An entire week since Steve had last seen Eddie. He’d holed up in his apartment, spent the majority of his forced holiday time curled up in bed, or camping out on the sofa watching reruns of bad television. Robin had told him mid-way through the week that they weren’t in trouble, Wayne Munson didn’t intend to press for any complaints or legal action, but she’d heard nothing from Eddie.
Steve wasn’t in trouble, Owens wasn’t in trouble, he already had his next shift lined up at the end of the following week, already a new patient on the books to be seen to although he swore to himself that he wouldn’t be remotely as hands on as he’d been with Eddie. He’d do the minimum just like everyone else, he’d be there when he was needed, would provide care as required, but that was it.
He’d already had two complaints from other tenants shoved under his door about the stench though. Depressed alpha wasn’t a good smell, for Steve, people compared it to mould spores. Like walking into a bakery after a month of it being closed, only nobody had taken the produce away leaving everything to rot.
And the smell spread.
It didn’t matter that the owner of the building had boasted proper padding and ventilation in the ‘Alpha Safe’ apartments before he’d moved in, the smell seeped into every single corner, settled into fabrics, snuck under the front door and out into the hallway. He wanted his Omega.
He didn’t even really know his omega, but he wanted him. He’d made promises, promises he couldn’t keep with Eddie so far away. Promises he didn’t know if he’d ever be able to keep and wasn’t that just a terrifying notion. Eddie was alone again. His heat would come again, he’d be alone for it, there was no way he’d be able to get a clinic trip for free again. Freebies happen once and only in dire situations, after that you have a month to sort yourself out an alpha to join you, or you’re on your own.
It didn’t matter if a week of that month was spent recovering from an unsuccessful heat, you had a month, and Steve was well aware of the ticking clock, he spent most of the time just, looking at it on the wall. Ticking away, precious minutes going by tick by tock. It was ridiculous, he’d barely thought about Eddie Munson for years until he walked into that clinic and all of a sudden he was all Steve could think about. He pined, he yearned, he ached to see him, to make sure he was okay, and yet he couldn’t make himself take that trip to the trailer park where he knew Eddie lived.
It was an invasion of privacy, he’d already broken most of the policies at Nest, he didn’t want to break the last one too, even if he didn’t get Eddie’s address from the database at the clinic, even if he already kind of knew where Eddie lived beforehand.
Eddie deserved his privacy, he deserved his space to heal, to figure out what’d happened on his own time, to get himself and his head clear, to—screw it.
Steve had waited an entire week, he was going to get himself up, get himself showered, dressed, apply patches to his scent glands, he was going to open his front door and— stop dead in place because stood there, with a hand raised, poised to knock, was one Eddie Munson, his big brown doe eyes wide in surprise. “Uhm…” Eddie dropped his hand “hey, Steve, can… can we talk?”
“Eddie…” he rocked forwards, hands flexing as if to reach out, only to catch himself at the last minute, releasing a pained little whine from his throat, he wanted to touch, wanted to hold, to bury his face into all that hair and just breathe he was so close, so, so very close and every inch of Steve’s very being screamed at him to pull Eddie closer, to hold him as tightly as possible and never let him go again, but he couldn’t, he couldn’t, he wasn’t allowed, he didn’t have permission, he didn’t—
“It’s okay, alpha… you can touch, it’s okay” the dam broke in an instant, the second those consenting words reached his ears, he was wrapping Eddie up in his arms and holding him as tightly as he could, face buried into the side of his neck, arms squeezing him tight, if he could get any closer, if they could merge into one being, he’d do it. “Christ, big boy” Eddie huffed into his shoulder, even as he curled his own arms around Steve, even as he buried his nose into the fabric of Steve’s sweater and breathed deeply, letting himself be held.
Steve whined, squeezing him to his chest, desperate to smell him, but unable to, the Omega had patches on, hiding his scent from the world. Fuck he hated those blasted little things. “How are you here?”
Eddie eased back, forcing Steve to loosen his grip just so Eddie could look at him face to face “Buckley came by the trailer… can… can we go inside?” Robin. You scheming, rule breaking, beautiful human being. “We can talk in the hallway if you want but I’d rather—”
“No! Yeah, uhm. Yes, come in, sorry.” He stepped aside, motioning with his hand to let Eddie in, if he could think about anything other than the fact that Eddie was there, maybe he’d have felt self-conscious, maybe he’d have worried about the mess that’d built from him just wallowing, but no, he was just glad Eddie was there. No longer drenched in the sweet smell of heat, but still everything Steve could ever want.
He was back to his old self, leather, ripped denim, his rings clunky on his fingers, he didn’t look like an omega and likely sure as hell didn’t act like one either.
He was still the most beautiful thing Steve had ever seen in his life. Maybe that was the rose tinted glasses, Steve didn’t care. Eddie was there, in his living room, making himself comfortable on the couch, seemingly uncaring about the smell.
“You can close the door, Steve, I’m okay.” Right, he’d been holding it open. He closed it, they were together. In the same room. Eddie had closed himself in with Steve voluntarily.
Honestly he could just cry. Eddie was there, he was safe. He was okay.
“Eddie I— I didn’t—”
“Didn’t hurt me, I know, Steve. I know you spent the whole night holding me while I slept, making sure I was okay. I know. I know you’re a good Alpha Stevie, I know.”
“You… you know?”
“Mmhm, Buckley. I mean… I kind of figured, once my head cleared up a little, nothing felt different and I wasn’t in any pain, which… I figured I probably would have been had you—y’know, but Robin came by with a tape from your boss. It just confirmed what I figured out myself. I’d have come sooner but… well, cramps. Can you sit down?” Steve startled into action, quickly sitting himself down in his arm chair, opposite where Eddie had sat on the couch to give him some space. “Look… I uh… I know… I know things were said at the clinic, and like… I get that you had a job to do, and that included making me feel better an all that shit, so—if—if you want, I can just—just forget that you said anything, y’know? Just… I don’t expect anything from you, I mean… You were just doing your job, an I was super inappropriate with you like, the whole time, the shit I said—I—I’m sorry dude, I—I wasn’t in my right mind an I know you were probably just bein nice an I appreciate that—”
“Eddie, what the hell are you talking about?”
“You said you wanted to spend my next heat with me, right? An uh… other stuff…” Stuff that’d made his knees weak when he’d remembered it. When the memories of Steve so close, his firm body pressed so tightly against his, when he’d remembered everything, when it’d all slammed back into his brain at breakneck pace leaving him horny and breathless, desperate for something thicker than his own fingers, endlessly frustrated that he didn’t have anything close to what he needed. “But I figured that was probably just to make me feel better or some shit, an I get it, I get that, I mean… there’s no hard feelings, I don’t expect anything from yo—”
“Eddie, do you want me?”
“What?” The poor Omega struck just a little stupid by the abrupt question.
“Simple question” Steve slipped from the arm chair, lowering himself down to his knees in front of his Omega, he reached both hands up to cup those perfectly soft cheeks, in awe of how beautiful Eddie was up close, the way those plush lips parted ever so slightly to breath a little heavier, the way his beautiful doe eyes widened, chocolate brown disappearing as black pupils blew wide, locked on Steve, the way his cheeks warmed under Steve’s palms. He only wished he could smell him. Wished Eddie hadn’t come out wearing those blasted patches. “Do you want me?”
“If… If I say yes will you finally kiss me?” There was only one way Steve could possibly answer that question, and that was by closing the gap between their lips, finally claiming the very first of many promised kisses still to come.
