuum behind you. A box sits on his dresser top, cut open but the flaps are folded together to hide whatever is inside. Allowing yourself one last indulgence, you pause long enough to read the label.

It’s got Swiss postage stamps on it, a big red one with a warning on the side that you have no idea what it means, but the label comes from an address in Bern. And the name from Nina Hischier.

His sister. He told you she was mailing him books and stuff, things he wanted to read that he hasn’t picked up since he was a teenager. You want to open the box, see what books they are. What does Nico like to read? You’ve never seen him with a book before. He must only do it in here, curled up with all his pillows and his lamp on, hunched over the pages of his book with the Manhattan view twinkling outside his large windows.

Your breath catches in your throat, sticky and warm with Nico’s scent, and you want to bottle it up, hold on to it with all the bad feelings you’ve never been able to let go. It’s an art really, how you’ve never been able to move on from hard things, so you should be able to keep this. Should be able to cling onto one good thing, the picture of Nico reading before bed.

Except you can’t, because you’re not allowed to have this. By the time you leave his room, the feeling has already gone, replaced by this awful, wounded one instead. Like whatever it was that had been so carefully caressing you in there decided at the last moment to squeeze instead, to dent and mangle the bones and muscles near your heart.

That, you think, is what’s going to stick. Not how good it felt to be in Nico’s room, to let yourself have something nice for a moment, but this instead. The punishing, bad parts you’ve always had to carry, to keep so that you don’t get too comfortable.

The skin of your cheek grows raw and soft, salty with the taste of watered down blood but you keep chewing at it as you put the vacuum away in hall closet. You’re still poking your canine teeth into the torn flesh when you find Luke and Jack in the kitchen with Nico, the three of them standing around the island counter as Nico towels off his hands.

“Hey,” Luke greets, and you blink, curl your lips up into a smile as much as you can. It’s hard, it’s really hard for some reason and you wish that everything could feel as easy and light as it did in Nico’s room. You don’t know how he ever leaves his bed, how he can force himself to get away from such a nice feeling. Luke’s grin falters into one of concern. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” you bristle, on edge, scared of being caught. Scared that him and Jack, and worst of all, Nico can look at you and know what you were doing, what you were thinking.

“Someone’s grumpy on cleaning day,” Jack mutters, sharing a teasing look with Nico and it makes your heart jump, panic seizing at your throat. What are they teasing about? What does Jack think he knows?

You frown at him, eyes narrowed into a glare and try to remind yourself that it’s nothing, they don’t know anything unless you give it away. And you won’t, because you know how to act normal.

“M’not grumpy,” you say, swallowing around that lump of panic. “I just don’t like you.”

Jack makes an offended noise, mouth dropping open in shock and you laugh a bit when he lays his hand over his heart. You actually like Jack, or at least you want to, but it’s hard when it seems like he’s making your life so much harder. It’s different on the ice. There he’s your liney, there you and him work together easily. You don’t know how to interact with him here. You never have.

“She just needs food,” Nico amends, always so nice and so thoughtful. Always looking for the positive side, even if you were being mean just because you can. Just because that’s the only way you know to be friends without giving more than you can afford to lose.

“Good, because we’re going to chipotle.” Luke tells you, shoving Jack towards the door. You make a face, following behind Jack with Nico next to you.

“I don’t want chipotle, I want Qdoba.”

“It’s the same thing,” Jack argues, glancing at you over his shoulder. Him and Luke pause at the front door, long enough for you and Nico to kick off your slippers and put on shoes.

“No it’s not,” you insist, grabbing your purse off the coat hooks. “Chipotle is gross and it gives you E. coli. Qdoba doesn’t.”

They pull open the front door, Luke groaning obnoxiously as you all file out into the hallway. “It was one outbreak, get over it.”

“One outbreak every year, Hughes! That’s crazy!” Back home, the original Chipotle sits on the corner of Evans, right on the edge of campus and only a few blocks from where you grew up. It was like a staple for people to go eat there, to visit the original Chipotle. Except every year when a new class of freshmen move in and try to check that Chipotle off the bucket list, there’s an outbreak of E. Coli for at least a week.

Luckily you dodged it your first year at school, never being allowed to eat there anyway, but the thought still haunts you. And you’ve told Luke that, wouldn’t let him eat at that one when he was in Denver.

“Okay maybe at your nasty ass chipotle,” Luke calls over his shoulder, slowly making his way to elevator even though you and Nico have stopped to close and lock the door. “but never at mine.”

Frowning, you look to Nico only to find him already looking at you, big eyes all dark and warm, and suddenly you can smell it again. Smell him again. It’s like a shock to your nervous system, the last jolt of electricity in a dying battery and you can feel that heat again, how it drips down your throat like honey and sticks in your sinuses. A first breathe of spring air after a long winter.

“I’ll take you to Qdoba” he says, like it’s easy and simple. Like he’s not going out of his way to stop at a second location for your food. Looking at you like he knows how much this means to you and he likes it. You know then that you can't act normal.

Not around Nico at least.

<<<<>>>>

November hits and the team takes a trip down to Florida, and you pretend nothing has changed. You pretend like the highlight of your weekends in Jersey aren’t marked by getting to help Nico clean his room, by getting just five minutes in the golden haze of his room.

Instead you tell yourself it’s hockey, that your favorite part of the week is getting to hit the ice everyday. It’s what you’ve lived for all your life; hockey. Your favorite sight is a clean sheet of ice, not Nico’s fluffy bed. Your favorite smell is cold, crisp air, tinged with sweat that’s ingrained into the walls of the rink, and not that heavy scent of Nico’s room. Your favorite feeling is the stickiness of hockey tape, the weight of your stick in your hand, and not the feeling of Nico’s carpet under your feet. And your favorite hobby is to lie to yourself, to make yourself believe all of that is true so that you don’t have to think about the consequences of your actions.

You don’t have to see what path you’re straying towards.

You love hockey, you remind yourself, as you put on a fresh layer of deodorant after morning skate. You love hockey even though Florida’s makeshift dressing room for you definitely used to be a supply closet, and the simple folding chair and roll-away clothing rack is good enough. Some arenas have better setups for you, others don’t, but there’s not much to complain about.

It gets the job done well enough and you love hockey.

It is harder to love hockey like this. When you know everyone else is in their plush, overly big dressing room down the hall. They’re probably all laughing, chatting, bonding together without you and it’s- well it’s whatever. You get along with them on the ice just fine. You, Jack, and Bratt actually get along great, so much so that you think they might make you guys first line soon. Not that Nico’s line doesn’t deserve it, but no one can deny that the point production that’s been lifting the team to so many wins lately is because of you three.

Jack and Bratt are both A’s too, and they’re pretty good at it. From the moment you joined the team they’ve both been really easy-going, have offered help with drills or practice if you need it. You never have, and they know you don’t need it, but it was nice to offer.

You think maybe they’d be your friends for real if you didn’t have to be in this locker room. If you could bond with the team the right away. Jack is an easier target, you’ve known him forever, and being Luke’s friend helps. He’s your linemate though and should probably be more than just your friend’s brother. As for Bratt, you don’t really see him outside of hockey. He’s friends with Nico, his twin rookie, like you and Luke. Whenever they’re together though, it’s usually with the team, and you get pulled into Luke’s little group with the younger guys then.

Which is fine too, even if none of them are on your line, and only Dawson is on your PP unit. Even if you’d really like to hang out with Nico and the rest of the team. You know how it goes though, you’re the woman on the team. There’s no bonding with you and it’s been that way forever. Everything with you stays strictly on the ice.

So you shouldn’t be surprised when you’ve gathered your stuff to head back to the hotel, and you’re stopped short by the voices outside your door. You don’t have great hearing, not like most wolves do, but they’re so close you can recognize them anywhere.

Nico and Luke, Bratt too by the accent your used to hearing on the ice. Someone else is with them, so softly spoken though that you can’t tell who. You shouldn’t eavesdrop, you know that, but it’d be weirder for you to open the door and interrupt their conversation. Even worse for them to realize your locker room isn’t even a room, and Luke will you give the same scandalized, disappointed look he used to give you back in college when he realized no team was willing to accommodate you in the rooms.

To get that look in front of Nico…it’d be too embarrassing. His poor, weak, female teammate who needs her best friend’s assurance and comfort that a shitty metal chair and two hangers are okay.

Besides, they’re talking about going out tonight, as a team, and you like to have a heads up about social plans so you can be ready. Except-

“You think she should come with us?”

It’s Bratt, you realize, and while he’s simply just asking, it doesn’t sound right. It sounds like he’s accusing someone else of wanting you to be invited.

“She’s on the team,” Luke argues, and you hold your breath, tiptoeing closer to the door to hear better. To hopefully hear something nice from the one person you really want to defend you. He shouldn’t, he owes you nothing, and you shouldn’t be expecting an alpha to defend you. That’s dangerous but…

“We’re not not inviting her.” Nico adds, voice laced with something sharp. It has you leaning into the door, heart thumping heavily in your chest. You can smell him again and it’s like being back in his room, bundled up in something warm and good.

“It’d be a bad look too,” the other voice says, and you hate how quiet they are, how they mumble just enough for you to not know who it is, “leaving out a teammate. Doesn’t matter who it is.”

You don’t know if it’s kind or a media trained response, and it leaves a sour taste in your mouth. You don’t want to be included for the sake of good press, to give off the impression that all the guys in the room are your friend. They’re not, you can’t even count five that you’d say are your friend.

“Timo’s right,” Nico agrees, and you frown a bit. You’re not close with Timo either. He’s Nico’s friend, a vet, not on your line. He’s nice to you, almost as nice Nico which is cool considering the fact he doesn’t know you as well. Honestly, him and Jonas are probably the kindest guys on the team after Nico and Luke.

“She’s actually really fucking cool if you guys gave her a chance,” Luke says, “instead of being so awkward about everything.”

A chance. You’ve been given the only chance you’ll ever get right here, just by being on the team. Luke should know by now that for you, this is it. There’s no extra luck, extra offering on top of your contract. You’re here for a chance to play professional hockey, a chance to help guys like Timo and Bratt finally get a cup. There’s no extra offerings of friendship.

They either want to like you or they don’t.

“I know,” Bratt sighs, sounding sheepish. “She’s just weird sometimes. I don’t know, I’m not really used to be playing with a girl for so long, ya know?”

Bratt’s only played with women in Sweden, for Worlds and Olympics there. Both tournaments that pale in comparison to the length of the NHL season. You know what he means. He’s used to a few weeks with a girl in the locker room, the focus required of an international team not leaving room for him to think about what it might mean to be friends with them.

Still, it rubs you wrong. Not only does he not want to think about you being long-term, he doesn’t think you’re worth it because you’re weird. Not the situation, not the fact that you’re the first. Just you.

Bratt doesn’t want to be your friend. He doesn’t want to bond with you or get to know you. He doesn’t even want you going to team parties because you’re weird. Not just him either but-

“She is weird,” Luke agrees, and you can picture him shrugging, staring blankly at Bratt like it doesn’t matter. Like you being weird isn’t throwing everyone off. “Most hockey players are weird. She fits right in.”

Luke saying it shouldn’t bug you, but it does. Even if he means it well, is defending you and saying you fit in. You don’t want to be weird. You want to play hockey. You want to be in the locker room with Nico and the boys when they make these plans, when they joke and tease each other. You want to be a part of it, a part of the team. At least a part of something.

It seems right now all you’ve got is Luke, and even he doesn’t get it. Not entirely.

“She’s coming with Bratter,” Nico says, a finality to it that means the discussion is over. You’ve never heard Nico use his alpha tone with anyone on the team, but you’d imagine it sounds something like that. Firm, decisive, just as solid as he is.

You wonder if he ever sounds mean, like your father does most of the time, like the other alphas in the league get.

The boys patter away, their voices fading with them. You press into the hardwood door, chewing on the side of your thumb as the silence lapses in. You shouldn’t be surprised- you’re not surprised. You can’t let yourself be surprised ever, or bad things happen. Gut reactions and instincts that you can’t afford.

You let enough time pass that you can slip out of your changing room and not catch up to the others in the hall. You stop in catering, find only Schmido in there and he simply nods in acknowledgement and makes a funny face when you scoop up a to-go container of ice and leave.

The bus is still fairly empty when you climb on, you usually being one of the first to finish up after practice. There’s no one in your locker room that might keep you, no one to joke around with and waste time. No distractions, a voice corrects you and it sounds an awful lot like the alpha you were raised under. It’s right though, no distractions are good.

No distractions kid, you repeat, settling into a row towards the front of the bus. It’s not where you typically sit. Always towards the middle with either Luke or Nico. They’re social wolves, love to be in the middle of it all. Love to plan team outings and not know if they should invite you or not. You’re not in the mood for that right now. You don’t want to smile and chirp and pretend. Not where you don’t have to.

Right now, you need a second to try and let this go, to get over it. You know before anyone’s even stepped onto the bus though that you won’t. You’ve always held onto everything, kept it between your teeth so you could taste how bitter it all is. That way you don’t forget. You don’t get comfortable.

You’re hunched over in your seat, iPad up with film playing when the rest of the team starts to trickle in. You keep your head down, nibbling on pieces of ice and let them all walk past you. You’re so far removed from your usual spot in the bus that most of them don’t even notice you, until Nico is clambering on with Luke in tow, and you hold your breath when they start to walk past you.

Except Nico pauses, takes a half-step back that bumps into Luke, and you grit your teeth. He looks down at you and you look down at your iPad, swiping with your number fingertips to the next roll of Florida being scored on last game.

Nico’s holding up the line, not that he seems to care.

“What are you doing up here?” Luke finally squawks over Nico’s shoulder. You contemplate ignoring him, forcing him and Nico to stand there in uncomfortable silence the same way you had in your changing room, listening to them talk about you like you’re just a prop in the locker room. Meant to make them look good.

This is supposed to be your team though. You want it to be your team and the only way to do that is to grit it out, to act like you belong.

“Film,” you explain, nodding towards your iPad. Behind them, someone has started nudging the line forward, and you hear Luke’s very audible sigh before he’s bullying Nico into the row across from you.

A couple guys push past and you crush another piece of ice between your teeth, trying not to think about the fact that Luke has forced Nico into a window seat. In the few weeks you’ve been here, you’ve never seen Nico sit by a window. Whether it be plane or bus, he’s an aisle guy.

It’s not your business though.

Luke opens his mouth speak, the words fading to nothing more than a breath when Schmido falls into the seat next to you. Balanced in his lap is a to-go container of food, the plastic lid concealing whatever is inside.

“Hey kid,” he greets, knocking his knee into yours. Schmido has never sat with you before, but the surprise of it is nothing compared to how relieved you are to have a buffer between you and the two alphas across the aisle.

“Hi Schmid,” you murmur, offering him a small smile. Like the other Swiss guys, he’s just as nice and friendly. Not as much as Nico, who you could argue was more of an excited puppy when he met you rather than an all-time alpha, but he’s always seemed perfectly at ease with having you on the team.

He nods towards the cup carefully cradled in your hands. “That’s your big pregame snack?”

You shrug, act like it’s nothing. If there’s one thing you know, it’s to always act normal and casual. Any suspicious behaviors you might give off can always be quelled by you acting like it’s not suspicious. If you don’t worry, no one else will.

The bus rumbles to life, hydraulics hissing lowly as the doors shut and the emergency brake is released. You rewind the film on your iPad, zoom in to catch a moment the Panther’s defense falls apart around Kempe. The bus has barely rolled away from the curb when Schmido bumps your knee again.

“Keep your wrists loose,” he nods toward the clip, “and you’ll beat ‘em all night.”

You can’t help but smile, easy and flattered that he’s picked up on your best shot. Quick, fast flicks towards the goal have always been your thing, and they should be considering it’s what you’ve been practicing with your father since you could skate.

“I know,” you scoff, then hit his knee again. “It’s what got behind you all morning, eh?”

He laughs, shaking his head, and for the rest of the trip back to the hotel you both ride in silence. You keep swiping through film, let the ice cubes melt on your tongue and drip down the back of your throat, the cold sting doing enough to numb whatever had tightened up in your chest earlier.

You learned that too. Ice helps, the cold helps. Not to sound too on the nose but it keeps you cool. Eases you enough that when Nico and Luke follow you off the bus and into the elevator, down the hall to your room, you just let them. You let Luke ruffle your hair messy as you pause to swipe the key card to your room, and you let Nico hover outside of his own hotel door, right next to yours.

In the quiet of your room, you stare the closed oak door that connects your room to Nico’s. You don’t get a rookie roomie technically but you get a baby-sitter. Not that either of you open those doors, but you know if you did, Nico would be there. That if you opened that door right now he’d open his, look at you with this big, brown eyes and you could ask him what the fuck was up with Bratt, with Timo basically calling you a fluffer in the locker room, meant to make them all look more inclusive than the team actually is.

Instead, you get in the shower, turn the water to chilly and biting, stand under it until your toes are starting to turn blue and your fingertips burn. You shiver through your pregame nap, flex your stiff fingers after shutting off your alarm, and then you dress for the game. Luke sits with you on the bus, headphones in, and head already in the game.

You get a quick wrister in on a power play late in the second, with Nico and Timo on the assist, and you don’t bother trying to smile when they both squish you in a hug. On the bench, Schmido smacks you on the helmet with a knowing look.

The Devils lose 4-2, and you ignore the message from Luke telling you the boys are all going out. Then you ignore the one from Nico too, all polite, and formal, and captain-like when he also invites you out. You mostly do it because you don’t know what to say. Going out has never been your thing. It’s always overwhelming, makes your ribs ache when there’s too many people, too many eyes. Even more when there’s alcohol because that makes a loose tongue and a loose tongue gets you kicked out of the league.

You still get changed though, shower in your hotel room and blow dry your hair, braiding it back into something simple and effortless looking. The best thing to do when you go out is stay lowkey, so you pull on a pair of baggy jeans and stick on a new set of blockers. Gripping the bathroom sink you bite your tongue through the fuzziness, squeeze your eyes shut when your vision goes a little blurry, and when the blockers finally seep in, you put on a shirt loose enough to hide the face that you’re wearing them.

No one’s ever noticed before, but you don’t want to risk it now.

You’re shoving your feet into some sneakers when someone pounds on your door, hard enough that the whole things rattles dangerously.

“Jack!” Nico hisses through the oak, and you smile a bit. Not his alpha voice, but close, and you suddenly feel a little guilty for being upset with him. He’d used his dynamic to defend you earlier, to silence Jesper and Timo, and you’d ignored it.

Not only did he do it against two of his teammates, he did it against an old friend, one who’s also an alpha. You’ve never heard an alpha turn their tone against another one, but maybe Nico does it a lot. He doesn’t seem like the type so maybe it’s just that it wasn’t even his alpha voice. Maybe he just sounds like that.

The thought makes you shiver.

“Get your ass up- oh,” Jack pauses when you open the door, looking you up and down. You stare at him, popping a bubble with the gum in your mouth. “You’re ready?”

“Yeah,”

Luke frowns. “You didn’t answer my text.”

“I was busy getting ready,” you lie, “hold up.” You close the door on them without another word, grabbing your phone and room key off the bedside table, your purse off the bathroom counter where you left it after double checking for extra scent blockers and gum.

When you open the door again, Jack and Luke are leaning against the opposite wall. Nico is in front of your door, shifting his phone back and forth in his hands. He stops when you join them in the hall, closing the door behind you.

“Let’s go then,” Jack says, already heading down the hall. “Everyone’s already there and I hate being late.”

The second part is thrown over his shoulder with a narrow-eyed glance at you as Nico nods for you to go first, his hand stretching out to touch your lower back. It’s nowhere near your scent blockers, but you tense all the same, breath catching in your throat. He doesn’t touch you though, just tucks his hands into his jeans pockets once he’s fallen into step with you.

“Maybe you should’ve left with them then.” You tell Jack, raising a challenging eyebrow when he looks back at you again. Luke shoulders him forward without another word.

It’s not until you’re waiting outside for the uber that Nico softly touches your elbow, eyes big and soft under the Florida street lights.

“Hey,” he murmurs, kind and gentle, so unlike the tone you’d heard him use with Jack earlier. Very different from the one he used outside your changing room. “Did you get my text?”

You should tell him yes. You could tell him yes, could admit that you read it about five times, rolled the words over in your head and tried to hear how it would sound coming out of his mouth. You’d have to admit that you purposely ignored it though, and because Nico is so kind, he’d want to know why. He’d want to fix it.

“Oh no,” you lie instead, and it feels worse than when you did it to Luke. Tastes sour on your tongue and makes something in your gut swoop unpleasantly. “I saw Luke’s and just started getting ready right away. Must’ve missed it.”

He doesn’t point out that you’ve never missed a text from him before, and you pretend that that information is irrelevant. Nico puts his hand back into his pocket, nodding with a quiet “Oh okay. No worries.”

The extra large Uber pulls up, a big silver SUV, and Luke bullies you into the back with the excuse that you’ve got the shortest legs- which whatever - but then instead of Jack (who is clearly the next shortest) Nico squeezes into the back too. His knees fold up kind of awkwardly, digging into the back of the seat in front of him but he simply settles into the seat, looks around at the vents and the control system.

“Do you want me to adjust the temperature?” He asks as the car pulls way from the hotel, and you glance at the screen displaying the lowest a/c settings.

“No I’m good,” you decline, even though it’d be nice for him to turn the fan up, to let the cold air blast out of the vents. You don’t want to bother them though, to have to hear Jack whine about how it’s too cold so you settle for the low breeze instead.

The bar is someplace on the beach, an old shack looking things with a sign made out of a sideways surfboard, and the line stretches down the sidewalk. Not that it matters for your group, because Nico strolls up to the bouncer and tells him something, motioning to the four of you.

“Her too?” The bouncer asks, raising an eyebrow at you, and you wonder what Nico said. Did he tell him you were the Devils hockey team and that the rest of your group was inside? Does this not guy not know anything about you? About the league?

“Yes, her too.” Nico says shortly, and he’s touching your elbow again, pulling you into the bar behind him. Luke and Jack follow closely behind, the youngest Hughes scoffing under his breath as he passes through security.

You do what you’ve always done on nights out, follow whoever you’re with and act like you know what you’re doing. Which is how you end up in a booth between Luke and Nico, Jack and Timo and Jesper across from you, shoulders squished against each other.

It’s hard not to think about the fact that the whole other side of the table didn’t want you here. It’s even harder to sit there and listen to them scope out the omegas and the betas around the bar, ooh and ahh over the other guys that decide to try their hand at picking up tonight. You manage it though, just how you always have, dumbly nodding and agreeing whenever Luke elbows you to, hands cradling the rum and coke he’d brought you from the bar even though you’re mostly just scooping chunks of ice out of it and sucking on those. Alcohol and secrets don’t mix, but you don’t want to look suspicious.

“Kid,” Timo says suddenly and a foot nudges you under the table. You blink, pull your gaze away from the televisions over the bar where a college football game is playing.

“What?” You ask, nibbling on your frozen gum that’s lost its flavor but you don’t spit it out, not wanting to make Nico get up so you can get to a trash can.

“You don’t pick up or what?”

It’s not that you never have. In college it was pretty easy. You could slip away from the boys in any bar, find a beta that was pretty good looking without drawing attention to yourself. Without the team around you, no one ever knew who you were. They never expected you to be a hockey player. You could disappear for ten minutes to do as you please, and then rejoin the team again without question.

You would never try that here though. Not in the NHL. You get one chance here and you’re not blowing it for a quick fingering in the bar bathroom.

“I don’t chase,” you answer, being as vague as you can manage without setting alarm bells off. “They can come to me if they want.”

Not that you’re exactly approachable with five huge hockey players around you, most of which are alphas, but you actually prefer that. Let them stay away.

Timo snorts, caught off guard at your nonchalance and you can’t help but grin a little. Jesper is smiling a bit too, hidden in the neck of his beer bottle but your chest alights with pride. Maybe Luke was right. Maybe all you need with them is a chance. Beside you, Nico hums so low you almost don’t hear it but you do, latched onto whatever reaction you can get out of him.

When you glance at him, he looks more thoughtful than amused, and you’re suddenly struck with the realization that you’ve never seen him try to pull at the bars either. Does he keep the same approach as you? Hanging back and letting them come to him?

It doesn’t seem fitting. Not for an alpha like him.

Jack kicks at you. “You’d probably clean up with omegas,” he says, grinning teasingly. You’re not sure if he’s picking or pumping your tires, but either way you don’t like it. You want them to stop talking to you now.

At your offended expression he continues. “I mean for a beta like you, they’d love it. Approachable but a little mean, right? Kinda like an alpha.”

A part of you jumps with excitement at being compared to an alpha, at the idea that maybe something about you reminds Jack of someone like Nico. The other part of you bristles.

“I’m not mean.”

“Alright,” Luke cuts in, barely lifting his hand to point out some boy by the bar. He’s ordering, perched on the barstool and fiddling with his credit card. “What about that omega?”

There’s nothing appealing about the guy at all. Not that you can admit it. His face is too boyish, makes him look young and afraid. He’s too small, or at least holds himself too small. You know immediately that you wouldn’t like it. Him being so unsure, so docile would just piss you off, because that’s supposed to be you. Not that any of them know that. Not that you can say it.

You scrunch up your nose. “That’s a face only a mother could love, Luke.”

Jesper and Timo crack up again, Nico’s lips lifting a ghost of a smile but he takes another swallow of his drink to bury it.

“Yeah not mean at all.” Jack deadpans, and you glare at him.

“Fine that’s a face only a blind mother could love. Better?”

Timo laughs even harder at that, smacking his hand down on the table and shoulders shaking. Nico is laughing now too, and the sound of it draws your gaze to him. He’s shaking his head, staring down at his lap like he’s unwilling to admit that he find your insult of a stranger so amusing, but he’s not denying it either.

Luke clears his throat “Fine not him, but there’s a lot of omegas here.”

You’re already so riled up and defensive from Jack that when you address Luke, it’s in a cold snap. “If you so much as look at another omega for me I’ll dump that drink down your shirt.”

His mouth drops open in offense, eyes wide and disbelieving. “What’s so wrong with omegas?”

“I hate them,” you say, not caring how bitter it sounds. It feels good to say something so honest, to at least admit that about yourself. It’s not the same as saying you hate yourself, which you think would be sort of nice to finally voice, but it’s close enough.

Luke’s doesn’t even flinch at the statement, doesn’t stare at you the way you can feel everyone else is. He just furrows his eyebrows, looks you up and down, and like it’s the only plausible thing to think says, “you’re a weird sort of beta, ya know that?”

You’ve been knocked in the chest, tilted off access as the floor beneath your adidas sneakers slips away. It takes everything in you to just shrug, to swallow down the same nauseous feeling you had listening to them outside your door today.

Luke doesn’t even say it in a rude way. It’s like he’s pointing out that the sky is blue and the ocean is saltwater. Indisputable, cold hard, truth. He doesn’t seem to notice that it’s made your ears ring, that your skin feels uncomfortably tight. Right when you starting to make headway with Timo and Jesper, when you had Nico laughing, he chooses to point out the main thing that they don’t like about you.

You’re different. You’re weird.

Not wanting to talk anymore, you fish out another piece of ice from your drink to chew on, returning your gaze back to the game though you’re not watching it. Not really. All you can feel is where Nico’s is pressed up against you, his thigh next yours, his arm over the back of the booth. Not around you technically, but close enough, and you tell yourself he wouldn’t do that if he thought you were so weird.

Sometime later they run out of drinks, and Luke and Nico offer to get next rounds so you slide out of the booth with them, follow dumbly behind as they head to the bar. You’re not sure what makes you do it but with them placing orders, you slip through the crowd, holding your purse close to your chest, and reach the front exit.

The bouncer looks more than happy to see you go, even smiling as you duck around the ropes and cross to the beach. The sand feels odd under your sneakers, gets into the little holes your laces are looped through but you keep walking until all you can hear is the water.

You sit down, knees folded up until your purse is pressed so tightly into your chest it’s hard to breathe, and finally your hearing starts to go back to normal, the buzz under your skin dulls, and the small gulps of salty air you inhale feel like enough. At least for now.

You don’t know how long you sit there, but you do know your phone buzzes a few times in your back pocket and you ignore it. You ignore everything except the sound of the water until someone is sitting down next to you.

“Here you go,” Nico says, barely audible over the waves breaking on the shore. You look over at him, chest tightening when you see what he’s holding out to you. It’s a clear plastic of cup of nothing but ice.

You swallow heavily, taking it from him. “Thank you.”

The cold cup feels nice in your palm, the ice biting on your finger tips when you pick up a cube. “How did you know?” You ask, slurring a bit around the melting piece.

Nico makes a low rumble sound, almost like a sigh but softer. Fonder. He stretches out across the sand, leaning back on his palms. “You didn’t have any of your drink,” he comments, “just the ice.”

“Don’t really like alcohol,” you say, stretching your own legs out. They feel too constricting now, too much of a hindrance between you and Nico.

“Like you don’t like omegas?” He prods, not demanding but open. Like he wants you to explain, like he’s got an actual interest in why. Out here with just him, it’s harder to admit again. It’s too personal, to say something so harsh with the moon hanging over you.

“They’re fine I guess,” you murmur, staring intently at your cup of ice. His gaze is heavy on the side of your face. You wish you’d worn your hair down, that you could hide the point of your chin and the curve of your nose from him. Like your features themselves might give it away.

He’s quiet for a moment, but when he finally speaks it feels pointed. Earnest and directed at the soft underbelly of you he doesn’t even know about. Somehow, it doesn’t hurt, him poking around there.

“I like omegas,” he admits “a lot. In case you were wondering.”

You can’t bring yourself to look at him. Not head on, but you tilt your head enough that you can see him in your peripheral, that your gaze lands on his shoes in the sand. Nico ducks down, like he’s trying to get you to look at him, but you’re stubborn and persistent and will take every chance you can to win. No matter the game.

He knows this, of course he does. It’s Nico, the all-knowing, perfect alpha. He’s got a sixth sense for noticing everything. Even things you don’t want him to know, but when he hums, looking up at the moon like he’s got all the time in the world to figure you out, you think maybe it’d be nice if he won this one.

It’s a dangerous thought, made even worse when he ends the conversation with, “I don’t mind chasing either. Just so you know that too.”

Your phone buzzes at the same time his front pocket chimes. Neither of you make any move to grab them though. Not with what he just admitted, not with what you just let him imply, and not with the moon and the ocean encouraging you both.

<<<<>>>>

Thanksgiving comes and goes, and you're still thinking about it.

Weird kind of beta.

It shouldn’t be tearing you up as much as it is. You’ve been called far worse both on and off the ice. Maybe it’s because it came from Luke, someone you’ve played against and with for years. It feels more personal.