Contrary to popular belief, Alpha heartthrob of Hawkins High Steve Harrington never managed to find himself a suitable mate. He tried, he tried multiple times with many different omegas, tried with Betas, hell he even tried with another Alpha! However, he never lived up to their expectations, he was never what they expected or hoped for, those he tried to court always eventually told him he was too soft.
He lacked the aggression, the ‘slam you against a wall and take you’ kind of rough edges a typical Alpha would have that made the act thrilling for his partner, that created that kind of primal need to submit that they desperately longed for.
He lacked the primordial Alpha need to take, to claim. Some even claimed he ought to have been born an Omega, that the Alpha didn’t suit him, that somehow he’d been born wrong, that his secondary gender didn’t fit him, it wasn’t right.
He was too soft, too affectionate, too clingy too— too much.
Everything about him was bullshit.
Nancy, his one attempt at a relationship with another Alpha, had been drunk when she’d said that to his face, and she didn’t actually remember saying it the day after, but… it still stuck with him years after it’d happened. Years after they’d become friends, years after she’d settled into a Poly relationship with a sweet, if a little awkward omega, Jonathan and his ridiculous (read: weirdly charming, Steve loved him) Beta mate, Argyle.
So he didn’t have a mate. No big deal, it wasn’t like he longed for one or anything, it definitely not like that at all. It wasn’t like he wanted a big family, to be loved, to be wanted, to be welcomed into a nest made of a mixture of his and his mates clothes, his and his mates blankets and pillows and—it was fine. He was fine.
He wasn’t fine, but within that failure, came opportunity. Alphas came in all shapes, sizes, and thankfully, as much as people liked to doubt, temperaments, which given how soft he as an alpha was, made him perfect for Nest. A clinic for unmated Omegas who struggled with their heats, Omegas who had nowhere to turn, no-one to help them through the worst week of the month.
An alpha helped. Even if he didn’t touch them, and usually he didn’t, having an alpha there, their pheromones permeating the room, just existing in their space, sometimes it was enough to help ease the pain of having no-one to fulfil the other needs.
He wasn’t allowed to touch them intimately, it wasn’t a sex thing, it was a comfort thing. A thing some Omegas needed, especially if they’d never had an alpha with them before.
Sometimes, never having one was worse than having one once and never again. You craved something with no frame of reference for why or how to recreate it, you’d go mad going in circles trying to figure out why this part of you needed something so badly despite never having had it.
It could get bad. Some went mad over it. Hence the Clinics.
Hawkins had one. Singular. Just one. It was linked up to the hospital, deeply underfunded and regularly had protesters outside claiming the alphas inside to be sex workers.
Blatant ignorance at work there, but Steve stopped caring about his public image before he’d even left school so on each shift he’d walk through the throng of idiots, with his head held high, greet his best friend Robin at the front desk, a quirky Beta with zero brain to mouth filter and the gift of gab.
She probably wouldn’t call it a gift, but Steve adored her. Had a bit of a crush on her at first, quickly replaced by platonic love after she’d drunkenly came out to him in a public restroom at a Christmas party.
She liked women. Omega women to be specific. He’d never asked her to elaborate on why not male Omegas, she had a type, that was that.
Steve liked both, he liked all. Steve wasn’t fussed, Omega, Beta, Alpha, male or female? It didn’t matter to him, he’d tried all in his search for a mate that’d stay and found himself enjoying all.
He just needed one to stay.
He’d walk in, greet Robin, if he didn’t have an Omega already, he’d grab a clipboard with his new assignment on it and head straight there. It was one of those days.
His last Omega, an awkward little thing that Steve sort of recognised from high school, he’d been a freshman during Steve’s last year, had left the night before, content and at ease, had spent most of the coherent hours talking Steve’s ear off about a table top RPG game he played with friends, Dungeons and Dragons.
Steve didn’t mind, he asked questions, let him bounce character ideas off of him, helped him pick a race out of a mix of words Steve didn’t really recognise but it made the Omega, Gareth, happy.
They came up with Galgrun the Giant together. A Dwarf with a height complex and a really big hammer.
He liked Gareth. Gareth was sweet, soft, bit too young though. Reminded Steve of the gaggle of kids Nancy’s little brother would hang around.
His new assignment was older.
Older than himself by one year, which… wasn’t unusual but it definitely wasn’t a normal occurrence either. Usually the Omegas that used the facility were younger, younger and in desperate need of comfort.
“They’ve put him in room 69, he found that hilarious.” Robin chirped when Steve looked up from his clipboard. Another him. Not that that was a bad thing, sometimes they alternated. “He’s a little… jumpy, very nervous, I could smell him a mile away and you know what my sense of smell is like.” Most first timers were, he checked out the clipboard again, no previous alpha, no sexual history, no… nothing.
For an omega older than himself to have zero experience in intimacy with an alpha, even the soft non-sexual kind? No wonder he was jumpy. “Alright, says here he came from a referral?”
“Yeah, GP basically threw him at us after he turned violent during his last heat an damn near mauled his uncle, he mentioned Gareth when he came in, that’s why they gave him to you.” Not just because he was one of the best Alphas there, but because Gareth had said nice things, the omega had asked for him. “Go get him tiger.”
“WHAT THE HELL KIND OF OPERATION ARE YOU RUNNIN HERE?!”
Steve felt… numb. He was tired. He was hungry. He felt… lost. It’d happened so fast.
No amount of rational thought could have fixed the conclusion Eddie’s confused mind had come to. No explanation could have cut through the panic, the fear, the pain, that radiated from the omega, the air that’d been filled with such a sweet desire replaced far quicker with pain, anger, confusion and fear he’d been choking on it, the air vents unable to clear it quick enough, he’d been struggling to talk, struggling to breathe when the doors had opened.
Security had gotten him out. A Beta dragged him out by the scruff of his shirt while another two worked to keep Eddie's panicked, inconsolable self corralled away from him.
It happened so quickly. And now he sat there, his back against the wall, sat on the floor, head in his arms, a patch on his neck to mask the stank of Alpha negativity that'd undoubtedly have choked anyone in his immediate vicinity, a scrap of fabric in his hand, and Robin beside him, unusually quiet, her arm wrapped around his shoulders as they listened to the eldest Munson react as any guardian would in this situation.
He’d left his nephew at a clinic to be taken care of, under medical advisement, had undoubtedly spent the majority of the week worried sick, and then receive a call from clinic security claiming something had gone wrong. Wayne Munson had turned up in a rusted old pick up truck that screeched as it pulled up into the carpark ten minutes after security had completely ignored Owens's instructions to leave it alone, and did their job in contacting him.
nobody could blame them, it was their job to contact Eddie's next of kin should something go wrong.
It all happened so fast.
He couldn’t see Eddie. Eddie who was still in recovery, Eddie who still needed him. Eddie, who wasn’t done with his heat yet and needed to be taken care of and soothed by his alpha for at least another day or so, it wasn’t healthy to cut it short there.
Eddie still needed him. He could go into another spiral, he could hurt himself, he could—
He couldn’t hear Owens replies, could only hear Wayne Munson, the man rightfully furious that they’d allowed an alpha into his nephews room when the man was at his most vulnerable. It didn’t matter that Eddie was a grown adult man, it didn’t matter that he didn’t need a guardian.
And it didn’t matter that nothing had happened. Eddie thought something had, and in the state he was in, nothing could convince him otherwise.