Yet you’ve been insulted the same by people you’re even closer too. A teammate calling you weird isn’t a big deal compared to a parent calling you ridiculous or embarrassing. That was different though because it was meant to make you better, tougher. And it did. Every time it was muttered in the locker room after practice, grunted out in the car after a bad game, said over the phone to another coach it made you better.

It made you an NHL caliber hockey player.

Luke calling you weird isn’t the same as that. He wasn’t saying it to push you into working harder. He said it because he thinks it, and worst of all he said it in front of Nico. Perfect Nico in all his alpha-ness now knows that your friend, your teammate thinks you’re weird. No doubt his captain brain filed that right away to bring up the next time things get bad in the locker room, after you cause them all to throw a game.

It’s because she’s weird, he’ll think. She puts off the energy of the room. She shouldn’t be here. Fitz should bench you, trade you, send you down. Or worse, cut you loose.

The poor, weird female beta that couldn’t live up to her father’s name. That could never do what he did. Bring a Cup to Jersey.

That’s why they signed you after all. You know that even if it wasn’t said. Your father’s last name and back to back championships got you signed. Back then, the Devils missed out on getting him to retire here, getting to raise a banner with his number. Here’s another shot at getting that name in the rafters even if it’s through his off-putting daughter and-

Damn Luke for opening his stupid mouth in front of them, in front of Nico. Nico and the perfectly tussled, voluminous hair he just rolls out of bed with and those stupidly dark eyes that look at you like he can see every little thought in your head.

It’s terrifying in the same way it’s comforting. You’ve gotten by this long by not being seen. You stick to specific behaviors and mannerisms that would be acceptable of a beta and that’s it. Everything else stays locked away in your head, chattering and buzzing under your skin but never shown.

To think that he can see that or that maybe if he looks at you long enough he might.

He can’t, you remind yourself. He may be the dream alpha but he’s not magical. There’s no way he knows anything.

You can’t stop thinking about it though because he's implied in. In Florida, when he followed you out of the bar and made sure you knew what he wanted. Spoken like he could see into you, like he knew you want him to like you, to chase you. He's been different since then too. You don't go out to eat with Luke and Jack, not like you used to. Instead it's always just you and Nico. You and him haven't gone out with the team again either. Any time Luke or someone invites, he makes a point to tell you that he's not going. He's even texted you once, when you were up in Boston. It still sits in your phone, hidden in all the other texts he sends you.

Hello! I am not going out tonight. Not sure if you are but if you need anything call me. I've got great Uber ratings 😁

Not that you're surprised by that information. You’re certain his uber ratings are perfect, just like his credit score probably is, and his medical records, and his school records because he’s an alpha and he’s…god he’s just so amazing, isn’t he? He’s everything you could ever dream up and more. Responsible and kind and clean and strong. He’s so strong, in a quiet, reserved kind of strength you’ve always envied.

It’s all you can think about? staring out at the buildings across the street, not that you can really see them. You just see Nico. Nico’s overly soft eyes, made sweeter by the concerned way he always furrows his eyebrows. Nico soft jaw that’s always darkened by a five o’clock shadow even if he shaved that morning. He’s so manly, so alpha-y.

It’s pathetic, this whole thing is so pathetic. Huffing, you yank your blankets further over your shoulder, shoving your head down into your pillow in hopes that it’ll somehow make you tired. It doesn’t.

You think of Nico, asleep in his room that smells like heaven, mouth hanging open in the same way it does when he sleeps on the team bus. Even that doesn’t make him look dorky. It’s cute when he does it, sexy even if he’s let his beard grow out all thick and dark on his round cheeks.

Your chest grows hot at the thought, a shiver running up your back and you roll your eyes for no one to see in your darkened room, mentally berating yourself.

Nico is an alpha and you’re not. You’re not even close to being an alpha and lying here thinking about how he’s so effortlessly one isn’t going to fix anything, isn’t going to somehow make you maybe seem like one.

That’s impossible. As you were so kindly reminded by your best friend. A weird kind of beta. You could never be mistaken for an alpha. You can barely pull off being a beta because they’ve all noticed it. The odd way you have to carry yourself, the habits and routines you have to keep up with just to feel like you’re sort of living.

That’s not the kind of wolf Nico would even want, no matter what’s he’s convinced himself of.

A weird kind of beta. Coming from Luke Hughes of all people. Kind of a rude thing to come out of an alpha’s mouth even if you’ve known Luke for years. Nico would never say that to you let alone a long time friend. Hell, he wouldn’t even say it about a stranger you think.

Nico is a different standard though, even if it’s unfair to hold him to such high regards.

That’s life and it hits everyone like that. Standards and expectations and rules that are unfair.

The thought keeps you up for a while. Tossing and turning in your bed that feels too hot under all your blankets but too cold without them. Pouting, you slip out from under your blankets and into the connecting bathroom, limbs moving in a practiced routine of slipping out a scent blocker from the box on the counter top. Peeling open the waxy film and slipping out the sticky pad, the familiar and clean smell of the blocking chemical hitting your nose. You peel back the sticky side, holding it carefully in your palm as your other hand lifts up your oversized t-shirt. You smack the blocker into place on the tender part of your back, the spot you always hide your blockers on even though it burns. Bracing yourself against the sink as your heads swoops and spins for a moment.

The chemicals sink in though, mix into your normal scent running through your veins and with fuzzy fingers and toes you pad out of the bathroom and back into your room. Leaving the window open to keep airing out any traces of your scent, you grab a pillow and blanket off your bed and then carefully open your bedroom door.

It’s darker in the living room, the windows not catching the Hoboken street lights the way yours does so it takes you a bit to adjust to the light enough to move around freely. Across the way Nico’s door comes into focus, partially cracked like he always leaves it. Inviting, beckoning you to just slip over and press it open fully, inhale that beautiful smell of him.

You scoff under your breath, reminding yourself to stop acting so stupid as you pad across the living room and to the oversized chair closest to Nico’s room. Propping your pillow up on the arm, you curl up with your feet draped over the edge and blanket over your body, telling yourself that you’re only sleeping here because the chair is also directly under the vent blowing cool air.

It’s not because it means Nico is closer to you. It’s not because you can faintly smell him from here if you take a lot of deep breathes really fast. And it’s not because you want him.

You don’t want Nico. You can’t want Nico. Not if you want any of this to work out.

It only takes you another agonizing minute of trying to not think about him before you fall asleep.

~~~~

Over the next few days, you decide that you may be a weird beta, but that’s because you’re not supposed to be one. You, however, don’t know what could possibly be Nico’s excuse for how different he’s gotten.

It’s not a bad different, not that you could ever say it out loud. You actually kind of like it, like him like this. He’s everywhere now, taking up spaces around you that used to be empty. When you watch film on the couch, he’s there, sometimes on his phone, sometimes watching tv with the German dubbing. He invites you to do everything with him now too. Even if it’s just sitting together in silence or riding in the passenger seat of his car as he takes a letter to his sister to the post office.

You try not to overthink what it might mean. Why he’s acting like this. You tell yourself it’s him trying harder to be a really good friend after that night in the bar, but it feels different. It feels like it’s more than that, and the more he does it, the more you convince yourself it’s him playing your game, trying his hardest to win. It’s hard for you to not want that.

The same way it’s hard for you to tear your eyes away from him. He’s not even doing something worth the staring, scrolling through his phone with his head propped up on his hand. But it makes his cheek squish all funny against his palm, crinkles his his eyes that are still swollen with sleep and maybe that’s it.

You’ve never gotten to freely observe an alpha like this. You see them on the ice, in the locker room. When they’re lazar focused and locked in, competitive. You’ve never lived with an alpha that lets that side go.

You can’t keep staring at him though, keep obsessing over so much because he’ll only be a matter of time before Nico notices, and he will notice because he’s an alpha.

“M’gonna go get ready for practice,” you say, rising from the dining room chair and Nico’s gaze snaps to you, eyebrows furrowing in a way that you think means too much. He means too much.

“Okay,” he nods, rubbing his hand down his face. There’s a second where you just stand behind the chair staring at him and he stares back, an unspoken question hanging in the air. You need to walk away, to go to your room and get in the shower and move on with your day.

There’s something you’ve been meaning to tell him though. With the holidays coming up, with the Avalanche traveling to New York to take on the Rangers and Islanders respectively, your parents are stopping by. There’s a gap before the first game though, on the day the team flies in where they’re free that night and you play here at home, and tickets for them in a box in the rock have already been secured.

You turn, take a half step towards leaving but come up short. Nico is still watching you with concern when you turn back around, words tumbling freely from your lips.

“My parents are coming.”

He blinks like he’s taken aback by your words, and your tongue feels heavy with for even mentioning it, not that you know why, but the sight of him looking at you like that eases it a bit.

“O-okay,” Nico nods, clearing his throat. His head tilts, eyes squinting curiously and you suck in a deep breath through your nose, are hit with that same fresh, sweet smell of him. “When the Avs are here?”

You nod, lacing your fingers together behind your back and try to figure out why you worded it like that. At first, you planned on telling him they’re coming and they have tickets to a game but you also have tickets to the game at MSG to spend time with your mother. Instead it came out like this, it came out with you wanting more.

Nico’s scent is coaxing in your nose and you take a deep breath of it before asking, “Would you maybe meet them please?”

That narrowed expression of his morphs into one of genuine surprise, his eyes softening into that overly bright, rounded and innocent look they usually have. “Of course I would.” He agrees, “I’d love that.”

He’s lying, he has to be. You don’t know why he’d have any interest at all in spending time with your parents. But he’s looking at you like he really means it, his words spoken gently and with enough earnest that it takes your breath away.

You feel itchy and hot, your skin too tight all of a sudden.

“Thank you,” you murmur and then because you’ve already let your tongue slip today, you add “I think you’re a really nice alpha Nico.”

It’s almost disgusting the way the air in the room seems to grow ten times hotter, the sudden onslaught of that yeasty scent filling your nose, just as fresh and warm as the day you smelled it in Nico’s room.

It’s heavenly and calming and perfect and- nothing. It’s nothing. It’s just a smell you happen to like, probably because it’s one of the few things you actually can smell.

It’s going to drive you crazy, your hands already trembling and overwhelmed. You turn on your heel and move back to your room.

“Wait-“ Nico calls, stopping you and you turn back around to look at him. “I can make is reservations? Somewhere nice and with real mints up at the front.”

You smile, endeared by how eager he sounds to plan this, to be a part of this. Again, you don’t know why he is, but you’re thankful. Thankful that he’ll do this for you. His suggestion is nice too, and the fact that he wants to do it for you. It should be you making plans and dinner for your family and yet he offered like it should be up to him. Like he’s your-

“Umm my dad already took care of it,” you say, because he always does. When it comes to events like this, he’s on top of everything, probably already has a list of pre approved places for you to go to. “At least for after our game but do you want to come watch their game in Manhattan with me? We can probably take the ferry over.”

Again, you don’t know why Nico would want to spend a free night across the river watching your rivals play, but his whole face lights up like it’s the best idea he’s ever heard. Like being in a suite with you and your mother and carefully plucked MSG workers is exactly where he wants to be.

“Yeah we can,” he nods, dimples in his cheeks. Your face warms, burning hot in your ears and throat. Pathetically, you murmur again, “Thank you Nico.”

Somehow, he softens even more, eyes going big and starry. You used to look up at the stars a lot back home where they’re really visible, admiring the specks of light where everything else is dark, let it soothe the anxiety in your veins. You get that same feeling now, looking at him, and it’s terrifying. It’s dangerous and stupid, and yet, you don’t look away.

“You’re really good too,” Nico finally says, “I don’t think you even notice it sometimes but you are.”

You’re really good too. Nico thinks you’re good. He’s still yet to say you’re weird, you’re different, like you don’t belong. But he said this. He called you good. Not a good beta, not a good teammate or roommate or anything else. Just good.

You want to tell him. You want to tell him everything right there and then. Desperately, you want to be honest with him.

You’re not though and you never can be. It’d ruin you, your family, and it’d ruin him too.You moved in with Nico for a reason. To be like him, to learn by example and know how you’re supposed to act. You didn’t move in to make him an accomplice, to jeopardize his career so you can’t tell him everything.

You probably shouldn’t have invited him to meet your family either. It’s risky and stupid and you know better, but you did it anyway. Nico will know even more now, will take that compliment of you being good and realize all you are is a liar. After he meets your parents, there won’t be anyway of hiding from him anymore. Whether you tell him yourself or he notices it on your mother, Nico will have the confirmation that whatever he picked up on in Florida is true.

Nico will know that you’re not a beta.

The one thing no one is ever supposed to know and you invited him to a front row seat that’ll give it away. You should be scared probably, worried about what he’ll say but for the first time in your life, you’re not. You’re relieved actually, relieved that you won’t be saying it out loud so you won’t have broken any rules. Even more relieved that he’ll know the truth. You can stop lying to him after this.

And you can stop lying to yourself when you say you want to be like Nico. You don’t want to be like him. You want him.

You want Nico to be your alpha.

[mikkomacko]

The Love Instinct Masterlist

Alpha Nico x Female reader, Omega reader

*Indicates Smut

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Extras:

Meet The Wolf: Omega Reader

Meet The Wolf: Alpha Nico

Instagram 1

[mikkomacko]

I love this idea could you do one with alpha Nico, camping, and “when did I take my clothes off?”. I think it would be so cute if that was said when walking up. But you have the creative freedom to do it has ever you like.

Pairing: alpha Nico x omega reader

Prompt: “When did I take my clothes off?”

Theme: Camping

<<<<>>>>

Camping to you has always been makeshift tents in the treehouse outside your window, a digital campfire flickering in HD on your iPad screen while you ate marshmallows straight out of the bag. The city noise stilled zoomed by you, the sounds of your father leaving to the rink early in the morning still woke you, and the workers still went in and out of the house.

The treehouse was yours though, and even if it wasn’t actual camping, you liked to pretend it was. You could stare up at the fairy lights that twinkled from above the thin sheet you tacked to the walls and convince yourself it was real stars, that the pine scented air freshener hanging by the open window was real evergreens.

You loved it, even if it wasn’t real.

So when Nico and his family planned a camping trip for all of you, you were ecstatic. This was real camping. It was loading up giant backpacks with tents and clothes and water, dragging coolers of food behind you as you hiked up dirt paths of the Alps. It was you holding tightly to the back of Nico’s pack and pretending it was for safety reasons when it was really because you needed him to pull you up the steeper parts of the journey. It was finding a flat area near the peak of the hike, perfect for pitching four tents around a stonework fire pit that was still dusted with ash.

“It’ll be cozy,” his mom had said once all the tents had been spread out as much as possible, the shiny green fabric of yours and Nico’s tent obviously nee compared to the others.

“We’ve upgraded,” his father had explained to you, “Luca and Nico always used to share.”

Oh, you realized. This was your first time really camping, and Nico’s first time camping in his own tent. They’d gone bigger for you, made extra space and extra accommodations to fit you into their camping traditions. You decided then and there that you wouldn’t be a bother at all the whole weekend. You’d be easy, do whatever Nico asked you to do, and not ask questions.

Though maybe you should’ve asked questions, at least when he asked you to prop the tent up while he slide the poles in, because you didn’t know what that meant so you climbed in the tent and held it up with your arms out and fabric draped over your head, and Nico had laughed, that deep and startled laugh he always gets with you and said, “you could’ve held it up from out here.”

“Oh,” you mumbled, staring at dark green fabric “I’ve never put up a tent before.”

It worked out anyway, Nico getting the poles slotted into place around you, staking them in until slowly the tent stood up around you. Nico poked his head in then, ducked down to fit and he laughed at the undoubted way your hair was a mess from acting as a makeshift pole.

“We did it!” You cheered, happy and pleased because this wasn’t old bed sheets with thumbtacks in your man-made treehouse. This was a real tent!

He hefted your bags into the tent after that, sitting cross legged by the door as you both picked apart your packs. By the time you got your beds made, it became blatantly obvious who was sleeping where. Closets to the zipper door, Nico had just a mattress pad, his sleeping bag and woven blanket, and a pillow. You had the same mattress pad and a matching sleeping bag, but you’d shoved two pillows in your pack and three blankets and a stuffed goat from Nico’s bedroom that was so old it was like his scent was engrained in the fabric of it.

“How did you fit all that in there?” He asked with mirth, manhandling you into the pile of bedding until you were trapped under his arms, curled up in your pillows.

“My pack was very roomy,” you replied, not thinking much of it all. You laid there for a while, staring up at the mesh covering of your tent and listening to his family move around outside, setting up the campsite for dinner.

No air freshener in the corner, no iPad fire, no blocking out the urban sounds of the city like you were used to.

Nico tucked his face in your neck, nose pressed up against your scent gland.

“You smell happy.”

“I am happy. I love camping with you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. I love our tent too.”

“Good.”

And it was good. Everything was so good. Trudging through the woods with him and Luca to carry back arm fulls of sticks and bark for a fire, mouthwatering as the smell of his parents grilling for dinner grew stronger and stronger. Pack in around the picnic table so tightly you were practically in Nico’s lap as you ate, stealing chunks of crisped pineapple from his plate that he pretended he didn’t see you take.

He was so warm against you at dinner and then the campfire was lit as the sun started to set, and then Nico pulled on a hoodie and wiggled you into one of his old team Switzerland ones, that the dropping temperatures never registered.

Not when you slumped into Nico’s shoulder, full and satiated by s’mores, and started to nod off. They were telling stories around you, Nico sharing funny things from the season and the long roadtrips, tidbits on the moments that will always stick out for him.

Not when you were practically purring into his chest and more asleep than awake, listening to the stories slowly morph into their native tongue, English not necessary now that you were out of commission. You don’t know how long Nico held you, sat on a blanket in the grass, close enough that the fire warmed your cheeks and crackled in your ear, that you barely registered his hands combing through your hair, twisting it up into a low bun at the base of your neck.

Everything felt far away, the crickets chirping, the stories fading away, Nico’s touch rhythmic, the air cooling even more. You barely registered him getting you back to the tent, the battery powered lantern in the corner casting you both in a soft yellow as he zipped the tent shut for the night.

“I didn’t say goodnight,” you mumbled, wondering where the lamp went and then realizing it was still there, your eyes were just closed.

“That’s okay, puppy,” he soothed, and you blinked at him, bleary eyes watching as he got you out of your jean shorts you’d been wearing all day, tossing them over by your bag. You don’t remember him taking off your shoes.

“S’rude,” you murmured, but he shushed you.

“You’re okay,” he promises, warm hands sliding up under your hoodie and t-shirt. You arched your back, limbs heavy and slow as he somehow wiggled you out of your bra “you had a big day, omega. So excited, huh? And the hike, they know you’re tired.”

“Tired,” you agreed, arms stuck in your jacket and he laughed, fond and warm as he helped you put them back through the sleeves. Nico zipped you into your sleeping bag then, tucking the stuffed goat in there with you and pressing a kiss to your forehead.

He stripped down to just his briefs and then pulled on a Kith crew neck you’d worn a few days ago, before climbing in his own sleeping bag. You didn’t like not being able to feel his legs, to press your thigh against the fuzzy hairs of his to trace your toes over his calve. You were too tired to say anything though, too tired to do anymore than let him pull your sleeping bag in close and wrap and arm around you.

“I love camping,” you whispered to him, already on the verge of sleep again “I love real s’mores.”

“I know, puppy,” he murmured, lips warm on your temple “go to sleep now, okay? You’re comfy?”

“Mhm.”

“Are you warm?”

“Mhm.”

“Are you asleep?”

You had heard the question, but didn’t answer because you’d been pulled back into the same hazy, warm sleep you’d found by the campfire earlier. It stayed like that for a while, dreams you don’t remember, made sweet by the smell of the woods at night and the lingering stickiness of burnt marshmallows in your mouth. Real camping.

The one thing you didn’t know about real camping in the Alps was how cold it gets. You know it gets chilly at his parent’s house, that a light sweater is always needed at night and early morning, so that’s what you brought and that’s what you slept in.

Yet you wake up shivering, curled up in a ball in your sleeping bag, fingers and toes stiff from coldness. The lamp in the corner of the tent has been turned off and any lingering light that filtered in from the campfire before is completely out by now. All you can really make out in the dark are the lumps by the door that are yours and Nico’s bag, and belatedly you realize why Nico was so shocked to see all your blankets in the bag.

You had space for extra bedding because you didn’t pack layers or warm clothes, not like him. Even if you had, he always runs warmer than you.

Knowing there’s nothing in your bag that could help, you wiggle closer to Nico, hoping to feel some of the heat that naturally radiates off him. He’s all tucked into his sleeping bag though, the fabric reflecting his own warmth back on him and leaving you out in the cold.

Annoyed, you make a mental note to sleep in his bag with him tomorrow night, but for now you’ll have to think of something else. Something that doesn’t involve straying too far from him.

You peer over at his sleeping form, able to make out the shape of his face and his messy hair. He’s asleep with his mouth open, the way he always does when he’s exhausted. You can tell by the way he breathes, how deep and heavy it sounds.

Carefully you unzip your sleeping bag enough that you can slip out and on top of him, pulling the fabric up over your shoulders like a blanket. It helps, but you’re still exposed to the cold now, hands trembling as you paw at the zipper of his bag. Nico barely stirs as you get his sleeping bag open, scoffing in annoyance at how much warmer the air feels around him.

You feel like you’re in a fever dream, desperate hands mindlessly moving to ruck up his crew neck, shoving it up his body. You should maybe be more careful, be kinder about it, but your limbs aren’t moving right in the cold and you’re pretty sure this all might be a dream.

He makes a gruff, annoyed alpha rumble when you yank the fabric up around his neck, having freed his arms from it. Placating, you tickle at his scent gland until the furrow between his eyebrows smooths out and his intimidating rumbles turn to something kinder, something sweeter.

The skin of his neck and shoulders is damp with sweat when you tentatively lift his head up to pull the crew neck all the way off, and it makes you huff with frustration. You’re so cold your fingers are probably blue and he’s sweating like he’s been laid out in the sun for the past few hours.

Almost frantic, you tank the crewneck over your hoodie, not caring how it bunches and pulls oddly at your neck. It’s so warm, smells like him and his sweat, and you tuck your nose under the collar of it to get rid of the chill there too.

Breathing into the fabric, you think about zipping him back up into his bag and going to sleep, but he’s so so warm and you’re not, and he looks so big and cozy even in the dark.

Shamelessly, you curl up right next to him, pressing in to his ribs so you can zip up the sleeping bag around both of you. Then you pull yours on top just in case too, settling into bed again. You tuck the stuffed goat into his neck, then hide your face in his armpit when he smells so strong and his skin is burning hot.

Like its instinct, Nico shifts towards you and throws his arm over your shoulders, pulling you into him. You press your frigid, sock clad toes into his calves and your knees into the soft hair of his thighs, and finally go back to sleep, warm and comfortable.

<<<<>>>

When Nico wakes in the morning, all he’s aware of is that the sun is bright, even through the tent, and you’re not sleeping next to him anymore. He’s always been a late sleeper, but today he feels like he’s slept longer than he should’ve, or maybe he slept deeper than normal.

He’s well rested, already buzzing to find you and have a fun day running through the woods and swimming and eating fresh fruit. He can smell you from where he’s still laid out on his pillow, scent bright and sweet, a little groggy with sleep. You must be feeling lazy or maybe you’ve just woke up too.