The door opened, both Steve and Robin looked up in unison, both shrinking back as Wayne looked down at them both with understandable fury, nothing they could even argue against, and turned to Owens with a clipped “I want my nephew here in two minutes ready to go” Owens opened his mouth to argue, hell Steve opened his mouth to argue but Wayne simply held up his hand cutting them both off, “I don’t give two flyin fucks what you lot think, my nephew is coming home. Now. The worst is over, I’ll handle the rest.” Steve shrunk back under his harsh glare, too exhausted to formulate a reason as to why that was a bad idea.
It’d be fine. Wayne was family. The worst was over he was right, and sure the next twenty four to forty eight hours could go in either direction, he had to trust that Wayne could handle it.
That didn’t stop him from scrambling to his feet the moment Wayne turned to walk away though, desperation in the voice he barely managed to find “W-wait! Wait, please… Mr. Munson, I swear… I didn’t hurt him, an I know—I know that’s hard to believe, I get that, but—but could you… could you give him this, at least just—it’ll help, it’ll help him” Wayne looked at him through cold eyes, his expression damn near thunderous, silent for a moment, he dipped his gaze to the scrap of fabric in Steve’s hands, the towel.
Just a little towel.
A towel Eddie had clung to throughout the night, so close to his face, a comfort. Something still drenched in Steve. Wayne looked down at it with narrowed eyes and for a moment, Steve thought he’d refuse.
That he’d shoot him down without mercy, but something in him just couldn’t seem to do that.
That cold gaze softened, just a little, his shoulders relaxed as if acceptance had won some kind of internal battle inside of him, then wordlessly he took the towel with a subtle nod, and made his way out to wait at the front.
Security would bring Eddie out. He wasn’t a danger to anyone but himself in the final stage, not really. The final stage of a heat was just… recovery. An Omega needed comfort, they needed something or someone familiar, in shared heat situations they needed their alpha to take care of them or they could spiral.
They needed to be pampered. To be reassured. To be loved.
Every fibre of Steve’s being ached to be the person doing that for Eddie. He felt untethered. Unmoored, lost. He needed to be doing something, but he couldn’t and there was nothing even close to that something to fill the gap not doing it left behind.
He didn’t even get to say goodbye. Barely caught a glimpse of the Omega as he was guided through the barren halls toward the exit, dressed in clothes that’d no doubt be uncomfortable, itchy, scratchy on his sensitive skin, his head down never once looking up, never once looking his way.
The halls had been cleared of staff for Eddie’s safety. He still smelled like an Omega in heat.
It shouldn’t have happened like that. Eddie should have still been in his room, should have been able to wake up peacefully in his nest, should have woken up to a warm, comforting embrace, but instead it’d been panic. Fear, and confusion and Steve didn’t even know if it’d been avoidable.
Maybe if another alpha had been there, maybe if it wasn’t him. Maybe everything would have progressed as it normally should have.
“Go home Steve” Owens placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, voice so soft Steve barely caught it. “You should uh… take some time off, okay?” Steve barely managed to tear his gaze away from the doors Eddie had walked through, but when he did it was with eyes full of unspoken panic. “You’re not in trouble, Steve. We kept watch all night you… you’re an exemplary Alpha, truly a credit to your kind… your self-restraint is… well, I wouldn’t have believed it had I not seen it for myself, but I think it's best if you still take some time off. Use some of those holiday days you’ve built up, paid, of course, I think two weeks should cover it.”
“But—”
Owens held up his hand to silence him, before turning to Robin, who’d been doing her best to keep Steve grounded with her presence alone. It worked. Kind of. He wasn’t stinking up the hallway, but that could have probably been due to the patch covering his scent glands rather than anything she was doing. “Miss Buckley, take him home would you?”
“I uh… I can’t drive but—but sure, yeah, I’ll uhm, I’ll get him home. Should I come right back, orr—”
“Take the rest of the day. You’ve earned it.” She hadn't actually gone home much like Owens, so technically she'd have been due to start a new shift in around half an hour, but... alright.
And then he was gone, walking back into his office, and closing the door behind him, leaving both Robin and Steve alone in the hallway, none-the-wiser about what he was going to be getting up to in there, but neither having enough energy to really care.
“I told him after his heat we could… that we could—” be together, that all Eddie had to do was wait one more day, one more. And they could be together, that it’d be okay then… “I promised him, Robbie…”
For Eddie, it was like he knew he needed something, he knew his body needed something, but had no real idea of how to go about getting it, and in his confusion, he’d forgotten why he’d wanted the nameless mystery thing in the first place.
He’d made one attempt at presenting himself like instinct would guide him into doing, but when the alpha present didn’t take the opportunity, he found himself unsure of what to do next. His alpha just about managed to catch the downward spiral of rejection before it spun out of control, comforting him, reassuring him, but it all left Eddie feeling a little bit… lost.
He didn’t have the experience to try something else.
Had it been anyone else. Anyone with experience. An Omega who’d shared their heats before, or at least gotten laid once or twice, Steve would have been in trouble, Eddie would have had just enough knowledge to try harder, but with the complete lack of such knowledge… it had the Omega simply settling into Steve’s side, and basking in the presence of an alpha’s comforting scent for what should have been the most stressful part of his heat.
Too unsure of what else he ought to be doing to be stressed about doing it. Sure, he was a little uncomfortable, absolutely, but his alpha was right there. Big, strong, his arms wrapped comfortably around him, he had the little towel drenched in his alphas scent direct from his gland so it was easy to let himself drift off.
Even with the ache settled low in his tummy, even with the slippery, warm, slick sensation between his legs, the uncomfortable ache in his gums and the urge to bite something that came along with it, and of course, the feverish heat his body radiated, he knew he wanted something. His body definitely wanted something, an uncomfortable aching hunger that niggled in the back of his mind to be satiated, but… he could wait for… whatever it was, surely it’d show up eventually if it was that important.
It wasn’t as unbearable as he’d been so sure it’d be. He wasn’t even in any pain. It wasn’t hurting him.
He was content, he was cosy, he was safe. Protected. And with his alpha ever so gently stroking his fingers through Eddie’s damp hair, fingertips occasionally grazing his scalp in a way that had Eddie chirruping softly in his light doze… he could comfortably succumb to sleep.
For Steve… there was no sleeping when Eddie was like this.
Steve couldn’t close his eyes and rest, even with Eddie’s own eyes closed, the Omega’s body, while relaxed, felt like it was on fire. Steve could feel every inch of him, he radiated heat, skin clammy, slick with sweat, his hair clinging to his body in a way that could never be comfortable but was likely the very lowest on the totem pole of problems Eddie’s poor incredibly fragile mind was focusing on, even though Steve did try and stroke his fingers through it to give him some comfort.
Eddie seemed to be able to rest, his eyes were closed, and while yes, his body still shook, still shivered, he still appeared deeply uncomfortable, and he still wriggled in Steves arms, he looked like he’d slipped into a light slumber.
Steve couldn’t rest. There was no possible way he could even relax less it accidentally lead to sleep. The last thing Steve needed was to slip under and come to with Eddie taking advantage, he wouldn’t even know it was wrong, wouldn’t even be able to consider what his actions actually were, driven solely by primal instinct, right and wrong lost to him.
Sleep wasn’t safe for either of them.
So he laid there in the nest, Eddie curled up into his side, his warm breath fanning across Steve’s neck in short, laboured little puffs of humid air, his fingers curled so tightly into the towel Steve had given him hours ago that they also dug into Steve’s shirt beneath it.
Steve was focusing entirely on the steady whirr of the vents, loud and somewhat irritating, but there, keeping the air in the room from becoming unbearably thick. Keeping the scent Eddie was still giving off from becoming overwhelming even at such a close proximity to the source.