Following the scent of you, he climbs out of his sleeping bag and the tent, groaning and yawning as he stretches out in the morning sun. The grass is warm and sticky under his bare feet, the air fresh on his skin and it’s not until he’s scratching at his left bicep does he remember going to bed with a crewneck last night.

As soon as he realizes, his family does too, and 4 pairs of wide eyes fall on him, all of them pointed and a little amused. Yours, however, shine with happiness.

“Alpha!” You cheer from where you’re hunched over the table with Nina, a mug of something in your hands and a book forgotten underneath it. “You’re awake!”

“You certainly are,” Luca jests, poking at the tiny flames in the fire pit with a knowing grin. Nico’s cheeks go hot, shyness bleeding in and he crosses his arms over his bare chest.

“Uh,” he trails off, turning his gaze back to you “When did I take my clothes off?”

“I took them off,” you chirp, oblivious to the way everyone else’s face scrunch up and their scents shift from confused to disturbed.

“That’s great, omega,” he smiles tightly, “why though?”

“You were really warm, like burning up.” You explain, climbing up from the wooden bench and he can see how many layers you’re wrapped in now, that the crewneck he wore to bed is stretched over the hoodie he put you to bed in. The sweatpants from his pack are on your legs.

He raises an eyebrow at you.

“And I was so cold, Squish. You didn’t tell me camping is cold!”

You press up against his front, thankfully hiding most of his frame from his family, and wrap your arms around his waist. As if the reminder of the cool temperatures last night is still lingering, you shiver and dig your chin into his chest. Big, sleepy omega eyes peer up at him.

“I did,” he insist, lighthearted “I asked like five times if you packed cozy stuff.”

“Cozy is nest,” you frown, scoffing as if it’s obvious “cozy doesn’t mean layers so I don’t turn into a popsicle.

“And you didn’t even tuck me into your bag with you! You locked me out!”

Unable to help himself, he laughs at your indignation. Then he presses a peck of apology to your head.

“I thought you’d be warmer, m’sorry.”

Luca, know standing over the grill with Rino, makes a confused face.

“How’d you get his clothes off him?”

“I touched his neck until he was all rumble-y and then I just took them off.”

Nina barks out a laugh, the sound similar to the same laugh you pull out of him when you get away with outlandish things.

“That’s what that was?” She asks, then shoots Nico a look “Goddess Neeky, your wolf is loud.”

He grins in thanks, then steers you back towards the tent.

“Okay, I need at least some of my clothes back omega. You can have whatever is left after I get dressed.”

You duck into the tent, already wiggling your arms out of the two sweaters you’ve got on, “can I have your socks, please?”

“Yes, omega. Just let me get pants on first.”

[mikkomacko]

The Love Instinct

Chapter 1

Alpha!Nico x Omega!Reader

Warnings: alluding to abuse, tiny tiny bit of violence

A/n: Alpha!Nico is finally here! Everyone say yippeeee. Honestly though I apologize for how much I agonized over this. Hopefully the next part will be a bit longer but I felt like I just needed to post this already so I hope you all love it and as always, feel free to chat ideas, thoughts, and questions any time x

<<<<>>>>

Nico Hischier comes from a long line of alpha wolves.

It’s something he’s always been proud of, a part of his heritage and home that he gets to take everywhere with him, to wear like a badge of honor. His mother always told him she knew her kids would be alphas. It was one of those instincts she has, not only as the one to give them life but as their family alpha.

His father had hoped one of them would be a beta like him, but he wasn’t surprised either when all three kids presented with the same designation. Statistically, Switzerland is the breeding ground for alpha wolves. Nico’s never so much as heard about a Swiss omega let alone met one. His family is considered the Swiss standard; An alpha and beta couple with alpha pups. It’s what they all are.

So he likes to think he’s well equipped in being the alpha. He comes from the world’s biggest alpha hotspot, knows how to interact and work well with other dominant personalities, know how to always stick it out. It's in his blood for fuck's sake. Alphas aren't soft, they don't crumble under pressure and pain, they fight through it.

He remembers the first time he told a coach that he was going to play in the NHL one day. Nico was barley 11 at the time but was already showing signs of presenting as an alpha. He was tall for his age, mature and sensible both on and off the ice. And he never lost his cool. Alphas sometimes get the reputation of being angry and hot headed, and while he does feel that way (rarely but it does happen), it's being able to control it that made him a real alpha. His coach told him that, after he said he was going to play in the professionals in America. She also told Nico he was strong, which was a good thing, because the next sentence that came out of her mouth was more of a warning than a piece of advice.

"You have to be willing to hurt for it Nico. Nobody gets to the NHL without bleeding for it."

And Nico was willing to hurt and bleed for it. He gave up so much for this. He played through broken bones and bruised muscles, grit his teeth through the taste of blood and just kept skating. He left his home and his pack behind. He pushed away any thoughts of a mate and any aspect of his future that wasn’t hockey. Season after season, he’s fronted the cold and harsh truths that come with captaining a team that just can’t seem to figure it out.

So yeah Nico’s bled and hurt himself beyond capacity, but nothing’s ever hurt like this. Worse than when he broke his leg and couldn’t skate, worse than the entire league saying he was too soft to be a captain, worse than when he broke his face and had to wear a stupid cage. Worse than when he presented as alpha and had to be held out of contact sports until he was deemed responsible enough to handle his urges.

And he’s got no right to hurt for this. Not really because it isn’t his pain. It’s yours, and that makes it ten times worse if he’s being honest.

It shouldn't be like this, him hunched over in some dark hotel room in Colorado, the brightness of his phone screen burning at his exhausted eyes. Nico never takes his laptop on road trips but now he wishes he had, wishes he wasn't having to squint at the tiny, blurry font on his screen.

Research is easier when it's done on a computer. It's also easier when it's not done at 2 a.m. after a disheartening loss.

But there was no way Nico was sleeping tonight, not after what he saw in the tunnels of Ball Arena. It shouldn’t keep him up probably. He wouldn’t fret this much over any other teammate because it’s just a part of the game. The infamous hockey dads, the ones that treat their kid’s career like it’s theirs, that take it a little too far.

Nico didn’t have a father a like that and maybe that’s why he’s agonizing over this so much. Well, that and the fact that you’re his…something. His wolf is convinced you’re something and that’s enough. His wolf has never been wrong before.

Knuckling at his right eye, Nico scrolls through the Google results on his phone.

Can a beta change designation?

It’s a dumb question but Nico can’t shake it. Even if he’s seen the neat b stamped next to your name on every roster, in the pages of your passport, heard it in almost every insufferable question media has asked you so far. Which is a lot for the fact that they’re only a month into your rookie season yet it seems like every night you’re answering some form of what it’s like to be a female beta in the NHL. The first female beta, more accurately.

Except it’s not accurate because Nico doesn’t think that’s what you are anymore. No, Nico knows that’s not what you are. He can’t explain it but it’s sits heavy in his bone, engrained in the marrow. No matter what he finds on this random Reddit thread he’s clicking on, he’ll still know he’s right.

He scrolls past the asshole comments of users denying its possibility, insisting that no one changes from the designation they were born with and if they think they can, they just need a reality check, need to grow up. All the useless stuff that he would maybe argue against if he didn’t have to keep it clean online. Scrolls until a heavily liked comment takes up the screen, linked to a research article.

According to this study done by Oxford’s Department of Biomarker Health and Biology, wolves can’t exactly shift their designations-

Bullshit, Nico thinks petulantly and he keeps reading.

-They can have repressed behaviors though that present as other designations. For example, a traumatic event that happened around the time an alpha would present could trick their wolf into not presenting at all. Even their biomarkers can show up too low to actually indicate alpha status in their blood tests, but will still be higher than most betas. Their official designation will be listed as beta though since they don’t meet the requirement for alpha.

That’s something, Nico thinks and his wolf trills happily in his chest as if trying to say I knew it. He stamps it down for the time being, taking a deep breath through his nose and scrolling through the replies on that comment. A lot of people sharing similar ideas, agreeing with the study. Others questioning the validity of it, the extent of what classifies as traumatic enough the suppress a wolf.

He stops at another comment from the original poster.

Trauma is trauma and can come in many forms so basically anything that altered the way someone’s brain works is viewed as trauma. It can be car accidents, injuries, abusive relationship, etc. Anything that scared a growing wolf into submission. The study actually lists a lot of different behaviors that would come up in a misdiagnosed beta like they’ll have traits of their actual designation even if they don’t realize it.

-> Also important to note that scientists claim the wolf can fully heal if cared for properly. An alpha misrepresented as a beta can still come into their alpha status if they’re around complimentary wolves, like an omega. The study hasn’t been around long enough to give a timeline on recovery yet, but everything indicates it is possible!

Nico stares at the words for a moment, not exactly reading them anymore but his thumb hovers over the link to the study. It’s probably too late to be reading a collegiate study and well, he doesn’t really need to. Not if he thinks about it.

A traumatic event at the time of presentation. Nico heard the chatter when the Devils signed you this off-season. You’re a late bloomer, presented as beta a year after most wolves do. It was a lot of commotion, media and fans arguing over whether that’s good or bad. A lot of them took the approach that the delayed-peaking will apply to hockey for you and after four years in the NCHC, four impressive years to be honest, that you’ll be even better now. It was good the Devils signed you when they did. Before you could go for a fifth year in Denver and really show off, get all the attention of other scouts.

Maybe it’s not that you’re a late bloomer though, but something else. Maybe something happened that delayed or even changed your designation. Bitterly, he thinks about tonight and realizes it’s not that far off. Because hockey parents- hockey fathers- are traumatic, especially ones that have already made a legacy in the NHL.

Nico didn’t even grow up here and he knows about your family. Your hockey legend father who won back to back Stanley cups in the early 2000s, one of which happened right here with New Jersey. Your gold-medalist figure skating mother that settled down with him after deciding a couple gold chips were enough. Your name had a big role in their all-American dream story too. Dad won a cup in New Jersey, signed with Colorado, they had you, and then he won another cup the very next season. He stayed in Colorado for a few more years, practically raised you at the rink with the team and it showed. Your presence on the ice isn’t coincidence. It came from a life of hockey, of being bred to play at the same level your father played at.

He saw firsthand tonight just how important your success in the league is to your father. Despite the fact that in your first NHL game back home, you’re first game being able to play in front of your parents, you’d gotten on the score sheet with a goal in the first and another assist later, it wasn’t enough.

Because Colorado still won with your father behind their bench, and 4 of those 6 goals scored came with you on the ice. Even if you were an opponent at the time, you’re playing under his name and his legacy. A loss under any circumstance is still a loss for the family name.

It takes Nico a second to realize he’s white-knuckling his phone, squeezing it so tightly it trembles in his hand, and it leaves a sour taste on his tongue. He is not that kind of alpha. The kind that can’t control themselves, that enables erratic and aggressive behavior by claiming it’s biology, that he doesn’t know any better.

He’s never played ignorant to the privilege given to alphas and he sure as hell can’t play ignorant to what he saw tonight.

To what he stumbled upon because that was it-stumbling. He hadn’t meant to follow you into that corner of the tunnels, not really. He’d just finished a frankly disappointing and lackluster interview with MSG Networks and was trying to make sure you were getting ready to get back on the bus. Nico had a feeling you’d get caught up with family and friends from Colorado, that the time would slip by and before you know it the bus would be honking outside with an army of tired and cranky Devils on it. He’s had that happen one too many times, particularly when he was a rookie and overly excited.

Wanting to be a good captain, he figured he’d duck down towards your dressing room to make sure you were unwinding after the game. What he didn’t want to see is tou still in your gear, helmet tucked under your elbow as you talked to your father. Only it didn’t look like just talking, more so a scolding. With your head bowed, your father standing over you and his expression angry, twisted in that same look he used to get on the ice back when he was the Avalanche enforcer.

Nico balked, half way around the corner and wanting to turn around, to give you privacy but he couldn’t because he’s never seen you look like that. And he’s never seen a parent let alone an alpha look at their own kid like that. That kind of anger was reserved for protecting your own, for fighting for them, not against them.

He thought maybe he was reading it wrong, even as his wolf started yipping and howling in alarm. Telling him to move, to get down there and get between you and your father before something bad happened. Except he couldn’t because you’re not his omega, not explicitly anything except his teammate and this isn’t happening on the ice.

It’s happening between family.

Nico wasn’t reading it wrong though and he caught the harsh words your father growled at you, animalistic enough to reveal that it was his wolf talking to you. “Wise up, kid. You’re embarassing yourself.” And that had been enough in itself to make Nico’s stomach twist, something hot and putrid spilling into his gut. A feeling he’s never known before, one he didn’t know exactly what to do with and he had to leave, knew he needed too.

He was delayed though, slowed by the nausea in his stomach, the dizziness in his head. That slight stumble was long enough for him catch the harsh pat your father left on your cheek, right on the edge of your jaw and while he couldn’t classify it as slap exactly, he knows it stung. He could hear it in the way it travelled down the tunnels, in the way your head shifted with it, gaze still locked on the floor.

Nico didn’t know what to do with it, what to do with himself so he tucked back behind the corner, leaned against the cool brick and inhaled through his mouth, tried to suck in calming breathes until he heard the familiar sound of your changing room door shutting.

Then he squeezed his eyes shut, biting on the tip of his tongue to stifle the little noise that tries to squeak past his lips. He still heard it all the same, the whimper his alpha let out in his mind. Poor omega…

It had been startling enough that Nico hightailed it back to the locker room without a second thought. Everything seemed to move ten times faster after that. His shower, changing back into his pregame suit, packing up his gear and heading out to the bus. He remembers looking for you, disappointed when he found you tucked against a window with Luke next to you. Head still down, jaw hidden by the angle and no room for him near you. He didn’t even get a chance to see if your father left a mark because you’d disappeared from the bus just as quickly as he’d ran from your changing room, locked away in your hotel room right next to his. He’s technically your traveling buddy, your would be rookie-roomie if it weren’t for the fact that you’re the first female in league history and the team didn’t really know what to do with you. They settled for just keeping you next to Nico so he could act as captain all the time.

Car accidents, injuries, abusive relationship, etc. Anything that scared a growing wolf into submission.

What’s scarier to a growing wolf than their alpha hitting them like that, talking to them like that? Nico’s never heard a bad word about your father before but that means nothing in this world. Clearly if he’s getting away with treating you like that in the tunnels of fully packed arenas. It wouldn’t be crazy for him to think that it’s been like this your whole life and that it’s probably done some damage. Damage that changed the kind of wolf you are.

Maybe it’s too late in the night for him to be doing this, assuming these things and making up stories about your childhood that he has no right to assume. But it can’t be a coincide what his wolf said in the hall, what he saw in you. Even if it doesn’t make sense and everything about you mimics that of a beta, his wolf called you omega and he’s never done that before. Never looked at someone and with such certainty claimed they’re a different designation. His did though and not to brag but his wolf has never been wrong before.

In fact, Nico is very stable and comfortable in his wolf. He’s known his whole life that he’s an alpha, that it’s ingrained in his blood and bones. So why would he doubt his wolf telling him that you’re an omega?

Anyone with eyes that witnessed that mess in the hall would agree. It’s not in a betas nature to cower like that, even when being yelled at by an alpha. They don’t have the same biological response to it that omegas do. Which is even weirder because Nico has seen other alphas chirp and yell at you on the ice, and each time you give it right back. It’s only been a few games but he’s yet to see you be affected by an alpha. Until now.

It’s awful. This whole night has been awful and Nico wishes he could just go back to before the game, when you were excited and happy to play in front of your home crowd. He really wishes he could at least go back to after the final buzzer and somehow wrangle you into media with him or make you introduce him to your father. Anything to keep you from being alone with him, to keep him from speaking to you like that and putting his hands on you.

He sighs, frowning at the woeful feeling in his chest as he taps the dimming screen of his phone. Once again, Nico needs to go to sleep. He needs to lock his phone and force himself to close his eyes, to ignore the ache in his chest but he can’t.

Groaning in frustration, he does in fact lock his phone and shove it under the hotel pillow, staring blankly into the darkness. His eyes haven’t adjusted enough after staring at a screen for so long so he’s stuck in pitch black nothing, feeling a little untethered if it weren’t for the mattress under his body.

It’s kind of nice though, offers a little break from the feeling of utter devastation in his chest. Goddess, Nico hasn’t felt like this in years. Since he was a teenager fully coming into himself. He used to climb out his bedroom window at night, sit on the edge of the windowsill with his legs stretched out over the scratchy roofing and stare up at the moon. It was the only thing that felt less overwhelming, that put everything into perspective again.

Growing up, Nico wasn’t an anxious pup. He was actually really easy-going, let everything just roll off his back. He was never the guy that got all twisted up in knots over something. Except for one thing that always stuck with him, always drove him crazy.

His mate. Anyone who was around Nico from ages 12-17 can attest that he was bat-shit crazy about the idea of his mate. Ever since he sat through the mandatory a/b/o reproductive health class in school, Nico was obsessed. Nina and Luca always taunted him for it and while it made him flush beyond belief, made him well up with tears on the inside, they were kind of right for it.

He was crazy. Not just because all he could talk about was one day meeting his mate but because he insisted his mate was an omega. The one dynamic they don’t even have naturally in Switzerland and he wanted it, knew it would one day be his. He remembers taking notes in class about the different designations, how he switched his black pen for a red one when he scribbled down characteristics of an omega.

Gentle

Yielding to alphas

Needy

Submissive when cared for properly

Fiercely protective and caring over loved ones

He knows how it goes in the rest of the world when it comes to omega. That being submissive, needing things is bad. That it makes them weaker and that’s why they mate with alphas more often than not. They need someone dominant, someone who will tell them what to do so they don’t have to decide for themselves.

Switzerland wasn’t like that and maybe it’s because there were no omegas there that they cherished them so much, but all those traits were discussed differently. Omegas and alphas are good together because alphas are that solid and steady ground they need to stand-up for themselves. Not that they need an alpha to do it for them, to control them. Just someone to quiet down the nervous energy that buzzes through them so that they can make good choices for themselves.

Basically that alphas should kiss the ground omegas walk on and in return, they’ll have the most loyal, tender mate in the universe.

Nico loved that thought. He liked the thought of a needy mate, of someone that will want him all the time, will let him take care of them like that. And he liked the so-called traditional pair of an alpha and omega because in Switzerland it wasn’t traditional.

His mate is going to be special, different and he’s known that since the moment he read through the pages on omegas.

Maybe he latched onto that too hard, clutched the idea into his chest so harshly that it became ingrained in his wolf and by the time he fully presented as an alpha, he was telling anyone that would listen that he was ready to find his omega now.

For a while his friends and siblings kind of blew him off, probably thinking it was just some hyper fixation he’d grow out of, but he never did because that wasn’t what it was. The more extra classes he took at school to learn about alpha and omega dynamics, the more books he hunted down and purchased online about omegas roles in society throughout history, the more in love with the idea he became.

It wasn’t obsession, it was him getting ready so that when he does find his mate, he’ll know how to be the alpha and partner they deserve.

Nico liked doing it too, but there were nights where he couldn’t take it. Where laying in his bedroom in Naters was too much without his omega, the one he knew should be there but wasn’t. He was ready for them but they weren’t ready for him, and that made his head spin, his chest hurt so bad he couldn’t breathe until he was sitting in the night air, under the stars and the moon, praying to the mood goddess to please take care of his omega until he could find them. He trusted Her to do it too since she was the one that gave him this bond, that chose that mate for him.

Even if no one else around him understood, he did. So he waited, got signed in Halifax and thought cool, there’s lots of omegas in Canada, and when that ended up being nothing, he waited some more. Waited and got drafted by the Devils, thought wow New York City is right there and there’s so many omegas there too. Mine has to be there somewhere, tucked between skyscrapers and townhouses, roaming through avenues and boroughs, just waiting for me!

Nothing came of that either and he waited some more, focused on hockey and making the Devils contenders, on building up a young group of players. Still, he waited and waited and-

Omega is here, he thinks as he closes his eyes, tucking a spare pillow into his chest. Omega is here with me.

Nico can’t even pretend to fight the idea, to get mad at himself for thinking such outlandish things about you because he knows. Just like he knew a decade ago that he has an omega out there for him, he knows it’s you.

He just has to find a way to show you.

<<<<>>>>

It feels like he’s only shut his eyes for ten minutes when his phone starts to buzz, vibrating loudly under his head and he digs around under the hotel pillows for it.

Eyes dry and crusted, he blinks them open, glaring at the screen of his phone. The battery is at a measly 34% from his late night doom scrolling (doom researching more like) and he was so bothered last night he didn’t plug the charger in before crashing. Which should piss him off just like the 7:38 am time stamp on the screen should piss him off too.

It doesn’t though because the vibrating wasn’t his alarm, it’s a notification from Instagram. The little grey bar revealing a new post from you and his heart leaps into his throat, has him bolting upright in bed. This early in the morning? What are you posting Instagram this early in the morning?

Wiping at the goop in the corner of his eyes, Nico opens the notification, biting at the bottom of his lip as it loads. It’s not even an actual post but a story, one you didn’t even create. It’s from someplace called Stella’s, one that looks like a cafe or something based on the photo. It’s you and your father posing with a few Stella’s workers, smiling at the camera with your arms casually thrown around each other.

Couple Denver legends in the house!!

The caption reads and you haven’t added anything yourself. Just reposted the story. It’s a cute photo too. The place at least looks cute. Nice and cozy, the building all wooden logs and intentionally chipped paint. The wall behind you is cluttered with prints and memorabilia too, old wooden snow shoes and a shotski, a carved sign of the Colorado flag, and a hockey jersey. A Denver hockey jersey.

You must be back towards the campus, Nico decides. He had planned on asking you about it yesterday, mentioning that he’s skated at the university before because they have two rinks. Usually the team practices there before games but the scheduling worked out this season that they skated at Ball Arena.

It’s not far from here if he remembers correctly. A fifteen minute ride on the bus from the hotel but that’s if you have a vehicle. Did you uber? Or maybe your father came and picked you up. Disgustingly, Nico wonders if you got on the train or public bus, something sour blossoming on his dry tongue at the thought. It’s too early in the morning to put anyone on the train by themselves let alone you, a might-be omega, and Nico hates your father a little more. Irrationally maybe since he has no way of knowing what you got up to this morning but that just makes him even more annoyed so he locks his phone again, shuffling around until he can find the charger and plug it in.

It’s too early for him to be up but he also doesn’t feel like trying to go back to sleep for a couple hours so Nico drags himself up from the sheets and pads to the bathroom. He takes a shower that starts out far too cold for his liking, shocks him awake before it settles into a nice steamy temperature that makes him tired all over again. It’s a travel day, back to New Jersey to play Washington in a couple days before heading out West again and that reminder alone makes Nico’s bones feel heavier. He always sleeps really good on planes, like the exhaustion hits harder at 30,000 feet and just knocks him out.

He knows it’s a hot take and a lot of the boys would disagree with him, but Nico is always excited to get on flights just because he knows he’ll snooze good.

Toweling off his wet hair, Nico starts packing up his suitcase and even goes as far as straightening out his bed even though the cleaning crew will just come in and strip the sheets after they’ve boarded the bus for the airport. He leaves his suitcase all zipped up and ready to go by the door, rolls up his charger and sets it on top so he can grab everything when it’s time to go.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Nico checks his phone again, frowning at the black of notifications. He ends up pulling up your contact, thumb hovering over the keyboard but he can’t bring himself to type anything. What would he say? All he really wants to know is if you’re okay, if you need a ride back downtown, if you need something from him.

After last night, he feels like he has to do something to make it better.

Instead he locks his phone, huffing as he shoves his feet into his Nikes and pulls on a hoodie. He shouldn’t reach out, shouldn’t bother you right now so he puts a beanie on over his damp hair and gathers his key card, ends up roaming the streets of downtown Denver for a bit.

It’s a nice place, even if it’s a bit small. Very far from the big city life of New York but it’s sort of nice. Because you still get the nice restaurants and the big buildings, but at a slower pace. He doesn’t feel as small here as he does back East, where it’s all so quick and overwhelming sometimes.

At a corner bakery three blocks from the hotel, Nico is standing in line when an oversized cookie in the display case catches his eye. A little chalkboard sign reads it’s a lemon raspberry sugar something, a new seasonal treat that’s frosted with the big burgundy A of the Avalanche logo. He wonders suddenly what it was like growing up here. Did you live downtown when your dad was still playing that way he was close to the rink? Did your mom bring you to places like this before games, holding your hand and smiling at the brand of your favorite NHL team? Maybe it was a routine for you. On game days you get a special Avalanche themed treat.

It’s turn to order and he doesn’t even really think about it when he requests a hot tea and croissant for himself, then adds one of the Colorado hockey cookies too. It’s a humongous thing handed over in a big waxed paper package and the sickly sweet smell of it makes his nose crinkle. The omega on the other side of the counter slides him his drink, tells him to “enjoy your goodies” with a little purr in her voice and he doesn’t mean to but he ends up scowling at her, protectively bringing the cookie closer to his body. Like she’s going to reach out and take it from him, tell him he doesn’t want something like that, all overly-sweet sugar and thick frosting.

Harshly turning away from the counter, Nico trudges back outside and towards the hotel, his croissant crumbled against his coffee cup in his fingers. He cradles the cookie in his other, careful to not bump it and mess up the design or anything. There’s still some time before he needs to get back to the hotel so Nico finds an oddly shaped cement square thing that is supposed to be a bench probably and sits down, stares at the wax bakery logo of the cookie holder as he bites off pieces of his croissant and sips on his tea.

The streets start to get busier now that the day is officially warming up so Nico tosses his trash, just as carefully picks up the cookie and the rest of his tea and heads back. The bus is already in front of the hotel when he gets there but it’s devoid of any half-asleep hockey players so at least he knows he’s not running late.

Most of the team has gathered in the lobby by the time Nico gets down with his suitcase, still cradling the bakery packaging in one hand and the last bits of his tea in the other.

“Where’d you run off to?” Jack asks him, spinning his suitcase in a little circle on the fancy floors of the hotel lobby. “Didn’t see you at breakfast.”

“Yeah I skipped catering,” Nico shrugs, then wiggles his empty cup at him. “Went for a walk and got something small.”

Leaning into the handle of his suitcase, Nico looks around the group, his mouth stretching into a yawn. The automatic doors sliding open is what draws his gaze, heart leaping in his throat as you enter the lobby, backpack over your shoulders. You’re staring down at your phone in hand, somehow effortlessly navigating around the group until you’re standing right next to Nico.

Innocently, Nico takes a deep breath through his nose, hoping to god he’ll pick up something, some kind of sign showing that you’re okay. Nico’s never met a beta that doesn’t smell like something. Every wolf has a scent and while beta’s are usually just a little more aired out, softer and subtler, you don’t fit that bill either.

You’ve got an almost chemically sterile scent. Something similar to what burns at Nico’s nose when he enters the medical room or when he went to hospital as a kid. He doesn’t want to dwell on it but he does make a note to look into that more too. Do abused wolfs lose their scent too? Realistically they would eventually, at least a repressed wolf would. That takes extreme measures though to make a wolf go latent, to remove it from your being and it’s painful. Well, he’s read that it’s painful.

You still have a smell though which is good. Even if it’s not one Nico particularly likes because it does sting his sinuses, but after games or when you’ve come back from a morning run, and sometimes when you fall asleep in the living room he can catch it. Just a hint, like the smell of chocolate croissants wafting out of an open bakery door and into the fresh air, and it doesn’t last very long but it’s there. It’s there and Nico likes that smell.

He tries to catch it now, that sweetness that lingers on you sometimes. Instead he’s met with your usual clean scent, tinged with something awful frankly. It smells rotten, or at least on its way to being rotten and he has to blow out a breath through his mouth to keep from gagging.

“You dipped on team breakfast too,” Jack says at the same time Nico asks, “Why do you smell like that?”

He regrets it as soon as the words leave his mouth because while you look unaffected when you meet his gaze, you don’t smell it. It’s slight, barely there just like whatever is marring your scent right now but he can feel it turn even more sour in the back of his throat.

“Like what?” You ask, looking him up and down with disdain and Nico feels the sudden urge to puff his chest out at you, to make himself look bigger and stronger so you don’t look at him like that again.

Maybe he was up too late last night or maybe he’s going crazy because that action isn’t something an alpha does to a beta. No it’s how he intimidate other alphas, how he impresses omegas not-

“I don’t know,” he quickly says, casting a pleading look to Jack for help. Not that he offers anything except two hands held up in surrender. “Just different I guess.”

“What’s different?” You ask, raising an irritated eyebrow and Nico swallows, guilt and shame in his gut. “Do I smell bad?”

“No!” Nico quickly answers, wincing around the lie because yeah you do smell bad but he can’t say that. That’s not something you say to anyone even if you are his teammate and friend and probably something more. Especially if you’re something more because well that’s just insulting. “You just- I mean-“

A sharp whistle from the front of the group rings out, staff starting to wave everyone on the bus now and Nico has never been more grateful for a distraction in his entire life.

It takes everyone a bit to file into the bus, none of them used to clumping up like this before having to load up. So Nico spends way too much time shuffling in line behind you, dragging his bag with him and staring at the back of your bag. He clutches at the stupid cookie in his hand that actually isn’t that stupid now that he’s offended you. He never should’ve said anything about your scent especially since he seems to be the only one that can even pick up on it.

But he’s worried that you smell like that because of your father. That you’re hurt or scared or sad. If your father was ballsy enough to touch you like that in the depth of a full hockey arena who knows what he does when it’s just you. Still, it wasn’t Nico’s place to ask he’s not your alpha-

He can’t even finish the thought and that in itself should say enough. After one night of research he’s already convinced himself of something he has no proof of. That you’re not a beta, not that you even know it and he’s your alpha. Or he at least can see himself being your alpha one day…if he’s even right.

Assuming is bad. He knows that. His sister had told him that endlessly when he was a kid, back when he’d get a little loopy about insisting he was going to have an omega mate. Then, he was so sure he was going to meet his omega in the streets of his too-tiny village, that somehow for the first time in known history someone born in the same hospital as him was going to stumble into him too and present as omega. Present as his omega and he’d present as alpha, just like everyone knew he would, and that would be it.

Fated, together forever. He was a little weird about it, he’ll admit. Looking way too closely at anyone near his age, noting their behavior to Nina in a hushed whisper and defending himself by going, “it’s an omega trait and if there’s an omega around here I know they’ll be mine.”

He was so pathetic about it the nicest thing his sister could think to do was lecture him on proper behavior. “Never assume what a wolf is Nico, not one you don’t know. It’s improper and frankly a little asshole-ish too if it’s coming from an alpha.”

Nico never wanted to be an asshole-ish alpha so he kicked the habit. At least he thought he had yet here he is, trailing into the bus behind you with his shoulders hanging in disappointment, helplessly clutching your surprise cookie in both hands.

He waits with bated breath as you near the row Luke is sat in, always in that odd spot of the bus where he’s not really in the back but he’s also not in the middle, and Nico is certain you’re going to plop into the seat with him like you always do. Instead you slip your bag off your shoulder, shuffling into the empty row behind Luke and immediately shove your bag down by your feet.

Nico practically launches himself into the seat next to you, try to stifle down the happy feeling in his chest as he gets comfortable in his seat. You’re quiet for a moment, staring blankly at the back of Luke’s seat before looking over at him.

“You don’t have to sit with me,” you say quietly, barely meeting his eye. Nico doesn’t want that, doesn’t want you to not look at him. The only part of him he can ever read is your eyes. “If I smell bad or different or whatever-“

“No I-“ he clears his throat, shifts in his seat so he’s angled more towards you. “You don’t smell bad. You don’t really smell like anything to be honest. It must have been in the lobby or something and I just picked it up but you’re-“

Perfect, amazing, great…

“You’re good. I swear.”

Nico shouldn’t be lying to you either. He knows that smell was on you, can still smell it a tiny bit but you don’t need to know that. If Nico is going to do this, if he’s going to prove that something is going on with you and then he’s going to try and fix it, it has to be done delicately.

Not by him publicly informing you that you smell a little like something the department of sanitation should be condemning.

You slump back into your seat, elbow propped up against the side of the bus as it begins to roll away from the hotel. Carefully, he watches you out of the corner of his eye, waits to see if you have any reaction to leaving your hometown again, leaving your family.

All you do is start nibbling at the side of your thumb. Nico’s alpha urges flood to the surface, tingling on his fingers and he wants to reach over, wrap his fingers around your wrist and pull your hand away from your mouth.

He appeases it by holding out the crumpled bakery bag to you. Your hand falls from your face, eyes rounding with interest and you glance at him before focusing back on the bag.

“What is it?”

Nico chuckles, shaking it teasingly at you. “Saw it when I was getting breakfast. Go ahead.”

Like his tongue was the last thing holding you back, you swipe the bag from his hand, eagerly opening it up and peering down at the hopefully still instant treat.

“Oh I love these,” you murmur excitedly, digging your hand in and pulling out the cookie. Thankfully, it is still in one piece and while some of the frosting has flaked off, the design is almost perfect. “How’d you know?”

Nico shrugs, tries to act like his heart isn’t about to beat right out of his chest at your praise. It wasn’t even praise if he’s being honest just approval but it warms him just the same.

“Just guessed. And you’re the only Avalanche fan I know so…”

“Well don’t say it too loud,” you scold lightheartedly, elbowing him. “Not supposed to have favorites when you’re in the league, ya know?”

“Right,” Nico agrees, and then just because he can he leans in closer to you, lowering his face “but we all do anyway.”