He was hungry. His stomach rumbled in protest, he hadn’t eaten properly. Too anxious, having been sinking into his own little spiral of despair over not being there for his Omega, he’d totally ignored the one meal he could have had before this whole mess and now… now he had no way of getting food. Any attempt made by anyone outside the room to sneak something in ran the risk of Eddie’s territorial rage. It was just him.
Just him, his thoughts, and his prayers to a god he wasn’t sure he believed in that Eddie would just sleep through it all. That his body would settle for just Steve’s presence and nothing more, because so far it was working.
Eddie wasn’t producing nearly as much slick as he would have been had they being actively going for it, his thighs were damp, the materials of his nest wet beneath his body, but it wasn’t an overwhelming amount, it wasn’t nearly enough for him to comfortably take even an average sized knot. He wouldn’t have even been able to comfortably take the smaller of the heat aids with what he was producing.
He wasn’t begging, he wasn’t pushing, or demanding, he could sort of talk while awake, and he was coherent enough to understand what was being said to him even if he couldn’t retain the memory of it being said.
He was like… a blank slate. A confused animal uncertain of its purpose, made evident by the fact that, as Steve made damn sure to check, Eddie had actually fallen asleep.
While he should have been at the very height of lust, at the pinnacle of need, desperate to be filled, desperate to feel full, to be bred, and doing everything during the short period of time he had to achieve it, he’d… fallen asleep. Nestled into the crook of Steve’s neck, breathing a little heavily, sure, but he’d fallen asleep.
Looking like he had nothing more than a fever, maybe a light flu, he slept.
And he kept sleeping.
Even while Steve stared at the ceiling, listening to the whirr of the air vents, listening to the faint sounds of the clock on the wall as time went tick by tock. Eddie slept soundly all the way through until his status as a human radiator began to slowly subside, as time passed them by reducing the risk with each tick of the clock until sunlight filled the shadows in the room, filtering through the curtains of the frosted windows.
The only warning Steve had that his omega was finally coming too, was the subtle furrow of his brow, and a soft grumble of a sound, before bleary eyes opened to take in the world around him with a little more clarity than he’d had when he’d first closed them.
His pupils were still blown, his skin was still warm and clammy, but he had enough strength to ease himself out of Steve’s arms, the towel he’d been clutching falling into his bare lap, alerting him to the fact that it was there to begin with. He took in his surroundings, his nest was a mess, he took in his physical state, naked and confused.
And finally, he took in the alpha still residing to his left, who watched him with barely concealed alarm. Steve. Steve was in his room.
His nest was a mess.
He was naked.
And Steve, an Alpha. Was in his room.
“Steve…?”
“It’s not what it looks like.” And then came… the panic.
It was like walking directly into a wall. The moment that door opened Steve took one step inside, and had to immediately step back again as his senses were assaulted with the scent of pain, of fear, of discomfort, and distress.
A shake of his head later in a fruitless bid to shake that painful mixture of scents from his senses, he pushed himself through it. The door closed behind him.
The vents were working overtime to clear the air, but the more they cleared, the more replaced it. Eddie was just a small bundle of negativity, of suffering, and Steve had just left him there.
He knew it wasn’t his fault, knew he wasn’t responsible, but he felt awful.
He felt awful knowing that he should have stayed. Even though he knew that he couldn’t have, he knew it was against all the rules, knew that someone would have tried to drag him out had he stayed, that it wasn’t up to him, he felt like the worst Alpha. Like a failure. He’d left his mate to suffer, he didn’t deserve to be in there, didn’t deserve Eddie’s forgiveness, didn’t deserve the right to be the one to help him through his distress.
He shook his head again, the air so thick, so full of negativity that it was dragging him down with it.
The corner, he’d seen Eddie on the cameras, one quick look around the room gave him the location of the one camera still active, the blinking red dot telling him they were being watched. “Eddie?” He followed the line of sight to the wall, the darkness of the room and the mixture of scents filling every single crevice made it difficult to see clearly.
The whine was what gave him away.
A soft, pitiful little whine from the corner semi-muffled by fabric, Steve was there within seconds, down on his knees before his bundled up Omega, the other man trembling within the thick fabric of the weighted blanket that’d already long since lost the scent Steve had meticulously rubbed over it, lost to the overwhelming scent the omega was giving off in his distress.
His eyes were dark and unfocused, blown pupils rendering them almost black, half hidden by sweat-damp hair, his breathing was shallow, skin flushed, slick with sweat “Ah—Alpha?” There was no strength to his voice, a whisper of sound amidst weakened breaths.
Steve had suffered many a heart break in his life, so many trials and errors with partners of the past, but nothing could compare to the break he felt when Eddie struggled in vain to reach out to him from within the blanket, the omega struggling to find enough strength just to lift an arm against the weight of the fabric.
Anyone else, Eddie would find the strength. If anyone else had walked into that room, Steve knew that he’d have found the strength to attack, the fact that he hadn’t yet, was enough to tell Steve, not that he couldn’t… but that he wouldn’t.
It was all the confirmation Steve needed to take action. “Alpha’s here, m’here Eddie” voice soft, he moved closer, arms curling under the weakened omega, one under his knees and the other cradling his back. At Eddie’s inquisitive little chirp, Steve pressed a kiss into the sweat-damp curls at the crown of Eddie’s head “I’ve got you, baby, I’ve got you.” And they were up. Steve rose to his feet without strain, an action that for the briefest of moments, had desire pouring from the Omega in his arms.
He was strong, capable, he could just… pick Eddie and that blanket right up regardless of how much they weighed combined.
“Need…” Eddie breathed, head heavy against Steve’s chest “m’hot… too—too hot—hurts” could barely open his eyes, Steve could feel the warmth radiating through that blanket, he was too warm, maybe he’d have been okay if he’d have used the heat aid once but… it felt like he was burning up.
“I know, sweetheart, I know, we need to cool you down, that’s what I’m doing okay? M’gonna get you to the bathroom and we’re gonna cool you down.”
The nest was a wreck, Steve didn’t know what’d happened between when he left hours before and that moment, but the nest had suffered. Blankets were thrown, clothing had been pulled from the framework and tossed away, the shirt Steve had eventually given him was now caught on the edge of a set of drawers, thrown away.
The alpha in him mourned whatever Eddie had been thinking that made him throw it away.
Eddie didn’t verbally respond, instead he curled in on himself tighter, pressed his face closer to Steve’s chest, his breathing still shallow, still weak, he wasn’t shaking anymore.
Steve used his shoulder to turn the light on in the bathroom, it took a couple of tries to hit it just right, but once light flooded the room he was quick to get Eddie to the large bath yet gentle in how he removed the blanket once he’d managed to climb in, after lowering both himself and Eddie into the tub and shower combo.
At Eddie’s defensive groan and his attempt to keep the blanket close, Steve gently shushed him “Shhh shh, it’s okay, Omega, I’m here, you don’t need the blanket.” It was only making it worse, hotter, it didn’t even smell like Steve anymore.
Just of Eddie, of his sadness, his discomfort, his fear. He threw it over the edge of the tub, letting it land in a heavy heap on the floor.
Steve had never seen an Omega like that before. Lost to lust absolutely, an Omega at the peak of their heat was usually a stunning thing, beautiful, almost glowing in their radiance, enough to make an Alpha go wild with want, but this wasn’t that. He’d never… he’d never seen one look like that.
It was terrifying, it took all he had to not panic. Eddie had been alone for four hours, steadily getting worse and worse, what if nobody had checked on him? What would have happened if they’d have waited longer to look at those cameras?
What if they’d just left him? What if they hadn't noticed?
The omega slumped back into Steve’s arms, the fight in him lost, head back against him, his chest still rising and falling double time in an effort to breathe.
“Eddie, Imma need you to stay with me, okay? Keep your eyes open, alright?” Although out of focus, Eddie’s eyes remained open as he nodded, weak, the movement minimal but he managed. “I need to get your shirt off, can you lift your arms?” He shook his head, movement so slight if Steve had blinked, he’d have missed it. “Alright, okay, clothes on.”
It wouldn’t be fun, he knew it wouldn’t be fun, but with a little twist of his body, Steve reached up and twisted the dial on the shower, and grabbed Eddie tightly just in time for the Omega to snarl his objection when cold water rained down upon them suddenly.
Life slammed into the boy in his arms with a startled yelp, eyes suddenly wide, sharper than before yet still so very dark, he struggled, he snarled, he snapped, and scratched at the arms holding him down, scoring deep welts and bloodied tracks down Steve’s arms in an attempt to free himself from the hold to escape the cold spray that splashed over the edge of the bath soaking the floor and the blanket that’d fallen to it.
Non-verbal but violent in his struggle, Steve kept him down, held him tight though the stinging pain until the water began to warm, held on so tightly until the boy began to calm, until warmth rained upon them, not too hot, not too cold. Right in the middle, the sweet spot where warmth touched cold but didn’t quite intertwine. Soothing on a too hot summers day.
Eddie stopped struggling, slumping back against his chest once more.
The water stung against the wounds inflicted, but Steve would live. Eddie hadn’t done too much damage in his struggle. “You with me, Eddie?”
“Mnnnghh” it was stronger than before, still weak but… there was more of Eddie’s voice in it. Less breath. The water kept running, Steve hadn’t put the plug in, so it’d just drain away, but it kept running, raining comfortable summer shower-like warmth upon them. “…Steve?” Eddie turned in his place, Steve’s arms falling lax enough for him to move, albeit slowly, and with a little squeaking from the friction against the sides of the bath tub, but he could move. “Why—why are you… why are you here? You… you can’t be—can’t be here.”
Steve ever so gently lifted his hand to Eddie’s face, to tuck stray, wet curls out of his face, behind his ear. His skin was still so red, still so warm to the touch, but he was there. Steve let his hand linger when Eddie leaned into it, his whole body seeming to press closer to that morsel of contact, breath leaving him in a soft whimper, he was there…
That was the important part, his mind was mostly there, shocked back into place by the cold water, temporarily maybe, but it was enough.
“M’here for you. You weren’t okay, Eddie… why didn’t you use the aid I gave you?” The question had Eddie opening his eyes once more, although they dipped to the space between them, he sagged, his shoulders drooping, defeated.
“Didn’t—didn’t want to—to be a failure.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m a bad omega…” he sniffled, then lifted his hand to rub at his nose, breath hitching as he spoke “bad at it all… nobody—nobody wants me—I didn’t wanna—wanna accept that my only option… was a stupid heat aid… I didn’t—I don’t want that.” Omega’s were sought after, alphas naturally flocked to them, courted them, fawned over them, yet Eddie had never had the attention of any alpha. Even at the bars he and his band played at, even among his own people…
Nobody wanted him.
He’d failed at the most basic part of being an Omega, being wanted. Having to use a heat aid because he had literally no other option was just… the final nail in his coffin. The proof that he was worthless. He thought he could hold out, could just wait a little longer, he had Steve’s scent on that blanket, he had the shirt in his nest, Steve’s heated promises for after his heat, but no, it’d taken half an hour for the pain to overwhelm.
He didn’t remember much else besides the agony of watching Steve leave the room. Leave him behind. Abandon him. It felt like he’d been rejected. Like his Alpha didn’t really want him, like none of it was real.
The blanket had stopped helping too quickly. The shirt felt like it no longer belonged, nothing belonged, nothing was right, his nest was wrong. He didn’t remember tearing it apart, but he knew he had. Knew he didn’t have a nest to hide in anymore. He was a bad Omega.
“Eddie that doesn’t make you a failure—”
“You don’t get it!!” Steve flinched back as Eddie snapped at him, the omega fully capable of violence, Steve had the scratches down his arms to prove it, and he could see the elongated canines sharp enough to puncture skin, normally used in bonding rituals but fully capable of tearing through flesh in both defence and offense. “You’ve never failed at the ONE thing your stupid alpha self is naturally meant to be able to do. People FAWNED over you, Steve, people wanted you, people threw themselves at you. Nobody wanted me. An unwanted Omega… have you ever heard of such a pathetic thing? An unwanted Omega? You know I went into heat once at school? Nobody even noticed.”
He'd spent the whole day stuffing his face until the school nurse had caught wind and sent him home, he’d not even been trying to hide his scent, just watched as people kept a wide berth, nobody wanted to touch the freak. Even during the time of the month when he was supposed to be the most attractive to the Alphas around him. Nobody.
Among failing everything else in life, he’d failed at the one thing he should have been born able to do. He was worthless. A worthless Omega.
His only saving grace in the moment was that the water hid the freely falling tears on his face.
“Eddie...”
“You don’t get it... how could you get it?” He put up such a good front, hid behind his loud, expressive, ridiculous self, but he just wanted to be wanted. Just once. Once would be enough just to prove that he could. That he wasn’t a complete failure, just once.
Steve’s other hand joined the first, both palms now cradling the other man’s face, Steve moved, pitched forward and shifted positions until he was on his knees in front of his Omega, awkward and slippery but he managed. “I want you, Eddie” those big dark eyes were on him, red rimmed and heartbroken. Steve leaned in and pressed a kiss to his forehead “I do” another kiss to the tip of his nose “When this is over, I’m going to court the fuck out of you if you’ll let me” another kissed pressed to his cheek, he could feel Eddie relaxing, could feel him falling lax in Steve’s hold. “Gonna give you every quarter I find on the floor cause I know every time you see one you get all giddy about it, I’m gonna get you flowers, wild ones, cause I’ve seen you pick dozens over the years along the sides of the school carpark, I’m gonna get you pretzels covered in chocolate, and every silly Garfield related thing I can find” He’d never ignored Eddie. Not completely.
Sure he didn’t remember Eddie ever going into heat at school, but he’d never completely ignored him.
He was impossible to ignore, always there in his peripherals, doing silly shit in the background of Steve’s life. Steve had been unknowingly learning things about Eddie for as long as he’d known Eddie existed. It’d just taken a while for all that stuff to become relevant.
“When it’s over?” His voice was losing its strength again, the warmth sinking into his bones, haze returning to his gaze as he leaned more and more weight onto Steve, eyelids heavy.
“Just one more day, that’s all I need you to wait, an I’m not going anywhere, Eddie. I’m here, I’m staying. I’ll be with you through the whole damn thing, m’not letting you go again, okay?” They’d have to tranquilize him to get him out, and doing that opened them up to attack from Eddie.
“Nest—Nest is—” his voice broke, weak and full of sadness as he pitched forwards, face slipping from Steve’s hands as he fell forwards into his encircling arms instead, leaning heavily against Steve’s broad chest “gone—broke it—I—I broke it, it’s ruined” bad omega, couldn’t even keep a nest intact.
“I’ll fix it, baby, I know how we did it, I’ll fix it all for you, okay?” Steve stroked slow lines through drenched hair, holding him steady, voice soft, trying so hard to soothe “it’s gonna be okay, Eddie I promise, it’s gonna be okay.”