You snort, breaking off a piece of the cookie. You don’t eat it though, cradling both parts in your hands like they’re precious. He hopes you know, somewhere deep in there inside of you that it is precious. He didn’t buy the cookie just because you’re a fan. He bought it to make you happy, to do something to take care of you after last night.

“What’s yours then? And don’t say something dumb like Ottawa.”

Nico makes a face, scoffing in offense. Ottawa? Why in the world would he say them? Maybe he’s mentioned that his brother likes the Habs or something and you assumed he’d go for a Canadian team. He did play in Canada for a bit but that didn’t change his loyalty to any team.

“Nah I’d probably say the Wings,” he corrects with a soft laugh, smiling when your nose scrunches in distaste.

“We’re supposed to hate each other,” you say, finally popping the piece of cookie in your mouth, chewing thoughtfully. “Colorado and Detroit have a pretty big thing there.”

“Right,” Nico says, even though he can’t really remember anything big between the two teams. He didn’t grow up around them very much though, didn’t even see to many games being in Europe and all. “Forgot about that.”

You shrug. “I’ll give you some slack. Datsyuk was really fucking good.”

It takes him by a surprise, you saying that. “Datsyuk?” He asks because he didn’t even think about mentioning his favorite player let alone actually saying it. Yet you still brought it up, you brought up something he likes.

“Your favorite player right? That’s why you like Detroit?”

Nico blinks, trying to think of when he’s ever mentioned Datsyuk to you before. You too haven’t ever talked about things like that, idols growing up and all that jazz. He just knows about you and Colorado because everyone knows about your father.

“I- yeah I loved Datsyuk growing up.”

He must sound shocked, something in his tone giving away how awed he is that you remembered such a small detail about him because you shrug, looking a little bashful when you drop his gaze.

“You mentioned it at media day,” you explain, breaking off another piece of cookie. Crumbs smudging your palm and jeans but you pay them no mind. “If you could play against anyone and you said Datsyuk.”

Wracking his brain back to media day, it takes a Nico a moment to remember the question. It was a rapid fire questions thing for TikTok probably, something he usually does on his own but he’d been paired with you this season. He wanted to welcome you, wanted to offer some support and get to know you a little bit more. Luke and Jack had both had nice things to say about you so Nico didn’t hesitate to offer up himself to be your media day buddy.

It had been fun too. You don’t whine over recording videos or doing photos for the media team, not like a lot of the guys do. Nico would probably say this year was his favorite media day because of you. It’s hard for him to feel awkward or uncomfortable about a trend he doesn’t understand when you seemed to know everything, laughing and explaining it to him with the aid of the media team.

You didn’t make him feel stupid about it either. Not even when he still couldn’t understand trends because he had no idea what the English word you used meant and you couldn’t even try to translate.

The Datsyuk question maybe lasted half a second that day. He answered it, turned to you, and you answered. The next question was spit out before he could even think about it again.

“Right,” Nico nods, biting at his bottom lip to keep from smiling. He had no idea you remembered that. It shouldn’t make him feel as light and floaty as it does, shouldn’t affect him so much but he can’t help it. Nico’s never fought his instincts before and he’s not going to do it now.

You, who couldn’t seem to care less about getting to know teammates outside the rink, and you remembered this about him. Because he’s…whatever it is he is to you, and you’re his something too.

He opens his mouth to say something stupid, to tell you he remembers what you said that day too and he doesn’t think he’ll ever forget a single words that’s come out of your mouth around him when Luke pops his head over the seat, eyes big and wide when they land on the cookie in your hand.

“What’s that?” He ask innocently, blinking those signature cherub Hughes eyes at you.

“Mine,” you say flatly, shoving the cookie back in the bag before Luke can so much as sniff around it again.

He scoffs. “I can’t have a bite?”

You roll up the bag, holding it your chest closely and shaking your head. “No, Nico got it for me.”

Luke makes a bewildered expression, looking to him with furrowed brows but Nico is no help, not right now. “You always share snacks,” Luke explains slowly, which is true. Every time you’ve gotten on a bus or a plane with your little bag of pre-packed snacks, Luke is offered at least bite of something. Nico thinks you even pack extra sometimes because you know how he’s always hungry.

“Well this was a gift and I don’t share gifts. That’s like the whole point.”

Softly, the two of you start to bicker over what counts as a shareable gift, that a snack isn’t a gift you have to keep to yourself unless it’s like a birthday snack. Which Luke then corrects himself because birthday cakes are meant to be shared and Nico stops listening then.

Staring out the window behind you, Nico watches the highway pass by, the city fading the closer the bus gets to the airport. You won’t share his gift. A dumb little cookie he bought you at an overpriced bakery, and you won’t share it with your best friend.

Nico got it for me.

Chuffed, Nico grins all stupid as he distracts himself with his phone, scrolling through Facebook and listening far too closely as you keep fighting off Luke’s grubby little paws, clutching the bakery bag to your chest the same way he’d carried it all the way back to the hotel for you.

Like it means way more than it supposed to.

[mikkomacko]

https://www.tumblr.com/mikkomacko/802069134501429248/omega-is-a-stoner-i-think-we-need-to-see-omega

NEED THIS NOW PLS WRITE IT

i feel like her brain is so turned lax that he barely has to keep her mouth busy

Pairing: alpha Nico x omega reader

Warnings: smut, grumpy omega, crying omega, knotting, use of marijuana

A/n: Not my best work but I’m happy to be writing again and hope you all still enjoy it haha. Thanks for reading!

____________________________________________

Nico thought of it a week before your tentative heat was set to start.

You were in a bad mood, grumpy, petulant, and jittery with pre-heat nerves. There’s a lot of things you hate about not being on suppressants anymore; the fact that food doesn’t taste the same or that there’s a lot more smells in the world than you thought, but the worst is undeniably your heat.

More specifically the lead up to it. In the year you’ve been off suppressants, you’ve had two and they’ve been exactly the same in that they were both brutal and unpredictable. They’ll hit out of nowhere, never on the 6 month schedule that Nico’s rut is on, as are most wolves.

Which is supposedly fine. It’s your body regulating after years of fucking with your hormones, and it’ll eventually go away. Eventually you’ll sync up with Nico’s body. At least that’s what Nico and the doctor here in Switzerland tell you in a weak attempt at trying to sooth you.

It sucks now but it’ll get better.

That’s what Nico said, chest pressed tightly to your back and chin resting on top of your head. You rolled your eyes, glaring at the tv and shifting uncomfortably under his hands that rubbed at your bloated belly.

If he noticed the attitude, he didn’t comment on it. Instead he pressed a sweet kiss to your temple, voice a low rumble in your ear when he spoke.

“I was thinking about next week,” he starts, carefully “when your heat really hits. About how it’s kind of scary, and I thought what if you smoked or something before.”

Curled up against his chest, you paused, eyebrows furrowing together as you thought over the idea. You don’t smoke a lot when you’re here in Switzerland with him, but you do a little bit during your preheat. Just enough to take the edge off, usually right before bed so you can sleep better.

You were actually surprised Nico didn’t offer the joint tucked in a drawer in his bedroom or the stash of edible chocolates hidden around his condo.

Neither of you are a stranger to getting high, not even during sex but you never thought of doing it during your heat.

At your lack of response, Nico brushed his thumb over your belly button and tucked his nose into your neck.

“Don’t have to,” he murmured, “just thought it’d help you relax more. Maybe enjoy it more this time.”

It wasn’t a terrible idea and you know from previous experiences that stoned giggling and fumbling through sex with Nico is really good. There’s a difference between heat fucking and normal fucking though and-

“What if it’s too much?”

You’ve never had an issue with pot making your anxiety worse but your heats are unpredictable and scary and you have no idea how your body will react. You’ll already be pretty out of your mind, what if pushing that further gives you a bad reaction?

“I’ll make sure you’re okay puppy,” Nico promised, palms warm and loving where they cradled your stomach and neck. He always gets extra paw-y before your heats. “I’ll stay sober, take care of you.”

It wasn’t a big deal, Nico offering to take care of you. He always takes care of you, but with the heightened emotions of your preheat and your own existential dread, his sweet idea brought a wave of tears to your eyes, made you weepy and sniffly.

To the point that you whimpered out some sort of agreement, buried your head under Nico’s shirt, and stayed there until he lifted the collar of it to peer down at you, features blurred by the tears still in your eyes and smiled.

That same image swims in front of you now, the details of the kitchen fuzzy as you pad into the doorway. Nico’s back is to you, muscles of his back shifting as he finishes wrapping up pre-cooked meals. You still catch the way his shoulders stiffen at your sudden presence, head lifting nose first into the air.

It takes him half a beat to turn around, eyes already dark and hungry when they meet yours. And he smells so good, stronger and warmer than he normally does, musky with arousal.

Something in you rattles, weak and wanting, and you whimper, reaching a desperate hand out to him. Your limbs feel like lead though, pulling at your joints uncomfortably and the gesture falls miserably to your side.

“Oh puppy,” Nico purrs, all soft and strong. In two long strides he’s in front of you, cupping your wet cheeks and pressing a chaste kiss to your forehead. Whatever semblance of preheat you might’ve still had snaps away now that he’s touching you, and you slump into his neck with a cry.

The burn in your skin lessens when he swiftly grabs at your thighs, hefting you up into his arms and your legs lock around his waist, clinging to him. You touch your nose to his neck, mouth watering at the smell of him, and your brain is so busy chanting alpha, alpha, alpha that you barely feel when his hand ghosts down to your ass, searching.

Your sleep shorts are already damp, sticky and uncomfortable, and Nico coos.

“You’re already there, aren’t you?” He asks, the question not really hitting you. You nod though, hoping that your agreement will please him enough that he’ll knot you. Not that you could repeat the question back to him if he asked.

All you know is that it’s hot and it hurts. Everything clenches and aches, your body throbbing in places you didn’t even know could throb.

“Alright baby, I’ve got you,” he soothes, shifting to grab something off the counter. The movement has the band of his shorts brushing against your aching pussy, and you can’t help but press into it.

Even that feels so fucking good. Your wolf trills, body chasing that feeling and you rut against the hard muscles of his abdomen. Nico groans, fingers digging into the small of your back to offer support. You don’t really need it, hanging on him so tightly you’re surprised he’s capable of even moving. His attention is nice though, is exactly what you need to press your tongue to his scent gland. He tastes so good here, fresh and crispy and satisfying. You remember telling him after your first heat that he tastes like McDonald’s sprite sometimes and he hadn’t really known what you meant but he knew it was good.

His heartbeat thumps on your tongue and you greedily lap at his neck, grinding into the curve of his hip. Nico is moving around the condo but it’s all too far away for you to pay attention to, to think about now that you can taste and feel him.

“There you go y/n,” he says, the words warm against your temple “take what you need baby.”

It’s pathetically earth shattering how hard you come just from rubbing off on Nico’s side, and a self deprecating joke about being a hump-happy dog stings in the back of your throat, but your too busy suckling at Nico’s throbbing scent gland to bother with it.

It’s for the best. He probably wouldn’t like it anyway.

You’re still trembling through it, skin buzzing and hot, when suddenly everything just clicks into place. A little startled, you dig your fingers into Nico’s arms, scrambling to realize what’s changed.

“You’re okay,” he soothes, voice deep and husky “you’re perfect omega.” A large hand cups your face, pushing back the baby hairs that have fallen out of your braid and now stick to your sweaty forehead.

Belatedly, you realize you’re laying down now, that Nico has brought you back into his room and to your nest, has tucked you into the warm, damp spot on the bedding that you had been napping in when you woke up slick and horny and looking for him. You also realize you’re still rutting up into his body. Your body is too warm to flush anymore than it already is.

Nico’s hand slips under your back, fingers dipping into band of your shorts and slightly nudging them down. At least as much as he can with the way you’re still wrapped around him.

When you don’t answer, staring at him through lidded eyes and still rubbing against his hip, Nico coos at you.

“Did that feel good puppy? Get to come good?”

He says it like he’s not really expecting you to answer, but now that you’re here, safe and protected in your nest and with your alpha, it’s easier for the words to come out.

“More alpha, please. Need more.”

Nico reaches for the hem of your shirt now, bunching it up your torso. “I know ‘mega, let’s get you undressed and I’ll take care of you, okay?”

He manages to wrangle your shirt over your head without issue, but then it comes time to the wet pair of shorts you’ve got on, and the ones he’s got stretched over his thighs. As soon as he’s shifting away from you, the world feels oddly unsteady again, blurry and scary in the way it was when you weren’t in your nest.

A needy, terrified whimper howls out of you, limbs locking in a desperate attempt to stay touching him. You need to stay touching him, you need him to ease that terrible ache.

“Baby you gotta let me get these off-“

“No, need you. Please don’t-don’t leave me alpha.”

Then, just to make matters so much worse, you start to cry. Your vision blurs even worse and when you blink in a panic, big, fat, crybaby tears start rolling down your cheeks. It’s a snowball effect from there, your mind and body fighting over wanting all these different things at once.

You cry even harder, caught between being embarrassed by your tears and by the fact that you can’t get your fucking body to stop humping Nico, even though it doesn’t feel as good anymore. It’s been too long of not enough, you need more. You need him.

Throwing your arms over your face, you sob and whimper and hide from him. You hate this, hate being like this, and irrationally you want to kick and snarl at Nico for making you act like the omega you are. He never forced you to do anything though, not explicitly. You know that the ultimate thing keeping you from bonding with Nico was this. Was how you’ve destabilized and messed yourself up on the inside.

And now you have to deal with the stupid fucking consequences.

Still, you blubber out “I hate heats.”

Over the grating sound of you whining, you can hear Nico shuffling around for something, one of his hands laying heavy on your chest and the weight makes your breath stick, eases the hiccuping cries coming out of you.

“Let me see you omega,” he requests, voice soft even with the deep rumble of his alpha. You can never say no to your alpha, you don’t want to say no to him, so you slide your arms down until they’re muffling your sniffles.

At the sight of your big, teary eyes blinking up at him, he smiles. All crooked and dimpled and warm.

“There she is, pretty girl.” He compliments, completely unaffected by your borderline hysteria. Nico is such a good alpha. So calm and steady, reassuring in everything he does. You love him so much it’s going to make you cry again.

“I’m going to give you something to eat, okay?” He murmurs, but you’re already shaking your head.

“Not hungry.”

His fingers stroke over the hallow of your throat, soothing. “I know. Just take a couple bites for me while I get your shorts off, and then I’ll make everything all better, yeah?”

You sniffle. “Knot me, alpha?”

His grin, while still sweet, grows wolfish. “Yes I’m going to knot you, omega. As many times as you want me to.”

The promise sends a pleasant chill down your spine, shivering and arching your hips towards him. You drag the back of your hands over your wet cheeks, sniffling away what you hope (but know won’t be) is the of your tears.

Nico leans over, steadying you with the arm under your lower back. You slip further down the mattress, preening when the shift gives you the perfect angle to feel his hard cock against your ass.

“Not yet,” he laughs, more chuffed than teasing, and then he’s holding out two delicate squares of chocolate. Nudging you back up the bed, you sit up against the pillows and let him drop them into your trembling palm.

Blinking, you look from him to the chocolate, knowing that it’s important you eat them but you can’t remember why. Nico’s hands squeeze your thighs, encouraging.

“Eat them puppy. They’ll help you relax, remember?”

Right, you think, recognizing where the chocolate is from. Nico got it from a friend of a friend that is an heir to one of Switzerland’s chocolate companies. It’s fancy and creamy and not too sweet and packed with the perfect amount of THC.

Dutifully, you drop the first piece in your mouth, let it melt on your tongue and break apart under your teeth. Nico manages to unwind your legs from around him, placating your distressed whine by holding onto your ankle while he shoves his shorts down his thighs.

You swallow the first bite of chocolate, mouth watering at the sight of him. That unbearable ache starts to throb throughout your body again, growing insistent and urgent with each second. Impatiently, your foot kicks in his hold and at the sound of his endeared huff, you widen your thighs for him.

He quoted an eyebrow at you, kneeing his way back into your nest. “Eat the other one. Yup, into your mouth puppy. Right now.”

His fingers pause on the band of your shorts, waiting for you to do as told, so you pop the other piece of chocolate into your mouth. He hums, pleased, and drags your shorts down your legs, swiftly spreading them open again with two large hands on your thighs.

It feels so good to have him touching you, the rough drag of his palms on your thighs enough to have your eyes rolling to the back of your head, chocolate forgotten on your tongue as you stretch out across the bed for him.

Nico groans, more animal than human, and two of his fingers find your pussy, sliding through the slick until they reach your aching clit. The chocolate drips down the back of your throat, an aftertaste to the way Nico’s scent has kicked up, flooding your nose and mouth until all you can taste is him. The crisp, fresh lavender smell easing your nerves like salve on a bruise. He’s grown a little heady though, scent so heavy with arousal it has you purring.

When he speaks, the words are a low rumble.

“Tell me if you feel scared, okay omega?” He’s making his way back up your body now, your skin prickling everywhere he touches you. You nod, unable to do much else. You’re finally going to get what you want, what you’ve been painfully buzzing for since he since he tucked you into your nest for a final pre-heat nap a couple hours ago.

With an embarrassing wet sound, Nico drags his fingers through your folds again, down and back up before his touch disappears. Annoyed, you blink your eyes open to glare at him but the look falls flat at the sight of him above you.

Inky black eyes stare at you, narrowed and sharp, his nose flared just the slightest bit, and you know you’re looking at his wolf more than him.

Instinctively, you move to turn onto your belly, to present for him the way you’re supposed to, but he stops you with a hand over your neck. Nico’s thumb presses into your swollen and tender scent gland, clicking his tongue.