To be security at a clinic like Nest, there were particular requirements. One of the main ones, was that you had to be a Beta. An Omega or an Alpha couldn’t be security at a clinic like Nest because stereotypically, both could be swayed by pheromones very easily.
One of the other main requirements, was that you could not allow yourself to be intimidated by an Alpha. You could not allow yourself to show fear in the face of a swayed Alpha, you had to be strong, had to be capable, and above all else, you had to have nerves of steel.
Funnily enough however, those requirements weren’t actually that commonly required at the clinic. Much to many outsiders surprise, their Alphas didn’t just go nuts in the presence of an Omega in heat, it was only the unfortunately loudly broadcasted instances of a few that took advantage of such vulnerable members of society, and thus... it was actually kind of terrifying when it DID happen.
When an Alpha turned up, especially one the size of Steve Harrington, chased by one of the reception Betas and the Beta in charge of the entire facility, it was easy to forget the second most important requirement of being security at a heat Clinic, and lose your nerve in the face of one of the largest and most prominent Alphas in the building.
Even if he were usually a giant teddy bear.
“STEVE!” There was Robin, running faster than the elder Beta struggling behind her, “Steve will you stop!”
Steve clearly wasn’t paying any attention to her, something had his focus locked on that door, leaving the two Betas guarding it wide eyed and frankly terrified. Sure Steve wasn’t known for fighting, he wasn’t known for being very proficient at fighting, in fact as far as pretty much everyone in Hawkins knew, Steve wasn’t a fighter in the slightest.
He’d won maybe one fight in his entire life, and that was against another Alpha at the mall who’d insulted the very Beta currently chasing him. It didn’t make him any less terrifying when they were guarding an Omega currently in the most vulnerable of heat stages.
“Move.” He was upon them before either of the two Beta’s could draw their weapons, taser like cattle prods that’d deliver just enough volts to knock an Alpha on their ass long enough for them to be subdued. Barbaric but deeply effective.
“We can’t!” The one on the left found just enough of his voice to squeak out. “You can’t go in the—”
“You don’t understand he needs me, he needs help.”
“Steve!” Robin came up the rear, hands on her knees, chest heaving as she panted her exhaustion “Steve for the love of Christ you can’t go in there!” Her arrival giving just enough of a distraction for both Betas to quickly pull their weapons, holding them defensively. “What exactly do you plan on doing?”
“I don’t KNOW I just—I know he needs me Robin, I cant just leave him like that and you shouldn’t ask me to!” Both guards looked at each other in confusion, Steve wasn’t… acting like an Alpha overcome by pheromones, he wasn’t acting out of his mind. He didn’t even seem that angry, just… determined, their stances faltered.
“Do you even know that it’s safe? That he won’t attack you if you go in? He attacked his uncle, he went for the guys throat and you think he’s just going to accept you into his space like that?”
“If he attacks me, then he attacks me, I have to TRY! I can’t—I can’t just leave him. I can’t. I won’t.” Steve made it all of two steps toward the two baffled Beta guards when he was bodily tackled by Robin, sending him to the floor with an impressive crash and a startled yelp.
Note to selves, don’t fuck with Robin Buckley, she’s a jock in disguise.
“Stop struggling and just—will you just—Steve STOP!” They knew they ought to help, but they were just rooted to the floor, staring in wide eyed bafflement.
“Get off! Robin I swear to God, get OFF me!” Yet no matter how loud Steve raised his voice, he never made any move to force her off. He could have, he could have so very easily hurt her, he was large, he was an alpha, Robin was a sturdy Beta who regularly took zero shit, but she was nowhere near as strong as Steve and he wasn’t in a state where Beta pheromones would stop him.
He was coherent. He was himself. He just pushed against her hold as if he couldn't harm her.
“Miss Buckley let him up!” Owens finally caught up, clearly out of breath.
“But—”
“Let him up, he’s not even fighting you.” They did look quite the sight, like two siblings play fighting without any intent to harm, like a sister had pounced on her brother to stop him from getting her diary, or answering the phone with some crazy embarrassing excuse as to why Robin couldn’t answer it. “He’s harmless.” The only thing missing was laughter. “He’s also right, Mr Munson cannot spend his heat like that, it could cause him irreparable psychological damage” undoubtedly it’d been how he’d always spent his heat.
It was a wonder he’d lasted as long as he had, at least at home he'd been in familiar settings.
“But Steve can’t be the one to go inside” Robin argued as she extracted herself from atop her best friend. “What if he—”
“Steve... you have to know that if anything happens to Eddie while you’re in there. I cannot help you.” Owens ignored Robin entirely as he reached down to help the Alpha up “if he’s harmed in any way, if he leaves this place afterwards and complains, if he pushes for charges to be pressed, I cannot help you. I will undoubtedly be removed from my position as well the moment it’s investigated. Do you understand?” There were rules in place, he’d have broken the rules, Steve would be prosecuted as a dangerous alpha, and Nest would be submerged in scandal.
It’d not only be career ending, but it’d also be life altering in the worst of ways.
“I won’t hurt him.” Steve knew the risks “but I understand” and he knew the consequences of taking those risks and having them blow up in his face.
“Steve...” Robin tried as she pushed herself to her feet “how much of this is your attraction to him? Think about it, would you have done this for anyone else?”
“...Nobody else has needed me to, Robs.” Even if he would have, nobody had needed him. They all seemed to work fine by instincts, they knew what they had to do and had almost no qualms with doing it first time or not.
Eddie wasn’t that. He wasn’t comfortable In the slightest, he didn’t feel right, he wanted a fairy tale, not an unfamiliar room, a weighted blanket, and a fake knot.
He wanted to be pampered, to be loved. So desperate for it that he’d put himself through hell waiting for it to happen.
“But would you if someone had?”
“Yes.” The worst part was, she knew that. She knew he would. He was just that kind of person, he’d always put others before himself. He’d always risk it all to save someone else, he’d take on the world, no matter if he’d known them for years or for mere minutes. If someone needed him, he’d be there, zero hesitation. “You know that though, don’t you?”
Her silence was telling. She knew him better than anyone.
Owens turned to the guards, who’d been silent throughout the interaction, their batons held lax, both curious but unmoving “stand down boys, hand over the key card” their attention snapped to him and his outstretched hand.
“But sir...” the one on the left started, looking between the three hesitantly, “I don’t thi—"
Only to be cut off by “You heard me, hand it over.” They couldn’t say no. Owens was in charge. The key card was deposited into his hand without further argument. “Alright, you’re both dismissed. Neither of you will be involved in this.” For their own good, it was likely that Owens would wind up on the chopping block too if something happened, there were cameras all over that facility for obvious reasons, all an investigative team needed to do was check the footage to see Owens letting Steve into that room. Sure they'd be disciplined for just handing over the card but... that'd be all.
It was a career ender for Steve and Owens. No matter. Owens was due to retire soon anyway.
The two Betas nodded and made their escape without further argument. Owens then turned and offered the card to Steve.
“...Are you really sure about this, Doc?” Robin asked, her voice quiet, full of concern and hesitance.
She knew Steve, knew he’d never hurt anyone, never take advantage, he’d never attack anyone, but... She’d also seen Alphas just snap. Alphas who’d never done anything wrong before, suddenly needing to be taken down by force. She didn’t want to see that happen to Steve, didn’t even want to risk it.
But even she had to admit that Eddie needed help.
“I’d stake my career on it. Steve, just to reiterate, you know the rules… whatever you do in there, if you break them, you’re liable for immediate dismissal and felony charges should it be taken further by the Omega in question and he will have every right to do so. Do you understand?”
“An you’ll be fired too?”
“Oh yeah I’ll be extremely fired.” He handed Steve the keycard “make good choices.”
“Doctor Owens?” The enquiry followed three firm knocks on the slightly ajar door to Owens’ office, his open door policy ensuring the door remained open whenever possible, only when he was in a meeting, or absent from the office, was it ever shut.
“Come in” Owens lifted his gaze from the papers atop his desk to look at the Beta who entered carrying a small manilla folder “Ah, Miss Buckley, what can I do for you?”
“You uh… you told me to inform you when Eddie dropped into the third stage of his heat? I… may have forgotten to do that initially and uhm… he dropped about four hours ago now?” In Robins defence, Steve had been lingering around the cafeteria instead of going home and well… she couldn’t just leave sad Steve on his own. He had those puppy eyes that made everything hurt an he was clearly trying to hide how distressed he was, it wasn’t working at all, but he wouldn’t leave so— “Steve’s been… distressed so I’ve just been a little—” distracted.
“Yes, yes of course he is, of course, he’s out of the room then?” Owens was already rising from his chair, this was… uncharted territory at Nest. A pair of scent mates separated from each other so late into the heat was… okay so anything regarding scent mates was kind of uncharted territory, so to have an observable pair?
Goldmine. It was like a goldmine, but the gold was knowledge, and he was an academic!
“Yep, he’s not left the facility though, he’s just—he’s just in the cafeteria.” It wasn’t too far away from Eddie’s room. And he was bumming everyone out.
It stank of musty, mouldy bread and nothing was bringing him out of it.
“So he could leave without negative effect, good. Good okay, that’s good, walk with me Miss Buckley.” Robin stepped out of the way to allow the elder beta to pass by, quickly closing the door behind them, she hurried to fall into step beside him.
“I wouldn’t say there’s been no negative effect, Steve is—well he’s a mess, and I dunno how Eddie’s doing if—if he’s doing well at all I mean, before the cameras turned off it looked like he was crying an—”
“I merely meant negative as there were no violent outbursts, that Steve was able to leave without being physically harmed, or without Eddie trying to harm himself. I understand there’ll be some distress from both sides of this. Do you have the measurements from the levels in the room?” She handed the file to him, allowing him to check over the enclosed documents with an experienced eye. “…These… are… from how long ago?”
“I got them about ten minutes ago.”
“And you say he’s been dropped for about four hours now?”
“Yes.”
“…Shit.” And the pace picked up into a jog, all the way to what looked, for all intents and purposes, like a closet. Robin had passed by that door, pretty much every single day since she’d started her job, it had a keycard slot on the door like most doors in the facility, but nothing else, a completely ordinary closet.
Except Owens had the keycard to it. “Uhm—” they stopped outside of it.
“Do me a favour Miss Buckley, go get Steve for me, okay? Bring him here and uh… use this on the door when you get back.” He handed her the keycard after using it to open the dark room, stepped inside, and closed the door behind him, leaving her alone in the hallway staring at a little blank plastic card. It had no room number on it, no identifying marks, just… a completely blank, white card.
Somehow she felt like she held the key to the universe. And while she was not prepared for that level of responsibility, Owens had given her a task, and the task involved getting Steve, she could get Steve.
Even if Steve had to be dragged from the cafeteria stinking of mouldy bread, releasing thee most pitiful whines as she dragged him by his hand down the hallway back to that room, going a little bit of a longer route around because the original route passed by Eddie’s room and that’d have just been a disaster.
He was a big alpha! She didn’t want to have to bodily shove him down the hallway away from the room!
That’d have been way too much like a cartoon where someone tried to push a big box or a boulder and just. Ran in place for a bit before flopping to the floor in exhaustion. She wasn’t built to force Alphas into doing things.
He was only allowing her to pull him because he was so sad.
He was breaking her heart, it sucked. But they made it with only limited staring from other staff members which was nice. “Robbie where are we?”
“Owens’ special closet I guess, I dunno he just told me to bring you here.” Keycard inserted, door unlocked, and the dark room had been lit up by a single overhead light, Owens, back facing them, sat in a chair at a desk with many monitors but only one on. “Doctor Owens? I’ve brought Steve” The Beta in charge switched the monitor off and turned to face them.
“Well, you weren’t kidding about the distress, eugh, come in the both of you, bit of a tight squeeze but please close the door behind you.” Robin and Owens weren’t exactly the biggest of people but Steve… Steve was pretty broad. He was the one taking up all the room. “Alright… after today, you both should forget this room exists, usually to enter this room, you need be a Beta, to have several degrees in medical sciences, a psych evaluation every two months, and consent to random spot checks on all your electronic devices both personal and professional done by an external government official. Really only I’m qualified to be in here. Now I only bring you both in… because Miss Buckley, you are closest to Steve, and so could probably get through to him in a crisis, and Steve… because this pertains to your scent mate. Normally, you… really shouldn’t be in here.”
Silence, complete silence, both beta and alpha staring at him in wide eyed confused silence. At least Steve’s sad alpha smell seemed to be dissipating with the distraction.
He continued, “Miss Buckley, the readings you gave me were… strange, usually at this point in an Omegas heat, in layman’s terms, the ‘sexual pheromones’ in that room should be in the red.” Four hours in? That room should be drenched in ‘I’m ready for a knot!!!!’ “It’s not, not even close. It reads like he’s having a nightmare. And these levels here, this… this shouldn’t be so low either, this is unprecidented” he pointed to another bar neither were close enough to read the label of.
“Sorry, sorry, what is this room?” Steve was too busy staring at the papers in Owens hand in complete bafflement as if staring longer would make it make sense. Robin was focused more on the monitors.
“This is a secondary monitoring station, none of the monitors are currently on because you are not qualified to see into those rooms. In cases such as Mr Munson’s, difficult cases, there’s a health and safety addition to the admission papers, it simply means a qualified person is allowed to observe in the third stage of a heat to ensure the omega remains safe during it. Mr Munson is aware that this is in place, and consented to it before his heat began.”
“And… an you’re the only one allowed in here?”
“I’m the only one with the keycard yes, I’d like that back now.” He held out his hand and motioned to give it back, which she did. “Thank you.”
“Why are we here?” Steve finally managed to speak “what’s… what’s this got to do with me?”
“Steve… Eddie isn’t using the heat aids.” Owens reached back behind him, and clicked that monitor back on, going against pretty much every single rule in the rulebook just to show one very soul crushing, grainy image.
Eddie Munson, wrapped up in a weighted blanket cocoon, pressed into the corner of the room away from his nest, head down, face buried in the fabric of the blanket, shaking like a leaf desperately holding on through a hurricane.
Steve was out of that room before either of them could stop him.
Days three and four went by uneventfully, they slept wrapped up together in their nest, Eddie talked a lot and ate way more than he usually would be able to eat, and Steve was eternally grateful that the friskiest he got were just flirty come on’s and maybe the odd slap of his ass whenever he bent over to grab new things from the low cabinets.
There was no rush on the incoherent lust.
Although Eddie always seemed to be just simmering a touch below boiling in terms of flirt, although his scent still occupied every corner of the room and cloyed until the point of needing the ventilation system to clear the air a little less Steve actually go a little loopy on it. Although he had been running a touch warm since the morning of day five.
He was still pretty much himself.