“Nico?” You whimper, watching his face intently. He brushes his thumb over your gland, a soft tickle, and then the right side of lips pull up. The sight of his dimple makes you purr.

“I’m still here omega,” he assures, “you still here with me?”

You nod, bottom lip trembling as your eyes grow wet again. “Want to present please.”

He blows out a slow breath, licking over his lips like he’s considering it. Instead, he shakes his head. “Not yet. Want to see your face right now.”

If you were in your right mind, you’d get it. He wants to be able to see your eyes and have easier access to your neck, to make sure you don’t have a bad reaction to the edibles. During your heats, he’s never eager to have you present for him. Not with how terrible you act during them. It shouldn’t upset you now, but it does because you’re supposed to be on all fours for him, supposed to let him mount you. It’s what good omegas do and you want to be a good omega.

You start to cry again, blubbering and hiccuping against the hand on your throat. Whatever slurred attempt at begging you were giving him is silenced by the two fingers he slips into your mouth.

“You’re okay,” he shushes you, notching the head of his cock into your pussy. “You’re okay omega, stay just like this for me.” With no preamble, he presses into you until his hips are flush against your ass, your legs wrapping around him tightly. And he’s so heavy and big on top of you, both his body and his presence taking up so much space, you melt into your nest.

“Fuck puppy, you’re so wet for me.” He admonishes, breath hot on your forehead when he pecks a gentle kiss there. “Love your pretty omega pussy, love how well you take me.”

The tears don’t stop at his sweet words and neither do your whimpers, for reasons you can’t even explain, but it doesn’t matter. You’ve got his finger on your tongue, tinged with the taste of your own slick and the salty taste of his skin. A hand splayed out over the thickest part of your stomach,right where you always ache and cramp the worst, soothed by his touch. He’s wasted no time either in fucking you hard and fast, knowing the easiest way to get you calm is to fill you with his knot, to satisfy that terrible empty feeling that won’t go away.

Best of all though, is his voice. You’ve always loved his voice, loved how he can cut all the strings to your body with just his words. His voice always gets deeper and thicker here though, almost as much as it does when he’s in his rut, when he’s reduced to more growl and grumbles and Swiss German than you can really comprehend.

He knows just what to say to get you to hear him over the insist buzzing in your head, the alarm and panicking of not having something you need. You can’t hear any of it, not with his alpha crooning to you about how good you are, how you smell so fucking perfect, and the ever present reminder that you’re okay, that you cry so pretty but you’re okay and he’s going to take care of you.

You’ve just begun to register his knot swelling at the base of his cock when Nico slips his fingers from your mouth, instead cupping your jaw and you fight to open your eyes, momentarily confused by how heavy they feel.

It hits you all at once, how good you feel. That you’re not crying and whimpering, but trilling at him, you’re omega encouraging and thanking Nico in the only way she knows how. And the static that was buzzing under your skin isn’t panicked or rushed it’s…nice. It feels good. Tickles in the same way Nico’s fur does when he’s shifted, when he lets you snuggle and pet at him.

“You feeling good now omega?” He asks, dark eyes shining with fondness and his own pleasure. Pleasantly gone, you nod, words slurred and slow when you respond.

“Feels so good alpha. Thank you.”

He chuckles, deep and endeared, and presses another kiss to your forehead. You turn your nose into his neck, right up against his scent gland and Nico doesn’t move away this time. He keeps his nose on your hairline, lips brushing your skin everytime he knocks his cock deeper into you.

“Come for me again puppy, give me one more and I’ll knot you.”

You have no idea if he’s talking about the orgasm you had rubbing off against his side or if he’s already fucked one out of you, one that got lost in the haze of you crying and the edibles hitting, but you don’t care. Not when your alpha is telling you to come and he smells so good.

You lick at his scent gland again, teeth nibbling on the skin as your orgasm floods through you again, burning hot in your belly and spreading throughout your body. It doesn’t do much to satisfy your neediness, fading just as quickly as it hit, but the frustration that settles in your chest doesn’t make you blubber and cry the way it would before. It’s dulled now, soften and muted.

“You’re so good omega,” Nico coos, tucking his arm under yours and gripping your shoulder. He uses the new leverage to pull you down in time with his thrusts, knocking the air out of your lungs each time his cock punches into you.

“Please Nico, please knot me. Need it please, please-“

His whole body shudders above you, grunting softly at his knot catches. Nico’s orgasm follows quickly, stretching you full and tight as his knot fully settles. You come for him again, writhing and wiggling down onto his knot, trying to get more and more from him.

He touches his lips to your head again, leaves a warm and sticky kiss right between your eyebrows. “So good for your alpha puppy.”

You purr, happy and flattered, and curl into him for a snuggle. It’s still early enough into your heat that having his knot locked in you, hot and heavy and filling up that nagging emptiness is all you need. You know later on, when it gets worse, you’ll still be begging and crying for more, need him to keep making you come. Right now, you’re tired again though.

Fuzz and full and content, you want him to kiss you and scent you and pet your hair as you sleep. The thought makes you smile giddily, the yawn that follows sticky against the side of his neck and Nico draws back to look down at you.

His cheeks are flushed and sweaty, hair messily hanging in his eyes and lips swollen. He’s so handsome, somehow so manly and sweet looking that it makes you trill, tilting your chin up to him. Nico laughs, appeasing you with a lazy kiss.

One of his hands finds its way between you too, prodding where your wet hole is stretched taut around him. “Do I feel good omega?”

You nod. “Perfect knot alpha. Can’t wait to do it again.”

He hums, all pleased about it and cups your ass to shift you back up the pillows, wincing at the way the wet sheets stick to your skin. You don’t mind though, don’t even notice because you’ve got your knot and your kisses and you feel all fuzzy and floaty.

“Later puppy,” he promises, “need you to drink some water for me first okay?”

“Can I nap after please?”

“Yeah baby, you can. Water first though.”

“Not gonna leave right?”

It’s a stupid question. Not only because you know he never would, but also because he physically can’t. With the way you’re hanging off his knot, anywhere he’d want to go, he’d have to take you too.

“Never omega. Gonna stay right here in the pretty nest you made for us, taking care of you.”

You hum in acknowledgment, blinking sleepily at Nico and he sits up to reach for the stock of water bottles on the nightstand, shushing you when you whimper at the tug of his knot. Propped up on the pillows, you drink a few gulps of water when he holds the straw up to your lips, frowning at the saltiness of the electrolytes he must’ve added to it.

Tired and full, you nudge the bottle towards him. “Now you please.”

He takes a few sips, more concerned with saving most of it for you than his own hydration, and then he’s closing the bottle and putting it back in its spot. You snuggle into the pillows, wrapping your arms around his back when he lays his full weight on you, tucking your head between his chin and shoulder.

“Sleep now puppy,” he whispers, but your eyes are already closed, mouth latched onto his bare shoulder. Ever so gently, his hips pick up their slow and shallow grinding, enough to send sparks of pleasure up your spine and maybe, eventually make come again. That’s not the goal for him right now though. He just wants to make sure you feel him, that you feel full and taken care of, that you can feel him still coming,

Into the skin of his shoulder, you mumble, “Thank you alpha, for taking care of me.”

You’re half asleep already, but you still hear him. “Always take care of you, puppy. You’re my perfect omega.”

[mikkomacko]

I know its probably in future chapters but is it possible to get like a mini blurb or what Alpha Nico is like during his rut? The thought of it has been NONSTOP running through my mind

This is more Nico going into his rut rather than rut smut because I want to save that for their first one together. I hope you still like it though!

<<<<<>>>>

Nico’s eyes track your every movement, a silent but loud presence in the room as you pad into his closet. He’s got a pile of clothes pulled to the side, clean but well worn, and specifically picked for the next couple of days.

You shift through them, nimble fingers efficiently feeling for the softness of the fabric, how strong the scent is on them, everything that makes a good nest.

Leaning into the pair of shorts clutched between your fingers, you touch your nose to the waistband and inhale, trying to find the softer undertones that a nose much sharper than yours will be able to smell.

“Omega,” Nico calls, not entirely scolding but bordering on it. Hastily, you grab the shorts and a hoodie you slept in last night, making a dash back to the bedroom.

He’s exactly where you left him, arms crossed over his bare chest and body taking up the whole doorframe. As soon as you step back into the room, his eyes find yours. You have a feeling they’ve been watching the closet door since you stepped in there.

“Sorry,” you mumble, shoulders hunched in apology. You know he doesn’t like when he can’t see you, not when his rut is this close. Nico is already a fairly particular person, and that only gets worse when his wolf is hypersensitive.

Which is why making a nest for him is so important. They’re different for a lot of reasons, but mostly because the clothes all smell like you this time. Every item you’ve brought out of his closet has been handpicked by him and work by you for the past two weeks.

It’s to soothe both of you; let you fill your nest with his clothes but also satisfy his need for his omega. Nests for Nico always smell like you.

He makes an appreciative sort of noise, stunted like it’s trapped in his throat, but his wolf has always been loud, even more so with his rut hanging over his head.

“No sorry,” he says, then nods towards his bed “keep going.”

No longer pinned in your spot, you move back to his bed that’s already been mostly turned into a rut nest. Most alphas don’t need nests during their ruts, but Nico’s always had a soft spot for them. Ever since that especially tough summer apart, when he called you practically in tears with bond sickness and pre-rut driving him mad, and you hadn’t known what to do except tell him how to make a nest.

The picture of it he’d sent had been lopsided and messy and not as full of a nest as you’d prefer, but he tried, and it’d helped him.

Now, with his watchful eye and heady scent dominating the room, you adjust his bed into a the perfect, fluffy cocoon of clothes and blankets, pillows and snacks, closed water bottles tucked off to the side. Everything to keep you and him here for the next two days.

“That looks nice, omega,” he says from his spot in the doorway, and you glance over your shoulder at him. It feels like he’s blocking you in here, keeping you from leaving his room and anyone else from entering. He’s cornering you, like a predator, like an alpha.

Holding his gaze, you slink away from the bed and up to him. This close, you can really smell him. He still smells like himself, outdoorsy and clean, but it’s thicker, so heavy it feels tangible.

If you couldn’t tell by his scent though, his eyes give him away. Dark, dilated, and bordering on wolfish. You know it’ll get worse, that look. Once he lets himself, once he’s in the thick of it. Nico always holds himself back as long as possible though, somehow manages to be patient.

You wonder if it makes it better for him. If he gets off more on this little game, following you around the apartment from just one too many steps away, knowing you know he’s watching you. Stalking after you, like he’s trying to wear you down. Try to catch his prey.

The thought makes you shiver with excitement. By the way his eyes narrow the slightest bit, you know he can smell it.

“Ready?” You ask him, fiddling the hem of the shirt you’ve got on. He’d been wearing it this morning, up until his skin got too hot and he’d slipped it off, made you strip out of your own clothes so he could pull it over your head.

You haven’t taken it off. Not without his approval.

Nico uncrosses his arms, reaches one down to slip it under the shirt. His palm, warm and clammy, pauses on your stomach. He lets it linger there, squeezing at where you’ve gone soft and fuller from all the food he’s been feeding you.

Part of the lead up to his rut is taking care of you. He always makes too much food, always coaxes you into eating extra so you’ll have extra weight to get through his rut with him.

You don’t particularly like how bloated it makes you feel, but your wolf does it for him anyway. Nico tells you it’ll get easier, that by the time you two mate it’ll happen naturally. Your wolf will learn what she’s supposed to feel and do for him, the same way his does for your heats.

”Add this,” he finally says, voice gruff as he drags the shirt up your body. Obediently, you slip the shirt over your head, waiting for him to turn you by the hip and nudge you back towards the bed.

You pause at the foot of his bed, eyeing your nest for the perfect spot. The hardest thing about learning to nest has always been this. It’s a lot of pressure. This is supposed to come natural to you, and while the urge for it definitely does, the execution, not so much.

Embarrassed, you think of your pathetic excuse of a nest you had before you even knew what it was. What you thought was a guilty habit, stealing Nico’s socks and keeping them hidden away, was actually you nesting, according to Nico. He said the same thing about your closet bed, and you sleeping buried under your pillows instead of on top of them, and he’s never made you stop those habits so you suppose he’s right.

Smelling your apprehension, Nico makes a low sound.

“Go ahead, omega. Wherever you want.”

Goosebumps rise on your skin, his encouragement feeling like warm water dripping down your bare back. You look over your shoulder, half expecting to find him right behind you, but he’s still at the door, patiently waiting even though his hands are balled up at his sides.

Still stalking, still hunting, still waiting you out.

It’s embarrassing how patient he is before his rut compared to how impatient you are before your heats.

Taking a deep breath, you sniff out the nest, leaning over the mattress to careful test the air, trying to find a weak spot. You’ve done a fairly good job, nothing glaringly missing, so you go with your gut and carefully lay the shirt over the pillow you know you’ll be laid out on. Nico likes to tuck his face into your neck, likes to be close and imposing. He’ll be able to smell it good there.

You sit in the center of the bed, legs crossed carefully, and look to Nico. He keeps still, the only movement coming from his dark eyes. They trail down your neck, pausing at your scent gland long enough for your heart to start racing. You hate waiting for him, hate the way his wolf takes his time.

Your scent must grow impatient or needy, because your alpha makes a chuffed sound, letting his gaze travel lower now. You can feel his eyes on every part of your body, skin growing hot as he hungrily eyes your naked torso and bare legs, crossed so politely with your hands in your lap.

“Alpha,” you plead, whinny “let me take care of you, please?”

Finally, he pushes off the door frame and fully steps into his room. Swiftly, he knocks the door shut. Nico likes to have the door shut during his rut, always protective, always possessive.

He crosses the room, a swagger to his gait that only can be described as alpha. He always has it, that powerful jump in his step, but when his wolf takes over it gets 10x stronger.

Your stomach tightens pleasantly at the sight of him. It gives you the same rush you get when he chases you through the Alps during the summer, when you can’t see him but you can smell him and feel him watching you, wanting you.

Before he’s even reached the foot of the bed, you lay back on the pillows, spreading your legs for him. This has always come natural to you, taking care of him during a rut. You may struggle with everything else that comes with being an omega, but taking his knot has never been one of them.

Imposing, he reaches over and hooks his fingers on the band of the boxers you’re wearing, blunt nails scratching at your skin before he’s yanking them down your thighs. He’s not mean about it, just impatient, manhandling you until you’re completely bare, spread out in your nest just for him.

When he gets his own boxers off, he’s already hard and leaking, cock curled up against his belly. Your mouth waters at the way his base is already swelling, knot forming before he’s even really touched you.

“Go ahead,” he says, voice rumbling “tell me omega.”

You start purring, pleading and needy, and it’s enough to have him laying over you then, body warm and strong on top of you. His rumbles kick up, deeper and louder than usual. It makes your thighs grow wet with slick. Nico grinds the head of his cock against the soft skin of your inner thigh.

Unprompted, you trill impatiently at him, pawing at his chest. Darkly, he looks up at you through his eyelashes, and you instantly know the Nico that had watched and waited in the doorway is no longer fully present.

His wolf stares back at you instead, head cocking to the side for a moment, and then he’s grabbing at your thigh, bullying his cock into your pussy. You keen, arching up into him and fighting to breathe around how good he feels.

“Pretty omega,” he pants, blinking down at you and then shifting until he’s got the angle right, poised and ready to fuck into you with earnest.

Instead of moving, he runs his hand over your stomach, expression growing soft.

“My pretty omega,” he murmurs, cock twitching “one day, m’gonna put a pup in you.”

You flush all over. “You’re only saying that because you’re in a rut, alpha.”

“Yeah, but I still mean it.”

“You gonna knot me like you mean it?”

Nico’s smirk grows wolfish, “Yes, puppy. I am.”

You can’t help but smile, still fighting to breathe properly, feeling achy and desperate for him to get on with it. But you pause, because Nico not in a rut is always so careful about pup talk, rarely brings it up and never in bed.

His wolf doesn’t let him tongue so well though, and you want to know just how far gone he is. What you can get him to say and admit in the heat of his rut.

“You gonna bite me too?” You pout, rounding your eyes into the omega look he adores so much.

Dangerously, he leans in, clamping a hand around your neck now, and for a moment you think he’s going to do it right now, that he is so far gone he’ll sink his canines into your throbbing scent gland.

His tongue licks over them, gaze dropping to your mouth and then back up.

“M’not that far gone, puppy,” he says, sounding more like your Nico now. Giddy, you trill at him. “You’re not gonna tease me like that when I am are you?”

You shake your head, and he laughs.

“That’s because you’re my good omega, huh?”

“Yes alpha.”

He rumbles, pleased with your response and softly touches his nose to yours.

“Take care of me, okay?”

You nuzzle him. “I will, Nico. Promise, Squishy.”

His dimples sink into his cheeks, and he tenderly kisses you.

“Your alpha wants you now,” he whispers, “you ready for him?”

Obediently you nod, wrapping your arms around his shoulders. He kisses you again, soft and wet at first, but the kiss quickly grows desperate and sloppy. He licks into your mouth, roughly catching your lip with his canines and the hand on your neck drags down until it presses into your gut.

Before he’s even pulled back, he starts fucking into you, and you know that he’s fully given in now. Sure enough, when he pulls back to look at you, it’s just the eyes of his wolf watching you again, fully lost in his rut.

“Alpha,” you purr, and he growls, pressing his face into your neck. He mouths at your scent gland, your thighs trembling with it and you hang onto him tightly, knowing there’s no more games or teasing now.

Now it’s just you and your alpha, and you promised Nico you’d take care of him.

You’ll be a good omega.