Which was why a switch in that scent mid-way through the day sent Steve into a bit of a panic he was due, day five would be it. He was due to turn at any point, Steve had even rubbed the weighted blanket all over his scent glands just in preparation for it.
The change in scent was barely noticeable amidst the forest pine, the petrichor, amidst the most pleasant of earthy scents, it was like… rot, woodland rot, faint but weaved in among the rest, and Eddie had stopped eating his bag of pretzels. Neither of the two promising great things.
It wasn’t the scent of lust, no Steve knew that scent, it was the scent of sadness.
“Eddie?” Steve was right there though, crouching low as he approached just to crawl into the next to be beside him, having been moving the unused bed out of the way to expand the nest a little. Give them more room for snacks. “Eddie, baby what’s wrong?” The brows were pinched, eyes cast downwards to the sheets, flicking left to right ever so often, mind stuck on something. Steve couldn’t have that, couldn’t have his Omega stuck on anything that would cause him distress.
He gently took Eddie’s chin between his thumb and forefinger and lifted his face ever so slightly to look at him and oh… oh those big brown eyes. The panic, the uncertainty, the sadness… Steve didn’t know what’d caused it, but he’d fix it.
He’d do everything he could to fix it. “Steve” it broke his heart how sad his poor Omega sounded, that little whine in his voice
“What’s the matter, my omega? What is it? What can I do?”
Eddie didn’t even know if he could say it. He’d tried many things over the past five days, he’d said many things, and every single one of them had been shot down, maybe with the odd sprinkling of Steve saying things back in that tone with those subtle touches that made his gut all tingly and his pants drenched in slick, but Steve had always pulled back before they could go any further.
He'd always attempted to be as professional as he could be and that was fine, but this wasn’t one of those times, this was real, a real personal crisis, and Eddie didn’t know if Steve would take it as seriously as it needed to be taken.
He didn’t want to be there for his heat.
He didn’t want to be somewhere, with the perfect alpha, where he couldn’t touch him, or be touched by him. He didn’t want his first sexual experience to be with a goddamn heat aid. He didn’t want that taken away from him just because he’d been too scared to let someone see him as he grew up.
Just because he’d been too afraid to take chances and put himself out there.
It was coming. He knew it was coming. He’d been feeling that increasing pressure in his gut all morning, felt saliva build in his mouth whenever Steve moved in just a way that made his clothes stretch over his broad form. Felt his body warm whenever Steve got just a little too close, right now he felt like he was on fire but—but he couldn’t.
Not yet. Couldn’t slip under.
“Take the heat aids away.” Next best thing. He couldn’t ask for Steve’s knot, it wasn’t fair, wouldn’t be allowed, would only get Steve fired and maybe worse if the authorities got involved which sometimes they did when it came to the clinics. The government itching to close them down cause fuck Omega’s, right? “Take them out. Out of the room completely, all of them and—and get some chains an stuff for me okay? Just—just so I can’t—I can’t move.”
“Eddie, I don’t—”
“It’s coming now, Steve… I can feel it, I’ve eaten enough, I’m warmer than I’ve been in five days, my whole body itches but not in the way that any scratch can fix, It’s coming. I—I don’t want a fake knot, Steve. If I wanted one, I’d have sold enough drugs back in high school to get one for myself but instead I chose concert tickets, I chose smokes, I chose D&D minis, and books, I chose amps, and my guitars, I could have afforded a heat aid years ago, but I chose not to.” He was poor, yeah, he wasn’t middle or upper class by any means.
But he could afford a heat aid. They weren’t that pricy. Maybe he’d have been a little insulted that Steve thought he genuinely couldn’t afford a heat aid if he wasn’t so damn perfect.
“You need them, Eddie this isn’t—Eddie it’s gonna—”
“I know it’s going to suck, I know, I know, it’s sucked for years, it’s sucked every month for the entirety of my pubescent and post pubescent life, I know. I refuse to have that taken away from me by a stupid piece of silicone when I’ve finally found an Alpha who makes me feel like I can actually be myself and not be judged or pushed away for it. I know you can’t do anything, I know I cant ask you to break the rules because—because society has decided that Omegas don’t get to choose after their heats start, that we cant think.” It was a fair assessment, he knew it was, he of all people knew how batshit insane an Omega could get during their heat, but it didn’t feel right when Steve was right there and he knew, he knew he wanted him but couldn’t have him.
Not yet anyway.
“Eddie let me finish, it’s going to hurt, you are one bad heat reaction away from being registered dangerous, you attacked your own blood relative last time, someone who’s been with you most of your life, blindly, and you know what they do to dangerous Omegas? They institutionalise them for the safety of everyone around them… if… if you don’t get some kind of knot this time around, even if you don’t go off the rails, your next heat—the chances of your body rejecting a mate… The chances of that omega part of you rejecting your alpha…” the chances would skyrocket.
Eddie could very easily self-destruct. Omega’s needed that knot, not just for stimulation or pleasure, but it was a deeply rooted need for their continued mental stability. Going without for so long… something would eventually break, and the cracks had already begun to form.
“Steve” Eddie’s voice sounded so pathetic to his own ears, a mournful, pleading whine, but Steve was right there, his big hands cupping Eddie’s jaw, holding his face, thumbs gently swiping the tears rapidly gathering on his waterline, feeling the skin warming beneath his palms. He probably looked pathetic, but he couldn’t care less.
He’d waited too long. Gone through too many heats with nothing to help.
“Oh baby, my beautiful, perfect Omega, it’s okay… it’s going to be okay, this? This doesn’t count. Heat aids don’t count, they never count, it means nothing other than giving your body what it needs to stay healthy. It’s like that salad you ate, like all those celery sticks? Your body needed those didn’t it, so you ate them, and you felt good, didn’t you?” Eddie nodded, sniffling away the tears Steve’s thumbs couldn’t catch in time. His temperature was rising, pupils dilating, Steve needed to get the hell out of there and fast. “That’s all this is, your body needs that knot, okay, it needs it, and this… stupid thing—” Steve reached over to where he’d put the aid. Or rather where he’d hidden it to stop Eddie from cracking jokes about it, under two of the blankets and one pillow. He held it up while his other hand remained on Eddie’s cheek, the way those big brown eyes just zeroed in the way he leaned so heavily forwards, breathing heavy, neither going unnoticed. “Just like those celery sticks, it’s just a thing your body needs, just something that'll make you feel good.”
It wasn’t even a fun heat aid, it was just a cylinder with a knot at the base. Didn’t have any bumps or ridges for stimulation, just… a smooth cylinder with a knot, purely for medical purposes.
“You—you should go…” Steve nodded, and it broke his heart to do so, but he had to.
“I promise, Eddie… after all this is over, me and you are gonna spend a whole week just… hiding away from everything, alright? I have a good few vacation days saved up, gonna use a whole chunk of them on you and you alone” with a harsh swallow of saliva Eddie nodded, a whole week, just the two of them. “I promise, just me and you” he pressed a kiss to the rapidly warming sweat-slicked skin of Eddie’s forehead, he could do that, just a forehead kiss, he was allowed to do that.
“Alpha…” yep, he had to go. Steve grabbed the weighted blanket from the side of the nest, it’d been laid over the edge of it, not quite part of the nest just in it, and draped it over Eddie, the Omega sinking into his nest beneath it’s weight, head turned to the left to get as close as he could to breathe in the scent it was drenched in, writhing under it to get as much of the scent on it onto himself as possible.
“Please be okay…” Steve uttered quietly, before ignoring every instinct he had, and leaving as quickly as he could, giving his key to the security guys on the way out as he went.
